BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg ^. Sage 1891 h.,Mo3^ iijixInoL I Cornell University Library ' PR 5602.B46 1901 Stray papers:being sto'i^SfSSilfif 3 1924 013 562 016 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013562016 •TRAY TAPERS OTRAY PAPERS s, nJ William Makepeace Thackerav Being Stories, Reviews, Verses, and Sketches (1821—1847) Edited, with an Introduction and Notes. By LEWIS MELVILLE. Author a " The Life of William iVIaliepeace Thackeray " WITH ILLUSTRATIONS Philadelphia * GEORGE W. JACOBS &; CO. 103-105 South Fifteenth Street 4 * * «ft «l I\, \s^ozt> PREFACE WHEN I was compiling the Bibliography, appended to my Life of William Makepeace Thackeray, 1 noted several reviews, short stories, verses, and sketches, not included in any edition of the Collected Works ; and it occurred to me that a volume of these neglected pieces would be, if not of considerable literary value, at least of considerable literary interest. There have been labourers in this field before me. One has collected articles from this paper, another from that magazine ; but most of these volumes are out of print, or are published at prohibitive prices, and, with the exception of Mr. M. H. Spielmann's Thackeray's Contributions (hitherto unidentified) to "Punch," may be dismissed. I have endeavoured to include in this volume everything of interest to the lover of the writings of Thackeray which has not been reprinted in the Collected Works, or in Mr. Spielmann's book. The republication of the writings of a great man's youlh is, however, a question that is continually being argued. It is urged that people, reading the worst, are. inclined to lose their reverence for the best productions of the author ; and, to a certain extent, I am quite willing to admit this contention. But a volume such as this is always issued, more or less openly, for the pleasure of students of literature, for the critical rather than for the general reader — for those, vi Preface in fact, who may desire to trace the development of a great writer's literary genius. The intelligent readers of these Stray Papers, who know the maturer works, will have the opportunity of tracing the growth of Thackeray's humour, both in his writings and in his sketches; of remarking how little, comparatively, Thackeray's style changed ; and how excellently he wrote as a young man. They will see how it came about that the author of the review of The Duchess of MarlborougKs Letters wrote Esmond and The Lectures on the English Humourists ; that the young man who invented " Rams- bottom " in The Snob helped later to create " Jenkins " in Punch, and that the artist who caricatured " Louis Philippe " and " Bunn " in the National Standard, eventually drew " Lord Steyne " in Vanity Fair. LEWIS MELVILLE. London. January igoi. CONTENTS The Snob PAGE Article 1. Our " Snob's " Birth, Parentage, and Edu- cation ... .... 3 „ 2. Extract from a Letter from one in Cam- bridge to one in Town .... 4 ,, 3. To Genevieve 5 „ 4. Mrs. Kamsbottom in Cambridge ... 6 ,, 5. A Statement of Fax relative to the late Murder 7 „ 0. To the Free and Independent Snobs of Cambridge ! 8 „ 7. The End of All Things 9 The Gownsman Article 1. Dedication. To All Proctors both Past, Present, and Future 11 „ S. Letter from Mrs. Kamsbottom . . .12 „ 3. Modern Songs, No. 5 13 „ I/.. From Anacreon 14 The National Standard Article 1. Louis Philippe 17 „ 2. Address 18 „ S. Mr. Braham 19 „ Jf. N. M. Rothschild, Esq 20 „ 5. London Characters. No. i 21 ,, 6. A. BuNN 23 vii viii Contents The National Standard {continued) ^^^^ Article 7. Love in Fetters : A Tottenham Court Road Ditty 24 8. Review of "Woman: the Angel of Life" . 26 9. Drama. — Covent Garden 3° 10. Pefrus Laureus 3^ 11. Foreign Correspondence, June 29, 1833 . 33 12. „ „ July 6, '833 • 3^ 13. „ „ July 13, 1833 . 39 H. „ „ July 20, 1833 . 42 IS. Foreign Literature 45 IG. Original Papers. A Tale of Wonder. . 46 n. Our Leader 49 IS. Original Papers. The History of Kra- KATUK 51 19. Address 62 20. Original Papers. King Odo's V^'edding . 63 21. Father Gahagan's Exhortation . . .67 22. Drama. Plays and Play-Bills . . .68 2S. Original Papers. The Minstrel's Curse . 69 g^ „ „ £tude sur Mirabeah, PAR Victor Hugo . 71 The Times Article 1. Duchess of Marlborough's Private Corres- pondence 79 „ S. Eros and Anteros — or "Love"; by Lady Charlotte Bury ; — and a Diary rela- tive to George IV. and Queen Caroline. 88 „ S. The Poetical Works of Dr. Southey, collected by Himself . . . .97 „ ^. Fielding's Works, in one Volume, with a Memoir by Thomas Roscoe . . .103 Contents ix PAGE British and Foreign Review, or European Quarterly Journal Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, etc., Edinburgh 1839 "5 Anti-Corn'Eaw Circular "Poles Offering Corn" 167 "The Choice of a Loaf" » . 167 The Corsair Leiters from London, Paris, Pekin, Petersburgh, ETC. 171 Cruikshank's Omnibus Little Spitz ..,....,.. 183 The Nation "Daddy, I'm Hungry". , , , . , . .193 The Pictorial Times Article 1. Letters on the Fine Arts. No. i. The Art Unions ....... 197 „ S. Literature. Mr. Macaulay's Essays . . 202 „ 3. Letters on the Fine Arts. No. 2. The Objections against Art Unions . . 204 „ 4. The Water-Colour Exhibition . . .211 „ 5. Letters on the Fine Arts, No. 3, The Royal Academy ... ... 214 „ 61 Letters on the Fine Arts, No. 4, The Royal Academy (Second Notice) .... 218 „ 7. Literature. — Coningsby ; or. The New Generation ... . .221 Contents Colburn's New Monthly Magazine ^^^^ Article 1. The Partie Fine 227 „ ^. Arabella ; or, The Moral of " the Partie Fine" ... .... 236 „ S. The Chest of Cigars . . . ' . • 241 „ J^. Bob Robinson's First Love .... 247 The Keepsake Article 1. An Interesting Event 259 „ Z. VOLTIGEUR 266 Fraser's Magazine Article 1. The Fraser Papers for May— The King of Brentford . ■ 279 „ 2. Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 . 280 „ 3. Half-a-Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge 305 „ jf. Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster, with Elucidations, Notes, etc., BY various Editors 326 „ 5. Fitzboodle's Professions. — Third Profession 370 „ 6. Men's Wives. No. 4, The 's Wife . . 377 ,, 7. A Grumble about the Christmas Books . 396 Appendix — Eraser's Magazine Elizabeth Brownrigge ; A Tale 424 ILLUSTRATIONS The National Standard Louis Philippe . Mr. Braham N. M. Rothschild, Esq London Characters : No. A. BUNN Love in Fetters CovENT Garden Petrus Laureus Foreign Correspondence, June 22, June 29: July 5 ■833 1833 1833 Facing p. i6 M „ 48 f» ., 80 ,, „ 120 ,, „ 160 ft „ 2C0 •1 ,, 240 If ,. 256 i» „ 288 352 British and Foreign Review Lord Brougham (from Punch) Anti'Corn Law Circular Poles Offering Corn The Choice of a Loaf . .> I. 384 Frontispiece Facing p. 416 Cruikshank's Omnibus Little Spitz .. 448 The Nation " Daddy, I'm Hungry ' >. 472 The Snob^ and The Gownsman * The Snob. / Tityre, tu patulce recubans sui> tegmitie fagi / Sylvesirem f Virgil. /No. i. Thursday, April g, 1829. Price z\i. j The papers were bound up in a volume (i2mo, pp. 64), with the following title-page : THE SNOB : / a Literary and Scientific Journal. / Not " Conducted by Members of the University." / Tityre^ tu patulce recubans sub tegminefagi / Sylvesirem f Virgil. / Cambridge : / Published by W. H. Smith, Rose Crescent. / 1829. TAe Snob was printed on paper of various colours. Nos. i and 6 are marked F//IA Ediiion ; Nos. 2 and 9, Third Edition ; Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 7, Fourth Edition; and Nos. 8, 10, 11, Second Edition. 2 The Gownsman. / Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes ; believe me an absolute / Gentleman, — full of most excellent differences. / Hamlet. / No. I. Thursday, November 5, 1829. Price 3d. / The papers were bound up in a volume (i2mo, pp. 138), with the following title-page : THE GOWNSMAN, / {formerly called) / " The Snob," / a Literary and Scientific Journal, / now / Conducted by Members of the University. / Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes ; believe me an absolute / Gentleman, — full of most excellent differences. / Hamlet. / Vol. 2. / Cambridge : / Published by W. H. Smith, Rose Crescent, / and sold by Simpkin and Marshall, London, / and may be had of all booksellers. / 1830. / The Gownsman was printed on white paper. Tke Snob was a little paper, edited and written by Cambridge under- graduates, when Thackeray was a student of Trinity College. The first number was published on Thursday, April 9, 1829 ; the eleventh and last number, on Thursday, June 18. Thackeray desired to "set up a respectable periodical" after the Long Vacation. The paper was to be called The Chimera, and he actually wrote for it an essay on Shelley ; but the idea was dropped, and, unfortunately, the manuscript of the essay has never been discovered. However, The Snoi was revived under the title of The Gownsman, and, according to an entry in the catalogue of the British Museum Library, Thackeray edited the seventeen numbers, issued weekly between Thiu-sday, November 5, 1829, and Thursday, February 25, 1830. In his Bibliography (1887) the late Mr. Richard Heme Shepherd attributed to Thackeray the following papers in The Snob : Our Snob's Birth, Parentage, and Education, and The Ramsbottom Papers, under which heading are included Mrs. Ramsbottom in Cambridge, A Statement of Fax relative to the Late Murder, and To the Free and Independent Snobs of Cambridge, This last article is in the form of an address on behalf of "Frederick Tudge," and in the following number is a. letter headed The End of All Things and signed "F. Tudge," which, in the belief it was written by Thackeray, I insert in this volume. The remaining contributions include Extracts from a Letter from One in Cambridge to One in London, signed " T. T. ," the signature over which Thackeray wrote his letters to The Constitutional and The Corsair ; and To Genevieve, the authorship of which is acknowledged by Thackeray in a letter. Probably he also had a hand in the writing of The Blood-Stained Hand in the issue for May 28. His parody Timbuctoo (the subject for the prize-poem of the year) is included in a supplementary volume of Collected Works, and therefore is not reprinted here. Edward Fitzgerald believed that, in The Gownsman, Thackeray, as in the case of the article on Cruikshank in The Westminster Review, used the sig- nature " 0," and he had no hesitation in ascribing to him Modern Songs, No. 5 [Air: Fd be a butterfly) and From Anacreon. The paragraph signed " 0," in the issue for November 12, may confidently be accepted as from his pen, and there is no reason to doubt the authorship of the Ramsbottom letters in the same number. Anthony Trollope believed the Dedication, which appeared when the papers were bound up in book form, was written by Thackeray. The Snob ARTICLE 1 (No. 3. Thursday, April 23, 1829) OUR "SNOB'S" BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EDUCATION. " Never shall I forget," said an old crone to me the other day, who, as far as we know, is cotemporary with the alley in which we live, " Never shall I forget the night in which you, Mr. Tudge, made your first appearance among us. Your father had, in his usual jocular manner, turned every one from the fireside, and putting a foot on each hob, with a pot in one hand and a pipe in the other, sat blowing a cloud." " Ay, Mrs. Siggins," said I, " vc(j>e\riyea Zcvs, I suppose, as the blind bard has it." " Keep your Latin for the collegers," said she ; " I know nothing on't. Well, lo and behold, as I was saying, we were all sitting quiet as mice, when just as I had turned over the last page of the Skeleton Chief, or Bloody Bandit, a sound, like I don't know what, came from overhead. Now, no one was upstairs, so, as you may well suppose, the noise brought my heart into my mouth, nay more, it brought your dad to his legs, and you into the world. For your mother was taken ill directly, and we helped her off to bed." " Parturiunt monies nas — " said I, stopping short in confusion, "thank Heaven, the old woman knew not the end of the proverb, but went on with her story. "Go, Bill," says your father, "see what noise was that." Off went Bill, pale as a sheet, while I attended to your mother. Bill soon came laughing down. " The boot -jack fell off the peg," says he. " It's a boy," screams I. "How odd!" says your dad. "What's odd?" says I. "The child, and the jack — it's ominous," says he. " As how ? " says I. " Call the child Jack," says he. And so they did, and that's the way, do you see, my name was Jack Clypei Septemplicis Ajax. 3 4 The Snob Early in life I was sent to a small school in the next street, where I soon learnt to play at marbles, blow my nose in my pinafore, and bow to the mistress. Having thus exhausted her whole stock of knowledge, I migrated to Miss G 's, in Trumpington Street, and under the tuition of the sisters, became intimately acquainted, before I was nine years of age, with the proper distribution of letters in most three-syllable words of the British tongue, i.e., I became an expert speller. {To be continued.') ARTICLE S (No. 3. Thursday, April 23, 1829) EXTRACT FROM A LETTER, FROM ONE IN CAMBRIDGE, TO ONE IN TOWN. Of the Musical Clubs, I shall not say a word. Since to none but the Members they pleasure afford. The still play as they usually did. While the good-natured visitors praise what they're bid. This law 'mid these sons of Apollo will tell, " To play very loud is to play very well ; " A concert "piano" they deem quite absurd — In music like that every blunder is heard. The best singer that Cambridge e'er saw they agree. Was a friend of my own that could reach double B ; In fine, I imagine, they think it a crime. To spare any sound, or to lose any time. So the laurels of course are by him always won. Who makes the most noise, and who soonest cries, " Done." Well, enough of the ; the comes next, " Vox et priEterea nil" is its text ; For though on its list it still must be confest That of all Cambridge singers it numbers the best ; Yet, while, thro' good nature, it falsely permits. While the rest sing "piano '' — one screaming in fits ; It cannot expect unconditional praise, Or more than politeness to amateurs pays. To Genevieve A word of the , and I've done — They have but one fault, and a laughable one, When seated at s\ipper, they seem to forget The purpose for which they pretend to have met ; I was taken there once, and I found that good eating Was the greatest, if not the sole, cause of their meeting. T. T. ARTICLE S (No. 6. Thursday, May 14, 1829) TO GENEVIEVE. A Disinterested Epistle. Say do I seek, my Genevieve I Thy charms alone to win ? Oh no ! for thou art fifty-five. And uglier than sin ! Or do I love the flowing verse Upon thy syren tongue ? Oh no ! those strains of thine are worse Than ever screech-owl sung. Since then I thus refuse my love For songs or charms to give, What could my tardy passion move ? Thy money, Genevieve 1 A Literary Snob. 6 The Snob ARTICLE 4 (No. 7. Thursday, May 21, 1829) MRS. RAMSBOTTOM IN CAMBRIDGE. Radish Ground Buildings. Dear Sir, I was surprised to see my name in Mr. Bull's paper, for I give you my word I have not written a syllabub to him since I came to reside here, that I might enjoy the satiety of the literary and learned world. I have the honour of knowing many extinguished persons. I am on terms of the greatest contumacy with the Court of Aldermen, who first recommended your weakly dromedary to my notice, knowing that I myself was a great literati. When I am at home, and in the family way, I make Lavy read it to me, as I consider you the censure of the anniversary, and a great upholder of moral destruction. When I came here, I began reading Mechanics (written by that gentleman whose name you whistle). I thought it would be something like the Mechanic's Magazine, which my poor dear Ram used to make me read to him, but I found them very foolish. What do I want to know about weights and measures and bull's- eyes, when I have left off trading ? I have therefore begun a course of ugly-physics, which are very odd, and written by the Marquis of Spinningtoes. I think the Library of Trinity College is one of the most admiral objects here. I saw the busks of several gentlemen whose statutes I had seen at Room, and who all received there edification at that College. There was Aristocracy who wrote farces for the Olympic Theatre, and Democracy, who was a laughing philosopher. I forgot to mention, that my son George Frederick is entered at St. John's, because I heard that they take most care of their morals at that College. I called on the tutor, who received myself and son very politely, and said he had no doubt my son would be a tripod, and he hoped perspired higher than poUy, which I did not like. I am going to give a tea at my house, when I shall be delighted to see yourself and children. Believe me, dear Sir, Your most obedient and affectionate Dorothea Julia Ramsbottom. A Statement of Fax Relative to the Late Murder 7 ARTICLE S (No. 9. Thursday, June 4, 1829) A STATEMENT OF FAX RELATIVE TO THE LATE MURDER. By D. J. Ramsbottom. " Come I to speak in Ceesar's funeral." — Milton, Julius C/Esar, Act iii. On Wednesday the 3rd of June as I was sitting in my back-parlour taking tea, young Frederick Tudge entered the room ; I reserved from his dislevelled hair and vegetated appearance that something was praying on his vittles. When I heard from him the cause of his vegetation, I was putrified ! I stood transfigured ! His Father, the Editor of " The Snob," had been macerated in the most sanguine manner. The drops of compassion refused my eyes, for I thought of him, whom I had lately seen high in health and happiness ; that ingenuous indivisable, who often and often, when seated alone with me, has ''made the table roar," as the poet has it, and whose constant aim in his weakly dromedary was to delight as well as to reprove. His son Frederick, too young to be ac- quainted with the art of literal imposition, has commissioned me to exconmiunicate the circumstances of his death, and call down the anger of the Proctors and Court of Aldermen on the phlogitious perforators of the deed. It appears that as he was taking his customary rendezvous by the side of Trumpington Ditch, he was stopped by some men in under-gravy dresses, who put a pitch-plaister on him, which completely developed his nose and eyes, or, as Shakespeare says, " his visible ray." He was then dragged into a field, and the horrid deed was replete ! Such are the circumstances of his death ; but Mr. Tudge died like Wriggle-us, game to the last ; or like Caesar, in that beautiful faction of the poet, with which I have headed my remarks, I mean him who wanted to be Poop of Room, but was killed by two Brutes, and the fascinating hands of a perspiring Senate. With the most sanguinary hopes that the Anniversary and Town will persecute an inquiry into this dreadful action, I will conclude my repeal to the pathetic reader ; and if by such a misrepresenta- tion of fax I have been enabled to awaken an apathy for the 8 The Snob children of the late Mr. Tudge, who are left in the most desultory state, I shall feel the satisfaction of having exorcised my pen in the cause of Malevolence, and soothed the inflictions of indignant Misery. D. J. Ramsbottom. P.S.— The publisher requests me to state that the present No. is published from the MS. found in Mr. Tudge's pocket, and one more number will be soon forthcoming containmg his inhuman papers. ARTICLE 6 (No. 10. Thursday, June ii, 1829) TO THE FREE AND INDEPENDENT SNOBS OF CAMBRIDGE! Friends ! Aldermen ! and Snobs ! I am a woman of feminine propensities, and it may seem odd that I should come forward in a public rapacity ; but having heard that Cambridge is about to send a preventative to Parliament, I cannot, on so momentary an occasion, refrain from offering a few reservations of my own on the subject. I beg leave to offer Mr. FREDERICK TUDGE as a bandit for so legible a position. I pledge myself that my young friend shall become a radical deformity in the state ; certain I am that his principals are libertine, that his talents will lead him to excess, and finely, that he will tread in the shoes of that execrated saint, his murdered father ! No one can deny that his claims on the free electors of Cam- bridge are great, very great ! For it is well-known his father ever resisted with his pen the efforts of the Mayor and Cooperation. Must it not then be the height of infanticide if they do not with heart and hand, following the example of their eternal slave, D. J. Ramsbottom, Exclaim : TUDGE AND "LIBERTY?" ! ! ! The End of AH Things 9 ARTICLE 7 (No. II. Thursday, June 18, 1829) THE END OF ALL THINGS. Good heavens ! Do we live in a savage land ? Shall crime heaped upon crime go unnoticed? Shall the perpetrations of deeds of the blackest die, escape their merited punishment? Alas ! alas ! it seems so ; my honoured father rests in a bloody grave ; his bones have become dust, and his flesh has fattened a thousand worms, and yet his murderers live secure in the rank a cap and gown has obtained for them. But this is not all, hsten again, my dear friends, to a tale of startling horror. Mrs. Ramsbottom during the summer months has been accus- tomed every evening to walk in Grandcliester Fields till rather a late hour, deeming the halo of her own innocence a sufficient protection. But on Sunday evening last a man enveloped in a long cloak (seemingly a military gentleman), followed her home, and as she entered her house, rushed in behind her and closed the door. He then pulled out a brace of pistols, and, threatening her with death unless she complied, made her swear to forbear canvassing the aldermen for myself, Mr. Tudge, junior. Horrible deed ! it stirs up my manly blood even to mention it. Well, the next morning three gentlemen called upon me, and offered to enter me at one of the small colleges, if I would with- draw from the poll. That I accepted their offer is evident from the date of this account, and now that I have received from them a sum sufficient to defray all my college expenses, I think it no longer incumbent upon me to keep my promise, and so, most worthy burgesses, I still sohcit YOUR VOTE AND INTEREST. But to my general readers I have to address a few more words. I had hoped by hard study so to improve my mind as to be able during the next term to carry on this journal, with the assistance of Mrs. R. But all my hopes have vanished ; Mrs. R. has gone mad, through the fright she sustained on Sunday night, and has been sent home to her friends, and I, having now become a gownsman, cannot carry on a work adverse to University 1° The Snob principles. Therefore, my dear friends, thanking you for your great and invariable kindness, and hoping though unseen that I may still be an object of affection and respect, I beg leave to bid you all, though with tears in my eyes, an eternal farewell. F. TUDGE. St. John's College. The Gownsman ii The Gownsman (^formerly called) " The Snob" a Literary and Scientific Journal, now conducted by Members of the University. ARTICLE 1 DEDICATION. TO ALL PROCTORS BOTH PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE THE Distinguished Patrons of all that Academical Talent and Morality, WITH which they THEMSELVES ARE SO EMINENTLY GIFTED, WHOSE TASTE IT IS OUR PRIVILEGE TO FOLLOW, WHOSE VIRTUES IT IS OUR DUTY TO IMITATE, AND WHOSE PRESENCE IT IS OUR INTEREST TO AVOID ; THIS HUMBLE VOLUME, WHOSE ONLY AIM HAS BEEN THE REAL WELFARE OF ALL TRUE KNOWLEDGE AND GOODNESS, BY DETECTING THE ASS IN THE SKIN OF THE LION, THE WOLF IN THE CLOTHING OF THE LAMB ; IS WITH ALL THE RESPECT USUALLY PAID TO THE SAME, MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, BY THEIR FAITHFUL SERVANT, THE GOWNSMAN. 12 The Gownsman ARTICLE Z (No. 2. Thursday, November i2, 1829) LETTER FROM MRS. RAMSBOTTOM. 12 November, 1829 Dear Mr. Editor, — I wish people would not go propagating candles about me ; I saw in the Snob (and I assure you I feel quite indigent at it) that I was dead ! I am still in Radish-ground Buildings, and I am alive as you see by my telegraph. D. J. RAMSBOTTOM. I send you my opinion on several things, which have happened in Cambridge, and which I thought called for my critical debilities. They are contained in a letter to a friend, which I wrote on Saturday. I have not kept back a sillabus of it, this I assure you is a complete fac-totum. I told you, my dear friend, that I am residing in Cambridge, the seat of a renowned University, which is two Proctors and a number of young men, who are said to be in stature capillairy, but why, I cannot make out. I daresay that you know that our gracious Sovereign (they were guineas before his time) was almost blown up by a wretch named Fox, one fifth of November. So ever since the young men on that day, have asalted the Snobs, which is the townspeople. They fit a good deal on the fifth, but the Snobs beat them, being as numerous as the sands in the otion. On the six instinct, as the papers say, the Universary men went out with the odd revolution of scouring the streets, which, to be sure, are very dirty, but I suppose they did it to see whether the Snobs would prevent them. I cannot describe the battle which took place on that occasion, it would require the pen of Homo. There was two great arrows on the Snob side, which was a butcher and a miller, they made a great slatter in the ranks of the Gownsmen. The Gownsmen were very brave, every one of them says he knocked down at least five in the malay ; though I think they hacj Modern Songs, No. 5 13 been better employed in squaring at the circle than squaring at the townsmen— • « • • « I must bid you a jew, my dear Jemima, ever your confectioner, Dorothea Julia R . Proscrip.— Let me advise you to buy the Gownsman, a Cambridge paper ; there was a beautiful Epithet in the last number, and I daresay I shall send some of my poetic diffusions, which 1 think are fit for desertion. The part in hysterics is not of a nature for the " world's kin," it is only a piece of private infirmity. ARTICLE S (No. 2. Thursday, November 12, 1829) MODERN SONGS, No. 5. Air—" rd be a Butterfly P I'D be a tadpole, born in a puddle, Where dead cats, and drains, and water-rats meet ; Then under a stone I so snugly would cuddle. With some other tad that was pretty and sweet. I'd never seek my poor brains for to muddle. With thinking why I had no toes to my feet ; But under a stone I so snugly would cuddle, With some other tad as was pretty and sweet If I could borrow the wand of a fairy, I'd be a fish and have beautiful fins — But yet in this puddle I'm cleanly and airy, I'm washed by the waters, and cool'd by the winds I Fish in a pond must be watchful and wary. Or boys will catch them with worms and hooked pins. I'd be a tadpole, cleanly and airy Washed by the waters, and wiped by the winds. 14 The Gownsman What though you tell me each black little rover Dies in the sun when the puddle is dry, — Do you not think that when it's all over With my best friends I'll be happy to die ? Some may turn toads with great speckled bellies, Swim in the gutter, or spit on the road I'll stay a tadpole, and not like them fellers Be one day a tad, and the other a toad ! ARTICLE 4 (No. S. Thursday, December 3, 1830) FROM ANACREON. Prepare thy silver, god of fire, And light thy forges up ; No soldier I to ask of thee Bright arms and glittering panoply ; To these let warrior chiefs aspire — I ask a mighty cup ! A mighty cup ! but draw not on it Orion grim with clubs advancing. Or heavenly wains, or rampant bears, What cares Anacreon for the stars ? Draw Love and my Bathyllus on it, 'Mid. clustering vines with Bacchus dancing, e The National Standard* • The National Standard /and /Journal of Literature, Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine Arts. / No. i. Saturday, January 5, 1833. Price 2d. / This Journal is Edited by F. W. N. Bayley, Esq., the late Editor and Originator of " The National Omnibus," the first of the cheap Publications ; / assisted by the most eminent Literary Men of the Day. / When bound up in volumes, the following was printed on the title-pages : THE NATIONAL STANDARD / of / Literature, Science, Music, Theatricals, / and the FineArts. / Volume L / London : / Thomas Hurst, 65, St. Paul's Church Yard, / 1833-4. / 3 Vols. 57 Nos. 1833-4. 4'°- It is not known when Thackeray first became connected with this journal, but it must have been very early in its history ; for it was believed, and with very good reason, by Dr. John Brown that, with the eighteenth number, he took over the editorship, and either at the same time or within a few days he also became the proprietor. The change was announced in an Address, and shortly several alterations were made in the journal itself, and the publishing was taken out of the hands of J. Onwhyn, 4, Catherine Street, and given to Thomas Hurst. The venture was not attended with success. The journal never paid its way, and in spite of an optimistic Address on December 28, 1833, the last number was published on February i, 1834. The earliest article known to be by Thackeray appeared in the eighteenth number. May 4, 1833. This was the drawing of Louis Philippe and the accompanying verses. During this month and the next appeared other drawings, of Braham, Rothschild, Bunn, Sir Peter Laurie, etc., each being followed by letterpress ; Lave in Fetters \ and a review of Montgomery's Woman, the Angel of Life. Commencing on June 29, and continued during July, appeared Foreign Correspondence, and, in the following month. The Devil's Wager, which was afterwards reprinted in The Paris Sketch-Book. Mr. C. P. Johnson ascribed to Thackeray the article (September 7) Foreign Literature, signed " W.," and, referring to a letter in which Thackeray claimed the authorship of A Tale of Wonder, believes that another Original Paper, A Tale of Wonder may also have been written by the same hand. It certainly seems exceedingly probable. Father Gahagan's Exhortation, an article headed Drama and signed "®", and the review of Victor Hugo's Etude sur Mlrabeau, were from the editor's pen ; and I fall in with Mr. Johnson's suggestion that two more Original Papers, King Odo's Wedding and The Minstrets Curse, both translations promised in the Address in the issue of December 28, 1833, were written by Thackeray. LOUIS PHILIPPE. [See page 17. The National Standard ARTICLE 1 (Saturday, May 4, 1833) LOUIS PHILIPPE. Here is Louis Philippe, the great Roi des Frangais, (Roi de France is no longer the phrase of the day ;) His air just as noble, his mien as complete, His face as majestic, his breeches as neat ; His hat just so furnished with badge tricolor, Sometimes worn on the side, sometimes sported before, But wherever 'tis placed, much in shape and in size, Like an overgrown pancake " saluting men's eyes." From hat down to boots, from his pouch to umbrella. He here stands before you, a right royal fellow. Like " the king in the parlour," he's fumbling his money, Like " the queen in the kitchen," his speech is all honey. Except when he talks it, like Emperor Nap, Of his wonderful feats at Fleurus and Jemappe ; But, alas ! all his zeal for the multitude's gone. And of no numbers thinking, except number one 1 No huzzas greet his coming, no patriot-club licks The hand of " the best of created republics." He stands in Paris as you see him before ye. Little more than a snob — There's an end of the story. 1 8 The National Standard ARTICLE S (Saturday, May ii, 1833) ADDRESS. Under the "heading'' of this National Standard of ours there originally appeared the following : "Edited by F. W. N. Bayley, Esq., the late editor and Originator of 'The National Omnibus,' the first of the cheap Publications ; assisted by the most eminent Literary men of the Day." Now we have change tout cela; no, not exactly tout cela ; for we still retain the assistance of a host of literary talent, but Frederick William Naylor Bayley has gone. We have got free of the Old Bailey, and changed the Governor. Let it not be imagined for a moment that we talk in the slightest disparagement of our predecessor in office ; on the contrary, we shall always continue to think him a clever fellow, and wish him all kinds of success in the war he is carrying on against Baron Dimsdale. He apparently has exchanged the pen for the sword. Having the fear of the Fate of Sir John Cam Hobhouse before our eyes, we give no pledges, expressed or understood, as to the career which it is our intention to run. We intend to be as free as the air. The world of books is all before us where to choose our course. Others boast that they are perfectly independent of all considerations extraneous to the sheet in which they write, but none that we know of reduce that boast to practice : we therefore boast not at all. We promise nothing, and, if our readers expect nothing more, they will assuredly not be disappointed. They must be a little patient, however, for a while. We cannot run a race with our elder rivals, who, in consequence of their age — strange as it may seem to pedestrians, must beat their juniors in swiftness. To drop metaphor, we are not yet sufficiently in favour with those magnates of literature, the publishers, to get what in the trade is called " the early copies ; " and therefore we have it not in our power to review a book before it is published. Whether those who trust to such criticisms are likely to form a just judgment of the books so reviewed, is another question, which we should be inchned to answer in the negative. To speak plainly, the critics are as much the property of the booksellers as the books themselves, and the oracles speak by the inspiration of those who own them. Mr. Braham 19 We shall, howevei*, mend even in that particular in due course of time ; and when our arrangements are duly matured (which we hope will be next week), we trust that we shall present our readers with " a superior article," at what we are sure may safely be called " an encouraging price." In the mean time, we shall tell a story. One of the results of the manner in which our poor-laws are administered, is a system of forced marriages. A parish, anxious to get rid of a young woman who is pressing on its resources, often advances her a portion, if she can find a husband. The sum given is not very magnificent, seldom amounting to more than five pounds. A very pretty girl in a parish, of which we, like Cervantes, in the beginning of Don Quixote, do not choose to recollect the name, obtained one of their splendid dowries, and was married accordingly. A lady, who patronised the bride, shortly after the marriage saw the bridegroom, who by no means equalled Adonis in beauty. "Good Heavens!" said she to the girl, "how could you marry such a fright as that ? " " Why, ma'am," was the reply, " he certainly is not very handsome ; but what sort of a husband can one expect for five pounds ? " We leave the moral to the reader, as well as its application to us. But we shall prove to them, nevertheless, that the sort of Paper we shall give them for twopence is not to be despised. ARTICLE 3 (Saturday, May ii, 1833) MR. BRAHAM. SONNET. By W. Wordsworth. Say not that Judah's harp hath lost its tone, Or that no bard hath found it where it hung, Broken and lonely, voiceless and unstrung. Beside the sluggish streams of Babylon ; Sloman ! * repeats the strain his fathers sung, * It is needless to speak of this eminent vocalist and improvisatore. He nightly delights a numerous and respectable audience at the Cider-cellar ; and while on this subject, I cannot refrain from mentioning the kindness of Mr. Evans, the worthy proprietor of that establishment. N. B. — A table d 'hdte every Friday. — W. Wordsworth. 20 The National Standard And Judah's burning lyre is Braham's own ! Behold him here. Here view the wondrous man, Majestical and lovely, as when first In music on a wondering world he burst, And charmed the ravished ears of sov'reign Anne 1 1 Mark well the form, O ! reader, nor deride The sacred symbol — Jew's-harp glorified — Which circled with a blooming wreath is seen Of verdant bays ; and thus are typified The pleasant music and the baize of green Whence issues out at eve, Braham with front serene ! t Mr. Braham made his first appearance in England in the reign of Queen Anne.— W. W. ARTICLE 4. (Saturday, May 18, 1833) N. M, ROTHSCHILD, ESQ. Here's the pillar of 'Change ! Nathan Rothschild himself, With whose fame every bourse in the universe rings : The first ' Baron Juif ; by the grace of his pelf, Not " the king of the Jews," but " the Jew of the kings." The great incarnation of cents and consols. The eighths, halves, and quarters, scrip, options, and shares ; Who plays with new kings as young Misses with dolls ; The monarch undoubted of bulls and of bears 1 O, Plutus, your graces are queerly bestowed ! Else sure we should think you behaved m/ra dig. / When with favours surpassing, it joys you to load A greasy-faced compound of donkey and pig. Here, just as he stands with his head pointed thus, At full-length, gentle reader, we lay him before ye ; And we then leave the Jew (what we wish he'd leave us, But we fear to no purpose), a lone in his glory. ' Some years ago, shortly after the elevation (by the Emperor of Austria) of one of the Rothschilds to the rank of Baron, he was present at a soiree in Paris, which he entered about the same time as the Due de Montmorenci. "Ah I" said Talleyrand, " Voici le premier baron Chretien, et le premier baron Juif." The Montmorencies boast, and we believe justly, that they are the first Christian barons. We all know that the Rothschilds may make the same claim of precedence among the Jews. London Characters. No. I 21 ARTICLE 5 (No. 21. Saturday, May 25, 1833) LONDON CHARACTERS. No. 1. We cannot afford rhymes to the hero whom we have above depicted ; he is decidedly a subject for the pedestrian Muse of prose. He is No. i of our London Characters : as Shakespeare, or somebody else, advises us to catch the ideas as they fly, we fix the idea-bearer as he runs. It was impossible to refrain from taking him (graphically, we mean, for we do not belong to the police, " whether it be new or old "), as we saw him scudding along with the rapidity of a hare, at the Coldbath -fields meeting of last week, which of course we attended. " Britons, be firm," spoke the valorous placard on the breast. " Let this particular and individual Briton run for his life ! " spoke the more direct monitor within the breast. There was no delay in making the decision — the motion was carried, and a very rapid motion it was. The poor National Convention was run away with in a van ; the new constitution, and the members of it, were equally knocked on the head ; and why should our friend the bill-sticker have pasted himself against the wall merely to be torn down by the police ? If his placard was stationary, it was no reason that he should be so. On the whole, the world of politics might take a useful lesson from the bill-stickers. They are beyond question the most active agents in disseminating among the public the political or literary opinions of all sides, and yet they never quarrel. It was truly refreshing, during the angry contest between Sir John Cam Hob- house, Colonel Evans, and Mr. Bickham Escott, to see their ambulatory agents mixing at street-corners and other places where placardmen do congregate, with the most harmonious cordiality. They did their duty, but they never suffered it to interfere with their private friendships. It is highly probable that few of them read Ariosto, at least with critical eye, but their conduct much reminded us of the panegyrics in Orlando Furioso on the mutual courtesy of the ancient knights towards each other. We murmured to ourselves, O gran bonti de' cavaliJri antichi, and so forth ; and rejoiced to find that glorious characteristic of 2 2 The National Standard the chivalry of the Round Table revived under our own eyes by the corporation of placard-beai'ers. All around in Covent-Garden everything was indignation ; the very cabbages and turnip-tops were moved ; orators spoke on the hustings and off the hustings in all the fervour of excited zeal ; the eyes of the market, the town, the county, the kingdom, the continent, the world, turned with anxious glare on the result of the contest ; and there, meanwhile, " in the hot-press and tumult of the hour," the very men whose hats and bosoms, and sides and bellies, were stuck with the most impassioned cries and watchwords of their respective parties, whose hands uplifted the banners which waved above the conflict as the guide-stars of the current of war, walked about with all the coolness of the peripatetic school, to which they unquestionably belong. It was something truly cheering to those who wish for the banishment of the angry passions from the human breast, to witness the philosophical air of abstraction which these sages exhibited ; they were in politics, but not o/'them ; like the Public Ledger^ they were open to all parties, but influenced by none ; and evidently being of opinion, with Swift, that party is the madness of the many for the gain of the few, suffered not their minds to be disheartened by any such insanity, meditated upon their own gains, and thought only on their shilling a day ajid their board. Interesting race ! We here consign one of the fraternity to wood. What to him was Lee ? no more than Governor Le of Canton ; and as for the eminent chairman, Mr. Mee, our running friend would willingly have quoted Virgil, had he happened to have known him, and exclaiming to the police, " Mee, Mee — in Mee convertite telum," left the National Convention to its fate, with the sole regret that he did not insist on his shillings before operations commenced. A. Buna 23 ARTICLE 6 (Saturday, June i, 1833) A. BUNN. What gallant cavalier is seen So dainty set before the queen, Between a pair of candles ? Who looks as smiling, and as bright, As oily, and as full of light, As is the wax he handles ? II Dressed out as gorgeous as a lord, Stuck to his side a shining sword, A-murmuring loyal speeches. The gentleman who's coming on, Is Mr. Manager A. Bunn All in his velvet breeches. Ill He moves, our gracious queen to greet, And guide her to her proper seat, (A bag-wigged cicerone). O Adelaide ! you will not see, 'Mong all the German com-pa-ny, A figure half so droll as he. Or half so worth your money. 24 The National Standard ARTICLE 7 (Saturday, June 8, 1833) LOVE IN FETTERS. A Tottenham-Court-Road Ditty, Showing how dangerous it is for a Gentleman to fall in love with an " Officer's Daughter" AN OWER TRUE TALE, I I FELL in love, three days ago. With a fair maid as bright as snow, Whose cheelcs would beat the rose ; The raven tresses of her hair In blackness could with night compare, Like Venus's her nose ; Her eyes, of lustre passing rare, Bright as the diamond glowed. If you would know, you may go see. If you won't go, pray credit me ; 'Twas at the back Of the Tabernac, In Tottenham Court Road. 2 The street in which my beauty shone Is named in compHment to John ; Her house is nigh to where A massy hand all gilt with gold, A thundering hammer doth uphold, High lifted in the air ; What home it is you shall be told Before I end my ode ; If you would know, go there and see, If you won't go, then credit me ; 'Twas at the back Of the Tabernac Jn Tottenham Court Road. Love in Fetters 25 3 Smitten with love, at once I wrote, A neat triangular tender note, All full of darts and flame ; Said I, " Sweet star," — but you may guess How lovingly I did express My passion for the dame ; I signed my name and true address, But she served me like a toad. If you would know, pray come and see, If you won't come, then credit me ; 'Twas at the back Of the Tabernac In Tottenham Court Road. 4 Next morn, 'tis true, an answer came, I started when I heard my name. As I in bed did he ; Says a soft voice, " Are you the cove Wot wrote a letter full of love ? " " Yes, yes," I cried, " 'tis I ; " "An answer's sent," said he — O Jove I What a sad note he showed. If you would know, pray come and see, If you will not, then credit me ; 'Twas at the back Of the Tabernac, In Tottenham Court Road. 5 By a parchment slip I could discern That by me stood a bailifif stern, My Rosamunda's sire ! ^ I served the daughter with verse and wit. And the father served me with a writ, An exchange I don't admire : So here in iron bars I sit In quod securely stowed, Being captivated by a she, Whose papa captivated me ; All at the back Of the Tabernac, In Tottenham Court Road. 26 The National Standard ARTICLE 8 (Saturday, June isih, 1833) Woman : the Angel of Life, A Poem. By Robert Montgomery, Author of the " Omnipresence of the Deity," " The Messiah," etc. l2mo, pp. 198. London, 1833. Turrill. There is one decidedly pleasant line in this book. It is, " Frederick Schoberl, jun., 4, Leicester Street, Leicester Square." It sounds like softest music in attending ears, after having gone through 183 pages of Montgomery's rhyme, flanked by some fifteen pages of Montgomery's prose. We never had any notion that the name of Schoberl would have sounded so harmoniously in our ears, until we found it to be the term and conclusion of the work called " Woman," set up as the last milestone to show that our wearisome pilgrimage was at an end. And yet we are unjust in calling it wearisome, for the poem is of the most soothing kind. " Not poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of this world," can compare with the gentle narcotic here afforded us by Turrill. Many have been the trades of that emment person. He was a knife-grinder and a haberdasher, a stationer and fancy penman, a Windsor soap vendor, and a com- missioner for the sale of Hunt's roasted corn and Godbold's vegetable balsam. He then went into the publishing line, and he now appears as a \endor of opiates. In the most desperate case of want of sleep, an application of Woman — we mean Turrill and Montgomery's Woman — is a never failing specific. Well may they sing, with Macheath — When the heart of a man is oppressed with cares, The mist is dispelled when Boh's woman appears, Like the syrup of poppies she gently, gently Closes the eyelids and seals the ears. Page after page will induce a dose, Drawing soft melody from the nose. He who, as Dr. Johnson says, would not snore over Montgomery's woman, must be more or less than human. — Rambler, vol. i.,p. 186. Ed. 1763. Therefore do we speak of it with respect, and recommend it to the favourable notice of the Apothecaries' Company, for insertion in their next Pharmacopoeia. Montgomery's former works were Robert Montgomery 27 absurd. You could not help being jolly with " Satan" ; he created a laugh beneath the ribs of " Death." " Oxford " was droll to a degree, and so forth ; but here, in " Woman," everything is dead. Page after page there is the same sound, somnolent, sonorous snore. It is not enough to say that the book is dull — it is dulnessj the embodied appearance of "the mighty Mother" herself. On the honour of critics, we shall open the book at random. Here, then, we pounce on page 80, and it is a description of Dante. Dante and Bob Montgomery ! Powers Eternal ! Such names blended I Read it, dear reader, if you can. " With paleness on his awful brow Who riselh like a spectre now From darkness, where his fancy dared To wander with an eye unscared, And gaze on visions, such as roll Around that blighted angel's soul Who baffles in his dread domain An immortality of pain ? 'Tis Dante, whose terrific flight Through caverns of Cimmerian night Imagination vainly tries To track the unappalled eyes ! Severe, august, and sternly great. The gloom of his remorseless fate. Around him hung that dismal air That broodeth o'er intense despair ; Till frenzy half began to raise A wildness in his fearful gaze, As roaming over crag and wood. He battled with bleak solitude ; But sooner might the maniac roar Of ocean cease to awe the shore, When starlight comes with fairy gleam, Than pity lull his tortured dream. Oh ! 'tis not in the poet's heart To paint the earthquake of his heart. The storm of feeling's ghastly strife. When she, who formed his life of life, Had vanished like a twilight ray, Too delicatit on earth to stay : — 28 The National Standard For love had heated blood and brain, A fire in each electric vein ; A passion, vifhose exceeding power, Was heaven or hell to each wild hour." It is well for Montgomery that Dante is dead, else he would have doomed him to Caina for this. It is, however, about the best passage in the poem. But we must quote something about woman ; and our partiality for our native charmers induces us to take the following : — " But where is woman most arrayed, With all that mind would see displayed ? Oh, England ! round thy chainless isle How fondly doth the godhead smile. And crowd within thy little spot A universe of glorious lot ! But never till the wind-rocked sea Have borne us far from home and thee. The patriotic fervours rise To hallow thy forsaken skies ! Though nature with sublimer stress, Hath stamped her seal of loveliness On climes of more colossal mould. How much that travelled eyes behold Would sated wonder throw away To take one look where England lay ; To wander down some hawthorn lane. And drink the lark's delightful strain ? Or floating from a pastured dell To hear the sheep's romantic bell ? While valeward as the hills retire Peeps greyly forth the hamlet spire. And all around it breathes a sense Of weal, and worth, and competence ; But far beyond all other dowers Thy daughters seem, earth's human flowers t The charm of young Castilian eyes When lovingly their lashes rise. And blended into one rich glance, The lightnings of the soul advance, Wild hearts may into wonder melt, And make expression's magic felt ; Or girded by the dream of old, In Sappho's Lesbian Isle behold Robert Montgomery 29 A shadow of primeval grace Yet floating o'er some classic face ; But where, in what imperial land, Hath nature, with more faultless hand Embodied all that beauty shows — ■ Than round us daily lives and glows ? Here mingled with the outward night Of charms that coolest gaze invite, Th' enamel of the mind appears Undimm'd by woe, unsoil'd by years I To wedded hearts, devoid of strife. Here home becomes the heaven of life ; And household virtues spring to birth Beside the love-frequented hearth ; While feelings soft as angels know Around them freshly twine and grow." And so and so, and so and so, Does Bob Montgomery onward go. In smiffling, snoring, slunibery verse^ Smooth as the motion of a hearse ; A swell of sound, inducing sleep. But not a thought in all the heap. A spinning Jenny would compose A hundred thousatid lines like those^ From rising until setting sun. And after all no business done. The conclusion of the whole poem, we admit, is pretty ; and therefore we extract it : — ■ " Angel of life ! that home is thine Till human hearts become divine ; To feelings in their fond repose, And Love his godhead can disclose Where nature most reveals its worth ; And if there be a home on earth To charm the clouds of time away. Born of her magic, blend their sway. Domestic hours Elysium call. The glory and the might of all ; And self from out the selfish take. The hopes that keep the heart awake ; Of what our softer moods bestow The grace, the lustre, and the glow." These are nice verses. On examination, we find that the 3° The National Standard compositor, by some queer blunder, has printed them backwards ; but, as it does not seem to spoil the sense, we shall not give him the trouble of setting them up again. They are just as good one way as the other; and, indeed, the same might be said of the whole book. ARTICLE 9 (No. 24. Saturday, June ij, 1833) DRAMA -COVENT GARDEN. [Bj/ a Friend] One night last week we stretched ourselves along three empty benches in Covent-garden theatre, to hear the horrid parody — the disgusting burlesque, which goes under the name of Zauberflotte. We must do justice to Messrs. Dobler and Hertz, as well as to Madame Schroeder, by saying that they sustained their parts most ably ; but for the rest— for the company of the hideous screech-owls which Bunn, or some other gentleman of equally good taste, has collected at Covent-garden — the quaverings of a cracked ballad- singer, the screams of Miss Pearson herself, are melody to the howls of these high-Dutch monsters. After an overture, tolerably ill- played, the curtain rose, and Herr Haitzinger, wrapped in a red table-cloth, came rushing over the stage, flying from a serpent or dragon, or some such thing, which wriggled and writhed on a most manifest rope, with felonious intent to frighten and devour Prince Tamino, enacted by Haitzinger aforesaid. Prince Haitzinger, fatigued by his running, squeaked out a melancholy recitative, and sank on a grassy plank, prepared to receive him. Scarcely was he silent, when three women — monsters in black bombazeen, each holding a tin spear, and representing the maiden attendants of the Queen of Night, entered and gave vent to a series of strains, such as but comparison is out of the question ; we never heard such before, and devoutly hope we never may again. The opening chorus of the Zauberflotte the most divine music of the divine Mozart, was mangled— burked — murdered, in such a manner by these German impostors, that the three men who, with ourselves, were in the pit, very nearly fainted ; however, as we were on duty, we made a point of not indulging our feelings, and resolutely listened on. Speaking with all deference to Bunn's elegant and well known taste, and with the most tender and compassionate feeling for the fair sex, we had no idea that Drama. — Covent Garden 31 mothers could have conceived three such beings as these German Graces ; the first, with a hcentious giggle — with a chin, moreover, as long as her mouth, and a mouth as long as the three-foot spear which she waved, made herself conspicuous by the freedom of her manners, the undeviating suavity of her smile, and the enormous thickness of her AUemannian ancles. The music was murder ; the spirit of Mozart was desecrated ; the audience was made to eat dirt, as Hajji Baba says : only, luckily, there were not many sufferers. After these ladies had concluded their manoeuvres, Madame StoU Bohm appeared : she went through a variety of musical evolutions impossible to describe ; (reader, be thankful you did not hear them !) among other feats, she executed a shake of a quarter of an hour's length, at which the solitary man in the gallery gave a faint and hollow clap, which sadly reverberated through the almost empty house. For the drama, it is utterly indescribable. The new scenery has appeared in half a dozen Easter pieces. The new dresses have figured in the Israelites in Egypt. The whole opera was mangled, garbled, and distorted, agreeing in this with the music. Papageno omitted his songs, (for which we were sorry, for he sang and acted very well) : would to heaven Papagena had done the same ! Madame Meissinger is a nuisance so intolerable, that positively she ought to be indicted. She is not, however, paid above fifty pounds a week, so that we have not much reason to complain. The three boys, who advise and instruct, and lead Tamino in his wanderings, and who, whenever he is in doubt or fear, inspire him by their presence, and console him with their sweet minstrelsy, were enacted by a round-faced old woman and two Jewesses. — Behold their likenesses. They stuttered under their songs, and staggered under the weight of their enormous palm-branches, vying in discord with the "attendants of the Queen of Night." For the rest the house was nearly empty ; and if, as was the fact, the discord was horrible, there were very few to be affected by it. Gamma. The above criticism has been sent us by a gentleman whose opinion we asked with regard to the opera. Having attended ourselves at Covent-Garden, we are compelled to say that we fully agree with our correspondent, though we should not have spoken quite so freely regarding the personal defects of the ladies of the chorus. Bunn " Maximus " must resort to some other method of filling his benches and his treasury. 32 The National Standard ARTICLE 10 (Saturday, June 22, 1833) PETRUS LAUREUS. Who sits in London's civic chair, With owlish look and buzzard air, The wise and worshipful Lord Mayor? Sir Peter 1 Wlio, spectacle astride on nose, Pours forth a flood of bright bon-mots, As brilliant and as old as Joe's ? Sir Peter ! Who, sworn to let thieves thrive no longer, Shows to the rogues that law is stronger. And proves himself a costerinpitgcr ? Sir Peter 1 Who, fairly saddled in his seat. Affords the Queen a bit to eat. And bridles up before the great ? Sir Peter 1 happy be your glorious rein. And may its traces long remain, 1 o check and curb the rogues in grain ! Sir Peter 1 And when to leatherary ease Returned, you give up London's keys, May luck thy patent axles grease. Sir Peter 1 Foreign Correspondence 33 ARTICLE 11 (Saturday, June 29, 1833) FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. Paris: Saturday, June 22. This is a most unfavourable moment for commencing a Parisian correspondence. All the world is gone into the country, with the exception of the deputies, who are occupied in voting supplies ; an occupation necessary, but not romantic, and uninteresting to the half million of Englishmen who peruse the " National Standard." However, in all this dearth of political and literary news, the people of France are always rich enough in absurdities to occupy and amuse an English looker-on. 1 had intended, after crossing the Channel to Boulogne, to have stayed there for a while, and to have made some profound remarks on the natives of that town : but of these, I believe, few exist ; they have been driven out by the English settlers, one of whom I had the good fortune to see. He did not speak much, but swore loudly ; he was dressed in a jacket and a pair of maritime inexpressibles, which showed off his lower man to much advantage. This animal, on being questioned, informed me that the town was d pretty, the society d • pleasant, balls delightful, and cookery excellent. On this hint, having become famished during a long and stormy journey, I requested the waiter of the hotel to procure some of the delicacies mentioned by the settler. In an hour he returned with breakfast ; the coffee was thin, the butter bad, the bread sour, the delicacies mutton-chops. This was too much for human patience. I bade adieu to the settler, and set off for Paris forthwith. I was surprised and delighted with the great progress made by the Parisians since last year. Talk of the " march of mind " in England, La jeune France completely distances us ; all creeds, political, literary, and religious, have undergone equal revolutions, and met with equal contempt. Churches, theatres, painters, book- sellers, kings, and poets, have all bowed before this awful spirit of improvement, this tremendous " Zeitgeist." In poetry and works of fiction, this change is most remarkable. I have collected one or two specimens, which I assure you are taken from works universally read and admired. I have, however, been obliged to 3 34 The National Standard confine ourselves to the terrific ; the tender parts are much too tender for English readers. In England it was scarcely permitted in former days to speak of such a book as the memoirs of the celebrated M. de Faublas ; in France it was only " a book of the boudoir" — taken in private by ladies, like their cherry-brandy; now the book is public property. It is read by the children, and acted at the theatres ; and for Faublas himself, he is an absolute Joseph compared to the Satanico-Byronico heroes of the present school of romance. As for murders, etc., mere Newgate-Calendar crimes, they are absolute drugs in the literary market. Young France requires something infinitely more piquant than an ordinary hanging matter, or a commonplace crim. con. To succeed, to gain a reputation, and to satisfy La jeune France, you must accurately represent all the anatomical peculiarities attending the murder, or crime in question ; you must dilate on the clotted blood, rejoice over the scattered brains, particularise the sores and bruises, the quivering muscles and the gaping wounds : the more faithful, the more natural ; the more natural, the more creditable to the author, and the more agreeable to La jeune France. I have before me a pleasing work with the following delectable title — " Champavert : Immoral Tales. By Petrus Borel, the Lycanthrope !" After having perused this pretty little book, I give the following summary of it, for the benefit of English readers :^ Tale I, " M. de I'Avgentifere," contains a rape, a murder, an execution. Tale 2, "Jacques Barraon," concludes thus: "Immediately he seized him by the throat — the blood gushed out, and Juan screamed aloud, falling on one knee — and seizing Barraon by the thigh ; who, in turn, fastened on his hair, and struck him on the loins, while, with a back stroke, il lui ctripe le venire. (The manoeuvre is extraordinary, and the language utterly untrans- lateable.) They rolled on the ground ; now Juan is uppermost, now Jacques — they roar and writhe ! "Juan lifted his arm, and broke his dagger against the wall. Jacques nailed his in Juan's throat ! Covered with wounds and blood, uttering horrid screams, they seemed a mere mass of blood flowing and curdling ! Thousands of obscene flies and beetles might be seen hovering round their mouths and nostrils, and buzzing round the sores of their wounds. " Towards night a man stumbled over the corpses. ' They are only negroes,' said he, and went his way." It is, as the reader will see, quite impossible to translate Foreign Correspondence 35 properly this elegant passage ; it conveys a force, originality, and good taste, which can never be transferred to our language. Tale 3, "Andrea Vesalius.'' Three adulteries, four murders. The victims are a wife and her three lovers, murdered first, and dissected afterwards, by Andrea Vesalius. Tale 4, "Three-fingered Jack." Contains only one suicide, and the death of Jack in fair fight. Tale 5, " Dina." One rape, one murder, one suicide. Tale 6, " Passereau.'' Two murders, and some intrigues, — very prettily described. Tale 7, " Champavert." This is the history of the Lycanthrope himself He was an extraordinary and melancholy young man, remarkable for a strong poetical genius, and a long beard, both of which he had manifested from the age of seventeen. This history contains a couple of seductions, a child murder, and two suicides. Whether Champavert were a fictitious or real personage, I know not ; there is, however, a long, circumstantial account of his suicide here given ; and I trust for the honour of France that the Lycanthrope actually lived and died in the manner described in the book. My dear young ladies, who are partial to Lord Byron, and read Don Juan slily in the evening ; who admire French fashions, and dishes, and romances, — it is for your profit and amusement that this summary has been made. You will see by it how far this great nation excels us in genius and imagination, even though Bulwer and Disraeli still live and write. The costume of Jeune France is as extraordinary as its literature. I have sent a specimen, which I discovered the other day in the Tuileries. It had just been reading the Triiune, and was leaning poetically against a tree ; it had on a red neck-cloth, and a black flowing mane ; a stick or club, intended for ornament as well as use, and a pair of large though innocent spurs, which had never injured anything except the pantaloons of the individual who wore them. Near it was sitting an old gentleman, who is generally to be seen of a sunny day in the Tuileries, reading his Crebillon or his prayer-book : a living illustration of times past — a strange contrast with times present. 36 The National Standard ARTICLE 12 (Saturday, July 6, 1833) FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. Paris : Satur(fay, June 29. There is no doubt that the " National Standard," though the best conducted journal in the world, has a most senseless, impotent, and unmeaning title. National Standard : what does it signify ? It may be a newspaper, or a measure for brandy ; a banner for King William, or a flag for King Cobbett : you should take advice by the papers of this country, and fix on a name more striking. These observations have been inspired by the title of a journal which is about to appear here, " Le Necrologe : Journal des Morts " ; a pretty, romantic, and melancholy title ; printed on a sentimental paper, handsomely edged with black, and bearing an urn for a frontispiece. O death ! O life ! O jeune France ! what a triumph of art and taste is here ! Fancy The Mourning Advertiser; The Sextants Miscellany ; The Raw Head and Bloody Bones j the Undertakei's Manual; The Pick-axe, or the Grave-digger's Vade Vecum, published every morning for breakfast, and treating of all the most fashionable deaths, murders, suicides, and executions in Europe. What a pleasing study for melancholy young men and tender young ladies ! Then one has the advantage of swallowing sentiment and history at the same time, and (as Figaro says) while living, one is a subscriber to it ; when dead, an article. The November suicides m England used to be a staple article of French satire ; they used to think that London Bridge was built for the mere convenience of throwing one's self from it into the Thames, and that our lamp-posts were only cast-iron substitutes for gibbets ; in regard to lamp-posts, however, we borrowed our learning from them ; and, as to suicides, the advantage is now decidedly on the French side. Half-a-dozen fellows " asphyxient " themselves every morning, and servant-maids with low spirits and wages generally adopt this means of retirement, as one easy, expeditious, and certain. I heard just now of a young gentleman, who had arrived at the mature age of sixteen, and of another more venerable by a couple of years, who some time ago brought their lives to a conclusion in charcoal. They had, together, written Foreign Correspondence 37 a drama, which was represented at the Porte St. Martin^ and succeeded ; it procured for them, no doubt, a few dozen francs, and an eternity of half-a-dozen nights, which seemed entirely to answer their hopes and satisfy their ambition. Their enjoyment was complete, their cup of fame was full ; and they determined, like young sages as they were, to retire from the world before their happiness should fade, or their glory tarnish ; thinking no doubt that their death, their last and noblest action, would establish beyond all question their spiritual immortality. So they purchased the means of their death (it is very cheap, twopenny-worth will kill half a thousand young poets), they retired to their sixihne, they shut out the world, and closed up the windows ; and when, some hours after, the door of their apart- ment was forced open, their spirits and the charcoal-smoke flew out together, leaving only the two corpses to be admired by the public, and buried by the same. In France, they dropped tears on their bodies ; they would have employed stakes, instead of tears, in our less romantic country. However, peace be to their ashes ! they are now, no doubt, comfortably situated in the heaven where they will find Cato and Addison, and Eustace Budgell, and all the suicidal philosophers ; and, some day or other, Liston, Talma, and all the great tragedians. I asked my informer the names of these young unfortunates, and the title of their tragedy. He had forgotten both ! So much for their reputation. The theatres are in a flourishing condition : they have all at this moment some piece of peculiar attraction. At the Ambigu Comique is an edifying representation of " Belshazzar's Feast." The second act discovers a number of melancholy Israelites sitting round the walls of Babylon, with their harps on the willows ! A Babylonian says to the leader of the chorus, " Sing us one of the songs of Zion"; the chorus answers, "How can we sing in a strange land ? " and so on ; the whole piece is a scandalous parody of the Scripture, made up of French sentiment and French decency. A large family of children were behind me, looking with much interest and edification at the Queen rising from her bath ! This piece concludes with a superb imitation of Martin's picture of Belshazzar. Another piece at the Porte St. Martin, called " Bergami," vivifies Hayter's picture of the House of Lords, at Queen Caroline's trial. There was a report this morning that a courier had arrived from England, for the express purpose of forbidding this piece ; and supposing, from that circumstance, that 38 The National Standard it must contain something very terrible, I called at the Porte St. Martin to see it ; but I was sadly disappointed, for there was nothing in it but a little Platonic dialogue between Bergami, who is an angel, and the Queen, who is an injured woman. Bergami appears first in the character of a post-boy, and makes such delightful remarks on the weather, the scenery and Italian politics, that the warm-hearted queen is subdued at once, and makes him forthwith her equerry. The first act ends, and the Queen gets into a carriage. In the second she gets into a packet (that unlucky packet !) ; in the third she gets into a balcony ; in the fourth she gets into a passion, as well as she may, for Bergami is assassinated by Lord Ashley (on which fact we beg to congratulate his lord- ship) ; and, accordingly, she goes to the House of Lords, to make her complaint against him for this act of unpoliteness ; here the scene is very animated (it is taken from the picture). Sir Brougham makes a speech, about injured women, patriotism, and so forth. Lord Eldon replies, the Ministerial bench cheers, the Opposition jeers, and the Queen comes in majestically, bowing right and left, and uttering the noblest sentiments. Presently a row is heard in the streets ; the mob is in arms for the Queen 1 Lord Eldon motions the Minister for War ; he rushes out to quell the disturbance, the Queen follows him, but the attempts of both are ineffectual ; windows are broken, stones are flung. Lord Eldon disappears. Sir Brougham bolts, and Lord Liverpool (a stout man in a white waistcoat, with a large tin star), falls to the earth, struck violently in the stomach with a leather brick-bat, and the curtain, of course, drops with the Prime Minister. The French nation was exalted by this exhibition to a pitch of immoderate enthusiasm, and called stoutly for the Marseillaise. I did not see the fifth act, in which the Queen is poisoned (Lord Ashley again !), but returned home to give an account of this strange tragedy. There is a third play, of much more importance than the two former, of which I had wished to give some account, " Les Enfans d'Edouard," by M. Casimir Delavigne, one of the best acted tragedies I had ever the good fortune to see ; but I have made this letter so long, that I must reserve this for some future day. I could not, however, refrain from sending a little sketch of Ligier, who performs the part of Richard, in this play, in a manner, I think, which Kean never equalled. Beside Ligier, there is the admirable Mademoiselle Mars, and that most charming, gay, graceful, naive actress, Madame Anais Aubert. It would be worth an English actor's Foreign Correspondence 39 while to come to Paris, and study the excellent manner of the P'rench comedians ; even Cooper might profit by it, and Diddeai go away from the study a wiser and better man. Here is too much about theatres, you will say ; but, after all, is not this subject as serious as any other ? ARTICLE IS (Saturday, July 13, 1833) FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. The Charruas. Paris, June J. The wondering reader may fancy that the scene here given was designed in the wilds of America rather than in this gay city of Paris, but he will see, if he takes the trouble of reading the following article (from the pen of M. Jules Janin), how the figures above represent three unfortunate Charruas, who have quitted South America to shiver under the cold Parisian sun. " Allons ! Let us go and see thg savages ; they are lodged in the Champs Elysees, in one of those half -built houses, those ruins of yesterday, the view of which is sad without being solemn. Here are the heroes of our drama, not taller than the brave Agamemnons and Alexanders of the Theatre Fran^ais, but well-built and active> bold cavaliers, and gallant horse-tamers. They are perfidious, idle, revengeful, cruel cannibals ; some of them, perfect dramatic characters, in fact. In truth, they possess all the qualities requisite for the modern drama ; they can ride, fight, betray, revenge, assassinate, and eat raw flesh ; it is true that they don't know a word of French — but what of that ? it is all the better for a theatre now-a-days. "When I saw them huddled together in their court, I declare I thought that I was looking at some modern tragedy ; these brave savages wore costumes hideous and fanciful ; they were all three seated in different solemn attitudes. First, the cacique, with hair uncombed, and fierce and heavy looks ; he would have made a capital tyrant for a melo-drama ; the next, a lean, livid, animal, with a sidelong look, and an indefinable smile, reminded me of Cooper's Magna ; the third was gay, careless, and merry enough ; and then came the timid and gentle Guynuya. She sat 4° The National Standard alone in the comer of the court, with her head on her bosom, bending under the weight of her captivity, like a princess of Ilium of old. This woman is truly sublime : it is true she is fickle and faithless, that she loves pleasure and change, that she has not our ideas of conjugal fidelity ; but she has more passion and love than all the heroines of our tragedy ; and, above all, she has the passion of grief. I was much touched by this woman and her sorrows ; her arms are all scarred over with wounds, and each of these wounds is the history of a sorrow. They were inflicted by herself : there is a scar for each friend she has lost ; for every child of which she has been deprived there is a finger gone ; she has lost two fingers, and there are nearly eighty scars on her arm ; and this woman is not yet eighteen years old ! " Have you, in all the range of your drama, such an heroine as this ? Have you, in all your poetry, so profound a grief as hers ? And, for heroes, here is one whose shoulder has been laid open by a hatchet ; and who, for the last miserable white Frenchwoman, who blunders through your b:illets and your choruses, would go gladly to the Bois de Boulogne and defy a dozen gentlemen at once ! You call your heroes cruel, and your heroines tender ! Here is a hero who poisons his own arrows, and a woman who gashes her arms with a wicked knife with as much ease as you would flourish a fan ! See how utterly you are beaten off your own ground by the first arrival from the plains of Paraguay. Thus, in fact, it is ; as soon as one quits the poetical drama for that of the heart, and literary truth for common truth, one must expect to be vanquished by the first matter-of-fact competitor, whether savage or not ; by all which I mean to say, as Lord Byron has said before, that truth is stranger than fiction. " Now these heroes of the Champs Elysees are as poetic as the heroes of Homer. Vaimaca Peru is a great chief, a veritable cacique, a specimen, in fact, of vagabond royalty, no more called upon to uncover his head than are other vagabond royalties. Senaque is the devoted friend of his chief, a subject faithful and sorrowful, more sorrowful, indeed, than his destitute master ; and this is a common case about ruined thrones. The next, the young man, is careless and brave ; and, although conquered, happy still, because he is young and looks to the future. The woman Guynuya is truly the epic heroine, resigned to her fate ; her very smile is full of tears, her sufferings are consoled by her weaknesses. Do you know that these savages have come from the extremity of Southern America ? that they were made prisoners after long and Foreign Correspondence 41 bloody battles? that they have come hither to Paris as a last asylum? and that this is the St. Helena of the vanquished cacique? For a long time they fought under Ribera ; a year ago their tribe was destroyed, and they fled into the desert, bearing with them, not their harps, like the Hebrews, but the skulls of their enemies, the ornaments of their cabins. And now, vanquished prisoners, fugitives, they have come so far to find an asylum, and to receive the visit of that amateur of monsters, M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire. " How times are changed ! Formerly, when the grand kingdom of France was a Christian kingdom, the arrival of these savages would have caused a sensation amidst the Catholicism of Paris. There would have been a tender solicitude evinced for the welfare of their immortal souls. They would have found, most likely, the king's mistress for a godmother, and the king's brother for a god- father ; they would have been the objects of infinite dissertations, philosophical and rehgious ; Jansenists and Jesuists would have disputed over these four souls with a ferocity altogether ecclesi- astical. Our savages, meanwhile, would have been baptised, feted, and amused, and sent back to their country loaded with presents and honours. At present, what is their fate, poor monarchs of the deserts ? They have been received by the Academy of Sciences, and next, they will go to St. Cloud, and see the king, that is, if the master of the ceremonies permits it. The director of the opera will give them a box some night when all the boxes are empty ; then they will go to the Porte St. Martin, then to Franconi's, and then to some cabaret of the lowest order, where the grisette, come out for her Sunday, will scarcely deign to look at them, seeing that she prefers her quadrille to all the savages in the world. Poor fellows ! they will be lucky enough if they do not, like their brethren of the North,' die in the hospital, with a sister of charity on each side of them. " I did not forget to caress the ostrich, which gallops about in the court ; he is a careless and gentle ostrich, who much pleased me ; having nothing to give him, I offered him a piece of money, which he did me the honour of accepting, and which he swallowed and pocketed with the grace of a civilised individual. "Jules Janin." I have curtailed this article of M. Janin, which is, I think, a tolerable specimen of the French style of periodical writing. It concludes with a long paragraph expressing the writer's joy at ' The Osages, who were exhibited at Paris some years ago, and died there. 42 The National Standard escaping from the savages into the Champs Elys^es, and some remarks on the civilised world in general. The paragraph proves that M. Janin was in a fright, and no wonder ; three cannibals with knives and poisoned arrows are no pleasant companions, even for a brave Frenchman. In the sketch given above, the stout man is the chief ; the lady Guynuya has her back turned, a piece of unpolite- ness in which she persisted during the whole of my visit. They play cards all day, laugh, eat raw beef, and drink all they can get. ARTICLE 14 (Satdrday, July 20, 1833) FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. Paris : Jitfy 13. The figure above is a copy of the statue which shortly is to decorate the column on the Place Vendome. It is, as everybody knows, to be elevated about the 29th of the month ; but his majesty the king of the French, being averse to emeutes d'epenses of all kinds, has determined that it shall be erected privily in the night season, and shall have no' needless extravagance or unnecessary publicity to accompany its elevation. The statue has been cast of bronze, or brass made of Austrian cannon (the victories of Napoleon are, luckily, not all used up), and represents, as the reader beholds, the little corporal in his habit of war. The column, up to 1814, was surmounted with a representation of the Emperor Napoleon, with robes and sceptre imperial ; it bore on its base the following sonorous inscription ; — Neapolio. Imp. Aug. MONUMENTUM BELLI GeRMANICI Anno MDCCCV. TRIMESTRE SPATIO PROrLIGATI EX iERE CAPTO GLORI/E exercitus maximi dicavit. In 1814 the ifiscription was removed, the statue torn down, and a dirty white flag replaced it. It seemed a lame and impotent conclusion to the series of victories which are carved on the column itself, and wind from the base to the summit, as if these battles had been fought and won for the sole purpose of re-establishing the white flag aforesaid. Next week, however, Napoleon will make his second appearance Foreign Correspondence 43 on the column. He certainly ought to make a short speech on the occasion, which, we think, would run something in this manner. The Emperor, after having raised his bronzed spy-glass to his brazen eye, and regarded the multitude who are waiting to hear his oration, begins : " Ladies and gentlemen ! (Tremendous applause.) " Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, and overpowered by feelings of the deepest and tenderest nature, you may readily fancy my inability to address you with the eloquence demanded by your presence, and by this occasion. " Ladies and gentlemen : this is the proudest moment of my life ! (Bravo, and cheers.) , " I thank you for having placed me in a situation so safe, so commanding, and so salubrious ; from this elevation I can look on most parts of your city. I see the churches empty, the prisons crowded, the gambling-houses overflowing : who, with such sights before him as these, gentlemen, and you, would not be proud of the name of Frenchmen. (Great cheers.) "The tricolor waves over the Tuileries as it used in my time. It must be satisfactory to Frenchmen to have re-established their glorious standard, and to have banished for ever the old white flag ; and though I confess myself that I cannot perceive any other benefit you have wrought by your resistance to a late family, you of course can. (Applause, mingled with some unseemly groans from the police.) " I apprehend that the fat man ' with the umbrella, whom I see walking in the gardens of the Tuileries, is the present proprietor. May I ask what he has done to deserve such a reward from you ? Does he found his claim on his own merits, or on those of his father?" (A tremendous row in the crowd: the police proceed to empoigner several hundred individuals.) "Go your ways " (said the statue, who was what is vulgarly called a dab at an impromptu) ; " go your ways, happy Frenchmen ! You have fought, you have struggled, you have conquered ; for whom ? for the fat man with the umbrella ! " I need not explain what were my intentions and prospects, if I had had the good fortune to remain amongst you. You were yourselves pleased to receive them with some favour. The rest of Europe, however, did not look on them in the same light, and ' Napoleon here makes an irreverent and personal allusion to King Louis Philip. His stoutness and his umbrella were depicted some two months agn, in our Paper. 44 The National Standard expressed its opinion so strongly that we, out of mere politeness, were obliged to give up our own. " I confess myself that I was somewhat arbitrary and tyrannical : but what is our fat friend below ? Is it not better to be awed by a hero than to be subdued by a money-lender ? to be conquered by a sword than to be knocked down by an umbrella?" (Here there was an immense cry of " A bas les Parapluies ! " Some further arrests took place.) " Perhaps, if it be not a bore (Go on), you will allow me to say a word concerning those persons who so strongly voted my own removal and the re -establishment of the white cloth, now folded up for ever. "The Russians are occupied in strangling, murdering, and banishing ; I could not possibly have chosen for them a better occupation. " The English, with their ^800,000,000 of debt, have destroyed their old institutions, and have as yet fixed on no new ones." (Here a further crowd were marched off by the police.) " I congratulate you. Gentlemen, they^ too, have policemen.' " The Portuguese are fighting about two brothers, both of whom they detest. Heaven preserve the right, whichever he may be. " From Italy there are delightful accounts of revolts, and deaths thereon consequent. " The Germans are arresting students for want of abetter employ- ment. The Spaniards are amusing themselves with sham fights ; what a pity they cannot be indulged with real ones ! " And the family : for whom about five hundred thousand lives were sacrificed, — where are they? The king is doting, and the dauphin is mad in a chateau in Germany ; and the duchess must divide her attentions between her son and her daughter ! "And yourselves, gentlemen, you have freedom of the press, — but your papers are seized every morning, as in my time. You have a republic, but beware how you speak of the king ! as in my time, also. You are free ; but you have seventeen forts to keep you in order, I don't recollect anything of the sort in my time. "Altogether, there is a very satisfactory quantity of bullying, banishing, murdering, taxing, and hanging, throughout Europe. I perceive by your silence " Here the emperor stopped : the fact was, there was not a single person left in the Place Vendome ; they had all been carried off by the police ! ' This struck us as rather a vulgar allusion on the part of the statue. Foreign Literature 45 ARTICLE IS (Saturday, September 7, 1833) FOREIGN LITERATURE. To the Editor of the National Standard. Sir,— I was much pleased with the following pretty pastoral in the Breton dialect, which I found lately in some numbers of the French Literary Journal. I have added a version of my own. which perhaps may be acceptable to the readers of your paper. It has, at least, the merit of being literal. W. Choeses me boue er plach yoang, Hi e garau perpet, Mas helas ! me halon paur Hi des me zileset. Pi greden en em hare, Contant oue me halon, Bourmen he don didrompet la gole glaharet on. Na me chahuet m'en, doucic, Ne zelet quit do'h eign ; Zel er harante tromp lus Ne de quet ehiu teign. Ma me guelet m'en doucic, Ha pe veign me hunon ; Dahlet hon comzan gwen oh Drouc e rand dem halon. Ha pe glehuan en druhumel Da geneign ar er bar ; Me lar gahus e li halon, Neh quet pel doh hi far. Ha re veign marhue, doucic, Hui lareign ar me be, Che tu be en deu yoang Marhue quet carante 1 46 The National Standard [Translation.] Once my heart was gay and glad, When she loved me, nothing grieved me, But 'tis weary now and sad. Since that she has thus deceived me. Look not on me when we meet, But I pray thee pass me by ; For I dare not, maiden sweet, Meet the glances of thine eye. When I'm lonely, maiden dear. Pass me by, and speak not to me. For the honied words I hear From thy faithless lips undo me. Once the turtle's song I heard Through the greenwood ringing clear, Happy is thy heart, O bird ! For thy true love hovers near I When perchance to my gravestone. Maiden sweet, your steps are moving, You will say that there lies one Who has died of too much loving. ARTICLE 16 (Saturday, October 12, 1833) ORIGINAL PAPERS.-A TALE OF WONDER. Once upon a time there was an old woman who lived in a village not very far off, and who went to market to buy a sack of beans. Now, she had to walk back ten miles over a dreary common ; a long step at most times, but a terrible pull when one has a sack of beans on one's back. It was night before she got half-way ; and the moon was hid, and the snow was falling, and the old woman was ready to drop : she was tired and hungry ; so she was right glad when she came to a house, which, though an ugly-looking place at the best, she thought quite good enough for her to rest in. Original Papers— A Tale of Wonder 47 She took out a penny and asked for a bed, and the woman of the house let her go into a loft, where she slept on her sack of beans. Now the house belonged to thieves, and this was one of their wives who let in the woman with her sack. But, though the old woman was so tired, she could not sleep, but lay tossing about on her straw quite uneasy. Presently she saw a hght in the room below, and two men, each with a knife and a lantern. And she felt desperately frightened, as you may fancy, for she thought they might want to murder her, and then eat her, which was often done in those days, when there were a great many ogres and giants. Well, the two men with the knives went on till they came to a bed where a gentleman was sleeping, who had been overtaken like the old woman, and who had got with him a large portmanteau : there he lay as sound as possible, snoring away in a manner quite pleasant to hear. As soon as the two rogues saw how fast asleep he was, the biggest took hold of his legs, and the little one took out his knife and cut the gentleman's throat, slick ! at one slash ! As soon as they had stuck him, they left him there all bloody, took the portmanteau, and went away again downstairs ; the old woman with the sack became mighty uneasy, thinking that it was to be her turn next, and that it was all over with her for certain ; whereas. Heaven had sent her there on purpose to detect and punish these wicked men. As soon as they got downstairs, the woman must have told them of the poor old creature in the loft, for presently up they came again, knives and lanterns and all. The poor old lady was terribly frightened, as you may think, especially when the big man took hold of her legs, (as he had done below stairs,) and the little one came up to her head, with his lantern and his long knife ! However, she did not move a muscle, only she snored to make believe she was asleep. " Let's leave her," says the big man ; " she's asleep, and can tell no tales." " Let's kill her," says the little one ; " she'll do to feed the pigs ! " All this while the old woman lay as still as a stone ; and at last, as they did not suspect that she was awake, they let her off, and went downstairs. So she escaped like a brave old woman as she was ! She saw them wrap up the dead man below in his sheet. 48 The National Standard and carry him to the courtyard ; presently they called the pigs, and out they came, grunting and snuffling round the trough, which was the coffin that these wicked monsters gave the poor murdered gentleman. You may suppose that she did not sleep much that night ; but the next morning, as soon as it was light, she thanked the woman of the house, took up her sack, and set off home as though nothing had happened ; trudging over the common as fast as her poor legs would carry her, though that was not very fast, she trembled so. Now the little man (he that had stuck the gentleman) suspected that all was not right, and he followed her and came up with her before she had got a mile on the road. As soon as she saw him coming, the bold old lady puts down her sack, and sits waiting for him on a stone. " What's the matter, misses ? " says he. " Why, my sack is heavy, and my old legs is rather weak ; I wish some honest man would give me his arm, and help me on my road a bit." So the little fellow gave her his arm, and there they went across the common, talking about beans and the weather, and what not, as if they had been two angels ; he saw her almost home, and you may be sure that when she got there she fell down on her knees and said her prayers ; as well she might, after getting off so well. While she was in the middle of her prayers in comes her husband, and as soon as she'd done, he asked for a bit of bacon and some of the beans, so she cut a large piece, and plenty of beans. While it was boiling, she told her husband of all she had seen the night before. " I must go to the Justice," says she, " and tell him the whole story." " Go to the Justice — go to the devil," says he ; "as for the gentleman, it is all over with him now, and some of these rogues' comrades will kill us if we peach." With that he stuck his fork into the saucepan, to catch hold of a bit of the bacon ; well, as sure as I'm sitting here, instead of pulling out a bit of pork, what does he find at the end of his fork, but a man's head ! " It's the gentleman's head," said the wife. " But what can we do?" says her husband, who was rather flustered. " You can revenge me ! " says the head. " Last night I was wickedly murdered, and eaten by pigs, as your wife can swear to ; I shall have no rest till I see those robbers at the gallows ; and what's more, I'll never leave you till then ! " MR. BRAHAM. [See pags 19. Our Leader 49 So the farmer told the Justice, and the thieves were hanged ; and all the pigs drowned who had eaten the gentleman's body. "And the head?" Why, it was buried in the field where the farmer sowed the beans, and there was never such crops as came from that field. " And the brave old woman ? " Why, though she was seventy years old, she had a son, and lived happy ever after. ARTICLE 17 (Saturday, November 30, 1833) OUR LEADER. I. A REPORT to our ears most astounding has wandered, That we are about to be done with our Standard. 'Pon our lives, in our lives we were never more slandered : Which nobody can deny, Deny, Which nobody can deny. 2. At a time when we most are entitled to brag. Should our Standard, d'ye think, be commencing to flag, When we're praised all alike by sage and by wag ? Which nobody can deny, &c. 3- When loved and admired in all parts of the town, Good fame and good fortune both surely our own, Absurd it would be if our Standard went down : Which nobody can deny, &c. 4. Such stories, of course, all our readers will vote As nonsense, all wholly unworthy of note. And they'll see that our Standard right gaily will float : Which nobody can deny, Deny, Which nobody can deny. 4 5<^ The National Stindard To descend, however, to plain prose, for our Pegasus is getting tired of this ambhng canter, we have only to say, that we have been most credibly and upon good authority informed, that a report has been most sedulously sent abroad that the National Standard was about to be given up : nay, to such an extent was the story carried in some quarters, that it was positively alleged that it was given up : and that we were dead, defunct, extinct. We confess that we do haunt a churchyard, and so far there may be a primd facie case to justify the calumny ; but, except that circumstance, there is nothing else to affect our vitality. We are not only alive, but likely to live ; not merely breathing the breath of life, but hale, active, healthy, full of spii'its and pugnacity. How or why the rumour got abroad concerning us we do not know, and shall take no pains to enquire ; but certain it is, that during the last week we have been as much pestered after our death as ever was Partridge the astrologer. We were nearly killed by our exertions in answering the demands made about our life, and shortened our breath considerably in perpetual bawlings to show that it was prolonged. We hope, however, that now, when an incredulous public beholds us appearing as usual at our accustomed hour, they will relax their want of faith, and confess that those who have gulled them by the reports of our total extinction calculated too sanguinely upon that extent of credulity which has for some centuries been a distinctive mark of the inhabitants of this our too-favoured island — to say nothing of its amiable metropolis. No, good readers, we are not dead : we are, on the contrary, active and energetic in making all sorts of new arrangements for opening the new campaign with redoubled strength and quintupled resources. Those, therefore, who were rejoicing over our demise should put on mourning for our still continuing to walk the earth — in sheets, we admit, and attended by devils -but still in as flesh- and-blood a fashion as ever characterised a being made of paper. But, on reflection, we cannot even conjecture who it could be to whom our extinction would prove a matter of joy. Even those rivals of ours in the periodical world, whom we have no doubt somewhat annoyed by our success — even they, in the handsomest manner, expressed their grief at the prospect of our premature departure ; and we have no doubt that, if we had not made our appearance in due course this morning, the Literary Gazette and the AthencEum would be in sable attire. As it is, we are confident that their readers have already discovered that the Original Papers.— The History of Krakatuk S' one is dull and the other dismal, which, no doubt, they have attributed to the true cause. As for the public in general, our departure would be a calamity so hard to be borne by that excellent bo-ly, and its results so disastrous, that we avert our eyes from the considerations, and shall not stop to examine what is too hideous even for thought. Enough of this. Most seriously, then,— a report has been spread with the utmost sedulousness, in all quarters where it was supposed it could have had the greatest effect, that the National Standard was about to be forthwith given up. That report, as this publication will of itself prove, is untrue. We have no notion of giving up the paper, and we assure our advertising friends in particular that they have been most grossly imposed upon. ARTICLE IS (Saturday, November 30, Saturday, December 7, 1833) ORIGINAL PAPERS. [A correspondent has sent us the following strange and fantastic story, from the German of Hoffmann. The humour is, perhaps, a little strained, and the language too simple ; but if our readers are of the same opinion as ourselves, they will not regret the space it occupies in our columns.] THE HISTORY OF KRAKATUK From the German of E. A. Hoffmann. " PeRLIPAT'S mother was the wife of a king — that is, a queen ; and, in consequence, Perhpat, the moment she was born, was a princess by birth. The king was beside himself for joy as he saw his beautiful little daughter lying in her cradle ; he danced about, and hopped on one leg, and sung out, ' Was anything ever so beautiful as my Perlipatkin ? ' And all the ministers, presidents, generals, and staff-officers, hopped likewise on one leg, and cried out, 'No, never!' However, the real fact is, that it is quite impossible, as long as the world lasts, that a princess should be born more beautiful than Perlipat. Her little face looked like a web of the most beautiful lilies and roses, her eyes were the brightest blue, and her hair was like curling threads of shining gold. Besides all this, Perlipat came into the world with two rows 52 The National Standard of pearly teeth, with which, two hours after her birth, she bit the lord chancellor's thumb so hard that he cried out, ' O gemini ! ' Some say he cried out, ' O dear ! ' but on this subject people's opinions are very much divided, even to the present day. In short, Perlipat bit the lord chancellor on the thumb, and all the kingdom immediately declared that she was the wittiest, sharpest, cleverest little girl, as well as the most beautiful. Now, everybody was delighted except the queen — she was anxious and dispirited, and nobody knew the reason ; everybody was puzzled to know why she caused Perlipat's cradle to be so strictly guarded. Besides having guards at the door, two nurses always sat close to the cradle, and six other nurses sat every night round the room ; and what was most extraordinary, each of these six nurses was obliged to sit with a great tom-cat in her l.ip, and keep stroking him all night, to amuse him, and keep him awake. " Now, my dear little children, it is quite impossible that you should know why Perlipat's mother took all these precautions ; but / know, and will tell you all about it. It happened that, once on a time, a great many excellent kings and agreeable princesses were assembled at the court of Perlipat's father, and their arrival was celebrated by all sorts of tournaments, and plays, and balls. The king, in order to show how rich he was, determined to treat them with a feast which should astonish them. So he privately sent for the upper court-cook-master, and ordered him to order the upper court-astronomer to fix the time for a general pig-killing, and a universal sausage-making ; then he jumped into his carriage, and called, himself, on all the kings and queens ; but he only asked them to eat a bit of mutton with him, in order to enjoy their surprise at the delightful entertainment he had prepared for them. Then he went to the queen, and said, ' You already know, my love, the partiality I entertain for sausages.' Now the queen knew perfectly well what he was going to say, which was that she herself (as indeed she had often done before) should undertake to super- intend the sausage -making. So the first lord of the treasury was obliged to hand out the golden sausage-pot and the silver sauce- pans ; and a large fire was made of sandal-wood ; the queen put on her damask kitchen-pinafore ; and soon after the sausage soup was steaming and boiling in the kettle. The dehcious smell penetrated as far as the privy-council-chamber ; the king was seized with such extreme delight, that he could not stand it any longer. ' With your leave,' said he, ' my lords and gentlemen ' — jumped over the table, ran down into the kitchen, gave the queen Original Papers. — The History of Krakatuk 53 a kiss, stirred about the sausage-brew with his goLlen sceptre, and then returned back to the privy-council-chamber in an easy and contented state of mind. Tlie queen had now come to the point in the sausage-malting, when the bacon was cut into little bits and roasted on little silver spits. The ladies of honour retired from the kitchen, for the queen, with a proper confidence in herself, and consideration for her royal husband, performed a/o/z^ this important operation. But just when the bacon began to roist, a little whisper- ing voice was heard, ' Sister, I am a queen as well as you, give me some roasted bacon, too;' then the queen knew it was Mrs. Mouserinks who was talking. Mrs. Mouserinks had lived a long time in the palace ; she declared she was a relation of the king's, and a queen into the bargain, and she had a great number of attendants and courtiers underground. The queen was a mild, good-natured woman ; and although she neither acknowledged Mrs. Mouserinks for a queen nor for a relation, yet she could not, on such a holiday as this, grudge her a little bit of bacon. So she said, ' Come out, Mrs. Mouserinks, and eat as much as you please of my bacon.' Out hops Mrs. Mouserinks, as merry as you please, jumped on the table, stretched out her pretty little paw, and ate one piece of bacon after the other, until, at last, the queen got quite tired of her. But then out came all Mrs. Mouserinks' relations, and her seven sons, ugly little fellows, and nibbled all over the bacon ; while the poor queen was so frightened that she could not drive them away. Luckily, however, when there still remained a little bacon, the first lady of the bedchamber happened to come in ; she drove all the mice away, and sent for the court mathematician, who divided the little that was left as equally as possible among all the sausages. Now sounded the drums and the trumpets ; the princes and potentates who were invited rode forth in glittering garments, some under white canopies, others in magnificent coaches, to the sausage feast. The king received them with hearty friendship and elegant politeness ; then, as master of the land, with sceptre and crown, sat down at the head of the table. The first course was polonies. Even then it was remarked that the king grew paler and paler ; his eyes were raised to heaven, his breast heaved with sighs ; in fact, he seemed to be agitated by some deep and inward sorrow. But when the blood-puddings came on, he fell back in his chair, groaning and moaning, sighing and crying. Everybody rose from table ; the physicians in ordinary in vain endeavoured to feel the King's pulse ; a deep and unknown grief had taken possession of him. 54 The National Standard " At last — at last, after several attempts had been made, several violent remedies applied, such as burning feathers under his nose, and the like, the king came to himself, and almost inaudibly gasped out the words, ' Too little bacon ! ' Then the queen threw herself in despair at his feet : ' Oh, my poor unlucky royal husband,' said' she, 'what sorrows have you had to endure ! but see here the guilty one at your feet; strike — strike — and spare not. Mrs. Mouserinks and her seven sons, and all her relations, ate up the bacon, and— and ' Here the queen tumbled backwards in a fainting-fit ! But the king arose in a violent passion, and said he, ' My lady of the bedchamber, explain this matter.' The lady of the bedchamber explained as far as she knew, and the king swore vengeance on Mrs. Mouserinks and her family for having eaten up the bacon which was destined for the sausages. " The lord chancellor was called upon to institute a suit against Mrs. Mouserinks and to confiscate the whole of her property ; but as the king thought that this would not prevent her from eating his bacon, the whole affair was entrusted to the court machine and watch maker. This man promised, by a peculiar and extraordinary operation, to expel Mrs. Mouserinks and her family from the palace for ever. He invented curious machines, in which pieces of roasted bacon were hung on little threads, and which he set round about the dwelling of Mrs. Mouserinks. But Mrs. Mouserinks was far too cunning not to see the artifices of the court watch and machine maker ; still all her warnings, all her cautions, were vain : her seven sons, and a great number of her relations, deluded by the sweet smell of the bacon, entered the watch maker's machines, where, as soon as they bit at the bacon, a trap fell on them, and then they were quickly sent to judgment and execution in the kitchen. Mrs. Mouserinks, with the small remnants of her court, left the place of sorrow, doubt, and astonishment. The court was rejoiced ; but the queen alone was sorrowful ; for she knew well Mrs. Mouserinks' disposition, and that she would never allow the murder of her sons and relations to go unrevenged. It happened as she expected. One day, whilst she was cooking some tripe for the king, a dish to which he was particularly partial, appeared Mrs. Mouserinks and said, 'You have murdered my sons, you have killed my cousins and relations, take good care that the mouse, queen, do not bite your little princess in two. Take care.' After saying this, she disappeared ; but the queen was so frightened, that she dropped the tripe into the fire, and thus for the second time Mrs. Original Papers. — The History of Krakatuk 55 Mouserinks spoiled the dish the king liked best : and of course he was very angry. And now you know why the queen took such extraordinary care of princess Perlipatkin : was not she right to fear that Mrs. Mouserinks would fulfil her threat, come back, and bite the princess to death ? " The machines of the machine maker were not of the slightest use against the clever and cunning Mrs. Mouserinks ; but the court astronomer, who was also upper-astrologer and star-gazer, discovered that only the Tom-cat family could keep Mrs. Mouserinks from the princess's cradle ; for this reason each of the nurses carried one of the sons of this family on her lap, and, by continually stroking him down the back, managed to render the otherwise unpleasant court service less intolerable. " It was once at midnight, as one of the two chief nurses, who sat close by the cradle, awoke as it were from a deep sleep ; everything around lay in profound repose ; no purring, but the stillness of death ; but how astonished was the chief nurse when she saw close before her a great ugly mouse, who stood upon his hind legs, and already had laid his hideous head on the face of the princess. With a shriek of anguish, she sprung up ; everybody awoke ; but Mrs. Mouserinks (for she it was who had been in Perlipat's cradle), jumped down, and ran into the corner of the room. The tom-cats went after, but too late ; she had escaped through a hole in the floor. Perlipat awoke with the noise, and wept aloud. ' Thank heaven,' said the nurses, ' she lives ! ' But what was their horror, when, on looking at the before beautiful child, they saw the change which had taken place in her ! Instead of the lovely white and red cheeks which she had had before, and the shining golden hair, there was now a great deformed head on a little withered body ; the blue eyes had changed into a pair of great green gogglers, and the mouth had stretched from ear to ear. The queen was almost mad with grief and vexation, and the walls of the king's study were obliged to be wadded, because he was always dashing his head against them for sorrow, and crying out, ' O luckless monarch ! ' He might have seen how that it would have been better to have eaten the sausage without bacon, and to have allowed Mrs. Mouserinks quietly to stay underground. Upon this subject, however, Perlipat's royal father did not think at all, but he laid all the blame on the court watch maker. Christian Elias Drosselmeier, of Nuremburg. He therefore issued this wise order, that Drosselmeier should before four weeks restore 56 The National Standard the princess to her former state, or at least find out a certain and infalHble means for so doing ; or, in failure thereof, should suffer a shameful death under the axe of the executioner. "Drosselmeier was terribly frightened ; but, trusting to his learning and good fortune, he immediately performed the first operation which seemed necessary to him. He carefully took princess Perlipat to pieces, took off her hands and feet, and thus was able to see the inward structure ; but there, alas ! he found that the princess would grow uglier as she grew older, and he had no remedy for it. He put the princess neatly together again, and sunk down in despair at her cradle ; which he never was permitted to leave. " The fourth week had begun, — yes, it was Wednesday ! when the king, with eyes flashing with indignation, entered the room of the princess ; and, waving his sceptre, he cried out, ' Christian Elias Drosselmeier, cure the princess, or die ! ' Drosselmeier began to cry bitterly, but little princess Perlipat went on cracking her nuts. Then first was the court watch maker struck with the princess's extraordinary partiality for nuts, and the circumstance of her having come into the world with teeth. In fact, she had cried incessantly since her metamorphosis, until some one by chance gave her a nut ; she immediately cracked it, ate the kernel, and was quiet. " From that time the nurses found nothing so effectual as to bring her nuts. ' O holy instinct of natural, eternal and unchange- able sympathy of all beings ! thou shewest me the door to the secret. I will knock, and thou wilt open it.' He then asked per- mission to speak to the court astronomer, and was led out to him under a strong guard. These two gentlemen embraced with many tears, for they were great friends ; they then entered into a secret cabinet, where they looked over a great number of books which treated of instincts, sympathies, and antipathies, and other deep subjects. The night came ; the court astronomer looked to the stars, and made the horoscope of the princess, with the assistance of Drosselmeier, who was also very clever in this science. It was a troublesome business, for the lines were always wandering this way and that ; at last, however, what was their joy to find that the pr!n;ess Perlipat, in order to be freed from the enchantment which made her so ugly, and to become beautiful again, had only to eat the sweet kernel of the nut Krakatuk. " Now the nut Krakatuk had such a hard shell that an eight- and-forty-pound cannon could drive over without breaking it. Original Papers. — The History of Krakatuk 57 But this nut was only to be cracked by a man who had never shaved, and never worn boots ; he was to break it in the princess's presence, and then to present the kernel to her with his eyes shut ; nor was he to open his eyes until he had walked seven steps back- wards without stumbling. Drosselmeier and the astronomer worked without stopping three days and three nights ; and, as the king was at dinner on Saturday, Drosselmeier, (who was to have had his head off Sunday morning early,) rushed into the room, and declared he had found the means of restoring the princess Perlipat to her former beauty. The king embraced him with fervent affection, promised him a diamond sword, four orders, and two new coats for Sundays. 'We will go to work immediately after dinner,' said the king in the most friendly manner, ' and thou, dear watch maker, must see that the young unshaven gentleman in shoes be ready with the nut Krakatuk. Take care, too, that he drink no wine before, that he may not stumble as he walks his seven steps back- wards like a crab ; afterwards he may get as tipsy as he pleases.' Drosselmeier was very much frightened at this speech of the king's ; and it was not without fear and trembling that he stam- mered out that it was true that the means were known, but that both the nut Krakatuk, and the young man to crack it, were yet to be sought for ; so that it was not impossible that nut and cracker would never be found at all. In tremendous fury the king swung his sceptre over his crowned head, and cried, with a lion's voice, ' Then you must be beheaded, as I said before.' " It was a lucky thing for the anxious and unfortunate Drossel- meier that the king had found his dinner very good that day, and so was in a disposition to listen to any reasonable suggestions, which the magnanimous queen, who deplored Drosselmeier's fate, did not fail to bring forward. Drosselmeier took courage to plead that, as he had found out the remedy and the means whereby the princess might be cured, he was entitled to his life. The king said this was all stupid nonsense ; but, after he had drunk a glass of cherry-brandy, concluded that both the watch maker and the astronomer should immediately set off on their journey, and never return, except with the nut Krakatuk in their pocket. The man who was to crack the same was, at the queen's suggestion, to be advertised for in all the newspapers, in the country and out of it. " Drosselmeier and the court astronomer had been fifteen years on their journey without finding any traces of the nut Krakatuk. The countries in which they were, and the wonderful sights they saw, would take me a month at least to tell of. This, however, I shall S8 The National Standard not do : all I shall say is, that at last the miserable Drosselineier felt an irresistible longing to see his native town Nuremberg. Thij longing came upon him most particularly as he and his friend were sitting together smoking a pipe in the middle of a wood in Asia. ' O Nuremberg, delightful city ! Who's not seen thee, him I pity ! All that beautiful is, in London, Petersburg, or Paris, are nothing when compared to thee ! Nuremberg, my own city ! ' As Drosselmeier deplored his fate in this melancholy manner, the astronomer, struck with pity for his friend, began to howl so loudly that it was heard all over Asia. But at last he stopped crying, wiped his eyes, and said, ' Why do we sit here and howl, my worthy colleague ? Why don't we set off at once for Nurem- berg? Is it not perfectly the same where and how we seek this horrid nut Krakatuk ?' 'You are right,' said Drosselmeier ; so they both got up, emptied their pipes, and walked from the wood in the middle of Asia to Nuremberg at a stretch. " As soon as they had arrived in Nuremberg, Drosselmeier hastened to the house of a cousin of his, called Christopher Zachariah Drosselmeier, who was a carver and gilder, and whom he had not seen for a long, long time. To him the watch maker related the whole history of Princess Perlipat, of Mrs. Mouserinks, and the nut Krakatuk ; so that Christopher Zachariah clapped his hands for wonder, and said, ' O, cousin, cousin, what extraordinary stories are these ! ' Drosselmeier then told his cousin of the adventures which befel him on his travels : how he had visited the grand duke of Almonds, and the king of Walnuts ; how he had inquired of the Horticultural Society of Acornshausen ; in short, how he had sought everywhere, but in vain, to find some traces of the nut Krakatuk. During this recital Christopher Zachariah had been snapping his fingers, and opening his eyes, calling out, hum ! and ha ! and oh ! and ah ! At last, he threw his cap and wig up to the ceiling, embraced his cousin, and said, ' Cousin, I'm very much mistaken, very much mistaken, I say, if I don't myself possess this nut Krakatuk ! ' He then fetched a little box, out of which he took a gilded nut, of a middling size. ' Now,' said he, as he showed his cousin the nut, ' the history of this nut is tins : Several years ago, a man came here on Christmas-Eve with a sackful of nuts, which he offered to sell cheap. He put the sack just before my booth, to guard it against the nut-sellers of the town, who could not bear that a foreigner should sell nuts in their native city. At that moment a heavy waggon passed over his sack, and cracked every nut in it except one, which the man, Original Papers. — The History of Krakatuk 59 laughing in an extraordinary way, offered to sell' me for a silver half-crown of the year 1720. This seemed odd to me. I found just such a half-crown in my pocket, bought the nut, and gilded it, not knowing myself why I bought it so dear and valued it so much.' Every doubt with respect to its being the nut which they sought was removed by the astronomer, who, after removing the gilding, found written on the shell, in Chinese characters, the word Krakatuk. " The joy of the travellers was excessive, and Drosselmeier's cousin, the gilder, the happiest man under the sun, on being promised a handsome pension and the gilding of all the gold in the treasury into the bargain. The two gentlemen, the watch maker and the astronomer, had put on their night caps and were going to bed, when the Utter (that is, the astronomer) said, ' My worthy friend and colleague, you know one piece of luck follows another, and I believe that we have not only found the nut Krakatuk, but also the young man who shall crack it, and present the kernel of beauty to the princess ; this person I conceive to be the son of your cousin !' ' Yes,' continued he, ' I am determined not to sleep until I have cast the youth's horoscope.' With these words he took his night cap from his head, and instantly commenced his observations. In fact, the gilder's son was a handsome well- grown lad, who. had never shaved, and never worn boots. " At Christmas he used to wear an elegant red coat embroidered with gold ; a sword, and a hat under his arm, besides having his hair beautifully powdered and curled. In this way he used to stand before his father's booth, and with a gallantry which was born with him, crack the nuts for the young ladies, who, from this peculiar quality of his, had already called him ' Nutcrackerkin.' " Next morning the astronomer fell delighted on the neck of the watch maker, and cried, ' We have him, — he is found ! but there are two things, of which, my dear friend and colleague, we must take particular care : first, we must strengthen the under-jaw of your excellent nephew with a tough piece of wood, and then, on returning home, we must carefully conceal having brought with us the young man who is to bite the nut ; for I read by the horoscope that the king, after several people have broken their teeth in vainly attempting to crack the nut, will promise to him who shall crack it, and restore the princess to her former beauty, — will promise, I say, to this man the princess for a wife, and his kingdom after his death. Of course the carver and gilder was delighted with the idea of his son marrying the Princess Perlipat and becoming a prince and king ; and delivered him over to the two deputies. The 6o The National Standard wooden jaw which Drosselmeier had fixed in his young and hopeful nephew answered to admiration, so that in cracking the hardest peach-stones he came off with distinguished success. "As soon as Drosselmeier and his comrade had made known the discovery of the nut, the requisite advertisements were immediately issued ; and as the travellers had returned with the means of restoring the princess's beauty, many hundred young men, among whom several princes might be found, trusting to the soundness of their teeth, attempted to remove the enchantment of the princess. The ambassadors were not a little frightened when they saw the princess again. The little body with the wee hands and feet could scarcely support the immense deformed head ! The hideousness of the countenance was increased by a woolly beard, which spread over mouth and chin. Everything happened as the astronomer had foretold. One dandy in shoes after another broke teeth and jaws upon the nut Krakatuk, without in the slightest degree helping the princess, and as they were carried away half-dead to the dentist (who was always ready), groaned out — that was a hard nut ! " When now the king in the anguish of his heart had promised his daughter and kingdom to the man who would break the enchantment, the gentle Drosselmeier made himself known, and begged to be allowed the trial. No one had pleased the princess so much as this young man ; she laid her little hand on her heart, and sighed inwardly. Ah ! if he were the person destined to crack Krakatuk, and be my husband ! Young Drosselmeier, approaching the queen, the king, and the princess Perlipat in the most elegant manner, received from the hands of the chiet master of ceremonies the nut Krakatuk, which he immediately put into his mouth, and — crack ! crack ! — broke the shell in a dozen pieces ; he neatly removed the bits of shell which yet remained on the kernel, and then with a most profound bow presented it to the princess, shut his eyes, and proceeded to step backwards. The princess swallowed the kernel ; and oh ! wonderful wonder ! her ugliness disappeared, and, instead, was seen a form of angel beauty, with a countenance like lilies and roses mixed, the eyes of glancing azure, and the full locks curling like threads of gold. Drums and trumpets mingled with the rejoicings of the people. The king and the whole court danced upon one leg, as before, at Perlipat's birth, and the queen was obliged to be sprinkled all over with eau de Cologne, since she had fainted with excessive joy. This great tumult did not Original Papers.— The History of Krakatuk 6i a little disturb young Drosselmeier, who had yet his seven steps to accomplish : however, he recollected himself, and had just pmt his rij^ht foot back for the seventh step, when Mrs. Mouscrinks, squeaking in a most hideous manner, raised herself from the floor, so that Drosselmeier, as he put his foot back- wards, trod on her, and stumbled, — nay, almost fell down. What a misfortune ! The )'oung man became at that moment just as ugly as ever was the princess Perlipat. The body was squeezed together, and couLl scarcely support the thick deformed head, with the great goggling eyes and wide gaping mouth. Instead of the wooden roof for his mouth, a little wooden mantel hung out from behind his back. The watch maker and astronomer were beside themselves with horror and astonish- ment ; but they saw how Mrs. Mouserinks was creeping along the floor all bloody. Her wickedness, however, was not unavenged, for Drosselmeier had struck her so hard on the neck with the sharp heel of his shoe, that she was at the point of death ; but just as she was in her last agonies, she squeaked out in the most piteous manner, ' O Krakatuk, from thee I die ! but Nut- cracker dies as well as I ; and thou, my son, with the seven crowns, revenge thy mother's horrid wounds ! Kill the man who did attack her, that naughty, ugly wicked Nutcracker ! ' Quick with this cry died Mrs. Mouserinks, and was carried off by the royal housemaid. Nobody had taken the least notice of young Drosselmeier. The princess, however, reminded the king of his promise, and he immediately ordered the young hero to be brought before him. But when that unhappy young man appeared in his deformed state, the princess put her hands before her and cried out, ' Away with that nasty Nutcracker ! ' So the court-marshal took him by his little shoulder and pushed him out of the door. " The king was in a terrible fury that anybody should ever think of making a nut-cracker his son-in-law : he laid all the blame on the watch maker and astronomer, and banished them both from his court and kingdom. This had not been seen by the astronomer in casting his horoscope ; however, he found, on reading the stars a second time, that young Drosselmeier would so well behave himself in his new station, that, in spite of his ugliness, he would become prince and king. In the meantime, but with the fervent hope of soon seeing the end of these things, Drosselmeier remains as ugly as ever ; so much so, that the nutcrackers in Nuremberg have always been made after the exact model of his countenance and figure." ^2 The National Standard ARTICLE 19 (Saturday, December 28, 1833) ADDRESS. As this is the list day of our publishing year, it may be considered necessary that we should address our readers in a farewell speech from our throne critical, explaining all that we have done, and promising all that we intend to do. But we suppose that what we Aave done is already sufficiently appreciated without further comment ; and we have found, even from our own brief experience, to say nothing of our reflections on the proceedings of others, that the making of promises is so easy a matter that all persons of adequate knowledge of the world are inclined to look upon them as nothing better than the sure precursors to non-performance. We are the youngest brother of the literary brood, and we there- fore make our last appeal for the year, most appropriately, upon Innocents' Day. We trust that none of our readers will be of a disposition so Herodian as to vote for our immediate demolition ; but we know that it has been often announced that our life was destined to be short. Certain of the stamma which we enjoy, we ventured to doubt the correctness of such anticipations ; and, like the man in Islington, we have lived on, if for no other purpose than that of showing " the rogues they lied." We are now about to commence a new year, and with the change of figure, to make other changes, — we hope for the better. One, which we think we ought first to announce, is that we are going to rise a step in the pence table. It is with reluctance that we give up our old motto, "All for Twopence" ; but, yielding, as the poet says, to the advice of friends, we are about to change it to Threepence. What the reasons for the advice so tendered to us by our worthy and friendly counsellors may be, we leave to the ingenuity of our readers to determine. We shall still continue to be the cheapest of the literary Journals ; and we think there will be no fear that, with our present aids and appliances, and the additional steam which we intend to put on, we shall make way with the best among them. The additional penny, which we beg, can be of no great import- ance to the individual subscriber, but is, as he may suppose, very material to us. It will enable us to effect many improvements, which, from the extreme lowness of the price, were hitherto Original Papers. — King Odo's Wedding 63 impracticable ; and will procure more amusement, more variety, and more profit for the reader, and we need not say for ourselves. Among those proposed improvements will be : a series of Original Tales, by the most popular English authors, and of Translations from the best French and German stories : the first of these stories will appear next week, and will be entitled " King Odo's Wedding," from the German of Count Platen. A series of papers under the title of " The Traveller,'' with engravings, illustrative of scenery and costume : the first of the series will be entitled " The Rhine and its Legends " ; this will appear dn the loth of January. Careful notices of the most interesting foreign works in all langaages ; for a regular supply of which, arrangements have been made with Mr. Schloss, of the Strand. And now, having explained our intentions for the future, we cannot better conclude than by thanking the kind reader for his favours to us during the past year. Many long hours and weary nights have we laboured through, to cater for his Saturday's feast. We have, at no great cost to him, and at small profit to ourselves, made him acquainted with some hundreds of books, pleasant and dull ; we have praised, with him when we found genius or merit, and laughed, with him, at dulness and pretension. May these, our weekly meetings, long continue ! and, though we can neither boast of the aid of puffings, nor the condescending patronage of publishers, we desire no other praise but what the public may award us, and no other patronage than that which we may merit at their hands. ARTICLE 20 (Saturday, January 4, 1834) ORIGINAL PAPERS.-KING ODO'S WEDDING. Many hundred years ago, there lived in the city of Aix-la- Chapelle a young lady of high birth and wonderful beauty, who was courted by all the nobles of Germany, but who was so cold and proud that she would listen to none. Indeed, so haughty was she that she declared she would wed none but a king, and that, rather than do otherwise, she would retire to a convent and take the veil. Now Heaven loves not that that should be done from pride which should come from religion and lowliness of spirit, and accordingly it punished this young lady in an awful manner, as you shall hear. The same imperious temper 64 The National Standard which had turned away so many of her suitors estranged the heart of her parents, and they said that it should happen to her even as she had said ; and that, as she would not marry a mortal man, she should become the spouse of the Church ; and accordingly she was sent to a convent, where she bitterly bewailed the consequences of her pride, and the loss of the world and its vanities. A year had passed, and that altar which had received her vows as a novice was now about to accept them as a nun. The bells rung from the convent tower, the altar was decked with flowers and heaped up with holy relics and vessels of gold and jewels ; the priests were in gorgeous clothing, and all the sisters of the convent sate in state in their stalls down the aisle. And the beautiful Lady Adelhaid was led forth to the altar, dressed for the last time in her worldly attire, with flowers in her coal-black hair, which hung in shining clusters over a neck Uiat was whiter far than the snow. She came to the altar, and the holy service began ; the priests sang the mass, the red-robed choristers swung the censers of gold, and the loud organ pealed through column and aisle, joining melodiously with the shrill song of the nuns. Now Odo, King of Nebelland, held his court at that time at Aix-la-Chapelle ; he was a man who gave himself up to pleasure and lust, and was hated alike of God and man ; and it chanced that he rode by the convent-gate at the moment that the service had begun, and, as he saw the people flocking to the chapel, he asked of one near him what was the cause of the festival ? And they told him how the beautiful Lady Adelhaid was about to take the veil. " I have not been in a church for the last ten years," said the unbelieving king, " and have a mind to go now, and see what sport there may be there.'' So he leapt from his golden chariot, and, followed by his knights and warriors, entered the holy chapel. It was sti'ange to see the bold looks of those fierce men as they stalked through the aisle, and the terrified countenances of the modest and pious sisters. They reached the altar, laughing and talking aloud, just at the moment when the abbess had unloosed the beautiful locks of Adelhaid, and was about to sever them from her head. The devoted nun looked pale and sad, and turned towards Odo with a look of such despair and sorrow, that he could not withstand the expression of her dark and tender eyes. " Stop ! " shouted the king in a voice of thunder, as he rushed to the altar, followed by his soldiers. The trembling abbess dropped Original Papers.— King Odo's "Wedding 65 the fatal scissors, and let fall the long hair, which fell to the ground, covering as with a black veil the wondering and kneeling novice. The priests rushed behind the altar, and the little choristers fled away screaming like a flock of startled birds. The king had been struck by the rare beauty of the kneeling woman, and thought that he had never in his dreams seen anything so lovely. He hfted her from her knees, and as she clung to him as a condemned felon does to his hope for mercy, or a drowning man to a branch or a rope, he spoke in a fierce voice, and said, as he pressed her in his arms, "No veil," said he, "shall hide this sweet face, no scissors shall cut these long locks, no hair-cloth shirt tear this fair bosom." And there was none in church who dare say him nay. " She is the bride of the Church," said the lady abbess, faintly. " She is the bride of King Odo," replied he. "Yes, yours,— yours only,'' whispered Adelhaid, as she clasped her dazzling arm around her new spouse. The men-at-arms set up a loud shout as they closed round the king and his lady, and marched in triumph from the church, which had thus been made witness to an awful sacrilege instead of a holy ceremony. ***** A wild and wicked orgy was held that night in the palace of King Odo. He sate at the head of his table, and by his side was Adelhaid — not pale and desperate as in the morning at the altar, but radiant in her beauty, and burning with fierce desires. The revel continued until midnight, equalling in riot and magnificence the last feast of the Babylonian king, when his kingdom passed away from him, and when he himself was weighed and found wanting ! But at midnight the monarch and his bride retired from the feast, and entered the nuptial chamber, the scene of his riot and wickedness, and the spot where his punishment was to commence. Scarcely were they alone ere a fearful tempest arose, which seemed to shake the tall towers of the castle, and to inspire with awe and terror the trembling bride ; but the king laughed her fears to scorn, and strove but in vain to console her. But he soon beheld a terrible confirmation of her fears, and an awful punishment for his own disbelief. The door of the chamber opened, and a long procession of white-robed nuns came mournfully chanting and singing around the marriage bed. Odo, who was so bold that he wouldhave outfaced Satan himself, allowed no sign of fear to escape him, but gazed upon the train 5 66 The National Standard which poured in the chamber ; while, far away as he could see, stair and hall and courtyard were thronged by the ghostly company. " Whence come you, said he ? " and what seek you ? " And the leader of the train replied, " We seek our sister" ; and she laid her fleshless hand on the shoulder of Adelhaid, and bid her arise and follow her. The woman, who seemed under the influence of an irresistible spell, rose from her bed ; and instantly the ghostly regiment of nuns closed round her, as the warriors had done in the morning when they bore her from the chapel, singing in a shrill voice : Sister, come ! thy couch is spread Yonder in the churchyard dreary We will sing around thy bed, Not a joyful nuptial lay. Such as greeted you to-day — But a mournful miserere. Sister, rise, thine hour is come, We will lead thee to thy home. Pillowed on her husband's breast, Though she find no slumber now. Sweetly shall our .sister rest In her quiet couch below. Come ! 'tis softer far than this is, — There the worm on lip and check, And on bosom fair and sleek. Eagerly will rain his kisses. Come ! the marriage lamp it burns. Round the bed the glowworms glister, And Death, the lusty bridegroom, yearns For the coming of our sister. To this effect was the mournful ditty they sang, as they bore away their victim to the place whence she had come in the morning. The king rose from his couch and followed the ghostly train. They came to the convent-gate, and it opened before them ; the bells set up a mournful tolling, and the chapel organ pealed forth a solemn dirge, though there was no human hand to lift the bellows or to touch the keys. As in the morning, the nuns ranged themselves in their stalls down the aisle ; in the midst was a great open space, with a black Father Gahagan's Exhortation 67 yawning grave below. The victim was led forth, and the service for the dead was sung. *»■?■»* And, when they came in the morning, a black stone was found in the midst of the chapel, and none knew how it came thither, nor how the gates had been opened to admit King Odo, who lay dead upon the stone. ARTICLE 21 (Saturday, January 18, 1834) FATHER GAHAGAN'S EXHORTATION. " Now there ye are, all of yez, gathered together to hear what I've got to say, and forward enough ye are all, big and little, in comin' round me for a mouthful of advice. But, by my conscience, it's backward enough ye are in comin' forward when the money is to be paid to support your clargy. There is not one of yez cares a pin's point where I am to get a mouthful, an' ye drinkin' the whishkey, an' makin' bastes of yourselves — Och ! my shame on yez ! Now then, listen to what I'm goin' to say to yez, an' that's this, that the divil a thing myself will have to say or do wid yez, for yer misdoins. I wash my hands out of yez altogether ; only jist mind one thing — ye'U all die, every mother's sowl of yez will die, big and little, and then ye'll come to the day of judgment, and I'll be there, an' St. Patrick, an' all the saints will be there, too ; an' St. Patrick will say to me, ' Father Gahagan,' sis he, he'll say, ' Father Gahagan, I say, what kind of a congregation is this you've brought us here, at-all at-all ? ? ' " An' then he'll say, ' Father Gahagan,' sis he, he'll say, ' was there much drinkin', an' swearin', among 'em ? ' ' Why, no, sir/ sis I, I'll say, 'not a grate dale of that neither barrin' of a Sunday or a holy day, or so, when the likes is in a manner allowable,' I'll say. ' But, Father Gahagan,' he'll say, 'Father Gahagan, did they pay you your chappie dues regularly ? ' And, och, bad luck to yez, ye graceless set of thieves, what will I be able to say for yez thin, at-all at-all ? (After a pause.) So that, ye wikid graceless writches, bad as ye are, ye had better not reduce me to this dilemmy any- how, if it was only to avoid bringin' disgrace upon poor ould Ireland, an' that, too, in the presence of Saint Patrick himself. An' now that ye've all heard what I have got to say ye know yer rimedy." 68 The National Standard ARTICLE S2 (Saturday, January 25, 1834) DRAMA.-PLAYS AND PLAY-BILLS. II eut I'emploi qui certes n'est pas mince Et qu'a la cour, ou tout se peint en beau, On appelloit etre I'ami du prince ; Mais qu'a la ville, et surtout en province, Les gens grossiers ont nomme maquereau. We could not refrain from quoting the above lines after reading the manifestos which Mr. Yates, or the literary gentleman who composes the play-bills for the Adelphi Theatre, has published this week. Every wall in London bears the following elegant inscriptions : — IMMENSE SUCCESS ! ADELPHI AMAZONS! SPLENDID WOMEN ! The other is to this effect : — • ADELPHI. LURLINE. WOMEN BATHING AND SPORTING! Mr. Yates's faithful performance of the French blackguard in Victorine established for him and his theatre a reputation on which he appears to have lived for two years past ; for, since the production of that excellent play, we do not recollect to have seen a piece at the Adelphi which would bear a second attendance. He has therefore acted with much acute discretion in producing a new species of dramatic entertainment, having justly perceived that the ancient order of plays was no longer grateful to the Original Papei-s.—The Minstrel's Curse 69 public. Suiting himself philosophically to the spirit of the age, he has treated us, in the first place, with the amorous intrigues of the interesting Faublas, and now with Lurline and the " Splendid Women Bathing and Sporting ! " What a keen invention '—what a satire on the age and the drama ! — what a delicate inducement to a gentleman to go to the theatre ! We saw Lurline^ and spoke of it with some praise in our last number : unluckily, we were not aware of the peculiar and decent excitement which the piece is supposed to awaken. We might have suggested one or two improvements for the next posting- bills ; thus, for instance, "Z«r/z>z^ :— Splendid Women— for fuller information enquire at, the box office." Or, " Women Bathing and Sporting. The private door is in Maiden Lane." However, all these points must already have been seen by the Management, and will no doubt be remedied before a week is over. As the Christmas holidays are drawing to an end, we would recommend all parents who have young girls to instruct, or little boys to amuse, to send instantly for boxes, (which are very scarce). The Rake and his Pupil will much remove the ignorant innocence of the daughters, and " The Women Bathing and Sporting " highly interest the ripening and expanding sensibilities of the sons. e. ARTICLE S3 (Saturday, February i, 1834) ORIGINAL PAPERS.-THE MINSTREL'S CURSE. A LONG time ago, there stood in a certain country in Germany a tall and stately castle. From its towers you might behold seas and kingdoms, while pleasant gardens encircled its foot, and a number of sweet crystal streams ran glittering around it. Now a king, who was famous for his power and his victories, kept state in this palace ; but woe be to him on whom fell the looks of the king ! for there was death in his looks, and terror in his thoughts ; when he spoke, it was murder, and when he wrote, it was blood ! It happened that two minstrels passed, on a certain day, on the road to the king's palace ; one was old and feeble, and the other 7° The National Standard youthful, with golden locks. The old man, with a harp slung on his back, rode a sorry old horse, but his young and blooming companion tripped merrily by his side. " Ee ready, my son," said the old harper, " with the sweetness of your music, and the deepest of your tones ; if ever you took heed as to your singing, be cautious now, for stony is the heart which we must melt to-day." So they entered the hall, where the king sat under a royal canopy, with his queen by his side. The red sun setting in a storm is not so fierce as were the looks of the king ; the moonlight sleeping upon a lake is not milder than were the sweet eyes of the lady ; she gladly welcomed the two minstrels, and there was a silence in the hall to listen to their singing. Then the old man took the harp, and he struck it with such skill and sweetness, that the fierce warriors gathered round, were melted, and hung silent on the sounds ; while the notes of the young man pealed clearly in sweet accordance with the old minstrel's deep voice. First, they sung of lo\e and spring, and of the golden time when worth and freedom, truth and holiness still dwelt upon earth ; now they raised the thoughts of their hearers to heaven, and now they melted them to tears. The courtiers, who had been jesting, jeered no , longer ; the stern warriors knelt down and prayed ; and the queen, dissolved in a sweet sorrow, took from her bosom a rose, which she threw towards the minstrels. Now in the midst of their music only the king had been calm ; but his wrath rose when he saw the queen's action. "You have charmed away my people," shouted he, — " now would you mislead my wife ? " And therewith he drew his great sword from his side, and flung it at the breast of the young minstrel. And now the bosom poured out the red blood only, in place of the glorious songs. The courtiers cowered frightened together, and the poor boy sunk dead into his master's arm. The old man in the meanwhile said no word and uttered no cry ; but he bore him out mournfully, to the castle-gate, and sat him on the steed. Then he paused for a moment, and he hung up his harp on a pillar by the gate ; and with a voice that made all hearers tremble, he said : " Woe unto you, proud halls ! never shall minstrel's music echo again in your walls ; neither harp nor singing I There shall be no sound here but the noise of sighs and wailing, until the time that my revenge shall be fulfilled, Etude sur Mirabeau, pai- Victor Hugo 71 " Woe unto you, fair gardens ! ye gleam now in the spring sun ;— I turn towards you the face of the dead, so that your flowers may be turned to ashes, and your shining streams to sand. " And woe to you, murderer and curse of minstrelhood ! In spite of your laurels and your power, your kingdom shall pass away, and your name be forgotten." Thus sp\ke the minstrel ; his cry was heard by heaven, and his words fulfilled. The walls of the palace are now levelled with dust, and the towers have crumbled to ashes ; there stands but one solitary pillar, to mark the spot, and proclaim the ruin. And all around, there are black marshes instead of pleasant gardens ; there is no tree or river near the spot to give a freshness or a shade ; for the king, no minstrel sings his deeds, no history of heroes makes mention of him, he is sunk and forgotten. Such was the curse of the minstrel. [Why did not our correspondent give us a poetical translation of Uhland's excellent ballad, in place of a prose version ? — Ed.] ARTICLE S4 (Saturday, February i, 1834) ORIGINAL PAPERS. liTUDE SUR MIRABEAU, PAR VICTOR HUGO. We have translated from a French paper the following fragment.; of an essay by Victor Hugo, on the character and life of Mii-abeau. The Editor of the journal speaks of M. Hugo's performance as one of the finest specimens of French writing ; our readers m:iy judge for themselves of the thoughts, at least, if not of the style, of the author of "Notre Dame de Paris.'' " Mirabeau the writer is something far less than Mirabeau, whether he be occupied in demonstrating to the young American Republic the absurdity of its proposed Order of Cincinnatus and the inconsistency of a chivalry of labourers ; — whether he torture the philosophic Joseph II., Voltaire's Titus, Madame de Pompa- dour's Roman and Imperial Model ;— whether he ferret out, from the false bottoms of the cabinets of Berlin, that history which caused so much indignation in France, that it was publicly burnt (a foolish blunder, by-the-way, for of these books, burnt by the 72 The National Standard hangman's hands, some fiery sparks and particles escape, and as the wind blows, either settle on the gilded roofs of the European aristocracy, or the coverings of royal palaces, or the heads of hot and angry men) ; — whether he abuse in their passage that cartful of quacks which clattered so loudly on the pavement of the eighteenth century, Necker, Beaumarchais, Lavater, Calonne, Cagliostro ; — in fact, whatever may be the work he writes, his thoughts are always sufficient foir the subject ; but his style is never sufficient for his thoughts. " His idea is constantly grand and noble, but, before it can escape from his mind, it seems to bend and diminish under his manner of expression, which seems as if it were a door too narrow for his great thoughts to pass under. Except in his eloquent letters to Madame de Monnier, where he is all himself, where he seems to speak rather than to write, and which are as much harangues of love as his discourses at the Constituent Assembly were harangues of revolution ; — except, we say, in this instance, the style which he found at his writing is, in general, mean, heavy, ill-pointed, low in epithets, poor in images, or only offering, and that very rarely, a few fanciful mosaics of metaphors, possessing no connexion with each other. One feels that the ideas of this man are not, like the ideas of the great men born prose-writers, made of that pliable material which bends itself to all the delicacies of expression — which insinuates itself, burning and liquid, into all the corners of the mould prepared for it by the writer, and then fixes — first lava, afterwards granite. One feels, in reading him, how many things one would fain know are still in the head of the writer ; one knows that one has before one only a ' nearly,' — that genius like his is not formed for expressing itself completely in a book, — that a pen is not the best possible conductor for the fluids gathered in that head of thunder ! " Bravo ! Was there ever such a collection of metaphors, such a mixture of sublimity and absurdity, affectation and nature ! Here is a column or more of most ingenious similes ; and all to prove that M irabeau's writing was not by any means so good as his speaking. When Mr. Moore reads the above, he will go raving mad. What a waste of valuable materials ! M'hy, on every one of these similes he could have made a poem, and for every one of his poems he would have received a ten-pound note ; it is a clear waste of means, a most riotous and reckless outlay of a hundred pounds at least. In Persia, when the Shah is particularly pleased with a poet, he stuffs his mouth with sugar-kandy ; here the poet seems Etude sur Mirabeau, par Victor Hugo 73 to be performing the same office by the public ; and, to tell the truth, one is almost choked with the sweet food. But our readers must delay yet a little while, and read the following graphic and fantastic description of Mirabeau the orator : — " Mirabeau the speaker is Mirabeau. Mirabeau the speaker is the water that flows, or the fire that burns, or the bird which flies ; it is a thing which makes its own proper sound, a nature which accomplishes its law, a sight ever sweet and sublime ! " Mirabeau at the tribune is himself, — himself entire, himself all-powerful ! There, there is no desk or table, no solitary cabinet, or silen^ ipeditation, but a marble which he may strike, and a stair which he may scale. A tribune is a kind of cage for a wild beast, where he may move at will, where he may pause and breathe, may raise his hand or fold his arms, may point his words with his actions, or illuminate his thoughts by the glance of his eye ! * * * * * "At the tribune, everything in Mirabeau is powerful ; his gesture, fierce and abrupt, was full of empire ; his colossal shoulders moved heavily like the back of an elephant, with its tower armed for war ; his voice, when he uttered but a word from his seat, was like the roar of a lion in a menagerie ; his hair, when he moved his hat, like its mane ; his brow, like that of Jupiter, — cuncta supercilio movens, seemed to awe everything ; his hands seemed sometimes as if they would knead the marble ; his head was endowed with a magnificent hideousness, which at moments was electric and terrible. " At first, when nothing was decided as to the fate of royalty, — when the monarchical party as yet seemed the stronger of the two, it happened that, having obtained some seeming advantage over the ill-guarded and ill-armed Republicans, — when Royalists were pushing the assault, and crying victory, the monstrous head of Mirabeau appeared at the breach, and petrified the assailants. The genius of the Revolution had forged an segis with the amalgamated doctrines of Voltaire, Helvetius, Bayle, Diderot, Locke, and Montesquieu, and had placed the Gorgon head of Mirabeau in the middle of the shield !" Here our readers have him, — a lion, an elephant, a god, and a gorgon ! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen ; walk up, and see this wonderful animal ! Surely such a beast was never before stirred by the poetic pole of so intellectual a showman ! Will our readers follow us through Victor Hugo's opinions on France, its present 74 The National Standard state, and its future prospects ? They will laugh, rather, at his political belief, which is altogether French, absurd, and unnatural, but which has a dash of sublimity about it that makes it fully worth the reading. The first proposition is delightful. " Mirabeaux are no longer necessary, therefore they are no longer possible. God does not create such persons when they are useless ; he does not throw corn like this to the wind." Of course, we are to take M. Hugo's word for it that Mirabeaux are no longer necessary ; besides, the argument is backed by a simile, and nothing therefore can be more satisfactory. " In fact," continues the bard, " what would be the use of a Mirabeau at present ? A Mirabeau is a thunderbolt : who is there to destroy? Where, in the political world, are those eminences which may call and attract the thimder? We are not now as in 1789, when in the social system there were so manifest dis- proportions. " At present the soil is levelled ; everything is flat, settled, united." The whole thing is as clear as the Pons Asinorum : Mirabeau is a thunderbolt ; there is no need of thunder at present, therefore there is no need of Mirabeau ; that is, he is not neces- sary, therefore he is impossible. Any one who will swallow the premises can have no possible difficulty in bolting the conclusion. " We do not mean to say that, because we are no longer in need of Mirabeau, we are not in want of great men. For, on the contrary, much still remains to do ; everything is pulled down — nothing is built again. " There are at present two classes : the men of the revolution, and the men of the progress. The men of the revolution are employed to dig up the old political ground, to form the furrows, and cast the seed ; but the men of the progress must watch the seasons in their slow advance, must guard the crop, and gather it ; the duty and the hope for these men must now begin. " We shall find them. France has, in the civilisation of the globe, an initiative too important ever to fear a want of special men for special purposes ; she is the majestic mother of all ideas amongst all people. One may say that for two centuries France has nourished the world with the milk of her breast ; she is noble in blood, and fruitful of womb ; her genius is inexhaustible ; her bosom supplies her with all the intelligence of which she hath need ; she has men who are always of a measure with events ; in her occasion, she neither wanted Mirabeau to commence revolutions, or Napoleon to end them!" Etude suf Mirabcau, par Victor Hugo 75 This is a grand piece of oratory, which will apply, hoM'ever, equally well to Germany, Wapping, or any other country. " Providence will certainly not refuse to us the great social man, nor the mere political character, whom at present we need. " In waiting his arrival, however, the men who make the history of the present time are petty indeed. It is true that it is a pity that the great bodies of statesmen at present possess neither general sympathies nor enlarged ideas,— that the time which should be devoted to constructing the great constitutional edifice is merely given to trifling,— that men will not remark that general intelligence can be the only cause of general equality,— that the beautiful beginnings of 1789 have only brought with them certain corollaries, such as are the fish's tail to the fair head of the syren, and that the French Revolution has had but bungling doctors to assist it in its labours. But nothing that has as yet been done is irreparable ; no essential principle has been smothered in its birth ; all the ideas that were born in 1788 were strong and healthy, and are each day attaining more strength and growth. "The present period is open to all kinds of criticism, but it demands at least a benevolent judge. ***** " We do not doubt that the epoch in which we live is stormy and troublesome. Our statesmen for the most part know not what they do ; they labour blindly at night, and in the morning, when they wake, they will be surprised at the fruits of their labour, — perhaps pleased, perhaps frightened, — who knows ? " On no subject have we a definite law ; the press, so powerful, and so useful formerly, is nothing now but a series of negations. We have no ascertained formula for civilisation, no calculated progression for improvement ; and yet we have firm confidence and firm hope ! "Who does not feel that, in this tumult and tempest,— in this combat of systems and ambitions, which raises so much cloud and dust around us,— behind this curtain which still hides from sight the great, social, uncompleted statue, — under this cloud of passions and theories and chimeras, — in the midst of this Babel of human tongues, which speak all languages by all mouths, — beneath this whirlwind of things, of men, and ideas, which men call the nineteenth century, some mighty work is in progress ? " But God is calm, and finisheth his work ! " 7<5 The National Standard We do not know whether we have succeeded in laying before our readers the vein of misty sublimity, and true poetry, which runs through M. Hugo's bombastic claptrap ; if not, the fault must be in our crude and careless translation ; and we must refer those who are curious about Mirabeau, or incredulous concerning Victor Hugo, to the Journal des DSbats of last week, from which we have extracted the fragments given above. The Times I BELIEVE it was owing to the influence of one of his wife's relatives that Thackeray was employed on the great daily newspaper. So far as it is known, his first contribution {which has been reprinted in the Biographical Edition of the Collected Works) was a review of Carlyle's French Revolution. "I understand there have been many reviews of a mixed character," the historian wrote to his brother; "I got one in The Times last week. The writer is one Thackeray, a half- monstrous Cornish giant, kind of painter, Cambridge man, and Paris correspondent, who is now writing for his life in London. . . His article is rather like him, and, I suppose, calculated to do the book good." Thackeray also reviewed for this paper The Duchess of Marlborough's Correspondence ; Eros and Anteros, by Lady Charlotte Bury ; A Diary relative to George the Fourth and Queen Caroline (a book that was the subject of an article in The Edinburgh Review, April, 1838, by Brougham); The Poetical Works of Dr. Southey; and Htnry Fielding's Works. The Memoirs of Holt, the Irish Rebel was also noticed by him ; but as the article is made up almost entirely of extracts from the book, I have not thought it sufficiently interesting to be reprinted. Thackeray's other contributions were the May Day Ode, now reprinted in the Ballads \ An Essay in Small Beer, the famous reply to the review in I'he Times of The Kickleburys on the Rhine ; Mr. Washington. A Letter to the Editor, in answer to some strictures of the New York correspondent of The Times respecting a passage In the first number of The Newcomes, which had given offence in the United States; and, a few months before his death, a notice of an exhibition of Cruikshank's works. The Times ARTICLE 1 (January 6, 1838) DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH'S PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. The dignity of history sadly diminishes as we grow better acquainted with the materials which compose it. In our orthodox history-books the characters move on as a gaudy play-house procession, a glittering pageant of kings and warriors, and stately ladies, majestically appearing and passing away. Only he who sits very near to the stage can discover of what stuff the spectacle is made. The kings are poor creatures, taken from the dregs of the company ; the noble knights are dirty dwarfs in tin foil ; the fair ladies are painted hags with cracked feathers and soiled trains. One wonders how gas and distance could ever have rendered them so bewitching. The perusal of letters like these produces a very similar disenchantment ; and the great historical figures dwindle down into the common proportions as we come to view them so closely. Kings, Ministers and Generals form the principal dramatis personae ; and if we may pursue the stage comparison a little further, eye never lighted upon a troop more contemptible. Mighty political changes had been worked in the country, others threatened it equally great. Great questions were agitated — whether the Protestant religion should be the dominant creed of the State, and the Elector of Hanover a King, or whether Papacy should be restored, and James III. placed on the throne — whether the Continental despotism aimed at by Louis should be established, or the war continued, to maintain the balance of power in Europe, or at least, to assure the ascendancy of 79 8o The Times England, — on these points our letter-writers hardly deign to say a word. The political question seems only to be used as an engine for the abuse of the opposite party. The main point is whether Harley shall be in, or Godolphin ; how Mrs. Masham, the cha,mbermaid, can be checked or won over ; how the Duchess of Malborough can regain her lost influence over the Queen, or whether the Duke is strong enough to> do without it, can force his Captain-Generalcy for life, and compel the Queen to insure to his daughters the pensions and places of their mother. The volumes are compiled from the materials which Arch- deacon Coxe had heaped together before he wrote his voluminous panegyric upon the Duke of Marlborough ; and though some of the letters have already been printed in Coxe's work, they are far more interesting and lively in their present natural state than when dressed and garbled with the long explanations of that respectable historian. The first volume contains a number of letters from the Duke of Marlborough to his Duchess during the last five years of his command and victories in Flanders — namely, from 1706 to 1710. A long and interesting series of Maynwaring's letters to the latter, and some few from Hare, Halifax, Walpole, Sunderland, and Godolphin. We have, moreover, at the commencement of the collection, one or two letters from Queen Anne, who had not altogether broken the ties which bound her to her old friend, and still addressed her with the silly and sentimental nickname which she had adopted in their early correspondence. The Duchess, who piqued herself (and with much justice) upon her freedom of speech, addressed the Queen as her affectionate Freeman, and that tender and maudlin sovereign was wont to sign herself in reply " her sweet Mrs. Freeman's poor faithful Morley.'' Her sweet Mrs. Freeman's advice and remonstrance, her wayward humours, her restless jealousy, her captious, quarrelsome, " honest " affection, were borne by poor dear Morley for long years with exemplary forbearance. The Queen was too lazy to seek for another favourite, the Duchess too fiery and jealous to permit another to share her affection. Anne's letters to her before she ascended the throne, and for a short time afterwards, are like those of a sentimental schoolgirl to her teacher — Freeman in all things correcting and advising, Morley following with all possible respect and duty. And, sternly honest as she avowed herself to be, it must be confessed that our brave Duchess had managed to secure a N. M. ROTHSCHILD, ESQ. iScc page 20. Duchess of Marlborough's Private Correspondence 8i moderate portion of the world's goods for herself and her kin. She herself and her children afterwards received marriage portions from the Princess ; her poor dear Morley offered her de ses propres dealers ^5,000 a year, which after incredible struggles faithful Freeman was induced actually to accept ; and, to crown all, when the latter, by the death of King William, came into her full estate, Mrs. Freeman had the very best and largest and richest employ- ments under her ; the worthy Mr. Freeman likewise coming in for such a share of the honours and splendour as fell to the lot of no other subject of the Queen. It may be as well to see what was his previous conduct, in the reign of her father and her predecessor. Disgusted with the conduct of King William, Marlborough and his great ally, Godolphin, determined to desert that monarch, as they had done King James before. Godolphin, in an agony of repentance, offered to give up his post, and move heaven and earth for a restoration of James. Marlborough, who, as is shown by the enthusiastic Archdeacon Coxe, had forgotten friendship, gratitude, and loyalty for the sake of religion ' (tantum religio potuit suadere), all of a sudden forgot his attachment to the Thirty- nine Articles, and swore he would sacrifice everything, up to his wife and children, for King James. He promised to bring over his Flanders army, and induced the king's daughter and son-in-law, who had, like himself, deserted their father and benefactor, to write repentant epistles, and earnestly to pray for his return. What was the cause of the penitent Earl's conversion ? The Princess Anne, who was then tied to the apron strings of her dear Mrs. Freeman, had been refused her pension ; the Whigs were favourites with the King, and Anne and her party detestable to him ; and more. King Louis was uttering awful threats from Versailles, and preparing mighty armaments to replace the exiled monarch. The future conqueror of Blenheim was doing that which the victor of Waterloo did not — he was securing a retreat for him- self. If William was worsted, he had his private correspondence with James, and his solemn oaths to desert,' or in any other way to sacrifice wife and family, should his imposed sovereign so command — if James were vanquished, he had but to deny his correspondence, to curse the Papist traitor who had forged his ' He writes to the Prince of Orange: "I thought it my duty to your Highness and the Princess Royal by this opportunity of Mr. Dykvell, to give you assurances, under my own hand, that my places and the King's favour, I set at nought in comparison of being true to my religion."— Coxe i. 34. ' Macpherson. 6 82 The Times immaculate name, and to swear again by the blessed Thirty-nine Articles, as on a former occasion. Storming redoubts with Monmouth' or Eugene,^ crushing Villeroi at Ramilies, or Villars at Malplaquet, Marlborough was a MAN,' cool, modest, daring, intrepid — there is no English general (save one), who can compare with him. Cringing for place, or retailing pitiful court scandal, in favour or out, flattering James or William, or deserting either, his great rival of latter days, Mrs. Masham (whom Maynwaring, in one of his clever mean letters, calls the " stinking chambermaid "), was his superior in intellect and his equal in honesty. The power of satire hardly ever displayed itself in so mean and disgusting a form as in Swift's char.icter of the Duke and his lady. The father of lies himself could not have invented sneers more diabolical. " I shall say nothing,'' says the veracious Dean, "of his military accomplishments, which the opposite reports of his friends and enemies have rendered problematical ; but if he be among those who delight in war, it is agreed to be not for the reasons common with other generals. Those maligners who deny him personal valour seem not to consider that this accusation is charged at a venture, since the person of a wise general is too seldom exposed to form any judgment in the matter ; and that fear which is said to have sometimes disconcerted him before an action, might probably be more for his army than himself. He was bred in the height of what is called the Tory principle, and continued with a strong bias that way until the other party had bid for him more than his friends were disposed to give. " We are not to take the height of his ambition from his soliciting to be made general for life. I am persuaded his chief motive was the pay and perquisites by continuing the war ; and that he had then no intention of settling the crown in his family, his only son having been dead some years before. That liberality which nature has denied him with respect to money, he makes up by a great profusion of promises ; but this perfection, so necessary in courts, is not very successful in camps, among soldiers, who are not refined enough to understand or to relish it. " His wife, the Duchess, may justly challenge her place in this list. It is to her that the Duke is chiefly indebted for his ' Campaign with Turenne, 1672. 2 Blenheim, 1704. s The reader remembers the Duke's exclamation, on seeing, in his old age, his portrait as a youths" That was once a man ! " Duchess of Marlborough's Private Correspondence 83 greatness and his fall. For above twenty years she possessed without a rival the favours of the most indulgent mistress in the world, nor ever missed one single opportunity that fell in her way of improving it to her own advantage. She has preserved a tolerable coiu-t reputation with respect to love and gallantry ; but three furies raged in her breast, the most mortal enemies of all softer passions, which were, sordid avarice, dis- dainful pride, and ungovernable rage ; by the last of these, often breaking out in sallies of the most unpardonable kind, she had long alienated her sovereign's mind before it appeared to the world. This lady is not without some degree of wit, and has in her time affected the character of it by the usual method of arguing against religion, and proving the doctrines of Christianity to be impossible and absurd. Imagine what such a spirit, irritated by the loss of power, favour, and employment, is capable of acting or attempting, and I have then said enough." We have given Swi.'t's sentiments as more curious than authentic ; for they show how bitterly party spirit was carried in this political war, and how the partisans of Harley were disposed to judge of the services and intrigues of Marlborough and his friends. The Duke and his party of course judge their enemies with no less severity. The Dean's strictures, however, are scandalously mean, and what adds to their baseness is the fact, manifested in many places of Swift's diaries, that he entertained the highest admiration of Marlborough. Swift does not, indeed, in this passage, swear that Marlborough, the hero of fifty battles, was incompetent or a coward, but with marvellous ingenuity, he hints both. He shows him to be a trimmer in politics (and on this point the Dean ought certainly to have some knowledge from his own private experience), he pretends that he was conspiring for no less than the Crown, and declares that his sole wish to keep the command over the army was occasioned by his love for the salary received and the vast plunder to be won. With regard to the first charge, it is sheer folly and knavery to urge it. Le bd Anglais^ who had received the thanks of Louis XIV., and had fought under Turenne, was not likely to forget the gallantry which he had shown in his early years. That he was not prodigal of his person in the numerous sanguinary battles which were fought under his command, we can readily believe. He was not the man, like cock-brained Peterborough, to covet danger for danger's sake, and esteeming courage at precisely its right value, never exposed himself except when necessity called upon him to do so. The same stupid accusation of shyness was §4 The Times laid against Napoleon, and in the early part of his career against the Duke of Wellington, and with the same feeling of malignant party spirit. Another accusation against the Duke — " that he loved the war for the profits it brought him" — bears perhaps a better foundation, nor is Swift the only person who made it. The Tory party in their address to the Queen in 1711 say, "That they have much reason to expect that what was intended to shorten the war has proved the very cause of its long continuance, for those to whom the profits of it have accrued have been disposed not easily to forego them. And your Majesty will hence discern why so many have delighted in a war which brought in so rich a harvest yearly from Great Britain!'' In spite of all the bright achievements recorded in the reign of Anne, there is not, we think, a meaner page in our past history ; the party who make this accusation against Marlborough, are not a whit more honest than he. We have a hero leading his soldiers to a thousand extraordinary victories, and squeezing a percentage out of their miserable pay, and a profit from their scanty black bread. Walpole is detected taking bribes at the War Office, and Cardonnell is dismissed for similar knavery. Oxford is intriguing with Mrs. Masham, and Bolingbroke against Oxford, and the Queen with the Pretender. The Whigs delay the peace, and the Tories ruin it. But to remain in place, no crime is too great, and no meanness too small. And wh&ther sneaking into preferment under the petticoats of Mrs. Masham, or degrading the country and betraying it (by that disgraceful peace, which lost to us all the benefits of the struggle commenced by the brave and prudent King William), Oxford seems to have but one single aim in view — himself namely. He will throw over the Queen, the Pretender, the Elector, he will cringe to Marlborough or betray anything, so that he may keep the white staff and be my Lord Treasurer still. We might follow up the tale with the treason and humiliation of Bolingbroke, at once the accomplished profligate and the plausible and unprincipled statesman ; but we are outstepping the limits of this history, which do not extend quite so far as the period of the Duke of Marlborough's disgrace, the catastrophe of Denain, the shameless peace of Utrecht, the death of Anne, and the battle of parties over her corpse. The Duke's letters are written in the midst of his campaigns, and serve to show 5orne of the most favourable points of his character. Duchess of Marlborough's Private Correspondence 85 We may gather from some of his replies, that the Duchess, true to herself, was in the habit of addressing him in that querulous and violent strain which she used to her dear Mrs. Morley and all the world beside. The Duke answers with most admirable meekness : in the very midst of the heat of battle he is thinking of her and home, and sighing for quiet. We should fancy from the honest Duchess's character, that Woodstock or St. Albans was not exactly the place to find repose ; but her husband's good-humour is imper- turbable : he loves her as much after five-and-thirty years as when pretty Sarah Jennings was courted by the gay young Colonel Churchill. The following is his letter from Ramilies, — one might fancy Sir Charles Grandison, in his best wig, writing it to Miss Byron ; — "The Duke of Marlborough to the Duchess of Marlborough. "Ramilies : Monday, May 24, 11 o'clock, 1706. " I did not tell my dearest soul the design I had of engaging the enemy if possible to a battle, fearing the concern she has for me might make her uneasy. But I can now give her the satisfaction of letting her know that on Sunday last we fought, and that God Almighty has been pleased to give us a victory. I must leave the particulars to this bearer. Colonel Richards, for having been on horseback all Sunday, and after the battle marching all night, my head aches to that degree that it is very uneasy to me to write. Poor Bingfield, holding my stirrup for me, and helping me on horseback, was killed ; I am told that he leaves his wife and mother in a poor condition. I can't write to any of my children, so you will let them know I am well, and that I desire they will thank God for preserving me ; and pray give my duty to the Queen, and let her know the truth of my heart, that the greatest pleasure I have in this success is, that it may be a great service to her affairs, for I am sincerely sensible of all her goodness to me and mine. Pray believe me when I assure you that I love you more than I can express." There is something very touching in the kind-hearted simplicity of the great conqueror, who thinks of " poor Bingfield's wife and mother," and his own wife and children, in the midst of all the hurry and triumph of a great victory. The following extract shows him in an equally amiable light ; it is evident that the brave old Duchess has been in one of her tantrums : " I have received yours of the 6th this morning. Could you be S6 The Times thoroughly sensible of the uneasiness I have had for the last six weeks, and still lie under, you would not have used so hard an expression to Mr. Freeman, by saying he was as cautious in his \\riting as if he writ to a spy. I do assure you that he would with pleasure always let you know his heart and soul ; and, besides that he has not time for the present business, he has said so much on several occasions on the obstinate perverseness of the Queen, that I wish Mrs. Freeman could see that the Queen is not capable of being changed by reason ; so that you shall be quiet till the time comes when she must change. As to what you say of the offer of King Charles to me, my thought is the same with yours. I had rather live a quiet life with your love and kindness, than with the most ambitious employment any Prince can give." A quiet life — Heaven help him ! — in the midst of some of the storms of Marlborough House, he must have sighed for the repose of Ramilies, and the quiet cannonading of Malplaquet. His letter upon that victory is very curious and interesting : "The Duke of Marlborough to the Duchess of Marlborough. " I am obliged to you for the account you give me of the building of Blenheim in yours of the 2ist, and the further account you intend me after the Duke and Duchess of Shrewsbury have seen what is done. You will see by my former letters, as well as by this, that I can take pleasure in nothing as long as you continue uneasy and think me unkind. I do assure you, upon my honour and salvation, that the only reason why I did not write was, that I am very sure it would Tiave had no other effect than that of being shown to Mrs. Masham, by which she would have had an opportunity of turning it as she pleased, so that when I shall speak to the Queen of their harsh behaviour to you, they would have been prepared. I beg you to be assured that if ever I see the Queen, I shall speak to them just as you would have me, and that all the actions of my life shall make the Queen, as well as all the world, sensible that you are dearer to me than life, for I am fonder of happiness than I am of my own life, which I cannot enjoy unless you are kind, Having written thus far, I received intelligence that the French were on their march to attack us. We immediately got ourselves ready, and marched to a post some distance from our camp. We came in presence yesterday at between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, but as there were several . . . between us, we only cannonaded each other. They have last night intrenched their Duchess of Marlborough's Private Correspondence 87 camp, by which they show plainly that they have changed their mind, and will not attack us, so t'.iat we must take our measures in seeing which way we can be most troublesome to them. "This afternoon the brigade which made the siege of Tournay will join us, and then we shall have all the troops we can expect ; for those we have left for the blocking up of Mons, must continue where they are. I do not yet know whether I shall have an oppor- tunity of sending this letter to-night ; if not, I shall add to it what may pass to morrow. In the meantime, I can't hinder saying to you, that, though the fate of Europe, if these armies engage, may depend upon the good or bad success, yet your uneasiness gives me much greater trouble. " I am so tired that I have but strength enough to tell you that we have had this day a very bloody battle ; the first part of the day we beat their foot ; and afterwards their horse. God Almighty be praised, it is now in our power to have what peace we please, and I may be pretty well assured of being in another battle ; but nothing in this world can make me happy if you are not kind." The latter part of this letter shows the noblest qualities of the Duke. Nothing can be more modest, more tender, more manly. We see a hero before us in this man on the field of battle ; his brilliancy fides elsewhere and sinks into the very commonest light of common day. The reader need not be told that this was Marlborough's last great victory. Two years afterwards he was dismissed from his command, and between his own faults and those of his successors, the fruits of his long victories were cast away. Louis' commissioners, humbled and powerless, were willing to accept almost any terms of peace ; but those proposed by the Duke were so outrageous (demanding that Louis should send an army to dethrone his own grandson in Spain), that the French ambassador refused at once to treat. The Duke's recall speedily followed, and the heart and spirit of the mighty British army went with him. Louis rallied ; with inconceivable folly, the Tories separated the British troops from their allies, and made a separate peace. It was a noble conclusion to this great war ! The only advantage which Great Britain gained by all its glories, sacrifices, and triumphs, was a privilege to supply the Spanish Colonies with negroes ! We propose on another day to look at the letters in these volumes which more concern the Duchess, her quarrels, her friends, her intrigues. 88 The Times ARTICLE 2 (January ii, 1838) EROS AND ANTEROS-OR "LOVE"; BY LADY CHARLOTTE BURY ;— and A DIARY RELATIVE TO GEORGE IV. AND QUEEN CAROLINE. Cupid ought to have reviewed the first of these books — ''^ Love," but his Lordship was engaged with some of his o//5?r foreign affairs, and therefore it has been done by various hands. We propose merely to describe it. The plot of her Ladyship's novel, or rather, the text on which she writes her sermon on love, runs thus : — A most beautiful and innocent person. Lady Herbert by name, marries, at the commencement of the first volume. Lord Herbert, one of the handsomest men in the three kingdoms, to whom she brings an immense fortune and a heart redundant with the tenderest feelings. After they have been married about three weeks (and are residing at Moreton Park, the country seat of the happy couple). Lord Herbert finds that the attractions of the honeymoon are not sufficient for him ; seeks acquaintance among his neighbours — with one Sir Something Gregory especially ; courses, hunts, shoots, gets tipsy with Sir Gregory, and insults his wife in the grossest way. He comes to Herbert House, in London ; a daughter is born to him ; she grows up in the course of a few chapters to fourteen or fifteen years of age ; Lord Herbert becomes acquainted with a Sir Charles Lennard ; gambles, deserts his home, and goes, to use a common phrase, "to the deuce." He then forms an intimacy with a Signora Lanti, an Italian singer ; he steals or forces from his wife her family jewels, and makes them a present to the Lanti. Nay, more, this fashionable and exclusive husband, after cheating Lady Herbert out of her trinkets, insists upon bringing the Lanti to Herbert House, intro- duces her to his wife and daughter, and she (Lanti) appears in Lady Herbert's jewels ! Hereabouts a charming episode is introduced in the work. Lady Herbert, walking to a race ball, is insulted by the mob ; my Lord rescues her, swears at her because her dress is trap decolletie, and makes her appear at the window and courtesy to the populace which had used her so ill. Tired and indignant, my Lady retires to rest ; my Lord, who has been drinking at the race- Eros and Antei-os — of "Love** 89 dinner, speedily joins her, kicks }ier out of bed on to the floor, and then proceeds to belabour her as she lies on the ground. She flies to a female friend on the second story, and lies on her floor all night, in an agony of tears, bruises, and mortification. His Lordship, waking in the morning, repents of the "eccen- tricities " of the previous night, and begs Lady Herbert's pardon ; that loving creature forgives him all, and they are as good friends as ever. A little time afterwards. Sir Charles Lennard, attracted by her beauty, makes to her the most passionate and immoral declarations. She informs her excellent husband. He swears it is folly to quarrel about such trifles, and bids her receive the honourable baronet as before. His tender wife says nothing, but does as she is bid. Lady Herbert has adopted into her family an orphan girl, one Miss Clermont ; and the grateful young lady, seeing Lord Herbert's weaknesses, adopts all sorts of methods to entice him. Knowing that he is attached to gambling, she learns in secret the art of billiards, she gains large sums of money for the noble lord, and thereby wins his heart. She runs away to Brighton ; he follows her ; they then decamp to Dieppe. Lady Herbert writes to her husband (after she has been made aware of the fact), and says, that for her daughter's sake she will pardon all, if her dear Francis will but come back. At Dieppe, where the guilty couple are staying at the "hostelrie" of the Aigle Noir, Lieutenant Clermont, R.N., (Miss's brother) finds them out by accident, calls out my Lord, shoots him, and leaves him dangerously ill. Miss Clermont goes mad. His Lordship dies in great agonies, and his wife forgives him as usual. This is but the end of the second volume ; shall we confess that we have not read the third ? If this is exclusive love, it should be a lesson to all men never to marry a woman beyond the rank of a milkmaid, and vice versa. But may we venture humbly to ask are exclusives, fashionables, lords, or whatever they are called, so continually drunk ? Do they allow men to make declarations to their wives, and encourage them afterwards ? Do they kick their ladies out of bed ? Do they, after having so ejected them, proceed to flog them as they lie on the floor? The next volume of the novel turns (as we are told, for we have not read a line of it) upon the love which Lady Herbert and Miss Herbert have for somebody else. The mother and daughter are rivals — a sweet subject, involving much complicated interest, and eliciting, doubtless, a great deal of moral disquisition. 9° The Times We quote a very few briet extracts from Love, as specimens of the style of that work. Miss Clermont loquitur. She debates about the propriety of accepting Captain Danesford, and giving up her wicked intentions with regard to my Lord H. " Very likely, Captain Danesford, I may repent of having refused your offer ; you will live to see Anna Clermont humbled in the dust. But, still, I could not— would not— marry Captain Danesford, that rough, tigly man. Oh, no. And in the meantime, I am free to weave a web of doubtful issue — a mixture of hues of dazzling brightness and of darkest gloom.'' Miss Clermont plays at billiards. After leading her antagonist a deuce of a game, she says, — " Come, 1 will not pocket the red ball this time, but I will lay you so close to the cushion that you shall make nothing of the advantage." There is a general dismay — her adversary can do nothing with the red ball, and Miss Clermont wins the game. All the company admire, except one — Lord de Montmorenci. Lord Herbert, already nourishing his profligate designs, says fiercely to Lord M : — * " Those who do not feel happy when I have obtained success are not my friends, and to cast a puritanical reproach upon the person — a woman too — who has done me such a signal service as Miss Clermont has done, is not interested in my welfai e. It is thus that men, even in the very highest society, when agitated by their passions, forget their grammar. Another similar : — " Looks ! Miss Clermont," and he added with a peculiar emphasis as he spoke : " many look good, you know, who are bad ; the fairest fruit is often most rotten at the core." " A woman's looks is often not the mirror of her soul." No more they is, and no mistake. The next sentence is quite as remarkable. The tempter Lennard tries to inveigle Lord Herbert from his wife. "Za petite Annette (Miss Clermont) would establish herself near you, and all would go on in good taste." " Why, to say truth, Lennard, I am half inclined, only — Mabel ! " " Oh ! hang that old lady's name ; she is certainly a witch, you are so afraid of her." How that word o/rf disenchants a man ; but, witch — he could not swallow his wife being called a witch. Eros and Antefos— or "Love" 91 The passage is elegant, though borrowed. "Why," says an ancient, though polite writer, "why witch? Mr. Wilds, why witch ?" We have but one n-iore little extract, and we have done. After flying to Dieppe, to " the hostelrie " of the Aigle Noir (as we have already had the honour to remark), the miserable pair of runaways are left to their own society, and the stings of their own conscience. " A note was brought in to Lord Herbert ; he knew from whom it was, and its contents, before he opened it. Frederick Clermont appointed a meeting that night, at a lonely part of the shore to the left of the town, and desired him to bring a friend with him. " Miss Clermont insisted on seeing the paper. " Lord Herbert tore it. " Suddenly the former assumed a composure, which, however, did not deceive his companion ; but glad of any change for the time which gave him liberty to collect his thoughts, he appeared likewise to be deceived, and those iuuo miserable beijigs sat down opposite to each other, and looked as if they were formed to be mutual scourges / " We shall not comment upon this " apposite " simile. Heaven forbid that any reader of this paper should be tete-d-tete, or (more correctly speaking) dos-a-dos, under any such circumstances ; to be so situated with a mutual scourge would be punishment terrific indeed. If, indeed, a man having been drunk in the honeymoon, has kicked his wife out of bed — if he has encouraged ber to receive the attentions of a friend, such an infliction might, perhaps, be necessary and deserved. But, thank Heaven, the world (unless in the most exclusive circles) does not do this. Drunken Irish hodmen may occasionally indulge in such frolics, but not lords and gentlemen, as we humbly suppose. Ladie* may be neglected in genteel society, but they are not often thrashed. Husbands may be unfaithful, but they do not introduce mistresses to their wives and daughters ; and ladies must be loving, silly fools indeed, if they allow such indignities to be practised on them, and yet love on. 'Tis against this particular doctrine of Lady Charlotte Bury's that we cry out. We are not anxious to show that the details of her ladyship's novels are dull, and the morals faulty ; the reader can draw his conclusion for himself We only beg humbly to offer the opinion, that a lady, when she is kicked by her husband, is not in duty bound to li\e with him ; and that when she is betrayed and insulted by him, she is worse than a fool to respect or to love him. In fact, the passion in such a case is not love, 92 The Times but a base, degrading, prurient imbecility. It is impossible, how- ever, to say how all this may be in exclusive society, but we may whisper that any member of such society who betrays its mode of life (if such be its mode of life) is a very silly and ridiculous person. We have another book of Lady Charlotte Bury's before us ; for though there is an attempt to mystify the reader as to the sex, and no mention of the name of the author, anybody who has read the book (or, like ourselves, has had the advantage to peruse also the delectable novel of which we have just been writing) must at once see that the romance called Love, and the publication entitled a Diary of the Reign of George IV., are the work of the same pen.' With regard to Love, when we wrote the above paragraph concerning it, out of respect for the sex, and perhaps for the rank of the authoress, we were unwilling to deal hardly with her work. It would have been easy to do more than simply laugh at the novel of Love, and show that that silly book was a wicked one likewise, which we were grieved and angry to see published under her ladyship's name ; but Love was too dull to be dangerous, and too entirely vapid and insignificant to be efficiently immoral. In speaking of the present work, it is neither our wish nor our duty to be so guarded. We never met with a book more pernicious or more mean. It possesses that interest which the scandalous chronicles of Brantome, and Rabutin and the ingenious Mrs. Harriette Wilson have excited before, and is precisely of a similar class. It does worse than chronicle the small beer of a court — ■ the materials of this book are infinitely more base : the foul tittle- tattle of the sweepings of the Princess of Wales's bed-chamber or dressing-room, her table or ante-room, the reminiscences of industrious eaves-dropping, the careful records of her unguarded moments, and the publication of her confidential correspondence, are the chief foundations for this choice work. Add to this scandal of the Prince of Wales, sneering small-talk about the Princess Charlotte, a few old women's tales of families moving in what is called high life, and paw-paw stories of their domestic infidelities and peccadilloes, and we have an accurate catalogue of the diary. There was no need surely of any fresh records of this poor Princess's eccentricities or errors ; her grotesque fits of anger ' An authorised announcement in the John Bull newspaper disclosed that Lady Charlotte Bury was not the writer of the Diary. Thackeray also reviewed this book in Fraset's Magazine under the heading of " Skimmings from The Diary of George I V." This article is rewritten among the Yellow-pluih Papers, Efos and Anteros— or "Love' 93 or love, her vulgar frolics with her confidential toadies, her tipsy indecencies in concerts and ball-rooms, have been amply described already through the agency of a person whose hatred was as insatiable as his vanity, who first insulted her, and then debased and exposed her. The Princess's character and conduct are, unfortunately, matters of history. There is no spot, however remote, which gave her refuge, scarcely an action of her life, however secret, that has not been spied out and recorded, and may be known to all. Thanks to the supernatural malignity that pursued her, we may follow this poor woman in every hour of her life — stare, if we please, into her bedroom or her carriage, her cabin or her bath. Those may who will, but we will not insult the reader by supposing that he would, or that he has any mind to enter upon a subject at once so painful or so mean. Was there, we ask, any need of fresh information as to the Princess's life and follies ? Was it modest or decorous that a woman should record them ?— a woman, too, who has eaten at her table, and dipped into her purse, shared in her wild revels, and doubtless flattered her, and cringed to her in her time ? As for the authorship of the book, both the work and the subject are so utterly contemptible that it is hardly necessary to go through the trouble of detection. We mentioned the other day, how in the novel as well as the diary, the exquisite grammarian who wrote both or either, had chosen to call a daughter the prototype of her mother. We have further proofs, now, if Lady Charlotte Bury did not write this book, it was her shadow. When Lady Charlotte was in attendance on the Princess, the shadow was at her Royal Highness's side ; when the authoress was not in service, Lady Charlotte was likewise released. We have letters from Nice, where Lady Charlotte is, letters from Genoa, from Rome, where her ladyship and the author likewise appear side by side. She is introduced to the Pope, and of course Lady Charlotte too ;' the whole attempt at disguise is as feeble and awkward as can be. To be sure, it is scarcely worth while to pull off the mask, or show the countenance it covers. We are puzzled where to extract from this diary, and shall content ourselves with a very few quotations from the second volume. They show, in a charming light, the author's feelings and morals. In a note she tells the old story of the Princess Pauline : — * Since this was written, Mr. Colburn's letter has settled the question that the Diary is the work of a woman. 94 The Times "This lady, so famous, and it might be said, so infamous, has made sufficient noise in tlie world to render all description of her person and character almost superfluous ; yet at mention of her name, it is impossible not to pause and look back upon her brief and black career. She was of middle stature ; and, it is said, so faultlessly formed, that she sat to Canova as a Venus. It is related that when some one asked her if she did not feel it unpleasant to have sat unclothed for her statue, she replied, ' Oh, no ! the room was perfectly well warmed, and I felt no inconvenience whatever.' Yet this fair Lais not only turned the heads of the Englishmen who travelled in Italy, but, strange to say, was equally courted by the women. And those of the highest rank and purest character did not disdain to sit at her feet and caress them with their hands ; it has been even said, embrace them ! Princess Borghese was doubtless very beautiful, but her manners were those of a petite maitresse, giving herself the airs of a crowned head. Many were the really great ladies who waited in her drawing- rooms, and did not blush to be subservient to her caprices. What will not circumstances effect ? ' Ce grand mot de circonstance,' which Madame de Stael said, rules the world." The reader will see, in the above delicate story, an example of the chief merits of the Diary — a delightful mixture of morality, namely, with indelicacy, a pretty veil of fine words to wrap up the nudities of the tale. Pauline sat iiiidothed for her statue — it would be indecent to say naked — ladies caressed her feet and embraced them, not kissed them of course ; it would be immoral to say kiss. Here is a passage regarding another princess — the young and beautiful Princess Charlotte, of whom our authoress discourses as follows : — " Princess Charlotte has a very great variety of expression in her countenance — a play of features and a force of muscle rarely seen with soft and shadeless colouring. Her hands and arms are beautiful, but I think her figure is already gone, and will soon be precisely like her mother's. In short, it is the very picture of her, and not in miniature. I could not help analyzing my own sensations during the time I was with her, and thought more of them even than I did of her. Why was I at all flattered, at all more amused, a all more supple to this young princess, than to her who is only the same sort of person set in the shade of circumstances and of years ? It is that youth and the approach of power, and the latent views of self-interest, sway the heart and dazzle the understanding. If this is so with a heart not, I trust, corrupt, and a head not Efos and Anteros — or "Love" 95 particularly formed to interested calculations, what eftect must the same causes produce on the generality of mankind ? In the course of the conversation, Princess Charlotte contrived to edge in a good deal of tum-de-dy, and would, if I had entered into the thing, have gone on with it, while looking at a little picture of herself, which had about 30 or 40 different dresses to put over it, done in isinglass, and which showed the general colouring of the picture to be seen through its transparency." TUM-TE-DY ! what a graceful, courtly, delicate, lady-like word ! The Princess talked ium-de-dy, did she ? and of course the lady of honour did not breathe a syllable. The Princess " edged in a good deal of it," and would have " gone on with it," if the lady had "entered into the thing" — not she. Her ladyship would not for the world utter anything so wicked as tum-de dy. Her morals are as pure, depend upon it, as her style. Oh ! my lady, my lady, what is this book from beginning to end, and what is ■' Love " and " Flirtation " but a weak sprinkling of windy morality in a most atrocious quantity of tum-de-dy ? Let us give a very few extracts more : — " Mr. R dined afterwards. During the evening he was not of course allowed to talk with me, but was called to the sofa, and forced to amuse the Princess. He was made for this laudable purpose to relate a story, tAe most horrid, not fit for the lowest, or most immoral society. Lady C. C. and Lady G. E. did not know which way to look, and their distress made us all look grave, which displeased the princess, and her countenance was immediately overspread with a scowl, which is always very painful to witness. I cannot conceive how any man of taste and feeling could be persuaded by any Royalty to utter such things in the hearing of any woman ; and I doubt if the ladies should not have risen and left the room." Why is this story told ? Is it to show the superior morality of the authoress, who doubts if she ought not to have left the room ? or to vilify the poor crack brained princess, whom we read of just before as giving a thousand ducats to Lady C. C, and treating her with the utmost kindness ? or is it to let the public know how fashionable men and women employ their time, and princes and princesses converse ? Lady C. C, who is a great coward on the water, was frightened, and unfortunately said :' — " Well, Madam, I do for your Royal Highness what I would not do for any relation. It is a sacrifice I would not make for them, to 9^ The Times come out in an open boat in such a wind ! ' She was angry and said, 'Then you should never travel, Lady Charlotte.' We were much amused by the latter pinching me and Dr. H. (between whom her ladyship was sitting) from fright. I think Lady C. C. is a little smitten with the handsome Algernon Percy. She said to me, ' His voice and looks are supremely interesting,' and she talked to him the whole night." According to our authoress. Lady C. Campbell (who is so attached to the Princess that she would do for her more than for her own family), has a heart extraordinarily susceptible ; a little way on we read : — "This fortnight the Pope came to the Princess ; her Royal Highness received him on the steps of the palace, and after he had sat with her for about an hour, Lady Glenbervie and Lady Charlotte Campbell had time to fall in love with the almoner. The good old Pontiif went away blessing all whom he passed. The scullions and cooks came out in a crowd to kiss his toe, which they did most audibly. The Princess followed the Pope downstairs, and when he descended the grass plots to his carriage. His Holiness turned round, and made the most graceful bow I ever saw ! " A little more love : — " Major Andreossi sang like an angel. I never heard anything sung so well, not even by the Chanticleer, in point of taste. He is, besides, u handsome man, highly considered by Lord William Bentinck, and reckoned an excellent officer. I heard every word he pronounced, and he sang with so much feeling, and so much nature, that I have had him in my head all night. What a ridicu- lous way of expressing myself ! Shame on such slip-slop language ! I ought rather to say that the sound of Major Andreossi's voice is still in my ears, and his sentiment and feeling have touched my heart, and left an impression on it which I think will never be utterly lost." We are glad to be able, at any rate, to quote something good from this book. It is not the author's own, we need not say : — Sonnet — By Lord Moira. ** What splendid vision o'er my fancy flies, And with long dormant heat my bosom warmsi Banners and barbed steeds, and loud alarms, And listed fields, and love the mighty prize ; Bewitching to my thought the years arise The Poetical Works of Dr. Southey 97 When chivalry refined the pride of arms : Then valour sought its meed from female charms, And fierceness melted at the fair one's eyes. O days, congenial to the noble soul ! Then love was dignity ; then falsehood shame ; Then conscious truth a generous boast allowed. Now under fashion's frivolous control, 'Tis ridicule to bear a towering name, Or hold a post distinguished from the crowd." We may read this diary, and say, indeed it is a ridicule to bear a towering name, or to pretend to the old virtue which characterized it, or to the honour which formerly belonged to it. It is ridicule indeed to come of a noble race, and uphold the well-known honour of an ancient line. What matters it if you can read in your family record the history of a thousand years of loyalty and courage, of all that is noble in sentiment, honest and brave in action? — the pride of ancestors is a faded superstition — the emulation of them a needless folly. There is no need now to be loyal to your prince, or tender to his memory. Take his bounty while living, share his purse and his table, gain his confidence, and learn his secrets, flatter him, cringe to him, vow to him an unbounded fidelity — and when he is dead, write a diary and betray him ! ARTICLE 8 (Tuesday, April 17, 1838) THE POETICAL WORKS OF DR. SOUTHEY, COLLECTED BY HIMSELF. Six volumes of the ten which are to form the complete collection of Dr. Southey's Poetical Works have appeared already. We have been somewhat remiss in noticing their publication, but their popularity has been established long since, and the reader needs no laboured notice at the present day to be able to appreciate and admire them. " Madoc," " Thalaba," and " Joan of Arc," the much-abused "Wat Tyler," the odes, and the admirable ballads (the most generally pleasing, perhaps, of all Dr. Southey's poetical compositions) form the contents of the volumes before us. " Roderick," " Kehama,'' and the remaining pieces will complete the series. The critic has but little to do in such a case but to point 7 9^ The Times out tlie existence of the work, the beauty of the type and embellish- ments, and the cheapness of the cost ; the public has long ago acknowledged its merit, and established its reputation. A short and very interesting preface gives us the history of these works, and of the poetical education of their author. " At the age of 63," says Mr. Southey, " I have undertaken to edit and collect my poetical works, with the last corrections that I can expect to bestow on them. They have obtained a reputation equal to my wishes, and I have this ground for hoping it may not be deemed hereafter more than commensurate with their deserts, that it has been gained without ever accommodating myself to the taste and fashion of the times. Thus to collect and revise them is a duty which I owe to that part of the public by whom they have been auspiciously received, and to those who will take a lively concern in my good name when I shall have departed." In this solemn way does Mr. Southey address himself to the world ; he says " hail " and " fare- well" at the same breath, and proclaiming (with perhaps a just self-satisfaction) the " exegi monumentum'' he takes leave of his work, and sets it in order, ere he part from it to return no more. " When I add," continues Mr. Southey, " what has been the greatest of all my advantages — that I have passed more than half my life in retirement, conversing with books rather than man, constantly and unweariedly engaged in literary pursuits, communing with my own heart, and taking that course which upon mature consideration seemed best to myself, I have said everything necessary to account for the characteristics of my poetry, if any there be. " It was in a mood resembling in no slight degree that in which a person, in sound health, both of body and mind, makes his will and sets his aflairs in order, that I entered upon the serious task of arranging and revising the whole of my poetical works. What, indeed, was it, but to bring in review before me the dreams and aspirations of my youth, and the feelings whereto I had given that free utterance which by the usages of the world is permitted to us in poetry alone ? Of all the smaller pieces there is scarcely one concerning which I cannot vividly call to mind when and where it was composed. I have perfect recollection where many, not of the scenes only, but of the images which I have described from nature, were observed and noted. And how would it be possible for me to forget the interest taken in these poems, especially the longer and more ambitious works, by those persons nearest and dearest to me ,hen, who witnessed their growth and completion ? Well may it The Poetical Works of Dt. Southey 99 be called a serious task thus to resuscitate the past ! But serious though it be, it is not painful to one who knows that the end of his journey cannot be far distant, and by the blessing of God looks on to its termination with sure and certain hope.'' Were we disposed to examine or account for Mr. Southey's pecuharities as a poet, we could find no better means of explaining them than are here given by himself. A small and amiable coterie of partial friends, continued solitude, a long habit of self-contem- plation, are what Mr. Southey calls the greatest of all his advantages, and what another person would declare to be amongst his greatest drawbacks. A timid man of genius cannot be other than a vain one, and the continued study of the e^o, thus encouraged by temperament, situation, and unceasing praise of friends, cannot surely conduce to the healthy development of the poetical character. Such a man may examine himself a vast deal too much ; in the pursuit of this study — and a very fascinating study it is — he forsakes others fully as noble, and quite as requisite to complete his educa- tion as a poet. Surely the period of solitude and contemplation should not commence too early, for repose, which is so wholeseme after action, is only enervating without it, and a strong genius, just like a powerful body, shut out from the world and the fresh air, grows indolent and flaccid, without exercise, or, what is worse, morbid. Some particular quality of the mind or body (especially where there is an original tendency to disease) becomes unduly developed and inflamed. In a poet, we may venture to say that the disease (fatally aggravated by seclusion) is self-approbation. It is a vital part of his mental constitution, but it requires careful exercise, diet, medicine, else it inflames to such an extent as to choke up all the other functions, and colours everything with its own sickly hue. A poet in such a condition becomes like a bilious millionaire from India — his wealth and all the world are nothing to him — he can only muse and moan over his unhappy liver. We do not mean to hint that Mr. Southey is in any such condition (there may be, perhaps, in the passage we have quoted, beautiful and simple as it is, a very slight tinge of the complaint), but we would only say that he retired too early from the world, where he might have found a healthier and even a higher school of poetry than in his quiet study, by his lonely Cumberland lake. A man may be an exquisite painter like Gerard Dow, for instance, and give us a com- plete and delightful picture of an interior, let us suppose, with a single figure studying — it was Dow's general subject ; but a great artist has the whole world for his subject, and makes it his task to portray it. loo The Times But though, if a study and genius so various and profound are requisite for the construction of an epic poem, " Joan of Arc " or " Madoc " can hardly be the highest rank in their number. There is no English reader to whom the two poems are not familiar and welcome, who has not followed the course of Madoc over the sea, where " Fair blew the winds, and safely did the waves Bear that beloved charge. It were a tale Would rouse adventurous courage in a boy, Making him long to be a mariner, That he might rove the main. If I should tell How pleasantly for many a sunny day Over the sunny sea, with wind at will, Prince Madoc sailed, and of the happy isles Which he had seen." Or of Joan in her battles and victories for France. Who has not read of Roderick, his fall, and his repentance ? And his last combat, when he was " Laying on the Moors with his good sword, and smote And overthrew, and scattered, and destroyed, And trampled down ; and still at every blow Exultingly he sent the war-cry forth, ' Roderick the Goth ! Roderick and victory 1 Roderick and vengeance ! ' " Or the " wild and wondrous " song of Thalaba ; and Kehama's fearful curse ? ** From sickness I charm thee, And time shall not harm thee, But earth, which is mine, Its fruits shall deny thee. And water shall hear thee. And know thee, and fly thee. And the winds shall not touch thee When they pass by thee. And the dews shall not wet thee When they fall nigh thee. And thou shalt seek death To relieve nee in vain. Thou shalt live in thy pain, While Kehama shall reign, The Poetical Works of Dr. Southey loi With a fire in thy heart And a fire in thy brain; And sleep shall obey me And visit thee never, And the curse shall be on thee For ever and ever." If these are not great epic poems, at least they contain noble poetry, and the wreath, in Mr. Southey's own words, although " With many an unripe blossom garlanded, And many a weed, is mingled with some flower Which will not wither." Of the ballads and lyrical pieces it is not necessary to speak in any such terms of qualified praise. They are among the very best of that species of composition in our language. The reader has no need to be reminded of " Blenheim," and the awful " King of the Crocodiles," and knows the beautiful moral of the holly-tree : "And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know. Some harshness shew, All vain asperities I, day by day. Would wear away. Till the smooth temper of my age should be Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree. "And as when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green. The holly leaves their fadeless hues display Less bright than they ; But, when the bare and wintry woods we see. What then so cheerful as the holly-tree ? "So serious should my youth appear among The thoughtless throng, So would I seem among the young and gay More grave than they ; That in my age as cheerful I might be As the green winter of the holly-tree." There is another song in this (the second) volume, fully as beautiful as the above. We have spoken of some of the poet's characteristics, and identified him in some degree with his works. It were hard to pay any man a' greater compliment than to identify 102 The Times him with the following stanzas. One may read far before one will meet with a passage containing a sublimer philosophy, or showing a piety more fervent and humble :^ " My days among the dead are past, Around me I behold, Where'er thess casual eyes are cast. The mighty minds of old ; My never-failing friends are they With whom I converse day by day. " With them I take delight in weal. And seek relief in wo, And while I understand and feel How much to them I owe. My cheeks have often been bedewed With tears of thoughtful gratitude. "My thoughts are with the dead — with them I live in long-past years. Their virtues love, their faults condemn, Partake their hopes and fears, And from their passions seek and find Instruction with an humble mind. " My hopes are with the dead, anon My place will with them be. And I with them shall travel on Through all futurity. Yet leaving here a name, I trust. That shall not perish in the dust.'' Surely, no. The author of the Life of Nelson must live as long as our history and language endure. There is no man to whom the latter owes a greater obligation — no man who has done more for literature, by his genius, his labours, and his life. Fielding's Works, with a Memoir by Thomas Roscoe 103 ARTICLE 4 (Wednesday, September 2, 1840.) FIELDING'S WORKS, IN ONE VOLUME, WITH A MEMOIR BY THOMAS ROSCOE. Here, in a single handsome volume, and a clear distinct type we have all the works of one of the greatest humourists in our language, and though there is, to be sure, a great deal of matter in the book that is not exactly so delicate as the last novel by the last female author of fashions, and though boys and virgins must read it with caution, we are very glad to see this great writer's works put forward in a popular form, and at a price exceedingly low. A man may be very much injured by perusing maudlin sentimental tales, but cannot be hurt, though he may be shocked every now and then, by reading works of sterling humour, like the greater part of these, full of benevolence, practical wisdom, and generous sympathy with mankind. The work is prefaced by an able biography of Fielding by Mr. Roscoe, in which he does justice to the great satirist's memory, and rescues it from the attacks which rivals, poetasters, and fine gentlemen have made upon it. Great were his errors, doubtless, and low his tastes. We fear very much that he did even worse in the course of his hard life than what Walpole has described of him, — viz., banqueting with three Irishmen and a blind man on some cold mutton and a bone of ham in one plate ; but this, as we take it, is the cause of quarrel with him, — that he ate mutton with three low Irishmen and a blind beggar ; if he had eaten it off a clean cloth, with persons of quality, we should not have heard so much of his vices. It is that vulgar dirty cloth that shocks the world so much, and that horrid low company — not the mutton. The public of our day need scarcely be warned that if they are to pass an hour with Fielding they will find him continually in such low company ; those, therefore, who are excessively squeamish and genteel will scornfully keep away from him ; those who have a mind to forgive a little coarseness, for the sake of one of the honestest, manliest, kindest companions in the world, cannot, as we fancy, find a better than Fielding, or get so much true wit and shrewdness from any other writer of our language. "With regard to personal appearance," says his biographer, 104 The Times " Fielding was strongly-built, robust, and in height rather exceeding six feet. He was possessed of rare conversational powers and wit ; a nobleman who had known Pope, Swift, and the wits of that famous clique^ declared that Harry Fielding surpassed them all. He loved all manly sports, kept horses and hounds in the brief days of his prosperity, and signalised himself by the driving of that coach to which he has attributed, in Amelia, so many of the misfortunes of poor Booth. At nineteen with his amenity, 'that any one might pay who would,' he came upon the town, and lived jovially upon his wits. Now with lords and gentlemen of fashion over their wine — now with the Lady Bettys and Sir Harrys of Garrick's company, often with other inhabitants of Covent Garden, not even so reputable as the latter — we see in what a school the poor fellow was bred, and can account for many of the errors of his works and their author.'' He and Hogarth between them have given us a strange notion of the Society of those days. Walpole's letters for all their cold elegance are not a whit more moral than those rude coarse pictures of the former artists. Lord Chesterfield's model of a man is more polite, but not so honest as Tom Jones, or as poor Will Booth, with his " chairman's shoulders, and calves like a porter." Little Walpole, with his thin shanks and weak stomach, who is always at his tea and panada, and flustered by a couple of glasses of burgundy, does not debauch like a stalwart sinner of six feet and as many bottles, who can drink anything from clos vougeot to old tom, and drink it in any company too ; but he has his little genteel sins in his little genteel society, and he and his countesses can snigger over naughty stories, and cry " fie ! " at George Selwyn's last, and be just as wicked as Harry Fielding in his tavern chair, carousing with Heaven knows whom. The world does not tolerate now such satire as that of Hogarth and Fielding, and the world no doubt is right in a great part of its squeamishness ; for it is good to pretend to the virtue of chastity even though we do not possess it ; nay, the very restraint which the hypocrisy lays on a man, is not unapt, in some instances, to profit him. But any man who has walked through Regent Street of a night, or has been behind the scenes of the Opera, or has even been to a theatre, and looked up to that delectable part of the house, the second tier of boxes, must know that the Rake's and Harlofs Progress is still by no means concluded, and will see the same parts acted by young swaggering dandies in mackintoshes or pilot-coats, and charming syrens in the last new mode from Paris, Fielding's Works, with a Memoir by Thomas Roscoe 105 as were played a hundred years since by pretty fellows in laced hats and bob wigs, and madams in stiff hoops and brocades. The same vice exists, only we don't speak about it ; the same things are done, but we don't call them by their names. Here lies the chief immorality of Fielding, as we take it. As for Hogarth, he has passed into a tradition ; we allow him and Shakespeare to take liberties in conversation that we would not permit to any other man. It is wise that the public modesty should be as prudish as it is ; that writers should be forced to chasten their humour, and when it would play with points of life and character which are essentially immoral, that they should be compelled, by the general outcry of incensed public propriety, to be silent altogether. But an impartial observer, who gets some little of his knowledge of men from books, and some more from personal examination of them, knows pretty well that Fielding's men and Hogarth's are Dickens' and Cruikshank's, drawn with ten times more skill and force, only the latter humourists dare not talk of what the elder discussed honestly. Let us, then, not accuse Fielding of immorality, but simply admit that his age was more free-spoken than ours, and accuse it of the fault (such as it is) rather than him. But there is a great deal of good, on the other hand, which is to be 'found in the writings of this great man, of virtue so wise and practical, that the man of the world cannot read it and imitate it too much. He gives a strong, real picture of human life, and the virtues which he exhibits shine out by their contrasts with the vices which he paints so faithfully, as they never could have done, if the latter had not been depicted as well as the former. He tries to give you, as far as he knows it, the whole truth about human nature ; the good and the evil of his characters are both practical. Tom Jones' sins, and his faults are described with a curious accuracy, but then follows the repentance which comes out of his very sins, and surely that is moral and touching. Booth goes astray (we do verily believe that many persons even in these days are not altogether pure), but how good his remorse is ! Are persons who profess to take the likeness of human nature to make an accurate portrait ? This is such a hard question, that, think as we will, we will not venture to say what we think. Perhaps it is better to do as Hannibal's painter did, and draw only that side of the face which has not the blind eye. Fielding attacked it in full. Let the reader, according to his taste, select the artist who shall give a likeness of him, or only half a likeness. io6 The Times We have looked through many of the pieces of Mr. Roscoe's handsome volume. The dramatic works could not have been spared, possibly, but the reader will have no great pleasure, as we fancy, in looking at them more than once. They are not remarkable for wit, even, though they have a great deal oi spirits : a great deal too much perhaps. Farquhar, at Fielding's age, put into his comedies wit and spirits too. The latter writes in a slovenly, dashing, swagger- ing way, and the pieces are, it must be confessed, irretrievably immoral. The heroes are Mohocks ; and the ladies — we can't say what the ladies are at this present period of the world ; Hogarth has drawn the progre.is of one of them who was by trade, that is to say, what these are by nature. Young Harry Fielding, six feet high and twenty years of age, ready for a row, or a bottle, or what else you please, was a young fellow upon town with very loose morals indeed, and never seems to have thought of anything beyond the pleasure of living and being jolly. A number of his errors must be attributed to his excessive and boisterous bodily health. But he was an honest-hearted fellow, with affections as tender and simple as ever dwelt in the bosom of any man ; and if in the heyday of his spirits and the prodigal outpouring of his jovial good humour, he could give a hand to many " a lad and lass," whom the squeamish world would turn its back on (indeed, there was a virtue in his benevolence, but we dare not express our sympathies nowfor poor Doll Tearsheet and honest Mistress Quickly) — if he led a sad, riotous life, and mixed with many a bad woman in his time, his heart was pure, and he knew a good one when he found her. He married and (though Sir Walter Scott speaks rather slightingly of the novel in which Fielding has painted his first wife) the picture of Amelia, in the story of that name, is (in the writer's humble opinion), the most beautiful and delicious description of a character that is to be found in any writer, not excepting Shakespeare. It is a wonder how old Richardson — girded at as he had been by the reckless satirist — how Richardson, the author of Pamela, could have been so blinded by anger and pique as not to have seen the merits of his rival's exquisite performance. Amelia was in her grave when poor Fielding drew this delightful portrait of her ; but, with all his faults, and extravagancies, and vagaries, it is not hard to see how such a gentle, generous, loving creature, as Fielding was, must have been loved and prized by her. She had a little fortune of her own, and he, at this time, inherited a small one from his mother. He carried her to the country, and like a wise, prudent, Henry Fielding as he was, who having lived Fielding's Works, with a Memoir by Thomas Roscoe 107 upon nothing- very jovially for some years, thought ^5,000 or ^6,000 an endless wealth, he kept horses and hounds, flung his doors open, and lived with the best of his county. When he had spent his little fortune, and saw that there was nothing for it but to work, he came to London, applied himself fiercely to the law, seized upon his pen again, never lost heart for a moment, and to be sure loved his poor Amelia as tenderly as ever he had done. It is a pity that he did not live on his income, that is certain ; it is a pity that he had not been born a lord, or a thrifty stock-broker, at the very least ; but we should not have had Joseph Andrews if this had been the case, and indeed it is probable that Amelia liked him quite as well after his ruin as she would have done had he been as rich as Rothschild. The biographers agree that he would have been very successful at the bar, but for certain circumstances. These ugly circumstances always fall in the way of men of Fielding's genius ; for, although he amassed a considerable quantity of law, was reputed to be a good speaker, and had a great wit and a knowledge of human nature, which might serve him in excellent stead, it is to be remarked that those, without a certain degree of patience and conduct, will not insure a man's triumph at the bar, and so Fielding never rose to be a Lord Chancellor or even a judge. They say he used to come home from a supper party, and after tying a wet cloth round his head, would begin to read as stoutly as the soberest man in either of the Temples. This is very probable, but there are still better ways of keeping the head cool, which the author of Tom Jones seems to have neglected. In short, he had ruined his constitution, and acquired habits that his resolution could not break through, and was paying with gout and a number of other ills the price of his debaucheries as a young adventurer on the town, and his dissipations as a country gentleman. His days of trouble had now begun in earnest, and, indeed, he met them like a man. He wrote incessantly for the periodical works of the day, issued pamphlets, made translations, published journals and criticisms, turned his hand, in a word, to any work that offered, and lived as best he might. This indiscriminate literary labour, which obliges a man to scatter his intellects upon so many trifles, and to provide weekly varieties as sets-off against the inevitable butcher's bills, has been the ruin of many a man of talent since Fielding's time, and it was lucky for the world and for him that at a time of life when his powers were at the highest, he procured a place which kept him beyond the reach of weekly want; ro8 The Times and enabled him to gather his great intellects together and produce the greatest satire, and two of the most complete romances in our language. Let us remark, as a strong proof of the natural honesty of the man, the exquisite art of these performances, the care with which the situations are elaborated, and the noble, manly language, corrected. When Harry Fielding was writing for the week's bread, we find style and sentiment both careless, and plots hastily worked off. How could he do otherwise ? Mr. Snap, the bailiff, was waiting with a writ without, — his wife and little ones asking wistfully for bread within. Away, with all its imperfections on its head, the play or the pamphlet must go. Indeed, he would have been no honest man, had he kept them longer on his hands, with such urgent demands upon him as he had. But as soon as he is put out of the reach of this base kind of want, his whole style changes, and, instead of the reckless and slovenly hack-writer, we have one of the most minute and careful artists that ever hved. Dr. Beattie gave his testimony to the merits of Tom Jones. Moral or immoral, let any man examine this romance as a work of art merely, and it must strike him as the most astonishing production of human ingenuity. There is not an incident ever so trifling, but advances the story, grows out of former incidents, and is connected with the whole. Such a \\\.traxy providence, if we may use such a word, is not to be seen in any other work of fiction. You might cut out half of Don Quixote, or add, transpose, or alter any given romance of Walter Scott, and neither would suffer. Roderick Random and heroes of that sort run through a series of adventures, at the end of which the fiddles are brought, and there is a marriage. But the history of Tom Jones connects the very first page with the very last, and it is marvellous to think how the author could have built and carried all this structure in his brain, as he must have done, before he began to put it to paper. And now a word or two about our darling Amelia, of which we have read through every single word in Mr. Roscoe's handsome edition. " As for Captain Booth, Madam," writes old Richardson to one of his toadies, " Captain Booth has done his business. The piece, in short, is as dead as if it had been written forty years ago " ; indeed, human nature is not altered since Richardson's time ; and if there are rakes, male and female, as there were a hundred years since, there are, in like manner, envious critics now, as then. How eager they are to predict a man's fall, how unwilling Fielding's Works, with a Memoir by Thomas Roscoe 109 to acknowledge his rise ! If a man write a popular work, he is sure to be snarled at ; if a literary man rise to eminence out of his profession, all his old comrades are against him. They can't pardon his success ; would it not be wiser for gentlemen of the pen to do as they do in France, have an esprit de corps, declare that their body and calling is as honourable as any other, feel their own power, and, instead of crying down any member of their profession who happens to light on a prize, support him with all their strength ! The condition of literary men might be very soon changed by a manly literary union of this kind ; but this disserta- tion, we must acknowledge, is quite far from the purpose, nor have we any need to repeat the truism, that men of letters are envious, merely because Richardson bore a hearty ill-will to Fielding. Well, in spite of Richardson's prophecies, the piece which was dead at its birth is alive a hundred years after, and will live, as we fancy, as long as the English language shall endure. Fielding, in his own noble words, has given a key to the philosophy of the v/ork. " The nature of man," cries honest Dr. Harrison, " is far from being in itself evil ; it abounds with benevolence and charity, and pity, coveting praise and honour, and shunning shame and disgrace. Bad education, bad habits, and bad customs , debauch our nature, and drive it headlong into vice." And the author's tale is an exemplification of this text. Poor Booth's habits and customs are bad indeed, but who can deny the benevolence, and charity, and pity of this simple and kindly being? His vices, even, if we may say so, are those of a man ; there is nothing morbid or mawkish in any of Fielding's heroes ; no passionate pleas in extenuation, such as one finds in the pseudo-moral romances of the sentimental character ; no flashy excuses like those which Sheridan puts forward (unconsciously, most likely) for those brilliant blackguards who are the chief characters of his comedies. Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in Fielding's honest downright books ; it goes by its name, and invariably gets its punishment. See the consequences of honesty ! Many a squeamish lady of our time would fling down one of these romances with horror, but would go through every page of Mr. Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard with perfect comfort to herself. Ainsworth dared not paint his hero as the scoundrel he knew him to be ; he must keep his brutalities in the background, else the public morals will be outraged, and so he produces a book quite absurd and unreal, and infinitely more immoral than anything Fielding ever wrote. Jack Sheppard is immoral actually because it is decorous. The "° The Times Spartans, who used to show drunken slaves to their children, took care, no doubt, that the slaves should be really and truly drunk. Sham drunkenness, which never passed the limits of propriety, but only went so far as to be amusing, would be rather an object to excite youth to intoxication than to deter him from it, and some late novels have always struck us in the same light. Besides the matchless character of Amelia, whose beauty and . charming innocent consciousness of it (so delicately described by the novelist), whose tenderness and purity are such that they endear her to a reader as much as if she were actually alive, his own wife or mother, and make him consider her as some dear relative and companion of his own, about whose charms and virtues it is scarcely modest to talk in public : besides Amelia, there are other charac- ters not so beautiful, but not less admirably true to nature. The Matthews is a wonderful portrait, and the vanity which inspires every one of the actions of that passionate, unscrupulous lady, the colour as it were which runs through the whole picture, is touched with a master's hand. Mrs. James, the indifferent woman, is not less skilful. " Can this be my Jenny ? " cries poor Amelia, who runs forward to meet her old friend, and finds a pompous, frigid-looking personage, in an enormous hoop, in the very pink of the fashion to which Mrs. James answers, " Madam, I believe I have done what was genteel," and wonders how any mortal can live up three pair of stairs. " Is there," says the enthusiast for the first time in her life, " so delightful a sight in the world as the four honours in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag ? " Can comedy be finer than this ? Has not every person some Matthews and James in their acquaintance — one all passion, the other all indifference and vapid self-complacency ; James the good-natured fellow, with passions, and without principles ; Bath with his magnificent notions of throat-cutting and the Christian religion, — what admirable knowledge of the world do all these characters display ; what good moral may be drawn from them by those who will take the trouble to think ! This, however, is not a task that the generality of novel-readers are disposed to take upon them, and prefer that their favourite works should contain as little reflection as possible ; indeed, it is very probable that Mrs. James or Mrs. Matthews might read their own characters as here described, and pronounce such writing vastly low and unnatural. But what is especially worthy of remark is the masterly manner in which the author paints the good part of those equivocal charac- ters that he brings upon his stage ; James has his generosity, and Fielding's Works, with a Memoir by Thomas Roscoe 1 1 1 his silly wife her good nature ; Matthews her starts of kindness ; and old Bath, in his sister's dressing-gown, cooking possets for her, is really an amiable object, whom we like while we laugh at him. A great deal of tenderness and love goes along with this laughter, and it was this mixed feeling that our author liked so to indulge himself, and knew so well how to excite in others. Whenever he has to relate an action of benevolence, honest Fielding kindles as he writes it. Some writers of fiction have been accused of falling in a passion with their bad characters ; these our author treats with a philo3ophic calmness— it is when he comes to the good that he grows enthusiastic ; you fancy that you see the tears in his manly eyes, nor does he care to disguise any of the affectionate sympathies of his great simple heart. This is a defect in art, perhaps, but a very charming one. For further particulars of Fielding's life we recommend the reader to consult Mr. Roscoe's biography. Indeed, as much as any of his romances, his own history illustrates the maxim we have just quoted fromAme/ia. For his vices and imprudence no man paid more dearly : ruined fortune, and all the shifts and meannesses con- sequent upon extravagance, ruined health and the miseries attendant on it, were the punishment that he paid for his errors : they dogged his whole life, and hunted him, in the prime of years, to his grave. Want, sorrow, and pain subdued his body at last, but his great and noble humour rode buoyant over them all, and his frank and manly philosophy overcame them. His generous attachment to his family comforted him to the last, and though all the labours of the poor fellow were only sufficient to keep him and them in a bare competence, yet it must be remembered, to his credit, that he left behind him a friend who valued him so much as to provide for the family he had left destitute and to place them beyond the reach of want. It is some credit to a man to have been the friend of Ralph Allen ; and Fielding before his death raised a monument to his friend, a great deal more lasting than bronze or marble, placing his figure in the romance of Tom Jones under the name of Alworthy. " There is a day, Sir," says Fielding in one of his dedications to Mr. Allen, "which no man in the kingdom can think of without fear but yourself— the day of your death." Can there be a finer compliment ? nor was Fielding the man to pay it to one who he thought was undeserving of it. Never do Fielding's courage, cheerfulness, and affection forsake him ; up to the last days of his life he is labouring still for his children. He dies, and is beholden to the admiration of a foreigner •12 The Times Monsieur de Meyrionnet, French Consul at Lisbon, for a decent grave and tombstone. There he hes sleeping after life's fitful fever. No more care, no more duns, no more racking pains, no more wild midnight orgies and jovial laughter. Of the women who are weeping for him a pious friend takes care. Here, indeed, it seems as if his sorrows ended ; and one hopes and fancies that the poor but noble fellow's spirit is at last pure and serene. British and Foreign Review, or, European Quarterly Journal To this periodical Thackeray contributed one article only — a review of Lord Broughain s Speeches (1839) — which, identified some years ago by lyir. J. P. Andt raon, has never been reprinted. It is interesting to read, in conjunction with the review, the following extract from one of Thackeray's Punch papers, entitled Leaves from the Lives of the Lords of Literature. By the Author of " Paddington and Its People," " The Great Necropolis" etc., etc, which is at once a skit on Brougham and a hit at the style of James Grant, an editor of The Morning Advertiser, and author of Paris and Its People^ The Great Metropolis, and other works now forgotten : " Brougham, Lord Henry. — His lordsl.ip is.as the world very well knows, a political, or what the admirable Morning Herald calls lego-political gent. He was educated at Edinburgh, where he became acquamted with little Jack Horner, Judge Jefferies, Editor of The Edinburgh Review^ and Admiral the Reverend Sir Sydney Smith, of whom more anonymously. Having finished his studies, he was brought to the bar in London, where he has distinguished himself in various ways ever since. Being born and bred in the North, his accent has stuck to him like a burr, and he has used that tongue of his to more purpose than any gent of the long robe. During the Session, as The Times has remarked of him, his labours are tremendous. You may see him in the morning at the House of Lords, or in the Privy Council, the eagerest among the judges there ; and all the time writing off articles for Th^ Ediiiburgh Review. In the evening, he is at the Lords again, backing up his friend, Lord Monteagle, to whom he is tenderly attached. At night I have myself enjoyed the pleasure of his company at the Garrick's Head, in Bow Street, where he astonishes the world by his eloquence. Such is only a part of the life of this restless though brilliant genius ! " His faithful attachment for Queen Caroline in early life is well known ; and his duel with Mr. Canning, another ardent admirer of that fascinating, though unfortunate, Princess, Hence his Majesty George IV. could naturally never abide him. "King William IV. was passionately fond of him. When Lord Brougham was Chancellor, he and his sovereign corresponded regularly by the post ; both shed tears when obliged to part, especially Lord Brougham, whose susceptible nature has, perhaps, never recovered the shock since. X13 8 114 British and Foreign Review " But it is as a literary man that we are called upon to judge him ; and as such he has been at everything, ' His lordship is as a bird that has hopped upon every branch of the tree of knowledge,' as Goethe observes : as Mr. S — m — 1 R — g — rs remarks, rather coarsely, he has been at everything in the literary way, from p— tch and t — ss to mansl — ghter. A politician, a theo- logian, an historian; on classics, optics, physics, metaphysics, he has wrote, and with unbounded applause. All his works are to be had on all these subjects, and at immensely reduced prices. " He is a corresponding member of three hundred and ninety-six philosophical societies. He is the inventor of the Brougham carriage, for which every man that uses a cab may thank him. In fact, an equestrian statue of him is to be set up in St. Martin's Lane, in a Brougham carriage, as soon as anybody will subscribe for the purpose. "Coming to London with nothing on but a common stuff gown, he rose himself to be a Lord Chancellor — a lasting monument of genius. He is a member of the Beef-steak Club, which he founded in conjunction with Mr. Wilberforce. "He is equally distinguished in France (about which country, its capital, Paris, and its people, Messrs. Saunders and Ottley have just published a remarkable work). In France he is a member of the National Institute, and also Drum-Major of the National Guards. K.ing Louis Philippe has had the above portrait of him put up at Versailles. He has in that country a chateau at Cannse, where Bonaparte landed, and where Hannibal the Carthaginian was defeated by Scipio (no doubt another African) in the Roman service ; and there he cultivates the olive-branches which he is in the habit of presenting to King Louis Philippe and our gracious Sovereign. ' ' Lord Brougham, unlike other great men, has no envy ; no uncharitableness ; no desire to get his neighbours' places, or to oust his friends. Indeed, his very enemies admire him more than anybody else, and can there be a greater proof of his disinterestedness? There is no truth in the report that, jealous of Mr. Macready's popularity, he proposed to take an opposition theatre, and play the principal tragic parts there. His talents are not dramatic. He once wrote a little comedy of intrigue called "The Queen has done it All," but it was miserably hissed off the stage. And finally, to speak of him as a literary man, he has been so constant a contributor to Punch, and has supplied the inimitable H. B. with so many designs, that every lover of humour must admire him. British and Foreign Review, or European Quarterly Journal (Vol. 8, April, 1839.) SPEECHES OF HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM, &c., Edinb. 1839. Our account of these four large volumes must necessarily be partial and incomplete ; for the period during which these speeches have been delivered extends nearly through the present century and embraces almost every point of English and European history. To discuss each speech properly, perhaps the reviewer should write a volume, where the orator has produced only a few pages ; for, vast as the latter's genius and labours are, great as have been his services, and keen as are often his views regarding the events and circumstances of his own time, we suspect that there are very few who would be disposed to take his ideas for their own, and to believe implicitly in his story. Lord Brougham's exploits in literature, law, and politics have been chiefly those of a partisan ; and as he has had, to our thinking, too strong a wit and too weak a character to allow him to enter the foremost rank of great men of his time, he has likewise too great a vanity and too small a principle to be its historian. You may hope from such a person much brilliancy of remark, and occasional truth, for his genius is great and his heart good and generous in the main ; but the entire truth cannot be expected from him. Much of it he cannot see, and much he does not choose to tell. Ceaseless puffs of spleen ruffle the surface of his mind, and distort the proportions of the images reflected in it. His vanity is employed in making perpetual excuses for his principle, and thus it continually thwarts his genius. While the one is wide and kindly, the other is meanly uneasy and jealous ; as is commonly II 6 British and Foreign Review the case, of the two adverse principles the latter is the more active ; and, as we have often seen in marriages, how a wise man will give himself abjectly over to the guidance of a shrew, Lord Brougham's wisdom is perpetually at the feet of his vanity, which in the contests between them is pretty sure to have the last word. In truth the defects which we have here at the outset deemed it our duty to notice, are common to many besides the author of the volumes before us ; and the reader in his study of historical characters has doubtless examined most of them with the aid of some such key. With its help we have gone through most of the speeches contained in these volumes ; and volumes more brilliant for wit or interest, more remarkable as showing the astonishing mental powers and labours of the author, have hardly appeared, in our days at least ; perhaps they are not the less agreeable because the writer's errors run continually alongside of his merits, and because of the very mannerism and egotism of the author. All is not true that he tells you about the world and himself, and as regards the world the facts must be received with careful reservation ; as regards the writer, however, all is good for observation, the true and the untrue ; his falsehoods very often tell us as much of his character as plain statements would ; and thus, involuntarily perhaps, he provides us with the means of judging him— -where he is sound, and where are his faults and flaws — and of judging his statements by him. If there were no other history of Lord Brougham's times and of himself, than that which he has given us in the present volumes, we think that his character at least might be pretty accurately made out from them ; and many other characters and actions, described by him, measured by the same standard. Parliamentary speeches from 1810 till the present time — on the War, the Slave Trade, the Poor Law, the Reform Bill, the Canada question ; speeches at the bar upon subjects the most captivating to the public, such as libel cases, treason cases, queen's trials; and so forth ; speeches at hustings, colleges and mechanics' institutes — and these a few only of the thousands which the indefatigable orator has made in the course of his public career — ^form the contents of these volumes. It may readily be supposed that to comment on them all would not a little tax the patience of the reader, as it would be beyond the power of the critic, unless he had years in which to make his remarks, and folios in which to write them. Through all the transactions to which these speeches refer, and speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 1 1 7 during the busy and anxious period in our history in which they have been dehvered, there is no Englishman who has taken, if not a more lofty, a more active part in the political concerns of his country than Mr. Brougham. There has been no popular outcry in which his voice has not been heard amongst the loudest ; no advance in that great move- ment which the nation has taken with the century, and which is separating it so widely from the creeds, the morals, the politics of ages past, at the head of which he has not been conspicuous — a restless and eager pioneer. The very names we have mentioned as the titles of his speeches. Education, the Slave Trade, the Poor Law, the Reform Bill, will recall to the reader the eminent services which this man has performed, and will be recognized doubtless in a future day by the English politician or historian as some of the foundation-stones upon which his institutions are built. With these questions, however, it is not our purpose to deal ; we may be (as who would not ?) proud of the superior knowledge which is separating us so widely from our fathers, and confident of the glorious harvest which, sown in the present age, will be reaped by our children ; or we may tremble at the prospects of the new world and look back with gloomy regret to the quiet of the old. The change, however, for good or for evil, has been made, and in the working of it no man has been more active than Mr. Brougham. He has been called " the man of the age,'' and indeed, his nature, opinions and career present a very fair type of his country and times, of the popular intellect and taste of the wants which move us, and the principles (such as they are) which guide us. Pub- licity is our life ; perpetually striving, stirring, pushing forward — absorbed in the provision of material wants, eager for personal aggrandisement, slavish to public opinion, thinking by majorities, philosophizing in debating-clubs — the highest aim of our intellect does not go much beyond the improvement of a steam-engine, and the sublimest point of our wishes is the establishment of a ballot-box. Our life is a faction ; the nobleman and the mechanic alike take their sides, and both look with contempt on the mere visionary, who has not a party like them and is sceptical as to the ends which they propose. Each party, whether for movement or conservation, calls itself the public good ; and as the public is made only of individuals, so the public good may be defined to be that share of the goods of this world which each man individually would get or would keep. There is the keeping (or conservative) 1 1 8 British and Foreign Review party, that having profited most by the ancient order of things, vows that the pubUc good is on their side ; and the getting party, of course the most numerous, whose public good hes exactly in the opposite direction. In old times there would have been some danger in belonging to the latter class ; for the other had at once in its power the means of bribery and intimidation ; but we are not wrong in saying that the two parties have changed their positions, the oligarchy having only a titular possession, holding its own on sufferance, out of a kind of superstition — the democracy powerful and threatening, and at a signal or a trifle ready to fall on. The steps which have led to this change have not been taken in a day ; and from the first great breaking-in of the dykes in America, seventy years ago — where, as it were, by men's being a little too greedy to wall off land from the sea, the sea not only broke back to its natural channel, but fairly overrun the whole continent, — and in France, where the aristocratical defences were sheer worn out by age, and went at the very first rising — the occurrences in America and France must h ive taught pretty clearly what the winning side would be; and to Henry Brougham "deeply considering these things " (as his phrase is) must have shown the necessity, if not from conviction, at least from policy, to adopt the creed, to which ever since he has remained faithful in the main. We do not mean by this that mere interest was the motive which first induced Mr. Brougham to join the liberal party. Mere interest — interest, that is, independent of conviction — very seldom does, any more than mere patriotism, induce a man to take a political side, and be tolerably faithful to it for the remainder of his life ; but interest aids very strongly in working convictions. Foresight went far to induce him ; and a man (upon speculative matters) so prudent could see further than most people. Interest and circumstances very strongly urged him ; for he was not rich, and, unaided by the aristocracy, had to make his way in the world, and was ambitious of a public life. A young man of genius and education, not of the aristocracy or clergy (^vhich is the same thing) or helped by the aristocracy, but conscious of his own powers, and despising probably theirs, will be pretty sure in England or Scotland to join the anti-aristocratic side.' Their enemy's system ' In Ireland there are different elements of opposition — the religious partialities; and young Church-of-England men (though not of the highest rank) are pretty generally Tories ; the Catholics, on the contrary, Radicals ; but the fact is the same. Circumstance, injustice, either practised or suffered, settles political opinion. Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 119 has been proved to be vicious (every system is vicious), their own plan is untried — who can blame it until it be tried? All the movement, all the novelty, all the gaiety and excitement of attack is with them : the enemy meanwhile has taken his post, and can never budge from his wall. The young scientific student,' eager to learn, to speculate, to lay down the law — the crack orator of the Speculatives, proud of himself, confident of his genius, and scornful of all the world, — the reviewer embarked in an enterprize, novel and startling, which to be popular must advocate the popular interests, and which there- fore committed all engaged in it to the popular side, — such a man had no choice but to be a Whig, and found not only his pleasure but his interest in joining the great movement party. Let us not be understood to say, that, while circumstances connected him with a party, conviction did not likewise impel him to join it. His professions are sincere, very likely, as to first principles, but they are insincere in degree ; his indignant remonstrances grow opportunely fainter and louder, as occasion may demand ; his patriotism grows weaker or stronger, according as he is in or out of place ; if we might make a calculation regarding the state of his mind, and his motives for action, we should say, he loved principle — a little ; party, much, from con- viction of its use ; but he loves himself ten times more than party or principle ; and, if they should thwart him, he is man enough to fight against the two, and, like Samson, to pull the house about his enemies' ears, though his own should be damaged by the fall. Although, then, we look upon him as a political adventurer, and believe only a small portion of his statements of facts or opinions, — receiving that with the greatest caution, and sifting it many times, — we do not mean to urge that Mr. Brougham is less honourable than his neighbours. It must be remembered that this profession is not disgraceful among us, but on the contrary honourable and usual. All our young men of the highest classes are (or were till the passing of the Reform Bill) brought up to it ; not educated in principles, but to take sides to which they are faithful, as their fathers were before them to the Dutch or the Spaniards, the Imperialists or the Swedes, in those good old days when fighting was a part of a gentleman's education and honourable (no matter ' Mr. Brougham at a very early age, it is said, was in correspondence with foreign mathematicians, and published upon scientific subjects ; he was celebrated as an orator of a debating club at Edinburgh, called the Speculative Society. 120 British and Foreign Review on what pretext), provided it were under a respectable flag, and where good deeds of arms might be done. The principle now, as then, is to stick to your party ; the love of manly struggle and desire for personal distinction is the same, only our weapons now are words, and not swords ; and our battles are fought at the hustings, or Houses of Parliament, where Mr. Speaker holds his truncheon, and the newspaper reporters are ready to immortalize our deeds, in — prose, as we need scarcely say. Let any man think of his acquaintance, if he have such, among members of parliament, or read the party newspapers, or remember Mr. Hume's declaration, that " he would swear black was white to keep the Tories out," and say if the picture is overcharged ; explain why we hear so little of principle, and so much of party ; tell us the causes of that wonderful difference of opinion, which, in nearly all questions, separates the House of Commons into two divisions of about 220 and 240 each ; which invariably causes Lord John Russell to differ from Sir Robert Peel ; which brings Lord Palmerston or Lord Howick to the rescue of the noble lord, and calls up Lord Stanley or Sir James Graham to fight by the side of the right honourable baronet. How is it that we never, of late, see Sir James at logger- heads with Sir Robeft? What used to cause the undeviating respect and attachment of Lord Melbourne for Lord Glenelg ? and afterwards, what caused the former not only " to dissemble his love " to the latter, but " to kick him downstairs " ? Was it principle? was it honour?— that is, what we are accustomed to call principle and honour at home, and to murder each other for questioning? or was it that parliamentary principle of honest Joseph Hume, "to swear black was white, in order to keep the Tories out " ? In societies humbler and more numerous, not taking so direct a share in struggle for office, nor having the very first portions of the plunder when victorious, like the aristocratic or born-statesman class, the business of party is not so well understood, nor the party- manosuvres so absurdly obvious. Envy and blind hatred of more fortunate men arc the main motives of some of the most active, — stupid credulity and attachment the characteristics of the greater number. For the third part of a century did not the London mob believe in Burdett ? Even when the man forswore his politics of thirty years (let us p;irdon the recantation, — thirty years' folly could not end more appropriately), — even when Sir Francis became a convert, did not the Westminster men, with a proper, stupid, honest love for him, still return him to Parliament, over the head LONDON CHARACTERS.— No. I. [See page 21. Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 121 of the young gentleman who had seized his cast-off mantle ? The poor mob ! — it has natural feelings and sympathies, and cannot as yet emulate the baseness of its betters. We might continue the picture, class by class, and, ascending from the operative or sic-vos-non-vobis class, take and comment upon the rascalities of each in the proper Biogenic style, — the shop- keeping class, for instance ; but Lord Brougham (as, indeed, he most resolutely denies) has, in his Letter to the Queen, pretty clearly laid bare their defects ; — or the political-press class, or the lawyer-class, to both of which Lord Brougham still belongs, and by his distinction in which, and urged by what we call an honourable ambition, has, like some others, mounted to the dignified post which he now holds. We might speak of them, and without much ingenuity or fear of contradiction, point out what a profound immor- ality rankles in the very core of them all ; but the benevolent reader will grow tried of such copious misanthropy, and would most likely rather omit the discussion. What we would deduce from it is this : not that Lord Brougham is worse than most of his compeers, but that he cannot choose but be immoral ; not altogether a hypocrite, like some ; but as a scientific or political writer, a speaker at the bar or in the house, from the woolsack or to it, a hypocrite — from inclination and custom, doubtless ; from first and second nature. And as in all the hypocrisies of his time he has taken a share ; as in all the tricks and movements of party his front has been the boldest, his ambition the most restless, his ingenuity the greatest and most captivating, — he has very properly been called " The Man of his Age." Boldness, eagerness, ingenuity, insincerity, are its characteristics, and where is the living man in England who is fitter to represent it ? Besides his own Speeches, Lord Brougham's Introductions to each form not the least amusing part of his volumes ; and before entering into any discussion regarding the latter, or his historical sketches, we had better quote the passage from his preface, in which he explains his purpose and his mode of addressing himself to the public. "The plan of the present publication is sufficiently obvious. The Introductions to the different Speeches are intended to elucidate the History of the Measures discussed, and of the Periods to which they relate. But the most satisfactory, indeed the only accurate, manner of giving the History of the Times, must always be to give an account of the Persons who bore the chief part in their trans- actions. This is more or less true of all annals ; but it is peculiarly 122 British and Foreign Review so of political annals. The course of State affairs, their posture at any given period, and the nature of the different measures pro- pounded from time to time, can only be well understood by giving an accurate representation of the characters of those who figured most remarkably upon the scene. " It is not, however, by those pieces of composition which abound in many histories, under the name of ' characters,' that anything like this knowledge can be conveyed. Without any regard to fine writing, measured and balanced periods, or neat and pointed antitheses, the personages must be described just as they really were, by a just mixture of general remarks, and reference to particular passages in their lives. In no other way can they be made known ; in no other way, indeed, can the very first requisite of such sketches be attained — the exhibition of the peculiarities that marked the originals — the preservation of the individuality of each. " In the attempts which these volumes contain, to represent individuals, for the purpose of recording the History of their times, all ambition of fine writing has been laid aside, and nothing, but the facts of each case, and the impressions actually left upon the writer's memory, has ever been regarded in the least degree. With only one exception the sketches are the result of personal observa- tion, and in general of intimate acquaintance ; so that each individual may be said to have sitten for his picture. No sacrifice has ever been made to attain the unsubstantial and unavailing praise of felicitous composition. Nor has any the least door been left open to feelings of a worse kind, whether amicable or hostile. The relations of friendship and enmity, whether political or personal, have been wholly disregarded, and one only object kept steadily in view — the likeness of the picture, whether critical or moral. " It is conceived that some good service may be rendered to the cause of human improvement, which the author has ever had so much at heart, by the present publication, because its tendency is to fix the public attention upon some of the subjects most important to the interests of mankind. The repression, or at least the sub- jugation, of party feelings must be always of material benefit to the community, and tend to remove a very serious obstruction from the great course in which legislation is advancing. Party con- nexion is indeed beneficial as long as it only bands together those who, having formed their opinions for themselves, are desirous of giving them full effect. But so much of abuse has generally attended such leagues, that reflecting men are now induced to Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 123 reject them altogether. Their greatest evil certainly is the one most difficult to be shunned, their tendency to deliver over the many to the guidance of the few in matters where no dominion ever should be exercised — to make the opinions adopted by leading men pass current, without any reflection, among their followers — to enfeeble and corrupt the public mind, by discouraging men to think for themselves — and to lead multitudes into courses which they have no kind of interest in pursuing, in order that some designing individuals may gain by their folly or their crimes. As society advances, such delusions will become more and more difficult to practise ; and it may safely be affirmed, that hundreds now discharge the sacred duty to themselves and their country, of forming their own opinions upon reflection, for one that had, disenthralled himself thirty years ago." We have here a pretty strong disclaimer on the part of Lord Brougham to any charge of party feeling, and are willing enough to admit, that in his present position, he is, in judging of others, not very likely to indulge in any outrageous partiality. He belongs to no party now. Like Coriolanus, in Shakspere, having been banished from Rome, he turns round to his old associates, and cries, " I banish you!' He is not likely to speak very bitterly of his old foes the Tories, or feel very much hurt at their ill-treating his old friends the Whigs. He can look at the manoeuvres of both sides, calm from a distance, and say with the Roman philo- sophic poet. How sweet it is to look at the tempest from the shore ! "... magnum alterius spectare laborem, Non quia vexari quemquam est joamda voluptas, Sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est. Per campos instructa, tua sine parte pericli, Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri." The old seaman is at rest on half-pay ; the old warrior takes no share in the battle ; but we must remember that, from insubordina- tion, incapacity, or base ingratitude, the veteran has been turned out of the ranks, and must lay our account to a little spleen on his part. The first two of the speeches are on the monstrous case of the Hunts and Drakard, whom Mr. Brougham ably defended, for an article (published by the former in the Examiner, by the latter in a provincial newspaper), on Military Flogging. The defendants were accused in the information of exciting disaffection in the army. 124 British and Foreign Review and deterring persons from entering it. Sir Robert Wilson, who had published a tract upon the same subject, was subpoenaed as a witness ; and the judge, Lord Ellenborough, in charging the jury to find in favour of the. prosecution, took occasion to say that " all officers, instead of publishing on so delicate a subject, ought to have privately given their opinions to government " — almost in the words, and exactly in the spirit, of Sir John Barrow's advice to Captain Crawford the other day. There is little remarkable in the cases, except the vigour and manliness of Mr. Brougham's appeal, and the curious ingenuity of some of the arguments and quibbles ; the verdict, however, seems almost fabulous : by a London jury the Hunts were acquitted ; the Stamford jurymen found Drakard guilty, and he was condemned to eighteen months' imprisonment for an article which, seeing, as Lord Brougham says, " the productions of the periodical press, now make us doubt if we live in the same country and under the same laws.'' The next two hundred pages are occupied with the famous speeches on Queen Caroline ; to these, let us be permitted to devote a few pages ; for the cause is not only interesting, but it exhibits, in a pretty clear light, the faculties, intellectual and moral, of the advocate. Let us remember his above-quoted declaration, that he was writing nothing but the facts of each case, without feelings of any worse kind, whether amicable or hostile, and see whether in the speech, or in the histories which he has written concerning it, the learned lord has preserved that laudable im- partiality for which he takes credit to himself It is difficult to say how Mr. Canning could have been induced to declare publicly his opinion ''that the Princess of Wales was formed to be the life, grace, and ornament of polished society " ; but his testimony, direct as it is, is not strong enough to make the world believe that the person so lauded by him possessed the qualities which he discovered in her. Lively, she might be — only too lively, from all accounts ; but graceful, polished, and ornamental are terms which describe a character anything but that of the Princess of Wales. Anybody who has read the deposition of Lady Douglas, or the two lately published volumes of the " Lady of Honour," as Lord Brougham has, — anybody who has been much m her society, as was doubtless her legal adviser — who has some knowledge of the world, as the ex-chancellor has, — some acquaint- ance with modern languages, as the famous orator and member of the National Institute of France, — must know pretty well what the qualifications of the luckless Queen were. And when we read (not Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 125 in the volumes before us, but in the Edinburgh Review an article from which Lord Brougham quotes, in the Introduction to his speeches on the Pains and Penalties Bill), that " she was a princess of singular accomplishments as well ef mind as of person," that in early life her mental endowments were brilliant — her " talents far above the ordinary level" — ^her wit "singularly ready" — her " apprehension very quick," — we must impugn either the judgment or the credibility of the person who professes to describe the Queen's character. Although Mr. Canning, in a fit of parliamentary politeness, Mr. Brougham, the advocate, and Lord Brougham, the reviewer and historian, may vouch for the charm of the Queen's appearance, deportment and conversation, — will the world believe in her excellencies, because Lord Brougham enumerates them in print ? Nay, does the learned lord himself believe in them, and can we not imagine that he has some reason ior pre /ending to believe in them? According to his lordship's notions of the duties of an advocate, which are, to do (and of course to say) everything for his client, these panegyrics mig^ht have been in place when, as the Queen's attorney-general, he directed her defence ; but now, in sober privacy, twenty years after the acting of that wretched comedy, when he, one of the principal performers, has laid aside the robes and wigs in which he dressed his part, — the tinsel moralities, the startling quotations from Tacitus, the fierce appeals to the gods, which were necessary for the enactment of the drama, — now we know how the thunder was made — a bullet rattling in an empty barrel ; now that we have been behind the scenes, and seen how the armour of virtue was but pasteboard, and the innocent blushes of modesty only so much brickdust and carmine, why continue the stale tricks ? Why don the old moth-eaten stage gear, or re-echo the ancient clap-traps which have served their turn long ago? When the history of those days comes to be written, when some future Swift or Fielding shall take upon himself to describe the facts and characters which Lord Brougham has not described, — which he might describe if common honesty would allow him, and common decency would not prevent him, — the tale will not be an uninstructive one, and the moral wholesome though bitter. In the annals of human folly, is there a page more strangely ludicrous and despicable ? In the history of human baseness, is there a story more base ? Which is the more contemptible, the immaculate accuser or the spotless accused? Which is the more knavish and false, the party which supported the former, or that which 126 British and Foreign Review defended the latter — with the solemn name of God on their mouths, to be used alternately, by Tories for the maintenance of peace, or by Whigs, out of hatred to the Tories, desire to supplant them, or admiration for the poor, wretched, tipsy maniac, whose cause they chose to support ? We are pleased to think, however, that though public baseness is more general in our country than in any other in Europe, and that party gives us every sanction to dishonour,— we are pleased to think that private propriety is worshipped with much fervour, and that our drawing-rooms are free from the loose morality of Downing Street and St. Stephen's. To the laws of private morality there is, however, one exception and superior,— the King. He can do no wrong : he seems to be no more respon- sible to society for his private crimes than to the State for his public acts. The Prince of Wales, who played queer tricks at Newmarket, who married Mrs. Fitzherbert and afterwards the Princess of Brunswick, who was false to both, false to every promise, to every friend, to every party, to every principle,— false to his father, his daughter, his country, to every one duty which he had to perform,— possessed, nevertheless, that quality of divinity which doth hedge kings, and was abused or forsaken by parties only in so far as they found reason to forsake or abuse him. If, by so doing, the party or person could advance itself, the cry of shame was raised incontinently, and roused virtue was stimulated to their aid. But when this goodly Prince became a King, what coy Countess refused to attend at his court ? What noble moralist (out of Opposition) hesitated to present himself, or his wife, or his daughter, in such distinguished society ? Did not even whigs agree with the tories in praising him ? and is his memory not handed down to us as that of the first gentleman in Europe ? We have not alluded to George IV. with any desire to expatiate upon the crimes of that unfortunate man, — for let us think of his tempta- tions before we judge too severely of his errors ; we have only spoken of him to contrast the world's treatment of him with the behaviour which it chose to adopt towards the Queen. From her there was nothing to gain. A beggarly establishment of maids of honour, a couple of discontented chamberlains, as many legal advisers ; — no house, no patronage, no society, no character, not even good dinners, — how could morality consent to sit blind in such company ? Why should the chaste flowers of English purity be called upon to blush unseen, and waste their fragrance in Brandenburgh House ? Lord Brougham avows that Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 127 " the Queen's circle became daily more and more contracted ; that the upper classes were unable to face the frowns or resist the blandishments of the court " : in other words, not only the court party left her, but the opposition left her ; the ladies of England of the rank nearest her own deserted her, and not only they ; but we read of the wives of one of her legal advisers, for whose presence it was thought necessary to account, by stating that she had not been to see the Queen, but had waited at her door in a carriage, while her husband, Mr. , had been professionally engaged with her majesty. This general desertion is accounted for simply enough. The Queen's conduct and reputation was such as rendered respectable persons averse to her society ; nor was her rank and influence great enough to induce them to forget her peccadilloes in con- sequence of the advantages which they might hope to derive from her patronage. The woman was indififerent to them, and the verdict regarding her impartial. If Lord Brougham were to write twenty new eulogies of Mr. Brougham in the Edinburgh Review, to clench them with a hundred fresh posies culled from Cicero, to vow from this day to the day of his death that he held the Queen guiltless, to take the Almighty to witness (as before) that he believed her to be so, — he would convince nobody ; if we might without offence urge such an opinion, he would not convince himself, though he swore by all the saints in the calendar, or quoted all the phrases that are to be found by applying to the Clavis Ciceroniana. We may be accused of speaking somewhat lightly of the events and the personages of this famous trial, but it is needless to speak seriously (unless scorn and contempt be serious) of that which is not serious in itself. The trial was a he from beginning to end. The accusation was a lie, the defence was a lie, the verdict was a lie. It was notorious that the same evidence which would have convinced the House of Lords would not have convinced the House of Commons ; the policy which would have induced the one House to acquit her was not a whit more honest than that which caused the other to condemn her. The question between each seemed to be not, shall we stand by the truth? but, shall we stand by the King and his patronage, or the Queen and her great patrons, the people out of doors? For the curious in such points of history, it would not be a disagreeable task to follow out the diplomacy of the King's and Queen's parties in regard to the Pains and Penalties Bill ; and we 128 British and Foreign Review take it that Lord Brougham, with all his affectation of impartiality, has not told the whole truth, or even the half truth, concerning the transaction. That George IV. was a relentless persecutor, a heart- less profligate in himself, is very probable ; but, bad as he was, he never invented all these charges against the Princess ; he might have improved or exaggerated such accounts of circumstances as might be likely to injure his wife ; but if the woman had been honest and pure, all his malice would have fallen harmless. It is possible to make tipsy indecencies to appear as if they were sober crimes, to give to heedless words or actions the air of deliberate baseness or profligacy ; but accusations like those made against the Princess of Wales, the foremost person in the realm, could not be built upon mere slander and perjury ; some foundation was necessary for the facts alleged ; — and if Majocchi was a liar, and Demont a perjurer, — if the King's commissioners were unscrupulous as to the witnesses they collected, and the evidence they gave, — at least, all of the evidence was not false ; there was some which even Mr. Brougham did not think proper to contradict, and to rebut which he had only the eloquent protestations of innocence, the pious appeals to the Divine Being, and the apt quotations from the classics, which no man knows better how to use. Did not the Queen go abroad? She went "in an evil hour," says her Majesty's Attorney-General ; she went after the investiga- tions of which the Book has given an account after the reproof of the Whig government, and the subsequent proceedings of the Tories, which Lord Brougham has described thus mysteriously. "Although from the superior attractions of his society, Mr. Canning was a more familiar inmate of the household than his two coadjutors (Lord Eldon and Mr. Perceval), they were the more active partisans of the Princess' cause ; and when the investigation of 1807 closed by the report and censure already mentioned, they prepared for publication an appeal against the injustice and harsh- ness of the whole proceeding. An extreme mystery hangs over this portion of the story, but we believe the fact to be that the work contained statements which, in those days of restricted printing and frequent prosecution, it was judged dangerous for any one to print, and impossible to find a bookseller who would undertake to publish. Certain it was, that the whole was secretly printed at a private press, under the direction of the ex-Chancellor and ex-Attorney-General, the law officers who had brought more libellers to trial, and prepared more penal laws against the press than any others of the successors of Jeffreys and Noy. It was Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 129 about this time the favourite object of George III. to get rid of the Whig ministry. Ever since Mr. Fox's death, in September 1806, he had been convinced that the Tory party could carry on the government, and had been anxiously waiting for an oppor- tunity to quarrel with the Whigs. But more crafty by far than his well-meaning son, our late King, afterwards proved in similar circumstances, he suffered them to go on, and even to dissolve the parliament and elect a new one, — aware how impossible it was to change the ministry without any ground on which he could appeal to the country for support. While thus watching his time, the affair of the Princess, whom he had always loved with a genuine warmth of affection and supported with his wonted strength of purpose, but confirmed by his hatred of her persecutor and slanderer, came to his aid. He resolved to make this the ground of quarrel with the Whigs, who were the Prince's associates, had taken his part, had conducted the investigation, and presented the offensive Report. The strong feelings, he knew, of the English people would be roused against the violator of all conjugal duties ; and the appeal to English generosity and justice, against the partisans of one "who violated both, in his treatment of a friendless stranger, he felt assured would not be made in vain. There is no doubt whatever that the Book, written by Mr. Perceval, and privately printed at his house, under Lord Eldon's superin- tendence and his own, was prepared in concert with the King, and was intended to sound the alarm against Carlton House and the Whigs, when a still more favourable opportunity of making a breach with the latter unexpectedly offered itself in the Catholic question. The King, with his accustomed quickness and sagacity, at once perceived that this afforded a still more advant.ageous ground for fighting the battle he had so long wished to join with his enemies. To Lord Eldon .and Mr. Perceval nothing could be more suitable and agreeable : the cry against the Prince was laid aside for the cry of No Popery ; and instead of proclaiming con- jugal rights, to be menaced by nations. The success of this movement is well known, and it laid the cause of the Princess out of view for some years. " It is difficult, however, to describe the sensation which the Report of the Secret Tribunal had made, wherever a knowledge of its contents reached. That a wife, a princess and a stranger, should be subjected to treatment the most cruel and unmanly, should then be driven from the shelter of her husband's roof, should be surrounded by spies and false witnesses, and having been charged 9 13° British and Foreign Review with a capital offence, — nay, with high treason, — should be tried behind her back, with the most able counsel to attend on behalf of her persecutor and accuser, without a human being present on her behalf, so much as to cross-examine a witness, or even to take a note of the evidence, — was a proceeding which struck all men's minds with astonishment and dismay, and seemed rather to approach the mockery of all justice that we read of in eastern seraglios, than to resemble anything^known among nations living under constitutional government. But if the investigation itself was thus an object of reprobation and disgust, its result gave, if possible, less satisfaction still. What could be said of a sentence which showed that, even when tried behind her back, and by an invisible tribunal formed wholly of her adversaries, not the shadow of guilt could be found in her whole conduct ; and that even the mercenary fancies and foul perjuries of the spies had failed to present any probable matter of blame ; and yet, instead of at once pronouncing her innocent and unjustly accused, begrudged her the poor satisfaction of an acquittal ; and fearful of affording her the triumph to which innocence is entitled, and offending the false accuser, both passed over all mention of her unparalleled wrongs, and left a stigma upon her name by the vague recommendation that the King should advise her concerning certain levities and indiscretions of behaviour, — an allusion so undefined that any one may fill up the dark outline as imagination should enable him, or his want of common charity should enable him to do. Every one knew that had there been the least tangible impro- priety, though falling far short of guilt, it would have been stated in the Report ; but the purposes of the accuser, to which the Secret Judges lent themselves, were best served by a vague and mysterious generality, that meant everything, and everything as well as nothing, and enabled him to propagate, by his hireling favourites all over society, any new slanders which he might choose to invent." The motive that Lord Brougham assigns to Mr. Brougham's party is highly creditable. We read that the Whigs, the Prince's associates, had taken his part, had conducted the investigation and presented the offensive Report. The Report, that is, was not true; the stern rebuke of the Princess was mere sycophancy. Mr. Brougham's friends the Whigs were maligning the Princess' character, in order to carry favour with the future monarch. Having thus disposed of the Liberals, our historian reverts to the proceedings of the Tories : they had prepared a defence of the Princess of Wales with the King's concert ; not a defence of Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 131 the Princess, but rather an attack on the Prince, who was to be destroyed in order to hurt the Whigs, his associates, who again had been endeavouring to destroy the Princess, in order to please him ! The No Popery cry was found to be a more useful weapon for assailing the Prince of Wales, and his spouse was therefore laid on the shelf by those who had been so confident in her defence, and so strong in support of her character. Perceval and Eldon, the terrible workers of the private press, now come in for a share of the vituperation which Lord Brovgham, as we have seen, has already bestowed on his own, or rather his former party. " If, howe\-er," says his Lordship, " the effect thus produced was most injurious to the characters of the inquirers, and irrevocably ruined that of the Prince in all honourable minds, the proceedings of the Prince's defenders, as soon as they came to be known excited on the other hand no little surprise. That two such men as Lord Eldon and Mr. Perceval — the one at the head of the law the other attorney-general, and who now became, in effect, though not in name, prime minister — that those who had held the mos rigorous execution of the old laws against the press to be absolutely necessary for the safety of the monarchy and had been framers of new measures more rigorous still should now become the actors in a conspiracy to evade some of these laws, and break others, filled men's minds with unspeakable wonder. A secret printing press had been employed at a private house, for the express purpose of evading the provision of that act which Lord Eldon had passed, and Mr. Perceval had supported, to prohibit, under severe penalties, any one from printing anything whatsoever, without appending to it his name and place of abode. They had written and in this clandestine fashion had printed thousands of a work, which, though now-a-days far less libellous than almost every day's papers that are read one hour and pass the next into oblivion, was yet in those times equal to the most daring libels ; and all this they had done for the purpose of blackening the character of the heir-apparent to the throne. This passage sunk deep into the public mind, and was esteemed an illustration on the one hand of the lengths to which party feeling will carry very upright and prudent men, as well as of the hardships under which the law of libel places authors and publishers, and of their efforts in fettering the discussion of every question which justice requires should be freely handled. For it was observed that while the defence of the innocent party could not be undertaken without the greatest risk, the wrong-doer and 132 Bfitiish and Foreign Review all the parasite accusers were safe in their attacks upon her character, through every channel of private communication, and even in their mysterious allusions through the press, too flimsy to be reached by the law, though quite significant enough to reach their object — and the more hurtful, for the very reason that they were so vague and obscure. "The confirmed insanity of the King three years afterwards called to the regency the chief actor in these unhappy scenes. . . . It added little respect to the disesteem in which he was so universally held, that he was seen to discard all the Liberal party with whom he had so long acted, and with whom, after so long a separation he had become again intimately united, and among them the very men who had stood by him in his domestic broils ; whilst he took into full favour his determined enemies, and worst of all, the very men who had secretly printed libels against him, too outrageous to find a publisher ! The accession of the Princess' friends to the Prince's favour was the period of their intercourse with their former client." In venturing to say that the whole proceedings relative to the Queen's trial were lies, we use the very shortest expression that could convey an opinion, and surely Lord Brougham's more diffuse explanation of the circumstances fully confirms it. He sets out by showing that the Whigs were truckling to the Prince, and therefore unjust to the Princess. He then urges, that the Tories, in order to vex the Prince, took up his wife's case, and protested her innocence ; and finally that when George III. was rendered incapable of governing, and the first gentleman in Europe reigned in his stead, the Tories (such are " the lengths to which party will carry very upright and prudent men "), then being reconciled to him suddenly forgot their charges against the first gentleman in Europe, and their confidence in the innocence of his wife. How much more does a man prove — experienced in law courts, in Commons' House, in Peers' House -a governor of University College— F.R.S. — a member of the National Institute of France, — how much m9re does such a celebrated reasoner prove than he should, or than he intends to prove ! We have here three pretty distinct assertions. ist.— Out of sycophancy for the Prince, the Whigs attacked the Princess of Wales. 2nd. — The Tories, on the contrary, defended the Princess (on the ground of perjury on the Prince's part and that of his creatures), speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 133 because they were the King's aUies, and because the first gentleman in Europe hated, and was hated by, his father. 3rd. — Coming into favour and power under the Prince Regent, the Tories forgot his injured consort, and remained, as maybe read in history, faithful to the cause and champions of the destroyed honour, of the first gentleman in Europe. The Whigs had, as may be remembered, concluded the " delicate investigation " by a very severe animadversion upon the imprudence of the Princess of Wales.' This charge against her was a falsehood — she was innocent ; there was no need of animadversion ; sycophancy for the Prince was the origin of their injustice to the Princess. The Tories defended the Princess while the Prince was with the other party — deserted her when the Prince came over to them ; and we are expected to discover from all this mass of roguery, what ? — that when the Tories abetted the Queen, they abetted the truth ; that when they forsook her, they forsook the truth ; and that the same was the case with the Whigs ! And we are to take such reasoning as this as honest logic ; we are to be told that the whole series of trials and condemnations were party transactions, and that only the acquittals were honest ! • The extract from the Cabinet Minute of January 25th, 1807, is thus : — "Having before humbly submitted to your Majesty their opinion that the facts of the case did not warrant their advising that any future steps should be taken upon it by your Majesty's Government, they have not thought it necessary to advise your Majesty any longer to decline receiving the Princess of Wales into your royal presence. But the result of the whole case does, in their judgement, render it indispensable that your Majesty should, by a serious admonition, convey to her Royal Highness your Majesty's expectation that her Royal Highness should be more circumspect in her future conduct ; and they trust that in the terms in which they have advised such admonition should be conveyed, your Majesty will not be of opinion, that in a full consideration of the evidence and answer they can be considered as having at all exceeded the necessity of the case." They before state the incompetency of the tribunal to pronounce in any question of guilt or innocence ; and, with the above admonition, — can anything nearer a condemnation be conceived ? The members of the Cabinet present were, the Lord Chancellor, Lord President, Lord Privy Seal, Earl Spencer, Earl of Moira, Lord Henry Petty, Lord Howick, Lord GrenviUe, Lord Ellenborough, Mr. Wyndham, and Mr. GrenviUe. " The Commissioners (Lords Erskine, Spencer, GrenviUe, and Ellenborough are happy to declare, that there is no foundation whatever for believing that Lady Douglas's accusation regarding the birth of a child of the Princess was true, but state that other particulars respecting the conduct of her Royal Highness, especially considering her exalted rank and station, must necessarily give rise to very unfavourable interpretations." 134 British and Foreign Review O Justice ! as if the roguery which invalidates the one verdict does not invalidate the other ; and as if the advocate, by accusing the judges of dishonesty, does not injure the client in whose favour the judges have pronounced ! In speaking of Lord Brougham's defence of the Queen, or rather of the speech of Mr. Broug^ham, the advocate in her favour, one can hardly use terms of too high praise to characterize the astonishing genius exhiliited in that performance ; and when Mr. Denman, in a noble compliment to his leader (and a very politic appeal to the public, too) speaks of his own exultation, "That inglorious and well-foughten field They kept together in their chivalry," he said no more than the very strictest justice would allow, his own efforts being almost as great as those of Mr. Brougham, and the field on which they had to contend well-foughten and glorious for them indeed. They had to contend against the greatest of all enemies, the Truth : and, if they could not overcome her, as none can, they managed to make so strong a stand against her, so brilliant a retreat, — to perform such gallant exploits in both, to fall on and destroy so many of the troops in the enemy's pay (the Demonts, Majocchis, Kresses, and the rest) that their retreat wore the air of a victory, and that many were disposed to believe it an absolute triumph. The merit and powers of Mr. Brougham were never so displayed ; his speech contains passages of every kind of eloquence ; his defence was as wonderfully cautious as his attack was daring and prompt ; his wit not more terrific than his oratory was pathetic and sublime ; he was master of every one of the rhetorical weapons, and used them each in a manner which elicited the applause and wonder of the adversaries against whom he was engaged,— in a manner that certainly never was equalled by the great orator of the ancients whose name is always on Lord Brougham's lips. It is curious to contrast the tactics of the Queen's advocates with those of Gilford and Copley, their opponents, and in reading of the dazzling genius and furious attack on the one side, and the keenness, coolness, and perseverance on the other, one might be disposed to carry out the military metaphor somewhat further, and compare the two parties to the French and ourselves in the late war ; perhaps the company of Demonts, Majocchis, and Kresses above alluded to, might be likened to some of our Belgian and Spanish allies, who used to run when the English had to fight, and Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 135 whom our courageous adversaries most invariably and pitilessly rode over. A crowd of such miserable creatures were, unluckily for the King, enlisted on his side, and among them Mr. Brougham made a memorable slaughter ; witness the famous massacre of the unhappy Demont. " But far be it from me, my lords, to deny the accomplishments of this person. Very far indeed from me be any such thought. She is the most perfect specimen, — she is the most finished model of the waiting-maid that I believe the world has ever seen in actual existence. I believe none of the writers of her own country, or of ours which she is now studying, will give a more complete specimen — neither Moliere, nor Le Sage, nor our own Congreve or Cibber — than that which she has given, without any assistance, in this house. I cannot deny her the greatest readiness of invention ; that she is at no loss in writing I cannot dispute ; I must admit, too, that she is not at all sterile in her descriptions upon those subjects on which she enters, until she is brought into contrast with her own letters, and until my learned friend Mr. Williams begins his somewhat unceremonious, not to say inconvenient, cross- examination. I cannot deny that she possesses a caution which would do honour to the Machiavel of waiting-maids ; that she is gifted with great circumspection ; that she possesses infinite nimbleness in devising excuses, and adjusting one part of her evidence with another - that all her shifts and her doublings were well devised, and that if the thing could have been done — which it cannot by the eternal laws of truth— she would have been successful in blinding and deluding her hearers. She showed great art in endeavouring to reconcile the stories she had told with the contents of the letters which were produced ; which letters she had not forgotten, though she did not know they were still in existence, and ready to be produced against her. Had she been aware of their preservation, and had her patrons been aware of their contents, your lordships would never have seen her face here ; just as you have not seen the faces of some seventy other witnesses, whom they dare not call, and whom they have shipped off like so much tainted meat, or useless live lumber, for their native country. Far be it from me, then, to deny the accomplishments of this person !" # * * * * " My lords, I need hardly remind you,— I need hardly remind any person whose capacity is above the meanest, — I need hardly '3^ British and Foreign Review tell any man who is not fit to be turned out in the fields among those animals whom he sometimes abuses by using, — I need hardly say to any one who is above this level, ' See what is the effect of this.' Will it be said — ' Be it that she uses double eniendres, that she tells falsehoods freely to gain her own ends ; yet the candour of making these admissions, the ingenuousness of youth with which she informs you that she tells falsehoods by wholesale, so that she cannot be depended upon for a word that she utters, is a blandish- ment more seductive than all her personal charms ; it binds us to her, though not her personal lovers ; and we open our ears to all her tales because she is so engaging a liar, and acknowledges, with so much readiness, that there is not a word of truth in her story. You may say to any other person, ' Poor, dear, innocent Swiss shepherdess, how ingenuous thy mind ! ' but to a witness ! I never before heard so strange a reason for giving a witness credit, as citing the candour with which she admits that she is not to be believed. * « * • • " I forgot, my lords, in admitting the qualities of this female, to make another concession. She is kindly attached to her own sister ; she loves her with a sincere affection ; she tells you so. Her principle in her conduct upon this occasion, if she is believed, is anxiety for her service and interest. Now, I do not believe the story which follows, and it is not I who am calumniating Demont, because I am taking her own account of herself, which I do not believe. Mine is a plain story. She represents herself as affec- tionate towards that sister, heartily attached to her interest, only anxious to promote it, — her sister just coming into the world at the innocent age of fifteen, — and that she does all she can to obtain a place for that sister in a house which, if you believe a tittle of what she told you, ought to have the name, not of a palace, as the Attorney-General says, but of a brothel. She has two sisters indeed, and she is equally attached to both. She describes the letter as written immediately after leaving those scenes, immediately after having been unwillingly turned out of this brothel, — unwilling to leave it she says she was, although she admits that (differing from her sisters in that respect), she was rich and they were poor, and [she] was therefore under no necessity for submitting to that contamination, which no necessity ought to induce an honest woman to endure. But though she was under no necessity, the honest Swiss chamber-maid balances the profits of her place against its disgrace ; acting upon the principle of the Roman speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 137 emperor, who, so that he raised a tax, was not over-anxious as to the materials from which the filthy imposition was obtained. Though she admits that the house is worse than an ordinary brothel, and avows that she loves her sisters, the elder as well as the younger, she is occupied for six months after she leaves it, first, in endeavouring to obtain for the virgin of fifteen a place in order to initiate her there ; and next, to keep the malurer girl of seventeen in possession of so comfortable and so creditable a situation. " Such is Demont by her own account ! I do not believe her so bad, — I believe no woman so bad,— as she now finds it necessary to tell you she is, because unexpectedly we bring out her own handwriting against her. I believe every word of her letter to be sincere. I believe she did right and well in wishing to keep her own place, to keep one sister there, and then to obtain employment for another ; but I also believe that, having been driven from thence, and disappointed in her hopes of being taken back, she invented the story she has now told, not knowing that these letters were in existence, and would be brought in evidence against her. But she was sworn in Lincoln's Inn Fields before she knew of these letters being in existence. Had she known of this fact, I have no doubt she would rather have foregone all the advantages she has reaped, from coming forward as a leading witness in the plot against the Queen, than have made her appearance at your lordships' bar.'' There is the unhappy Demont,' mangled as no woman ever was before — mangled as she deserved to be, and as long as English language and wit shall endure, the world will doubtless enjoy the spectacle of her execution. With the other characters similarly sacrificed by Lord Brougham in this famous speech we cannot meddle ; the account of one such murder is enough, and the manner of killing is the same in the other cases. Once for all let us say, that whatever advocate could do Mr. Brougham did ; and, granting his dictum, " that an advocate, by the sacred duty he owes his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, THAT CLIENT AND NO OTHER — to save that client by all expedient means, to protect him at all hazards, is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties.'' Granting this to be " sacred " truth, as Mr. Brougham calls it, ' Perhaps Swift's punishment of the Duchess of Marlborough, in his History of Queen Anne, is as dreadful ; the wit and the principles of the Dean have descended (although in a less degree) to the noble and learned lord. 138 British and Foreign Review he is a model of virtue as well as of eloquence, not only a great orator but an absolute saint. However, we deny (and we believe every honest man in the world will) the opinion altogether ; it appears to us that an advocate has to know some one else besides his client, himself namely ; that he is not called upon to save him by all expedient mea?ts, for it may at times be expedient to be dishonest ; and there is no reason that we know of why knavery should be a necessary quality to entitle a man to practise at the bar. We meddle, of course, with no man's opinion, but we are bound to put in our protest, not so much to influence him, as to save ourselves in the opinion of the reader. Acting we may suppose upon this peculiar notion, there are several passages in Mr. Brougham's speech which must be taken as results of his " sacred " duty rather than of his inward conviction ; for it is manifest that the former will often in ugly cases compel the advocate to simulate the latter, when, but for this cursed sacred duty, the unfortunate man would utter opinions directly contrary to those which he is called upon to advocate professionally. The following passages, then, we take to be " professional." " History of Ber garni. " He was not of the low origin he has been described to be. He was a person whose father held the position of a landed proprietor, though of moderate income, in the north of Italy. He had got into difficulties, as has happened to many of the Italian gentry of late years ; and his son, if I mistake not, had sold the family estate, in order to pay his father's debts. He was reduced — but he was a reduced gentleman. When he was in the service of General Pino, he was recognized as such ; the General repeatedly favoured him as such ; he has dined at his table, General Pino being commander- in-chief in the Milanese. He thus sat at the table of an Italian noble in the highest station. He has dined at his table during the Spanish campaigns. He was respected in his station — he was esteemed by those he served at that time. They encouraged him, knowing his former pretensions and his present merits ; and when he was hired, he was proposed by a gentleman who desired to befriend and promote him, an Austrian nobleman, then living in Italy, in the Austrian service ; he was proposed to the Queen's chamberlain as a courier, there being a vacancy, and was hired without the knowledge of her Majesty, and before she had ever Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 139 seen him. The Austrian nobleman, when he offered him as a courier, said, he fairly confessed he hoped, if Bergami behaved well, he might be promoted, because he was a man whose family had seen better days, because he was a faithful servant, and because he had ideas belonging rather to his former than to his present position. It was almost a condition of his going, that he should go for the present as a courier, with the expectation of soon filling some other and higher place.'' Does the reader recollect what the " higher place " was that the reduced gentleman was to fill ? The " Austrian nobleman " who offered him as a courier hoped that he might be employed some day — as a servant out of livery I " Conduct of the Queen. " I do not dwell on this, my lords, as of any consequence to the case ; for whether I shall think it necessary to prove what I have just stated or not, I consider that I have already disposed of the case in the comments which I have made upon the evidence and in the appeal which I have made to the general principles of criminal justice. But, as the conduct of her Majesty has been so unsparingly scrutinized, and as it is important to show that impro- priety existed not, where I utterly defy guilt to be proved, I thought it requisite to dwell upon this prominent feature in the cause. If the Queen had frequented companies below her station — if she had lowered her dignity — if she had followed courses which, although not guilty ones, might be deemed improper in themselves and inconsistent with her high station — if she had been proved guilty of any unworthiness — I could have trod upon high ground still. But I have no occasion to occupy it. I say, guilt there is none^ levity there is none — unworthiness there is none. But if there had been any of the latter, while I dared her accusers to the proof of guilt, admitting levity and even indecorum, I might still appeal to that which always supports virtue in jeopardy — the course of her former life at home, among her own relations, before she was frowned upon here— while she had protection among you— while she had the most powerful of all protection, that of our late venerable monarch." No guilt, no levity, no unworthiness, no impropriety 1 See to what points, at some " cost to himself," as Mr. Brougham observes rightly, an advocate's " sacred duty " may occasionally lead him ! The reader perhaps recollects La Fontaine's description of a 14° British and Foreign Review certain office at court : — " I'emploi qui certes n'est pas mince, at qu'k la cour, ou tout se peint en beau, on a appele etre I'ami du prince, mais qu'k la ville, et surtout en province, les gens grossiers ont nomme " — never mind what. The duties are not precisely similar of the avocat de la Reine and the ami du Prince, but they have some points in common : the one has to aid the amours of the illustrious personage, the other to screen them — "k la cour (d'assises) ou tout se peint un beau.'' The latter occupation is called a "sacred duty"; what a different notion have the vulgar people in town and country of the office so called ! With one more specimen from this speech we shall close our extracts ; it is the celebrated and eloquent appeal at the conclusion. " Religious and Political Reflections. " Let not man call those contradictions or those falsehoods which false witnesses swear to from needless and h2odless false- hood, such as Sacchi about changing his name— or such as Demont about her letters — such as Majocchi about the banker's clerk— or such as all the other contradictions and falsehoods not going to the main body of the case, but to the main body of the credit of the witnesses — let not man rashly and blindly call these things accidents. They are just rather than merciful dispensations ot that Providence, which wills, not that the guilty shall triumph, and which favourably protects the innocent. " Such, my lords, is the case now before you ! Such is the evidence in support of this measure, — evidence inadequate to prove a debt — impotent to deprive of a civil right — ridiculous to convict of the lowest offence— scandalous if brought forward to support a charge of the highest nature which the law knows — monstrous to ruin the honour, to blast the name of an English Queen ! What shall I say, then, if this is the proof by which an act of judicial legislation, a parliamentary sentence, an ex post facto law, is sought to be passed against this defenceless woman ? My lords, I pray you to pause. I do earnestly beseech you to take heed. You are standing on the brink of a precipice — then beware ! It will go forth your judgment, if sentence shall go against the Queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced, which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who give it. Save the country, my lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe — save yourselves from this peril— rescue that country of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 141 longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the roots and stem of the tree. Save that country, that you may continue to adorn it— save the Crown, which is in jeopardy — the Aristocracy, which is shaken— save the Altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred Throne ! You have said, my lords, you have willed— the Church and King have willed — that the Queen should be deprived of its solemn service. She has, instead of that solemnity, the heart-felt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do here pour forth my humble supplications at the Throne of Mercy, that that mercy may be poured down upon the people, in a larger measure than the merits of its rulers may deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice ! " We may speak of the two former passages lightly. An advocate of a certain order of understanding might have fancied that a broad-shouldered Italian sergeant was a person of such singular merit, as to rise suddenly from the place of groom or outrider, to the honour of waiting at table ; that then he might be suddenly permitted to dine at table ; that then he might be created a baron, a Knight of Malta, a chamberlain ; and after being received at a princess of England's dining-room, might surely be admitted into her bed-room ; and, having dined in her company, might by a natural consequence be permitted to sleep in her company, too. An advocate might acknowledge all this, and Mr. Brougham did ; and an advocate might see nothing but innocence in all the proceedings, but such an advocate must be a fool, and Mr. Brougham is none. An advocate might declare that a princess who made of a broad-shouldered Italian sergeant her baron, her knight, her chamberlaim, who shared her table and her bed-room with him, who had his sister for her lady of honour, his mother, his daughter, his brothers, all sorts of relations, except his wife, in her pay, — an advocate might declare that in the princess' conduct he saw "no guilt, no levity, no unworthiness, no impropriety"; and Lord Brougham did declare all this. We treated the declara- tion lightly, because such a monstrous palpable falsehood is more absurd than it is harmful, and because it is useless for the most part to show anger when simple contempt is sufficient. They were professional fibs so far, — the Queen is spotless, Bergami an injured nobleman in disguise,— the honest advocate must say so, for it is in his brief. But the last extract we have given is surely out of it ; after having said his client was innocent, H* British and Foreign Review the honest, honest advocate proceeds to swear ' to it. With an awful ingenuity in periods beautifully pathetic, he points to the wonderful interference of Providence in proving the innocence of his client — he prays that God will enlighten the judges before whom he is pleading, and "will turn their hearts to justice." Is this, too, a part of an advocate's duty ? Suppose that his client is guilty, and that he knows it ; he is bound not only to pledge his own honour to the fiction of her innocence, but to call upon God's name to ratify the falsehood, and not to hesitate at perjury when other means should fail ! Our purpose here is not to preach up refinement of morality, or to exercise that cheap virtue which consists in laying bare the faults of our neighbour. To grow angry with the cant of patriotism, the thousand meannesses of party, the coarse lies with which am- bition is obliged to feed the fools on whom it lives in return, — to grow angry with these would be to pass through life in a fury ; and we might as well be wroth at any other of the diseases to which Providence has subjected the children of men. Our passions, our wants, the dire struggles of necessity, the blindness of vanity, offer, if not an excuse for worldly dishonesty, at least a palliation ; and a wise man will look to them not so much with anger as with humble pity, and pray that he himself may not be led into temptation. But when hypocrisy, in its dealing with other hypocrites, tries to drag Heaven into court, and to stamp its forgeries with God's seal, at least we may say that the experiment is awful, and tremble for the fate of the desperate gamester who has resorted to such means of winning his cause. Is victory only to be won at such a price ? Is genius only to triumph after undergoing such a fearful apprenticeship ? What a profound judge of human nature was He, if here we may mention His name, who told us of our weakness by praying that we might not be led into temptation, and checked our pride of intellect by promising the Kingdom of Heaven to the poor in spirit ! No more of Mr. Brougham, the advocate in this famous cause ; he has lately pretended to be its historian likewise ; his account is about as candid and worthy of credit as the John Bull newspaper ' In the passage above quoted there is no direct assertion, such as " I take God to witness the Queen is innocent," the appeal to Heaven is made only by implication, — by introducing the Almighty as aiding innocence to triumph, and beseeching Him to turn the hearts of the lords to justice ; this may be construed, of course, either way, but the intention is evident — to make it appear that God is appealed to in proof of the purity of the Queen. Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. i43 of those days ; and we would recommend any person seeking for information upon the Queen's case, and the intrigues of the two parties, to look anywhere else than either to the pages of Brougham or Bull. In his capacity as historian, the noble lord gravely in- forms us that the cause of the Queen's misfortunes was her excessive love of children J that it was that caused the delicate investigation from which she was " triumphantly acquitted," and afterwards gave colour to the slanders that were gathered together by the Milan Commissioners ; this it was that caused the Queen to adopt, not only Bergami's little child, but himself, his brothers, sister, mother, and every one excepting his wife. Lord Brougham states that the proceedings of 1820 ended in the discomfiture of the Queen's enemies, and that the fate of the bill (which condemned her expressly, but was withdrawn) " declared her innocent " ; and the reader who knows the history quite as well as the noble lord, and has not, like him, any reason to be partial, is to believe that the stern rebuke which concluded the investigation of 1806 was a " triumphant acquittal," and that the condemnation of 1820 "declared her innocence ! " These facts are patent, public to every person who chooses to consult a newspaper or an annual register ; and Lord Brougham's inferences from the facts are such as we do believe no sane man in the kingdom would draw. There are other parts of the history, however, which are darker ; and of the intrigues which caused the Princess' return our chronicler says not a word. She went abroad, after her triumphant acquittal, on an allowance fixed by herself, and her legal adviser offered, if the grant was confirmed, that she should remain abroad, and forgo all claims to the title of Queen of England in the expected event of the demise of George IIL Did Mr. Brougham, or did he not, make this offer? Did or did not Lord Liverpool reply to it (after that event) by offering the Queen ^50,000 yearly instead of ^35,000, which had been demanded for her by Mr. Brougham? Did or did not Mr. Brougham go over to the Queen at Saint Omer with this offer in his pocket, and did he communicate it to the Queen ? Our historian has no leisure to allude to any one of these points; and yet, though unimportant themselves, they are important to the right understanding of the history ; he might have given much curious information on the lecret transactions from which these facts sprung ; they are trivial, it is true, — molehills merely in this mountain of a cause, — but who knows how much the ground is undermined, and what crawling and creeping is going on in the darkness beneath? Had 144 British and Foreign Review Lord Brougham chosen to acquaint us (and no man knows them better) with such points of secret history, his tale would have been, if not moral, at least curious ; and, if it did not present any picture of exalted virtue, it would at any rate have given us some lessons in the detecting of roguery, which would have been useful in such a simple world as ours is. To conclude our observations upon this trial. The advocate's ingenious and eloquent statement deserves in our opinion the highest praise, but not the smallest credit ; and the pretended historical introduction is only a continuation of the former pleading, without the excuse for it, — with eloquence and wit somewhat impaired by time and want of occasion, and replete with mis- statements equally audacious and absurd. As our Review is British and Foreign, the next extract shall be one of European interest ; and the reader, who has seen how obstinately wrong-headed Lord Brougham can be when it suits him, may have the opportunity to judge of the keenness of his views, when party or personal interest does not divert him from the truth. The following account of the Emperor Alexander is from the preface to Mr. Brougham's speech on the Holy Alliance. " The Emperor Alexander, upon whose individual habits, or caprices, this explanation and defence turned, was, after the fall of Napoleon, by far the most distinguished Prince in Europe, whether we regard the magnitude of the affairs in which he had been engaged, the extraordinary fortune that had attended his arts rather than his arms, or the vast empire over which he despotically ruled. But although by no means an ordinary man, and still less an ordinary monarch, he owed his influence and his name very much more to the accidental circumstances of his position, and to the errors committed by Napoleon, first in Spain, then in the North, than either to any very admirable qualities received from nature, or to any considerable accomplishments derived from education. His preceptor. Colonel La Harpe, though a very worthy and intelligent man, was distinguished neither by profound genius, nor great scientific acquirements ; and from his instructions the imperial pupil could not be said to have profited greatly. His knowledge was exceedingly superficial; and, never relying on his own resources, he adopted the royal plan of previously ascertaining what were the pursuits of those he would converse with, and picking up at second-hand a few common-places with which to regale his guests, who, expecting little from an Emperor, and interdicted from anything like Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 145 discussion by the etiquette of a court, were sure to leave the presence deeply impressed with his information and his powers. If he was superficial in general knowledge, he could not be said to have any great capacity either for civil or military affairs. To tell that he constantly pursued the Russian policy of invariably gaining some accession of territory, be it ever so little, in whatever war he might be engaged, and that his treaties of peace never formed any exception to this Muscovite rule, is only to say that he followed in the train of all his predecessors, from Peter the First downwards. Placed in circumstances of unprecedented peril, no passage of his life can be referred to in proof of any resources being displayed by him, which the most ordinary of Princes would not have shown himself possessed of. Stimulated by the exigencies of so many great emergencies, he never rose with the occasion, and, unlike any one with pretensions to eminence, was generally found most wanting when the crisis was most trying. At his accession, he found the armed neutrality of the North discomfited by the battle of Copenhagen ; and he at once yielded all the points, for which his father, a far superior though an eccentric man, had contended, unawed by any difficulties, and unsubdued by any reverses. Joining the third coalition against France, but possessing no general who, like Suwarrow, could lead his armies to victory, he sustained one of the most memorable overthrows recorded in history, and was compelled to purchase peace, and escape invasion, by abandoning the alliance into which he had voluntarily entered. Stricken to the heart with the fear of France, and hardly knowing whether to seek for safety in resistance, or in submission to her dictation, he again had recourse to war, for which he had no kind of genius. " Again defeated, in one of the greatest and most decisive battles of modern times, he formed the closest alliance with his victorious enemy, who soon found it easy to mould which way soever he pleased a person quite as vain and as shallow as he was nimble and plausible. At length came the great crisis both of Alexander's fate and of the world's. Napoleon, obstinately bent on subduing the Peninsula, while he continued to make war in the North, was worsted repeatedly by the English arms ; he pushed his forces in unexampled numbers through Germany, to attack the Russian Empire ; and penetrated to its ancient capital, after many bloody engagements, and an immense loss sustained on either side. The savage determination of Rostopschin prevented, by burning the city, a renewal on the Moskwa of the scenes five years before enacted 10 146 British and Foreign Review on the Niemen. Alexander was prevented from making peace and tendering submission, by the enterprising spirit of that barbarous chief, and the prompt decision and resolute deter- mination of Sir Robert Wilson. The inclemency of an unusually early and severe northern winter did all the rest, and Europe was saved by the physical powers brought happily to bear upon and to destroy the greatest army ever sent into the field. No trait of military genius, — no passage of civil capacity — no instance of shining public virtue — can be cited as displayed by him during a struggle so singularly calculated to draw forth men's powers, to fire them with generous ardour, to nerve their arms with new vigour, to kindle the sparks of latent genius until it blazed out to enlighten and to save a world. " When the struggle was over and his empire restored to peace, he showed no magnanimous gratitude to the brave people who had generously made such unparalleled sacrifices, and had cheerfully suffered such cruel miseries for the defence of his crown. He joined his royal associates in breaking all the promises that had been made during the perils of the war, and in imitating the very worst part of his conduct, whom, with the words of justice, peace, and right on their lips, they had, with the aid of their gallant subjects, overthrown. * * * * * " His reputation for honesty stood extremely low, even among persons of his pre-eminent station. Napoleon, who knew his imperial brother thoroughly, applied to him the uncourtly,' and indeed rather unceremonious description of 'faux, fin, et four be, comme tin Grec du bas empire! It would be highly unjust to tax him with any participation in his father's murder ; nor would the certainty, if it existed, of his privity to it, be any stain upon his character unless we were also assured, contrary to all probability, that he had any power whatever to prevent it. But he was certainly bound, in common decency, to discountenance, if he dared not punish the men whose daggers had opened for him the way to a throne ; and more unthinking folly, greater indecorum, worse judgment in every way, can hardly be imagined, than his referring to the blood shed in palaces, when he issued, with his confederates, the Manifesto against Spain alluded to in the following speech. His course was marked by no displays either of princely or of private virtues— of munificence, of magnanimity, of self-denial, of plain dealing. Nor did the extraordinary pretences to religion, which marked his latter years, succeed in deceiving any Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 147 one, but such as were, either from the adulation of the court, or the en- thusiasm of the conventicle, willing and even anxious to be deluded. Among such dupes he passed for somewhat more pious than his royal compeers ; but few were, even in that class, found so charitable as to believe in his honesty, or to suppose that under the professions of the Christian treaty there lurked no hidden designs of a purely secular and strictly royal description." ' How is it that Lord Brougham can read some characters so well, and is to others so blind ? We come now to read of his own friends and history, and his honesty and acuteness vanish at once. On the 9th of July, 1834, the reader may remember. Lord Grey in the House of Lords, and Lord Althorp, the leader of the Commons, announced their resignation —the resignation, that is, of the whole ministry, for such a declaration was at any rate tanta- mount to it. Lord Brougham says, in allusion to this circumstance, that " when that justly esteemed and venerated individual (Lord Grey) quitted office, the King had undoubtedly resolved to take advantage of the (general) clamour, and would have at once changed his ministers, had they given him any opening, by hesitating whether or not they should continue to hold the government after Lord Grey's secession. The declaration first communicated by the Lord Chancellor in private to his Majesty, and then on the same day in the House of Lords, that the ministers were quite willing to remain, disconcerted all such designs ; and the King could not take the step he so much wished, until Lord Spencer's death in the following November gave or seemed to give a kind of ground (or rather a hollow pretext) for accomplishing the same purpose. This was the very worst step, as it was the most inconsiderate, and proved, for his own comfort, the most fatal that that excellent monarch ever took ; and he had been before- hand warned distinctly of the inevitable consequences, but had disregarded the warning." With the latter part of the sentence we shall not quarrel. The King was warned (by Lord Brougham, doubtless) that the'dismissal of the ministry would be fatal — fatal, so far as it ended in depriving his Majesty of Lord Brougham's services as Chancellor — not other- wise, that we know of; for his Majesty's inclination had been long since pretty well known, and all the world expected that he would take the first opportunity of endeavouring to place the country under what Lord Brougham called " a strong government.^ ' The selection of such diplomatic talents as adorn and distinguish the Lievens and the Pozzos appears to have been his greatest praise. 148 Briish and Foreign Review But the former part of the avowal is not a httle curious ; the Lord Chancellor had had a private communication with the King in the morning, and at night had declared " that he would not discharge his duty if, at all sacrifice of his comfort, at all abandon- ment of his own ease, at the destruction (if so it might be) of his own peace of mind, he did not stand by that gracious monarch and that country, whose support, whose cordial and hearty support he had received during the three years and a half in which he had been a member of the government. After this he need not add, that he had not tendered his resignation. (An audible titter along the Opposition benches)" The monstrous impudence, the astonishing falsehood, and the miraculous success of these words need not be mentioned here. The grave assumption of patriotism and self-sacrifice, of popularity with the King, and the determination to sta?id by his Majesty, are in the history of humbug unparalleled. At this very time Lord Althorp was stating in the House of Commons that, in consequence of his retirement from office, the administration was at an end,' and that he believed Lord Grey was making the same statement in the other house, Lord Brougham was making the above declaration in the Lords. He actually did remain in office for a few months after a declaration which Falstaff never surpassed, which nothing ever surpassed, except the learned lord's further vagaries during the brief period of his ministry. Whether it was Lord Melbourne's intention to get rid of the troublesome Chancellor, as he did afterwards, and as he did of poor Lord Glenelg a few weeks since, we cannot say ; but if he had such a notion, the Chancellor's ruse defeated it ; and his brazen assertion that the ministry had not resigned, when its two leaders had declared the contrary, saved him for a while. Lord Melbourne's very first speech in the Lords contradicted the Chancellor flatly, and stated the dissolution of the late administration.'' One month more had the learned lord, the favourite alike of the King and people, occasion to sacrifice himself by remaining on the woolsack. During that period he made seventy speeches, he cushioned the monstrous Warwick case, he gave it as his opinion that noblemen might interfere at elections, he made his celebrated speech on the Poor Law Amendment Bill, and battled through ' Recollecting the cause of Lord Grey's retirement, Lord Brougham's private correspondence with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and the tone of impudent triumph with which he announced that />e had not resigned, are we not to conjecture that he had actually hopes of supplanting his chief? Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 149 the clauses on its discussion ; and with this ' the Parhament was prorogued, and Lord Brougham began that extraordinary course of pubhc dinners in the provinces, where he found it necessary to awaken the popular sympathies in his favour. Strangely enough, his lordship's speech at Inverness does not appear in the present collection of his orations. Who does not remember that remarkable effort of eloquence ? Lord Grey, the exiled minister, was invited to Scotland, and was received there with unbounded respect and affection. Lord Brougham, in the plenitude of his power, must go to Scotland too. No suspicions of his downfall occurred to the wandering Wolsey ; he spoke of " ego et rex mens," as if the woolsack was his for ever, and the King his warmest friend. " I am conscious," says the modest nobleman, " that it is not owing to my personal merits that I have received this mark of dis- tinction at your hands. First of all I owe it to the circumstance of serving one who lives in the hearts of his subjects. I have enjoyed the honour of serving that prince for nearly four years, and during that time experienced only one series of gracious condescension, confidence, and favour ! To find that he lives in the hearts of his loyal subjects, in the ancient and important capital of the High- lands, has afforded me pure satisfaction, and will, I am confident, be so received by his Majesty in the same manner, when I tell him, as I will BY THIS NIGHT'S POST, of the gratifying circumstance ! " Having made this handsome promise. Lord Brougham proceeded to inform the Invernessians that the clamour against ministers for being slow was absurd. His opinion was that they had done too much rather than too little, — " that, little as they had done in 1834, it was probable that they would do still less in 1835." The work of reform was in fact pretty nearly complete, and Lord Brougham was about to sink into decent and well-earned conservatism. The prophecy, as regarded the next session, was true enough, — as regarding himself, most bitterly to be fulfilled. He was to do still less than little— much less than little, indeed — alas, nothing ! On the 3rd of September the above speech was made at Inverness. On the 1st of October appeared an article in the Edinburgh Review containing the following words : — "The whole progress of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Grey » We ought not to have omitted his last exhibition — a famous panegyric upon the House of Lords, which he had during four years more abused and ridiculed than the fiercest radical could have done. '5° British and Foreign Review [' ego et dux meus '] through various parts of Scotland bore ample testimony to the fact- the Tories of a truth have ceased to reign ! They can no longer deny that the public voice is with their Liberal adversaries ; and that it must be a strong arm, indeed the sword, which , could govern Scotland under a Tory ministry. A great people will not be ruled by principles and by a party which it abhors. When we speak of Tories we use the name for shortness, and to express the ultra principles of that party which acknowledges the Cumberlands, and Rodens, and Kenyons for their head. We are far indeed from holding that the Liberal Tories and their views are in the same disrepute among us ; on the contrary, though the season may not yet have come, and though it has been put off by the bad policy of some impatient spirits whom the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel cannot control, we do not think it out of the question that there may arrive the day when, if a strong government be required, to save us from anarchy on the one hand and Orange domination on the other, some favour may be shown to the better parts of the present Opposition, from whom great free practical good has in former times flowed to the policy of the state." At Dundee and Aberdeen, to be sure, the Conservative tone was dropped, and Lord Brougham interlarded his encomiums of himself with professions of suitable Liberality. The same absurd affectation regarding the King manifests itself in his speeches. " My recep- tion,'' says he, at Aberdeen, "is greatly owing to your respect, love and veneration for that most gracious monarch, whom it is the pride of my life to serve ; if I could but merit, as at all events r now possess, hxs confidence." At Dundee he sings in the same strain : " It is therefore to the honour of standing so high in the confidence, and councils, and service of that prince, that I principally ascribe that reception I everywhere meet with from his subjects." At the Edinburgh festival, which immediately followed, was uttered that noble and touching speech of Earl Grey, which should be read but for the sake of a contrast with Lord Brougham's mad impertinences. The noble earl said : "This mark of distinction has been given to a minister who has descended, I will not say fallen, from power ; whose official life has ended, whose long parliamentary career is hastening to a final close ; — to one, when the balance has been struck between his promises and performances ; to one, when the past is before his country for its judgement ; and the future, as far as he is concerned, presents no object either for hope or or fear." The bitterest satire could not have been so effectual as Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 151 these calm and simple words of the old statesman, to stigmatise the conduct of the strange wayward genius who was playing the part of Wolsey to the laughter and scorn of all men. Of these and the subsequent events Lord Brougham's account is very brief and unsatisfactory. He says : — " The unhappy necessity which existed for the Coercion Bill in Ireland, had excited a clamour against the Government of Lord Grey ; and when that justly esteemed and venerated individual quitted office the King had undoubtedly resolved to take advantage of this clamour, and would have at once changed his Ministers had they given him any opening by hesitating whether or not they should continue to hold the Government after Lord Grey's secession. The declaration first communicated by the Chancellor in private to His Majesty, and then on the same day by him in the House of Lords, that the ministers were quite willing to remain, disconcerted all such designs ; and the King could not take the step he so much wished, until Lord Spencer's death in the following November gave or seemed to give a kind of ground (or rather a hollow pretext) for accomplishing the same purpose. This was the very worst step, as it was the most inconsiderate, and proved, for his own comfort, the most fatal, that this excellent monarch ever took ; and he had been beforehand warned distinctly of the inevitable consequences, but had disregarded the warning. " A new feeling, however, was soon produced among the ultra- liberal party by the change. They plainly saw that they had been, by their clamour against the late Ministers, playing into the hands of the Court and the Tories. They were alarmed at what they had done ; and joined heartily with the new Opposition, that is, the ousted Ministry, in me"5ures which soon removed the new Government, restoring, with one or two exceptions, the Ministry of November, 1834. When this Ministry was thus re-appointed, those who had, by their impatience and opposition, driven them from the helm, were all at once found to be the most patient, the most reasonable, the most forbearing, the most tractable and considerate of men. The experience of November, 1834, had not been thrown away upon them, and all that they had urged before against the do-little or do-nothing policy in England was now forgotten, or remembered only to draw invidious distinctions between the Government of Lord Grey, nay, the Government of Lord Melbourne himself, and the new Government of 1835." Contrast the commencement of this passage with his own words at Inverness, Dundee, Aberdeen, and Salisbury: "The King had 'S ■ British and Foreign Review undoubtedly resolved to change his ministers "—of course he had, and Lord Brougham knew it, — and Lord Brougham knew why ; and with all this knowledge, the learned lord must wander through the country, vaunting the King's affection and confidence, promising to write to him by the post, and giving the world to believe that himself, the popular minister, was likewise the friend of royalty ! It is not difficult to see the game that our rambling diplomatist was playing. Whether knowingly and advisedly or not — in fact, certainly -he: had forced the retreat of Lord Grey ; that noble Earl announced his retirement ; the leader of the House of Commons expressly naming the retreat of three of his friends announced the dissolution of the cabinet ; when, behold, Lord Brougham said he would stay, he had never resigned, and the rest of the cabinet came over to his mind, and Lord Melbourne formed the new ministry. He forced the Earl out of the cabinet ; he forced the King into retaining the other members of it : he was not dull enough to suppose (here above we have his confession) that the King would have much partiality for the men so thrust upon him, and he knew pretty well that the country had some incipient dislikes and suspicions too. So the learned lord said to the country people : "Do not fancy the King mistrusts us,— he adores us, me in particular ; I am in the habit of writing to him continually ; for four long years his inter- course with me has been one of gracious condescension, confidence and favour." To the King he would have said : " Look, England and Scotland are at my feet ! I move and am followed by such affection as never before was shown to prince or minister : will it not be dangerous for a prince to remove such a minister ? " To the Tories he cries, " Be easy, hold your hands, do not attack us ; see how beloved we are ; join us, rather — why not ? we have done little last session, — even that little is too much, and next session we intend to do still less ; why should we not get rid of Orange dominion on the one hand, and anarchy on the other, and have a strong government ? " Poor worn-out Wolsey ! — to think he should have come to such a pass as this ; and after all these intrigues for power, should have been so precipitately toppled over ! that he should have piped so many tunes, and that none should have danced !— not the people, who found out his hollow patriotism, chose another champion. Lord Durham, and when the Chancellor became ex-chancellor, only laughed at his hideous discomfiture ; not Rex metis, who took the very first opportunity to push ego and his friends out of doors ; speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c, 153 not the " strong government," which, when the poor fallen chancellor went down on his knees and besought to serve them,— if it were for nothing, at least to serve them, — turned scornfully on the heel and left him there prostrate. Was there anything more wanting to fill the bitter cup of humiliation ? Yes, there was. To see the " strong government " failing before the Whig attacks ; he himself p.mting for hopes of place, the foremost in the battle,— to see the Conservatives give way, and the Reformers march in in triumph ; and then to see the door of office shut in his face, and mark afar off his comrades dividing the plunder.' He had lost every single point in this fatal game. The Re- formers, as we have said, gave up their hopes and trust in him, and ' One piece of private history we miss, and yet it would have been amongst the most interesting, coming, as it must, from Lord Brougham, with paramount authority. We must attempt to supply it, to the best of our own power, and thus to complete the strange eventful history of Lord Melbourne's retirement from office. On Thursday, the 13th of November, 1834, the Premier dined with the King at Brighton, and was, as usual, received with every demonstration of cordiality. Surprismg enough was it, then, to his lordship to receive a direct announcement from the King that his Majesty had determined to take advan- tage of Lord Spencer's death to dissolve the administration. On becoming apprised of this fact, in an interview which took place on the morning of the 14th, Lord Melbourne immediately set out for London, being himself the bearer of despatches to the Duke of Wellington. His Lordship arrived in Downing Street a few minutes before seven, and immediately sent to Lords Pdlmerston and Brougham, the remaining members of the Cabinet being then engaged at dinner at Holland House. Summonses were immediately issued for a cabinet council at 12 the next day (Saturday). The three ministers at once agreed in opinion that his Majesty had taken the extraordinary step of the dissolution without concert with the Duke of Wellington and the Tory party. They knew that his Grace would find it impossible to make a government ; they were convinced that he would tell the King so, and that under these circumstances his Majesty would be compelled to restore the seals to them- selves. They therefore agreed, by way of sparing all inconvenience to the King and disturbance to the country, to keep the occurrence a profound secret, and so profound a secret that not even the absent members of the Cabinet should that night be informed of it. This solemn conclave separated about nine o'clock. Five hours later a communication was on its way to the Tivies printing-office, which appeared in the following words on the morning of Saturday, November 15th : — " We have no authority for the important statement which follows, but we have every reason to believe that it is perfectly true. We give it without any comment or amplification, in the very words of the communication, which reached us at a late hour last night, or rather at an early hour this morning : — " The King has taken the opportunity of Lord Spencer's death to turn out 154 British and Foreign Review chose and honester champion in Lord Durham. With regard to the conduct of himself and the noble earl, Lord Brougham in the preface to his Grey festival speech, has some explanations : " The speech has been grossly misrepresented," says his lord- ship ; spoken of as against going on with reform, and described as saying, that if little had been done in the last session, less would be done in the next." He adds in a note : " This must have been a perversion of an observation made at a meeting in Inverness, where probably no experienced reporter attended. What Lord Frougham did say was, that the number of great measures carried in the last two sessions, all of which he enumerated, as. Emancipation, East India Trade, etc., made it unreasonable in men to complain that nothing had been done, and made it quite certain that less must be done next Session, because these subjects, the greatest of all, were already disposed of. Lord Brougham well knew what important measures were in preparation ; but few indeed of which have since been carried." ^''Probably no experienced reporter" — "must have been a per- version !" the whole passage is a masterpiece, only unsuccessful, like some of his lordship's other masterpieces. First he says he has been grossly misrepresented in having been accused of saying at Edinburgh, that if little had been done in the last session less would be done in the next." He has not been accused of saying so at Edinburgh ; he was the Ministry, and there is every reason to beheve that the Duke of Wellington has been sent for. THE QUEEN HAS DONE IT ALL ! " Thus some hours before the Cabinet Ministers were to meet and learn from the Premier what strange occurrence caused their sudden summons, the public were put in possession of the facts ; nay, several members of the administration first learned from the Times newspaper of that day that they were no longer in office. On the other hand, the despatch to the Duke of Wellington only reached his Grace at Strathfieldsaye about the same time that the newspaper was circulating in London. The King was thus effectually compromised ; the Whigs were thus effectually jockeyed; the Duke, however, was not, and his bold determination to undertalce the government led, as is well known, to Sir Robert Peel's short-lived administration. Who was the traitor ? Who sent at half-past one o'clock to divulge that which Lords Melbourne, Brougham, and Palmerston had at nine o'clock decided should not be divulged? Was it Lord Melbourne? was it Lord Palmerston? was it Lord Brougham? And who — wno above all things penned the abominable pai'agraph " The Queen has done it all !" Would that his lordship had condescended to give us some clue to this dark and intricate intrigue ! Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 155 accused of saying so at Inverness ; but it is convenient sometimes to make accusations for the purpose of denying them, or to mystify witnesses ; and by confusing the names of places, make it appear as if an event stated to have occurred never occurred at all. " Then," says the noble lord, " this must have been a perversion of an observation made at Inverness, where it is probable no experienced reporter attended." — Better and better. Was the observation perverted at Edinburgh, or at Inverness — where probably no experienced reporter attended'} Surely at Inverness, where there was no one to take the words down. Could anything be more natural ? Thus we have satisfactory proof that the words were never spoken either at Edinburgh or at Inverness. What was it now that Lord Brougham did say? — "that the number of great measures carried in the two last sessions made it unreasonable," etc., as before — and there is an end then to the " gross misrepresentations " which so offend his lordship. The upshot of all which is — 1. That Lord Brougham has made use of an expression at Inverness. 2. That he said he had never used that expression at Edinburgh. 3. That he quoted what he did say at Edinburgh. 4. And would be very glad to have us suppose that he used the same words at Inverness. See what it is to be a practised rhetorician ; and having uttered your words, to be able just to smuggle them out of hearing, and hocus them away under the spectator's very nose ! At this dinner all will remember that Lord Durham gave the Lord Chancellor a very smart dressing. Lord Brougham is very anxious to set the matter rightly before the public, and vows that no attack was ever made on him. He had been boasting, it may be recollected, that one-twentieth part of any one of the nothings done by ministers in the year 1833 would have made the fortunes of any other administration. He then rated those ignorant persons who thought the ministers were going too slow ; vowed that they were no fair critics of any British ministry : neither safe guides, nor just judges ; and, regarding the ministry, said : " We shall still go on in our course, — firm, uncompromising, unhesi- tating, unflinching. We shall not be hurried on at any other pace than what we deem expedient for the country, and safe, for the measures themselves we are interested in carrying forward. We shall not take to any other counsel on account of any thoughtless 156 British and Foreign Review clamour proceeding from those impatient quarters to which I have already adverted, but deliberately advising (do) what we deem just and necessary." Remembering Aberdeen and Inverness, Lord Durham, with admirable temper and candour, said : " My noble and learned friend, the Lord Chancellor, had been pleased to give some sound advice to certain classes of persons, of whom, I confess, I know nothing, except that they are persons whom he considers as evincing too much impatience. I will freely own to you that I am one of those who see with regret every hour which passes over the existence of acknowledged but unreformed abuses. I am, however, and I have no doubt that you will agree with me, willing to accept their correction as deliberately as our rulers would wish it ; but it must be on one condition, that every measure must be proposed in strict conformity with the principles for which we have ever contended. I object to the compromise of those principles. I do not object to the deliberations with which reforms are conducted, but I object to the compromise of those principles. I object to the clipping and the paring and the mutilating, which must inevitably follow any attempt to conciliate enemies who are not to be gained, and who will requite your advances by pointing out your inconsistency, your abandonment of your friends and principles, and ascribe the discontent created in our own ranks by these proceedings, to the cause that liberal feelings no longer predominate in this country. Against such a course of proceeding I must ever protest, as pregnant with the worst consequences, as exciting distrust and discontent where enthusiastic devotion is necessary, as creating vain hopes which can never be realised ; and above all as placing weapons in the hands of those who will only use them for our destruction, and the destruction of the great and important interests committed to our charge." Commenting on this, Lord Brougham says, with much gravity : " If anything else was at any time said on the subject by Lord Durham, it must have been at some other meeting which Lord Brougham did not attend. Nothing was ever more absolutely false, than to represent Lord Durham as having said anything in the least resembling an attack on Lord Brougham, at the Edinburgh Dinner, where alone Lord Brougham was present." Does this or does this not "in the least resemble an attack"? Is it such an utter falsehood to say, not that Lord Durham made "a bitter attack,"— nobody did say so, — but that he inflicted a very Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &:c. 157 well-merited reproof on the vaporing, boasting, Chancellor I— but how slow are some men to take hints l^witness the King's hint to Lord Brougham and his friends to retire : how deaf was the learned lord on the woolsack ! and how very broad the hints became before he could be made (good, simple creature !) to understand them ! It does not require much knowledge of character to predict, what, under certain circumstances, a man of Lord Brougham's disposition would do, — he would turn patriot : no other course was open to him, except to rail at his old colleagues, and try to win back the confidence of the people. Long, therefore, before the appearance of the ingenious defence of the Inverness speech, the letters of the respected Messrs. Jenkins and Tomkins prepared the public for the change which was to ensue (the Whigs were then out) ; Jenkins abused that aristocratic body which Lord Brougham had praised with so much candour ; Tomkins (the Whigs being then restored to power, and the seals in commission) spoke in a bolder strain and mentioning that in the formation of the new ministry some of our stanch and tried friends had been left out, thus satirized the general disinclination to reform. — He supposed the world crying out, " O, for God's sake let us have no more Lord Althorps, or Lord Broughams, or Lord Durhams, — for then we shall have real reform. And then pray, pray, none of your real reforms, for then we shall have Lord Althorp, and Lord Brougham, and Lord Durham back again. Well, but now they must make up their delicate and squeamish minds to a little more of a real reform ; for without, it neither this nor any other government can go on ; and if we get it, we must make up our minds not to care who gives it us." The intentions of Jenkins are quite clear ; he would have the people believe that Durham and Brougham are men of a similar opinion, and that the cabinet is incomplete without such men. Had Jenkins written about the time when a certain article appeared in the Edinburgh Review, and a certain lord at Inverness, it is probable that he might have seen the benefits of a " strong government," and agreed in the propriety, though little had been done in the former session, of doing still less in the next. With the thoughts and actions of Jenkins in the last four years we cannot meddle. Lord Melbourne, on the memorable night last year, when Lord Brougham fell foul of the poor ex-Colonial Secretary, very meekly said " that he thanked the noble lord for the active support which he had given him in 1835 ; he thanked him equally for his absence in 1836 ; he thanked him for the less ''5^ British and Foreign Review active support which he had afforded him in 1837 ; and could assure him that he felt no irritation at the very altered tone of the noble and learned lord in 1838." The description of the noble lord's political conduct is true, though it is not very spirited ; and the premier had reason to be thankful ; for Lord Melbourne's merits, whatever they may be, do not certainly lie in his manner of backing his friends, as Lord Glenelg can witness, and as has been shown in the earlier, though more famous instance of Lord Durham. It remained for Lord Brougham (who in the words of Tomkins, is " along with Lord Durham the stanch friend of the people ") to add some fresh laurels to his political reputation by attacking that nobleman. He appeared a leader in the ranks of the opponents of his old friends, not indeed, absolutely enrolled as a Tory, and sworn in to do battle alongside of Lord Lyndhurst ; not a regular deserter, like some others, needless to name, but a Coriolanus for that job only ; like Harry Wynd, the blacksmith in Scott's novel, he joined the Tories not because he loved them, but because he hated the others, and had a vengeance to wreak out. And to the credit of the high-bred aristocracy of England, of the liberal English party that had to support an absent friend, of the press both Liberal and Conservative — to the credit of all be it said — that the great Tory nobles went forth to battle against tlie Whigs, and selected Brougham for their general ; that knowing Lord Durham had done that exactly which they would have done themselves ; that the safety of a part of the empire probably depended on main- taining him in his post ; and that his error, if error there were, was but on a point of ceremony, so mean and ridiculous, as under the circumstances to call for ho comment — chose nevertheless such an occasion to endanger the empire, if they could but injure the Whigs and trick a leader ! In revenge, the Whigs, who had to maintain their empire, their honour, their absent friend, — with a noble consistency — a manly regard for place— deserted all. As for Lord Brougham's conduct in the affair — before Heaven, we think that the man towers as a patriot above those whom he led. and whom he routed — a perfect paragon of virtue. He at least had some reasons for his enmity —private wrongs to revengu, — to make a party that iiad triumphed over him, and cheated him, feel his power — a hated and successful rival to overthrow — there was some provocation and some excuse for him ; but for the great parties — the noble band of English gentlemen, Conservatives and Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 159 Liberals, what? — to harass their enemies, the one party attacked him ; to keep their places, his friends dared not defend him. Nothing could be more base than the attack, save only the defence, for that was cowardly, too ; and Lord Brougham's simple wrongs pass unnoticed almost in the general and superior treason. We cannot pretend to give a professional opinion of his labours as a man of science, nor have we space to enlarge upon his qualifications as a classical scholar. The latter in truth is a subject not worthy of much comment, except that it is only a part and parcel of the prevailing cant of our country, and our houses of representation, where alone in Europe scraps of Latin are still hailed with thunders of applause, and Greek quotations received with dumb wonder. A man with the genius of Mr. Brougham, who knew the value of such an oratorical weapon as a quotation (than which nothing is more easy, for if you cannot find an appropriate quotation for your thought, you can get the quotations first and find the thoughts afterwards) ; a shrewd man knowing the value of Greek in England, will not fail to acquire some smattering of it ; and not having read a word of Lord Brougham's "Dissertation on the Eloquence of the Ancients" contained in these volumes, we will, like others, take the unknown to be the magnificent, and are sure that among influential persons this part of his work will meet with much respect. Besides the cases which we have already mentioned, in which Mr. Brougham distinguished himself as an advocate, one or two speeches on similar subjects are reported in this collection. Only one specimen of his powers as a judge is given, nor will it be neces- sary to enter into discussions regarding his iudicial career. There is no need, in truth, to show how so good an orator made so bad a judge ; how politics had served to disturb and cloud the calm faculties which are requisite for the judge's office ; how the highest functionary of the land, by indulging his pen in fanciful creation of classical epigrams or hvely sallies of private correspondence ; by interrupting the advocate with hurried confidence or irrelevant jokes ; by allowing, in short, his public dignity to be attired in the motley of his private eccentricities —the Chancellor of England became, in the language of a professional critic, " the terror of clients, and the ridicule of the law.' That we may not be accused of speaking from mere party malice, let us give a single instance of Lord Brougham's conduct in his judicial capacity, — the case of Drax v. Grosvenor. ' 1 See 2 Knapp's Reports, 82. i6o Bfilish and Foreign Review His decision came under the review of the highest legal authority of which this country could then boast. More than a hundred years had elapsed since an appeal had been made from a decision of the English Court of Chancery to the King in Council, in a matter of lunacy. But in 1831, and in the case which we have just mentioned, this rare, but undoubted, right of appeal to the throne was revived. The facts were briefly these:— An order had been made, in 1822, by which the custody of the person of Mr. Drax, a lunatic, was entrusted to General Grosvenor and his brother, and an allowance of ;£4985 per annum was made for the purpose of maintaining him in an establishment suited to his rank in life, the clear income of his estate being ^22,000 a year. In 1828 Mr. Drax died, and in 1830 Mrs. Drax, his sister, instituted proceedings against the gentlemen to whom the custody of the lunatic had been entrusted, alleging that the establishment kept for him had been very considerably below the estimates for which the allowance of ^4985 was made by the Court of Chancery. No fraud whatever was alleged, and Mrs. Drax had consented to the appoint- ment of the committees. No order had ever been made on them to account ; no assertion was made that they had not done their duty ; and no doubt could be entertained that, in the case of lunatics of large fortune, the Court of Chancery customarily granted a handsome allowance for the purpose of inducing and enabling gentlemen of respectability to undertake so onerous a charge. Nevertheless, in 1831, the Lord Chancellor made an order that General Grosvenor and his brother should account to the master for all the monies which they could not show to have been expended by them for the direct maintenance and support of the lunatic, directing the master, to use the words of the Attorney-General, " to charge them with every shilling " they had received during a period of over six years, and for the expenditure of which they might not be enabled to produce a voucher, although no order ever induced them to keep an account ; and the established practice in lunacy induced them to believe that none would ever he demanded. From this order an appeal was made to the King in Council. The appeal of Grosvenor v. Drax was heard by the Lords of the Council ; and it is on record that the Lord Chancellor sai in that appeal from his own sentetice ; and no doubt contributed his wonted share to the amusement of the day. The judgment of the cause was, fortunately for the credit of British justice, in other hands. "t^j/J^ A. BUNN. [See page 23, speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. i6i The argument was heard by Lord Eldon (his last appearance, we believe, in a judicial capacity), Lord Manners, Lord Lyndhurst, Sir John Leach, and the Vice-Chancellor. By the advice of these learned personages, the order of the Court below was reversed, and the right honourable the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain was directed to pay due obedience to the commands to that effect. There is no allusion to the case of Grosvenor v. Drax in these volumes. A very keen critic, before alluded to, states an instance some- what similar. There is, as it appears, a volume of reports of cases judged by Lord Chancellor Brougham, and once it has happened that one of these judgments has been quoted as a precedent by a learned lord in the superior tribunal ; the learned lord who quoted the opinion was no other than Lord Brougham himself! and in the memory of man no other person was ever heard to refer to the Brougham code. How should they ? How should a man of Lord Brougham's multifarious pursuits ever have had time to learn the law ? Hear what he says himself of the duties of a chancellor, at the period when the seals were, for some reason, in commission, and there was a talk of dividing the chancellor's duties, and Lord Brougham was out of office. " If the Lord Chancellor's duties were confined to sitting in the House of Lords, he would soon become a mere judge of appeal : he would soon cease to be what the Constitution prescribed he ought to be, — the first lawyer in the country. Even as a judge of appeal we might set him up and plant him on the woolsack ; we might give him power ; but would he have any authority ? Would he satisfy the Courts below ? Would he satisfy the suitor ? Would he satisfy the profession ? See the course which would then be taken by the appointment of a Lord Chancellor. He would then be chosen because he was a cunning intriguer behind the curtain, because he was a skilful debater in the House of Lords. Would such a man be qualified to decide appeals from the Vice-Chan- cellor?— from the Master of the Rolls.? He. would hear, and he would listen ; he would discover a hole to pick here, a word to carp at there, now a commentary to hazard, then a remark to risk ; but would he be competent to grapple with the difficulties of a compli- cated case ? Certainly not, because he would well know that the profession had no confidence in him." ' Of whom could Lord Brougham have been thinking when he ' This sentence is also quoted in a most pungent article in the Law Magazine. II 1 62 British and Foreign Review penned this accurate portrait ? Lord Brougham was a bad lawyer, and no shame' for him ; his studies had been wider — nobler perhaps — than those requisite for success in that profession. The great champion of the Commons, the eager student of all branches of science, the vigorous preacher of state reforms, and (to sink somewhat) the advocate employed solely in some not very difficult points of common-law practice, had no leisure, genius as he was, for attaining legal experience. That he was a bad lawyer was no shame for him, — but why be a bad judge ? — the place was his own seeking, and the fault at nobody else's door. We should like to carry our notice somewhat further, and make some comments upon the really noble speeches on the Slave Trade which are to be found in this collection, — upon the masterly speech on Law Reform, and the famous oration on the Reform Bill ; but want of space compels us to' close the volumes and our strictures upon them. As far as they have gone, the praise has been small, and the censure only liberal. Has it, however, been undeserved ? Is he or is he not, convicted of selfishness, tergiversation, insin- cerity ? There is no need of genius to prove the man guilty, — there was no need of a giant to kill Goliath. We pretend to no squeamish morality, that is horrified at Lord Brougham's political crimes, and do not fancy him, on this score, a whit worse than his neighbours. We never have doubted or carped at his genius ; but believe him, in intellect and acquirement, to be a giant among the pigmy politicians, amongst whom he now sits, bitter and lonely. It is because he is no more of a rogue (let us be pardoned the expression for brevity's sake) than other men of other parties, who live and shuffle, and bear an honest name ; and because his genius is noble and his views originally pure and good, that his example is of some benefit ; that of a fool or a born knave is none. Whatever may be the duty of future historians, or the gratitude with which coming generations shall think of him, (we cheerfully allow that such gratitude and fame is his due), the critic of the present time (who, God help him, does not look to instruct ages to come, or to live quite as long as the pyramids) has his duty marked out, and his occupation fixed to the day. It seems to us that the very faults of this man may benefit us as much as ever his labours and excellencies have, materially ; and that we each, quiet in our own little sphere, not profiting much individually by law reforms, or parliamentary reforms,— not battling to life and death for Irish tithes, — not very much Speeches of Henry, Lord Brougham, &c. 163 disturbed even by thoughts of Mr. O'Connell, and thinking, perhaps, with the poet, " How small, of all the ills which men endure, The part which kings or laws can cause or cure," — it seems to us that a man, be he a sceptic in pohtics, or a violent partizan, may gain no small good from Mr. Brougham's history, in the unsubstantial though useful shape of a moral. The man who cares not for politics may be thankful that his inclinations or his sense of duty have kept him from such a science, where, to attain eminence, so many sacrifice conscience, happiness, ease, peace of mind ; where genius, instead of being free as she should be, must become a poor truckling slave of party or of political expediency ; and honesty must run into temptations, or very likely perish altogether. " I demens, ut declamatio fias," — to mouth to a mob, or become the subject of discourse to a newspaper. The party politician, on the contrary, (he must pardon us for thinking that his trade cannot be an honest one,) may learn some worldly lessons of prudence, if not of morals ; and by reading the history of our great schoolmaster, may learn what to avoid. He will not have a tithe of Lord Brougham's genius most likely, of his eloquence, or his acquire- ments ; and will be blessed with no greater share of principle than, we fear, remains to the worn-out political adventurer. He will see others with less genius and as little principle, far outstripping Brougham in the race ; honoured, while he is neglected and alone ; praised by some party, at least, whilst poor Brougham is buffeted both by Chronicle and Times. He will find out that, however great may be the fools with whom he has to deal, he yet can neither afford to be arrogant with them, or unfaithful ; and that he must be true to his party, or at least prepared to throw himself into the arms of another. He must not be, like Mr. Brougham in 1814, writing for "the doctrine of yearly elections, and the franchise enjoyed by all paying taxes " ; at another time talking of " a strong government " ; and then, dis- appointed, whirling back to Radicalism again, — unless he has a party to support him. They may be Liliputians, but they are more than a match for Gulliver. It is with a sorrow proportioned to the admiration we feel for Lord Brougham's talents, and the gratitude we know his country owes him for some acts of his life, that we bring ourselves to speak of him in any terms of censure. But it is for the sin 1 64 Bfitish and Foreign Review of neglecting, or turning to evil uses, the talents with which he has been endowed, that we call him to account. We lament, — we in common with thousands who have looked for higher things at his hands, — lament that he has condescended to stoop to the level of the mean and factious coteries by which he is surrounded. We attack in him what a demoralising and de- basing system has created ; not the strong heart and head of the individual man, but the tricks, the intrigues, the charlatanerie of the political adventurer. We attack less the man than the system in the man ; and we take him for our object, because he was one who might have shivered the unsound fabric into atoms, but had not courage or earnestness to do so ; he might have stood upon a moral eminence, so exalted, so commanding, that the eyes of all should have been turned on him in admiration, in gratitude, and love ; but having played his stake for his own sake, not for the sake of mighty principles and of his country, he has fallen, and fallen not to rise again, among his contemporaries. Posterity, that will, happily for him, have lost the record of his weaknesses, while contemplating the vastness of his services, will place him among the foremost men of his age and country. But for those weaknesses, posterity would have known in him not only the one great man of our time, but one of the greatest men this country fertile in such ever gave birth to. Grievously do we lament that, with such a choice before him, he should have chosen ill ! — ill for his own sake, ill for the sake of England, ill for the sake of the whole human race, whose advancement he might have still more energetically aided, and whose welfare he might have done so much more to assure. Anti'Corn-Law Circular t6g At a time when the Anli-Corn-Law League was looking out for men who could be of use as contributors to their organ, Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Cole, of the South Kensington Science and Art Department, recommended Thackeray to Cobden. " The artist is a genius, both with his pen and his pencil," Mr. Cole wrote. "His vocation is literary. He is full of humour and feeling. Hitherto he has not had occasion to think much on the subject of Corn-Laws, and therefore wants the stuff to work upon. He would like to combine writing and drawing when sufficiently primed, and then he would write illustrated ballads, or tales, or anything. I think you would find him a useful auxihary." The two drawings reproduced on the following pages were his sole contri- butions. 166 Anti'Corn'Law Circular (Tuesday, July 23, 1839) "POLES OFFERING CORN." Illustrations of the Rent Laws.— No. I. (Tuesday, December 10, 1839) "THE CHOICE OF A LOAF." Illustrations of the Rent Laws.— No. II. Pole. Buy my big loaf. I'll sell as cheap as I can. Little Boy. Mammy, I'm hungry. Chandos starves us with a small loaf, and it is so musty, it gives me the belly-ache. Pole. I'll give you this big loaf for a small piece of calico. Womaji. My dear boy, that good-natured foreigner '- Soldier. Hullo ! you she-devil there, none of your smuggling. What's to do, now, you Polish ragamuffin ? Would you givfe a bold Briton a two-shilling loaf for fourpence, and make him as miserable as yourself ? Little Girl. Oh, dadda ! come away to that nice man with the big loaf This ugly soldier will shoot us. Soldier. Hullo, missus ! d'ye hear ? I'll teach ye to deal with foreign serfs by putting a bullet through your head. Come here, you fellow. A bold English peasant mustn't buy from Poles, else I'll show daylight through him. Little Girl. , Oh, dadda, run, run ! Man. Why, Mary, I must give a shilling for this small bit of bread, like a true, free-born Englishman, else I'll be shot through the head. 167 1 68 Anti-Cowi'Law Circular Woman. I have a piece of calico that took me a week to weave : what will you give me for it ? Pole. A quarter of prime wheat. Man. And here must I work four weeks for Chandos before I can get the same quantity. Were it not for the pistol, I'd , but no, I'm one of " the bold peasantry, the country's pride," and must pay four hundred per cent, for liberty. The Corsair 169 To this periodical, under the editorship of Mr. N, P. Willis, ThacKeray contributed, during 1839 and 1840, several articles headed Letters from London, Paris, Pekin, Petersburgh, etc. By the Author of*' The Yellowplush Papers," " The Memoirs of Major Gahagan," etc., etc. Most of these articles, with unimportant alterations, were reprinted in The Paris Sketch-Book ; one {Captain Rook and Mr. Pigeon) was reprinted in Heads of the People ; and one {.V/oj-e Aspects of Paris Life) has been allowed to remain buried in the columns of The Corsair, probably overlooked. The Corsair (Saturday, October 26, 1839) LETTERS FROM LONDON, PARIS, PEKIN, PETERSBURGH, ETC. By the Author of '■^ The Yellowplush Correspondence^' the "Memoirs of Major Gahagan" etc. A LADY who takes lessons of the famous Italian singing-master, Monsieur M , invited us to be present at a concert or oratorio given by a hundred of his pupils, whom he has instructed for the last three months, and who live together at a place where I fancy pious hymns have not been often sung since the monks inhabited it— the woman's prison of Saint Lazare, in the Rue de Faubourg Saint Denis. Mass is performed here at eight o'clock in the iTiorning, and we found the clock striking, and the Maitre de Chapelle at the gate just as we for a wonder reached it. " This is one of my bonnes ceuvres^' said Monsieur M- (who does not receive precisely a Napoleonic lesson from each of his Meves in this establishment), a bonne cenvre which very few were willing to imitate, or even to come and see ; for our guide told us that he had expected une societi, of which, however, none made their appearance but ourselves. We may set it down as a rule that good works in Paris do not begin at seven o'clock in the morning and before breakfast. We went through three or four little quadrangles, clean, dismal and deserted, with a very bright sky lighting them up, and making the thousand little ghastly barred windows look only more dark ; and, passing through an anteroom, where, on a great board of five feet by seven, was chalked the music which Monsieur M 's poor scholars had been practising, and were about to sing, went into the gallery of the chapel, and took our places alongside a 172 The Corsair number of the inhabitants of the place. The service had begun ; the candles were lighted over the shabby little altar, and shone upon a few pictures which were hung about it— a crucifix, two Magdalens, and an odious head of Saint Vincent de Paul, before which an old priest was quavering out the service, followed hither and thither by a little boy dressed in white, walking up the altar- steps, and down again, and round about them ; and kneeling down, and bobbing his little shorn head, and swinging to and fro a clattering gilt incense-pot, as his Church ordains. An old, shrivelled, bustling lady, with a bunch of proper prison-like keys at her waist, made way for us, and gave us seats, and robbing another I suppose inferior turnkey of a wicker chair at which she was kneeling, handed it over to one of the ladies of our party, who was very much puzzled to know what to do with more than one ; so, as soon as the head-gaoleress had retreated to her seat, we gave back the chair to its former possessor, who did not seem to know how to pursue her devotions without it. It was the first time that I had ever been in such distinguished female society, and I looked at the faces of the poor girls about me with no ordinary curiosity. On a former occasion at Bicetre, I saw the mad hospital there, ' and marvelled how sober all the people looked, and visiting afterwards the convicts' prison (which then formed part of the establishment), I thought that the men who came out to undergo the now abolished operation of \hc ferrement seemed an honest, hearty, jovial-looking set ; but at Saint Lazare the ladies looked certainly as wretched as you could expect or desire ; — among the two or three hundred whom I could see, there were not above four that were tolerably good-looking. One was regularly beautiful, with a tremendous development of the back head, which would frighten a phrenologist ; some were so charac- teristically hideous that Hogarth or Cruikshank could wish no better model ; and whether by mere chance I know not, but I remarked that a very small portion of the women — not half a dozen, perhaps— were yazy-^az>?(('. I do not recollect to have seen in the common population of the town and streets this vast majority of the dark over the fair, and must leave to physiologists to determine if there be not any special virtue in the skin. Monsieur M declared that his pupils were among the best subjects of the prison, and as far as outward appearance went, his words were certainly borne out ; there was a decided superiority in the looks and expression of the women and children gathered ' It is now transferred to Rue de la Roquette. Letters from London, Paris, Pekin, Petersburgh, &c, 173 round his instrument to those who were seated near us. As the music went on (a smart young lady from the town, in white and red ribands, singing much out of tune, sang the solo), we observed a little girl close to us, who seemed affected by it, and began to weep. Her two companions would not allow her to remain in any such fit of repentance, and speedily sneered her out of it. The mirth of these women was not a little curious to behold ; they were perpetually nodding, smiling, winking to other comrades in distant parts of the chapel — you saw all sorts of wild signs going on amongst them, and mysterious communications made with the finger, and hurried off as one has seen the deaf and dumb pupils perform them. What a strange activity is this of a prison ! what a dreadful merriment ! what a wild, reckless, glancing, uneasy spirit seems to urge them on — a perpetual gnawing of the chain and dashing against the bars ! The musicians, however, appeared to be pretty tranquil — they pursue their study with vast industry, we were told, and give up the two hours of sunshine and exercise allotted to them in order to practise these hymns and choruses. I think the prettiest sight I saw in the place was a pair of prisoners, a grown woman with a placid face, who had her arm round the neck of a young girl ; they were both singing together off the same music-book, and in the intervals seemed to be fond and affectionate towards each other. Poor things, poor things ! What was their history? I wonder whether you or I, Madame, are a whit better than this couple of choristers in their dingy prison-dresses ; or whether, when we, at church, out of gilt prayer-books with gold clasps, follow the clerk and sing the Old Hundredth very gingerly and genteelly 1 wonder, I say, whose music is, in reality, the best? — But the music has stopped : hark ! there is a great jangling of a bell, and straightway all the prisoners fall on their knees, and you see of a sudden five hundred heads bow down, and as many hands make the sign of the cross,- presently afterwards the old priest, followed by the dapper little boy in white, ascends the stairs — the boy swings about the shabby incense-pot, — his Reverence marches in front, holding, and waving, right and left, a very old brush that seems worn down to the stumps— seeing us in purple and fine linen, he makes for us and offers the brush, from which, being Protestants, and dreadfully frightened at being obliged to show that we don't know what to do with the brush when we get it, we shrinkingly withdraw— some of the prisoners begin to giggle, the 174 The Corsair old woman who yielded up her praying-chair reaches forward and clutches hold, for an instant, at the blessed brush— down below at the altar you see a dirty extinguisher on a pole, rising, quivering for a moment over each of the lights, and popping them out one by one ; his Reverence gives his blessings, the active old turn-keys bustle about, and mustering their bands of prisoners into squads, march with them out of the building -the smart little incense-boy has put away his white surplice and pot, and comes out of the chapel pulling up his shirt collar ; he has brushed some hair over the little bald place on his head, and tries to look like a man of the world. We pass through the quadrangles again : — all the prisoners have been consigned to their respective quarters by this time, and the courts are as deserted as before. Half an hour spent in this prison has made us weary of it ; and the motion and gaiety of the street strikes one most welcomely, as the porter closes the guichet behind us, and shuts in the five hundred poor women whom we have just seen, to work out their term of slavery, and fulfil their bargain with the state. A short time afterwards, and at the proper orthodox hour, we went to an exhibition somewhat different in its details, but similar in its purpose, and took our places along with a crowd of fashionable miserable sinners at the Episcopal Church, near the British Embassy, where we had no mummery of clanking incense-pots, and meagre consumption wax-candles ; but a bishop with a plenty of white sleeves, and a portly beadle with a silver-knobbed stick, as the Christian religion ordains. We all agreed in pitying the poor benighted Catholic creatures, whose strange rites we had just witnessed — and as for the organ it beat Monsieur M 's cracked harmonicon, or whatever the instrument may be called (it sounds like the music which we perform in childhood by the aid of a piece of paper and a comb) ; as for the organ, I say, it beat Monsieur M 's harmonicon out of the field ; and as for the company, it was the very pink of the fashion in Paris, I can assure you. Well, let us be thankful that we have been brought up not as our neighbours are ; miserable sinners we are, it is true, but then there are sinners and sinners, degrees, look you, and differences. I wonder what the differences are, and whether, with her ease, her comforts, her education, such as it is, her freedom from temptation, her ladyship in satin will weigh much lighter than yonder poor girl, whose birthright has been want and crime ; and who, as far as regards the breakage of the eighth and one or two other command- ments, has never known the meaning of repentance. There are Letters from London, Paris, Pekin, Petersburgh, &c. 175 those poor devils the grown sinner and the little one — embracing each other, smiling on each other, and singing hymns out of the same book. I don't know where I have seen anything more touching or beautiful ; there is a sort of homely sublimity about them ; it is more beautiful, yea, than my Lady Ambassadress in her pew surrounded by a whole body of diplomatists ; more sublime than the bishop himself and the beadle stalking before him. I have been to Paris once a year for these last ten years, but was never inveigled into sight-seeing until the other day, with a party of newly-arrived English, who issued out of Maurice's into a glass coach, and took several hours of intolerable pleasure. We went to the Madelaine (the walk round it under the magnificent Corinthian columns is one of the noblest things possible) and entered the gorgeous hall of white marble and gold, with its inner roof of three circular domes ranging the length of the building, with a semi-dome covering the northern end over the altar, and a circular vault covering the vestibule. Galignani's guide-book (one of the best, most learned, and most amusing books of the kind that have been published), will give you full account of the place, as of all others that sight-seers frequent. It is as fine, certainly, as fine can be, in its details, and vast and liberal in its proportions. Well ! fancy a beautiful, gorgeous, elegant, Brobdignag cafd, or banqueting room, and the Madelaine will answer com- pletely. It does not seem to contain a single spark of religion — no edifice built in the Greek fashion ever did. Why should we be prejudiced in favour of the Gothic? Why should pointed arches, and tall steeples, and grey-buttressed walls built cross-wise, seem to express— to be, as it were, the translation into architecture of our religion ? Is it true, or is it only an association of ideas? You, in America, who have been born since Gothic architecture was dead, can best answer the query. I suspect the voluntary system would be puzzled to redeem itself into a regular formula of brick and mortar, as the Catholic Church did of old. From the Madelaine we were carried to the Bibliotheque du Roi, where it was a show-day, and where we saw long tables, with gentle, men reading at them ; some very fine prints in a little print room, if one had but the time to examine them ; and some extraordinary knick-knacks in the shape of canoes, guns, and medals. There was Clovis's arm-chair, and one of the chessmen sent by Haroun Alraschid to Charlemagne ! What a relic ! It is about the size of half a tea-caddy — a royal chessman truly : think of Charlemagne solemnly lifting it and crying check ! to Orlando — 176 The Corsair think of the Palace of Pictures— Zobeide has just been making a sherbet— Haroun and the Grand Vizier are at tables there by the fountain— the Commander of the Faithful looks thoughtful, and shakes his mighty beard — Giaffir looks 'pleased although he is losing. " Your Majesty always wins," says he, as he allows his last piece to be taken ; and lo ; yonder comes Mesnour, chief of the Eunuchs ; he has a bundle under his arm ; " Sire," pipes he, in a cracked voice, "it is sunset, here are the disguises, your Majesty is to go to the rope-maker's to-night,— if Sindbad should call, I will get him a jar of wine, and place him in the pavilion yonder by the Tigris." Of the rest of the collection it is best to say nothing ; there is a most beautiful, tender, innocent-looking head of young — Nero ! — a pretty parcel of trinkets that belonged to Louis XV.'s Sultanas (they may have been wicked, but they were mighty agreeable surely) — a picture of Louis Quatorze, all wig and red-heeled pumps — another of Louis XVIIL, who, in the midst of his fat, looks like a gentleman and a man of sense, and that odiou?, inevitable sickening, smirking countenance of Louis Philippe, which stares at you wherever you turn. At Bicetre, for instance, there was a bust of the king, with an inscription AU ROI LES DETENUS RECONNOISSANS-"to the King the rogues' remembrance." At Versailles, in the picture gallery, there is King Charles reviewing his troops, near the King a stout dragoon in white looks over his shoulder, and grins at the spectator ; it is Louis Philippe ; there again is King Charles crowned at Rheims — by his side stands the first prince of the blood, looking over his shoulder, and smirking as ever— Louis Philippe of course — I wonder the man, considering the circumstances, has let these pictures remain. Talking of Versailles and the King, let me tell you a story. Last year was published a book on Versailles with numerous engravings in the keepsake fashion. Mr. Leitch did the book in English, a very clever writer as you know, and an admirer, it appears, of the French, whom in his work he took occasion to compliment warmly. The French version, or rather the French original, was by Mr. Hippolite Fortoul, who had no such admiration for the King, and scarcely mentions his existence. Well, Fortoul was this year to write a description of Fontainbleau as he had done of Versailles ; the King on hearing this actually sent down to the bookseller and offered him a book gratis if he would give up Fortoul. Is not this a fine homage to the Press, and is it not a fine action for a King ? Letters from London, Paris, Pekin, Petersburg, &c. 177 From the Biblioth^que we rattled off to the Gobelins, at which the ladies were highly amused. You have seen ladies at work at a frame in the midst of a great skurry and labyrinth of worsted balls, making slipper-tops, kettle-holders, footstool covers, wall- carpets and other nonsense. Fancy one of these frames six feet high by seven, and when you have fancied this, fancy several long rooms full of them, and fancy the stitches infinitely smaller and neater, the needles, shuttles, worsteds, and other traps more curiously arranged, men with whiskers and moustachios seated behind the frames, instead of idle ladies in caps and morning dresses, and you have s. pretty good idea of the Gobelins. It is all very pretty, but tailoring is a far more noble, useful, ornamental, and agreeable profession to my mind. Hence with inconceivable swiftness we were transported to the Musee d'Artillerie, and for a description of this again you must be referred to your guide-book, — what can one say of the immense figure of Francis the First, but wonder that a man six feet six inches in height should have such spindle-shanks ? They are a miracle of thinness. What can one say of Joan of Arc's armour, but that it is an evident imposture ? There is Ravellais' dagger, and yonder Henry IV.'s embossed and orna- mented suit of steel. There is Francis' sword which he lost (with everything except honour) at the fight of Pavia. Yonder are a couple of the absurd, hideous, useless weapons, covered with red baize and ornamented with paltry tin, which David the painter invented at the time of the classical rage, and on the Roman model. If you choose to examine further, every variety of weapon, from to-day to the time of the Crusades, is exhibited for your notice. — There are models of all sorts of guns, possible and impossible ; and the impression of the whole upon the ignorant spectator who has been to this and the other half-dozen sights above named, and has come home after walking over some miles of wooden planks — the impression, I think, is rather a humiliating one. You have spent a guinea in coach hire ; you did not have your breakfast comfortably ; you have been whirling from gallery to gallery, your eyes weak, your brain is mystified, your back and limbs ache, and you are thoroughly bored. No reasonable man should see more than one or two sights in a month — the digestion won't stand it ; and to have the mens Sana you know the corpus sanum is absolutely requisite. My dear sir, I once went up the Drakenfels before breakfast, and descended a wiser and a better man. I arrived at the top and 12 178 The Corsair could only see clouds ; I came down and brought back with me a headache and a fever, and I vowed never to go up a mountain again, of my own free will, that is. In like manner with sights : to be a well-regulated, easy-going, comfort-loving man, what sight after all is equal to a pretty white table-cloth, in a cabinet at the Trois-Frferes, or the Rocher — a bottle of champaigne (vides ut alta stet nive candidum !) is on the side- table, and yonder comes Francois the waiter with two plates containing just four dozen Ostenders, to give an appetite for dinner ! Cry out as you will, and swear that such vulgar tastes degrade humanity — fiddlestick ! I say that Shakespeare or Raphael never invented anything that on a hot day at half-past five o'clock is equal to Ay and oysters ; to enjoy them you can't enjoy many other sights in the day, and must come to them as you would to every other sensual enjoyment, {all enjoyments are sensual enjoyments, the Pons Asinorum, the Greek Masters, Dr. Snorter's Sermon, Taglioni dancing the Mazurka— K. T. Q.)— you must come to them as to every other sensual enjoyment, calm, cool, quiet, the mind at ease. Now I will give you a proof of this : — After I had gone to see all these sights, I went to Very's to dine ; there appeared, as if dropped from the clouds, that celebrated wandering philosopher Father Prout. We dined ; he had been quiet all day, and what was the consequence ? he beat your humble servant by twelve oysters and a beefsteak, au beurre d'anchois. This remarkable fact (connected with the literature of our country) will show you what it is to hurry too much over sight-seeing, and to disturb the powers of that " Magistro artis ingenique largitor," which in American Society I fancy is never mentioned. I am keeping a little note of dinners, which when they are swelled out to a sufficient length, shall be sent to you. Of theatres the same thing.— There are no actors of very particular note now in Paris, except Mademoiselle Rachel, whom it is almost impossible to see, so much do the people flock after her. There is a charming Englishwoman, Madame Thillon, singing at the Renaissance, the best actress and the best educated English singer now on the stage ; but the comedians are absent, chiefly the immortal Arnal, that sublime buffoon, Bouffe, that wonderful actor, Vernet, Lepeintre, impudent little Defazel and the rest, who make a French farce the most sparkling, joyous, delightful thing in the world. How 1 love the old airs with the new jokes Letters from London, Paris, Pekin, Petersburg, &c. 179 to them, and the fat old proprietaires, who marry the young people at the end, and the saucy soubrettes, and the niais, on whom all the tricks are played, and the heroine, and the little insignificant hero himself- a lad of eighteen generally, with a pinched waist and budding moustaches, who has his hair curled at the expense 9f the theatre, and a salary of thirty pounds a year may be. All these one must love, with their merriment, and their wit, and their follies, and their delightful absurd affectation ; whereas, Bejazet is only a bawling bore (let it be said in confidence), Athalia a great imperious spouting Mademoiselle Georges of a woman — the Cid himself, the largest and noblest figure of French tragedy, would talk more nobly still, if he would but talk in prose, and get rid of that odious jingling rhyme. T. T. 31 August. Cruikshank's Omnibus >Sr To this publication Thackeray sent, in 1841, Little Spitz, and The King of Brentforis Testament. The verses were printed originally in Fraser's Magazine, but were completely rewritten for the Omniius. They are now included in the Ballads. lb Cruikshank's Omnibus (October 1841) LITTLE SPITZ. A Lenten Anecdote from, the German of Professor Spass. [By Michael Angelo Titmarsh.] " I THINK," said Rebecca, flinging down her beautiful eyes to the ground, and heaving a great sigh, — " I think, Signor Lorenzo, I could eat a bit of — sausage." '■'■ Oi whafi" said Lorenzo, bouncing up and forgetting all sense of politeness in the strange demand. " My dearest madam, you eat a sausage ? " " Ha, ha, I'm blesht," shouted Abednego, Rebecca's papa, " I'm blesht if Signor Lorenz does not think you want to eat the unclean animal, Rebecca, my soul's darling. These shtudents are dull fellows, look you, and only know what's in their books. Why, there are in dis vicked vorld no less than four hundred kindsh of shausages, Signor Lorenz, of which Herr Biirche the court-butcher will show you the resheipts. Confess, now, you thought my darling wanted to eat pig — faugh ! " Rebecca's countenance, at the very idea, assumed an expression of the most intolerable disgust, and she gazed reproachfully at Lorenzo. That young man blushed and looked particularly foolish as he said : " Pardon me, dearest madam, for entertaining a thought so unworthy. T did, I confess, think of pork sausages, when you spoke, and although pretty learned on most subjects, am indeed quite ignorant upon the matter of which Herr Abednego has just been speaking." " I told you so," says Abednego. " Why, my goot sir, dere is mutton-sausages, and veal-sausages, and beef-sausages, and " 183 184 Cfuikshank's Omnibus "Silence, papa," said Rebecca sharply, "for what has Signor Lorenz to do with such things ? I'm very sorry that I — that I offended him by asking for any dish of the kind, and pray let him serve us with what he has." Rebecca sank down in a chair looking very faint ; but Lorenzo started up and swore that he would have himself cut up into little pieces, stuffed into a bladder, and made sausage-meat of rather than that the lovely Israelite should go without the meat that she loved. And indeed such was the infatuated passion which this young man entertained for the Jewess, that I have not the least doubt but that he would have been ready to do as he said. " I will send down immediately into the town," continued he, " and in ten minutes my messenger will be back again." " He must run very fast," said the lady, appeased ; " but I thought you said, Signor Lorenz, that you kept but one servant, and that your old housekeeper was too ill to move ? " " Madam, make your mind quite easy. I have the best little messenger in the world." " Is it a fairy," said the Jewess, "or a household demon ? They say that you great students have many such at your orders, and 1 should like to see one, of all things." " You shall see him, dearest lady," replied the student, who took from the shelf a basket and napkin, put a piece of money into the basket (I believe the poor devil had not many of them), and wrote a few words on a paper which he set by the side of the coin. " Mr. Biirche," wrote he, " Herr Hofmetzler (that is Mr. Court- Butcher) have the goodness to send per bearer, a rix-dollar's worth of the best sausages — not pork." And then Lorenz opened his window, looked into his little garden, whistled, and shouted out : " Hallo ! Spitz ! " " Now," said he, " you shall see my familiar " ; and a great scratching and whining was presently heard at the door, which made Rebecca wonder, and poor old fat Abednego turn as yellow as a parsnip. I warrant the old wretch thought that a demon with horns and a tail was coming into the room. The familiar spirit which now made its appearance had a tail certainly, and a very long one for such a little animal ; but there was nothing terrible about him. The fact is, it was Lorenz's little turnspit-dog, that used to do many such commissions for the student, who lived half a mile out of the city of Krahwinkel, where the little dog was perfectly well known. He was a very sagacious, faithful, ugly little dog, as ever was seen. He had a long black Little Spitz 1 8s back and tail, and very little yellow legs, but he ran excessively fast on those little legs, and regularly fetched his master's meat and rolls from the city, and brought them to that lovely cottage which the student, for quiet's sake, occupied at a short distance from town. "When I give him white money," said Lorenz, caressing the little faithful beast, that wagged his tail between the calves of his master's legs, and looked up fondly in his face — " when I give him white money, he goes to the butcher's ; when 1 give him copper he runs to the baker's — and was never yet known to fail. Go, my little Spitz, as fast as legs will carry thee. Go, my dog and bring with thee the very best of sausages for the breakfast of the peerless Rebecca Abednego." With this gallant speech, which pleased the lady greatly, and caused her to try to blush as much as possible, the little dog took the basket in his mouth, and trotted downstairs, and went off on his errand. While he is on the way to Krahwinkel and back, I may as well mention briefly who his master was, how he came to be possessed of this little animal, and how the fair Jewess had found her way to a Christian student's house. Lorenz' parents lived in Polkwitz, which everybody knows is a hundred leagues from Krahwinkel. They were the most pious, orderly, excellent people ever known, and their son bade fair to equal them in all, respects. He had come to Krahwinkel to study at the famous university there, but he never frequented the place except for the lectures ; never made one at the noisy students' drinking-bouts ; and was called for his piety and solitary life, the hermit. The first year of his residence, he was to be seen not only at lectures, but at church, regularly. He never ate meat on a Friday ; he fasted all through Lent ; he confessed twice in a month, and was a model for all young students, not merely at Krahwinkel, Bonn, Jena, Halle, and other German universities ; but those of Salamanca and the rest of Spain, of Bologna and other places of learning in Italy, nay, of Oxford and Cambridge in the island of England, would do well to take example by him, and lead the godly life which he led. But I am son-y to say that learning oftentimes begets pride ; and Lorenzo Tisch, seeing how superior he was to all his companions — ay, and to most of the professors of the university — and plunging deeper and deeper daily into books, began to neglect his religious duties, at first a little, then a great deal, then to take no note of them at all ; for though, when the circumstances of this true history i86 Cruikshank's Omnibus occurred, it was the season of Lent, Lorenzo Tisch had not tlie slightest recollection of the fact, not having been at church, or looked into an almanack or a prayer-book, for many months before. Lorenzo was allowed a handsome income of a hundred rix-doUars per year by his parents, and used to draw this at the house of Mr. Abednego, the banker. One day, when he went to cash a draft for five dollars. Miss Rebecca Abednego happened to be in the room. Ah, Lorenzo, Lorenzo ! better for you to have remained at home studying the Pons Asinorum ; better still for you to have been at church, listening to the soul stirring discourses of Father Windbeutel ; better for you to have been less learned and more pious ; then you would not have been so likely to go astray, or allow your fancy to be inflamed by the charms of wicked Jewesses, that all Christian men should shun like poison. Here it was Lent season — a holiday in Lent— and Lorenzo von Tisch knew nothing about the matter, and Rebecca Abednego and her father were absolutely come to breakfast with him ! But though Lorenzo had forgotten Lent, the citizens of ICrah- winkel had not, and especially one Herr Biirche, the court butcher, to whom Tisch had just despatched Spitz for a dollar's worth of sausage-meat. The visits of Tisch to the Jew's house had indeed caused not a little scandal. The student's odd, lonely ways, his neglect of church, his queer little dog that ran of errands for him, had all been talked of by the townspeople, who had come at last to believe that Lorenzo was no less than a magician, and his dog, as he himself said in joke, his familiar spirit. Poor Spitz !— no familiar spirit wert thou : only a little, faithful, ugly dog, — a little dog that Tisch's aunt, Konisgunda, gave to him, who was equally fond of it and him. Those who know Krahwinkel (and who, I should like to know, is not acquainted with that famous city ?) are aware that Mr. Biirche, the court butcher, had his handsome shop in the Schnapps- Gasse, only a few doors from Abednego's banking-house. Mrs. Biirche is, or used to be, a lady that was very fond of knowing the doings of her neighbours, and passed many hours staring out of her windows, of which the front row gave her a command of the whole of that beautiful street, the Schnapps-Gasse, while from the back the eye ranged over the gardens and summer-houses without the gates of the town, and the great road that goes to Bolkum. Herr Lorenzo's cottage was on this road ; and it was by the Little Spitz 187 Bolkum-gate that little Spitz entered with his basket, when he went on his master's errands. Now, on this day in Lent, it happened that Frau Biirche was looking out of her window, instead of listening at church to Father Windbeutel, and she saw at eleven o'clock Mr. Israel Lowe, Herr Abednego's valet, porter, coachman, gardener and cashier, bring round a certain chaise that the banker had taken for a bad debt, into which he stepped in his best snuff-coloured coat and silk stockings, handing in Miss Rachael in a neat dress of yellow silk, a blue hat and pink feathers, and a pair of red morocco slippers that set off her beautiful ankle to advantage. "Odious people !" said Mrs. BLirche, looking at the pair whom Mr. Lowe was driving; "odious, vulgar horse!" (Herr Biirche kept only that one on which his lad rode.) " Roman-nosed beast ! I shouldn't wonder but that the horse is a Jew, too !"— and she saw the party turn down to the left into Bolkum-Strasse, towards the gate which I have spoken of before. When Madame Biirche saw this, she instantly flew from her front window to her back window, and there had a full view of the Bolkum-Strasse, and the Abednego coach jingling up the same. Mr. Lowe, when they came to the hill, got off the box and walked ; Mr. Abednego sat inside and smoked his pipe. ".£■/ du lieber Hbnmel !" screamed out Mrs. Biirche: "they have stopped at the necromancer's door ! " It was so that she called the worthy Tisch ; and she was per- fectly right in saying that the Israelitish cavalcade had stopped at the gate of his cottage ; where also appeared Lorenzo bowing, in his best coat, and offering his arm to lead Miss Rebecca in. Mrs. Biirche could not see how he trembled as he performed this work of politeness, or what glances Miss Rebecca shot forth from her great wicked black eyes. Having set down his load, Mr. Israel again mounted his box, and incontinently drove away. " Here comes that horrid little dog with the basket," continued Mrs. Biirche, after a few minutes more of looking out of the window : — and now, is not everything explained relative to Herr Lorenzo Tisch, Miss Rebecca Abednego, and the little dog ? Mrs. Biirche hated Spitz : the fact is, he once bit a hole in one of her great, round, mottled arms, which had thrust itself into the basket that Spitz carried for his master's provisions ; for Mrs. B. was very anxious to know what there was under the napkin. In consequence, therefore, of this misunderstanding between her and the dog, whenever she saw the animal it was Mrs. B.'s custom to i88 Cruikshank's Omnibus salute him with many foul words and curses, and to compass how to do him harm : for the Frau Hofmetzlerinn, as she was called in Kriihwinkel, was a lady of great energy and perseverance, and nobody could ever accuse her of forgetting an injury. The little dog, as she sat meditating evil against him, came trotting down the road, entered as usual by the Bolkum-gate, turned to the right, and by the time Madame Biirche had descended to the shop, there he was at the door, sure enough, and entered it wagging his tail. It was the holiday of Lent, and the butcher-boys were absent ; Mr. Biirche himself was abroad ; there was not a single joint of meat in the shop, nor ought there to be at such a season, when all good men eat fish. But how was poor Spitz to know what the season was, or tell what his master himself had forgotten ? He looked a little shy when he saw only Mrs. Biirche in the shop, doubtless remembering his former disagreement with her ; but a sense of duty at last prevailed with him, and he jumped up on his usual place on the counter, laid his basket down, whined, and began flapping the place on which he sat with his tail. Mrs. Biirche advanced, and held out her great mottled arm rather fearfully ; he growled, and made her start a little, but did her no harm. She took the paper out of the basket, and read what we have before imparted to the public : viz., " Mr. Court- Butcher, have the goodness to send per bearer a rix-dollar's worth of best sausage-meat, NOT/or/J'. -LORENZ TiSCH." As she read, the dog wagged his tail more violently than before. A horrible thought entered the bosom of Mrs. Biirche as she looked at the dog, and from the dog glanced at her husband's cleaver, that hung idly on the wall. " Sausages in Lent ! " said Mrs. Biirche ; " sausages to be fetched by a dog for that heathen necromancer and that accursed Jew ! He shall have sausages with a vengeance ! Mrs. Biirche took down the cleaver, and About twenty minutes afterwards Herr Lorenzo Tisch opened his garden gate, whither he had been summoned by the whining and scratching of his little faithful messenger. Spitz staggered in, laid the basket at his master's feet, licked his hand, and fell down. " Blesh us, dere'sh something red all along the road ! " cried Mr. Abednego. " Pshaw ! papa, never mind that ; let's look at the sausages,' Little Spitz 189 said his daughter Rebecca— a sad gormandizer for so young a woman. Tisch opened the basket, staggered back, and turned quite sick. In the basket which Spitz had carried so faithfully lay the poor little dog's OWN TAIL ! What took place during the rest of the entertainment I have never been able or anxious to learn ; but this I know, that there is a single gentleman now living with Madame Konisgunda Von Speck, in the beautiful town of Polkwitz— a gentleman who, if he has one prejudice in the world, has that of hating the Jewish nation — a gentleman who goes to church regularly, and, above all, never eats meat in Lent. He is followed about by a little dog — a little ugly dog — of which he and Madame Von Speck are outrageously fond ; although, between ourselves, the animal's back is provided with no more tail than a cannon-ball. The Nation The circumstances which produced Thackeray's sole contribution to this paper may be read in Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's Young Ireland, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy was the editcw of The Nation, and to him was sent ^* Daddy, fm Hungry," with its illustration, and also another drawing that was not printed because the controversy with which it was concerned was brought to a premature close by a decision of the Government. I have, however, been furnished with a description of this drawing, which was unaccompanied by any verses, perhaps because it told its own story so effectively : a stage-coach — a royal mail — with a Highland driver and guard, in plaids, but witk no passengers t at which the country-people are jeering. The Nation (May 13, 1843) DADDY, I'M HUNGRY. A Scene in an Irish Coachmaker's family, designed by Lord Lowther, July, 1843. A SWEET little picture, that's fully desarving Your lordship's approval, we here riprisint — A poor Irish coachmaker's family's starving, (More thanks to your lordship) is dhrawn in the print. See the big lazy blackguard ! although it is Monday, He sits at his ease with his hand to his cheek, And doin' no more work nor a Quaker on Sunday, Nor your lordship's own self on most days of the week. And thim's the two little ones, Rory and Mysie, Whom he'd dandle and jump every night on his knee : Faith, he gives the poor darlin's a welcome as icy As I'd give a bum-bailiff that came after me ! He turns from their prattle as angry as may be, " Oh, daddy, I'm hungry," says each little brat, And yonder sits mammy, and nurses the baby, Thinking how long there'll be dinner for that. For daddy and children, for babby and mammy. No work and no hope, O ! the prospect is fine. But I fancy I'm hearing your lordship cry — " Dammee, Suppose they do starve, it's no business of mine." Well, it's "justice," no doubt, that your lordship's obsarving. And that must our feelings of hunger console ; We've five hundred families, wretched and starving, Put what matters that, so Xhtxe's Justice for Croalt '93 13 The Pictorial Times '95 When Mr. Henry Vizetelly was preparing to set up Th£ Pictorial Times in opposition to The Illustrated London News, introduced by Mr. Nickisson, the editor of /^/■ajtf^'j, he approached Thackeray with an offer to join the staff. His offer was accepted, and for three guineas a week Thackeray undertook the post of art-critic and book -reviewer. The articles appeared during March and April, 1845. Then they ceased abruptly, for the author left England suddenly to journey from Cornhill to Cairo. Thirteen months later, however, there appeared a. review of Disraeli's Coningshy &om his pen. 196 The Pictorial Times ARTICLE 1 (March i8, 1843). LETTERS ON THE FINE ARTS. No. I : The Art Unions. From M. A. Tit marsh, Esq., to Sanders McGilp, Esq. My Dear Sanders, — I have always had the highest confidence in your judg- ment, and am therefore pretty certain that your picture is one of vast merit. The value, you say, is two hundred guineas, and you have, I hope, with laudable prudence, induced your relatives, your grandmother, your confiding aunts, the tradesmen with whom you have little accounts, and the friends with whom you are occasionally kind enough to go and dine, to subscribe to the Art Union, in hopes that one or other of them may gain the principal prize, when your taste as well as their friendship (and where can friendship be better bestowed ?) will induce them to purchase your work. To your relatives affection alone would dictate the acquisition of your picture ; to your tradesmen you offer, if possible, a still stronger inducement. " I owe you ;^4o," you can say to Mr. Snip, your respected tailor • " I cannot pay those ^40 ; but gain the first prize, and you have my picture for two hundred guineas, which, in reality, is worth five hundred, plus the payment of your bill, the amount of which you can deduct from the sum due to myself." Thus Mr. Snip gets £ s. d. A picture (valued at 500 guineas). . 525 o o The payment of his bill . . . 40 o o And costs of Writ 220 .£567 2 in return for a single sovereign subscribed to the Union. '98 The Pictorial Times The advantage of Art Unions has never before, I believe, been considered in this light ; and if every artist would but go round to his tradesmen and represent to them the truth as here liid down, no doubt great numbers of additional patrons would be found for the noble art you practise. How many a man, for instance, has not one, but half-a-dozen tailors in the category in which I have placed Mr. Snip. Well, let them all subscribe ; — the more the merrier. " If one win, gentle- men,"- you say, "remember I am in a condition to pay all the rest their accounts." And thus is an interest for Art brought home to the bosoms and boards of six deserving families. Is, or is not, the principle a good one? Are, or are not, trades- men to be paid ? Are, or are not, artists to be well-clothed ? And would, or would not, the diffusion of their divine science enlarge the heart and soften the rude manners of the million ? What, on this head, does Hesiod observe ? The Teian bard nobly remarks, — - And if the principle 6e a good one, I say it should be universal. Say (as an encouragement) to the collector who comes for your rate, " I'll pay you if you take a ticket in the Arf Union / " Remark to your butcher, in a pleasant way, " Mr. Brisket, I desire from you, for your own advantage, one stake more." " From the loin, or where ? " says he. " No," say you, laughingly interrupting him, " a stake in the Ari Union." And point out to your washerwoman what an ennobling and glorious thing it would be — a holy effluence, a bright and beaming radiance woven into the dark chain of her existence, — (or other words of might and poesy suited to her capacity), point out — I say, v/hat a pleasure it would be to her to be able to exclaim, " I wash Mr. McGilp's shirts — and look ! one of his five hundred guinea master-pieces hangs yonder, over my mangle." It is in his power, it is in anybody's power. The very Malay sweeper who shivers at the corner of your street, and acts as your model, may easily save money enough to take a ticket, and have his portrait, as Othello, to decorate his humble place of abode. You may fancy, my friend, that there is some caricature in this, and possibly you are right. You will never stoop to Mr. Snip in the manner pointed out by me ; you are above enti'eating your Letters on the Fine Arts 199 washerwoman, cutting jokes with your butcher, or cajoling the respectable gentleman who calls for your contributions once a quarter. Art, say you, is above paltry speculation and mean ideas of gain. An artist never stoops to intrigue, nor chaffers for money. He is the priest of nature, called to worship at her glorious altar, by special vocation ; one chosen out of the million, and called up to the high places ; in short, you will make a speech, crammed with fine words, proving your disinterestedness, and the awful poetical nature of your calling. Psha ! my good friend, let us have no more of this stale talk. You are a tradesman as well as my lord on the woolsack, or Mr. Smith selling figs, or General So;ies breathing freely and at his ease in an atmosphere of cannon-balls. You each do your duty in your calling, and according to your genius, but you want to be paid for what you do. You want the best pay, and the greatest share of reputation you can get. You will do nothing dishonest in the pursuit of your trade ; but will you not yield a little " to the exigencies of the public service " ? General Sones, though he may have his own opinion of the Chinese War, will attack mandarins without mercy ; my Lord Chancellor has pleaded many a cjueer cause before he reposed on yonder woolsack ; Smith ha? had recourse to many little harmless tricks to get a sale for his figs and treacle ; and you (as I take it) are not a whit better than they. Did you ever paint a lady handsomer in her portrait than nature made her? Did you ever, when your immense genius panted to be at work on some vast historical piece, crush your aspirations so far as to sit down and depict a plain gentleman in a buff waistcoat and a watch-chain, for the sake of the twenty guineas which were to be elicited from his ample pepper-and-salt pantaloons ? You have done all this, and were quite right in doing it, too. How else are the little McGilps to get their dinners, or your lady the means of discharging her weekly bills ? And now you will begin, I trust, to perceive that the ridicule cast upon the Art Union system in the first sentences of this letter is not in reality so very severe ; it is the sort of sneering language which the enemiej of those establishments are in the habit of indulging in, though expressed as high, no doubt you will think in a far more satiric and witty manner than most of the anti-Unionists have at command. Hear, for instance, the Athetiaum. " So early," says that journal, "as 1837, we put on record our opinion that the Art Union would and must of necessity tend to the still further degradation 2 00 The Pictorial Times of Art. Any man," we observed, "who purchases pictures may be presumed to have a love for, and this will in the end generate a knowledge of, Art. But there will be many subscribers who desire only a little gambling — to risk a pound for the sake of winning a hundred — and who would quite as soon join in a raffle for a horse, or a snuff-box, or a pipe of port wine, as for a picture. The motive of the subscriber is of no consequence, so long as others have to dispose of the money ; but the Art Union proposes that each subscriber 'shall select for himself.' Now, is it not certain that such patronage must tend to degrade Art ? The scheme may be beneficial to the lowest class of artists, but utterly ruinous to Art itself. When every individual, be he whom he may, is allowed to follow his own judgment in the disposal of his prize- money, the best results can be but an irresponsible indulgence of individual whim and caprice — the worst and certain in the degra- dation of Art. Men who paint to live, instead of working with all their power, be it more or less, up to the best and highest judgments, must solicit the sweet voices of the uninformed, the chance prize-holders and therefore purchasers of the Art Unions." So writes the Atheiiaum, and you will at once perceive the truth of my previous assertions : — i. That the Athenaum' s argu- ments resemble those employed at the commencement of this letter. 2. That the arguments at the beginning of this letter are far more cleverly and wickedly put. Let us now proceed to demolish the one and the other, and we will, if you please, take the dicta of the Athenaum in the first place into consideration. "Every man (says the Athenaum) who purchases pictures, may be presumed to have a love for, and this will in the end generate a knowledge of, Art." " But this Art Union is joined by many for the sake of gambling, and who would quite as soon join in a raffle for a horse, or a snuff-box, or a pipe of port wine, as for a picture." Why quite as soon ? A man who wants a pipe of port wine does not, we presume, raffle for a horse ; or being eagerly desirous of a snuff-mull, he does not raffle for a pipe of port wine. There are certainly in the world many " uninformed " persons, as the insinu- ating Athenaum remarks ; let us say at once there are fools, but not such tremendous fools as our misanthropic contemporary would discover. No, no. A man raffles for a horse, because the dealers or the knackers will give him a price for it, or because his wife wishes to be driven out in a gig, or because he has a mind to cut LOVE IN FETTERS. A TOTTENHAM-COURT-ROAD DITTY. [Sie page 24. Letters on the Fine Arts 201 a dash in the ring. A man raffles for a gold snuff-box, because he is fond of Macabavv, or because he likes to sport such a box after dinner, or because he wishes to make it a present to Mr. Boys when he brings out any more of his relatives' lithographs, or for some other simple and equally apparent reason. And so for a pipe of port wine, a man risks his money in order to gain it, because he likes port wine, or because he can sell it, or because he wishes to present a few dozens to a friend. I wish, for my part, I had a friend who desired to dispose of either of the three articles ; but that is a mere personal ejaculation, and nothing to the point. The point is that a man bids money for a horse, because he wants it ; for a picture, because he would like to have a picture. Common charity must admit so much good sense in the world. Well, then, it is granted that a man joins in a raffle for a set of pictures because he is interested in pictures ; that is, he may be presumed to have a love for Art. And a love for Art, in the end, says the " Athenaeum," will generate a knowledge of Art. Amen. In that case the excellence of Art Unions is established at once. But no, says the philosopher who argues every week from under the columns of the temple of Minerva ; this love which generates knowledge is only conceded to men who purchase pictures, not to those who raffle for them ? Is not this a little hard ? How much income tax must a man pay in order to have a decent love of Art ; a love that shall be potent enough to become the father of a future knowledge ? I may say, without exaggeration, that Sir Robert Peel is richer than I am ; but does it follow that he loves Art better ? It may be, or not ; but at least the right honourable baronet's income does not establish the superiority of his taste. Let any gentleman go into a pastry-cook's, and eat raspberry tarts ; ten to one, pressed against the window of the shop you will see the blue nose of a penniless urchin, who is looking at the good things with all" his might. Would one say that Dives, because he eats the tarts, loved them better than the little Lazarus who yearned after them ? No, even the Athenceum would not say that ; the cruel, cruel Athenceum. Now, suppose that round that shop-window, and allured by the same charming prospect which has brought their comrade thither, other little Lazaruses should assemble : they love tarts ; they are penniless ; but still not altogether without coin. Say they have a farthing apiece ; and clubbing together their wealth, or poverty rather, these rascally young gamblers make a lottery in the cap of •■'oz The Pictorial Times one of them, and what is the consequence ? the winner of the prize steps in and takes a raspberry tart from the very same tray at which great Dives himself has been gormandising. It is gambhng, certainly ; but I suspect the pastry-cook (considering its result) will look upon the crime rather justly — she might never have sold her wares but for that TART UNION. I shall resume this subject next week with philosophical con- siderations upon Polytechnic Societies, upon the lunar prospectus (or that of Mr. Moon), and upon the puerile distribution (or that of Mr. Boys). Meanwhile, dear McGilp, I remain, your very humble servant, Michael Angelo Titmarsh. AR T ICLE H (April i, 1843) LITERATURE.-MR, MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. We have but a word or two to say this week as a welcome to the re-appearance of these noble essays. No critic has aright to judge them hurriedly, and we hope that they may afford to the readers of this paper many hours of entertainment yet. For power and variety of memory, for vividness of painting, and for delightful grace of scholarship, there is no English author of our days who has equalled Mr. Macaulay ; and the charm of his style is, that it is as warm and kindly as it is bright, and engages the reader's heart by its affectionate sympathy, as it delights his taste by its brilliancy, poetry, and wit. Of course, in volumes embracing such a vast range of reading, and treating of little less than literature and history from their beginning until now, every reader who, in the course of his own humble pursuits, may encounter this active, untiring, bright-eyed inquirer, may have many a point to argue with him, and may not subscribe to many of the opinions which with such astounding prodigality are poured from him. But, whether one agree or not, one is always forced to admire ; and the most uninformed reader of Mr. Macaulay's works will do this as well as the gravest student. It requires no more science than may be had from a circulating library or a Scott's novel to be delighted with narratives not less exciting than the best fictions of the novelist : while the Literature. — Mr. Macaulay's Essays 203 reader who seeks for profit and study more than amusement, will better see the extraordinary powers of this brilliant intellect and the amazing variety and extent of learning which must have gone to the preparation of essays which all may so easily read. And no small thanks are due to this accomplished scholar from the unlettered pubhc, that,— unlike many a pedant, whose reputa- tion is founded upon a tithe of Mr. Macaulay's learning, who fences round his stock of scholarship with hard words and dull phrases and old scholastic impediments, and from his old-world lore has a huge college gate to keep the public out, and a watchful porter with a cane to drive the vulgar from the prim old walks and grass- plats of his college-garden, — no small thanks do we owe Mr. Macaulay for laying open his learning to all, and bidding the humble and the great alike welcome to it. This generous and kindly system characterises his political as well as his literary career. A man of letters and of the world, too, there is no man whose public life has better shown how the one and the other pursuit may be followed to the advantage of both ; and his very success is as useful to both the causes which he has at heart as his talents and character have been. He had no other friend at the com- mencement of his career but his own genius ; he never became the follower of any patron, or truckled to great man or mob ; he never swerved from any principle with which he set out ; he made no party sacrifice to win his honours ; and the very publication of these volumes shows how he bears them. Allied with a party, he always bore himself above it ; and has made his reputation and calling as a man of letters his title to honour, as others do their birth, their influence, or their money. He is the first literary man in this country who has made himself honourably and worthily the equal of the noblest and wealthiest in it ; this may be no cause for respect with the reader, perhaps, but with every writer it should be, who is glad to see in another his own profession advanced, and success and honour bestowed at last upon one of a body of men who were but a few score years since begging guineas from my lord for a dedication ; the bye-word for poverty, the theme for sneering wits. But the review, the newspaper addressed to no party merely, a clique of literati or politicians, have made the nation and the man of letters directly acquainted ; and it begins to reward him as it does all the rest of its servants. As it receives instruction from him, it will take care that at least he shall be respected, and will 204 The Pictorial Times treat him as it does any other man of any other liberal profession who labours in its advantage. And it is as a proof that the literary man's claim is a good one, and at last an acknowledged one, too, that we the more gladly welcome Mr. Macaulay's success. What was done once may be done again, and what his genius attained for itself his precedent and example will make easier for others. The mere party man has some reason to be grateful to Mr. Macaulay. He has made more converts to Liberalism than any mere politician ever could. He has brought thousands and thousands to interest themselves with literature, to sympathise, that is, with truth, wherever it comes from, or from what rank of men ; and to acknowledge (as who shall not that ever read in a history book ?) the constant progress of the world, and how at the close of every century, it is in something, at least, more free, wise, or happy than at the beginning. The bitterest attack on its opponents will not bring so many recruits to the Liberal party, nor will the best places be given away. And this is the part of the work of progress that is to be done by the man of letters ; the rest is but the humble duty of officials and tape-men. ARTICLE S (April i, April 8, 1843) LETTERS ON THE FINE ARTS. No. 2. — The Objections against Art Unions. M. A. Titmarsh, Esq., to Sanders McGilp, Esq. My dear Sanders, — The Tart Union alluded to last week has been appreciated ; and I am given to understand that several young gentlemen about Covent Garden and the foundation colleges in the City (where the youthful students wear leather breeches and green coats, and caps famous for their similarity in shape to the muffin) have put the scheme into practice, and are very eager in borrowing or begging farthings for the pastry-cook's interest and their own. That the scheme will benefit the former is clear ; and should any of them be inclined, by way of gratitude, to forward to the office of the paper a proof plate of their tarts, there are several Letters on the Fine Arts 205 juvenile persons about the premises who will gladly give an opinion of their merits. One of the union or distribution schemes mentioned in our last has forwarded proofs of its claims to public favour, proofs of its puffs, we would say, but that is a pun, and the truth must be told, let what will come of it, and we are now solemnly met, my brave McGilp, to discuss it. The fact is that the goodness or badness of the prints in question does not, at least for the sake of the argximent, matter a fig. Suppose a man (by means of the electro- type, of course) were enabled to produce a series of copies of Mr. Catnach's ballads, and charge a guinea, two guineas — a thousand pounds ; three farthings, for whitey-brown proofs of the same. He is quite free to do so. Nobody need buy unless they like. Or suppose he could (always by means of the electrotype) produce India paper proof plates of all the cartoons, and sell them for a halfpenny. He is quite as much at liberty to do the one as the other ; and I do believe that the reason of fair dealing and moderate prices in the world has been not so much the honesty as the selfishness of our nature. We sell cheap, because no one will buy else. We are honest because no one will trust us unless they can trust us. In a doubtful commerce with few concurrents and uncertain gains, men do not unfrequently cheat. But competition hustles roguery pretty quickly out of the market ; the swaggering, swindling, lying imposter has no chance against the burly good sense of the public. And I must confess, for my part, that if a man has a thirty- guinea watch to raffle for, and thirty persons are willing to subscribe so much amongst them, and try the chance of winning it, I see no much greater harm in this " union " than in many other speculations where (of course) chances exist of losing or winning. But to moralise on the Art Union case because of this harmless peddling with guineas, and to say that it provokes a spirit of gambling, is too hard. Is it altogether sinful to play a rubber of whist at shilling points ? Does it imply an abominable desire of gain and a frightful perversion in the individual who bets half-a-crown on the rubber ? Are we basely cast down because we lose, or brutally exultant because we win half-a-score of shillings? If it be a deadly sin, heaven help our grandfathers and grandmothers, who played cards every night of their lives, and must be anything but comfortable now. But let us hope that with regard to the criminality of the proceeding the Athenceum is wrong. Many of us have tried 2o6 The Pictorial Times a raffle at Margate, and slept no worse for it. Once, at school, I drew lots with two other boys, and the prize was a flogging ; and it does not much matter which of us won ; but the others were not very sorry about it, depend on that. No ; let this harmless little sin pass. As long as it provokes no very evil passions, as long as the pleasure of winning is great, and the pain of losing small, let gentlemen and ladies have their sport, and bet their bet, and our moralists not altogether despair. You cannot say that the Art Union supporters are actuated by a violent or unwholesome love of gambling ; they don't injure their properties by the subscription of their guinea ; they don't absent themselves from home, contract dissipated habits, bring their wives and families to ruin. They give a guinea, and are not much the better or the worse for the outlay. This is an encouragement of lotteries, the AthencEum may say, presently ; but indeed the objection is not worth a fig. The old lotteries were undisguised robberies. The Art Unions are none. The old lotteries lived upon atrocious lies and puffs, encouraged silly people with exaggerated notions of gain. The Art Union offers but to purchase pictures with the aggregate of your money, and to distribute the pictures so bought. There are no falsehoods told, and no absurd lying baits held out. A country book-club is a lottery, a wicked gambling transaction in which squires and parsons take a part. A house or life assurance is a lottery. You take the odds there to win in a certain event ; and may by very straight-laced moralists be accused of "gambling,'' for so providing against fortune ; but the Parliament has sanctioned this gambling, and the state draws a considerable profit from it. An underwriter gambles when he insures a ship ; calculating that he has a profit on the chances. A man gambles when he buys stock to sell afterwards, or a newspaper, or a house, or any other commodity, upon which profit or loss may accrue. In the latter cases, perhaps, he gambles as he does at whist, knowing himself to be a good player, and trusting to skill and chance for his success. But in the former cases, the underwriter of the ship or house has no security ; it is sheer luck ; dependent on a fire or a gale of wind, with the pull of the chances in his favour. In a commercial country, then, where there is so much authorised gambling for profit, a little gambling for mere amusement's and kindness's sake may be tolerated. Let it be allowed, at any rate, that there is no great criminality in the Art Union species of gambling ; and so quietly pass over the moral objection to the Letters on the Fine Arts 207 scheme. Then there has been lately mooted in the papers a legal objection ; but that is not a very frightful one. Both of the learned gentlemen who have been consulted and have pronounced for and against Art Unions have allowed that there is no danger of prosecution, and that poor bugbear will frighten honest folks no more. But the strong objection is that on the part of some artists of the old school, who say that the Art Union system deteriorates Art ; that it sets painters speculating upon fancy pieces, to suit the taste of the prize-holders ; that they think this will be a taking two- hundred guinea subject, or that a neat gaudy piece that will be sure to hook something ; and they paint accordingly. Now, let any man who has looked at English picture-galleries for the last ten or twenty years be called upon to say from his heart, whether there has not been a great, a noble, improvement ? — whether there is not infinitely more fancy, feeling, poetry, education, among artists as a body now than then ? Good Heavens ! if they do paint what are called subjects, what is the harm ? If people do like fancy pieces, where is the great evil ? If I have no fancy to have my own portrait staring me in the face in the dining-room, and would rather have Mr. Stone's "one particular star," for instance (and it is a charming picture), am I such a degraded wretch ? This is but cant on the part of humbugs on the one side, and on the other the ultra-ticklishness of too susceptible minds. What does the charge amount to ? That the artist tries by one means or other to consult the taste of the public. The public is ignorant ; therefore its choice is bad ; therefore the artists paint bad pictures ; therefore the taste grows worse and worse ; therefore the public grows worse and worse ; therefore the public and the artist are degraded by a desperate, helpless, arithmetical progression, out of which, as one fancies, there is no escape. But look what the real state of the case is, as it has been recited by a weekly paper (the Age) — that, too, moans over the degeneracy of its namesake, and prophecies a most pathetic future for English- men, because they have been lately seized with a love for illustrated books. First, says the Age, came the Observer, with its picture of Thurtell's Cottage, then the Hive, then the Mirror, then this and that, then the Illustrated London News, then the Pictorial Times. Well, apris f as the French say. The Hive was better than Thurtell's Cottage, the Mirror was better than the Hive, the News better than the Mirror, and the Times better than the News, 2o8 The Pictorial Times and (though the Times readers may fancy the thing impossible) the day will come when something shall surpass even the Times, and so on to the infinity of optimism. And so with pictures as with prints. The public is not used to having the former yet ; but wait awhile and it will take them ; and take them better and better every day. The commercial energy of our hearty country is such that where there is a small demand dealers well know how to raise it to a great one ; and raise fresh wants by fresh supplies ingeniously insinuated and by happy inventions in advance. As to GENIUS, that is not to be spoken of in this way ; but genius is rare ; it comes to us but once in many, many years ; and do you think the genius of painting less likely to flourish in our country because people are buying (by means of these Art Unions) five hundred little fancy pictures per annum, in addition to the ten thousand portraits they bought before ? As for aristocratic patronage of Art only, let us ask in what state was Art before Art Unions began? Did artists complain or not ? Did they say that there was no opportunity to cultivate their poetical feelings, and that they must paint portraits to live ? I am sure the people of England are likely to be better patrons of art than the English aristocracy ever were, and that the aristocrat. > have been tried and didn't patronise it ; that they neither knew how to value a picture nor an artist ; what artist ever got so good a place as a tenth-rate lawyer, or as a hundredth-rate soldier, or as a lucky physician, or as an alderman who had made a good speculation, or a country squire who had a borough ? The aris- tocracy never acknowledged the existence of Art in this country, for they never acknowledged the artist. They were the handsomest men and women in the world, and they had their simpering faces painted, but what have they done for Art to honour it ? No, no ; ihey are not the friends of genius. That day is over ; its friends lie elsewhere ; rude and cultivated as yet, but hearty, generous, and eager. It may put up with rough fare ; but it can't live in ante- chambers with lackeys, eating my lord's broken meat ; equality is its breath, and sympathy the condition of its e.xistence. What sympathy did my lords ever give it ? No ; the law, the sword, the alderman's consols, the doctor's pill, they can stomach ; they can reconcile these to their lordly nature, and infuse them into their august body. But the poet had best come lower. What have their lordships to do with him ? He has never been one of their intimates. In the old song of Schiller, Love bids the poet, now that the earth is partitioned among the strong and wealthy, to come Letters on the Fine Afts 209 to Heaven in his distress, in which there will always be a place for him ; but he has to try the people yet — the weak and poor ; and they whose union makes their strength, depend on it, have a shelter and a welcome for him. And so (though the taste of the public might be better than it is now, of which there is no question) I think we have every right to hope that it will be better. There are a thousand men read and think to-day, for one who read on this same day of April, 1743. The poet and artist is called upon to appeal to the few no longer. His profit and fame are with the many ; and do not let it be thought irreverence to put the profit and fame together. Nobody ever denies the Duke of Wellington's genius, because his Grace receives twenty thousand a year from his country in gratitude for the services by him ; and if the nation should take a fancy to reward poets in the same way, we have similarly no right to quarrel with the verdict. The dukedoms, twenty-thousands-a-year, Piccadilly-palaces, and the like, are not, however, pleaded for here. Miss Coutts or Mr. Rothschild have the like (or may, no doubt, for the asking), and nobody grudges the wealth, though neither ever were in the battle of Waterloo, that I know of. But let us ask, as the condition of improvement in Art, if not fame and honour, at least sympathy, from the public, for the artist. The refinement of taste will come afterwards ; and as every man a little conversant with the art of painting, or any other art, must know how his judgment improves, and how by degrees he learns to admire justly, so the public will learn to admire more and more justly every day. The sixpenny prints they buy twenty years hence will be better than the sixpenny prints now ; the Art Union pictures they select, better than those which frighten the desponding susceptibilities of our philosophers now-a-days. Away with these prophets of ill, these timid old maids of Cassandras, who lift up their crutches, and croak, and cry " Woe ! " It is the nature of the old bodies to despond, but let "us youth" be not frightened by their prate. If any pubhsher could find it worth his while to bring out a hundred beautiful engravings for a penny, depend on it Art would not retrograde in the country. If a hundred thousand people chose to subscribe to the Art Unions, the interest for Art would be so much the greater, the encouragement to artists so much the greater ; and if you interest the people and encourage the artists, it is absurd to suppose that one or the other would go back. But this, as you will doubtless observe, has nothing to do with 14 2'o The Pictorial Times the lunatic prospectus (that of Mr. Moon), or with the piierile distribution (that of Mr. Boys). Let us consider the sham Art Unions another day. What I wish to observe in the above sentences is, that the people are the artist's best friends ; that for his reputation and profit, henceforth, he had best look to them ; and rather than work for a class of patrons, he had better rely for support on his friends. If you have something- that is worth the telling — something for the good of mankind — it is better to take it to a hundred tailors or tinkers than to one duke or two dandies (speaking with perfect respect of both), and as an actor would rather have a hundred people in the pit than but one hearer who had paid ten pounds for a private box, an artist need have no squeamish objections to the same popularity, and will find a more sure and lasting profit in it. Many men of genius will say, " No ; we do not want the applause of the vulgar ; give us the opinion of the few." Who prevents them ? They have those few as before ; but because the artist of a lower walk changes his patron, and, instead of catering for the private boxes, appeals to the pit, there is no harm done. The pit, it is my firm belief, knows just as much about the matter in question as the boxes know ; and now you have made Art one of the wants of the pubhc, you will find the providers of the commodity and its purchasers grow more refined in their tastes alike ; and the popular critic of a few years hence calling for good pictures, when now bad ones please him. How should he know better as yet ? His betters have taught him to admire Books of Beauty, trashy, flashy coronation pictures, and the like tawdry gimcracks, which please a feeble intellect and a debauched taste. Give him time, and he will learn to like better things. And for the artist himself, will he not gain by bringing to the pubUc market the article which he was obliged before to prepare for individual patronage ? He has made many more sacrifices to the latter than ever he will be called upon to do for the former. His independence does not suffer by honest barter in the public place, any more than an author's does who takes his wares to the bookseller or newspaper, and asks and gets his price. The writer looks to my lord no longer, but he has found a better and surer friend ; and so for Art : I would like to see Art Unions all over England, from London to Little Peddlington : every one of the subscribers become interested in a subject about which he has not thought hitherto, and which was kept as the exclusive privilege of his betters. The Water-Colour Exhibition 211 The Spectator has an excellent suggestion with regard to Art Unions, I think ; which is, that a committee should purchase pictures with the funds of the Union, and that the prize-holder should then choose. Bad pictures would not, probably, be bought in this way ; and the threatened degradation of Art would then be averted. Perhaps the majority of the present Unionists, however, would not accede to this plan, and prefer to choose their pictures for themselves. Well : let them keep to the old plan ; and let us have another Art Union as the new. The more the better — the more real Unions ; as for the sham ones, we will discourse of these anon. Yours, my dear McGilp, M. A. TiTMARSH. P.S. — I hope your cartoon is in a state of forwardness ; we shall see in a month or two what the giants of Art can do. But, meantime, do not neglect your little picture out of "Gil Bias" or " The Vicar of Wakefield " (of course it is out of one or the other). Let those humble intellects which can only understand common feeling and every-day life have, too, their little gentle gratifications. Why should not the poor in spirit be provided for as well as the tremendous geniuses ? If a child take a fancy to a penny theatrical print, let hini have it ; if a workman want a green parrot with a bobbing head to decorate his humble mantel-piece, let us not grudge it to him ; and if an immense supereminent intelligence cannot satisfy his poetical craving with anything less sublime than Milton, or less vast than Michael Angelo, — all I can say, for my part, is, that I wish he may get it. The kind and beneficent Genius of Art has pleasures for all according to their degree ; and spreads its harmless happy feast for big and little, — for the Titanic appetite that can't be satisfied with anything less than a roasted elephant, as well as for the small humble cock-robin of an intellect that can sing its little grace and make its meal on a bread-crumb. ARTICLE 4 (May 6, 1843) THE WATER-COLOUR EXHIBITION. The Water-Colour Exhibitions this year are quite as gay and pretty as in preceding seasons, though presenting no works of very extraordinary merit. The gentlemen of the New Society are com- monly more ambitious than the painters of the old ; but their efforts have not this year been quite so successful as in former 212 The Pictorial Times seasons. Mr. Warren has a pair of large pictures, in which one is sorry to see so much labour and ingenuity have been expended in vain ; Mr. Corbould has a large Scripture piece, which is as bad, poor, mannered, and feeble a performance as ever was perpetrated by a clever young painter ; Mr. Hayter, always good, is not quite so good as formerly ; Mr. Wehnert has a large piece representing Luther preaching, and though the figures look as if they were made of wood, they exhibit some powerful painting and expression ; Miss Corbaux has her pretty little, rather caricatured, subject of Cinderella (but, perhaps, the artist is right, and in a fairy tale all the grotesque should be somewhat caricatured) ; Mr. Absalon has a snow-piece from the eternal " Vicar of Wakefield " — a large picture, and a failure. On the other hand, and although the artist's practice is very imperfect, and he cannot compete in skill and tricks of pencilling with many an inferior workman, he has some qualities which the inferior workman cannot acquire, labour he ever so— an exceed- ingly fine sentiment of pure beauty and tender humour. All his little pieces sparkle with this delicate, kindly sentiment ; here is a little sketch of a young couple passing over a plank across a brook ; you see that they are in love, though they make no big eyes or ogles at each other to express the tender passion, as it is commonly expressed in pictures ; then there is a drawing of a farmer coming home from the cornfield, wife and child at the cottage waiting for him, which little stale rustic history is yet told with remarkable grace and sweetness. Finally, there are two designs of Sir Roger de Coverley and the Widow, of which more need not be said than that they are as good as if Mr. Leslie himself had drawn them. Let all Art Union prize-men have a look at these rough, exquisite little pieces. Perhaps, however, it is for such slight sketches that water-colours are best adapted ; the larger pieces are wonderful and curious, but not satisfactory, any more than an overture when played on a guitar, which can accompany a ballad very sweetly. Very wisely, as we think, Mr. Cattermole has exhibited this year a few of those magnificent sketches in which he is unrivalled, in place of more elaborate pieces, which are not so well suited to his style or to the material in which he works. Two sketches on rough brown paper, seemingly, are quite extraordinary for depth and power of colour ; and the large drawing of Charles and his Army after the battle of Newbury is a magnificent wild composition, full of power and rich colour, and awful romantic gloom. The Water-Colour Exhibition 213 Mr. Taylor's " Vicar of Wakefield " is exceedingly pleasant and graceful in humour, and exhibits much of the skill of this artist's brilliant and flowing pencil. The drawings of Mr. Copley Fielding are, perhaps, even better than in former years. A forest scene may especially be remarked for its extraordinary vigour and rich- ness of tone. There are only a pair of those delightful boys with whose society Mr. Hunt is accustomed to amuse us ; but there are some wonderful fruit pieces from his pencil, and some interiors not quite, we think, so happy. Mr. Nash's " Gothic Halls " are drawn with great skill and truth, not so his meagre composition of " Milton and his Daughters," as unromantic and likewise unreal a piece as heart can desire. The young ladies' fingers are like shreds of muslin, the old gentleman's eyes as inane as Farren's in " Grandfather Whitehead," or as those of a monk in a certain picture by Mr. Richter, from the novel of " The Trustee." Words cannot be found in the dictionary strong enough to express our sense of this picture of Father Lawrence, and of a twin abomination from the same hand, and to illustrate the same romance. On the subject of " Una and her Lion," serious though polite remonstrances should be addressed to Miss Sharpe. Here are represented the biggest lion, the largest tear, and the yellowest head of hair ever painted ; but, alas ! a tear that should be painted big enough to fill a tablespoon would not be necessarily pathetic : nor is a spun-silk wig necessarily pathetic : it is not with stage properties that imagination is manufactured ; and in spite of her tear, and her hair, and her lion, this Una must be set down as the least romantic of young women. Mr. S. W. Wright's beauties have that charm of grace and deli- cacy for which all the works of this pleasing artist are known ; and Mr. Stone has a charming little drawing of a pair of lovers, with a motto in an outlandish tongue, very difficult of comprehension. But it is clear that the ragazza is a franche coquette, and the povero fanciullo a dummkopf, whose example nosotros would do well to avoid : —verbum sap. The lover of landscape will find at this exhibition many an agreeable recollection of nature in the drawings of De Wint and Gastineau ; and may take his last look at those gloomy and romantic scenes, which only Varley knew how to paint. By the way, a gentleman at the New Water-Colour Society has managed to copy the Varley manner very closely. Michael Angelo Titmarsh. 2^14 The Pictorial Timea ARTICLE 5 (May 13, 1843) LETTERS ON THE FINE ARTS. No. 3. The Royal Academy. M. A. Titmarsh, Esq., to Sanders McGilp, Esq. My dear McGilp, — I think every succeeding year shows a progress in the English school of painters. They paint from the heart more than of old, and less from the old heroic, absurd, incomprehensible unattainable rules. They look at Nature very hard, and match her with the best of their eyes and ability. They do not aim at such great subjects as heretofore, or at subjects which the world is pleased to call great, viz., tales from Hume or Gibbon of royal personages under various circumstances of battle, murder, and sudden death. Lemprifere, too, is justly neglected, and Milton has quite given place to " Gil Bias " and " The Vicar of Wakefield." The heroic, and peace be with it ! has been deposed ; and our artists, in place, cultivate the pathetic and the familiar. But a few, very few, worshippers of the old gods remain. There are only two or three specimens in the present exhibition of the grand historic style. There is a huge dim-coloured picture, in the large room, by an Academician, probably ; but 1 have neither the name nor the subject ; there is Mr. Haydon's history-piece of the " Maid of Sara- gossa" — a great, coarse, vulgar, ill-drawn, ill-painted caricature ; and an allegory or two by other artists, in the old-fashioned style. The younger painters are content to exercise their art on subjects far less exalted : a gentle sentiment, an agreeable, quiet incident, a tea-table tragedy, or a bread-and-butter idyl, suffices for the most part their gentle powers. Nor surely ought one to quarrel at all with this prevalent mode. It is at least natural, which the heroic was not. Bread and butter can be digested by every man ; whereas Prometheus on his rock, or Orestes in his straight-waistcoat, or Hector dragged behind Achilles' car, or Britannia, guarded by Religion and Neptune, welcoming General Tomkins in the Temple of Glory — the ancient, heroic, allegorical subjects — can be supposed deeply to interest very few of the inhabitants of this city or kingdom Letters on the Fine Arts ztj We have wisely given up pretending that we were interested in such, and confess a partiality for more simple and homely themes. The Exhibition rooms are adorned with numberless very pleasing pictures in this quiet taste. Mr. Leslie offers up to our simple household gods a " Vicar of Wakefield " ; Mr. Maclise presents a " Gil Bias " ; Mr. Redgrave gently depicts the woes of a governess who is reading a black-edged note, and the soft sorrows of a country lass going to service ; Mr. Stone has the last appeal of a rustic lover ; Mr. Charles Landseer has a party drinking quietly under the trees ; Mr. McNee shows a young person musing in a quiet nook, and thinking of her love. All these subjects, it will be observed, are small subjects ; but they are treated, for the most part, with extraordinary skill. As for Lady Blarney, in Mr. Leslie's picture, with that wonderful leer of her wicked, squinting, vacant eyes, she is as good as the very best Hogarth ; her face is the perfection of comedy ; and the honest primrose countenances round about, charming for their simplicity, and rich kindly humour. The " Malade Imaginaire " is no less excellent ; more farcical and exaggerated in the arrange- ment ; but the play is farcical and exaggerated ; and the picture, as the play, is full of jovial, hearty laughter. No artist possesses this precious quality of making us laugh kindly so much as Mr. Leslie. There is not the least gall or satire in it ; only sheer irresistible good humour. Now, in the tableau by Mr. Maclise, many of the principal personages are scowling, or ogling, or grinning and showing their teeth, with all their might, and yet the spectator, as I fancy, is by no means so amused as by those more quiet actors in Mr. Leslie's little comedies. There is, especially in Mr. MacKse's company, one young fellow who ought to be hissed, or who should have humble parts to act, and not be thrust forward in the chief characters, as he has of late years, with his immense grinning mouthful of white teeth and knowing, leering eyes. The ladies we have seen too, repeatedly, and it must be confessed they are not of the high comedy sort. The characters appear to be, as it were, performing a tableau from " Gil Bias," not the actual heroes or heroines of that easy jovial drama. As for the " properties " of the piece, to use the dramatic phrase, they are admirably rich and correct. The painter's skill in repre- senting them is prodigious. The plate, the carvings, the wine- flasks, the poor old melancholy monkey on his perch, the little parrots, the carpet, are painted with a truth and dexterity quite 2i6 The Pictorial Times marvellous, and equal the most finished productions of the Dutch schools. Terbury never painted such a carpet ; every bit of plate is a curiosity of truthful representation. This extraordinary power of minute representation is shown in another picture by Mr. Maclise, " The Cornish Waterfall," round which every leaf in every tree is depicted, and in which the figure of the girl is a delightful specimen of the artist's graphic power. Mr. Redgrave's " Going to Service " is not so well drawn as his pictures of former years. An old lady in an arm-chair, two young sisters embracing each other, a brother very stiff and solemn in a smock frock, and a waggon waiting outside, tell the story of this little domestic comedy. It has a milk-and-watery pathos. The Governess- has her bread-and-butter by her side, too ; but the picture is much better, the girl's figure extremely beautiful and graceful, and the adjuncts of the picture are painted with extreme care and skill. Mr. Stone's " Last Appeal " is beautiful. It is evidently the finish of the history of the two young people who are to be seen in the Water-Colour Exhibition. There the girl is smiling and pleased, and there is some hope still for the pale, earnest young man who loves her with all his might. But between the two pictures, between Pall Mall and the Trafalgar Column, sad changes have occurred. The young woman has met a big life-guardsman, probably, who has quite changed her views of things ; and you see that the last appeal is made without any hope for the appellant. The girl hides away her pretty face, and we see that all is over. She likes the poor fellow well enough, but it is only as a brother ; her heart is with the life-guardsman, who is strutting down the lane at this moment, with his laced cap on one ear, cutting the buttercups' heads off with his rattan cane. The whole story is told, without, alas ! the possibility of a mistake, and the young fellow in the grey stockings has nothing to do but to jump down the well, at the side of which he has been making his appeal. The painting of this picture is excellent ; the amateur will not fail to appreciate the beauty of the drawing, the care, and at the same time freedom, of the execution, and a number of excellences of method which are difficult to be described in print, except in certain technical terms that are quite unsatisfactory to the general leader. Mr. Charles Landseer's " Monks of Rubrosi " is the best, perhaps, of his pictures. The scene is extremely cheerful, fresh, and brilliant ; the landscape almost as good as the figures, and these Letters on the Fine Arts 217 are all good. Two grave-looking, aristocratic fathers of the abbey have been fly-fishing ; a couple of humbler brethren in brown are busy at a hamper of good things ; a gallant young sportsman in green velvet lies on the grass and toasts a pretty lass that is somehow waiting upon their reverences. The picture is not only good, but has the further good quality of being pleasant ; and some clever artist will do no harm in condescending so far to suit the general taste. There is no reason, after all, why a man should not humble himself to this extent, and make friends with the public patron. For instance, take Mr. Poole's picture of " Solomon Eagle and the Plague of London." It is exceedingly clever ; but who would buy such a piece ? Figures writhe over the picture blue and livid with the plague — some are dying in agony — some stupid with pain. You see the dead-cart in the distance ; and in the midst stands naked Solomon, with blood-shot eyes and wild maniacal looks, preaching death, woe, and judgment. Where should such a piece hang ? It is too gloomy for a hospital, and surely not cheerful enough for a dining-room. It is not a religious picture, that would serve to decorate the walls of a church. A very dismal, gloomy conventicle might, perhaps, be a suitable abode for it ; but would it not be better to tempt the public with something more good- humoured ? Of the religious pieces, Mr. Herbert's "Woman of Samaria" will please many a visitor to the Exhibition, on account of the beauty and dignity of the head of the Saviour. The woman, as I thought, was neither beautiful nor graceful. Mr. Eastlake's " Hagar " is beautiful as everything else by this accomplished artist ; but here, perhaps, the beauty is too great, and the pain not enough. The scene is not represented with its actual agony and despair ; but it is, as it were, a sort of limning to remind you of the scene ; a piece of mystical poetry with Ishmael and Hagar for the theme. I must confess that Mr. Linnett's " Supper at Emmaus" did not strike me as the least mystical or poetical, and that Mr. Etty's " Entombment " was anything but holy and severe. Perhaps the most pious and charming head in the whole Exhibition, is that of the Queen, by Mr. Leslie, in his Coronation picture ; it has a delightful modesty and a purity quite angelical. Mr. Etty's pictures of the heathen sort are delightful ; wonderful for a gorgeous flush of colour, such as has belonged, perhaps, to no painter since Rubens. But of these we will discourse next week. M. A. TiTMARSH, 2iS The Pictorial Times ARTICLE 6 (May 27, 1843) LETTERS ON THE FINE ARTS. No. 4. The Royal Academy. (Second Notice) M. A. Tit marsh, Esq., to Sanders McGilp, Esq. My Dear McGilp,— If her Majesty is the purchaser of all the royal pictures by Paris, by Hayter, by Leslie, by Landseer, — of all the royal portraits by these and a score more in and out of the Academy, — there must be a pretty large gallery at Buckingham Palace by this time, and, let it be said with respect, a considerable sameness in the collection. The royal face is a very handsome one, and especially in the medallion-shape, in gold. I would like to look at thousands of them every week, for my part, and would never tire in extending my cabinet. But, confess, my dear Sir, are we not beginning to have enough of royal parade-pictures ? And are not the humbler classes some- what tired of them ? Only the publishers and the grandees, their enlightened patrons, still continue to admire. Dark rooms are still prepared for such ; gas-jets and large subscription books artfully laid on and out. The Court Guide still goes to see Winterhalter's portrait of the Queen (" I wish they may get it," as the Duchess of observes ; the picture is not painted by Winterhalter ; but what do they know, whether it be good or bad ?). The Court Guide still buys huge proofs of her Majesty's marriage, or the Princess's christening, or the real authorised coronation picture (every one of the half-dozen are real authorised coronation pictures), and is content therewith. Ah ! Heaven bless that elegant aristocracy of England ; that wise, that enlightened, that noble clan of our betters ! The subject of these pictures is worthy of their noble souls, — fit for their vast comprehensions ; and as the poor workman buys his prints of "The Prodigal Son's Progress," the young cockney-buck his portrait of Mrs. Honey, or some other beauty with long ringlets and short petticoats, the sporting man his varnished hunting-piece, so the great have their hkings, and we judge them by what they admire. Letters on the Fine Arts 219 And what an admiration theirs is ! There's her Majesty in state ! What a lovely white satin ! and the velvet, my dear, painted to the very life. Every single jewel's a portrait, I give you my honour ; and Prince Albert's own star and garter sat to the artist ; the Archbishop's wig is done to a hair ; and was there ever a more wonderful piece of art than that picture of the Duke in his orders and his epaulets, and his white Kerseymere pantaloons ? Round the sovereign are all the maids of honour ; round the maids of honour all the officers of state ; round the officers of state all the beefeaters and gentlemen-at-arms ; and on these magnificent sub- jects our painters are continually employed. Noble themes for the e.Kercise of genius ! brilliant proofs of enlightened public taste ! The court milliners must be proud to think that their works are thus immortalised, and the descendants of our tailors will look at these pieces with a justifiable family pride. Mr. Leslie has had to chronicle coats and satin-slips in this way, and has represented his scene in the drama of the coronation (how many more episodes of the same piece have been represented and by how many more painters, 1 don't know), and his picture is so finely done, so full of beauty and grandeur, that for once a court picture has been made interesting. I have remarked on the principal figure before, — the exquisite grace and piety represented in the countenance and attitude of the Queen ; but the judgment of the quality as far as I have been able to gather it (and it is good to this end to play the spy's part, and overhear the opinions of the genteel personages who come to see the Exhibition) — the genteel judgment is decidedly against the painter, and his portraits are pronounced to be failures, and his pictures quite inferior to many others by others' hands. Let us hope the opinion will be so general, that this charming painter shall never be called upon to paint a court ceremony again. I would rather see honest Mrs. Primrose's portrait by him than that of the loveliest lady of honour ; and the depicting of uniforms and lappets and feathers left to those politer artists whose genius is suited to subjects so genteeL There is no Prince Albert this year, I regret to say ; but we have two portraits of her Majesty, in trains, velvets, arm-chairs, etc. — one by the President ' and one by Mr. Grant — and neither worth a crown-piece. One of the most exquisite and refined little sketches ever seen is the portrait of Lady Lyttelton, by the latter artist ; it is a dehghtful picture of a beautiful and high-bred maiden. Mr. Chalon's aristocracy does not ogle and simper quite so much as in ' Sir Martin Archer Shee. 2 20 The Pictorial Times former years ; and their ladysliips are painted with all the artist's accustomed skill. Mr. Richmond's heads are excellent as usual ; and there is a rival to these gentlemen, who has given us a water- colour portrait of the Bishop of Exeter, in which the amiable and candid features of that prelate are depicted with great fidelity and talent. Mr. Carrick's men-miniatures are perhaps the best among those pleasing performances ; the likeness of a former Secretary for Ireland will especially please those who know his lordship's countenance, and those who do not, by its resemblance to an eminent comedian whose absence from the stage all regret. Mr. Thorburn cultivates more, perhaps, than any other miniature painter, the poetry of his art. The gallant knights, Sir Ross and Sir Newton, are as victorious as usual ; and Mr. Lover's head of Mr. Lever deserves praiseworthy mention ; it will be looked at with interest by " Harry Lorrequei-'s " English readers, and by those who had the opportunity of seeing him in the body, and hearing his manly and kind-hearted speech at the Literary Fund the other day. Of Mr. Ett/s colour pieces what words can give an idea? Many lovers of Titian and Rubens will admit that here is an English painter who almost rivals them in his original way, and all will admire their magnificent beauty. Mr. Turner, our other colourist, is harder to be understood. The last time the gentle reader received a black eye at school and for a moment after the delivery of the blow, when flashes of blue, yellow, and crimson lightning blazed before the ball so preternaturally excited, he saw something not unlike the " Moses " of Mr. Turner. His picture of " Cleopatra Meeting Alexander the Great at Moscow the Morning Before the Deluge " (perhaps this may not be the exact title, but it will do as well as another), is of the most transcendental sort. The quotations from the " Fallacies of Hope " continue still in great force ; as thus : — " The Ark stood firm on Ararat ; the returning Sun Exhaled Earth's humid bubbles, and, emulous of light, Reflected her lost forms, each in prismatic guise, Hope's harbinger, ephemeral as the summer fly. Which rises, flits, expands, and dies. " Fallacies of Hope.^' The artist has done full justice to these sweet lines. We are given to understand by cognoscenti that the Italian skies are always of the bluest cobalt ; hence many persons are Literature. — Coningsby; or. The New Generation 221 dissatisfied with Mr. Stanfield's Italian landscapes, as unfaithful, because deficient in the proper depth of ultia-marine. On this subject let proper judges speak ; but others less qualified will find the pictures beautiful, and more beautiful for their quiet and calm. Who can praise Mr. Creswick sulhciently ? The " Welsh girl " will, one of these days, fetch a sum of money as great as ever was given for Hobbema or Ruysdael ; and "Evening" is an English Claude. Mr. Lee's fresh country landscapes will find hundreds of admirers ; and perhaps there are no two prettier little pictures in the gallery than Mr. Linton's "Sorrento" and Mr. Jutsum's " Tintern." In walking round the vault in which the sculpture is entombed, I did not see anything especially worthy of mark, except a bust of Count d'Orsay, who has himself broken ground as an artist, and whose genius will one day no doubt make its way. Why have we not our common share of the admirable pictures of Mr. Edwin Landseer ? It can't be that a man of his facility has painted but three pictures in a year, and picture-lovers wonder where the rest are ? M. A. TiTMARSH. ARTICLE 7 (May 25, 1844) LITERATURE -CONINGSBY 5 OR THE NEW GENERATION. By B. D'Israeli, Esq., M.P. If this book do not become popular, what other novel has a chance ? "Coningsby" possesses all the happy elements of popularity. It is personal, it is witty, it is sentimental, it is outrageously fashionable, charmingly malicious, exquisitely novel, seemingly very deep, but in reality very easy of comprehension, and admirably absurd ; for you do not only laugh at the personages whom the author holds up to ridicule, but you laugh at the author too, whose coxcombries are incessantly amusing. They are quite unlike the vapid, cool coxcombries of an English dandy; they are picturesque, wild, and outrageous ; and as the bodily D'Israeli used to be seen some years ago about town, arrayed in green inexpressibles with a gold stripe down the seams, an 2 22 The Pictorial Times ivory cane, and, for what we know, a peacock's feather in his hat — D'Israeli the writer in like manner assumes a magnificence never thought of by our rigid northern dandies, and astonishes by a luxury of conceit which is quite oriental. He paints his own portrait in this book in the most splendid fashion ; it is the queerest in the whole queer gallery of likenesses ; he appears as the greatest philosopher, the greatest poet, the greatest horseman, the greatest statesman, the greatest roue in the world ; with all the qualities of Pitt, and Byron, and Burke, and the great Mr. Widdicomb of Batty's amphitheatre. Perhaps one is reminded of the last-named famous individual more than of any other. The book has kept the town in talk for a whole week past. The circulating libraries are dunned for copies ; the volumes are snatched off the tables at the club reading-rooms, and everybody recognises everybody's portrait. The chief character of the book, after the author's own, is that of the late Lord Hertford, here figuring under the title of the Marquis of Monmouth ; his friend Lord Eskdale is no other than Lord Lonsdale ; Lord John Manners appears as Lord Sydney ; and the house of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir is recognised by everybody in the novel by its title of Beaumanoir ; above all, there is the great character of RIGBY, in which the Right Honourable John Wilson Joker is shown up in such a way as must make him happy in his retirement to find that all the world is so much amused by him. The way in which all the newspapers have extracted the passages relative to Mr. Wilson Joker is quite curious. The Chronicle began on Monday ; on Wednesday the Times charitably followed ; on Thursday the Post gave the self-same extracts ; so that by this time every newspaper-reader in the British Empire has perused the history of Mr. Rigby, and knows how he writes slashing articles against women for preference, and how convenient a friend he is to a great man. A better portrait of a parasite has never been written since Juvenal's days, and we can fancy that even ages hence people will read this book as a singular picture of manners and society in our times. Brummel's life, lately published, will help the historian to an acquaintance with the period a couple of score of years previous, and the real story and the fictitious one will be found, we think, alike profitable. What person is there, in town or country, from the squire down to the lady's-maid, who will not be anxious to peruse a work in which the secrets of high life are so exposed ? In all the fashion- able novels ever published there is nothing so piquant or so Literature. — Coningsby; or, The New Generation 223 magnificently genteel. Every politician, too, will read with avidity — the details ate so personal. Whigs and Conservatives are abused with such equal bitterness and truth, that, in consideration of the manner in which his neighbour is attacked, a man of either party will pardon the onslaught made on his own friends. Lord John and Sir Robert are both brought forward by this unblushing critic — praised or bullied according to his notions of right and wrong. We shall not forestall the reader's interest by extracting a single line from the volumes, which, with all their philosophy and pert- ness, their wisdom and absurdity, are such as cannot fail to interest him, and to make him think and laugh, not only with the author, but at him. Surely nothing more ought to be requisite to make any novel popular. Colburn's New Monthly Magazine 15 To this periodical Thackeray contributed at intervals. During 1838 and the two following years there appeared from his pen Mary Ancel (reprinted in The Paris Sketch Book), Major Gahagan, and The Bedford Row Conspiracy. In 1844 and 1845 he wrote for \hc^ Magazine mu^qv the pseudonym " Launcelot Wagstaff," five short stories, The Partie Fine, Arabella, Greenwich - Whiiebait, T/ie Chest of Cigars, and Pob Robinson's First Love. Only the third tale is reprinted in the Collected Works Colburn's New Monthly Magazine ARTICLE 1 (May 1844) THE PARTIE FINE. By Lancelot Wagstaff, Esq. Colonel Gollop's dinner in Harley Street (the Colonel is an East Indian Director, and his MuUigatawney the best out of Bengal) was just put off, much to my disappointment, for I had no other engagement ; Mrs. Wagstaff was out 'of town with her mother at Bognor, and my clothes had been brought down to the club to dress — all to no purpose. I was disconsolately looking over the bill of fare, and debating between Irish stew and the thirteenth cut at a leg of lamb (of which seven barristers had partaken, each with his half-pint of Marsala, when Jiggins the waiter brought me in a card, saying that the gentleman was in the hall, and wished to see me. The card was Fitzsimons', — a worthy fellow, as I daresay my reader knows. I went out to speak to him. " Perhaps," thought I, " he is going to ask me to dine." There was something particularly splendid in Fitz's appearance, as I saw at a glance. He had on a new blue-and-white silk neckcloth, so new that it had never been hemmed ; his great gold jack-chain, as I call it, was displayed across his breast, showing off itself and a lace ruffle, a great deal too ostentatiously, as I thought. He had lemon-coloured gloves ; French polished boots, with deuced high heels ; his hair curled (it is red, but oils to a mahogany colour) ; his hat extremely on one side ; and his moustache lacquered up with, I do believe, the very same varnish which he puts to his boots. I hate those varnished 227 2 23 Colbuin's New Monthly Magazine boots, except for moderns, and Fitz is three-and-forty if he is a day. However, there he stood, whipping his lacquered boots with a gold-headed stick, whistling, twirling his moustache, pulling up his shirt-collar, and giving himself confoundedly dandified airs in a word, before the hall-porter and the club message-boy in brass buttons. " Wagstaff, my boy," says he, holding out a kid glove, in a most condescending manner, " I have something to propose to you." " What is it, and what's your hour? " said I quite playfully. " You've guessed it at once,'' answered he. " A dinner is what I mean. Mrs. Wagstaff is out of town, and " Here he whispered me. ***** Well ? Why not ? After all, there may be some very good fun. If my mother-in-law heard of it she would be sure to make a row. But she is safe at Bognor (may she stay there for ever !). It is much better that I should have some agreeable society than dine alone at the club, after the seven barristers on the leg of lamb. Of course it was not to be an expensive dinner, — of course not, Fitzsimons said, — no more it was to ^z/«— hang him — as you shall hear. It was agreed that the dinner-hour should be seven : the place, Durognon's in the Haymarket ; and as I rather pique myself on ordering a French dinner, that matter was to be consigned to me. I walked down to Durognon's, looked at the room, and ordered the dinner for four persons, — the man asked how much champagne should be put in ice ? which I considered rather a leading question, and giving a rather vague reply to this (for I determined that Fitzsimons should treat us to as much as he liked), I walked away to while away the hour before dinner. After all, I thought, I may as well dress : the things are ready at the club, and a man is right to give himself every personal advantage, especially when he is going to dine — with LADIES. There — the secret is out. Fitz has asked me to make a fourth in a pe/zi duter, given to Madame Nelval of the French Theatre, and her friend Mademoiselle Delval. I had seen Madame Nelval from a side-box a few evenings before — and parbleu, homo sum; I meant no harm; Gollop's dinner was off; Mrs. Wagstaff was out of town ; and I confess I was very glad to have an opportunity of meeting this fascinating actress and keeping up my French. The Partie Fine 239 So I dressed, and at seven o'clock walked back to Durognon's ; — whither it was agreed that Fitz was to bring the ladies in his Brougham ;- the deuce knows how he gets the money to pay for it by the way, or to indulge in a hundred other expenses far beyond any moderate man's means. As the St. James' clock struck seven, a gentleman— past the period of extreme youth, it is true, but exhibiting a remarkably elegant person still, in a very becoming costume, might have been seen walking by London Houise, and turning down Charles Street to the Haymarket. This individual, I need not say, was myself. I had done my white tie to a nicety, and could not help saying, as I gazed for a m.oment in the great glass in the Club drawing- room, — '■' Corbleu, Wagstaff, you are still as distingud a looking fellow as any in London." How women can admire that odious Fitzsimons on account of his dyed mustaches, I for one never could understand. The dinner- table at Durognon's made a neat and hospitable appearance ; the plated candlesticks were not more coppery than such goods usually are at taverns ; the works of art on the wall were of tolerable merit ; the window-curtains, partially drawn, yet allowed the occupant of the room to have a glimpse of the cab- stand opposite, and I seated myself close to the casement, as they say in the novels, awaiting Captain Fitzsimons' arrival with the two ladies. I waited for some time— the cabs on the stand disappeared from the rank, plunged rattling into the mighty vortex of London, and were replaced by other cabs. The sun, which had set some- where behind Piccadilly, was now replaced by the lustrous moon, the gas lamps, and the red and blue orbs that flared in the windows of the chemist opposite. Time passed on, but no Fitzsimons' Brougham made its appearance. I read the evening paper, half an hour was gone, and no company come. At last, as the opera carriages actually began to thunder down the street, " a hand was on my shoulder," as the member for Pontefract sings. I turne.1 round suddenly from my reverie — that hand, that yellow-kid-glove- covered hand was Fitzsimons'. " Come along, my boy," says he, " we will go fetch the ladies - they live in Bury Street, only three minutes' walk." / go to Bury Street ? 1 be seen walking through St. James' Square, giving any arm to any other lady in Europe but my Arabella, my wife, Mrs. Wagstaff? Suppose her uncle, the Dean, is going to dine at the Bishop's, and should see me ? — me, walking 2 jo Colburn's New Montkly Magazine with a French lady, in three-quarters of a bonnet ! I should like to know what an opinion he would have of me, and where his money in the funds would go to ? " No," says I, " my dear Fitzsimons, a joke is a joke, and I am not more straight-laced than another ; but the idea that Mr. Lancelot Wagstaff should be seen walking in St. James' Square with a young' French actress, is a little too absurd. It would be all over the city to-morrow, and Arabella would tear my eyes out." " You shan't walk with a French actress," said Fitz. " You shall give your arm to as respectable a woman as any in Baker Street — I pledge you my honour of this — Madame la Baronne de Saint Menehould, the widow of a General of the Empire — connected with the first people in France. Do you mean to say that she is not equal to any of your sugar-baking family ? " I passed over Fitz's sneer regarding my family ; and as it was a Baroness, of course agreed to walk with Fitzsimons in search of the ladies. " I thought you said Madame Delval this morning ? " said I. " Oh, the Baroness is coming, too," answered Fitzsimons, and ordered a fifth cover to be laid. We walked to Bury Street, and presently, after a great deal of chattering and clapping of doors and drawers, three ladies made their appearance in the drawing- room, and having gone through the ceremony of an introduction in an entire state of darkness, the order of march was given. I offered my arm to the Baroness de Saint Menehould, Fitz leading the way with the other two ladies. We walked down Jermyn Street ; my heart thumped with some uneasiness as we crossed by the gambling house in Waterloo Place, lest any one should see me. There is a strong gas-lamp there, and I looked for the first time at my portly companion. She was fifty-five if a day — five years older than that Fitzsimons. This eased me, but somehow it didn't please me. I can walk with a woman of five-and-fifty any day — there's my mother-in-law, my aunts, and the deuce knows how many more I could mention. But 1 was consoled by the Baroness presently saying, that she should, from my accent, have mistaken me for a Frenchman — a great compliment to a man who has been in Paris but once, and learned the language from a Scotch usher, never mind how many years ago, at Mr. Lord's Academy, Tooting, Surrey. But I adore Paul de Kock's novels, and have studied them so rapturously, that no wonder I should have made a proficiency in the language. Indeed, Arabella has often expressed herself quite Tlic Partie Fine 231 jealous as I lay on the sofa of an evening, laughing my waistcoat- strings off, over his delightful pages. (The dear creature is not herself very familiar with the language, and sings Fluve dew Tage, Partong pour Syrie, etc., with the most confirmed Clapham accent). I say she has often confessed herself to be jealous of the effect produced on my mind by this dear, delightful, wicked, odious, fascinating writer, whose pictures of French society are so admirably ludicrous. It was through Paul de Kock that I longed to know something about Parisian life, and those charming s^millantes, frHilla?ites,p^tillantes, grisettes, whose manners he describes. " It's Paul de Kock in London, by Jove," said I to myself, when Fitz proposed the little dinner to me ; " I shall see all their ways and their fun.'' And that was the reason why, as Mrs. Wagstaffwas out of town, I accepted the invitation so cordially. Well, we arrived at Durognon's at a quarter-past eight, we five, and were ushered at length into the dining-room, where the ladies flung off their cloaks and bonnets, and I had an opportunity of seeing their faces completely. Madame Nelval's was as charming a face as I ever looked upon ; her hair parted meekly over the forehead, which was rather low ; the eyes and eyebrows beautiful ; the nose such as Grecian sculptor scarce ever chipped out of Parian stone ; the mouth small, and when innocently smiling, displaying the loveliest pearly teeth, and calling out two charming attendant dimples on each fresh cheek, the ear a perfect little gem of an ear. (I adore ears — unadorned ears without any hideous ornaments dangling from them — pagodas, chandeliers, bunches of grapes, and similar monstrosities, such as ladies will hang from them — entr' autres, my own wife, Mrs. W., who has got a pair of earrings her uncle the dean gave her, that really are as big as boot-jacks, almost) ! She was habited in a neat close-fitting dress of Parisian tartan silk, which showed off to advantage a figure that was perfect, and a waist that was ridiculously small. A more charming, candid, distinguished head it was impossible to see. Mademoiselle Delval was a modest, clever, pleasing person, neatly attired in a striped something — I don't know the proper phrase ; and Madame la Baronne was in a dress which I should decidedly call gingham. When we sat down to the Potage Printani^re, and I helped the Baroness naturally first, addressing her respectfully by her title the other two ladies began to laugh, and that brute Fitzsimons, roared as if he was insane. "La Baronne de Saint Mdndhould !" 232 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine cried out little Madame Nelval ; " o par exemple ! c'est maman, mon cher monsieur ! " On which (though I was deucedly nettled, I must confess) I said, that to be the mother of Madame Nelval was the proudest title any lady could have, and so sneaked out of my mortification, with this, I flatter myself, not inelegant compliment. The ladies, one and all, declared that 1 spoke French like a Parisian ; and so I ordered in the champagne ; and very good Durognon's Sillery is, too. Both the young ladies declared they detested it, but Madame Nelval the elder honestly owned that she liked it ; and indeed I could not but remark that, in our favour doubtless, the two younger dames forgot their prejudices, and that their glasses were no sooner filled than they were empty. Ah, how charming it was to see the shuddering, timid, nervous way in which the lovely Nelval, junior (let me call her once by her Christian name of Virginie) turned away her little shrinking head as the waiter opened the bottles, and they went off with their natural exhilarating pop and fiz. At the opening of the first bottle, she flew into a corner ; at the opening of the second, she ran to her mother's arms {/tin?tuleo ■ similis qucerenti pavidain iiwnlibus aviis tnairem, as we used to say at Tooting), sweet sensibility ! charming, timorous grace ! but she took the liquor very kindly when it was opened, saying, as she turned up her fine eyes to Heaven, " II n'y a rien qui m'aga^e les nerfs comme cela ! " Agacer les nerfs ! What a delicate expression. The good old lady told her to be calm, and made light of her terror. But though I piqued myself on ordering the dinner, the little coquette soon set me down. She asked for the most wonderful things : for instance, she would have a salad of dandelion — the waiter was packed off to Covent Garden to seek for it. When the fish came, she turned to the waiter and said, " Comment ? vous n'avez point de moules ? " with the most natural air in the world, as if mussels were always served at Parisian dinners, which I sup- pose is the case. And then, at dessert, what must she remark but the absence of asparagus, which, I must confess, I had not ordered ! " What," she said, " turning round to my companion, " are there no asparagus, monsieur ? No asparagus ! ah, monsieur ! c'est ma vie, mon bonheur que les asperges ! J'en suis foUe— des asperges. Je les adore — les asperges. Je ne mange que cela, — il me les faut, Monsieur Fitzsimons. Vite, gargon ! des asperges — des asperges k I'huile, entendez-vous ? " The Partie Fine 233 We were both very much alarmed by this manifest excitement of Virginia's nerves ; and the asparagus was sent for. O woman ! you are some of you Uke the animals of the field in so far as this, that you do not know your power. Those who do can work wonders over us. No man can resist them. We two were as timid, wretched, and trembling, until the asparagus came, as any mortal could be. It seemed as if we had committed a crime in not ordering the asparagus that Virginie adored. If she had proposed a bit of melted pearls, I think Fitz was the man to send off to Storr & Mortimer's, and have the materials bought. They (I don't mean the pearls, but the vegetables) came in about half an hour, and she ate them cold, as she said, with oil and vinegar ; but the half-hour's pause was a very painful one, and we vainly endeavoured to fill the odious vacuum with champagne. All the while Fitz- simons, though he drank and kept nervously helping his neighbours right and left, was quite silent and frightened. I know which will be the better horse (as the phrase is) if h^s ever married. I was of course collected, and kept putting in my jokes as usual, but I cannot help saying that I wished myself out of the premises, dreading to think what else Madame Virginie might ask for, and saying inwardly, " What would my poor Arabella say if she knew her scoundrel of a Lancelot was in such company ? " Well — it may have been the champagne, or it may have been the asparagus, — though I never, I confess, remarked such a quality in the vegetable, — it may, I say, have been the asparagus which created — what do you think .?-^a reconciliation between Virginie and Heloise — the Madame Delval before mentioned. This was a delicate matter,,but it appeared the ladies had had a difference in the morning about a ribbon, a fichu, or some such matter doubtless, and they had not spoken all dinner-time. But after a bottle of sherry, four of Sillery (which we all took fairly, no flinching, no heel-taps, glass and glass about), after coffee and curagoa, and after the asparagus, a reconciliation took place, Heloise looked at Virginie, Virginie looked at Heloise, the latter rose from her chair, tottered towards her friend, and they were in each other's arms in a minute. Old Madame Nelval looked quite pleased at the scene, and said, smiling, to us, " Elle a si bon cceur, ma fille !" Oh, those mothers 1 they are all the same. Not that she was wrong in this instance. The two young ladies embraced with the warmest cordiality, the quarrel about the ribbon was forgotten, the two young hearts were united once more ; and though that selfish brute Fitzsimons, who has no more heart than 234 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine a bed-post, twiddled his eternal moustache, and yawned over the scene, I confess I was touched by this little outbreak of feeling, and this glimpse into the history of the hearts of the young persons ; and drank a glass of curagoa to old Madame Nelval with a great deal of pleasure. But, oh ! fancy our terror, when all of a sudden Heloise, weeping on her friend's neck, began to laugh and to cry, and burst out shrieking into a fit of hysterics ! When women begin hysterics a tremor seizes me — I become mad myself — I have had my wife and mother-in-law in hysterics on the same rug, and I know what it is — the very sound of the whoo-oo-oo drives me wild. I have heard it imitated in theatres, and have i-ushed out in a frenzy. "Water ! water ! " gasped Virginie (we had somehow not had any all dinner-time) ; I tumbled out of the room, upsetting three waiters who were huddled at the door (and be hanged to them) : " Water," roared I, rushing downstairs, upsetting boots, and alarmed chambermaids came panting in with a jug. " What will they think of us ? " thought 1, trembling with emotion, — " they will think we have murdered the poor young lady, and yet on my honour and conscience ! — Oh, wh)' did I come ? — what would Arabella say if she knew ? " I thought of the police coming in, of paragraphs in the pcxper beginning, " Two ruffians of gentlemanly exterior were brought before Mr. Jardine,'' etc., it was too horrible — if I had had my hat I would have taken a cab oft' the stand, and driven down to my wife at Bognor that minute ; but I hadn't, so I went up to fetch it. Hdloise was lying on the sofa now, a little calmer ; Madame Nelval and the chambermaid were being kind -to her; as for that brute, Fitzsimons, he was standing in one of the windows, his legs asunder, his two fists thrust into the tail pockets of his brass-buttoned coat, whistling " Suoni la Tromba," the picture of heartless, shameless, indifference. As soon as the maid was gone and I was come in, Madame Virginie must of course begin hysterics too — they always do, these women. She turned towards me with an appealing look (she had been particularly attentive to me at dinner, much more than to Fitzsimons, whom she boud^d the whole time) — she gave me an appealing look, and struck up, too. I couldn't bear it. I flung myself down on a chair, and beginning to bang my forehead, gasped out, " Oh, Heavens ! a cab, a cab I " We'll have a coach. Go back with them," said Fitz, coming swaggering up. The Partie Fine 235 " Go back with them ? " said I : " I'll never see them again as long as I live." No more I would go back with them. The carriage was called (the hysterics ceased the very moment Fitz flung open the window and the cabstand opposite could hear) — and the ladies went out. In vain good old Madame Nelval looked as if she expected my arm. In vain Virginie cast her appealing look. I returned it them with the most stony indifference, and falling back upon my chair, thought of my poor Arabella. The coach drove off. I felt easier as the rattle of the departing wheels died away in the night, and I got up to go. " How glad I am it's over ! " thought I on the stair ; " if ever I go to a. partie Jiae again, may I " ***** " I beg your parding, sir," said the waiter, touching my elbow just as I was at the hotel door. "What is it," says I. " The bill, sir," says he with a grin. " The bill, sir ! " I exclaimed ; " why, it's Captain Fitzsimons dinner ! " " I beg your parding, sir. You ordered it," answered the man. " But, good Heavens ! you know Captain Fitzsimons ? " " We do, sir, precious well, too. The capting owes master two 'undred pound," answered the wretched official. No. 24. To Anatole Durognon. £ s. d. S Dinners i 15 o Sherry 060 Sillery Champagne (4 bottles) . . , . 200 Asparagus 05 Coffee and Liqueurs 076 Waxlights and apartment .....05 o £^ 18 o And I must say that the bill, considered as a bill, was moderate, but I had better have dined off that Irish stew at the Club. 236 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine ARTICLE 2 ARABELLA: OR, THE MORAL OF "THE PARTIE FINE." When the news came to Wagstaff that he had made a public appearance in the New Monthly Magazine, he affected to be in great wrath that his peccadilloes should have been laid bare to the whole nation ; and was for sacrificing the individual who had held him up to ridicule. Luckily that person was out of town for some days, so his anger had time to cool if it was real ; but the truth must be told, that Lancelot Wagstaff was quite delighted at being shown up for a seducfeur, and has ordered some new waistcoats, and affects to talk very big about the French play, and has been growing a tuft to his chin ever since. Mrs. Wagstaff still continues at Bognor. Poor soul ! She will never know whose was the portrait which figured last month in this Miscellany under the pseudonym ; it is only the coincidence of the new waistcoats and the sudden growth of that tuft that can by any possibility betray him. Some critics have hinted that the scene described was immoral. So it was, there's not a doubt of it ; but so is a great deal of life immoral ; so are many of Hogarth's pictures immoral — if you don't choose to see their moral tendency ; nor, indeed, are critics to be very much blamed for not perceiving the moral of the brief tract called the Partie Fine, seeing, as it were, that it was not yet in sight. No ; it was purposely kept back, as a surprise for the June number of the Magazine. This is going to be the moral paper ; and I hope to goodness that Mr. Colburn's editor will not refuse it, or I shall be set down, in spite of myself, as a writer of a questionable tendency. I solemnly demand the insertion of this paper, in order to see a well-meaning man right with a public he respects. Yes, ladies, you yourselves, if you peruse these few, these very few pages, will say, " Well, although he shocked us, the man is a moral man after all." He is, indeed he is. Don't believe the critics who say the contrary. The former history described to you the conduct of Wagstaff abroad. Ah, ladies ! you little knew that it was preparatory to showing the monster up when at home. You would not have understood the wretch, had you not received this previous insight into his character. If this be not immorality, I know not what is. Arabella: or, The Moral of "The Par tie Fine" 237 Those people who at the club and elsewhere are acquainted with Mr. W., declare he is the most generous and agreeable creature that ever turned out of the city. He arrives, his honest face beaming with good-humour. He has a good word for every- body, and every man has a good word for him. Some Bachelor says, " Wag., my boy, there is a white-bait dinner at Greenwich : will you be one ? " He hesitates. " I promised Mrs. Wagstaff to be home to dinner," says he ; and when he says that, you may be sure he will go. If you propose to him a game of billiards in the afternoon, he will play till dinner, and make the most ludicrous jokes about his poor wife waiting till his return. If you ask him to smoke cigars, he will do so till morning, and goes home with a story to Mrs. W. which the poor soul receives with a desperEite credulity. Once she used to sit up for him ; but to have continued that practice would have killed her. She goes to bed now, and Wagstaff reels in when he likes. He is not ill-humoured. Far from it. He never says an unkind word to the children, or to the cook, or to the boy who blacks his boots, or to his wife. She wishes he would. He comes down exactly three minutes before office time. He has his tea and his newspaper in bed. His eldest /daughter brings the paper in, and his poor wife appears with the tea. He has a kind word for both, and scrubs the little girl's fresh cheek with his bristly beard, and laughs at the joke, and professes a prodigious interest in her lessons, and in knowing whether Miss Wiggles, the governess, is satisfied with her ; and before she finishes her answer, he is deep in the folios of the Times, and does not care one farthing piece what the little girl says. He has promised to take the child to Astley's any time these four years. She could hardly speak when he promised it. She is a fine tall lass, and can read and write now ; and, though it was so long ago, has never forgotten the promise about Astley's. When he is away from home, Wagstaff talks about his family with great affection. In the long, long days when he is away, their mother, God help her ! is telling them what a good man their papa is — how kind and generous — and how busy he is — what a pity ! he is obliged to work so hard and stay away from home ! Poor creature, poor creature ! Sure Heaven will pardon her these lies if any lies are pardonable. Whenever he says he will walk with her, Arabella dresses herself in the gown he hkes, and puts on her pink bonnet, and is ready to the very minute, you may be sure. How often is it that he is ready at the minute ? 238 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine How many scores and scores of times has he left the heart-sick girl ? — not forgetting her in the least, but engaged elsewhere with a game of billiards, or a jolly friend and a cigar — and perhaps wishing rather to be at home all the time — but he is so good- natured, such a capital fellow ! Whenever he keeps his appoint- ment — Heaven help us ! she brightens up as if it were Paradise coming to her. She looks with a triumphant air at the servant who opens the door, and round about at the neighbours' windows, as if she would have all the world know that she is walking with her husband. Every now and then as she walks (it is but twice and thrice in a year, for Wagstaff has his business on week-days, and never gets up till one on a Sunday), — every now and then as she walks with him, the delighted creature gives a skip, and squeezes his arm, and looks up in his face, she is so happy. And so is he, too, for he is as good-natured a fellow as ever breathed — and he resolves to take her out the very next Sunday — only he doesn't. Every one of these walk-days are noted down in the poor soul's Calendar of Home as saint's-days. She talks of them quite fondly ; and there is not one of her female friends, whom she won't visit for weeks after, and to whom she will not be sure to find some pretext for recounting the wonderful walk. Mon dieu, ladies — all the time I was describing that affair at Durognon's, those odious French women, and their chatter, and their ogling, and their champagne, I was thinking of Arabella far away in the distance and alone — I declare, upon my honour, she was never out of my thoughts for a single minute. S/te was the moral of the Partie Fine — the simple, white-robed, spotless, meek-eyed angel of a wife — thinking about her husband, — and he among the tawdry good-for-nothings, yonder ! Fizz ! there goes the first champagne cork, Mr. Wagstaff is making a tender speech to Madame Virginie. At that moment Arabella is upstairs in the nursery, where the same moon is shining in, and putting her youngest boy to bed. Bang! there goes the second cork. Virginie screams — Fitz- simons roars with laughter — Wagstaff hobnobs with the old lady, who gives a wink and a nod. They are taking away the fish and putting down the entrees. At that moment Arabella hasher second child between her knees (the little one is asleep with its thumb in its mouth, and the elder even is beginning to rub her eyes over her favourite fairy tale, though she has read it many scores of times). Arabella has the Arabella; or. The Moral of "The Partie Fine" 239 child between her knees, and just as Wag is clinking his glass with the old lady in London, his wife at Bognor says something to the child, who says after her, " Dod bless my dear papa " : and presently he is in bed, too, and sleeps as soundly as his little sister. And so it is that these pure blessings are sent — yearning after that fellow over his cups. Suppose they reach him ? Why, the spotless things must blush and go out again from the company in which they find him. The drinking goes on, the jokes and fun get faster and faster. Arabella has by this time seen the eldest child asleep in her crib, and is looking out at the moon in silence as the children breathe round her a soft chorus of slumber. Her mother is downstairs alone, reading " Blair's Sermons," — a high- shouldered, hook-nosed, lean, moral woman. She wonders her daughter don't come down to tea— there is her cup quite cold, with the cream stagnant on the surface, and her work-basket by its side, with a pair of man's slippers nearly done, and one lazy scrawl from her husband, four lines only, and ten days old. But Arabella keeps away, thinking, thinking, and preferring to be alone. The girl has a sweet, soft heart, and little sympathy with the mother's coarse, rigid, strong-minded nature. The only time they quarrel is when the old lady calls her son-in-law a brute : iAen the young one fires up and defends her own like a little Amazon. What is this secret of love ? How does it spring ? How is it that no neglect can kill it? Its truth, its origin, and endurance are alike utterly absurd and unreasonable. What secret power was it that made this delicate-minded young creature ; who had been bred up upon the purest doctrir.es of the sainted Mrs. Chapone ; who had never thought about love ; who, simple soul, had been utterly absorbed in her little daily duties, her pianoforte practice, her French lesson, her use-of-the-globes, her canary bird, and her Mangnall's questions,— what. I say, is it that makes this delicate girl all of a sudden expand into a passion of love for a young sugar-baker simply because she meets him three times riding on a grey mare on Clapham Common, and afterwards (the sly rogue !) on half-a-dozen occasions at her aunt's at tea? What is it that makes her feel that that young sugar- baker is the fatal man with whom her existence is bound up ; go through fire and water to marry him ; love him in spite of neglect and indifference ; adore him so absurdly that a half-hour's kindness from him more than balances a month's brutality 1 O, mystery 240 Colbufn's New Monthly Magazine of woman's heart ! I declare all this lies in the moral of the P-artie Fine. Wagstaft", so splendid with his dinners and so generous on him- self, is not so generous at home. He pays the bills with only a few oaths ; but somehow he leaves his wife without money. He will give it to anybody rather than to her ; a fact of which he himself is, very likely, unaware at this moment, or of the timidity of his wife in asking for it. In order to avoid this asking, the poor girl goes through unheard-of economies, and performs the most curious tricks of avarice. She dresses herself for nothing, and she dresses her children out of her own frocks. Certain dimities, caps, pinafores, and other fallals have gone through the family ; and Arabella, though she sees ever such a pretty thing in a shop-window, will pass on with a sigh ; whereas her Lancelot is a perfect devourer of waistcoats, and never sets eyes on a flaring velvet that strikes his fancy but you will be sure to behold him the next week staggering about in the garment in Pall Mall. Women are ever practising these petty denials, about which the Lords of Creation never think. I will tell you what I once saw Arabella doing. She is a woman of very high breeding, and no inconsiderable share of family pride ; well, one day, on going to Wagstaffs house, who had invited a party of us to Blackwall, about a bet he had lost, I was, in the master's absence, ushered into the drawing-room, which is furnished very fine, and there sat the lady of the house at her work-table, with her child prattling at her knee. I could not understand what made Mrs. Wagstaff blush so — look so entirely guilty of something or other — fidget, answer k travers, and receive an old friend in this strange and inhospitable way. She, the descendant of the Smiths of Smithfield, of the Browns of Brown Hall, the proud daughter of the aristocracy was making a pair of trousers for her eldest son. She huddled them away hastily under a pillow, — but, bah ! we have keen eyes — and from under that pillow the buttons peeped out, and with those buttons the secret — they were white ducks — WagstafFs white ducks — his wife was making them into white ducklings for little Fred. The sight affected me. I should like to have cried, only it is unmanly ; and to cry about a pair of little breeches ! — I should like to have seized hold of Mrs. Wagstaff and hugged her to my heart ; but she would have screamed, and rung for John to show me downstairs ; so I disguised my feelings by treading on the tail of her spaniel dog, whose squealing caused a diversion. COVENT GARDEN. [See page 31. The Chest of CigafS '^4' But I shall never forget those breeches. What ! Wagstaff is flaunting in a coat of Nugee's, and his son has that sweet, humble tailor. Wagstaff is preparing for Blackwall, and here is his wife plying her gentle needle. Wagstaff feasts off plate and frothing wine ; and Arabella sits down to cold mutton in the nursery, with her little ones ranged about her. Wagstaff enjoys, Arabella suffers. He flings about his gold ; she tries to stave off evil days by little savings of meek pence. Wagstaff sins and she forgives, and trusts, and loves, and hopes on, in spite of carelessness, and coldness, and neglect, and extrava- gance, and — and Parties Fine. This is the moral of the last story. O, ye Wagstaffs of this world, profit by it. O, ye gentle, meek angels of Arabellas, be meek and gentle still. If an angel can't reclaim a man, who can ? And I live in hopes of hearing that by the means of that charming mediation, the odious Lancelot has become a reformed character. TITMARSH. ARTICLE 3 (July 1845) THE CHEST OF CIGARS. By Lancelot Wagstaff, Esq. " Not smoke ? " said the gentleman near me. We had the honour of dining at my Lord Hobanob'S, who "' smokes " after dinner, as all the world knows. The person who spoke was called the General by the company assembled. " Not smoke?" says he. "Why — I — that is — what would Mrs. Caudle say?" replied I, with a faint effort to be pleasant ; " for the fact is, though my wife doesn't like cigars, I was once very fond of them." " Is your lady a sentimental woman ? " asked the general. " Extremely sentimental." "Of a delicate turn?" " Very much so ; this is the first time I have been permitted — I mean that I have had any wish to dine out since my marriage," said the reader's humble servant. " If I can prove to her that the happiness of a virtuous family was secured by cigars ; that an admirable woman was saved from 16 242 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine niin by smoking ; that a wortliy man mi;,'ht have been driven to suicide but for Havannahs : do you think, sir, that then, the respected lady who owns you, would alter her opinion regarding the immorahty of smoking ? " And so saying, the general handed me his box, and sent a puff so fragrant into my face, that I must own I took a cigar as he commenced his romantic tale in the following words : — " When our army was in Holland, in the time of the lamented Duke of York, the 56th Hussars (Queen Charlotte's Own Slashers, as we were called from our tremendous ferocity) were quartered in the romantic vicinity of Vaterzouchy. A more gallant regiment never fought, conquered, or ran away, and we did all in that campaign. A better fellow than our colonel never existed, — a dearer friend than Frederick Fantail, who was lieutenant in the troop I had the honour to command, mortal never had." Here my informant the general's fine eye (for he had but one remaining) filled with tears, and he gave a deep sigh through the lung which had not been perforated at the battle of Salamanca. " Fantail had one consuming passion besides military glory, — this was smoking. His pipe was never out of his lips from morning till night — till night ? What did I say ? He never went to bed without this horrible companion, and I have seen this misguided young man, seated on a barrel of gunpowder in the batteries, smoking as calmly as if death were not close under his coat-tails. " To these two passions my friend speedily added another : a love for the charming daughter of Burgomaster van Slappenbroch, whom he met one day in his rambles. " ' I should never probably have remarked her, Goliah,' he would say to me, 'but for the circumstance that her father smoked a peculiar fine canaster. I longed to know him from that circum- stance ; and as he always moved about with his pipe, and his daughter, from getting to admire one, I began to appreciate the other, and soon Amelia occupied my whole soul. My figure and personal beauty soon attracted her attention : ' In fact She saw and loved me, who could resist Frederic Fantail ? ' "Amelia, sir, soon became Mrs. Fantail, but I shall spare you the details of the courtship at which I was not present ; for having at the battle of Squelterslys (so creditable to our arms) had the good fortune to run through a French field-marshal and to receive The Chest of Cigars 243 a wound in the knee-pan, I was ordered home with the account of the victory, to lay the baton I had taken at the feet of my sovereign, and to have my left leg amputated by the late eminent Sir Everard Home. 'Twas whiLt recovering from this little accident, that my friend Fred Fantail wooed and won his Amelia. " Of course he described her in his letters as everything a heart could wish ; but I found, on visiting his relations in Baker Street, that she was by no means what they could wish. When I mentioned the name of his son, the brow of Sir Augustus Fantail grew black as thunder. Her ladyship looked sad and faint ; Anna Maria turned her lovely, imploring eyes upon me beseeching me to silence, and I saw a gleam of fiendish satisfaction twinkling in the mean green squinters of Simon Fantail, Fred's younger brother, which plainly seemed to say, ' Fred is disinherited, / shall come in for the ^300,000 now.' Sir Augustus had that sum in the family, and was, as you all know, an eminent city man. " I learned from the lovely Anna Maria (in the embrasure of the drawing-room window, whither somehow we retired for a little conversation which does not concern you), I learned that Sir Augustus' chief rage against Fred arose from his having married the daughter of a Dutch sugar-baker. As the knight had been a dry-salter himself, he would not overlook this insult to his family, and vowed he would cut off for ever the child who had so dishonoured him. " Nor was this all. " ' Oh, Major,' said Anna Maria to me, putting into my hands a little purse, containing the amount of all her savings, ' give him — give him this. My poor Frederick wants money. He ran away with Amelia— hov! could they do such a naughty, naughty thing.' He has left the army. Her father has discarded her ; and I fear they are starving.' " Here the dear child's beautiful hyacinthine eyes filled with tears ; she held out her little hand with the little purse. I took one— both — I covered the one with kisses, and putting the other into my bosom, I promised to deliver it to the person for whom its affectionate owner intended it. "Did I do so? No! I kept that precious relic with thirteen little golden guineas twinkling in its meshes ; I wore it long, long in my heart of hearts, under my waistcoat of waistcoats ; and as for Fred, I sent him an order on Cox & Greenwood's for five hundred pounds, as the books of that house will show. 244 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine " I did more than this : knowing his partiality for cigars, I bought two thousand of the best fronni Davis in the Quadrant, and despatched them to my poor friend. "'A wife,' said I, 'is a good companion, no doubt; but why should he not,' I added sportively, 'have DoS Amigos, too, in his troubles ?' " Davis did not laugh at this joke, not understanding Spanish ; but you, my dear friend, I have no doubt, will at once perceive its admirable point. " Thus it stood, then. Amelia was disinherited for running away with Fred ; Fred was discarded for running away with Amelia. They were penniless. What could my paltry thousand do €or a fellow in the 56th Hussars, where our yearly mess bill came to twelve hundred a year, and our undress boots cost ninety-three guineas a pair? You are incredulous? I have Hoby's bills, sir and you can see them any day you call in Grosvenor Square. " To proceed. My imprudent friend was married ; and was, as I suspect you are yourself, sir, hen-pecked. My present of cigars was flung aside as useless. " I got letters from Fred saying that his Amelia was a mighty fine lady ; that though she had been bred up in a tobacco warehouse all her life, she abominated cigars, — in fine, that he had given up the practice altogether. " My little loan of a couple of thousand served to keep them going for some time, and they dashed on as if there was no end to that small sum. Ruin ensued, sir, but I knew not of the mis- fortimes of my friend. I was abroad, sir, serving my sovereign in the West Indies, where I had the yellow fever seventeen times. " Soldiers are bad correspondents, sir. I did not write to Fred Fantail, or hear of him, except through a brother officer. Major de Boots, of ours, who joined us in the West Indies, and who told me the sad news. " Fred had incurred debts, of course — sold out — gone to pieces. 'And fanthy my dithgutht, my dear cweature,'' said De Boots (you don't know him? he lisps confoundedly), at finding Fwed at Bwighton giving lessons in dwawing, and hith wife, because she wath a Dutchwoman, teaching F wench ! The fellow wanted to bowow money of me.' " ' And you gave him some, I hope, De Boots ?' said I. " ' Not thickthpenth, by jingo,' said the. heartless hussar, whom I called out the next morning and shot for his want of feeling. " I returned to England to recruit my strength, which had been The Chest of Cigars 245 somewhat exhausted by the repeated attacks of fever, and one day, as I was taking a tumbler -at the great pump-room, Cheltenham, imagine, sir, my astonishment, when an enormously stout lady, with yellow hair, and a pea-green satin dress, came up to me, gazed hard for a moment, gave an hysteric juggle in her throat, and flung her arms round my neck ! I have led ninety- eight forlorn-hopes, sir, but I give you my honour I was never so flustered as by this tremendous phenomenon. " ' For Heaven's sake. Madam,' said I, ' calm yourself. Don't scream— let me go. Who are you ?' " ' O my bresairfer ! ' said the lady, still screeching, and in a foreign accent. ' Don't you know me ? I am Amelia Vandail.' " ' Amelia Vandale ? ' says I, more perplexed than ever. " ' Amelia van Slappenbroch dat vas. Your friend Vrederic's vife. I am stouter now dan I vas vhen I knew you in Holland.' " Stouter indeed ! I believe she was stouter. She was sixteen stone, or sixteen ten, if she weighed a pound ; I got her off" my shoulders and led her to a chair. Presently her husband joined us, and I need not tell you of the warmth of my meeting with my old friend. " ' But what,' said I to Fantail, ' procured me such a warm greeting from your lovely lady ? ' "'Don't you know that you are our benefactor— our blessing — the cause of our prosperity ? ' " ' O !the five thousand pounds,' said I, — ' a mere bagatelle.' " ' No, my dearest /riend, it was not your money, but your cigars, saved us. You know what a fine lady my wife was, when we were first married ? and to what straits our mutual imprudence soon drove us. Who would have thought that the superb Mrs. Fantail, who was so fine that she would not allow her husband to smoke a cigar, should be brought so low as to be obliged to sing in the public streets for bread ?— that the dashing Fred Fantail should be so debased by poverty (here my friend's noble features assumed an expression of horrible agony), as to turn a mangle, sir. '" But away with these withering recollections,' continued Fred. ' We were so poor, so wretched, that we resolved on S2iicide. My wife and I determined to fling ourselves off Waterloo Bridge, and kissing our nine innocent babes as they slumbered, hastened wildly thither from the New Cut, Lambeth, where we were re- siding ; but we forgot, we had no jno7iey to pay the toll — we were forced to come back, to pass our door again : and we determined to see the dear ones once more, and then —away to Westminster ! 246 Colbufn's New Monthly Magazine " There was a smell— a smell of tobacco issuing from the door of our humble hut as we came up. ' Good Heavens, Mealy,' said I to my beloved one, as we arrived at the door, and the thought flashed across me,—' there is still hope— still something left— the cigars I received as a gift on my marriage. I had forgotten them —they are admirable !— they will sell for gold.' And I hugged the innocent partner of my sufferings to my bosom. ' Thou wert thinner then, dearest, than thou art now,' said Fantail, with a glance of ineffable affection towards his lady. " ' Well, sir, what do you think those cigars were worth to me ? continued he. " ' I gave forty pounds for them ; say you sold them for twenty.' "'Twenty! My dear fellow — no! Those cigars were worth SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS to me ! as you shall hear. I said there was a smell of cigar smoke issuing from our humble cot — and why? Because somebody was smoking cigars. And who was that somebody ? Amelia's father, the burgomaster. Van Slappenbroch. His heart had partially relented towards his only child. He determined to see her. He found out our wretched abode in our absence — saw our unconscious infants sleeping there, huddled on the straw in the desolate chamber. The only article of furniture left was your chest of cigars. Van Slappenbroch opened it — tried one — 'twas excellent ; a second — delicious ! a third ! — his daughter entered — the father and the tobacconist melted at once, and as she fainted in his arms he was reconciled to us for ever ! ' " The rest of Fantail's story, my dear sir, you may easily imagine. Directly they heard in Baker Street that the Dutchman had par- doned his daughter and given her his fortune, of course old Fantail came down with his, and disinherited that squinting traitor, Simon. 'And, my dear fellow,' said Fred, ' if you will drive down with me to Fantail Castle, I will pay you the ten thousand pounds you lent me, and introduce you to a lady — my sister Anna Maria, who is very, very anxious to renew her acquaintance with you.' " That lady is now my wife, sir," the general said, getting up to go away, — " and she never objects to smoking." ***** " Who is the general ? " I said to my host, when the teller of the above singular story had left the room. "Don't you know him .'"replied Lord Hobanob, with a smile; " you may believe every word he says. That is General Sir Goliah Gahagan." Bob Robinson's First Love 247 ARTICLE 4 (August 1845) BOB ROBINSON'S FIRST LOVE. By Lancelot Wagstaff, Esq. Clergymen who take private pupils upon small livings in the West of England, and prepare young gentlemen for the universities or for public life, ought to be obliged by law to destroy their female offspring, as certain Indian people do — or at least there should be convents or hospitals for the daughters of the tutoring clergy, where, until their papas had left off "coaching" (as the Oxford phrase was — it is perhaps changed since our time), these virgins should be carefully immured. For it is next to impossible that lads of eighteen years of age should be put in the daily presence of a rosy-fingered young creature, who makes breakfast every morning in a pink frock, who trips across the common with good things in her basket for the suffering poor people of papa's parish ; and who plays the most ravishing tunes on the piano in the evening after tea, when mathematics and the Greek plays are no longer thought of, when papa solaces himself with the Si. Jame^ Chronicle, when Smith and Jones amuse themselves with chess, and Robinson, who is musically inclined, accompanies Eliza on the flute ; — it is next, I say, to impossible that something should not happen from the presence of such a young woman in a tutor's family — something delightful at its commencement, but often productive of woe, per- plexity, and family annoyance ere its conclusion. Dear Madam or Miss ! I will not insult you by naming it — you have often inspired that something, and many a manly heart has suffered because you were inevitably fair ! So, too, was Miss Griggs, daughter of the clergyman under whose charge several of us completed our education. He took a limited number of young men of distinguished family to prepare for the universities. He had a son at Cambridge, whose extrava- gance, he would hint, was the cause of his taking pupils ; and his lovely daughter, Ehza, kept his house. When parents and guardians would remark on the comeliness of the young woman, and hint that her presence might be dangerous to the peace of mind of the pupils, old Griggs would fling his eyes up to Heaven and say, " I consider that dear girl, sir, to be married. She is engaged to her 248 Colbui-n's New Monthly Magazine cousin, the Reverend Samuel Butts, fellow and tutor of Maudlin ; and when the first living falls vacant, — alas ! my Eliza will leave me. Would you have me part with her now ? And yet, were she not engaged, she should not live under my roof, but reside, as she used to do previous to her engagement, with her angel mother's family." Here old Griggs' white handkerchief would come out, and as with a trembling voice he uttered these words, his bald forehead, white head, hook nose, and white neckcloth, never failed to impose respect upon his hearers ; and parents thought their children lucky under the care of such a man. But Butts was absent : we saw nothing of him save occasionally in vacation time, when he made his appearance in the shape of a dumpy little flaccid-faced man, who wore high-lows, and no straps to his trousers. He made but a poor figure by the side of the brilliant young bucks at Griggs', who dressed for dinner, had their clothes from Clifford Street, and wore yellow kid gloves at church on Sundays. I think Miss G. (we did not like to call her Miss Griggs, somehow) must have seen the disadvantage under which her Samuel laboured in the company of young men of the world. But he was an honest man, great at the digamma ; and Miss G. had been engaged to him years ago, before her brother's extravagance at college had compelled pa to take pupils. She wore a lock of his sandy hair in a seven-shilling brooch round her neck ; and there was a sticking-plaster full-length of him in his cap and gown, done by the fellow from Brighton, who had hit off to a nicety his little bunch of a nose, and his dumpy, pudgy figure and high-lows, hanging up in the dining-room. Robinson (he who played the flute) used to look at that black figure with violent rage and disgust, shake his fist at it, utter tremendous comminations against Butts as a snob, and wish that either one were dead or the other had never been born, for his soul was consumed with passion for Eliza Griggs, and his heart was scorched with the flames of a first love. Do not be alarmed for the consequences, madam ; don't expect any harrowing romance — wir haben auch geliebt und gelebet — we have endured it and survived it, as other people do. It is like the small-pox, diminished in virulence, and doesn't carry off half so many people as it used according to old accounts. " They have been engaged for seven years," Robinson used to say, making us confidants of his love, and howling and raging about it as young men of his ardent temperament will do, " but she can't care about him ; I know she can't : look how the brute squints ; and see him Bob Robinson's First Love 249 eat peas with his knife, — I could throttle him." It was quite true : Butts had that obliquity, and consumed his vegetables with the aid of the implement in question. Another day he would come out with, " She was a' child when the engagement was made. He is a brute to hold her to it. He might have married her years ago, but he ij waiting for the ^1200 a year great living, which may never fall in. The selfish scoundrel ought to release her from her engagement." But he didn't. The promise was there. The locket hung round her neck. " I confide these things to you as a friend— a brother," Eliza would siy. " But let me submit to my destiny. What are you men but selfish? all, all selfish? Un- fortunate Eliza ! " Don't imagine I am going to say anything disrespectful of her — don't fancy I would hint that she was unfaithful to her Butts — in love matters women are never in fault. I never heard of a coquette in my life — nor of a woman playing with a man's aiTec- tions and heartlessly flinging him off — nor of a woman marrying for money — nor of a sly mother who coaxed and wheedled a young fellow, until somehow Jemima was off her hands. No, no, the women are always right, and the author of " Mrs. Caudle's Lectures " ought to be pulled to pieces like Orpheus for vilifying the sex. EHza, then, did not give the least encouragement to young Robinson, though somehow they were always together. You couldn't go into the garden, and see the pink frock among the gooseberry bushes, but Robinson's green shooting -jacket was seen sauntering by ; in the evening their flute and piano were always tweedledeedling in concert — and they never stopped until they had driven us out of the room with their music, when unaccount- ably the duet would cease ; how was it that when miss was on the landing-place, Robinson was always coming upstairs ? So it was, though. They were talking about Mr. Butts probably. What was that lock of hair Robinson kept in his desk ? It may have been his sister's, his grandmother's. Were there not many people with black hair besides Eliza ? And yet the ill-natured might have fancied that some mercenary motives influenced the pure heart of Miss Eliza. Robinson, though eight years younger than herself, was perhaps a catch in a pecuniary point of view. He was the son of the famous banking-house of Hobbs, Dobbs, and Robinson ; and when arrived at five-and-twenty (for as for Hobbs and Dobbs they were mere myths, like Child, Coutts, and others) would take bis s^at as head partner of the house, 2 5° Colburn's New Monthly Magazine His widowed mother was a Miss Rolfe, daughter of Admiral Rolfe, and sister of Sir Hugh Rolfe, K.C.B. Mr. Rolfe Robinson our young friend was called, being not a little proud of his double- barrelled name. By us he was denominated Rich Robinson, Kid Robinson, or Band-box Robinson, alluding to the wealth to which he was heir, and the splendour of his person, — or finally, in compliment to a hesitation in his speech which he possessed — Staggering Bob. He was, between ourselves, a weak, fair-haired, vapid, good-natured fellow : at Eton he was called Miss Robinson. Every one of his nicknames justly characterised some peculiarity about the honest fellow. HufHe (belonging to the finn), Rolfe, and his mother, were joint guardians of this interesting heir. His lady mother spent her jointure in a stately way, occupying a great mansion in Portman Square, and gi\ing grand parties in the season, whereof the Morning Post made mention ; Royal dukes, ambassadors, never less than three marquises. Griggs, our tutor, never failed to read the names of these guests, to talk about them at dinner— and I think felt proud at having Mrs. Robinson's son in his house, who entertained such exalted company. He always helped Bob first in consequence, and gave him the wings of the fowls, and the outside of the fillet of veal. However, Mrs. Robinson had many daughters older than Bob ; and though she lived so splendidly, and though Bob was to be chief of the banking-house, the young man himself was not very well supplied with cash by his mother. But he did not want for friends elsewhere ; and there was a certain old clerk in the bank who furnished his young master with any sums that he required — "out of regard for his dear father" the before -mentioned clerk used to say— of course never expecting to be paid back again, or to curry favour with his young principal so soon as he took the direction of affairs. From this man Robinson used to get down chests of cigars and cases of liquors and champagne, which he consumed in secret, at a certain cottage in the village. Nokes it was who provided surreptitious funds for the hiring of tandems, which in our youthful days we delighted to drive. Many a man at Griggs', who had only his own father's purse to draw upon, envied Robinson such an invaluable friend as Nokes. Well, this youth was in love with Miss Eliza Griggs. Her father was quite ignorant of the passion, of course - never dreamed of such a thing. Fathers are so proverbially blind ! Young Griggs, the Cambridge man, seldom came down among Bob Robinson's First Love 251 us, except to bleed the governor. A wild and impetuous young man he was ; not respectable, and of a bad set, — but we lads respected him because he was a man, and had rooms of his own, and told us stories about Proctors and Newmarket ; and had a cut-away green coat and large whiskers— to all of which honours we one day hoped to come. One Easter vacation when yoLing Griggs came down, however, we observed he watched his sister and Robinson very keenly ; spoke harshly to the former, at which the latter would grow very angiy ; and finally, one day after dinner, when, as usual after the second glass of port, Griggs had given the signal for retiring, touched Robinson on the shoulder as we were quitting the dining loom, and said, " Mr. Robinson, I would wish to have a word with )ou on the lawn." At this summons 1 observed Robinson turn as red as a carrot, and give a hurried glance at Eliza, who very nearly dropped the bottle she was locking up of Old Griggs' fiery port wine. The particulars of the interview between the two gentlemen Robinson narrated to me that very evening (indeed, he told every- body everything concerning himself). " Griggs," says he, " has been asking me what my intentions are with regard to Eliza. He says my attentions to her are most remarkable ; that I must have known she was already an engaged person, though he didn't care to confess that the engagement was one into which his sister had been forced, and which had never been pleasing to her — but that it was impossible that my attentions should continue, or the poor girl's affections be tampered with any further. " ' Tampered with ! ' says I (continued Robinson, speaking for himself), ' /'tamper with the affections of Miss Griggs !' " ' By Jove, sir, do you mean to say that you have not ? Haven't you given her a pearl bracelet and a copy of Thomas Moore's poems ? Haven't you written copies of verses to her, three in English and one in Latin Alcaics ? Do you suppose, sir, as a man of honour, I can allow my sister's feelings to be played with, and you an inmate under my unsuspecting father's roof? No, sir, things can't end here. You must either declare yourself, or — you know the alternative.' " Here he gave a tremendous scowl, and his eyes flashed so, and his bushy whiskers curled round his face so fiercely, that Robinson, a timid man — as almost all men who play the flute are — felt no small degree of perturbation. " But I do declare myself," said the young gentleman ; " I declare 252 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine that I love your sister with all the ardour of a young heart ; that she is the object of my daily thoughts and my nightly sighs — my soul's pole-star — my — my " " Never mind any more, sir,'' replied young Griggs, somewhat appeased ; " you have said all this in your poetry already." As Robinson confessed indeed he had. The result of the interview between the young men was that Robinson declared himself the adorer of Eliza, and promised to marry her immediately on the consent of his mother and guardians, if not now, upon his coming of age and entering into the banking business which he was heir to. " I may consider myself authorised on your part, then, to make this proposal to my sister } " said Griggs. To which Bob agreed, and as Griggs thought the offer had best come in writing, Robinson and he retired to the former's room, where a paper was drawn out at Griggs' direction, and signed by the lover of Eliza. But the strange part of the story, and the proof of what 1 before advanced — viz., that Eliza was perfectly innocent and unconscious of the effects produced by her fatal beauty — was that when George Griggs, her brother, carried her the offer, she vowed she had never been so surprised in her life — had never given Mr. Robinson the least encouragement — had, it is true, received presents of books from him and verses, which she regarded as mere proofs of schoolboy friendship, « frolic, — liked him verj- much certainly as a brother, in whose welfare she should ever feel the tenderest interest, for whose happiness she should ever pray — but she was certainly engaged to Mr. Butts. Bob professed to be broken-hearted by this sentence of Eliza's, but we all saw there was hope for him, and that if the engagement with Butts could be broken, he might then aspire to the bliss which he desiderated. As for checking him in his desires, or pointing out the folly of his marriage at eighteen with a young lady of four-and- twenty, that was a point which struck none of us — on the contrary, our pleasure was to suppose that old Griggs would refuse consent, that an elopement would take place in consequence, which Bob's friends would have the fun of arranging ; and we even inspected the post-chaise at the Green Dragon, and ascertained the condition of the posters kept there, in anticipation of such an event. Not that Eliza would have consented — of course not — I would not suppose that she or any other woman would do such a thing, and mention this as an instance, not of her indiscretion, but of our youthful folly. Bob Robinson's First Love 253 Meanwhile, Mr. George Griggs returned to the University, having made an unsuccessful application, he said, upon the governor's feelings, to induce him to break off his sister's marriage with Butts. " The old gentleman's honour was bound," his son said ; " he wished it were otherwise, but having pledged it, he could not withdraw it; and as soon as Butts pleased he might claim his bride. The living Butts desires must soon fall in," he added ; " Hicky has had two fits of apoplexy already. Give him a third, and it will be too late." With this intimation George Griggs departed, informing his young friend at the same time, that although he would gladly have shaken his hand as a brother-in-law, that relationship appeared now to be impossible ; and that if he heard of thie least further communication between Bob and his sister, he should be obliged to return from Cambridge in a character most painful to him. "Why, why," said he, " did you come into our house, and bring wretchedness into our peaceful family ? Before she saw you, my sister was happy, — contented at least with her lot, — now she only looks forward to it with terror, and I dread to think of the con- sequences. That match will kill her, sir — I know Eliza's heart — she will die, sir — and mind me, there must be other victims if she do ! " I don't know whether Bob was touched, or terrified, or delighted by this announcement,^-delighted to be the possessor of such charms — touched by the cruel havoc they caused— or terrified at the consequences which might ensue to himself from the exercise of his fatal power to please ; however, he determined Miss Griggs should not die. He accordingly wrote off the following letter to his correspon- dent : — " My dear Nokes,— " Send me down fifty pounds, and a case of pistols, and put them down to my own account. Counting upon receiving your parcel and remittance per coach, Wednesday ; I shall leave this on Wednesday evening at eleven, drive through London to the Angel, Islington, and be there probably at five o'clock in the morning. Have a carriage and four waiting for me there, and you may as well bring fifty pounds more, for posting is dear, and I am going to the North. Don't fail me at this most critical jimcture of my life, and count upon the eternal gratitude of '' Robert Rolfe Robinson," 2 54 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine When the faithful Nokes received this letter, he for some time could not understand the nature of its contents, until at last the real nature flashed upon him that his young master was going to run away with some lady, and ruin his own and Nokes' prospects for life. We made it all right, meanwhile, about the horses at the Green Dragon, which were to be ready :it eleven o'clock on Wednesday evening ; and in the afternoon of that day walked down to Puddley Heath, two miles from our parsonage, where the London coach passed, and we made sure of finding our parcel. Instead of the parcel, it was little Nokes himself who jumped off the box, and gi\ ing Robinson a squeeze of the hand and a nod of the head, pointed significantly to the carpet-bag, which the hostler was handing down, and which no doubt contained the money and the pistols. What the deuce we wanted with pistols, I have never been able to ascertain— it was Tolmash, our comrade at Griggs', who suggested the pistols, as we sat in conspiracy over the affair (for we delighted in it, and had hours and hours of consultation every night concerning it) — it was, I say, Tolmash suggested the pistols, taking a hint from a picture in "Tom and Jerry," in which a fellow is represented running away to Gretna Green, and pointing the " barkers " at the Governor, who is just galloping up. Bob was so impatient to see these weapons, that it was with great difficulty Nokes could restrain him from examining them on the high road ; but we waited until we got a private room at the Green Dragon, where the weapons were shown, and where Bob explained at full length, and with great eloquence, his purpose of abduction. " There was a gal, a beufle gal, whose heart was bweaking for him, and whose pavvents wouldn't let him marwy — he was deter- mined to wun away with her if he couldn't get her — to blow his bwains out, etc., etc.'' All this Bob told with great spluttering and emotion over a glass of brandy and water. Nokes looked grave. " I suppose it's the parson's daughter you wrote me about, that I sent the necklace down for. 1 thought that would have been enough for her. Lord, Lord, what fools you young men are, Mr. Bob ! " " Fools ! If you call me a fool, or bweathe a word against Eliza, I'll kick you wound the woom," roared Bob, who didn't seem to have much regard for his father's old friend. •' Well, well, — stop — you'll regret it in after Jife ; and remembec Bob Robinson's First Love 255 the words of poor old faithful Jack Nokes ; but never mind that. I can take a hard word from your father's son. Here are the pistols ; you'd best not take them to the house, as you'll get into the carriage here, I presume. Here's the money — please just acknowledge it— I wash my hands of the business— kick Jack Nokes round the room, indeed ! " Bob seized Mr. Nokes' hand with eagerness, swore he was his best and deawest fwiend, as he should find when he came into Lombard Street ; and then, being armed with the sinews of war, the chaise was ordered at eleven, and we all departed for the vicarage. I repeat I have nothing to say against Miss Griggs — she wouldn't have come very likely — she would have spurned the proposition with scorn, and refused to run away altogether, even if — even if a circumstance had not happened which rendered that measure impossible. At about nine o'clock — the moon was shining beautifully over the old church — Bob was packing his portmanteau for the ex- pedition, and laboriously striving to thrust in a large dressing-case full of silver saucepans, gold razors, etc., which must have been particularly usefid to him, as he had no beard yet. We were making ready for the start, I say, when a letter was brought for R. Rolfe Robinson, Esq., in the well-known commercial running- hand of Mr. Nokes. " Sir,— " Though I may lose your friendship for ever, I am deter- mined to prevent this mad step on your part. I have written to Mr. Griggs, warning him solemnly, and threatening him with law proceedings and ruin, from which I am confident I have saved you. I was at school with your father, and saved him too, and devote myself to the son as to him. " I have taken the post-chaise and the pistols back to town with me. " Yours respectfully, "John Nokes." Bob was bursting out in an oath, when the door opened, and our respected tutor, the Reverend Frederic Griggs, made his awful appearance, candle in hand, and with a most agitated countenance. " What is this that I hear, Mr. Robinson ?" he exclaimed. What news, sir, is this for a tutor and a — a f — f — f— ather ? Have I been harbouring a traitor in my bosom— a serpent that would sting my innocent child — so young and §0 corrupted ! Oh, heavens ! " 256 Colburn's New Monthly Magazine And he proceeded into an oration, which I pretermit, and which lasted for a quarter of an hour. Griggs had a flux of words, which imposed greatly upon parents and guardians during a first visit or two, but became intolerably tedious to us who were forced to hear it every day. He left us after the oration, saying he was about to retire, and pray for the misguided young men, who had entered into a conspiracy against a fond father's peace. Robinson was wild. He talked of suicide, but the pistols were gone, and he didn't think of using the gold razors in the grand new dressing-case. We sat with him, and tried to pacify him with philosophy and a bottle of cherry brandy. We left him at three o'clock, and he told us that he ran frantically out of the room, to Miss Griggs' bedroom, and cried out passionately, " Eliza, Ehza ! " The door was locked, of course ; he could hear sobbing from within, accompanied by the heavy snore of Mrs. West, the house- keeper, who was placed as dragon over the weeping virgin. Poor soul ! she did not come down in her pink frock to breakfast next morning. But about that hour, up drove General Sir Hugh Rolfe, an apoplectic, goggle-eyed, white-whiskered little general, tightly girthed round the waist, with buckskin gloves and a bamboo-cane, at whose appearance, as he rolled out of the yellow post-chaise, poor Bob turned ashy pale. We presently heard the general swearing in the passage, and the voice of the Reverend Mr. Griggs raised in meek expostulation. " Fetch down his things — don't humbug me, sir — infamous swindle, sir. Bring down Mr. Robinson's bags — d d imposter, sir, and so on." Vollej'S of oaths were let off by the fiery little man, which banged and exploded in our little hall like so many Vauxhall crackers. Our friend was carried off. Our own relatives caused us to be removed speedily from Griggs', under the plea that his daughter was a dangerous inmate of a tutor's house, and that he might take a fancy to make her run away with one of us. Nokes even said that the old gentleman had gone so far as to offer to make it worth his while if he would allow the enlevement to take place — but the Reverend Frederic Griggs rephed triumphantly to these calumnies, by marrying his daughter to the Reverend Samuel Butts (who got his living by the death of the apoplectic incumbent), and she is the mother of many children by him, and looks at that angel face of his with a fond smile, and asks, " Who but you, love, could ever have touched the heart of Eliza ? " SIR PETER LAUREUS. {_See page 32. The Keepsake m ty Thackeray, who was a frequent visitor at Gore House, gave the Countess of Elessington An Interesting Event for insertion in her annual in 1849. The next year the Countess resigned the editorship of the publication, which passed into the hands of her niece, Miss Power, to whom, for auld lang syne, Thackeray sent Volligeur (1851), Tke Pen and the Album (1853), and Lvcy's Birthday, The last two contributions have been reprinted in the Collected Works, •58 The Keepsake ARTICLE 1 (1849) AN INTERESTING EVENT. By Mr. Titmarsh. Sitting the other day alone at dinner at the Club, and at the next table to Smith, who was in conversation with his friend Jones, I could not but overhear their colloquy, or rather, Mr. Smith's com- munication to his friend. As, after all, it betrays no secrets of private life ; as his adventure, such as it is, may happen to any one of us ; and as, above all, the story is not in the least moral or instructive, I took the liberty of writing it down, as follows ; — " I could not go to that dinner at the Topham Sawyers'," Smith remarked, " where you met the Duke, and where Beaumaris sat next to Miss Henrica Hase (whom I certainly should have man- oeuvred to hand down to dinner, and of course should have had as good a chance as Bo of proposing for her, of being accepted, and getting a wife notoriously consumptive, and with six thousand a year) — I could not go to the Topham Sawyers', because I had accepted an invitation to dine with my old schoolfellow Budgeon. He lives near Hyde Park Gardens, in the Tyburn quarter. He does not give dinners often, and I make it a point, when I have said I will go to a man — dammy, sir, I make it a point not to throw him over." Jones here remarked that the wine was with Smith, which statement the other acknowledged by filling up a bumper, and then resumed : — " I knew that the Budgeons had asked a large party, and indeed^ all their crack people ; for I had seen Mrs. Budgeon in the Park 259 26o The Keepsake the day before, driving by the Serpentine in her open carriage, and looking uncommonly interesting. She had her best follcs — she mentioned them, — nor did I forget to let her know that I was myself invited to the Topham Sawyers' on the same day, — for there is no use in making yourself too cheap ; and if you do move about in a decent circle, Jones my boy, I advise you to let your friends know it." Jones observed that he thought the claret was corked, and the filberts were fine. Smith continued : — " I do not always array myself in a white neckcloth and waist- coat to go to dinner, Jones ; but I think it is right on grand days to do so — I think it's right. Well, sir, I put myself into my very best fig, embroidered shirt, white waistcoat, turquoise buttons, white stockings, and that sort of thing, and set out for Budgeon's at a quarter to eight. I dressed here at the Club. My fool of a servant had not brought me any white gloves, though ; so I was obliged to buy a pair for three and sixpence, as we drove by Houbigant's. " I recollect it was the thirty-first of June, and as a matter of course it was pouring with rain. By the way, do you bake your white neckcloths in damp weather, Jones ? It's the only way to keep 'em right." Jones said he thought this was a better bottle than the last. " I drove up, sir, to Budgeon's door at Hyde Park Gardens, and of course had a row with the scoundrelly cabman about his fare. I gave him eighteenpence ; he said a gentleman would have given him half-a-crown. ' Confound your impudence, sir !' said 1. 'Veil,' said the impudent brute, ' veil, I never said you vos one.' And at this moment Budgeon's door was opened by Cobb, his butler. Cobb was still in pepper-and-salt trousers, which surprised me. He looked rather dubiously at me in the cab. " 'Am I late?' says I. " ' No, sir ; only — you haven't got your note ? But my master will see you, sir. You stop here, cab.' " And quitting the vehicle, of which the discontented rascal of a driver still persisted in saying, that ' a gentleman would gimmy 'alf-a-crownd,' I entered Mr. Budgeon's house, splashing my white stockings in the mud as I went in, to the accompaniment of a hee-haw from the brute on the cab-box. The familiarity of the people, sir, is disgusting. " 1 was troubled as I entered. The two baitans of the hall-door •vcre not cast open ; the fellows in black were not there to baw An Interesting Event 261 out your name up the stairs ; there was only Cobb, in a dirty Marsella waistcoat, jingling his watch-chain. " ' Good Heavens, Cobb ! ' says I — for I was devilish hungry — ■ 'what has happened?' And I began to think (for I have heard Budgeon is rather shaky) that there was an execution in the house. " ' Missis, sir — little girl, sir — about three o'clock, sir — master will see you. — Mr. Smith, sir.' And with these words Cobb ushered me into the dining-room, where Budgeon sat alone. " There was not the least preparation for a grand dinner, as you may suppose. It is true that a soiled and crumpled bit of old table-cloth was spread at one corner of the table, with one knife and fork laid ; but the main portion of the mahogany was only covered with its usual green baize ; and Budgeon sat at a farther end in his dressing-gown, and writing letter after letter. They are a very numerous family. She was a Miss Walkinghame, — one of the Wiltshire Walkinghames. You know her name is Fanny Decima, and I don't know how far the teens in the family went. Budgeon has five sisters himself, and he was firing off notes to all these amiable relatives when I came in. They were all, as you may suppose, pretty much to the same effect : — " ' My dear Maria (or EUza, or Louisa, according to circum- stances), — ' I write a hasty line to say that our dear Fanny has just made me a present of a fifth little girl. Dr. Bloxam is with her, and I have the happiness to say that they are both doing perfectly well. With best regards to Hickson (or Thompson, or Jackson, as the case and the brother-in-law may be), ' I am, my dear, &c., affectionately yours, 'LEONARD BUDGEON.' " Twenty-three of these letters to relatives, besides thirty-eight to put off the dinner and evening party, Budgeon had written ; and he bragged about it as if he had done a great feat. For my part, I thought, with rage, that the Topham Sawyers' dinner was coming off at that minute, and that I might have been present but for this disagreeable contretemps. " 'You're come in time to wish me joy !' says Budgeon, looking up from his paperasses in a piteous tone and manner. '"Joy, indeed,' says L In fact, I wished him at Bath. " ' I'm so accustomed to this sort of thing,' said he, ' that I'm no longer excited by it at all. You'll stay and dine with me, now you've come.' 262 The Keepsake " 1 looked daggers at him ! ' I might have dined at the Topham Sawyers',' I said, ' but for this sudden arrival.' " ' What is there for dinner, Cobb ? You'll lay a cover for Mr. Smith.' " Cobb looked grave. ' The cook is gone to fetch Mrs. Walkinghame. I've kep' the cab, to go to Queen Charlotte's Hospital for — for the nuss. Buttons is gone out with the notes, sir. The young ladies' maid has took them to their haunt Codger's ; the other female servants is busy upstairs with missis, Sir.' " 'Do you mean there's no dinner?' cries Budgeon, looking as if he was relieved, though. ' Well, I have written the notes. Eloxam says my wife is on no account to be disturbed : and I tell you what. Smith, you shall gi\'e me a dinner at the Clubi' '"Very good,' I growled out; although it is deuced hard to be obliged to give a dinner when you have actually refused the Topham Sawyers. And Cobb, going up to his master's dressing-room, returned thence with the coat, hat and umbrella with which that gentleman usually walks abroad. " ' Come along,' said I, with the best grace ; and we were both going out accordingly, when suddenly the door opened, and Mrs. Wake, Mrs. Budgeon's maid, who has been with her ever since she was born, made her appearance. "A man who has in his house a lady's maid who has been with his wife ever since she was born, has probably two tyrants, certainly one, over him. I would not take a girl with ten thousand a year and a maid who has been with her from the nursery. If your wife is not jealous of you, that woman is. If your wife does not know when you slip in from the Club after midnight, that woman is awake, depend upon it, and hears you go upstairs. If, under pretence of a long debate in the House of Commons, you happen to go to Greenwich with a bachelor party, that woman finds the Trafalgar bill in your pocket, and somehow hears of your escapade. You fancy yourself very independent, and unobserved, and that you carry on, you rogue ! quite snugly and quietly through life. Fool ! you are environed by spies, and circumvented by occult tyrants. Your friends' servants and your own know all that you do. Your wife's maid has intelligences with all the confidential females and males of your circle. You are pursued by detectives in plain (some in second-hand) clothes, and your secrets are as An Interesting Event 263 open to them as the area-gate by which they enter your house. Budgeon's eyes quailed before that severe light blue one which hawk-beaked Mrs. Wake fixed upon him. " ' You're not a-going out, sir ? ' said that woman, in a cracked voice. " ' Why, Wake, I was going to — to dine at the Club with Mr. Smith ; that's all, — with Mr. Smith, you know ; ' and so, of course, I was dragged in. " ' I'll tell my missis, sir, that Mr. Smith wished to take you away, though I'm sure he didn't know her situation, and a blessed baby born only five hours, and the medical man in the house." " ' Hang it !' says I, ' I never asked — I— that is ' " ' O ! I dessay, sir, it was master as ast hisself,' Mrs. Wake answered. ' And my poor missis upstairs, and I've been with her ever since she was born, and took her from the month, — ■ that I did, and / won't desert her now. But I won't answer for her life, nor Doctor Bloxam won't, if master should go out now, as you are a-goin' to, sir.' " ' Good Heavens, Wake ! why shouldn't I ? There's no dinner for me. You turned me out of Mrs. Budgeon's room when I went upstairs, and ordered me not to come up again.' " ' She's not to be disturbed, on no account, sir. The dear suffering thing,' Mrs. Wake said ; ' Her mar is coming, and will soon be year, that's one comfort, and will keep you company.' " ' Oh, yes, Mrs. Walkingharae,' Budgeon ruefully said. ' Where is she to sleep. Wake ? ' " ' In the best bedroom, sir ; in course, in the yellow room, sir,' Wake answered. " ' And — and where am I to go ? ' asked the gentleman. " ' Your things is halready brought down into the study, and you're to sleep on, the sofy and harm-chair, of course, sir,' the other said. " Budgeon, now, is a very stout, bulky little man, the ' sofy ' is only a rout-seat, and the arm-chair is what you call a Glaston- bury — an oak-chair ornamented with middle-age gim-cracks, and about as easy as Edward the Confessor's fauteuil in Westminster Abbey. I pictured the wretch to myself, stretched out on a couch which a fakeer or a hermit would find hard to lie on. " ' Oh, thank you ! ' was all the cowed slave could say ; and I saw at once, from his behaviour to that supercilious female and the bewildered obedience which he appeared to bestow on her, 264 The Keepsake that there was some secret between them which rendered the domestic the mistress of her employer. I wonder what it could have been, Jones. She had read private letters out of his waistcoat pocket, \-ery likely. At any rate, my dear fellow, when you marry, take care to have no secrets, or of submitting to an inquisitor over you in the shape of a lady's maid.' Jones (who, by the way, is not, I should say, a man of much conversational power) just thanked Smith to pass the bottle ; and the latter resumed his harrowing narrative. " As we were conversing in the above manner, there came a banging knock at the door, — one of those coarse, vulvar, furious peals which a cabman, imitating a footman, endeavours to perform. We all started guiltily as we heard it. It was most likely some outlying guest, who, like myself, had not received his note of excuse, and had come forth to partake of Budgeon's most Barmecidal entertainment. " ' And you haven't even a-tied up the knocker ! ' said Mrs. Wake, with a look of withering scorn. The knocker had shpped his memory, Budgeon owned. At which the maid said, ' Of course.' Of course she said of course. "Now Mrs. Wake, looking savagely round her and round the room, saw on the table my Gibus' hat, which I had set down there, and in it my bran-new white kid gloves, that I had bought at Houbigant's for three-and-sixpence. A savage satisfaction liyhted up her eyes as she viewed them, and diving down into her pocket, and producing thence a piece of string, this fiend in human shape seized hold of my gloves with a sarcastic apology, and said she was sure I would have no objection to her tying up the knocker with them, and preventing her missis from being knocked to death. So she sailed out of the room, with my three-and-sixpence in her hands, and being a tall bony woman, who could reach up to the knockers without difficulty, she had each of them soon muffled up in a beautiful white French kid. No. 8^. '"You see how it is, old boy,' Budgeon dismally said. 'Fanny doesn't like my leaving the house ; and in her delicate condition, of course, we must humour her. 1 must come and dine with you some other day . We have plenty of time before us, you know. And to-night I must stop and receive my mother-in-law and take a mutton-chop at home.' " ' Take a mutton-chop at home,' indeed ! The wretched man little knew what truth he was telling there ; for I give you my honour, Sir, five minutes afterwards, Mrs. Wake, having finished An Interesting Event 265 tying up the door with my gloves, and all the other servants of the house being absent upon various errands connected with the interesting occasion, she reappeared amongst us, holding an uncovered dish, on which there were two cold mutton-chops left from the children's dinner ! And I left the unhappy man to eat these, and went away to devour my own chagrin. " It was pouring with rain, Sir, as I went down the street. There are no cabs within a mile of Hyde Park Gardens ; and I was soon wet through, and my shirt-front and cravat all rumpled with rain ; otherwise, I might have gone into a tavern and dined, and slipped into the Topham Sawyers' in the evening. But I was too great a figure for that ; and I was forced, positively, to come back to this Club to take my morning clothes out of the bag and reassume them, and to dine here at my own charge, after having refused one of the best dinners in London." " Is that all, old boy?" Jones asked. " All ! no, it isn't all ! " said Smith, with a horrid shriek of laughter. " Look here. Sir," and he pulled out a note, which he read, and which was to the following eflect : — " ' Dear Smith, — You were the first person in the house after an interesting event occurred there, and Fanny and I have agreed that you must be godfather to our little stranger. Both are doing very well, and your little god-daughter elect is pronounced by the authorities to be the prettiest and largest child ever seen of her age. " ' Mrs. Walkinghame is still with us, and Wake allows me to go out sometimes. When will you give me the dinner you promised me at the Megatherium ? We might go to Vauxhall afterwards, where Van Ambrugh, I am told, is very interesting and worth seeing. — Yours ever, dear Smith, LEONARD BUDGEON.' " ' There, Sir,' cried Smith, ' isn't that enough to try any man's patience? Just tot up what that 'interesting event' has cost me — not the dinner to Budgeon, who is a good fellow, and I don't grudge it to him — but the rest. Cabs, four shillings ; gloves, three- and-six ; Henrica Hays, whom I might have had with two hundred thousand pounds ; and add to this a silver mug or a papboat, which will cost me four or five pound, and a couple of guineas to that vixen of a Mrs. Wake ; — and all coming from an interesting event." " Suppose we have coffee ? " Jones remarked. And as I could not listen decently any more to their conversation, I laid down the ncv\£p,.per and walked away. 2 66 The Keepsake ARTICLE a (1851) VOLTIGEUR. By W. M. Thackeray, Esq. There arose out of the last Epsom races a little family perplexity, whereon the owner of Voltigeur little speculated : and as out of this apparently trivial circumstance a profound and useful moral may be drawn, to be applied by the polite reader ; and as Epsom races wiU infallibly happen next year, and I daresay for many succeeding generations ; perhaps the moral which this brief story points had better be printed upon Dorling's next " Correct Card," as a warning to future patrons and patronesses of the turf. The moral, then,— the text of my sermon is, Never.— But we will keep the moral, if you please, for the end of the fable. It happened, then, that among the parties who were collected on the hill to see the race, the carriage of a gentleman, whom we shall call Sir Joseph Raikes, occupied a commanding position and attracted a great deal of attention amongst the gentlemen sports- men. Those bucks upon the ground who were not acquainted with the fair occupant of that carriage,— as indeed how should many thousands of them be ? — some being shabby bucks ; some being vulgar bucks ; some being hot and unpleasant bucks, smoking bad cigars, and only staring into Lady Raikes' carriage by that right which allows one Briton to look at another Briton, and a cat to look at a king ;— of those bucks, I say, who, not knowing Lady Raikes, yet came and looked at her, there was scarce one that did not admire her, and envy the lucky rogue her husband. Of those ladies who, in their walks from their own vehicles, passed her ladyship's, there was scarce one lady who did not say : — "Is that all? Is that the beauty you are all talking about so much ? She is over-rated ; she looks stupid ; she is over-dressed ; she squints ; " and so forth ; while some of the men who did happen to have the honour of an acquaintance with Lady Raikes and her husband (and many a man, who had thought Raikes rather stupid in his bachelor days, was glad enough to know him now), each as he came to the carriage, and partook of the excellent lur';heon provided there, had the most fascinating gi'ins and ogles for the lady, apd the most triumphant glances for all the rest of the Voltigeuf 267 world, — glances which seemed to say : " Look, you rascals, I know Lady Raikes ; you don't know Lady Raikes ; I can drink a glass of champagne to Lady Raikes' health. What would you give, you dog, to have such a sweet smile from Lady Raikes? Did you ever see such eyes? did you ever see such a complexion? did you ever see such a killing pink dress, and such a dear little delightfully carved parasol ? " — Raikes had it carved for her last year at Baden, when they were on their wedding trip. It has their coats-of-arms and their ciphers intertwined elegantly round the stalk — a J and a Z ; her name is Zuleika ; before she married she was Zuleika Trotter. Her elder sister, Medora, married Lord T — mn — ddy ; her younger, Haidee, is engaged to the eldest son of the second son of a noble D — ke. The Trotters are of a good family. Dolly Trotter, Zuleika's brother, was in the same regiment (and that, I need not say, an extremely heavy one) with Sir Joseph Raikes. He did not call himself Joseph then : quite the contrary, Larkyn Raikes, before his marriage, was one of the wildest and most irregular of our British youth. Let us not allude — he would blush to hear them — to the particulars of his past career. He turned away his servant for screwing up one of the knockers which he had removed, during the period of his own bachelorhood, from an eminent physician's house in Savile Row, on the housekeeper's door in Larkyn Hall. There are whole hampers of those knockers stowed away somewhere, and snuff-taking Highlanders, and tin hats, and black boys, — the trophies of his youth, which Raikes would like to send back to their owners, did he know them ; and when he carried off these spoils of war he was not always likely to know. When he goes to the Bayonet and Anchor Club now (and he dined there twice during Lady Raikes' , in fine, when there was no dinner at home) the butler brings him a half-pint of sherry and a large bottle of Seltzer water, and looks at him with a sigh and wonders — " Is this Captain Raikes, as used to breakfast off pale ale at three, to take his regular two bottles at dinner, and to drink brandy and water in the smoking billiard-room all night till all was blue ? " Yes, it is the same Raikes ; Larkyn no more, — riotous no more — brandivorous no longer. He gave away all his cigars at his marriage ; quite unlike Screwby, who also married the other day, and offered to sell me some. He has not betted at a race since his father paid his debts and forgave him, just before the old gentleman died and Raikes came into his king- dom. Upon that accession, Zuleika Trotter, who looked rather 268 The Keepsake sweetly upon Bob Vincent before, was so much touched by Sir Joseph Raikes' determination to reform, that she dismissed Bob and became Lady Raikes. Dolly Trotter still remains in the Paddington Dragoons ; Dolly is still unmarried ; Dolly smokes still ; Dolly owes money still. And though his venerable father, Rear-Admiral Sir Ajax Trotter, K.C.B., has paid his debts many times, and swears if he ever hears of Dolly betting again he will disinherit his son, Dolly — the undutiful Dolly — goes on betting still. Lady Raikes, then, beamed in the pride of her beauty upon Epsom race-course, dispensed smiles and luncheon to a host of acquaintances, and accepted in return all the homage and compli- ments which the young men paid her. The hearty and jovial Si,- Joseph Raikes was not the least jealous of the admiration which his pretty wife caused ; not even of Bob Vincent, whom he rather pitied for his mishap, poor fellow ! (to be sure, Zuleika spoke of Vincent very scornfully, and treated his pretensions as absurd) ; and with whom, meeting him on the course, Raikes shook hands very cordially, and insisted upon bringing him up to Lady Raikes' carriage, to partake of refreshment there. There could have been no foundation for the wicked rumour thai Zuleika had looked sweetly upon Vincent before Raikes carried her off. Lady Raikes received Mr. Vincent with the kindest and frankest smile ; shook hands with him with perfect politeness and indifference, and laughed and talked so easily with him that it was impossible there could have been any previous discomfo.t between them. Not very far off from Lady Raikes' carriage, on the hill, there stood a little black brougham — the quietest and most modest equipage in the world, and in which nevertheless there must have been something very attractive, for the young men crowded round this carriage in numbers ; and especially that young reprobate Dolly Trotter was to be seen, constantly leaning his great elbows on the window, and poking his head into the carriage. Lady Raikes remarked that, among other gentlemen, her husband went up and spoke to the little carriage, and when he and Dolly came back to her, asked \\ho was in the black brougham. For some time Raikes couldn't understand which was the orougham she meant — there were so many broughams. " The black one with the red blinds, was it ? Oh, that — that was a very old friend — yes, old Lord Cripplegate was in the brougham : he had the gout, and he couldn't walk." Voltigeur 269 As Raikes made this statement he blushed as red as a geranium ; he loolted at Dolly Trotter in an imploring manner, who looked at him, and who presently went away from his sister's carriage bursting with laughter. After making the above statement to his wife, Raikes was particularly polite and attentive to her, and did not leave her side ; nor would he consent to her leaving the carriage. There were all sorts of vulgar people about ; she would be jostled in the crowd ; she could not bear the smell of the cigars — she knew she couldn't (this made Lady Raikes wince a little) ; the sticks might knock her darling head off; and so forth. Raikes is a very accomplished and athletic man, and, as a bachelor, justly prided himself upon shying at the sticks better than any man in the army. Perhaps, as he passed the persons engaged in that fascinating sport, he would have himself liked to join in it ; but he declined his favourite entertainment, and came back faithfully to the side of his wife. As Vincent talked at Lady Raikes' side, he alluded to this accomplishment of her husband. " Your husband has not many accomplishments," Vincent said (he is a man of rather a sardonic humour) ; " but in shying at the sticks he is quite unequalled : he has quite a genius for it. He ought to have the sticks painted on his carriage, as the French marshals have their batons. Hasn't he brought you a pincushion or a jack-in-the-box. Lady Raikes ? and has he begun to neglect you so soon ? Every father with a little boy at home " (and he congratulated her ladyship on the birth of that son and heir) " ought surely to think of him, and bring him a soldier, or a monkey, or a toy or two." "Oh, yes," cried Lady Raikes, "her husband must go. He must go and bring back a soldier, or a monkey, or a dear little jack-in-the box, for dear little Dolly at home." So away went Raikes ; indeed, nothing loth. He wanned with the noble sport : he was one of the finest players in England. He went on pla)ing for a delightful half-hour (how swiftly, in the blessed amusement, it passed away !) ; he reduced several of the sticksters to bankruptcy, by his baculine skill ; he returned to the carriage laden with jacks, wooden apples, and soldiers, enough to amuse all the nurseries in Pimlico. During his absence Lady Raikes, in the most winning manner, had asked Mr. Vincent for his arm, for a little walk ; and did not notice the sneer with which he said that his arm had always been 2 7° The Keepsake at her service. She was not jostled by the crowd inconveniently ; she was not offended by the people smoking (though Raikes was forbidden that amusement) ; and she walked upon Mr. Vincent's arm, and somehow found herself close to the little black brougham, in which sat gouty old Lord Cripplegate. Gouty old Lord Cripplegate wore a light blue silk dress, a lace mantle and other gimcracks, a white bonnet with roses, and ringlets as long as a chancellor's wig, but of the most beautiful black hue. His lordship had a pair of enormous eyes, that languished in the most killing manner ; and cheeks that were decorated with delicate dimples ; and lips of the colour of the richest sealing-wax. " Who's that ? " asked Lady Raikes. " That," said Mr. Vincent, " is Mrs. Somerset Montmorency.'' " Who's Mrs. Somerset Montmorency ? " hissed out Zuleika. " It is possible you have not met her in society. Mrs. Somerset Montmorency doesn't go much into society," Mr. Vincent said. " Why did he say it was Lord Cripplegate ? " cried the lady. Vincent, like a fiend in human shape, burst out laughing. " Did Raikes say it was Lord Cripplegate ? Well, he ought to know.'' "What ought he to know?" asked Zuleika. " Excuse me. Lady Raikes," said the other, with his constant sneer, " there are things which people had best not know. There are things which people had best forget, as your ladyship very well knows. You forget ; ^^•hy shouldn't Raikes forget ? Let by- gones be by-gones. Let's all forget, Zulei I beg your pardon. Here comes Raikes. How hot he looks ! He has got a hat full of jack-in-the-boxes. How obedient he has been ! He will not set the Thames on fire, — but he's a good fellow. Yes ; we'll forget all : won't we ? " And the fiend pulled the tuft under his chin, and gave a diabolical grin with his sallow face. Zuleika did not say one word about Lord Cripplegate when Raikes found her and flung his treasures into her lap. She did not show her anger in words, but in an ominous boding silence ; during which her eyes might be seen moving pretty constantly to the little black brougham. When the Derby was run, and Voltigeur was announced as the winner. Sir Joseph, who saw the race from the box of his carriage ■ — having his arm round her ladyship, who stood on the back seat, and thought all men the greatest hypocrites in creation (and so a man is the greatest hypocrite of all animals, save one) — Raikes jumped up and gave a "Hurrah!" which he sud- denly checked when his wife asked, with a death-like calmness Voltigeur 271 " And, pray, sir, have you been betting on the race, that you are so excited ? " " Oh, no, my love, of course not. But, you know, it's a Yorkshire horse, and I — I'm glad it wins ; that's all," Raikes said ; in which statement there was not, I am sorry to say, a word of truth. Raikes wasn't a betting man any more. He had forsworn it. He would never bet again. But he had just, in the course of the day, taken the odds in one little bet ; and he had just happened to win. When his wife charged him with the crime, he was about to avow it. " But no," he thought ; " it will be a surprise for her. I will buy her the necklace she scolded me about at Lacy & Gimcrack's : it's just the sum. She has been sulky all day. It's about that she is sulky now — I'll go and have another shy at the sticks.'' And he went away, delighting himself with this notion, and with the idea that he could at last satisfy his adorable little Zuleika. As Raikes passed Mrs. Somerset Montmorency's brougham, Zuleika remarked how that lady beckoned to him, and how Raikes went up to her. Though he did not remain by the carriage two minutes, Zuleika was ready to take an affidavit that he was there for half-an-hour ; and was saluted by a satanical grin from Vincent, who by this time had returned to her carriage side, and was humming a French tune, which says that "on revient ioujours a ses premi-i-res amours, d se-es premieres amours!' " What is that you are singing ? How dare you sing that ! ' cried Lady Raikes, with tears in her eyes. " It's an old song — you used to sing it," said Mr. Vincent. " By the way, I congratulate you. Your husband has won six hundred pounds. I heard Betterton say so, who gave him the odds." " He is a wretch ! He gave me his word of honour that he didn't bet. He is a gambler — he'll ruin his child ! He neglects his wife for that — that creature ! He calls her Lord Crick — Crick — ipplegate," sobbed her ladyship. " Why did I marry him ? " "Why, indeed !" said Mr. Vincerit. As the two were talking, Dolly Trotter, her ladyship's brother, came up to the carrage ; at which, with a scowl on his wicked countenance, and indulging inwardly in language which I am very glad not to be called upon to report, Vincent retired, biting his nails, hke a traitor, and exhibiting every sign of ill-humour which the villain of a novel or of a play is wont to betray. "Don't have that fellow about you, Zuly," Dolly said to his 272 The Keepsake darling sister. " He is a bad one. He's no principle : he — he's a gambler, and everything that's bad." " I know others who are gamblers,'' cried out Zuleika. " I know others who are everything that's bad, Adolphus," Lady Raikes exclaimed. " For Heaven's sake, what do you mean ? " said Adolphus, becoming red and looking very much frightened. " I mean my husband," gasped the lady. " I shall go home to papa. I shall take my dear little blessed babe with me and go to papa, Adolphus. And if you had the spirit of a man, you would — you would avenge me, that you would." " Against Joe ! '' said tlie heavy dragoon ; " against Joe, Zuly ? Why, hang me if Joe isn't the gweatest twump in Christendom. By Jove, he is ! " said the big one, shaking his fist ; " and if that scoundwel, Vincent, or any other wascal, has said a word against him, by Jove " " Pray stop those horrid oaths and vulgar threats, Adolphus," her ladyship said. " I don't know what it is, — you've got something against Joe. - Something has put you against him ; and if it's Vincent, I'll wring his " " Mercy ! mercy ! Pray cease this language," Lady Raikes said. " You don't know what a good fellow Joe is," said the dragoon. "The best twump in England, as I've weason to say, sister ; and here he comes with the horses. God bless the old boy ! " With this, honest Sir Joseph Raikes took his seat in his carriage ; and tried by artless blandishments, by humility, and by simple conversation, to coax his wife into good humour: but all his efforts were unavailing. She would not speak a word during the journey to London ; and when she reached home, rushed up to the nursery and instantly burst into tears upon the sleeping little Adolphus' pink and lace cradle. " It's all about that necklace, Mrs. Prince," the good-natured Baronet explained to the nurse of the son and heir. " I know it's about the necklace. She rowed me about it all the way down to Epsom ; and I can't give it her now, that's flat. I've no money. I won't go tick, that's flat ; and she ought to be content with what she has had ; oughtn't she now. Prince ? " " Indeed she ought, Sir Joseph ; and you're an angel of a man, Sir Joseph ; and so I often tell my lady. Sir Joseph," the nurse said ; " and the more you will spile her, the more she will take on, Sir Joseph." Voltigeuf 273 But if Lady Raikes was angry at not having the necklace, what must have been her ladyship's feelings wlien she saw, in the box opposite to her at the opera, Mrs. Somerset Montmorency, with that very necklace on her shoulders for which she had pined in vain ! How she got it ? Who gave it her? How she came by the money to buy such a trinket ? How she dared to drive about at all in the Park, the audacious wretch ! All these were questions which the infuriate Zuleika put to herself, her confidential maid, her child's nurse, and two or three of her particular friends ; and of course she determined that there was but one clue to the mystery of the necklace, which was that her husband had purchased it with the six hundred pounds which he had won at the Derby, which he had denied having won even to her, which he had spent in this shameful manner. Nothing would suit her but a return home to her papa — nothing would satisfy her but a separation from the criminal who had betrayed her. She wept floods of tears over her neglected boy, and repeatedly asked that as yet speechless innocent, whether he would remember his mother when her place was filled by another, and whether her little Adolphus would take care that no insult was offered to her untimely grave ? The row at home at length grew so unbearable that Sir Joseph Raikes, who had never had an explanation since his marriage, and had given in to all his wife's caprices, — that Sir JoL'jph, we say, even with his 'eavenly temper, he broke out into a passion ; and one day after dinner, at which only his brother-in-law Dolly was present, told his wife that her tyranny was intolerable, and that it must come to an end. Dolly said he was "quite wight," and backed up Raikes in every way. Zuleika said they were a pair of brutes, and that she desired to return to Sir Ajax. " Why, what the devil is urging you ?" cried the husband ; "you drive me mad, Zuleika." " Yes, what are you at, Zuleika ? You dwive him cwazy,'' said her brother. Upon which Zuleika broke out. She briefly stated that her husband was a liar ; that he was a gambler ; that he had deceived her about betting at Epsom, and had given his word to a lie ; that he had deceived her about that — that woman, — and had given his word to another lie; and that, with the fruit of his gambUng transactions at Epsom, he had purchased the diamond necklace, not for her, but for that— 18 274 The Keepsake that person ! That was all — that was enough. Let her go home and die in Baker Street, in the room, she prayed Heaven, she never had quitted ! That was her charge. If Sir Joseph Raikes had anything to say he had better say it. Sir Joseph Raikes said, that she had the most confounded jealous temper that ever a woman was cursed with ; that he had been on his knees to her ever since his marriage, and had spent half his income in administering to her caprices and extravagancies ; that as for these charges they were so monstrous he should not condescend to answer them ; and as she chose to leave her husband and her child, she might go whenever she liked. Lady Raikes upon this rang the bell, and requested Hickson the butler to tell Dickson her maid to bring down her bonnet and shawl ; and when Hickson quitted the dining-room Dolly Trotter began, — " Zuleika," said he, " you are enough to twy the patience of an angel ; and, by Jove, you do ! You've got the best fellow for a husband (a sneer from Zuleika) that ever was bullied by a woman, and you tweat him like a dawg. When you were ill, you used to make him get up of a night to go to the doctor's. When you're well, you plague his life out of him. He pays your milliner's bills as if you were a duchess, and you have but to ask for a thing and you get it." " O, yes ; I have necklaces ! " said Zuleika. " Confound you, Zuly ! hadn't he paid three hundwed and eighty for a new cawwiage for you the week before ? Hadn't he fitted your drawing-room with yellow satin at the beginning of the season ? Hadn't he bought you the pair of ponies you wanted, and gone without a hack himself, and he getting as fat as a porpoise for want of exercise, the poor old boy ? And for that necklace, do you know how it was that you didn't have it, and that you were very nearly having it, you ungrateful little devil you? It was / prevented you ! He did win six hundred at the Derby : and he would have bought your necklace, but he gave me the money. The governor said he never would pay another play-debt again for me ; and bet I would, like a confounded, gweat, stooped fool ; and it was this old Joe — this dear old twump— who booked up for me, and took me out of the hole, like the best fellow in the whole world, by Jove ! And I'll never bet again, so help ' me — ! And that's why he couldn't tell — and that's why he wouldn't split on me — and that's why you didn't have your confounded necklace, which old Cw'pplcgate bought for Mrs. Voltigeuf 275 Montmowency, who's going to marry her, like a confounded fool for his pains ! " And here the dragoon, being blown, took a large glass of claret ; and when Hickson and Dickson came downstairs, they found her ladyship in rather a theatrical attitude, on her knees, embracing her husband's big hand, and calling down blessings upon him, and owning that she was a wretch, and a monster, and a fiend. She was only a jealous, little spoiled fool of a woman ; and I am sure those who read her history have never met with her like, or have never plagued their husbands. Certainly they have not, if they are not married : as, let us hope, they will be. As for Vincent, he persists in saying that the defence is a fib from beginning to end, and that the Trotters were agreed to deceive Lady Raikes. But who hasn't had his best actions misinterpreted by calumny? And what innocence or good-will can disarm jealousy ? Fraser's Magazine The history of Thackeray's early connection with Fraser's Magazine is still quite unknown. There are many articles in the magazine that are believed by competent judges to have been written by the author of Vanity Fair. But conjecture is not certainty, and therefore I have not reprinted any of these " doubtful " articles. A list of them, however, may be of interest to those who care to puzzle out such matters for themselves. (i) Elizabeth Brownrigge (August, September, 1832) ; (ii) Hints for a History of Highwaymen (March, 1834), a review of Lives and Exploits of Englishmen Highwaymen, Pirates, and Robbers, by C. Whitehead, Esq. ; (iii) A Dozen of Novels (April, 1834), criticising stories of which, with the exception of Miss Edgeworth's Helen, the modern reader has never heard ; (iv) Highways and Low-ways, or Ainsworth! s Dictionary, with notes hy Turpin (June, 1834), a review of Rookwood ; (v) Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (February, 1836), an article on a book of the same name by Trollope ; (vi) Another Caw from the Rookwood: Turpin out again (April, 1836), a second article on Ainsworth's novel ; (vii) The Jew of York (September, 1836), a burlesque that certainly suggests the author of Rebecca and Rowena ; (viii) Mr. Grant's Great Metropolis, a review ; (ix) One or two Words about one or two Books (April, 1837), dealing with Savage Landor's Satire on Satirists, an anonymous tragedy, entitled The Student of Padua ; (x) Letters from Cambridge to Oliver Yorke, about the Art of Plucking (June, July, August, 1837) ; (xi) Paris Pastimes for the Month of May (June, 1839) ; and (xii) Paris Rebels of the Twelfth of May (August, 1839), One of these articles, however, I have ventured to reprint — Elizabeth Brownrigge. The authorship of this story is " doubtful " ; but Mr. Swinburne, Dr. John Brown, and Mr, Shepherd have ascribed it to Thackeray, though it 277 278 Frasef's Magazine is but fair to state that Mr. Charles Plumptre Johnson has declared: "After most careful consideration of all they [Swinburne and Brown] have written on the subject, and of the story itself, it seems to be impossible to concede to Eliiateth Brownrigge the honour of counting Thackeray as its author." To me the satirical dedication to the author of Eugene Aram and the Advertisement seem to be quite in Thackeray's early style. Indeed, the whole story seems an immature Catherine — the motive of the two stories is the same. But there are a certain number of identitied articles that have not been reprinted. The first, Tht Fraser Papers for May: The King of Brentford — and this is Thackeray's earliest known contribution to Eraser's — is an imitation of B^ranger's // ^tait un Roi d' Vvetot, which, almost entirely rewritten, was printed in Cruikshank's Omnibus (No. 8, 1841), and subsequently in the Ballads, On a Batch of Navels for Christmas, 1837 {Eraser, January, 1838) contains reviews by Thackeray of Mrs. TroUope's Vicar of Wrexhill, Lytton's Ernest Maltravers, and Miss Landon's Ethel Churchill, Two months later appeared Half-a-Crown' s Worth of Cheap Knowledge, an article dealing with a round dozen of the penny or twopenny publications of the day, and in October and November of the same year a review of a book called Lady Carry-the- Candle's Diary, entitled Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster, with Elucidations, Notes, etc. , hy various editors. The other articles here reprinted are Professions. By Eitz-Boodle — The Third Profession (June, 1842) ; Men's Wives : The 's Wife (November, 1843) ; and A Grumble about the Christmas Books, which was Thackeray's last con- tribution to Fraser, with the exception of the satirical Mr. Thackeray in the United States, written some six years later. Eraser's Magazine ARTICLE 1 (May 1854) THE FRASER PAPERS FOR MAY— THE KING OF BRENTFORD. " II ^tait un Roi d'Yvetot." — Biranger. There was a King in Brentford, Of whom no legends tell, But who without his glory Could sleep and eat right welL His Polly's cotton night-cap, It was his crown of state ; He loved to sleep full early, And rise again full late. All in a fine straw castle He ate his four good meals, And for a guard of honour A dog ran at his heels ; Sometimes to view his kingdoms Rode forth this monarch good, And then a prancing jackass He royally bestrode. There were no evil habits With which this king was curst. Except (and where's the harm on't ?) A somewhat lively thirst. But subjects must have taxes, And monarchs must have sport ; So out of every hogshead His grace he kept a quart. 28o Fraser's Magazine He pleased the five court ladies With manners soft and bland ; They named him, with good reason, The Father of the Land. Four times a year his armies To battle forth did go, But their enemies were targets, Their bullets they were tow. He vexed no quiet neighbour, No bootless conquest made, But by the laws of pleasure His peaceful realm he swayed ; And in the years he reigned Through all his kingdom wide, There was no cause for weeping, Save when the good man died. Long time the Brentford nation Their monarch did deplore — His portrait yet is swinging Beside an ale-house door ; And topers tender-hearted, Regard that honest phiz, And envy times departed. That knew no reign like his. ARTICLE % (January 1838) OUR BATCH OF NOVELS FOR CHRISTMAS, 1837. What a precious batch of novels has old Oliver ' sent us ! Our table groans with them — as well it may ; for the load was well- nigh breaking down the hackney coach in which it was conveyed, and the backs of the two Irish porters who carried the same from the interior of the coach into the midst of the sanctum in our domicile. If Yorke supposes that we are to set in review before Regina's readers the tithe-part of the collection, he must be * " Oliver Yorke," the pseudonym of Dr. Maginn, the editor of Frasers Magazine. Our Batch of Novels for- Chiistmas, 1837 281 dreaming — an indulgence he invariably allows himself after one of the many symposiacs to which the worthy fellow abandons his wits, for the purpose of giving a fillip to his constitution. If so, why were we not of the party, to have had our share of the general fun and potation ? But we can easily divine. The novels were to be reviewed, and Oliver thought rightly, that, after the overnight's punch and frolic, he would find himself little inclined for so much drudgery reading. He has laid the task on us, though we are as little inclined that way as the unfortunate gentleman himself; for we also had our "potations pottle deep'' yester- evening, in the old hall of the Inner Temple, on the occasion of seven-and-twenty students being elevated by the stiff benchers from their places beneath the salt to the dignity of barristers. We must, however, obey Oliver's commands ; for it is no joking matter if he flies into a passion. Trollope's "Vicar of Wrexhill."' If against the inroads of the evangelical party the orthodox church has need of a defender, it hardly would wish, we should think, to be assisted tali auxilio. Mrs. Trollope has not exactly the genius which is best calculated to support the Church of England, or to argue upon so grave a subject as that on which she has thought proper to write. With a keen eye, a very sharp tongue, a firm belief, doubtless, in the high-church doctrines, and a decent reputation from the authorship of half-a-dozen novels, or other light works, Mrs. Trollope determined on no less an undertaking than to be the champion of oppressed Orthodoxy. These are feeble arms for one who would engage in such a contest ; but our fair Mrs. Trollope trusted entirely in her own skill, and the weapon with which she proposed to combat a strong party is no more nor less th.nn this no\ el of The Vicar of Wrexhill. It is a great pity that the heroine ever set forth on such a foolish errand ; she has only harmed herself and her cause (as a bad advocate always will), and had much better have remained at home pudding-making or stocking- mending, than have meddled with matters which she understands so ill. In the first place (we speak it with due respect for the sex), she ' The Vicar of Wrexhill. By Mrs. Trollope, Author of " Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw," " Domestic Manners of the Americans," " Tremordyii Cliff," etc., 3vols.,8vo. London, 1837. Bentley. 282 Fraser's Magazine is guilty of a fault which is somewhat too common among them ; and having very Httle, except prejudice, on which to found an opinion, she makes up for want of argument by a wonderful fluency of abuse. A woman's religion is chiefly that of the heart, and not of the head. She goes through, for the most part, no tedious processes of reasoning, no dreadful stages of doubt, no changes of faith ; she loves God as she loves her husband — by a kind of instinctive devotion. Faith is a passion with her, and not a calculation ; so that, in the faculty of believing, though they far exceed the other sex, in the power of convincing they fall far short of them. Oh ! we repeat once more, that ladies would make puddings and mend stockings ! that they would not meddle with religion (what is styled religion, we mean), except to pray to God, to live quietly among their families, and move lovingly among their neighbours ! Mrs. Trollope, for instance, who sees so keenly the follies of the other party— how much vanity there is in Bible Meetings— how much sin even at Missionary Societies— how much cant and hypocrisy there is among those who desecrate the awful name of God by mixing it with their mean private interests and petty projects — Mrs. Trollope cannot see that there is any hypocrisy or bigotry on her part. She, who designates the rival party as false, and wicked, and vain, tracing all their actions to the basest motives, declaring their worship of God to be only one general hypocrisy, their conduct at home one fearful scene of crime, is blind to the faults on her own side. Always bitter against the Pharisees, she does as the Pharisees do. It is vanity, very likely, which leads these people to use God's name so often, and to devote all to perdition who do not coincide with their peculiar notions. Is Mrs. Trollope less vain than they are when she declares, and merely declares, her own to be the real creed, and stigmatizes its rival so fiercely? Is Mrs. Trollope serving God, in making abusive and licentious pictures of those \yho serve Him in a different way ? Once, as Mrs. Trollope has read — it was a long time ago !— there was a woman taken in sin ; the people brought her before a great Teacher of Truth, who lived in those days. " Shall we not kill her ? " said they ; " the law commands that all adulteresses shall be killed." We can fancy a Mrs. Trollope in the crowd, shouting, " Oh, the wretch ! Oh, the abominable harlot ! Kill her, by all means — stoning is really too good for her ! " But what did the Divine Teacher say ? He was quite as anxious to prevent the crime as any Mrs. Trollope of them all ; but He did not make any allusion Ouf Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 283 to it. He did not describe the manner in which the poor creature was caught, He made no speech to detail the indecencies which she had committed, or to raise tlie fury of the mob against her. He said, " Let the man who is witliout sin himself throw the first stone!" Whereupon the Pharisees and Mrs. TroUopes slunk away, for they knew they were no better than she. There was as great a sin in His eyes as that of the poor erring woman, — it was the sin of pride. Mrs. Trollope may make a licentious book, of which the heroes and heroines are all of the evangelical party ; and it may be true that there are scoundrels belonging, to that party as to every other ; but her shameful error has been in fixing upon the evangelical class as an object of satire, making them necessarily licentious and hypocritical, and charging upon every one of them the vices which belong to only a very few of all sects. Another writer, because the Rev. Mr. Hackman murdered a young lady, or the Rev. Dr. Dodd forged a bill of exchange, might, with fully as much justice, declare all clergymen to be murderers, and the whole body of the Church of England to be a set of forgers. We will follow the fair lady through a part of her story, and see how she deals with the people whose characters she professes to describe. The Rev. Jacob Cartwright arrives to take possession of Wrexhill Vicarage, just as the lord of Wrexhill manor falls ill of an apoplexy and dies. Mr. Mowbray senior dies on the day after Mr. Mowbray junior comes of age, and sad is the sorrow of his two daughters, Helen and Fanny ; of his ward. Miss Rosalind Torrington, and above all, of his wretched widow, Mrs. Mowbray. The match, on her part, had been one of singular disinterested- ness. She was the possessor of a vast fortune in land and in the three per cents., and with the simplicity of a confiding heart, which despises the botheration of a settlement, she had married Mr. Mowbray, who thus became the master of all her wealth. But they lived together, says Mrs. Trollope, in the most affectionate manner, until Mowbray's sudden demise, with a charming family around ; Mrs. Mowbray, the first woman of the county, loving her husband, loving her children, and looked up to by all the neighbourhood. It may be supposed that such a charming creature (only forty- three, Mrs. Trollope says, and very young and pretty for her age). must have felt sadly the stroke of fate which carried off the best of husbands, one fine morning before breakfast. Without any violent breach of probability, we may, we think, 284 Eraser's Magazine take it for granted that she was very seriously unhappy. A woman who loves her husband, and loses him, is not unnaturally so ; a tender mother, with grown-up children, and a son to preside at her table, hardly thinks, at five-and-forty, of looking for another husband. The affectionate creature whose portrait is executed by Mrs. TroUope thinks otherwise. Ten days after her adored husband's death she receives the Vicar of Wrexhill, in about a month the tender mother begins to hate her children ; in three months the faithful wife is over head and ears in love with her new acquaint- ance ; in eight months after poor Mowbray's disappearance, the first lady in the county becomes the wife of an upstart of bad character ; Mowbray Park, the seat of her family, is baptised Cartwright Park ; and her son, Master Mowbray, the heir to twenty thousand pounds a year, is sent to Cambridge with a ten-pound note, and told to be economical and to study hard. Here are nature and reality ! Here is a likely series of facts and characters ! The father of lies himself could hardly do as much mischief in this course of time, were he to come bodily to tempt Mrs. Mowbray. How could a single, unhappy, evangelical clergy- man execute all these miracles of evil ? See what a man may come to by differing with a lady in religion, and following any other system of Christianity besides that advocated by Saint TroUope ! There are some books, we are told, in the libraries of Roman Catholic theologians, which, though written for the most devout purposes, are so ingeniously obscene, as to render them quite dangerous for common eyes. The groom, in the old story, had never learned the art of greasing horses' teeth to prevent their eating oats, until the confessor, in interrogating him as to his sins, asked him the question. The next time the groom came to confess, he had greased the horses' teeth. It was the holy father who taught him, by the very fact of warning him against it. By which we mean, that there are some sins of which it is better not to speak at all. Our fair moralist, however, has no such squeamishness. She will show up these odious evangelicals ; she will expose them, and chastise them, wherever they be. So have we seen in that beautiful market in Thames Street, whither the mariners of England bring the produce of their nets — so have we seen, we say, in Billingsgate, a nymph attacking another of her sisterhood. How keenly she detects and proclaims the number and enormity of her rival's faults ! How eloquently she enlarges upon the gin she has drunk, the Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 285 children she has confided to the parish, the watchmen whose noses she has broken, and the bridewells which she has visited in succession ! No one can but admire the lady's eloquence and talent in conducting the case for the prosecution ; no one will, perhaps, doubt the guilt of the hapless object on whom her wrath is vented. But, with all her rage for morality, had not the fair accuser have better left the matter alone ? That torrent of slang and oaths, O nymph ! falls ill from thy lips, which should never open but for a soft word or a smile; that accurate description of vice, sweet orator [-tress- or -trix] ! only shows that thou thyself art but too well acquainted with scenes which thy pure eyes should never have beheld. And when we come to the matter in dispute — a simple question of mackerel — O, Mrs. TroUope ! why, why should you abuse other people's fish, and not content yourself with selling your own ? But, to return to Cartwright and Mrs. Mowbray. The evangeli- cal monster no sooner obtains a footing in Mowbray House, than he casts his eyes about to see on whom he shall begin to practise his wicked ways. The Schamer ! not content with the love of all the ladies in the village, he makes tender advances to poor little Miss Fanny Mowbray ; he prays with her in private (extracts from the prayers are given by Mrs. TroUope), and completely succeeds in winning, under the guise of devotion, the budding affections of this warm and innocent young lady. But presently he discovers that the mother is as partial to him as the daughter ; and, of course, forsakes instantly the young one in search of the older and richer prize. To be more in his power, Mrs. Mowbray must be dispatched to London and confided to an attorney of his own kin and persuasion. With the following polite letter the vicar prepares Mr. Corbold for the arrival of his client :— "To Stephen Corbold, Esq., Solicitor, " Gray's Inn, London. " My dear valued Friend and Cousin, — " It has at length pleased God to enable me to prove to you how sincere is the gratitude which I have ever professed for the important service your father conferred upon me, by the timely loan of two hundred pounds, when I was, I believe you know, inconvenienced by a very troublesome claim. It has been a con- stant matter of regret to me that I have never, through the many years which have since passed, been able to repay it ; but, if I mistake not, the service which I am now enabled to render you will eventually prove such as fairly to liquidate your 286 Fraser's Magazine claim upon me ; and from my knowledge of your honourable feelings, I cannot doubt your being willing to deliver to me my bond for the same, should your advantages from the transaction prove at all commensurate to my expectations.'' > [Here follows a statement of the widow Mowbray's business in London, with the commentary upon the ways and means which she possessed to carry that, and all other business in which she was concerned, to a satisfactory conclusion, much to the contentment of all those fortunate enough to be employed as her assistants therein. The reverend gentleman then proceeds thus :] " Nor is this all I would wish to say to you, cousin Stephen, on the subject of the widow Mowbray's affairs, and the advantages which may arise to you from the connexion, which, equally, of course, for her advantage as for yours, I am desirous of establishing between you. " I need not tell you, cousin Stephen, who, by the blessing of a gracious Saviour upon your worthy endeavours, have already been able, in a little way, to see what law is — I need not, I say, point out to you, at any great length, how much there must of necessity be to do in the management of an estate and of funds which bring in a net income somewhat exceeding fourteen thousand pounds per annum. Now I learn, from my excellent friend, Mrs. Mowbray, that her husband transacted the whole of this business himself: an example which, I need not remark it is impossible for his widow and sole legatee to follow. She is quite aware of this, and by a merciful dispensation of the Most High, her mind appears to be singularly ductile, and liable to receive such impressions as a pious and attentive friend is able to enforce on all points. In addition to this great and heavy charge which it has pleased an all-wise God, doubtless for His own good purposes, to lay upon her, she also has the entire management, as legal and sole guardian of a young Irish heiress, of another prodigiously fine property, consisting, like her own, partly of money in the English funds, and partly in houses and lands in the northern part of Ireland. The business con- nected with the Torrington property is, therefore, at this moment, as well as everything else concerning the widow Mowbray's affairs, completely without any agent whatever; and I am not without hopes, cousin Stephen, that by the blessing of God to us-ward, I may be enabled to obtain the same for you. I know the pious habits of your mind, cousin, and that you, like myself, ne\er see any remarkable occurrence, without clearly tracing therein the immediate finger of God. I confess that, throughout the whole of Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 287 this affair — the sudden death of the owner of this noble fortune : the singular will be left, by which it has all become wholly and solely at the disposal of his excellent widow ; the hasty, and not over-wise determination to renounce the executorship, on the part of this petulant Sir Gilbert Harrington ; the accident, or rather series of accidents, by which I have become, at once and so unexpectedly, the chief stay, support, comfort, consolation, and ad\iser of this amiable but very helpless lady ; — through the whole of this I cannot, I say, but observe the gracious providence of my Lord, who wills that I should obtain power and mastery even over the things of this world, worthless though they be, cousin Stephen, when set in comparison with those of the world to come. It is my clear perception of the will of God in this matter, which renders me willing, yea, ardent in my desire, to obtain influence over the Mowbray family. They are not all, however, equally amenable to the wholesome guidance I would afford them ; it is evident to me that the youngest child is the only one in whom the Lord is at present disposed to pour forth a saving hght. Nevertheless, I will persevere. Peradventure the hearts of the disobedient may, in the end, be turned to the wisdom of the just ; and we know right well who it is that can save from all danger, even though a man went to sea without art ; a tempting of Providence which would, in my case, be most criminal ; for great in that respect has been the mercy of the Lord to His servant, giving unto me that light which is needful to guide us through the rocks and shoals for ever scattered amidst worldly affairs. " Thus much have I written to you, cousin Stephen, with my own hand, that you might fully comprehend the work that lies before us. But I will not with pen and ink write more unto you, for I trust I shall shortly see you, and we shall speak face to face. I am now and ever, cousin Stephen, " Your loving kinsman and Christian friend, "William Jacob Cartwright. " P.S. — Since writing the above, the widow Mowbray has be- sought me to instruct the gentleman acting as her agent to obtain lodgings for her, in a convenient quarter of the town ; and therefore this letter will precede her. Nor can she be, indeed, set forth until you inform her whereunto her equipage must be instructed to drive. Remember, cousin, that the apartments be suitable ; and in choosing them, recollect that it is neither you nor I who will pay for the same. Farewell. If I mistake not, the mercy of the Lord overshadows you, cousin." 288 Fraser's Magazine This is a very clever piece of writing (for we are not going to question at all the undeniable talent of the authoress of the Vicar of Wrexhill), and there is little in the whole passage to cause any outrageous disgust in the mind of any reader. The blasphemy of the vicar is of the simple kind here ; not a compound hypocrisy, such as he displays in his prayers with Miss Fanny, when he contrives, in addressing the Deity, to make most passionate and licentious avowals to the young girl. These prayers we shall not make it our business to transplant into our columns ; it would be a pity to take them from the congenial soil in which they grow. But it is a gross and monstrous libel on the part of the authoress, who might, if she chose, describe one hypocrite of evangelical Christians, to make them all liars and hypocrites. She does not introduce an evangelical dinner into her book, but it is a scene of drunkenness and debauchery ; not an evangelical vicar, but it is a display of licentiousness, overt and covert, such as no woman ever conceived before. This Mr. Corbold is as great a rogue as his cousin. Mrs. Mowbray arrives in town — more paw-paw work between her and the vicar. She transacts her business, and returns to the country with her solicitor in the carriage ; her daughter sitting beside that gentleman, who occupied what is vulgarly called the place of bodkin. " 'You will sit in the middle, Helen,' said Mrs. Mowbray. " ' I wish, mamma, you would let me sit in the dickey,' replied the young lady, looking up, as she spoke, to the very comfortable and unoccupied seat in the front of the carriage, which, but for Mrs. Mowbray's respectful religious scruples, might certainly have accommodated Mr. Corbold and his bag perfectly well. " I should like it so much better, mamma.' " ' Let me sit in the middle, I entreat,' cried Mr. Corbold, entering the carriage in haste, to prevent further discussion. ' My dear young lady,' he continued, placing his person in the least graceful of all imaginable attitudes, ' my dear young lady, I beseech you ' " ' Go into the corner, Helen ! ' said Mrs. Mowbray, hastily, wishing to put so exemplary a Christian more at his ease, and without thinking it necessary to answer the insidious petition of her daughter, which, as she thought, plainly pointed at the exclusion of the righteous attorney. " Helen ventured not to repeat it, and the carriage drove off. For the first mile Mr. Stephen Corbold sat, or rather perched himself, at the extremest edge of the seat, his hat between his THE COSTUME OF " JEUNE FRANCE" (June, 1833). french costume : old and new school. [See page 35. Our Batch of Novels for Clifistinas, 1837 289 knees, and every muscle that ought to have been at rest in active exercise, to prevent his falling forward on his nose, every feature, meanwhile, seeming to say, 'This is not my carriage.' But by gentle degrees, he slid further and further backwards, till his spare person was not only in the enjoyment of ease, but of great happi- ness also. "Helen, as her mother observed, was 'very slight'; and Mr. Corbold began almost to fancy that she would at last vanish into thin air ; for, as he quietly advanced, so did she quietly retreat, till she certainly did appear to shrink into a very small compass indeed. * * « * » On the journey to London Mrs. Mowbray had not thought it necessary to stop for dinner on the road, both she and Helen preferring to take a sandwich in the carriage ; but from the fear of infringing any of the duties of that hospitality which she now held in such high veneration, she arranged matters differently ; and learning, upon consulting her footman, that an excellent house was situated between London and Wrexhill, she not only determined upon stopping there, but directed the man to send forward a note, ordering an early dinner to be ready for them. " This halt was an agreeable surprise to Mr. Stephen Corbold. It was, indeed, an arrangement such as those of his peculiar sect are generally found to approve ; for it is a remarkable fact, easily ascertained by those who will give themselves the trouble of inquiry, that the serious Christians of the present age indulge themselves bodily, whenever the power of doing so comes in their way, exactly in proportion to the privations and mortifications with which they torment the spirits ; so that, while a young sinner would fly from an untasted glass of claret, that he might not lose the prologue to a new play, a young saint would sip up half-a- dozen (if he could get them) while descanting on the grievous pains of hell which the pursuit of pleasure would for ever bring. " The repast, and even the wine, did honour to the recommenda- tion of the careful and experienced Thomas ; and Mrs. Mowbray had the sincere satisfaction of seeing Mr. Corbold ("le pauvre homme ! ") eat half a pound of salmon, one-third of a leg of lamb, and three-quarters of a large pigeon-pie, with a degree of relish that proved to her that she was very right to ' stop for dinner." " Nothing can show gratitude for such little attentions as these, so pleasantly and so effectually as taking full advantage of them. Mr. Corbold, indeed, carried this feeling so far, that, even after 290 Fi-aser's Magazine the two ladies had left the room, he stepped back, and pretty nearly emptied the two decanters of wine before he rejoined them. " The latter part of the journey produced a very disagreeable scene ; which, though it ended, as Helen thought at the time, most delightfully for her, was productive in its consequences of many a bitter heartache. It is probable that the good cheer at D , together with the final libation that washed it down, conveyed more than ordinary animation to the animal spirits of the attorney ; for some miles he discoursed with more than his usual unction about the sins of the sinful, the holiness of the holy, till poor dear Mrs. Mowbray, in spite of her vehement struggles to keep her eyes open, fell asleep. " No sooner was Mr. Stephen Corbold fully aware of this fact, than he began making some very tender speeches to Helen. For some time, her only reply was expressed by thrusting her head still further out of the side-window. But this did not avail her long. As if to intimate to her that a person, whose attention could not be obtained through the medium of the ears, must be roused from her apathy by the touch, he took her hand. " Upon this she turned, as suddenly as if an adder had stung her ; and turning her eyes beaming with rage and indignation upon him, said : " ' If you venture, sir, to repeat this insult, I will call to the postilions to stop, and tell the footman instantly co take you out of the carriage.' " He returned her glance, however, rather with passion than repentance ; and, audaciously putting his arm round her waist, drew her towards him, while he whispered in her ear, 'What would your dear, good mamma say to this ? ' " Had he possessed the cunning of Mephistopheles, he could not have uttered words more calculated to unnerve her. The terrible conviction that her mother might justify, excuse, or, at any rate, pardon the action, came upon her heart like ice, and burying her face in her hands, she burst into tears. " Had Mr. Stephen Corbold been a wise man, he would have ceased his persecution ; he saw that she was humbled to the dust by the reference he had so skilfully made to her mother ; and, perhaps, had he emptied only one decanter, he might have decided that it would be desirable to leave her in that state of mind. But, as it was, he had the very exceeding audacity, Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 291 Once more to put his arm round her, and by a sudden and most unexpected movement, impressed a kiss upon her cheek. " Helen uttered a piercing shriek, and Mrs. Mowbray, opening her eyes, demanded in a voice of alarm, ' What is the matter ?' " Mr. Corbold sat profoundly silent, but Helen answered, in great agitation, ' I can sit in the carriage no longer, mamma, unless you turn out this man.' " ' Oh ! Helen, Helen ! what can you mean by using such language?' answered her mother. 'It is pride, I know; abominable pride ! — I have seen it from the very first ; which leads you to treat this excellent man as you do. Do you forget that he is the relation, as well as the friend, of our minister ? Fie upon it, Helen ! you must bring down this haughty spirit to some- thing more approaching to meek Christian humility, or you and I shall never be able to live together.' " Now, this scene is as improbable as it is rankly indecent. A young girl assaulted at her mother's side, and the mother (a lady of high birth and breeding) quite callous to the insult, — an artful scoundrel of an attorney, who has before him the prospect of a business which is to make his fortune, and who would naturally wear his very best behaviour, drunk on the very first opportunity, and insulting the daughter of the person on whom all his success in life depends ! Such clever rogues as Mrs. Trollope's evangehcal hypocrites would surely be a little more careful in their hypocrisy, and not forget the main chance for all the kisses of all the Miss Mowbrays in the world. The lady returns to Mowbray Hall ; marries the vicar, as we have said ; and the remainder of the novel details his doings under his new accession of riches. There is a capital burlesque of a serious fancy-fair, and a Jew-Missionary to Wabheboo ; which exhibits a most unwomanlike genius for slang and drollery. And there are scenes with the ladies of the village, and descriptions of the vicar's manner of spiritual consolation, which, if they had been written by Fielding or Louvet, could scarcely be less unscrupulously filthy. Of course, Mrs. Cartwright makes a will, at the instigation of her demon of a husband, leaving away her property from her children. Of course, too, stricken by repentance, she manages secretly to prepare another. She dies, and it may be imagined how virtue is at length rewarded — how the young Mowbrays marry the respective lads or girls of their heart — and how the fiendish vicar slinks away from Mowbray Hall, 292 Fraser's Magazine which henceforth becomes the abode of happiness, virtue, and the real orthodox religion of the Church by law established. There can be httle doubt as to the cleverness of this novel, but, coming from a woman's pen, it is most odiously and disgustingly indecent. As a party attack, it is an entire failure ; and as a representation of a very large portion of English Christians a shameful and wicked slander. BuLWER's "Ernest Mai.travers." ' To talk of Ernest Maltravers now is to rake up a dead man's ashes. The poor creature came into the world almost still-born, and though he has hardly been before the public for a month, is forgotten as much as Rienzi or the Disowtted. What a pity that Mr. Bulwer will not learn wisdom with age, and confine his atten- tion to subjects at once more grateful to the public and more suitable to his own powers ! He excels in the genre of Paul de Kock, and is always striving after the style of Plato ; he has a keen perception of the ridiculous, and, like Listen or Cruikshank, and other artists, persists that his real vein is the sublime. What a number of sparkling magazine-papers, what an outpouring of fun and satire might we have had, from Neddy Bulwer, had he not thought fit to turn moralist, metaphysician, politician, poet, and be Edward Heaven-knows-what Bulwer, Esquire and M.P., a dandy, a philosopher, a spouter at Radical meetings. We speak feelingly, for we knew the youth at Trinity Hall, and have a tenderness even for his tom-fooleries. He has thrown away the better part of himself — his great inclination for the LOW, namely; if he would but leave off scents for his handkerchief, and oil for his hair ; if he would but confine himself to three clean shirts a week, a couple of coats in a year, a beef-steak and onions for dinner, his beaker a pewter-pot, his carpet a sanded floor, how much might be made of him even yet ! An occasional pot of porter too much, — a black eye in a tap-room fight with a carman — a night in the watch-house — or a surfeit produced by Welsh rarebit and gin and beer, might, perhaps, redden his fair face and swell his slim waist ; but the mental improvement which he would acquire under such treatment — the intellectual pluck and vigour which he would attain by the stout diet — the manly sports and conversation in which he would join at the Coal-Hole, or the Widow's, are far better for him than ' Ernest Maltravers. By the author of " Pelham," "Eugene Aram," " Rienzi," etc. 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1837, Saunders. Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 293 the feeble fribble at the Reform Club (not inaptly called the ""Hole in the \^all"), the windy French dinners, which, as we take it, are his usual fare ; and above all, the unwholesome Radical garbage which forms the political food of himself and his clique in the House of Commons. For here is the evil of his present artificial courses — the humbug required to keep up his position as dandy, politician, and philosopher (in neither of which latter characters the man is in earnest), must get into his heart at last ; and then his trade is ruined. A little more politics and Plato, and the natural disappears altogether from Mr. Bulwer's writings ; the individual man becomes as indistinguishable amidst the farrago of philosophy in which he has chosen to envelop himself, as a cutlet in the sauces of a French cook. The idiosyncrasy of the mutton perishes under the effects of the adjuncts ; even so the moralising, which may be compared to the mushrooms, of Mr. Bulwer's style ; the poetising, which may be likened unto the flatulent turnips and carrots ; and the politics, which are as the gravy, reeking of filthy garlic, and greasy with rancid oil ; — even so, we say, pursuing this savoury simile to its fullest extent, the natural qualities of young Pelham — the whole- some and juicy rAutto7i of the mind, is shrunk and stewed away. Or, to continue this charming vein of parable, the author of Pelham may be likened unto Beau Tibbs. Tibbs, as we all remember, would pass for a pink of fashion, and had a wife whom he presented to the world as a paragon of virtue and ton, and who was but the cast-off mistress of a lord. Mr. Bulwer's philosophy is his Mrs. Tibbs ; he thrusts her forward into the company of her betters, as if her rank and reputation never admitted of a question. To all his literary undertakings this goddess of his accompanies him ; and what a cracked, battered, trull she is ! with a person and morals which would suit Vinegar Yard, and a chastity that would be hooted in Drury Lane. The morality which Mr. Bulwer has acquired in his researches, political and metaphysical, is of the most extraordinary nature. For one who is always preaching of Truth of Beauty, the dulness of his moral sense is perfectly ludicrous. He cannot see that the hero into whose mouth he places his favourite metaphysical gabble — his disserta- tions upon the stars, the passions, the Greek plays, and what not — his eternal whine about what he calls the good and the beautiful, is a fellow as mean and paltry as can be imagined ; a man of rant and not of action, foolishly infirm in purposes and strong only in desire ; whose beautiful is a tawdry strumpet, and whose good 294 Eraser's Magazine would be crime in the eyes of an honest man. So much for the portrait of Ernest Maltravers ; as for the artist, we cannot conceive a man to have failed more completely. He wishes to paint an amiable man, and he succeeds in drawing a scoundrel : he says he will give us the likeness of a genius, and it is only the picture of a humbug. Ernest Maltravers is an eccentric and enthusiastic young man, to whom we are introduced on his return from a German university. Fond of wild adventure and solitary rambles, we find him upon a heath, wandering alone, tired, and benighted. The two first chapters are in Mr. Bulwer's very best manner : the description of the lone hut to which the lad comes — the ruffian who inhabits it — the designs which he has upon the life of his new guest, and the manner in which his daughter defeats them, are told with admirable liveliness and effect. The young man escapes, and with him the girl who had prevented his murder. Both are young, interesting, and tender-hearted ; she loves but him, and would die of starvation without him. Ernest Maltravers cannot resist the claim of so unprotected a creature ; he hires a cottage for her, and a writing- master. He is a young man of genius and generous dispositions ; he is an excellent Christian, and instructs the ignorant Alice in the awful truths of his religion ; moreover, he is deep in poetry, philosophy, and the German metaphysics. How should such a Christian instruct an innocent and beautiful child, his pupil ? Why, seduce her, to be sure ! After a deal of namby-pamby Platonism, the girl, as Mr. Bulwer says, " goes to the deuce." The expression is as charming as the morality, and appears amidst a quantity of the very finest writing about the good and the beautiful, youth, love, passion, nature, and so forth. It is curious how rapidly one turns from good to bad in this book. How clever the descriptions are ! how neatly some of the minor events and personages are hit off ! and yet how astonish- ingly vile and contemptible the chief part of it is ■ that part, we mean, which contains the adventures of the hero, and, of course, the choicest reflections of the author. The declamations about virtue are endless, so soon as Maltravers appears upon the scene ; and yet we find him committing the agreeable little faux pas of which we have just spoken. In one place, we have him making violent love to another man's wife ; in another place, raging for blood like a tiger, and swearing his revenge. Let us listen to a little of his prate : — "'And you, Mr. Maltravers,' said Lady Florence, turning quickly Our Batch of Novels for Clifistmas, 1837 295 round, 'you — have friends ? Do you feel that there are, I do not say public, but private affections and duties, for which life is made less a possession than a trust ? ' " ' Lady Florence, no. I have friends, it is true ; and Cleveland is of the nearest ; but the life within life — the second self, in whom we vest the right and mastery over our own being — I know it not. But is it,' he added, after a pause, ' a rare privation ? Perhaps it is a happy one. I have learnt to lean on my own soul, and not look elsewhere for the reeds that a wind can break.' " ' Ah, it is a cold philosophy ! You may reconcile yourself to its wisdom in the world, in the hum and shock of men ; but in solitude, with nature, ah, no ! While the mind alone is occupied, you may be contented with the pride of stoicism ; but there are moments when the heart wakens as from a sleep — wakens like a frightened child, to fe°l itself alone and in the dark.' " Ernest was silent, and Florence continued, in an altered tone, ' This is a strange conversation, and you must indeed think me a wild romance-reading person, as the world is apt to call me. But if I live, I — pshaw ! life denies ambition to women ! ' " ' If a woman like you. Lady Florence, should ever love, it will be one in whose career you may perhaps find that noblest of all am- bitions — the ambition women only feel — the ambition for another ! ' " ' Ah, but I shall never love,' said Lady Florence ; and her cheek grew pale as the starlight shone on it.' ' Still, perhaps, she added quickly, ' I may at least know the blessing of friendship. Why, now ' — and here, approaching Maltravers, she laid her hand with a winning frankness on his arm, — ' why, now, should not we be to each other, as if love, as you call it, were not a thing for earth, and friendship supplied its place ? There is no danger of our falling in love with each other ; you are not vain enough to expect it in me ; and I, you know, am a coquette. Let us be friends, confidants — at least, till you marry, or 1 give another the right to control my friendship and monopolise my secrets.' " Maltravers was startled ; the sentiments Florence addressed to him, he, in words not dissimilar, had once addressed to Valerie. " ' The world,' said he, kissing the hand that yet lay on his arm, ' the world will ' " ' Oh, you men ! — the world the world ! Everything gentle, everything pure, everything noble, high-wrought, and holy, is to be squared, cribbed, and maimed to the rule and measure of the world ! The world ! are you, too, its slave ? Do you not despise its hollow cant — its methodical hypocrisy ? ' 296 Ffaser's Magazine " ' Heartily ! ' said Ernest Maltravers, almost with fierceness. ' No man ever so scorned its false gods, and its miserable creeds — its war upon the weak — its fawning upon the great — its ingratitude to benefactors — its sordid league with mediocrity against excellence. Yes, in proportion as I love mankind, I despise and detest that worse than Venetian oligarchy which mankind set over them, and caU"the world."' " And then it was, warmed by the excitement of released feelings, long and carefully shrouded, that this man, ordinarily so calm and self-possessed, poured burningly and passionately forth all those tumultuous and almost tremendous thoughts, which, however much we may regulate, control, or disguise them, are deep within the souls of all of us, the seeds of the eternal war between the natural man and the artificial ; between our wilder genius and our social conventionalities ; — thoughts that from time to time break forth into the harbingers of vain and fruitless revolutions, impotent struggles against destiny ; — thoughts that good and wise men would be slow to promulge and propagate, for they are of a fire which burns as well as brightens, and which spreads from heart to heart as a spark spreads amidst flax ; thoughts which are rifest when natures are most high, but belong to truths that virtue dare not tall aloud. And as Maltravers spoke, his eyes flashing almost intolerable light, his breast heaving, his form dilated, never to the eyes of Florence Lascelles did he seem so great ; the chains that bound the strong limbs of his spirit seemed snapped asunder, and all his soul was visible and towering, as a thing that has escaped slavery, and lifts its crest to heaven and feels that it is free. " That evening saw a new bond of alliance between these two persons ; young, handsome, and of opposite sexes, they agreed to be friends, and nothing more. Fools ! " This is one among the many expositions of Mr. Bulwer's philosophy. It is curious and painful to read it, and to mark the easy vanity with which virtue is assumed here, self-knowledge arrogated, and a number of windy sentences, which really possess no meaning, are gravely deBvered with all the emphasis of truth and the air of profound conviction. " I have learned," cries our precious philosopher, " to lean on my own soul, and not look elsewhere for the reeds that a wind can break 1" And what has he learned by leaning on his own soul? Is it to be happier than others? or to be better? Not he ! — he is as wretched and wicked a dog as any unhung. He " leans on his own soul," and makes love to the Countess, and seduces Alice Ouf Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 297 Darvill. A ploughboy is a better philosopher and moralist than this mouthing Mallravers, with his boasted love of mankind (which reduces itself to a very coarse love of womankind) and his scorn of "the falsa gods and miserable creeds" of the world, and his "soul lifting its crest to heaven ! " A Catholic whipping himself before a stone image, a Brahmin dangling on a hook, or standing on one leg for a year, has a higher notion of God than this ranting fool, who is always prating about his own perfections and his divine nature; the _ one is humble, at least, though blind; the other is proud of his very imperfections, and glories in his folly. What does this creature know of virtue, who finds it 6y leaning on his own soul, forsooth ? What does he know of God, who, in looking for Him, can see but himself, steeped in sin, bloated and swollen with monstrous pride, and strutting before the world and the Creator, as a maker of systems, a layer down of morals, and a preacher of beauty and truth ? Now let us give an extract which exhibits Mr. Bulwer in a more favourable light. We beg his pardon for insisting upon the point, that his attempts at the sublime are chiefly ridiculous, and that his forte lies in the humorous and the sarcastic. Here is a ball at Naples : "And there sat Madame de St. Ventadour, a little apart from the dancers, with the silent English dandy. Lord Taunton, ex- quisitely dressed, and superbly tall, bolt upright behind her chair ; and the sentimental German, Baron von Schomberg, covered with orders, whiskered and wigged to the last hair of perfection, sighing at her left hand ; and the French minister, shrewd, bland, and eloquent, at her right ; and round, on all sides pressed and bowed and complimented, a crowd of diplomatic secretaries, and Italian princes, whose bank is at the gaming table, whose estates are in their galleries, and who sell a picture, as English gentlemen cut down a wood, whenever the cards grow gloomy. The charming St. Ventadour ! she had attraction for them all ; smiles for the silent, badinage for the gay, politics for the Frenchman, poetry for the German, the eloquence of loveliness for all. ***** "'Pray, was Madame in the Strada Nuova, to-day?' asked the German, with as much sweetness in his voice as if he had been vowing eternal love. " ' What else have we to do with our morning, we women ? ' replied Madame de Saint Ventadour. ' Our life is a lounge from the cradle to the grave, and our afternoons are but the type of our 298 Ffaser's Magazine career. A promenade and a crowd — voild tout. We never see the world except in open carriages.' " ' It is the pleasantest way of seeing it,' remarked the French- man, drily. "^J'en doutej the worst fatigue is that which comes without exercise.' "'Will you do me the honour to waltz?' said the tall English lord, who had a vague idea that Madame de Saint Ventadour meant she would rather dance than sit still. " The Frenchman smiled. " ' Lord Taunton enforces your own philosophy,' said the minister, " Lord Taunton smiled, because everybody else smiled ; and besides, he had beautiful teeth ; but he looked anxious for an answer. " ' Not to-night, my lord : I seldom dance. Who is that very pretty woman ? What lovely complexions the English have ! And who,' continued Madame de Saint Ventadour, without waiting for an answer to her first question, ' who is that gentleman — the young one, I mean — leaning against the door?' "'What, with the dark moustache?' said Lord Taunton; 'a cousin of mine.' " ' Oh, the tall Englishman with the bright eyes and high fore- head,' said the French minister : 'he is just arrived from the East, 1 believe.' " ' It is a striking countenance,' said Madame de Saint Ventadour ; ' there is something chivalrous in the turn of the head. Without doubt, Lord Taunton, he is noble ? ' " ' He is what you call 'noble,' replied Lord Taunton, — 'that is, what we call a ' gentleman.' His name is Maltravers — Mr. Maltravers. He lately came of age, and has, I believe, rather a good property.' "' Monsieur Maltravers, only Monsieur!' repeated Madame de Saint Ventadour. " ' Why,' said the French minister, ' you understand that the English "■ gentilhomnte' does not require a De, or a title, to distinguish him from the rotiirier! " ' I know that ; but he has an air above the simple gentilhomme. There is something great in his look ; but it is not, I must own, the conventional greatness of rank ; perhaps he would have looked as well had he been born a peasant.' " ' You don't think him handsome ? ' said Lord Taunton, almost angrily — for he was one of the beauty men, and beauty men are sometimes jealous. Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 299 " ' Handsome ! I did not say that,' replied Madame de Saint Ventadour ; ' it is rather a fine head than a handsome face. Is he clever, I wonder? But all you English, my lord, are well-educated.' " ' Yes, profound — profound ; not superficial,' replied Taunton, drawing down his wristbands." This is very neat and good ; the individualities are admirably touched of}', in that light, pleasant way which Mr. Bulwer has. The French woman, the lord, and the German baron are each sketched with great fidelity and esprit. But Maltravers comes on the scene, and our pleasure disappears as he incontinently begins to spout. It is as if Watteau should try to paint in the style of Michael Angelo. The hand which touched so prettily those sparkling little society pieces only can make a pert caricature of the sublime — such as is our friend Maltravers. He appears at the point when our extract concludes, and at once begins sentimentalising. " Sensitive minds — lethargy of society — women of genius — nervous system of genius." Bah ! Does Mr. Bulwer, who believes himself to be an eminent French scholar, know the meaning of that elegant word BLAGUE ? It was made to represent the conversation of Mr. Ernest Maltravers. ***** " And where was the German baron ? flirting at the other end of the room. And the English lord ? dropping monosyllables to dandies by the doorway. And the minor satellites? dancing, whispering, making love, or sipping lemonade. And Madame de Ventadour was alone with the young stranger, and their lips spoke of sentiment, and their eyes invoboitarily applied it ! "While they were thus conversing, Maltravers was suddenly startled, by hearing close behind him a sharp, significant voice, saying in French, ' Hein ! Rein ! I've my suspicions ! I've my suspicions ! ' " Madame de St. Ventadour looked round with a smile. ' It is only my husband,' said she quietly ; ' let me introciuce you to him.' " Maltravers rose, and bowed to a little, thin, man, with an immense pair of spectacles on a long, sharp nose. "'Charmed to make your acquaintance, sir,' said M. de St. Ventadour. ' Have ycu been long in Naples? Beautiful weather, — won't last long — hein, hein, I've my suspicions. No news as to your parliament ? Bad opera in London this year : hein, hein, I've my suspicions.'" This character is excellently drawn ; how much better than '■'■their lips spoke of sentiment, and their eyes applied it" ! 3°° Ffaser's Magazine How soon these pKilosophe'rs begin ogling ! how charmingly their unceasing gabble about beauty and virtue is exemplified in their actions ! Mr. Bulwer's philosophy is like a French palace, — it is tawdry, showy, splendid ; but, Gare aux nez sensibles ! one is always reminded of the sewer. " Their lips spoke sentirrient, and their eyes applied it." O you naughty, naughty Mr. Bulwer ! Landon's "Ethel Churchill."' " It was a lovely day,-^for say what they will England does see the sunshine sometimes.' Indeed, I think that our climate is an injured angel : has it not the charm of change, and what charm can be greater ? That morning the change was a deep blue sky, with a few large clouds floating over it ; a sun which turned the distant horizon into a golden haze, and a soft west wind that seemed only sent to bring the sound of the French horns in the boat that followed their own. As they passed along Chelsea Reach, the bells of the church were ringing merrily. '"Why, that is a wedding peal!' cried the Duke of Wharton, 'and it puts me in mind that Miss Pelham and Sir John Shelley are just going to enter the holy and blessed state.' "'Yes,' replied Lady Mary, 'and I never knew a marriage with a greater prospect of happiness, — she will be a widow in si.K weeks ! ' " ' Well,' said Lady Marchmont, ' you carry your connubial theory even further' than in your last ballad : — ' My power is passed like a dream, ' And I have discovered too late, ' That whatever a lover may seem, ' A husband is what we must hate ! ' "Lady Mary smiled very graciously. She almost forgave Henrietta for looking so well ; to have one's own verses learned by heart, and gracefully quoted, is more than poetical nature can resist. " ' For my part,' continued the Duke of Wharton, ' I hold that the connubial system of this country is a complete mistake. The only happy marriages I ever heard of are those in some Eastern ' Ethel Churchill; or The Two Brides. By the author of "The Ira- provvisatrice," " Francesca Carrara," etc. etc. In 3 vols. Hemry Colburn. London, 1837. Our Batch of Novels for Cliwstmas, 1837 301 story I once read, where the king marries a new wife every night, and cuts off her head in the morning.' " ' It would suit your grace, at all events,' replied Lady Mary, ' you who are famed for being to one thing constant never.' "'Well,' exclaimed Lord Harvey, who had appeared to be absorbed in watching his own shadow in the water, ' I do not think it such a dreadful thing to be married. It is a protection, at all events. ' Thou who so many favours hast received, Wondrous to tell, and hard to be believed !' cried Lady Mary ; ' and so, like the culprits of old, you are forced to take refuge from your pursuers, at the altar.' " ' For pity's sake,' ejaculated the duke, ' do let us talk of some less disagreeable subject.' " ' Fie, your grace ! ' exclaimed Lady Mary : ' disagreeable subject ! Lord Harvey was only, as usual, talking of himself.' " The whole party were silent for some minutes. After all, wit is something like sunshine in a frost, very sharp, and very bright, but very cold and uncomfortable. The silence was broken by Lady Marchmont exclaiming, — ' How fine the old trees are ! There is something in the deep shadow that they fling upon the water that reminds me of home.' "'I am not sure,' answered the duke, 'that I like to be reminded of anything. Let me exist intensely in the present — the past and future should be omitted from my life by express desire.' " ' What an insipid existence ! ' replied Henrietta ; ' no hopes and no fears.' " ' Ah ! forgive me,' whispered Wharton, 'if the present moment appear to me a world in itself.' "'I,' said Lord Harvey, 'do not dislike, past, present, nor future. Like woman, they have all behaved very well to me. The past has given me a great deal of pleasure ; the present is with you ; and as to the future, such is the force of example, that I doubt not it will do by me as its predecessors have done.' " ' Truly,' cried Lady Mary, ' the last new comedy that I saw in Paris, must have modelled its hero from you ; let me recommend you to adopt two of its lines as your motto, — 'J'ai I'esprit parfait— du moins je le crois ; Et je rends grace au Dieu de m'avoir cred— moi 1' "'It is very flattering to be so appreciated,' answered Lord Harvey, with the most perfect nonchalance. 3° 2 Ffaser's Magazine " ' What an affecting thing,' said Lady Mary, ' was the death of Lord Carleton ! He died as he lived, holding one fair hand of the Duchess of Queensberry ; who with the other was feeding him with chicken. What an example he gave to his sex ! He was equally liberal with his diamonds and his affections.' " ' L'un vaut bien I'autre,' said Lady Marchmont. " ' I shall set off for Golconda to-morrow,' cried Wharton. " ' Don't ! ' interrupted Lady Mary ; ' it would be too mortifying, when you came back, to find how little we had missed you.' " ' Oh, you would miss me,' returned he laughing, ' precisely because you ought not. I hope that you have heard the proposed alteration in the commandments at the last political meeting at Houghton ? Hanbury suggested that the " not " should in future be omitted ; but Doddington objected, as people might leave off doing wrong if it became a duty. At all events, they would not steal, covet, and bear false witness against their neighbour with half the relish that they do at present.' " ' Ah,' replied Lady Mary, ' we make laws, but we follow customs. By the first we cut off our own pleasures, and by the second make ourselves answerable for the follies of others.' " ' Well, Lady Mary,' replied Wharton, ' we have now arrived where you, and you only, give the laws, — yonder is our poet's residence.' " The boat drew to the side, and the gay party stepped upon the bank. ***** " Pope did the honours of his garden, but few flowers lingered in it ; these Pope gathered, and offered to his fair guests. Lady Marchmont placed hers carefully in her girdle. ' I shall keep even the withered leaves as a relic,' said she, with a smile even more flattering than her words. It was well that she engrossed the attention of her host from the dialogue going on between Lord Harvey and Lady Mary. " ' You learned the language of flowers in the east,' said he, ' but I thought only dwarfs were the messengers.' " ' And such they are now,' replied his listener ; ' here is one flower for you. The rest the gods disperse on empty air,' and she flung the blossoms carelessly from her. " Pope did not see the action, for he was pointing out a beautiful break in the view. ' I have,' said he, ' long had a favourite project ^that of planting an old Gothic cathedral in trees. Tall poplars with their white stems, the lower branches cut away, would serve Our Batch of Novels for Christmas, 1837 303 for the pillars ; while different heights would form the aisles. The thick green boughs would shed " a dim religious light," and some stately old tree would have a fine effect as the tower.' " ' A charming idea ! ' cried Wharton, ' and we all know "That sweet saint whose name the shrine would bear." But, while we are waiting for the temple, cannot you show us the altar ? We want to see your grotto ? ' " Pope desired nothing better than to shew his new toy, and led the way to the pretty and fanciful cave, which was but just finished. It was duly admired ; but, while looking around, Wharton observed some verses lying on the seat. "'A treasure for the public good,' exclaimed he ; ' I volunteer reading them aloud.' " ' Nay, nay, that is very unfair,' cried Pope ; who, nevertheless, did not secretly dislike the proposal. " ' Oh,' replied the duke, ' we all allow for your modesty's " sweet, reluctant, amorous delay'' ; but read them I must, and shall.' Then, turning towards Lady Mary, he read the following lines : — ' Ah, friend, 'tis true — this truth you lovers know, In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow ; In vain fair Thames reflects the double scene Of hanging woodlands ; and of sloping green ; Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies, And only lives where Wortley casts her eyes.' " ' Pray, fair inspirer of the tender " strains,'' let me lay the offering at your feet.' " ' Under them, if you please,' said she, her fine features ex- pressing the most utter contempt ; and trampling the luckless compliment in the dust, she took Lord Harvey's hand, exclaiming, ' The atmosphere of this place is too oppressive for me,' left the grotto ; but part of her whisper to her companion was meant to be audible, — ' A sign-post likeness of the human race, That is at once resemblance and disgrace.' " The above extract is from Miss Landon's charming novel Ethel Churchill. The reader will pardon the length of the quotation ; for we mistake if there is anything in modern English literature more sparkling or beautiful. But we are not going to praise Miss Landon's novel, for the very reason which has made us cry out against Mr. Bulwer ; it is not w.itten in a healthy and honest tone 3 '54 Frase/s Magazine of sentiment ; there is a vast deal too much tenderness and love- making, heart-breaking and repining, for persons in this every-day world, — persons who, like ourselves, have to pay butchers' bills for twelve children, and have buried (without shedding a tear) our third wife thirty-seven years ago. Love is as good a material in novels, as a sweetmeat at dinner ; but a repast of damson cheese is sickly for the stomach, and a thousand consecutive pages of sentiment are neither pleasant nor wholesome. All the heroes and heroines in this book are either consumptive or crossed in love. There is one who marries a man for whom she cares nothing, and loves a man who cares nothing for her. Her husband disco\'ers her attachment, and she her lover's treason, at one and the same time. My Lady Marchmont gives them both poison, and then goes mad. There is another case, where the husband marries against the grain ; his wife, crooked, consumptive, but passionately fond of him, dies under the ice of his neglect. There is Ethel Churchill, who adores the gentle- man last mentioned, and a young poet who adores her. Both, of course, are hopelessly miserable ; the bard perishes from a complaint in the chest ; but Ethel, more happily, marries the widower at the end of the third volume. There are a few historical characters — Pope, Walpole, the fair Lavinia Fenton, and some others. This is the outline of Miss Landon's novel. But, though an uninteresting tale, no one can read it without admiring the astonishing qualities of the authoress. There are a hundred beautiful poems in it, and a thousand brilliant mots, which would have made the reputation of half-a-dozen French memoir-writers. The wit in it is really startling ; and there are occasional remarks which shew quite a fearful knowledge of the heart, — of that particular heart, that is to say, which beats in the bosom of Miss Landon ; for she has no idea of a dramatic character, and it is Miss Landon that speaks and feels throughout. She writes a very painful journal of misery, and depression, and despair. We do not know what private circumstances may occasion this despondency, what woes or disappointments cause Miss Landon or Mr. Bulwer to cry out concerning the miseries attendant upon genius ; but we would humbly observe that there is no reason why genius should not be as cheerful as dulness, — for it has greater capacities of enjoyment, and no greater ills to endure. It has a world of beauty and of happiness which Half-a-Cfown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge 305 is invisible to commoner clay, and can drink at a thousand sources of joy inaccessible to vulgar men. Of the ills of life, a genius has no more share than another. Hodge feels misfortune quite as keenly as Mr. Bulwer ; Polly Jones' heart is to the full as tender as Miss Landon's. Weep, then, whimper and vfeep, like our fair poetess or our sage Pelham, as if their woes were deeper than those of the rest of the world ! Oh, for a little manly, honest, God-relying, simplicity — cheerful, unaffected, and humble ! But it is dull to sermonise in magazines ; there are better books where the thing is better done, and where every genius of them all may read, and profit, too. ARTICLE 3 (March 1838) HALF'A'CROWN'S WORTH OF CHEAP KNOWLEDGE. 1. T&e Poor Man's Frieiid. Hetherington, Strand. 2. Livesey's Moral Reformer (weekly). Livesey, Preston. 3. The Wars of Europe. Pattie, Brydges Street. 4. The Penny Story-Teller, 5. The Sporting Gazette, 2d. Foster, Crane Court. 6. The Sporting World, 2d. Bollaert, Wellington Street. 7. Oliver Twiss, by Bos, id. E. Lloyd, Bloomsbury. 8. The M'eekly Magazine, ijd. 9. The Fly, 2d. Glover, Water Lane. 16. The Penny Age. Robins, Barbican. 11. The Petiny Satirist, Nos. 22, 23, 24. Cousins, Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. 12. Cleaves Penny Gazette of Variety. Wakelin, Shoe Lane. 13. London Satirist Wakelin, Shoe Lane. 14. The Star of Venus ; or Show-up Chronicle. Clark, Brydges Street. 15. The Town, 2d. Forrester, Strand. A WALK into Paternoster Row, and the judicious expenditure of half-a-crovni, put us in possession of the strange collection of periodical works of which we have given the catalogue. We know not how many more there may be of the same sort ; but at least these fifteen samples will afford us very fair opportunity for judging of this whole class of literature. It is the result of the remission of the stamp-laws, — has sprung up in the last few months or years, — and may be considered the offspring of the 20 3o6 Fraser's Magazine " March of Intellect," which we have heard SO much about ; the proof of the " intelligence of the working classes," and the consequence of the meritorious efforts of " the school-master abroad." These are the three cant terms of the Radical spouters ; any one of these, tagged to the end of any sentence, however lame, never fails to elicit a shout of approbation at White Conduit House or the Crown and Anchor. To listen to Wakley, Vincent, or O'Connor, one would imagine that the aristocracy of the country were the most ignorant and ill-educated part of its population — the House of Lords an assembly of ninnies — the Universities only seminaries where folly and vice are taught. The wisdom and honesty of the country rests with the working man, whose manly labour sharpens their intelligence, and who are educated in very different schools from those effete and effeminate jlaces of learning in which the higher classes fritter their youth and intellect away. We do not desire, however, to plunge the reader into a political dissertation as to the relative merits of aristocrats and democrats, and the question whether there really be a higher class and a lower, as persons (probably prejudiced or bribed) have feigned ; we wish to examine the case merely in a literary point of view, and ascertain, as well as we can, what are the literary tastes of the lower class, and how their intelligence, which is boasted of so often and so loudly, displays itself With the claims of the higher class we have nothing to do ; the readers of this Magazine belong (as we humbly conceive) to that class chiefly, and can judge as well as ourselves of the condition of its literature. But few of them are acquainted with works written for people of quite a different condition. Few of them, we venture to say, have even heard of most of the above periodicals, and are as ignorant of the philosophical excellence of the Poor Maris Friend as of the graceful sprightliness of the Shew-up-Chronicle. In the descriptions of society and life, as we read them in these papers, the manners of the lower classes in the country, are, of course, not represented. We can judge only here of the people in the great towns — a tremendous society moving around us, and unknown to us — a vast mass of active, stirring life, in which the upper and middling classes forai an insignificant speck, and of which we (taking for granted that WE here applies to both writer and reader) are quite ignorant and uninformed. An English gentleman knows as much about the people of Lapland or HaIf-a-Cfown*s Worth of Cheap Knowledge 3°7 California as he does of the aborigines of the Seven Dials or the natives of Wapping ; or if he ever does venture to explore these unknown districts (as some daring spirits have) — to examine the customs, the amusements, and the social condition of the inhabit- ants — he does so for an hour or two at midnight ; taking the precaution of drunkenness before he makes the attempt, and moving stealthily among those dangerous and savage men, effectually disguised — in liquor. All the curiosities that such a traveller bring back from the terra incognita are, probably, a coat from which the pockets have been ingeniously separated, or a black eyes, the parting gift of a native. For those, then, who, though eager for knowledge regarding the habits of these people, are yet unwilling to brave the dangers which must be encountered in the search, there can scarcely be a better method of acquiring science than by such books as the fifteen penny publications above inscribed. If they do not give so lively a picture as that visible to the actual observers, they give, at least, a view more general. Long months' unremitting intercourse, and considerable expenditure, are necessary for him who wishes, with his proper eyes, to behold this enormous London world (for to call that " the world " which is so registered in the Court Guide is sheer nonsense) ; by examining a heap of such papers, as these, he may know it, however, in a morning's reading. It may appear a strange affectation, n this blessed year 1838, to affect an entire ignorance of the habits of fourteen-fifteenths of the people amongst whom we live — a poor repetition of Mr. Croker's old joke, who knew not, positively, where about was Russell Square; but the fact is so. Thanks to reviewers and novelists, with the very highest classes of society we are as intimate as with our own brothers and sisters ; we know almost as well as if we had been there (as well, as to enable us to say that we have) all the manners and customs of the frequenters of Devonshire House — what great people eat at dinner — how their rooms are furnished — how they dance, and flirt, and dress ; — all this has been described and studied by every writer of fiction who has the least pretension to politeness, or the slightest claim to gentility. And who are these people, whom we study, and ape, and admire ? At the utmost, a miserable forty thousand ! Fifteen hundred thousand more are moving in the same streets, of whom we know nothing. No modern writer has given any account of them, except only the admirable " Boz." Mr. Bulwer's low life, though very amusing, is altogether fanciful. Mr. Theodore Hook has never— so exquisitely 3°8 Fraser's Magazine refined is that popular author — penetrated beyond Mecklenburgh Square. Even the habits of people in that part of the town he views with contempt ; and is obliged to soar upwards again to the higher atmospheres of fashion, in which only his delicate lungs can breathe at ease. There is not much need, luckily, that a writer should be despatched expressly from the polite world to examine the doings of the world impolite. It has a literature its own ; a dozen specimens of which are before us now, and of which we shall give a resume. One may pretty well judge, then, from these specimens, what are — in London, at least — the literary wants and tastes of the poorer classes. Since the change of the stamp-duty, the Penny Gazettes, which flooded the town with treason, have disappeared altogether. Was it the abstract political creed of these papers (Cleave's Gazette and Hetherington's Dispatch, for instance) which caused their popularity ? or was it through different means that they attained the enormous sale which they once had ? In the first place, the very defiance of the law was an excitement to the purchaser ; the price, another excitement ; and furious attacks upon the King and nobility — upon the factory-owner — upon the magistrate and the policeman — upon all who interfered with the presumed liberties, the amusements, or the pockets of the people, — filled, for the most part, the columns of these papers. It is folly to urge that what is called " Radicalism " in the country — the bugbear which Mr. Sledge- hammer Attwood threaten from Birmingham, the great popular creed of which the immaculate Mr. Wakley is the prophet and expounder — is a fixed and reasonable sentiment. With the men whom these worthies represent, the word Radicalism does not mean opinion ; it should simply be interpreted hatred. They hate the nobility, for the nobility ride in a gold coach, and themselves starve on foot ; they hate the factory-master, for he will keep all the profits to himself; — a pohceman with them is a "bloody bludgeon-man " — a kind of ogre, invented by Sir Robert Peel to swallow or imprison poor Englishmen ; and a newspaper stamp the " cursed red slave-mark," at the name of which the Radical spouter lashes himself into a fury, and the Radical audiences discover that we are the most injured and enslaved people on earth. Against Radicalism in the abstract we are not here to argue ; it may be the right creed or the wrong one — at any rate, it is supported by many able and honest men ; but, is it the belief of the country ? or of any number in it strong enough to form a body, Half-a'Crown*s Worth of Cheap Knowledge 309 which by any stretch of courtesy, may be called a party? The answer is simple : three Radical newspapers have died this year. The first, a morning paper, called the Constitutional, came out with a good deal oi prestige at the period of the repeal of the stamp-act. Some small show was made among the Radical members of Parliament, who promised to support it. For some months (after which time it fell off wofuUy in point of intelli- gence) it was as good as any other morning paper ; it was purely Radical, if any journal was. And what was the consequence ? It never had a thousand subscribers. A small paper, called the Morning Gazette, succeeded the Constitutional, and then followed it to the gtave.. Lastly fell the True Sun, by far the ablest paper of the three, ably conducted and v/ritten ; cheaper, better, and larger than any other evening paper — the Standard, of course, excepted. It was an old paper of five or six years' standing, the property of a leading Radical in the House of Commons, of acknowledged importance to the party. There were meetings concerning it, and petitions, and a deal of talk about subscriptions ; and what then? The Radical leaders would not subscribe, — not they ! Their business is only to talk, not to do. The poor True Sun sunk one Saturday evening, and lies along with its defunct brethren. May their bones lie soft ! We only have alluded to their fate (in a digression, for the length of which we trust the reader will pardon us) in order to attempt to show that pure Radicalism is not the belief of the people ; nay, that politics of any sort, except the Bloody Bludgeon-man, Bloody Red Slave-Mark, Bloody Poor- Grind- ing aristocracy, kind, have no interest for them. At least, among fifteen works published for their use we find nothing of a grave, doctrinal character, and no sort of sober discussion regarding the first principles of that creed which, as we are told, they prize so highly. In our whole catalogue of publications, it is curious that there are only two which pretend to instruct the reader — namely, the Moral Reformer, and the Poor Maris Friend. The first is not merely good in its intention, but very well executed. It appears weekly, and is written by a strong advocate of Temperance Societies, and directly addressed to the poor. The latter is a political pamphlet costing a penny, like the Reformer, but published we know not at what intervals. The number before us is especially directed to two points — the abolition of the Poor Law, and the puffing of a London paper, called the London Dispatch ; of which Dr. Beaumont, the 310 Fraser's Magazine ex-prisoner of Doulon, is the editor. Listen to the warning of the Poor Man's Friend: "What single journal is there, within the reach of the working classes, that stands up for the rights of the millions i Is there one strenuous advocate among the daily papers? Is there a sohtaiy diurnal print, morning or evening, that is not blindly linked to the interests of the present Ministry, or openly playing the game of the Tories ? Not one. What weekly news- papers are there which possess a stronger claim on the support of the mass of useful population ? There were two, the London Mercury and the London Dispatch, and the poor, unfortunately, were not able to support both. The divided favours kept these journals fluctuating between six and seven thousand each, and this number did not produce within thirty pounds a week of what each cost in production ; nay, they were in different hands, they were preying upon each other. The London Mercury cost two or three fortunes to maintain it ; and the London Dispatch cost Mr. Hetherington, the proprietor, years of labour and loss ; and while two public-spirited individuals worked incessantly for the cause in their different ways, each steadfastly maintaining the interests of the poor, they were gradually impoverishing themselves, without the prospect of reaction ; and conscious of his right to be supported, each was reluctant to give up his task, while the slightest hope remained. The consequence was, as might be expected, each sought to dispose of the wreck of his investment by disposing of the property. A third person stepped in, and purchased the Mercury unconditionally, — the London Dispatch was subsequently bought by the same individual ; and Mr. Hetherington, anxious to be useful to the millions, stipulated for the constant advocacy of his own principles, and to the last did his duty by the cause. Happily, the purchaser formed a junction of the two papers, — engaged the services of well-known and long-tried patriot. Doctor Beaumont, whose learning entitled him to the highest respect of all classes, and whose principles were tested for years in the dungeons of France, while suffering for his advocacy of the poor against the rich. Under his able guidance, with much valuable assistance, the interests of the poor are advocated in the London Dispatch and London Mercury, whose circulation among all ranks in England, and on the Continent, renders it a formidable opponent to the friends of despotism, as well as to the pretended friends of the poor." Rush, then, to your newsmen ! Hasten to the printing office ! Depend upon it, says the shoemaker to preserve the rights of Half'a-Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge 311 Englishmen, to uphold the cause of suffering poverty, there is nothing like leather. The Poor Maiis Friend, consisting of four pages, then robs a tale from the Torch, which occupies nearly two ; and, returning to the charge about the London Dispatch, again avers that the millions can never prosper without it. Lo ! and all that we have learned for one of the pennies of our half-crown is, that the Poor Man's Friend is neither more nor less than a humbug ; he is no more the poor man's friend than the gentleman in the street who inserts small printed bills into your hand is the sick man's friend ; he only works for his employer, the Radical or medical quack, as the case may be. Livesey, as we have said, is in a much better strain ; and the millions will read more wholesome lessons in these Moral Re- formers than in the pages of all the London Dispatches, from this day until the day when the Dispatch shall be no more. He tells the poor how it is good to be sober, and the rich that it is right to be charitable. And he quotes from the words of A Certain Great Philanthropist, Who lived before him, and Who taught that men might be happy even though they were loyal to Casar, and contented though they were poor. Here is a melancholy extract from this little pamphlet : — " Who can estimate the amount of unknown poverty and suffer- ing that exists at this present time among the poor, and especially among the weavers ? Indeed, no saying can be truer than this, ' One half of the world does not know how the other half lives.' Among other reports, the one printed by the Rev. J. Johns, domestic missionary, in reference to the poor of Liverpool, is truly affecting, as will be seen by the following extract : — 'Within these few months, I have seen, what, had I not seen it, I could not have imagined. I have seen life under forms which took from it all that, in my eyes, made it happy, hopeful, or even human. I have seen life under forms which made it necessary for me to rouse up all the strength of my previous reasoning and convictions, in order to convince myself that these were really fellow-beings, going through a preparatory state of discipline, which, under the eye of an all-powerful and purely benevolent Providence, was to prepare them for an eternal and exceeding weight of glory. Few could have seen the scenes which have passed under my eyes (especially during the months of the late trying winter), without feeling that the time was indeed arrived when man should go forth to the relief of his brother. Mothers, newly become such, without a garment on 3' 2 Fraser's Magazine their persons, and with infants nearly as naked, lying upon straw or shavings, under a miserable covering, without fire or food, or the means of procuring them ; children taken from their schools, in order to earn by begging, or by something but one degree above it, a few half-pence worth of bread for themselves and their parents ; men in the prime of life lounging at noonday across their beds, unable to procure work, and dependent upon the charity of their fellow-poor for subsistence ; mothers of families only able to provide necessaries for their children by pawning their little all, or by incurring debts wherever they could be trusted ; persons in fevers, whose recovery was prevented and whose weakness was prolonged by the want of all that promotes convalescence ; and infirm and aged people, who were shivering out the last hours of life in absolute want of everything that could sustain or endure it. I must only further permit myself to observe, that 1 have often found their physical wants so great, as not only to embitter life, but to antedate its close. I have no hesitation in saying, that an unsuspected amount of human existence must be annually sacrificed, in this and similar great towns, from simple and absolute starvation. No jury sits on these neglected remains ; no horror-stricken neigh- bourhood is electrified by the rumour that one has died among them of cold, and nakedness, and hunger. Obscurity clouds the death-bed, and oblivion rests upon the grave. But, unknown as it may be to the world at large, the fact is awfully certain, — that not a few of our poor, especially of the aged and infirm, die, winter after winter, of no disease but inanition. I have known instances of this nature, to which I came, or was called, too late ; 1 have known others, also, in which I was enabled to save those for whom, I believe, there was no hope or friend in the world." A wretched story, indeed ! But, at least, not to US is the credit due for a measure which shuts out these poor creatures from hope, and, as it were, enforces and legalises starvation. Those ''poor man's friends '' who sit on the ministerial benches have perpetrated this, among other benefits for their country. We have here, then, the only two papers of the bundle which pretend to any gravity of discussion or inforiTiation. The one is chiefly occupied with the Temperance Societies, the Poor Law, and such sorrowful statistics as belong to it ; the other is a simple puff for a weekly Radical print. Is it unfair to conclude that the people, for whose special benefit penny literature has been invented, do not care much for politics or instruction, but seek chiefly for amusement in exchange for their humble penny.? Half-a-Crown*s Worth of Cheap Knowledge 313 Our next paper is called the Wars of Europe, edited by a dis- tinguished Officer of the Blues : a landable and amusing publica- tion. In tlie number before us, the Siege of Badajos is the "distinguished Officer's" theme. A rude woodcut represents a breach ; an ensign waving the British flag ; there is also a host of Frenchmen, in cocked hats, striving in vain against British valour. " In this dreadful situation, while the dead were lying in heaps, and others continually falling, — the wounded crawling about to get some shelter from the merciless fire above, and, withal, a sickening stench from the burnt flesh of the slain, — Captain Nicholas, of the Engineers, was observed by Mr. Shaw, of the forty-third, making Incredible eflbrts to force his way with a few men into the Santa Maria bastion. Shaw, having collected about fifty soldiers of all regiments, joined him ; and although there was a deep cut along the foot of the breach, also, it was instantly passed, and these two young officers, at the head of their gallant band, rushed up the slope of the ruins ; but, when they had gained two-thirds of the ascent, a concentrated fire of musketry and grape dashed nearly the whole to earth. Nicholas was mortally wounded, and the intrepid Shaw stood alone. ***** " Five thousand men and officers fell during this siege ; and of these, including seven hundred Portuguese, three thousand five hundred had been stricken in the assault,— sixty officers, and more than seven hundred men, being slain on the spot. The five generals, Kempt, Harvey, Bowes, Colville, and Picton, were wounded ; the first three severely. About six hundred men and officers fell in the escalade of San Vincente ; as many at the castle ; and more than two thousand at the breaches, each division there losing twelve hundred. And how deadly the strife was at that point may be gathered from this — the forty-third and fifty- second regiments of the light division lost more men than the seven regiments of the third division engaged at the castle ! •"Let any man picture to himself this frightful carnage, taking place in a space of less than a hundred square yards ; let him consider that the slain died not all suddenly, nor by one manner of death ; that some perished by steel, some by shot, some by water ; that some were crushed and mangled by heavy weights, some trampled upon, some dashed to atoms by the fiery explosions ; that for hours this destruction was endured without shrinking ; — let any man consider this, and he must admit that a British army bears with it an awful power." SH Fraser's Magazine And nobly, indeed, does this "distinguished officer" write. But, stay ; have we not read something of this in a book called the History of the Peninsular War, by one Napier ? Yes, truly. And here we arrive at the extraordinary fact, that two "dis- tinguished British officers," in describing a particular feat of arms, have used the self-same sentences, lines,- words, stops — nay, commas. As for supposing that the distinguished officer of the Blues would steal from his brother officer's book, it is out of the question. A man in the household troops would sooner die than do it. However, the hero of the Blues makes a very entertaining miscellany, — the very best, we think, in our whole catalogue. The stories are taken from good books, are written in good language, and tell of things which it does one good to hear of. Many a schoolboy, on a holiday, many an honest workman, of a Saturday evening, will read over these brave stories of danger and victory, and think the penny well spent which has bought him this little magazine. Next in the list is the Penny Story-Teller, — eight pages, a picture, and tales completed, commenced, and to be continued. "The Secret Vault," "The Wish Fulfilled," "The Obtuse Smoker." This latter story, in the Boz style, has very great merit; and the reader will excuse us for giving a very brief quotation. An Inn Parlour at midnight. — " The night was nearly over. The candles — the two which the landlord had allowed to run to seed, were ' dark with(out) excess of light ' ; two or three empty pipes remained, quiet monuments to the memories of departed smokers ; the little round mausoleums of sand were struck out of their right places by the departings of the departed ; a few tumblers, empty, remained ; the fire had caked into a dull, red-hot, hollow, roof ; the cat was curved into a sleep on the sanded hearth ; the four bell-ropes hung, at intervals, over the tables in wondrous repose ; and only one very broad-brimmed hat blackened the one handsome peg out of the twelve that adorned, foot by foot asunder, the happy back-room of the Harp !— the hat of Quail ! '' If this be an original tale, the Penny Story-Teller has a. c\&vt.r contributor. The imitation of Boz is very happy. We cannot speak in similar terms of " The Secret Vault," or " The Wish Fulfilled," which are wondrous dull ; but " The Obtuse Smoker " is worth a dozen pennies, and we have no reason to complain of our bargain. The Sporting Gazette and the Sporting World are more Half-a-Crown*s Worth of Cheap Knowledge 315 aristocratic in their pretensions, being printed on a smart white paper, and sold for twopence. We incline to the latter, which is not merely bigger than its rival, but has, moreover, a picture ; the pet of the Fancy, the gallant Dick Curtis, stands in the front page, his shirt off, his fists doubled — worth theepence at the very least. Besides a paper about the Darby, and a host of miscellaneous matter, we have a couple of songs from a clever compiler of such ditties, Mr. A. B. C. D. E. F. W. N. Bayly ; who writes in the following awful way concerning fox-hounds and blood- hounds : " A Talbot ! a Talbot ! fleet, famous and free, With the royal old Norman came over the sea, To track through the kingdom, by field and by flood, To the sound of the bugle — the scent of the blood. The red dog is snufiing the breath of the morn, And the deer is aroused e'er the dews are updrawn ; One spring at his bark, and one bound at his bay, Deep-mouthed and death-telling — the stag is away ! Away by the meadows, away by the mound. The high-antlered spirit is spurning the ground ! His feet will scarce touch the long blades as they pass ; But the stream from his wound leaves its stain on the grass I Hark ! a voice, fierce and full, on the wings of the wind — 'Tis the bay of the Talbot !— by blood will he find ! Red, red is the colour — the red blood is spilled ; The red dog hath tracked it — the red deer is killed ! " Tremendous, by all the gods ! — and the five reds in the last couplet, quite terrible both to the ear and the eye. But, hark to the lay of the foxhound ! " Ho, foxhounds arouse ye ! the kennel is free — There's a fox in the forest, a scent on the lea ; Come forth by the couple, bound out by the brace ; This morn the bold hunter will give ye a chase ! Hollo ! mark ye, the gate is flung open and wide. And the whipper shall welcome each brace by his side ; Unkennelled, uncoupled, we'll give ye the slip, And you shall ' Hark forward '—Tantivy ! ya hip 1 To cover 1 to cover ! away to the wood ; Your foot now be fleet, and your scent now be good ; Through the copse let him creep — o'er the field let him rush, — Hark-away ! or he'll give you a sweat for his brush- 3' 6 Fmser's Magazine What mirLh and what music — what echoes resound — Full flinging his melody back to the hound ! Ha I the dogs skirt the vale, and the dogs skim the hillj Ho, Reynard, fly fleeter ! What, Babbler, be still ! Hark-away ! tally-ho ! he is seen— he must die ! Fling your feet o'er the field, and your voice to the sky ; Bound the hill— skirt the wood — skim the mead - keep the view ; Ha, Reynard ! red Reynard, no rescue for you. Tantivy ! they have him — tantivy ! they hold — ■ Ne'er a goal but was gained when the battle was bold. Let the hen keep her roost, and the rabbit its coop ; For, Jio, Reynard ! they kill thee— who-hoop ! and who-hoop ! Doth his scent taint the air, doth his blood stain the rush ? Then fall ye to the carcase, and I'll bear the brush ; And fair be your suppers, as fleet was your run. Ho, foxhounds ! good foxhounds ! Your duty is done." This is a sporting song, right up, slick down, and no mistake. Adapting it to Mr. Rooke's tune of " To the Mountain," we commenced singing it immediately after perusal, and have been singing without intermission for four hours. The greatest excitement prevails in our house, and neighbourhood. Our beloved and other half has placed herself at the pianoforte, and accompanied us. At the first verse, the grooms and the coachmen left the stable, and are at this moment joining in chorus in the court-yard. All the horses in the stable are kicking like mad ; the dogs are howling, yelling, worrying ; the cook, the maids, and men of the family, are shuffling and squeezing at the drawing-room door. As we come to the words : " Bound the hill— skirt the wood — skim the milk — keep the view — Ho ! Reynard ! red Reynard ! Cockdoodledyoo ! " — as we come, we say, to these sublime words, Mrs. Yorke's excite- ment knows no bounds. That exalted lady, who is of a Leicester- shire family, suddenly leaves the grand Broadwood at which she is seated — she whirls it into the middle of the room — she shouts with the voice of an Amazon — and, with a run and a bound — yes — no — yes — she clears the piano, music-stool and all, falling, flushed and panting, into our arms, stretched forward to receive the gallant girl ! A halfp'orth of nuts are now lying at the publisher's ; we will Half-a-Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge 317 wager them, ay, or double as many, against a fifty-pound note, that our gallant friend, Mr. Bayly, has never been hunting in his life. But, for a man of genius, this is a trifle. The song is a good song, though not an 'anting song. Farewell, then, to the Sporting World. We come next to Oliver Twiss, by Bos, a kind of silly copy of Boz's admirable tale. We have not, we confess, been able to read through Oliver Twiss. The only amusing point of it is an advertisement by the publisher, calling upon the public to buy " Lloyd's edition of Oliver Twiss, by Bos," it being the only genuine one. By which we learn that there are thieves, and other thieves who steal from the first thieves, even as it is said that, about that exiguous beast the flea, there be other fleas which annoy the original animal. The Weekly Magazine is a periodical devoted to literature, borrowed, stolen, or original. It contains sixteen quarto pages, and sells for the moderate sum of three halfpence. It is neither (as far as we may judge of the whole by a single number) very good nor very bad ; but at least it is good in its intentions, and quite harmless. And now we come to the Fly. The Fly is of- a graceful, fantastic, sarcastic, caustic nature such as . the French Corsaire, or Charivari. It has but four pages ; a print (a most atrocious scrawl by the way) is inserted loose between them. A couple of diableries, copied from the clever lithographs of Le Poittevin, figure in the first page ; and the Fly, in consideration of all these excellences, is made to cost two-pence. The reader will be pleased with an extract ; which shows the e.xquisite wit and good taste of the drivers of the Fly. The scene is Pimlico Palace. Our gracious sovereign is amusing herself with her maids of honour. Musca loquitur: " Her majesty remarked that she had heard that many persons were fond of a nice place, but, for herself, she should, in future, endeavour to avoid an ice place. This sally put the whole of the household in good-humour ; and they forthwith began to debate among themselves what they should do to amuse themselves for the rest of the day.- Her majesty set an example, which was immediately followed, by seating herself at a table, 'her eyes in a fine frenzy rolling,' and committed the following to paper: ' That all rooks vile traitors are I'll quickly shew a reason, For which I need not go far, As they all hatch high trees on,* 3i8 Fraser's Magazine "When this had been sufficiently admired, the Baryness Lehzen, who said she would not be crowed over, sat down and wrote the following : ' Oh ! how I love to see the snow- Balls which little urchins throw At one another as they go Or corae from school. I Long to join in their sport. My Blood is up ; I want a snow-ball ; I want a snow-ball to let fly.' Here she was interrupted by Miss Cocks, who mischievously threw a large snow-ball, which, striking her immediately under the ear, produced, as she remarked, a dreadfully unpleasant sensation. This was the signal for the adjournment to the lawn, when a general snow-balling was commenced among the royal party ; her majesty remarking that she ' did not know anything about the ball hot (ballot), but she thought the ball cold capital good sport,' and immediately threw a large one at Miss Cocks, who, ducking her head, sorry are we to record that the unfortunate Lehzen received it in her mouth, while she was crying out ' Flare- up'; and the sport was put an end to by a servant announcing that Lord Melbourne had arrived." O rare Fly ! can anything be more refined and gentlemanlike, more acute and sarcastic, than the above elegant passage ? A deal more of such delightful badinage follows. We cannot quote it, for, alas ! our columns are narrow, and our readers might question the propriety of any further extract. To drop all attempt at pleasantry, let us say that we scarcely ever have seen anything more witless and more blackguard than this Fly. It is inconceivably dirty, and at the same time, inexpressibly dull. We have quitted, as the reader will perceive, the regions of pure literature among the penny publications, and are now arriving at those prints which describe men and manners, and the fashion- able amusements of the metropolis. Imprimis, comes the Penny Age, of which we have had the ill-luck to purchase the first number only, and that dated so far back as October. There is a wood-cut, cleverly executed ; and a flourishing prospectus, from those distinguished persons who are editors of that periodical, and proudly speak of themselves as "we of the Penny Age." We of the Penny Age are determined to ransack all London for the amusement of the public. Let us give a specimen of the Penny Age. We would wager that the following passage Half-a-Crown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge 319 describes persons and places of which no single reader of this magazine ever heard until now. What, O reader ! do you think are the most fashionable concerts about town ? You will answer, The Philharmonic, perhaps ; or the Ancient Concerts, or Mori and Lindley's. Hear the opinion of " we of the Penny Age." " London Concerts. — There are some really excellent places of the kind, where the amusements are even equal to the theatres ; in fact, in many instances, far surpass them. The most select vocal establishments that we know of at present are the Eagle Tavern, City Road ; the White Conduit ; the Union Saloon, High Street, Shoreditch ; the Earl of Effingham, Whitechapel Road ; the Royal Standard, Vauxhall ; the Rising Sun, New Road ; and the York- shire Stingo Tavern, ditto. Bagnigge Wells, that once famous resort for the Cockneys, is sadly altered ; the company is not of that select order it used to be ; and the singing is by no means worth the price of admission. If you feel inclined to hear a song and smoke a cigar long after midnight, we would warmly recom- mend Evans', under the Piazzas, Covent Garden ; Regan's, the Cider Cellars, Maiden Lane ; and Offley's, in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Of each of these rooms, we shall give a full description in a future number. The 'crack' concert singers of the day are decidedly, Harry Howell, little Herbert, his brother, John, or, as he is more familiarly called, ' Jerry,' Tom Jones (not Fielding's), and W. Williams (the Irish vocalist), in the comic line ; Messrs. E. Taylor, Tom Keates, Harry Bailey, Jem Matthews, Jem Connel, Bob Best, Bill Summers, Tom Woolridge, Mrs. Parkinson, Prideaux, and Miss Frazer-James, in the senti- mental business. By the by, the latter lady has acquired her popularity entirely from possessing a fine face and a rather tidy figure. As for her singing, // is all our visionary powers combined with Mr. Walker. That she has a splendid voice we do not deny ; but she has no judgment at all. Her notes are wild and inharmonious, her style excessively vulgar, and her air affected and vain. We speak this with no malicious feeling ; but we do think that Miss James had better stay at home at ' Frazer Cottage,' and look well after her dahlias. We shall visit some of these places, and report the proceedings in our next." We have printed in italics one or two of the most pleasing phrases, or turns of expression, which have struck us in the perusal of the above passage. The dreadful castigation of Miss Frazer, the exquisite raillery in the passage concluding, " it is all our visionary powers and Mr. Walker," must strike the most in- 320 Fraser's Magazine attentive reader. But is not there a world of knowledge laid open to us ? Who knew before that Bagnigge Wells had sadly fallen off in point of fashion ? Who knew what were the most select concerts about town ? The Union Saloon, High Street, — the Earl of Effingham, Whitechapel, — the Stingo Tavern, Ditto-Street, — where are they ? and what are they ? — sweet, modest violets, blushing unseen ! Who are little Herbert and Harry Howell, chiefs of " the comic line " ? Bob Best and Bill Summers, heroes " in the sentimental business " ? Bob Best and Bill Summers are living, singing, drinking satires upon the vanity of reputation. They are applauded as fervently as Grisi and Lablache. A hundred thousand people in this town know how exquisitely Bob Best can sing " Meet me, meet me, in the hevenink " ; and have wept, perhaps, with tender Bill Summers, as he warbled " My 'arp and lute." Why should we only be the awarders of fame ? a miserable clique in this vast society ? Why should not the Penny Age have a voice as potential as the Times, and the Stingo Tavern be as fashionable as the King's Theatre ? We could put a thousand more such interrogatories, shewing how false and foolish are our received notions on things in general ; but time presses, and we have still several papers to examine. They tend equally to level social distinctions, and to leave us in wonder at the strange infatuation which has placed fashion and mastery in Grosvenor Square, neglecting Barbican or Wapping, despising and enslaving Saint Mary Axe. The Penny Satirist and Cleaves Gazette and London Satirist are both of them very nearly as big as a newspaper ; but have veiy little reason in their names. It would be quite puzzling to find out whereabouts the satire lies in either of these publications, except in certain ban mots and epigrams, extracted from some of the stamped papers. The Penny Satirist has, moreover, a medical adviser, who answers all questions put to him by the subscribers to the miscellany. The rest of its columns are filled with extracts from magazines or new novels, and present a very harmless and not unamusing variety. Rude woodcuts adorn all these publica- tions, and seem to be almost all from the hand of the same artist — Grant, by name. They are outrageous caricatures : squinting eyes, wooden legs, and pimpled noses, forming the chief points of fun. Of the Star of Venus, or Shew-up Chronicle, we shall speak with respectful brevity, not knowing whether that interesting publication still continues to appear. It is full of information regarding the LIGIER, THE FRENCH ACTOR, AS "RICHARD" IN BERCAMI. l^See page 38. HaIf-a-Crown*s Worth of Cheap Knowledge 321 numerous houses of evening entertainment with which London abounds, and which are called by the elegant star, and other of the politest papers, " The Free and Easies.'' We read here of " the celebrated Barley Mow establishment, in New Gravel Lane, Shadwell," where that eminent artist. Kitchen, is now exhibiting a series of pictures — of the Wheatsheaf Tavern, and the Great Mogul Rooms ; all places to which entrance is to be gained for the sum of twopence, where music is nightly performed, and beer or punch may be drunk. But the best guide for those who are anxious to obtain such information is undoubtedly the paper called the Town. We can speak with more confidence of this elegant and ingenious miscellany, having purchased and perused no less than three numbers of it ; whereas, in the instance of the Shew-up Chronicle, we could but give a partial judgment upon the single number with which it was our good fortune to meet. The Town is doubly valuable then, for it describes exactly that portion of the town of which no Christian ever heard until now. The Town abounds with the most varied and singular information, as will be seen by perusing merely the table of contents of a single number. Description of gin shops — the Puffing system — a smart rap upon certain medical quacks. The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, not an antiquarian paper, but a fearful satire upon a certain society, discovered by the elegant writer of the Town, '' as he was sojourning his way homewards up Baldwin Street, City Road." Well, will it be believed that these scoundrels, " up Baldwin Street, actually assembled at an ale-house, where they hold a club ? but ah ! how inferior to that other club called the Knights of St. John ! The President " is a fat fellow, with a mopstick by way of truncheon, a dress of blue calico, and a cap like that worn by chimney-sweeps on a May-day ! " Disgusting, indeed, and vastly inferior to the Knights of St. John. These opposition Knights, be it remembered, are dubbed " Knights of the Old Fountain," doubtless from the name of the hostelry at which their revels take place. And a mass of important information connected with life in London is made known at once. We dare swear that the reader was never before aware of any of these facts. The whereabouts of the City Road is mysterious to most men, the existence of Baldwin Street, a fact which till now we should have laughed to scorn. Who knew of the Old Fountain in Baldwin Street ? and who knew of the club at the Old Fountain ? Who, we ask, was aware of this most audacious imitation of the 21 322 Frase/s Magazine most distinguished club in London, the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem? Moles that we are, with a pitiful clay heap for our earth, while a world, varied, vast, and beautiful, is spread before us. But, reflection is folly as yet — it is the second stage of knowledge ; as yet we are knocking only at the gates of science, and have all to learn. What, for instance, are the principal gin-shops in town ? Your ladyship blushes, and is silent. You do not know a fact, of which, allow us to say, it is a shame you should be ignorant. The following brief resum6 will put you in possession of the names, not only of the taverns themselves, but of the ladies who dispense the gin. "A Gineva palace has been recently erected in Rupert Street, Coventry Street, where two or three sprightly daughters of the 'proprietor enliven the scene ; and in good truth, choice spirits abound within the dwelling. But we must not dwell ; so many have we to remark upon, that our space will not allow us to be critical. " The Old Bailey boasts the pretty Mrs. Sharpe ; Basing Lane the delightful Mrs. Younghusband ; and Newgate Market the charming Mrs. Pusey. In Bishopsgate Street, a blooming flower is planted in the Flower Pot ; and the Marlborough Head has a good-looking face. Billingsgate, too, recalls pleasing recollections; Mrs. Clarke is a remarkably 'tidy sort'; and honest Joe Tomlinson, of Saint-Mary-at-Hill, has a better half equal to his ancient name- sake, of the Bell, who espoused the " blue-eyed Sue." The rib of Charley Wilson, at the Half Moon, Gracecliurch Street, gives the customers a cordial welcome — at least, those who may be said to be cor\gin\7A spirits. In Goswell-street Road we have a pretty Mrs. Jones ; in Holborn, a light and sprightly Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Price, in Villiers Street, Strand, makes her visitors feel that the goods she vends are not dear at any price. Mrs. Morris, and her daughter, the lovely Emma, hold regnant sway at the Castle, not a hundred miles from Gray's Inn Road ; but there is a gentleman residing in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, who may freely sing : ' Of all the girls that are so smart. There's none so fat as Sally, She is the darling of my heart, And she lives y«j^ by the alley.' The particular solicitude of the neighbouring bailiffs is devoted to Sally, for they all strive to arrest her attention. To go further a-field, Mrs. Pople, of the Tottenham Court Road, is really a Half-a'Cfown's Worth of Cheap Knowledge 323 remarkably nice person ; Mrs. Robinson, of Oxford Street, is the very essence of politeness ; and our jolly friend, Newman, is anything but a 'Pig in the Pound.' Mrs. Bull, in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, is both beautiful and good ; while the ' wife of Teddy Roe,' of Bell Street, Paddington, wakes her husband whenever occasion requires. In that suburban locality, the Kent Road, we meet with two lovely girls, daughters of our old friend and sporting associate, Harry England. The way in which Harry has brought up his family is highly creditable to him — at least, such is the opinion of the Town. But we are really getting too far out of Town ; we could go on enumerating charming women, who superintend /a/flc^j of destruction in and about the metropolis, till doomsday ; but we must cut the subject for the present, other- wise we may be brandied for tediousness by some rum fellow, and this we do not desire, as cordiality is our sole aim and drift, the very spirit of our journal. In conclusion we would say, to the millions who read the Town, shun the bunch of grapes, and then the bitters of life will be comparatively unknown to you." Have you any notion who are the principal pawnbrokers in London ? Read but the Town, and you will find " that the leading pawnbrokers in the metropolis are Mr. Fleming, of Farringdon Street ; Mr. Whiskard, of Bishopsgate Street ; Mr. Dobree, of Charlotte Street and Oxford Street ; Mr. Lawton, of Leicester Square ; Mr. Vaughan, in the Strand (whom we most earnestly request to leave off discounting, and to employ his capital legiti- mately — viz., in his business) ; Young, of Saint Martin's Lane ; and Muncaster, of Snow Hill. These men have all plenty of capital, and, if they please, can advance a couple of thousand pounds at five minutes' notice." All other contributions to this miscellany offer an interest equally great, and are of the same elegant nature. We see " A71 Essay on Tripe, its Vendors and Consumers^'' in which the sellers of that luxury are lashed with unflinching satire, or greeted with hearty praise, as their conduct may deserve ; " Letters from our Reporter in Quod" (which, as your ladyship knows, is the name for the Queen's Bench Prison) : Memoirs of a Bankrupt ; strictures on gambling-houses, and descriptions of the most fashionable dancing-rooms in the metropolis. Thus it is that the To%vn describes Belilo's. " Near unto Aldgate is situated a place called the Orange Market ; and in the Orange Market stands Howard's Assembly 324 Ffasef's Magazine Rooms, and there doth the great Belilo hold regnant sway. He is the presiding deity, — in common parlance, the master of the ceremonies ; and, to do him justice, we must observe that he is a most perfect master of every ceremony attendant on the ball- room. The weekly assemblies of Mr. Belilo are held every Saturday night, from eight till twelve o'clock. " Before the Christian adventurer profanes the temple of Belilo, it is necessary that he pay the sum of one shilling, and sixpence extra for the privilege of wearing his hat. This custom, we are sorry to say, is very prevalent, and we confess ourselves surprised at a man of Mr. Belilo's acknowledged politeness permitting such a gross breach of etiquette within the rooms governed by his mighty self; but so it is. " Having complied with these enactments, you enter a square room, capable of holding four sets of quadrilles, and numerous spectators. The walls are decorated with landscape paintings, and the temple is illuminated with lamps of ground glass. On the right of the door sits a little Jew boy with a basket of ' suth nith cakes ' ; and on the left sits a full-blown Jewess, behind a bar, the administering angel to the wants of Jew and Gentile, in the way of refreshments. Nearly facing the door, the band is stationed, consisting of a violin, a trumpet and a harp ; the latter instrument may be properly denominated the Jew's-harp, for all the musicians are of that persuasion. " Having described the room and its appointments, we will now proceed to give some few critical remarks upon the company who frequent it. They are for the most part Jews and Jewesses. The men are great nobs in their way ; it is surprising to witness with what elegance they smoke their cigars whilst whirling in the dizzy mazes of the waltz ; and it is even more so to observe the fortitude with which their partners endure the horrid nuisance of their repeated puffs of smoke slap in their pretty faces. Boots are the order of the night, and it would be considered a mark of effeminacy to sport pumps. Hats, as we have said before, are worn in the "dance : they appear to be generally of the tall silk description, and as we like to assign reasons for absurdities, we believe them to be worn by the Hebrew lads because they imagine that they give a dignifie'd cast to the Jewish phiz. The wit of some of these sparks is exceedingly bright ; for example, to a gentleman lighting a cigar, — ' By Cot, sir, if you don't take care, you'll burn that cigar. This piece of imagined humour we have heard repeated half a dozen times in one evening. There is one little chap, a Jew, about Half-a-Cfown*s Worth of Cheap Knowledge 325 four feet nothing, who is frequently exceedingly rude and imper- tinent, and very fond of dispossessing strangers of their places in the dance, by stating that he had previously taken them. Belilo should see to this insufferable little monkey ; if he does not, we shall, most certainly, in a future number. We shall now go into the ladies, dear creatures ! " Perhaps the reader thinks we have carried him far enough, and has no disposition to listen to any further description from the lips of this exquisite writer of the Town, whose observations, when he does get among the "dear creatures,'' are not exactly such as would bear repetition in this Magazine. We have come to the end of our list, having striven to tell the truth concerning every one of these newspapers, — though not, as we confess, in one or two instances, the whole truth. The- Town, the Penny Age, the Fly, and the Shew-up Chronicle contain a vast deal of matter to which we have not alluded, and which we assuredly shall not describe. Suffice it to say that ribaldry so infamous, obscenity so impudently blackguard and brazen, can hardly be conceived, and certainly never was printed until our day. The main point of these papers seems to be a wish to familiarise every man in London who can afford a penny with the doings of the gin-shops, the gambling-houses, and houses more infamous still. The popularity of the journals, and their contents, are dismal indications indeed of the social condition of the purchasers, who are to be found among all the lower classes in London. Thanks to the enlightened spirit of the age, no man scarcely is so ill-educated as not to be able to read them ; and blessings on cheap literature ! no man is too poor to buy them. The Town forms the delices of the servant-maid, who grins over the precious page along with sly John Footman ; the text-book of the apprentice, who doles it out to his comrades ; the hidden treasure of the charmed schoolboy, who, by this excellent medium, knows as much about town as the oldest rake in it. Blessed, then, be the press, and the fruits thereof ! In old times (before education grew general), licentiousness was considered as the secret of the aristocracy. Only men enervated by luxury, and fevered by excess of wealth, were supposed to indulge in vices which are now common to the meanest apprentice or the poorest artisan. And as mystery in those bigoted days accompanied all knowledge, the science of wickedness was as 326 Fraser's Magazine occult as any other, — only followed by the practitioners in silence and darkness. When the people lighted on one of these, they hunted him down, like a Jew, or an alchymist, or a witch ; witness poor old sainted Charteris, well-nigh a martyr to the foul-mouthed illiberality of his day ! But the schoolmaster is abroad, and the prejudices of the people disappear. Where we had one scoundrel, we count them now by hundreds of thousands. We have our penny libraries for debauchery, as for other useful knowledge ; and colleges like palaces for study — gin-palaces, where each starving Sardanapalus may revel until he die. ARTICLE 4 (October, November, 1838) PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF THE LATE DOLLY DUSTER, WITH .ELUCIDATIONS, NOTES, ETC, BY VARIOUS EDITORS. To Oliver Yorke, Esq. Redoubtable Sir, — Emboldened, among other reasons, by seeing your late article on "Naval Novelists," to look upon you as a "dealer in marine stores,'' I venture to hope you will become the " receiver " of this little lot of stolen property ! Hollow morahsts, struck by conscience, may sound an alarm about this transaction. But though no poet, if there be any who turn up their eyes at my dealings as dishonest, or my articles as trash, let me tell them — I am not the first who has boasted of being " A gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff ;" and when I relate how I possessed myself of this MS., they will at least acquit me of wishing to take you in (spite of the above pun) with a false-Hood. Everybody recollects " the Great Montgolfier," and none better than myself, as I stood next to honest Jack Gully in the row ; who, when it " wouldn't go off," declared the whole affair was got up for a Cross, and the story that it would ascend from its stage on the lake was nothing more than a lakeonic lie. Jack is a wit in his way (and very often in other people's way, too, as on this day, when a fat woman wanted to get before hitn) ; Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 327 and he indulged in his best on the occasion, instigating the mob to stone the breath out of the balloon's body, assuring them that it was all a bottle of smoke, — that all hopes were " up the flue," and that as it had not been " set to the right air," it ought to be made " to sing at the wrong side of its mouth." The more Jack went on, the more the balloon wouldn't go off; and at last a general skrimmage commenced, frightful to witness, but unprofitable to relate, after the Sunday newspapers. Suffice it to say, that the downright savage animals were quite outdone by the upright wild beasts Cross had enticed into his menagerie, who speedily immolated the poor Montgolfier, and committed many other rum and shrub enormities. Jack told Cross to his face that the affair was a cheat ; and that one who had so many quadrupeds to prove what he had made by " all fours," ought not to have resorted to " cribbage." " Whist ! " said Cross ; " I'll pacify them ; instead of Montgolfier, I'll let off Vesuvius." "A burning shame!" growled Jack " ending the day as you began it — with a ' Mount-gull-fire ! ' " Now, during this row (lend me your fan, Mrs. Gully, while I confess), I snatched from the shattered car this bundle of MS. which I fancied had been placed there to feed the hot-air furnace. Sagacious readers will, of course, discover that the heaviness of its matter kept down the balloon ; and numberless other severe things will doubtless be said about it. To all this, I can only reply, that, had the monster risen and required fuel, the "Diary" would, I think, have "gone off flamingly " ; which, I admit, there is now no great reason to expect. However, after all, it was probably not intended to be consumed, but escaped from the travelling-bag of the three smoke-Jacks who meant to ascend. It is evidently the production of flighty individuals ; but whether fabricated on some occasion when they were "up" and "blowing their clouds," or produced in " the milky way," over their bohea, must remain dubious. With this candid confession, I leave the MS. in your hands, renowned O ! Y ? (thou exclamative-interrogation !) ; and as " murder will out," I shall not be surprised to see my pilfering " come out " too. Knarf. The Horns, Kennington Common. P.S. — As this is a suspicious transaction, I give my address. I fear "Nimrod" will suspect, by my intimacy with Gully, and the title of my residence, that I practise " tossing." But I am, though not a John, too a real a " Bull " to like this cowherdly vice, 328 Eraser's Magazine To THE Reader. [By Editor No. 3']. In editing this "Diary," I hope to experience some portion of the tender mercies shewn to the more popular of my predecessors, in this daily increasing branch of literature ; a branch which (judging by the knowing and queer secrets it often discloses) must be an offshoot of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I trust I have, in my editoryall labours, kept " on the right side of Polly Ticks," as old Fourinhand says by his credit-giving, one-eyed flame at the Red Lion, of whom it may be truly added that " He loves her for her cordial, trusting, ways," as Leigh Hunt has sung in " The Gentle Armour," or " The Shift for a Story," as plain John Bull would call that forlawn poem. Nevertheless, though I have tried to keep on the right side of politics, and after selecting a certain number of Diaries as models, have resolved not to be led away by one more than another, I am not quite confident that in this Chronicle I shall be found at all Times coming up to the Standard, as a Herald that sticks to his Post. But if my weakness should betray, that one immoral (beg pardon — imtnortal, — left out the T, which here, as Sylky Bucking- ham says, by its effect upon sailors — radically improves the immoral) — immortal work has enchanted me more than the others, the reader, on detecting the potent influence, will moderate his surprise if he find it to be that of a Lady who has even penetrated my Lord Brougham's double-breasted black waistcoat, in spite of the gold chain that guards his heart, liver, and brandy-vault, — vulgarly, stomach. This chain, by the by, it is hoped was thrown off, with the others, on the 1st of August, when the waistcoat, with the rest of the blacks, had a right to be emancipated — or exchanged for a "coollee " during the autumn. With respect to the genuineness of Dolly Duster's Journal, I will only observe that, like Lady Carry-the-Candle's Diary, "its authenticity is only too apparent to be questioned," though there may be some discrepancies in the dates, etc., which, however, are of little consequence, as none but tailors and dancing barbers care about figures. It will be seen that, beside my labours, editors I, 2, and a blank, have revised and commented on the MS. This, it is presumed, will be duly appreciated, as the very first instance ■ It may be well to state, that We have no connexion with this squad of Diary " Editors"— O.Y. Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 329 that has followed the excellent example of Lady Carry-the-Candle's Diary, in giving notes by various editors, contradicting each other; which {entre nous), in that case as in this, would appear really ingenious, if it were allowable to state that one editor, or head, had concocted the whole of them. But I am dumb on this point, as Nash said when seated on the tip of the extinguisher-steeple. So many dishes of scan. mag. having been lately served up, I confess I am rather afraid I may be thought " a day after the fair." But let those who have a liquorish tooth for scandal remember that the day after the fair is always the best for seeing " behind the scenes," and that " spice-nuts " are then the most abundant. I have now only to explain that, where the sense or opinion seems doubtful, brief remarks are supplied, equal, I trust, in critical sagacity to those which adorn other Diaries ; and on " the- greatest-happiness-to-the-greatest-number " principle, blanks are frequently left for names and dates, to admit of readers filling them up with the precise periods at which they consider the circum- stances ought to have occurred, and with the names of those friends whom they think the stories most likely to annoy. Editor No. 3. Introduction. [By Editor No. 2] Not a hundred miles from St. James' is a certain narrow, dirty lane, called , on either side of the way shooting off numerous dim and crooked courts ; and, as a whole, resembling in form one of those httle beasts, with long dark body and many legs, called an Earwig — a creature, by the way, not uncommon about most courts. As an earwig always has been, is, and ever will be, the same ugly creature, so • is found at the present time much the same disagreeable place it was at the period to which we are about to allude. With , however, we have little to do, beyond pointing it out as the scene of the early days of the authoress of this Diary, and as a landmark near which was to be found, years ago, Court, which is closely connected with the records of her Journal. The " march of improvement," which halted and billeted in this neighbourhood for a considerable period, made sad havoc among the courts around. Previous to that time, these retired and shady nooks were so numerous as to entitle this to be called 330 Frasef's Magazine the Court-end of the town ; but when the before-mentioned "march" marched off, it was found that a great number of these " retired small dwelling-places for persons with small means" (as George Robins would say) had decamped also, and among others Court, in which resided Mr. and Mrs. , who must speedily be introduced to the reader. This fact might lead the hasty to expect some description of Court ; but, as most of its inhabitants figure in the Diary, where will also be found notices of their respective domiciles, it is unnecessary to state more than that it contained some thirteen houses, six on each side, some of whose shattered windows, having had their " last glass," spoke open- mouthed warnings to the intemperate ; showing by their wasted frames, that though long accustomed to " drops," their rain was now nearly over ; while others appeared so far gone, that their mouths were stopped with old flannels, to warm the air before admitting it, I suppose, as is now recommended by Mr. Jeffrey to similar sufferers. The end of the court was graced by a house of far higher and wider pretensions than any of the others — standing indeed in the same relation to its fellow-houses that its inhabitants did to their neighbours, who looked up to them as " quite tip-top sort of people." By those bred in streets and squares, courts are nowadays but too often sneered at with a degree of contemptuousness quite surprising to those who have had opportunities of studying the people "within their precincts." They are represented by these sneerers merely as by-places, " confined to the few " ; while in fact their thirteen-families-in-a-house population, makes them not only " confined to the many," but literally crammed as well. Alas I how often is it the fate of the victims of courts, both male and female, to die in their confinement ! And, then, the crooked ways of Courts ! why, they are proverbial ; but, if anyone doubts the fact, let him try to make his way from St. James' to St. Paul's entirely by " court advancement" (which is to be done, though a dirty job), a.. J he will find he wants much better directions then Boyle's Court Guide ' will give him, and ' Boyle ought to be roasted. His Guide is a yearly "take-in" to the subscribers. As [to the string of dirty courts above alluded to, you get no more information from his Guide than from the " Guide to the Tire-all," as the cockneys call the modern Swiss leaders, — Ed. No. 3. [Swiss leaders ! Ed. 3 must have been thinking of the Swiss hero, — of whom I have lately discovered, first that he was only a Guide to the Lakes, and secondly that his willingness to communicate all he knew gained him the nanie of William Tell !— Ed.] Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 331 will have to pass many bad livings before he reaches the end of his journey. Little do the mass know about the important matters which frequently transpire in Courts. Some few have endeavoured, at various times, and in various ways, to draw public attention to their affairs ; but it has generally been done in a faithless and exaggerated manner, — representing the class of persons who usually dwell in Courts as mere coarse sensualists, — as doing everything and talking of everything in a way not fit to mention to ears polite, as murdering the " king's English," by using the "v" for the " w,"' and as being unblest with one spark of humour or sentiment.* Luckily, however, just as I am puzzling about what to say next, I have opened Lady Carry-the-Candle's Diary, in which I find a passage so much to my purpose, that I cannot resist lugging it in head and shoulders. But before doing so, I may here observe that if this Journal should see the light, and make as much noise as the sentimental and moral work from which I am going to quote, I here declare I have done my best to prevent it ; and as these remarks will show, have even taken some pains to Bury it. With this explanation of my Undertaking, I proceed to quote the opening reflections on Section I. of Lady Carry-the-Candle's Diary. I have only to premise that if, in transcribing this " brown study " on Courts, I should catch any of my own remarks breaking in, I shall do my best to enforce the " silent system," by putting the rascals into solitary confinement, between crotchets, — thus [ j. Carry -the-Candle (loquitur). " Courts are strange, mysterious places . . . those who once obtain an entry there generally lament their fate ; and yet, somehow or other, they cannot break their * If Editor 2 had kept his eye on the " march of intellect," he would have found this custom very general. The decline in our boasted refinement, in this respect, even since the late King's death, is very marked ; for, as may be publicly seen on illumination-nights, persons of all classes now make light of using the " V ' for the " W." — Ed. No. 3. ^ Editor 2 of course excepted from this censure the unrivalled author of Pickwick. By the way, as what I am writing may never be published after all, I will put down something of my own, lest I forget it. An insinuating friend (who I afterwards found wanted to borrow half-a-crown) advised me to try my hand in the style of the inimitable Pickwick ! I involuntarily exclaimed, "What the Dickens are you thinking of?" Then, recovering my breath, I added, " No ; I should as soon expect to equal Johnson as to imitate Boz-well 1 " I refused him the half-crown. — Ed. No. 3. [Modest man ! — Ed,] 332 Ffaser's Magazine chains [they much oftener break their shins, owing to a scarcity of hnks, ma'am]. I believe, nevertheless, that it is all one,' whether these Circles of Society [alluding to their round numbers ?] which stand apart from the rest of the world, [particularly from the Squares ?] exist under one form of government or under another ; whether under emperors, kings, protectors, or consuls ; they may vary as to modes and designations, but Courts are Courts, still [not often still — too thickly inhabited for that, ma'am]. Intrigues, jealousies, heartburnings [gin-drinking ?], lies, dissimulation, thrive in them as mushrooms in a hot-bed [and there are always persons as ready to catch-up these mushrooms as the others, ma'am]. Notwithstanding, they are necessary evils [not the " intrigues,'' etc., but the Courts], and they afford a great school both for the heart and head [to say nothing of the pluck^ which ought to be mentioned in this delicate allusion to the slaughter-houses in Courts, where the butcher-boys practise]. It is utterly impossible, so long as the world exists, that similar societies should not exist also ; ' and one may as well declaim against every other defect attendant upon humanity [or belong to the ' Cruelty to Animals Society' at once], and endeavour to extirpate crime from the world, as pretend to put down Courts and their concomitant evils [the 'king's evil' among the rest]." Now I must here ask what is meant \>y pretending la put down Courts ? The thing was actually done, as I have already hinted, when the " improvements " were made in the vicinity of . . Bonaparte himself hardly swept away more Courts than the Charing Cross improvers. There was such a rage for this sort of thing, at that time, that, not content with their Cross purposes, they went at it Pall Mall, and actually seized upon Carlton House and razed it to the ground. Then, as this had upset the King, there was a word or two from the throne, and so they set him up again by raising a new palace at Pimlico. What a to-do there was about that unhappy building ! Thinking of Richard III.'s humpbacked policy to his cousin, it was properly named Buckingham ; and nicely it was treated ! After raising the walls and folks' expectations to the highest, ' If " all one" be a polite phrase for " all dicky," I fear some readers will not understand it ; but if it only mean "all my eye," I have no doubt they will see through it.— Ed. No. 3. 2 If Editor 2 refers to a sheep's lights, liver, etc., called the " pluck," it was not likely the elegant authoress would mention it. — Ed. No. 3. ' If societies similar to the world be meant, it is a discovery. — Ed. No. 3. Passages ffom the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 333 (which were not veiy high, however), they clipped its wings, and played all kind of pranks with it ; and no sooner did Buckingham pop up its little pate, (evidently with its night-cap on), to look out for itself, than the order was given, " Off with its head ! " This gave rise to fresh murmurs ; some urged that striking off its head would disagree with its inside ; while the bowels of the mass were little moved by such a qualm, though they loudly protested against the enormous expense these vagaries would incur. All complaint, however, was useless. Regardless of cost, again the order was given, " Off with its head ! " and all that followed the command, as in Richard's case, was the sordid exclamation — " So much for Buckingham." ' But as his cousin was in the end too much for King Dick, (who had a wife so short a time that he may fairly be called " single Gloucester ") so, in this case, after all its ill usage, Buckingham finally triumphed ; and having had possession of two crowns, and being still Victorious, is at least equal to " double Gloucester." ' * If Editor 3 be not mistaken, there is a curious coincidence between the fate of this dome and the doom of Caraccioli, the Neapolitan prince hung by Nelson. In his case, notwithstanding a weight of shot, almost as heavy as the censure passed on the little dome, was attached to his feet ; to the horror of all who had condemned him, his head sometime after suddenly appeared above water, at a short distance from the spot where it sunk. It was precisely similar with the little dome ; — it sunk from view, and was nearly forgotten ; when, lo and behold ! equally to the horror of all who had condemned it, after taking a trip through the Lake in the Park, it has popped up again right before the nose of St. Martin's Church ! The only difference is that it has brought up with it two young ones, which it had, I suppose, during its interregnum. It appears to have suffered by its aquatic excursion ; and the holes about it plainly shew that the eels have been there, while the fish-scales are still sticking upon it. This note must not be thought visionary ; for it is evident others have seen some connexion between the dome and the hero Nelson ; and considering his last great battle and death covered the above and every other fault, and made things " equal on all sides," these persons have quaintly named the place "Trafalgar Square." So happy a title, however, has not been given to the building that supports the domes (which, as a whole, very much resembles an omnibus turned over, with three Mackintoshed passengers' heads and shoulders thrust out of the side windows). It is called the National Gallery, but is so low that it might be mistaken for the National Pit ; though some constructions are seen about the outside, meant for boxes, I suppose, and fitted up very like those at Richardson's show in Barilemy Fair ; but as they are generally covered with stripes, (which I expect they get at the barracks behind), I have too much feeling to wish to have a cut at them, —Ed. No. 3. s If Editor 2 alludes to a kind of apology for cheese in great favour with 334 Fraser's Magazine Confound this palace ! What a digression it has led to ! Let us return at once — "Dat is, if dey can," as Soult says of what he calls " de idle Legion of de Lazy Evans." But, not to speak ironically of the Spanish-mahogany general and his men, I must confess myself under a difficulty similar to their own, having to appear greatly interested in my undertaking without considering the prospect of pay. Hem ! I trust it will be believed, then, that, however reluctant, on some grounds, I may be to proceed, yet, as it is in compliance with the urgent request of one whom I am bound to obey, I resign myself to the melancholy task. Let me also declare that, though urged to the performance as a matter of profit by her who supplied the papers, my spirit could not endure that idea — at least, while she was alive. Now, if this patient waiting for my pay till she had paid the debt of nature, was not to my credit, and noble on my part, I am no judge ; and I therefore hope the reader will not trouble himself further about what I am to get for my labours. I consider it nothing to him how or to what bookseller 1 dispose of it ; whether the jokes take with Mr. Wit-taker, or whether my being a tall woman enables me to negotiate with Longmans & Talboys — whether my good old English manner finds favour with Mr. Bull, or my milk of human kindness with Mr. Cowie ; whether my offspring is brought forth by Mr. Hatch-hard, or whether it is cut out to suit Mr. Taylor, — whether its sneers please Mr. Mocks-on, or its crooked allusions, Mr. Bentley — whether it may get pickings from Mr. Bohn, or a gift from Mr. Boone ; whether it sufficiently displays the old woman for Mr. New-man — or its hints are dark enough for Mr. Knight, — whether it affords bait for Mr. Fisher, or is upset by Mr. Tilt, — whether it enables me to give my hand to Mr. Souter, or lights the fire for Mr. Coalburn, — whether, in short, it suits either, neither, or the whole of these gentlemen, and Chapman and All, — or whether my own coal-hole is to be its only book-cellar, and it is thus deprived of a chance of beirig blown up in a Magazine (a sure way of making it go off), — whether, I repeat, poor-law commissioners, it is very coarse, — I mean both the allusion and the cheese. She might almost as well have called Richard & flat as "single Gloucester." It is a great pity she is not more guarded in her expressions, and in her exposing her draggings up. — Ed. No. 3. [Apropos, " Hwat the divil are ye afther bein' afther?" roared Pat Lardner, catching his footboy thrashing a "Gloster" with a whip. " Hwat's all this pillalu, ye thafe of the world?" "Why, yer rivrence," replied the bogtrotter, "I'm just afther whacking the chaze, to make it confess ' what's become uv the fat, sure." — Ed.]. Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 335 any or all of these fates await it, is nothing whatever to the right-minded or left-handed reader. As we now quite understand each other, we can go on com- fortably ; it is better to have it out at once.' Let us return, then, to ; and as we have made such a straggling roundabout march, I think we had better commence at once with Section I. Before, however, we come to liis-section, as Queen Caroline or the Doctor's boy would say, I must tell the reader where I am going to begin. I am vexed at the delay ; but, neither the Paddington omnibus without stoppages, nor myself, can start till the proper time ; and though, when we do, we shall try to "take off" as many persons as we can, you must not be too impatient for us to "go on." What I wish to premise is merely this : — Some writers not only think it unnecessary to say who or what they are, or where they came from, but actually pretend to be what they are not, wishing to appear the real-made ladies, instead of the lady's-maid. Now, I think this wrong ; and therefore, before expecting the reader to place implicit reliance on all that is related by the authoress of the following journal, and that he may judge of the writer's qualifications for the task, I consider it my duty to give a brief sketch of her history up to the commencement of her Robinson-Crusoe-like performance. I ought to mention, however, in respect to this allusion, that the notches in this journal sometimes stand for a year, whereas Crusoe's only stood for a day, with an extra one for Friday. * Section I, Somewhere about years ago, the authoress of this diary was left on the step of a door in . It was one of those bitter-cold foggy mornings, when few things are so easily found ' If Editor 2 alludes to tooth-drawing, I must remark that the dentists, who generally give three tugs for your shilling, do not seem to think so. — Ed. No. 3. ^ If Editor 2 refers to that singular emigrant's mode of keeping a diary by cutting notches in a beam of wood, it is an insult to mention him in connexion with a person of such extensive correspondence as the authoress of this Diary. It is true Crusoe established this daily post for his own use, and that, on returning to his hut, the post was always in before him ; yet it is notorious that he never got a letter all the time he was on the island — though he may have opened many a seal. — Ed. No. 3. [Robinson Crusoe little thought, when he was notching the post, that those very wood-cuts would be made to illustrate this Diary I — Ed.]. 33^ Fi-aser's Magazine as mist ; but the child's good step-mother, or whoever she had to thank for leaving her, took care, before giving her the " parting drop," to wrap her well up in flannel ; so that, though the outside of the parcel appeared worsted, the inside was doubtless bettered by the precaution. This doorstep, therefore, forms the foundation stone of the child's history ; but the quickness with which it reaches the fourth story requires some explanation to the architectural reader. In the garret of this house lived the farrier's wife, Mrs. Morris, and ****** [However unbuilderlike, I am compelled to stop short with this fourth story, leaving the unsheltered reader to gaze on the six stars above, and imagine the roof, etc. The reason for this may be eventually explained ; but at present he must be satisfied to learn, in two words, that the fair authoress was carried up to, and brought up at the gruff farrier's " horsepitiable " table, as his half-starved wife called it. Editor 2 gives a full account of her early days ; but though I know my readers will feel intense anxiety to peruse it, I repeat I cannot, dare not (!) say more about it in this place. The writer must henceforth, assisted by the editorial notes, speak for himself; and the spirited "compound" will, it is hoped, as Sir Patent-Brandy- Felix-Booth says, receive a " cordial " welcome. —Ed. No. 3.] ***** I now proceed with the important contents of the journal which has fallen into my hands. I am aware that in doing so, Dolly incurs the risk of being treated with the severity authors of her sex always experience ; and I cannot do better than wind up with a few words from a book I have already noticed, which I have no doubt are appropriate and expressive, though I am not quite sure that I understand them. The fair writer delicately says, it would be difficult to account for the " outrageous abuse " of a certain female author, were it not for the fact that literary women, " especially those in the higher ' ranks of life, place themselves in a pillory, at which every impertinent idler conceives he has a right to throw his rotten eggs ! " * * Peculiarly applicable to our Attic authoress. — Ed. No. 3. 2 If "at -which" means that these "idlers" throw their rotten eggs at the fillory, and not at the women, it is only to be accounted for by their supposing the pillory to have more feeling than some female authors.— Ed. No. 3. Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 337 The Dolly Dusterian Diary. (Prepared for Press by Ed. No. l). Munde, Jinnevery 20, 18 — . I opn mi knew running ^^ Kopy buk, with the intenshun of putting down what cums uppermost ; and, as my entranse into Mrs. 's servis, may, for wot one Nose of one's life, becum an important feeture on the Face of it, I shall rite down all that passed to-da. It's unnesry to menshun the paneful parting I had with my good step-mother, God Blesser ! though I must not omit the memrable fackt that Morris, for the first time in his life, shuke hands hartily with me, gave me a shilling, wished me "good Buy," and threw his old hobnailed shoe after me, for luc, as he said, but gave my ankle such a chip with its heavy Sole as will take some time to Heel. Wen I noct at Mrs. 's door, with teers in my eyes, this morning, Mr. himself opnd it, and as soon as I tolled him my busyness, he good umordly smiled, and tuke my hand, and sade, " My deer gal, yuve had no brekfast." Now Ide been so unappy at leving Mrs. Morris, that I sirtinly hadnt bin able to take any, and I blieve I was stamring out, " Yes — ■ No," when he larfed and sade, " Ah, you've forgottn ; go down Below and join Noah," as I understude him ; and without another word, he gave me a push down the stares, and wauked into the parler. On entring the kitchen, I xpected to find an old man, but was sirprised to see a gal about a year or 2 older than myself She stared at me a minnit, and then with a kind of haaf-nod (either ment as a sine of welcum or kaused by a difliilty in swallering a triangler krust, she pusht a chare to me, handed a Large basin of tee, and with a kros ireish accent, told me to be " Sated." I thenkt her and sade a gentlemn had sent me down to brekfast with Noah. " Noah ! " sclaimed the gal, speking in her te-cup before she coad git it from her mouth — " Wot d'ye mane by that ? My name's No-r-r-r-ah. My well-made Annsisters desinded in a strata line from that good man of the First Water ; but Ime not kwite such a tship of the ould Ark as U take me 4." I begd her pardn ; and wishing to turn her thorts in another direkshun, I venchered to say, " You apeer to have a kind master." ' ' The printers make sad complaints of the difficulty of following the spelling of the Diary, and declare they would rather make it right than do so. I tell them it will give them too much trouble to correct it ; but they say, " It is no trouble ; authors afford them so much practice in this way, that it comes quite natural." Satisfied they are not spelling for compliments, I shall let them have their own way with the remainder of the Diary.— Ed. No. 3. 22 33^ Ffasef's Magazine "Yes, sure," she replied, in a softer tone ; "but by the powers of Dilf, as Nick's p"aste used to swear, it 'ill be a fine morning when I can say that of missthress." " Indeed," I exclaimed, " I hope you've no complaints against her?" "Arrah, my dear," said Norah, with a wink, "sure you don't know what I do, or you wouldn't say that same. Maybe, my darlint, you think it nothing that she's such a complate famine ' Faith your appetite for her will fall off as you get more hungry." " Hungry ! Famine ! I don't understand you." " Nor does she, by me sowl ; but lucky it is I understand myself; or its clane starved I'd been before now, and jist like her hash on a Monday, — maybe you don't know that's all bones ? " Here, seizing upon the quartern loaf, with one swoop she severed a lump something like the top of old Mrs. 's old music stool, and buttering it much after the style in which M'Adams roads are mended, she cut it across and shewed her teeth at a slice of it, which instantly represented old London Bridge in miniature. " I'm very stupid," said I, when this operation was ended, " but I do not yet see why you call her a famine." " You are right ; you are stupid, mighty stupid. My darling, I call her a famine bekase she starves everybody." " Starves everybody ! Why, you seem to have a good breakfast before you." " Don't I tell you, honey, that's bekase I look out for myself? and then it's a small mite of help I get from master. But I see you don't understand polithical aconomy. Famine, my dear, doesn't ralely starve paple to death, but it makes 'em look nine ways for pratees, and ten before they find 'em." This was said with warmth, and I saw it would not do to dispute the point ; I therefore softly said, " I am sorry to hear this of mistress, for " " Misthress ? Is it misthress you mane ? Oh then, you are my come-after, eh ? Well, darlint, I wish you joy of your berth, as the ould gridiron said to the chop." " I hope I shall not find my situation quite so hot," said I. " Won't you, darlint ? quite, every bit as hot as the chop's, dear ; and by the time you lave this, you'll be jist as much reduced, — jist as near the bone — not a bit of fat left." " But if master's kind," said I, half frightened at her account, „ that will be a comfort." Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 339 " Will it, now ? — divil a bit. No ; it ought to be ; but in this house everything that ought to be a comfort is jist the other thing. Only let misthress hear him say a kind word to you, or let him tell her you don't wear your hair, or your cap, in the worst style possible (which I flatter myself is the case with Norah), and it's no more end there'll be to it than to a nate round dumpling. You'll hear of it every day of the wake, and Sunday into the bargain." « Well " " Well," interrupted Norah, jumping up to answer the bell, " I can only say, as our dustmen ginerally do by the small beer, you'll find it all out." Seeing me rather dejected when she came down, she told me she must leave in an hour, and therefore in a brief manner offered some advice as to the- best way of " managing misthress " ; but, though I afterwards found many of her hints useful, it is not necessary to notice them here, except that Norah finished by saying, " If, my darlint, you want ralely to vex her, tase her about the little ateing you git." On entering the parlour, Mrs. received me with remarkable kindness. " I have heard," said she, " a great deal in your praise, and I know I shall like you. I shall do all I can to induce you to remain with us ; and I hope while you stay, you will find every comfort you require." " She'll certainly have to find every comfort she requires," said Mr. , as if to himself, while writing at a table ; "and she mustn't spare her trouble in looking for it ; I have done so for a whole week without finding one." " What's that you say, deart " said Mrs. , rather tartly. " I say, love, I have looked for shells in Pegwell Bay till the tide has come up ; and then I've got wet-footed for my pains, and gone away without even a periwinkle after all." " Pooh ! what has that to do with us 'i Well, my dear," turning to me, " I can only repeat, that while you stay here, you will find every comfort you require." "By my sowl, will she ?" muttered Norah, who had slipped into the room ; with a look that showed something had greatly ruffled her, and that she was determined to commence an action ; " but, by the powers of Dilf, that 'ill not be the worst of her finding, for, if she doesn't wish to starve, sure, she'll have to ' find herself.' " "You insolent creature !" said Mrs. , changing colour and 34° Eraser's Magazine temper together to save time ; '• what right have you to make such a remark ? " " Oh, right is it ? " said Norah, with a wink. " Why, your ladyship, not a bit more right than you had to tumble my box about ; I found an opening, and jist took advantage of it — and so did you." " Impertinent slut ! Leave the room immediately !" "Lave the room? It's lave the house I will ; and (pointing to me) I wish this poor darling and the rats joy of my lavings and your ladyship's company." * " Come, come,'' said Mr. , "this is very improper behaviour, " Norah. I cannot allow it ; I beg you will leave the room this moment." "Ay," returned Mrs. , "you at last, sir, find she is imperti- nent ; but who has encouraged her, Mr. , in her impudence ? Who has always taken her part, whenever I have mentioned her faults? You now, I hope, see, sir, all I have said of her is richly deserved." " Another time, my dear,'' said Mr. , with a smile, " would be better for anything you have to say to me.'' And Norah, rather emboldened than deterred, by Mrs. 's attack on her husband, again commenced. " Maybe, ma'am, before I lave, you'll jist tell me what rason you had for rummaging my thrunk this bright morning ? " Mrs. bit her lip, and again told her to leave the room. " I'll not lave, ma'am, till I know why you tumbled over my box." " Did yon fall over her box, my dear?" asked Mr. , looking gravely at Norah, and then at his wife. " Fall over it ? No," bawled Norah, snapping her apron-string. " I wish she'd had that same luck. I mane to say, I left my kay in it, and now, by my sowl, I find every precious thing as complately disordered as if it had got tipsy at the blessed thoughts of my laving. Oh ! it's not that I presume to compare myself to a so-logical baste, but if I had come behind her, faith, I'd have tumbled her in, and doubled her up in my thrunk as nate as an elephant." Mr. , wishing to put an end to the matter, said, in his quietest manner, " I have no doubt, Norah, your mistress thought there was reason for looking into your box ; and I'm very glad, and I'm sure she is, that in her search, she found no room for complaint." " Faith, she's not glad uv it, at all at all," muttered Norah. Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 341 " How do you know that, sauce-box ? " said Mrs. , disdain- fully. "And how do you know that I have found no room for complaint ? " " Och ! " returned Norah, with her usual wink, " I'll be bound you have ; the ould thrunk's pretty full, but if it had more in it than it has, sure your ladyship 'ud find room for complaint." " Yes, returned Mrs. , stamping her foot, " if it had more in it than it has, I certainly should have found room for complaint, notwithstanding all your fine airs. Miss Norah." These last two words, being drawn out with a contemptuous sneer, Norah's eyes flashed fire as she replied : — " Don't miss me, ma'am ! What, bekase your ladyship can't miss anything else, you must miss my own darling name ! By the powers of Dilf " " Why did you search her box, dear ? " asked Mr. , in a soft tone, just in time to stop what he saw was coming. " Oh ! "■ said Norah, with her standing wink, " I can guess : misthress told me yesterday, it was positive she was I got a letter from you, sir, when you were at Margate ; and she jist tried to find it, to see which of us two skullsplits, as she called us, had to pay the postage." " You insolent wretch 1 " bawled Mrs. ; " will you get out of the house ? " '' A letter from me, my dear ! " said Mr. ; " why, I didn't think the girl could read." " And it isn't I that can," returned Norah ; " and so misthress thought she'd better read it for me — if she could find it." Here she winked again. " You impudent baggage ! " exclaimed Mrs. , taking two fearful strides towards Norah. Mr. again iilterposed ; but his wife insisted on his holding his tongue, or turning Norah out of the house. Neither of these orders, however, were to be easily executed ; and for some reason Mr. preferred measuring twelve paces, and was more pleased than astonished to find the last one ended just outside the room. This was lucky, too ; for at that moment came a very long ana loud knock at the door, and with his usual condescension, he immediately opened it. A tall, thin personage, apparently about two-and-twenty, with a boa, muff, cloak, shawl, clogs, veil, reticule, &c., &c., and a little dog with a curly tail behind her, instantly popped in, and with a most rapid dehvery, addressed a few words to him. 342 Ffasef's Magazine " Pray, does Mrs. live here ? — this is Court ? had some trouble to find it — hope not wrong — long walk back — can't ride, — got the headache : about the time I said I'd call, — hope she's not engaged — won't keep her a second." This and much more was uttered so fast, that it was not till Mr. had made many vain endeavours to answer her that he was able to edge in sideways,^ "Yes, ma'am, Mrs. is at home — quite at home" (this to himself) — " pray walk in." And he at once showed her into the room where his wife and Norah were not very quietly concluding the debate, previous to a division ; and then, thinking his health would be benefited by a walk, Mr. started off to the Park. " Oh ! ma'am,'' said the stranger, in the same rapid manner, observing Mrs. 's confusion, " I fear I intrude — I'd no idea — beg pardon — my name is Smith, — perhaps you know Mr. Tom Smith, butcher, Aldersgate Street ? only ask one question, — not detain you a minute. Ah ! there's Norah — called yesterday — said this morning would be convenient — hope no complaints against her — hke her looks— hope she's cleanly — looks strong, hope she's industrious — looks hearty, hope she eats well and works well — ■ little chew, little do, you know — likes children, I hope — no objection to nursing — won't mind taking them out — little shay on purpose, pretty thing, cost ten guineas ; where there's children there must be charges ; — some of the washing done at home, can lend a hand, I hope, — able to wait at table — use a scrubbing-brush— cook plain joints and poultiy ; do all the pastry myself, — makes haste of her errands — good needle-woman — no followers — early riser — not timid at sitting up late when family out — can use her pen— help in brewing— in short, makes good use of her spare time, and has no objection to make herself generally useful ? " All this was said with certain motions of the head like a horse at a funeral, and little ticdoloureuxish contortions of the face, and, altogether, in a manner which Mrs. Smith thought must appear very womanly, in spite of her girlish looks, besides being rattled through with the speed of a railway-engine, much to the annoyance of Mrs. , who saw she might as well attempt to stop a Birmingham train by a puff of her breath, as Mrs. Smith's tongue till it had ended its first trip. But what was more vexatious than all, she had come in at a very critical moment for Norah; and Mrs. could not forgive her. As soon, therefore, as Mrs. Smith showed the nature of her Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 343 visit, Mrs. determined to have a woman's satisfaction on both parties. By giving Norah an excellent character, she saw she would help her to a place where she must work like a donkey in pea-season ; while, at the same time, she would be revenged on her chattering new mistress, by inducing her to take a servant who, she believed, would always " keep her in hot water." Seeing Mrs. Smith, therefore, about to commence again, Mrs. 's face assumed a benignant aspect as she said, with a significant look at Norah, — " You may depend, ma'am, on finding in Norah one of the best servants that ever came into a house ! It is useless to say more ; for, in one word, I know of no failing in her, not even that alluded to by you, and one common to girls at her age — tse-ee-ee ! — want of appetite. I assure you, her working and eating always keep pace with each other; and she is never tired of either. Tse-ee-ee-ee ! " laughed Mrs. very significantly. " Tse-ee-ee-ee, Tse-ee-ee-ee ! " tittered Mrs. Smith, pleased with the character. " Tse-ee-ee ! good morning, Mrs. Smith," said Mrs. , going to the door, and wishing to be rid of her. " Tse-ee-ee ! good day, Mrs. ,'' said Mrs. S., who had not intended leaving so soon, and who therefore rattled away the faster till she got out of the house. " Tse-ee-ee ! good day, good day — hope favour us with a call— Mr. Smith's charming man — been married seven years, come Easter Monday — he'll be glad to see you. Mr. will be delighted to take a glass of brandy-and- water with him — I don't drink spirits, but I'll take care you shall have a good cup of tea — come any day but Friday — kill Fridays — Monday our best day for company — take us as you find us, rather old-fashioned, but always something to eat, and little bit left — rough and ready, like our Jack at sticking the sheep — tse-ee-ee ! " " Tse-ee-ee ! " tittered Mrs. again, as she opened the door. " Cursed vulgar, impertinent young thing ! " she added, as she shut it. On returning to the parlour, Mrs. was rather mortified at finding Norah had slipped downstairs ; who, I suppose, thought it prudent not to disturb the good opinion Mrs. had so unexpectedly formed of her, by renewing the searching debate. And Mrs. seemed to think it unnecessary to take further notice of it at present ; but, taking my hand, said : " My dear Dolly, I fear we have made you very uncomfortable ; but as soon as that saucy, lazy slut leaves us, we shall go on very happily.'' 344 Fraser's Magazine She appeared to forget I had heard her give Norah such an excellent character ; but persons suffering under an accumulation of injuries and sorrows cannot be expected to be consistent to a hair in all they say or do ! From this first hour's experience of this woman, I am convinced she is a deeply persecuted person ! Knarf. No. II Note by Ed. No. 3 Oct. 25, 1838. With some surprise and much apprehension, I have just read the following letter (written on the back of a " weakly dispatch '' to Lord Yellowbelly). I at once lay it before the reader, merely noticing that as its date implies, it was begun on the fifth, and appears to have cost the author twenty days' work to finish. Its " cacographical " purity, however, accounts for this labour. To the Editor of"Fraser^s Magazine.'' Reform Club, October 5. " Sir,— "A lady by the name of Duster has, I perceive, commenced the publication of her Memoirs in your Magazine. I very seldom read that miscellany, much more write in it ; and must confess an extreme disgust at a report which has gone abroad that I myself am connected in any way with the Memoirs in question. May I request. Sir, that you will contradict this rumour, which is likely seriously to injure me in the society in which I have at present the honour to move ? "A member of the Club from which I address you this note, a partizan (as far as my efforts go) of ministers, a friend of the most celebrated literary men in England, it would ill become me to contribute to a miscellany like yours, or to attempt, by a series of cacographical errors, to attempt to awaken the laughter of the public. A gentleman, sir, should never be a buffoon ; it is a poor wit which is obliged to adopt such means for obtaining applause. In case you refuse the insertion of this letter, I need not say that I shall expect a very different species of satisfaction. " I have the honour to remain, Sir, " Your obedient servant, " FiTZROY YELLOWPLUSH. " P.S. {Private). Haven't I got on in spelling? Come and dine Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 345 here some day : we let people in while the Irish members are out of town. I have got a novel in the style of a certain friend of mine, for which I want to make some arrangements with you : it's got poetry, classix, metaphizzix, and is crammed chock full of bits of Greek play. Do you twig ? " Now, with Mr. F. Y.'s remarks on O. Y.'s Magazine I have nothing to do, though I must express my " extreme disgust " at them. The gentleman appears to have left his gratitude in his yellow , when he exchanged them for the Reform trousers. I should like, however, to ask this late street-door grinder which of his literary friends discovered him in these " Passages " ? There is a certain member of his Club, who squints abominably, and I suspect he is the man. I know he once took Joe Hume for a humbug ; and after that " comes a horse to be shaved." But, with respect to the "lady" whose Diary has called forth Mr. Y.'s inky thumb. Our title ought to show him that, though I am trying to make much of her, poor Dolly is no more ! I am sure the fact must have escaped him, or this heavy blow from his Club would not have been inflicted. Nevertheless, I must add, were she alive, she would, doubtless, like other ladies, rejoice at any opportunity of wearing the ; but to have it thought that she inhabited Mr. Yellowplush's would indeed have warmed her heart, while she would feel bound to express her deep regret at the serious consequences to him such a mistake might incur. The Dusterian Diary. Tuesday, i8 — . No sooner was dinner over to-day, than a scene commenced between Mr. and Mrs. ; he all the while as cool as a terrier's nose, she growing warmer and warmer every minute, like a dog-day morning. He asked for the Irish whisky ; she said, the Scotch was best for him. He said : " I like the Irish." She said : " Yes, Norah for that ! " He said : " What do you mean ? " She said : " You know." He said : " I know ! What have I to do with Norah ?" She said : " That's what I want to know." He said : " I'll have an explanation.'' She said : " That's what / want." He said : " Then give me one directly." 346 Fraser's Magazine She said : " You know /can't." He said : " I beg it, madam, as a favour." She said : " Not the only favour, sir, you've begged of a lady ; but I am not so able or willing as Norah to grant it." " Madam," said he, " this is a base and false insinuation." "Sir," said she, "the insinuation is not all that's base and false in the present company." " Mrs. ," said he, " I am ashamed of you ! " "Mr. ," said she, "that's half-way to being ashamed of yourself." " Madam,'' said he, " then I'll leave the rest of the road to your ladyship." " Sir," said she, " I've arrived at the end of it ; I am completely ashamed of your lordship." " My dear," said he, " I hope you didn't find it a difficult journey?" " Sir," said she, " it was all down hill." " Madam," said he, " you, who so much like to descend, must have found it pleasant travelling." It is uncertain how long the firing of small shot would have continued, had I not unfortunately at this moment dropped one of the glasses I was putting on the table. The smash seemed the signal for a more vigorous engagement ; and I therefore quitted the room.' " Let me have some hot water ! " bawled Mrs. , stamping her foot, and glaring at her husband with eyes like fire. " Let me have less noise ! " cried Mr. , thumping the table, but evidently still as cool, and as little affected by her warmth, as a toad's stomach by summer. " Mr. ," said his wife, " I will no longer submit to your vile treatment. Was it for this I shut my eyes and ears to all I heard of your faults before marriage — that I affected not to believe what was generally said of your shameful irregularities — that I have never since marriage alluded to your past follies, and endeavoured to persuade myself that you were guilty of no new ones ? " " Mrs. ," replied her spouse, again making the glasses nervous by his mock-energetic manner, Mrs. , " you can please yourself about submitting to my ' vile treatment,' for another minute ; and ' It will, perhaps, puzzle some commonsense readers to see how Dolly could take down what passed during her absence. This instance, however, is not half so surprising as some that occur further on ; but diaries would now be dull without discrepancies. — Ed. No. 3. Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 347 as to keeping your eyes and ears shut before marriage, — if true, you have made up pretty handsomely for it, by keeping your mouth open ever since." " It's false, you monster," said she, feeling for her pocket- handkerchief, — or the poker, I am not sure which, — " you know not what I have suffered for you, — many, many hours have I passed in silence, unable to speak or sleep." " Indeed ! " returned Mr. , taking out his snuff-box ; " these curious hours must have been while eating your meals ; and when I've been out, too ; for I'll swear, my love, you never found yourself in such an unprecedented difficulty when I was at home." " Inhuman wretch ! " she continued, grinding her teeth. " Oh ! that ever I should have tied myself to such a brute ! But, Mr. , you may jeer, you may jeer — it shall not last long — you shall yet find I have a spirit, and am not to be trodden upon — you vile, unfeeling, immoral, man ! " " Im-mo-ral m-a-n ! " said Mr. , slowly. " My dear, that sweet temper of yours is the parent of more immoralities and sins than the inventor of picking pockets. Unfeeling, immoral ! Why, Mrs. , your amiable temper has indeed done its best to make me miserable ; and as Misery and Wickedness are twin sisters, and generally go hand in hand, it was hardly likely I should avoid the one when introduced to the other [here he yawned]. But, you see, madam, it was you, you, who did me the honour [here he made a bow], to bring them in my way ; and now, alas ! you are envious and jealous of them, as you are of every soul I even look upon. [Here he gazed at himself in the glass.] " Jealous ! Jealous ! am I ? " and, gulping down her grog, bang went the tumbler at Mr. ; but he, not being so big-headed as she thought, it missed him, and went through the old-fashioned looking-glass that had belonged to her great-grandmother. This added chagrin to her anger, but she tried to disguise it. " Is it jealousy I feel ? " she continued, curling her lip like a sofa- scroll reversed. " Jealousy, indeed ! Ha ! Ha ! No, Mr. , it is not Jealousy, but every other feeling of an injured woman, [here she wiped her eyes]. For such a villain, I can only feel pity, horror, grief, dismay, disgust, contempt, — in one word hatred ." " Malice, and all uncharitableness," added Mr. , pulling up his shirt-collar ; " very lady — woman — wifelike, amiable, sweet, tender sentiments ! " " Aggravating scoundrel ! " screamed Mrs. ; and at one fell swoop she cleared the mantel-shelf of all its curious knick- 348 Fraser's Magazine knacks ; — fairy teacups, glass couches, china ships, ivory shepherdesses and cats, all went to the dogs together ; and with them what rather galled Mr. , namely, all the tiny, innocent, Indian idols, given him by the captain's lady ! When he looked down and saw all his little household gods thus shivered about his hearth, it almost overcame the North-pole coolness of his temper. But, catching his wife's eye on the broken looking-glass, he said, with a smile of satisfaction, " My dear, I apprehend we are mutual sufferers ?" "Mutual fools!" bawled his wife, looking round for another smash ; and Mr. , observing her eye fixed on his glass, snatched it up, drank off his grog with a smack of his lips, and then whispered to himself in his peculiar way, "'T would have spoilt the carpet, by gum 1 " "'Twill not spoil you, you sot!" returned his wife, dropping down in her chair with a bump which shook the house. " I hope not, my dear, for your sake," he replied with a sigh and a cough. " For my sake, you drunkard ! I suppose it is for my sake that you lead the life of a detestable great brute of a fish, swallowing everything that comes in your way, you ugly, enormous whale ! " " If I am a whale, my dear, I hope I shall never met with you for a Jonah ; with all my ability in that way, it would be no joke to swallow /oz^, my love.'' " Joke ! — no, it should be no joke, Mr. ," said she, shaking her head at him. " I know it, my dear. You would not only take care to upset my stomach long before the three days expired, but, what is worse [here he looked at the fragments on the floor], my butler would find nothing whole in my pantrj' for his use when you left." " You heartless, sneering brute ! How long am I to sit and hear these insulting taunts ? " shouted Mrs. , rising and going towards him in a most menacing way. " If you provoke me much more, you base man ! I neither know nor care what may be the end of this disgraceful uproar you have raised." " / have raised ! Hem ! " whispered Mr. to himself Then looking towards the door, he pretended to rise, but she made a spring. "No, No! you cowardly brute! you shall not escape me!" and in an instant, with a kick, she sent her footstool clean into the china cupboard ; and then away flew the table sprawling, legs uppermost, to the other side of the room — the bottles and glasses Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 349 upon it, like true emissaries of evil, dispersing themselves in small divisions in various directions, while the brandy and whisky, like rogues as they are, ran away with the wine. She paused a moment, then bang went an arm-chair after the table, upsetting a smaller one in its course ; which also falling legs upwards, whack went another chair at its shins ; all which performance Mr. wit- nessed with as much calmness and unconcern as if he were a cabinet maker. Mrs. saw this, and was the more enraged. She determined, therefore, to make a climax ; and looking real slaughter at her husband, she jnade a desperate attempt to get a grip of him, across the confused outworks she had thrown up between them. Unfortunately, however, just as the tips of her fingers touched him, and promised the consummation of her hopes, down she fell with a crash, in a Hottentot position, amongst the shattered furniture, and smash went legs and arms — of the chairs — beneath her. This was a most unlooked for and undignified catastrophe, and evidently disconcerted the heroine, — who, however, seized one of the broken legs, belaboured about her for a minute, and then once more took aim at Mr. 's cranium ; but, missing again, the leg disappeared through the window, and cut a little boy's head open in its journey. Whether from chagrin, fright, or being puzzled what to do next, is uncertain, but no sooner had the leg made its exit than Mrs. shrieked out, " Oh, you mon — mon — monster ! vil — vil — villain ! O ! O ! O ! " and in a twinkling was stretched out in the most legitimate, ladylike fainting-fit — none of your vulgar, noisy fits, but a quiet monumental resignation to rigidity. " Scipio Africanus," said Mr. , in that peculiar manner, as if to himself, as he looked down on his wife — " Scipio Africanus, amidst the ruins of Carthage, was nothing to this ! " But for once it was not effectual — it provoked no reply. Mrs. was too tired with her exertions to lose this unexpected chance of recover- ing the exhaustion of the nervous influence ; and she therefore silently kept her place among the shatters of the storm, with little hope that her husband would attempt to rescue from the wreck. Nor was she deceived. Mr. twice scratched his left eye- brow, gazed again on his wife, took a pinch of best " blackguard," and something after the fashion of a cat on hot bricks, picked his way as well as he could towards the door, muttering as if to himself again, " Unhappy woman ! what a situation ! a complete h6spital of broken limbs ! What a melancholy thing if the tables or chairs should change legs with her while I go for a doctor ! " 35° Ffasef's Magazine Here, thinking he heard a slight movement, he looked round ; but though it struck him the chair-cushion was not under Mrs. 's head when he saw her the moment before, he must have been mistaken, for she was more rigid than ever. He therefore again commenced talking, as if to himself: " By the by, there is one limb missing. To prevent disputes, I'll send it back again through the hole in the window when I go out. I hope it will not hit her, poor creature ! " Then, taking one more look, he popped out of the room, and locked the door after him. He now called me upstairs, and started me off to request his " particular friend " Dr. , 12, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, would come and see Mrs. as soon after his dinner as convenient. I remonstrated against going such a distance for relief, but he declared Dr. was the only man who knew his wife's complaint ; and I, therefore, found further argument useless. What might be going on while I was absent, I knew not ; and I accordingly made my way to Chelsea as speedily as possible. A pretty errand it was ! I could find no such man as Dr. ; and after two hours' search and inquiry, I was compelled to return home, unable to gain any tidings of him. On reaching the house, in vain I hammered with the knocker, as if committing a forgery on a blacksmith, and rung the bell like a sexton ; while the rain pelted down till I could have wrung myself. Cold and miserable, I had just made up my mind to return to my good stepmothei-'s, when, to my astonishment, Mrs. touched me on the shoulder ! "Oh lauk, ma'am!" cried I, shuddering; how, how came you here?" " How came I here, girl ? " said she ; " why, do you think I was going to remain locked in while the wretch fetched somebody to murder me ? No ; directly he started you off, he went out and locked the street-door after him. But, as soon as I heard him go, I made my escape out of the back parlour window, and through the back door, and pursued the rascal. I caught sight of him in the next street, and followed at such a distance as just to keep a glimpse of him. But, oh ! the dance the villain gave me ! at the rate, too, of full five miles an hour ! — over roads pulled up for gas- pipes — under scaffolds of houses being pulled down — crossing the street always when there was almost a certainty of my being run over — then shooting down courts, alleys, lanes, stable-yards, — oh ! what places he led me through ! I every minute expecting one of these vile ankle-wringing outlets would end in ' No thoroughfare,' when he must have turned back and discovered me at his heels. Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 3Si But, no ! this was not the case — and the wretch never even turned his head an inch ; yet/' she continued, her face crimsoning at the thought, "yet, would you believe it, all at once it struck me the dastardly, mean, sly fellow knew I was following him ! Oh, how I wished I could have knocked him down without letting him see me ! As this, however, was not to be done, I returned home as fast as I could, wishing he might find himself at Jericho when he stopped, and persuading myself that it was impossible he could know I was behind him. But, alas 1 the aggravating scoundrel ! It is too certain, too certain ! On looking back, just before I came up to the door, there, — would you believe it? — there, to my horror, I saw the monstef's head grinning round the corner ! " Astonished at her story, but thinking more of my own uncom- fortable condition, I anxiously exclaimed, " What can we do ? We can't get in !" " Can't we ? " said she, coolly ; " indeed, we can. I took care, before I came out, to put the key of the back door in my pocket — and the kettle on the fire for tea, too. So come along round with me, and we'll make ourselves a strong cup." Poor lady ! it makes my heart bleed to think of her ill-usage, and the fortitude with which she bears it. Sunday. — Went out to tea at ' Mr. Easy's ; spent a delightful evening — most interesting stories of the neighbours and acquaint- ances of Mr. E. One lady present (Mrs. C. P.'s "private and confidential"*) said he had that day had the honour of seeing Mrs. 's daughter, who is at boarding-school. After saying, "She is ve;y clever — talks all sorts of nonsense — is a fine piece of flesh and blood " — the lady exclaimed, " What will be her fate ? " ox fat, I'm not sure which, but think it must have \>e.e.nfat, as most in keeping. There was a John Runstir sat next me at supper, who seems quite ill-placed in a kitchen, for he appears to be a delightful and sincere person. He expresses himself with great enthusiasm, and has aU the sentiment of a footman. He said beefsteak and onions was a dish one should not eat too often. I asked why. He said, " It is too ' pekong.' " Mrs. Stuff, after praising his family, told him ' Taking tea "at" Mr. Easy's is very different to taking tea "with" Mr. E. The "at" means joining the " ladies and gentlemen of the Icitchen, or lower house " ; " with Mr. E. " is used by the master's company only, in the upper bouse. — Ed. No. 3. * Vulgarly called lady's maid. — Ed. No. 3. 552 Fraser's Magazine that "whatever little good she had in her, she owed it to hi^ mother" (who cooked the supper). But the most charming person in the company was the befoi'e- mentioned Mrs. C. P.'s private and confidential. She really had such excellent open-your-eyes stories of every body. I remember the following remarks created quite a sensation. She said : " It is strange that every person, even the most pro- fligate, abuses Michael S s, the Radical Whitechapel butcher ; yet they all visit him, and buy meat at his shop. said the other night he had as much murdered the late Churchwarden as if he had shot him, when he got him turned out of the select vestry. He then proceeded to say that it was not so much from losing the good dinners for the future, as from a diabolical deceit he practised upon him respecting* one of his favourite joints. It seems that at the parting dinner they had, when left the Vestry, S s had one dish of veal before him which he liked very much, but upon which the churchwarden doated also ; so, in order not to part with any of this dish, S s feigned its underdoneness, and recommended to a similar-looking one at the other end, but which was part of a jackass he had borrowed of the churchwarden's wife, and which he had had killed and skinned at his shop, and sent to table under the care of a Mrs. W , who owed the churchwarden a grudge. I shall never look at that man again without dislike (nor at his veal either). Think of any one jackassing another's appetite ; and to please a woman ! The wretched churchwarden (finding the joint tough) wept his lost veal for some time ; and when it was convenient to Michael S s to rid himself of his dish (i.e. when he had done dinner), he had the hide of the jackass brought in, in proof of the deception he had practised, and informed the churchwarden he sent him back his nephew's skin, that, as soon as he had devoured the remaining parts of what he had dined off, he might get inside it, when his wifa would see her donkey again alive and well ! The shock proved too great for the unhappy man, who lost all appetite, and died of brandy and water ; and the villainy has hitherto remained unpunished, and the perpetrator of this jackass tragedy can walk about in peace ! Oh, surely not in peace ! People generally end this tragic tale by saying, ' Poor ' , he was a great fool ! " It will be better, at the next parish election, to be that great ' If my readers end this tragic tale, by saying "poor 1 " I shall be vexed.— Ed. No. 2. THE CHARRUAS. [See page 39. Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 353 fool, than the butcher who is dignified with the false epithet of clever 1 " ^ This narrative had such an effect upon us, that the party very soon after broke up ; and I recollect nothing more being said worth relating, except the following very fine remark by the same story-telling lady. Mrs. Trite having declared that she experienced very different feelings in the company of different people, the lady alluded to strikingly exclaimed, " How the heart dilates or closes in the presence of different persons ! It must be very unwholesome to be with those in whose society the latter is the case ! " We all thought this astonishingly fine, except young Mr. Pillem, our family surgeon's gentleman, and that young rascal would have it that the heart could only " dilate " as often as it " closed," in anybody's- company (and that must be pretty frequently) ; and said it would be much more " unwholesome " to be with those in whose society the latter was not the case — for that would be with the "dead uns."^ Monday. — Mr. has not returned since the quarrel. Mrs. however, appears neither alarmed nor surprised ; but to my horror is busily at work making preparations for a party ! The ' If this story alludes to a certain ill-used alderman by election, but who, like Eve, is not intended to have a gown, 1 fear some of the facts are incorrectly stated. There certainly was a bother, and I think a trial, for his having killed a donkey for a calf some years ago ; but, unless my memory deceives me, it was explained satisfactorily, without his flying to Geneva for protection, or causing any tragic death. However, I insert the above account in consequence of its striking similarity to an occurrence related in Lady Carry-the-Candle's Diary ; and I can hardly help suspecting the author of that work must have seen the MS. of this journal before she concocted that story, for, on reference, I find not only the general facts similar, but that she has used the very language of my author to such an extent, that, on the average, there is not above one word in a line different in the two accounts I With respect to any offence being given to any of the worthy gentleman's connexions, I may add, that though Justice is always expected to hold the Scales up boldly to public view, yet she has no objection in this case, as in others, to being blind-folded, if any one has a purse long enough. In plain lingo, we'll leave it out of the next edition if they will stand something or kick up a noise that will make this Diary " popular."— Ed. No. 3. 2 On investigation I find the whole of this day's entry has been copied into the Carry-the-Candle Diary, with merely such slight alterations as "Count Munster" for John Runstir, "Italy" for beefsteak and onions, etc., etc. ; while all the fine sayings are retained almost word for word. — Ed. No. 3. 23 354 Frasef's Magazine notice is short, but the neighbours in and about the Court are too fond of good living and scandal to decline the pressing invitation she has sent them. It is remarkable to see how cheerfully she skips about to-day ; occasionally giving language to her injured feelings. " Yes, yes, Mr. ," she said just now ; " you think I am moping and crying at your absence — you'd like me to break my heart — but, Mr. , I am not such a fool — I am not such a fool, Mr. . U — u— ugh, the brute ! " She sent for the man the other day to mend the furniture ; and when he came, she said to him, " You see, Mr. Gloosplit, what I have to put up with from Mr. ." " Did he do this, marm ?" exclaimed the man. " He ! no ; it wouldn't have been lucky for him if he had ! No, but what a villain he must be, Mr. Gloosplit, to drive me to do it!" "He must indeed, marm; it's most equal to bugglary ; but" continued the man, taking up the broken leg of the large table, and scratching the old glue out of the fracture, " it's most a pity it isn't the other leg, for this is the same one as you broke off last time Mr. druv you to it." The man thought she frowned, but couldn't tell why, and there- fore examined the table, and told her it was what a doctor calls a compound fracture. " Don't talk to me about doctors or compounds, but finish your job, and you shall have a glass of brandy," said she. " Thankee, marm ; but," continued the man, with an air of the greatest surprise, "somehow, there's only three legs to this here chair." " I've lost the other,'' said Mrs. colouring, and not hking to own she had sent it through the window. " Lost it ! well that is a pity ! Are you quite sure, marm, you haven't got it?" " Yes, quite." " Then I suppose you must have a new one, marm ? But it is a pity, that it is." "What's the price?" " Twelve shillings, marm ; but as you lost it marm, and I suppose Mr. druv you to it, I shall only charge half-a-guinea, and the half-crown for fixing." "For fixing?" " Yes oh, that's quite reglar, marm ! " Now this shows how the poor woman is imposed on. It was Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 355 this very man's son whose head was cut open by the limb when it flew through the window ; and as soon as the young urchin saw it was the leg of a chair that struck him, he quietly picked it up, took it home, told his father the house it came out of, got twopence for it, cured his head with a penn'orth of black jack, and pocketed a penny profit by the job ; while his father just rubbed Mrs. — 's own leg with a bit of sand-paper, and now charges her half-a-guinea for it ! Such rapaciousness disgusts me. Wednesday, — th. — Mrs. had her party yesterday, at which several persons living in the Court, and other neighbours, were present. Mrs. ^'s arrangements were excellent, everything as nearly after the manner of great folks as possible. A dozen port, at 33s., was ordered from Mr. Mixem's, with as much dirty whitening and sawdust about the bottles as they could send at the price ; and this dozen, with all its pristine marks of primitive purity thick upon it, was accidentally placed on the floor near the head of the kitchen stairs, so that the guests as they came in could warrant it to themselves just brought up from Mrs. 's cellar. Entering the "blue parlour" an hour before dinner, an old superannuated piano presented itself as sideboard extraordinary ; upon which various dishes of oranges, apples, nuts, and sweet biscuits, with two venerable decanters of sherry, looking like a couple of tight-laced old maidens, with hoops and brown skirts, were interspersed amidst a collection of wine-glasses and tumblers that had been handed down, with small additions, from one member of the family to another for the last hundred years. At the back of this sideboard, stood two broken branch candlesticks, which had once been plated ; but their silver had long since passed into other hands ; and with their lopped limbs and copper faces, each with a notched candle- paper fitted in its socket, resembled a couple of old Greenwich pensioners, with ruffles on, stretching out their single arms to shake hands with each other. Around, lay numerous spoons of the same antique description, and of that modest size so peculiar to the times or mouths of our grandfathers ; while one gravy-helper of very modern and capacious character appeared ready to spring on the little venerables and swallow them up, had not a grave elderly fruit-knife opposed its blade to the monster's advance. On the right-hand corner, just so as not to look intrusive, was to be seen a reverend pair of plated snuffers, minus their legs, and sleeping quietly on their haunches in the tray like a lame dog on a rug. The twelve chairs were of equally ancient aspect, six 35^ Fraser's Magazine possessing elbows, and looking exceedingly like that number of old gentlemen with their hands on their knees, talking to the other six prim old damsels, two of whom inclined a httle on one side, as if rather deaf and striving to listen ; but whit was a little unpleasant when you sat down on them, they were all troubled with a kind of wheezing cough, that made those unaccustomed to them always feel uneasy and look foolish. Along the room hung sundry pictures, so placed as not to monopolise any light, but which seemed to be unfinished per- petrations of early genius. In one you were struck by seeing a dragoon looking full at you without a face, seated on a white horse with only three legs — the former trifling omission arising from the artist having been cleverer at depicting the jacket and trousers than the countenance ; and the latter, from the same individual possessing a facility in painting small bolsters (which served well enough for three legs), but whose genius had not yet accomplished the foreshortening of the foreleg, which was necessary to complete the Charing-Cross attitude of the animal. This parlour was to be the dining-room, and when the cloth was laid, the old piano contributed greatly to the effect by its treasures. Mrs. superintended the operation, and made an admirable display of her limited resources, — everything was in perfection, from the cruets to the wine-cooler ; the latter article officiating in the shape of a small green tub, used on common days for washing cabbages. The other parlour, which is to be considered the drawing-room, was furnished in a similar manner, but displaying instead of the plate, the ancient family china in a corner cupboard ; while various nooks and comers exhibited a collection of curiosities, comprising two high-heeled spangled slippers, in which a very great aunt had danced at a masque with Charles the Second ; some stuflfed birds, all very tame and dingy in their day, but now looking extremely fierce and brilliant ; various shells and minerals, including a chip from the 97th story of the Tower of Babel, a real warranted thunder-bolt, &c., &c. Let us now turn to the guests among whom were the following : — Mrs. A and Mr. D d who seem likely to a-d-d themselves together. He is the chemist at the comer of the street, and she is the widow of the late Corporal A . They appear well suited to each other, — at least, not hkely to quarrel. She never contradicts any one, and he never says anything Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 357 worth contradicting. Mrs. Haggle says, however, that Mrs. A.'s quiet temper may alter when she takes the druggist for a husband, and he, after all, may find himself "well shaken, when taken." Mr. B , who is always dumb to others because they don't speak to him, while others are always dumb to him because he can't hear them. He is a very deaf and patient man, and a sort of dumb waiter for all he gets to eat and drink, having many things put on him which others ought to bear. In short, he is looked on as nothing or nobody, and instead of Mr. is called Mr. Blank. Old Mr. Gravel, whose conversation is like a garden walk, consisting of some smooth pebbles, but mixed up with such a rough sand of grufif sayings, that if you are thin-skinned it fs impossible to come in contact with him without being grazed. He always seems gritty, and I think ought to be well pumped on. Mr. Larkins, who is ever on the look-out for a victim to his love of fun, and who lives upon invitations and practical jokes. He seems to bear about with him a sort of trick-pestilence, which completely infected the other gentlemen yesterday, and much deteriorated the tone and character of the whole party. Mr. Gill, the fishmonger ; a sort of satirical, unfeeling man — a complete eel-skinner. Among the ladies was old Mrs. Haggle, who never buys a penn'orth of tape without 'bating the man down, or including a bodkin in the bargain ; and treats everybody's character in the same manner, always trying to clip a little bit off the best end of it, or adding something to make a hole in it. Another fair guest was Miss Daisy ; a living personification of her own name ; whose fifty pounds a year form a golden centre, around which various beaus form a border that renders the flower complete. But as she is waiting to find one out of this border as golden as herself, I fear she will remain long on the stalk. Nor must I omit Mr. Fitzhoward Hawley, a " fashionable " young lawyer's clerk, who thinks " segares, opera densers, neyew noovels, beelyards, pugdorgs, women, and young puppies — aw — most delightful sources of enjoyment — 'pon my sewl ! " Several others were present ; but as I shall not have time to write down all that was said by those I have mentioned, I must leave the rest till another time. The dinner went off admirably and rapidly, apparently with a just appreciation of the Ude-istical maxim, that " the proof of the pudding is in the eating" ■ for scarcely a compliment was paid 35 8 Fraser's Magazine during the whole time, though the guests ate most voraciously ; and either Mrs. forgot to tell them her troubles, or knowing that the road to her friends' hearts was through their stomachs, deemed it politic to have all the turnpikes well bribed before she started. The moment dinner was removed, Mrs. commenced relating the wrongs she had suffered. A long and painful story it was, particularly to some who had nothing before them. Mr. D. and Mrs. A. seemed much affected, and Miss Daisy shed tears. Mrs. Haggle was horror-struck, and said, " If she didn't feel sure it couldnH be so, she really should have thought Mr. must have had some great provocation." The gentlemen were evidently so indignant that they could hardly make their patience hold out, but drew their breath very hard, and showed it was much more difficult to swallow this long story than a good dinner. At length, however, Mrs. came to the end of her troubles, and the company to the beginning of their dessert. The port was placed on the table in its native black bottles for the gentlemen, and the two old-fashioned decanters for the sherry ladies ; while the brandy was exhibited in a curious square liqueur, as Mrs. called it, but which Gill slyly told Larkins came out of the family medicine chest. " You have indeed had much to bear with,'' said Mrs. Haggle, with a sigh, as Mrs. halted to take breath. " I wonder she was able to endure it," added Mrs. A. " Why, she was used to it, you see, ma'am," replied Mrs. H. " Ah, I was used to it, and able to bear it, too," returned Mrs. , looking all resignation ; "and a great blessing it ii 1 have such spirits left after it. What will you take, Mr. Gravel?" she added, with a light-hearted smile. " A little brandy, first, and a nutmeg-grater, — I carry my own ginger," rephed Mr. G., in his gruff way. " Beg pardon, sir," said the harmless Mr. D., "but may I ask why you take ginger ? " " Yes," growled Gravel. "Well, sir," said D., staring at him. " Well, you have asked, haven't you ? " " Yes, certainly, I have asked," replied the gentle chemist, rather confused ; " but will you tell me, sir, the reason for taking it ? " " Why," growled Gravel, " I didn't wish to be rough before ladies ; but, if persons will ask questions, persons must answer them. — I'm troubled with the wind, sir — I'm like the late fighting-man, I'm a Belcher ; " and then down went the mixture. Passages from the Diafy of the late Dolly Duster 359 " I am very sorry " I am sorry, too." " I mean, sir, I am sorry that what I said has brought up this subject." "Aw — you needn't— aw— be sorry,'' said Hawley, running his fingers through his hair, " I should often be glad to raise the wind as easily — aw — 'pon my sewl." "Would you like some nuts, Hawley?" asked Larkins. "Mr. Gravel will help you to a few." " Aw — no — not just now — aw." " He can have some presently,'' said Gravel, drily. "Aw — Miss Daisy — aw — may I peel an apple for you — aw.?" asked H., bestowing a gracious smile upon that lady. "Thank you, you are too kind," replied the blushing little annuity. " Aw — I — aw — do you think so ? Well, Miss Daisy, I'll tell you an anecdote — aw. About two years ago — aw — as I was " " Pass the bottle, Hawley, and begin again," said Mr. Larkins. " Aw — now my dear fellow — aw — that's confounded ill nachard — you've put the story — aw — quite out of my head by your infernal interruption — aw." " Mrs. ^' said Mr Gill, " I appeal to you whether Mr. H. is quite in order?" " Aw — in order ! — aw " cried Hawley, putting his thumb on his moustache, and running to the looking-glass. "We mean," said Larkins, "whether 'infernal' is the word to use before ladies." " Or behind them either," growled Gravel. " Oh — aw — aw — it is devilish bad ; but, my dear Larkins, you shouldn't interrupt a fellow just as he's beginning a story — aw." " Why not ? " growled Gravel. "Aw — because I never can go on with it afterwards, 'pon my sewl — aw.'' "Why? "said Larkins. " Aw — don't know — but it always escapes out of my head directly." " How's that ? " continued Larkins. " Because he's got a crack in it," growled Gravel. Miss Daisy couldn't conceal a laugh ; and Hawley sat down in a bad temper, determined to be revenged on the port. "You are a sad mischievous man, Mr. Larkins," said Mrs. , " and I wish these ladies would p-iy you for some of your t icks," 3^0 Ffaser's Magazine " I should be glad to receive even a check from them," replied Larkins. " I fear, Mr. Larkins," said the sentimental Mrs. A. to that gentleman, but looking down her nose with her head turned to Mr. D , " I fear you are one of those who care little for ladies or love." "You are mistaken, ma'am," returned Larkins, putting his left hand on his breast instead of the right, and so covering his liver instead of his heart, " few men care so much for either of them as I do. " Then," said Mrs. Haggle, looking over her spectacles, " I wonder no lady has got you to put a ling on her finger." " He's afraid she'd keep it, and he'd then lose his five-and- sixpence," said Gill. " Of course she'd keep it," returned Mrs. Haggle, " and he'd keep her in return — and that would be a just settlement." " Would it ? ask him," growled Gravel. " Your friends seem very hard upon you, Mr. Larkins,'' said Mrs. ; " but I cannot think they are right." " No, ma'am," replied L., bowing : " they're quite wrong. They have none of them a tithe of the regard I have for the dear sex." "Well," said the pertinacious Mrs. Haggle, "it's strange you don't marry one of them, then." "Ah," said Mrs. , Mr. D., and Mrs. A., together, "that is rather odd, if he so esteems the sex." " Not at all," returned the undismayed Larkins ; " some men give up their own private enjoyment and advantages for the good of their country;«^«, and are called patriots ; and on the same principle, I give up the enjoyment 1 should find in the possession of one dear creature I might call my own, that I may entirely devote myself to the happiness of the whole of my (^wxalxywomen. I am, in short, an amoriot, instead of a patriot, and as you know, ladies, always at the command of every one of you." " Take away Mr. Larkins' empty bottle," said Mr. Gill. " U-u-u-gh," growled Gravel, mixing a third tumbler of brandy and water warm — (for, as he says, he " can't a-bear fiddling away his time sipping wine out of a thimble ") — " u-ugh, Mrs. , I think you and I are very silent." "Why, sir," replind the lady, with a significant smile, "you don't see, perhaps, that Mr. Hawley 'and Miss Daisy have slipped v) beside me ; we were just talking over a few matters of private Passages from the Diafy of the late Dolly Duster 361 interest — it's very rude, I know ; but you used Mr. Hawley so badly that I am doing this to restore his good-humour." Then, turning to the young Adonis, she added, " However, you don't mind them, Mr. Hawley ? " " Aw — no — but I haven't been well to-day — aw — 'pon my sewl," replied H , who began to show rather strange symptoms. His eyes were blinking like a dying rushlight, and every itime he attempted to look at Miss Daisy he only had the right one open, keeping the left shut, I suppose, to strengthen the other and concentrate what was left of his vision. His shifting his place was not unobserved ; and before his vacated elbow chair stood his empty bottle, on the top of which Larkins had dexterously fitted a small apple — then shaking the table and supplying the voice, the tipsy bottle began to perform various staggering civilities to the chair, and made the kindest inquiries about the absence and health of its late companion in arms, and the probability of his returning intoxicated with — love. All this might be amusing enough to the others, but Hawley doubted whether he ought to oin in the laugh. Concluding that he ought not, he drew himself up, and looking as fierce as he could, said, "Aw — Mr. Larkins, — aw — when a gentleman's ill — aw — " "What's the matter with you, sir?" said the kind Mr. D , taking hold of his wrist. " Aw — aw — Mr. D , I've got the toothach — aw." " What's the matter with the young gentleman ? " growled Mr. Gravel, with his eyes wide open. " He has caught a cold," said Miss Daisy with a deep sigh. "Ah !" growled Gravel, "slept in a field last night, and left the gate open, I suppose, eh?" " For shame, Mr. Gravel," said Mrs. , laughing ; "he has the toothach — can you tell him what will cure it ?" "Yes, ." "Can you?" exclaimed Mr. A., Mrs. D., and Miss Daisy,— the last person leaning over the table with intense anxiety. " Yes — let him fill his mouth with good milk, ." "Milk!" "Yes— and knock his head against a post till it turns to butter." This was said with a noise between a growl and a chuckle ; and altogether greatly offended Hawley. "Aw — that — aw— that's an insult — aw," said H. "An insect? which?" exclaimed Larkins, looking all over the table. 362 Fraser's Magazine " Aw — " continued Hawley, getting on his legs, but with a very suspicious sort of unsteadiness ; " Aw^ I won't stand it any longer — don't comprehend — aw — your small wit, sor — consider I have been insulted — treated like an asse — aw — like an asse, sor. — Mr. D. knows I have the toothach — aw — he's the only gentleman among you. Mr. D., I'll drink your health— aw." "Drink his tooth— it might be more use to you," said Gill, patting him on the shoulder, and then shifting his seat to the end of the table. " Aw — sor — aw, you— gracious, ladies — aw — you're not going to retoior?" But before he could say another word the ladies had disappeared and joined the other stuffed birds and old china in the next parlour. " Now, Hawley my boy," said Larkins, " we'll have a comfortable bottle to ourselves ; and you shall drink a// our healths ! " "Aw — if I do — aw — I'm dumb!" bawled H., knocking a piece out of a fruit -plate, and cutting his knuckles. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Gill, standing on his toes, and leaning the tips of his fingers on the table, — " gentlemen, I rise to perform what I deem an act of justice, and what I am sure will afford us all very great pleasure " " Aw — pleasure ? — aw — if you are going to insult me again — aw," interrupted Hawley. " Sit down, H.," cried Larkins, pulling him by his coat-tail down on his chair, with a bump that must have shook some of the wine into his calves. " Gentlemen," continued Mr. Gill, " I'm glad of the interrup- tion " " Aw — " [bump again.] " for it further convinces me that what I am doing will afford us a great deal of delight. Our worthy, excellent, entertain- ing, jolly, funny, mirth-making young friend, Mr. Fitzhoward Hawley, is equally well-known and respected by us all '' "Aw — Gill, I'll drink your health — aw," said Hawley, jumping up with Gravel's warm-water jug in his hand, the only drink within reach, at which he took a deep pull, and was going to commence a speech ; when Larkins again jerked him down, and with difficulty persuaded him to wait and hear the rest of Gill's oration ; " for," said L., " he has got a lot more good things to say of you yet." " Above a barrowful," growled Gravel. " Aw^aw — " (another jerk). " a gentleman we are always glad to meet; we who, like Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 363 himself, can appreciate mirth, know the value of such a friend in company. I am sure, gentlemen, you will not think 1 exaggerate when I say Mr. Fitzhoward Hawley affords more amusement than half-a-dozen common men ; he is, in short, a host of fun in himself (hear, hear). Gentlemen " "Aw— aw " " gentlemen, a bumper to Mr. Hawley ! " Down he went again with a "hurr!" Larkins jerking him harder than ever. " Gentlemen, have you all got bumpers ?" "Aw — aw — I have — aw — aw — hurr!" This time I thought Larkins had shook the breath out of him ; but he was up again in an instant. " Aw — aw " " Gentlemen, here's a bumper to the health of Mr. Fitzhoward Hawley I" "Aw — aw — hurr!" Larkins gave him this jerk in hopes of settling him while he drank the toast ; but in a moment he had snatched up Larkins' wine, and gulped it down. L. helped himself to another glass ; and Gill, then, not wishing to be noisy, but to do full honours, continued in a whisper, in which the others joined. "Hip, Hip, Hurrah!" "Aw — hip — hip — aw — hurrah!" shouted Hawley, at the top of his voice, which, standing out alone, sounded very unmusical and strange to the ears of Miss Daisy. Larkins now gave up his jurisdiction over the coat-tail of Hawley, and the latter commenced his speech. "Aw — gentlemen and ladies — aw— no ladies — gentlemen, the kind and flattering manner in which we have drank my health — aw — my health — my — in which we have drank my health — aw— don't interrupt me — aw — I say, gentlemen, the way we drank it, does us honour — aw — (here he either fell forwards, or Larkins pushed him) — aw — I know Mr. Gill — aw — would you fill my glass, upon my sewl, Larkins — aw — well, gentlemen — [he swallowed the wine, and Larkins filled again] — aw — I'm sorry I've made such a long speech ; but every compliment I've — aw — paid to you in it — aw — I'm sure you'll say you deserve — aw— it would make me tipsy to drink a full glass to each of your healths ; so, 'pon my sewl— aw — here's a bumper to the lot of you — aw — hurr ! " and down Larkins jerked him in his chair again. "Well," said the good-natured Mr. D., "I'm glad harmony is restored. Mr. Gravel, have you been to the play lately?" 3^4 Fi-asef's Magazine " I never go to the play, sir ; I meet with plent> of fools and odd characters without paying three-and-sixpence to see 'em," said Gravel, looking at Hawley ! " Aw — Gravel, my old boy,'' said H., who seemed quite refreshed by the warm water and the toast, "' aw — I wonder you never go to the theater. Don't you like to see a charming ballet — delishios densing ? — aw — it's deloightful ! " " Is it ? " growled Gravel ; " I shouldn't have thought it, if you hadn't said so. I think it just as impudent for a woman to shake her foot in my face, as for a man to shake his fist before my nose." "Hawley," said Gill, "thinks there's" no impudence in either; he would take as much notice of the one as of the other." " Ah," rejoined Larkins, " Hawley has long promised to tell me all about his intimacy with Ella Deepun, the dancer ; let's have it now, Hawley." " Oh, — aw — it's nothing to tell — mere casual circumstance." " Well, let's have it," said several. "Aw — you know, Larkins, it's not worth while making a fool of oneself before so many — aw." " Oh, the number of witnesses will be an advantage to you," returned Gill ; " it will put a stop to any doubt of your character in future.'' "Aw — Gill, my boy — ^I don't understand you." " It isn't necessary," growled Gravel ; " that's supposed in what he says." " Aw — aw " " Tell us this story," said Larkins. " Aw — well, I will But I must have some soda-water." Larkins gave him the soda-water, and he managed to let the cork fly into quiet Mr. D.'s left eye. " Aw — beg pardon," said Hawley ; " but — aw — Mr. D., you're a chemist, — aw— you sell eye-water, and you can now try— aw — if it is as monstrously efficacious — aw — as your advertisements state — aw." " I hope," said the mild Mr. D., " your story has not many of these incidents in it." "Aw— aw — mere casual circumstance, but aw — aw—" " Go on with the story, Hawley," cried Larkins. " Go on with your story, Hawley," bawled Gill. " Aw — well, then, you know from my regular attendance at the theator, aw — I have many friends among the actors and actresses ; and — aw — I often get behind the scenes -" Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 365 "Along with the other lumber,'' said Gravel. " and now I also have the privilege of the wings — aw " " Most geese have," muttered Gravel. " but I only avail myself of it sometimes — aw " " Another characteristic of the genus,'' growled Gravel. " Well — aw — I have known a good many fine girls amongst them ; but Emma Deepun is the most deloightful creature you ever saw ; isn't she, Gill ? " " Except one," said G. "Aw— who's that?" " You,'' growled Gravel. ■' Ah, ha, you flatter, 'pon my loife ; — aw — well, I had an im- mense deal of trouble to establish an intimacy with Emma ; but I succeeded at last, and we were such friends, that — aw — that people used to take us for brother and sister, — aw " " What induced her to accept your friendship, Hawley ? " asked Larkins. "Aw — can't say. I made her a great many presents, and I believe teased her into it — aw — I recollect the last hearing I had before — aw — getting a verdict was on the stage, in the midst of the whole corps. I had given her a ring, talked till I was tired, — aw — and was just giving it up in despair, when she suddenly went behind me, and put her hands on my shoulders, — aw — and then measured her shoulder against mine, and asked me if I could waltz — aw — then she laughed, then all the girls of the corps laughed, and — aw — so then I laughed. Well, I teased her for another hour, and gave her another emerald ring ; and at last she said I might call next morning — aw — deloightful !" " She was out when you called," said Gill. " No, I saw her, 'pon my honour ; and after that I used to spend the most deloightful hours in her company every day — aw " " What was the employment of these deloightful hours ? " asked Gravel. "Aw, Gravel, my old boy, the employment would have made your head spin." " And my money, too," growled Gravel. "Aw — yes " "Well," said Larkins, filling H.'s glass ; "as you've got so far, you'd better tell us what you did." "Aw — why, the first half-hour I waltzed round the room with her — aw — and most deloightful it was ; only there was a confounded wide mantelshelf— aw — and somehow I was always nearest when 356 Fraser's Magazine we got to it — aw — and as we passed it the infernal comer always dug into my shoulder ; and I very soon had the skin off a place as big as a tea-saucer. Emma used to laugh when we were coming to it (aw — what a beautiful musical laugh she had !), and I used to think she took a wide step sometimes to save me ; but, un- fortunately, I always came the harder against the confounded shelf — aw." " Why didn't you have it knocked down ? " said Gill. " Aw — Emma was only in lodgings — aw." " But didn't you complain to her of your bruises ? " asked Larkins. " He thought 'twould make him look soft," growled Gravel. " Aw — I did complain ; and she laughed and said we'd avoid it next day — aw." " And you did," said Gill. " Aw — no ; and when I told her so, she only laughed, and said the apartment was lowest on that side, which made us get nearer the wall ; and then she'd laugh again, — aw — and spin rae round the room to prove it." " And you found it the case ? " said Gill. " Aw — yes — we always came whack against the corner, and I was sure to be next it — aw." " You see, Mr. H.,'' obsei-ved Mr. D., with his pocket handker- chief to his eye, " you were certain to spin round with greater force than her, having a heavier body.'' " And heavier heels, too," growled Gravel. " Well, Hawley," said Larkins, " take another glass to Emma's health, and tell us what you did after waltzing." " Aw — that depended on circumstances," replied H., swallowing down the wine ; " aw — when a new ballet was coming out, — aw — aw — I forgot Emma's health — aw " (Larkins filled him another glass) — " I had an immense deal to do with Emma when a new ballet was in rehearsal ; and then, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, she used to get me to join the quadrilles — aw — with her juvenile pupils — aw " " Bringing you down to your level," growled Gravel. " aw — I didn't much like this ; but Emma was such a charming creature, that, 'pon my loif, there was no refusing : she used to laugh — aw — I shall never forget her beautiful laugh ! — aw — she used to laugh, and take ray hand, and put it into one of the little girls', and say something to her about ' he's tall of his age ' ; and then the little girl used to laugh, — aw — and then I used to laugh — aw — really, it was quite delightful — aw." Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 367 " To the girls," added Gill. " We'll take another glass," said Larkins. " Now tell us what you did when the new ballet was coming out." Hawley drank off his glass again, and continued. " Aw — you ask so many questions that, 'pon my sewl, if I hadn't kept quite sober, — aw — I shouldn't be able to answer them." " We are glad you are temperate," said Gill. "Aw — well, I'll tell you one of the things I had to do with Emma. She used to get me to stand upright while she practised behind me, by putting her hands on my shoulders, — aw — and in this way she used to go through her cutting and jumping for hours — aw." " That's why she took your measure," said Gill. "Aw — perha.ps so, though I didn't think of it before. But then she was so considerate — aw — because I once hinted that it was rather tonnenting to know I was so near her, and — aw — and yet not to see her for an hour at a time, the delightful Emma always made me stand before the looking-glass, and there I could see myself and the charming creature jumping up above my head every instant — aw — it used to give me the backach ; and I now and then got an accidental kick from her — aw ; but what did I care for that ? Every time she jumped up and saw me in the glass— aw — she laughed that beautiful laugh — aw — I was sure she was in love with me." " That beautiful laugh," growled Gravel, " seems to have been wonderfully pleasant to you." " Aw — my old boy, if you'd been there, you would have enjoyed it ; with all your gravity — aw — you wouldn't have disliked to hear it." " No, I should have joined in it," growled Gravel. " Take another glass, Hawley," said Larkins, " and tell us what else you did." "Aw — Larkins, you're a good fellow, and I don't mind putting you up to some of the deloightful favours bestowed on such young fellows as myself by the women — aw." " If there are many Emmas amongst them, they have more wit than I thought they had," said Gravel. " Go on," said Larkins. "Aw — well, you've seen the two densers in a/aj seul make a group, in various ways, at the end of their pas. Well, I used to practise this with Emma — aw." 368 Frasef*s Magazine " Gravel doesn't go to the theatre, Hawley ; perhaps you'Ji explain yourself," said Gill. " Aw— Gravel, very happy to do so, old boy, but don't know that I can ; don't know their technical terms, 'pon my loif, — aw — but — aw — you know, the gentleman has to put himself into some attitude, so that the lady can instantly throw herself upon him, and complete a beautiful group — aw." " Don't understand," growled Gravel. " Aw — well, now, this is one ; the gentleman goes down almost on one knee — aw — it shouldn't touch, and forms a stool with the other leg, extending both arms in a graceful manner — aw." " That's about the shape of an armchair," growled Gravel. " Aw — then the lady springs her right toe upon his leg-stool, and gracefully extends her left leg and arm, taking hold of his back hair to balance herself — aw.'' " Wrong,'' said Gill ; " she takes hold of his collar, not his hair." "Aw — Mr. Gill — beg pardon. I tell you Emma, who is one of our most delightful densers, and must know what's right, always took hold of my hair, and used to say mine was the best crop for it she had met with ; for, being so long, she always got such a safe hold — aw — in an instant she twisted her fingers into it, and — aw— an eel itself couldn't get free from her till she chose to let go again — aw." Here Hawley squeezed his eyes up at the recollection. " How long did she keep in that position ?" asked Gill. "Aw — an immense while— aw — till I broke down sometimes; and — aw — she used to laugh all the time, and didn't seem to think It a minute — aw." " Well, but she was veiy light," said Larkins. "Aw — aw — I don't know about that. She didn't seem above two ounces and a half to look at when dancing ; but whenever I broke down — aw — she used to drop on my toes or fingers like half a ton — aw." Here we must explain a little. In the course of these "con- fessions," Larkins had been playing various pranks with Hawley, and it required all Gill's generalship to make him go on thus far ; for, though there was less affectation in his speech now than when sober, — his " aws " falling off as he got mellow, — yet he made up for it by the most extraordinary gesticulation, and actions of arms, 'egs, and head (which were certainly not diminished by Mr. L.'s attention) ; and everything except his own wine-glass, which he always wonderfully preserved, was therefore cleared out of Passages from the Diary of the late Dolly Duster 369 Hawleys reach. Gill was just bringing him to the "casual circumstance," which they had all along wished to get out of Hawley — namely, the treatment he had lately experienced from a rival in Emma's affections, — when a prank of Mr. Larkins' put a sudden end to the conversation. Gravel and Gill had both taken up Hawley's last speech about Emma's weight, and by doubting and contradicting, put him in such a pet, that his legs kept working as if at the treadmill. Larkins had observed this motion before, and could now no longer resist the itching he felt to bring an embryo trick to bear ; so while the others kept up the agitation of H.'s legs by their talk, Larkins manoeuvred with his feet under the table, till he worked the little tub of spring water which had officiated as wine-cooler, close up to Hawley's heels ; and when that young gentleman's legs were at their hardest, pumping out his vociferations against Gill and Gravel, in an instant Larkins pushed the tub under his victim's uplifted foot. Splash went the cold water far and wide, making even the fishmonger shiver ; and up jumped Hawley, at one spring, upon the top of the table, with a shudder that made the very glasses jingle. "Aw — wh-a-a-a-a-t the dev-v-v-il— aw — wh-a-a-a-t is that — a-a-aw ! " roared H., shaking off his shoe, and placing his soaking hoof in Mr. Gravel's dessert-plate. " Fine sweetmeat ! " growled Gravel, making a chop at it. But the plate striking colder than the water to his foot, Hawley instinctively drew up his leg with an " iwfth," and standing on the other, continued stammering out, amidst the laughter of his friends, for an explanation. At length Larkins told him that "he was not, perhaps, aware he had become so excited about Emma, as to turn round in his chair, and pop his foot into the wine-cooler." "Aw — impossible — a-a-aw — Larkins, you're a scoundrel!" bawled H., at the top of his voice, hopping round on one foot to face him ; and then adding, with a shudder, either caused by the spring-water, or the ihoughts of what he was going to say, "A-a-aw— sor — a-a-aw— I'll have satisfaction !" At this word, the ladies who had heard the noise, and hstened at the door in vain to discover what was the matter, rushed into the room in the greatest ccnsternation ; and what was the horror of Miss Daisy and Mrs. A.,— the former at finding Mr. H. on the top of the table, standing on one leg, like an old hen in a shower, and looking about as intellectual, -and the latter at seeing the water dripping off the toe of his stocking into Mr. D.'s glass, who had tied his eye up in his handkerchief, and having his blind 24 37° Fraser's Magazine side to his wine, had not observed the distillation going on. No feeling man can be surprised to learn that Miss Daisy immediately fainted ; and that some of the remains of Mr. H.'s foot-bath, administered by Mr. Larkins, was found wonderfully efficacious in restoring her— doubtless, owing to some sympathetic influence it retained from his dip. ARTICLE 6 (July, 1842) FITZBOODLE'S PROFESSIONS.-THIRD PROFESSION. The last profession is one in all respects inferior to the two preceding," — is merely temporary, whereas they are for life ; but has this advantage, that it may be exercised by the vulgarest man in Europe, and requires not the least experience or education. It is better, unluckily, for a foreigner than an Englishman ; but the latter may easily adopt it, if he have any American relations, or choose to call himself a citizen of the great republic. In fact, this profession simply consists in being a foreigner. You may be ever so illiterate and low-bred, and you are all the better for the profession. Your worst social qualities will stand you instead. You should, to practise properly, be curious, talkative, abominably impudent, and forward. You should never be rebuffed because people turn their backs on you, but should attack them again and again ; and depend upon it, that, if you are determined to know a man, he will end, out of mere weariness, by admitting you to his acquaintance. Say, that you have met a person at a caf4 or tavern, and that you do not know one single Englishman in the world (except the tradesmen in the nameless quarter where you were born), that this is some young fellow from college, probably, who is spending his vacation abroad. Well, you know this man, and that is enough. Ask him at once for letters of introduction : say that you are a young American (for I presume the reader is an Englishman, and this character he can therefore assume more readily than any other) wishing to travel, and ask him for letters to his family in England. He hums and ha's, and says he will send them. Nonsense ! Call the waiter to bring pens, ink, and paper ; lay them laughingly before your friend ; say that now is ' The first two professions can be read in the " Collected Works." Fitzboodle's Professions. — Third Profession 371 the best time, and almost certainly you will have the letters. He can't abuse you in the notes, because you are looking over his shoulder. The two or three first men upon whom you may make the attempt may say that you may go to the deuce, and threaten to kick you out of the room ; — but 'tis against the chances, this sort of ferocity. Men are rather soft than spi.ited ; and if they be spirited, you have only to wait until you find a soft one. It will be as well, perhaps, while making the demand upon your friend in the cafe, to produce a seiies of letters directed to the Marquess of L e, the Duke of D , Mr. R , the poet, Mr. K , the eminent actor now retired, and other distinguished literary or fashionable persons, saying that your friends in America have already supplied you with these, but that you want chiefly introductions to private families, to see ^'' the homes of England;" and as Englishmen respect lords (see the remarks in Profession II.) most likely your young cafe acquaintance will be dazzled by the sight of these addresses, and will give you letters the more willingly, saying to himself, "Who knows, egad, but that this American may get my sisters to L House ? " One way or the other, you will be sure to end by having a letter, — a real letter ; and as for those you have written, why, upon my honour, I do not think that you can do better than present some of them on the chance ; for the Duke and the Marquess receive so many people at their houses, that they cannot be expected to remember all their names. Write, then, bravely, at once — To his Grace the Duke oj Dorsetshire, K.G., London. Twenty-one Street, Boston, May, 1842. My dear Duke,— In the friendly hospitality which you e.Kercised towards me on my last visit to London, I am fain to hope that you looked somewhat to my character as an individual, as well as to my quality as a citizen of the greatest country in the world ; I, for my part, have always retained the warmest regard for you, and shall be happy to see you any time you come our way. Assuming, I am sure justifiably, that your repeated assurances of regard were sincere (for I do not consider you as false as I found the rest of the English nobility), I send, to be under your special protection whilst in London, my dear young friend, Nahum Hodge, distinguished among us as a patriot and a poet ; in the first of which capacities he burned several farm-houses in Canada 372 Fraser's Magazine last fall, and, in the latter, has pi-oduced his celebrated work, " The Bellowings of the Buffalo," printed at Buffalo, New York, by Messrs. Bowie & Cutler, and which are far superior to any poems ever produced in the old country. Relying upon our acquaintance, I have put down your name, my dear Duke, as a subscriber for six copies, and will beg you to hand over to my young friend Nahum twelve dollars — the price. He is a modest, retiring, young man, as most of our young republicans are, and will want to be urged and pushed forward into good society. This, my dear fellow, I am sure you will do for me. Ask him as often as you can to dinner, and present him at the best houses you can in London. I have written to the Marquess of Sandown, reminding him of our acquaintance, and saying that you will vouch for the respectability of young Nahum, who will take the liberty of leaving his card at Sandown House ; I do not wish that he should be presented at your Court ; for I conceive that a republican ought not to sanctify by his presence any exhibition so degrading as that of the EngHsh levee. Nahum Hodge will call on you at breakfast-time ; I have told him that it is the best time to find yourself and the dear Duchess at home. Give my love to her and the children, and believe me, my dear friend, Your Lordship's most faithful servant, Ebenezer Brown. Such a letter as this will pretty surely get you admission to his Grace ; and of course you will be left to your own resources to make yourself comfortable in the house. Do not be rebuffed if the porter says, "Not at home;" say, "You liveried varlet and slave ! Do you pretend to lie in the face of a free-bom American republican? Take in that note, do you hear? or I'll wap you like one of my niggers ! " Those fat, overfed men, who loll in porter's chairs, are generally timid, and your card will be sure to be received. While a servant has gone upstairs with it, walk into the library at once,' look at all the papers, the seals, the books on the table, the addresses of all the letters, examine the pictures, and shout out, " Here, you fat porter, come and tell me who these tarnation people are ! " The man will respectfully come to you ; and whatever be your fate with the family upstairs — whether the Duke says he cannot see you, or that he knows nothing of you, at least ' Of course you will select a house that is not mire tour etjardin. Fitzboodle's Professions. — Third Profession 373 you will have had an insight into his house and pictures, and may note down everything you see. It is not probable he will say he knows nothing of you. He is too polite and kind-hearted for that, — nay, possibly, may recall to his mind that once he did receive an American by the name of Brown. If he only says he cannot see you, of course you will call again till he does ; and be sure that the porter will never dare to shut the door on you. You will call and call so often that he will end by inviting you to a party. Meanwhile, you will have had your evenings pretty well filled by invitations from the sisters of your friend whom you met in the cafe at Paris — agreeable girls — say their name is Smith, and they live in Montague Place, or near Blackheath. Be sure you tell them all that you know the Duke of Dorsetshire, that you have been with his Grace that morning, and so on ; and not only good old Mr. Smith, but all his circle, will take care to invite you to as many dinners as you can possibly devour. Your conduct at these repasts will be perfectly simple. Keep your eyes open, and do pretty much as you see other people do ; but never acknowledge you are in fault if any one presumes to blame you. Eat peas with your knife ; and if gently taken to task about this habit by Mr. Smith (a worthy man who takes an interest in his " son's friend "), say, " Well, General Jackson eats peas with kis knife ; and I a'n't proud. I guess General Jackson can wap any Englishman." Say this sort of thing simply and unaffectedly, and you will be sure not to be pestered as to your mode of conveying your food to your mouth. Take care at dinner not to admire anything ; on the contrary, if they bring you Madeira, saying, " La bless you, taste 02ir Madeira ! My father's got some that he gave fifty dollars a bottle for ; this here a'n't fit to bile for puddns." If there are ducks, ask everybody if they have tasted canvass-back'd ducks ; oysters, say the New York oyster will feed six men ; turtle, prefer tarapin, and so on. And don't fancy that because you are insolent and disagreeable, people will be shy of you in this country. Sir, they hke to be bullied in England, as to be bullies when abroad. They like a man to sneer at their dinners ; it argues that you are in the habit of getting better. I have known the lowest-bred men imaginable pass for fine fellows by following this simple rule. Remember through Ufe that a man will always rather submit to insolence than resist it. Let this be your guide, then, in your commerce with all ranks. You will dine, of course, with your friends about Russell 374 Eraser's Magazine Square and Greenwich, until such time as you get a fair entry into the houses of greater people (by the way, you will find these much more shy of dinners and more profuse with their tea-parties than your humbler entertainers). But, if you don't dine with them, you must keep up your credit in the other quarter of the town — make believe to dine with them. You can get a dinner for eightpence on those days, and figure in the evening party afterwards. At the great parties, make up to that part of the room where the distinguished people are — not the great people of the land, but the wits, mark you — and begin talking with them at once ; they will all respect you in their hearts, as they respect themselves, for being at such a grand house as that of his Grace the Duke of Dorset- shire. The wits will, after a little, take you to the Wits' Club, the MuffinEum, where you will enter gratis as a distinguished foreigner. You can breakfast there for a shilling, have the run of the letter- paper, and will, of course, take care to date your letters from thence. Mind, then, once put your foot into a great house, and your fortune in society is easily made. You have but to attack ; people will rather yield than resist. I once knew a Kentucky man, who, hearing the Marquess of Carum Gorum t..lking of the likelihood of grouse that year, interposed, " My lord, it must be a wonderful sight for a stranger to see a grand meeting of aristocrats of England in the heathery hills of Scotia. What would I not give to behold such an exhibition ? " The marquess smiled, shrugged, and said, "Well, sir, if you come north, you must give me a day," and then turned r,n his heel. This was in March : on the fourteenth of August Kentuck appeared with a new shooting jacket, and a double-barrelled gun got on credit, and stayed a fortnight at Mull House. At last, he sent in a letter, before breakfast on Sabbath morning, to Lord Carum Gorum, saying that he knew he was trespassing beyond all measure upon his lordship's patience, but that he w.^s a stranger in the land, his remittances from America had somehow been delayed, and the fact was, that there he was, water-lagged till they came. Lord Carum Gorum inclosed him a ten-pound note in an envelope, with a notification that a gig would be ready for him after service : and Kentuck passed a very agree.i.ble fortnight in Edinburgh, and published in the " Buffalo's Hump " a biilliant account of his st-y at the noble lard's castle. Fitzboodle's Professions. — Third Profession 375 Then, ag'ain, if you see a famous beauty, praise every one of her points outrageously in your letter to the " Buffalo's Hump,'' as On the Lady Emily X , (who left dancing and came, and talked to the poet at the dijeAne at C Lodge. Beneath the gold acacia buds My gentle Nora sits and broods, Far, far away, in Boston woods, My gentle Nora ! I see the tear-drop on her e'e, Her bosom's heaving tenderly, I know — I know she thinks of me, My darling Nora ! And where am I, my love, whilst thou Sitt'st sad beneath the acacia bough ? Where pearl's on neck, and wreath on brow, I stand, my Nora ! 'Mid carcanet and coronet. Where joy-lamps shine and flowers are set, Where England's chivalry are met. Behold me, Nora ! In this strange scene of revelry, Amidst this gorgeous chivalry, A form I saw, was like to thee, My love, — My Nora I She paused amidst her converse glad, The lady saw that I was sad, She pitied the poor lonely lad, — Dost love her, Nora? In sooth, she is a lovely dame, A lip of red, an eye of flame. And clustering golden locks, the same As thine, dear Nora ! Her glance is softer than the dawn's, Her foot is lighter than the fawn's, Her breast is whiter than the swan's. Or thine, my Nora ! 376 Frasef's Magazine Oh, gentle breast to pity me 1 Oh, lovely Ladye Emily ! Till death— till death I'll think of thee— Of thee and Nora ! This sort of thing addressed to a thin, shrivelled person of five- and-forty (and I declare it as easy to write such verses as to smoke a cigar) will be sure to have its effect ; and in this way you may live a couple of years in England very fashionably and well. By impudence you may go from one great house to another, — by impudence you may get credit with all the fashionable tradesmen in London ; by impudence you may find a publisher for your tour ; and if with all this impudence you cannot manage to pick up a few guineas by the way, you are not the man I take you for. And this is my \3iSt profession. In concluding the sketch, it is of course not necessary for me to say that the little character I have drawn out is not taken from any particular individual. No, on my honour, far from it ; it is rather an agreeable compound of many individuals, whom it has been our fortune to see here ; and as for the story about the Marquess of Carum Gorum, it is, like the noble Marquess himself, a fiction. It is a possibility, that is all — an embodiment of a good and feasible way of raising money. Perhaps gentlemen in America, where our periodicals are printed regularly, as I am given to under- stand, may find the speculation worth their while ; and accordingly it is recommended to the republican press. To the discriminating press of this country how shall I express my obligations for the unanimous applause which hailed my first appearance? It is the more wonderful, as I pledge my sacred word I never wrote a document before much longer than a laundress's bill, or the acceptance of an invitation to dinner. But enough of this egotism ; thanks for praise conferred sound like vanity ; gratitude is hard to speak of, and at present it swells the heart of George Savage Fitz-Boodle. P.S. — My memoirs, and other interesting works, will appear next month ; the length necessary to a discussion of the promised " Professions " having precluded the possibility of their insertion in the present Number. They are of thrilling interest. Men's Wives.— No. IV. The *s Wife 377 ARTICLE 6 (November, 1843) MEN'S WIVES-NO. IV. THE 'S WIFE. By George Fitz Boodle. We lay down on a little mound at a half-league from the city gates in a pleasant grass besprinkled with all the flowers of summer. The river went shining by us, jumping over innumerable little rocks, and by beds of wavering, whispering rushes, until it reached the old city bridge with its dismantled tower and and gate, undei the shadow of which sat Maximilian in his eternal punt bobbing for gudgeon. Further on, you saw the ancient city walls and ramparts, with the sentinels pacing before the blue and yellow barriers, and the blue eagle of Pumpernickel over the gate. All the towers and steeples of the town rose behind the grim bastions under the cleat blue sky ; the bells were ringing as they always are, the birds in the little wood hard by were singing and chirping, the garden- houses and taverns were full of students drinking beer, and resounded with their choruses. To the right was the old fortress, with its gables and pinnacles cresting the huge hill, up which a zig-zag path toiled painfully. " It is easier," said I, with much wisdom, " to come down that hill than to mount it." I suppose the robber knights who inhabited Udolph of old, chose the situation for that reason. If they saw a caravan in the plain here, they came down upon it with an impetus that infaUibly overset the guards of the merchant's treasure. If the dukes took a fancy to attack it, the escaladers, when they reached the top of the eminence, were so out of wind that they could be knocked over like so many penguins, and were cut down before they had raUied breath enough to cry quarter. From Udolph you could batter the town to pieces in ten minutes. What a skurry there would be if a shell fell plump into the market-place, and what a deal of eggs and butter would be smashed there ! Hark ! there is a bugle. " It is the mad trumpeter," said Schneertbart. " Half the fortress is given up now to the madmen of the principality, and the other half is for the felons. See ! there is a gang of them at work on the road yonder." " Is Udolph any relation of the Castle of Udolpho?" J 78 Frasei-'s Magazine " It has its mysteries," said Milchbrod, nodding his head solemnly, " as well as that castle which Lord Byron has rendered immortal. Was it not Lord Byron ? " "Caspar Milchbrod, I believe it was," answered L "Do you know any of them ? If you have a good horrid story of ghosts, robbers, cut-throats, and murders, pray tell it ; we have an hour yet to dinner, and murder is my delight ! " " I shall tell you the story of Angelica, the wife of the Hum !" said he. " IVAose wife ? " "That is the point of the story. You may add it to your histories of ' Men's Wives,' that are making such a sensation all over England and Germany. Listen 1 " Schneertbart, at the mention of the story, first jumped up as if he would make off; but being fat and of an indolent turn, he thought better of it, and pulling the flap of his cap over his face, and sprawling out on his back, like the blue spread-eagle over the gate, incontinently fell asleep. Milchbrod, darting at him a look of scorn, began the following history : " In the time of Duke Bernard the Invincible, whose victory over Sigismund of Kalbsbratia obtained for him the above well- merited title (for though he was beaten several times afterwards, yet his soui was encouraged to the end, and therefore he was denominated Invincible, with perfect justice). In Duke Bernard's time, the fortress of Udolph was much more strongly garrisoned than at present, though a prison then as now. The great hall, where you may now see the poor madmen of the duchy eating their humble broth from their wooden trenchers and spoons, was the scene of many a gallant feast, from which full butts of wine returned empty ; fat oxen disappeared, all except the bone ; at which noble knights got drunk by the side of spotless ladies, and were served off gold and out of jewelled flagons by innumerable pages and domestics in the richest of liveries. A sad change is it now, my friend. When I think the livery of the place is an odious red and yellow serge, that the servants of the castle have their heads shaved, and a chain to their legs instead of round their necks, and when I think that the glories and festivities of Udolph are now passed away for ever ! Oh ! golden days of chivalry, a descendant of the Milchbrods may well deplore you ! " The court where they beat hemp now was once a stately place of arms, where warriors jousted and knights ran in the ring. Men's Wives.— No. IV. The *s Wife 379 Ladies looked on from the windows of the great hall, and from the castellan's apartments, and though the castle was gay and lordly as a noble castle should be, yet were not the purposes of security and punishment forgotten ; under the great hall were innumerable dungeons, vaults, and places of torture, where the enemies of our dukes suffered the punishment of their crimes. They have been bricked over now for the most part, for what I cannot but call a foolish philanthropy found these dungeons too moist and too dark for malefactors of the present day, who must, forsooth, have white-washed rooms and dry beddings, whilst our noble ancestors were fain to share their cell with toads, serpents, and darkness ; and sometimes, instead of flock mattresses and iron bedsteads, to stretch their limbs on the rack. Civilisation, my dear sir, " Here a loud snort from Schneertbart possibly gave Milchbrod a hint that he was digressing too much ; and omitting his opinions about civilisation, he proceeded. " In Duke Bernard's time, then, this prison was in its most palmy and flourishing state. The pains of the axe and the rack were at that time much more frequent than at present, and the wars of religion in which Germany was plunged, and in which our good duke, according to his convictions, took alternately the Romanist and the Reform side, brought numbers of our nobles into arms, into conspiracies and treasons, and consequently into prison and torture-chambers. I mention these facts to shew, that, as the prison was a place of some importance and containing people of rank, the guardianship was naturally confided to a person in whom the duke could could place the utmost confidence. Have you ever heard of the famous Colonel Dolchenblitz ?" I confessed I had not. "Dolchenblitz, as a young man, was one of the most illustrious warriors of his day ; and as a soldier, captain, and afterwards colonel of free compmies, had served under every flag in every war in every country in Europe. He, under the French, conquered the Milanese ; he then passed over to the Spanish service, and struck down King Francis at Pavia with his hammer-of-arms ; he was the fourth over the wall of Rome when it was sacked by the constable, and having married and made a considerable plunder there, he returned to his native country, where he distinguished himself alternately in the service of the emperor, and the Reformed princes. A wound in the leg prevented him at length from being so active in the field as he had been accustomed to be ; and Duke Bernard the Invincible, knowing his great bravery, his skill, his 380 Frasef's Magazine unalterable fidelity (which was indestructible as long as his engage- ment lasted), and his great cruelty and sternness, chose him very properly to be governor of his state fortress and prison. " The lady whom Colonel Dolchenblitz married was a noble and beautiful Roman, and his wooing of her it would appear was some- what short. ' I took the best method of winning Frau Dolchenblitz's heart,' he would say. ' I am an ugly old trooper, covered with scars, fond of drink and dice, with no more manners than my battle-horse, and she, forsooth, was in love with a young countlet who was as smooth as herself, and as scented as a flower-garden ; but when my black-riders dragged her father and brother into the court-yard, and had ropes ready to hang them at the gate, I warrant that my Angelica found that she loved me better than her scented lover ; and so I saved the lives of my father and brother-in-law, and the dear creature consented to be mine.' " Of this marriage, there came but one child, a daughter ; and the Roman lady presently died, not altogether sound in her senses it was said, from the treatment to which her rough husband subjected her. The widower did not pretend to much grief ; and the daughter, who had seen her mother sneered at, sworn at, beaten daily when her gallant father was in liquor, had never had any regard for her poor mother ; and in her father's quarrels with his lady, used from her earliest years to laugh and rejoice and take the old trooper's side. ' You may imagine from this,' cried Milchbrod, 'that she was brought up in a very amiable school. Ah ! ' added the youth, with a blush, ' how unlike was she, in all respects, to my Lischen ! ' " There is still in the castle gallery a picture of the Angelica, who bore the reputation at eighteen of being one of the most beautiful women in the world. She is represented in a dress of red velvet, looped up at the sleeves and breast with jewels, her head is turned over her shoulder, looking at you, and her long yellow hair flows over her neck. Her eyes are blue, her eyebrows of an auburn colour, her lips open and smiling ; but that smile is so diabolical, and those eyes have such an infernal twinkle, that it is impossible to look at the picture without a shudder, and I declare, for my part, that I would not like to be left alone in a room with the portrait and its horrid glassy eyes always following and leering after you. " From a very early age her father would always insist upon having her by his side at table, where I promise you the con- ve-s;iti:n was not always as choice as in a nunnery ; and where Men's Wives— No. IV. The 's Wife 3^' they dsank deeper than at a hermitage. After dinner the dice would be brought, and the Httle girl often called the mains and threw for her father, and he said she always brought him luck when she did so. But this must have been a fancy of the old soldier's, for, in spite of his luck, he grew poorer and poorer, all his plunder taken in the wars went gradually down the throat of the dice-box, and he was presently so poor that his place as governor of the prison was his only means of livelihood, and that he could only play once a month when his pay came in. In spite of his poverty and his dissolute life and his ill-treatment of his lady, he was inordinately proud of his marriage ; for the truth is, the lady was of the Colonna family. There was not a princess of Germany who in the matter of birth was more haughty than Madame Angelica, the governor's daughter ; and the young imp of Lucifer, when she and her father sat at drink and dice with the lance-knights and officers, always took the pas of her own father, and had a raised seat for herself, while her company sat on benches. The old soldier admired this pride in his daughter, as he admired every other good or bad quality she possessed. She had often seen the prisoners flogged in the court-yard, and never turned pale. 'Par Dieu ! ' the father would say, 'the girl has a gallant courage ! ' If she lost at dice she would swear in her shrill voice as well as any trooper, and the father would laugh till the tears ran down his old cheeks. She could not read very well, but she could ride like an Amazon ; and Count Sprinboch (the Court Chamberlain, who was imprisoned ten years at Udolph for treading on the duchess-dowager's gouty toe), taking a fancy to the child, taught her to dance and to sing to the mandolin, in both of which accomplishments she acquired great skill. " Such were the accomplishments of the Angelica, when, at about the sixteenth year of her age, the Court came to reside in the town ; for the Imperialists were in possession of our residence, and here, at a hundred miles away from them, Duke Bernard the Invincible was free from molestation. On the first public day, the governor of the fort came down in his litter to pay his respects to the sovereign, and his daughter, the lovely Angelica, rode a white palfrey, and ambled most gracefully at his side. " The appearance of such a beauty set all the court-gallants in a flame. Not one of the maids of honour could compare with her, and their lovers left them by degrees. The steep road up to the castle yonder was scarcely ever without one or more cavaliers 382 Fraser's Magazine upon it pinked out in their best, as gay as feathers and chains could make them, and on the way to piy their court to the Lily of Udolph ; the lily — the Tiger-lily, forsooth ! But man, foolish man, looked only to the face, and not to the soul, as I did when I selected my Lischen. " The drinking and dicing now went on more gaily than it had done for many years ; for when young noblemen go to sit down to play with a lady we know who it is that wins, and Madame Angelica was, pardi, not squeamish in gaining their money. It was, ' Fair Sir, I will be double or quits with you.' ' Noble baron, I will take your three to one.' ' Worthy Count, I will lay my gold chain against your bay gelding.' And so forth. And by the side of the lovely daughter sat the old father, tossing the drink off, and flinging the dice, and roaring, swearing, and singing like a godless old trooper as he was. Then, of mornings, there would be hunting and hawking parties, and it was always who should ride by the Angelica's side, and who should have the best horse and the finest doublet, and leap the biggest ditch, over which she could jump, I warrant you, as well as the best rider there. The staid ladies and matrons of the court avoided this syren, but what cared she so long as the men were with her ? The duke did not like to see his young men thus on the road to ruin ; but his advice and his orders were all in vain. The Erb Prinz himself, Prince Maurice, was caught by the infection, and having fallen desperately in love with the Angelica, and made her great presents of jewels and horses, was sent by his father to Wittenberg, where he was told to forget his love in his books. " There was, however, in the duke's service, and an especial friend and favourite of the hereditary prince, a young gentleman by the name of Ernst von Waldberg, who, though sent back to the university along with the young duke, had not the heart to remain there, for indeed his heart was at Castle Udolph with the bewitch- ing Angehca. This unlucky and simple Ernst was the most passionate of all the Angelica's admirers, and had committed a thousand extravagancies for her sake. He had ridden into Hungary and brought back a Turkish turban for her, with an unbeliever's head in it, too. He had sold half his father's estate and bought a jewel with it, with which he presented her. He had wagered a hundred gold crowns against a lock of her hair, and, having won, caused a casket to be made with the money, on which was engraved an insciiption by the court poet, signifying that the gold within the casket was a thousand times more valuable than Men's Wives.— No. IV. The *s Wife 383 the gold whereof it was made, and that one was the dross of the earth, whereas the other came from an ang-el. " An angel, indeed ! If they had christened that Angelica Diabolica, they would have been nearer the mark : but the devils were angels once, and one of these fallen ones was Angelica. "When the poor young fellow had well nigh spent his all in presents and jewels for Angelica, or over the tables and dice with her father, he bethought him that he would ask the young lady in marriage, and so humbly proffered his suit. "'How much land have you, my lord Ernst?' said she, in a scornful way. " ' Alas ! I am but a younger son. My brother Max has the family estate, and I but an old tower and a few acres, which came to me from my mother's family,' answered Ernst. But he did not say how his brother had often paid his debts and filled his purse, and how many of the elder's crowns had been spent over the dice- table, and had gone to enrich Angelica and her father. " ' But you must have great store of money,' continued she, ' for what gentleman of the court spends so gallantly as you ? ' " ' It is my brother's money,' said Ernst, gloomily, ' and I will ask him for no more of it. But I have enough left to buy a horse and a sword, and with these, if you will but be mine, I vow to win fame and wealth enough for any princess in Christendom.' " ' A horse and sword ! ' cried Angelica : ' a pretty fortune, for- sooth. Any one of my father's troopers has as much ! You win fame and wealth? You a fitting husband for the best lady in Christendom ? Psha ! Look what you have done as yet, Sir Ernst, and brag no more. You had a property, and you spent it in three months upon a woman you never saw before. I have no fancy to marry a beggar, or to trust to an elder brother for charity, or to starve in rags with the rats in your family tower. Away with you, Sir Spendthrift, buy your horse and sword, if you will, and go travel and keep yourself and your horse ; you will find the matter hard enough without having a wife at your pillion.' " And, so saying, she called her huntsman and hawks, and with a gay train of gentlemen behind her, went out into the woods, as usual, where Diana herself, had she been out a-hunting that day, could not have been more merry, or looked more beautiful and royal. As for Ernst, when he found how vain his love was, and that he had only been encouraged by Angelica, in order to be robbed and cast away, a deep despair took possession of the poor lad's soul, and he went in anguish back to his brothei-'s house, who 3^4 Eraser's Magazine tried, but in vain, to console him ; for, having stayed awhile with his brother, Ernst one morning suddenly took horse and rode away never to return. The next thing that his weeping elder brother heard of him was that he had passed into Hungary, and had been slain by the Turlc before Buda. One of his comrades in the war brought back a token from Ernst to his brother Max — it was the gold casket which contained the hair of Angelica. "Angelica no more wept at receiving this news than she had done at Ernst's departure. She hunted with her gallants as before, and on the very night after she had heard of poor young Ernst's death appeared at supper in a fine gold chain and scarlet robe he had given her. The hardness of her heart did not seem to deter the young gentlemen of Saxony from paying court to her, and her cruelty only added to the universal fame of her beauty. "Though she had so many scores of lovers, and knew well enough that these do not increase with age, she had never as yet condescended to accept of one for a husband, and others, and of the noblest sort, might be mentioned, who, as well as Ernst, had been ruined and forsaken by her. A certain witch had told her that she should marry a nobleman who should be the greatest swordsman of his day. Who was the greatest warrior of Germany ? I am not sure that she did not look for King Gustave to divorce his wife and fall on his knees to her, or for dark Wallenstein to conjure the death of his princess and make Angelica the lady of Sagan. " Thus time went on. Lovers went up the hill of Udolph, and in sooth ! lovers came down ; the lady there was still the loveliest of the land, and when the Crown Prince came home from Wittenberg, she would still have been disposed to exercise her wiles upon him, but that it was now too late, for the wise duke, his highness' father, had married the young lord to a noble princess of Bavaria, in whose innocence he forgot the dangerous and wicked Angelica. I promise you the lady of Udolph sneered prettily at the new princess, and talked of 'his highness' hump-backed Venus ' ; all which speeches were carried to court, and inspired the duke with such a fury, that he was for shutting up Angelica as a prisoner in her father's own castle ; but wise counsellors inter- vened, and it was thought best to let the matter drop. For, indeed, comparisons between the royal princess and the lady of Udolph would have been only unfavourable to the former, who, between ourselves, was dark of complexion, and not quite so straight either in the back as was her rival. LORD BROUGHAM (From PUNCH). Briiisk and Foreign Review. [See page 113. Men's Wives— No. IV. The *s "Wife 38S " Presently there came to court Max, Ernst's elder brother, a grave man, of a sharp and bitter wit, given to books and studies, but, withal, generous to the poor. No one knew how generous until he died, when there followed, weeping, such crowds of the humbler sort, his body, to the grave as never was known in that day, for the good old nobles were rather accustomed to take than to give, and the Lord Max was one of the noblest and richest of all the duchy. " Calm as he was, yet, strange to say, he, too, was speedily caught in the toils of Angelica, and seemed to be as much in love with her as his unfortunate brother had been. ' I do not wonder at Ernst's passion for such an angelical being,' ' and can fancy any man dying in despair of winning her.' These words were carried quickly to the lady of Udolph, and the next court party where she met Max she did not fail to look towards him with all the fascina- tions of her wonderful eyes, from which Max, blushing and bowing, retired completely overcome. You might see him on his grey horse riding up the mountain to Udolph as often as his brother had been seen on his bay ; and of all the devoted slaves Angelica had in her court, this unhappy man became the most subservient. He forsook his books and calm ways of life to be always by the enchantress' side ; and he, who had never cared for sport, now, for the pleasure of following Angelica, became a regular Nimrod of the chase ; and although, up to the time of his acquaintance with her, he had abhorred wine and gaming, he would pass nights now boozing with the old drunkard her father, and playing at the dice with him and his daughter. " There was something in his love for her that was quite terrible. Common light-minded gallants of the day do not follow a woman as Max did, but, if rebuffed by one, fly off to another ; or, if overcome by a rival, wish him good luck and betake themselves elsewhere. This ardent gentleman, loving for the first time, seemed resolved to have no rival near him, and Angelica could scarcely pardon him for the way in which he got rid of her lovers one after another. There was Baron Herman, who was much in her good graces, and was sent away to England by Max's influence with the duke ; there was Count Augustus, with whom he picked a quarrel, and whom he wounded in a duel. All the world deplored the infatuation of this brave gentleman, and the duke himself took him to task for suffering himself to be enslaved by a woman who had already been so fatal to his family. " He placed himself as such a dragon before her gate that he 25 386 Fraser's Magazine drove away all wavering or faint-hearted pretenders to her hand ; and it seemed pretty clear that Angelica, if she would not marry him, would find it very difficult to marry another. And why not marry him ? He was noble, rich, handsome and brave. What more could a lady require in a husband? And could the proud Angelica expect a better fate ? ' In my mother's lifetime,' Max said, ' I cannot marry. She is old now, and was much shaken by the death of Ernst, and she would go to the grave with a curse on her lips for me did she think I was about to marry the woman who caused my brother's death.' "Thus, although he did not actually offer his hind to her, he came to be generally considered as her accepted lover ; and the gallants who before had been round her, fell off one by one. I am not sure whether Madame Angelica was pleased with the alteration, and whether she preferred the adoration of a single heart to the love of many, to which she had been accustomed before. Perhaps, however, her reasoning was this : ' I am sure of Max ; he is a husband of whom any woman might be proud ; and very few nobles in Germany are richer or of better blood than he. He cannot marry for some time. Well, I am young and can afford to wait ; and if, meanwhile, there present itself some better name, fortune, and person than Max's, I am free to choose, and can fling him aside like his brother before him.' ' Meantime,' thought she, ' I can dress Max to the menage of matrimony ' ; which meant that she could make a very slave of him, as she did ; and he was as obedient to her caprice and whims as her page or her waiting- woman. The entertainments which were given at Castle Udolph were rather more liked by the gentlemen than by the ladies, who had little love for a person like Angelica, the daughter of a man only ennobled yesterday, — a woman who lived, laughed, rode, gambled in the society of men as familiarly as if she had a beard on her chin and a rapier by her side ; and above all, a woman who was incomparably handsomer than the handsomest of her rivals. Thus ladies' visits to her were not frequent ; nor, indeed, did she care much for their neglect. She was not born, she said, to spin flax ; nor to embroider cushions ; nor to look after housemaids and scullions, as ladies do. She received her male guests as though she were a queen, to whom they came to pay homage, and little cared that their wives stayed at home. " At one of her entertainments. Max appeared with two masks (it was the custom in those days for persons to go SQ disguised) ; Men's Wives— No. IV. The *s Wife 387 and you would see at a court ball half the ladies, and men, especially the ugly of the former sex, so habited ; the one, coming up to Angelica, withdrew his vizard, and she saw it was her ancient admirer the prince, who stayed for a while, besought her, laughing, to keep his visit a secret from the princess ; and then left her to Max and the other mask ; but the other did not remove his covering, though winningly entreated thereto by Angelica. The mask and Max, after a brief conversation with the lady of the castle, sat down to the tables to play at dice. And Max called presently to Angelica to come and play for him, to the which invitation, nothing loth, she acceded. That dice-box has a temptation for woman as well as man, and woe to both if they yield to it ! '"Who is the mask?' asked Angehca of Max. But Max answered that his name was for the present a mystery. " ' Is he noble ? ' said the scornful lady. " ' Did he not come hither with the prince ; and am I in the habit of consorting with other than nobles ? ' replied Max, as haughty as she. ' The mask is a nobleman, ay, and a soldier, who has done more execution in his time than any man in the army.' That he was rich was very clear ; his purse was well filled ; whether he lost or won, he laughed with easy gaiety ; and Angelica could see under his mask how all the time of the play his fierce, brilliant eyes watched and shone on her. " She and Max, who played against the stranger, won from him a considerable sum. ' I would lose such a sum,' said he, ' every night, if you, fair lady, would but promise to win it from me ' ; and asking for, and having been promised, a revenge, he gallantly took his leave. " He came the next night, and the partners against him had the same good luck : a third and a fourth night Angelica received him, and as she won always, and as he was gay at losing as another is at winning, and was always ready to laugh and joke with her father, or to utter compliments to herself, Angelica began to think the stranger one of the most agreeable of men. " She began to grudge, too, to Max, some of his winnings ; or, rather, she was angry both that he should win and that he should not win enough ; for Max would stop playing in the midst, as it seemed, of a vein of good luck ; saying that enough was won and lost for the night ; that play was the amusement of gentlemen, not their passion nor means of gain ; whereon the mask would gather up his crowns, and greatly to the annoyance of Angelica, the pi; y would ge^sg. 388 Eraser's Magazine " ' If I could play with him alone,' thought she, ' there is no end to the sums which I might win of this stranger ; and money we want, Heaven knows ; for my father's pay is mortgaged thrice over to the Jews, and we owe ten times as much as we can pay.' " She found no difficulty in managing an interview with the stranger alone. He was always willing, he said, to be at her side ; and Max being called at this time into the country, the pair met by themselves, or, in the company of the tipsy old governor of Udolph, who counted for no more than an extra flagon in the room, and who would have let his daughter play for a million, or sit down to a match with the foul fiend himself, were she so minded ; and here the mask and Angelica used to pass many long evenings together. " But her lust of gain was properly punished ; for, when Max was gone, instead of winning, as she had been wont to do in his company. Fortune seemed now to desert her, and she lost night after night. Nor was the mask one of the sort of players who could be paid off with a smile, as some gallants had been ; or who would take a ringlet as a receipt for a hundred crowns ; or would play on credit, as Angelica would have done, had he been willing. ' Fair lady,' said he, ' I am too old a soldier to play my ducats against smiles, though they be from the loveliest lips in the world ; that which I lose, I pay ; that which I win, I take. Such is always the way with us in camp; and '■^ donner und blitz ! " that is the way I like best.' So the day Angelica proposed to play him on credit, he put up his purse, and laughing took his leave. The next day she pawned a jewel, and engaged him again ; and, in sooth, he went off laughing, as usual, with the price of the emerald in his pocket. " When they were alone, it must be said that the mask made no difficulty to withdraw his vizard, and showed a handsome, pale, wild face, with black glaring eyes, sharp teeth, and black hair and beard. When asked what he should be called, he said, ' Call me Wolfgang ; but, hist ! I am in the Imperial Service. The duke would seize me were he to know that I was here ; for,' added he with a horrid grin, ' I slew a dear friend of his in battle.' He always grinned, did Herr Wolfgang ; he laughed a hundred times a day, and drank much, and swore more. There was something terrible about him ; and he loved to tell terrible stories of the wars, in which he could match for horror and cruelty Colonel Dolchenblitz himself. " ' This is the man I would have for thy husband, girl,' said he Men's Wives.— No. IV. The 's Wife 389 to his daughter ; ' he is a thousand times better than your puling courtiers and pale book-worms ; a fellow that can drink his bottle, and does not fear the devil himself ; and can use his sword to carve out for himself any fortune to which he may be minded. Thou art but a child to him in play. See how he takes your ducats from you, and makes the dice obey him. Cease playing with him, girl, or he will ruin us else ; and so fill me another cup of wine.' " It was in the bottom of the flagon that- the last words of the old man's speeches used commonly to end ; and I am not sure that Angelica was not prepared to think the advice given a very good one ; for it was in the nature of this lovely girl to care for no man. But it seemed to her, that in daring and wickedness this man was a match for her ; and she only sighed that he should be noble and rich enough, and that then she might make him her own. For he dazzled her imagination with stories of great leaders of the day, the honours they won, and the wealth they obtained. Think of Wallenstein,' said he, 'but a humble page in a lady's house ; a prince now, and almost a sovereign. Tilly was but a portionless Flemish cadet ; and think of the plunder of Magdeburg ! ' " ' I wish I had shared it,' said Angelica. " ' What ! and your father a Protestant ? ' " ' Psha ! ' replied tlie girl. At which Herr Wolfgang and her father would burst into a hoarse laugh, and swear, with loud oaths, that she deserved to be a queen ; and would so drink her grace's health in many a bumjjer. And then they would fall to the dice again ; and Signor Wolfgang would win the last crown-piece in the purse of either fathbr or daughter, and at midnighc would take his leave. And a wonder was that no one knew whence he came or how he left the castl^ ; for the sentry at the gate never saw him pass or enter. " He would laugh when asked how. ' Psha ! ' he would say, ' I am all mystery ; and I will tell, as a secret, that when I come or go, I turn myself into a bird, and fly in and out.' "And so, though he could only write his name, and had no more manners than a trooper, and though he won every penny of AngeUca's money from her, the girl had a greater respect and terror for him than for any man alive ; and he made more way in her heart than many a sighing lover would in ten years. " Presently Max returned from his visit to the country ; and Angelica began to make comparisons between his calm, cold, stately, sneering manner and the honest daring of Herr Wolfgang, 39° Fraser's Magazine his friend. ' It is a pity,' thought she, ' that he should have the fine estate who could live on a book and a crust. If Herr Wolfgang had Max's wealth, he would spend it like a prince, and his wife would be the first lady in Germany.' " Max came to invite Angelica to his castle of Waldberg ; it was prepared to receive her as to receive a sovereign. She had never seen anything more stately than the gardens, or more costly than the furniture ; and the lackeys in Max's livery were more numerous and more splendid than those who waited on the duke himself. He took her over his farms and villages ; it was a two days' journey. He showed her his stores of plate, and his cellars, the innumerable horses in his stables, and flocks and cattle in his fields. As she saw all these treasures, her heart grew colder towards Wolfgang, and she began to think that Max would be a better husband for her. But Herr Wolfgang did not seem much cast down, though she bestowed scarce a word upon him all day. " ' Would you take these lands and their lord, lady fair ? ' whispered Max to Angelica, as they were riding home. " ' That would I ! ' cried she, smiling in triumph ; and holding out her hand to Max, who, kissing it very respectfully, never quitted her side that day. '' She had now only frowns for Herr Wolfgang, to whom she had been so gracious hitherto ; and at supper that day, or at play afterwards, she scarce deigned to say a word to him. But he laughed, and shouted, and drank his wine as before. They played deep ; but Max, the most magnificent of hosts, had always a casket filled with gold by the side of Angelica ; who, therefore, little cared to lose. "The next day she spent in going over the treasury of the castle, and the various chambers in it. There was one room which they passed but did not enter. 'That was Ernst's room,' said Max, looking very gloomy. ' My lord, what a frown ! " said Angelica ; ' can I bear a husband who frowns so ? ' and quickly passed into another chamber. At the end of the day came the dice, as usual. Angelica could not live without them. They played, and Herr Wolfgang lost a very heavy sum, 5000 crowns. But he laughed, and bade Max make out an order on his intendant, and signed it with his name. " I can write no more than that,' said he ; ' but 'tis enough for a gentleman. To-morrow, Sir Max, you will give me my revenge ? ' " ' To-morrow,' said Max, ' I will promise not to balk you, and will play for any stake you will.' And so they parted. Men's "Wives- No. IV. The *s Wife 39' "The day after, many lords and hdies began to arrive, and in the evening, to supper, came over from a hunting-lodge he had in the neighbourhood, his Highness the Hereditary Prince and his Princess, who were served at a table alone. Max waiting on them. ' When this castle is mine,' said Angelica, ' / will be princess here, and my husband shall act the lackey to no duke in Christendom.' Dice and music were called as usual. 'Will your Highness dance or play?' But his Highness preferred dancing, as he was young and active ; and her Highness preferred dancing, too, for she was crooked and out of shape. The Prince led out lady Angelica ; and she never looked more beautiful, and swam through the dance in a royal style indeed. As they were dancing, people came to say, 'The Lord Max and Herr Wolfgang are at the dice, pliying very heavy stakes.' And so it was ; and Angelica, who was as eager for play as a Turk for opium, went presently to look at the players, around whom was already a crowd wondering. " But, much as she loved play, Angelica was frightened at the stakes played by Max and Wolfgang ; for moderate as the Lord Max had been abroad, at home it seemed to be a paint of honour with him to be magnificent, and he said he would refuse no stake that was offered to him. " ' Three throws for 10,000 crowns,' said Wolfgang. ' Make out an order for my intendant if I lose, and I will sign it with my mark.' " ' Three throws for 10,000 crowns ! — Done ! ' answered Max. He lost. ' The order, Herr Wolfgang, must be on my intendant now, and your Austrian woods will not have to suffer. Give me my revenge.' " ' Twenty thousand crowns against your farm and woods of Averback.' " ' They are worth only eighteen, but I said I would refuse you nothing, and cry done ! ' Max tossed, and lost the woods of Averback. " ' Have you not played enough, my lords, for to-day ? ' said Angelica, somewhat frightened. " ' No ! ' shouted Wolfgang, with his roaring laugh. ' No, in the devil's name, let us go on. I feel myself in the vein, and have lord Max's word that he will take any bet of mine. I will play you 20,000 crowns and your farm — my farm — against your barony and village of Weinheim.' " ' Lord Max, I entreat — I command you not to play 1 ' cried Angelica. 392 Ffaser's Magazine "'Done !' said Max, 'Weinlieim against the crowns and the firm.' He lest again. In an hour this unh-ppy gentleman lost all the property that his forefathers had been gathering for centuries : his houses and lands, his cattle and horses, his pi ite, arms, and furniture. Laughing and shouting, Wolfgang still pressed him. " ' I have no more,' said Max : ' you have my all ; — but stay,' Slid he, ' I have one thing more. Here is my bride, the lady Angelica.' " 'A hundred thousand crowns against her!' shouted Wolfang. " ' Fool ! ' said Angelica, turning scornfully on Max, ' do you think I would marry a beggar ? I said I would take the lord of these lands,' added she, blushing, and gazing on Wolfgang. " ' He is at your feet, lady,' said Wolfgang, going down on his knee ; and the Prince at this moment coming into the room, Max said bitte.ly, ' I brought you, my lord, to be present at a marriige, and a marriage it shall be. Here is the lord of Waldberg, who weds the Lady Angelica.' " ' Ho ! a chaplain ! — a chaplain ! ' called the Prince ; and there was one at hand, and before almost Angelica could say 'yea' or 'nay,' she was given away to Herr Wolfgang, and the service was read, and the contract signed by the witnesses, and all the guests came to congratulate her. " ' As the friend of poor dead Ernst,' said the Prince, ' I thank you for not marrying Max.' " ' The hump-backed Venus congratulates you,' said the Princess with a curtesy and a sneer. " ' I have lost all, but still have a marriage present to make to the lady Angelica,' said Max ; and he held out a gold casket, which she took. It was that one in which Ernst had kept her hair, and which he had worn at his death. Angehca flung down the casket in a rage. " ' Am I to be insulted in my own castle,' she said, 'and on my my own marriage day ? Prince — Princess — Max of Waldberg — beggar of Waldberg — I despise and scorn you all ! When it \\i\\ please you to leave this house, you are welcome. Its doors will gladly open to let you out. My lord Wolfgang, I must trust to your sword to revenge any insults that may be passed on a woman who is too weak to defend herself.' " ' Any who insults you insults me,' said Waldberg, at which the Prince buist into a laugh. " ' Coward ! ' said Angelica, ' your princedom saves your man- Men's Wives— No. IV. The 's Wife 393 hood. In any other country but your own you would not dare to act as you do.' And so saying, and looking as fierce as a boar at bay, glaring round at the circle of staring courtiers, and forgetting her doubts and fears in her courage and hatred, she left the room on Wolfgang's arm. " ' It is a gallant woman, by Heavens ! ' said the Prince. " The old governor of Udolph had not been present at the festival which had ended so unluckily for the feast-giver, Herr Max, and in Angelica's sudden marriage. Certain Anabaptist rogues, who had been making a disturbance in the duchy, had been taken prisoners of late, and after having been tortured and racked for some six months, had been sentenced to death, as became the dogs ; and, meanwhile, until their execution, were kept, with more than ordinary precautions, in Castle Udolph, for many of their people were still in the country, and thoughts of a rescue apprehended. The day, at last, was fixed for their death, — some three days after the sudden wedding of the Lady Angelica. " In those three days she had ridden again over the farms and orchards ; she had examined all the treasures and furnitures of her castles once more. At night she feasted with her spouse, sitting at the high table, which poor Max had prepared for the Prince and Princess, and causing the servants and pages to serve her upon bended knees. " ' Why do these menials look so cold upon their mistress and lord ! ' asked she. "'Marry,' said Wolfgang, 'the poor devils have served the Waldberg family since they were born ; they are only the more faithful for their sorrow.' " ' I will have yonder old scowling seneschal scourged by the huntsmen to-morrow,' said Angelica. " ' Do ! ' said Wolfgang, laughing wildly ; 'it will be an amusement to you, for you will be alone all to-morrow, sweet Angelica.' " ' And why alone, sir ? ' said she. " ' I am called to the city on urgent business.' "'And what is this business which calls you away alone?' "Her husband would not say. He said it was a state secret, which did not concern women. She replied she was no child, and would know it. He only laughed, and laughed louder as she burst into a fury ; and when she became white with rage, and clenched her little fists, and ground her teeth, and grasped 394 Ffaser's Magazine at the knife she wore in her girdle, he lashed the knife out of her hand with a cut of his riding-rod, and bade her women carry her away. ' Look to my lady,' said he, ' and never leave her. Her mother was mad, and she has a touch of the malady.' And so he left her, and was off by break of day. "At break of day Angelica was up too; and no sooner had her husband's horses left the courtyard of the castle than she called for her own, and rode towards the city in the direction in which he had gone. Great crowds of people were advancing towards the town, and she remembered, for the first time, that an execution was about to take place. There had not been one for seven years, so peaceable was our country then ; there was not even an executioner in the duke's service, for the old man had died, and no one had been found to take his place. ' I will see this, at any rate,' said Angelica ; for an execution was her delight, and she remembered every circumstance of the last with the utmost accuracy. " As she was spurring onwards she overtook a company of horsemen. It was the young Prince and his suite, among whom was riding Lord Max, who took off his cap and saluted her. " ' Make way for the Lady Angelica ! ' cried one. "' Health to the blushing bride ! ' said the Prince. 'What, so soon tired of billing and cooing at Waldeberg ? ' " ' I hope your grace found the beds soft and the servants obedient,' said Max. 'They had my parting instructions.' " ' They had the instructions of their own mistress,' replied Angelica. ' I pray you to let me pass on to my husband, the Lord Wolfgang.' " ' The Lord Wolfgang will be with you anon,' said the Prince. 'We were here on the watch for you and him, and to pay our devoirs to the loveliest of brides.' " ' An execution is just such a festival as becomes your ladyship. Make way there ! Place for the Lady Angelica 1 Here is the gallery from which you can see the whole ceremony. The people will be here anon.' And, almost in spite of herself, Angelica was led up into a scaffold from which the dismal preparations of the death-scene were quite visible. " Presently the trumpets blew from Udclph. The men at arms and their victims came winding down the hills ; old Dolchenblitz leading the procession, armed, and on his grey charger. 'Look at the victims,' said some one by AngeHca's side ; ' they are as calm as if they were going to a feast.' ' See, here comes the Men's Wives— No. IV. The *s Wife 395 masked executioner,' said another, 'who bought his life upon these terms.' He is a noble,' whispered Max to Angelica, ' and he is tfie greatest swordsman in Europe! Angelica did not reply, but trembled very much. " Singing their psalms, the Anabaptists mounted the scaffold. The first took his place in the chair, and the executioner did his terrible work. 'Here is the head of a traitor,' said the executioner. " ' You recognise your husband's voice, noble Lady Angelica, said Max. " She gave a loud scream, and fell down as if shot. The people were too much excited by the spectacle to listen to her scream. The rest of the executions went on ; but of these she saw nothing. She was carried home to Udolph raving mad. And so it was that Max of Waldberg revenged his brother's death. They say he was never the same man afterwards, and repented bitterly of his severity ; but the Princess Ulrica Amelia Sophonisba Jacquelina vowed that the punishment was not a whit too severe for the traitress who had dared to call her the hump-backed Venus. I have shortened as far as possible the horrors of the dSnouenient of this dismal drama. The executioner returned to Vienna with a thousand crowns and all he had won of Angelica in private. Max gave the father and his unhappy daughter a pension for their lives ; but he never married himself, and his estates passed away into another branch of our family." " What, are you connected with him, Milchbrod ? " said I ; " and is the story true ? " "True. The execution took place on the very spot where you are lying." I jumped up rather nervously. And here you have the story of the " Brother's Revenge ; or the Executioner's Wife." 39^ Eraser's Magazine ARTICLE 7 January 1847 A GRUMBLE ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS. By Michael Angelo Titmarsh. My dear Mr. Yorke, — When, in an unguarded moment, I complied with your request to look through the Christmas books of the season and report progress upon that new branch of English literature, we had both the idea that the occupation world be exceedingly easy, jovial, and pleasant ; that we should be able to make an agreeable lecture upon an amusing subject ; that critics, authors and readers would be brought together in the most enticing and amiable manner possible ; and that we should finish off an article with kind hearts, friendly greetings, merry Christmas, and that sort of thing, — a perfect prize-paper, streaky with benevolence, and larded with the most unctuous human kindness, with an appropriate bit of holly placed in its hinder quarter. Sir, we have both of us made a most dismal mistake. Had it been strong meat that you set before me for a Christmas feast, the above metaphor (which I took from Mr. Slater's shop at Kensington) might have applied. Beef might have invigorated the critic ; but, ah, sir ! what is that wretch to do who finds him- self surfeited with mince-pies? I have read Christmas books until I have reached a state of mind the most deplorable. "Curses on all fairies!" I gasp out; "I will never swallow another one as long as I live. Perdition seize all Benevolence ! Be hanged to the Good and the True ! Fling me every drop of the milk of human kindness out of the window ! — horrible, curdling slops, away with them ! Kick old Father Christmas out of doors, the abominable old impostor ! Next year I'll go to the Turks, the Scotch, or other Heathens who don't keep Christmas. Is all the street to come for a Christmas box ? Are the waits to be invading us by millions, and yelling all night? By my soul, if any body offers me plum-pudding again this season, I'll fling it in his face ! " The fair writer of one of these volumes, A Christmas in the Seventeenth Century^ (I may have read something very like this ' A Christmas in the Seventeenth Century. By Mrs. Percy Sinnett. London, Chapman & Hall. A Grumble about the Christmas Books 397 tale in Vandevelde's novels, but it is a pretty story, and just as good for little dears as if it were quite new,) mentions in the preface the rueful appearance of a Parisian friend of hers at Christmas, who was buying bonbons as if he was doing penance, and cursed the odious custom of the jour de Pan which compelled him to spend a great part of his quarter's allowance in sugar- plums, to be presented to his acquaintance. The French gentle- man was right ; the sugar-plum system in France has become a nuisance, and in Protestant England the Christmas-book system is bidding fair to be another. Sir, it was wisely regulated that Christmas should come only once a year, but that does not mean that it is to stay all the year round. Do you suppose that any man could read through all these books and retain his senses ? 1 have swallowed eight or nine out of the twenty-five or thirty volumes. I am in a pitiable condition. I speak with difficulty out of my fulness. " Miss Smith, my love, what is our first Christmas-pie ? That in the green and gold dish, if you please." Miss Smith: — "The dish is Mrs. Gore's, and the//a/^jare Mr. Cruikshank's, and very pretty plates they are. He, he, he ! " M .A.T. — " No trifling, madam, if you please. Read on." Miss Smith reads as follows :— " ' Can you read, my boy ? and are you sharp enough to under- take an errand ? ' said a young officer of the Guards, on whose well-fitting uniform little George had fixed a wistful eye, one summer morning at the corner of St. James' Street, as he was lounging near Sam's shop, on pretence of looking at the engravings of a fashionable annual. " ' I can read, sir,' replied the boy, longing to add, ' and if you will employ me for a message, I will do my best to give you satisfaction,' for the handsome countenance of the young officer captivated his fancy. But the often-repeated injunction of his grandmother that, betide what might, he was never to derogate from the habits of life of a gentleman's son, forbade his endeavour- ing to earn a shilling, a coin that rarely found its way into the palm of his hand. " ' You have an honest face of your own,' added the officer, after casting a hasty glance around, to ascertain that no one was at hand to overhear or notice their colloquy. Do you think you could make out Belgrave Street, Belgrave Square?' " ' To be sure I could, sir.' " ' In that case, my lad, here's half-a-crown for you, to make the 39^ Fraser's Magazine best of your way to number seven, where you will leave this letter,' continued he, placing one in his hand; 'and remember, should any questions be asked by the servants, you are to say it was given to you by a lady you never saw before, and of whom you do not know the name.' " ' If I'm to say that, sir, I'm afraid I can't oblige you,' replied the child, returning the money and the letter ; ' and at all events, I should not have accepted the half-crown. I'm not an errand-boy, sir : I am a gentleman's son !' " ' You are a confounded little ass, I suspect ! ' returned the officer, nettled and surprised. 'What on earth can it signify whether you receive the letter from a gentleman or lady?' " ' Not the least, sir. It signifies only that I should not say the one, when the other is the case. But I will undertake to carry your letter safe and speedily, and give no explanation at all, however much questioned, if that would suit you. " ' I fancy I can trust you, my lad,' replied the officer, more and more surprised by the tone and bearing of the child. ' But 1 should be glad to learn, on your return, how you have prospered in your errand.' '"You are on guard, I think, sir !' said George, glancing at his gay accoutrements. ' I shall be in Belgrave Street and back in less than twenty minutes. You can manage, perhaps, to remain here- abouts till then ? ' And the appointment once made, George did not allow the grass to grow under his feet. Fresh from a first perusal of Paul and Virginia^ he seemed to understand (on perceiving that the letter about which the young captain appeared so anxious was addressed to a ' Miss Hallet ') why he was so anxious concerning the delivery. " ' I left it safe, Sir, at number seven ; no questions were asked,' said he, a little out of breath, as soon as he came within hail of the scarlet coat. " ' So far, so good,' observed the young man, turning towajrds a friend on whose arm he was leaning. ' I think I may be sure this time, that it will reach her hand.' And as George had now fully discharged his commission, he was making off towards home, when the officer suddenly called him back. " ' Hillo, my lad ! we mustn't part in this way,' said he. ' You've done me better service than you think for ; and though you don't choose to be paid for it, you must have something, to keep in remembrance of my gratitude.' A Grumble about the Christmas Books 399 " The whcle party were now opposite the shop of Palmer the cutler, into which the apprrently overjoyed letter-sender ordered his prompt messenger to follow him ; and in a moment a tray of many-bladed knives — knives after a boy's own heart — glittered before the eyes of George. " ' Make your choice, youngster,' said the officer, who, by the obsequiousness of the shopman, was apparently v/ell known and highly considered. ' You seem steady enough to be trusted with sharp implements.' " ' Recollect, my dear Wroxton,' interrupted his companion, ' that a knife is the most unlucky keepsake in the world ! ' " ' Ay, between lovers ! ' retorted the young guardsman, pointing out to his protege a handsome four-bladed knife with a mother-of- pearl handle, which he seemed to recommend ; ' but in this case all I want is to remind this trusty Pacolet of mine that I am in existence ; and that he will often find me on the same spot, waiting to engage him for the same service he executed so well just now.' " Scarcely knowing in what words to express his gratitude for the generous manner in which his trifling assistance was requited, poor George thankfully acquiesced in the shopman's suggestion that his initials should be engraved on the silver escutcheon ornamenting the handle of the knife. It could be finished in a few hours. On the morrow, George was to call for it at Palmer's. " ' And mind you don't disappoint the little fellow ! ' said his new friend, preparing to leave the shop. ' It is impossible for me to send my own servants to Sir Jasper's,' he continued, addressing his ccmpanion, as they proceeded down the steps to resume their lounge in St. James' Street ; ' and this boy is precisely the sort of messenger not to excite suspicion.' " What an agreeable vivacity there is about this description ! Sparkling, easy, stylish, and so like nature. I think that incident of the knife — a four-bladed knife with a mother-of-pearl handle — from Palmer's, in St. James's Street, is impayable. You fancy the scene — the young bucks in scarlet — Palmer himself — the Con- servative Club opposite, with the splendid dandies in the bow window, — the red-jackets who hold the horses — the cab-stand — St. James's gate and clock. Que sqais-je ? How deftly in a few strokes a real artist can biing out a picture ! The picture is taken from New Year's Day, by Mrs. Gore.' ' New Years Day ; a Winters Tale. By Mrs. Gore. With Illustrations by George Cruikshaiik. London ; Fisher & Co. 4°o Fraser's Magazine This book has nothing earthly in it about New Year's Day. The plot and mystery are as follows : — There was once a hectoring young captain of foot, who married a young woman of inferior rank, and, singular to state, ill-used her. By this lady. Captain Hallet had a little son : he bullied and ill-used this little son too in such a manner that the lad threatened to drown himself ; and his coat and cap were all that were found of the young fellow by the side of the poluphloisboio thalasses, into the deep bosom of which he had committed himself. The mother's heart broke in twain at the calamity ; so did John Talbot's, the captain's man (as far as male heart can be said to break, but this sort mends again almost as good as new commonly) : the captain became an altered man, too, and no wonder. A couple of murders on his conscience could not make a captain of foot very cheerful. The Peninsular War was breaking out at this juncture. Captain Jasper Hallet joined the heroic Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, at present F.M. the Duke of Wellington, K.G., etc. Assaults, scaladoes, ambuscadoes, hurrah, cut-and-thrust, fire away, run- you-through-the-body, Give it 'em, boys ! became the captain's chief delight ; and forlorn hopes were his principal diversions. Wounded he was a great deal, as men will be in this sort of sport ; and we picture him to ourselves as devilled and scarred like the leg of that turkey which has stood the assault of Christmas- day. But no friendly ball laid low the capting — as how should it? — otherwise Mrs. Gore's stoiy never could have been written — on the contrary, he rose to be a major — a colonel — to clasps and ribands innumerable — to command a brigade in the unlucky campaigns of New Orleans, and a division at the attack of Bhurtpore. And I leave you to imagine that his portion of the swag (as the Hindostan phrase is for plunder) must have been considerable, when I state that it amounted to ^400,000. Mrs. Gore is a noble creature, and makes the money fly about, that is the truth. And don't you see, when a man has ^400,000, how we get to like him, in spite of a murder or two ? Our author yields with charming naivete to the general impression. He is a good fellow, after all ; but he has four hundred thousand ; he has repented of his early brutalities ; his claret is famous, &c., &c. Lieutenant- General Sir Jasper Hallet, K.C.B., Uved last year in Belgrave Street, Belgrave Square, with his niece, the lovely Mira, to whom it was known he had given ^20,000, and on whom many of the A Grumble about the Christmas Books 401 old fogies at the United Service Club were looking as eligible partners for llieir own sons. The United Service — que dis-je ? — the Guards' Club had an eye on her, too ; and no less a young fellow than my Lord Wroxton (the rogue !) was smitten by her. One day, as Miss Hallet was driving in her uncle's elegant chariot with the greys, the Johns behind, and Robert the coachman in the silver wig on the dickey, — as Robert was cutting in and out among the carriages like — blazes, I was going to say, but why use an expression so famihar? — it chanced that he cut over a child — a poor boy — a fair-haired, delicate boy — a bright-eyed thing — cut him over, and very nearly sent the wheels over him. The little cherub was rescued from the chariot-wheel, but before the lovely but naturally flustered Mira had found out his name, he was gone. Now, my dear, do you begin to be on the scent? Who can that fair-haired, blue-eyed, bright-eyed thing be ? Is it a baker's boy, is it a charity boy, a doctor's boy, or any other ditto ? My heart tells me that that child is not ivhat he seems. But of that anon. In a court off St. James's Street,— for if we can't be always genteel, we'll be always near it — in a dreary room , having spent her money, pawned her spoons, exhausted the little store which misfortune had left her, Uves a grumbling old woman, by the name of Mrs. Lawrie. She is an American, and as such the grandmother of the bright-eyed child whose acquaintance we have just had the honour to make. Yes, but who was his father "i His father was Colonel Jasper Foreman (mark \h& Jasper, S.V.P. !). Coming to this country, his own native place, with ingots of gold packed in chests, on board the Antelope packet, at only three days from shore, and just when the captain, after some conversations with him, had begun to treat Colonel Jasper Foreman with much more respect than a mere Yankee colonel could expect, — at three days off port, the ship went down, with the captain, with Colonel Foreman, all his money, all his papers — everything except the boy and his grandmother, and her dozen silver spoons and forks. It's a mercy the old lady was in the habit of carrying them about with her, or what would the pair have done on reaching Albion's shore ? They went to live in the court off St. James's Street, melting away the spoons one by one, and such other valuables as had escaped the shipwreck. The old lady's health was impaired, and her temper abominable. How like a little angel did young George 26 4°2 Fraser's Magazine tend that crabbed old grandmother ! George had a little bird, — a poor little bird, and loved the little warbler as boyhood will love. The old hunx grumbled at the little bird, and said it ate them out of house and home. He took it into St. James's Park (the keepers let him pass, for George, though poor, mended his clothes most elegantly, and always managed to look genteel, bless him !), and he let loose the little bird in the Park ; there's a picture of it, with the towers of Westminster Abbey, and the bird, and a lady and gent, walking in the distance. He parted from his darling bird, and went home to his grandmamma. He went home and made her gruel. " Bitterly did the old lady coinplaiii of the over-sugaring of the gruel!' There is a picture of that, too. George is bringing her the gruel in a basin ; there's a cow on the chimney-piece, a saucepan in the fender, a cup and a parcel (of Embden groats, probably) on the table. Tears — sweet, gushing tears — sobs of heart-breaking yet heart-soothing affection break from one over this ravishing scene. I am crying so, I can hardly write. The printers will never sure decipher this blotted page. So she complained of the over-sugaring of the gruel, did she ? Dear child 1 The scene, I feel, is growing too tender.' * * * * * As I describe this harrowing tale of innocence and woe, I protest I get so bewildered with grief as to lose the power of coherently continuing the narrative. This little George— this little diddle-iddle-darling, walking in St. James's Street, was accosted by Lord Wroxton, who gave him a letter to carry — a letter to Belgrave Street, to no other than to Miss Mira Hallet. The name of the owner of the house. Sir Jasper Hallet, excited in the boy a thousand tumultuously mysterious emotions. Jasper ! his papa's name was Jasper ? Were the two Jaspers related anyhow ? The scoffing menials thrust away the child who asked the question ; but still he was hovering about the place — still watching Miss Hallet and following her carriage; and one day, in a chase after it, he received the upset which opens the story. Well, well, a little boy knocked down in the very first page of a story of course gets up again— of course he finds his parents — of course his grandfather makes him a present of at least half the four hundred thousand ? No such thing : the little boy sickens ' Our contributor's MS. is here almost washed out with tears ; and two printers have been carried off in hysterics, who were merely setting up the types 1—0. y, A Grumble about the Christmas Books 4°3 all through the volume. Grandpapa goes abroad. Comic business takes place — such dreary comic business !— about the lovers of Miss Mira. In the midst of the comic business at Emms, grandpapa receives a letter — his boy is found. It is Jasper's son, who instead of drowning himself then (the cheerful catastrophe arriving later), only went to sea. Old John Talbot, the faithful servant, has found him starving in a garret. Away, away ! post haste, treble drink-gelt, vite postilion ! Sir Jasper arrives, and Mira, essoiifflde, to find the little boy — just dead. There's a picture of him. A white sheet covers him over, — old John Talbot is sobbing at the bedside — enter the general, as from his post-chaise. Horror, horror ! Send for the undertaker ! It is all up with poor little Georgy ! And I declare I have not the slightest compunction for his demise. The book ought to be bound in crape and printed on black-edged paper. This a Christmas book ! Where's merry Christmas going ? Of all, all deadly liveliness — of all maudlin ululations — of all such grandmothers, grandsons, and water- gruel, let us be delivered ! My love, hand me, if you please, the sky-blue covered book, January Eve, by George Soane, B.A.' I have my doubts whether anybody has a right to compose a story, certainly no one is authorised to write a Christmas story, whereof the end is not perfectly comfortable to all parties, — to the readers first, to the heroes and heroines subsequently, and all the minor characters according to their deserts, or beyond them. Why, poor rogues in her Majesty's very gaols are served with beef and pudding, and mercifulness and hospitality, at this season of the year ; and wherefore are you and I, my dear Miss Smith — not ill-natured persons in the main ; good natured, at any rate, when we are pleased— to be made miserable at the conclusion of a history, by being called upon to sympathise with the sickness, the premature demise, or otherwise undeserved misfortune, of certain honest personages, with whose adventures we are made acquainted ? That is why, madam, I was so wroth anon with Mrs. Gore. I won't show mercy unto her. Why should I to a lady who has been so unmerciful to poor little Whatdyecallem — the General Thingumgig's grandson, I mean — who died most miserably just as he was coming into his estate ? Mrs. Gore had the fate of the little fellow perfectly in her hands ; there is no earthly reason why he should not have got well of the carriage running over him. ' January Eve ; a Tale of the Times. By G. Soane, Esq., B.A. London, Churton. 404 Eraser's Magazine Why should not Mr. M'Cann of Parliament Street, for instance, have been passing by, as he always is in the newspapers, and set the little chap's shoulder in a twinkling? or why was not my friend Dr. Quintin, of Arlington Street, driving down St. James's Street at the period of the accident? He would have stepped out of his carriage, popped in the little lad, carried him to his grandmother, cured that abominable old woman of her lumbago and her ill- humour, without ever so much as thinking of a fee, and made all straight and pleasant by the time Sir Jasper Whatisit had arrived from Wiesbaden. It was just as easy for Mrs. Gore to save that child and make it perfectly well and hearty, as to throttle it, and go off to the undertaker's with a religious reflection. None of your Herodian stories for me. No, no ! I'm not jolly at a funeral. I confess it does not amuse me. I have no taste for murders, or measles, or poison, or black jobs of any sort. We will have a word or two with Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer Lytton, Bart., presently, by the way, who for his infamous and murderous propensities, as lately shown in his most appalling and arsenical novel of Lucretia, deserves to be brought up with a tight hand. But of this anon. We spake but now of Mrs. Gore going to the undertaker's. When the excellent Mrs. Hubbard went to the undertaker's and got a coffin, what was the upshot of that funereal transaction ? Why, as we all know, when she came back her favourite was laughing. As, of course, he should be. Thai's your proper sort of pantomime-business — that's the right way in Christmas books. Haven't you seen Clown in the play ; his head cut off by the butcher and left on the block before all beholders ; his limbs severally mangled and made into polonies, and yet in two minutes he says, " How are you ? " (the droll dog !) as lively as ever ? Haven't we seen Pantaloon killed before our very eyes, put pitilessly into his mother's mangle, brought from that instrument utterly dead, and stretched eighteen feet in length ? — and are we hurt, are our feelings outraged ? No, we know Harlequin will have him alive again in two minutes by a quiver of his stick, and the old rascal will be kittling Columbine under the chin, while that spangled maniac, her lover, is waggling his head in his frill (as if it were a pudding on a dish), and dancing the most absurd, clumsy hornpipe in the back scene. And as in pantomimes, so I say in Christmas stories, those fireside Christmas pantomimes, which are no more natural than Mother Goose or Harlequin Gulliver. A Grumble about the Christmas Books 40S Kill your people off as much as you like, but always bring 'em to life again. Belabour your villains as you please. As they are more hideous than mortals, punish them more severely than mortals can bear. But they must always amend, and you must always be reconciled to them in the last scene, when the spangled faiiy comes out of the revolving star, and uttering the magic octosyllabic incantations of reconcilement, vanishes into an elysium of blue fire. Sweet, kindly eight-syllabled incantations, pleasant fantastic fairy-follies, charming mystery, wherein the soul is plunged, as the gentle curtain descends, and covers those scenes of beloved and absurd glory ! Do you suppose the people who invented such were fools, and wanted to imitate great blundering realities to inculcate great, stupid, moral apophthegms ? Anybody can do that — anybody can say that " Evil communications corrupt good manners," or that " Procrastination is the thief of time," or what not : but a poet does not take his inspirations from the copy- book, or his pictures from the police-office. Is there any moralising in Titania, Ariosto, or Undine'i All this is d-propos of the sky-blue story-book by George Soane, B.A. Now this sky-blue story-book (whereof the flavour some- what perhaps resembles the beverage .of academic youth) has great merits. First, it is improbable ; secondly, it is pretty and graceful ; thirdly, it has many pleasant pastoral descriptions, and kindly ballet groups and dances ; fourthly, the criminals are reformed, the dead come to life again, and the devil is not the devil — to which, by the way, I take objection. The rich uncle from India is the key to the story — {inon Dieu, how I wish I had one coming from that quarter ! — (the conduct of a beggar on horseback the theme of a satire. Tom Starlight, the poacher, drinking with his club at the Black Lion, and inveighing against the tyranny of a scoundrelly aristocracy, finds himself all of a sudden converted into Squire Starhght, of Taunton Hall. The Squire gives up the doctrines of the poacher ; he is the strictest of game preservers in all the county, the most severe of landlords, and the most arrogant of men. Honest Jack Lint, the surgeon, was going to marry Tom's sister when in low life ; but, become a nobleman, Tom says she shall many old Lord Rheumatiz ; and so the poor girl all but breaks her heart. Stella breaks hers outright. She is the blind old schoolmaster's daughter, old EUas Birch — a dear, impossible old gentleman, with pink cheeks, red stockings, and cotton hair, such as you see come out of the canvas cottage in the ballet, and bless the lasses 4°6 Fraser's Magazine and lads (with their shirt-sleeves tied up with riband) before the ballet begins. "At this critical moment, when the question was on his lips, which, if spoken, might perhaps have averted no common calamity, he was interrupted by a chorus of boyish voices, so close and so unexpected as almost to startle him : 'Te, magister, salutamus, Te, magister, nunc laudamus ; Semper, semper sis beatus, Felix dies quo tu natus.' Hurrah ! " ' Why, it's the boys from the free school ! ' exclaimed the old man ; ' I did not know it was a holiday.' " No, dear Elias, — it was not a holiday, according to the school- rubric ; but it is good sometimes to be merry, though it is not so set down in the calendar ; and this was your birthday, — the first since blindness had compelled you to give up the ferula, which you had wielded so gently over the urchins, and in many instances over their fathers and grandfathers before them. Here they were, grateful little fellows, with full hands, and fuller hearts, come to say, ' We do love you so, kind old master ! ' And, to use a common phrase, though not in a common sense, there was no love lost between them, for Elias could scarcely have taken a liveher interest in their welfare had they really been his own children. " In they tumbled, thronging, talking, laughing, till as many had crowded into the cottage parlour as it would well hold, when the younger and weaker fry, who were thus ousted by their seniors, clambered up to the window-sill, where they clustered like a swarm of bees. The new schoolmaster, quite astounded at such a jubilee, would fain have re-established order among them. Order ! Silly fellow! what are you thinking of? Is order better than those merry faces, all hope and sunshine ? is order better than all that mass of happiness, which laughs, and shouts, and climbs, and hustles, and is not to be purchased at any price ? Leave them alone, for goodness' sake. And he did leave them alone, for he was not a bad fellow, that new master, though he was far from being an Ehas Fail field. Somehow, too, he was beginning to laugh, and be exceedingly merry himself, without exactly knowing why — perhaps it was for company's sake. " But the head-boy had a grand Latin speech to dehver, a thing of his own concoction, and made expressly for the occasion. Of A Grumble about tfie Christmas Books 4°7 course he was in a hurry to begin — most orators are— and his influence, assisted by a hint from Stella that the noise was almost too much for her grandfather, effected a temporary lull. A proud moment was it for the young Cicero, and with infinite complacency did the sightless old man listen to his harangue, only throwing in an occasional correction — he could not entirely forget former habits — when the orator blundered in his grammar, as would now and then happen. "Then came the presentations of gifts, in which each young holiday-maker acted for himself, and in a few minutes the cottage table was covered with nosegays, for as early as the season was — primroses, crocuses, yellow and purple, polyanthuses, pansies, and I know not what beside. One little fellow, having nothing better within his means, had tied together a bunch of daisies, which he presented amidst the jeers of his schoolmates — ' a pretty gift for any one ! on a birthday, too ! ' and again the laugh went round. But the old man caught the child to his bosom, and, kissing him tenderly, while the tears ran down his furrowed cheeks, bade Stella take especial care of the daisies. "'Put them in the water directly, love, and don't fling them away, either, when they die — mind that. You can lay them between the leaves of my great Bible, and then I shall always have them near me.' " What next ? the orator again steps forward. No more Latin speeches, I hope, — oh, no ! not the least fear of that. He is supported, as they say of other deputations, by a dozen of the eldest boys, who for the last two months have clubbed together their weekly allowance to buy a silver goblet for their dear old master. It was second-hand, but just as good as new ; the dents and bruises had been carefully hammered out, and it had been polished up both inside and outside, as only a silversmith can do these things. Indeed, their own funds had not sufficed for so magnificent an undertaking, and so they had been helped out by fathers, or brothers, or uncles, who in their day had been scholars of Elias, and now were grown up into substantial yeomen or thriving shopkeepers. " Whit next ? — a deputation of young girls from the neighbouring villages, with fowls, eggs, and bacon. Why, surely, they must fancy the cottage in a state of siege, and badly off for provisions ! " What next ? — Sir Edward's gamekeeper with a hare, and his kind remembrances to his old master — will call himself befoie the day's over.'' 4o8 Fraser's Magazine This as it should be ; your proper, pleasant, rouged, grinning, junketting, pantomimic business. It is not intended to be natural ■ — only p.etty and kind-hearted — pleasing to the eye— cheerfully ticklesome to the senses — mildly festive, benevolent, and brisk. I doubt, after all, if there is any need for an artist to make his portraits like. What you want is not to be struck by the resem- blance, but impregnated with the idea. For instance, when the thunderstorm comes, as in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, you don't think of putting up your umbrella : when you read young Mr. Roger's pretty verses- Mine be a cot beside a hill, A beehive's hum salute my, etc. you are not led to suppose that they contain a real picture of rural life and felicity ; but they fill the mind with sweet, pleasant, countryfied, hay-smelling, hawthorn-flowering, tree-whispeiing, river- babbling, breeze-blowing rural perceptions, wherein lie the reader's delight and the poet's charm and mystery. As the mesmerists' giving a glass of cold water to their lucky patients can make the liquor assume any taste, from Johannisberg to ginger-beer — • it is water still, but it has the effect of wine : so a poet mesmerises you with his magical tap, and but for the tenth time we are straying from the point in hand, which is. Why Stella Birch broke her heart? She broke her heart, then, because Tom Starlight broke it — that is, he ill-used her — that is, he promised her. Well, well, she jumped into the mill-stream with a shriek and a plunge ; and that brute Tom, not content with the ruin of one poor girl, must endeavour to perpetrate the destruction of another, his sister, by marrying her to the before-mentioned Lord Lumbago. Fancy the fury of poor Jack Pills — Fanny perishing away — the bells actually ringing for her marriage with Lord Sciatica — the trembling victim led to the altar, and Bob Sawyer about to poison himself with the most exciuciating black doses in his establishment. When, presto! the fairy in the revolving car appears. The old gentleman is not the devil who gave Tom the estate, but Tom's uncle from India, who wishes to try him. Tom is not Squire Starlight, of Taunton Hall, but a dumb, penniless, detected young scapegrace, to be handed over to the castigators. Viscount Chalkstones shall not marry poor dear httle Fanny, who, on the contrary, shall bless Tom Tourniquet with her hand and twenty thousand pounds administered by the uncle in India. Stella is A Grumble about the Christmas Books 409 not dead any more than you are. She jumped into the water, I own ; but the miller heard the plop and fished her out, and now she comes back, and of course Tom Starlight makes an honest woman of her. The only person who dies is old Elias Rodwell, the schoolmaster ; but then he is so old, so very old, and his hair so very cottony, that his death is rather a pleasure than otherwise ; and you fancy his life was only a sort of make- believe. And so everybody is happy, and the light-blue entertain- ment of Mr. Soane closes. It is a good, cheap, easy, and profitable Christmas pastime. " I take the brothers Mayhew to be a couple of good-natured hermits, living out of the world in practices of asceticism, and yet having a kindly recollection of that scene of strife and struggle which they have left behind them. They write, from their monastery, a work of prodigious benevo- lence, stupendous moralisation, frequent wisdom, and rather a clumsy and doubtful fancy and humour.' To say of a " good genius " that he " turns everything into gold," is, perhaps, an undeserved, though not an unprecedented compli- ment to bullion. It is an homage to specie. The proposition stands thus : a good genius turns everything into gold ; therefore gold is a good genius. And the fable is wrought in the following manner : — Silvio, a forester in a goat-skin jacket, having lost his paternal hut by an inundation, finds himself in his native wood with no resource but his hatchet and a piece of bread, his last refreshment. In the wood, Silvio finds a hive of honey. The houseless and penniless youth is about to give a relish to his last piece of bread with the honey so discovered, when a sentimental objection suddenly makes him pause. " No," says he (but in the finest language), " I will not deprive these innocent bees of the produce of their labour ; that which they have gathered, as they roamed from flower to flower, let them enjoy in dignified otiosity ; I will dip my crust into the stream, content myself with that wholesome repast, and not rob them of the results of their industry." This unexampled benevolence touches the Queen Bee, who is a fairy in disguise. She suddenly appears before Silvio in her character of Fairy Bee-Queen, — bids him to state in what manner she can be serviceable to him — and in fact fulfils every possible wish ' The Good Genius that Turned Everything into Gold ; or, the Queen Bee and the Magic Dress. A Christmas Fairy Tale. By the Brothers Mayhew. With Illustrations by George Cruikshank. London, Bogue. 4'° Fi-aser's Magazine that the young Silvio can form. " Only come out in that goat-skin jacket," says she, " so that I may know you, and anything you like shall be yours." First he wishes to have his cottage restored to him ; the Good Genius instantly reinstates him in that tenement. The Princess of the country calls upon him, and is dissatisfied with the accommodation. Silvio, of course, finds out that it is no longer convenient. He demands a neat little villa, whither the Princess, too, follows him. Encouraged by her visit, the audacious young man proposes marriage to her. " What ! you" says she, " a mere country householder, wish to marry the likes of me ? " And she leaves him in a huff. " Make me a Prince," says Silvio to his fairy patroness, " so that I may be her equal ; " and immediately the Queen Bee erects a principality and city for him. Silvio marries the Princess, and — they live happy ever after, you would imagine ? Not so. Prince Silvio plunges into idleness and debaucheries ; he is driven out of his capital by his indignant subjects. He loses his goat-skin jacket, the great talisman of his fortune. He is plunged into misfortunes, which he bears with great philosophy and most eloquent benevo- lence ; but finally finding his goat-skin again, his kingdom is restored, his prosperity returns, and he and his princess and daughter are doubtless happy to this very day. The history is interspersed with some comic-business. Silvio's barber, in fact, gets hold of the goat-skin jacket, when the prince makes his precipitate flight from his dominions, — enjoys unintelh- gible prosperity whilst wearing this article ; and goes mad upon losing it when Silvio comes back to his own again. I protest against the whole affair : against the fable — against the jacket — against the bee — against Silvio — against his bad fortune and his good — against the fairy turning everything into money, etc., etc. If a man wants to make a mere fantastic tale, nobody calls upon him to be tight and close in his logic. If he wants to moralise, his proposition should be neat and clear, as his argument is correct. I am reconciled now to the Wolf eating up Red Riding Hood (though I was sceptical in my childhood on this point), because I have given up believing that this is a moral tale altogether, and am content to receive it as a wild, odd, surprising and not unkindly fairy story. But if gentlemen set out professing a laborious moral, inculcating the beauties of industry, and how it turns everything into gold or pinchbeck, as the matter may be, I and other little children A Grumble about the Christmas Books 411 have a right to demand a pure fable along with all this didactic solemnity. " Brothers Mayhew," I exclaim, " if you are going to amuse me, do so. Awaken my wonder — my laughter — my sense of pleasure ; excite me by sweet rural pictures, or fancy fairy colours, or jovial grotesque perplexities : but if you would instruct, in the name of Justice let us have the real sort of morals. Sermons and snap- dragon will not go well together. Plum-pudding is good in its way ; but a dose of brandy is better with it than a brimming ladleful of virtue. If there were really your sort of good geniuses in the world, Socrates ought to have driven off from his trial in a coach- and-six to Xantippe, the loveliest and best-natured of women ; yet we know to the contrary. She was a shrew, and her husband was hanged. A banker's account is a fine thing when properly organised, and the balance agreeably preponderating upon your side ; but there are other accounts we have to settle, and if they look at this sublunary sphere, tnes frires, and the misfortunes of the good and the prosperity of their opposites, at Genius and Virtue in neglect and penury, and Dulness blundering into success, and Knavery filching Reputation, how can sublime moralists talk of goodness and gold together ? Whatever we may do privately as indixiduals, let us sublime moralists never publicly worship twopence-halfpenny. I, for my part, as one of the aforesaid, will always make an uproar when I meet with any apologue conveying such a foolish signification ; and I wish that some Christmas-story tellers would make us a few tales in which all the rogues prosper, and all the honest men go to gaol, just to correct the present odious tendency of the guides of public taste. The truth is that the book of the brothers Mayhew has so much merit, and is written often with so much brilliancy, and frequently with such dulness, — is so wise at times, and so unsatisfactory in the main, that it seems to me to be the critical ofiice to abuse and deny it altogether, — the which I cordially do ; and I warn the public, firstly, that under pretence of giving him a fairy story, the authors of the Good Genius that Turned Everything into, etc., inveigle the reader into a sermon, — that the sermon is quite unsatisfactory, but that the preachers have a plenty of brains to supply their abundance of doctrine. A very able and complimentary review of this book appeared under the title of " Fairy Politics " ; for be it known that Silvio and the fairy discuss a prodigious deal of political ethics together. If any fairy presumes to talk any such nonsense to me, I will do 412 Frasef's Magazine my best from my place in the pit to hiss him off the stage. Had it been any the best known and dearest author — had it been Dickens himself, we would assume the privilege of replying to him with the cat-call, or other Protestant instrument, until the policeman ordered us off the premises. " To see the faults of a great master, look at his imitators,'' Reynolds says in his Discourses ; and the sins of Mr. Dickens' followers must frighten that gentleman not a little. Almost every one of the Christmas caroUers are exaggerating the master's own exaggerations, and caricaturing the face of nature most shame- lessly. Every object in the world is brought to life, and invested with a vulgar knowingness and outrageous jocularity. Winds used to whistle in former days, and oaks to toss their arms in the storm. Winds are now made to laugh, to howl, to scream, to triumph, to sing choruses ; trees to squint, to shiver, to leer, to grin, to smoke pipes, dance hornpipes, and smoke those of tobacco. When the brothers Mayhew wish to be funny and in the fashion, they say, — " The bright eye of day was now fast getting bloodshot with the coming cold of night." "A bee goes singing past him, merry as though he had taken a flower cup too much." " Aurora had just begun to light her fire in the grate of the East, and the Sun was still snug under the blankets of the horizon." " The King thanked his stars that he was not always called upon to leave his bed until the Sun had passed his bright copper warming- pan over the damp clouds, and properly aired the atmosphere for his reception." What clumsy joking this is ! What dreary buffooning ! by men who can write, too, as well as this ! It must be premised that the Princess Amaranth, Silvio's wife, is longing to see her father, the old King, and she breaks her wish to her husband in the Eastern manner by an allegory : — " It is related that the Sea-Shell was the favourite daughter of the Wave ; and that he watched over her with love, shielding her from injury ! and folded her in his bosom, and cherished her as his best beloved, ever whispering the music of affection in her ear. " Now the Sea-Shell loved the noble Rock upon the shore ; but the Wave and the Rock were enemies, battling with each other ; so that when the haughty Wave found out the love of his rosy- lipped child, he spoke in a voice of anger, thus, ' If thou sighest to wed with yonder Rock, I will cast thee from my bosom, and turn from thee. Go where thou wilt, my anger shall haunt thee, and ever ring in thine ear ! ' But the Shell loved on, and the A Grumble about the Cliwstmas Books 413 swelling Wave dashed her from him. And though the steadfast Rock cheiished his ocean Bride with every kindness, and kept her always by his side, still the Shell pined in sorrow ; for, as her white-haired sire had said, the anger of the Wave kept ever haunting her, and ringing in her ear." A fairy lecturer : — " And so saying, the fairy hummed the. following charm : — ' Quick ! let him read the Rocks I and see In them the Earth's Biography ! Discover Stars beyond the sight ! Weigh them, and time the speed of Light 1 Within the dew-drop's tiny sphere Let Animalcule Worlds appear ! Each puny Monster let him scan, Then mark the Animalcule Man ! And tracing use in great and small, See Good in each, and God in all ! ' " Then Silvio is lifted up in the air, and carried by winged spirits far into the realms of space, until the world beneath him dwindled into a star, and the stars above him swelled into worlds. And as he flew past them, and they past him, he saw system rise after system, and suns upon suns, whose light had never yet reached the eyes of man. And still, as he looked before him, the stars lay thick as sands in the blue sea of the heavens ; while as he travelled on, that which in the distance appeared only one brilliant mass of confusion, separated as he advanced into new worlds, threading with wondrous order the glittering maze, and spinning in their lightning course, until the air vibrated again, and the universe was melodious with the hum of their motion. "Suddenly Silvio was on the earth again, with the fii y bee at his side. Then, waving her wand, she showed him a little universe in every atom, — a busy world in every drop ; and how each grain of the earth was itself a globe teeming with life, and peopled with a minnikin race, whose structure was as wonderful and as perfect as his own. Then she took him down with her deep into the earth, and turning over with her wand the layers of rocks, as though they were leaves of a mighty volume, Silvio read within them the Wondrous Tale of Creation. And instantly he lived in the time when man was yet unborn, and monster beasts roamed through the giant forests, the undisputed monarchs of a desert world. " And again, ascending to the surface, the fairy opened to him 4^4 Frasef's Magazine the affinities of things, showing him how the air he breathed made metals moulder, and fire burn ; and how the black charcoal was the parent of the glittering diamond ; and how the water he drank sprang from the burning of gases that he could neither feel, taste, smell, nor see ; and how the atmosphere around him consisted of the same ingredients as the acid, which scarcely any metal could withstand. "Then she disclosed to him all the mysteries of herbs and minerals, showing him their good and evil powers, and how a little flower or a few small crystals might save or take a life. "And, lastly, laying bare to him the mechanism of his own mysterious frame, she showed Silvio how the bread he ate became the blood of his arteries and veins ; and how the sanguine stream meandered through his body like a ruby river, giving life and vigour to all within its course ; and how thin nerves, like threads, worked his puppet limbs, and running to his brain, became the conduits of his will and feelings, and the chords which linked his immortal spirit to the world without. " Bewildered with wonder, and with his brain aching with the knowledge he had learnt, Silvio returned home." Honest and fine as this writing is, surely it is out of place and little to be understood by children. I protest neither against pantomimes, nor against Walker's Orrery in a pantomime. And this is my ground for grumbling against this wise, this ingenious, this clever, but this clumsy and ponderous allegory of the brothers Mayhew. But the personification-mania of the Mayhew brothers is as nothing compared to the same malady in the author of the Yule Log^ Mr. A. Chamerovzow, who has summoned the admirable George Cruikshank to his aid, and produced his Christmas legend with gilt leaves and cover ; in which there is the usual commodity of fairies, and a prize rustic, who, impelled by the demon of avarice, neglects his friends, knocks down his blessed angel of a wife, turns his seduced daughter out of doors, and is on the point of being murdered by his eldest son ; but just at the critical moment of throttling he wakes up and finds it all a dream ! Isn't this a novelty? Isn't this a piece of ingenuity? Take your rustic, your fairies, your nightmare, finish off with a plum-pudding and a dance * ThR Yule Log for Everybody s Christmas Hearth ; shewing where it Grew ; how it was cut and brought Home ; and how it was Burnt. By the author of The Chronicles of the Bastille. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London, Newby. A Grumble about the Chfistmas Books 41 5 under the holly-bush, and a benign invocation to Christmas, kind hearts, and what not. Are we to have this sort of business for ever? Mon Dieu .' will people never get tired of reading what they know, and authors weary of inventing what everybody has been going on inventing for ages past ? Read the following specimen of the style of Mr. Chamerovzow, and say. Is not the animated landscape nuisance becoming most intolerable, and no longer to be endured ? — " Still the years rolled on, and still the sturdy Beech mocked and braved the Tempest as boldly as ever ! In the dingle it stood, unmolested and respected ; almost venerated ; for now it was known to be haunted, nobody durst expose himself to the fury of the Spirits by attempting to fell it. Nevertheless, some half-dozen times it was tried : but, invariably the Woodman renounced the task in despair, after he had blunted his best axes, without cutting even through the bark. "At length, Time beat the tree hollow ; it was a long race, not- withstanding, and the gallant old Beech stood it out bravely, and proved itself game to the last ; for though its inside was growing weaker and weaker, it still kept up a good appearance ; so that one might have taken odds it would never give in, for all that its leaves showed later than they used, and fell earlier. Then its giant foot, which covered no end of ground, grew gouty; and large wooden corns and bunions spread all over it ; its trunk, lately so solid and hale, began to crack, and peel, and to come out in broad unhealthy-looking blotches ; let alone that it wheezed asthmatically when the Wind blew ; its massive limbs, too, betrayed rheumatic symptoms, and creaked and groaned at every puff. " And now it was the Wind's turn to laugh at and buffet the Beech, that had for so many years mocked its power, and set its rage-at defiance ; every time it got a chance, away it swept with a branch, amputating it at one blow, and flinging the disabled member back into its teeth with savage malignity ; then it would catch hold of its noble head, and tear, and tug, and pull, and twist it, until obliged to give over from sheer exhaustion ; and all to loosen its roots, that it might enjoy the satisfaction of knocking the tree down and trampling upon it ; still the old fellow fought hard, and did his best to roar and laugh at his ancient enemy as he used of yore; though anybody might have perceived the difference with only half an eye." See in the second paragraph what happens to the beech : — I. He is running a race with Time, who beats him. 41 6 Ffaser's Magazine 3. He is brave and game. 3. His inside is getting weak. 4. His feet are gouty. 5. He has corns and bunions. 6. His body comes out in blotches. 7. He wheezes asthmatically. 8. He has the rheumatism. There's a collection of cheerful ideas for you ! There's a jolly, rollicking, buniony, wheezy, gouty, rheumatic, blotchy Christmas metaphor ! Is this the way a gentleman takes to make himself pleasant ? It is ingenious i It is poetical, or merely foolish, in a word? I believe it to be the easiest and silliest kind of composition in which any poetaster can indulge. I will engage to vivify my tailor's bill ; to make a romance of the heart out of my boot-jack ; to get up a tender interest for mashed turnips and boiled mutton ; to invest my breeches with pathos ; to communicate an air of mystery to my coat (dash its buttons !) ; to make my waistcoat split its sides with jocularity ; or so to treat and degrade, with clumsy joking, anything natural or supernatural ; to make a farce of a thunderstorm, or a tragedy of a teapot ; but shall we do so ? No! in the name of honest humour, no! Suppose Leslie (I take him as the finest humorous artist in England) were to make the chairs and tables in his pictures squint at you, and set the tongs and pokers grinning, would Sancho and Don Quixote be rendered more funny by these foolish tricks ? Suppose when Mr. and Mrs. Keeley went to make you laugh in a comedy, they were to order all the supernumeraries to rush on to the stage and squint and grin ; to have all the scenes p;.inted with goggle-eyed caricatures ; and all the fiddlers imitating the squeak- ing of pigs, the braying of donkeys, and what not, on their instruments — would the story and the fun of the play be more comprehensible for the insane interruption ? A comic artist, as I take it, has almost the entire range of thought to play upon ; the maddest foolery at times becomes him perfectly as the deepest pathos ; but this systematic fooling, this dreary cut-and-dry fancy, this grinning without fun, makes my gorge rise, my dear Mr. Yorke ; and 1 protest, for the honour of the trade. Mr. Merriman in the ring is not a humorist, but a poor half-witted impostor ; I have my own opinion of a fellow who deliberately cuts sham jokes. They should come from a humorist's heart, or they are but acts of dishonesty on his part and forgeries on the public. A Grumble about the Cliristmas Books 417 In respect of The Drawing-Room Scrap Book} As the seaman in real life and Cooper's novels knows, by the peculiar gaff in her binnacle, the luff in her topsail-halyards, or what not, his old ship, the " Lively Sally," though the " Mary Anne " is now painted on her starn, so old critical hands, in taking up Mr. Fisher's book, recognise old friends with new titles among the prints — old pictures with wonderful subjects marvellously gathered together from all quarters. Pictorially, The Drawing-Room Scrap-Book is a sea-pie, made up of scraps that have been served at many tables before. Her Majesty, in company with Richard Cobden and Charles Villiers ; the Chinese necromancers ; Lord Hardinge welcoming in the spring ; Sir Robert Sale at a Spanish bull- fight in the Mocenigo Palace. A rich and wonderful hash indeed ! The fair editor, Mrs. Norton, has been painted by two artists in the present volume : by Mr. Carrick on ivory, and by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer Lytton, in a kind of verses, against which we put a strenuous protest. Sir Bulwer calls her a radiant Stranger — a spirit of the Star, and a daughter of the Beam, with a large B, meaning that there is something quite unearthly in the appearance of the fair editor of The Drawing-Room Scrap-Book ; that it is clear to Sir Lytton's perception that she belongs to another orb, in which he Sir Edward (being possibly likewise of an angelical supernaturality himself) has made her acquaintance. He states that, while mere mortals have changes of comfort and care in life, to supernatural beings, like the Honourable Mrs. Norton, our very air is silent pain ; in fact, that they are doomed to a perpetual sadness, under the never-ending domination of the Old Blue Devil. Let us hope that the statement is erroneous, and the pedigree not also correct. Over the very verses in which Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton makes the above extraordinary assertions, some downright prose writer says the Hon. Mrs. Norton is " Second daughter of Thomas Sheridan, Esq. (son of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan and his first wife, the celebrated Mrs. Lindley), and Caroline Henrietta Callander, of Craigforth, and Lady Elizabeth Mac- Donnell." How can a man, in the face of such a genealogy, declare that Mrs. Norton's parent was a Beam, with a large B ? Isn't the ' Fisher's Drawing- fioom Scrap-Book. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. tjOndon, Fisher, Son, & Co, 27 41 8 Eraser's Magazine prose-tree a sufficient pedigree? Had Genius ever a directer descent ? " No human beauty," says the baronet, — " No human beauty ever bore An aspect thus divine : The crown the brows of seraphs wear, Hath left its mark on thine ; — The unconscious glories round thee, bear The Stamp divine, Of One divine, Who trod the spheres of yore.'' Come, come, Sir Bulwer, hovif can you talk to a lady so to her face? Whereabouts have you seen seraphs and their crowns? When made acquaintance with ones di\ine ? Wliat are all these attitudes, platitudes, beatitudes ? Isn't a woman good enough for you that inherits Sheridan's genius and sweet Cecilia's eyes and voice, but you must assume an inspired air, and declare she is a stray angel ? In the picture of the lady, she has a black velvet band round her forehead, and buttons on her dress. Fancy an angel in buttons ! No ! No ! There's some error in the Bard's (or to speak more correctly, the Bart.'s) description. This sort of wiiting, this fiimsy, inystical, nambypamby, we hold to be dangerous to men and reprehensible in Bart.'s. When IiTeverence puts on a sanctified look, when Mayfair begins to have revelations, when — but let us restrain our beautiful and outraged feelings, and return to the matter in hand. The fact is, then (while strenuously denying the Beam in Mrs. Norton's family-tree, — indeed it is the big B buzzing about it that roused the critical peevishness), that though we fearlessly assert 'Mrs. Norton to be only a woman, and always a woman, Mr. Carrick's picture no more represents her magnificent beauty than Mr. Joseph Hume resembles Apollo. To have seen it is to have seen something in history. Would you not like to have seen Helen or Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette (about whose beauty we doubt whether the late Mr. Burke did not make exaggerated statements), Fair Rosamond, or the Queen of Prussia, or Fox's Duchess of Devonshire, or that sweet ancestor of Mrs. Norton's own, who smiles on Reynolds' canvass with such ravishing delicious purity — the charming, charming Lindley ? As good as this a man may haply see, this very season, at the French play. There these eyes beheld it ; not a daughter of a Beam — not a spirit of a Star, but a woman in black, with A Grumble about the Christmas Books 419 buttons — those very buttons, probably — only a woman. It is not enough, Sir Lytton ? Stars and Beams ! Buttons and button- hooks ! Quando invenies parent ? In our presence no man shall call such a woman a Spirit without a word in his ear. And now to speak of the moral part, the soul above those buttons. Of all the genuine poets I ever but perhaps we had best not. When he has a mind to pick a hole in a man's coat, who active and mischievous as your humble servant ? When he wishes to address a person in terms of unbounded laudation and respect, this present ciitic stutters and bungles most awkwardly — makes a dash for his hat, and a rush out of the room, perfectly over- powered by modesty. What a charming characteristic and confession ! But did we prate and criticise, dear Mrs. S., in early days, when we went to hear Pasta sing ? Hearken to this sad tale of false love and broken vows : — " He remembers the light of her smile, — of that smile, in itself a caress, So warmly and softly it fell on the heart it was willing to bless ; He remembers the touch of her hand, as it lay gently clasped in his own, And he crushes the flowers which she gave, and bows down his head with a groan. How oft in the twilight of eve, — how oft in the glory of day, Hath she leaned on his bosom and vowed — the vows she has lived to betray. Oh ! lovely as angels above,— oh ! false as the devils below, Oh ! hope that seemed more than divine— oh ! fountain of fathomless woe ! How couldst thou forsake me ! — Return, — return, still beloved as thou art, Wide open yet standeth the door of thy home in this desolate heart : Return ! We will bury the past,- and light on my eyelids shall beam With the rapture of one who at dawn breaks the spell of a terrible dream ! In vain : even now, while I reel — blind, helpless, and faint with despair. Thou bendest with triumph to hear, the new voice that whispers thee fair. Oh ! fickle, and shallow, and cold— in all but thy fever of blood,— Unfit, from thy nature, to cling to aught that was earnest and good. Thy love was an instinct of sex ; it palled when thy passion was o'er, Like a v/ild bird that answers in spring the mate it remembers no more. I shame that a creature so light should bid me thus quiver and bleed, — I shame to have leaned and been pierced by my trust in so brittle » reed, — 420 Fi-asei-'s Magazine I scorn thee ! Go forth to the world, a parade of thy beauty to malie ; Thrill, fever, and madden more hearts, — let them pine, — let them die, — for thy sake ! Let them yield up their manhood of soul, and adore their ideal in thee ; I laugh as thou breathest false vows, — to break them again, as with me ; I laugh as they anchor their hopes, where the quicksand forbids them to live ; Will they drain from the dregs of thy heart what the fresh faith of youth could not give ? Let them sink, let them perish, — like me, — of thy smiles and thy glar.;es bereft, — Yet, if thou wert in sorrow and pain, — would I leave thee, — as I have been left ? " Did we prate and criticise when we heard Pasta sing? Didn't you, on the contrary, come closer and closer, and sit quite silent, and listen with all your soul ? And I'm not sure that we applauded much when the song was over. A great clapping of hands is but a coarse sort of sympathy. We applaud in that way when a musical mountebank spins down the scale, or leaps astonishingly over a bravura. But before a great artist we are silent. And is not this a true poet ? What a mournful, artless beauty is here ? What a brooding, tender woman's heart ! What has struck myself and Miss Smith with especial admiration in these songs of Mrs. Norton and her accomplished sister, Lady Dufferin, is the spontaneity of them. They sing without labour, like birds ; as if it were their nature — "Pouring their full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art ! " There is something surprising in the faculty ; and one Ustens with charmed astonishment to the song, sometimes gay, often sad, always tender and musical. I have, I trust, been tolerably ill-humoured hitherto ; but what man can go on grumbling in the presence of such an angelical spirit as Hans Christian Andersen ? Seeing him praised in the Athenaeum journal, I was straight put away from reading a word of Hans's other works : and it was only last night when going to bed, perfectly bored with the beef-fed English fairies, their hob- nailed gambols, and elephantine friskiness, his Shoes of Fortune and his Wonderful Stories ' came under the eyes of your humble ' Wonderful Stories for Children. By Hans Christian Andersen, author of The Imprmisatore, etc. Translated from the Panish by Mary Howitt. London ; Chapman & HalJ. A Grumble about tKe Christmas Books 421 sei-vant. Heaven bless Hans Christian ! Here are fairies ! This is fancy, and graceful wit, and delicate humour, and sweet naive kindness, flowing from the heart ! Here is frolic without any labour ! Here is admirable fooling without any consciousness or degradation ! Though we have no sort of respect for a great, hulking, whiskered, red-faced, middle-aged man, who dresses himself in a pinafore and affects to frolic like a baby, may we not be charmed by the play and prattle of a child? And Hans Christian Andersen so affects me. Every page of the volumes sparkles with delightful grace and genial fancy. Hans and you are friends for life after an hour's talk with him. I shake thy hands, Hans Christian, thou kindly prattler and warbler ! A happy Christmas, to thee, thou happy- minded Christian ! You smile, dear Miss Smith ! When we become acquainted with so delicate and charming a genius, have we no right to be thankful ? Yes ; let us respect every one of those friends whom Heaven has sent us — those sweet Christian messengers of peace and goodwill. Do you remember the dainty description of the Prioress in Chaucer? It has lately been quoted in Leigh Hunt's charming volume. Wit and Humour, and con- cludes with an account of a certain talisman this delicate creature wore : — "About hire arm a broche of goWe ful shene, On which was first ywritten a crouned A, And after, Amor vincit omnia." The works of the real humorist always have this sacred press mark, I think. Try Shakespeare, first ot all : Cervantes, Addison, Poor Dick Steele, and dear Harry Fielding : the tender and delightful Jean Paul, Sterne, and Scott, — and Love is the humorist's best characteristic, and gives that charming ring to their laughter in which all the goodnatured world joins in chorus. Foremost of all, at present, I think Mr. Dickens may assume the Amor and Crown for his badge and cognisance. His humanity has mastered the sympathy of almost all wise men, of dullards, of all sorts of honest people. He makes good jokes, bad jokes, the best and the worst jokes indeed possible. The critics fasten on the latter and sneer ; the public sympathy kicks the flimsy barriers away and pours on. The kindly spirit melts all critical doubts. Can he be worthless, or a sceptic, in whom all the world is putting faith — who has the ear of all England— who has done as much to 422 Fi-asef's Magazine make the poor known to the rich, and reconcile each to the other, as Hansard, ay, or Exeter Hall? Is this a man to be railed at by his literary brethren ? In the American War (this is an historical allegory), the man who sneered at Washington most was that brave officer, and spotless patriot, General Arnold. If I judge Mr. Dickens's present volume ' rightly, it has been the author's aim, not to produce a prose tale of mingled fun and sadness, and a close imitation of life, but a prose poem, designed to awaken emotions tender, mirthful, pastoral, wonderful. As in some of Maclise's charming designs to the book, the costume of the figures is rather a hint of the costume of the last century than a portrait of it, so the writer's characters seem to me modified, — prettified, so to speak. The action of the piece you see clearly enough, but the actors speak and move to measure and music. The drolls are more violently funny ; the serious heroes and heroines more gracefully and faultlessly beautiful. Such figures are never seen among real country people. No more are Tityrus and Meliboeus like, or Hermann and Dorothea like, or Taglioni, bounding through air in gauze, like a Scotch peasant girl. Tityre, tu patule, is a ballet in hexameters ; the Sylphide, a poem performed on the toes ; these charming little books of Mr. Dickens's are chorals for Christmas executed in prose. Last year the critics were specially outraged by the famous clock-and-kettle overture of the Christmas-piece. "Is this truth, is this nature?" cries the Cynic, growling from his tub. You might say. Is it the multiplication table, or is it the pons asinorum ? It is not intended to be true or natural, as I hold ; it is intended to be a brisk, dashing, startling caricature. The poet does not want you to believe him, he wants to provoke your mirth and wonder. He is appealing, not to your reason and feelings as in a prose narrative, but to your fancy and feelings. He peoples the familiar hearth with sprites, and the church-tower with gobhns ; all the commonest objects swarm with preternatural life. The haymaker has convulsions, the warming-pan is vivified, the chairs are ambulatory, and the poker writhes with life. In the midst of these wonders goes on a little, common, kind-hearted, tender, everyday story of poverty averted, true hearts rewarded, the poor loving one another, a tyrant grotesquely punished. It is not much. But in these performances the music is everything. The Zauberflbte or the Barbiere are not like life ; mais ! ' " The Battle of Life" : a Lave Story. By Charles Dickens. London : Bradbury and Evans. A Grumble about the Christmas Books 4^3 That is why we lose patience or affect to have no respect for minor performers. Numbers of unknown fiddlers, hearing of the success of Mr. Dickens's opera, rush forward, fiddle in hand, of the very same shape by the very same maker. " Come and hear our partition," they say ; " see how we have set the Barber to music, and what tunes we make Papageno sing ! " Away with your miserable fiddle-sticks, misguided people ! You play after such a master ! You take a bad moment. We may have heard some indifferent music from this composer, and some very weak and bad music from him, too ; but we have had likewise, strains so delightful and noble, specimens of skill so unapproachable by others, that we protest against all followers. This grumbling fit seizes on me again as I think of them, and I long for some one to devour. Ha ! what have we here ? — M. A. Titmarsh's Christmas Book —Mrs. Perkin^s Ball} Dedicated to the Mulligan of Bally- mulligan. BallymuUigan ! Baily fiddlestick ! What, you, too, Mr. Titmarsh ? You, you sneering wretch, setting up a Christmas- book of your own ? This, then, is the meaning of your savage feeling towards "the minor fiddlers !" Is your kit, sirrah, any bigger than theirs ? You, who in the columns of this very Magazine, have sneered at the works of so many painters, look at your own performances ! Some of your folks have scarcely more legs than Miss Biffin ; they have fins instead of hands, — they squint almost every one of them ! ***** All this is quite true. But see where we have come to ! — to the very last page of the very last sheet ; and the writer is called upon to stop just at the very moment he was going to cut his own head off. So have I seen Mr. Clown (in that Christmas drama which has been foremost in my thoughts during all the above meditations) set up the gallows, adjust the rope, try the noose curiously, and— tumble head over heels. ' Mrs. Perkins's Ball : depicted in Twenty-three Plates ; containing portraits of the Principal Personages present, with their Characters. By Mr. M. A. Titmarsh. London. Chapman and Hall. 424 Fraser's Magazine— Appendui APPENDIX Eraser's Magazine (Vol. VI., August, September, 1832) ELIZABETH BROWNRIGGE: A TALE. Dedicated to the Author of "Eugene Aram, u. NcveV ^cD, 0eu, tI irpoadipKeaO^ ^ 6/jt.fia(TLV, riKvag Ti irpo(rye\S.Te rbv iravOfTTaTov y^Xuv ; Ar, al, tI 5pi.au, ; * * * * Eao'oi' aiirds, Si Td\av, 0ei(rat r^KVtav, EuRiPiDls, Medea. DEDICATION. To the Author of ^^ Eugene Aram!' Sir,— I am a young man who have for a length of time applied myself to the cultivation of literature, and have hitherto entirely failed in deriving any emoluments from my exertions. I have in vain supplicated the magnates of every theatre in the metropolis with the offerings of my tragedies and comedies, my operas and farces ; and I have suffered reiterated rejections of my novels, poems, and romances, from every publisher who flourishes between the two opposite points of Paternoster Row and Albemarle Street. In despai/ of ever finding a vent for my lucubrations, and alarmed at the heaps of unprofitable MSS. which have been daily growing larger and larger upon my shelves, I sat down one evening about a fortnight ago, and spread out before me all the many cold and civil letters of refusal which I had received from different managers and booksellers, with a view of comparing their contents, and endeavouring to elicit the cause to which the universally unfavourable reception of my works was to be ascribed. As my eyes glanced along the ranks of the letters Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 425 which I had disposed in parade order on my writing-table, I was surprised to find that the very identical phrase occurred in every one of them ; managers of major or minor theatres, publishers of every grade of fashion, and of every quarter of the metropolis, were all unanimous in expressing their approbation of the talent exhibited in my productions. My dramatic efforts, whether in five acts or in two, would doubtless have succeeded some ten years ago, but, unhappily, they were not of a "popular description" ; my poems were classical, pure in taste, perfect in diction ; but, most unhappily, were not, at present, of a " popular description " ; my novels were just in character, interesting in plot, pathetic, unexceptionable in sentiment ; but, unhappily, they were not of a " popular description." The letters, in fact, informed me that my literary exertions possessed every merit, except the one essential and only merit which is really valued by the dealer in such commodities — the merit of suiting the reigning taste of the public. Having arrived at this discovery, my hopes revived. "Those who write to live," I exclaimed, " must write to please ! " I resolved to apply myself, on the instant, to the reformation of my mode of composition. I tied up my former works in separate parcels, and deposited them in my trunks and closets, to await a change of fashion in the reading world ; and sending my laundress to the circulating library for the last most popular novel, I determined to study its style and manner, to investigate the principles on which it was written, and to compose my next new work as nearly as possible upon its model. Sir, the volumes which were brought to me were those of Eugene Aram. Before I had read a hundred pages of that most extraordinary production, the errors and defects of my own efforts were made apparent to me. From the frequent perusal of older works of imagination, I had learned so to weave the incidents of my story as to interest the feelings of the reader in favour of virtue, and to increase his detestation of vice. I have been taught by Eugene Aram to mix vice and virtue up together, in such an inextricable confusion as to render it impossible that any preference should be given to either, or that the one indeed should be at all distinguishable from the other. I had hitherto sought to give an agreeable view of life, to inspire contented dispositions towards the existing institutions of society, and to leave a calm and pleasing impression upon 426 Fraser's Magazine— Appendix the mind. But I have been wrong : this was evidently an unpopular proceeding ; for nothing can be more painful than the recollections that remain, after the perusal of your volumes, in which "whatever is" is sneered at as being wrong, and nothing is eulogised but " what is «o/." I had, in all my former works, endeavoured to draw my characters in correspondence with the general principles of nature, and the ordinary effects of education and circumstances upon them ; but you, sir, I perceive, have taken a course diametrically opposite to this, and delight in imagining and representing the exceptions. A learned friend of mine has considered you as an eminent disciple of the "intensity school" of novel-writers; but in this I cannot agree with him. Eugene Aram has certainly many qualities in common with the Anglo-German style of Mr. Godwin's followers ; but I cannot help thinking that your rank in literature is of a higher grade than that which any mere disciple can ever hope to reach. I am inclined to regard you as an oiiginal discoverer in the world of literary enterprise, and to reverence you as the father of a new " lusus naturcE school." There is no other title by which your manner could be so aptly designated. I am told, for instance, that in a former work, having to paint an adulterer, you described him as belonging to the class of country curates, among whom, perhaps, such a criminal is not met with once in a hundred years ; while, on the contrary, being in search of a tender-hearled, generous, sentimental, high-minded hero of romance, you turned to the pages of The Newgate Calendar, and looked for him in the list of men who have cut throats for money, among whom a person possessed of such qualities could never have been met with at all. Wanting a shrewd, selfish, worldly, calculating valet, you describe him as an old soldier, though he bears not a single trait of the character which might have been moulded by a long course of military service, but on the contrary is marked by all the distinguishing features of a bankrupt attorney, or a lame duck from the Stock Exchange. Having to paint a cat, you endow her with the idiosyncrasies of a dog. In the following tale I have attempted to pursue the same path — longo intervallo, certainly — and to class myself as a diligent and admiring disciple of "the lusus natura school." It will be my sole ambition to impart to my future efforts some portion of the intense interest that distinguishes your works, and to acquire the fame which the skilful imitation of so great a master as yourself Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 4^7 may hope to receive from the generosity of an enlightened and delighted public. In taking my subject from that walk of life to which you have directed my attention, many motives conspired to fix my choice on the heroine of the ensuing tale ; she is a classic personage ; her name has already been "linked to immortal verse" by the Muse of Canning. Besides, it is extraordinary that, as you had commenced a tragedy under the title of Eugene Aram, I had already sketched a burletta under the title of Elizabeth Brownrigge. I had, indeed, in my dramatic piece, been guilty of an egregious and unpardonable error : I had attempted to excite the sympathies of the audience in favour of the murdered apprentices ; but your novel has disabused me of so vulgar a prejudice, and, in my present version of her case, all the interest of the reader and all the pathetic powers of the author will be engaged on the side of the murderess. I have taken a few slight liberties with the story, but such alterations have the sanction of your example and the recommen- dation of your authority. As you have omitted any mention of the wife of your Eugene, I have not thought it necessary to call the reader's attention to the husband and sixteen children of my Elizabeth. As you have given your hero more learning and virtue than he possessed, and con- verted the usher of a grammar-school at Hayes, whom the boys used to irritate for their amusement by whistling behind his back, into a solitary student of a lone and romantic tower in a distant county ; I have presumed to raise the situation of my heroine, and instead of portraying her as the wife of a saddler in Fleur-de-lis Court, and midwife of the poor-house, I have represented her in my tale as a young gentlewoman of independent fortune, a paragon of beauty ; a severe and learned moral philosopher ; and the Lady-Bo jntiful of the village of Islington. As your Jacobina, the cat, is endowed with all the properties of a dog, I have not scrupled, where the exigencies of the case required it, to transfer to my Muggletonian, the dog, the instincts that are peculiar to a cat. With a single exception, I have endeavoured to follow your steps, sir, as an humble votary of the lusus naturce school ; but in one case, I have found myself compelled to disregard the example of my great prototype : it was necessary, in the progress of my plot, to introduce the character of a kind and affectionate parent. You will excuse the lingering prejudices of early education ; — I have not made him, in imitation of your Houseman, a person of low life and ferocious manners, a 428 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix housebreaker and a cut-throat, but a gentlemarij a magistrate, and a Christian. But enough of this. It is not the design, but the execution of my work that you and the world will judge me by. Should it be thought to bear any, even the slightest resemblance to your celebrated production, I shall be content ; and with every due sentiment of respect for your talents, and admiration of your ingenious application of them, I beg leave to lay the tale of Elizabeth Brownrigge as an humble offering at the shrine of that genius to which we are indebted for the novel Eugene Aram. The Author. BOOK I Chapter I Islington : the Rea Cabbage — Specimen oj Ltistis Naturm — Philosophers of the Porch — Who is she? "Yet about her There hangs a mystery ever. She doth walk Wrapt in incomprehensibility, Lovely but half-reveal'd, as is the moon Shrouded in mists of evening, or the rose Veil'd by its mossy coverture, and bathed In heavy drops of the past thunder-shower." From Elizabeth Brownrigge, u MS. Burlefta. Some twenty years ago the now populous suburb of Islington stood in the midst of its meadows and its cornfields, a romantic but inconsiderable hamlet. The cottages of its simple and innocent peasantry, each standing in its inclosure of neatly- cultivated garden ground, overgrown with honeysuckle and jasmine, and sheltered by the protection of a grove of stately oaks, were scattered thickly but irregularly around the parish church, while here and there appeared among them houses of more extended dimensions, the villas of certain wealthier citizens who delighted to find in this secluded spot that repose from the distractions of business, and quiet from the din of men, which was denied them in the neighbourhood of Fleet Street or Cheapside. In those days the only inn of Islington was the Red Cabbage, a name which it had gradually acquired from the imperfect skill of the ^'illage artist who had undertaken to delineate the red rose Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 4^9 upon its sign. The house had, two centuries before, been a royal residence ; at which time it was honoured as a favourite hunting- seat of the virgin daughter of the Eighth Henry. But it had now " fallen, fallen, fallen from its high estate." Desolation had marked it for its own ; its corniced gables were dilapidated, its massive window-frames were despoiled of the richly-pictured light that had once emblazoned them, and the numerous windows we;e either altogether fortified with brick and mortar, against the demands of the tax-gatherer, to the vast abridgement of his majesty's revenue, or were disfigured by the adoption of vaiious expedients to supply the loss of their deficient or shattered panes of glass without having recourse to the glazier. The whole of the cent;e and left wing of the building were overgrown with ivy, of which the branches had insinuated themsehes into the fissures of the masomy, and were rapidly accelerating the work of time by increasing the ruin which their foliage concealed. The right wing was no longer habitable ; the roof had been crushed by the fall of a stack of chimneys in the high wind of January, 1670, and had never afterwards been repaired. Indeed, but few traces of the ancient magnificence of the building now remained, except the ample and grotesquely-ornamented porch ; and even of this the beauty was eclipsed, for the high north road had, at that spot, been raised so many feet as to form a complete breast-work in its front, and the entrance was now reached by descending as mahy steps as in prouder days it had stood elevated at the su»nmit of. But, still, faded as are the glories — waned as is the light of that once royal palace — I never approach the place, and see the sign of the red cabbage hanging aloft from the projecting branch of the aged elm by which that venerable and mouldering porch is over- shadowed, but a world of historic and poetic associations are awakened in my mind : my memory reverts to the personages and incidents of other times — to Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, to Lord Bacon and Lord Burleigh— to the success of the Protestant Reformation, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It was somewhere about twelve o'clock on a fine, bright, sunny day, 25th of June, 1765, that Timothy Hitch and Giles Fillup were conversing together and taking the air and the dust, their beer and their pipes, within the shady area of the porch in question. Timothy Hitch was a young man of some six-and-twenty years of age ; but his ever-laughing eye, his ruddy complexion, his loosely- flowing, flaxen-coloured curls, and his thoughtless expression of countenance, might have led the superficial spectator into a belief 43° Eraser's Magazine — Appendix that he had as yet scarcely passed his teens. He was dressed in the first style of elegance, according to the fashion of the time. His coat and inexpressibles were of fawn-coloured camlet trimmed at the edge and worked at the button-holes with silver galloon ; his waistcoat was of pink satin, flowered over with a large spreading pattern of silver ranunculuses, and surrounded with a broad silver lace ; on his head, placed carelessly on one side, was a small three-cornered hat, which was graced by a cockade, and in corre- spondence with the rest of his apparel, edged with silver. Thus attired, conscious of the attractions of his dress and person, he stood in an easy, lounging attitude, with his back rested against the pillar of the porch of the Red Cabbage, and looking laughingly down upon the long, spare figure, and the grim and yellow face of Giles Fillup the host, who was seated on the opposite bench, as they exchanged the following brief sentences of talk, intermixed with copious draughts of ale, and puffs of tobacco smoke. " It's all a fallacy — it's all a fallacy ! " sighed forth the melancholy Giles ; " life's a vale of tears." " Pshaw ! nonsense ! " replied Timothy ; " a vale of beer, you mean, man." " All labour and sorrow, eating and growing hungry again, drinking and becoming dry ! " "Dry! what, already? Why, man, you were wet enough last night when I pulled you dead drunk out of the gutter." "Timothy Hitch, don't be so profane ! Z'carf drunk — dead! I wonder that a man- of your trade " " Profession, Giles, my boy ! Zooks, profession ! " " Well, of your profession, then — I'm astonished, I say, that you who pick all the bread you eat out of dead men's mouths, and haven't a shirt belonging to you but was pilfered from' a dead man's back, cap bear even to give utterance to the word without a shudder." " No reflections upon my profession. Master Fillup. Why, isn't it the last and most honourable branch of the law?" " Most honourable ! " " Aye, to be sure it is. I say it again — most honourable." " Prove it, Timothy, prove it.' " Why, with us gentleman of the law, isn't the order of precedency reversed, as it were, by general consent?" " How d'ye mean ? I don't know. — Is it ? " " As certainly as I stand here. Why, is not the constable more honourable than the thief ? " Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 431 " Why, yes." " And the attorney that compounds the brief against him more honourable than the constable ? " " Perhaps he is." " And the counsellor that pleads out of the brief against him more honourable than the attorney ? " " There's no denying it.'' "And is not the judge, again, more honourable than the counsellor ? Zooks ! Giles Fillup, I say, are not all these things true?" " I think they are." " Well, then, by parity of reasoning, must not I, Timothy Hitch, his majesty's hangman, and last executer of the laws of this great kingdom, be as much more honourable than the judge, who only utters the sentence of the law, as he is than the counsellor, or the attorney than the constable, or the constable than the thief? Why, the point's as clear as day. — My pipe's out, though. — But doesn't it stand to common sense ? Isn't it reason, Master Fillup ? " " Say what you will, it's a dark and melancholy office, Timothy." " Melancholy ! Why, haven't I plenty of leisure, plenty of money, plenty of victuals, plenty of the best apparel ? Then for variety ! Don't I travel, whenever a job's required to be neatly done, from one end of England to the other, half a dozen times in the course of the circuit ? And for sight ! Zounds ! Who ever gets so many, or finer? Show me a finer sight anywhere than a fine execution ! And where's the man that eversees so many of them as I do ? " " Your heart's as hard as a stone, Timothy ! Timothy, you've no fellow-feeling for the poor, guilty creatures you help to put out of the world." " No, no, Fillup ! don't say that," replied the young, the fair-faced, and the light-spiiited companion of mine host, while his fine jocund countenance assumed a cast of unwonted sadness, and the tear of sensibility which rose involuntarily in his usually laughing eye for a moment dimmed its brightness — " No ! don't so ! I do pity the poor creatures, Giles, with my whole soul 1 pity them ; and always tie them up as tenderly as if they were my dearest relations. But, pshaw ! this is folly." He here made a strong effort to suppress the rising emotions of his heart ; and having dashed away the falling drops from his eyelid with the back of his hand, whilst the sunny light of his soul burst forth again, and dispersed the clouds which had gathered about his brov/, 432 Ffaser's Magazine— Appendix he exclaimed, in his usual tone of vivacity, '" But, come, my boy ! Zooks ! fill me another pipe ; and I'm not the fellow that would make any objection to a second pot of porter. What ! " he continued to the host, who had now returned, bearing a pewter vessel full of the generous and frothy beverage in his hand — "What? Does Miss Elizabeth Brown: igge hve here still?" " Yes ; at the new house in the village, with the green railing before it." " And as beautiful as ever ? " " Beauty is but a fading flower,'' sighed Giles ; " 'tis but as the grass of the field — here to-day and gone to-morrow ! But, to be sure, she is wonderfully fair — a lily of Sharon, my friend Timothy — fair as a lily and as upright as a lily ! " " Well, who could have thought it ? Not married yet ! Such a beautiful girl ! " " Aye, and so virtuous withal ! Why, she has founded in the village a lying-in hospital for married women only. She attends the poor creatures herself, and feeds, washes, and lodges them all at her own expense." " So good and so beautiful, and not married ! " exclaimed the enthusiastic hangman. " Why, the bachelors of these parts have no taste, no soul no sense of what is really lovely and exquisite in human nature ! " " I don't know ; I should not like to have it said that it came fi om me, but " — and Giles Fillup lowered his voice to an audible whisper as he added, " according to my notions, that young Master Alphonso Belvidere, the son of the rich banlcer that has just purchased the manor houso and park at the end of the village, is casting a sheep's eye at Miss Elizabeth Brownrigge.'' "Well done. Master Alphonso Belvidere!" cried Timothy Hitch ; " I could not wish any man a better fortune. Here's a health to him, and to Miss Elizabeth Brownrigge. Here, Fillup, my old fellow ! " " Not so old, either, Master Hitch : only sixty last Martinmas.'' " My young fellow, then ! " " Not so young either." "Well, my middle-aged fellow, then — we'll not quarrel about an epithet — here, take a draught to the health of Miss Elizabeth Brownrigge." " Long life and happiness," uttered Giles, with the deep drawn breath, the demure air, and the earnest tone of one making a most important effprt of volition, while, by a dexterous turn of his hand Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 433 he imparted a slow circuitous motion to the contents of the porter pot — " Long life and every earthly happiness to the good and beautiful Elizabeth Brownrigge ! " " Elizabeth Brownrigge ! Ah ! Ah ! " shrieked a voice at the top of the steps which descended from the high road to the porch of the Red Cabbage — "who speaks of Elizabeth Brownrigge ?" Timothy Hitch started at the frightful vehemence of the sound — the porter pot was suddenly arrested on its way to the mouth of Giles Fillup — both motionless as statues stood riveted to the spot on which the unexpected and soul-appalling words had fixed them, with their eyes turned in astonishment towards the wild and strangely-attired female figure from whom they had proceeded. The person who met their view appeared somewhat less than sixteen years of age. In her sunken and harassed eyes, which were red and bloodshot from fatigue and want of sleep, the traces of many cares were deeply printed. Her young features, though of the most delicate contour, and such as a sculptor might have studied to refine his views of ideal beauty, were emaciated from want and illness ; yet the cheeks and lips were deeply coated with red paint, which the course of her tears and the dews of perspira- tion had fretted into stripes, and showered in ruddy drops upon the dusty and disarranged buffon, which, extended upon a wi.e frame-work, formed a swelling semicircle on either side her neck. Her bright chestnut hair appeared to have been most elaborately dressed and powdered, but had escaped from the confinement of its black pins and pomatum, and was straggling at large over her face and shoulders. The gauze cap, that ci owned the summit of the lofty cushion over which her locks bad been curled, and craped and plastered, was torn as in a midnight broil ; and the artificial flowers and tips of variously-coloured ostrich feathers that had adorned it, were hanging about her head in loose and most- admired disorder. Her richly embroidered sack and petticoat were empurpled with several large stains of port wine, soiled with the mud of London and the dust of the country, and disfigured by many a wide and recent rent. As she stood upon the steps, raising her large hoop out of the way of her high-heeled satin shoes with her left hand, to facilitate her descent, and tossing her right arm aloft above her head, a gust of wind suddenly aiising gave a fluttering motion to her streaming hair, to the shattered ornaments of her head gear, and to her bng pendant ruffles of Brussels lace, which admirably harmonised with the agitated expression of her countenance and the wild character of her 28 434 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix figure. The men were awed — they feared and pitied her — they knew not whether to retire or to advance — they wished, yet dreaded, to address her. But while they paused, all further hesitation on their part was effectually put an end to by the unknown visitor herself, who, looking down upon them with an eye of shrewd severity, and a laugh of piercing bitterness and contemptuous derision, cried, " Ah ! so it's Elizabeth Brownrigge you're praising ! Well, well ! that's as it should be ! " She here tottered into the porch in which the men were standing, and fell down upon the nearest seat, exhausted with heat and fatigue. The young and gentle-hearted Timothy, losing the feeling of astonishment in commiseration of her evident state of destitution, immediately hastened to the side of the wanderer, and was soon earnest in offering, and most anxious to administer assistance. After the pause of a few moments, the faintness seemed to leave her ; and waving him away with the air of a woman of quality, after many abortive attempts to deliver herself with calmness and precision, she said, " You must be surp: ised, gentlemen, at seeing me here at this hour of the day, — alone, too, and without my chariot. Ten thousand pardons for this intrusion ; — but servants are so slow. You were speaking of Miss Brownrigge — Elizabeth, I think, you said. Ah ! ah ! ah ! " A little affected laugh here interrupted the voluble but bewildered flow of her rhetoric, which was succeeded by " I declare I feel quite faint and weak. So ! Good and beautiful ! Very extra- ordinary where this coachman of mine can be loitering — at the ale-house, I'll warrant. Pray, has she any apprentices now?" " Whom do you speak of, madame ? " demanded Timothy Hitch, with an air of gentleness and respect, which intimated his sympathy in the distress, rather than consideration for the apparent condition of the person he was addressing. " Speak of ! " cried the unknown female, looking wildly in his face, — " speak of ! But, alas ! alas ! You here again ! That voice • — that look ! Oh, it haunts me by day — every day, and all day long. At night, I see it in my dreams — it's a shadow always near me ! Light won't dissipate it — darkness cannot hide it I Away ! away ! Let me be mocked at by the shadow oiily, not tortured thus by the terrible reahty of your presence. I say, for mercy's sake, away ! " " Why, lady, do you thus shudder at the presence of a friend ? Indeed, you cannot have seen me before." Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 435 "Hush! Hush! No more ! no more 1" " Be assured I never injured you." " Silence ! oh, silence ! Those words are sharp and envenomed as the pointed tongues of scorpions — they sting the core of my heart, and penetrate the marrow of my brain.'' Then, dropping her voice to a tone, low, solemn, and scarcely audible, grasping the left wrist of Timothy Hitch with her right hand, and holding him at the distance of her extended arm, she added, " Where were you, think ye, when my mother and my brother died ? " " I, madam ! Where was / when they died ? " " Dear me ! Where is this chariot of mine ? In a very different carriage from that, did they, poor souls, take their last drive in this world ! But, then, it cost them nothing, — that was some advantage ; and 'tis not every cart that goes through Tyburn turnpike without paying toll as it passes. But, oh ! my aching head, my aching head ! " Overpowered by the energy of these strong emotions, acting upon a weakened and debilitated frame, the poor wretch here made a second attempt to conceal her miseiy by an affected laugh, and then went off into a violent fit of hysterics. Giles Fillup and Timothy Hitch exerted themselves with all the interest of sincere and unsophisticated benevolence in effecting her restora- tion. In the course of their endeavours, some nourishment and cordials were administered, which were of essential service to the unhappy girl, and supplied the inanition, which was one of the immediate causes of the distress she laboured under. On recover- ing herself, she reverted to the subject of Miss Brownrigge, and studiously avoiding the sight of Timothy, she repeated to Gile j Fillup her former question : " Has she any 'prentices now ? " "She has," answered mine host of the Red Cabbage- "two young girls, as handmaids, who attend upon her, and who are apprenticed to her for seven years by the parish officers of ^Vhite Friars." " Their names are " " Mary Mitchel and Mary Clifford." " Poor things ! poor things ! How I pity them ! " "Pity them I" exclaimed mine host; "where could the orphan and the indigent ever hope to find so kind a guaidian, or so happy an asylum as in the house of that good lady ? Pity them I Why, they are the envy of all the young girls of the village, as they wal'c to the parish church, cnce every Wednesday and Friday, and twice every Sunday, in their neat blue cloth gowns, their httle, 436 Frasef's Magazine — Appendix tidy, white caps, aprons, bibs, and tuckers, and each with her Bible and prayer-book under her arm. Pity them ! Oh ! " said Giles, devoutly casting up his eyes as he uttered the ejaculation, "oh ! it were a blessed thing if every mother's daughter were trained, as they are, in the paths of virtue from their youth." " And," muttered the stranger, abstractedly, "both />^«> names are Mary, too." " See, there ! " interrupted Giles, pointing to a thin, graceful and elegant young lady, who now appeared from the opening of a green l.rne in the distance, accompanied by a tall, finely-formed, patrician-looking youth, " see, there is Miss Brownrigge, and Master Alphonso Belvidere along with her, as sure as I'm alive ! " " Where ! Where ! " said the stranger ; " I'll see her— I'll speak to her — though pestilence should strike me dead before her, and hell should yawn and swallow me at her feet ! " So saying, she rushed wildly forth from the porch of the inn, and fled with the speed of lightning toward the spot where Elizabeth and Alphonso had appeared. But before she had completely reached them, she was seen to slacken her pace — to stop — to pause an instant, and then turn suddenly round, as if her resolution failed her, and fly as rapidly away down a path in the opposite direction. At the sight of this unexpected apparition, Elizabeth started, trembled, and drew nearer to the side of Alphonso. Her alarm, however, was but momentary. Before Timothy Hitch had time to say, " Where the deuce could that strange woman come from ? " the agitation of Miss Browniigge had completely passed away ; and before Giles Fillup had responded, " A poor mad creature, I take it ; but who can she be ? " the lady, moving on with her wonted air of fiiin and delicate composure, had led her lover out of view of the inn. Elizabeth Browniigge J A Tale 437 Chapter II Portraits: A Pair of Lovers— A Dinner at Noon—Taile-Talk. " Sure such a pair were never seen So aptly framed to meet by nature." Sheridan's Duenna. " Gentlemen, welcome ; 'tis a word I use — From me expect no further compliment, Nor do I use it often at our meeting. Once spoke, to those that understand me best, And know I always purpose as I speak, Hath ever yet sufficed : so let it you. Nor do I love that common phrase of guests As, ' we make bold,' or ' we are troublesome,' ' We take you unprovided, ' and the like. I know you understanding gentlemen, And knowing me, cannot persuade yourselves With me you shall be troublesome or bold." Heywood. " Hell hath no fury like a woman scorn'd." Lee, Rival Queens. The pair who retired from the admiring gaze of Timothy Hitch and Giles Fillup, at the conclusion of the last chapter, were formed in the very prodigahty of nature. Each seemed to have been created, rich in every personal endowment, as the worthy counter- part of the other. Young they vv^ere ; but in them youth was blooming with all its freshness, and devoid of all its frivolities. Beautiful they were ; but the beauty which rendered them the delight and admiration of the eyes of others, was held of no estimation in their ovra.. Alphonso, who stood six feet two without his shoes, united in the compact and slender structure of his person, the vigour of the Hercules with the elegance of the Apollo. His features, which were cast in the perfect mould of the Antinous, were coloured with a deep rich sunniness of tone which no pencil inferior to that of Titian could ever have aspired to imitate ; while the breadth of his forehead bespoke the intellectual powers of a Newton or a Locke ; and the bright lambent and innocuous fires of his unfathomable eye beamed with the gentle virtues of a martyred saint. 438 Frasef's Magazinc^Appendix As his figure was characterised by strength and grace, s'j was his countenance by intelligence and humility. He was distinguished among literary men as the editor of a new monthly magazine ; and his attire was of that simple style of elegance which accorded well, with the cast of his person, the expression of his countenance, and the gravity of his pursuits. He wore a plain black hat, of which the somewhat expansive brim was slightly turned up at the sides ; his coat, waistcoat and neither garments were formed, en stiiie, of snutf-coloured broad cloth ; his stockings were of white silk, variegated with horizontal stripes of blue ; and his only ornaments were the silver buckles that glistened, with a modest and moonlike lustre, at his knees, on his shoes, and in the front of his hat. Of Elizabeth, the virgin philanthropist, the youthful benefactress of the village, who when at home in the elegant apartment of her romantic cottage, occupied all her solitary hours in making garments for the naked, and who rarely passed beyond the green and trellised boundaries of her garden but to administer to the sick or hungry some healing or savoury consolation — of Elizabeth, the height was above the middle size, and the slimness of her figure would have conveyed an idea of weakness and fragility, but for the upright bearing of her person, and the firm and decided step with which she moved. — Many engravings of her are in circulation — but though they all owe their origin to a miniature by a celebrated painter, which Alphonso constantly wore about him, the likeness has sadly suffered from being submitted to the hands of inferior artists ; and there is no p.int with which I am acquainted that affords the f lintest hint of the exquisite beauty with which she was endowed. There are some, perhaps, which convey a slight intimation of the elevated cast of her features, but they do nothing more. What hand, indeed, however skilful, could give an adequate representation of that high-towering forehead, which bespoke a more than female reach of thought ; of those large blue and finely- opened eyes, with the silken lashes that overshadowed them ; of that aquiline but feminine nose, with its delicately-chiselled nostrils ; of that mouth, with its curUng lips, distinctly cut and closely meeting, the sure symbols of moral and intellectual energy ; of that well-proportioned chin, or of the eloquent tincture of that complexion, which bearing in its general hue the fair polished and transparent whiteness of the purest alabaster, was, from time to time, suffused with a fainter or deeper glow of vermilion, corresponding with the strength of the emotions that were swaying Elizabeth Brownrigge : A Tale 439 in her breast. Kind and gentle as every feature in her face proclaimed her to be, the prevailing expression of her countenance was that of fixedness and determination. She looked the image of a virtue which could never err ; or which, if it erred, would never again recover its first state. Such was Elizabeth Brownvigge ; such she now stood at the garden gate, attired according to the costume she is represented as wearing in her pictures. Over a gown of flowered Indian chintz, she had on a black mode cloak, richly trimmed with lace, and lined with rose-coloured satin. Her dark glossy hair, which she wore without powder, was turned up behind, and smoothed simply in front over a moderately-sized cushion ; a lace cap neatly plaited, covered her ears ; above which, somewhat inclined, so as to shade the eyes, and secured by long pins that projected from both sides of her head, was a small black satin gipsy-hat, trimmed round the crown with a puffing of rose-coloured riband to match the lining of her cloak. As the lovers thus stood together, at the entrance of the small garden that fronted the dwelling of Elizabeth, protracting, to the utmost, the moment of separation, and fearing to utter the "farewell" that trembled upon their lips, Alphonso, taking the hand of his mistress, and regarding her with a look of tenderness, said : — " I depend then, on seeing you again ! You'll walk with me in the cool of the evening?" " I have promised," replied Elizabeth. " Do you remember any instance of my neglecting an engagement, that you thus seem inclined to doubt me ? " " No ! oh, no ! Imagine it not. I am incapable of any feeling towards thee but that of the most implicit confidence. But, my dearest " " Tush ! " interrupted Elizabeth. " I like not these professions. Strong actions please me better than strong words. How frequently have I enjoined, Alphonso, that these superlative terms of affection should neither be urged in my presence, nor find a place in any letter you address to me. 'Dearest!' Absurd! The expression is as foolish as it is profane. Let our attachment be restrained within the bounds, and declared according to the rules of, reason. Nay, look not down, good Alphonso ; I pardon you this error.'' " Kindest, sweetest ! " "Again!" " Impose not, my own Elizabeth, this severe restriction upon the suggestions of my heart ! Why interdict my tongue from deliver- 44° Fraser's Magazine — Appendix ing the sentiments which are prompted by the warm, fresh-springing, and genuine emotions of my soul ?" " I would have all men speak the truth, Alphonso ; — the exact, simple, and invariable truth ; not only that which they may imagine to be true for the moment, but that which was true in time past, and will be true in all time to come. It is possible, and I do not doubt it, that your present affection towards me is as devoted as your words describe ; but was it so last year ? Can you be sure that it will be so in the next ? No ! What connexion, then, have these protestations of attachment with that eternal and immutable truth which shculd be the paramount object and the ruling p.inciple of all intercourse of conversation between man and man ? " " Sweet monitress, your wisdom shall be the pole-star of my mind!" " So be it, then, if you will deal in such idle metaphors and poetic exaggerations ; but now betake you to your home. In five minutes the church clock will strike ; it will take you four to reach the manor-house ; and as your father dines punctually at two, you'll have but one minute to spare. So a^^•ay, Alphonso ! " " Why will you not accompany me ? My father desired, re- quested, implored, your presence ! " " It cannot be. I have an important and a painful duty to despatch within. This is the hcur ; it cannot be dispensed with ; it must not be defened. And so farewell till evening !" "Till seven." " Till seven precisely,'' rejoined Elizabeth , and accompanied by her little dog, Muggletonian, which had stood beside her, fondly rubbing his head against her gown during the whole of the previous conversation, she retired up the gravel walk which led to the trellised entrance of her ornamented cottage. Alphonso gazed tenderly after her as she withdrew, and then turned his hunied steps towards his father's. He had not, how- ever, proceeded many yards, when, having reached an eminence that afforded a view of the windows of his love, he stopped, and cast a "longing lingering look behind" him, with the hope of catching another glimpse of her at the embowered lattice, or among the flowers of her garden. His eye was disappointed ; but, as he stood silently gazing upon the casket in which was garnered up the joy and treasure of his soul, his ear was staitled by the scund of two piercing shrieks in the distance : they were evidently these of a child in torture. He listened, ^^■ith the fullest stretch and most eager exertion of liis Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 441 faculty, to catch a repetition of the cry. For a time, all was silent ; but, after the lapse of a few seconds, the same appalling expressions of agony struck upon his sense, in a fainter tone, but of a more protracted continuance than before. Whence could they proceed ? The cries appeared to issue from that part of the village in which the dwelling of the good and beautiful Elizabeth was suited. But, no ! — that was impossible ! Mr. Deacon, the apothecary, whose house stood next her cottage, was not a father. There were no children residing in the neighbourhood but those two little handmaidens to whom his beloved was so tenderly attached, and whose education she so diligently directed. That they should suffer any severity, or that they should ever have cause to give utterance to such an expression of pain, was too incredible a supposition to find an instant's lodgment in his mind. What, those two little girls unhappy ! blest as they were, living in the sight, and under the care, and beneath the same roof as his Elizabeth ? It could not be. Alphonso paused yet another moment ; the sounds returned no more ; and convinced that he had been deceived by some auricular delusion, as the clock of Islington church struck two he hastily started from the spot, and did not relax his speed till he deposited his hat on the marble table in his father's hall. On reaching the manor-house, he found Mr. Belvidere already seated at dinner, with Mr. and Mrs. Deacon. The name of Deacon has before been mentioned. He wr.r the next-door neighbour of Miss Brownrigge, and the highly judicious and very respectable medical friend of the wealthier inhabitants of Islington and its vicinity. He was a corpulent gentleman, between forty and fifty. His wife, with whom he had for several years been united in the bonds of an unfruitful, but most happy wedloclc, was of no particular age ; she still retained the prominent and well- rounded graces of what is generally considered a fine woman, in the unimpaired perfection of their bloom ; and she was content that her time of life should be left problematical, as a matter of speculation among her friends, rather than fixed by any informa- tion of her own. Mrs. Deacon, ever since Mr. Belvidere had taken up his residence at the manor-house, had entertained the deepest sense of the exalted merits of his son. She had, indeed, ventured to express her approbation of them in so candid a manner, as somewhat to distress the modesty of Alphonso, and induce a slight disinclination for her society. With that intuitive view into the recesses of the heart for which 442 Eraser's Magazine — Appendix the sex is so particularly distinguished, the lady very quickly apprehended the unfavourable disposition of his feelings towards herself; while the proximity of their dwellings aiifording her the opportunity of observing his frequent visits to Elizabeth, she was not long in becoming equally well-informed with regard to his sentiments in another quarter. Though Mrs. Deacon was the most irreproachable ; though she would not for the world have been guilty of a thought of connubial infidelity ; though, indeed, her principles were so strict on this particular that she had been the means of compelling her husband's rival apothecary to leave the village, and seek the patronage of a less scrupulous neighbourhood, because his wife had been exposed to the vague rumour of a suspected flirtation ; still, rigid as Mrs. Deacon was on the score of her matrimonial duties, she could not witness Alphonso's want of interest in her friendship, and his attachment to Elizabeth, without experiencing some degree of exasperation. She was vexed at the slight to which she was subjected. " It was not," as she continually repeated to herself, " that she was in love with the lad ; but it was enough to provoke a saint, when she had condescended to show him so much favour, to see him prefer a pale, tame, thread-paper slip of a girl, like Elizabeth Brownrigge, to so personable a woman Is herself." She conceived that an injustice had been committed against her charms ; and she could not help resenting it. Her indignation found its vent in availing herself of every opportunity of depreciating her favoured rival in the presence of Alphonso. On entering the dining-room, our hero, finding that Mr. Deacon had, in his absence, taken possession of the bottom, made a slight inclination to his father and his guests, and slipped quietly into the vacant seat oi the parii'e quarrh, opposite Mrs. Deacon. " You are late to-day, my boy," said his father : " you are not apt to be out of the way at pudding-time." " I was detained longer than I expected," replied Alphonso, "but I made the best speed I could." " Nothing wrong in the city, I hope ?" " No ; a mere accidental miscalculation of the time," rejoined the son ; and applied himself to the venison pasty with the determined air of a person who had completed his explanation, and with whom all attempt at any further enquiry would be entirely bootless. "Did you meet Miss Brownrigge to-day," demanded Mrs. Deacon, "by chance or by appointment?" Elizabeth Browni-igge: A Tale 443 " What time to-day do you mean, madam ? " replied our hero. " I have had the happiness Of seeing that young lady twice : in the morning, when I called to convey my father's invitation to dinner ; and lately, since my return from town.'' " Oh ! then it was, I presume, by agreement that you met about an hour since, — opposite her new-fangled lying-in charity establishment ? " " On the contrary, that rencontre was merely a most fortunate accident. The appointment we made this morning was for a walk towards Hampstead in the cool of the evening." Mrs. Deacon looked utterly disconcerted; and in her turn applied herself to the venison pasty. " What a beautiful creature Miss Brownrigge is ! " exclaimed old Mr. Belvidere, after a pause ; " an old fellow like myself might almost wish to be young again. Deacon, to have the chance of winning the heart of such a girl." " She's too pale," said the ruddy Mr. Deacon, casting an approving glance on the damask and full-blown beauties of his spouse. "And far too thin," rejoined the lady, looking round with a complacent, downward glance upon that wide circumference of self to which her head formed the centre. " Neither one nor the other, to my mind ; but every man according to his taste : quot homines, tot sententice — and so let us have a glass of wine. Come, come : a general breeze. Robin," continued the warm-hearted and hospitable old gentleman, to the grey-haired butler, who was always close to his elbow, — sometimes standing, sometimes leaning, behind his chair ; " Robin, a bumper of Madeira all round ! " " However beautiful she may be," persisted Mrs. Deacon, after swallowing the contents of her capacious glass, " one thing is quite certain, — Miss Brownrigge has a most intolerable and tyrannical disposition." As she uttered this sentence, the colour of her cheek mounted to the very top of her forehead, indicating as exactly as the rising mercury of a thermometer does the state of the atmosphere, the blood-h'eat condition of her temper ; while bridling up, with a little air of malignant triumph, she fixed her eyes full upon those of her opposite neighbour. " Disposition ! oh, she's a perfect virago ! " ejaculated the uxorious apothecary. " Oh, dear ; oh, dear ! what a devil of a life she leads those two poor little parish-apprentices 1 I wonder " 444 Ffaser's Magazine — Appendix "Sir!" exclaimed Alphonso, whose indignation was now raised to the extreme of endurance, " Sir, however I may quell my spirit, and tolerate these base and calumnious insinuations which envy of the superior merits of Elizabeth Brownrigge may incite the unworthy of the opposite sex to propagate — however silently and contemptuously I may regard the petty malice of a woman — when I hear a man " " My dear Alphonso ! " interrupted his father. " Oh, sir ! " interrupted Mrs. Deacon, " pray let the gentleman proceed ! I beg you'll not think of stopping him. — Petty malice ! Unworthy ! Contempt ! I can tell you, Mr. Alphonso Bel " "My love ! my love !" interrupted Mr. Deacon in his turn — " only allow me to explain. Do not permit yourself, my lamb, to be thus run away with by the strength of your emotions. There is no cause whatever for this disturbance of the harmony of the company. I can assure my young friend that I never for a moment con- templated the possibility of occasioning him any offence. My respect for the virtues of Miss Brownrigge is fully equal to, and cannot be surpassed by his own. My admiration of her beauty is unbounded. Perhaps she may be, according to my taste, just a thought too pale, or a thought too thin ; but what of that ! Surely, such good friends as we have ever been, are far too wise to fall into dispute upon a mere matter of private fancy ! And as to temper — I most solemnly declare that I have no personal knowledge of the matter whatever ; I speak only from report. I have heard, indeed, from Mrs. Crips, and the Misses Budgdell, and Mrs. Hicks, and several other respectable and credible ladies of our acquaintance, that Miss Brownrigge's temper is not quite so gentle as her friends might wish ; but they have, unquestionably, been deceived. I have not a doubt but that the lady is, in every respect, the angel that she looks. Should my words appear to have implied the least intimation to the contrary, I implore Mr. Alphonso to believe that nothing could be further from my thoughts, and that my intentions have been entirely misunderstood." So spoke the fluent apothecary ; our hero received his veritable and highly parliamentary explanation with a faint smile of con- temptuous acknowledgment : and kind old Mr. Belvidere, taking upon himself the part of choi^us to the dialogue, and moralising on the subject-matter of the scene, observed : — " Well, well ! it's a good thing these idle and silly women do not presume to say anything worse. Never, my boy, attempt to justify so fair and excellent a being as Elizabeth against the charge of Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 445 a defective temper. The mischievous and talking world will never be satisfied unless they have some error to allege against every meritorious and highly gifted individual. If they cannot find, they will always invent, a fault to exercise their tongues upon ; and a judicious friend should be content to leave them the undisturbed discussion of a weakness, lest, in the absence of such a theme, they should venture to impute a crime." " But, sir ! Mr. Belvidere ! Gracious me ! why, you talk,'' cried Mrs. Deacon, " as if we only accused Miss Brownrigge of being every now and then, a little peppery or so, like the rest of our acquaintance ; but that's not it in the least." "Then, pray, madam," demanded Alphonso, calmly but severely, "may I be allowed to inquire what it is you do accuse that lady of?" "Accuse her of? Tyranny — brutality ! Oh, if you should only chance to be near our house at flogging-time ! " " Flogging-time ! " exclaimed Alphonso. "Ay, flogging-time. Almost every day, just a few minutes before two, if either of the poor children have done anything in the least wrong, this sweet, mild, fair, amiable Miss Elizabeth Brown- rigge, whom you gentlemen all admire so much, administers what she calls her dose of salutary chastisement ; and it's quite terrible, — it absolutely shatters one's nerves for the rest of the day— to hear the shrieks of the infants." " I don't believe it, madam ! " cried old Mr. Belvidere, his whole soul swelling with indignation at what he deemed an unjust aspersion on the fair fame of his adopted daughter-in-law. " Madam, I beg your pardon a thousand times for contradicting you so abruptly ; but, my life on it, you are deceived." " It must be impossible," said Alphonso ; but the tone of his voice was far lower and humbler than his father's, and his manner was not expressive of so implicit a confidence ; for his heart misgave him, and he thought of the shrieks which he had so lately heard in the direction of Elizabeth's cottage. " Well, gentlemen, as you please ! but what I know, I know ; and what I see, I see ; and what I hear, I hear \ " " Surely," cried Alphonso, " there must be some strange mis- apprension here ! " The dinner was now concluded ; and Mr. Belvidere proposed that the wine, punch, and dessert should be carried to a summer- house at the end of the bowling-green, where he and Mr. Deacon might each enjoy his pipe, in an airy situation, without incommoding 441^ Ffaser's Magazine — Appendix the lady, at her chain and satin-stitch, by the condensation of their tobacco smoke. Having seen the trio thus quietly deposited for the afternoon, and drank one small glass of that well-concocted beverage for which the grey-headed butler was veiy widely celebrated, our hero, disgusted with the malice of the lady, loathing the sycophancy of the husband, and impatient for an explanation with Elizabeth ; invented some slight pretext for returning into the house, as the readiest mode for making his escape from the persecution of such unworshipful society, without incurring the formality of a regular leave-taking. Intending that his returning to them again should remain in doubt, he first ran upstairs to his chamber, with the view of making such little adjustments in his dress as even those who are least curious about their personal appearance seldom fail regarding as indispensable preliminaries to visiting the lady of their love, and then descended to the hall for his hat and cane. Close to the marble slab on which they lay, stood Mrs. Deacon. A spectra from the grave could not have startled him more, and been more offensive to his sight. She had divined his purpose, and acting with the promptitude of strongly-excited jealousy, had resolved to intercept him. As he appioached the table, the lady, forgetting her accustomed deference to the rules of propriety, moved with a rapid step towards him, and making a violent seizure of his hand, exclaimed with impassioned earnestness, — " My fears have not deceived me — you are then already weary of our society — I was convinced that you meant to leave us ! Oh, Alphonso ! " and in an agony of tears, she hid her head upon the arm of the hand she held. " Oh, Alphonso ! you have no thought, no consideration, for the feelings of the best of friends ! " " I can consider no person, madam, as a friend of mine who avows herself the enemy of Miss Brownrigge," answered Belvidere coldly and formally, endeavouring in vain to deliver himself from the grasp by which he was detained. " One word, Alphonso ! Hear me this one single question.'' "Well, madam?" "Are you going to the cottage of that detested girl?" "The wife of Mr. Deacon ought to have no interest in the movements of any other man than her husband ; and I, on my part, might, without discourtesy, refuse replying to an inquiry, v/hich, on your own part, is not made without disgrace ; but I am Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 447 perfectly willing that the whole world should be acquainted with the course of my proceedings. I have no hesitation in acknowledg- ing, that it is my immediate purpose to seek the cottage of Miss Brownrigge.'' " You are going there ! and you have the barbarity to own it ; Oh, Alphonso ! cruel, cruel man ! Oh ! you will break my heart." " For shame, Mrs. Deacon ! — this language to 7ne from a married woman ! Madam ! madam ! think of your affectionate and con- fiding husband, and allow me to depart." " Is it then come to this ? He scorns my tenderness — my devotion ! " " For pity's sake, madam, forbear ! If the ties of duty, and a sense of matronly decorum, are too weak to restrain these idle demonstrations of your folly, only consider the disparity of our years. If you have no horror of being vicious, at least forbear to render yourself ridiculous. Remember, madam, I am young enough to be your son — your grandson ! Why, my good lady, I was only twenty last February, and I'll be sworn that you can't be much under fifty-six ! " " Sir ! " cried Mrs. Deacon, flinging Alphonso's hand away from her in a paroxysm, while every inch of her person that was visible assumed a hue of the deepest crimson, and her eyes flashed with the fire of the furies as she spoke ; — " Sir, you're not a gentleman ! Sir, I defy and scorn you ! Sir, you've insulted a weak and defence- less woman ! The age of chivalry is gone ! You have none of that gallant consideration which is due to the female sex ! I hate and despise you. But, beware, Mr. Alphonso Belvidere, — I warn you to beware in time. Remember that you've roused a lioness, which, insignificant as you may think her power, will neither sleep nor rest till she have found an opportunity for working the accom- plishment of her revenge ! " With these words, the lady sailed away, muttering malice to herself, to resume her chain and satin-stitch, by the side of her husband, in the summer-house ; while our hero, having gained possession of his hat and cane, departed in an opposite direction towards the house of his Ehzabeth, saying in audible soliloquy, as he quitted the hall, "What a towering passion that elderly gentlewoman has put herself into 1 " 448 Ffaser's Magazine —Appendix Chapter III Old Acquaintance — Thoughts on Education — Benefits of the Sovereignty of the People "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Shakespeare. " For her mind Shaped strictest plans of discipline ; sage schemes Such as Lycurgus taught, when at the shrine Of the Orthyan goddess he bade flog The little Spartans ; such as erst chastised Our Milton, when at college." Canning. " Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble." Shakespeare. Several hours had now elapsed — noon and afternoon had passed away— evening was coming on, but Timothy Hitch and Giles Fillup still retained their station in the porch of the Red Cabbage. The light heart of our friend Timothy was now rendered con- siderably lighter by frequent applications to the i1o\\'ing can of mine host's home-brewed ; which can, for some reason or other — either because the weather was so sultry, or because he was getting diy, or because he wanted to wash the dust out of his throat, or because he would pledge some old companion who chanced to join them, or because he would drink to the better acquaintance with some casual stranger who stopped to refresh himself, or for some pretext of an equally weighty description — he constantly found occasion for emptying, and as constantly for having filled again. Seven o'clock struck, and found the young and merry hangman in a highly communicative state of mind, his conversational powers in active play, holding "discourse of reason" with an elderly woman, in the dress of a villager, who was resting herself in the porch after the fatigues of a long day's travel. " My good lady,'' said the kind Timothy, "let me entreat you to take another taste of the fourpenny ; depend upon it, you'll find yourself the better for it. After a long day's journey, according to my mind, there's nothing so refreshing as a draught of the good, strong, home-brewed ale. Some people prefer purl ; but I count them as little better than mere ignoramuses in the article of tipple,'' LITTLE SPITZ. [See page i88. Elizabeth Brownrigge : A Tale 449 " Well, sir, 1 do like a glass of good ale myself." " My good madam, you're a woman of sense ; and so you're Hertfordshire, you say, by birth." " No, sir — Hampshire ; from the other side of Alton, down away by Basingstoke." " You don't say so ! That's wonderful. So am I. And what the devil brought you to Islington?'' " A fool's errand, I am afraid." " Aye, that's the errand most people leave home upon. And pray may I ask what it was ? " "Why, you must know, my husband's first wife was a widow; she was daughter of one Nash, a baker at Clapton, and had married a person of the name of Clifford, who " " Oh, confound the family pedigree ! Here, take another pull to wet your whistle, and come at once to the point." " Well, then, my husband, Martin Jukes, had a daughter-in-law named Mary Clifford : she was but a little thing when her mother died — about two years old or so; and when her father-in-law married me, why, as she had no claim upon either of us, as Jukes and I were going to settle on my bit of a farm in Hampshire, and as we expected to have a large family of our own, we thought it better for ourselves to leave little Moll with her mothers friends in London. Well, nine years passed away, and not a child have we had to bless us. I very often used to think with myself that it was a judgment from Heaven upon our hard-heartedness for turning the poor, helpless, httle creature out of our own doors, when we had enough for all of us, and to spare besides. Well, sir, at last my master got the ague, and then, when the cold and fever fits were on him, he fell a-thinking of Molly, too ; and nothing would satisfy him but he must see the child once more ; and so, after a deal of talking and thinking upon the matter, off I set in the waggon, and came up to London to find her out, and bring her home to her father-in-law's again." " Well done, old lady ! I like you the better for it ; so here's to your health, and to the better health of your master, too, as you call him ! You're really kind, warm-hearted people, like myself, that have a proper feeling for the sorrows of a fellow-creature ; and that's what I admire, in man, woman, or child." So saying, Timothy handed Dame Jukes the tankard with his right hand, and wiped away the starting tear of sensibility with the left. " But," he added, after a pause, '' you've found the little dear, I hope?" 29 45° Fraser's Magazine— Appendix " I have, and I have not ; I've found out where she is," repUed the good woman, with a sigh, " but, alas ! I'm not even allowed to have a sight of her.'' "Not a sight of her? What! in this free country shut up a child from her own flesh and blood, as you ai-e, — that is to say, her own flesh and blood by marriage ! Oh, it can't be ! — the thing's impossible !" " It may be impossible, but it's very true, nevertheless." "How can that be, my good woman? but are not you her relation, and haven't you a right in her ? " " Lord, no, sir ! not now, they tell me ; for, you must know, she's bound an apprentice.'' " Bound an apprentice ? " "Aye, her mother's friends, it seems, got tired of the sweet baby, and sent her to the workhouse ; and there the overseers, I suppose, got tired of her, too, and bound her an apprentice, for seven years, up here, at a house hard by in the village." " Well, and have you been to the house ? " " To be sure I have." "And what did they say to you?" " Just told me to get about my business ; that I'd no right to meddle or make with the child ; and that, if I occasioned any disturbance, or even presumed to come near the house again before the seven years were out, they'd certainly send for a constable, and have me taken before a magistrate.'' "The devil!" cried Timothy Hitch, following his ejaculation with a shrill whistle and a draught of ale to season it. " Why, who did you see?" "The lady of the house herself — the mistress of poor little Molly." " The mistress ? — and what's the name of her mistress ? " " Miss Elizabeth Brownrigge, to be sure ? Didn't I tell you so ? " " Miss Elizabeth Brownrigge ! " exclaimed the young and enthusiastic admirer of moral and physical beauty, with a start of astonishment. " My good woman, you must be under a mental delusion : why, she's a perfect paragon of goodness and kindness !" " She won't let me see httle Maiy, though," sighed Mrs. Jukes. " This can't be ! there's some mistake here,'' said Timothy, taking up his hat, which was lying on the bench, and depositing the tankard in its place ; " come along with me, and I'll see if we can't set it to rights. Giles, my good friend — confound the Elizabeth Brownrigge : A Tale 45 1 fellow, he's drunk, and is as fast asleep as a top ! What a state for a landlord and a moralist ! It's too bad — it's too bad ! If a man can't carry his liquor, he ought, as a sober man, to be ashamed of taking his Uquor. Here ! House ! Ho ! Within ! Landlady, I'm going, do you see ? So look after your husband." And off he walked towards Elizabeth's cottage, at the rate of five miles an hour, with Dame Jukes keeping up a shuffling run behind him, as near his heels as the fatigue of her previous exertions, and the incumbrance of her many, ample, and thickly- quilted petticoats, would allow of. They had nearly reached the point of their destination, when they fell in with Mr. and Mrs. Deacon, who were returning home from Mr. Belvidere's at rather an earlier hour than usual. Mrs. Deacon had felt herself somewhat indisposed, and had laid her commands upon her husband to decline waiting for the ducks and green peas that were preparing for supper, and which appealed, with arguments of the most savoury persuasion, to the olfactory nerves of Mr. Deacon, as he conducted his fair spouse, with an air of implic.'t but sullen obedience, through the hall and past the kitchen- windows of the manor-house. Our friend Timothy no sooner came within hearing of Mr. Deacon, than, with his mind full of the subject, he immediately entered upon the case of Dame Jukes and little Mary Clifford, her daughter-in-law. The apothecary and his wife both agreed with him that it was very extra-ordinary — the very most extra-ordinary thing they had ever heard ! The apothecaiy thought that "it should at once be inquired into " ; but his wife thought " that any inquiiy at the present moment was impossible ; as she had very good reasons for knowing that Miss Brownrigge was out, late as it was, taking an evening walk with a young gentleman." Again the apothecary surmised "that the matter could all be very readily explained, and that the good woman before them, whose consideration for the girl was so highly to her credit, would find everything set right the moment she could obtain another interview with the young lady." But, again, the apothecary's wife, on the contrary, surmised no such thing ; for, " the young lady was a great tyrant, and had always treated the poor child most execrably ; and for her part she'd venture to swear that either the poor little dear was barbarously murdered, and actually dead and buried, and could not be produced at all, or, at least, was so black and blue with the blows she had received, 452 Ffaser's Magazine — Appendix that her mistress would be ashamed of producing her in the presence of so near and affectionate a relation as Mrs. Jukes !" Timothy Hitch was quite at a loss — he did not know what to make of the matter ; and he vented his astonishment in short asides and ejaculatory sentences, without taking any part in the dialogue. Poor Dame Jukes herself could hardly utter a syllable, except the most common-place expressions of lamentation over the condition of herself and the little apprentice. She was never in a position of such publicity before, and was not only deeply interested for the sake of Mary Clifford, but was become agitated, terrified and hysterical at finding herself in close communication with such gentlefolks as Mr. and Mrs. Deacon, and the object of interest to a group of stragglers which had gradually gathered together, and was every moment becoming more numerous during the discussion of the case. But at this point we must, for a few moments, leave the party at Islington, and follow the steps of Elizabeth and Alphonso through the happy serenity of their evening walk. The lovers on quitting the cottage bent their way over the fields and along green shady lanes towards the romantic and elevated village of Hampstead. The spring of that year had been backward in no ordinary degree ; and now on the 25th of June, the summer having at once succeeded to several weeks of heavy and continued rain, the hay-making had but just commenced. The air, impregnated with the perfume which ascended from the meadows, and from the wild flowers that covered the banks and strewed their loose beauties about the hedges, scattered fragrance with every gale that blew. The cheering voices of the labourers in the distance, merrily dissipating the social toil of harvest-time with many a jest, and laugh, and snatches of old songs — the myriads of insects murmuring their busy tale to the still ear of evening, the deep blue of the cloudless sky gradually melting away towards the west, in the yellow glow of sunset : — all the accessories of the scene harmonised with the serenity of the hour, and conduced to the diffusion of a corresponding feeling over the young and tender hearts of Alphonso and Elizabeth. Full of such sweet thoughts as love is pregnant in, and wearing out the way in the responsive communication of them, Alphonso had completely lost all recollection of the subject which engaged him at dinner, and indeed of the existence of the Deacons and their accusations. Our hero and heroine had already strolled along the rich and beautiful meadows that skirt the foot of Muswell Hill, Elizabeth Brownrlgge: A Tale 453 and had reached a retired and shadowy spot somewhat to the north of Mother Red Cap's, when, suddenly emerging from a gap in the hedge, a httle in advance of them, started forth the female stranger who at an earlier stage of our narrative presented herself in so extra-ordinary a manner at the porch of the Red Cabbage. Her air was more wild, and her dress still more disordered, than when she first was introduced to the reader as interrupting the philosophic conference of Timothy Hitch and Giles Fillup. Elizabeth, agitated at the unexpected appearance of the figure, exclaimed, " Good Heavens ! there's that poor, mad creature again ! " and for the first time in her life, placed her arm within that of Alphonso, as if claiming the support of his affection ; but her lover, flung off his guard by so new and so unhoped-for a condescension, involuntarily pressed it to his side, and the arm was immediately removed. " Let me protect you," said Alphonso. " Thank you," rejoined Elizabeth, " I'm not alarmed. It was mighty idle of me to be thus startled at a mere trifle " ; and folding her arms composedly before her, she withdrew to the other side of the pathway. As they approached the stranger, the stranger also advanced nearer towards them ; till, coming immediately opposite Elizabeth, she at first fixed her eyes upon hers, with as strong an expression of stem defiance as her fair and youthful features were capable of exhibiting, and then, her countenance gradually relaxing from the severity of its character into a look of the deepest tenderness, prostrated herself upon the earth before her, and, her eyes stream- ing with tears, exclaimed, "Mistress, forgive me, — oh, forgive me !" " Forgive you, young woman ! " replied Elizabeth ; " surely you have mistaken me for another ; I never was any mistress of thine. Till this day I am not conscious of ever having seen you before." "Am I so altered, then? Oh, I see 1 It is this dress of shame — these badges of my disgrace — this detested fineiy ! " And she began to tear the straggling feathers and flowers from her head- dress. " It is this disguise of sin that " "Hold, hold!" interrupted Elizabeth; "young woman, I com- mand you to restrain this violence ! " The poor girl, either impressed by the natural dignity of Miss Brownrigge's manner, or influenced by long habit of obedience to the voice by which she was addressed, let her hands fall down passively by her side, and with a look, in which affection, fear and submission were strangely mingled, cried, "Oh! Miss Brownriggel" 454 Fi-asef's Magazine — Appendix " My name, too ! " exclaimed Elizabeth ; " what is the meaning of all this ? Who are you ? — where do you come from ? " "What, miss, have you then indeed forgot me? Don't you remember Mary Jones ? " " My runaway apprentice ! Are you, then, that wicked girl, who broke her indentures ?" " Don't say wicked, miss," exclaimed Mary Jones, rising quickly from the ground : "only think, miss, what I had to undergo?" "Undergo, ingrate that you are ! Do you presume to insinuate that I was a harsh or unreasonable mistress to you ? " " Oh, no ! oh, no, indeed ! " cried the girl, shrinking back, and looking up with a suppliant eye that seemed to deprecate the effects of fair Elizabeth's anger. " If," resumed the lady, " you did your duty well, did I not always deal kindly by you ? if ill, did I not universally deal justly ? " "Yes — yes," rejoined the girl ; "if I behaved well, I had pudding and no flogging ; if ill, I had a flogging and no pudding." "Alas, alas!" exclaimed Elizabeth, "how are the most well- considered and the most ably-digested systems of discipline rendered ineffectual by the grossness of the natures to which they are applied ! And is it possible that thy intellect, Mary Jones, could have been so obtuse, as to apprehend no deeper aims in the duly graduated scale of rewards and punishments under which the domestic economy of my house has always been con- ducted, than the pudding which was the recompense of your diligence, or the flogging that was the penalty of your offences ! Did the sanction of those laws and ordinances, which I had so carefully established as secondary means of appealing to the affections of your inmost soul — as exciting motives to your emula- tion — as prevailing arguments to your sense of shame, — reach no farther as inducements to virtue and discouragements from vice, than the mere palate they gratified, or the back they grieved ! Are there, then, any beings in the world to whom the moral is nothing, and the physical is all in all ? " During the progress of this very eloquent apostrophe, while Alphonso was wrapped in silent admiration of the wisdom of his love, Mary Jones, no longer awed by that feeling of habitual submission which had returned upon her at first encountering her deserted mistress, had been rapidly relapsing into her former state of mental bewilderment and delirium : and the moment the last tone of Elizabeth's voice passed away from the life of music into the death of silence, she shrieked aloud. Elizabeth Brownrigge : A Tale 455 " Whack, whack ! — whack, whack ! " (Alphonso shuddered at the sounds : he seemed to hear in the exclamation the echo jf the lashes from which the shrieks that so startled him before dinner had received their origin). " But no double-thonging," — continued the girl, — " no double-thonging for Mary Jones now ! No, no ! that time's gone for ever ! If you're a miss, my lady, let me tell you that I'm a miss, too ! The best of silks and satins to wear — hooped petticoats, fly-caps, lace ruffles, and a chariot to ride in ! No floggings for me ! Me ! — where's such another equipage as mine ? Who so fine or so grand as I, either at the park or at the play ? 'That's Miss Jones ! — that's the beautiful Miss Jones ! that's the old Viscount of Darling's Miss Jones!'" cry the gentlemen. 'Which? — where, where?' cry the ladies. 'There, that young, beautiful creature in the front box, with the high head and the diamonds, and the elderly gentleman sitting beside her ! " reply the gentlemen. And then the people whisper to one another, and stare and talk, and talk and stare, and turn all their attention to me, and never think of the players." "Mary Jones! Mary Jones!" cried Elizabeth, "are you not ashamed, after the lessons which I inculcated upon you in your childhood, to attach yourself to such passing vanities as these?" " Passing ! — yes, yes !— passing enough. Heaven knows ; but then my poor mother was to blame. That was never any fault of mine, you know. I'm sure I tried to persuade my old lord to give her the money ; and if he wouldn't, that was no reason why she should write his name upon a paper, and pretend that he had given it her, and send poor brother Tim to get it cashed at the banker's. They called it forgery— ah ! ah ! ah ! — forgery ! What fools these lawyers are ! They did not mean any forgery, poor souls ! They only wanted to get the money as quickly as they could, without troubling the gouty old lord any further. But he had them hanged, nevertheless, though he did profess such love for me all the time." " Your mother and your brother hanged ! " exclaimed Elizabeth ; and she turned pale at the thought. " Unhappy Mary ! and you live to tell the tale ! " " Aye, aye ! More's the pity, more's the pity ! — death were better, far better," muttered the girl in low, deep, hurried accents ; and then, turning briskly round to Alphonso, demanded, with a sudden change of voice, " Pray, sir, did you ever see an execution ? " "Oh, no! — never!" replied he, impatiently, for his attention was drawn towards Elizabeth, whose self-possession, imperturbable 4S6 Fraser's Magazine— Appendix as it generally was, appeared to fail her at the continued mention of such appalling subjects. " Never— and I trust I never shall ! " " I have ! 1 have ! " shouted Mary Jones, with a cry of wild exultation—" I was in my chariot, too. When mother and brother were carried to Tyburn, I followed close behind them all the way. Little did the- mob think, that the fine lady, who sat there all alone, dizened out in her carriage, was daughter and sister to the con- demned wretches that were dragged slowly along in the cart, with Timothy Hitch and the chaplin ! Ah ! ah ! ah ! Only think ; wouldn't they have prettily hissed and pelted me if they'd found that secret out ? But I sat back, crying all the while, with my handkerchief up to my eyes, so they saw nothing of me. And when the ropes were round their necks, and the caps drawn over their eyes, and the white handkerchief raised for the signal, I gave a scream, and before it fell to the ground, burst open the door of the carriage, and I've run, and run, and run, to get away from the sight in my eyes and the sound in my ears, and the aching of my heart, and the burning in my brain ;— but then, they follow — follow — follow, and will follow me wherever I go." " Be silent ! — for mercy's sake, be silent ! " cried Alphonso, observing the nerves of Elizabeth were seriously affected by the girl's stoiy, — " Let me entreat you to pursue this theme no further." " Mary Jones," interposed Elizabeth, with a strong effort of self- command, "here you perceive the lamentable effects of a single error. Had you but remained under the safeguard of my protection, till your principles were sufficiently confirmed to be entrusted with the conduct of that most attractive and pernicious beauty, all might have still been well. I only hope and trust these events may for ever act as warnings to you, and serve as future beacons to guide you over the tempestuous surges of the world. Adieu ! Be wiser and better ; and bear with you the good wishes of a friend." " Oh ! but let me kiss that hand once more," said the girl. " The request is granted," replied Elizabeth, drawing off' the glove from her right hand, which she kindly extended towards her. Mary Jones bent her knee to the ground, kissed it eagerly, and in an instant disappeared through the broken hedgerow by which she had made her approach. The lovers turned away, and directed their steps towards Elizabeth's cottage. The sun had now sunk beneath the horizon ; the evening was closing in fast around their path ; the stars were beginning to show themselves in the deep unfathomable expanse of the heavens ; the noise of the harvest-men had ceased, and no Elizabeth Btownrigge: A Tale 457 sounds any longer interrupted the stillness of the hour, but the heavier drone of the beetle, the lowing of the distant kine, and from time to time the melodious complaining of the nightingale. This interview with Mary Jones had recalled to the mind of young Belvidere the recollection of the cries which he had lately heard issuing from the dwelling of Elizabeth and of the interpretation put upon them by the malice of Mrs. Deacon. He desired, yet feared, to demand an explanation of them. He desired to hear Elizabeth's vindication pronounced by her own lips, and yet he feared to touch upon the theme, lest he should seem to imply a doubt of her gentleness and tenderness of heart. But, anxious that no reservation of thought on his part should ever interfere with the perfect confidence that subsisted between them, he resolved, boldly and openly, to address his companion on the subject ; and without any preliminary circumlocution, at once demanded the origin and the reason of those fearful shrieks which had so startled him in the afternoon. " The cries were uttered by Mary Mitchell, my eldest apprentice," replied Elizabeth, with undisturbed serenity of voice and manner, " and were occasioned by the correction which I found it incumbent on me to administer.'' " Had she done anything to excite your anger so violently against her ? '' " I never," answered Elizabeth, with the dignity of conscious and suspected virtue, " am tempted to be angry at all ; or, if I am, it could not but have subsided very long before the hour of castigation. The fault for which the chastisement was dealt took place the day before yesterday. I never punish, or allow any one to punish, a child intrusted to my protection, at the moment of the offence ; lest the correction, received as the result of thoughtless passion rather than of deliberate justice, should produce but a slight and transient impression upon the offender, and inflict pain upon the body, without producing any concomitant improvement of the heart and mind." " Wise and right, as all your counsels are ! Yet surely the chastisement which little Mary received must have been very severe, to elicit such loud and piercing shrieks of suffering." " Alas ! " rejoined Elizabeth, and she looked down, as she closed her eyes a moment to disperse the tears that were gathering over them — "alas ! the stripes were severe.'' " Was then the offence so very great ? '' " I am not aware of any scale by which we may measure the 4S8 Frase/s Magazine — Appendix relative magnitude, and decide upon the proportionate dimensions of offences. The essence of crime consists in a vicious will, and not in the vicious act. All voluntary and predetermined sins bear, in my estimation, an equal degree of guilt. If a person would steal a pin, or utter a prevarication, or do a fellow-creature an injuiy, it is only cowardice, and not principle, that deters him from house-breaking, or perjury, or murder. Only let the world awaken from its present miserable state of moral and metaphysical blind- ness, and punish what are so ignorantly accounted as the slij'hter offences with the severity which their natural malignity deserves, and it would \ery soon discover that none of the larger offences remained to be punished. "Oh, Elizabeth !" exclaimed Alphonso, "how has thy soul be- come enriched with the treasures of such wisdom ?" " By self-examination," she replied gravely. " The knowledge of my own frailty, and the consideration of the measures that were best adapted to the eradication of it, have been my only masters ; but they are masters who, I trust, have afforded me no slight stock of good, and sound, and valuable instruction." In the course of this conversation the lovers had reached the turning which brought them within view of the houses of Mr. Deacon and Elizabeth ; and they were surprised at observing a large assembly of persons on the spot. " What can this disturbance mean ? " said Alphonso ; " I suppose some drunkard has " " It is in vain," interrupted Elizabeth, " to amuse ourselves with suppositions on the subject. They who would draw their conclu- sions from such mere external circumstances, without an accurate knowledge of the particulars, resemble those idle folk who pretend to discover figures in the clouds, each as his own imagination shapes them, and one sees a calf or a weazle in the self-same collection of vapour, which another converts into a whale or a camel." " Most justly argued ! To be with you, and to listen to the accents of that voice, is to imbibe wisdom in music ! But, at least, let us not part at this spot, as usual. My own Elizabeth must permit me to conduct her through the throng of that turbulent and assembled mass of people, and see her safely established in the peaceful paradise of her home." " By no means ; I thank you for the offer, Alphonso, but cannot assent to it. Your attending me would carry you just so far out of your way to the manor-house, and could not render me any Elizabeth Bfownrigge: A Tale 459 effectual service. Adieu, Alphonso ! I shall not volunteer the inconvenience of threading the mazes of yonder boisterous multi- tude, but shall effect my entrance to the cottage by the back door, and through the kitchen garden. And so, again, farewell ! " With these words, Elizabeth withdrew. Alphonso watched her, the power of his vision gaining strength from the intensity of his affection, till, penetrating the dim twilight, he distinctly saw her pass unobserved into the garden, and heard the gate closed after her. And then, supposmg it impossible he could have any interest in the affair which had collected and agitated the distant crowd, he bent his way, slowly and contemplatively, towards his father's house. During the time of the lovers' walk, the assembly of people in front of Miss Brownrigge's cottage, of which Mr. and Mrs. Deacon, Dame Jukes, and Timothy Hitch had formed the nucleus, had been increased to a very considerable amount, by the addition of all the stragglers from the ale-house — the idlers of the village — the artisans let loose from the stall or the shopboard — the haymakers returning from the surrounding fields — the greater part of the female inhabitants of the neighbourhood — and every child above two years old who was allowed to be at that time out of bed. Among this mass of persons, the tale of Dame Jukes and Mary Clifford had, in the course of frequent repetition, become strangely and variously altered from the original ; and while all were clamorously employed in recounting to any audience they could obtain the most exaggerated versions of the story, there were no two individuals whose version was the same. " Oh, it's a shame ! a shame and a sin ! " cried a hundred voices together. " It's a shame to a Christian country ! " " Hey day ! what's the matter here ?" demanded a newly-arrived limb of the mob. "All along of that poor old woman there." " Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! " cried Dame Jukes. " My child ! My child ! what shall I do ? where shall I go ? what will become of me?" " Never mind, my good woman ; we'll see you righted." "That we will — that we will ! If we don't we're no Englishmen,'' shouted a hundred consolatory voices at once. " Righted ? who's injured her ? I say, what's the matter ?" "The lady of this house has kidnapped her baby." " Nonsense : kidnapped ! no such thing. She bought her only daughter of her, ever so many years ago, for a new gown and a guinea, and has sold her for a slave to the Algerines." 460 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix "That an't so, Gilbert." " I say it is." " No ; I tell you it an't. The poor old country-woman came up here to see the child, who is but a baby of ten months old, and when she saw it she did not know it for her own — there was not a whole place in its body. You could not tell that it was a human creature, the poor baby was so barbarously beat about.'" "That an't it a bit." " What is it, then ?." " Wliy, I'll tell you the whole long and short of it. She wasn't allowed to have a sight of the child. How should she ? why, everybody knows that the poor thing was murdered a week ago, when Mr. Deacon, the apothecary, heard the voice of a female infant crying murder, three times, in the dead of the night ! " " Oh, it's a shame ! it's a sin ! " Here the mob became highly excited, and set up a horrid yell, with their faces directed towards Elizabeth's cottage, and shaking their fists up at the windows. In the midst of this riotous vocifera- tion, a boy more zealous than the rest took up a small pebble and flung it with some violence against the wall of the house. This was hailed as the signal for a general attack, and all hands became immediately armed with stones, and all arms were raised to hurl them ; when Timothy Hitch, ashamed of the lawless pro- ceedings of the people, and terrified for the safety of the beautiful Elizabeth, rushing forward into the van of the mob, and raising his deep sonorous voice to the loudest pitch, so as to be audible above the clamour by which he was surrounded, succeeded for one moment in arresting their attention, while he maintained the following interrupted dialogue : Tim H. " My friends ! my good friends ! hear me for one moment." Mob. " Hear him ! Hear him ! " Tim H. " Let me implore you, as men of judgment, sobriety, and discretion — which I am sure the present assembly is com- posed " Mod. " Hear, hear ! that's right ! — that's sense, now ! " Tim H. " Let me implore you not to prosecute this outrage any further. Even to the greatest offender, I'm sure no man amongst you, as an Englishman " Mob. "Hear him ! hear him !" Tim H. "As an Englishman — I repeat it — would deny the Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 461 privilege which the free institutions of this country afford, and refuse the liberty " Mob. " Hurra ! Liberty for ever ! Liberty and reform ! Hurra ! " Tim H. " If Miss Brownrigge be really criminal " Mob. " She is — she is ! we know it ! Down with her ! Down with her ! " Tim. H. " I cannot believe it." Mob yells. "Yah! Yah! Yah!" Tim. H. " Has not her whole life been a course of kindness and humanity ? Has she not been the friend of thousands ? and has she ever done an injury to a single human being among you ? " Mob. "Down with him !" {JLoud yells : as they die away., a single voice howls out — " If she did us any good, she had her own ends to serve ! " which cry is violently repeated by the mob). Tim. H. " If she has committed any wrong, I don't wish to stand between a culprit and her punishment. Heaven forbid that I should ! But is she not amenable to the courts of justice ? and will not the government take care that the laws are not defrauded of their dues ? " Mob. " Down with her ! No laws — no justice — no government — no nothing ! " In the midst of this most reasonable cry for the annihilation of the moral and material world, volleys of stones and other missiles were "hurled violently against the windows of the house ; and one man, half-drunk with spirits and half-mad with the excitement of mob enthusiasm, having possessed himself of a torch, was hastening furiously forward, with the intention of setting fire to the building. Timothy Hitch, whose influence with the multitude had been rapidly departing, from the moment that he had ceased to flatter and presumed to address a word of salutary counsel to them, here exerted the last effort of his lungs, and made a final trial of the extent of his popularity, by laying hold of the ruffian, and exclaiming. "For Heaven's sake, my friends, beware what you're about. As to Miss Brownrigge, I do not interpose for her ; but will you bum the poor innocent apprentices ? " This appeal, bursting upon them in that dull interval of silence which, even in the most turbulent and numerous multitudes, always precedes a moment of action, produced an instantaneous effect. The mass of people rushed forward with a single impulse, 462 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix to seize Elizabeth, and to rescue the children. The poor girls, who were discovered in the coal-shed, clinging to each other, terrified by the clamours, and grievously bruised by many stones which had been cast by the hands of their friends, were immediately removed, under the eye of Mr. Deacon, to the parish work- house. Elizabeth, the object of the hostility of the mob, was nowhere to be found. BOOK II Chapter I A Departure — Female Pedestrianism — Masquerading — Elizabeth Canniitg. " Behold them wandering on their hopeless way, Unknowing where they stray ; Yet sure where'er they stop and find no rest." SOUTHEY. Homer. " So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted ; But yet a union in partition — Two lovely berries moulded on one stem." Shakespeare. On quitting Alphonso, and entering the garden, Elizabeth found herself accosted by Mary Jones, who deeply interested in the safety, and anticipating the movements of her young mistress, had stationed herself in the garden, with the intention of warning her of the impending danger, and preventing her return to the cottage. The poor girl wildly but accurately informed our heroine of the origin of the riot, which was every minute gathering strength, of the strange rumours that circulated among the populace, of their exasperation against her, and of the violence to which she would inevitably be exposed should she venture to encounter them in their present infuriated state. Elizabeth, undismayed by the intelligence, answered her attached and humble friend with a simple expression of compassion Elizabeth Brownrigge; A Tale 463 for the state of the poor deluded people, and began, with her usual equability of mind and composure of manner, to retrace her steps towards the road. " The philosopher has said," she muttered in soliloquy, but still loud enough to be heard by Mary Jones, who, at a respectful distance, followed her into a path that led over the fields towards Gray's Inn Lane and Holborn Bars — "the philosopher has said, if that he were accused of any even the most impossible crime, — if he were charged with having purloined the church steeple and carried it away in his waistcoat-pocket, his first measure would be flight." "And by far the best measure, too !" cried Mary Jones ; "who that had their wits about them would stay to be baited by bum- bailiffs and shoved about by sheriff's officers, if " " Inconsiderate creature that I am ! " interrupted Elizabeth, suddenly recollecting the absence of her dog. " I protest, in my hurry, I have forgotten Muggletonian. He'll fall a victim to the fury of the mob. Not finding the object of their indignation, they'll vent their blind and ignorant malice upon my unoffending favourite . It were unjust and cruel to abandon him to such a fate. Instantly will I return and seek him." "No, no, Miss Elizabeth," exclaimed her companion ; "stay you there in safety, behind the trunk and beneath the spreading shade of yonder oak, where the branches are so closely interwoven that not a single ray of moonlight can make its way and discover your concealment, while I go back to the house. The people won't know me, or if they should they'll allow me to pass without annoyance. Do you wait here, and in a trice I'll return with little Muggy." " Call him Muggletonian," said Elizabeth ; " I have a great dislike to all senseless abbreviations.'' It may be questioned whether Mary Jones heard this rejoinder of our heroine ; for the faithful creature had no sooner expressed her determination of going in search of the absent animal, than she disappeared with the speed of lightning from the spot ; and before Elizabeth supposed it possible that she could have reached the cottage, her voice was again heard behind her, exclaiming in a hurried tone of exultation, "Come along — come along, my mistress ! the mob have entered and are ransacking the cottage. I saw them in the parlour, but I passed them unobserved, and have rescued the object of your anxiety." " Rescued him ! Where is he ? No Muggletonian do I see ! " 464 Fraser's Magazine— Appendix "See him! How should you?" replied Mary; "why, bless your heart, my mistress, the little fellow's fast asleep in my pocket ! " I need not remind my antiquarian readers that while in the benighted days of the eighteenth century, no mantua-maker had advanced so far on the march of intellect as to approach the discovery of a reticule, the lap-dogs of those days were small, and the pockets were capacious. The party being thus completed, they for a short space wound their way in silence beneath the bright eye of the silver moon, across the dewy fields and along the green winding paths that conducted to the metropolis. They had reached the top of Gray's Inn Lane before Elizabeth, who, during the progress of their walk, had been taking counsel with herself alone upon the course which it would be advisable for her to adopt, had fully matured her plans of operation, and began, in the following words, to open her intentions to her companion : — " You left me of your own accord, Mary, and in violation of the terms of your indentures : I apprehend you repent yourself of that unhappy measure ? " " Repent me of it ?— Oh, how bitterly ! " " I attempt not to put any constraint upon your inclinations ; you are now at liberty to remain with or to leave me. Make your choice freely ; but, Mary Jones, make it firmly, and once for all." " With you — O, with you ! " cried the affectionate girl, eagerly seizing and kissing the hand of Elizabeth ; — " with you, wherever you go, and whatever may be your destiny ! " " That is well ! " rejoined our heroine, giving a slight pressure of acknowledgment to the hand by which her own was respectfully but affectionately grasped ; " and from this moment, Mary, no longer regarded as an apprentice, but as a friend, I receive you, as the depositary of my most secret thoughts, to the confidence which your fidelity deserves.'' " Me ! — Your confidence ! Oh, Miss Brownrigge !" " It would be wiser, Mary, to designate me by that name no longer. Nothing can be more foreign from my principles or my inclinations than ' to do evil that good may come.' Never would I attempt to seek an ignominious safety from the persecutions of my enemies beneath the shelter of falsehood or prevarication. I do not, therefore, propose, as perhaps might be the case with many persons of a lower tone of morals, when placed in such an emergency as ours, to assume an alias. It is not my intention Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 465 to change my name altogether ; but I shall no longer make use of more than half of it ; instead of denominating me Miss Elizabeth Brownrigge, you will henceforth remember, Mary, that my appellation is Mistress Eliza Brown.'' "Mistress?" " Ay — Mistress, Mary Jones ! The unwedded wife, the virgin widow, of Alphonso Belvidere ? " " Widow, ma'am ? " " From this hour, true to the memory of him to whose love I am for ever dead, and from whose presence I am for ever severed, the lonely sense of widowhood will perpetually rest upon my heart, and the dark weeds of widowhood shall be the constant habiliments of my person." " Oh, you cannot surely be so cruel ! What, give up poor, dear Mr. Alphonso — such a clever, sweet, virtuous, young gentleman — who stands six feet two without his shoes, and who loves you with such devotion ? " " It is because he loves me — because I love him, my friend, that this resolution has been formed. Alphonso is no ordinary man ; and his wife, like that of Caesar, ought not only to be immaculate in herself, but unsuspected by others. The reproach which attaches to me, and from which I fly, is to my conscience, and ought to be to Ms, as an irreversible sentence of divorcement. It is his duty to forget a name that has been linked in the public voice with dishonourable epithets ; and it is my duty to prevent its being ever recalled to his recollection." " O, dear. Miss " "Mistress, Mary — remember, Mistress 1" " Mistress Elizabeth " "Eliza!" " Well, well ! — oh, dear, Mrs. Eliza Brownri " " Brown ! — that's enough." " O, Mrs. Eliza Brown 1 Can you have the heart to jilt that beautiful gentleman ? " " I do not jilt him, Mary. — As an act of self-devotion, I offer up my own happiness as a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of his future respectability in life." " And what, for mercy's sake, do you mean to do, ma'am ? " " That thought is opportunely suggested," replied Elizabeth. " It is, indeed, time that we should provide for the present need. A strict search after us will immediately be set on foot. This we must endeavour to elude. It is first necessary that we should 30 466 Fi-aser's Magazine — Appendix make an alteration in our attire. Attend rne here. I'll proceed to yonder warehouse, over the door of which the three golden balls are pendant and the large lamp is blazing, and purchase whatever may be requisite to complete the change of our appearance ; and in effecting that change, the deserted stable to our right will afford the decent shelter of its roof" Elizabeth had no sooner determined upon this plan, than, with that promptitude of execution by which her character was dis- tinguished, she took measures for its instant accomplishment. She calmly entered the pawnbroker's shop, and deliberately made her bargain for the articles required ; and after com- pleting her purchases, many minutes did not elapse before she and her companion issued from the deserted building to which they had retired, entirely metamorphosed in their apparel and appearance. The stained and tattered finery of Maiy Jones had given place to.the decent linen gown, the close cap, the black bonnet, and the red cloak of a counti-y maid-servant ; while our heroine, according to the intention she had previously expressed, assumed the dark garments of widowhood. The watchmen — in those days they still existed — were now vociferating, each upon his peculiar beat, " Past ten o'clock ! " Hitherto our fair and interesting friends had proceeded on their way almost unobserved, and altogether without interruption, but on reaching the Holborn end of Gray's Inn Lane, their progress was impeded by the intervention of a dense crowd, which reached from one side of the street to the other, and threatened to' oppose a formidable obstruction to their passage. This mass of people were collected together near the gate of Gray's Inn, and, their heads turned back, their mouths open, and their eyes to the fullest stretch, were Ustening, with intense and silent interest, to a httle chimney-sweeper, who, perched on the top of a lamp-post, was bawling forth to the surrounding audience the contents of a large printed bill. As the fair friends approached this peculiar and novel kind of rostrum, they could not help catching a sufficient number of the words which the shrill-tongued urchin was vocife- rating to enable them to comprehend the import of his com- munication ; and as the phrases " eloped from her chariot," " foot of the gallows," " Tyburn," " young lady," " sixteen years of age,'' " fashionably attired," struck upon the ear of Mary Jones, she drew closer and closer to Elizabeth ; and when she heard that ^200 were offered as the reward of her restoration, she was seized Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 467 with fear and trembling, and whispered her mistress in a voice scarce audible, and broken by apprehension, " O, ma'am, tis I — 'tis I ! They'll find me out and take me from you ! O, what shall I do?" " Be calm ! " rejoined our heroine, grasping her wrist with an air of di^'nified authority ; — "subdue this idle agitation, and follow me in silence ; — detection is impossible ! Remember you are again yourself, and no longer disguised as a woman of quality ! " The expression "■disguised" somewhat jarred upon the ear and vanity of Mai-y Jones ; but she felt consoled by the reflection that her identity with the person described in the placard was not likely to be discovered ; and obedient to the directions of the superior mind in subjection to which she acted, she quietly followed in the path that was opened for them as the crowd retired on either side, with an involuntary feeling of respect, before the commanding brow and elevated deportment of Elizabeth. On regaining the open street, our heroine recommenced the detail of those plans for the future, in arranging which her mind had been actixely engaged, even while acknowledging, with a grateful incUnation of her head from side to side, the kind attention of the mob, and sustaining the fainting spirits of her more dependent and less self-possessed companion. " We shall soon leave this country for ever, and no more return to it again ? Will it grieve you, Mary ? " " Nothing can grieve me so long as I am with you." " You'll not object, then, to residing in America, whither I pro- pose retiring to seek an asylum from the tyranny of my persecutors, in the arms of friendship and in a land of liberal opinions.'' " Friends in America ! I never heard, ma'am, before," cried Mary Jones, "that you had any friends in foreign parts.." " Yes, Mary," replied Elizabeth, with a sigh of tender recollection, " the dearest and the earliest friend I have has long been an unwilling emigrant from her native land, the martyr of inflexible virtue and the victim of an indiscriminating jury. You have, perhaps, heard of Elizabeth Canning ? " " To be sure I have : you mean the girl that was transported for perjury, and who wanted to swear away the life of old Mother Squires, of Enfield Wash ! " " O, Elizabeth, Elizabeth ! my school-girl friend ! my child- hood's monitress ! And is it thus that truth and purity like yours are perverted by the misapprehensions, and profaned by the calumnies, of the multitude ! " 468 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix " Why, la ! ma'am," cried the astonished Mary, " is it possible that that wicked woman was really an acquaintance of yours ? " " Hear me, my young friend," replied her mistress, with a calm and gentle tone of admonition, " and ever after learn to mistrust the erring representations of common fame, and to reverence those as the most virtuous of their race, whom the voice of public rumour most clamorously condemns. The parents of EliEabeth Canning and myself were not only connected by the ties of blood, but by the far closer ties of affectionate and long-con'dnued intimacy. Theirchildren — playmates from their birth, and sisters by adoption — became the natural inheritors of the friendship by which their fathers and mothers were so inseparably united. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Canning was a few months my elder ; but I cannot call to mind the time in which we did not share every study and every amusement together — in which I did not find the hours hang heavy on my hands that were not irradiated by the presence of Elizabeth — the pleasure joyless that was not participated by her — ■ and the lesson uninstructive that was not recommended to my attention by the desire of her approval and the consciousness of her companionship. She was just so much my senior as to be capable of assisting, without leading, me — of facilitating my progress, without directing my studies — of preceding and clearing away the difficulties in the paths of erudition, without outstripping me in the attainment of the goal to which they led. Her principles, formed from childhood by the counsels and the examples of the best and wisest of the human race, — I mean her parents and my own — were exalted to a pitch of heroic elevation ; and in whatever guise temptation might assail her, its assaults fell powerless, and rebounded from her invincible purity of character like the spears of the Trojans from the invulnerable body of Achilles. She bore a charmed spirit ; and her high-enduring constancy of soul was capable of sustaining every species of allurement, and defying every form ot intimidation. O, Mary Jones ! " cried Elizabeth, " imagine, if I loved such virtue ! Did I love her ! O, she was my life, my joy, my happiness, my supplemental conscience, my second self, my counsellor, my friend ! " " And this," said Mary indignantly, " was the person whom the world had the barbarity to send to gaol and try as a criminal ! " " The world was unworthy of her ! " exclaimed our heroine " When her tale of oppression was related, — when it was told thai my fair and admirable friend — kidnapped, stunned, and stripped by a band of rufifians ; threatened with loss of life ; confined for eight- Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 469 and-twenty days in a cock-loft, and deprived of all sustenance during the time of her imprisonment, but about a quart of water, a few slices of stale bread, and a penny mince pie that she happened to have in her pocket ' ; when it was told that such unparalleled inflictions were endured, amid the hardest severities of winter, by a young girl like Elizabeth, at the hands of the most barbarous of men and the most fiend-like of women, because she would not mingle in the pollutions of their orgies, the tale appeared incredible to the multitude. " Incapable of comprehending the height of her virtue, they gave belief to the slanders of her oppressors. A judge, a jury, and an English mob, insensible to every feeling of magnanimity themselves, could readily enough imagine that a meek and inexperienced maiden might invent a falsehood and sustain it by perjury ; but they were unable to raise their petty souls to the conception of a fortitude like that of Elizabeth Canning, who suffered the bitterest oppressions in the cause of virtue, and whose virtue was thus tried and confirmed, but was not at all shaken, by the bitterness of the oppressions which she suffered." " Admirable girl ! Oh, how I repent the injurious opinions I have been taught to entertain of her ! How I long to fling myself at her feet, and implore her pardon for my error ! " " That meeting may not be long delayed," resumed Elizabeth : " a vessel will, I know, shortly sail for New England ; in. it we will take our passage from an ungrateful and benighted land. Till the time of its departure a retired but respectable asylum must be found for us in the neighbourhood of London. O, my ever dear, my oppressed, and most injured friend, my impatience of absence is increased by the probability of our speedy reunion ! It is painful to remember that I am separated from the society of so exalted a creature ; but that state of separation will have an almost immediate conclusion, and in the meantime it is my duty to be resigned to the inevitable privation." After this eulogistic apostrophe to Elizabeth Canning, Miss Brownrigge took the arm of her attendant, and bent her way towards Wandsworth, with a view of seeking some quiet lodging, in which she might reside unknown till she bade an everlasting farewell to the country of her birth. ' See the trial of Elizabeth Canning for perjury. 47° Frasef's Magazine — Appendix Chapter II The Cotias^e — The A;(>pr entices — Mrs. Deacon — A Lover — A Billet-Doux — Despair — A Discovery. " Dead for a ducat, dead ! " Shakespeare. "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact." Midsummer Night's Dream. "Heaven, sure, formed letters for some lover's aid." Pope. "Qualis populea mosrens philomela sub umbra. Amissos queritus foetus, quos durus arator Observans nido implumes detraxit ; at ilia Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen Integral, et moestis lat^ loca questibus implet." Virgil. Disappointed by our heroine's escape of a living object on Vifhich to vent their indignation, the mob were with difficulty prevented, by the humanity of Timothy Hitch, who was penetrated with the kindest interest for the property of Elizabeth, and by the prudence of Mr. Deacon, who dreaded the probable effects of a conflagration on premises so neaily connected with his own, from proceeding to set fire to the cottage. The principle of destructive- ness, — which may always be regarded as the idiosyncratic and p.edominating principle of all large masses of the human race when once excited, — is never allowed to pass away without producing its natural effects. It is not more certainly true that "nothing can come of nothing " than that " something always comes of some- thing" ; and the present mob, faithful to the instinct of all mobs, did not think of dispersing till they had left in mischief the traces of their having met. They were not, indeed, afforded an opportunity of gratifying their savage propensities, by the murder of a young, lovely, and unoffending woman, or by burning her cottage to the ground, with the chance of involving half the village of Islington in the blaze ; but they consoled themselves for the forcible check to which their inclinations were thus subjected, by shattering the carved ivory cabinets, the curious clocks, and the various articles of ornamental furniture — by smashing the glass and Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 471 china into a thousand pieces — by dashing the pokers through the .pictures and mirrors — by tearing up the flowers, trampling upon the borders, levelling the fences — breaking the windows— and by finally effecting a predatory and exterminating inroad on the abundant contents of the cellars, larders, and store-closets. On the morning of the 25th June, 1765, the sun shone brightly on the fair abode, the smiling garden, and the well-ordered dwelling of Elizabeth, as on a kingdom happily thriving under the kindly offices of a Tory administration ; on the morning of the 26th the same sun shone full as brightly, but it looked down upon a scene of ruin and devastation, like the same kingdom passed into other hands, and suffering, after a distracting clamour for liberty and reform, under the all-withering government of the Whigs and the Economists. But the ravages which laid waste the cottage and the surrounding garden of our heroine were not all attributable to the hands of this lawlesb assembly : devastations were committed for which they were not responsible. They, indeed, had made the premises a wilderness, but it was rapidly converted into a desert by the crowd of inquisitive and curiosity-seeking virtuosi, who, on the following Sunday, came flocking to the village of Islington for the sake of gratifying their eyes with the sight of the spot in which such atrocities had been perpetrated, and each of whom carried away some portable relic, as a memorial of his visit, till nothing portable remained to be carried away. Most eager were the inquiries after the two little girls, Mary Mitchell and Maiy Clifford. They had been conveyed, as we have already stated, to the poor-house ; where, under the care of the respectable Mrs. Deacon, and under the eye of an incessant succession of visitors, every relief which medical skill and universal sympathy could afford was most liberally administered. The whole country was interested in their fate. The parish authoiities found it so impossible to answer individually the numerous inquiries after their health, that a bulletin, signed by three eminent disciples of Esculapius, was posted at the church door, and changed from hour to hour, as any alteration was discovered in their symptons. The public, by the by, had been unfairly dealt with on the occasion ; for the first account which they received of this trans- action, through the medium of those most veracious of all organs, the newspapers, had declared that both the children were found covered with bruises, beaten to death ; and tied up with the same 472 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix rope to a large beam in the roof of the coal-cellar. Now this was a very striking and impressive story indeed, and was altogether very gratifying to his majesty's loyal subjects of England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. It afforded them an ample opportunity for indulging in what Jeremy Bentham so aptly designated " the pleasures of malevolence " by rancorous denunciations on the head of the fair Elizabeth ; for placing their own tenderness of heart in advantageous contrast with her barbarity, by exaggerated expressions of astonishment at her conduct ; and for a cheap exercise of the virtue of charity, by pathetic lamentations over the sufferings of her apprentices. The succeeding post-day, on the other hand, brought intelligence altogether as disappointing ; by correcting the falsehood, it very materially diminished the interest in the narrative. Two sick children in a poor-house, desperate as their case was reported to be in a letter signed by Galen Deacon himself, was a sad falling- off from two dead girls in a coal-cellar. But there was still much to keep public curiosity on the stretch, and idle tongues in motion. Their mistress— struck, it was said, with remorse and alarm — had suddenly disappeared ; and the uncertainty of her apprehension was a very interesting circumstance. Then, again, it was doubled whether either, or which of the children, could recover ; and the suspense of their fate was an extremely interesting circumstance indeed. To be sure, both might get well — a result which a very humane lecturer against West Indian slavery deprecated with the most earnest fervour of his piety, lest, as he said, " that horrid woman, their mistress — if the police were fortunate enough to discover her — should escape the hanging she deserved." Indeed, this last supposition involved such a shameful fraud upon the dues of pubUc justice, that no-one could endure to contemplate it for a moment. The restoration of both children was not to be thought of ; in fact, Mr. Deacon was pledged to the public for the death of one of them. In his printed letter on the subject, he had expressed very slight hopes of the recovery of Mary Mitchell, and none at all of Mary Clifford. So one murder appeared to be certain, if not two ; and the multitude lived in eager expectation of the realisation of at least half of the original report, which they hoped to find followed by the highly-important supplement of the detection, trial, confession, last dying-speech, and execution of the murderess. During this period of excitement, nothing could be more important than Mrs. Deacon's position in the world of Islington and its vicinity. She was at the poor-house the first thing in the "DADDY, I'M HUNGRY." L SCENE IN AN IRISH COACHMAKEk'S FAMILY. DESIGNED BY LORD LOWTHLR, JUIY, 1843. [See page 193. Elizabeth Brownriggc: A Tale 473 morning, and the last thing at night ; and had always the most correct information to give, either from personal inspection or from the immediate intelligence of her spouse. She had suddenly swollen into a person of distinction. Like Lord Byron, the morn- ing after the publication of Childe Harold, this lady, the morning after the flight of Elizabeth, " awoke and found herself famous." She heard of nothing but her penetration, her perseverance and her humanity, — she had always seen through the hypocrisy of Miss Brownrigge, — she had always known that there was something mysterious about her conduct — she had always suspected how the case really stood — she had always predicted that something would be discovered at last — she had afforded poor, old, excellent Mrs. Jukes the first intimation of the deplorable condition in which her daughter-in-law was placed — she it was who insisted on having the house searched, who had directed that the dear children should be carried to the poor-house, and who had undressed them and anointed their bruises with her own hands — she was, besides, the wife of the apothecary who attended them, and " from night till morn, from morn till dewy eve " she bustled about from house to house, and from neighbour to neighbour, pouring all that she knew, guessed, or could invent, upon the leading topic of the day, into the thirsty ears of her credulous and curious auditors. The lady was one of those who, from the first, had augured the death of both the apprentices. Her opinion was that, " though Deacon was very clever, and could save a patient's life as long as there was any life in him to save, mortification must inevitably ensue, as the consequences of such bruises as the children had received ; and as a doctor's wife, she thought her opinion of some value." This opinion she promulgated, indeed, with all the innumerable friends with whom she was so kind as to communicate on the subject ; and when Mary Mitchell was reported better, though the same bulletin declared Mary Clifford dead, it may be doubted whether she was not more grieved by the falsification of her prediction than gratified by the success of her husband's skill. The case of the apprentices, however, was now, and finally, set at rest. Mary Clifford was a corpse in St. Andrew's churchyard, and Mary Mitchell was disposed of to another mistress, a Jew slopseller in the neighbourhood of Rag Fair. Such being the case, the full and active interest of Mrs. Deacon's mind was directed into another channel, and became wholly occupied with wondering and surmising and inquiring about the retreat of Elizabeth ; against whom the coroner's inquest had delivered a verdict of wilful murder, and for 474 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix whose apprehension a reward of ^500 had been offered in the Gazette. Far different from the feelings of Mrs. Deacon and her friends were those of Alphonso Belvidere. Removed as his father's resi- dence was from the scene of tumult, the riot and the attendant devastation of Miss Brownrigge's cottage, on the night of the 25th of June, passed away without its inhabitants receiving any intimation of the event ; and when, on the succeeding morning, the baker arrived at the kitchen-door with the hot rolls for breakfast, and the freshest news of the neighbourhood, the domestics, each dreading to be the repeater of any tidings that were injurious to the fame of Miss Brownrigge, after a long discussion on the expediency or inexpediency of relating what they had heard, unanimously re- solved to keep silence on the subject, and leave the knowledge of events so important to their young master's happiness to extend itself as chance might direct. In total ignorance, therefore, of all the miserable circumstarxes that had taken place, his fancy bright as the morning, his spirits light as the summer gales that were playing about his cheeks, his mind full of delightful recollections, and his heart bounding high with animating hopes, Alphonso, after a rapid repast, started from the breakfast-table, that he might snatch a moment of brief converse with his Elizabeth before the hour in which the Islington stage started for the Bank. Happy in himself, he dreamt not of aught but happiness around him, — at peace with his own breast, he could not entertain a thought of enmity against another ; and when he met Mr. and Mrs. Deacon advancing with a hurried step and an air of bustling importance, towards the poor-house, he quickened his already rapid pace, and forgetting the disagreeable skirmishes of the preceding afternoon, approached them with a smile of welcome, and extended to either neighbour the hand of fi ank and cordial salutation. To his surprise, the offered courtesy, which was but coolly answered by Mr. Deacon, was disdainfully rejected by the lady. Till that moment Alphonso had never gi\'en a second thought to the extraordinary dialogue in which he had so recently exposed himself to her indignation. But as the recollection of it shot across his mind, a sense of the ridiculous nature of his position was simultaneously engendered, which exhibited i'.self in the involuntary sparkling of his eye and the playful curling of his upper lip. The expression, slight and fleeting as it was, did not escape the jealous and irritable glance of Mrs. Deacon. Her whole soul was stirred within her ; she felt .insulted in thought ; and perceiving that Alphonso was still uncon- Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 475 scious of the events at the cottage, she found herself in possession of the means of extorting an ample vengeance for the contumely- he had offered to her charms, and resolved to make the fullest use of the advantage which was thus afforded her by a chance so favourable to her malignity. " A wretched business, this ! " said Mrs. Deacon, her eye glancing a look of insolent triumph, her cheeks and lips chilled and white witli the icy touch of malice, her voice itself choked with passion, and its accents rendered peculiarly offensive by an abortive attempt to assume a tone of compassion — " a wretched business this ! But I always foretold how it would turn out." " No better — no better this morning," said Mr. Deacon. " I've already been twice to look at the bruises, and examine the effect of my lotions ; but I don't entertain a hope." " Scarified from top to toe," said his \yife ; "great wales all over the back and loins, as big as my fist, and striped all manner o colours, like a rainbow." "There's not a chance of life," said Mr. Deacon. " No ; not a chance ! mortification must inevitably take place," added his wife. "Whom are you speaking of?" demanded Alphonso : "whose life is in danger? who has been thus barbarously treated ?" "Oh!" replied Mrs. Deacon, "it's just as I related — just as I said ; though Mr. Belvidere and Mr. Alphonso Belvidere did so peremptorily/«/me down ; it's all as I predicted, and your Miss Ehzabeth " "Good Heavens !" exclaimed the agonised Alphonso, "what of Elizabeth? Has she got great wales on her back? has she been beaten black and blue ? is her life in danger ? " "Yes, that indeed is it," replied Mrs. Deacon, bridling up, and kindling as she spoke with the anticipated triumph of an embryo repartee. " Mightily, indeed, is her life in danger, if the constables can but get hold other; and, though. her neck is so delicate, she may yet chance to find it too large for the halter." " Woman ! Woman ! " cried Alphonso, " if you are not lost to every feeling of compassion as of shame, at once disclose the meaning of these horrible enigmas." "Woman ! — Shame ! — Compassion ! — Enigmas !" — ejaculated Mrs. Deacon, with a little titter of complacent malice, and still swelling more and more with the rapid and abundant secretion of that black venom, which engendered of jealousy and revenge, she was preparing to vent forth in one annihilating gush- upon 476 Eraser's Magazine — Appendix her victim. " Why, the meaning's plain enough, Mr. Alphonso Belvidere, since you are so anxious for the discovery of 'my enigma^ as you call it : the meaning is, that your sweet, beautiful, amiable Miss Brownrigge has whipped her two dear little apprentice girls till they've been carried all but dead to the poor-house : and my young lady has had the prudence to take herself off, and nobody knows where to look after her ! " The words were no sooner uttered than, as if a pistol had been fired through his brain, our hero fell as one dead at the feet of his informant. Now this was more than Mrs. Deacon designed ; it was not her wish to kill him altogether. She would not have been displeased if her words had given him a brain-fever, or a serious fit of illness. Had the result been a strait-waiscoat, or a consumption, it would have gratified her extremely ; but his sudden death was neither expected nor desired. Mrs. Deacon was a philanthropist, according to the modern school of philanthropy. She patronised slow and lingering inflictions. With regard to our criminal law, she had universally professed herself to be a zealous reformer, on the score of humanity. Her mild and tender heart had always sickened at the very thought of a capital punishment. She was a steady advocate for the substitution of labour for life, and solitary im- prisonment in its place ; and when she saw Alphonso lying pale and senseless on the ground before her, reflecting on the world of excruciating anguish which he would necessarily be spared, while the fate of the children was in doubt, and during the pursuit, the prosecution, and perhaps the final condemnation of Elizabeth — like a cat, which will not destroy, but loves to keep his prey in the agony of a suspended destruction, — she became intensely anxious that the animation of which her intelligeijce had deprived him should be quickly and effectually restored. Actuated by these feelings in his favour, Mrs. Deacon earnestly implored her husband to administer his professional assistance. That gentleman's ready lancet was immediately in his hand : and after the loss of a good deal of blood, and swallowing a small quantity of water, the connubial and medical pair had the gratifica- tion of seeing the young man conveyed to his father's house on a litter, greatly exhausted in body, and in a high state of mental delirium. By the by, though I forgot to mention it before, the full and particular account, that Mrs. Deacon was enabled to give of this event, which, according to the lady's report, occurred while she Elizabeth Bfownrigge: A Tale 477 was endeavouring to break the matter to poor Mr. Alphonso as tenderly as possible, conduced in no trifling degree to enhance the temporary consideration which she enjoyed during the state of public excitement on Miss Brownrigge's cause. Alphonso was confined to his room, and perfectly unconscious of the momentous occurrences that were happening around him for several days. During this state of insensibility, little Mary Clifford died ; his love was publicly gazetted as a murderess ; and the most diligent exertions were made to discover her retreat. The sole and indefatigable attendant on his illness and his affliction was his father. By night, Mr. Belvidere kept silent watch beside his couch ; by day, he was ever near to administer the appointed medicines, and catch, in the direction of his eye, or the slightest motion of his hand, the intimation of his wishes or his wants. When, at length, his delirium left him, and the powers of his mind were restored, a far higher and more important office devolved on the excellent parent of Alphonso. It was then his task to counsel his son with the lessons of his wisdom and his experience, and to fortify his failing spirits under the accumulated burden of the distresses which were pressing on him, by the energy of his own moral and religious principles. Seldom has a case occurred in which such succours were more urgently required. Our hero was not only afflicted by the absence of Elizabeth ; he did not only grieve over the uncertainty of her fate, and the perils by which she was surrounded, but he was suffering from her voluntary and most unexpected rejection of him. On the morning of his recovered consciousness, the following letter reached the manor- house, by means of the penny post : — "July I, A.D. 1765. "Dear Sir,— " Having every reason for confiding in your late assur- ances of esteem and regard, I am not without apprehension that this communication may occasion you some degree of inconvenience. Circumstances over which I had no control, and which you must at this writing be fully acquainted with, have rendered it expedient that I should travel abroad. It is my intention never to return to England. We shall, consequently, meet no more. Want of time prevents my having the pleasure of detailing the reasons which have led to this determination ; but that good opinion of my judgment and discretion which you have so frequently described yourself as entertaining, will be sufficient to satisfy you that it has 478 Fraser's Magazine— Appendix not been adopted without strong and substantial grounds. You will be so good as to present my compliments to any neighbours that may be interested in my welfare ; and with my best respects to your honoured father and my very kind friend, Mr. Belvidere, senior, I beg leave to subscribe myself, " Dear sir, " Your humble and obedient servant, " Elizabeth Brownrigge." " For Mr. Alphonso Belvidere, " Manor House, Islington." This letter, with the post-mark " Cheapside " upon it, and desti- tute of any other clue that might serve to guide him to her retreat, was the only intimation which our hero received of the existence of his mistress. That her resolution was formed on principles of the most perfect wisdom, he had not the temerity to doubt ; but, alas ! our consent to the justice of the sentence which may be passed upon us affords very little alleviation for the misery which we may suffer from its infliction. Alphonso's wretchedness was extreme : the sun of his existence had set. He only lived on the hope of calling Elizabeth his own. All the prospects of his ambi- tion, all the exertions of his genius, had her happiness for their object ; and the sole enjoyment which he anticipated from the success and affluence that awaited him was to result from witness- ing the blessings which they would enable him to lavish upon her who was so inestimably dearer to him than himself, — and that she should give him up ! That he should have been abandoned by one for whom he would have been content to die in torture, and without whom existence was a burden too intolerable to be endured, — the very thought was madness to him? Why, at the slightest hint from her, he would willingly have relinquished his home, family, country, honour, fame - all his possessions in the present, all his expectations for the future — and have deemed it delight and privilege enough to be allowed to labour for her support and procure for her the necessaries and the conveniences of life by the sweat of his brow, an unregarded stranger in the midst of st. angers, and an alien in the stranger's land ! And, then, to be put away so calmly, and for ever, and without a single expression of regret ! The consideration of these things drove him to desperation ; and in the changeful paroxysms of his agony, he would now clench his -fists, and stamp violently upon the ground, and beat his breast, Elizabeth Brownrigge : A Tale 479 and tear his hair, and utter the most piercing shrieks and exclama- tions of suffering ; and then, as if the more acute sense of pain was bkuited by continued endurance, and nature, exhausted by the excess of torture, had relapsed into insensibility, — he would sit silent, motionless, and abstracted, with the tears fast-flowing, like rivulets from ever-springing fountains, down his cheeks, and without exhibiting the slightest consciousness of the presence of the persons or circumstances around him. Still, reduced as Alphonso was, by the loss of his Elizabeth, his own sufferings had not abated, or in the least degree diminished his interest for her safety ; and the dread of her apprehension was another poisoned shaft from the bow of destiny that rankled in his so severely- wounded breast. Aware, however, of her intention to depart from England, and finding that several weeks of vain pursuit had already elapsed during which the police authorities had been bafified in all their attempts to discover her abode, both he and his father had began to lose much of their first apprehension on her account, and to trust, with considerable confidence, to the probability of her having succeeded in effecting her escape. Such was the position of affairs, when, on the evening of Saturday, the 1 5th of August, Mr. Belvidere persuaded his son to leave his room, and essay the tranquillising effect of a brilliant sunset, and of the fair and fertile fields of Islington, in giving a happier direction to his thoughts. At the earnest request of Alphonso, they had quitted the precincts of the manor-house, and bent their steps towards the spot on which Elizabeth's cottage had once smiled. " Campos ubi Troja/uit." Mr. Belvidere had suggested to his son that the review of scenes once so dear, and no\y so pregnant of painful recollec- tions—once so fair and now so devastated— would be too severe a trial for his fortitude ; but Alphonso overruled every objection ; and the kind-hearted father assented to his wishes, extending tlu aid of his age-enfeebled arm to sustain the tottering steps of h, emaciated and grief-enfeebled son. •' When this sad visit is over, my boy," said Mr. Belvidere, " 1 trust that the extreme bitterness of your grief will be past ; that we shall have attained the climax of our sorrow, and that we may look for brighter and happier days to come." " Oh, my father," said Alphonso, " you can never have known what real grief is, or you would not speak thus." "At your early years, Alphonso, I certainly was not acquainted with affliction : there are few, indeed, that are. Yours is a ■peculiar and mournful exception from the common lot ; but who 48o Frasei-'s Magazine — Appendix ever reached my time of life without being well-informed of the flavour of the cup of sorrow ? In early life, with good spirits and good looks, which are as strong magnets that draw love and friendship towards us, almost everything around us conduces to elate our souls ; but in after life, as our spirits and our looks decline, friendship becomes languid, and love falls from us, and there is scarcely anything that does not tend to depress them." " Oh ! you talk of the ordinary casualties of life, and the regrets and disappointments which are incident to ordinary men ; but you have never grieved as I have grieved, — and you never wept such scalding tears as those which, like streams of burning lava, are now flowing from my eyes." " And, yet, I have shed tears of much bitterness, Alphonso." "Father, you cannot have fathomed those extreme depths of sorrow which I have been marked out by the inveteracy of fate to penetrate and explore ; you have not been doomed to undergo that concentration of all agonies in one — the loss of the object you love." " Do you forget, Alphonso, whose tomb it is that stands on the right of the chancel-door ? " " Oh ! but did that loss excruciate the inmost recesses of your soul ? Did the contemplation of it scarify your brain, and send molten lead and liquid fire circulating instead of blood throughout your veins? Did it turn your meat to poison, your drink to gall, your sleep to unimaginable horror ? Did it make the light of day a torture to the eye, and the darkness of night an appalling oppression to the soul ? Did that loss, my father, work for you what the loss of my Elizabeth has wrought for me? Did it convert the universe into one vast gloomy dungeon ; and the solid globe on which we stand into an instrument of torture ; and every pulse that reports the assurance of our existence into another stretch of agony upon the wheel, or another blow from the iron bar of the executioner ? " " No, my poor child, my grief certainly did not afflict me in the way you speak of; but when your dear mother died, after twenty years of happiness together, if you had not looked up from your cradle and smiled upon me, I think it would have broken my heart." As they were thus conversing, Mr. Belvidere and his son arrived at the ruins of Miss Brownrigge's cottage, and were joined by Mrs. Deacon. That lady had observed their approach from the gate of her garden, and advanced to meet them, with many ElUabetli Brownrigge: A Tale 481 kind inquiries after the health of Mr. Alphonso, and many voluble congratulations on seeing him again abroad. To our hero, every word she uttered was as a poisoned arrow to his soul. Mrs. Deacon knew it was so ; and the pleasure which she experienced in contemplating his emaciation, and goading by sly touches the raw and wounded places of his breast, would not allow her to retire from the society into which she had impertinently obtruded herself, though Mr. Belvidere scarcely deigned her a reply, and Alphonso remained wrapped in moody and impenetrable silence. As the lady was thus bestowing the full fruits of her vocabulary and her humanity on the gentlemen, in the front of the ruined flower-beds and depopulated parterres of Elizabeth's dwelling, her eloquence was interrupted by an exclamation from Alphonso, who, after having for some time fixed his eyes attentively on a particular spot of the garden, where a broken rose-tree was lying along the path, suddenly cried out, " It is he ! I thought so from the first : it is poor dear Muggletonian himself ! " and then breaking with a strong effort from his father's side, he rushed towards the place where the little animal was crouching, covered with dust, panting with fatigue, and. wasted from want of food. Though conveyed away from the premises in Maiy Jones' pocket, Muggletonian had contrived to find its way back again to Islington. Directed by that sure instinct with which some animals are so wonderfully endowed, the little creature had left his mistress in her new abode, and hastened with a love of place that particularly distinguished him, to regain the well-known haunts of his early and accustomed home. Alphonso, intoxicated with delight at obtaining anything which had been possessed and was valued by his Elizabeth, caught Muggletonian eagerly in his arms, and pressed him to his breast, and smothered him with a multitude of kisses. In this operation, his eye fell upon the collar ; it was inscribed, " E. B., Wandsworth, Surrey." " Father, my father, she's found ! she's found ! I have discovered the abode of my Elizabeth ! " cried Alphonso, losing all presence of mind in the ecstasy of his joy. " Let us not delay a moment ! Let us instantly away. Father, see here ; she's at Wandsworth ! " The exertion that he had made, and the violent excitement of his strongest and most inward affections, were more than his debilitated frame could support, and he fainted in his father's arms. 31 482 Fraser's Magazine— Appendix "Wandsworth !" muttered Mrs. Deacon to herself; and she gave a hint of the direction in which Elizabeth was to be sought before she sent the assistance, that she had pretended to go in search of, to the relief of Alphonso. Chapter III. The Apprehension — Elizabeth! s Defence — Death — Conclusion. " Since laws were made for every degree, To curb vice in others as well as in me, I wonder we hadn't better company Upon Tyburn tree. But gold from law can take out the sting, And if rich men like us were to swing, * Twould thin the land such numbers to string Upon Tyburn tree." Gay, Beggar's Opera. " A7, a7, a7, at, doufibjv, 8at/iojVf 'AttoXwX', t& TttXas." Sophocles. Elizabeth, attended by Mary Jones, the temporary disturbance of whose intellect had entirely disappeared on a return to her accustomed habits of submission, and seemed to have been cast off with the trappings of sin and vanity, — Elizabeth, with this her humble friend and companion, had established herself in an elegantand commodious apartment in the romantic village of Wandsworth. The home she had selected for her abode belonged to a Mr. Dunbar, who, with his wife and children, occupied the upper and lower stories, leaving the drawing-room at the disposal of their lodger. Our heroine, always anxious to discover and to improve an opportunity of benefiting her fellow-creatures, did not allow her residence in this family to pass away without their deriving some advantage from her sojourn amongst them. By adopting the Socratic mode of questioning the children, she led them to comprehend the meaning of the lessons which they had previously only known by rote. She instructed her host in an easier and less complex mode of book-keeping, an admirable refinement, of her own invention, on the system of double entry : she also imparted some highly valuable hints on the subject of domestic economy to her hostess, by which she was enabled to Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 483 reduce her monthly bills from 7 to 7J per cent, on their former amount, and dispense with the hire of a weekly charwoman. Thus " dropping the manna " of her wisdom in the way of an ignorance- starved people, Elizabeth, by the means of her intellectual superiority — heightened as its influence was by the splendour of her beauty and the dignity of her manners—" won golden opinions from all sorts of people." The affections of every heart, and the praises of every tongue, were prodigally bestowed on her, and when on the evening of Saturday, the 1 5th of August, she informed Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar that it was her intention on the following Monday to quit their lodgings and embark on board the vessel that was to convey her to America, they were afflicted at the intelligence as at the thought of parting with some well-beloved relative, and volunteered a very considerable abatement of the rent and much additional accommodation, with the hope of inducing her to remain an inmate of their dwelling. The kind solicitude of the elder, and the tears of the younger, Dunbars were necessarily unavailing. With danger and bitter enemies in England, with security and Elizabeth Canning in America, our heroine could have no hesitation with regard to the course she ought to follow. She remained fixed in her original determination ; but yet the kindness and interest which these honest people exhibited for her could not fail of adding another to the many causes of regret which already existed in carrying that determination into execution. No suspicion had ever entered into the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar, that, in the person of the fair and gentle widow, Mrs. Eliza L.own, whom they and their family cherished with so sincere an affection, they were affording concealment to the notorious culprit for whose apprehension a large reward was offered ; whom, under the designation of Mother Brownrigge, every tongue was talking of with execration ; with the account of whose barbarity the newspapers were teeming ; and whose features and manners, portrayed by the hand of prejudice, were represented as indicating, in distinct and not-to-be-mistaken characters, the peculiar ferociousness of her disposition. In conversing with our heroine, her host and hostess had often enlarged upon the recent events at Islington, and expressed their abhorrence of the treatment which the little apprentices had received at the hands of their mistress ; but not a word or look had ever evinced that their lodger entertained the shghtest knowledge or interest in the fate of the person they condemned 4^4 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix She had sometunes, indeed, attempted to mitigate the rancour of their feelings and expressions, by suggesting general arguments of charity, and reminding her friends that, according to the laws of England, every individual, of whatever crime accused, was considered as innocent till he or she was proved to be guilty ; but this mild and temperate view of the subject occasioned no surprise, as being in harmony with her constant practice ; and besides she at the same time acknowledged that, if the facts were true, their indignation was completely justified. What, then, must have been the astonishment of these worthy people when, on the morning of Sunday, the l6th of August, about half-past ten, as the bells were ringing for church, and the whole family were preparing to obey the summons, a post-chaise drove up to the door, and they saw the fair object of their attachment suddenly seized by a couple of tip-staves, under the name of Elizabeth Brownrigge, and ordered to mount the carriage and accompany them to town. The scene existed but for a moment — a brief and agitated moment. Mr. Dunbar was in tears — Mrs. Dunbar in hysterics — Mary Jones fainted away ; the elder children clung to Elizabeth and screamed — the younger children ran to their mother and squalled ; — Elizabeth, the incomparable Elizabeth ! was the only one whose constancy was not disturbed. Releasing herself from the friendly embraces that delayed her movements, and casting on the assembled group a smile of inexpressible tenderness and pity, she said: "Allow me, Mr. Dunbar, to offer you thanks for the many civilities which I have received during the time of my residence under your roof. Have the kindness also to express my obligations to the worthy lady your wife, when those distressing paroxysms, of which I have been the unintentional cause, are over. Pray add to the many favours for which I am already your debtor, by informing my servant, when she comes to herself, that I shall expect her attendance in London. My young friends, I hope to hear of your continuing to be good children, and proving the source of happiness and credit to your parents. Adieu ! Gentle- men, I am ready to attend you." And, with these words, one of the sheriffs officers having entered before her, she placed her foot upon the steps of the post-chaise, and ascended the vehicle with her accustomed air of calm and dignified composure. The magnanimity of her soul, like Mr. Smeaton's pharos on the Eddystone, was fixed upon the rock of the soundest principles, and diffused a light around, for the guidance of those who were beating the waves upon the dark and troubled ocean of adversity, Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Talc 485 but was itself unshaken by the storm. The other bailiff jumped in after her, the door of the carriage was closed, and they started on the road to London as fast as four horses could carry them. Elizabeth was immediately conveyed to Newgate, where Mary Jones jomed her in the course of the day. She would admit no other person to her presence. Alphonso and his father repeatedly solicited an mterview ; but though our heroine tempered her refusal by the most considerate expressions of her esteem and regard, she could not be prevailed upon to accede to their requests. The grounds of her objection were two-fold. In the first place, from the prejudices excited against her in the public mind, she felt convinced that an impartial judge and jury could never be assembled for the trial of her cause ; and therefore, as her con- demnation was certain, the meeting her friends again could prove neither more nor less than a vain renewal of the misery of parting from them. And, in the second place, limited as she was, during her residence in Newgate, to the use of a single apartment, she had no chamber but the one in which she slept for the reception of her guests ; and the feelings of female delicacy pleaded, in confirmation of the conclusions of her judgment, against the admission of their visits. Till the day of her trial at the Old Bailey, attended only by Mary Jones, and excluding herself from all society except the stated and official calls of the chaplain, the fair and excellent Elizabeth adopted, as nearly as circumstances would allow, the same admirable disposition of her time to which she had been accustomed when inhabiting her own romantic bower in the village of Islington. She completed a large stock of baby- linen for the poor ; she perused and commented upon the principal new publications of the day ; and she composed an elaborate parallel between the characters of Socrates and Lady Jane Grey, after the manner of Plutarch. These are the two distinguished personages, in the whole range of authentic history, who in their strength of mind, purity of life, and extensive accomplishments, bore the strongest resemblance to herself; and to them, perchance, the attention of our heroine was more particularly directed in the quiet and retirement of her cell by the many points of similarity which subsisted between their destiny and her own. On Saturday, the 12th of September, Miss Brownrigge was conducted, at nine o'clock in the morning, from her cell at Newgate, to undergo her trial at the Old Bailey. The yells and hootings of the mob that greeted her were deafening and terrific ; but, prepared as the fair Elizabeth was for this display of misdirected 4^6 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix indignation, and sustained under it by the consciousness of innocence, the clamour of their insults passed- by her unregarded ; and even when on entering the dock the dense crowd collected in the court began to exhibit the rancour of their enmity towards her by hissings and reproaches, she did not deign to yield them any other notice of their contumely than a smile of the gentlest and most elevated compassion. Ehzabeth had requested her friends, as a last and especial favour, to abstain from attending this most momentous scene. Their presence, she was well aware, could not afford her any additional encouragement or support ; while the consciousness of the pain they were undergoing on her account, might have the effect of shaking her resolution and impairing her self-possession. Her commands had been attended to. Mr. Belvidere and Alphonso had taken their station at a neighbouring hotel, hoping against hope, that virtue might triumph over prejudice — that an acquittal might be the result of the proceedings — and that the sun of happiness might yet again shine full upon their fortunes ; but they did not presume to appear in the hall of the Old Bailey, in oppo- sition to the desire which the fair object of their interest and attachment had so touchingly expressed. Around her and before her, in the judge upon the bench, in the jury, in the witnesses, and in the whole congregated multitude, Elizabeth did not perceive a single eye that was not turned upon her with an expression of sternness and of loathing ; nor could she believe that a single individual was to b e found in the assembly who did not deem all further enquiry a mere form of supererogation, or who was not prepared, at once and unheard, to condemn her to the scaffold. Still her fortitude never for a moment failed her. As soon as the disturbance consequent on the entrance of our heroine into court had ceased, the trial commenced. Elizabeth pleaded " Not Guilty," but the plea was followed by shouts of exasperated derision ; and the judge, in commanding silence, seemed to par- ticipate in the sentiments of the multitude, while he checked the expression of them as disorderly. The depositions of the witnesses were quickly given, and allowed to pass unsifted by the salutary process of cross-examination. After Mr. and Mrs. Deacon, Mrs. Jukes, the master of the poor-house, etc., etc., had delivered their evidence. Miss Brownrigge was asked whether she had any witnesses to call, or anything to urge in her defence. She had been allowed a chair in the dock during the progress of the case against her. On being addressed by the bench, she rose slowly, Elizabeth Brownrigge ; A Tale 487 but firmly, from her seat, and while all was hushed around her, replied in the following words : — " My lord, if it were, my intention or my desire to influence the judgment of those on whom the determination of this cause depends, by any other arguments than such as may immediately apply to the facts of the case, and address themselves exclusively to the reason, I should, on the present occasion, attempt to deprecate the severity of my hearers, and conciliate their benevolence, by directing their attention to the age, the sex, the fortune, the well-known character, and the previous conduct of thf. individual who now appears in the degraded situation of a prisoner at your lordship's bar. But I have no such wish. I stand hore to vindicate my much-calumniated name, to rebut the imputaUon of a crime most abhorrent from my nature, to justify my pled, of ' Not Guilty ' ; and as far as in me lies, to nullify that unjust- sentence of condemnation which has already been passed upor my conduct, and which, deeply engraven by the iron pen of malice on the adamantine rock of popular prejudice, no testimony can ever effectually eradicate, and not even an acquittal at this august tribunal could have the power of totally reversing. But, hopeless as my case may be, — judged, as I already am, by the voice of public opinion, I disdain to have recourse to the vain arts of the rhetorician in my defence ; and, whether I stand or fall, my exculpation shall rest upon the simple foundations of truth and reason, and of truth and reason alone. " I am accused, my lord, of having whipt my little apprentice girl Mary CUfford to death. " Supposing that my heart was as insensible to the cries of infant suffering, and my moral principles as perverted as my enemies would represent, what motive could have induced the perpetration of so abominable an act of inhumanity ? What benefit could i derive from her decease ? They who impute the crime should find out in what manner I could be benefited by the commission of it. Has the whole course of your lordship's experience ever brought j-ou in contact with a culprit who was guilty of a gratuitous homicide, and who volunteered incurring the severest penalties of the law, without the prospect of gratifying some prevailing passion of our common nature, or securing to himself some anticipated advantage ? No such being ever lived. Your lordship's acquaint- ance with the ordinary springs and general motives of human conduct must convince you, that such an offender would prove a monstrous and unheard-of anomaly in the history of the human 488 Fraser's Magazine — Appendix racie. Yet, my lord, such is the unfruitful folly of guilt, such is the objectless delirium of iniquity which the witnesses for the prosecution have had the unblushing effrontery to lay this day to my charge. " My lord, I had no reason for desiring or seeking the death of the child ; on the contrary, it was for my advantage that she should retain her activity unimpaired, and her strength unbroken. Every accident that befel Mary Clifford was to my own especial injury ; for to what end was she bound my servant, but that I might profit by her services ? " The child is dead. Granted. But does it therefore follow that she must have died in consequence of a blow ? The deceased and Mary Mitchell, her fellow-apprentice, were, we learn, both con- veyed to the poor-house, terrified at the riotous attack which had been made by a band of misguided ruffians upon the humble dwelling of their mistress. May not the fright have been too powerful for nerves so weak as hers, and have produced the dissolution of the younger child, though the elder was strong enough to survive its operation ? Is death an unfrequent con- sequence of terror ? But, again, my lord : suppose that she did not fall the victim of her apprehensions, but that her end was really hastened by a blow, why should the chastisement which was dealt by the friendly hand of a mistress, with a rod, upon her back, be fixed upon as the cause, when it is notorious that the child had received many and very severe contusions on more vital parts of her body, inflicted by the stones and missiles of the multitude ? " My lord, this is not all ; the deceased was for several days exposed to the peril of the draughts, and pills, and lotions of Mr. Deacon. What reason have we for supposing that instruments, which have so often proved mortal in other cases, were wholly innocent in the case of my late unhappy apprentice ? " My lord, I have but one word more to add ; it relates to the extreme supposition that the child really suffered from the correction which I thought it my duty to inflict. Admitting such to be the case, is it possible that the voice of justice can attach the guilt of murder to my act, or the laws consider me as obnoxious to ihe. penalty oi max^^xl The chastisement which I dealt the child was dealt as lovingly as to a child of my own ; it was given after much deliberation, with feelings of deep regret, and with a view to her temporal and eternal welfare. Was I to blame, my lord, in administering such coiTection ? No ; my conscience acquits me ; and I am satisfied that your lordship's better judgment sends back Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 489 a responsive echo to that silent but most satisfactory acquittal. All errors of conduct are symptoms of moral disease ; punishment is moral medicine. I may, perhaps, actuated by too eager a desire for the rapid cure of my little and much-cherished patient, have dispensed my alteratives too liberally, and produced an untoward, an unexpected, and a most deeply-lamented consequence ; but am I therefore to be condemned as guilty ? In the analogous case of the physician, whose too abundant anodynes may have lulled the sufferer to endless slumbers, or whose too copious phlebotomy may have let out the fever and the life at one and the same moment from the veins, would this most harsh and unmerciful measure be applied ? My lord, you know that it would not ; and admitting the fact, which I most decidedly disbelieve, but admitting the fact of my having caused the death of Mary Clifford, as no malice on my part can be imputed — no object but her ultimate good presumed, — no motive but correction ascribed to me, I demand from the justice of your lordship and a jury of my countrymen — not as a matter of mercy, but of right — the same impunity in my case which . would be accorded, freely and unasked, under parallel circum- stances, to the medical practitioner.'' With these words, our heroine resumed her seat. The eloquence of her style and the forcible arguments of her defence produced a most extraordinary effect upon the audience. Not a single look or even murmur of disapprobation was again levelled at her during the period of her remaining in the Court. The summing-up of the judge inclined most favourably towards her. The jury hesitated in their decision ; and it was supposed by several who were present, and saw how far the sentiments of the jury had been conciliated by the powerful influence of her speech, that Elizabeth would have been acquitted altogether, but for a stratagem of Mrs. Deacon. This lady, who was still in court, perceiving the jury were in doubt, and anxious for the condemnation of her rival, suddenly screamed out that she saw the ghost of Mary Clifford, standing in a menacing attitude at the side of the prisoner in the dock ; and then caused herself to be carried out of court in a violent fit of hysterics. This event decided the cause. The jury were awe-stricken ; they came, at once, to a unanimous decision ; and the foreman delivered in the verdict, "GUILTY OF WILFUL MURDER." Elizabeth, as soon as the sentence of death had been passed, made her courtesy with grace and dignity to the bench, and the jury-box, and was conducted to the condemned cell, to await till 49° Fraser's Magazine — Appendix the following Monday her execution at Tyburn. With less than forty hours to linger in this world, she requested that no one should be allowed to intrude upon her privacy, and applied herself to the final arrangement of her affairs with that equanimity of mind which had distinguished her in every other period of her life. The cell in which she passed the time between the trial and her death has been consecrated by the muse of George Canning, in some most impressive lines, which may be found in the early pages of the poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. The morning of Monday the 14th of September at length arrived. I will not recapitulate all the formal ceremonies that preceded the departure of the procession from Newgate — the breakfast of the sheriffs and their friends — the throng of curious visitors who assembled in the press-yard, the leave-taking with Mary Jones — the solemn address which Elizabeth delivered to her fellow-prisoners — the mounting the fatal cart — and the funeral procession to Tyburn. The fair and innocent victim of popular prejudice was followed by a repetition of those yells and vulgar execrations to the place of execution, which had accompanied her, on the preceding Saturday, to the place of judgment. The train at length reached the spot which has been mortal to the lives of thousands. Elizabeth was still firm in the energy of her high resolves and her conscious integrity. Timothy Hitch alone was agitated and in tears. His hands trembled to such a degree, from the excite- ment of his nerves, that they could scarcely fasten the fatal cord about her neck. The awful moment had now arrived. Our heroine's last com- munication with the ordinary was over ; she had expressed the forgiveness of all her enemies — she had bestowed a last memorial of her regard on the gentle Timothy — and she was preparing to utter a few sentences of parting exhortation to the assembled multitude, — when, rising several inches above the crowd that pressed upon him, and immediately in front of the scaffold, pale with sickness and with grief, she suddenly caught a glimpse of Alphonso Belvidere. As their eyes met, he raised a phial to his mouth, and cried, " Elizabeth, my own Elizabeth, our love has been on earth ! — our spousals shall be in the grave ! We may not live, but we will die together ! " " No, Alphonso 1 for the sake of your father and of my fame," she exclaimed, "dismiss so wild, so inexcusable an intention. — You will not obey ! What ! How is this ? Good people, tear Elizabeth Brownrigge: A Tale 491 away, I entreat you, yon vile and deadly potion from that mad- man's hand ! " The people obeyed her mandate — the laudanum was dashed upon the ground ; but Alphonso's hand was immediately turned to the butt-end of another weapon of death, which lay concealed in the side pocket of his coat. — There was a pause. — The gaze of the mob was again directed towards Ehzabeth. The cap was drawn over her eyes — the final signal was given — the drop fell, and as it fell, the explosion of a pistol was heard on the spot where Alphonso stood. The attention of the mob was diverted from the struggles of Ehzabeth to the agonies of her lover. The ball had taken effect. He tottered, and sank in the arms of the by-standers, crying, as the last breath of life departed from him — ■" I come, love ; I could not live without thee in the world, and I hastened to join thee for ever in the tomb!" The reader may perhaps be anxious to know the fate of the rest of the personages of my historic tale. Old Mr. Belvidere died of a broken heart soon after the transactions which we have recorded, and left the amount of his large fortune in charities, with an annuity to an elderly resident of Islington on the condition of her seeing Elizabeth's lap-dog, Muggletonian, supplied with a kennel in the neighbourhood of the cottage that he was so attached to, and the daily allowance of sixpennyworth of cat's meat. Mary Jones, to whom Elizabeth had bequeathed the whole of her property, married Timothy Hitch, who withdrew from public life to pass the residue of his days with his young and beautiful wife, in a romantic retirement near the Lake of Windermere. The rapid increase of Mr. Deacon's practice enabled him to purchase a Scotch Doctor's degree, and to set up a snuff-coloured chariot, in which he was accustomed to drive daily about collecting the guineas of his patients for the greater part of the twenty-four hours ; till, at the age of seventy-two, he was found dead in the inside of it, with the last guinea he had received grasped tightly in his hand. Mrs. Deacon, who survived her much-respected husband nearly twenty years, succeeded to the immense accumulations which he had secured by the exercise of his profession. She had the chariot painted a bright yellow, and drove about in it nearly as many hours every day as its original occupant. Having attained extreme old age, possessing all her faculties to the last, with a large house, a good table and a hospitable disposition, she eventually attained the 492 Eraser's Magazine — Appendix designation of the " venerable Mrs. Deacon," and having lived the universal favourite of the neighbourhood, she died as universally lamented. Advertisement. — The Author of the foregoing Tale begs to state, that he is prepared to treat with any liberal and enterprising publisher who may be inclined to embark in the speculation, for a series of novels, each in 3 vols., 8vo, under the title of " Tales of the Old Bailey," or "Romances of Tyburn Tree," in which the whole of the Newgate Calender shall be travestied after the manner oi Eugene Aram. Letters (post-paid) addressed to X. Y. Z., 215, Regent Street, will receive immediate attention.