Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 568, February, 1863
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 568, February, 1863

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BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. DLXVIII.      FEBRUARY 1863.      Vol. XCIII.

CONTENTS.

Progress in China.—Part II., | 133
Caxtoniana.—Part XIII., | 149
No. XIX.—Motive Power (Continued).
Henri Lacordaire, | 169
Lady Morgan’s Memoirs, | 188
A Sketch from Babylon.—Conclusion, | 205
Our New Doctor, | 223
Politics at Home and Abroad, | 245

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET

AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. DLXVIII.      FEBRUARY 1863.      Vol. XCIII.

PROGRESS IN CHINA.

PART II.
THE TAEPINGS AND THEIR REMEDY.

It would have required many cycles of Cathay to bring to the councils of the Court of Pekin the enlightenment we have alluded to in our last Number, if the populations over which it ruled had not threatened to outstrip the Government in the adoption of European ideas. Petty sedition, which had always been acknowledged in China as the expression of the will of the people, suddenly assumed an alarming form, and threatened to subvert not only the present dynasty, but, what was of far greater importance, a much venerated constitution, the result of the collective wisdom and experience of twenty-five centuries.

The two Kwang provinces, Kwang-tung and Kwang-si, were the first affected by the leaven of European example, and were so the more readily because our violent acts, irrespective of any question of justification, were congenial to the predatory tastes of the inhabitants of that portion of China. That region, which contains from twenty-six to twenty-eight millions of Chinese, has always been the last to submit to the rule of a new dynasty, and the first to revolt. Six centuries ago, the Mongol conquerors of China had no easy task in mastering these southerners; and Arab historians, never very nice in their estimate of the value of human life, write in strong terms of the terrible means by which the subjection of Kwang-tung was accomplished. “The blood of the people flowing in sounding torrents,” was a strong metaphor applied to the Mongol conquest; yet, four centuries afterwards, the Manchous had to repeat the same frightful lesson before they could say that they ruled over the cities and plains of Kwang-si. Even then, large bodies of the disaffected fled to the mountains on the north, and to the sea on the south, and, as banditti or pirates, have never been entirely reconciled to any form of government. In the lawless seafaring population of Kwang-tung, our armed smugglers found willing allies against a weak executive, and the leaven of our example at length brought about a rebellion, which, under the name of Taepingism, has been the most appalling scourge that ever fell upon a nation. We will endeavour to trace its origin, analyse the character of its reputed leaders, and, from the testimony of impartial witnesses, show what Taepingdom has done during the fourteen years it has had existence.

The elements of revolution were, as we have said, always ready to hand in Southern China; and even before the establishment of our sovereignty at Hong-Kong, there were thousands of lawless Cantonese ready to work any wickedness, whether as land or sea pirates, it mattered little, and they were merely kept in anything like subjection by excessive severity on the part of the mandarins and the executive of China. We stepped in, destroyed the prestige of Imperial fleets and armies; and our smugglers, in armed merchantmen called opium-clippers, brought into utter contempt the police of the Empire, and showed the natives of all classes how to evade the payment of all dues or taxes. Smuggling and piracy were divided by too narrow a distinction for the appreciation of the Cantonese, and their defiance of the Government was actively supported by the opium-clippers. The visitors to our settlement of Hong-Kong might have seen fleets of heavily-armed native vessels, loading with salt, opium, and other goods, all of which were to be run in the teeth of mandarins, war-junks, or forts. Fast boats, each manned with a hundred men, flaunted their flags, and beat their gongs. They became quite as ready to fight the European as their own rulers. When these ruffians had no other work in hand, they cut off their own lawful traders, or the little coasters under European flags. Gradually increasing in numbers and audacity, they attacked outlying Chinese towns; and when their own Government offered a sufficiently high pecuniary reward, they were equally ready to assist Governor-General Yeh to exterminate us.

We do not care to pass any opinion upon the iniquity or otherwise of the opium trade. It may have been a political and commercial necessity; but we should be false to history if we failed to trace much of the evil under which China is now suffering to that melancholy source. Owing to the enormous profits made upon the drug as a contraband article, the native traders formed themselves into powerful guilds, with ramifications at Hong-Kong, Macao, and Canton, which actually guaranteed the success of smuggling ventures—a smuggling assurance company, so to speak, against the lawful tax-gatherers of China; and the writer has heard the officers and crew of more than one English opium-clipper boast of having protected these ruffians, and beaten off the Government boats. This defiance of the native authorities extended itself to the interior. Bands of armed men were led by opium-brokers through the provinces, fighting their way with smuggled goods. To this fact we have the testimony of the Roman Catholic missionaries; and indeed Monsieur Chauveau, the head of the Catholic mission in Yunnan, insists—and we believe him—that the Taeping rebellion was inaugurated by a large band of six hundred opium-smugglers forcing their way from Yunnan to Canton, and compelling some influential personages in Kwang-si to assist them. After the smugglers had retired, the authorities naturally called the gentry to account. The mob took part with their neighbours; a secret society gave its aid; sedition spread, and, like a ball of snow, gathered weight as it rolled through a turbulent province. Hither hastened, as official reports state, the soldiery and braves that had been disbanded after the first war with us; hither went the disaffected of all classes, the ruined opium-smokers and roués of Canton; in short, the rowdies of a population equal to that of the French empire in extent soon collected at the base of the Kwang-si mountain-ranges, and devastated the best part of that province. In the year 1850, these troubles assumed the distinct phase of rebellion. After shirking the difficulty for as long a time as possible, the ‘Pekin Gazette’ began to publish reports of the state of Kwang-si. It told how vast districts had been swept over by banditti, how the entire eastern circuit of the province “had been atrociously dealt with by bands, who carried banners inscribed with the information, ‘We are dealing justice on behalf of Heaven.’” These justice-dispensing robbers “fired the villages wherever they came, violated the women, murdered the well-disposed, and took care to carry off all guns, horses, and arms.”

Directly the ‘Pekin Gazette’ officially recognised the rebellion, the European residents, instead of sympathising with the Government and the well-disposed Chinese, at once testified their interest in the movement, and openly avowed a hope that by the swords of these rebels China would be reformed and converted. Each one had his reason for adopting what at first sight seemed so unfair a course. The European official was sick of mandarin arrogance; the missionary was wearied with the slowness of his progress in dealing with the stolid self-sufficiency of the Chinese character, and in trying to establish breaches in the obstinacy of his belief in Confucius and Mencius; the trader longed for extended commerce or larger profits; and our smugglers were at war, as well as the Kwang-si rebels or Canton pirates, with all law and order.

The Taepings were speciously represented as men battling for religious and political freedom; and a Swedish missionary, Mr Hamberg, claimed for our reputed converts the credit of having organised and guided the rebellion. Himself deceived by the cunning of the Asiatic, he put forth a strange fable, called the ‘Revelations of Hung-siu-tsien,’ and was thus mainly instrumental in enlisting on behalf of an organised system of land-piracy the religious sympathy of this country. Hordes of armed robbers, ravaging the interior of a distant country, because they said they believed in Heaven, were forthwith pronounced Christians, engaged in war upon heathenism. And, forgetting the first principle of our faith, that it is not to be propagated by the sword, we shut our ears and hearts against the wail of perishing multitudes, and dreamed that the light of the Gospel had dawned on Cathay. Years have elapsed since our credulity was thus imposed on, and from the experience gathered we are now able, we think, to tear the veil from the monstrous imposition.

The rebellion in Kwang-si first obtained political importance when it secured the adhesion of a few literary expectants for office, who had been rejected at the competitive examinations in Canton. By those examinations, every man in China may hope to reach the highest posts in the empire. The necessities of the Court of Pekin during the reign of the last three inefficient monarchs had compelled it to dispose of certain appointments by purchase. Every disappointed candidate at the provincial examinations traced his failure to this abuse, and a formidable body of ambitious, half-educated enemies to the State was thus formed. This was exactly the class needed by the hard-fighting brigands of Kwang-si and pirates of Kwang-tung to bind them together under a common banner, and they were not long in finding their way to a theatre where they might play at being kings, ministers, and generals to their hearts’ content.

For one of these disappointed candidates for office, named Hung-siu-tsien, and for a society of reputed converts at Hong-Kong, known as the Christian Union, Mr Hamberg claims the credit of the Taeping movement. They are perfectly welcome to the honour; but we, in the first place, impeach the testimony of the Chinaman who persuaded Mr Hamberg that the leader of the Taepings was a Christian convert; and, in the next place, we declare that the members of the “Christian Union” were as arrant knaves as ever imposed upon the good-nature of a confiding clergyman.

The Christian Union at Hong-Kong was instituted for the purpose of training Chinese in Protestant Christianity, and sending them as missionaries into the interior of the country. Mr Gutzlaff had the charge of this Union, and seems to have been utterly deceived by them; for we are assured by one who was immediately brought up amongst them as an Englishman studying the Chinese language, that they were dissolute characters, pretending to be converts for the sake of a livelihood. There was no duplicity they did not practise, and no lie they did not invent. Our informant one day entered the study of one of these missionaries, as he was poring over a long and well-written Chinese letter. His face was lit up with joy and interest, and he exclaimed, “Ah, when you are able to compose like that!” The young English student took up the letter, and found it to be from a convert named Wang-pin, giving an account of a mission upon which he had been despatched into the interior. It described his adventures and difficulties, his hopes and anxieties; how some officials had maltreated him; how he had escaped: it recounted labours amongst his brethren, and, lastly, the conversion of two women and a youth, and the joy with which he had welcomed by baptism such and such persons into the fold. The imposition was perfect; but, unfortunately, the writer had allowed himself to be seen very recently in Hong-Kong. Search was made for him. Aided by a policeman, the task of discovering Wang-pin was not difficult. He was dragged out of a brothel, where, no doubt, he had penned his interesting report.

Such profligacy was the rule rather than the exception amongst the Christian Union. At a recent meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Mr Lay related another instance of moral turpitude. It appears that the Union was supposed to consist of men from various provinces of China, and a number of Bibles adapted for circulation in their respective districts were regularly issued to these natives, when they were despatched upon their tours of duty. As there was reason to suppose that these Bibles were often returned to the office, and had to be paid for as new ones supplied from the Chinese publisher at Hong-Kong, a number of them were secretly marked with the names of the converts who were supposed to distribute them gratis in remote parts of the empire. Before many days, every one of these marked Bibles returned to the hands of Mr Hamberg, and it was then discovered that they had been sold to the Chinese publisher, who had again presented them as new Bibles. Of course this system of pillage was put a stop to, but we leave the reader to guess how many more frauds were daily perpetrated by such a set of scamps upon innocent-minded missionaries. We might fill a volume with further details of the tricks of the Christian Union, but we forbear.

Amongst these reputed converts to Christianity was one who can at any rate claim the credit of having so thoroughly deceived us, that even so recent a writer as Commander Lindesay Brine, of the Royal Navy, did not succeed in discovering the wolf under the skin of the oily Hung-jin. Mr Hamberg first met Hung-jin (or, as he now styles himself, Kan-wang) in 1852, at a time when the minds of our residents in China were much excited. Mr Hamberg was full of curiosity, Hung-jin all ready to gratify it. Hung-jin quite delighted the missionary “with the interest he displayed in Christianity, and his acquaintance with its precepts.” The rogue, be it known, had actually studied Christianity for two entire months, some years previously, under Mr Roberts, an American missionary in Canton. As a near connection of two out of three of the most prominent leaders in Kwang-si, Hung-jin could give information about them; and, still more to delight Mr Hamberg, he invented a fable he knew would be very palatable to the outer barbarian, and promote the fortune of himself and family. Hung-jin, having converted us to Taepingism, was much treasured by our religious societies in China, and every care and expense were lavished upon him to render him a fit instrument for keeping up the connection between us and the leaders of the Taeping movement. He and his brother, we know, were in the employ of two missionaries in Hong-Kong about the year 1853. Hung-jin was above the average of his countrymen in ability; and, under the care of the Rev. Mr Chalmers for three years, made considerable progress in secular studies. In 1854 he was baptised, and repeated unsuccessful attempts were then and subsequently made to send him back to his friends in Kwang-si and Central China. Our missionaries were almost hysterical over their treasure; they declared he had quite established himself in the confidence and esteem of the Shanghai missions; that he exhibited “much talent, evinced much sweetness of disposition, and, above all, had given undoubted proofs of the sincerity of his attachment to the Christian faith.” Early in 1859 he contrived at last to rejoin his relative in Nankin: a relative whom he had left years before as a mere conspirator in Kwang-si, he now found self-installed as an incarnation of the Deity in a yamun of Nankin. The discontented and unsuccessful candidate for literary honours of Canton was now the King of Heaven, the Tien-wang of Nankin. Hung-jin was welcomed as he deserved, for he had well served the King of Heaven by throwing dust in the eyes of the much-feared foreigner; and Hung-jin, the Christian impostor, stepped into royal robes as the “Kan-wang,” “Shield King,” or, in other words, the prop and stay of Taepingism; and, having shown such ability in bamboozling the foreigner, his especial province appears to have been to feed us with hopes of a general conversion and extension of trade, but to take care that we did not test their sincerity. Feeling that it was not yet time to throw off the cloak of piety which had hitherto served him so well, Commander Brine tells us that the Kan-wang wrote to the Rev. Mr Edkins, deploring his unfitness for the high post to which his distinguished relative had appointed him; expressing his own anxiety “to promote the diffusion of true religion;” adding, that he was more than ever impressed with the superhuman wisdom of the Tien-wang, or King of Heaven! Just after he had thus given utterance to these expressions of diffidence and zeal, our late pupil, now an assistant-king in Nankin, started on an expedition into Ngan-hwuy province, to spread the knowledge of Perfect Peace. A traveller who happened to be on the river Yang-tsze at that time, tells us that it was easy to trace the path of the mission by “the smoking and flaming villages.” Every impostor must, however, eventually be exposed, and so it was with the Kan-wang; for the missionaries, taking him and his relative at their word, thrust themselves into Nankin. Mr Roberts, the quondam instructor in divinity of the Taeping rulers, had preceded the Kan-wang, and the latter found Mr Roberts clad in regal robes, and holding some sort of office. About this time also (1860), the Rev. Mr Holmes visited Nankin; he came away shocked at what he had seen and heard. We shall avail ourselves presently of his testimony as to the character of the Taeping rebellion; but for the present we shall confine ourselves to the career of Hung-jin, or Kan-wang. In the ‘North China Herald’ of October 19, 1861, under the signature “Rusticus Expectans,” we next hear of the scamp. The anonymous writer turns out, by the evidence of Captain T. W. Blakiston, to be Mr Forrest, an interpreter in the British consular establishment.[1] Mr Forrest draws a vivid picture of the homes of the different Taeping-wangs. He tells us of his Excellency Le, who was building a gorgeous yamun, “upon which upwards of a thousand workmen were engaged—some building, some carving stone and wood, and not a few standing with a bundle of rattans in their hands ready to inflict blows on any one shirking his work. A great portion of the building is already completed, and the whole will be a good specimen of a Chinese yamun of the old style, with its network of beams at the gables, its large wooden columns, and fantastic carvings. Asking what the workmen were paid, Le laughingly replied,—‘You English pay for work; we Taepings know better. Is not ours a truly great Empire?’”

In front of the Kan-wang’s palace were two orchestras, painted over with dragons, diablerie, Chinese characters, and the beatitudes from St Matthew! The Kan-wang is, it seems, a hearty fat individual, forty years of age, and very intelligent. He can shake hands like an Englishman, and say, “How do you do?” Mr Chalmers’s care in his education was evinced by his knowledge of geography especially, and the number of books of reference by which he was surrounded.

“His sanctum is quite a museum in its way; a fine cheerful room facing a garden of flowers, with a large bed of Soochow manufacture for its principal article of furniture. The bed is covered with jade ornaments, and hung with rich yellow curtains. Tables line the sides of this chamber, and they are loaded with the strangest conglomeration of articles: a telescope on a moving pedestal, a gun-box, three Colt’s revolvers useless from rust, a box of percussion-caps, ditto of vestas, Windsor soap, a Woolwich manual of fortification, and a Holy Bible; any amount of Chinese books, five clocks, broken barometers, ink-stones, and dirty rags, fans mounted in silver, jade-stone drinking-cups, gold and silver platters, chopsticks, English port-wine bottles, and Coward’s mixed pickles. About the apartment were suspended an English naval sword, some dragoon-caps, a couple of Japanese knives, two French plates, an engraving of the Holy Well in Flintshire, and lying on the bed was a mass of silver ingots tied up in a cloth.”

Amidst this collection of loot, the Kan-wang could give a neat dinner and plenty of wine, for which he had an especial dispensation. Our informant then adds that Kan-wang is “a good fellow, and merely accommodates his Christianity to his tastes and habits”—an opinion in which we agree, only substituting the words arch-knave for good fellow. Hear, for instance, what Mr Roberts says of him, in January 1862:—

“From having been the religious teacher of Hung-siu-tsuen in 1847, and hoping that good—religious, commercial, and political—would result to the nation from his elevation, I have hitherto been a friend to his revolutionary movement, sustaining it by word and deed, as far as a missionary consistently could without vitiating his higher character as an ambassador of Christ. But after living among them fifteen months, and closely observing their proceedings—political, commercial, and religious—I have turned over entirely a new leaf, and am now as much opposed to them—for good reasons, I think—as I ever was in favour of them. Not that I have aught personally against Hung-siu-tsuen; he has been exceedingly kind to me. But I believe him to be a crazy man, entirely unfit to rule without any organised government; nor is he, with his coolie kings, capable of organising a government, of equal benefit to the people, of even the old Imperial Government. He is violent in his temper, and lets his wrath fall heavily upon his people, making a man or woman ‘an offender for a word,’ and ordering such instantly to be murdered without ‘judge or jury.’ He is opposed to commerce, having had more than a dozen of his own people murdered since I have been here, for no other crime than trading in the city, and has promptly repelled every foreign effort to establish lawful commerce here among them, whether inside of the city or out. His religious toleration and multiplicity of chapels turn out to be a farce—of no avail in the spread of Christianity—worse than useless. It only amounts to a machinery for the promotion and spread of his own political religion, making himself equal with Jesus Christ, who, with God the Father, himself, and his own son, constitute one Lord over all!! Nor is any missionary who will not believe in his divine appointment to this high equality, and promulgate his political religion accordingly, safe among these rebels, in life, servants, or property. He told me soon after I arrived, that if I did not believe in him I would perish, like the Jews did for not believing in the Saviour. But little did I then think that I should ever come so near it, by the sword of one of his own miscreants, in his own capital, as I did the other day.

“Kan-wang, moved by his coolie elder brother (literally a coolie at Hong-Kong) and the devil, without the fear of God before his eyes, did, on Monday the 13th instant, come into the house in which I was living, then and there most wilfully, maliciously, and with malice aforethought, murder one of my servants with a large sword in his own hand in my presence, without a moment’s warning or any just cause. And after having slain my poor harmless, helpless boy, he jumped on his head most fiend-like, and stamped it with his foot; notwithstanding I besought him most entreatingly from the commencement of his murderous attack to spare my poor boy’s life.

“And not only so, but he insulted me myself in every possible way he could think of, to provoke me to do or say something which would give him an apology, as I then thought and think yet, to kill me, as well as my dear boy, whom I loved like a son. He stormed at me, seized the bench on which I sat with the violence of a madman, threw the dregs of a cup of tea in my face, seized hold of me personally and shook me violently, struck me on my right cheek with his open hand; then, according to the instruction of my King for whom I am ambassador, I turned the other, and he struck me quite a sounder blow on my left cheek with his right hand, making my ear ring again; and then, perceiving that he could not provoke me to offend him in word or deed, he seemed to get more outrageous, and stormed at me like a dog, to be gone out of his presence. ‘If they do these things in the green tree, what will they do in the dry?’—to a favourite of Tien-wang’s—who can trust himself among them, either as a missionary or a merchant? I then despaired of missionary success among them, or any good coming out of the movement—religious, commercial, or political—and determined to leave them, which I did on Monday, January 20, 1862.”

We may add, that subsequent to the departure of Mr Roberts, the Taeping leaders signified that they had no farther need of missionaries at Nankin.

Let us now trace the career of the head of Taepingism, Hung-siu-tsuen, from the ‘Pekin Gazette’ and other documents.

In the year 1837, a man twenty-three years of age, whose family resided near Canton, went up for his literary examination—a competitive examination for office under his Government. He was plucked—it was not the first time. Perfectly satisfied with his own merits, he had assumed the title Siu-tsuen, or “Elegantly perfect,” in addition to the family name of Hung. As Siu-tsuen we shall speak of him. Between 1837 and 1843, Siu-tsuen was again repeatedly unsuccessful at the examinations; disappointment brought on brain fever, and for some years he was a dangerous lunatic. Recovering from this attack, he accidentally obtained possession of a number of tracts on Christianity by a native convert called Leang-Afah. They were in style and translation enough to puzzle a stronger brain than Siu-tsuen’s. Naturally excitable, he was now seized with a religious mania, and fancied he had personal interviews with the Trinity. He had witnessed the proceedings of Western nations against the Government of his country; and our combination of civilisation, religion, and war no doubt struck him as the right means for gratifying his spleen and his ambition. From a crack-brained enthusiast, Siu-tsuen sobered down into a conspirator against his sovereign and the order of the State. From 1843 to 1846, he was, we are told, busy inoculating a small circle of his immediate friends with his views. His disciples believed that he was in direct communication with the Deity, and he appears at first to have merely contented himself with the character of a second Moses. He formed a society which he called the “Congregation of the Worshippers of God” (or “Shangti”). Hung-jin, or Kan-wang, and another relative of Siu-tsuen’s, named Fung, likewise joined it. As the society increased, Siu-tsuen bound the members by oaths “to live or die with him, and to exert all their efforts to assist him;” and in return he promised to ascertain from heaven for the members “wherein lay their respective interests and profits,”[2] an essentially Chinese way of looking at Christianity. They soon worshipped Siu-tsuen as an incarnation of Shangti, or God. Both he and his relative Fung had ecstatic fits. The latter performed miracles; and like other arch-impostors, they passed unconsciously from deluding others into deceiving themselves. The disordered condition of Southern China favoured the propagation of any doctrines, however wild and bizarre; and the mountains and secluded valleys of Kwang-si afforded the necessary hiding-places for a sect whose first article of faith was disobedience to the Emperor. In either 1846 or 1847 Mr Roberts, residing in Canton, was so interested in the doings of Siu-tsuen that he invited him to stay at his house, and promised a kind welcome on the part of his brethren. Siu-tsuen, accompanied by his relative Hung-jin, accordingly went to Mr Roberts, and stayed two entire months studying Protestantism. Their conduct was exemplary, but Mr Roberts did not feel justified in baptising the worthies before they left, which is just as well, for, in “the 3d month of 1848,” Siu-tsuen announced to his flock that “our Heavenly Father had come down into the world,” and on “the 9th month he was followed by the Saviour, who wrought innumerable miracles!”

About this time the plot of sending Hung-jin to the Europeans, and intrusting him with the office of misleading us as to the real character of the intended insurrection, must have been decided upon, for we now find him in communication with Mr Hamberg. What occurred between 1850 and 1853, when Hung-jin rejoined his relative at Nankin, we will condense in a few words. Siu-tsuen and Fung, aided by another disappointed candidate for office named Tai-tsuen, or Tien-teh, raised the standard of revolution, and declared openly their intention of subverting the present dynasty. Siu-tsuen styled himself the King of Perfect Peace, or “Tae-ping-wang,” and nominated the other two as subordinate kings. They sacked several cities in Kwang-si, but finding the province getting too hot to hold them, they decamped with the loss of Tien-teh, their best leader, and crossed into Honan province, so as to strike the great water-communication which circulates through Central China. The Taeping leader, then captured, made a full confession, which, tested by the experience of to-day, is a most truthful account; and though vaunting the courage of his brother rebels, he distinctly says that, after all, Siu-tsuen was a mere profligate and winebibber, rejoicing in no less than thirty-six mistresses.

In June 1852, we find that the Taepings, ten thousand strong, had reached a large river flowing through Honan into the Yang-tsze. The water-communication once reached, they had but to embark, and the current would waft them to Nankin, and as far north as Tien-tsin.

By Christmas 1852 they had reached the commercial heart of the Empire in the great emporiums which lie about the confluence of the rivers Han and Yang-tsze. Two centuries of peaceful industry, of buying and selling, giving and taking in marriage, without one thought of a sudden and bloody awakening from a dream of luxury, were here ready for the strong-handed. The writer met a man who witnessed the destruction of the three great cities of Wuchang, Hankow, and Han-yang, the slaughter of the ill-starred inhabitants, and the conflagration of the vast fleets of junks and trading-boats there assembled. For eight days and nights the place was, he said, wrapt in flames—a perfect hell upon earth. The horrors of this scene were sufficient to frighten all the inhabitants of the lower valley of the Yang-tsze into subjection, but it did not save them from pillage and rapine. The officials were everywhere slaughtered when they dared to remain at their posts, and the Manchou garrisons, with their children and women, perished to a soul. Wherever the current of the river would float these Taepings, they conquered, unopposed. Nankin in its turn fell into their hands with frightful slaughter, and Chin-Keang, at the entrance of the Grand Canal, shared the same fate. Still aided by the water-communication, they aimed a blow at Pekin, and actually advanced to the head of the canal. Directly, however, the water-communication failed them, their progress was arrested, and they sustained a defeat that deterred them from a second attempt on the capital. There can be no greater fallacy than the notion that the stability of the dynasty has been really jeopardised, or that the raid of the Taepings towards Pekin was the result of organisation or military skill, instead of being entirely due, as we have said, to the immense water facilities at their command, from the very mountains of Kwang-si to the Tung-ting Lake, and from the lake to the Yang-tsze, and from it to Tien-tsin by the Grand Canal.

Siu-tsuen, alias Tien-wang, or King of Heaven, now sat (in 1853) in Nankin, and Taepingism was thoroughly established as an evil which it would require years to extirpate; and what was worse, damage had been done to the extension of Protestant Christianity in the minds of the better classes in China, from the artful manner in which Siu-tsuen had succeeded in dragging us in as his allies against the Government and peaceable classes of China.

That he and his emissaries did not confine themselves to converting sanguine and anxious missionaries, is well attested in the Blue-Book of 1853. There we find one of our consular body officially reporting:—

“All I have heard tends to strengthen my previously expressed conviction that the insurrectionary movement is a national one of the Chinese against the continued rule, or rather misrule, of the Manchous; and that the power of the latter is already irrevocably subverted in the southern half of the Empire. The interference of foreigners in their behalf would now only have the effect of prolonging hostilities and anarchy for an indefinite period; while, if they abstain from interference, it is highly probable that the valley of the Yang-tsze, with the southern provinces, will speedily come under the rule of a purely Chinese dynasty as one internally strong State, governed according to the old national principles of administration.”

Ten years have elapsed since that prophecy. The Manchou has had during that period two wars with Great Britain and France, and rebellions in every one of the eighteen provinces of China. Yet Pekin rules while Nankin plunders. The dynasty was not quite so sick as Mr Meadows supposed.

Following the weak example of the United States representatives in 1853, our authorities actually put themselves into official communication with the Taeping kings. The insolence of their communications was as gross as their mendacity.

Take the following extract for example, written by two subordinate rulers, Lo and Woo, who perhaps had formerly been of the Christian Union:—

“Well do we remember how, in conjunction with Bremer, Elliot, and Wanking, in the province of Canton, we together erected a church, and together worshipped Jesus, our Celestial Elder Brother; all these circumstances are as fresh as if they had happened but yesterday. We are grieved to hear that Bremer has met with a misfortune, and we can never forget the nobleness of his character. As to Elliot and Wanking, we hope they have enjoyed health since we last met—we feel an irrepressible anxiety to meet our old friends.”

So much for the dodge of Christianity, for the whole idea of building a church with Sir Charles Elliot and “Wanking” was evidently coined with the aid of one Mang, the teacher of Mr Meadows, and who, like all these teachers, was handing his master over as a sheep to be shorn by his countrymen. Then in another place a sop is held for the commercial interest:—

“Our Royal Master has received the command of Heaven to show kindness to foreigners, and harmonise them with the Chinese” [Mr Roberts’s testimony, dated ten years afterwards, to wit], “not restricting commercial intercourse, or levying transit duties upon merchandise.”

We may have done right, after all, in allowing these Taepings time to show by their acts how little they intended to fulfil their promises. In ten years they have utterly wrecked the richest portion of China. All the wonders of Chinese art and industry are levelled with the dust and destroyed. The Porcelain Pagoda—the Iron Tower—the Ming Cemetery of Nankin—the beautiful temples and valuable libraries of Golden Island, exist no longer. A district once teeming with hamlets and farms, rich in silks and teas, and all the products of the Flowery Land, is now a wilderness; and the Englishman who looked upon the wondrous scene of Asiatic civilisation and industry, as spread before him in the valley of the Yang-tsze in the year 1842, would never recognise it again in the famine-stricken desolation of to-day. Lest we should allow our indignation at such unchecked barbarism to carry us away, we will quote from two recent visitors, the one a soldier, the other a clergyman. Colonel Wolseley, in 1862, says: “Having had some little experience of the imbecility of the Imperial Government, I went to Nankin strongly prejudiced against it, and only too anxious to recognise any good which we might discover in its rival.... The Imperial Government, with all its weakness, is as far removed above that established at Nankin, as the true religion of our Saviour is above that set up by the impostor Tien-wang.” He confirms the fact that no man of worth or station in China has joined the movement; and after describing all the ruin, crime, and nastiness of the interior of the Taeping stronghold, he urges his countrymen to assist the better classes of Chinese in sweeping away the abomination, because it is the barrier to true progress in China.

Mr Holmes, whose zeal for the spiritual welfare of the Chinese subsequently led to his being slain by some rebels in Shan-tung, bears the following testimony to the hopelessness of anything good from Taepingism. After visiting Nankin in the end of 1861, he says:—

“I went to Nankin predisposed to receive a favourable impression; indeed, the favourable impressions of a previous visit to Suchau led me to undertake this journey. I came away with my views very materially changed. I had hoped that their doctrines, though crude and erroneous, might notwithstanding embrace some of the elements of Christianity. I found, to my sorrow, nothing of Christianity but its names, falsely applied—applied to a system of revolting idolatry. Whatever there may be in their books, and whatever they may have believed in times past, I could not escape the conclusion that such is the system which they now promulgate, and by which the character of their people is being moulded. Their idea of God is distorted until it is inferior, if possible, to that entertained by other Chinese idolaters. Their willingness—if indeed they are willing to receive Christian missionaries among them—is doubtless founded upon a misapprehension of their true character. They suppose that the missionary will prove an instrument which they can bend to suit their own purposes. Exceptions might, perhaps, be made in favour of individuals: it is of those who hold the reins of power that I speak.

“The city of Nankin is in a ruinous condition. It would be no exaggeration to say that half the houses have been destroyed. The country around is not half cultivated. Provisions are very scarce and expensive. Their trade is very limited. We observed instances in which workmen were compelled to labour without compensation. All indicates a policy that has little regard to the welfare of the people, or to any interests other than those immediately connected with war, and with the indulgence of their rulers.

“The present state of their political affairs would indicate that Hung-siu-tsuen’s career must close before the present dynasty can be supplanted. His horrible doctrines, which have served to break down every distinction between right and wrong in the minds of his soldiers, and send them forth to perform every enormity without remorse, have secured him the lasting hatred of the masses of the people. The scenes of internal discord which so nearly proved their destruction a few years since, would doubtless be enacted again, and upon a large scale, when, with their enemies vanquished, they came to a final division of the spoils.”

And if any farther testimony were necessary, we might, in the pages of the last Blue-Book for 1862, cull evidence enough to convince the most sceptical that the people, as well as the Government, are hostile to the robbers who pretend to be inaugurating a new rule.

This Taeping movement has never had at any time a national character. It has not been joined by any influential class. The Taepings have never organised any sort of government, and they have never held any ground but that on which their camps stood. Had they shown any disposition to gain the suffrages of the Chinese people, already dissatisfied with their mandarins, their chances of subverting the dynasty would have been great. They have not done so, and the consequence is, that the popular feeling is strongly against them. Hear, for instance, what thirty-two of the representative elders of the districts between Soochow and the Yang-tsze river say in a petition to our Minister, and then decide on which side our humanity should be enlisted:—

“Living to the east of the river, we have the misfortune to be visited by the murderously ferocious rebels, who have burnt our dwellings, carried off our people, dishonoured our wives and daughters, robbed us, and murdered innumerable of us, till the land is covered with corpses, and the roads run with tears and blood. We ourselves have suffered so in our persons, and our families overwhelmed with bitterness, refugees from our homes, that there is no name for our misery; our lives can scarcely be called our own. It seems that not one of us will escape. In desperation, therefore, we piteously implore the Minister, that in his great goodness, surpassing all things, he will pity us, and speedily rescue us, and will despatch his energetic soldiers to sweep the abomination out of the land, that our death may be turned to life, our gratitude be unimaginable; and unless his goodness does rescue us, there will be no escape for us, and the people and property on the east of the river will be destroyed, and the land left a desert, without hope of recovery. We implore him, therefore, the more earnestly, that millions of the poor people are lying, leaning on each other, in this deep snow, in misery unspeakable, waiting for his will.”

Could any words be more expressive? And it is not only the Imperialists who suffer, but there are tens of thousands who have joined the Taeping ranks from compulsion and to save their lives. These poor creatures are, if possible, more to be pitied than any other class. They stand between two fires,—the sword of the Taeping and the Imperial executioner. On their behalf we ought as soon as possible to place the Imperial Government in such a position that an amnesty could be safely granted, or arrangements made for allowing these compromised people to emigrate to Borneo, the Straits settlements, to Burmah, and elsewhere. The compromised might embark with their wives and families, and in less populated regions found colonies as creditable to their mother country as they would be profitable to European civilisation and commerce. This would be a triumphant solution of the Taeping difficulty; and we feel justified in hoping that the Court of Pekin may be persuaded to temper justice with mercy, inasmuch as one of its highest officers has recently recognised the evils of over-population, and legalised emigration from the provinces under his jurisdiction.

Our collision with the Taepings has been denounced as if it had been sought by the British authorities in China. But this is by no means the case. In 1858, when Lord Elgin ascended the Yang-tsze, the escorting squadron was deliberately attacked, although the smallest vessel was sent considerably in advance with a flag of truce flying, and a person was expressly sent in her to afford every explanation of our Ambassador’s motive in desiring to pass Nankin.

Both then and subsequently the Taeping chiefs were told that we entertained no hostile feeling towards them, and that so long as they respected British property we should be strictly neutral. In spite of these warnings and the promises of their leaders, the Taepings, not satisfied with the sack of the great cities in the districts around Shanghai and Ningpo, actually attacked our settlements. Necessity has compelled us to act upon the defensive. We had to drive them from the neighbourhood; and in order to prevent their starving out the vast numbers of Chinese who had taken shelter in Shanghai, we had to mark certain limits within which we would not suffer their presence. Such is the history of our “war” against the Taepings. Troops have been sent for from India, and Shanghai and Ningpo are virtually under the protection of the British and French forces. As a temporary measure this may answer, but it is beset with inconveniences and risks if prolonged. Temporary protection, as our Indian experience abundantly teaches us, leads to permanent occupation, and ultimate absorption of territory. The foot of a vigorous European nation, once placed firmly on the soil of an Eastern state, cannot be withdrawn.

Yet the present state of China leaves us no alternative. There are other important considerations upon which our space forbids us entering, but there is one we will allude to in passing—the evils inflicted upon the country by the influx of adventurers now swarming thither, who are amenable to no law, with no fortunes or characters to lose, but abundance of appetite to acquire. The misdeeds of these miscreants are a great obstacle to friendly intercourse with the Chinese people; and to watch and keep them within bounds, the operation of a high and powerful police is absolutely necessary. Our trade and property must be protected by some Power, or be sacrificed. How that protection shall be afforded is the problem to be solved.

This country is decidedly opposed to direct intervention, while the assumption of a protectorate over China by any other Power would be directly opposed to our interests.

It might be well, if it were possible, to leave the Chinese to work out their own regeneration; but unfortunately our commercial interests and revenue are so interwoven with the wellbeing of China, that we cannot afford to wait the time that might elapse before the restoration of order.

In respect to ourselves, were we disposed to look on and abide the issue, other Powers whose interests differ, and whose risks are by no means as great, would not refrain with such a temptation before them. We have already a glut of territory in Asia; it is quite natural that other European powers should crave an India likewise. In respect to China herself, she is fully alive to the necessity of calling in European vigour and intelligence, and has made up her mind to procure it; a step the natural consequence of contact with Europeans, and over which we have no control.

If the Governments of Europe were to agree to withhold the service of their troops, this would not prevent the employment of private individuals from Europe or America, and we have seen only recently how easy it is to evade the jurisdiction of the foreign consul by the simple process of hailing for a Chinaman, or from any State not represented on the spot. The Chinese Government can command foreign aid if so disposed, but irresponsible enlistment of foreigners is on all grounds objectionable and dangerous. It has been tried, and the results have been what might have been anticipated—waste, peculation, and danger to the State. What indeed is the experience of those European Powers who have at different times independently raised foreign legions?

The Taoutai of Shanghai long since tried the experiment upon his own responsibility of forming a European-Chinese fleet, and utterly failed, after spending millions of dollars. He bought up in 1853 a number of vessels, manned and officered them with all the dregs of our settlements; without proper status or discipline they were sent up to fight Taepings at Nankin, and of course ran away. Other mandarins hired lorchas under European flags to protect trade on the coast; these likewise turned upon their employers, and, instead of fighting pirates, frightened their employers. The last item of news from China is, that the crews of some hired lorchas had passed over in a body to the pirates, and that one of Ward’s regiments had mutinied after his death, and looted the yamun of a high official.

In our opinion, there is, in view of the interests of all European Powers, but one mode of giving aid to the Chinese Government—to wit, encouraging officers of character and respectability, subjects of those Powers, to enter the service of the Chinese Government.

We have with China an enormous and profitable trade; we want it guaranteed and developed. This duty properly devolves upon China, but she is as yet unable to discharge it. It is by the aid of men who possess both character and status, the guarantee of good behaviour, that she will acquire strength and knowledge to fulfil her obligations, and through their influence be induced to adopt the results of European science and skill—the steamship, railways, and electric telegraph—thus insuring progress profitable to herself and the world at large. This end, we take it, should be our object in giving help to China. She should not be strengthened out of hand, but by a slow process with a small force, whose action should be spread over a period sufficient to enable us to open the country, throughout its length and breadth, to Christianity and commerce.

Views in consonance with the foregoing remarks appear to have found favour at Pekin, but owing, doubtless, to the different views entertained by the Ministers of England, France, Russia, and America, the Regency has been dragged first in one direction and then in the other. Russia is evidently ready for direct intervention. In 1860 she persuaded the Emperor of China to barter square miles of territory for old rifles, and we hear that the Czar’s ships are ready to retake Nankin. The capture of that city is just now worth a province to the Court of Pekin. The French and ourselves have been flirting with the question, watching and checkmating each other, rather than promoting the real interests of China. Not, perhaps, because Sir Frederick Bruce has not been aware of what was really essential, but because he was apprehensive, probably, of compromising our Ministry in any direct line of policy. The result has been that small bodies of Imperialists have been drilled by English and French officers upon totally different systems, in spots scattered all over the sea frontier of China. Every one of these half-trained braves will be as dangerous as a Taeping, unless he be under efficient discipline and thorough control. No regular organisation has been attempted, and we cannot but fear that such trifling with a very serious question will lead to great evils.

As an instance, permission has just been given to all our military officers, of any stamp, to accept commissions in China. The officer of repute is thus placed on a footing with discharged seamen and marines now holding the rank of Colonels and Majors in the Chinese army, while the Chinese Government is unfairly left to discriminate between the good and the worthless. A surer method of bringing discredit upon ourselves, and involving us eventually in direct intervention, could scarcely be devised.

Surrounded with difficulties, Prince Kung appears to have rightly turned his first attention to the organisation of a maritime police, and given a willing ear to the counsels of the Acting Inspector-General, Mr Hart, supported by our able Minister. Instructions have been issued for a certain sum to be set aside from the customs revenue, and the chief of that department has been authorised to take such steps as would accomplish the desired object. These instructions are interesting, and evince a real desire to master the subject; whilst the admission that a departure from ancient custom is necessary, is highly significative of the dawn of progress in China. Prince Kung writes from Pekin in February last as follows:—

“The Foreign Office repeat the instructions they have already given the Inspector-General, to give effect to the arrangement for the purchase of foreign steamers with the utmost despatch. The orders to the various customhouses to get ready their quota were issued some time back; and these orders have been repeated, coupled with a caution against delay, as it is the Emperor’s particular wish that not a day should be lost. The Board understand that there are several classes of foreign steamers—the mail steamer, the merchant steamer, and the war steamer; that the first is very small, the second the reverse of handy, and that neither are available like the third for warlike purposes. They are further informed that the mail and merchant steamers are paddle-wheel steamers, while the war steamers are ‘secret wheel’ (screw) vessels. This is a point of great importance, to which they would draw the special attention of the Inspector-General. The money being now ready for transmission, there is no reason why there should be any, the slightest, delay.”

The despatch gives instructions upon other points, and concludes with again urging the Inspector-General to lose no time, closing with the words, “Hasten! hasten!!”

The Inspector-General, obliged by ill-health to return to England, was the better able to work out the desires of the Emperor’s Council, and put himself in communication with Her Majesty’s Government, with a view to obtain their necessary sanction before he could legally purchase a vessel or employ a British subject. He was, above all, desirous to insure the thorough respectability and good character of the European force destined to guide as well as aid the Chinese—at the same time, to take care that the help should be granted in a way to insure real progress at Pekin, and thus guard against a return to the old policy of exclusion as soon as the officials were relieved from the fears and difficulties of their present position—and to effect this in such a manner as should not supersede, but merely supplement, the action of the Chinese themselves. This maxim should ever be borne in mind in our dealings with China. To supersede the native authority, besides humiliating him, brings about no beneficial result.

Her Majesty’s Government met the proposals of the Inspector-General on behalf of the Emperor of China in an enlightened spirit, guarding themselves, however, carefully against any risk of being charged with intervention. Mr Lay offered the post of Commander-in-Chief of the European-Chinese naval force to Captain Sherard Osborn, C. B., which office, under the sanction of Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Board of Admiralty, he gladly accepted. The necessary authority from Her Majesty in Council was issued, authorising the Inspector-General Horatio Lay and Captain Sherard Osborn to purchase such vessels and enter such British subjects as might be necessary, without an infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act. With the permission of the Admiralty, Captain Osborn selected the following officers:—Captain Hugh Burgoyne, V.C., as second in command; Commander C. S. Forbes; Lieutenants Arthur Salwey, Noel Osborn, F. C. Vincent, H. M. Ommanney, Allen Young, and G. Morice; Mr Henry Collins in charge of the Paymaster’s and Storekeeper’s Departments; and Doctors John Elliot, F. Piercey, Fegan, and others, of the hospital arrangements. Officers of the highest stamp have been likewise selected from the mercantile marine, and no seamen or marines have been entered except such as could show years of good conduct.

It is, moreover, Mr Lay’s intention to enlist presently in this force the subjects of the other Treaty Powers, so as to render it a European Chinese force, in accordance with the principle successfully carried out in the customs administration.

As the funds arrived from China the vessels and stores were purchased. The Admiralty afforded the same facilities from our arsenals as would have been conceded to any other friendly Power. From the superabundant ships in our navy the Emperor of China was allowed to purchase the Mohawk, Africa, and Jasper, and they were re-named respectively the Pekin, China, and Amoy. There being no others available, and the private yards having been swept by the Federals of such vessels as could carry guns or serve for warlike purposes, it became necessary, in spite of the delay it would entail, to enter into contracts for the construction of three other vessels, which will be launched in March. The six vessels—three of them despatch-vessels fit to cope with the stormy seas of the Chinese seaboard, and the other three for river service—form as small a force as it is safe to begin with. It is intended that they shall carry about 40 guns, and be manned by 400 European officers and seamen, of the very best character. During the interval occupied in the building of some of the vessels and equipment of the others, there has been abundant occupation in arranging the details necessary for a sound organisation. A code of laws for the good order and comfort of all, based upon the customs of a European navy, has been compiled, so that Prince Kung’s seal may render it the future naval law of China. The scale of pay, rations, prize-money, and pensions for wounds, has been carefully considered, to meet the requirements of the special service. A signal-book has been adapted for intercommunication; and, strange as it may sound, even an ensign—green ground intersected by two yellow diagonal bands, and bearing the Imperial crest—had to be improvised, inasmuch as in China every armed native vessel flies her own colours according to the whim of her master,—an irregularity to which it is very necessary a stop should be put.

No one will deny that the task about to be undertaken is an arduous one; yet, after having carefully weighed all its difficulties, we cannot help feeling sanguine of a successful issue. A good maritime police is the secret of government in China. If the water-ways of China are in a state of security and order, peace will re-establish itself everywhere. The rivers, the seas, and lakes and canals, within the area of the Empire, cut it up into such sections that rebellion will be destroyed in detail, or rather starve, directly a strong executive is placed upon the Emperor’s waters. The Taepings and other banditti spread over the area they have devastated, by availing themselves of the extensive water-communication. The Government of Pekin, if it is wise, will pursue the same course in its measures of repression. The steam gunboat and the electric telegraph, by their very appearance in the disturbed districts, will re-assure those who have almost ceased to believe in any government, and frighten away the evildoers; whilst the fall of Nankin will break the neck of a scourge which is on its last legs. The fleets of piratical junks which now infest the coasts of China, and whose depredations are known only to the natives, will, we hope, disappear before the vigorous operations of a steam flotilla under the Imperial flag. These “vikings” of the East occupy every creek between Canton and the borders of Cochin-China; they have quite cut up the native trade of the whole seaboard, and occasionally pirate even European traders. It is mainly owing to these gentry that we have been unable as yet to establish relations and open a customhouse at Kiung-Chow in the island of Hainan, a point which we hope one day to see the centre of an enormous trade. Lastly, we see every reason to expect most important results from the information the officers of the European-Chinese flotilla will be able to gather of the interior of the Chinese Empire, and of the commercial advantages likely to flow therefrom. As employés, though merely temporarily so, of the Emperor, they will have access to every part of that vast county, and excite no fears or jealousy; their opportunities will be immense, and we have reason to believe that they will bear well in mind the duty they owe to their fellow-men of gathering and storing well every crumb of information, geographical and otherwise. What they may effect for the benefit of our commerce, we may estimate from the fruits that have already followed in the wake of their brethren of the navy of England who first penetrated to Shanghai in 1842, and to Hankow in 1858. There are cities as rich as the former, rivers as large as the Yang-tsze, and lakes equal to those of Canada, to be re-discovered. Those almost unknown provinces of the interior are not wastes profitable only to the geographical enthusiast, but countries equal to states of Europe, thickly dotted with cities, and densely populated, with a people second only to ourselves in commercial energy and respect for law and order. England for years has spent wealth, energy, and precious lives in opening China to Western influence and civilisation. To-day, her success is certain. The Government and people of China both ask us to aid them in their hour of trouble, and in return they will assuredly grant us that access and commercial freedom for which we have so long laboured and so often fought. The portals of ignorance and heathenism are opening. Shall we, who are in the vanguard of nations, hesitate? No—assuredly not! Our motto must ever be “Forward;” and will not all enlightened Christendom join us in wishing “God speed” to those about to put forth in this fresh enterprise to the land of Cathay?

CAXTONIANA:
A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.

By the Author of ‘The Caxton Family.’

PART XIII.

NO. XIX.—MOTIVE POWER (continued).

The next morning the sun shone into my windows so brightly that I rose at an earlier hour than I had been accustomed to do for months, and strolled into the gardens, interesting myself in considering the painter’s charge against dressed ground and Tracey’s ingenious reply to it. The mowers were at work upon the lawns. Perhaps among rural sounds there is none which pleases me more than that of the whetting of the scythe—I suppose less from any music in itself, than from associations of midsummer, and hay-fields, and Milton’s ‘Allegro,’ in which the low still sound is admitted among the joyous melodies of Morn. As the gardens opened upon me, with their variety of alleys and by-walks, I became yet more impressed than I had been on the day before, with the art which had planned and perfected them, and the poetry of taste with which the images of the sculptor were so placed, that at every turn they recalled some pleasing but vague reminiscence of what one had seen in a picture, or in travel; or brought more vividly before the mind some charming verse in the poets, whose busts greeted the eye from time to time in bowery nook or hospitable alcove, where the murmur of a waterfall, or the view of a distant landscape opened from out the groves, invited pause and allured to contemplation.

At last, an arched trellis overhung with vine leaves led me out into that part of the park which fronted the library, and to which the Painter had given his preference over the grounds I had just quitted. There, the wildness of the scenery came on me with the suddenness of a surprise. The table-land, on which the house stood on the other side of the building, here abruptly sloped down into a valley through which a stream wound in many a maze, sometimes amidst jagged rocklike crags, sometimes through low grassy banks, round which the deer were grouping. The view was very extensive, but not unbrokenly so; here and there thick copses, in the irregular outline of natural groves, shut out the valley, but still left towering in the background the wavy hill-tops, softly clear in the blue morning sky. Hitherto I had sided with Tracey; now I thought the Painter right. In the garden, certainly, man’s mind forms a visible link with Nature, but in those scenes of Nature not trimmed and decorated to the book-lore of man, Thought takes a less finite scope, and perhaps from its very vagueness is less inclined to find monotony and sameness in the wide expanse over which it wanders to lose itself in reverie.

Descending the hillside, I reached the stream, and came suddenly upon Henry Thornhill, who, screened behind a gnarled old pollard-tree, was dipping his line into a hollow where the waves seemed to calm themselves, and pause before they rushed, in cascade, down a flight of crags, and thence brawled loudly onward.

As I know by experience how little an angler likes to be disturbed, I contented myself with a nod and a smile to the young man, and went my own way in silence; but about an hour afterwards, as I was winding back towards the house, I heard his voice behind me. I turned; he showed me, with some pride, his basket already filled with trout; and after I had sufficiently admired and congratulated, we walked slowly up the slope together. The evening before, Captain Thornhill had prepossessed me less than the other members of the party. He had spoken very little, and appeared to me to have that air of supreme indifference to all persons and things around him, which makes so many young gentlemen like—so many young gentlemen. But this morning he was frank and communicative.

“You have known Sir Percival very long, I think?” said he.

“Very long. I knew him before I had left Cambridge. In my rambles during a summer vacation, chance brought us together; and though he was then one of the most brilliant oracles of the world of fashion, and I an unknown collegian, somehow or other we became intimate.”

“I suppose you find him greatly altered?”

“Do you mean in person or in mind?”

“Well, in both.”

“In person less altered than I could have supposed; his figure just the same—as erect, as light, and seemingly as vigorous. In mind I cannot yet judge, but there is still the same sweetness, and the same cheerfulness; the same mixture of good-tempered irony and of that peculiar vein of sentiment which is formed by the combination of poetical feeling and philosophical contemplation.”

“He is a very fine fellow,” returned Henry Thornhill, with some warmth; “but don’t you think it is a pity he should be so eccentric?”

“In what?”

“In what? Why, in that which must strike everybody; shirking his station, shutting himself up here, planning gardens which nobody sees, and filling his head with learning for which nobody is the wiser.”

“His own friends see the gardens and enjoy them; his own friends may, I suppose, hear him talk, and become the wiser for his learning.”

“His own friends—yes! a dozen or two individuals; most of them undistinguished as—as I am,” added the young man, with visible bitterness. “And, with his talents and fortune, and political influence, he might be, or at least might have been, anything; don’t you think so?”

“Anything is a bold expression; but if you mean that he might, if he so pleased, have acquired a very considerable reputation, and obtained a very large share of the rewards which ambitious men covet, I have no doubt that he could have done so, and very little doubt that he could do so still.”

“I wish you could stir him up to think it. I am vexed to see him so shelved in this out-of-the-way place. He has even given up ever going to Tracey Court now; and as for his castle in Ireland, he would as soon think of going to Kamtschatka.”

“I hope, at all events, his estates, whether in the north or in Ireland, are not ill-managed.”

“No, I must say that no estates can be better managed; and so they ought to be, for he devotes enormous sums to their improvement, as well as to all public objects in their district.”

“It seems, then, that if he shirks some of the pomps of wealth, he does not shirk its duties?”

“Certainly not, unless it be the duty which a great proprietor owes to himself.”

“What is that duty?”

The young man looked puzzled; at last he said—

“To make the most of his station.”

“Perhaps Sir Percival thinks it is better to make the most of his mind, and fancies he can do that better in the way of life which pleases him, than in that which would displease; but he is lucky in stewards if his estates thrive so well without the watch of the master’s eye.”

“Yes, but his stewards are gentlemen—one, at Tracey Court, is a Mr Aston, an old schoolfellow of Sir Percival, who was brought up to expect a fine property at the death of an uncle; but the uncle unluckily married at the age of fifty, and had a large family. Sir Percival heard he was in distress, and gave him this appointment; it just suits him. The Irish steward, Mr Gerrard, is also a capital fellow, who travelled in the East with Sir Percival. Being half Irish himself, Gerrard understands how to make the best of the population; and being half Scotch, he understands how to make the best of the property. I have no doubt that the estates are better managed in Sir Percival’s absence than if he resided on them, for you know how good-natured he is. A bad tenant has only to get at his heart with a tale of distress, in order to renew his lease for whipping the land on his own terms.”

“So then,” said I, “we have come at last to this conclusion, that your wise relation, knowing his own character, in its merits and its failings, has done well in delegating to others, in whose probity and intellect he has a just confidence, the management of those affairs which he could not administer himself with equal benefit to all the persons interested. Is not that the way in which all states are governed? The wisdom of a king in absolute governments, or of a minister in free ones, is in the selection of the right persons for the right places; thus working out a wise system through the instrumentalities of those who best understand its details.”

“Yes; but, talking of ministers, Sir Percival makes nothing of his political influence; he shuns all politics. Can you believe it?—he scarcely ever looks into the leading article of a newspaper!”

“To a man who has been long out of the way of party politics, there is not the interest in leading articles which you and I take.”

“I rather think that Sir Percival does not like to be reminded of politics, for fear he might be induced to take an interest in them.”

“Ah, indeed! Why do you think so?”

“Because, three years ago, Lady Gertrude was very anxious that he should claim the old barony of Ravenscroft, which has been in abeyance for centuries, but to which the heralds and lawyers assured him there could be no doubt of his proving his right. Lady Gertrude was so intent upon this that at one time I thought she would have prevailed. He looked into the case, invited the lawyers here, satisfied himself that the proof was clear, and then suddenly forbade all steps to be taken. Lady Gertrude told me that he said to her, ‘For my family this honour is nought, since the title, if revived, would again die with me; but for myself it is a temptation to change, to destroy the mode of life in which I am happiest, and in which, on the whole, I believe I am morally the least imperfect. If I once took my seat in the Lords, a responsible legislator, how do I know that I should not want to speak, to act, to vie with others, and become ambitious if successful—and fretful if not?’”

“So he declined. Well, after all, a life most in harmony with a man’s character is that in which he is probably not only the happiest, but the best man. Ambition is but noble in proportion as it makes men useful. But, from your own account, Tracey’s private life is useful already, though its uses are not obtrusive. And for public life, three parts of the accomplishments, and perhaps of the virtues, which make his private life beautiful, would not be needed.”

I uttered these defensive suggestions on behalf of my host somewhat in rebuke of the young relation whose criticisms had called them forth, though in my own mind I felt a sort of melancholy regret that Percival’s choice of life should be in walks so cool and sequestered, and the tenor of his way so noiseless: And did not his own fear to be tempted into more active exertions of intellect, if once brought under the influence of emulative competition, indicate that he himself also felt a regret, on looking back to the past, that he had acquired habits of mind to which the thought of distinction had become a sensation of pain?

When our party assembled at breakfast, Tracey said to me, “I had no idea you were so early a riser, or I would have given up my ride to share your rambles.”

“Are you too, then, an early riser?”

“Yes, especially in summer. I have ridden twelve miles with Bourke to show him the remains of an old Roman tower which he has promised to preserve a few ages longer—in a picture.”

Here the entrance of the letter-bag suspended conversation. The most eager for its opening was young Thornhill; and his countenance became at once overcast when he found there was no letter for him; as mine, no doubt, became overcast when I found a large packet of letters forwarded to me. I had left town long before the post closed; and two or three hours suffice to bring plenty of troublesome correspondents upon a busy Londoner. My housekeeper had forwarded them all. I think Lady Gertrude was the only other one of our party for whom the postman sped the soft intercourse from soul to soul. When I looked up from my letters, Henry Thornhill had already glanced rapidly over the panorama of the world, displayed in the ‘Times’ newspaper, and, handing it to the Librarian, said disdainfully, “No news.”

“No news!” exclaimed Caleb Danvers, after his own first peep—“no news! Why, Dr ——’s great library is to be sold by auction on the 14th of next month!”

“That is interesting news,” said Tracey. “Write at once for the catalogue.”

“Any further criticism on the Exhibition of the Royal Academy?” asked the Painter, timidly.

“Two columns,” answered Mr Danvers, laconically.

“Oh,” said the Painter, “that is interesting too.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr Danvers,” said Lady Gertrude, “but will you glance at the foreign intelligence? Look to Germany;—anything about the Court of ——?”

“The Court of ——? yes, our minister there is convalescent, and going to Carlsbad next week.”

“That’s what I wanted to know,” said Lady Gertrude. “My letter is from his dear sister, who is very anxious about him. Going to Carlsbad—I am glad to hear it.”

Meanwhile Clara, who had possessed herself of the supplementary sheet, cried out, joyously—“O dear Henry, only think—Ellen has got a baby. How pleased they will be at the Grange! A son and heir at last!”

“Tut,” growled Henry, breaking an egg-shell.

“So,” said Tracey, “you see the ‘Times’ has news for every one except my friend here, who read in London yesterday what we in the country read to-day; and Captain Thornhill, who finds nothing that threatens to break the peace of the world to the promotion of himself and the decimation of his regiment.”

Henry laughed, but not without constraint, and muttered something about civilians being unable to understand the interest a soldier takes in his profession.

After breakfast, Tracey said to me, “Doubtless you have your letters to answer, and will be glad to have your forenoon to yourself. About two o’clock we propose adjourning to a certain lake, which is well shaded from the sun. I have a rude summer pavilion on the banks; there we can dine, and shun the Dogstar. Clara, who happily does not know that I am thinking of Tyndaris, will bring her lute, Aunt Gertrude her work, Bourke his sketch-book; and the lake is large enough for a sailing excursion, if Henry will kindly exchange, for the day, military repose for nautical activity.”

All seemed pleased with the proposal except Henry, who merely shrugged his shoulders, and the party dispersed for the morning.

My letters were soon despatched, and my instincts or habits (which are, practically speaking, much the same thing) drew me into the library. Certainly it was a very noble collection of books, and exceedingly well arranged. Opening volume after volume, I found that most of those containing works of imperishable name were interleaved; and the side-pages thus formed were inscribed with critical notes and comments in my host’s handwriting.

I was greatly struck with the variety and minuteness of the knowledge in many departments, whether of art, scholarship, or philosophy, which these annotations displayed, and the exquisite critical discrimination and taste by which the knowledge was vivified and adorned. While thus gratifying my admiring curiosity, I was accosted by the Librarian, who had entered the room unobserved by me.

“Ay,” said he, glancing over my shoulder at the volume in my hand—“Shakespeare; I see you have chanced there upon one of Sir Percival’s most interesting speculations. He seeks first to prove how much more largely than is generally supposed Shakespeare borrowed, in detail, from others; and next, to show how much more patently than is generally supposed Shakespeare reveals to us his own personal nature, his religious and political beliefs, his favourite sentiments and cherished opinions. In fact, it is one of Sir Percival’s theories, that though the Drama is, of all compositions, that in which the author can least obtrude on us his personality, yet that of all dramatists Shakespeare the most frequently presents to us his own. Our subtle host seeks to do this by marking all the passages of assertion or reflection in Shakespeare’s plays which are not peculiarly appropriate to the speaker, nor called for by the situation—often, indeed, purely episodical to the action; and where in such passages the same or similar ideas are repeated, he argues that Shakespeare himself is speaking, and not the person in the dialogue. I observe in the page you have opened, that Sir Percival is treating of the metaphysical turn of mind so remarkably developed in Shakespeare, and showing how much that turn of mind was the character of the exact time in which he lived. You see how appositely he quotes from Sir John Davies, Shakespeare’s contemporary—who, though employed in active professional pursuits, a lawyer—nay, even an Attorney-General and a Serjeant; a member of Parliament, nay, even a Speaker, and in an Irish House of Commons—prepared himself for those practical paths of life by the composition of a poem the most purely and profoundly metaphysical which England, or indeed modern Europe, has ever produced: at this day it furnishes the foundation of all our immaterial schools of metaphysics. You will see, if you look on, how clearly Sir Percival shows that Shakespeare had intently studied that poem, and imbued his own mind, not so much with its doctrines, as with its manner of thought.”

“Tracey was always fond of metaphysics, and of applying his critical acuteness to the illustration of poets. I am pleased to see he has, in the tastes of his youth, so pleasing a resource in his seclusion.”

“But it is not only in metaphysics or poetry that he occupies his mind; you might be still more forcibly struck with his information and his powers of reasoning if you opened any of the historians he has interleaved—Clarendon, for instance, or our earlier Chronicles. I cannot but think he would have been a remarkable writer, if he had ever acquired the concentration of purpose, for which, perhaps, the idea of publishing what one writes is indispensably necessary.”

“Has he never had the ambition to be an author?”

“Never since I have known him; and he never could conceive it now. You look as if you thought that a pity.”

“Well, is it not a pity?”

“Sir,” quoth the Librarian, taking snuff, “that is not a fair question to put to me, who have passed my life in reading books, and cherishing a humane compassion for those who are compelled to write them. But permit me to ask whether a very clever man, himself a voluminous writer, has not composed a popular work called the ‘Calamities of Authors’?—did you ever know any writer who has composed a work on the ‘Felicities of Authors’? Do you think, from your own experience, that you could write such a work yourself?”

“Rhetorically, yes; conscientiously, no. But let us hope that the calamities of authors lead to the felicities of readers.”

Thus talking we arrived at the Librarian’s own private sanctuary, a small study at the end of the library, looking on the wilder part of the park. Pointing to doors on the opposite side of a corridor, he said, “Those lead to Sir Percival’s private apartments—they are placed in the Belvidere Tower, the highest room of which he devotes to his scientific pursuits; and those pursuits occupy him at this moment, for he expects a visit very shortly from a celebrated Swedish philosopher, with whom he has opened a correspondence.”

I left the Librarian to his books, and took my way into the drawing-room. There I found only Clara Thornhill, seated by the window, and with a mournful shade on her countenance, which habitually was cheerful and sunny. I attributed the shade to the guilty Henry, and my conjecture proved right; for after some small-talk on various matters, I found myself suddenly admitted into her innocent confidence. Henry was unhappy! Unreasonable man! A time had been when Henry had declared that the supremest happiness of earth would be to call Clara his! Such happiness then seemed out of his reach; Clara’s parents were ambitious, and Henry had no fortune but “his honour and his sword.” Percival Tracey, Deus ex machinâ, had stepped in—propitiated Clara’s parents by handsome settlements. Henry’s happiness was apparently secured. Percival had bestowed on him an independent income, had sought to domicile him in his own neighbourhood by the offer of a charming cottage which Tracey had built by the sea-side as an occasional winter residence for himself; had proposed to find him occupation as a magistrate—nay, as a commanding officer of gallant volunteers—in vain—

“He was all for deeds of arms;

Honour called him to the field.”

The trophies of Miltiades would not suffer him to sleep.

Henry had been moving heaven and earth to get removed into a regiment which was ordered abroad, not exactly for what we call a war, but for one of those smaller sacrifices of human life which are always going on somewhere or other in distant corners of our empire, and make less figure in our annals than they do in our estimates. Such trivial enterprises might at least prepare his genius and expedite his promotion.

“Mox in reluctantes dracones,” &c.

Percival, who was in secret league with Clara against this restlessness for renown which it is to be fervently hoped the good sense of Europe will refuse to gratify, had done his best, by a pleasant irony and banter, to ridicule Henry out of his martial discontent. In vain—Henry only resented his kinsman’s disapproval of his honourable ambition, and hence his regret that Sir Percival did not “make the most of his station.” Surely, did he do so, a word from a man of such political importance in point of territory would have due effect on the War Office. Henry thought himself entitled not only to a chance of fighting, but to the dignity of Major. All this, by little and little, though in her own artless words, and in wifelike admiration of Henry’s military genius as well as ardour, I extracted from Clara, who (all women being more or less, though often unconsciously, artful in the confidences with which they voluntarily honour our sex) had her own reason for frankness; she had seen Sir Percival since breakfast, and he had sought to convince her that it would be wise to let Henry have his own way. The cunning creature wished me to reason with Tracey, and set before him all the dangers to limb and life to which even a skirmish with barbarians might expose a life so invaluable as her Henry’s. “I could see him depart without a tear, if it were to defend his country,” said she, with spirit. “But to think of all the hardships he must undergo in a savage land, and fighting for nothing I can comprehend, against a people I never heard of—that is hard! it is so reckless in him—and, poor dear, his health is delicate, though you would not think it!”

I promised all that a discreet diplomatist under such untoward circumstances could venture to promise; and on the Painter entering the room, poor Clara went up-stairs, trying her womanly best to smile away her tears.

Left alone with the artist, he drew my attention to some pictures on the wall which had been painted by Sir Percival, commended their gusto and brilliancy of execution, and then said, “If our host had begun life on fifty pounds a year, he would have been a great painter.”

“Does it require poverty in order to paint well?”

“It requires, I suppose, a motive to do anything exceedingly well; and what motive could Sir Percival Tracey have to be a professed painter?”

“I think you have hit on the truth in his painting, and perhaps in his other accomplishments: all he wants is the concentration of motive.”

“Is it not that want which makes three-fourths of the difference between the famous man and the obscure man?” asked the Painter.

“Perhaps not three-fourths; but if it make one-fourth, it would go a long way to account for the difference. One good of a positive profession is, that it supplies a definite motive for any movement which the intellect gives itself the trouble to take. He who enters a profession naturally acquires the desire to get on in it, and perhaps in the profession of art more ardently than in any other, because a man does not take to art from sheer necessity, and without any inclination for it, but with a strong inclination, to which necessity gives the patient forces of labour. I presume that I am right in this conjecture.”

“Yes,” said the Painter, ingenuously. “So far back as I can remember, I had an inclination, nay a passion, for painting; still I might not have gone through the requisite drudgery and apprenticeship; might not have studied the naked figure when I wished to get at once to some gorgeous draperies, or fagged at perspective when I wanted to deck out a sunset, if I had not had three sisters and a widowed mother to think of.”

“I comprehend; but now that you have mastered the fundamental difficulties of your art, and accustomed yourself to hope for fame in the fuller and freer developments of that art, do you think that you would gladly accept the wealth of Sir Percival Tracey, on the condition that you were never to paint for the public, and to renounce every idea of artistic distinction? or, if you did accept that offer for the sake of your sisters and mother, would it be with reluctance and the pang of self-sacrifice?”

“I don’t think I could accept such an offer on such conditions even for them. I am now, sir, utterly unknown—at best one of those promising pupils, of whom there are hundreds; but still I think there is a something in me as painter, as artist, which would break my heart if, some day or other, it did not force itself out.”

“Then you would not lose your motive for becoming a great painter, even did you succeed to the wealth and station which you say deprive Sir Percival of a motive, supposing that, in accepting such gifts of fortune, you were not required to sacrifice the inclination you take from nature?”

“No, I should not lose the motive. Better famine in a garret than obscurity in a palace!”

Our conversation was here broken off by the entrance of Lady Gertrude. “It is just time for our expedition,” said she. “I think it is about to strike two, and Percival is always punctual.”

“I am quite ready,” said I.

“And I shall be so in five minutes,” cried the Painter; “I must run up-stairs for my sketch-book.”

“Oh, I see what is keeping my nephew,” said Lady Gertrude, looking out of the window; and as I joined her she drew my attention to two figures walking slowly in the garden; in one I recognised Tracey, the other was unknown to me.

“He must have come by the early train,” said Lady Gertrude, musingly. “I wonder whether he means to stay and go with us to the lake.”

“You mean the gentleman in black?” said I; “I think not, whoever he may be, for, see, he is just shaking hands with Tracey like a man who is about to take leave. By his dress he seems a clergyman.”

“Yes, don’t betray me—Percival’s London almoner. My nephew has employed him for seven years, and it is only within the last year that I discovered by accident what the employment is. He comes here when he likes—seldom stays over a day! One of those good men who are bored if they are not always about their work; and indeed he bores Percival by constantly talking of sorrow and suffering, which Percival is always wishing to relieve, but never wishes to hear discussed. You don’t know to what a degree my nephew carries his foible!”

“What foible?”

“That of desiring everybody to be and to look happy. A year ago, his valet, who had lived with him since he came of age, died. I found him another valet, with the highest character—the best servant possible—not a fault to find with him; but he had a very melancholy expression of countenance. This fretted Percival; he complained to me. ‘Dolman is unhappy or discontented,’ he said. ‘Find out what it is; remedy it.’ I spoke to the poor man; he declared himself most satisfied, most fortunate in obtaining such a place. Still he continued to look mournful. Percival could not stand it. One day he thrust a bank-note into the man’s hand, and said, ‘Go, friend, and before sunset look miserable elsewhere.’”

I was laughing at this characteristic anecdote, when Percival entered the room with his usual beaming aspect and elastic step. “Ready?” said he; “that’s well: will you ride with me?” (this addressed to myself). “I have a capital sure-footed pony for you.”

“I thought of giving your friend a seat in my pony-chaise,” said Lady Gertrude.

Percival glanced at his aunt quickly, and replied, “So be it.” I should have preferred riding with Tracey; but before he set off he whispered in my ear, “It makes the dear woman happy to monopolise a new-comer—otherwise——” He stopped short, and I resigned myself to the pony-chaise.

“Pray,” said Lady Gertrude, when we were fairly but slowly in movement along a shady road in the park,—“pray, don’t you think it is very much to be regretted that Percival should be single—should never have married?”

“I don’t know. He seems to me very happy as he is.”

“Yes, happy, no doubt. I believe he would make himself happy in a dungeon; and——” Lady Gertrude rather spitefully whipped the ponies.

“Perhaps,” said I, as soon as I had recovered the first sensation of alarm, with which I am always seized when by the side of ladies who drive ponies and whip them—“perhaps,” said I—“take care of that ditch—perhaps Percival has never seen the woman with whom it would be felicity to share a dungeon?”

“When you knew him first, while he was yet young, did you think him a man not likely to fall very violently in love?”

“Well, ‘fall’ and ‘violently’ are two words that I should never have associated with his actions at any time of life. But I should have said that he was a man not likely to form a very passionate attachment to any woman who did not satisfy his refinement of taste, which is exquisitely truthful when applied to poems and statues, but a little too classically perfect for just appreciation of flesh and blood, at least in that sex which is so charming that every defect in it is a shock on the beau ideal.”

“Nevertheless,” said Lady Gertrude, after acknowledging, with a gracious smile, the somewhat old-fashioned gallantry conveyed in my observations—“nevertheless, Percival has loved deeply and fervently, and, what may seem to you strange, has been crossed in his affections.”

“Strange! Alas! in love nothing is strange. No one is loved for his merits any more than for his fortune or rank; but men, and women too, are married for their merits, and still more for their rank and their fortune. I can imagine, therefore, though with difficulty, a girl wooed by Percival Tracey not returning his love, but I cannot conceive her refusing his hand. How was it?”

“You see how I am confiding in you. But you are almost the only friend of his youth whom Percival has invited as his guest; and your evident appreciation of his worth at once opens my heart to you. In the course of that lengthened absence from England—on the eve of which you took leave of him nearly thirty years ago—Percival formed a close friendship with a fellow-traveller in the East: Percival considers that to the courage, presence of mind, and devotion of this gentleman, a few years younger than himself, he owed his life in some encounter with robbers. Mr Gerrard (that is this friend’s name) was poor and without a profession. When Percival was about to return to Europe, he tried in vain to persuade Mr Gerrard to accompany him—meaning, though he did not say so, to exert such interest with Ministers as he possessed, to obtain for Gerrard some honourable opening in the public service. The young man refused, and declared his intention of settling permanently at Cairo. Percival, in the course of his remonstrances, discovered that the cause of this self-exile was a hopeless attachment, which had destroyed all other objects of ambition in Gerrard’s life, and soured him with the world itself. He did not, however, mention the name of the lady, nor the reasons which had deprived his affection of hope. Well, Percival left him at Cairo, and travelled back into Europe. At a German spa he became acquainted with an Irish peer who had run out his fortune, been compelled to sell his estates, and was living upon a small annuity allowed to him either by his creditors or his relations; a man very clever, very accomplished, not of very high principle, and sanguine of bettering his own position, and regaining the luxuries to which he had been accustomed, through some brilliant marriage, which the beauty of his only daughter might enable her to make. Beauty to a very rare degree she possessed—nor beauty alone; her mind was unusually cultivated, and her manners singularly fascinating. You guess already?”

“Yes. Percival saw here one with whom he did not fall in love, but for whom he rose into love. He found his ideal.”

“Exactly so. I need not say that the father gave him all encouragement. Percival was on the point of proposing, when he received a letter from Mr Gerrard (to whom he had written, some weeks before, communicating the acquaintance he had made, and the admiration he had conceived); and the letter, written under great excitement, revealed the object of Gerrard’s hopeless attachment. Of Irish family himself, he had known this young lady from her childhood—and from her childhood loved her. He had been permitted to hope by Lord ——, who was at that time in a desperate struggle to conceal or stave off his ruin, and who did not scruple to borrow from his daughter’s suitor all that he could extract from him. Thus, when the final crash came, Lord ——’s ruin involved nearly the whole of Gerrard’s patrimony; and, of course, Lord —— declared that a marriage was impossible between two young persons who had nothing to live upon. It was thus that Edmund Gerrard had become an exile.

“This intelligence at once reversed the position of the rivals. From that moment Percival devoted himself to bless the life of the man who had saved his own. How he effected this object I scarcely know; but Lord —— gave his consent to Gerrard’s suit, and lived six years longer with much pomp and luxury in Paris. Gerrard settled with his wife in Percival’s Irish castle, and administers Percival’s Irish estates, at a salary which ranks him with the neighbouring gentry. But Percival never visits that property—I do not think he would trust himself to see the only woman he ever loved as the wife of another, though she is no longer young, and is the mother of children, whose future fortunes he has, doubtless, assured.”

“What you tell me,” said I, with emotion, “is so consistent with Tracey’s character that it gives me no surprise. That which does surprise me is, not the consent of the ruined father, but the consent of the accomplished daughter. Did Percival convince himself that she preferred his rival?”

“That is a question I can scarcely answer. My own belief is, that her first fancy had been caught by Gerrard, and that she had given him cause to believe that that first fancy was enduring love; but that, if her intimate acquaintance with Percival had continued longer, and had arrived at a stage at which his heart had been confessed to her, and her own heart frankly wooed, the first fancy would not have proved enduring love. But the acquaintance did not reach to that stage; and I have always understood that her marriage has been a very happy one.”

“In that happiness Tracey is consoled?”

“Yes, now, no doubt. But I will tell you this, that as soon as all obstacles to the marriage were removed, and Gerrard on his way from the East, Percival left Germany and reached Lausanne, to be seized with a brain fever, which threatened his life, and from the effects of which it was long before he recovered. But answer me candidly one question, Do you think it is too late in life for him to marry yet?”

Poor Lady Gertrude asked this question in so pleading a tone of voice, that I found it very difficult to answer with the candour which was insisted on as the condition of my reply. At length I said, bravely—

“My dear Lady Gertrude, if a man hard upon sixty chooses to marry, it becomes all his true friends to make the best of it, and say that he has done a wise thing. But if asked beforehand whether it be not too late in life for such an experiment, a true friend must answer, ‘Yes.’”

“Yet there have been very happy marriages with great disparity of years,” said Lady Gertrude, musingly, “and Percival is very young for his age.”

“Excellent after-reflections, if he do marry. But is he not very happy as he is? I know not why, but you all seem to conspire against his being happy in his own way. One of you wants him to turn politician, another to turn Benedict. For my part, the older I grow, the more convinced I am of the truth of one maxim—whether for public life or for private—‘Leave well alone.’”

By this time we had arrived into the heart of a forest that realised one’s dreams of Ardennes; a young man would have looked round for a Rosalind, a moralising sage for a Jacques. Many a green vista was cut through the mass of summer foliage, and in full view before us stretched a large wild lake; its sides, here and there, clothed with dipping trees or clustered brushwood. On the opposite margin, to which, in a neck of the lake, a rustic bridge gave access, there was a long and picturesque building, in the style of those quaint constructions of white plaster and black oak beams and rafters, which are still seen in Cheshire, but with ruder reliefs of logwood pilasters and balconies; a charming, old-fashioned garden stretched before it, rich in the genuine English flowers of the Elizabethan day; and scattered round, on inviting spots, were lively-coloured tents and awnings. The heron rose alarmed from the reeds as we drew near the water; but the swans, as if greeting the arrival of familiar friends, sailed slowly towards us. Tracey had already arrived at the cottage, and we saw him dismounting at the door, and talking to an old couple who came out to meet and welcome him.

“I believe,” said Lady Gertrude, “that Percival’s secret reason for building that cottage was to place in it these two old servants from Tracey Court. They had known him there when he was a boy, and are so attached to him that they implored him to let them serve him wherever he resided. But they were too old and too opinionated to suit our moderate establishment, which does not admit of supernumeraries, so he suddenly found out that it would be very pleasant to have a forest lodge for the heats of summer, built that house, and placed them in it. The old woman, who was housekeeper at Tracey Court, is, however, as I hope you will acknowledge, a very good cook on these holiday occasions; and her husband, who was butler there, is so proud and so happy to wait on us, that——. But no doubt you understand how young it makes us old folks feel, to see those who remember us in our youth, and to whom we are still young.”

Our party now assembled in front of the forest lodge, and the grooms took back the ponies, with orders to return before nightfall. Tracey carried me over the lodge, while Henry Thornhill and the Painter busied themselves with a small sailing vessel which rode at anchor in a tiny bay.

This rustic habitation was one for which two lovers might have sighed. Its furniture very simple, but picturesquely arranged, with some of those genuine relics of the Elizabethan age, or perhaps rather that of James I., which are now rarely found, though their Dutch imitations are in every curiosity-shop. As in the house we had left there was everywhere impressive the sentiment of the classic taste, so here all expressed the sentiment of that day in our own history which we associate with the poets, who are our most beloved classics. It was difficult, when one looked round, to suppose that the house could have been built and furnished by a living contemporary; it seemed a place in which Milton might have lodged when he wrote the ‘Lycidas,’ or Izaak Walton and Cotton have sought shelter in the troubled days of the Civil War, with a sigh of poetic regret as they looked around, for the yet earlier age when Sidney escaped from courts to meditate the romance of ‘Arcadia.’

“I have long thought,” said Tracey, “that if we studied the secrets of our English climate a little more carefully than most of us do, we could find, within a very small range, varieties of climate which might allow us to dispense with many a long journey. For instance, do you not observe how much cooler and fresher the atmosphere is here than in the villa yonder, though it is but five miles distant? Here, not only the sun is broken by the forest-trees, but the ground is much more elevated than it is yonder. We get the bracing air of the northern hills, to which I have opened the woods, and here, in the hot relaxing days of summer, I often come for days or weeks together. The lodge is not large enough to admit more than two, or at most three other visitors, and therefore it is only very intimate friends whom I can invite. But I always look forward to a fortnight or so here, as a time to be marked with the whitest chalk, and begin to talk of it as soon as the earliest nightingale is heard. Again, on the other extremity of my property, by the sea-side, I have made my winter residence, my Tarentum, my Naples, my Nice. There the aspect is due south—cliffs, ranged in semicircle, form an artificial screen from the winds and frosts. The cottage I have built there is a sun-trap. At Christmas I breakfast in a bower of geraniums, and walk by hedgerows of fuchsia and myrtle. All this is part of my philosophical plan, on settling down for life—viz., to collect all the enjoyments this life can give me into the smallest possible compass. Before you go, you must see my winter retreat. I should like to prove to you how many climates, with a little heed, an Englishman may find within a limit of twenty miles. I had thought of giving Bellevue (my sea-side cottage) to the Thornhills, and delighted in the thought of becoming their guest in the winter, for aunt. Gertrude does not fancy the place as I do, and wherever I go cannot live quite alone, nor quite without that humanising effect of drawing-room scenery, which the play-writers call ‘petticoat interest.’ But when a man allows himself to be selfish, he deserves to be punished. Henry Thornhill disdains Bellevue and comfort, and insists on misery and bivouacs.”

“Ah, my dear Tracey,” said I, mindful of my promise to Clara, “Henry Thornhill is much too fine a young fellow to be wasted upon ignoble slaughter, and still more ignoble agues and marsh fevers. I hope you do not intend to gratify his preposterous desire to plant laurels at the other end of the world, and on soil in which it may be reasonably doubted whether any laurels will grow——”

Tracey’s brow became clouded. He threw himself on a seat niched into the recess of a lattice window, looked out at first abstractedly, and then, as the cloud left his brow, observantly.

“See, my dear friend,” said he—“see, how listlessly, for a mere holiday pleasure, that brave lad is running up the sails. Do you think that he would be thus indifferent if he were clearing decks for a fight, if responsibility, and honour, and duty, and fame were his motive powers? No. If he stayed at home inactive, he would be miserable the more Clara and I tried to make him happy in our holiday way. That which a man feels, however unphilosophically (according to other men’s philosophy), to be an essential to the object for which he deems it noble to exist—that the man must do, or at least attempt; if we prevent him, we mar the very clockwork of his existence, for we break its mainspring. Henry must have his own way. And I say that for Clara’s sake; for if he has not, he will seek excitement in something else, and become a bad man and a very bad husband.”

“Hem!” said I; “of course you know him best; but I own I do not see in him a genius equal to his restlessness or his ambition; and I think his wife very superior to himself in intellect. If, besides giving him your sea-side villa, you gave him a farm, surely he might become famous for his mangold-wurzel; and it is easier for all men, including even Henry Thornhill, to grow capital wurzel than it is to beat Hannibal or Wellington.”

“Pish!” said Tracey, smiling, “you ought to know mankind too well to think seriously what you say in sarcasm. Pray, where and what would England be if every sharp young fellow in the army did not set a Hannibal or a Wellington before his eyes; or if every young politician did not haunt his visions with a Pitt, a Fox, or a Burke? What Henry Thornhill may become, Heaven only knows; but if you could have met Arthur Wellesley before he went to India, do you think you would have guessed that he would become the hero of England? Can any of us detect beforehand the qualities of a man of action?—Of a man of letters, yes, to a certain degree, at least. We can often, though not always, foresee whether a man may become a great writer; but a great man of action—no!! Henry has no literature, no literary occupation, nor even amusement. Probably Hannibal had none, and Wellington very little. Bref—he thinks his destiny is action, and military action. Every man should have a fair chance of fulfilling what he conceives to be his destiny. Suppose Henry Thornhill fail; what then? He comes back, reconciled to what fate will still tender him—reconciled to my sea-side villa—to his charming wife—reconciled to life as it is for him. But now he is coveting a life which may be. A man only does that which fate intends him to do, in proportion as he obeys the motive which gives him his power in life. Henry Thornhill’s motive is military ambition. It is no use arguing the point—what man thinks, he is.”

I bowed my head. I felt that Tracey was right, and sighed aloud, “Poor little Clara!”

“Poor little Clara!” said Tracey, sighing also, “must, like other poor dear little loving women, take her chance. If her Henry succeed, how proud she will be to congratulate him! if he fail, how proud she will be to console him!”

“Ah, Tracey!” said I, rising, “in all you have said I recognise your acute discernment and your depth of reasoning. But when you not only concede to, but approve, the motive power which renders this young man restless, pray forgive so old a friend for wondering why you yourself have never found some motive power which might, long ere this, have rendered you renowned.”

“Hush!” said Tracey, with his winning, matchless smile—“hush, look out on yon woods and waters. Has not the life which Nature bestows on any man who devoutly loves her a serener happiness than can be found in the enjoyments that estrange us from her charms? How few understand the distinction between life artificial and life artistic! Artificial existence is a reverence for the talk of men; artistic existence is in the supreme indifference to the talk of men. You and I, in different ways, seek to complete our being on earth, not artificially, but artistically. Neither of us can be insincere mouthpieces of talk in which we have no faith. You cannot write in a book—you cannot say in a speech—that which you know to be a falsehood. But the artificial folks are the very echoes of falsehood; the noise they make is in repeating its last sounds. An artist must be true to nature, even though he add to nature something from his soul of man which nature cannot give in her representations of truth. Is it not so?”

“Certainly,” said I, with warmth. “I could neither write nor speak what I did not believe to be, in the main, truthful. A man may or may not, according to the quality of his mind, give to nature that which clearly never can be in nature—viz., the soul or the intellect of man. But soul or intellect he must give to nature—that is, to everything which external objects present to his senses as truthful—or he is in art a charlatan, and in action a knave. But then truth, as Humanity knows it, is not what the schoolmen call it, One and Indivisible; it is like light, and splits not only into elementary colours, but into numberless tints. Truth with Raffaelle is not the same as truth with Titian; truth with Shakespeare is not the same as truth with Milton; truth with St Xavier is not the same as truth with Luther; truth with Pitt is not the same as truth with Fox. Each man takes from life his favourite truth, as each man takes from light his favourite colour.”

“Bravo!” cried Tracey, clapping his hands.

“Why bravo?” said I, testily. “Can the definition I hazard be construed into a defence of what I presume to be your view of the individual allegiance which each man owes to truth as he conceives it? No; for each man is bound to support and illustrate, with all his power, truth as truth seems to him, Raffaelle as Raffaelle, Titian as Titian, Shakespeare as Shakespeare, Milton as Milton, Pitt as Pitt, Fox as Fox. And the man who says, ‘I see truth in my own way, and I do not care to serve her cause;’ who, when Nature herself, ever moving, ever active, exhorts him to bestir himself for the truth he surveys, and to animate that truth with his own life and deed, shrugs his shoulder, and cries ‘Cui bono?’—that man, my dear Tracey, may talk very finely about despising renown, but in reality he shuffles off duty. Pardon me; I am thinking of you. I would take your part against others; but as friend to friend, and to your own face, I condemn you.”

To this discourteous speech Tracey was about to reply, when Lady Gertrude and Clara Thornhill entered the room to tell us that the boat was ready, and that we had less than two hours for aquatic adventure, as we were to dine at five.

“I am not sorry to have a little time to think over my answer to those reproaches which are compliments on the lips of friends,” said Tracey to me, resting his arm on my shoulder; and in a few minutes more we were gliding over the lake, with a gentle breeze from the hills, just lively enough to fill the sail. Clara, bewitchingest of those womanliest women who unfairly enthral and subdue us, while we not only know that their whole hearts are given to another, but love and respect them the more for it,—Clara nestled herself by my side. And I had not even the satisfaction of thinking that that infamous Henry was jealous. He did indeed once or twice pause from his nautical duties to vouchsafe us a scowl; but it was sufficiently evident that the monster was only angry because he knew that Clara loved him so well, that she was seeking to enlist me on her side against his abominable ambition of learning the art of homicide.

“Well,” whispered Clara to me—“well, you have spoken to Sir Percival!”

“Alas, yes! and in vain. He thinks that for your sake Henry must fulfil that dream of heroism, which perhaps first won your heart to him. Women very naturally love heroes; but then they must pay the tax for that noble attachment. Henry must become the glory of his country, and the major of a regiment in active service. My dear child—I mean, my dear Mrs Thornhill—don’t cry; be a hero’s wife! Tracey has convinced me that Henry is right; and my firm belief is that the chief motive which makes Henry covet laurels is to lay them at your feet.”

“The darling!” murmured Clara.

“You see your parents very naturally wished you to make a better worldly marriage. That difficulty was smoothed over, not by the merits of Henry, but the money of Sir Percival Tracey. Could you respect your husband if he were not secretly chafed at that thought? He desires to lift himself up to you even in your parents’ eyes, not by a miserable pecuniary settlement effected through a kinsman, but by his own deeds. Oppose that, and you humiliate him. Never humiliate a husband. Yield to it, and you win his heart and his gratitude for ever. Man must never be put into an inferior position to his helpmate. Is not that true? Thank you, my child—(come, the word is out)—for that pressure of my hand. You understand us men. Let Henry leave you, sure that his name will be mentioned with praise in his commanding officer’s report after some gallant action, looking forward to the day when, in command himself, Parliament shall vote him its thanks, and his sovereign award him her honours; and your Henry, as you cling in pride to his breast, shall whisper in words only heard by you—‘Wife mine, your parents are not ashamed of me now! All this is your work! all results from the yearning desire to show that the man whom you had singled out from the world was not unworthy of your love!’”

“But Henry does not say those pretty things,” sighed Clara, half smiling, half weeping.

“Say them? In words, of course not. What man, and especially what Englishman, does say pretty things? It is only authors, who are the interpreters of hearts, that say what lovers and heroes feel. But a look says to the beloved one more than authors can put into words. Henry’s look will tell you what you, his own, his wife, have been to him in the bivouac, in the battle; and you will love and reverence him the more because he does not say the pretty things into which I mince and sentimentalise the calm Englishman’s grand, silent, heartfelt combination of love with duty and with honour. My dear Clara, I speak to you as I would to my own daughter. Let your young soldier go. You and I indeed—the woman and the civilian—may talk as we will of distinctions between the defence of the island and the preservation of the empire. But a soldier is with his country’s flag wherever it is placed—whether in the wilds of Caffraria or on the cliffs of Dover. Clara, am I not right? Yes! you again press my hand. After all, there is not a noble beat in the heart of man which does not vibrate more nobly still in the heart of the wife who loves him!”

Just at this time our little anchor dropped on a fairy island. There was as much bustle on board as if we had discovered a new Columbia. We landed for a few minutes to enjoy a glorious view of the lake, to which this island was the centre, and explore a curious cave, which, according to tradition, had been the dwelling of some unsocial anchorite in Gothic days. The rocky walls of this cell were now inscribed with the names or initials of summer holiday visitors from provincial towns.

“See,” said the Painter, “how instinctive to man is the desire to leave some memorial of himself wherever he has been.”

“Do you acknowledge then,” said Tracey, “that the instinct which roused Joseph Higgins to carve on the rock, for the benefit of distant ages, the fact, that in the year 1837 he visited this spot in company with ‘Martha Brown,’ is but a family branch of the same instinct which makes genius desire to write its name on the ‘flammantia mœnia mundi?’”

“Perhaps,” replied the Painter, “the instinct is the same; but if it be so, that truth would not debase and vulgarise the yearning of genius—it would rather elevate and poetise the desire of Joseph Higgins.”

“Well answered,” said I. “Has any one present a knife that he will not mind blunting? if so, I should like to carve my name under that of Joseph Higgins. It is something to leave a trace of one’s whereabout twenty years hence, even in the rock of this lonely cave.”

Henry produced the knife, and I carved my name under that of Joseph Higgins, with the date, and these words—“A Summer Holiday.” “I have not had many holidays,” said I, “since I left school; let me preserve one from oblivion.” I passed the knife to Tracey.

“Nay,” said he, laughing, “I have no motive strong enough to induce me to take the trouble. I have no special holiday to record—my life is all holiday.”

We re-entered our vessel, and drifted along the lake—the Painter jotting down hints of scenery in his sketch-book, and Percival reading to us aloud from a volume of Robert Browning’s Poems which he had brought with him. He was a great admirer of that poet, and was bent upon making Clara share his own enthusiasm. Certainly he read well, and the poems he selected seemed in harmony with the scene; for there is in Robert Browning a certain freshness and freedom of music, and a certain suggestiveness of quiet thought reflected from natural images, which fit him to be read out of doors, in English landscapes, on summer days.

When we returned from our cruise, we found our rural banquet awaiting us. We were served under an awning suspended from the trunks of two mighty elms, whose branches overhung the water. Lady Gertrude had not exaggerated the culinary skill of the ci-devant housekeeper. What with the fish from the lake, various sorts, dressed in different ways, probably from receipts as old as the monastic days in which fresh-water fishes received the honours due to them—what with some excellent poultry, which, kept in that wild place, seemed to have acquired a finer flavour than farmyard coops bestow—and what with fruits, not rendered malefic by walls of pastry—the repast would have satisfied more refined epicures than we were. Cool, light, sparkling wines, innocent as those which Horace promised to Tyndaris, circled freely. All of us became mirthful, even Clara—all of us except Henry, who still looked as if he were wasting time; and the Painter, who became somewhat too seriously obtrusive of his art, and could with difficulty be kept from merging the whole conversation into criticisms on the landscape effects of Gainsborough contrasted with those of Claude.

After dinner we quietly settled ourselves to our several amusements—Lady Gertrude to some notable piece of female work. Clara, after playing us a few airs on her lute, possessed herself of Tracey’s volume of Browning, and pretended to read. The Painter flung himself on the grass, and contemplated with an artist’s eye the curves in the bank, and the lengthening shadows that crept over the still waters. Henry, ever restless, wandered away with a rod in his hand towards a distant gravelly creek, in which the old man at the lodge assured us he had seen perch of three pounds weight.

The Librarian alone remained seated at the table, finishing very slowly his bottle of claret, and apparently preparing himself for a peaceful slumber.

Tracey and I strolled along the margin of the lake, the swans following us as we walked: they were old friends of his.

“So,” said Tracey at last, “you think that my course of life has not been a wise one.”

“If all men lived like you, it might be very well for a paradise, but very bad for the world we dwell in.”

“Possibly; but it would be very bad for the world we dwell in if the restless spirits were not in some degree kept in check by the calm ones. What a miserable, unsafe, revolutionary state of society would be that in which all the members were men of combative ambition and fidgety genius; all haranguing, fighting, scribbling; all striving, each against the other! We sober fellows are the ballast in the state vessel: without us, it would upset in the first squall! We have our uses, my friend, little as you seem disposed to own it.”

“My dear Tracey, the question is not whether a ship should carry ballast, but whether you are of the proper material for ballast. And when I wonder why a man of great intellect and knowledge should not make his intellect and knowledge more largely useful, it is a poor answer to tell me that he is as useful as—a bag of stones.”

“A motive power is as necessary to impel a man, whatever his intellect or knowledge, towards ambitious action, as it is to lift a stone from the hold of a vessel into the arch of a palace. No motive power from without urges me into action, and the property inherent in me is to keep still.”

“Well, it is true, yours is so exceptional a lot that it affords no ground for practical speculation on human life. Take a patrician of £60,000 a year, who only spends £6000: give him tastes so cultivated that he has in himself all resources; diet him on philosophy till he says, with the Greek sage, ‘Man is made to contemplate, and to gaze on the stars,’ and it seems an infantine credulity to expect that this elegant Looker-on will condescend to take part with the actors on the world’s stage. Yet without the actors, the world would be only a drop-scene for the Lookers-on. Yours, I repeat, is an exceptional case. And those who admire your mind, must regret that it has been robbed of fame by your fortune.”

“Flatterer,” said Tracey, with his imperturbable good-temper, “I am ashamed of myself to know that you have not hit on the truth. If I had been born to £200 a year, and single as I am now—that is, free to choose my own mode of life—I should have been, I was about to say as idle as I am, but idle is not the word; I should have been as busy in completing my own mind, and as reluctant to force that mind into the squabbles of that mob which you call the world: in fact, I am but a type—somewhat exaggerated by accidental circumstances, which make me more prominent than others to your friendly if critical eye—of a very common and a very numerous class in a civilisation so cultivated as that of our age. Wherever you look, you will find men whom the world has never heard of, yet who in intellect or knowledge could match themselves against those whose names are in all the newspapers. Allow me to ask, Do you not know, in the House of Commons, men who never open their lips, but for whose mere intellect, in judgment, penetration, genuine statesmanship, you have more respect than you have for that of the leading orators? Allow me to ask again, Should you say the profoundest minds and the most comprehensive scholars are to be found among the most popular authors of your time; or among men who have never published a line, and never will? Answer me frankly.”

“I will answer you frankly. I should say that, in political judgment and knowledge, there are many men in the back benches of Parliament, who are the most admirable critics of the leading statesmen. I should say that, in many educated, fastidious gentlemen, there are men who, in exquisite taste and extensive knowledge, are the most admirable critics of the popular authors. But still there is an immense difference in human value between even a first-rate critic who does not publish his criticisms, and even a second or third-rate statesman or author who does contribute his quota of thought to the intellectual riches of the world.”

“Granted; but the distinction between man and man, in relation to the public, is not mere intellect, nor mere knowledge; it is in something else. What is it?”

“Dr Arnold, the schoolmaster, said, that as between boy and boy the distinction was energy, perhaps it is so with men.”

“Energy! yes: but what puts the energy into movement? what makes one man dash into fame by a harum-scarum book full of blunders and blemishes, or a random fiery speech, of which any sound thinker would be heartily ashamed; and what keeps back the man who could write a much better book and make a much better speech?”

“Perhaps,” said I, ironically, “that extreme of elegant vanity, an over-fastidious taste; perhaps that extreme of philosophical do-nothingness, which always contemplates and never acts.”

“Possibly you are right,” answered Tracey, shaming my irony by his urbane candour. “But why has the man this extreme of elegant vanity or philosophical do-nothingness? Is it not, perhaps, after all, a physical defect? the lymphatic temperament instead of the nervous-bilious?”

“You are not lymphatic,” said I, with interest; for my hobby is—metaphysical pathology, or pathological metaphysics—“You,” said I, “are not lymphatic; you are dark-haired, lean, and sinewy; why the deuce should you not be energetic! it must be that infamous £60,000 which has paralysed all your motive power.”

“Friend,” answered Tracey, “are there not some some men in the House of Lords with more than £60,000 a year, and who could scarcely be more energetic if they lived on 4d. a day and worked for it?”

“There have been, and are, such instances in the Peerage, doubtless; but, as a general rule, the wealthiest peers are seldom the most active. Still, I am willing to give your implied argument the full benefit of the illustration you cite. Wherever legislative functions are attached to hereditary aristocracy, that aristocracy, as long as the State to which they belong is free, will never fail of mental vigour—of ambition for reputation and honours achieved in the public service. It was so with the senators of Rome as long as the Roman Republic lasted; it will be so with the members of the House of Lords as long as the English Constitution exists. And in such an order of men there will always be a degree of motive power sufficiently counteracting the indolence and epicurism which great wealth in itself engenders, to place a very large numerical proportion of the body among the most active and aspiring spirits of the time. But your misfortune, my dear Tracey, has been this (and hence I call your case exceptional)—that, immeasurably above the average of our peers, both in illustration of descent and in territorial possessions, still you have had none of the duties, none of the motive power, which actuate hereditary legislators. You have had their wealth—you have had their temptations to idleness; you have not had their responsible duties—you have not had their motives for energy and toil. That is why I call your case exceptional.”

“Still,” answered Tracey, “I say that I am but a very commonplace type of educated men who belong neither to the House of Lords nor the House of Commons, and who, in this country, despise ambition, yet in some mysterious latent way serve to influence opinion. Motive power—motive power! how is it formed? why is it so capricious? why sometimes strongest in the rich and weakest in the poor? why does knowledge sometimes impart, and sometimes destroy it? On these questions I do not think that your reasonings will satisfy me. I am sure that mine would not satisfy you. Let us call in a third party and hear what he has to say on the matter. Ride with me to-morrow to the house of a gifted friend of mine, who was all for public life once, and is all for private life now. I will tell you who and what he is. In early life my friend carried off the most envied honours of a university. Almost immediately on taking his degree, he obtained his fellowship. Thus he became an independent man. The career most suited to his prospects was that of the Church. To this he had a conscientious objection; not that he objected to the doctrines of our Church, nor that he felt in himself any consciousness of sinful propensities at variance with the profession; but simply because he did not feel that strong impulse towards the holiest of earthly vocations, without which a very clever man may be a very indifferent parson: and his ambition led him towards political distinction. His reputation for talents, and for talents adapted to public life, was so high, that he received an offer to be brought into Parliament at the first general election, from a man of great station, with whose son he had been intimate at college, and who possessed a predominant influence in a certain borough. The offer was accepted. But before it could be carried out, a critical change occurred in my friend’s life and in his temper of mind. A distant relation, whom he had never even seen, died, and left him a small estate in this county: on taking possession of the property, he naturally made acquaintance with the rector of the parish, and formed a sudden and passionate attachment for one of the rector’s daughters, resigned the fellowship he no longer needed, married the young lady, and found himself so happy with his young partner and in his new home, that before the general election took place, the idea of the parliamentary life, which he had before coveted, became intolerable to him. He excused himself to the borough and its patron, and has ever since lived as quietly in his rural village, as if he had never known the joys of academical triumph, nor nursed the hope of political renown. Let us then go and see him to-morrow (it is a very pretty ride across the country), and you will be compelled to acknowledge that his £600 or £700 a year of wood and sheepwalk, with peace and love at his fireside, have sufficed to stifle ambition in one whose youth had been intensely ambitious. So you see it does not need £60,000 a year to make a man cling to private life, and shrink from all that, in shackling him with the fetters and agitating him with the passion of public life, would lessen his personal freedom and mar his intellectual serenity.”

“I shall be glad to see your friend. What is his name?”

“Hastings Gray.”

“What! the Hastings Gray who, seventeen or eighteen years ago, made so remarkable a speech at some public meeting (I own I forget where it was), and wrote the political pamphlet which caused so great a sensation!”

“The same man.”

“I remember that he was said to have distinguished himself highly at the university, and that he was much talked of in London, for a few weeks, as a man likely to come into Parliament, and even to make a figure in it. Since then, never having heard more of him, I supposed he was dead. I am glad to learn that he only sleepeth.”

Here we heard behind us the muffled fall of hoofs on the sward; our party was in movement homeward, Lady Gertrude leading the van in her pony chaise. I had to retake my place by her side; Clara and the Librarian followed in a similar vehicle, driven by Henry Thornhill, who had caught none of the great perches; I suspect he had not tried for them. Percival and the Painter rode. The twilight deepened, and soon melted into a starry night, as we went through the shadowy forest-land.

Lady Gertrude talked incessantly and agreeably, but I was a very dull companion, and, being in a musing humour, would much rather have been alone. At length we saw the moon shining on the white walls of the villa. “I fear we have tired you with our childish party of pleasure,” said Lady Gertrude, with a malicious fling at my silence.

“Perhaps I am tired,” I replied, ingenuously. “Pleasures are fatiguing, especially when one is not accustomed to them.”

“Satirist!” said Lady Gertrude. “You come from the brilliant excitement of London, and what may be pleasure to us must be ennui to you.”

“Nay, Lady Gertrude, let me tell you what a very clever and learned man, a Minister of State, said the other day at one of those great public ceremonial receptions which are the customary holidays of a Minister of State. ‘Life,’ said he, pensively, ‘would be tolerably agreeable if it were not for its amusements.’ He spoke of those ‘brilliant excitements,’ as you call them, which form the amusements of capitals. He would not have spoken so of the delight which Man can extract from a holiday with Nature. But tell me, you who have played so considerable a part in the world of fashion, do you prefer the drawing-rooms of London to the log-house by the lake?”

“Why,” said Lady Gertrude, honestly, and with a half-sigh; “I own I should be glad if Percival would consent to spend six months in the year, or even three, in London. However, what he likes I like. Providence has made us women of very pliable materials.”

“Has it?” said I; “that information is new to me—one lives to learn.” And here, as the pony stopped at the porch, I descended to offer my arm to the amiable charioteer.

Nothing worth recording took place the rest of the evening. Henry and the Painter played at billiards, Lady Gertrude and the Librarian at backgammon. Clara went into the billiard-room, seating herself there with her work: by some fond instinct of her loving nature she felt as if she ought not to waste the minutes yet vouchsafed to her—she was still with him who was all in all to her!

I took down ‘The Faithful Shepherdess,’ wishing to refresh my memory of passages which the scenes we had visited that day vaguely recalled to my mind. Looking over my shoulder, Percival guided me to the lines I was hunting after. This led to comparisons between ‘The Faithful Shepherdess’ and the ‘Comus,’ and thence to that startling contrast in the way of viewing, and in the mode of describing, rural nature, between the earlier English poets and those whom Dryden formed upon Gallic models, and so on into the pleasant clueless labyrinth of metaphysical criticism on the art of poetic genius. When we had parted for the night, and I regained my own room, I opened my window and looked forth on the moonlit gardens. A few minutes later, a shadow, moving slow, passed over the silvered ground, and, descending the terrace stairs, vanished among the breathless shrubs and slumbering flowers. I recognised the man who loved to make night his companion.

(To be continued.)

HENRI LACORDAIRE.[3]

There are few of the leaders or servants of the public who interest the general mind so profoundly as the great preachers, whose fame reaches the humblest as well as the most exalted, and within the reach of whose influence, more or less, an entire generation passes. Not to reckon the secondary class of preachers, whose biography is as inevitable as their decease, and whose lives are studied as a matter of religious duty by vast sections of the population who lie in a kind of underground out of the reach of ordinary literature, it is enough to instance such a life as that of Chalmers, to prove how wide a hold upon the public interest is taken by a man with whom, for once in their lives, most people of his generation have come in momentary contact in the slight but often momentous relation of hearers to a speaker. Only a very limited number can or do hear a great speaker in any other kind, compared with those who think it indispensable to hear the notable preacher of their day; and multitudes who have the most visionary conception of their rulers and statesmen, and all other public notabilities, have a certain personal knowledge of the orator whose sphere is the pulpit, which makes them as eager to hear his life as if their own history were somehow involved in it. The life which we have now to unfold to our readers is, however, one with which in this country we are unfamiliar. It is a religious existence of a fashion unknown to us. A strange atmosphere breathes out of its acts and sentiments; its strength and its feebleness are alike novel to our experience; but under all these puzzling distinctions, the life itself is very remarkable—interwoven with the entire history of its country and period—and opens to us so strange yet so instructive a glimpse of a Christianity not less fervent, pure, and true, than anything in our Protestant records, but couched in terms so different from ours, and wearing an aspect so unlike, that the mingled resemblance and dissimilarity add a charm to its own merits. The life of Henri Lacordaire, priest, preacher, and monk, told by his eloquent countryman and loving friend, M. de Montalembert, is for us not only a religious biography, but a novel study of character and life. The picture is fascinating but strange. Stranger than the eremites in the ancient wilderness, or those early followers of Benedict and Francis, with whom the same hand has lately made us familiar, is the apparition of the monk of the nineteenth century as he appears in these pages. For it is no picturesque lay figure which rises in the white Dominican tunic before our unaccustomed eyes, but a modern Frenchman, acute, brilliant, unimpassioned—full of sound sense and inexorable logic—a politician, a liberal, a man of his day, no less than a great preacher and a pious Catholic. The story of his life is without private events, for he was a priest, and debarred from any private life save that which makes a passion of friendship and finds an outlet there; but his career is that of a man strong in personal identity, who acts and thinks for himself, and throws his entire being into his occupation, whatever that may be. M. de Montalembert, always eloquent, is perhaps too rhetorical and declamatory for biography, at least in narrating a life which to a great extent he shared, and the vicissitudes of which, as he records them, naturally rouse his enthusiasm, his indignation, and grief, and tempt him into many digressions. The volume which he has dedicated to the memory of his friend is more of an eloge than a biography, and the lines of the picture are vague in consequence, and want the distinctness of portrait-painting; nevertheless the figure rounds out of its dim background into unquestionable individuality, and the English reader who has not already heard of the great French preacher will herein meet with another man well worthy the remembrance of the world.

Henri Lacordaire was born in the beginning of the present century, almost a contemporary of our own great preacher Edward Irving, in whose life one remarkable point of resemblance shows only the full force of the contrast between the French priest and the Scotch pastor. He was of moderate origin, undistinguished either in his birth or training, without any brilliant prognostics to mark the beginning of his career. It is thus that his biographer sums up the simple story of his early days:—

“Nothing could be more simple or ordinary than the life of this young priest. Those who seek romances or stormy passages in the lives of historical personages, or at least in their youth, must find them elsewhere. No adventure, no stroke of fate or of passion, troubled the course of his early years. The son of a village doctor, educated by a pious mother, he had, like almost all the young men of the time, lost his faith at college, and did not regain it either in the school of law or at the bar, where he ranked for two years among the advocates. In appearance nothing distinguished him from his contemporaries. He was a Deist, like all the youth of the time; he was, above all, liberal, like all France, but without excess. He shared the convictions and the generous delusions which we all breathed in the air which had been purified by the downfall of imperial despotism, but he desired only a liberty strong and legitimate; and without having yet been enlightened by the lights of faith, he already foresaw the supreme danger of modern society, for at twenty he wrote ‘Impiety leads to depravity,’ ‘Corrupt morals produce corrupt laws,’ and ‘Licence carries the nations on to slavery.’ He himself remained always virtuous and regular in his morals, without any other passion than for glory. Even before he became a Christian he respected himself.”

Life, however, soon quickened into warmer bloom, in the heart of this virtuous young heathen. Providence had other occupation for him than the practice of the French bar, and the excitement of those politics which present such a fantastic succession of revolution and stagnation, violence and apathy. He woke up out of his classic convictions into Christian life, and with characteristic promptitude, as soon as he believed, devoted himself to the service of religion. “Neither man nor book was the instrument of his conversion,” says his biographer. “A sudden and secret touch of grace opened his eyes to the nothingness of irreligion. In one day he became a Christian, and the next, being a Christian, determined to become a priest.” This prompt and clear spirit, swiftly logical, unimpassioned, and master of itself, pervaded his entire life. It was not argument or exhortation that convinced him. He perceived in his rapid young soul—aware as he was of forces in himself which must have work to occupy them, and of unspeakable want in the world around him—“the nothingness of irreligion”—a notable and significant discovery. That elegant, classic, unproductive blank of Pagan virtue—could anything ever come of it, even in its highest development? Swiftly the alternative presented itself to the young Frenchman. Out of this “nothingness” he did not come by halves. From the first freedom of his young manhood and accomplished education, he went back again steadily to the rules and studies of a new training. After three years at the seminary of St Sulpice he became a priest, at a time when priests had little honour and no popularity in France. The young advocate, glowing with all the inspirations of undeveloped eloquence—a man destined to play so notable a part in his generation, and no doubt aware in his heart of the genius which nobody else as yet suspected—fell, in the flush of his youth, into obscure priestly offices, such as doubtless demonstrated to him a “something” in the Christian faith enough to exercise and employ all the helpful energies of man. He became the almoner of a convent, then of a college, following the common order of the youthful priesthood. Except the fact that he had thus suddenly, by prompt exercise of will, joined himself to that unpopular class, nothing as yet appeared to distinguish him from his brethren. “The only thing singular in him was his liberalism,” says M. de Montalembert. “By a phenomenon then unheard of, this convert, this seminarist, this almoner of nuns, was steadfast in remaining a liberal, as in the days when he was only a student and advocate.” This was, to bystanders, the one remarkable feature in him—he was a priest, and yet he was a liberal—to wit, a radical, a democrat, all but a republican. From his convent he wrote like any other enthusiastic young man, in the days when men found a gospel in political privileges, of “the imprescriptible rights of the human race.” His dream was to place these imprescriptible rights under the protection of the Church—to ally the old religion with the new freedom. “Christianity is not a law of slavery,” he wrote, in youthful boldness, from his “little convent of the Visitandines,” when Paris surged with the subterranean heavings of the Revolution of July. “She has not forgot that her children were free when all the world groaned under the iron of so many horrible Cæsars; and that they created, underground, a society of men who spoke of humanity under the palace of Nero.” “In his youth and his solitude,” he who had forsaken the bar and its triumphs, the world and its ways, for the humble offices of the priesthood, arrived at this conclusion which nobody else had dreamed of. It is a conclusion which, since then, has been tried on a sufficiently large scale and found impracticable, but it is not the less an idea which must have been full of charms and of inspiration to the young priest, whom a higher call than that of political right or wrong had drawn within the bosom of an institution supposed, and with justice, to be the foe of liberty.

Across this calm and soft perspective—from which the young priest, palpitating with all the impulses of youth and genius, looked forth with hopes that seem Utopian, and warm ideal conceptions of good and glory yet to be attained—a light more brilliant suddenly streams. This path of life, as yet so humble, enveloped in profound personal obscurity, unknown to man, is suddenly crossed by a dazzling meteoric radiance, and thrown into strong illumination before the world. It is the Abbé de Lamennais, strange Quixote of French religious history, who suddenly appears upon the scene, without introduction or description, with a suddenness somewhat confusing to an English reader, who is less instructed in the notable facts and persons of Gallican ecclesiastical history in recent years, than the audience which M. de Montalembert especially addresses. The point of junction between the distinguished ecclesiastic of La Chenaie and the young almoner of the Visitandines, is this same belief common to both, that the Church, so far from being the enemy, ought to be the chief supporter of political freedom. M. de Lamennais, “then the most celebrated and the most venerated of French priests,” had started from the opposite ground of high ultramontane Papalism, but, by dint of the lofty view taken by a lofty and visionary though wilful and uncertain mind, of that unique spiritual despotism, had come to the conclusion—a conclusion falsified by all experience, but not inconceivable in theory—that the Holy Father of Christendom ought to be the guardian of all men’s liberties. It was 1830, a year of Revolution,—another violent crisis had come in the fortunes of France. The freedom, the boldness, the bewilderment of such a sudden change of affairs, excited and stirred up all questions and spirits. This new theory of the small but enthusiastic religious band, which aimed at nothing less than re-conquering for the Church the love and heart of the country, came into the field with many others. It is at this point that M. de Montalembert, who for some little time has been preluding tenderly in strains of love and lamentation, suddenly dashes into his story, and introduces us, with an affectionate abruptness, into this agitated society, to the beginning of his friendship with Lacordaire, and to the person and character of his friend.

“It was in November 1830 that I saw him for the first time in the cabinet of the Abbé de Lamennais,” he writes, “four months after a revolution which seemed for a moment to confound in a common ruin the throne and the altar, and one month after the beginning of the journal ‘L’Avenir.’ The motto of this journal was—Dieu et la liberté! It was intended by its founders to regenerate Catholic opinion in France, and to seal its union with the progress of liberalism. I hastened to take part in this work, with the ardour of my twenty years, from Ireland, where I had just seen O’Connell at the head of a people whose invincible fidelity to the Catholic faith had worn out three centuries of persecution, and whose religious emancipation had just been won by the free press and freedom of speech. A very small number of laymen shared the convictions of M. de Lamennais, with a still more limited number of priests. Among the latter, the Abbé Lacordaire, whom as yet no one knew, was named to me. Not only was he not of those who had made themselves a name by reproducing the doctrines of the celebrated author of ‘L’Essai sur l’Indifference,’ but he could not even be called his pupil.... There needed nothing less than the Revolution of July and ‘L’Avenir’ to engage in a common work two natures so profoundly distinct. I saw them both for the first time: dazzled and swayed by the one, I felt myself more sweetly and more naturally drawn towards the other. If I could but paint him such as he appeared then, in all the radiance and the charm of youth! He was twenty-eight. He was dressed as a layman, the state of Paris not then permitting priests to wear their proper costume. His graceful figure, his fine and regular features, his sculpturesque forehead, the commanding carriage of his head, his dark and sparkling eye, an indescribable something of pride and elegance, as well as of modesty, in all his person—all this was but the cover of a soul which seemed ready to pour itself forth, not only in the free encounters of public speaking, but in the overflowing of affectionate intercourse. The flash of his eye disclosed gleams at once warlike and tender; it sought not only enemies to combat and to overthrow, but hearts to fascinate and conquer. His voice, already so nervous and energetic, frequently assumed accents of an infinite sweetness. Born to fight and to love, he already bore the seal of the double royalty of the soul and talent. He appeared to me charming and terrible, as a type of the enthusiasm for good—virtue armed for the support of truth. I saw in him one of the elect, predestined to all that youth adores and desires the most—genius and glory. Yet he, still more attracted by the gentle joys of Christian friendship than the distant echoes of fame, made us understand that the greatest struggles moved us only by half—that they still left us power to dream, above all, of the life of the heart—that the days began and ended according as a loved remembrance had risen or had been silent in the soul. It was he who spoke to me thus; and he added immediately, ‘Alas! we ought to love only the infinite, and this is the reason why that which we love is so complete in our soul.’ The morning after this first meeting he took me to hear his mass, which he said in the chapel of a little convent of the Visitandines in the Pays Latin, and already we loved each other as men love in the pure and generous impulses of youth and under the fire of the enemy. He condescended to rejoice over that meeting which he had desired, and upon which he congratulated himself in terms which expressed his classic and democratic thought. He wrote, some time before, ‘My soul, like Iphigenia, awaits its brother at the foot of the altar.’ Afterwards, speaking of his new friend to an older one, he said, ‘I love him like a plebeian.’”

Such was the fervent young man with whom, in the year of the Revolution, in the warmth of their youth, the young Montalembert formed an everlasting friendship. They lived henceforward in a union close as that of the classic models of amity, and effusive as is natural to young Frenchmen. The two had hard enough work in hand in those brilliant, agitated, youthful days, over which M. de Montalembert lingers with a natural fondness. In the reign of utter prose which had begun, this Young France stood all glowing and poetic—believing in a new beginning as youth always believes—hoping everything grand, exalted, and generous from the new era and its own toils. They had their journal, choice vehicle of assault upon the world and all its wrongs; and from that little battery thundered, day by day, at all the injustice and oppression which came under their quick observation, taking summary vengeance upon the offenders. To-day it was a petty official, “lui, ce sous-préfet!” whom the young Abbé tossed in the air on the point of that dazzling spear of youthful scorn and beautiful indignation—to-morrow it was the new Government itself which felt the diamond point of their virgin weapons. Young ardour, daring hardihood, wild rushes at conclusions, grand assumption and display of wisdom, mixed with a thorough enjoyment and relish in the dangerous sport, shine through the tale. The young men were in the flush of youth and conscious power, exercising a censorship which somehow comes natural to youth, and which, in its brilliant impertinence and freshness of life, earns its own excuse almost from its victims. Lamennais, though not young, was of that character of genius—generous, susceptible, and wilful—which commends itself to the young, and leads without controlling them. He who, in the wild retirement of La Chenaie amid the Breton woods, made for himself a little family of the youths whom he had devoted himself to train for the service of the Church, and attached them to him with a kind of passion, seems to have exercised no subduing influence over the young men whom he associated with himself in the work of ‘L’Avenir.’ They tilted frankly at the world with an inexhaustible delight in their work. “Neither the old clergy nor the new Government were disposed to receive this new doctrine,” says M. de Montalembert, with unconscious humour, in explanation of this work; “but the violence and mistakes of the latter might be counted upon to enlighten, little by little, and bring back the former. It was necessary, then, at once to point out the arbitrary acts of certain functionaries against religion, and to teach Catholics to draw, from liberal institutions and ideas, arms which the fall of a dynasty could no more break in their hands. This was the double task to which the young Henri Lacordaire devoted his untried, and till then unknown, talent.”

Into this enterprise the young Abbé rushed with all his joyous youthful forces. Violent Radicalism and lofty High-Churchism, both the one and the other of a more fiery character than are known in our tamer atmosphere, here took hands together and defied the world. The young champion went to the wildest extremities in his vivid and rash eloquence. The French priest even, in the inspirations of his genius, antedated the equally fiery priests of Scotland, and loftily suggested to his brethren of the clergy—while discoursing to them of the sacrilege committed by a sous-préfet, who had forced an entrance into a country church for the corpse of a man who had been refused the rites of burial—an expedient which has only been adopted on the northern side of the Tweed. “You will make him grow pale” (to wit, the sous-préfet), cries the young orator, “if, taking your dishonoured God, with staff in hand and hat on head, you bear Him into some hut made with fir planks, swearing not to expose Him a second time to the insults of the State-temples.” “These words,” says Montalembert, “indicate the extreme, unjust, and dangerous conclusion from which ‘L’Avenir’ drew not back. It said to the clergy that they should be prepared to renounce the budget du culte, sole remnant of their ancient and legitimate patrimony, sole guarantee of their material existence, to give up even the churches of which the State assumed to be owner, to enter into full possession of the invincible powers and inexhaustible resources of modern liberty.” Nor did these bold assaults end in mere words. “A series of contests,” continues the biographer, “the details of which would encumber this narrative, but which were all designed to promote the emancipation of the priests and the Catholic citizens, took him more than once to the court of the police correctionelle, sometimes as the accused, sometimes as client, sometimes even as advocate; for until he was interdicted by a decision of the Council of Discipline, he still retained the right to plead in that capacity; and I remember the surprise of a president of the Chamber, in discovering one day at the bar, in the robe of an advocate, the priest whose name already began to be famous.”

Into these encounters the young man entered with a certain relish and delight which sometimes amazed his friend. “I know not what attraction drew him to those combats,” says M. de Montalembert; “one would have said that he was trying the temper of his arms, and endeavouring to render his blows more sure.” “I am convinced,” he wrote, in issuing from one of his skirmishes, “that the Roman senate would not have frightened me.” And not only did he find enjoyment in the fight for itself, but occasional triumphs rewarded the young orator—triumphs of his frank and open youth over the big popular spectator that loved not the name of priest. One day, in answering an avocat du roi who had ventured to say that the priests were the ministers of a foreign power, Lacordaire cried, “We are the ministers of one who is nowhere a stranger—of God.” Upon which the audience, “composed of that people of July so hostile to the clergy,” applauded, exclaiming, “My priest, my curé, what do you call yourself? you are a brave man!” He was not less frank nor less successful when he appeared as the defendant in a Government prosecution along with Lamennais, on account of some of the plain-speaking of the ‘Avenir’ touching an appointment of bishops. In his speech before this tribunal, Lacordaire defended himself, in his capacity of priest, with a touching simplicity and dignity. “I rise,” he says, “with a recollection that will not leave me. When the priest in former days rose amid the people, something which excited a profound love rose at the same time with him. Now, accused as I am, I know that my name of priest is mute for my defence, and I am resigned to it. The people deprived the priest of that ancient love which they bore him, when the priest deprived himself of an august part of his character—when the man of God ceased to be the man of freedom.... I never knew freedom better,” he continues, with a burst of professional enthusiasm, “than the day when I received, with the sacred unction, the right of speaking of God. The universe opened before me, and I learned that there was in man something inalienable, divine, eternally free—speech! The message of the priest was confided to me, and I was told to bear it to the ends of the world without any one having the right to seal my lips a single day of my life. I went out of the temple with these grand doctrines, and I met upon the threshold, law and bondage!” After this brilliant address, M. de Montalembert comes in with a tender touch of description—a little sketch which in a word or two makes us of the party, and reveals the entire scene in all its agitation and triumph.

“The two accused were acquitted. The verdict was not given till midnight. A numerous crowd surrounded and applauded the victors of the day. When they had dispersed we returned alone, in the darkness, along the quays. Upon the threshold of his door I saluted in him the orator, of the future. He was neither intoxicated nor overwhelmed by his triumph. I saw that for him the little vanities of success were less than nothing; but I saw him eager to spread the contagion of self-devotion and of courage, and delighted by the evidences of mutual faith and disinterested tenderness, which in young and Christian hearts burn with a purer and dearer light than all the victories.”

Generous and tender dreams! but who could refuse to believe that the young companion, more intoxicated with his triumph than himself, who wandered along those dark banks of Seine in the cool midnight, in the silence, so grateful after that day’s toil, by his side, affectionate and rejoicing, gave a dearer and more flattering homage to the young orator than all the applauding crowds? This single sentence is one of the most perfectly distinct touches of human personality and affection in the book.

These pious young revolutionaries, “young and Christian hearts,” continued for some time longer to get themselves into all kinds of trouble. From freedom of speech they proceeded to contend for freedom of teaching—constituted themselves into an agency for the defence of religious liberty—and set up, at their own hand, a free school, taught by three of themselves, in Paris. A curious scene followed. The three young teachers, of whom Lacordaire was one and Montalembert another, began their volunteer labours with twenty children to each. Next morning an officer of the university appeared to stop this irregular assembly. He addressed himself first to the children. “In the name of the law, I summon you to depart,” cried this functionary to the assembled urchins. “In the name of your parents, whose authority I have, I command you to remain,” immediately answered Lacordaire. The small citizens, doubtless charmed to be able to rebel so soon against law and government, immediately gave their shrill suffrage in his favour. “We shall remain,” cried the little rebels, with one voice. The result, of course, was, that scholars and teachers had equally to succumb to the power of the law, and that once more there ensued a trial, and brilliant appearance of the eloquent Abbé, which this time was before the Chamber of Peers, the most illustrious assemblage in France, one of the culprits, M. de Montalembert himself, being a member of that august body. We have no room to quote this speech; but the prosecution, like the former, seems to have ended in nothing.

“I will be pardoned for lingering upon the events of that year, so memorable for us,” says Montalembert, with touching grace. “There is no one, however obscure and useless may have been his life, who, at the decline of his days, does not feel himself drawn by an irresistible current towards the moment when the first fires of enthusiasm were lighted in his soul and on his lips—no one who does not breathe with a sort of intoxication the perfume of these recollections, and who is not tempted to boast beyond measure their charm and their brightness,—days at once happy and sad,” he says—“days devoured by labour and by enthusiasm—days such as occur but once in a life.”

The apology is beautiful, but it is unnecessary. Few will read the history of those young days and friends, differing so totally from ourselves, yet so entirely in accord, without feeling their hearts warm to the historian, whose own youth rises so fair before him as he writes, and of whom the world is fully advised that his maturer days have well borne out the promise of that youth.

We, too, are tempted to linger, but must not, space and time preventing. ‘L’Avenir’ came at last to a sudden check, as was inevitable. After it had affronted the clergy, the bishops, and the Government, united its own little band of retainers in such bonds as unite men “under the fire of the enemy,” and fought its way for thirteen months through all manner of prosecutions and oppositions, the daring little journal came to a close in a manner as remarkable and Quixotic as had been its career. “In announcing the suspension,” says M. de Montalembert, “we announced at the same time the departure of the three principal editors for Rome, in order to submit to the Pope the questions in controversy between us and our adversaries, promising beforehand an absolute submission to the Pontifical decision.” Strange mission of the three—two of whom only had youth to excuse them in this mad embassage—to persuade wise Rome to embroil herself, and compromise her infallibility, in the decision of questions so complicated, for the satisfaction of the editors of ‘L’Avenir!’ The two young men went lightly upon their mission, not without natural excitement in the prospect of visiting the sacred city; but matters were different with Lamennais, whose genius and lofty intention seem to have been shipwrecked by that spirit of unmaturing youthfulness, always sanguine of its own triumph, expecting everything to yield to its will, absolute and petulant, and incapable of contradiction, which is as undignified as it is unnatural in a man of mature age. The confidence which led Lacordaire and Montalembert to state their difficulties to his Holiness, and beg his decision upon them, was sufficiently romantic and high-flown. “But how explain or excuse it,” says our author, “in a distinguished priest, already mature in age, as was the Abbé de Lamennais, who was then more than fifty, and who had already lived at Rome, where the Pope had received him with the greatest distinction?” The pilgrims were received with paternal kindness and unresponsive civility. They got no reply, as was natural. Lacordaire, always prompt and clear-sighted, with a native vein of good sense and practical wisdom running through all the fiery impulses of his genius, was the first to perceive how great a mistake they had made. He remained more than two months in Rome endeavouring to reconcile Lamennais to the failure of their mission, and, for his own part, refreshing his soul in that wonderful shrine of all memories and thoughts. “I can see him still,” says his affectionate biographer, “wandering for long days among the ruins and the monuments, pausing, as overpowered, to admire, with that exquisite feeling of true beauty which never forsook him, all that Rome presents of the profound and the antique—fascinated, above all, by the tranquil and incomparable charm of her horizons; then returning to the common hearth to preach reserve, resignation, submission—in a word, reason—to M. de Lamennais.” At last the young priest announced to his fretful and rebellious senior his intention of returning to France, to await there in silence, but without remaining idle, the verdict of authority. “Silence,” said he, “is, after speech, the second power in the world.” They parted so; and although they again met after an interval, the erratic and devious career of Lamennais had no further influence worth noting upon the clear, straightforward course of his young associate. ‘L’Avenir’ and such brilliant follies were over. Life, serious and grave, now awaited the young priest and orator, whose time for trying the temper of his weapons and the steadiness of his strokes was past.

After this agitating and fruitless journey, Lacordaire returned to Paris, where he lived in seclusion, in duty, and silence, for three years. Immediately after his return the cholera broke out, and he gave himself up with grave enthusiasm to the necessities of the time, attaching himself to one of the temporary hospitals. “The prejudices against the clergy were still in full force,” says M. de Montalembert; “the authorities refused the help of the Archbishop of Paris, and priests could not show themselves in the streets en soutane.” But the attendance of Lacordaire and a few of his more zealous brethren was tolerated. “Each day I make a little harvest for eternity,” he writes. “Most of the patients do not confess, and the priest is here only a deputy of the Church, coming timidly to seek, if there may happen to be some soul which belongs to the flock. Here and there one or two confess—others are dying without ear and without voice. I put my hand upon their forehead, and, trusting in divine mercy, I say the words of absolution. It is seldom that I go away without a feeling of satisfaction in having come.” But amid these unappreciated labours, and in the loneliness, deeper than actual solitude, of a great town, the young priest amused his lonely heart with dreams of the tranquil country and a secluded life. He thought of becoming a rural curé, and in imagination chose Franche Comté, the country of his friend. “I would bury myself in the depths of the country,” he writes again, with an effusion of visionary yet profound sadness. “I would live only for a little flock, and find all my Joy in God and in the fields. It should be manifest that I am a simple man and without ambition. Adieu, great works! adieu, fame and great name! I have known their vanity, and I desire nothing more than to live obscure and good. Some day when Montalembert shall have grown grey in the midst of ingratitude and celebrity, he will come to see upon my forehead the remains of our common youth. We shall weep together at the hearth of the presbyterié—he will do me justice before we die. I shall bless his children.... For me, a poor Catholic priest, I shall neither have children growing up under my eyes to survive me, nor domestic hearth, nor Church brilliant with knowledge and sanctity. Born in degenerate times, I shall pass from the earth among things unworthy of the memory of man. I shall endeavour to be good, simple, pious,—hoping disinterestedly in the future, since I shall not see it—working for those who perhaps will see it—and not accusing Providence, which might weigh down with heavier evils a life which deserves so little.”

Such were the sad thoughts of the young man thus stopped short in the beginning of his career. He was not, however, permitted to leave Paris; he returned to his little convent of the Visitandines, where he lived, strengthening himself “in prayer and labour, in charity, in solitude—in a life grave, simple, unknown, truly hidden in God;” but where that sadness and wistful uneasiness which so often tries to persuade itself into contentment, by dwelling upon the advantages of solitude, betrays itself in his utterances. “How happy are they,” he writes, “who are born and die under one roof without ever having quitted it.” Then he congratulates himself on his retirement. “I have always needed solitude, if only to say how much I loved it.... My days all resemble each other. I work regularly in the morning and afternoon. I see no one, save some country ecclesiastics, who come to see me now and then. I feel with joy the solitude which encircles me—it is my element, my life. Nothing can be done but with solitude—it is my great axiom.... A man makes himself from within and not from without!” “Nevertheless,” adds the biographer, “a certain instinct of the future which awaited him combined with this passionate inclination for solitude, and disclosed itself now and then in his soul like a gleam in the night. To speak and to write, to live solitary and in study, this is my whole desire,” he wrote. “However, the future will justify me, and still more the judgment of God. A man has always his hour; he must wait for it, and do nothing contrary to Providence.”

All this was the natural language of a young and exuberant life, whose hour had not yet come, and which was fully occupied in the endeavour to content and satisfy itself in its compulsory calm. During this interval he preached his first sermon, which, after all the brilliant orations which he had made at the bar and before the public courts, was a failure. “He is a man of talent, but he will never be a preacher,” said his disappointed friends; and he acknowledged and tried to reconcile himself to the fact. “But I may one day be called to a work which requires youth, and which will be devoted solely to youth,” says the preacher, with a sigh of disappointment, yet hope. But soon the skies opened, and the work for which he longed presented itself at last.

It was as lecturer to the pupils of the College Stanislas, “the most humble in Paris,” that he recommenced in 1834 his public work. After his second lecture the chapel could not contain the crowd of hearers who joined his young auditory. At once, without any interval, he seems to have vindicated his own gifts and flashed into immediate popularity. But the shadow of ‘L’Avenir’ and all its combats was still upon him. After two winters occupied thus, the Archbishop, who was his friend, and had sanctioned his lectures, changed his mind, and forbade him to continue them. Lacordaire obeyed without a murmur. “Obedience is hard,” he wrote, “but I have learned by experience that it is sooner or later rewarded, and that God above knows what is best for us; light comes to him who submits, as to a man who opens his eyes.”

Shortly, however, his reward came. The heart of the Archbishop melted; at the repeated petition of a deputation of law students, headed by the celebrated Ozanam, he called the preacher of the College Stanislas to the pulpit of Notre Dame, to a lectureship which had been established a year before for the students of the metropolis. Here Lacordaire rose at once to the height of fame as a preacher. His genius had been maturing in the silence and disappointment of the past. Now there were no longer two opinions on the subject. The venerable walls of Notre Dame had never seen such an audience, says M. de Montalembert; and the highest applause, the applause of his gratified diocesan, crowned the triumph. The Archbishop, “who was present at all the sermons, and who for the first time since the violences of which he had been the victim after the Revolution of July, found himself in the presence of the crowd, was transported by a success which avenged him so nobly by associating him with the popularity of this new-born glory. One day, rising from his archiepiscopal throne before that immense audience, he bestowed on his young disciple the title of the new prophet.”

Around this new prophet a circle of young and fervent souls occupied the closest place. The Society of St Vincent de Paul, newly formed, and in all the ardour of its first love, whom the preacher apostrophised as “that chivalry of youth, purity, and brotherhood,” formed the nucleus of the congregation; and, looking back upon the image of his friend triumphant amid such a surrounding, it is not wonderful that M. de Montalembert breaks sharply off with a cry of indignation over the downfall of that admirable Society, “the most beautiful work of the nineteenth century,” as he exclaims, with natural fervour, “the most pure and spontaneous fruit of Christian democracy.” “Imagine Lacordaire in his strength, and with the liberty of the press, before such an act!” says his biographer, recalling the days of ‘L’Avenir;’ “imagine the justice which he would have done with that pen which of old had stigmatised much smaller culprits by burning invectives, the echo of which still vibrated in the pulpit of Notre Dame: Lui, ce sous-préfet!”

When he had thus reached the height of popularity, and attained the sphere of labour for which he had longed, Lacordaire stopped short in a manner which cannot fail to amaze the English reader. Here terminated the first chapter in the life of the great preacher. In the midst of his triumphant success, and of this work so congenial to his mind and satisfactory to his highest ambition, he came of his own will to a sudden pause in his career. “By one of those marvellous intuitions, of which he had more than any one else the secret, he recognised,” says M. de Montalembert, “that self-examination, labour, silence, and solitude were still necessary to him.” He paused at the height of his triumph. “I leave in the hands of my bishop this pulpit of Notre Dame, founded by him and by you, by the pastor and by the people. This double suffrage has shone for a moment on my head; suffer me to remove it, and to find myself again alone for a time with my weakness and my God.” With these words he concluded his second Lent in 1836. “After he had left the pulpit, he declined, notwithstanding the repeated entreaties of the Archbishop, to re-enter it, and departed for Rome.”

No outward circumstances accounted for this sudden pause. It was an internal need to which he responded by such a simple and actual withdrawal from life as seems unprovided for, even in the conceptions of Protestant piety. The spirit of Lacordaire, says one of his closest companions, his maternal friend, Madam Swetchine, required only the power of “subduing and containing itself in obscurity,” to become sublime; a great and general necessity of all others the least easily attainable. To accomplish such a victory over ourselves, we, in our heretical pride of reason and self-command, have no external aids. What we can do towards this greatest of conquests we must do under the cover of ordinary circumstances and labour, and few and happy are the men who do not find this perennial conflict recur in their disengaged moments all through their lives. But the Catholic Church has ordained a system of helps and stimulants in the great work of ruling their own spirit, which is harder to most men than taking cities. When the young Father Lacordaire felt the reins gliding out of his hands, in whatever way that occurred—for we have no information on the subject—the expedient of flight suggested itself to him, as it would have been very unlikely to do to an Englishman in similar circumstances. The Catholic priest thought it no shame to acknowledge to himself that his spirit stood in need of discipline. All the saints and holy men of his Church had at some period of their lives fled from the attractions of the world, and used sharp methods of subduing the flesh, which they did not hesitate to acknowledge was too strong for them. Lacordaire, too, withdrew to get the mastery of his own spirit. This was his object in going to Rome. He was in the height of manhood, thirty-four years old—the very noon of life. He was no superstitious or visionary priest, but a man already versed in the ways of the world, who had acquitted himself with intuitive good sense in more than one difficult crisis. He had passed through scepticism, through criticism, to that dutiful and steadfast faith which knew both how to reason and how to obey. He was not disappointed or unfortunate, but, on the contrary, glowing with success and triumph of the kind most gratifying to such a man. He was not even of an archæological type of mind, nor romantically prejudiced in favour of the antique institutions of Christendom; he was a liberal, a man of his day, an educated modern mind—able, surely, if ever priest or Catholic was, to form his opinion freely. He had arrested himself by his own will in a career abundantly flattering to all his tastes and vanities, and now stood thoughtful in the mid-current of his life to determine how he should best perfect and utilise that existence still in its highest force and power. Wandering about Rome, among its monuments and relics, praying to God, as he himself says, in its basilicas, he pondered this great question. Nowhere could have been found a fitter scene. Amid the ruins of many a grand ambition, over the traces engraven in the earth by many a haughty and undisciplined spirit, the thoughtful priest wandered, meditating the highest uses of his own life. His thoughts came to a conclusion which, to our eyes, seems the most inconceivable and astonishing ever made by man. He decided upon becoming a monk. Aware by many a mortifying experience that the very name of priest was still suspected and disliked in his own country, where all his power and influence lay, this man, so sensible, so moderate, so dutiful, whose genius had not made him eccentric, and whose sympathies were all with his own age, decided that the best thing he could do for France and the glory of God was to clothe his own vigorous life and personality in the obsolete dress of the cloister. It was not the cloistered indolence of an Italian convent to which he looked forward. In the strength of his life and genius he felt no need of that repose, which would but have chafed him. Eager for work, conscious of his own powers, devoted to his own country, and seeking to qualify himself for renewed and advancing labour, this was the decision to which Lacordaire came; a decision altogether inexplicable and amazing, which we are unable to account for at this distance, much less to explain.

Nor was this resolution adopted by any capricious impulse, or in any flash of imaginative ardour. It was a conclusion obtained not without pain and resistance of the flesh. “I persuaded myself then,” he explains, in one of his latest productions, quoted by M. de Montalembert, “while wandering about Rome, and praying God in its basilicas, that the greatest service which could be rendered to Christendom in the times in which we live, was to do something for the restoration of the religious orders. But this persuasion, though it was for me the very light of the Gospel, left me undecided and trembling, when I came to consider how unfit I was for such a great work. My faith, thank God, was profound. I loved Jesus Christ and His Church above everything created. I had loved glory before I loved God, but nothing else. Besides, in descending into myself, I found nothing there which seemed to me to answer to the idea of a founder or even restorer of an order. When I contemplated these Colossi of Christian strength and piety my soul fell under me, like a horseman under his horse—I was struck to the ground discouraged and wounded. The mere idea of sacrificing my liberty to a rule and to superiors overwhelmed me. The son of an age which scarcely knew how to obey, independence had been my couch and my guide. How could I transform myself suddenly into a docile heart, and henceforward trust only in submission for the light of my conduct?” The question was hard to answer. Of all men the young editor of ‘L’Avenir’ might have seemed the least likely to attain such a height of virtue; but from this difficulty he escapes, after much further self-argument, by the following conclusion:—

“I encouraged myself by these thoughts, and it occurred to me that all my previous life, and even my faults, had prepared for me a certain access to the heart of my country and my time. I asked myself if I should not be guilty if I neglected these openings by a timidity which was good for nothing but repose, and if the greatness even of the sacrifice was not a reason for attempting it?... Urged by the situation, and solicited by a grace stronger than myself, I at last made up my mind; but the sacrifice was terrible. It had not cost me nothing to leave the world for the priesthood, but it cost me everything to add to the priesthood the burden of monastic life. However, in the second case as in the first, as soon as I had consented to it I knew neither weakness nor repentance, and went forward courageously to meet the trials which awaited me.”

It is not difficult to recognise in this second great decision of his life the same prompt and steadfast spirit which, having convinced the young advocate of the nothingness of irreligion, bore him at once, without pause or lingering, into the service of that faith in which there was something, a power owned by all human hearts. It is the same principle which again moves him. Common means and modes of working this power have been sadly unsuccessful of recent years. What is this grand, unused, obsolete instrument, the traces of which are marked all over that Roman soil among the vines and the ruins? Who can tell if perhaps that, restored to efficient working, and new-tempered and polished, might accomplish, as of old, those prodigies of labour and service, for which the usual tools seem no longer practicable? As soon as he settles in his mind the undoubted duty of trying this forgotten weapon, and restoring it to the armoury of the Church, no further pause is necessary. In the height of his fame and strength, the great preacher returns upon the new preparations and training necessary for his new life. He disappears into “the depths of an Italian cloister” for his novitiate, assured that he is thus doing his highest duty to God and his country. “I believe that this act is the dénouement of my life—the result of all that God has done before—the secret of His graces, of my trials and experiences,” he writes. “I am like a man who has gained some credit, and who can apply it to some useful and generous work. Without the past I could do nothing; by continuing only the past, it would be a life of which the effect was not proportioned to the grace which God has given me.” This was the strange result of his retirement and pondering. In Notre Dame, amid the throng of impressed and admiring hearers, the preacher felt that he was not doing enough, nor making sufficient use of God’s gifts. A noble discontent had seized him—he had to make better usury yet, and greater, of his talent. To see him, after all his questioning, disappear into that Italian cloister, is to us the strangest anticlimax—the most wonderful apparent contradiction; but it was the calm conclusion of his mind—a mind ripe and well able to judge, unimpassioned and sensible. We do not attempt to offer any explanation of the act, nor do we profess ourselves competent to understand the convictions that led to it; but strange as it is, here is the fact, let us draw what conclusions we will. According to Lacordaire’s deliberate and thoughtful decision, he could serve God best as a monk, and a monk accordingly he became.

Five years afterwards he reappeared in the pulpit of Notre Dame, “with his shaven head and his white tunic.” He preached with his usual eloquence upon La Vocation de la Nation Française, and spoke only in passing of his own monastic vocation. He made but one appearance, contenting himself apparently with “inaugurating in France,” as M. de Montalembert says, “the monastic frock, which she had not seen for fifty years.” He disappeared from Paris after this for two years more, dividing his time between the Italian cloister and the southern provinces of France, until in 1843 a new war began to rage in the French world, on that old question of liberty of teaching, for which the young ‘L’Avenir,’ years ago, had fought so stoutly, and for which its editors had made their appearance at the bar of the Chamber of Peers. Under the influence of this strife, and just as the Government awoke to alarm, and began to regard with apprehension the appearance of the Dominican frock in the pulpit and in the streets, the new Archbishop invited Lacordaire to resume his lectureship in Notre Dame. The Frère Prêcheur took his place again in the metropolitan pulpit: it was at once a defiance of the alarmed Government, and a re-proclamation of those principles of religious liberty on which the preacher had long ago taken his stand. For this question “de la liberté d’enseignement” involved also the question of liberty of association, the power of forming communities—a power nominally accorded to the French nation by its charter, but which had never been actually granted to it. The Church, wise as a serpent, seized upon this public right. She, too, had bethought herself of the long disused and valuable instrument of monasticism. Without monks no thorough hold could be got upon popular educational institutions; but without the power of forming corporations and organising bodies of men, the invasion of a new race of monks was impossible. On the other hand, alarmed statesmen and the public in general foresaw, with this power in the hands of the Church, an immediate inroad of the dreaded Jesuit and his brethren, to lay insidious hold upon the education of the people. “While the bishops and Catholic publicists,” says M. de Montalembert, “claimed the liberty promised by the charter with all its consequences, the numerous orators and writers of the University party defended its monopoly, and made use especially against the Jesuits of that unpopularity which the heirs of the perverse doctrines and cruel persecutions of the eighteenth century could everywhere re-awaken against the religious orders. We owe them nothing but expulsion! this cry of a deputy too famous for his interruptions, seemed to the world of so-called liberals the best response to the claims raised for religious associations in the name of liberty and equality.” The Church mustered her forces gallantly, and went into the conflict with might and main. With cunning boldness she placed two of the feared and suspected monks in the pulpit of Notre Dame—Lacordaire, in his white Dominican robe, and the Jesuit De Ravignan—to fire between them the new-born enthusiasm of French Catholics, and show what voices were these which the timidity of the State and the prejudices of the vulgar would banish from France. Into that pulpit politics did not enter—but an instrument more efficacious was there. “Lacordaire did not himself enter into the controversy,” says M. de Montalembert, “and not the least allusion to it is to be found in all his discourses.... But the universal popularity of his preaching, the immense audiences which everywhere collected around the pulpit in which he appeared, were arguments much more eloquent than discussions of politics or public law. It sufficed him to establish his victory by preaching in Paris and throughout France, and by assuming the right of living in a community, and attiring himself as he pleased, which no one dared to contest with him, in the different places where he lived with his brethren.” Such was the unquestionably potent line of argument set up by the Gallican Church. Here was the greatest preacher of the age, a man pure and pious, incapable of self-aggrandisement, full of ardour for God’s service, known to have hazarded his life in hospital and public pestilence, a champion of popular liberty, altogether of spotless reputation and well-deserved fame; was the order to which such a man belonged, by free will and choice, to be feared and banished? were such as he to be interrupted in their great work because they preferred to wear a certain garb and conform to certain rules? No, in the name of liberty! A more effective plea could scarcely be imagined. Lacordaire’s colleague, the Père de Ravignan, claimed for himself, as M. de Montalembert tells us, “as a citizen, and in the name of the charter, and of the liberty of conscience guaranteed to all, the right of being and of calling himself a Jesuit.” But the Frère Prêcheur does not seem to have done even so much as this. Never abandoning the idea for which others were now fighting as he had once fought, he devoted himself to his duties in the midst of the strife—made his monkish frock splendid with the eloquence of a voice worthy the old renown of the French pulpit—made it familiar to all eyes as he travelled through the country collecting crowds of eager hearers everywhere; finally, with quiet resolution, established here and there, in different quarters, houses of his order, assuming for himself, in the strength of his character and fame, the very right for which his colleagues were struggling, and giving calm intimation, as he did so, that he would defend this right, if attacked, before the tribunals of his country. Nobody ventured to attack Lacordaire. The white Dominican went all over France, leaving behind him here and there a little nucleus of monks. Public opinion melted before the great preacher. If men’s minds did not change, at least their opposition was hushed and put down by the unquestionable eminence of the man. “Henceforward,” he himself says, “in all the pulpits, and upon all the roads of France, the monastic robe has recovered the right of citizenship which it lost in 1790.” He restored the credit of the monks, and gained a certain degree of toleration for the Jesuits themselves, and thus won what is in the eyes of M. de Montalembert “the great victory which shall immortalise his name.”

This struggle, which Lacordaire himself calls “the most perilous and the most decisive of all his campaigns,” was brought to a conclusion by the renewed political agitations of 1848. In that strange hubbub and overthrow of existing affairs, the tide of public commotion, by way of demonstrating the hold he had obtained on the public mind, drew the monk from his retirement to plunge him into the newly-formed Assembly of France. His appearance there did not, in the excitement of the time, shock the sensibilities of any; his election even “charmed and reassured all religious men;” and the preacher himself was sufficiently sanguine to believe that the mild Lamartine sway was to maintain the constitution of France, and that great charter for which he had fought so long, and to introduce a new era in the history of the nation. He obeyed the voice of the people, like other great Elects, and took his seat always in his Dominican frock in the revolutionary parliament—and he assisted in founding another paper, ‘L’Ere Nouvelle,’ which was neither so long-lived nor so brilliant as ‘L’Avenir’ of his youth. But the natural good sense of the man shortly interposed. His parliamentary career lasted but ten days, and erelong he retired also from the newspaper, and withdrew to one of his new convents to recover himself and throw off the excitement of this renewed essay at politics. Then having shaken himself free of this interruption, he went back to his beloved pulpit, where he preached and laboured as before for three years. But in April 1851, when concluding his lectures, he took an unlooked-for and unintended farewell—some subtle shadow of coming events, which, however, he denies to be a presentiment, having moved him to special tenderness and pathos—of the pulpit in which, more or less, he had laboured for twenty years. “Oh, walls of Notre Dame! sacred arches which have borne my words to so many intelligences deprived of God! altars which have blessed me! I will never separate from you!” he cries, his heart moving within him as he recalls his past life, and all that has happened there, since, young and in the dawn of his fame, he made his first appearance in the metropolitan church. But he never again entered the pulpit thus endeared by the labours of a life; once more only he preached in Paris, and once again, in 1854, delivered, at the request of the Archbishop, six discourses in Toulouse. His career as a preacher had come to an abrupt and unexpected conclusion: for in the mean time that virtuous republic, which Lamartine and his brethren had begun so mildly, had fallen into desperate troubles, and the sharp and sudden stroke of the coup d’état had shocked society in France into a new mood. Freedom of speech, eloquence itself, went suddenly out of fashion. Silence was best when there was so little to say that could be anyhow consolatory to the people or satisfactory to the ruler. With a delicate but indignant reticence, M. de Montalembert indicates thus the reason of his friend’s sudden withdrawal from the pulpit:—

“I do not think that any formal interdiction emanating even from the temporal authorities had ever been pronounced against him; but there was a general sentiment that this bold and free language which he had used for twenty years, under all changes, without meeting any obstacle, without recognising any curb but that of orthodoxy, was now out of date. Evil days had come for the struggles and the triumphs of eloquence. It was universally repudiated, and made responsible for all the misfortunes of the country, for all the dangers of society, by a triumphant revenge of those who had never been able to make any man listen to them. The prince of sacred eloquence had thus to be silent. He said afterwards, ‘I left the pulpit in a spontaneous fear of my liberty before an age which was no longer free. I perceive,’ he added, ‘that in my thoughts, in my language, in my past, in what remains to me of future, I also was a kind of freedom, and that my hour had come to disappear like the others.’”

He preached no more. He was not yet fifty—still in the full vigour of his powers—but the day of discussion, of agitation, of eloquence was over, and Lacordaire, with instinctive wisdom, seems to have perceived the expediency of submission. It is a strange conclusion to a singular career. After the chivalrous pugnacity of his earlier years; after his steady struggle all his life through, by every possible means to link together democracy and Catholicism, the old unmoving Church and the new ever-varying world; after ‘L’Avenir’ of his youth, with its daring hopes and efforts—the brilliant youthful future which he and his colleagues were to work out of revolution and anarchy—and ‘L’Ere Nouvelle’ of his later years, which had less of the future, less of hope, yet was still a new beginning;—it is a strange sight to see the champion suddenly drop his arms and stand silent, arrested for ever before this new, strange, silent figure of absolutism which has suddenly erected itself against the agitated firmament. When this unlooked-for apparition rises between him and the skies, the great preacher has nothing more to say. All is over in a moment. “I have never feared but one thing—the absolute triumph of an individual,” said his friend, Madame Swetchine. And when, at last, after a world of controversy and discussion, that dreaded event arrived, the public life of the great orator came to an almost instantaneous conclusion. He retired not by compulsion, but by some internal sense of necessity. “He had no violence, no persecution to complain of,” says his biographer, “and I only render homage to truth by declaring that I have never seen in him the least trace of bitterness or of animosity against the new power. This power inspired him only with the sentiment of neutrality, dignified and a little disdainful, which existed in his nature in respect to all powers.” But whatever his sentiment might be, the fact is certain. Before all other developments of power the orator had held up bravely the banner of the Church, and kept his place. Before this new potency he gave way and yielded. It is one of the strangest acts of homage ever done to an unquestionable strength—“Le prince de la parole sacrée dût donc se taire.” He gave up that right over which he had rejoiced in the fervent days of his youth as “something inalienable, divine, eternally free”—the right of speaking of God. He made neither resistance nor public protest. The shadow of the new Empire fell over him in sudden chill and silence, and the words died upon his fervid lips. He who had spoken so freely, laboured so hard, spent himself so liberally for the service of his Church and country, was in himself, as he expresses it, “a kind of liberty”—a personified freedom; and, as with other freedoms, the day was over for him. He saw by intuition that resistance was useless. The silent despot overawed, as by a species of fascination, the eloquent priest, who, in his heart, was “a little disdainful” of all kinds of powers. This new kind of power, personal, self-concentrated, standing alone in an inexorable mute mystery over the destinies of France, silenced the preacher as if by force of instinct. His voice died out of the country, which had fallen into a sudden paralysis, half of fear, half of admiration, before this basilisk Emperor. The spell was upon Lacordaire as upon France. He never opened his lips again in public after that one series of provincial lectures, which were themselves broken off and left imperfect, because one of them contained “some outbursts of truth, of grief, and of boldness, which were no longer in season. He had to renounce public speaking definitively,” says M. de Montalembert, with significant reserve; and here, according with the beginning of the imperial power, ended his public life.

He withdrew after this to Soraye, an ancient abbey, first of the Benedictines, then of the Dominicans, to which order he himself belonged, and where there now flourished a large public school. He devoted himself to the regeneration and perfection of this institution, to “the teaching of youth, which had always been the supreme vocation of his life.” Here he consoled the sadness and disappointment of his heart, wounded as it was by the sudden overthrow of all the work of his life, and by the sad and rapid change of affairs which had taken place in France, among the children whom he loved. But though he made no public complaint, and manfully devoted himself to the favourite occupation which Providence had still left to him, the lamentable downfall of all his hopes went to the heart of the liberal monk. His country, his age, “which scarcely knew how to obey,” had become all at once eager “not only to accept but to implore a master.” His Church and religious party, “clergy and Catholics, who had so long applauded the masculine independence of his eloquence, had fallen all at once a prey to a delusion without excuse, and to a prostration without example in all the history of the Church. Names which had been honoured to appear beside his own in the memorable manifestoes by which Christian liberty had invoked the sole shelter of public freedom, appeared all at once affixed to harangues and mandiments which borrowed the forms of Byzantine adulation to salute the mad dream of an orthodox absolutism.” “Till the last day of his life,” adds M. de Montalembert, “the grief and indignation with which the sight of this great moral catastrophe inspired him was not weakened. But his affliction, his magnanimous wrath, breathed forth in his letters. This treasure remains to us, thank God! it will be preserved for posterity; and when the time shall come when all may be said, it will appear as the most brilliant and most necessary of protests against those who have so miserably divided, disarmed, and discredited Catholicism in France.”

We have no space to quote, as the biographer does, those melancholy and indignant letters. Whilst thus breathing forth to his friends the disappointment which consumed his soul, Lacordaire lived on in his southern seminary, far from the busy world which had deceived him, a life of usefulness and silence. It was a “retreat laborious and animated” in which he now found himself; and, with a true Christian philosophy, the great orator bent all his faculties to his work. “One of the consolations of my present life,” he writes, with touching sadness, “is to live only with God and children: the latter have their faults, but they have still betrayed nothing and dishonoured nothing.” He made Soraye “the most flourishing and popular scholastic establishment in the south;” he formed a tender paternal friendship with many young souls, over whom he had immense influence. With the same eloquence which he had displayed in Notre Dame he preached to his pupils in their provincial chapel. In short, he accepted his position like a true man; and, hiding his mortification, his profound disappointment, his injured heart in his own breast, devoted himself to the important but obscure position in which he was to end his life. Here another great event happened to him in his seclusion. It was from Soraye he came, in his Dominican frock, to receive from the French Academy “the noblest recompense which can, in our days, crown a glorious and independent life.” He sat one day only in that illustrious assembly, where he appeared, as he himself said, as “the symbol of freedom accepted and fortified by religion.” This last honour was the last public event which occurred in his life. He went back laureated for his dying, and ended his life in Soraye, after a painful illness—so far as we are able to make out, for M. de Montalembert is indistinct in the matter of dates—in the winter of 1861. “It is the first time that my body has resisted my will,” he said, with a half-playful melancholy, in the midst of his sufferings; and died exclaiming, “My God, open to me, open to me!” with a sublime simplicity. God opened to him, and his agitations were over. Whether on the other side of that wonderful gateway he might discover that his monkish frock was less worth fighting for than it appeared, who can inquire? He lived a life full of worthy labour and service, and doubtless found his reward.

Our space does not permit us to follow M. de Montalembert, in his quotations from the letters and sermons of his friend, though there are in these letters many snatches of brilliant and tender eloquence on which we are much tempted to linger. It is not, however, in his productions that Lacordaire is most remarkable; it is in his character and career. “The principal thing is to have a life,” he himself said, when deprecating the over-production of modern literature; and no man has more exemplified the saying. He had a life, this man of conflict and strife, of self-denial and silence, of independence and duty—a life too human to make any formal anatomical consistency over-visible in its flesh-and-blood details—broadly contradictory, yet always in a harmony with itself more true than consistency. With his heart full of the agitations and the hopes of his time, he lived in his cloister in the practice of self-mortifications and punishments as severe as those with which any antique son of Dominic had subdued the flesh. “When all the events of this generous life shall be known, the orator will disappear before the monk,” says his sympathetic and admiring biographer, “and the prestige of that eloquence which has moved, enlightened, and converted so many souls, will seem a less marvel than the formidable austerity of his life, the severity with which he chastised his flesh, and his passionate love for Jesus Christ.” This is the side of his character and existence least comprehensible to the English spectator. How he, so unimpassioned, so temperate, so sensible—he who had only loved glory, and nothing else, before he loved God—should have needed “excessive macerations” to subdue that flesh which, so far as appears, was far from exercising any despotic sway over the spirit, is a curious question, and one which perhaps never can be answered to the satisfaction of our practical understandings; but the interest, the individuality, and sincere nobleness of his life seem unquestionable. From his little convent he passes to the bar and public tribunal, where even the unwilling crowd applauds; to the pulpit, where admiring multitudes surround him; yet returns to his Visitandines and his almonry, obedient and silent, when the hour of his triumph is over. From the height of popular fame and success, driven by that noble intuition in his heart that he is not sufficiently using the talent God has given him, he withdraws to take up the monk’s frock, most despised of habits, not to hide a mortified life or wounded heart, as a sentimental bystander might suppose, but for the sake of the labour and use of which he believes it still capable. Deeply contradictory as such a proceeding is of all our convictions and theories, it is far from our thoughts to blame Lacordaire for this singular vestment in which he enwrapped all his later life. It may be that to the eyes of this languid and over-refining age, the forcible type and symbol which antedate all arguments is, after all, the thing most wanted; and that the apparition of the monk, self-denuded of all possessions, even of his own will, for the glory of God and the service of his neighbour, may startle the confused intelligence into a belief of that work and its importance, which no philosophy could give. Such at least seems to have been the conviction of Lacordaire. Like his great contemporary Irving, the French preacher felt the inefficacy of common means for the work on which his heart was set. To both the world came open-mouthed, wondering and admiring; but neither in the London modern church, nor under the noble arches of Notre Dame, was the report of the prophet believed as he felt in his heart it ought to be. This uneasiness in the passionate heart of our great countryman gave rise, by some subtle magnetic influence, to a wild dream of miraculous aid and voices from heaven; and in the self-controlled and unimpassioned soul of the French priest it wrought an issue almost as strange—the restoration, to some extent, of monasticism in his country, and the dedication of his own life to that disused and discredited vocation. No two men could be more unlike, but here both met in a strange concord and agreement. Something had to be done beyond the ordinary routine of evangelism to seize upon the dull ear and sluggish heart of the time. Supernaturalism, or monasticism, or any other martyrdom—what matter, so it did but startle that slumbering generation to some thought of its evil ways? Let us build the sepulchres of those prophets whom our fathers, by their apathy and indifference, drove into such a noble desperation. We too, doubtless, will do our share of the same work. Yet it is a kind of penitence of humanity for its ever-recurring mistakes and misconceptions, which prompts one generation to decorate the tombs into which the sins of a former generation have urged and driven the not perfect yet noble dead.

LADY MORGAN’S MEMOIRS.[4]

In a small house furnished in the tawdry-brilliant style, in a small street adjoining Lowndes Square, there dwelt, between the years 1828 and 1859, a small woman, who, though very old, persisted in believing herself to be young, and dressed and spoke and acted as if she were the observed of all observers. She was not handsome; she never could have been, for there were defects both in face and form at variance with beauty; but she was bright, or rather brisk, in the expression of her countenance, and her air was jaunty, though neither graceful nor elegant. The career of this little woman had been a remarkably busy, and, on the whole, a successful one. She was a voluminous writer, and had made a good deal of money out of her publishers. By a process which is perhaps better understood on the other side of St George’s Channel than here, she succeeded in making her way into what is called “society,” and she never loosened her hold, having once made it fast, upon man or woman, whom, for any reason of rank, worth, or talent, she considered it worth while to cultivate. It is curious to observe likewise the skill with which she makes it appear that the balance of advantage in the matter of acquaintance was always on the side of her friends, especially when they happened to be gentlemen; for she laboured under the happy delusion of believing that she was not only the cleverest, but the most beautiful woman of the age, and that no man, young or old, married or single, ever approached except to fall in love with her.

Time, however, overtook her, as he overtakes other people, and beat her in the race. Latterly she went out little in search of society, either because invitations came sparsely in, or that the fatigue was too great for her, or that she grudged the fly-hire. But she had weekly receptions in her own little drawing-room, and moved heaven and earth, and a variety of penny-post men, to get them attended. A few old Whigs, including the Marquess of Lansdowne and good-natured Lord Carlisle, when he happened to be in town, looked in occasionally at her soirées. Now and then a Tory man of genius—Sir E. B. Lytton, for example—would make his appearance; and it has even been whispered, though we doubt the truth of the story, that a learned divine, sometimes two, might occasionally be seen in the throng. But the bulk of her guests consisted of fashionables of a second or third order, with a few small celebrities, literary, musical, and artistic. The little woman was very great on these occasions. She dispensed her weak tea and weaker conversation with equal fluency; she flattered and received flattery to any conceivable amount. Every man his own trumpeter, and every woman too, was with her an article of religious belief; and she did what religious professors are suspected of not always doing—she carried her faith into practice. A judicious application of rouge to the cheeks, the frocks and furbelows of a girl, a mincing gait, and a perpetual smile, set her forth to the best advantage. At eighty-three years of age she was still a butterfly; and if she could not flit, she floundered from flower to flower.

One day it became known, through a paragraph in the ‘Morning Post,’ that Lady Morgan was dead. London was not thrown into a state of consternation by the announcement, neither did any of its leading habitués array themselves in mourning: on the contrary, we are afraid that, having read the brief sketch which accompanied the notification, and commented upon it, most people forgot within five minutes or less that such a person as Lady Morgan had ever existed. But this was a consummation which, though common enough where others were concerned, her ladyship had made up her mind should not occur in her case. Having engrossed, as she believed, a large share of public attention while living, she determined that she should not cease to be talked about when dead. Accordingly, she conceived the brilliant idea of immortalising herself in a posthumous work, and occupied herself, early and late, in preparing the materials. She availed herself of the assistance of kindhearted Miss Jewsbury in this work, and appointed by will that Mr Hepworth Dixon should be the guardian of her literary reputation. We never heard whether in her lifetime she made Mr Dixon aware of the honour which was intended for him: we think it probable that she did not; because Mr Dixon is reputed to be a man of sense; and it strikes us that, knowing his woman, he would have got out of the scrape had the chance of doing so been afforded him. But it is one thing to object to a proposed arrangement before it is completed, and quite another to refuse carrying into effect the last wish of a relative or dear friend. The struggle was doubtless severe; but sentiment prevailed with Mr Dixon over the remonstrances of good taste and good feeling. He took home the box which contained the precious documents; and now, at an interval of three years from the old lady’s death, the results are before us.

But Mr Dixon, though a pious executor, is not the less a wise man. He seems to have read her ladyship’s papers through, and arrived at a just appreciation of their merits. They would not bear handling in any shape; they must come before the public exactly as they came before him, or he at least could have nothing to say to them. Here is his preface:—

“Lady Morgan bequeathed her papers and journals to me, with a view to their publication. The collection was large, as she had preserved nearly every line written to her from the letters of princes and statesmen, the compliments of poets, of exiles, and heroes, down to the petitions of weavers, chimney-sweeps, and servant-girls—even the invitations sent her to dinner, and the address cards left at her door. Many of these trifles of the day have no value now; a hundred years hence, if kept together, they may serve to illustrate with singular brightness and detail the domestic life of a woman of society in the reign of Victoria. My duty in the matter of their publication was clear enough. Lady Morgan had not only proposed to write her own memoirs, but had made a considerable progress in her task. A good part of a volume had been prepared under her own eyes for the press. Much of the correspondence to be used had been marked, and the copious diaries, in which she had noted the events of her life and the course of her thoughts, supplied nearly all the additions which could be desired. Under these circumstances, it appeared to me that Lady Morgan could be judiciously left to tell her own story in her own way.”

If Mr Dixon had followed any other course, he would have done great injustice both to himself and to Lady Morgan. Her ladyship’s story, as told by herself, is indeed a literary curiosity: had it been told by him, or by anybody else, we doubt whether it would have found a dozen readers. It is probable, for example, that Mr Dixon would have endeavoured to settle the dates of events as they occurred. Possibly, too, he might have narrated these events exactly as they befell: we are pretty sure that he would have done his best to draw a faithful portraiture of his heroine—coloured, perhaps, with the tints which biographers are apt to shed over the objects of their laudation, but not absolutely blazing. Lady Morgan knew a great deal better than this. She starts with the frank avowal, “that she never means to be trammelled by attending to dates.... What has a woman to do with dates?—cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates! New style, old style, procession of the equinox; ill-timed calculation of comets long since due at their stations, yet never come.” Don’t let the reader suppose that this is a mere empty flourish of trumpets. Lady Morgan was never more earnest in her life than when she wrote these sentences. It formed part of her plan to be considered as enjoying a perpetual youth, and she took the readiest, and, as she believed, the surest means of effecting that purpose. In like manner, Lady Morgan had resolved that from beginning to end, her career, as the world was to follow it, should be a romance. She throws an air of mystery, therefore, not only over the date of her birth, but over all the incidents of place and condition into which she fell; till circumstances, as wonderful as they are fortunate, combined to plant her in the foremost ranks of literature and fashion. This gives her an immense advantage over autobiographers in general. She is free to say what she pleases, and to say it as she pleases; and if the public be perverse enough to discredit her statements wholly or in part, what is that to her? The public will read her book and talk about it, and the subject of it; and her manes, if she have any manes, will for a while be gladdened.

There are two ways of telling the story of Lady Morgan’s infancy and girlhood. The first, or poetical, which is her own, describes her as descended from an old Irish family—as the daughter of a man of brilliant genius and the highest sense of honour—as coming into the world at a moment when this great and good man’s affairs happened, unfortunately, to be in confusion; and as thus forced, without any fault of his or her own, to make a too early acquaintance with poverty and its attendant evils. The other, or prosaic, which has no foundation to rest upon except vulgar fact, says that Sydney Owenson was the daughter of a strolling player, who could never clearly distinguish between meum and tuum—who was always rollicking, light-hearted, and merry—who spent every farthing which he earned faster than it came in, was often in prison, and perpetually in debt. The poetic, or Lady Morgan’s reading, further shows that the Owensons or M‘Owens came from one of the great houses of Connaught, which at some remote period, date unknown, had lost or forfeited their enormous estates; that her grandfather, a handsome young yeoman, ran away with her grandmother, and that, though very poor, they lived, upon the whole, comfortably and respectably together. The other, or prosaic version, seems to say that it was Miss Owenson’s grandmother who ran away with her grandfather; that she fell in love with his illigant Hibernian proportions on the occasion of a great curling-match, and never let him alone till he had made her his wife. It is not, however, so easy, as we advance in this interesting history, to follow the line which separates the ideal from the real; but this much at least is certain, that before the end of a year the ci-devant Miss Crofton became the mother of Robert M‘Owen, and that Robert M‘Owen became in due course of time the father of Sydney Lady Morgan.

There is nothing to show very clearly under what circumstances the patronymic M‘Owen made way for the more euphonious Owenson. We are inclined to believe that the change must have occurred at the time when young M‘Owen became a dependant upon the Blakes, and hereby hangs a tale. Mrs M‘Owen, it appears, was a sweet singer, and played skilfully on the Irish harp. She possessed likewise a large share of that inventive faculty which descended to her granddaughter, for she managed to get up such a story, and to tell it so effectively, as to induce a rich neighbour to become the patron of her son. A Mr Blake, a man of enormous wealth, had purchased the property on which M‘Owen’s cabin stood. He called one day on the inmates, and was struck, of course, with the ladylike manners of one of them, who soon made him aware of the gentility of her own descent, and got up a pedigree still more startling for her husband and son. Mr Blake was assured, with great solemnity and perfect effect, that at some period indefinitely remote a Blake had diddled a M‘Owen out of his estate. The millionaire’s sympathies were awakened, either by the tale, or by the manner of telling it; and as he had previously been struck by the boy’s exquisite voice (for young M‘Owen sang like a thrush, and formed one of the choir in the morning at the chapel, and in the afternoon at the church), Mr Blake forthwith proposed to take him into his family and do for him. It was too good an offer to be refused. Young M‘Owen, henceforth to be spoken of as Owenson, left the cabin for the hall, and received just such an education as a horribly selfish bachelor with some fine tastes considered would suffice to render the boy useful to himself, and amusing to other people.

We hear nothing after this of Grandfather M‘Owen, and not much of Grandmother. They probably continued to live, the rest of their days, the cat-and-dog life which usually falls to the lot of persons circumstanced as they were; but the son goes with his patron to Dublin, where for the first time he is present at a play. By-and-by, after exchanging his frieze for broadcloth, he removes to London. There wits and beauties flock about him. He is very clever—he sings divinely. Oliver Goldsmith is his first cousin, five times removed, and Madame Weichsel takes a fancy to him. This is too much, and the lad’s head gets turned. Mr Blake has occasion to visit Ireland, or says that he has, and goes away, after charging young Owenson to keep at home and look after his property. In particular, he charges the lad not to go to the theatre in his absence, or to any other place of public amusement; but no sooner is the patron’s back turned, than the protégé hurries off to Vauxhall, and is easily persuaded to take part in the duet of ‘Fair Aurora’ with his friend Madame Weichsel, who has an engagement there. He little knows what eyes are upon him all the while. Mr Blake has not gone to Ireland; he has come to Vauxhall to be amused, and after listening to the duet, and probably applauding it, he goes straight back to his house in Russell Street. We are not prepared to say what might have happened had young Owenson returned home to sleep. But he did nothing of the sort; he was out on a spree for three days and three nights, and found, when the fun was over, that his trunk stood ready roped in the hall, and that a letter from Mr Blake, containing a bank post-bill for £300, requested him to go about his business.

On the whole, we are inclined to believe that this is a not incorrect statement of the case. Some allowances must of course be made for over-colouring. Probably Owenson was not quite the accomplished gentleman whom his daughter represents him to have been, nor Mr Blake the sybarite and the brute she describes. At all events, we think he did perfectly right in getting rid of a scapegrace whom he could not trust out of his own sight. Such, however, were not young Owenson’s views of the matter. He indignantly re-enclosed the bank-note to Mr Blake (we have some doubts about that fact), and marched off, proud and penniless, to Oliver Goldsmith. The upshot was that he took to the stage, and sang and acted with moderate success. He accepted an engagement in Shrewsbury, and there persuaded the mayor’s daughter to marry him privately. It was a decided mésalliance on both sides, for the good blood of old Ireland got contaminated by intermixture with that of a provincial magnate; while the magnate took so little to the honour conferred upon him, that he refused to make any settlement on the young couple, or even to see them.

Miss Hill, now Mrs Owenson, was a follower of Lady Huntingdon, and hated the stage. She prevailed upon her husband, great as he was in such characters as Sir Lucius O’Trigger and Major O’Flaherty, to abandon it, and he confined himself to singing at oratorios. This continued for a while, very much to the singer’s discontent; but by-and-by Richard Daley, Esq. of Castle Daley (let us not withhold the title), persuaded the facile Owenson to violate his pledge, and to connect himself with the Theatre-Royal, Crow Street, Dublin, of which he of Castle Daley was the patentee. There followed upon this a removal to Drumcondra, where the deputy-manager—for such was Mr Owenson’s rank—took a “pretty villa,” and Mrs Owenson bore as she best might her banishment to the land of Papists and potatoes. And here, in passing, we would venture to point out, that when Lady Morgan speaks of “pretty villas,” “elegant cottages,” “lovely villages,” and suchlike, she does not always intend that we should believe her au pied de la lettre. The “pretty villa” in the “lovely village” was, we suspect, in the present instance, a tumbledown, half-ruinous house on the outskirts of a dirty lane, much frequented by long-legged swine and half-naked children. And we arrive at this conclusion from recollecting a little incident in her ladyship’s after-history, which may be worth recording. She went out of town, on one occasion, to write, as she said, “in quiet,” a book on which she was engaged. Her correspondence with her fashionable friends was not, however, intermitted; and in a letter to Lady Charleville, not given in this collection, she describes herself as “sitting beside a glass door, which opens upon a velvet lawn, and commands a lovely view over one of the fairest landscapes that ever delighted the eye of a painter.” Lady Charleville, happening not long after to be near the place of “Glorvina’s” retreat, had the curiosity to go and see the spot which had been thus delineated, and found it to be a small and rather dirty room in a cottage, with a single window looking out upon a cabbage-garden, beyond which, at about ten yards’ distance, uprose a stiff quickset hedge, impervious to the vision!

We must pass lightly over what remains to be told of the family history of the Owensons. It is rather confusedly narrated, and seems to imply that the circumstances of the household were generally straitened, and that they either shifted their habitat very frequently, or were often in two places at the same time. We have just ascertained, for example, that on the arrival of Mrs Owenson in Ireland, “my father took a pretty villa for her at Drumcondra.” Yet the authority for this fact relates: “I was born on Christmas Day, in that land where all holy days are religiously celebrated, as testimonials to faith, and are excuses for festivity in ancient ould Dublin.” And here again there is a blank, which we are left to fill up as we please. On the Christmas Day of what year might this memorable event occur? Taking collateral circumstances into account, it might not unfairly be assumed that some Christmas Day about the middle of the last century witnessed the remarkable occurrence. But the inference, we suspect, would be erroneous. Having taken a good deal of pains to settle the matter, we are glad that it is in our power to save Lady Morgan from the reproach of having lived many years beyond eighty. She was born in 1776. “Bells tolled, carols were intoned—the streets resounded with joyous sounds; an uproarious party sat about the board of as fine a type of the Irish gentleman as Ireland ever set forth, when another birth” (another than what?) “was announced by a joyous gossip to the happy father, who instantly disappeared.” We cannot too much commend the taste, not to say the piety, of this whole sentence. No wonder that the guests, waiting, “not with empty glasses,” till the happy father’s return, should have considered the event a “reason fair to fill their glass again,” or that they were with difficulty dispersed on the assurance “that they should all meet again that day month, to be present at the christening of the young heathen.”

The christening of the “young heathen” took place in due time. The ceremony is well described, and the style eminently characteristic, for it is light, airy, graceful, and considerably profane. Then comes a pause, extending, as it would appear, over some years—and after that a graphic account of the lumbering of a post-coach, “on the evening of a dreary winter’s day, up the ill-paved hill of an old street in the oldest part of Dublin, called Fish Shambles Street.” Where the coach came from we are not told, but it conveyed Mrs Owenson and her two daughters (for by this time Olivia likewise had been born, and both she and Sydney were able to take their share in conversation) to the new home which Mr Owenson had prepared for them. And here comes another mystery. The house is evidently a ruin—but why a ruin, and how, if ever, repaired, we never learn. It is enough for us to know that Mr Owenson, in breach of his engagement with Mr Daley of Castle Daley, had taken the National Theatre Music Hall, and that it was opened with the representation of three pieces,—“‘The Carmelite,’ ‘The Brave Irishman,’ and ‘The Poor Soldier.’ A medley of Irish airs made up the overture, which ended with the Volunteers’ March, and my father wrote and spoke the prologue in his own character of an Irish Volunteer.” Now, if we recollect aright, the Irish Volunteers were in their glory about 1782, and as we learn that Miss Sydney, when the “post-coach” set down its burden, had held an interesting conversation with her mother about Handel, it appears to us that on this eventful night she could not have been less than six years old at the least.

Mr Owenson’s theatrical adventure was not a fortunate one. The Government went against him, by granting to Mr Daley a patent for the exclusive performance of the regular drama; and the Dublin gentry, though they took plenty of boxes at the Music Hall, objected or forgot to pay for them. Neither was he more successful in trade. His cousins, the Ffrenches, an old family, of course, exiled on account of their religion, or for some other cause, made him their agent for the sale of wines which they grew at Bordeaux; and though he certainly managed to get rid of large quantities, he was never able to remit to them negotiable bills for the same. He went, in short, to the dogs, his course thither being a good deal accelerated by the death of his amiable but gloomy and Calvinistic wife. And now began in earnest the education of the two Misses Owenson. They were placed under a French emigrée, a Mme. Terson, who kept school first at Portarlington, and afterwards at Clontarf, and learned from her imperfectly a good deal, living at the same time with “many girls of rank, and some of distinguished talent.” How Mme. Terson got paid we are left to conjecture. Probably she never got paid at all; but being a benevolent person, and a sort of sister of mercy, she allowed the player’s daughters to remain with her for four years, and then handed them over to a Mrs Anderson in order to be finished. Mrs Anderson, however, was a different sort of person from Mme. Terson. Her pupils “were the daughters of wealthy mediocrities; their manners were coarse and familiar;” and Mrs Anderson herself had a vulgar desire to receive quid pro quo. The young ladies could not, under such circumstances, remain long with her. Yet “the school in Earl Street had its advantages too, for it brought us constantly in contact with our dear father, who walked out with us every Sunday on the Mall in Sackville Street, where the fashionables of Dublin most did congregate, who seldom passed us without the observation, ‘There goes Owenson and his two dear little girls.’”

Having thus early established for herself an interest in the esteem and admiration of “the fashionables,” it is not to be wondered at that Sydney Owenson’s after-career should have been brilliant. She went with her father to Kilkenny, where he built “a beautiful little theatre,” and mortgaged it, before it was roofed in, “to a wealthy and fashionable attorney.” The usual results followed—Mr Welch, the wealthy and fashionable attorney, “foreclosed his mortgage suddenly” (we have heard that he never could get a farthing of interest), “and bills to an enormous amount were presented.” They were accepted as a notice to quit. Mr Owenson carried his daughters back to Dublin, where he placed them in lodgings under the care of their faithful maid Molly, and then bolted. The truth seems to be, that everybody came down upon him. The players were clamorous for their salaries; the workpeople insisted upon having their accounts settled; the attorney claimed the amount of his mortgage; and the Ffrenches required that some portion at least of the value of the wine which Mr Owenson had undertaken to sell for them should be accounted for. What could the poor manager do under such circumstances? He hid himself till a commission of bankruptcy could be taken out, and then, like many a wiser if not better man, walked at large again, as if nothing particular had happened.

From this date, about 1794, Mr Owenson ceases to be the prominent figure in the family tableau. His daughter Sydney assumes her proper place. Though barely eighteen, she has already had lovers without end at her feet. The first is a poor scholar called Dermody (a thorough scamp, by the by, who abused everybody’s patience, and died at last of delirium tremens in the purlieus of Westminster), to whom her father had been kind. It is by no means certain that he ever seriously proposed, but he wrote many letters full of nonsense, most of which are printed in this collection. Then came the officers of the garrison of Kilkenny, two of whom at least fairly died because beautiful Sydney was cruel.

“Captain White Benson and Captain Earl” (says Miss Jewsbury, writing from Lady Morgan’s memoranda) “were two young officers quartered in Kilkenny during the period when Mr Owenson had his daughters with him, while his theatre was being built. She refers to the young men in one of her Dublin letters to her father, telling him that they had called....

“Molly was a very dragon of discretion, and the two girls might have had a worse guardian. Lady Clark often told of the Kilkenny days, when she, an unformed lump of a girl, whose greatest delight was to go rambling about the fields, armed with a big stick and followed by a dog, once returned from her rambles covered with mud, and her frock torn from scrambling over hedges and ditches, her hair all blown over her face (she had the loveliest long golden hair that ever was seen), and found her sister Sydney and these two young officers sitting in the parlour, talking high sentiment, and all three shedding tears. Molly came in at the same moment to lay the cloth for dinner, and thinking they had stayed quite long enough, said, in her most unceremonious manner, ‘Come, be off wid yez! an’ the master will be coming in to his dinner, and what will he say to find you here fandangoing with Miss Sydney?’ Sydney, who the moment before had been enjoying her sorrows, burst out laughing at this sally, and, shaking her black curly head, danced away like a fairy.”

What an exquisite piece of word-painting! What a charming scene! Who can wonder that the results should have been so serious? Of Captain Earl, to be sure, we hear nothing more, but Captain Benson wrote two letters at least to his lady-love, both of which, dated in 1798, are given in extenso. Miss Jewsbury’s remarks concerning them are edifying:—

“These two letters,” she says, “are much worn and torn, as though from frequent reading and handling. On the back of the latest of them is written, ‘This elegant-minded and highly-gifted young man drowned himself near York a few months after I received this letter.’”

Tender as her heart was, Miss Owenson had something else to do than to indulge its weaknesses. She determined, as soon as she became acquainted with the real state of her father’s affairs, to earn her own livelihood; and however ridiculous her vanity may be, however gross her many breaches of truth and common propriety, we are bound to acknowledge, and we do it with hearty goodwill, that she went gallantly through with that purpose. Her first impulse was to turn authoress; her next and wiser, to go out as a governess or companion, if any lady, young or old, would have her. She was now about twenty-one, but looked considerably younger. There was difficulty, therefore, in finding a place for her, though her old music-master, M. Fontaine, did his best to make her merits known, and the Countess O’Haggerty, an emigrée and a distinguished harpist, took her up. Accident, however, introduced her at one of Fontaine’s parties to Mrs Lefanu, a sister of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who behaved to her then and ever afterwards with marked kindness. The result was, that a Mrs Featherstone sought her out, and, after a little preliminary negotiation, it was settled that she should proceed on a visit to Bracklin, near Castletown, in the county of Westmeath, and, if approved and approving, that she should undertake the education of two young ladies, the daughters of her new friend. If we are to believe Lady Morgan, she seems to have won the hearts and clouded the judgments of all whom she approached.

Her account of her journey to Bracklin, and of the manner of her reception there, is of course too good to be quite true, but it is very characteristic. She was to travel by the night-mail, but, being invited to a petit bal d’adieu at M. Fontaine’s, she was startled in the middle of a country-dance by hearing the guard’s horn sounding at the end of the street. “Then all that could be done was for Molly to throw a warm cloak over me, with my own bonnet, and my little bundle of things, so that I might dress when I got to Kinigad. One of the young gentlemen snatched up my portmanteau, and so we all flew along the flags, which were frosted over, and got to the mail just as the guard lost patience and was mounting. So I was poked in and the door banged to, and ‘my carriage’ drove off like lightning down College Green, along the quays, and then into some gloomy street I did not remember.”

A smart young officer is taken up at one of the barrack-gates, but being told by the guard that there was an old lady inside, he declines to enter, and jumps up beside the coachman. Imagine his chagrin on discovering, when the coach stops at Kinigad, how grossly he had been deceived. “What!” he exclaims, as Miss Owenson is about to step out; “‘let such a foot as that sink in the snow?—never!’ ... and he actually carried me in his arms into the kitchen, and placed me in an old arm-chair before a roaring turf-fire.” Of course he did, and of course he was overawed and subdued when he heard that Mr Featherstone’s carriage and horses were waiting to carry the young lady to Bracklin. But what must the astonishment of the quiet country family have been when the future governess of their children walked in, “pinched, cold, confused, and miserable, in a balldress and pink silk shoes and stockings, without an article wherewith to change, her luggage having gone forward with the mail?” All, however, comes right in the end. The old gentleman looks grave, the young ladies laugh; mamma puts the stranger in charge of her future pupils, who dress her up in suits of their own. There is a capital dinner—she sings ‘Emunch ach Nuic’ (‘Ned of the Hills’), and ‘Barbara Allen’ (we presume, at the dinner-table), and after tea the whole entertainment is wound up with a dance, in which Miss Owenson comes off with flying colours. Why could not the old lady stop there?

“Public for public,” she continues, in her imbecility. “It may be worth while here to contrast my last jig in public with this my first out of the schoolroom. During the Viceroyalty of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, by whose attentions I was much distinguished, as indeed were all my family, it happened that Lord George Hill came on a little embassy from Her Excellency to beg that I would dance an Irish jig with him, as she had heard of my performance with Lady Glengall in a preceding reign. He said if I would consent I should choose either the Castle or the Viceregal Lodge for the exhibition, and that his brother, Lord Downshire, would write to Hillsboro’ for his own piper, who was then reckoned the best in Ireland. As it was to be a private and not a court exhibition, my husband permitted me to accept the challenge from the two best jig-dancers in the country, Lord George himself and Sir Philip Crampton. I had the triumph of flooring my two rivals. Lord George soon gave in, and the Surgeon-General felt a twinge of gout, he said, which obliged him to retire from the lists.”

The ball is now at Miss Owenson’s foot, and she keeps it going. Her life at Bracklin is a sort of heaven upon earth. Everybody takes to her. Mr Featherstone himself, though reserved at the outset, becomes one of her thousand lovers, and carries her with him into all the society which the county can afford. So it is when the family goes to Dublin for the season. How the education of the Misses Featherstone got on at all, we don’t pretend to understand, for the teacher seems to have plunged into the very vortex of fashionable life. Among other acquaintances which she formed were Sir John Stevenson and Tom Moore, the latter of whom she did her best to captivate, with, as it would appear, only indifferent success. But if she failed to bring the poet to her feet, she caught from him the furor of authorship. She had already completed her first novel, and needed only a publisher to bring it out. Her account of the manner in which that want was supplied is too rich not to be given in detail:—

“The Featherstone family were shortly to leave town, and I resolved on the desperate step of publishing my novel, though I did not know the difference between a bookseller and a publisher; and I intended to take my chance of finding one in the streets of Dublin. I had observed that the Domenich Street cook, a relic of the Dowager Steele regime, was in the habit of hanging up her bonnet and cloak in the back hall. I slipped down quietly one morning early, put on the cloak and bonnet, and with the MS. tidily put up under my arm, passed through the open hall-door, at which a milkman was standing, and started on my first literary adventure. I wandered down into Britain Street, past the noble edifices of the Lying-in Hospital and the Rotunda, quickened my steps down the aristocratic pavement of Sackville Street, then occupied by the principal nobility of Ireland. When I got to the bottom, with Carlisle Bridge and the whole world of commerce ‘all before me where to choose,’ I was puzzled; but as chance directed, I turned to the right into Henry Street, proceeding along, frightened and uncertain. To the left rose the Church of St. Peter, where I had gone to be confirmed; opposite to it were Stella’s lodgings, where she and Mrs Dingley held their bureau d’esprit. At the other end of the carrefoure, and on a line with the church, and on the same side with it, my eyes were dazzled by an inscription over a door,—‘T. Smith, printer and bookseller.’ As I ascended the steps a dirty-faced boy was sweeping the shop, and, either purposely or accidentally, swept all the dust into my face. He then flung down the brush, and, springing over the counter, leaned his elbows on the counter, and his chubby face on his hands, and said, ‘What do you please to want, Miss?’ I was stunned, but after a moment’s hesitation replied, the gentleman of the house. ‘Which of them—young or ould?’ Before I could make any selection, a glass door at the back of the shop opened, and a flashy young yeoman in full uniform, his musket on his shoulder, and whistling the ‘Irish Volunteers,’ marched straight up to me. The impudent boy, winking his eye, said, ‘Here’s a young Miss wants to see yez, Master James.’ Master James marched up to me, chucked me under the chin, ‘and filled me from the top to the toe choke-full of direst cruelty.’ I could have murdered them both. All that was dignified in girlhood and authorship beat at my heart, when a voice from the parlour behind the shop came to my rescue by exclaiming, ‘What are you doing there, Jim—why ain’t you off, sir, for the Phœnix?—and the lawyers’ corps marched an hour ago.’ The next moment, a good-looking, middle-aged man, but in a great passion, with his face half shaved, and a razor and shaving-cloth in his hand, came forth and said, ‘Off wid ye now, sir, like a sky-rocket.’ Jim accordingly shouldered his musket ‘like a sky-rocket,’ and Scrub, leaping over the counter, seized his broom and began to sweep diligently to make up for lost time. The old gentleman gave me a good-humoured glance, and saying, ‘Sit down, honey, and I’ll be with you in a jiffy,’ returned in a few minutes with the other half of his face shaved, and, wiping his hands with a towel, took his place behind the counter, saying, ‘Now, honey, what can I do for you?’ This was altogether so unlike my ideas of the Tonsons, the Dodsleys, and the great Miss Burney, that I was equally inclined to laugh and cry; so the old gentleman repeated his question, ‘Well, what do you want, my dear?’ I hesitated, and at last said, ‘I want to sell a book, please.’ ‘To sell a book, dear,—an ould one, for I sell new ones myself? And what is the name of it, and what’s it about?’ I was now occupied in taking off the rose-coloured ribbon with which I had tied up my MS. ‘What!’ he said; ‘it is a MS., is it!’ ‘The same, sir,’ I said: ‘St Clair.’ ‘Well, now, my dear, I’ve nothing to do with Church books, neither sermons nor tracts, do you see. I take it for granted it is a Papist book by the title.’ ‘No, sir, it is one of sentiment, after the manner of Werter.’ He passed his hand over his face, which left the humorous smile on his face unconcealed. ‘Well, my dear, I never heard of Werter, and am not a publisher of novels at all.’ At this announcement, hot, hurried, flurried, and mortified, I began to tie up my MS. In spite of myself the tears came into my eyes, and poor good-natured Mr Smith said, ‘Don’t cry, my dear; there’s money bid for you yet. But you’re very young to turn author; and what’s your name, dear?’ ‘Owenson, sir,’ I said. ‘Owenson!’ he repeated; ‘are you anything to Mr Owenson of the Theatre-Royal?’ ‘Yes, sir; I am his daughter.’ ‘His daughter—you amaze me!’”

And so on, and so on; for such, in fact, is the point up to which the whole twaddle is leading. The illustrious Owenson of the Theatre-Royal has friends and admirers everywhere. His name is a talisman which opens all doors, and softens all hearts. Mr Smith introduces Miss Owenson to Mr Brown, Mr Brown allows her to leave her MS. behind, and, without a word of agreement, spoken or written, on either side, he brings it out to his own great satisfaction. Miss Owenson thus becomes famous before she is aware of it.

Though very happy at Bracklin, Miss Owenson is not sorry to leave it. She returns to the bosom of her own family, and thus speaketh:—

“We” (that is to say, her sister Olivia and herself) “are seated at our little work-table, beside a cheerful turf-fire and a pair of lights. Livy is amusing herself at work, and I have been reading out a work of Schiller’s to her; whilst Molly is washing up the tea-things in the background, and Peter is laying the cloth for his master’s supper. That dear master! In a few minutes we shall hear his rap at the door, and his whistle under the window; and then we shall circle round the fire, and chat and laugh over the circumstances of the day. These are the scenes in which my heart expands, and which I love to sketch on the spot. Ah! I must soon leave them.”

To be sure she must; the simple truth being this, that she quarrelled with both father and sister, and had an insuperable objection to all their domestic arrangements. “In spite of her romantic love for her father,” observes Miss Jewsbury, “and her sincere attachment to her sister, the beautiful illusion of living a domestic life with them soon wore off. Accustomed as she had been so long to the plentiful comfort and regularity of Mrs Featherstone’s well-ordered household, she felt the difference between that and the scrambling poverty and discomfort of life in an Irish lodging.” So she levanted, and is next heard of in the family of Mr and Mrs Crawford, at Fort-William, in the north of Ireland. Her letters from that place are all in the old style. One of them indeed, addressed to her sister, begins by confessing that while surrounded “by that happy circle to which her heart was accustomed to expand,” “her spirits sank beneath the least appearance of discord, and she was too conscious that she was not so fortunate as to please every member of her own dear family.” The case is quite different at Fort-William. “Here I am almost an object of idolatry among the servants, and am caressed by all ranks of people.” She not only goes wherever the family are invited, but receives separate invitations for herself. To be sure, Mrs Crawford now and then runs rusty, and the self-love of the little governess receives a wound. “We had a very pressing invitation sent us for a ball at Clough-Jordan, given by a club there. Mine was, as usual, separate, but Mrs Crawford would not go. It is the third she has refused. Is it not provoking? Be content with your situation; you are young, you are beautiful, you are admired, and foolish women do not torment you!” Provoking! it was intolerable. Happily, however, crosses of this kind were rare—at all events, we don’t find many allusions to them in Miss Owenson’s correspondence with her old friend Mrs Featherstone.

“The other day we had upwards of forty people to dinner, among others Lord Dunally, Lord and Lady Clanbrock, Hon. Mrs Dillon, the Vaughans of Golden Grove, &c. We sang and played a good deal, and the night finished most pleasantly with my Irish jig, in which I put down my men completely. This has produced an ode to a jig, which I will send, when I can get a frank, to your papa, for I know it will please him.... Well, the other night we were at an immense row at Lady Clanbrock’s, to whom I owe so many obligations for her marked attention to me since my residence here, that I am at a loss how to mention them. It was quite a musical party, and—give me joy—on the decision of Lord Norbury, who was of the party, I bore away the palm from all their Italian music by the old Irish airs of ‘Ned of the Hill’ and ‘Cooleen,’ to which I had adapted words, and I was interrupted three times by plaudits in the ‘Soldier tired.’”

Having thus got into the good graces of a few lords and ladies, it is scarcely to be wondered at that Miss Owenson should become disgusted with Mrs Crawford and her pruderies. “As I found that these good people” (the Crawfords) “were determined on going for life to Castle Tumbledown” (Fort-William), “and as I never had any strong propensity for the society of crows who have established a very flourishing colony in the battlements, I gave in my resignation last week.” It was time that she should, for her mind was so completely divided between authorship and gaiety, that it could scarcely be expected to stoop to the trivialities of teaching. ‘St Clair,’ brought out, as we have stated, surreptitiously, had made some stir. Miss Jewsbury says it was translated into German; but we doubt whether it was much read at home beyond the circle of the authoress’s acquaintances. The complimentary notes which it drew from her friends, however, induced her to begin another, which was to be completed in six volumes, and to which she gave the name of the ‘Novice of St Domenich.’ Part of the ‘Novice’ she seems to have written in her father’s lodgings at Enniskillen, whither, after her breach with Mrs Crawford, she appears to have retired; part in the house of a family called Crossley, to whom she paid a visit. There were several sons in that family, one of whom, as a matter of course, fell in love with her. His letters—for he wrote many—are all carefully preserved; and on the back of the envelope in which they were wrapped up Miss Jewsbury found the following inscription:—“Francis Crossley, aged eighteen, chose to fall in love with me, Sydney Owenson, aged eighteen. He was then intended for a merchant, but the ‘Novice of St Domenich,’ which he copied out, as regularly as it was written, in six huge volumes, and its author, turned his head. He fled from his country-house, went to India, and became a great man.” With exceeding naïveté Miss Jewsbury observes on this—“Lady Morgan, when she endorsed these papers, had of course forgotten her own age. It is so sweet to be eighteen.” Forgotten her own age! We should think that she had, just as she forgot everything which did not minister to her vanity or jump with the humour of the moment. But Lady Morgan could remember as well as forget, when it suited her purpose. “Among her memoranda of 1822 and 1824,” says Miss Jewsbury, “are two or three entries on the subject of Captain Crossley, which may be given in this place:” “Francis Crossley, my fast friend of the other sex, met me at my sister’s house at dinner after an absence of eighteen years. It was a singular interview. What was most singular in it is, that he remains unchanged. He insists upon it that, in person, so am I.” “August 24th: Received this day a letter from Captain Crossley, acquainting me with his intention of marrying. I have written him an answer à mourir de rire, and so ends our romance of so many years!” “August 26th: Captain and Mrs Crossley dined this day here, and I never saw such a triste-looking couple. My poor Francis silent and sad.” How could he be otherwise, poor man! under the circumstances—with the new and old love both before him, and cut off, by his own rash act, from choosing between?

We take leave from this date of Miss Owenson the governess, that we may follow the fortunes of Miss Owenson the authoress. Her pen is never idle. She writes, with equal facility and speed, songs, which are set to music or arranged by her father, odes, and novels. She has learned, likewise, how to attend to her own interests in disposing of her copyrights. The Dublin publisher seems to have rendered her no account, so she opens a correspondence with Sir Richard Phillips of London. The story which she tells, and her manner of telling it, take with the bibliopole, and she packs up the ‘Novice,’ and sets off alone, personally to negotiate with him. With all her foibles (for, indeed, Lady Morgan’s worst faults scarcely deserve to be described by a harsher title), there was something about her which made friends wherever she went. Mr Quintin Dick, for example, a chance fellow-passenger in the coach from Holyhead, never lost his interest in her to the day of his death. Phillips could not resist her insinuating manners. He bought her MS. (she does not say what he gave for it); and, though married and of middle age, made love to her in his own way. Gruff, stern, old Mrs Inchbald, alone of the Londoners to whom she recommended herself, repulsed her. But the repulse made no lasting impression. She returned to Ireland gratified and hopeful, and extended day by day her reputation, and the circle, already not limited, of her correspondence and acquaintances.

Lady Morgan’s novels have long since passed into the oblivion which is their rightful portion. They are all cast in the same mould. Whether we look into ‘St Clair,’ ‘The Novice,’ ‘The Wild Irish Girl,’ ‘The O’Briens and the O’Flahartys,’ or any other of the multitudinous brood which made their appearance at intervals from 1801 to 1826, each resembles the other as closely as pea resembles pea. We have in all of them the same characters, almost the same incidents, certainly the same opinions, and the same style of conversation throughout. Miss Owenson herself is the universal heroine; Mr Owenson figures in most of them, sometimes as a prince, otherwise as a nobleman. The officers with whom she associated in Kilkenny—the friends who sheltered her in her hour of need—her lovers, real or imaginary—her lord and lady acquaintances—an interesting priest, and a griping parson,—all come upon the stage. The love-passages are warm, the learning is ludicrous; the delineation of national manners and national modes of thinking one-sided; and the style lively and incorrect, or else turgid and pompous. They attained to a degree of popularity for which it seems difficult in this age to account. The truth, however, is, that Miss Owenson caught the top of the wave. By writing up Liberalism just as it began to struggle into fashion, she became to the Whigs, as a novelist, pretty much what Moore was as a poet; and she reaped her reward. For the Tories, as is their wont, while they abused her principles, followed the lead set them by their rivals, and spoke of the authoress as a woman of genius, whom it would be generous to praise and entertaining to cultivate. Hence both parties were as ready to receive her advances as she was willing to make them. Moreover, when she attained to the height of her popularity, at the date of the publication of ‘The Wild Irish Girl,’ public taste was wretched in the extreme. The Waverley Novels had not yet begun to purify the atmosphere which the Minerva Press had long darkened, and Miss Edgeworth and Miss Austin stood wellnigh alone among lady-novelists. Now, Miss Owenson, though neither an Edgeworth nor an Austin, was far superior to your ‘Anna Marias’ and ‘Girls of the Mountain.’ She had a good deal of intuitive perception into the realities of woman’s nature, though not, perhaps, into the best parts of it; and hence, in spite of frequent outrages to good manners, and sometimes to decency, she commanded attention.

“I read ‘Ida,’” writes Lady Charleville, “before it was all issued from the press, a volume being sent me as soon as sewed; and I read it with the same conviction of the existence of excellent talent, great descriptive powers; and in this work I find particular ingenuity in the novel attempt to interest us for a woman who loved two. And for each of the lovers the episode was happily contrived on this plan, and executed with great taste and spirit. I could have wished the situations had been less critical in point of delicacy, as the English gentleman has incurred great blame on all sides for having suffered her to escape; and the poor Turk too. The politics of Athens are ingenious; but, alas! one poor Emmet, hanging so recently in our streets, does not suffer us to enjoy our miseries in any fiction for some years to come. I have not read the ‘Monthly Review,’ where it is criticised. I choose to be pleased with what you write now, though I do heartily reprobate your putting off the period of polishing and purifying your language, for pique to those censors, who, after all, may be the best of friends, if they point out a path so attainable to fame. Assuredly, to those to whom God has given fancy, and a touch of the ethereal spark, it is doubly a duty to write pure language, under the penalty of else rendering the best gift of Heaven valueless. Where little is to be done, it is inexcusable to neglect that; and assuredly you promised me that ‘Ida’ should be more correct than your former publications, even, as you imagined, at the expense of fancy. Now, we found as much imagination as ever, and not more of the square and compass than hitherto.”

If it was thus that ladies of taste and delicacy, however awkwardly they might express themselves, thought and wrote of Miss Owenson’s manner of handling the tender passion, and if ladies of taste and delicacy could dispense their criticisms with so gentle a hand, it is little to be wondered at if the mass of subscribers to circulating libraries devoured such books as ‘Ida,’ and pronounced them divine.

Miss Owenson was now the fashion, and Lord and Lady Abercorn invited her to pay them a visit at Baronscourt. They had read ‘The Novice of St Domenich’ and ‘The Wild Irish Girl,’ and, being bored with each other’s society, yet equally taking a fancy to the authoress, they urged her to come and live with them, and amuse them over their dull fireside. Miss Jewsbury, writing, we presume, from her friend’s notes, thus describes the pair:—

“He” (the Marquess) “was extremely handsome, noble, and courtly in his manner; witty, sarcastic, a roué as regarded his principles towards women, a Tory in politics, fastidious, luxurious, refined in his habits, fascinating in his address, blasé upon pleasure and prosperity, yet capable of being amused by wit, and interested by a new voice and face. Altogether, he was as dangerous a man for a brilliant young woman to be brought near, as could easily be found. Miss Owenson had, however, the virtue for herself which she bestowed upon her heroines. Her own sentiments and romances found their outlet and exercise in her novels; and she had, for all practical purposes, the strong hard common sense which called things by their right names, and never gave bewildering epithets to matters of plain right and wrong. She had no exaggerated generosity, nor sentiments of delicacy about other people’s feelings. The Marchioness of Abercorn was as genuine a fine lady as the Marquess was a fine gentleman. In after years Lady Morgan drew her portrait in ‘O’Donnel’ as Lady Llamberis. She was good-natured and inconsequent; she took up people warmly, and dropped them easily; she was incapable of permanent attachment, except to those belonging to herself.”

With this amiable couple Miss Owenson lived rather more than two years. She does not appear to have been altogether pleased with her position, and no wonder. Lady Abercorn was the Marquess’s third wife, who

“Lived with him on terms of excessive politeness, and poor Miss Owenson was expected to bear their tempers and attentions, to sit in the cross-fire of their humours, and to find good spirits and sprightly conversation when they were dull. Add to this, that heavy pressure of anxiety about family matters, which was laid upon her before her nerves and sinews were braced to meet it, and before she had any worldly knowledge, produced a feeling of exhaustion. In the material prosperity of her life at Baronscourt the tension relaxed, and the fatigue of past exertion asserted itself. Her own ambition had never allowed her to rest—she had been wonderfully successful; but at Baronscourt and Stanmore Priory all she had attained looked dwarfed and small when measured by the hereditary power and consequence of the family in which she was for the time an inmate. She did not become discontented, but she was disenchanted for the time with all that belonged to herself, and saw her own position on its true comparative scale. Sydney Owenson, from earliest childhood, had depended on herself alone for counsel and support. There is no sign that she ever felt those moments of religious aspiration, when a human being, sensible of its own weakness and ignorance, cries for help to Him who made us. There are no ejaculations of prayer or of thanksgiving; she proudly took up her own burden, and bore it as well as she could; finding her own way, and shaping her own life, according to her own idea of what ought to form her being’s end and aim. She was a courageous indomitable spirit; but the constant dependence on herself, the steady concentration of purpose with which she followed out her own career without letting herself be turned aside, gave a hardness to her nature, which, though it did not destroy her kindness and honesty of heart, petrified the tender grace which makes the charm of goodness.”

Lord and Lady Abercorn were very fond of Miss Owenson in their own way. They had formed a plan for her happiness, which, in spite of the opposition in the outset of the two parties most interested, they ultimately succeeded in carrying into effect. Lord Abercorn had for his family physician Dr Morgan, a dull, priggish, and most conceited individual, between whom and the authoress of ‘The Wild Irish Girl’ he and the Marchioness determined to make a match. How the affair went on from its dawn to its consummation; how Miss Owenson compelled the reluctant doctor to fall in love with her in spite of himself; how, frightened at the results of the frolic, she would have drawn back at last, had not the lord and lady proved too clever for her,—Lady Morgan, with her usual taste, has described in detail. All the doctor’s letters, with some of her own, are printed in this collection; the latter of which, by the by, rather contradict the text of the narrative. According to her ladyship’s version, placed on record after the event, things ran thus:—There had been a great deal of love-making on his side, with something very like it on hers; but in the end—

“Any romance she had felt about Sir Charles was frightened out of her for the time being; and she said she would have given anything to be able to run away again. Neither was much delay accorded to her. On a cold morning in January she was sitting in the library by the fire in her morning wrapper, when Lady Abercorn opened the door and said, ‘Glorvina, come up-stairs directly and be married; there must be no more trifling.’ Her ladyship took Miss Owenson’s arm and led her up-stairs into her dressing-room, where a table was arranged for the ceremony; the family chaplain standing in full canonicals with his book open, and Sir Charles ready to receive her. There was no escape left—the ceremony proceeded, and the Wild Irish Girl was married past redemption.”

All this took place, it will be observed, in January 1812, possibly upon the third day of the month. On the 29th of the previous December, Miss Owenson, being in Dublin on some mysterious millinery business, wrote thus to the Doctor—“Oh, Morgan! give me all your love, tenderness, comfort, and support, for in five short days I am yours for ever.” Thus, whether by accident or through design, Miss Owenson, at the age of thirty-six, gave her hand to a man six or seven years her junior, on whom the noble Marquess had persuaded the Lord-Lieutenant to confer the honour of knighthood, for no other ostensible purpose than that he might have the satisfaction of filling his glass after dinner, and drinking to the health of Sir Charles and Lady Morgan.

Little more remains to be told of the personal history of our heroine—not much of her future efforts as an authoress and a politician. Sir Charles and Lady Morgan soon discovered that the stately restraint of Baronscourt and the Priory were too much for a newly-married couple. They parted from the Abercorns, therefore, apparently on decent terms, and took possession of a house of their own in Kildare Street. Sir Charles then endeavoured to get into practice as a physician, but failed. Nobody called him in, so the gifted couple devoted themselves conjointly and severally to literature. We say conjointly and severally, because the lady, with her usual prudence, had stipulated in the marriage-contract that her earnings should belong exclusively to herself; while the gentleman, who was a widower, settled his private patrimony on a daughter whom his first wife had brought him. Lady Morgan had by far the best of this bargain. Her novel of ‘O’Donnel,’ which Colburn brought out in 1813, she sold for £500; and as the book went through not fewer than three editions, we are of opinion that, looking at the matter in a mercantile point of view, she was not paid too much for it.

This was clearly Lady Morgan’s opinion likewise, and she determined that Mr Colburn should not for the future purchase her favours so cheaply. As to her husband, he had utterly failed. He put forth a volume, which he called ‘Outlines of the Physiology of Life,’ and his publisher never sold copies enough to cover the cost of the paper. No wonder. It was a dull, impudent, most unphilosophical piece of materialism, which disgusted even the believers in that wretched creed by the boldness with which it asserted as facts points which they had never ventured to treat except as open to speculative discussion. But the failure of Sir Charles in nowise daunted his wife. The battle of Waterloo having restored peace to Europe, and re-established, as was assumed, the throne of the Bourbons in France, Sir Charles and Lady Morgan went forth to spy the land; and after remaining, chiefly in Paris, about six weeks, came back and entered into negotiation with Mr Colburn for the publication of a volume of their travels. A very diplomatic correspondence ensued. Colburn offered £750 for the copyright, and spoke of the great things which he was in a condition to do, for what he called his books and his authors, through the instrumentality of his ‘New Monthly Magazine and Literary Gazette.’ Her ladyship stood out stiffly for £1000, and she carried her point. “To conclude at once,” wrote Colburn, “though at a really great risk, I will consent to undertake to pay the £1000, and, on my honour, if it succeed better than expected, I will consider myself accordingly your debtor, besides making up to you the other £50 on ‘O’Donnel,’ that you may no longer regret the third edition.”

Nobody reads Lady Morgan’s ‘France’ now any more than he reads ‘O’Donnel.’ It is full of the most ridiculous blunders, and abounds in misstatements which could have hardly been accidental at the time. Yet it sold well. The ‘Quarterly’ fell upon it mercilessly, doubtless promoting the sale by the virulence of its criticisms. This attack Lady Morgan ingeniously met by assuring her friends that Croker was one of her rejected lovers, and that he had taken this opportunity of avenging himself for the sufferings he had undergone! On the other hand, all who delighted in scandal were charmed with the book, and Mme. Paterson Buonaparte wrote from Paris to assure the authoress that her manner of detailing it was quite as agreeable to French people as to English.

“Public expectation is as high as possible,” she says, “and if you had kept it a little longer, they would have purchased it” (the book) “at your own price. How happy you must be at filling the world with your name as you do! Madame de Staël and Madame de Genlis are forgotten; and if the love of fame be of any weight with you, your excursion to Paris was attended with brilliant success. I assure you—and you know I am sincere—that you are more spoken of than any other person at the present day. Mr Moore seldom sees me; I did not take with him at all. He called to show me the article of your letter which mentions the report of the Duke of Wellington’s loves. I am not the Mrs —— the great man gives as a successor to Grassini. You would be surprised if you knew how great a fool she is, at the power she exercises over the Duke; but I believe that he has no taste pour les femmes d’esprit, which is, however, no reason for going into extremes, as in this case.”

The prince of puffers was Henry Colburn. He spent a fortune in advertising his own books, and succeeded, till the trick was found out, in cramming many a trashy production down the throat of a gullible public. It is certain, also, that he believed in his own power, and made a boast of it. He was so well pleased with the success of ‘France,’ that, besides purchasing ‘Florence Macarthy,’ with some dead weight, from Sir Charles for £1200, he suggested that the Morgans should visit Italy, and promised £2000 for the copyright of the book of travels to be written. The terms were accepted, and in due time appeared ‘Italy,’ by Lady Morgan. “Her ladyship’s criticisms on the public buildings and pictures,” observes Miss Jewsbury, “may be open to question, but the spirit of the book (being ultra-liberal) is noble, and its fascination undeniable.” Agreeing with the former clause of this sentence, we may let the latter pass unnoticed; for the bubble of Lady Morgan’s reputation was on the eve of bursting. She and Mr Colburn fell out. She never could believe but that the monarch of Marlborough Street was growing rich at her expense; so, having visited France a second time, and written a second book about it, she determined to bring him to reason. While the work was yet in progress, she wrote to Colburn, who did not immediately answer the letter. She wrote again, but no reply came; whereupon she opened a correspondence about terms with Messrs Saunders and Otley. Colburn no sooner heard of this, than he remonstrated against it in no very becoming terms. “I can now only say,” he wrote to Sir Charles, “that if Lady Morgan does not break off the negotiation, which is simply done on the plea of misunderstanding, it will be no less detrimental to her literary than to her pecuniary interest. As to myself, it is a very different feeling, and not merely pecuniary interest, that makes me urge this matter; as I can prove, if necessary, I have lost considerably by the last two or three works.” Could bibliopolic insolence go beyond this? He lost by her ladyship’s works! He threaten to injure her literary reputation! Let him do his worst. A bargain was concluded with Messrs Saunders and Otley, and under their auspices ‘France Revisited’ came out. The day after its appearance men read with astonishment in all the newspapers an advertisement headed in large letters, “Lady Morgan at half-price.” The base-born miscreant had the audacity to declare “That in consequence of the great losses which he had sustained by Lady Morgan’s former works, Mr Colburn had declined this present book on France, and that all the copies of her ladyship’s works might be had at half-price.” The cruel announcement had the desired effect. Messrs Saunders and Otley found themselves losers by a good deal more than the thousand pounds which they had given for the copyright, and Lady Morgan’s popularity as a writer collapsed.

We must not devote more of our space to the poor dead old lady. She had pretty well feathered her nest by this time, and though she could not sell her books as she had heretofore done, she did what was far better. She got the Government to settle upon her a pension of £300 a year, the very highest reward which Imperial generosity ever bestows in this rich country on literary eminence. This enabled her to keep house in William Street, and to maintain such social intercourse with the gay world as we have elsewhere indicated. She had always been a ready correspondent, and she continued the practice of letter-writing to the last. Generally speaking, that portion of her correspondence which has found its way into these volumes is harmless enough. It contains little else, when her ladyship writes, than descriptions of the fine people whom she meets, and the pleasant things which they say to her. When fine ladies and gentlemen address her, it is always in a strain of exaggerated flattery. But poor Lady Caroline Lamb might, we think, have been permitted to lie still in her grave. Not that her letters to Lady Morgan tell anything which we did not know already; for Lady Caroline never made a secret of her weaknesses, and was evidently incapable of understanding that other people might call them by a harsher name. But for the sake of Lady Morgan herself, and the reputation of good-heartedness, which was really not undeserved in her case, it is a pity that she should be made the means of recalling to the world’s recollection so pitiable a story. We suspect, however, that Miss Jewsbury and Mr Dixon had no choice in the matter. They must print all or nothing; and so, having spared very few of the old lady’s male friends, they could find no good reason for being more tender towards her friends of the other sex. In the name, however, of the women of society living under the reign of Victoria, we must protest against these volumes being accepted, either now or a hundred years hence, as illustrative of the sort of domestic life to which they are accustomed.

A SKETCH FROM BABYLON.

CONCLUSION.—CHAPTER X.

Madame Mélanie was a milliner much affected in aristocratic and financial circles.

Finance sympathises with Hungary, Poland, and oppressed nationalities, and Mélanie appertained to this section of mortality. Moreover, she made dresses beautifully, and the employment of her gratified the double sentiments of charity and vanity.

Mélanie was the daughter of a French maid-servant, in the service of a Hungarian lady. Brought up in her maternal profession—for her sire was not known—she lived under the roof of her Hungarian mistress till what she was pleased to call the “Hongarian Strockle.” Of this event she narrated striking scenes. Assuming to herself the name of her mistress, whom she had betrayed, she told how Haynau had threatened her with chastisement, and how, barefooted, she had reached a place of safety. More than once she had been invited to publish her adventures, but she was far too wise. Her ancient nobility obtained for her much greater consideration as a seamstress, and a better livelihood than Kossuth himself could procure; and in the humility of her station she was more free from detection than in a more elevated sphere.

She had begun poorly enough—working away gradually, and accumulating capital by labour and saving, by gifts from her patronesses, and also by occasionally abstracting small pieces of jewellery and money from the aristocratic dressing-rooms to which, in her capacity as a distressed noblewoman, she obtained freer access than others of her equals. True, she soon gave up the latter pursuit. Not only was it dangerous, but increasing business, by removing her from want, enabled her to resist temptation. Still she derived considerable emolument from what Italian servants term “incerti.” She did not object, for a consideration, to usurp the office of the Postmaster-General, nor did she refuse the shelter of her roof when business or charity required an interview between opulent monades of opposite sexes. On the whole, Madame Mélanie is a deserving creature. The sums she spends in alms astound the more credulous of her customers. She has sent more than one packet of linen to the lying-in hospital of the parish, and the initial “M., through a friend,” for Garibaldi’s muskets, has been traced to the same benefic source. She will not marry again, for she never can forget the Count of her early days, when they lived and loved in Hungary; but a French courier, about three years younger than herself, dwells in her house under the designation of adopted son, keeps her accounts, and transacts business with her solicitor.

Such was the person let loose in her respectable household by that careful mother, Lady Coxe. ’Ungary has done much for many disreputable foreigners. The respectability of a few has floated the depravity of the many.

On the credit of a lying assumption, Madame Mélanie had access to the homes and toilet-tables of England which would be denied to any respectable Englishwoman of the same class, however deserving.

“Good morning, Mélanie,” said Lady Coxe, as she lay back in her chaise longue.

“Good morning, miladi—always so charmante and gracieuse.”

“Git along, Mélanie,” replied miladi, playfully: when away from her daughters she laid aside that staidness of demeanour maintained before them towards her inferiors.

“Mélanie, we are going to Lady Ilminster’s dejooner.”

“Miladi go everywhere fashionable.”

“Oh yes, Mélanie, and I don’t know ’ow ever I shall be able to bear up against it. I feel so exhausted.”

“Oh, miladi does not care herself.”

“What can I do, Mélanie?—I feel so weak!”

“Miladi look very pale.”

“I think I must send for Dr Leadbitter.”

“If miladi would take a little drop of port-wine once or twice in the day.”

“You really think so, Mélanie?”

“Yes truly, miladi.”

“Just like a good creature open that cupboard. I always keep a bottle there in case Sir Jehoshaphat should drop in; you will find a glass. Per’aps there are two. Bring them, Mélanie, and take a glass yourself.”

The seamstress did as she was bid, and, placing the decanter and glasses respectfully on the table and in the manner of a skilled practician, she sat herself down in the same deferential attitude near her employer.

Lady Coxe took a bumper; then she took another, and declared herself better.

Madame Mélanie’s first glass was not half emptied.

“Well, Mélanie, what would you advise about my dress for this party? You know it is to be very shwosi.”

“Miladi shall be the best dressed and the youngest-looking miladi in the house.”

“Git along, Mélanie,” retorted miladi, stealthily filling herself another bumper.

A flush pervaded the cheek of the matron. Perhaps it was of pride.

“Miladi, I recommend moire antique—magenta, with quilled ribbons—chapeau of blonde with magenta trimmings—parasol to match.”

“Your taste is so good, Mélanie.”

“Magenta so well become miladi. Bootiful complexion—she young as Miss Constance.”

“Oh, you flattering thing! but what will you give my daughters—the Miss Coxes.”

“Oh, I talk to them myself. They not be Miss Coxe long, I think. Miss Florence make a very nice bride, and Miss Constance bootiful Comtesse.”

“Git along; but what do you mean? Fill your glass.” Lady Coxe as a fugleman showed the way.

“They tell me such a ’andsome man want to marry her—noble and rich.”

“English or furrin, Mélanie?”

“Not English.”

“You know ’im to be rich?”

“Oh yes, I know him rich. Miladi know poor woman like me obliged to make affair with all sort of people. One of my customers, Mademoiselle Dulaugier of Opera Comique. I send all her bill to Comte Rabelais, and he pay, what you call, on the nail.”

“Very satisfactory,” responded Lady Coxe. “Let me ’ope Constance may be the means of leading ’im to better things.”

“Indeed, let us hope so,” said Mélanie, and this time she held her glass to her lips for some seconds, though the liquid within was not much diminished.

“Nothing is settled, believe me, Mélanie. But then the world is talking of it.”

“Of nothing else. Who occupy London so much as your family, miladi? The Duchesse of Wiltshire, when I go to her, say to me, ‘Mélanie, tell me all about that bootiful Miladi Coques and her bootiful family. None so bootiful as the mother.’”

At this moment the door admitted Florence and Constance.

Mélanie rose in admiration.

“What bootiful colour! What roses in cheeks.”

The girls acknowledged her salute, and the rose left the cheek of Constance.

Mélanie whispered Lady Coxe, “I will make for Mademoiselle Constance bootiful dress like used to wear La Dulaugier—the Comte’s own choice.”

“Mélanie is come to take orders for Lady Ilminster’s dejooner.”

“I shall have a very simple dress,” said Florence.

“And so shall I,” chimed in Constance, in a voice low and tremulous.

“Impossible!” broke in the seamstress—“impossible!”

“Nonsense!” said Lady Coxe.

“You will ruin Constance, Mélanie,” retorted Florence.

“Mademoiselle Constance will marry a rich man, and think nothing of the trifles she spends now,” responded Mélanie, somewhat tartly.

“You know what to make,” said Lady Coxe, in a voice that admitted of no reply.

With an obsequious courtesy Mélanie left the room, and Constance, retiring to her own chamber, threw herself on her bed and wept bitterly.

CHAPTER XI.

It was dusk when Mélanie left the house—that dangerous summer dusk, when that is seen which you wish concealed, but when you can with difficulty perceive what you wish to discover.

Mélanie wended her way towards Grosvenor Street, where she resided. As she reached the corner of the Square, however, she stopped at the corner of Charles Street, under a gas-lamp.

She did not wait many minutes when a Clarence stopped at the crossing.

A man jumped out. It was Count Rabelais.

Holding open the door of the carriage, he admitted the dressmaker, who took her seat next a woman already inside. Jumping in again with a bow, the Count gave an order to the coachman, who dashed off under the gas-lamp.

Augustus Bromley, who was passing at the moment, saw the whole transaction, as well as the face of the third occupant. It was that of Madame Carron. For the first time an idea entered his mind, how much like the face of the Count was to that of the actress.

Hurrying homeward to write a line of excuse to a friend with whom he was engaged to dine, he seated himself not many minutes later in a stall of the St James’s Theatre.

The first play, a short one, was over, and in the next Madame Carron was to appear. Her part that night involved one or two songs, and a piano was wheeled into the orchestra.

Bromley, who was sitting at one end, could see Madame Carron in the wings with Angelo Magens, a pianist and composer of some celebrity. They were together engaged earnestly over a sheet of music paper, beating time and giving or demanding explanation.

At length Bromley perceived that the play was about to begin, from Madame Carron plucking at her skirts, and from Mr Magens’s appearance in the orchestra. The musician turned round, and, at a signal from Bromley, came to the neighbourhood of his stall, and leaned over to speak to him.

“How d’ye do, Angelo?” asked Bromley. “Ages since I’ve seen you. How are Mrs Angelo and Adelaide?”

“Quite well, thank you, Mr Bromley. How well you’re looking!”

“Rather hard at work, that’s all.”

“I can understand that, in your important avocations.”

“By the way, Angelo, do you know the Carron well?”

“Well, Mr Bromley, she’s been very kind to a poor man like me.”

“Do you think we’ve time to go round and have a glass of sherry?”

“Not now; at the end of the next act;” and the bell rang for the curtain to rise. As it rose, Bromley perceived behind Madame Carron the figure of Rabelais.

The act was soon over, and Magens came for his glass of sherry. Bromley led him to the public-house adjoining, and the liquor was poured out.

As they both sipped it, Bromley again began, “How well she did that last scene!”

“Admirably; she is a wonderful woman!”

“Indeed she is, Magens. By the way, where is Monsieur Carron?”

“Oh! he is dead, I believe.”

“Then is that story true about her?”

“If you have heard anything against her reputation, I can undertake to declare it false.”

Little Magens, when under the united influence of sentiment and sherry, could be very fiery.

He was a grateful homuncule.

“Of course not,” rejoined his interrogator. “I mean that other story.”

“Are you trying to pump me, Mr Bromley?”

“It would take a cleverer man than me to do that, Angelo—another glass—there’s lots of time. We’ve only been five minutes, and the entr’acte at a French play is never less than a quarter of an hour. (Glasses filled.) You were saying—”

“Well, the only story I have ever heard is about her family. They say, with I do not know what foundation, that she is of a good family, and is devoting all her profits to the support of it. She certainly does not live in the style of a person earning the immense salaries she receives.”

“Rabelais, I suppose, knows all about it.”

Magens shook his head, swallowed the remainder of his glass, and silently led the way back to the theatre.

“By the way, do you know anything of Madame Mélanie, the seamstress? She is much employed by actresses, I believe? A young lady was asking me, whether she made Mademoiselle Dulaugier’s ballet-dresses.”

“I know her very little myself. Mrs Magens knows her.”

“Well, Magens, good evening. Can you come and dine with me to-morrow at the Garrick?”

“To-morrow, I am engaged here all the evening, and I suppose your hours are fashionable.”

“Well, another day.”

When he resumed his stall, Bromley perceived that a box near the stage was newly filled.

He looked up, and there was Lady Coxe and her three daughters.

Near Constance sat the Count. Her eye caught his, and she blushed deeply.

Bromley went revolving in his mind many things. At length he made up his mind, and sauntered into the box.

The Count greeted him with unusual civility. Lady Coxe invited him to a chair next her.

“Mr Bromley,” she whispered, “do me a favour. The Congte is most anxious to go to Lady Ilminster’s. Can you, do you think—can you manage this?”

“Impossible, my dear Lady Coxe. I have already exceeded my powers.”

A wink, supposed to be imperceptible, announced to the Count the result of the negotiation. A dead silence ensued. When Bromley left the box, no effort was made to detain him.

CHAPTER XII.

It was early the following afternoon when Bromley took a light dinner at his club. The waiters, as they brought him portions of soup and fish, speculated on the causes which induced Mr Bromley to dine at four o’clock. In the hall he had left a carpet-bag containing six bottles of sherry and two of whisky, one of Curaçoa, and one of pale brandy.

He was not long at his dinner. Having finished, he sent for a cab, and, placing in it his carpet-bag, desired the driver to take him to the Strand to a celebrated fish-shop. Here he bought two lobsters, two bundles of dried sprats, a pork-pie, a Bologna sausage, two loaves of brown bread, and a pound of butter. The civil shopman, at Bromley’s request, sent out for some fine Spanish onions, which were added to the packet. With these provisions Bromley ordered himself to Kennington.

The driver at length drew up as directed at a nursery garden. Here Bromley alighted, paid his fare, and, shouldering his baggage, walked up the garden path.

“Is Mrs Magens at home?” he asked a maid-servant.

“Yes, sir, she’s up-stairs.”

“Will you tell her I’m here? How are you, my dear?”

“Very well, thank you, sir. It’s some time since we saw you.”

“Yes, my dear, and I think you’ve grown. Will you take some of these parcels, while I take the others, and put them in the drawing-room?”

“It looks as if it held good things, sir.”

“You’re a knowing young creature, my dear. Just go and tell your mistress I am here.”

Bromley knew it would be a long time before mistress would make her appearance. As he sat in the little sitting-room, 12 feet by 8, he heard cries for warm water. “Jane, where’s the soap?—My brush, Jane, quick!—Where are them pins?” which told how the lady was occupied.

Half an hour at least must elapse before the appearance of Mrs Magens, and this period Bromley divided between reading the ‘Era,’ which lay on the table, and drumming thereon.

Mr Angelo Magens was the natural son of a rackety Irish peer; at least so report said, and there was circumstantial evidence in support of the theory. Angelo had brothers, but they were not a bit like himself. Lord Rattlecormick had never taken any notice of them as he had of Angelo. The cast of Angelo’s face was decidedly Rattlecormick, and so was his character—quiet in manner, but reckless and thoughtless, a mixture of good nature, common sense, loose principle, and imprudence. From his childhood Angelo had lived exclusively with Lord Rattlecormick, with the exception of a short interval, during which his patron had managed to thrust him into the Navy. The life did not suit young Angelo, accustomed as he was to the rough luxury of Castle Rattlecormick, the good-natured and reckless liberality of the peer, who acted in loco parentis, and boon companions, who enlivened that patrician hearth.

So young Magens one morning left H.M.S. Bruiser in Cork Roads without leave, and betook himself without invitation to the House of Rattlecormick, to pass his time in warbling songs to the crowd of guests, to perform odd jobs on the premises, and to unfit himself for doing his duty in that state of life to which it might please Providence to call him.

Thus days and years passed, till Angelo was about twenty. He had picked up a certain knowledge of music. The village priest, skilled in thorough bass, had taught him the mysteries of counterpoint. Nature had blessed him with an agreeable tenor voice, and a rather agreeable manner, and a very decided taste for alcohol. Just at this particular juncture, Lord Rattlecormick died. As might have been expected, no will was found. Angelo was thrown on his own resources—viz., one hundred pounds, the remnant of divers tips from his patron, a suit of clothes or two, and such expectations as might be warranted by the extensive acquaintance and clientela of his late father or patron.

He set up as a music-master. He composed pretty little songs, popular from their melodies. He even aspired to an opera, and was not wholly unsuccessful. Once he hired a theatre for himself, and was wholly unsuccessful. At one time he was poor, at another time he was not rich; but one day he would have nothing, the next a considerable sum of money. He was like those figures one sees in a bottle, which go dancing up and down according to the pressure on the cover. The accidents of his fortune were abrupt and immoderate. Now at the bottom of the bottle with a sudden fall—now at the top with as unexpected a rebound—seldom in the centre, but when there wriggling and twisting and curveting,—discontented for mediocrity, and burning to risk great success or great disaster on the turn of the nearest die. But with increasing years the taste of Angelo for alcohol increased, specially with reference to sherry. He had a mania for that particular beverage, and he passed but few hours of the day without appealing to that cherished friend. He was well known at the public-houses of the metropolis,—at some of them, I fear, too well known to insure the gratification of his tastes. He was always convivial, however; always hospitable, always willing to accept hospitality. When in funds he would volunteer a glass of sherry at his own expense; when not in the best plight, he would volunteer it at yours. In early days Augustus’s friends often declared that Angelo had led him into expenses and extravagance. It may be so; but in justice to his memory, Augustus often declared his belief that not a sixpence more was spent for Angelo than Angelo ever spent for him.

His wife was a very different kind of person. The daughter of a chemist at Worcester, and possessed of a good voice, the musical festivals, and the love of Church dignitaries for the ars musica, had indicated music as her profession. As a little girl, her talents in this respect had made her a favourite in the cathedral town, and she could with veracity boast acquaintance with bishops, deans, and canons, whose names sounded oddly enough when coming from her lips. Nevertheless these worthy and guileless men had contributed to her education, proudly looking forward to the time when her rich contralto should resound through their own cathedral, and they should share in the plaudits showered on their pupil and protégée. So they sent her to study in London,—and she did study in London. She came out in London; sang in an oratorio, and created a sensation. But Kate Robins was a peculiar person. She was the daughter of a chemist, and in her physical composition there was much oxygen of a certain quality—not enough, however, to feed the vestal flame. Moreover, she was very pretty, with an arch smile. She sang little songs with ineffable grace. So no wonder she studied the doctrine of affinities. A cathedral town presented but few attractions. Deans were atoms of a nature not sufficiently volatile. She found the obstacles in the way of Platonism so numerous as to be absolutely insurmountable. So she assumed the toga affected by her equivalents in Babylon. She drove in little carriages, and radiated in fine linen. She accepted engagements at theatres, took parts where a good leg, an arch smile, and a rich voice were everything requisite; earned a good livelihood from her art, and a considerable amount of pocket-money from her artlessness.

Hers was a pleasant Bohemian life till she was five-and-thirty. The bishops and the deans, the friends of her youth, were replaced—in another fashion, be it understood—by the young nobles, the friends of her womanhood. As the spiritual peerage had contributed to the formation, so did the temporal assist in the completion of her education. This went on very well for some time. But at length the contralto rather deteriorated; the arch smile partook rather of the stereotype. Managers were no longer so eager. Dukes began to cease their visits to her greenroom. Scarlet and fine linen are expensive in the absence of means to purchase them. Kate Robins found her assets running low; while several tradesmen, heretofore satisfied by the dukes, were not so civil as formerly. So, taking a judicious resolution, she determined on a provincial tour, relying for rural successes on her fading reputation. She planned with a friendly author an attractive entertainment. She engaged Magens, who had then just culminated, as her accompanyist, and she sallied forth with Angelo from Babylon to fresh fields and pastures new. For economy’s sake they occupied the same apartments, till, for propriety’s sake, they assumed the same name. They went the round of England and Ireland earning a livelihood and realising a good round sum, not sufficient, however, to meet their joint liabilities. Therefore, as assets would go farther when legally united than when filtered by division, as union in fact is force, Angelo obtained from the Church a benediction on the marriage already practically solemnised, turned his wife’s brevet rank into substantive rank; and having thus consolidated their names and their liabilities, went through the Insolvent Court like a man, and, in purging himself, whitewashed his wife’s account-book simultaneously with her reputation. From that moment Mrs Magens collapsed into private life. A long and severe illness deprived her of all that remained of looks, voice, and attraction. She became a good wife, a prudent housekeeper, endeavoured to remedy by self-denial the dilapidations inflicted by sherry on their small means, incited her husband to exertion, made his house as pleasant as possible, and retained nothing of her former life but an unattractive girl she designated her niece, and a dramatic phraseology.

In his early youth, Bromley had nursed thoughts of studying music, and hence his first acquaintance with Magens. Through his agency the young man had made the acquaintance of gentlemen and ladies acquainted with the theatrical profession, not all of them of the highest caste. One whole winter he had spent in their exclusive society. He had learnt their ways, their tastes, their virtues, and their weaknesses. Lobsters were amongst the tastes of Mrs Magens. She cultivated them with a sauce which was a virtue; while her devotion to sprats, or to boiled onions, may be classed among the more venial weaknesses of that estimable matron.

At length the door creaked up-stairs, and a rustling overhead betokened that such preparations were completed as she had undertaken for Bromley’s reception. A note in G was heard quavering—as though in innocence of heart.

“Bravo, my songstress,” murmured, or rather soliloquised, Bromley. “Now for the roulade;” and there sure enough it came. “And now for Floreski as she comes down-stairs.”

The thoughts of no medium could have been more rapid. The voice, or rather the remnant of a voice, descended the stairs slowly and musingly, warbling that well-known and beautiful romance,

“Adieu, my Floreski, for ever,

And welcome the sorrows I prove.

Why, Fate, still delights thou to sever

Two bosoms united by love?”

The last notes floated in the air as the door opened, and in rushed Mrs Magens nicely got up in a drab silk dress.

“How d’ye do, Mr Bromley, my kyind friend?” She held out both hands, and emphasised the “do,” after the manner of genteel comedy.

“Charming as ever, or may I be freckled,” responded Bromley, in the same tone.

“’Tis ages since we met. Let me look at ye.” She drew him towards the window, and scanned his features anxiously.

“A shade of care has fallen across that brow since last we met. Let’s see how long ago is it? A year—no—can it be? Time spares us not, Mr Bromley.”

“It spares the beautiful Magens.”

“Flatterer—the same as ever—the same gay-hearted, kyind——”

“A truce, I beseech ye,” broke in Bromley. “In yonder basket I have brought an offering I fain would make your household deities—some few articles, little luxuries, sent me from the country.”

The country always served as a veil in which to envelope Bromley’s presents to Mrs Magens. Had he avowed the purchase, she would have been offended or feigned offence.

But the country saved her pride.

“From the country, Mr Bromley—from some kyind old aunt, I warrant me, or, mayhap, a grandmother. Jane!”

“Women are ever thoughtful, lady,” responded Bromley.

Jane entered the room.

“Open the basket, maiden.”

“I knowed as it was full of good things.”

“Pity the poor vulgarian!”

“Ingins, I do declare!” cried the maiden. “My, what fine ingins!”

“The produce of your land, doubtless, Mr Bromley.”

“And sprats—oh my!”

The mouth of Mrs Magens was watering beyond concealment.

“And lobsters—oh my, what lobsters!”

Mrs Magens could stand it no longer.

“The cares of a household do not degrade a woman, Mr Bromley. B’ your leave, I’ll go and see them lobsters properly served up.”

“Perhaps you will allow me to partake your meal?”

“Of course,” screeched Mrs Magens from the adjacent kitchen, where, had Bromley seen her, he would have discovered the skirts of her garment already pinned round the waist of the neat-handed Phyllis.

It was not very long before the repast was ready, and Bromley sat, opposite his hostess, at a little table spread with a clean cloth, decorated with some spoons rescued from Mr Commissioner, a nickel cruet-stand, and two carnations.

“I do love this new Russian fashion,” observed Mrs Magens, as a species of grace.

Half a lobster fell before her.

“In that carpet-bag, I have ventured to bring, for Angelo, a few bottles of sherry, of a particular quality, lately sent me by some friends from the country.”

“How very thoughtful! Don’t trouble yourself—allow me.” The phraseology was less flowery, and the bottle was soon uncorked.

At length the meal was over. The onions had been discussed—a portion of the feast had been reserved for Angelo—another portion allotted to Jane—candles were introduced—Bromley was allowed to light a cigar, and to mix a glass of whisky and water—even Mrs Magens sipped a glass of toddy, and the room was soon as redolent as a tap.

“Now, Mr Bromley, I daresay, when in that brilliant world which your position throws open to you—in that world of beauties and nobles, you often long for the repose of an evening like this, passed equably in gentle converse, and with a frugal but wholesome meal to which fatigue has lent an appetite and friendship a relish.”

“Very true, Mrs Magens. And your society is especially delightful. Angelo, poor man, is deprived of it. He is very busy.”

“Very much so. The Fates are propitious.”

“I hope he is making a pot of money.”

“Fie, what a word! Heaven ever befriends the just.”

“Money is wanted at present, Mrs Magens. In these days, a man with a good income is not a rich man.”

“Indeed, it is true—too true. The extravagance of the age is hawful.”

Sometimes Mrs Magens was off her guard, and as uncertain about her aspirates as a beginner in the Greek tongue.

“It is indeed,” answered Bromley, “awful——”

“Awful,” repeated Mrs Magens, correcting herself.

“Dress is ruinous for ladies.”

“Yet gaudy attire is no evidence of a sound heart.”

The h was inserted this time with a slam.

“Very true, often the reverse; but it is no less ruinous.”

“The sums lavished on it are enormous, Mr Bromley.”

“I daresay many ladies in your profession spend large sums on their toilettes.”

“Enormous; why, there’s Miss Sepop of the Bower has a new dress every night. Mrs Macvey of the Blackfriars is never satisfied without embroidery all round.”

“Whom do you consider the best dressmaker, Mrs Magens? your taste is so good.”

“Why, for myself, I should say, Madame Mélanie Mickiewicz. She is generally known as Madame Mélanie. Poor thing! She is a Hungarian princess. Her story is harrowing—harrowing—Ha’nau——”

“I think I have heard it—poor thing! Do you know her?”

“Intimately—a charming person—quite the lady.”

“I suppose she has lots of stories—of experience.”

“Delightful creature. She was telling me the other day of the awful effects this extravagance produces on the high-born and wealthy. Many young ladies run up bills of enormous amounts, trusting to their marriage for the means of payment. But gentlemen do not marry.”

“And their bills run on.”

“Exactly—you have hit my very thought. There is one family, she tells me, where mother and daughters are deeply in debt to her, none of them daring to confide in the others for fear that the father and husband—a very strict man—should discover their embarrassments.”

“Did she tell you who they were, Mrs Magens?”

“No; but she would if I asked her, in a moment.”

“I daresay, Mrs Magens, your own dresses amount to no small sum.”

“Oh, I am so very ’umble.”

“But have you no little bill with your friend, no little sum Angelo ignores?”

“How cunning you are, Mr Bromley! However, it don’t amount to a very large figure.”

“By the way, is not Madame Mélanie a friend of Madame Carron’s? I see them driving together.”

“Yes; I believe they knew each other in Hungary. There, again, Madame Carron is deeply in debt to her.”

“But I thought she made such enormous sums. Does she owe more than you, Mrs Magens?”

“Oh, my liability is not more than what you would call a ‘pony,’ Mr Bromley.”

“But how does Madame Carron manage to contract debts?”

“She is obliged to dress expensively for her parts, and she is very charitable, especially to some worthless relative who absorbs all her income.”

“A husband?”

“No, a brother, I believe; although Mélanie is so charming a person it is horrible to be under an obligation to her.”

“Well, Mrs Magens, I daresay we can find some way of relieving you from yours.”

“I could never think of such a thing, Mr Bromley.”

“Well, do me a little favour; we are old friends, Mrs Magens. Find out the name of the family who are so much indebted, and of Madame Carron’s brother. Write to me.”

“Certainly, I will. There’s a knock. Won’t you stay to see Angelo?”

The door opened, and Mélanie entered the room.

CHAPTER XIII.

Lady Ilminster was a very charming woman—kind, gracious, and good-natured. Very rich herself, the wife of a rich man, she delighted in throwing about her the pleasures which wealth confers, and in inviting others to share them.

She was sensuous; that is to say, she loved good things. She loved to gaze on pretty and happy faces, and the harmony of colours. She loved the sound of music, the smell of flowers, the gliding sensation of a boat; nay, she was not averse to a good dinner, and quaffed iced champagne, not to excess, but à discrétion. She had no children herself, and so surrounded herself with those who loved her. These were not toadies, but men of equal rank, whose tastes chimed in with her own. At first she was accused of flirting; but the scandal soon subsided, for it was pure scandal. Even had there been any foundation, a hostess so bountiful would soon have overcome the charge; but with Lady Ilminster there were no thoughts of evil. She did a thousand things others could not do. She rode, she drove, she even smoked, as fancy prompted her; but she was faithful to her lord, though, perhaps, her example stimulated in others freedoms of which she disapproved. Like many women whose conduct is pure, her conversation was not the reflex of her conduct.

The party Lady Ilminster gave was to be, as Lady Coxe had declared, very “shwosi.” Her recovery from indisposition was the pretext assigned—one of those excuses the hospitable find when, for the sake of pleasure to others, or for the maintenance of their social renown, they think fit to display their leading quality.

Preparations had been made, astounding in their extravagance and beauty. The grounds, which sloped down to the river were covered with flowers, tents, and temporary palaces. Lady Ilminster had taste enough to draw that delicate line which separates fairy-land from a tea-garden.

In one of these temporary structures a large party of young ladies and gentlemen were assembled eating ices and drinking tea. Lady Coxe was presiding in her magenta dress, nodding from the heat, and fanning with magenta fan her magenta countenance. Florence was talking merrily with a young guardsman; but the conversation generally assumed that tone which, as Mr Whiting describes it, smacks less of the lady than of the reduplicate Φ.

“Let us take up our position here,” said one young lady to her partner; “I hate being with the swells.”

Lady Coxe heard this; her face more magenta than ever. She ranked herself with the nobility.

“Did you see Croquet in the park yesterday,” asked another, “with the prettiest pony?”

“Yes; but not such a habit as Julia Fitzwiggins,” burst in a third. “What a waist she has!”

“Quite like an hour-glass,” illustrates a guardsman, aloud.

“I doubt if it be all real,” interposed another young lady.

“What are you talking of?” asked the guardsman.

“Of course the rest must be filled with sand,” retorts the first.

“A sand-glass in every respect,” murmured Whiting.

Lady Coxe nods, puffs, fans, and smiles, not quite understanding what Mr Whiting meant.

“Toole, who makes her habits, declares she pads them with brown paper,” resumed the guardsman.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t purchase a waist at that price,” rejoined the partner.

“You’ve a very pretty little one of your own, Lady Janet.”

Oh, young ladies, young ladies, why are you in such haste for the freedom and abundance of married life? Why compete for magenta dresses with I won’t say what? Why adopt the language of I won’t say whom? You may attract young men from the society of the first by using the phraseology of the second, but will you retain them with you? They may in time give up Richmond dinners and midnight orgies with Thaïs, for a quiet meal, loving looks, and worthy sentiments with Lucretia. If this will not attract them, so much the worse for them and so much the better for Lucretia. But Lucretia will never win them by the arts of Thaïs. Thaïs, on her own ground, will always beat Lucretia. She knows her weapons better. However far Lucretia may go, she can never come up to Thaïs. Thaïs has a grammar of her own, a syntax, and a prosody—winged words and winged actions. Lucretia may study the accidence, she can never master the rhetoric. Lucretia may unveil her ankle, Thaïs blushes not if her garter be exposed. Think you Lord Tom Noddy will marry Lucretia if she shows him her garter? Thaïs dresses expensively. Thousands will not pay her milliner’s bills. But at the end of six months or a year Lord Tom Noddy leaves her, and she retrenches.

But if Lucretia rivals Thaïs in her dress, Lord Tom Noddy knows that, if he marries her, six months will not see the end of it. Sir Cresswell Cresswell even cannot untie the knots of ribbon and the tangles of lace which figure on that long lithographed linear document, and the lands of Noddy will soon melt in the basilisk smiles of furbelowed Lucretia.

Thaïs is a dashing river, which receives a thousand tributaries, the drainings of the country and the sewers of the town, till it is lost in a morass or absorbed in the ocean. But Lucretia should be a gentle brook, pure from its source, content to murmur innocently and calmly onward, reflecting the light of heaven in its pellucid waters, till it mingles with and strengthens a stronger current than itself. To such as these, tranquil and tranquillising, will man return for happiness and peace, when, jaded with the roar of cities and the struggle of life, he seeks to reconcile his existence with his Creator, to pursue and accomplish his allotted task before the night cometh.

“’Ow de do?” said Lady Coxe, blandly, as Bromley appeared for the first time.

Drawing a chair near the table, he took his seat near Constance.

“You are very late,” she began.

“I have had so much to do to-day; some one ought to write a Song of the Shirt for me. Scratch, scratch, scratch—in lieu of stitch, stitch, stitch.”

“But recollect all the good you are doing,” answered Constance.

“Yes, that is a reflection which conveys great comfort to me.”

Augustus smiled somewhat in his answer.

“Why are you always sarcastic?”

“I feel I am very sincere.”

“You are never in earnest.”

“You think so; you will find I am in earnest in some things.”

“’Ow de do?” said Lady Coxe.

The couple looked up at the new-comer—it was the Count.

“Oh, Congte, I did not know you were asked.”

“I go to St James’s Club to read papers and meet Gorillian Minister. He great friend Lady Ilminster—bring me and present me.”

“You dance this waltz with me,” said Bromley hurriedly to Constance.

She was pale and red by turns, and heard not what he said.

Touching her hand slightly, he repeated his observation.

With an effort she answered—

“Oh yes; of course, I remember.”

The music struck up in the distance, and the whole party left for a distant lawn dedicated to dancing.

A circle was formed. A band was stationed in a kiosk, and the first strains had just begun, when Lady Ilminster beckoned to Augustus.

“Do you know that Count Rabelais?”

“A little.”

“He is not a friend of yours?”

“No, I cannot say he is.”

“The Gorillian Minister brought him. I have asked Madame Carron to come and superintend some charades. She told me that an acquaintance of hers, Count Rabelais, was a capital actor, and I asked Don Marmosetto Uran y Babon to bring him. Now the Bushman Minister, who hates Don Marmosetto, tells me this Count is very disreputable.”

“Well, it can’t be helped now he’s here. You had better set him at charades.”

Augustus returned for his partner. There she was, twirling in the arms of the Count.

“He has asked her to take a turn, but no. There they are stopping opposite, as though to avoid me. Shall I go and take her away, and kick the Count? No good.”

The waltz was over, and Bromley, with entire self-possession, walked over to Constance.

“You have disappointed me this time, Miss Coxe,” he said, good-naturedly. “Will you dance the next quadrille?”

“Mademoiselle is already engaged to me,” grinned the Count.

“Then perhaps the waltz after that.”

Bromley looked steadily at the Count, in a manner the latter did not seem to admire.

“Oh yes, yes,” almost screamed Constance, whose countenance during this scene had betrayed the emotion she underwent.

Bromley, with a slight bow, turned away. He cannot, this time, deny his knowledge of her being engaged to me.

He directed his steps to the room used as a theatre, which abutted on the garden. A verandah outside was covered in for a greenroom. The large oriel window was to serve as a stage. Entering the house by the ordinary doorway, he proceeded to the body of the theatre. He arranged a few of the ornaments, and then sat down to muse.

There is certainly nothing so discreditable as eavesdropping. Nothing can justify it, and no possible excuse can be alleged in palliation of such an offence; but in this life the best of us occasionally commit an unjustifiable action. We have all of us said foolish things which, in the retirement of our bed-clothes, flash across us, and make us burn with shame. We have all put up from friends with affronts which we should have resented; for, alas! in this age we are as afraid of being called tetchy as of being considered dishonourable.

We have all of us, except myself and you, kind reader—we have all of us, at least once in our lives, been the authors of some little act which Paley would not have approved, and Butler would have refused to ratify.

So, on this occasion, Bromley was guilty of a great moral offence. He heard voices—voices not unknown to him—and he listened.

“Not dancing, Achille?” spoke a voice in French.

“The dancing is suspended for a tombola, and I come to pay my homage to my sister.”

“Hush, Achille, for Heaven’s sake! We may be overheard.”

“And if so?”

“The object of my life would be at an end. Yes, Achille, my pride is foolish, ridiculous. To it I have sacrificed my life, my position, nay, my love. When my mother commended you to me as the heir—the ruined heir of our house—it was my resolve that you should once again resume the place my father had forfeited. It might have been done sooner, Achille, in time even for me to enjoy the sweets of life. Already had my pen achieved more than success, when that fatal passion which has destroyed us before, displayed itself in you. For you I have slaved and worn out my life. For you have I polluted my existence by publicity. For you, or rather, for our name, I have sacrificed the hopes and joys of a household. Even now, ruined as we are, my daily labour supplies your extravagance. If once the stage could be connected with your name, Achille, my heart would break.”

“This is all very well, belle dame—very pretty and very dramatic. The charades have not yet commenced. I meant to say that, if overheard calling you my sister, all would perceive the joke.”

“It must end some day, Achille. Heaven make you kinder to that lovely girl than to me. When once you are married I shall retire to beautiful Italy.”

“The dream of actresses.”

“Thank you, Achille. The actress will not sully your name by her presence.”

“Ah, bah! cousine. Once married to the little Cogues, and, actress or no actress, you share the booty.”

“Achille, the pride that has enabled me to support you in affluence will not admit of your affluence to support me. It is you who have chosen the way to riches by marriage. Opposed to it at first, I yielded to your wishes, though I had offered to you many a more honourable career. I presented to you that detestable woman Mélanie to inform you of the girl’s movements and her friends. I disliked, I loathed the intrigue, but it was undertaken, and it must be accomplished, for my strength is giving way.”

“Mélanie is a cleverer woman than you, Adelgonde. She has shown me a way to success that you would never have dreamt of.”

“Indeed! I hope it is honourable.”

“Honourable, inasmuch as it profits her as well as myself.”

“What is it?”

Bromley bent forward to listen, but the Count spoke in too low a tone.

“Good heaven! Achille! Have you stooped to this?” cried the actress.

“Come, no heroics, belle dame. I hear the music of the dance, and I go to pulverise my rival.”

“Have we fallen as low as this?” murmured the actress. Bromley heard a window open, the retreating steps of the Count, and the chords of the distant music. Noiselessly he left the theatre, and hurried to the lawn.

The Count had reached Constance about a minute before him. She was standing with her mother apart from the dance. No one was near the group as Bromley approached.

“This is my dance, Miss Constance,” he observed, offering his arm.

“Forgive me, Monsieur Bromley. It is mine.”

“You must be mistaken, Count. You yourself heard the engagement.”

“One word apart, Monsieur Bromley.”

“Certainly.” The two retired to a grove adjacent.

“You recollect the compact we made, my friend, the night of the ball at Conisbro’ House.”

“I recollect the compact you proposed.”

“My part of it is complete, I dare say, with your assistance. Rely on me as regards la petite belle-sœur la Florence. Mademoiselle Constance, with the consent of Miladi Cogues and her own, is my affianced bride.”

“Indeed, Monsieur le Comte! till this moment I believed she was mine. You will pardon me in your turn, but for such a statement I must, under the circumstances, demand a little corroboration—especially as the waltz is already begun.”

Taking the Count’s arm, he forced rather than persuaded him to the spot where Lady Coxe and her daughter were still standing. Constance was pale as death—Lady Coxe a deep magenta.

“Lady Coxe, the Count tells me I may congratulate you on having secured him as a son-in-law. May I do so?”

“’E ’as my full consent.”

“And, Miss Constance, may I offer you my felicitations?”

“Y—y——” The word was never completed, for Constance fell to the ground.

As the Count hurried with the crowd to assist the swooning girl, a strong arm took his, and a firm voice whispered in her ear. “Your place is not here; it is with your sister in the theatre.”

Rabelais turned towards the young man with the eyes of a frightened ape, and slunk away.

In a few minutes Bromley had lifted Constance into her carriage, and, with Florence and Lady Coxe, was driving towards London.

The skirts had much contracted for the occasion.

“Did ’e tell any one but you?” asked Lady Coxe, in an anxious whisper.

“No one.”

“Then, for ’eaven’s sake, don’t breathe it to Sir Joshphat, and take the carriage on for Dr Leadbitter.”

Bromley bowed reassuringly, and hurried on, in the family coach, to Bedford Square.

Dr Leadbitter was at home, and Constance was raving in a fever.

CHAPTER XIV.

There is a wonderful inclination to practical paradox in the human mind. If a man be dull, the world charitably sets him down as sound. If he be clever, the world, with equal charity, sets him down as unscrupulous. If a man be courteous, he is instantly condemned as designing; if brutal, lauded as straightforward.

But if this natural impulse to moral compensation be the general bias of the human intellect, it assumes twofold force in the special case of medical men. Perhaps with such men personal characteristics are more prominently displayed; perhaps the confidence of the patient reposing in the individuality of his advisers gives a factitious importance to minor peculiarities.

Be it how it may, you have never yet seen an Asclepiad whose manners were not, in some respect, different from those of his fellow-creatures.

Great or small, clever or stupid, he has managed to inspire confidence, or to impose successfully on some circle of patients, however contracted.

Amongst these he is an authority. His individual influence is so great, that but little trust is reposed in his art when practised by another.

If in large practice, his patients consider him deserving of it; if in small practice, they esteem him an ill-used man. He is their guide and their friend as well as their philosopher; godfather to their children, trustee to their settlements, legatee to their wills. He is present at their births and deaths, generally at their weddings. He knows their pecuniary difficulties, their family quarrels; the husband’s distrust, or the wife’s jealousy; the son’s folly, and the daughter’s infatuation. He can go down the street and schedule out each house as to its specific non-observance of the decalogue. He can tell you who steals, who commits murder, or who commits any other sin of the first magnitude.

There are thousands of little secrets confided to the diary of a physician; thousands of fees to his pocket, for little occurrences which, like the fees, go no further than himself.

By the highest he is treated almost as an equal; by the wisest he is respected as a man of science and of power. If not profoundly versed in our constitution, he knows us in our moments of weakness, and that knowledge alone makes him the master of most of us.

But before we admit him to this position, we minutely examine his qualities, or accept the judgment of them passed by the universal suffrage of mortal men.

Science of anatomy is sufficient for the surgeon; but science of the world is the best passport for the medical man.

We require him to cure our bodies—most doctors can do that.

But we occasionally require from him medicaments for our minds. This requires the skill of a man of the world.

From such premises we conclude that perfection in art is not the keystone of medical fame. The serpent was dedicated to Æsculapius, the emblem of his foresight as well as of his craft. Nor would the symbol misrepresent the physicians of Babylon.

Sir Erasistratus will be enabled to discover that Duke Antiochus is fearfully in love with Countess Stratonice. Sir Paulus will gain favour with the patrons of art by the number of statues decorating his country-place at Ægina. Sir Democritus exposes somnambulism, mesmerism, homœopathy, and spirit-rapping. Dr Andrew Machaon displays administrative qualities in the army medical department; while Sir Podalirius, K.C.B., after exhibiting geniality at the mess-table and intrepidity in the field, marries the daughter of King Damætas, and sets up in Grosvenor Square. Dr Chrysippus, who has not yet attained the purple, manages to oppose the dogmatists, and to soar into practice by his agreeable conversation and sparkling jests. Heraclitus is the man-hater, declines to visit sovereigns, and frightens poor women into new diseases by a savage laugh and peremptory brutality. Sir Oribasius, who ushers young peers into the world, endears himself to the mothers by affectionate epithets and profuse gossip; and Sir Sextus Empiricus drives a flourishing trade and a chariot by periodic journeys to the equator, and the administration of stimulants to statesmen. All have some quality independent of their art. Few rely on their craft, and their craft alone, for practice or popularity, competency or knighthood. Writers require an ars celare artem; physicians an art to thrust their skill into prominence. In France this is considered charlatanerie; in England it is styled humbug. Yet what great man is, consciously or unconsciously, free from this vice?

Has Bumcombe no place in our social, political, scientific, or ecclesiastical system?

Some few have tried the narrow, narrow path. They labour in their youth, they labour in their manhood. “They live forgotten—they die forlorn.” An hospital is the scene of their triumphs, a parish-rate forms their emolument. The parson and the overseer compose their society, and the blessings of the poor their fame.

Yet there are first-rate men amidst the great physicians of Babylon.

Heaven bless them! How would the young Babylonians be born without them, or how could the Babylonian ladies take their strong waters innocuously?

But Dr Leadbitter was an exception to every rule.

He was devoted to the science of medicine. It absorbed his whole mind; and, indeed, together with dinners and the price-list, formed the staple of his conversation.

He lived near an hospital; and spent a useful life, pleasantly to himself, in constant attention to revolting diseases.

The hospital had been endowed chiefly from his own purse—an expenditure owning a double origin in his charity and his love of science.

Hitherto he had never been permitted to sate himself sufficiently in the least agreeable works of his profession. His universal popularity had induced his colleagues in other hospitals to take from him this portion of his duties. To Dr Leadbitter this indulgence was purgatory. The dirtier the patient, the more complicated his disorder, the more grateful was the treatment to this worthy man. Pity and love of science formed a curious combination in his phrenology. His professional skill, therefore, had reached a height where envy had ceased to criticise or malice to detract. Yet, unknowingly to himself, he possessed other than technical qualities; and these caused him to be sought after by those whose search is considered honourable.

In his career Leadbitter had studied deeply and variously. In his ideas every knowledge tended to enhance the value of his heart.

So intimate is the connection of our moral and physical structure, that to the eye of the accomplished physician few disorders of our frame can be disconnected from some indirect and intellectual cause. As mental emotions form the features of manhood, so is the innermost thought of man betrayed by some external indication.

Those best practised to command expression can ill disguise their feelings from the true physiologist. The smile is forced that dissembles anger, the gravity overcharged that suppresses mirth.

However perfect the acting, there are some, even among mortals, to whose far-seeing eye acting can never compete with nature. Such a one was Dr Leadbitter, fat, foolish, as he looked. In him intuitive perception was refined by rare and delicate study. To know the diseases of a singer he would hear her song, of an orator his speech. He would examine the portrait of a statesman, and study his biography, then tell you his organic disorders. Nor was his rare skill unknown or unappreciated. To him would the singer and statesman repair, as a last resource, glad to stand in his anteroom and vie with a pauper for an audience.

Yet Leadbitter, though astute, was simple. He made more by speculation than by his profession.

His kindness of heart and his passion for disagreeable affections gave to the pauper, in his eyes, a higher value than the statesman. He might have been a baronet, but he had no wife to urge him thereunto. A comfortable dinner was his sole vice, a few good cases his only desire.

He wore the traditional black clothes and white neckcloth, the capacious watch in the capacious fob. He carried the rattan with the gold knob, and, at times, even buckles in his shoes.

A little flower or sprig bedecked his upper button-hole. His walk was a trot, and a smile ever on his lips.

Moreover, nothing could be more commonplace than his ordinary conversation. A few truisms, parliamentary interjections, many technical references. His action was as that of one feeling a pulse, and he was always in a hurry to turn away and leave the room.

“Won’t you have a glass of wine, Mr Bromley?” asked the doctor, hospitably.

“Thanks, I am going to dine later.”

“Commodeque, Erasistratus dixit, sæpe, interiore parte humorem non requirente, os et fauces requirere.”

Dr Leadbitter lost no time in getting into the carriage.

The doctor overcame the gourmet, and, though at dinner, the voice of duty and of friendship prevailed.

“My dear doctor,” said Bromley, “Miss Constance has fallen very ill. She fell to the ground at Lady Ilminster’s breakfast. She was insensible all the way home. I suppose they have put her to bed, for I drove off at once for you.”

“Hear, hear!” responded the doctor.

“Now, doctor, between ourselves, I think Miss Constance has something on her mind.”

“Hear, hear! Eros, I suppose. Soon cured.”

“Something more than that.”

“Nothing cryptogamic, I hope?”

“I have a moral certainty of the cause, but no legal evidence yet. If you will accept my assurance without seeking any corroboration, I will tell you my surmises—to me certainties—which, perhaps, may guide you in your treatment.”

“Hear, hear!”

“My impression is that Lady Coxe and Miss Constance Coxe are deeply in debt to Madame Mélanie the dressmaker. They are afraid to own it to Sir Jehoshaphat. Count Rabelais has got possession of the secret, and holds it in terrorem over Constance.

“He has conciliated the friendship and advocacy of Lady Coxe—perhaps by the same means; and he has extorted from Constance a promise of marriage. Now, what would you advise?

“The whole thing should be told to Sir Jehoshaphat. Yet, I think, he would never forgive Lady Coxe, whatever treatment he might pursue towards his daughter. I have known him from boyhood. His temperament is bilious and nervous. About money matters, though more than liberal, he is obdurate.”

“At any rate, it would be better avoided, for the present at least.”

“Hear, hear!”

“I should think the woman Mélanie might be frightened for having inveigled a girl under age.”

“Hear, hear! But suppose Lady Coxe knew of her daughter’s debts?”

“But perhaps she does not. As soon as I can get my surmises into shape, I will, with your permission, consult you.”

“Hear, hear! Come to me directly you have any news—day or night. Meanwhile, I will pursue the soothing system—calming draughts. I shall tell Lady Coxe at once that I know the whole story. That will keep her quiet.”

By this time the carriage had again arrived in Grosvenor Square.

“How is Miss Constance?”

“Very bad, sir.”

“Hear, hear!” murmured the doctor, mournfully.

Constance was in a high fever. Bromley found a letter on his table. He opened it. It was but a few lines.

“My dear Friend,—The family is that of Sir J. Coxe, Bart., M.P., the banker. Her ladyship owes about £2000; her daughter Constance about £900. The rest of the news I hope to obtain in a day or two.—Yours very sincerely,

“K. M.”

A paper fluttered forth and fell to the ground. Bromley picked it up. It was folded, flimsy as a bank-note. He opened it. It was headed with the image and superscription of Madame Mélanie. Below were items representing a total of £27, 4s. 8d.

CHAPTER XV.

“Hear, hear! Well, you’ve not lost much time, Mr Bromley,” said the doctor, as Bromley entered the room where he was resuming his interrupted meal.

“How have you found Miss Constance?”

“I can say nothing till to-morrow. However, I do not think there is much to fear. Lady Coxe will do all I tell her. I gave her a quietus, by informing her I knew of all her difficulties. It rather relieved her, I think. Experimentum periculosum. It succeeded, however.”

“One glass of wine? Lætificat cor hominis.”

“Thank you, I have not yet dined.”

“Well, I’ll ask you again—the third time of asking, and you’ll take one. Three scruples make one dram! Ho, ho! Hear, hear!”

He poured out a bumper of burgundy, and motioned his young friend to proceed.

“Since leaving you, my suspicions have been confirmed.” Bromley showed the letter, and told Dr Leadbitter the whole story.

“Hear, hear, young man,” said the doctor, as his young friend finished. “The disease is plainer than the remedy.”

“The sum is very large, or I could manage it.”

“I should not allow Constance to pay her—at least for some time. I am an old man. You are a young one. I should not wonder if there were some few figures in my favour at Coutts’s. Sir Jehoshaphat is an old friend of mine—as honourable a man as ever lived. Good digestion, though bilious. I should like to break the force of the blow.”

Sir Jehoshaphat Coxe sallied forth the next morning with a heavy heart and a glowing brow.

He marched down Grosvenor Street slowly. At length he reached the house of Madame Mélanie.

With stately steps, and firm determination, he walked up the stairs, and entered the room of the dressmaker. She received him with a curtsy and a smile.

“Woman!” he burst out, “I hear you have profited by the folly of an old woman and the imprudence of a young one. Give me the bills of my wife and daughter that I may pay them.”

“They owe me nothing, Monsieur.”

“What, woman! do you still carry on the farce? They themselves have told me of this.”

“They owe me nothing, Sir Jehoshaphat. Their bills were paid an hour since.”

“By whom?”

“By Mr Augustus Bromley.”

The sequel is well known to my readers. Mr Bromley espoused Miss Constance. He has been standing for a county, and the result of the poll is expected by telegraph this evening.

Madame Mélanie having, in a moment of forgetfulness, returned to her old habits, and abstracted a small casket from the house of one of her customers, is expiating her crimes in a spot set aside for such purposes. Count Rabelais has disappeared from the social horizon, and is supposed to be gaining an honest livelihood as a courier.

Madame Carron, under the advice of Dr Leadbitter, laid aside her family pride, and married a very respectable impresario, who turns her talents to advantage, and lays by her earnings for that rainy day to which managers more than ordinary mortals are liable. Lady Coxe will not contract any more debts, though she still nourishes a partiality for port. Florence married on the same day as her sister, and Letitia seems likely to justify the surmise of Count Rabelais, by blessing the hearth of Mr Whiting.

OUR NEW DOCTOR.

There was great excitement at Mudford when it was ascertained beyond a doubt that we were really going to have a New Doctor. Poor old Mole, who was bidding fair to shortly attain the proud position of “Oldest Inhabitant,” had at length found it useless to struggle longer with his infirmities, and had advertised his practice for sale to the best bidder. I don’t think he would ever have given in; but his old pony, which had carried him well and faithfully for more than twenty years, was gone at last, and he felt that he could never mount another. His hands were so crippled that he could not drive; and, besides, he had no horse and gig—nor would his practice pay for keeping one; and as for walking, the state of his poor old feet and legs rendered that quite out of the question. So he did the best thing he could do—sold his practice; and, in spite of the teetotallers, I verily believe that, if he had stopped at Mudford and spent the whole of his time, as he had previously spent nine-tenths of it, with his gin-and-water and pipe, in his own special corner at the White Hart, he would be there, as well as ever, at the present moment, and would be able to enjoy many a good growl, and tell many a prosy tale, for years to come yet. But, alas! he did not stop here. He left the old place altogether, and retired to his native village, to be killed with care and fidgets by three old maiden sisters. Poor old Mole! He had come into Mudford I don’t know how many years ago—for it was before even my time—a smart, buckish, good-looking young fellow, in top-boots and spotless white neckcloth; telling a good story, singing a good song, fond of the ladies, fond of his glass, fond of sport, and up to any hounds. But, dear me! it was all changed, except the neckcloth and the glass, which endured to the end; and he left the place a poor, testy, prosy, gouty old bachelor, with no one to care for or regard him, except the few who remembered what he had been, or who took the trouble to look for the genuine good qualities which lay beneath the prickly outer rind. But enough of Mole: for what have we to do with old friends in this world? When they go away or die, there’s an end of ’em. And our business is, to turn our attention to the new-comers, and try what we can get out of them in the way of money, custom, amusement, or whatever else they may be able to give us to our advantage. So farewell to poor old Mole, my dear old brother fogy; and attention for his successor!

As intimated, I am an old fogy. I have no business to attend to, no wife nor family to bother me, and but few means of passing away my time. In the mornings I wade through the papers at the Reading-room, and afterwards discuss their contents with others of my own stamp. I confess that the tradesmen and business people who run in for half an hour to glance at the news, get pretty considerably annoyed at being interrupted while reading, by our loud, and—as far as Rooks is concerned, the most wrong-headed fellow I ever knew—often stupid and illogical arguments: and they not unfrequently dare to tell us, without scruple, that the room is for reading in, and not for talking in. But I, for my part, take no notice of them; for is not my subscription as good as theirs? And is not the passing of my time of far more consequence to me than the getting through theirs is to them, who have a hundred other things to do, and who ought to be attending to their business instead of reading the papers in the mornings? Right or wrong, I do it; and I intend to keep doing it: and if Broad and Brown don’t like it, they may leave it—and a good thing for them, too; for I happen to know that Brown’s business is falling off considerably; and the new shop at the corner is certain to injure Broad: it is time for them to put their shoulders to the wheel, I can tell them! Well, so I get on until dinner, and then a glass of port and a snooze pass the time until tea. After that, there is my pipe and glass of grog at the White Hart, in the chair opposite to old Mole’s—now, alas! no longer sacred to his use, but occupied by any chance customer who may happen to drop in. Disagreeable to me the company is sometimes—noisy, uncongenial, disrespectful. Things in this world change for the worse every day. Heigho!

These are my principal employments, with an occasional whist-party of an evening. Bright oases in the desert of my life are these evenings when they do come; but, to my sorrow, they are few and far between. People sit so late and drink so much grog at these parties, that wives don’t like ’em. And, besides, there are really not above four people in the place who can play a rubber. As for taking a hand, with such a person as Jones or Johnson for a partner, I vow I would rather never touch a card again! And the worst of it is, the wretches actually think they know the game! I had Jones for a partner once, and lost 17s. 6d. by his confounded stupidity. Catch me placing myself twice in such a position! If I were absolute monarch of this country, I would make a law that any man who takes the money out of another’s pocket by such gross ignorance and stupidity, should be considered guilty of felony—just as the poor, overworked engine-driver, who once in his life makes a blunder by which somebody is killed, is found guilty of manslaughter!

Mudford is not a large nor a gay place; on the contrary, it is a particularly small and dull one: so that, with such a limited round of amusements as is available to me, it is no wonder, and not at all a thing to be ashamed of, that I should have been considerably interested in the question, what the New Doctor would be like. Of course, it was a matter of some importance to me whether he would talk like a reasonable man at the Reading-room in the mornings; and whether he would have the nous to listen to and appreciate my stories, when I am in the humour for telling them in the evenings. The people here, in this little out-of-the-way place, are so confoundedly narrow in their views and ideas, that they take no interest in anything outside their own little, paltry, peddling sphere of action; and I have really not had a listener for a very long time, except a chance commercial traveller now and then—not even poor old Mole, who was always for spinning his own prosy old yarns, that I was sick and tired of years and years ago. He could never see, poor old fellow, how people laughed at him about them! Then I was anxious as to whether the New Doctor would understand the treatment of my complaint, which I have suffered from for so many years, and which nobody knew anything about except old Mole: for, as for putting myself into the hands of that ignorant fellow Green, who can neither spell correctly nor write grammatically, or of that methodistical quack Higgins, I might as well go and order my coffin at once. Then, of course, it was a matter of importance to me whether he would be able to take a hand at whist like a Christian; and, above all, whether he would give a nice little snug card-party himself now and then; for, as I have already said, parties of that sort had become very scarce, owing to the late hours and the expense. I do not much wonder at it; for Stevens, and Jones, and Johnson, and Briggs, and one or two more I could mention, will never go home till morning, if they are winning; and when they are losing, they are never satisfied without their revenge: and the amount they do guzzle of an evening, at the expense of other people, is certainly most extraordinary. I gave a whist-party myself once; but I shan’t do it again in a hurry, for I know what it is. They drank enough to last me for a twelvemonth: and I was so annoyed about one thing and the other, that I could not play; or, I should rather say, I never held a hand for the evening; and I positively heard the scoundrels laughing at me as they left my door, and went down the street! No, I shan’t give another party in a hurry: men of my means, who have barely enough for their own little comforts and indulgences, can’t be expected to do it.

Altogether, then, it is evident that I had good reasons for feeling interested as to what sort of person the New Doctor would be; but I was not the only one to whom it was a subject of speculation. Curiosity is the mark of vulgar people, and vulgar enough they are in Mudford, in all conscience. And there were some, too, besides myself, who really had reasons for feeling interested in the subject. There was Simpkins, the indefatigable Secretary of the Rifle Corps, who was all alive at the idea of getting an effective member and annual subscriber; and Timmins, the equally indefatigable Secretary of the Literary Institution, who was sanguine that the New Doctor would give a lecture during the ensuing season, and who was actually holding back the syllabus from the press until he had seen him on the subject. Then there was Rooks, the only chess-player in the place, who, not having anybody to play with him, is always bragging of the game, and his skill thereat, and depreciating whist in an equal degree. He always seizes the ‘Illustrated London News’ directly it comes into the Reading-room, turns to the chess problems first of all, and stays half an hour poring over them, before he will look at the pictures himself or allow anybody else to do so. He pretended to be very anxious that the new-comer should be a chess-player; but I verily believe that his anxiety was all the other way, and that he most devoutly hoped to the contrary: for I don’t believe Rooks can play the game any more than I can. At all events, nobody ever heard of his playing; and when old Harding, the Collector of Excise, spent an evening here—a good player he is, as everybody knows—and, at my instigation, sent a very polite note to Rooks, inviting him to play a game at the White Hart, he never came near the place; and Boots brought back word that Mr Rooks was exceedingly sorry, but he was gone to bed very bad with a headache. I don’t believe he ever had a headache in his life!

Then there was Rowe, who had been fool enough to buy a boat that was the worry and torment of his life, and that cost him just as much as a horse or a wife. It was always getting into scrapes and difficulties somehow: the oars would get lost; and the rudder would get broken; and the painter—whatever that may be—would get cut; and the boat would get capsized; and the boys were always taking her away, and making her in a mess, and never bringing her back again. Poor Rowe was always in trouble with her some way or other, and positively got no peace of his life for her. The fact is that Mudford is no place for a boat, and no one but a donkey would have brought one here; for I verily believe that we have only got the tide for one hour out of the twenty-four, and that only once a fortnight or so; and then it is always running up when you want to go down the river, and down when you want to go up; and it is always leaving you stuck upon banks and shoals, so that you have to wade out through the mud, which takes you up to your middle. At least, I judge so from what I see and hear; for catch me going out boating in this place, if you can! Well, Rowe thought that perhaps the New Doctor would go halves in his precious hobby, and would join him in rubbing all the skin off his hands in pulling that tub of his up and down against the tide. Then there was Driver, who is for ever boring one about subscriptions for the Cricket Club, which, as far as I can see, has no existence, except at the annual supper, at the close of what they are pleased to call their season; when members who have never handled a bat since they were schoolboys—if they did then—come and handle a knife and fork to perfection, and drink punch, and make speeches about the “fine manly English game,” until you would think that the glory and prosperity of the country depended entirely upon the prowess of the members of the Mudford Club; who talk most inexorably of the fines that shall be enforced, and most undauntedly of the matches that shall be played, in the next season; but who, of course, only talk more and do less with each succeeding year. Driver, then, was full of hopes that the new-comer would be a cricketer; that he would help him to worry all the people in the place for subscriptions, and would play single-wicket matches with him on the cricket evenings, when nobody else came near the ground.

And Grindley, again, was just as bad; indeed, I don’t know whether he wasn’t worse than any of them. He has got his house full of musical instruments of every sort and description, and can’t play as much as ‘God Save the Queen’ on any one of them. He is always talking of “staccatoes,” and “fugues,” and “musical intervals,” and “thorough bass,” and I don’t know what all, though his voice is like a cracked penny-trumpet, and he has no more idea of joining in a chorus than a jackass. He went about the town boring everybody by squeaking out with his voice that was enough to set your teeth on edge, “I say, won’t it be nice if the New Doctor should be musical?”

I suppose though, that after all nobody was so much interested about the new-comer as the young unmarried ladies,—except the middle-aged unmarried ladies, who were more interested still. I don’t blame them, poor creatures! for really it is very little chance they have of getting husbands at Mudford, except when strangers or visitors come to the place. There are some half-dozen families or so certainly, whose pure ichor is so superior to the vulgar blood that runs, or stagnates, in the veins of the common inhabitants of Mudford, who do occasionally intermarry, once in ten or fifteen years or so, like the royal families of Europe, when a prince and princess of their illustrious houses happen to be of a marriageable age at the same time. The coincidence is of rare occurrence, but it does happen occasionally. And the boys and girls of the utterly plebeian class, of course, here as elsewhere, walk out together in the evenings, and on Sunday afternoons; and the young farmer lads in the neighbourhood, and the young masons, and all those, go courting to the servant-maids in the evenings, at the back-doors and in the back-kitchens; and they get married before they know what they are about. But with the middle classes it is different; and I don’t see that the poor girls have got a chance, except when some friend or relative at a distance will have them on a visit, or when a stranger happens to come into the town;—rare chances these. As for the young men of the place, who have been flirting with ’em, and kissing ’em, and seeing ’em flirted with and kissed by brother Jack and cousin Tom, and all the rest, ever since they were children, why, they would as soon think of seeing anything a fellow could fall in love with in their own sisters. (I speak, as every one will understand, of those who have no money; the few that have, of course, nobody can help loving, and they go off fast enough.) And so it happens that any fresh young man, coming into the town, is to these poor creatures quite a god-send: and though we know nothing else of the New Doctor, it had been ascertained, beyond a doubt, through old Mole, that he was young and unmarried.

Of course the young ladies did not make an old fellow like me a confidant of their hopes; but as I hobbled up or down the street, I could perceive that wherever two or three bonnets, or turban-hats, as I believe the vile things are called, were met together, there was a more than usually vivacious giggle, which showed me plainly enough what was the subject of conversation. On the days, too, when the Doctor began to be expected, about the time that the omnibus arrives in the afternoons, there were always several very neat boots and white stockings to be seen in the street; and those girls of Johnson’s—who never seem to have anything to do in their own house, though I know they keep but one servant, or rather slavey, and their mother is always up to her elbows in kitchen-work, so that she can find no time to read, or do anything else but talk, and is the most uninformed woman of my acquaintance—those girls took care to have some business with Mrs Cook, of the White Hart, about the forthcoming Rifle Corps Bazaar, and so have an excuse for being in her little private sitting-room, that looks out upon the street, at the time when the omnibus arrives. Poor old Mole! he could neither march nor lecture, row, nor play at chess or cricket: he had no more idea of music than a cow; his day for courting or getting married had long passed by; and he was fit for nothing but to make up gout pills, smoke his pipe, drink his gin-and-water, and tell his prosy old stories in his corner at the White Hart; and so all these people thought of course that they would be sure to have a change for the better in the New Doctor.

At length came the day which was definitely fixed for the Doctor’s coming. It had been put off several times for some reasons of his own, but now he was to come without fail. We knew it from Mole, who had received a letter from the New Doctor, whose name, I may as well mention here, was Smith,—if that can be called a name at all—saying that he should positively arrive on that day, and expressing a hope that Mole would wait, and introduce him to his patients. But Mole would not wait any longer, for he had given up his house, and was living at expenses at the hotel; so he went away to his sisters, the three old maids, and left Mr Smith to introduce himself in the best way he could.

It so happened that, on the day when the New Doctor was to arrive, I could not compose myself exactly to my usual after-dinner nap, all owing to that fool of a servant, who will never learn to send up a dinner properly; and so I took my stick, and clopped away down to the White Hart, to try whether a glass of gin-and-water would do me good; and it so happened, oddly enough, that I got down there just exactly at the time the omnibus usually arrives. For you must know that the old respectable coach, which lingered with us after it had disappeared from the rest of the world, is gone at length, and its place is usurped by one of those vile innovations, an omnibus—or ’bus, as it is called in the wretched jargon of the present day. I hate those sneaking low-lifed things more than I do the very railways themselves, which they are employed to attend on. And so, instead of the handsome stylish coach, that a gentleman might ride on without shame, with its dashing four-in-hand, we have got this dirty, shabby, yellow thing, with its unicorn team of skin and bone, a driver that old Jack Simons, the coachman, would not have had for a stable-helper, and an urchin for guard, who would be a disgrace to a dung-cart!

As I made my way down the street, it was easy to see, by the unusual number of people out, that something strange was expected. Peters, of course, was at the hotel door; but then he always is there when the ’bus arrives, for he fancies that he is great upon the subject of horses; and every day, like a fool, throws away threepence or fourpence, which I know he can ill afford, in drink for the driver, who knows nearly as little about horse-flesh as he does himself, in order that he may talk to him about the leader’s mouth, and the off wheeler’s shoulder, and Hobb’s colt, and that young mare of Timmins’s. He was there as a matter of course, and so was Paul, who is just as regular an attendant, and waits about every day to see who comes and who goes, and what parcels there are, and whom they are for, and how much there is to pay on them. These two never miss; but that old woman, Gabriel Mullins, was there also, waiting to see the “New Doctor,” that he might go gabble-gabble about him all over the place. And Muggins, whom no man ever saw, except on Sundays, with his coat or without his apron, was standing outside his shop-door, with his hands in his pockets, and that perpetual smirk upon his countenance, looking out for the ’bus. While Cox, the bookseller and stationer, who must, I am sure, live upon the smell of his wares, for nobody in Mudford, as far as I can see, ever reads or writes, was peering out between those eternal prints in his window, making belief that he was too busy, or too much above vulgar curiosity, to come and look out openly and honestly like Muggins. It takes me some time to get down to the White Hart, so that I had leisure to look about me; and I saw the two Miss MacClinkers, the Surveyor’s daughters, walking down the street, and finding an excuse for loitering in each dowdy shop window, every article in which they must know by heart, for they are in the street often enough, and can use their eyes well enough, I’m sure: there they were, with their outrageous crinolines, showing their anatomical-looking legs in a way that could not fail to attract the attention of any stranger coming up the street on the omnibus, whether doctor or not. The Miss Johnsons, you may be sure, were in Mrs Cook’s front parlour discussing the work for the bazaar, as they had been every afternoon for a week past. And I hope—for the sake of Miss Trimlett, the dressmaker opposite, who, though she has been engaged for the last twenty years, and could not want another lover, was looking out from behind the geraniums in the ground-floor window—that those young girls at the window above, her assistants and apprentices, worked by the piece, and not by the day; for it was one stitch and two minutes’ giggle, and another stitch and another two minutes’ giggle with them as long as I looked. And even old Miss Whittaker, who has been confined to her bed for the last three years with laziness and swollen legs, had sent over that extra sharp little girl of hers, to see whether the New Doctor was come.

I went into the White Hart parlour, sat down at my accustomed side of the fire, and had the glass of gin-and-water for which I had come. Wretched spirit they do keep there now, to be sure! and the water is never half boiling! It did not use to be so in old Cook’s time. There is some extraordinary fatality about it; but as I never require the fire-shovel, and am in constant want of the poker, the former is always placed close to my hands, and the latter on the opposite side of the fireplace, so that I cannot reach it without rising from my chair,—a work of time and difficulty to me, and involving the necessity of turning down Mrs Cook’s cat, which always gets upon my knee with my full consent. It is invariably the case, and of course there was no exception to the rule now; so I had to rise as usual to get the poker, and at the very moment when I was on my legs, the ’bus drove up to the door! Of course, I could not help looking out of window to see it then; and to my great joy—for I am delighted when idle curiosity is baffled—there was not a single passenger there, except little Philips, the commercial traveller, and fat Mrs Biggs, of Great Pigton. I am the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule; but I confess I was glad of this, and chuckled to myself, as I ordered another glass of grog on the strength of it.

Next morning, however, as I went down the street as usual, to look at the papers, everybody was all alive with the news, that the New Doctor had arrived, and in a most strange and unaccountable manner. The omnibus had not brought him, as we know; there was no other public conveyance; and no private nor posting carriage had entered the town during the night; for old Mrs Thomas, who was awake all night with the toothache, was ready to swear that no carriage had passed through the street; and the pikeman, who keeps the turnpike gate at the entrance of the village (the inhabitants of the place are so proud of it, that they would lynch me if they knew that I called it a village, but it really is little more), actually did swear—and he was examined and cross-examined enough on the subject—that the gate had been locked from twelve at night until seven the next morning, and he was certain that no carriage had passed through. But that the Doctor had really come there was no doubt, for one or two persons had seen him in the morning; and among the rest Miss Cringle, who lives opposite, and who had stated, in a note written to Mrs Jones, while she was taking her breakfast, that she had positively seen Mr Smith that morning, looking out of his first-floor window.

I ought to have stated before that the New Doctor had taken the house which old Mole had occupied; and that he had also bought his furniture as well as his patients. Very little there was of either of them; and very little bought them. Both purchases were very old and rickety; but though Mr Smith might possibly be able to dine off the tables, it was not likely that he would ever get much to put upon them out of the patients; for they never had anything but the gout, which is said to keep away every other disease; and they had each of them taken in a stock of about a peck of his celebrated gout-pills from old Mole, before he left the place. But Mole himself has told me that the new doctor, in his correspondence, scarcely made any inquiry about the practice or the furniture, but was most particular about the situation of the house, making it a sine qua non that it should be in a quiet, retired situation. Mole’s description of the house appeared to suit him, and it was retired enough and quiet enough in all conscience; indeed, it would have found it difficult to be anything else in Mudford. It is a square detached house, situated in the very outskirts of the place, and not to be overlooked, except from Miss Cringle’s window, which commands a magnificent view of the front door.

The men in Mudford are sociable enough among themselves; but the women are the very deuce! I suppose you would hardly find any two in the place agreeing that they stand on precisely the same social level. Green the surgeon and apothecary, and Ferris the ironmonger and tinman, are as friendly as possible when they meet; and indeed, Ferris is by far better educated and better informed than Green, who is one of the most ignorant men I know. To tell the truth, I am afraid that Ferris is rather too much above his business, and that Potts, that conceited little monkey, who was his apprentice, and has now set up in opposition to him, will make him find it out before long. Well, Green and Ferris are friendly enough, as I said; but catch Mrs Green speaking to Mrs Ferris in the same way! Oh, dear, no! And White and Black, the two lawyers, though they are always on opposite sides, and sometimes make the most tremendous onslaughts on each other at the County Courts and Magistrates’ Meetings, are in reality, I believe, good friends enough all the time, and play into each other’s hands, and help each other to fleece their clients, like honest fellows. But Mrs Black considers herself and family immeasurably superior to little Mrs White; because that near customer, Sir Henry Burton, has them once a year to dinner, when the neighbouring gentry are gone to town, where he never goes himself, and gives them cape and marsala with their dinner, and half a decanter of port after it; and makes use of their house whenever he comes into town, putting his horses into their little stable, and his coachman into their little kitchen, and has his cold chicken and sherry in their little parlour, because he won’t go to the expense of stopping at the hotel. Because he does all this for them, and does not know the Whites, Mrs Black considers herself—and, I verily believe, is really and spitefully considered, in their inmost hearts, by the other ladies, Mrs White included (though they never own it)—to be the leader of fashion and society in Mudford: so she is far above little Mrs White, and speaks to her when she meets her in the street with a sweet condescending smile, for which I wonder that Mrs White does not slap her face then and there. Black and White will both go to Jones’s whist parties, and drink his grog with the utmost heartiness; but catch Mrs Black or Mrs White visiting at that house, or permitting their daughters to do so, even if they felt inclined, which they don’t! And I remember when that spoony thread-paper boy, young White, took it into his head to be sweet upon the eldest Miss Jones—who, I happen to know, was engaged at the same time to her cousin in Devonshire, where she was on a visit some time since; a very much better match for her than young White would be—his parents and sisters were indignant and outrageous about it; and sent him away out of the town with all speed, as if he had been a royal prince about to marry a servant-girl. But they need not have troubled themselves;—Miss Jones, as I have said, had met with a much better match in her cousin.

It follows from all this, that, unless we hope to get something out of them, or think that we shall be honoured by their acquaintance, we in Mudford are not very prompt in showing attention to strangers. The men might call perhaps; but they have something else to do, and would rather, when possible, leave that kind of thing to the women; and, before long, they have met the new-comer so often in the Reading-room or at the White Hart, and have become so friendly with him, that a formal call, after all that, appears an absurdity: besides, they feel uncomfortable and out of their element sitting about in people’s drawing-rooms, holding their hats and twiddling their gloves in their hands; having no topic of conversation of common interest with the callees; and feeling that the usual hour for their own dinner is come, and that they are keeping the people of the house in the fidgets, from the thought that theirs is going cold in the little back sitting-room, whence they have been roused by that tremendous flourish of the knocker. The women don’t feel this sort of thing when they are the callers; but they take such a long time in considering whether the new people are eligible people or not (always provided, as before intimated, that it is not immediately evident that anything is to be got out of them in the way of profit or honour), that before they have made up their minds, the affair frequently gets out of date altogether, and the call is never made after all.

Now when I speak of becoming intimate soon with new-comers at the Reading-room or at the White Hart, I am speaking generally, and not of our New Doctor in particular; for, on the contrary, he was scarcely ever seen for the first week or two. And yet people didn’t call the more for this. Miss Cringle told me, indeed, that nobody had been to the house except Simpkins, the before-mentioned indefatigable Secretary of the Rifle Corps; and Timmins, the also-before-mentioned equally indefatigable Secretary of the Literary Institution; Rowe, Driver, and Grindley: no ladies, of course, for it was well known that Mr Smith was a bachelor, and so the ladies could not be expected to go. I believe these gentlemen were all somewhat disappointed; for though the New Doctor gave moderate subscriptions where they were asked for, and became an honorary member of the Rifle Corps, and a first-class member of the Institution, he wouldn’t promise to go to drill, nor to give a lecture, nor to go boating, nor cricketing, and told Grindley that he didn’t know a jig from the old hundredth psalm.

I did not call myself, for these things are out of my line, and nobody expects them from me; and, besides, those who did call did not seem to take much by their motion, for Mr Smith was generally “not at home,” and most of those gentlemen I have mentioned had to lie in wait for him, after all, in the street. Miss Cringle says, nevertheless, that she is sure the Doctor had not gone out when they called, and she is likely to know; for, poor creature! she was confined to the house with a dreadful cold, and sat all day long at the window, whence, as has been said, a very fine view of Mr Smith’s front door could be obtained. It must have been very tiresome for her, poor thing! to sit there so many hours; and I am sure it is an honour to human nature, and speaks volumes for the kindness of woman’s heart, that though there was really nothing entertaining nor agreeable in Miss Cringle, the young ladies of Mudford, knowing that she had nothing to amuse her except her knitting, should have devoted so much time to her during this period of her indisposition. Indeed, those kind creatures, the Miss Johnsons and the Miss MacClinkers—who, I know, at other times were in the habit of calling her a “spiteful old cat,” a name, I own, not altogether undeserved,—now that pain and anguish wrung her brow, were such indefatigable ministering angels that they kept her company from morning till night, until, as Miss Cringle told me herself, she was absolutely obliged to say to them that she would rather have their room than their company; and to throw out a very broad hint that she was perfectly aware that they didn’t come to see her, but to look out for the New Doctor! a hint which, however undeserved, did not fail to keep them away from the house for the future.

As I have said, the New Doctor was not seen out much at first; and as Mole was not there to introduce him to his patients, and there were uncommonly few patients to introduce him to, if he had been; and as scarcely anybody called on him, and he was seldom at home to those who did call, and he rarely came out, it was some time before people in general had an opportunity of making his acquaintance; indeed, I think it must have been quite three weeks before I saw him myself, except from Miss Cringle’s window. But of course I heard plenty about him. The men who had seen him did not, as a general rule, appear to think very highly of him; they said he was close and reserved, and a rum sort of fellow, and that he wouldn’t do for Mudford, and all that sort of thing. The verdict of the ladies was at first more favourable. They said he was certainly not handsome exactly, but was very distingué-looking and gentlemanlike indeed; the two Miss MacClinkers talked a great deal of his gentlemanly manners, because he had lifted his hat to them in passing, when they met him unexpectedly in the narrow passage that leads from the street down to Slocum’s Backs (how he could pass such expansive crinolines at all, in such a narrow way, is a mystery to me): and, to tell the truth, I am pained to confess that it is somewhat unusual to see a man lift his hat to a lady in Mudford; a bob of the head, like that of the nodding china figure of a mandarin, being the usual salutation.

The first time I saw Mr Smith to speak to was one evening in the bar of the White Hart. I happened to be there chatting with Mrs Cook, the landlady, when he stepped in to have a glass of ale. Mrs Cook, having the great natural and social advantages of being fat, jolly, a widow, and a landlady, was, of course, always on friendly terms with everybody, and Mr Smith chatted away with her as I had never heard of his doing with any one else. She could clearly make bold to introduce me, and did so accordingly, and the New Doctor and I then and there struck up an acquaintance. I used to be considered to have some little conversational powers, before I got stuck in the mud in this hole; and I flatter myself that I rather amused the New Doctor with some details of the place and the people, for he laughed, and had a second glass of ale, and asked me to take something; and the young lady in the bar sniggered and giggled, and Mrs Cook kept on lifting up her hands, and shaking her fat with laughing, and exclaiming, “Oh, fie, sir! now that is really too bad!” I may as well mention here that Mr Smith was a young man of dark complexion and gentlemanly manner, with a well-trimmed beard and mustache, who spoke like a man of education, and dressed like a gentleman—rather rare things in the village of Mudford. And, apropos to this, it was remarked that he always dressed in precisely the same way; there was never the slightest variety in his costume—always the same suit of black, the same black necktie, and the same scrupulously clean linen and glossy hat. Altogether, I was pleased with the New Doctor: there was certainly nothing brutal nor sensual in his appearance, and he did not look at all like a man who would——. But I must not anticipate.

I do not know how, or whence, or when the rumour first took its rise, but not long after Mr Smith’s arrival it began to be whispered about that there was something very queer, to say the least, about him. The mysterious manner of his arrival probably first gave rise to this rumour, and afterwards there were many things to increase the impression it had made. As I have said, Mr Smith at first rarely came out; and he never seemed to try or wish to get a patient. Indeed, when those two wild scamps, young Bones and young Skinner, going home late as usual, knocked him up about one o’clock in the morning, and said that he must go at once to Mr Cheeks of Little Pigton, some four miles off across the moors, who was very ill, he told them very blandly and courteously that he had no horse, and was just going to bed, and that they had better call Mr Green or Mr Higgins. I must say, I think that Green and Higgins need not have been so bitter against him, nor have called him “quack” so often as they did, especially as Green never passed the Hall in his life, and only got through the college by the skin of his teeth; and what Higgins’s qualifications are, except impudence, I believe nobody ever knew. As a matter of course, they are at daggers-drawn between themselves, as medical men in small towns always are, and say all sorts of disparaging things of each other,—for which nobody can blame them, as there is truth on both sides—but they certainly had no right to speak of Mr Smith as they did; at all events, at first, before those matters which I am about to relate were openly talked of.

One of the first things that people began to remark about the New Doctor was, that scarcely anybody was admitted to his house; and never, under any circumstances, unless he was there himself to receive them. Directly inside the front door of the house was a lobby, and on the right-hand side as you entered was a small room, and on the left hand side another; the former being fitted up as a surgery, and the latter as a sitting-room: into one of these rooms all visitors who entered the house at all were ushered; and the very first thing Mr Smith did after his arrival was to get a carpenter to put up a strong thick door in the middle of the lobby, directly beyond the entrance to these rooms, so as to cut them off entirely from the remainder of the building. The next step was just as strange: he had the masons, and built up the wall around the garden and courtlage at the back of the house at least two feet higher, in places where it was not already sufficiently lofty, so that no one, without climbing to the top of the wall, could possibly overlook the garden and back of the house. The gate which stood at the entrance to the back door, too, was always kept locked, and was furnished with a bell, so that anybody having business with the old servant or housekeeper that he had brought with him had to ring and be reconnoitred before being admitted. Strange precautions these of our New Doctor, and, you may be sure, not made the less of among the busy tongues of Mudford.

Another very remarkable thing about him was his most extraordinary absence of mind, or forgetfulness, or whatever it may have been. He would be quite friendly with people to-day—and he could be very agreeable if he chose—and to-morrow he would pass them in the street as if he had never seen them before. To be sure, he said he was near-sighted—and I ought to have mentioned that he always wore spectacles—but people can’t be expected to believe all they are told in this world; and it was known that he could see a long way off when he liked: and, besides, a defect of vision would not, at all events, account for defects in hearing, speaking, and thinking. You might tell him a thing to-day, and to-morrow he would appear to have forgotten all about it: you would have to tell it all over again, and then, very likely, his comments on it were totally different from what they had been on the previous day. And, strangest inconsistency of all, the next day again, perhaps, he would maintain his first opinion, as if he had never departed from it! When people made remarks to him about this, he would say with a laugh, “Ah, you must pardon me. I do forget strangely sometimes, but I am so very absent!” He was certainly the strangest man! “Nil erat unquam sic impar sibi.”

An instance of this strange absence of mind, or whatever it was, occurred with regard to myself, directly after making his acquaintance, as before related. On the following day I met him full butt in the street, and he would actually have passed on without taking the slightest notice of me, if I had not stopped him and held him by the button-hole.

“Mr Smith!” I exclaimed, “you have not forgotten me already, surely!”

“Why—a—really,” he said, looking puzzled; “excuse me, pray; my memory is so bad. Where had I the pleasure of meeting you?”

“Why, last evening,” I replied, “at the White Hart. Don’t you recollect? We had a glass together.”

“Ah, to be sure,” said he, “in the smoking-room, was it not? Really, I beg your pardon.”

“No, sir,” said I, with some indignation, “it was not in the smoking-room. We were in the bar, and Mrs Cook was present.”

“So it was,” said he; “I recollect perfectly now. In the bar, and Mrs Cook was present. What do you say to a glass of ale now?”

But I was too much offended for this, and left him with a somewhat haughty salute. Now—will it be believed—I met him again on the very next day, and he positively crossed the street to speak to me!

“Ah, my dear sir,” said he, “I am delighted to meet you! I have been looking out for you ever since we met in the bar of the White Hart, and you told me such amusing stories of our neighbours.”

“So!” I said; “your memory is better to-day, is it? Why, yesterday you had forgotten all about me!”

He burst into a hearty laugh. “What! my dear sir,” he said, “I was in one of my absent fits yesterday, was I? You really must not think anything of it. It is natural to me, and I cannot help it for the life of me.”

But I did think of it a little, nevertheless; for I like to know how to find people, and have no fancy for being treated with that sort of caprice.

I said that the New Doctor was never very popular with the men, but that the verdict of the women was more favourable. Before long, however, he became more unpopular than ever—and with the ladies most of all; and that not only on account of the peculiarities I have described, and of the rumours I have hinted at—which spread more and more every day, and which I shall have to speak of presently—but also for other reasons which I had better mention here, before going to more serious matters.

First, then, Mr Smith, whom almost nobody had called on, and whom scarcely anybody had asked to his house, or introduced to his family, was within a short time after his arrival invited to five pic-nics; one up the river, three down, and one in Twiddleham Park—and to not one of them did he go. Now, not to go to a pic-nic to which you are invited at Mudford, is to give the greatest offence to those who do go, especially if you happen to be a stranger and a bachelor: and that for these reasons.

Of course, if you do not go, there is one gentleman the less to escort the ladies, who, not having so much to attend to at home, or having a greater partiality for the pastime, are always in a great majority over the gentlemen at these parties. And if you should happen to be a marrying man, and a tolerably eligible match, the loss is, of course, so much the greater. This reason evidently affects principally marriageable young ladies, and those who are interested in getting them off their hands; but there is another reason which appeals to the hearts and feelings of everybody. It is this:—In these parties the ladies provide the eatables, and the gentlemen bring the drinkables, and club together to pay the costs of conveyance and other miscellaneous charges. Now, if one gentleman be subtracted from the total number going—a very small number generally, for reasons which will now be thoroughly understood—it follows that the remainder will necessarily have to pay more per head for conveyance, &c., and will also have to provide more each in the way of wine, spirit, bottled ale, and other liquids necessary to the success of pic-nics; or else that each individual will have less to drink. Human nature revolts at such an alternative; and we find it intelligible enough, that to refuse to go to a pic-nic at Mudford, should be considered by those who do go to be adding injury to insult.

But there was a reason greater even than this for the falling off of the New Doctor in the estimation of the young ladies, until even the Miss Johnsons and the Miss MacClinkers, who had thrown themselves at his head in every way which was open to them when he first came, had now nothing too bad to say of him. And that was, that he dared—he actually dared—how shall I tell it!—he dared to fall in love with a young lady who was a stranger and sojourner in the place, while there were so many native virgins ready and willing to be fallen in love with! Need I, after this, describe the bitterness with which he was spoken of by all the female portion of Mudford society! It was really most audacious conduct! To think that neither the Miss Johnsons, nor the Miss MacClinkers, nor the Misses Ferris, nor the Miss Skinners, nor any among the marriageable young ladies of Mudford, would suit his taste, and that he must pitch upon that little Laura Playfair from London, who had now come down on her second visit to her cousins, the Skinners! And yet, highly as I disapprove of the Doctor’s behaviour, I cannot help saying that Miss Playfair was a very nice and very superior girl, and that, had I been a young man myself, I should——. But never mind; I won’t have the bad taste to draw comparisons on such subjects, but will only go on to say that Laura had not been two days in the place before the wretch Smith saw her, and procured an introduction to her and to the three Miss Skinners at the same time. Those three sisters immediately put their innocent heads together, and absolutely prevailed on their mamma, who is as stingy as the grave, to give a party, and invite Mr Smith to it! It is well known that young doctors in country towns must marry, if they wish to get into practice; and those shrewd and benevolent young ladies fondly hoped that one of them might be destined to make Mr Smith’s fortune, and to partake of it. Think of their feelings when it became most manifest that the wretch was paying the greatest attention to Miss Playfair, to whom the same was evidently not unacceptable! The indignation of the other young ladies of the place was scarcely less; but then, to be sure, they had considerable consolation in the thought of what a snubbing those forward girls the Skinners had received. I am afraid, from what I have heard, that the Skinners’s hearts were turned from Laura from that time forth; but they did not dare openly to break with her, for the Playfairs were rather rich people, and kept their carriage (a one-horse phaeton, I believe), and occasionally invited the Miss Skinners to Bayswater; and Laura had one brother a clergyman, and another in the army; and the Skinners had always been fond of talking largely in Mudford about their connections; so, of course, they still kept up appearances as well as they could; but I know that Miss Playfair had intended to stay much longer than she did stay; and I have no doubt that it was owing to this affair of Mr Smith that her visit was brought to an untimely close.

The ingenious reader must have remarked that I have several times hinted at sundry dark and mysterious rumours about our New Doctor, which do not seem to harmonise with the kind of events that I have been narrating; but it must be understood that these rumours at first obtained no very serious notice from any except the lower classes; and some short time—a few weeks, perhaps—passed away between the little matters I have narrated, and the general prevalence of the dark suspicions which followed.

Here I see that I must attempt a somewhat more detailed account of the Doctor’s house than I have hitherto given. It is a square detached building, situated in the outskirts of the place, facing the road, and having no garden-railing or other space of any sort in front of it. What it appears, however, to want in privacy here, is made up for by the retirement to be obtained at the back of the house, which, it will be remembered, had been cut off from the front by the heavy door which the Doctor had erected in the middle of the lobby, and which he kept constantly locked, himself carrying the key always about him. The front of the house is continued, so to speak, by two high walls, that, together with the house itself, form the front of a long parallelogram, of which the sides and back are also high walls of masonry. The area within consists of a small paved court, and of a large garden, of which neither old Mole nor his successor took any care, and which is, and was, a perfect wilderness of rank luxuriant weeds, of moss-covered apple-trees, and of gooseberry and currant bushes on which the fruit never ripens. The walls are covered with ivy instead of fruit-trees, diversified here and there by a piece of new masonry, where the Doctor had them raised higher; and the whole place is dark, gloomy, cold, and tree-shaded.

The rumours about the Doctor, which at first were vague, and confined to the lower and more credulous order of persons, after a time began to be talked of among all classes; and it is wonderful, after they once began to be openly spoken of, how rapidly they spread, and how generally they were believed. It was said, then, that strange sounds were occasionally to be heard proceeding from the New Doctor’s house. A hoarse strange voice was sometimes heard speaking rapidly and threateningly for a time, and then was suddenly hushed; and it was said that occasionally a shrill wild shriek of agony or terror might be heard issuing from the recesses of the building. And those two young villains, Higgs’s boys, who will never come to any good, I fear, when they stole a ladder one night, and got over the back wall of the Doctor’s garden—to find their ball, they said, but, I believe, to steal the few apples that were on the trees—were so frightened by the strange ghostly lights that were flitting about in the windows of the house, that they ran off in the utmost terror and affright, leaving the ladder, and Bob’s, the youngest boy’s, cap behind them. I and some others did not pay much attention to these stories, although it was impossible to help believing some part of them—and, indeed, I had myself, on more than one occasion, heard from Miss Cringle’s room strange sounds proceeding from the Doctor’s house;—but amongst children and the ignorant they made an immense impression; so that, after a time, the little boys and girls would run away, screaming with terror, when the New Doctor approached; and even amongst grown persons there were more than chose to own it, who would as soon go a mile out of their way as pass his house alone after dark.

But there was soon a story out about the New Doctor, which appealed to the feelings of all, educated as well as ignorant. Miss Cringle, who had got into such a state of nervous excitement about him and his house, that she was obliged to have a woman to sleep with her, got out of bed one night about twelve o’clock, went to the window, and saw—what, I believe, no one would have credited on her unsupported testimony (not because people would have been indisposed to believe it, but because they would have been sure to disbelieve her). She called Mrs Rourke, the woman who slept with her, to her side; and they saw——They both swore it was true, and I suppose there can be no doubt about it now:—they both saw a light in one of the Doctor’s first-floor windows—a most rare thing on that side of the house—and plainly, distinctly thrown upon the blind was the shadow of a woman, evidently young and handsome, and utterly unlike the old housekeeper, doing up her hair for the night; and in such a state of deshabille that it was evident she was just going to bed! Presently passed also across the blind the shadow of a man—of the New Doctor; and in a moment, as if he had instantly perceived the imprudence of the woman in placing the candle where it was, the light was moved, the shadows vanished, and no more was seen.

Here was a discovery! Not a wink did Miss Cringle sleep that night, and no sleep did she permit to Mrs Rourke: indeed, it was as much as the latter could do, to persuade her not to send at once and knock up her friends in the middle of the night, that they might know without delay what she had seen. But next morning, before the shutters were down from all the shop windows, the news was over the place. The servant-girls brought the story in with the milk; the postman was double his proper time in going his rounds, owing to his loitering about so long—a vice to which he is rather prone—to discuss the news. My landlady could not wait until I got down-stairs; but brought up my shaving-water with her own hands, in order that she might tell me the story, from outside the door, before I got out of bed; and Miss Cringle had such a levée on that day as made her the most important person in Mudford. Indeed, I verily believe that all the women in the place went to see her, except the Miss Johnsons and the Miss MacClinkers, who have never forgiven to the present day the deadly offence Miss Cringle gave them.

It may be imagined how great was the indignation throughout Mudford; and no one can say that it was without sufficient cause. To think of this young bachelor Doctor coming amongst us, being admitted to our Institution, and even asked to lecture there; getting introduced to our wives and daughters, and meeting with kindness and hospitality at our hands (this was what people said; the reader will judge, from what he has read, how much attention and hospitality had really been shown him); going about looking us in the face, as if he had been an honest man, and all the while being guilty of such flagrant misconduct as this! It was really too bad! And then, to think of his conduct to Miss Playfair! There could be no mistake about that; for it was now a positive, declared engagement. This was worse than all; and I own that I myself felt desperately indignant with Mr Smith. The Miss Skinners, of course, told the young lady all about it, and were excessively kind in their expressions of sympathy: so anxious, indeed, were all the young ladies to condole with her, that I am informed she had nearly as many callers during the day as Miss Cringle; but the ungrateful girl made no reply to what the Miss Skinners told her, shut herself up in her own room for the whole of the day, positively refusing to see one of her visitors, and only stepped out in the evening to post some letters with her own hand. So great was the commotion in the place, that there was some talk at the Literary Institution of expelling the Doctor; but on the Secretary’s stating that the low state of the funds would prevent the returning his subscription, the idea was abandoned for the time. After all, he didn’t trouble us with his company there often, so it didn’t much matter. There was even some talk, I believe, of breaking his windows; but we had a very stern and inflexible Inspector of the County Police force stationed at Mudford, who, hearing of this project, at once gave it to be understood that he should not allow his private feelings to interfere with his duty; and that whoever was guilty of any unlawful or riotous act, should be immediately put in the lock-up: so that method of administering justice was at once abandoned.

I suppose there is no such thing as perfect unanimity in this world—I am sure there is not in the world of Mudford;—and there were not wanting persons who said that Miss Cringle was cracked, and in all probability Mrs Rourke was drunk. But so great was the prejudice against the New Doctor, that even those who professed this opinion were ready to own that if Miss Cringle and Mrs Rourke had not seen what they said they had, there was no doubt that they might have seen it, or something worse; so that the Doctor’s reputation did not gain much by their advocacy. And I must say here, in justice to those two ladies, that if any persons doubted their story at first, they could not in their hearts doubt it long, for the Doctor did not even attempt to deny it. Most people cut him without a word; but some few, and among them myself, told him what was said, and thus gave him an opportunity of contradicting the story; but he would only shrug his shoulders and turn away his head, neither owning nor denying it.

I don’t think the New Doctor could have led a very pleasant life just at this time; and there seemed less chance than ever of his getting into practice at Mudford. Miss Play fair was gone, and the few acquaintances he had made all dropped off. Scarcely anybody spoke to him; and, indeed, he now rarely came out until evening; when, as we knew from Miss Cringle, he would walk up and down the road for about an hour; come back at the end of that time to his house, stay in a few minutes, and then go out again for another walk in the same place. It must not be supposed, however, that nobody at all employed him. Two or three people had sent for him; and I don’t know that I shouldn’t have done so myself, notwithstanding all, if I had been unwell; for self is the great thing in such cases, and employ Green or Higgins I never can nor will: and those who had been the New Doctor’s patients all spoke highly of his attention and ability. This, however, did not influence our opinion of him in the least, as it is well known that the most diabolical of all possible personages can behave like a gentleman when expedient to do so.

Several months had now elapsed since the New Doctor came to Mudford. Miss Playfair, as I have just mentioned, was gone: indeed, she did not remain long after Miss Cringle’s dreadful discovery. One of the letters which she had posted herself on the following day was, as we ascertained from the postmaster, for her father,—no doubt informing him of her intention to come home at once. The other was to Mr Smith himself:—of course, its contents were not known to us, but it was generally supposed that it upbraided him with his conduct, and bade him an eternal farewell. In two days more she had left Mudford for London.

The stories about the Doctor did not fall off either in quantity or in quality, as the novelty of the affair died away. Perhaps they would have done so in time, but the time was not yet long enough; and, so far, scarcely a day elapsed but some new report of a startling character was brought out about him—some of these rumours being, I believe, not without truth in them; others being absurd, shocking, and incredible. Even had I space or time, I could not bring myself to narrate one tithe of the tales about him and the unhallowed doings in his house that passed current among the vulgar. But I must relate two events which were nearly bringing him into serious collision with the laws of his country.

Dreaded as the New Doctor’s house was, there were some of the more daring spirits in Mudford in whom curiosity was stronger than fear; and these often went out at night, by twos and threes, and climbing by some means to the top of the wall around the Doctor’s garden, watched there by the hour together, in hope of getting materials for some fresh story with which to horrify the inhabitants on the next day.

One very dark night, that daring young scamp, Flibbert, the blacksmith’s son—the only one in the place, I believe, who would have had the courage to do it—went there alone, and placed himself on watch at the top of the wall; and not long after, he came running home to his father, pale, breathless, and horror-struck. He said that he had not been long at his post when the Doctor came forth from his back door, accompanied by his old housekeeper, who held a lantern in her hand, while the Doctor carried a pick and a spade. They went to a corner in the garden among the apple-trees, and there the old woman held the light, while the doctor set to work to dig a small grave! He took some time about it, not being very expert in the use of the tools; and all the while the boy remained on the wall, close to them, afraid to move, and scarcely daring to breathe. When it was finished, the Doctor returned to the house, the old woman still remaining with the lantern near the grave, and presently came forth again, bringing under his arm a rough deal box or small coffin. He brought the coffin to the edge of the grave, and was just about to put it in, when the boy’s hold on the wall having become somewhat relaxed, he made a slight movement to get into a better position. The Doctor heard the sound, and called out sharply, “Who is there?” The boy made no reply, but, dropping at once to the ground outside the wall, ran home as fast as he could go, and told his father what he had witnessed.

Flibbert at first thought of putting the matter into the hands of the police; but on second thoughts, having some vague notions about obtaining a reward for the discovery, he determined to go and make a search himself in the place where his son had seen the grave. Accordingly on the next night, accompanied by his son and a neighbour, he went to the Doctor’s garden, and, getting over the wall by means of a ladder, proceeded to the spot indicated by the boy. It was plain enough, at first sight, that the earth in that place had been recently disturbed; but not all their digging could discover anything in the shape of a box or coffin. They filled in the earth again, and were about to make a search in other parts of the garden, when a pale, spectral light, proceeding they knew not whence, shone forth about them, making them look to each other so pale, so ghastly, so horrible, that they fled in the utmost terror from the spot, and returned to it no more.

It may be imagined what were the comments of the people of Mudford on this story, the truth of which no one could doubt. Flibbert reported it to the Inspector of Police, who reported it to the Superintendent, who reported it to the Chief Constable; but that gentleman did not think they could interfere in the matter without further evidence, and only gave orders that the police should keep a watchful eye on Mr Smith, and take particular notice of his actions.

They say, “Give a dog a bad name, and hang him;” and I suppose that at this time the New Doctor would have been by common consent, with or without evidence, considered guilty of any crimes that might have been committed at Mudford. But shortly after the event just narrated, he really had a very narrow escape indeed from being sent to jail for a most serious offence.

We had a cattle-market at Mudford shortly after the affair of the garden, and in the evening old Jobbs the farmer was walking home to his house, a short distance out of the town, having in his pocket about a hundred pounds in gold and notes which he had received for some cattle sold in the market. He confesses that he was rather tipsy, but swears that he was quite sufficiently himself to know what he was about. That night he was knocked down close to his own gate, and robbed of all the money he had about him; and the suspicions that the New Doctor was the perpetrator of the deed were so strong, that the magistrates issued a warrant for his apprehension.

Of course, such an event as the examination of our notorious Doctor before the magistrates, called together all the people in the place who could possibly leave their houses; and the number of persons who tried to get into the magistrates’ small office, would have more than filled the long room at the White Hart. I was fortunate enough to get a place, and will state the evidence given as briefly as I can.

John Jobbs swore that he was going home on foot about half-past nine o’clock on the evening after the cattle-market, having in his pocket about a hundred pounds, which he had received for some oxen. He had been drinking several glasses of grog, and was rather “overtook,” but knew very well what he was about. About half-way between Mudford and his house, his foot slipped and he fell; and, not being exactly sober, could not get up again as readily as usual. At that time a person came by, and helped him to rise. He knew Mr Smith, the New Doctor, very well by sight, and swore that he was the man. Mr Smith offered to see him home, but witness, knowing his infamous character, refused, and at the same time seized the opportunity to give him a bit of his mind in tolerably strong language. Finding, however, that he had hurt himself by his fall, and was unable to walk alone, he at length consented, and the Doctor took him by the arm, put him as far as his own gate, continuing to receive bits of his mind all the way, and there said “Good-night,” and left him, or pretended to leave him. Directly after, however, while Jobbs was standing in the same place, considering how best to steady himself so as to escape a scolding from his wife, he heard somebody behind him, and immediately was knocked down by a severe blow on the head, which rendered him insensible; and when he recovered, he found that he had been robbed of all the money in his pocket. Jobbs’s statement was corroborated by his wife, who deposed to his having come in without his money, and with the mark of a severe blow on the head. When he arrived, she looked at the clock, and saw that it was half-past ten. The man who keeps the turnpike gate just out of Mudford, swore that he saw Mr Jobbs going home under as much as he could carry; and that Jobbs was followed shortly after by the prisoner, whom he knew quite well, as he often walked that way. He was certain that prisoner was the man.

I believe that the magistrates would have committed the Doctor; but at this juncture Mr Burns, a very respectable old man, forced his way into the office with his son; and both volunteering their testimony, swore that Mrs Burns had been taken suddenly and alarmingly ill on the evening in question; that they had sent for Mr Green and Mr Higgins, both of whom were out of town; and that then, believing Mrs Burns to be in a most critical state, they had sent in desperation for Mr Smith. The Doctor arrived at their house, they both swore, at nine o’clock, and remained there, not being overwhelmed, as he said, with practice, until twelve, when the patient had fallen into a quiet sleep. Both Mr Burns and his son swore so positively as to the time, and that the Doctor had never left the house from nine until twelve, that the magistrates could not but consider the alibi sufficiently proved, and the prisoner was discharged.

This was certainly a very narrow escape for our New Doctor; and though the magistrates discharged him, the intelligent reader will not doubt that he was fully convicted in the minds of the public of Mudford; each individual of that great body having his or her own reason to give, more or less probable, and more or less charitable, for the evidence of Mr Burns and his son. Some believed that they had been mistaken as to time; others that they had perjured themselves; and many among the lower orders never doubted that the New Doctor had the power of being in two places at once, when to be so suited his purpose. For my part, I believed that Jobbs and the pikeman had been mistaken as to identity; but in this opinion I think I got no supporters. If anything could have increased the popular indignation against the Doctor, it would have been his escape in this manner from the hands of justice after having been so very nearly caught; and I am sorry to say that, on the evening after his discharge, he, Mr Burns, senior, and Mr Burns, junior, were burnt together in effigy.

Events with regard to the New Doctor had been following thick upon each other; and very soon after this robbery business occurred the most extraordinary event of all.

One morning I found waiting for me on my breakfast-table the following note:—

“Mr Smith presents his compliments to Mr So-and-so, and would feel greatly obliged by his company to-morrow morning at twelve, to take a glass of wine, and listen to a communication which Mr Smith wishes to make.”

I was perfectly electrified when I read this note; and before I had finished my breakfast, Jones, Johnson, and Ferris dropped in, each to show me a similar invitation, to inquire whether I had got one, and to tell me that, as far as was known, some seven or eight of them had been issued altogether. I believe the first impulse of all of us was to return an indignant refusal; but after some discussion and consultation with others, the desire to hear the promised communication eventually determined us on going,—though I believe that an invitation to take wine with a condemned criminal in Newgate, and hear his confession, would have had a less startling effect.

Next day came, and we walked up to the door together to the number of eight. We knocked and were admitted by the old servant; and for the first known time since the New Doctor had been in the place, the door erected in the lobby stood open, and we were ushered into a room at the back of the house, where he himself was waiting to receive us. The room was plainly furnished—indeed it was old Mole’s old furniture; but everything was tastefully arranged, and there were several pieces of lady’s work lying about, which told plainly enough of the presence of a woman.

At the Doctor’s invitation we took our seats; but, as had been previously concerted, we all refused to take any wine until we had heard the promised communication.

“Well then, gentlemen,” he said, “we will commence with this robbery affair, though it is the last, as far as I know, in point of date.”

And, taking a newspaper from his pocket, he showed us the confession of a criminal convicted of highway robbery at the assizes of a neighbouring county, which stated that he (the convict) was the man who had robbed the old farmer after the cattle-market at Mudford.

“So you see, gentlemen,” the Doctor said, “I am innocent of that crime at all events, and this paper has come to me most opportunely, so that I might convince you. And now for something else. I know well enough that there have been reports of a very black character in circulation about me; and among the rest, that I, a bachelor, have a lady closely shut up in this house. Is it not so?”

We all said that it was so, and that we should like to have it explained.

“Then, gentlemen,” said he, “please to understand that the lady in question is my wife, and that she was so before I came to Mudford.”

“Then, sir,” we all exclaimed with one voice, “how do you account for your conduct to Miss Playfair?”

“Wait a moment, gentlemen,” he said; “to explain that matter I must fetch something from the next room. I will be back again directly.”

He left the room, and we gazed on each other with looks of blank astonishment; but before we could say a word, he returned and resumed his seat.

Finding that he did not speak for some time, we began to grow impatient, and asked him for his promised explanation.

“Explanation?” said he, as if he had forgotten all about it. “What explanation, pray?”

“Why, your explanation about Miss Playfair!”

“Gentlemen,” he said, in the coolest manner possible, “I have nothing to say about Miss Playfair, except that she is a very charming and estimable young lady, and that I hope soon to make her my wife.”

“Your wife!” we exclaimed. “Why, you have a wife already in this very house!”

He looked from one to the other with an appearance of the greatest bewilderment; and then said, with the utmost coolness,

“O dear, no, gentlemen! You are mistaken, I assure you. I have no wife, and never had such a thing in my life.”

“Why, you told us but a minute since that the woman who has been in this house for we don’t know how long was your wife!”

“I beg your pardon,” he replied. “I never said anything of the sort. I have no wife, and never had one since I was born!”

We all started to our feet, exclaiming, “This is unbearable; we didn’t come here to be insulted!” and were about to leave the room and the house; but with a merry laugh the Doctor exclaimed—

“Stop, gentlemen! Stop a moment, I pray; and excuse my joking with you. The farce has lasted long enough.” And he touched the bell.

Immediately the door opened, and the New Doctor entered!

Yes, the New Doctor entered; and yet the New Doctor had been in the room before, and was there still. We looked from one to the other in the utmost astonishment. There were two New Doctors! but just exactly alike; the same features, the same figure, the same quality of voice, the same cut of beard and mustache, and the same style of dress, down to the minutest particular!

“Gentlemen,” continued the one who had been in the room before, “this is my brother, Henry Smith, the married man. I am Herbert Smith, the bachelor; and as you are now, I believe, satisfied that I did not rob old Jobbs, I may as well own at once that the alibi by which I escaped was founded on a mistake. It was I who put the old farmer home to his gate, as a charitable action, and there left him, little thinking he was going to be so attacked immediately after by that scoundrel; and it was my brother who attended on Mrs Burns in her illness. It was the first time, I believe, that we ever ventured out at the same time in Mudford; but such a call was not to be disobeyed; and it was well for me that it happened as it did.”

It may be supposed how much we were all astonished: but having heard and seen so much, we were prepared for almost anything; and we thought that we might now venture to take a glass of wine. We did so, and the wine, being very good, warmed our hearts, so that we felt more favourably disposed towards the Doctor, or Doctors, than a short time before we should have thought possible.

“Now, gentlemen,” continued the one who had last spoken, “as we are about immediately to leave Mudford—for which Mudford, I fancy, will not mourn excessively—and should not wish to leave behind us a character altogether infamous, we have asked you, as being the most respectable and intelligent men in the place” (here we all bowed, and took another glass of wine), “to meet us here to-day, in order to hear a short explanation of this curious affair, which has given rise to such dreadful stories about us.

“My brother and I are orphans, and were brought up to the medical profession by an old uncle, very rich, very eccentric, and with an excessive fondness for money, which has gone on increasing rapidly with every successive year of his life. We are twin brothers; we were educated together, we passed through our professional studies at the same time, and a short time ago we lived near each other in London, neither of us having any fixed idea of where we should ultimately settle. Shortly before we came here, my brother got married, and at about the same time he got into debt. He had taken a number of shares in a speculation which has since proved a success; but before that happy time, a bank, in which he had deposited his money, broke: he lost all, and, being unable to pay up the calls, his shares in the speculation referred to were also forfeited. These disasters threw him deeply into debt; and our uncle, who was most obstinate when he had once made up his mind, and absolutely miserly in some matters, not only refused to assist him, but said that, if he disgraced the family by going to prison, he would not leave a farthing of his fortune to him or to me. We knew that he was quite capable of carrying out this threat, and were at our wits’ end what to do; for my brother’s creditors were so vindictive and watchful, that for him to escape to the Continent appeared out of the question, when Miss Playfair, to whom I had just become engaged——”

“What!” we exclaimed; “did you know Miss Playfair before you came here?”

“Yes,” he said; “and it was she who first put into our heads the notion of coming. She had been on a visit at Mudford once; and when she heard that Mr Mole’s practice was to be sold, an idea occurred to her. She suggested it to me, and we all talked it over between us, and at length determined to carry it out, my uncle being especially delighted with the plan, from a cunning feeling of pleasure at the trick itself, as well as from the prospect of escaping an advance of cash, and yet of the family avoiding the disgrace of Henry’s going to prison. The plan was, that I should buy Mr Mole’s practice, which did not require a large outlay, and that we should all come quietly down here together, making it at the same time be believed that Henry and his wife had escaped to the Continent. My brother and I being, as you see, very much alike, we thought that, by taking care not to go out together, nor to be seen at the same time—by trimming our beards and mustaches in precisely the same way, and by always wearing exactly the same kind of dress—we might cause it to be believed, especially by strangers, that we were one and the same person. My brother’s wife, almost ever since her marriage, had been an invalid, and was confined almost entirely to the house, so that there was no fear of our being found out through her; and for our housekeeper we chose an old servant of the family, on whose fidelity we could depend. There were several reasons which determined us on taking the proposed step. My brother’s wife was horrified at the idea of her husband being taken from her and sent to prison, and would have put up with anything rather than that; and Miss Playfair was coming down here again on a visit, so that we thought we should be able frequently to see each other—a thing which my uncle’s strange character, and the uncertainty of my prospects from him, made her parents rather object to at home. Besides this, my brother and I had jointly made some rather important discoveries in chemistry and electricity, and we wished to remain together in order to carry out a systematic course of experiments, and conjointly to write a work on the subject. More than all, as I said before, the notion took our uncle’s fancy so much, that he made quite a point of it, and we saw that we could not refuse to go on with the scheme without giving him the greatest offence, which, under the circumstances, we could not afford to do.

“But we had not sufficiently calculated the tattle and espionage of a small town; and had no foreboding of the dark rumours and suspicions about us to which our plot would give rise: else, I am sure, we should never have ventured to carry it out. Whatever had been the consequence, we could, I think, have gone on with it no longer after what has occurred: but, two days ago, we received a communication stating that our uncle had died almost suddenly, and had left all his property—a very considerable one—to my brother and myself: so that my brother can now pay all his debts, and meet his creditors in the gate; and we have each of us an income which enables us to dispense with the active practice of our profession. As, at the same time, it fortunately happens that our book and our experiments are completed, and my sister-in-law nearly recovered, we intend to leave this place to-morrow: but, before doing so, we thought it but right to ask you gentlemen to meet us here to-day, in order that you may understand what has appeared so mysterious about us, and explain the same, as I hope you will have the kindness to do, to your friends. Come, gentlemen, a glass of wine.”

“But,” said one of our party, “young Flibbert saw a grave in your garden, and a coffin, and all that. What was that, Doctor?”

“Oh,” said Henry, the married man, with a laugh, “that was my wife’s pet cockatoo! The poor thing died, and I promised my wife to give it decent burial in the garden; but when I heard the fellow on the wall, I fancied they would be for digging it up again; and, determined to disappoint them, I brought the bird back, and stuffed it, having acquired the art some years ago. Here it is, gentlemen.”

He opened a cupboard, and showed us the stuffed figure of a large white cockatoo, wanting only a glass case to be really a very handsome thing.

“Anything else, gentlemen?”

“Why,” said another of the party, “the strange lights that have been seen, and the strange sounds that have been heard; we should like to have them explained, if not too much trouble.”

“Well,” said he, “our experiments in chemistry and electricity produced some strange lights now and then; and we purposely frightened the fellows when they came to dig up the poor cockatoo; and I daresay we occasionally caused some strange sounds in the same way: but I fancy that for these latter the late lamented cockatoo is principally responsible. He was a deuce of a fellow to scream and chatter, though you wouldn’t think it, to look at him now. Take another glass of wine, gentlemen.”

We took one more glass, and then departed, feeling rather as if we were walking with our heads on the ground and our boots in the air. As we went out at the front door, I saw Miss Cringle at her window, panting to hear the news; and so I went up to communicate them to her, the others of the party not daring to breathe a word to anybody until they had told the whole story to their expectant wives. Of course, the tale was not long in circulating through Mudford; and I am afraid that, on the whole, it created a feeling of disappointment: for, though there was something very strange about it as it was, I think people in general would rather that the New Doctor had been a robber, and a murderer, and a villain of the deepest dye.

Next day the two Doctors, with Mrs Smith, and the housekeeper, and the stuffed cockatoo, all departed from Mudford, leaving instructions with Knox, the auctioneer, to sell the furniture for what it would bring. A few months after I got wedding-cards from Mr and Mrs Herbert Smith; and last Christmas I received a Stilton cheese and a barrel of natives from the same quarter.

And so ended the strangest affair which has ever occurred at Mudford during my long residence in the place.

POLITICS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Seldom has the opening of Parliament been looked forward to with less of public or party excitement than at present. The country is in a remarkably tranquil mood, disposed to take all things very quietly. And yet the circumstances of the time are full of grave interest. An unparalleled disaster has befallen the gigantic fabric of our manufacturing industry; and abroad we behold an array of events which, a few years ago, would have sufficed to produce among us no small degree of uneasiness and excitement. But ever since the convulsions of 1848 broke up the long peace which settled on Europe after Waterloo—still more since the ambition of the late Czar led us to renew our experience of the realities of war—the people of this country have been becoming used to crises. Since 1859, especially, when the conviction was forced upon us that French Imperialism is still very much what it was in the days of our fathers, the public has begun to “discount” the contingencies of the future, and to insure itself against damage from their occurrence. We have made ourselves secure—at least as secure as needs be in present circumstances—against external attack; and we are well assured that we have no enemies at home—that never before were all classes of our people so united in bonds of mutual sympathy and goodwill, or so universally contented with our national institutions. A country so circumstanced is virtually impregnable; and therefore we can look forth from our happy island-home upon the troubles or wars of other States, not indeed in selfish indifference, but with a sense of security and a consciousness of power, which invest us with a tranquillity that may be mistaken for apathy.

The great and sad feature of the internal condition of the country is the cotton famine, which for a year past has weighed like a nightmare upon our manufacturing districts, extending its baleful influence over four millions of our people. The calamity came upon us so suddenly that there was little time to prepare for it. It is true, our liability to such a calamity had been pointed out, in language of serious warning, by one or two of our ablest political thinkers, and foremost among these by Sir Archibald Alison. But the parties most interested, the great cotton-lords and the manufacturers generally, despised the warning, and took no measures to avert disaster. Their faith in the doctrine of demand always producing supply blinded them to their danger. It was a noble fabric of industry, truly, which they had reared up—a mighty addition to the wealth and resources of the country—a vast field of employment for the ever-increasing population of our isles. The effect was as beneficial as if several thousand square miles of productive land had been gradually added to the narrow area of the British Isles—affording remunerative employment to hundreds of thousands of our people who must otherwise have emigrated, and proportionately adding to the power of the country and the resources of the State. But any thoughtful man, as he viewed the annually increasing growth of that great industry, must have trembled for its permanence; and now that the blow has fallen, every one must recognise the improvidence exhibited by the great chiefs of that industry. “We will buy only in the cheapest market,” they said: “an efficient demand will always secure an adequate supply.” And as long as there was the least hope of the cotton-dearth being over in a year or so, they resolutely declined to take any steps to obtain new sources of supply. They had overstocked the markets with their goods, and as long as there was a prospect of their old source of supply being available again by the time those surplus stocks had run off, it seemed to them better to content themselves with working their mills only half-time, than to procure future stability for their industry by an outlay of money. That outlay, indeed, would amply repay itself in the long-run; but no one likes putting his hand in his pocket; and month after month of increasing distress passed away without the manufacturers showing any disposition to move. Recently this inaction has partially given way; the continued dearth of cotton at length left the manufacturers no alternative but to open new sources of supply, or see their own fortunes ruined. The pressure of adversity is hard to bear, and we have no desire to scrutinise too closely the conduct of the manufacturers in this most trying crisis. Yet as a mere question of fact, as a singular political souvenir, it deserves to be noted that an influential body of these free-traders par excellence—men who had denounced bounties and privileges of any kind as alike unjust and impolitic—actually memorialised the Government to procure cotton for them in India, by encouraging the growth of cotton by means of bounties from the State! Mr Bright himself has recently advocated the same proposal. We trust, however, that the manufacturers are now convinced of the hopelessness as well as impolicy of such a project, and that they will do what every other class has to do—act for themselves, and with that energy and ability which so eminently distinguish them. The country has responded, and is still responding, nobly to the bitter cry of distress from Lancashire; but it is no part of the duty either of the public or of the Government to procure cotton for the mill-owners by the offer of State bounties.

Lamentable as is the distress which thus weighs upon so numerous and industrious a portion of our population, it is consolatory to know that never yet was a material calamity so redeemed by its moral aspect. National virtue never before was so strikingly displayed. We may thank Providence that the disaster has come in its present form. In the opinion of many good judges, the distress which now so lamentably prevails in the manufacturing districts, would have come upon us in the natural course of trade, as the result of the over-production of previous years. In such a case, it is not to be thought that public sympathy would have been so widely and heartily displayed, and that the accusing voices of the operatives would not have been heard against their masters. But happily the calamity has come in a shape which silences cavil, and unites the hearts and hands of all in the mitigation of the distress. The cause of the disaster was beyond our control; and the very over-production of previous years now proves advantageous—for the gradual sale of the surplus stocks at good prices (which in other circumstances would have continued to glut the market and check production) now helps to compensate the mill-owners for their losses, and enables them to act with liberality to the suffering operatives. And that, as a class, they do so act, we have the testimony of the noble Earl who, with princely munificence, generous sympathy, and statesmanlike intelligence, heads the movement for the relief of the distress. All classes, both high and low, are nobly doing their duty. The patient endurance of the suffering working-classes is heroic; the lively sympathy and active co-operation of the other classes of the community on their behalf are without a parallel. The change which has taken place, in this respect, during a single generation, is something marvellous. Formerly, under the pressure of hardships less great and equally beyond the power of any one to prevent, the working-classes became reckless and broke into outrage; and the rest of the community, which had done little by its benefactions to avert this outbreak of suffering, found itself compelled to take stringent measures against these organised conspirators against the public peace. Now all this is changed. It is needless, and it were unjust, to throw stones at the old times. What is now could not have been then. If we examine the causes of the great change which has supervened, we shall find it first in the increased intercommunication between all parts of the country; and, secondly, in the spread of education and intelligence. Railways and newspapers now bind together all parts and all classes of the country. Ignorance is the mother of apathy and disunion. When each city, or district, or class knew little of the character and concerns of the other parts of the country or classes of the community, it was vain to expect the ready sympathy and general co-operation on behalf of a suffering locality, such as, we rejoice to say, has become common now. Moreover, wealth has increased enormously in this country since the beginning of the century—and it is only the surplus wealth of a community that is available for the relief of distress. Let us thank God that we are as we are, without charging it as a social crime against our fathers that they acted differently. Let us rejoice that, heavy though the calamity be, it has at least become a means of uniting all classes of our people—classes who have so often warred with one another—in the bonds of sympathy and confidence; and that the British nation has at length perfected its social existence, by growing into a compact and harmonious community, every part of which knows intimately and sympathises heartily with the condition and concerns of the rest.

It is a not less remarkable feature of the times that in politics also all England now is nearly of one mind. We say “nearly,” for there is one class which is an exception, and the existence of which has an important influence upon the relative composition of the two great parties in the State. But, unquestionably, the great bulk of the nation is now of one mind in regard to political questions. In a country like England this is a truly remarkable condition of affairs, and suggestive of but one inference. Homogeneous nations under a centralised form of government—as in France—may readily conceive a universal passion for change, the nation acting together in its wisdom or madness like one man. But the case is very different in this country. The United Kingdom is an aggregate of the most opposite forces—it is full of conflicting interests, each intrenched in some vigorous organisation, whether of aristocracy, church, commerce, corporations, leagues, or companies. In such circumstances, a universal agreement of opinion in favour of altering a single part of our constitution, either in Church or State, would be an event little short of a miracle. Unanimity of political feeling in England, therefore, cannot possibly signify anything else than political contentment—the wish to rest and enjoy, satisfaction with the form and machinery of the Constitution, and a desire only to see the machinery of Government ably and honestly worked. And what else is this than Conservatism? It is Conservatism adopted by the whole nation. It is a mistake to attribute this universal Conservatism to the breakdown of democratic institutions in America. The “Conservative reaction,” to adopt the common but exceptionable phrase, had unmistakably manifested itself before a single shot had been fired in America—before the bloodless bombardment of Fort Sumter announced the approach of that deplorable conflict which has served to expose democracy in its worst and most contemptible form, and to reveal, in the bosom of republican America, a mass of corruption, imbecility, meanness, and malignity which, taken together, have never been equalled in the whole world. But if a Conservative feeling had been steadily growing up in England before the “bursting of the American bubble,” it is equally true that that great collapse of democracy has done much to give to that feeling its present universality. Abstract reasoning cannot affect mankind with the same force as actual experiment and practical demonstration. Every sensible man in this country now acknowledges—what nearly all sensible men for some years past felt, but lacked the courage to say—that we have already gone as far towards democracy as it is safe to go, and that another step like that proposed by Lord Russell would have carried us irretrievably over the precipice. This is the great moral benefit which we have derived from the events in America. The vast superiority of our mixed Constitution is now so demonstrated, that every man may now say what he thinks publicly and without reserve. Even men who have been all their lives supporters of the “Liberal” party—men who, up to the last moment, were in favour of a farther degradation of the franchise—now see the folly of their course, and, moreover, have an excuse for avowing their change of opinion. Hence it is that England is now all of one mind. And what is that, we repeat, but that all England is Conservative, and that the Liberal party in office is an anachronism?

There might be some excuse for this anomalous position of affairs, if the Liberal Ministry ever professed to believe that Liberal principles are still popular. But they do not—they cannot. After nearly ten years of selfish and most reckless trafficking in Reform Bills, Lord Russell himself repudiated his own work. He abandoned it in the same spirit of selfishness as he took it up. It was in the hope of reviving his faded popularity that he first proposed a further Reform Bill in the end of 1851; and, backed by a party as insincere as himself, he kept playing off his precious Bill, year after year, as a convenient party manœuvre against his Conservative rivals. But no sooner, when reinstated in office, did he and his colleagues find that they were about to be “hoist with their own petard,” than the Bill was shelved. Reform was not only abandoned, but treated with contempt by the Whig occupants of the Treasury Bench; and the Minister who had once shed tears when forced by his colleagues to postpone his Bill, at length, on the 5th of February 1861, not only buried Reform, but, like a wild Irishman, danced upon its grave! In their projects of ecclesiastical innovation, the members of the present Ministry have been equally defeated. When baffled in their attacks upon the State, they still thought it was a popular thing to assault the Church. In this also they have at length been undeceived: and now what have they left to do? They have not a single card left to play. Their whole list of measures, after having been deliberately considered by the nation, has been condemned and rejected with contempt. Like the Federal generals at Fredericksburg, they have tried attack after attack upon every part of their rivals’ position, and with every man they could muster, only to see every attack fail, and recoil in ruinous loss upon themselves. The Federal general, when condemned to inaction and menaced by a superior force, wisely abandoned his ground, and put a river between himself and his foe. It is time the Whig Ministry should execute a similar “strategic movement,” if they do not wish to fare worse than General Burnside, and be kicked across the Rappahannock, instead of avoiding a catastrophe by a timely retreat.

We have said that there is one exception to the unanimity of political feeling which now pervades this country, and that exception, we need hardly say, is the party of Radicals whose mouthpiece is Mr Bright. We can no longer call this the “Manchester” party; for, whatever may have been their sentiments hitherto, we have reason to believe that the views of Mr Bright are now repudiated by the greater part even of our manufacturing classes. But Mr Bright is incurable. All his life he has been a man of one idea, and one-ideaed he must be to the end. There must always be men of this kind. We must lay our account to have Radicals. Like the poor, they are always with us. And they are not without use in their way. This is a free country, and a few eloquent or blustering Radicals serve to “let off the steam” of their class, and serve to remind the sober-minded portion of the community what a very mad and drunken thing Radicalism is. Mr Bright and his followers may hold a place in political England as usefully as the drunken Helots did in the social usages of Sparta. But though we have no great zeal for the conversion of this Abbot of Unreason and his motley followers, we think the country will agree with us that they ought not to be taken by the hand by those in high places, and allowed to play their pranks in the government of the country. Yet this is just what must happen in the present anomalous position of parties. The country has no objection to hear Mr Bright speak on any subject and in any way he likes, either in or out of Parliament; but it cannot regard with indifference a position of affairs which makes his support indispensable to the existence of a Ministry. The Tories are not only the strongest party in Parliament, but now equal in number the Whigs and Radicals put together. By a slow and steady growth the Conservative party is regaining the predominant position which it held from 1842 to 1847, when a question, not of constitutional but of commercial policy, so lamentably disrupted its power. Now, as in 1841, the Whig Ministry is at its mercy, and is only spared for the sake of the gallant old statesman who heads the motley crew, and is worth all the others put together.

We see nothing surprising in this recovery of the Conservative party. The only surprising thing would have been if it had not taken place. It is not necessary, nor would it be correct, to attribute the recovery to any extraordinary generalship on the part of its leaders. In the five years which followed the Reform Bill, the Conservative party made almost as great a rally as they have done in the fifteen years which followed the split on the Corn-laws; and yet that split was not on a constitutional question, and the Conservative section which left the main body might have remained as good Conservatives as ever. The Conservative “reaction,” now in progress, and nearly accomplished, has been slow and tardy, but it promises unmistakably to be proportionately enduring. In the opinion of all, the work of Constitutional Reform has been carried as far as it is wise to carry it; and in the opinion of all, the Whig Ministers who, for a dozen years, have been urging us towards further innovations both in Church and State, have proved themselves to be unsafe leaders. As the sole means of retaining office, the Whigs now repudiate their old measures and principles—everything that was peculiar to them—and act the part of unwilling Conservatives. Now in regard to constitutional questions—which are the grand tests of difference between Whig and Tory—there is a notable difference between a change of opinion on the part of a Liberal and of a Conservative. The greatest and not least illusory boast of the Liberals hitherto has been, that all their distinctive measures have been carried in the end, and have been accepted by the Conservatives themselves; and, therefore, that the Conservatives have always been in the wrong, and the Whigs in the right. Such a boast, partially fallacious as to facts, is totally illusory in its logic, for it is to be observed that, as the capacity of the people for self-government is always increasing with the increase of wealth and intelligence, it may be that the Conservatives were right when they opposed a particular change, and right also when subsequently they adopted or acquiesced in it. But with the Liberals this is impossible. If Lord Russell’s Reform Bill was bad and worthy only of contempt in 1861, it must have been still more mistimed and worthy of all condemnation in 1851, when he first announced it. The same is true of the Ballot question and the other proposed innovations upon the Constitution. Thus one of two things must follow. Either the Whig Ministers were right and the whole country is wrong; or else, a more probable supposition, the country is right and the Whigs were wrong. If we accept the first alternative, what are we to think of Ministers who repudiate what they believe to be right for the sake of retaining office, and act the part of Conservatives when believing that the welfare of the country calls for “sweeping reforms?” If we accept the other alternative, can we, on a review of the last ten years, imagine a deeper depth of degradation than that to which Liberalism and its chiefs have now sunk? for while Liberalism has proved itself a perilous absurdity, its chiefs have not only endorsed that judgment, but have gleefully repudiated their old professions for the sake of postponing their fall from office.

In truth, the greatest retarding obstacle to the triumph of the Conservative party is the completeness of the triumph achieved by their opinions. Conservatism is now so universally the feeling of the nation, that there is no room for rivalry. Although the Liberals are in office, they know that their creed is now an absurdity—that the measures which they have so long vaunted and ventilated would now be scoffed out of the House, and held up to public ridicule in ‘Punch’ and the ‘Times.’ They feel that it is vain to contend against the Conservative feeling of the nation, and therefore they fall in with it. Their best defence, their best plea for being allowed to retain office, is based on the very fact that the triumph of their rivals’ principles is now too complete to be gainsaid. “It does not matter who is in office,” say the Ministerial apologists; “the country is all of one mind, and the policy of the Government must be the same whether Whig or Tory be in office.” They forget to complete the exposition by saying that that policy must be Conservative! Able and willing to eject the party of innovation from Downing Street, the Conservatives are naturally somewhat embarrassed to find the premises occupied by a set of men professing Conservatism. If Liberalism and Conservatism were to come into conflict, Liberalism would instantly go to the wall, and the Ministry be expelled by an overwhelming majority. But the quondam Liberals think of nothing so much as eschewing Liberalism: they will have nothing to do with it; they will back it no longer; they will not even name it lest they give occasion for a challenge!

Even supposing the quondam Liberals now in office were sincerely convinced of the folly of the measures which they so long supported, but which the country so emphatically rejected, they cannot be good Conservatives if they wished it. For to retain office they must propitiate the Bright party. They must throw them crumbs occasionally, smuggle little Radical clauses into otherwise good bills, and go into the same lobby with them on all questions which do not endanger their existence as a Ministry. This is a most irritating, vexatious, and contemptible game, and would justify the country in cutting it short by a vote of want of confidence. The Ministry now forswear all the Liberal measures as Government questions, but they support them with their votes and influence. They retain office in the character of Conservatives, but they give all the influence of office in favour of Liberalism. Such a system cannot last long.

A Cabinet so ignominiously circumstanced has not often been seen. Defeated again and again—impotent to propose a single measure of practical value—their only skill is shown in the way in which they evade a decisive trial of strength with the Opposition. And in the constituencies their only hope lies in the longevity of their supporters. For every two Whig or Radical seats that become vacant, a Conservative is sure to get one of them—still further swelling the triumphant phalanx of the Opposition. The leading journal itself now scoffs at the whole programme of Liberalism. When alluding to the programme of the Ministerial candidate for Southampton—namely, “Extension of the franchise, the Ballot, abolition of Church-rates, and progressive political and ecclesiastical reform”—the ‘Times’ rightly calls it “dreary old stuff,” and adds:—“There is not in the programme either a sentiment to raise the soul from the street mud, or a measure which can be said to be really before the British public. As a political statement it is at once hazy and pedestrian, unpractical and unideal. No reasonable being expects that either the franchise will be extended, or the Ballot introduced, or Church-rates abolished, unless it be by some compromise; or that there will be any very remarkable reforms, either in Church or State, for many a day.” And the same journal now claims for the Premier as his highest credit that he has “no principles!” As the ‘Times’ aims above all things to express public opinion, these are remarkable words, and show what a defunct, petrified, and wholly antediluvian thing Liberalism has become. We use the word Liberalism, of course, in its accepted sense, as equivalent to the opinions and measures of the party which has called itself “Liberal,” though with no special claim to the title—in fact, with less real claim than the Conservatives have; for the liberalism of the Liberals has been all in the air, and is now (happily for the country) nowhere; whereas the liberalism of the Conservatives, if of a more homely, is of a more genuine and practical kind, which pervades the whole scope alike of their measures and of their policy. To be truly liberal is a very different thing from being simply innovating; and although the bastard liberalism of the Whigs and Radicals is now justly discredited, we need not shrink from taking credit for the genuine and practical liberality which has characterised the administration of recent Conservative Governments. As regards administrative ability, the statesmen of the Conservative party can still more unquestionably claim a superiority over their rivals. One of the bitterest antagonists of Conservative principles lately admitted that Lord Derby’s last Cabinet was the most efficient Administration he had ever known; and every one who contrasts the activity and wise legislation of that Cabinet, in all its departments, with the “wasted sessions” which have marked the career of the present Ministry, cannot fail to endorse that opinion. Nor must we forget the immense negative as well as positive benefits which the country owes to the Conservative party. At a time like the present, when it is evident that the Conservatives are again about to be raised to power, with a fair prospect of a long term of office, it is right to remember what they accomplished as a party in the “cold shade” of the Opposition benches. Ever since the short-lived Administration of Sir R. Peel and the Duke of Wellington in 1835, the Conservatives have been able to foil the attacks of their antagonists upon the Constitution, both in Church and State. At that time the Appropriation Bill received at their hands its quietus, despite the shameful compact between the Whigs and the O’Connell party; and we can now name half-a-dozen measures inimical to the Constitution which have recently been resisted with equal success, despite a similar degrading compact between the Whigs and the Radical followers of Mr Bright. One has only to look back upon the last thirty years, and contrast the prospects of the country then with its condition now, to see how remarkable have been the achievements and how valuable the services rendered to the country by the Conservative party. As Sir Stafford Northcote well said when recently addressing the Conservatives of South Devon:—

“To the Conservative party the country is indebted for the fact that we have now a constitutional and ancient monarchy, and that we do not live either under a republic or a despotism; that we have a House of Lords respected and independent; that we have a House of Commons such as he would not say was ideally perfect, but such as fairly represented all classes; that we have a pure and Established Protestant Church, which is at once established and regulated by law, and yet is not a slave or tool of the State; besides other blessings which he need not enumerate. All this they owed to the gallant stand made by the Conservative party, and to the way in which their exertions had been backed up by the people throughout the length and breadth of the land.”

The sole prestige of the present Cabinet centres in the Premier. In the estimation of the country, Lord Palmerston is the Government. Ministerial candidates swear by no one else. Lord Russell is already becoming a name of the past, and in practical administration has proved himself the greatest blunderer of his day. As regards Mr Gladstone, the country has got sick of his clever and risky budgets, and sighs for a plain business-like balancing of income and expenditure, accompanied by as much economy as can be effected without impairing the efficiency of our national establishments. But Lord Palmerston, with fourscore years on his shoulders, has now a greater reputation than he ever had, or than is accorded to any of his contemporaries. England loves old statesmen. No Minister in these days need expect to acquire the confidence of the country under sixty, but, if he avoid any great failure, every year after that may be expected to add to his reputation. It is an additional sign of the times that the only popular statesman in the present Cabinet is an old Tory—one who grew up in the Toryism of Pitt, and for a dozen years was initiated in the management of war and the conduct of foreign policy under Castlereagh. In his old age, in the last and brightest phase of his long career, Palmerston acquires his fame in the very character in which he first entered upon office. It is as a War Minister that the Premier chiefly commands the confidence of the country. As a legislator he was never of any account; as a Foreign Minister he was bold, astute, and on the whole successful; but now that, as Premier, he can direct both the War Office and the Foreign Office, he has the widest possible scope for his peculiar abilities. And he has this great advantage, that he is not only a vigorous and sagacious director of our foreign policy, but the country fully believes in his vigour and sagacity—nay, great as they are, exaggerates them. He is the only statesman in England that the people would follow to war unhesitatingly. In some respects this may not be a matter of congratulation, but in other respects it is a great advantage. Foreign Governments, when they see England well armed, and know that she is ready to use her power promptly and energetically, if need be, will be cautious how they seek either to injure or insult us. This is unquestionably a benefit which we derive from the dictatorship of Lord Palmerston; and we have much need to acknowledge it, for it is the only one! The Cabinet without Palmerston is nothing. Fancy the same set of men with Lord Russell or Mr Gladstone for Premier, and the Ministry would not last a day. Foreign politics is still the great affair of the time; and, failing the present Premier, there are two men to whom the eyes of the country would by common consent turn, and these are Lord Derby and Lord Malmesbury. Beyond all question, these two statesmen are our great Foreign Ministers of the future; and, however troubled that future may be, the fortunes of the country will be safe in their hands. In the trying period of 1859, the Earl of Malmesbury displayed a discernment, firmness, and masterly tact, which now, though tardily, are fully acknowledged. When Palmerston was at fault—when that veteran statesman imagined that Napoleon did not purpose war, and when he kept repeating that “the Treaty of 1815 must be respected”—Lord Malmesbury had already seen through the game of the French Emperor, and took the ablest means to meet it. If deprived of Lord Palmerston, the Liberal party would not have a single man competent to direct the foreign affairs of the country; but there is no such lack on the side of the Conservatives. And this is fortunate—for it is evidently the Conservatives who are to be the predominant party in the State for a good many years to come, and it is upon them accordingly that the onerous duty of maintaining the honour and integrity of the country will chiefly devolve.

Lord Palmerston, there is no doubt, is the supreme director of the foreign policy of the Government. Lord Russell is allowed, more suo, to write extraordinary despatches, and to quote Vattel and Puffendorf to show how little he understands them; but whenever he takes a view which Palmerston thinks wrong, the Foreign Minister has to do as the Premier desires him. Thus it is no secret that the Foreign Secretary was in favour of the formation of Italy into two States—an idea which his chief very wisely negatived. And although not generally known, it is not less true that when, in May 1860, the French Government proposed a joint intervention, in order to prevent Garibaldi crossing from Sicily into Naples, Lord Russell was willing to acquiesce in the imperial project, but was overruled by the decisive and sagacious judgment of the veteran Premier. But when not thus in leading-strings, Lord Russell plays most fantastic tricks, so that Continental diplomatists have often wondered that such a mountebank should be the occupant of the British Foreign Office. The air of Germany seems especially to disagree with his Lordship, as three notable escapades suffice to demonstrate. There was first the grand mission to Vienna in 1855, whither his Lordship chose to go en famille, and from which he returned with such a progeny of blunders as astonished his colleagues, and induced even the model young Whigs to sign a round-robin begging him to resign, and not pull down the Ministry along with him. In the autumn of 1860 he was again in Germany, and the fruit of his cogitations in that foreign atmosphere was his memorable despatch of August 31, which he immediately afterwards repudiated by his still more memorable despatch of October 27. Once more he has been in Germany, and again the “black-fate” seems to have fallen upon him: for in the despatch which he wrote on the Danish question at Cobourg he has at once reversed the policy of his own and of all our other Governments during the last ten years, and taken part against a nation with whom we have especial reasons to be friends, and at the very time when such an act of unfriendliness towards Denmark was peculiarly out of place. Startling and incomprehensible as have been the blunders of Lord Russell, alike in domestic and foreign policy, it surpassed belief that he should have reserved his masterpiece of folly and incapacity to be directed against a nation, between whose dynasty and our own an official announcement had just been made of an impending matrimonial alliance.

Lord Russell’s despatch of 24th September, by which, for the first time, the British Government is made to side with the Germanic Diet in menacing the integrity of Denmark, produces an embarrassment for that country at the very time when the difficulties of the Scandinavian kingdoms were on the eve of a most happy solution. For two or three years past there has been a growing desire on the part of the Scandinavian peoples for closer union, by the consolidation of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark into one State. The difficulty was as to the means by which this was to be accomplished, and as to the form which the desired union of the cognate kingdoms should take. At one time it seemed as if an extraneous influence would exercise a malefic influence upon the process. At the beginning of September 1861 the King of Sweden, grandson of the French general Bernadotte, went by invitation to visit the Emperor Napoleon at Paris; and by some of the strange means which diplomatists have at command, it transpired that a secret arrangement had been come to by the two sovereigns that the King of Sweden should begin to play an ambitious game in the Baltic, supported by the Emperor of the French. Charles XV., youthful and ambitious of military glory, longed to repeat in the North the rôle which Victor Emmanuel had played in the South; and the purport of the agreement between the monarchs of France and Sweden was, that in return for co-operating with France whenever a necessity should arise, by disquieting or attacking either Russia in Finland, or Prussia through Holstein, the dominions of the Swedish King should be aggrandised by Finland on the east, and on the west by the absorption of Denmark. Of the agitation which was immediately commenced in Finland we need not now speak; but a Swedish propagandism was at the same time commenced in Denmark, both in the towns and in the rural districts, for the purpose of altering the succession to the throne of Denmark in favour of the descendant of Bernadotte. As the King of Denmark has no heirs, it had been settled by the “London protocol,” and the act of succession based upon it, that Prince Christian of Holstein-Sonderburg should be recognised as heir to the Danish crown: hence the first object of the Swedish party in Denmark was to get this Act set aside. And as it is stipulated by the Act that the accession of Prince Christian to the throne shall be conditional upon the consent and approval of the Danish people, every means was employed to render the hereditary prince unpopular.

The closing months of last year witnessed a most happy change. The jealous opposition of the King of Sweden has recently given way to feelings the very opposite. The difficulty which his ambition threatened to occasion has been solved in a manner which will happily secure the Scandinavian kingdoms against any such danger in the future, and, moreover, gives promise of uniting them on equal terms and by mutual consent into one powerful and harmonious kingdom. Prince Christian, the heir to the crown of Denmark, has a tolerably large family; Charles of Sweden has only one daughter. It seems that it is now arranged that the eldest son of Prince Christian is to marry the only daughter of the King of Sweden; so that, when Charles of Sweden on the one hand, and the present King of Denmark and his immediate heir (Prince Christian) on the other, shall have passed from the scene, the crowns of Denmark and Sweden will be virtually united, as the King of Denmark will then be husband of the Queen of Sweden;[5] and in the generation following the crowns will be united de facto upon the head of their offspring. This will be a happy consummation in the eyes of the Scandinavians; it is desirable also as a matter of European policy. The Scandinavian kingdoms, though not rich either in population or resources, and at present of little weight as military Powers, occupy a geographical position of great strategical importance in naval warfare. Severed as they now are, neither of them could defend its own position—Sweden against Russia, Denmark against Germany. But if united, their seamen are so excellent, and their position so insulated, as to render their frontiers comparatively secure. They would need little assistance from any friendly Power; and yet, if that Power were a maritime one like England, they could render it in return the most important service. They hold the gates of the Baltic. Rifled cannon have now rendered the Sound totally impassable in the face of the batteries which crown the heights on either shore. Even in former times, Nelson only got through by hugging the Swedish shore, the batteries on which did not open fire. At present we are at peace, and we ever wish to remain at peace; but should the old and formidable project of a maritime confederacy be again tried against us—a project which it required all the naval genius of Nelson, and the secrecy and promptitude of the Copenhagen expedition, to foil—we shall be at no loss to comprehend the importance of having the gates of the Baltic held by a friendly Power. The cutting off the co-operation of the Russian fleet against us would be equivalent to an addition to our navy of fifteen sail of the line. It is only natural, then, that the Russian Government should now express its approval of Earl Russell’s proposal, which cannot fail to estrange England and Denmark, and also tends to obstruct the formation of an independent Scandinavian Power, which would naturally be a rival of Russia on the Baltic.

Seven years ago, when reviewing the contingencies of the future,[6] we pointed out the importance to England of establishing a close alliance with the Scandinavian Powers, and dwelt on the natural ties and common interests which ought to make such an alliance easy of attainment and permanent in duration. The happy event, now about to be consummated, of a matrimonial alliance between the Royal Families of England and Denmark, will naturally cement an alliance also between the two countries. Before Prince Christian’s eldest son weds the only daughter of the King of Sweden, his eldest daughter will have become the consort of the heir to the British throne. This promises to be a most happy, as it is of all others, a most natural alliance. The Danes and English are kindred peoples. The former have given to the British nation the best portion of its blood. To our Scandinavian forefathers we owe our national love of the sea, our spirit of enterprise and adventure which carries us into all parts of the world; and also from them, as much as from the Saxons, we derive our love of freedom and free institutions. Royal matrimonial connections have not the importance they once had,—for the will of the nation has supplanted the mere personal will of the sovereign; but in the present case the nations are so kindred in blood, and have so many interests in common, that the people of England and Denmark are likely to be as good friends as their respective Courts could desire. Without attaching undue weight to the new relationship about to be formed between the two countries, we may at least hail it with satisfaction as certain to make either nation think more of the other, and in so doing to perceive the striking similarity of character and community of interest which exist between them. We are happy to feel assured that it is not as a political match that this marriage is to be contracted by the son of our beloved Queen, and that the bride-elect possesses in an eminent degree those advantages of person, charms of manner, and piety and amiability of character which captivate affection and secure domestic happiness. Nevertheless, while as a good princess and queen she will win our hearts, it is an additional pleasure to feel that, as sister of the future Scandinavian King, she will rivet an old and natural alliance, and draw into closer bonds the kindred races of Northern Europe.

In such a position of affairs, it was to be expected that if any change took place in the policy of England towards Denmark, it would be towards the side of friendliness. Yet the very reverse has been the case. Reversing the policy of his predecessors, and even of the present Government, Lord Russell has withdrawn the support of England from the Danish Government, and now backs up the Germanic Diet in its unfounded pretensions and serious attack upon the integrity of Denmark. His Lordship’s bizarre blundering on past occasions has prepared us for almost any folly which it was in his power to commit; but his cruel blunder in regard to Denmark is so inexplicable, so wholly devoid either of reason or excuse, and it has been perpetrated, too, in so insensate a fashion, that it is extraordinary and intolerable even for Lord Russell. The States of Holstein and Lauenburg are German duchies which for centuries have formed part of the Danish kingdom, but which are also members of the Germanic Confederacy, and over which, accordingly, the German Diet can claim a certain degree of control. When the present King of Denmark framed a common constitution for his whole dominions, the German Powers objected, and by hostile menaces compelled the Danish Government to give a separate Constitution to Holstein and Lauenburg. Such an imperium in imperio is a grave difficulty for Denmark, as it would be for any State; and recently the Danish Government has agreed “to accord to the Estates of Holstein a legislative and supply-granting power, in conformity with the decrees of the Diet of 4th March 1860 and 7th February 1861.”[7] So far as Holstein is concerned, the Danish Government, to its own great embarrassment, has virtually consented to all that the German Diet demands.[8] But the Diet is not content, and has now undertaken a similar interference with the condition of Schleswig. Unlike Holstein, Schleswig is a purely Danish province. In 1823 the Prussian Government itself declared that “the Confederation was excluded from interfering in the government of Schleswig, as that duchy does not form one of the Confederated States (Bundeslande), and is therefore beyond the influence of the Diet.” The sole ground upon which this assumption to interfere is now made, is, that so many Germans have migrated into Schleswig that they now compose half of the population. Upon this preposterous ground the Germanic Diet demands that Schleswig also shall have a separate constitution! If this were conceded, the small territory of Denmark would contain no less than four separate constitutions, and four rival Estates—namely, of Lauenburg, Holstein, Schleswig, and Denmark Proper—each of which could give check to the others, and bring the whole administration to a dead-lock. To add to the extravagance of this project, the German Diet, after long declining to formulate its demands, proposes to accomplish the autonomy of the Danish provinces which it so modestly takes under its charge, by the establishment of a new constitution for the Danish kingdom, in which each of the four provinces or states of the kingdom shall have as many representatives as the other; so that Lauenburg, with its 50,000 inhabitants, shall have as many votes as Denmark Proper, with its 1,600,000 inhabitants. And as Holstein and Lauenburg are both German, and as Schleswig is half German, it would follow that the whole legislation and policy of the kingdom would be regulated by the German element, which numbers only about 750,000 out of the two and a half millions of the population.

The Germanic Powers have no right of any kind to interfere with the affairs of Schleswig, and their attempt to do so is one of the most glaring assumptions of power which a stronger State ever put forward at the expense of a weaker. The Danish Government, with that simple-hearted daring which distinguishes the Scandinavian race, has given a direct negative to the demands of the Diet; and rather than permit a foreign Power to interfere in its domestic affairs, is ready, with its handful of gallant and dauntless forces, to give the Germans a sample of Danish pluck and prowess. The Danish Government has not flinched an inch, although Lord Russell has strangely transferred his support to the other side. His Lordship, indeed, does not adopt in its exact form the Germanic programme; he does not propose that there shall be a common constitution for the whole kingdom, in which each province shall be equally represented; but he would give Schleswig (as well as Holstein and Lauenburg) a separate constitution from Denmark Proper, and would give to each of these provinces a co-ordinate power with the rest of the kingdom. He would have a “normal budget” on the lowest scale, to be fixed every ten years by agreement among the four Estates of the kingdom, any one of which can reject it, and thereby “stop the supplies” at once. And all extraordinary expenses—i.e., such as exceed this minimum budget—must be sanctioned annually by each of the four Estates. Anything so impracticable was never before proposed by a statesman, and two years ago was expressly condemned as impracticable by Lord Russell himself.[9] Lauenburg, with its 50,000 inhabitants, could bring all Denmark to a dead-lock. It is extremely doubtful whether even the normal or minimum budget would ever be voted by all of the Estates; but in regard to the extraordinary expenses, which would actually be called for every year, disagreement would be inevitable. Fancy Denmark wishing to increase her fleet—that fleet which Germany regards with so much jealousy, having been made to feel its power—would Holstein or Lauenburg agree to the vote? Or in the case of a rupture with the aggressive German Powers, would not these provinces avail themselves of the power which Lord Russell and the Germanic Diet propose shall be conferred on them, in order to stop the budget being voted in any form?

Of all the mad pranks which Lord Russell has played, this is certainly the most insensate. What a precedent he makes! With equal reason France might interfere in the affairs of our own country, and demand that Ireland should have a Parliament of her own, and also that the consent of that Parliament should be requisite before a single tax could be levied in any part of the United Kingdom! With equal reason Russia might demand separate governments for any or every part of the Turkish empire, and, moreover, insist that each of these parts should have a power of checkmating all the others. We naturally protest against the despatches of Lord Russell on account of their absurdity—we protest also on account of their injustice and substantial hostility to Denmark; and not less do we protest against any such act of interference being committed at all. Is it not strange, ludicrous, humiliating, to see our Foreign Minister lecturing little Denmark on her duties to her own subjects, and submitting a constitution cut-and-dry for her adoption, even prescribing minute details of taxation, &c.; and yet, at the very same time, our Government dare not say a word to the Cabinet of Washington—nay, is full of ample apologies for one of its own members who happened to express an opinion which is universal in this country—and stands by in humble silence and inaction while “the North fights for conquest and the South for independence”? The contrast is striking and humiliating. The attempt to coerce little Denmark is ignoble—the proposals which it is desired to enforce are absurd in their form, and most impolitic in their object. We wait to hear what the British Parliament will say to a policy in which folly and meanness are combined in equal proportions.

Strangely enough, the Continental Power which is foremost in demanding these “reforms” in the internal Government of Denmark, is itself exhibiting a melancholy spectacle of a government at feud with its own subjects. For three years past the condition of Germany has been growing more and more distracted. In the search for unity it is becoming divided; and nowhere does dissension show itself so much as in the very Power which was looked to as the natural head and rallying-point of the work of union. We deeply lament the troubles of Prussia, and not less deeply do we lament the injurious influence which they exercise upon the general condition and prospects of the Fatherland. There is no State in Europe which more tries the temper of the British public than Prussia. As a people we desire to think well of her; and yet ever and anon she checks our sympathy by some astounding exhibition of the dullest wrongheadedness. The Germans have little that is bad in their nature, but they are provokingly dull, and get into “insuperable difficulties” which might easily be evaded. The present conflict in Prussia between the King and the Chambers is a difficulty of their own making. We have not here the case of a despot wishing to crush the liberties of the nation, nor a revolutionary Chamber whose main desire is to overturn the Throne. After watching the progress of the quarrel from the commencement, and with the impartiality which comes easily to an observer at a distance, we are convinced that the King and the Chamber are alike sincere in their desire to do right, and that their lamentable strife has arisen from what was at first but an accident of the position.

The cause of the quarrel between the Prussian Government and the popular branch of the Legislature dates from 1859. In that year two distinct but correlative sentiments became universal in Germany. One of these was the insecurity of the Fatherland from external attack, owing to the defects of the military organisation; the other was a revival of the old desire for a closer union among the States of the Confederation, with a view to the ultimate unification of Germany. These sentiments were shared by both the King and the Parliament of Prussia; but the King was most influenced by the first of these sentiments, the lower Chamber by the second. The Chamber desired that the Government should immediately commence measures for the unification of Germany—measures which could only be carried out by “mediatising” or sweeping away the lesser courts. The King, an honourable and conscientious man, declined to attack the rights of the other Sovereign Princes of Germany, but addressed himself with zeal to the improvement of the military resources of his own State. The result of military investigation proved that, under the existing system of only three years’ service, the average training of the soldiers was too short to perfect them in the use of the arms of precision, and the new manœuvres thereby rendered necessary, by which the fortunes of every battle are now determined. Hence the Government, acting upon the report of a committee appointed to investigate the matter, ordered that the minimum period of military service should be lengthened from three years to five: a regulation which, the conscription being kept up at its previous amount, also augmented the numerical strength of the army. When the Chambers met in 1860, the lower House made great opposition to the part of the budget which related to the additional expenditure thus rendered necessary; but they allowed it to pass for that year only. At the same time they carried a motion against the Government, urging the Government to adopt a “strong policy,” with the view of promoting the unification of the Fatherland under the leadership of Prussia. Averse as the King was to adopt a course of action inimical to the rights of the other German Courts, the Government could not fail to see that, if the Chamber were thus resolved upon aggression, it furnished an additional reason why the Prussian army should be kept in a state of efficiency. As the Prime Minister observed, it is ridiculous for a State to adopt a “strong policy” without having a strong army to back it. Accordingly in the following year the obnoxious item again made its appearance in the Budget. The opposition of the Lower Chamber became more vehement than ever: but again the military estimates were allowed to pass provisionally, and with a distinct intimation to the Government that nothing would induce the Chamber to sanction the vote in the following year.

Thus, last year, the affair came to a crisis. The Lower Chamber or House of Commons struck out of the Budget the sum required for the increase of the army made in 1859 by the prolongation of the term of service. The Upper Chamber replaced it. But on the Budget thus amended, or rather thus restored to its original form, being returned to the Lower Chamber for its approval, the Chamber refused to pass it. Thus the country was left without any Budget at all. In this dilemma the Government decreed, that as no Budget had been passed, their only course was to fall back upon the Budget voted by the Chambers in the previous year (which contained the allowance for the increase of the army), and the taxes have been levied accordingly.

It is curious to observe that both the Government and the Lower Chamber appeal to the Constitution in support of their totally opposite views. One article of the Prussian Constitution, as revised ten years ago, decrees that the Upper Chamber shall have no power to alter, but simply to reject, the Budget. Another article decrees that the Budget shall be treated as an ordinary legislative enactment: and for all such enactments it is decreed that they cannot become valid without the united consent of the two Chambers and of the Crown. It is also decreed by the Constitution, that in the event of no Budget being passed, the Budget of the previous year shall continue in force. In regard to what actually took place, the Lower Chamber can maintain that the Constitution was violated by the Upper Chamber altering (it is allowed they had the power to reject) the Budget. But that is a question between the two Houses with which the Government has nothing to do. The only fact which the Government had to deal with was, that no Budget was passed. (And obviously the result would have been the same if the Upper Chamber, instead of altering the Budget, had simply rejected it.) Accordingly, no Budget having been passed, the Budget of the previous year continued in force in virtue of the Constitution itself. It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose that any Bill of Indemnity is required by the Government. The levying of taxes during the past year, to the amount of the previous Budget, was no special act of theirs, but was enjoined by the Constitution. We extremely regret, therefore, to see that the Prussian Deputies appear resolved to act as if the Government had committed an actual violation of the constitution,—which most certainly it has not done.

While the King and Parliament of Prussia are thus demonstrating how much mischief may be occasioned even by good intentions—by a simple-hearted but dull-witted desire on either side to do what is right—and thereby destroying the high prestige which once made the hegemony of Germany appear to be the natural reversion of Prussia, the other great leading Power in Germany is displaying a broad freedom, frank constitutionalism, and statesmanlike ability, which are winning for her universal admiration and respect. Despotism has been but a recent and transitory phenomenon in the history of Austria. It ought to be remembered that members of the House of Hapsburg were the first royal champions of political reform in Europe. Not to go back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the Estates of Austria enjoyed an amount of influence second only to that possessed by the Parliament of England; the Grand-Duke Leopold immortalised himself by his bold and thoughtful reforms in Tuscany, which, though established nearly a century ago, were cherished by his subjects as in unison with the times even down to the present day. The Emperor Joseph II. played a similar part in the history of Austria, exhibiting a liberality of opinion so ardent, and in those days so singular, that he was regarded in most quarters as an eminently rash, though amiable and philanthropic theorist. He commenced the work of reform without any pressure from below, and he trusted to regulate and complete the work happily by placing himself at its head. The wild outburst of the French Revolution of 1789, which startled and checked Pitt in his projects of Parliamentary Reform, produced a similar effect in other countries; and with reluctance and regret the Austrian Emperor paused in his work of liberalising the administration, and the long war with France diverted the thoughts of his successor into another channel. Francis-Joseph has resumed the work which fell incomplete from the hands of Joseph II. He has also undone at a stroke the project of autocratic centralisation, which was in part a mistake, and in part a lamentable but necessary consequence of the revolutionary contests of 1848–49—which, it ought to be remembered, proved fatal to the liberties of the people in France not less than in Austria. It is only within the last fifteen years that the internal government of Austria assumed that despotic form which has been so injurious to the character of the House of Hapsburg in free countries like ours. While France still groaned under the old regime which was overthrown in 1789—while she bled under the atrocious despots of the Republic, or was held in chains under the brilliant tyranny of Napoleon I.—the subjects of the Austrian crown enjoyed personal rights and local institutions which, in comparison, were perfect freedom. No State, during the long war with France, received so many deadly blows as Austria; yet all those blows were firmly sustained, and those reverses nobly retrieved, by the steady and gallant loyalty of its subjects. It was the practical freedom and good government enjoyed by the Austria peoples which prevented the sundering of an empire above all others most liable to be split up under the effects of great reverses, and which rallied the noble races of the Tyrol and Hungary around the throne of their sovereign in the gloomiest hours of the empire. The Emperor Francis-Joseph is now doing his best—wisely and bravely—to retrieve the mistakes, and obliterate from memory the stern necessities of the recent past. And he is already reaping his reward in a revival on the part of his people of the old loyalty which formerly so brightly illustrated the annals of Austria.

These happy changes in Austria have produced a corresponding change of public feeling towards her in this country. Four years ago, the epithet “Austrian” was devised by the Liberals as the most telling which could be employed against the Conservative Government. It was purely an “invention of the enemy;” for the Conservative Government showed no special favour to Austria, but only found in her a Power desirous of peace, and willing to make concessions; whereas they rightly discerned in the French Government a fixed resolve to force on a war, and to evade all attempts at a compromise. But who would use the same epithet as opprobrious now? Lord Palmerston himself, who more than any British statesman has acted an unfriendly part towards Austria, now goes out of his way to attend a dinner to Baron Thierry at Southampton, and to express himself in the most friendly terms towards that Government. Austria, in truth, during the last three years, has been doing more for the spread of constitutional government than all the other Governments of the Continent put together. The French Government has felt itself compelled to follow in her wake—first, by allowing freedom of debate to the Chamber of Deputies; and, secondly, by abandoning the right to open “extraordinary credits” on the mere will of the Sovereign; the example in both cases having first been practically given in the new Austrian Constitution. Unhappily the press of France has still to envy the freedom so fully enjoyed by the journals of Austria.

If such has been the influence produced on other countries by the enlightened principles of government now in operation at Vienna, they have not failed to produce an equally powerful effect upon public feeling in Germany. Prussia, once so popular, is falling behind, grumbling; while Austria, without showing any unfriendly rivalry with Prussia, is completely outstripping her in wisdom and liberality of policy. For some years past the Prussian Government has been talking of the necessity of reforming the Germanic Diet, yet without proposing any definite remedy for its defects: last year Austria, without any palaver, quietly tabled a proposal which would most effectually liberalise the Diet, and in the best of all ways. At present the Diet consists entirely of delegates from the respective Governments of the Confederated States,—in fact, it simply represents the Courts; but alongside of the present Diet Austria proposes that another “House” be constituted, the members of which shall be chosen by the Parliaments of the different States; so that, while the existing Diet represents the Courts, the new body would represent the people of Germany. This proposal was adopted by a majority of the Committee of the Diet; but Prussia, instead of being foremost in welcoming such a project, as from her professions might have been expected, sulked—and not only sulked, but raged against the proposal, and hinted that she would even employ force to resist its adoption. As the Diet, however, has declined to accept the resolution of their Committee, the Austrian plan of reform is at present in abeyance; and Prussia, desirous to regain the initiative, now talks of outbidding Austria in the liberality of her proposals. Nevertheless, Prussia has appeared to great disadvantage in this act of rivalry. In truth, it is impossible not to recognise the superiority in statesmanship and breadth of views in the Austrian Government and legislators compared with those of Prussia. And the Prussians must be blind indeed if they do not see that the mingled folly and dogmatism which, scorning compromise, has now brought constitutional government to a dead-lock at Berlin, as well as the opposition which, from motives of jealousy, the Prussian Government is offering to the reform of the Diet, is rapidly destroying their prestige in Germany, and is making many an eye now turn to Vienna, which formerly looked for a leader of the united Fatherland in the House of Hohenzollern.

The great embarrassment which still hangs round the Austrian Government is the refusal of the Hungarians to join with the other sections of the empire in sending representatives to the Reichsrath, or Imperial Parliament. The prospect of the Hungarians foregoing their demand for a wholly separate administration is better than it was, yet still is not so great as the friends alike of Austria and of Hungary could desire. A separate administration for Hungary, while all the other parts of the empire are represented in the Reichsrath, would never work. The Hungarians must either desire it as a step towards entire separation from Austria, or else they are making a mistake. And if they desire to separate from the German, Polish, Sclavonian, and other nationalities which constitute the Austrian empire, the best or only issue to which they can look forward is union with a similar medley of certainly not superior races, in a Confederation of the Danube. We do not see what the Hungarians would gain even if the issue were accomplished in a manner the most favourable for them; but if we take into account the many formidable opposing obstacles, and the probability that the expectations of the Hungarians would be considerably disappointed, the only judgment at which we can arrive is, that the Hungarians are much better as they are, and would act wisely in frankly accepting for themselves the liberal constitution which is already in operation in the other parts of the empire. The Magyars are men of high spirit, great ability, and perhaps the most eloquent speakers in Europe. Moreover, they will count fully fourscore votes in the Reichsrath: surely, then, they need have no fear of not having their fair proportion of influence in the assembly,—the greater likelihood is that they would have too much.

The Hungarian question is a misfortune for all Europe. For, until it is settled, there can be no pacific solution of the Venetian question. As long as Hungary remains in a state of sullen rebellion, the cession of Venetia to Italy would only bring an enemy close to the heart of Austria, and permit a direct co-operation between the Hungarians and their “sympathisers” in Italy. But if Hungary were reconciled, and were again playing her part loyally as an integral portion of the Austrian empire, we believe that the Austrian Government would no longer hesitate to rid themselves of the Venetian difficulty, even though the Quadrilateral is invaluable to them as the most impregnable frontier and position in Europe.

There is still one year more in which a happy solution of both of these serious questions may be attained. Austria has still a year for negotiating with the Hungarians, without the interference of hostile Powers. Italy is in no position to provoke a conflict with Austria for the possession of Venetia. Her old “ally” France has now turned against her, so unceremoniously that even the Italian Government, so ready to hope all things, can no longer mistake the Imperial intentions. The fall of Garibaldi has removed the only fear which Napoleon had before his eyes. Garibaldi was a name of power not only in Italy, but in Europe; and it was at any time within the range of possibility that a great movement would arise under his leadership, which would either compel the French to evacuate Italy, or produce a conflict which would endanger Napoleon’s position in France, and rupture the sagacious policy by which he vibrates to and fro between despotism and revolution, without wholly breaking with either. There is no man in Italy—we might say in Europe—who can do that now. Napoleon is at ease, and snubs the Italian Government with little ceremony. For not only has Garibaldi been removed from the scene, but the prestige of Victor Emmanuel has at the same time received a serious blow. Aspromonte will never be forgotten—in many quarters never forgiven. Rattazzi has, in consequence, been ignominiously overthrown; and in Southern Italy the shooting of the great national hero has given increased force to the discontent with the King’s Government. France now kneels securely on the breast of Italy, and Napoleon does not abandon his hope of being able to break up the new kingdom, and throw Italy back into a state of disunion. There is nothing now for Italy but to improve and consolidate her internal condition, and await the course of events; which, if she play her part wisely, will force the French Emperor to come to her terms, in order that he may profit by her help. One advantage the Italians have certainly derived from recent events: they now know that they must rely only on themselves, and that they have no concessions to expect from the French Emperor but such as they can make it for his interest to yield. The Government, although receding somewhat from the bold and manly position taken up by the late Foreign Minister, General Durando,[10] has at least desisted from those vain repetitions by which it formerly hoped to soften the heart of the Emperor. They are now resolved to take the matter into their own hands, and to make themselves strong enough to enforce their rightful claims. In his address to the King on New Year’s Day, the President of the Deputies said that the Chamber was deeply impressed with the necessity of reorganising and arming the country, and did not hesitate to add—“When we have an army of 400,000 men, and a chief like you, Sire! we shall see if any Power will dare to gainsay our claims to have our own.” The Italians are in the right track now; but they will find that before they are ready to enforce the evacuation of Rome, Napoleon will anticipate a hostile collision by timeously bargaining to cede to them their capital in return for renewed co-operation between the two Governments.

In the neighbouring peninsula a revolution has taken place which startled Europe by its unexpectedness, and which may by-and-by give rise to important consequences. For the present, however, no such consequences attend the movement. The Greeks have been orderly, peaceable, and discreet; and although we entertain no doubt that this movement will ere long extend itself at the expense of Turkey, and will hasten the final disruption of the Ottoman Empire, we trust that the Greeks will continue to act with prudence, and not compromise their fortunes by hasty efforts to revive a Panhellenic kingdom. Their choice of Prince Alfred to be their new King—the founder of a dynasty whose territories would soon comprise all Greece, and the isles alike of the Adriatic and the Ægean—was a great compliment to England, and a proof that the quick sagacity of their race has survived amidst the decay of many nobler powers. It was an instinct, a universal emotion, which declared that they would have no King but Alfred of England; and that instinct was as correct as if the question had been debated in popular assembly for a twelvemonth before. Prince Alfred comes of a good stock, and has had an excellent training; and England is the Power who could, if she would, either assist or oppose the Greek revolution more effectually than any other. England is the stanchest ally of the Porte; but the Greeks knew that they could reckon also upon our still greater attachment to freedom; and, moreover, that if they did secure our alliance, they should not have to pay for it, as their neighbours in Italy had to pay France. Still more, England is commercial, full of capital and enterprise, and the Greeks might reasonably conclude that if our Prince became their King, the bleak hills and deserted harbours of the Morea would soon bloom with verdure, or teem with new life. What they will do now that they are disappointed in their hopes and unanimous desire, we do not know. It is certainly a hard thing for a people that they should be checked in the choice of a King on account of a treaty which they had no hand in making. Were Prince Alfred to become their King, his kingdom probably would ere long rise into an influential place in Europe; but certainly the vacant throne possesses no such attractions as would lead us to desire the annulment of the treaty which forbids it to be filled by an English Prince. The choice of Prince Alfred by the Greeks, however, has had the good effect of checking any dreams of ambition which may have been entertained by Russia, by inducing her to adhere to the treaty, instead of putting forward Prince Leuchtenberg as a candidate for the throne. Important as may be the issues likely to flow from this outburst of new life on the part of Greece, the only matter of any consequence to us at present is the proposed cession to it of the Ionian Islands by Her Majesty’s Government. The cession is to be made only upon certain conditions, and therefore may never take place at all. If the Greeks do not care to comply with these conditions, or if the Ionian people prefer to remain under our rule, that is their concern: and our Government will at least have given proof that its retention of the Ionian Islands does not proceed from a grasping selfishness, but simply (in fulfilment of the trust reposed in us by the other Powers in 1815) to prevent those islands falling into bad hands. In a few years hence, at most, there can hardly fail to be hostilities on the Adriatic, whether between Austria and Italy, or between the Porte and some of its provinces, not unassisted by other Powers; and in such a case our possession of the Ionian Islands would be very embarrassing to us, unless it were known and felt by every one that we remained there only in discharge of a duty to Europe which profited us nothing. Times are greatly altered since 1815: neither France nor Russia has the least chance of ever again being left in possession of Corfu and its sister islands. With a united Italy on one side of the Adriatic, and the growing maritime power of Greece on the other—States which can hardly be enemies, but ought to be firm allies—there is small chance of an extraneous Power being allowed to establish itself in the basin of the Adriatic. Nor, in these times when the principle of nationality is the foremost regulating force in politics, is it likely that Europe would remain indifferent to so flagrant a violation of that principle, as well as of common justice.

As France has her hands full in Mexico, and is waiting till the pear is ripe in Germany, we may count upon another year of peace in Europe. We regard with no jealousy the intervention of France in Mexico. It cannot possibly do us harm; and if the result of the intervention be to raise Mexico to new life and productiveness, the world may congratulate itself on the happy change. Meanwhile, it acts as a diversion, and turns the military ambition of France away from Europe; so that for another year we may take our ease or follow our industry, without fearing to be disturbed by any serious hostilities. Still there is no assured tranquillity; we shall have no Long Peace such as the last generation enjoyed; and for many years to come the country is likely to feel the advantage of keeping its naval and military resources in a state of thorough efficiency.

In a few days Parliament will meet, and already the usual rumours and speculations are current as to the programme of the Ministry. It is very safe to say that there will be nothing in the Speech from the Throne to provoke a conflict. The most prominent feature of the Speech will doubtless be the paragraphs which relate to the great distress in the manufacturing districts, and the admirable spirit with which it is borne by the sufferers and alleviated by the wise munificence of the other classes of the community. There will be an expression of regret for the continuance of the lamentable contest in America, and a hope that it will soon terminate. The country will be congratulated on the extraordinary vitality of its trade and commerce, indicated by the Board of Trade returns, despite the unparalleled disaster which has befallen our greatest branch of industry; and the commercial treaty with France will come in for another laudation. Nothing will be said of the new and indefensible policy of the Government on the Danish question; but the affairs of Greece will be alluded to in a friendly spirit. And finally, Parliament will be congratulated on our friendly relations with all foreign Powers, and the happy prospect of a year of tranquillity. It is rumoured that Mr Gladstone, with his characteristic restlessness, means to propose important changes in regard to the position of the Bank of England; and we have no confidence that the changes proposed by a statesman so crotchetty will be for the better. Although the subject is not likely to be alluded to in the Royal Speech, it appears certain that very considerable reductions are to be proposed in all branches of the national defences. If the work of retrenchment is to be accomplished in a right way, by studying economy without destroying efficiency, the country will be grateful. But if the reduction in the naval and military estimates is to be made, not by improving the organisation and administration of these departments, but by summarily cutting them down—by stopping the work in our dockyards, and dismissing trained soldiers and sailors whose places will by-and-by have to be refilled by raw recruits—it will be a recurrence to the old penny-wise pound-foolish economy which produced the breakdown and disasters of the Crimean war. Time will show. Meanwhile we rejoice to know that the Conservative party, augmented alike in numbers and in prestige, is now so powerful that it ought to be able to resist successfully any measures of wrong policy or mistaken legislation on the part of the Government. The gains and losses at the elections since the last change of Ministry show a net balance of ten seats in favour of the Conservative party—two of which are the new seats, Lancashire and Birkenhead; so that the Conservative Ministry, which was defeated in June 1859 by thirteen votes, would now, in similar circumstances, have a majority of five. But, in truth, the circumstances are not similar. Reform since then has been seen through and discarded; and the feeling of the country is now so universally Conservative, that, if in office, the Conservative party would command a great majority. As it is, they are already so strong, that, when united, they can determine the judgment of the House. Happily the constitution of the State is no longer in danger. Lord Russell’s Reform Bills have had their day, and have been consigned to the limbo of vanities. The constitution of the Church, however, is still an object of virulent and persevering attack; and we trust that the Conservative party will not relax its vigilance and energy from an over-confidence in its successes of last session. Let them remember East Kent, where they threw away an important seat by sheer remissness and mismanagement, and not allow reverses to befall them in Parliament from a like cause. Church questions are now the great battle-field between Conservative and Liberal. Let the Opposition strain every nerve to convert the drawn battle in Church-rates last year into a crowning and decisive victory; so that the work of Radical innovation be finally brought to an end, and that the Conservative party may find its last difficulties vanquished even before it quits its present position on the Opposition benches, and enters upon the pleasurable responsibilities of office, which so soon await it, and of which it promises to have a long term.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

1. ‘Five Months on the Yang-tsze.’ By Thomas Blakiston, Captain, R.A.

2. Vide the confession of one of the Taeping leaders, named Tien-teh, published in the ‘Pekin Gazette’ of May 1852.

3. ‘Le Pere Lacordaire,’ par le Comte de Montalembert. Paris, 1862.

4. ‘Lady Morgan’s Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries, and Correspondence.’ London: W. H. Allen & Co.

5. The accession to the Swedish throne is restricted by law to the male line, and a recent proposal to abrogate this law in favour of the King’s only child, a daughter, has not met with success. Nevertheless, her husband, especially if King of Denmark, would almost to a certainty be made King also of Norway and Sweden.

6. ‘Speculations on the Future,’ June 1856, pp. 736–7.

7. See M. Hall’s reply to the Prussian Government, dated Nov. 6, 1862.

8. The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs rightly calls this “an important sacrifice extorted by the force of circumstances.” For it is to be remembered that the Diet of Frankfort has no right to interfere with the sovereign powers of any member of the Confederation. The final Act of Vienna describes the Confederation as composed of “sovereign and independent” States, the union of which had precisely for object “to guarantee the sovereign rights of each.” Accordingly, M. Hall is right when he says (in his despatch of January 5): “The King of Denmark is bound to fulfil faithfully his federal obligations; but he has not surrendered to any one his right to regulate the internal affairs of Holstein, as little as the other members of the Confederation have done so for their States.”

9. In February 1861 Earl Russell wrote as follows to Lord Cowley:—“Another plan, which was put forward in Holstein, would give the Diets of Holstein, Schleswig, and Lauenburg equal power with Denmark to sanction or refuse the taxes and estimates for the year. But this plan is so cumbrous and uncertain that, if ever put into operation, it would only serve to paralyse the Danish monarchy. The Duchy of Schleswig is a Danish duchy, and although both the honour and interest of Denmark require that Schleswig should be equitably treated, the King of Denmark could not without danger treat with Germany respecting the terms to be given to that duchy.”

10. In his circular to foreign courts on the affair of Aspromonte, General Durando said—“The present position is no longer tenable. The whole nation claims the capital. If Garibaldi has been resisted, it is solely because the Government is convinced that it will attain its end, and that France will recognise the danger of maintaining the antagonism between the Papacy and Italy.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

- Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 93, NO. 568, FEBRUARY, 1863 ***

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Table of Contents

- BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. DLXVIII. FEBRUARY 1863. Vol. XCIII.

- CONTENTS.

- PROGRESS IN CHINA.

- PART II. THE TAEPINGS AND THEIR REMEDY.

- CAXTONIANA: A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.

- PART XIII.

- NO. XIX.—MOTIVE POWER (continued).

- HENRI LACORDAIRE.[3]

- LADY MORGAN’S MEMOIRS.[4]

- A SKETCH FROM BABYLON.

- CONCLUSION.—CHAPTER X.

- CHAPTER XI.

- CHAPTER XII.

- CHAPTER XIII.

- CHAPTER XIV.

- CHAPTER XV.

- OUR NEW DOCTOR.

- POLITICS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE