FOOTNOTE:
[ [1] Whilst these pages are passing through the press, George Augustus Sala has been mercifully permitted to rest from his labours. An unfortunate adventure with a new paper brought about serious troubles, physical and financial, and ended his useful and hard-working life in gloom: as Mr. Bancroft (a mutual friend) observed to the editor of this volume, "It is so sad when the autumn of such a life is tempestuous."--December 8, 1895.
[Chat No. 9.]
"Then be contented. Thou hast got
The most of heaven in thy young lot;
There's sky-blue in thy cup!
Thou'lt find thy Manhood all too fast—-
Soon come, soon gone! and Age at last,
A sorry breaking-up."
—-Thomas Hood.
It was my good fortune some short time since to revisit that most educational of English towns, Bedford, and having many years ago had the extreme privilege of being a Bedford schoolboy, I was able to draw a comparison between then and now.
In the good old days these admirable schools were managed in the good old way—plenty of classics, plenty of swishing, plenty of cricket and boating, and plenty of holidays. We sometimes turned out boys who afterwards made their mark in the big world, and the School Registers are proud to contain the names of such men as Burnell, the Oriental scholar, who out-knowledged even Sir William Jones in this respect; Colonel Fred. Burnaby, brave soldier and attractive travel writer; Inverarity, the lion-hunter and crack shot; Sir Henry Hawkins, stern judge and brilliant wit, and many others of like degree. Nor must we forgot that John Bunyan here learnt sufficient reading and writing to enable him in after years to pen his marvellous Book during his imprisonment in Bedford Gaol, which was then situated midway on the bridge over the river Ouse.
In that wonderful monument to the courage and enterprise of Mr. George Smith (kindest of friends and best of publishers), "The National Dictionary of Biography," the record is frequent of men who owed their education and perhaps best chance in the life they afterwards made a success, to Bedford School, but,—
"Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted,
As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred,
Yet still with their music is memory haunted,
And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard."
But if the good old School was a success in those bygone days, what must be said for it now, when, under the Napoleon-like administration of its present chief, the school-house has been rebuilt in its own park, upon all the best and latest known principles of comfort and sanitation, where a boy can, besides going through the full round of usual study, follow the bent of his own peculiar taste, and find special training, whether it be in horse-shoeing or music, chemistry or wood-carving, ambulance work or drawing from the figure; whilst the beautiful river is covered with boats, the cricket-fields and football yards are crowded, and the bathing stations are a constant joy?
Truly the present generation of Bedford boys are much blessed in their surroundings; and whilst they remember with gratitude the pious founder, Sir William Harper, should strive to do credit to his name and memory by the exercise of their powers in the battle of after-life, having received so thorough and broad-minded a training in the happy and receptive days of their youth.
Bedford town is now one of the most strikingly attractive in England, with its fine river embankment, its grand old churches, its statues erected to the memory of the "inspired tinker," Bunyan, and the prison philanthropist, Howard, both of whom lived about a mile or so from the town, the former at Elstow, the latter at Cardington. It was very good and heart-restoring to revisit the hospitable old school with its pleasant surroundings and to find, as Robert Louis Stevenson says, that,—
"Home from the Indies, and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers they all shall come home;
Still they shall find the old mill-wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam."
Since printing our last little "Tour Round the Bookshelves," in which we ventured to include some capital lines by our evergreen and many-sided friend Rudolf Chambers Lehmann, he has again added to the interest of our Visitors' Book under the following circumstances. Guests and home-birds were all resting after the exhausting idleness of an Easter holiday when they were suddenly aroused from their day-dreams by loud cries of "Fire!" accompanied by the sound of horses and chariots approaching the house at full speed. On looking out, like Sister Anne or a pretty page, we were able to assuage our guests' natural alarm by explaining that the local fire brigade were practising upon our vile bodies and dwelling, and if fear existed, danger did not. On their ultimately retiring, satisfied with their mock efforts, and fortified by beer, our welcome guest wrote with his usual flying pen the following characteristic lines to commemorate their visit:—
"FIRE! FIRE!!"
(AN EASTER MONDAY INCIDENT.)
"A day of days, an April day;
Cool air without, and cloudless sun;
Within, upon the ordered tray,
Cakes, and the luscious Sally-Lunn.
Since Pym has walked, and Guthrie climbed
To rob some feathered songster's nest,
Their toil needs tea, the hour has chimed—
Pour, lady, pour, and let them rest.
But hark! what sound disturbs their tea,
And clatters up the carriage drive?
A dinner guest? it cannot be;
No, no, the hour is only five.
What sight is this the fates disclose,
That breaks upon our startled view?
Two horses, countless yards of hose,
Nine firemen, and an engine too.
Where burns the fire? Tush, 'tis but sport;
The horses stop, the men descend,
Take hoses long, and hoses short,
And fit them deftly end to end.
Attention! lo their chieftain calls—
They run, they answer to their names,
And hypothetic water falls
In streams upon imagined flames.
Well done, ye braves, 'twas nobly done;
Accept, the peril past, our thanks;
Though all your toil was only fun,
And air was all that filled your tanks:
No, not for nought you came and dared,
Return in peace, and drink your fill;
It was, as Mrs. Pym declared,
'A highly interesting drill.'"
April 3, 1893.
Another poet whose pen sometimes gilds our modest Record of Angels' Visits, is a well-beloved cousin, Harry Luxmoore by name, at Eton known so well. His Christmas greeting for 1890 shall here appear, and prove to him how deep is Foxwold's affectionate obligation for wishes so delightfully expressed:—
"Glooms overhead a frozen sky,
Rings underfoot a snow-ribbed earth,
Yet somewhere slumbering sunbeams lie,
And somewhere sleeps the coming birth.
Folded in root and grain is lying,
The bud, the bloom we soon may see,
And in the old year now a-dying
Is hid the new year that shall be.
O what if snows be deep? so shrouded
Matures the soil with promise rife
And sap, for all the skies be clouded,
Ripens at heart a lustier life.
Then welcome winter—while we shiver
Strength harbours deeper, and the blast
Of sounder, manlier force the giver
Strips off betimes our withered past.
Come bud and bloom, come fruit and flower,
Come weal, come woe, as best may be,
Still may the New Year's hidden dower
Be good for you and Horace, and all the little ones, and good for me."
[Chat No. 10.]
"My ears are deaf with this impatient crowd:
Their wants are now grown mutinous and loud."
—Dryden.
The The following graphic account of the rising in Paris in 1848 was written by John Poole to Charles Dickens, and was recently found amongst the papers of Mrs. John Forster, the widow of the well-known writer, Dickens' friend and biographer, and is, I think, worthy of print.
John Poole was a sometime celebrated character, having written that evergreen play "Paul Pry," as well as "Little Pedlington," and other humorous works mostly now forgotten.
As he grew old poverty came to bear him company, and was only prevented from causing him actual suffering by the usual generosity of Dickens and other members of that charmed circle, further aided by a small Government grant, obtained for him by the same faithful friend from Lord John Russell.
The letter is addressed to
CHARLES DICKENS, Esq.,
No. 1 Devonshire Terrace,
York Gate, Regent's Park
LONDON,
and deals with the celebrated uprisal of the French mob, when a force of 75,000 regulars and nearly 200,000 National Guards was massed round Paris to resist it. The carnage was terrible, some 8000 persons being killed on both sides, and 14,000 insurgents made prisoners.
It was only by General Cavaignac's firmness and tactful management under Lamartine's directions, that the mob was reduced and the Republican Government established. The general was afterwards nearly elected President of the French Republic, receiving 1,448,000 votes, but Prince Louis Napoleon beat him, and, as history tells, held the reins in various capacities for the next twenty eventful years.
Poole's letter, as that of an eye-witness, gives a remarkably clear impression of the scene as it appeared in his orbit. Dickens, on receiving it, evidently sent it the round of his friends, and it then remained in John Forster's possession until his death.
"( Paris), Saturday, 8 Jul 1848.
"My dear Dickens,
I wrote to you through the Embassy on the 22nd June, giving you an address for the three last Dombeys, and enclosing a catalogue of the ex-King's wine; and on the 16th I sent you a word in a letter to Macready. Dombeys not yet arrived, and I shall wait no longer to acknowledge their arrival (as I have been doing), but at once proceed to give you a few lines. Since the day of my writing to you I have lived four years: Friday (the 23rd), Saturday, Sunday, Monday, each a year.
"The proceedings of the three days of February were mere child's-play compared with these. Never shall I forget them, for they showed me scenes of blood and death. Friday morning the 'rappel' was beat—always a disagreeable hint. Presently I heard discharges of musketry, then they beat the 'générale.' My concierge ran into my room, and, with a long white face, told me the mob had erected huge barricades in the Faubourg-Saint-Denis, and above, down to the Porte St. Denis, and that tremendous fighting was going on there. (The Porte St. Denis bears marks of the fray.) 'Then, Madame Blanchard,' I said, 'as you seem to be breaking out again, I shall take a sac-de-nuit, and say adieu to you till you shall have returned to your good behaviour.'—'But monsieur could not get away for love or money—the insurgents have possession of the Chemin de Fer, and had torn up the rails as far as St. Denis.' This was what she had been told, so I went out to ascertain the fact.
"Impossible to approach that quarter, and difficult to turn the corner of a street without interruption—groups of fifteen, twenty, thirty, fifty, in blouses, dotted all about. Towards evening matters seemed rather more tranquil, and between six and seven o'clock I contrived (though not easily) to make my way to Sestels, in the Rue St. Honoré (one of the very best of the second-rate restaurateurs in Paris, 'which note'). The large saloon was filled with men in uniform, National Guards chiefly, and only two women there. I was there about an hour, and in that time three dead bodies were carried past on covered litters. It was thought the disturbances were pretty well over, as a powerful body of troops had been ordered down to the scene of action.
"At about eight o'clock I went out for the purpose of making a visit in the Rue d'Enghien, but found the whole width of the Boulevard Montmartre, which, as you know, leads to the Boulevard St. Denis, defended by a compact body of National Guards—impassable! Between nine and ten o'clock three regiments of cavalry, with cannon—a long, long procession—marched in the direction of the scene of insurrection. This was a comforting sight, and as such everybody seemed to consider it, and I went home. And this was Midsummer Eve!—Walpurgis Night!
"The next day, Saturday, Midsummer Day, I never shall forget! Sleep had been hopeless—the night had been disturbed by the frequent beating of the 'générale' and the cry 'Aux Armes!' Every now and then I looked up at the sky, expecting to see it red from some direful conflagration. Day came, and soon the firing of musketry was heard, now from the direction of the Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, now from the Faubourg-Saint-Marceaux. Then came the heavy booming of cannon—death in every echo! From twelve till nearly one, and again after a pause, it was dreadful. (I cannot make 'fun' of this, like the facetious correspondent of the Morning Post. Who is he? Surely he must be an ex-reporter for the Cobourg Play-house, with his vulgar, ill-timed play-house quotations. I am utterly disgusted and revolted at the tasteless levity with which he describes scenes of blood and destruction and death, and so treats of matters, all of which require grave and sober handling. And then he describes, as an eye-witness, things which, happen though they did, I am certain he could not have been present to see.)
"Well, as we were soon to be in a state of siege, and strictly confined to home, I can tell you nothing but what I saw here on this very spot. One event is a remembrance for life. In this house lived General de Bourgon, one of what they call the 'old Africans.' In the course of the morning General Korte (another of them) called on him, and said, 'I dare say Cavaignac has plenty to do. I will go and ask him if we can be of any service to him. If we can, I will send for you, so keep yourself in the way.' He was in Paris 'on leave,' and had no horse with him, so he sent Blanchard (the concierge) to the manège, which is in the next street, to inquire whether they had a horse that would 'stand fire.' Yes; but they would not let it go out. The next message intimated that they must send it, or it would be taken by force. At about two o'clock, going out, I met, coming out of his apartments on the second floor (I, you know, am on the fourth), General de Bourgon, in plain clothes, accompanied by his wife and his sister-in-law—the latter a very beautiful woman, somewhat in the style of Mrs. Norton. As usual, we exchanged bon-jours in passing. I went as far as the boulevard at the end of the street. There was a strong guard at the 'Hôtel des Affaires Étrangères,' and there I was stopped. An officer of the National Guard asked me whether I was proceeding in the direction of my residence. Answering in the negative, he said (but with great courtesy), 'Then, sir, I advise you to return; it is in your interest I do so; besides' (pointing in the direction where was heard a heavy firing), 'd'ailleurs, monsieur, ce n'est pas aujourd'hui un jour de promenade.'
"I returned, and tried by the Place Vendôme, but about half-way up the Rue de la Paix was again stopped. After loitering about for an hour, and unable to get anything in the shape of positive information, I returned home. Shortly after three I saw the General de Bourgon in full uniform, and on horseback. He proceeded a few paces, stopped to have one of his stirrup-leathers adjusted, and then, followed by an orderly, went off at a brisk trot. Soon afterwards a guard was placed in the middle and at each end of this street; no one was allowed to loiter, or to quit it but with good reason, and only then was passed on by one sentinel to the next, so from that moment I was not out of the house till Monday morning.
"At about half-past six the street—usually a noisy one—being perfectly still, I heard the measured tramp of feet approaching from the direction of the boulevard. I went to the window, and saw about fifteen or eighteen soldiers, some bearing, and the rest guarding, a litter, on which was stretched a wounded officer. He was bare-headed, his black stock had been removed, his coat thrown wide open, and over his left thigh was spread a soldier's grey greatcoat. To my horror the procession stopped at this door. It was the General brought home desperately wounded! I ran down and saw him brought up to his apartment, crying out with agony at every shake he received on the winding, slippery staircase. On the following Friday (the 30th), at eleven o'clock at noon, after severe suffering, he died. In the course of the day I saw him; his neck was uncovered, and the eyes open (a painter had been making a sketch of him)—he looked like one in placid contemplation. Previously to the fatal result, at one of my frequent visits of inquiry, I saw Madame de Bourgon (the sister-in-law). She replied mournfully, but without apparent emotion, 'We are in hopes they will be able to perform the amputation to-morrow.' (They could not.) 'But see! he has passed his life, as it were, on the field of battle—twelve years in Africa—and to fall in this way! But it was his duty to go out.'
"'And, madame, how is she?'
"'Eh, mon Dieu, monsieur! how would you have her be? But a soldier's wife must be prepared for these things.'
"(She, the sister-in-law, is the wife of the general's brother, Colonel de Bourgon.) His friend, General Korte, too, was wounded, but not dangerously.
"In all the African campaigns only two generals were killed, in these street fights six! But the insurgents fought at tremendous advantage. On that said Saturday afternoon two incidents occurred, trifling if you will, but they struck me. A large flight of crows passed over, taking a direction towards the prison of St. Lazare, showing that fighting was murderous; and a rainbow (one of the most beautiful I ever saw) rested like an arch on the line of roof of the opposite houses. Beneath it seemed to come the noise of the fight; the sign of peace and the sounds of war and death. Mrs. Norton could make a verse or two out of this. This was Midsummer's Day!
"Our Midsummer Night's dreams were not pleasant, believe me. No—there was no sleep on that night—a night of terrible anxiety. Paris was in a state of siege—no one allowed to be out of the house, nor a window permitted to be opened. All night was heard in ceaseless round, from the sentinel under my very window—'Sentinelle prenez garde à vous.' I can hardly describe by words the peculiar tone in which this was uttered, but the syllable 'nelle' was accented, and the word 'vous' was uttered briskly and sharply, like a sort of bark. This was given fortissimo—repeated by the next forte—beyond him, piano—further on, pianissimo—till it returned, louder and louder, and then died away again, and so on, and on, and on till daybreak. Then was beat the 'rappel'—then the 'générale'—then again the firing.
"This was Sunday morning, and from five o'clock till ten at night was not the happiest, but the longest day of my life. Any sort of occupation was out of the question. Each hour appeared a day. Impossible to get out, or to receive a visit, or to send a message, or to procure any reliable information as to what was going on, or how or when these doings were likely to end. All was doubt, uncertainty, dread and anxiety intolerable. The only information to be procured was from the bearers of some wounded men as they passed now and then to the Ambulance (the temporary hospital established at the Church of the Assumption). But no two accounts were alike. I was suffering deep anxiety concerning a good kind French family of my acquaintance, living within a five minutes' walk of this place. 'Could I by any possibility procure a commissionaire to carry a note for me? I'll give him five francs (the hire being ten sous).' 'Not, sir,' said my concierge, 'if you would give a hundred!' The poor general wanted some soldiers from the barracks (next to the Assumption) to carry an order for him. After great difficulty the wife of the concierge was allowed to go and fetch one; but she was searched for ammunition by the first sentinel, and then passed on thus and back again from one to another. No post in—no letters—no newspapers. At length, at a month's end, night came. That night like the last—'Sentinelle prenez garde à vous,' &c. &c.
"On Monday morning (26th), after a sleepless night—for, for any means we had of knowing to the contrary, the insurgents might at any moment be expected to attack this quarter, a quarter marked down by them for fire and pillage—at about eight o'clock, I lay down on a sofa and slept soundly till ten; I awoke, and was struck by the appalling silence! This is a noisy street. Always from about seven in the morning till late in the day one's head is distracted by the shrill cries of itinerant traders (to these are now added the cries of the vendors of cheap newspapers), the passage of carriages and carts of all descriptions, street-singers, organ-grinders endless, the screeching of parrots and barking of dogs exposed for sale by a grocer on the opposite side of the way, together with the swarming of his and his neighbour's dirty children—all was hushed; not a footfall, 'not (a line that is not often applicable here) a drum was heard.' Yes, I repeat it, this universal silence was appalling! Not a person, save the still guards on duty, was to be seen. The shops were all closed, and, but for this circumstance, it seemed like a Sunday! Strange! (and I find it was the same with many other persons to whom I have mentioned the circumstance) I was uncertain during these anxious days as to the day of the week. At about eleven o'clock the concierge came to tell me that the insurrection was at an end. In less than an hour there was heard a sharp fusillade and a heavy cannonade in the direction of the Faubourg-Saint-Antoine. The insurgents had strengthened themselves at that point (she came to say), but that, so far as she could learn, General Cavaignac had at length resolved, by bombarding the quartier, to suppress the insurrection before the day should end. And he did!
"Frequently during the day parties of tired soldiers, scarcely able to walk, passed on their way from the scene of action to their barracks or their bivouac; wounded men were every now and then brought to the Ambulance close by—one a Cuirassier, who, as the guard saluted him, smiled faintly, and just raised his hand in sign of recognition, which fell again at his side; and, most striking of all, bands of prisoners from among the insurgents!! Among them such hideous faces! scarcely human! No one knows whence they come. Like the stormy petrel, they only are seen in troubled times. I saw some such in the days of February, but never before, nor afterwards, till now. Imagine O. Smith, well "made-up" for one of the bloodiest and most melodramatic of his bloody melodramas—a Parisian dandy compared with some of these. Some of them naked to the waist, smeared with blood, hair and beard matted and of incalculable growth, bloodshot eyes, scowling ferocious brutes, their tigers' mouths blackened with gunpowder—creatures to look at and shudder! And into their hands was Paris and its peaceable honest inhabitants threatened to fall. With this I end.
Ever, my dear Dickens,
Cordially and sincerely yours,
John Poole.
"I began this on Saturday, and have been writing it, as best as I can, till now, Tuesday, three o'clock. Pray acknowledge the receipt when or if you receive it. This is a general letter to you all. If Forster thinks any paragraph of this worthy the Examiner, he may use it. Why does not the rogue write to me? Has he, or can he have, taken huff at anything? though I cannot imagine why or at what. But nobody writes to me. I can and will, some day, tell you a comic incident connected with all this, but it would not have been in keeping with the rest of this letter. Paris is now quiet, but very dull."
[Chat No. 11.]
"All round the house is the jet black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame.
Now my little heart goes a-beating like a drum,
With the breath of the Bogie in my hair;
And all round the candle the crooked shadows come
And go marching along up the stair.
The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
The shadow of the child that goes to bed—
All the wicked shadows coming, tramp, tramp, tramp,
With the black night overhead."
—R. L. Stevenson.
On the beautiful rocks of Red Head, near Arbroath, and surrounded by the glamour of Sir Walter Scott's "Antiquary," which was written in the alongside village of Auchmithie, and the plot and incidents of which are principally placed here, stands Ethie Castle, the Scotch home of the Earls of Northesk, and once one of the many residences of Cardinal Beaton, whose portrait by Titian hangs in the hall.
Many of the quaint old rooms have secret staircases at the bed-heads leading to rooms above or below, and forming convenient modes of escape if the occupants of the middle chambers were threatened with sudden attack. There are also some dungeon-like rooms below, with walls of vast thickness, and "squints" through which to fire arrows or musket-balls. The castle has been greatly improved and partly restored by its last owner, without removing or destroying any of its characteristic points.
Searching, when a guest there some years ago, amongst the literary and other curious remains, which add a great charm to this most interesting house, the writer was impressed with the following characteristic letter from Charles II. to the then Lord Northesk, which he was permitted to copy, and now to print. The letter is curious, as showing the evident belief that the King held in his Divine right to interfere with his subjects' affairs.
It is a holograph, beautifully written in a small clear hand—-not unlike that of W. M. Thackeray—-and has been fastened with a seal, still unbroken, no larger than a pea, but which nevertheless contains the crown and complete royal arms, and is a most beautiful specimen of seal-engraving. It would be interesting to know if this seal still exists amongst the curiosities at Windsor Castle:—-
"Whitehall, 20 Nov. 1672.
"My Lord Northesk,
I am so much concerned in my Ld Balcarriess that, hearing he is in suite of one of your daughters, I must lett you know, you cannot bestow her upon a person of whose worth and fidelity I have a better esteeme, which moves me hartily to recommend to you and your Lady, your franck compliance with his designe, and as I do realy intend to be very kinde to him, and to do him good as occasion offers, as well for his father's sake as his owne, so if you and your Lady condescend to his pretension, and use him kindly in it, I shall take it very kindly at your hands, and reckon it to be done upon the accounte of
Your affectionate frinde,
Charles R."
For the Earle of Northesk.
Looking at the fine portrait of the recipient of this royal request, which hangs in the castle, and the stern, unrelenting expression of the otherwise handsome face, it is not difficult to presume that he somewhat resented this interference with his domestic plans. No copy of Lord Northesk's reply exists, but its contents may be guessed by the second letter from Whitehall, this time written by Lord Lauderdale:—
"Whitehall, 18 Jany. 1673.
"My Lord,
Yesterday I received yours of the 7th instant, and, according to your desire, I acquainted the King with it. His Majesty commanded me to signify to you that he is satisfied. For as he did recommend that marriage, supposing that it was acceptable to both parties, so he did not intend to lay any constraint upon you. Therfor he leaves you to dispose of your daughter as you please. This is by His Majesty's command signified to your Lordship by,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most humble servant,
Lauderdale."
Earl Northesk.
As, however, the marriage eventually did take place, let us hope that the young couple arranged it themselves, without any further expression of Royal wishes by the evidently well-meaning, if somewhat imperative, King.
Ethie has, of course, its family legends and ghosts—what old Scotch house is without them?—but the following, which I am most kindly permitted to repeat, is so curious in its modern confirmation, that it is well worth adding to the store of such weird narratives.
Many years ago, it is said that a lady in the castle destroyed her young child in one of the rooms, which afterwards bore the stigma of the association. Eventually the room was closed, the door screwed up, and heavy wooden shutters were fastened outside the windows. But those who occupied the rooms above and below this gruesome chamber would often hear, in the watches of the night, the pattering of little feet over the floor, and the sound of the little wheels of a child's cart being dragged to and fro; a peculiarity connected with this sound being, that one wheel creaked and chirruped as it moved. Years rolled by, and the room continued to bear its sinister character until the late Lord Northesk succeeded to the property, when he very wisely determined to bring, if possible, the legend to an end, and probe the ghostly story to its truthful or fictitious base.
Consequently he had the outside window shutters removed, and the heavy wall-door unscrewed, and then, with some members of his family present, ordered the door to be forced back. When the room was open and birds began to sing, it proved to be quite destitute of furniture or ornament. It had a bare hearth-stone, on which some grey ashes still rested, and by the side of the hearth was a child's little wooden go-cart on four solid wooden wheels!
Turning to his daughter, my lord asked her to wheel the little carriage across the floor of the room. When she did so, it was with a strange sense of something uncanny that the listeners heard one wheel creak and chirrup as it ran!
Since then the baby footsteps have ceased, and the room is once more devoted to ordinary uses, but the ghostly little go-cart still rests at Ethie for the curious to see and to handle. Many friends and neighbours yet live who testify to having heard the patter of the feet and the creak of the little wheel in former days, when the room was a haunted reality, but now the
"Little feet no more go lightly,
Vision broken!"
[Chat No. 12.]
"I work on,
Through all the bristling fence of nights and days,
Which hedge time in from the eternities."
—Mrs. Browning.
The late Cardinal Manning always felt a great interest in our parish of Brasted. In former times it formed part of Hever Chase, the property of Sir Thomas Boleyn (the father of Queen Anne Boleyn), who lived at Hever Castle, about four miles from Brasted, a fine Tudor specimen of domestic architecture, which is now somewhat jealously shown to the public on certain days. Hever Castle is the original of Bovor Castle, immortalised by Mr. Burnand in his wonderful "Happy Thoughts."
The Cardinal's father, who was at one time an opulent city merchant, and sometime Governor of the Bank of England, owned the estate of Combe Bank, formerly the English location of the Argyll family, whose Duke sat in the House of Lords, until quite a recent date, as Baron Sundridge, the name of the adjacent village.
In Sundridge Church are some family busts of the Argylls by Mrs. Dawson Damer, who stayed much at Combe Bank, and who lies buried with all her graving and sculpting tools in Sundridge churchyard.
The Cardinal and his elder brother, Charles Manning, passed some youthful years in this house, and when financial trouble overtook their father, and he was obliged to part with the property, it became the ever-present desire and day-dream of the elder son to succeed in life and repurchase the place. He succeeded well in life, and enjoyed a very long and happy one; but he never became the owner of Combe Bank, the hope to do so only fading with his life.
He owned, or leased, a pleasant old house at Littlehampton; and if his brother, the Cardinal, was in need of rest, he would lend it to him, when the Cardinal's method of relaxation was to go to bed in a sea-looking room, and, with window open, read, write, and contemplate for some three or four days and nights, and then arise refreshed like a giant, and return to the manifold duties waiting for him in town.
The Cardinal's home in London was formerly the Guard's Institute in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, which, failing in its first intention, was purchased as the palace for the then newly-elected Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster. It proved to be rather a dreary, draughty, uncomfortable abode, but having the advantage of a double staircase and some large reception rooms, was useful for the clerical assemblies he used to invoke.
I had the privilege, without being a member of his church, of being allowed to attend the meetings of the Academia which the Cardinal held every now and then during the London season. His friends would gather in one of the big rooms a little before eight in the evening, and sit in darkened circles around a small centre table, before which a high-backed carved chair stood. The entire light for the apartment proceeded from two big silver candlesticks on the table. As the clock chimed eight, the Cardinal, clothed in crimson cassock and skull-cap, would glide into the room, and standing before the episcopal chair, murmur a short Latin prayer, after which the discussion of the evening would begin; when all that wished had had their little say, the Cardinal replied to the points raised by the various speakers, and closed the debate; after which he held a sort of informal reception, welcoming individually every guest.
No one but a Rembrandt could give the beautiful effect of the half-lights and heavy black shadows of this striking gathering, with its centre of colour and light in the tall red figure of the Cardinal, his noble face and picturesque dress forming a mind-picture which can never fade from the memory. The strong theatrical effect, combined with the real simplicity of the scene, the personal interest of many of those who took part in the discussion, the associations with the past, the speculation whither the innovation of the installation of a Roman Catholic Archbishop in Westminster was tending, giving the observer bountiful food for much solemn thought.
Upon our book-shelves repose four volumes of the Cardinal's sermons, preached when a member of the Church of England, and Archdeacon of Chichester. They were bought at Bishop Wilberforce's sale, who was the Cardinal's brother-in-law, and contain the autograph of William Wilberforce, the bishop's eldest brother. Upon the same shelf will be found a copy of "Parochial Sermons" by John Henry Newman, Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford. This volume formerly belonged to Bishop Stanley, and came from the library of his celebrated son, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, sometime Dean of Westminster.
A good book might be written by one who is duly qualified on "the Poets who are not read." It would not be flattering to the ghosts of many of the departed great, but there is so much assumption on the part of the general reader, that he knows them all, has read them all, and generally likes them all, which if examined into closely would prove a snare and a delusion, that one is tempted to administer some gentle interrogatories upon the subject. First and foremost, then, who now reads Byron? His works rest on the shelves, it is true, but are they ever opened, except to verify a quotation? Does the general reader of this time steadily go through "Childe Harold," "Don Juan," and his other splendid works. Not death but sleep prevails, from which perchance one day he may awake and again enjoy his share of fame and favour. It is the fashion with many persons to express the utmost sympathy with and acute knowledge of the work of Robert Browning, but we doubt if many of these could pass a Civil Service examination in the very poems they name so glibly. He is so hard to understand without time and close study, that few have the inclination to give either in these days of pressure, worry, and rush.
Upon neglected shelves Cowper and Crabbe lie dusty and unopened—the only person who read Crabbe in these days was the late Edward FitzGerald; and it is a small class apart that still looks up to Wordsworth. The stars of Keats and Shelley, it is true, are just now in the ascendant, and may so remain for a little while.
It is difficult and dangerous, we are told, to prophesy unless we know, but our private opinion is that Lord Tennyson's fame has been declining since his death, and that a large portion of his poems and all his plays will die, leaving a living residuum of such splendid work as "Maud," "In Memoriam," and some of his short poems.
America has furnished us with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose charm and finish is likely to continue its hold upon our imagination; then there is the Quaker poet Whittier, who will probably only live in a song or two; and Longfellow, whose popularity has a long time since declined. He once wrote a sort of novel or romance called "Hyperion," which showed his reading public for the first time that he was possessed of a gentle humour, which does not often appear in his poems. For instance, one of his characters, by name Berkley, wishing to console a jilted lover, says—
"'I was once as desperately in love as you are now; I adored, and was rejected.'
"'You are in love with certain attributes,' said the lady.
"'Damn your attributes, madam,' said I; 'I know nothing of attributes.'
"'Sir,' said she, with dignity, 'you have been drinking.'
"So we parted. She was married afterwards to another, who knew something about attributes, I suppose. I have seen her once since, and only once. She had a baby in a yellow gown. I hate a baby in a yellow gown. How glad I am she did not marry me."
The fate of most poets is to be cut up for Dictionaries of Quotations, for which amiable purpose they are often admirably adapted.
[Chat No. 13.]
"She will return, I know she will,
She will not leave me here alone."
Staying many years ago in a pleasant country-house, whilst walking home after evening church my host remarked, as we passed in the growing darkness a house from which streamed a light down the path from the front door, "Ah! Jane has not yet returned." The phrase sounded odd, and when we were snugly ensconced in the smoking-room, he that evening told me the following story, which, however, then stopped midway, but to which I am now able to add the sequel.
A certain John Manson (the name is, of course, fictitious), an elderly wealthy City bachelor, married late in life a young girl of great beauty, and with no friends or relations.
She found her husband's country home, in which she was necessarily much alone, very dull, and she thought that he was hard and unsympathising when he was at home; whereas, although a curt, reserved manner gave this impression, he was really full of love for, and confidence in his young wife, and inwardly chafed at and deplored his want of power to show what his real feelings were.
The misunderstanding between them grew and widened, like the poetical "rift within the lute," and soon after the birth of her child, a girl, she left her home with her baby, merely leaving a few lines of curt farewell, and was henceforth lost to him. His belief in her honesty never wavered; and night after night, with his own hand, he lighted and placed in a certain hall-window a lamp which thus illuminated the path to the door, saying, "Jane will return, poor dear; and it's sure to be at night, and she'll like to see the light."
Years passed by, and Jane made no sign, the light each evening shining uselessly; and still a stranger to her home, she died, leaving her daughter, now a beautiful girl of twenty, and marvellously like what her mother was when she married.
The husband, unaware of the death of his wife, himself came to lay him for the last beneath his own roof-tree, and still his one cry was, "Jane will return." It seemed as if he could not pass in peace from this world's rack until it was accomplished—when, lo! a miracle came to pass; for the daughter arrived one evening with a letter from her mother, written when she was dying, and asking her husband's forgiveness, and the light still beamed from the beacon window.
The old man was only semi-conscious, and mistaking his child for her mother, with a strong voice cried out, "I knew you'd come back," and died in the moment of the joy of her supposed return.
By a curious coincidence, since writing this true story, which was told to me in 1865, some of the incidents, in an altered form, have found a place in Mr. Ian Maclaren's popular book, "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush." It would be interesting to know from whence he drew his inspiration, and whether his story should perchance trace back to a common ancestor in mine.
A few years ago Mr. Walter Hamilton published, in six volumes, the most complete collection of English parodies ever brought together. Amongst others, he gave a vast number upon the well-known poem by Charles Wolfe of "Not a drum was heard." Page after page is covered with them, upon every possible subject; but the following one, written by an "American cousin" many years ago, and which was not accessible to Mr. Hamilton, is perhaps worth repeating and preserving. He called it "The Mosquito Hunt," and it runs as follows, if my memory serves me faithfully, I having no written note of it:—
"Not a sound was heard, but a horrible hum,
As around our chamber we hurried,
In search of the insect whose trumpet and drum
Our delectable slumber had worried.
We sought for him darkly at dead of night,
Our coverlet carefully turning,
By the shine of the moonbeam's misty light,
And our candle dimly burning.
About an hour had seemed to elapse,
Ere we met with the wretch that had bit us;
And raising our shoe, gave some terrible slaps,
Which made the mosquito's quietus.
Quickly and gladly we turned from the dead,
And left him all smash'd and gory;
We blew out the candle, and popped into bed,
And determined to tell you the story!"
[Chat No. 14.]
"The welcome news is in the letter found,
The carrier's not commissioned to expound:
It speaks itself."
—Dryden.
A pleasant hour may perhaps be passed in searching through the family autograph-box in the book-room. Its contents are varied and far-fetched. A capital series of letters from that best and most genial of correspondents, James Payn, are there to puzzle, by their very difficult calligraphy, the would-be reader. Mr. Payn, a dear friend to Foxwold, is now a great invalid, and a brave sufferer, keeping, despite his pain, the same bright spirit, the same brilliant wit, and delighting with the same enchanting conversation. Out of all his work, there is nothing so beautiful as his lay-sermons, published in a small volume called "Some Private Views;" and but a little while since he wrote, on his invalid couch, a most affecting study, called "The Backwater of Life;" it has only up to the present time appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, but will doubtless be soon collected with other work in a more permanent form. It is a pathetic picture of how suffering may be relieved by wit, wisdom, and courage.
As Mr. Leslie Stephen well says in his brother's life, "For such literature the British public has shown a considerable avidity ever since the days of Addison. In spite of occasional disavowals, it really loves a sermon, and is glad to hear preachers who are not bound by the proprieties of the religious pulpit. Some essayists, like Johnson, have been as solemn as the true clerical performer, and some have diverged into the humorous with Charles Lamb, or the cynical with Hazlitt." [2]
In Mr. Payn's lay-sermons we have the humour and the pathos, the tears being very close to the laughter; and they reflect in a peculiarly strong manner the tender wit and delicate fancy of their author.
But to return to our autograph-box. Here we find letters from such varied authors as Josef Israels, the Dutch painter, Hubert Herkomer, W. B. Richmond, Mrs. Carlyle, Wilkie Collins, Dean Stanley, and a host of other interesting people. Perhaps a few extracts, where judicious and inoffensive, may give an interest to this especial chat.
The late Mrs. Charles Fox of Trebah was in herself, both socially and intellectually, a very remarkable woman. Born in the Lake Country, and belonging to the Society of Friends, she formed, as a girl, many happy friendships with the Wordsworths, the Southeys, the Coleridges, and all that charmed circle of intellect, every scrap of whose sayings and doings are so full of interest, and so dearly cherished.
These friendships she continued to preserve after her marriage, and when she had exchanged her lovely lake home for an equally beautiful and interesting one on the Cornish coast, first at Perran and afterwards at Trebah.
One of her special friendships was with Hartley Coleridge, who indited several of his sonnets to his beautiful young friend.
The subjoined letter gives a pleasant picture of his friendly correspondence, and has not been included in the published papers by his brother, the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, who edited his remains.
"Dear Sarah,
If a stranger to the fold
Of happy innocents, where thou art one,
May so address thee by a name he loves,
Both for a mother's and a sister's sake,
And surely loves it not the less for thine.
Dear Sarah, strange it needs must seem to thee
That I should choose the quaint disguise of verse,
And, like a mimic masquer, come before thee
To tell my simple tale of country news,
Or,—sooth to tell thee,—I have nought to tell
But what a most intelligencing gossip
Would hardly mention on her morning rounds:
Things that a newspaper would not record
In the dead-blank recess of Parliament.
Yet so it is,—my thoughts are so confused,
My memory is so wild a wilderness,
I need the order of the measured line
To help me, whensoe'er I would attempt
To methodise the random notices
Of purblind observation. Easier far
The minuet step of slippery sliding verse,
Than the strong stately walk of steadfast prose.
Since you have left us, many a beauteous change
Hath Nature wrought on the eternal hills;
And not an hour hath past that hath not done
Its work of beauty. When December winds,
Hungry and fell, were chasing the dry leaves,
Shrill o'er the valley at the dead of night,
'Twas sweet, for watchers such as I, to mark
How bright, how very bright, the stars would shine
Through the deep rifts of congregated clouds;
How very distant seemed the azure sky;
And when at morn the lazy, weeping fog,
Long lingering, loath to leave the slumbrous lake,
Whitened, diffusive, as the rising sun
Shed on the western hills his rosiest beams,
I thought of thee, and thought our peaceful vale
Had lost one heart that could have felt its peace,
One eye that saw its beauties, and one soul
That made its peace and beauty all her own.
One morn there was a kindly boon of heaven,
That made the leafless woods so beautiful,
It was sore pity that one spirit lives,
That owns the presence of Eternal God
In all the world of Nature and of Mind,
Who did not see it. Low the vapour hung
On the flat fields, and streak'd with level layers
The lower regions of the mountainous round;
But every summit, and the lovely line
Of mountain tops, stood in the pale blue sky
Boldly defined. The cloudless sun dispelled
The hazy masses, and a lucid veil
But softened every charm it not concealed.
Then every tree that climbs the steep fell-side—
Young oak, yet laden with sere foliage;
Larch, springing upwards, with its spikey top
And spiney garb of horizontal boughs;
The veteran ash, strong-knotted, wreathed and twined,
As if some Dæmon dwelt within its trunk,
And shot forth branches, serpent-like; uprear'd
The holly and the yew, that never fade
And never smile; these, and whate'er beside,
Or stubborn stump, or thin-arm'd underwood,
Clothe the bleak strong girth of Silverhow
(You know the place, and every stream and brook
Is known to you) by ministry of Frost,
Were turned to shapes of Orient adamant,
As if the whitest crystals, new endow'd
With vital or with vegetative power,
Had burst from earth, to mimic every form
Of curious beauty that the earth could boast,
Or, like a tossing sea of curly plumes,
Frozen in an instant——"
"So much for verse, which, being execrably bad, cannot be excused, except by friendship, therefore is the fitter for a friendly epistle. There's logic for you! In fact, my dear lady, I am so much delighted, not to say flattered, by your wish that I should write to you, that I can't help being rather silly. It will be a sad loss to me when your excellent mother leaves Grasmere; and to-morrow my friend Archer and I dine at Dale End, for our farewell. But so it must be. I am always happy to hear anything of your little ones, who are such very sweet creatures that one might almost think it a pity they should ever grow up to be big women, and know only better than they do now. Among all the anecdotes of childhood that have been recorded, I never heard of one so characteristic as Jenny-Kitty's wish to inform Lord Dunstanville of the miseries of the negroes. Bless its little soul! I am truly sorry to hear that you have been suffering bodily illness, though I know that it cannot disturb the serenity of your mind. I hope little Derwent did not disturb you with his crown; I am told he is a lovely little wretch, and you say he has eyes like mine. I hope he will see his way better with them. Derwent has never answered my letter, but I complain not; I dare say he has more than enough to do. [3] Thank you kindly for your kindness to him and his lady. I hope the friendship of Friends will not obstruct his rising in the Church, and that he will consult his own interest prudently, paying court to the powers that be, yet never so far committing himself as to miss an opportunity of ingratiating himself with the powers that may be. Let him not utter, far less write, any sentence that will not bear a twofold interpretation! For the present let his liberality go no further than a very liberal explanation of the words consistency and gratitude may carry him; let him always be honest when it is his interest to be so, and sometimes when it may appear not to be so; and never be a knave under a deanery or a rectory of five thousand a year! My best remembrances to your husband, and kisses for Juliet and Jenny-Kitty, though she did say she liked Mr. Barber far better than me. I can't say I agree with her in that particular, having a weak partiality for
Your affectionate friend,
Hartley Coleridge."
Another friend of the Fox family was the late John Bright, and the following letter to the now well-known Caroline Fox of Penjerrick will be read with interest:—
Torquay, 10 mo. 13, 1868.
"My dear Friend,
I hope the 'one cloud' has passed away. I was much pleased with the earnestness and feeling of the poem, and wished to ask thee for a copy of it, but was afraid to give thee the trouble of writing it out for me.
"For myself, I have endeavoured only to speak when I have had something to say which it seemed to me ought to be said, and I did not feel that the sentiment of the poem condemned me.
"We had a pleasant visit to Kynance Cove. It is a charming place, and we were delighted with it. We went on through Helston to Penzance: the day following we visited the Logan Rock and the Land's End, and in the afternoon the celebrated Mount—the weather all we could wish for. We were greatly pleased with the Mount, and I shall not read 'Lycidas' with less interest now that I have seen the place of the 'great vision.' We found the hotel to which you kindly directed us perfect in all respects. On Friday we came from Penzance to Truro, and posted to St. Columb, where we spent a night at Mr. Northy's—the day and night were very wet. Next day we posted to Tintagel, and back to Launceston, taking the train there for Torquay.
"We were pressed for time at Tintagel, but were pleased with what we saw.
"Here, we are in a land of beauty and of summer, the beauty beyond my expectation, and the climate like that of Nice. Yesterday we drove round to see the sights, and W. Pengelly and Mr. Vivian went with us to Kent's Cavern, Anstey's Cove, and the round of exquisite views. We are at Cash's Hotel, but visit our friend Susan Midgley in the day and evening. To-morrow we start for Street, to stay a day or two with my daughter Helen, and are to spend Sunday at Bath. We have seen much and enjoyed much in our excursion, but we shall remember nothing with more pleasure than your kindness and our stay at Penjerrick.
"Elizabeth joins me in kind and affectionate remembrance of you, and in the hope that thy dear father did not suffer from the 'long hours' to which my talk subjected him. When we get back to our bleak region and home of cold and smoke, we shall often think of your pleasant retreat, and of the wonderful gardens at Penjerrick.
Believe me,
Always sincerely thy friend,
John Bright."
To Caroline Fox,
Penjerrick, Falmouth.
There are few men whose every uttered word is regarded with greater respect and interest than Mr. Ruskin. It is well known that he has always been a wide and careful collector of minerals, gems, and fine specimens of the art and nature world. One of his various agents, through whom at one time he made many such purchases, both for himself and his Oxford and Sheffield museums, was Mr. Bryce Wright, the mineralogist, and to him are addressed the following five letters:—
Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire,
22nd May '81.
"My dear Wright,
I am very greatly obliged to you for letting me see these opals, quite unexampled, as you rightly say, from that locality—but from that locality I never buy—my kind is the opal formed in pores and cavities, throughout the mass of that compact brown jasper—this, which is merely a superficial crust of jelly on the surface of a nasty brown sandstone, I do not myself value in the least. I wish you could get at some of the geology of the two sorts, but I suppose everything is kept close by the diggers and the Jews at present.
"As for the cameos, the best of the two, 'supposed' (by whom?) to represent Isis, represents neither Egyptian nor Oxonian Isis, but only an ill-made French woman of the town bathing at Boulogne, and the other is only a 'Minerve' of the Halles, a petroleuse in a mob-cap, sulphur-fire colour.
"I don't depreciate what I want to buy, as you know well, but it is not safe to send me things in the set way 'supposed' to be this or that! If you ever get any more nice little cranes, or cockatoos, looking like what they're supposed to be meant for, they shall at least be returned with compliments.
"I send back the box by to-day's rail; put down all expenses to my account, as I am always amused and interested by a parcel from you.
"You needn't print this letter as an advertisement, unless you like!
Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin."
Brantwood, 23rd May.
"My dear Wright,
The silver's safe here, and I want to buy it for Sheffield, but the price seems to me awful. It must always be attached to it at the museum, and I fear great displeasure from the public for giving you such a price. What is there in the specimen to make it so valuable? I have not anything like it, nor do I recollect its like (or I shouldn't want it), but if so rare, why does not the British Museum take it.
Ever truly yours,
J. Ruskin."
Brantwood, Wednesday.
"My dear Wright,
I am very glad of your long and interesting letter, and can perfectly understand all your difficulties, and have always observed your activity and attention to your business with much sympathy, but of late certainly I have been frightened at your prices, and, before I saw the golds, was rather uneasy at having so soon to pay for them. But you are quite right in your estimate of the interest and value of the collection, and I hope to be able to be of considerable service to you yet, though I fear it cannot be in buying specimens at seventy guineas, unless there is something to be shown for the money, like that great native silver!
"I have really not been able to examine the red ones yet—the golds alone were more than I could judge of till I got a quiet hour this morning. I might possibly offer to change some of the locally interesting ones for a proustite, but I can't afford any more cash just now.
Ever very heartily yours,
J. Ruskin."
Brantwood,
3rd Nov. or 4th (?), Friday.
"Dear Wright,
My telegram will, I hope, enable you to act with promptness about the golds, which will be of extreme value to me; and its short saying about the proustites will, I hope, not be construed by you as meaning that I will buy them also. You don't really suppose that you are to be paid interest of money on minerals, merely because they have lain long in your hands.
"If I sold my old arm-chair, which has got the rickets, would you expect the purchaser to pay me forty years' interest on the original price? Your proustite may perhaps be as good as ever it was, but it is not worth more to me or Sheffield because you have had either the enjoyment or the care of it longer than you expected!
"But I am really very seriously obliged by the sight of it, with the others, and perhaps may make an effort to lump some of the new ones with the gold in an estimate of large purchase. I think the gold, by your description, must be a great credit to Sheffield and to me; perhaps I mayn't be able to part with it!
Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin."
Herne Hill, S.E., 6 May '84.
"My dear Bryce,
I can't resist this tourmaline, and have carried it off with me. For you and Regent Street it's not monstrous in price neither; but I must send you back your (pink!) apatite. I wish I'd come to see you, but have been laid up all the time I've been here—just got to the pictures, and that's all.
Yours always,
(much to my damage!)
J. R."