Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 569, March, 1863

by Various

PART I.

CHAPTER I.—THE LADIES’ OPINION.

“You don’t mean to say she’s going to be married—not Mary? I don’t believe a word of it. She was too fond of her poor husband who put such trust in her. No, no, child—don’t tell such nonsense to me.”

So said old Miss Harwood when the dreadful intelligence was first communicated to her. The two old sisters, who were both charitable old souls, and liked to think the best of everybody, were equally distressed about this piece of village scandal. “I don’t say anything about her poor husband—he was a fool to trust so much to a woman of her age,” said Miss Amelia; “but in my opinion Mary Clifford has sense to know when she’s well off.” The very idea made the sisters angry: a woman with five thousand a-year, with five fine children, with the handsomest house and most perfect little establishment within twenty miles of Summerhayes; a widow, with nobody to cross or contradict her, with her own way and will to her heart’s content—young enough to be still admired and paid attention to, and old enough to indulge in those female pleasures without any harm coming of it; to think of a woman in such exceptionally blessed circumstances stooping her head under the yoke, and yielding a second time to the subjection of marriage, was more than either of the Miss Harwoods could believe.

“But I believe it’s quite true—indeed, I know it’s quite true,” said the curate’s little wife. “Mr Spencer heard it first from the Miss Summerhayes, who did not know what to think—their own brother, you know; and yet they couldn’t forget that poor dear Mr Clifford was their cousin; and then they are neither of them married themselves, poor dears, which makes them harder upon her.”

“We have never been married,” said Miss Amelia; “I don’t see what difference that makes. It is amusing to see the airs you little creatures give yourselves on the strength of being married. I suppose you think it’s all right—it’s a compliment to her first husband, eh? and shows she was happy with him?—that’s what the men say when they take a second wife; that’s how you would do I suppose, if——”

“Oh, Miss Amelia, don’t be so cruel,” cried the little wife. “I should die. Do you think I could ever endure to live without Julius? I don’t understand what people’s hearts are made of that can do such things: but then,” added the little woman, wiping her bright eyes, “Mr Clifford was not like my husband. He was very good, I daresay, and all that—but he wasn’t ——. Well, I don’t think he was a taking man. He used to sit such a long time after dinner. He used to——it’s very wicked to be unkind to the dead—but he wasn’t the sort of man a woman could break her heart for, you know.”

“I should like to know who is,” said Miss Amelia. “He left her everything, without making provision for one of the children. He gave her the entire power, like a fool, at her age. He did not deserve anything better; but it appears to me that Mary Clifford has the sense to know when she’s well off.”

“Well, well!” said old Miss Harwood, “I couldn’t have believed it, but now as you go on discussing, I daresay it’ll turn out true. When a thing comes so far as to be discussed, it’s going to happen. I’ve always found it so. Well, well! love has gone out of fashion nowadays. When I was a girl things were different. We did not talk about it half so much, nor read novels. But we had the right feelings. I daresay she will just be as affectionate to Tom Summerhayes as she was to her poor dear husband. Oh, my dear, it’s very sad—I think it’s very sad—five fine children, and she can’t be content with that. It’ll turn out badly, dear, and that you’ll see.”

“He’ll swindle her out of all her money,” said Miss Amelia.

“Oh, don’t say such dreadful things,” cried the curate’s little wife, getting up hastily. “I am sure I hope they’ll be happy—that is, as happy as they can be,” she added, with a touch of candid disapproval. “I must run away to baby now; the poor dear children!—I must say I am sorry for them—to have another man brought in in their poor papa’s place; but oh, I must run away, else I shall be saying cruel things too.”

The two Miss Harwoods discussed this interesting subject largely after Mrs Spencer had gone. The Summerhayes people had been, on the whole, wonderfully merciful to Mrs Clifford during her five years’ solitary reign at Fontanel. She had been an affectionate wife—she was a good mother—she had worn the weeds of her widowhood seriously, and had not plunged into any indiscreet gaieties when she took them off; while, at the same time, she had emerged sufficiently from her seclusion to restore Fontanel to its old position as one of the pleasantest houses in the county. What could woman do more? Tom Summerhayes was her husband’s cousin; he had been brought up to the law, and naturally understood affairs in general better than she did. Everybody knew that he was an idle fellow. After old Mr Summerhayes died, everybody quite expected that Tom would settle down in the old manor, and live an agreeable useless life, instead of toiling himself to death in hopes of one day being Lord Chancellor—a very unlikely chance at the best; and events came about exactly as everybody had predicted. At the same time, the entire neighbourhood allowed that Tom had exerted himself quite beyond all precedent on behalf of his cousin’s widow. Poor Mary Clifford had a great deal too much on her hands, he was always saying. It was a selfish sort of kindness to crush down a poor little woman under all that weight of wealth and responsibility; and so, at last, here was what had come of it. The Miss Harwoods sat and talked it all over that cold day in the drawing-room of Woodbine Cottage, which had one window looking to the village-green, and another, a large, round, bright bow-window, opening to the garden. The fire was more agreeable than the garden that day. Miss Harwood sat knitting in her easy-chair, while Miss Amelia occupied herself in ticketing all that miscellaneous basket of articles destined for the bazaar of ladies’ work to be held in Summerhayes in February; but work advanced slowly under the influence of such an inducement to talk. The old ladies, as may be supposed, came to a sudden pause and looked confused and guilty when the door opened and the Miss Summerhayes were announced. Perhaps the new visitors might even have heard something of the conversation which was going on with so much animation. Certainly it came to a most abrupt conclusion, and the Miss Harwoods looked consciously into each other’s faces when the ladies of the manor-house came to the door.

These ladies were no longer young, but they were far from having reached the venerable certainty of old-maidenhood which possessed the atmosphere of Woodbine Cottage. They were still in the fidgety unsettled stage of unweddedness—women who had fallen out of their occupation, and were subject to little tempers and vapours, not from real ill-humour or sourness, but simply by reason of the vacancy and unsatisfaction of their lives. The Miss Summerhayes often enough did not know what to do with themselves; and being unphilosophical, as women naturally are, they set down this restless condition of mind, not to the account of human nature generally, and of female impatience in particular, but to their own single and unwedded condition—a matter which still seemed capable of remedy; so that the fact must be admitted, that Miss Laura and Miss Lydia were sometimes a little flighty and uncertain in their temper; sometimes a little harsh in their judgments; and, in short, in most matters, betrayed a certain unsettledness and impatience in their minds, as people generally do, in every condition of existence, when they are discontented with their lot. The chances are that nothing would have pleased them better than to have plunged into an immediate discussion of all the circumstances of this strange piece of news with which Summerhayes was ringing; but the position was complicated by the fact that they were accompanied by little Louisa Clifford, who was old enough to understand all that was said, and quick enough to guess at any allusion which might be made to her mother, however skilfully veiled; so that, on the whole, the situation was as difficult a one for the four ladies, burning to speak but yet incapable of utterance, as can well be conceived.

“Oh, how far on you are,” cried Miss Laura; “I have not got in half the work that has been promised to me; but you always are first with everything—first in gardening, first in working, first in——”

“All the news, I am sure,” said Miss Lydia; “we, of course, never hear anything till it has happened. Provoking! Loo, shouldn’t you like to go to Miss Harwood’s maid, and ask her to show you the chickens? She has a perfect genius for poultry, though she is such a little thing; and Miss Amelia has such loves of dorkings. We shan’t be leaving for half an hour; now go, there’s a dear!”

“Thank you, cousin Lydia, I’d rather look at the things for the bazaar,” returned Loo, lifting a pair of acute suspicious eyes; a pale-faced little creature, sharp-witted and vigilant, instinctively conscious why her amusement was thus carefully provided for—Loo did not choose to go.

“Such a nuisance!” said Miss Laura; “I say we are just far enough off at the manor to be out of reach of everything except the bores and the troubles. You always think of us when you have stupid visitors, but you keep all that’s exciting to yourselves. Loo, darling! the Miss Harwoods’ violets are always out earlier than any one else’s. I have such a passion for violets! Do run out, dear, and see if you can find one for me yonder under the hedge.”

“I will ask mamma to send you some to-morrow, cousin Laura,” said the determined little Loo.

“Did you ever hear anything like it?” said Miss Lydia, in a half whisper. “Loo!”

“Loo will carry this basket up-stairs for me to my room,” said Miss Harwood, “and ask Harriet to show you the things in my cupboard, dear. All the prettiest things are there, and such a very grand cushion that I mean to make your mamma buy. Tell Harriet to show you everything; there’s a darling! That is a very bright little girl, my dears,” said the old lady, when Loo withdrew, reluctant but dutiful. “I hope nothing will ever be done to crush her spirit. I suppose you must have both come to tell us it’s not true.”

“Oh, you mean about my brother and Mary Clifford,” cried out both sisters in a breath. “Oh, Miss Harwood, did you ever hear of such a thing! Did you ever know anything so dreadful! Tom, that might have married anybody!” cried Miss Lydia; “and Mary Clifford, that was so inconsolable, and pretended to have broken her heart!” cried the younger sister. They were both in a flutter of eagerness, neither permitting the other to speak.

“Oh dear, dear, it does come so hard upon us,” said Miss Laura, “we that have always had such a prejudice against second marriages; and a cousin’s widow—it’s almost like a brother; and if poor Harry could rise from his grave, what would he say!” concluded Miss Lydia, who took up the strain without any intervals of punctuation. “I begin to think it’s all true the gentlemen say about women’s inconstancy; that is, your common style of women,” ran on the elder without any pause; “and poor dear Tom, who might have married any one,” cried the younger, out of breath.

“Then I perceive,” said Miss Amelia Harwood, “it’s true? Well, I don’t see much harm, for my part, if they have everything properly settled first. Poor Harry was all very well, I daresay, but he was a great fool not to provide for his children. Your brother said so at the time; but I did think, for my part, that Mary Clifford had the sense to know when she was well off.”

“Oh, she shows that,” cried Lydia Summerhayes, with a little toss of her head; “widows are so designing; they know the ways of men, and how to manage them, very differently from any of us—if we could stoop to such a thing, which of course, we wouldn’t. Oh yes, Mary Clifford knows very well what she’s about. I am sure I have told Tom he was her honorary secretary for many a day. I thought she was just making use of him to serve her own purpose; I never thought how far her wiles went. If it had been her lawyer, or the curate, or any humble person; but Tom! He might have done so much better,” said Laura, chiming in at some imperceptible point, so that it was impossible to tell where one voice ended and the other began.

“Well, I must say I am disappointed in Mary Clifford,” said Miss Harwood, “she was always such an affectionate creature. That’s why it is, I daresay. These affectionate people can’t do without an object; but her five children——”

“Ah! yes, her five children,” exclaimed the Miss Summerhayes; “only imagine dear Tom making such a marriage! Why, Charley Clifford has been at Eton ever so long; he is fifteen. And dear Tom is quite a young man, and might have married anybody,” said the last of the two, taking up the chorus: “it is too dreadful to think of it—such a cutting blow to us.”

“I can’t see how it is so very bad for you,” said Miss Amelia Harwood; “of course they will live at Fontanel, and you will still keep the manor-house. I think it’s rather a good thing for you for my part. Hush! there’s the child again—clever little thing—she knows quite well what we’ve been talking of. My dear, I hope Harriet showed you all the things—and isn’t that a pretty cushion? Tell your mamma I mean to make her buy it, as she is the richest lady I know.”

“Are you going, my dears?” said the elder old lady. “I am sorry you have so little time to stay—I hope you will find things arrange themselves comfortably, and that everybody will be happy. Don’t get excited—it’s astonishing how everything settles down. You want to speak to me, Loo,” said Miss Harwood, starting a little when she had just reseated herself in her easy-chair after dismissing her visitors. “Certainly, dear; I suppose you have set your little heart on one of the pretty pincushions up-stairs.”

“No, indeed, nothing of the sort—I hope I know better than to care for such trumpery,” said Loo, with an angry glow on her little pale face. “I stopped behind to say, that whatever mamma pleases to do, we mean to stand by her,” cried poor Mary Clifford’s only champion. “I’m not sure whether I shall like it or not for myself—but we have made up our minds to stand by mamma, and so we will, as long as we live; and she shall do what she likes!” cried the little heroine. Two big tears were in those brown eyes, which looked twice as bright and as big through those great dew-drops which Loo would not for the world have allowed to fall. She opened her eyelids wider and wider to re-absorb the untimely tears, and looked full, with childish defiance, in Miss Harwood’s face.

“Loo, you are a dear!” said prompt Miss Amelia, kissing the child; “you shall have the prettiest pincushion in all my basket.” The little girl vanished suddenly after this speech, half in indignation at the promise, half because the tears would not be disposed of otherwise, and it was necessary to rush outside to conceal their dropping. “Ah! Amelia,” said kind old Miss Harwood, “I’m sorry for poor Mary in my heart—but I’d rather have that child’s love than Tom Summerhayes.”

“Poor Mary! for my part, I have no patience with her,” said the practical Miss Amelia; “a woman come to her time of life ought to have the sense to know when she’s well off.”

Such was the character of the comments made upon Mrs Clifford’s marriage when it was first talked of, in Woodbine Cottage, and generally among all the female portion of society as it existed in Summerhayes.

CHAPTER II.—WHAT THE GENTLEMEN SAID.

The Rector of Summerhayes was the Miss Harwoods’ brother, much younger however, unmarried, and rather a fine man in his way. He had a little dinner, as it happened, the same evening. His table only held six, Mr Harwood said. The rectory was an old-fashioned house, and the dining-room would have quite admitted a table which could dine twenty—but such were not the Rector’s inclinations. There are enough men in the neighbourhood of Summerhayes to make it very possible to vary your parties pleasantly when you have a table that only holds six, whereas with a large number you can only have the same people over and over again; and Mr Harwood did not like to be bored. He had a friend with him from town, as he always had on such occasions. He had his curate, and young Chesterfield from Dalton, and Major Aldborough, and Dr Gossett; rather a village party—as he explained to Mr Temple, the stranger—but not bad company. The dinner was a very good one, like all the Rector’s little dinners, and was consumed with that judicious reticence in the way of talk, and wise suspension of wit, which is only practicable in a party composed of men. By means of this sensible quietness, the dinner was done full justice to, and the company expanded into full force over their wine. Then the conversation became animated. The Rector, it is true, indulged in ten minutes’ parish talk with the Doctor, while Mr Temple and Major Aldborough opened the first parallel of a political duel, and young Chesterfield discoursed on the last Meet to poor Mr Spencer, who, reduced into curate-hood and economy, still felt his mouth water over such forbidden pleasures. Then Mr Harwood himself introduced the subject which at that time reigned paramount over all other subjects at Summerhayes.

“So Tom Summerhayes is going to marry little Mrs Clifford,” said the Rector; “hadn’t you heard of it? Yes, these grapes are from Fontanel. She has a capital gardener, and her conservatories are the finest in the county. A very pleasant little house altogether, though there are some particulars about her table which one feels to be feeble. Her dinners are always a little defective since poor Clifford’s death—too mild, you know—too sweet—want the severer taste of a man.”

“Mrs Clifford—a pretty little woman with brown eyes?” said Mr Temple. “I’ve met her somewhere. So she gives dinners, does she? When I saw her she was in the recluse line. I suppose that didn’t last.”

“It lasted quite long enough,” said Dr Gossett; “nothing could be more proper, or more ladylike, or more satisfactory in every way. If I had a wife and were unluckily to die, I should wish her just to wear her weeds and so forth like Mrs Clifford—a charming woman; what should we do without her in the parish? but as for Tom Summerhayes——”

“He’s an ass,” growled the Major. “What’s he got to do burdening himself with other people’s children. Why, there’s five of ’em, sir! They’ll hate him like poison—they’ll think he’s in no end of conspiracies to shut them out of their fortune. By Jove! if he knew as much about other people’s children as I do. I’ve had two families consigned to me from India—as if I were a reformatory, or a schoolmaster, by Jove! She’s all very well, as women go; but I wouldn’t marry that family—no, not for twenty-five thousand a-year.”

“I confess I think it’s a pity,” said Mr Spencer, playing with the Fontanel grapes. The Curate perhaps was thinking in his heart that such delicate little souvenirs might have gone quite as appropriately to his own little ménage as to the Rector’s, who lacked for nothing. “It’s like going into life at second hand, you know. I shouldn’t like it, for my part. The children are a drawback, to be sure; but that’s not the greatest, to my mind; they are nice enough children.”

“Delightful children!” cried the Doctor, “little bricks! plucky little things! I don’t care for babies, though they’re partly my business. A family ready made would just suit me.”

“Well, it ain’t much in my line to say what a fellow ought or oughtn’t to do,” said young Chesterfield. “I’m not a marrying man myself. I don’t pretend to understand that sort of thing, you know. But Summerhayes ain’t a spoon, as everybody will allow. He knows what he’s doing. Last time I was at Fontanel, I couldn’t make out for the life of me what Mrs Clifford wanted with that new set of stables. She said they were preparing against Charley’s growing up. I thought somehow Summerhayes must have a hand in it, and it’s plain enough now.”

“Well, he has done a great deal for her,” said the Rector; “he’s been a sort of unpaid steward at Fontanel. I daresay she didn’t know how to reward him otherwise. I believe that’s the handiest way of making it up to a man in a lady’s fancy. It’s a dangerous kind of business to go on long; but I don’t know that there’s anything to find fault with. She’s pretty and he’s not young;—well, not exactly a young fellow, I mean,” said the Rector, with a half apology. “I daresay they’ll do very well together. If poor Clifford had only made a sensible will—but for that nobody would have had any right to talk.”

“And what was poor Clifford’s will?” asked the stranger, with a polite yawn; “men don’t generally study their wife’s convenience in a second marriage, in that document; has the defunct been harder upon this lively lady than most husbands, or what’s wrong about his will?”

“Deuced fool, sir,” cried the Major; “left her every farthing he had in the world, without settling a penny on those deuced children, or binding her up anyhow; left her at thirty or so, I suppose, with every penny he had in her hands. Never heard of such an ass. Of course that’s what Summerhayes means, but I can tell him it won’t be a bed of roses. They’ll hate him like poison, these brats will—they’ll make parties against him—they’ll serve him so that he’ll be sick of his life. I know the whole business. He’s well enough off now, with his old father’s savings, and the manor-house, and nothing to do; but he’ll be a wretched man, mark my words, if he marries Fontanel with five children in it. It’s the maddest thing he ever did in his life.”

“The poor lady doesn’t seem to count for much,” said Mr Temple. “She’s a pretty nobody, I suppose.”

Upon which vehement disclaimers rose from all the convives. “No, she was a charming woman,” Gossett said. “A dear, kind-hearted, good little soul,” said the Rector. “Very well as women go,” the Major admitted; while the two young men added warmer, but equally vague commendations. “Yet none of you imagine she is being married for herself,” said the solitary individual who did not belong to Summerhayes, with a little laugh at the perturbation he had caused. But nobody saw the fun of it: they went on with the discussion, ignoring Mr Temple.

“When a woman is in Mrs Clifford’s position,” said the Doctor, “it is nonsense to talk of her being married. She is active, she is no longer passive in such a business. She’s richer, she’s gooder, she’s handsomer, she’s better off every way than Tom Summerhayes. How she ever came to fancy him is the wonder to me.”

“Deuced nonsense,” said the Major; “why didn’t he marry off his sisters and set up snug for himself? He’s old enough to know better, that fellow is. There’s young Chesterfield there, he’s at the time of life to make a fool of himself; but Summerhayes must be, let me see——”

“Don’t let us go into chronology,” said the Rector. “Poor little Mary, I hope she’ll be happy all the same. I married her to poor Clifford, and I daresay I’ll have this little business to do as well. I wish she had a brother, or an uncle, or some one to take that piece of duty off my hands. I think I will have one of my attacks, and go off to Malvern, and leave it, Spencer, to you.”

“I wish she had an uncle or a brother for more than that,” said the Doctor; “it ought to be seen to—the settlement and all that should be looked well into. I hope she’ll have her wits about her. Not that I mean to ascribe any mean motives to Tom Summerhayes; but still when there’s five children to be considered——”

“They’ll kill him, sir,” said the Major, with energy. “He’ll not enjoy her money for long, mark my words; they’ll kill him in a year. I have only got this to say, sir,” continued the warrior, turning round upon Mr Temple, who had ventured a remark not bearing on the present subject to the Curate, “if this income-tax is going to be kept up without any compensation, I’ll emigrate—it’s the only thing that remains for honest Englishmen. After a life spent in the service of my country, I’ll be driven to a colony, sir, in my old age. It’s more than the country can bear, and what’s better, it’s more than the country will bear. We’ll have a revolution, by Jove! that’s what will come of all this taxing and paying; it’s not to be borne, sir, in a land that calls itself free.”

Whereupon politics came into possession of the elders of the party, and young Chesterfield resumed that tantalising account of the Meet which made the poor Curate sigh.

Poor Mrs Clifford! she had but scant sympathy in those innumerable discussions, male and female, of which she was at present the subject, all in and about Summerhayes.

CHAPTER III.—WHAT THE CHILDREN HAD TO SAY.

Meanwhile little Loo, with another pair of big tears in her brown eyes, had been driven home in the wintry twilight over the frosty road, which rang to every stamp of her ponies’ heels in a way which would have excited the little thing into positive enjoyment of the exhilarating sounds and sensations of rapid motion, had things been as usual. As it was, she sat wrapped up in a fur cloak, with her little veil over her face, watching the great trees glide past in the darkening, and turning her wistful looks now and then to the young winterly moon, which had strayed like a lost child into the midst of a whole covey of clouds, still crimsoned with reflections from the sunset. Loo’s little heart ached so, and she was so steadfastly determined not to admit that it was aching, that she was almost glad to feel how chill her little feet were getting, and how benumbed the hand which was outside of the fur cloak. She kept her little stiff fingers exposed to the frosty breeze all the same, and was rather glad of that sensation of misery which gave her a little excuse to herself for feeling unhappy. As the tinges of crimson stole out of the clouds, and the sky grew so wistfully, coldly clear around the moon, Fontanel came in sight, with lights in all its windows, twinkling through the trees in the long avenue, now one gleam, now another, as the little carriage drove on. There first of all was the great nursery window blazing with firelight, where Loo meant to hold a little committee as soon as she got in, and where she could so well picture “all of them” in all their different occupations, populating all the corners of the familiar room. A little further on it was the window of mamma’s room, which lightened brightly out behind the bare branches of the great chestnut tree. What would the house be without mamma? the little girl asked herself, and the great blobs of hot dew in her eyes fell upon her cold fingers. “Aren’t you well, Miss Loo?” asked the old groom who drove her, and Loo made him a very sharp answer in the irritation of her troubled little heart. She ran into the light and comfort of the house with a perverse, childish misery which she did not understand. She would not let old William take her cloak from her, but threw it down, and stumbled over it, and stamped her little foot, and could have cried. Poor little Loo! she was sick at heart, and did not know what it meant. Instead of going to her mother, as she usually did, she hastened up to the nursery where “all of them” were in a highly riotous condition at the moment, and where the darkness of her little face was unnoted by all but nurse, who took off her boots and warmed her feet, and did away with the only physical reason Loo dared to pretend to as an excuse for looking wretched. It was not very easy to look wretched in that room. By the side of the fire where a great log blazed was Harry, aged ten, with a great book clasped in his arms, and his cheeks and hair equally scorched and crimsoned with near vicinity to the flame. Little Mary, and Alf, the baby, were playing at the other end of the room. Alf was six, though he was the baby; but Mrs Clifford was the kind of woman to love a pet, and the little fellow’s indignant manhood was still smothered in long curls and lace tuckers. He avenged himself by exercising the most odious tyranny over his next little sister, who was Baby’s slave. All this little company Loo looked round upon with mysterious looks. She herself was twelve, little and pale, with nothing particular about her but her eyes, and her temper, which had already made itself, unfortunately, felt through the house. She sat maturing her plans till she heard the clock strike, and saw that it would shortly be time to go to her mother in her dressing-room, as the Fontanel children always did before dinner. She immediately bestirred herself to her task.

“Nurse,” said Loo, “will you take these things down to mamma’s dressing-room, please, and tell her we will all come presently; and if you wish to go down-stairs, you may. I will take care of the children, and take them down to mamma.”

“Thank you, Miss Loo; but there’s nobody to be at dinner but Mr Summerhayes and Mademoiselle, and you’re all to go down,” said Nurse; “you’re too little to have the charge of Master Alf, and you’ve all got to be dressed, dears, for dessert.”

“Then you can come up when I ring. I want the children by themselves,” said little Loo, with her imperious air. “You can go away.”

“You’re a deal too forward for such a little thing. I’ll speak to your ma, Miss, I will,” said the offended nurse. “At least I would if it was any good; but as long as Missis encourages her like this;—oh children dear, there’s changed times coming! You won’t have the upper hand always; it’s a comfort to a poor servant anyhow, whatever it may be to other folks. I’m going, Miss Loo; and you’ll come up directly the very minute you leave your ma to be dressed.”

Loo watched her to the door, and, skipping off her chair, closed it behind the dethroned guardian of the nursery. “Now, children, come here, I want to speak to you all,” said the little princess. “Mary, don’t be as great a baby as Alf; you are eight—you are almost a woman. Alf, come here and stand by me like a gentleman. Harry——”

But Harry was not so easily roused. He had been lectured so long about scorching his face that he was now proof to all appeals. He had to be hunted up out of his corner, and the book skilfully tilted up and thrown out of his arms, which operation surprised Loo into a momentary laugh, of which she was much ashamed. “Harry!” she cried, with redoubled severity, “it is no nonsense I am going to talk of—it is something very serious. Oh, children!” exclaimed the elder sister, as Alf jumped upon Harry’s back, and the two had a harmless scuffle in continuation of that assault which had roused Harry. “Oh, children!” cried Loo, who had laughed in spite of herself, now bursting into quick tears of impatience and vexation. “You play and play and think of nothing else—and you won’t let me talk to you of what’s going to happen to mamma.”

“What is it?” cried Harry, opening a pair of great bright eyes, and coming hastily to his sister’s side. Alf asked “What is it?” too, and placed himself on the other hand. As for Mary, she was frightened and stood a little apart, ready to rush off to her mother, or to ring for Nurse, or to do anything else that the exigency might demand.

“Do you remember what mamma said to us when we were in the dining-room on Sunday after dinner, when Tom—I mean when Mr Summerhayes was there—when he kissed us all?” said Loo, with a little red spot suddenly glowing out upon one indignant little cheek.

“She said he was going to be a father to us,” said Harry, rather stolidly.

“And we didn’t know what it meant,” said little Mary, breaking in eagerly, “but Nurse told me afterwards. It means that mamma is going to be married to cousin Tom. Oh, won’t it be queer? Shall we have to call him papa, Loo? I shall never recollect, I am sure.”

Loo gazed with eyes growing larger and larger in the face of her insensible sister. Then seeing Mary’s arm on the top of the great nursery fender, Loo, we are sorry to say, was so far betrayed by her resentment as to thrust little Mary violently away with a sob of passion. They all looked at her with wondering eyes.

“Oh, you stupid, stupid children!” cried the poor little heroine, “don’t you know mamma, though she is so pretty, is not a young lady like other people that are going to be married; don’t you know people talk about it, and laugh at her, and say she is foolish? I have heard them do it!” cried Loo. “I heard them in Summerhayes to-day talking and scolding about our mamma. She knows best what to do—better than all of them. She will never be unkind to us, or stop loving us. Oh, only think if she knew that people said such things—it would kill her! I heard them, and I thought I should have died. And now, children,” said Loo, solemnly, “what we’ve got to do is to go down to mamma, not jumping or making a noise like great babies, but quiet and serious; and to tell her that she is to do what she thinks best, and never mind what people say; and that we—we,” sobbed the little girl, vainly trying to preserve her composure, as she brought out word after word with a gush of tears—“we’ll stand by her and trust in her, and never believe anything. That is what we must go and say.”

After she had finished her speech Loo fell into a little passion of crying, in which she partly lost the slight murmurs and remonstrances of her calmer and wondering audience; but passion as usual carried the day. When Mrs Clifford’s bell rang the children went down-stairs, looking rather scared, in a kind of procession, Loo coming last with Alf, who had to be held tightly by the hand lest he should break out into gambols, and destroy all the solemnity of the proceeding. Mrs Clifford was sitting by the fire when they went in, in an attitude of thought. The candles were not lighted, and it was very easy to suppose that mamma herself looked sad, and was quite in a state of mind to be thus addressed. Harry and Mary, rather ashamed of themselves, were already carrying on a quiet scuffle at the door when Loo came up to them. “You go first, Harry”—“No, you,” they were saying to each other. “Oh, you stupid, stupid children, you have no feeling!” cried Loo, bitterly, as she swept past them. Mrs Clifford looked up with a smile, and held out her hand, which she expected to be grasped immediately by a crowd of little fingers, but the mother’s looks were dreamy to-night, and some one else was before her children in her thoughts. She was startled when she felt Loo’s little cold hand put into hers, and woke up and pushed her chair back from the fire to look at the little things who stood huddled together before her. “What is the matter?” said Mrs Clifford.

“Oh, mamma, mamma,” cried Loo; her poor little voice grew shrill, notwithstanding all her efforts. She had to make a pause, and to preserve her dignity had to let Alf go, who immediately went off to ride on the arm of the sofa, and compromise the seriousness of the scene. “Oh, mamma, dear,” said Loo, feeling that no time was to be lost, “we have come to say that we will never believe anything; that we know you love us, and will always love us—and—and—we believe in you; oh, mamma, we believe in you, and we will always stand by you, if everybody in the world were on the other side.”

Here Loo fell, choking with tears and passion, on her mother’s footstool, and laid her poor little head, which ached with cold and crying, on Mrs Clifford’s lap. The mother’s eyes had woke up out of all their dreaming. Perhaps it was as well the candles were not lighted. That cheek which the widow screened with her hand was as crimson and as hot as Harry’s had been reading over the fire. She was glad Loo’s keen eyes were hidden upon her lap; she blushed, poor tender woman as she was, before her children. The little woman-daughter was dreadful to her mother at the moment—a little female judge, endued with all the awfulness of nature, shaming the new love in her mature heart.

“What does this all mean, children?” said Mrs Clifford, trying to be a little angry, to conceal the shock she had received.

“Oh, please mamma, it’s Loo,” cried Mary, frightened. “She made us come; it was one of her passions.”

“No, it was not one of her passions,” said Harry, who was Loo’s champion; “it was to tell mamma we would always stand by her; and so I will,” cried the boy on his own account, kindling up, “if there were any robbers or anything—for I’m the eldest son when Charley’s at school.”

Loo heard this where she lay, with her head on her mother’s lap; she was incapable of speech or motion almost, but she could not but groan with impatience over the stupidity of the children; and Alf was riding loudly on the arm of the sofa, shouting to his imaginary horse. Loo gathered herself up with a blush upon her cheeks; it did not enter into her head to imagine that her mother blushed much more hotly and violently when the little face unfolded itself slowly out of her lap.

“Hush! Loo, don’t say any more,” said Mrs Clifford; then with a little effort the mother put her arm round the child and drew her close. “I understand what you mean—but you must not say any more,” she said; then she stooped down her hot cheek upon that wet one of poor Loo’s. “We shall all be very happy, I hope,” said Mrs Clifford in the dark, in her little daughter’s ear. “I am doing it—for—for all your sakes, dear. He will stand by you and me, and all of us, Loo. I hope we shall be—very happy—happier even than we are now,” said Mrs Clifford, with a faint little tremble in her voice and quiver at her heart. When she had kissed Loo, and the child had gone away to compose herself, poor Mary, the mother, sat for a long time looking into the fire with a terrible misgiving upon her—“happier even than we are now.” Ah! just then she had been so happy—all well in the prosperous, plentiful house; not an ache or a trouble that she knew of among all her children; not a single look of love dimmed to her yet by her resolution; and the new love, sweet as any girl’s dream, restoring to her firmament all the transitory delicious lights of youth. Somehow that prospect darkened under a strange cloud of alarm and shame when the mother felt her cheeks flush at the look of her woman-child. “I am doing it for—all their sakes,” she tried to say to herself; but her innocence grew like guilt as she felt in her heart that this pretence was not true.

CHAPTER IV.—HER OWN THOUGHTS.

Mrs Clifford had not much time to think that night, and the impression went off her when she was in her lover’s company—which was very nearly always; for, long before this had been thought of, Tom Summerhayes had been the soul of everything at Fontanel. She had come so gradually to consult him about everything—to take his counsel upon small and great that happened—that it seemed only natural now that he should belong to her; but after Loo’s little scene a variety of annoyances came upon Mary—indications of the world’s opinion—evidences that it did not seem so natural to other people as to herself. Even Charley’s schoolboy letter was rather dreadful to his mother. The boy bestowed his approbation upon her match, and was to stand by her, too, in Loo’s very vein; and the mother felt more humbled by thus obtaining the consent of her children than she would have been by the sacrifice of all she had in the world. Still it never came into her head to give up her marriage—never, perhaps, till a day or two before, when things were much too far advanced for any drawing back, and when she sat alone by her fire, with her desk open before her, late at night when all the household were asleep. In her desk were various little matters which had been treasures to Mary Clifford. She took them out with trembling hands—a withered flower, given to her, oh, so long ago, when she was little more than a child, and preserved with girlish romance; a little ring made of hair, which she had worn in her days of betrothal; a little faded drawing, made by herself at the same period, of her early lover; and last and most important of all, some letters—not many, but very tender—the love-letters of her youth. How she had cried over them many a sad day after her Harry died; how she had gradually forgotten them again and left them in their safe concealment; how of late she had rather avoided the place where they were, and shrank from touching the little desk that contained them; and now, at last, upon the eve of her second wedding, here they were all spread out before her, to be disposed of somehow. Mary’s treasures! she had heard them called so—had called them so herself. What were they now?

Poor, little, soft, tender-hearted woman! There was no passion in her. She was in love with all her heart, but it was affectionately, not passionately, or else she never could have opened that desk. She took out the flower, and cried, and looked at it; then, with a hasty impulse, put it softly on the fire, and watched it blaze into sudden ashes, and cried again, and felt guilty to her heart. “I was such a child,” she said to herself in her tears, and took a kind of melancholy comfort from thinking how young she had been when she was first a bride. Then she looked at her own drawing, which was not the least like him, and thought with a compunction of her Harry. Poor Harry! All this bright house, all these dear children, were his as well as hers; but he was put away in the family vault, poor fellow, and nothing was henceforward to belong to him in this living world—not even the name he had given her, not her thoughts, not any of her heart. She cried over that too like the rest. She put up the ring in a little parcel for Loo—she laid aside the portrait for little Harry. She tried to indemnify him by making over all those little mementoes, which it troubled her to look at, to his children. Then she took up the bundle of yellow letters and timidly opened one of them, and read a few sentences. There she read of the young love that was never to die, never to know change. Poor Mary put them away again with a sob almost of terror, and hastily locked up the desk, and resolved to put it away somewhere out of sight. She could not examine any further into those “treasures” which had become ghosts. She drew her chair to the fire, and shivered in her thoughts. She was a simple-minded woman, not wise, but moved by every wind of feeling. It came to her mind just then to recollect how, in her first widowhood, she had taken comfort from the thought that Harry was near and saw her tears for him, and knew how faithful her poor heart was. Now that thought was too much for Mary’s strength. She gave a cry of helpless terror when it occurred to her. Alas, for that immortality of union which comforts the heart of grief! What if Harry met her at the very gates of heaven when she got there, and claimed her, she who was going to be another man’s bride? Sitting alone in the night, with all the household asleep, and such thoughts for companions, it was not wonderful if a panic seized upon Mrs Clifford’s heart. Poor Harry, who had loved her so well, appeared like a pursuing spectre to the soft little woman. If it was true that she belonged to him for ever and ever, how could she dare to love Tom Summerhayes? and if she did not belong to him for ever and ever—he who had loved her to the end, and had never done anything to forfeit her affection—what was the hereafter, the heaven where love, it appeared, could not be immortal? These fancies wrung poor Mary’s heart. She did not know any answer to make to them. The question put by the Sadducees nohow answered her case. She who blushed before her children, how could she ever look Harry in the face? She felt herself an infidel, trembling and crying over that everlastingness which had once given her such consolation. That Harry could ever cease to love her, nature contradicted as impossible. He was in heaven, far off, unseen, fixed in solemn unchangeableness in all the elevation of love and grief he died in, never to alter; and she?—— Step by step unconsciously that elevation of grief and love had died away from her in the changing human days, and now here she sat weeping, trembling, thinking with awe of Harry, wondering how he would claim her hereafter, how she could dare name his name when she was another man’s wife. Poor little trembling soul! She stole away to bed when she could bear it no longer, and sought refuge in sleep with the tears still in her eyes, some grand and desperate resolution of making a sacrifice of herself being in her mind, as was natural. She had troubled dreams, and woke up quite unrefreshed in the morning, which was very unlucky that day of all others, because the lawyers were coming, and all her business affairs were to be settled before her marriage. However, Mrs Clifford could not remember at her first waking what it was which had thrown such a cloud upon her; and when her thoughts of the previous night did return to her mind, they were neither so intolerable nor so urgent as they had been. In the daylight, somehow, those gates of heaven, at which Harry might be standing to claim her, looked a very far way off to the bride of Tom Summerhayes—there was no such immediate certainty of Harry’s existence anyhow, or of the kind of interest he might take in her proceedings; and the philosophy of the question did not recur to her mind with those puzzling and hopeless speculations. She was a great deal more content to accept the present and to postpone the future—to let hereafter take care of itself—than she had been at night. She put away the desk with Harry’s letters in a dark vacant upper shelf of a bookcase in her own dressing-room; there, where she could not even see it, it would no longer witness against her. It was a sunny morning, and the children came in all fresh and rosy to say their prayers, and there was a note from Mr Summerhayes on the breakfast-table, naming the hour at which the law people were to arrive. Mrs Clifford had recovered her colour and her spirits before they came; she was a little agitated, and looked very pretty in the commotion of her heart. Hers was a position very peculiar and interesting, as Mr Gateshead himself, the old family solicitor, suggested, as he read over the deed she was to sign. He was perfectly pleased with the arrangements altogether, and said that Mr Summerhayes had behaved most honourably and in the most gentlemanly way. It was very clear that his motives were not mercenary. The deed Mrs Clifford had to sign was one by which Fontanel and all its dependencies was settled upon her eldest son, she retaining the life-interest in it which her husband had meant her to have. Mr Summerhayes, who had been brought up for the bar, had himself advised Mr Gateshead in the drawing up of this important document. The new bridegroom was anxiously solicitous that the children should be portioned and the property distributed exactly as the family agent, who knew poor Clifford’s mind, would have advised him to settle it; and the deed was irrevocable and framed in the most careful manner, so that no ingenuity of the law could make it assailable hereafter. It was so rigid in all its provisions that poor Mary wavered a little over it. She thought it scarcely fair that he should be shut out entirely from every interest in all this wealth, which, at the present moment, belonged absolutely to herself. It was Mr Summerhayes himself who put, with a certain gentle force, the pen into her hands, and pointed exactly to the spot where she was to sign. “I have you, Mary,” he said in her ear, as he leant over her to keep the parchment steady; and Mary Clifford signed away all her power and secured her children’s rights, with “a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye,” feeling to her heart the delicious flattery. What she possessed was nothing to him—he had her, and a kingdom could not make him happier. So said the tone of his whisper, the glance of his eye, and the echo of her heart. This living Love which stood by her side, securing so carefully that Harry Clifford’s wealth should go to Harry Clifford’s heirs, and seeking only herself for its own, completely swallowed up poor Clifford’s ghost, if that forlorn spirit might by chance be cognisant of what was passing. Mary remembered no more her qualms and misgivings; and the prospect before her—now that the very children had got used to it, had ceased either to oppose or to stand by her, and had fallen into natural excitement about the approaching festivities, the guests who were to be at Fontanel, the new dresses, the great event about to happen—looked as bright as the glowing day.

CHAPTER V.—THE MARRIAGE.

Fontanel received a considerable party of guests for the marriage. Miss Laura and Miss Lydia, who were to be at the head of affairs while the new Mrs Summerhayes was absent on her wedding tour, arrived two days before, that they might get into the ways of the place, and know what was required of them, which was not very much, for Mary was but a languid housekeeper. Then there were two aunts, an uncle, and some cousins of Mrs Clifford, none of whom in the least approved of the match, though decorum and curiosity and kindness prompted them to countenance poor Mary in her foolishness, notwithstanding their general surprise, like Miss Harwood, that she had not the sense to know when she was well off. Then there was Charley from Eton, who had grown so much lately, that his mother blushed more than ever when he kissed her and said something kind about her marriage. These were not pleasant days for poor Mrs Clifford. She knew in her heart that nobody particularly approved of her, not even Tom’s sisters—that people were saying it was just what was to be expected, and that a woman left at her age with so much property in her hands was sure to make a fool of herself. She knew that the ladies when they got together had little conversations over her—that one wondered why she could not make herself happy with these dear children, and another with this fine place—and that a third mused what poor Mr Clifford would have said could he have known. Poor Mary was very thankful when the day dawned on her wedding-morning—she was glad, as brides seldom are, of the arrival of the fated moment which was to place things beyond the reach of censure or criticism, and relieve her from her purgatory. The Rector of Summerhayes had not been called on to do that piece of duty. The bridegroom luckily had a friend whose privilege it was; and still more luckily there was a little old disused church within the grounds of Fontanel in which the ceremony was to be performed, without the necessity of encountering the gaze and remarks of the village. It was not intended to be a pretty wedding or to put on those colours of joy which become the espousals of youth. Mingled and complicated, as are the thoughts of middle age, were the feelings of the two who stood side by side before the bare rural altar. The bridegroom was slight and tall in figure, with a careless languid air, through which occasionally a little gleam of excitement sparkled. If you watched him closely you could see that his mind was no way absorbed in the ceremonial of his marriage. The quick sudden glance here and there under his eyelids, of those cold but clear grey eyes, turned inquiringly to everything within his range. He read in the looks of the clergyman, even while he pronounced the nuptial blessing, what his opinion was of the entire transaction. He penetrated the mask of propriety in which the bride’s relations concealed their feelings—he investigated with oft-repeated momentary glances the face of Charley, who stood in his Etonian certainty of manhood, premature but not precocious, near his mother’s side. Mr Summerhayes even scanned, when all was over, the downcast countenance of Loo, who stood behind, watching with stout endurance, and resolute not to cry during the entire ceremony. What was the meaning which lay in those quick furtive darts of the bridegroom’s eye it was impossible to say; his closest friend could not have elucidated this strange secret by-play, of which nobody in the company was conscious, except, perhaps, one child; but one thing it proved at any rate, that his heart at this special moment was not engrossed, to the exclusion of everything else, by his bride.

Mary was much less mistress of herself. She cried quietly under her veil as she stood and listened to the familiar words. She repeated those that fell to her with a little shiver. In her heart she could not but feel what a terrible act she was completing as she vowed her love and obedience over again, and separated her future from her past. But Mary, with her downcast eyes, was insensible to everybody’s opinion at that moment. Had she been standing in a wilderness she could not have felt more isolated. She was conscious only of her new husband by her side—of an indistinct figure before her—of God above and around, a kind of awful shadow looking on. Mr Summerhayes was aware of her tears, and they moved him so that his colour heightened involuntarily, and he pressed her hand with a warning pressure when it came to that part of the ceremony. But Mary herself was not aware that she was crying till she felt this touch of remonstrance, which startled her back into consciousness. Such was this marriage, at which, as at other marriages, people looked on with various shades of sympathy and criticism, and which, with all its concealed terrors and outward rejoicing, was the free act of hearts uncoerced and acting only at their own pleasure—a free act, suggested by no third party, unless, perhaps, it might happen to be a certain grim inflexible Fate who, if the reins are but yielded to her for a moment, pursues her victim through a throng of inevitable consequences. But perhaps, when a woman is being married like Mary Clifford, it is a kind of comfort to her to feel as if she could not help herself, rather than to know that she is entering all these new dangers voluntarily, and in obedience to nobody’s will but her own.

“Well, I am sure, I wish them every comfort in life,” said Miss Harwood, as she stood leaning on her brother’s arm at the hall door of Fontanel, watching the carriage drive off which contained the happy pair. “She can’t feel much like a bride, poor thing, leaving all these children behind her. I am sure I wish her every happiness. I hope she’ll never live to repent it,” said Miss Harwood, with a sigh.

“Don’t be spiteful,” said the Rector. “This is not a time for such ill-omened wishes. It’s a very suitable match, and I wish them joy.”

“Oh, Mr Harwood,” said Miss Laura, taking up her position at the Rector’s other side, thus effecting a natural separation from Mary’s relations, who were comparing sentiments a little apart from the Summerhayes party—“a suitable match! when dear Tom is well known to represent the oldest family in the county, and might have married anybody—not to say a word against dear Mary, who is our sister now, and such a sweet creature. But oh, Mr Harwood,” cried Miss Lydia, who had interposed, as usual, “to talk of a suitable match!”

“There are no suitable matches nowadays. I don’t believe in ’em, by Jove!” said Major Aldborough, who, with eyes slightly reddened by champagne, was watching the carriage just then disappearing down the avenue.

“But there might be, Major,” said Miss Lydia, so softly that her sister could not take up the meek remark.

The Major only answered “By Jove!” under his breath. He was startled by the close vicinity—the gentle look—the mild suggestion. He moved a little away in a momentary panic. There was never any telling, as he said to himself, what these women might mean.

“It is so strange to be left in charge of the house,” said Miss Laura, “it gives one such a funny feeling. I don’t know how in the world we shall do with all the responsibility; but dear Mary insisted upon it, you know—though I am sure Mrs Tansey would have been much more suitable for the head of the table than one of us, who are so inexperienced,” cried Miss Lydia; “but dear Mary thought it best for the children’s sake. I hope, dear Mrs Tansey, you don’t mind being our guest,” proceeded the sisterly duet; “dear Mary thought it of such importance that the children should get used to us—though they know us perfectly well, still things are all so different; though otherwise, of course, she would so much have preferred you.”

“Oh, pray, don’t think it necessary to apologise for my niece to me, Miss Summerhayes,” said the offended aunt. “Mary has consulted her own inclinations, and so long as she is happy, that is all we can possibly want of her. I think she is quite right to make friends, if she can, in her new family. She knows she can always calculate upon us if she ever wants any service,” added the bride’s relation, with a slight heightening of colour and the ghost of a curtsy. The Miss Summerhayes were not unequal to the emergency.

“We all know how much poor dear Mary is liked among her own friends,” cried Miss Lydia. “Your dear girls were so fond of her last year when they spent such a long time at Fontanel; and dear Mary has such a taste in presents,” said Miss Laura, coming in so eagerly that she began out of breath. “We have gone shopping with her often when she was buying her little souvenirs. I hope you don’t think it will make any difference now she is married again. She is so affectionate; but as for wanting services from anybody, that is very unlikely,” resumed the elder sister, “now she has dear Tom. Dear Tom is so very devoted,” said Miss Laura, breaking in headlong. “You would think she was only eighteen to see all the attention he pays her. It is quite sweet to see them, like two turtle-doves.”

Such being the conversation that succeeded immediately upon the departure of the bridal pair, it is not to be supposed that the dinner-table was spread with a very joyful feast, or that the evening was spent in much happiness. Mary’s relations, who had up to this time felt themselves much at ease at Fontanel, kept greatly by themselves during the remainder of the wedding-day. Their occasional minglings with the Summerhayes party called forth bursts of smart dialogue, more exciting than amiable, and the opposing sides contended much for the notice of Loo and the other children, when they came down-stairs in their new dresses after dinner. It made little Loo’s heart sick to feel herself enfolded in the embraces of Miss Lydia and Laura on one side, and then to be talked to and admonished by Aunt Tansey on the other, who hoped she would be a good girl, and a great comfort to her poor mother. The children could not tell what to make of the aspect of affairs. Mamma gone, who was the sun and centre of the domestic world, and already a new rule and vague possibilities of change in the startled house. Down-stairs among the servants, though the means of merry-making were plentiful, this threatening cloud was even more apparent. A new master, known to like “his own way,” was an alarming shadow impending over the little community hitherto mildly and liberally governed by the mistress, whom her servants could scarcely forgive for the step she had taken. “With five lovely children and every blessin’ as this world could afford,” as the housekeeper said, shaking her troubled head. The new husband by no means ranked among the blessings of Providence to the mistress of Fontanel in anybody’s judgment, and nowhere was Mary’s rash act resented more warmly than in the servants’ hall.

“But, Loo,” said Etonian Charley, next morning, when Aunt Tansey and all her belongings had left Fontanel, and everything had fallen under the restless sway of the Miss Summerhayes, “I’m not going to put up with all this. You said we were to stand up for mamma; you mean we are only to pretend to stand up for mamma, you little humbug. Now that’s not my meaning,” said the heir of Fontanel. “I’m not going to make-believe that I think she’s done right, when I don’t. I am going to swallow cousin Tom right out,” cried the boy, not without a little flush on his face. “It’s a little awkward, to be sure, to know what to call him—but look here, Loo—I mean to stand by my mother without any humbug. I mean to think she’s done the very best for us all, and for herself too; and if she don’t think the same when she comes back, I’ll try to make her; and if you look black, as you’re looking, you are not the little brick I took you for, and I won’t have anything more to do with you, Loo.”

“Oh, Charley, I am not half so good as you are,” cried the admiring little sister, looking up to him with tearful eyes. Charley’s resolution acted like a charm upon the house in general; and so, with a gradually improving temper, though much pressed and fretted by Miss Laura and Miss Lydia, the nursery and the servants’ hall, and all the dependencies of Fontanel, waited for the advent of the new master and the return of Mrs Summerhayes.

AN ENGLISH VILLAGE—IN FRENCH.[^[1]]

The old pictures of village life in England will hardly suit for these modern times. The pleasant little social circle which either existed, or more often was imagined to exist, as in Miss Austen’s charming fictions, in the large well-to-do country village, is to be found there no longer. No one condescends in these days to live in the country, unless he can either do so, or affect to do so, more or less en grand seigneur. A change has passed over ‘Our Village,’ even since Mary Russell Mitford so admirably sketched it. The half-pay naval lieutenant or army captain (if any such survive) has retired into the back street of a cheap watering-place, not to the improvement either of his position or his happiness. The village surgeon is no longer an oracle; railways have brought “the first advice” (at any rate, in the county town) within the reach of almost all his patients; and he has either disappeared altogether, or, if he still exists as the “Union Doctor,” badly paid and little respected, he is seldom now a gentleman. Village lawyers—happily or unhappily—are become things unknown: and as for any gentleman’s family of independent but moderate means condescending to that kind of rural seclusion, it is unheard of. If there is any educated resident in any country village not fixed there by some local interest or occupation, he is apt to have something suspicious about his character or antecedents—to be a refugee from his lawful creditors, or his lawful wife, or something of that sort.

So that English village life now resolves itself mainly into that of the parson; for the squire, even if he be resident, scarcely forms part of the same social circle. And as to the rest, between the university graduate, of more or less refinement and education, and the opulent farmer such as he is at present, there lies a gulf which no fancy can exaggerate, and which the best intentions on both sides fail to bridge over. Where village spires stand thick together, where the majority of the rectors or vicars are men of the same way of thinking, and where it is the fashion of the country to be social, there is a good deal of pleasant intercourse, no doubt, between the parsons’ families, and as much “society,” in the real if not in the conventional sense, as is needful to keep the higher elements of humanity from stagnating; but where parishes spread far and wide over a poor or thinly-populated district, or, worse still, where religious sectarianism reckons its clergy into “High” and “Low,” and the Rector of A. shakes his head and lifts his eyebrows when any allusion is made to the Vicar of B.—there, the man whose lot has been cast in a country parsonage had need have abundant resources within himself, and be supremely indifferent to the stir of human interests without. He will, in many cases, have almost as far to ride in search of a congenial neighbour as though he were in the bush of Australia; he will find something like the solitude of the old monastery, without the chance of its peace and quietness.

Not that such a life is dull or uninteresting, by any means, unless in the unfortunate case of the man finding no interest in his duties. One of this world’s many compensations is, that the busy man, be he what else he may, is never dull, and seldom discontented. So it is, almost always, in the country parsonage; without claiming any high standard of zeal or self-devotion for its occupants, there is probably at least as much quiet enjoyment, and as little idle melancholy or fretful discontent, to be found among them, as among any other class of educated men.

Still, it is a life which it would be very difficult for a foreigner to appreciate or understand. The relation of the English country rector to his villagers is totally unlike that of the Lutheran or Roman Catholic priest. Not claiming—or at least not being in a position to maintain—anything like the amount of spiritual authority which is exercised by the pastor under both these other systems, he wields, in point of fact, an amount of influence superior to either. He cannot command the servile and terrified obedience in externals which is often paid by the Irish and Italian peasant to his spiritual guide; but he holds a moral power over his parishioners—even over those who professedly decline his ministrations—of the extent of which neither he nor they are always conscious, but to the reality of which the enemies of the Established Church in England are beginning to awake.

The reading world has perhaps been rather over-supplied, of late years, with novelettes in which the village parson, with some of the very white or very black sheep of his flock, have been made to walk and talk more or less naturally for their amusement and edification; but the sight of a little French book on the subject struck us as something new. It is very desirable that our good friends across the Channel should know something about our ways of going on at home; and that not only in the public life of large towns, or on the highways of travel and commerce, but in our country villages and rural districts. But French attempts at English domestic sketches have not, on the whole, been successful. It is, indeed, most difficult for a foreign visitor to draw pictures of society in any country which would pass muster under the critical examination of a native. We took up this ‘Vie de Village en Angleterre’ with some notion of being amused by so familiar a subject treated by a Frenchman; but we soon found we were in very safe hands. The writer knows us well, and describes us admirably, very much as we are; the foreign element is just strong enough to be occasionally amusing, but never in any way ridiculous; and we should be as much surprised at the correctness of the writer’s observation as charmed with the candour and good taste of the little volume, if we had not heard it credibly whispered that, although written for French readers (and in undeniable French), it may be claimed as the production of an English pen.

Whatever may be the secret of the authorship, the little book will repay the reader of either nation. It is written in the person of a political refugee, who, armed with one or two good introductions, comes to pass a period of exile in England. While previously travelling in Switzerland, he has made acquaintance with a Mr Norris, an energetic country parson of the modern “muscular” type. He it is who persuades the wanderer to study in detail, by personal observation, that “inner life” of England which, he has already learnt to believe, and rightly, forms and shapes, more than anything else, her national and political character. Hitherto, as he confesses to his new acquaintance, the coldness and reserve of such English as he has met with have rather frightened him; yet he has always admired in them that solidarité—which we will not attempt to translate. The hostility between the labouring classes in France and those above them has always appeared to him the great knot of political difficulties in that country—a source of more danger to real liberty and security than any other national evil.

He determines, therefore, to see and study this domestic character of England for himself—“not in her political institutions, which we Frenchmen have been too much accused of wishing to copy, but in that social life which may very possibly explain the secret of her strength and her liberty.”—(P. 22.)

It was not his first visit to London; and, arriving in the month of March, he finds the climate as bad, and the great city as dingy and dirty, as ever. He does not appear to have noticed our painful efforts to consume our own smoke, or our ambitious designs in modern street architecture. On the other hand, he mercifully ignores—if he saw it—our Great Exhibition. The crowded gin-palaces, and the state of the Haymarket by night, disgust him, as well they might; and he escapes from the murky Babylon, as soon as he has taken a few lessons to improve his colloquial English, to pay the promised visit to his friend Mr Norris at his parsonage at Kingsford; stopping on his way to deliver a letter of introduction to an English countess, an old friend of his family, who has a seat close to Lynmere, a sort of pet village, where the ornamented cottages form a portion of the park scenery.

In his walk from the station, he makes the acquaintance of a “Madame Jones,” whose cottage, with its wooden paling and scarlet geraniums, abutting on the pleasant common, has its door invitingly open. He pauses to admire the little English picture as he passes by. Good Mrs Jones observes him, and begs him to walk in; partly, we must hope (and we trust all foreign readers will believe), out of genuine English hospitality—though we doubt if all village dames in Surrey would take kindly to a Frenchman on the tramp—partly, it must be confessed, with the British female’s natural eye to business. “Perhaps Monsieur was looking out for a ‘petit logement?’” For Mrs Jones has two rooms to let; and even a foreigner’s money, paid punctually, is not to be despised. Monsieur was looking out for nothing of the kind, but he takes the rooms forthwith; and indeed any modest-minded gentleman, French or English, who wanted country board and lodging on a breezy common in Surrey, could not have done better. Here is what our traveller gets for twenty-two shillings a-week; we only hope it will stop the mouths of all foreigners who rail at the dearness of English living, when they read here the terms on which a petit logement may be found in a pleasant situation in the home counties—two rooms, “fresh and clean,” comfortably furnished (with a picture of the Queen and a pot of musk into the bargain), and board as follows:—

“For breakfast she gave me tea with good milk, excellent bread-and-butter, accompanied either by a rasher of broiled bacon or fresh eggs. For dinner there were often ‘ragouts avec force oignons’ (Irish stew?), boiled mutton, or sometimes a beef-steak ‘très-dur,’ potatoes and boiled cabbage, with a glass of good beer and a bit of cheese. No dessert, but occasionally a pudding. On Sundays, roast-beef and plum-pudding were apparently the rule without exception, for they never failed to appear. The tea in the evening was much the same as the breakfast. If I had wished for supper, I might have had cold meat, bread, a lettuce, and a glass of beer.”

If Mrs Jones be not as entirely fictitious as Mrs Harris, and would enclose us a few cards, we think we could undertake that her lodgings (with a countess and a pet village, too, close by) should not be untenanted for a week in summertime. We feel sure, however, that the good lady is not a creature of mere imagination: when we read the description of her, we recall her as an old acquaintance, though we cannot remember her address:—

“As for this good woman’s personal appearance, she had nothing attractive about her except her scrupulous cleanliness. Her age belonged to that mysterious epoch comprised between forty and sixty. She had an intelligent countenance; but what was most marked about her was a slightly military air, and a black silk bonnet which, planted on the top of her head, tilted forward over her face, and usually concealed half of it. The two strings were carefully pinned back over the brim, and the ends fluttered on each side the bonnet, like the plume of a chasseur de Vincennes. That bonnet, she never left it off for a moment; and my indiscreet imagination went so far as to speculate what could possibly become of it at night.... Though I had begged her to consider herself absolute mistress in all domestic matters—and though, moreover, I should have found considerable difficulty in ordering my own dinner—she never failed to come in every morning at breakfast-time ‘for orders,’ as she called it. It was a little ruse of hers to secure a moment for the active exercise of her somewhat gossiping tongue. I was enabled to endure the torrent of words of which good Mrs Jones disburdened herself on such occasions the more philosophically, inasmuch as she was nowise exacting in the matter of an answer, and now and then gave me some interesting bits of information.”

The contrast which follows is drawn from a shrewd observation of national characteristics on both sides of the Channel:—

“This respectable dame possessed in a high degree the good qualities and the defects of her class of Englishwomen. In France, the manners of women of her order are full of expansion and sympathy; and a small farmer’s wife, however ignorant she may be, will always find means to interest you in her affairs, and to enter into yours. In England, on the contrary, with all her gossiping upon trifling subjects, she will maintain the strictest reserve, so far as you are concerned, upon matters of any importance. She serves you much better than a Frenchwoman would, because she looks upon you in the light of a master—a guest whose rank and character she makes the most of, because that rank and character raise her in her own estimation; but it is only in some very exceptional case that she will talk to you about anything which touches her personally, or that she will venture to confess that she is thinking about your concerns—that would be, in her eyes, a breach of proper respect.

“This is the peculiar feature in the relations between the different classes of society in England. Society there is profoundly aristocratic; there is no tradesman, be he ever so professed a Radical, who does not become a greater man in his own eyes by receiving the most commonplace act of courtesy from a lord; no servant who does not feel an additional satisfaction in waiting on a master whose manners have a touch of haughtiness, because such manners strike him as a mark of superiority. It is just as Rousseau says: ‘Clara consoles herself for being thought less of than Julia, from the consideration that, without Julia, she would be thought even less of than she is.’ The singular feature is, that this kind of humility, which would seem revolting to us in France, is met with in England amongst precisely those persons who are remarkable for their moral qualities and for their self-respect. It is because in them this deference becomes a sort of courtesy, a social tact, of which only a gentleman can understand all the niceties—which, besides, implies in their case nothing like servility—the respect paid to superiors in rank is kept within the limits of the respect due to themselves. This peculiarity in English manners struck me the more forcibly, because it offers such a remarkable contrast to what goes on among ourselves.”

There follows, at some length, a truthful and well-written exposition of the healthful influence exercised upon a nation by an aristocracy like that of England—which we must not stop to quote. ‘Revenons‘—as the author writes, asking pardon for so long a digression—‘Revenons à Madame Jones.’

That excellent landlady is careful not only of the diet and other creature-comforts of her new lodger, but of his moral and religious wellbeing also. A week of wet weather—which the foreign visitor finds sufficiently triste—is succeeded by a lovely Sunday morning. The Frenchman sallies out after breakfast for a morning walk, with his book under his arm—we are sorry to say it was a ‘Tacitus’—with the intention, we are left to suppose, of worshipping nature on the common. But Mrs Jones, though totally innocent as to her lodger’s heretical intentions, takes care to lead him in the way that he should go.

“‘Church is at eleven,’ Mrs Jones called out to me, not doubting for an instant that I should go there. I went out; she followed me close, locked all the doors, and, stopping for a moment at the cottage next door to call for a neighbour, continued her way. I was taking another path, but was very soon arrested by the hurried approach of Mrs Jones, who, fancying I had mistaken my way, came after me to show me the road to church. Such perseverance on her part made it evident that I should risk the loss of her good opinion if I did not profit by her instructions; so I walked down the hill with her by a road which wound between broad verges of green turf overshadowed by lofty trees.”

Thus fairly captured and led to church in triumph, his behaviour there was on the whole very decorous. The impression likely to be made on the mind of an intelligent and well-disposed foreigner by the simple and yet impressive service in a well-ordered village church is very nicely described. It is true that Mrs Jones’s prisoner, according to his own account, mingles with the very proper reflections natural to such a place “those inspired by the volume of Tacitus which he held open before him for decency’s sake” (and which, we fear, must have imposed itself upon the good lady as a French prayer-book); a little touch which, whether written by a Frenchman or not, and whether meant for truth or satire, is very French indeed. He finds time also to notice the features of the building itself, and its arrangements. The “tribune” in the gallery where the Countess performs her devotions, and the high enclosure with drawn curtains—“a sort of petit salon”—which protects the family of Mr Mason, the squire, from the more vulgar worshippers, do not strike the visitor, we rejoice to say, as happy illustrations of the aristocratic feeling in Englishmen; and it is evidently with a quiet satisfaction that he learns subsequently that “puséisme” is trying to do away with such distinctions.

An invitation to dinner from the Countess gives him at once the entrée to the best society in Lynmere and its neighbourhood. He finds his first English dinner-party a very dull affair; but he was surely peculiarly unfortunate in his company, if we are to take his account of the after-dinner conversation amongst the gentlemen: “At the end of a short time, two of the guests were asleep, and I would willingly have followed their example.” The remarks which follow, however, touch with more truth upon one of the defects in our social intercourse:—

“These dinners of ceremony (and there are scarcely any other kind of entertainments in the country amongst the higher classes) take place between neighbours, usually about twice in the year: scarcely any one except the clergyman enjoys the privilege of being received with less of etiquette. It follows that it is very possible to pass one’s life for ten years in the same spot, without having any really intimate association with any one of one’s neighbours. There are very few English people who do not regret it. Yet such is the despotism of custom, that it is rare to find any family which dreams of freeing itself from the trammels of this etiquette.”

Here and there, of late, the links of this social despotism, under which we have groaned so long, show symptoms of giving way. The advance of fashion has done good service in one respect, that the modern service à la Russe, adopted in all good houses, has struck a decisive blow at the old English heavy dinner; and just as the fashion has long died out of pressing one’s guests to eat more than they wish, so the fashion is coming in of not thinking it necessary to put upon the table three times more than can by any possibility be eaten. When small dinners become “the thing” even amongst the great people, there is hope that their lesser imitators will follow the example. And whenever the mistresses of small families will learn that good and careful cookery is quite as cheap as bad, and much more wholesome, and will condescend to go back not only to their great-grandmothers’ hoops, but to their household receipt-books, they may venture to invite their personal friends without compunction to a pleasant family-dinner, to the great furtherance of real sociability, and get rid for ever of those annual or biennial festivals which are a burden to the weary souls of guests and entertainers.

The foreign visitor becomes, in a very short time, established on a footing of intimacy with the family of Mr Mason, a magistrate and landed proprietor residing in the parish, in whose household Mrs Jones has formerly lived as nurse. The introduction through the Countess on the one part, and on the other the warm eulogies of good Mrs Jones (who is never tired of sounding the praises of her old master and the young ladies whom she has brought up), may serve in some degree to explain the somewhat rapid adoption of “Monsieur” as a family friend into the thrice-guarded circle of an English household. On his part, indeed, we soon discover quite a sufficient attraction. There is a pale pensive sentimental “Miss Mary,” quite the sort of young lady, we should say, to take the fancy of a romantic Frenchman in exile; but as she does not happen to take ours especially, we confess to have found no particular interest in this new version of ‘Love in a Village,’ and shall leave our younger readers to enjoy the romance of the little book for themselves, without forestalling, even by a single hint, its course or its conclusion. So far as relates to Monsieur himself, we repeat, we can quite understand how readily he responded to the warm adoption of his new English friends.

“Mr Mason consulted me about his son’s studies, Mrs Mason confided to me her anxieties as the mother of a family; and Mary—whose ardent and poetic soul felt the need of an intellectual sympathy which failed her in her own family—threw into her conversation with me an openness and vivacity which surprised her relatives.”

Nothing of the sort surprises us. What we were rather surprised at was, that Mr Mason père, a grave county dignitary and practical man of business, should have taken to his bosom, in this ardent and gushing fashion, the most agreeable, most intellectual, and most amiable foreigner that ever lived. At first we thought it a mistake—a patent defect and improbability in an otherwise sensible and natural book. The author’s casual attempt to account for it by the fact that Mr Mason was fond of billiards and of backgammon, and found in his new acquaintance an idle man generally ready to play a game, does not in the least harmonise with the usual character and habits of country gentlemen past sixty, or of Mr Mason in particular. But when we read that this excellent individual, like so many others of his class, has gone largely into turnips—and that his French visitor, wishing to know all about English country life, and knowing that such a life is nothing without turnips, determined, amongst his other travelling studies, to study an English model farm, and, when his host proposed a visit to that beloved establishment, accepted the invitation with “empressement,” and listened for hours to bucolic talk with “un grand interest,”—then we no longer wonder for an instant at the eternal friendship which the English member of the “Royal Agricultural” suddenly and silently vowed to his guest. Long and painful experience of visits paid to these excellent people in the country—reminiscences of the inevitable walk over ploughed fields—the plunging into long dark galleries where unfortunate beasts were immured for life to be turned into beef, a process which should be mercifully hidden from the eyes of every good Christian—the yawns unsuccessfully stifled—the remarks answered at random—the senseless questions desperately volunteered out of politeness on the visitor’s part, betraying the depth of his incapacity and ignorance;—these must rise before many a reader’s mind as well as our own, and make them feel what a treasure the scientific agriculturist had found in the inquiring Frenchman, who walked and talked and listened, not only without a complaint or a yawn, but positively because he liked it. Enterprising foreigners have been said to have tried to make their way into English country society, before now, through the introduction of the hunting-field, not always with success; perhaps they may be inclined to take a hint from this little book, and, in quiet family cases, try the turnips.

The visits to Mr Mason’s farm-cottages give the traveller the opportunity of drawing a contrast between the habits and aspirations of agricultural labourers in the two countries:—

“That passion for becoming proprietors, so widely spread in our own country districts, is unknown, and probably will long continue so, amongst the agricultural classes in England. The example of Ireland [it might have been added, of Wales], where the land has been very much subdivided, and where the population which maintains itself on it has become excessive, has strengthened the opinion amongst large landed proprietors in England as to the evil effects of small holdings. I think I scarcely exaggerate when I say that certainly, in the southern counties of England, a peasant possessing an acre of land would be a rarity. Probably it is to this impossibility of becoming small proprietors that we must attribute the taste which the labouring classes in England show for ornamenting their houses. If a working man has saved any money, he will employ it in buying a set of furniture, and making his cottage look gay; whereas, in France, he would have laid it aside in the hope of acquiring a bit of land; so that nothing can be more different than the wretched cabins of our own rural districts and the cottage of an English labourer, with its many little appliances of comfort and even luxury. In general the English peasant lives much less sparingly, and spends upon his meal twice as much as the French: it is true that the climate requires a more substantial style of diet.”

These observations would have been more strictly true if they had been made a few years ago. Within that time the passion for property has sprung up not only amongst those who call themselves “operatives” (journeymen weavers, shoemakers, &c.), but even, to a certain extent, amongst farm-labourers. Recent alterations in the laws of partnership have encouraged what are called “co-operative societies,” who not only open “stores” for the sale of all the necessaries of life, on the joint-stock principle of division of profits, but build cottages which, by certain arrangements, may become the property of the tenant. A whole village has just been built in Yorkshire, on this principle of the tenants becoming eventually the landlords. Not only this, but the same desire for independence—an excellent feeling in itself—is leading the same class to purchase cottage property whenever it comes into the market. If this ambition to become a purchaser were confined to a desire upon every man’s part to feel himself absolute master of the home he lived in, then, whatever large proprietors or able political economists might have to say, it would be an object which would deserve the very highest respect. But, unfortunately, the feeling is not altogether that of desiring to live in peace under one’s own vine and fig-tree: it is the wish to have a tenement to let out to others. It is comparatively seldom that a small piece of land, suited to the sum at such a purchaser’s command, is thrown into the market. Cottages, on the other hand, are continually advertised for sale; the working-man, eager to secure his bit of real property, gives for them a sum far beyond their value—a sum which the capitalist or large proprietor will not give; and in order to make his purchase pay, he either proceeds at once to divide a comfortable dwelling into two, or raises the rent upon his more needy tenant. The evil consequences are twofold; the neighbouring landowner, who ought to have the cottages for his own labourers, who would keep them in good repair, and let them at moderate rents, has been driven out of the market; and either a lower class of tenant, continually changing and being “sold up,” is introduced; or the honest labourer is compelled to pay to this new landlord of his own class a rent out of all proportion to the accommodation supplied him.

It is to be hoped that this growing evil (for evil it is) may be met by the increased liberality of landed proprietors in building good and sufficient cottages for the labourers on their own estates. In the case of the humbler artisans, in towns especially, one does not see the remedy except in the questionable shape of legislative restrictions.

But we have almost forgotten our foreign exile’s travelling acquaintance, Mr Norris, the hearty and genial English clergyman at whose invitation he first set himself to study English life. Before finally taking up his quarters at Lynmere, he has paid the promised visit to his friend in his parsonage at Kingsford; “a pretty Gothic chateau,” furnished with the taste of a gentleman and a scholar; a residence whose somewhat luxurious belongings, its ample library, and the well-chosen prints which grace its walls, when contrasted in the writer’s mind with the humble abode of the French village curé, give rise to reflections “not wholly to the disadvantage of the latter.” We, on the other hand, must warn any foreign reader who may draw the contrast for himself, that Kingsford Parsonage is a very exceptional case indeed. Mr Norris is discovered, somewhat to his French visitor’s surprise, clad in “a strange costume of white flannel,” not altogether sacerdotal; “Je suis habillé en cricketer,” is the parson’s explanation. The fact is, he has just been playing cricket with his pupils, half-a-dozen young men in preparation for the Universities. The simple and orderly habits of the household, the breakfast at eight, the dinner at one, the kindly intercourse between the tutor and his pupils, and the prosperity of a well-ordered village under an energetic pastor, are well described, and will give our French neighbours a very fair idea of such a life. A little, a very little “triste,” our visitor finds it, this English rural life, with its rich green meadows and grey sky, and slowly-winding river, half hidden by its banks. One needs, he considers, in order to find happiness in such scenes, a hearty love for simple nature, and a heart “warmed with the sentiment of duty fulfilled;” in short, he is of Dr Johnson’s opinion, though he puts it into much more complimentary language—that “those who are fond of the country are fit to live in the country.”

But if we cannot allow our French friends to imagine that all English country clergymen have their lot cast in the pleasant places of Kingsford and Lynmere, still less, we fear, must they consider them (or their wives) such wonderful economists as, like Mr Norris, to maintain all the quiet elegancies of a gentleman’s establishment in a handsome Gothic chateau (and to travel in Switzerland besides), upon an ecclesiastical income scarcely exceeding, after all necessary deductions, two hundred pounds a-year. True, Mr Norris takes pupils and writes for reviews—highly respectable vocations, and profitable enough in some hands, but scarcely open to the majority of his brethren, and not safe to be depended upon, as a supplementary income, by young clergymen on small preferments who may feel no vocation for celibacy. Mr Norris, indeed, is peculiarly favoured in many respects as regards money matters; for he has been fortunate enough to have enjoyed an exhibition at Oxford in days when the word “exhibition” (as we are informed in a note) meant “a gratuitous admission to the University.” Here we are certainly stepping out of the ground of real English life, where the writer has so pleasantly guided us, into a highly imaginative state of things. It would have been a noble boast, indeed, for us to have made to foreigners, if it could have been made truly, that Oxford, out of her splendid endowments, offered, even occasionally, “gratuitous admissions” to poor and deserving scholars. It was what the best of her founders and benefactors intended and desired—what they thought they had secured for ever by the most stringent and solemn enactments; but what, unhappily, the calm wisdom of the University itself has been as far from carrying out as the busy sweeping of a Reform Commission.

The foreign visitor is naturally very much impressed by an English cricket-match. The puzzled admiration which possesses him on the occasion of his “assisting” at a “fête du cricket” is very amusingly expressed. Throughout all his honest admiration of the English character, there peeps out a confession that this one peculiar habit of the animal is what he has failed to account for or comprehend. He tries to philosophise on the thing; and, like other philosophical inquirers when they get hold of facts which puzzle them, he feels bound to present his readers with a theory of cause and effect which is evidently as unsatisfactory to himself as to them. He falls back for an explanation on that tendency to “solidarity” in the English temperament which he has admired before.

“The explanation of the great popularity of the game of cricket is that, being always a challenge between two rival bodies, it produces emulation and excites that spirit of party which, say what we will, is one of the essential stimulants of public life, since in order to identify one’s self with one’s party one must make a sacrifice to a certain extent of one’s individuality. The game of cricket requires eleven persons on each side, and each of the players feels that he is consolidated (solidaire) with his comrades, in defeat as well as in victory.... That which makes the charm of the game is, above all, the solidarity which exists between the players.”

This is a very pretty theory, but scarcely the true one. In the public-school matches, no doubt, and in some matches between neighbouring villages, the esprit de corps goes for much; but, as a rule, we fear the cricketer is a much more selfish animal. His ambition is above all things to make a good score, and to appear in ‘Bell’s Life’ with a double figure to his name. Just as the hunting man, so that he himself can get “a good place,” cares exceedingly little for the general result of the day’s sport; so the batsman at Lord’s, so long as he makes a good innings, or the bowler so long as he “takes wickets” enough to make a respectable figure on the score, thinks extremely little, we are sorry to say, of “solidarity.” Whether the match is won or lost is of as little comparative importance as whether the fox is killed or gets away. We notice the difference, because it is a great pity it should be so. The Frenchman’s principle is by far the finer one; and the gradual increase of this intense self-interest in the cricket-field is going far to nullify the other good effects of the game as a national amusement. One reason why the matches between the public schools are watched with such interest by all spectators is, that the boys do really feel and show that identification of one’s self with one’s party which the author so much respects; the Harrow captain is really much more anxious that Harrow should beat Eton, than that he himself should get a higher score than Jones or Thompson of his own eleven; and the enthusiastic chairing of the hero of the day is not, as he knows, a personal ovation to the player, as to a mere exhibition of personal skill, but to his having maintained the honour of the school.

Our national ardour for this game seems always incomprehensible to a Frenchman. There is a little trashy, conceited book now before us, in which a French writer, professing to enlighten his countrymen upon English life, dismisses this mysterious amusement in a definition, the point and elegance of which it would be a pity to spoil by translation—“un exercice consistant à se fatiguer et à donner d’autant plus de plaisir qu’il avait fait répandre d’autant plus de sueur.”[^[2]] He is careful, at the same time, to suggest that even cricket is probably borrowed from his own nation—the “jeu de paume” of the days of the Grand Monarque. But the inability of so shrewd and intelligent an observer, as the foreign spectator with whom we have to do at present, to comprehend the real points of the game, is an additional testimony to its entirely English character. The Etonian’s mamma, who, as he relates with a sort of quiet wonder, sat for five hours on two days successively on a bench under a hot sun, to watch the match between her son’s eleven and Harrow, would have given a much better account of the game. The admiring visitor does not pretend, as he observes, to go into the details of a game which has thirty-eight rules; but he endeavours to give his French readers some general idea of the thing, which may suffice for unprofessional lookers-on. It is unnecessary to say that the idea is very general indeed. The “consecrated” ground on which the “barrières” are erected, and where the “courses” take place, are a thoroughly French version of the affair. The “ten fieldsmen precipitating themselves in pursuit of the ball when struck” would be ludicrous enough to a cricketer’s imagination, if the thought of the probable consequences were not too horrible. Even such headlong zeal on the part of two fieldsmen only, with their eye on the same ball, has resulted, before now, in a collision entailing the loss of half-a-dozen front teeth and other disfigurements. It was unnecessary to exaggerate the perils of a game which, as our author observes, has its dangers; and if the fieldsmen at Lynmere conducted themselves after this headlong fashion when he was watching them, we can quite understand his surprise that, when the day concludes with the inevitable English dinner, men who had spent the whole day “in running, striking, and receiving blows from the ball to the bruising of their limbs” (and precipitating themselves against each other) should still show themselves disposed to drink toasts and make speeches for the rest of the evening. The conversation which he has with the parish schoolmaster, an enthusiastic cricketer, is good in its way:—

“‘I hope you have enjoyed the day?’ said he to me. ‘You have had an opportunity of seeing what cricket is. It’s a noble game, is it not?’

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it is a fine exercise; and I think highly of those amusements which bring all classes together under the influence of a common feeling.’

“‘It is not only that,’ replied the excellent man: ‘but nothing moralises men like cricket.’

“‘How?’ said I, rather astonished to hear him take such high ground.

“‘Look here,’ he replied; ‘a good cricketer is bound to be sober and not frequent the public-house, to accustom himself to obey, to exercise restraint upon himself; besides, he is obliged to have a great deal of patience, a great deal of activity; and to receive those blows of the ball without shrinking, requires, I assure you, some degree of courage.’”

We suspect that these remarks belong of right at least as much to the French philosopher as to the English national schoolmaster; but they bring forward in an amusing way the tendency of one-ideaed philanthropists, which the author elsewhere notices, to attribute to their own favourite hobby the only possible moral regeneration of society:

“Every Englishman who is enthusiastic in any particular cause never fails to see in that the greatness and the glory of his country; and in this he is quite serious. In this way I have heard the game of cricket held up to admiration as one of the noblest institutions of England, an institution which insures to the country not only an athletic, but an orderly and moral population. I have seen the time when the same honour was ascribed to horse-racing; but since this sport has crossed the Channel, and it has been found by experience that it does not always preserve a country from revolutions and coups d’état, it has lost something of its prestige in England.”

There is always some moral panacea in the course of advertisement, like a quack medicine, to cure all diseases: mechanics’ institutes, cheap literature, itinerant lecturers, monster music-classes, have all had their turn; and just at present the ‘Saturday Review’ seems to consider that the salvation of England depends upon the revival of prize-fighting.

We cannot follow the writer into all the details of village institutions and village politics, which are sketched with excellent taste and great correctness. It will be quite worth while for the foreigner who wants to get a fair notion of what goes on here in the country—or indeed for the English reader who likes to see what he knows already put into a pleasant form, all the more amusing because the familiar terms look odd in French—to go with our French friend to the annual dinner of “Le Club des Odd-Fellows,” with its accompaniment “de speechs, de hurrahs, et de toasts”—without which, he observes, no English festival can take place; to accompany him in his “Visite au Workhouse,” subscribe with him to the “Club de Charbon,” or, better still, sit with him in the village Sunday-school, even if we cannot take the special interest which he did (for his own private reasons) in “le classe de Miss Mary.” Very pleasant is the picture—not overdrawn, though certainly taken in its most sunshiny aspect—of the charitable intercourse in a well-ordered country village between rich and poor. One form, indeed, there is of modern educational philanthropy which the writer notices, of the success of which we confess to have our doubts. The good ladies of Lynmere set up an “Ecole managère”—a school of domestic management, we suppose we may call it—where the village girls were to learn cooking and other good works. Now a school of cookery, admirable as it is in theory—the amount of ignorance on that subject throughout every county in England being blacker than ever was figured in educational maps—presents considerable difficulties in actual working. To learn to cook, it is necessary to have food upon which to practise. Final success, in that art as in others, can only be the result of a series of experimental failures. And here was the grand stumbling-block which presented itself, in the case of a cooking-school set up with the very best intentions, under distinguished patronage, in a country village within our own knowledge. Some half-dozen girls, who had left school and were candidates for domestic service, were caught and committed to the care and instruction of an experienced matron; not without some murmuring on the part of village mothers, who considered such apprenticeship a waste of time,—all girls, in their opinion, being born cooks. From this culinary college the neighbouring families were to be in course of time supplied with graduates. Great were the expectations formed by the managers, and by the credulous portion of the public. There were to be no more tough beef-steaks, no more grumbling masters and scolding mistresses, no more indigestion. But this admirable undertaking split upon a rock which its originators had not foreseen. It had been proposed that the village families should in turn send dishes to be operated upon by the pupils; but the English village mind is not given to experiments, culinary or other, and preferred boiling its mutton one day and eating it cold the next. Then the bachelor curate, who had a semi-official connection with the new establishment, reading prayers there as “chaplain and visitor,” who was presumed to have a healthy appetite, and was known to have complained of the eternal mutton-chops provided by his landlady, was requested to undergo a series of little dinners cooked for him gratis. The bashful Oxonian found it impossible to resist the lady patronesses’ invitation, and consented—for the good of the institution. But it ended in the loss to the parish of a very excellent working parson. For a few weeks, the experimental ragouts and curries sent in to his lodgings had at least the advantage of being a change: but as the presiding matron gradually struck out a bolder line, and fed him with the more ambitious efforts of her scholars, it became too much even for clerical patience, and he resigned his cure. Out of delicacy to the ladies’ committee, he gave out that it was “the Dissenters;” but all his intimate friends knew that it was the cooking-school.

The Rector of Lynmere is a Mr Leslie—a clergyman of the refined and intellectual type, intended, probably, as an artistic contrast to Mr Norris in his cricket flannels. He is, we are expressly told, “an aristocrat”—indeed, a nephew of the Countess aforesaid. He is reserved, nervous, and diffident, although earnest and single-hearted. The vulgar insolence of the Baptists at the vestry-meetings is gall and wormwood to him; and he suffers scarcely less under the fussy interference of a Madam Woodlands, one of the parish notables, of Low-Church views and energetic benevolence, who patronises the church and the rector, and holds him virtually responsible for all the petty offences and indecorums which disturb the propriety of the village. This lady is very slightly sketched, but the outline can be filled up from many a parish clergyman’s mental notebook. We do not wonder that Mr Leslie, with his shrinking sensibilities, had as great a horror of her as of Mr Say, the Nonconformist agitator, who led the attack at the church-rate meetings. Only we would remark, that if the author thinks that the unfitness of the Rector of Lynmere to contend with a body of political Dissenters, or his want of tact in dealing with so very excellent and troublesome a parishioner as Mrs Woodlands, is at all explained by his being “an aristocrat,” he is encouraging them in a very common and very unfortunate mistake. It is true that it is not pleasant for a man of cultivated mind and refined tastes, be he priest or layman, to be brought into contact with opponents whose nature and feelings, and the manner in which they express those feelings, are rude and vulgar; but if he possess, in addition to his refinement and cultivation, good sound sense, a moderate amount of tact, and, above all, good temper, he will find, in the fact of his being “a gentleman,” an immense weight of advantage over his antagonists. We remember to have seen protests, in the writings of a modern school of English Churchmen, against what they are pleased to term “the gentleman heresy;” representing it as dangerous to the best interests of both priests and people, that the former should attempt to combine with their sacred office the manners, the habits, and the social position of the gentleman. Without entering here into the serious question whether a special clerical caste, as it were, standing between the lower ranks and the higher of the laity, distinct from both, and having its separate habits and position, is a desirable institution to recommend; without discussing the other equally important question, whether the aristocracy of a Christian nation have not also their religious needs, and whether these also have not a right to be consulted, and whether they will bear to be handed over to a priesthood which, if not plebeian itself, is to have at least no common interests or feelings with the higher classes—a question, this latter, to which history will give us a pretty decided answer;—it is quite enough to say that the working-classes themselves would be the foremost to demand—if the case were put before them fairly—that the ministers of religion should be “gentlemen” in every sense of the word. They will listen, no doubt, with gaping mouths and open ears, to a flow of rhodomontade declamation from an uneducated preacher: an inspired tinker will fill a chapel or a village-green, while the quiet rector goes through the service to a half-empty church. But inspired tinkers are rare in any age; and it is not excitement or declamation which go to form the really religious life of England. This—which we must not be supposed to confine within the limits of any Church establishment—depends for its support on sources that lie deeper and quieter than these. In trouble, in sickness, in temptation, these things miserably fail. And the dealing of “a gentleman” with these cases—a gentleman in manners, in thoughts, in feeling, in respect for the feelings of others—is as distinct in kind and in effect, as the firm but delicate handling of the educated surgeon (who goes to the bottom of the matter nevertheless) differs from the well-meant but bungling axe-and-cautery system of our forefathers. The poor understand this well. They know a gentleman, and respect him; and they will excuse in their parish minister the absence of some other very desirable qualities sooner than this. The structure of English society must change—its gentry must forfeit their character as a body, as they never have done yet—before this feeling can change. When you officer your regiments from any other class than their natural superiors, then you may begin to officer your national Church with a plebeian clergy.

There is another point connected with the legitimate influence of the higher classes on which the writer speaks, we fear, either from a theory of what ought to be, or from some very exceptional cases:—

“The offices of magistrate, of poor-law guardian, or even of churchwarden, are so many modes of honourable employment offered to those who feel in themselves some capacity for business and some wish to be useful. It will be understood that a considerable number of gentlemen of independent income, retired tradesmen, and officers not employed on service, having thus before them the prospect of a useful and active life, gather round an English village, instead of remaining buried in the great towns, as too often is the case in our own country.”

We fear the foreign reader will be mistaken if he understands anything of the sort. The county magistracy offers, without doubt, a position both honourable and useful; but it is seldom open to the classes mentioned. We do not say that the offices of parish guardian and churchwarden are highly attractive objects of ambition; but we do think that in good hands they might become very different from what they are; immense benefit would result in every way to many country parishes, if men of the class whom the writer represents as filling them would more often be induced to do so, instead of avoiding them as troublesome and ungrateful offices, and leaving them to be claimed by the demagogues and busybodies of the district. It may not be pleasant for a gentleman to put himself in competition for an office of this kind; but it may be his duty to do so. The reproach which the writer addresses to the higher classes in France is only too applicable to those in England also:—

“If all those whose education, whose intelligence, whose habits of more elevated life, give them that authority which constitutes a true aristocracy, would but make use of their high position to exercise an influence for good upon public matters—if only the honest and sensible party in our country would shake off its apathy and fulfil all the duties of citizens—our institutions would have a life and power which at present are too often wanting.”

True words for the conservative spirit both in the English Church and in the English nation to lay to heart; for, so long as education and refinement are too nice to stain themselves with the public dust of the arena, they have no right to complain if candidates, less able but less scrupulous, parade themselves as victors.

If our neighbours over the water read (as we hope many of them will) these little sketches of an English village, drawn in their own language, if not by one of themselves, yet by one who is evidently no stranger to their national sympathies, and who writes manifestly with the kindest feelings towards both, it is well, perhaps, that they should bear in mind that it is a picture purposely taken under a sunny aspect. Rural England is not all Arcadia. All English landladies, even in the country, are not Mrs Joneses, nor are all English families as hospitable as the Masons. There are villages where there is no “Miss Mary” to teach the children or to talk sentiment. There are less fascinating “strangers’ guides” which could take him into the public-houses and the dancing-rooms as well as to rural fêtes and lectures, and show him what goes on there. But while we are far from claiming to be judged by our bright side only, we are glad that foreigners should see our bright side sometimes. It has not been too often painted in French colours; and we trust they will give the present artist’s work a fair hanging in their National Gallery.

LORD MACKENZIE’S ROMAN LAW.[^[3]]

It has sometimes been suspected that, in the noble delineation of the Roman character ascribed to Anchises in the sixth book of the ‘Æneid,’ Virgil was induced, by unworthy motives, to depreciate unduly the oratory of his countrymen as compared with that of the Greeks; and undoubtedly the inferiority of Cicero to Demosthenes, as a mere forensic pleader, is not so clear or decided as to demand imperatively from a Latin poet the admission there unreservedly made by the blunt and almost prosaic expression, “Orabunt causas melius.” Possibly, however, it was the poet’s true object, by yielding the most liberal concessions on other points, to enforce the more strongly his emphatic assertion, not merely of the superiority of the Romans in the arts of ordinary government, but of their exclusive or peculiar possession of the powers and faculties fitted for attaining and preserving a mighty empire. It is certain that he has justly and vividly described the great characteristic of that people, and the chief source and secret of their influence in the history of the world, when he makes the patriarch exclaim,—

“Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;

Hæ tibi erunt artes.”

In aid of the high moral and intellectual qualities which led to their success as the conquerors and rulers of the world, it is most material to notice the structure and genius of the language in which the Roman people expressed and embodied their political, legislative, and judicial determinations. Every national language is more or less the reflex of the national mind; and in no instance is this correspondence more conspicuous than in the case we are now considering.

The Latin language is inferior to the Greek in subtlety and refinement of expression, and is therefore far less adapted for metaphysical speculation or poetical grace—for analysing the nicer diversities of thought, or distinguishing the minuter shades of passion; but in the enunciation of ethical truths and of judicial maxims, it possesses a clearness, force, and majesty, to which no other form of speech can approach. The great foundations of law are good morals and good sense, and these, however simple and plain in their elements, are not mean or common things. On the contrary, they are susceptible of the greatest dignity of expression when embodied in words; and the language in which their principles shall be clothed may be of the utmost importance in rendering them both more portable in the memory and more impressive on the heart. The Roman jurists of the later period of the Republic were not careless students of the Greek philosophy; but they used it in their juridical writings with a wise discretion, and in special reference to the object of law, which is to lay down the broad rules of human conduct and personal rights in a form easily understood, and capable of being easily followed and faithfully observed by the mass of mankind.

The unequalled talent of the Roman people for political organisation is evinced by the manner in which the imperial authority was maintained, after the personal character of the nominal sovereigns had degenerated to the very lowest point of profligacy and imbecility. Our Teutonic ancestors had the wisdom to appreciate and adopt much of the machinery which they thus found in operation; and the municipal governments, as well as the judicial constitutions of Europe, are at this day influenced by the models which were thus left. The Popedom itself, on whose probable endurance for the future it would be hazardous to speculate, but whose marvellous ascendancy in time past is beyond dispute, was little else than an adaptation of the imperial organisation to ecclesiastical objects. But the influence of the Roman law on other nations was pre-eminently seen in the wide adoption of its general scheme, as well as of its special rules and maxims. Even the law of England—of all European systems perhaps the least indebted to the civil law—is deeply imbued with the Roman spirit in some of the most important departments of jurisprudence; and where the authority of the Roman law cannot claim a submissive allegiance, it is yet listened to as the best manifestation of the Recta Ratio that can anywhere be found. The vast experience of human transactions, and the endless complexities of social relations, which the Roman empire presented, afforded the best materials for maturing a science which was cultivated for noble objects by minds of the highest order, and embodied in propositions of unrivalled power and precision.

Independently of its influence on individual municipal systems, the Roman law deserves to be carefully studied, as affording the easiest transition, and the best introduction, from classical and philosophical pursuits to the technical rules and scientific principles of general jurisprudence. From Aristotle’s Ethics, or from Cicero De Officiis, the passage is plain and the ascent gentle to the Institutes of Gaius and Justinian; and these, again, are the best preparation for the perusal of Blackstone or Erskine. It ought, indeed, to be considered as a great privilege of the law-student that his path lies for so great a portion of its early way through a region which has been rendered so pleasing and attractive by the labours of the eminent men whom we have now named, and who combine so much charm of style and correctness of taste with so much practical wisdom and useful philosophy.

Hitherto, we think, there has been a great, or rather an utter, want in this country of any good Institute of the civil law, that could safely and efficiently guide the student in his early labours, or assist him in his more advanced progress. The elegant and admirable summary given by Gibbon in his History, cannot, without much comment and expansion, be made a book of instruction; but we feel assured that this want which we have noticed is supplied by the work now before us. Lord Mackenzie’s book, though bearing the popular and modest title of ‘Studies in Roman Law,’ is truly an Institute, or didactic Exposition, of that system, where its elements and leading principles are laid down and illustrated as fully as a student could require, while a reference is made at every step to texts and authorities, which will enable him to extend and confirm his views by a full examination of original sources. The enunciation of the legal principles is everywhere given with great brevity, but with remarkable clearness and precision, and in a manner equally pleasing and unpretending. The comparison which is at the same time presented between the Roman system and the laws of France, England, and Scotland, add greatly to the attraction as well as to the usefulness of the work.

At the risk of appearing to resemble the man in Hierocles who carried a brick about with him as a sample of his house, we shall here offer a few extracts in illustration of the character of the work and its style of execution, premising that the passages we have selected have reference to topics more of a popular than of a scientific kind.

The interest attaching at present to questions of international law, and to the rights of belligerents, will recommend the passages on those subjects which here follow:—

“If all the states of Europe were to concur in framing a general code of international law, which should be binding on them all, and form themselves into a confederacy to enforce it, this might be regarded as a positive law of nations for Europe. But nothing of this sort has ever been attempted. The nearest approach to such international legislation is the general regulations introduced into treaties by the great Powers of Europe, which are binding on the contracting parties, but not on the states that decline to accede to them.

“To settle disputes between nations on the principles of justice, rather than leave them to the blind arbitrament of war, is the primary object of the European law of nations. When war has broken out, it regulates the rights and duties of belligerents, and the conduct of neutrals.

“As the weak side of the law of nations is the want of a supreme executive power to enforce it, small states are exposed to great disadvantages in disputes with their more powerful neighbours. But the modern political system of Europe for the preservation of the balance of power forms a strong barrier against unjust aggression. When the power of one great state can be balanced, or kept in check, by that of another, the independence of smaller states is in some degree secured against both; for neither of the great Powers will allow its rival to add to its strength by the conquest of the smaller states....

“By the declaration of 16th April 1856, the Congress of Paris, held after the Crimean war, adopted four principles of international law. 1. Privateering is and remains abolished. 2. The neutral flag covers the enemy’s merchandise, with the exception of contraband of war. 3. Neutral merchandise, with the exception of contraband of war, is not liable to seizure under an enemy’s flag. 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, must be maintained by a force really sufficient to prevent approach to an enemy’s coast. This declaration was signed by the plenipotentiaries of the seven Powers who attended the Congress, and it was accepted by nearly all the states of the world. But the United States of America, Spain, and Mexico, refused their assent, because they objected to the abolition of privateering. So far as these Powers are concerned, therefore, privateering—that is, the employment of private cruisers commissioned by the state—still remains a perfectly legitimate mode of warfare. Britain and the other Powers who acceded to the declaration, are bound to discontinue the practice in hostilities with each other. But if we should have the misfortune to go to war with the United States, we should not be bound to abstain from privateering, unless the United States should enter into a similar and corresponding engagement with us....

“The freedom of commerce, to which neutral states are entitled, does not extend to contraband of war; but, according to the principles laid down in the declaration of Paris of April 1856, it may now be said that ‘a ship at sea is part of the soil of the country to which it belongs,’ with the single exception implied in the right of a belligerent to search for contraband. What constitutes contraband is not precisely settled; the limits are not absolutely the same for all Powers, and variations occur in particular treaties; but, speaking generally, belligerents have a right to treat as contraband, and to capture, all munitions of war and other articles directly auxiliary to warlike purposes. The neutral carrier engages in a contraband trade when he conveys official despatches from a person in the service of the enemy to the enemy’s possessions; but it has been decided that it is not illegal for a neutral vessel to carry despatches from the enemy to his Ambassador or his Consul in a neutral country. The penalty of carrying contraband is confiscation of the illegal cargo, and sometimes condemnation of the ship itself.

“The affair of the Trent, West Indian mail, gave rise to an important question of maritime law deeply affecting the rights of neutrals. In November 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the American war-steamer San Jacinto, after firing a roundshot and a shell, boarded the English mail-packet Trent, in Old Bahama Channel, on its passage from Havannah to Southampton, and carried off by force Messrs Mason and Slidell, two Commissioners from the Confederate States, who were taken on board as passengers bound for England. The Commissioners were conveyed to America, and committed to prison; but, after a formal requisition by Britain, declaring the capture to be illegal, they were surrendered by the Federal Government.

“The seizure of the Commissioners was attempted to be justified by American writers on two grounds: 1st, That the Commissioners were contraband of war, and that in carrying them the Trent was liable to condemnation for having committed a breach of neutrality; 2d, That, at all events, Captain Wilkes was entitled to seize the Commissioners either as enemies or rebels. Both these propositions are plainly untenable....

“In an able despatch by the French. Government to the Cabinet of Washington, M. Thouvenel declared that the seizure of the Commissioners in a neutral ship, trading from a neutral port to a neutral port, was not only contrary to the law of nations, but a direct contravention of the principles which the United States had up to that time invariably avowed and acted upon. Russia, Austria, and Prussia officially intimated their concurrence in that opinion.

“To argue the matter on the legal points in opposition to the disinterested and well-reasoned despatch of the French Minister was a hopeless task. In an elaborate state-paper, Mr Seward, the American Secretary of State, professed to rest the surrender of the Commissioners upon a mere technicality—that there had been no formal condemnation of the Trent by a prize-court; but, apart from this point of form, the seizure was indefensible on the merits as a flagrant violation of the law of nations; and if the principle was not so frankly acknowledged by Mr Seward as it ought to have been, some allowance must be made for a statesman who was trammelled by the report of his colleague, Mr Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, approving of Captain Wilkes’s conduct, and still more by the necessity of adopting a policy directly contrary to the whole current of popular opinion in the Northern States.”

The law of marriage and of divorce is very fully treated by Lord Mackenzie, and the peculiarities of the different European systems are well pointed out. The subject, however, is too extensive and important to admit of being incidentally noticed; and we shall confine our extracts here to a single passage describing a Roman form of cohabitation less honourable than matrimony, and such as we trust is never likely, to be legalised among ourselves:—

“Under Augustus, concubinage—the permanent cohabitation of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman—was authorised by law. The man who had a lawful wife could not take a concubine; neither was any man permitted to take as a concubine the wife of another man, or to have more than one concubine at the same time. A breach of these regulations was always condemned, and fell under the head of stuprum. In later times the concubine was called amica. Between persons of unequal rank concubinage was not uncommon; and sometimes it was resorted to by widowers who had already lawful children and did not wish to contract another legal marriage, as in the cases of Vespasian, Antoninus Pius, and M. Aurelius.

“As regards the father, the children born in concubinage were not under his power, and were not entitled to succeed as children by a legal marriage; but they had an acknowledged father, and could demand support from him, besides exercising other rights. As regards the mother, their rights of succession were as extensive as those of her lawful children.

“Under the Christian emperors concubinage was not favoured; but it subsisted as a legal institution in the time of Justinian. At last Leo the Philosopher, Emperor of the East, in a.d. 887, abrogated the laws which permitted concubinage, as being contrary to religion and public decency. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘should you prefer a muddy pool, when you can drink at a purer fountain?’ The existence of this custom, however, was long prolonged in the West among the Franks, Lombards, and Germans; and it is notorious that the clergy for some time gave themselves up to it without restraint.”

The practice of adoption prevailing in ancient Rome is well known, but an account of it as it is retained in the French law may be thought curious:—

“In France the usage of adoption was lost after the first race of kings: it disappeared, not only in the customary provinces, but also in the provinces governed by the written law. Re-established in 1792, adoption is now sanctioned by the Civil Code. Adoption, however, is only permitted to persons of either sex above the age of fifty, having neither children nor other lawful descendants, and being at least fifteen years older than the individual adopted. No married person can adopt without the consent of the other spouse. The privilege can only be exercised in favour of one who has been an object of the adopter’s care for at least six years during minority, or of one who has saved the life of the adopter in battle, from fire, or from drowning. In the latter case the only restriction respecting the age of the parties is, that the adopter shall be older than the adopted, and shall have attained his majority. In no case can adoption take place before the majority of the person proposed to be adopted.

“The form of adoption consists of a declaration of consent by the parties before a justice of the peace for the place where the adopter resides, after which the transaction requires to be approved of by the tribunal of first instance. After adoption, the adopted person retains all his rights as a member of his natural family. He acquires no right of succession to the property of any relation of the adopter; but in regard to the property of the adopter himself, he has precisely the same rights as a child born in marriage, even although there should be other children born in marriage after his adoption. The adopted takes the name of the adopter in addition to his own. No marriage can take place between the adopter and the adopted, or his descendants, and in certain other cases specified.

“The practice of adoption, which is better suited to some states of society than to others, still prevails among Eastern nations. It has never been recognised as a legal institution in England or Scotland.”

In ancient Rome, as at one time in Modern Athens, there was a practice of throwing or emptying things out of window not without danger or damage to the passer-by. This was the law on that point:—

“If anything was thrown from the windows of a house near a public thoroughfare, so as to injure any one by its fall, the inhabitant or occupier was, by the Roman law, bound to repair the damage, though it might be done without his knowledge by his family or servants, or even by a stranger. This affords an illustration of liability arising quasi ex delicto.

“In like manner, when damage was done to any person by a slave or an animal, the owner might in certain circumstances be liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without his knowledge and against his will; but in such a case, if no fault was directly imputable to the owner, he was entitled to free himself from all responsibility by abandoning the offending slave or animal to the person injured, which was called noxæ dare. Though these noxal actions are not classed by Justinian under the title of obligations quasi ex delicto, yet, in principle, they evidently fall within that category.

“All animals feræ naturæ, such as lions, tigers, bears, and the like, must be kept in a secure place to prevent them from doing mischief; but the same vigilance is not required in the case of animals mansuetæ naturæ, the presumption being, that no harm will arise in leaving them at large, unless they are known to be vicious or dangerous. So, where a foxhound destroyed eighteen sheep belonging to a farmer, it was decided by the House of Lords in an appeal from Scotland, that the owner of the dog was not liable for the loss, there being no evidence necessarily showing either knowledge of the vicious propensities of the dog or want of due care in keeping him; and it was observed that, both according to the English and the Scotch law, ‘the culpa or negligence of the owner is the foundation on which the right of action against him rests.’”

The subject of succession is treated by Lord Mackenzie in a very ample and satisfactory discussion. In particular, the chapter on ‘Intestate Succession in France, England, and Scotland’ will be found highly useful to the international jurist. Lord Mackenzie has not failed to observe here the striking peculiarity of the Scotch law, by which, with some qualifications very recently introduced, intestate succession, whether in real or personal estate, goes entirely to the agnates or paternal relations, and not at all to cognates or those on the mother’s side. This was the law of the Twelve Tables, but it was wholly altered in process of time, and, under Justinian’s enactments, paternal and maternal relations were equally favoured. In retaining the old distinction, the law of Scotland seems now to stand alone. The peculiarity may perhaps be explained by the strong feelings of family connection or clanship which so long prevailed in Scotland, and which bound together the descendants of the same paternal ancestor by so many common interests. But it is certainly singular that it should have continued to the present day with such slender modifications; and it is no small anomaly that, while a man may succeed to any of his maternal relations, none of his maternal relations can in general succeed to him, even in property which he may have inherited from the mother’s side.

The portion of the work devoted to actions and procedure introduces a clear light into a subject extremely technical, and often made very obscure by the mode in which it is treated. We have only room for a short extract as to the remedium miserabile of Cessio Bonorum:—

“The cessio bonorum has been adopted in France as well as in Scotland. By the ancient law of France, every debtor who sought the benefit of cessio was obliged by the sentence to wear in public a green bonnet (bonnet vert) furnished by his creditors, under the penalty of being imprisoned if he was found without it. According to Pothier, this was intended as a warning to all citizens to conduct their affairs with prudence, so as to avoid the risk of exposing themselves to such ignominy; but he explains that in his time, though the condition was inserted in the sentence, it was seldom acted on in practice, except at Bordeaux, where it is said to have been rigidly enforced.

“Formerly, a custom somewhat similar prevailed in Scotland. Every debtor who obtained the benefit of cessio was appointed to wear ‘the dyvour’s habit,’ which was a coat or upper garment, half yellow and half brown, with a cap of the same colours. In modern times this usage was discontinued. ‘According to the state of public feeling, it would be held a disgrace to the administration of justice. It would shock the innocent; it would render the guilty miserably profligate.’ For a considerable time it had become the practice in the judgment to dispense with the dyvour’s habit, and by the statute of Will. IV. it is utterly abolished.”

The work concludes with a very agreeable chapter on the Roman bar, from which we shall borrow a couple of passages. A certain portion of time was generally allowed to advocates for their speeches, but which varied before different judges and at different periods.

“A clepsydra was used in the tribunals for measuring time by water, similar in principle to the modern sand-glass. When the judge consented to prolong the period assigned for discussion, he was said to give water—dare aquam. ‘As for myself,’ says Pliny, ‘whenever I sit upon the bench (which is much oftener than I appear at the bar), I always give the advocates as much water as they require; for I look upon it as the height of presumption to pretend to guess before a cause is heard what time it will require, and to set limits to an affair before one is acquainted with its extent, especially as the first and most sacred duty of a judge is patience, which, indeed, is itself a very considerable part of justice. But the advocate will say many things that are useless. Granted. Yet is it not better to hear too much than not to hear enough? Besides, how can you know that the things are useless till you have heard them?’

“Marcus Aurelius, we are told, was in the habit of giving a large measure of water to the advocates, and even permitting them to speak as long as they pleased.

“By a constitution of Valentinian and Valens, A.D. 368, advocates were authorised to speak as long as they wished, upon condition that they should not abuse this liberty in order to swell the amount of their fees.”

The history of Roman practice, and, in particular, of the Cincian Law on the subject of advocates’ fees, is ably condensed; and the law of France and Scotland on the subject is thus stated:—

“In France, ancient laws and decisions, as well as the opinions of the doctors, allowed an action to advocates to recover their fees; but according to the later jurisprudence of the Parliament of Paris, and the actual discipline of the bar now in force, no advocate was or is permitted to institute such an action. In like manner barristers in England are held to exercise a profession of an honorary character, ‘and cannot, therefore, maintain an action for remuneration for what they have done, unless the employer has expressly agreed to pay them.’ Upon this point the authorities in the law of Scotland are not very precise. Lord Bankton says, ‘Though action be competent for such gratification, advocates who regard their character abhor such judicial claims, and keep in their mind the notable saying of Ulpian upon the like occasion, Quœdam enim tametsi honeste accipiantur, inhoneste tamen petuntur.’ But it is maintained by others, whose opinion is entitled to great weight, that no action lies for such fees—the presumption, in the absence of an express paction, being, that the advocate has ‘either been satisfied, or agreed to serve gratis.’”

What the law of England is on this most important question will probably be definitively settled in a cause célèbre now depending. We do not conceal our earnest hope that the principles laid down in the recent judgment of Chief-Justice Erle will never be departed from.

We close this notice by strongly recommending Lord Mackenzie’s book to the notice both of the student and the practising jurist, to each of whom we think it indispensable.