In my first inaugural lecture on Art at Oxford, given in the theatre, (full crowded to hear what first words might be uttered in the University on so unheard-of a subject,) I closed by telling my audience—to the amusement of some, the offence of others, and the disapproval of all,—that the entire system of their art-studies must be regulated with a view to the primal art, which many of them would soon have to learn, that of getting their food out of the Ground, or out of the Sea.
Time has worn on; and, last year, a Christ-Church man, an excellent scholar, came to talk with me over his brother’s prospects in life, and his own. For himself, he proposed, and very earnestly, considering his youth and gifts, (lying, as far as I could judge, more towards the rifle-ground than in other directions,) to go into the Church: but for his brother, he was anxious, as were all his relatives;—said brother having broken away from such modes of living as the relatives held orthodox, and taken to catching and potting of salmon on the Columbia River; having farther transgressed all the proprieties of civilized society by providing himself violently with the [[255]]‘capital’ necessary for setting up in that line of business, and ‘stealing a boat.’ How many boats, with nine boilers each in them, the gentlemen of Her Majesty’s navy construct annually with money violently abstracted out of my poor pockets, and those of other peaceful labourers,—boats not to catch salmon with, or any other good thing, but simply to amuse themselves, and blow up stokers with,—civilized society may perhaps in time learn to consider. In the meantime, I consoled my young St. Peter as well as I could for his brother’s carnal falling away; represented to him that, without occasional fishing for salmon, there would soon be no men left to fish for; and that even this tremendous violation of the eighth commandment, to the extent of the abstraction of a boat, might not perchance, with due penitence, keep the young vagabond wholly hopeless of Paradise; my own private opinion being that the British public would, on the whole, benefit more by the proceedings of the young pirate, if he provided them annually with a sufficient quantity of potted salmon, than by the conscientious, but more costly, ministry of his brother, who, provided with the larger boat-apparatus of a nave, and the mast of a steeple, proposed to employ this naval capital only in the provision of potted talk.
And finding that, in spite of the opinion of society, there were still bowels of mercies in this good youth, yearning after his brother, I got him to copy for me some of the brother’s letters from the Columbia River, [[256]]confessing his piratical proceedings, (as to which I, for one, give him a Christian man’s absolution without more ado;) and account of his farther life in those parts—life which appears to me, on the whole, so brave, exemplary, and wise, that I print the letters as chief article of this month’s correspondence; and I am going to ask the boy to become a Companion of St. George forthwith, and send him a collar of the Order, (as soon as we have got gold to make collars of,) with a little special pictorial chasing upon it, representing the Miraculous Draught of Fishes. [[257]]
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
I. Affairs of the Master.
| £ | s. | d. | ||
| Balance, June 16 | 765 | 19 | 1 | |
| By cash, (rents, etc.,) May and June | 180 | 11 | 8 | |
| 946 | 10 | 9 | ||
| 328 | 19 | 6 | ||
| Balance, July 16 | £617 | 11 | 3 | |
| June 25. | Downs | 16 | 0 | 0 |
| July 1. | St. George Secretary | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| July,, 1.,, | Raffaelle, July and August | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| July,, 1.,, | Gift to poor relation, annual | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| 6. | Johns, Camberwell, Bookseller | 17 | 19 | 6 |
| 7. | Jackson | 40 | 0 | 0 |
| 7. | Joseph Sly[a] | 40 | 0 | 0 |
| 8. | Crawley | 30 | 0 | 0 |
| 11. | To Assisi[b] | 45 | 0 | 0 |
| 11. | Self[c] | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| £328 | 19 | 6 | ||
[a] Carriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th. [↑]
[b] Twenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there. [↑]
[c] I shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month. [↑]
II. Affairs of the Company.