‘The Emperor of Morocco’s curses against his two eldest sons, taken from the original in his own writing in the register of the principal church at Morocco,’ is a curiosity, if scarcely a literary one; and the same may be said of a specimen of French penmanship—a series of portraits of the time of Louis XIV., executed with such freedom that they seem to have been done with one uninterrupted flourish of the pen. Each portrait has a song with music appended to it, the volume ending with a piece of music in Rousseau’s own hand, composed by him at Paris in 1776.
The letters, original and transcribed, in the collection are so multitudinous, that it is impossible to enter into detail about them; they cover every reign from Edward III. to George III., and unrepresented Englishmen of any note are few indeed; while epistles written by such illustrious foreigners as Doge Andrea Contarini, Francis I., Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV., Madame de Maintenon, Voltaire, Frederick the Great, Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Napoleon the Great, figure in the catalogue of contents.
We must mention that among the treasures acquired by the nation are a number of manuscripts in the Irish language, and of manuscripts relating to the history and antiquities of Ireland; besides the correspondence of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, Lord-lieutenant of Ireland under Charles II. The government having decided that manuscripts in the Irish language, and those bearing more or less directly upon Irish history and literature, should be lent indefinitely to the Royal Irish Academy, for the use of students and the public, the greater portion of the above will be lost to Bloomsbury—how large a portion will not be known, until the representatives of the British Museum and the Irish Academy have settled the matter between them.
A SKETCH FROM MY STUDY WINDOW.
There were three of them, little pale-faced, grave-eyed girl-children, unmistakable Londoners in their lack of the healthy colouring and sturdy limbs which would have marked country-bred children of their age. The eldest was perhaps eleven; the younger ones, eight and six years old respectively; and it was pretty, as well as pathetic, to see the prematurely motherly care which the eldest sister—whom the little ones called ‘Gertie’—bestowed upon the tiny mite whose responsible protector she seemed to be.
When first I noticed them, they were walking demurely round the gravel-path of the square upon which my study window looks out. Each had a skipping-rope dangling loosely from her hands; and the younger ones were evidently intent upon some grave story from the lips of their sister. Presently, they came along the upper side of the garden, towards my window, and I had my first glimpse of their faces. Each was pretty in her childish way. The eldest, tall for her age, slight and dark, had regular features and soft brown eyes, whose naturally pathetic expression was heightened by the deep mourning-frock and crape-trimmed hat which each alike was wearing. The two younger children were less noticeable in appearance, the second being, I fancied, ordinarily a merry, dimpled little maiden, whom, but for some temporary cloud on her spirits, I could more easily have pictured enjoying a good game of romps with some of the other small frequenters of our garden; and the youngest, like Gertrude, a pensive-faced baby, with sadly transparent colouring and fragile figure, betokening constitutional delicacy. It was summer-time; and as they passed beneath my widely opened window, I caught the word ‘Mother’ two or three times repeated, gravely pronounced by Gertie; and I judged, from the reverent expression of the three little faces and from their deep mourning, that she was recalling to the memory of her charges some childish reminiscences of a recently lost parent.
I had certainly never seen them before, or, child-worshipper that I was, I could not have failed to recognise them. All the other young people in the garden—from Tommy, surname unknown, aged two, with a penchant for sticky sweetmeats, and an aversion to nurses, to Miss Mildred Holford, verging upon sweet seventeen, and alternating between spasmodic propriety and innate tomboyism—were intimately known to me—by sight, at all events; and in my idle speculations upon the little strangers, I jumped to the conclusion—subsequently verified—that they were new-comers to one of the large empty houses facing mine on the further side of our square.
From that day forward I saw them frequently, generally, as on the first occasion, alone, the eldest in charge of the younger ones, sometimes accompanied by a tall lady, also in deep mourning, whom they addressed as ‘auntie;’ sometimes with a sober, matronly looking nurse, who carried in her arms a bundle of white drapery, enveloping what I opined to be a baby of tender weeks. This baby was the favourite toy of the three little sisters. Nothing else possessed the slightest attraction for them when their tiny brother was present; and it was a pretty study to watch the pride and delight of the two elder girls, when their nurse allowed each in turn to carry the white-robed atom a few steps away from her side and back again. Nor was little Ethel, the youngest of the trio, debarred from the privilege of playing nurse sometimes. Too weak and frail to be safely trusted to carry the precious burden, it was her chief delight to sit, still as a mouse, on the corner of one of the garden-seats, crooning and talking baby-talk to the unconscious morsel on her lap, while the nurse and elder girls kept guard at a few yards’ distance, their absence being clearly a highly valued condition of this innocent ‘confidence-trick.’
Morning after morning, throughout the first week of their residence in our square, was the same routine carried out; the younger ones sometimes indulging in a run with their hoops, from Gertie’s side; sometimes amusing themselves with dolls or skipping-ropes; or again listening while their aunt or Gertrude read aloud to them. But on Saturday morning they did not appear as usual, and I found myself quite missing their company, and puzzling myself with vague speculations to account for their absence. Even in this short time my heart had gone out towards the little motherless girls, and I had begun unconsciously to weave fanciful theories of their past and present life, to account for the sweet seriousness and precocious womanly airs of the eldest girl, and the influence of love—for her manner was untinged by any assumption of elder-sisterly prerogative—which she clearly possessed and exercised over the younger ones. Rightly or wrongly, I never knew, but I pictured them the children of parents separated by a long interval of years in age, but united by strong bonds of confidence and affection. Gertrude’s sedate air suggested that she had been rather the companion than the plaything of her mother; and that the mother’s influence had been tender, without caprice, was apparent from her child’s gentle gravity, and from the unquestioning attention paid to her lightest hint or remonstrance by the younger sisters. The words, ‘Mother would not have wished it,’ or, ‘Father would not like to see it,’ from her lips were sufficient in a moment to quell Edith’s occasional fractiousness, or to dry Ethel’s ready tears; while the confidence existing between all three was enough to show that no undue favouritism had ever wakened jealousy of one another. Unselfish to a fault, Gertrude was the one to give way in every question of mere personal preference; but she never swerved from her adherence to what she believed would be ‘mother’s’ wish or course of action, and an appeal from her opinion to aunt or nurse was rare indeed.
Such were some of my dreams of these little ones that Saturday morning. Luncheon-time came, and passed, without a sign; and so restless and idle had I been all morning, owing to the absurd interest I had taken in the non-appearance of my little friends, that, contrary to my usual custom, I was obliged to forego my half-holiday and settle to work again. Suddenly, glancing from my book for the thousandth time that day, I spied the little trio approaching. They looked less grave than usual, and were manifestly preoccupied, as I judged from the frequent glances cast by one and all towards the entrance-gate, at the far corner of the square. At last the cause became evident. The gate swung open, and an elderly gentleman in deep mourning came hastily into the garden. He was quickly perceived; and with a glad cry of ‘Father!’ all three children scampered off to meet him. ‘Father’s’ half-holiday was clearly the event of the week for his little motherless girls; and for the first time since I had seen her, the sad cloud passed from Gertie’s eyes, and for a few hours was lost in the light of unalloyed happiness. Under ‘father’s’ generalship they played merry childish games, laughing and romping as I had never yet deemed it possible they could laugh or romp; and when the delicate little Ethel grew weary and could play no longer, there was a knee for each of the younger pets, and a seat at her father’s side for Gertrude, while it was evident that he was spinning yarns and racking his brains for fairy tales, each of which was rewarded with unanimous applause, and reiterated calls upon the narrator’s memory or invention. So passed the happy holiday afternoon, a peaceful idyll in the great prose volume of London life; and when at length the father rose from his seat, and, with a tiny hand in each of his, moved slowly homewards, I felt as if the colour had faded out of the summer evening, and the workaday clouds had begun to close in upon me again.