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[PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND HABITS OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.]
[MADAME CAMPAN.]
[PROCRASTINATION.]
[BRUNORO.]
[A SKETCH OF MY CHILDHOOD.]
[VISIT TO AN ENGLISH DAIRY.]
[SAILING IN THE AIR.—HISTORY OF AERONAUTICS.]
[MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE]
[A LUNATIC ASYLUM IN PALERMO.]
[SLOPED FOR TEXAS.—A TALE OF THE WEST.]
[THE_VOLCANO-GIRL.]
[PUBLIC OPINION AND THE PUBLIC PRESS.]
[THE DUMB CHILD.]
[CURIOSITIES OF RAILWAY TRAVELING.]
[THE ROBBERS' REVENGE.—FROM THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A POLICE-OFFICER.]
[WORDSWORTH AND CARLYLE.]
[MILTON AND WORDSWORTH.]
[RATS AND RAT-KILLERS IN ENGLAND.]
[THE BROKEN HEART; OR, THE WELL OF PEN-MORFA.]
[THE YOUNG MAN'S COUNSELOR.]
[TALLEYRAND.]
[THE DANGERS OF DOING WRONG. A TALE OF THE SEA-SIDE.]
[ANECDOTES OF NAPOLEON.]
[A CRISIS IN THE AFFAIRS OF MR. JOHN BULL.]
[WAITING FOR THE POST.—INTERESTING ANECDOTES.]
[CHEERFUL VIEWS OF HUMAN NATURE.]
[THE MYSTERIES OF A TEA-KETTLE.]
[MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.]
[MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.]
[LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART, PERSONAL MOVEMENTS, ETC.]
[LITERARY NOTICES.]
[A LEAF FROM PUNCH.]
[WINTER FASHIONS.]

HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. VIII.—JANUARY, 1851.—VOL. II.

ROBERT SOUTHEY

PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND HABITS OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

BY HIS SON.[1]

Being the youngest of all his children, I had not the privilege of knowing my father in his best and most joyous years, nor of remembering Greta Hall when the happiness of its circle was unbroken. Much labor and anxiety, and many sorrows, had passed over him; and although his natural buoyancy of spirit had not departed, it was greatly subdued, and I chiefly remember its gradual diminution from year to year.

In appearance he was certainly a very striking looking person, and in early days he had by many been considered almost the beau idéal of a poet. Mr. Cottle describes him at the age of twenty-two as "tall, dignified, possessing great suavity of manners, an eye piercing, a countenance full of genius, kindliness, and intelligence;" and he continues, "I had read so much of poetry, and sympathized so much with poets in all their eccentricities and vicissitudes, that to see before me the realization of a character which in the abstract so much absorbed my regards, gave me a degree of satisfaction which it would be difficult to express." Eighteen years later Lord Byron calls him a prepossessing looking person, and, with his usual admixture of satire, says, "To have his head and shoulders I would almost have written his Sapphics;" and elsewhere he speaks of his appearance as "Epic," an expression which may be either a sneer or a compliment.

His forehead was very broad; his height was five feet eleven inches; his complexion rather dark, the eyebrows large and arched, the eye well shaped and dark brown, the mouth somewhat prominent, muscular, and very variously expressive, the chin small in proportion to the upper features of his face. He always, while in Keswick, wore a cap in his walks, and partly from habit, partly from the make of his head and shoulders, we never thought he looked well or like himself in a hat. He was of a very spare frame, but of great activity, and not showing any appearance of a weak constitution.

My father's countenance, like his character, seems to have softened down from a certain wildness of expression to a more sober and thoughtful cast; and many thought him a handsomer man in age than in youth; his eye retaining always its brilliancy, and his countenance its play of expression.

The reader will remember his Republican independency when an under-graduate at Oxford, in rebelling against the supremacy of the college barber. Though he did not continue to let his hair hang down on his shoulders according to the whim of his youthful days, yet he always wore a greater quantity than is usual; and once, on his arrival in town, Chantrey's first greetings to him were accompanied with an injunction to go and get his hair cut. When I first remember it, it was turning from a rich brown to the steel shade, whence it rapidly became almost snowy white, losing none of its remarkable thickness, and clustering in abundant curls over his massive brow.

For the following remarks on his general bearing and habits of conversation I am indebted to a friend:

"The characteristics of his manner, as of his appearance, were lightness and strength, an easy and happy composure as the accustomed mood, with much mobility at the same time, so that he could be readily excited into any degree of animation in discourse, speaking, if the subject moved him much, with extraordinary fire and force, though always in light, laconic sentences. When so moved, the fingers of his right hand often rested against his mouth, and quivered through nervous susceptibility. But, excitable as he was in conversation, he was never angry or irritable; nor can there be any greater mistake concerning him than that into which some persons have fallen, when they have inferred, from the fiery vehemence with which he could give utterance to moral anger in verse or prose, that he was personally ill-tempered or irascible. He was, in truth, a man whom it was hardly possible to quarrel with or offend personally and face to face; and in his writings, even on public subjects in which his feelings were strongly engaged, he will be observed to have always dealt tenderly with those whom he had once seen and spoken to, unless, indeed, personally and grossly assailed by them. He said of himself that he was tolerant of persons, though intolerant of opinions. But in oral intercourse the toleration of persons was so much the stronger, that the intolerance of opinions was not to be perceived; and, indeed, it was only in regard to opinions of a pernicious moral tendency that it was ever felt.

"He was averse from argumentation, and would commonly quit a subject when it was passing into that shape, with a quiet and good-humored indication of the view in which he rested. He talked most and with most interest about books and about public affairs; less, indeed hardly at all, about the characters and qualities of men in private life. In the society of strangers or of acquaintances, he seemed to take more interest in the subjects spoken of than in the persons present, his manner being that of natural courtesy and general benevolence without distinction of individuals. Had there been some tincture of social vanity in him, perhaps he would have been brought into closer relations with those whom he met in society; but, though invariably kind and careful of their feelings, he was indifferent to the manner in which they regarded him, or (as the phrase is) to his effect in society; and they might, perhaps, be conscious that the kindness they received was what flowed naturally and inevitably to all, that they had nothing to give in return which was of value to him, and that no individual relations were established.

"In conversation with intimate friends he would sometimes express, half humorously, a cordial commendation of some production of his own, knowing that with them he could afford it, and that to those who knew him well it was well known that there was no vanity in him. But such commendations, though light and humorous, were perfectly sincere; for he both possessed and cherished the power of finding enjoyment and satisfaction wherever it was to be found—in his own books, in the books of his friends, and in all books whatsoever that were not morally tainted or absolutely barren."

His course of life was the most regular and simple possible. When it is said that breakfast was at nine, after a little reading,[2] dinner at four, tea at six, supper at half-past nine, and the intervals filled up with reading or writing, except that he regularly walked between two and four, and took a short sleep before tea, the outline of his day during those long seasons when he was in full work will have been given. After supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over, though he generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was open to enter into conversation, to amuse and to be amused. It was on such times that the most pleasant fireside chattings, and the most interesting stories came forth; and, indeed, it was at such a time (though long before my day) that The Doctor was originated, as may be seen by the beginning of that work and the Preface to the new edition. Notwithstanding that the very mention of "my glass of punch," the one, temperate, never exceeded glass of punch, may be a stumbling-block to some of my readers, I am constrained, by the very love of the perfect picture which the first lines of The Doctor convey of the conclusion of his evening, to transcribe them in this place. It was written but for a few, otherwise The Doctor would have been no secret at all; but those few who knew him in his home will see his very look while they re-peruse it, and will recall the well-known sound:

"I was in the fourth night of the story of the Doctor and his horse, and had broken it off, not, like Scheherazade, because it was time to get up, but because it was time to go to bed. It was at thirty-five minutes after ten o'clock on the 20th of July, in the year of our Lord 1813. I finished my glass of punch, tinkled the spoon against its side, as if making music to my own meditations, and having fixed my eyes upon the Bhow Begum, who was sitting opposite to me at the head of her own table, I said, 'It ought to be written in a book.'"

This scene took place at the table of the Bhow Begum,[3] but it may easily be transferred to his ordinary room, where he sat after supper in one corner, with the fire on his left hand and a small table on his right, looking on at his family circle in front of him.

I have said before, as indeed his own letters have abundantly shown, that he was a most thoroughly domestic man, in that his whole pleasure and happiness was centred in his home; but yet, from the course of his pursuits, his family necessarily saw but little of him. He could not, however he might wish it, join the summer evening walk, or make one of the circle round the winter hearth, or even spare time for conversation after the family meals (except during the brief space I have just been speaking of). Every day, every hour had its allotted employment; always were there engagements to publishers imperatively requiring punctual fulfillment; always the current expenses of a large household to take anxious thoughts for: he had no crops growing while he was idle. "My ways," he used to say, "are as broad as the king's high road, and my means lie in an ink-stand."

Yet, notwithstanding the value which every moment of his time thus necessarily bore, unlike most literary men, he was never ruffled in the slightest degree by the interruptions of his family, even on the most trivial occasions; the book or the pen was ever laid down with a smile, and he was ready to answer any question, or to enter with youthful readiness into any temporary topic of amusement or interest.

In earlier years he spoke of himself as ill calculated for general society, from a habit of uttering single significant sentences, which, from being delivered without any qualifying clauses, bore more meaning upon their surface than he intended, and through which his real opinions and feelings were often misunderstood. This habit, as far as my own observation went, though it was sometimes apparent, he had materially checked in later life, and in large parties he was usually inclined to be silent, rarely joining in general conversation. But he was very different when with only one or two companions; and to those strangers, who came to him with letters of introduction, he was both extremely courteous in manner, and frank and pleasant in conversation, and to his intimates no one could have been more wholly unreserved, more disposed to give and receive pleasure, or more ready to pour forth his vast stores of information upon almost every subject.

I might go on here, and enter more at length into details of his personal character, but the task is too difficult a one, and is perhaps, after all, better left unattempted. A most intimate and highly-valued friend of my father's, whom I wished to have supplied me with some passages on these points, remarks very justly, that "any portraiture of him, by the pen as by the pencil, will fall so far short both of the truth and the ideal which the readers of his poetry and his letters will have formed for themselves, that they would be worse than superfluous." And, indeed, perhaps I have already said too much. I can not, however, resist quoting here some lines by the friend above alluded to, which describe admirably in brief my father's whole character:

"Two friends
Lent me a further light, whose equal hate
On all unwholesome sentiment attends,
Nor whom may genius charm where heart infirm attends.

"In all things else contrarious were these two:
The one a man upon whose laureled brow
Gray hairs were growing! glory ever new
Shall circle him in after years as now;
For spent detraction may not disavow
The world of knowledge with the wit combined,
The elastic force no burden e'er could bow,
The various talents and the single mind,
Which give him moral power and mastery o'er mankind.

"His sixty summers—what are they in truth?
By Providence peculiarly blest,
With him the strong hilarity of youth
Abides, despite gray hairs, a constant guest,
His sun has veered a point toward the west,
But light as dawn his heart is glowing yet—
That heart the simplest, gentlest, kindliest, best,
Where truth and manly tenderness are met
With faith and heavenward hope, the suns that never set."[4]

What further I will venture to say relates chiefly to the external circumstances of his life at Keswick.

His greatest relaxation was in a mountain excursion or a pic-nic by the side of one of the lakes, tarns, or streams; and these parties, of which he was the life and soul, will long live in the recollections of those who shared them. An excellent pedestrian (thinking little of a walk of twenty-five miles when upward of sixty), he usually headed the "infantry" on these occasions, looking on those gentlemen as idle mortals who indulged in the luxury of a mountain pony; feeling very differently in the bracing air of Cumberland to what he did in Spain in 1800, when he delighted in being "gloriously lazy," in "sitting sideways upon an ass," and having even a boy to "propel" the burro.

Upon first coming down to the Lakes he rather undervalued the pleasures of an al-fresco repast, preferring chairs and tables to the greensward of the mountains, or the moss-grown masses of rock by the lake shore; but these were probably the impressions of a cold, wet summer, and having soon learned thoroughly to appreciate these pleasures, he had his various chosen places which he thought it a sort of duty annually to revisit. Of these I will name a few, as giving them, perhaps, an added interest to some future tourists. The summit of Skiddaw he regularly visited, often three or four times in a summer, but the view thence was not one he greatly admired. Sea-Fell and Helvellyn he ranked much higher, but on account of their distance did not often reach. Saddleback and Causey Pike, two mountains rarely ascended by tourists, were great favorites with him, and were the summits most frequently chosen for a grand expedition; and the two tarns upon Saddleback, Threlkeld and Bowscale tarns, were among the spots he thought most remarkable for grand and lonely beauty. This, too, was ground rendered more than commonly interesting, by having been the scenes of the childhood and early life of Clifford the Shepherd Lord. The rocky streams of Borrowdale, high up beyond Stonethwaite and Seathwaite, were also places often visited, especially one beautiful spot, where the river makes a sharp bend at the foot of Eagle Crag. The pass of Honistar Crag, leading from Buttermere to Borrowdale, furnished a longer excursion, which was occasionally taken with a sort of rustic pomp in the rough market carts of the country, before the cars which are now so generally used had become common, or been permitted by their owners to travel that worst of all roads. Occasionally there were grand meetings with Mr. Wordsworth, and his family and friends, at Leatheswater (or Thirlmere), a point about half way between Keswick and Rydal; and here as many as fifty persons have sometimes met together from both sides of the country. These were days of great enjoyment, not to be forgotten.

VALE OF WATENLATH.

There was also an infinite variety of long walks, of which he could take advantage when opportunity served, without the preparation and trouble of a preconcerted expedition: several of these are alluded to in his Colloquies. The circuit formed by passing behind Barrow and Lodore to the vale of Watenlath, placed up high among the hills, with its own little lake and village, and the rugged path leading thence down to Borrowdale, was one of the walks he most admired. The beautiful vale of St. Johns, with its "Castle Rock" and picturesquely placed little church, was another favorite walk; and there were a number of springs of unusual copiousness situated near what had been apparently a deserted, and now ruined village, where he used to take luncheon. The rocky bed of the little stream at the foot of Causey Pike was a spot he loved to rest at; and the deep pools of the stream that flows down the adjoining valley of New Lands—

"Whose pure and chrysolite waters
Flow o'er a schistose bed,"

formed one of his favorite resorts for bathing.

Yet these excursions, although for a few years he still continued to enjoy them, began in later life to wear to him something of a melancholy aspect. So many friends were dead who had formerly shared them, and his own domestic losses were but too vividly called to mind with the remembrance of former days of enjoyment, the very grandeur of the scenery around many of the chosen places, and the unchanging features of the "everlasting hills," brought back forcibly sad memories, and these parties became in time so painful that it was with difficulty he could be prevailed upon to join in them.

He concealed, indeed, as the reader has seen, beneath a reserved manner, a most acutely sensitive mind, and a warmth and kindliness of feeling which was only understood by few, indeed, perhaps, not thoroughly by any. He said, speaking of the death of his uncle, Mr. Hill, that one of the sources of consolation to him was the thought that perhaps the departed might then be conscious how truly he had loved and honored him; and I believe the depth of his affection and the warmth of his friendship was known to none but himself. On one particular point I remember his often regretting his constitutional bashfulness and reserve; and that was, because, added to his retired life and the nature of his pursuits, it prevented him from knowing any thing of the persons among whom he lived. Long as he had resided at Keswick, I do not think there were twenty persons in the lower class whom he knew by sight; and though this was in some measure owing to a slight degree of short-sightedness, which, contrary to what is usual, came on in later life, yet I have heard him often lament it as not being what he thought right; and after slightly returning the salutation of some passer by, he would again mechanically lift his cap as he heard some well-known name in reply to his inquiries, and look back with regret that the greeting had not been more cordial. With those persons who were occasionally employed about the house he was most familiarly friendly, and these regarded him with a degree of affectionate reverence that could not be surpassed.

It may perhaps be expected by some readers that a more accurate account of my father's income should be given than has yet appeared; but this is not an easy matter, from its extreme variableness, and this it was that constituted a continual source of uneasiness both to others and to himself, rarely as he acknowledged it. A common error has been to speak of him as one to whom literature has been a mine of wealth. That his political opponents should do this is not so strange; but even Charles Lamb, who, if he had thought a little, would hardly have written so rashly, says, in a letter to Bernard Barton, recently published, that "Southey has made a fortune by book drudgery." What sort of a "fortune" that was which never once permitted him to have one year's income beforehand, and compelled him almost always to forestall the profit of his new works, the reader may imagine.

His only certain source of income[5] was his pension, from which he received £145, and the Laureateship, which was £90: the larger portion of these two sums, however, went to the payment of his life-insurance, so that not more than £100 could be calculated upon as available, and the Quarterly Review was therefore for many years his chief means of support. He received latterly £100 for an article, and commonly furnished one for each number. What more was needful had to be made up by his other works, which as they were always published upon the terms of the publisher taking the risk and sharing the profits, produced him but little, considering the length of time they were often in preparation, and as he was constantly adding new purchases to his library, but little was to be reckoned upon this account. For the Peninsular War he received £1000, but the copyright remained the property of the publisher.

With regard to his mode of life, although it was as simple and inexpensive as possible, his expenditure was with difficulty kept within his income, though he had indeed a most faithful helpmate, who combined with a wise and careful economy a liberality equal to his own in any case of distress. One reason for this difficulty was, that considerable sums were, not now and then, but regularly, drawn from him by his less successful relatives.

The house which for so many years was his residence at Keswick, though well situated both for convenience and for beauty of prospect, was unattractive in external appearance, and to most families would have been an undesirable residence. Having originally been two houses, afterward thrown together, it consisted of a good many small rooms, connected by long passages, all of which with great ingenuity he made available for holding books, with which indeed the house was lined from top to bottom. His own sitting-room, which was the largest in the house, was filled with the handsomest of them, arranged with much taste, according to his own fashion, with due regard to size, color, and condition; and he used to contemplate these, his carefully accumulated and much prized treasures, with even more pleasure and pride than the greatest connoisseur his finest specimens of the old masters: and justly, for they were both the necessaries and the luxuries of life to him; both the very instruments whereby he won, hardly enough, his daily bread, and the source of all his pleasures and recreations—the pride of his eyes and the joy of his heart.

His Spanish and Portuguese collection, which at one time was one of the best, if not itself the best to be found in the possession of any private individual, was the most highly-prized portion of his library. It had been commenced by his uncle, Mr. Hill, long prior to my father's first visit to Lisbon; and having originated in the love Mr. Hill himself had for the literature of those countries, it was carried forward with more ardor when he found that his nephew's taste and abilities were likely to turn it to good account. It comprised a considerable number of manuscripts, some of them copied by Mr. Hill from rare MSS. in private and convent libraries.

Many of these old books being in vellum or parchment bindings, he had taken much pains to render them ornamental portions of the furniture of his shelves. His brother Thomas was skillful in calligraphy; and by his assistance their backs were painted with some bright color, and upon it the title placed lengthwise in large gold letters of the old English type. Any one who had visited his library will remember the tastefully-arranged pyramids of these curious-looking books.

Another fancy of his was to have all those books of lesser value, which had become ragged and dirty, covered, or rather bound, in colored cotton prints, for the sake of making them clean and respectable in their appearance, it being impossible to afford the cost of having so many put into better bindings.

Of this task his daughters, aided by any female friends who might be staying with them, were the performers; and not fewer than from 1200 to 1400 volumes were so bound by them at different times, filling completely one room, which he designated as the Cottonian library. With this work he was much interested and amused, as the ladies would often suit the pattern to the contents, clothing a Quaker work or a book of sermons in sober drab, poetry in some flowery design, and sometimes contriving a sly piece of satire at the contents of some well-known author by their choice of its covering. One considerable convenience attended this eccentric mode of binding—the book became as well known by its dress as by its contents, and much more easily found.

With respect to his mode of acquiring and arranging the contents of a book, it was somewhat peculiar. He was as rapid a reader as could be conceived, having the power of perceiving by a glance down the page whether it contained any thing which he was likely to make use of—a slip of paper lay on his desk, and was used as a marker, and with a slight penciled S he would note the passage, put a reference on the paper, with some brief note of the subject, which he could transfer to his note-book, and in the course of a few hours he had classified and arranged every thing in the work which it was likely he would ever want. It was thus, with a remarkable memory (not so much for the facts or passages themselves, but for their existence and the authors that contained them), and with this kind of index, both to it and them, that he had at hand a command of materials for whatever subject he was employed upon, which has been truly said to be "unequaled."

Many of the choicest passages he would transcribe himself at odds and ends of times, or employ one of his family to transcribe for him; and these are the extracts which form his "Commonplace Book," recently published; but those of less importance he had thus within reach in case he wished to avail himself of them. The quickness with which this was done was very remarkable. I have often known him receive a parcel of books one afternoon, and the next have found his mark throughout perhaps two or three different volumes; yet, if a work took his attention particularly, he was not rapid in its perusal; and on some authors, such as the Old Divines, he "fed," as he expressed it, slowly and carefully, dwelling on the page and taking in its contents deeply and deliberately—like an epicure with his "wine searching the subtle flavor."

His library at his death consisted of about 14,000 volumes; probably the largest number of books ever collected by a person of such limited means. Among these he found most of the materials for all he did, and almost all he wished to do; and though sometimes he lamented that his collection was not a larger one, it is probable that it was more to his advantage that it was in some degree limited. As it was, he collected an infinitely greater quantity of materials for every subject he was employed upon than ever he made use of, and his published Notes give some idea, though an inadequate one, of the vast stores he thus accumulated.

On this subject he writes to his cousin, Herbert Hill, at that time one of the librarians of the "Bodleian:"—"When I was at the British Museum the other day, walking through the rooms with Carey, I felt that to have lived in that library, or in such a one, would have rendered me perfectly useless, even if it had not made me mad. The sight of such countless volumes made me feel how impossible it would be to pursue any subject through all the investigations into which it would lead me, and that therefore I should either lose myself in the vain pursuit, or give up in despair, and read for the future with no other object than that of immediate gratification. This was an additional reason for being thankful for my own lot, aware as I am that I am always tempted to pursue a train of inquiry too far."

The reader need not be told that the sorrows and anxieties of the last few years of my father's life had produced, as might be expected, a very injurious effect upon his constitution, both as to body and mind. Acutely sensitive by nature, deep and strong in his affections, and highly predisposed to nervous disease, he had felt the sad affliction which had darkened his latter years far more keenly than any ordinary observer would have supposed, or than even appears in his letters. He had, indeed, then, as he expressed himself in his letter declining the Baronetcy, been "shaken at the root;" and while we must not forget the more than forty years of incessant mental application which he had passed through, it was this stroke of calamity which most probably greatly hastened the coming of the evil day, if it was not altogether the cause of it, and which rapidly brought on that overclouding of the intellect which soon unequivocally manifested itself.

This, indeed, in its first approaches, had been so gradual as to have almost escaped notice; and it was not until after the sad truth was fully ascertained, that indications of failure (some of which I have already alluded to) which had appeared some time previously, were called to mind. A loss of memory on certain points, a lessening acuteness of the perceptive faculties, an occasional irritability (wholly unknown in him before); a confusion of time, place, and person; the losing his way in well-known places—all were remembered as having taken place, when the melancholy fact had become too evident that the powers of his mind were irreparably weakened.

On his way home in the year 1839, he passed a few days in London, and then his friends plainly saw, what, from the altered manner of the very few and brief letters he had latterly written, they had already feared, that he had so failed as to have lost much of the vigor and activity of his faculties. The impressions of one of his most intimate friends, as conveyed at the time by letter, may fitly be quoted here. "I have just come home from a visit which affected me deeply.... It was to Southey, who arrived in town to-day from Hampshire with his wife.... He is (I fear) much altered. The animation and peculiar clearness of his mind quite gone, except a gleam or two now and then. What he said was much in the spirit of his former mind as far as the matter and meaning went, but the tone of strength and elasticity was wanting. The appearance was that of a placid languor, sometimes approaching to torpor, but not otherwise than cheerful. He is thin and shrunk in person, and that extraordinary face of his has no longer the fire and strength it used to have, though the singular cast of the features, and the habitual expressions, make it still a most remarkable phenomenon. Upon the whole, I came, away with a troubled heart." ... After a brief account of the great trials of my father's late years, the writer continues: "He has been living since his marriage in Hampshire, where he has not had the aid of his old habits and accustomed books to methodize his mind. All this considered, I think we may hope that a year or two of quiet living at his own home may restore him. His easy, cheerful temperament will be greatly in his favor. You must help me to hope this, for I could not bear to think of the decay of that great mind and noble nature—at least not of its premature decay. Pray that this may be averted, as I have this night."[6]

On the following day the same friend writes: "I think I am a little relieved about Southey to-day. I have seen him three times in the course of the day, and on each occasion he was so easy and cheerful that I should have said his manner and conversation did not differ, in the most part, from what it would have been in former days, if he had happened to be very tired. I say for the most part only, though, for there was once an obvious confusion of ideas. He lost himself for a moment; he was conscious of it, and an expression passed over his countenance which was exceedingly touching—an expression of pain and also of resignation. I am glad to learn from his brother that he is aware of his altered condition, and speaks of it openly. This gives a better aspect to the case than if he could believe that nothing was the matter with him. Another favorable circumstance is, that he will deal with himself wisely and patiently. The charm of his manner is perhaps even enhanced at present (at least when one knows the circumstances), by the gentleness and patience which pervade it. His mind is beautiful even in its debility."

Much of my father's failure in its early stages was at first ascribed by those anxiously watching him, to repeated attacks of the influenza—at that time a prevailing epidemic—from which he had suffered greatly, and to which he attributed his own feelings of weakness; but alas! the weakness he felt was as much mental as bodily (though he had certainly declined much in bodily strength), and after his return home it gradually increased upon him. The uncertain step—the confused manner—the eye once so keen and so intelligent, now either wandering restlessly or fixed as it were in blank contemplation—all showed that the over-wrought mind was worn out.

One of the plainest signs of this was the cessation of his accustomed labors; but while doing nothing (with him how plain a proof that nothing could be done), he would frequently anticipate a coming period of his usual industry. His mind, while any spark of its reasoning powers remained, was busy with its old day-dreams—the History of Portugal—the History of the Monastic Orders—the Doctor—all were soon to be taken in hand in earnest—all completed, and new works added to these.

For a considerable time after he had ceased to compose, he took pleasure in reading, and the habit continued after the power of comprehension was gone. His dearly-prized books, indeed, were a pleasure to him almost to the end, and he would walk slowly round his library looking at them, and taking them down mechanically.

In the earlier stages of his disorder (if the term may be fitly applied to a case which was not a perversion of the faculties, but their decay) he could still converse at times with much of his old liveliness and energy. When the mind was, as it were, set going upon some familiar subject, for a little time you could not perceive much failure; but if the thread was broken, if it was a conversation in which new topics were started, or if any argument was commenced, his powers failed him at once, and a painful sense of this seemed to come over him for the moment. His recollection first failed as to recent events, and his thoughts appeared chiefly to dwell upon those long past, and as his mind grew weaker, these recollections seemed to recede still farther back. Names he could rarely remember, and more than once, when trying to recall one which he felt he ought to know, I have seen him press his hand upon his brow and sadly exclaim, "Memory! memory! where art thou gone?"

But this failure altogether was so gradual, and at the same time so complete, that I am inclined to hope and believe there was not on the whole much painful consciousness of it; and certainly for more than a year preceding his death, he passed his time as in a dream, with little, if any knowledge of what went on around him.

One circumstance connected with the latter years of his life deserves to be noticed as very singular. His hair, which previously was almost snowy white, grew perceptibly darker, and I think, if any thing, increased in thickness and a disposition to curl.

But it is time I drew a vail over these latter scenes. They are too painful to dwell on.

"A noble mind in sad decay,
When baffled hope has died away,
And life becomes one long distress
In pitiable helplessness.
Methinks 'tis like a ship on shore,
That once defied the Atlantic's roar,
And gallantly through gale and storm
Hath ventured her majestic form;
But now in stranded ruin laid,
By winds and dashing seas decayed,
Forgetful of her ocean reign,
Must crumble into earth again."[7]

In some cases of this kind, toward the end, some glimmering of reason re-appears, but this must be when the mind is obscured or upset, not, as in this case, apparently worn out. The body gradually grew weaker, and disorders appeared which the state of the patient rendered it almost impossible to treat properly; and, after a short attack of fever, the scene closed on the 21st of March, 1843, and a second time had we cause to feel deeply thankful, when the change from life to death, or more truly from death to life, took place.

It was a dark and stormy morning when he was borne to his last resting-place, at the western end of the beautiful church-yard of Crosthwaite. There lies his dear son Herbert—there his daughters Emma and Isabel—there Edith, his faithful helpmate of forty years. But few besides his own family and immediate neighbors followed his remains. His only intimate friend within reach, Mr. Wordsworth, crossed the hills that wild morning to be present.

Soon after my father's death, various steps were taken with a view to erecting monuments to his memory; and considerable sums were quickly subscribed for that purpose, the list including the names of many persons, not only strangers to him personally, but also strongly opposed to him in political opinion. The result was that three memorials were erected. The first and principal one, a full length recumbent figure, was executed by Lough, and placed in Crosthwaite church, and is certainly an excellent likeness, as well as a most beautiful work of art. The original intention and agreement was, that it should be in Caen stone, but the sculptor, with characteristic liberality, executed it in white marble, at a considerable sacrifice.

SOUTHEY'S TOMB.

The following lines, by Mr. Wordsworth, are inscribed upon the base:

"Ye vales and hills, whose beauty hither drew
The poet's steps, and fixed him here; on you
His eyes have closed; and ye loved books, no more
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown
Adding immortal labors of his own—
Whether he traced historic truth with zeal
For the state's guidance or the church's weal,
Or fancy disciplined by curious art
Informed his pen, or wisdom of the heart,
Or judgments sanctioned in the patriot's mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast
Could private feelings meet in holier rest.
His joys—his griefs—have vanished like a cloud
From Skiddaw's top; but he to Heaven was vowed
Through a life long and pure, and steadfast faith
Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From an unpublished chapter of the Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, now in press by Harper and Brothers.

[2] During the several years that he was partially employed upon the Life of Dr. Bell, he devoted two hours before breakfast to it in the summer, and as much time as there was daylight for, during the winter months, that it might not interfere with the usual occupations of the day. In all this time, however, he made but little progress in it; partly from the nature of the materials, partly from the want of sufficient interest in the subject.

[3] Miss Barker, the Senhora of earlier days, who was living at that time in a house close to Greta Hall.

[4] Notes to Philip Van Artevelde, by Henry Taylor.

[5] I speak of a period prior to his receiving his last pension, which was granted in 1835.

[6] August 24, 1839.

[7] Robert Montgomery. The fourth line is altered from the original.

MADAME CAMPAN.

MADAME CAMPAN.[8]

Jane Louisa Henrietta Campan was born at Paris, 1752. She was the daughter of M. Genet, first clerk in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was fond of literature, and communicated a taste for it to his daughter, who early displayed considerable talents. She acquired a knowledge of foreign languages, particularly the Italian and English, and was distinguished for her skill in reading and recitation. These acquisitions procured for her the place of reader to the French princesses, daughters of Louis XV. On the marriage of Marie-Antoinette to the Dauphin, afterward Louis XVI., Mademoiselle Genet was attached to her suite, and continued, for twenty years, to occupy a situation about her person.

Her general intelligence and talent for observation, enabled Madame Campan, in the course of her service, to collect the materials for her "Memoirs of the Private Life of the Queen of France," first published in Paris, and translated and printed in London, 1823, in two volumes. This work is not only interesting for the information it affords, but is also very creditable to the literary talents of the authoress. Soon after the appointment at court, Mademoiselle Genet was married to M. Campan, son of the Secretary of the queen's closet. When Marie-Antoinette was made a prisoner, Madame Campan begged to be permitted to accompany her royal mistress, and share her imprisonment, which was refused. Madame Campan was with the queen at the storming of the Tuilleries, on the 10th of August, when she narrowly escaped with her life: and, under the rule of Robespierre, she came near being sent to the guillotine. After the fall of that tyrant, she retired to the country, and opened a private seminary for young ladies, which she conducted with great success. Josephine Beauharnais sent her daughter, Hortense, to the seminary of Madame Campan. She had also the sisters of the emperor under her care. In 1806, Napoleon founded the school of Ecouen, for the daughters and sisters of the officers of the Legion of Honor, and appointed Madame Campan to superintend it. This institution was suppressed at the restoration of the Bourbons, and Madame Campan retired to Nantes, where she partly prepared her "Memoirs," and other works. She died in 1822, aged seventy. After her decease, her "Private Journal" was published; also, "Familiar Letters to her Friends," and a work, which she considered her most important one, entitled "Thoughts on Education." We will give extracts from these works.

From the "Private Journal."

MESMER AND HIS MAGNETISM.

At the time when Mesmer made so much noise in Paris with his magnetism, M. Campan, my husband, was his partisan, like almost every person who moved in high life. To be magnetized was then a fashion; nay, it was more, it was absolutely a rage. In the drawing-rooms, nothing was talked of but the brilliant discovery. There was to be no more dying; people's heads were turned, and their imaginations heated in the highest degree. To accomplish this object, it was necessary to bewilder the understanding; and Mesmer, with his singular language, produced that effect. To put a stop to the fit of public insanity was the grand difficulty; and it was proposed to have the secret purchased by the court. Mesmer fixed his claims at a very extravagant rate. However, he was offered fifty thousand crowns. By a singular chance, I was one day led into the midst of the somnambulists. Such was the enthusiasm of the spectators, that, in most of them, I could observe a wild rolling of the eye, and a convulsed movement of the countenance. A stranger might have fancied himself amidst the unfortunate patients of Charenton. Surprised and shocked at seeing so many people almost in a state of delirium, I withdrew, full of reflections on the scene which I had just witnessed.

It happened that about this time my husband was attacked with a pulmonary disorder, and he desired that he might be conveyed to Mesmer's house. Being introduced into the apartment occupied by M. Campan, I asked the worker of miracles what treatment he proposed to adopt; he very coolly replied, that to ensure a speedy and perfect cure, it would be necessary to lay in the bed of the invalid, at his left side, one of three things, namely, a young woman of brown complexion; a black hen; or an empty bottle.

"Sir," said I, "if the choice be a matter of indifference, pray try the empty bottle."

M. Campan's side grew worse; he experienced a difficulty of breathing and a pain in his chest. All magnetic remedies that were employed produced no effect. Perceiving his failure, Mesmer took advantage of the periods of my absence to bleed and blister the patient. I was not informed of what had been done until after M. Campan's recovery. Mesmer was asked for a certificate, to prove that the patient had been cured by means of magnetism only; and he gave it. Here was a trait of enthusiasm! Truth was no longer respected. When I next presented myself to the queen (Marie-Antoinette), their majesties asked what I thought of Mesmer's discovery. I informed them of what had taken place, earnestly expressing my indignation at the conduct of the barefaced quack. It was immediately determined to have nothing more to do with him.

THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER'S VISIT TO MADAME CAMPAN'S SCHOOL.

The emperor inquired into the most minute particulars respecting the establishment at Ecouen; and I felt great pleasure in answering his questions. I recollect having dwelt on several points which appeared to me very important, and which were in their spirit hostile to aristocratical principles. For example, I informed his majesty that the daughters of distinguished and wealthy individuals, and those of the humble and obscure, were indiscriminately mingled together in the establishment. If, said I, I were to observe the least pretension on account of the rank or fortune of parents, I should immediately put an end to it. The most perfect equality is preserved; distinction is awarded only to merit and industry. The pupils are obliged to cut and make all their own clothes. They are taught to clean and mend lace; and two at a time, they by turns, three times a week, cook and distribute victuals to the poor of the village. The young ladies who have been brought up in my boarding-school are thoroughly acquainted with every thing relating to household business; and they are grateful to me for having made it a part of their education. In my conversations with them, I have always taught them that on domestic management depends the preservation or dissipation of their fortunes. I impress on their minds the necessity of regulating with attention the most trifling daily expenses; but at the same time I recommend them to avoid making domestic details the subject of conversation in the drawing-room, for that is a most decided mark of ill-breeding. It is proper that all should know how to do and to direct; but it is only for ill-educated women to talk about their carriages, servants, washing, and cooking.

These are the reasons, sire, why my pupils are generally superior to those brought up in other establishments. All is conducted on the most simple plan; the young ladies are taught every thing of which they can possibly stand in need; and they are consequently as much at their ease in the brilliant circles of fashion, as in the most humble condition of life. Fortune confers rank, but education teaches how to support it properly.

From the "Letters," &c.

TO HER ONLY SON.

You are now, my dear Henry, removed from my fond care and instruction; and young as you are, you have entered upon the vast theatre of the world. Some years hence, when time shall have matured your ideas, and enabled you to take a clear, retrospective view of your steps in life, you will be able to enter into my feelings, and to judge of the anxiety which at this moment agitates my heart.

When first a beloved child, releasing itself from its nurse's arms, ventures its little tottering steps on the soft carpet, or the smoothest grass-plot, the poor mother scarcely breathes; she imagines that these first efforts of nature are attended with every danger to the object most dear to her. Fond mother, calm your anxious fears! Your infant son can, at the worst, only receive a slight hurt, which, under your tender care, will speedily be healed. Reserve your alarms, your heart-beatings, your prayers to Providence, for the moment when your son enters upon the scene of the world to select a character, which, if sustained with dignity, judgment, and feeling, will render him universally esteemed and approved; or to degrade himself by filling one of those low, contemptible parts, fit only for the vilest actors in the drama of life. Tremble at the moment when your child has to choose between the rugged road of industry and integrity, leading straight to honor and happiness; and the smooth and flowery path which descends, through indolence and pleasure, to the gulf of vice and misery. It is then that the voice of a parent, or of some faithful friend, must direct the right course....

Surrounded as you doubtless are, by thoughtless and trifling companions, let your mother be the rallying point of your mind and heart; the confidant of all your plans....

Learn to know the value of money. This is a most essential point. The want of economy leads to the decay of powerful empires, as well as private families. Louis XVI. perished on the scaffold for a deficit of fifty millions. There would have been no debt, no assemblies of the people, no revolution, no loss of the sovereign authority, no tragical death, but for this fatal deficit. States are ruined through the mismanagement of millions, and private persons become bankrupts and end their lives in misery through the mismanagement of crowns worth six livres. It is very important, my dear son, that I lay down to you these first principles of right conduct, and impress upon your mind the necessity of adhering to them. Render me an account of the expenditure of your money, not viewing me in the light of a rigid preceptress, but as a friend who wishes to accustom you to the habit of accounting to yourself....

Let me impress upon you the importance of attentive application to business; for that affords certain consolation, and is a security against lassitude, and the vices which idleness creates....

Be cautious how you form connections; and hesitate not to break them off on the first proposition to adopt any course which your affectionate mother warns you to avoid, as fatal to your real happiness, and to the attainment of that respect and esteem which it should be your ambition to enjoy....

Never neglect to appropriate a certain portion of your time to useful reading; and do not imagine that even half an hour a day, devoted to that object, will be unprofitable. The best way of arranging and employing one's time is by calculation; and I have often reflected that half an hour's reading every day, will be one hundred and eighty hours' reading in the course of the year. Great fortunes are amassed by little savings; and poverty as well as ignorance are occasioned by the extravagant waste of money and time....

My affection for you, my dear Henry, is still as actively alive as when, in your infancy, I removed, patiently, every little stone from a certain space in my garden, lest, when you first ran alone, you might fall and hurt your face on the pebbles. But the snares now spread beneath your steps are far more dangerous. They are strengthened by seductive appearances, and the ardor of youth would hurry you forward to the allurement; but that my watchful care, and the confidence you repose in me, serve to counteract the influence of this twofold power. Your bark is gliding near a rapid current; but your mother stands on the shore, and with her eyes fixed on her dear navigator, anxiously exclaims, in the moment of danger, "Reef your sails; mind your helm." Oh! may you never forget, or cease to be guided by these warnings, which come from my inmost heart.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] From Mrs. Hale's Female Biography, now in the press of Harper & Brothers.

PROCRASTINATION.

BY CHARLES MACKAY.

If fortune with a smiling face
Strew roses on our way,
When shall we stoop to pick them up?
To-day, my love, to-day.
But should she frown with face of care,
And talk of coming sorrow,
When shall we grieve, if grieve we must?
To-morrow, love, to-morrow.

If those who've wrong'd us own their fault,
And kindly pity pray,
When shall we listen, and forgive?
To-day, my love, to-day.
But if stern Justice urge rebuke,
And warmth from Memory borrow,
When shall we chide, if chide we dare?
To-morrow, love, to-morrow.

If those to whom we owe a debt
Are harmed unless we pay,
When shall we struggle to be just?
To-day, my love, to-day.
But if our debtor fail our hope,
And plead his ruin thorough,
When shall we weigh his breach of faith?
To-morrow, love, to-morrow.

If love estranged should once again
Her genial smile display,
When shall we kiss her proffered lips?
To-day, my love, to-day.
But if she would indulge regret,
Or dwell with bygone sorrow,
When shall we weep, if weep we must?
To-morrow, love, to-morrow.

For virtuous acts and harmless joys
The minutes will not stay;
We've always time to welcome them,
To-day, my love, to-day.
But care, resentment, angry words,
And unavailing sorrow,
Come far too soon, if they appear
To-morrow, love, to-morrow.

BONA LOMBARDI.

BRUNORO.[9]

Bona Lombardi, was born in 1417, in Sacco, a little village in Vattellina. Her parents were obscure peasants, of whom we have but little information. The father, Gabriel Lombardi, a private soldier, died while she was an infant; and her mother not surviving him long, the little girl was left to the charge of an aunt, a hard-working countrywoman, and an uncle, an humble curate.

Bona, in her simple peasant station, exhibited intelligence, decision of character, and personal beauty, which raised her to a certain consideration in the estimation of her companions; and the neighborhood boasted of the beauty of Bona when an incident occurred which was to raise her to a most unexpected rank. In the war between the Duke of Milan and the Venetians, the latter had been routed and driven from Vattellina. Piccinino, the Milanese general, upon departing to follow up his advantages, left Captain Brunoro, a Parmesan gentleman, to maintain a camp in Morbegno, as a central position, to maintain the conquered country. One day, after a hunting party, he stopped to repose himself, in a grove where many of the peasants were assembled for some rustic festival; he was greatly struck with the loveliness of a girl of about fifteen. Upon entering into conversation with her, he was surprised at the ingenuity and spirited tone of her replies. Speaking of the adventure on his return home, every body told him that Bona Lombardi had acknowledged claims to admiration.

Brunoro, remaining through the summer in that district, found many opportunities of seeing the fair peasant; becoming acquainted with her worth and character, he at last determined to make her the companion of his life; their marriage was not declared at first, but, to prevent a separation, however temporary, Bona was induced to put on the dress of an officer. Her husband delighted in teaching her horsemanship, together with all military exercises. She accompanied him in battle, fought by his side, and, regardless of her own safety, seemed to be merely an added arm to shield and assist Brunoro. As was usual in those times, among the condottieri, Brunoro adopted different lords, and fought sometimes in parties to which, at others, he was opposed. In these vicissitudes, he incurred the anger of the King of Naples, who, seizing him by means of an ambuscade, plunged him into a dungeon, where he would probably have finished his days, but for the untiring and well-planned efforts of his wife. To effect his release, she spared no means; supplications, threats, money, all were employed, and, at last, with good success. She had the happiness of recovering her husband.

Bona was not only gifted with the feminine qualities of domestic affection and a well-balanced intellect; in the hottest battles, her bravery and power of managing her troops were quite remarkable; of these feats there are many instances recorded. We will mention but one. In the course of the Milanese war, the Venetians had been, on one occasion, signally discomfited in an attack upon the Castle of Povoze, in Brescia. Brunoro himself was taken prisoner, and carried into the castle. Bona arrived with a little band of fresh soldiers; she rallied the routed forces, inspired them with new courage, led them on herself, took the castle, and liberated her husband, with the other prisoners. She was, however, destined to lose her husband without possibility of recovering him; he died in 1468. When this intrepid heroine, victor in battles, and, rising above all adversity, was bowed by a sorrow resulting from affection, she declared she could not survive Brunoro. She caused a tomb to be made, in which their remains could be united; and, after seeing the work completed, she gradually sank into a languid state, which terminated in her death.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] From Mrs. Hale's Female Biography.

Thomas De Quincey

A SKETCH OF MY CHILDHOOD.

BY THE "ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER."

SEPTEMBER 21, 1850.

To the Editor of Hogg's "Instructor."

My Dear Sir—I am much obliged to you for communicating to us (that is, to my daughters and myself) the engraved portrait, enlarged from the daguerreotype original. The engraver, at least, seems to have done his part ably. As to one of the earlier artists concerned, viz., the sun of July, I suppose it is not allowable to complain of him, else my daughters are inclined to upbraid him with having made the mouth too long. But, of old, it was held audacity to suspect the sun's veracity: "Solem quis dicere falsum audeat!" And I remember that, half a century ago, the "Sun" newspaper in London, used to fight under sanction of that motto. But it was at length discovered by the learned, that Sun junior, viz., the newspaper, did sometimes indulge in fibbing. The ancient prejudice about the solar truth broke down, therefore, in that instance; and who knows but Sun senior may be detected, now that our optical glasses are so much improved, in similar practices? in which case he may have only been "keeping his hand in" when operating upon that one feature of the mouth. The rest of the portrait, we all agree, does credit to his talents, showing that he is still wide-awake, and not at all the superannuated old artist that some speculators in philosophy had dreamed of his becoming.

As an accompaniment to this portrait, your wish is that I should furnish a few brief chronological memoranda of my own life. That would be hard for me to do, and, when done, might not be very interesting for others to read. Nothing makes such dreary and monotonous reading as the old hackneyed roll-call, chronologically arrayed, of inevitable facts in a man's life. One is so certain of the man's having been born, and also of his having died, that it is dismal to lie under the necessity of reading it. That the man began by being a boy—that he went to school—and that, by intense application to his studies, "which he took to be his portion in this life," he rose to distinction as a robber of orchards, seems so probable, upon the whole, that I am willing to accept it as a postulate. That he married—that, in fullness of time, he was hanged, or (being a humble, unambitious man) that he was content with deserving it—these little circumstances are so naturally to be looked for, as sown broadcast up and down the great fields of biography, that any one life becomes, in this respect, but the echo of thousands. Chronologic successions of events and dates, such as these, which, belonging to the race, illustrate nothing in the individual, are as wearisome as they are useless.

A better plan will be—to detach some single chapter from the experiences of childhood, which is likely to offer, at least, this kind of value—either that it will record some of the deep impressions under which my childish sensibilities expanded, and the ideas which at that time brooded continually over my mind, or else will expose the traits of character that slumbered in those around me. This plan will have the advantage of not being liable to the suspicion of vanity or egotism; for I beg the reader to understand distinctly, that I do not offer this sketch as deriving any part of what interest it may have from myself, as the person concerned in it. If the particular experience selected is really interesting, in virtue of its own circumstances, then it matters not to whom it happened. Suppose that a man should record a perilous journey, it will be no fair inference that he records it as a journey performed by himself. Most sincerely he may be able to say, that he records it not for that relation to himself, but in spite of that relation. The incidents, being absolutely independent, in their power to amuse, of all personal reference, must be equally interesting [he will say] whether they occurred to A or to B. That is my case. Let the reader abstract from me as a person that by accident, or in some partial sense, may have been previously known to himself. Let him read the sketch as belonging to one who wishes to be profoundly anonymous. I offer it not as owing any thing to its connection with a particular individual, but as likely to be amusing separately for itself; and if I make any mistake in that, it is not a mistake of vanity exaggerating the consequence of what relates to my own childhood, but a simple mistake of the judgment as to the power of amusement that may attach to a particular succession of reminiscences.

Excuse the imperfect development which in some places of the sketch may have been given to my meaning. I suffer from a most afflicting derangement of the nervous system, which at times makes it difficult for me to write at all, and always makes me impatient, in a degree not easily understood, of recasting what may seem insufficiently, or even incoherently, expressed.—Believe me, ever yours,

Thomas De Quincey.

A SKETCH FROM CHILDHOOD.

About the close of my sixth year, suddenly the first chapter of my life came to a violent termination; that chapter which, and which only, in the hour of death, or even within the gates of recovered Paradise, could merit a remembrance. "It is finished," was the secret misgiving of my heart, for the heart even of infancy is as apprehensive as that of maturest wisdom, in relation to any capital wound inflicted on the happiness; "it is finished, and life is exhausted." How? Could it be exhausted so soon? Had I read Milton, had I seen Rome, had I heard Mozart? No. The "Paradise Lost" was yet unread, the Coliseum and St. Peter's were unseen, the melodies of Don Giovanni were yet silent for me. Raptures there might be in arrear. But raptures are modes of troubled pleasure; the peace, the rest, the lulls, the central security, which belong to love, that is past all understanding, those could return no more. Such a love, so unfathomable, subsisting between myself and my eldest sister, under the circumstances of our difference in age (she being above eight years of age, I under six), and of our affinities in nature, together with the sudden foundering of all this blind happiness, I have described elsewhere.[10] I shall not here repeat any part of the narrative. But one extract from the closing sections of the paper I shall make; in order to describe the depth to which a child's heart may be plowed up by one over-mastering storm of grief, and as a proof that grief, in some of its fluctuations, is not uniformly a depressing passion—but also by possibility has its own separate aspirations, and at times is full of cloudy grandeur. The point of time is during the months that immediately succeeded to my sister's funeral.

"The awful stillness of summer noons, when no winds were abroad—the appealing silence of gray or misty afternoons—these were to me, in that state of mind, fascinations, as of witchcraft. Into the woods, or the desert air, I gazed as if some comfort lay in them. I wearied the heavens with my inquest of beseeching looks. I tormented the blue depths with obstinate scrutiny, sweeping them with my eyes, and searching them forever, after one angelic face, that might perhaps have permission to reveal itself for a moment. The faculty of shaping images in the distance, out of slight elements, and grouping them after the yearnings of the heart, grew upon me at this time. And I recall at the present moment one instance of that sort, which may show how merely shadows, or a gleam of brightness, or nothing at all, could furnish a sufficient basis for this creative faculty. On Sunday mornings I was always taken to church. It was a church on the old and natural model of England, having aisles, galleries, organ, all things ancient and venerable, and the proportions majestic. Here, while the congregation knelt through the long Litany, as often as we came to that passage, so beautiful among the many that are so, where God is supplicated on behalf of 'all sick persons and young children,' and that He 'would show His pity upon all prisoners and captives', I wept in secret; and, raising my streaming eyes to the windows of the galleries, saw, on days when the sun was shining, a spectacle as affecting as ever prophet can have beheld. The margins of the windows were rich in storied glass; through the deep purples and crimsons streamed the golden light; emblazonries of heavenly illumination mingling with the earthly emblazonries of what is grandest in man. There were the apostles that had trampled upon earth, and the glories of earth, out of celestial love to man. There were the martyrs that had borne witness to the truth through flames, through torments, and through armies of fierce, insulting faces. There were the saints that, under intolerable pangs, had glorified God by meek submission to his will. And all the time, while this tumult of sublime memorials held on as the deep chords of some accompaniment in the bass, I saw through the wide central field of the window, where the glass was uncolored, white fleecy clouds sailing over the azure depths of the sky; were it but a fragment or a hint of such a cloud, immediately, under the flash of my sorrow-haunted eye, it grew and shaped itself into a vision of beds with white lawny curtains; and in the beds lay sick children, dying children, that were tossing in anguish, and weeping clamorously for death. God, for some mysterious reason, could not suddenly release them from their pain; but He suffered the beds, as it seemed, to rise slowly through the clouds; slowly the beds ascended into the chambers of the air; slowly, also, his arms descended from the heavens, in order that He and His young children whom in Judea, once and forever, He had blessed, though they must pass slowly through the dreadful chasm of separation, might yet meet the sooner. These visions were self-sustained. These visions needed not that any sound should speak to me, or music mould my feelings. The hint from the Litany, the fragment from the clouds, the pictures on the storied windows were sufficient. But not the less the blare of the tumultuous organ wrought its own separate creations. And often-times in anthems, when the mighty instrument threw its vast columns of sound, fierce, yet melodious, over the voices of the choir—high in arches when it rose, seeming to surmount and over-ride the strife of the vocal parts, and gathering by strong coercion the total storm of music into unity—sometimes I also seemed to rise and to walk triumphantly upon those clouds, which so recently I had looked up to as mementoes of prostrate sorrow. Yes; sometimes, under the transfigurations of music, I felt of grief itself, as a fiery chariot for mounting victoriously above the causes of grief."

The next (which was the second) chapter of my childish experience, formed that sort of fierce and fantastic contradiction to the first, which might seem to move in obedience to some incarnate principle of malicious pantomime. A spirit of love, and a spirit of rest, as if breathing from St. John the Evangelist, had seemed to mould the harmonies of that earliest stage in my childhood which had just vanished; but now, on the other hand, some wicked Harlequin Mephistopheles was apparently commissioned to vex my eyes and plague my heart, through the next succession of two or three years: a worm was at the roots of life. Yet, in this, perhaps, there lurked a harsh beneficence. If, because the great vision of love had vanished, idiocy and the torpor of despondency were really creeping stealthily over my faculties, and strangling their energies, what better change for me than the necessity (else how miserable!) of fighting, wrangling, struggling, without pause, or promise of pause, from day to day, or even from year to year? "If," as my good angel might have said to me, "thou art moving on a line of utter ruin, from mere palsy of one great vital force, and if that loss is past all restoration, then kindle a new supplementary life by such means as are now possible—by the agitations, for instance, of strife and conflict"—yes, possible, on the wide stage of the world, and for people who should be free agents enough to make enemies, in case they failed to find them; but for a child, not seven years old, to whom his medical advisers should prescribe a course of hatred, or continued hostilities, by way of tonics, in what quarter was he to look out for such luxuries? Who would condescend to officiate as enemy to a child! And yet, as regarded my own particular case, had I breathed out any such querulous demand, that same Harlequin Mephistopheles might have whispered in reply, "Never you trouble yourself about that. Do you furnish the patience that can swallow cheerfully a long course of kicking, and I'll find those that shall furnish the kicks." In fact, at this very moment, when all chance of quarrel, or opening for prolonged enmity, seemed the remotest of chimeras, mischief was already in the wind; and suddenly there was let loose upon me such a storm of belligerent fury as might, under good management, have yielded a life-annuity of feuds.

I had at that time an elder brother, in fact, the eldest of us all, and at least five years senior to myself. He, by original temperament, was a boy of fiery nature, ten times more active than I was inert, loving the element of feuds and stormy conflict more (if that were possible) than I detested it; and these constitutional tendencies had in him been nursed by the training of a public school. This accident in his life was indeed the cause of our now meeting as strangers. Singular, indeed, it seems, but, in fact, had arisen naturally enough, that both this eldest of my brothers, and my father, should be absolute strangers to me in my seventh year; so that, in the case of meeting either, I should not have known him, nor he me. In my father's case, this arose from the accident of his having lived abroad for a space that, measured against my life, was a very long one. First, he lived in Portugal, at Lisbon; and at Cintra; next in Madeira; then in the West Indies; sometimes in Jamaica, sometimes in St. Kitts, courting the supposed benefit of hot climates in his complaint of pulmonary consumption; and at last, when all had proved unavailing, he was coming home to die among his family, in his thirty-ninth year. My mother had gone to wait his arrival at the port (Southampton, probably), to which the West India packet should bring him; and among the deepest recollections which I connect with that period, is one derived from the night of his arrival at Greenhay. It was a summer evening of unusual solemnity. The servants, and four of us children—six then survived—were gathered for hours, on the lawn before the house, listening for the sound of wheels. Sunset came—nine, ten, eleven o'clock, and nearly another hour had passed—without a warning sound; for Greenhay, being so solitary a house, formed a terminus ad quem, beyond which was nothing but a cluster of cottages, composing the little hamlet of Greenhill; so that any sound of wheels, heard in the winding lane which then connected us with the Rusholme road, carried with it, of necessity, a warning summons to prepare for visitors at Greenhay. No such summons had yet reached us; it was nearly midnight; and, for the last time, it was determined that we should move in a body out of the grounds, on the chance of meeting the traveling party, if, at so late an hour, it could yet be expected to arrive. In fact, to our general surprise, we met it almost immediately, but coming at so slow a pace, that the fall of the horses' feet was not audible until we were close upon them. I mention the case for the sake of the undying impressions which connected themselves with the circumstances. The first notice of the approach was the sudden emerging of horses' heads from the deep gloom of the shady lane; the next was the mass of white pillows against which the dying patient was reclining. The hearse-like pace at which the carriage moved recalled the overwhelming spectacle of the funeral which had so lately formed part in the most memorable event of my life. But these elements of awe, that might at any rate have struck forcibly upon the mind of a child, were for me, in my condition of morbid nervousness, raised into abiding grandeur by the antecedent experiences of that particular summer night. The listening for hours to the sounds from horses' hoofs upon distant roads, rising and falling, caught and lost, upon the gentle undulation of such light, fitful airs as might be stirring—the peculiar solemnity of the hours succeeding to sunset—the gorgeousness of the dying day—the gorgeousness which, by description, so well I knew of those West Indian islands from which my father was returning—the knowledge that he returned only to die—the almighty pomp in which this great idea of Death appareled itself to my young suffering heart—the corresponding pomp in which the antagonistic idea, not less mysterious, of life, rose, as if on wings, to the heavens, amidst tropic glories and floral pageantries, that seemed even more solemn and more pathetic than, the vapory plumes and trophies of mortality—all this chorus of restless images, or of suggestive thoughts, gave to my father's return, which else had been fitted only to interpose a transitory illumination or red-letter day in the calendar of a child, the shadowy power of an ineffaceable agency among my dreams. This, indeed, was the one sole memorial which restores my father's image to me as a personal reality. Otherwise, he would have been for me a bare nominis umbra. He languished, indeed, for weeks upon a sofa; and, during that interval, it happened naturally, from my meditative habits and corresponding repose of manners, that I was a privileged visitor to him during his waking hours. I was also present at his bed-side in the closing hour of his life, which exhaled quietly, amidst snatches of delirious conversation with some imaginary visitors. From this brief childish experience of his nature and disposition, the chief conclusion which I drew tended to this—that he was the most benignant person whom I had met, or was likely to meet, in life. What I have since heard from others, who knew him well, tallied with my own childish impression. His life had been too busy to allow him much time for regular study; but he loved literature with a passionate love; had formed a large and well-selected library; had himself published a book, which I have read, and which really is not a bad one; and carried his reverence for distinguished authors to such a height, that (according to the report, of several among his friends) had either Dr. Johnson, or Cowper, the poet—the two contemporary authors whom most he reverenced—happened to visit Greenhay, he might have been tempted to express his homage through the Pagan fashion of raising altars and burning incense, or of sacrificing, if not an ox, yet, at least, a baron of beef. The latter mode of idolatry Dr. Sam, would have approved, provided always that the nidor were irreproachable, and that the condiments of mustard, horse-radish, &c., more Anglico, were placed on the altar; but as to Cowper, who was in the habit of tracing Captain Cooke's death at Owyhee to the fact that the misjudging captain had once suffered himself to be worshiped at one of the Society Islands, in all consistency, he must have fled from such a house with sacred horror. Why I have at all gone back to this little parenthesis in my childhood is, from the singularity that I should remember my father at all, only because I had received all my impressions about him into the very centre of my preconceptions about certain grand objects—about the Tropics, about summer evenings, and about some mysterious glory of the grave. It seems metaphysical to say so, but yet it is true that I knew him, speaking scholastically, through à priori ideas—I remember him transcendenter—and, were it not for the midsummer night's dream which glorified his return, to me he would have remained forever that absolute stranger, which, according to the prosaic interpretation of the case, he really was.

My brother was a stranger from causes quite as little to be foreseen, but seeming quite as natural after they had really occurred. In an early stage of his career, he had been found wholly unmanageable. His genius for mischief amounted to inspiration; it was a divine afflatus which drove him in that direction; and such was his capacity for riding in whirlwinds and directing storms, that he made it his trade to create them, as νεφεληγερἑτα Ζεὑς a cloud-compelling Jove, in order that he might direct them. For this, and other reasons, he had been sent to the grammar school of Louth, in Lincolnshire—one of those many old classic institutions which form the peculiar[11] glory of England. To box, and to box under the severest restraint of honorable laws, was in those days a mere necessity of school-boy life at public schools; and hence the superior manliness, generosity, and self-control, of those generally who benefited by such discipline—so systematically hostile to all meanness, pusillanimity, or indirectness. Cowper, in his poem on that subject, is far from doing justice to our great public schools. Himself disqualified, by delicacy of temperament, for reaping the benefits from such a warfare, and having suffered too much in his own Westminster experience, he could not judge them from an impartial station; but I, though ill enough adapted to an atmosphere so stormy, yet, having tried both classes of schools, public and private, am compelled in mere conscience to give my vote (and, if I had a thousand votes, to give all my votes) for the former.

Fresh from such a training as this, and at a time when his additional five or six years availed nearly to make his age the double of mine, my brother very naturally despised me; and, from his exceeding frankness, he took no pains to conceal that he did. Why should he? Who was it that could have a right to feel aggrieved by his contempt? Who, if not myself? But it happened, on the contrary, that I had a perfect craze for being despised. I doated on being despised; and considered contempt the sincerest a sort of luxury, that I was in continual fear of losing. I lived in a panic, lest I should be suspected of shamming contemptibility. But I did not sham it. I trusted that I was really entitled to contempt; and, for this, I had some metaphysical-looking reasons, which there may be occasion to explain further on. At present, it is sufficient to give a colorable rationality to my craze, if I say, that the slightest approach to any favorable construction of my intellectual pretensions, any, the least, shadow of esteem expressed for some thought or some logical distinction that I might incautiously have dropped, alarmed me beyond measure, because it pledged me in a manner with the hearer to support this first attempt by a second, by a third, by a fourth—Oh, heavens! there is no saying how far the horrid man might go in his unreasonable demands upon me. I groaned under the weight of his expectations; and, if I laid but the first round of such a staircase, why, then, I saw in vision a vast Jacob's ladder towering upward to the clouds, mile after mile, league after league; the consequence of which would be, that I should be expected to run up and down this ladder, like any fatigue party of Irish hodmen, carrying hods of mortar and bricks to the top of any Babel which my wretched admirer might choose to build. But I put a stop to this villainy. I nipped the abominable system of extortion in the very bud, by refusing to take the first step. The man could have no pretense, you know, for expecting me to climb the third or fourth round, when I had seemed quite unequal to the first. Professing the most absolute bankruptcy from the very beginning, giving the man no sort of hope that I would pay even one farthing in the pound, I never could be made miserable, or kept in hot water, by unknown responsibilities, or by endless anxieties about some bill being presented, which the monster might pretend for one moment that I had indorsed, or in some way had sanctioned his expecting that I would pay.

Still, with all this passion for being despised, which was so essential to my peace of mind, I found at times an altitude—a starry altitude—in the station of contempt for me assumed by my brother that nettled me. Sometimes, indeed, the mere necessities of dispute carried me, before I was aware of my own imprudence, so far up the stair-case of Babel, that my brother was shaken for a moment in the infinity of his contempt: and, before long, when my superiority in some bookish accomplishments displayed itself, by results that could not be entirely dissembled, mere foolish human nature forced me on rare occasions into some trifle of exultation at these retributory triumphs. But more often I was disposed to grieve over them. They tended to shake that solid foundation of utter despicableness upon which I relied so much for my freedom from anxiety; and, therefore, upon the whole, it was satisfactory to my mind that my brother's opinion of me, after any little transient oscillation, gravitated determinately back toward that settled contempt which had been the result of his original inquest. The pillars of Hercules, upon which rested the vast edifice of his scorn, were these two—1st, my physics; he denounced me for effeminacy: 2d, he assumed, and even postulated as a datum, which I myself could never have the face to refuse, my general idiocy. Physically, therefore, and intellectually, he looked upon me as below notice; but, morally, he assured me that he would give me a written character of the very best description, whenever I chose to apply for it. "You're honest," he said; "you're willing, though lazy; you would pull, if you had the strength of a flea; and, though a monstrous coward, you don't run away." My own demurs to these harsh judgments were not many. The idiocy I confessed; because, though positive that I was not uniformly an idiot, I felt inclined to think that, in a majority of cases, I really was; and there were more reasons for thinking so than the reader is yet aware of. But, as to the effeminacy, I denied it in toto, and with good reason, as will be seen. Neither did my brother pretend to have any experimental proofs of it. The ground he went upon was a mere à priori one, viz., that I had always been tied to the apron-string of women or girls; which amounted at most to this: that, by training and the natural tendency of circumstances, I ought to be effeminate—that is, there was reason to expect beforehand that I should be so; but, then, the more merit in me, if, in spite of such general presumptions, I really were not. In fact, my brother soon learned better than any body, and by a daily experience, how entirely he might depend upon me for carrying out the most audacious of his own warlike plans; such plans, it is true, that I abominated; but that made no difference in the fidelity with which I tried to fulfill them.

This eldest brother of mine, to pass from my own character to his, was in all respects a remarkable boy. Haughty he was, aspiring, immeasurably active; fertile in resources as Robinson Crusoe; but also full of quarrel as it is possible to imagine; and, in default of any other opponent, he would have fastened a quarrel upon his own shadow for presuming to run before him when going westward in the morning, whereas, in all reason, a shadow, like a dutiful child, ought to keep deferentially in the rear of that majestic substance which is the author of its existence. Books he detested, one and all, excepting only those which he happened to write himself. And they were not a few. On all subjects known to man, from the Thirty-nine Articles of our English Church, down to pyrotechnics, legerdemain, magic, both black and white, thaumaturgy, and necromancy, he favored the world (which world was the nursery where I, on his first coming home, lived among my sisters) with his select opinions. On this last subject especially—of necromancy—he was very great; witness his profound work, though but a fragment, and, unfortunately, long since departed to the bosom of Cinderella, entitled, "How to raise a ghost; and when you've got him down, how to keep him down." To which work he assured us, that some most learned and enormous man, whose name was six feet long, had promised him an appendix; which appendix treated of the Red Sea and Solomon's signet-ring; with forms of mittimus for ghosts that might be mutinous; and probably a riot act, for any émeute among ghosts inclined to raise barricades; since he often thrilled our young hearts by supposing the case (not at all unlikely, he affirmed), that a federation, a solemn league and conspiracy, might take place among the infinite generations of ghosts against the single generation of men at any one time composing the garrison of earth. The Roman phrase for expressing that a man had died, viz., "Abiit ad plures" (He has gone over to the majority), my brother explained to us; and we easily comprehended that any one generation of the living human race, even if combined, and acting in concert, must be in a frightful minority, by comparison with all the incalculable generations that had trod this earth before us. The Parliament of living men, Lords and Commons united, what a miserable array against the Upper and Lower House composing the Parliament of ghosts. Perhaps the Pre-Adamites would constitute one wing in such a ghostly army. My brother, dying in his sixteenth year, was far enough from seeing or foreseeing Waterloo; else he might have illustrated this dreadful duel of the living human race with its ghostly predecessors, by the awful apparition which, at three o'clock in the afternoon, on the 18th of June, 1815, the mighty contest at Waterloo must have assumed to eyes that watched over the trembling interests of man. The English army, about that time in the great agony of its strife, was thrown into squares; and under that arrangement, which condensed and contracted its apparent numbers within a few black geometrical diagrams, how frightfully narrow—how spectral did its slender lines appear at a distance, to any philosophic spectators that knew the amount of human interests confided to that army, and the hopes for Christendom that even then were trembling in the balance! Such a disproportion, it seems, might exist, in the case of a ghostly war between the harvest of possible results and the slender band of reapers that were to gather it in. And there was even a worse peril than any analogous one that has been proved to exist at Waterloo. A British surgeon, indeed, in a work of two octavo volumes, has endeavored to show that a conspiracy was traced at Waterloo, between two or three foreign regiments, for kindling a panic in the heat of the battle, by flight, and by a sustained blowing-up of tumbrils, with the miserable purpose of shaking the British firmness. But the evidences are not clear; whereas my brother insisted that the presence of sham men, distributed extensively among the human race, and meditating treason against us all, had been demonstrated to the satisfaction of all true philosophers. Who were these shams and make-believe men? They were, in fact, people that had been dead for centuries, but that, for reasons best known to themselves, had returned to this upper earth, walked about among us, and were undistinguishable, except by the most learned of necromancers, from authentic men of flesh and blood. I mention this for the sake of illustrating the fact, that the same crazes are everlastingly revolving upon men. Two years ago, during the carnival of universal anarchy equally among doers and thinkers, a closely-printed pamphlet was published with this title: "A New Revelation, or the Communion of the Incarnate Dead with the Unconscious Living. Important Fact, without trifling Fiction, by Him." I have not the pleasure of knowing Him; but certainly I must concede to Him, that he writes like a man of education, and also like a man of extreme sobriety, upon his extravagant theme. He is angry with Swedenborg, as might be expected, for his "absurdities;" but, as to him, there is no chance that he should commit any absurdity, because (p. 6) "he has met with some who have acknowledged the fact of their having come from the dead"—habes confitentem reum. Few, however, are endowed with so much candor; and, in particular, for the honor of literature, it grieves me to find, by p. 10, that the largest number of these shams, and perhaps the most uncandid, are to be looked for among "publishers and printers," of whom, it seems, "the great majority" are mere forgeries; a very few speak frankly about the matter, and say they don't care who knows it, which, to my thinking, is impudence; but by far the larger section doggedly deny it, and call a policeman, if you persist in charging them with being shams. Some differences there are between my brother and Him, but in the great outline of their views, they coincide.

This hypothesis, however, like a thousand others, when it happened that they engaged no durable sympathy from his nursery audience, he did not pursue. For some time, he turned his thoughts to philosophy, and read lectures to us every night upon some branch or other of physics. This undertaking arose upon some one of us envying or admiring flies for their power of walking upon the ceiling. "Pooh!" he said, "they are impostors; they pretend to do it, but they can't do it as it ought to be done. Ah! you should see me standing upright on the ceiling, with my head downward, for half-an-hour together, and meditating profoundly." My second sister remarked, that we should all be very glad to see him in that position. "If that's the case," he replied, "it's very well that all is ready, except as to one single strap." Being an excellent skater, he had first imagined that, if held up until he had started, by taking a bold sweep ahead, he might then keep himself in position through the continued impetus of skating. But this he found not to answer, because, as he observed, "the friction was too retarding from the plaster of Paris, but the ease would be very different if the ceiling were coated with ice." As it was not, he changed his plan. The true secret, he said, was this: he would consider himself in the light of a humming-top: he would make an apparatus (and he made it) for having himself launched, like a top, upon the ceiling, and regularly spun. Then the vertiginous motion of the human top would overpower the force of gravitation. He should, of course, spin upon his own axis, and sleep upon his axis—perhaps he might even dream upon it; and he laughed at "those scoundrels, the flies," that never improved in their pretended art, nor made any thing of it. The principle was now discovered; "and, of course," he said, "if a man can keep it up for five minutes, what's to hinder him from going on for five months?" "Certainly," my sister replied, whose skepticism, in fact, had not settled upon the five months, but altogether upon the five minutes. The apparatus for spinning him, however, would not work: a fact which was evidently owing to the stupidity of the gardener. On reconsidering the subject, he announced, to the disappointment of some among us, that, although the physical discovery was now complete, he saw a moral difficulty. It was not a humming-top that was required, but a peg-top; and this, in order to keep up the vertigo at full stretch, without which to a certainty, gravitation would prove too much for him, needed to be whipped incessantly. Now, that was what a gentleman ought not to tolerate: to be scourged unintermittingly on the legs by any grub of a gardener, unless it were Father Adam himself, was a thing that he could not bring his mind to endure. However, as some compensation, he proposed to improve the art of flying, which was, as every body must acknowledge, in a condition quite disgraceful to civilized society. As he had made many a fire balloon, and had succeeded in some attempts at bringing down cats by parachutes, it was not very difficult to fly downward from moderate elevations. But, as he was reproached by my sister for never flying back again, which, how ever, was a far different thing, and not even attempted by the philosopher in "Rassel as" (for

Revocare gradum et superas evadere ad auras,
Hic labor, hoc opus est),

he refused, under such poor encouragement, to try his winged parachutes any more, either "aloft or alow," till he had thoroughly studied Bishop Wilkins[12] on the art of translating right reverend gentlemen to the moon; and, in the mean time, he resumed his general lectures on physics. From these, however, he was speedily driven, or one might say shelled out, by a concerted assault of my sister's. He had been in the habit of lowering the pitch of his lectures with ostentatious condescension to the presumed level of our poor understandings. This superciliousness annoyed my sister; and, accordingly, with the help of two young female visitors, and my next younger brother—in subsequent times a little middy on board many a ship of H.M., and the most predestined rebel upon earth against all assumptions, small or great, of superiority—she arranged a mutiny, that had the unexpected effect of suddenly extinguishing the lectures forever. He had happened to say, what was no unusual thing with him, that he flattered himself he had made the point under discussion tolerably clear; "clear," he added, bowing round the half-circle of us, the audience, "to the meanest of capacities;" and then he repeated, sonorously, "clear to the most excruciatingly mean of capacities." Upon which a voice, a female one, but whose I had not time to distinguish, retorted: "No, you haven't; it's as dark as sin;" and then, without a moment's interval, a second voice exclaimed, "Dark as night;" then came my young brother's insurrectionary yell, "Dark as midnight;" then another female voice chimed in melodiously, "Dark as pitch;" and so the peal continued to come round like a catch, the whole being so well concerted, and the rolling fire so well sustained, that it was impossible to make head against it; while the abruptness of the interruption gave to it the protecting character of an oral "round robin," it being impossible to challenge any one in particular as the ring-leader. Burke's phrase of "the swinish multitude," applied to mobs, was then in every body's mouth; and, accordingly, after my brother had recovered from his first astonishment at this insurrection, he made us several sweeping bows that looked very much like tentative rehearsals of a sweeping fusillade, and then addressed us in a very brief speech, of which we could distinguish the words pearls and swinish multitude, but uttered in a very low key, perhaps out of regard to the two young strangers. We all laughed in chorus at this parting salute: my brother himself condescended at last to join us; but there ended the course of lectures on natural philosophy.

As it was impossible, however, that he should remain quiet, he announced to us, that for the rest of his life he meant to dedicate himself to the intense cultivation of the tragic drama. He got to work instantly; and very soon he had composed the first act of his "Sultan Selim;" but, in defiance of the metre, he soon changed the title to "Sultan Amurath," considering that a much fiercer name, more bewhiskered and beturbaned. It was no part of his intention that we should sit lolling on chairs like ladies and gentlemen that had paid opera prices for private boxes. He expected every one of us, he said, to pull an oar. We were to act the tragedy. But, in fact, we had many oars to pull. There were so many characters, that each of us took four, at the least, and the future middy had six. He, this wicked little middy,[13] caused the greatest affliction to Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of his head six several times (that is, once in every one of his six parts), during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though a decent man, was too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by the scimetar, he had so thinned the population with which he commenced business, that scarcely any of the characters remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan Amurath found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of work remained, and hardly any body to do it but the sultan himself. In composing act the second, the author had to proceed like Deucalion and Pyrrha, and to create an entirely new generation. Apparently, this young generation, that ought to have been so good, took no warning by what had happened to their ancestors in act the first; one must conclude that they were quite as wicked, since the poor sultan had found himself reduced to order them all for execution in the course of this act the second. To the brazen age had succeeded an iron age; and the prospects were becoming sadder and sadder, as the tragedy advanced. But here the author began to hesitate. He felt it hard to resist the instinct of carnage. And was it right to do so? Which of the felons, whom he had cut off prematurely, could pretend that a court of appeal would have reversed his sentence? But the consequences were dreadful. A new set of characters in every act, brought with it the necessity of a new plot: for people could not succeed to the arrears of old actions, or inherit ancient motives, like a landed estate. Five crops, in fact, must be taken off the ground in each separate tragedy, amounting, in short, to five tragedies involved in one.

Such, according to the rapid sketch which at this moment my memory furnishes, was the brother, who now first laid open to me the gates of war. The occasion was this, he had resented, with a shower of stones, an affront offered to us by an individual boy, belonging to a cotton-factory; for more than two years afterward, this became the teterrima causa of a skirmish, or a battle, as often as we passed the factory; and, unfortunately, that was twice a day on every day except Sunday. Our situation in respect to the enemy was as follows: Greenhay, a country-house newly built by my father, at that time was a clear mile from the outskirts of Manchester; but, in after years, Manchester, throwing out the tentacula of its vast expansions, absolutely enveloped Greenhay; and, for any thing I know, the grounds and gardens which then insulated the house, may have long disappeared. Being a modest mansion, which (including hot walls, offices, and gardener's house) had cost only six thousand pounds, I do not know how it should have risen to the distinction of giving name to a region of that great town; however, it has done so;[14] and, at this time, therefore, after changes so great, it will be difficult for the habitué of that region to understand how my brother and myself could have a solitary road to traverse between Greenhay and Princess-street, then the termination, on that side of Manchester. But so it was. Oxford-street, like its namesake in London, was then called the Oxford-road; and, during the currency of our acquaintance with it, arose the first three houses in its neighborhood; of which the third was built for the Rev. S. H., one of our guardians, for whom his friends had also built the church of St. Peters's—not a bowshot from the house. At present, however, he resided in Salford, nearly two miles from Greenhay; and to him we went over daily, for the benefit of his classical instructions. One sole cotton-factory had then risen along the line of Oxford-street; and this was close to a bridge, which also was a new creation; for, previously, all passengers to Manchester went round by Garrat. This factory became the officina gentium to us, from which swarmed forth those Goths and Vandals, that continually threatened our steps; and this bridge became the eternal arena of combat, we taking good care to be on the right side of the bridge for retreat, i.e., on the town side, or the country side, according as we were going out in the morning, or returning in the afternoon. Stones were the implements of warfare; and by continual practice we became expert in throwing them.

The origin of the feud it is scarcely requisite to rehearse, since the particular accident which began it was not the true efficient cause of our long warfare, but (as logicians express it) simply the occasion. The cause lay in our aristocratic dress: as children of an opulent family, where all provisions were liberal, and all appointments elegant, we were uniformly well-dressed, and, in particular, we wore trowsers (at that time unheard of, except in maritime places) and Hessian boots—a crime that could not be forgiven in the Lancashire of that day, because it expressed the double offense of being aristocratic, and being outlandish. We were aristocrats, and it was in vain to deny it; could we deny our boots? while our antagonists, if not absolutely sans culottes, were slovenly and forlorn in their dress, often unwashed, with hair totally neglected, and always covered with flakes of cotton. Jacobins they were, not by any sympathy with the French Jacobinism, that then desolated western Europe; for, on the contrary, they detested every thing French, and answered with brotherly signals to the cry of "Church and king," or, "King and constitution." But, for all that, as they were perfectly independent, getting very high wages, and in a mode of industry that was then taking vast strides ahead, they contrived to reconcile this patriotic anti-Jacobinism with a personal Jacobinism of that sort which is native to the heart of man, who is by natural impulse (and not without a root of nobility) impatient of inequality, and submits to it only through a sense of its necessity, or a long experience of its benefits.

It was on an early day of our new tyrocinium, or, perhaps, on the very first, that, as we passed the bridge, a boy happening to issue from the factory,[15] sang out to us, derisively—"Holloa, bucks!" In this the reader may fail to perceive any atrocious insult commensurate to the long war which followed. But the reader is wrong. The word "dandies," which was what the villain meant, had not then been born, so that he could not have called us by that name, unless through the spirit of prophecy. Buck was the nearest word at hand in his Manchester vocabulary; he gave all he could, and let us dream the rest. But, in the next moment, he discovered our boots, and he completed his crime by saluting us as "Boots! boots!" My brother made a dead stop, surveyed him with intense disdain, and bade him draw near, that he might "give his flesh to the fowls of the air." The boy declined to accept this liberal invitation, and conveyed his answer by a most contemptuous and plebeian gesture, upon which my brother drove him in with a shower of stones.

During this inaugural flourish of hostilities, I, for my part, remained inactive, and, therefore, apparently neutral. But this was the last time that I did so: for the moment, I was taken by surprise. To be called a buck by one that had it in his choice to have called me a coward, a thief, or a murderer, struck me as a most pardonable offense; and, as to boots, that rested upon a flagrant fact that could not be denied, so that at first I was green enough to regard the boy as very considerate and indulgent. But my brother soon rectified my views or, if any doubts remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense of my paramount duty to himself, which was threefold. First, it seems, I owed military allegiance to him, as my commander-in-chief, whenever we "took the field;" secondly, by the law of nations, I being a cadet of my house, owed suit and service to him who was its head; and he assured me, that twice in a year, on my birthday, and on his, he had a right, strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to set his foot upon my neck; lastly, by a law not so rigorous, but valid among gentlemen—viz., "by the comity of nations," it seems I owed eternal deference to one so much older than myself, so much wiser, stronger, braver, more beautiful, and more swift of foot. Something like all this in tendency I had already believed, though I had not so minutely investigated the modes and grounds of my duty. As a Pariah, which, by natural temperament I was, and by awful dedication to despondency, I felt resting upon me always too deep and gloomy a sense of obscure duties, that I never should be able to fulfill—a burden which I could not carry, and which yet I did not know how to throw off. Glad, therefore, I was to find the whole tremendous weight of obligations—the law and the prophets—all crowded into this one brief command—"Thou shalt obey thy brother as God's vicar upon earth." For now, if, by any future stone leveled at him who had called me "a buck," I should chance to draw blood—perhaps I might not have committed so serious a trespass on any rights which he could plead: but, if I had (for, on this subject my convictions were still cloudy), at any rate, the duty I might have violated in regard to this general brother, in right of Adam, was canceled when it came into collision with my paramount duty to this liege brother of my own individual house.

From this day, therefore, I obeyed all my brother's military commands with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of distraction, or question, or opening for demur, was swallowed up in the unity of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that all rights of casuistry were transferred from me to himself. His was the judgment—his was the responsibility; and to me belonged only the sublime duty of unconditional faith in him. That faith I realized. It is true, that he taxed me at times, in his reports of particular fights, with "horrible cowardice," and even with "a cowardice that seemed inexplicable, except on the supposition of treachery." But this was only a façon de parler with him: the idea of secret perfidy, that was constantly moving under-ground, gave an interest to the progress of the war, which else tended to the monotonous. It was a dramatic artifice for sustaining the interest, where the incidents might be too slightly diversified. But that he did not believe his own charges was clear, because he never repeated them in his "General History of the Campaigns," which was a resumé, or digest, of his daily reports.

We fought every day; and, generally speaking, twice every day; and the result was pretty uniform, viz., that my brother and I terminated the battle by insisting upon our undoubted right to run away. Magna Charta, I should fancy, secures that great right to every man; else surely it is sadly defective. But out of this catastrophe to most of our skirmishes, and to all our pitched battles except one, grew a standing schism between my brother and me. My unlimited obedience had respect to action, but not to opinion. Loyalty to my brother did not rest upon hypocrisy: because I was faithful, it did not follow that I must be false in relation to his capricious opinions. And these opinions sometimes took the shape of acts. Twice, at the least, in every week, but sometimes every night, my brother insisted on singing "Te Deum" for supposed victories which he had won; and he insisted also on my bearing a part in these "Te Deums." Now, as I knew of no such victories, but resolutely asserted the truth—viz., that we ran away—a slight jar was thus given to the else triumphal effect of these musical ovations. Once having uttered my protest, however, willingly I gave my aid to the chanting; for I loved unspeakably the grand and varied system of chanting in the Romish and English churches. And, looking back at this day to the ineffable benefits which I derived from the church of my childhood, I account among the very greatest those which reached me through the various chants connected with the "O, Jubilate," the "Magnificat," the "Te Deum," the "Benedicite," &c. Through these chants it was that the sorrow which laid waste my infancy, and the devotion which nature had made a necessity of my being, were profoundly interfused: the sorrow gave reality and depth to the devotion; the devotion gave grandeur and idealization to the sorrow. Neither was my love for chanting altogether without knowledge. A son of my reverend guardian, much older than myself, who possessed a singular faculty of producing a sort of organ accompaniment with one half of his mouth, while he sang with the other half, had given me some instructions in the art of chanting: and, as to my brother, he, the hundred-handed Briareus, could do all things; of course, therefore, he could chant. He could chant: he had a right to chant: he had a right, perhaps, to chant "Te Deum." For if he ran away every day of his life, what then? Sometimes the enemy mustered in over-powering numbers—seventy, or even ninety strong. Now, if there is a time for every thing in this world, surely that was the time for running away. But in the mean time I must pause, reserving what has to follow for another occasion.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Elsewhere, viz., in the introductory part of the "Suspiria de Profundis," published in "Blackwood," during the early part of the year 1845. The work is yet unfinished as regards the publication.

[11] "Peculiar." viz., as endowed foundations, to which those resort who are rich and pay, and those also who, being poor, can not pay, or can not pay so much. This most honorable distinction among the services of England from ancient times to the interests of education—a service absolutely unapproached by any one nation of Christendom—is among the foremost cases of that remarkable class which make England, while often the most aristocratic, yet also, for many noble purposes, the most democratic of lands.

[12] "Bishop Wilkins:" Dr. W., Bishop of Chester, in the reign of Charles II., notoriously wrote a book on the possibility of a voyage to the moon, which, in a bishop, would be called a translation to the moon; and, perhaps, it was his name that suggested the "Adventures of Peter Wilkins." It is unfair, however, to mention him in connection with that only one of his works which announces an extravagant purpose. He was really a scientific man, and already in the time of Cromwell (about 1657), had projected that Royal Society of London, which was afterward realized and presided over by Isaac Barrow and Isaac Newton. He was also a learned man, but still with a vein of romance about him, as may be seen in his most elaborate work—"The Essay toward a Philosophic or Universal Language."

[13] "Middy:" I call him so, simply to avoid confusion, and by way of anticipation; else he was too young at this time to serve in the navy. Afterward, he did so for many years, and saw every variety of service in every class of ships belonging to our navy. At one time, when yet a boy, he was captured by pirates, and compelled to sail with them; and the end of his adventurous career was, that for many a year he has been lying at the bottom of the Atlantic.

[14] "Greenheys" with a slight variation in the spelling, is the name given to that district, of which Greenhay formed the original nucleus. Probably, it was the solitary situation of the house which (failing any other grounds of denomination) raised it to this privilege.

[15] "Factory:" such was the designation technically at that time. At present, I believe that a building of that class would be called a "mill."

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

VISIT TO AN ENGLISH DAIRY.

Let the reader accompany us half-a-dozen miles out of town. We pass through Camberwell, through Peckham, and Peckham Rye, and we presently find ourselves in a district that looks uncommonly like "the country," considering how short a time it is since we left the "old smoke" behind us. We alight and walk onward, and certainly, if the sight of green fields, and cows, and hedges, and farm-yards, denote the country, we are undoubtedly in some region of the kind.

We pass down a winding road, between high hedges of bush and trees, then climb over a gate into a field; cross it, and then over another gate into a field, from which we commence a gradual ascent, field after field, till finally the green slope leads us to a considerable height. We are on the top of Friern Hill.

It is a bright sunny morning in September, and we behold to perfection the most complete panorama that can be found in the suburban vicinities of London. Step down with us to yonder hedge, a little below the spot where we have been standing. We approach the hedge—we get over a gate, and we suddenly find ourselves on the upper part of an enormous green sloping pasturage, covered all over with cows. The red cow, the white cow, the brown cow, the brindled cow, the colley cow, the dappled cow, the streaked cow, the spotted cow, the liver-and-white cow, the strawberry cow, the mulberry cow, the chestnut cow, the gray speckled cow, the clouded cow, the black cow,—the short-horned cow, the long-horned cow, the up-curling horn, the down-curling horn, the straight-horned cow, and the cow with the crumpled horn—all are here—between two and three hundred—spread all over the broad, downward sloping pasture, feeding, ruminating, standing, lying, gazing with mild earnestness, reclining in characteristic thoughtfulness, sleeping, or wandering hither and thither. A soft gleam of golden sunshine spreads over the pasture, and falls upon many of the cows with a lovely, picturesque effect.

And what cows they are, as we approach and pass among them! Studies for a Morland, a Gainsborough, a Constable. We had never before thought there were any such cows out of their pictures. That they were highly useful, amiable, estimable creatures, who continually, at the best, appeared to be mumbling grass in a recumbent position, and composing a sonnet, we never doubted; but that they were ever likely to be admired for their beauty, especially when beheld, as many as these were, from a disadvantageous point of view, as to their position, we never for a moment suspected. Such, however, is the case. We have lived to see beauty in the form of a cow—a natural, modern, milch cow, and no descendant from any Ovidian metamorphosis.

We will now descend this broad and populous slope, and pay a visit to Friern Manor Dairy Farm, to which all these acres—some two hundred and fifty—belong, together with all these "horned beauties." We find them all very docile, and undisturbed by our presence, though their looks evidently denote that they recognize a stranger. But those who are reclining do not rise, and none of them decline to be caressed by the hand, or seem indifferent to the compliments addressed to them. In passing through the cows we were specially presented to the cow queen, or "master cow," as she is called. This lady has been recognized during twelve years as the sovereign ruler over all the rest. No one, however large, disputes her supremacy. She is a short-horned, short-legged cow, looking at first sight rather small, but on closer examination you will find that she is sturdily and solidly built, though graceful withal. "She is very sweet-tempered," observed the head keeper, "but when a new-comer doubts about who is the master, her eye becomes dreadful. Don't signify how big the other cow is—she must give in to the master cow. It's not her size, nor strength, bless you, it's her spirit. As soon as the question is once settled, she's as mild as a lamb again. Gives us eighteen quarts of milk a day."

We were surprised to hear of so great a quantity, but this was something abated by a consideration of the rich, varied, and abundant supply of food afforded to these cows, besides the air, attendance, and other favorable circumstances. For their food they have mangold-wurtzel, both the long red and the orange globe sorts, parsnips, turnips, and kohl-rabi (Jewish cabbage), a curious kind of green turnip, with cabbage leaves sprouting out of the top all round, like the feathery arms of the Prince of Wales. Of this last mentioned vegetable the cows often eat greedily; and sometimes endeavoring to bolt too large a piece, it sticks in their throats and threatens strangulation. On these occasions, one of the watchful keepers rushes to the rescue with a thing called a pro bang (in fact a cow's throat ramrod), with which he rams down the obstructive morsel. But, besides these articles of food, there is the unlimited eating of grass in the pastures, so that the yield of a large quantity of milk seems only a matter of course, though we were not prepared to hear of its averaging from twelve to eighteen and twenty quarts of milk a day, from each of these two or three hundred cows. Four-and-twenty quarts a day is not an unusual occurrence from some of the cows; and one of them, we were assured by several of the keepers, once yielded the enormous quantity of twenty-eight quarts a day during six or seven weeks. The poor cow, however, suffered for this munificence, for she was taken very ill with a fever, and her life was given over by the doctor. Mr. Wright, the proprietor, told us that he sat up two nights with her himself, he had such a respect for the cow; and in the morning of the second night after she was given over, when the butcher came for her, he couldn't find it in his heart to let him have her. "No, butcher," said he, "she's been a good friend to me, and I'll let her die a quiet, natural death." She hung her head, and her horns felt very cold, and so she lay for some time longer; but he nursed her, and was rewarded, for she recovered; and there she stands—the strawberry Durham short-horn—and yields him again from sixteen to eighteen quarts of milk a day.

Reverting to the "master cow," we inquired whether her supremacy in the case of newcomers was established "mesmerically" by a glance—or how? The eye, we were assured, had a great deal to do with it. The stranger cow read it, and trembled. But, sometimes, there was a contest; and a cow-fight, with such fresh strong creatures as these—all used to their full liberty, and able to run or leap well, was a serious affair. If no keeper was at hand to separate them, and the fight got serious, so that one of them fell wounded, it was a chance but the whole herd would surround the fallen cow, and kill her. This was not out of wickedness, but something in the whole affair that put them beside themselves, and they couldn't bear the horrid sight, and so tried to get rid of their feelings, as well as the unfortunate object, by this wild violence. The effect was the same if the herd did not witness the fight, but came suddenly to the discovery of blood that had been spilled. They would stare at it, and glare at it, and snuff down at it, and sniff up at it, and prowl round it—and get more and more excited, till, at last, the whole herd would begin to rush about the field bellowing and mad, and make nothing at last of leaping clean over hedges, fences, and five-barred gates. But, strange to say—if the blood they found had not been spilt by violence, but only from some cause which the "horned beauties" understood, such as a sister or aunt having been bled by the doctor—then no effect of the sort occurred. They took no notice of it.

We found that besides beauty, cows possessed some imagination, and were, moreover, very susceptible. The above excitement and mad panic sometimes occurs as the effect of other causes.

Once some boys brought a great kite into the field, with a pantomime face painted upon it; and directly this began to rise over the field, and the cows looked up at it, and saw the great glass eyes of the face looking down at them—then, oh! oh! what a bellowing! and away they rushed over each other, quite frantic. On another occasion, some experimental gentlemen of science, brought a fire-balloon near the pasturage one night after dark. It rose. Up started all the cows in a panic, and round and round they rushed, till, finally, the whole herd made a charge at one of the high fences—tore down and overleaped every thing—burst into the lanes—and made their way into the high-road, and seemed to intend to leave their owners for some state of existence where fire-balloons and horrid men of science were alike unknown.

Instead of proceeding directly down the sloping fields toward the Dairy Farm, we made a detour of about half a mile, and passed through a field well inclosed, in which were about a dozen cows, attended by one man, who sat beneath a tree. This was the Quarantine ground. All newly-purchased cows, however healthy they may appear, are first placed in this field during four or five weeks, and the man who milks or attends upon them is not permitted to touch, nor, indeed, to come near, any of the cows in the great pasture. Such is the susceptibility of a cow to the least contamination, that if one who had any slight disease were admitted among the herd, in a very short time the whole of them would be affected. When the proprietor has been to purchase fresh stock, and been much among strange cows, especially at Smithfield, he invariably changes all his clothes, and, generally takes a bath, before he ventures among his own herd.

From what has already been seen, the reader will not be astonished on his arrival with us at the Dairy Farm, to find every arrangement in accordance with the fine condition of the cows, and the enviable (to all other cows) circumstances in which they live. The cow-sheds are divided into fifty stalls, each; and the appearance presented reminded one of the neatness and order of cavalry stables. Each stall is marked with a number; a corresponding number is marked on one horn of the cow to whom it belongs; and, in winter time, or any inclement season (for they all sleep out in fine weather) each cow deliberately finds out, and walks into her own stall. No. 173 once got into the stall of No. 15; but, in a few minutes, No. 15 arrived, and "showed her the difference." In winter, when the cows are kept very much in-doors, they are all regularly groomed with currycombs. By the side of one of these sheds there is a cottage where the keepers live—milkers and attendants—each with little iron bedsteads, all in orderly soldier fashion, the foreman's wife acting as the housekeeper.

These men lead a comfortable life, but they work hard. The first "milking" begins at eleven o'clock at night; and the second, at half past one in the morning. It takes a long time, for each cow insists upon being milked in her own pail—i.e., a pail to herself, containing no milk of any other cow—or, if she sees it, she is very likely to kick it over. She will not allow of any mixture. In this there would seem a strange instinct, accordant with her extreme susceptibility to contamination.

The milk is all passed through several strainers, and then placed in great tin cans, barred across the top, and sealed. They are deposited in a van, which starts from the Farm about three in the morning, and arrives at the dairy, in Farringdon-street, between three and four. The seals are then carefully examined, and taken off by a clerk. In come the carriers, commonly called "milkmen," all wearing the badge of Friern Farm Dairy; their tin pails are filled, fastened at top, and sealed as before, and away they go on their early rounds, to be in time for the early-breakfast people. The late-breakfasts are provided by a second set of men.

Such are the facts we have ascertained with regard to one of the largest of the great dairy farms near London.

SAILING IN THE AIR.—HISTORY OF AERONAUTICS.

Aeronautics, or the art of sailing in the air, is of very modern date; if, indeed, we are warranted to say that the art has yet been acquired, for we have only got a machine or apparatus capable of sustaining some hundreds of pounds in the air, the means of guiding and propelling it having yet to be discovered. The attention and admiration of men would doubtless be attracted from the beginning to the ease, grace, and velocity with which the feathered race soar aloft, and wing their way in the upper regions; but there is no reason to believe that any of the nations of antiquity—not even Greece and Rome, with all their progress in science and art—ever made the smallest advances toward a discovery of a method of flying, or of aerial navigation.

Archytas of Tarentum, a celebrated Pythagorean philosopher, who flourished about four hundred years before the Christian era, is indeed said to have constructed a wooden flying pigeon; but, from the imperfect accounts transmitted to us of its machinery, there is every probability that its flight was one of the many deceptions of the magic art which the ancients so well understood and so expertly practiced. The attention of man was much earlier, as well as more earnestly and successfully turned to the art of navigating lakes, rivers, and seas. To gratify his curiosity, or to better his condition, he was prompted to emigrate, or to pass from one place to another, and thus he would tax his ingenuity to discover the means by which he might be enabled to accomplish his journey. To make the atmosphere the medium of transit, would, in the early stages of society, hardly strike the mind at all, or, if it did, it would only strike it as a physical impossibility. Nature has not supplied man with wings, as it has done the fowls of heaven, and to find a locomotive means of transportation through the air was in the infancy of all science absolutely hopeless. But advantage would be early taken of the buoyant property of water, particularly of the sea, which must have been known to mankind from the creation. The canoe and the raft would be first constructed, and, in the course of time, experience would teach men to build vessels of a larger size, to fix the rudder to the stern, to erect the mast, and unfurl the sails. Thus would the art of navigating the ocean advance from step to step, while the art navigating the air remained a mystery, practiced, it may be, by flying demons, and flying witches, and the like ethereal beings of a dark mythology, but an achievement to which ordinary mortals could make no pretensions.

Our object in this paper is to give a concise history of aeronautics, commencing at that period when something like an approach was made to the principles upon which the art could be reduced to practice.

The person who is entitled to the honor of the discovery of the main principle of aeronautics—atmospheric buoyancy—is Roger Bacon, an English monk of the thirteenth century. This eminent man, whose uncommon genius was, in that superstitious and ignorant age, ascribed to his intercourse with the devil, was aware that the air is a material of some consistency, capable, like the ocean, of bearing vessels on its surface; and, in one of his works, he particularly describes the construction of a machine by which he believed it was possible to navigate the air. It is a large, thin, hollow globe of copper, or other suitable metal, which he proposes to fill with "ethereal air or liquid fire," and then to launch from some elevated point into the atmosphere, when he supposes it will float on its surface, like a vessel on the water. He afterward says, "There may be made some flying instrument, so that a man, sitting in the middle of the instrument, and turning some mechanism, may put in motion some artificial wings, which may beat the air like a flying bird." But, though Bacon knew the buoyancy of the atmosphere, he was very imperfectly acquainted with its properties. His idea seems to have been, that the boundaries of the atmosphere are at no great height, and that the aerial vessel, in order to its being borne up, must be placed on the surface of the air, just as a ship, in order to its being supported, must be placed on the surface of the water. And, whatever may be meant by his "ethereal air and liquid fire," there is no evidence that he, or any one living in that age, had any knowledge of the various and distinct gases. Bacon merely reasoned and theorized on the subject; he never attempted to realize these flying projects by actual experiment.

It was not till the year 1782 that the art of aerial navigation was discovered, and the merit of the discovery is due to two brothers, wealthy paper manufacturers, at Annonay, not far from Lyons—Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier. This discovery they did not arrive at from any scientific reasoning founded on the elasticity and weight of the atmosphere, for, though attached to the study of mathematics and chemistry, they do not appear to have particularly turned their attention to aerostatics; but, from observing how clouds and smoke rise and float in the atmosphere, it occurred to Stephen, the younger of the two, that a light paper bag, filled with cloud or smoke, would, from the natural tendency of these substances to ascend, be carried by their force in an upward direction.

About the middle of November, 1782, they made their first experiment in their own chamber at Avignon, with a light paper bag of an oblong shape, which they inflated, by applying burning paper to an orifice in the lower part of the bag, and in a few minutes they had the satisfaction of seeing it ascend to the ceiling of the chamber. Constructing a paper bag of larger dimensions, they made a similar experiment in the open air, with equal success, and, the bag being of a spherical shape, they gave it the name of balloon, from its resemblance to a large, round, short-necked, chemical vessel so called. Finding, from repeated trials, that the larger the balloon the more successful was the experiment, they proceeded to construct one of linen lined with paper, 35 feet in diameter; and, on the 25th of April, 1783, after being filled with rarified air, it rapidly rose to the height of 1000 feet, and fell to the ground at the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the spot where it ascended. Encouraged by this success, the Montgolfiers came to the resolution of making a public experiment with this last constructed balloon at Annonay, on the 5th of June following. It was inflated with heated air, by the lower orifice being placed over a pit or well, in which were burned chopped straw and wool. Two men were sufficient to fill it; but, when fully inflated, eight men were required to prevent it from ascending. On being released from its fastenings, it rose majestically to the height of six or seven thousand feet, and made its descent at the distance of a mile and a half from the point of its departure.

This novel experiment, which forms an important epoch in the history of the art of aeronautics, attracted universal attention, and Stephen Montgolfier, having soon after arrived in Paris, was requested by the Royal Academy of Sciences, whose sittings, immediately on his arrival, he had been invited to attend, to repeat the experiment at their expense. He gladly availed himself of their proposal, and speedily got prepared a large balloon of an elliptical shape, 72 feet high, and 41 feet in diameter. It was finished in a style of great magnificence, and elegantly decorated on the outer surface with beautiful and appropriate designs. When completed, it weighed 1000 pounds. As a preliminary experiment, it raised eight men from the ground, and, on the 12th of September, 1783, it ascended, in the presence of the Royal Academy, with a load of from 400 to 500 pounds; but, in consequence of an injury it received in rising from a violent gust of wind, it did not present the same interesting spectacle as the public experiment previously made, and, upon its descent, it was found to be so seriously damaged, as to be unfit for future experiments. A new one of nearly the same dimensions was, therefore, ordered to be made, to which was added a basket of wicker-work, for the accommodation of a sheep, a cock, and a duck, which were intended as passengers. It was inflated, in the presence of the king and royal family, at Versailles, and, when loosened from its moorings, it rose, with the three animals we have named—the first living creatures who ever ascended in an aerial machine—to the height of about 1500 feet, an accident similar to what befell the other preventing it from attaining a higher elevation. It, however, descended safely with the animals, at the distance of 10,000 feet from the place of its ascent.

Hazardous as it might be, it was now fully demonstrated, that it was quite practicable for man to ascend in the atmosphere, and individuals were soon found sufficiently daring to make the experiment. Another balloon was constructed, 74 feet high, and 48 feet in diameter, and M. Pilatre de Rozier, superintendent of the royal museum, and the Marquis de Arlandes, volunteered to make an aerial voyage. At the bottom, it had an opening of about 15 feet in diameter, around which was a gallery of wicker-work, three feet broad, with a balustrade all around the outer edge, of the same material, three feet high; and, to enable the aeronauts to increase or diminish at pleasure the rarified state of the air within, it was provided with an iron brazier, intended for a fire, which could easily be regulated as necessity required. On the 21st of November, in the same year, the adventurers having taken their places on opposite sides of the gallery, the balloon rose majestically in the sight of an immense multitude of spectators, who witnessed its upward course with mingled sentiments of fear and admiration. The whole machine, with fuel and passengers, weighed 1600 pounds. It rose to the height of at least 3000 feet, and remained in the air from 20 to 25 minutes, visible all the time to the inhabitants of Paris and its environs. At several times it was in imminent danger of taking fire, and the marquis, in terror for his life, would have made a precipitate descent, which, in all probability, would have ended fatally, but M. Pilatre de Rozier, who displayed great coolness and intrepidity, deliberately extinguished the fire with a sponge of water he had provided for the emergency, by which they were enabled to remain in the atmosphere some time longer. They raised and lowered themselves frequently during their excursion, by regulating the fire in the brazier, and finally landed in safety five miles distant from the place where they started, after having sailed over a great portion of Paris. This is the first authentic instance in which man succeeded in putting into practical operation the art of traveling in the air, which had hitherto baffled his ingenuity, though turned to the subject for two thousand years. The news of the novel and adventurous feat rapidly spread over the whole civilized world, and aerial ascents in balloons constructed on the same principle were made in other cities of France, in Italy, and in the United States of America.

The two Montgolfiers soon obtained a high and wide-spread reputation; and the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Paris voted a gold medal to Stephen, the younger brother. It was to heated or rarified air that these balloons owed their ascending power; but the Montgolfiers, in the paper in which they communicated their discovery to the Royal Academy, erroneously attributed the ascending power, not to the rarified air in the balloon, but to a peculiar gas they supposed to be evolved by the combustion of chopped straw and wool mixed together, to which the name of Montgolfiers' gas was given, it being believed for a time, even by the members of the Academy, that a new kind of gas, different from hydrogen, and lighter than common air, had been discovered.

Hydrogen gas, or, as it was also called, inflammable air, whose specific gravity was first discovered in 1766, by Henry Cavendish, though the gas itself had been known long before to coal-miners, from its fatal effects, was, from its being the lightest gas known, early taken advantage of for inflating balloons. It indeed occurred to the ingenious Dr. Black of Edinburgh, as soon as he read Mr. Cavendish's paper, which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1766, that if a sufficiently thin and light bladder were filled with this gas, the bladder would necessarily ascend in the atmosphere, as it would form a mass lighter than the same bulk of atmospheric air. Not long after, it suggested itself to Tiberius Cavallo, an Italian philosopher, when he first began to study the subject of air, that it was possible to construct a vessel which, when filled with hydrogen gas, would ascend in the atmosphere. In 1782, he actually attempted to perform the experiment, though the only success he had was to let soap balls, filled with that gas, ascend by themselves rapidly in the air, which, says he, were perhaps the first sort of inflammable air balloons ever made; and he read an account of his experiments to the Royal Society at their public meeting on June 20, 1782. But, during the later part of the year 1783, two gentlemen in the city of Philadelphia actually tested the value of hydrogen gas as a means of inflating balloons. The French Academy, guided by the suggestion of Dr. Black, and the experiments of Cavallo, also concluded to make the experiment of raising a balloon inflated with the same gas. To defray the expense of the undertaking, a subscription was opened, and so great was the enthusiasm excited by the design among people of all ranks and classes, that the requisite sum was speedily subscribed for. A silken bag from lute-string silk, about thirteen feet in diameter, and of a globular shape, was constructed by the Messrs. Roberts, under the superintendence of M. Charles, professor of experimental philosophy; and, to render the bag impervious to the gas—a very essential object in balloon manufacture—it was covered with a varnish composed of gum elastic dissolved in spirits of turpentine. It had but one aperture, like the neck of a bottle, into which was fastened the stop-cock for the convenience of introducing and stopping-off the gas. It was constructed and inflated near the Place of Victories, in August, 1783, and after being inflated, which was then no easy task, occupying several days, it was removed on the morning of the 27th of that month, before daylight, to the Camp of Mars (two miles distant), the place appointed for its ascent. About five o'clock in the afternoon, it was released from its fastenings, and rose, in the presence of some hundred thousands of applauding spectators, to a height upward of 3000 feet; and, after remaining in the atmosphere for three-quarters of an hour, descended in a field near Gonesse, a village about fifteen miles distant from the Camp of Mars. This marks another important era in the history of aeronautics. The hydrogen-gas balloon, in the first place, is attended with less risk than the Montgolfiers' balloon, which requires the dangerous presence of a fire to preserve the air in a sufficiently rarified state; and, in the second place, it has a much greater ascending power than rarified air balloons of the same size, in consequence of its superior lightness.

M. Charles and the two Messrs. Roberts now resolved to undertake an aerial excursion in a balloon of this description. With this view, the Messrs. Roberts formed one of silk, varnished with gum elastic, of a spherical shape, 27 feet in diameter, with a car suspended from it by several cords, which were fastened to a net drawn over the upper part of the balloon. To prevent the danger which might arise from the expansion of the gas under a diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the higher regions, the balloon was furnished with a valve, to permit the free discharge of gas, as occasion might require. The hydrogen gas with which it was filled was 5¼ lighter than common air, and the filling lasted several days. On December 17, 1783, M. Charles and one of the Roberts made their ascent from the garden of the Tuilleries, and rose to the height of 6000 feet. After a voyage of an hour and three-quarters, they descended at Nesle, a distance of 27 miles from the place of their departure. On their descent, M. Roberts having left the car, which lightened the vessel about 130 pounds, M. Charles reascended, and in twenty minutes mounted with great rapidity to the height of 9000 feet. When he left the earth, the thermometer stood at 47 degrees, but, in the space of ten minutes, it fell 21 degrees. On making this great and sudden transition into an atmosphere so intensely cold, he felt as if his blood had been freezing, and experienced a severe pain in the right ear and jaw. He passed through different currents of air, and, in the higher regions, the expansion of the gas was so great, that the balloon must have burst, had he not speedily opened the valve, and allowed part of the gas to escape. After having risen to the height of 10,500 feet, he descended, about three miles from the place where M. Roberts stepped out of the car.

Jean Pierre Blanchard, a Frenchman, who had long exerted his ingenuity, but with little success, in attempting to perfect a mechanical contrivance by which he might be enabled to fly, was the next to prepare a balloon upon the hydrogen-gas principle. It was 27 feet in diameter. He ascended from Paris, March 2d, 1784, accompanied by a Benedictine friar. After rising to the height of 15 feet, the balloon was precipitated to the ground with a violent shock, which so frightened the friar, that he would not again leave terra firma. M. Blanchard re-ascended alone, and, in his ascent, he passed through various currents of air, as aeronauts generally do. He rose to the height of 9600 feet, where he suffered from extreme cold, and was oppressed with drowsiness. As a means of directing his course, he had attached to the car an apparatus consisting of a rudder and two wings, but found that they had little or no controlling power over the balloon. He continued his voyage for an hour and a quarter, when he descended in safety.

During the course of the year subsequent to the Montgolfiers' discovery, several experiments on the ascending power of balloons had been made in England; but the first person who there ventured on an aerial voyage was Vincent Lunardi, an Italian, who ascended from London, September 21, 1784. In the succeeding year, he gratified the inhabitants of Glasgow and Edinburgh with the spectacle of an aerial excursion, which they had never witnessed before.

The first aerial voyage across the sea was made by M. Blanchard, in company with Dr. Jeffries, an American physician, who was then residing in England. On the 7th January, 1785, a beautiful frosty winter day, they ascended about one o'clock from the cliff of Dover, with the design of crossing the Channel between England and France, a distance of about twenty-three miles, and, at great personal risk, accomplished their purpose in two hours and a half. The balloon at first rose slowly and majestically in the air, but it soon began to descend, and, before they had crossed the Channel, they were obliged to reduce the weight, by throwing out all their ballast, several books, their apparatus, cords, grapples, bottles, and were even proceeding to cast their clothes into the sea, when the balloon, which had then nearly reached the French coast, began to ascend, and rose to a considerable height, relieving them from the necessity of dispensing with much of their apparel. They landed in safety at the edge of the forest of Guiennes, not far beyond Calais, and were treated by the magistrates of that town with the utmost kindness and hospitality. M. Blanchard had the honor of being presented with 12,000 livres by the King of France. Emboldened by this daring feat, Pilatre de Rozier, already mentioned, and M. Romain, prepared to pay back the compliment of M. Blanchard and Dr. Jeffries, by crossing the Channel from France to England. To avoid the difficulty of keeping up the balloon, which had perplexed and endangered Blanchard and his companion during nearly their whole course, Rozier had recourse to the expedient of placing underneath the hydrogen balloon a fire balloon of smaller dimensions, which was intended to regulate the rising and falling of the whole machine. This promised to unite the advantages of both kinds of balloons, but it unhappily terminated in the melancholy death of the two adventurers. They ascended from Boulogne, on the 15th of June, 1785, but scarcely had a quarter of an hour elapsed from the time of their ascent, when, at the height of 3000 feet, the whole machine was discovered to be in flames. Its scattered fragments, with the mangled bodies of the unfortunate aeronauts, who were probably killed by the explosion of the hydrogen gas, were found near the sea-shore, about four miles from Boulogne. This was the first fatal accident which took place in balloon navigation, though several hundred ascensions had by this time been made.

In the early practice of aerial voyages, the chief danger apprehended was from accidental and rapid descents. To countervail this danger, and enable the adventurer, in cases of alarm, to desert his balloon, and descend to the ground uninjured, Blanchard invented the parachute, or guard for falling, as the word signifies in French, an apparatus very much resembling an umbrella, but of much larger dimensions. The design is to break the fall; and, to effect this, it is necessary that the parachute present a surface sufficiently large to experience from the air such resistance as will cause it to descend with a velocity not exceeding that with which a person can fall to the ground unhurt. During an aerial excursion which Blanchard took from Lisle in August, 1785, when he traversed a distance of not less than 300 miles, he dropped a parachute with a basket fastened to it, containing a dog, from a great elevation, and it fell gently through the air, letting down the animal to the ground in safety. The practice and management of the parachute were subsequently carried much farther by other aeronauts, and particularly by M. Garnerin, an ingenious and spirited Frenchman, who, during the course of his numerous ascents, repeatedly descended from the region of the clouds with that very slender machine. On one occasion, however, he suffered considerable injury in his descent. The stays of the parachute having unfortunately given way, its proper balance was disturbed, and, on reaching the ground, it struck against it with such violence, as to throw him on his face, by which he received some severe cuts. To let down a man of ordinary size from any height, a parachute of a hemispherical form, twenty-five feet in diameter, is required. But although the construction of a parachute is very simple, and the resistance it will meet with from the air in its descent, its size and load being given, can be exactly determined on scientific principles, few have ventured to try it; which may be owing partly to ignorance, or inattention to the scientific principles by which it is governed, and partly to a growing opinion among aeronauts, that it is unnecessary, the balloon itself, in case of its bursting, forming a parachute; as Mr. Wise, the celebrated American aeronaut, experienced on two different occasions, as he narrates in his interesting work on Aeronautics, lately published at Philadelphia—a work to which we have been mainly indebted in drawing up this article.

In the early part of the French revolutionary war, the savants of France, ambitious of bringing to the aid of the Republic all the resources of science, strongly recommended the introduction of balloons, as an effectual means of reconnoitring the armies of their enemies. From the advantages it seemed to promise, the recommendation was instantly acted on by the government, which established an aeronautic school at Meudon, near Paris. The management of the institution, which was conducted with systematic precision, and concealed with the utmost care from the allied powers, was committed to the most eminent philosophers of Paris. Gyton Morveau, a celebrated French chemist, and M. Contel, superintended the operations. Fifty military students were admitted for training. A practicing balloon of thirty-two feet in diameter was constructed, of the most durable materials, and inflated with hydrogen gas. It was kept constantly full, so as to be at all times ready for exercise; and, to make it stationary at any given altitude, it was attached to windlass machinery. Balloons were speedily prepared by M. Contel for the different branches of the French army; the Entreprenant for the army of the north, the Celeste for that of the Sambre and Meuse, the Hercule for that of Rhine and Moselle, and the Intrepide for the memorable army of Egypt. The victory which the French achieved over the Austrians, on the plains of Fleurus, in June, 1794, is ascribed to the observations made by two of their aeronauts. Immediately before the battle, M. Contel and an adjutant-general ascended twice in the war-balloon Entreprenant, to reconnoitre the Austrian army, and though, during their second aerial reconnaissance they were discovered by the enemy, who sent up after them a brisk cannonade, they quickly rose above the reach of danger, and, on descending, communicated such information to their general, as enabled him to gain a speedy and decisive victory over the Austrians.

The balloon was also at an early period taken advantage of for making scientific experiments in the elevated regions of the atmosphere. With the view of ascertaining the force of magnetic attraction, and of examining the electrical properties and constitution of the atmosphere at great elevations, two young, enthusiastic French philosophers, MM. Biot and Gay Lussac, proposed to make an ascent. These gentlemen, who had studied together at the Polytechnic School of Paris, and the latter of whom had especially devoted himself to the study of chemistry, and its application to the arts, while both were deeply versed in mathematical science, were well qualified for the undertaking; and they were warmly patronized by the government, which immediately placed at their command the Intrepide, that had returned with the French army from Egypt to Paris, after the capitulation of Cairo. M. Contel, who had constructed the balloon, was ordered to refit it, under their direction, at the public expense. Having furnished themselves with the philosophical instruments necessary for their experiments—with barometers, thermometers, hygrometers, compasses, dipping needles, metallic wires, an electrophorus, a voltaic pile, and with some frogs, insects, and birds—they ascended, at ten o'clock, on the morning of August 23, 1804, from the garden of the Repository of Models. On rising 6500 English feet, they commenced their observations. The magnetic needle was attracted as usual by iron, but it was impossible for them at this time to determine with accuracy its rate of oscillation, owing to a slow rotary motion with which the balloon was affected. The voltaic pile exhibited all its ordinary effects, giving its peculiar copperas taste, exciting the nervous system, and causing the decomposition of water. At the elevation of 8600 feet, the animals which they carried with them appeared to suffer from the rarity of the air. The philosophers had their pulses much accelerated, but they experienced no difficulty in breathing, nor any inconvenience whatever. Their highest elevation was 13,000 feet; and the result of their experiments at this distance from the earth was, that the force of magnetic attraction had not sensibly diminished, and that there is an increase of electricity in the higher regions of the atmosphere.

In compliance with the request of several philosophers of Paris, who were anxious that the same observations should be repeated at the greatest height that could be reached, Gay Lussac alone made a second ascent, on the morning of September 15, 1804, from the garden of the Repository of Models, and rose, by a gradual ascent, to a great elevation. He continued to take observations at short intervals of the state of the barometer, the thermometer, and the hygrometer, of which he has given a tabular view, but he unfortunately neglected to mark the time at which they were made—a point of material importance, for the results would of course be modified by the progress of the day; and it would have added to their value, had these observations been compared with similar ones made at the same time at the observatory. During the ascent of the balloon, the hygrometer was variable, but obviously marked an increase of dryness; the thermometer indicated a decrease in the heat of the atmosphere, but the decrease is not uniform, the ratio being higher in the elevated regions than in the lower, which are heated from the earth; and it was found, by not fewer than fifteen trials at different altitudes, that the oscillations of a finely-suspended needle varied very little from its oscillations on the surface of the earth. At the height of 21,460 feet. Lussac admitted the air into one of his exhausted flasks, and at the height of 21,790 feet, he filled the other. He continued to rise, till he was 22,912 feet above Paris, or 23,040 feet—that is upward of four miles and a quarter—above the level of the sea, the utmost limit of his ascent, an elevation not much below the summit of Nevado de Sorato, the highest mountain of America, and the loftiest peak of the Himalaya in Asia, the highest mountains in the world, and far above that to which any mortal had ever soared before. One can not but admire the intrepid coolness with which Lussac performed his experiments at this enormous elevation, conducting his operations with the same composure and precision as if he had been seated in his own parlor in Paris. Though warmly clad, he now began to suffer from the excessive cold, his pulse was quickened, he was oppressed by difficulty in breathing, and his throat became parched, from inhaling the dry, attenuated air—for the air was now more than twice as thin as ordinary, the barometer having sunk to 12‧95 inches—so that he could hardly swallow a morsel of bread. He alighted safely, at a quarter before four o'clock afternoon, near the hamlet of St. Gourgan, about sixteen miles from Rouen. On reaching Paris, he hastened to the laboratory of the Polytechnic School, to analyze the air he had brought down in his flasks from the higher regions; and, by a very delicate analysis, it was found to contain exactly the same proportions as the air on the surface of the earth, every 1000 parts holding 215 of oxygen, confirming the identity of the atmosphere in all situations. The ascents of these two philosophers are memorable, as the first which were made for purely scientific purposes.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

(Continued from Vol. I. Page 797.)

CHAPTER XVIII.

"THE BAY OF RATHFRAN."

Our voyage was very uneventful, but not without anxiety, since, to avoid the English cruisers and the Channel-fleet, we were obliged to hold a southerly course for several days, making a great circuit before we could venture to bear up for the place of our destination. The weather alternated between light winds and a dead calm, which usually came on every day at noon, and lasted till about sunset. As to me, there was an unceasing novelty in every thing about a ship; her mechanism, her discipline, her progress, furnished abundant occupation for all my thoughts, and I never wearied of acquiring knowledge of a theme so deeply interesting. My intercourse with the naval officers, too, impressed me strongly in their favor, in comparison with their comrades of the land service. In the former case, all was zeal, activity, and watchfulness. The look-out never slumbered at his post; and an unceasing anxiety to promote the success of the expedition, manifested itself in all their words and actions. This, of course, was all to be expected in the discharge of the duties peculiarly their own; but I also looked for something which should denote preparation and forethought in the others; yet nothing of the kind was to be seen. The expedition was never discussed even as table-talk; and for any thing that fell from the party in conversation, it would have been impossible to say if our destination were China or Ireland. Not a book nor a map, not a pamphlet nor a paper that bore upon the country whose destinies were about to be committed to us, ever appeared on the tables. A vague and listless doubt how long the voyage might last, was the extent of interest any one condescended to exhibit; but as to what was to follow after—what new chapter of events should open when this first had closed, none vouchsafed to inquire.

Even to this hour I am puzzled whether to attribute this strange conduct to the careless levity of national character, or to a studied and well "got up" affectation. In all probability both influences were at work; while a third, not less powerful, assisted them—this was the gross ignorance and shameless falsehood of many of the Irish leaders of the expedition, whose boastful and absurd histories ended by disgusting every one. To listen to them, Ireland was not only unanimous in her desire for separation, but England was perfectly powerless to prevent it, and the only difficulty was, to determine the future fortune of the liberated land, when once her freedom had been proclaimed. Among the projects discussed at the time, I well remember one, which was often gravely talked over, and the utter absurdity of which certainly struck none among us. This was no less than the intention of demanding the West India Islands from England, as an indemnity for the past woes and bygone misgovernment of Ireland. If this seem barely credible now, I can only repeat my faithful assurance of the fact, and I believe that some of the memoirs of the time will confirm my assertion.

The French officers listened to these and similar speculations with utter indifference; probably to many of them the geographical question was a difficulty that stopped any further inquiry, while others felt no further interest than what a campaign promised. All the enthusiastic narratives, then, of high rewards and splendid trophies that awaited us, fell upon inattentive ears, and at last the word Ireland ceased to be heard among us. Play of various kinds occupied us when not engaged on duty. There was little discipline maintained on board, and none of that strictness which is the habitual rule of a ship-of-war. The lights were suffered to burn during the greater part of the night in the cabins; gambling went on usually till daybreak; and the quarter-deck, that most reverential of spots to every sailor-mind, was often covered by lounging groups, who smoked, chatted, or played at chess, in all the cool apathy of men indifferent to its claim for respect.

Now and then, the appearance of a strange sail afar off, or some dim object in the horizon, would create a momentary degree of excitement and anxiety; but when the "look-out" from the mast-head had proclaimed her a "schooner from Brest," or a "Spanish fruit-vessel," the sense of danger passed away at once, and none ever reverted to the subject of a peril then suggested.

With General Humbert I usually passed the greater part of each forenoon, a distinction, I must confess, I owed to my skill as a chess-player, a game of which he was particularly fond, and in which I had attained no small proficiency. I was too young and too unpracticed in the world to make my skill subordinate to my chief's, and beat him at every game with as little compunction as though he were only my equal, till, at last, vexed at his want of success, and tired of a contest that offered no vicissitude of fortune, he would frequently cease playing, to chat over the events of the time, and the chances of the expedition.

It was with no slight mixture of surprise and dismay, that I now detected his utter despair of all success, and that he regarded the whole as a complete forlorn-hope. He had merely taken the command to involve the French Government in the cause, and so to compromise the national character that all retreat would be impossible. "We shall be all cut to pieces, or taken prisoners the day after we land," was his constant exclamation, "and then, but not till then, will they think seriously in France of a suitable expedition." There was no heroism, still less was there any affectation of recklessness, in this avowal. By nature, he was a rough, easy, good-tempered fellow, who liked his profession less for its rewards, than for its changeful scenes and moving incidents—his one predominating feeling being that France should give rule to the whole world, and the principles of her Revolution be every where pre-eminent. To promote this consummation, the loss of an army was of little moment. Let the cause but triumph in the end, and the cost was not worth fretting about.

Next to this sentiment was his hatred of England, and all that was English. Treachery, falsehood, pride, avarice, grasping covetousness, and unscrupulous aggression, were the characteristics by which he described the nation; and he made the little knowledge he had gleaned from newspapers and intercourse, so subservient to this theory, that I was an easy convert to his opinion; so that, ere long, my compassion for the wrongs of Ireland was associated with the most profound hatred of her oppressors.

To be sure, I should have liked the notion, that we ourselves were to have some more active share in the liberation of Irishmen than the mere act of heralding another and more successful expedition; but even in this thought there was romantic self-devotion, not unpleasing to the mind of a boy; but, after all, I was the only one who felt it.

The first sight of land to one on sea is always an event of uncommon interest; but how greatly increased is the feeling, when that land is to be the scene of a perilous exploit—the cradle of his ambition, or perhaps his grave! All my speculations about the expedition—all my day-dreams of success, or my anxious hours of dark forebodings—never brought the matter so palpably before me, as the dim outline of a distant headland, which, I was told, was part of the Irish coast.

This was on the 8th of August, but on the following day we stood farther out to sea again and saw no more of it. The three succeeding ones we continued to beat up slowly to the north'ard, against a head wind and a heavy sea; but on the evening of the 21st the sun went down in mellow splendor, and a light air from the south springing up, the sailors pronounced a most favorable change of weather, a prophecy that a starry night and a calm sea soon confirmed.

The morning of the 22d broke splendidly—a gentle breeze from the sou'west slightly curled the blue waves, and filled the canvas of the three frigates, as in close order they sailed along under the tall cliffs of Ireland. We were about three miles from the shore, on which now every telescope and glass was eagerly directed. As the light and fleeting clouds of early morning passed away, we could descry the outlines of the bold coast, indented with many a bay and creek, while rocky promontories and grassy slopes succeeded each other in endless variety of contrast. Towns, or even villages, we could see none—a few small wretched-looking hovels were dotted over the hills, and here and there a thin wreath of blue smoke bespoke habitation, but, save these signs, there was an air of loneliness and solitude which increased the solemn feelings of the scene.

All these objects of interest, however, soon gave way before another, to the contemplation of which every eye was turned. This was a small fishing-boat, which, with a low mast and ragged piece of canvas was seen standing boldly out for us; a red handkerchief was fastened to a stick in the stern, as if for a signal, and on our shortening sail, to admit of her overtaking us, the ensign was lowered, as though in acknowledgment of our meaning.

The boat was soon alongside, and we now perceived that her crew consisted of a man and a boy, the former of whom, a powerfully-built, loose fellow, of about five-and-forty, dressed in a light-blue frieze jacket and trowsers, adroitly caught at the cast of rope thrown out to him, and having made fast his skiff, clambered up the ship's side at once, gayly, as though he were an old friend coming to welcome us.

"Is he a pilot?" asked the officer of the watch, addressing one of the Irish officers.

"No; he's only a fisherman, but he knows the coast perfectly, and says there is deep water within twenty fathoms of the shore."

An animated conversation in Irish now ensued between the peasant and Captain Madgett, during which a wondering and somewhat impatient group stood around, speedily increased by the presence of General Humbert himself and his staff.

"He tells me, general," said Madgett, "that we are in the Bay of Killala, a good and safe anchorage, and, during the southerly winds, the best on all the coast."

"What news has he from the shore?" asked Humbert, sharply, as if the care of the ship was a very secondary consideration.

"They have been expecting us with the greatest impatience, general; he says the most intense anxiety for our coming is abroad."

"What of the people themselves? Where are the national forces? Have they any head quarters near this? Eh, what says he? What is that? Why does he laugh?" asked Humbert, in impatient rapidity, as he watched the changes in the peasant's face.

"He was laughing at the strange sound of a foreign language, so odd and singular to his ears," said Madgett; but for all his readiness, a slight flushing of the cheek showed that he was ill at ease.

"Well, but what of the Irish forces? Where are they?"

For some minutes the dialogue continued in an animated strain between the two; the vehement tone and gestures of each bespeaking what sounded at least like altercation; and Madgett at last turned half angrily away, saying, "The fellow is too ignorant; he actually knows nothing of what is passing before his eyes."

"Is there no one else on board can speak this 'baragouinage,'" cried Humbert in anger.

"Yes, general, I can interrogate him," cried a young lad named Conolly, who had only joined us the day before we sailed.

And now as the youth addressed the fisherman in a few rapid sentences, the other answered as quickly, making a gesture with his hands that implied grief, or even despair.

"We can interpret that for ourselves," broke in Humbert; "he is telling you that the game is up."

"Exactly so, general; he says that the insurrection has been completely put down, that the Irish forces are scattered or disbanded, and all the leaders taken."

"The fellow is just as likely to be an English spy," said Madgett, in a whisper; but Humbert's gesture of impatience showed how little trust he reposed in the allegation.

"Ask him what English troops are quartered in this part of the country," said the general.

"A few militia, and two squadrons of dragoons," was the prompt reply.

"No artillery?"

"None."

"Is there any rumor of our coming abroad, or have the frigates been seen?" asked Humbert.

"They were seen last night from the church steeple of Killala, general," said Conolly, translating, "but believed to be English."

"Come; that is the best news he has brought us yet," said Humbert, laughing; "we shall at least surprise them a little. Ask him what men of rank or consequence live in the neighborhood, and how are they affected toward the expedition?"

A few words, and a low, dry laugh, made all the peasant's reply.

"Eh, what says he?" asked Humbert.

"He says, sir, that, except a Protestant bishop, there's nothing of the rank of gentry here."

"I suppose we need scarcely expect his blessing on our efforts," said Humbert, with a hearty laugh. "What is he saying now?—what is he looking at?"

"He says we are now in the very best anchorage of the bay," said Conolly, "and that on the whole coast there's not a safer spot."

A brief consultation now took place between the general and the naval officers, and in a few seconds the word was given to take in all sail, and anchor.

"I wish I could speak to that honest fellow myself," said Humbert, as he stood watching the fisherman, who with a peasant's curiosity had now approached the mast, and was passing his fingers across the blades of the cutlasses, as they stood in the sword rack.

"Sharp enough for the English, eh?" cried Humbert, in French, but with a gesture that seemed at once intelligible. A dry nod of the head gave assent to the remark.

"If I understand him aright," said Humbert, in a half whisper to Conolly, "we are as little expected by our friends as by our enemies; and that there is little or no force in arms among the Irish."

"There are plenty ready to fight, he says, sir, but none accustomed to discipline."

A gesture, half contemptuous, was all Humbert's reply, and he now turned away and walked the deck alone and in silence. Meanwhile the bustle and movements of the crew continued, and soon the great ships, stripped of their white sails, lay tranquilly at anchor in a sea without a ripple.

"A boat is coming out from the shore, general," whispered the lieutenant on duty.

"Ask the fisherman if he knows it."

Conolly drew the peasant's attention to the object, and the man, after looking steadily for a few seconds, became terribly agitated.

"What is it, man—can't you tell who it is?" asked Conolly.

But although so composed before, so ready with all his replies, he seemed now totally unmanned—his frank and easy features being struck with the signs of palpable terror. At last, and with an effort that bespoke all his fears, he muttered—"'Tis the king's boat is coming, and 'tis the collector's on board of her!"

"Is that all?" cried Conolly, laughing, as he translated the reply to the general.

"Won't you say that I'm a prisoner, sir; won't you tell them that you took me?" said the fisherman, in an accent of fervent entreaty, for already his mind anticipated the casualty of a failure, and what might betide him afterward; but no one now had any care for him or his fortunes—all was in preparation to conceal the national character of the ships. The marines were ordered below, and all others whose uniforms might betray their country, while the English colors floated from every mast-head.

General Humbert, with Serazin and two others, remained on the poop-deck, where they continued to walk, apparently devoid of any peculiar interest or anxiety in the scene. Madgett alone betrayed agitation at this moment: his pale face was paler than ever, and there seemed to me a kind of studious care in the way he covered himself up with his cloak, so that not a vestige of his uniform could be seen.

The boat now came close under our lee, and Conolly being ordered to challenge her in English, the collector, standing up in the stern, touched his hat, and announced his rank. The gangway-ladder was immediately lowered, and three gentlemen ascended the ship's side and walked aft to the poop. I was standing near the bulwark at the time, watching the scene with intense interest. As General Humbert stood a little in advance of the rest, the collector, probably taking him for the captain, addressed him with some courteous expression of welcome, and was proceeding to speak of the weather, when the general gently stopped him by asking if he spoke French.

I shall never forget the terror of face that question evoked. At first, looking at his two companions, the collector turned his eyes to the gaff, where the English flag was flying; but still unable to utter a word, he stood like one entranced.

"You have been asked if you can speak French, sir?" said Conolly, at a sign from the general.

"No—very little—very badly—not at all; but isn't this—am I not on board of—"

"Can none of them speak French?" said Humbert, shortly.

"Yes, sir," said a young man on the collector's right; "I can make myself intelligible in that language, although no great proficient."

"Who are you, monsieur?—are you a civilian?" asked Humbert.

"Yes, sir. I am the son of the Bishop of Killala, and this young gentleman is my brother."

"What is the amount of the force in this neighborhood?"

"You will pardon me, sir," said the youth, "if I ask, first, who it is puts this question, and under what circumstances I am expected to answer it?"

"All frank and open, sir," said Humbert, good-humoredly. "I'm the General Humbert, commanding the advanced guard for the liberation of Ireland—so much for your first question. As to your second one, I believe that if you have any concern for yourself, or those belonging to you, you will find that nothing will serve your interest so much as truth and plain dealing."

"Fortunately, then, for me," said the youth, laughing, "I can not betray my king's cause, for I know nothing, nothing whatever, about the movement of troops. I seldom go ten miles from home, and have not been even at Ballina since last winter."

"Why so cautious about your information, then, sir," broke in Serazin, roughly, "since you have none to give?"

"Because I had some to receive, sir; and was curious to know where I was standing," said the young man, boldly.

While these few sentences were being interchanged, Madgett had learned from the collector, that, except a few companies of militia and fencibles, the country was totally unprovided with troops, but he also picked up, that the people were so crest-fallen and subdued in courage from the late failure of the rebellion, that it was very doubtful whether our coming would arouse them to another effort. This information, particularly the latter part of it, Madgett imparted to Humbert at once, and I thought by his manner, and the eagerness with which he spoke, that he seemed to use all his powers to dissuade the general from a landing; at least I overheard him more than once say, "Had we been further north, sir—"

Humbert quickly stopped him by the words:

"And what prevents us, when we have landed, sir, in extending our line north'ard? the winds can not surely master us, when we have our feet on the sward. Enough of all this; let these gentlemen be placed in security, and none have access to them without my orders. Make signal for the commanding officers to come on board here. We've had too much of speculation; a little action now will be more profitable."

"So, we are prisoners, it seems!" said the young man who spoke French, as he moved away with the others, who, far more depressed in spirit, hung their heads in silence, as they descended between-decks.

Scarcely was the signal for a council of war seen from the mast-head, when the different boats might be descried stretching across the bay with speed. And now all were assembled in General Humbert's cabin, whose rank and station in the service, entitled them to the honor of being consulted.

To such of us as held inferior grade, the time passed tediously enough as we paced the deck, now turning from the aspect of the silent, and, seemingly, uninhabited cliffs along shore, to listen if no sign betokened the breaking up of the council; nor were we without serious fears that the expedition would be abandoned altogether. This suspicion originated with the Irish themselves, who, however confident of success, and boastful of their country's resources before we sailed, now made no scruple of averring that every thing was the exact reverse of what they had stated: for, that the people were dispirited, the national forces disbanded, neither arms, money, nor organization any where—in fact, that a more hopeless scheme could not be thought of than the attempt, and that its result could not fail to be defeat and ruin to all concerned.

Shall I own that the bleak and lonely aspect of the hills along shore, the dreary character of the landscape, the almost death-like stillness of the scene, aided these gloomy impressions, and made it seem as if we were about to try our fortune on some desolate spot, without one look of encouragement, or one word of welcome to greet us. The sight of even an enemy's force would have been a relief to this solitude—the stir and movement of a rival army would have given spirit to our daring, and nerved our courage, but there was something inexpressibly sad in this unbroken monotony.

A few tried to jest upon the idea of liberating a land that had no inhabitants—the emancipation of a country without people; but even French flippancy failed to be witty on a theme so linked with all our hopes and fears, and, at last, a dreary silence fell upon all, and we walked the deck without speaking, waiting and watching for the result of that deliberation, which already had lasted above four mortal hours.

Twice was the young man who spoke French summoned to the cabin, but, from the briefness of his stay, apparently with little profit; and now the day began to wane, and the tall cliffs threw their lengthened shadows over the still waters of the bay, and yet nothing was resolved on. To the quiet and respectful silence of expectation, now succeeded a low and half subdued muttering of discontent; groups of five or six together were seen along the deck, talking with eagerness and animation, and it was easy to see that whatever prudential or cautious reasons dictated to the leaders, their arguments found little sympathy with the soldiers of the expedition. I almost began to fear that if a determination to abandon the exploit were come to, a mutiny might break out, when my attention was drawn off by an order to accompany Colonel Charost on shore to "reconnoitre." This, at least, looked like business, and I jumped into the small boat with alacrity.

With the speed of four oars stoutly plied, we skimmed along the calm surface, and soon saw ourselves close in to the shore. Some little time was spent in looking for a good place to land; for, although not the slightest air of wind was blowing, the long swell of the Atlantic broke upon the rocks with a noise like thunder. At last, we shot into a little creek with a shelving gravelly beach, and completely concealed by the tall rocks on every side; and now we sprang out, and stood upon Irish ground!

CHAPTER XIX.

A "RECONNAISSANCE."

From the little creek where we landed, a small zig-zag path led up the sides of the cliff, the track by which the peasants carried the sea-weed, which they gathered for manure, and up this we now slowly wended our way. Stopping for some time to gaze at the ample bay beneath us, the tall-masted frigates floating so majestically on its glassy surface—it was a scene of tranquil and picturesque beauty, with which it would have been almost impossible to associate the idea of war and invasion. In the lazy bunting that hung listlessly from peak and mast-head—in the cheerful voices of the sailors, heard afar off in the stillness—in the measured plash of the sea itself, and the fearless daring of the sea-gulls, as they soared slowly above our heads—there seemed something so suggestive of peace and tranquillity, it struck us as profanation to disturb it.

As we gained the top and looked around us, our astonishment became even greater. A long succession of low hills, covered with tall ferns or heath, stretched away on every side; not a house, nor a hovel, nor a living thing to be seen. Had the country been one uninhabited since the creation, it could not have presented an aspect of more thorough desolation! No road-track, nor even a foot-path, led through the dreary waste before us, on which, to all seeming, the foot of man had never fallen. And, as we stood for some moments, uncertain which way to turn, a sense of the ridiculous suddenly burst upon the party, and we all broke into a hearty roar of laughter.

"I little thought," cried Charost, "that I should ever emulate 'La Perouse,' but it strikes me that I am destined to become a great discoverer."

"How so, colonel?" asked his aid-de-camp.

"Why, it is quite clear, that this same island is uninhabited; and, if it be all like this, I own I'm scarcely surprised at it."

"Still, there must be a town not far off, and the residence of that bishop we heard of this morning."

A half incredulous shrug of the shoulders was all his reply, as he sauntered along with his hands behind his back, apparently lost in thought; while we, as if instinctively partaking of his gloom, followed him in total silence.

"Do you know, gentlemen, what I'm thinking of?" said he, stopping suddenly, and facing about. "My notion is, that the best thing to do here, would be to plant our tri-color, proclaim the land a colony of France, and take to our boats again."