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 WORDSWORTH COLLECTION 
 
 MADE BY 
 
 CYNTHIA MORGAN ST. JOHN 
 ITHACA. N. Y. 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 VICTOR EMANUEL 
 
 CLASS OF 1919 
 1925 
 
(A)0/<i3(Al<irji 
 
THE SCOTT MONUMENT, EDINBUP. GH, 
 
 o iCo 
 
 EDINBURGH, 
 
 MAY, a MIT€MELL 
 
A^ 
 
 .<%)> 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924104095892 
 
THE 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 A GALLERY OF LITERARY SKETCHES 
 
 OP 
 
 EMINENT MEN AND WOMEN OE THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTUKY 
 
 Compiled and Selected by 
 EOBEET COCHKANE 
 
 iUn'OB OF "THE ENGLISH ESSAYISTS," "THE TREASURY OF BRITISH ELOQUENCE," ETC. 
 
 EDINBUEGH 
 W. R NIMMO, HAY, & MITCHELL 
 
 1892 
 
 ^ I 
 
/\.6 
 
 o o y (2) io 
 
 ^* History is the essence of innumerable biographies. , . . As the highest Gospel 'u^*^ u, 
 Biography, so is the life of every good man still an itidubitable Gospel, and preaches to the eye 
 and heart and whole man. . . . All men are to an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's 
 life a strange emblem of every man's; and human portraits ^ faithfully draion, are of all pictures 
 the welcomest on human toalls." — Carlylb. 
 
 I 'A\^\ \]0 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It may safely be taken for granted tliat the human mind naturally 
 desires to know something regarding those who are marked out by 
 great qualities in any department of life, by goodness or great 
 attainments and achievements. The gratification of this desire is both 
 healthy and wholesome. The present collection of biographies and 
 critical sketches, while intended to be of some practical value, may 
 help to interest and stimulate the reader to further and fuller inquiry 
 and increased knowledge of the great men and women of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The selected biographies, by various writers of eminence, will speak 
 for themselves, and contribute a variety of opinion, style, and treatment, 
 to the volume. It embraces sketches by Lord Coleridge, Sir W. Stir- 
 ling-Maxwell, William Hazlitt, Thomas De Quincey, Alexander Smith, 
 James Hannay, Rev. George Gillillan, Hugh Miller, E. H. Hutton, 
 Thomas Carlyle, etc. When the sketch at command has been more 
 critical than biographical, as in some of Hazlitt's papers, and others, 
 brief but necessary biographical details have been added at the com- 
 mencement of each paper. When the interest of the life centres 
 more in continuous detail, then the chief facts of the life are 
 given in the form of a biographical article. It is hoped that in every 
 case the leading features and characteristics of the personages under 
 consideration have been preserved. In the original portion of the 
 volume the Editor makes no attempt to pass judgment on the great 
 names under review. There may be a humbler, and not less useful 
 
4 PREFACE, 
 
 work, that of giving the simple consecutive details of each life as 
 they occurred, with interesting extracts and other illustrative matter. 
 There are doubtless a large class of readers to whom the complete 
 biographies are inaccessible because of their expensive nature, because 
 of their distance from a good library, or it may be want of time ; those 
 readers might be ready to welcome a brief yet accurate account of any 
 life in which they felt an interest. To tell simply and plainly the main 
 accessible facts in the lives of the men and women under review is the 
 chief purpose of the original portion of the volume. The principal 
 facts in the life are thus simply and plainly given, with interesting 
 illustrative matter, condensed from the larger biographies. The neces- 
 sities of space rendered it necessary that the collection be limited to 
 the present selection of names. Though thus selected, it is hoped that 
 the lives are all genuinely interesting. 
 
 The influences running through modern life have tended much to 
 throw the glance of man outward from himself towards other peoples 
 and nationalities. Thought has become more complex and compre- 
 hensive as the materials of thought have increased. Science has her 
 votaries, and everything in the earth and under the earth is being 
 discussed and investigated. The fair face of nature is reflected in the 
 poet's verse and in impassioned prose. Books and leading articles are 
 being written, and lectures delivered, about every conceivable portion 
 of the earth's surface, and every conceivable nationality. Africa, so 
 long the dark continent, is emerging into the light of the knowable, and 
 coming under the influence of mission-work and legitimate commerce. 
 But in all his wanderings and investigations it is apparent that man 
 meets with nothing of more supreme interest and paramount importance 
 than his own life. The interest deepens when the life is expanded 
 and unfolded in the midst of the complex civilisation of a complex 
 modern life. Biography is the key to the private history of the 
 individual, and next to the knowledge of God and of his own duty, 
 may be placed the desire to know the life of his fellow-man. How 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 that life unfolded itself, what helped and what hindered, what were 
 its triumphs, and what its chief weaknesses — throughout all may be 
 felt a " kin humanity's responsive beat." Hope, comfort, stimulus, and 
 refreshment may also be gained, the virtues may be imitated and the 
 follies shunned. Our study need not be confined to the great in any 
 department of life ; any human life, as it has frequently been remarked, 
 however humble, if graced with sincere and earnest elements, contains 
 materials of interest to fellow human beings. This may be a sufficient 
 apology for the introduction of a few names not usually called "eminent." 
 Acknowledgments and thanlvs are here tendered to those authors 
 and pi.blishers who have very kindly granted the use of much copy- 
 right matter. Amongst them: Mr Thomas Carlyle, Mr Kichard Holt 
 Hutton, Mr Edmund Clarence Stedman, ISTew York; Dr Pryde, the 
 Eev. George GilfiUan, the Eev. David Macrae, Mr Thomas Constable, 
 Messrs James E. Osgood & Co., Boston, U.S. ; Smith, Elder, & Co. ; 
 W. Blackwood and Sons, Mozley & Smith, Chatto & Windus; the 
 editors of the Times, the Worlds and the Diiblin University Magazine, etc. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Jeremy Bentham. By "William Hazlitt, 
 Lord Erskine. By Henry Roscoe, 
 Mrs Grant of Laggan, .... 
 George Crabbe, 
 
 Sarah Siddons. By the Authoress of the 
 " Heir of Redclyffe," . . . . 
 William Godwin. By William Hazlitt, 
 William Cobbett. From TaW s Magazine 
 Robert Hall. By George Gilfillan, 
 Sir James Mackintosh. By William 
 Hazlitt 
 
 T. R. Malthus. By William Hazlitt, 
 
 A Patriarchal Preacher : Samuel 
 Gilfillan. By George Gilfillan, . 
 
 The Duke op Wellington. By Hugh 
 Miller, 
 
 William Wordsworth, . . . 
 Dorothy Wordsworth, 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, .... 
 
 Commercial Success of the Waverley 
 
 Novels, 
 
 The Scott Centenary— Speech by Sir 
 William Stirling-Maxwell, 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge. By Thomas 
 
 De Quincey, 
 
 Memories of Life at the Lakes, . 
 
 The Death of Coleridge, 
 
 Charles Lamb on the Death of Cole 
 
 ridge, . . . . 
 Coleridge. By T. Carlyle, 
 
 ^Francis Jeffrey. By Hugh Miller, 
 
 Jeffrey at Home. By Charles Pebody 
 
 Archibald Constable. By Thomas Con 
 
 stable, etc., 
 
 The " Encyclopsedia Britannica," 
 Constable's Miscellany, 
 
 Robert Southey. By William Hazlitt, 
 
 Charles Lamb, .... 
 Elia. By William Hazlitt, 
 A Party at Lamb's, . 
 Personal Recollections. By Barry 
 
 Cornwall, .... 
 Personal Recollections. By T. N, 
 
 Talfourd, .... 
 Sayings, 
 
 PAGE 
 9 
 
 15 
 
 32 
 41 
 
 47 
 
 , 65 
 75 
 
 79 
 83 
 
 89 
 
 94 
 
 98 
 103 
 
 116 
 122 
 123 
 
 129 
 160 
 161 
 
 162 
 163 
 
 164 
 169 
 
 170 
 180 
 185 
 
 187 
 
 191 
 193 
 195 
 
 196 
 
 198 
 199 
 
 PAGB 
 
 The Minister-Painter. By Alexander 
 
 Smith, 200 
 
 Thomas Chalmers, D.D. By Hugh 
 Miller, George Gilfillan, J. G. Lockhart, 
 
 etc., ....... 206 
 
 Mary Somerville, , . . .217 
 
 Sir David Brewster, .... 229 
 
 George Stephenson, .... 240 
 
 John Wilson (Christopher North), . 256 
 Thomas De Quincey, . . . .261 
 
 Recollections of De Quincey. By Rev. 
 
 Francis Jacox, .... 269 
 
 Charles Knight, 274 
 
 Edward Irving. By Thomas Carlyle, 
 George Gilfillan, etc., . . . .279 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, 286 
 
 Table Talk, Characteristics, etc. By 
 Harriet Martineau, James Dodds, 
 Charles Sumner, Margaret Fuller, 
 R. H. Home, C. W. Wynn, Rev. 
 Thomas Guthrie, the World, J. H. 
 Friswell, Dr Duncan, Charles King- 
 
 sley, 294-299 
 
 Thomas Arnold, D.D., . . . . 299 
 
 William and Robert Chambers, . . . 308 
 
 Lord Macaulay, . , . . iv . 314 
 
 Hugh Miller, . . . .'^ . 325 
 
 Rev. Thomas Guthrie, D.D.,. . . 337 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. By D. Macrae, 
 
 etc., .346 
 
 Lord Lytton. From the TiTiies, . '' . 349 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield, . . .. . 353 
 
 At Hughenden, 355 
 
 A Conversation with, . . . 357 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow^ . 358 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. By 
 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman, . . . 360 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. By D. Macrae, 
 
 etc., .370 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. By Edmund Clarence 
 
 Stedman, 373 
 
 W. E. Gladstone, 389 
 
 As an Orator, 391 
 
 AtHawarden, ..... 392 
 
 Mr R. H. Hutton on, ... 394 
 William Makepeace Thackeray. By 
 
 James Hannay, J. T. Fields, etc. , . . 396 
 
8 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Sir James Y. Simpson 405 
 
 John Bright, 413 
 
 The Orator, 414 
 
 MrR. H. Huttonon,. . . .414 
 
 At One Ash, 417 
 
 Charles Dickens. By David Pryde, 
 
 M.A.,LL.D 419 
 
 Rev. Norman Macleod, D.D., . . 430 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher. By D. Macrae, 445 
 
 The Baroness Burdett-Coutts, . . 450 
 
 Thomas Edward, the Banff Naturalist, . 456 
 
 rAvm Livingstone, .... 467 
 Commander Cameron's Walk across 
 
 Africa, 476 
 
 Henry M. Stanley, .... 476 
 
 Charges Kingsley, ..... 479 
 
 Max Miiller on Charles Kingsley, . 488 
 
 John Buskin, 489 
 
 Disposal of Mr Buskin's Fortune, . 492 
 
 The Art Work of Mr Ruskin, . . 493 
 
 At the Royal Institute, . . , 493 
 
 An Example of Broad Culture, , . 493 
 
 Mr Ruskin on his Contemporaries, . 494 
 
 George Eliot, 495 
 
 Professor Dowden on, . • , 496 
 
 R. H. Hutton on, ... . 497 
 
 A. C. Swinburne on, . . . , 497 
 
 Charles Haddon Spurgeon, . . . 498 
 
 A Morning in the Tabernacle, . , 505 
 
 An Evening in the Tabernacle, . . 505 
 
 AN ADDITIONAL GROUP 
 
 OF MODERN MEN 
 
 AND WOMEN. 
 
 Matthew Arnold, 507 
 
 Philip James Bailey, 
 
 
 
 . 507 
 
 Sir Samuel White Baker, , 
 
 
 
 . 507 
 
 William Black, . 
 
 
 
 . 508 
 
 John Stuart Blackie, . 
 
 
 
 . 508 
 
 Mary Elizabeth Braddon, 
 
 
 
 . 510 
 
 Charlotte Bronte, 
 
 
 
 . 511 
 
 Henry, Lord Brougham, 
 
 
 
 . 511 
 
 John Brown, M.D., . 
 
 
 
 . 512 
 
 .^rWHU«*lir»t»,v*li»»M>. 
 
 
 Robert Browning, . , 
 
 BftbfiEt-Buchanan, ♦..,.-„». 
 
 John Hill Burton, LL.D., 
 
 Captain Richard F. Burton, 
 
 Elihu Burritt, . 
 
 Henry J. Byron, 
 
 Mrs Chisholm, . 
 
 ittehftrd-OobdeTT;-- 
 
 Eliza Cook, . , 
 
 GceoFge-Cru ikshattfcj- v- 
 
 Earl of Derby, . 
 
 ^ifihaiij. F.arxidayr 
 
 Canon Farrar, . 
 
 Captain Archibald Forbes, 
 
 W. E. Forster, . 
 
 J. A. rjroude,.»^'v*^-^»«ii<^'«*'''»*^i^>''i*~-^-^=if^ 
 
 Sir John Gilbert, 
 
 Rev. G. Gilfillan, . 
 
 J. B. Gough, . 
 
 W. Hazlitt, 
 
 J. G. Holland, . 
 
 Lord Houghton, • 
 
 Jean Ingelow, . , 
 W. S. Landor, . . 
 George Henry Lewes, 
 
 J,^ » . LQWe Ily , -r"-""^'" 
 
 George MacDonald, . 
 Iaha,S±jaart Mill*__^,„_. 
 Robert Moffat, . 
 WilU3JiLlIoms^._„^,«--. 
 Dinah Maria Mulock, 
 JHoiencfL^jghtingale, 
 Mrs Margaret OlipEauV 
 Lord Palraerston, 
 Bryan Waller Procter, 
 F. W. Robertson, . 
 Sir Titus Salt, . 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, . 
 SamueT^rruTesi'XL.' D". V 
 Dean Stanley, . 
 A. C. Swinburne, 
 T. De Witt Talmage, 
 Professor Tyndall, . 
 
 PAGB 
 
 512 
 m2 
 513 
 513 
 513 
 514 
 514 
 
 . 615 
 
 . 5X5 
 
 . 517 
 ,„,^7 
 
 . 517 
 
 . 517 
 
 . 518 
 
 . 518 
 . 519 
 . 520 
 . 521 
 . 522 
 . 523 
 . 523 
 r 523 
 . 523 
 . 524 
 ^.^6 
 . 526 
 .-- §27 
 . 528 
 
 . 529 
 . 529 
 -r--530 
 530 
 531 
 532 
 536 
 538. 
 540 
 540 
 541 
 542 
 542 
 
THE 
 
 TREA8UEY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 JEEEMY BENTHAM. 
 
 [1748-1832.] 
 By WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 [Jeremy Bentham, the great political philo- 
 sopher, was born at London in 1748, educated 
 at Westminster and Oxford ; he graduated M. A. 
 at the early age of twenty, and was afterwards 
 called to the bar. He travelled much on the 
 continent of Europe, visiting Constantinople, 
 and returning to France several times. In 1802 
 he was received at the Institute of Paris, and 
 in 1825 he was made the subject of considerable 
 honour. In philosophy he is recognised as the 
 great teacher of '* Utilitarianism," while he also 
 endeavoured to correct the faults prevalent in the 
 system and language of jurisprudence. Some of 
 his most important works are the ** Fragment 
 on Government," "Introduction to the Prin- 
 ciples of Morals and Legislation," ** Treatise on 
 Civil and Penal Legislation," "Theory of Ke- 
 wards and Punishments," *' Rationale of Judi- 
 cial Evidence," etc. He died in London, 1832. 
 The following realistic sketch of the philosopher 
 is from Hazlitt's "Spirit of the Age, or Con- 
 temporary Portraits," London, 1825. Accord- 
 ing to Mr John Stuart Mill, "Bentham has 
 been in this age and country the great questioner 
 of things established. It is by the influence of 
 the modes of thought with which his writings 
 inoculated a considerable number of thinking 
 men, that the yoke of authority has been broken, 
 and innumerable opinions formerly received on 
 tradition as incontestable, are put upon their 
 defence, and required to give an account of 
 themselves." According to William Minto, he 
 is "the most influential and original philosopher 
 of this generation."] 
 
 Mr Bentham is one of those persons who verify 
 the old adage, that "A prophet has no honour 
 except out of his country." His reputation lies 
 at the circumference, and the lights of his un- 
 derstanding are reflected with increasing lustre 
 
 on the other side of the globe. His name is little 
 known in England, better in Europe, best of all in 
 the plains of Chili and the mines of Mexico. He 
 has ofi"ered constitutions for the New World and 
 legislated for future times. The people of West- 
 minster, where he lives, hardly know of such a 
 person ; but the Siberian savage has received 
 cold comfort from his lunar aspect, and may say 
 to him with Caliban, " I know thee, and thy 
 dog and thy bush!" The tawny Indian may 
 hold out the hand of fellowship to him across 
 the Great Pacific. We believe that the Empress 
 Catherine corresponded with him, and we know 
 that the Emperor Alexander called upon him 
 and presented him with his miniature in a gold 
 snuff-box, which the philosopher, to his eternal 
 honour, returned. Mr Hobhouse is a greater 
 man at the hustings. Lord Rolle at Plymouth 
 dock ; but Mr Bentham would carry it hollow, 
 on the score of popularity, at Paris or Pegu. 
 The reason is, that our author's influence is 
 intellectual. He has devoted his life to the pur- 
 suit of abstract and general truths, and to those 
 studies 
 
 " That waft a thought from Indus to the Pole," 
 
 and has never mixed himself up with personal 
 intrigues or party politics. He once, indeed, 
 stuck up a hand-bill to say that he (Jeremy 
 Bentham), being of sound mind, was of opinion 
 that Sir Samuel Romilly was the most proper 
 person to represent Westminster ; but this was 
 the whim of the moment. Otherwise, his rea- 
 sonings, if true at all, are true everywhere 
 alike: his speculations concern humanity at 
 large, and are not confined to the hundred or the 
 bills of mortality. It is in moral as in physical 
 magnitude. The little is seen best near: the 
 great appears in its proper dimensions only 
 from a more commanding point of view, and 
 
10 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 gains strength with time and elevation from 
 distance. 
 
 Mr Bentham is very much among philosophers 
 what La Fontaine was among poets — in general 
 habits and in all but his professional pursuits he 
 is a mere child. He has lived for the last forty 
 years in a house in "Westminster, overlooking the 
 Park, like an anchorite in his cell, reducing law 
 to a system, and the mind of man to a machine. 
 He scarcely ever goes out, and sees very little 
 company. The favoured few who have the pri- 
 vilege of the entree are always admitted* one by 
 one. He does not like to have witnesses to his 
 conversation. He talks a great deal and listens to 
 nothing but facts. When any one calls upon 
 him he invites them to take a turn round his 
 garden with him (Mr Bentham is an economist 
 of his time, and sets apart this portion of it to 
 air and exercise), and there you may see the 
 lively old man, his mind still buoyant with 
 thought and with the prospect of futurity, in 
 eager conversation with some opposition mem- 
 ber, some exasperated patriot, or transatlantic 
 adventurer, urging the extinction of close 
 boroughs, or planning a code of laws for some 
 "lone island in the watery waste," his walk 
 almost amounting to a run, his tongue keeping 
 pace with it in shrill, cluttering accents, negli- 
 gent of his person, his dress, and his manner, 
 intent only on his grand theme of utility, or 
 pausing, perhaps, for want of breath, and with 
 lack-lustre eye to point out to the stranger a 
 stone in the wall at the end of his garden (over- 
 reached by two beautiful cotton-trees) " in- 
 scribed to the prince of poets," which marks the 
 house where Milton formerly lived. To show 
 how little the refinements of taste or fancy enter 
 into our author's system, he proposed at one 
 time to cut down these beautiful trees, to con- 
 vert the garden where he had breathed the air 
 of truth and heaven for near half a century into 
 a paltry Cbreistomathic scho 1, and to make 
 Milton's house (the cradle of "Paradise Lost") 
 a thoroughfare, like a three-stalled stable, for 
 the idle rabble of Westminster to pass back- 
 wards and forwards to it with their cloven hoofs. 
 Let us not, however, be getting on too fast — 
 Milton himself taught school. There is some- 
 thing not altogether dissimilar between Mr Ben- 
 tham's appearance and the portraits of Milton — 
 the same silvery tone, a few dishevelled hairs, a 
 peevish yet puritanical expression, an irritable 
 temperament corrected by habit-and discipline.. 
 Or in modern times, he is something between 
 Franklin and Charles Fox, with the comfortable 
 double chin and the sleek thriving look of the 
 one, and the quivering lip, the restless eye, and 
 animated acuteness of the other. His eye is 
 quick and lively, but it glances not from object 
 to object but from thought to thought. He is 
 evidently a man occupied with some train of 
 fine and inward association. He regards the 
 people about him no more than the flies of a sum- 
 
 mer. He meditates the coming age. He hears 
 and sees only what suits his purpose, or some 
 '* foregone conclusion," and looks out for facts 
 and passing occurrences in order to put them into 
 the dust and powder of some subtle theory, as 
 the miller looks out for grist to his mill. Add 
 to this physiognomical sketch the minor points 
 of costume, the open shirt-collar, the single- 
 breasted coat, the old-fashioned half-boots and 
 ribbed stockings, and you will. find in Mr Ben- 
 tham's general appearance a singular mixture of 
 boyish simplicity and of the venerableness of 
 age. In a word, our celebrated jurist presents 
 a striking illustration of the difference between 
 the philosophical and the legal look; that is, be- 
 tween the merely abstracted and the merely per- 
 sonal. There is a lackadaisical honhommie about 
 his whole aspect, none of the fierceness of pride 
 or power; an unconscious neglect of his own 
 person instead of a stately assumption of supe- 
 riority; a good-humoured placid intelligence in- 
 stead of a lynx-eyed watchfulness, as if it wished 
 to make others its prey or was afraid they might 
 turn and rend him ; he is a beneficent spirit, 
 prying into the universe, not lording it over it ; 
 a thoughtful spectator of the scenes of life, or 
 ruminator on the fate of mankind, not a painted 
 pageant, a stupid idol set up on its pedestal of 
 pride for men to fall down and worship with 
 idiot fear and wonder at the thing themselves 
 have made, and which, without that fear and 
 wonder, would in itself be nothing. 
 
 Mr Bentham perhaps overrates the import- 
 ance of his own theories. He has been heard to 
 say (without any appearance of pride or aff"ecta- 
 tion) that "he should like to live the remaining 
 years of his life, a year at a time at the end of 
 the next six or eight centuries, to see the effect 
 which his writings would by that time have had 
 upon the world." Alas! his name will hardly 
 live so long. Nor do we think, in point of fact, 
 that Mr Bentham has given any new or decided 
 impulse to the human mind. He cannot be 
 looked upon in the light of a discoverer in legis- 
 lation or morals. He has not struck out any 
 great leading principle or parent-truth from 
 which a number of others might be deduced, nor 
 has he enriched the common and established 
 stock of intelligence with original observations, 
 like pearls thrown into wine. One truth dis- 
 covered is immortal, and entitles its author to 
 be so ; for, like a new substance in nature, it 
 cannot be destroyed. But Mr Bentham's forte 
 is arrangement, and the form of truth, though 
 not its essence, varies with time and circum- 
 stance. He has methodised, collated, and con- 
 densed all the materials prepared to his hand on 
 the subjects of which he treats in a masterly and 
 scientific manner ; but we should find a difficulty 
 in adducing from his different works (however 
 elaborate or closely reasoned) any new element 
 of thought, or even a new fact or illustration. 
 His writings are, therefore, chiefly valuable aa 
 
JEREMY BENTHAM. 
 
 W 
 
 books of reference, as bringing down the account 
 of intellectual inquiry to the present period, and 
 disposing the results in a compendious, connect- 
 ed, and tangible shape ; but books of reference 
 are chiefly serviceable for facilitating the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge, and are constantly liable to 
 be superseded and to grow out of fashion with 
 its progress, as the scaffolding is thrown down 
 as soon as the building is completed. Mr Ben- 
 tham is not the first writer (by a great many) 
 who has assumed the principle of utility as the 
 foundation of just laws, and of all moral and 
 political reasoning; his merit is, that he has 
 applied this principle more closely and literally, 
 that he has brought all the objections and argu- 
 ments, more distinctly labelled and ticketed, 
 under this one head, and made a more constant 
 and explicit reference to it at every step of its 
 progress than any other writer. Perhaps the 
 weak side of his conclusions also is, that he has 
 carried this single view of his subject too far and 
 not made sufficient allowance for the varieties of 
 human nature and the caprices and irregularities 
 of the human will. *' He has not allowed for 
 the wind." It is not that you cau be said to see 
 his favourite doctrine of utility glittering every- 
 where through his system like a vein of rich, 
 shining ore (that is not the nature of the mate- 
 rial) ; but it might be plausibly objected that he 
 had struck the whole mass of fancy, prejudice, 
 passion, sense, whim, with his petrific, leaden 
 mace, that he had "bound volatile Hermes," 
 and reduced the theory and practice of human 
 life to a caput mortuum of reason and dull, plod- 
 ding, technical calculation. The gentleman is 
 himself a capital logician, and he has been led 
 by this circumstance to consider man as a logical 
 animal. We fear this view of the matter will 
 hardly hold water. If we attend to the mortal 
 man, the constitution of his mind will scarcely 
 be found to be built up of pure reason and a 
 regard to consequences ; if we consider the cri- 
 minal man (with whom the legislator has chiefly 
 to do) it will be found to be still less so. 
 
 Every pleasure, says Mr Bentham, is equally 
 a good, and is to be taken into the account as 
 such in a moral estimate, whether it be the plea- 
 sure of sense or of conscience, whether it arise 
 from the exercise of virtue or the perpetration of 
 crime. We are afraid the human mind does not 
 readily come into this doctrine, this ultima ratio 
 philosophorum, interpreted according to the let- 
 ter. Our moral sentiments are made up of sym- 
 pathies and antipathies, of sense and imagination, 
 of understanding and prejudice. The soul, by 
 reason of its weakness, is an aggregating and an 
 exclusive principle ; it clings obstinately to some 
 things and violently rejects others. And it must 
 do so in a great measure or it would act contrary 
 to its own nature. It needs helps and stages in 
 its progress, and "all appliances and means to 
 boot," which can raise it to a partial conformity 
 to truth and good (the utmost it is capable of) 
 
 and bring it into a tolerable harmony with the 
 universe. By aiming at too much, by dismiss- 
 ing collateral aids, by extending itself to the 
 fur hest verge of the conceivable and possible, it 
 408 its elasticity and vigour, its impulse and 
 it direction. The moralist can no more do with- 
 out the intermediate use of rules and principles, 
 without the 'vantage ground of habit, without 
 the levers of the understanding, than the me- 
 chanist can discard the use of wheels and pul- 
 leys, and perform everything by simple motion. 
 If the mind of man were competent to compre- 
 hend the whole of truth and good, and act upon 
 it at once, and independently of all other con- 
 siderations, Mr Bentham's plan would be a 
 feasible one, and "the truth, the whole truth, 
 and nothing but the truth" would be the best 
 possible ground to place morality upon. But it 
 is not so. In ascertaining the rules of moral 
 conduct, we must have regard not merely to the 
 nature of the object, but to the capacity of the 
 agent, and to his fitness for apprehending or 
 attaining it. Pleasure is that which is so in 
 itself ; good is that which approves itself as such 
 on reflection, or the idea of which is a source of 
 satisfaction. All pleasure is not, therefore (mo- 
 rally speaking), equally a good, for all pleasure 
 does not equally bear reflecting on. There are 
 some tastes that are sweet in the mouth and 
 bitter in the belly, and there is a similar con- 
 tradiction and anomaly in the mind and heart of 
 man. Again, what would become of the Post- 
 hcec meminisse juvabit of the poet if a principle 
 of fluctuation and reaction is not inherent in the 
 very constitution of our nature, or if all moral 
 truth is a mere literal truism ? We are not, then, 
 so much to inquire what certain things are ab- 
 stractedly or in themselves, as how they affect 
 the mind, and to approve or condemn them ac- 
 cordingly. The same object seen near strikes us 
 more powerfully than at a distance ; things 
 thrown into masses give a greater blow to the 
 imagination than when scattered and divided 
 into their component parts. A number of mole- 
 hills do not make a mountain, though a moun- 
 tain is actually made up of atoms, so moral truth 
 must present itself under a certain aspect and 
 from a certain point of view in order to produce 
 its full and proper effect upon the mind. The 
 laws of the affections are as necessary as those of 
 optics. A calculation of consequences is no more 
 equivalent to a sentiment than a seriatim enu- 
 meration of square yards or feet touches the 
 fancy like the sight of the Alps or Andes. 
 
 To give an instance or two of what we mean. 
 Those who on pure cosmopolite principles, or on 
 the ground of abstract humanity, affect an extra- 
 ordinary regard for the Turks and Tartars, have 
 been accused of neglecting their duties to their 
 friends and next-door neighbours. Well, then, 
 what is the state of the question here ? One 
 human being is, no doubt, as much worth in 
 himself, independently of the circumstanceji of 
 
time or place, as another; but he is not of so 
 much value to us and our affections. Could our 
 imagination take wing (with our speculative 
 faculties) to the other side of the globe or to the 
 ends of the universe, could our eyes behold 
 whatever our reason teaches us to be possible, 
 could our hands reach as far as our thoughts or 
 wishes, we might then busy ourselves to advan- 
 tage with the Hottentots, or hold intimate con- 
 verse with the inhabitants of the moon; but 
 being as we are, our feelings evaporate in so 
 large a space — we must draw the circle of our 
 affections and duties somewhat closer — the heart 
 hovers and fixes nearer home. It is true, the 
 bands of private, or of local and natural affec- 
 tion are often, nay in general, too tightly strain- 
 ed, so as frequently to do harm instead of good : 
 but the present question is whether we can, with 
 safety and effect, be wholly emancipated from 
 them? Whether we should shake them off at 
 pleasure and without mercy, as the only bar to 
 the triumph of truth and justice? Or whether 
 benevolence, constructed upon a logical scale, 
 would not be merely nominal, whether duty, 
 raised to too lofty a pitch of refinement, might 
 not sink into callous indifference or hollow sel- 
 fishness ? Again, is it not to exact too high a 
 strain from humanity, to ask us to qualify the 
 degree of abhorrence we feel against a murderer 
 by taking into our cool consideration the plea- 
 sure he may have in committing the deed, and 
 in the prospect of gratifying his avarice or his 
 revenge ? We are hardly so formed as to sympa- 
 thise at the same moment with the assassin and 
 his victim. The degree of pleasure the former 
 may feel, instead of extenuating, aggravates his 
 guilt, and shows the depth of his malignity. 
 Now the mind revolts against this by mere natu- 
 ral antipathy, if it is itself well-disposed ; or the 
 slow process of reason would afford but a feeble 
 resistance to violence and wrong. The will, 
 which is necessary to give consistency and 
 promptness to our good intentions, cannot ex- 
 tend so much candour and courtesy to the an- 
 tagonistic principle of evil : virtue, to be sincere 
 and practical, cannot be divested entirely of the 
 blindness and impetuosity of passion ! It has 
 been made a plea (half jest, half earnest) for the 
 horrors of war, that they promote trade and 
 manufactures. It has been said, as a set-off for 
 the atrocities practised upon the negro slaves in 
 the West Indies, that without their blood and 
 sweat, so many millions of people could not have 
 sugar to sweeten their tea. Fires and murders 
 have been argued to be beneficial, as they serve 
 to fill the newspapers, and for a subject to talk 
 of — this is a sort of sophistry that it might be 
 difficult to disprove on the bare scheme of con- 
 tingent utility ; but on the ground that we have 
 stated, it must pass for a mere irony. What 
 the proportion between the good and the evil 
 will really be found in any of the supposed 
 cases, may be a question to the understanding ; 
 
 but to the imagination, the heart, that is, and 
 to the natural feelings of mankind, it admits of 
 none ! 
 
 Mr Bentham, in adjusting the provisions of 
 a penal code, lays too little stress on the co- 
 operation of the natural prejudices of mankind, 
 and the habitual feelings of that class of persons 
 for whom they are more particularly designed. 
 Legislators (we mean writers on legislation) are 
 philosophers, and governed by their reason : 
 criminals, for whose control laws are made, are 
 a set of desperadoes, governed only by their 
 passions. What wonder that so little progress 
 has been made towards a mutual understanding 
 between the two parties ! They are quite a 
 different species, and speak a different language, 
 and are sadly at a loss for a common interpreter 
 between them. Perhaps the ordinary of New- 
 gate bids as fair for this office as any one. 
 What should Mr Bentham, sitting at ease in his 
 arm-chair, composing his mind before he begins 
 to write by a prelude on the organ, and looking 
 out at a beautiful prospect when he is at a loss 
 for an idea, know of the principles of action of 
 rogues, outlaws, and vagabonds ? No more than 
 Montaigne of the motions of his cat ! If san- 
 guine and tender-hearted philanthropists have 
 set on foot an inquiry into the barbarity and the 
 defects of penal laws, the practical improve- 
 ments have been mostly suggested by reformed 
 cut-throats, turnkeys, and thief-takers. What 
 even can the Honourable House, who when the 
 Speaker has pronounced the well-known, wished- 
 for sounds *' That this House do now adjourn," 
 retire, after voting a royal crusade or a loan of 
 millions, to lie on down, and feed on plate in spa- 
 cious palaces, know of what passes in the hearts 
 of wretches in garrets and night-cellars, petty pil- 
 ferers and marauders, "w ho cut throats and pick 
 pockets with their own hands ? The thing is 
 impossible. The laws of the country are, there- 
 fore, ineffectual and abortive, because they are 
 made by the rich for the poor, by the wise for 
 the ignorant, by the respectable and exalted in 
 station for the very scum and refuse of the com- 
 munity. If Newgate would resolve itself into a 
 committee of the whole Press-yard, with Jack 
 Ketch at its head, aided by confidential persons 
 from the county prisons or the hulks, and would 
 make a clear breast, some data might be found 
 out to proceed upon ; but as it is, the criminal 
 mind of the country is a book sealed, no one has 
 been able to penetrate to the inside ! Mr Ben- 
 tham, in his attempts to revise and amend our 
 criminal jurisprudence, proceeds entirely on his 
 favourite principle of utility. Convince high- 
 waymen and house-breakers that it will be for 
 their interest to reform, and they will reform 
 and lead honest lives ; according to Mr Bentham. 
 He says, '*A11 men act from calculation, even 
 madmen reason." And, in our opinion, he might 
 as well carry this maxim to Bedlam or St Luke's, 
 and apply it to the inhabitants, as think to 
 
JEREMY BENl^HAM. 
 
 13 
 
 coerce or overawe the inmates of a gaol, or those 
 whose practices make them candidates for that 
 distinction, by the mere dry, detailed convictions 
 of the understanding. Criminals are not to be 
 influenced by reason ; for it is of the very essence 
 of crime to disregard consequences both to our- 
 selves and others. You may as well preach 
 philosophy to a drunken man, or to the dead, as 
 to those who are under the instigation of any 
 mischievous passion. A man is a drunkard, and 
 you tell him he ought to Idc sober ; he is de- 
 bauched, and you ask him to reform ; he is idle, 
 and you recommend industry to him as his wis- 
 est course ; he gambles, and you remind him 
 that he may be ruined by this foible ; he has 
 lost his character and you advise him to get in- 
 to some reputable service or lucrative situation ; 
 vice becomes a habit with him, and you request 
 him to rouse himself and shake it off; he is 
 starving, and you warn him that if he breaks the 
 law, he will be hanged. None of this reasoning 
 reaches the mark it aims at. The culprit, who 
 violates and suffers the vengeance of the laws, is 
 not the dupe of ignorance, but the slave of 
 passion, the victim of habit or necessity. To 
 argue with strong passion, with inveterate habit, 
 with desperate circumstances, is to talk to the 
 winds. Clownish ignorance may indeed be dis. 
 pelled, and taught better ; but it is seldom that 
 a criminal is not aware of the consequences of 
 his act, or has not made up his mind to the 
 alternative. They are, in general, too knowing 
 by half. You tell a person of this stamp what 
 is his interest ; he says he does not care about 
 his interest, or the world and he differ on that 
 particular. But there is one point on which he 
 must agree with them, namely, what they think 
 of his conduct, and that is the only hold you have 
 of him. A man may be callous and indifferent 
 to what happens to himself; but he is never in- 
 different to public opinion, or proof against open 
 scorn and infamy. Shame, then, not fear, is the 
 sheet-anchor of the law. He who is not afraid 
 of being pointed at as a thief, will not mind a 
 month's hard labour. He who is prepared to 
 take the life of another, is already reckless of 
 his own. But every one makes a sorry ligure in 
 the pillory; and the being launched from the 
 new drop lowers a man in his own opinion. The 
 lawless and violent spirit, who is hurried by 
 headstrong self-will to break the laws, does not 
 like to have the ground of pride and obstinacy 
 struck from under his feet. This is what gives 
 the "swells" of the metropolis such a dread of 
 the tread-mill — it makes them ridiculous. It 
 must be confessed, that this very circumstance 
 renders the reform of criminals nearly hopeless. 
 It is the apprehension of being stigmatised by 
 public opinion, the fear of what will be thought 
 and said of them, that deters men from the viola- 
 tion of the laws, while their character remains 
 unimpeached ; but honour once lost, all is lost. 
 The man can never be himself again ! A citizen 
 
 is like a soldier, a part of a machine, who submits 
 to certain hardships, privations, and dangers, 
 not for his own ease, pleasure, profit, or eveu 
 conscience, but — for shame. What is it that 
 keeps the machine together in either case ? Not 
 punishment or discipline, but sympathy. The 
 soldier mounts the breach or stands in the 
 trenches, the peasant hedges and ditches, or the 
 mechanic plies his ceaseless task, because the 
 one will not be called a coward, the other a 
 rogue: but let the one turn deserter and the 
 other vagabond, and there is an end of him. 
 The grinding law of necessity, which is no other 
 than a name, a breath, loses its force ; he is no 
 longer sustained by the good opinion of others, 
 and he drops out of his place in society, a useless 
 clog! Mr Bentham takes a culprit, and puts 
 him into what he calls a Panopticon, that is, a 
 sort of circular prison, with open cells, like a 
 glass bee-hive. He sits in the middle, and sees 
 all the other does. He gives him work to do, 
 and lectures him if he does not do it. He takes 
 liquor from him, and society, and liberty ; but 
 he feeds and clothes him, and keeps him out of 
 mischief; and when he has convinced him, by 
 force and reason together, that this life is for his 
 good, he turns him out upon the world a re- 
 formed man, and as confident of the success of 
 his handiwork, as the shoemaker of that which 
 he has just taken off the last, or the Parisian 
 barber in Sterne of the buckle of his wig. "Dip 
 it in the ocean," said the perruquier, "and it 
 will stand!" But we doubt the durability of 
 our projector's patchwork. Will our convert to 
 the great principle of utility work when he is 
 from under Mr Bentham's eye, because he was 
 forced to work when under it ? Will he keep 
 sober, because he has been kept from liquor so 
 long? Will he not return to loose company, 
 because he has had the pleasure of sitting vis-a- 
 vis with a philosopher of late? Will he not 
 steal, now that his hands are untied ? Will he 
 not take the road, now that it is free to him ? 
 Will he not call his benefactor all the names he 
 can set his tongue to, the moment his back is 
 turned? All this is more than to be feared. 
 The charm of criminal life, like that of savage 
 life, consists in liberty, in hardship, in danger, 
 and in the contempt of death, in one word, in 
 extraordinary excitement ; and he who has tasted 
 of it, will no more return to regular habits of 
 life, than a man will take to water after drinking 
 brandy, or than a wild beast will give over 
 hunting its prey. Miracles never cease, to be 
 sure ; but they are not to be had wholesale, or 
 to order. Mr Owen, who is another of their 
 proprietors and patentees of reform, has lately 
 got an American savage with him, whom he 
 carries about in great triumph and complacency, 
 as an antithesis to his " New View of Society," 
 and as winding up his reasoning to what it 
 mainly wanted, an epigrammatic point. Does 
 the benevolmit visionary of the Lanark cotton- 
 
14 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 mills really think this natural man will act as a 
 foil to his artificial man ? Does he for a moment 
 imagine that his "Address to the Higher and 
 Middle Classes," with all its advantages of fie- 
 tion, makes anything like so interesting a ro- 
 mance as Hunter's ** Captivity among the North 
 American Indians ?" Has he anything to show, 
 in all the apparatus of New Lanark and its deso- 
 late monotony, to excite the thrill of imagina- 
 tion like the blankets made of wreaths of snow 
 under which the wild wood-rovers bury them- 
 selves for weeks in winter? Or the skin of a 
 leopard, which our hardy adventurer slew, and 
 which served him for greatcoat and bedding? 
 Or the rattle-snake tliat he found by his side as 
 a bed- fellow ? Or his rolling himself into a ball 
 to escape from him? Or his suddenly placing 
 himself against a tree to avoid being trampled 
 to death by the herd of wild buffaloes, that came 
 rushing on like the sound of thunder ? Or his 
 account of the huge spiders that prey on blue- 
 bottles and gilded flies in green pathless forests ; 
 or of the gi'eat Pacific Ocean, that the natives 
 look upon as the gulf that parts time from 
 eternity, and that is to waft them to the spirits 
 of their fathers? After all this, Mr Hunter 
 must find Mr Owen and his parallelograms trite 
 and flat, and will, we suspect, take an oppor- 
 tunity to escape from them !* 
 
 Mr Bentham's method of reasoning, though 
 comprehensive and exact, labours under the de- 
 fect of most systems — it is too topical. It in- 
 cludes everything, but it includes everything 
 alike. It is rather like an inventory than a valua- 
 tion of different arguments. Every possible sug- 
 gestion finds a place, so that the mind is dis- 
 tracted as much as enlightened by this perplexing 
 accuracy. The exceptions seem as important as 
 the rule. By attending to the minute, we over- 
 look the great ; and in summing up an acf^ount 
 it will not do merely to insist on the number of 
 items without considering their amount. Our 
 author's page presents a very nicely dovetailed 
 mosaic pavement of legal commonplaces. We 
 slip and slide over its even surface without being 
 arrested anywhere. Or his view of the human 
 mind resembles a map rather than a picture; 
 the outline, the disposition is correct, but it 
 wants colouring and relief. There is a techni- 
 cality of manner which renders his writings of 
 more value to the professional inquirer than to 
 the general reader. Again, his style is unpopular, 
 not to say unintelligible. He writes a language 
 of his own that darkens knowledge. His works 
 have been translated into French — they ought to 
 be translated into English. People wonder that 
 Mr Bentham has not been prosecuted for the 
 boldness and severity of some of his invectives. 
 He might wrap up high treason in one of his in- 
 
 * Owen died in 1858. Bentham is said to have 
 made a small fortune by investing in his cotton mills 
 ax New Lanark. 
 
 extricable periods, and it would never find its 
 way into Westminster Hall. He is a kind of 
 manuscript author; he writes a cipher hand 
 which the vulgar have no key to. The construc- 
 tion of his sentences is a curious frame-work 
 with pegs and hooks to hang his thoughts upon, 
 for his own use and guidance, but almost out of 
 the reach of everybody else. It is a barbarous phi- 
 losophical jargon, with all the repetitions, paren- 
 theses, formalities, uncouth nomenclature and 
 verbiage of law-Latin ; and what makes it worse, 
 it is not mere verbiage, but has a great deal of 
 acuteness and meaning in it, which you would 
 be glad to pick out if you could. In short, Mr 
 Bentham writes as if he was allowed but a single 
 sentence to express his whole view of a subject 
 in, and as if, should he omit a single circum- 
 stance or step of the argument, it would be lost 
 to the world for ever, like an estate by a flaw in 
 the title-deeds. This is over-rating the import- 
 ance of our own discoveries, and mistaking the 
 nature and object of language altogether. Mr 
 Bentham has acquired this disability — it is not 
 natural to him. His admirable little work " On 
 Usury," published forty years ago, is clear, easy, 
 and vigorous. But Mr Bentham has shut him- 
 self up since then " in nook monastic," convers- 
 ing only with followers of his own, or with 
 " men of Ind," and has endeavoured to overlay 
 his natural humour, sense, spirit, and style with 
 the dust and cobwebs of an obscure solitude 
 The best of it is, he thinks his present mode ot 
 expressing himself perfect, and that whatever 
 may be objected to his law or logic, no one can 
 find the least fault with the purity, simplicity, 
 and perspicuity of his style. 
 
 Mr Bentham in private life is an amiable and 
 exemplary character. He is a little romantic or 
 so, and has dissipated part of a handsome fortune 
 in practical speculations. He lends an ear to 
 plausible projectors, and, if he cannot prove 
 them to be wrong in their premises or conclu- 
 sions, thinks himself bound in reason to stake 
 his money on the venture. Strict logicians are 
 licensed visionaries. Mr Bentham is half-brother 
 to the late Mr Speaker Abbot — Proh pudorl 
 He was educated at Eton, and still takes our 
 novices to task about a passage in Homer, or a 
 metre in Virgil. He was afterwards at the uni- 
 versity, and he has described the scruples of an 
 ingenuous youthful mind about subscribing the 
 Articles in a passage in his " Church of England- 
 ism," which smacks of truth and honour both, 
 and does one good to read it in an age when 
 ** to be honest " (or not to laugh at the very idea 
 of honesty) *'is to be one man picked out of ten 
 thousand!" Mr Bentham relieves his mind 
 sometimes after the fatigue of study by playing 
 on a fine old organ, and has a relish for Hogarth's 
 prints. He turns wooden utensils in a lathe for 
 exercise, and fancies he can turn men in the 
 same manner. He has no great fondness for 
 poetry, and can hardly extract a moral out of 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 15 
 
 Shakespeare. His house is warmed and lighted 
 by steam. He is one of those who prefer the 
 artificial to the natural in most things, and think 
 the mind of man omnipotent. He has a great 
 contempt for out-of-door prospects, for green 
 fields and trees, and is for referring everything 
 to utility. There is a little narrowness in this, 
 
 for if all the sources of satisfaction are taken 
 away, what is to become of utility itself ? It is, 
 indeed, the great fault of this able and extra- 
 ordinary man, that he has concentrated his facul- 
 ties and feelings too entirely on one subject and 
 pursuit, and has not " looked enough abroad 
 into universality."* 
 
 L K D E E S i; I N E. 
 
 [1750-1823.] 
 By henry ROSCOE. 
 
 The Honourable Thomas Erskine, the third and 
 youngest son of Henry David, tenth Earl of 
 Buchan, in Scotland, was born in Edinburgh in 
 the year 1750. At a very early age he selected 
 the navy as his profession, for which he is said 
 to have manifested a decided predilection, and 
 went to sea with Sir John Lindsay, the nephew 
 of the celebrated Lord Mansfield. He did not 
 remain in the service a sufficient period to obtain 
 a commission of lieutenant, though, by the 
 friendship of his commander, he acted for some 
 time in that capacity. In the eighteenth year 
 of his age, having few hopes of promotion in the 
 naval service, he entered the army as an ensign 
 in the Royals, or first regiment of foot, and im- 
 mediately afterwards accompanied his regiment 
 to Minorca, where he remained three years. At 
 this early period of his life, while labouring 
 under the inconveniences of a very restricted 
 fortune, he yet ventured, with that want of 
 forethought which was unhappily a distinguish- 
 ing feature of his private conduct, to unite him- 
 self to a young lady, who accompanied him to 
 Minorca. In the year 1772, on his return from 
 that island, he appears to have resided for some 
 time in London, where the brilliancy of his 
 talents speedily made him known in society. 
 Amongst the distinguished persons who as- 
 sembled at the house of Mrs Montague, where 
 Dr Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Bishop of 
 St Asaph, DrBumey, and others of the most cele- 
 brated scholars of the day, were in the habit of 
 meeting, Mr Erskine was not unfrequently seen.* 
 "He talked," says Boswell, who met him in 
 society at this time, ''with a vivacity, fluency, 
 and precision so uncommon, that he attracted 
 particular attention." t " He told us," adds the 
 biographer, " that, when he was in Minorca, he 
 not only read prayers but preached two sermons 
 to the regiment." 
 
 Of the motives which first led Mr Erskine to 
 the study of the law little is known, but it has 
 been said that he was induced by the advice of his 
 
 * Wraxall's " M'^moirs," vol. i., p. 152. 
 
 + '• Life of Johnson," vol. ii., p. 170, ed. 1799. 
 
 mother, a lady of uncommon acquirements and 
 great penetration, to relinquish his commission, 
 and to enter his name on the books of Lincoln's 
 Inn. At the same time he also became a fellow- 
 commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge, where 
 one of his declamations, the subject of which is 
 the Revolution of 1688, is still extant, and is 
 said to display in some of its passages the traces 
 of that eloquence by which he was subsequently 
 so much distinguished. In his speech on the 
 trial of Paine, for the publication of the second 
 part of the " Rights of Man," Mr Erskine men- 
 tions with complacency this youthful effort. 
 " I was formerly called upon, under the discipline 
 of a college, to maintain these truths, and was 
 rewarded for being thought to have successfully 
 maintained that our present constitution was by 
 no means a remnant of Saxon liberty, nor any 
 other institution of liberty, but the pure conse- 
 quence of the oppression of the Norman tenures, 
 which spreading the spirit of freedom from one 
 end of the kingdom to another, enabled our 
 brave fathers, inch by inch, not to reconquer, but 
 which for the first time to obtain those privileges 
 are the inalienable inheritance of all mankind," 
 
 The object of Mr Erskine in becoming a mem- 
 ber of the university was, that by taking the 
 degree to which, as the son of a nobleman, he 
 was entitled, he might save the term of two 
 years, during which his name must otherwise 
 have remained on the books of Lincoln's Inn. 
 He did not therefore apply himself to the usual 
 course of academical study, but devoted his time 
 to the acquisition of the learning essential to 
 his new profession, in the chambers of Mr Buller, 
 one of the most eminent special pleaders of that 
 day. While thus studying the rudiments of the 
 law, Mr Erskine is said to have exhibited much 
 diligence ; and on the promotion of Mr Buller to 
 the bench, he became a pupil of Mr Wood, of 
 whose instructions he availed himself for some 
 time after he was called to the bar, an event 
 which took place in Trinity term, 1778. 
 
 By a happy accident, the genius of Erskine 
 
 * Lord Bacon's " Advancement of Learning. 
 
16 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was not doomed to languish in that ohscurity 
 which so generally involves the early fortunes of 
 those who devote themselves to his profession. 
 Captain Baillie, the lieutenant-governor ot 
 Greenwich Hospital, having observed various 
 abuses in the administration of that charity, 
 presented several petitions to the directors, the 
 governors, and, lastly, to the Lords of the Ad- 
 miralty, praying for inquiry and redress. Not 
 being successful in his object, he printed a state- 
 ment of the case, and distributed it amongst thd 
 general governors of the hospital. In this paper 
 he animadverted with much severity on the in- 
 troduction of landsmen into the hospital, insinu- 
 ating that they had been placed there to serve 
 the election purposes of Lord Sandwich, the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty. On the circulation of this 
 pamphlet. Captain Baillie was suspended by the 
 directions of the Admiralty, and certain of the 
 officers of the establishment, whose conduct had 
 been the subject of his remarks, applied, in 
 Trinity term, 1778, to the Court of Eang's Bench, 
 for a criminal information. Amongst the coun- 
 sel employed by Captain Baillie to show cause 
 against this rule was Mr Erskine, with whom he 
 had become accidentally acquainted, and who 
 had only been called to the bar in the same term 
 in which the rule for the information had been 
 granted. On the 23d of November, cause was 
 shown against the rule by Captain Baillie's lead- 
 ing counsel, and on the following day Mr Erskine 
 addressed to the court, from one of the back 
 benches, that animated and brilliant argument 
 which at once established his reputation — a re- 
 putation without an equal in the annals of 
 English forensic eloquence. The speech was as 
 remarkable for the judgment it displayed in 
 the selection of the topics, and for the orderly 
 method of its arrangement, as for the energy of 
 its language, and the tone of high feeling by 
 which it was characterised. 
 
 In the course of the year 1779, Mr Erskine 
 was employed as one of the counsel for Admiral 
 Keppel, at the suggestion, it is said, of Mr 
 Dunning, who, finding himself embarrassed by 
 his ignorance of nautical phrases and affairs, was 
 desirous of availing himself of the superior tech- 
 nical information of Mr Erskine. 
 
 In the spring of 1779 the reputation of Mr 
 Erskine was further advanced by the delivery, 
 at the Bar of the Commons, of a speech on a 
 subject closely connected with the interests of 
 literature. From the reign of James I. the 
 Stationers' Company and the universities of Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge had claimed, under a grant 
 from the Crown, the exclusive right of printing 
 almanacs, until at length Mr Carnan, a book- 
 seller in St Paul's Churchyard, resolving to dis- 
 pute the legality of this monopoly, published a 
 variety of almanacs, which, in consequence of 
 their superiority over the prerogative editions, 
 obtained an extensive circulation. Legal pro- 
 ceedings were immediately instituted; but ulti- 
 
 mately the Court of Exchequer decided that the 
 grant from the Crown could not be sustained. 
 In consequence of this decision, the Prime Mini- 
 ster, Lord North, at that time chancellor of 
 the university of Cambridge, introduced a bill 
 into Parliament, to vest the right in the parties 
 who had so long usurped it; upon which Mr 
 Carnan petitioned to be heard against the biU 
 at the Bar of the Commons, where Mr Erskine 
 appeared as his advocate. Although, perhaps, 
 in the strict line of his duty, he would have been 
 confined to the arguments immediately arising 
 from his client's situation, he took a higher 
 ground, and contended with great ability and 
 eloquence against the principle of the proposed 
 measure, pointing out the impolicy, and enlarg- 
 ing upon the injustice, of fettering, in any 
 particular, the freedom of the press, for the in- 
 dividual benefit of any body of men. NotAvith- 
 standing the strong interest which the bill pos- 
 sessed in the support of the minister and of the 
 members for the universities, it was rejected by 
 a majority of forty-five votes, immediately on 
 Mr Erskine's retiring from the bar. It has been 
 mentioned, as a circumstance much to the credit 
 of the then Lord Elliott, the brother-in-law of 
 Lord North, that though he came, at the desire 
 of his noble relative, from Cornwall, to support 
 the bill, yet, having heard Mr Erskine's speech, 
 he divided against it, saying publicly in the lobby, 
 that he found it impossible to vote otherwise. 
 
 But, signal as had been the success which at- 
 tended his exertions, the extraordinary powers 
 of Mr Erskine's eloquence had not yet been 
 fully developed. He had not hitherto enjoyed 
 the opportunity, in any important case, of ad- 
 dressing to the feelings of a jury that fine union 
 of argument and passion which constituted the 
 character of his oratory. A noble occasion, 
 which might seem expressly designed for the 
 display of his peculiar powers, soon occurred in 
 the trial of Lord George Gordon for high treason. 
 That young nobleman, as it is well known, hav- 
 ing been elected the president of the Protestant 
 Association, proceeded, at the head of upwards 
 of forty thousand persons, to the House of 
 Commons, to present the petition of the asso- 
 ciated Protestants. This meeting was unfortu- 
 nately the origin of the fatal riots which for so 
 many days desolated the metropolis, and shook 
 for a time even the foundations of the Govern- 
 ment. Shocked at these outrages, Lord George 
 Gordon tendered his services to suppress them 
 and accompanied the Sheriff of London into the 
 city for that purpose ; but, notwithstanding this 
 disavowal of any illegal intent, he was afterwards 
 committed to the Tower, and indicted for high 
 treason, in levying war against the king. The 
 trial took place on the 5th February 1781, when 
 Mr Kenyon and Mr Erskine appeared as counsel 
 for the prisoner. The evidence for the Crown 
 having been concluded, Mr Kenyon, as senior 
 counsel for Lord George, addressed the jury. 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 17 
 
 and, according to the usual course, would have 
 been followed by his junior, Mr Erskine. He, 
 however, insisted upon reserving his address till 
 the conclusion of the evidence on both sides, 
 which, he said, was matter of great privilege to 
 the prisoner, and for which, he stated, there 
 was a precedent, the authority of which he 
 should insist upon for his client. This being 
 assented to, the witnesses for the defence were 
 examined, and at the close of that evidence, 
 about midnight, Mr Erskine rose, and addressed 
 to the jury a speech which, in powerful argu- 
 ment, animated oratory, and successful effect, 
 has, perhaps, never been equalled in this country. 
 After a most argumentative and energetic attack 
 on the dangerous doctrine of constructive treason, 
 he applied himself to the evidence in a manner 
 so singularly skilful, judicious, and masterly, 
 that even in reading the speech, deprived of all 
 the powerful auxiliaries of the presence, the 
 voice, and the action of the speaker, the reader is 
 irresistibly impelled to regard the prisoner as a 
 man who, whatever might have been his im- 
 prudence, stood, in heart and intention, wholly 
 free from offence. The two leading principles 
 which pervaded the speech were the unconstitu- 
 tional nature of the doctrine of constructive 
 treason, and the blameless intentions of the 
 prisoner; and to the enforcing of these two 
 arguments the whole of the speaker's powers 
 were, with the most skilful art, directed. Satis- 
 fied that on the establishment of these arguments 
 his client's acquittal would necessarily follow, 
 the advocate never for a single instant lost sight 
 of them, but to their enforcement and illustra- 
 tion devoted every effort of his art. 
 
 So rapidly did the reputation and practice of 
 Mr Erskine increase, that, on the suggestion of 
 Lord Mansfield, as it is said, it was thought 
 proper, in the year 1783, when he had scarcely 
 been five years at the bar, to confer upon him a 
 patent of precedence. 
 
 Talents so extraordinary and eloquence so 
 powerful as Mr Erskine's, are, in this country, 
 speedily engaged in the public service. His 
 political predilections had already led him to 
 associate himself with those celebrated men, 
 who, during the administration of Lord North, 
 headed the opposition, and whose characters and 
 genius were then in their highest meridian. Fox, 
 Burke, and Sheridan, the three most splendid 
 names in the modern political history of Eng- 
 land, had hitherto preserved unblemished the 
 fair and brilliant reputation with which they 
 entered into public life. The '* coalition" had 
 not yet dimmed the splendour of Fox's name ; 
 the purity of Burke's principles had not yet 
 departed from him; nor had the fatal web of 
 pecuniary embarrassment been wound round the 
 soul of Sheridan. To associate with men like 
 these was worthy of Erskine; but it was not 
 until after the formation of the coalition ministry 
 that he became the public coadjutor of this dis- 
 
 tinguished phalanx. When the ill-judged and 
 unfortunate measure of the India Bill had been 
 introduced, it became evident that ministers 
 would require every assistance to carry it, op- 
 posed as it was by so many and such various 
 interests. The fame and the genius of Erskine 
 at once pointed him out as an invaluable ally ; 
 and it was determined to bring him without 
 delay into the House of Commons. Sir William 
 Gordon, the member for Portsmouth, was there- 
 fore prevailed upon, for an adequate considera- 
 tion, to resign his seat, to which Mr Erskine 
 immediately succeeded. 
 
 It has not unfrequently happened, that men 
 of the most distinguished reputation at the bar, 
 when introduced into the House of Commons, 
 have failed to realise the high expectations of 
 their admirers. Such appears to have been 
 the case with regard to Mr Erskine, who never 
 acquired any considerable accession of fame by 
 his parliamentary exertions. His first speech 
 was delivered during the debate on the first 
 reading of the East India Bill, and, as reported, 
 bears few marks of those extraordinary talents 
 which distinguished his forensic efforts. The 
 opinion of a person, opposed in principle to Mr 
 Erskine, who was at that time a member of the 
 House, and who heard the speech, has been 
 preserved. *' Mr Erskine, who, like Mr Scott, 
 has since attained to the highest honours and 
 dignities of the bar, first spoke as a member of 
 the House of Commons in support of this ob- 
 noxious measure. His enemies pronounced the 
 performance tame, and destitute of the ani- 
 mation which so powerfully characterised his 
 speeches in Westminster Hall. They main- 
 tained that, however resplendent he appeared 
 as an advocate while addressing a jury, he fell 
 to the level of an ordinary man, if not below it, 
 when seated on the ministerial bench, where 
 another species of oratory was demanded to im- 
 press conviction or to extort admiration. To 
 me, who, having never witnessed his jurispru- 
 dential talents, could not make any such com- 
 parison, he appeared to exhibit shining powers 
 of declamation." On the second reading of the 
 India Bill, Mr Erskine spoke at greater length, 
 and concluded with calling on Mr Fox to perse- 
 vere in the measure. " Let my right honourable 
 friend," said he, '*go on with firmness, and risk 
 his office at every step he takes, and I will 
 combat, as I now do, by his side, at the hazard 
 of every prospect of ambition. Let him stand 
 upon his own manly, superior understanding, 
 and the integrity of his heart, which I know is 
 ever ready to guide him in the course of his 
 duty, and I will stand for ever by him, and be 
 ready to sink with him in his fall." 
 
 Mr Fox did proceed, risked his office, and lost 
 it ; and in the struggles which subsequently took 
 place, Mr Erskine redeemed his promise of faith- 
 fully combating by the side of his leader. The 
 India Bill having been rejected in the House of 
 
 R 
 
ih 
 
 TREASURY Or MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 l,or<ls, the kin^ ventured to dismiss the ministry, 
 notwithstanding their influence in the Commons. 
 Though driven from office, Mr Fox still con- 
 tinued to command the House of Commons, and 
 a dissolution was consequently expected. The 
 administration had been broken up on the 18th 
 of December, and on the following day Mr 
 Erskine moved an address to the king, praying 
 that his Majesty would be pleased not to dis- 
 solve his Parliament, a motion to which the 
 House agreed. After a short adjournment, Mr 
 Fox brought forward a motion on the state of 
 the nation, in which he was ably supported by 
 Mr Erskine, who made a fierce attack upon the 
 new minister, and upon that secret influence by 
 which the Crown had been swayed. On a sub- 
 sequent day he repeated his attack upon Mr 
 Pitt, ridiculing his junction with Lord Gower 
 and Lord Thurlow. " He said it was an affront 
 to human reason to say that it was inconsistent 
 for the right honourable gentleman to act in 
 concert with the noble lord in the blue riband 
 (Lord North), who was yet in close contact with 
 the more learned Lord Thurlow and the Lord 
 Gower. Though, perhaps, the right honourable 
 gentleman might say that he had arrayed him- 
 self with the two last lords, to give the more 
 certain effect to his plan for the reform in the 
 representation of the people ; and that, as that 
 great object was the ruling feature of his political 
 life, he had agreed to overlook all lesser differ- 
 ences, to secure that hearty and cordial union 
 which the notorious opinions of these noble per- 
 sons would be sure to afford him in the cabinet 
 (laughter)." In the course of the same session, 
 Mr Erskine opposed Mr Pitt's India Bill on the 
 second reading. 
 
 In the year 1784 Mr Erskine was called upon 
 to defend the Dean of St Asaph, who had been 
 indicted for publishing the " Dialogue between 
 a Gentleman and a Farmer," written by Sir 
 William Jones. The tract itself was a short 
 and familiar exposition of the principles of go- 
 vernment, illustrating, in a forcible manner, the 
 right and duty of resistance, as recognised in 
 the theory of the English constitution. For 
 this publication, which the Government declined 
 to notice, an indictment was preferred against 
 the dean, at the instigation of Mr Fitzmaurice, 
 brother of the late Marquis of Lansdowne, and 
 the case ultimately came on for trial, at the 
 summer assizes for Shrewsbury, in the year 
 1784. Here, as in the case of Lord George 
 Gordon, Mr Erskine rested his client's defence 
 upon two great principles : first, that the jury 
 had the right of pronouncing upon the tract, 
 whether it was a libel or no libel ; and, secondly, 
 that the publication of the tract by the defend- 
 ant, without any criminal motive, but, on the 
 contiary, with a sincere desire to benefit the 
 country, could not be construed into a libellous 
 publication. With great eloquence also he con- 
 tended that the "Dialogue" recommended and 
 
 enforced only the principles upon which the 
 Kevolution was founded, and which had been 
 repeatedly asserted and recognised by all our 
 most celebrated constitutional writers. 
 
 Ultimately the verdict of the jury was, that 
 the dean was guilty of publishing, but whether 
 it was a libel or not they did not find. In the 
 following term Mr Erskine obtained a rule for a 
 new trial, on the ground of a misdirection of 
 the learned judge, who had told the jury that 
 the matter for them to decide was, whether the 
 defendant was guilty of the fact or not ; thus 
 excluding from their consideration, according to 
 the practice of the judges at that day, the ques- 
 tion of the libellous tendency of the publication. 
 In the course of the same term the rule came on 
 to be argued, and was supported by Mr Erskine 
 in a speech, which, beyond all contest, displays 
 the most perfect union of argument and elo- 
 quence ever exhibited in Westminster Hall. 
 Such was the admiration with which Mr Fox 
 regarded this speech, that he repeatedly de- 
 clared he thought it the finest argument in the 
 English language.* When the circumstances 
 under which the speech was delivered are con- 
 sVlered, it will appear, without doubt, to be the 
 most extraordinary effort of Mr Erskine's life. 
 It was not directed to a jury whose prejudices, 
 however strong, he might hope to shake ; it was 
 addressed to judges, whose minds he knew to 
 be prepossessed so firmly against him as to pre- 
 clude even the most distant expectation of suc- 
 cess. It was addressed to Lord Mansfield, who 
 had borne unmoved the bitter invectives of 
 Junius on the same subject, and whose practice 
 of nearly half a century had been in unwearied 
 opposition to the doctrine. It was addressed 
 also to Mr Justice Buller, whose convictions had 
 already been expressed in the strongest language. 
 In making this appeal to the Court, Mr Erskine 
 met with that most disheartening of all recep- 
 tions, an indulgent indifference to what appeared 
 to the judges a vain and injudicious attempt to 
 remove the landmarks of the law. He has him- 
 self described, in his speech on the trial of Paine, 
 the manner of his reception. " Before that late 
 period, I ventured to maintain this very right 
 of a jury over the question of libel under the 
 same ancient constitution (I do not mean before 
 the noble judge now present, for the matter was 
 gone to rest in the courts long before he came 
 to sit where he does), but before a noble and 
 reverend magistrate, of the most exalted under- 
 standing, and of the most uncorrupted integrity. 
 He treated me, not with contempt, indeed, for 
 of that his nature was incapable, but he put me 
 aside with indulgence, as you do a child when 
 it is lisping its prattle out of season." Of the 
 closely-knit arguments and the eloquent illus- 
 trations of this speech it is impossible, by ex- 
 tracting portions of it, to give any idea. The 
 
 State Trials," vol. xxi., p. 971 {note). 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 19 
 
 Court answered it, as might have "been expected, 
 by a reference to their own practice and to that 
 of their immediate predecessors, leaving un- 
 touched the many sound, admirable, and un- 
 answerable arguments with which it abounded. 
 " Such a judicial practice," said Lord Mansfield, 
 " on the precise point, from the Revolution, as 
 I think, down to the present day, is not to be 
 shaken by arguments of general theory or popu- 
 lar declamation." 
 
 But it was shaken, and to its foundations, by 
 the popular declamation upon which the chief 
 justice set so light a price. It was the conscious- 
 ness of this which supported Mr Erskine through 
 his despised and ungrateful office. He knew, 
 that in offering his arguments to the unwilling 
 ears of the judges, he was at the same time 
 addressing them to the lively and just appre- 
 hension of the people of England, who would 
 not endure that the freedom of the press should 
 be thus violated, and deprived of its best pro- 
 tection — the trial by jury. The speech of Mr 
 Erskine, without doubt, prepared the way for 
 the introduction of Mr Fox's Libel Bill, which 
 has declared the despised opinion of Mr Erskine 
 to be the law. In his own words — *' If this be 
 not an awful lesson of caution respecting opinions, 
 where are such lessons to be read ? " 
 
 The political situation and connections of Mr 
 Erskine occasionally brought him, about this 
 period, into the society of the Prince of Wales, 
 who appears to have been warmly attached to 
 him; and, on the establishment of his house- 
 hold, bestowed upon him the appointment of 
 his Attorney-General. During the king's illness 
 in 1788, and the negotiations for a formation 
 of a Whig ministry under the auspices of the 
 prince, as regent, Mr Erskine was to have ex- 
 changed this office for that of Attorney-General 
 to the king.* But the speedy recovery of the 
 sovereign terminated the w^hole project. 
 
 The speech delivered by Mr Erskine in 1789, 
 on the trial of Stockdale for a libel reflecting on 
 the House of Commons, has been deemed by 
 some persons the most exquisite specimen of his 
 powers. It certainly exhibits in great perfec- 
 tion the grand characteristics of his oratory — 
 elevated sentiment, brilliant imagery, and pas- 
 sionate declamation, all resting upon that broad 
 foundation of principle which has been noticed 
 as invariably forming the groundwork of his 
 speeches. In consequence of the publication of 
 the articles of impeachment against Mr Hastings, 
 whilst the impeachment itself was pending, the 
 Rev. Mr Logan, a Scotch minister of talents and 
 learning, composed a defence of Mr Hastings, 
 which was published by Mr Stockdale in the 
 regular course of his business. The pamphlet 
 contained certain strong, and, as it was asserted, 
 libellous observations on the proceedings of the 
 Commons, which were said to have proceeded 
 
 * " New Annual Register for 1789," p. 93. 
 
 "from motives of personal animosity, not iiom 
 regard to public justice." With a jealousy of 
 their reputation which might well have been 
 spared, the House addressed a prayer to the 
 king, that the Attorney-General might be direct- 
 ed to file an information against the publisher of 
 the libel, which, coming on for trial, Mr Erskine 
 appeared as the counsel for the defendant. A 
 more favourable opportunity for the display of 
 his brilliant talents could not well have occurred, 
 and most successfully did he avail himself of it. 
 The impregnable position in which he intrenched 
 himself, the principle of his speech, was, that 
 the alleged libel was a &o/id fide defence of 
 Mr Hastings ; and to the establishment of this 
 position the whole of his arguments were directed. 
 By way of collaterally strengthening that posi- 
 tion, he touched upon the general merits of Mr 
 Hastings' case, of which, had he not been him- 
 self a member of the Commons, he would un- 
 doubtedly have been selected as the conductor. 
 Of the splendid effort which the public would 
 then have witnessed, we may form some idea 
 from the passages in the present speech devote<\ 
 to that subject. 
 
 The trial of Mr Hastings at the bar of th« 
 Lords is thus magnificently and picturesquely 
 described by Mr Erskine: "There the most 
 august and striking spectacle was daily exhib- 
 ited that the world ever witnessed. A vast 
 stage of justice was erected, awful from its high 
 authority, splendid from its illustrious dignity, 
 venerable for the learning and wisdom of its 
 judges, captivating and affecting from the mighty 
 concourse of all ranks and conditions which daily 
 flocked into it as into a theatre of pleasure; 
 there, when the whole public mind was at once 
 awed and softened to the impression of every 
 human affection, there appeared, day after day, 
 one after another, men of the most powerful and 
 exalted talents, eclipsing by their accusing elo- 
 quence the most boasted harangues of antiquity 
 — rousing the pride of national resentment, by 
 the boldest invectives against broken faith and 
 violated treaties, and shaking the bosom with 
 alternate pity and horror, by the most glowing 
 pictures of insulted nature and humanity : ever 
 animated and energetic from the love of fame, 
 which is the inherent passion of genius; firm 
 and indefatigable from a strong prepossession of 
 the justice of their cause." 
 
 "The accusing eloquence" of Burke and of 
 Sheridan was hardly superior to the oratory 
 of Erskine, in suggesting the only defence of 
 which Mr Hastings could successfully avail him- 
 self. 
 
 "Gentlemen of the jury, if this be a wilfully 
 false account of the instructions given to Mr 
 Hastings for his government, and of his conduct 
 under them, the author and publisher of this 
 defence deserve the severest punishment, for a 
 mercenary imposition on the public. But if it 
 be true that he was directed to make the aafetv 
 
and prosperity of Bengal the first object of his 
 attention, and that under his administration it 
 has been safe and prosperous ; if it be true that 
 the security and preservation of our possessions 
 and revenues in Asia were marked out to him as 
 the great leading principle of his government, 
 and that those possessions and revenues, amidst 
 unexampled dangers, have been secured and 
 preserved ; then a question may be unaccount- 
 ably mixed with your consideration, much be- 
 yond the consequence of the present prosecu- 
 tion, involving perhaps the merit of the impeach- 
 ment itself which gave it birth — a question 
 which the Commons, as prosecutors of Mr Has- 
 tings, should in common prudence have avoided ; 
 unless, regretting the unwieldy length of their 
 proceedings against him, they wished to afford 
 him the opportunity of this strange anomalous 
 defence. For although I am neither his counsel, 
 nor desire to have anything to do with his guilt 
 or innocence, yet, in the collateral defence of 
 my client, I am driven to state matter which 
 may be considered by many as hostile to the 
 impeachment. For if your dependencies have 
 been secured, and their interests promoted, I 
 am driven, in the defence of my client, to re- 
 mark, that it is mad and preposterous to bring 
 to the standard of justice and humanity the 
 exercise of a dominion founded upon violence 
 and terror. It may and must be true that Mr 
 Hastings has repeatedly offended against the 
 rights and privileges of Asiatic government, if 
 he was the faithful deputy of a power which 
 could not maintain itself for an hour without 
 trampling upon both ; — he may and must have 
 offended against the laws of God and nature, if 
 he was the faithful viceroy of an empire wrested 
 in blood from the people to whom God and 
 nature had given it; — he may and must have 
 J' reserved that unjust dominion over timorous 
 and abject nations by a terrifying, overbearing, 
 and insulting superiority, if he was the faithful 
 administrator of your government, which, hav- 
 ing no root in consent or affection, no foundation 
 in similarity of interests, nor support from any 
 one principle that cements men together in 
 society, could only be upheld by alternate strata- 
 gem and force. The unhappy people of India, 
 feeble and effeminate as they are from the soft- 
 ness of their climate, and subdued and broken 
 as they have been by the knavery and strength 
 of civilisation, still occasionally start up in all 
 the vigour and intelligence of insulted nature : 
 — to be governed at all they must be governed 
 with a rod of iron ; and our empire in the East 
 would have been long since lost to Great Britain, 
 if civil and military prowess had not united their 
 efforts to support an authority, which Heaven 
 never gave, by means which it never can sanc- 
 tion. 
 
 "Gentlemen, I think I can observe that you 
 are touched with this way of considering the 
 siibject ; and I can account for it. I have not 
 
 been considering it through the cold medium of 
 books, but have been speaking of man and his 
 nature, and of human dominion, from what I 
 have seen of them myself, amongst reluctant 
 nations submitting to our authority. I know 
 what they feel, and how such feelings can alone 
 be repressed. I have heard them in my youth 
 from a naked savage, in the indignant character 
 of a prince surrounded by his subjects, address- 
 ing the governor of a British colony, holding a 
 bundle of sticks as the notes of his unlettered 
 eloquence. * Who is it,' said the jealous ruler 
 over the desert encroached upon by the restless 
 foot of English adventurers — 'who is it that 
 causes this river to rise in the high mountains, 
 and to empty itself into the ocean ? Who is it 
 that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and 
 that calms them again in the summer ? Who is 
 it that rears up the shade of those lofty forests, 
 and blasts them with the quick lightning at His 
 pleasure ? The same Being who gave to you a 
 country on the other side of the waters, and 
 gave ours to us : and by this title we will defend 
 it,' said the warrior, throwing down his toma- 
 hawk upon the ground, and raising the war- 
 sound of his nation. These are the feelings of 
 subjugated men all round the globe ; and, depend 
 upon it, nothing but fear will control where it 
 is vain to look for affection. 
 
 "These reflections are the only antidotes to 
 those anathemas of superhuman eloquence which 
 have lately shaken these walls which surround 
 us ; but which it unaccountably falls to my pro- 
 vince, whether I will or no, a little to stem the 
 torrent of, by reminding you that you have a 
 mighty sway in Asia, which cannot be main- 
 tained by the finer sympathies of life, or the 
 practice of its charities or affections. What will 
 they do for you, when surrounded by two hun- 
 dred thousand men, with artillery, cavalry, and 
 elephants, calling upon you for the dominions 
 you have robbed tuem of? Justice may, no 
 doubt, in such a case, forbid the levying of a 
 tine to pay a revolting soldiery ; — a treaty may 
 stand in the way of increasing a tribute to keep 
 up the very existence of the government ;— and 
 delicacy for women may forbid all entrance into 
 a zenana for money, whatever may be the neces- 
 sity for taking it. All these things must ever 
 be occurring. But under the pressure of such 
 constant difficulties, so dangerous to national 
 honour, it might be better, perhaps, to think of 
 effectually securing it altogether, by recalling 
 our troops and our merchants, and abandonino- 
 our Asiatic empire. Until this be done neithei 
 religion nor philosophy can be pressed very far 
 into the aid of reformation and punishment. If 
 England, from a lust of ambition and dominion 
 will insist on maintaining despotic rule over 
 distant and hostile nations, beyond all compari- 
 son more numerous and extended than herself, 
 and gives commission to her viceroys to govern 
 them, with no other instructions than to pre- 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 21 
 
 serve them, and to secure permanently their 
 revenues, with what colour or consistency of 
 reason can she place herself in the moral chair, 
 and affect to be shocked at the execution of her 
 own orders, adverting to the exact measure of 
 wickedness and injustice necessary to their 
 execution, and complaining only of the excess 
 as the immorality; — considering her authority 
 as a dispensation for breaking the commands of 
 God, and the breach of them as only punishable 
 when contrary to the ordinances of man ? 
 
 "Such a proceeding, gentlemen, begets seri- 
 ous reflections. It would be, perhaps, better 
 for the masters and servants of all such govern- 
 ments to join in supplication that the great 
 Author of violated humanity may not confound 
 them together in one common judgment." 
 
 In defending the overcharged expressions of 
 which the writer of the tract had made use, Mr 
 Erskine produced one of the most eloquent 
 apologies for excess existing in our language. 
 
 ** From minds thus subdued by the terrors of 
 punishment there could issue no works of genius 
 to expand the empire of human reason, nor any 
 masterly compositions on the general nature of 
 g0T3mment, by the help of which the great 
 commonwealths of mankind have founded their 
 establishments; much less any of those useful 
 applications of them to critical conjunctures, by 
 which, from time to time, our own constitution, 
 by the exertions of patriot citizens, has been 
 brought back to its standard. Under such ter- 
 rors all the great lights of science and civilisation 
 must be extinguished : for men cannot com- 
 municate their free thoughts to one another 
 with a lash held over their heads. It is the na- 
 ture of everything that is great and useful, both 
 in the animate and inanimate world, to be wild 
 and irregular ; and we must be contented to 
 take them with the alloys which belong to them, 
 or live without them. Genius breaks from the 
 fetters of criticism; but its wanderings are 
 sanctioned by its majesty and wisdom when it 
 advances in its path : subject it to the critic, 
 and you tame it into dulness. Mighty rivers 
 break down their banks in the winter, sweeping 
 to death the flocks which are fattened on the 
 soil that they fertilise in the summer : the few 
 may be saved by embankments from drowning, 
 but the flock must perish for hunger. Tempests 
 occasionally shake our dwellings and dissipate 
 our commerce ; but they scourge before them 
 the lazy elements which without them would 
 stagnate into pestilence. In like manner, Lib- 
 erty herself, the last and best gift of God to his 
 creatures, must be taken just as she is. You 
 might pare her down into bashful regularity, 
 and shape her into a perfect model of severe 
 scrupulous law ; but she would then be Liberty 
 no longer : and you must be content to die 
 under the lash of this inexorable justice, which 
 you had exchanged for the banners of freedom." 
 
 The jury having withdrawn, after a consulta- 
 
 tion of about two hours, returned with a verdict 
 of "Not guilty." 
 
 For several years Mr Erskine had taken little 
 interest in his parliamentary duties, probably 
 from the very burthensome nature of his pro- 
 fessional labours. But in the session of 1790 he 
 again appeared as a speaker in the House, and 
 delivered a very long argument on the abatement 
 of impeachments by a dissolution. In his first 
 speech on this subject, after laying down what 
 he termed the foundation of his argument at 
 considerable length, he was proceeding to the 
 consideration of the precedents, when, owing to 
 his fatigues in the earlier part of the day, and 
 to the intense heat of the House, he told the 
 Speaker that he was unable to pursue his argu- 
 ment. He resumed it, however, on a subsequent 
 evening. 
 
 Upon the motion made by Mr Fox in 1792, 
 for the appointment of a minister to treat with 
 the persons exercising the functions of the exe- 
 cutive government in France, Mr Erskine sup- 
 ported the motion with more energy and elo- 
 quence than were usually displayed in his 
 parliamentary harangues. He painted in strong 
 colours the fortunes of the soldier, and con- 
 trasted them with those of the persons who 
 profited at home by the calamities of war. 
 " The life of the modern soldier is ill represented 
 by heroic fiction. War has means of destruction 
 more formidable than the cannon and the sword. 
 Of the thousands and tens of thousands that 
 perished in our late contests with France and 
 Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of 
 an enemy ; the rest languished in tents and 
 ships, amidst damps and putrefaction — pale, 
 torpid, spiritless, and helpless ; gasping and 
 groaning unpitied among men, made obdurate 
 by long continuance of hopeless misery, and 
 were at last whelmed into pits or heaved into 
 the ocean without notice, without remembrance. 
 . . , But at the conclusion of a ten years' 
 war how are we recompensed for the death of 
 multitudes, and the expense of millions, but by 
 contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters 
 and agents, contractors and commissaries, whose 
 equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces 
 rise like exhalations ? These are the men who, 
 without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing 
 rich as their country is impoverished ; they re- 
 joice when obstinacy or ambition adds another 
 year to slaughter and devastation ; and laugh 
 from their desks at bravery and science, while 
 they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to 
 cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new 
 armament, and computing the profits of a siege 
 or a tempest." 
 
 In the course of the same session Mr Erskine 
 opposed the introduction of the Traitorous Corre- 
 spondence Bill, and supported, at considerable 
 length, Mr (now Lord) Grey's motion in favour 
 of parliamentary reform. 
 
 It had hitherto been in general the ffood for- 
 
22 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tune of Mr Erskine that his genius had been 
 exerted in cases which a good man and even a 
 prudent man might wish to defend ; but in the 
 year 1792 he was called upon to act as the ad- 
 vocate of one who, whatever may have been the 
 integrity of his intentions, betrayed a grievous 
 want of common sense and common decency in 
 the expression of his opinions, and who by his 
 writings cast more discredit on the cause of 
 freedom than the pens of her most zealous ene- 
 mies could have eflfected. In the second part of 
 his celebrated "Rights of Man," Thomas Paine 
 attacked, in the most coarse and unmeasured 
 language, the constitution and government of 
 England, and an information was consequently 
 filed against him, which came on to be tried in 
 the year 1792. Mr Erskine was retained for 
 the defendant, at that period an odious and ob- 
 noxious duty, from which, however, with his 
 characteristic magnanimity, he never for a mo- 
 ment attempted to withdraw himself. 
 
 Paine was convicted ; and Mr Erskine, as a 
 reward for the brave and honest defence which 
 his duty compelled him to make for his client, 
 was, to the lasting disgrace and infamy of those 
 from whom the measure proceeded, removed 
 from his ofl&ce of Attorney-General to the Prince 
 of Wales. To this removal he adverted in his de- 
 fence of Home Tooke in the following manner : 
 '* Gentlemen, Mr Tooke had an additional and 
 a generous motive for appearing to be the sup- 
 porter of Mr Paine : — the constitution was 
 wounded through his sides. I blush, as a 
 Briton, to recollect that a conspiracy was formed 
 among the highest orders, to deprive this man 
 of a British trial. This is the clue to Mr Tooke's 
 conduct, and to which, if there should be no 
 other witnesses, I will step forward to be ex- 
 amined. I assert that there was a conspiracy 
 to shut out Mr Paine from the privilege of being 
 defended : he was to be deprived of counsel ; 
 and I, who now speak to you, was threatened 
 with the loss of office if I appeared as his ad- 
 vocate. I was told in plain terms that I must 
 not defend Mr Paine. I did defend him, and I 
 did lose my office." 
 
 Of this transaction Lord Erskine, a few years 
 before his death, gave a detailed account in a 
 letter addressed to Mr Howell, editor of the 
 "State Trials," "When Attorney-General to 
 the Prince of Wales, I was retained by Thomas 
 Paine in person to defend him on his approach- 
 ing trial for publishing the second part of his 
 * Rights of Man ; ' but it was soon intimated to 
 me by high authority that it was considered to 
 be incompatible with my situation, and the 
 prince himself in the most friendly manner ac- 
 quainted me that it was highly displeasing to 
 the king, and that I ought to endeavour to ex- 
 plain my conduct, which I immediately did in 
 a letter to his Majesty himself, in which, after 
 expressing my sincere attachment to his person 
 and to the constitution of the kingdom attacked 
 
 in the work which was to be defended, I took 
 the liberty to claim, as an invaluable part of 
 that very constitution, the unquestionable right 
 of the subject to make his defence by any coun- 
 sel of his own free choice, if not previously re- 
 tained, or engaged by office from the Crown ; 
 and that there was no other way of deciding 
 whether that was or was not my own situation 
 as Attorney-General to the prince, than by re- 
 ferring, according to custom, that question to 
 the bar, which I was perfectly willing and even 
 desirous to do. In a few days afterwards I re- 
 ceived, through my friend the late Admiral 
 Paine, a most gracious message from the prince, 
 expressing his deep regret in feeling himself 
 obliged to receive my resignation, which was ac- 
 cordingly sent. But I owe it to His Royal High- 
 ness to express my opinion, that, circumstanced 
 as he was, he had no other course to take in 
 those disgraceful and disgusting times, and that 
 my retainer for Paine was made a pretext by the 
 king's ministers for my removal, because my 
 worthy and excellent friend Sir A. Piggott was 
 removed from the office of the prince's Solicitor- 
 General at the very same moment, although he 
 had nothing whatever to do with Mr Paine or 
 his book. The fact is, that we were both, I 
 believe, at that time members of a society for 
 the reform of Parliament, called * The Friends 
 of the People.'" 
 
 It was very honourable to the Prince of Wales 
 that he subsequently made reparation to Mr 
 Erskine for this act of injustice. "It would, 
 however," continues Lord Erskine, in the same 
 letter, *' be most unjust as well as ungrateful to 
 the Prince Regent not to add, that in a few years 
 afterwards His Royal Highness, of his own mere 
 motion, sent for me to Carlton House, whilst he 
 was still in bed under a severe illness, and, 
 taking me most graciously by the hand, said to 
 me, that though he was not at all qualified to 
 judge of retainers, nor to appreciate the correct- 
 ness or incorrectness of my conduct in the in- 
 stance that had separated us, yet that, being 
 convinced I had acted from the purest motives, 
 he wished most publicly to manifest that opinion, 
 and therefore directed me to go immediately to 
 Somerset House, and to bring with me, for his 
 execution, the patent of chancellor to His Royal 
 Highness, which he said he had always designed 
 for me; adding, that owing to my being too 
 young when his establishment was first fixed, he 
 had declined having a chancellor at that time ; 
 that during our separation he had been more 
 than once asked to revive it, which he had re- 
 fused to do, looking forward to this occasion; 
 and I accordingly held the revived office of chan- 
 cellor to the Prince of Wales until I was ap- 
 pointed chancellor to the king, when I resigned 
 it, in conformity with the only precedent in the 
 records of the duchy of Cornwall, viz., that of 
 Lord Bacon, who was chancellor to Henry, Prince 
 of Wales, and whose resignation is there re- 
 
LORD ERSKlNh. 
 
 23 
 
 corded, because of his acceptance of the Great 
 Seal in the reign of King James I." 
 
 During the session of 1792 Mr Fox brought 
 forward his celebrated Libel Bill, which he sup- 
 ported in a most argumentative and forcible 
 speech, in the course of which he took occasion 
 to mention that of Mr Erskine on the trial of 
 the Dean of St Asaph : ** A speech so eloquent, 
 so luminous, and so convincing, that it wanted 
 in opposition to it not a man but a giant." The 
 motion of Mr Fox was seconded by Mr Erskine ; 
 and his speech on this occasion may be taken as 
 an example of the inferiority of his parliament- 
 ary eloquence. Compared with the splendid 
 oration so justly panegyrised by Mr Fox, it is 
 tame, feeble, and inanimate — a lifeless recapitu- 
 lation of his former arguments. 
 
 In the course of the same session Mr Erskine 
 supported the motion of Lord (then Mr) Grey 
 for reform. This motion was made in conse- 
 quence of a resolution of a society to which both 
 the mover and seconder belonged, the Society of 
 the Friends of the People. Of the nature of 
 that association, and of his own objects in join- 
 ing it, he has spoken in his pamphlet on the war 
 with France. "A few gentlemen, not above 
 fifty in number, and consisting principally of 
 persons of rank, talents, and character, formed 
 themselves into a society, under the name of the 
 Friends of the People. They had observed, with 
 concern, as they professed in the published mo- 
 tives of their association, the grossly unequal 
 representation of the people in the House of 
 Commons, its effects upon the measures of go- 
 vernment, but, above all, its apparent tendency 
 to lower the dignity of Parliament, and to de- 
 prive it of the opinion of the people. Their 
 avowed object was, therefore, to bring the very 
 cause which Mr Pitt had so recently taken the 
 lead in, fairly and respectfully before the House 
 of Commons, in hopes, as they declared, to tran- 
 quillise the agitated part of the public, to re- 
 store affection and respect for the legislature, so 
 necessary to secure submission to its authority, 
 and, by concentrating the views of all reformers 
 to the preservation of our invaluable constitu- 
 tion, to prevent that fermentation of political 
 opinion, which the French Revolution had un- 
 doubtedly given rise to, from taking a republican 
 direction in Great Britain. I declare upon my 
 honour," adds Mr Erskine in a note, " these 
 were my reasons for becoming a member of that 
 society. These were not only the professed ob- 
 jects of this association, but the truth and good 
 faith of them received afterwards the sanction of 
 judicial authority, when their proceedings were 
 brought forward by Government in the course of 
 the State trials." Mr Grey's motion was sup- 
 ported by Mr Fox and Mr Erskine, and opposed 
 by Mi Burke and Mr Windham. Mr Erskine's 
 speech was upon the whole feeble, and displayed 
 very little of the fire and energy which distin- 
 guish his orations at the bar. It was principally 
 
 confined to a vindication, or rather an apology, 
 for the Society of the Friends of the People, and 
 for himself in becoming a member of the society. 
 He concluded with an ungraceful reference to 
 his own success in his profession. "The mea- 
 sures of the association," he said, *' so much 
 alluded to, were the most likely to preserve the 
 peace of the country, and it was therefore he 
 had subscribed to them. If their tendency was 
 otherwise, he must be the worst of lunatics, his 
 situation being considered, his unparalleled suc- 
 cess, his prosperity so wonderful, when his origin 
 was viewed, his present possession of every- 
 thing to make a man happy, and his prospects 
 which there was nothing to interrupt. Why 
 should he then waste his own constitution when 
 he was endeavouring to preserve that of the 
 country, and when he might be in peace with 
 his family if his attempts were to endanger that 
 prosperity which was so dear to him?" 
 
 In the year 1793 Mr Erskine appeared as the 
 advocate of Mr John Frost, an attorney, who was 
 indicted for uttering seditious words at the 
 Percy coffee-house. The words, which were cer- 
 tainly of a character sufficiently seditious, were 
 spoken after dinner and in the excitement of 
 argument, and the witnesses to prove the speak- 
 ing of them were certain individuals who hap- 
 pened to be present in the coffee-house at the 
 time. These circumstances furnished the in- 
 genious and skilful mind of Mr Erskine with 
 some admirable topics of defence, and in par- 
 ticular, afforded him an opportunity of declaim- 
 ing against that infamous system of informing, 
 which about this period had become so fearfully 
 common. 
 
 Even in Lord Erskine's miscellaneous speeches 
 few instances occur of any attempt at humour ; 
 though, in the case of Morton v. Fenn, which 
 was an action brought by a middle-aged woman 
 against an old and infirm man for breach of pro- 
 mise of marriage, there occurs a sufficiently 
 droll description of the unfortunate defendant. 
 "It is probable," said Mr Erskine, " that her 
 (the plaintiff's) circumstances were very low, 
 from the character in which she was introduced 
 to the defendant, who, being an old and infirm 
 man, was desirous of some elderly person as a 
 housekeeper, and no imputation can be justly 
 cast upon the plaintiff for consenting to such an 
 introduction ; for, by Mr Wallace's favour, the 
 jury had a view of this defendant, and the very 
 sight of him rebutted every suspicion that could 
 possibly fall upon a woman of any age, consti- 
 tution, or complexion. I am sure everybody 
 who was in court must agree with me that all 
 the diseases catalogued in the dispensatory 
 seemed to be running a race for his life, though 
 the asthma appeared to have completely dis- 
 tanced his competitors, as the fellow was blow- 
 ing like a smith's bellows the whole time of the 
 trial. His teeth being all gone, I shall say 
 nothing of his gums ; and as to his shape, to be 
 
24 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Bure, a bass fiddle is perfect gentility compared 
 to it." He concluded with expressing a wish 
 that the young woman whom the defendant had 
 married '* would manifest her affection by fur- 
 nishing him with a pair of horns, sufficient to 
 defend himself against the sheriff when he came 
 to levy the money under the verdict." 
 
 The genius of Erskine seems to have been 
 created at the very period which enabled it to 
 shine forth in its brightest lustre. Had he lived 
 in the generation either preceding or following 
 his own, his eloquence would never have been 
 called out, as it was by the extraordinary and 
 perilous circumstances in which this country was 
 placed at the latter end of the last century. All 
 the great principles of human action and human 
 government were called in question ; and while, 
 on the one hand, amongst the people, rash and 
 ill-advised individuals were found, who pressed 
 to their extremities those just theories of poli- 
 tics upon which the welfare of nations depends ; 
 the Government, on the other hand, terrified at 
 the excesses to which such speculations had led 
 in France, under circumstances totally different 
 from any that existed in England, grew jealous 
 even of those liberties and privileges which were 
 guaranteed by the constitution. Societies and 
 affiliated societies for procuring a reform in Par- 
 liament increased in rapid progression, and lan- 
 guage was occasionally employed, of the sedi- 
 tious tendency of which no doubt could be 
 entertained. At length, the subject of these 
 dangerous associations was brought before 
 Parliament, which granted extraordinary powers 
 to Government, by an Act, reciting that a trea- 
 cherous and detestable conspiracy had been 
 formed for subverting the existing laws and 
 constitution, and for introducing the system of 
 anarchy and confusion which had lately pre- 
 vailed in France. The popular mind being thus, 
 by the highest authority, suitably affected with 
 apprehensions and terrors, the minister resolved 
 to strike a blow which should place at his ab- 
 solute mercy the blood of every man who had 
 ventured to become a member of the obnoxious 
 associations. The Attorney-General was directed 
 to proceed against several of the more conspicu- 
 ous members of these societies for high treason, 
 as having been guilty of a conspiracy to compass 
 and imagine the death of the king. The first 
 person brought to trial was Mr Thomas Hardy, 
 a respectable tradesman, who had acted as the 
 secretary of the Constitutional Society. Mr 
 Erskine, assisted by Mr Gibbs, appeared as his 
 counsel, and never in the judicial history of this 
 country did so weighty, so overwhelming, so 
 appalling a duty devolve upon any one man. 
 The lives and fortunes of thousands of his coun- 
 trymen, nay, the liberties of his country itself, 
 were involved in the issue. Had a conviction 
 been obtained against Hardy, the consequences 
 might have been most fatal. The streams of 
 blood flowing from the scaffold must have been 
 
 swelled by that shed in civil disturbances. Al- 
 ready the passions of the people were excited to 
 a degree which every day threatened the public 
 tranquillity ; and nothing was wanting but some 
 grand spectacle of blood, like that contemplated 
 by the Government, to rouse them into action. 
 In addition to these overpowering considerations, 
 the trial itself was of a nature to waste or to 
 crush the energies and courage of the most con- 
 stant mind. Such a proceeding was unparalleled 
 in the annals of the State trials of England. 
 The charge against the prisoner was to be proved 
 from the conduct, speeches, and publications of 
 a thousand different persons, at various periods 
 of time and in various places. The trial com- 
 menced on Tuesday the 28th of October ; and 
 the opening of Sir John Scott, the Attorney- 
 General, occupied upwards of seven hours. The 
 evidence for the Crown was not concluded until 
 two o'clock on the following Saturday, when Mr 
 Erskine, who had petitioned for and obtained an 
 adjournment for a few hours on that morning, 
 to afford him an opportunity of arranging the 
 evidence, came into court, and delivered a speech 
 which, standing alone, would place his name at 
 the very head of the English forensic orators. 
 The two grand objects to which he applied him- 
 self, were to cut down the law of constructive 
 treason, and to prove the innocent and legal in- 
 tentions of the accused. His argument on the 
 first branch was even superior to that which he 
 delivered on the trial of Lord George Gordon, 
 and may be regarded as the most substantial 
 monument of his genius. Of his indignant and 
 triumphant defence of the principles upon which 
 the obnoxious societies were founded, it is im- 
 possible to speak in terms adequate to its skill, 
 its force, and its splendour. The noble effort 
 was crowned with merited success, and the ver- 
 dict of the jury might have been foretold in the 
 popular acclamations which attended the close 
 of the speech. " When Mr Erskine had finished 
 his speech, an irresistible acclamation pervaded 
 the court, and to an immense distance around. 
 The streets were seemingly filled with the whole 
 of the inhabitants of London ; and the passao-es 
 were so thronged, that it was impossible for the 
 judges to get to their carriages. Mr Erskine 
 went out and addressed the multitude, desirino- 
 them to confide in the justice of the country, re- 
 minding them that the only security of English- 
 men was under the inestimable laws of England 
 and that any attempt to overawe or bias them 
 would not only be an affront to public justice, 
 but would endanger the lives of the accused. 
 He then besought them to retire, and in a few 
 minutes there was scarcely a person to be seen 
 near the court. No spectacle could be more in- 
 teresting and affecting." * 
 
 Notwithstanding the acquittal of Hardy, so 
 intent was the Government upon convincing the 
 
 "Erskine's Speeches," vol. iii., p. 502. 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 25 
 
 country of the existence of that treasonable con- 
 spiracy, which it ought to have considered its 
 own deep disgrace, that Mr Home Tooke was 
 immediately put upon his trial, and Mr Erskine 
 had once more to go over the same ground which 
 he had so triumphantly trod in his defence 
 of Hardy. His speech was, consequently, in all 
 its essential parts, a repetition of the brilliant 
 oration he had jut;b delivered. But the circum- 
 stances in which he now stood induced him to 
 assume even a higher and more confident tone ; 
 and in one instance, where his doctrines seemed 
 to excite something like disapprobation, he en- 
 forced them in a manner which showed his full 
 confidence in the verdict. 
 
 " To expose further the extreme absurdity of 
 this accusation, if it be possible further to expose 
 it, let me suppose that we were again at peace 
 with France, while the other nations, who are 
 now our allies, should continue to prosecute the 
 war — would it then be criminal to congratulate 
 France upon her successes against them ? When 
 that time arrives, might I not honestly wish the 
 triumph of the French arms ? And might I not 
 lawfully express that wish ? I know certainly 
 that I might — and I know also that I would ! I 
 observe that this sentiment seems a bold one ; 
 but who is prepared to tell me that I shall not ? 
 I will assert the freedom of an Englishman ; I 
 will maintain the dignity of man ; I will vin- 
 dicate and glory in the principles which raised 
 this country to her pre-eminence among the 
 nations of the earth ; and as she shone the bright 
 star of the morning, to shed the light of liberty 
 upon nations which now enjoy it, so may she 
 continue in her radiant sphere to revive the 
 ancient privileges of the world, which have been 
 lost, and still to bring them forward to tongues 
 and people who have never yet known them, in 
 the mysterious progression of things." 
 
 The principle which governed Mr Erskine in 
 these defences was fully developed by him after- 
 wards in his speech, in the following year, upon 
 Mr Sheridan's motion for the repeal of the Habeas 
 Corpus Suspension Act. "Little reliance had 
 we upon the law as we stated it ; for though we 
 were firmly convinced that the defence was in- 
 vulnerable in point of law, not only by the 
 statute, but even by all the authorities, yet we 
 did not expect that the jury would prefer our 
 statement, as advocates, to the judgment of the 
 Court, whether well or ill founded; but we looked 
 to the great sheet-anchor of the cause, viz., the 
 gross falsehood and absurdity of the supposed 
 conspiracy, on which we relied and on which we 
 prevailed," 
 
 During the session of 1795-96, Mr Erskine dis- 
 tinguished himself in Parliament by his strenu- 
 ous opposition to two measures, which were, as 
 he conceived, directed against the liberty of the 
 subject. Upon the first of these, the Seditious 
 Meetings Bill, he spoke with an energy and 
 boldness not often exhibited within the walls of 
 
 Parliament. "'If the king's ministers,'" said 
 he, adopting the words of Lord Chatham, " ' will 
 not admit a constitutional question to be decided 
 on according to the forms and on the principles 
 of the constitution, it must then be decided in 
 some other manner ; and rather than that it 
 should be given up, rather than the nation should 
 surrender their birthright to a despotic minister, 
 I hope, my lords, old as I am, I shall see the 
 question brought to issue, and fairly tried be- 
 tween the people and the Government.' With 
 the sanction of the sentiments of the venerable 
 and illustrious Earl of Chatham, I will maintain 
 that the people of England should defend their 
 rights, if necessary, by the last extremity to which 
 freemen can resort. For my own part, I shall 
 never cease to struggle in support of liberty. In 
 no situation will I desert the cause! I was 
 
 born a free man, and, by , I will never 
 
 die a slave ! " In the debates on the proceed- 
 ings respecting Mr Reeves' libel on the British 
 constitution, Mr Erskine also took an active 
 part. 
 
 In the first session of the new Parliament 
 which met in 1796, Mr Erskine, having been 
 again returned for Portsmouth, took a part in 
 the debates on the king's message respecting the 
 rupture of the negotiation for peace. His speech 
 on this occasion was interrupted by a sudden 
 attack of illness : ** He suddenly stopped, and, 
 after a pause, sat down under evident symptoms 
 of indisposition." 
 
 The subject of reform being again brought 
 before Parliament by Mr Grey in 1797, Mr 
 Erskine supported him in a very argumentative 
 speech, his only effort in Parliament in the course 
 of that year. Nor does his name occur again in 
 the debates until the year 1800, upon the debate 
 on the king's message respecting overtures of 
 peace from the Consular Government of France. 
 In the coarse of the same year he spoke in favour 
 of an attempt made to repress adultery by the 
 sanctions of criminal justice. He said, "That 
 it never, perhaps, had fallen to the lot of any 
 man to have conducted so many civil actions of 
 this description, and that it was the result of 
 that experience that had convinced him, not 
 merely of the impropriety, but of the senseless 
 absurdity, of considering adultery as a civil 
 injury, instead of a high public offence." In 
 the following year he took a part in the de- 
 bates on the eligibility of Mr Home Tooke 
 to sit in the House of Commons ; and in 
 1802 he spoke at some length on the motion 
 for an address respecting the removal of Mr 
 Pitt. 
 
 In general all the great efforts of Mr Erskine 
 at the bar, especially in the political cases in 
 which he was engaged, were on behalf of the 
 accused ; but in 1797 he appeared as counsel for 
 the prosecution in the case of Williams, indicted 
 for the publication of Paine's "Age of Reason." 
 The task, which in other hands would have been 
 
easy, presented to him considerable difficulties, 
 which, however, he avoided with great discretion 
 and success, deserting not a single one of the 
 principles which he had on other occasions main- 
 tained. The prosecution in this case had been 
 instituted by the Proclamation Society, an 
 association for the suppression of blasphemous 
 and seditious publications, and Mr Erskine ap- 
 peared to support it by virtue of the general re- 
 tainer which he held for the Society. Williams 
 was convicted, and on the motion of Mr Erskine 
 was brought up for judgment. Between the 
 time of that motion and the judgment of the 
 Court being passed upon him, some circumstances 
 occurred which induced Mr Erskine to suggest, 
 to those who employed him, the propriety of in- 
 structing him to state that they were satisfied 
 with the punishment already inflicted on the 
 defendant by his commitment to Newgate. The 
 answer from the Society was that though they 
 did not wish to press for a severe judgment, they 
 did not feel themselves justified in expressing a 
 wish for lenity. This resolution being com- 
 municated by the secretary to Mr Erskine, he 
 declined being further concerned for the Society, 
 and returned their retainer. A statement of the 
 circumstances, which induced Mr Erskine to 
 adopt this unusual step, was many years after- 
 wards communicated by him to Mr Howell, the 
 editor of the "State Trials," at the request of 
 that gentleman. The narrative is a very inter- 
 esting one. *' Having convicted Williams, as 
 will appear by your report of his trial, and be- 
 fore he had notice to attend the Court to receive 
 judgment, I happened to pass one day through 
 the Old Turnstile, from Holbom, in my way to 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, when in the narrowest part 
 of it I felt something pulling me by the coat, when 
 on turning round I saw a woman at my feet 
 bathed in tears, and emaciated with disease and 
 sorrow, who continued almost to drag me into a 
 miserable hovel in the passage, where I found 
 she was attending upon two or three unhappy 
 children in the confluent small-pox, and in the 
 same apartment, not above ten or twelve feet 
 square, the wretched man whom I had convicted 
 was sewing up little religious tracts, which had 
 been his principal employment in his trade ; and 
 I was fully convinced that his poverty and not 
 his will had led to the publication of this in- 
 famous book, as, without any kind of stipula- 
 tion for mercy on my part, he voluntarily and 
 eagerly engaged to find out all the copies in 
 circulation, and to bring them to me to be de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 " I was most deeply affected with what I had 
 seen, and feeling the strongest impression that 
 he offered a happy opportunity to the prose- 
 cutors of vindicating, and rendering universally 
 popular, the cause in which they had succeeded, 
 I wrote my opinion to that effect, observing (if 
 I well remember) that mercy being the grand 
 characteristic of the Christian religion, Avhich 
 
 had been defamed and insulted, it might be 
 here exercised not only safely, but more usefully 
 to the objects of the prosecution, than by the 
 most severe judgment, which must be attended 
 with the ruin of this helpless family. 
 
 ** My advice was most respectfully received 
 by the Society, and I have no doubt honestly 
 rejected, because that most excellent prelate, 
 Bishop Porteus, and many other honourable 
 persons, concurred in rejecting it; but I had 
 still a duty of my own to perform, considering 
 myself not as counsel for the Society, but for the 
 Crown. If I had been engaged for all or any of 
 the individuals composing it, prosecuting by 
 indictment for any personal injury punishable 
 by indictment, and had convicted a defendant, 
 I must have implicitly followed my instructions, 
 however inconsistent with my own ideas of hu- 
 manity or moderation ; because every man who 
 is injured has a clear right to demand the highest 
 penalty which the law will inflict ; but in the 
 present instance I was in fact not retained at 
 all, but responsible to the Crown for my con- 
 duct. Such a voluntary society, however re- 
 spectable or useful, having received no injury, 
 could not erect itself into a ctistos morum, and 
 claim a right to dictate to counsel who had 
 consented to be employed on the part of the 
 king for the ends of justice only." 
 
 In the year 1797, Mr Erskine published his 
 "Views of the Causes and Consequences of the 
 present War with France," a pamphlet which 
 attracted very great attention, and in the course 
 of the first year after its publication went 
 through several large editions. To expose the 
 folly and futility of that apparently interminable 
 war of principle in which we were then engaged 
 with France, was the object of this excellent 
 publication, which, although it produced a con- 
 siderable effect upon the public mind, failed in 
 any manner to influence the measures of Govern- 
 ment. In point of composition this pamphlet;, 
 when compared with the speeches, undoubtedly 
 appears inferior. There is an effort in the style 
 by no means in all cases successful; and it 
 wants not only the freedom, but sometimes the 
 force, which distinguish all the speeches. The 
 first twenty pages will be found an excellent 
 introduction to the speeches on the cases of high 
 treason in 1794. The origin and progress of the 
 societies for reform are there clearly though 
 briefly detailed ; and while the excesses of some 
 are admitted, the legality of their general object 
 is maintained and defended. 
 
 In a letter addressed to Dr Parr soon after the 
 publication of the above pamphlet, Mr Erskine 
 says : " I cannot say how much I thank you for 
 remarking the negligence with which it cannot 
 but be filled. I wonder it is not nonsense from 
 beginning to end, for I wrote it amidst constant 
 interruption, great part of it in open court, 
 during the trial of causes. Fifteen thousand 
 copies have been sold in England, besides edi- 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 27 
 
 tions printed at Dublin and Edinburgh, where 
 the sale has been unusual." * 
 
 In the speeches of Mr Erskine already noticed 
 there are none, with the exception of that on 
 the trial of Lord George Gordon, exhibiting, in 
 any prominent manner, those skilful observa- 
 tions upon evidence which form the chief part 
 of our forensic oratory. The cases of libel af- 
 forded no opportunity of the kind ; and in the 
 great trials for high treason in 1794, the evidence, 
 though most voluminous, was of a nature that 
 admitted of nothing but general comments. It 
 might be supposed, from the perusal of those 
 speeches, that, however successful Mr Erskine 
 might be in selecting and arguing upon the 
 principle of a defence, it was yet very possible 
 that in cases depending upon the nice and skilful 
 weighing of doubtful or contradictory evidence, 
 and in the delicate task of presenting it in a 
 proper light to the jury, he might be found not 
 to possess the same admirable qualities which 
 he displayed in cases involving general argument 
 and observation. That such, however, was not 
 the fact appeared almost daily in the course of 
 Ms large professional practice at Guildhall ; and 
 though so few cases are to be found amongst liis 
 printed speeches in corroboration of this asser- 
 tion, there is one which affords full and sufficient 
 evidence of its correctness. In the year 1799 
 Lord Thanet, Mr Fergusson, a barrister, and 
 some other gentlemen, were indicted for a mis- 
 demeanour in attempting to rescue Arthur 
 O'Connor on his acquittal on a trial for high 
 treason, and before he was discharged by the 
 Court. The case rested entirely on the nicest 
 construction of evidence, it being necessary for 
 the Crown to prove the motives of the defendants 
 from their conduct in the midst of a most sudden 
 and alarming tumult. The judges who presided 
 at the trial and many other honourable persons 
 were called by the Crown ; and to explain away 
 the evidence of those witnesses, to clear up the 
 ambiguity it occasioned, and to reconcile it with 
 the supposition of his clients' innocence, and 
 with the evidence of other persons equally high 
 in character, who appeared for the defendants, 
 required talents of a very peculiar and admirable 
 order. Yet this task was accomplished by Mr 
 Erskine with a degree of skill which proves him 
 to have been an advocate highly accomplished 
 in this very difficult branch of his profession. 
 Notwithstanding the great ingenuity displayed 
 on behalf of the defendants, and the real strength 
 of their case, the jury found a verdict of guilty, 
 which was probably very greatly owing to the 
 bold and skilful cross-examination of Mr Sheri- 
 dan, one of the witnesses for the defence, by Mr 
 Law, afterwards Lord Ellenborough. 
 
 Upon the trial of Hadfield, in April 1800, for 
 high treason, in shooting at the king in the 
 theatre of Drury Lane, Mr Erskine appeared as 
 
 * Parr's " Works," vol. vii., p. 628. 
 
 counsel for the prisoner; and notwithstanding 
 the apparent leaning of the Court, at the com- 
 mencement of the trial, to a contrary opinion, 
 succeeded in establishing the derangement of 
 the prisoner. There cannot, perhaps, be any- 
 where found a more clear and accurate com- 
 mentary on insanity, as connected with the 
 criminal law, than is contained in this speech. 
 The principle for which Mr Erskine contended, 
 and within which he successfully attempted to 
 bring the case of his client, was, that where the 
 act in question is the immediate unqualified off- 
 spring of the disease, and in such case only, the 
 perpetrator of that act is not exposed to the 
 penaltiesof criminal justice. Such, undoubtedly, 
 was the crime attempted by the prisoner, who 
 acted under the morbid delusion that he was 
 called upon to perish for the benefit of mankind, 
 and who, in pursuance of that delusion, pur- 
 posely exposed himself to the vengeance of the 
 law. It has been said that the counsel for the 
 Crown were dissatisfied with the view of the 
 case ultimately taken by the Court. 
 
 In the year 1802, Mr Erskine, in common with 
 many other distinguished Englishmen, taking 
 advantage of the peace, visited Paris. He was 
 presented to the First Consul on the same day 
 with Mr Fox ; but the fame of the latter seemed 
 totally to eclipse that of all his countrymen in 
 the estimation of Napoleon, who did not appear 
 to be duly sensible of Mr Erskine's great cele- 
 brity and singular merit, passing him with the 
 simple question, " Etes-vous legiste ? " * 
 
 During the administration of Mr Addington, 
 Mr Erskine, led by the example of Lord Moira, 
 Mr Sheridan, Mr Tierney, and others of the 
 friends with whom he had usually acted, mani- 
 fested a willingness to support the new minister, 
 and was even on the point of accepting the office 
 of Attorney-General. Overtures to that effect 
 having been transmitted to him by Mr Adding- 
 ton, he thought it his duty to lay them before 
 the Prince of Wales, whose service, in case of 
 an acceptance of the office, it would be necessary 
 for him to relinquish. In his answer, conveyed 
 through Mr Sheridan, the prince, while he ex- 
 pressed the most friendly feelings towards Mr 
 Erskine, declined at the same time giving any 
 opinion as to either his acceptance or refusal of 
 the office of Attorney-General, if offered to him 
 under the present circumstances. His Royal 
 Highness also added the expression of his sincere 
 regret, that a proposal of this nature should 
 have been submitted to his consideration by 
 one of whose attachment and fidelity to himself 
 he was well convinced, but who ought to have 
 felt, from the line of conduct adopted and per- 
 severed in by his Royal Highness, that he was 
 the very last person who should have been ap- 
 plied to for either his opinion or countenance 
 respecting the political conduct or connections 
 
 * Trotter's " Memoirs of Fox," p. 268. 
 
28 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of any public character, especially of one so 
 intimately connected with him, and belonging 
 to his family.* Upon this expression of the 
 prince's sentiments, the offer was of course de- 
 clined. 
 
 In the negotiations which took place about 
 this time between Mr Fox and the Grenville- 
 Windhamites, as they were termed, Mr Erskine 
 adhered to the party of the old opposition. He 
 formed one of those who met at Norfolk House 
 for the purpose of presenting a friendly remon- 
 strance to Mr Fox, stating the various reasons 
 which offered themselves against the formation 
 of the contemplated alliance. The remonstrance 
 was said to have been drawn up by Mr Erskine. 
 
 At length, on the formation of the Whig 
 ministry in 1806, the consistency and integrity 
 of Mr Erskine were rewarded by the gift of the 
 highest dignity which his profession could con- 
 fer. Although his practice had been confined 
 altogether to the Courts of Common Law, his 
 character and reputation were such, that the 
 Great Seal was, without hesitation, confided to 
 his hands, and he was immediately created a 
 peer, by the title of Baron Erskine of Restormel 
 Castle, in the county of Cornwall, on the sug- 
 gestion, as it appears by his own narration, of 
 the Prince of Wales. In a letter to Mr Howell, 
 referring to his conduct with regard to his loss 
 of office, in consequence of his defence of Paine, 
 he says: "I have troubled you with this short 
 history, oecause it may remind some who are 
 but too apt to think that unprincipled subser- 
 viency is the surest road to preferment, that 
 honesty is the best policy; since, when the 
 Great Seal was afterwards vacant, his Royal 
 Highness, in conjunction with my revered friend, 
 Charles Fox, considered my succession as indis- 
 pensable to the formation of the new adminis- 
 tration, presented me with a seal with my initial 
 and a coronet engraved on it, and desired me to 
 take Restormel Castle as the designation of my 
 title, as belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, 
 and the seat of the most ancient Dukes of Corn- 
 wall." 
 
 On the breaking up of the administration in 
 1807, Lord Erskine accompanied the friends 
 with whom he had so long acted, and resigned 
 the Great Seal. 
 
 From the period of his retirement from oflSce, 
 Lord Erskine seldom appeared in public life. In 
 the year 1809, however, he came forward in a 
 cause which can never fail to engage the sym- 
 pathies of every person of common feeling — the 
 repression of wanton and malicious cruelty to 
 animals. With this view he introduced a bill 
 into the House of Lords, which, upon the second 
 reading, he supported in a speech which, if not 
 glowing with the splendour of his former elo- 
 quence, was full of the most amiable and at the 
 same time the most elevated sentiments. The 
 
 * Moore's "Life of Sheridan," vol. ii., p. S2,'J. 
 
 bill, after passing the Lords, was lost in the 
 Commons, by the influence of the false and 
 frivolous argument to which Lord Erskine ad- 
 verted in his speech. "As to the tendency of 
 barbarous sports," said he, *' of any kind or de- 
 scription whatsoever to nourish the national 
 characteristics of manliness and courage (the 
 only shadow of argument I ever heard on such 
 occasions), all I can say is this, that from the mer- 
 cenary battles of the lowest of beasts (viz., human 
 boxers) up to those of the highest and noblest 
 that are tormented by man for his degrading 
 pastime, I enter this public protest against it. 
 I never knew a man remarkable for heroic bra- 
 very whose very aspect was not lighted up by 
 gentleness and humanity, nor a kill-and-eat-him 
 countenance, that did not cover the heart of a 
 bully or a poltroon."* Lord Erskine had the 
 satisfaction before he died of seeing a bill em- 
 bodying many of the provisions of that intro- 
 duced by himself pass into a law. 
 
 Of the later years of Lord Erskine's life little 
 remains to be told. Unfortunately, those years 
 were not free from embarrassments and failings, 
 which it would be painful to relate. His pecu- 
 niary circumstances involved him in difficulties 
 from which a second marriage, into which he 
 entered, did not tend to extricate him. Occa- 
 sionally only he appeared in public. With that 
 warm attachment to freedom which distinguished 
 his earlier days he came forward to the assist- 
 ance of the struggling Greeks, and gave to their 
 cause the aid of his honoured but almost forgot- 
 ten name. To interest the nation in their favour, 
 he resumed his pen, and published various pam- 
 phlets on the subject. He also, a few years 
 later, gave to the world a political romance, 
 under the title of ** Armata." In the year 1815, 
 on the death of the Marquis of Lothian, the 
 Prince Regent, in memory of his former 
 friendship and attachment to Lord Erskine, 
 was pleased to bestow upon him the order of 
 the Thistle. 
 
 At length that event occurred which those 
 who loved his fame would gladly have welcomed 
 earlier. In the year 1823, as he was accompany- 
 ing one of his sons to Edinburgh by sea, he was 
 attacked with inflammation of the chest, a com- 
 plaint from which he had before suffered very 
 severely. He was in consequence set on shore 
 at Scarborough, whence he travelled by easy 
 stages to Scotland. The complaint, however, 
 gained ground, and on the 17th of November 
 he died at Almondale, six or seven miles from 
 Edinburgh. On the 28th of the same month 
 he was buried in the family vault at Uphall 
 Church. 
 
 Lord Erskine had issue three sons and five 
 daughters by his first wife. He was succeeded 
 in his title by his eldest son, David Montague. 
 
 The eloquence of Lord Erskine was of a very 
 
 * Printed speech, p. 11. 
 
LORD ERSKINE, 
 
 29 
 
 high order. Though never deficient in any of 
 those qualities, it was not indebted for its excel- 
 lence either to beauty of diction, or to richness 
 of ornament, or to felicity of illustration — it was 
 from its unrivalled strength and vigour that it 
 derived its superior character. The intentness, 
 the earnestness, the vehemence, the energy of 
 the advocate, were ever present throughout his 
 speeches, impressing his arguments upon the 
 mind of the hearer with a force which seemed to 
 compel conviction. Throughout even the longest 
 of his speeches there is no weakness, no failing, 
 no flagging, but the same lively statement of 
 facts, the same spirited and pointed exposition 
 of argument. He never gave way to what he 
 has happily termed "the Westminster Hall 
 necessity," of filling up his speech with com- 
 mon-places, but invariably presented his sub- 
 ject in some striking or brilliant light, which 
 never failed to rivet the attention and to work 
 upon the convictions of the audience. 
 
 In examining those particular qualities of 
 Lord Erskine's speeches which contributed more 
 obviously to their success, the most remarkable 
 will appear to be the exact and sedulous adher- 
 ence to some one great principle which they 
 uniformly exhibit. In every case he proposed a 
 great leading principle, to which all his efforts 
 were referable and subsidiary, which ran through 
 the whole of his address, arranging, governing, 
 and elucidating every portion. As the principle 
 thus proposed was founded in truth and justice, 
 whatever might be its application to the parti- 
 cular case, it necessarily gave to the whole of his 
 speech an air of honesty and sincerity which a 
 jury could with difficulty resist. To bring the 
 case before him within the operation of this 
 principle was indeed frequently an arduous task, 
 which Mr Erskine nevertheless performed with 
 consummate skill and delicacy. Even when, as 
 in Paine's case, the accomplishment of that task 
 was impossible, the adoption of a principle 
 which he could conscientiously defend and en- 
 force gave him, as an advocate, incalculable ad- 
 vantages. In the cursory examination of Lord 
 Erskine's speeches which has already been given, 
 an attempt has been made to point out in each 
 particular instance the peculiar principle upon 
 which the defence was rested. 
 
 The style of Lord Erskine's speeches may be 
 regarded as a model for serious forensic oratory ; 
 it is clear, animated, forcible, and polished; 
 never loaded with meretricious ornament, never 
 debased by colloquial vulgarisms. It is through- 
 out sustained in a due and dignified elevation. 
 The illustrations which it exhibits are borrowed 
 rather from the intellectual than the material 
 world, and its ornaments are rather those of sen- 
 timent than of diction. It receives little assist- 
 ance from the quaintness of similes or the bril- 
 liancy of metaphors, and is addressed rather to 
 tlie reason and to the passions than to the 
 taste and imagination of the hearer. It sel- 
 
 dom displays any attempt at wit, or even at 
 humour, though occasional instances of the 
 latter quality are to be found in the speeches. 
 
 Although the speeches of Lord Erskine can- 
 not be compared with those of Mr Burke for the 
 varied exposition of philosophical principles in 
 which those extraordinary productions abound, 
 yet they not unfrequently display a profound 
 acquaintance with human nature and with the 
 springs of human action. These reflections 
 always arise naturally out of the subject which 
 they enforce and illustrate. How admirable and 
 how true are the following observations from 
 the speech for the council of Madras, and how 
 worthy to be held in perpetual and cautious re- 
 membrance! "Some of the darkest and most 
 dangerous prejudices of men arise from the most 
 honourable principles of the mind. When pre- 
 judices are caught up from bad passions, the 
 worst of men feel intervals of remorse to soften 
 and disperse them ; but when they arise from a 
 generous though mistaken source, they are 
 hugged closer to the bosom, and the kindest 
 and most compassionate natures feel a pleasure 
 in fostering a blind and unjust resentment." 
 An attentive perusal of the speeches will furnish 
 innumerable instances of the same power of high 
 philosophical reflection. 
 
 There probably never was an advocate who 
 studied with nicer discrimination and more deli- 
 cate tact the feelings of the jury. Even in the 
 most impassioned passages of his oratory, when 
 it might have been expected that his mind would 
 have been wholly absorbed in his subject, he 
 was intently watching the impression of his 
 speech, as revealed in the countenances of the 
 jury. Guided by this index, he regulated the 
 character of his address ; now rising, as he saw 
 the feelings of the jury rise, into warm and elo- 
 quent displays of oratory ; now subsiding, as he 
 marked the passions of the jury subside, into 
 cool and temperate argument. His speeches are 
 full of observations which record this singular 
 faculty. In his speech on the trial of Lord 
 George Gordon, he exclaimed, "Gentlemen, I 
 see your minds revolt at such shocking proposi- 
 tions." In that for the Dean of St Asaph, 
 "Gentlemen, I observe an honest indignation 
 rising in all your countenances on the subject, 
 which, with the arts of an advocate, I might 
 easily press into the service of my friend." On 
 the trial of Paine, when the defendant's letter to 
 the Attorney-General was read, " I see but too 
 plainly," said Mr Erskine, " the impression it 
 has made on you who are to try the cause ; " and 
 in the course of the same trial he said, " I am 
 not asking your opinions of the doctrines them- 
 selves; you have given them already, pretty 
 visibly, since I began to address you." In the 
 course of that trial the impatience of the jury, 
 and of one of them in particular, became so 
 visible that Mr Erskine broke out into the follow- 
 ing rebuke : " When the noble judge and myself 
 
were counsel for Lord George Gordon in 1781, 
 it was not considered by that jury, nor imputed 
 to us by anybody, that we were contending for 
 the privilege of overawing the House of Com- 
 mons or recommending the conflagration of this 
 city. I am doing the same duty now which my 
 lord and I then did in concert together; and 
 whatever may become of the cause, I expect to 
 be heard, conscious that no just obloquy can be 
 or will in the end be cast upon me for having 
 done my duty in the manner I have endeavoured 
 to perform it. Sir," continued Mr Erskine, ad- 
 dressing a refractory juryman, *' I shall name 
 you presently." On the trial of Stockdale, he 
 said : " Gentlemen, I observe plainly, and with 
 infinite satisfaction, that you are shocked and 
 offended at my even supposing it possible that 
 you should pronounce such a detestable judg- 
 ment." Nay, even after he had ceased to ad- 
 dress the jury, his eye was still fixed upon them, 
 watching the variations of their countenances as 
 they listened to the instructions of the judge. 
 " I particularly observed," said he, in address- 
 ing the Court of King's Bench on the rule for a 
 new trial on the Dean of St Asaph's case — "I 
 particularly observed how much ground I lost 
 with the jury, when they were told from the 
 bench that even in Bushel's case, upon which I 
 so greatly depended, the very reverse of my 
 doctrine had been expressly established." Nu- 
 merous other instances of this watchfulness 
 might be collected from Mr Ersk ine's speeches. 
 Among the characteristics of Lord Erskine's 
 eloquence, the perpetual illustrations derived 
 from the writings of Burke is very remarkable. 
 In every one of the great State trials in which 
 he was engaged he referred to the productions of 
 that extraordinary person as to a text-book of 
 political wisdom, expounding, enforcing, and 
 justifying all the great and noble principles of 
 freedom and of justice. Upon one occasion he 
 repeated from memory more than a page of those 
 brilliant writings, which he always ushered in 
 with high-sounding and even pompous pane- 
 gyric. On the trial of Home Tooke he cited a 
 passage from Burke, denouncing it as dangerous 
 in principle, but accompanying the denuncia- 
 tion with an encomium which proves how deeply 
 he had studied and how fervently he admired 
 the transcendent genius of the writer. "Let us 
 try Mr Burke's book by the same test. Though 
 I have no doubt it was written with an honest 
 intention, yet it contains, in my mind, a dan- 
 gerous principle, destructive of British liberty. 
 What then? ought I to seek its suppression? 
 ought I to pronounce him to be criminal who 
 promotes its circulation ? Far, far from that ; I 
 shall take care to put it into the hands of those 
 whose principles are left to my formation. I 
 shall take care that they have the advantage of 
 doing, in the regular progression of youthful 
 study, what I have done, even in the short in- 
 tervals of laborious life ; that they shall tran- 
 
 scribe with their own hands from all the works 
 of this most extraordinary person, and from the 
 last among the rest, the soundest truths of reli- 
 gion ; the justest principles of morals, inculcated 
 and rendered delightful by the most sublime 
 eloquence, the highest reach of philosophy 
 brought down to the level of common minds by 
 the most captivating taste, the most enlightened 
 observations on history, and the most copious 
 collection of useful maxims from the experience 
 of common life. All this they shall do, and 
 separate for themselves the good from the evil, 
 taking the one as far more than a counterpoise 
 for the other." In his "View of the Causes and 
 Consequences of the Present War with France," 
 Mr Erskine again acknowledges his obligations 
 to the genius of Burke. " When I look," says 
 he, " into my own mind, and find its best lights 
 and principles fed from that immense magazine 
 of moral and political wisdom which he has left 
 as an inheritance to mankind for their instruc- 
 tion, I feel myself repelled by an awful and 
 grateful sensibility from petulantly approach- 
 ing him." 
 
 It is greatly to be lamented that so few of 
 Lord Erskine's miscellaneous speeches at the bar 
 have been preserved, for though necessarily in- 
 ferior in magnificence of conception and in mas- 
 terly execution to his great speeches in the State 
 trials, they would furnish invaluable models in 
 each particular case of argumentative eloquence. 
 A few of these speeches have been preserved in 
 a single volume, edited by Mr Ridgway, suffi- 
 cient to induce a great regret, that a more copi- 
 ous collection of them has not been formed. 
 Amongst the most remarkable of them are two 
 which require to be more particularly noticed, 
 from the celebrity which Lord Erskine acquired 
 in speeches of that class — those in the cases of 
 Markham v. Fawcett and Howard v. Bingham, 
 in actions for criminal conversation, in the for- 
 mer of which Mr Erskine appeared for the plain- 
 tiff and in the latter for the defendant. Such 
 was the success of Mr Erskine in cases of this 
 kind that he was almost invariably secured by 
 the plaintiff, and only in three or four instances 
 appeared as advocate for the defendant. In the 
 first-mentioned case the sheriff's jury gave the 
 plaintiff a verdict of £7000, in the latter of £500. 
 The extenuating circumstance in that case was 
 the attachment subsisting before marriage be- 
 tween the defendant and the wife of the plain- 
 tiff, a circumstance of which Mr Erskine 
 availed himself with his characteristic boldness 
 and ability. 
 
 "If, therefore, Mr Bingham this day could 
 have by me addressed to you his wrongs in the 
 character of a plaintiff demanding reparation, 
 what damages might I not have asked for him, 
 and without the aid of this imputed eloquence, 
 what damages might I not have expected ? I 
 would have brought before you a noble youth 
 who had fixed his affections upon one of the most 
 
LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 31 
 
 beautiful of her sex, and who enjoyed hers in 
 return. I would have shown you their suitable 
 condition. I would have painted the expecta- 
 tion of an honourable union, and would have 
 concluded by showing her to you in the arms of 
 another by the legal prostitution of parental 
 choice in the teeth of affection : with child by a 
 rival, and only reclaimed at last, after so cruel 
 and so afflicting a divorce, with her freshest 
 charms despoiled and her very morals, in a 
 manner, impeached by asserting the purity and 
 virtue of her original and spotless choice. Good 
 
 ! imagine my client to be plaintiff, and 
 
 what damages are you not prepared to give him ! 
 and yet he is here as defendant, and damages 
 are demanded against him. monstrous con- 
 clusion!" 
 
 Throughout the whple course of his very dis- 
 tinguished professional career, Lord Erskine ad- 
 hered with constancy and fidelity to the political 
 principles and engagements with which he began 
 life. His ambition was of too noble a nature to 
 look for its reward in honours meanly earned at 
 the expense of integrity. It cannot be doubted 
 that many occasions occurred to him of barter- 
 ing his political character for place or for emolu- 
 ment, but, undazzledby false splendour, he always 
 refused to become a party to such an exchange. 
 Nor did he ever suffer political considerations to 
 prevent him from the due and just discharge of 
 his professional duties, preferring, as in the 
 case of Paine, the certain loss of office and ad- 
 vancement to the sullying of his high professional 
 character. 
 
 It would be inexcusable in this place to omit 
 the following fine observations on the profes- 
 sional character of Lord Erskine, from the pen, 
 it has been said, of a most distinguished person, 
 himself a very illustrious ornament of the pro- 
 fession which was once adorned by the splendid 
 genius and elevated by the lofty reputation of 
 Erskine. "The professional life of this eminent 
 person, who has of late years reached the high- 
 est honours of the law, is in every respect useful 
 as an example to future lawyers. It shows that a 
 base time-serving demeanour towards the judges 
 and a corrupt or servile conduct towards the 
 Government, are not the only, though, from the 
 frailty of human nature and the wickedness of 
 the age, they may often prove the surest, roads 
 to preferment. It exalts the character of the 
 English barrister beyond what in former times 
 it had attained, and holds out an illustrious 
 instance of patriotism and independence, united 
 with the highest legal excellence, and crowned 
 in the worst of times with the most ample suc- 
 cess. But it is doubly important, by proving 
 how much a single man can do against the cor- 
 ruptions of his age, and how far he can vindicate 
 the liberties of his country, so long as courts of 
 justice are pure, by raising his single voice 
 against the outcry of the people and the influence 
 of the Crown, at the time when the union of 
 
 these opposite forces was bearing down all 
 opposition in Parliament, and daily setting at 
 nought the most splendid talents, armed with 
 the most just cause. While the administration 
 of the law flows in pure channels ; while the 
 judges are incorruptible, and watched by the 
 scrutinising eyes of an enlightened bar, as well 
 as by the jealous attention of the country ; while 
 juries continue to know and to exercise their 
 high functions, and a single advocate of honesty 
 and talents remain, thank God ! happen what 
 will in other places, our personal safety is be- 
 yond the reach of a corrupt ministry and their 
 venal adherents. Justice will hold her even 
 balance in the midst of hosts armed with gold 
 or with steel. The law will be administered 
 steadily, while the principles of right and wrong, 
 the evidence of the senses themselves, the very 
 axioms of arithmetic, may seem elsewhere to be 
 mixed in one giddy and inextricable confusion ; 
 and after every other plank of the British con- 
 stitution shall have sunk below the weight of 
 the Crown, or been stove in by the violence of 
 popular commotion, that one will remain, to 
 which we are ever fondest of clinging, and by 
 which we can always most surely be saved."* 
 
 The great truths of religion were early im- 
 pressed by education on the mind of Lord 
 Erskine, and they continued to exercise_, through- 
 out his whole life, a powerful influence over his 
 feelings. It was not the language of the advo- 
 cate when, on the trial of Paine, he made the 
 following eloquent profession: "For my own 
 part, I have been ever deeply devoted to the 
 truths of Christianity; and my firm belief in 
 the Holy Gospel is by no means owing to the 
 prejudices of education (though I was religiously 
 educated by the best of parents), but has arisen 
 from the fullest and most continued reflections 
 of my riper years and understanding. It forms, 
 at this moment, the great consolation of a life 
 which, as a shadow, passes away ; and without 
 it, I should consider my long course of health 
 and prosperity (too long, perhaps, and too un- 
 interrupted to be good for any man), as the dust 
 which the wind scatters, and rather as a snare 
 than a blessing." 
 
 It must be admitted, that in the moral char- 
 acter of Lord Erskine there were failings, which 
 more thoughtful and prudent men would have 
 avoided; and though it may be regretted, it 
 cannot be a matter of surprise, that he did not 
 exhibit a union of contradictory qualities, dis- 
 playing at once the ardent temperament of 
 genius, and the blameless and passionless con- 
 duct of less sensitive natures. It is unfortu- 
 nately but too true, to use his own words, that 
 " it is the nature of everything that is great or 
 useful in the animate and inanimate world to 
 be wild and irregular; and we must W content- 
 ed to take them with the alloys that belong to 
 
 Edinburgh Review, vol. xvi., p J 27. 
 
32 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 them, or to live without them." He was him- 
 self as deeply sensible as any one could be of 
 his own failings, for the pardon of which he 
 looked with confidence to the mercy-seat of 
 God. In his speech on the trial of Stockdale, 
 there is a passage which may be regarded as a 
 commentary upon his own feelings. "Every 
 human tribunal ought to take care to administer 
 .iustice, as we look hereafter to have justice 
 administered to ourselves: upon the principle 
 on which the Attorney-General prays sentence 
 upon my client — God have mercy upon us! — 
 instead of standing before Him in judgment 
 with the hopes and consolations of Christians, 
 we must call upon the mountains to cover us ; for 
 which of us can present for Omniscient examina- 
 tion a pure, unspotted, and faultless course ? 
 But I humbly expect that the benevolent Author 
 of our being will judge us, as I have been point- 
 ing out for your example. Holding up the great 
 volume of our lives in His hand, and regarding 
 the general scope of them, if He discovers bene- 
 volence, charity, and goodwill to man, beating 
 in the heart, where He alone can look; if He 
 finds that our conduct, though often forced out 
 of the path by our infirmities, has been in 
 general well directed. His searching eye will 
 assuredly never pursue us into those little cor- 
 ners of our lives, much less will His justice 
 select them for punishment, without the general 
 context of our existence, by which faults may 
 be sometimes found to have grown out of virtues, 
 and very many of our heaviest offences to have 
 been grafted, by human imperfection, upon the 
 best and kindest of our affections. No, gentle- 
 men, believe me this is not the course of Divine 
 justice, or there is no truth in the Gospels of 
 Heaven. If the general tenor of a man's con- 
 duct be such as I have represented, he may walk 
 through the shadow of death, with all his faults 
 about him, with as much cheerfulness as in the 
 common paths of life, because he knows that, 
 instead of a stern accuser, to expose before the 
 Author of his nature those frail passages which, 
 like the scored matter in the book before you, 
 chequers the volume of the brightest and best 
 spent life, His mercy will obscure them from the 
 
 eyes of His purity, and our repentance blot 
 them out for ever." 
 
 That Lord Erskine was not altogether free from 
 the weakness of vanity, a weakness not unfre- 
 quently found in persons who, in other respects, 
 possess the strongest minds, is evident even 
 from his speeches. There is, upon various occa- 
 sions, an obvious endeavour to introduce himself 
 and his own actions to the notice of the audi- 
 ence; an ungraceful practice, which increased 
 upon him in the later part of his life, and of 
 which an instance may be seen in the debates in 
 the House of Lords of the 1st of March 1806. 
 It has been said of Lord Erskine, that " thor- 
 oughly acquainted with the world, he even con- 
 descended to have recourse to little artifices, 
 pardonable in themselves, to aid his purposes. 
 He examined the court the night before the 
 trial, in order to select the most advantageous 
 place for addressing the jury. On the cause 
 being called, the crowded audience were, per- 
 haps, kept waiting a few minutes before the 
 celebrated stranger made his appearance; and 
 when at length he gratified their impatient 
 curiosity, a particularly nice wig, and a pair of 
 new yellow gloves, distinguished and embel- 
 lished his person, beyond the ordinary costume 
 of the barristers of the circuit." 
 
 The demeanour of Lord Erskine in court was to 
 the bench respectful, though never subservient ; 
 to the bar, kind, courteous, and engaging. It 
 has been said, that during his long practice he 
 was never known, but upon one occasion, to 
 utter a harsh or rude word to those opposed to 
 him, and that, in the single instance in which 
 his temper mastered him, he made ample amends 
 by a voluntary and instantaneous apology. 
 
 In person. Lord Erskine possessed many ad- 
 vantages : his features were regular, intelligent, 
 and animated, and his action is said to have 
 been exceedingly graceful. His constitution was 
 remarkably strong; and it was mentioned by 
 himself in the House of Lords, as a singular 
 fact, that during the twenty-seven years of his 
 practice he had not been for a single day pre- 
 vented in his attendance on the courts by any 
 indisposition or corporeal infirmity. 
 
 MES GEANT OF LAGGAK 
 
 [1755-1838.] 
 
 The excellent Mrs Grant of Laggan — as she 
 continued to be designated to the end of her 
 long life from the parish of Inverness-shire of 
 which her husband had been clergyman, and 
 with which her first publications were con- 
 nected — ad'ords a remarkable example, both of 
 the successful cultivation of literature by a 
 woman in trying and unusual circumstances. 
 
 and of the attainment thereby of many worldly 
 in addition to higher advantages. She has her- 
 self told us the story of her early life and her 
 first struggles in an unfinished memoir, which 
 has been published since her death. In the 
 mere acquisition of knowledge she had i\o 
 peculiar difficulties to encounter, either from 
 circumstances or from any deficiency in herselt 
 
MRS GRANT, 
 
 33 
 
 On the contrary, her faculties were quick and 
 early developed ; and her opportunities, though 
 not aflfording her a regular education, were well 
 suited to nourish and strengthen those tenden- 
 cies and powers which chiefly gave her mind its 
 distinctive character. 
 
 •*I began life," she observes, "to the pur- 
 poses of feeling, observation, and recollection, 
 much earlier than children usually do. I was 
 not acute, I was not sagacious, but I{ had an 
 active imagination and uncommon powers of 
 memory. I had no companion ; no one fondled 
 or caressed me, far less did any one take the 
 trouble of amusing me. I did not, till the 
 sixth year of my age, possess a single toy. A 
 child with less activity of mind would have be- 
 come torpid under the same circumstances. 
 Yet, whatever of purity of thought, originality 
 of character, and premature thirst for knowledge, 
 distinguished me from other children of ray age, 
 was, I am persuaded, very much owing to these 
 privations. Never was a human being less im- 
 proved, in the sense in which that expression is 
 generally understood ; but never was one less 
 spoilt by indulgence, or more carefully pre- 
 served from every species of moral contagion. 
 The result of the peculiar circumstances in 
 which I was placed had the effect of making 
 me a kind of anomaly very different from other 
 people, and very little influenced by the motives, 
 as well as very ignorant of the modes of think- 
 ing and acting, prevalent in the world at large." 
 It was this anomalous character, in her case 
 happily free from any kind of grotesqueness or 
 absurdity, and allied to everything virtuous 
 and noble, that both directed her to literature 
 and authorship in the first instance, and gave 
 much of its interest to what she wrote. 
 
 Anne Macvicar — such was her maiden name — 
 was of Highland lineage, both by the father's 
 and the mother's side. Her father, Duncan 
 Macvicar, she describes as having been '* a 
 plain, brave, pious man. " He appears to have 
 been respectably connected, and to have been 
 brought up to an agricultaral life, but, at the 
 same time, with those military habits which in 
 that day were still nearly universal among the 
 Scottish Highlanders of all classes. His ap- 
 parent means of livelihood were derived from 
 some farming concern which he carried on in 
 conjunction with a relation, styled Captain 
 Macvicar, near Fort William, in Inverness; 
 where he married in 1753 a granddaughter of 
 Mr Stewart of Invernahyle, the head of an old 
 Argyleshire family. But the farm, probably, 
 did not prosper; for, soon after his marriage, 
 he removed with his wife to Glasgow, and there 
 his daughter was born, on the 21st of February 
 1755. She was, however, immediately sent off 
 to Inverness-shire to be nursed in the house of 
 her grandmother ; so that she was a Lowlander 
 only by the mere accident of her birthplace, and 
 the earliest sights and sounds with which she 
 
 was familiar were those of Highland scenery 
 and the Highland tongue. 
 
 She was not brought back to Glasgow till she 
 was eighteen months old ; and then it seems to 
 have been only that her father might have a 
 parting look of her before leaving his native 
 country for America, which he did soon after, 
 with a commission in a regiment of foot ; though 
 his ultimate object appears to have been that of 
 settling in the New World. His wife and 
 daughter remained in Glasgow till the begin- 
 ning of 1758, and then followed him. The 
 next year they were all collected together at a 
 Dutch settlement called Claverock, a little way 
 below the town of Albany, in the province of 
 New York, where Mr Macvicar was stationed 
 with a party of Highlanders. Here Anne was 
 taught to read by her mother; of whom her 
 description is, that she never knew a person of 
 more perfect integrity, or more deficient in 
 imagination. She learned to read, she tells us, 
 very rapidly. "Here, too," she adds, "among 
 the primitive worthies of the settlement, I 
 learned that love of truth and simplicity which 
 I found a charm against artifice and pretension 
 of any kind." Meanwhile her father had been 
 again called to active service. 
 
 They were afterwards for a short time in the 
 town of New York, then at Claverock again, 
 then in the town of Albany. From the latter 
 place, in October 1760, Anne, as yet only in 
 her sixth year, was taken by her father and 
 mother to Oswego, on the banks of Lake 
 Ontario. They set out with a party up the 
 Hudson in boats. "We had," she says, "a 
 most romantic journey; sleeping sometimes in 
 the woods, sometimes in forts, which formed a 
 chain of posts in the then trackless wilderness. 
 We had no books but the Bible and some 
 military treatises ; but I grew familiar with the 
 Old Testament ; and a Scotch sergeant brought 
 me Blind Harry's "Wallace," which by the aid 
 of such sergeant I conned so diligently, that I 
 not only understood the broad Scotch, but 
 caught an admiration for heroism, and an 
 enthusiasm for Scotland, that ever since has 
 been like a principle of life." 
 
 They returned to Albany in the following 
 year ; and, on their way back, a Captain Camp- 
 bell, an old friend of her father's, then stationed 
 at a fort on the Mohawk River, gave the child a 
 handsome copy of Milton, "which," she says, 
 "I studied to very little purpose, no doubt, all 
 the way down in the boat, but which proved a 
 treasure to me afterwards, as I never rested till I 
 found out the literal meaning of the words ; and, 
 in progress of time, at an age that I am ashamed 
 to mention, entered into the full spirit of it. 
 If I had ever any elevation of thought, expan 
 sion of mind, or genuine taste for the sublim- 
 or beautiful, I owe it to my diligent study of 
 this volume." 
 
 This, and other similar instances, are worth 
 
 C 
 
the consideration of those whose principle of 
 education is, that nothing ought ever to be put 
 into the hands of children, or attempted to be 
 taught to them, except what has been com- 
 j plotely brought down to the level of their 
 understanding. It does not appear to be in 
 this way that the growth of mind is best 
 furthered. We believe that what most fertilises 
 and excites young minds, is that which they are 
 at first capable of understanding only partially, 
 and which, instead of descending to them, 
 gradually draws them up towards itself. Little 
 good, indeed, is to be got by any of us out of 
 anything except what is more or less beyond us 
 and above us when we first apply ourselves to 
 it. Nothing else can teach us anything that is 
 really new, or at least can make the mind put 
 forth any new powers. The dimness and per- 
 plexity at the commencement, are the earnest 
 of clearness and extent of vision to come. 
 
 Let us hear Anne Macvicar's own account of 
 what in no long time she made out of her 
 childish, and as many would say, worse than 
 useless, study of "Paradise Lost." The most 
 distinguished inhabitant of Albany in those 
 days was the widow of Colonel Schuyler. 
 "Madame Schuyler's house at Albany," vsrrites 
 Mrs Grant, "was the resort of all strangers 
 whose manners or conduct entitled them to her 
 regard. Her ancestors on both sides constituted 
 the aristocracy of the province, and her descent, 
 her understanding, and education, gave her 
 great weight in society, which was increased by 
 the liberal use she made of a comparatively 
 large fortune. In her, the warmest family 
 affection and the kindest heart were entirely 
 under the control of the soundest practical 
 good sense. . . . Some time after our 
 arrival at Albany, I accompanied my parents 
 one evening to visit Madame Schuyler, whom I 
 regarded as the Minerva of my imagination, 
 and treasured all her discourse as the veritable 
 words of wisdom. The conversation fell upon 
 dreams and forewarnings. I rarely spoke till 
 spoken to at any time ; but of a sudden, the 
 spirit moved me to say that bad angels some- 
 times whispered dreams into the soul. When 
 asked for my authoritj'', I surprised every one, 
 but myself most of all, by a long quotation 
 from Eve's fatal dream infusing into her mind 
 the ambition that led to guilt. After this 
 happy quotation I became a great favourite, 
 and Madame Schuyler never failed to tell any 
 one who had read Milton of the origin of her 
 partiality." 
 
 At this time the child would appear to have 
 been hardly yet seven years old. We much 
 question if any more customary or more plau- 
 sible-looking plan of education would have 
 awakened in her mind at that age so much 
 feeling of the highest things as this quotation 
 from Milton implied. A larger or more exact 
 '-acquaintance with the mere mechanical dexteri- 
 
 ties of scholarship might no doubt have been 
 acquired by another method. But that would 
 have been comparatively worthless. "While 
 we remained in America," she proceeds, "I 
 enjoyed much of Madame Schuyler's society; 
 and after my father removed from Albany, I 
 spent two winters with her in that city. In- 
 deed, if my parents would have parted ynth 
 me, she would have kept me entirely with 
 herself. Whatever culture my mind received, 
 I owe to her." 
 
 In 1768, her father, whose health was begin- 
 ning to give way, and who thought he had 
 secured a provision for himself and his family 
 by some land which he had purchased in 
 America on easy terms, and the market value 
 of which was every day rising as the surround- 
 ing country became cleared and inhabited, de- 
 termined to return with his family to Scotland. 
 They arrived at Glasgow in May. Anne was 
 now in her fourteenth year. "1 was first 
 sought after," she says, "as something curious 
 and anomalous, having none of the embellish- 
 ments of education, knowing only reading, 
 writing, and needlework ; writing, indeed, very 
 imperfectly, yet familiar with books, with 
 plants, and with trees, with all that regarded 
 the face of nature; perfectly ignorant of the 
 customs and manners of the world ; combining 
 with a childish and amusing simplicity, a store 
 of various knowledge, which nothing less than 
 the leisure of much solitary retirement, and the 
 tenacity of an uncommonly retentive memory, 
 could have accumulated in the mind of an over- 
 grown child — for such I appeared to those who 
 knew my age." 
 
 And in a letter, written in 1809, to a friend 
 who had rallied her on her bad spelling — which, 
 curiously enough, it would appear, stuck to her, 
 authoress as she was, to the end of her life — 
 after observing that she was delighted with the 
 pleasantry of her correspondent's observations 
 upon a defect, which was the less to be excused, 
 inasmuch as orthography was a thing to be 
 learned merely by a common degree of observa- 
 tion, she informs her that the first unshackled 
 letter of her own diction that she ever wrote in 
 her life was actually the one, dated 1773, which 
 makes the first of her printed "Letters from 
 the Mountains." The original of this, she says, 
 she has still beside her, " written in the childish 
 and most unformed hand imaginable." And 
 then she gives the following naive and amusino- 
 account of her early education: "I was taught 
 to write, when a girl in America, by a soldier 
 in my father's regiment, who began life in the 
 character of a gentleman, but, being an in- 
 corrigible sot, retained nothing but a fine hand 
 to distinguish him from his fellows when he 
 was chosen my teacher. This tutor of mine 
 visited the black hole so often, that I got copies, 
 perhaps twenty — at long intervals— when he wag 
 removed into another regiment. I was thus de- 
 
pnved of all instruction of this and almost every 
 other kind ; but then it was intended to send nie 
 to a convent in Canada, where ofl&cers' daughters 
 got some sort of superficial education. This was 
 deferred from year to year, and then dropped, 
 because we thought of coming home, where I 
 was to learn everything; but by that time I 
 was grown very tall, very awkward, and so 
 sensitive that a look disconcerted me, and I 
 went to no school except that where dancing 
 was taught, which I very soon left, from the 
 same miserable conscious awkwardness." She 
 adds that she then used to exercise her hand- 
 Avriting principally in little poems of her own 
 composition, in noting down which, with no one 
 to direct or overlook her, she employed the first 
 spelling that came to hand. 
 
 After she returned to Scotland she spent part 
 of three summers at a country house of a family 
 of the name of Pagan, on the banks of the 
 river Cart, near Glasgow. Her visit to these 
 friends she declares that she looks back upon as 
 a valuable part of her mental, or rather perhaps 
 moral education. "Minds," she observes, "so 
 pure, piety so mild, so cheerful, and influential, 
 manners so simple and artless, without the 
 slightest tincture of hardness or vulgarity, such 
 primitive ways of thinking, I have never met 
 with, nor could ever have supposed to exist, 
 had I not witnessed. Here were the relics of 
 the old Covenanters all round us; and here I 
 enriched my memory with many curious traits 
 of Scottish history and manners by frequent- 
 ing the cottages of the peasantry, and per- 
 using what I could find on their smoky book- 
 shelves. Here was education for the heart and 
 mind, well adapted for the future lot which 
 Providence assigned to me." 
 
 In 1773, when Anne was eighteen, her father 
 accepted the office of barrack-master at Fort 
 Augustus, in Inverness - shire, and removed 
 thither with his family. Here she first met Mr 
 Grant, who held the appointment of chaplain to 
 the garrison, and whom she describes as ' ' con- 
 nected with some of the most respectable fami- 
 lies in the neighbourhood, possessing great per- 
 sonal advantages, and adding that of much 
 refinement of mind, sound principle, and a 
 most correct judgment." The young clergy- 
 man was appointed to the neighbouring living 
 of Laggan in 1776; and three years after, he 
 and Miss Macvicar were married. 
 
 "His popularity," says his widow, "was 
 secured by his manners and conduct; mine 
 was of more difficult attainment, because I was 
 not a native of the country, and Highlanders 
 dislike the intrusion of a stranger. However, I 
 had both pride and pleasure in overcoming diffi- 
 culties. Thus, by adopting the customs, study- 
 ing the Gaelic language, and, above all, not 
 wondering at anything local and peculiar, with 
 the aid of a most worthy and sensible mother- 
 in-law, I acquired that share of the goodwill 
 
 of my new connections, and the regard of 
 the poor, without which, even with the fond 
 aff'ection of a fellow-mind, such a residence 
 would have been scarcely supportable. My 
 father soon after removed to Fort George, near 
 Inverness, and had generally one or two of my 
 children residing with him and my mother. I 
 acquired a taste for farming, led a life of fervid 
 activity, and had a large family of children, all 
 promising, and the greater number of them 
 beautiful. I felt much at home among our 
 neighbours and the tenantry, and many things 
 occurred that might give interest to a more ex- 
 tended biography, but must be here passed 
 over. I generally passed some weeks of every 
 summer at Fort George with my parents, and 
 kept up a constant correspondence with my 
 friends in the South." 
 
 In this way life passed not only happily, but, 
 as matters turned out, in the constant though 
 imperceptible and unconscious accumulation 
 of what was to prove to be the very means 
 of existence in other circumstances. It is a 
 striking illustration of the remark that, let 
 one acquire any branch of useful knowledge or 
 skill whatever, and a day will come when it will 
 be of service. The rule is, to take advantage of 
 every opportunity of making any such acquisi- 
 tion. Everything that Mrs Grant was now 
 doing was growing, without her being aware of 
 it, into a fund for the future — the correspond- 
 ence she kept up with her friends, her study of 
 the Gaelic language, and of the character ana 
 customs of the Highlanders, even more than, 
 what might have seemed at the moment to be 
 of more immediate utility, the knowledge which 
 she attained of agricultural operations and the 
 habits of activity to which she inured herself. 
 The "pride and pleasure in overcoming diffi- 
 culties," of which she speaks, and whatever 
 other present gratification or profit attended 
 her exertions, were only the promise of the full 
 repayment they were eventually to bring her. 
 
 Many years thus flowed on, not in unclouded 
 sunshine, but with no more than the usual 
 human allotment of shadow and vicissitude. 
 They had been married about twenty-three 
 years, and of eleven children had lost three in 
 early infancy, when their eldest son, a most 
 amiable and promising boy, for whom the in- 
 terest of a friend had already obtained a com- 
 mission in the army, was carried off by consump- 
 tion in his sixteenth year. His father, whose 
 health had always been precarious, and from 
 whom his children seem to have inherited the 
 insidious disease that was to steal them all 
 away, one after another, in the spring of their 
 days, from their mother's eyes, sank under this 
 blow ; and after eighteen months more, Mrs 
 Grant was a widow. This was in 1801, when 
 she was in her forty-sixth year. Another boy 
 had been born a fortnight after the death of hie 
 brother. 
 
36 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 "I was thus," she says, "left with eight 
 childreD, not free from debt, yet owing less than 
 might be expected, considering the size of our 
 family and the decent hospitality which was 
 kept up in a manner that, on looking back, 
 astonishes even myself, as it did others at the 
 time. I was too much engrossed with my irre- 
 parable loss on the one hand, and too much 
 accustomed to a firm reliance on the fatherly 
 care of Him who will not abandon the chil- 
 dren of a righteous man on the other, to have 
 any fears for the support of so many helpless 
 creatures. I felt a confidence on their account 
 that to many might appear romantic and extra- 
 vagant." 
 
 Yet, apparently, it was upon what she might 
 be able to earn by her own exertions, woman as 
 she was, that she had mainly to depend for 
 bread to herself and her children, for her father 
 had nothing to give her or to leave her — his 
 American property had been swallowed up in 
 the gulf of the revolution. All the certain in- 
 come that she had was a small pension from the 
 War Office, to which she was entitled in conse- 
 quence of her husband having obtained a military 
 chaplaincy a few years before his death. She 
 says nothing of any allowance from the Widows' 
 Fund, to which it is now obligatory upon every 
 clergyman of the Scottish Church to subscribe, 
 80 that her husband had probably neglected to 
 secure her that benefit. At all events, the 
 £30 or £40 a year which she might have had 
 from that source would have afforded a very in- 
 sufficient support for so numerous a family. 
 One additional source of income only she had 
 for a short time after the loss of her husband, 
 in a cheap farm which they had rented from 
 the Duke of Gordon, and which his Grace kindly 
 allowed her to retain at the old rent, not only 
 for the year after that in which Mr Grant died, 
 but for the ensuing one also. Here she her- 
 self remained with the younger portion of her 
 children, her elder daughter finding, mean- 
 while, a home with her father and mother, who 
 had some time before this returned to Glasgow. 
 
 Such were the circumstances in which Mrs 
 Grant was led to try whether she could not 
 better her fortunes by the exercise of her liter- 
 ary talents, hitherto employed only in private 
 for her own amusement and the gratification of 
 a few intimate friends. '* I should now men- 
 tion," she relates, " that I very early discovered 
 a faculty of rhyming, scarcely worthy to be dig- 
 nified with the name of poetry, but easy and 
 fluent. My first essay was scrawled in a kind 
 of Miltonic verse, when I was little more than 
 nine years old. I meant it to be a secret, but 
 my father showed it to some of my friends, 
 which made me very much ashamed; and I 
 think, whatever I might have meditated, I 
 never wrote more till I wandered on the banks 
 of the Cart, and afterwards at Fort Augustus, 
 and again upon my way home to Laggan, after 
 
 spending some months among my friends at 
 Glasgow. All these occasional scraps I gave 
 away, never having preserved a single copy. 
 My friends were more apprehensive of pecuniary 
 distress for me than I was for myself, and well 
 knew how reluctant I should be to appear before 
 the public as a writer — this, perhaps, as much 
 from pride as from modesty. I had been often 
 urged by partial friends to write for the book- 
 sellers, but, in the first place, I had more dread 
 of censure than hope of applause ; and, besides, 
 I could not find leisure, devoted as I was to a 
 tenderly affectionate husband, whose delicacy of 
 constitution, and still greater delicacy of mind, 
 made my society and attendance essential to 
 him. It still is gratifying for me to think of 
 my steadiness in this refusal. I had, during 
 some of the years which tasked my faculties of 
 every kind to intense exertion, much aid and 
 comfort from a young lady (Miss Charlotte 
 Grant) related to my husband's family, whom 
 particular circumstances had separated from her 
 nearest relatives; yet, owing to her absence 
 during winter in town, my duties grew every 
 day more arduous. Nothing, indeed, but the 
 deepest gratitude to the invaluable friends of 
 my early days would have induced me to carry 
 on the frequent correspondence now known to 
 the public. It was only in early summer morn- 
 ings and late winter ones that I could find time 
 to write. An excellent constitution, and equal, 
 cheerful spirits, for which I could never be 
 thankful enough, bore me through a great deal." 
 But the brave exertions, thus originally made 
 from a disinterested motive, were now, as often 
 happens, unexpectedly to become productive 
 in the hour of need. The bread cast upon the 
 waters was about to return after many days. 
 The friends among whom Mrs Grant had scat- 
 tered her verses had carefully treasured them, 
 though she herself had kept no copies ; and it 
 was now determined that steps should be taken 
 for having a volume of them published by sub- 
 scription. The zeal with which they set about 
 the good work, and their extraordinary success, 
 are honourable both to themselves and to her. 
 Before she had herself even heard of the pro- 
 ject, and indeed before the materials for the 
 publication were collected, the proposals were 
 dispersed all over Scotland. "My personal 
 friends," she says, "were not only zealous 
 themselves, but procured new friends for me, 
 who afterwards showed the warmest interest in 
 my welfare. Being very much attached to 
 my humble neighbours, I had at one time writ- 
 ten, as part of a letter, a page or two of poetical 
 regret at the hard necessity that forced so many 
 to emigrate. The friend who had preserved this 
 effusion sent it home, and advised me to enlarge 
 and complete the sketch. I did so, and thus 
 was finished 'The Highlanders,' the principal 
 poem in the published collection ; the rest I did 
 not see again till I saw them in print." 
 
MRS GRANT. 
 
 37 
 
 The volume, under the title of "Original 
 Poems, with some Translations from the Gaelic," 
 appeared in 1803, with a list of subscribers ex- 
 tending to the unprecedented number of three 
 thousand. ** Some of these," says Mrs Grant 
 with her characteristic frankness, *' I owed to 
 esteem, but certainly the greatest number to 
 compassion or to influence, so that my gratitude 
 was mingled with a sense of humiliation." But 
 although something of the latter feeling was 
 natural enough in the circumstances, the same 
 good sense, and even the proper pride from 
 which it sprung, would protect her from being 
 too much depressed by it. The view that she 
 took of the fact was no doubt the correct one, and 
 evinced a just appreciation of the really slight 
 merit of her verses ; but she would be thereby 
 only the more roused to endeavour to produce 
 something on another occasion which would have 
 more intrinsic value, and be more deserving of 
 the public patronage on its own account. 
 
 Her troubles and sorrows, however, were far 
 from being yet over. She had already, indeed, 
 been menaced with a new blow. A short time 
 before the publication of her poems, her eldest 
 daughter, Mary, had been invited by an English 
 lady, Mrs Protheroe, wife of Edward Protheroe, 
 M. P. for Bristol, to come and reside with her as 
 a friend, receiving at the same time such an 
 allowance as would put it in her power to assist 
 her family. Her mother did not feel justified 
 in declining this proposal, and Miss Grant was 
 accordingly sent to Bristol, where everything 
 conduced to make her feel herself most agree- 
 ably established in a new position. But before 
 very long, news came to her mother that she 
 was dangerously ill, and that it was absolutely 
 necessary she should herself go to take charge 
 of her. " I was obliged," she writes, " to set 
 out immediately, in a state of mind impossible 
 to describe, and to leave my family under the 
 care of two trusty and most attached servants 
 and a daughter of eighteen — that incomparable 
 daughter Isabella, who, while she remained on 
 earth, was like a guardian angel to us all." 
 
 It was the middle of winter ; and v/hen she 
 arrived in Bristol, she found her daughter very 
 ill, and was plainly told by her friends that she 
 was not likely to recover. The physician who 
 attended her declared that her only chance of 
 recovery was by residing for some months at the 
 hot wells in the neighbourhood and drinking 
 the waters. ** This," writes her mother, " was 
 a formidable proposal to me ; but I trusted in 
 the hand which had hitherto upheld me, and 
 took lodgings at the hot wells, where I found 
 myself repaid for what was certainly very incon- 
 venient by seeing mj daughter in a great mea- 
 sure restored to health." After spending a 
 fortnight with a friend in Plympton, the two 
 Bet out together for Scotland. It appears to 
 have been considered that Miss Grant was inca- 
 pacitated by the precarious state of her health 
 
 for retaining her situation. " It was the end of 
 April 1803," says Mrs Grant, " when we arrived 
 in Glasgow. I found my father sufifering from 
 an illness in that city, which proved his last; 
 and I left my daughter with him. Returning 
 to my home at Laggan, after seeing all the 
 luxury that wealth affords, I set out, mounted 
 on a horse that was sent to meet me, on a dark 
 showery day, and travelled over the black un- 
 varied heath of Drumochter with unspeakable 
 delight. I was going from a world where I was 
 a sorrowful unknown wanderer to a place where 
 every countenance brightened at my approach, 
 and where affectionate children were to meet me 
 with rapture." 
 
 A few weeks after this, Mrs Grant removed 
 with her family from Laggan to a house called 
 Woodend, near Stirling, having attached to it 
 some garden ground and a lawn, on which she 
 could feed a couple of cows. About the same 
 time her father died, upon which her mother 
 came to live with her. She thus describes her 
 life at Woodend, in a letter to a friend, written 
 in 1804 : " I live in a great hurry, notwithstand- 
 ing my aide-de-camps, whose diligence in per- 
 forming their several duties I have no reason to 
 complain of; but I have dedicated this summer 
 to making certain arrangements in the way of 
 gardening and household affairs, which will 
 leave me at leisure to apply to a new literary 
 task when these beautiful days shorten; for I 
 really cannot think of shutting myself up with 
 my own gloomy reflections while all nature 
 smiles invitation around me. You can't think, 
 too, how many little rural employments I create 
 to myself by the help of three cows which I 
 graze this summer, and which constitute no 
 contemptible dairy. The love of farming is 
 cousin-german to the love of nature. No per- 
 son that has ever tasted the sweets of weeding 
 turnips and pulling lint, not to mention the 
 transports of marking the first bloom nodding 
 on potatoes — no such agricultural enthusiast 
 can give up these pursuits without a pang 
 like that of a defeated general or a neglected 
 beauty." 
 
 But, as she remarks in her autobiographical 
 sketch, she never was long without a trouble of 
 one kind or another. In the end of the year 
 1804, she was suddenly summoned away to the 
 South. The eldest of her two surviving sons, 
 Duncan, had, much to his mother's regret, 
 chosen the army for his profession ; and having 
 been shortly before appointed a cadet for Wool- 
 wich, had, within a few days of completing his 
 preparatory course of study at the military 
 academy at Marlow, become involved in a mu- 
 tiny of a number of the young men, which had 
 occasioned his expulsion, although, as it ap- 
 pears, he had taken no active pait in the affair, 
 but only, having unfortunately had the design 
 confided to him, had, from a feeling of honour, 
 kept the secret, and afterwards refused to giva 
 
up the names of the others. " Until," says the 
 mother, "I heard the circumstances truly ex- 
 plained by his patron, Mr Charles Grant of the 
 India House, I was inexpressibly wretched ; for 
 disgrace was new to me, and I could not support 
 it." Meanwhile, through Mr Grant, who was 
 then chairman, an East Indian cadetship had 
 been obtained for her son — the Duke of York, 
 the commander-in-chief, being persuaded to 
 remain quiescent. 
 
 It was this affair that led to her next liter- 
 ary adventure. **I was detained," she says, 
 "heavy-hearted enough, for some months in 
 London, to see him prepared for going to India. 
 The equipment of my son was a new and heavy 
 expenditure, for which I was not well provided. 
 In this situation, my friends strongly advised 
 me to publish my letters, a resource in which I 
 had little faith ; and, had I thought it available, 
 such a disclosure was very grating to my feel- 
 ings, for two reasons. First, because I always 
 thought it extremely indelicate to publish 
 letters in the lifetime of the author ; and next, 
 because, to suit them for public perusal and 
 avoid misconstruction in my own circle, I saw 
 that I should find it necessary to exclude the 
 most amusing and interesting passages, namely, 
 those that related more particularly to my 
 friends and their friends, as well as much harm- 
 less badinage and veritable narrative." 
 
 She was, however, prevailed upon to overcome 
 her scruples and prepare her letters with a view 
 to publication, and herself tells the story of the 
 success of the venture: "I was at the utmost 
 loss, knowing no bookseller, how to dispose 
 of my defective and ill-arranged manuscripts. 
 Happily, I met with a Scotch friend, who knew 
 something of Messrs Longman & Rees, and 
 promised to introduce me. I went to them 
 with no enviable feelings, being fully as much 
 ashamed of my shabby manuscript as Falstaff 
 was of his ragged recruits. Mr Longman, how- 
 ever, took it graciously, submitted it to his in- 
 visible critic, and in a few days I heard the glad 
 sound that it would do very well for publication. 
 I was told that it would be set about immedi- 
 ately, and would be ready in three or four 
 months, it being arranged that I should receive 
 half of the profits, the booksellers bearing the 
 risk of printing. This was in spring 1805. 
 Summer and autumn passed, winter came, 
 spring returned, still not a word of my book. I 
 thought my papers had been lost or thrown 
 aside as useless, and, occupied with a thousand 
 other cares, I had almost forgotten them, when 
 I received at Woodend a letter informing me 
 that my book was printed, and nothing was 
 wanted but the preface, which, it seems, was 
 the last thing required. Certainly never was 
 preface more expeditiously written. In half an 
 hour after the letter was received the preface 
 was away to Stirling to overtake the evening 
 post. I had declined to give my name to the 
 
 public as the author of the letters, and therefore 
 could not be much affected, further than a 
 pecuniary disappointment, by their being over- 
 looked. Yet I have been seldom so much sur 
 prised, as when my kind neighbour,Lady Stewart, 
 casually mentioned her hearing from London that 
 a book, called * Letters from the Mountains,' 
 divided Math some other new publications the 
 attention of readers that summer. No person, 
 I believe, was so astonished at their success 
 as myself. My booksellers dealt liberally with 
 me, and many persons of distinguished worth 
 interested themselves in me, and sought my 
 acquaintance in consequence of perusing those 
 letters." 
 
 Thirty years before, when she was a girl of 
 seventeen, Mr Hatsell, afterwards principal 
 clerk of the House of Commons, had, when on 
 a visit to Fort Augustus, resided in her father's 
 house, and taken some notice of her. When 
 her new book was about to make its appearance, 
 she wrote to that gentleman, with a copy of 
 her poems, expressing a hope that he might not 
 altogether have forgotten her, and briefly de- 
 tailing what had befallen her since they had 
 met. She seems to have had no answer at the 
 time ; but nearly a year after, we find her again 
 writing to him : " Sir, I have just been greatly 
 surprised, as well as deeply affected, by your 
 very kind letter. The pressure of very peculiar 
 circumstances emboldened me to solicit youi 
 protection for my most unwilling publication 
 when I was in Loudon ; but I was so little satis- 
 fied with myself for thus exposing my motives 
 to the mercy of unkind conjecture, that I en- 
 deavoured to forget that I had written. So far 
 I succeeded, that for months I have not recol- 
 lected this indiscretion, for such indeed I ac- 
 counted it. Judge, then, besides being dazzled 
 by generosity and soothed by delicacy, how 
 much I am relieved to find I have not been mis- 
 construed. ... So far from refusing, 
 from a mistaken notion of dignity, your offered 
 kindness, I am proud to owe an obligation 
 conferred by such a character, and in such a 
 manner." 
 
 But Mr Hatsell's exertions in her behalf were 
 not confined to the present in money he had 
 made her in the first instance. He so used his 
 influence among his most influential friends, 
 that many persons of high rank took an active 
 interest in the welfare of Mrs Grant and her 
 family; and her daughter Charlotte, who was 
 then staying at Richmond, received many visits 
 from ladies of high fashion, who questioned her 
 as to her mother's appearance, whilst the 
 Bishop of London offered to forward another 
 edition of the letters. Her publishers, too, 
 dealt with her in a manner that gave her great 
 satisfaction. Writing to Mr Hatsell, she says : 
 " If gratitude were payment, you should be as 
 liberally dealt with as I have been by my book- 
 sellers. Further I cannot proceed, withou* 
 
MRS GRANT. 
 
 39 
 
 disburdening my mind of the wonder and ad- 
 miration which the liberality of these most 
 generous booksellers has excited. Know, then, 
 dear sir, that Longman & Co. sent me their 
 account stated, in which they have allowed me 
 a handsome sum out of their own half of the 
 profits, as a free gift." In March 1807, £300 
 were transmitted to her, as the sincere tribute 
 of three gentlemen, merchants, to her virtues 
 and her talents, and to the useful application of 
 both to the best interests of society. And in 
 the same year, after the second edition of the 
 letters had appeared, Longman tells her that the 
 profits amounted to £400 ; of which they held 
 £100 in reserve to answer bad debts and uncal- 
 culated expenses, forwarding her the other £300. 
 
 In the beginning of March of this same year, 
 1807, her daughter Charlotte was attacked by 
 an influenza then general in London. She im- 
 mediately hastened to Richmond, and upon her 
 arrival found the invalid in an almost hopeless 
 state. She removed her to Brompton, where 
 she died on the morning of 21st April. She was 
 only in her seventeenth year, and beautiful, 
 amiable, and of an understanding beyond her 
 age. She was a general favourite, and the 
 darling and pride of her mother's heart. *' Daily 
 and hourly," writes Mrs Grant to a friend after 
 her return home, " I seem to feel more deeply 
 the loss of my incomparable Charlotte, whose 
 sterling worth, besides her warm affections and 
 premature abilities, was beyond what you can 
 imagine." Another daughter, Catherine, her 
 second, now in her twenty-fifth year, was 
 already in a state which awakened the most 
 serious apprehensions. In this same letter the 
 poor mother writes : "Catherine's illness sinks 
 deeper into my heart than all my other sor- 
 rows, and has for the time disconcerted all my 
 plans. Charlotte's death greatly aggravated her 
 distress." 
 
 In the midst of her anxiety, Mrs Grant was 
 called away from her home on a short visit to 
 the north of England ; and in July she writes to 
 a friend from Fellfoot in Westmoreland : " When 
 it pleases God to restore Catherine to health, 
 we shall all breathe again, and I have a letter 
 from my medical friend, saying he doubts little 
 of my finding her much better when I return." 
 And after saying that if she should find her 
 daughter better, she will lose no time in giving 
 her the advantage of a sea voyage, she adds: 
 "If I had none but myself to think of, I should 
 be the happiest of human beings ; for there is 
 nothing enjoyable — *no wholesome fruit that 
 borders virtue's way* — but what I taste with 
 the keenest relish, and every short interval of 
 ease is to me like a child's holiday." 
 
 Very short was her present interval of ease 
 and hope. On the 3d of August she writes to 
 the same friend from Glasgow : " Catherine, my 
 admired and truly admirable Catherine, is at 
 rest." 
 
 Nothing could be finer than the manner m 
 which this admirable woman bore herself under 
 these accumulated strokes. All her conduct 
 showed how deeply she felt that she lived not 
 for herself but for those whom Heaven had made 
 dependent upon her exertions. Her late jour- 
 ney to England, which separated her from her 
 dying daughter, had been undertaken to bring 
 home a little boy, whose education she had 
 agreed to take charge of for a few years, for 
 the sake of adding to her income and means 
 of bringing up and providing for her family. 
 And now, when she had returned to her mourn- 
 ing household, there was no selfish indulgence 
 of grief on her part. All her efforts were ap- 
 plied, and all her mental resources called into 
 requisition, to sustain the spirits of the rest. 
 Nor, inspired by her example, did they fail to 
 second her endeavours. 
 
 Very soon after, we find her occupied in the 
 preparation of a new literary work, her " Me- 
 moirs of an American Lady," in which she em- 
 bodied her recollections of the scenes, events, 
 and friends of the earliest portion of her life. 
 In a letter to a friend, she describes the difficulty 
 she had in pursuing this labour amid the bustle 
 and confusion of so large a family, cooped up in 
 a small house in winter, when the younger mem- 
 bers cannot go out to play. She had previously 
 removed from Woodend to a house in the town 
 of Stirling. " My room," she says, " has the 
 nursery above it and the kitchen below it, and 
 my nerves are torn to pieces with noise and run- 
 ning out and in. The only other habitable room 
 is occupied by my mother; I except the dwell- 
 ings of Misses and Masters. The drawing-room 
 is liable to a succession of morning visitors, and 
 the dining-room wants but ' armed knights and 
 whistling hawks ' to be like Branksome Hall. 
 Where, then, could the ' Memoirs of an Ameri- 
 can Lady ' be born and nursed ? More of this 
 again." 
 
 But soon after this the alarming illness, first of 
 her youngest girl, Moore — who had been a pet of 
 her father's — and then that of the next youngest, 
 Anne, a "model of patient sweetness," for a 
 time drew her off from everything else. They 
 both, however, recovered for the present; and 
 their mother returned with her wonted buoy- 
 ancy to her task. To Mr Hatsell she writes: 
 " I find, upon retracing the scenes once so fami- 
 liar, many long departed images rise to my 
 recollection, and that in this instance ' me- 
 mory is not dead, but sleepeth.' In short, I 
 begin to write con amore, and hope to succeed. 
 This new occupation of mine I find very useful 
 in blunting the stings of painful recollection, 
 and erasing for a time * the written troubles of 
 the brain.' " 
 
 She found it expedient at last, however, 
 partly that she might have a greater command 
 of quiet and leisure, partly in the hope that 
 change of air and scene would be advantageous 
 
40 
 
 7REASVRY OF MODERN BIO GRAPH V, 
 
 to the drooping health of her daughter Isabella, 
 whom she took with her, to pay a visit of a few 
 months to her friend Sir John Legard at Sun- 
 bury, near Richmond ; and there she completed 
 her book. It was published in London, in 
 three volumes, in the summer or autumn of 
 1808. " I trembled for the fate of this book," 
 she writes to her son in India in the following 
 year, "but it has gone off with great success ; 
 the whole impression of 1500 copies was sold in 
 three months, and the second edition is now 
 printed, and selling rapidly, I believe." 
 
 In 1810 Mrs Grant removed from Stirling to 
 Edinburgh, in which city she passed the remain- 
 der of her days. In one of her first letters from 
 her new residence, she informs Mr Hatsell that 
 she had just received a second bill for £100, the 
 first having been sent her about a year before, 
 from some ladies of Boston, in the United 
 States, who had had her last book reprinted there, 
 and had remitted her these sums as the profits 
 of the sale. In 1811 she published her "Essays 
 on the Superstitions of the Highlands of Scot- 
 land, with Translations from the Gaelic," in 
 two volumes. In the beginning of 1812, her 
 mother died at the age of eighty-four. She had 
 intended that her " Essays " should be her last 
 work, but in 1814 she published a trifle, entitled 
 "Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen: a Poem," 
 which attracted very little attention. After 
 this she employed her pen only in a few 
 occasional magazine contributions, and in her 
 correspondence with her friends, which she kept 
 up with unabated activity and spirit to the end 
 of her life. 
 
 In August 1814 she lost her daughter Anne, 
 after an illness that lasted nearly a year. 
 For some years after this she was visited by 
 no new sorrow; but in July 1821, her youngest 
 daughter, Moore, was taken away in her twenty- 
 fifth year ; and two years after, Isabella followed 
 her sister. One daughter alone, Mary, the 
 eldest, now survived ; and her too the grave re- 
 ceived in November 1827. "My dearest Mary," 
 her mother writes to an old friend on the first 
 day of the following year, "might almost be 
 said to have died with Isabella; with that 
 angelic being the light of life was extinguished. 
 Since that time Mary was not a moment absent 
 from my thoughts, and the object of perpetual 
 solicitude. The chapter of sorrow and anxiety 
 is now closed." Of her twelve children, the 
 youngest alone, the son who edited her memoirs 
 and correspondence, now remained. Yet the 
 strong-hearted old woman lived on for a good 
 many years longer. It was not till the 7th of 
 November 1838, when she was within a few 
 months of the completion of her eighty-fourth 
 year, that her earthly existence terminated, 
 
 Mrs Grant's life, for some years after she 
 gave up writing for the public, had been in 
 part devoted to an intellectual employment of 
 
 another kind — the superintendence of the edu- 
 cation of a succession of young persons of her 
 own sex, who were sent to reside with her. 
 From the year 1826, also, her means had been 
 further increased by a pension of £100, which 
 was granted to her by George IV. , on a repre- 
 sentation drawn up by Sir Walter Scott, and 
 supported by Henry Mackenzie, Lord Jeff'rey, 
 and other distinguished persons among her 
 friends in Edinburgh, who therein declared 
 their belief that Mrs Grant had rendered emi- 
 nent services to the cause of religion, morality, 
 knowledge, and taste; and that her writings 
 had "produced a strong and salutary effect 
 upon her countrymen, who not only found re- 
 corded in them much of national history and 
 antiquities, which would otherwise have been 
 forgotten, but found them combined with the 
 soundest and best lessons of virtue and 
 morality." 
 
 During the period of nearly thirty years that 
 she resided there, she was a principal figure in 
 the best and most intellectual society of the 
 Scottish metropolis ; and to the last, her literary 
 celebrity made her an object of curiosity and 
 attraction to strangers from all parts of the 
 world. Even after the loss of the last of her 
 daughters, her correspondence testifies that she 
 still took a lively interest in everything that 
 went on around her. 
 
 "Her cheerfulness," writes her son, "and 
 the lively appreciation she had of everything 
 done to promote her comfort, rendered her, till 
 the latest period of her prolonged existence, a 
 delightful companion to live with; while the 
 warm interest she felt in whatever could contri- 
 bute to the happiness, or even to the amuse- 
 ment of others, kept her own feelings and affec- 
 tions ever alive." And he quotes an account of 
 her conversational powers given by a friend, 
 who says : " They were, perhaps, still more 
 attractive than her writings. Her information 
 on every subject, combined with her uniform 
 cheerfulness and equanimity, made her society 
 very delightful. There was a dignity and 
 sedateness, united with considerable sprightli- 
 ness and vivacity, in her conversation, which 
 rendered it highly interesting. The native 
 simplicity of her mind, and an entire freedom 
 from all attempt at display, soon made the 
 youngest person with whom she conversed feel 
 in the presence of a friend; and if there was 
 any quality of her well-balanced mind which 
 stood out more prominently than another, it 
 was that benevolence which made her invari- 
 ably study the comfort of every person who 
 came in contact with her." This was not only 
 to ward off decay and death, but to disarm old 
 age of all its unloveliness, both to herself and 
 to others. It is a fine example of how any 
 darkness without can be conquered and dis- 
 persed by the light within. 
 
GEORGE CRABBE. 
 
 41 
 
 GEOEGE CEABBE. 
 
 [1754-1832.] 
 
 [The Rev. George CratlDe was born on the Christ- 
 mas Eve of 1754, at Aldborough, in Suffolk. 
 His father, a collector of salt-duties, gave him 
 a good education. When in his fourteenth year 
 he was apprenticed to a surgeon, and for a time 
 practised in Aldborough; but, abandoning a 
 profession in which he had little success, he 
 went to London as a literary adventurer, with 
 three pounds in his pocket. He was at first 
 unsuccessful with some poetical pieces which he 
 wrote and offered for publication. He published 
 a poetical epistle, " The Candidate," which met 
 with a do ubtf ul reception. Plunged in pecuniary 
 difficulties, he wrote to the Premier, Lord North, 
 and to Thurlow, asking help, but received no 
 reply. At length, applying to Edmund Burke, 
 the latter befriended him, and gave him prompt 
 assistance, inviting him to his house, where he 
 met Fox, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other cele- 
 brities. The publication of "The Library" in 
 1781, conciliated the critics, and gained him the 
 patronage of Lord Thurlow. Entering into 
 sacred orders, he was licensed as curate to the 
 rector of Aldborough. Burke again befriended 
 him by procuring for him a situation as chaplain 
 to the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle. He 
 next spent four years in connection with two 
 small livings in Dorsetshire, which were after- 
 wards exchanged for two in the Vale of Belvoir. 
 He man'ied a young lady from Suffolk, the ob- 
 ject of an early attachment. In 1814 the Duke 
 of Rutland presented him to the living of Trow- 
 bridge, in Wiltshire, and thither he went to re- 
 side. A large portion of his salary of £800 a 
 year was spent in charity. His clerical duties 
 were faithfully discharged, and he turned his 
 attention, especially in his later years, to the 
 study of botany and geology. He died at Trow- 
 bridge, February 3, 1832. The names of his 
 other principal poems are "The Village," "The 
 Parish Register," "The Borough," and "Tales 
 of the Hall." The following story is told re- 
 garding the negotiation with his publisher for 
 the latter work : 
 
 "Crabbe's great work, his * Tales,' consisting 
 of 12,000 lines, were sent first of all to Murray, 
 he offering £3000 for them if the poet would 
 throw in the copyright of his first volume. 
 
 "Crabbe happened to be breakfasting with 
 Rogers and Moore, in St James' Place, when he 
 received Murray's note, and his first impulse 
 was to accept it ; and that was Moore's advice. 
 But Rogers thought Murray ought to give £3000 
 for the new volume alone, and that the MS. 
 should be offered to Longmans before Murray's 
 letter was answered. 
 
 " The Longmans were accordingly called on, 
 and, to Rogers' consternation, offered for the 
 new work and the old only £1000, saying that 
 this was the utmost they thought it prudent to 
 give, considering the past sale of Crabbe's works. 
 That, of course, put Rogers in a fix ; but, like a 
 keen man of business, the banker-poet at onco 
 put on his hat, and went to Albemarle Street, 
 to talk about the printing of his own poem, and 
 to close with Murray's offer for Crabbe. 
 
 " * I am glad to find, Mr Murray,' said Rogers 
 carelessly in the course of conversation, ' that 
 you have settled with Mr Crabbe for his new 
 poem ' 
 
 " Murray answered cheerfully enough that he 
 had, and this clinched the business. Rogers 
 and Moore at once jumped into a cab, and drove 
 off to tell poor Crabbe the news. They found 
 him moping dismally at home, thinking of the 
 thousands he had lost through the diplomacy of 
 the author of 'The Pleasures of Memory.' But 
 the intelligence soon revived his spirits, and 
 when Murray sent him the £3000, Crabbe almost 
 leaped out of his skin. Rogers offered to take 
 charge of the bills till they became due; but 
 no — nothing v/ould do but Crabbe must take 
 them home with him, to show them to his son 
 John. 
 
 " ' Won't copies do ? ' Rogers asked. 
 
 " * No, not at all,' said the poet ; * I must 
 show John the actual paper ; ' and placing the 
 bills in his pocket-book, he started off, rubbing 
 his hands with the glee of a girl over a new 
 bonnet." 
 
 The following thoughtful and appreciative 
 paper on his poems is adapted from TaiVs 
 Magazine.] 
 
 Although Crabbe has enjoyed no sparing meed 
 of applause from many whose praise was of it- 
 self a passport to distinction, his admirers have 
 been select rather than numerous. We think 
 that he has not yet been honoured according to 
 his deserts. At no period of his career, perhaps, 
 can he have been justly called a popular writer : 
 of late, he has certainly been undeservedly ne- 
 glected. As regards the present generation of 
 readers, this is easily accounted for. In aspect 
 and manner, our poet belongs, in some degree, 
 to a former age. The author, whose earlier 
 efforts were fostered by Burke, whose tales had 
 been criticised by Johnson, and had beguiled 
 the sufferings of Fox [and Sir Waltei Scott] dur- 
 ing his last illness, was lost amidst the crowd of 
 brilliant writers that rose to celebrity after the 
 commencement of the present century. And 
 
42 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 although he reappeared, after a long interval, 
 with powers mellowed and confirmed by time, 
 still he might, in some measure, be regarded as 
 one of an obsolete school, by those who were 
 engrossed by the dazzling productions of Scott, 
 and Southey, and Byron. The captivations of 
 a new vein of poetic imagery, rich, fanciful, and 
 picturesque beyond precedent, would naturally 
 divert the multitude of readers from an author 
 who still adhered to the older fashion, and who 
 made no attempt to recommend the strict and 
 often homely truth of his pictures, by splendour 
 of colouring or variety of tone, by the romance 
 of his fables, or the dignity of his personages. 
 But the temporary excitement, whether of no- 
 velty or of fashion, has now subsided; and our 
 author and his illustrious rivals are alike deni- 
 zens of the past. The time is perhaps arrived, 
 when we may better perceive and appreciate the 
 relative truth of their labours. 
 
 The opinion generally prevalent as to the char- 
 acter of Crabbe's writings, would of itself prove 
 how little they have been consulted by the mass 
 of readers. We believe that by the majority of 
 these he would be represented as the painter 
 yar excellence of vice, indigence, and misery; 
 the harsh anatomist of all unlovely diseases of 
 the moral and physical world, apt and diligent 
 in his ungrateful occupation, but destitute of 
 the capacity to conceive or enjoy those fairer 
 creations, which are Poetry's chosen offspring. 
 And yet how false and unjust will such a descrip- 
 tion appear to those who are conversant with 
 our author; how much of unaffected beauty and 
 generous feeling — what a store of genial, quiet 
 humour and original reflection were here over- 
 looked ! He was, indeed, too clear-sighted and 
 honest to substitute mere pleasant inventions 
 for the real lineaments of life and nature, which 
 he had closely inspected ere he ventured to por- 
 tray. His pursuit of truth, it must be confessed, 
 often led him amidst scenes which rarely attract 
 the idler or the visionary : he came forth as the 
 chronicler of common life ; and how frequently 
 is the web of daily existence chequered with 
 sombre colours ! Yet his eye could recognise 
 beauty in the lowliest places : he was no wilful 
 maligner of human nature ; but resolutely gazed 
 upon it in its rudest aspect, and with a master's 
 hand transferred its lights and shadows to his 
 canvas. Herein his merit resides — the secret 
 of his genius lay in a perspicacity which allowed 
 no detail of his subject to escape him, and a 
 conscientiousness that refused to decorate it 
 with foreign ornaments. In the scenes with 
 which he was most conversant, the shade pre- 
 dominated over the sunshine : in his characters 
 we see evil blended with, and at times quenching 
 the good : it was thus with the men by whom 
 he was surrounded. It cannot be objected to 
 him, that one circumstance of care or suffering 
 is overcharged in the description ; his delinea- 
 tion may be stern, but it is no caricature. Al- 
 
 though he feared not to record what he knew, 
 he wrote no "scandalous chronicle" of human 
 nature. He strictly fulfilled the purpose so well 
 announced in his own words : 
 
 " Come then, fair Truth, and let me clearly see 
 The minds I paint, as they are seen in thee I 
 To me their merits and their faults impart. 
 Give me to say, 'Frail Being, such thou art;' 
 And clearly let me view the naked human heart." 
 
 Such being the author's object, it were unfair to 
 condemn the sobriety of his pictures, unless it 
 appear that he has omitted the beauties, or ex- 
 aggerated the defects of their original. 
 
 And what, then, was the real aspect of life aa 
 it presented itself to Crabbe's observation ? A 
 brief advertence to the circumstances of his 
 history will best answer this question. He was 
 born in humble life, in an obscure fishing village, 
 situated on a stormy and sterile coast. His 
 youth was passed in indigence, surrounded by a 
 rude and miserable race, depredators on land, 
 smugglers at sea ; and although some care had 
 been bestowed on his education, it perhaps 
 served only to make him a solitary amongst the 
 rugged companions with whom he was in per- 
 petual contact. Thus he spent the first years 
 of his life, in uncertain and repulsive labours, 
 in the eager acquisition of such knowledge as he 
 could snatch at intervals, observent, and rest- 
 less, and impatient of a destiny to which he felt 
 himself superior. Still young, he set forth — 
 poor and friendless, unsupported save by hope, j 
 and the love of an amiable girl to whom he was \ 
 betrothed — to try his fortune, as a literary 
 adventurer, in the metropolis. Here he was 
 fated to gain an early insight into the sadder 
 features of life. For months he struggled with 
 misfortune in every shape : the sickness of hope 
 deferred : neglect, disappointment, nay, the 
 presence of actual want, were thoroughly ex- 
 perienced ; and left an impression on his mind 
 which no subsequent prosperity could efface. 
 At length the generous notice of Burke * made 
 him friends, and raised him from misery to 
 competence. He assumed the clerical profes- 
 sion — and after a short attendance on his noble 
 patron, the Duke of Rutland, returned to con- 
 verse, as a village curate, with the accidents 
 and characters of humble life, and to observe in 
 others the vicissitudes which he had himself 
 practically learned to endure. In the height of 
 his celebrity, when courted by the wealthy and 
 the illustrious, these scenes were ever present to 
 
 * It is delightful to read of the prompt benevolence 
 with which this gifted man befriended an unknown 
 youth, who brought no recommendation but his 
 wretchedness and his talents. He had applied, but 
 in vahi, to many others high in station ; and it is to 
 Burke's liberal kindness that he owed his relief from 
 actual starvation, and afterwards his introduction to 
 that notice which assured him celebrity. Such inci- 
 dents oiight not to be lightly passed over — they 
 honour human nature. 
 
GEORGE CRABBE. 
 
 43 
 
 his mind ; donWy impressed, by the force of 
 early recollection, and by the experience gath- 
 ered from his later duties. It is, therefore, not 
 surprising that such were his chosen themes — 
 for here he felt his knowledge and his power. 
 And, far from exclaiming against the occasional 
 harshness of his pictures, we rather marvel that 
 one so rudely nurtured, and so sternly taught, 
 should have attained the maturity of his powers, 
 with a disposition so unspoiled as his — an eye 
 so keenly alive to those better traits which re- 
 deem the characters of degradation, and so pure 
 a love of nature as he preserved to the last. 
 This may be ascribed, partly to a certain inex- 
 pertness, which disabled him, in boyhood, from 
 partaking in the sports and occupations of his 
 companions, and preserved him from the con- 
 tagion of their habits, by estranging him from 
 their pursuits ; and still more, to the natural 
 gift of a cheerful and buoyant temper, which 
 sustained him amidst hardships that would have 
 crushed or embittered one less happily endowed. 
 His early attachment to a pure and excellent 
 woman also contributed to keep his heart sound, 
 and to animate his efforts ; and thus, by a sin- 
 gular felicity in his fortune, after a hard struggle 
 with obscure and degrading circumstances — with 
 want, and anxiety, and neglect — he brought to 
 the enjoyment of better days a mind more evenly 
 poised and complete, according to the measure 
 of its original endowments, than it generally 
 falls to their lot to preserve who have passed 
 through so severe an ordeal. The blessing was 
 its own reward. The record of his long and 
 honoured career, enlightened by benevolence, 
 and intellectual activity, and domestic affections, 
 presents us the image of a happiness which we 
 feel to be as rare as it was, in this instance, well 
 deserved. It is the accomplishment of that older 
 poet's wish : 
 
 •' Frui paratis, et valido mihi, 
 Latoe, denes : — et, precor, integrS 
 
 Cum mente — nee turpem senectam 
 Degere, nee cithara carentem." 
 
 Crabbe was not deficient in imagination. The 
 poem of Sir Eustace Grey would suffice to prove 
 this were other proof wanting. But the power 
 with which realities attracted his mind repressed 
 the exercise of this faculty, and determined his 
 preference for a class of composition in which his 
 unrivalled accuracy of perception and his gra- 
 phic vigour found entire occupation. It is as a 
 descriptive poet that he sought to excel ; by his 
 success in this capacity he must be judged. It 
 would be unreasonable to reproach him for the 
 absence of qualities foreign to the object he pur- 
 sued. And if we examine his writings with the 
 due advertence to their aim, which is a chief 
 duty of honest criticism, how admirable will his 
 success appear ! What vivid truth in his land- 
 scapes ! Every feature is brought out with pre- 
 cision—every touch tells; yet the effect, as a 
 whole, is perfect. His epithets are pregnant 
 
 with feeling, and bespeak a familiar acquaint- 
 ance with the object represented. Nothing is 
 vague or inconsistent ; his accessories are in the 
 finest keeping, and aid the conception of the 
 reader. Our poet does not love to generalise, 
 but executes his task with a careful and firm 
 hand, producing his effect by a series of well- 
 chosen details, each confirming the impression 
 he seeks to convey. His choice of subjects may 
 be objected to by the fastidious. True, he de- 
 picts no Temp^ or Arcadia ; his scenes are drawn 
 from our work-day world, nor has he always 
 selected even here the fairest portions. His ac- 
 quaintance with the richer beauties of nature 
 was not extensive. Yet he could discern a charm 
 in the wild and barren places of the earth ; and 
 the boldness with which he has preserved their 
 express features is in our eyes a merit of the 
 highest order. With all our love for ideal 
 beauty, we should have regretted his departure 
 from a province peculiarly his own, in pursuit of 
 embellishments belonging to another region. 
 Each has its own place and season, and we deem 
 it the highest excellence of Crabbe's descriptive 
 passages, as works of art, that they are so per- 
 fectly sincere, so free from any intermixture of 
 a character at variance with the appropriate 
 features of the scene. 
 
 It is impossible, in an article like the present, 
 to display his excellence in this department by 
 adequate specimens. Those which we select, 
 almost at random, are not offered as such ; they 
 can but be viewed as fragments, which lose much 
 of their force by being separated from the con- 
 text. Here is an autumn scene, the calm 
 repose of which must, we think, be felt by 
 every lover of nature. The turn at the close 
 of the passage is a happy instance of our 
 author's skill in combining his observation of 
 external objects with the moral progress of his 
 story. 
 
 "It was a fair and mild autumnal sky, 
 And earth's ripe treasures met the admiring eye, 
 As a rich beauty, when her bloom is lost, 
 Appears with more magnificence and cost ; — 
 The wet and heavy grass, where feet had sti-ayed. 
 Not yet erect, the wanderer's way betrayed ; 
 Showers of the night had swelled the deepening rill ; 
 The morning breeze had urged the quickening mill; 
 Assembled rooks had winged their seaward flight, \ 
 By the same passage to return at night, \ 
 
 While proudly o'er them hung the steady kite ; / 
 Then turned him back, and left the noisy throng. 
 Nor deigned to know them as he sailed along. 
 Long yellow leaves, from osiers, strewed around. 
 Choked the small stream and hushed the feeble sound; 
 While the dead foliage dropt from loftier trees, 
 Our squire beheld not with his wonted ease, 
 But to his own reflections made reply — 
 And said aloud—* Yes, doubtless, we must die ! '" 
 
 The freshness and truth of Crabbe's sea views 
 
 could only have been produced by one who, from 
 
 I early youth, had known the aspect of the deep 
 
 I in all its changes. He loved it as a familial 
 
44 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 friend, and was ever happiest when within reach 
 of its sound. Had his poems no other merit, 
 they would be dear to us for the sake of this 
 ocean-love of his. How fondly he dwells on the 
 picture that memory was continually bringing 
 bftfore him ! 
 
 "Pleasant it was to view the sea-gulls strive 
 Against the storm, or on the ocean dive, 
 With eager scream, or when they dropping gave 
 Their closing wings to sail upon the wave : — 
 Then, as the winds and waters raged around, 
 And breaking billows mixed their deafening sound, 
 They on the rolling deep securely hung. 
 And calmly rode the restless waves among. 
 Nor pleased it less around me to behold, 
 Far up the beach, the yeasty sea-foam rolled ; 
 Or from the shore upborne, to see on high 
 Its frothy flakes in wild confusion fly, 
 While the salt spray that clashing billows form 
 Gave to the taste a feeling of the storm." 
 
 This, however graphic and instinct with the 
 true marine flavour, is far from being the best 
 of his sea pictures. They abound in all his 
 poems, and form a series which it would be 
 difficult to parallel in the works of any other 
 author. 
 
 We must add one more extract of this class 
 ere we proceed to another department of our 
 author's labours — it is a specimen of the strik- 
 ing power with which he details the aspect of 
 sterility and desolation. No descriptive poetry 
 with which we are acquainted surpasses in force 
 the terrible reality of the following picture. It 
 has all the vigour, without the exaggeration, of 
 those wonderful sketches of desert barrenness in 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's " Sea Voyage." 
 
 "Lo! where the heath, with withering brake gro^vn 
 
 o'er, 
 Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring 
 
 poor; 
 From thence a length of burning sand appears. 
 Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears ; 
 Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, 
 Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted eye : 
 There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, 
 And to the ragged infant threaten war ; 
 There poppies, nodding, mock the hope of toil, 
 There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil. 
 Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf, 
 The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf ; 
 O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade. 
 And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade ; 
 With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound, 
 And a sad splendour vainly shines around. 
 So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn. 
 Betrayed by man, then left for man to scorn : 
 Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose. 
 While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose; 
 Whose outward splendour is but folly's dress. 
 Exposing most where most it gilds distress." 
 
 A similar vigour of touch distinguishes Crabbe's 
 eketches of human character. They are drawn 
 ad vivum : the great book of nature alone could 
 have supplied him with such a multitude of 
 figures, so life-like, distinct, and full of genuine 
 character. At every page we start on recognis- 
 
 ing some known individual, some vivid trait 
 which arouses a tribe of forgotten associations, 
 some personification, embodying a truth which 
 had lain in our minds indistinct and naked until 
 now. His power in depicting the features and 
 essential forms of common life bespeaks the 
 practised observer, and he traces the workings 
 of the passions on every variety of character 
 with a precision the result of a profound know- 
 ledge of humanity. At every step we are met 
 by a new incitement to reflection and inquiry. 
 But this is not all. To Crabbe we are in a great 
 measure indebted for the discovery of the thrill- 
 ing interest claimed by the sorrows and acci- 
 dents of obscure life — a province upon which the 
 eye of genius had seldom before ventured to look 
 with earnestness and patience. He has displayed 
 the fallacy of many idle impressions, touching 
 the humble and the poor, which indiff'erence 
 alone could have allowed to exist so long undis- 
 turbed. From the haunts of toil and indigence 
 he brings the personages of a drama, grave and 
 mournful indeed, but fraught with instruction 
 to the student of human nature. With the elo- 
 quence of the poet, and the sympathetic earnest- 
 ness of a fellow-sulferer, he displays the true cir- 
 cumstances of life struggling with want and care 
 — its stem passions — its patient virtues — its 
 scenes of squalid distress or of decent poverty 
 — the endurance, the ambition, the despair of 
 this neglected sphere of existence. In this he 
 has done good service. We had need of a faith- 
 ful chronicler to tell us what our poorer fellow- 
 mortals feel and suffer and enjoy; and if the 
 record be rather sad than cheerful, it is well 
 that we should be awakened to the knowledge 
 that it is so. On purely aesthetic grounds, his 
 advertence to this topic is commendable. The 
 subject was new and striking : its development, 
 in the hands of a master like Crabbe, affords 
 abundant food for all the soft and strong emo- 
 tions, and is susceptible of genuine poetic eleva- 
 tion, nay, sublimity. For it cannot be too often 
 repeated that the soul of poetry is truth ; and 
 none but a sickly judgment will be offended by 
 its accents, merely because it is too faithful to 
 be evermore prophesying smooth things. 
 
 Such detached passages as we can extract afford 
 but little indication of a whole, carefully wrought 
 out by a series of progressive touches, the effect 
 of which is heightened by their accumulation. 
 But the force of such individual pictures as the 
 following must be recognised by every reader. 
 Let us begin with a mournful scene — it is the 
 house of poverty : 
 
 " Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor, 
 Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door ; 
 There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play, 
 And the dull wheel hiuns doleful through the day ; — 
 There children dwell, who know no parents' care ; 
 Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there .' 
 Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed. 
 Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed ; 
 
GEORGE CRABBE. 
 
 45 
 
 Dejected widows with unheeded tears, 
 And crippled age with more than childhi?od-f ears ; 
 The lame, the blind, — and far the happiest they ! 
 The moping idiot and the madman, tjay." 
 
 Another step, and we approach the last act of 
 the tragedy. Nay, turn not aside, but look on, 
 and learn to be pitiful. It is a lesson we need 
 to have often repeated : 
 
 *' How would you bear to draw your latest breath 
 Where all that's wretched paves the way for death? 
 Such is that room, which one rude beam divides, 
 And naked rafters form the sloping sides ; 
 Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen ; 
 And lath and mud are all that lie between : 
 Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patched, gives way 
 To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day :— 
 Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread, 
 The drooping wretch reclines his languid head ; 
 For him no hand the cordial cup applies, 
 Or wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes : 
 No friends, with soft discourse, his pain beguile, 
 Or promise hope, till sickness wears a smile." 
 
 We will now turn to another picture of humble 
 sorrow ; mournful, indeed, but less dark with 
 utter wretchedness. It is the burial of a village 
 matron. With what simple, yet touching, de- 
 tails has the poet described the bereavement ! 
 
 " Curious and sad, upon the fresh-dug hill, 
 The village lads stood melancholy still ; 
 And idle children, wandering to and fro, 
 As Nature guided, took the tone of woe. 
 Arrived at home, how then they gazed around, 
 1)1 every place where she — no more was found : 
 Ihe seat at table, she was wont to fill, 
 The fireside chair, still set, but vacant still; 
 The garden-walks, a labour all her own ; 
 The latticed bower, with trailing shrubs o'ergrown ; 
 The Sunday pew she filled with all her race- 
 Each place of hers was now a sacred place. 
 That, while it called up sorrows in the eyes, 
 Pierced the full heart, and forced them still to rise." 
 
 Here the presence of affection relieves the 
 impression of sadness, and beautifies the tomb. 
 Now, let us see how exquisitely the poet could 
 feel and depict the grace which love can impart 
 to the hours of sickness and death. In the fol- 
 lowing passage all is sweetness and repose. It 
 is the close of a tale of constancy and love ; the 
 sailor has returned to die in the arms of his 
 betrothed : 
 
 " One day he lighter seemed, and they forgot 
 The care, the dread, the anguish of their lot; 
 They spoke with cheerfulness, and seemed to think, 
 Yet said not so—' Perhaps he will not sink.' 
 A sudden brightness in his look appeared— 
 A sudden vigour in his voice was heard ; — 
 She had been reading in the book of prayer, 
 And led him forth, and placed him in his chair; 
 Lively he seemed, and spoke of all he knew, 
 The friendly many, and the favourite few; 
 Nor one that day did he to mind recall, 
 But she has treasured, and she loves them all : 
 When in her way she meets them, they appear 
 Peculiar people, — death has made them dear. 
 
 He named his friend, but then his hand she prest, 
 And fondly whispered — * Thou must go to rest.' 
 ' I go,' he said, — but as he spoke, she found 
 His hand more cold, and fluttering was the sound ; 
 Then gazed, affrighted, — but she caught, at last, 
 A dying look of love, — and all was past ! " 
 
 Assuredly, he who could thus describe the 
 tender ministry of woman's love, 
 
 "And paint its presence beautifying death," 
 
 had no lack of the gentler sympathies of the 
 poet's nature, no feeble perception of the spirit 
 which makes suffering forget to sorrow, and life, 
 with all its trials, wear a smile of hope. 
 
 It has indeed been said, and we believe it, 
 that it is the lively sense of happiness alone 
 which can teach the poet thoroughly to conceive 
 the severity of its privation. The genius which 
 inspired the passage above quoted is equally 
 present in this strongly-contrasted description of 
 the last hours in a conscience-stricken existence: 
 
 " In each lone place, dejected and dismayed, 
 Shrinking from view, his wasting form he laid ; 
 Or to the restless sea, and roaring wind. 
 Gave the strong yearnings of a ruined mind ; 
 On the broad beach, the silent summer day, 
 Stretched on some wreck, he wore his life away; 
 Or where the river mingles with the sea, ) 
 
 Or on the mud-bank, by the elder-tree, > 
 
 Or by the bounding marsh-dyke, there was he ; J 
 And when imable to forsake the town, 
 In the blind courts he sat desponding down, — 
 Always alone ; — then feebly would he crawl 
 The church-way walk, and lean upon the wall ; 
 Too iU for this, he laid beside the door. 
 Compelled to hear the reasoning of the poor ; — 
 He looked so pale, so weak, the pitying crowd 
 Their firm belief of his repentance vowed ; — 
 They saw him then so ghastly and so thin, 
 That they exclaimed,—' Is this the work of sin?' " 
 
 But our poet's observation was not restricted 
 to this department alone. It pursued, with 
 equal vigilance, the actions of mankind into 
 other walks of life, and has recorded them with 
 similar accuracy and skill. Nor has he solely 
 dwelt on their more serious occupations ; the 
 follies, and caprices, and singularities of human 
 character he has happily seized, and described 
 with consummate felicity, at times playfully, at 
 others, in a tone of satire, forcible, yet free 
 from cynicism. We would fain do justice to our 
 author by citing more largely than is possible, 
 within our present limits, from the abundant 
 instances of quaint and genial delineation which 
 could be selected from his writings. He was 
 himself somewhat of a humorist, and is never 
 more successful than in the portraiture of such 
 characters, or where he pleasantly reveals the 
 minor absurdities of habit or caprice. In the 
 following cordial passage, we fancy we can re- 
 cognise some traits of dear old Gilbert White of 
 Selbome, that most amiable of all naturalists : 
 
 «' He had no system, and forebore to read 
 The learned labours of the immortal Swede : 
 
46 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 But smiled to hear the creatures he had kno\vn 
 
 So long, were now in class and order shown, 
 
 Genus and species : — * Is it meet,' said he, 
 
 ' This creature's name should one so sounding be ? 
 
 'Tis but a fly, though first-born of the spring, — 
 
 Bomhylius majus dost thou call the thing? 
 
 Majus, indeed ! and yet, in fact, 'tis true, 
 
 We all are majors, all are minors, too. 
 
 Except the first and last — th' immensely distant two. 
 
 And hear again — what call the learned this? 
 
 Both Ilippobosca and Hirundinis. 
 
 Methinks the creature should be proud to find 
 
 That he employs the talents of mankind ; 
 
 And that his sovereign master shrewdly looks. 
 
 Counts all his parts, and puts them in his books. 
 
 Well ! go thy way, for I do feel it shame 
 
 To stay a being with so proud a name." 
 
 The quiet humour of this passage is delightful. 
 In a similar, yet richer vein, is the description 
 of tlie pedant husband's disappointments with 
 a pretty wife, whom he would fain (out upon 
 him !) have moulded into a philosopher. Is not 
 her prattle exquisite ? 
 
 " He showed the flowers, the stamina, the style, 
 CaUx and corol, pericarp and fruit. 
 And all the plant produces, branch and root ; 
 Of these he treated, every varying shape, 
 Till poor Augusta panted to escape : 
 He showed the various foliage plants produce. 
 Lunate and lyrate, runcinate, retuse ; 
 Long were the learned words, and urged vfith force, 
 Panduriform, pennatafid, prasniorse, 
 Latent and patent, papulous and plane, — 
 'Oh ! ' said the pupil, ' it will turn my brain !' 
 ' Fear not,' he answered ; and again, intent 
 To fill that mind, o'er class and order went ; 
 And, stopping, ' Now,' said he, ' my love, attend !' — 
 
 * I do,' said she, ' but when will be an end?' 
 
 * When we have made some progress, — now begin — 
 Which is the stigma? show me with the pin ; 
 Come, I have told you, dearest, let me see, 
 Times very many, — tell it now to me.' 
 
 * Stigma I know ; the things with yellow heads. 
 That shed the dust, and grow upon the threads ; 
 You call them wives and husbands, but you know 
 That is a joke ; here, look, and I will show 
 
 All I remember.' Doleful was the look 
 
 Of the preceptor, when he shut his book 
 
 (The system brought to aid them in their view). 
 
 And now with sighs returned — ' It will not do ! ' " 
 
 We do not think that Crabbe has ever been 
 surpassed in the delineation of these minor pe- 
 culiarities of habit, action, and propensity, which 
 are in ordinary life the chief indications of 
 character, yet which it requires a fine perception 
 to distinguish and define, so slightly are they 
 raised upon the general surface. The subjoined 
 passage has been justly celebrated; although 
 well known, it cannot be too often praised : 
 
 ' Six years had past, and fortj' ere the six. 
 When time began to play his usual tricks ; 
 The locks once comely in a virgin's sight. 
 Locks of pure brown, displayed the encroaching 
 
 white ; 
 The blood, once fervid, now to cool began, 
 And Time's strong pressure to subdue the man. 
 
 I rode or walked as I was wont before, 
 
 But now the bounding spirit was no more ; 
 
 A moderate pace would now my body heat ; 
 
 A walk of moderate length distress my feet. 
 
 I showed my stranger-guest those hills sublime, 
 
 But said, * The view is poor: we need not climb.' 
 
 At a friend's mansion I began to dread 
 
 The cold neat parlour, and the gay glazed bed : 
 
 At home I felt a more decided taste. 
 
 And must have all things in my order placed ; 
 
 I ceased to hunt ; my horses pleased me less; 
 
 My dinner more ; 1 learned to play at chfsa. 
 
 I took my dog and gun, but saw the brutfi 
 
 Was disappointed that I did not shoot. 
 
 My morning walks I now could bear to lose. 
 
 And blessed the shower that gave me not to choose : 
 
 In fact, I felt a languor stealing on ; 
 
 The active arm, the agile hand, were gone ; 
 
 Small daily actions into habits grew, 
 
 And new dislike to forms and fashions new. 
 
 I loved my trees in order to dispose ; 
 
 I numbered peaches, looked how stocks arose ; 
 
 Told the same story oft, — in short, began to prose.' 
 
 . 1 
 
 •se." ) 
 
 We can only spare room for one other speci- 
 men of a class, in which our author shows him- 
 self so eminently skilled. We learn from his 
 biography, that the following picture of a singu- 
 lar and whimsical ostentation was drawn from 
 an express original. However this may be, we 
 feel at once that it is true to human nature. 
 And how dexterously is the portrait completed 
 by a few touches ! 
 
 " ' Sir Denys Brand ! and on so poor a steed ! ' 
 ' Poor it may be ! such things I never heed.' 
 And who that youth behind of pleasant mien, 
 Equipt as one who wishes to be seen, 
 Upon a horse twice victor for a plate, 
 A noble hunter, bought at dearest rate ? 
 Him the lad fearing, yet resolved to guide, 
 He curbs his spirit while he strokes his pride. 
 'A handsome youth, Sir Denys, and a horse 
 Of finer figure never trod the course. 
 Yours, without question?' — ' Yes ! I think a groom 
 Bought me the beast : I cannot say the sum ; 
 I ride him not, — it is a foolish pride 
 Men have in cattle, — but my people ride ; 
 The boy is— harkye, sirrah ! what's 5'^our name i 
 Ay, Jacob, — yes ! I recollect, the same ; — 
 As I bethink me now, a tenant's son ; 
 I think a tenant,— Is your father one ? ' " 
 
 In what may be termed the historical analysis 
 of character, Crabbe has few rivals. His pa- 
 tience, minuteness, and care are inimitable. He 
 traces the operation of passions, of original ten- 
 dencies, of external accidents, as they combine 
 to influence action and feeling in different ages 
 and natures, with a fidelity almost approaching 
 intuition. He employs no glaring contrasts, no 
 abrupt transitions. Every step is noticed and 
 prepared ; we observe the progress of habit and 
 will, as they advance towards virtue or vice 
 until we are placed in sight of the inevitable 
 consequence. Nor is this power of our author 
 employed on graver subjects alone. He takes 
 an equal delight in pursuing thioughout a long 
 
SARAH SIDDONS. 
 
 47 
 
 career, the eccentricities of a whimsical or hu- 
 morous character, and dwells upon their changes 
 with a most captivating gusto. Of his severer 
 tone of remark, it should be observed, that it is 
 never heard, but in the censure of arrogance, 
 folly, or baseness, when the force of his sarcasm 
 commands our entire approbation. 
 
 But we must now touch upon our author's 
 chief defect, as the poet of human life. Of 
 that higher philosophy which not only perceives, 
 but can reconcile the contending elements of 
 suffering and action, we lind no appearance in 
 Lis writings. He is purely descriptive and his- 
 torical. He lays the materials of existence before 
 us in all their fulness ; but there is no attempt 
 on his part to arrange or explain them. He is, 
 like ourselves, a mere spectator; more clear- 
 sighted, and wise, and compassionate than the 
 rest, yet still a spectator alone. He sees life 
 but in fragments, nor does he appear to have 
 any conception of a harmony, of a whole. He 
 does not even aid us in unravelling the tangled 
 web that has just passed through his hands: 
 gently or firmly, as the texture of the various 
 threads may require, he seizes upon them ; and 
 as he found them, so does he lay them down. 
 He is no expounder of mysteries. The charge of 
 kindling, amidst the darkest perplexities of life, 
 the beacons of hope and belief, and universal 
 love, is the highest function of poetry. We 
 have no reason to believe that Crabbe was con- 
 scious of this attribute of his art ; he wrote as 
 though it had no existence. Let us not be mis- 
 understood. Crabbe was a wise, and pious, and 
 benevolent man. It is not of the rigour of his 
 darkest pictures that we complain ; but that we 
 find in them no glimmering of that light which 
 
 is ever present to the thoroughly gifted teacher, 
 amidst the deepest gloom of life's afflictions. 
 He never learned, perhaps was not endowed 
 with the perception of the highest function of 
 his art. In his pictures of affection, and endur- 
 ance, and self-sacrifice, we see poetry uncon- 
 sciously vindicating her office ; but the effect is 
 casual and interrupted. And in estimating 
 Crabbe's poetical merits, we are bound to award 
 him praise as a faithful recorder of all that he 
 knew, and an observer, diligent, but partial. 
 Of that greater praise which attends the full 
 comprehension of our history, we can afford him 
 no share. 
 
 In general, Crabbe's style is vigorous and cor- 
 rect, plain, and free from redundant epithets; 
 — at times it sinks to the level of the commonest 
 prose, and perhaps never quite reaches the sus- 
 tained elevation which his subject occasionally 
 requires. The structure of his verse is not in 
 general remarkable for melody ; though passages 
 might be found in his writings of easy and flow- 
 ing versification, worthy of Pope himself. A 
 fondness for verbal points and appositions, ap- 
 proaching at times the nature of quibbles, is 
 observable in his earlier efforts ; in his last pub- 
 lished work, the "Tales of the Hall," such in- 
 stances rarely occur. Their effect, however, is 
 not, on the whole, unpleasing; their occasional 
 introduction gives pungency to his descriptive 
 passages, and affords considerable gratification 
 to the ear. We must now take leave of this 
 excellent and amiable writer ; whose poems we 
 should wish to see in the hands of all those who 
 have preserved, amidst the present deluge of 
 languid prettinesses, some taste for sincere, 
 vigorous, and manly writing. 
 
 SAEAH SIDDONS. 
 
 [1755-1831.] 
 
 Sarah Kemble, afterwards Siddons, was the 
 eldest of her family, and was born at the little 
 town of Brecon in 1755. Her father, Roger 
 Kemble, was manager of a company of actors 
 sojourning chiefly in the midland and western 
 towns of England. Mr Campbell, who had seen 
 both parents in their elder years, says they were 
 tall and comely personages ; that the father had 
 the suavity of a gentleman of the old school, 
 while the mother possessed much of austere 
 stateliness. In fact, as Mrs Jameson tells us, 
 "Mrs Siddons, with all her graces of form and 
 feature, her magnificence of deportment, her deep- 
 toned measured voice and impressive enuncia- 
 tion, was in reality a softened reflection of her 
 more stately, stern, majestic mother, whose 
 genuine loftiness of spirit and of bearing, whose 
 rare bea u ty and imperious despotism of character, 
 
 have often been described as absolutely awful. 
 Even her children trembled in her presence." 
 
 The little Sarah Kemble was a beautiful child. 
 Her movements full of ease and grace ; her voice 
 most melodious, and by dint of cultivation so 
 clear, that she could make even her whisper 
 audible to very distant listeners. Very little 
 could be done for her education. Her brothers 
 were sent by Roger Kemble, as a Roman Catholic, 
 to a school established for children whose parents 
 were of that persuasion, while Sarah was kept 
 at home. 
 
 One does not see how the children of parents 
 living wholly by the profession, in the rank of 
 Roger Kemble and his wife, could help being 
 actors and actresses. Their parents might have 
 preferred a different life for them, and in the 
 higher theatrical world the business of the stage 
 
48 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 can be kept apart from the home ; but in a shift- 
 ing and poor company like this, the children 
 were almost necessary to the performance, and 
 of course would acquire the tastes and habits of 
 stage life very early. 
 
 Probably Mrs Siddons was made use of at as 
 immature a period as any child could be. It is 
 painful to think of her being forced to strive 
 after intrepid and assured self-confidence in the 
 earliest dawn of youth ; but she never did wholly 
 achieve such a degree of assurance, and those 
 who best knew her agree that even to the last 
 she had fits of timidity and nervousness. Very 
 few records remain of that childish period. She 
 always maintained that in early days she loved 
 Milton better even than Shakespeare, and at ten 
 years old used to pore over " Paradise Lost" for 
 hours together. In later life it was said of her 
 that she knew no books well save her Bible, 
 Milton, and Shakespeare. This was not quite 
 literally true, but certainly these had ever the 
 daily preference. 
 
 A small anecdote, related to her biographer, 
 Mr Campbell, by herself, belongs doubtless to 
 a very juvenile period. Her mother, she said, 
 had promised one day to take her out into the 
 country on an expedition of pleasure, provided 
 the weather was propitious ; and she was to wear 
 a new pink frock, which she thought became 
 her well. On going to bed that night, the child's 
 retgning desire was of course for a beautiful 
 morrow, and it occurred to her that the use of 
 the Church prayer for fair weather would be 
 appropriate. So she went to bed and to sleep, 
 with the book open at the page folded in her 
 little arms. At daybreak she woke, and alas ! 
 found the rain pelting against the windows. 
 She had, however, recourse to the book again, 
 and it appears, convinced herself that she had 
 erred before by taking the prayer for rain in- 
 stead of the one she intended. So she remedied 
 the mistake, turned to the right place, went to 
 sleep again ; and behold, the morning came clear 
 and bright, the party was successful, and the 
 pink dress was all that her heart could desire ! 
 
 There is no criticising simple anecdotes like 
 this, and I should be sorry for any one who did 
 not recognise in it the germ of a piety, moving, 
 if not quite spontaneously, yet in what was 
 thought the right and true way. Certain it is, 
 that throughout her whole career Mrs Siddons 
 had the greatest possible sympathy with little 
 children. Let them be as illogical and careless 
 as possible, still she loved them dearly ; and of 
 course they dearly loved her. She had the talent 
 for observing them closely without oppressing 
 them, and nothing delighted her more than that 
 they should act and speak at ease before her. 
 Respecting this trait in her character, I must say 
 more by-and-by ; but when speaking of her own 
 simple-hearted childhood, one is led to feel how 
 *nuch it had to do with her affection for the 
 young in after-life. 
 
 Nothing very material from this time is re- 
 corded of her till her sixteenth year. It is only 
 noticed by her daughter, Mrs Combe, that when 
 the period of childhood had passed away she 
 became exceedingly thin and spare, and that 
 this remained her characteristic for several years 
 afterwards, giving occasion to an observation of 
 one of her father's friends, that he thought 
 Sarah Kemble would be a fine-looking woman 
 one of these days, provided she could but add 
 flesh to her bones, and provided her eyes were as 
 small again. This, in fact, is what did occur. 
 Her increasing embonpoint brought all into har- 
 mony, the eyes looked less prominent, and at 
 the age of about twenty-four or twenty-five she 
 was perhaps at the very height of her marvellous 
 beauty. 
 
 Every one knows that Mrs Siddons' affections 
 were early engaged by her future husband, an 
 actor in her father's company. From the age I 
 have mentioned (sixteen), it is probable she un- 
 derwent much anxiety, for the attachment was 
 not approved by her parents, and she was sent 
 from home to be out of her lover's way. He was 
 not very dignified about the matter. He took 
 the public into his confidence, singing on the 
 stage an absurd ballad, in which he recorded his 
 wrongs, to the extreme wrath of Mrs Kemble. 
 Excepting in the matter of this ill-judged ebul- 
 lition, nothing amiss is recorded of him; and 
 the parents, finding the mutual attachment un- 
 conquerable, consented at length to the union, a 
 short time after Sarah had entered her nineteenth 
 year, in November 1773. 
 
 The vocation of Mrs Siddons was now, of 
 course, absolutely decided. Hitherto, though 
 she had taken the parts assigned her under her 
 father's orders, she had had little time at her own 
 disposal, and had no friends but those of her 
 parents.* Now, however, she almost at once 
 exhibited her remarkable power of first exciting 
 interest in the minds of people of higher stand- 
 ing than her own, and next of profiting by their 
 advice and help. She never seems to have 
 formed a real friendship with any one by 
 whose character and conduct she could not be 
 a gainer. 
 
 Of course, the advantages offered to her in 
 different places varied much. At Cheltenham, 
 where first we hear of the young married pair 
 acting together, she was immediately noticed. 
 Cheltenham, then a town consisting of little 
 more than one street, across which ran a clear 
 stream crossed by stepping-stones, was not with- 
 out its aristocratic theatrical critics. The Ayles- 
 
 * Perhaps I should have excepted the Greatheed 
 family, residing at Guy's Cliff, Warwick. To them she 
 was sent when it was desired to separate her from Mr 
 Siddons, and though it is prohable that she went 
 merely in the capacity of a humble attendant, she 
 must have gained something in the course of her 
 readings to Mrs Greatheed; and she retained the 
 friendship of the family through life. 
 
SARAH sinnoNS. 
 
 49 
 
 bury family, and particularly Miss Boyle, their 
 connection (who afterwards married Lord O'Neil 
 of Shane's Castle, Ireland), called upon her, and 
 paid her much attention. This was not founded 
 on her theatrical repute merely. They deemed 
 her worthy of a lasting friendship, and encour- 
 aged to the extent of their power her taste and 
 talent. 
 
 In another way this patronage was of more 
 questionable advantage, if it be true, as is 
 afiirmed, that their representations led to Mr 
 Garrick's sending down one of his agents to see 
 her act in the *' Fair Penitent," and soon after- 
 wards giving her an invitation to Drury Lane : 
 an unfortunate move, which put to hazard all 
 her rising excellences, and which must be con- 
 sidered, when we take into account the few 
 advantages she had then enjoyed, as premature. 
 However, the invitation was at once accepted. 
 She did not go to London till January 1776, 
 and by that time she was the mother of two 
 children. 
 
 Her appearance at Drury Lane was followed 
 by many mortifications. The contemporary 
 papers gave her very moderate praise ; and in 
 Mr Garrick's behaviour to her there was a mix- 
 ture of harshness and flattery which one can 
 only understand by supposing that he found 
 her very unequal in the display of what power 
 she possessed. Also, that being on the point of 
 leaving the stage himself, he cared more for 
 standing well with his old stage coadjutors, than 
 for a debutante who was said to be "ill dressed, 
 often inaudible, and frightened," while she was 
 allowed to be pretty, delicate, and fragile-look- 
 ing. 
 
 To us, who know what this disdained debu- 
 tante afterwards became, w^ho can read even in 
 that early time the indications of a character in 
 which lay the elements of the highest kinds of 
 success, the public judgment may well seem 
 hasty and unfair. 
 
 It was certain that Mrs Siddons' mortification 
 was not soothed by any amenities of manner in 
 those from whom she received her dismissal 
 from London ; and she had deep susceptibility, 
 and felt on the occasion so keenly, that she had 
 a serious illness. To the last of her life she 
 could not forbear speaking with bitterness of 
 this part of her lot : made more painful doubt- 
 less, by her own habitual sincerity, and what 
 she at least considered as a want of truthfulness 
 on the part of others ; for she always maintained 
 that Garrick's compliments were in sad contrast 
 to his conduct towards her. 
 
 It was not in Mrs Siddons' nature, however, 
 to jdeld to dejection. On recovering from her 
 illness, she rallied her forces, threw her whole 
 mind into her work, and acted both at Birming- 
 ham and York with vigour and success. Every 
 effort told, because all were overruled by con- 
 summate good sense, and by a reasonable defer- 
 ential attention to the best counsels : for it was 
 
 not till long afterwards that she insisted on 
 working out thoroughly her own conceptions of 
 a character. She was willing for some time to 
 listen to every remark ; but when she had made 
 herself sure at last of her ground, no one, how- 
 ever gifted, could shake her conscientious adher- 
 ence to her own views. 
 
 It would seem that she was at Birmingham 
 during the whole summer of 1776. There it 
 was that she met Henderson, an excellent judge, 
 who acted with her, and was so impressed by 
 her powers, that he pronounced that she would 
 be eventually an unsurpassed actress. He wrote 
 to Palmer, the manager at Bath, and Palmer 
 appears to have negotiated with her. But she 
 did not go to Bath till late in the year 1777, 
 playing first successfully at York. At Bath she 
 took up her abode for three and a half years ; 
 and her improvement there was great. It was 
 not merely that she studied carefully, but she 
 caught a higher tone altogether from the excel- 
 lent society into which she was thrown. Bath 
 was then, more than at any time perhaps, the 
 resort of intelligent, excellent judges. They 
 took her by the hand, did honour to her char- 
 acter, and remained her steady friends through 
 life. Yet the enjoyment and improvement of 
 such a position alternated with very hard work. 
 
 In her private memoranda she complains of 
 having had to act in many subordinate, perhaps 
 disagreeable characters; "but to this," she says, 
 " I was obliged to submit, or to forfeit part of 
 my salary — £3 a week. Tragedies were now 
 becoming more and more fashionable. This 
 was favourable to my cast of powers ; and while 
 I laboured hard, I began to earn a distinct and 
 flattering reputation. Hard labour indeed it 
 was ; for after the rehearsal at Bath on a Mon- 
 day morning, I had to act at Bristol" (not in 
 railway days) *' on the evening of the same day ; 
 and returning twelve miles to Bath, had to re- 
 present some fatiguing part on the Tuesday 
 evening. . . . When I recollect all this labour 
 of mind and body, I wonder I had strength and 
 courage to support it, interrupted as I was by 
 the cares of a mother " (she had then three chil- 
 dren) " and by the childish sports of my littl« 
 ones, who were almost unwillingly hushed to 
 silence for interrupting their mother's studies." 
 
 But laborious as was her position at Bath, 
 Mrs Siddons did not hastily accept a new pro- 
 posal to quit it ; not even though that proposal 
 came from Drury Lane, and she could not be 
 unconscious that her prospects of success were 
 now far greater than before. She was now in her 
 twenty-seventh year. She had been but twenty- 
 one when she tried her skill under Garrick's 
 auspices. 
 
 What a contrast it was to be ! What a rich 
 reward was the persevering, industrious, con- 
 scientious artist to reap ! For now one night, 
 one short hour, was to establish her on that 
 basis of well-earned fame, from whence it waa 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 felt at once by all good judges that she never 
 could be, never would be, dislodged. 
 
 She took her leave of Bath with much sorrow 
 of heart at parting with her numerous valued 
 friends and judges ; and she led her little ones 
 on to the stage, pointing to them as bringing 
 out the real motives of her departure, and utter- 
 ing, in a few lines of her own (of no great poeti- 
 cal merit), her farewells. 
 
 In no words but those which she herself 
 penned, shall the great eventful night of her life 
 be commemorated : 
 
 "I was truly grieved," she says, "to leave 
 my kind friends at Bath, and was also fearful 
 that the power of my voice was not equal to 
 filling a London theatre. My friends also were 
 doubtful. But I soon had reason to think that 
 the bad construction of the Bath theatre, aud 
 not the weakness of my voice, was the cause of 
 our mutual fears. On the 10th of October 1782, 
 I made my first new appearance at Drury Lane, 
 with my own dear beautiful boy, then but eight 
 years old, in Southerne's tragedy of * Isabella.' . . . 
 
 "For a whole fortnight before this, to me, 
 memorable day, I suffered from nervous agita- 
 tion more than can be imagined. No wonder 1 
 My own fate and that of my little family hung 
 upon it. I had quitted Bath, where all my 
 eff"orts had been successful, and I feared lest a 
 second failure in Loudon might influence the 
 public mind greatly to my prejudice, in the 
 event of my return from Drury Lane disgraced, 
 as I had formerly been. In due time I was 
 summoned to the rehearsal of 'Isabella.' Who 
 can imagine my terror? I feared to utter a 
 sound above an audible whisper ; but by degrees 
 enthusiasm cheered me into forgetfulness of my 
 fears, and I unconsciously threw out my voice, 
 which failed not to be heard in the remotest 
 parts of the house by a friend who kindly 
 undertook to ascertain the happy circumstance. 
 The countenances, no less than the tears and 
 flattering encouragements, of my companions, 
 emboldened me more and more; and the second 
 rehearsal was even more affecting than the first. 
 It took place on the 8th of October ; and on the 
 evening of that day I was seized with a nervous 
 hoarseness, which made me extremely wretched, 
 for I dreaded being obliged to defer my appear- 
 ance on the 10th, longing, as I most earnestly 
 did, at least to know the worst. I went to 
 bed, therefore, in a state of dreadful suspense. 
 Awaking next morning, however, though out of 
 restless, unrefreshing sleep, I found, upon speak- 
 ing to my husband, that my voice was very 
 much clearer. This, of course, was a great com- 
 fort to me ; and, moreover, the sun which had 
 been completely obscured for many days, shone 
 brightly through my curtains. I hailed it, 
 though tearfully, as a happy omen ; and even 
 now I am not ashamed of this (as it may per- 
 haps be called) childish superstition. On the 
 morning of the 10th my voice was, most happily, 
 
 perfectly restored, and again *the blessed sue 
 shone brightly on me.' On this eventful day 
 my father arrived to comfort me, and to be a 
 witness of my trial. He accompanied me to my 
 dressing-room at the theatre, and there he left 
 me ; and I, in one of what I call my desperate 
 tranquillities, which usually impress me under 
 terrific circumstances, there completed my dress, 
 to the astonishment of my attendants, without 
 uttering one word, though often sighing most 
 profoundly. 
 
 "At length I was called to my fiery trial. 1 
 found my venerable father behind the scenes 
 little less agitated than myself. The awful con- 
 sciousness of being the sole object of attention 
 to that immense space, lined, as it were, with 
 human intellect from top to bottom and all 
 around, may be imagined but can never be de- 
 scribed, and by me can never be forgotten. 
 
 " Of the general effect of this night's perform- 
 ance I will not speak : it has already been pub- 
 licly recorded. I reached my own quiet fireside, 
 retiring from reiterated shouts and plaudits. I 
 was half dead. My joy and thankfulness were 
 of too solemn and overpowering a nature to 
 admit of words or even tears. My father, my 
 husband, and I, sat down to a frugal, neat 
 supper, in a silence uninterrupted except by Mr 
 Siddons* exclamations of gladness. My father 
 enjoyed his refreshments, but occasionally 
 stopped short, and laying down his knife and 
 fork, lifting up his venerable face, and throwing 
 back his silver hair, gave way to tears of happi- 
 ness. We soon parted for the night, and I, 
 worn out with continually broken rest and labo- 
 rious exertion, after an hour's retrospection (who 
 can conceive the intenseness of that reverie?), 
 fell into a sweet and profound sleep, which 
 lasted to the middle of the next day. I arose 
 alert in mind and body." 
 
 This triumphant meeting was well followed 
 up. Sir Walter Scott, many years afterwards, 
 at a meeting in Edinburgh, described the scene 
 on one of those far-famed nights. Mrs Siddons' 
 health being given, he rose and said : 
 
 " If anything could reconcile a man to old age, 
 it was the reflection of having seen the rising as 
 well as the setting sun of Mrs Siddons." He 
 remembered well their breakfasting near the 
 theatre — waiting the whole day — the crushing at 
 the doors at six o'clock, and their getting in and 
 counting their fingers till seven. But the very 
 first step, the first word which she uttered, was 
 sufficient to overpay them for all their weariness. 
 The house was literally electrified, and it was 
 only from witnessing the effects of her genius 
 that one could guess to what a pitch theatrical 
 excellence may be carried. " Those young fel- 
 lows," added Sir Walter, " who have only seen 
 the setting sun of this distinguished performer, 
 beautiful and serene as it was, must give us old 
 fellows who have seen it3 rise leave to hold oui 
 heads a little higher." 
 
SARAH SIDDONS. 
 
 51 
 
 Twenty.four times in this season of 1782-3 did 
 Mrs Siddons repeat her part of Isabella. Then 
 she added others— the other Isabella, in " Mea- 
 sure for Measure ; " and the far more renowned 
 part, hy many preferred to any of her characters 
 (excepting, perhaps, that of Lady Macbeth), 
 of Constance, in "King John." One sees at a 
 glance how suitable this must have been to the 
 cast of Mrs Siddons' mind. A mother's passion- 
 ate love, the disappointment prepared by injus- 
 tice and cruelty, the anguish, the indignation, 
 the tenderness, were all exquisitely rendered. 
 She has left in writing her own impressions of 
 the play and of this special character, but no 
 criticism can be so interesting as the indications 
 one meets with everywhere in her own nightly 
 preparation for her work. She never pretended 
 extravagances of enthusiasm, she never said she 
 had merged her own self in a character, but she 
 had a true sense of what an actress owes to her 
 author. There have been these among her com- 
 peers who could admit gossips to their dressing- 
 room, and talk of any subject rather than that 
 of the representation on which they were imme- 
 diately to engage. It was impossible for Mrs 
 Siddons to do this. She could not, and if she 
 had been able we may rest assured she would 
 not. 
 
 Speaking of this very part of Constance, she 
 says, *' I never, from the beginning of the play 
 to the end of it, once suffered my dressing-room 
 door to be closed, in order that my attention 
 might be constantly fixed on those distressing 
 events, which I could plainly hear were going on 
 upon the stage, the terrible facts which were to 
 be represented by me." 
 
 Who can doubt that this earnest, ample giving 
 up of herself to the real spirit of the drama was 
 the truest thing this truthful woman could have 
 done ? and that this it was which preserved in 
 her a continual freshness and vigour ? Mr Young 
 might well say that she was the most lofty- 
 minded actress he ever beheld. "Whatever she 
 touched she ennobled." 
 
 As one gathers up the most noteworthy points, 
 both in her own self-management and in the ex- 
 ternal discipline imposed upon her from without, 
 it is interesting to find how uniform was her 
 own preference for the best guides she could 
 find. To Dr Johnson she went again and again 
 during the short space yet allotted to the sage 
 in life, for he died in 1784. He appreciated her 
 desire to communicate with him, discussed dif- 
 ferent characters with her, approved of her taste ; 
 and said when she was gone, " Neither praise 
 nor the love of money, the two powerful cor- 
 ruptions of mankind, seem to have depraved 
 her." 
 
 Refreshment and strength were sure to come 
 from such intercourses as this, but, on the other 
 hand, she had to undergo some most impertinent 
 intrusions ; and even where nothing but Idndness 
 was intended, she was compelled to pay dear in 
 
 fatigue and loss of time for her honours. Nothing, 
 for instance, could exceed the admiration with 
 which the king (George III.) and his queen lis- 
 tened to the readings she gave, by their desire, 
 at Windsor. But they were a great trial to her. 
 Though perfectly sincere in their expressions of 
 esteem, the then royal family could not, even for 
 Mrs Siddons, dispense with the stiff and absurd 
 forms of Court etiquette. The already over- 
 tasked woman was obliged to stand during the 
 whole of a lengthened reading, which, trying as 
 it was, she preferred to accepting their offers of 
 refreshment in an adjoining room, coupled, as 
 she said it must have been, with the necessity of 
 retiring backwards through ** the whole length 
 of a long apartment with highly-polished slip- 
 pery floor." 
 
 Often were her public performances also at- 
 tended by the royal family, although the queen, 
 in her broken English, avowed that she was 
 sometimes obliged to turn her back upon the 
 stage, for Mrs Siddons' acting "was indeed too 
 disagreeable." 
 
 It is right, in order to complete the account 
 of her intercourse with the royal family (though 
 by so doing we anticipate many years), to say 
 that after her retirement in 1812 she read two or 
 three times at Frogmore and Windsor, was re- 
 ceived with the utmost consideration, allowed 
 ample time for refreshment, and requested to sit 
 during the whole reading. 
 
 All this time, and for many years afterwards, 
 the public talk was of the immense private for- 
 tune which Mrs Siddons must be accumulating. 
 That she was on the whole largely paid, there 
 can be no doubt ; but it is only fair to say how 
 often she was kept waiting for payment at the 
 hands of Mr Sheridan. These anxieties are often 
 alluded to in her private letters. In May 1796 
 she writes : " I have got no money yet; all my 
 last benefit, a very great one, was swept into Mr 
 
 S 's treasury ; nor have I seen a shilling of 
 
 it." The public saw the crowded houses, took 
 the measure of her gains, and knew not how 
 often the great actress had to consider what she 
 could count on as her own. Years afterwards 
 she wrote to a friend : " I must go on making, 
 to secure the few comforts I have been able to 
 attain for myself and family. I hope it is not 
 wrong to say I am tired, and should be glad to 
 be at rest." 
 
 At the date of this letter she was sufi"ering 
 from erysipelas, which made speaking very pain- 
 ful ; and when the London season was over, new 
 engagements had to be made in the country to 
 counterbalance the inconvenience of unpunctual 
 payments. 
 
 Respecting Mrs Siddons' pecuniary ideas, she 
 was, it may be believed, somewhat anxious and 
 careful, but never knowingly guilty of meanness 
 or extortion. A public character like hers is often 
 much misjudged for a time upon these and othex 
 points, and it is only those who will take the 
 
52 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 trouble to read the life backwards, marking its 
 stages, seeing the general concurrence of the 
 opinion of the wise and good upon it, who can 
 judge truly about a distinguished person, so 
 commonly a mark for minute criticism. 
 
 As we follow her year by year, either on or off 
 the stage, we feel that her great glory had 
 always its pursuing shadow ; and that the more 
 successes multiplied and her powers became ma- 
 ture, the more dijfficult was it to steer her course 
 aright. It makes one alternately smile and ad- 
 mire her kindly simplicity of heart, for instance, 
 when one sees her striving to explain herself to 
 good sort of people, who could neither be 
 brought to understand the needs of the stage 
 nor her own instinctive sense of fitness; and 
 who offered her their own pieces, with a self- 
 complacent idea of suiting her, by giving her the 
 part of, as she said, '* some milksop of a lady," 
 "some provoking piece of still life." Nothing 
 could conquer her firmness in rejecting such 
 offers, but it was a pain and grief to her. And 
 when a friend, of whom she had a high opinion, 
 sent her a tragedy of his own, which was not to 
 her mind, her expressions of regret are really 
 almost comic : 
 
 "It is impossible," she says, "for you to con- 
 ceive how hard it is to say that 'Astarte' will 
 not do as you and I would have it do. * Thank 
 God, it is over !' It has been so bitter a sentence 
 Jor me to pronounce, that it has wrung drops of 
 sorrow from the very bottom of my heart. . . . 
 Let me entreat, if you have any idea that I am 
 too tenacious of your honour, that you will 
 suffer me to ask the opinions of others, which 
 may be done without naming the author. I 
 must, however, premise that what is charming 
 in the closet, often ceases to be so when it comes 
 into consideration for the stage." 
 
 She proceeds in still stronger terms to express 
 her anxiety lest she should have given offence. 
 Once for all, however, it is well to remember 
 that, true to her thoughts as Mrs Siddons' 
 words ever were, it was the habit of her mind 
 to take a strong, somewhat exaggerated view of 
 all subjects. Perhaps this is a tendency scarcely 
 to be avoided in the formation of an actor's mind. 
 
 Twenty-four years of successful work inter- 
 vened between the great triumph of October 
 1782, and June 1812, when Mrs Siddons took 
 her leave of the public. Her engagements with 
 managers led undoubtedly to her acting often 
 in very middling plays ; and one is tempted to 
 be sorry that Shakespeare characters were not 
 more frequent with her. Yet it ought to be 
 remembered how intolerably bad were often the 
 fiUings-in of the subordinates in Shakespeare's 
 plays, and how trying it was to listen to the 
 dialogue, except at the moment when the in- 
 spired actress was herself on the stage. It was 
 probably from the strong feeling of these draw- 
 backs to her acting, that Mrs Siddons' Shake- 
 ejieare readings were afterwards considered by 
 
 many as a greater treat even than her perfor- 
 mances. 
 
 In sketching her progress, one must not omit 
 to mention her visits to Dublin and Edinburgh ; 
 the audience of the latter place presenting so 
 curious a contrast to any she had before address- 
 ed, that we must let Mr Campbell give it from 
 her own relation. Having complained of the 
 silence and apparent stupidity of the people, 
 she observed, "I had been used to speak to 
 animated clay, but these were stones." Suc- 
 cessive flashes of that elocution which had 
 electrified the south, "fell in vain on these 
 northern flints." "At last she told me," pro- 
 ceeds Mr Campbell, "that she coiled up her 
 powers to the most emphatic possible utterance 
 of one passage, having previously vowed in her 
 heart, that if this could not touch the Scotch, 
 she would never again cross the Tweed. When 
 it was finished she paused, and looked towards 
 the audience. The deep silence was at length 
 broken by a single voice exclaiming, * That's no 
 bad ! ' This ludicrous parsimony of praise con- 
 vulsed the Edinburgh audience with laughter; 
 but the laughter was followed by such thunders 
 of applause, that, amidst her stunned and ner- 
 vous agitation, she was not without fear of the 
 galleries coming down. She did, however, soon 
 conquer even the poorest of the Edinburgh 
 audiences. A poor servant-girl with a basket 
 of greens on her arm, one day stopped near her 
 in the High Street of Edinburgh, and hearing 
 her speak, exclaimed, 'Ah! weel do I ken that 
 sweet voice, that made me greet sae sair yes- 
 treen.'" 
 
 One story of the effect she produced upon a 
 little girl during the performance of "Jane 
 Shore," has so often been told, that one might 
 almost hesitate about repeating it. Mrs Sid- 
 dons herself used to tell it with some emotion. 
 In the last scenes of the play, when the wretched 
 woman, destitute and starved, exclaims in an 
 agony of suffering, " I have not tasted bread for 
 three daysl" a little voice was heard broken by 
 sobs, exclaiming, " Madam, madam ! do take 
 my orange, if you please ! " and the audience 
 and the actress beheld, on one of the stage boxes, 
 a little girl holding out her orange with trem- 
 bling hands for Mrs Siddons' acceptance. 
 
 By the close of the year 1800 she must have 
 been in possession of a fair competence; yet 
 even then there was much to complain of in 
 dilatory payments of fairly earned money. 
 
 She details in a letter to a friend her suffering 
 from erysipelas (the malady afterwards fatal to 
 her), and says: "My mouth is not yet well, 
 though less exquisitely painful. I have become 
 a frightful object with it for some time, and I 
 believe this complaint has robbed me of those 
 poor remains of beauty once admired, and which 
 in your partial eyes I once possessed." 
 
 In one of these laborious seasons she has been 
 known to act sixty times in London alone. 
 
SARAH SID DONS, 
 
 53 
 
 The mind shrinks from the idea of what was 
 to be gone through before a powerful part was 
 fully mastered; and in order to disprove the 
 notion that Mrs Siddons* triumphs were of 
 the intellectual sort only, her daughter relates 
 the story of her studying Lady Macbeth one 
 night very late, when the requirements of a 
 young family obliged her to postpone the hour. 
 "She experienced," says her daughter, "in the 
 Bilence of the night such a feeling of awe, and 
 was so penetrated by the horrors of the imaginary 
 scene, that towards the end, carried away by 
 fright, she rushed out on the staircase, fled into 
 her own chamber, and hid herself trembling 
 under the bed-clothes, till daylight came to 
 chase the darkness and the phantoms. Far 
 from giving up herself to a purely intellectual 
 task, as some have supposed, my mother's sensi- 
 bility was always most profoundly awakened 
 by the emotions she transmitted to the public ; 
 and it was with a face bathed in true tears that 
 she quitted the stage, after playing Constance 
 or Lady Randolph.'' 
 
 Mrs Siddons was the mother of four daughters, 
 one of whom died in infancy, and two sons. Her 
 second daughter, Maria, died of consumption, 
 at the age of nineteen, in September 1798. Mrs 
 Siddons felt this stroke keenly, but more trying 
 still was that which came upon her five years 
 afterwards, for it was aggravated by her own 
 absence in Ireland, where she had intended to 
 remain for a much longer time than usual, in 
 order to make up for some serious disappoint- 
 ments in her London payments. 
 
 Her eldest daughter, Sarah, whose beauty and 
 attractions were of the most remarkable kind, 
 had several times alarmed the family by attacks 
 of illness. Yet, when Mrs Siddons (in May 
 1802) set forth for Ireland, Sarah was well ap- 
 parently, and her mother saw no reason for posi- 
 tive anxiety. She took with her a valued and 
 trustworthy friend, Miss Wilkinson, and left 
 her daughters with their father at Bath. 
 
 The journey was to be a leisurely one, in order 
 that she might enjoy the scenery of Wales and 
 obtain rest and refreshment by the way. She 
 was somewhat depressed in spirit before setting 
 out. She said she knew not why it was, but a 
 boding uncertain fear was hanging upon her; 
 and it was remarkable that she took almost a 
 solemn farewell of those dearest to her. Her 
 friends suspected that her own health made her 
 uneasy, and that she anticipated a speedy end 
 to her career. 
 
 This was not the case, however ; and there was 
 at least one most cheering subject of contempla- 
 tion before her. Her eldest son, Henry, was 
 just about to be married; and the object of his 
 choice was perfectly approved by his mother — a 
 particularly happy thing for all parties — as Mrs 
 Siddons had been a good deal tried by his choice 
 of a profession, in which one cannot but believe 
 she evip<5ed a sounder judgment than his own. 
 
 It was, however, a settled career, and he was 
 regularly engaged in London ; his intended mar- 
 riage to Miss Murray (a charming woman and 
 most pleasant actress) rendering his mother much 
 happier and less anxious on his account than she 
 had heretofore been. 
 
 Mrs Siddons reached Dublin in June, per- 
 formed there for about two months, then visited 
 Cork and Belfast, and returned to Dublin for 
 the winter. The months wore away. The object 
 of her exile seemed likely to be attained. Her 
 profits were good, and she was warmly wel- 
 comed. It was settled that she should revisit 
 Cork in March 1803. But here a severe shock 
 awaited her. A letter, written by Mr Siddons 
 to her companion. Miss Wilkinson, announced 
 the severe illness of Miss Siddons, yet charged 
 her not to tell the mother. Miss Wilkinson 
 thought it right to disobey the injunction, and 
 Mrs Siddons would instantly have returned but 
 for the violent equinoctial gales, during which 
 no vessel would leave the harbour. A few days 
 afterwards, Mr Siddons sent a most favourable 
 report; and his wife, trusting to this, acted 
 once more, though still very anxious. 
 
 Owing to the state of the wind, they were 
 without fresh accounts for some days, till Mrs 
 Siddons, unable to bear the suspense, threw 
 up her engagement, travelled to Dublin, and 
 crossed to Holyhead the very first prac- 
 ticable moment. It may be imagined how 
 great was her distress when, on arriving at 
 Shrewsbury, she learnt by a letter which met 
 her there that her daughter was much worse; 
 in fact she died within an hour or two after that 
 letter was written. 
 
 Those who best knew the mother felt the 
 greatest dread of the effect of this blow, in 
 which it seemed as if she had been victimised at 
 first by concealment, then by the unfortunate 
 state of the weather, which neither permitted 
 vessels to go nor to come from England to Ire- 
 land. She indeed well-nigh sank under the 
 stroke, becoming torpid and cold as stone, with 
 hardly a sign of life. Then followed a severe 
 attack of illness and a lengthened stay at Chel- 
 tenham, but there, after a time, her now sole 
 surviving daughter, Cecilia, came to her. She 
 also saw her brothers, then those who had been 
 friends of poor Sarah ; and she went to visit her 
 own aged mother, now a widow. 
 
 So by degrees she rallied. Fresh calls pre- 
 sented themselves. She was invited to act at 
 Covent Garden, with her brothers; and once 
 more she put forth her utmost energy and per- 
 formed constantly from September 1803 to May 
 1804. A most severe attack of rheumatism pre- 
 vented, however, her appearing for nearly the 
 whole of the ensuing season. 
 
 Her husband, a martyr to gout, who could 
 live only at Bath, died in 1808. Through his 
 later years, the necessity of his residence had 
 entailed long and frequent separations ; but Mrs 
 
54 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Siddons had spent six weeks with him at Bath 
 in the early part of the year, and had only 
 quitted him in order to perform for her son 
 Henry, who had taken the Edinburgh Theatre ; 
 and the last illness was very short. 
 
 She writes to a friend soon after his death, 
 thus: "May I die the death of my honest, 
 worthy husband ; and may those to whom I am 
 dear remember me when I am gone, as I remem- 
 ber him, forgetting and forgiving all my errors, 
 and recollecting only my quietness of spirit and 
 singleness of heart." 
 
 A great public calamity also interrupted her 
 London labours during the season of 1808. In the 
 morning of September the 20th, Covent Garden 
 Theatre was destroyed by fire. An awful event 
 it was. The deaths amounted to thirty, chiefly 
 those of firemen employed in saving property ; 
 and so rapid was the conflagration, that in three 
 hours, namely, from four to seven, in one morning, 
 the whole was a heap of smoking ruins. The 
 scenery, the wardrobes of actors, the fine mu- 
 sical and dramatic libraries, and the organ be- 
 queathed to them by Handel — all perished. So 
 great a loss of property in one fire has rarely 
 been known. 
 
 Of course the poor impoverished actors had to 
 be thought for ; they wanted every help. The 
 management and company were transferred to 
 the Opera House, and then to the Haymarket, 
 at which places Mrs Siddons acted forty -two 
 times, returning to Edinburgh afterwards. 
 
 It was thought that the theatrical season, 
 which was to inaugurate the new Covent Garden 
 Theatre, would be the most perfect ever known. 
 So expeditious had been the workmen, working 
 under the direction of the architect Smirke, that 
 the theatre was ready two nights before the an- 
 niversary of the conflagration. The Kembles 
 were here to reign supreme. Mrs Siddons was 
 queen. All the decorations, the scenery, the 
 arrangements of the building, seemed as nearly 
 perfect as possible. But an ill-starred attempt 
 of John Kemble to raise the prices doomed him 
 at once to unpopularity, and while the famous 
 0. P. Riots continued, Mrs Siddons necessarily 
 retired after the first night. The contest vexed, 
 inconvenienced, and alarmed her for her brother's 
 sake ; but she herself was resigned to wait ; and 
 the next season, when Mr Kemble had seen it 
 good to yield, and when harmony was restored, 
 Mrs Siddons was all the more bent upon giving 
 her best powers to his service, because she had 
 fully determined to take her own leave of the 
 stage in June 1812. 
 
 She would then have reached her fifty-sixth 
 year. She thought the proper time was come 
 for her to retire, and to give the remainder of 
 her life to private and domestic duties, while 
 stiir retaining her interest in that which had 
 been to her a source of earnest pursuit for so 
 many years. 
 IIow often have we heard of the parting? scene 
 
 on that night— the 29th of June 1812. The 
 heartfelt sorrow, the deep silence — only broken 
 by smothered sobs — the dread of losing a word 
 from the voice which was now speaking its last 
 to the audience ; then the irrepressible burst of 
 feeling when the scene, in which she appears for 
 the last time in Lady Macbeth^ was over ! the 
 unanimous call for the curtain to drop, for the 
 audience could bear no more ! lastly, her own 
 personal address ! 
 
 But her private life, one is thankful to say, 
 did not end for nineteen years longer. She felt 
 it a blessing that she had time given her to 
 spend in the way she desired — in cultivating 
 piety towards God and benevolence towards man. 
 And though it is hardly necessary to add that 
 some of her peculiar faults, as well as the noble 
 qualities of the past, remained with her in her 
 retirement, there does not seem to have been 
 anything which the kind and the candid among 
 her countrymen and women could not well un- 
 derstand and allow for. One does not see how 
 a woman who had been before the world for so 
 long a time, who had drank so deeply of the 
 cup of popular favour, could fairly be expected 
 to settle into complete quietude, taking interest 
 in small concerns, such as fill up the time and 
 thoughts of those who have never known great 
 excitements. There were people who insisted 
 upon it that Mrs Siddons studied to keep up her 
 stage manner, and would not let it go. Those 
 who said so could not know the woman. Her 
 lofty manner was inborn, aided, no doubt, by 
 the long practice of her profession. And then, 
 in character, she was somewhat slow, wanting 
 lightness and quickness ; as Mrs Jameson says : 
 " She wanted time for everything — time to com- 
 prehend, time to speak ; there was nothing super- 
 ficial about her, no vivacity of manner. To 
 petty gossip she could not condescend, and evil- 
 speaking she abhorred. She cared not to shine 
 in general conversation. Ask her her opinion, 
 she could not give it you till she had looked on 
 the subject and considered it on every side; 
 then you might trust to it without appeal." 
 
 A much more interesting question than that of 
 external manners has been suggested, and was 
 put without hesitation to one who knew her in 
 the greatest possible intimacy. *' Did Mrs Sid- 
 dons ever express regret at the employment of 
 her past years in the theatrical profession?" 
 The answer is decided. " No, I never did hear, 
 nor do I believe she ever felt regret at having 
 adopted it. She was obliged to it, in a manner, 
 at first, and by degrees felt the inspiration per- 
 vading her whole being. When this went along 
 with the conviction of being useful * in that 
 state of life to which she was called,' what 
 wonder that she should like to have the cup 
 sweetened still more by public sympathy and 
 applause? In her latter years she certainly 
 came to regard gravity and grave pursuits as 
 safeguards; hence strangers mig'it think hei 
 
SARAH SIDDONS. 
 
 o5 
 
 austere, though, when once known, no one was 
 ever more beloved and respected." 
 
 I have before dwelt on her fondness for chil- 
 dren. To the last this remained very con- 
 spicuously. Her eye was sure to follow the 
 movements of a child, and children found her 
 wonderfully attractive in her quiet, sympathis- 
 ing style ; not attempting, after the manner of 
 some elderly people, to be a playfellow to the 
 young, which seldom or never succeeds, but only 
 showing that she thought of and thought for 
 them by a gentle way of anticipating their wishes. 
 On one occasion, when she was nursing her own 
 youngest daughter, Cecilia, she was found at 
 home enjoying the society of her baby, while her 
 husband and elder daughters were taking their 
 pleasure at Margate. 
 
 "If they like to be gay," she wrote to a 
 friend, '* let them. I only wish they would let 
 me stay at home and take care of my baby. 
 But," she adds, " I am every day more and 
 more convinced that one half of the world live 
 to themselves and the other half for the comfort 
 of others. At least this I am sure of, that I 
 have had no will of my own since I remember ; 
 and, indeed, to be just, I fancy I should have 
 little delight in so selfish an existence." 
 
 Knowing what this youngest of her children 
 afterwards became to her mother — the one re- 
 maining treasure of her age — everything she says 
 of Mrs Siddons becomes most interesting, and 
 we like to read her recollections. In her private 
 character, Mrs Combe observes that Mrs Siddons 
 was not at all, as some fancied, of " a hard and 
 haughty demeanour, ruling in her own family 
 by fear and severity. It would be very easy, on 
 the contrary," she says, " for me to give the lie 
 to such accusations by adducing many circum- 
 stantial proofs of my mother being only too easy 
 — too much disposed to be ruled by people in- 
 ferior in every way to herself. One who knew 
 her well says she was even credulous to an ex- 
 traordinary degree, always trusting to appear- 
 ances, and never willing to suspect any one." 
 
 Mrs Combe's mention of her own impression 
 of her mother's acting is also interesting. She 
 tells that she had never, except very rarely, seen 
 her mother act till, in the season of 1809, **a 
 friend having observed to my mother that she 
 ought not to deprive her daughter of emotions 
 and recollections which would one day be dear, 
 she permitted me to be present at each one of her 
 great representations. I can never be suiTiciently 
 grateful to the friend (tlie late Samuel Rogers) 
 who gained me this privilege. Those moments 
 are among the sweetest of my remembrances, 
 and the impression left is so lively that even 
 to-day, when many years are past, there is not a 
 scene which I do not recall exactly, and which 
 does not awaken sometimes a smile, sometimes 
 tears, juFt as if the drama were unfolding itself 
 before my eyes." 
 
 I ought not surely to omit notice of Mrs 
 
 Siddons' public and drawing-room reftdings of 
 Shakespeare and Milton. Many who attended 
 these readings are living still, and would agree 
 with her biographer, Campbell, "that no act- 
 ing, no dramatic criticism, seemed to illustrate 
 Shakspeare so closely and so perfectly." * 
 
 Mrs Siddons had considerable facility of ver- 
 sification ; and Mr Campbell gives us a short 
 specimen, which is here inserted. Its date is 
 unknown : 
 
 " Say, what's the brightest wreath of fame, 
 But canker'd buds, that, opening, close ; 
 Ah ! what the world's most pleasing dream, 
 But broken fragments of repose? 
 
 " Lead me where peace, with steady hand, 
 The mingled cup of life shall hold, 
 Where time shall smoothly pour his sand. 
 And wisdom turn that sand to gold. 
 
 " Then haply at Religion's shrine, 
 
 This weary heart its load shall lay ; 
 Each wish my fatal love resign. 
 And passion melt in tears away." 
 
 A deep sorrow and loss brought her once 
 more upon the stage, three years after she had 
 taken her leave of it. Her eldest son, Henry, 
 who had become the respected proprietor of the 
 Edinburgh Theatre, died, to her inexpressible 
 grief, in 1815. This death of Henry laid a 
 heavier hand on her mind than any she had 
 received. Her voice, she says, was gone, and 
 what was left of sight was almost washed away 
 by tears. But before the close of that sad year 
 she had taken her resolution — she would go to 
 Edinburgh and do her best for her son's widow 
 and children. 
 
 With that admirable wife and mother, Mrs 
 Siddons' relations had always been perfect ; and 
 well they might be so, for the two women, ex- 
 tremely dissimilar in many respects, were alike 
 in their probity, their love of goodness, their 
 truthfulness and simplicity. Mrs Henry Sid- 
 dons had, probably more than her mother-in- 
 law, the power of immediately charming in 
 private life. She threw herself into a variety 
 of characters by means of a remarkable degree 
 of sympathy. A knowledge of character seemed 
 to be intuitive with her; and, what was far 
 more remarkable, she had the power of seizing 
 on the good, without being in the least blind to 
 the bad. She had all the light graceful play of 
 manner which the grander mother wanted, and 
 yet she had an innate dignity which repelled 
 every species of impertinence. 
 
 For this excellent woman, under her great 
 bereavement, and with numerous difficulties 
 
 * One of Mrs Siddons' most decided tastes was for 
 modelling. She was skilful, and often successful in 
 moulding likenesses and figures, and had she had 
 opportunity would probably have excelled. Her visits 
 to her friend, Mrs Damer, were, it may be supp<^)sed, 
 very enjoj-able, and much time was past in the studio 
 of the latter. 
 
66 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 pressing upon her, Mrs Siddons could not but 
 long to do her utmost; and she gave ten per- 
 formances at the Edinburgh Theatre for this 
 purpose. 
 
 They cost her very dear. She came upon the 
 stage the first night absolutely shaken by ner- 
 vous agitation. Occasionally her voice could 
 hardly be heard. In a short time, however, the 
 wonted presence of mind returned, the strong 
 feeling of duty was triumphant. She was Mrs 
 Siddons still ; and though added years and sor- 
 row had told upon her, there was still the ripe 
 judgment, the pure taste, the dignified expres- 
 sive mien — much, very much, of all that had 
 formerly delighted admiring crowds. 
 
 One cannot feel the same in remembering the 
 nights * of her appearance in London in 1816, 
 by order of the lamented Princess Charlotte. 
 The mandate was, it must be owned, injudicious. 
 But the last of her stage performances, on the 
 19th of June 1819, was the result of her own 
 amiable desire to do what she could for her 
 brother Charles. On that occasion she certainly 
 did not spare herself, choosing the part of Lady 
 Randolph; and perhaps she never received more 
 applause than at her final exit. She was then 
 sixty-three years of age. 
 
 The particulars of her life, after this, present 
 little for the chronicler. In the summer of 1820 
 she went, accompanied by her daughter Cecilia, 
 to Switzerland. It was her first view of those 
 grand scenes, and no one of the party of friends 
 assembled, entered into their beauty with a 
 keener zest. Chamouni, then much less easily 
 accessible than now, was forbidden her. "But," 
 says her daughter, ** we have eaten of chamois, 
 crossed a lake, and mounted a glacier with two 
 men cutting steps in the ice with a hatchet, and 
 done most of the surprising things that (ordi- 
 nary) travellers boast of. My mother bore all 
 the fatigues much more wonderfully than any 
 of us." 
 
 The great object, however, of this journey was 
 to visit her brother John, who was living in a 
 beautiful retreat at Lausanne. It was the last 
 meeting of this wonderful brother and sister. 
 Their happiness together, for the time permitted 
 to their enjoyment of it, was great. It may not 
 be generally known that Kemble, like his father 
 and mother, was through life a Koman Catholic, 
 
 * Scott says of these reappearances : '* Mrs Siddons, 
 as fame reports, has taken another engagement at 
 Covent Garden. Surely she is not wise ! She should 
 have no twilight, but set in the full possession of her 
 powers" (" Scott's Life," vol. ii., p. 396). 
 
 Alas ! who would not, if it were possible, have such 
 a *' set o' his sun ? " But not such was Scott's own ; 
 and Mrs Siddons had, or deemed she had, a worthy 
 object for her "twilight" exertions. It is placing 
 mere reputation too high to exalt it above its moral 
 ases. Perhaps, in the first instance, Mrs Siddons' 
 reappearance was unwise; but she was very loyal, 
 and the command of the princess had great weight 
 with her. 
 
 while Mrs Siddons was a devout Protestant; 
 but her brother was no bigot. He was attended 
 in his last hours (in February 1823) with all 
 Christian kindness by an English clergyman, 
 who read prayers with him while he could at- 
 tend to them ; and was interred near Lausanne 
 with the rites of the English Church. His age 
 at the period of the final attack was sixty-six. 
 
 The remaining years of Mrs Siddons' life were 
 wholly passed in England, the winters almost 
 invariably in her house in Baker Street, where 
 she had often large parties to whom she afforded 
 the treat of hearing her read. One of her grand- 
 children, then a child, has described the interest 
 of her visits to her. " Frequently," she says, 
 "my grandmother would read to us, giving us 
 often the choice of the play. One evening in 
 particular I remember when she read 'Othello.' 
 It was a stormy night, and the thunder was 
 heard occasionally, and she so grand and im- 
 pressive! her look, her voice, her magnificent 
 eyes still clear and brilliant. It was real read- 
 ing, not declamation, and yet the effect was 
 beyond anything I could conceive of the finest 
 acting." This was the winter previous to her 
 death. 
 
 In spite of her frequent and increased suffering 
 from headaches, the greatest bodily trial of her 
 life, she had, says Campbell, ** till the last year 
 of a long life, a hale and cheerful aspect. Time 
 itself seemed to lay his touches reverentially 
 upon her, for she always looked many years 
 younger than her age. Her step, her voice, and 
 her eyes, denoted a mind of unchanged tran- 
 quillity and intelligence." She was "most 
 agreeably excited in her last years, by the 
 favourable reception of Fanny Kemble on the 
 stage. She went to see her niece's performance, 
 and was moved to tears of joy." 
 
 Her last and fatal illness attacked her in 
 April 1831, when she had reached her seventy- 
 sixth year. It was the old enemy, erysipelas. 
 She shook it off once more, however, in a degree ; 
 but about six weeks afterwards another and a 
 fatal attack took place, and on the morning of 
 the 8th of June she expired, after a week of great 
 suffering. 
 
 She was buried in the churchyard of Padding- 
 ton Church ; her orders were that the interment 
 should be strictly private, every arrangement 
 of the plainest kind ; but numbers, unbidden, 
 crowded to the scene, and it was thought that 
 there could not have been fewer than 5000 per- 
 sons present. The stone erected above the spot 
 where her honoured remains repose, bears this 
 inscription : 
 
 SACRED TO THE MEMORY 
 OF 
 
 SARAH SIDDONS, 
 
 Who departed this life, June 8, 1831, 
 in her 76th year. 
 
 *^ Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." 
 
WILLIAM GODWIN. 
 
 57 
 
 Inside the same church is a marble slab also to 
 her memory, with the text, ** I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth," 
 
 In concluding this sketch of the life of Sarah 
 Siddons, it would not be doing justice to her 
 were we not again to remark on her very strong 
 and deep religious feelings. While she perfectly 
 comprehended her own exalted professional 
 position, she valued it only at its proper worth. 
 In her deepest thoughts she was most humble, 
 rating herself and every one else as, in the sight 
 of God, imperfect, sinful, and unprofitable ; and 
 
 because of this, and of her own extreme con- 
 scientiousness, she was perhaps ready even to 
 overrate the good that was in people or in books 
 more distinctly dedicated to religious services 
 than her employments allowed her to be. Her 
 own habits of devotion, her steady following 
 out of rules for the employment of time, her 
 diligent reading of the Scriptures, and her sym- 
 pathy with the gravest and most literal of their 
 interpreters, were constant, increasing to the 
 last. — Abridged from Biograj^hies of Good 
 Women. 
 
 WILLIAM GODWIK 
 
 [1756-1836.] 
 By WILLIAM HAZLITT.* 
 
 [William Godwin, novelist and political writer, 
 distinguished for the boldness of his opinions 
 and speculations, was born at Wisbeach, Cam- 
 bridgeshire, 3d March 1756. His father was a 
 pious dissenting minister ; and after the neces- 
 sary education at the dissenting college at Hox- 
 ton, young Godwin became the minister of a 
 congregation near London. He officiated also 
 for some time at Stowmarket, in Suffolk. Mean- 
 while his religious views having undergone an 
 important change, after having been five years 
 a dissenting minister, he abandoned the pulpit 
 in 1783, and went to London and devoted his 
 whole time to literary pursuits. He published 
 six sermons under the title of "Sketches of 
 History," and became a contributor to the 
 Annual Register. Becoming known as a zealous 
 political reformer, his next work brought him 
 the sum of £700 ; it was published in 1793, and 
 was entitled, "Inquiry concerning PoliticalJus- 
 tice, and its Influences on General Virtue and 
 on Happiness." It has been termed a "splendid 
 argument for universal philanthropy," and with 
 all its extravagance displaying extraordinary 
 powers of mind. His next work, a novel, 
 "Caleb Williams," was published in 1794, and 
 was exceedingly popular, embodying his peculiar 
 doctrines, and giving "a general review of the 
 modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism, 
 by which man becomes the destroyer of man." 
 An account of his habit? at this time, as sketched 
 by himself, is given in the recently published 
 life of Godwin, by Mr C. Kegan Paul : 
 
 "This year was the main crisis of my life. 
 In the summer of 1791 I gave up my concern in 
 the New Annual Register, the historical part of 
 which I had written for seven years, and abdi- 
 cate, I hope for ever, the task of performing a 
 
 * " Spirit of the Age," London, 1825. 
 
 literary labour, the nature of which should be 
 dictated by anything but the promptings of my 
 own mind. I suggested to Kobinson, the book- 
 seller, the idea of composing a treatise on 
 political principles, and he agreed to aid me in 
 executing it. My original conception proceeded 
 on a feeling of the imperfections and errors of 
 Montesquieu, and a desire of supplying a less 
 faulty work. In the first fervour of my enthu- 
 siasm, I entertained the vain imagination of 
 * hewing a stone from the rock,' which, by its 
 inherent energy and weight, should overbear 
 and annihilate all opposition, and place the 
 principles of politics on an immovable basis. 
 It was my first determination to tell all that I 
 apprehended to be the truth, and all that seemed 
 to be truth, confident that from such a proceed- 
 ing the best results were to be expected. . . . 
 
 "In the beginning of the year 1793, 1 removed 
 to a small house in Challon Street, Somers Town, 
 which I possessed entirely to myself, with no 
 other attendance than the daily visit of a bed- 
 maker for about an hour each day. No man 
 could be more desirous than I was of adopting 
 a practice conformable to my principles, as far 
 as I could do so without affording reasonable 
 ground of offence to any other person. I was 
 anxious not to spend a penny on myself, which 
 I did not imagine calculated to render me a 
 more capable servant of the public ; and as I was 
 averse to the expenditure of money, so I was 
 not inclined to earn it but in small portions. 
 
 "I considered the disbursement of money for 
 the benefit of others as a very difficult problem, 
 which he who has the possession of it is bound 
 to solve in the best manner he can, but which 
 affords small encouragement to any one to acquire 
 it who has it not. The plan, therefore, I resolved 
 on was leisure — a leisure to be employed in 
 deliberate composition, and in the pursuit of 
 
58 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 such attainments as afforded me the most pro- 
 mise to render me useful. For years I scarcely did 
 anything at home or abroad without the inquiry 
 being uppermost in my mind whether I could 
 be better employed for general benefit ; and I 
 hope much of this temper has survived, and will 
 attend me to my grave. The fame in which I 
 found myself exalted my spirits, and rendered 
 me more of a talker than I was before or have 
 been since, and than is agreeable to my natural 
 character. Certainly I attended now, and at all 
 times, to everything that was offered in the way 
 of reasoning and argument, with the siucerest 
 desire of embracing the truth, and that only. 
 The ' Inquiry concerning Political Justice ' was 
 published in February [1793]. In this year also 
 I wrote the principal part of the novel * Caleb 
 Williams,' which may, perhaps, be considered 
 as affording no inadequate image of the fervour 
 of my spirit ; it was the offspring of that temper 
 of mind in which the composition of my ' Poli- 
 tical Justice' left me. In this year I acquired 
 the friendship of many excellent persons — 
 Thomas Wedgwood, Richard Person, Joseph 
 Gerrald, Robert Merry, and Joseph Ritson." . . , 
 
 "He rose," says his daughter, "between 
 seven and eight, and read some classic author 
 before breakfast. From nine till twelve or one 
 he occupied himself with his pen. He found 
 that he could not exceed this measure of labour 
 with any advantage to his own health or the 
 work on hand. While writing * Political Jus- 
 tice,' there was one paragraph which he wrote 
 eight times over before he could satisfy himself 
 with the strength and perspicuity of his expres- 
 sions. On this occasion a sense of confusion of 
 the brain came over him, and he applied to his 
 friend Mr Carlisle, afterwards Sir Anthony Car- 
 lisle, the celebrated surgeon, who warned him 
 that he had exerted his intellectual faculties to 
 their limit. In compliance with his direction 
 Mr Godwin reduced his hours of composition 
 within what many will consider narrow bounds. 
 The rest of the morning was spent in reading 
 and seeing his friends. When at home he dined 
 at four, but during his bachelor life he frequently 
 dined out. His dinner at home at this time 
 was simple enough. He had no regular servant ; 
 an old woman came in the morning to clean and 
 arrange his rooms, and if necessary she prepared 
 a mutton chop, which was put in a Dutch 
 oven." 
 
 His friends Holcroft, Thelwall, and Home 
 Tooke, having been tried for high treason, he 
 published a pamphlet containing strictures on 
 Judge Eyre's charge to the jury, which is said 
 to have had some influence on their acquittal 
 and release. He published a series of essays, 
 under the title of " The Inquirer," in 1797. 
 This same year he married Mary Wollstoneoraft, 
 author of the "Vindication of the Rights of 
 Women," and "vith whom he had lived before 
 marriage. Her idea of the married state was 
 
 the following: " Mutual affection was marriage, 
 and that the marriage tie should not bind after 
 the death of love, if love should die." She died 
 some months after marriage in giving birth to a 
 daughter, afterwards known as Mrs Shelley. 
 He married again, and started a bookseller's shop 
 in Skinner Street, combining the professions of 
 author and bookseller. "St Leon," a romance, 
 was issued in 1799. His other chief publica- 
 tions are "Antonio," a tragedj^ 1801; "Life of 
 Chaucer," 1803; "Fleetwood," a novel, 1804; 
 "Faulkner," another tragedy, 1807; "Essay 
 on Sepulchres," 1808 ; and in 1815, " Lives of 
 Edward and John Phillips, the nephews of Mil- 
 ton." " Mandeville," another novel, was pub- 
 lished by Constable of Edinburgh, the author 
 having made arrangements for its publication 
 when in Scotland in 1817. In 1820 he published 
 a refutation of Malthus' views on population, 
 and produced an elaborate "History of the 
 Commonwealth," at intervals between 1824 and 
 1828. " Cloudeslej'," a tale, was issued in 1830. 
 His next work was a treatise, "Thoughts on 
 Men, etc.;" his last work was entitled "Lives 
 of the Necromancers." Godwin is invariably 
 credited with making an endeavour in all his 
 literary undertakings, and with all his displays of 
 mistaken zeal, of applying himself with ardour 
 to their fullest ultimate accomplishment. He 
 died April 7th, 1836, and was buried beside 
 Mary Wollstonecraft, in Old St Pancras Church- 
 yard. Hazlitt's portrait of Godwin is inter- 
 esting, as having been written by a literary 
 contemporary, as transporting the reader to 
 the times in which he lived, and giving a fairly 
 correct idea of the opinions held regarding God- 
 win by his contemporaries.] 
 
 The spirit of the age was never mere fully 
 shown than in its treatment of this writer — its 
 love of paradox and change, its dastard submis- 
 sion to prejudice and to the fashion of the day. 
 Five-and-twenty years ago he was in the very 
 zenith of a sultry and unwholesome popularity ; 
 he blazed as a sun in the firmament of reputa- 
 tion; no one was more talked of, more looked 
 up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, 
 truth, justice, was the theme, his name was not 
 far off: — now he has sunk below the horizon, 
 and enjoys the serene twilight of a doubtful 
 immortality. Mr Godwin, during his lifetime, 
 has secured to himself the triumphs and the 
 mortifications of an extreme notoriety and of a 
 sort of posthumous fame. His bark, after being 
 tossed in the revolutionary tempest, now raised 
 to heaven by all the fury of popular breath, now 
 almost dashed in pieces, and buried in the quick- 
 sands of ignorance, or scorched with the lightning 
 of momentary indignation, at length floats on 
 the calm wave that is to bear it down the stream 
 of time. Mr Godwin's person is not known, he 
 is not pointed out in the street, his conversation 
 is not courted, his opinions are not asked, he is 
 
at the head of no cabal, he helongs to no party 
 in the State, he has no train of admirers, no one 
 thinks it worth his while even to traduce and 
 eilify him, he has scarcely friend or foe, the 
 world makes a point (as Goldsmith used to say) 
 of taking no more notice of him than if such an 
 individual had never existed ; he is to all ordi- 
 nary intents and purposes dead and buried ; but 
 the author of " Political Justice " and of '* Caleb 
 Williams" can never die, his name is an ab- 
 straction in letters, his works are standard in 
 the history of intellect. He is thought of now 
 like any eminent writer a hundred and lifty 
 years ago, or just as he will be a hundred and 
 fifty years hence. He knows this, and smiles in 
 silent mockery of himself, reposing on the 
 monument of his fame : 
 
 *' Sedet, in eteruumque sedebit infelix Theseus." 
 
 No work in our time gave such a blow to the 
 philosophical mind of the country as the cele- 
 brated *' Inquiry concerning Political Justice." 
 Tom Paine was considered for the time as a Tom 
 Fool to him ; Paley an old woman ; Edmund 
 Burke a flashy sophist. Truth, moral truth, it 
 was supposed, had here taken up its abode; 
 and these were the oracles of thought. " Throw 
 aside your books of chemistry," said Wordsworth 
 to a young man, a student in the Temple, "and 
 read Godwin on 'Necessity.'" Sad necessity! 
 Fatal reverse ! Is truth then so variable ? Is 
 it one thing at twenty, and another at forty? 
 Is it at a burning heat in 1793, and below zero 
 in 1814 ? Not so, in the name of manhood and 
 of common sense ! Let us pause here a little. 
 Mr Godwin indulged in extreme opinions, and 
 carried with him all the most sanguine and fear- 
 less understandings of the time. What then ? 
 Because those opinions were overcharged, were 
 they therefore altogether groundless ? Is the 
 very God of our idolatry all of a sudden to be- 
 come an abomination and an anathema ? Could 
 so many young men of talent, of education, and 
 of principle, have been hurried away by what 
 had neither truth, nor nature, not one particle 
 of honest feeling, nor the least show of reason 
 in it? Is the "Modern Philosophy" (as it has 
 been called) at one moment a youthful bride, 
 and the next a withered beldame, like the false 
 Duessa in Spenser ? Or is the vaunted edifice of 
 Reason, like his House of Pride, gorgeous in 
 front, and dazzling to approach, while "its 
 hinder parts are ruinous, decayed, and old ? " 
 Has the main prop, which supported the mighty 
 fabric, been shaken and given way under the 
 strong grasp of some Samson; or has it not 
 rather been undermined by rats and vermin ? 
 At one time it almost seemed that 
 
 " If this failed, 
 The pillar'd firmament was rottenness. 
 And earth's base built of stubble : " 
 
 tiGw scarce a shadow of it remains, it is crumbled 
 
 to dust, nor is it even talked of ! " What then 
 went ye forth for to see ? a reed shaken with the 
 wind ? " Was it for this that our young gowns- 
 men of the greatest expectation and promise, 
 versed in classic lore, steeped in dialectics, 
 armed at all points for the foe, well read, well 
 nurtured, well provided for, left the university 
 and the prospect of lawn sleeves, tearing asunder 
 the shackles of the free-born spirit, and the 
 cobwebs of school-divinity, to throw themselves 
 at the feet of the new Gamaliel, and learn wis- 
 dom from him ? Was it for this that students 
 at the bar, acute, inquisitive, sceptical (here 
 only wild enthusiasts), neglected for a while the 
 paths of preferment and the law as too narrow, 
 tortuous, and unseemly to bear the pure and 
 broad light of reason? Was it for this that 
 students in medicine missed their way to lec- 
 tureships and the top of their profession, deem- 
 ing lightly of the health of the body, and 
 dreaming only of the renovation of society and 
 the march of mind? Was it to this that Mr 
 Southey's "Inscriptions" pointed? to this that 
 Mr Coleridge's "Religious Musings" tended? 
 Was it for this that Mr Godwin himself sat with 
 arms folded, and, "like Oato, gave his little 
 senate laws ? " Or rather, like another Prospero, 
 uttered syllables that with their enchanted 
 breath were to change the world, and might 
 almost stop the stars in their courses ? Oh ! 
 and is all forgot ? Is this sun of intellect blotted 
 from the sky ? Or has it suffered total eclipse ? 
 Or is it we who make the fancied gloom, by 
 looking at it through the paltry, broken, stained 
 fragments of our own interests and prejudices? 
 Were we fools then, or are we dishonest now ? 
 Or was the impulse of the mind less likely to be 
 true and sound when it arose from high thought 
 and warm feeling, than afterwards, when it was 
 warped and debased by the example, the vices, 
 and follies of the world ? 
 
 The fault, then, of Mr Godwin's philosophy, 
 in one word, was too much ambition — ' * by that 
 sin fell the angels ! " He conceived too nobly 
 of his fellows (the most unpardonable crime 
 against them, for there is nothing that annoys 
 our self-love so much as being complimented on 
 imaginary achievemeMts to which we are wholly 
 unequal) — he raised the standard of morality 
 above the reach of humanity, and by directing 
 virtue to the most airy and romantic heights, 
 made her path dangerous, solitary, and imprac- 
 ticable. The author of the " Political Justice" 
 took abstract reason for the rule of conduct, 
 and abstract good for its end. He places the 
 human mind on an elevation from which it 
 commands a view of the whole line of moral 
 consequences, and requires it to conform its atts 
 to the larger and more enlightened conscience 
 which it has thus acquired. He absolves man 
 from the gross and narrow ties of sense, custom, 
 authority, private and local attachment, in order 
 that he may devote himself to the boundless 
 
60 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 pursuit of universal benevolence. Mr Godwin 
 gives no quarter to the amiable weaknesses of 
 our nature, nor does lie stoop to avail himself of 
 the supplementary aids of an imperfect virtue. 
 Gratitude, promises, friendship, family afiFection, 
 give way, not that they may be merged in the 
 opposite vices or in want of principle, but that 
 the void may be filled up by the disinterested 
 love of good and the dictates of inflexible justice, 
 which is "the law of laws, and sovereign of 
 sovereigns." All minor considerations yield, in 
 his system, to the stern sense of duty, as they 
 do, in the ordinary and established ones, to the 
 voice of necessity. Mr Godwin's theory and 
 that of more approved reasoners differ only in 
 this, that what are with them the exceptions, 
 the extreme cases, he makes the everyday rule. 
 No one denies that on great occasions, in mo- 
 ments of fearful excitement, or when a mighty 
 object is at stake, the lesser and merely instru- 
 mental points of duty are to be sacrificed with- 
 out remorse at the shrine of patriotism, of 
 honour, and of conscience. But the disciple 
 of the new school (no wonder it found so many 
 impugners, even in its own bosom !) is to be 
 always the hero of duty ; the law to which he 
 has bound himself never swerves nor relaxes ; 
 his feeling of what is right is to be at all times 
 wrought up to a pitch of enthusiastic self-devo- 
 tion; he must become the unshrinking martyr 
 and confessor of the public good. If it be said 
 that this scheme is chimerical and impracticable 
 on ordinary occasions, and to the generality of 
 mankind, well and good ; but those who accuse 
 the author of having trampled on the common 
 feelings and prejudices of mankind in wanton- 
 ness or insult, or without wishing to substitute 
 something better (and only unattainable because 
 it is better) in their stead, accuse him wrong- 
 fully. We may not be able to launch the bark 
 of our affections on the ocean-tide of humanity ; 
 we may be forced to paddle along its shores, or 
 shelter in its creeks and rivulets ; but we have 
 no right to reproach the bold and adventurous 
 pilot, who dared us to tempt the uncertain 
 abyss, with our own want of courage or of skill, 
 or with the jealousies and impatience which 
 deter us from undertaking, or might prevent us 
 from accomplishing the voyage ! 
 
 The " Inquiry concerning Political Justice " 
 (it was urged by its favourers and defenders at 
 the time, and may still be so, without either 
 profaneness or levity) is a metaphysical and 
 logical commentary on some of the most beauti- 
 ful and striking texts of Scripture. Mr Godwin 
 is a mixture of the Stoic and of the Christian 
 philosopher. To break the force of the vulgar 
 objections and outcry that have been raised 
 against the modern philosophy, as if it were a 
 new and monstrous birth in morals, it may be 
 worth noticing that volumes of sermons have been 
 written to excuse the Founder of Christianity 
 for not including friendship and private afi'ection 
 
 among its golden rules, but rather excluding 
 them.* Moreover, the answer to the question, 
 "Who is thy neighbour?" added to the divine 
 precept, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- 
 self," is the same as in the exploded pages of our 
 author — " He to whom we can do most good." 
 In determining this point, we were not to be in- 
 fluenced by any extrinsic or collateral considera- 
 tions, by our own predilections, or the expecta- 
 tions of others, by our obligations to them or 
 any services they might be able to render us, by 
 the climate they were born in, by the house they 
 lived in, by rank or religion, or party, or per- 
 sonal ties, but by the abstract merits, the pure 
 and unbiassed justice of the case. The artificial 
 helps and checks to moral conduct were set aside 
 as spurious and unnecessary, and we came at 
 once to the grand and simple question — "In 
 what manner we could best contribute to the 
 greatest possible good?" This was the para- 
 mount obligation in all cases whatever, from 
 which we had no right to free ourselves upon 
 any idle or formal pretext, and of which each 
 person was to judge for himself, under the infal- 
 lible authority of his own opinion and the inviol- 
 able sanction of his self-approbation. " There 
 was the rub that made philosophy of so short 
 life!" Mr Godwin's definition of morals was 
 the same as the admired one of law, reason with- 
 out passion ; but with the unlimited scope of 
 private opinion, and in a boundless field of 
 speculation (for nothing less would satisfy the 
 pretensions of the new school), there was danger 
 that the unseasoned novice might substitute some 
 pragmatical conceit of his own for the rule of 
 right reason, and mistake a heartless indifference 
 for a superiority to more natural and generous 
 feelings. Our ardent and dauntless reformer 
 followed out the moral of the parable of the 
 Good Samaritan into its most rigid and repulsive 
 consequences with a pen of steel, and let fall 
 his "trenchant blade" on every vulnerable 
 point of human infirmity ; but there is a want 
 in his system of the mild and persuasive tone of 
 the Gospel, where "all is conscience and tender 
 heart." Man was indeed screwed up, by mood 
 and figure, into a logical machine, that was to 
 forward the public good with the utmost punc- 
 tuality and effect, and it might go very well on 
 smooth ground and under favourable circum- 
 stances; but would it work up-hill or against 
 the grain ? It was to be feared that the proud 
 temple of reason, which at a distance and in 
 stately supposition shone like the palaces of the 
 New Jerusalem, might (when placed on actual 
 ground) be broken up into the sordid sties of 
 sensuality, and the petty huckster's shops of 
 self-interest ! Every man (it was proposed — " so 
 
 * Shaftesbury made this an objection to Christianity, 
 which was answered by Foster, Leland, and other 
 eminent divines, on the ground that Christianity had 
 a higher object in view, namely, general philanthropy 
 
WILLIAM GODWIN. 
 
 61 
 
 ran the tenor of the bond ") was to be a Kegu- 
 lus, a Codrus, a Cato, or a Brutus — every woman 
 a mother of the Gracchi. 
 
 •' It was well said, 
 And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well." 
 
 But heroes on paper might degenerate into va- 
 gabonds in practice, Corinnas into courtesans. 
 Thus a refined and permanent individual attach- 
 ment is intended to supply the place and avoid 
 the inconveniences of marriage, but vows of 
 eternal constancy without Church security are 
 found to be fragile. A member of the ideal and 
 perfect commonwealth of letters lends another 
 £100 for immediate and pressing use, and when 
 he applies for it again, the borrower has still 
 more need of it than he, and retains it for his 
 own especial, which is tantamount to the public 
 good. The exchequer of pure reason, like that 
 of the State, never refunds. The political as 
 well as the religious fanatic appeals from the 
 overweening opinion and claims of others to the 
 highest and most impartial tribunal, namely, 
 his own breast. Two persons agree to live to- 
 gether in chambers on principles of pure equality 
 and mutual assistance; but when it comes to 
 the push, one of them finds that the other 
 always insists on his fetching water from the 
 pump in Hare Court and cleaning his shoes for 
 him. A modest assurance was not the least in- 
 dispensable virtue in the new perfectibility code, 
 and it was hence discovered to be a scheme, like 
 other schemes where there are all prizes and no 
 blanks, for the accommodation of the enterpris- 
 ing and cunning, at the expense of the credulous 
 and honest. This broke up the system, and left 
 no good odour behind it. Reason has become a 
 sort of a by-word, and philosophy has "fallen 
 first into a fasting, then into a sadness, then into 
 a decline, and last, into the dissolution of which 
 we all complain." This is a worse error than 
 the former: we may be said to have "lost the 
 immortal part of ourselves, and what remains is 
 beastly." 
 
 The point of view from which this matter 
 may be fairly considered, is two-fold, and may 
 be stated thus : In the first place, it by no 
 means follows, because reason is found not to 
 be the only infallible or safe rule of conduct, 
 that it is no rule at all ; or that we are to dis- 
 card it altogether with derision and ignominy. 
 On the contrary, if not the sole, it is the princi- 
 pal ground of action ; it is "the guide, the stay, 
 and anchor of our purest thoughts, and soul of 
 all our moral being." In proportion as we 
 strengthen and expand this principle, and bring 
 our affections and subordinate, but perhaps 
 more powerful, motives of action into harmony 
 with it, it will not admit of a doubt that we 
 advance to the goal of perfection, and answer 
 the ends of our creation, those ends which not 
 only morality enjoins, but which religion sanc- 
 tions. If with the utmost stretch of reason. 
 
 man cannot (as some seemed inclined to suppose) 
 soar up to the God, and quit the ground of 
 human frailty, yet, stripped wholly of it, he sinks 
 at once into the brute. If it cannot stand alone, 
 in its naked simplicity, but requires other props 
 to buttress it up, or ornaments to set it off; yet 
 without it the moral structure would fall flat 
 and dishonoured to the ground. Private reason 
 is that which raises the individual above his 
 mere animal instincts, appetites, and passions: 
 public reason in its gradual progress separates 
 the savage from the civilised state. Without 
 the one, men would resemble wild beasts in 
 their dens; without the other, they would be 
 speedily converted into hordes of barbarians or 
 banditti. Sir Walter Scott, in his zeal to restore 
 the spirit of loyalty, of passive obedience and 
 non-resistance, as an acknowledgment for his 
 having been created a baronet by a prince of 
 the House of Brunswick, may think it a fine 
 thing to return in imagination to the good old 
 times, "when in Auvergne alone there were 
 three hundred nobles whose most ordinary 
 actions were robbery, rape, and murder," when 
 the castle of each Norman baron was a strong- 
 hold from which the lordly proprietor issued to 
 oppress and plunder the neighbouring districts, 
 and when the Saxon peasantry were treated by 
 their gay and gallant tyrants as a herd of loath- 
 some swine — ^but for our own parts we beg to 
 be excused ; we had rather live in the same age 
 with the author of " Waverley" and Blackwood's 
 Magazine. Reason is the meter and alnager in 
 civil intercourse, by which each person's upstart 
 and contradictory pretensions are weighed and 
 approved or found wanting, and without which 
 it could not subsist any more than traffic or the 
 exchange of commodities could be carried on 
 without weights and measures. It is the medium 
 of knowledge, and the polisher of manners, by 
 creating common interests and ideas. Or in the 
 words of a contemporary writer, " Reason is the 
 queen of the moral world, the soul of the uni- 
 verse, the lamp of human life, the pillar of 
 society, the foundation of law, the beacon of 
 nations, the golden chain let down from heaven, 
 which links all accountable and all intelligent 
 natures in one common system — and in the vain 
 strife between fanatic innovation and fanatic 
 prejudice, we are exhorted to dethrone this 
 queen of the world, to blot out this light of the 
 mind, to deface this fair column, to break in 
 pieces this golden chain ! We are to discard 
 and throw from us with leud taunts and bitter 
 execrations that reason, which has been the lofty 
 theme of the philosopher, the poet, the moralist, 
 and the divine, whose name was not first named 
 to be abused by the enthusiasts of the French 
 Revolution, or to be blasphemed by the madder 
 enthusiasts, the advocates of divine right, but 
 which is coeval with, and inseparable from the 
 nature and faculties of man — is the image of his 
 Maker stamped upon him at his birth, the 
 
62 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 understanding breathed into him with the breath 
 of life, and in the participation and improve- 
 ment of which alone he is raised above the brute 
 creation and his own physical nature!" The 
 overstrained and ridiculous pretensions of monks 
 and ascetics were never thought to justify a re- 
 turn to unbridled licence of manners, or the 
 throwing aside of all decency. The hypocrisy, 
 cruelty, and fanaticism, often attendant on 
 peculiar professions of sanctity, have not ban- 
 ished the name of religion from the world. 
 Neither can *' the unreasonableness of the 
 reason " of some modern sciolists "so unreason 
 our reason," as to debar us of the benefit of this 
 principle in future, or to disfranchise us of the 
 highest privilege of our nature. In the second 
 place, if it is admitted that reason alone is not 
 the sole and self-suflBcient ground of morals, it 
 is to Mr Godwin that we are indebted for having 
 settled the point. No one denied or distrusted 
 this principle (before his time) as the absolute 
 judge and interpreter in all questions of diffi- 
 culty ; and if this is no longer the case, it is be- 
 cause he has taken this principle, and followed 
 it into its remotest consequences with more 
 keenness of eye and steadiness of hand than 
 any other expounder of ethics. His grand work 
 is (at least) an experimentum crucis to show the 
 weak sides and imperfections of human reason 
 as the sole law of human action. By over-shoot- 
 ing the mark, or by "flying an eagle flight, forth 
 and right on," he has pointed out the limit or 
 line of separation between what is practicable 
 and what is barely conceivable — by imposing 
 impossible tasks on the naked strength of the 
 will, he has discovered how far it is or is not in 
 our power to dispense with the illusions of sense, 
 to resist the calls of affection, to emancipate 
 ourselves from the force of habit; and thus, 
 though he has not said it himself, has enabled 
 others to say to the towering aspirations after 
 good, and to the over-bearing pride of human 
 intellect — "Thus far shalt thou come, and no 
 further!" Captain Parry would be thought to 
 have rendered a service to navigation and his 
 country, no less by proving that there is no 
 North -West Passage, than if he had ascertained 
 that there is one : so Mr Godwin has rendered 
 an essential service to moral science, by attempt- 
 ing (in vain) to pass the Arctic circle and frozen 
 regions, where the understanding is no longer 
 warmed by the affections, nor fanned by the 
 breeze of fancy ! This is the effect of all bold, 
 original, and powerful thinking, that it either 
 discovers the truth, or detects where error lies ; 
 and the only crime with which Mr Godwin can 
 be charged as a political and moral reasoner is, 
 that he has displayed a more ardent spirit, and 
 a more independent activity of thought than 
 others, in establishing the fallacy (if fallacy it 
 be) of an old popular prejudice that "the just 
 and true were one," by "championing it to the 
 outrance" and in the final result placing the 
 
 Gothic structure of human virtue on a humbler, 
 but a wider and safer foundation than it had 
 hitherto occupied in the volumes and systems 
 of the learned. 
 
 Mr Godwin is an inventor in the regions of 
 romance, as well as a skilful and hardy explorer 
 of those of moral truth. "Caleb Williams" 
 and "St Leon" are two of the most splendid 
 and impressive works of the imagination that 
 have appeared in our times. It is not merely 
 that these novels are very well for a philosopher 
 to have produced — they are admirable and com- 
 plete in themselves, and would not lead you to 
 suppose that the author, who is so entirely at 
 home in human character and dramatic situa- 
 tion, had ever dabbled in logic or metaphysics. 
 The first of these, particularly, is a master- 
 piece, both as to invention and execution. The 
 romantic and chivalrous principle of the love of 
 personal fame is embodied in the finest possible 
 manner in the character of Falkland ; * as in 
 Caleb Williams (who is not the first, but the 
 second character in the piece) we see the very 
 demon of curiosity personified. Perhaps the art 
 with which these two characters are contrived to 
 relieve and set off each other, has never been sur- 
 passed in any work of fiction, with the exception 
 of the immortal satire of Cervantes. The rest- 
 less and inquisitive spirit of Caleb Williams, in 
 search and in possession of his patron's fatal 
 secret, haunts the latter like a second conscience, 
 plants stings in his tortured mind, fans the 
 flame of his jealous ambition, struggling with 
 agonised remorse ; and the hapless but noble- 
 minded Falkland at length falls a martyr to the 
 persecution of that morbid and overpowering 
 interest, of which his mingled virtues and vices 
 have rendered him the object. We conceive no 
 one ever began " Caleb Williams" that did not 
 read it through : no one that ever read it could 
 possibly forget it, or speak of it after any length 
 of time, but with an impression as if the events 
 and feelings had been personal to himself. This 
 is the case also with the story of " St Leon " 
 which, with less dramatic interest and intensity 
 of purpose, is set off by a more gorgeous and 
 flowing eloquence, and by a crown of preter- 
 natural imagery, that waves over it like a palm- 
 tree. It is the beauty and the charm of Mr 
 Godwin's descriptions that the reader identifies 
 himself with the author ; and the secret of this 
 is, that the author has identified himself with 
 his personages. Indeed, he has created them. 
 They are the proper issue of his brain, law- 
 ' fully begot, not foundlings, nor the "bastards 
 of his art." He is not an indifferent, callous 
 
 * "Mr Fuseli used to object to this striking delinea- 
 tion a want of historical correctness, inasmuch as the 
 ' animating principle of the true chivalrous character 
 I was the senae of honour, not the mere regard to or 
 ' saving of appearances. This, we think, must be a 
 hypercriticism, from all we remember of books ol 
 i chivalry and heroes of romance." — HAZLrrr. 
 
WILLIAM GODWIN. 
 
 ^3 
 
 spectator of the scenes which he himself por- 
 trays, but without seeming to feel them. There 
 is no look of patch-work and plagiarism, the 
 beggarly copiousness of borrowed wealth ; no 
 tracery- work from worm-eaten manuscripts, 
 from forgotten chronicles, nor piecing out of 
 vague traditions with fragments and snatches 
 of old ballads, so that the result resembles a 
 gaudy, staring transparency, in which you can- 
 rot distinguish the daubing of the painter from 
 the light that shines through the flimsy colours 
 and gives them brilliancy. Here all is fairly 
 made out with strokes of the pencil, by fair, 
 not by factitious means. Our author takes a 
 given subject from nature or from books, and 
 then fills it up with the ardent workings of his 
 own mind, with the teeming and audible pulses 
 of his own heart. The effect is entire and satis- 
 factory in proportion. The work (so to speak) 
 and the author are one. We are not puzzled 
 to decide upon their respective pretensions. 
 In reading Mr Godwin's novels we know what 
 share of merit the author has in them. In read- 
 ing the Scotch novels, we are perpetually embar- 
 rassed in asking ourselves this question; and 
 perhaps it is not altogether a false modesty that 
 prevents the editor from putting his name in the 
 title-page — he is (for anything we know to the 
 contrary) only a more voluminous sort of Allen- 
 a-Dale. At least we may claim this advantage 
 for the English author, that the chains with 
 which he rivets our attention are forged out of 
 his own thoughts, link by link, blow for blow, 
 with glowing enthusiasm; we see the genuine 
 ore melted in the furnace of fervid feeling, and 
 moulded into stately and ideal forms; and this 
 is so far better than peeping into an old iron 
 shop or pilfering from a dealer in marine stores. 
 There is one drawback, however, attending this 
 mode of proceeding, which attaches generally, 
 indeed, to all originality of composition, namely, 
 that it has a tendency to a certain degree of 
 monotony. He who draws upon his own re- 
 sources, easily comes to an end of his wealth. 
 Mr Godwin, in all his writings, dwells upon one 
 idea or exclusive view of a subject, aggrandises 
 a sentiment, exaggerates a character, or pushes 
 an argument to extremes, and makes up by the 
 force of style and continuity of feeling for what 
 he wants in variety of incident or ease of man- 
 ner. This necessary defect is observable in his 
 best works, and is still more so in " Fleetwood" 
 and *' Mandeville;" the one of which, compared 
 with his more admired performances, is mawkish, 
 and the other morbid. Mr Godwin is also an 
 essayist, an historian ; in short, what is he not 
 that belongs to the character of an indefatigable 
 and accomplished author ? His "Life of Chaucer" 
 would have given celebrity to any man of letters 
 possessed of £3000 a year, with leisure to write 
 quartos, as the legal acuteness displayed in his 
 **Eemarks on Judge Eyre's Charge to the Jury" 
 would have raised any briefless barrister to the 
 
 height of his profession. This temporary effu- 
 sion did more, it gave a turn to the trials for 
 high treason in the year 1794, and possibly saved 
 the lives of twelve innocent individuals marked 
 out as political victims to the Moloch of legiti- 
 macy, which then skulked behind a British 
 throne, and had not yet dared to stalk forth (as 
 it has done since) from its lurking-place, in the 
 face of day, to brave the opinion of the world. 
 If it had then glutted its maw with its intended 
 prey (the sharpness of Mr Godwin's pen cut the 
 legal cords with which it was attempted to bind 
 them), it might have done so sooner and with 
 more lasting effect. The world do not know 
 (and we are not sure but the intelligence may 
 startle Mr Godwin himself) that he is the authoi 
 of a volume of sermons and of a " Life of 
 Chatham."* 
 
 Mr Fawcett (an old friend and fellow-student 
 of our author, and who always spoke of his 
 writings with admiration, tinctured with won- 
 der) used to mention a circumstance with re- 
 spect to the last-mentioned work, which may 
 throw some light on the history and progress of 
 Mr Godwin's mind. He was anxious to make 
 his biographical account as complete as he could, 
 and applied for this purpose to many of his 
 acquaintance to furnish him with anecdotes or 
 to suggest criticisms. Amongst others, Mr 
 Fawcett repeated to him what he thought a 
 striking passage in a speech on general war- 
 rants delivered by Lord Chatham, at which he 
 (Mr Fawcett) had been present. "Every man's 
 house" (said this emphatic thinker and speaker) 
 "has been called his castle. And why is it 
 called his castle ? Is it because it is defended 
 by a wall, because it is surrounded with a moat? 
 No, it may be nothing more than a straw-built 
 shed. It may be open to all the elements ; the 
 wind may enter in, the rain may enter in, but 
 the king cannot enter in." His friend thought 
 that the point was here palpable enough, but 
 when he came to read the printed volume he 
 found it thus transposed: "Everyman's house 
 is his castle. And why is it called so ? Is it 
 because it is defended by a wall, because it is 
 surrounded with a moat? No, it may be no- 
 thing more than a straw-built shed. It may be 
 exposed to all the elements ; the rain may enter 
 into it, all the winds of heaven may whistle 
 round ity but the king cannot," etc. This was 
 what Fawcett called a defect of natural imagina- 
 tion. He at the same time admitted that Mr 
 Godwin had improved his native sterility in this 
 respect, or atoned for it by incessant activity of 
 mind and by accumulated stores of thought and 
 powers of language. In fact, his forte is not 
 the spontaneous but the voluntary exercise of 
 talent. He fixes his ambition on a high point of 
 excellence, ana spares no pains or time in attain- 
 
 * We had forgotten the tragedies of "Antonio " and 
 " Ferdinand." Peace be with their manes. 
 
ing it. He has less of the appearance of a man 
 of genius than any one who has given such de- 
 cided and ample proofs of it. He is ready only 
 on reflection, dangerous only at the rebound. 
 He gathers himself up and strains every nerve 
 and faculty with deliberate aim to some heroic 
 and dazzling achievement of intellect, but he must 
 make a career before he flings himself armed 
 upon the enemy, or he is sure to be unhorsed. 
 Or he resembles an eight-day clock that must be 
 wound up long before it can strike. Therefore, 
 his powers of conversation are but limited. He 
 has neither acuteness of remark nor a flow of 
 language, both which might be expected from 
 his writings, as these are no less distinguished 
 by a sustained and impassioned tone of decla- 
 mation than by novelty of opinion or brilliant 
 tracks of invention. In company. Home Tooke 
 used to make a mere child of him, or of any 
 man. Mr Godwin liked this treatment,* and 
 indeed it is his foible to fawn on those who use 
 him cavalierly, and to be cavalier to those who 
 express an undue or unqualified admiration of 
 him. He looks up with unfeigned respect to 
 acknowledged reputation (but then it must be 
 very well ascertained before he admits it), and 
 has a favourite hypothesis that understanding 
 and virtue are the same thing. Mr Godwin pos- 
 sesses a high degree of philosophical candour, 
 and studiously paid the homage of his pen and 
 person to Mr Malthus, Sir James Mackintosh, 
 and Dr Parr, for their unsparing attacks on him ; 
 but woe to any poor devil who had the hardi- 
 hood to defend him against them ! In private, 
 the author of " Political Justice " at one time 
 reminded those who knew him of the metaphy- 
 sician engrafted on the dissenting minister. 
 There was a dictatorial, captious, quibbling pet- 
 tiness of manner. He lost this with the first 
 blush and awkwardness of popularity, which 
 surprised him in the retirement of his study ; 
 and he has since, with the wear and tear of 
 society, from being too pragmatical, become 
 somewhat too careless. He is at present as easy 
 as an old glove. Perhaps there is a little atten- 
 
 * " To be sure it was redeemed by a high respect and 
 by some magnificent compliments. Once in particu- 
 lar, at his own table, after a good deal of badinage and 
 cross-questioning about his being the author of the 
 'Reply to Judge Eyre's Charge,' on Mr Godwin's 
 acknowledging that he was, Mr Tooke said, ' Come 
 here, then;' and when his guest went round to his 
 chair, he took his hand and pressed it to his lips, say- 
 ing, ' I can do no less for the hand that saved my 
 life.*"— Hazlitt. 
 
 tion to effect in this, and he wishes to appear a 
 foil to himself. His best moments are with an 
 intimate acquaintance or two, when he gossips 
 in a fine vein about old authors — Clarendon's 
 '• History of the Rebellion," or Burnet's " His- 
 tory of his own Times " — and you perceive by 
 your host's talk, as by the taste of seasoned 
 wine, that he has a cellarage in his understand- 
 ing. Mr Godwin also has a correct acquired 
 taste in poetry and the drama. He relishes 
 Donne and Ben Jonson, and recites a passage 
 from either with an agreeable mixture of pedan- 
 try and bonhommie. He is not one of those 
 who do not grow wiser with opportunity and 
 reflection ; he changes his opinions, and changes 
 them for the better. The alteration of his taste 
 in poetry, from an exclusive admiration of the 
 age of Queen Anne to an almost equally exclu- 
 sive one of that of Elizabeth, is, we suspect, 
 owing to Mr Coleridge, who, some twenty years 
 ago, threw a great stone into the standing pool 
 of criticism, which splashed some persons with 
 the mud, but which gave a motion to the sur- 
 face and a reverberation to the neighbouring 
 echoes, which has not since subsided. In com- 
 mon company, Mr Godwin either goes to sleep 
 himself or sets others to sleep. He is at present 
 engaged in a " History of the Commonwealth of 
 England."* Esto perpetua ! In size Mr Godwin 
 is below the common stature, nor is his deport- 
 ment graceful or animated. His face is, how- 
 ever, fine, with an expression of placid temper 
 and recondite thought. He is not unlike the 
 common portraits of Locke. There is a very 
 admirable likeness of him by Mr Northcote, 
 which with a more heroic and dignified air, only 
 does justice to the profound sagacity and bene- 
 volent aspirations of our author's mind. Mr 
 Godwin has kept the best company of his time, 
 but he has survived most of the celebrated per- 
 sons with whom he lived in habits of intimacy. ( 
 He speaks of them with enthusiasm and with 
 discrimination, and sometimes dwells with pecu- 
 liar delight on a day passed at John Kemble's 
 in company with Mr Sheridan, Mr Curran, Mrs 
 Wollstonecraft, and Mrs Inchbald, when the 
 conversation took a most animated turn, and 
 the subject was of love. Of all these our author 
 is the only one remaining. Frail tenure, on 
 which human life and genius are lent us for a 
 while to improve or to enjoy. 
 
 * Published at intervals between 1824 and 1828. Of 
 the style of this history, it has been said that it 
 '* creeps and hitches in dates and authorities." 
 
WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 65 
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 [1762-1835.] 
 
 William Cobbett was a native of Farnham in 
 Surrey. He was born about 1762; the third 
 son of a small farmer. After he had risen to 
 eminence and distinction, it was his delight and 
 bis pride to refer to the honourable, if humble 
 circumstances of his early life; to a father, 
 whom, he says, "I ardently loved, and to whose 
 every word I listened with admiration ;" and to 
 a "gentle, and tender-hearted, and affectionate 
 mother." In one of his " Rural Rides," in which 
 he was accompanied by one of his sons, then a 
 mere boy, he says : " In coming from Moor Park 
 to Farnham town, I stopped opposite the door 
 of a little old house, where there appeared to be 
 many children. * There, Dick,' said I, * when I 
 was just such a little creature as that, whom 
 you see in the doorway, I lived in this very 
 house with my grandmother Cobbett.' " He 
 was a bold, adventurous, hardy little chap, fond 
 of all manner of rural English sports, and the 
 very "father to the man" he afterwards became. 
 Cobbett, whatever were his faults, had a genial 
 temperament and great warmth of feeling. In 
 one of his "Rural Rides," in which he was ac- 
 companied by an elder son, he writes : 
 
 " We went a little out of the way to go to a 
 place called the Bourne, which lies in the heath 
 Rt about a mile from Farnham. We went to 
 Bourne, in order that I might show my son the 
 sp )t where I received the rudiments of my edu- 
 cation. There is a little hop-garden in which I 
 used to work when from eight to ten years old ; 
 from which I have, scores of times, run to follow 
 the hounds, leaving the hoe to do the best that 
 it could to destroy the weeds. But the most 
 interesting thing was a sand-hill, which goes 
 from a part of the heath down to the rivulet. 
 As a due mixture of pleasure with toil, I, with 
 two brothers, used occasionally to disport our- 
 selves, as the lawyers call it, at this sand-hill. 
 Our diversion was this: we used to go to the 
 top of the hill, which was steeper than the roof 
 of a house ; one used to draw his arms out of 
 the sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay himself 
 down with his arms by his sides ; and then the 
 others, one at head, and the other at feet, sent 
 him rolling down the hill like a barrel or a log 
 of wood. By the time he got to the bottom, 
 his hair, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, were all 
 full of this loose sand; then the others took 
 their turn, and, at every roll, there was a mon- 
 strous spell of laughter. I had often told my 
 sons of this, while they were very little, and I 
 now took one of them to see the spot. But that 
 was not all. This was the spot where I was 
 receiving my education ; and this was the sort 
 
 of education ; and I am perfectly satisfied that, 
 if I had not received such an education, or 
 something very much like it — that, if I had 
 been brought up a milksop, with a nursery-maid 
 everlastingly at my heels — I should have been 
 at this day as great a fool, as inefficient a mortal, 
 as any of those frivolous idiots that are turned 
 out from Winchester and Westminster School, 
 or from any of those dens of dunces called col- 
 leges and universities. It is impossible to say 
 how much I owe to that sand-hill; and I went 
 to return it my thanks for the ability which it 
 probably gave me to be one of the greatest ter- 
 rors to one of the greatest and most powerful 
 bodies of knaves and fools that ever were per- 
 mitted to afflict this or any other country." 
 
 Breakfasting at a little village in Sussex, he 
 looks with fond complacency upon the landlady's 
 son: "A very pretty village, and a very nice 
 breakfast, in a very neat parlour of a very 
 decent public-house. The landlady sent her son 
 to get me some cream ; and he was just such a 
 chap as I was at his age, and dressed just in tlie 
 same sort of way ; his main garment being a blue 
 smock-frock, faded from wear, and mended with 
 pieces of new stuff, and, of course, not faded. 
 The sight of this smock-frock brought to my 
 recollection many things very dear to me." 
 This is as fine as Bums gazing upon the cottage 
 smoke in his morning walk to Blackford Hill 
 with Dugald Stewart. One anecdote of his 
 boyhood, related by himself, is so amusingly 
 characteristic of the future man, that we have 
 never forgotten it. He was not permitted to 
 follow the hounds upon some occasion, and, in 
 revenge, procured a salt herring, which he fur- 
 tively drew over the ground where they were to 
 throw off, thus to cast them off the scent. The 
 trick took to admiration, and the boy as much 
 exulted in his success as did the man in the 
 discomfiture of his enemies, EUensborough and 
 Vickary Gibbs. 
 
 In the introduction to one of his most delight- 
 ful books — next, indeed, to the " Rural Rides" 
 — namely, his "Year's Residence in America," 
 he says : 
 
 " Early habits and affections seldom quit us 
 while we have vigour of mind left. I was 
 brought up under a father, whose talk was 
 chiefly about his garden and his fields, with 
 regard to which he was famed for his skill and 
 his exemplary neatness. From my very infancy, 
 from the age of six years, when I climbed up 
 the side of a steep sand-rock, and there scooped 
 me out a plot four feet square to make me a 
 garden, and the soil for which I carried up in 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the bosom of my little blue smock-frock, or 
 hunting-sliirJ-, I have never lost one particle of 
 my passion for these healthy, and rational, and 
 heart-cheering pursuits, in which every day pre- 
 sents something new, in which the spirits are 
 never suffered to flag, and in which industry, 
 skill, and care are sure to meet with their due 
 reward. I have never, for any eight months 
 together, during my whole life, been without a 
 garden." 
 
 In the same volume in his American journal 
 this passage occurs : 
 
 " When I returned to England, in 1800, after 
 an absence, from the country parts of it, of 
 sixteen years, the trees, the hedges, even the 
 parks and woods, seemed so small ! It made me 
 laugh to hear little gutters, that I could jump 
 over, called rivers ! The Thames was but a 
 * creek ! * But when, in about a month after 
 my arrival in London, I went to Farnham, the 
 place of my birth, what was my surprise ! 
 Everything was become so pitifully small ! I 
 had to croRvS, in my post-chaise, the long and 
 dreary heath of Bagshot ; then, at the end of it, 
 to mount a hill called Hungry Hill ; and from 
 that hill I knew that I should look down into 
 the beautiful and fertile vale of Farnham. My 
 heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with a 
 sort of fear, to see all the scenes of my child- 
 hood ; for I had learnt before, the death of my 
 father and mother. There is a hill, not far from 
 the town, called Crooksbury Hill, which rises 
 up out of a flat, in the form of a cone, and is 
 planted with Scotch fir-trees. Here I used to 
 take the eggs and young ones of crows and 
 magpies. This hill was a famous object in the 
 neighbourhood. It served as the superlative 
 degree of height. *As high as Crooksbury Hill' 
 meant with us the utmost degree of height. 
 Therefore, the first object that my eyes sought 
 was this hill. / could not believe my eyes! 
 Literally speaking, I, for a moment, thought 
 the famous hill removed, and a little heap put 
 in its stead ; for I had seen, in New Brunswick, 
 a single rock, or hill of solid rock, ten times as 
 big, and four or five times as high 1 The post- 
 boy, going down hill, and not a bad road, 
 whisked me, in a few minutes, to the Bush Inn, 
 from the garden of which I could see the prodi- 
 gious sand-hill, where I had begun my gardening 
 works. What a nothing 1 But now came rush- 
 ing into my mind, all at once, my pretty little 
 garden, my little blue smock-frock, my little 
 nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons, that I used to 
 feed out of my hands, the last kind words and 
 tears of my gentle and tender-hearted and affec- 
 tionate mother 1 I hastened back into the room. 
 If I had looked a moment longer, I should have 
 dropped. When I came to reflect, what a 
 change I I looked down at my dress. What 
 a change I What scenes I had gone through 1 
 How altered my state I I had dined the day 
 before at the Secretary of State's, in company 
 
 with Mr Pitt, and had been waited upon by 
 men in gaudy liveries ! I had had nobody to 
 assist me in the world. No teachers of any sort. 
 Nobody to shelter me from the consequences of 
 bad, and no one to counsel me to good behaviour. 
 I felt proud. The distinctions of rank, birth, 
 and wealth, all became nothing in my eyes; 
 and from that moment (less than a month after 
 my arrival in England) I resolved never to bend 
 before them." 
 
 Cobbett, in his native place, and following 
 the employments of his ancestors, must inevit- 
 ably have been a " village Hampden." On 
 looking at a little smock-frocked boy, in nailed 
 shoes and clean coarse shirt, such as he had 
 been, he very naturally remarks : "If accident 
 had not taken me from a similar scene, how 
 many villains and fools, who have been well 
 teased and tormented, would have slept in peace 
 by night, and fearlessly swaggered about by 
 day ! " Cobbett received so little school learn- 
 ing, that, in his case, it may be almost truly 
 said, " Reading and writing came by nature." 
 From eight years of age he was engaged in such 
 rural occupations as picking hops and hautboys, 
 weeding in gardens, and driving away the birds, 
 and following the hounds; or getting upon 
 horseback as often as he could, or digging after 
 rabbits' nests, rolling down the sand-hills, and 
 whipping the little efts that crept about in the 
 heath. And this is the education which, upon 
 reflection, he preferred. None of his own young 
 children were ever sent from home to schooL 
 Reading and writing came to them from imita- 
 tion. Throughout all Cobbett's writings (crot- 
 chets notwithstanding), excellent hints are scat- 
 tered upon this important subject, but especially 
 in his "Advice to Young Men." His contro- 
 versy with the educators as a sect, was merely 
 one of sound. No man could prize the advan- 
 tages of education so highly as one who owed 
 all he knew to himself, and who had pursued 
 knowledge unremittingly and under consider- 
 able difficulties. His first start from home 
 he has described himself in this memorable pas- 
 sage: 
 
 "At eleven years of age, my employment was 
 clipping off box-edgings and weeding beds of 
 flowers in the garden of the Bishop of Winches- 
 ter, at the Castle of Farnham, my native town. 
 I had always been fond of beautiful gardens, and 
 a gardener who had just come from the King's 
 Gardens at Kew gave such a description of them 
 as made me instantly resolve to work in these 
 gardens. The next morning, without saying a 
 word to any one, off I set, with no clothes except 
 those upon my back, and with thirteen halfpence 
 in my pocket. I found that I must go to Rich- 
 mond, and I accordingly went on from place to 
 place, inquiring my way thither. A long day 
 (it was in June) brought me to Richmond in the 
 afternoon. Two pennyworth of bread and cheese 
 and a pennyworth of small beer which I had on 
 
WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 67 
 
 the road, and one halfpenny which 1 had lost 
 Bomehow or other, left threepence in my pocket. 
 With this for my whole fortune, I was trudging 
 through Richmond in my blue smock-frock and 
 my red garters tied under my knees, when, star- 
 ing about me, my eye fell upon a little book in 
 3 bookseller's window, on the outside of which 
 'Wis written, * Tale of a Tub, price 3d.' The title 
 was so odd that my curiosity was excited. I 
 had the 3d., but then I could have no supper. 
 In I went and got the little book, which I was 
 so impatient to read that I got over into a field 
 at the upper corner of the Kew Garden, where 
 there stood a hay-stack. On the shady side of 
 this I sat down to read. The book was so dif- 
 ferent from anything that I had read before : it 
 was something so new to my mind, that, though 
 I could not at all understand some of it, it de- 
 lighted me beyond description, and it produced 
 what I have always considered a sort of birth of 
 intellect. I read on till it was dark, without 
 any thought about supper or bed. When I could 
 see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket 
 and tumbled down by the side of the stack, 
 where I slept till the birds in Kew Gardens 
 awaked me in the morning, when ofi' I started 
 to Kew, reading my little book. The singu- 
 larity of my dress, the simplicity of my manner, 
 my confident and lively air, and, doubtless, his 
 own compassion besides, induced the gardener, 
 who was a Scotsman, to give me victuals, find 
 me lodging, and set me to work. And it was 
 during the period that I was at Kew that the 
 present king and two of his brothers laughed at 
 the oddness of my dress while I was sweeping 
 tlie grass plat round the foot of the pagoda. The 
 gardener, seeing me fond of books, lent me 
 some gardening books to read ; but these I could 
 not relish after my ' Tale of a Tub,' which I car- 
 ried about with me wherever I went ; and when 
 I, at about twenty years old, lost it in a box that 
 fell overboard in the Bay of Fundy, in North 
 America, the loss gave me greater pain than I 
 have ever felt at losing thousands of pounds. 
 This circumstance, trifling as it was, and 
 childish as it may seem to relate it, has always 
 endeared the recollection of Kew to me." 
 
 At sixteen he attempted to make off to sea ; 
 at seventeen he went to London, where he sup- 
 ported himself for some time as a copying clerk ; 
 at twenty-two he enlisted as a private soldier, 
 and rose to the rank of sergeant-major. His 
 regiment was the 53d, then commanded by one 
 of the king's sons, the Duke of Kent, and he 
 went with it to British America. Thus, from a 
 very tender age he was left entirely to his own 
 guidance and mastership, and thus was nour- 
 ished the self-depending, determined character 
 which nerved him for his life-long struggle. The 
 little illustrative snatches of personal history, 
 especially of his young days, which he has inci- 
 dentally given, are the most attractive part of 
 his writings, and these, fortunately, mingle the 
 
 most largely in the more popular and enduring I 
 part of them, namely, the ** Rural Rides," the 
 "Year's Residence in America," and the "Ad- 
 vice to Young Men." In the latter work he 
 says, in treating of education, and, in particular, 
 of learning grammar : 
 
 *' The study need subtract from the hours of 
 no business, nor, indeed, from the hours of ne- 
 cessary exercise; the hours usually spent on the 
 tea and coffee slops and in the mere gossip which 
 accompany them — those wasted hours of only 
 one year employed in the study of English gram- 
 mar would make you a correct speaker and 
 writer for the rest of your life. Yon want no 
 school, no room to study in, no expenses, and 
 no troublesome circumstances of any sort. 1 
 learned grammar when I was a private soldier 
 on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my 
 berth or that of the guard-bed was my seat to 
 study in, my knapsack was my bookcase, a bit 
 of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, 
 and the task did not demand anything like a 
 year of my life. I had no money to purchase 
 candle or oil ; in winter time it was rarely that 
 I could get any evening light but that of the fire, 
 and only my turn even of that. And if I under 
 such circumstances, and without parent or friend 
 to advise or encourage me, accomplished this 
 undertaking, what excuse can there be for any 
 youth, however poor, however pressed with 
 business, or however circumstanced as to room 
 or other conveniences ? To buy a pen or a sheet 
 of paper, I was compelled to forego some portion 
 of food, though in a state of half starvation ; I 
 had no moment of time that I could call my 
 own, and I had to read and to write amidst the 
 talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and brawl- 
 ing of at least half a score of the most thought- 
 less of men, and that, too, in the hours of their 
 freedom from all control. Think not lightly of 
 the farthing that I had to give now and then for 
 ink, pen, or paper. That farthing was, alas, a 
 great sum to me. I was as tall as I am now ; I 
 had great health and great exercise. The whole 
 of the money not expended for us at market was 
 twopence a week for each man. I remember, 
 and well I may, that upon one occasion I, after 
 all absolutely necessary expenses, had, on a 
 Friday, made shift to have a halfpenny in re- 
 serve, which I had destined for the purchase of 
 a red herring in the morning ; but when I pulled 
 off my clothes at night, so hungry then as to be 
 hardly able to endure life, I found that I had 
 lost my halfpenny. I buried my head under the 
 miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child. 
 And again I say, if I, under circumstances like 
 these, could encounter and overcome this task, 
 is there, can there be, in the whole world a 
 youth to find an excuse for the non-performance? 
 What youth who shall read this will not be 
 ashamed to say that he is not able to find timtj 
 and opportunity for this most essential of all th*» 
 branches of book-learning ?" 
 
G8 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 His natural disposition, prompt and active, 
 made him fall easily into the hetter parts of 
 military habits. The original maxim of the man 
 who for forty years daily did so much, and who, 
 having put his hand to the plough, never once 
 looked back, was — Toujours prit — always ready ; 
 and it ought to be the family motto of the Cob- 
 betts. He says of himself : 
 
 " For my part, I can truly say that I owe more 
 of my great labours to my strict adherence to 
 the precepts that I have here given you than to 
 all the natural abilities with which I have been 
 endowed, for these, whatever may have been 
 their amount, would have been of comparatively 
 little use, even aided by great sobriety and ab- 
 stinence, if I had not in early life contracted the 
 blessed habit of husbanding well my time. To 
 this, more than to any other thing, I owed my 
 very extraordinary promotion in the army. I 
 was ' always ready ; ' if I had to mount guard at 
 ten, I was ready at nine ; never did any man, or 
 anything, wait one moment for me. Being, at 
 an age under twenty years, raised from corporal 
 to sergeant-major at once, over the heads of 
 thirty sergeants, I naturally should have been 
 an object of envy and hatred ; but this habit of 
 early rising and of rigid adherence to the pre- 
 cepts which I have given you really subdued 
 these passions, because every one felt that what 
 I did he had never done, and never could do. 
 Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted to 
 make out the morning report of the regiment. 
 I rendered the clerk unnecessary, and long be- 
 fore any other man was dressed for the parade, 
 my work for the morning was all done, and I 
 myself was on the parade, walking, in fine 
 weather, for an hour perhaps. My custom was 
 this : to get up in summer at daylight, and in 
 winter at four o'clock — shave, dress, even to the 
 putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and 
 having my sword lying on the table before me 
 ready to hang by my side. Then I ate a bit of 
 cheese, or pork and bread. Then I prepared my 
 report, which was filled up as fast as the com- 
 panies brought me in the materials. After this 
 I had an hour or two to read before the time 
 came for any duty out of doors, unless when the 
 regiment, or part of it, went out to exersise in 
 the morning. When this was the case, and the 
 matter was left to me, I always had it on the 
 ground in such time as that the bayonets glis- 
 tened in the rising sun, a sight which gave me de- 
 light, of which I often think, but which I should 
 in vain endeavour to describe. If the officers 
 were to go out, eight or ten o'clock was the hour, 
 sweating the men in the heat of the day, break- 
 ing in upon the time tor cooking their dinner, 
 putting all things out of order and all men 
 out of humour. When I was commander, the 
 men had a long day of leisure before them; 
 they could ramble into the town or into the 
 woods, go to get raspberries, to catch birds, to 
 catch fish, or to puraue any other recreation, 
 
 and such of them as chose, and were qualified, 
 to work at their trades." 
 
 Much of the spare time of Cobbett was, in his 
 younger years, devoted to a very miscellaneous 
 kind of reading. He ran through all the books 
 of a country circulating library, trash and all ; 
 and, contemptibly as he often affects to speak of 
 literary pursuits, the fruits of these early studies 
 are often revealed in the lively style and the fer- 
 tility and happiness of allusion which distinguish 
 all his writings. No one has abused Shakespeare 
 so absurdly and truculently — for this was one of 
 Cobbett's many crotchets ; but, then, few have 
 quoted the bard of many-coloured life so aptly 
 and frequently. Shakespeare and the principal 
 English poets were clearly at his finger ends, 
 while, from wayward caprice, he affected ignor- 
 ance, with contempt of them. Of the arts he 
 knew nothing, not even the mechanic arts ; and 
 his tours in Scotland and Ireland show how little 
 he possessed of what is called general informa- 
 tion — the kind of knowledge which comes almost 
 of itself, and which he despised much more than 
 was needful. Yet, his acquaintance with English 
 classical literature, and even with contemporary 
 authors, must have been extensive, and gra- 
 dually accumulating, in the gardens of Kew, in 
 London, and in New Brunswick, and to the last 
 hour of his life. The *' Tale of a Tub " had in- 
 troduced the boy to the writings of Swift ; and 
 we have been informed by an officer who joined 
 the 53d Regiment shortly after Cobbett left it, 
 that he had written out in some of the regi- 
 mental books, " Directions for a Sergeant-Major,'* 
 or an orderly, in the manner of Swift's "Advice 
 to Servants," which were full of admirable hu- 
 mour and grave irony. The officers of the 53d 
 and the corps were, as we have reason to know, 
 exceedingly proud of their clever sergeant-major 
 after he became famous; and so, indeed, was 
 the whole army, from the period he became a 
 party writer in Philadelphia. He was particu- 
 larly distinguished by His Royal Highness the 
 Duke of Kent. 
 
 In the "Advice to Young Men," which may 
 be called his confessions, Cobbett has related his 
 own love-story, and a delightful one it is — pos- 
 sessing at once the tenderness and simplicity of 
 nature, and no little of the charm of romance. 
 The scene of it was New Brunswick. But there 
 is a collateral flirtation also, involving what 
 Cobbett terms the only serious sin he ever com- 
 mitted against the female sex, and which he 
 relates in warning to young men. We shall 
 take it first, and that, too, in the language of 
 his own narrative. 
 
 "The province of New Brunswick, in North 
 America, in which I passed my years from the 
 age of eighteen to that of twenty-six, consists, 
 in general, of heaps of rocks, in the interstices 
 of which grow the pine, the spruce, and various 
 sorts of fir trees, or, where the woods have been 
 burnt down, the bushes of the raspberry or those 
 
WILLIAM COB BELT. 
 
 69 
 
 of the hjckle-berry. The province is cut asunder 
 length-rtise, by a great river, called the St John, 
 about two hundred miles in length, and, at half i 
 way from the mouth, full a mile wide. Into ' 
 this main river run innumerable smaller rivers, 
 there called creeks. On the sides of these creeks, 
 the land is, in places, clear of rocks ; it is, in 
 these places generally good and productive ; the 
 trees that grow here are the birch, the maple, and 
 o+Jiers of the deciduous class ; natural meadows 
 hei« and there present themselves ; and some of 
 these spots far surpass in rural beauty any other 
 that my eyes ever beheld ; the creeks abounding 
 towards their sources in waterfalls of endless var- 
 iety, as well in form as in magnitude, and always 
 teeming with fish, while water-fowl enliven their 
 surface, and while wild pigeons, of the gayest 
 plumage, flutter, in thousands upon thousands, 
 amongst the branches of the beautiful trees, 
 which, sometimes for miles together, form an 
 arch over the creeks. 
 
 "I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in 
 which I took great delight, came to a spot at a 
 very short distance from the source of one of 
 these creeks. Here was everything to delight 
 the eye, and especially of one like me, who 
 seem to have been born to love rural life, and 
 trees and plants of all sorts. Here were about 
 two hundred acres of natural meadow, intersper- 
 sed with patches of maple trees, in various forms 
 and of various extent; the creek came down in 
 cascades, for any one of which many a nobleman 
 in England would, if he could transfer it, give a 
 good slice of his fertile estate ; and, in the creek, 
 at the foot of the cascades, there were, in the 
 season, salmon the finest in the world, and so 
 abundant, and so easily taken, as to be used for 
 manuring the land. 
 
 " If nature, in her very best humour, had 
 made a spot for the express purpose of captivat- 
 ing me, she could not have exceeded the efforts 
 which she had here made. But I found some- 
 thing here besides these rude works of nature ; 
 I found something in the fashioning of which 
 man had had something to do. I found a large 
 und well-built log dwelling-house, standing (in 
 the month of September) on the edge of a very 
 good field of Indian corn, by the side of which 
 there was a piece of buck- wheat just then mowed. 
 I found a homestead, and some very pretty cows. 
 I found all the things by which an easy and 
 happy farmer is surrounded ; and I found still 
 something besides all these — something that was 
 destined to give me a great deal of pleasure and 
 also a great deal of pain, both in their extreme 
 degree ; and both of which, in spite of the lapse 
 of forty years, now make an attempt to rush 
 back into my heart. 
 
 " Partly from misinformation, and partly from 
 miscalculation, I had lost my way; and, quite 
 alone, but armed with my sword and a brace of 
 pistols, to defend myself against the bears, I 
 arrived at the log-house in the middle of a 
 
 moonlight night, the hoar-frost covering the 
 trees and the grass. A stout and clamorous 
 dog, kept off by the gleaming of my sword, 
 waked the master of the house, who got up, 
 received me with great hospitality, got me 
 something to eat, and put me into a feather- 
 bed, a thing that I had been a stranger to for 
 some years. I, being very tired, had tried to 
 pass the night in the woods, between the trunks 
 of two large trees which had fallen side by side, 
 and within a yard of each other. I had made a 
 nest for myself of dry fern, and had made a 
 covering by laying boughs of spruce across the 
 trunks of the trees. But, unable to sleep on 
 account of the cold; becoming sick from the 
 great quantity of water that I had drank during 
 the heat of the day, and being, moreover, alarmed 
 at the noise of the bears, and lest one of them 
 should find me in a defenceless state, I had 
 roused myself up, and had crept along as well 
 as I could. So that no hero of Eastern romance 
 ever experienced a more enchanting change. 
 
 "I had got into the house of one of those 
 Yankee loyalists, who, at the close of the re- 
 volutionary war (which, until it had succeeded, 
 was called a rebellion), had accepted of grants 
 of land in the king's province of New Bruns- 
 wick ; and who, to the great honour of England, 
 had been furnished with all the means of making 
 new and comfortable settlements. I was suffered 
 to sleep till breakfast time, when I found a 
 table, the like of which I have since seen so many 
 times in the United States, loaded with good 
 things. The master and the mistress of the 
 house, aged about fifty, were like what an Eng- 
 lish farmer and his wife were half a century ago. 
 There were two sons, tall and stout, who ap- 
 peared to have come in from work, and the 
 youngest of whom was about my age, then 
 twenty-three. But there was another member 
 of the family, aged nineteen, who (dressed ac- 
 cording to the neat and simple fashion of New 
 England, whence she had come with her parents 
 five or six years before) had her long light-brown 
 hair twisted nicely up, and fastened on the top 
 of her head, in which head were a pair of lively 
 blue eyes, associated with features of which that 
 softness and that sweetness, so characteristic of 
 American girls, were the predominant expres- 
 sions, the whole being set off by a complexion 
 indicative of glowing health, and forming — figure, 
 movements, and all taken together — an assem- 
 blage of beauties, far surpassing any that I had 
 ever seen but once in my life. That once was, 
 too, two years agone; and, in such a case and 
 at such an age, two years, two whole years, is a 
 long, long while ! It was a space as long as the 
 eleventh part of my then life ! Here was the 
 present against the absent ; here was the power 
 of the eyes pitted against that of the memory ; 
 here were all the senses up in arms to subdue 
 the influence of the thoughts; here was vanity, 
 here was passion, here was the spot of all spots 
 
70 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 in the world, and here were also the life, and 
 the manners, and the habits, and the pursuits 
 that I delighted in; here was everything that 
 imagination can conceive — united in a conspiracy 
 against the poor little brunette in England ! 
 What, then, did I fall in love at once with this 
 bouquet of lilies and roses ? Oh ! by no means. 
 I was, however, so enchanted with the place; I 
 so much enjoyed its tranquillity, the shade of 
 the maple trees, the business of the farm, the 
 sports of the water and of the woods, that I 
 stayed at it to the last possible minute, promis- 
 ing, at my departure, to come again as often as 
 I possibly could — a promise which I most punc- 
 tually fulfilled. 
 
 '* Winter is the great season for jaunting and 
 dancing (called frolicking) in America. In this 
 province, the river and the creeks were the only 
 roads from settlement to settlement. In sum- 
 mer we travelled in canoes ; in winter in sleighs 
 on the ice or snow. During more than two 
 years, I spent all the time I could with my 
 Yankee friends : they were all fond of me : I 
 talked to them about country affairs, my evident 
 delight in which they took as a compliment to 
 themselves: the father and mother treated me 
 as one of their children, the sons as a brother, 
 and the daughter, who was as modest and as 
 full of sensibility as she was beautiful, in a way 
 to which a chap much less sanguine than I was, 
 would have given the tenderest interpretation ; 
 which treatment I, especially in the last-men- 
 tioned case, most cordially repaid. 
 
 " Yet I was not a deceiver ; for my affection 
 for her was very great : I spent no really pleasant 
 hours but with her : I was uneasy if she showed 
 the slightest regard for any other young man ; I 
 was unhappy if the smallest matter affected her 
 health or spirits : I quitted her in dejection, 
 and returned to her with eager delight : many a 
 time, when I could get leave but for a day, I 
 paddled in a canoe two whole succeeding nights, 
 in order to pass that day with her. If this was 
 not love, it was first cousin to it ; for, as to any 
 criminal intention, I no more thought of it, in 
 her case, than if she had been my sister. Many 
 times I put to myself the questions : ' What am 
 I at ? Is not this wrong? Why do I go ? ' But 
 still I went. 
 
 "The last parting came; and now came my 
 just punishment ! The time was known to 
 everybody, and was irrevocably fixed ; for I had 
 to move with a regiment, and the embarkation 
 of a regiment is an epoch in a thinly-settled 
 province. To describe this parting would be 
 tuo painful even at this distant day, and with 
 this frost of age upon my head. The kind and 
 virtuous father came forty miles to see me just 
 as I was going on board in the river. Ills looks 
 and words I have never forgotten. As the ves- 
 sel descended, she passed the mouth of that 
 creek which I had so often entered with delight ; 
 and, though England, and all that England con- 
 
 tained, were before me, I lost sight of this creek 
 with an aching heart. 
 
 "On what trifles turn the great events in the 
 life of man ! If I had received a cool letter from 
 my intended wife; if I had only heard a rumour 
 of anything from which fickleness in her might 
 have been inferred ; if I had found in her any, 
 even the smallest, abatement of affection; if she 
 had but let go any one of the hundred strings by 
 which she held my heart ; if any one of these, 
 never would the world have heard of me. Young 
 as I was ; able as I was as a soldier ; proud as I 
 was of the admiration and commendations of 
 which I was the object ; fond as I was, too, of 
 the command, which, at so early an age, my rare 
 conduct and great natural talents had given me ; 
 sanguine as was my mind, and brilliant as were 
 my prospects ; yet I had seen so much of the 
 meannesses, the unjust partialities, the insolent 
 pomposity, the disgusting dissipations of that 
 way of life, that I was weary of it : I longed ex- 
 changing my fine laced coat for the Yankee far- 
 mer's home-spun, to be where I should never be- 
 hold the supple crouch of servility, and never 
 hear the hectoring voice of authority again ; and, 
 on the lonely banks of this branch-covered creek, 
 which contained (she out of the question) every- 
 thing congenial to my taste and dear to my 
 heart, I, unapplauded, unfeared, unenvied, and 
 uncalumniated, should have lived and died." 
 
 The fair cause of this *' serious sin," the little 
 brunette in England, had first been seen some 
 years before in America, and after this charming 
 manner: "When I first saw my wife, she was 
 thirteen years old, and I was within about a 
 month of twenty-one. She was the daughter of 
 a sergeant of artillery, and I was the sergeant- 
 major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in 
 forts near the city of St John, in the province of 
 New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with 
 her for about an hour, in company with others, 
 and I made up my mind that she was the very 
 girl for me. That I thought her beautiful, is 
 certain ; for that, I had always said, should be 
 an indispensable qualification ; but I saw in her 
 what I deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct 
 of which I have said so much, and which has 
 been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It 
 was now dead of winter, and, of course, the 
 snow several feet deep on the ground, and the 
 weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when 
 I had done my morning's vn-iting, to go out at 
 break of day to take a walk on a hill, at the foot 
 erf which our barracks lay. In about three 
 mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an 
 invitation to breakfast with me, got up two young 
 men to join me in my walk; and our road lay 
 by the house of her father and mother. It was 
 hardly light, but she was out on the snow scrub- 
 bing out a washing-tub. ' That's the girl foi 
 me,' said I, when Ave had got out of her hearing. 
 One of these young men came to England soon 
 afterwards ; and he, who keeps an inn in York- 
 
shire, came over to Preston, at the time of the 
 election, to verify whether I were the same man. 
 When he found that I was, he appeared sur- 
 prised ; but what was his surprise when I told 
 him that those tall young men, whom he saw 
 around me, were the sons of that pretty little girl 
 that he and I saw scrubbing out the washing-tub 
 on the snow in New Brunswick at daybreak. 
 
 " From the day that I first spoke to her, I never 
 had a thought of her ever being the wife of any 
 other man, more than I had a thought of her 
 being transformed into a chest of drawers ; and 
 I formed my resolution at once, to marry her as 
 soon as we could get permission, and to get out 
 of the army as soon as I could. So that this 
 matter was at once settled as firmly as if writ- 
 ten in the book of fate. At the end of about six 
 months, my regiment, and I along with it, were 
 removed to Frederickton, a distance of a hun- 
 dred miles up the river of St John; and, which 
 was worse, the artillery were expected to go off 
 to England a year or two before our regiment ! 
 The artillery went, and she along with them ; 
 and now it was that I acted a part becoming a 
 real and sensible lover. I was aware, that, when 
 she got to that gay place, Woolwich, the house 
 of her father and mother, necessarily visited by 
 numerous persons, not the most select, might 
 become unpleasant to her, and I did not like, 
 besides, that she should continue to work hard. 
 I had saved a hundred and fifty guineas, the 
 earnings of my early hours, in writing for the 
 paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in 
 addition to the savings of my own pay. I sent 
 her all my money before she sailed, and wrote to 
 her to beg of her, if she found her home uncom- 
 fortable, to hire a lodging with respectable peo- 
 ple ; and, at any rate, not to spare the money, 
 by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, 
 and to live without hard work, until I arrived in 
 F*ngland; and I, in order to induce her to lay 
 out the money, told her that I should get plenty 
 more before I came home. 
 
 "As the malignity of the devil would have it, 
 we were kept abroad two years longer than our 
 time, Mr Pitt (England not being so tame then 
 as she is now) having knocked up a dust with 
 Spain aT)out Nootka Sound. Oh, how I cursed 
 Nootka Sound, and poor, bawling Pitt, too, I am 
 afraid 1 At the end of four years, however, 
 home I came ; landed at Portsmouth, and got my 
 discharge from the army, by the great kindness 
 of poor Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who was then 
 the major of my regiment. I found my little 
 girl a servant of all work (and hard work it was), 
 at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain 
 Brisac ; and, without hardly saying a word about 
 the matter, she put into my hands the whole of 
 my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken ! 
 
 "Need I tell the reader what my feelings were? 
 Need I tell kind-hearted English parents what 
 effect this anecdote must have produced on the 
 minds of our children ? " 
 
 After his marriage, Cobbett lived with his 
 wife for some time in France, studying the lan- 
 guage; and then they went to Philadelphia, 
 where he began to teach English to Frenchmen ; 
 and, as his first work, composed his French and 
 English grammar. He remained between Phila- 
 delphia and New York for about eight years, 
 and, daring most of this time, had a printing 
 establishment and a book store. 
 
 In the "Advice to Young Men " he pictures 
 his domestic character and habits at this period 
 in the most engaging manner; and, we daresay, 
 not too much en beau, for all is so simply right 
 and so perfectly natural. But this, as has been 
 remarked, is the sanctified life of the fireside — 
 " the porcupine with his quills sheathed." He 
 says: 
 
 "I began my young marriage days in and 
 near Philadelphia. At one of those times to 
 which I have just alluded, in the middle of the 
 burning hot month of July, I was greatly afraid 
 of fatal consequences to my wife for want of 
 sleep, she not having, after the great danger was 
 over, had any sleep for more than forty-eight 
 hours. All great cities in hot countries are, I 
 believe, full of dogs ; and they in the very hot 
 weather keep up during the night a horrible 
 barking and fighting and howling. Upon the 
 particular occasion to which I am adverting they 
 made a noise so terrible and so unremitted that 
 it was next to impossible that even a person in 
 full health and free from pain should obtain a 
 minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the even- 
 ing, sitting by the bed. ' I do think,' said she, 
 ' that I could go to sleep now, if it were not for 
 the dogs.' Downstairs I went, and out I sallied 
 in my shirt and trousers, and without shoes and 
 stockings ; and going to a heap of stones lying 
 beside the road, set to work upon the dogs, 
 going backward and forward and keeping them 
 at two or three hundred yards' distance from the 
 house. I walked thus the whole night, bare- 
 footed, lest the noise of my shoes might possibly 
 reach her ears; and I remember that the bricks 
 of the causeway were, even in the night, so hot 
 as to be disagreeable to my feet. My exertions 
 produced the desired effect, a sleep of several 
 hours was the consequence, and at eight o'clock 
 in the morning off went I to a day's business, 
 which was to end at six in the evening. 
 
 " Women are all patriots of the soil, and when 
 her neighbours used to ask my wife whether all 
 English husbands were like hers, she boldly 
 answered in the affirmative. I had business to 
 occupy the whole of my time, Sundays and 
 week-days, except sleeping hours ; but I used to 
 make time to assist her in the taking care of her 
 baby, ami in all sorts of things — get up, light 
 her fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm 
 water in cold weather, take the child while she 
 dressed herself and got the breakfast ready, then 
 breakfast, get her in water and wood for the 
 day, then dress myself neatly and sally forth to 
 
72 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 aiy "business. The moment tliat was over I used 
 to hasten hack to her again, and I no more 
 thought of spending a moment away from her, 
 unless business compelled me, than I thought of 
 quitting the country and going to sea. The 
 thunder and lightning are tremendous in America 
 compared with what they are in England. My 
 wife was at one time very much afraid of thun- 
 der and lightning, and as is the feeling of all 
 such women, and indeed all men too, she wanted 
 company, and particularly her husband, in those 
 times of danger. I knew well, of course, that 
 my presence would not diminish the danger; 
 but be I at what I might, if within reach of 
 home I used to quit my business and hasten to 
 her the moment I perceived a thunderstorm ap- 
 proaching. Scores of miles have I, first and last, 
 run on this errand in the streets of Philadelphia. 
 The Frenchmen who were my scholars used to 
 laugh at me exceedingly on this account, and 
 sometimes when I was making an appointment 
 with them they would say, with a smile and a 
 bow, ' Sauve la tonnere toicjours, Monsieur 
 Cobbett: 
 
 *' I never dangled about at the heels of my 
 wife ; seldom, very seldom, ever walked out, as 
 it is called, with her ; I never * went a- walking ' 
 in the whole course of my life, never went to 
 Avalk without having some object in view other 
 than the walk, and as I never could walk at a 
 slow pace, it would have been hard work for her 
 to keep up with me." 
 
 There is so much plain sense and manly ten- 
 derness to be found in this volume of confessions 
 that we could with pleasure quote nearly half its 
 contents. This is for the rapidly-increasing sect 
 of club frequenters : 
 
 " What are we to think of the husband who 
 is in the habit of leaving his own fireside, after 
 the business of the day is over, and seeking pro- 
 miscuous companions in the ale or the coffee 
 house ? I am told that in France it is rare to 
 meet with a husband who does not spend every 
 evening of his life in what is called a cafe, that 
 is to say, a place for no other purpose than that 
 of gossiping, drinking, and gaming. And it is 
 with great sorrow that I acknowledge that many 
 English husbands indulge too much in a similar 
 habit. Drinking clubs, smoking clubs, singing 
 clubs, clubs of oddfellows, whist clubs, sotting 
 clubs — these are inexcusable, they are censur- 
 able, they are at once foolish and wicked, even 
 in single men ; what must they be, then, in hus- 
 bands ? And how are they to answer, not only 
 to their wives, but to their children, for this 
 profligate abandonment of their homes — this 
 breach of their solemn vow made to the former, 
 this evil example to the latter ? 
 
 "Innumerable are the miseries that spring 
 from this cause. The expense is, in the first 
 place, >ery considerable. I much question 
 whether, amongst tradesmen, a shilling a night 
 Y*e.yh the average score, and that, too, for that 
 
 which is really worth nothing at all, and can- 
 not, even by possibility, be attended with 
 any one single advantage, however small. Fif- 
 teen pounds a year thus thrown away would 
 amount, in the course of a tradesman's life, to a 
 decent fortune for a child. Then there is the 
 injury to health from these night adventures ; 
 there are the quarrels, there is the vicious habit 
 of loose and filthy talk, there are the slanders 
 and the backbitings, there are the admiration of 
 contemptible wit, and there the scoffings at all 
 that is sober and serious." 
 The next even improves upon this : 
 •* Show your affection for your wife and your 
 admiration of her not in nonsensical compli- 
 ment, not in picking up her handkerchief or her 
 glove, or in carrying her fan ; not, though you 
 have the means, in hanging trinkets and baubles 
 upon her; not in making yourself a fool by 
 winking at and seeming pleased with her foibles 
 or follies or faults ; but show them by acts of 
 real goodness towards her ; prove by unequivocal 
 deeds the high value you set on her health and 
 life and peace of mind ; let your praise of her go 
 to the full extent of her deserts, but let it be 
 consistent with truth and with sense, and such 
 as to convince her of your sincerity. He who 
 is the flatterer of his wife only prepares her ears 
 for the hyperbolical stuff of others. The kindest 
 appellation that her Christian name affords is 
 the best you can use, especially before faces. 
 An everlasting ' my dear ' is but a sorry compen- 
 sation for a want of that sort of love that makes 
 the husband cheerfully toil by day, break his 
 rest by night, endure all sorts of hardships, if the 
 life or health of his wife demand it. Let your 
 deeds and not your words carry to her heart a 
 daily and hourly confirmation of the fact that 
 you value her health and life and happiness be- 
 yond all other things in the world, and let this 
 be manifest to her, particularly at those times 
 when life is always more or less in danger." 
 
 Cobbett left America in fierce wrath, after 
 being prosecuted for a libel on Dr Eush. His 
 offence was marked ; but his punishment for so 
 free a country was, to say the least, not lenient. 
 If we recollect aright, the case originated in his 
 interference with the manner in which Dr Rush 
 treated his patients in the yellow fever. He 
 accused him of Sangrado practice, or a too free 
 use of the lancet ; and it is amusingly character- 
 istic of the witty and humorous malice of the 
 man, to find him many years afterwards, when 
 self-exiled to America, concluding a double-bar- 
 relled paragraph of his journal in these terms : 
 "An American counts the cost of powder and 
 shot. If he is deliberate in everything else, this 
 habit will hardly forsake him in the act of shoot- 
 ing. When the sentimental flesh-eaters hear the 
 report of his gun, they may begin to pull out their 
 white handkerchiefs ; for death follows the pull 
 of the trigger with perhaps even more certainty 
 than it used to follow the lancet of Dr Rush." 
 
WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 A leading event in Colabett's life was the 
 severe fine and long imprisonment to which he 
 was subjected, for daring to give way to the im- 
 pulse which led him to denounce in warm, but 
 only fitting terms, the flogging of Englishmen 
 under the bayonets and sabres of Hanoverians. 
 He was at this time living in the bosom of his 
 family on his farm of Botley, in the midst of 
 domestic enjoyment of no ordinary kind, and 
 leading no inglorious or useless life. His long 
 imprisonment, and the ruin of his affairs, left 
 deep traces in a quick and resentful, but cer- 
 tainly not an ungenerous mind. 
 
 Cobbett never pretended to forgive his perse- 
 cutors. He denied that this was a Christian 
 duty ; but, as his glowing resentment was surely 
 not without cause, it is not without excuse. 
 After a picture of domestic life, which must 
 charm everybody, and which is well worth the 
 attentive study of every man and woman who 
 has a family to train, he winds up : 
 
 **In this happy state we lived, until the year 
 1810, when the Government laid its merciless 
 fangs upon me, dragged me from these delights, 
 and crammed me into a jail amongst felons ; of 
 which I shall have to speak more fully, when, 
 in the last number, I come to speak of the duties 
 of the citizen. This added to the difficulties of 
 my task of teaching ; for now I was snatched 
 away from the only scene in which it could, as 
 I thought, properly be executed. But even 
 these difficulties were got over. The blow was, 
 to be sure, a terrible one ; and, God ! how 
 was it felt by these poor children ? It was in 
 the month of July when the horrible sentence 
 was passed upon me. My wife, having left her 
 children in the care of her good and aff'ectionate 
 sister, was in London, waiting to know the doom 
 of her husband. When the news arrived at 
 Botley, the three boys — one eleven, another 
 nine, and the other seven years old — were hoeing 
 cabbages in that garden which had been the 
 source of so much delight. When the account 
 of the savage sentence was brought to them, the 
 youngest could not, for some time, be made to 
 understand what a jail was ; and, when he did, 
 he, all in a tremor, exclaimed, ' Now, I'm sure, 
 William, that papa is not in a place like that ! ' 
 The other, in order to disguise his tears and 
 smother his sobs, fell to work with the hoe, and 
 chopped about like a blind person. This ac- 
 count, when it reached me, affected me more, 
 filled me with deeper resentment, than any 
 other circumstance. And, oh ! how I despise 
 the wretches who talk of my vindictiveness — of 
 my exultation at the confusion of those who 
 inflicted those sufferings ! How I despise the 
 base creatures, the crawling slaves, the callous 
 and cowardly hypocrites, who affect to be 
 * shocked ' (tender souls !) at my expressions of 
 joy at the death of Gibbs, Ellenborough, Per- 
 cival, Liverpool, Canning, and the rest of the 
 tribe that I have already seen out, and at the 
 
 fatal workings of that system, for endeavouring 
 to check which I was thus punished 1 " 
 
 When the spy system had produced the hor- 
 rors of 1817 and the Six Acts, Cobbett, who was 
 still under heavy recognisances, thought it pru- 
 dent for himself and his sureties to withdraw 
 for a time to America. He imagined, not with- 
 out cause, that one of the Six Acts was directly 
 aimed at him ; and the suspension of the Habeas 
 Corpus Act made his situation very perilous. 
 Cobbett therefore made the best of his way to 
 Liverpool, with his large young family ; and 
 from thence, upon the 26th March 1817, he ad- 
 dressed the public in these terms : 
 
 "My departure for America will surprise no- 
 body but those who do not reflect. A full and 
 explicit statement of my reasons will appear in 
 a few days, probably the 5th of April. In the 
 meanwhile, I think it necessary for me to make 
 known, that I have fully empowered a person 
 of respectability to manage and settle all my 
 affairs in England. I owe my countrymen sin- 
 cere regard, which I shall always entertain for 
 them in a higher degree than towards any other 
 people upon earth. I carry nothing from my 
 country but my wife and my children, and 
 surely they are my own, at any rate. I shall 
 always love England better than any other 
 country — I will never become a subject or citizen 
 of any other state ; but I and mine were not 
 born under a Government having the absolute 
 power to imprison us at its pleasure ; and, if we 
 can avoid it, we will never live nor die under such 
 an order of things. . . . When this order of 
 things shall cease,then shall I again see England." 
 
 By the disposal of his property at Botley, 
 upon which he must have expended a great deal, 
 and other transactions at this time, added to 
 his ruinous imprisonment, law expenses, and 
 that heavy fine of a thousand pounds, his pe- 
 cuniary affairs suffered serious derangement, 
 from which they probably never recovered. 
 
 In America he took a farm, or, at least, a 
 house in the country with some land, resumed 
 his indefatigable habits, and opened a seed-store 
 in New York. The Registers came regularly 
 across the Atlantic, and were eagerly expected. 
 Another of Cobbett's books, the " Year's Resi- 
 dence in America," now appeared in parts. 
 
 Cobbett returned to England as soon as the 
 Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill had expired; 
 and, settling at Kensington, recommenced his 
 labours as a journalist. These were, indeed, 
 never suspended, save while he was at sea. 
 
 In the autumn of 1822, he began his ''Rural 
 Rides," which he continued for five different 
 seasons, and in which he indulged his natural 
 love for rural objects, and everything connected 
 with country life. He seems to have had a true 
 and lively feeling for the beautiful in nature, 
 and the pure and simple taste which is ever the 
 attendant of this kind of sensibility. He always 
 travelled on horseback, accompanied by one or 
 
74: 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 other of his sons ; and showed his good taste by- 
 departing from the usual thoroughfares, and 
 finding his way across fields, by footpaths, by- 
 lanes, bridle-ways, and hunting-gates — " steer- 
 ing" over the country, as he expresses it, for 
 such landmarks as village spires and old chapels. 
 His object was to see and converse with the 
 farmers and labourers in their own abodes, to 
 look at the crops, to survey the modes of hus- 
 bandry. The "agricultural interest" was be- 
 ginning to suffer smartly by this time; and the 
 gridiron was adorning every number of the 
 Register. Politics mingle largely in the journal 
 of the " Eural Rides," but only to increase their 
 vivacity, and render them more piquant; and, 
 when Cobbett leaves Bolt Court, and rides abroad 
 to air his notions, he always becomes mellow in 
 spirit — gay, and good-humoured. 
 
 The following is Hazlitt's opinion of Cobbett 
 as an author : ' ' He has been compared to Paine ; 
 and so far, it is true, there are no two writers who 
 come more into juxtaposition, from the nature 
 of their subjects, from the internal resources on 
 which they draw, and from the popular effect of 
 their writings, and their adaptation (though that 
 is a bad word in the present case) to the capacity 
 of every reader. But still, if we turn to a vol- 
 ume of Paine's (his 'Common Sense,' or 'Rights 
 of Man '), we are struck (not to say somewhat 
 refreshed) by the difference. Paine is a much 
 more sententious writer than Cobbett. You 
 cannot open a page in any of his best and earlier 
 works without meeting with some maxim, some 
 antithetical and memorable saying, which is a 
 sort of starting-place for the argument, and the 
 goal to which it returns. There is not a single 
 hon mot, a single sentence in Cobbett that has 
 ever been quoted again. If anything is ever 
 quoted from him, it is an epithet of abuse or a 
 nickname. He is an excellent hand at invention 
 in that way, and has 'damnable iteration in 
 him.' What could be better than his pestering 
 Erskine, year after year, with his second title of 
 Baron Clackmannan ? He is rather too fond of 
 the sons and daughters of corruption. Paine 
 affected to reduce things to first principles, to 
 announce self-evident truths. Cobbett troubles 
 himself about little but the details and local 
 circumstances. The first appeared to have made 
 up his mind beforehand to certain opinions, and 
 to try to find the most compendious and pointed 
 expressions for them ; his successor appears to 
 have no clue, no fixed or leading principles, nor 
 ever to have thought on a question till he sits 
 down to write about it ; but then there seems 
 no end of his matters of fact and raw materials, 
 which are brought out in all their strength and 
 sharpness from not having been squared, or frit- 
 tered down, or vamped up to suit a theory — he 
 goes on with his descriptions and illustrations 
 as if he would never come to a stop ; they have 
 all the force of novelty, with all the familiar- 
 ity of old acquaintance; his knowledge grows 
 
 out of the subject, and his style is that of a man 
 who has an absolute intuition of what he is 
 talking about, and never thinks of anything 
 else. He deals in premises and speaks to evi- 
 dence ; the coming to a conclusion and summing 
 up (which was Paine's forte) lies in a smaller 
 compass. The one could not compose an ele- 
 mentary treatise on politics to become a manual 
 for the popular reader ; nor could the other, in 
 all probability, have kept up a weekly journal 
 for the same number of years with the same spirit, 
 interest, and untired perseverance. Paine's writ- 
 ings are a sort of introduction to political arith- 
 metic on a new plan ; Cobbett keeps a day-book, 
 and makes an entry at full of all the occurrences 
 and troublesome questions that start up through- 
 out the year. Cobbett, with vast industry, vast 
 information, and the utmost power of making 
 what he says intelligible, never seems to get at 
 the beginning or come to the end of any ques- 
 tion ; Paine, in a few short sentences, seems, by 
 his peremptory manner, *to clear it from all 
 controversy, past, present, and to come.' Paine 
 takes a bird's-eye view of things. Cobbett 
 sticks close to them, inspects the component 
 parts, and keeps fast hold of the smallest advan- 
 tages they afford him. Or, if I might here be 
 indulged in a pastoral allusion, Paine tries to 
 enclose his ideas in a fold for security and re- 
 pose ; Cobbett lets his pour out upon the plain 
 like a flock of sheep to feed and batten. Cob- 
 bett is a pleasanter writer for those to read who 
 do not agree with him ; for he is less dogmatical, 
 goes more into the common grounds of fact and 
 argument to which all appeal, is more desultory 
 and various, and appears less to be driving at a 
 previous conclusion than urged on by the force 
 of present conviction. He is therefore tolerated 
 by all parties, though he has made himself by 
 turns obnoxious to all ; and even those he abuses 
 read him. The Reformers read him when he 
 was a Tory, and the Tories read him now that 
 he is a Reformer. He must, I think, however, 
 be caviare to the Whigs." 
 
 [We have adapted the foregoing from Taifs 
 Magazine. The remainder of Cobbett's career, 
 which was so full of inconsistencies, may be 
 briefly summed up. On his return to England 
 in 1800, he had published the Porcupiiie and 
 Weekly Register y the latter of which was con- 
 tinued up till the time of his death. It appeared 
 at first as a Tory, but became eventually a 
 Radical publication. It abounded in violent 
 personal and political attacks on public men. 
 He was, as has already been noted, twice fined 
 and prosecuted for libel ; and in 1809, for the 
 publication of a libel relating to the flogging of 
 some men in the local militia at Ely, he had 
 been sentenced to two years' imprisonment in 
 Newgate, to pay £1000 to the king, and on hk 
 release to give security for his good behaviour 
 for seven years, himself in £300, and two securi 
 
ROBERT HALL, 
 
 75 
 
 ties in £100 each. As already mentioned, he 
 went to America, and returned in 1819. He 
 brought with him the hones of Tom Paine, 
 author of the " Eights of Man." Two separate 
 attempts made to enter Parliament in 1820 and 
 in 1826 both failed. In 1831 he was again tried 
 for libel, when he acquitted himself with a 
 memorable speech, and the jury being equally 
 divided on the case, he was discharged. In 1833 
 he entered Parliament as member for Oldham, 
 but found the late hours and stifling atmosphere 
 of parliamentary life unsuited to his simple 
 tastes. His life, which had been one of un- 
 ceasing literary industry, was brought to a 
 close by an attack of disease of the throat, from 
 which he never recovered ; he died 17th June 
 1835. His writings which deal with rural life 
 have been commended as having been widely 
 and practically useful. Besides his political 
 writings, including twenty volumes of " Parlia- 
 
 mentary Debates," etc., Cobbett wrote hia 
 ** Cottage Economy," "English Grammar," 
 "History of the Protestant Reformation," and 
 " Rural Rides," etc. His language is uniformly 
 forcible and vigorous, and, as he himself says, 
 "his popularity" was owing to his "giving 
 truth in clear language." j^ 
 
 The announcement of the death of Cobbett's 
 eldest daughter appeared in the Times of Octo- 
 ber 26, 1877. She was born in Philadelphia in 
 1795, where her father was residing. She died 
 at Brompton Crescent, London, in her eighty- 
 second year. In 1810-12, while her father was 
 imprisoned in Newgate for libel, she kept him 
 company, acting as his amanuensis and the cus- 
 todian of his papers, and writing at his dictation 
 leading articles for his weekly publication. Some 
 of Cobbett's most stirring articles are said to 
 have been sent to press in the handwriting of 
 Miss Cobbett.] 
 
 EOBEET HALL. 
 
 [1764-183L] 
 By GEORGE GILFILLAN. 
 
 [The Rev. Robert Hall was the son of a Baptist 
 minister, and was born at Arnsby, near Leicester, 
 May 2, 1764. He studied at a Baptist academy, 
 Bristol, and in 1780 was admitted preacher. In 
 1781 he attended Aberdeen University, where 
 he met Sir James Mackintosh, when a close 
 friendship sprang up between them. He be- 
 came assistant in a Baptist chapel, Bristol, 
 and shortly afterwards removed to Cambridge. 
 He became celebrated as a writer, and an elo- 
 quent and spirit-stirring speaker. His chief 
 works were published between 1791 and 1804, 
 when his intellect became deranged. On his 
 recovery he became pastor of a church at Leices- 
 ter, where he resided for twenty years. He 
 removed to Bristol in 1826, where he officiated 
 in a Baptist congregation there till shortly be- 
 fore his death, which took place on February 
 21, 1831. His eloquence has been described as 
 weighty, impressive, and entrancing, and his 
 published sermons have been looked upon as 
 among the most valuable contributions to theo- 
 logical literature.] 
 
 Robert Hall is a name we, in common with 
 all Christians of this century, of all denomina- 
 tions, deeply venerate and admire. We are not, 
 however, to be classed among his idolaters ; and 
 this paper is meant as a calm and comprehensive 
 view of what appear to us, after many needful 
 deductions from the over-estimates of the past, 
 
 to be his real characteristics, both in point of 
 merit, of fault, and of simple deficiency. 
 
 We labour, like all critics who have never seen 
 their author, under considerable disadvantages. 
 "Knowledge is power." Still more— craving 
 Lord Bacon's pardon — "vision is power." Csesar 
 said a similar thing when he wrote Vidi, vici. 
 To see is to conquer, if you happen to have the 
 faculty of clear, full, conclusive sight. In other 
 cases, the sight of a man whom you misappreci- 
 ate, and, though you have eyes, cannot see, is a 
 curse to your conception of his character. You 
 look at him through a mist of prejudice, which 
 discolours his visage, and, even when it exagger- 
 ates, distorts his stature. Far otherwise with 
 the prepared, yet unprepossessed look of intelli- 
 gent love. Love hears a voice others cannot 
 hear, and sees a hand others cannot see. In 
 every man of genius, besides what he says, and 
 the direct exhibition he gives of the stores of 
 his mind, there is a certain indescribable some- 
 thing — a preponderance of personal influence — 
 a mesmeric affection — a magical charm. You 
 feel that a great spirit is beside you, even though 
 he be talking mere commonplace, or toying with 
 children. Just as when you are walking through 
 a wood at the foot of a mountain, you do not see 
 the mountain, you see only glimpses of it, but 
 you know it is there ; in the tine old word, you 
 are "aware" of its presence; and, having once 
 seen (as one who has newly lost his burden con- 
 
76 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tinues for a little to imagine it on his shoulders 
 still), you fancy you are still seeing it. This 
 pressure of personal interest and power always 
 dwindles works in the presence of their authors, 
 suggests their possible ideal of performance, and 
 starts the question, What folio or library of 
 folios can enclose that soul ? The soul itself of 
 the great man often responds to this feeling — 
 takes up all its past doings as a little thing — 
 "paws" like the war-horse in Job after higher 
 achievements — and, like Byron, pants for a light- 
 ning-language, a quicker, fierier cipher, "that 
 it may wreak its thought upon expression ;" but 
 is forced, like him, to exclaim : 
 
 " But, as it is, I live and die unheard, 
 With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a 
 sword." 
 
 Those who met and conversed with Robert 
 Hall seem all to have felt this singular personal 
 charm — this stream of *' virtue going out of 
 him " — this necessary preponderance over his 
 company. Nor was this entirely the effect of 
 the pomp and loftiness of his manner and bear- 
 ing, although both were loftier than perhaps 
 beseemed his Christian character. We have 
 known, indeed, men of mediocre, and less than 
 mediocre talents, exerting an uneasy and crush- 
 ing influence over far superior persons, through 
 the sheer power of a certain stiff and silent 
 pomp, added to an imposing personal appear- 
 ance. We know, too, some men of real genius, 
 whose overbearing haughtiness and deterniination 
 to take the lead in conversation render them 
 exceedingly disagreeable to many, disgusting to 
 some, and yet command attention, if not terror, 
 from all. But Robert Hall belonged to neither 
 of these clashes. He might rather be ranked 
 with those odd characters, whose mingled genius 
 and eccentricity compel men to listen to them, 
 and whose pomp, and pride, and overbearing 
 temper, and extravagant bursts, are pardoned, 
 as theirs, and because they are counterbalanced 
 by the qualities of their better nature. 
 
 We have met with some of those who have 
 seen and heard him talk and preach, and their 
 accounts have coincided in this — that he was 
 more powerful in the parlour than in the pulpit. 
 He was more at ease in the former. He had his 
 pipe in his mouth, his tea-pot beside him, eager 
 ears listening to catch his every whisper — bright 
 eyes raining influence on him ; and, under these 
 varied excitements, he was sure to shine. His 
 spirits rose, his wit flashed, his keen and pointed 
 sentences thickened, and his auditors began to 
 imagine him a Baptist Bv^ke, or a Johnson 
 Redivivus, and to wish that Boswell were to 
 undergo a resurrection too. In these evening 
 parties he appeared, we suspect, to greater ad- 
 vantage than in the mornings, when ministers 
 from all quarters called to see the lion of Leices- 
 ter, and tried to tempt him to roar by such 
 questions as, * * Whether do you think, Mr Hall, 
 
 Cicero or Demosthenes the greater orator? Was 
 Burke the author of 'Junius?' Whether is 
 Bentham or Wilberforce the leading spirit of the 
 age ? " etc. How Hall kept his gravity or his 
 temper, under such a fire of queries, not to 
 speak of the smoke of the half-putrid incense 
 amid which it came forth, we cannot tell. He 
 was, however, although a vehement and irri- 
 table, a very polite man ; and, like Dr Johnson, 
 he "loved to fold his legs, and have his talk 
 out." Many of his visitors, too, were really 
 distinguished men, and were sure, when they 
 returned home, to circulate his repartees, and 
 spread abroad his fame. Hence, even in the 
 forenoons, he sometimes said brilliant things, 
 many of which have been diligently collected by 
 the late excellent Dr Balmer and others, and 
 are to be found in his memoirs. 
 
 Judging by these specimens, our impression 
 of his conversational powers is distinct and de- 
 cided. His talk was always rapid, ready, clear, 
 and pointed — often brilliant, not unfrequently 
 wild and daring. He said more good and memor- 
 able things in the course of an evening than per- 
 haps any talker of his day. To the power of his 
 talk it contributed that his state of body required 
 constant stimulus. Owing to a pain in his spine, 
 he was obliged to swallow daily great quantities 
 of ether and laudanum, not to speak of his fav- 
 ourite potion, tea. This had the effect of keep- 
 ing him strung up always to the highest pitch ; 
 and, while never intoxicated, he was everlast- 
 ingly excited. Had he been a feebler man in 
 body and mind, the regimen would have totally 
 unnerved him. As it was, it added greatly to 
 the natural brilliance of his conversational 
 powers, although sometimes it appears to have 
 irritated his temper, and to have provoked 
 ebullitions of passion and hasty, unguarded 
 statement. It was in such moods that he used 
 to abuse Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Pol- 
 lok, and Edward Irving. He often, too, talked 
 for effect; and his judgments were sometimes 
 exceedingly capricious and self-contradictory. 
 Society was essential to him. It relieved that 
 "permanent shade of gloom" which the acute 
 eye of Foster saw lying on his soul. He rushed 
 to it as into his native air ; and, once there, he 
 sometimes talked for victory and display, and 
 often on subjects with which he was very imper- 
 fectly acquainted. We cannot wonder that, 
 when he met on one occasion with Coleridge, 
 they did not take to each other. Both had been 
 accustomed to lead in conversation; and, like 
 two suns in one sky, they began to "fight in 
 their courses," and made the atmosphere too hot 
 to hold them. Coleridge, although not so ready, 
 rapid, and sharp, was far profounder, wider, and 
 more suggestive in his conversation. Hall's talk, 
 like his style, consisted of rather short, pointed, 
 and balanced periods. Coleridge talked, as he 
 wrote, in long, linked, melodious, and flowing, 
 but somewhat rambling and obscure paragraphs. 
 
ROBERT HALL. 
 
 77 
 
 The one talked; the other lectured. The one 
 was a lively, sparkling stream ; the other a great, 
 slow, broad, and lipful river. 
 
 A gentleman in Bradford described to us a 
 day he once spent there with Hall. It was a 
 day of much enjoyment and excitement. At 
 the close of it Hall felt exceedingly exhausted ; 
 and, ere retiring to rest, asked the landlady for 
 a wine-glass half full of brandy. " Now," he 
 says, " I am about to take as much laudanum 
 as would kill all this company ; for if I don't, I 
 won't sleep one moment." He filled the glass 
 with strong laudanum, went to bed, enjoyed a 
 refreshing rest, and came down to breakfast the 
 next m«ming "the most majestic-looking man" 
 our informant ever saw ; his brow calm and 
 grand, his eye bright, his air serene, and his 
 step and port like those of a superior being, 
 condescending to touch this gross planet. He 
 described his conversation as worthy of his pre- 
 sence — the richest and most sparkling essence 
 he ever imbibed withal. Yet his face was far 
 from being a handsome one. But the amplitude 
 of his forehead, the brilliance of his eye, and the 
 strength and breadth of his chest, marked him 
 out always from the roll of common men, and 
 added greatly to the momentum both of his 
 conversation and his preaching. 
 
 His preaching has been frequently described, 
 but generally by those who heard him in the 
 decline of his powers. It came to a climax in 
 Cambridge, and was never so powerful after his 
 derangement. To have heard him in Cambridge 
 must have been a treat almost unrivalled in the 
 history of pulpit oratory. In the prime of 
 youth and youthful strength, " hope still rising 
 before him, like a fiery column, the dark side 
 not yet turned;" his fancy exuberant ; his lan- 
 guage less select, perhaps, but more energetic 
 and abundant than in later days ; full of faith 
 without fanaticism, and of ardour without ex- 
 cess of enthusiasm ; with an eye like a coal of 
 fire ; a figure strong, erect, and not yet encum- 
 bered with corpulence; a voice not loud, but 
 sweet, and which ever and auon ** trembled" 
 below his glorious sentences and images, and an 
 utterance rapid as a mountain torrent — did this 
 young apostle stand up, and, to an audience as 
 refined and intellectual as could then be assem- 
 bled in England, "preach Christ and Him cru- 
 cified." Sentence followed sentence, each more 
 brilliant than its forerunner, like Venus suc- 
 ceeding Jupiter in the sky, and Luna drowning 
 Venus ; shiver after shiver of delight followed 
 each other through the souls of the hearers, till 
 they wondered *' whereunto this thing should 
 grow," and whether they were in the body or 
 out of the body they could hardly tell. To use 
 the fine words of John Scott, "he unveiled the 
 mighty foundations of the Kock of Ages, and 
 made their hearts vibrate with a strange joy, 
 which they shall recognise in loftier stages of 
 their existence." What a pity that, with the 
 
 exception of his sermon on " Modern Infidelity," 
 all these Cambridge discourses have irrecoverably 
 perished. 
 
 This, however, like Chalmers' similar splendid 
 career in the Tron Church, Glasgow, could not 
 last for ever. Hall became over-excited, per- 
 haps over-elated, and his majestic mind departed 
 from men for a season. When he " came back 
 to us," much of his power and eloquence was 
 gone. His joy of being, too, was lessened. He 
 became a sadder and a wiser man. He no longer 
 rushed exulting to the pulpit, as the horse to 
 the battle. He "spake trembling in Israel." 
 He had, in his derangement, got a glimpse of the 
 dark mysteries of existence, and was humbled in 
 the dust under the recollection of it. He had 
 met, too, with some bitter disappointments. 
 His love to a most accomplished and beautiful 
 woman was not returned. Fierce spasms of agony 
 ran ever and anon through his body. The ter- 
 rible disease of madness continued to hang over 
 him all his life long, like the sword of Damocles, 
 by a single hair. All this contributed to soften 
 and also somewhat to weaken his spirit. His 
 preaching became the mild sunset of what it had 
 been. The power, richness, and fervour of his 
 ancient style were for ever gone. 
 
 We have heard his later mode of preaching 
 often described by eye-witnesses. He began in 
 a low tone of voice ; as he proceeded his voice 
 rose and his rapidity increased ; the two first 
 thirds of his sermon consisted of statement or 
 argument; when he neared the close he com- 
 menced a strain of appeal, and then, and not 
 till then, was there any eloquence; then his 
 stature erected itself, his voice swelled to its 
 utmost compass, his rapidity became prodigious, 
 and his practical questions — ^poured out in thick 
 succession — seemed to sound the very souls of 
 his audience. Next to the impressiveness of the 
 conclusion, what struck a stranger most was the 
 exquisite beauty and balance of his sentences ; 
 every one of which seemed quite worthy of, and 
 ready for, the press. Sometimes, indeed, he 
 was the tamest and most commonplace of 
 preachers, and men left the church wondering 
 if this were actually the illustrious man. 
 
 His sermons, in their printed form, next de- 
 mand our consideration. Their merits, we 
 think, have been somewhat exaggerated hither- 
 to, and are likely, in the coming age, to be rated 
 too low. It cannot be fairly maintained that 
 they exhibit a great native original mind like 
 Foster's, or that they are full, as a whole, of 
 rich, suggestive thought. The thinking in them 
 is never mere commonplace ; but it never rises 
 into rare and creative originality. In general, 
 he aims only at the elegant and the beautiful, 
 and is seldom sublime. He is not the Moses, 
 or the Milton, or the Young— only the Pope, of 
 preachers. Like Pope, his forte is refined sense, 
 expressed in exquisite language. In conversa- 
 tion, he often ventured on daring flights, but 
 
78 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 seldom in his writings. While reading them, 
 so cool is the strain of thought — so measured the 
 writing — so perfect the self-command — so har- 
 moniously do the various faculties of the writer 
 work together — that you are tempted to ask, 
 How could the author of this ever have been mad ? 
 
 We are far from wishing, by such remarks, to 
 derogate from the merit of these remarkable 
 compositions. For, if not crowded with thought 
 or copious in imagination, and if somewhat stiff, 
 stately, and monotonous in style, they are at 
 once very masculine in thinking, and very ele- 
 gant in language. If he seldom reaches the 
 sublime, he never condescends to the pretty, or 
 even the neat. He is always graceful, if not 
 often grand. A certain sober dignity distin- 
 guishes all his march, and now and then he 
 trembles into touches of pathos or elevated sen- 
 timent, which are as felicitous as they are deli- 
 cate. Some of the fragments he has left behind 
 him discover, we think, more of the strong, bold 
 conception, and the vis vivida of genius, than 
 his more polished and elaborate productions. 
 Such are his two sermons on the divine con- 
 cealment. But in all his works you see a mind 
 which had ventured too far and had over-strained 
 its energies in early manhood, and which had 
 come back to cower timidly in its native nest. 
 
 It were wasting time to dwell on sermons so 
 well known as those of Hall. We prefer that on 
 the death of Dr Ryland, as more characteristic 
 of his distinguishing qualities of dignified senti- 
 ment, graceful pathos, and calm, majestic elo- 
 quence. In his " Infidelity," and "War," and 
 the " Present Crisis," he grapples with subjects 
 unsuited, on the whole, to his genius, and be- 
 comes almost necessarily an imitator, particu- 
 larly of Burke — whose mind possessed all those 
 qualities of origination, power over the terrible, 
 and boundless fertility in which Hall's was de- 
 ficient. But in Ryland you have himself; and 
 we fearlessly pronounce that sermon the most 
 classical and beautiful strain of pulpit eloquence 
 in the English language. 
 
 Hall as a thinker never had much power over 
 the age, and that seems entirely departed. Even 
 as a writer he is not now so much admired. The 
 age is getting tired of measured periods, and is 
 preferring a more conversational and varied 
 style. He has founded no school, and left few 
 stings in the hearts of his hearers. Few have 
 learned much from him. Yet as specimens of 
 pure English, expressing evangelical truth in 
 musical cadence, his sermons and essays have 
 their own place, and it is a high one, among the 
 classical writings of the age. 
 
 Hall, as we have intimated, had a lofty mien, 
 and was thought by many, particularly in a first 
 interview, rather arrogant and overbearing. But 
 this was only the hard outside shell of his 
 manner; beneath there were profound humility, 
 warm affections, and childlike piety. He said 
 that he "enjoyed everything." But this capa- 
 
 city of keen enjoyment was, as often in other 
 cases, linked to a sensitiveness, and morbid 
 acuteness of feeling, which made him at times 
 very melancholy. He was, like all thinkers, 
 greatly perplexed by the mysteries of existence, 
 and grieved at the spectacles of sin and misery 
 in this dark valley of tears. He was like an 
 angel, who had lost his way from heaven, and 
 his wings with it, and who was looking perpetu- 
 ally upwards with a sigh, and longing to return. 
 We heard, some time ago, one striking story 
 about him. He had been seized with that dire 
 calamity, which had once before laid him aside 
 from public duty, and had been quietly removed 
 to a country house. By some accident his door 
 had been left unlocked, and Hall rushed out 
 from bed into the open air. It was winter, and 
 there was thick snow on the ground. He 
 stumbled amid the snow — and the sudden shock 
 on his half-naked body restored him to con- 
 sciousness. He knelt down in the snow, and, 
 looking up to heaven, exclaimed, "Lord, what 
 is man?" To the constant fear of this malady, 
 and to deep and melancholy thoughts on man 
 and man's destiny, was added what Foster calls 
 an "apparatus of torture" within him — a sharp 
 calculus in his spine — a thorn in the flesh, or 
 rather in the hone. Yet against all this he man- 
 fully struggled, and his death at last might be 
 called a victory. It took him away from the 
 perplexities of this dim dawn of being, where 
 the very light is as darkness — from almost per- 
 petual pain, and from the shadow of the grim- 
 mest fear that can hang over humanity — and 
 removed him to those regions mild of calm 
 and serene air, of which he loved to discourse, 
 where no cloud stains the eternal azure of 
 the holy soul — where doubt is as impossible 
 as disbelief or darkness — and where God in 
 all the grandeur of His immensity, but in all 
 the softness of His love, is for ever unveiled. 
 There his friends Foster and Chalmers have 
 since joined him ; and it is impossible not to 
 form delightful conjectures as to their meeting 
 each other, and holding sweet and solemn fellow- 
 ship in that blessed region. "Shall we know 
 each other in heaven?" is a question often asked. 
 And yet why should it be doubted for a moment ? 
 Do the brutes know each other on earth, and 
 shall not the saints in heaven ? Yes ! that 
 notion of a re-union which inspired the soul of 
 Cicero, which made poor Burns exult in the 
 prospect of his meeting with his dear lost High- 
 land Mary, and which Hall, in the close of his 
 sermon on Ryland, has covered with the mild 
 glory of his immortal eloquence, is no dream or 
 delusion. It is one of the "true sayings of 
 God," and there is none of them more cheering 
 to the soul of the struggler here below. These 
 three master-spirits have met, and what a meet- 
 ing it has been ! The spirit of Foster has lost 
 that sable garment which suspicious conjecture, 
 prying curiosity, and gloomy tempeiameut had 
 
SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 
 
 79 
 
 woven for it here, and his ** raiment doth shine 
 as the light." Chalmers has recovered from the 
 wear and tear of that long battle and life of 
 tempestuous action which was his lot on earth. 
 And Hall's thorn rankles no longer in his side, 
 and all his fears and forebodings have passed 
 away. The long day of eternity is before them 
 all, and words fail us, as we think of the joy 
 with which they anticipate its unbounded plea- 
 sures, and prepare for its unwearying occupa- 
 tions. They are above the clouds that encom- 
 passed them once, and they hear the thunders 
 
 that once terrified or scathed them, muttering 
 harmlessly far, far below. Wondrous their in- 
 sight, deep their joy, sweet their reminiscences, 
 ravishing their prospects. But their hearts are 
 even humbler than wLen they were on earth ; 
 they never weary of saying, " Not unto us, not 
 unto us;" and the song never dies away on 
 their lips, any more than on those of the meanest 
 and humblest of the saved, *' Unto Him that 
 loved us and washed us from our sins in His 
 own blood, be glory and honour, dominion and 
 power, for ever and ever. Amen." 
 
 SIE JAMES MACKINTOSH. 
 
 [1765-1832.] 
 By WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 [Sir James Mackintosh was born at Aldourie 
 House, on the banks of Loch Ness, October 24, 
 1765. He studied at Aberdeen and Edinburgh, 
 and went to London for the study of law. In 
 1795 he was called to the bar, and in 1803 made 
 a brilliant and famous defence of M. Peltier, a 
 Royalist emigrant from France, who had been 
 indicted for libel by Napoleon. He was next 
 appointed Recorder of Bombay, was knighted, 
 and sailed from England early in 1804. After 
 seven years' service he returned to England, ob- 
 tained a seat in Parliament, took the side of the 
 Whigs, and received a pension of £1200 for his 
 services in India. In 1827 he was made a Privy 
 Councillor, and in 1830 was appointed Commis- 
 sioner of Affairs for India. He died on 30th May 
 1832. Mackintosh was a contributor to the 
 Edimhurgh Review and " Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica," and was also the author of a popular 
 "History of England" for Lardner's "Cabinet 
 Cyclopaedia."] 
 
 The subject of the present article is one of the 
 ablest and most accomplished men of the age, 
 both as a writer, a speaker, and a converser. * He 
 is, in fact, master of almost every known topic, 
 whether of a passing or of a more recondite 
 nature. He has lived much in society, and is 
 deeply conversant with books. He is a man of 
 the world and a scholar, but the scholar gives 
 the tone to all his other acquirements and pur- 
 suits. Sir James is by education and habit, and 
 we were going to add, by the original turn of his 
 mind, a college man; and perhaps he would 
 have passed his time most happily and respect- 
 ably had he devoted himself entirely to that 
 kind of life. The strength of his faculties would 
 have been best developed, his ambition would 
 
 ' " Ri-int, of the Age," 1825. 
 
 have met its proudest reward, in the accumula- 
 tion and elaborate display of grave and useful 
 knowledge. As it is, it may be said that in 
 company he talks well, but too much ; that in 
 writing he overlays the original subject and 
 spirit of the composition by an appeal to autho- 
 rities and by too formal a method; that in 
 public speaking the logician takes place of the 
 orator, and that he fails to give effect to a parti- 
 cular point or to urge an immediate advantage 
 home upon his adversary from the enlarged 
 scope of his mind and the wide career he takes 
 in the field of argument. 
 
 To consider him in the last point of view first. 
 As a political partisan, he is rather the lecturer 
 than the advocate. He is able to instruct and 
 delight an impartial and disinterested audience 
 by the extent of his information, by his acquaint- 
 ance with general principles, by the clearness 
 and aptitude of his illustrations, by vigour and 
 copiousness of style; but where he has a preju- 
 diced or unfair antagonist to contend with, he is 
 just as likely to put weapons into his enemy's 
 hands as to wrest them from him, and his object 
 seems to be rather to deserve than to obtain 
 success. The characteristics of his mind are 
 retentiveness and comprehension^ with facility 
 of production ; but he is not equally remarkable 
 for originality of view or warmth of feeling or 
 liveliness of fancy. His eloquence is a little 
 rhetorical, his reasoning chiefly logical ; he can 
 bring down the account of knowledge on a vast 
 variety of subjects to the present moment, he 
 can embellish any cause he undertakes by the 
 most approved and graceful ornaments, he can 
 support it by a host of facts and examples, but 
 he cannot advance it a step forward by placing 
 it on a new and triumphant vantage-ground, 
 nor can he overwhelm and break down the arti- 
 ficial fences and bulwarks of sophistry by the 
 
80 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 irresistible tide of manly enthusiasm. Sir James 
 Mackintosh is an accomplished debater rather 
 than a powerful orator ; he is distinguished more 
 as a man of wonderful and variable talent than 
 a? a man of commanding intellect. His mode of 
 treating a question is critical and not parlia- 
 mentary. It has been formed in the closet and 
 the schools, and is hardly fitted for scenes of 
 active life or the collisions of party spirit. Sir 
 James reasons on the square, while the argu- 
 ments of his opponents are loaded with iron or 
 gold. He makes, indeed, a respectable ally, but 
 not a very formidable opponent. He is as 
 likely, however, to prevail on a neutral, as he is 
 almost certain to be baffled on a hotly-contested 
 ground. On any question of general policy or 
 legislative improvement the member for Nairn 
 is heard with advantage, and his speeches are 
 attended with effect ; and he would have equal 
 weight and influence at other times if it were 
 the object of the House to hear reason as it is 
 his aim to speak it. But on subjects of peace 
 or war, of political rights or foreign interference, 
 where the waves of party run high and the 
 liberty of nations or the fate of mankind hangs 
 trembling in the scales, though he probably dis- 
 plays equal talent, and does full and heaped 
 justice to the question (abstractedly speaking, 
 or if it were to be tried before an impartial as- 
 sembly), yet we confess we have seldom heard 
 him on such occasions without pain for the event. 
 He did not slur his own character and preten- 
 sions, but he compromised the argument. He 
 spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 but the truth ; but the House of Commons (we 
 dare aver it) is not the place where the truth, 
 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can 
 be spoken with safety or with advantage. The 
 judgment of the House is not a balance to weigh 
 scruples and reasons to the turn of a fraction ; 
 another element, besides the love of truth, 
 enters into the composition of their decisions, 
 the reaction of which must be calculated upon 
 and guarded against. If our philosophical states- 
 man had to open the case before a class of tyros, 
 or a circle of grey-beards, who wished to form 
 or to strengthen their judgments upon fair and 
 rational grounds, nothing could be more satis- 
 factory, more luminous, more able, or more 
 decisive, than the view taken of it by Sir James 
 Mackintosh. But the House of Commons, as a 
 collective body, have not the docility of youth, 
 the calm wisdom of age, and often only want an 
 excuse to do wrong or to adhere to what they 
 have already determined upon ; and Sir James, 
 in detailing the inexhaustible stores of his 
 memory and reading, in unfolding the wide 
 range of his theory and practice, in laying down 
 the rules and the exceptions, in insisting upon 
 the advantages and the objections with equal 
 explicitness, would be sure to let something 
 drop that a dexterous and watchful adversary 
 would easily pick up and turn against him if 
 
 this were found necessary ; or if with so many 
 'pros and cons^ doubts and difficulties, dilemmas 
 and alternatives thrown into it, the scale, with 
 its natural bias to interest and power, did not 
 already fly up and kick the beam. There wanted 
 unity of purpose, impetuosity of feeling, to 
 break through the phalanx of hostile and invete- 
 rate prejudice arrayed against him. He gave a 
 handle to his enemies, threw stumbling-blocks 
 in the way of his friends. He raised so many 
 objections for the sake of answering them, pro- 
 posed so many doubts for the sake of solving 
 them, and made so many concessions where 
 none were demanded, that his reasoning had the 
 effect of neutralising itself; it became a mere ex- 
 ercise of the understanding without zest or spirit 
 left in it ; and the provident engineer who wa» 
 to shatter in pieces the strongholds of corruption 
 and oppression, by a well-directed and unspar- 
 ing discharge of artillery, seemed to have brought 
 not only his own cannon-balls but his own wool- 
 packs along with him to ward off the threatened 
 mischief. This was a good deal the effect of his 
 maiden speech on the transfer of Genoa, to which 
 Lord Castlereagh did not deign an answer, and 
 which another honourable member ca'iled "a 
 finical speech." It was a most able, candid, 
 closely-argued, and philosophical exposure of 
 that unprincipled transaction ; but for this very 
 reason it was a solecism in the place where it 
 was delivered. Sir James has since this period, 
 and with the help of practice, lowered himself 
 to the tone of the House ; and has also applied 
 himself to questions more congenial to his habits 
 of mind, and where the success would be more 
 likely to be proportioned to his zeal and his 
 exertions. 
 
 There was a greater degree of power, or of 
 dashing and splendid effect (we wish we could 
 add, an equally humane and liberal spirit) in 
 the "Lectures on the Law of Nature and Na- 
 tions," formerly delivered by Sir James (then 
 Mr) Mackintosh, in Lincoln's Inn Hall. He 
 showed greater confidence, was more at home 
 there. The effect was more electrical and in- 
 stantaneous, and this elicited a prouder display 
 of intellectual riches, and a more animated and 
 imposing mode of delivery. He grew wanton 
 with success. Dazzling others by the brilliancy 
 of his acquirements, dazzled himself by the 
 admiration they excited, he lost fear as well as 
 prudence ; dared everything, carried everything 
 before him. The modern philosophy, counter- 
 scarp, outworks, citadel, and all, fell without a 
 blow, by " the whiff and wind of his fell doc- 
 trine," as if it had been a pack of cards. The 
 volcano of the French Revolution was seen ex- 
 piring in its own flames, like a bonfire made of 
 straw: the principles of reform were scattered 
 in all directions, like chaff before the keen 
 northern blast. He laid about him like one in- 
 spired ; nothing could withstand his envenomed 
 tooth. Like some savage beast got into the gar* 
 
SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, 
 
 81 
 
 den of the fabled Hesperides, he made clear work 
 of it, root and branch, with white, foaming tusks, 
 
 "Laid waste the borders, and o'erthrew the bowers." 
 
 The havoc was amazing, the desolation was com- 
 plete. As to our visionary sceptics and Utopian 
 philosophers, they stood no chance with our 
 lecturer — he did not *' carve them as a dish fit 
 for the gods, but hewed them as a carcase fit 
 for hounds," Poor Godwin, who had come, in 
 the honhommie and candour of his nature, to 
 hear what new light had broken in upon his old 
 friend, was obliged to quit the field, and slunk 
 away after an exulting, taunt thrown out at 
 * ' such fanciful chimeras as a golden mountain 
 or a perfect man." Mr Mackintosh had some- 
 thing of the air, much of the dexterity and self- 
 possession, of a political and philosophical jug- 
 gler ; and an eager and admiring audience gaped 
 and greedily swallowed the gilded bait of soph- 
 istry, prepared for their credulity and wonder. 
 Those of us who attended day after day, and 
 were accustomed to have all our previous notions 
 confounded and struck out of our hands by some 
 metaphysical legerdemain, were at last at some 
 loss to know whether two and two made four, 
 till we had heard the lecturer's opinion on that 
 head. He might have some mental reservation 
 on the subject, some pointed ridicule to pour 
 upon the common supposition, some learned 
 authority to quote against it. To anticipate 
 the line of argument he might pursue, was evi- 
 dently presumptuous and premature. One thing 
 only appeared certain, that whatever opinion he 
 chose to take up, he was able to make good either 
 by the foils or the cudgels, by gross banter or nice 
 distinctions, by a well-timed mixture of para- 
 dox and commonplace, by an appeal to vulgar 
 prejudices or startling scepticism. It seemed 
 to be equally his object, or the tendency of his 
 discourses, to unsettle every principle of reason 
 or of common sense, and to leave his audience 
 at the mercy of the dictum of a lawyer, the nod 
 of a minister, or the shout of a mob. To efi'ect 
 this purpose, he drew largely on the learning of 
 antiquity, on modern literature, on history, 
 poetry, and the belles-lettres, on the schoolmen 
 and on writers of novels, French, English, and 
 Italian. In mixing up the spajkling julep, that 
 by its potent operation was to scour away the 
 dregs and feculence and peccant humours of the 
 body politic, he seemed to stand with his back 
 to the drawers in a metaphysical dispensary, 
 and to take out of them whatever ingredients 
 suited his purpose. In this way he had an 
 antidote for every error, an answer to every 
 folly. The writings of Burke, flume, Berkeley, 
 Paley, Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Grotius, 
 Pufifendorf, Cicero, Aristotle, Tacitus, Livy, 
 Sully, Machiavel, Guicciardini, Thuanus, lay 
 open beside him, and he could instantly lay his 
 hand upon the passage, and quote them chapter 
 and verse to the clearing up of all difficulties, 
 
 and the silencing of all oppugners. Mr Mack- 
 intosh's lectures were after all but a kind of 
 philosophical centos. They were profound, 
 brilliant, new to his hearers ; but the profund- 
 ity, the brilliancy, the novelty, were not his 
 own. He was like Dr Pangloss (not Voltaire's 
 but Coleman's), who speaks only in quotations ; 
 and the pith, the marrow of Sir James's reason- 
 ing and rhetoric at that memorable period might 
 be put within inverted commas. It, however, 
 served its purpose and the loud echo died away. 
 We remember an excellent man and a sound 
 critic* going to hear one of these elaborate 
 effusions ; and on his want of enthusiasm being 
 accounted for from its not being one of the ora- 
 tor's brilliant days, he replied, "he did not 
 think a man of genius could speak for two hours 
 without saying something by which he would 
 have been electrified." We are only sorry, at 
 this distance of time, for one thing in these 
 lectures — the tone and spirit in which they 
 seemed to have been composed and to be deliv- 
 ered. If all that body of opinions and principles 
 of which the orator read his recantation was un- 
 founded, and there was an end of all those views 
 and hopes that pointed to future improvement, 
 it was not a matter of triumph or exultation to 
 the lecturer or anybody else, to the young or 
 the old, the wise or the foolish ; on the contrary, 
 it was a subject of regret, of slow, reluctant, 
 painful admission, 
 
 " Of lamentation loud heard through the rueful air." 
 
 The immediate occasion of this sudden and 
 violent change in Sir James's views and opinions 
 was attributed to a personal interview which he 
 had had a little before his death with Mr Burke, 
 at his house at Beaconsfield. In the latter end 
 of the year 1796, appeared the "Regicide Peace," 
 from the pen of the great apostate from liberty 
 and betrayer of his species into the hands of 
 those who claimed it as their property by divine 
 right — a work imposing, solid in many respects, 
 abounding in facts and admirable reasoning, 
 and in which all flashy ornaments were laid 
 aside for a testamentary gravity (the eloquence 
 of despair resembling the throes and heaving 
 and muttered threats of an earthquake, rather 
 than the loud thunder-bolt) — and soon after 
 came out a criticism on it in the Monthly Re- 
 vieio, doing justice to the author and the style, 
 and combating the inferences with force and at 
 much length ; but with candour and with re- 
 spect, amounting to deference. It was new to 
 Mr Burke not to be ''.ailed names by persons of 
 the opposi'ie m^zj; I'c 'fras an additional triumph 
 to him to "he spoken well of, to be loaded with 
 well-earned praise by the author of the "Vin- 
 dicise Gallicse." It was a testimony from an old, 
 a powerful, and an admired antagonistf llo 
 
 * The late Rev. Joseph Fawcett of Walthamstow. 
 t At the time when the " Vindiciae Gallicas " fire* 
 
 F 
 
62 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 sent an invitation to the •writer to come and see 
 him ; and in the course of three days' animated 
 discussion of such subjects, Mr Mackintosh be- 
 came a convert not merely to the graces and 
 gravity of Mr Burke's style, but to the liberality 
 of his views, and the solidity of his opinions. 
 The Lincoln's Inn lectures were the fruit of this 
 interview: such is the influence exercised by 
 men of genius and imaginative powei over those 
 who have nothing to oppose t,o theii unforeseen 
 flashes of thoug^it and invention, but the dry, 
 cold, formal dtjiuctior-s of the understanding. 
 Our politician had time, during a few years of 
 absence from his native country, and while the 
 din of war and the cries of party spirit "were 
 lost over a wide and unhearing ocean," to re- 
 cover from his surprise and from a temporary 
 alienation of mind ; and to return in spirit, and 
 in the mild and mellowed maturity of age, to 
 the principles and attachments of his early life. 
 The appointment of Sir James Mackintosh to 
 a judgeship in India was one, which, however 
 flattering to his vanity or favourable to his 
 interests, was entirely foreign to his feelings 
 and habits. It was an honourable exile. He 
 was out of his element among black slaves and 
 sepoys, and nabobs and cadets, and writers to 
 India. He had no one to exchange ideas with. 
 The "unbought grace of life," the charm of 
 literary conversation, was gone. It was the 
 habit of his mind, his ruling passion, to enter 
 into the shock and conflict of opinions on philo- 
 sophical, political, and critical questions — not 
 to dictate to raw tyros or domineer over persons 
 in subordinate situations — but to obtain the 
 guerdon and the laurels of superior sense and 
 information by meeting with men of equal 
 standing, to have a fair field pitched, to argue, to 
 distinguish, to reply, to hunt down the game of 
 intellect with eagerness and skill, to push an ad- 
 vantage, to cover a retreat, to give and take a fall, 
 
 "And gladly would lie learn, and gladly teach." 
 
 It is no wonder that this sort of friendly intel- 
 lectual gladiatorship is Sir James's greatest plea- 
 sure, for it is his peculiar forte. He has not 
 many equals, and scarcely any superior in it. 
 He is too indolent for an author; too unimpas- 
 sioned for an orator : but in society he is just 
 vain enough to be pleased with immediate atten- 
 tion, good-humoured enough to listen with 
 patience to others, with great coolness and self- 
 possession, fluent, communicative, and with a 
 manner equally free from violence and insipidity. 
 Few subjects can be started on which he is not 
 qualified to appear to advantage as the gentle- 
 man and scholar. If there is some tinge of 
 
 made its appearance, as a reply to the "Reflections 
 on the French Revoluticn," it was cried up by the 
 partisans of the new schcol, as a work superior in 
 the charms of composition to its redoubted rival : in 
 a^uteness, depth, and soundness of reasoning, of 
 oourse there was supposed to be no comparison. 
 
 pedantry, it is carried off by great affability of 
 address and variety of amusing and interesting 
 topics. There is scarce an author that he has 
 not read ; a period of history that he is not con- 
 versant with ; a celebrated name of which he has 
 not a number of anecdotes to relate ; an intricate 
 question that he i? rot prepared to enter upon in 
 8 popular or sciencific manner. If an opinion 
 in an abstruse metaphysical author is referred 
 to, ixt is probably able to repeat the passage by 
 heart, can tell the side of the page on which it 
 Is to be met with, can trace it back through 
 various descents to Locke, Hobbes, Lord Her- 
 bert of Cherbury, to a place in some obscure 
 folio of the schoolmen or a note in one of the 
 commentators on Aristotle or Plato, and thus 
 give you in a few moments' space, and without 
 any effort or previous notice, a chronological 
 table of the progress of the human mind in that 
 particular branch of inquiry. There is some- 
 thing, we think, perfectly admirable and delight- 
 ful in an exhibition of this kind, and which is 
 equally creditable to the speaker and gratifying 
 to the hearer. But this kind of talent was of no 
 use in India: the intellectual wares, of which 
 the chief judge delighted to make a display, 
 were in no request there. He languished after 
 the friends and the society he had left behind; 
 and wrote over incessantly for books from Eng- 
 land. One that was sent him at this time was 
 an '* Essay on the Principles of Human Action ;" 
 and the way in which he spoke of that dry, 
 tough, metaphysical choke-pear, showed the 
 dearth of intellectual intercourse in which he 
 lived, and the craving in his mind after those 
 studies which had once been his pride, and to 
 which he still turned for consolation in his 
 remote solitude. Perhaps to another, the 
 novelty of the scene, the differences of mind 
 and manners, might have atoned for a want of 
 social and literary agrefmens : but Sir James is 
 one of those who see nature through the spec- 
 tacles of books. He might like to read an 
 account of India ; but India itself, with its burn- 
 ing, shining face, would be a mere blank, an 
 endless waste to him. To persons of this class 
 of mind things must be translated into words, 
 visible images into abstract propositions to meet 
 their refined apprehensions, and they have no 
 more to say to a matter of fact staring them in 
 the face without a label in its mouth, than they 
 would to a hippopotamus 1 We may add, before 
 we quit this point, that we cannot conceive of 
 any two persons more different in colloquial 
 talents, in which they both excel, than Sir 
 James Mackintosh and Mr Coleridge. They 
 have nearly an equal range of reading and of 
 topics of conversation : but in the ndnd of the 
 one we see nothing but fixtures, in the other 
 every tiling is fluid. The ideas of the one are as 
 formal and tangible, as those of the other are 
 shadowy and evanescent. Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh walks over the ground, Mr Coleridge is 
 
T. R. MALTHUS. 
 
 83 
 
 always flying oflf from it. The first knows all that 
 has been said upon a subject ; the last has some- 
 thing to say that was never said before. If the 
 one deals too much in learned commonplaces, 
 the other teems with idle fancies. The one has 
 a good deal of the ca'put mortuum of genius, the 
 other is all volatile salt. The conversation of 
 Sir James Mackintosh has the effect of reading a 
 well-written book, that of his friend is like 
 hearing a bewildered dream. The one is an 
 encyclopedia of knowledge, the other is a succes- 
 sion of Sibylline leaves ! 
 
 As an author. Sir James Mackintosh may 
 claim the foremost rank among those who pride 
 themselves on artificial ornaments and acquired 
 learning, or who write what may be termed a 
 coTnposite style. His "Vindiciae Gallicse" is a 
 work of great labour, great ingenuity, great 
 brilliancy, and great vigour. It is a little too 
 antithetical in the structure of its periods, too 
 dogmatical in the announcement of its opinions. 
 Sir James has, we believe, rejected something of 
 the false brilliant of the one, as he has retracted 
 some of the abrupt extravagance of the other. 
 We apprehend, however, that our author is not 
 one of those who draw from their own resources 
 and accumulated feelings, or who improve with 
 age. He belongs to a class (common in Scotland 
 and elsewhere) who get up school exercises on 
 any given subject in a masterly manner at 
 twenty, and who at forty are either where they 
 were — or retrograde, if they are men of sense 
 and modesty. The reason is, their vanity is 
 weaned, after the first hey-day and animal spirits 
 of youth are flown, from making an affected dis- 
 play of knowledge, which, however useful, is not 
 their own, and may be much more simply stated ; 
 
 they are tired of repeating the same arguments 
 over and over again, after having exhausted and 
 rung the changes on their whole stock for a 
 number of times. Sir James Mackintosh is 
 understood to be a writer in the Edinburgh 
 Review; and the articles attributed to him there 
 are full of matter of great pith and moment. 
 But they want the trim, pointed expression, the 
 ambitious ornaments, the ostentatious display 
 and rapid volubility of his early productions. 
 We have heard it objected to his later composi- 
 tions, that his style is good as far as single words 
 and phrases are concerned, but that his sentences 
 are clumsy and disjointed, and that these make 
 up still more awkward and sprawling paragraphs. 
 This is a nice criticism, and we cannot speak to 
 its truth : but if the fact be so, we think we can 
 account for it from the texture and obvious pro- 
 cess of the author's mind. All his ideas may be 
 said to be given preconceptions. I'.'iey do not 
 arise, as it ivere, out of the subject, or out of 
 one another at the moment, and therefore do 
 not flow naturally and gracefully from one 
 another. They have been laid down beforehand 
 in a sort of formal division or frame-work of the 
 understanding ; and the connection between the 
 premises and the conclusion, between one branch 
 of a subject and another, is made out in a bung- 
 ling and unsatisfactory manner. There is no 
 principle of fusion in the work : he strikes after 
 the iron is cold, and there is a want of malle- 
 ability in the style. Sir James is at present 
 said to be engaged in writing a "History of 
 England " * after the downfall of the house of 
 Stuart. May it be worthy of the talents of the 
 author, and of the principles of the period it is 
 intended to illustrate 1 
 
 T. E. MALTHUS. 
 
 [176G-1835.] 
 
 Bt WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 [The Eev. Thomas Robert Malthus, F.R.S., 
 was a native of Albury, Surrey, and born there 
 in 1766. He came of a good family, and was 
 educated at Cambridge. The work by which he 
 is now known, an *' Essay on the Principle of 
 Population as it Affects the Future Improve- 
 ment of Society," was published in 1798. After 
 the issue of this book he made a tour through 
 Sweden, Norway, Finland, and part of Russia, 
 collecting facts as he went to illustrate his 
 theory. An edition embracing all the new facts 
 collected was issued in 1803, and other editions 
 followed. In 1805 he was appointed Professor 
 of History and Political Economy in the college 
 at Eaileybury, a place of education for writers 
 
 in the East India Company ; this position he held 
 till his death, at Bath, in 1835, in his seventieth 
 year. His two other most important works were 
 "An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of 
 Rent," 1815 ; and " Principles of Political 
 Economy," 1820. The principle laid down in 
 his famous essay was to the effect that the popu- 
 lation of the country increases faster than the 
 means of pro"\iding for their wants. The remedy 
 proposed to alleviate the evils of poverty is by 
 moral restraint on marriage, the result of reason 
 
 * Of which he completed only two volumes. A« 
 continued by Wallace and Bell, it forma ten volumea 
 of LaroDcr's " Cabinet Cyclopsedia," 
 
84 
 
 TREASUR y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 and reflection, and deliberate choice. A new medi- 
 cal and literary league, the Malthusian League, 
 was In process of establishment during 1877. 
 Some members of the Roman Catholic Church 
 have argued that Mother Church, in recommend- 
 ing a life of celibacy to priests and some of the 
 people, was but inculcating Malthusian doc- 
 trines for the best interests of those concerned.] 
 
 Mr Malthus may be considered as one of 
 those rare and fortunate writers who have at- 
 tained a scientitic reputation in questions of 
 moral and political philosophy. His name un- 
 doubtedly stands very high in the present age, 
 and will in all probability go down to posterity 
 with more or less of renown and obloquy. It 
 was said by a person well qualified to judge 
 both from strength and candour of mind, that 
 **it would take a thousand years at least to 
 answer his work on population.'' He has cer- 
 tainly thrown a new I'ght on that question, and 
 changed the aspect of political economy in a 
 decided and raaterial point of view — whether he 
 has not also endeavoured to spread a gloom over 
 the hopes and more sanguine speculations of 
 man, and to cast a slur upon the face of nature, 
 is another question. There is this to be said for 
 Mr Malthus, that in speaking of him one knows 
 wliat one is talking about. He is something 
 beyond a mere name — one has not to beat the 
 bush about his talents, his attainments, his 
 vast reputation, and leave off without knowing 
 what it all amounts to — he is not one of those 
 great men who set themselves off and strut and 
 fret an hour upon the stage during a day-dream 
 of popularity, with the ornaments and jewels 
 borrowed from the common stock, to which 
 nothing but their vanity and presumption gives 
 them the least individual claim ; he has dug into 
 the mine of truth and brought up ore mixed 
 with dross. In weighing his merits we come 
 at once to the question of what he has done or 
 failed to do. It is a specific claim that he sets 
 up. When we speak of Mr Malthus we mean 
 the " Essay on Population," and when we men- 
 tion the "Essay on Population" we mean a 
 distinct leading proposition, that stands out in- 
 telligibly from all trashy pretence, and is a 
 ground on which to fix the levers that may move 
 the world backwards or forwards. He has not 
 left opinion where he found it ; he has advanced 
 or given it a wrong bias, or thrown a stumbling- 
 block in its way. In a word, his name is not 
 stuck, like so many others, in the firmament of 
 reputation, nobody knows why, inscribed in 
 great letters, and with a transparency of talents, 
 genius, learning, blazing round it; it is tanta- 
 mount to an idea, it is identified with a prin- 
 ciple, it means that the population cannot go on 
 perpetually increasing without pressing on the 
 limits of the means of subsistence, and that a 
 check of some kind or other must sooner or later 
 be opposed to it. This is the essence of the 
 
 doctrine which Mr Malthus has been the first tt 
 bring into general notice, and, as we think, to 
 establish beyond the fear of contradiction. Ad- 
 mitting, then, as we do, the prominence and the 
 value of his claims to public attention, it yet 
 remains a question how far those claims are (as 
 to the talent displayed in them) strictly original, 
 how far (as to the logical accuracy with which 
 he has treated the subject) he has introduced 
 foreign and doubtful matter into it, and how far 
 (as to the spirit in which he has conducted his 
 inquiries and applied a general principle to 
 particular objects) he has only drawn fair and 
 inevitable conclusions from it, or endeavoured 
 to tamper with and wrest it to sinister and ser- 
 vile purposes. A writer who shrinks from fol- 
 lowing up a well-founded principle into its unto- 
 ward consequences from timidity or false delicacy 
 is not worthy of the name of a philosopher — a 
 writer who assumes the garb of candour and an 
 inflexible love of truth to garble and pervert it, 
 to crouch to power and pander to prejudice, de- 
 serves a worse title than that of a sophist. 
 
 Mr Malthus's first octavo volume on this sub- 
 ject (published in the year 1798) was intended 
 as an answer to Mr Godwin's " Inquiry Concern- 
 ing Political Justice." It was well got up for 
 the purpose, and had an immediate effect. It 
 was what in the language of the ring is called a 
 facer. It made Mr Godwin and the other advo- 
 cates of modern philosophy look about them. 
 It may be almost doubted whether Mr Malthus 
 was in the first instance serious in many things 
 that he threw out, or whether he did not hazard 
 the whole as an amusing and extreme paradox, 
 which might puzzle the reader as it had done 
 himself in an idle moment, but to which no 
 practical consequence whatever could attach. 
 This state of mind would probably continue till 
 the irritation of enemies and the encouragement 
 of friends convinced him that what he had at 
 first exhibited as an idle fancy was in fact a very 
 valuable discovery, or, " like the toad, ugly and 
 venomous, had yet a precious jewel in its head." 
 Such a supposition would at least account for 
 some things in the original essay, which scarcely 
 any writer would venture upon, except as pro- 
 fessed exercises of ingenuity, and which have 
 been since in part retracted. But a wrong bias 
 was thus given, and the author's theory was 
 thus rendered warped, disjointed, and sophis- 
 tical from the very outset. 
 
 Nothing could, in fact, be more illogical (not 
 to say absurd) than the whole of Mr Malthus's 
 reasoning applied as an answer (jpar excell&iMe) 
 to Mr Godwin's book, or to the theories of other 
 Utopian philosophers. Mr Godwin was not 
 singular, but was kept in countenance by many 
 authorities, both ancient and modern, in sup- 
 posing a state of society possible in which the 
 passions and wills of individuals would be con- 
 formed to the general good, in which the know- 
 ledge of the best means of promoting human 
 
T. R. MALTHUS. 
 
 85 
 
 welfare and the desire of contributing to it 
 would banish vice and misery from the world, 
 and in which, the stumbling-blocks of ignorance, 
 of selfishness, and the indulgence of gross appe- 
 tite being removed, all things would move on by 
 the mere impulse of wisdom and virtue, to still 
 higher and higher degrees of perfection and 
 happiness. Compared with the lamentable and 
 gross deficiencies of existing institutions, such a 
 view of futurity as barely possible could not 
 fail to allure the gaze and tempt the aspiring 
 thoughts of the philanthropist and the philoso- 
 pher : the hopes and the imaginations of specu- 
 lative men could not but rush forward into this 
 ideal world as into a vacuum of good ; and from 
 " the mighty stream of tendency " (as Mr Words- 
 worth, in the cant of the day, calls it) there was 
 danger that the proud monuments of time-hal- 
 lowed institutions, that the strongholds of power 
 and corruption, that "the Corinthian capitals 
 of polished society," with the base and pedi- 
 ments, might be overthrown and swept away as 
 by a hurricane. There were not wanting per- 
 sons whose ignorance, v/hose fears, whose pride, 
 or whose prejudices contemplated such an alter- 
 native with horror; and who would naturally 
 feel no small obligation to the man who should 
 relieve their apprehensions from the stunning 
 roar of this mighty change of opinion that 
 thundered at a distance, and should be able, 
 by some logical apparatus or unexpected turn 
 of the argument, to prevent the vessel of the 
 State from being hurried forward with the pro- 
 gress of improvement, and dashed in pieces down 
 the tremendous precipice of human perfectibility. 
 Then comes Mr Malthus forward with the geo- 
 metrical and arithmetical ratios in his hands, 
 and holds them out to his aflfrighted contem- 
 poraries as the only means of salvation. " For " 
 (so argued the author of the essay) "let the 
 principles of Mr Godwin's ' Inquiry ' and of 
 other similar works be carried literally and 
 completely into effect ; let every corruption and 
 abuse of power be entirely got rid of; let virtue, 
 knowledge, and civilisation be advanced to the 
 greatest height that these visionary reformers 
 would suppose; let the passions and appetites 
 be subjected to the utmost control of reason and 
 influence of public opinion: grant them, in a 
 word, all that they ask, and the more completely 
 their views are realised, the sooner will they be 
 overthrown again, and the more inevitable and 
 fatal will be the catastrophe. For the principle 
 of population will still prevail, and from the 
 comfort, ease, and plenty that will abound, will 
 receive an increasing force and impetus; the 
 number of mouths to be fed will have no limit, 
 but the food that is to supply them cannot keep 
 pace with the demand for it ; we must come to 
 a stop somewhere, even though each square yard, 
 by extreme improvements in cultivation, could 
 maintain its man : in this state of things there 
 will be no remedy, the wholesome checks of vice 
 
 and misery (which have hitherto kept this prin- 
 ciple within bounds) will have been done away; 
 the voice of reason will be unheard ; the passions 
 only will bear sway; famine, distress, havoc, 
 and dismay will spread around ; hatred, violence, 
 war, and bloodshed will be the infallible conse- 
 quence, and from the pinnacle of happiness, 
 peace, refinement, and social advantage, we shall 
 be hurled once more into a profounder abyss of 
 misery, want, and barbarism than ever, by the 
 sole operation of the principle of population ! " 
 
 Such is a brief abstract of the argument of 
 the essay. Can anything be less conclusive, a 
 more complete fallacy and petitio principiit 
 Mr Malthus concedes, he assumes a state of per- 
 fectibility, such as his opponents imagined, in 
 which the general good is to obtain the entire 
 mastery of individual interests, and reason of 
 gross appetites and passions ; and then he argues 
 that such a perfect structure of society will fall 
 by its own weight, or rather be undermined by 
 the principle of population, because in the highest 
 possible state of the subjugation of the passions 
 to reason, they will be absolutely lawless and 
 unchecked, and because as men become enlight- 
 ened, quick-sighted, and public-spirited, they 
 will show themselves utterly blind to the conse- 
 quences of their actions, utterly indifferent to 
 their own well-being and that of all succeeding 
 generations, whose fate is placed in their hands. 
 This we conceive to be the boldest paralogism 
 that ever was offered to the world, or palmed 
 upon willing credulity. Against whatever other 
 scheme of reform this objection might be valid, 
 the one it was brought expressly to overturn 
 was impregnable against it, invulnerable to its 
 slightest graze. Say that the Utopian reasoners 
 are visionaries, unfounded; that the state of 
 virtue and knowledge they suppose, in which 
 reason shall have become all in all, can never 
 take place, that it is inconsistent with the nature 
 of man and with all experience, well and good ; 
 but to say that society will have attained this 
 high and "palmy state," that reason will have 
 become the master-key to all our motives, and 
 that when arrived at its greatest power it will 
 cease to act at all, but will fall down dead, 
 inert, and senseless, before the principle of popu- 
 lation, is an opinion which one would think few 
 people would choose to advance or assent to, 
 without strong inducements for maintaining or 
 believing it. 
 
 The fact, however, is, that Mr Malthus found 
 this argument entire (the principle and the ap- 
 plication of it) in an obscure and almost forgotten 
 work published about the middle of the last 
 century, entitled "Various Prospects of Man- 
 kind, Nature, and Providence," by a Scotch 
 gentleman of the name of Wallace. The chapter 
 in this work on the Principle of Population, 
 considered as a bar to 'xii oltimate views of 
 human improvement, was probably written to 
 amuse an idle hour, or read as a paper to e:cv;rcise 
 
86 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the wits of some literary society in the northern 
 capital, and no further responsibility or import- 
 ance annexed to it. Mr Malthus, by adopting 
 and setting his name to it, has given it sufficient 
 currency and effect. It sometimes happens that 
 one -vrnter is the first to discover a certain prin- 
 ciple or lay down a given observation, and that 
 another makes an application of, or draws a 
 remote or an immediate inference from it, totally 
 unforeseen by the first, and from which, in all 
 probability, he might have widely dissented. 
 But this is not so in the present instance. Mr 
 Malthus has borrowed (perhaps without con- 
 sciousness, at any rate without acknowledgment) 
 both the preliminary statement, that the increase 
 in the supply of food " from a limited earth and 
 a limited fertility" must have an end, while the 
 tendency to increase in the principle of popula- 
 tion has none, without some external and forcible 
 restraint on it, and the subsequent use made 
 of this statement as an insuperable bar to all 
 schemes of Utopian or progressive improvement 
 — both these he has borrowed (whole) from Wal- 
 lace, with all their imperfections on their heads, 
 and has added more and greater ones to them 
 3ut of his own store. In order to produce 
 •■omething of a startling and dramatic effect, he 
 has strained a point or two. In order to qnell 
 and frighten away the bugbear of modern philo- 
 sophy, he was obliged to make a sort of monster 
 of the principle of population, which was brought 
 into the field against it, and which was to 
 swallow it up quick. No half measures, no 
 middle course of reasoning would do. With a 
 view to meet the highest possible power of 
 reason in the new order of things, Mr ]\Ialthus 
 saw the necessity of giving the greatest possible 
 physical weight to the antagonist principle, 
 and he accordingly lays it down that its opera- 
 tion is mechanical and iiTesistible. He premises 
 these two propositions as the basis of all his 
 reasoning — (1. ) That food is necessary to man ; 
 (2.) that the desire to propagate the species is 
 an equally indispensable law of our existence : 
 thus making it appear that these two wants or 
 impulses are equal and co-ordinate principles of 
 action. If this double statement had been true, 
 the whole scope and structure of his reasoning 
 (as hostile to human hopes and sanguine specu- 
 lations) would have been irrefragable ; but as it 
 is not true, the whole (in that view) falls to the 
 gi'ound. According to JMi* Malthus's octavo edi- 
 tion, the sexual passion is as necessary to be 
 gratified as the appetite of hunger, and a man 
 can no more exist without propagating his spe- 
 cies than he can live without eating. Were it 
 BO, neither of these passions would admit of any 
 excuses, any delay, any restraint from reason or 
 foresight ; and the only checks to the principle 
 of population must be vice and misery. The 
 argument would be ^-numphant and complete. 
 But there is no analogy, no i^arity in the two 
 cases, such as our author here assumes. No man 
 
 can live for any length of time without food; 
 many persons live all their lives without grati- 
 fying the other sense. The longer the craving 
 after food is unsatisfied, the more violent, im- 
 perious, and uncontrollable the desire becomes; 
 whereas, the longer the gratification of the 
 sexual passion is resisted, the greater force does 
 habit and resolution acquire over it; and, gene- 
 rally speaking, it is a well-known fact, attested 
 by all observation and history, that this latter 
 passion is subject more or less to control from 
 personal feelings and character, from public 
 opinions and the institutions of society, so as 
 to lead either to a lawful and regulated indul- 
 gence or to partial or total abstinence, accord- 
 ing to the dictates of moral restraint, which 
 latter check to the inordinate excesses and un- 
 heard-of consequences of the principle of popu- 
 lation, our author, having no longer an extreme 
 case to make out, admits and is willing to 
 patronise in addition to the two former and 
 exclusive ones of vice and misery, in the second 
 and remaining editions of his work. Mr Mal- 
 thus has shown some awkwardness or even re- 
 luctance in softening down the harshness of his 
 first peremptory decision. He sometimes grants 
 his grand exception cordially, proceeds to argue 
 stoutly, and to try conclusions upon it ; at other 
 times he seems disposed to cavil about or retract 
 it : " the influence of moral restraint is very 
 inconsiderable, or none at all." It is indeed 
 difficult (more particularly for so formal and 
 Dice a reasoner as Mr Malthus) to piece such 
 contradictions plausibly or gracefully together. 
 We wonder how he manages it, how any one 
 should attempt it. The whole question, the 
 gist of the argument of his early volume turned 
 upon this, " Whether vice and misery were the 
 only actual or possible checks to the principle 
 of population ? " He then said they were, and 
 farewell to building castles in the air ; he now 
 says that moral restraint is to be coupled with 
 these, and that its influence depends greatly on 
 the state of laws and manners, and Utopia 
 stands where it did, a great way ofi" indeed, but 
 not turned topsy-turvy by our magician's wand. 
 Should we ever arrive there, that is, attain to a 
 state of perfect moral restraint, we shall not be 
 driven headlong back into Epicurus's sty for 
 want of the only possible checks to population, 
 vice and misery; and in proportion as we ad- 
 vance that way, that is, as the influence of moral 
 restraint is extended, the necessity for vice and 
 misery will be diminished instead of being in- 
 creased according to the first alarm given by the 
 essay. Again, the advance of civilisation and 
 of population in consequence with the same 
 degree of moral restraint (as there exists in Eng- 
 land at this present time, for instance) is a good 
 and not an evil, but this does not appear from 
 the essay. The essay shows that population is 
 not ((as had been sometimes taken for granted) 
 an abstract and unqualified good, but it led 
 
T. R. MALTHUS. 
 
 87 
 
 many persons to suppose that it was an abstract 
 auQ unqualified evil, to be checked only by vice 
 and misery, and producing, according to its 
 encouiagement, a greater quantity of vice and 
 misery ; and this error the author has not been 
 at sufficient pains to do away. Another thing, 
 in which Mr Malthus attempted to clench Wal- 
 lace's argument, was in giving to the dispropor- 
 tionate power of increase in the principle of 
 population and the supply of food a mathemati- 
 cal form, or reducing it to the arithmetical and 
 geometrical ratios, in which we believe Mr Mal- 
 thus is now generally admitted, even by his 
 friends and admirers, to have been wrong. 
 There is evidently no inherent difference in the 
 principle of increase in food or population ; 
 since a grain of corn, for example, will propa- 
 gate and multiply itself much faster even than 
 the human species. A bushel of wheat will 
 sow a field ; that field will furnish seed for 
 twenty others. So that the limit to the means 
 of subsistence is only the want of room to raise 
 it in, or, as Wallace expresses it, "a limited 
 fertility and a limited earth." Up to the point 
 where the earth or any given country is fully 
 occupied or cultivated, the means of subsistence 
 naturally increase in a geometrical ratio, and 
 will more than keep pace with the natural and 
 unrestrained progress of population ; and beyond 
 that point, they do not go on increasing even in 
 Mr Malthus' s arithmetical ratio, but are station- 
 ary or nearly so. So far, then, is this propor- 
 tion from being universally and mathematically 
 true, that in no part of the world or state of 
 society does it hold good. But our theorist, by 
 laying down tMs double ratio as a law of nature, 
 gains this advantage, that at all times it seems 
 as if, whether in new or old peopled countries, 
 in fertile or barren soils, the population was 
 pressing hard on the means of subsistence ; and 
 again, it seems as if the evil increased with the 
 progress of improvement and civilisation ; for if 
 you cast your eye at the scale which is supposed 
 to be calculated upon true and infallible data, 
 you find that when the population is at eight, 
 the means of subsistence are at four ; so that 
 here there is only a deficit of one-half; but when 
 it is at thirty-two, they have only got to six, so 
 that here there is a difference of twenty-six in 
 thirty-two, and so on in proportion ; the further 
 we proceed, the more enormous is the mass of 
 vice and misery we must undergo, as a conse- 
 quence of the natural excess of the population 
 over the means of subsistence and as a salutary 
 check to its further desolating progress. The 
 mathematical table, placed at the front of the 
 essay, therefore leads to a secret suspicion or a 
 bare-faced assumption, that we ought in mere 
 kindness and compassion to give every sort of 
 indirect and under-hand encouragement (to say 
 the least) to the providential checks of vice and 
 misery ; as the sooner we arrest this formidable 
 and paramount evil in its course, the less oppor- 
 
 tunity we leave it of doing incalculable mischief. 
 Accordingly, whenever there is the least talk 
 of colonising new countries, of extending the 
 population, or adding to social comforts and 
 improvements, Mr Malthus conjures up his 
 double ratios, and insists on the alarming re- 
 sults of advancing them a single step forward 
 in the series. By the same rule, it would be 
 better to return at once to a state of barbarism ; 
 and to take the benefit of acorns and scuttle- 
 fish, as a security against the luxuries and wants 
 of civilised life. But it is not our ingenious 
 author's wish to hint at or recommend any 
 alterations in existing institutions ; and he is 
 therefore silent on that unpalatable part of the 
 subject and natural inference from his principles. 
 MrMaltlius's "gospel is preached to the poor." 
 He lectures them on economy, on morality, the 
 regulation of their passions (which, he says, at 
 other times, are amenable to no restraint), and 
 on the ungracious topic, that "the laws of 
 nature, which are the laws of God, have doomed 
 them and their families to starve for want of a 
 right to the smallest portion of food beyond 
 what their labour will supply, or some chari- 
 table hand may hold out in compassion." This 
 is illiberal, and it is not philosophical. The 
 laws of nature or of God, to which the author 
 appeals, are no other than a limited fertility and 
 a limited earth. Within those bounds, the rest 
 is regulated by the laws of man. The division 
 of the produce of the soil, the price of labour, 
 the relief afforded to the poor, are matters of 
 human arrangement : while any charitable hand 
 can extend relief, it is a proof that the means of 
 subsistence are not exhausted in themselves, 
 that **the tables are not full!" Mr Malthus 
 says that the laws of nature, which are the laws 
 of God, have rendered that relief physically im- 
 possible ; and yet he would abrogate the poor- 
 laws by an act of the legislature, in order to 
 take away that impossible relief, which the laws 
 of God deny, and which the laws of man actually 
 afford. We cannot think that this view of his 
 subject, which is prominent and dwelt on at 
 great length and with much pertinacity, is dic- 
 tated either by rigid logic or melting charity ! 
 A labouring man is not allowed to knock down 
 a hare or a partridge that spoils his garden : a 
 country squire keeps a pack of hounds : a lady 
 of quality rides out with a footman behind her, 
 on two sleek, well-fed horses. We have not a 
 word to say against all this as exemplifying the 
 spirit of the English constitution, as a part of the 
 law of the land, or as an artful distribution of 
 light and shade in the social picture ; but if any 
 one insists at the same time that "the laws of 
 nature, which are the laws of God, have doomed 
 the poor and their families to starve," because 
 the principle of population has encroached upon 
 and swallowed up the means of subsistence, so 
 that not a mouthful of food is left by the grind- 
 ing law of necessity for the poor, we beg leave 
 
88 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 to deny both fact and inference — and we put it 
 to Mr Malthus whether we are not, in strictness, 
 justified in doing so. 
 
 We have, perhaps, said enough to explain our 
 feeling on the subject of Mr Malthus's merits 
 and defects. We think he had the opportunity 
 and the means in his hands of producing a great 
 work on the principle of population ; but we 
 believe he has let it slip from his having an eye 
 to other things besides that broad and unex- 
 plored question. He wished not merely to 
 advance to the discovery of certain great and 
 valuable truths, but at the same time to over- 
 throw certain unfashionable paradoxes by ex- 
 aggerated statements — to curry favour with 
 existing prejudices and interests by garbled 
 representations. He has, in a word, as it 
 appears to us on a candid retrospect and with- 
 out any feelings of controversial asperity rank- 
 ling in our minds, sunk the philosopher and the 
 friend of his species (a character to which he might 
 have aspired) in the sophist and party writer. 
 The period at which Mr Malthus came forward 
 teemed with answers to modern philosophy, 
 with antidotes to liberty and humanity, with 
 abusive histories of the Greek and Roman re- 
 publics, with fulsome panegyrics on the Roman 
 emperors (at the very time when we were revil- 
 ing Bonaparte for his strides to universal 
 empire), with the slime and offal of desperate 
 servility — and we cannot but consider the essay 
 as one of the poisonous ingredients thrown into 
 the caldron of legitimacy "to make it thick 
 and slab." Our author has, indeed, so far done 
 service to the cause of truth, that he has counter- 
 acted many capital errors formerly prevailing as 
 to the universal and indiscriminate encourage- 
 ment of population under all circumstances ; but 
 he has countenanced opposite errors, which if 
 adopted in theory and practice would be even 
 more mischievous, and has left it to future 
 philosophers to follow up the principle, that 
 some check must be provided for the unrestrained 
 progress of population, into a set of wiser and 
 more humane consequences. Mr Godwin has 
 lately attempted an answer to the essay (thus 
 giving Mr Malthus a Roland for his Oliver), 
 but we think he has judged ill in endeavouring 
 to invalidate the principle, instead of confining 
 himself to point out the misapplication of it. 
 There is one argument introduced in this reply, 
 which will, perhaps, amuse the reader as a sort 
 of metaphysical puzzle. 
 
 *'It has sometimes occurred to me whether 
 Mr Malthus did not catch the first hint of his 
 geometrical ratio from a curious passage of 
 Judge Blackstone, on consanguinity, which is 
 as follows : 
 
 " ' The doctrine of lineal consanguinity is suffi- 
 ciently plain and obvious ; but it is at the first 
 view astonishing to consider the number of lineal 
 ancestors which every man has within no very 
 great number of degrees : and so many different 
 
 bloods is a man said to contain in his veins, as 
 he hath lineal ancestors. Of these he hath two 
 in the first ascending degree, his own parents ; 
 he hath four in the second, the parents of his 
 father and the parents of his mother ; he hath 
 eight in the third, the parents of his two errand- 
 fathers and two grandmothers ; and by the same 
 rule of progression, he hath an hundred and 
 twenty-eight in the seventh ; a thousand and 
 twenty-four in the tenth ; and at the twentieth 
 degree, or the distance of twenty generations, 
 every man hath above a million of ancestors, as 
 common arithmetic will demonstrate.' 
 
 "This will seem surprising to those who are 
 unacquainted with the increasing power of pro- 
 gressive numbers ; but is palpably evident from 
 the following table of a geometrical progression, 
 in which the first term is 2, and the denom- 
 inator also 2 ; or, to speak more intelligibly, 
 it is evident, for that each of us has two ances- 
 tors in the first degree ; the number of which 
 is doubled at every remove, because each of our 
 ancestors had also two ancestors of his own. 
 
 Lineal Degrees 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 Number of Ancestorsk 
 
 1 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 64 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 128 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 256 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 512 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 1024 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 
 2048 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 4096 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 
 
 8192 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 
 16,384 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 32,768 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 
 
 .65,536 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 
 131,072 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 
 262,144 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 
 524,288 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 
 1, 
 
 048,576 
 
 "This argument, however," proceeds Mr God- 
 win, "from Judge Blackstone of a geometrical 
 progression would much more naturally apply to 
 Montesquieu's hypothesis of the depopulation of 
 the world, and prove that the human species is 
 hastening fast to extinction, than to the purpose 
 for which Mr Malthus has employed it. An 
 ingenious sophism might be raised upon it, to 
 show that the race of mankind will ultimately 
 terminate in unity. Mr Malthus, indeed, should 
 have reflected, that it is much more certain that 
 every man has had ancestors than that he will 
 have posterity, and that it is still more doubtful, 
 whether he will have posterity to twenty or to 
 an indefinite number of generations. " * 
 
 Mr Malthus's style is correct and elegant; his 
 tone of controversy mild and gentlemanly; and 
 the care with which he has brought his facts and 
 
 •* Inquiry Concerning Population," p. 100. 
 
KEV. SAMUEL GILFILLAK 
 
 89 
 
 documents together, deserves the highest praise. 
 He has lately quitted his favourite subject of 
 population, and broke a lance with Mr Ricardo 
 on the question of rent and value. The parti- 
 sans of Mr Ricardo, who are also the admirers of 
 Mr Malthus, say that the usual sagacity of the 
 latter has here failed him, and that he has 
 shown himself to be a very illogical writer. To 
 have said this of him formerly on another ground, 
 was accounted a heresy and a piece of presump- 
 tion not easily to be forgiven. Indeed Mr Mal- 
 thus has always been a sort of "darling in the 
 public eye," whom it was unsafe to meddle with. 
 He has contrived to make himseK as many friends 
 
 by his attacks on the schemes of " Human Per- 
 fectibility " and on the poor-laws, as Mandeville 
 formerly procured enemies by his attacks on 
 human perfections and on charity schools ; and 
 among other instances that we might mention, 
 Plug Pulteney, the celebrated miser, of whom 
 Mr Burke said on his having a large estate left 
 him, " that now it was to be hoped he would 
 set up a poclcet-handkerchief " vf3i& so enamoured 
 with the saving schemes and humane economy 
 of the essay, that he desired a friend to find out 
 the author and offer nim a church living ! This 
 liberal intention was (by design or accident) 
 unhappily frustrated. 
 
 A PATEIAECHAL PEEACHEE:* 
 
 Eev. Samuel Gilfillan, Comrie. 
 
 [1762-1826.] 
 
 By GEORGE GILFILLAN. 
 
 Comrie is a Scottish village, situated in one of 
 those fine passes which lead up from the Low- 
 lands to the Highlands of Perthshire, and the 
 scenery of which often combines the beauties of 
 the one with the sublimities of the other. Sir 
 Walter Scott, in his ''Fair Maid of Perth," has 
 remarked that the noblest landscapes in Scot- 
 land — and he might have extended the remark 
 to other regions — are found at those points 
 where the mountains sink down upon the level 
 country, and where the grandeurs of the hills 
 are at once contrasted and harmonised with the 
 beauties of the more cultivated tracts. This is 
 quite the character of the scenery of the dis- 
 trict around Comrie. A fine plain, two or three 
 miles in length, and, as Wordsworth says of the 
 Cumberland valleys, "flat as the floor of a 
 temple," has, so to speak, lain down at the feet 
 of rough gigantic mountains, as if to wonder at 
 their bold sublimity, and to repose in their 
 deep shade. Rich woods— partly fir and partly 
 copse — have, with more daring, here and there 
 run half-way up toward the rocky summits, and 
 then, as if in timidity, have paused. Behind 
 the village, from a deep cleft in a wooded hill on 
 which stands a monumental pillar to Henry Dun- 
 das, the first Lord Melville— in his day the real 
 King of Scotland, and whose beautiful estate of 
 Dunira lies three miles to the westward — comes 
 down a roaring cataract, storming as it passes 
 with the black crags which in vain seek to con- 
 fine it, but gradually softening when it ap- 
 
 * "A life which camiot challenge the world's atten- 
 tion ; yet which does modestly solicit it, and perhaps, 
 on clear study, vnW be found to reward it."— Carlyle's 
 Life of Sterling. 
 
 preaches the village, the edge of which it at last 
 kisses — like a lion who, having warred with and 
 torn his keeper, comes, and in remorse, kisses 
 the feet of his fair daughter. 
 
 Comrie may, indeed, be called the loved of 
 the streams, since on each of its sides there is 
 one to lave it, and murmur in its ear sweet in- 
 articulate names of tenderness and praise, while 
 with more distant and dignified regards the 
 bold dark mountains look down upon it through 
 their ferns and over their woods. The insulated 
 crag, called Dunmore — on which the monument 
 is placed — towers above the cleft and the catar- 
 act, and a sea of copsewood between them, and 
 commands a prospect in which luxuriance and 
 naked loftiness, beauty and the barren pomp of 
 solitude, are exquisitely combined. As seen 
 from this eminence the valley lies southward, 
 with the village on its northern side. To the 
 north are two enormous mountains — each three 
 thousand feet in height; but both as lumpish 
 as they are lofty, and separated from the central 
 crag by a wide, green, sparsely-peopled glen, 
 down which you see a river, called Lednick, 
 stealing slowly to the great crisis of the catar- 
 act. Immediately below — from a two-sided 
 valley of woods — comes up the eternal cry of 
 the DeiVs Caldron^ as the waterfall is named, 
 mitigated in the summer solstice ; but in winter, 
 when the channel is full, fierce and outrageous 
 as the voice of a demon newly plunged into 
 Tartarus. Further on you see the river, now 
 comprising the three streams — Earn, Lednick, 
 and Ruchil, into the one Earn— turning round 
 and winding about through the plain as if in an 
 agony of reluctance to leave a scene so fair. To 
 the south-west are steep, grim, conical hills, 
 
00 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 with the air of haughty, dethroned princes; 
 and, indeed, "the crown has fallen from their 
 heads " — the crown of volcanic fire which they 
 had worn in the days of other years ; while the 
 high peak of Ben Voirlich is seen, and barely 
 .-^een, over their tops, at the height of 3300 feet 
 above the level of the sea. To the far east 
 appears the long chain of the Ochils, surmounted 
 by one of the Lomond Hills in Fife. Straight 
 west a long valley goes up through an avenue of 
 stately mountains to greet a lake — Loch Earn 
 — lying in placid loveliness at the end (the very 
 glen up which the Ettrick Shepherd, in the 
 " Queen's Wake," describes "bonnie Kilmany" 
 as going to meet the visions of celestial day), 
 and overtopped by Benmore, in Strathfillan, a 
 hill four thousand feet high, and which in 
 autumn eves assumes the aspect of a purple 
 pillar propping up a sky of blood. This scene, 
 always beautiful, was especially interesting 
 when at one time the wing of the thunder-cloud 
 came down upon it, and when, as you stood on 
 the summit, a large towering mountain, closely 
 adjacent, seemed all of a smoke, with rills of fire 
 — as if it had become a second Sinai — running 
 and carolling around its dark sides, and ringing 
 with a noise as though a hundred chariots were 
 careering along precipices 
 
 " Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride ; " 
 
 when, again, in an October twilight, the moon, 
 amidst thin fleecy clouds now hid her beams, 
 and left the hues of evening to die away un- 
 aided into night, through which the Caldron 
 seemed to lift up suddenly a loosened and louder 
 voice, as if, like a wild beast, it loved to cry 
 amidst the darkness, and anon gleamed forth 
 with a startling gush of light in which the 
 mountain-tops, the valleys, and particularly the 
 cones of the blue -green pine-trees, shone out 
 with a distinctness, a nearness, and a depth of 
 tone which were in their effect almost un- 
 earthly; or again, when, in summer evening: 
 
 " The clouds were all dissolved, 
 Drunk up into the hot and thirsty day, 
 And the sun stood at heaven's western gate — 
 Alone, as the first hour when God him made — 
 And shining with, as 'twere, the soul of fire, 
 The molten essence of a hundred suns ; 
 And the dark mountains, and the winged woods, 
 And smoking cots seemed gazing all at him, 
 As though they sought to melt into his beams, 
 And follow him on his immortal way ! " 
 
 Besides the natural loveliness of Comrie thus 
 indicated, it has long been a spot famous for its 
 periodical fever-shakings of the earth — the only 
 place, we believe, in Great Britain where such 
 convulsions frequently and almost statedly take 
 place. It is true that, during the eighty years 
 they have haunted Comrie, they have done no 
 serious damage; and hence we remember an 
 irreverent newspaper scribe, after inserting a 
 flaming and fuliginous picture of an earthquake 
 from a Comrie correspondent, inquiring slyly, 
 
 **Was there a mouse killed or a tea -cup 
 broken?" Yet great alarm was often pro- 
 duced ; and it must be a sublime thing, even if 
 the clement of fear were entirely eliminated, to 
 be near when, as a poet has thus described — 
 
 " At night, the Demon of the Earthquake oft 
 Awakes, and tosses on his dreadful couch, 
 Finding himself alone — like one in grave. 
 Buried alive — who moveth round and round 
 Amid the vacant darkness, cold, damp mould, 
 Till — feeling all the horrors of his state — 
 He lifts a shriek, mixed with a shudder strong, 
 ■WTiich, were despair Omnipotence, would turn 
 ITie world itself and nature upside down ! 
 Thus doth the giant, dungeoned in the earth. 
 At times from slumber start, and writhe and scream, 
 And shake the pillars of his prison-house ! " 
 
 But we know not if, at one time at least, in 
 Scotland and beyond it, anything about Comrie 
 — whether glorious scenery, or fierce though 
 abortive earth-shakings — rendered it so interest- 
 ing as the fact that there, for thirty-six years, 
 resided and laboured a plain, pious, earnest, 
 and unwearied minister of the Gospel, Samuel 
 Gilfillan by name; and it is of him that we 
 would now speak, feeling, indeed, the delicacy 
 of the task, as one that must be executed by a 
 filial hand, and yet feeling, on this account, too, 
 all the more enthusiasm and all the more con- 
 fidence, since we speak of what we know, and 
 testify of what, although then very young, we 
 nevertheless clearly and decidedly saw. And 
 we imagine that the following sketch will be 
 found the more interesting, that it will bring 
 before our readers a class of ministerial charac- 
 ter, and a style of Christian manhood, which 
 can hardly now be said to exist. The patri- 
 archal preacher died out among the Swiss moun- 
 tains with Oberlin, and, in Scotland, with Joseph 
 Maclntyre of Glenorchy, and Samuel Gilfillan 
 of Comrie. 
 
 On Dr Joseph Maclntyre we have not room at 
 present to dwell, else we could have told a good 
 deal about a man whom both Sir Walter Scott 
 and Professor Wilson delighted to honour. The 
 former, in his "Highland Widow," describes 
 him under the sobriquet of "Michael Tyrie," 
 as a most excellent, sympathising, and pains- 
 taking clergyman. Living in a spot as secluded 
 as it was romantic — at the point where the 
 river Orchay defiles from the fine glen of that 
 name, and where, close to the picturesque 
 village of Dalmally, the old Castle of Kilchurn 
 is wedded to Loch Awe— Dr Maclntyre was 
 obliged to eke out his scanty income by keep- 
 ing a boarding establishment. To this young 
 Christopher North was sent, and there, as he 
 told us himself, he began not only to collect 
 among the mountains materials for his future 
 literary labours, but to write tales, some of 
 which the venerable Oberlin of Glenorchy 
 highly commended, and advised him to pro- 
 secute that style of composition — as the world 
 
REV, SAMUEL GILFILLAN, 
 
 91 
 
 knows he did, to his immortal honour. Words- 
 worth says of Rob Roy : 
 
 " The eagle he waa lord above, 
 And Rob was lord below." 
 
 So over all that wild and magnificent region — 
 extending from Inverary to Oban, and en- 
 circling Lochs Etive and Awe, while the shadow 
 of the vast Ben Cruachan stretched above like 
 that of a protecting genius — the moral and 
 spiritual iniluence of Dr Joseph Maclntyre was 
 felt below as a consecration and benevolent 
 energy ; and by day and night, in storm and in 
 calm, in the depth of winter and in the heat of 
 summer, the kind-hearted old man might be 
 seen in the early years of this century, plodding 
 on foot or on horseback through the rugged 
 land, baptizing infants, instructing the adult, 
 rebuking and reclaiming the wanderer, carrying 
 consolation to dying beds, or attending the 
 departed to their final resting-places. 
 
 Such a benignant presence — in a somewhat 
 less sequesteied scene — was Samuel GilfiUan of 
 Comrie. The incidents of his life were neither 
 very numerous nor at all uncommon. He was 
 born in November 1762, in Bucklyvie, a village in 
 Stirlingshire, which is somewhat contemptuously 
 commemorated in the rough old rhyme quoted 
 by Scott in *' Rob Roy : " 
 
 " Baron of Bucklyvie, 
 May the foul fiend drive you, 
 And all to pieces rive you. 
 For building such a to\vn. 
 Where there's neither horse-meat, nor man's meat, 
 nor a chair to sit down." 
 
 His father was a small shopkeeper in that 
 village, and is characterised as a man of un- 
 common sagacity and controversial acumen; 
 almost a Republican, and fierce ojiposer of the 
 first American war. Samuel was sent, not very 
 early, to Glasgow College, where he gained one 
 or two academical honours — the first copy of 
 Thomson's "Seasons" we ever perused was a 
 handsome volume conferred on him by his 
 professor of logic — and made himself a very 
 good and extensively read, if not an exact or 
 profound scholar. Glasgow College was then 
 richer in celebrities than, perhaps, it is now — 
 with the accomplished Richardson as its pro- 
 fessor of Latin ; Jardine — to whom Lord Jeffrey 
 and many other eminent men have ascribed 
 their first intellectual impulses — as its professor 
 of logic; and for its Grecian, Young — men- 
 tioned in Boswell's " Life of Johnson " as one 
 of the best imitators of the Doctor's style, but 
 who possessed high original claims as a ripe and 
 good scholar, a man of genius and a most elo- 
 quent expounder of tlie beauties of the Greek 
 tragedians — " the tears often gushing" — accord- 
 ing to Lockhart, who at a later period attended 
 his prelections — "from his eyes, amid their 
 fervid sparklings, while the fire of the professor 
 kindled answering flames in the eyes of not a 
 
 few of his disciples." After the usual curricu- 
 lum of classical and theological study, he was 
 licensed to preach the Gospel in the year 1789, 
 when he was twenty-seven years of age, and 
 having received two or three competing calls, or 
 invitations to become the pastor of different 
 churches, he was sent to the then most un- 
 promising of them all, the little village of 
 Comrie. A most primitive place this must 
 have been in 1791, when Samuel Gilfillan, then 
 twenty-nine, was ordained there — unprofaned 
 not only by railways but by stage-coaches; 
 where the appearance of a gig or post-chaise 
 must have been an event signalising a whole 
 week; where two-thirds of the people of the 
 parish could speak no English, and which had 
 not as yet been tossed into importance by a 
 single shock of the earthquake. This, however, 
 he felt to be his field, and, labouring in it with 
 unwearied diligence, he was at last rewarded 
 with as much victory as a limited sphere would 
 permit. He united then, as well as afterwards, 
 many elements of popularity and usefulness — a 
 manly figure, tall and erect, long dark hair— 
 which had become grey ere we remember it — a 
 lofty forehead, a quick and restless eye, great 
 strength and agility of frame, much ease and 
 readiness of address in public, private manners 
 distinguished by frankness and honhomie, exu- 
 berant animal spirits, a boundless command of 
 anecdote and miscellaneous informatiou, sin- 
 gular earnestness, pathos, simplicity, and power 
 of preaching, and that faculty, or gift, or knack 
 — call it what you please — of communicating 
 directly with the minds and hearts and eyes of 
 the audience, which marks the natural orator. 
 These qualities at once captivated the country- 
 side; but, unless sustained by domestic sym- 
 pathy, would have been insufficient for his own 
 personal happiness. But here Providence was 
 specially kind to him. In the family of the 
 Rev. Mr Barlas, a worthy clergyman of his own 
 denomination in Crieff, a neighbouring town, 
 he found his helpmeet. This was the eldest 
 daughter, Rachel, a young and beautiful girl, 
 surnamed by the people, on account of her love- 
 liness, her bright sunny complexion, her mild 
 womanly smile, her open features, and her 
 auburn hair, " the Star of the North ;" but who 
 had higher qualities — sense, prudence, a warm 
 heart, and from her earlier to her latest days — 
 from eight to eighty — a piety which approved 
 her a child of God, and gave her the dignity of 
 an heir of the better country. She became her 
 husband's good angel, his leaning prop, knew 
 where to yield with grace and where to refuse 
 with dignity, was strong where he was weak, 
 and became altogether an invaluable ally to his 
 impulsive and impetuous temperament. A finer 
 looking pair when first wedded, we have heard 
 old people say, were seldom seen, than Samuel 
 Gilfillan and Rachel Barlas : he for erect stature, 
 manly look, and frank bearing, and she for fine 
 
B2 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 complexion, soft features, and gentle womanly 
 aspect. 
 
 They began life— he being thirty-one, and she 
 fewenty-two years of age— on £50 a year, and, as 
 fiur father was wont to add, "a blessing!" 
 Surely it was needed, and as certainly it was 
 "bestowed. How, indeed, on such a pittance, 
 which was never quite doubled in after-years, 
 debt was avoided, education conferred, com- 
 parative comfort secured, twelve sons and 
 daughters nurtured, and of these eight brought 
 up to maturity, it is most difiBcult to com- 
 prehend, in a case where the blessing did not 
 take the form of the widow's miraculous cake 
 and overflowing cruse. But so it was ; and the 
 instance is by no means a singular one. We 
 could multiply it by a hundred in the history of 
 ministers' families of all denominations in Scot- 
 land, And, on the principle of Edward Young, 
 that "life's cares are comforts," we believe that 
 the result of such difficulties surmounted, was 
 not only beneficial in the result, but on the 
 whole not disagreeable at the time, adding an 
 intensity of interest, a romantic charm, and a 
 religious tone to existence, of which the pam- 
 pered sons of luxury can hardly conceive; as 
 well as serving to strengthen and hammer out 
 those who were subjected to the dignified priva- 
 tions and scanty but eagerly-snatched oppor- 
 tunities of virtuous poverty — a poverty, how- 
 ever, which, be it noted, did not spring from 
 congregational stinginess, but from positional 
 necessity. Samuel Gilfillan had always had 
 strong literary tastes and ambitions ; and, after 
 some years' practice had rendered pulpit and 
 pastoral work easily manageable, the old feel- 
 ing — mingled, no doubt, with a nobler aim — 
 rose in his bosom; and — not contented with 
 his unequalled popularity as a preacher, not 
 only at home, but at all tent-preachings, etc, 
 within a wide circuit of country on every side — 
 he began to ply the pen as an author. He com- 
 menced his modest career by writing short papers 
 in a periodical, entitled the Christian Magazine^ 
 proceeding from the Edinburgh press. These 
 were generally, though not always, outlines of 
 sermons previously preached; sometimes they 
 were sketches of remarkable characters, records 
 of deathbeds, observations on public events, and 
 so forth. To these his favourite signature was 
 Leumas (Samuel). They became instantly and 
 extensively popular. In proof of this, we may 
 allude to the testimony of Hugh Miller, who, in 
 his "Schools and Schoolmasters," speaks of 
 these simple, unpretending essays as special 
 favourites of his uncle Sandy, and who there, 
 and more fully in an after-paper on one of the 
 present writer's books in the Witness for June 
 1856, endorses his uncle's high opinion of their 
 rich Gospel savour, their engaging style, and 
 their thorough adaptation to the then religious 
 appetite of the Scotch. Their author afterwards 
 collected them into a volume, entitled " Short 
 
 Discourses for Families." And let us say of 
 them, once for all, that, although not profound, 
 neither were they shallow in thought, not meta- 
 physical or imaginative, they were sufficiently 
 suggestive, very scriptural, and charmingly child- 
 like and Bunyanian in spirit and in style, and if 
 never florid in language they were always fervid 
 in spirit. Miller says, with some justice per- 
 haps, that they were rather late in appearing ; 
 they belonged essentially to the age of the 
 Erskines and the Fishers — the first founders of 
 the Secession body ; but it cannot be denied that 
 they were widely and warmly received through- 
 out all Scotland when they first appeared, and 
 have even still many devoted admirers. 
 
 With somewhat more elaboration, although in 
 a similar style, appeared a little tract on "The 
 Sabbath," which swelled gradually into a small 
 but very successful volume. It ran in this 
 country through ten editions, and was translated 
 into French, Dutch, and Kuss. With little dis- 
 play of learning or of acute argumentation, it 
 gave the outlines of the Scripture doctrine of 
 the Sabbath with much fidelity, and impressed 
 its claims with great pathos and earnestness. 
 On such a subject he could speak with authority, 
 for no man ever loved the Sabbath more, or 
 observed it better. And yet in his family it was 
 not a day of gloom or austerity, but of sweet 
 and solemn joy ; an atmosphere, as if combined 
 of autumn and heaven, hung over the house ; the 
 beautiful scenery around was not ignored, but 
 recognised with unusual delight ; the supper was 
 superior to that of other days, and almost hil- 
 arious; and a humble but happy family lay 
 down early, as though they were one being, to 
 dream of that rest which remaineth for the 
 people of God. And such, we can testify, was, 
 in general, the character of a Scottish Sabbath, 
 which has often been grossly misrepresented 
 both by its friends and foes, but which we never 
 saw either disfigured by Continental levity, or 
 darkened by Puritanic rigour. 
 
 Encouraged by the success of "The Sabbath," 
 its author issued another interesting and useful 
 little treatise on " Domestic Piety ; " continued 
 to write in the Christian and other magazines ; 
 collected, as aforesaid, the better of these into a 
 volume; and in 1826, the year of his death, 
 published a work, full of rich practical matter, 
 on "The Holy Spirit." During all this time he 
 was, with unabated diligence, fulfilling his pas- 
 toral duties. The blended love and reverence 
 felt for him in all that primitive region we 
 despair of describing. The young vied with the 
 old in adoring him. The dead was not properly 
 buried, imless he was there with his fervent and 
 heaven-storming prayers. The bride was not 
 rightly married, unless he was there with his 
 genial presence and his jocund, contagious 
 mirth. The tent, at sacraments, where he 
 preached, was surrounded by eager throngs; 
 and when he left it to "serve a table" in the 
 
REV, SAMUEL GILFILLAN. 
 
 93 
 
 church, the crowds pursued, and even preceded 
 him there. The orthodox admired him for his 
 sound theology, the heterodox for his catholic 
 spirit ; the students for his historical allusions, 
 and the children for his racy anecdotes. Often 
 in the grey morning, or in the sultry noon, or 
 in the dim autumn evening, his tall form and 
 hurrying step might be descried on their way to 
 the sick man's hed, or to a pastoral visitation in 
 the far glens ; more rarely he was seen climbing 
 a mountain, himself alone, to admire the beauti- 
 ful scenery under the divine chiaro-oscuro of 
 autumn or the exhilarating atmosphere of spring ; 
 more rarely still with a party of pleasure, of 
 which he was the life and soul, exploring "Glen- 
 artney's hazel shade " (see "Lady of the Lake "); 
 or in carriage or cart skirting the romantic sides 
 of Loch Earn ; or visiting the aerial heights of 
 Ben Chony or Ben Voirlich. 
 Thus life wore away, and at last this 
 
 " Fine old country clergyman, 
 All of the olden time," 
 
 must die ! Yet scarcely could he be called old, 
 for he was not quite sixty-four ; and although 
 his hair was grey and his frame somewhat 
 corpulent, his eye was as keen, and his step as 
 firm, and his intellect as vigorous, and his elo- 
 quence as powerful as ever. But those who saw 
 him closely, discerned an increasing tenderness 
 and almost feminine softness in his manners, as 
 if a breeze from the better land were smoothing 
 his brow, stirring his silver hair, and filling his 
 eyes with gentle and pathetic tears. The hot 
 summer of 1826 came and passed, and a lovely 
 belated autumn succeeded, during which he 
 rallied from a slight bilious depression and ap- 
 peared as full of energy and hope as in the 
 palmiest days of his ministry. We heard him 
 preach his last sermon — little dreaming it was 
 his last — and remember how the favourite theme 
 of the Sabbath having crossed his path, he ex- 
 pressed in vehement terms, and with kindling 
 eye, his indignation at those who, attending to 
 their own mercenary interests, disturbed the 
 Christian's enjoyment of the day of rest. His 
 own everlasting Sabbath was near. His disease 
 was inflammation of the intestines, produced by 
 eating sloes, which a kind country family he 
 was visiting had provided, knowing his partial- 
 ity for them ; and after some days' severe illness, 
 on Sabbath morning, the 15th of October, the 
 crisis of the calamity came. The first sound 
 our young ears heard that grey morning was the 
 shout of a father's agony, renewed and renewed, 
 till at last his strength was exhausted, and he 
 could express his anguish no more; and then 
 the spirit of life began to fade upon that open, 
 manly countenance and earnest eye — an eye 
 fixed to the last on his beloved wife — and the 
 spirit of death began to creep up his strong 
 frame, and to breathe a ghastlier yellow than 
 that of the withering leaves without upon his 
 
 cheek and brow ; and then he fell into what, but 
 for that corpse-like yellow, migiit have seemed a 
 sweet and half-conscious slumber ; and then he 
 died: and the mellow sunlight seemed to 
 tremble like a finger as it touched every object 
 in what had now become the chamber of death; 
 and there were wild weepings and convulsive 
 clutchings at the dead body, and then came the 
 solemn closing of the once ardent and restless 
 eyes, and then the door was shut and the dead 
 man was left alone : 
 
 "As the last star left upon the vine 
 Of heaven, when all its clusters are consumed, 
 And it and darkness are alone for ever ! " 
 
 Not so! for we felt even then that he was 
 alone, not with the darkness of death, but with 
 the hope of life, and as if that chamber were 
 only cleared of friends and children to be filled 
 with angels. His loss made no stir in the 
 fashionable or literary worlds ; but his congre- 
 gation missed him, and wept sore when Sabbath 
 came with his funeral sermon instead of himself ; 
 the neighbourhood missed the genial man, the 
 obliging neighbour, the strong, constant source 
 of spiritual light and life to the general com- 
 munity. Many a poor, widowed, and aged 
 woman lifted up her eyes when a form passed 
 her window, and sighed as she saw it was not 
 Ms. Many a child missed his smile and his 
 benison on the street of the village ; and many 
 a reader of Scottish religious magazines, who 
 had not heard of his death, wondered why 
 Leumas had dropped his fertile and ever-pleas- 
 ing pen. The day of his funeral was dark and 
 lowering; but there was a large gathering — 
 some of the gentry of the neighbourhood mingled 
 with the shepherds from the moimtains, and 
 weavers from the village — to do honour to his 
 dust. Many tears followed his coffin into the 
 grave ; and it was touching to see one old man 
 (who soon after followed his ancient minister to 
 the tomb), who had been latterly a keen oppo- 
 nent, go up to the eldest son of the deceased, and 
 wring his hand pathetically, with a moist eye 
 and a choking voice. He lies close to the river 
 Earn ; the grey monument looks down upon his 
 sepulchre, and the dark pillared Grampians rise 
 around. Peace to his ashes ! Having, by his 
 unpretending but unwearied labours of tongue 
 and pen, turned many to righteousness, he is 
 destined, we doubt not, to shine hereafter as 
 the brightness of the firmament, and as the 
 stars which are for ever and ever. 
 
 We have enumerated the most of his writings 
 in the course of this little sketch. Since his 
 death a collection of his letters — letters as true 
 and touching in feeling, as simple and scriptural 
 in language, as any in the language — were pub- 
 lished, along with a memoir, by his eldest son, 
 the Rev. Dr James Gilfillan of Stirling, since 
 the author of a well-known, elaborate, and 
 lengthened treatise on "The Sabbath." 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLIN'GTOK 
 
 [1769-1852.] 
 
 By HUGH MILLER. 
 
 [Arthur Welleslet, Duke of Wellington, was 
 born either in Dublin or Dangan Castle, Ireland, 
 in 1769. He was educated at Eton, and be 
 passed six years at the military seminary of 
 Angers. When eighteen years of age he became 
 ensign of the 73d Regiment of Foot, and during 
 the next six years rose rapidly, until he was 
 lieutenant-colonel of the 33d. When twenty- 
 one years of age he was returned to the Irish 
 Parliament for the borough of Trim. He em- 
 barked from Cork to Ostend in 1794, in com- 
 mand of the o3d. Reaching Antwerp, where he 
 joined the main body of the army, he was em- 
 ployed in covering the retreat of the Duke of 
 York's troops when repulsed by the French 
 His regiment was despatched to Bengal in 1797; 
 he was engaged in the siege of Seringapatam in 
 1799. He rose rapidly in the service, and was 
 appointed civil and military governor of Seringa- 
 patam and Mysore. He was victorious at the 
 great battle of Assaye in 1803, which disabled 
 the Mahratta power. The British in Calcutta, 
 after this exploit, presented him with a sword 
 valued at one thousand guineas, and the army a 
 service of plate, valued at two thousand guineas. 
 The inhabitants of Seringapatam presented him 
 with an address, complimenting him on his just 
 and equal rule in Mysore. He married the Hon. 
 Miss Pakenham in April 1806. He was elected 
 M.P. for Rye in 1806, for Midsall in 1807; in the 
 same year he was appointed Secretary for Ireland 
 and Privy Councillor. To check the threatened 
 aggressions of Napoleon, Wellington, now Sir Ar- 
 thur Wellesley, landed in Mondego Bay, between 
 Lisbon and Oporto,with 13,000troops. He gained 
 two decisive battles in this campaign, when he re- 
 turned to England. Resigning his other appoint- 
 ments to take command of the British army, he 
 appeared on the Tagus in April 1809. The 
 great battle of Talavera was fought on the 28th 
 July, when the British were victorious over 
 double the number of picked French soldiers. 
 For this service he was raised to the peerage, 
 and rewarded by a pension. The victories at 
 Fuentes d'Onore, Badajoz, Salamanca, and Vit- 
 toria, followed. In 1814 the victories of Orthez 
 and Toulouse were gained. While in Paris in 
 
 1814 he was raised to the dignity of a duke. 
 He received an ovation when he took his place 
 in Parliament. The Commons voted him 
 £500,000 to support his new title. In April 
 
 1815 he was at Brussels preparing and organis- 
 ing for the campaign against Napoleon, who 
 had escaped from Elba, and who had again 
 roused the French. The force commanded by 
 
 Napoleon consisted of 70,000 troops, while 
 those under the duke were of various na- 
 tionalities, requiring organisation and train- 
 ing. Napoleon's power was broken by the 
 crowning victory of Waterloo, on June 18, 1815. 
 Honours were showered upon him, and he re- 
 ceived, amongst other valuable gifts, £60,000 as 
 his share of the Waterloo prize-money. After a 
 lengthened parliamentary career, serving the 
 country in and out of Parliament, being, as is 
 well known, abused and honoured in turn, he 
 died in September 1852. He was buried with 
 unprecedented honours in St Paul's Cathedral. 
 In every relation of life his ruling principle was 
 obedience to the call of duty. Amongst the 
 thousand honours heaped upon him, and gained 
 in the service of his country, the crowning glory 
 of his character is said to have been that he 
 grew with time, and that his nature was plastic 
 enough to be moulded by successive events.] 
 
 The Duke of Wellington was the last, and at 
 least one of the greatest, of that group of great 
 men whose histories we find specially connected 
 with the history of the first French Revolution. 
 He pertained to a type of man so rare, that we 
 can enumerate only two other examples in the 
 great Teutonic family to which he belonged— 
 George Washington and Oliver Cromwell. Of 
 spare and meagre imagination, and of intellect 
 not at all cast in the literary or oratorical mould, 
 they yet excelled all their fellows in the posses- 
 sion of a gigantic common sense, rarer, we had 
 almost said, than genius itself, but, which, in 
 truth, constituted genius of a homely and pecu- 
 liar, but not the less high order, and which 
 better fitted them to be leaders of men than the 
 more brilliant and versatile genius of a Shake- 
 speare or of a Milton would have done. The 
 ability of seeing what in all circumstances was 
 best to be done, and an indomitable resolution 
 and power of will which enabled them to do 
 it, constituted the peculiar faculties in which 
 they surpassed all their contemporaries. With 
 more imagination they would have perhaps at- 
 tempted more, and, in consequence, have ac- 
 complished less. Napoleon po&wessed powers 
 which in Cromwell, or in Napoleon's great 
 rival and ultimate conqueror, the duke, had 
 no place. . . . The three great military 
 doers of the Anglo-Saxon race were all alike 
 remarkable for their sobriety of mind and spare- 
 ness of imagination, and for exactly knowinc'- 
 much in consequence of that sobriety and of 
 that spareness — what could and what could not 
 be accomplished. And so, unlike many of the 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 95 
 
 gr^at men of antiquity, or of tlie more volatile 
 races of the world in modern times, they rose to 
 eminence and glory by comparatively slow de- 
 grees, and finished their course without experi- 
 encing great reverses. There is a still rarer 
 type of greatness, of which the entire history of 
 man furnishes only some one or two examples, 
 in which the imagination was vigorous, but the 
 judgment fully adequate to restrain and control 
 it ; and we would instance Julius Caesar as one 
 of these. By far the greatest man of action of 
 the age in which he lived, he was also one of the 
 greatest of its orators — second, indeed, only to 
 perhaps the greatest orator the world ever saw ; 
 while as an author, his work takes its place in 
 literature as one of the ever-enduring classics. 
 By the way, has the reader ever remarked how 
 thoroughly the features of Wellington, Washing- 
 ton, and Csesar were cast in one type? Had 
 they all been brethren, the family likeness could 
 not have been more strong. There is the same 
 firm, hard, tnathematical cast of face, the same 
 thin cheeks and prominent cheek-bones, the 
 same sharply-defined nether jaws, the same bold 
 nose — in each case an indented aquiline — and 
 the same quietly keen eye. And in the counte- 
 nance of Cromwell, though more overcharged, 
 as perhaps became his larger structure of bone 
 and more muscular frame, we find exactly the 
 same lineaments, united to a massiveness of 
 forehead possessed by neither Washington nor 
 Wellington, and only equalled by that of Csesar. 
 Chateaubriand's graphic summary of the charac- 
 ter of the Protector is in singular harmony with 
 his physiognomy. "To whom among us," he 
 says, in drawing a parallel between the first 
 French Revolution and that which in England 
 led to the execution of Charles, " can we com- 
 pare Cromwell, who concealed under a coarse 
 exterior all that is great in human nature — a 
 man who was profound, vast, and secret as an 
 abyss — who hid in his soul the ambition of a 
 Ceesar, and hid it in so superior a manner, that 
 not one of his colleagues, except Hampden, 
 could dive into his thoughts and views ? " 
 
 Wellington, like the other great men with 
 whose names we associate his, was remarkable 
 for seeing, in his own especial province, what 
 even the ablest and shrewdest of his contempor- 
 aries could not see. Jeffrey and Brougham were 
 both able men, talkers of the first water, and, 
 even as judges and reviewers, not beneath the 
 highest average found among men ; and yet we 
 have but to take up those earlier numbers of the 
 Edinburgh Review in which these accomplished 
 judicial critics discussed the Peninsular cam- 
 paigns, to find how utterly ignorant they both 
 •were — and, with them, all the party which they 
 represented — of that simple but really great idea 
 which formed the basis of Wellington's opera- 
 tions, and which ultimately led him to results 
 so brilliant and successful. Nor was the medi- 
 ocre ministry of the day, though they lent him 
 
 from time to time their driblets of supj.ort, at 
 first most meagrely and unwillingly, until com- 
 pelled to liberality by his successes, less in the 
 dark regarding it than their opponents. Once 
 and again, unable to make out a case for him, 
 and gravelled by what seemed the unanswerable 
 arguments of their antagonists, they had to 
 throw the entire responsibility on tl.eir indomi- 
 table general; and Wellington was content lo 
 bear it. Nor was it in the least wonderful that 
 they should have found the case of the Peninsula 
 a peculiarly hard one. Appearances, as all 
 ordinary, and even almost all superior observers, 
 were able to remark them, seemed sadly against 
 the British. The brilliancy of Napoleon's mili- 
 tary tactics — above all, his splendid powers of 
 combination — nad astonished the world. His 
 marshals haa learned in his school almost to 
 rival himself; they were, besides, under his 
 direct guidance; and they had three hundred 
 thousand French soldiers in the Peninsula. The 
 British there at no time amounted to sixty thou- 
 sand. They had allies, it is true, in the Portu- 
 guese and Spaniards, but allies on which they 
 could reckon but little ; and yet, such was the 
 apparently inadequate force with which Welling- 
 ton had determined to clear the Peninsula. 
 What could the man mean? Was he possessed 
 of the vulgar belief that "one Englishman is a 
 match for five Frenchmen at any time?" No, 
 Wellington was perfectly sober-minded; and, 
 with a confidence in the native prowess of the 
 well-disciplined Briton such as that which Nel- 
 son possessed — a confidence that, if opposed, 
 man to man, on equal terms of position and 
 weapons, the Englishman would beat the French- 
 man, just as a stronger mechanical force bears 
 down a weaker — he was particularly chary of 
 risking his men against overpowering odds. On 
 what, then, was his confidence founded? He 
 saw better than any one else the true circum- 
 stances of the Peninsula, and the true difficulties 
 of the French. Spain, and especially Portugal, 
 had their strongly defensible lines, which a 
 weaker force, if through neglect it gave the 
 enemy no undue advantage, and if liberally sup- 
 plied with the munitions of war, might defend 
 for ever against a stronger. The successes of the 
 British navy under Nelson had given it the com- 
 plete command of the sea ; and so to a British 
 army these indispensable munitions could be 
 supplied. On the other hand, the base-line 
 from which the French had to carry on their 
 operations was distant. The wild Pyrenees, 
 and with them wide tracts of rough and hostile 
 country, stretched between the French armies 
 and their native France. They could not be 
 supported, in consequence, by munitions drawn 
 from their own country ; and the hostile country 
 in which they encamped was by much too poor 
 to enable them to realise that part of Napoleon's 
 policy, through which he made hostile countries 
 support tlie war which wasted them, and to 
 
90 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 which he had given such effect on the fertile 
 plains of Germany. Spain could not support 
 great armies ; and so great combinations could 
 he maintained within its territories for only a 
 few days at a time, and then fall apart again. 
 Wellington, from behind his lines, marched out 
 now upon one separate army, anon upon another ; 
 now upon one strong fortress, anon upon another ; 
 never opposed himself to overpowering odds; 
 and, when the odds were not overpowering, or 
 the fortress not impregnable, always carried the 
 siege or gained the battle. He broke up in 
 detail the armies of France. When they effected 
 one of their great combinations against him, he 
 fell coolly back on his lines ; sometimes, as he 
 saw opportunity, stopping by the way, as at 
 Busaco, to gain a battle, and to convince the 
 enemy that he was merely retreating, not run- 
 ning away. And then, when the combination 
 fell to pieces, as fall to pieces he saw it could 
 not fail, he again began to beat piecemeal the 
 armies of which it had been composed. Time 
 after time were the best troops of France poured 
 across the Pyrenees to bear down the modern 
 Fabius, and time after time did they sink under 
 the peculiar difficulties of their circumstances 
 and the tactics of Wellington. At length a day 
 came when France could spare no more troops 
 to the Peninsula; all its armies were required 
 for the defence of its northern frontier, for the 
 army of Napoleon had been broken in his dis- 
 astrous Eussian campaign, and the allies were 
 pressing upon their lines. And then Welling- 
 ton, taking off his hat, and rising in his stirrups 
 — for he saw that his time had at length come — 
 bade farewell to Portugal. He broke the power 
 of the French in Spain in one great battle ; re- 
 pressed and beat back Soult, who had rushed 
 across the Pyrenees to oppose him, and finally 
 terminated the war at Toulouse, far within the 
 frontiers of France. He had wrought out his 
 apparently unsolvable problem by sweeping the 
 Peninsula of the three hundred thousand French 
 troops that had held it; and, though once so 
 inexplicable, it now seems in the main an ex- 
 ceedingly simple problem after all. But Chris- 
 topher Columbus was the only man in a certain 
 company who could make an ^gg stand on end ; 
 and the only man of the age who could have 
 swept out of Spain, with his handful of troops, 
 the three hundred thousand Frenchmen, was 
 Arthur Wellesley. At least none of the others 
 who attempted the feat — including even Sir 
 John Moore — had got any hold whatever of the 
 master idea through which it was done ; and we 
 know that some of our ablest men at home held 
 that there was no master idea in the case, and 
 that the feat was wholly impracticaljfle. 
 
 As a statesman the Duke of Wellington held 
 a considerably lower place than as a warrior. 
 With bodies of men regarded simply as physical 
 forces no man could deal more skilfully: with 
 lx>dies of men regarded as combinations of facul- 
 
 ties, rational and intellectual, he frequently 
 failed. He could calculate to a nicety on the 
 power of an armed battalion, but much less 
 nicely on the power of an armed opinion. And 
 all the graver mistakes of his career we find in 
 this latter department. Latterly he is said to 
 have taken, sensible of his own defect, his opinions 
 and judgments in this walk from the late Sir 
 Robert Peel ; and it has been frequently stated 
 that he intermeddled but little with politics 
 since the death of his adviser and friend. But, 
 though immeasurably inferior in this depart- 
 ment to Cromwell, and even to Washington — 
 for to these great men pertains the praise of 
 having been not only warriors, but also states- 
 men, of the first class — few indeed of the 
 countrymen, and scarce any of the party, of the 
 deceased duke, equalled him in the shrewdness 
 of the judgments which he ultimately came to 
 form on the questions brought before him. 
 Even some of his sayings, spoken in bootless 
 opposition, and regarded at the time as mere 
 instances of the testiness natural to a period of 
 life considerably advanced, have had shrewd 
 comments read upon them by the subsequent 
 course of events. It seemed to be in mere fret- 
 fulness that he remarked, a good many years 
 since, in opposition to some new scheme for ex- 
 tending the popular power, that he saw not 
 how in such circumstances "the queen's govern- 
 ment could be carried on." But that strange 
 balance of parties in the country which leaves 
 at present scarce any preponderating power on 
 any side to operate as the moving force of "the 
 executive," has, we daresay, led many to think 
 that the old man saw more clearly at the time 
 than most of his critics or opponents. Though 
 of an indomitable will, too, he was in reality too 
 strong-minded a man to be an obstinate one. 
 He covM yield ; and the part which he took in 
 emancipating the Roman Catholics, and in 
 abolishing the corn laws, are evidences of the 
 fact. Further, it is not unimportant to know, 
 that had the advice of the Duke of Welling-ton 
 been acted upon in our ecclesiastical controversy, 
 no Disruption would have taken place in the 
 Scottish Church, and the Scottish Establishment 
 would have survived in all its integrity, as the 
 strongest in Britain. Wellington's ability of 
 yielding more readily was based on his ability 
 of seeing more clearly, than most of the other 
 members of his party : they resembled the cap- 
 tains of Captain Sword, in Hunt's well-known 
 poem ; but he was the great Captain Sword him- 
 self. When the peaceable Captain Pen threatens 
 to bring a " world of men " at his back, and to 
 disarm the old warrior, the poet tells us that— 
 
 " Out laughed the captains of Captain Sword, 
 But their chief looked vexed, and said not a word ; 
 For thought and trouble had touched his ears, 
 Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs ; 
 And wherever he went he was 'ware of a sound. 
 Now heard in the distance, now gathering round* 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 97 
 
 Wliich irked him to know what the issue might be, 
 For the soul of the cause of it well guessed he." 
 
 In his moral character the duke was eminently 
 an honest and truthful man — one of the most 
 devoted and loyal of subjects, and one of the 
 most patriotic of citizens. His name has been 
 often coupled with that of the great military 
 captain of England in the last century — Marl- 
 borough ; but, save in the one item of great 
 military ability, they had nothing in common. 
 Wellington was frank to a fault. One of the 
 gravest blunders of his political life— his open 
 declaration in Parliament that the country's sys- 
 tem of representation possessed the country's 
 full and entire confidence, and that he would 
 resist any measure of reform so long as he held 
 any station in the Government, was certainly 
 egregiously impolitic ; but who can deny that it 
 was candid and frank? Marlborough, on the 
 other hand, was one of the most tortuous and 
 secret of men. Wellington was emphatically 
 truthful ; Marlborough a consummate liar. 
 Wellington would have laid down life and 
 property in the cause of his sovereign ; Marl- 
 borough was one of the first egregiously to 
 deceive and betray his royal master, who, how- 
 ever great his faults and errors, was at least ever 
 kind to him. Wellington was, in fine, a thor- 
 oughly honest man ; Marlborough a brilliant 
 scoundrel. 
 
 There seemed to be but little of the soft green 
 of humanity about the recently departed war- 
 rior. He was, in appearance at least, a hard 
 man, who always did his own duty, and exacted 
 from others the full tale of theirs. He had seen, 
 too, in his first and only disastrous campaign — 
 that of the Duke of York in the Netherlands — 
 the direful eflfects of unrestrained licence in an 
 army. Enraged by numerous petty acts of vio- 
 lence and plunder, the people of the country 
 became at length undisguisedly hostile to their 
 nominal allies, and greatly enhanced the dangers 
 and difficulties of their frequent retreats. And 
 Wellington, taught, it is said, by the lesson, 
 was ever after a stern disciplinarian, and visited 
 at times with what was deemed undue severity, 
 the liberties taken by his soldiery with the pro- 
 perty of an allied people. And so he possessed 
 much less of the love of the men who served 
 under him, than not only the weaker but ten- 
 der-hearted Nelson, but than also the genial and 
 good-humoured Duke of York — a prince whom 
 no soldier ever trusted as a general or ever dis- 
 liked as a man. But never did general possess 
 more thoroughly the confidence of his soldiers 
 than Wellington. Wherever he led, they were 
 prepared to follow. We have been told by an 
 old campaigner, who had fought under him in 
 one of our Highland regiments in all the battles 
 of the Peninsula, that on one occasion, in a 
 
 retreat, the corps to which he belonged had 
 been left far behind in the rear of their fellows, 
 and began to express some anxiety regarding 
 the near proximity of the enemy. *' I wish," 
 said one, " I saw ten thousand of our country- 
 folk beside us." *' I wish, rather," rejoined an- 
 other, " that I saw the long nose of the Duke of 
 Wellington." A few minutes after, however, 
 the duke was actually seen riding past, and 
 from that moment confidence was restored in 
 the regiment. They felt that the eye of Wel- 
 lington was upon them, and that all was neces- 
 sarily right. Nor, with all his seeming hard- 
 ness, was Wellington in any degree a cruel or 
 inhumane man. He was, on the contrary, essen- 
 tially kind and benevolent. The same old cam- 
 paigner to whom we owe the anecdote — a gal- 
 lant and kind-hearted, but, like many soldiers, 
 thoughtless man — had, notwithstanding a tolt?r- 
 ably adequate income for his condition, fallen 
 into straits ; and he at length bethoui^ht him, in 
 his difficulties, of availing himself of that ar- 
 rangement made by the Whigs about twenty 
 years ago, when they first came into office, 
 through which he might sell his pension. The 
 proposed terms, however, were hard; and poor 
 Johnston, wholly unconscious of the politics of 
 the day, wrote to his old general, to see whether 
 he could not procure for him better ones from 
 his Majesty's ministers, recounting, in his let- 
 ter, his services and his wounds, and stating 
 that it was his intention, with the money which 
 he was desirous of raising, to emigrate to British 
 America. And prompt by return of post came 
 the duke's reply, written in the duke's own 
 hand. Never was there sounder advice more 
 briefly expressed. ** The Duke of Wellington," 
 said his Grace, "has received William John- 
 ston's letter, and he earnestly recommends him, 
 first, not to seek for a provision in the colonies 
 of North America, if he be not able-bodied and 
 in a situation to provide for himself in circum- 
 stances of extreme difficulty ; secondly, not to 
 sell or mortgage his pension. The Duke of Wel- 
 lington has no relation whatever with the king's 
 ministers. He recommends William Johnston 
 to apply to the adjutant-general of the army. 
 (London, March 7th, 1832.)" The old pensioner 
 did not take the duke's advice, for he did sell 
 his pension ; and though, in consequence of his 
 wounds, not very able-bodied, he did emigrate 
 to America, and, we fear, sufifered in conse- 
 quence ; but it was not the less true humanity 
 on the part of his Grace to counsel so promptly 
 and so wisely the poor humble soldier. But 
 alas ! his last advice has been given, and his last 
 account rendered; and it will be well for our 
 country should the sovereign never miss his 
 honoured voice at the council board, nor, to 
 borrow from ancient story, the soldier never 
 <* vehemently desire him in the day of battle." 
 
 G 
 
98 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 WILLIAM WOEDSWOETH. 
 
 [1770-1850.] 
 
 The life " of him that uttered nothing base," 
 •whose brows, in the language of his successor, 
 made greener the laureate's crown, presents 
 little of incident or adventure. It was a quiet 
 home-life, finding scope enough for its physical 
 and intellectual energies in walks amid the 
 mountains and the glens of its native Cumber- 
 land, in the contemplation of tree and flower, 
 purling brook and glassy lake, and in the com- 
 panionship of a devoted, intelligent sister, and 
 an attached and sensible wife — 
 
 "A creature not too bright or good 
 For human nature's daily food." 
 
 Of him, more than of most poets, it may be 
 said his poetry was his life ; his whole heart and 
 soul were in his verse, and no one reading that 
 carefully can fail to mistake his character. The 
 details of his life, as well as its general features, 
 are in his writings ; for, as Horace said of Luci- 
 lius, he confided all his secrets to his lyre — " to 
 it he communicated his feelings and his thoughts 
 on every occasion of interest, public and private." 
 His works are, in fact, a poetical autobiography,* 
 the dates of events alone being needed to render 
 it perfectly complete ; and in a few brief sen- 
 tences the poet himself supplied the early por- 
 tion of those dates, shortly before his death, to 
 his nephew, whom he desired to write such notice 
 of his life as should serve to illustrate his poems. 
 
 From his own short communication, and from 
 facts gleaned from other sources by his bio- 
 grapher, we learn that William Wordsworth, 
 the most distinguished metaphysical poet whom 
 the world has seen, and whose influence may be 
 said to have quite changed the character of the 
 poetical literature of his own country, was born 
 at Cockermouth in Cumberland, April 7, 1770. 
 On both sides he was descended from a good old 
 stock. In the curious little Yorkshire village 
 of Penistone, to which even the railway has 
 failed to carry life save on market-days, the 
 name of Wordsworth was familiar, probably be- 
 fore the era of William the Conqueror ; and a 
 name of note it was, too, if we might judge 
 from the frequency with which it appears in 
 the early annals of the parish. The subject of 
 this memoir himself possessed a carved almery, 
 made in 1525, at the expense of a William 
 Wordsworth; and this relic carried the family 
 pedigree four generations further back in the 
 world's history than the date of its carving. 
 His mother was daughter to one William Cook- 
 
 * This " poetical autobiography" may be read to a 
 certain extent in Lord Coleridge's remarks, which 
 follow. 
 
 son, a mercer in Penrith, whose wife, again, was 
 a Crackanthorp, whose family had resided at 
 Newbiggen Hall, in Westmoreland, since the 
 days of the third Edward. The father of the 
 poet was in a good position, being law-agent to 
 Sir James Lowther, who was afterwards Lord 
 Lonsdale. William Wordsworth was the second 
 son, and he had two brothers and a sister (the 
 last his close companion through life), younger 
 than himself. 
 
 The place of Wordsworth's birth was one well 
 calculated to arouse poetic feelings. The pic- 
 turesque streams of the Derwent and the Cocker 
 meet and mingle near the spot where the ruins 
 of the ancient castle frown down over the quaint 
 little town; and Wordsworth, though but a 
 mere child when he wandered along the banks 
 of the meandering river, or stood in the shadow 
 of the broken battlements, felt the inspiration 
 of the scene. As he has beautifully said : 
 
 " One, the fairest of all rivers, loved 
 To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song, 
 And from his fords and shallows sent a voice 
 That flowed along my dreams." 
 
 Wordsworth's mother died of consumption 
 before he had completed his eighth year. 
 
 " Early died 
 My honoured mother, she who was the heart 
 And hinge of all our learnings and our lovea. 
 She left us destitute." 
 
 And ere he had reached his fourteenth year, his 
 father, through the effects of a cold caught dur- 
 ing a night's exposure on the mountains, was 
 laid beside her in the grave. 
 
 One can scarcely realise that the calm, medi- 
 tative, gravely - philosophical bard of Rydal 
 Mount was a pert, froward, ill-tempered boy, 
 such as to give his wise and pious mother more 
 concern than all her other children. She was 
 sagacious enough to note that the boy had in 
 him the making of a remarkable man, and her 
 anxiety was as to whether his genius would un- 
 fold itself for good or for evil ; and she would 
 seem at times to have been almost afraid that 
 the latter would predominate. "The cause of 
 this," as Wordsworth informed his nephew, 
 " was that I was of a stiff, moody, and violent 
 temper ; so much so that I remember going 
 once into the attics of my grandfather's houso 
 at Penrith, upon some indignity having been 
 put upon me, with the intention of destroying 
 myself with one of the foils which I knew was 
 kept there. I took the foil in hand, but my 
 heart failed." It was lucky for the world that 
 the little rascal's physical nature did recoil from 
 the contact of the cold bright steel, that the 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 
 
 99 
 
 WMin life-blood rushed swift from the citadel of 
 the heart through all the avenues of the body, 
 protesting against the foul outrage and awful 
 crime which the rebellious spirit meditated. 
 What the poetry of this century would have 
 been without the Wordsworthian influence, 
 which, as the incident shows, was nearly ex- 
 tinguished in embryo, it is difficult to estimate 
 with anything like exactitude, but one thing is 
 quite certain, it would have been neither as 
 natural nor as healthy as it is. Of the poet's 
 passion for wanton iU-doing, when a boy, we 
 5iave another instance. " Upon another occa- 
 sion, while I was at my grandfather's house at 
 Penrith, along with my eldest brother Eichard, 
 we were whipping tops together in the large 
 drawing-room, on which the carpet was only 
 laid down on particular occasions. The walls 
 were hung round with family pictures, and I 
 said to my brother, ' Dare you strike your whip 
 through that old lady's petticoat ? ' He replied, 
 * No, I won't.' * Then,' said I, * here goes,' and 
 I struck my lash through her hooped petticoat, 
 for which, no doubt, I was properly punished. 
 But, possibly from some want of judgment in 
 punishments inflicted, I had become perverse 
 and obstinate in defying chastisement, and 
 rather proud of it than otherwise." And the 
 relics of this early ill-temper still remained after 
 age had silvered the brown locks o'er, and 
 would sometimes break out impetuously, and 
 at the most unfitting opportunities, through the 
 general philosophic calm of the poet's life. 
 While Wordsworth was yet alive, De Quincey, 
 with somewhat questionable taste, referred to 
 two occasions on which the poet's peevishness 
 and ill-humour to those of his own household 
 were made manifest even before strangers ; and 
 hints that if Mrs Wordsworth had not been 
 unusually sweet-tempered, the domestic hearth 
 at Kydal Mount would not have been without 
 unseemly bickerings. But De Quincey being 
 inclined to gossip, it is well to accept such state- 
 ments with caution. 
 
 Up to his mother's death, Wordsworth appears 
 to have spent his time partly at Cockermouth 
 and partly at Penrith, at which latter place his 
 maternal grandparents resided. Here he ap- 
 pears to have received the rudiments of educa- 
 tion in one of those very primitive institutions 
 which pass under the name of dame's schools, 
 the conductress of which appears to have been 
 a kind, homely sort of person, whose system of 
 instruction neither rose above nor sunk below 
 that of her class in general. 
 
 In his ninth year, Wordsworth was removed 
 to Hawkshead, on the borders of Lancashire, 
 where there was a good grammar-school of a 
 couple of centuries' standing. The foundation 
 did not provide for the lodgment of pupils in 
 the building, and the boys attending the school 
 were mostly lodged with "dames" in the vil- 
 lage. Wordsworth was fortunate in being placed 
 
 under the care of a most affectionate and 
 motherly person named Anne Tyson, whose 
 kind attentions he gratefully remembered and 
 commemorated in the ** Prelude." The super- 
 vision exercised over the boys out of school by 
 the masters at Hawkshead does not appear to 
 have been very strict, and the lads on many occa- 
 sions often followed their games of hunting, skat- 
 ing, rowing, etc., far on into the night. Such a 
 training, if not perhaps the best for making a 
 scholar, was certainly one well calculated tc 
 promote the nascent faculties of a poetic youth 
 And to such a one the scene was quite as con- 
 genial as Cockermouth. Hawkshead lies in the 
 peaceful Vale of Esthwaite, little more than a 
 quarter of a mile from the lake of that name, 
 upon which, in winter nights, the swift skates 
 of the schoolboys — Wordsworth's among the 
 swiftest of all — *' hissed along the polished ice 
 in games confederate," and not very far from 
 those of Windermere and Coniston. Though 
 comparatively tame in itself, Hawkshead was in 
 the centre of great natural attractions. " The 
 gorgeous scenery of Borrowdale, the austere sub- 
 limities of Wastdalehead, of Langdalehead or 
 Mardale — these are almost too oppressive in 
 their colossal proportions and their utter soli- 
 tudes for encouraging a perfectly human interest. 
 Now, taking Hawkshead as a centre, with a 
 radius of about eight miles, one might describe 
 a little circular tract which embosoms a perfect 
 network of little valleys, separate wards, or 
 cells, as it were, of one larger valley, walled in 
 by the great leading mountains of the region. 
 Grasmere, Easedale, Great and Little Langdale, 
 Tilberthwaite, Yewdale, Elter Water, Lough- 
 rigg Tarn, Skelwith, and many other quiet 
 nooks, lie within a single division of this laby- 
 rinthine district — all these are within one sum- 
 mer afternoon's ramble. And amongst these, 
 for the years of his boyhood, lay the daily ex- 
 cursions of Wordsworth." The impressions pro- 
 duced on Wordsworth by the scenery surround- 
 ing Hawkshead were never forgotten — they 
 remained in his memory for ever fresh as when 
 he beheld them, and in many a verse he presents 
 them with a natural truthfulness and force which 
 make the lonely student in his room feel as if 
 the mountain breeze were rippling in his hair, 
 as if the wavelets of the glassy lake were 
 dancing at his very feet, and before his eyes the 
 sunlight lying in broad bright streaks upon the 
 hill-sides. 
 
 At Hawkshead, Wordsworth appears to have 
 remained until about his eighteenth year, learn- 
 ing only comparatively little Latin and somewhat 
 less Greek; the works of Fielding, Swift, Cer- 
 vantes, Goldsmith, Pope, and Gray being greatly 
 more to his taste than dry school-books. In 
 1787 he was entered at St John's College, Cam- 
 bridge ; but during the four sessions he remained 
 at the university there he in no way distin- 
 guished himself, nor, indeed, sought to do so, Ma 
 
100 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 apathy being a source of great chagrin to his 
 uncles. Here, as at Hawkshead, he devoted 
 himself more assiduously to the poets than to 
 the schoolmen. His Cambridge residence had 
 little influence upon his poetry; it had, like 
 Cockermouth and Hawkshead, no pleasant 
 memories for him, being altogether too con- 
 strained an existence for such a genuine child of 
 nature as Wordsworth was. Instead of working 
 at the abstruse mathematics for which his oIitm 
 Tnater is famous, Wordsworth gave himself much 
 up to desultory reading, and to the study of 
 Italian. While yet at Hawkshead he had tried 
 his poetic wings in a memorial ode, which was 
 chiefly remarkable as a very good imitation of 
 Pope ; and now at Cambridge he began to look 
 upon himself as a poet, but of a different school 
 from that which the poet of Twickenham made 
 famous. And even at this time he had too pro- 
 found a sense of the dignity of the poet's calling 
 to condescend to write a complimentary poem 
 about one of the authorities of the college — thus 
 missing, much to his imcle's disgust, the chance 
 of distinguishing himself, and so of forwarding 
 his worldly prospects. 
 
 During the vacation of 1790, he visited France 
 with a Mr Jones, a fellow-collegian, and had all 
 his sympathies enlisted in favour of the Girond- 
 ist party of the French Revolution, then in its 
 full tide of progress. In the beginning of the 
 following year he took his degree, and after 
 spending a short time in London, he went over 
 to France, where he resided, partly at Blois, 
 Orleans, and Paris, for about thirteen months, 
 showing such active sympathy, and maintaining 
 such intimate relations with some of the lead- 
 ing Girondists, that it is not improbable his 
 career might have been cut short by the guillo- 
 tine, had he not been obliged to return to Eng- 
 land a little before King Louis suffered death. 
 
 During the next three years, Wordsworth 
 seems to have lived in a somewhat aimless fashion 
 among his friends in London and elsewhere, and 
 not very welcomely, as they were annoyed at 
 him making no effort to support himself either 
 by going into the Church or by qualifying him- 
 self for the bar. 
 
 In 1793 he published ''An Evening Walk" 
 and " Descriptive Sketches," which fell almost 
 still-born from the press, but there were a few 
 men who recognised the genius evinced in the 
 verses; among the rest, Samuel Taylor Cole- 
 ridge, who remarked concerning them, that 
 "seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an ori- 
 ginal poetical genius above the literary horizon 
 more evidently announced." 
 
 In 1795 a young gentleman named Calvert, 
 whose death-bed Wordsworth had attended, left 
 him £900 as a token of his admiration of Words- 
 worth's poetic talent, expressing a desire that 
 Wordsworth should devote himself entirely to 
 the muses. On this small sum Wordsworth 
 and his sister, who now became his constant 
 
 companion, and whose influence on his life and 
 poetry is incalculable, contrived to live for seven 
 years. When this sum was about exhausted, 
 Lord Lonsdale, whose predecessor had failed to 
 make good the just claims of £5000, which 
 Wordsworth's father had against the Lonsdale 
 estates at his death, paid the principal with in- 
 terest, which amounted to £8500, and this was 
 divided between the five children, and so the 
 poet was once more placed above the fear of 
 want, without having to labour. Wordsworth, 
 throughout his life, was singularly fortunate in 
 getting increase of wealth just at the very time 
 he was needing it. De Quincey, with much 
 quiet humour, relates some half-dozen instances 
 in which the poet, almost at the very moment 
 when more money became necessary, had it 
 placed within his reach. In 1795 Wordsworth 
 and his sister took a nice cottage near Crewkerne, 
 in Dorsetshire, in a beautiful and romantic 
 country, such as poets love; and in August 
 1797 they removed to Alfoxden, Nether Stowey, 
 Somersetshire, to be near Coleridge. During 
 his residence at the first-named place, Words- 
 worth wrote his "Salisbury Plain" and the 
 tragedy of the " Borderers ; " and at Alfoxden 
 he composed the " Lyrical Ballads," which were 
 brought out by the distinguished provincial 
 bookseller, Joseph Cottle of Bristol. Coleridge's 
 "Ancient Mariner" was published in the collec- 
 tion, which did not sell. The poets, however, 
 calmly conscious of their own powers, appear to 
 have been little affected by the inappreciation of 
 the public. In 1798-99, the two travelled to- 
 gether in Germany, and in the latter year Words- 
 worth settled down at Grasmere. This retreat 
 was still lovelier and more picturesque than any 
 he had yet settled at. " From the gorge of 
 Hammerscar, the whole vale of Grasmere sud- 
 denly breaks upon the view in a style of almost 
 theatrical surprise, with its lovely valley stretch- 
 ing before the eye in the distance, the lake lying 
 immediately below, with its solemn, ark-like 
 island of four and a half acres in size, seemingly 
 floating on its surface, and its exquisite outline 
 on the opposite shore revealing all its little 
 bays and wild sylvan margin, feathered to the 
 edge with wild flowers and ferns. In one quar- 
 ter, a little wood, stretching for about half-a- 
 mile towards the outlet of the lake; more 
 directly in opposition to the spectator, a few 
 green fields, and beyond them, just two bow- 
 shots from the water, a little white cottage 
 gleaming from the midst of trees, with a vast 
 and seemingly never-ending series of ascents, 
 rising above it to the height of more than 3000 
 feet. That little cottage was Wordsworth's 
 from the time of his marriage, and earlier — in 
 fact, from the beginning of the century to the year 
 1808." Afterwards it belonged to De Quincey. 
 In 1802 Wordsworth visited France, and on 
 his return married Mary Hutchinson, whom he 
 had known from childhood. 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 101 
 
 De Quincey thus describes Mrs Wordsworth 
 as he saw her on his first visit, in the winter of 
 1807-8 : 
 
 "A tallish young woman, with the most win- 
 ring expression of benignity upon her counte- 
 nance, advanced to me, presenting her hand with 
 so frank an air that all embarrassment must 
 have fled in a moment before the native good- 
 ness of her manner. This was Mrs Wordsworth, 
 cousin of the poet, and, for the last five years 
 or more, his wife. She was now mother of two 
 children, a son and a daughter ; and she furnished 
 a remarkable proof how possible it is for a woman 
 neither handsome nor even comely, according 
 to the rigour of criticism — nay, generally pro- 
 nounced very plain — to exercise all the practi- 
 cal fascination of beauty, through the mere 
 compensatory charms of sweetness all but an- 
 gelic, of simplicity the most entire, womanly 
 self-respect and purity of heart speaking through 
 all her looks, acts, and movements. Words, I 
 was going to have added — but her words were 
 few. In reality she talked so little, that Mr 
 Slave-Trade Clarkson used to allege against her, 
 that she could only say, ' God bless you ! ' 
 Certainly her intellect was not of an active 
 order ; but, in a quiescent, reposing, meditative 
 way, she appeared always to have a genial enjoy- 
 ment from her own thoughts." 
 
 Of Wordsworth himself the same author draws 
 the following likeness : 
 
 **He was, upon the whole, not a well-made 
 man. His legs were pointedly condemned by 
 all female connoisseurs in legs ; not that they 
 were bad in any way which would force itself 
 upon your notice ; there was no absolute defor- 
 mity about them ; and undoubtedly they had 
 been serviceable legs, beyond the average stand- 
 ard of human requisition ; for I calculate, upon 
 good data, that with these identical legs Words- 
 worth must have traversed a distance of 175,000 
 to 180,000 English miles — a mode of exertion 
 which, to him, stood in the stead of alcohol and 
 all other stimulants whatsoever to the animal 
 spirits. But useful as they have proved them- 
 selves, the Wordsworthian legs were certainly 
 101 ornamental ; and it was really a pity, as I 
 u^reed with a lady in thinking, that he had not 
 another pair for evening-dress parties — when no 
 boots lend their friendly aid to mask our imper- 
 fections from the eyes of female rigorists. A 
 sculptor would certainly have disapproved of 
 their contour. But the worst part of Words- 
 worth's person was the bust ; there was a 
 narrowness and a droop about the shoulders 
 which became striking, and had an effect of 
 meanness when brought into close juxtaposition 
 with a figure of a more statuesque build. And 
 yet Wordsworth was of a good height (five feet 
 ten), and not a slender man ; on the contrary, 
 by the side of Southey, his limbs looked thick 
 almost in a disproportionate degree. But the 
 total eflfect of Wordsworth's person was always 
 
 worst in a state of motion. Meantime, his face 
 — that was one which would have made amends 
 for greater defects of figure. Many such, and 
 finer, I have seen among the portraits of Titian, 
 and, in a later period, amongst those of Vandyke, 
 from the great era of Charles L, as also from 
 the court of Elizabeth and of Charles II., but 
 none which has more impressed me in my own 
 time. Wordsworth's forehead — the real living 
 forehead, as I have been in the habit of seeing 
 it for more than five-and-twenty years, is not re- 
 markable for its height, but it is perhaps remark- 
 able for its breadth and expansive development. 
 Neither are the eyes of Wordsworth 'large,' as 
 is erroneously stated somewhere in ' Peter's 
 Letters;* on the contrary, they are (I think) 
 rather small ; but that does not interfere with 
 their effect, which at times is fine, and suitable 
 to his intellectual character. His eyes are not, 
 under any circumstances, bright, lustrous, or 
 piercing ; but after a long day's toil in walking, 
 I have seen them assume an appearance the 
 most solemn and spiritual that it is possible for 
 the human eye to wear. The light which resides 
 in them is at no time a superficial light ; but, 
 under favourable accidents, it is a light which 
 seems to come from unfathomed depths ; in fact, 
 it is more truly entitled to be held * the light 
 that never was on sea or shore,' a light radiating 
 from some far spiritual world, than any, the 
 most idealising, that ever yet a painter's hand 
 created. The nose a little arched and large, 
 which has always been accounted an unequivo- 
 cal expression of animal appetites organically 
 strong. And that expressed the simple truth ; 
 Wordsworth's intellectual passions were fervent 
 and strong ; but they rested upon a basis of 
 preternatural animal sensibility, diffused through 
 all the animal passions or appetites ; and some- 
 thing of that will be found to hold of all poets 
 who have been great by original force and power. 
 The mouth and the whole circumjacencies of the 
 mouth composed the strongest feature in Words- 
 worth's face ; there was nothing specially to be 
 noticed that I know of in the mere outline of the 
 lips ; but the swell and protrusion of the parts 
 above and around the mouth are both noticeable 
 in themselves, and also because they remind me 
 (De Quincey) of a portrait of Milton, whose 
 excellence was attested by the blind bard's 
 daughter." 
 
 Wordsworth was so like Milton in personal 
 appearance that De Quincey, in another place, 
 says that Eichardson's head of the great author 
 of "Paradise Lost" " presented not only by far 
 the best likeness of Wordsworth, but of Words- 
 worth in the prime of his powers. . . . Not 
 one member of that (the Wordsworthian) family 
 but was as much impressed as myself with the 
 accuracy of the likeness. All the peculiarities 
 even were retained — a drooping appearance of 
 the eyelids, that remarkable swell which I have 
 noticed about the mouth, the way in which the 
 
102 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 hair lay upon the forehead. In two points only 
 there was a deviation from the rigorous truth of 
 Wordsworth's features— the face was a little too 
 short and too broad, and the eyes were too 
 large." 
 
 By his wife Wordsworth had five children 
 —John, born in 1803; Dora, 1804; Thomas, 
 1806; Catherine, 1808; and William, 1810. 
 Thomas and Catherine died when they were 
 children, and his beloved daughter Dora died in 
 1847. 
 
 In 1808 Wordsworth removed to Allan Bank, 
 a house within the same district as the one he 
 left ; and in 1813 he changed to Eydal Mount, 
 still in the region of his beloved lakes and hills, 
 where he remained until the day of his death. 
 From the time of his marriage to his taking up 
 house as Rydal Mount, he had to fight his 
 hardest battle with the critics ; the most power- 
 ful of whom, perhaps, was Jeffrey, in the Edin- 
 huTgh Review. But the heavy hitting of the 
 reviewer and the clever ridicule of the brothers 
 Smith were in the end forced to give way to the 
 earnestness, the truth, beauty, and force of the 
 teachings and the descriptions of the despised 
 "Lakers," of whom Wordsworth was the chief. 
 All men of taste and ability in the end grew 
 ashamed of laughing at that which they could 
 not but acknowledge bore the impress and 
 breathed the spirit of nature, and freeing them- 
 selves by degrees from the chains of the artificial- 
 Ism in'which the genius of Pope had fettered them, 
 at last stood confessed admirers and advocates 
 of the new school of poetry. There was, how- 
 ever, at least one critic who recognised from the 
 first the excellence of the Wordsworthian verse, 
 and who was not slow to express his opinion — 
 that critic was the late Professor John Wilson 
 (Christopher North). 
 
 In one of his later essays, when Wordsworth — 
 thanks in no small measure to Wilson — was be- 
 ginning to grow famous, the latter thus writes 
 of him : "We believe that Wordsworth's genius 
 has now a greater influence on the spirit of 
 poetry in Britain than was ever exercised by 
 any individual mind. He was the first man 
 who impregnated all his descriptions of external 
 nature with sentiment and passion. In this he 
 has been followed — often successfully — by two 
 poets. He was the first man that vindicated the 
 native dignity of human nature, by showing 
 that all her elementary feelings were capable of 
 poetry — and in that, too, he has been followed 
 by other true poets, although here he stands, 
 and probably ever will stand, unapproached. He 
 was the first man that stripped thought and 
 passion of all vain or foolish disguises, and 
 showed them in their just proportions and 
 unencumbered power. He was the first man 
 who, in poetry, knew the real province of 
 language, and suffered it not to veil the mean- 
 ings of the spirit. In all these things — and in 
 many more— Wordsworth is indisputably the 
 
 most original poet of the age ; and it is impos* 
 sible in the very nature of things that he ever 
 can be eclipsed." 
 
 In 1800 a second edition of the "Lyrical 
 Ballads," with numerous additions, was pub- 
 lished in two volumes ; and editions of the same 
 work were also issued in 1802 and 1805. Two 
 years after the last-mentioned date, he published 
 "Poems" in two volumes; and in 1809, an 
 "Essay on the Convention of Cintra." Mean- 
 while he was labouring industriously upon that 
 great philosophical poem which was never fin- 
 ished, but of which the "Prelude" and the 
 "Excursion" are magnificent fragments. The 
 latter appeared in 1814, but not until after his 
 death was the "Prelude" given to the world, 
 though it is understood that it was completed as 
 early as 1805. Of works published subsequently 
 to the "Excursion," 1815, may be mentioned 
 the "White Doe of Rylstone," "Laodamia," 
 "Dion," "OdetoLycoris," etc., 1814, 1816, and 
 1817, respectively; "Peter Bell," "The Wag- 
 goner," "Sonnets on the River Duddon," all 
 about 1819; and "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," and 
 "Yarrow Revisited," later. 
 
 The whole of his poems were afterwards 
 classified and published in six volumes by the 
 author, as poems referring to the period of child- 
 hood, poems founded on the affections, poems 
 of the fancy, poems of the imagination, etc. 
 On the death of Southey, in 1843, the Lord 
 Chamberlain wrote to Wordsworth informing 
 him that he had recommended the Queen to 
 appoint him (Wordsworth) as successor to his 
 late friend, and that her Majesty had approved 
 the recommendation. Wordsworth, however, 
 declined the high honour on the ground that it 
 entailed duties too onerous for one of his advanced 
 age. In two days after, the Lord Chamberlain 
 wrote again, pressing the appointment upon 
 him, and he was backed up by a letter from Sir 
 Robert Peel, then Prime Minister, who remarked : 
 " The offer was made to you by the Lord Cham- 
 berlain with my entire concurrence, not for the 
 purpose of imposing on you any onerous or dis- 
 agreeable duties, but in order to pay you that 
 tribute of respect which is justly due to the first 
 of living poets. The Queen entirely approved 
 of the nomination, and there is a unanimous 
 feeling on the part of all who have heard of the 
 proposal (and it is pretty generally known), 
 that there could not be a question about the 
 selection. Do not be deterred by the fear of 
 any obligations which the appointment may be 
 supposed to imply. I will undertake that you 
 shall have nothing required from you." It was, 
 of course, impossible to resist such flattering 
 appeals, and Wordsworth accepted the bays, 
 with the pension of £300 a year which came 
 along with them. It was well, however, that he 
 had accepted the laureate's crown on the condi- 
 tion that he was to be exempted from the 
 responsibilities it had formerly entailed, as he. 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 
 
 103 
 
 seldom, almost never, struck the lyre after the 
 honour was conferred upon him. 
 
 He died on the 23d of April 1850, from the 
 effects of a cold caught on the 10th of March — 
 "passing away almost insensibly, exactly at 
 twelve o'clock, while the cuckoo clock was 
 striking the hour." Coleridge, in his "Bio- 
 graphia Literaria," has given an estimate of his 
 poetical character, which, as applying to the 
 mass of his poems, is so just and true, as well 
 as so felicitously expressed, that we prefer 
 transcribing it, as a finish to this necessarily 
 brief sketch, to making any remarks of our 
 own: 
 
 *' First, an austere purity of language, both 
 grammatically and logically ; in short, a perfect 
 appropriateness of the words to the meaning. 
 Secondly, a correspondent weight and sanity of 
 the thoughts and sentiments, won, not from 
 books, but from the poet's own meditations. 
 They are fresh, and have the dew upon them. 
 Even throughout his smaller poems, there is not 
 one which is not rendered valuable by some just 
 and original reflection. Thirdly, the sinewy 
 strength and originality of single lines and para- 
 graphs; the frequent curiosa felicitas of his 
 diction. Fourthly, the perfect truth of nature 
 in his images and descriptions, as taken immedi- 
 ately from nature, and proving a long and 
 genial intimacy with the very spirit which gives 
 a physiognomic expression to all the works of 
 nature. Fifthly, a meditative pathos — a union 
 of deep and subtle thought with sensibility; a 
 sympathy with man as man ; the sympathy in- 
 deed of a contemplator rather than a fellow- 
 suflFerer and co-mate {spectator, haud particejps), 
 but of a contemplation from whose view no 
 difference of rank conceals the sameness of the 
 nature ; no injuries of wind, or weather, or toil, 
 or even of ignorance, wholly disguise the human 
 face divine. Last, and pre-eminently, I chal- 
 lenge for the poet the gift of imagination in the 
 highest sense of the word. In the play of fancy, 
 Wordsworth, to my feelings, is always graceful 
 and recondite. The likeness is occasionally too 
 strange, or demands too peculiar a point of view, 
 or is such as appears the creature of predeter- 
 mined research, rather than spontaneous pre- 
 sentation. Indeed, his fancy seldom displays 
 itself as mere unmodified fancy. But in imagin- 
 ative power he stands nearest of all modern 
 writers to Shakespeare and Milton, and yet in a 
 mind perfectly unborrowed, and his own. To 
 employ his own words, which are at once an 
 instance and an illustration, he does indeed, to 
 all thoughts and to all objects, 
 
 'Add the gleam, 
 The light that never was on sea or land, 
 The consecration and the poet's dream,'** 
 
 DOROTHY WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Wordsworth's only sister, Dorothy, whose life 
 
 was so helpful in every sense to her poet 
 brother, was born on Christmas Day, 1771. 
 At her father's death she was brought up by 
 her mother's cousin, Miss Threlkeld, who lived 
 in Halifax. While her brother William was at 
 school, and from the date of her removal from 
 home, she must have met him but seldom. 
 While he was travelling in Switzerland, North 
 Italy, and France, Dora lived much with her 
 uncle, Dr Cookson, a canon of Windsor. Ee- 
 turning from the Continent, his spirit fired and 
 absorbed with the French Revolution, and with 
 no definite aim in life, Wordsworth, in 1794, 
 called on his sister at Halifax. They travelled 
 together from Kendal to Grasmere, and from 
 Grasmere to Keswick. The legacy of £900 left 
 to him by Raisley Calvert, came early in 1795. 
 Remarking on this afterwards, he said : ** Upon 
 the interest of the £900, £400 being laid out in 
 annuity, with £200 deducted from the principal, 
 and £100 a legacy to my sister, and £100 more 
 which the ' Lyrical Ballads ' have brought me, 
 my sister and I have contrived to live seven years, 
 nearly eight." Thus, as J, C. Shairp remarks, 
 when his mind was unsettled by the French 
 Revolution, "a good Providence brought his 
 sister to his side and saved him. She discerned 
 his real need, and divined the remedy. By her 
 cheerful society, fine tact, and vivid love for 
 nature, she turned him, depressed and bewild- 
 ered, alike from the abstract speculations and 
 the contemporary politics in which he had got 
 immersed, and directed his thoughts towards 
 the truth of poetry, and the face of nature, and 
 the healing that for him lay in these." 
 
 "Then it was 
 That the beloved sister in whose sight 
 Those days were passed — 
 Maintained for me a saving intercourse 
 With my true self ; for though bedimmed and 
 
 changed 
 Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed 
 Than as a clouded or a waning moon : 
 She whispered still that brightness would return, 
 She, in the midst of all, preserved me still 
 A poet, made me seek beneath that name. 
 And that alone, my office upon earth." 
 
 In the autumn of 1795 they settled down at 
 Racedown Lodge, Dorsetshire, and the poet set 
 his mind steadily on composition. Coleridge 
 paid them a visit after they had been two years 
 settled in this new home. He describes Miss 
 Wordsworth thus : " She is a woman indeed, in 
 mind, I mean, and in heart; for her person is 
 such that if you expected to see a pretty woman, 
 you would think her ordinary ; if you expected 
 to see an ordinary woman, you would think her 
 pretty ; but her manners are simple, ardent, im- 
 pressive. In every motion her innocent soul out- 
 beams so brightly, that those who saw her would 
 say, * Guilt was a thing impossible with her.' 
 Her information various, her eye watchful in 
 minutest observation of nature, and her taste a 
 
104 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 perfect electrometer." Removing from Race- 
 down, they settled at Alfoxden, near Nether 
 Stowey, in Somersetshire. Here the two poets 
 wandered with one another, and with Dora: 
 both received the stimulus and inspiration which 
 was necessary to each. The " Rhyme of the 
 Ancient Mariner" and " Christabel" were com- 
 posed by Coleridge at this time ; and here also 
 Wordsworth gave forth some of his finest lyrics : 
 "We are Seven," "Simon Lee," "Expostula- 
 tion and Reply," " The Tables Turned," " It is 
 the first mild day in March," etc. Hazlitt, who 
 visited the poets at Alfoxden at this time, has 
 left the following on record. Although the 
 name of Dorothy Wordsworth is only mentioned 
 once, it affords a very vivid picture of their 
 manner of life and their surroundings. 
 
 "The country about Nether Stowey is beau- 
 tiful, green and hilly, and near the sea-shore. 
 I saw it but the other day, after an interval of 
 twenty years, from a hill near Taunton. How 
 was the map of my life spread out before me, as 
 the map of the country lay at my feet I In the 
 afternoon Coleridge took me over to Alfoxden, 
 a romantic old family mansion of the St Aubins, 
 where Wordsworth lived. It was then in the 
 possession of a friend of the poet's, who gave 
 him the free use of it. Somehow, that period 
 (the time just after the French Revolution) was 
 not a time when nothing was given for nothing. 
 The mind opened, and a softness might be per- 
 ceived coming over the heart of individuals, 
 beneath * the scales that fence ' our self-interest. 
 Wordsworth himself was from home, but his 
 sister kept house, and set before us a frugal 
 repast ; and we had free access to her brother's 
 poems, the ' Lyrical Ballads,' which were still 
 in manuscript, or in the form of *Sybilline 
 Leaves.' I dipped into a few of these with 
 great satisfaction, and with the faith of a novice. 
 I slept that night in an old room with blue 
 hangings, and covered with the round-faced 
 family portraits of the age of Georges I. and 
 11. , and from the wooded declivity of the ad- 
 joining park that overlooked my window, at 
 the dawn of day, could 
 
 ' hear the loud stag speak.' 
 
 ** . , . That morning, as soon as breakfast 
 was over, we strolled out into the park, and seat- 
 ing ourselves on the trunk of an old ash-tree that 
 stretched along the ground, Coleridge read aloud 
 with a sonorous and musical voice, the ballad of 
 * Betty Foy.' I was not critically or sceptically 
 inclined. I saw touches of truth and nature, 
 and took the rest for granted. But in the 
 'Thorn,' the 'Mad Mother,' and the 'Com- 
 plaint of a Poor Indian Woman,' I felt that 
 deeper power and pathos which have been since 
 acknowledged, 
 
 * In spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,' 
 
 as the characteristics of this author; and the 
 
 sense of a new style and a new spirit in poetry 
 came over me. It had to me something of the 
 effect that arises from the turning up of the fresh 
 soil, or of the first welcome breath of spring : 
 
 * While yet the trembling year is unconfirmed.' 
 
 Coleridge and myself walked back to Stowey 
 that evening, and his voice sounded high 
 
 * Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate. 
 Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,' 
 
 as we passed through echoing grove, by fairy 
 stream or waterfall, gleaming in the summer 
 moonlight ! He lamented that Wordsworth was 
 not prone enough to believe in the traditional 
 superstitions of the place, and that there was a 
 something corporeal, a matter - of -factnesSf a 
 clinging to the palpable, or often to the petty, 
 in his poetry, in consequence. His genius was 
 not a spirit that descended to him through the 
 air ; it sprung out of the ground like a flower, 
 or unfolded itself from a green spray, on which 
 the goldfinch sang. He said, however (if I re- 
 member right), that this objection must be con- 
 fined to his descriptive pieces, that his philo- 
 sophic poetry had a grand and comprehensive 
 spirit in it, so that his soul seemed to inhabit 
 the universe like a palace, and to discover truth 
 by intuition rather than by deduction. The 
 next day Wordsworth arrived from Bristol at 
 Coleridge's cottage. I think I see him now. He 
 answered in some degree to his friend's description 
 of him, but was more gaunt and Don Quixote-like. 
 He was quaintly dressed (according to the cos- 
 tume of that unconstrained period) in a brown 
 fustian jacket and striped pantaloons. There 
 was something of a roll, a lounge in his gait, not 
 unlike his own Peter Bell. There was a severe, 
 worn pressure of thought about his temples, a 
 fire in his eye (as if he saw something in objects 
 more than the outward appearance), an intense, 
 high, narrow forehead, a Roman nose, cheeks 
 furrowed by strong purpose and feeling, and a 
 convulsive inclination to laughter about the 
 mouth, a good deal at variance with the solemn, 
 stately expression of the rest of his face. Chant- 
 rey's bust wants the marking traits ; but he was 
 teased into making it regular and heavy. Hay- 
 don's head of him, introduced into the "Entrance 
 of Christ into Jerusalem," is the most like his 
 drooping weight of thought and expression. He 
 sat down and talked very naturally and freely, 
 with a mixture of clear, gushing accents in his 
 voice, a deep guttural intonation, and a strong 
 tincture of the northern hurr, like the crust on 
 wine. He instantly began to make havoc of the 
 half of a Cheshire cheese on the table, and said, 
 triumphantly, that "his marriage with experi- 
 ence had not been so productive as Mr Southey's 
 in teaching him a knowledge of the good things 
 of this life." He had been to see the "Castle 
 Spectre " by Monk Lewis, while at Bristol, and 
 described it very well. He said "it fitted the 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 105 
 
 taste of the audience like a glove." This ad 
 captandum merit was, however, by no means a 
 recommendation of it, according to the severe 
 principles of the new school, which reject rather 
 than court popular effect. Wordsworth, looking 
 out of the low, latticed window, said, " How 
 beautifully the sun sets on that yellow bank ! " 
 I thought within myself, " With what eyes 
 these poets see nature ! " and ever after, when I 
 saw the sunset stream upon the objects facing 
 it, conceived I had made a discovery, or thanked 
 Mr Wordsworth for having made one for me ! 
 We went over to Alfoxden again the day 
 following, and Wordsworth read us the story of 
 *' Peter Bell " in the open air; and the comment 
 up.^n it by his face and voice was very different 
 from that of some later critics ! Whatever might 
 "be thought of the poem, "his face was as a book 
 "whure men might read strange matters," and he 
 announced the fate of his hero in prophetic 
 tones. There is a chant in the recitation both 
 ■of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a 
 £pell upon the hearer, and disarms the judgment. 
 Perhaps they have deceived themselves by mak- 
 ing habitual use of this ambiguous accompani- 
 ment. Coleridge's manner is more full, ani- 
 mated, and varied ; Wordsworth's more equable, 
 sustained, and internal. The one might be 
 termed more dramatic, the other more lyrical. 
 Coleridge has told me that he himself liked to 
 compose in walking over uneven ground, or 
 breaking through the straggling branches of a 
 <jopse-wood ; whereas Wordsworth always wrote 
 {if he could) walking up and down a straight 
 gravel walk, or in some spot where the con- 
 tinuity of his verse met with no collateral inter- 
 ruption. 
 
 Speaking of the power and refreshment of his 
 sister's ministry at this time, Wordsworth says : 
 
 '* She gave me eyes, she gave me ears, 
 And humble cares and delicate fears ; 
 A heart, the fountain of sweet tears, 
 And love and thought and joy." 
 
 The cold winter of 1798 was spent in Germany. 
 Eeturning to England in the spring, after a time 
 spent with friends at Stockton-upon-Tees, they 
 settled down in a small two-story house at the 
 Townend of Grasmere. This was their home for 
 eight years; their income being £100 a year, 
 necessitated economy ; Dorothy doing the house- 
 hold work, and also transcribing her brother's 
 poems, as he had no patience with this, the more 
 mechanical part of writing. Many of his poems 
 she anticipated with her own observant eye; 
 notably the "Daffodils," of which a good prose 
 version may be seen in her journal. Some of 
 Wordsworth's most characteristic poems were 
 written here between 1800 and 1807. Together 
 they made a tour to the Continent. In 1802 he 
 married Mary Hutchinson, his sister's friend. 
 Dorothy still continued in the house as before, 
 sharing in the household work, and in the 
 
 country walks, and reading and writing for him. 
 In 1803, after his first son was born, accompanied 
 by his sister and Coleridge, Wordsworth started 
 for a tour through Scotland. The journal kept 
 by Dorothy Wordsworth, entitled " Recollec- 
 tions of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803," was 
 published entire in 1874, with a biographical 
 preface by J. C. Shairp. It met with a very 
 favourable reception from the public. 
 
 De Quincey, who saw Miss Wordsworth in 
 1807, the year in which he made her brother's 
 acquaintance, speaks of her thus : 
 
 " * Her face was of Egyptian brown;' rarely, 
 in a woman of English birth, had I seen a more 
 determinate gipsy tan. Her eyes were not soft 
 as Mrs Wordsworth's, nor were they fierce or 
 bold; but they were wild and startling, and 
 hurried in their motion. Her manner was warm, 
 and even ardent ; her sensibility seemed consti- 
 tutionally deep, and some subtle fire of impas- 
 sioned intellect apparently burned within her, 
 which — being alternately pushed forward into a 
 conspicuous expression by the irresistible in- 
 stincts of her temperament, and then immedi- 
 ately checked in obedience to the decorum of 
 her sex and age and her maidenly condition — 
 gave to her whole demeanour, and to her conver- 
 sation, an air of embarrassment, and even of 
 self-conflict, that was almost distressing to wit- 
 ness. Even her very utterance and enunciation 
 often suffered in point of clearness and steadi- 
 ness, from the agitation of her excessive organic 
 sensibility. At times the self-counteraction and 
 self-baffling of her feelings caused her even to 
 stammer. But the greatest deductions from Miss 
 Wordsworth's attractions, and from the exceed- 
 ing interest which surrounded her, in right of 
 her character, of her history, and of the relation 
 which she fulfilled towards her brother, were the 
 glancing quickness of her motions, and other 
 circumstances in her deportment (such as her 
 stooping attitude when walking), which gave an 
 ungraceful character to her appearance when out 
 of doors. . . . 
 
 " Her knowledge of literature was irregular 
 and thoroughly unsystematic. She was content 
 to be ignorant of many things, but what she 
 knew, and had really mastered, lay where it 
 could not be disturbed— in the temple of her 
 own most fervid heart." 
 
 Some further removals took place ; to Allan 
 Bank in 1808, remaining there three years ; to 
 the parsonage of Grasmere in 1811, and finally 
 to Rydal Mount in 1813. The "Excursion," all 
 of which Miss Wordsworth had transcribed, 
 was published in 1814. In 1820 she accompanied 
 her brother and his wife to the Continent. In 
 1829 she was prostrated by a severe illness from 
 which she never fully recovered. * The unceas- 
 ing strain of years," says J. C. Shairp, " had at 
 last worn out that buoyant frame and fervid 
 spirit. She had given herself to one work, and 
 that work was done. To some it may seem a 
 
106 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 commonplace one, to live in and for her brother, 
 to do by him a sister's duty. With original 
 powers which, had she chosen to set up on her 
 own account, might have won for her high 
 literary fame, she was content to forget herself, 
 to merge all her gifts and all her interests in 
 those of her brother. She thus made him other 
 and higher than he could have been had he 
 stood alone, and enabled him to render better 
 service to the world than without her ministry 
 he could have done. With this she was well 
 content. It is sad to think that when the world 
 at last knew him for what he was, the great 
 original poet of this century, she who had helped 
 to make him so was almost past rejoicing in it. 
 It is said that during those latter years he never 
 spoke of her without his voice being sensibly 
 softened and saddened. The return of the day 
 when they two first came to Grasmere was to 
 him a solemn anniversary. But though so en- 
 feebled, she still lived on, and survived her 
 brother by nearly five years. Her death took 
 place at Rydal Mount in January 1855, at the 
 age of eighty-three. And now, beside her 
 brother and his wife and others of that house- 
 hold, she rests in the green Grasmere church- 
 yard, with the clear waters of Rotha murmuring 
 by." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 BY LORD COLERIDGE.* 
 
 I owe it, no doubt, to the fact of having had 
 the honour to represent Exeter in Parliament 
 for some years, that I have been requested to 
 appear before you to-night in the capacity of 
 lecturer. It has in consequence cost me no 
 small trouble to consider and determine what 
 subject I should choose for my discourse. I 
 wished to choose some subject which, at any 
 rate, could do no harm, and of which I am not 
 wholly ignorant ; but I have found the task of 
 selection by no means easy. Innocent subjects 
 indeed abound ; but the knowledge of them 
 possessed by a man immersed in business and 
 wholly occupied with the labours of public life, 
 is not equally abundant. Men, no doubt, habitu- 
 ally lecture upon subjects of which they know 
 nothing and understand nothing, and as to 
 which I should think, if they have common 
 modesty, they must be very conscious of their 
 ignorance. These examples are certainly at 
 once amusing and amazing ; but I do not desire 
 that astonishment should tempt me into imita- 
 tion. What I am about to lay before you, if 
 not new, shall, I hope, be true ; if familiar, it 
 is, I think, important ; and it does not always 
 follow, that what is true and familiar is so 
 practically accepted and acted on as to make 
 insistence on it needless. 
 
 I suppose that the majority of you whom I 
 
 * A lecture delivered before the Literary Society of 
 Exeter, in April 1873, by Lord Coleridge, and here 
 reprinted with the author's kind permission. 
 
 address are engaged in some business or profes- 
 sion ; that you have to work in some way or 
 another; that you cannot treat life as a mere 
 enjoyment, nor do always what you please or 
 what you fancy ; that you have toil and struggle 
 and labour, and dull duty, perhaps repulsive, 
 at least uninteresting, out of which your life is 
 for the most part made, and on which in large 
 measure your days, perhaps your nights, are 
 spent. If this be so, in this at least you and I 
 are at one ; I wish therefore to suggest to you 
 the true practical value, to such as we are, of 
 great imaginative and poetical compositions ; 
 and as an example of such compositions I will 
 take the works of the poet I know best next to 
 Shakespeare, the works of William Wordsworth, 
 and urge upon you their reverent study. I am 
 speaking only as a man of business to men of 
 business. The really great and profound men 
 of letters I pass by with true respect. They 
 have their own noble work to do, and many of 
 them do it nobly. The smart critics who settle 
 a reputation with a sneer and dismiss a great 
 author in a parenthesis, they too do their work 
 which is not noble, and to their work I leave 
 them. Let us see whether for you and for me 
 there be not sound and sensible reasons in sup- 
 port of the opinion I have advanced. 
 
 I am not sure but that in selecting such a 
 subject for my address to you to-night I have 
 been influenced in some degree by a certain per- 
 versity. For I have seen the love of Words- 
 worth imputed almost as a discredit and a dis- 
 qualification for the holding of high legal office ; 
 and the fact that the Lord Chancellor quoted 
 him at a legal dinner, suggested by the conversa- 
 tion which he had had upon the subject during 
 dinner with the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 and myself, seems to have struck some public 
 writers as incongruous, not to say as indicating 
 a certain weakness and effeminacy of mind. 
 Well, I admit to having a perverse satisfaction 
 in taking a natural opportunity of proclaiming 
 my utter and peremptory dissent from any such 
 notions. But I have a better and weightier 
 motive for addressing you, which is this. The 
 study of Wordsworth has been to me from my 
 childhood so great a comfort and delight; it 
 has, so far as I can judge, been of such real and 
 abiding use to me, that it is a plain duty of 
 gratitude to say so openly on all fitting occa- 
 sions, and to endeavour if I can to lead others 
 to enjoy what I have found so delightful, and 
 to benefit by that which I have found so profit- 
 able. 
 
 Wordsworth, it is true, is probably now, by 
 most cultivated and intellectual men, admitted 
 to be a great and original writer ; a writer whose 
 compositions it is right to be acquainted with 
 as a part of literary history and literary educa- 
 tion. Few men would now venture to deny 
 him genius or to treat his poetry with contempt. 
 No one probably would dare to echo or even to 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 107 
 
 defend the ribald abuse of \hQ Edinburgh Review. 
 But he is not generally appreciated : even now 
 he is far too little read ; and, as I think, for the 
 idlest and weakest of all reasons. He suffers 
 still from the impression produced by attacks 
 made upon him by men who, I should suppose, 
 if they had tried, were incapable of feeling his 
 beauty and his grandeur, but who seem to me 
 never to have had the common honesty to try. 
 Fastening upon a few obvious defects, seizing 
 upon a few poems (poems admitting of complete 
 defence, and, viewed rightly, full of beauty, yet 
 capable no doubt of being presented in a ridicu- 
 lous aspect), the critics of the Edinburgh Review 
 poured out on Wordsworth abuse, invective, 
 malignant personality, which deterred the unre- 
 flecting mass of men from reading for themselves 
 and finding out, as they must have found out, 
 the worthlessness of the criticism. They de- 
 stroyed his popularity and blighted his reputa- 
 tion, though they have had no power whatever 
 over his fame. Lord Jeffrey was the chief 
 offender in this matter. I do not pretend to 
 ;^udge of his merits as a lawyer or a politician. 
 As Lord Advocate and Lord of Session, he may, 
 for what I know, have been more than respect- 
 able. As a man he had warm friends ; and I 
 do not doubt that he deserved to have them. 
 But his collected essays show him to have been 
 as poor, as shallow, as mistaken a critic as ever 
 succeeded in obtaining a temporary and facti- 
 tious reputation. If you look through his essays 
 you will find scarcely an original judgment of 
 his which has stood the test of time. Even in 
 the instances of Lord Byron and Sir Walter 
 Scott, the universal favourites, whom Lord Jef- 
 frey in common with everybody else praised 
 and honoured, it is very seldom right praise or 
 for right reasons which you will find bestowed 
 on them by him. 
 
 That such a man could not measure the great- 
 ness of Wordsworth, and was incapable of feel- 
 ing the perfection of his art ; that he should 
 have found him dull, and trifling, and prosaic, 
 and a poor artist, is not at all astonishing. To 
 him originality in poetry was as colour to a 
 blind man. That he should have pursued with 
 bitter personal vituperation so pure and noble 
 and high-minded a man as Wordsworth is un- 
 pleasant to remember. But that such criticism 
 as his (except that he was always clear, intelli- 
 gible, and decided) should have been able to pro- 
 duce the effect which followed it, is wonderful 
 indeed. ** Yarrow Unvisited" he calls "a tedi- 
 ous, affected performance;" of "Resolution 
 and Independence" he says, "We defy the 
 bitterest enemy of Mr Wordsworth to produce 
 anything at all parallel to this from any collec- 
 tion of English poetry, or even from the speci- 
 mens of his friend Mr Southey" (a sentence 
 which, in a very different sense from that which 
 Lord Jeffrey gave it, I should desire to adopt) ; 
 of the "Ode on Immortality," that "it is the 
 
 most illegible and unintelligible part of the 
 publication." There stood the beauty and 
 tenderness of "Yarrow Unvisited," the grandeur 
 and dignity of " Resolution and Independence," 
 the intense and profound imagination of the 
 "Ode on Immortality," to confute the critic. 
 Nay, Lord Jeffrey quoted noble passages at 
 length as subjects for sneer and for derision. 
 But the sentence of the critic either suspended 
 men's judgments or overbore them, and the 
 poems were unread. The power of the Edin 
 burgh Review of those days, written as it was 
 by a set of men of splendid and popular abili- 
 ties, was indeed prodigious. It stopped for 
 years the sale of Wordsworth's poems ; and 
 though he outlived its calumnies, and found at 
 length a general and reverent acceptance, yet 
 prejudices were created which impeded his 
 popularity; and even now the echoes of Lord 
 Jeffrey's mocking laughter fill the ears of many 
 men, and deafen them to the lovely and majestic 
 melody of Wordsworth's song. 
 
 It is against prejudices such as these, unworthy 
 and unfounded prejudices, that I protest. It is 
 not only, it is not chiefly, that they prevent the 
 formation of a sound literary judgment, though 
 this is something. It is that they stand between 
 working men, using that expression in the sense 
 I have explained, and a writer who might be of 
 such great use to them and such an abiding 
 comfort. I think Wordsworth, with the doubt- 
 ful exception of Chaucer, of whom I am ashamed 
 to say I do not know enough to form a judgment, 
 a name in our literature to which Shakespeare 
 and Milton are alone superior. But, right or 
 wrong, this is not the point on which I wish to 
 insist. What I do wish to insist on is, that for 
 busy men, men hard at work, men plunged up 
 to the throat in the labours of life, the study of 
 Wordsworth is as healthy, as refreshing, as in- 
 vigorating a study as literature can supply. 
 He is the poet to whom you and I may turn 
 with great and constant advantage. And I will 
 tell you why I say so. 
 
 First, the man himself, his life, his character, 
 whether as a man or as an artist, are subjects 
 for the study and imitation of every hard-work- 
 ing man. His life was pure and simple ; I might 
 almost say austere. With very narrow means 
 he set himself down to pursue his calling with a 
 single eye to do what he thought his duty, and 
 according to his convictions and to the best of 
 his abilities to benefit mankind. No money 
 difficulties, not even the pressure of almost pov- 
 erty, diverted him for an instant from his high 
 purpose, or bowed him at any time to an un- 
 worthy condescension. No mockery disturbed 
 his equanimity, no unpopularity shook his con- 
 fidence. He believed he had a work to do, and 
 he did it with all his might. " Make yourself, 
 my dear friend," he said to Lady Beaumont, 
 " as easy-hearted as myself with respect to these 
 poems. Trouble not yourself with their present 
 
108 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 reception; of what moment is that compared 
 with what, I trust, is their destiny ? To console 
 the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by 
 making the happy happier ; to teach the young 
 and the gracious of every age to see, to think, 
 and feel, and therefore to become more actively 
 and seriously virtuous — this is their office, which 
 T trust they will faithfully perform long after we 
 (that is, all that is mortal of us) are mouldered 
 in our graves. " Again he says : ' * Be assured that 
 the decision of these persons (i.e., 'the London 
 wits and witlings') has nothing to do with 
 the question; they are altogether incompetent 
 judges. . . . My ears are stone deaf to this 
 idle buzz, and my flesh as insensible as iron to 
 these petty stings ; and after what I have said I 
 am sure yours will be the same. I doubt not 
 that you will share with me an invincible confi- 
 dence that my writings (and among them these 
 little poems) will co-operate with the benign 
 tendencies in human nature and society, wher- 
 ever found ; and that they will in their degree 
 be efficacious in making men wiser, better, and 
 happier." Once more, he says to Sir George 
 Beaumont: "Let the poet first consult his own 
 heart as I have done, and leave the rest to pos- 
 terity — to, I hope, an improving posterity. I 
 have not written down to the level of superficial 
 observers and unthinking minds. Every great 
 poet is a teacher ; I wish either to be considered 
 as a teacher or nothing." And in a very fine 
 passage in his famous preface, speaking of the 
 imagination, he says: "And if bearing in mind 
 the many poets distinguished by this prime 
 quality, whose names I omit to mention, yet 
 justified by the recollection of the insults which 
 the ignorant, the incapable, and the presumptu- 
 ous have heaped upon these and my other 
 writings, I may be permitted to anticipate the 
 judgment of posterity upon myself, I shall 
 declare (censurable, I grant, if the notoriety of 
 the fact above stated does not justify me) that I 
 have given in these unfavourable times evidence 
 of exertions of this faculty upon its worthiest 
 objects; the external universe, the moral and 
 religious sentiments of man, his natural affec- 
 tions, and his acquired passions, which have the 
 same ennobling tendency as the productions of 
 men in this kind worthy to be holden in undy- 
 ing remembrance." In this spirit of noble self- 
 confidence he turned away from London, from 
 offers of lucrative employment, from the fascina- 
 tions of society, to which he was by no means 
 insensible, and spent his life amongst the moun- 
 tains of Westmoreland in the steady undeviating 
 pursuit of what he knew he could do best. 
 Competence, if not wealth, came to him in after- 
 years, but came unsought ; a great and genuine 
 popularity at length followed him, though he 
 had never followed it ; but these things did not 
 change in the smallest measure the simplicity 
 of his life, or disturb the repose of his character. 
 VirgUium vidi tanium. It was my privilege, 
 
 when I was yet a boy and he an old man, to 
 spend a month in constant intercourse with him; 
 and I have retained undying recollections of the 
 dignity and power which he bore about him, 
 and which were singularly impressive. But his 
 poems are the man, and what I saw, and I hope 
 profited by, you may see and profit by in the 
 books which he has left behind. 
 
 No man more than he, moreover, carried con- 
 science into his work. His style, his language, 
 were always the best he could produce, and his 
 works were laboured at and corrected with un- 
 compromising severity. Sometimes, it is true, 
 he in later years corrected into tameness the 
 grand conceptions of his youth ; but his principle 
 was high and right. " I yield to none," says 
 he, "in love for my art. I therefore labour at 
 it with reverence, affection, and industry. My 
 main endeavour as to style has been that my 
 poems should be written in pure intelligible 
 English." " Make what you do produce as 
 good as you can," is his comment on an answer 
 of Crabbe, that it was " not worth while " to take 
 the trouble to make his poems more correct in 
 point of English. 
 
 Furthermore, as far as literature is concerned, 
 he set himself to a great task, and he completely 
 accomplished it. He had Cowper certainly for 
 a forerunner, but from many causes the influ- 
 ence of Cowper was limited; and though he 
 preceded Wordsworth, yet Wordsworth han 
 done more to make Cowper appreciated than 
 Cowper did for him. Poetry he found, in spite 
 of Cowper and in spite of Graj", overlaid with 
 unreality and affectation, severed for a time from 
 the truth of nature, and become useless and 
 ineffective for purposes of refreshment and im- 
 provement. He set himself to bring Poetry 
 back to simplicity and truth ; he sent her once 
 more to nature for her images, and to the heart 
 of man for her thoughts; and created — as he 
 has said himself, every great poet must create — 
 the taste by which he was himself to be relished. 
 In the best sense he revolutionised the style of 
 English literature. Say what men will, very 
 few of his contemporaries were not — there is not 
 a great living writer who has not been — deeply 
 and permanently impressed by him. In Brown- 
 ing, in Tennyson, in Sir Henry Taylor, in 
 Matthew Arnold, you not only catch echoes of 
 Wordsworth from time to time; but in that 
 which at their best all have in common in their 
 simple, direct, energetic English, you feel the 
 influence in style which he left behind him. To 
 have done this, and to have set a great example 
 and given forth a teaching for which every one 
 must be the better, constitutes no common claim 
 on a people's gratitude. 
 
 But he has done this besides in noble works ; 
 in works which will never die, which are as 
 delightful and refreshing as they are wise and 
 good. I do not pretend, in a few hasty and de- 
 sultory remarks, to exhaust the subjects which 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 109 
 
 even my knowledge of him could supply. I will 
 take but a few of the lessons which he teaches, 
 and point out to you how he teaches them. I 
 hope that the beauty and the wisdom will speak 
 for themselves, and, if the great man is new to 
 you, will kindle in you a desire for a more ex- 
 tended knowledge of him. I do not pretend to 
 be your teacher, but I may not improperly, I 
 hope, tell you who has been mine. 
 
 First, he shows us, as no other man has done, 
 the glory, the beauty, the holiness of nature; 
 he spiritualises for us the outward world, and 
 that with no weak and sentimental but with a 
 thoroughly manly feeling. He always insists, it 
 has been well said, that nature gives gladness 
 to the glad and comfort to the sorrowful. It is 
 not only that his descriptions of nature are so 
 true and so fresh, that reading him after a hard 
 day's work is like walking out amongst the fields 
 and hills, but that he steeps them in an ideal 
 light that he sheds upon them 
 
 " the gleam — 
 The light that never was on sea or land, 
 The consecration and the poet's dream ; " 
 
 and that he makes us feel that wonderful con- 
 nection between nature and the soul of man, 
 which is indeed mysterious, but which those who 
 have felt it cannot deny ; and those who believe 
 that the same Almighty God created both will 
 not be inclined to doubt. 
 
 If I were to read to you all the passages, or 
 even many of them which make good this point, 
 I should keep you here till midnight. You need 
 not be afraid. I will trouble you but with two 
 or three. In " Hart Leap Well," for instance, 
 the story is that a knight had chased a stag a 
 whole day long, and the stag at last, with three 
 great leaps down a steep hill, fell down and died 
 on the brink of a spring of water. The knight 
 built a pleasure-house there, but at the date of 
 the poem it had fallen into ruin ; and the poet 
 sees the ruins and hears the story from an old 
 shepherd whom he finds upon the spot. And 
 thus the poem ends : 
 
 " The shepherd stopped, and that same story told 
 Which in my former rhyme I have rehearsed. 
 * A jolly place,' said he, ' in times of old ! 
 But something ails it now; the spot is curst. 
 
 " * You see there lifeless stumps of aspen wood — 
 Some say that they are beeches, others elms — 
 These were the bower ; and here a mansion stood, 
 The finest palace of a hundred realms ! 
 
 " ' The arbour does its own condition tell; 
 
 You see the stones, the fountain, and the stream : 
 But as to the great lodge ! you might as well 
 Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream. 
 
 " ♦ There's neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep, 
 "Will wet his lips within that cup of stone ; 
 And oftentimes, when all are fast asleep. 
 This water doth send forth a dolorous groan. 
 
 " * Some say that here a murder has been done, 
 And blood cries out for blood ; but, for my jjart, 
 
 I've guessed, when I've been sitting in the sun, 
 That it was all for that unhappy hart. 
 
 " ' Now, here is neither grass nor pleasant shade ; 
 The sun on drearier hollow never shone ; 
 So will it be, as I have often said, 
 Till trees, and stones, and fountain, all are gene.' 
 
 " Grey-headed shepherd, thou hast spoken well ; 
 Small difference lies between thy creed and mine: 
 This beast, not unobserved, by nature fell ; 
 His death was mourned by sympathy divine. 
 
 " The Being that is in the clouds and air. 
 
 That is in the green leaves among the groves, 
 Maintains a deep and reverential care 
 For the unoffending creatures whom He loves. 
 
 " The pleasvu-e-house is dust ;— behind, before, 
 This is no common waste, no common gloom ; 
 But nature, in due course of time, once more. 
 Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom. 
 
 " She leaves these objects to a slow decay. 
 
 That what we are, and have been, may be known; 
 But at the coming of the milder day, 
 These monuments shall all be overgrown. 
 
 " One lesson, shepherd, let us two divide, 
 
 Taught both by what she shows and what conceala ; 
 Never to blend our pleasure or our pride 
 With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." 
 
 Again, let me take the end of one of his very 
 finest lyrics, the ' ' Song at the Feast of Brougham 
 Castle." The harper of the Cliffords is repre- 
 sented as singing an exulting song on the re- 
 storation of good Lord Clifford, the Shepherd 
 Lord, as he was called, to the halls af his ances- 
 tors, in the time of Henry VII. The whole poem 
 is very noble, and it ends thus : 
 
 " Now another day is come, 
 Fitter hope, and nobler doom ; 
 He hath thrown aside his crook, 
 And hath buried deep his book ; 
 Armour rusting in his halls 
 On the blood of Clifford calls : 
 
 * Quell the Scot,' exclaims the lance ; 
 
 * Bear me to the heart of France,' 
 Is the longing of the shield- 
 Tell thy name, thou trembling field; 
 Field of death, where'er thou be, 
 Groan thou with our victory ! 
 Happy day, and mighty hour, 
 Wlien our shepherd, in his power. 
 Mailed and horsed, with lance and sworJ, 
 To his ancestors restored 
 
 Like a reappearing star, 
 
 Like a glory from afar. 
 
 First shall head the flock of war ! " 
 
 Then the great poet, like Timotheus in Dryden's 
 justly famous ode, "changed his hand and 
 checked his pride," and ends his poem in these 
 slow, tender elegiac stanzas : 
 
 "Alas ! the fervent harper did not know. 
 
 That for a tranquil soul the lay was framed. 
 Who, long compelled in humble wallcs to go. 
 Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed. 
 
110 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 " Love had he found in huts where poor men lie, 
 His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
 The silence that is in the starry sky, 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills," 
 
 Some of you may know the lines I next give 
 you from the poem on the "Wye, but if you do 
 you will forgive me for reminding you of them, 
 and for reminding others that they were pub- 
 lished in 1795, twenty-three years before the 
 publication of the later cantos of "Childe 
 Harold," which are so much indebted to this 
 and to other poems of that writer whom in his 
 baser moods Lord Byron used to affect to de- 
 spise : 
 
 " I have learned 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity. 
 Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 
 To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 "^Tiose dwelling is the light of setting suns. 
 And the round ocean and the living air. 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods. 
 And mountains ; and of all that we behold 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world. 
 Of eye and ear — both what they half create. 
 And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise, 
 In nature and the language of the sense, 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse. 
 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
 Of all my moral being." 
 
 One more passage I give you from one of his 
 less-known, though, I think, one of his greatest 
 poems, the " Prelude." It is a description of a 
 pass in the Alps : 
 
 ** The immeasurable height 
 Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, 
 Tlie stationary blasts of waterfalls. 
 And in the narrow rent at every turn 
 Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn. 
 The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky. 
 The rocks that muttered close upon our ears. 
 Black drizzhng crags that spake by the wayside, 
 As if a voice were in them, the sick sight 
 And giddy prospect of the raving stream, 
 The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens, 
 Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light — 
 Were all like workings of one mind, the features 
 Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree ; 
 Characters of the great Apocalypse, 
 The types and symbols of eternity. 
 Of first, and last, and midst, and without end." 
 
 Tn these passages the natural images are grand 
 and large, but it is his characteristic that he can 
 draw the noblest lessons from the humblest ob- 
 jects. *'To me," he says, "the meanest flower 
 that blows can give 
 
 " Thoqghts that do often lie too deep for tears." 
 
 Two passages I will give you to exhibit theue 
 characteristics. The first I take on purpose 
 from the much-laughed-at "Peter Bell : " 
 
 " He roved among the vales and streams, 
 In the greenwood and hollow dell ; 
 They were his dwellings night and day — 
 But nature ne'er could find the way 
 Into the heart of Peter Bell. 
 
 " In vain, through every changeful year, 
 Did nature lead him as before ; 
 A primrose by a river's brim 
 A yellow primrose was to him. 
 And it was nothing more. 
 
 " Small change it made in Peter's heart 
 To see his gentle panniered train 
 With more than vernal pleasure feeding 
 Where'er the tender grass was leading 
 Its earliest green along the lane. 
 
 " In vain, through water, earth, and air. 
 The soul of happy sound was spread, 
 Wlien Peter on some April morn. 
 Beneath the broom or budding thorn. 
 Made the warm earth his lazy bed. 
 
 *' At noon, when, by the forest's edge 
 He lay beneath the branches high. 
 
 The soft blue sky did never melt 
 
 Into his heart ; he never felt 
 The witchery of the soft blue sky ! 
 
 " On a fair prospect some have looked 
 And felt, as I have heard them say. 
 
 As if the moving time had been 
 
 A thing as steadfast as the scene 
 On which they gazed themselves away." 
 
 The last passages on this subject I give you ai6 
 from the " Prelude." Nothing can be simpler, 
 yet, unless I altogether deceive myself, few things 
 in literature nobler or greater, than these lines. 
 The first passage describes his coming home 
 with his brother from school to find his father 
 dying ; and in a few days his father died : 
 
 " There rose a crag, 
 Tliat, from the meeting point of two highways 
 Ascending, overlooked them both, far-stretched ; 
 Thither, uncertain on which road to fix 
 My expectation, thither I repaired, 
 Scout-like, and gained the summit ; 'twas a day 
 Tempestuous, dark, and wild, and on the grass 
 I sate, half sheltered by a naked wall ; 
 Upon my right hand crouched a single sheep, 
 Upon my left a blasted hawthorn stood ; 
 With those companions at my side, I watched. 
 Straining my eyes intensely as the mist 
 Gave intermitting prospect of the copse 
 And plain beneath. Ere we to school returned, 
 That dreary time — ere we had been ten days 
 Sojourners in my father's house — he died. 
 And I and my three brothers, orphans then. 
 Followed his body to the grave. The event, 
 With all the sorrow that it brought, appeared 
 A chastisement ; and when I called to mind 
 That day so lately past, when from the crag 
 I looked in such anxiety of hope ; 
 With trite reflections of morality, 
 Yet, in the deepest passion, I bowed low 
 To God, who thus corrected my desires ; 
 
WILLI A AI WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And afterwards the ^\'ind and sleety rain, 
 And all the business of the elements, 
 ITie single sheep, and the one blasted tree, 
 And the bleak music from that old stone wall. 
 The noise of wood and water, and the mist 
 That on the line of each of those two roads, 
 Advanced in such indisputable shapes ; 
 All these were kindred spectacles and sounds 
 To which I oft repaired, and thence would drink. 
 As at a fountain : and on winter nights, 
 Down to this very time, when storm and rain 
 Beat on my roof, or, haply, at noon-day, 
 While in a grove I walk, whose lofty trees, 
 Laden with summer's thickest foliage, rock, 
 In a strong wind, some working of the spirit, 
 Some inward agitations thence are brought, 
 Whate'er their office, whether to beguile 
 Thoughts over-busy in the course they took. 
 Or animate an hour of vacant ease." 
 
 Tlie last which I will add is in every way a 
 most characteristic passage. The incident is 
 the simplest possible, yet it is told with an 
 imaginative power and with a splendour of lan- 
 guage which invest it with a noble interest, and 
 the effect of the incident upon the heart and 
 mind of the boy is described as no one but 
 li/"ordsworth could describe it: 
 
 " One summer evening (led by her) I found 
 A little boat tied to a willow tree 
 Within a rocky cave, its usual home. 
 Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in 
 Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth 
 And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice 
 Of mountain echoes did my boat move on 
 Leaving behind her still, on either side, 
 Small circles glittering idly in the moon, 
 Until they melted all into one track 
 Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows. 
 Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point 
 With an unswerving line I fixed my view 
 Upon the simamit of a craggy ridge. 
 The horizon's utmost boundarj' ; far above 
 Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. 
 She was an elfin pinnace ; lustily 
 I dipped my oars into the silent lake, 
 And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat 
 Went heaving through the water Uke a swan ; 
 When, from behind that craggy steep till then 
 The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, 
 As if with voluntary power instinct 
 Upreared its head. I struck and struck again. 
 And growing still in stature the grim shape 
 Towered up between me and the stars, and still. 
 For so it seemed, with purpose of its own 
 wAjad measured motion Uke a living thing, 
 Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned. 
 And through the silent water stole my way 
 Back to the covert of the wUlow tree ; 
 There in her mooring-place I left my bark. 
 And through the meadows homeward went, in grave 
 And serious mood ; but after I had seen 
 That spectacle, for many days, my brain 
 Worked with a dim and undetermined sense 
 Of unknown modes of being ; o'er my thoughts 
 There hung a darkness, call it solitude 
 Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes 
 Remained, no pleasant images of trees. 
 Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields ; 
 But huge and mighty forms, that do not live 
 
 Like living men, moved slowly through the mind 
 By day, and were a trouble to my dreams." 
 
 I could multiply passages endlessly with de- 
 light to myself, but most likely with weariness 
 to you ; but I must pass on to other great char- 
 acteristics of Wordsworth's teaching. No man 
 has so steadily asserted the dignity of virtue, of 
 simplicity, of independence, wherever found, 
 and quite apart from all external ornaments. 
 He has chosen a pedlar for the chief character 
 of his largest poem, and invested him quite 
 naturally with a greatness of mind and char- 
 acter — fitting him to play the lofty part assigned 
 him in the "Excursion." In the poem called 
 "Resolution and Independence," the interest 
 turns upon the simple, steady resolution of an 
 old leech-gatherer, who pursues his trade in ex- 
 treme old age about the lonely moors, and the 
 strength and consolation which came to the poet 
 in a wayward melancholy mood from the sight 
 of this brave old man, and the thought of his 
 firmness and perseverance. The poem is full of 
 famous lines which most of us are familiar with : 
 
 " Motionless as a cloud the old man stood. 
 That heareth not the loud winds when they call: 
 And moveth all together, if it move at all." 
 
 Again : 
 
 " The fear that kills ; 
 And hope that is unwilling to be fed ; 
 Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills ; 
 And mighty poets in their misery dead." 
 
 " Chatterton, the marvellous boy. 
 The sleepless soul that perished in his pride ; " 
 
 and many more. And it ends with the fine 
 moral : 
 
 "And when he ended, 
 
 I could have laughed myself to scorn to find 
 
 In that decrepit man so firm a mind. 
 
 ' God,* said I, ' be my help and stay secure ; 
 
 I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor ! '" 
 
 " Well," said a friend of mine, a disbeliever 
 in Wordsworth, "there are very fine lines, no 
 doubt, in that poem; but think of any man 
 writing all that about a poor old leech-gatherer." 
 Yes, it is all about a poor old leech-gatherer ! 
 Because Wordsworth goes to the heart of things, 
 and not to their outsides, to the soul of man, 
 and not his body; and because a pauper, if 
 resolute and high-minded, is far more interesting 
 and admirable to him than a duke of twenty 
 descents who is nothing but a duke. Two of his 
 most beautiful and lofty poems are "Michael" 
 and "The Brothers;" indeed, if I were to select 
 a single poem which conveys in my judgment 
 the greatest feeling of Wordsworth's power^ I 
 should select "Michael." But in these, and in 
 the story of "Margaret," and in the series of 
 narratives in the books in the "Excursion," 
 entitled "The Churchyard among the Moun- 
 tains," the characters are aU of humble life; 
 the stories are the simplest ; and yet the moral 
 dignity — I might even, without extravagance. 
 
112 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 say the moral majesty— with which he invests 
 his characters, is as much without a parallel as 
 the absorbing interest and deep pathos which 
 his imagination clothing itself in the language 
 of moderation and reserve throws around his 
 quiet themes. Now and then, not often, he 
 bursts into an open condemnation of worldly 
 conventions; and when he does, not Milton 
 himself is grander or more severe. I cannot 
 deny myself the pleasure of quoting the passage 
 in which (I should suppose very justly) he 
 speaks of the university life of his day as he saw 
 
 it at Cambridge : 
 
 "All degrees 
 And shapes of spurious fame and short-lived praise, 
 Here sate in state, and fed with daily alms 
 Retainers won away from solid good ; 
 And here was labour his own bond slave ; hope, 
 That never set the pains against the prize ; 
 Idleness halting with his weary clog ; 
 And poor misguided shame, and witless fear, 
 And simple pleasure foraging for death ; 
 Honour misplaced, and dignity astray; 
 Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile, 
 Murmuring submission, and bald government 
 (The idcl weak as the idolator), 
 And decency and custom starving truth. 
 And blind authority beating with his staff 
 The child who might have led him ; emptiness 
 Followed as of good omen, and meek worth 
 Left to herself unheard of and unknown." 
 
 It is a natural accompaniment of such feeling as 
 this passage portrays, that he should have had 
 a keen sense of the littleness of our mere personal 
 life. Personal talk of all sorts, gossip, person- 
 ality, party politics, the strife of law-courts, the 
 ceaseless toil of money-making ; all these things 
 seemed to him unutterably small : 
 
 "Among your tribe. 
 Our daily world's true worldings, rank not me ! 
 Children are blest, and powerful ; their world lies 
 More justly balanced ; partly at their feet. 
 And part far from them : sweetest melodies 
 Are those that are by distance made more sweet ; 
 Whose mind is but the mind of his own ej'es, 
 He is a slave ; the meanest we can meet ! " 
 
 Elsewhere he breaks out in that magnificent 
 strain : 
 
 " The world is too much with us : late and soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers : 
 Little we see in nature that is ours ; 
 We have given our hearts away — a sordid boon ! 
 The sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
 The winds that will be howling at all hours. 
 And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
 For this, for everything, we are out of tune ; 
 It moves us not. Great God ! I'd rather be 
 
 A pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea. 
 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 
 
 But though he thought so little of individual 
 life, he is never weary of insisting on the great- 
 ness and majesty of the free life of a nation. 
 
 He was an Englishman to the heart's core, if 
 ever there lived one ; his heart glowed his whole 
 life long with the undying lire of a devoted 
 patriotism. He lived, too, at a time when the 
 liberties of England — nay, when her very exist- 
 ence as a nation was in real dangeSr from the 
 enormous power wielded against her by Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, directed by his genius, the greatest 
 military genius of modern time. For a while 
 England was left without a single European ally 
 to fight single-handed against his gigantic mili- 
 tary despotism. Those were days in which 
 invasion seemed possible, and in which at least 
 it was seriously threatened. The whole series 
 of his sonnets on liberty and independence, and 
 several of his odes and other poems, are examples 
 of the high spirit in which he met those times, 
 and the temper he desired to inspire into his 
 countrymen : 
 
 " It is not to be thought of that the flood 
 Of British freedom, which, to the open sea 
 Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity 
 Hath flowed, * with pomp of waters, unw}t^ stood :' 
 Roused though it be full often to a mood 
 Which spurns the check of salutary bands. 
 That this most famous stream in bogs and sauda 
 Should perish, and to evil and to good 
 Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung 
 Armoury of the invincible knights of old ' 
 We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 
 That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold 
 Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung 
 Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold." 
 
 In reading you his poem to the men of Kent, 
 I should remind you that the " men of Kent " is 
 a technical expression for the inhabitants of that 
 part of Kent whose ancestors were never con- 
 quered by the Norman Conqueror, and who 
 obtained from him at the time of the Conquest 
 the confirmation of their charters and liberties. 
 To them he addressed this noble music : 
 
 " Vanguard of liberty, ye men of Kent ! 
 Ye children of a soil that doth advance 
 Her haughty brow against the coast of France, 
 Now is the time to prove your hardiment ! 
 To France be words of invitation sent ! 
 They from their fields can see the countenance 
 Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance, 
 And hear you shouting forth your brave intent. 
 Left single, in bold parley, ye, of yore. 
 Did from the Norman wan a gallant wreath ; 
 Confirmed the charters that were yours before — 
 No parleying now ! In Britain is one breath ; 
 We all are with you now from shore to shore : 
 Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death ! " 
 
 Two more of these trumpet-calls of the old 
 patriot poet, and I pass on. The first is addressed 
 to Milton : 
 
 " Milton ! thou should'st be living at this hour : 
 England hath need of thee. She is a fen 
 Of stagnant waters ; altar, sword, and pen- 
 Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
 Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
 Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 
 
 113 
 
 Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 
 And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
 Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea : 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
 So did'st thou travel on life's common way, 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 The lowliest duties on herself did lay." 
 
 The last I will trouble you with is called **A 
 Briton's Thought on the Subjugation of Switzer- 
 land," when the armies of Bonaparte overran 
 that country and crushed the republics, and 
 England alone was left unconquered : 
 
 " Two voices are there ; one is of the sea. 
 One of the mountains ; each a mighty voice ; 
 In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, 
 They were thy chosen music. Liberty ! 
 There came a tyrant, and with holy glee 
 Thou f ought'st against him ; but hast vainly striven : 
 Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven, 
 Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. 
 Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft : 
 Then cleave, oh cleave to that which still is left; 
 For, high-souled maid, what sorrow would it be 
 That mountain floods should thunder as before. 
 And ocean bellow from his rocky shore, 
 And neither awful voice be heard by thee ! " 
 
 Such was the stern and lofty teaching of this 
 great man in the days of the first Napoleon. If 
 he had lived in the days of the third Napoleon, 
 and had seen the coujp cPHat, the massacres of 
 Paris, the deportations to Cayenne, the seizure of 
 Savoy, the proposed spoliation of Belgium, by 
 the man whom it is the fashion to call the faith- 
 ful ally of England, he would have rebuked the 
 English worshippers of the nephew as he did 
 those of the far greater uncle : 
 
 " Never may from our souls one truth depart, 
 That an accursed thing it is to gaze 
 On prosperous tyrants with a dazzled eye." 
 
 You would expect to find, and it is the fact, 
 that a writer who rings so true on public matters 
 would be full of a sound and healthy spirit on 
 all moral or social subjects. No paltering with 
 morality, no apology for profligacy and crime, 
 no exalting of selfish passion into heroic virtue, 
 is to be found in "Wordsworth. It was said of 
 Virgil (and it was said, with perhaps one doubt- 
 ful exception, with perfect truth) that he was a 
 sacred poet. It was said of Wordsworth with 
 undoubted truth, by Mr Keble, whose authority 
 on such a question no man will challenge. I 
 need not cite the *'Ode to Duty" nor any 
 special poem in proof of its truth. A pure life, 
 an habitual self-control, a deep reverence for 
 God and for His Son, a memory unburdened 
 with remorse — these are the elements of happi- 
 ness as Wordsworth viewed it, and as all his 
 poems describe it : 
 
 " that our lives, which flee so fast. 
 In purity were such. 
 That not an image of the past, 
 Should fear that pencil's touch I 
 
 Retirement, then, might hourly look 
 
 Upon a soothing scene, 
 Age steal to his allotted nook. 
 
 Contented and serene ; 
 With heart as calm as lakes that sleep 
 In frosty moonlight glistening ; 
 Or mountain rivers, where thej' creep. 
 Along a channel smooth and deep. 
 To their own far-off murmurs listening." 
 
 I have left myself no time to speak of the 
 beauties of Wordsworth, of his grace, of his 
 melody, of the perfection of his style, of the 
 splendour of his lyrics, of his grand imagination, 
 of that sublimity which he displays when, in 
 the fine language of Mr Landor (who personally 
 disliked him), "he shakes the earth aside, and 
 soars steadily into the empyrean." The book of 
 the "Excursion," entitled "Despondency Cor- 
 rected," the ''Ode on Immortality," "Laod- 
 amia," "Dion," "Lycoris," "The Triad," "The 
 River Duddon," besides a whole catalogue of 
 smaller poems ; these seem to me each in its 
 way, and their ways are very difi'erent, as per- 
 fect as any poems in the English language. I 
 must leave these things to you. If you will only 
 read them, you may think that I exaggerate 
 perhaps; but I am perfectly certain that you 
 will thank me for the introduction, that you will 
 wonder such poems should have been unknown 
 to you, and that the more you read them, the 
 more admirable and consummate they will 
 appear to you merely as poems. 
 
 In selecting the passages which I have read to 
 you, I have been, of set purpose, guided rather 
 by the lessons which they teach, than by the 
 mere beauty of the language in which the les- 
 sons are conveyed. Poems such as you would 
 find in a book of Wordsworth's "Beauties," I 
 have purposely left unquoted. But imperfect 
 and inadequate as this paper is, it would be even 
 still less adequate if I did not quote one passage 
 in illustration of Wordsworth's exquisite felicity 
 of diction and absolute perfection of metre, 
 when the occasion is one for the display of 
 these qualities. I will read you the description 
 from the "White Doe of Rylstone," of the first 
 coming in of the Doe and her lying down by 
 Francis Norton's grave. I put it before you as 
 a piece of English metre worthy of the very 
 greatest of English metrists, of Ben Jonson, of 
 Gray, of Shelley (why should I hesitate to say?), 
 of Coleridge : 
 
 "A moment ends the fervent din, 
 And all is hushed, without and within ; 
 For though the priest, more tranquilly. 
 Recites the holy liturgy, 
 The only voice which you can hear 
 Is the river murmuring near. 
 When soft !— the dusky trees between. 
 And down the path through the open green, 
 Where is no living thing to be seen ; 
 And through yon gateway, where is found, 
 Beneath the arch with ivy bound, 
 Free entrance to the churchyard ground ; 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 And right across the verdant sod 
 
 Towards the very house of God, 
 
 Comes gliding in with lovely gleam, 
 
 Comes gliding in serene and slow, 
 
 Soft and silent as a dream, 
 
 A solitary Doe ! 
 
 White she is as lily of June, 
 
 And beauteous as the silver moon 
 
 When out of sight the clouds are driven, 
 
 And she is left alone in heaven; 
 
 Or like a ship some gentle day 
 
 In sunshine sailing far away — 
 
 A glittering ship, that hath the plain 
 
 Of ocean for her own domain. 
 
 " Lie silent in your graves, ye dead ! 
 Lie quiet in your church j'ard bed ! 
 Ye living, tend your holy cares ; 
 Ye multitude, pursue your prayers ; 
 And blame not me if my heart and sight 
 Are occupied with one delight ! 
 Tis a work for Sabbath hours 
 If I with tliis bright creature go: 
 Whether she be of forest bowers, 
 From the bowers of earth below; 
 Or a spirit, for one day given, 
 A pledge of grace from purest heaven. 
 
 •* What harmonious pensive changes 
 Wait upon her as she ranges 
 Round and through this pile of state 
 Overthrown and desolate ! 
 Now a step or two her way 
 Leads through space of open day, 
 Where the enamoured sunny light 
 Brightens her that was so bright ; 
 Now doth a delicate shadow fall, 
 Falls upon her like a breath, 
 From some lofty arch or wall. 
 As she passes underneath : 
 ' Now some gloomy nook partakes 
 Of the glory that she makes, — 
 High-ribbed vault of stone, or cell, 
 With perfect cunning framed as well 
 Of stone, and ivy, and the spread 
 Of the elder's bushy head ; 
 Some jealous and forbidding cell, 
 That doth the living stars repel. 
 And where no flower hath leave to dwell. 
 
 " The presence of this wandering Doe 
 Fills many a damp obscure recess 
 With lustre of a saintly show ; 
 And, re-appearing, she no less 
 Sheds on the flowers that round her grow 
 A more than sunny liveliness. 
 But say, among these holy places, 
 Which thus assiduously she paces, 
 Comes she with a votary's task. 
 Rite to perform, or boon to ask ? 
 Fair Pilgrim ! harbours she a sense 
 Of sorrow, or of reverence? 
 Can she be grieved for quire or shrine. 
 Crushed as if by wrath divine ? 
 For what survives of house where God 
 Was worshipped, or where man abode ; 
 For old magnificence undone ; 
 Or for the gentler work begun 
 By nature, softening and concealing. 
 And busy with a hand of healing? 
 Mourns she for lordly chamber's hearth 
 That to the sapling ash gives birth; 
 
 For dormitory's length laid bare, 
 
 Where the ^^^ld rose blossoms fair; 
 
 Or altar, whence the cross was rent, 
 
 Now rich with mossy ornament? 
 
 She sees a warrior carved in stone, 
 
 Among the thick weeds, stretched alone; 
 
 A wan-ior, with his shield of pride 
 
 Cleaving humbly to his side, 
 
 And hands in resignation prest 
 
 Palm to palm, on his tranquil breast; — 
 
 As little she regards the sight 
 
 As a common creature might; 
 
 If she be doomed to inward care. 
 
 Or service, it must lie elsewhere. 
 
 But hers are eyes serenely bright. 
 
 And on she moves — with pace how light I 
 
 Nor spares to stoop her head, and taste 
 
 The dewy turf, with flowers bestrewn; 
 
 And thus she fares, until at last 
 
 Beside the ridge of a grassy grave 
 
 In quietness she lays her down ; 
 
 Gentle as a weary wave 
 
 Sinks, when the summer breeze hath died, 
 
 Against an anchored vessel's side; 
 
 Even so, without distress, doth she 
 
 Lie down in peace, and lovingly." 
 
 You will observe, I hope, that I have tried to 
 keep steadily in view the object with which I 
 began; to show the use of Wordsworth, his 
 practical value to us, the practical advantage 
 we may derive from him, the gratitude we owe 
 him. I have kept therefore, almost entirely, to 
 some points only in his literary and moral 
 character such as were most germane to the 
 subject, and most relevant to my purpose. One 
 only I will further deal with here. It has been 
 said (I must think by those who have not read 
 him, and who do not know what they are talk- 
 ing about) that he is a cold and heartless writer. 
 I do not know, on the contrary, a writer more 
 full of love — not passion — or more exquisitely 
 tender. If a man can read *' Michael," and 
 "The Brothers," and "Margaret," and "Ellen," 
 and many others, with unfaltering voice and 
 unmoisteued eyes, he must either have great 
 self-command or little feeling. And to me the 
 pathos of Wordsworth is like the sweetness of 
 Michael Angelo. As the sweetness of Michael 
 Angelo is sweeter than that of other men, be- 
 cause of his strength, so the pathos of Words- 
 worth is the more moving because of the calmness 
 and reserve and self-restraint with which it is 
 always clothed. Of his tenderness, all the 
 poems to "Lucy" are surely unanswerable ex- 
 amples : but on personal subjects he is always 
 tender ; and I do not know more tender poems 
 than those addressed to a friend, whose manner 
 had changed to him, and those to his wife's 
 picture, written, too, when he was a very old 
 man. They are short, and they are the last 
 which I will read : 
 
 " There is a change — and I am poor; 
 Your love hath been, not long ago, 
 A fomitain at my fond heart's door, 
 Whose only busino.ss was to flow; 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 115 
 
 And flow it did, not taking heed 
 Of its own bounty, or my need. 
 
 *' What happy moments did I count ! 
 Blest was I then all bliss above ! 
 Now, for that consecrated fount 
 
 Of murmuring, sparkling, living love 
 What have I? shall I dare to tell? 
 A comfortless and hidden well. 
 
 "A well of love— it may be deep — 
 
 I trust it is — and never dry — 
 What matter ? if the waters sleep 
 
 In silence and obscurity. 
 Such change, and at the very door 
 Of my fond heart, hath made me poor." 
 
 Let me end my extracts with the poems upon 
 his wife's picture, the poems of a man old in 
 years indeed, for he was seventy-three when he 
 wrote them, but young in heart and genius. 
 They are entitled ** To a Painter : " 
 
 "All praise the likeness by thy skill portrayed; 
 But 'tis a fruitless task to paint for me. 
 Who, yielding not to changes Time has made. 
 By the habitual light of memory see 
 Eyes unbedimmed, see bloom that cannot fade. 
 And smiles that from their birthplace ne'er shall flee 
 Into the land where ghosts and phantoms be ; 
 And, seeing this, own nothing in its stead. 
 Couldst thou go back into far distant years. 
 Or share with me, fond thought ! that inward eye, 
 Then, and then only, Painter ! could thy art 
 The visual powers of nature satisfy, 
 Which hold, whate'er to common sight appears, 
 Their sovereign empire in a faithful heart. 
 
 " Though I beheld at first with blank surprise 
 This work, I now have gazed on it so long 
 I see its truth with unreluctant eyes ; 
 O, my beloved ! I have done thee wrong ! 
 Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung 
 Ever too heedless, as I now perceive : 
 Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve. 
 And the old day was welcome as the young, 
 As welcome, and as beautiful — in sooth 
 More beautiful, as being a thing more holy. 
 Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth 
 Of all thy goodness, never melancholy ; 
 To thy large heart and humble mind, that caet 
 Into one vision, future, present, past." 
 
 Now I will assume that you think I have made 
 out some case for the power, the beauty, the 
 genius of Wordsworth's poems. What is the 
 value of them ? They seem to me, at the least 
 and at the lowest, to give an intellectual plea- 
 sure which is at once innocent and ennobling. 
 They will create in those who master them a 
 sympathy with loftiness of character and purity 
 of soul, and they will teach high and independent 
 principles of judgment to be applied in life to 
 all things and all people. Is this kind of thing 
 worth study ? Is fine art, is great literature, is 
 intellectual cultivation of the value, have they 
 each and aU the merit which their advocates 
 maintain they have ? We have lived to hear this 
 disputed, and it is worth M'hile for a moment to 
 see, if we can, what in this matter the truth 
 really is. A great statesman, the other day, said 
 
 that the violin and all that proceeded from it 
 was as great an effort of the mere intellect as the 
 steam-engine. " What," it was immediately re- 
 plied by a man of very high rank — *' what have 
 all the men who have scraped for three hundred 
 years on squeaking strings done for mankind 
 compared to one steam-engine ? " That depends 
 on what is meant by the words "done for man- 
 kind." I can hardly suppose that it was meant 
 to be implied that there is no good in music, 
 that mankind would have been just as well off 
 if Mozart and Beethoven had never lived, that 
 Handel is nonsense and Haydn stuff — 
 
 " Since nought so stockish hard and full of rage, 
 But music for the time doth change his nature; 
 The man that hath no music in himself. 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; 
 The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
 And his affections dark as Erebus — 
 Let no such man be trusted." 
 
 So says Shakespeare ; but, to be sure, he was a 
 mere poet. " To many men," says another great 
 man, "the very names which the science of 
 music employs are utterly incomprehensible. 
 To speak of an idea or a subject seems to be fan- 
 ciful or trifling, and of the views which it opens 
 upon us to be childish extravagance; yet is it 
 possible that that inexhaustible evolution and 
 disposition of notes, so rich, yet so simple, so 
 intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so ma- 
 jestic, should be a mere sound which is gone and 
 perishes ? Can it be that those mysterious striv- 
 ings of the heart and keen emotions and strange 
 yearnings after we know not what, and awful 
 impressions from we know not whence, should 
 be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and 
 comes and goes and begins acd ends in itself? 
 It is not so. It cannot be. No. They have 
 escaped from some higher sphere ; they are the 
 outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium 
 of created sound; they are echoes from our 
 home ; they are the voices of angels, or the mag- 
 nificat of saints, or the living laws of divine go- 
 vernance or the divine attributes. Something 
 are they besides themselves which we cannot 
 compass, which we cannot utter, though mortal 
 man — and he, perhaps, not otherwise distin- 
 guished above his fellows — has the power ot 
 eliciting them." 
 
 This eloquent passage of Dr Newman may 
 appear to some men extravagant, but not a whit 
 more so than the passage about the squeaking 
 strings appears to others. The truth is, that 
 there is no use in these attempts to compare as 
 to results things which in their nature do not 
 admit of comparison. It is no doubt quite true 
 that you can learn a great deal of a certain kind, 
 from studying a collection of well-drawn engi- 
 neering specifications, which you would never 
 learn from reading Wordsworth ; but it is also 
 true that you can learn a great deal of a certain 
 other kind from reading Wordsworth which you 
 
could never learn from all the specifications in 
 the world. Rhetorical antitheses of this kind 
 are really very misleading, and sometimes very 
 mischievous. We have heard, for example, a 
 distinguished man say that he would rather see 
 England free than sober. Well, but where is 
 the natural oppugnancy between freedom and 
 sobriety ? Is it impossible to be at once tem- 
 perate and free ? Is drunkenness necessary to 
 avoid slavery ? If not, such phrases as suggest 
 the contrary do infinite mischief. So, again, it 
 is often said, it is better to be religious than 
 orthodox. Well, but is it impossible to be both ? 
 Is acquiesence in authority in matters of opinion 
 consistent only with coldness of devotion or 
 laxity of life ? So, again, you may hear it said, 
 that an acquaintance with natural science is of 
 far more value than a knowledge of history, or 
 than the cultivation of the imagination; and 
 that a great many things are much better than 
 a great many other things. What then ? All 
 this is surely very narrow. There is room enough 
 in the world, and in the infinite variety of man- 
 kind, for all pursuits and all kinds of study and 
 education. When I or any one else of common 
 sense insist on the importance of any particular 
 subject, of course it is not meant that there is 
 nothing else important in the world. All things 
 have their place ; and it is the narrow and weak 
 mind only which denies its place to a subject 
 because the particular mind happens not to care 
 for it or understand it. Those, for example, if 
 any such there really be, who can see nothing, 
 and who deny that there is anything at all in 
 music, are to be sincerely pitied, either as men 
 of narrow and half-educated minds, or because 
 it has pleased God to deny them a sense which 
 has been granted to their more richly-gifted 
 fellows. Those, too, who can see nothing at all, 
 and who therefore deny that there is anything at 
 all in poetry and other works of imagination, and 
 who can derive therefrom no profit and no in- 
 struction whatever, are no doubt entitled to 
 their opinions ; but they must bear to be told 
 that they are no judges of what they have been 
 
 denied the faculties for understanding, and that 
 to us they seem very poor and imperfect crea- 
 tures, and objects not certainly of scorn, but of 
 wonder and of compassion. 
 
 It is said that Wolfe, when just about to scale 
 the heights of Abraham and win the battle which 
 has immortalised his name, quoted, with deep 
 feeling and glowing eulogy, some of the stanzas 
 of Gray's " Elegy." Stories implying the same 
 sort of mind are told of that noble soldier, Sir 
 John Moore. In such minds as theirs the prac- 
 tical and the imaginative could both find room, 
 and they were none the worse, perhaps they 
 were the better soldiers, because they were men 
 of cultivated intellects. And this is really what 
 I maintain, that in sense and reason each study 
 has its place and its function. I do not under- 
 rate science, nor decry invention, because I ad- 
 vocate the study of a great and high-minded 
 writer any more than because I insist upon the 
 study of Wordsworth I forget that Homer and 
 Virgil, and Dante and Shakespeare, and Milton, 
 are yet greater than he, and yet more worthy 
 study. 
 
 All I say is, that I have found Wordsworth do 
 me good ; and I have tried to explain why, and 
 to suggest that other men might find him do 
 them good also. A book is a friend, and ought 
 to be so regarded. Those are to be pitied who 
 have bad friends and who pass their lives in bad 
 company. Those are to be envied who have 
 good friends, and who can value them according 
 to the measure of their desert and use them as 
 they ought. And what is true of living friends 
 is true in yet higher measure of those dead and 
 silent friends, our books. I am very sure that 
 you will find Wordsworth a good friend if you 
 try him ; that the more you know him, the bet- 
 ter you will love him ; the longer you live, the 
 stronger will be the ties which bind you to his 
 side. He is like one of his own mountains, in 
 whose shadow you may sit, and whose heights 
 you may scale, sure that you will always return 
 therefrom strengthened in mind and purified in 
 heart. 
 
 SIE WALTEE SCOTT. 
 
 [1771-1832.] 
 
 It has been sometimes said, that there is no- 
 thing of which a man is more vain than of 
 authorship, yet Sir Walter Scott was certainly 
 more proud of his pedigree than of his writings ; 
 and, what is scarcely less strange, that which 
 he valued the less was the means of making him, 
 while that which he valued the more was the 
 source of his greatest misfortunes. The Border, 
 
 that great nursery of families, gave birth to the 
 Dukes of Buccleuch, with whom the poet was 
 connected. It is fortunate that those who are 
 proud of lineage are exempted from questioning, 
 or even looking at the origin of their families j 
 for it is more true than pleasant to their descen- 
 dants, that the beginnings of these Border septs 
 were often men whose superiority was founded 
 
SII^ WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 117 
 
 on nothing better than the stealing of cattle. 
 Yet such is the power of genius in transferring 
 qualities, that even so mean and disreputable a 
 calling has received at the hand of this, one of 
 her sons, something so like an appearance of 
 dignity and heroism, that the author could con- 
 gratulate himself on both ends of his pedigree. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, on 
 the 15th of August 1771, a day signalised by 
 the birth of Napoleon. His father, a man of 
 unblemished reputation for correct business 
 habits, honesty, and benevolence, was a Writer 
 to the Signet ; his mother, Ann Rutherford, was 
 daughter of Dr John Rutherford, first professor 
 of physic in the University of Edinburgh, who 
 had studied under the celebrated Boerhave. Mr 
 Robert Scott, farmer at Sandyknowe, in the 
 vicinity of Smailholm Tower, upon the Borders, 
 was the paternal grandfather, being the son of 
 Mr Walter Scott, a younger son of Walter Scott 
 of Raeburn, third son of Sir Walter Scott of 
 Harden. The Scotts of Harden, again, came, 
 in the fourteenth century, from the stock of 
 the Buccleuchs, whereby arose the connection 
 between the poet and the greatest of the Border 
 clans. 
 
 Scott was a healthy infant from the begin- 
 ning, and the lameness with which he was 
 affected through life was not congenital, neither 
 did it come of what may be called accident, if 
 the origin of it may not be called strange, as 
 described by himself. One night he had a great 
 aversion to go to bed, and it was not till he was 
 chased round the room and laid hold of, that he 
 could be prevailed upon to comply with the 
 wishes of his mother. In the morning he was 
 affected with fever, and after three days it was 
 discovered that he had lost the use of his right 
 leg. After this, and till he was about eight 
 years of age, his childhood was chiefly spent at 
 his grandfather's house of Sandyknowe, where, 
 even at this early time, he began to be lovingly 
 familiar with the scenery of the Border, and 
 even some of the simplest of the traditions and 
 ballads, which he heard narrated or sung in the 
 farmhouse. At this early stage, or a little be- 
 yond it, he began to show that love for miscel- 
 laneous reading, but chiefly that which was con- 
 nected with history and adventure, which he 
 entertained so passionately almost through his 
 whole life, and which he turned to the account 
 of his genius. This gave rise, as it generally 
 does, to hopes of scholarship ; but on being 
 placed in the High School of Edinburgh, in 
 1779, he failed to signalise himself in the studies 
 of his class, if, indeed, he was not numbered 
 amongst the dullards. The circumstance is 
 worth an observation, not unuseful, as it may 
 tend to disabuse us of a notion which is all but 
 ineradicable, that scholarship forms any index of 
 success in studies and avocations which belong 
 altogether to faculties not comprehended among 
 those npcpssary for classic superiority. All the 
 
 intellectual powers which follow in the train of 
 the emotional may be almost in abeyance, while 
 the memory, exercised upon languages, may 
 raise a youth to academic honours, so often 
 vainly looked to as a presage of future gi*eat- 
 ness. Nor are we to forget that precocity, 
 always in the physical kingdom, and not seldom 
 in the moral, bespeaks short duration. 
 
 Even then, however, Scott, in place of show- 
 ing the general dulness ascribed to him in the 
 "Percy Anecdotes," evinced eminence in his- 
 torical, anecdotal, and miscellaneous knowledge, 
 treasuring up avariciously names and facts which 
 were destined to impart substance and charms 
 to his subsequent writings. The poet and 
 chronicler were, in short, in the germ ; already 
 his story-telling was shrewd and captivating; 
 and, in his twelfth year, his love of ballad 
 poetry was ineradicably established by the 
 delight with which he devoured "Percy's Re- 
 liques." 
 
 About this time, his health, which ever since 
 the fever had been weakly, began again to give 
 way, and he was sent, for the benefit of a change 
 of air, to reside at Kelso with his aunt. How 
 strangely are the threads of a great man's early 
 life woven I If he had not gone there he might 
 never have been acquainted, at least connected 
 in a literary way, with James and John Ballan- 
 tyne, afterwards the eminent printers and pub- 
 lishers. It was in Kelso that he met and formed 
 an intimacy with these young men. Little did 
 any of them know how their names would go 
 over the world, and how that long and mysteri- 
 ous connection would terminate. At this time 
 James Ballantyne had noticed the bent of Scott'cj 
 mind. "In the intervals of school hours, it was 
 our constant practice to walk by the banks of 
 the Tweed, and his stories became quite inex- 
 haustible." Even on the banks of the same river 
 where they walked, Scott was to raise Abbotsford 
 — his pride and his ruin. 
 
 In the winter of 1783, he entered the uni- 
 versity of his native city. He enrolled himself 
 for the humanity class, under Professor Hill, 
 and the Greek class, under Professor Dalzell, 
 and for the latter again in 1784 ; but the only 
 class for which he seems to have matriculated 
 at the college was that of logic, under Professor 
 Bruce, in 1785. With such predilections as he 
 now possessed it was vain to expect that applica- 
 tion to the classics which is so indispensable to 
 success. Accordingly, he made so little real 
 progress as to justify the estimate subsequently 
 made of his classical knowledge, that he never 
 understood Greek beyond the elements, and 
 possessed but a loose scholarship in Latin ; and 
 even the acquaintance which, in early manhood, 
 he made with French, Italian, Spanish, and 
 German, was at the very best superficial. 
 
 In May 1786, when nearly fifteen years of age, 
 he was articled to his father as an apprentice, in 
 order to be initiated into the secrets of the lav 
 
118 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 and the complicated mysteries of conveyancing. 
 But although he attended his father's chambers 
 pretty regularly for four years, his heart was 
 never in the business, from which he would 
 escape at every opportunity. In place of " pro- 
 gresses," or bundles of parchment called title- 
 deeds, you would have seen on his desk all man- 
 ner of works in the department of fiction, and a 
 book on knight-errantry might have been seen 
 lying on the top of a last will and testament. 
 In the second year of his apprenticeship he burst 
 a blood-vessel, and was thereby confined to bed ; 
 but after this he began to assume that robust 
 health and hardihood which he retained al- 
 most through life. There was a strong physi- 
 cal spring in his constitution, which, working in 
 harmony with a natural joyousness, fitted him 
 for all manner of out-door exercises, either on 
 foot or horseback; then, scenery of all kinds, 
 particularly the wildest, had inexpressible charms 
 for him, not simply as mere scenes of nature, 
 but as the theatres of traditional adventure, 
 whether military or domestic. Every old castle, 
 or ruined house, or muirland fell, that came 
 under his eye immediately became tenanted by 
 beings called up by the magic of his creative 
 power; and then he would pour out upon his 
 hearers such stories of intrigue, diablerie^ or war, 
 that he was as captivating in oral displays as he 
 subsequently became in written description. All 
 the while, however, Scott showed no aptitude 
 for the production of poetry in the proper sense, 
 for it may be doubted whether a rhymed chron- 
 icle deserves that name, and it is quite certain 
 that, beyond an enthusiastic perception of the 
 ballad jingle, he had no ear for music. 
 
 His father's intention, as well as his own, was 
 that he should go to the bar, and his attendance 
 at the Speculative Society was intended as a 
 step in his training. He had here an oppor- 
 tunity, also, of writing the essays which formed 
 a part of the society's forms of business, and in 
 which he could exhibit his turn for antiquarian 
 studies. In 1792 he was admitted a member of 
 the Faculty of Advocates ; and as an evidence 
 that he was fairly set up for doing serious busi- 
 ness as a pleader, he was supplied by his father 
 with a well-furnished house in a genteel part of 
 the town. Every requisite was prepared but the 
 legal and forensic faculties ; not that he was de- 
 stitute of these, for his versatile mind was defi- 
 cient scarcely in any human power, but that his 
 tastes and inclinations prevented him from giv- 
 ing these studies that undivided attention neces- 
 sary to absolute mastership, and therefore suc- 
 cess. He was not zealous to join "the ranks 
 of the gentlemen not over anxious for business," 
 for he had strong ambition to figure even as a 
 barrister; and it has been said, that, with his 
 sagacity and ready powers of speech — though 
 not forensic speech — if he had been early tempted 
 by fees, and stimulated by duty, so as to have 
 ^een brought within the challenge of competi- 
 
 tion, the energy of his nature and his deep saga- 
 city would inevitably have carried him on to 
 triumph. Nor does this seem doubtful, for 
 Scott was not a shy contemplative poet, he was 
 essentially a shrewd man of the world, and in 
 place of his antiquarian predilections operating 
 against him, they might have contributed to his 
 success. It is certain, however, that he was 
 never put into the track, so it could not be said 
 that he failed so much as that he really did not 
 seriously try. 
 
 Without any call from without, then, to take 
 his mind off his old studies, he fell back into 
 the meshes he had woven for himself; but his 
 earliest efforts at authorship were comparatively 
 small and desultory. It seems certain that Scott 
 was tardy in arriving at a conviction of his powers, 
 and it is doubtful if he knew where they lay. 
 His efforts were more tentative than confident. 
 In 1796 he published translations of some of 
 those ballads of Burger, which have such a 
 charm for young Scotsmen — particularly "The 
 Wild Huntsman " — clearly showing his prefer- 
 ence for the supernatural, at the same time that 
 he was a shrewd observer of the world. In the 
 same department he contributed to Lewis's 
 "Tales of Wonder." In 1798 appeared his 
 translation of Goethe's drama, "Goetz von Ber- 
 lichingen," and in 1799 he wrote and made 
 known to his friends the earliest of his greater 
 efforts in original poetry, the ballads of "Glen- 
 finlas," "The Eve of St John," and "The Gray 
 Brother." Yet withal, though the pieces were 
 well received, he made no great progress to a high 
 literary reputation. Perhaps he figured better 
 as adjutant of the Eoyal Midlothian Regiment 
 of Cavalry, a section of the volunteer militia of 
 the time, for which office his lameness was con- 
 sidered no bar, and his love of poetry no recom- 
 mendation. 
 
 While on a visit to the English lakes, Scott 
 became acquainted with Miss Mary Carpenter, 
 daughter of John Carpenter of Lyons, and then 
 an orphan, her father having fallen a victim in 
 the hottest period of the French Revolution. 
 He married her in 1797, with consent of her 
 guardians, and an annuity of £200 a year. His 
 father's death next gave him a moderate patri- 
 mony, and in 1799 he obtained, through the 
 Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Melville, whose 
 politics he had espoused, the Sheriffship of Sel- 
 kirkshire, an office involving neither responsi- 
 bility nor labour, with a salary of £300 a year. 
 Throughout his whole life he was a very good 
 example of the possibility of making poetry and 
 worldly success perfectly compatible. 
 
 During all this time his information was in- 
 creasing, and his powers were ripening ; but he 
 did not seem to have had any intuitive concep- 
 tion of the form in which they ought to be 
 applied. The best that could be said for him 
 was that his inherent good sense and independ- 
 ence — ^perhaps not less an inward consciousness 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT, 
 
 119 
 
 of originality —prevented him from following old 
 tracks, and falling into the youthful trap of 
 imitation. "With a wonderful memory, especi- 
 ally for all odds and ends of history, scraps of 
 tradition, and old ballads, he had been gradually 
 and almost unconsciously collecting a store, and 
 he thus became fitted for the task of giving to 
 the public the poetical legends of the Borders. 
 In 1802 he published the first and second 
 volumes of "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border," a publication which brought him at 
 once a distinguished reputation, not only as a 
 curious collector and annotator, but as an original 
 ballad- writer, several of his own effusions having 
 formed a part of the *' Minstrelsy." 
 
 This work, which was the product of a long 
 gathering, prosecuted with an object like that 
 to which it was applied, was followed by another, 
 which, as respects success, was a miracle. In 
 1802 he had begun to write what, in a letter to 
 Ellis, he denominated " a kind of romance of 
 Border chivalry, in a light-horseman sort of 
 stanza." It seems to have been at first intended 
 to be a long ballad, with no higher destination 
 that an insertion in the "Minstrelsy;" but 
 having submitted the MS. to some of his friends 
 — Jeffrey, Wordsworth, and others — he was in- 
 duced, upon their recommendation, to extend it 
 into the form of an independent metrical romance. 
 Such was the history of "The Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel," which became the foundation-stone 
 of Scott's fame as an original poet. The sale of 
 the book was, as we have said, marvellous ; and 
 the spread was commensurate, not only with the 
 admiration and delight of the reading public, 
 but also with the favour it received from the 
 hands of the critics, at that time a surly set, 
 envious of rising reputations. That the work 
 really deserved all the praise it got, there can 
 be no doubt; for although, viewed strictly in 
 the aspect of its originality, it is only in the 
 wake of the old metrical romances, it contained 
 BO many warm pictures of scenery, burned with 
 such a glow of bardic enthusiasm, and resusci- 
 tated so effectually the slumbering poetical mind 
 of the nation, that it had all the charms of 
 novelty. The effect was thus increased by the 
 wakening feeling of surprise, for the work ap- 
 peared at a time when — Burns being only an 
 immortal memory, and the earlier volumes of 
 Crabbe and Campbell simply domestic or didac- 
 tic — poetry which addressed itself to the past of 
 a nation's chivalry, was unheard of. Above all, 
 as regarded admiration, the poem is a work of 
 high art ; for though there may be less construc- 
 tion in it than in some of the subsequent poems, 
 with, perhaps, fewer grand passages and less 
 striking imagery, it is pervaded by a simplicity 
 which is a species of art itself. Lastly, it was 
 more true to his aim of reviving the spirit of the 
 old knights and lovers in a form suited to modem 
 sympathies. 
 
 It may be worth while to give the author's 
 
 own history of this, the first of his great poems. 
 "The lovely Countess of Dalkeith, afterwards 
 Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch, had come to the 
 land of her husband with the desire of making 
 herself acquainted with its traditions and cus- 
 toms. She soon heard enough of Border lore. 
 Among others, an aged gentleman of property, 
 liear Langholm (Mr Stoddart), communicated to 
 her ladyship the story of Gilpin Horner, a story 
 in which the narrator and many more in that 
 county were firm believers. The young lady, 
 much delighted with the legend, and the gravity 
 and full confidence in which it was told, enjoined 
 it on me as a task to compose a ballad on the 
 subject. Of course, to hear was to obey; and 
 thus the goblin story, objected to by many of 
 the critics as an excrescence upon the poem, was, 
 in fact, the occasion of its being written. It 
 was, to the best of my recollection, more than a 
 year after Mr Stoddart's visit, that, by way of 
 experiment, I composed the first two or three 
 stanzas of ' The Lay of the Last Minstrel.' I 
 was shortly afterwards visited by two intimate 
 friends, whom I was in the habit of consulting 
 in my attempts at composition, having equal 
 confidence in their sound taste and friendly sin- 
 cerity. ... As neither of my friends said 
 much to me on the subject of the stanzas I 
 showed them before their departure, I had no 
 doubt that their disgust was greater than their 
 good-nature chose to express. Looking upon 
 them, therefore, as a failure, I threw the MS. 
 into the fire, and thought as little more as I 
 could of the matter. Sometime afterwards, I 
 met one of my two counsellors, who inquired, 
 with considerable appearance of interest, about 
 the progress of the romance I had commenced, 
 and was greatly surprised at learning its fate. 
 He confessed that neither he nor his mutual 
 friend had been at first able to give a precise 
 opinion of a poem so much out of the common 
 road, but that as they walked home together to 
 the city, they had talked much on the subject, 
 and the result was an earnest desire that I would 
 proceed with the composition. The poem being 
 once licensed by the critics as fit for the market 
 was soon finished." 
 
 After the publication of "The Lay" in 1805, 
 Scott's pen never ceased. In 1806 he collected 
 his original compositions of the ballad order 
 into a small volume, with the title, "Ballads 
 and Lyrical Pieces." "Marmion," containing 
 in its famous battle-scene one of the most strik- 
 ing and spirited passages in the entire range of 
 our poetry, came, in 1808, and was the result 
 of great pains. Then the annotated works of 
 Dryden, in eighteen volumes, with a life. Next, 
 in 1809, "The State Papers and Letters of Sir 
 Kalph Sadler," in two volumes ; and in the 
 same year. Lord Somers's " Tracts," to which he 
 contributed notes, in twelve volumes. Amidst 
 all which, he wrote in the Annual Register ^ a 
 work at first edited by Robert South ey. 
 
Not long after appeared the poem which not 
 undeservedly is considered the finest of his 
 poetical works— "The Lady of the Lake"— 
 wherein he had an opportunity to luxuriate in 
 those descriptions of Highland scenery which 
 first roused the English to the beauties of our 
 romantic country. In 1811 appeared "Don 
 Koderick," and in 1813, "Kokeby," in which 
 he tried, not ineffectually, yet bringing down 
 upon him the clever English "Jokeby," to 
 clothe southern scenery, and a tale of the civil 
 wars, with the charm he had so magically 
 thrown over the romantic features of his own 
 country. Subsequently, in 1814, came "The 
 Lord of the Isles." Adding one or two anony- 
 mous poems, and taking into account his con- 
 tributions to the Edinburgh Review, and his 
 assistance in founding its formidable rival, the 
 Quarterly Review, we have an array of works, 
 all within the compass of a few years, which, 
 even with the admission that he was stimulated 
 by the commercial engagements he had formed, 
 is nothing less than marvellous. 
 
 It became manifest, however, to himself that he 
 had exhausted the purse or the patience of the 
 public with his own poetical mine, and the exi- 
 gency of his engagement with the Ballantynes 
 stimulated him to new efforts. These engage- 
 ments commenced so early as 1805. His school- 
 fellow, James Ballantyne, was the editor and 
 printer of a newspaper in Roxburghshire, and 
 Scott assisted him in setting up a printing estab- 
 lishment in Edinburgh. After lending money to 
 the firm, he became a partner, as we have said, in 
 1805. A quarrel with his publisher. Constable, af- 
 forded him, he thought, the means of giving to the 
 public a higher literature than that which best 
 remunerates a publisher ; and — which was a kind 
 of contradiction — he thought he must derive 
 profit from a business guided by a man of 
 knowledge like himself : in short, he confounded 
 the aspirations of an author with the expecta- 
 tions of a merchant. He accordingly got Mr 
 John Ballantyne to be the head of a publishing 
 establishment, as James was of a printing one, 
 and in this he became also a partner to the 
 extent of a third. It has often been a matter of 
 surprise that a man like Scott, with his family 
 pride, his fame, and his money, could thus 
 descend to mercantile means of adding to his 
 fortune. Some have excused him on the plea 
 that he was serving his friends, but others, 
 more truly, seek the reason in a love of family 
 aggrandisement, to which he knew money was 
 indispensable. 
 
 Certain it is that Scott was ashamed of this 
 mercantile speculation. All these arrangements 
 were kept a profound secret — Scott being always 
 held up and considered by the public as the 
 mere patron and friend of the Ballantynes. A 
 few years after these arrangements, Scott com- 
 menced the second great stage of his literary 
 progress. He was himself the first to perceive 
 
 the waning popularity of his poetry. Byron's 
 " Childe Harold " had appeared two years before 
 the publication of " Marmion," and the fresh- 
 ness and vigour of that chant, combining, as it 
 did, a species of romance with the characters, 
 thoughts, and feelings of a more conventional 
 and recent age, put out for a time the light of 
 Scott's rhyming chronicles. In short, the people 
 were wakened out of a dream of the past, unreal 
 though gorgeous, and felt a relief in receiving 
 the impressions of actual life, sublimed by the 
 fire of genius, but yet a reflection of their ex- 
 periences. 
 
 Scott, like a true champion, accordingly set 
 himself to the task of regaining his laurels in a 
 new field. The fame he had acquired was sub- 
 ject to the old law of discontent. He wished 
 more glory, and he also wished more gold. The 
 one was natural and praiseworthy, the other 
 artificial and mean ; nor was the meanness the 
 less that he burned throughout his whole life to 
 be the lord of broad acres and the founder of a 
 great Border family. All his tendencies were 
 towards the great; and though his good heart 
 could not cast off the humanities, it is to be 
 feared that his general honhommie was simply 
 condescension, stimulated by prudence. From 
 this passion nothing would divert him ; but he 
 could not hope to gratify it from his own ordi- 
 nary means, though his appointment as one of 
 the clerks of the Court of Session added nearly 
 £1300 a year to an income already great ; and 
 hence his ardour to enter upon a new mine. In 
 1805, while engaged on "Marmion," he had 
 begun a novel, under, it is sometimes said, the 
 stimulus of the example of Miss Edgeworth, 
 but threw it aside, and it is said to have lain in 
 a barrel for years. He added two volumes to it 
 in the course of three weeks, in 1814, and pub- 
 lished it anonymously in the autumn of that 
 year, under the name of "Waverley; or, 'Tis 
 Sixty Years Since." For twelve successive years- 
 the Waverley Novels were showered forth in 
 quick succession. Eighteen novels appeared 
 from 1815 to 1825. It is scarcely necessary at 
 this day to speak of works which are known alt 
 over the world, and the merits of which have 
 become a proverb, indicating almost insuperable 
 excellence. Nor would it be easy to speak of 
 them so as not to appear tedious, for their 
 qualities are so varied in character, construc- 
 tion, sentiment, pathos, and humour, that they 
 represent the workings of one of the most fruit- 
 ful of minds in almost every aspect towards the 
 physical world and human nature. 
 
 The year 1825 was the last year of the pro- 
 sperity of this extraordinary man — a termination 
 to a long course of success. We have looked 
 principally to his literary life; but his career 
 had many other lights and shadows. In 1811 
 he purchased a farm on the banks of the Tweed, 
 naming it Abbotsford, whereon having erected 
 a cottage, he began to acquire land round it, till 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 121 
 
 he was proprietor of a considerable estate. This 
 property, or most of it, was bought at extrava- 
 gant prices, at a time when he was under the 
 passion of his old idea of territorial aggrandise- 
 ment ; and his well-known sagacity in bargain- 
 making was reduced to little better than per- 
 suasions to induce people to accept his money 
 for what, in some cases, was not half the value 
 of what he offered. Next came the great baro- 
 nial residence, built at a fabulous expense, and 
 then the filling it with antiquarian and historical 
 relics, brought together with persevering in- 
 dustry, and at great sacrifices. The place be- 
 came a show, and at the same time a kind of 
 hostelry, where the greatest men in Europe 
 were proud to be received, and partake of the 
 princely hospitalities of the Great Unknown. 
 In all this there was just that amount of folly 
 where passion degenerates into weakness, and 
 God's blessings are transmuted into worldly 
 idols. In 1820 he received the baronetcy for 
 which he sighed, as an aristocratic badge to 
 complete the foundation of the new Border 
 family; and in the following year he figured 
 impassionately, if not nervously, as the director 
 of the whimsical pageantry in celebration of 
 George IV. 's visit to Scotland. The money he 
 spent in all these displays was enormous ; nor 
 could he ever have been reconciled to such 
 outlay, except from the conviction that his 
 genius was a mine upon which he could draw 
 when he pleased. He forgot that nature has 
 certain boundaries; or rather, being greater 
 than nature, he thought he could overleap them. 
 Even some of the people in the neighbourhood 
 of Abbotsford shook their heads ; and Mr John 
 Mercer, an adjacent proprietor, whose property 
 was envied, told Sir Walter that " he wouldna 
 be surprised if he lived to see the craws bigging 
 in the braw lum-heads." 
 
 Before this period, the Messrs Ballantyne were 
 tottering, and they were brought to the ground 
 in 1826 by the failure of Constable's house, with 
 which they were deeply involved. The disclo- 
 sure of Sir Walter's concealed partnership fol- 
 lowed of necessity, and his liabilities were found 
 to amount to at least £120,000. Now the better 
 man emerged from the dream of grandeur and 
 pride, displaying his old courage and real high- 
 mindedness. He refused to be a party to a 
 composition, or to accept of any discharge, and 
 pledged himself to devote his whole subsequent 
 life to hard labour for the purpose of paying off 
 his debts. This pledge he actually redeemed ; 
 but it cost him dear, for the hard toil brought 
 his life to a termination long before nature's 
 time. A great part of the debt was satisfied 
 during his life, and the balance was paid by his 
 executors ; but there was little left to maintain 
 the dignity of the new family. One main source 
 in bringirg about this result was the collected 
 edition of his works, with the personal notes he 
 furnished to it. He also brought out a new 
 
 series of writings, which, though clearly indi- 
 cating decay, and one or two not of a high order, 
 will always be viewed with respect from the very 
 circumstances which produced them. " Wood- 
 stock " was published in 1826, realising £9500, 
 at the very height of his diflBculties and anxiety. 
 Afterwards came the "Life of Napoleon," which, 
 however, was partly written before the bank- 
 ruptcy; then, in succession, the "Tales of a 
 Grandfather," the first and second series of the 
 " Chronicles of the Canongate," "Anne of Geier- 
 stein," a history of Scotland for Lardner's " En- 
 cyclopaedia," two dramas, and "Letters on 
 Demonology." In 1831 were first seen the indi- 
 cations of the failure of the active intellect, in 
 "Count Robert of Paris" and "Castle Danger- 
 ous." 
 
 Sir Walter had, in 1830, been struck by par- 
 alysis, which came back more than once. Hav- 
 ing been prevailed upon to pause from labour, 
 he departed, in September 1831, for the Con- 
 tinent, of which he had been allowed by his 
 avocations to see but little. In November he 
 arrived at Malta, where orders were given by 
 the governor that every attention should be paid 
 to the poet — an unnecessary injunction, for 
 every one seemed anxious to render him honour. 
 He arrived at Naples on the 17th of December, 
 where by the English residents he was received 
 with marked attentions, and afterwards pre- 
 sented at court. He next went to Pompeii, 
 where he viewed with much interest the splen- 
 did mosaic representation of a combat of the 
 Greeks and Persians; and then, very deliber- 
 ately, the various antiquities in detail. In the 
 library, to which he next went, he was sur- 
 rounded by the literati, who showed him all the 
 curiosities of that wonderful collection. He 
 next proceeded to Rome, where he visited St 
 Peter's and other remarkable places, and got 
 offered to him the free use of museums and lib- 
 raries, of which he could now make small use. 
 Having crossed the Apennines, he arrived at 
 Venice on the 19th; and, having stayed there 
 for a short time, went to Frankfort, whence he 
 embarked in a Rhine boat ; but, on going down 
 the river, he had another attack of apoplectic 
 paralysis. On reaching London, he was put to 
 bed, and attended by Sir Henry Halford and 
 other physicians, who sometime after consented 
 to his removal to Scotland. On arriving at New- 
 haven, he was slung ashore in his carriage, 
 totally helpless, and with his mind so entirely 
 gone that he had sunk to worse than second 
 childhood ; yet on arriving at the scene of all his 
 former glory — Abbotsford — "his dogs having 
 assembled round him, and begun to fawn upon 
 and lick his hands, he alternately sobbed and 
 smiled over them, till sleep oppressed him." 
 For four or five days after his arrival, he was 
 wh«led about the house and garden. On the 
 16th he remained in bed, and though probably 
 no better, he, on the 17th, desired to be placed 
 
122 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 at his desk. His desire was complied with ; the 
 pen was put into his hand, and dropped from 
 utter inability to hold it. He became, shortly- 
 after, unconscious ; and died, in the midst of his 
 children, on the 21st of September, in the sixty- 
 second year of his age. 
 
 Though Scott was a man far easier to be un- 
 derstood than Byron, it has always remained a 
 wonder why one with his breadth of mind, 
 moderation of manner, and ^dat of genius, 
 could ever have been precipitated into his wild 
 ambition to be great in mere conventional dis- 
 tinctions of rank. The wonder is, at best, very 
 unnecessary, if applied to an exception from 
 general laws; for we have only to remember 
 that a ruling passion is irrespective not only of 
 the prudence which lies in moderation, but even 
 of those qualities which are the very opposite of 
 the dominant desire. No man could inculcate 
 the virtues of moderation and humility better 
 than Scott, if he did not even look them better 
 than any other man ; but all this was the mere 
 overlaying of the internal fire; and how that 
 came in that shape to be there, is just one of the 
 mysteries of man's being. By this passion hung 
 all his imperfections. But we are, and ought to 
 be, like every Scotsman, and all true lovers of 
 literature, slow in making deductions from such 
 a character. 
 
 In stature. Sir Walter Scott was above six 
 feet ; but his personal appearance, which had 
 otherwise been commanding, was marred by the 
 lameness of his right limb, which caused him to 
 walk awkwardly, and ultimately with difficulty. 
 His countenance, so correctly represented in his 
 numerous portraits and busts, was remarkable 
 for depth of forehead ; his features were some- 
 what heavy, and his eyes, covered with thick 
 eyelashes, were dull, unless animated by con- 
 genial conversation. He was of a fair complex- 
 ion; and his hair, originally sandy, became 
 grey from a severe illness which he suffered in 
 his forty-eighth year. His conversation con- 
 sisted in the detail of chivalric adventures, and 
 anecdotes of the old times. His memory was so 
 retentive that whatever he had read maintained 
 a place in bis recollection. In fertility of imagi- 
 nation he surpassed all his contemporaries. As 
 a poet, if he has not the graceful elegance of 
 Campbell, and the fervid energy of Byron, he 
 excels the latter in purity of sentiment, and the 
 former in vigour of conception. His style was 
 well adapted for the composition of lyric poetry ; 
 but as he had no ear for music, his song com- 
 positions are not numerous. Several of these, 
 however, have been set to music, and maintain 
 their popularity. But Scott's reputation as a 
 poet is inferior to his reputation as a novelist ; 
 and while even his best poems may cease to be 
 generally read, the author of the Waverley 
 Novels will only be forgotten with the disuse 
 of the language. 
 
 As a man of amiable dispositions and incor- 
 
 ruptible integrity, Sir Walter Scott shone con- 
 spicuous among his contemporaries, the latter 
 quality being eminently exhibited in his resolu- 
 tion to pay the whole of his pecuniary liabilities. 
 To this effort he fell a martyr; yet it was a 
 source of consolation to his survivors that, by 
 his extraordinary exertions, the policy of life 
 Insurance payable at his death, and the sum 
 of £30,000 paid by Mr Cadell for the copyright 
 of his works, the whole amount of the debt was 
 discharged on 2d February 1833. It is, however, 
 painfully to be remarked, that the object of his 
 ambition, in raising a family, has not been 
 realised. His children, consisting of two sons 
 and two daughters, all died young. His eldest 
 daughter, Sophia, married to Mr John Gibson 
 Lockhart, gave birth to several children, all of 
 whom are dead. Her only daughter married 
 James Hope, Esq., Q.C, who added to his 
 patronymic the name of Scott, and made Abbots- 
 ford his summer residence. Mrs Hope Scott 
 died at Edinburgh on the 26th October 1858, 
 leaving three children. Only one child, a 
 daughter, Mary Monica,* survives, the sole liv- 
 ing descendant of the author of "Waverley." 
 
 The memory of Sir Walter Scott has received 
 every honour from his countrymen : monuments 
 have been raised to him in the principal towns 
 — that in the capital, a magnificent Gothic cross, 
 being one of the most graceful objects in his 
 native city. Abbotsford has become the resort 
 of every traveller who contemplates with inter- 
 est a scene hallowed by genius. 
 
 COMMERCIAL SUCCESS OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS. 
 
 The commercial history of the Waverley 
 Novels is probably unparalleled in modern 
 literature. The price of "Waverley" was one 
 guinea, and 1000 copies only were printed as a 
 first edition. These were sold within five weeks, 
 and other 4000 copies were printed before the end 
 of the year. The total profits for author and 
 publisher for the first year of "Waverley" was 
 £1052 each. The same sum was divided before 
 the work appeared in a series. Constable had 
 offered £700 at first for the copyright of this 
 novel, and regretted that he had not secured it, 
 as he might have done, for £1000. Of "Guy 
 Mannering," 2000 copies, at one guinea each, 
 were sold on the day of publication ; within 
 twelve weeks the Ballantyne press turned out 
 other 5000 copies, and before many years had 
 passed 50, 000 had been sold. "The Antiquary, " 
 issued in 1816, hung fire at first, but was ulti- 
 mately as successful as " Guy Mannering." Of 
 "Tales of My Landlord," in four volumes, pub- 
 lished by arrangement with John Murray and 
 
 « Married on 21st July 1874 to the Hon. J. Constable 
 Maxwell Scott. They reside at Abbotsford, and their 
 children are, Walter Joseph Maxwell, born 11th AprL 
 1875, and Mary Josephine Maxwell, born 5t.h June 1876 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 123 
 
 William Blackwood, 6000 copies were printed 
 off within six weeks from the day of publication. 
 Of "Rob Roy" an impression of 10,000 copies 
 was thrown off, and a second edition of 3000 
 was called for within a fortnight of the publica- 
 tion. The existing copyrights of Sir Walter 
 Scott's works were purchased by Constable & Co. 
 in 1819, for the sum of £12,000. The original 
 offer had been £10,000, but Scott stood out for 
 the larger sum, and received it. At this period, 
 Scott's annual income, from his novels alone, was 
 not less than £10,000. The first demand for 
 " Ivanhoe " sold 12,000 copies, and this continues 
 to be still one of his most popular novels. The 
 copyright of this novel, which, with "The 
 Monastery," "The Abbot," and " Kenil worth," 
 all passed into Constable's hands, yielded Scott 
 no less a sum than £15,000. *' Peveril of the 
 Peak," " Quentin Durward," " St Ronan's 
 Well," and " Redgauntlet," issued within a 
 period of two years, had been written to order. 
 "Woodstock" was issued immediately after the 
 failure of Constable & Co. and Ballantyne and 
 Co., and the first edition of 9850 copies was 
 sold for £9500. The claims on the estate of Sir 
 Walter Scott amounted to £120,000, but this 
 immense sum was eventually cleared off by the 
 author of "Waverley." Between January 1826 
 and January 1828, debt to the amount of 
 £40,000 was cleared off. At a meeting of the 
 creditors in December 1830, they presented 
 Scott with the library and furniture of Abbots- 
 ford ; the castle and estate could not be seized 
 as they had been settled on his son. After 
 Scott's death, as we have seen, the whole sum 
 was cleared off. It has been calculated that by 
 the sale of Scott's complete works Mr Robert 
 Cadell, Constable's successor, must have turned 
 over more than a million sterling, and that the 
 profits yielded him would at least be £300,000. 
 
 The following publishers have issued editions 
 of the Waverley Novels since the expiration of 
 the copyright : Messrs George Routledge & Sons ; 
 Bradbury, Evans, & Co. ; W. P. Nimmo, Lon- 
 don and Edinburgh ; and Marcus Ward & Co. 
 of Belfast and London. Of the copyright edi- 
 tion in the hands of Messrs A. & C. Black of 
 Edinburgh, many different styles have been 
 issued, from sixpence upwards, while the sale 
 continues steady and regular. If Scott is not 
 read so much as he used to be, then the reading 
 public still purchase his works to line the shelves 
 of their libraries. 
 
 THE SCOTT CENTENARY. 
 
 The centenary of Sir Walter Scott was cele- 
 brated with great enthusiasm in the towns of 
 Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Dumfries, on 
 Sth August 1871. Although the 15th August 
 was Scott's real birthday, for various important 
 reasons the celebration took place some days 
 earlier. At the festival held in the Corn Ex- 
 change, Edinburgh, Sir William Stirling Max- 
 
 well, in proposing the toast of the evening, 
 "The memory of Sir Walter Scott," delivered 
 the following brilliant and masterly speech : 
 
 To offer for your consideration some of the 
 reasons why the memory of Sir Walter Scott 
 should be honoured in an assembly composed 
 mainly of his countrymen, and wholly of his 
 admirers, may seem a very simple task. To 
 state in any adequate manner his services to his 
 country and mankind, would be a task of a very 
 different kind. It would involve nothing less 
 than a review of the literature which he found, 
 the literature which he left, and the literature 
 which a later age has created, and an examina- 
 tion into the part which literature holds in the 
 vital system of a people. I need hardly say that 
 the first and simpler method of treating the sub- 
 ject is the one which I propose to myself, and 
 that in approaching even that, I am sensible 
 how much I stand in need of your indulgence. 
 I would first remind you of the amount of work 
 accomplished by Scott, and the comparatively 
 brief period in which it was performed. In 
 1796, his twenty-fifth year, he began to try with 
 literature as a translator of German ballads. 
 But his own original writings, beginning with the 
 "House of Aspen," and ending with the "Sur- 
 geon's Daughter," all saw the light between 1799 
 and 1831. 
 
 His career as a popular poet may be said to 
 have opened with the " Lay of the Last Minstrel " 
 in 1805, and ended with " Harold the Dauntless" 
 in 1817. His career as our first writer of prose 
 fiction commenced with "Waverley" in 1814, 
 and closed with his life. By the side of this 
 ample and sparkling stream of original writing 
 flowed another of scarcely inferior volume, con- 
 sisting of miscellaneous works, editorial, critical, 
 biographical, or historical, of which it is enough 
 to mention the editions of Dryden and Swift, 
 the "Life of Napoleon," and the "Tales of a 
 Grandfather." As an oflBcer of the Court of 
 Session and Sheriff of Selkirk, professional work 
 occupied a considerable portion of his time, and 
 so also did the mercantile concerns in which he 
 was unfortunately a partner. For a good many 
 years, the years of seeming financial prosperity, 
 say from 1817 or 1818 to 1825, he was one of the 
 most prominent figures in social life in Scotland, 
 and one of the favourite lions of London. In 
 these busy thirty-two years enough was done to 
 fill the lives of ten not inconsiderable mortals. 
 One of the Homeric heroes seemed to have reap- 
 peared upon the earth, clothed in superhuman 
 strength and the wig and gown of a Scotch 
 advocate. 
 
 As a poet, Scott, like other great masters of 
 the lyre, may be said to have fulfilled the aspira- 
 tions, and given full and triumphant truth to 
 the thought, with which many kindred minds 
 have been in labour, but which they had lacked 
 strength to bring forth. In days when letters 
 here in Scotland were still young, there was a 
 
124 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 strong disposition to gather up, and afterwards 
 a no less strong wish to reproduce, the relics of 
 earliest song. The ballads which collectors like 
 George Bannatyne and Richard Maitland loved, 
 later poets like Allan Ramsay and Elizabeth 
 Halket eagerly imbibed, and so considerable 
 was the power and the industry of these imita- 
 tors, that it has lately been argued with consider- 
 able plausibility that the best of our so-called 
 old Scottish ballads belong to the age of Sir 
 Roger de Coverley. Thomson's "Castle of 
 Indolence" and Percy's "Reliques" are later 
 indications of the tendency of thought and taste, 
 which, in another branch of art, was likewise 
 marked by the plaster pinnacles of Strawberry 
 Hill. Scott himself, cradled in the ballad-land, 
 became the most zealous as well as the ablest of 
 ballad editors in collecting materials for the 
 "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," thinking, 
 as it was said, " of little but the queerness and 
 the fun he was making for himself" for the work 
 of his life. He was also in no small degree 
 making at the same time the public taste to 
 which that work was to be submitted. In ful- 
 ness of time the *' Lay of the Last Minstrel " was 
 born to fascinate a world athwart which the 
 genius of Burns had lately flashed, but in which 
 Hayley was probably the most popular poet, 
 and the laurels of Dry den certainly wreathed 
 the brow of Pye. Few critics will question the 
 supremacy of Scott, at least in our language, in 
 the field of metrical romance. Opinion may 
 vary as to the rank to be assigned to that class 
 of composition. Other poets have soared higher 
 into the empyrean of thought, or have dived 
 deeper into the mystery of life. But none has 
 ever told his tale with greater breadth of light 
 and shade, or hurried his reader along with a 
 more genial vivacity ; none has ever lit up the 
 banquet-hall or the battle-field with more of 
 Homeric fire, or adorned his action with a more 
 exquisite transcript of the scenery of nature. It 
 is in virtue of these qualities that a great poet 
 holds as his own for ever the ground, historical 
 or topographical, which his wand has once 
 touched ; and conquests of this kind are in one 
 sense a measure of his power. In this sphere, 
 Scott is certainly the greatest of peaceful and 
 beneficent conquerors in the world of letters. 
 Bannockburn and Flodden are his ; Melrose and 
 Dunvigan, and many a fair domain and ancient 
 pile between. The house of Buccleuch is not 
 less indebted to his genius than to the valour of 
 another Sir Walter, the favour of King James, 
 or the good housewifery of the *' Lady of the 
 Lake." Of this city, his own romantic town, 
 he is, in our legal language, the unquestioned 
 feudal superior. It is curious now to turn to 
 his friend Moore's playful allusions to these 
 poetical conquests at the time "Rokeby" was 
 announced in 1814. Writing in the character of 
 Messrs Lackington to one of their authors, he 
 aays that Scott — 
 
 " Having quitted the Borders to seek new renown, 
 la coming by long quarto stages to town. 
 And, beginning with ' Rokeby,' the job's sure to pay; 
 Means to do all the gentlemen's seats on the way. 
 Now the scheme is, though none of our hackneya 
 
 can beat him. 
 Is to start a new poet through Highgate to meet him; 
 Who by means of quick proofs, no revises, long 
 
 coaches. 
 May do a few villas before Scott approaches. 
 Indeed, if our Pegasus be not cursed shabby, 
 He'll reach without foundering at least Wobun* 
 
 Abbey." 
 
 It is needless to remind you that ere the fresh 
 poet alighted at Wobum gate Scott had pursued 
 his raid far into England, and with new arms 
 had annexed Ashby and Kenilworth, White* 
 friars and Whitehall. 
 
 Had Scott written nothing but his lyrics, he 
 would still hold a distinguished place in letters. 
 "Rosabelle," **Lochinvar," "Jock o' Hazel- 
 dean," "Norah's Vow," and the "Pibroch of 
 Donuil Dhu," will be sung and loved as long as 
 tenderness and melody, pith and vigour, arch- 
 ness, gaiety, and delicate humour shall please 
 the ear, inspire the fancy, and touch the heart. 
 These and other songs of Scott have made the 
 tour of the world with the songs of Burns, and 
 haunt the memory of most men who love poetry 
 and speak English. They are the very songs to 
 be sung in a strange land by exiles not much 
 given to weeping and hanging their harps on 
 willows, and who yet at Vancouver or Hong- 
 Kong, very steadily think of Scotland, knowing, 
 or perhaps not knowing, how greatly the Scot- 
 land to which their hearts turn is the intellectual 
 creation of Scott. It is the poet's best reward, 
 we are told by Longfellow, to find his song in 
 the heart of a friend. Scott, like Longfellow 
 himself, is a poet who enjoys "love, honour, and 
 obedience, troops of friends." One of the latest 
 of his stranger friends whom I have met with 
 turned up in North-Eastern Siberia. If you will 
 look into the pleasant tent life in that country 
 of Mr George Kennan, an American surveyor, 
 you will find him discovering analogies between 
 the scenery around him and the Western High- 
 lands of Scott's poetry, and recording how he 
 and his party made the woodlands of Kamts- 
 chatka re-echo to the wild and unaccustomed 
 war-notes of "Bonnie Dundee." 
 
 I would now ask you to look at Scott as a 
 writer of prose fiction, who, from the stores of 
 his learning and the spring of his imagination, 
 fed for sixteen years the fancy of the civilised 
 world, ministering no less to the social and 
 moral well-being than the innocent gaiety of 
 nations. The Waverley Novels provided a new 
 pleasure for the reading world, even for the little 
 fastidious world of jaded elderly critics. To 
 him who has never seen the sea or the moun- 
 tains, the first sight of either becomes an epoch 
 in his life. Many of us, I believe, cherish as a 
 choice reminiscence our first glimpse of the fair 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT, 
 
 125 
 
 imaginary realm which was created by Scott. 
 My own first peep of it I well remember, ob- 
 tained by means of a review which I got hold of 
 when at an age at which the nature and uses of 
 quarterly criticism were for me as yet very dim. 
 The delight with which I devoured the extracts 
 in small print was only equalled by the disgust 
 with which I floundered amongst the comments 
 in a larger type, lamentable fits of insanity, as 
 I thought them, befalling in some mysterious 
 manner my matchless story-teller. It was not 
 till several years afterwards that the book itself 
 fell into my hands, and the well-remembered 
 names of Isaac of York, Rebecca, and Rowena, 
 told me that I had found an old friend in 
 " Ivanhoe." I venture to mention this trivial 
 personal incident in hopes that it may recall to 
 many of you whom I have the honour to address, 
 various green spots, diverse and yet similar, of 
 auld lang syne connected with Scott and his 
 writings. The effect which the first Waverley 
 novel may produce on a fresh and imaginative 
 mind, now when Scott has taught his craft 
 to so many cunning hands, can give but a 
 very faint idea of the success of "Waverley." 
 "TTie small anonymous sort of a novel," as 
 Scott called it in sending it to Mr Morris by 
 the mail of the 9th July 1814, very speedily 
 took the world by storm. Five years later, on 
 the publication of the eighth of the series, a re- 
 viewer so discriminating and so little given to 
 reckless praise announced that no such prodigy 
 had been known since Shakespeare wrote his 
 thirty-eight plays in the brief space of his early 
 manhood. This opinion was recorded upon the 
 appearance of " Kenilworth," " Nigel," " Dur- 
 ward," and various other favourites, scarce less 
 successful than their predecessors. Detailed 
 criticism would be out of place here, where we 
 are met to agree that as Stratford did for Shake- 
 speare, so Edinburgh must do for Scott. The 
 long procession of ideal figures, headed by 
 Waverley and the Baron of Bradwardine, and 
 closed by Richard Middlemas and the French 
 Begum, frowns stern and solemn, or gay and 
 sportive, correctly or grotesque, of every age 
 and sex, of many desires, periods, and modes of 
 mind, which proceeded from the brain of Scott, 
 have furnished a goodly quota of their number 
 to the world's gallery, where the people of the 
 poet's dream stand side by side with the per- 
 sonages of history, and where it often occurs to 
 us, who are the transitory visitors to the show, 
 to exclaim with the Spanish monk before the 
 canvas of Titian : 
 
 " These are the real men, 
 And we the painted shadows on the wall." 
 
 Who of us, indeed, do not feel Don Quixote and 
 his squire, Hamlet and Falstaff, to be our fel- 
 low-creatures quite as truly as Philip III. or the 
 minister Lerma, or Devereux Cecil or Queen 
 Bess herself ? Scott has filled more places in the 
 historical Valhalla than any other writer, Shake- 
 
 speare alone excepted. To the history of this 
 little corner of Northern Europe, this single 
 Scotsman, bending his big brow over his desk, 
 has given a wide and splendid celebrity, far be- 
 yond the reach, at least far beyond the attain- 
 ment of the strong hands and stout hearts and 
 busy brains of the whole perfervid race of other 
 days at home and abroad. 
 
 His reading of our national story is probably 
 the version which will long be accepted by the 
 world. In one point, indeed, it was fiercely 
 challenged. The sufferings and services of the 
 Covenanters had made them popular idols, and 
 some good men were startled at being shown 
 that their idols had a comic side, and on being 
 reminded that in respect and sympathy for free- 
 dom of thought the black Prelatist and the true- 
 blue Presbyterian were in the relative condition 
 of the pot and the kettle in the fable. But I 
 question if any of the controversialists who en- 
 tered the field against Scott ever recognised more 
 fully than he did that the spirit which leads 
 men to lay down lives for what they hold to be 
 truth is the very breath of national life ; if any 
 Whig writer has ever painted a more touching 
 picture of the bitter men of Bothwellhaugh than 
 the novelist who delighted to wear the white 
 cockade of the cavalier. In fact, the good corn 
 of the history of the Kirk seems to owe quite as 
 much to the winnowing it received from Scott as 
 to the painful garnerings of honest Wodrow, in 
 whose husbandry flail and fanner were unknown. 
 If the world beyond the Tweed is likely for long 
 to read Scottish history with the eyes of Scott, 
 it is still more certain to adopt his estimate of 
 the character of our people. Coleridge used to 
 say: " Whenever I have occasion to speak of a 
 Scotch rascal, I always lay the emphasis on 
 Scotch." This principle Scott applied in a 
 somewhat larger spirit. His Scotch characters. 
 Highland and Lowland, tinted with all the deli- 
 cate shades of local and social colour, gentle and 
 simple, good and bad, are all emphatically 
 Scotch. It is not for a Scotsman to say whether 
 our great painter has or has not been 
 
 " To all our virtues very kind. 
 To all our faults a little blind;" 
 
 but we certainly ought to be well content with 
 the national portraiture, and do each what in us 
 lies to perpetuate its nobler features. The work 
 that Burns yearned after from the depths of his 
 passionate heart, Scott has actually accomplished. 
 From the story of our feuds and factions, from 
 the dust and blood of the past, his genius and 
 his patriotism have culled all that was pure and 
 lovely and of good report, and have woven it 
 into an immortal chaplet for the brow of Cale- 
 donia. He has fanned the fire of Scottish na- 
 tionality without detriment, nay, with positive 
 advantage to that higher and nobler nationality 
 which rallies around the flag whereon the white 
 cross fits so compactly into the red. Wherever 
 
126 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the British flag flies it will find no better or 
 truer defenders there than those Scotsmen who 
 best know and love their Scott. 
 
 Amidst moral and intellectual benefits, I must 
 not forget the important contributions of Scott 
 to the material prosperity of his native land. 
 The dead poet whom we celebrate is as distinctly 
 an employer of labour as any of those captains 
 of industry whose looms whirl by the Tweed, or 
 whose furnaces flame along the Clyde. Here, 
 there, everywhere, pilgrims are flocking to the 
 shrines which he has built for himself and his 
 country; and trades and occupations of all 
 kinds flourish by the brain which lies in Dry- 
 burgh, as they formerly flourished by the brain 
 of St Thomas. Mrs Dodds of the Cleikum, 
 Neal Blane of the HowflF, and others, his pleasant 
 publicans, are only a few of those whom Scott 
 has established in a roaring business. When 
 land is to be sold in any district of the Scott 
 countries, his scenes and his characters there- 
 with connected, and even his passing allusions, 
 are carefully chronicled amongst other attrac- 
 tions in the advertisement, and duly inventoried 
 amongst the title-deeds of the estate. It would 
 be hard to say how many years' purchase Scott 
 has added to the value of Branksome, or of the 
 Eildon pastures. But there is no doubt that 
 the touch of his pen does in many places form 
 an important element of that unearned incre- 
 ment of value — that, I believe, is the scientific 
 term — which Mr Stuart Mill and friends propose 
 shortly to transfer from the lords of the soil to 
 the Lords of the Treasury. Some of Scott's 
 truest admirers have been disposed to regret 
 that there is no single piece of his that gives 
 any adequate idea of his greatness. The pangs 
 of parturition were indeed unknown to that 
 most prolific of brains. The mighty machinery 
 of his mind worked with the least possible 
 friction, "Waverley" is generally esteemed 
 the most carefully-finished of his tales, yet we 
 know, on his own authority, the two last volumes 
 were written between the 4th of June and the 
 1st of July. The noble lord who, in a party 
 attack on the most illustrious of his countrymen, 
 told the House of Commons that one of the 
 Clerks of Session wrote more books than any 
 other person had leisure to read, would probably 
 have accomplished an unusual feat if he had 
 read in one day the forty pages octavo which Scott 
 sometimes wrote in the same period of time. 
 We find that the two sermons which Scott wrote 
 for a clerical friend were promised over-night 
 and placed in his hand next morning. The 
 absence of apparent effort in the exercise of even 
 nis highest powers struck all strangers who had 
 an opportunity of observing his talents. Two 
 acute and by no means superstitious observers 
 solved the mystery by ascribing to him some- 
 thing of supernatural power. " There was," 
 says Hazlitt, *' a degree of capacity in that huge 
 double forehead which superseded all effort 
 
 and made everything come intuitively and al- 
 most mechanically." Captain Basil Hall was 
 at first much exercised by the phenomena, but 
 as he himself kept a very copious journal, and 
 discovered that in one of his visits to Abbotsford 
 he had written in one day about as much as 
 Scott considered a fair day's task, he considered 
 that his wonder was misapplied. " No such 
 great matter after all," concluded the gallant 
 captain; "it is mere industry and a little in- 
 vention, and that we all know costs Scott 
 nothing." In fact, amongst his intimate friends 
 the marvellous facility and fecundity of the man 
 ceased to excite any surprise. Even the faithful 
 and affectionate Laidlaw, his amanuensis in 
 times of sickness, used to forget himself and 
 everything else in the interest of the tale he was 
 writing down. If the dictation flagged, he would 
 say, "Come, sir, get on; get on;" and would 
 receive the characteristic reply, " Hout ! Willie, 
 you forget I have to invent the story ! " It is 
 natural at first sight to regret all this headlong 
 haste, and to wish that four or five of the novels 
 had been compressed into a perfect work of 
 art, into a "gem of purest ray serene," alto- 
 gether worthy of the mind whence it came. 
 No doubt the rule of Goldsmith's connoisseur 
 is generally a sound one, that the picture would 
 have been better had the painter taken more 
 pains ; and if we can conceive such a thing as a 
 pedagogue seated with a row of possible Walter 
 Scotts before him, it would be highly proper 
 that he should impress the maxim on their 
 young minds. But as the genius of Scott was 
 in so many points exceptional, it is possible 
 that it may have worked under special laws of 
 its own, and that something of the charm of his 
 works may belong to their rapid and spontaneous 
 flow, like the rush of a river or melody from the 
 throats of birds 
 
 " Tliat carol their secret pleasures to the spring." 
 
 The influence of Scott upon literature, both 
 at home and abroad, was immense. Whatever 
 he did, whatever attire he chose to assume, at 
 once became the fashion. The apparent ease of 
 his verse, the fatal facility of the octosyllabic 
 measure, procured him a large poetical following, 
 in which there were, no doubt, many figures 
 strange to see, like the alderman, in whose 
 person Holywood saw 
 
 " Royal Albyn's tartans as a belt 
 Gird the gross sirloin of a city Celt." 
 
 But his school can likewise boast of several 
 disciples of rare genius. His presence may be 
 felt in some of the earlier tales of Byron ; from 
 his shrine comes some of the fire that bums in 
 "Ury" and the "Armada," and the "Roman 
 Lays" of Macaulay, and in the " Cavalier Bal- 
 lads" of our own still lamented Aytoun. Of 
 the historical romance in prose he may be called 
 the father ; and never had literary sire a more 
 goodly offering to the second generation— 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 127 
 
 " Sy many names men call them, 
 In many lands they dwell." 
 
 In France, Hugo de Vigny, the elder Dumas ; 
 m Spain, Fernan Caballero; in Italy, Manzoni 
 and D'Azeglio ; in Germany, Zschokke and 
 Alexis ; in America, Cooper ; at home, Gratton, 
 Leigh Hunt, and Thackeray, are only a few of 
 the writers well known to fame, who have es- 
 sayed to bend the bow of Scott. Of living 
 English writers I will not speak. Many names 
 will at once occur to you all, and I am sure that 
 the most famous of the band would be the fore- 
 most in rendering homage to their great master. 
 If the words that Scott wrote to Mr Cadell in 
 1830 were somewhat overcharged then, they are 
 more near the truth in 1871. " The fact is," he 
 wrote, *' I have taught a hundred gentlemen to 
 write nearly, if not altogether, as well as my- 
 self." In truth, Scott's art, using the word in 
 the larger sense, was like that of Falstaff, who 
 was witty himself and the cause of wit in other 
 men. Even in the fields less peculiarly his own 
 than fiction, his influence was very great. His 
 writings stimulated historical research in a hun- 
 dred directions ; and he was the founder of the 
 Bannatyne Club, parent model of many similar 
 societies prolific of goodly quartos. In his ro- 
 mances the delighted reader had found himself 
 brought face to face with personages whom he 
 had before seen only as in a glass darkly. His- 
 torians began to take a leaf out of the great 
 novelist's book, to use a style more dramatic 
 and pictorial, to develop individual character, 
 and bestow unwonted pains on accessories of 
 time and place. Is it too much to say that we 
 probably owe to the example of Scott some of 
 the most graceful digressions of Hallam ; some- 
 thing of the splendid scene-painting of Macaulay ; 
 something of the electric light flashed over many 
 famous men and into many dark places from the 
 pen of Carlyle ? Is it unreasonable to suppose 
 that his great genius has exercised an influence, 
 not the less real because untraced, unseen, un- 
 suspected, like the influence of the Gulf Stream 
 diffusing itself through our western sounds and 
 sea-coasts in softer verdure and richer foliage ? 
 Of all the legacies which Scott has bequeathed 
 to mankind, I believe none are more precious 
 than his own character and life. Happy in 
 many things, unhappy in a few, he was singu- 
 larly happy in a biographer. Amongst our 
 chosen book companions, amongst the friends 
 that can never alter nor forsake, Lockhart's 
 " Life of Scott " deserves to hold a place of chief 
 honour and ready access. I doubt whether the 
 world has ever been told so much about any one 
 man by any single biographer— whether the life 
 of a great man has ever fallen into the hands of 
 a writer with equal opportunity of knowing the 
 whole truth, and equal faculty for telling ; and 
 whether the whole "Biographie Universelle" 
 ean furnish a single other name that would show 
 so fair if the whole life which belonged to it 
 
 were unrolled like that of Scott, year by year^ 
 almost day by day, before the gaze of his fellow- 
 men. The admiration with which Scott was 
 regarded during the larger portion of his life 
 was great, but the love and affection which he 
 inspired during his whole life was still greater^ 
 Warmly and widely loved before he was famous, 
 he in later days attracted the regard of various 
 remarkable persons to whom his fame was an 
 unknown quantity. In Paris, in 1815, amongst 
 all the celebrities of Europe, he seemed especially 
 to fascinate Buscher and Platoff the Cossack, 
 the latter of whom, cantering down the Kue de 
 la Paix, would jump off his horse to kiss him. 
 It is highly improbable that either the Prussian 
 field-marshal or the Hetman of the Cossacks of 
 the Don knew much about either " Marmion " or 
 ** Waverley," or that they were influenced by any- 
 thing deeper than the frank kindly aspect of 
 the stalwart ex-volunteer, with "that beautiful 
 smile of heart and feeling, geniality, courage, 
 and tenderness," which Haydn assures us 
 " neither painter nor sculptor has ever touched." 
 How variegated with all the hues of character 
 is the best of his friends! Jeffrey, Eogers, 
 Moore, Byron, Crabbe, Hazlitt, Wordsworth, 
 Southey, Haydn, George IV. , are only a sample 
 of those who, differing from one another on 
 many things, agreed to love and honour Scott. 
 The reverence in which he was held from their 
 first acquaintance by Lockhart is of itself no 
 small proof of his titles to be revered and 
 honoured. With the intellectual life of his 
 time, Scott's relations were as genial as those 
 which bound him to its social life. His career 
 had no incident to the "Quarrels of Authors." 
 His high, frequently too high, appreciation of 
 the writings of his contemporaries was one of 
 the most noticeable of his many pleasant traits 
 of character. Washington Irving, after pass- 
 ing a few days at Abbotsford in 1817, was con- 
 vinced that his host was the author of the 
 Waverley Novels, because they were the only 
 important works of the day he had never 
 quoted. How characteristic is Scott's reminis- 
 cence of Bums, and his pride in having, as a 
 boy, helped the poet to the authorship of some 
 lines by Langhorne, and having received a grate- 
 ful look from him in return. From this, which 
 was probably his first meeting with any distin- 
 guished man of letters, to that which was pro- 
 bably one of the last, at Naples, when being 
 under the delusion that his debts were all paid, 
 he offered pecuniary aid to Mr William Gall, the 
 record of his relations with his brethren of the 
 pen is a record of brotherly kindness, encourage- 
 ment, furtherance, earnest sympathy in success 
 or in disappointment, of gifts of money when he 
 had it, of hours of time when time was to him 
 in a special manner money. 
 
 Much has been written and said about Scott's 
 desire to found a family upon the estate which 
 his industry had acquired. It has been urged 
 
128 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that being the Ariosto of the North, the Cer- 
 vantes of his native land, it was pitiable that he 
 should have cared to be Scott of Abbotsford— a 
 kind of distinction frequently achieved and 
 enjoyed by his Andrew Fairservices and Nicol 
 Jarvies. This view of the case seems to leave 
 out of sight the important fact that the Scott 
 was as strong within him as the Ariosto or Cer- 
 vantes, and that if he had been devoid of one of 
 the strongest tendencies of the race from which 
 he was sprung, he would not have been the 
 Walter Scott we have met here to celebrate. In 
 the higher part of his character he was a poet, 
 in the everyday concerns of life he was a shrewd 
 practical man of the world. Hence, having 
 acquired wealth by an unusual path, he invested 
 that wealth very much as any one of his friends 
 might have done who had acquired it by the 
 practice of law or the weaving of wool. In his 
 case land had a peculiar attraction, for he had 
 loved the country from his cradle, and by its 
 possession he was enabled to realise, or to try to 
 realise, the half-feudal, half-patriarchal life of 
 his day-dreams. The existence of a certain 
 number of families, with more or less of perman- 
 ence in the possession of the soil, and enjoying 
 more or less of social importance, was, accord- 
 ing to his political theories, essential to the 
 welfare of an ancient kingdom. There was 
 nothing inconsistent or unworthy that a man 
 holding this theory should desire that amongst 
 those families his descendants should be found. 
 The popular and prevailing theory is, of course, 
 of an opposite kind. But for some cause or 
 other, which it is not for me to explain, when 
 the holders of this theory buy land, it seems to 
 lose its grasp of their vigorous and enterprising 
 minds. They, too, build and plant on a scale 
 altogether feudal ; and their walls and windows 
 blaze with heraldry, just as if romantic poetry 
 and old-fashioned Toryism had been their 
 profession and their creed. 
 
 Even of Scott's politics, so characteristic of 
 the man, I will venture to say a word. They 
 were the opinions naturally growing up with 
 the man who had been unable to feel any 
 enthusiasm for French liberalism in 1789, and 
 had rejoiced in the fall of the French Napoleon 
 in 181.5 before a European coalition mainly 
 formed and set in motion by the Tory ministry 
 of England. Such as they were, the views of 
 the young advocate defending a housebreaker at 
 Jedburgh were those of the favourite at Carlton 
 House, which is more than could be said for 
 some of the few folks he met there. On the 
 whole, I believe few of us will be disposed to 
 regret that he did not go over to the winning 
 flide in 1831 — a year of rapid change and sudden 
 conversion. He had chosen his party, and 
 adhered to it strictly ; but there was nothing in 
 his tenets nor in his attitude that was ignoble, 
 or narrow, or incongruous. His once famous 
 '** Malagrowther's Letters " show that he was no 
 
 slave to party allegiance, and that in the midst 
 of his own anxieties and disasters the call o( 
 public duty found him no niggard of his time 
 and toil. His writings show that while his own 
 opinions were firmly held, he was ever mindful 
 of how much may always be said on the other 
 side. Tories may well be proud that the most 
 illustrious author of his day was a Tory. Not 
 a few Radicals I believe there are who will think 
 more kindly of Toryism for his sake, just as I 
 am sure that any repugnance to the Radical 
 faith must have been much softened by any one 
 who had enjoyed the benignant converse of an- 
 other great man lately taken from us — George 
 Grote.* 
 
 Those who are most disposed to discover evi- 
 dence of weakness in this or that portion of 
 Scott's conduct, will admit such weaknesses only 
 brought into nobler prominence the indomitable 
 fortitude with which he confronted the misfor- 
 tunes of his later years. One weakness he un- 
 questionably had — that of reluctance to look 
 disagreeable facts in the face. But for this his 
 financial disasters would probably never have 
 overtaken him. He could, however, as few men 
 could, set his face as a flint against the inevit- 
 able in declining years and health, and take up 
 arms against a sea of troubles with all the energy 
 of youth. There is nothing more tragic in the 
 story of literature than his memorable struggle 
 — from the entry in his diary of 24th January 
 1826 — *' I will dig in the mine of my imagina- 
 tion to find diamonds, or what may sell for such, 
 to make good my engagements " — to the closing 
 scene, when six years of such incessant digging 
 had done their work on the noble intellect, and 
 when the rocks of Panlippe and the companion 
 lake beyond could elicit no other words from 
 the weary pilgrim but — 
 
 "It's up the craggy mountain 
 And down the mossy glen. 
 We canna gang a milking 
 For Charlie and his men." 
 
 For myself I can never take down, for instruc- 
 tion or amusement, a volume of Scott's writings, 
 published in or after 1826, without thinking of 
 the circumstances in which they were composed, 
 and remembering that they, like the water from 
 the well of Bethlehem, which David refused to 
 drink, represent the heart's blood of a brave 
 man's life. May the day never come in Scot- 
 land when we shall forget that noble and beauti- 
 ful life, with its triumphs and its joys, and its 
 sorrows, and its lessons ! 
 
 Such are the thoughts, inadequate as I confess 
 them to be, which the career of Scott has sug- 
 gested to my mind. You have met to-night to 
 do him a rare and exceptional honour ; yet the 
 century which closes with the hundredth anni- 
 versary of his birth has been a century full of 
 
 * Grote died June 18, 1871. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 
 
 129 
 
 great capacities, great achievements, and colos- 
 sal and unparalleled events. Within the life- 
 time of Scott, died Clive and Hastings, the 
 founders of our Indian empire; Chatham ex- 
 pired in the senate, and Nelson on the quarter- 
 deck ; Fox, Burke, the younger Pitt, Canning, 
 and many more, died in the fulness of parlia- 
 
 mentary fame; Wellington lived and conquered; 
 and a host of writers, philosophers, and inventors 
 inscribed their names in the book of fame. Of 
 all these statesmen, soldiers, and their kings, 
 two only have been thought worthy of our 
 national recognition, both poets, both Scots- 
 men — Burns and Scott. 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 [1772-1834.] 
 By THOMAS DE QUINCEY.* 
 
 [Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the youngest of a 
 numerous family, was born at Ottery St Mary, 
 in Devonshire, on the 21st October 1772. He 
 received his early education at Christ's Hospital, 
 where Charles Lamb was one of his schoolfel- 
 lows. His early love of poetry was nursed and 
 inspired by a perusal of the sonnets of W. L. 
 Bowles. When nineteen years of age, on ob- 
 taining his presentation from Christ's Hospital, 
 he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, gaining in 
 classics a gold medal for a Greek ode. About 
 1794 his acquaintance began with Southey; 
 Coleridge and Southey were afterwards married 
 on the same day to two sisters, and settled at 
 Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, where they also 
 met Wordsworth. An account of their manner 
 of life there, by Hazlitt, will be found on page 
 104. Some of Coleridge's finest poems were 
 written there, such as the ** Ancient Mariner," 
 the *' Ode on the Departing Year," and the first 
 part of "Christabel." Coleridge visited Ger- 
 many through the liberality of the Messrs 
 Wedgwood, the Staffordshire potters, and on 
 returning in 1800 went to reside with Southey 
 at Keswick ; Wordsworth then staying at Gras- 
 raere. In 1804 he visited Malta. In the latter 
 part of his life he resided with his friend and 
 medical adviser, Mr Gillman, at Highgate, de- 
 lighting a large circle by his splendid conversa- 
 tional powers. Here he died on the 20th of July 
 1834, in the sixty-second year of his age. The 
 plan of the periodical publication, the Friend^ 
 occurred to Coleridge while staying at Keswick, 
 the first number of which appeared on the 8th 
 of June 1809, and the last on the 15th of March 
 1810. His chief works, besides his poems, mere 
 fragments of the possibilities that were in him, 
 were "Biographia Literaria," " Lay Sermons," 
 **Aids to Reflection," etc.] 
 
 It was, I think, in the month of August, but 
 
 * Reprinted from his notice of the poet contributed 
 to TaiVs Magazine in 1834. 
 
 certainly in the summer season, and certainly in 
 the year 1807, that I first saw this illustrious 
 man, the largest and most spacious intellect, the 
 subtlest and the most comprehensive, in my 
 judgment, that has yet existed amongst men. 
 My knowledge of him as a man of most original 
 genius began about the year 1799. A little be- 
 fore that time Mr Wordsworth had published 
 the first edition (in a single volume) of the 
 " Lyrical Ballads," at the end or the beginning 
 of which was placed Mr Coleridge's poem of 
 the "Ancient Mariner," as the contribution of 
 an anonymous friend. It would be directing 
 the reader's attention too much to myself, if I 
 were to linger upon this, the greatest event in 
 the unfolding of my own mind. Let me say in 
 one word, that, at a period when neither the one 
 nor the other writer was valued by the public — 
 both having a long warfare to accomplish of con- 
 tumely and ridicule before they could rise into 
 their present estimation — I found in these poems 
 "the ray of a new morning," and an absolute 
 revelation of untrodden worlds, teeming with 
 power and beauty, as yet unsuspected amongst 
 men. I may here mention that, precisely at the 
 same time. Professor Wilson, about the same 
 age as myself, received the same startling and 
 profound impressions from the same volume. 
 With feelings of reverential interest, so early 
 and so deep, pointing towards two contempor- 
 aries, it may be supposed that I inquired eagerly 
 after their names. But these inquiries were self- 
 bafded, the same deep feelings which prompted 
 my curiosity causing me to recoil from all casual 
 opportunities of pushing the inquiry, as too 
 generally lying amongst those who gave no sign 
 of participating in my feelings ; and, extravagant 
 as it may seem, I revolted with as much hatred 
 from coupling my question with any occasion of 
 insult to the persons whom it respected, as a 
 primitive Christian from throwing frankincense 
 upon the altars of Csesar, or a lover from giving 
 up the name of his beloved to the coarse licence 
 of a Bacchanalian party. It is laughable to 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 record for how long a period my curiosity in this 
 particular was self-defeated. Two years passed 
 before I ascertained the two names. Mr Words- 
 worth published his in the second and enlarged 
 etlition of the work — and for Mr Coleridge's I 
 was "indebted" to a private source; but I dis- 
 charged that debt ill, for I quarrelled with my 
 informant for what I considered his profane way 
 of dealing with a subject so hallowed in my own 
 thoughts. After this I searched east and west, 
 north and south, for all known works or frag- 
 ments of the same authors. I had read, there- 
 fore, as respects Mr Coleridge, the "Allegory" 
 which he contributed to Mr Southey's "Joan of 
 Arc." I had read his fine ode, entitled "France," 
 his " Ode to the Duchess of Devonshire," and 
 various other contributions, more or less inter- 
 esting, to the two volumes of the "Anthology," 
 published at Bristol, about 1799-1800, by Mr 
 Southey ; and, finally, I had, of course, read the 
 small volume of poems which passed under his 
 name : these, however, as a juvenile and imma- 
 ture work, had in general greatly disappointed 
 me. 
 
 Meantime it had crowned the interest which 
 to me invested his name — that about the year 
 1804 or 1805 I had been informed by a gentle- 
 man from the English Lakes, who knew him as 
 a neighbour, that he had for some time applied 
 his whole mind to metaphysics and psychology 
 — which happened to be my own absorbing 
 pursuit. From 1803 to 1808, I was a student 
 at Oxford ; and on the first occasion, when I 
 could conveniently have sought for a personal 
 knowledge of one whom I contemplated with so 
 much admiration, I was met by a disgusting 
 assurance that he had quitted England, and was 
 then residing at Malta in the quality of secretary 
 (and occasionally as treasurer) to the governor. 
 I began to inquire about the best route to Malta; 
 but as any route at that time promised an inside 
 place in a French prison, I reconciled myself to 
 waiting ; and at last, happening to visit a rela- 
 tive at the Bristol hot wells, in the summer of 
 1807, 1 had the pleaure to hear that Mr Coleridge 
 was not only once more upon English ground, 
 but within forty and odd miles of my own 
 station. In that same hour I mount<^d and bent 
 my way to the south ; and before evening reach- 
 ing a ferry on the river Bridgewater, at a village 
 called, I think, Stogursey {i. e. , Stoke de Courcy, 
 by way of distinction from some other Stoke), I 
 crossed it, and a few miles further attained my 
 object, viz., the little town of Nether Stowey, 
 amongst the Quantock Hills. Here I had been 
 assured that I should find Mr Coleridge at the 
 house of his old friend, Mr Poole. On presenting 
 myself, however, to that gentleman, I found 
 that Coleridge was absent at Lord Egmont's, an 
 elder brother (by the father's side) of Mr Perci- 
 val. the minister, assassinated five years after; 
 and as it was doubtful whether he might not 
 then be on the wing to another friend's in the 
 
 town of Bridgewater, I consented willingly, until 
 his motions should be ascertained, to stay a day 
 or two with this Mr Poole — a man on his own 
 account well deserving a separate notice ; for, as 
 Coleridge afterwards remarked to me, he was 
 almost an ideal model for a useful Member of 
 Parliament. He was a stout, plain -looking 
 farmer, leading a bachelor life, in a rustic, old- 
 fashioned house; the house, however, upon 
 further acquaintance, proving to be amply fur- 
 nished with modern luxuries, and especially with 
 a good library, superbly mounted in all depart- 
 ments bearing at all upon political philosophy ; 
 and the farmer turning out a polished and liberal 
 Englishman, who had travelled extensively, and 
 had so entirely dedicated himself to the service 
 of his humble fellow-countrymen, the hewers of 
 wood and drawers of water in this southern 
 region of Somersetshire, that for many miles 
 round he was the general arbiter of their dis- 
 putes, the guide and counsellor of their daily 
 lives ; besides being appointed executor and 
 guardian to his children by every third man who 
 died in or about the town of Nether Stowey, 
 
 The first morning of my visit, Mr Poole was 
 so kind as to propose, knowing my admiration 
 of Wordsworth, that we should ride over to 
 Alfoxden — a place of singular interest to myself, 
 as having been occupied in his unmarried days 
 by that poet, during the minority of Mr St 
 Aubyn, its present youthful proprietor. At this 
 delightful spot, the ancient residence of an 
 ancient English family, and surrounded by those 
 ferny Quantock Hills, which are so beautifully 
 sketched in the poem of " Ruth," Wordsworth, 
 accompanied by his sister, had passed the whole 
 of the interval between leaving the university 
 (Cambridge), and the period of his final settle- 
 ment amongst his native lakes of Westmoreland, 
 except only one year spent in France, some 
 months in North Germany, and a space, I know 
 not how long, spent at Race Down, in Dorset- 
 shire. 
 
 Returning late from this interesting survey, 
 we found ourselves without company at dinner ; 
 and, being thus seated tite-d-tite, Mr Poole pro- 
 pounded the following question to me, which I 
 mention, because it furnished me with the first 
 hint of a singular infirmity besetting Coleridge's 
 mind: 
 
 " Pray, my young friend, did you ever form 
 any opinion, or rather, did it ever happen to 
 you to meet with any rational opinion or con- 
 jecture of others, upon that most irrational 
 dogma of Pythagoras about beans ? You know 
 what I mean — that monstrous doctrine in which 
 he asserts that a man might as well, for the 
 wickedness of the thing, eat his own grandmother 
 as meddle with beans." 
 
 " Yes," I replied ; " the line is in the ' Golden 
 Verses.' I remember it well." 
 
 P.— "True: now our dear excellent friend 
 Coleridge, than whom God never made a creaturo 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 131 
 
 more divinely endowed, yet strange it is to say, 
 sometimes steals from other people, just as j'oii 
 or I might do ; I beg your pardon — just as a 
 poor creature like myself might do, that some- 
 times have not wherewithal to make a figure 
 from my own exchequer : and the other day, at 
 a dinner party, this question arising about 
 Pythagoras and his beans, Coleridge gave us an 
 interpretation, which, from his manner, I sus- 
 pect to have been not original. Think, there- 
 fore, if you have anywhere read a plausible 
 solution." 
 
 "I have: and it was in a German author. 
 This German, understand, is a poor stick of a 
 man, not to be named on the same day with 
 Coleridge : so that, if it should appear that Cole- 
 ridge has robbed him, be assured that he has 
 done the scamp too much honour." 
 
 P. — "Well: what says the German ? " 
 
 ** Why, you know the use made in Greece of 
 beans in voting and balloting? Well: the Ger- 
 man says that Pythagoras speaks symbolically ; 
 meaning that electioneering, or, more generally, 
 all interference with political intrigues, is fatal 
 to a philosopher's pursuits and their appropriate 
 serenity. Therefore, says he, follower of mine, 
 abstain from public affairs as you would from 
 parricide." 
 
 P. — " Well then, Coleridge has done the scamp 
 too much honour : for, by Jove, that is the very 
 explanation he gave us !" 
 
 Here was a trait of Coleridge's mind, to be 
 first made known to me by his best friend, and 
 first published to the world by me, the foremost 
 of his admirers ! But both of us had sufficient 
 reasons : — Mr Poole knew that, stumbled on by 
 accident, such a discovery would be likely to 
 impress upon a man as yet unacquainted with 
 Coleridge a most injurious jealousy with regard 
 to all he might write; whereas, frankly avowed 
 by one who knew him best, the fact was dis- 
 armed of its sting ; since it thus became evident 
 that where the case had been best known and 
 most investigated, it had not operated to his 
 serious disadvantage. On the same argument, 
 to forestall, that is to say, other discoverers who 
 would make a more unfriendly use of the dis- 
 covery, and also, as matters of literary curiosity, 
 I shall here point out a few of Coleridge's unac- 
 knowledged obligations, detected by myself in 
 a very wide course of reading. 
 
 1. The hymn to Chamouni is an expansion of 
 a short poem in stanzas, upon the same subject, 
 by Frederica Brun, a female poet of Germany, 
 previously known to the world under her maiden 
 name of Munter. The mere framework of the 
 poem is exactly the same — an appeal to the most 
 impressive features of the regal mountain (Mont 
 Blanc), citing them to proclaim their author : 
 the torrent, for instance, is required to say, by 
 whom it had been arrested in its headlong rav- 
 ing, and stiffened, as by the petrific mace of 
 Death, into everlasting pillars of ice ; and the 
 
 answer to these impassioned apostrophes is made 
 by the same choral burst of rapture. In mere 
 logic, therefore, and even as to the choice of 
 circumstances, Coleridge's poem is a translation. 
 On the other hand, by a judicious amplification 
 of some topics, and by its far deeper tone of 
 lyrical enthusiasm, the dry bones of the Ger- 
 man outline have been created by Coleridge into 
 the fulness of life. It is not therefore a para- 
 phrase, but a recast of the original. And how 
 was this calculated, if frankly avowed, to do 
 Coleridge any injury with the judicious ? 
 
 2. A more singular case of Coleridge's infir- 
 mity is this : In a very noble passage of 
 "France" a fine expression or two occur from 
 "Samson Agonistes." Now to take a phrase 
 or an inspiriting line from the great fathers of 
 poetry, even though no marks of quotation 
 should be added, carries with it no charge of 
 plagiarism. Milton is presumed to be as familiar 
 to the ear as nature to the eye; and to steal 
 from him as impossible as to appropriate, or 
 sequester to a private use, some "bright par- 
 ticular star." And there is a good reason for 
 rejecting the typographical marks of quotation : 
 they break the continuity of the passion, by 
 reminding the reader of a printed book; on 
 which account Milton himself (to give an 
 instance) has not marked the sublime words, 
 "tormented all the air," as borrowed ; nor has 
 Wordsworth, in applying to an unprincipled 
 woman of commanding beauty the memorable ex- 
 pression, "a weed of glorious feature," thought 
 it necessary to acknowledge it as originally be- 
 longing to Spenser. Some dozens of similar 
 cases might be adduced from Milton. But Mr 
 Coleridge, in describing France as 
 
 " Her footsteps insupportably advancing," 
 
 not satisfied with omitting the marks of acknow- 
 ledgment, thought fit positively to deny that he 
 was indebted to Milton. Yet who could forget 
 that semi-chorus in the "Samson," where the 
 "bold Ascalonite" is described as having "fled 
 from his lion ramp ? " Or who, that was not in 
 this point liable to some hallucination of judg- 
 ment, would have ventured on a public challenge 
 (for virtually it was that) to produce from the 
 " Samson," words so impossible to be over- 
 looked as those of "insupportably advancing 
 the footsteps?" The result, as I remember, 
 was, that one of the critical journals placed the 
 two passages in juxtaposition, and left the 
 reader to his own conclusions with regard to the 
 poet's veracity. But in this instance, it was 
 common sense rather than veracity which the 
 facts impeach. 
 
 3. In the year 1810 I happened to be amusing 
 myself, by reading, in their chronological order, 
 the great classical circumnavigations of the earth; 
 and, coming to Shelvocke, I met with a passage 
 to this effect : That Hatley, his second captain 
 {i.e., lieutenant), being a melancholy man, was 
 
132 
 
 TREASURY OR MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 possessed by a fancy that some long season of 
 foul weather was due to an albatross which had 
 steadily pursued the ship ; upon which he shot 
 the bird, but without mending their condition. 
 There at once I saw the germ of the "Ancient 
 Mariner;" and I put a question to Coleridge 
 accordingly. Could it have been imagined that 
 he would see cause utterly to disown so slight 
 an obligation to Shelvocke? Wordsworth, a 
 man of stern veracity, on hearing of this, pro- 
 fessed his inability to understand Coleridge's 
 meaning; the fact being notorious, as he told 
 me, that Coleridge had derived, from the very 
 passage I had cited, the original hint for the 
 action of the poem ; though it is very possible, 
 from something which Coleridge said, on an- 
 other occasion, that, before meeting a fable in 
 which to embody his ideas, he had meditated a 
 poem on delirium, confounding its own dream 
 scenery with external things, and connected 
 with the imagery of high latitudes. 
 
 4. All these cases amount to nothing at all as 
 cases of plagiarism, and for that reason expose 
 the more conspicuously that obliquity of feeling 
 which could seek to decline the very slight 
 acknowledgments required. But now I come to 
 a case of real and palpable plagiarism ; yet that 
 too of a nature to be quite unaccountable in a 
 man of Coleridge's attainments. It is not very 
 likely that this particular case will soon be 
 detected ; but others will. Yet who knows ? 
 Eight hundred or a thousand years hence, 
 some reviewer may arise, who having read the 
 "Biographia Literaria" of Coleridge, will after- 
 wards read the miscellaneous philosophical 
 essays* of Schelling, the great Bavarian pro- 
 fessor — a man in some respects worthy to be 
 Coleridge's assessor ; and he will then make a 
 singular discovery. In the " Biographia Liter- 
 aria " occurs a dissertation upon the reciprocal 
 lelations of the esse and the cogitare; and an 
 attempt is made, by inverting the postulates 
 from which the argument starts, to show how 
 each might arise as a product, by an intelligible 
 genesis from the other. It is a subject, which, 
 since the time of Fichte, has much occupied the 
 German metaphysicians; and many thousands 
 of essays have been written on it, of which many 
 hundreds have been read by many tens of per- 
 sons. Coleridge's essay, in particular, is pre- 
 faced by a few words, in which, aware of his 
 coincidence with Schelling, he declares his will- 
 ingness to acknowledge himself indebted to so 
 great a man, in any case where the truth would 
 allow him to do so ; but in this particular case, 
 insisting on the impossibility that he could have 
 borrowed arguments which he had first seen 
 some years after he had thought out the whole 
 hypothesis proprio marte. After this, what was 
 
 * I forget the exact title, not having seen the book 
 giuce 1823, and then only for one day ; but I believe 
 U was ScheUing's "Kleine Philosophische Werke." 
 
 my astonishment to find that the entire essay 
 from the first word to the last, is a verbatim 
 translation from Schelling, with no attempt in 
 a single instance to appropriate the paper, by 
 developing the arguments or by diversifying the 
 illustrations ! Some other obligations to Schel- 
 ling of a slighter kind, I have met with in the 
 "Biographia Literaria;" but this was a bare- 
 faced plagiarism, which could in prudence have 
 been risked only by relying too much upon the 
 slight knowledge of German literature in this 
 country, and especially of that section of the 
 German literature. Had then Coleridge any 
 need to borrow from Schelling ? Did he borrow 
 in forma pauperis t Not at all : there lay the 
 wonder. He spun daily and at all hours, for 
 mere amusement of his own activities, and from 
 the loom of his own magical brain, theories 
 more gorgeous by far, and supported by a pomp 
 and luxury of images, such as Schelling — no, 
 nor any German that ever breathed, not John 
 Paul — could have emulated in his dreams. 
 With the riches of El Dorado lying about him, 
 he would condescend to filch a handful of 
 gold from any man whose purse he fancied ; 
 and in fact reproduced in a new form, applying 
 itself to intellectual wealth, that maniacal pro- 
 pensity which is sometimes well known to 
 attack enormous proprietors and millionaires 
 for acts of petty larceny. The last Duke of 
 
 Anc could not abstain from exercising his 
 
 furtive mania upon articles so humble as silver 
 spoons ; and it was the daily care of a pious 
 daughter, watching over the good name of 
 her father, to have his pockets searched by a 
 confidential valet, and the claimants of the pur- 
 loined articles traced out. Many cases have 
 crossed me in life of people, otherwise not 
 wanting in principle, who had habits, or at least 
 hankerings, of the same kind. And the phreno- 
 logists, I believe, are well acquainted with the 
 case, its signs, its progress, and its history. 
 Dismissing, however, this subject, which I have 
 at all noticed, only that I might anticipate and 
 (in old English) that I might prevent the uncan- 
 did interpreter of its meaning, I will assert fin- 
 ally, that, after having read for thirty years in 
 the same track as Coleridge — that track in which 
 few of any age will ever follow us, such as Ger- 
 man metaphysicians, Latin schoolmen, thauma- 
 turgic Platonists, religious mystics — and having 
 thus discovered a large variety of trivial thefts, 
 I do, nevertheless, most heartily believe him to 
 have been as entirely original in all his capital 
 pretensions, as any one man that ever has 
 existed ; as Archimedes in ancient days, or as 
 Shakespeare in modern. Did the reader ever 
 see Milton's account of the rubbish contained in 
 the Greek and Latin fathers ? or did he ever read 
 a statement of the monstrous chaos with which 
 an African Obeah man stufis his enchanted scare- 
 crows ? or, to take a more common illustration, 
 did he ever amuse himself by searching tb2 
 
pockets of a child — three years old, suppose, 
 when buried in slumber after a long summer's 
 day of out-a-doors' intense activity? I have 
 done this ; and, for the amusement of the child's 
 mother, have analysed the contents, and drawn 
 up a formal register of the whole. Philosophy 
 is puzzled, conjecture and hypothesis are con- 
 founded, in the attempt to explain the law of 
 selection which can have presided in the child's 
 labours : stones remarkable only for weight, old 
 rusty hinges, nails, crooked skewers, stolen when 
 the cook had turned her back, rags, broken glass, 
 tea-cups having the bottom knocked out, and 
 loads of similar jewels, were the prevailing 
 articles in this prods verbal. Yet doubtless 
 much labour had been incurred, some sense of 
 danger, perhaps, had been faced, and the anxie- 
 ties of a conscious robber endured, in order to 
 amass this splendid treasure. Such in value 
 were the robberies of Coleridge ; such their use- 
 fulness to himself or anybody else ; and such the 
 circumstances of uneasiness under which he had 
 committed them. I return to my narrative. 
 
 Two or three days had slipped away in waiting 
 for Coleridge's re-appearance at Nether Stowey, 
 when suddenly Lord Egmont called upon Mr 
 Poole, with a present for Coleridge ; it was a 
 canister of peculiarly fine suuflF, which Coleridge 
 now took profusely. Lord Egmont on this 
 occasion spoke of Coleridge in the terms of ex- 
 cessive admiration, and urged Mr Poole to put 
 him upon undertaking some great monumental 
 work, that might furnish a sufficient arena for 
 the display of his various and rare accomplish- 
 ments ; for his multiform erudition on the one 
 hand, for his splendid power of theorising and 
 combining large and remote notices of facts on 
 the other. And he suggested, j udiciously enough, 
 as one theme which offered a field at once large 
 enough and indefinite enough to suit a mind that 
 could not show its full compass of power, unless 
 upon very plastic materials — a history of Chris- 
 tianity, in its progress and in its chief divarica- 
 tions into Church and sect, with a continual 
 reference to the relations subsisting between 
 Christianity and the current philosophy ; their 
 occasional connections or approaches, and their 
 constant mutual repulsions. "But, at any 
 rate, let him do something," said Lord Egmont, 
 *'for at present he talks very much like an 
 angel, and he does nothing at all." Lord 
 Egmont, I understood from everybody, to be a 
 truly good and benevolent man; and, on this 
 occasion, he spoke with an earnestness which 
 agreed with my previous impression. Coleridge, 
 he said, was now at the prime of his powers- 
 uniting something of youthful vigour with suffi- 
 cient experience of life ; with the benefit beside 
 of vast meditation, and of reading unusually 
 discursive. No man had ever been better quali- 
 fied to revive the heroic period of literature in 
 England, and to give a character of weight to the 
 philosophic erudition of the country upon the 
 
 Continent. "And what a pity," he added, "if 
 this man were, after all, to vanish like an appari- 
 tion; and you, I, and a few others, who have 
 witnessed his grand bravuras of display, were to 
 have the usual fortune of ghost-seers, in meeting 
 no credit for any statements that we might 
 vouch on his behalf ! " 
 
 To pursue my narrative. It now appeared 
 that Lord Egmont's carriage had, some days 
 before, conveyed Coleridge to Bridgewater, with 
 a purpose of staying one single day at that 
 place, and then returning to Mr Poole's. From 
 the sort of laugh with which Lord Egmont 
 taxed his own simplicity, in having confided at 
 all in the stability of any Coleridgian plan, I 
 now gathered that procrastination in excess 
 was, or had become, a marking feature in Cole- 
 ridge's daily life. Nobody who knew him ever 
 thought of depending on any appointment he 
 might make : spite of his uniformly honourable 
 intentions, nobody attached any weight to his 
 assurances in re futura : those who asked him 
 to dinner or any other party, as a matter of 
 course, sent a carriage for him, and went per- 
 sonally or by proxy to fetch him; and, as to 
 letters, unless the address were in some female 
 hand that commanded his affectionate esteem, 
 he tossed them all into one general dead-letter 
 bureau, and rarely, I believe, opened them at aU. 
 Bourrienne mentions a mode of abridging the 
 trouble attached to a very extensive correspond- 
 ence, by which infinite labour was saved to him- 
 self and to Bonaparte, when commanding in 
 Italy. Nine out of ten letters, supposing them 
 letters of business with official applications of a 
 special kind, he contends, answer themselves: 
 in other words, time alone must soon produce 
 events which virtually contain the answer. On 
 this principle the letters were opened periodi- 
 cally, after intervals, suppose of six weeks ; and, 
 at the end of that time, it was found that not 
 many remained to require any further more par- 
 ticular answer. Coleridge's plan, however, was 
 shorter: he opened none, I understood, and 
 answered none. At least such was his habit at 
 that time. But on that same day, all this, 
 which I heard now for the first time, and with 
 much concern, was fully explained, for already 
 he was under the full dominion of opium, as he 
 himself revealed to me, and with a deep expres- 
 sion of horror at the hideous bondage, in a 
 private walk of some length, which I took with 
 him about sunset. 
 
 Lord Egmont's information, and the knowledge 
 now gained of Coleridge's habits, making it very 
 uncertain when I might see him in my present 
 hospitable quarters, I immediately took my 
 leave of Mr Poole, and went over to Bridge- 
 water. I had received directions for finding out 
 the house where Coleridge was visiting ; and, in 
 riding down a main street of Bridgewater, I 
 noticed a gateway corresponding to the descrip* 
 tion given me. Under this was standing, and 
 
134 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 gazing about him, a man whom I shall describe. 
 In height he might seem to be about five feet 
 eight (he was, in reality, about an inch and a 
 half taller, but his figure was of an order which 
 drowns the height) ; his person was broad and 
 full, and tended even to corpulence ; his com- 
 plexion was fair, though not what painters 
 technically style fair, because it was associated 
 with black hair ; his eyes were large and soft in 
 their expression ; and it was from the peculiar 
 appearance of haze or dreaminess, which mixed 
 with their light, that I recognised my object. 
 This was Coleridge. I examined him steadfastly 
 for a minute or more ; and it struck me that he 
 saw neither myself nor any other objept in the 
 street. He was in a deep reverie; for I had 
 dismounted, made two or three trifling arrange- 
 ments at an inn door, and advanced close to 
 him, before he had apparently become consci- 
 ous of my presence. The sound of my voice, 
 announcing my own name, first awoke him : he 
 started, and, for a moment, seemed at a loss to 
 understand my purpose or his own situation; 
 for he repeated rapidly a number of words 
 which liad no relation to either of us. There 
 was no mauvaise honte in his manner, but simply 
 perplexity, and an apparent difficulty in recover- 
 ing his position against daylight realities. This 
 little scene over, he received me with a kindness 
 of manner so marked that it might be called 
 gracious. The hospitable family with whom 
 he was domesticated were distinguished for 
 fcheir amiable manners and enlightened under- 
 standings; they were descendants from Chubb, 
 the philosophic writer, and bore the same name. 
 For Coleridge they all testified deep affection 
 and esteem — sentiments in which the whole 
 town of Bridge water seemed to share ; for in the 
 evening, when the heat of the day had declined, 
 I walked out with him; and rarely, perhaps 
 never, have I seen a person so much interrupted 
 in one hour's space as Coleridge on this occa- 
 sion, by the courteous attentions of young and 
 old. 
 
 All the people of station and weight in the 
 place, and apparently all the ladies, were abroad 
 to enjoy the lovely summer evening ; and not a 
 party passed without some mark of smiling re- 
 cognition, and the majority stopping to make 
 personal inquiries about his health, and to ex- 
 press their anxiety that he should make a 
 lengthened stay amongst them. Certain I am, 
 from the lively esteem expressed towards Cole- 
 ridge at this time by the people of Bridgewater, 
 that a very large subscription might, in that 
 town, have been raised to support him amongst 
 them, in the character of a lecturer, or philoso- 
 phical professor. Especially I remarked that 
 the young men of the place manifested the most 
 liberal interest in all that concerned him ; and I 
 can add my attestation to that of Mr Coleridge 
 himself, when describing an evening spent 
 nmongst the enlightened tradesmen of Birming- 
 
 ham, that nowhere is more unaflFected good 
 sense exhibited, and particularly nowhere more 
 elasticity and freshness of mind, than in the 
 conversation of the reading men in manufactur- 
 ing towns. In Kendal especially, in Bridge- 
 water, and in Manchester, I have witnessed 
 more interesting conversations, as much infor- 
 mation, and more natural eloquence in convey- 
 ing it, than usually in literary cities, or in 
 places professedly learned. One reason for this 
 is, that in trading towns the time is more 
 happily distributed — the day given to business 
 and active duties, the evening to relaxation — on 
 which account, books, conversation, and literary 
 leisure are more cordially enjoyed: the same 
 satiation never can take place, which too fre- 
 quently deadens the genial enjoyment of those 
 who have a surfeit of books and a monotony of 
 leisure. Another reason is, that more simplicity 
 of manner may be expected, and more natural 
 picturesqueness of conversation, more open ex- 
 pression of character in places where people have 
 no previous name to support. Men in trading 
 towns are not afraid to open their lips for fear 
 they should disappoint your expectations, nor 
 do they strain for showy sentiments, that they 
 may meet them. But elsewhere, many are the 
 men who stand in awe of their own reputation : 
 not a word which is unstudied, not a movement 
 in the spirit of natural freedom, dare they give 
 way to, because it might happen that on review 
 something would be seen to retract or to qualify 
 — something not properly planned and chiselled, 
 to build into the general architecture of an 
 artificial reputation. But to return. 
 
 Coleridge led me to a drawing-room, rang the 
 bell for refreshments, and omitted no point of 
 a courteous reception. He told me that there 
 would be a very large dinner-party on that day, 
 which perhaps might be disagreeable to a per- 
 fect stranger ; but, if not, he could assure me of 
 a most hospitable welcome from the family. I 
 was too anxious to see him under all aspects, to 
 think of declining this invitation. And these 
 little points of business being settled, Coleridge, 
 like some great river, the Orellana, or the St 
 Lawrence, that had been checked and fretted by 
 rocks or thwarting islands, and suddenly re- 
 covers its volume of waters, and its mighty 
 music, swept at once, as if returning to his 
 natural business, into a continuous strain of elo- 
 quent dissertation, certainly the most novel, the 
 most finely illustrated, and traversing the most 
 spacious fields of thought, by transitions the 
 most just and logical, that it was possible to 
 conceive. What I mean by saying that his 
 transitions were "just," is by way of contradis- 
 tinction to that mode of conversation which 
 courts variety by means of verbal connections. 
 Coleridge, to many people, and often I have 
 heard the complaint, seemed to wander ; and he 
 seemed then to wander the most, when in fact 
 his resistance to the wandering, instinct was 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 135 
 
 greatest, viz., when the compass, and huge cir- 
 cuit, by which his illustrations moved, travelled 
 furthest into remote regions, before they began 
 to revolve. Long before this coming-round 
 commenced, most people had lost him, and 
 naturally enough supposed that he had lost 
 himself. They continued to admire the separate 
 beauty of the thoughts, but did not see their 
 relations to the dominant theme. Had the con- 
 versation been thrown upon paper, it might 
 have been easy to trace the continuity of the 
 links ; just as in Bishop Berkeley's ' * Siris," * from 
 a pedestal so low and abject, so culinary, as 
 tar water, the method of preparing it, and its 
 medicinal effects, the dissertation ascends, like 
 Jacob's ladder, by just gradations, into the 
 heaven of heavens, and the thrones of the Trin- 
 ity. But heaven is there connected with earth 
 by the Homeric chain of gold; and being sub- 
 ject to steady examination, it is easy to trace 
 the links. Whereas, in conversation, the loss of 
 a single word may cause the whole cohesion to 
 disappear from view. However, I can assert, 
 upon my long and intimate knowledge of Cole- 
 ridge's mind, that logic, the most severe, was as 
 inalienable from his modes of thinking, as gram- 
 mar from his language. 
 
 On the present occasion, the original theme, 
 started by myself, was Hartley, and the Hart- 
 leian theory. I had carried, as a little present to 
 Coleridge, a scarce Latin pamphlet, "De Ideis," 
 written by Hartley, about 1746, that is, about 
 three years earlier than the publication of his 
 great work. He had also preluded to this great 
 work, in a little English medical tract upon 
 Joanna Stephens's medicine for the stone ; for 
 indeed Hartley was the person upon whose evi- 
 dence the House of Commons had mainly relied 
 in giving to that same Joanna a reward of £5000 
 for her idle medicines — an application of public 
 money not without its use, in so far as it engaged 
 men by selfish motives to cultivate the public 
 service, and to attempt public problems of very 
 difficult solution; but else, in that particular 
 instance, perfectly idle, as the groans of three 
 generations since Joanna's era have too feelingly 
 established. It is known to most literary people 
 that Coleridge was, in early life, so passionate 
 an admirer of the Hartleian philosophy, that 
 "Hartley" was the sole baptismal name which 
 he gave to his eldest child ; and in an early poem, 
 entitled ** Religious Musings," he has character- 
 ised Hartley as— 
 
 "Him, 
 
 Wisest of men, who saw the mimic trains 
 Pass in fine surges to the sentient brain." 
 
 But at present (August 1807) all this was a for- 
 gotten thing. Coleridge was so profoundly 
 
 * Seiris ought to have been the title, i.e., "^eipis, a 
 Dhain; from this defect in the orthography, I did 
 not in my boyish days perceive, nor could obtain any 
 li^ht upon its meaninar. 
 
 ashamed of the shallow Unitarianism of Hartley, 
 and so disgusted to think that he could at any 
 time have countenanced that creed, that he 
 would scarcely allow to Hartley the reverence 
 which is undoubtedly his due; for I must con- 
 tend that, waiving all question of the extent to 
 which Hartley would have pushed it (as though 
 the law of association accounted not only for 
 our complex pleasures and pains, but also might 
 be made to explain the act of ratiocination), 
 waiving also the physical substratum of nervous 
 vibrations and miniature vibrations, to which he 
 has chosen to marry his theory of association : 
 all this apart, I must contend that the "Essay 
 on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expecta- 
 tions," stands forward as a specimen almost 
 unique of elaborate theorising, and a monument 
 of absolute beauty, in the perfection of its dia- 
 lectic ability. In this respect it has, to my 
 mind, the spotless beauty, and the ideal pro- 
 portions of some Grecian statue. However, I 
 confess, that being myself, from my earliest 
 years, a reverential believer in the doctrine of 
 the Trinity, simply because I never attempted 
 to bring all things within the mechanic under- 
 standing, and because, like Sir Thomas Browne, 
 my mind almost demanded mysteries, in so 
 mysterious a system of relations as those which 
 connect us with another world, and also because 
 the further my understanding opened, the more 
 I perceived of dim analogies to strengthen my 
 creed ; and because nature herself, mere physi- 
 cal nature, has mysteries no less profound; and 
 because the simplest doctrine of motion rests 
 upon an ultimate fact, which all the wisdom of 
 the schools will never explain ; and because that 
 vulgar puzzle of Achilles and the tortoise never 
 was and never will be cleared up ; and, finally, 
 because I had begun to suspect (what afterwards 
 Coleridge more fully convinced me of) that the 
 unity demanded by the soi-disant Unitarian is a 
 chimera and a total blunder — being, in fact, not 
 unity, but what the schoolmen call unicity ; for, 
 as they insist, without previous multitude (mean- 
 ing by multitude simply plurality) there can be 
 no proper unity ; for, else, where is the union — 
 where is the To unitum? For these and for 
 many other ^^hecauses" I could not reconcile, 
 with my general reverence for Mr Coleridge, the 
 fact so often reported to me, that he was a 
 Unitarian. A Unitarian, I often exclaimed, 
 and a philosopher ! Nay, it cannot be denied, 
 the profoundest of philosophers ! and one des- 
 tined to sound the intellectual depths, and the 
 depths below depths, beyond any other of the 
 children of men. But, said some Bristol people 
 to me, not only is he a Unitarian — he is also a 
 Socinian. In that case, I replied, I cannot hold 
 him a Christian. I am a liberal man, and have 
 no bigotry or hostile feelings towards a Socinian; 
 but I can never think that man a Christian who 
 has blotted out of his scheme the very powers bj 
 which only the great offices and functions ol 
 
136 
 
 TKEASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Christianity can be sustained; neither can I 
 think that any man, though he may make him- 
 self a marvellously clever disputant, ever could 
 tower upwards into a very great philosopher, 
 unless he should begin or should end with 
 Christianity. Kant is a dubious exception. 
 Not that I mean to question his august preten- 
 sions, so far as they went, and in his proper 
 line. Within his own circle none durst tread 
 but he. But that circle was limited. He was 
 called, by one who weighed him well, the alles- 
 zermalmender, the world-shattering Kant. He 
 could destroy — his intellect was essentially de- 
 structive. He was the Gog and he was the 
 Magog of Hunnish desolution to the existing 
 schemes of philosophy. He probed them; he 
 showed the vanity of vanities which besieged 
 their foundations — the rottenness below, the 
 hollowness above. But he had no instincts of 
 creation or restoration within his Apollyon 
 mind ; for he had no love, no faith, no self-dis- 
 trust, no humility, no child-like docility; all 
 which qualities belonged essentially to Cole- 
 ridge's mind, and waited only for manhood and 
 for sorrow to bring them forward. 
 
 Who can read without indignation of Kant — 
 that, at his own table, in social sincerity and 
 confidential talk, let him say what he would in 
 his books, he exulted in the prospect of absolute 
 and ultimate annihilation ; that he planted his 
 glory in the grave, and was ambitious of rotting 
 for ever ? The King of Prussia, though a per- 
 sonal friend of Kant's, found himself obliged to 
 level his state thunders at some of his doctrines, 
 and terrified him in his advance ; else, I am per- 
 suaded that Kant would have formally delivered 
 atheism from the professor's chair, and would 
 have enthroned the horrid ghoulish creed, which 
 privately he professed, in the University of 
 Kdnigsberg. It required the artillery of a great 
 king to make him pause. The fact is, that, as 
 the stomach has been known, by means of its 
 natural secretion, to attack not only whatsoever 
 alien body is introduced within it, but also (as 
 John Hunter first showed) sometimes to attack 
 itself and its own organic structure — so, and 
 with the same preternatural extension of in- 
 al.inct, did Kant carry forward his destroying 
 functions, until he turned them upon his own 
 hopes and the pledges of his own superiority to 
 the dog — the ape — the worm. But '^exoriare 
 aliquis," — and some philosopher, I am persuaded, 
 will yet arise; and "one sling of some victori- 
 ous arm" ("Paradise Lost," b. x.) will yet de- 
 stroy the destroyer, in so far as he has applied 
 himself to the destruction of Christian hope. 
 For my faith is, that, though a great man may, 
 by a rare possibility, be an infidel, an intellect 
 of the highest order must build upon Christian- 
 ity.* A very clever architect may choose to 
 
 * •' There are virious causes which conspire to write 
 it down as fate, that the humble infidel should be 
 
 show his power by building with insufficient 
 materials, but the supreme architect must re- 
 quire the very best; because the perfection of 
 the forms cannot be shown but in the perfection 
 of the matter. 
 
 On these accounts I took the liberty of doubt- 
 ing as often as I heard the reports I have men- 
 tioned of Coleridge; and I now found that he 
 disowned most solemnly (and I may say peniten- 
 tially) whatever had been true in these reports. 
 Coleridge told me that it had cost him a painful 
 effort, but not a moment's hesitation, to abjure 
 his Unitarianism, from the circumstance that he 
 had amongst the Unitarians many friends, to 
 some of whom he was greatly indebted for kind 
 offices. In particular he mentioned Mr Estlin 
 of Bristol, I believe a dissenting clergyman, as 
 one whom it grieved him to grieve. But he 
 would not dissemble his altered views. I will 
 add, at the risk of appearing to dwell too long 
 on religious topics, that on this my first intro- 
 duction to Coleridge, he reverted with strong 
 compunction to a sentiment which he had ex- 
 pressed in earlier days upon prayer. In one of 
 his youthful poems, speaking of God, he had 
 said: 
 
 " Of whose all-seeing eye 
 Aught to demand were impotence of mind." 
 
 This sentiment he now so utterly condemned, 
 that, on the contrary, he told me, as his own 
 peculiar opinion, that the act of praying was 
 the very highest energy of which the human 
 heart was capable — praying, that is, with the 
 total concentration of the faculties ; and the 
 great mass of worldly men and of learned men, 
 he pronounced absolutely incapable of prayer. 
 
 For about three hours he had continued to 
 talk, and in the course of this performance he 
 had delivered many most striking aphorisms, 
 embalming more weight of truth, and separ- 
 ately more deserving to be themselves embalmed 
 than any that are on record. In the midst of 
 our conversation, if that can be called conversa- 
 tion which I so seldom sought to interrupt, and 
 which did not often leave openings for contri- 
 bution, the door opened, and a lady entered. 
 She was in person full and rather below the 
 common height ; whilst her face showed, to my 
 eye, some prettiness of rather a commonplace 
 order. Coleridge turned upon her entrance; 
 his features, however, announced no particular 
 complacency, and did not relax into a smile. In 
 a frigid tone he said, whilst turning to me, "Mrs 
 Coleridge;" in some slight way he then pre- 
 sented me to her ; I bowed, and the lady almost 
 immediately retired. From this short but 
 ungenial scene I gathered, what I afterward 
 learned redundantly, that Coleridge's marriage 
 had not been a very happy one. But let not the 
 
 unsuccessful in life. In the first place, infidelity ia 
 not a mark of good sense, but very much the reverse. " 
 
 — IIUOU MiLLKB 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERLDGE. 
 
 137 
 
 reader misunderstand me. Never was there a 
 baser insinuation, viler in the motive, or more 
 ignoble in the manner, than that passage in some 
 lampoon of Lord Byron's, where, by way of 
 vengeance on Mr Southey (who was the sole 
 delinquent), he described both him and Coleridge 
 as having married "two milliners from Bath." 
 Everybody knows what is meant to be conveyed 
 in that expression, though it would be hard 
 indeed, if, even at Bath, there should be any 
 class under such a fatal curse, condemned so 
 irretrievably, and so hopelessly prejudged — that 
 ignominy must, at any rate, attach, in virtue 
 of a mere name or designation, to the mode by 
 which they gained their daily bread, or possibly 
 supported the declining years of a parent. How- 
 ever, in this case, the whole sting of the libel 
 was a pure falsehood of Lord Byron's. Bath 
 was not the native city, nor at any time the 
 residence of the ladies in question, but Bristol. 
 As to the other word, "milliners " that is not 
 worth inquiring about. Whether they, or any 
 one of their family ever did exercise this 
 profession, I do not know; they were at all 
 events too young, when removed by marriage 
 from Bristol, to have been much tainted by the 
 worldly feelings which may beset such a mode 
 of life. But what is more to the purpose, I 
 heard at this time in Bristol, from Mr Cottle the 
 author, a man of high principle, from his accom- 
 plished sisters, from the ladies who had succeeded 
 Mrs Hannah More in her school, and who en- 
 joyed her entire confidence, as well as from other 
 most respectable residents of Bristol, who had 
 passed their lives in that city — that the whole 
 family of four or five sisters had maintained an 
 irreproachable character, though naturally ex- 
 posed by their personal attractions to some peril, 
 and to the malevolence of envy. This declaration, 
 which I could strengthen by other testimony 
 €qually disinterested, if it were at all necessary, 
 I owe to truth; and I must also add, upon a know- 
 ledge more personal, that Mrs Coleridge was, in 
 all circumstances of her married life, a virtuous 
 wife, and a conscientious mother, and as a mother 
 she showed at times a most meritorious energy ; 
 in particular, I remember that, wishing her 
 daughter to acquire the Italian language, and 
 having, iE Her retirement at Keswick, no means 
 of obtaining a master, she set to work resolutely 
 under Mr Southey's guidance, to learn the lan- 
 guage herself, at a time of life when such attain- 
 ments are not made with ease or pleasure ; she 
 became mistress of the language in a very re- 
 spectable extent, and then communicated her 
 new accomplishment to her interesting daughter. 
 Meantime, I, for my part, owe Mrs Coleridge 
 no particular civility ; and I see no reason why 
 I should mystify the account of Coleridge's life 
 or habits by dissembling what is notorious to 
 flo many thousands of people. An insult once 
 offered by Mrs Coleridge to a female relative of 
 my own, as much superior to Mrs Coleridge in 
 
 the spirit of courtesy and kindness, which ought 
 to preside in the intercourse between females, 
 as she was in the splendour of her beauty, would 
 have given me a dispensation from all terms of 
 consideration beyond the restraints of strict 
 justice. My offence was — the having procrastin- 
 ated in some trifling affair of returning a volume, 
 or a MS. ; and during my absence at a distance 
 of four or five hundred miles, Mrs Coleridge 
 thought fit to write a letter, filled with the most 
 intemperate expressions of anger, addressed to 
 one whom she did not know by sight, and who 
 could in no way be answerable for my delin- 
 quencies. I go on, therefore, to say, that Cole- 
 ridge afterwards made me, as doubtless some 
 others, a confidant in this particular. What he 
 had to complain of was simply incompatibility 
 of temper and disposition. Wanting all cordial 
 admiration, or indeed comprehension of her 
 husband's intellectual powers, Mrs Coleridge 
 wanted the original basis for affectionate pa- 
 tience and candour. Hearing from everybody 
 that Coleridge was a man of most extraordinary 
 endowments, and attaching little weight, per- 
 haps, to the distinction between popular talents 
 and such as by their very nature are doomed 
 to a slower progress in the public esteem, she 
 naturally looked to see at least an ordinary 
 measure of worldly consequence attend upon 
 their exercise. Now had poor Coleridge been 
 as persevering and punctual as the great mass of 
 professional men, and had he given no reason to 
 throw the onus of the different result upon his 
 own different habits — in that case this result 
 might, possibly and eventually, have been set 
 down to the peculiar constitution of his powers, 
 and their essential non-popularity in the English 
 market. But this trial having never fairly been 
 made, it was natural to impute his non-success 
 exclusively to his own irregular application, and 
 his carelessness in forming judicious connections. 
 In circumstances such as these, however, no 
 matter how caused, or how palliated, was laid a 
 sure ground of discontent and fretfulness in any 
 woman's mind, not unusually indulgent, or un- 
 usually magnanimous. Coleridge, besides, as- 
 sured me that his marriage was not his own 
 deliberate act, but was in a manner forced upon 
 his sense of honour, by the scrupulous Southey, 
 who insisted that he had gone too far in his 
 attentions to Miss Fricker, for any honourable 
 retreat. On the other hand, a neutral spectator 
 of the parties protested to me that, if ever in 
 his life he had seen a man under deep fascina- 
 tion, and what he would have called desperately 
 in love, Coleridge, in relation to Miss Fricker, 
 was that man. Be that as it might, circum- 
 stances occurred soon after the marriage, which 
 placed all the parties in a trying situation for 
 their candour and good temper. I had a full 
 outline of the situation from two of those who 
 were chiefly interested, and a partial one from a 
 third ; nor can it be denied that all the parties 
 
offended in point of prudence. A young lady- 
 became a neighbour, and a daily companion 
 of Coleridge's walks, whom I will not describe 
 more particularly than by saying that intellectu- 
 ally she was very much superior to Mrs Coleridge. 
 That superiority alone, when made conspicuous 
 by its effect in winning Coleridge's regard and 
 society, could not but be deeply mortifying to 
 a young wife. However, it was moderated to 
 her feelings by two considerations: 1st, That 
 the young lady was much too kind-hearted to 
 have designed any annoyance in this triumph, 
 or to express any exultation; 2d, That no shadow 
 of suspicion settled upon the moral conduct or 
 motives of either party; the young lady was 
 always attended by her brother; she had no 
 personal charms; and it was manifest that mere 
 intellectual sympathies, in reference to literature 
 and natural scenery, had associated them in 
 their daily walks. 
 
 Still it is a bitter trial to a young married 
 woman to sustain any sort of competition with 
 a female of her own age, for any part of her 
 husband's regard, or any share of his company. 
 Mrs Coleridge, not having the same relish for 
 long walks or rural scenery, and their residence 
 being, at this time, in a very sequestered vil- 
 lage, was condemned to a daily renewal of this 
 trial. Accidents of another kind embittered it 
 still further: often it would happen that the 
 ■walking party returned drenched with rain ; in 
 which case the young lady, with a laughing 
 gaiety, and evidently unconscious of any liberty 
 that she was taking, or any wound that she was 
 inflicting, would run up to Mrs Coleridge's 
 wardrobe, array herself, without leave asked, 
 in Mrs Coleridge's dresses, and make herself 
 merry with her own unceremoniousness and Mrs 
 Coleridge's gravity. In all this she took no 
 liberty that she would not most readily have 
 granted in return ; she confided too unthinkingly 
 in what she regarded as the natural privileges 
 of friendship, and as little thought that she had 
 been receiving or exacting a favour, as, under 
 an exchange of their relative positions, she 
 would have claimed to have conferred one. But 
 Mrs Coleridge viewed her freedoms with a far 
 different eye: she felt herself no longer the entire 
 mistress of her own house ; she held a divided 
 empire, and it barbed the arrow to her womanly 
 feelings that Coleridge treated any sallies of re- 
 sentment which might sometimes escape her as 
 narrow-mindedness ; whilst, on the other hand, 
 her own female servant, and others in the same 
 rank of life, began to drop expressions, which 
 alternately implied pity for her as an injured 
 woman, or sneered at her as a very tame one. 
 The reader will easily apprehend the situation, 
 and the unfortunate resiilts which it boded to 
 the harmony of a young married couple, without 
 further illustration. Whether Coleridge would 
 not, under any circumstances, have become in- 
 different to a wife not eminently capable of 
 
 enlightened sympathy with his own ruling pur- 
 suits, I shall not undertake to guess; but, 
 doubtless, this consummation must have been 
 hastened by a situation which exposed Mrs 
 Coleridge to an invidious comparison with a 
 more intellectual person ; as, on the other hand, 
 it was most unfortunate for Coleridge himself to 
 be continually compared with one so ideally 
 correct and regular in his business habits as Mr 
 Southey. Thus was their domestic peace pre- 
 maturely soured: embarrassments of a pecuniary 
 nature would be likely to demand continual 
 sacrifices; no depth of affection existing, these 
 would create disgust or dissension; and at 
 length each would believe that their union had 
 originated in circumstances overruling their own 
 deliberate choice. 
 
 The gloom, however, and the weight of de- 
 jection which sat upon Coleridge's countenance 
 and deportment at this time could not be ac- 
 counted for by a disappointment (if such it 
 were), to which time must long ago have recon- 
 ciled him. Mrs Coleridge, if not turning to 
 him the more amiable aspects of her character, 
 was, at any rate, a respectable partner. And 
 the season of youth was now passed. They had 
 been married about ten years; had had four 
 children, of whom three survived; and the in- 
 terests of a father were now replacing those of a 
 husband. Yet never had I beheld so profound 
 an expression of cheerless despondency. And 
 the restless activity of Coleridge's mind in chas- 
 ing abstract truths, and burying himself in the 
 dark places of human speculation, seemed to 
 me, in a great measure, an attempt to escape out 
 of his own personal wretchedness. At dinner, 
 when a very numerous party had assembled, he 
 knew that he was expected to talk, and exerted 
 himself to meet the expectation. But he was 
 evidently struggling with gloomy thoughts that 
 prompted him to silence, and perhaps to soli- 
 tude; he talked with effort, and passively re- 
 signed himself to the repeated misrepresenta- 
 tions of several amongst his hearers. It must 
 be to this period of Coleridge's life that Words- 
 worth refers in those exquisite ^^ Lines written 
 in my pocket copy of the * Castle of Indolence.' " 
 The passage which I mean comes after a descrip- 
 tion of Coleridge's countenance, and begins in 
 some such terms as these : 
 
 "A piteous sight it was to see this man. 
 When he came back to us, a withered flower," etc. 
 
 Withered he was indeed, and to all appearance 
 blighted. At night he entered into a spontane- 
 ous explanation of this unhappy overclouding 
 of his life, on occasion of my saying accidentally 
 that a toothache had obliged me to take a few 
 drops of laudanum. At what time or on what 
 motive he had commenced the use of opium, he 
 did not say ; but the peculiar emphasis of horror 
 with which he warned me against forming a 
 habit of the same kind, impressed upon my 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 
 
 139 
 
 mind a feeling that he never hoped to liberate 
 himself from the bondage. About ten o'clock 
 at night I took leave of him ; and feeling that I 
 could not easily go to sleep after the excitement 
 of the day, and fresh from the sad spectacle of 
 powers so majestic already besieged by decay, I 
 determined to return to Bristol through the 
 coolness of the night. The roads, though, in 
 fact, a section of the great highway between 
 sea-ports so turbulent as Bristol and Plymouth, 
 were as quiet as garden walks. Once only I 
 passed through the expiring fires of a village fair 
 or wake: that interruption excepted, through 
 the whole stretch of forty miles from Bridge- 
 water to the hot wells, I saw no living creature, 
 but a surly dog, who followed me for a mile 
 along a park wall, and a man who was moving 
 about in the half-way town of Cross. The turn- 
 pike gates were all opened by a mechanical con- 
 trivance from a bedroom window ; I seemed to 
 myself in solitary possession of the whole sleep- 
 ing country: the summer night was divinely 
 calm — no sound, except once or twice the cry 
 of a child as I was passing the windows of cot- 
 tages, ever broke upon the utter silence; and 
 all things conspired to throw back my thoughts 
 upon the extraordinary person whom I had 
 quitted. The fine saying of Addison is familiar 
 to most readers, that Babylon in ruins is not so 
 affecting a spectacle, or so solemn, as a human 
 mind overthrown by lunacy. How much more 
 awful, then, and more magnificent a wreck, when 
 a mind so regal as that of Coleridge is over- 
 thrown or threatened with overthrow, not by a 
 visitation of Providence, but by the treachery of 
 his own will, and the conspiracy, as it were, of 
 himself against- himself ! Was it possible that 
 this ruin had been caused or hurried forward by 
 the dismal degradations of pecuniary difficul- 
 ties ? That was worth inquiring. I will here 
 mention briefly that I did inquire two days 
 after; and in consequence of what I heard, I 
 contrived that a particular service should be 
 tendered to Mr Coleridge, a week after, through 
 the hands of Mr Cottle of Bristol, which might 
 have the effect of liberating his mind from 
 anxiety for a year or two, and thus rendering 
 his great powers disposable to their natural uses. 
 That service was accepted by Coleridge. To 
 save him any feelings of distress, all names were 
 concealed ; but in a letter written by him, about 
 fifteen years after this time, I found that he had 
 become aware of all the circumstances, perhaps 
 through some indiscretion of Mr Cottle's.* A 
 more important question I never ascertained, 
 viz., whether this service had the effect of seri- 
 ously lightening his mind. For some succeeding 
 years he did certainly appear to me released 
 from that load of despondency which oppressed 
 him on my first introduction. Grave, indeed. 
 
 * A sum of £300, which De Quincey aenerously 
 placed at the disposal of Coleridge. 
 
 he continued to be, and at times absorbed in 
 gloom ; nor did I ever see him in a state of per- 
 fectly natural cheerfulness. But as he strove in 
 vain for many years to wean himself from his 
 captivity to opium, a healthy state of spirits 
 could not be much expected. Perhaps, indeed, 
 where the liver and other organs had, for so 
 large a period in life, been subject to a continual 
 morbid stimulation, it may be impossible for the 
 system ever to recover a natural action. Torpor, 
 I suppose, must result from continued artificial 
 excitement, and, perhaps, upon a scale of cor- 
 responding duration. Life, in such a case, may 
 not offer a field of sufficient extent for unthread- 
 ing the fatal links that have been wound about 
 the machinery of health, and have crippled its 
 natural play. 
 
 Meantime — to resume the thread of my wan- 
 dering narrative — on this serene summer night 
 of 1807, as I moved slowly along, with my eyes 
 continually settling upon the northern constella- 
 tions, which, like all the fixed stars, by their 
 immeasurable and almost spiritual remoteness 
 from human affairs, naturally throw the thoughts 
 upon the perishableness of our earthly troubles, 
 in contrast with their own utter peace and 
 solemnity — I reverted, at intervals, to all I had 
 ever heard of Coleridge, and strove to weave it 
 into some continuous sketch of his life. I hardly 
 remember how much I then knew; I know but 
 little now — that little I will here jot down upon 
 paper. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the son of a 
 learned clergyman — the vicar of Ottery St Mary, 
 in the southern quarter of Devonshire. It is 
 painful to mention that he was almost an object 
 of persecution to his mother ; why, I could 
 never learn. His father was described to me, 
 by Coleridge himself, as a sort of Parson Adams, 
 being distinguished by his erudition, his inex- 
 perience of the world, and his guileless sim- 
 plicity. I once purchased in London, and, I 
 suppose, still possess, two elementary books on 
 the Latin language by this reverend gentleman ; 
 one of them, as I found, making somewhat 
 higher pretensions than a common school gram- 
 mar. In particular, an attempt is made to 
 reform the theory of the cases ; and it gives a 
 pleasant specimen of the rustic scholar's 7iaivete, 
 that he seriously proposes to banish such vexa- 
 tious terms as the accusative; and, by way of 
 simplifying the matter to tender minds, that we 
 should call it, in all time to come, the " quale- 
 quare-quidditive" case, upon what incomprehen- 
 sible principle I never could fathom. He used 
 regularly to delight his village flock, on Sun- 
 days, with Hebrew quotations in his sermons, 
 which he always introduced as the "immediate 
 language of the Holy Ghost." This proved un- 
 fortunate to his successor ; he also was a learned 
 man, and his parishioners admitted it, but gene- 
 rally with a sigh for past times, and a sorrowful 
 complaint that he was still far below Parsor 
 
uo 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Coleridge — for that he, never gave them any 
 "immediate language of the Holy Ghost." I 
 presume that, like the reverend gentleman so 
 plfAsantly sketched in "St Ronan's Well," Mr 
 Coleridge, who resembled that person in his 
 Oriental learning and his simplicity, must also 
 have resembled him in short-sightedness, of 
 which his son used to relate a ludicrous instance. 
 Dining in a large party one day, the modest 
 divine was suddenly shocked by perceiving some 
 part, as he conceived, of his own snowy shirt 
 emerging from a part of his habiliments, which 
 we shall suppose to have been his waistcoat. It 
 was not that ; but for decorum we shall so call 
 it. The stray portion of his supposed tunic was 
 admonished of its errors by a forcible thrust 
 back into its proper home; but still another 
 lirribus persisted to emerge, or seemed to persist, 
 and still another, until the learned gentleman 
 absolutely perspired with the labour of re-estab- 
 lishing order. And, after all, he saw with 
 anguish, that some arrears of the snowy inde- 
 corum still remained to reduce into obedience. 
 To this remnant of rebellion he was proceed- 
 ing to apply himself — strangely confounded, 
 however, at thje obstinacy of the insurrection 
 — wheD. the mistress of the house, rising to 
 lead away the ladies from the table, and all 
 parties naturally rising with her, it became 
 suddenly apparent to every eye, that the worthy 
 Orientalist had been most laboriously stowing 
 away, into the capacious receptacles of his own 
 habiliments, the snowy folds of a lady's gown, 
 belonging to his next neighbour ; and so volu- 
 minously, that a very small portion of it, indeed, 
 remained for the lady's own use; the natural 
 consequence of which was, of course, that the 
 lady appeared almost inextricably yoked to the 
 learned theologian, and could not in any way 
 effect her release, until after certain operations 
 upon the vicar's dress, and a continued refund- 
 ing i»nd rolling out of snowy mazes upon snowy 
 mazes, in quantities which, at length, proved 
 too much for the gravity of the company. In- 
 extinguishable laughter arose from all parties, 
 except the erring and unhappy doctor, who, in 
 dire perplexity, continued still refunding with 
 all his might, until he had paid up the last 
 arrears of his long debt, and thus put an end to 
 a case of distress more memorable to himself 
 and his parishioners than any '^quale-quare- 
 quidditive" case that probably had ever per- 
 plexed his learning. 
 
 In his childish days, and when he had become 
 an orphan, S. T. Coleridge was removed to the 
 heart of London, and placed on the great founda- 
 tion of Christ's Hospital. He there found him- 
 self associated, as a schoolfellow, with several 
 boys destined to distinction in after-life, and 
 especially with one who, if not endowed with 
 powers equally large and comprehensive, had, 
 however, genius not less original or exquisite 
 thanhisown — the inimitable Charles Lamb. But 
 
 in learning Coleridge outstripped all competi- 
 tors, and rose to be the captain of the school. It 
 is indeed a most memorable fact to be recorded 
 of a boy, that, before completing his fifteenth 
 year, he had translated the Greek hymns of 
 Synesius into English Anacreontic verse. This 
 was not a school task, but a labour of love and 
 choice ; to appreciate which, it is necessary to 
 recall the dark philosophy which constitutes the 
 theme of Synesius. Before leaving school, Cole- 
 ridge had an opportunity of reading the sonnets 
 of Bowles, which so powerfully impressed his 
 poetic sensibility, that he made forty transcripts 
 of them with his own pen, by way of presents 
 to youthful friends. From Christ's Hospital, 
 by the privilege of his station at school, he was 
 transferred to Jesus College, Cambridge. It 
 was here, no doubt, that his acquaintance began 
 with the philosophic system of Hartley, for that 
 eminent person had been a Jesus man. Frend 
 also, the mathematician, of heretical memory, 
 belonged to that college, and was probably 
 contemporary with Coleridge. What accident, 
 or imprudence, carried him away from Cam- 
 bridge before he had completed the usual period 
 of study, or (I believe) taken his degree, I never 
 heard. He had certainly won some distinction 
 as a scholar, having obtained the prize for a 
 Greek ode in Sapphic metre, of which the senti- 
 ments (as he observes himself) were better than 
 the Greek. Porson was accustomed, meanly 
 enough, to ridicule the Greek lexis of this ode, 
 which was to break a fly upon the wheel. The 
 ode was clever enough for a boy ; but to such 
 skill in Greek as could have enabled him to 
 compose with critical accuracy, Coleridge never 
 made pretensions. He had, however, a far more 
 philosophic insight into much of the structure 
 of that language than Porson had, or could 
 have comprehended. 
 
 The incidents of Coleridge's life about this 
 period, and some account of a heavy disappoint- 
 ment in love, which probably it was that carried 
 him away from Cambridge, are to be found em- 
 bodied (with what modifications I know not) in 
 the novel of " Edmund Oliver," written by the 
 late Charles Lloyd. It is well known that, in a 
 frenzy of unhappy feeling at the rejection he 
 met with from the lady of his choice, Coleridge 
 enlisted as a private into a dragoon regiment. 
 He fell off his horse on several occasions, but, 
 perhaps, not more than raw recruits are apt to 
 do when first put under the riding master. But 
 Coleridge was naturally ill framed for a good 
 horseman. He is also represented in "Edmund 
 Oliver" as having found peculiar difficulty or 
 annoyance in grooming his horse. But the most 
 romantic incident in that scene of his life was 
 in the circumstances of his discharge. It is said 
 (but I vouch for no part of the story) that Cole- 
 ridge, as a private, mounted guard at the door 
 of a room in whicli his officers happened to give 
 a ball. Two of them had a dispute upon some 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 141 
 
 Greek word or passage when close to Coleridge's 
 station. He interposed his authentic decision 
 of the case. The officers stared as though one 
 of their own horses had sung " Kule Britannia ; " 
 questioned him; heard his story; pitied his 
 misfortune ; and, finally, subscribed to purchase 
 his discharge. Not very long after this, Cole- 
 ridge became acquainted with the two Wedg- 
 woods, both of whom, admiring his fine powers, 
 subscribed to send him into North Germany, 
 where, at the University of Gottingen, he com- 
 pleted his education according to his own 
 scheme. The most celebrated professor whose 
 lectures he attended was the far-famed Blumen- 
 bach, of whom he continued to speak through 
 life with almost filial reverence. Returning to 
 England, he attended Mr Thomas Wedgwood, 
 as a friend, throughout the afflicting and anoma- 
 lous illness which brought him to the grave. It 
 was supposed by medical men that the cause of 
 Mr Wedgwood's continued misery was a stricture 
 of some part in the intestines (the colon, it was 
 believed). The external symptoms were torpor 
 and defective irritability, together with ever- 
 lasting restlessness. By way of some relief to 
 this latter symptom, Mr Wedgwood purchased 
 a travelling carriage, and wandered up and down 
 England, taking Coleridge as his companion. 
 And, as a desperate attempt to rouse and irri- 
 tate the decaying sensibility of his system, I 
 have been assured by a surviving friend, that 
 Mr Wedgwood at one time opened a butcher's 
 shop, conceiving that the afi'ronts and disputes 
 to which such a situation would expose him, 
 might act beneficially upon his increasing tor- 
 por. This strange expedient served only to 
 express the anguish which had now mastered 
 his nature : it was soon abandoned ; and this 
 accomplished but miserable man soon sank 
 under his sufferings. What made the case more 
 memorable was the combination of worldly 
 prosperity which had settled upon this gentle- 
 man. He was rich, young, generally beloved, 
 distinguished for his scientific attainments, pub- 
 licly honoured for patriotic services, and had 
 before him, when he first fell ill, every prospect 
 of a splendid and most useful career. 
 
 By the death of Mr Wedgwood, Coleridge 
 succeeded to a regular annuity of £75, which 
 that gentleman had bequeathed to him. The 
 other Mr Wedgwood granted him an equal 
 allowance. Now came his marriage, his connec- 
 tion with politics and political journals, his 
 residence in various parts of Somersetshire, and 
 his consequent introduction to Mr Wordsworth. 
 In his politics, Mr Coleridge was most sincere 
 and most enthusiastic. No man hailed with 
 profounder sympathy the French Revolution ; 
 and though he saw cause to withdraw his regard 
 from many of the democratic zealots in this 
 country, and even from the revolutionary inter- 
 est as it was subsequently conducted, he con- 
 tinued to worship the original revolutionary cause 
 
 in a pure Miltonic spirit ; and he continued also 
 to abominate the policy of Mr Pitt in a degree 
 which I myself find it difficult to understand. 
 The very spirited little poem of " Fire, Famine, 
 and Slaughter," who are supposed to meet in 
 conference, to describe their horrid triumphs, 
 and then to ask in a whisper who it was that 
 unchained them, to which each in turn replies, 
 
 " Letters four do form his name ! " 
 
 expresses his horror of Mr Pitt personally in a 
 most extravagant shape, but merely for the 
 purpose of poetic effect ; for he had no real un- 
 kindness in his heart towards any human being ; 
 and I have often heard him disclaim the hatred 
 which is here expressed for Mr Pitt, as he did 
 also very elaborately and earnestly in print. 
 Somewhere about this time, Coleridge attempted, 
 under Sheridan's countenance, to bring a tragedy 
 upon the stage of Drury Lane ; but his prospect 
 of success, as I once heard or read, was suddenly 
 marred by Mr Sheridan's inability to sacrifice 
 what he thought a good jest. One scene pre- 
 sented a cave with streams of water weeping 
 down the sides ; and the first words were, in a 
 sort of mimicry of the sound, **Drip, drip, 
 drip ! " Upon which Sheridan repeated aloud, 
 
 "Drip, drip, drip ! — why, bless me, there's 
 
 nothing here but drijpp^ng ;" and so arose a 
 chorus of laughter amongst the actors fatal to 
 the probationary play. 
 
 About the latter end of the century, Coleridge 
 visited North Germany again, in company with 
 Mr and Miss Wordsworth. Their tour was 
 chiefly confined to the Hartz forest and its 
 neighbourhood. But the incident most worthy 
 of remembrance in their excursion was a visit 
 made to Klopstock, whom they found either at 
 Hamburgh or, perhaps, at the Danish town (aa 
 then it was) of Altona ; for Klopstock was a pen- 
 sioner of the Danish king. An anonymous 
 writer, who attacked Coleridge most truculently 
 in an early number of Blackwood, and with an 
 acharnement that must astonish those who knew 
 its object, has made the mistake of supposing 
 Coleridge to have been the chief speaker, who 
 did not speak at all. The case was this : Klop- 
 stock could not speak English, though every- 
 body remembers the pretty broken English of 
 his second wife. Neither Coleridge nor Words- 
 worth, on the other hand, spoke German with 
 any fluency. French, therefore, was the only 
 medium of free communication, that being 
 pretty equally familiar to Wordsworth and to 
 Klopstock. But Coleridge found so much diffi- 
 culty even in reading French that, wherever (as 
 in the case of Leibnitz's ** Theodicee ") there was 
 a choice between an original written in French 
 and a translation, though it might be a very 
 faulty one, in German, he always preferred the 
 latter. Hence it happened that Wordsworth, 
 on behalf of the English party, was the sole sup- 
 porter of the dialogue. The anonymous critic 
 
142 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 says another thing, which certainly has an air of 
 truth, viz. , that Klopstock plays a very second- 
 ary rtle in the interview (or words to that effect). 
 But how was that to be avoided in reporting 
 the case, supposing the fact to have been such ? 
 Now the plain truth is, that Wordsworth, upon 
 his own ground, is an incomparable talker; 
 whereas Klubstick (as Coleridge used to call 
 him) was always a feeble and careless one. 
 Besides, he was now old and decaying. Nor at 
 any time, nor in any accomplishment, could 
 Klopstock have shone, unless in the noble art of 
 skating. Wordsworth did the very opposite of 
 that with which he was taxed, for, happening 
 to look down at Klopstock's swollen legs, and 
 recollecting his age, he felt touched by a sort of 
 filial pity for his helplessness. And upon an- 
 other principle, which, in my judgment, Words- 
 worth is disposed to carry too far, viz., the 
 forbearance and the ceremonious caution which 
 he habitually concedes to an established reputa- 
 tion, even where he believes it to have been 
 built on a hollow foundation, he came to the 
 conclusion that it would not seem becoming in a 
 young, and as yet obscure author, to report 
 faithfully the real superiority he too easily main- 
 tained in such a colloquy. But neither had 
 Klopstock the pretensions as a poet which the 
 Blachioood writer seems to take for granted. 
 Germany, the truth is, wanted a great epic poet. 
 Not having produced one in that early condition 
 of her literary soil when such a growth is na- 
 tural and favoured by circumstances, the next 
 thing was to manufacture a substitute. The 
 force of Coleridge's well-known repartee — when, 
 in reply to a foreigner asserting that Klopstock 
 was the German Milton, he said, "True, sir; a 
 very German Milton" — cannot be fully appre- 
 ciated but by one who is familiar with the Ger- 
 man poetry, and the small proportion in which 
 it is a natural and spontaneous product. It has 
 been often noticed, as the misfortune of the 
 Roman literature, that it grew up too much 
 under the oppression of Grecian models, and 
 .f Grecian models depraved by Alexandrian art; 
 a fact, so far as it was a fact, which crippled 
 the genial and characteristic spirit of the na- 
 tional mind. But this evil, after all, did not 
 take effect except in a partial sense. Rome had 
 cast much of her literature in her own moulds 
 before these exotic models had begun to domi- 
 neer. Not so with Germany. Her literature, 
 since its revival in the last century (and the 
 revival upon the impulse of what cattle ! — Bod- 
 mer on the one hand, and Gottsched on the 
 other !), has hardly moved a step in the freedom 
 of natural grace. England for nineteen and 
 France for the twentieth of all her capital works 
 has given the too servile law ; and with regard 
 to Klopstock, if ever there was a good exempli- 
 fication of the spurious and the coiwiterfeit in 
 literature, seek it in the "Messiah." He is 
 verily and indeed the Birmingham Milton. 
 
 This Klopstockian dialogue, by the way, was 
 first printed (hardly published) in the origi- 
 nal, or Lake edition of the Friend. In the 
 recast of that work it was omitted, nor has 
 it been printed anywhere else that I am aware 
 of. 
 
 About the close of the first revolutionary war 
 it must have been, or in the brief interval of 
 peace, that Coleridge resorted to the English 
 Lakes as a place of residence. Wordsworth had 
 a natural connection with that region by birth, 
 breeding, and family alliances. Wordsworth 
 attracted Coleridge to the Lakes, and Coleridge, 
 through his affinity to Southey, eventually 
 attracted him. Southey, as is known to all who 
 take an interest in the Lake colony, married a 
 sister of Mrs Coleridge's ; and, as a singular eccen- 
 tricity in the circumstances of that marriage, I 
 may mention that, on his wedding-day (at the 
 very portico of the church, I have been told), 
 Southey left his bride to embark for Lisbon. 
 His uncle, Dr Herbert, was chaplain to the 
 English factory in that city; and it was to 
 benefit by the facilities in that way opened to 
 him for seeing Portugal that Southey now went 
 abroad. He extended his tour to Spain, and 
 the result of his notices was communicated to 
 the world in a volume of travels. By such acci- 
 dents of personal or family connection as I have 
 mentioned was the Lake colony gathered, and 
 the critics of the day, unaware of the real facts, 
 supposed them to have assembled under com- 
 mon views in literature, particularly with regard 
 to the true functions of poetry, and the true 
 theory of poetic diction. Under this original 
 blunder, laughable it is to mention, that they 
 went on to Jind in their writings all the agree- 
 ments and common characteristics which their 
 blunder had presumed; and they incorporated 
 the whole community under the name of the 
 LaJce School. Yet Wordsworth and Southey 
 never had one principle in common. Indeed, 
 Southey troubled himself little about abstract 
 principles in anything; and so far from agreeing 
 with Wordsworth to the extent of setting up a 
 separate school in poetry, he told me himself 
 (August 1812) that he highly disapproved both 
 of Mr Wordsworth's theories and of his prac- 
 tice. It is very true, that one man may sym- 
 pathise with another, or even follow his leading, 
 unconscious that he does so ; or he may go so 
 far as, in the very act of virtual imitation, to 
 deem himself in opposition; but this sort of 
 blind agreement could hardly be supposed of 
 two men as discerning and as self-examining as 
 Wordsworth and Southey. And, in fact, a phi- 
 losophic investigation of the difficult questions 
 connected with this whole slang about schools, 
 Lake schools, etc., would show that Southey has 
 not, nor ever had, any peculiarities in common 
 with Wordsworth beyond that of exchanging 
 the old prescriptive diction of poetry, intro- 
 duced between the periods of Milton and Cow- 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERLDGE, 
 
 143 
 
 per, for the simpler and profounder forms of 
 daily life in some instances, and of the Bible in 
 others. The bold and uniform practice of 
 Wordsworth was here adopted timidly by 
 Southey. In this respect, however, Cowper had 
 already begun the reform; and his influence, 
 concurring with the now larger influence of 
 Wordsworth, has operated so extensively as to 
 make their own original differences at this day 
 less perceptible. 
 
 By the way, the word colony reminds me that 
 I have omitted to mention in its proper place 
 some scheme for migrating to America, which 
 had been entertained by Coleridge and Southey 
 about the year 1794-5, under the learned name 
 of Pantisocracy. So far as I ever heard, it dif- 
 fered little, except in its Grecian name, from 
 any other scheme for mitigating the privations 
 of a wilderness, by settling in a cluster of fami- 
 lies bound together by congenial tastes and uni- 
 form principles rather than in self-depending, 
 insulated households. Steadily pursued, it 
 might, after all, have been a fortunate plan for 
 Coleridge. "Soliciting my food from daily 
 toil," a line in which Coleridge alludes to the 
 scheme, implies a condition that would have up- 
 held Coleridge's health and happiness somewhat 
 better than the habits of luxurious city life as 
 now constituted in Europe. To return to the 
 Lakes, and to the Lake colony of poets. So 
 little were Southey and Wordsworth connected 
 by any personal intercourse in those days, and 
 so little disposed to be connected, that, whilst 
 the latter had a cottage in Grasmere, Southey 
 pitched his tent at Greta Hall, on a little emi- 
 nence rising immediately from the romantic river 
 Greta and the town of Keswick. Grasmere is 
 in Westmoreland, Keswick in Cumberland, and 
 they are thirteen good miles apart. Coleridge 
 and his family were domiciliated in Greta Hall, 
 sharing that house, a tolerably large one, on 
 some principle of amicable division, with Mr 
 Southey. But Coleridge personally was more 
 often to be found at Grasmere, which presented 
 the threefold attractions of loveliness so com- 
 plete as to eclipse even the scenery of Derwent- 
 water, a pastoral state of society, free from the 
 deformities of a little town like Keswick, and, 
 finally, the society of Wordsworth. Not before 
 1815 or 1816 could it be said that Southey and 
 Wordsworth were even upon friendly terms, so 
 entirely is it untrue that they combined to 
 frame a school of poetry. Up to that time they 
 viewed each other with mutual respect, but also 
 with mutual dislike — almost, I might say, 
 with mutual disgust. Wordsworth disliked in 
 Southey the want of depth, as regards the power 
 of philosophic abstraction, of comprehensive 
 views, and of severe principles of thought. 
 Southey disliked in Wordsworth the air of dog- 
 matism and the unaffable haughtiness of his 
 manner. Other more trivial reasons combined 
 with these. 
 
 At this time, when Coleridge first settled at 
 the Lakes, or not long after, a romantic and 
 somewhat tragical affair drew the eyes of all 
 England, and for many years continued to draw 
 the steps of tourists to one of the most secluded 
 Cumberland valleys, so little visited previously, 
 that it might be described almost as an undis- 
 covered chamber of that romantic district. 
 Coleridge was brought into a closer connection 
 with this affair than merely by the general rela- 
 tion of neighbourhood ; for an article of his in 
 a morning paper, I believe, unintentionally 
 furnished the original clue for unmasking the 
 base impostor who figured as the foremost actor 
 in this tale. Other generations have arisen since 
 that time, who must naturally be unacquainted 
 with the circumstances; and, on their account, 
 I shall here recall them. One day in the Lake 
 season, there drove up to the Royal Oak, the 
 principal inn at Keswick, a handsome and well- 
 appointed travelling carriage, containing one 
 gentleman of somewhat dashing exterior. The 
 stranger was a picturesque-hunter, but not of that 
 order who fly round the ordinary tour with the 
 velocity of lovers posting to Gretna, or of crim- 
 inals running from the police ; his purpose was 
 to domiciliate himself in this beautiful scenery, 
 and to see it at his leisure. From Keswick, as 
 his headquarters, he made excursions in every 
 direction amongst the neighbouring valleys; 
 meeting generally a good deal of respect and 
 attention, partly on account of his handsome 
 equipage, and still more from his visiting cards, 
 which designated him as *'The Hon. Augustus 
 Hope." Under this name, he gave himself out 
 for a brother of Lord Hopetoun's, whose great 
 income was well known, and, perhaps, exagger- 
 ated amongst the dalesmen of Northern England. 
 Some persons had discernment enough to doubt 
 of this ; for the man's breeding and deportment, 
 though showy, had a tang of vulgarity about it ; 
 and Coleridge assured me, that he was grossly 
 ungrammatical in his ordinary conversation. 
 However, one fact, soon dispersed by the people 
 of a little rustic post-office, laid asleep all de- 
 murs ; he not only received letters addressed to 
 him under this assumed name — that might be 
 through collusion with accomplices — but he him- 
 self continually franked letters by that name. 
 Now, that being a capital offence, being not 
 only a forgery, but (as a forgery on the post- 
 office) sure to be prosecuted, nobody presumed 
 to question his pretensions any longer ; and, 
 henceforward, he went to all places with the 
 consideration attached to an earl's brother. All 
 doors flew open at his approach: boats, boat- 
 men, nets, and the most unlimited sporting 
 privileges, were placed at the disposal of the 
 ''honourable" gentleman: and the hospitality 
 of the whole country taxed itself to offer a suit- 
 able reception to the patrician Scotsman. It 
 could be no blame to a shepherd girl, bred in 
 the sternest solitude which England has to 
 
144 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 show, that she should fall into a snare which 
 hardly any of her betters had escaped. Nine 
 miles from Keswick, by the nearest bridle road, 
 but fourteen or fifteen by any route which the 
 honourable gentleman's travelling carriage could 
 have traversed, lies the lake of Buttermere. Its 
 margin, which is overhung by some of the lofti- 
 est and steepest of the Cumbrian mountains, 
 exhibits on either side few traces of human 
 neighbourhood ; the level area, where the hills 
 recede enough to allow of any, is of a wild, pas- 
 toral character, or almost savage ; the waters of 
 the lake are deep and sullen ; and the barrier 
 mountains, by excluding the sun for much of his 
 daily course, strengthen the gloomy impressions. 
 At the foot of this lake (that is, at the end where 
 its waters issue) lie a few unornamented fields, 
 through which rolls a little brook-like river con- 
 necting it with the larger lake of Crummock; 
 and at the edge of this miniature domain, upon 
 the roadside, stands a cluster of cottages, so 
 small and few that, in the richer tracts of the 
 island, they would scarcely be complimented 
 with the name of hamlet. One of these, and I 
 believe the principal, belonged to an independent 
 proprietor, called, in the local dialect, a "states- 
 man ; " and more, perhaps, for the sake of 
 gathering any little local news, than with much 
 view to pecuniary profit at that era, this cottage 
 olfered the accommodations of an inn to the 
 traveller and his horse. Eare, however, must 
 have been the mounted traveller in those days, 
 unless visiting Buttermere for itself, and as a 
 terminus ad quern, ; for the road led to no further 
 habitations of man, with the exception of some 
 four or five pastoral cabins, equally humble, in 
 Gatesgarth Dale. Hither, however, in an evil 
 hour for the peace of this little brotherhood of 
 shepherds, came the cruel spoiler from Keswick. 
 His errand was to witness or to share in the 
 char-fishing ; for in Derwentwater (the lake of 
 Keswick) no char is found, which breeds only 
 in the deeper waters, such as Windermere, 
 Crummock, Buttermere, etc. But whatever 
 had been his first object, that was speedily for- 
 gotten in one more deeply interesting. The 
 daughter of the house, a fine young woman of 
 eighteen, acted as waiter. In a situation so soli- 
 tary, the stranger had unlimited facilities for 
 enjoying her company, and recommending him- 
 self to her favour. Doubts about his preten- 
 sions never arose in so simple a place as this ; 
 they were overruled before they could, well have 
 arisen, by the opinion now general in Keswick 
 that he really was what he pretended to be: 
 and thus, with little demur, except in the shape 
 of a few natural words of parting anger from a 
 defeated or rejected rustic admirer, the young 
 woman gave her hand in marriage to the showy 
 and unprincipled stranger. I know not whether 
 the marriage was, or could have been, celebrated 
 in the little mountain chapel of Buttermere. If 
 it were, 1 persuade myself that the most hard- 
 
 ened villain must have felt a momentary pang 
 on violating the altar of such a chapel, so touch- 
 ingly does it express, by its miniature dimen- 
 sions, the almost helpless humility of that little 
 pastoral community to whose spiritual wants it 
 has from generation to generation administered. 
 It is not only the very smallest chapel by many 
 degrees in all England, but is so mere a toy in 
 outward appearance that, were it not for its 
 antiquity, its wild mountain exposure, and its 
 consecrated connection with the final hopes and 
 fears of the adjacent pastoral hamlet — ^but for 
 these considerations, the first movement of a 
 stranger's feelings would be towards loud laugh- 
 ter ; for the little chapel looks not so much a 
 mimic chapel in a drop scene from the opera- 
 house, as a miniature copy from such a scene ; 
 and evidently could not receive within its walls 
 more than a half-dozen of households. From 
 this sanctuary it was — from beneath the maternal 
 shadow, if not from the altar of this lonely chapel 
 — that the heartless villain carried off the flower 
 of the mountains. Between this place and Kes- 
 wick they continued to move backwards and 
 forwards, until at length, with the startling of 
 a thunderclap to the affrighted mountaineers, 
 the bubble burst ; officers of justice appeared ; 
 the stranger was easily intercepted from flight ; 
 and, upon a capital charge, was borne away to 
 Carlisle. At the ensuing assizes he was tried 
 for forgery, on the prosecution of the post-office, 
 found guilty, left for execution, and executed 
 accordingly. On the day of his condemnation, 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge passed through Car- 
 lisle, and endeavoured to obtain an interview 
 with him. Wordsworth succeeded, but, for 
 some unknown reason, the prisoner steadily re- 
 fused to see Coleridge — a caprice which could 
 not be penetrated. It is true that he had, 
 during his whole residence at Keswick, avoided 
 Coleridge with a solicitude which had revived 
 the original suspicions against him in some 
 quarters, after they had generally subsided. 
 But for this his motive had then been sufficient : 
 he was of a Devonshire family, and naturally 
 feared the eye or the inquisitive examination of 
 one who bore a name immemorially associated 
 with the southern part of that county. 
 
 Coleridge, however, had been transplanted so 
 immaturely from his native region, that few 
 people in England knew less of its family con- 
 nections. That, perhaps, was unknown to this 
 malefactor; but at any rate he knew that all 
 motive was now at an end for disguise of any 
 sort, so that his reserve in this particular was 
 unintelligible. However, if not him, Coleridge 
 saw and examined his very interesting papers. 
 These were chiefly letters from women whom he 
 had injured, pretty much in the same way and 
 by the same impostures as he had so recently 
 practised in Cumberland, and, as Coleridge as- 
 svjred me, were in part the most agonising ap- 
 rjeals that he had ever read to human justice 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 145 
 
 fttid pity. The man's real name was, I think, 
 Hatfield; and amongst the papers were two 
 separate correspondences, of some length, from 
 two young women, apparently of superior con- 
 dition in life (one the daughter of an English 
 clergyman), whom this villain had deluded by 
 marriage, and, after some connection with, aban- 
 doned ; one of them with a family of young 
 children. Great was the emotion of Coleridge 
 when he recurred to his remembrance of these 
 letters, and bitter — almost vindictive — was the 
 ind'gnation with which he spoke of Hatfield. 
 One set of letters appeared to have been written 
 under too certain a knowledge of his villainy to 
 whom they were addressed, though still relying 
 on some possible remains of humanity, or per- 
 haps (the poor writer might think), on some 
 lingering remains of affection for herself. The 
 other set was even more distressing ; they were 
 written under the first conflicts of suspicions, 
 alternately repelling with warmth the gloomy 
 doubts which were fast arising, and then yield- 
 ing to their afflicting evidence; raving in one 
 page under the misery of alarm, in another 
 courting the delusions of hope, and luring back 
 the perfidious deserter — here resigning herself to 
 despair, and there again labouring to show that 
 all might yet be well. Coleridge said often, in 
 looking back upon that frightful exposure of 
 human guilt and misery — and I also echoed his 
 feeling — that the man who, when pursued by these 
 heartrending apostrophes, and with this litany 
 of anguish sounding in his ears, from despairing 
 women and from famishing children, could yet 
 find it possible to enjoy the calm pleasures of a 
 Lake tourist, and deliberately to hunt for the 
 picturesque, must have been a fiend of that 
 order which fortunately does not often emerge 
 amongst men. It is painful to remember that 
 in those days, amongst the multitudes who 
 ended their career in the same ignominious way, 
 and the majority for offences connected with the 
 forgery of bank-notes, there must have been 
 a considerable number who perished from the 
 very opposite cause, viz., because they felt too 
 passionately and profoundly for prudence the 
 claims of those who looked up to them for sup- 
 port. One common scaffold confounds the most 
 flinty hearts and the tenderest. However, in 
 this instance, it was in some measure the heart- 
 less part of Hatfield's conduct which drew 
 upon him his ruin ; for the Cumberland jury, as 
 I have been told, declared their unwillingness to 
 hang him for having forged a frank ; and both 
 they, and those who refused to aid his escape 
 when first apprehended, were reconciled to this 
 harshness entirely by what they heard of his 
 conduct to their injured, young fellow-country- 
 woman. 
 
 She, meantime, under the name of the Beauty 
 of Buttermere, became an object of interest to 
 all England: dramas and melodramas were 
 Produced in the London theatres upon her 
 
 story;* and for many a year afterwards, shoals 
 of tourists crowded to the secluded lake, and the 
 little homely cabaret, which had been the scene 
 of her brief romance. It was fortunate for a 
 person in her distressing situation, that her 
 home was not in a town: the few and simple 
 neighbours who had witnessed her imaginary ele- 
 vation, having little knowledge of worldly feel- 
 ings, never for an instant connected with her dis- 
 appointment any sense of the ludicrous, or spoke 
 of it as a calamity to which her vanity might 
 have co-operated. They treated it as unmixed 
 injury, reflecting shame upon nobody but the 
 wicked perpetrator. Hence, without much trial 
 to her womanly sensibilities, she found herself 
 able to resume her situation in the little inn ; 
 and this she continued to hold for many years. 
 In that place, and that capacity, I saw her 
 repeatedly, and shall here say a word upon her 
 personal appearance, because the Lake poets all 
 admired her greatly. Her figure was, in my 
 eyes, good; but I doubt whether most of my 
 readers would have thought it such. She was 
 none of your evanescent, wasp-waisted beauties ; 
 on the contrary, she was rather large every way 
 — tallish, and proportionably broad. Her face 
 was fair, and her features feminine ; and unques- 
 tionably she was what all the world have agreed 
 to call "good-looking." But, except in her 
 arms, which had something of a statuesque 
 beauty, and in her carriage, which expressed a 
 womanly grace, together with some slight dignity 
 and self-possession, I confess that I looked in 
 vain for any positive qualities of any sort or 
 degree. Beautiful, in any emphatic sense, she 
 was not. Everything about her face and bust 
 was negative; simply without offence. Even 
 this, however, was more than could be said at 
 all times : for the expression of her countenance 
 was often disagreeable. This arose out of her 
 situation; connected as it was with defective 
 sensibility, and a misdirected pride. Nothing 
 operates so differently upon different minds, 
 and different styles of beauty, as the inquisitive 
 gaze of strangers, whether in the spirit of re- 
 spectful admiration, or of insolence. Some I 
 have seen, upon whose angelic beauty this sort 
 of confusion settled advantageously, and like a 
 softening veil; others, in whom it meets with 
 proud resentment, are sometimes disfigured by 
 it. In Mary of Buttermere it roused mere 
 anger and disdain; which, meeting with the 
 sense of her humble and dependent situation, 
 gave birth to a most unhappy aspect of counte- 
 nance. Men, who had no touch of a gentleman's 
 nature in their composition, sometimes insulted 
 her by looks and by words ; and she too readily 
 attributed the same spirit of impertinent curio- 
 sity to every man whose eyes happened to settle 
 steadily upon her face. Yet, once at least, I 
 
 * Also referred to in the seventh book of Words- 
 worth's " Prelude." 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 must have seen her under the most favourable 
 circumstances : for on my first visit to Butter- 
 mere, I had the pleasure of Mr Southey's com- 
 pany, who was incapable of wounding anybody's 
 feelings, and to Mary in particular, was well 
 known by kind attentions, and I believe by 
 some services. Then at least I saw her to advan- 
 tage, and perhaps for a figure of her build, at the 
 best age ; for it was about nine or ten years after 
 her misfortune, when she might be twenty-seven 
 or twenty-eight years old. We were alone, a 
 solitary pair of tourists : nothing arose to con- 
 fuse or distress her. She waited upon us at 
 dinner, and talked to us freely. **This is a 
 respectable young woman," I said to myself; 
 but nothing of that enthusiasm could I feel, 
 which beauty, such as I have beheld at the Lakes, 
 would have been apt to raise under a similar 
 misfortune. One lady, not very scrupulous in 
 her embellishments of facts, used to tell an 
 anecdote of her, which I hope Avas exaggerated. 
 Some friend of hers (as she affirmed), in com- 
 pany with a large party, visited Buttermere, 
 within a day or two after that upon which Hat- 
 field suffered; and she protested that Mary 
 threw upon the table, with an emphatic ges- 
 ture, the Carlisle paper, containing an elaborate 
 account of his execution. 
 
 It is an instance of Coleridge's carelessness — 
 that he, who had as little ill-nature in his temper 
 as any person whom I have ever known, managed, 
 in reporting this story at the time of its occur- 
 rence, to get himself hooked into a personal 
 quarrel, which hung over his head unsettled for 
 nine or ten years. A Liverpool merchant, who 
 was then meditating a house in the vale of Gras- 
 mere, and perhaps might have incurred Cole- 
 ridge's anger, by thus disturbing, with inappro- 
 priate intrusions, this loveliest of all English 
 landscapes, had connected himself a good deal 
 with Hatfield during his Keswick masquerade ; 
 and was said even to have carried his regard 
 to that villain so far as to have christened one of 
 his own children by the names of "Augustus 
 Hope." With these and other circumstances, 
 expressing the extent of the infatuation amongst 
 the swindler's dupes, Coleridge made the public 
 merry. Naturally the Liverpool merchant was 
 not amongst those who admired the facetious- 
 ness of Coleridge on this occasion, but swore 
 vengeance whenever they should meet. They 
 never did meet, until ten years had gone by, 
 and then, oddly enough, it was in the Liverpool 
 man's own house — that very nuisance of a house 
 which had, I suppose, first armed Coleridge's 
 wrath against him. This house, by time and 
 accident, in no very wonderful way, had passed 
 into the hands of Wordsworth as tenant. Cole- 
 ridge, as was still less wonderful, had become the 
 visitor of Wordsworth on returning from Malta ; 
 and the Liverpool merchant, as was also natural, 
 either seeking his rent, or for what other pur- 
 pose I know not, calling upon Wordsworth, met 
 
 Coleridge in the hall. Now came the hour for 
 settling old accounts. I was present and can 
 report the case. Both looked grave and coloured 
 a little. But Coleridge, requesting his enemy's 
 company in the garden, entered upon a long 
 metaphysical dissertation, which was rather 
 puzzling to answer. It seemed to be an expan- 
 sion, by Thomas Aquinas, of that parody upon 
 a well-known passage in Shenstone, where the 
 writer says : 
 
 " He kicked me downstairs with such a sweet grace, 
 That I thought he was handing me up." 
 
 And in the upshot it clearly made it appear that, 
 purely on principles of good neighbourhood and 
 universal philanthropy, could Coleridge have 
 meditated or executed the insult offered in the 
 Morning Post. The Liverpool merchant rubbed 
 his forehead, and seemed a little perplexed ; but 
 at length, considering, perhaps, how very like 
 Duns Scotus, or Albertus Magnus, Coleridge 
 had shown himself in this luminous explanation, 
 he began to reflect, that had any one of those 
 distinguished men offered a similar affront, it 
 would have been impossible to resent it; for 
 who could think of caning the seraphic doctor? 
 or would it tell to any man's advantage in his- 
 tory that he had kicked Thomas Aquinas ? On 
 these principles, therefore, without saying one 
 word, he held out his hand, and a lasting 
 reconciliation followed. 
 
 Not very long, I believe, after this affair of 
 Hatfield, Coleridge went to Malta. His induce- 
 ment to such a step must have been merely a 
 desire to see the most interesting regions of the 
 Mediterranean, under the shelter and advantage- 
 ous introduction of an official station. It was, 
 however, an unfortunate chapter of his life ; for, 
 being necessarily thrown a good deal upon his 
 own resources in the narrow society of a garri- 
 son, he there confirmed and cherished, if he did 
 not there form, his habit of taking opium in 
 large quantities. I am the last person in the 
 world to press conclusions harshly or uncan- 
 didly against Coleridge, but I believe it to be 
 notorious that he first began the use of opium, 
 not as a relief from any bodily pains or nervous 
 irritations — for his constitution was strong and 
 excellent — but as a source of luxurious sensa- 
 tions. It is a great misfortune, at least it is a 
 great peril, to have tasted the enchanted cup of 
 youthful rapture incident to the poetic tempera- 
 ment. That standard of high-wrought sensi- 
 bility once made known experimentally, it is 
 rare to see a submission afterwards to the sobrie- 
 ties of daily life. Coleridge, to speak in the 
 words of Cervantes, wanted better bread than 
 was made of wheat ; and when youthful blood 
 no longer sustained the riot of his animal spirits, 
 he endeavoured to excite them by artificial stimu- 
 lants. 
 
 At Malta he became acquainted with Commo- 
 dore Decatur and other Americans of distinc* 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERLDGE. 
 
 147 
 
 tion, and this brought him afterwards into con- 
 nection with Alston, the American artist. Of Sir 
 Alexander Ball, one of Lord Nelson's captains 
 in the battle of the Nile, and now governor of 
 Malta, he spoke and wrote uniformly in a lavish 
 style of panegyric, for which plainer men found 
 it difficult to see the slightest ground. It was, 
 indeed, Coleridge's amiable infirmity to project 
 his own mind and his own very peculiar ideas, 
 nay, even his own expressions and illustrative 
 metaphors upon other men, and to contemplate 
 these reflex images from himself, as so many 
 characters having an absolute ground in some 
 separate object. "Ball and Bell"* were two 
 of these pet subjects; he had a *' craze" about 
 each of them, and to each he ascribed thoughts 
 and words, to which, had they been put upon 
 the rack, they never would have confessed. 
 
 From Malta, on his return homewards, he 
 went to Rome and Naples. One of the cardinals, 
 he tells us, warned him, by the pope's wish, of 
 some plot, set on foot by Bonaparte, for seiz- 
 ing him as an anti-Gallican writer. This state- 
 ment was ridiculed by an anonymous assailant 
 in Blackwood as the very consummation of 
 moon-struck vanity, and it is there compared to 
 John Dennis's frenzy in retreating from the 
 sea-coast, under the belief that Louis XTV. had 
 commissioned emissaries to land on the English 
 shore and make a dash at his person. But, after 
 all, the thing is not so entirely improbable. For 
 it is certain that some orator of the opposition 
 (Charles Fox, as Coleridge asserts) had pointed 
 out all the principal writers in the Morning Post 
 to Napoleon's vengeance, by describing the war 
 as a war "of that journal's creation." And as 
 to the insinuation that Napoleon was above 
 throwing his regards upon a simple writer of 
 political essays, that is not only abundantly 
 confuted by many scores of analogous cases, 
 but also is specially put down by a case circum- 
 stantially recorded in the second tour to Paris 
 by the celebrated John Scott. It there appears, 
 that on no other ground whatever than that of his 
 connection with the London newspaper press, 
 some friend of Mr Scott's had been courted most 
 assiduously by Napoleon during the hundred 
 days. Assuredly, Coleridge deserved, beyond 
 all other men that ever were connected with the 
 daily press, to be regarded with distinction. 
 Worlds of fine thinking lie buried in that vast 
 abyss, never to be disentombed or restored to 
 human admiration. Like the sea, it has swal- 
 lowed treasures without end that no diving-bell 
 will bring up again. But nowhere throughout 
 its shoreless magazines of wealth does there lie 
 such a bed of pearls confounded with the rub- 
 
 * Sir Alexander Ball, governor of Malta, and Dr 
 Andrew Bell, a noted educationalist. The latter was 
 unfortunate in his domestic relations; he was the 
 munificent founder of Trinity College, Glenalmond, 
 In Perthshire. 
 
 bish and purgamenta of ages as in the poli- 
 tical papers of Coleridge. No more ap^ecidble 
 monument could be raised to the memory of 
 Coleridge than a republication of his essays in 
 the Morning Post, but still more of those after, 
 wards published in the Courier. And here, by 
 the way, it may be mentioned that the sagacity 
 of Coleridge, as applied to the signs of the 
 times, is illustrated by the fact, that distinctly 
 and solemnly he foretold the restoration of the 
 Bourbons at a period when most people viewed 
 such an event as the most romantic of visions, 
 and not less chimerical than that " march upon 
 Paris" of Lord Hawkesbury's, which for so 
 many years supplied a theme of laughter to the 
 Whigs. 
 
 Why Coleridge left Malta is as difficult to ex- 
 plain upon any principles of ordinary business 
 as why he had ever gone thither. The post of 
 secretary, if it imposed any official attendance 
 of a regular kind, or any official correspondence, 
 must have been but poorly filled by him; and 
 Sir Alexander Ball, if I have collected his char- 
 acter justly, was not likely to accept the gor- 
 geous philosophy of Coleridge as an indemnifica- 
 tion for irregular performance of his public 
 duties. Perhaps, therefore, though on the best 
 terms of mutual regard, they might be mutually 
 pleased to part. At any rate they did part, 
 and poor Coleridge was sea-sick the whole of his 
 homeward (as he had been through the whole of 
 his outward) voyage. 
 
 It was not long after this event that my own 
 introduction to Coleridge occurred. At that time 
 some negotiation was pending between him and 
 the Royal Institution, which ended in their 
 engaging him to deliver a course of lectures on 
 poetry and the fine arts during the ensuing 
 winter. For this series (twelve or sixteen, I 
 think), he received a sum of one hundred guineas. 
 And considering the slightness of the pains which 
 he bestowed upon them, he was well remunerated. 
 I fear that they did not increase his reputation; 
 for never did any man treat his audience with 
 less respect, or his task with less careful atten- 
 tion. I was in London for part of the time, and 
 can report the circumstances, having made a 
 point of attending duly at the appointed hours. 
 Coleridge was at that time living uncomfortably 
 enough at the Courier office, in the Strand. In 
 such a situation, annoyed by the sound of feet 
 passing his chamber door continually to the 
 printing rooms of this great establishment, and 
 with no gentle ministrations of female hands to 
 sustain his cheerfulness, naturally enough his 
 spirits flagged ; and he took more than ordinary 
 doses of opium. I called upon him daily, and 
 pitied his forlorn condition. There was no bell 
 in the room, which for many months answered 
 the double purpose of bedroom and sitting- 
 room. Consequently, I often saw him, pictur- 
 esquely enveloped in night-caps, surmounted by 
 handkerchiefs endorsed upon handkerchief* 
 
jt$8 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 shouting from the attics of the Courier office, 
 down three or four flights of stairs, to a certain 
 "Mrs Brainhridge," his sole attendant, whose 
 dwelling was in the subterranean regions of the 
 house. There did I often see the philosopher, 
 with a most lugubrious face, invoking with all 
 his might this uncouth name of " Brainbridge," 
 each syllable of which he intonated w^ith long- 
 drawn emphasis, in order to overpower the hos- 
 tile hubbub coming downwards from the press, 
 and the roar from the Strand, which entered at 
 all the front windows. " Mrs Brainbridge ! I 
 say, Mrs Brainbridgel" was the perpetual cry, 
 until I expected to hear the Strand, and distant 
 Fleet Street, take up the echo of "Brainbridgel" 
 Thus unhappily situated, he sank more than 
 ever under the dominion of opium ; so that, at 
 two o'clock, when he should have been in atten- 
 dance at the Royal Institution, he was too often 
 unable to rise from bed. Then came dismissals 
 of audience after audience with pleas of illness ; 
 and on many of his lecture days, I have seen all 
 Albemarle Street closed by a "lock" of carriages 
 filled with women of distinction, until the ser- 
 vants of the Institution or their own footmen 
 advanced to the carriage doors with the intelli- 
 gence that Mr Coleridge had been suddenly 
 taken ill. This plea, which at first had been 
 received with expressions of concern, repeated 
 too often, began to rouse disgust. Some in 
 anger, and some in real uncertainty whether it 
 would not be trouble thrown away, ceased to 
 attend. And we that were more constant, too 
 often found reason to be disappointed with the 
 quality of his lecture. His appearance was 
 generally that of a person struggling with pain 
 and overmastering illness. His lips were baked 
 with feverish heat, and often black in colour ; 
 and in spite of the water which he continued 
 drinking through the whole course of his lecture, 
 he often seemed to labour under an almost para- 
 lytic inability to raise the upper jaw from the 
 lower. In such a state it is clear that nothing 
 could save the lecture itself from reflecting his 
 own feebleness and exhaustion, except the 
 advantage of having been precomposed in some 
 happier mood. But that never happened : most 
 unfortunately he relied upon his extempore 
 ability to carry him through. Now, had he 
 been in spirits, or had he gathered animation 
 and kindled by his own motion, no written 
 lecture could have been more effectual than one 
 of his unpremeditated colloquial harangues. 
 But either he was depressed originally below 
 the point from which any re-ascent was possible, 
 or else this reaction was intercepted by continual 
 disgust, from looking back upon his own ill suc- 
 cess ; for assuredly he never once recovered that 
 free and eloquent movement of thought which 
 he could command at any time in a private com- 
 pany. The passages he read, moreover, in illus- 
 trating his doctrines, were generally unhappily 
 chosen, because chosen at haphazard, from the 
 
 difficulty of finding, at a moment's summons, 
 those passages which he had in his eye. Nor 
 do I remember any that produced much effect, 
 except two or three, which I myself put ready 
 marked into his hands, among the "Metrical 
 Romances " edited by Ritson. 
 
 Generally speaking, the selections were as in- 
 judicious and as inappropriate as they were ill 
 delivered ; for amongst Coleridge's accomplish- 
 ments good reading was not one ; he had neither 
 voice, nor management of voice. This defect is 
 unfortunate in a public lecturer ; for it is incon- 
 ceivable how much weight and effectual pathos 
 can be communicated by sonorous depth, and 
 melodious cadences of the human voice, to senti- 
 ments the most trivial ; nor, on the other hand, 
 how the grandest are emasculated by a style of 
 reading which fails in distributing the lights 
 and shadows of a musical intonation. However, 
 this defect chiefly concerned the immediate im- 
 pression ; the most afllicting to a friend of Cole- 
 ridge's was the entire absence of his own peculiar 
 and majestic intellect; no heart, no soul, was in 
 anything he said ; no strength of feeling in re- 
 calling universal truths ; no power of originality 
 or compass of moral relations in his novelties — 
 all was a poor faint reflection from jewels once 
 scattered in the highway by himself in the pro- 
 digality of his early opulence — a mendicant de- 
 pendence on the alms dropped from his own 
 overflowing treasury of happier times. Such a 
 collapse, such a quenching of the eagle's talons, 
 never was seen before. And as I returned from 
 one of the most afflicting of these disappoint- 
 ments, I could not but repeat to myself parts of 
 that divine chorus : 
 
 " Oh ! dark, dark, dark ! 
 Amid the blaze of noon 
 Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse," etc., etc. 
 
 The next opportunity I had of seeing Cole- 
 ridge was at the Lakes in the winter of 1809, 
 and up to the autumn of the following year. 
 During this period it was that he carried on 
 the original publication of the Friend, and for 
 much the greater part of the time I saw him 
 daily. He lived as a visitor in the house occu- 
 pied by Mr Wordsworth; this house was in 
 Grasmere ; and in another part of the same vale, 
 at a distance of barely one mile, I myself had a 
 cottage and a considerable library. Many of 
 my books being German, Coleridge borrowed 
 them in great numbers. Having a general 
 licence from me to use them as he would, he 
 was in the habit of accumulating them so largely 
 at Allan Bank (the name of Mr Wordsworth's 
 house), that sometimes as many as five hundred 
 were absent at once, which I mention in order to 
 notice a practice of Coleridge's, indicating his 
 very scrupulous honour in what regarded the 
 rights of ownership. Literary people are not 
 always so strict in respecting property of this 
 description, and I know more than one cele- 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 149 
 
 "brated man who professes as a maxim that he 
 holds it no duty of honour to restore a borrowed 
 book, not to speak of many less celebrated per- 
 sons who, without openly professing such a 
 principle, do however, in fact, exhibit a lax 
 morality in such cases. The more honourable it 
 was to poor Coleridge, who had means so trifling 
 of buying books for himself, that to prevent my 
 flocks from mixing and being confounded with 
 the flocks already folded at Allan Bank (his own 
 and Wordsworth's), or rather that they might 
 mix without danger, he duly inscribed my name 
 in the blank leaves of every volume, a fact which 
 became rather painfully made known to me; 
 for, as he had chosen to dub me Esquire^ many 
 years after this it cost myself and a female 
 friend some weeks of labour to hunt out these 
 multitudinous memorials and to erase this her- 
 aldic addition, which else had the appearance 
 to a stranger of having been conferred by my- 
 self. 
 
 The Friend, in its original publication, was, 
 as a pecuniary speculation, the least judicious, 
 both in its objects and its means, I have ever 
 known. It was printed at Penrith, a town in 
 Cumberland, on the outer verge of the Lake dis- 
 trict, and precisely twenty-eight miles removed 
 from Coleridge's abode. This distance, enough 
 of itself in all conscience, was at least trebled 
 in effect by the interposition of Kirkstone, a 
 mountain which is scaled by a carriage ascent of 
 three miles long, and so steep in parts, that 
 without four horses no solitary traveller can 
 persuade the neighbouring innkeepers to carry 
 him. Another road, by way of Keswick, is sub- 
 ject to its own separate difficulties. And thus 
 in any practical sense, for ease, for certainty, 
 and for despatch, Liverpool, ninety-five miles 
 distant, was virtually nearer. Dublin even, or 
 Cork, was more eligible. Yet, in this town, so 
 situated as I have stated, by way of purchasing 
 such intolerable difficulties at the highest price, 
 Coleridge was advised and actually persuaded 
 to set up a printer, by buying types, etc., in- 
 stead of resorting to some printer already estab- 
 lished in Kendal, a large and opulent town, 
 not more than eighteen miles distant, and con- 
 nected by a daily post ; whereas, between him- 
 self and Penrith there was no post at all. 
 Building his mechanical arrangements upon this 
 utter "upside-down" inversion of all common 
 sense, it is not surprising (as "madness ruled 
 the hour") that in all other circumstances of 
 plan or execution, the work moved by principles 
 of downright crazy disregard to all that a judi- 
 cious counsel would have suggested. The sub- 
 jects were generally chosen obstinately in defi- 
 ance of the popular taste ; they were treated in 
 a style which avowed contempt for the popular 
 models, and the plans adopted for obtaining 
 payment were of a nature to ensure a speedy 
 bankruptcy to the concern. Coleridge had a 
 list, nobody could ever say upon whose autho- 
 
 rity gathered together, of subscribers. He tells 
 us himself that many of these renounced the 
 work from an early period, and some (as Lord 
 Corke) rebuked him for his presumption in 
 sending it unordered, but (as Coleridge asserts) 
 neither returned the copies nor remitted the 
 price. And even those who were conscientious 
 enough to do this could not remit four or five 
 shillings for as many numbers without putting 
 Coleridge to an expense of treble postage at 
 the least. This he complains of bitterly in his 
 "Biographia Literaria," forgetting evidently 
 that the evil was due exclusively to his own de- 
 fective arrangements. People necessarily sent 
 their subscriptions through such channels as 
 were open to them, or such as were pointed out 
 by Coleridge himself. It is also utterly un- 
 worthy of Coleridge to have taxed, as he does, 
 many (or all, for anything that appears) of his 
 subscribers with neglecting to pay at all. Pro- 
 bably nobody neglected. And, on the other 
 hand, some perhaps did, as a most conscientious 
 and venerable female relation of my own, who 
 had subscribed merely to oblige me, and out of 
 a general respect for Coleridge's powers, though 
 finding nothing to suit her own taste — she, I 
 happen to know, paid three times over, sending 
 the money through three different channels act 
 cording to the shifting directions which reached 
 her. Managed as the reader will collect from 
 these indications, the work was going down-hill 
 from the first. It never gained any accessions 
 of new subscribers ; from what source, then, 
 was the continual dropping off of names to be 
 supplied ? The printer became a bankrupt : 
 Coleridge was as much in arrear with his articles 
 as with his lectures at the Royal Institution. 
 That he was from the very first, but now he was 
 disgusted and desponding ; and with No. 28 the 
 work came to a final stop. Some years after it 
 was recast, as the phrase was, and republished. 
 But, in fact, this recast was pretty nearly a new 
 work. The sole contributor to the original 
 work had been Wordsworth, who gave a very 
 valuable paper on the principles concerned in 
 the composition of epitaphs; and Professor 
 Wilson, who, in conjunction with Mr Blair, 
 an early friend, then visiting at his place 
 on Windermere, wrote the letter signed Ma- 
 thetes, the reply to which came from Mr Words- 
 worth. 
 
 At the Lakes, and summoned abroad by scenery 
 so exquisite — living, too, in the bosom of a family 
 endeared to him by long friendship and by sym- 
 pathy the closest with all his propensities and 
 tastes — Coleridge (it may be thought) could not 
 sequester himself so profoundly as at the Courier 
 office within his own shell, or shut himself out 
 so completely from that large dominion of eye 
 and ear amongst the hills, the fields, and the 
 woods, which once he had exercised so pleasantly 
 to himself, and with a participation so immortal, 
 through his exquisite poems, to all generations 
 
i50 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 He was not now reduced to depend upon " Mrs 
 Brainbridge," but looked out from his study- 
 windows upon the sublime hills of 8eat Sandal 
 and Arthur's Chair, and upon pastoral cottages 
 at their feet; and all around him, he heard 
 hourly the murmurings of happy life, the sound 
 of female voices, and the innocent laughter of 
 children. But, apparently, he was not happy 
 himself; the accursed drug poisoned all natural 
 pleasure at its sources; he burrowed continually 
 deeper into scholastic subtleties and metaphysi- 
 cal abstraction, and, like that class described by 
 Seneca, in the luxurious Rome of his days, he 
 lived chiefly by candle-light. At two or three 
 o'clock in the afternoon he would make his first 
 appearance: through the silence of the night, 
 when all other lights had long disappeared, in 
 the quiet cottage of Grasmere his lamp might be 
 seen invariably by the belated traveller, as he 
 descended the long steep from Dim-mail-raise; 
 and at five or six o'clock in the morning, when 
 man was going forth to his labour, this insulated 
 son of reveries was retiring to bed. 
 
 Society he did not much court, because much 
 was not to be had ; but he did not shrink from 
 any which wore the promise of novelty. At 
 that time the leading person about the Lakes, 
 as regarded rank and station, amongst those 
 who had any connection with literature, was Dr 
 Watson, the well-known Bishop of Llandaff. 
 This dignitary I knew myself as much as I 
 wished to know him, having gone to his house 
 five or six times purposely that I might know 
 him, and I shall speak of him circumstantially. 
 Those who have read his autobiography, or are 
 otherwise acquainted with the outline of his car- 
 eer, will be aware that he was the son of a West- 
 moreland schoolmaster. Going to Cambridge, 
 with no great store of classical knowledge, but 
 with the more common accomplishment of West- 
 moreland men, and one better suited to Cam- 
 bridge, viz., a sufiicient basis of mathematics, 
 and a robust, though common -place intellect, 
 for improving his knowledge according to any 
 direction which accident should prescribe — he 
 obtained the professorship of chemistry without 
 one iota of chemical knowledge up to the hour 
 when he gained it ; and then setting eagerly to 
 work, that he might not disgrace the choice 
 which had thus distinguished him, long before 
 the time arrived for commencing his prelections, 
 he had made himself capable of writing those 
 beautiful essays on that science, which, after a 
 revolution, and a counter-revolution, so great as 
 succeeding times have witnessed, still remain a 
 cardinal book of introductory discipline to such 
 studies ; an opinion authorised not only by Pro- 
 fessor Thomson of Glasgow, but also, to myself, 
 by the late Sir Humphrey Davy. With this 
 experimental proof that a chemical chair might 
 be won and honoured without previous know- 
 ledge even of the chemical alphabet, he resolved 
 to play the same feat with the royal chair of 
 
 divinity ; one far more important for local hon- 
 our, and for wealth. Here again he succeeded, 
 and this time he extended his experiment ; for 
 whereas both chairs had been won without ^rew- 
 ous knowledge, he resolved that in this case it 
 should be maintained without after knowledge. 
 He applied himself simply to the improvement 
 of its income, which he raised from £300 to at 
 least £1000 per annum. All this he had accom- 
 plished before reaching the age of thirty-five. 
 
 Riches are with us the parent of riches ; and 
 success, in the hands of an active man, is the 
 pledge of further success. On the basis of this 
 Cambridge preferment, Dr Watson built up- 
 wards, until he had raised himself, in one way 
 or other, to a seat in the House of Lords, and to 
 a commensurate income. For the latter half of 
 his life, he — originally a village schoolmaster's 
 son — was able to associate with the Tnagnates of 
 the land, upon equal terms. And that fact, of 
 itself, without another word, implies in this 
 country a degree of rank and fortune which one 
 would think a sufficient reward even for merit 
 as unquestionable as was that of Dr Watson. 
 Yet he was always a discontented man, and a 
 railer at the Government and the age which 
 could permit merit such as his to pine away 
 ingloriously, in one of the humblest amongst 
 the bishoprics, with no other addition to its 
 emoluments than the richest professorship in 
 Europe, and such other accidents in life as gave 
 him in all, perhaps, not above seven thousand 
 per annum 1 Poor man ! — only seven thousand 
 per annum ! What a trial to a man's patience ! 
 — and how much he stood in need of philo- 
 sophy, or even of religion, to face so dismal a 
 condition ! 
 
 This bishop was himself, in a secondary way, 
 an interesting study. What I mean is, that, 
 though originally the furthest removed from an 
 interesting person, being a man remarkable 
 indeed for robust faculties, but otherwise com- 
 monplace in his character, worldly-minded, and 
 coarse, even to obtuseness, in his sensibilities, 
 he yet became interesting from the strength of 
 degree with which these otherwise repulsive 
 characteristics were marked. He was one of 
 that numerous order in whom even the love of 
 knowledge is subordinate to schemes of advance- 
 ment ; and to whom even his own success, and 
 his own honour consequent upon that success, 
 had no higher value than according to their use 
 as instruments for winning further promotion. 
 Hence it was, that, when by such aids he had 
 mounted to a certain eminence, beyond which 
 he saw little promise of further ascent, by their 
 assistance — since at this stage it was clear that 
 party connection in politics must become his 
 main reliance — he ceased to regard his favourite 
 sciences with much interest. Even chemistry 
 was now neglected. This, above aU, was per- 
 plexing to one who did not understand his char- 
 acter. For hither one would have supposed he 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 151 
 
 might have retreated from his political disap- 
 pointments, and have found a perpetual consola- 
 tion in honours which no intrigues could defeat, 
 and in the gratitude, so pure and untainted, 
 which still attended the honourable exertions of 
 his youth. But he viewed the matter in a very 
 different light. Other generations had come 
 since then, and '* other palms were won." To 
 keep pace with the advancing science, and to 
 maintain his station amongst his youthful com- 
 petitors, would demand a youthful vigour and 
 motives such as theirs. But, as to himself, 
 chemistry had given all it could give. Having 
 first raised himself to distinction by that, he 
 had since married into an ancient family — one 
 of the leaders amongst the landed aristocracy of 
 his own county; he thus had entitled himself 
 to call the head of that family — a territorial 
 potentate with ten thousand per annum — by the 
 contemptuous sobriquet of "Dull Daniel;" he 
 looked down upon numbers whom, twenty years 
 before, he scarcely durst have looked up to; 
 he had obtained a bishopric. Chemistry had 
 done all this for him; and had, besides, co- 
 operating with luck, put him in the way of 
 reaping a large estate from the gratitude and 
 early death of a pupil, Mr Luther. All this 
 chemistry had effected : could chemistry do any- 
 thing more? Clearly not. And here it was, 
 that, having lost his motives for cultivating it 
 further, he regarded the present improvers of 
 the science, not with the feelings natural to a 
 disinterested lover of such studies on their own 
 account, but with jealousy, as men who had 
 eclipsed or had bedimmed his own once brilliant 
 reputation. Two revolutions had occurred since 
 his own "palmy days;" Sir Humphrey Davy 
 might be right ; and all might be gold that glis- 
 tened ; but, for his part, he was too old to learn 
 new theories — he must be content to hobble to 
 his grave with such old-fashioned creeds as had 
 answered in his time, when, for aught he could 
 see, men prospered as much as in this new- 
 fangled world. This was the tone of his ordin- 
 ary talk ; and, in one sense — as regards personal 
 claims, I mean — it was illiberal enough ; for the 
 leaders of modern chemistry never overlooked 
 his claims. Professor Thomson of Glasgow 
 always spoke of his ' ' Essays " as of a book which 
 hardly any revolution could antiquate ; and Sir 
 Humphrey Davy, in reply to a question which I 
 put to him upon that point, in 1813, declared 
 that he knew of no book better qualified, as one 
 of introductory discipline to the youthful ex- 
 perimenter, or as an apprenticeship to the taste 
 in elegant selection of topics. 
 
 Yet, querulous and discontented as the bishop 
 was, when he adverted either to chemistry or to 
 hie own position in life, the reader must not 
 imagine to himself the ordinary "complement" 
 and appurtenances of that character — such as 
 moroseness, illiberality, or stinted hospitalities. 
 On the contrary, his lordship was a joyous, 
 
 jovial, and cordial host. He was pleasant, and 
 even kind in his manners ; most hospitable in 
 his reception of strangers, no matter of what 
 party ; and I must say that he was as little over- 
 bearing in argument, and as little stood upon 
 his privilege as a Church dignitary, as any "big- 
 wig " I have happened to know. He was some- 
 what pompous, undoubtedly; but that, in an 
 old academic hero, was rather agreeable, and 
 had a characteristic effect. He listened patiently 
 to all your objections; and, though steeped to 
 the lips in prejudice, he was really candid. I 
 mean to say, that although, generally speaking, 
 the unconscious pre-occupation of his under- 
 standing shut up all avenues to new convictions, 
 he yet did his best to open his mind to any 
 views that might be presented at the moment. 
 And, with regard to his querulous egotism, 
 though it may appear laughable enough to all 
 who contrast his real pretensions with their 
 public appreciation, as expressed in his acquired 
 opulence and rank ; and who contrast, also, his 
 case with that of other men in his own profes- 
 sion — such as Paley, for example — yet it cannot 
 bo denied that fortune had crossed his path, 
 latterly, with foul winds, no less strikingly than 
 his early life had been seconded by her favouring 
 gales. In particular, Lord Holland mentioned 
 to a friend of my own the following anecdote : 
 " What you say of the bishop may be very true : 
 [they were riding past his grounds at the time, 
 which had turned the conversation upon his 
 character and public claims :] but to us [Lord 
 Holland meant to the Whig party] he was truly 
 honourable and faithful ; insomuch, that my 
 uncle had agreed with Lord Granville to make 
 him Archbishop of York, sede vacante; — all was 
 settled ; and had we stayed in power a little 
 longer, he would, beyond a doubt, have had 
 that dignity." Now, if the reader happens to 
 recollect how soon the death of Dr Markham 
 followed the sudden dissolution of that short- 
 lived administration in 1807, he will see how 
 narrowly Dr Watson missed this elevation ; and 
 one must allow for a little occasional spleen 
 under such circumstances. Yet what an arch- 
 bishop ! He talked openly, at his own table, as 
 a Socinian ; ridiculed the miracles of the New 
 Testament, which he professed to explain as so 
 many chemical tricks, or cases of politic legerde- 
 main ; and certainly had as little of devotional 
 feeling as any man that ever lived. It is, by 
 comparison, a matter of little consequence, that, 
 in her spiritual integrity so little regarding the 
 Church of which he called himself a member, he 
 should, in her temporal interests, have been 
 ready to lay her open to any assaults from al- 
 most any quarter. He could naturally have 
 little reverence for the rights of the shepherds, 
 having so little for the pastoral office itself, or 
 for the manifold duties it imposes. All his 
 public, all his professional duties he systemati- 
 cally neglected. He was a lord in Parliament, 
 
152 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and for many a year lie never attended in his 
 place : he was a bishop, and he scarcely knew 
 any part of his diocese by sight — living three 
 hundred miles away from it : he was a professor 
 of divinity ; he held the richest professorship in 
 Europe, the weightiest, for its functions, in 
 England — he drew, by his own admission, one 
 thousand per annum from its endowments (de- 
 ducting some stipend to his locum tenens at 
 Cambridge) ; and for thirty years he never read 
 a lecture, or performed a public exercise. 
 Spheres how vast of usefulness to a man as able 
 as himself! — subjects of what bitter anguish on 
 the death-bed of one who had been tenderly alive 
 to his own duties I In his political purism, and 
 the unconscious partisanship of his constitu- 
 tional scruples, he was a true Whig, and thor- 
 oughly diverting. That Lord Lonsdale or that 
 the Duke of Northumberland should interfere 
 with elections, that he thought scandalous and 
 awful ; but that a lord of the house of Caven- 
 dish or Howard, a Duke of Devonshire or Nor- 
 folk, or an Earl of Carlisle, should traffic in 
 boroughs, or exert the most despotic influence 
 as landlords, mutato nomine, he viewed as the 
 mere natural right of property : and so far was 
 he from loving the pure-hearted and unfactious 
 champions of liberty, that, in one of his printed 
 works, he dared to tax Milton with having 
 knowingly, wilfully, deliberately told a false- 
 hood.* 
 
 Coleridge, it was hardly possible, could reve- 
 rence a man like this : ordinary men might, 
 because they were told that he had defended 
 Christianity against the vile blasphemers and 
 impotent theomichrists of the day. But Cole- 
 ridge had too pure an ideal of a Christian philo- 
 sopher, derived from the age of the English 
 Titans in theology, to share in that estimate. 
 It is singular enough, and interesting to a man 
 who has ever heard Coleridge talk, but especi- 
 ally to one who has assisted (to speak in French 
 phrase) at a talking party between Coleridge 
 and the bishop, to look back upon an article in 
 the Quarterly Review^ where, in connection with 
 the bishop's autobiography, some sneers are 
 dropped with regard to the intellectual char- 
 acter of the neighbourhood in which he had 
 settled. I have been told, on pretty good autho- 
 rity, that this article was written by the late Dr 
 Whittaker of Craven, the topographical anti- 
 quarian ; a pretty sort of person, doubtless, to 
 assume such a tone, in speaking of a neighbour- 
 hood so dazzling in its intellectual pretensions, 
 as that region at that time 1 
 
 The bishop had fixed his abode on the banks 
 of Windermere. In a small but beautiful park. 
 
 * The supposed falsehood respected the sect called 
 Brownists, and occurs in the " Defensis pro Pop. 
 Anglicano." The whole charge is a blunder, and rests 
 upon the bishop's own imperfect knowledge of Latin- 
 ity. 
 
 he had himself raised a plain, but handsome and 
 substantial mansion : Calgarth, or Calgarth 
 Park, was its name. Now, at Keswick lived 
 Mr Southey; twenty miles distant, it is true, 
 but still, for a bishop with a bishop's equipage, 
 not beyond a morning's drive. At Grasmere, 
 about eight miles from Calgarth, were to be 
 found Wordsworth and Coleridge. At Brathay, 
 about four miles from Calgarth, lived Charles 
 Lloyd ; and he, far as he was below the others 
 I have mentioned, could not in candour be con- 
 sidered a common man. He was somewhat too 
 Rousseauish: but he had, in conversation, very 
 extraordinary powers for analysis of a certain 
 kind, applied to the philosophy of manners, 
 and the most delicate nuances of social life ; 
 and his translation of "Alfieri," together with 
 his own poems, shows him to have been an accom- 
 plished scholar. Then, not much above a mile 
 from Calgarth, at his beautiful creation of Elle- 
 ray, lived Professor Wilson, of whom I need not 
 speak. He, in fact, and Mr Lloyd, were on the 
 most intimate terms with the bishop's family. 
 The meanest of these persons was able to have 
 "taken the conceit" out of Mr Dr Whittaker, and 
 all his tribe. But even in the town of Kendal, 
 about nine miles from Calgarth, there were many 
 men of information, at least as extensive as Dr 
 Watson's, and amply qualified to have met him 
 upon equal terms in conversation. Mathematics, 
 it is well known, are extensively cultivated in 
 the north of England. Sedburgh, for many 
 years, was a sort of nursery, or rural chapel of 
 ease, to Cambridge. Gough, the blind mathe- 
 matician and botanist of Kendal, was known to 
 fame; but many others in that town had ac- 
 complishments equal to his; and, indeed, so 
 widely has mathematical knowledge extended 
 itself throughout Northern England, that even 
 amongst the poor weavers, mechanic labourers 
 for their daily bread, the cultivation of the 
 geometrical analysis, in the most refined shape, 
 has long prevailed; of which some accounts 
 have been recently published. Some local 
 pique, therefore, must have been at the bottom 
 of Dr Whittaker's sneer. At all events, it was 
 ludicrously contrasted with the true state of the 
 case, as brought out by the meeting between 
 Coleridge and the bishop. Coleridge was 
 armed, at all points, with the scholastic erudi- 
 tion which bore upon all questions that could 
 arise in polemic divinity. The philosophy of 
 ancient Greece, through all its schools, the 
 philosophy of the schoolmen, technically so 
 called. Church history, etc., Coleridge had with- 
 in his call. Having been personally acquainted, 
 or connected as a pupil, with Eickhorn and 
 Michaelis, he knew the whole cycle of schisms 
 and audacious speculations, through which 
 biblical criticism, or Christian philosophy, haa 
 revolved in modern Germany. All this was 
 ground upon which the Bishop of Llandaff trode 
 with the infirm footing of a child. He listened 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 153 
 
 to what Coleridge reported with the same sort 
 of pleasurable surprise, alternating with starts 
 of douht or incredulity, as would naturally 
 attend a detailed report from Laputa — which 
 aerial region of speculation does but too often 
 recur to a sober-minded person, in reading of 
 the endless freaks in philosophy of modern 
 Germany, where the sceptre of Mutability, the 
 potentate celebrated by Spenser, gathers more 
 trophies in a year, than elsewhere in a century ; 
 "the anarchy of dreams" presiding in her 
 philosophy ; and the restless elements of opinion, 
 throughout every region of debate, moulding 
 themselves eternally, like the billowy sands of 
 the desert, as beheld by Bruce, into towering 
 columns, that soar upwards to a giddy altitude, 
 then stalk about for a minute, all aglow with 
 fiery colour, and finally unmould and *' dislimn," 
 with a collapse as sudden as the motions of that 
 eddying breeze, under which their vapoury 
 architecture arose. Hartley and Locke, both 
 of whom the bishop made into idols, were dis- 
 cussed; especially the former, against whom 
 Coleridge alleged some of those arguments 
 which he has used in his "Biographia Literaria." 
 The bishop made but a feeble defence; and, 
 upon some points, none at all. He seemed, I 
 remember, much struck with one remark of 
 Coleridge's, to this effect: "That, whereas 
 Hartley fancied that our very reasoning was an 
 aggregation, collected together under the law of 
 association; on the contrary, we reason by 
 counteracting that law — just, said he, as in 
 leaping, the law of gravitation concurs to that 
 act in its latter part; but no leap could take 
 place were it not by a counteraction of the law." 
 One remark of the bishop's let me into the 
 secret of his very limited reading. Coleridge 
 had used the word "apperception;" apparently 
 without intention, for, on hearing some objec- 
 tion to the word, as being "surely not a word 
 that Addison would have used," he silently 
 substituted another word. Some months after- 
 wards, going with Charles Lloyd to call at 
 Calgarth, during the time when the Friend 
 was appearing, the bishop again noticed this 
 obnoxious word, and in the very same terms: 
 " Now, this word apperception^ which Mr Cole- 
 ridge uses in the last number of the Friend, 
 surely, surely it would not have been approved 
 by Addison ; no, Mr Lloyd, nor by Swift ; nor 
 even, I think, by Arbuthnot." Somebody sug- 
 gested that the word was a new word of German 
 mintage, and most probably due to Kant, of 
 whom the bishop seemed never to have heard. 
 Meantime the fact was, and to me an amusing 
 one, that the word had been commonly used by 
 Leibnitz, who is really a classical author on 
 such subjects. 
 
 In the autumn of 1810, Coleridge left the 
 Lakes, and, so far as I am aware, for ever. I 
 once, indeed, heard a rumour of his having 
 passed through with some party of tourists — 
 
 some reason struck me at the time for believing it 
 untrue — but at all events he never returned to 
 them as a resident. "What might be his reason 
 from this eternal self-banishment from scenes 
 which he so well understood in all their shifting 
 forms of beauty, I can only guess. Perhaps it 
 was the very opposite reason to that which is 
 most obvious, not possibly because he had be- 
 come indifferent to their attractions, but because 
 his undecaying sensibility to their commanding 
 power had become associated with too afflicting 
 remembrances, and flashes of personal recollec- 
 tions suddenly restored and illuminated — recol- 
 lections which will 
 
 "Sometimes leap 
 From hiding-places ten years deep," 
 
 and bring into collision the present with some 
 long-forgotton past in a form too trying and too 
 painful for endurance. I have a brilliant Scotch 
 friend who cannot walk on the sea-shore, within 
 sight of its avq oid/xov ^eXaa-fxa, the multitudinous 
 laughter of its waves, or within hearing of its 
 resounding uproar, because they bring up, by 
 links of old association, too insupportably to his 
 mind, the agitations of his glittering but too 
 fervid youth. There is a feeling — morbid it 
 may be, but for which no anodyne is found in 
 all the schools from Plato to Kant — to which 
 the human mind is liable at times; it is best 
 described in a little piece by Henry More, the 
 Platonist. He there represents himself as a 
 martyr to his own too passionate sense of beauty, 
 and his consequent too passionate sense of its 
 decay. Everywhere — above, below, around him, 
 in the earth, in the clouds, in the fields, and in 
 their garniture of flowers — ^he beholds a beauty 
 carried to excess; and this beauty becomes a 
 source of endless affliction to him, because every- 
 where he sees it liable to the touch of decay 
 And mortal change. During one paroxysm of 
 this sad passion, an angel appears to comfort 
 him ; and, by the sudden revelation of her im- 
 mortal beauty does, in fact, suspend his grief. 
 But it is only a suspension, for the sudden re- 
 collection that her privileged condition and her 
 exemption from the general fate of beauty is 
 only by way of exception to a universal rule, 
 restores his grief: "And thou thyself," he says 
 to the angel — 
 
 "And thou thyself, that com'st to comfort me, 
 Wouldst strong occasion of deep sorrow bring. 
 If thou wert subject to mortality ! " 
 
 Every man who has ever dwelt with passionate 
 love upon the fair face of some female companion 
 through life must have had the same feeling, 
 and must often, in the exquisite language of 
 Shakespeare's sonnets, have commended and ad- 
 jured all-conquering time, there, at least, and 
 upon that one tablet of his adoration, 
 
 " To write no wrinkle with his antique hand.' 
 Vain prayer! Empty adjuratic"-; r^^-c^fitle&s 
 
154 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 rebellion against the laws -which season all things 
 for the inexorable grave 1 Yet not the less we 
 rebel again and again; and though wisdom 
 counsels resignation and submission, yet our 
 human passions, still cleaving to their object, 
 force us into endless rebellion. Feelings the 
 same in kind as these attach themselves to our 
 mental powers and our vital energies. Phantoms 
 of lost power, sudden intuitions, and shadowy- 
 restorations of forgotten feelings, sometimes dim 
 and perplexing, sometimes by bright but furtive 
 glimpses, sometimes by a full and steady reve- 
 lation, overcharged with light, throw us back in 
 a moment upon scenes and remembrances that 
 we have left full thirty years behind us. In soli- 
 tude, and chiefly in the solitudes of nature; 
 and, above all, amongst the great and enduring 
 features of nature, such as mountains and quiet 
 dells, and the lawny recesses of forests, and the 
 silent shores of lakes, features with which (as 
 being themselves less liable to change) our feel- 
 ings have a more abiding association — under 
 these circumstances it is that such evanescent 
 hauntings of our past and forgotten selves are 
 most apt to startle and to waylay us. These 
 are positive torments from which the agitated 
 mind shrinks in fears, but there are others nega- 
 tive in their nature, that is, blank mementos of 
 power extinct and of faculties burnt out within 
 us. And from both forms of anguish — from this 
 twofold scourge — poor Coleridge fled, perhaps, 
 in flying from the beauty of external nature. 
 In alluding to this latter or negative form of 
 suffering — that form, I mean, which presents 
 not the too fugitive glimpses of past power, but 
 its blank annihilation — Coleridge himself most 
 beautifully insists upon, and illustrates the truth, 
 that all which we find in nature must be created 
 by ourselves, and that alike, whether nature is 
 so gorgeous iu her beauty as to seem apparelled 
 in her wedding-garment, or so powerless and 
 extinct as to seem palled in her shroud — in 
 either case, 
 
 " O lady ! we receive but what we give. 
 And in our life alone does nature live; 
 Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud. 
 
 " It were a vain endeavour. 
 Though I should gaze for ever 
 On that green light that lingers in the west : 
 I may not hope from outward forms to win 
 The passion and the life whose fountains are within." 
 
 This was one, and the most common shape of 
 extinguished power, from which Coleridge fled 
 to the great city. But sometimes the same de- 
 cay came back upon his heart in the more poig- 
 nant shape of intimations and vanishing glimpses, 
 recovered for one moment from the paradise of 
 youth, and from fields of joy and power, over 
 which, for him, too certainly, he felt that the 
 cloud of night had settled for ever. Both modes 
 of the same torment exiled him from nature, 
 and for the same reason he fled from poetry and 
 all commerce with his own soul, burying himself 
 
 in the profoundest abstractions from life and 
 human sensibilities. 
 
 " For not to think of what I needs must feel, 
 But to be still and patient all I can ; 
 And haply hy abstruse research to steal, 
 From my own nature, all the natural man : 
 This was my sole resource, my only plan ; 
 Till that which suits a part infects the whole. 
 And now is almost grown the habit of my soul." 
 
 Such were, doubtless, the true and radical 
 causes, which, for the final twenty-four years of 
 Coleridge's life, drew him away from those 
 scenes of natural beauty in which only at an 
 earlier stage of life he found strength and re- 
 storation. These were the causes, but the im- 
 mediate occasion of his departure from the 
 Lakes in the autumn of 1800 was the favourable 
 opportunity then presented to him of migrating 
 in a pleasant way. Mr Basil Montagu, the 
 Chancery barrister, happened at that time to be 
 returning to London with Mrs Montagu from 
 a visit to the Lakes or to Wordsworth. His 
 travelling carriage was roomy enough to allow of 
 his offering Coleridge a seat in it ; and his ad- 
 miration of Coleridge was just then fervent 
 enough to prompt a friendly wish for that sort of 
 close connection, viz., by domestication as a 
 guest under Mr Basil Montagu's roof, which is 
 the most trying to friendship, and which, in this 
 instance, led to a perpetual rupture of it. The 
 domestic habits of eccentric men of genius, much 
 more those of a man so irreclaimably irregular 
 as Coleridge, can hardly be supposed to promise 
 very auspiciously for any connection so close as 
 this. A very extensive house and household, to- 
 gether with the unlimited licence of action which 
 belongs to the minage of some great dons amongst 
 the nobility, could alone have made Coleridge 
 an inmate perfectly desirable. Probably many 
 little jealousies and offences had been mutually 
 suppressed ; but the particular spark which at 
 length fell amongst the combustible materials 
 already prepared, and thus produced the final ex- 
 plosion, took the following shape: Mr Montagu 
 had published a book against the use of wine 
 and intoxicating liquors of every sort. Not out 
 of parsimony, or under any suspicion of inhospi- 
 tality, but in mere self-consistency and obedi- 
 ence to his own conscientious scruples, Mr 
 Montagu would not countenance the use of 
 wine at his own table. So far, all was right. 
 But, doubtless, on such a system, under the 
 known habits of modern life, it should have 
 been made a rule to ask no man to dinner; for 
 to force men, without warning, to a single (and, 
 therefore, thoroughly useless) act of painful 
 abstinence, is what neither I nor any man can 
 have a right to do. In point of sense it is, in 
 fact, precisely the freak of Sir Roger de Cover- 
 ley, who drenches his friend the Spectator with 
 a hideous decoction ; not, as his confiding visitor 
 had supposed, for some certain and immediate 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 155 
 
 benefit to follow, but simply as having a tendency 
 (if well supported by many years' continuance 
 of similar drenches) to abate the remote con- 
 tingency of the stone. One day's abstinence 
 could do no good on any scheme ; and no man 
 was likely to offer himself for a second. How- 
 ever, such being the law of the castle, and that 
 .*aw well known to Coleridge, he, nevertheless, 
 thought fit to ask to dinner Colonel, then Cap- 
 tain Pasley, of the Engineers, well known in 
 those days for his book on the " Military Policy 
 of England," and since, for his *' System of Pro- 
 fessional Instruction." Now, where, or in what 
 land, abides that 
 
 " Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms," 
 
 to whom wine in the analysis of dinner is a 
 neutral or indifferent element? Wine, there- 
 fore, as it was not of a nature to be omitted, 
 Coleridge took care to furnish at his own 
 private cost. And so far again all was right. 
 But why must Coleridge give his dinner to the 
 captain in Mr Montagu's house? There lay the 
 affront; and, doubtless, it was a very incon- 
 siderate act on the part of Coleridge. I report 
 tbe case simply as it was then generally borne 
 upon the breath, not of scandal, but of jest and 
 merriment. The result, however, was no jest; 
 for bitter words ensued — words that festered in 
 the remembrance; and a rupture between the 
 parties followed, which no reconciliation ever 
 healed. 
 
 Meantime, on reviewing this story, as gene- 
 rally adopted by the learned in literary scandal, 
 one demur rises up. Dr Parr, a lisping old 
 dotard, without dignity or power of mind of 
 any sort, was a frequent and privileged inmate 
 at Mr Montagu's. Him, now, this Parr, there 
 was no conceivable motive for enduring; that 
 point is satisfactorily settled by the pompous 
 inanities of his works. Yet, on the other hand, 
 his habits were in their own nature far less 
 endurable; for the monster smoked — and how? 
 How did the "Birmingham Doctor" smoke? 
 Not as you or I, or other civilised people smoke 
 with a gentle cigar, but with shag tobacco. 
 And those who know how that abomination 
 lodges and nestles in the draperies of window 
 curtains, will guess the horror and detestation 
 in which the old Whig's memory is held by all 
 enlightened women. 
 
 From Mr Montagu's, Coleridge passed, by 
 favour of what introduction I never heard, into 
 a family as amiable in manners and as benign 
 in disposition, as I remember to have ever met 
 with. On this excellent family I look back 
 with threefold affection, on account of their 
 goodness to Coleridge, and because they were 
 then unfortunate, and because their union has 
 long since been dissolved by death. The family 
 
 was composed of three members — of Mr M , 
 
 uDce a lawyer, who had, however, ceased to 
 practise; of Mrs M , his wife, a blooming 
 
 young woman, distinguished for her fine person; 
 and a young lady, her unmarried sister. Here, 
 for some years, I used to visit Coleridge; 
 and, doubtless, as far as situation merely, and 
 the most delicate attentions from the most 
 amiable women, could make a man happy, he 
 must have been so at this time; for both the 
 ladies treated him as an elder brother, or as a 
 father. At length, however, the cloud of mis- 
 fortune, which had long settled upon the pros- 
 pects of this excellent family, thickened ; and I 
 found, upon one of my visits to London, that 
 they had given up their house in Berners Street, 
 and had retired to a cottage in Wiltshire. 
 Coleridge had accompanied them ; and there I 
 visited them myself, and, as it eventually 
 proved, for the last time. Some time after this 
 I heard from Coleridge, with the deepest sor- 
 row, that poor M had been thrown into 
 
 prison, and had sunk under the pressure of his 
 misfortunes. The gentle ladies of his family 
 had retired to remote friends ; and I saw them 
 no more, though often vainly making inquiries 
 about them. 
 
 Coleridge, during this part of his London life, 
 I saw constantly — generally once a day, during 
 my own stay in London; and sometimes we 
 were jointly engaged to dinner parties. In 
 particular, I remember one party at which we 
 met Lady Hamilton — ^Lord Nelson's Lady Hamil- 
 ton — the beautiful, the accomplished, the en- 
 chantress ! Coleridge admired her, as who 
 would not have done, prodigiously; and she, in 
 her turn, was fascinated with Coleridge. He 
 was unusually effective in his display ; and she, 
 by way of expressing her acknowledgments 
 appropriately, performed a scene in Lady Mac- 
 beth—how splendidly, I cannot better express, 
 than by saying that a11 of us who then witnessed 
 her performance, were familiar with Mrs Sid- 
 dons' s matchless execution of that scene; and 
 yet, with such a model filling our imaginations, 
 we could not but acknowledge the possibility of 
 another, and a different perfection, without a 
 trace of imitation, equally original, and equally 
 astonishing. The word "magnificent" is, in 
 this day, most lavishly abused ; daily I hear or 
 read in the newspapers of magnificent objects, 
 as though scattered more thickly than black- 
 berries ; but for my part I have seen few objects 
 really deserving that epithet. Lady Hamilton 
 was one of them. She had Medea's beauty— 
 and Medea's power of enchantment. But let 
 not the reader too credulously suppose her the 
 unprincipled woman she has been described. I 
 know of no sound reason for supposing the 
 connection between Lord Nelson and her to 
 have been other than perfectly virtuous. Her 
 public services, I am sure, were most eminent — 
 for that^ we have indisputable authority ; and 
 equally sure I am that they were requited with 
 rank ingratitude. 
 
 After the household of the poor M s had 
 
156 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 been dissolved, I know not whither Coleridge 
 went immediately; for I did not visit London 
 until some years had elapsed. In 1823-24, I 
 first understood that he had taken up his resi- 
 dence as a guest with Mr Gillman, a surgeon, in 
 Highgate. He had then probably resided for 
 some time at that gentleman's ; there he con- 
 tinued to reside on the same terms, I believe, of 
 affectionate friendship with the members of Mr 
 Gillman's family, as had made life endurable to 
 
 him in the time of the M s ; and there he 
 
 died in July of the present year [1834]. If, 
 generally speaking, poor Coleridge had but a 
 small share of earthly prosperity, in one respect 
 at least he was eminently favoured by Provi- 
 dence ; beyond all men who ever perhaps have 
 lived, he found means to engage a constant suc- 
 cession of most faithful friends ; and he levied 
 the services of sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, 
 from the hands of strangers — attracted to him 
 by no possible impulses but those of reverence 
 for his intellect, and love for his gracious nature. 
 How, says Wordsworth — 
 
 " How can he expect that others should 
 Sow for him, reap for Aim, and, at his call, 
 Love him, who for himself will take no thought at all ? " 
 
 How can he, indeed ? It is most unreasonable 
 to do so; yet this expectation, if Coleridge 
 ought not to have entertained, at all events he 
 realised. Fast as one friend dropped off, an- 
 other, and another, succeeded : perpetual relays 
 were laid along his path in life, of judicious and 
 zealous supporters ; who comforted his days, 
 and smoothed the pillow for his declining age, 
 even when it was beyond all human power to 
 take away the thorns which stuffed it. 
 
 And what were those thorns ? — and whence 
 derived ? That is a question on which I ought 
 to decline speaking, unless I could speak fully. 
 Not, however, to make any mystery of what 
 requires none, the reader will understand, that 
 originally his sufferings, and the death within 
 him of all hope — the palsy, as it were, of that 
 which is the life of life, and the heart within the 
 heart — came from opium. But two things I 
 must add — one to explain Coleridge's case, and 
 the other to bring it within the indulgent allow- 
 ance of equitable judges: First, the sufferings 
 from morbid derangements, originally produced 
 by opium, had very possibly lost that simple 
 character, and had themselves reacted in pro- 
 ducing secondary states of disease and irritation, 
 not any longer dependent upon the opium, so 
 as to disappear with its disuse ; hence, a more 
 than mortal discouragement to accomplish this 
 disuse, when the pains of self-sacrifice were bal- 
 anced by no gleams of restorative feeling. Yet, 
 secondly, Coleridge did make prodigious efforts 
 to deliver himself from this thraldom ; and he 
 went so far at one time in Bristol, to my know- 
 ledge, as to hire a man for the express purpose, 
 and armed with the power of resolutely in- 
 
 terposing between himself and the door of any 
 druggist's shop. It is true that an authority 
 derived only from Coleridge's will, could not be 
 valid against Coleridge's own counter-determina- 
 tion: he could resume as easily as he could 
 delegate the power. But the scheme did not 
 entirely fail : a man shrinks from exposing to 
 another that infirmity of will which he might 
 else have but a feeble motive for disguising to 
 himself; and the delegated man, the external 
 conscience, as it were, of Coleridge, though 
 destined — in the final resort, if matters came to 
 absolute rupture, and to an obstinate duel, as it 
 were, between himself and his principal — in that 
 extremity to give way, yet might have long pro- 
 tracted the struggle, before coming to that sort 
 oidignus vindice nodus; and in fact, I know, 
 upon absolute proof, that, before reaching that 
 crisis, the man showed fight ; and, faithful to 
 his trust, and comprehending the reasons for it, 
 he declared, that if he must yield, he would 
 "know the reason why." 
 
 Opium, therefore, subject to the explanation 
 I have made, was certainly the original source 
 of Coleridge's morbid feelings, of his debility, 
 and of his remorse. His pecuniary embarrass- 
 ments pressed as lightly as could well be ex- 
 pected upon him. I have mentioned the annuity 
 of £150 made to him by the two Wedgewoods. 
 One-half, I believe, could not be withdrawn, 
 having been left by a regular testamentary be- 
 quest. But the other moiety, coming from the 
 surviving brother, was withdrawn on the plea 
 of commercial losses, somewhere, I think, about 
 1815. That would have been a heavy blow to 
 Coleridge ; and assuredly the generosity is not 
 very conspicuous, of having ever suffered an 
 allowance of that nature to be left to the mercy 
 of accident. Either it ought not to have been 
 granted in that shape — viz., as an annual allow- 
 ance, giving ground for expecting its periodical 
 recurrence — or it ought not to have been with- 
 drawn. However, this blow was broken to 
 Coleridge by the bounty of George lY., who 
 placed Coleridge's name in the list of twelve to 
 whom he granted an annuity of one hundred 
 guineas per annum. This he enjoyed so long as 
 that prince reigned. But at length came a 
 heavier blow than that from Mr Wedgewood; 
 a new king arose, who knew not Joseph. Yet 
 surely he was not a king who could so easily 
 resolve to turn adrift twelve men of letters, 
 many of them most accomplished men, for the 
 sake of appropriating a sum no larger to himself 
 than twelve hundred guineas — no less to some 
 of them than the total freight of their earthly 
 hopes? No matter: let the deed have been 
 from whose hand it might, it was done ; eip^a^at 
 it was perpetrated, as saith the Medea of Euri- 
 pides ; and it will be mentioned hereafter, 
 "more than either once or twice." It fell with 
 weight, and with effect upon the latter days of 
 Coleridge ; it took from him as much heart and 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 157 
 
 hope as at his years, and with his unworldly 
 prospects, remained for man to blight ; and, if 
 it did not utterly crush him, the reason was — 
 because for himself he had never needed much, 
 and was now continually drawing near to that 
 haven, in which, for himself, he would need 
 nothing ; secondly, because his children were 
 now independent of his laid ; and, finally, be- 
 cause in his land there are men to be found 
 always of minds large enough to comprehend 
 the claims of genius, and with hearts, by good 
 luck, more generous, by infinite degrees, than 
 the hearts of princes. 
 
 If Mr Coleridge had been merely a scholar — 
 merely a philologist — or merely a man of science 
 — there would be no reason apparent for travel- 
 ling in our survey beyond the field of his intel- 
 lect, rigorously and narrowly so called. But 
 because he was a poet, and because he was a 
 philosopher in a comprehensive and a most 
 human sense, with whose functions the moral 
 nature is so largely interwoven, I shall feel my- 
 self entitled to notice the most striking aspects 
 of his character (using that word in its common 
 limited meaning), of his disposition, and his 
 manners, as so many reflex indications of his 
 intellectual constitution. But let it be well 
 understood that I design nothing elaborate, 
 nothing comprehensive or ambitious ; my pur- 
 pose is merely to supply a few hints and sugges- 
 tions drawn from a very hasty retrospect, by 
 way of adding a few traits to any outline which 
 the reader may have framed to himself, either 
 from some personal knowledge, or from more 
 full and lively memorials. 
 
 One character in which Mr Coleridge most 
 often came before the public, was that of politi- 
 cian. In this age of fervent partisanship, it will, 
 therefore, naturally occur as a first question, to 
 inquire after his party and political connections: 
 was he Whig, Tory, or Eadical? Or, under a 
 new classification, were his propensities con- 
 servative or reforming ? I answer that, in any 
 exclusive or emphatic sense, he was none of 
 these ; because, as a philosopher he was, accord- 
 ing to circumstances, and according to the object 
 concerned, all of these by turns. These are dis- 
 tinctions upon which a cloud of delusion rests. It 
 would not be difficult to show, that in the specula- 
 tions built upon the distinction of Whig and Tory, 
 even by as philosophic a politician as Edmund 
 Burke, there is an oversight of the largest prac- 
 tical importance. But the general and partisan 
 use of these terms superadds to this wpwTov 
 "irevdos a second which is much more flagrant. 
 It is this: the terms Whig or Tory, used by 
 partisans, are taken extra gradum, as expressing 
 the ideal or extreme cases of the several creeds ; 
 whereas, in actual life, few such cases are found 
 realised, by far the major part of those who 
 answer to either one or the other denomination 
 making only an approximation (difi'ering by in- 
 finite degrees) to the ideal or abstract type. A 
 
 third error there is, relating to the actual extent 
 of the several denominations, even after every 
 allowance made for the faintest approximations. 
 Listen to a Whig, or to a Tory, and you will 
 suppose that the great bulk of society range 
 under his banner; all, at least, who have any 
 property at stake. Listen to a Radical, and 
 you will suppose that all are marshalled in the 
 same ranks with himself, unless those who have 
 some private interest in existing abuses, or have 
 aristocratic privileges to defend. Yet, upon 
 going extensively into society as it is, you find 
 that a vast majority of good citizens are of no 
 party whatsoever, own no party designation, care 
 for no party interest, but carry their good wishes 
 by turns to men of every party, according to the 
 momentary purpose they are pursuing. As to 
 Whig and Tory, it is pretty clear that only two 
 classes of men, both of limited extent, acknow- 
 ledge these as their distinctions ; first, those who 
 make politics in some measure their profession 
 or trade — whether by standing forward habitu- 
 ally in public meetings as leaders or assistants, 
 or by writing books and pamphlets in the same 
 cause ; secondly, those whose rank, or birth, or 
 position in a city, or a rural district, almost 
 pledge them to a share in the political struggles 
 of the day, under the penalty of being held 
 faineans, truants, or even malignant recusants, 
 if they should decline a warfare which often, 
 perhaps, they do not love in secret. These 
 classes which, after all, are not numerous, and 
 not entirely sincere, compose the whole extent 
 of professing Whigs and Tories who make any 
 approach to the standards of their two churches ; 
 and, generally speaking, these persons have suc- 
 ceeded to their politics and their party ties, as 
 they have to their estates, viz., by inheritance. 
 Not their way of thinking in politics has dic- 
 tated their party connections ; but these connec- 
 tions, traditionally bequeathed from one genera- 
 tion to another, have dictated their politics. 
 With respect to the Radical or the Reformer, 
 the case is otherwise ; for, it is certain, that in 
 this, as in every great and enlightened nation, 
 enjoying an intense and fervid communication 
 of thought through the press, there is, and must 
 be, a tendency widely difi"used to the principles 
 of sane reform — an anxiety to probe and ex- 
 amine all the institutions of the land by the 
 increasing lights of the age — and a salutary 
 determination that no acknowledged abuse shall 
 be sheltered by prescription, or privileged by 
 its antiquity. In saying, therefore, that his 
 principles are spread over the length and breadth 
 of the land, the Reformer says no more than the 
 truth. Whig and Tory, as usually understood, 
 express only two modes of aristocratic partisan- 
 ship; and it is strange, indeed, to find people 
 deluded by the notion that the reforming prin- 
 ciple has any more natural connection with the 
 first than the last. Reformer, on the other 
 hand, to a certain extent, expresses the political 
 
158 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 creed and aspect of almost every enlightened 
 citizen— "but, then, how? Not, as \ki'^ Radical 
 would insinuate, as pledging a man to a specific 
 set of objects, or to any visible and apparent 
 party, having known leaders and settled modes 
 of action. British society, in its large majority, 
 may be fairly described as Reformers, in the 
 sense of being favourably disposed to a general 
 spirit of ventilation and reform carried through 
 all departments of public business, political or 
 judicial ; but it is so far from being, therefore, 
 true that men, in general, are favourably dis- 
 posed to any known party, in or out of Parlia- 
 ment, united for certain objects and by certain 
 leaders, that, on the contrary, this reforming 
 party itself has no fixed unity, and no generally 
 acknowledged heads. It is divided both as to 
 persons and as to things; the ends to be pursued 
 create as many schisms, as the course of means 
 proper for the pursuit, and the choice of agents 
 for conducting the public wishes. In fact, it 
 would be even more difficult to lay down the ideal 
 standard of a Reformer, or his abstract creed, 
 than of a Tory; and, supposing this done, it 
 would be found, in practice, that the imperfect 
 approximations to the pure faith would differ 
 by even broader shades, as regarded the reform- 
 ing creed, than as regarded that of the rigorous 
 or ultra Tory. 
 
 With respect to Mr Coleridge, he was certainly 
 a friend to all enlightened reforms: he was a 
 friend, for example, to reform in Parliament. 
 Sensible as he was of the prodigious diffusion of 
 knowledge and good sense amongst the classes 
 immediately below the gentry in British society, 
 he could not but acknowledge their right to a 
 larger and a less indirect share of political influ- 
 ence. As to the plan, and its extent, and its 
 particular provisions, upon those he hesitated 
 and wavered, as other friends to the same views 
 have done, and will continue to do. The only 
 avowed objects of modern Reformers which he 
 would strenuously have opposed, nay, would 
 have opposed with the zeal of an ancient martyr, 
 are those which respect the Church of England, 
 and, therefore, most of those which respect the 
 two universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 
 There he would have been found in the first 
 ranks of the Anti-Reformers. He would also 
 have supported the House of Peers as the tried 
 bulwark of our social interests in many a famous 
 struggle, and sometimes, in the hour of need, 
 the sole barrier against despotic aggressions on 
 the one hand and servile submissions on the 
 other. Moreover, he looked with favour upon 
 many modes of aristocratic influence as balances 
 to new-made commercial wealth, and to a far 
 baser tyranny likely to arise from that quarter 
 when unbalanced. But allowing for these points 
 of difference, I know of little else stamped with 
 the general seal of modern reform, and claiming 
 to be a privileged object for a national effort, 
 which would not have had his countenance. It 
 
 is true, and this I am sensible will be objected, 
 that his party connections were chiefly with the 
 Tories ; and it adds a seeming strength to this 
 objection, that these connections were not those 
 of accident, nor those which he inherited, nor 
 those of his youthful choice. They were sought 
 out by himself, and in his maturer years, or else 
 they were such as sought him for the sake of his 
 political principles ; and equally, in either case, 
 they argued some affinity in his political creed. 
 This much cannot be denied. But one consi- 
 deration will serve greatly to qualify the infer- 
 ence from these facts. In those years when Mr 
 Coleridge became connected with Tories, what 
 was the predominating and cardinal principle 
 of Toryism in comparison with which all else 
 was willingly slighted ? Circumstances of posi- 
 tion had thrown upon the Tories the onus of a 
 great national struggle, the greatest which his- 
 tory anywhere records, and with an enemy the 
 most deadly. The Whigs were then out of 
 power, they were therefore in opposition ; and 
 that one fact, the simple fact of holding an anti- 
 ministerial position, they allowed, by a most 
 fatal blunder, to determine the course of their 
 foreign politics. Napoleon was to be cherished 
 simply because he was a thorn in Mr Pitt's side. 
 So began their foreign policy, and in that pet- 
 tiest of personal views. Because they were anti- 
 ministerial, they allowed themselves passively to 
 become anti-national. To be a Whig, therefore, 
 in those days, implied little more than a strenu- 
 ous opposition to foreign war; to be a Tory 
 pledged a man to little more than war with 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. And this view of our 
 foreign relations it was that connected Cole- 
 ridge with Tories, a view which arose upon no 
 motives of selfish interest (as too often has been 
 said in reproach), but upon the changes wrought 
 in the spirit of the French republic, which gra- 
 dually transmuted its defensive warfare (framed 
 originally to meet a conspiracy of kings crusad- 
 ing against the new-born democracy of French 
 institutions, whilst yet in their cradle) into a 
 warfare of aggression and sanguinary ambition. 
 The military strength evoked in France by the 
 madness of European kings had taught her the 
 secret of her own power, a secret too dangerous 
 for a nation of vanity so infinite and so feeble in 
 all means of moral self-restraint. The tempta- 
 tion to foreign conquest was too strong for the 
 national principles; and in this way all that 
 had been grand and pure in the early preten- 
 sions of French republicanism rapidly melted 
 away before the common bribes of vulgar ambi- 
 tion. Unoffending states, such as Switzerland, 
 were the first to be trampled under foot; no 
 voice was heard any more but the "brazen 
 throat of war;" and after all that had been 
 vaunted of a golden age, and a long career 
 opened to the sceptre of pure political justice, 
 the clouds gathered more gloomily than ever; 
 and the sword was once more reinstated, as the 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 159 
 
 sole arbiter of right, with less disguise and less 
 reserve than under the vilest despotism of kings. 
 The change was in the French Republicans, not 
 in their foreign admirers ; they, in mere consist- 
 ency, were compelled into corresponding changes, 
 and into final alienation of sympathy, as they 
 beheld, one after one, all titles forfeited, by 
 which that grand explosion of pure democracy 
 had originally challenged and sustained their 
 veneration. The mighty republic had now 
 begun to revolve through those fierce transmi- 
 grations foreseen by Burke, to every one of which, 
 by turns, he had denounced an inevitable " puri- 
 fication by fire and blood ; " no trace remained 
 of her primitive character; and of that awful 
 outbreak of popular might, which once had made 
 France the land of hope and promise to the 
 whole human race, and had sounded a knell to 
 every form of oppression or abuse, no record 
 was to be found except in the stupendous power 
 which cemented its martial oligarchy. Of the 
 people, of the democracy — or that it had ever 
 for an hour been roused from its slumbers — one 
 sole evidence remained; and that lay in the 
 blank power of destruction and its perfect 
 organisation, which none but a popular move- 
 ment — no power short of that — could have 
 created. The people having been unchained, 
 and as if for the single purpose of creating a 
 vast system of destroying energies, had then 
 immediately recoiled within their old limits, and 
 themselves become the earliest victim of their 
 own stratocracy. In this way France had be- 
 come an object of jealousy and alarm. It re- 
 mained to see to what purpose she would apply 
 her new energies. That was soon settled ; her 
 new-born power was wielded from the first by 
 unprincipled and by ambitious men; and in 
 1800 it fell under the permanent control of an 
 autocrat, whose unity of purpose and iron will 
 left no room for any hope of change. 
 
 Under these circumstances, under these pros- 
 pects, coupled with this retrospect, what became 
 the duty of all foreign politicians ? of the Eng- 
 lish above all, as natural leaders in any hopeful 
 scheme of resistance ? The question can scarcely 
 be put with decency. Time and season, place or 
 considerations of party, all alike vanished be- 
 fore an elementary duty to the human race, 
 which much transcended any duty of exclusive 
 patriotism. Plant it, however, on that narrower 
 basis, and the answer would have been the same 
 for all centuries and for every land under a cor- 
 responding state of circumstances. Of Napo- 
 leon's real purposes there cannot nov) be any 
 reasonable doubt. His confessions, and, in par- 
 ticular, his indirect revelations at St Helena, 
 have long since removed all demurs or scruples 
 of scepticism. For England, therefore, as in 
 relation to a man bent upon her ruin, all dis- 
 tinctions of party were annihilated — Whig and 
 Tory were merged and swallowed up in the 
 transcendent duties of patriots — Englishmen — 
 
 lovers of liberty. Tories, as Tories, had here 
 no peculiar or separate duties — none which be- 
 longed to their separate creed in politics. Their 
 duties were paramount, and their partisan- 
 ship had here no application — was perfectly in- 
 different, and spoke neither this way or that. 
 In one respect only they had peculiar duties, 
 and a peculiar responsibility — peculiar, how- 
 ever, not by any difference of quality, but in 
 its supreme degree ; the same duties which be- 
 longed to all belonged to them by a heavier 
 responsibility. 
 
 I deduce as a possibility, and, from my 
 knowledge of Coleridge, I deduce it as a fact, 
 that his adhesion to the Tories was bounded by 
 his approbation of their foreign policy; and 
 even of that — rarely in its executive details, 
 rarely even in its military plans (for these he 
 assailed with more keenness of criticism than to 
 me the case seemed to justify), but solely in its 
 animating principle — its moving and sustaining 
 force, viz., the doctrine and entire faith that 
 Napoleon Bonaparte ought to be resisted, was 
 not a proper object of diplomacy or negotiation, 
 and could be resisted hopefully and triumph- 
 antly. Thus far he went along with the Tories ; 
 in all else he belonged quite as much to other 
 parties — so far as he belonged to any. And 
 that he did not follow any bias of private 
 interest in connecting himself with Tories, or 
 rather in allowing Tories to connect themselves 
 with him, appears (rather more indeed than it 
 ought to have appeared) on the very surface of 
 his life. From Tory munificence he drew no- 
 thing at all, unless it should be imputed to his 
 Tory connections that George IV. selected him 
 for one of his academicians. But this slight 
 mark of royal favour he owed, I believe, to 
 other considerations; and I have reason to 
 think that his way of treating political ques- 
 tions, so wide of dogmatism, and laying open so 
 vast a field to scepticism that might else have 
 gone unregarded, must have been held as evi- 
 dence of too latitudinarian a creed to justify a 
 title to Toryism. And, upon the whole, I am 
 of opinion, that few events of Mr Coleridge's 
 life were better calculated to place his disin- 
 terested pursuit of truth in a luminous aspect. 
 In fact, his carelessness of all worldly interests 
 was too notorious to leave him open to sus- 
 picions of that nature ; nor was this carelessness 
 kept within such limits as to be altogether 
 meritorious. There is no doubt that his indo- 
 lence concurred, in some degree, to that line of 
 conduct and to that political reserve which 
 would, at all events, have been pursued, in a 
 degree beyond what honour the severest, or 
 delicacy the most nervous, could have enjoined. 
 It is a singular anecdote, after all, to report 
 of Coleridge, who incurred the reproach of 
 having raited, solely by his inability to follow 
 the friends of his early days into what his heart 
 regarded as a monstrous and signal breach of. 
 
/ 60 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 patriotism, that in any eminent sense he was 
 not a patriot. His understanding in this, as in 
 many instances, was too active, too restless, for 
 any abiding feelings to lay hold of him, unless 
 when they coincided with some palpable com- 
 mand of nature. Parental love, for instance, 
 was too holy a thing to be submitted for an 
 instant to any scrutiny or any jealousy of his 
 hair-splitting understanding. But it must be 
 something as sacred and as profound as that 
 which with Coleridge could long support the 
 endless attrition of his too active intellect. In 
 this instance, he had the same defect, derived 
 in part from the same cause, as a contemporary, 
 one of the idols of the day, more celebrated, and 
 more widely celebrated, than Coleridge, but far 
 his inferior in power and compass of intellect. 
 I speak of Goethe ; he also was defective, and 
 defective under far stronger provocations and 
 excitement, in patriotic feeling. He cared little 
 for Weimar— and less for Germany. And he 
 was, thus far, much below Coleridge — that the 
 passion, which he could not feel, Coleridge yet 
 obliged himself practically to obey in all things 
 which concerned the world; whereas, Goethe 
 disowned this passion equally in his acts, his 
 words, and his writings. Both are now gone — 
 Goethe and Coleridge; both are honoured by 
 those who knew them, and by multitudes who 
 did not. But the honours of Coleridge are 
 perennial, and will annually grow more ver- 
 dant ; whilst from those of Goethe every gene- 
 ration will see something fall away, until pos- 
 terity will wonder at the subverted idol, whose 
 basis being hollow and unsound, will leave the 
 worship of their fathers an enigma to their 
 descendants. 
 
 MEMORIES OP LIFE AT THE LAKES, BY SARA 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 [Sara Coleridge, daughter of S. T. Coleridge, 
 was born at Greta Hall, near Keswick, Decem- 
 ber 22, 1802. Her father, who was absent in 
 Germany at the time, on his return wrote thus : 
 "My sweet little Sara is a remarkably interest- 
 ing baby, with the finest possible skin, and 
 large blue eyes ; and she smiles as if she were 
 basking in a sunshine as mild as moonlight in 
 her own happiness." She was married to her 
 first cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, and settled 
 at Hampstead. Her husband died in 1843. 
 Her own death took place on May 3, 1852, 
 when in her forty-ninth year. Her remains 
 rest in the family burying-ground in the old 
 churchyard of Highgate. In the literary work 
 she accomplished she is said to have displayed 
 "powers of critical analysis and of doctrinal, 
 political, and historical research of no mean 
 order." Her life and letters, when published, 
 charmed a wide circle of admirers.] 
 
 My young life is almost a blank in memory 
 
 from that well-remembered evening of my return 
 from our series of southern visits, till the time 
 of my visit to Allan Bank, when I was six years 
 old. That journey to Grasmere gleams before 
 me as the shadow of a shade. Some goings on 
 of my stay there I remember more clearly. 
 Allan Bank is a large house on a hill overlook- 
 ing Easedale on one side, and Grasmere on 
 the other. Dorothy, Mr Wordsworth's only 
 daughter, was at this time very picturesque in 
 her appearance, with her long, thick, yellow 
 locks, which were never cut, but curled with 
 papers, a thing which seems much out of keep- 
 ing with the poetic simplicity of the household. 
 I remember being asked by my father and Miss 
 Wordsworth, the poet's sister, if I did not think 
 her very pretty. "No," said I, bluntly; for 
 which I met a rebuff which made me feel as if I 
 was a culprit. 
 
 My father's wish it was to have me for a 
 month with him at Grasmere, where he was 
 domesticated with the Wordsworths. He in- 
 sisted upon it that I became rosier and hardier 
 during my absence from mamma. She did not 
 much like to part with me, and I think my 
 father's motive, at bottom, must have been a 
 wish to fasten my affections on him. I slept 
 with him, and he would tell me fairy stories 
 when he came to bed at twelve and one o'clock 
 I remember his telling me a wild tale, too, in 
 his study, and my trying to repeat it to the 
 maids afterwards. 
 
 I have no doubt there was much enjoyment 
 in my young life at that time, but some of my 
 recollections are tinged with pain. I think my 
 dear father was anxious that I should learn to 
 love him, and the Wordsworths, and their 
 children, and not cling so exclusively to my 
 mother, and all around me at home. He was 
 therefore much annoyed when, on my mother's 
 coming to Allan Bank, I flew to her, and wished 
 not to be separated from her any more. I re- 
 member his showing displeasure to me, and 
 accusing me of want of affection. I could not 
 understand why. The young Wordsworths 
 came in and caressed him. I sat benumbed; 
 for truly nothing does so freeze affection as the 
 breath of jealousy. The sense that you have 
 done very wrong, or at least given great offence, 
 you know not how or why — that you are dunned 
 for some payment of love or feeling which you 
 know not how to produce or to demonstrate on 
 a sudden, chills the heart, and fills it with per- 
 plexity and bitterness. My father reproached 
 me, and contrasted my coldness with the child- 
 ish caresses of the little Wordsworths. I slunk 
 away, and hid myself in the wood behind the 
 house, and there my friend John, whom at that 
 time I called my future husband, came to seek 
 me. 
 
 It was during this stay at Allan Bank that I 
 used to see my father and Mr De Quincey pace 
 up and down the room in conversation. I under- 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 161 
 
 stood not, nor listened to a word they said, but 
 used to note the handkerchief hanging out of 
 the pocket behind, and long to clutch it. Mr 
 Wordsworth, too, must have been one of the 
 room walkers. How gravely and earnestly used 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Words- 
 worth, and my uncle Southey also, to discuss 
 the affairs of the nation, as if it all came home 
 to their business and bosoms, as if it were their 
 private concern ! Men do not canvass these 
 matters now-a-days, I think, quite in the same 
 tone. Domestic concerns absorb their deeper 
 feelings, national ones are treated more as things 
 aloof, the speculative rather than the practical. 
 My father used to talk to me with much ad- 
 miration and affection of Sarah Hutchinson, 
 Mrs Wordsworth's sister, who resided partly 
 with the Wordsworths, partly with her own 
 brothers. At this time she used to act as my 
 father's amanuensis. She wrote out great part 
 of the Friend to his dictation. She had fine, 
 long, light brown hair, I think her only beauty, 
 except a fair skin, for her features were plain 
 and contracted, her figure dumpy, and devoid 
 of grace and dignity. She was a plump woman, 
 of little more than five feet. I remember my 
 father talking to me admiringly of her long light 
 locks, and saying how mildly she bore it when 
 the baby pulled them hard in play. Miss Words- 
 worth, Mr Wordsworth's sister, of most poetic 
 eye and temper, took a great part with the 
 children. She told us once a pretty story of a 
 primrose, I think, which she spied by the way- 
 side when she went to see me soon after my 
 birth, though that was at Christmas, and how 
 this same primrose was still blooming when she 
 went back to Grasmere. . . . 
 
 My father had particular feelings and fancies 
 about dress, as had my uncle Southey and Mr 
 Wordsworth also. He could not abide the 
 scarlet socks which Edith and I wore at one 
 time. I remember going to him when mamma 
 had just dressed me in a new stuff frock. He 
 took me up and set me down again without a 
 caress. I thought he disliked the dress ; perhaps 
 he was in an uneasy mood. He much liked 
 everything feminine and domestic, pretty and 
 becoming, but not fine-ladyish. My uncle 
 Southey was all for gay, bright, cheerful colours, 
 and even declared he had a taste for the grand, 
 in half jest. 
 
 Mr Wordsworth loved all that was rich and 
 picturesque, light and free in clothing. A deep 
 Prussian blue or purple was one of his favourite 
 colours for a silk dress. He wished that white 
 dresses were banished, and that our peasantry 
 wore blue and scarlet and other warm colours, 
 instead of sombre, dingy black, which converts 
 a crowd that might be ornamental in the land- 
 scape into a swarm of magnified ants. I re- 
 member his saying how much better young girls 
 looked of an evening in bare arms, even if the 
 arms themselves were not very lovely, it gave 
 
 such a lightness to their general air. I think he 
 was looking at Dora when he said this. White 
 dresses he thought cold, a blot and disharmony 
 in any picture, indoor or out of door. My father 
 admired white clothing, because he looked at 
 it in reference to woman, as expressive of her 
 delicacy and purity, not merely as a component 
 part of a general picture. 
 
 My father liked my wearing a cap. He thought 
 it looked girlish and domestic. Dora and I must 
 have been a curious contrast — she with her wild 
 eyes, impetuous movements, and fine, long float- 
 ing yellow hair — I with my timid, large blue 
 eyes, slender form, and little, fair, delicate face, 
 mufSed up in lace border and muslin. But I 
 thought little of looks then; only I fancied 
 Edith S., on first seeing her, most beautiful. 
 
 THE DEATH OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, BY 
 
 SARA COLERIDGE. ) 
 
 Hampstead, Oct. 1834. — My dearest L.,* — 
 Your affectionate and interesting letter gave me 
 great pleasure, and gratified my feelings in re- 
 gard to my dear father, whose memory still 
 occupies the chief place in my thoughts. Your 
 appreciation of his character and genius, my 
 dear friend, would endear you to me were there 
 no other ties between us. In his death we mourn 
 not only the removal of one closely united to us 
 by nature and intimacy, but the extinction of a 
 light which made earth more spiritual, and 
 heaven, in some sort, more visible to our appre- 
 hension. You know how long and severely he 
 suffered in his health ; yet, to the last, he ap- 
 peared to have such high intellectual gratifica- 
 tions that we felt little impulse to pray for his 
 immediate release ; and, though his infirmities 
 had been grievously increasing of late years, the 
 life and vigour of his mind were so great that 
 they hardly led those around him to think of 
 his dissolution. His frail house of clay was so 
 illumined that its decaying condition was less 
 perceptible. His departure, after all, seemed 
 to come suddenly upon us. We were first in- 
 formed of his danger on Sunday, the 20th of 
 July, and on Friday, the 25th, he was taken 
 from us. For several days after fatal symptoms 
 appeared his pains were very great ; they were 
 chiefly in the region of the bowels, but were at last 
 subdued by means of laudanum, administered 
 in different ways; and for the last thirty-six 
 hours of his existence he did not suffer severely. 
 When he knew that his time was come, he said 
 that he hoped by the manner of his death to 
 testify the sincerity of his faith, and hoped that 
 all who had heard of his name would know that 
 he died in that of the English Church. Henry 
 saw him for the last time on Sunday, and con- 
 veyed his blessing to my mother and myself ; 
 
 * Mrs Plummer. " Memoir of Sara Coleridge," vol. 
 i., p. 109. 
 
162 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 but we made no attempt to see him, and my 
 brothers were not sent for, because the medical 
 men apprehended that the agitation of such 
 interviews would be more than he ought to 
 encounter. Not many hours before his death 
 he was raised in his bed and wrote a precious, 
 faintly-scrawled scrap, which we shall ever pre- 
 serve, recommending his faithful nurse, Harriet, 
 to the care of his family. Mr Green, who had 
 so long been the partner of his literary labours, 
 was with him at the last, and to him, on the 
 last evening of his life, he repeated a certain 
 part of his religious philosophy, which he was 
 especially anxious to have accurately recorded. 
 He articulated with the utmost difficulty ; but 
 his mind was clear and powerful, and so con- 
 tinued till he fell into a state of coma, which 
 lasted till he ceased to breathe, about six o'clock 
 in the morning. His body was opened, accord- 
 ing to his own earnest request. The causes of 
 his death were sufficiently manifest in the state 
 of the vital parts ; but that internal pain from 
 which he suffered more or less during his whole 
 life was not to be explained, or only by that 
 which medical men call nervous sympathy, A 
 few out of his many deeply-attached and rever- 
 ing friends attended his remains to the grave, 
 together with my husband and Edward ; and 
 that body which did him such "grievous wrong" 
 (vas laid in its final resting-place in Highgate 
 churchyard. His executor, Mr Green, after the 
 ceremony, read aloud his will, and was greatly 
 overcome in performing his task. It is indeed 
 a most affecting document. What little he had 
 to bequeath (a policy of assurance worth about 
 £2560) is my mother's for life of course, and 
 will come to her children equally after her time. 
 Mr Green has the sole power over my father's 
 literary remains, and the philosophical part he 
 will himself prepare for publication ; some theo- 
 logical treatises he has placed in the hands of 
 Mr Julius Hare of Cambridge,* and his curate, 
 Mr Sterling (both men of great ability). Henry 
 will arrange literary and critical pieces — notes 
 on the margins of books, or any miscellaneous 
 productions of that kind that may be met with 
 among the MSS., and probably some letters will 
 appear if they can be collected. I fear there 
 will be some difficulty in this ; but I have under- 
 stood that many written by him at different 
 times exhibit his peculiar power of thought and 
 expression, and ought not to be lost to the 
 world if they could be recovered. No man has 
 been more deeply beloved than my dear father ; 
 the servants at the Grove wept for him as for a 
 
 * One of these treatises, as yet (1878) unpublished, 
 was inquired after by Edmund Venablea in the Athe- 
 TUBum, December 1, 1877. He had remembrances of 
 some delightful evenings spent by Hare and his friends 
 over some of these note-books, called " Fly Catchers." 
 They are described as mean little books, some of them 
 done up in grocers' sugar paper, and untidy in writ- 
 ing and arrangement. 
 
 father, and Mr and Mrs Gillman speak of their 
 loss as the heaviest trial that has ever befallen 
 them, though they have had their full share of 
 sorrow and suffering. Mrs Gillman's notes, writ- 
 ten since his death, are precious testimonies to me 
 of his worth and attaching qualities. In one of 
 them she speaks of ** the influence of his beauti- 
 ful nature on our domestics, so often set down 
 by friends or neighbours to my good manage- 
 ment, his forgiving nature, his heavenly-minded- 
 ness, his care not to give offence unless duty 
 called on him to tell home truth ; his sweet and 
 cheerful temper, and so many moral qualities 
 of more or less value, and all adorned by his 
 Christian principles. His was indeed Christian- 
 ity. To do good was his anxious desire, his 
 constant prayer — and all with such real humility 
 — never any kind of worldly accommodating the 
 truth to any one — yet not harsh or severe— never 
 pretending to faults or failings he had not, nor 
 denying those he thought he had ! But, as he 
 himself said of a dear friend's death, * It is re- 
 covery and not death. Blessed are they that 
 sleep in the Lord — his life is hidden in Christ. 
 In his Redeemer's life it is hidden, and in His 
 glory will it be disclosed. Physiologists hold 
 that it is during sleep chiefly that we grow; 
 what may we not hope of such a sleep in such a 
 Bosom?'" Much more have I had from her, 
 and formerly heard from her lips, all in the 
 same strain ; and during my poor dear father's 
 last sufferings she sent a note to his room, ex- 
 pressing with fervency the blessings that he had 
 conferred upon her and hers, and what a happi- 
 ness and a benefit his residence under her roof 
 had been to all his fellow-inmates. 
 
 CHARLES LAMB ON THE DEATH OF COLEEn)QE. 
 
 When I heard of the death of Coleridge, it 
 was without grief. It seemed to me that he 
 long had been on the confines of the next world, 
 that he had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then 
 that I could not grieve. But since, I feel how 
 great a part he was of me. 
 
 His great and dear spirit haunts me. I can- 
 not think a thought, I cannot make a criticism 
 on men or books, without an ineffectual turning 
 and reference to him. He was the proof and 
 touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a 
 Grecian (as in the first form) at Christ's Hospital, 
 where I was a deputy Grecian ; and the same 
 subordination and deference to him I have pre- 
 served through a life-long acquaintance. Great 
 in his writings, he was greatest in his conversa- 
 tion. In him was disproved the old maxim, 
 that we should allow every one his share of talk. 
 He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor cease 
 till far midnight ; yet whoever would interrupt 
 him — who would obstruct that continuous flow 
 of converse fetched from Helicon or Zion ? He 
 had the tact of making the unintelligible seem 
 plain. Many who read the abstruser parts of 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERLDGE. 
 
 163 
 
 his Friend would complain that his works did 
 not answer to his spoken wisdom. They were 
 identical. But he had a tone in oral delivery 
 which seemed to convey sense to those who were 
 otherwise imperfect recipients. He was my 
 fifty years old friend without a dissension. Never 
 saw I his likeness, nor, probably, the world can 
 see again. I seem to love the house he died at 
 more passionately than when he lived. I love 
 the faithful Gillmans more than while they exer- 
 cised their virtues towards him living. What 
 was his mansion is consecrated to me a chapel. 
 Edmonton, Noverriber 21, 1834. 
 
 COLERIDGE, BY THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in 
 those years,* looking down on London and its 
 smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped from the in- 
 anity of life's battle, attracting towards him the 
 thoughts of innumerable brave souls still en- 
 gaged there. His express contributions to 
 poetry, philosophy, or any specific province of 
 human literature or enlightenment, had been 
 small and sadly intermittent ; but he had, espe- 
 cially among young inquiring men, a higher 
 than literary, a kind of prophetic or magician 
 character. He was thought to hold — he alone 
 in England — the key of German and other tran- 
 scendentalisms ; knew the sublime secret of be- 
 lieving by *' the reason " what " the understand- 
 ing " had been obliged to fling out as incredible ; 
 and could still, after Hume and Voltaire had 
 done their best and worst with him, profess 
 himself an orthodox Christian, and say and 
 print to the Church of England, with its singular 
 old rubrics and surplices at All-hallowtide, Esto 
 perpetua. A sublime man, who, alone in those 
 dark days, had saved his crown of spiritual man- 
 hood ; escaping from the black materialisms and 
 revolutionary deluges, with "God, Freedom, 
 Immortality " still his : a king of men. . . . 
 
 The Gillmans did not encourage much com- 
 pany, or excitation of any sort, round their sage ; 
 nevertheless access to him, if a youth did reve- 
 rently wish it, was not difficult. He would 
 stroll about the pleasant garden with you, sit in 
 the pleasant rooms of the place — perhaps take 
 you to his own peculiar room, high up, with a 
 rearward view, which was the chief view of all. 
 A really charming outlook in fine weather. Close 
 at hand, wide sweep of flowery leafy gardens, 
 their few houses mostly hidden, the very chim- 
 ney-pots veiled nnder blossomy umbrage, flowed 
 gloriously down-hill ; gloriously issuing in wide- 
 tufted undulating plain country, rich in all 
 charms of field and town. Waving blooming 
 country of the brightest green ; dotted all over 
 with handsome villas, handsome groves ; crossed 
 by roads and human traffic, here inaudible or 
 heard only as a musical hum ; and behind all 
 
 * 1828-34. " Life of Sterling," chap. viii. 
 
 swam, under olive-tinted haze, the illimitable 
 limitary ocean of London, with its domes and 
 steeples definite in the sun, big Paul's and the 
 many memories attached to it hanging high over 
 all. Nowhere, of its kind, could you see a 
 grander prospect on a bright summer day, with 
 the set of the air going southward — southward, 
 and so draping with the city smoke not you but 
 the city. Here for hours would Coleridge talk 
 concerning all conceivable or inconceivable things, 
 and liked nothing better than to have an intelli- 
 gent, or failing that, even a silent and patient 
 human listener. He distinguished himself to 
 all that ever heard him as at least the most sur- 
 prising talker extant in this world ; and to some 
 small minority, by no means to all, as the most 
 excellent. 
 
 The good man, he was now getting old, to- 
 wards sixty perhaps ; and gave you the idea of 
 a life that had been full of sufferings; a life 
 heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming 
 painfully in seas of manifold physical and other 
 bewilderment. Brow and head were round, and 
 of massive weight, but the face was flabby and 
 irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were 
 as full of sorrow as of inspiration ; confused pain 
 looked mildly from them, as in a kind of mild 
 astonishment. The whole figure and air, good 
 and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby 
 and irresolute; expressive of weakness under 
 possibility of strength. He hung loosely on his 
 limbs, with knees bent and stooping attitude; 
 in walking, he rather shuffled than decisively 
 stept ; and a lady once remarked, he never could 
 fix which side of the garden walk would suit 
 him best, but continually shifted, in corkscrew 
 fashion, and kept trying both. A heavy-laden, 
 high-aspiring, and surely much-suffering man. 
 His voice, naturally soft and good, had con- 
 tracted itself into a plaintive snuffle and sing- 
 song ; he spoke as if preaching — you would have 
 said, preaching earnestly and also hopelessly the 
 weightiest things. I still recollect his "object" 
 and "subject," terms of continual recurrence in 
 the Kantean province; and how he sang and 
 snuffled them into ** om-m-mject " and " sum-m- 
 mject," with a kind of solemn shake or quaver, 
 as he rolled along. No talk, in his century or 
 in any other, could be more surprising. . . . 
 Nothing could be more copious than his talk ; 
 and furthermore, it was always, virtually or 
 literally, of the nature of a monologue ; suffer- 
 ing no interruption, however reverent; hastily 
 putting aside all foreign additions, annotations, 
 or most ingenuous desires for elucidation, as 
 well-me'\nt superfluities which would never do. 
 Besides, it was talk not flowing anywhither like 
 a river, but spreading everywhither in inextri- 
 cable currents and regurgitations like a lake or 
 sea ; terribly deficient in definite goal or aim, 
 nay, often in logical intelligibility; what you 
 were to believe or do, on any earthly or heavenly 
 thing, obstinately refusing to appear from it. 
 
164 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 So that, most times, you felt logically lost; 
 swamped near to drowning in this tide of in- 
 genious vocables, spreading out boundless as if 
 to submerge the world. . . . 
 
 To the man himself nature had given, in high 
 measure, the seeds of a noble endowment; 
 and to unfold it had been forbidden him. A 
 Bubtle lynx-eyed intellect, tremulous pious sen- 
 sibility to all good and all beautiful ; truly a ray 
 of empyrean light ; but imbedded in such weak 
 laxity of character, in such indolences and esu- 
 riences as had made strange work with it. Once 
 more, the tragic story of a high endowment with 
 an insufficient will. An eye to discern the 
 divineness of the heavens' splendours and light- 
 nings, the insatiable wish to revel in their god- 
 like radiances and brilliances ; but no heart to 
 front the scathing terrors of them, which is the 
 first condition of your conquering an abiding 
 place there. The courage necessary for him, 
 
 above all things, had been denied this man. 
 His life, with such ray of the empyrean in it, 
 was great and terrible to him ; and he had not 
 valiantly grappled with it, he had fled from it ; 
 sought refuge in vague day-dreams, hollow com- 
 promises, in opium, in theosophic metaphysics. 
 Harsh pain, danger, necessity, slavish harnessed 
 toil, were of all things abhorrent to him. And 
 so the empyrean element, lying smothered under 
 the terrene, and yet inextinguishable there, 
 made sad writhings. For pain, danger, difficulty, 
 steady slaving toil, and other highly disagree- 
 able behests of destiny, shall in no wise be 
 shirked by any brightest mortal that will ap- 
 prove himself loyal to his mission in this world ; 
 nay, precisely the higher he is, the deeper will 
 be the disagreeableness, and the detestability to 
 flesh and blood, of the tasks laid on him ; and 
 the heavier, too, and more tragic his penalties if 
 he neglect them. 
 
 FEANCIS JEFFEEY. 
 
 [1773-1850.] 
 By HUGH MILLER. 
 
 T'rancis Jeffrey was bom in Edinburgh on 
 the 23d October 1773. His father was one of 
 the depute-clerks of the Court of Session; his 
 mother was the daughter of a Lanarkshire farmer. 
 He attended the High School of his native city, 
 spending four years under the care of Mr Luke 
 Eraser, one of the under-masters, and the re- 
 mainder of his time in the class of Dr Adam, 
 author of the "Roman Antiquities," In the 
 winter of 1787, after the death of his mother, 
 he removed to Glasgow University, when he at- 
 tended respectively the Greek, the Logic, and 
 Moral Philosophy classes. In the debating so- 
 cieties connected with the college he first distin- 
 guished himself as a fluent and rapid speaker, 
 a quick and ingenious writer, and a merciless 
 critic on the papers and speeches of others. At 
 this time he had also commenced the habit of 
 taking notes and writing essays as a means of 
 private culture, which he continued on his return 
 to Edinburgh. In his little room in the Lawn- 
 market of Edinburgh, he is said to have been 
 almost continuously employed in writing and 
 reading, and as a proof of his industry. Lord 
 Cockburn mentions, that between November 
 1789 and March 1790, he had produced thirty- 
 one diflferent manuscript essays on literary and 
 metaphysical topics. At this time he also at- 
 tended the Scotch Law and the Civil Law classes 
 in Edinburgh University. In 1791 he went to 
 Queen's College, Oxford, but returned in the fol- 
 lowing year. In 1792 he became a member of 
 th« famous Speculative Society, and was counted 
 
 one of its most active members, and one of its 
 chief ornaments, contributing essays in turn, and 
 taking a keen interest in all the debates. In 
 1794 he was called to the bar, and in 1801, when 
 his income was verging on £100 a year, he mar- 
 ried his second cousin, Catherine Wilson, of St 
 Andrews, and settled down in a third-story 
 house. No. 18 Buccleuch Place. It was in this 
 house at a convivial meeting, when Jeffrey, 
 Sydney Smith, Horner, and Brougham, were 
 present, that the Edinhurgh Review was pro- 
 jected. The following is Lord Jefi"rey's own 
 account of the founding of the Review: "I can- 
 not say exactly where the project of the Edin- 
 hurgh Review was first talked of among the 
 projectors. But the first serious consultations 
 about it, and which led to our application to a 
 publisher, were held in a small house where I 
 then lived in Buccleuch Place (I forget the num- 
 ber). They were attended by S. Smith, F. 
 Horner, Dr Thomas Brown, Lord Murray (John 
 Archibald Murray, a Scottish advocate, and 
 now one of the Scottish judges), and some of 
 them also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr John 
 Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first 
 three numbers were given to the publisher, he 
 taking the risk and defraying the charges. 
 There was then no individual editor, but as 
 many of us as could be got to attend used to 
 meet in a dingy room of Willison's printing- 
 office in Craig's Close, where the proofs of our 
 own articles were read over and remarked upon, 
 and attempts made, also, to sit in judgment 
 
LORD JEFFREY. 
 
 165 
 
 on the few manuscripts which were then oJBFered 
 "by strangers. But we had seldom patience to 
 go through with this, and it was soon found 
 necessary to have a responsible editor, and the 
 office was pressed upon me. About the same 
 time, Constable (the publisher) was told that he 
 must allow ten guineas a sheet to the contribu- 
 tors, to which he at once assented ; and not long 
 after the minimum was raised to sixteen guineas, 
 at which it remained during my reign. Two- 
 thirds of the articles were paid much higher, 
 averaging, I should think, from twenty to 
 twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole num- 
 ber. I had, I might say, an unlimited discre- 
 tion in this respect, and must do the publishers 
 the justice to say that they never made the 
 slightest objection. Indeed, as we all knew 
 that they had for a long time at least a very 
 great profit, they probably felt that they were 
 at our mercy. Smith was by far the most timid 
 of the confederacy, and believed that, unless our 
 incognito was strictly maintained, we could not 
 go on a day; and this was his object for making 
 us hold our dark divans at Willison's office, to 
 which he insisted on our repairing singly, and 
 by back approaches or different lanes. He had 
 also so strong an impression of Brougham's in- 
 discretion and rashness that he would not let 
 him be a member of our association, though 
 wished for by all the rest. He was admitted, 
 however, after the third number, and did more 
 work for us than anybody. Brown took offence 
 at some alterations Smith had made in a trifiing 
 article of his in the second number, and left us 
 thus early, publishing, at the same time, in a 
 magazine, the fact of his secession, a step which 
 we all deeply regretted, and thought scarcely 
 justified by the provocation. Nothing of the 
 kind occurred ever after." Jeffrey's practice in- 
 creased with his fame as a writer, when he re- 
 moved to Craigcrook, a beautiful little property 
 at the foot of the Corstorphine Hills. Having 
 been chosen Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, 
 he resigned the editorship of the Review in 1829. 
 In 1830 he was elected Member of Parliament 
 for the Perth, Forfar, and Dundee district of 
 burghs; being unseated in 1831, he was imme- 
 diately returned for the burgh of Malton, which 
 he represented till 1832. In the end of 1832 he 
 was retiirned to the first reformed Parliament for 
 the city of Edinburgh. He remained in Parlia- 
 ment till 1834, and was Lord Advocate of Scot- 
 land under the Grey government. In 1834 he 
 was raised to a vacant judgeship in the Scottish 
 bench, where he was noted for soundness, rapid- 
 ity, and conscientiousness. He died after a few 
 days' illness, at his Edinburgh residence in 
 Moray Place, on the 26th of January 1850, in 
 his seventy-eighth year.] 
 
 Lord Jeffrey may be properly regarded as the 
 last Scottish survivor of that group of eminent 
 men, contemporary with Napoleon, to which 
 
 Chalmers and Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth 
 and Wellington, Goethe, Cuvier, Humboldt, 
 and Chateaubriand, belong. Professor Wilson, 
 though fast descending into the vale of years, 
 we regard as the member of a somewhat later 
 group — that of Lockhart, Carlyle, and Macaulay, 
 Lamartine, Arago, and Sir David Brewster. It 
 was the last Scotsman of that elder group of 
 distinguished men who achieved celebrity or in- 
 fluenced opinion as early as the beginning of the 
 present century, or nearly so, that quitted this 
 scene of things on the evening of Saturday.* 
 And he has left to the biographer, in the story 
 of his life, much that is of signal interest and 
 importance in the legal and political history of 
 our country, and much in the history of its 
 literature that is better represented by his career 
 than by that of any other individual. He repre- 
 sents a mighty revolution in letters, which has 
 perhaps considerably lessened the number of 
 good hooks, but increased, beyond all calcula- 
 tion, the number of brilliant articles. Not a 
 few superior men have passed away in conse- 
 quence, and left no permanent mark behind 
 them ; but that literature of the periodic press 
 which forms, perhaps too exclusively, the staple I 
 reading of the age — which occupies men's minda 
 and influences their opinions to-day, but which 
 is in great part forgotten ere to-morrow, and 
 which, in this, as in other respects, forms that 
 daily bread of the republic of letters which can- 
 not be wanted, and which, once used up, is 
 never more thought of — has been immensely 
 heightened in its tone and power, and become a 
 great engine, without whose potent assistance 
 no cause can succeed, and no party prosper. 
 Previous to the appearance of perhaps the only 
 Edinburgh Review known to the great bulk of 
 our readers, there had been men who, in calibre 
 and literary attainment, at least equalled the 
 ablest of its contributors engaged in writing for 
 periodicals. We do not refer to those diurnal, 
 or hebdomadal, or semi-hebdomadal publications 
 of the last century, which may be regarded as 
 commencing with the Taller and Sir Kichard 
 Steele, and terminating with the Lounger and 
 Henry Mackenzie — works which contain some of 
 the finest writing in the language — but simply 
 to the newspapers and magazines. For these, 
 compelled by stern necessity. Goldsmith wrote 
 for several years. . His "Citizen of the World" 
 — one of the most exquisitely written books in 
 any tongue — first appeared as a series of essays 
 in the Public Ledger; and he wrote criticisms 
 for the Monthly Review, and articles for the 
 British Magazine. Smollett conducted for about 
 seven years the Critical Review; Burke wrote 
 for the Annual Register; and Johnson laboured 
 for years for the Literary Magazine, the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, and the Universal Visitor. 
 
 * Jeffrey died on January 26th; this biographical 
 article was published on January 30th, 1850. 
 
166 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 And about half a century previous to the appear- 
 ance of that second Edinburgh Review with 
 which the name of Jeffrey must be for ever 
 associated in the history of letters, there existed 
 for about a twelvemonth a first Edinburgh Re- 
 view, conducted by Blair, Robertson, and Adam 
 Smith. But there were no periodicals of sus- 
 tained effort, or (with perhaps the exception of 
 this first Edinburgh Review) all of whose con- 
 tributors were men of nearly equal standing and 
 power. Burke, Johnson, and Goldsmith were 
 associated in their compelled labours with dull 
 amateurs, or the scribblers of Grub Street; 
 and Smollett, in his description in "Humphrey 
 Clinker" of a dinner of authors, is known to 
 have drawn, in the hair-brained mediocritists 
 which he portrays, some of the nameless con- 
 tributors associated with him in his periodical. 
 Even when, as in the Edinburgh instance, all 
 the writers were superior, they seem to have 
 given but half their mind to their work of 
 article- writing. The first Edinburgh Review is 
 a respectable, but not a very brilliant produc- 
 tion. Its writers were engaged at the time on 
 works which still live: Robertson on his "His- 
 tory of Scotland," Smith on his "Theory of 
 Moral Sentiments," and Blair in maturing the 
 thinking of his " Lectures on Criticism and the 
 Belles Lettres;" and they could spare for their 
 occasional critiques merely the odds and ends of 
 their cogitations. " No man ever did anything 
 well," says Johnson, "to which he did not apply 
 the whole bent of his mind;" and it was re- 
 served for Jeffrey and his associates at once to 
 render, by their equality of talent, a periodical 
 all of a piece, and, in generous rivalry, to do 
 for it the very best which they were capable of 
 performing. Robertson and Adam Smith could, 
 and did, immensely exceed themselves in all 
 they had done for their Review; whereas 
 Jeffrey and Sydney Smith did all they were 
 capable of doing for theirs ; and so on no other 
 occasion or form did they exceed what they 
 accomplished as periodical reviewers. And 
 hence the great revolution in periodical litera- 
 ture which they effected. Without once design- 
 ing any such thing, they succeeded in raising its 
 platform from the level of Grub Street to very 
 nearly that of the standard literature of the 
 country. 
 
 We say, without once designing any such 
 thing. Chateaubriand shrewdly remarks of 
 Napoleon, that, "by leading on France to the 
 attack" — i.e., by bringing armies into the field 
 some five or six times more numerous than had 
 wont to be employed under the old school of 
 strategy — "he taught Europe also to march: 
 the chief point which has since been consi- 
 dered is to multiply means: masses have been 
 balanced by masses. Instead of a hundred 
 thousand men, six hundred thousand have been 
 brought into the field ; instead of a hundred 
 pieces of cannon, five hundred have been em- 
 
 ployed." And such was the effect produced by 
 that introduction of first-class talent into the 
 field of periodic literature with which we associ- 
 ate the name of Jeffrey. The EdinMirgh Review 
 was a Whig periodical ; and the interests of the 
 opposite party imperatively demanded that its 
 park of artillery five hundred strong should be 
 met by an antagonist park, in which the guns 
 should be as numerous and their calibre as 
 great. And hence the origination of the 
 Quarterly Review, edited by Gifford, and to 
 which men such as Southey and Sir Walter 
 Scott contributed. And then the magazines 
 caught the high tone communicated by the Re- 
 view; and in this race, as in the other, Scotland 
 assumed the lead. The Christian Instructor, 
 edited by Dr Andrew Thomson, and supported 
 by Dr M'Crie, Dr Chalmers, and Dr Somerville, 
 started first on the new table-land of elevation; 
 though its theological character, and its restric- 
 tion to the old Presbyterianism of Scotland, 
 served greatly to limit both its influence and its 
 fame. Blackwood followed, and took at once a 
 place in literature which no magazine, at least 
 as a whole, had ever taken before. It was sup- 
 ported by the contributions of Lockhart, Gait, 
 De Quincey, Moir, and Alison, and conducted, 
 it was understood, for many years by Professor 
 Wilson.* The New Monthly followed, vrfth 
 Thomas Campbell at its head ; and about much 
 the same time, Byron, Shelley, and Leigh Hunt 
 originated their short-lived periodical the Libe- 
 ral. The newspapers had partaken at even an 
 earlier period of the induced elevation. Like 
 the magazines and reviews, they had been the 
 occasional vehicles of very powerful writing at 
 a comparatively earlier period. The "Letters 
 of Junius " had appeared in the General Adver- 
 tiser. Coleridge had, for a short time about the 
 beginning of the present century, conducted the 
 Morning Post. Sir James Mackintosh had, at a 
 rather earlier date, written copiously for several 
 of the Liberal papers of the day; but it was 
 not until the Edinburgh Review had fairly 
 entered on its career, that that general elevation 
 of the newspaper platform took place which is 
 now one of the marked characteristics of periodic 
 literature. Edinburgh has been far, in this 
 respect, behind London ; but a very great change 
 has taken place during the last forty years, 
 even in Edinburgh. There are men still con- 
 nected with our newspaper printing-offices who 
 remember when papers by the management of 
 which fortunes were realised were conducted 
 either without an editor at all, or by some 
 printer or mere man of business, who would be 
 unfitted in the present time to perform the 
 
 * Professor Wilson, although a leading contributor, 
 and certainly an influential and ruling spirit in the 
 conduct of Blackwood's Magazine from the time he 
 was first connected with it, never was the formal 
 editor of the magazine. The responsibility of editor- 
 ship has all along mainly rested with the publishers. 
 
LORD JEFFREY, 
 
 167 
 
 duties of even a sub-editor or reporter. It was 
 mainly through that indirect influence of the 
 labours of Lord Jeffrey and his friends, to which 
 we refer, that Edinburgh has reckoned among 
 its newspaper editors during the last thirty 
 years, writers such as M'Culloch, M*Laren, 
 Buchanan, Dr James Brown, Alexander Suther- 
 land, and John Malcolm. The provincial news- 
 paper press has also caught the general tone. 
 Had there been no Edinburgh Review, news- 
 papers such as the Dumfries Courier and Inver- 
 ness Courier would have been prodigies. No 
 later than the day on which Lord Jeffrey died, 
 a gentleman of business habits, who had been 
 for some time unsuccessfully engaged in looking 
 out for an editor to conduct a weekly paper 
 established in a large town, remarked to us, 
 that of all men, an efficient newspaper editor was 
 perhaps the most difficult to find. It occurred 
 to us not long after, on hearing of his lordship's 
 death, that in all probability, had he never lived, 
 the difficulty would not have existed. 
 
 This indirect influence exercised on periodic 
 literature by Lord Jeffrey was perhaps more 
 important in the main than that which he 
 wielded as a political writer or a critic* And 
 yet in both departments he stood very high. 
 His influence as a politician is of course mixed 
 up with that of his associates, and must be re- 
 garded generally as that of the Review which 
 he conducted. For about thirty years, as we 
 had once before occasion to remark, the Edin- 
 burgh Review laboured indefatigably, with vari- 
 ous political objects in view, mainly, however, 
 to repress the dreaded growth of despotism, and 
 to assert the cause of constitutional reform. 
 And for at least the latter half of that period 
 its exertions were accompanied by very marked 
 success. During the war with France, the 
 current ran strongly against it. It was thrown 
 out in its calculations, both by that infatuation 
 of Napoleon which led to the Russian campaign, 
 and by the military genius of Wellington. The 
 consequent issue of the great revolutionary 
 struggle was a struggle which it had not foreseen. 
 There was, besides, a principle elicited in our 
 state of war, which ran counter in its influence 
 to that of the Review. The resentments of the 
 people were so enraged with their enemies 
 abroad, that they had comparatively little in- 
 dignation to spare for their rulers at home. 
 But a period of peace told powerfully in its 
 favour. Men found leisure to look through the 
 spectacles which it furnished, at the defects of 
 existing institutions; its politics spread and 
 gathered strength; a second French Revolution — 
 achieved under immensely more favourable cir- 
 cumstances than the first — wrought as decidedly 
 in favour of the Liberal cause in Britain as the 
 first French Revolution had wrought against it ; 
 
 * For another estimate of Lord Jeffrey as a critic 
 ! md writer, see Lord Coleridge's remarks on p. 107. 
 
 and Whiggism at length saw its favourite scheme 
 of political reform embodied into a bill, and 
 passed into a law. And in producing this result 
 the Edinburgh Review had a large and sensible 
 share. But then, Jeffrey was simply one of 
 several powerful-minded men, to whom the 
 periodical owed its political potency. Regarded, 
 however, in its purely critical character, and as a 
 leader of the public taste in poetry and the 
 belles lettres, the case was otherwise. Though 
 Sir James Mackintosh occasionally contributed 
 a paper — such as his critique on the poems of 
 Rogers, which, in this department, fully sus- 
 tained the general character of the periodical- 
 Jeffrey to all intents and purposes was the 
 Edinburgh Review. And in this his peculiar 
 province he took his place, we have no hesita- 
 tion in saying, as the first British critic of the 
 age. He had his prejudices and his deficiencies, 
 and occasionally — put out in his reckoning by 
 what the poet beautifully describes as " glorious 
 faults, which critics dare not mend " — he com- 
 mitted, as in the case of Wordsworth, grave 
 mistakes; but, take him all in all, where, we 
 ask, is the critic of the present century who is 
 to be placed in the scale against Francis Jeffrey? 
 His peculiar fitness for bis task resulted mainly 
 from the exquisiteness of his taste, his fearless 
 honesty, and the integrity of his judgment. His 
 few mistakes arose chiefly from certain partial 
 defects in faculty. These, however, were im- 
 portant enough to prevent him, if not from 
 taking his place as the first of contemporary 
 critics, from at least entering those highest walks 
 of British criticism in which a very few of the 
 master minds of the past were qualified to ex- 
 patiate, and but these few exclusively. There 
 are snatches of criticism in the prefaces and 
 dedications of Dryden, in Burke's "Treatise on 
 the Sublime and Beautiful," and even in John- 
 son's "British Poets" (though there were im- 
 portant faculties which Johnson also lacked), 
 which Jeffrey has not equalled. But that man 
 rises high in an intellectual department who, 
 though not equal to some of the more illustrious 
 dead, is first among his compeers. We know not 
 at once a better illustration of what Jeffrey 
 could do, and of what he failed in doing, than 
 that furnished by his article on the sense of the 
 beautiful. There is scarce a finer piece of 
 writing in the language; and yet it embodies, 
 as part of its very essence, the great sophism 
 that, apart from the influence of the associative 
 faculty, there is no beauty in colour. We know 
 of but one other sophism in the language that at 
 all approaches it in the elegance and delicacy of 
 its form, and which resembles it, too, in its 
 perfect honesty and good faith ; for both authors 
 wrote as they felt, and failed in producing more 
 than partial truth, which is always tantamount 
 to error, simply because they both lacked a 
 faculty all essential to the separate inquiries 
 which they conducted. Both were fully sensible 
 
168 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the immense power of association in eliciting 
 images of delight; hut the one, insensible to the 
 heauty of simple sounds, from the want of a 
 musical ear, attributed all the power of music 
 to association alone; and the other, insensible 
 to the beauty of simple colours, attributed, 
 from a similar want of appreciating faculty, all 
 their power of gratifying the eye to a similar 
 cause. Some of our readers are acquainted with 
 the article on the *' Beautiful ;" but the following 
 fine stanzas, the production of John Finlay, a 
 Scottish poet, who died early in the present 
 century, when he had but mastered his powers, 
 may be new to most of them : 
 
 •* Why does the melting' voice, the tuneful string, 
 A sigh of woe, a tear of pleasure, bring ? 
 Can simple sounds, or joy, or grief inspire, 
 Or wake the soul responsive to the wire? 
 Ah, no ! some other charm to rapture draws, 
 More than the fingers' skill, the artist's laws ; 
 Some latent feeling at the string awakes, 
 Starts to new life, and through the fibres shakes ; 
 Some cottage home, where first the strain was heard. 
 By many a tie of former days endeared ; 
 Some lovely maid who on thy bosom hung, 
 And breathed the note all tearful as she sung ; 
 Some youth who first awoke the pensive lay, 
 Friend of thy infant years, now far away ; 
 Some scene that patriot blood embalms in song; 
 Some brook that winds thy native vales among — 
 All steal into the soul, in witching train. 
 
 Till home, the maid, the friend, the scene return again. 
 'Twas thus the wanderer 'mid the Syrian wild 
 Wept at the strain he carolled when a child. 
 O'er many a weary waste the traveller passed. 
 And hoped to find some resting-place at last, 
 Beneath some branchy shade, his journey done, 
 To shelter from the desert and the sun ; 
 And haply some green spot the pilgrim found, 
 And hailed and blessed the stream's delicious sound. 
 When on his ear the well-known ditty stole. 
 That, as it melted, passed into his soul — 
 ' Oh, Bothwell bank ! ' — each thrilling sound conveyed 
 The Scottish landscape to the palm-tree shade; 
 No more Damascus' streams his spirit held. 
 No more its minarets his eye beheld ; 
 Pharphar and Abana unheeded glide, — 
 He hears in dreams the music of the Clyde ; 
 And Bothwell's banks, amid o'er-arching trees, 
 Echo the bleat of flocks, the hum of bees. 
 With less keen rapture on the Syrian shore. 
 Beneath the shadow of the sycamore, 
 His eye had turned amid the burst of day, 
 Tadmor's gigantic columns to survey. 
 That sullenly their length of shadows throw 
 On sons of earth, who trembling gaze below. 
 
 'Twas thus when to Quebec's proud heights afar, 
 Wolfe's chivalry rolled on the tide of waj. 
 The hardy Highlander, so fierce before, 
 Languidly lifted up the huge claymore. 
 To him the bugle's mellow notes were dumb, 
 And even the rousing thunders of the drum, 
 Till the loud pibroch sounded in the van, 
 And led to battle forth each dauntless clan. 
 On rush the brave, the plaided chiefs advance. 
 The line resounds, 'Lochiel's awa' to France !' 
 With vigorous arm the falchion lift on high. 
 
 Fight as their fathers fought, and like their fathers 
 die." 
 
 Long as our extract is, there are, we suppose, 
 few of our readers who will deem it too long. 
 Independently, too, of its exquisite vein, it 
 illustrates better both the merits and the defects 
 of Lord Jeflfrey's theory of beauty than any 
 other passage in the round of our literature 
 with which we are acquainted. For there are 
 scores whose degree of musical taste compels 
 them to hold that there is a beauty in "simple 
 sounds" altogether independent of association, 
 for the single individuals whose sense of the 
 beauty of " simple colours" is sufficiently strong 
 to convince them that it, like the other sense, 
 has an underived existence, wholly its own. 
 
 We have left ourselves but little space to 
 speak of the distinguished man so recently lost 
 to us, as a lawyer, a statesman, and a judge. 
 He will be long remembered in Edinburgh as 
 one of the most accomplished and effective 
 pleaders that ever appeared at the Scottish bar. 
 It has become common to allude to his appear- 
 ances in the House of Commons as failures. We 
 know not how his speeches may have sounded in 
 the old chapel of St Stephen's; but this we 
 know, that of all the speeches in both Houses of 
 which the Reform Bill proved the fruitful occa- 
 sion, we remember only his : we can ever recall 
 some of its happy phrases, as when, for instance, 
 he described the important measure which he 
 advocated as a firmament which was to separate 
 the purer waters above from the fouler and 
 more turbulent waters below — the solid worth of 
 the country, zealous for reform, from its wild, 
 unprincipled licentiousness, bent on subversion ; 
 and, founding mainly on this selective instinct 
 of our memory, we conclude that the speech 
 which is said to have disappointed friends and 
 gratified opponents, must have been really one 
 of the best delivered at the time — perhaps the 
 very best. As a judge, the character of Jeffrey 
 may be summed up in the vigorous stanza of 
 Dryden : 
 
 "In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin 
 With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean, 
 Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, 
 Swift of despatch, and easy of access." 
 
 All accounts agree in representing him as in 
 private life one of the kindest and gentlest of 
 mortals, ever surrounded by the aroma of a 
 delicate sense of honour and a transparent truth- 
 fulness, equable in temper, full in conversation, 
 of a playful ease, and, with even his ordinary 
 talk, ever glittering in an unpremeditated wit, 
 ''that loved to play, not wound." Never was 
 there a man more thoroughly beloved by his 
 friends. Though his term of life exceeded the 
 allotted threescore and ten years, his fine in- 
 tellect, like that of the great Chalmers, whom 
 he sincerely loved and respected, and by whom 
 he was much loved and respected in turn, was 
 to the last untouched by decay. Only four 
 days previous to that of his death he sat upon 
 
LORD JEFFREY. 
 
 169 
 
 the tench ; only a few months ago he furnished 
 an article for his old Review^ distinguished by 
 all the nice discernment and acumen of his most 
 vigorous days. It is further gratifying to know, 
 that, though infected in youth and middle age 
 by the wide-spread infidelity of the first French 
 Revolution, he was for at least the last few 
 years of bis life of a different spirit : he read 
 much and often in his Bible ; and he is said to 
 have studied especially, and with much solici- 
 tude, the writings of St Paul. 
 
 JEFFREY AT HOME.* 
 
 Of Jeffrey's habits of work we do not know 
 much. But what we do know is characteristic 
 of the man. He never took up his pen till the 
 candles were lit ; and, like Sheridan, and Byron, 
 and Charles Lamb, he did most of his work in 
 those fatal hours of inspiration from ten at 
 night till two or three o'clock in the morning; 
 adopted originally, perhaps, from the exigencies 
 of his profession. Jefirey continued these habits 
 of study and of work all through his life ; and 
 the only disagreeable incident attending his 
 elevation to the bench was, at least in his own 
 €stimation, the hard necessity it imposed upon 
 him of breakfasting now and then at eight 
 o'clock in the morning. His manuscript was 
 inexpressibly vile; for he wrote with great 
 haste, as most men do whose thoughts outrun 
 their pens, generally used a wretched pen, for 
 he could never cut a quill ; and altered, erased, 
 and interlined without the slightest thought 
 either of the printer or his correspondent. 
 Sydney Smith was always quizzing Jefi"rey upon 
 his scrawl. "How happy I should be," he 
 says, in one of his notes, "if you would but 
 dictate your letters, and not write them your- 
 self. I can scarcely ever read them." He 
 gives a pleasant description in another of the 
 sort of perplexities he got into in trying to 
 puzzle out Jeffrey's manuscript. "I have tried 
 to read it from left to right, and Mrs Sydney 
 from right to left, and we neither of us can 
 decipher a single word of it." Constable's 
 printers followed Jeffrey's copy as Scotch ter- 
 riers follow their quarry, by scent, for it was 
 impossible for any of them to put two sentences 
 together by sight. "A more illegible hand," 
 says Lord Cockburn, "has rarely tormented 
 friends. The plague of small and misshapen 
 letters is aggravated by a love of contractions, 
 and an aversion to the relief of new paragraphs. 
 There are whole volumes, and even an entire 
 play, with the full complement of acts and 
 
 * By Charles Pebody. 
 
 scenes, without a new line." The explanation 
 is, of course, the usual one with men of Jeffrey's 
 temperament and genius. He had a horror and 
 hatred of the work of the desk. "I would 
 willingly forfeit any of my attainments," he 
 says, "to acquire a good form of writing. But 
 the truth is, I detest the employment. Such 
 mechanical drudgery ! and without any certainty 
 of the attainment of my end." His favourite 
 hours of reading were in the morning and in 
 bed, unless he had to deal with a subject of 
 peculiar difficulty, and in that case he read it 
 up, as he read up most of his briefs, at night ; 
 for he had a notion that hints and suggestions, 
 facts and thoughts, illustrations and authorities, 
 picked up promiscuously overnight, assorted 
 themselves in sleep round their proper centres, 
 and thus reappeared in the morning in logical 
 order under the influence of some law of crystal- 
 lisation in the intellect or the imagination. He 
 had a "canine appetite for books," and spent 
 most of the mornings of his vacations in what 
 he calls quiet bed readings, in careless talk with 
 friends and visitors, or, when alone, in lounging 
 about in the woods, reading idle snatches from 
 Shakespeare and Fletcher, and Keats and Shel- 
 ley, or in "watching seals, and porpoises, and 
 yachts, and steam vessels, and clouds playing 
 with the peaks of Arran;" in toying with "the 
 shells and pebbles that engaged the leisure of 
 Scipio and Lselius, in a world in which nothing 
 was like our world but the said shells and 
 pebbles, and the minds of virtuous men resting 
 from their labours," and in quiet contemplative 
 trots before dinner along the sands, with "the 
 waves plashing round his feet, and the wild 
 thyme, and the bees, and the white houses 
 gleaming round the shores of the mountains, 
 bays, and promontories before him." This sort 
 of life was his delight ; and in his early days, 
 before he began to dream of the horsehair and 
 ermine of the Lords of Session, he is everlast- 
 ingly harping upon the pleasures of life in a 
 cottage with £300 a year, a wife and children, 
 friends and books, free from all the vexations of 
 law and politics; for he thought public life, 
 after all, a sort of harlequinade, and never 
 entered into its contests with the zest and 
 ambition of a man who cared two straws about 
 its honours and rewards. Even when at the 
 head of his profession, with a seat in the House 
 of Commons, and in a position where a man of 
 his powers might have won the highest prizes of 
 Parliamentary eloquence, we find him pantmg 
 for a couple of days with the poets at Craig- 
 crook. " If it were not for my love of beautiful 
 nature and poetry," he says, "my heart would 
 have died within me long ago." 
 
170 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 AECHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 [1774-1827.] 
 By THOMAS CONSTABLE. 
 
 Lord Cockburn in the "Memorials of his 
 Time" thus characterises the subject of the 
 following notice :* 
 
 **To Archibald Constable, the publisher of 
 the Edinburgh Review, the literature of Scot- 
 land has been more indebted than to any other 
 bookseller. Till he appeared, our publishing 
 trade was at nearly the lowest ebb; partly 
 because there was neither population nor inde- 
 pendence to produce or to recognise a vigorous 
 publisher; and partly because the publishers 
 we had were too spiritless even for their posi- 
 tion. Our principal booksellers were Bell and 
 Bradfute, and Manners and Miller, in the 
 Parliament Close; Elphinstone Balfour, Peter 
 Hill, and William Creech, in the High Street ; 
 and William Laing in the Canongate. Laing 
 was a good collector of good books, chiefly old 
 ones, but did not publish much. Creech was 
 connected with the publication of the works of 
 Kobertson and other respectable authors. All 
 the rest were unimportant. 
 
 " Constable began as a lad in Hill's shop, and 
 had hardly set up for himself when he reached 
 the summit of his business. He rushed out, 
 and took possession of the open field, as if he 
 had been aware from the first of the existence 
 of the latent spirits, which a skilful conjurer 
 might call from the depths of the population to 
 the service of literature. Abandoning the old 
 timid and grudging system, he stood out as the 
 general patron and payer of all promising publi- 
 cations, and confounded not merely his rivals in 
 trade, but his very authors, by his unheard-of 
 prices. Ten, even twenty guineas a sheet for 
 a review, £2000 or £3000 for a single poem, and 
 £1000 each for two philosophical dissertations, f 
 drew authors from dens where they would 
 otherwise have starved, and made Edinburgh a 
 literary mart, famous with strangers, and the 
 pride of its own citizens." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott in the introductory epistle 
 to the " Fortunes of Nigel" speaks of Archibald 
 Constable as a "friend, whose vigorous intellect 
 and liberal ideas have not only rendered his 
 native country the mart of her own literature, 
 but established a court of letters there which 
 must command respect, even from those most 
 inclined to dissent from many of its canons. 
 The effect of these changes, operated in a great 
 
 * Extracted by kind permission of Thomas Con- 
 stable from the work entitled "Archibald Constable 
 and his Literary Correspondents." 
 
 t By Professor Dugald Stewart and John Playfair 
 — prefixed to a supplement of the "Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica." 
 
 measure by the strong sense and sagacious calcu- 
 lations of an individual who knew how to avail 
 himself, to an unhoped-for extent, of the various 
 kinds of talent which his country produced, will 
 probably appear more clearly to the generation 
 which shall follow the present." 
 
 In one of my father's letters to Sir Walter 
 Scott, of date July 11, 1822, 1 find the following 
 passage : 
 
 "Among the many good hints and advices 
 you have given me was one — that I should make 
 memoranda of the schemes, projects, and other 
 literary doings in which it has fallen to my lot 
 to have a share. I have not entirely overlooked 
 this. I made some progress last summer in 
 putting down memoranda of my early career, 
 and I believe they occupy nearly one hundred 
 pages in quarto, pretty closely written. I 
 would have continued these to the present time 
 had not my absence from the scenes of former 
 activity, and the total want of documents to 
 refer to, rendered it impossible for me to have 
 given some of the minute details which I should 
 be desirous of leaving to my children, and it is 
 therefore at rest for the present." 
 
 The memoranda here referred to were dictated 
 to an amanuensis, and had not the advantage of 
 revision by their author, but they are interest- 
 ing, and contain graphic portraits of some of 
 his contemporaries and predecessors in what is 
 technically called " the trade." The manuscript 
 that lies before me is dated Clermiston, May 
 1821. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 I was bom at Carnbee, in Fifeshire, on the 
 24th February 1774, and received the ordinary 
 education then given at the parochial school 
 there. 
 
 It may be curious to notice the circumstance 
 which first led to my following the trade of 
 bookselling. William Cockburn, a bookbinder 
 from Edinburgh, had, about the close of the 
 year 1786, opened a shop, as bookbinder, book- 
 seller, stationer, etc., in Pittenweem, and to 
 this shop it was a great "ploy" for the boys 
 from the neighbouring country schools on the 
 Saturday afternoons to repair, for the purpose 
 of supplying themselves with the articles of 
 stationery and the school-books required for 
 their limited use, and suitable for their still 
 more limited means. Here k\ the Pittenweem 
 "stationer's," as he was called, we boys for the 
 first time had the opportunity of seeing picture- 
 books and halfpenny prints, which adorned the 
 window of the shop ; and to some of us this war 
 
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 171 
 
 a source of no small delight. There was one 
 print in particular, a broadside, which used to 
 hold a distinguished place in the shop window, 
 "The History of Shon ap Morgan, a Shentle- 
 man of Wales," with his portrait, riding on an 
 ass, of which I have never since that day seen 
 another copy. 
 
 It was on returning home after one of these 
 occasions that I expressed to my intelligent and 
 worthy father my great anxiety to be employed 
 by the Pittenweem bookbinder, and to be bred 
 a stationer, as the trade was called. I alleged 
 that from having lately applied with great dili- 
 gence and success to the occupation of land- 
 measurer and planner, as Mr Wilson's assistant, 
 my cronies at school assured me that I would 
 make an equally successful bookbinder, and I 
 took an opportunity of saying that the stationer, 
 though a braw-dressed man, had noticed me in 
 Pittenweem market, which I thought looked 
 favourably for my object, which was surely far 
 better than going to sea or driving the plough. 
 My father undertook to endeavour to bring the 
 matter about, and it so happened that at this 
 period the annual cock-fighting, or "barrows," 
 as it was called, was held at Carnbee, an occa- 
 sion on which the fathers and friends of the 
 boys used to assemble and make merry; it was 
 in the course of conversation at this meeting, 
 that it occurred to my father to make inquiry 
 as to the nature of this trade, and he accordingly 
 applied by letter without delay to Mrs Eagle, 
 seed-merchant in Edinburgh, a friend with 
 whom he had occasional correspondence. This 
 worthy woman secured for me a promise from 
 Mr Peter Hill, an old apprentice of her own, 
 and who intended within a few months to open 
 shop in Edinburgh as a bookseller, to receive 
 me as an apprentice, if I, on being seen, should 
 be approved of. I was accordingly despatched 
 to Edinburgh in November 1787, and the result 
 was an engagement as an apprentice for six 
 years, which I had the good fortune to fulfil, 
 commencing my career in February 1788. Mr 
 Hill had been for a good many years principal 
 clerk to Mr Creech, was highly respected as 
 possessing gentlemanly manners beyond most 
 others of the trade, and proved in this early 
 and important stage of my career a kind and 
 indulgent master. I remember my visit to 
 Edinburgh even at this day with very consider- 
 able delight, and I was fortunate enough to 
 witness on St Andrew's Day the procession of 
 Freemasons by torchlight, which afforded me on 
 my return home subject of no small interest for 
 the information of my schoolfellows and others. 
 The grand dresses of the people surprised me 
 not a little. 
 
 There is a circumstance which is here not un- 
 worthy of record. It was my good fortune to 
 be guided in seeing Edinburgh by Alexander 
 Henderson, a young man who was then Mrs 
 Eagle's apprentice, and who has proved to 
 
 me ever since a companion and friend of the 
 greatest worth and respectability. On my com- 
 ing to Mr Hill, Mrs Eagle treated me with great 
 kindness, and thus it was that Henderson and I 
 became intimate friends and associates during a 
 number of years of early and attached inter- 
 course. He, from having resided nearly a year 
 in Edinburgh before my coming to it, had the 
 advantage of me in knowledge of the place and 
 people ; and the circumstance to which I particu- 
 larly allude, as connected with an important 
 period of my own after-career, is this — I was 
 taken by Henderson to the shop of Mr Creech, 
 and there placed in the notice of my future 
 master. Mr Creech himself, as was his fashion 
 at that time and for many a day afterwards, 
 was standing on the steps that led to his shop 
 along with a number of other gentlemen, who 
 used there daily to associate. Among these was 
 the late Mr Andrew Bell, proprietor of the 
 "Encyclopaedia Britannica," who, from the 
 particular shape of his body, and remark- 
 able nose — which I assured my playfellows 
 on going back to Kellie was quite unlike any- 
 thing of the kind in Fife — particularly attracted 
 my observation. On becoming an apprentice I 
 very soon discovered the importance of this per- 
 sonage, and I remember one of the early duties 
 I had to perform was to carry an offer to him 
 from Mr Hill for one hundred copies of the 
 "Encyclopaedia Britannica," the publication of 
 which had just then commenced. This offer I 
 remember — much to Mr Hill's disappointment 
 — was rejected, on the plea that Charles Elliot 
 and Jamie Hunter, as he was called, had ordered 
 so many copies that there were none to spare. 
 I afterwards carried a letter of remonstrance to 
 Mr Colin MacFarquhar, the other proprietor of 
 the "Encyclopaedia," which, to my grief and 
 astonishment, met with the same response as 
 that which I had received in the earlier part of 
 the same day, from the queer bowed man with 
 the big nose. These feelings, though experi- 
 enced thirty years ago, I well remember. They 
 have often been brought to my recollection by 
 my subsequent important interest in and con- 
 nection with the "EncyclopoBdia." 
 
 After this, I returned home and attended 
 school at Carnbee as before, having gained con- 
 siderably in importance with my schoolfellows. 
 The number of scholars did not exceed fifty or 
 sixty, from the age of six to my own age, which 
 was under fourteen years, though some were 
 older. I parted from them on the 2d February 
 1788, with feelings that most persons have ex- 
 perienced, and which need not therefore be 
 described. 
 
 I began my career as an apprentice in February 
 1788. My first occupation was assisting Mr Hill 
 to arrange the stock of books with which he was 
 to commence his trade, in a shop in the Parlia- 
 ment Close, with a conspicuous sign-board, and 
 a head of Thomson the poet over it, which ip 
 
172 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the then state of Edinburgh rendered the situa- 
 tion attractive. Mr Hill immediately com- 
 manded an excellent business; I lived in the 
 house with him, and he was a kind and indul- 
 gent master ; I passed six years very happily as 
 an apprentice, and another as a clerk, receiving 
 in the last year £30 of salary. Mr Hill's shop 
 was frequented by the most respectable persons 
 in Edinburgh. Burns the poet when in town 
 was a frequent visitor ; the distinguished pro- 
 fessors and clergy, and the most remarkable 
 strangers. I remember Captain Grose making 
 frequent visits, and my conducting him for the 
 first time to the Advocates' Library. Mr Hill 
 did not remain long in the Parliament Close, 
 but removed about the year 1790 to the shop at 
 the Cross where he now is — his apprentices, 
 clerks, and shopmen increasing with his trade, 
 which was very considerable. 
 
 I can boast of one distinguished man as a 
 companion and friend at this early period, Mr 
 William Wallace, whose genius and talents have 
 placed him in the chair of mathematics in the 
 University of Edinburgh ; he came to Mr Hill's 
 some time in the year 1791, and he was my 
 senior in years. After the hours of business 
 we used to pass much time together, greatly to 
 my advantage, although some of our pursuits 
 did not greatly assimilate. Mr Wallace had be- 
 gun the study of mathematics with great en- 
 thusiasm, and was at this time laying the founda- 
 tion of his present eminence. The works of 
 Robert Simson and Maclaurin were his favourite 
 books. He used also to study French with 
 great assiduity, not unfrequently assisted in 
 leisure half-hours by Mr James Anderson, who 
 for many years was the principal writing-master 
 in Edinburgh. Mr Anderson had been a great 
 friend to American independence, was a person 
 of liberal principles in all that regards the happi- 
 ness and progress of man, and felt a deep inter- 
 est in the French Revolution ; but above all, he 
 took much pains and delight in giving instruc- 
 tion, particularly in the French language, to 
 young men whose opportunities of study and 
 means of paying for instruction he knew to be 
 not great. To this worthy person I have often 
 since heard Mr Wallace acknowledge the debt 
 of which I now speak. 
 
 On the death of Mr Playfair, which occurred 
 in July 1819, Mr Wallace became candidate for 
 the chair of mathematics at Edinburgh, in the 
 event of his friend, Professor Leslie, the most 
 distinguished philosopher of the present day, 
 being promoted to the chair of Mr Playfair. 
 There were many candidates, and influence of 
 almost every description was used with the 
 electors for this high academic honour, which 
 had long been the object of his ambition. The 
 printed testimonials and certificates circulated 
 on the occasion by all the candidates show the 
 opposition he had to contend with — those printed 
 in his favour vill remain a lasting memorial. 
 
 He was much indebted, however, to the active, 
 and indeed unremitting endeavours of his old 
 friend Mr Alexander Henderson, who was at 
 that time Dean of Guild, and whose manly con- 
 duct on the occasion did much to promote the 
 election. 
 
 The period from Mr Wallace's becoming one 
 of my associates till his settlement at Perth I 
 shall always remember as among the most fortu- 
 nate and happy of my life. I received much 
 advice and useful information from him, and it 
 gives me great satisfaction to record that our 
 friendship remains to this hour unbroken. Ha 
 was born at Dysart ; his family, a worthy race, 
 had been feuars at Kilconquhar for fully two 
 centuries, and he is now in possession of remains 
 of the family property. 
 
 The years of my apprenticeship passed with- 
 out many incidents that I need now record. 
 My father's death in 1791 was my first, and one 
 of my most severe afflictions. He left no pro- 
 perty to his family, but this circumstance was 
 fortunately the less felt from the fact that my 
 mother and I were the only individuals who 
 required assistance. He died in his fifty-sixth 
 year, of fever, after a few days' illness, and had 
 been through life a remarkably healthy and 
 active man. My mother, who was three years 
 his senior, long survived him, and died in my 
 house in August 1819, at the age of eighty-six, 
 in full possession of her mental faculties, and in 
 the enjoyment of all that could tend to make 
 the last years of a long and well-spent life blest 
 and happy. 
 
 During my apprenticeship — indeed from 1788 
 to 1795 — I continued to devote my entire atten- 
 tion to acquiring a knowledge of my business. 
 I attended book auctions, read catalogues, and 
 embraced every opportunity of making myself 
 acquainted with books. There were few sale 
 catalogues published in Edinburgh at this 
 period, and these were slovenly and ill edited. 
 Mr Hill did not attend at all to old books, but 
 in the year 1791 or 1792 — I forget which— the 
 Earl of Moray sent him a considerable number 
 from his library in the North, in exchange for 
 modern publications. This collection being too 
 large for the shop, a considerable part of it was 
 sent to a warehouse hired on purpose, and I 
 remember that one of the first and most agree- 
 able occurrences in my business experience was 
 a commission to examine these old books. I 
 thought it was an unfavourable reflection on our 
 establishment that there should be no catalogue 
 of them, or of the stock generally, and I there- 
 fore proposed to Mr Hill to make one of all the 
 books in his possession. 
 
 I set to work and made a catalogue, not cer- 
 tainly of the most perfect description, for I knew 
 little or nothing of the value of books ; yet the 
 pricing, with a very few exceptions, devolved on 
 me. This catalogue did not attract much notice, 
 as it contained few books of price or rarity ; but 
 
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 173 
 
 its success induced Mr Hill to encourage me 
 to collect books at auctions and otherwise. 
 I did so with no small success in my own 
 opinion, though to no great extent in point of 
 number, and I published what I called a 
 "Supplement," which, so far as I remember, 
 contained only one book that I should since 
 have desired to possess, an early edition of 
 Spenser's "Fairy Queen," with notes in MS. by 
 the late Mr Callander of Craigforth, which, if I 
 am not mistaken, was sold to Sir James Colquhoun 
 of Luss. 
 
 About this time also the trustees of Miss 
 Scott, now Duchess of Portland, had purchased 
 from the Earl of Lauderdale the estate of 
 Hatton, in Midlothian, and along with it the 
 remains of the old family library. Lord Lauder- 
 dale having retained only such books as at the 
 time suited his own fancy. A very considerable 
 collection was left at Hatton, of which Miss Scott 
 wished to have a catalogue, and this I had the 
 good fortune to make. I spent several weeks at 
 Hatton in the work. There were a good many 
 duplicates and other books which Miss Scott 
 exchanged with Mr Hill, and, to my no small 
 delight, the selection of these, as I well re- 
 member, was left to me. This was one of the 
 first opportunities I had of making myself 
 acquainted with books, and a good many of 
 them afterwards came into my own hands, on a 
 re-sale of the estate to Dr Davidson of Muir- 
 house, a year or two after I had commenced 
 business on my own account. The library at 
 Hatton had never been very curious or import- 
 ant, the books having been dispersed, as I sup- 
 pose, at different periods ; those of the collection 
 retained by the present earl were sent to Lon- 
 don, where they probably still are. Among the 
 books left by Lord Lauderdale was a large col- 
 lection of tracts, amounting to about 150 volumes 
 of various sizes and descriptions ; I sold these in 
 one lot about the year 1798 to Mr Turner, an 
 English gentleman then residing at Newbattle, 
 an excellent customer of mine for several years. 
 A year or two later, the Earl of Lauderdale paid 
 a visit to Edinburgh, when I was introduced to 
 him by Professor Dalzel, and his lordship being 
 then ardent in the pursuit of tracts, particularly 
 on political economy, Mr Turner was, at my 
 request, so obliging as to transfer to him the 
 collection I have just mentioned. Dr Davidson 
 had retained at Hatton a good many of the 
 family books, among others the Somers's " Col- 
 lection," in sixteen volumes; these also I ob- 
 tained for Lord Lauderdale. Thus commenced 
 my intercourse and correspondence with his 
 lordship, with whom I have since had many 
 transactions, including the publication of all 
 his works, which will be noticed in their proper 
 places. 
 
 In January 1794, when my apprenticeship 
 came to an end, I accepted an invitation to re- 
 main another year with Mr Hill, in the capacity 
 
 of his clerk. Several years previously I had 
 fallen desperately in love with a young lady 
 whom I had afterwards the good fortune to call 
 my wife, but with whom I did not enjoy an 
 opportunity of becoming personally acquainted 
 till after some years of a most sincere and pas- 
 sionate attachment. I attribute no small share 
 of my success in life to the feelings, anticipa- 
 tions, and, I may add, honourable contrivances 
 which, during this period, often engaged my 
 mind in the pursuit by which I hoped to become 
 one day the husband of Mary Willison. My 
 only introduction to her father consisted in the 
 occasional intercourse of going on business to 
 his printing-office, but this good man was my 
 first and through life my kindest friend ; he used 
 to notice me, even at this early day, with a 
 familiarity which in no small degree cherished 
 in me my hopes and my ambition. With my 
 dear wife I became personally acquainted in the 
 course of the year 1794, and we were married 
 on the 16th January 1795. I previously an- 
 nounced by letter to her father the resolution 
 we had formed, and although he intimated no 
 formal acquiescence, he did not object, and 
 received me as his son-in-law in the kindest 
 manner, ever afterwards aiding and assisting me 
 by every means in his power, in all that could 
 conduce to my establishment in the world and 
 advancement in life. The result of his kind 
 efforts has, I trust, not been without some 
 advantage to the public, and it is my greatest 
 pleasure at this moment to leave on record this tes- 
 timony of my obligations to a most worthy man. 
 Before beginning business on my own account 
 in 1795, I had been kindly noticed by the late 
 Mr John Fairbairn, whose son, his assistant in 
 business, had died only a short time before. 
 Mr Fairbairn offered me a share in his trade, 
 but his stock was considerable, and I thought 
 it preferable to commence on my own account. 
 Our intercourse on this occasion, however, was 
 the means of forming an intimacy which I found 
 of great service. He introduced me to many of 
 the country booksellers, who afterwards became 
 my correspondents, and was in other respects 
 ever afterwards my friend. We used to asso- 
 ciate a good deal together, as indeed was the 
 practice of booksellers in Edinburgh at this 
 period. Mr Fairbairn had been bred with Adrian 
 Watkins, the king's printer ; was afterwards for 
 many years clerk to Mr Donaldson, the eminent 
 bookseller ; and did not start on his own account 
 till he had reached rather an advanced period of 
 life. He was a most careful, respectable, and 
 worthy man. He died in the year 1810, and 
 having no near relatives, left me and my friend, 
 Mr Reid, of Leith, residuary legatees of his effects. 
 His trade was chiefly confined to reprints of ordi- 
 nary publications ; and he had much intercourse 
 with American booksellers. He understood hia 
 own line of business extremely well, and it was 
 consequently well conducted. 
 
174 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 With Mr Hill I remained till the completion 
 of my year as a clerk. On leaving him in Janu- 
 ary 1795, and a few weeks after my marriage, I 
 went to London, remaining there for about a 
 month, and informing myself, by all the oppor- 
 tunities within my reach, of the state of book- 
 selling in the metropolis. I then became ac- 
 quainted with many gentlemen with whom it 
 was my hope afterwards to have intercourse and 
 correspondence, and in this I believe I succeeded 
 as well as could be expected for a young man 
 not more than twenty-one years of age. I was 
 introduced by the late Mr Bell to the Robinsons 
 of Paternoster Row, then the first publishers in 
 the island ; to Mr Cadell of the Strand by Mr 
 Creech, and to Mr Longman by Mr Lawrie, who 
 was then Mr Longman's only correspondent in 
 Scotland. From all these gentlemen I received 
 much attention, especially from Mr Longman ; 
 and to our acquaintance I believe he has not 
 hesitated to attribute his extensive correspond- 
 ence with the trade in Scotland, and much of 
 his connection with its literature. 
 
 I picked up a good many books in London to 
 assist in furnishing my shop at Edinburgh, 
 which I was enabled to do by the aid afforded 
 by two friends, Messrs Taylor and Henderson, 
 who, on my setting out for London, had given 
 me £150, to be repaid when I should be able to 
 do so. I hope I have not been ungrateful, and 
 that they do not repent of their patronage of a 
 young unprotected friend. I had got, besides, 
 books from my father-in-law to the value of 
 about £300 ; these last I exchanged, and turned 
 to the best account I could. 
 
 On my return to Scotland I made an excursion 
 to Perth, through Fifeshire, etc., in the hope of 
 collecting books, and succeeded tolerably well. 
 I had a slight acquaintance with the late Mr 
 Bethune of Kilconquhar, a kind and hospitable 
 man, who received me at his house with much 
 attention during a stay of three or four days. 
 Mr Bethune, formerly Henry Lindsay, had then 
 only recently succeeded his brother in the estate. 
 He had been altering his house, and at consider- 
 able expense in improving it; but the estate 
 being entailed, his income was not more than 
 sufficient for his expenditure ; and I purchased 
 from him a considerable lot of books which had 
 belonged partly to the Bethunes, his maternal 
 ancestors, and partly to the Lindsays of Wor- 
 miston. With what I collected in London, had 
 gathered in the country, and this collection, I 
 established myself at the Cross ; the books were 
 neither numerous nor of much value, but I 
 printed a catalogue of them, which I now con- 
 sider as a curiosity, as I dare say some of my 
 family will do at a future day. To distinguish 
 my place of business from the circulating lib- 
 raries which surrounded me, I had inscribed 
 over the door, " Scarce Old Books," which was 
 quizzed by some of my brethren and neighbours 
 as ** Scarce o' Books ; " but I had the satisfaction 
 
 of Icno wing, what probably they di i not, that thera 
 were some scarce books within, and the inscrip- 
 tion of ** Scarce Books " continued over the door 
 till I believe it was acknowledged that the col- 
 lection had considerably increased under my 
 management. 
 
 My success in business far exceeded my ex- 
 pectations: my shop became a place of daily 
 resort for the book-collectors of Edinburgh, who 
 were then not numerous. The late Mr George 
 Paton and Mr David Herd soon found their way 
 to me ; they were judicious collectors, but their 
 means did not admit of giving much encourage- 
 ment in the way of purchase. We used often to 
 meet — not unfrequently in John Dowie's — and I 
 derived from both a great deal of useful infor- 
 mation on the subject of books of general, and 
 the literature of Scotland in particular. 
 
 The publication of my sale catalogue in May 
 1795, procured me the correspondence of a num- 
 ber of distinguished men in various parts of the 
 country. I supplied, in consequence, a good 
 many books to Mr George Chalmers, with whom 
 I have had an intimate and important connec- 
 tion ever since; and I have experienced from 
 him all that could be desired from a liberal and 
 kind friend, as will be found in our extensive 
 correspondence and considerable transactions. 
 The late Mr Plummer, of Middlestead, also be- 
 came my steady and attached customer. He 
 was a great collector of old books, particularly 
 of all relating to Shakespeare — was Sheriff of 
 Selkirkshire — a man of very excellent and face- 
 tious manners, and of good fortune. Sir Walter 
 Scott, who has since been so distinguished in 
 the literary world, succeeded him as Sheriff of 
 the county. The celebrated John Pinkerton 
 also became a correspondent for books out of my 
 catalogue about this period, and prevailed with 
 me to take some trouble for him to obtain tran- 
 scripts from the Advocates' Library and public 
 records. For this purpose I recommended my 
 friend Mr William Anderson, but Mr Pinkerton 
 contrived, as was usual with him, to use Mr 
 Anderson ill; and the particulars of the ill- 
 usage will be found in a pamphlet, which Mr 
 Anderson felt it necessary to publish in the year 
 1797. Mr Gough also became my correspon- 
 dent; and I must say that my rapid success 
 astonished myself not a little. My great ambi- 
 tion was to pick up curious and valuable works 
 relative to the history and literature of Scotland, 
 with which department of bookselling I consider- 
 ed no other at all to be compared ; and I believe 
 I was the first of the trade — at least in modern 
 times — who took a deep interest in securing and 
 preserving all books relating to Scottish litera- 
 ture. Of this I shall speak at large hereafter. 
 
 In November 1795 I published a supplement 
 to my catalogue, containing a good many curi- 
 ous articles ; and it was on this occasion that I 
 was first introduced to the acquaintance of John, 
 Duke of Roxburghe, the eminent collector. 
 
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, 
 
 175 
 
 His Grace selected several rare and curious 
 articles from my catalogue, was henceforth a 
 constant visitor of my shop whenever he came 
 to Edinburgh, and I had ever afterwards a great 
 deal of intercourse with him. He was a person 
 of elegant and accomplished manners, of a most 
 noble and engaging appearance, and generally 
 visited Edinburgh twice a year, when he usually 
 honoured me with conversation on the subject of 
 his favourite pursuit. Scottish literature and 
 antiquities engaged his particular attention. I 
 may mention here that the " Complaynt of Scot- 
 land " was the favourite volume of all he pos- 
 sessed, and that he never travelled from home 
 without it. This copy is now in my possession, 
 having purchased it at the sale of his Grace's 
 library ; and I need not add that I esteem it as 
 one of my greatest literary treasures. The duke 
 had received it as a legacy from his friend, the 
 late David Erskine, W.S., whose autograph is 
 still in the volume. The copy wanted several 
 leaves, which I had afterwards the satisfaction 
 to supply from a still more imperfect one given 
 to me by the late Mr John M'Gowan, and which 
 was used in printing the edition edited by the 
 late Dr Ley den. From the same copy, now in 
 the Advocates' Library, I also gave several 
 leaves to the British Museum. The duke's is, 
 however, the only one known containing the 
 full text ; and is only incomplete by the want 
 of the title-page, of which, however, a small 
 portion still remains. The full title will be 
 found in the Harleian catalogue. 
 
 About this period I had also the pleasure to 
 become acquainted with Mr Leslie, now Profes- 
 sor of Natural Philosophy in the University of 
 Edinburgh — a name too distinguished to make 
 it necessary for me in this place to add anything 
 respecting it. I have the satisfaction of think- 
 ing that I have enjoyed Mr Leslie's confidence 
 and friendship undiminished from that period 
 to the present. I remember well the interest 
 which he took in my success as a bookseller. 
 He knew a great deal about books, in particular 
 of the subjects for which his own studies are so 
 distinguished. He recommended my opening a 
 correspondence with the Continent, and pro- 
 curing a collection of mathematical books, espe- 
 cially the works of Euler, of which, though 
 many years published, few were supposed to 
 have reached this country. They had been 
 chiefly published at St Petersburg. This pur- 
 chase was the occasion of my first acquaintance 
 with the late Professor Play fair, who purchased 
 from me several of the most expensive of my 
 foreign books, and continued to be my customer 
 and distinguished friend, as I shall take an 
 opportunity of mentioning hereafter. 
 
 My first publication was a pamphlet by a Mr 
 Black, then a student of divinity, entitled "Anec- 
 dotes of the False Messias," to which I did not 
 affix my name. Richard Brothers was then 
 making a very great noise in the world, which 
 
 led to this contemptible publication. My 
 second and third were "Observations on the 
 Slave Trade," and "A Letter to Mr Pitt," both 
 anonymous, and written by Dr Robert Innes of 
 Gifford ; both were very unsuccessful, but that 
 worthy man paid the expense of them. My 
 next publication, so far as I can remember the 
 works of this year (1795), was an account of the 
 insurrection in Grenada, where Governor Home 
 was massacred. It was written by Mr Gore on 
 Turnbull, who had escaped from the insurrec- 
 tion and just returned from the island to Edin- 
 burgh, of which city he was a native. This 
 narrative is very interesting, and sold extremely 
 well. The expense — as best suited my purposes 
 at this period — was paid by the author. Mr 
 Turnbull was a poet, and rendered M'Neill's 
 "Will and Jean" into English verse. In the 
 year 1796, at the request of the Rev. Dr John 
 Erskine, I published for a Mr Robertson a trans- 
 lation of Lampe on the "Duration of Hell- 
 Punishment," which did not sell, but it intro- 
 duced me to the publication of Dr Erskine'a 
 own works, which proved to be a matter of no 
 small Ulat, though not of great emolument.* 
 My retail business continued to increase, and 
 became rather considerable. The literary men 
 of Edinburgh began to find their way to me 
 about this time. I cannot boast of the acquaint- 
 ance of many of the seniors— Dr Hugh Blair 
 excepted, who used to call on me very often; 
 his chief amusement was in reading novels and 
 romances, with which I had occasionally the 
 pleasure of supplying hinu He had a very 
 choice collection of books at his house in 
 Argyle Square, and I had great pleasure in 
 visiting him of an afternoon and turning over 
 his collection. He was very kind in his inter- 
 course and pleasing in his manners. 
 
 I have observed that the preservation of the 
 literature of Scotland was my favourite hobby, 
 and I resolved on printing and preserving some 
 memorials of it from MSS. pointed out to me 
 by Mr Paton. About this year, 1796, I had 
 perused, with no small delight, the diary of 
 Robert Birrel, which, however, I considered as 
 too small for publication, and therefore thought 
 of adding to it some other Scotch tracts, and 
 making a volume. 
 
 It was at this period that Mr John Graham 
 Daly ell, who had just returned from the College 
 of St Andrews, happened to call upon me in 
 quest of some book, and we fell into conversa- 
 tion. Finding him intelligent, and much dis- 
 posed to be civil, the foundation was laid of a 
 connection — ^I may say intimacy — which has 
 continued ever since. Mr Daly ell became my 
 
 * About the year 1798 I published several religi- 
 ous works for Dr Erskine, a very kind and good 
 friend of mine, and through his means I had some 
 correspondence with America, which was probably 
 more generally useful than pecuniarily profitable. 
 
176 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 frequent visitor ; he was studying law, and just 
 about to enter the Faculty of Advocates, to 
 which he was admitted some time in the year 
 1797. He undertook, with great readiness and 
 zeal, the editing of ** Birrel's Diary," which was 
 published the following year, in a volume en- 
 titled ''Fragments of Scottish History," of 
 which I printed three hundred copies with 
 tolerable success. 
 
 For editing the "Fragments of Scottish His- 
 tory " I gave Mr Dalyell from £20 to £30, the 
 first sum of that amount I had paid for this sort 
 of literary labour. My first purchase of a 
 copyright was a volume of "Discourses" by 
 Dr Erskine, for which I paid £100, and of 
 which I gave Mr Creech a share, finding it con- 
 venient to divide the risk, and as I felt at the 
 time that his name would add respectability to 
 the title-page. 
 
 About the year 1796 1 was introduced to David 
 Erskine, Earl of Buchan. He became my con- 
 stant visitor, and bestowed on me many marks 
 of his kind approbation. Indeed, I acknowledge 
 myself considerably indebted for his lordship's 
 notice. He used to communicate to me during 
 his daily visits such information regarding the 
 authors and literature of Scotland as he thought 
 might be advantageous in promoting a know- 
 ledge of my profession ; he used to talk much 
 of the Society of Antiquaries, which he had a 
 good many years before established, and of 
 which society, I had, about a year before, been 
 made a member; I used frequently to attend 
 the meetings, and not without advantage, from 
 the opportunity there afforded of making the 
 acquaintance of the learned members of the 
 society. It was in the year 1796 that I was 
 admitted, having been proposed by the late Sir 
 James Colquhoun and Mr John Davidson. I 
 was on several occasions an office-bearer, but 
 have long discontinued my attendance. With 
 the Earl of Buchan I have continued on terms 
 of intimacy, and during his lordship's residence 
 in Edinburgh have often met at his house dis- 
 tinguished strangers, to whom I might not, 
 without such a channel, have had access. He is 
 now far advanced in life, and whatever may be 
 the opinion of others, is certainly in my estima- 
 tion a nobleman of learning and usefulness. I 
 have met with no one more distinguished for 
 the talent of ready wit, when he chooses to be 
 intelligible. His lordship's history is well 
 known, and will be related in a more suitable 
 manner than I can pretend to do it. There is 
 certainly a great deal of oddity in his manner, 
 and by many who have not had opportunities 
 of appreciating his real character, he is often 
 treated with a disrespect by no means due to 
 him. He was left in early life with a very small 
 fortune, which he has lived greatly to improve ; 
 and it ought not to be forgot, in estimating the 
 Earl of Buchan, that it was under his direction 
 and care that his two younger brothers were 
 
 educated, in a manner which qualified them for, 
 and led to their filling, the highest oflSces in the 
 State. The Hon. Henry Erskine was twice Lord 
 Advocate of Scotland, and it is well known how 
 distinguished a figure his younger brother, Lord 
 Erskine, has made in public life.* 
 
 My friend the late George Constable of Wal- 
 lace Craigie f recommended me particularly to 
 Mr John Davidson, and the acquaintance of a 
 person of his respectability was to a young man 
 in my position a matter of some moment, had 
 it only been for the information which I got 
 from him during our occasional intercourse. 
 
 I had the good fortune to be well known also 
 to the Hon. Andrew Erskine, the son of Alex- 
 ander, Earl of Kellie, and grandson, by his 
 mother, of the celebrated Dr Archibald Pitcaim, 
 He inherited no small share of the wit and genius 
 of his maternal ancestor, and he wrote several 
 very pretty songs, some of them published by 
 Mr George Thomson. He printed several little 
 tracts and squibs, and was the author of •' Town 
 Eclogues," published in quarto by Mr Creech 
 about the year 1776. Mr Erskine was one of the 
 most unassuming men I have ever known, had an 
 excellent taste in the fine arts, and possessed a 
 small though choice library, his slender fortune 
 not allowing him to indulge much in this way. 
 He died suddenly at Caroline Park, near Edin- 
 burgh, in the year 1793. He was tall, and 
 rather of an awkward appearance ; the print of 
 him by Kay, along with Sir John Whiteford, 
 who was his constant walking companion, is 
 extremely like. 
 
 The number of literary men in Edinburgh was 
 at this period highly respectable, and might 
 have afforded the trade an opportunity of pub- 
 lishing a much greater number of new books 
 than are to be met with in the annals of the 
 period. In the Church — Principal Kobertson, 
 Dr Hugh Blair, Dr Henry, Dr James Mac- 
 knight, Dr John Erskine, and others ; in law and 
 general literature — Lord Hailes, Lord Monboddo, 
 Dr Joseph Black, Dr William Cullen, Robert 
 Burns, Lord Kames, Mr Dugald Stewart, and 
 many others. There were only two periodical 
 works published in Edinburgh at this time: 
 the Scots Magazine^ by Murray k, Cochrane; 
 and the Edinburgh Magazine, by Mr Sibbald. 
 The Scots Magazine was commenced in 1739 by 
 Sands, Brymer, Murray, and Cochrane, a few 
 
 * " Lord Buchan has published at different times 
 some small fugitive pieces ; he was a frequent contri- 
 butor to the Bee, published by Dr Anderson, and 
 has now for his amusement a small printing-press at 
 Dryburgh Abbey. In the Scots Magazine for 1802 
 there will be found some singular verses by his lord- 
 ship, addressed to the late Duchess of Gordon ; and 
 there exists a still more curious parody on the same 
 by a friend of his own. The late Dr Leyden was then 
 editor of the magazine." — Archibald Constablb. 
 
 t The original of Jonathan Oldbuck in *'The 
 Antiquary." 
 
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 177 
 
 years after the GentlemarC s Magazine^ and such 
 appears to have "been the risk of publication that 
 four individuals divided the expense of the 
 work. 
 
 [One of Constable's first attempts at publish- 
 ing was a reprint of Bishop Beveridge's " Private 
 Thoughts on Eeligion." The S>cots Magazine^ 
 started in 1739, esteemed a useful miscellany, 
 and a repository of curious facts, became his 
 property in 1801. John Leyden, the poet and 
 Orientalist, and one of Constable's first editors 
 of this periodical, might be frequently seen 
 perched on a ladder reading some folio in his 
 shop in the High Street. The Farmer's Magazine^ 
 under the editorship of Mr R. Brown, an East 
 Lothian agriculturist, was commenced in 1802. 
 During Constable's first visit to London, in March 
 1795, he made the acquaintance of Mr Long- 
 man. Along with this publisher he acquired a 
 fourth share of the copyright of the " Minstrelsy 
 of the Scottish Border ; " and in the same year, 
 along with Messrs Manners & Miller, he under- 
 took an edition of the Abyssinian travels of 
 James Bruce of Kinnaird, in eight volumes, 8vo. 
 This latter work was published in 1804, edited 
 by Rev. Alexander Murray. Mr Longman, 
 writing to Constable on business matters at this 
 time, expressed himself thus: "I indeed con- 
 gratulate myself on my more intimate acquaint- 
 ance with you, as a real man of business, of 
 honourable mind, and of universally acknow- 
 ledged talents in your profession." The first 
 number of the Edinburgh Review appeared on 
 10th October 1802 ; it was placed in Constable's 
 hands by its projectors as the man most likely 
 to promote its success. The three first numbers 
 were presented gratuitously to the publishers. 
 The literary remuneration was fixed first at £10, 
 and afterwards at sixteen guineas per sheet, and 
 occasionally Lord Jeffrey, who had an unlimited 
 discretion in this respect, paid the contributions 
 much higher, from twenty to twenty-five guineas 
 a sheet. Jeffrey's own income at the commence' 
 ment of his labours was £300 per annum, which 
 sum was afterwards raised to £800. 
 
 The London agency for No. 1 of the Review 
 vas entrusted to Mr Joseph Mawman, but some 
 dissatisfaction having arisen as to his manage- 
 ment, it was transferred to Messrs Longman, 
 who secured a half share in the property of 
 the work, and who from 1826 until the pre- 
 sent date have been its sole proprietors. Those 
 who can read the signs of the times, however, 
 are of opinion that the popular day of the 
 heavy quarterly review is already over, and that 
 the success of the monthly periodicals, the Con- 
 temporary Review and the Nineteenth Century, 
 has helped to bring this about. The germ of 
 the Edinburgh Annual Register, and the London 
 (Quarterly Review, is to be found in letters be- 
 tween Mr Constable and his partner, Mr A. G. 
 Hunter, written in 1807. Alexander Gibson 
 
 Hunter, of Blackness, was assumed a partner in 
 the firm of A. Constable & Co. in 1804. With 
 Thomas Campbell, the poet, Mr Constable bar- 
 gained for a volume of travels in 1803, and made 
 an advance of money to him on the faith of the 
 book, but as Campbell never wrote the proposed 
 volume, the money had to be repaid with inter- 
 est. He contributed at least three articles to 
 the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " while it was in 
 Constable's hands. John Leyden edited for Mr 
 Constable "The Complaynt of Scotland," a poli- 
 tical work, and, in 1802, for a time edited the 
 Scots Magazine, contributing to it both in prose 
 and verse. Alexander Murray, a contemporary 
 of Leyden's, and a great linguist, undertook, as 
 we have said, the editorship of an edition of the 
 travels of James Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, 
 prefixing a memoir to them. With John Murray, 
 the eminent London publisher, he also kept up 
 a considerable correspondence, which was how- 
 ever frequently interrupted. He shared the 
 risk, and also in the profit of many important 
 publications. On the 6th of March 1807, Murray 
 married Miss Elliot, daughter of Charles Elliot, 
 a well-known Edinburgh bookseller. Mr Con- 
 stable had also close personal dealings, literary 
 and otherwise, with the greater portion of the 
 talent of the time eminent in science and litera- 
 ture. Amongst these great names were : George 
 Chalmers, author of "Caledonia;" Sir John 
 Graham Dalyell, Joseph Ritson, John Pinker- 
 ton, Robert Jamieson, David Stewart Erskine, 
 Earl of Buchan, Dugald Stewart, William God- 
 win, Niebuhr, Lord Woodhouselee, Lord Jeffrey, 
 John Home, Henry Mackenzie, Charles Kirk- 
 patrick Sharpe, James Hogg, the Ettrick Shep- 
 herd ; Charles Maclaren, J. R. M'Culloch, James 
 Mill, William Hazlitt, Sir James Mackintosh, 
 Maria Edgeworth, Washington Irving, Captain 
 Basil Hall, etc. When we add to this that 
 he held the copyright of the "Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica," and so many of Scott's novels ; 
 that he was the originator of the first real 
 attempt to supply good and wholesome litera- 
 ture at a cheap rate, for the great body of the 
 people, in the issue of Constable's Miscellany; 
 we have perhaps said enough to show that a 
 conscientious publisher, working no less for his 
 own, than for the interests of the great public, 
 must take high rank among the benefactors of 
 his kind. "In these days," says Carlyle, "ten 
 ordinary histories of kings and courtiers were 
 well exchanged against the tenth part of one 
 good history of booksellers." 
 
 Two stories are told in which Constable was 
 at fault in his refusal of MS. productions. 
 James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, having had 
 one volume of minor poems issued by him, 
 approached him again to negotiate for another 
 volume. Constable made the very reasonable 
 request that he should have a sight of the MS. 
 before he made an offer for the book. This 
 Hogg refused, saying : " What skill have yoa 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 about the merit of a book?" "It may be so, 
 Hogg," replied Constable; " but I know as well 
 how to sell a book as any man, which should be 
 some consequence of yours; and I know, too, 
 how to buy one." Hogg found another pub- 
 lisher, for what proved to be his most successful 
 poem, "The Queen's Wake." Another refusal 
 more disastrous in its consequences, though 
 entirely unforeseen by the publisher, was the 
 refusal of Eobert Tannahill's poems, which had 
 been offered to him at a very small price. Con- 
 stable, distrusting his own judgment in this 
 matter, and apparently having no one else at 
 hand to consult, returned them. Tannahill 
 shortly afterwards, in a madness of despair, put 
 a period to his existence. In 1808 the business 
 of Constable's house was found to be so exten- 
 sive that a London branch was opened. A 
 breach in the friendship between Scott and Con- 
 stable took place shortly after this, which, ac- 
 cording to the former, was caused by the intem- 
 perate language of Constable's partner Hunter. 
 
 Not until the publication of the work entitled 
 "Archibald Constable and his Literary Corres- 
 pondents," was the correct story of Sir Walter 
 Scott's relationship with the publishing firms of 
 Messrs Ballantyne & Co. , and A. Constable and 
 Co., fully known. This presents to the reader 
 a side of Scott's character which is not so fully 
 given in Lockhart's otherwise admirable "Life of 
 Scott." What this business connection was, how 
 shrewdly and anxiously Scott looked after, and 
 pushed his worldly concerns, and, on the whole, 
 how liberal and upright a publisher he had in 
 Constable, may be gathered from the following 
 condensed record. At the same time Lockhart 
 has said regarding this publisher, that " among 
 all his myriad of undertakings, I question if any 
 one that really originated with himself, and 
 continued to be superintended by his own care, 
 ever did fail." 
 
 The first real business dealings between Scott 
 and Constable began with the publication of 
 the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," and 
 " Sir Tristrem." In the copyright of the " Lay 
 of the Last Minstrel" he had a fourth share. 
 For "Marmion" he offered a thousand guineas, 
 which was at once accepted by Scott. Two 
 London publishers. Miller, and Murray of Albe- 
 marle Street, had also a small share in the copy- 
 right. Two thousand copies, at a guinea and a 
 half each, were disposed of in less than a month. 
 In 1808 we next find Scott entering into an 
 agreement with Constable for an edition of 
 Swift's works in nineteen or twenty volumes, 
 with life of the author, and notes, critical and 
 illustrative, for the sum of £1500. Sir Walter 
 Scott became a partner in the firm of James 
 Ballantyne & Co. in 1805, and without doubt 
 became so far responsible for many of the 
 literary undertakings of the firm. Many of 
 these undertakings were simply ruinous, as the 
 sequel showed. The novel "Waverley," being 
 
 shown to Constable, he detected its authorship, 
 and offered £700 for the copyright. Scott 
 refused this, declaring that if the novel proved 
 unsuccessful, this sum was too great; if it 
 should succeed, too small. A division of profits 
 was agreed upon. The price of "Waverley" 
 was one guinea; and a thousand copies were 
 printed as a first edition. Without speaking of 
 its after-success, it yielded to both publisher 
 and author, for the first year alone, £1052. 
 During the year 1814 Scott had been very hard 
 at work. He had nearly done the whole of his 
 "Life of Swift," had finished "Waverley," and 
 the "Lord of the Isles;" edited the "Memorie 
 of the Somervilles," and prepared some matter 
 for the " Encyclopsedia Britannica." Eeturning 
 to Abbotsford to "refresh the machine," he did 
 so by writing " Guy Mannering," which was the 
 work of six weeks. Scott at this time was 
 smitten with "yird hunger," or a desire for 
 landed property, and also required money to 
 keep floating the numerous concerns in which 
 he had entangled himself. The former wish he 
 gratified by sinking a great portion of his literary 
 gains in the purchase of land at Tweedside. The 
 printing of any of his new novels was invariably 
 executed at the press of James Ballantyne and 
 Co. ; and when any new agreement for their 
 publication was made with Archibald Constable 
 and Co., it was also the rule that the latter 
 firm should purchase along with it a portion of 
 Ballantyne's unsaleable stock. This method of 
 dealing began with the publication of "Guy 
 Mannering." The whole edition was printed 
 off. Scott got bills to the amount of what was 
 reckoned as the half profits on the edition, 
 which supplied him with the money which was 
 so constantly required. " The Antiquary " was 
 published in 1816, and was quite as successful 
 as "Guy Mannering." Scott, who all along 
 proved remarkably sharp at making a bargain, 
 had " Tales of My Landlord," containing " The 
 Black Dwarf" and "Old Mortality," published 
 by arrangement with the rival houses of Black- 
 wood and John Murray. Six thousand copies 
 of this new book were printed off within six 
 weeks of publication. 
 
 Writing on May 3, 1817, Scott invited John 
 Ballantyne to Abbotsford, to arrange about 
 another novel, asking him to bring Constable 
 with him. "By the way," he says, "you 
 must attend that the usual quantity of stock is 
 included in the arrangement — that is, £600 for 
 6000 copies." Ballantyne wrote to his brother 
 James of the entire success of his mission. "I 
 am this moment returned from Abbotsford, 
 with entire and full success. Wish me joy. I 
 shall gain above £600, Constable taking my 
 share of stock also. The title is 'Rob Roy,* 
 by the author of ' Waverley.' Keep this letter 
 for me. — J. B." On this letter, scribbled at a 
 later date, were the words: '•'■ N.B. — I did gain 
 £1200.— J. B." Before " Rob Roy" was finished 
 
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 179 
 
 another work of fiction was bargained for, a 
 third series of "Tales of My Landlord;" and 
 Constable, anxious to cut out Murray and 
 Blackwood, agreed to take over the whole of 
 the remainder of Ballantyne's unsaleable stock. 
 The first edition of **Rob Roy" consisted of 
 10,000 copies. Within three weeks of its issue 
 an edition of 3000 was again at press. In 1818 
 the house of Constable & Co. had, for their own 
 security, effected an insurance on the life of 
 Scott. Cadell wrote that year as follows : 
 "What with the 'Continental Letters,' the 
 new * Tales,' and the * History of Scotland,' we 
 have a prodigious stake in the great man. . . . 
 We may, without being too sanguine, calculate 
 on £8000 or £10,000 of profit on works already 
 contracted for." In 1819 an arrangement was 
 come to whereby the copyrights of all Scott's 
 works then existing, with the exception of a 
 fourth share of " Marmion," held by John 
 Murray, and consisting of sixteen volumes, 
 were transferred to Messrs Constable &■ Co. at 
 the price of £12,000. 
 
 A third series of "Tales of My Landlord" 
 was issued on June 10, 1819, and was well 
 received by the public. It comprised "The 
 Bride of Lammermoor" and "A Legend of 
 Montrose." The romance of "Ivanhoe" fol- 
 lowed next; its immediate sale was 12,000 
 copies. For the copyright of this novel, along 
 with "The Monastery," "The Abbot," and 
 " Kenilworth," Scott received five thousand 
 guineas from Constable & Co., making his total 
 profit on these novels £15,000. Just before the 
 publication of the "Fortunes of Nigel" Scott 
 had bargained with his publishers, and received 
 bills for " four works of fiction," to be produced 
 as fast as possible. This bargain was fulfilled 
 by the issue of " Peveril of the Peak," " Quen- 
 tinDurward," "St Ronan's Well," and "Red- 
 gauntlet," all of which were written and pub- 
 lished within two years. For the copyrights of 
 "The Pirate," "Fortunes of Nigel," "Peveril 
 of the Peak," and "Quentin Durward," he 
 received five thousand guineas. Up to, and 
 including this bargain, the firm of Constable 
 und Co. had paid for copyrights the sum of 
 £22,500; this sum was over and above the 
 author's profit on previous editions. At this same 
 time bills had been given for unwritten works 
 of fiction to the amount of £10,000. During 
 all the correspondence necessary for these 
 transactions, Constable aided Sir Walter Scott 
 with much shrewd practical advice, as to sub- 
 jects and materials. 
 
 In March 1822 Scott wrote to Constable as 
 follows: "They talk of a farmer making two 
 blades of grass grow where one grew before, but 
 you, my good friend, have made a dozen volumes 
 where probably but one would have existed ; for 
 the love of fame is soon satiated ; and, besides, 
 a man who is fond of it turns timid and afraid 
 of indulging it ; but I should like to see who is 
 
 insensible to the solid comfort of £8000 a year, 
 especially if he buys land, builds, and improves. 
 To be sure, this depends on the caprice of public 
 taste, but while it lasts it lasts. And now I 
 have got my legs again I have no great fear of a 
 speedy failure. ... I admire how you moved 
 oflF your stock. You certainly have the knack, 
 as Captain Macheath's song, so fatal to Deacon 
 Brodie, has it, of turning all your lead to gold. 
 You know my way of thinking of these matters : 
 I never wish to make a bargain by which the 
 bookseller shall not have the full share of the 
 advantage, because the talent of writing and the 
 power of selling books are two very different 
 things; and as it is difficult or impossible to 
 cram a bad book down the throats of the public, 
 so there are many of the trade in whose hands 
 a good one is perfectly stationary." Mr Con- 
 stable was living at Castlebeare Park, near Lon- 
 don, when "The Fortunes of Nigel" was pub- 
 lished. Writing to Scott, he mentioned that 
 the smack "Ocean," by which the work was 
 shipped to London, arrived at the wharf on 
 Sunday ; the bales were got out by one o'clock 
 on Monday morning, and before half-past ten 
 o'clock 7000 copies had been despatched from 
 the publisher's warehouse. "I was in town 
 yesterday," he says, "and so keenly were the 
 people devouring my friend * Jingling Geordie,' 
 that I actually saw them reading it in the 
 streets as they passed along. I assure you 
 there is no exaggeration in this." During the 
 great commercial disasters of 1826, the houses of 
 Constable & Co. and Ballantyne & Co. failed, 
 and Sir Walter Scott, being so closely identified 
 with the latter firm, fell with them. The 
 liabilities of Constable & Co. amounted to up- 
 wards of a quarter of a million. The Ballan- 
 tynes were also bankrupt to the extent of 
 £88,607, 19s. 9d. This was a terrible blow to 
 the great publisher, whose health was now 
 failing. Previous to the failure, his partner, 
 Robert Cadell, had intimated his intention of 
 retiring from partnership. " Until 1814," writes 
 Mr Thomas Constable, "when the difficulties of 
 Ballantyne & Co., and the private necessities of 
 Sir Walter Scott, for the purchase of land, led 
 to an unholy alliance that soon resulted in a 
 series of bills and counter-bills, which eventually 
 ruined all concerned, my father's commercial 
 career had been one of unbroken and perhaps 
 unparalleled success. At the age of fourteen 
 years he had left home to be apprenticed to an 
 Edinburgh bookseller ; seven years later he was 
 a married man, in business on his own account, 
 and had established personal relations with 
 many of the most distinguished scholars and 
 book collectors of the period." Mr Alexander 
 Gibson Hunter, after being a partner with Con- 
 stable for seven years, retired with an addition 
 to his fortune of £21,000. He was succeeded by 
 Mr Robert Cadell and Mr Robert Cathcart, the 
 latter of whom died shortly afterwards. 
 
180 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Meantime the health of Archibald Constable 
 gave way. Although cheered by the success of 
 the Miscellany^ he was still sadly depressed in 
 spirit, dropsical symptoms appeared, his appe- 
 tite fell away, and to those who knew him the 
 end did not seem far distant. He died on the 
 21st of July 1827. 
 
 Mr Eobert Cadell having begun business on 
 his own account after these commercial disasters, 
 Sir Walter Scott extended his patronage to him. 
 The copyrights of his works were purchased from 
 the bankrupt estate of Constable & Co. for the 
 author and publisher. They cost £8500, and it 
 has been said that before the whole of Scott's 
 copyrights could be secured, additional sums to 
 the amount of £29,000 had to be paid. A re- 
 issue of the whole of Scott's works was deter- 
 mined upon, enriched with the author's notes. 
 This edition, when published, had an enormous 
 sale. The claims on Scott's estate amounted to 
 £120,000. ''Time and I against any two," he 
 remarked; "no man shall in the end lose one 
 penny by me." The future sales of his works 
 did indeed extinguish this debt. Between 
 January 1826 and January 1828, sums to the 
 amount of £40,000 had been paid. After Scott's 
 death the whole debt was paid off on February 
 2, 1833. Cadell died after a prosperous career 
 on January 21, 1849. On March 26, 1851, the 
 novels, poems, and prose works of Sir Walter 
 Scott, including the "Life" by Lockhart, were 
 put up to auction at the London Coffee-House 
 by Hodgson, and purchased by Messrs A. & C. 
 Black, of Edinburgh, in conjunction with their 
 friends, Messrs Richardson, for £27,000. The 
 copyrights of this edition of Scott's works now 
 rest with the publishers alone; and from the 
 time they possessed them they have never 
 ceased, from time to time, to supply the public 
 with useful, beautiful, and tasteful editions.] 
 
 THE "ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA.* 
 
 The following account of the origin and pro- 
 gress of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica" and its 
 supplement was addressed by Archibald Con- 
 stable to Mr Joseph Ogle Robinson in the autumn 
 of 1821 : 
 
 "The actual projector of the ' Encyclopsedia ' 
 was the late Mr Colin M'Farquhar, printer in 
 Edinburgh. In Ker's * Life of William Smellie,' 
 a very singular performance, an attempt is made 
 to give him credit for more than his share of the 
 undertaking, which, as I have always believed, 
 was merely that of a contributor for hire. Mr 
 M'Farquhar v/as, however, a person of excellent 
 taste and very general knowledge, though at 
 starting, like many others, he had little or no 
 capital, and was obliged to associate Mr Andrew 
 Bell, then the principal engraver in Edinburgh, 
 as a partner in his undertaking. The first edi- 
 tion consisted of three volumes ; the impression, 
 I have understood, was somewhere about 3000 
 
 copies; it was several years in progress, pub- 
 lished in numbers, and completed, to the best 
 of my recollection, sometime in the 70's of the 
 last century. A book was got up then at very 
 little expense, and I believe this turned out a 
 very profitable undertaking. A person of the 
 name of Tytler, the inventor of balloons in Scot- 
 land, and who used to compose and set the types 
 at the same moment, was a large contributor to 
 the three first editions of this work ; he was a 
 red-wud politician, and, if I am not mistaken, 
 went to America about the year 1793, to escape 
 being prosecuted for sedition. 
 
 "The second edition of the * Encyclopasdia ' 
 was begun very soon after the completion of the 
 first, was published also in numbers, and finished 
 about the year 1785, in ten volumes ; this edition 
 was still more successful than the first, con- 
 tinued the property of the same persons, but 
 was sold chiefly through the medium of the late 
 Mr Charles Elliot, then a bookseller of great 
 respectability at Edinburgh. As to the impres- 
 sion of the second edition, I am not certain, but 
 it was considerably larger than the first. 
 
 "After more than a year's preparation, a third 
 edition was announced in the year 1787, and the 
 first number of it published early in the succeed- 
 ing year, about which period my acquaintance 
 with the book commenced; the impression was 
 begun, I believe, at 5000 copies, and concluded 
 with a sale of 13,000. Mr M'Farquhar, who 
 had acted as editor of the two first editions, 
 continued this laborious office to the third ; but, 
 worn out by fatigue and anxiety of mind, he 
 died when about fifty years of age, before it was 
 half finished. Dr George Gleig, of Stirling, a 
 bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and a 
 person of some literary name, was from this 
 period employed as editor ; and for the times, 
 and the limited sum allowed him for the reward 
 of contributors, his part in the work was con- 
 sidered as very well done. 
 
 "Mr M'Farquhar's family and Mr Bell were 
 the only proprietors of this great and lucrative 
 concern. A person of the name of James Hunter, 
 a bookseller of no character but of considerable 
 activity, was one of the chief vendors to the 
 trade. He was cheated by a man of the name 
 of Spottiswood, and his affairs got into disorder ; 
 he had a shop in Middle Row, Holborn, and 
 died more than twenty years ago. Mr Thomson 
 Bonar, who had married the daughter of Mr 
 Bell, and was by trade a wine merchant, became 
 the seller of the book. He was the proprietor 
 of the supplement by Gleig, and made a con- 
 siderable sum of money ; but he had quarrelled 
 with his father-in-law, and the consequence was 
 that Mr Bell would not see him during the last 
 ten years of his life. Eighteen volumes of the 
 third edition of the ' Encyclopaedia ' were com- 
 pleted some time about the year 1796 or 1797, 
 when, in order to wind up the concern, it was 
 necessary to dispose of the copyright and the 
 
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 181 
 
 remaining "books. Mr Bell was tte purchaser 
 of the whole, and gave, I think. £13 a copy, 
 copyright and odd volumes included. The 
 demand for the book continued, and Bell soon 
 disposed of the whole complete copies to the 
 trade, printed up the odd volumes, and by 
 this means kept the work in the market for 
 several years. 
 
 ** Towards the latter end of the year 1802 I 
 became intimately acquainted with Mr Bell. 
 From this period till his death, which happened, 
 I think, in the year 1809, I generally spent one 
 afternoon in the week with him, and sometimes 
 two — indeed, his calls upon my time were fre- 
 quently a little Inconvenient. I gave him a 
 great deal of advice, and if he had not had 
 grandchildren and two or three writers as agents, 
 besides other interested persons about him, the 
 trouble I took in his service might have been 
 more beneficial to us both. He made a proposi- 
 tion early in 1804 to give to me and my then 
 partner, Mr Hunter, for £20,000, the whole 
 that was then printed of a fourth edition, and 
 the copyright, printing materials, etc., and I 
 have often regretted since that the speculation 
 was not entered into. Mr Hunter and I were in 
 London in March 1804, when it was in agitation. 
 We intended, if it did go on, that our friend 
 Thomas Hurst should be one of the chief ven- 
 dors of the work, as well as of our other publi- 
 cations. 
 
 "Mr Bell retained the property, but he died 
 before the fourth edition was finished, leaving 
 two sets of trustees — one literary, to make the 
 money, and the other legal, to lay it out after 
 it was made. The trustees, as a matter of 
 course, went to law to ascertain their rights. I 
 know the expense on one side amounted to 
 £5000. . . . We became the purchasers of 
 the greater part of the edition, and the late 
 Vernor h Hood transacted with Mr Bell for the 
 remainder. He commenced this edition at an 
 impression of 1250 copies, and concluded, I 
 think, at 4000, two-thirds of which passed 
 through our hands. A fifth edition was then 
 begun, and a transaction made for the impres- 
 sion after Mr Bell's death, with one of the sets 
 of his trustees ; it was to be equally divided be- 
 tween Vernor & Hood and my firm, but no 
 joint responsibility. The trustees quarrelled 
 amongst themselves, and to relinquish this trans- 
 action the booksellers got £1000 each. The 
 management of the edition, or rather misman- 
 agement, went on under the lawyer trustees for 
 several years, and at last the whole property was 
 again brought to the market by public sale. 
 There were about 1800 copies printed of the first 
 five volumes, which formed one lot ; the copy- 
 right formed another, and so on. The whole 
 was purchased by myself, and in my name, for 
 between £13,000 and £14,000; and it was said 
 by the wise booksellers of Edinburgh and others 
 that I had now completely ruined myself and 
 
 all connected with me by a purchase to such an 
 enormous amount : this was early in 1812. None 
 of them had dreamt of a supplement, but in a 
 happy moment, in contemplation that such a 
 thing might happen, I had purchased the copy- 
 right of the supplement to the third edition 
 from Mr Bonar, a gentleman with whom I found 
 it necessary to be considerably connected, as I 
 shall now explain ; but before doing so, I shall 
 give you an account of the mode in which the 
 fourth edition was edited. Mr Bell intended 
 the fifth as a mere reprint. 
 
 " Dr James Millar, who is now the editor of 
 the *Edinensis,' was editor of the fourth edi- 
 tion of the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' He 
 was destined originally for the Church of Scot- 
 land; he afterwards studied medicine, and ob- 
 tained a degree in the ordinary manner at Edin- 
 burgh a great many years ago. He was settled 
 some time as a physician at Paisley, was partial 
 to the study of natural history, and is said to 
 be a very good chemist. He is a slow, dilatory 
 person, and by no means very well qualified for 
 the task he undertook. The editorship was 
 offered by Mr Bell to Dr Thomas Thomson, 
 chemist, who declined it, and recommended Dr 
 Millar as a proper person, who accordingly com- 
 menced operations in the year 1800 or 1801. 
 His allowance as editor, and his powers, were 
 very limited. His temper was said to be in- 
 difl'erent, and the consequence was a quarrel 
 between him and Mr Bell; and I believe that 
 for fully more than a year they had no personal 
 communication. This happened after my inti- 
 mate acquaintance with Mr Bell, and I did all 1 
 could to have matters restored to a good un- 
 derstanding. Dr Millar complained of small 
 payment from Mr Bell, and Mr Bell alleged in- 
 different performance of duty. Perhaps there 
 was justice in both. Dr Millar appointed Mr 
 Napier, the present editor of the supplement, 
 as his friend to settle differences, and I was ap- 
 pointed on the part of Mr Bell. Dr Millar's ac- 
 quaintance with Mr Napier was entirely through 
 myself. We got matters adjusted by a consider- 
 able increase of Dr Millar's salary. A formal 
 agreement was drawn up, in which I was named 
 by both parties as the sole referee if any similar 
 difficulty should occur, and I was to be entitled 
 at all times to ascertain how Dr Millar was 
 going on. It is known to the doctor how far a 
 due delicacy was observed towards him. 
 
 "Mr Bonar, who had long been well acquainted 
 with the book, thought he could conduct it, and, 
 living next door to where the printing was car- 
 ried on, had resolved on the purchase. Being 
 possessed of a good deal of cash, he appeared to 
 me rather a formidable rival. Mr Cathcart was 
 then a partner in my house, and after some con- 
 sultation with him, and sundry interviews with 
 Mr Bonar, it was agreed that the purchase 
 should be made in my name for the joint con- 
 cerns, Mr Bonar holding a third. I had pur- 
 
182 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 chased, as I have said, the copyright of the 
 supplement from Mr Bonar himself, some years 
 hefore, for £100. I believe it contained many 
 articles of value, not in the fifth edition, vsrhich 
 it was resolved at this time should be incor- 
 porated in any succeeding edition, or in a sup- 
 plement. It was consequently necessary that 
 this supplement should form a part of the trans- 
 action, and it was accordingly valued to the new 
 concern at £600, and Mr Bonar paid one-third 
 of the amount. When Mr Cathcart and Mr 
 Cadell were admitted into the firm of A. Con- 
 stable & Co. , the supplement, for which I Lad 
 paid £100, was what I then called a dormant 
 property, and was valued in the stock at either 
 £100 or £200, while the sale of one-third of it 
 to Mr Bonar about a year afterwards produced 
 £200. The arrangements for the new supple- 
 ment had not at this time taken place, other- 
 wise Mr Bonar would, in all probability, have 
 paid a much larger sum. We issued proposals 
 for republishing the 'Encyclopaedia' in parts 
 in January 1813, and we very speedily, through 
 ray own plans in London and elsewhere, suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining orders for 1200 or 1300 
 copies. The announcement of the siipplement 
 was the great means by which this was accom- 
 plished, and of this great work it was a matter 
 of course that Mr Bonar should hold a third 
 share. 
 
 *' The printing of the fifth edition now pro- 
 ceeded under a sort of superintendence of Mr 
 Bonar, who died just before the conclusion of 
 the printing of the fifteen volumes. His share 
 of advances had been considerable, and his 
 profit at this period, as fixed by the agreement, 
 had to be settled for, as the whole fell into the 
 hands of A. Constable & Co. Mr Bonar's trus- 
 tees were his brothers, the bankers of that name, 
 men of the first moneyed influence in Edinburgh. 
 In an interview with myself they offered either 
 to continue the concern for the benefit of Mr 
 Bonar's family, or to close it on the terms of the 
 contract, as I might wish and recommend. Mr 
 Bonar's advances at this time amounted to 
 about £6000. His profit was to be on the liter- 
 ary property of the 'Encyclopaedia,' if his 
 death happened before the edition was finished. 
 There was no part of the supplement then ready, 
 but the £200 he had paid formed one of his 
 items of outlay. The property of the 'Ency- 
 clopaedia' was purchased, I think, at £5500, 
 which sum was to be doubled ; consequently at 
 this date the copyright, independent of the sup- 
 plement, was valued at £11,000. A third share 
 of this was added to Mr Bonar's outlay, but 
 the book had been so extremely successful 
 that I did not think it fair to close the trans- 
 action on these terms, and added £50§ to the 
 amount. . . . 
 
 •* When I projected the supplement, my object 
 was to confine it to four, or at the very utmost 
 five volumes, and on these principles all my calcu- 
 
 lations of expense and sale proceeded. The first 
 article arranged for was one on chemistry by 
 Sir Humphry Davy, but he went abroad, and I 
 released him from his engagement and employed 
 Mr Brand ; the second article was Mr Stewart's 
 dissertation, for which I agreed to pay him 
 £1000, leaving the extent of it to himself, but 
 with this understanding, that it was not to be 
 under ten sheets, and might extend to twenty. 
 I need not tell you that Mr Stewart's name 
 stood in the first rank of the philosophers of the 
 day, and it required the high premium of pay- 
 ment, my own intimate connection and friend- 
 ship with him, and a negotiation conducted with 
 some address, to accomplish the important end 
 in view. He had never contributed to any work 
 of the kind, nor was his name to be found as a 
 literary man, except in the title-pages of his 
 own books, and perhaps to an article or two in 
 the Eoyal Society Transactions of Edinburgh. 
 Having got his name and that of Sir Humphry 
 Davy, I could ask all the literary men of the 
 day to unite in my undertaking, and I believe 
 in this respect the authors of the supplement 
 will be found to stand pre-eminently in the first 
 rank. Mr Stewart found, as he proceeded in 
 the article, that to do it justice — and in all in 
 which he was concerned that was done — he must 
 necessarily extend it greatly beyond the pre- 
 scribed limits; a new arrangement was there- 
 fore made with him, by which the extent of the 
 article was to be entirely in his own power, and 
 the remuneration a matter of future adjustment. 
 When the first part was ready, Mr Stewart 
 would not have it printed in the ordinary man- 
 ner, but in one certainly still more ugly, and 
 valuable as the article was to many readers, yet 
 extending it so far as to render its appearance 
 in the work objectionable (perhaps) to no small 
 proportion of its readers. The second part has 
 just appeared, greatly longer than the first, and 
 the subject is not yet concluded. Among the 
 last of my transactions in business in the High 
 Street was fixing with a friend of Mr Stewart 
 the amount of payment for this second part, 
 which I think was £700. Thus we have paid 
 £1700— perhaps it was only £1600— for the 
 great ornament of our book, and certainly the 
 finest piece of writing that ever appeared in any 
 work of the kind. Both the first and second 
 dissertations were completely printed for cor- 
 rection and revision before going to press — 
 occasioning an unusual and increased expense; 
 but Mr Stewart had everything his own way, 
 and our right to the dissertation is limited to 
 the supplement and the ' Encyclopaedia.' 
 
 "In arranging the materials for the work, my 
 next application was to Professor Playfair, of 
 whom no doubt you have heard much, but I 
 cannot avoid here telling you that a man of 
 higher talent, greater worth, and, in short, of 
 purer integrity of mind in his intercourse with 
 the world, never existed. He entered into my 
 
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 183 
 
 views in the readiest and kindest manner ; use- 
 fulness was his object, money was little so, and 
 I made a contract with him for a dissertation, to 
 be equal in length or not to Mr Stewart's, for 
 £250 ; but a short time afterwards I felt that to 
 pay one eminent individual £1000 because he 
 would not take less, and to give another indi- 
 vidual, not perhaps so well known, but not less 
 able, one-half the money for the same work, 
 would be quite unfair, and I wrote to the 
 worthy professor that I had fixed his payment 
 at £600 ; but he was cut oflf before he had fin- 
 ished his task. The first part, like Mr Stewart's, 
 greatly exceeded what was wanted as a whole, 
 In my first view of the subject ; but from such 
 a mind as Playfair's the world could not have 
 too much. The second part, which was at press 
 when he died, is also extensive. I paid him 
 £500 for the first part, and intended a like sum 
 for the second, had it been equally long. , . . 
 
 " My next object, after these arrangements, 
 was to find out what were the greatest defects in 
 the work to which I proposed a supplement, and 
 I thought my best plan was to get reports from 
 different literary men. I accordingly employed 
 Professor Leslie to go over the book and to give 
 me his opinion. He made out a few memoranda 
 in writing, which I believe proved of some use, 
 and he was paid £200, 1 think, for his trouble — 
 a goodly sum, but not too much for a man of his 
 eminence, who would take the trouble of going 
 over twenty volumes in quarto. I put another 
 copy of the book into the hands of Mr Graham 
 Dalyell, whose payment was £100. Professor 
 Wallace afforded me gratuitous advice, and Dr 
 Leach of the British Museum rendered me some 
 assistance in regard to the natural history de- 
 partment, for which he got a copy of the book. 
 After this I prepared a prospectus. The first 
 draught was entirely written by myself, and is 
 still preserved somewhere among my papers. I 
 submitted it in print to Mr Stewart in the first 
 instance, and asked him to correct it for me, 
 but the cautious philosopher referred me to Mr 
 Playfair. To him, therefore, I applied, and 
 indeed would have done so in the first instance, 
 had I not dreaded offence to Mr Stewart. Mr 
 Playfair kept the prospectus, and returned it 
 the next day very greatly improved. For this 
 piece of kiadness I had the honour of sending 
 Mr Playfair six dozen of very fine old sherry. It 
 was not to everybody I would have parted with 
 such wine ; but the only regret which I felt upon 
 this occasion was, that I had nothing better to 
 offer. 
 
 ** Thus far advanced in the project, my atten- 
 tion was now directed to find an editor. My 
 first plan was to have two — one for the strictly 
 literary, and the other for the scientific depart- 
 ment. I thought of various persons, in the 
 event of there being two. I thought of Cadell, 
 whose recent work on Italy I believe has not 
 been well received, though, as the saying is, it 
 
 is better than it is bonny. I applied to the 
 late Dr Thomas Brown, but he was engaged in 
 his own favourite pursuits, and would not 
 embark with me. He preferred writing trash 
 of poetry to useful and lucrative employment. 
 It is fortunate all of us are not equally fond of 
 money, or the scramble would be greater and 
 hard blows more frequent. 
 
 "Various literary men were recommended and 
 thought of ; among others, perhaps in the first 
 rank, was Mr Napier, the present editor, who 
 was then but little known among literary men, 
 and not at all out of the circle of Edinburgh. 
 My acquaintance with him commenced about 
 the year 1798. I remember his first appearance 
 in the High Street most perfectly; he was a 
 genteel-looking young man, and asked for Huet 
 on the ' Commerce of the Ancients,' which I 
 afterwards with considerable difficulty procured 
 for him. From this period he became my daily 
 visitor. He was always received by me with 
 all the kindness I had it in my power to show, 
 and it is due to him to acknowledge that V 
 owed a good many of the early friends of my 
 establishment to his introduction. My shop 
 having become gradually the resort of the senioi 
 literati of the place, it was my pride to associate 
 and to bring forward to the utmost of my oppor- 
 tunity some young men of great promise, who, 
 like myself in regard to original patronage, had 
 started as it were alone. Among these I may 
 enumerate the late eminent Oriental scholars, 
 Dr Leyden and Dr Alex. Murray, Professor 
 Wallace, and many others then in equal ob- 
 scurity. Mr Napier had been educated at 
 Glasgow University; there was a dash of 
 gentility and of aspiring consequence about 
 him greatly beyond the eminent individuals 
 just named, and I believe several years elapsed 
 after their acquaintance in my place of business 
 before they recognised each other elsewhere. 
 Mr Napier had been a hard student, and at 
 college laid a good foundation for his future 
 career, though more perhaps in general informa- 
 tion than in what would be, strictly speaking, 
 called scholarship; this, however, does not fit 
 him the less for his present task. 
 
 •' We purchased the property of the * Ency- 
 clopasdia ' in 1812, and it was towards the end of 
 that year that the arrangements were made, of 
 which I have just spoken, for the supplement. 
 I laid my plans before Mr Napier, and offered 
 him the office of editor, which after a good deal 
 of conversation he agreed to undertake, request- 
 ing that I would lay before him in writing my 
 whole plan, so far as it was formed, which I 
 afterwards did in a long letter, whose contents 
 form the groundwork of what he has since 
 done, and, I must add, so satisfactorily; in- 
 deed, I have great pleasure in saying that he 
 has proved quite fit for the accomplishment of 
 the task confided to him. . . . 
 
 " In the letter to which I have alluded, th* 
 
184 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 terms of remuneration were specified, and are, 
 I believe, in all respects liberal — so far as tbe 
 editor is concerned at any rate,* The allow- 
 ances to him were made to suit what I conceived 
 his then pecuniary circumstances, amply re- 
 warding him, of course, for all his exertions 
 and trouble. An agreement was immediately en- 
 tered into with Mr Napier in a very formal way. 
 He went to London, was introduced to many 
 literary men, most of whom could not decline 
 giving their names to a list in which he could 
 show those of Mr Stewart, Mr Playfair, Sir 
 Walter Scott, Mr Jeffrey, and many others. . . . 
 
 "After Mr Napier undertook the editorship, 
 his first object was, of course, to give the main 
 book an attentive examination, aided by the 
 reports of Leslie and others, which he had 
 before him ; and I have much reason to believe 
 that no man could have been found to have per- 
 formed this task, and to continue it to the best 
 of his judgment, in a more conscientious way 
 than he has done. I believe he found the 
 defects of the work very numerous, and, ex- 
 tended as the plan has been, has not been able 
 to incorporate in the volumes of the supplement 
 one-half of what he could have wished. . . . 
 
 " I do not at present remember if there be an 
 article * Encyclopaedia' in the supplement'; if 
 there be, the history of my book will certainly 
 form a prominent part of it. I remember I 
 wished short biographical notices of the first 
 founders of this great work, but they were, in 
 the opinion of my editor, too insignifican to 
 entitle them to the rank which such separate 
 notice, it was supposed, would have given them 
 as literary men, although his own consequence 
 in the world had its origin in their exertions. 
 
 ** On completing the bargain with you and Mr 
 Hurst, I resolved on having the book revised by 
 a literary man, with reference to the supple- 
 ment. In the course of my correspondence 
 with Edinburgh I mentioned this, but it was 
 strenuously opposed ; considering, however, 
 that it would not be a wise measure to reprint 
 
 * The terms of remuneration I find thus stated in 
 a letter from my father of 11th June 1813: "The 
 sum of £300 sterling in three payments, as you may 
 require the same between the date of agreement and 
 the period at which vol. i., part 1, may go to press, 
 and the sum of £150 on the completion at press of 
 each of the eight half-volumes respectively, and a 
 further sum of £500 on reprinting the work, or 
 during the currency of the first edition, should the 
 proprietors be encouraged to extend the impression 
 of the same beyond 7000 copies. We would further 
 agree to allow you the sum of £200 to defray all inci- 
 dental expenses during the currency of the agree- 
 ment, and to be paid as required. In this way the 
 composition of the four volumes, including the 
 introductory dissertations, wiU amount to consider- 
 ably more than £9000." By a postscript to this 
 letter the certain payment is increased to £1575, the 
 contingent to £735, and the allowance for incidental 
 expenses to £300.— T. C. 
 
 so large a book, year after year, without cor- 
 recting at least its grossest errors, I persisted in 
 my plan, and, I flatter myself, have carried it 
 through with some success. On reaching home, 
 I mentioned Mr Maclaren, a proprietor and 
 contributor to the Scotsman, as the person of 
 my literary acquaintance, disengaged, most 
 likely to do the thing well. Mr Maclaren is 
 one of the ablest men in Scotland, a good 
 staunch Whig, particularly well informed in 
 matters of history and general science — wrote 
 the best character of Sir Samuel Komilly that 
 has appeared, and was well fitted for the under- 
 taking I proposed. 
 
 "I had then an interview with Mr Maclaren, 
 stated what was wanted, and, after some con- 
 sideration, he undertook the work, and, I be- 
 lieve, has done it admirably. His attention was 
 chiefly directed to the historical and geographi- 
 cal articles. He was to keep the press going, 
 and have the whole completed in three years, 
 for which, I think, he received £500 in all — a 
 very moderate payment ; but on this being put 
 in his hands he relinquished his situation in the 
 Custom House ;* and I believe all concerned 
 are now satisfied of the estimate I formed of Mr 
 Maclaren. Besides these operations, many of 
 the large articles, such as Chemistry, Conchology, 
 Agriculture, etc., are either entirely new, or 
 nearly so. The expense of the literary improve- 
 ments on this edition will be about £1000, and 
 I think the money well laid out. 
 
 "A new edition in which the supplement was 
 to be incorporated, has been of course long 
 talked of, and Mr Napier's intimate acquain- 
 tance with the work naturally pointed to him 
 as editor ; but before I left Edinburgh, towards 
 the latter end of 1818, there was an application 
 from him that we should enter into a regular 
 arrangement on the subject, he alleging that he 
 had other literary employment in his offer. To 
 this, however, we at once gave the negative. 
 , . . Mr Napier's application was renewed 
 shortly after my return from London in the be- 
 ginning of 1819. I yielded to solicitations, and 
 some time in February 1819 a missive letter was 
 drawn out containing the heads of an agreement 
 to employ him as editor of a new edition, which 
 was not to be announced or made known till a 
 certain fixed period after the conclusion of the 
 supplement. The book was to extend to twenty- 
 five volumes, and to be published in parts dur- 
 ing a series of years. The allowances to Mr 
 Napier were to be extremely liberal. . . . 
 
 "The value of the 'Encyclopaedia' as a pro- 
 perty must always be great. In June last, be- 
 fore writing to you on the subject of a third 
 
 * Mr Maclaren at this time also resumed his work 
 as editor of the Scotsman, which he had relinquished 
 on becoming a clerk in the Custom House, feeling 
 that " his position as a Government oflBcer was incom- 
 patible with that of recognised editor of an oppoirf- 
 tion journal." 
 
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. 
 
 185 
 
 and fourth delivery which you had the power of 
 taking, I made up a memorandum, as accurately 
 as I could do, living in the country, in bad 
 health, and without access to all the necessary 
 documents, of the sales of the book from its be- 
 coming the property of my house in 1812, and 
 it amounted to £60,000. We cannot have had 
 less than a profit of £20,000 on these sales ; we 
 shall not, I think, under any circumstances, get 
 less than £10,000 at the final close of the present 
 impression ; and we have the copyright free. 
 In 1812, when the copartnery was formed with 
 Mr Bonar, the copyright was valued at £11,000 ; 
 we have since laid out £1000 improving it, 
 which makes £12,000; and at this time there 
 was no supplement to carry it through, nor did 
 we know what success the book was to meet 
 with in the new hands into which it had just 
 come. The completion of 'Kees,' and two or 
 three bad years after the war, have all operated 
 against us ; but the state of the book has been 
 kept pure, and has been only in our hands and 
 yours since the unlucky days of Tenner, on 
 whose estate, after all, considering that we got 
 about £40,000 of his money, our ranking was 
 not an immense sum, and our ultimate loss will 
 not be great. The supplement has surely a 
 present value — that is, for the volumes yet to 
 come out — and it will supply materials for at 
 least an equal number of volumes of a new edi- 
 tion. You have not, I presume, lost sight of 
 the profit I would expect to make by the sets of 
 the twenty volumes ; and upon the whole, I 
 daresay, you will now be disposed to allow that 
 to us, who know its value so well, the two pro- 
 perties will be worth what I estimated them at. 
 We shall make from £20,000 to £30,000 by the 
 first edition of the supplement, and this we owe 
 to being the proprietors of the greater work ; 
 but there has been another value connected with 
 this property : it enabled us to pay large sums 
 to deceased partners, which, without such a 
 powerful magnet, might have been very difficult, 
 if not impossible." 
 
 The "Encyclopaedia Britannica" passed into 
 the hands of Messrs A. & C. Black, in the year 
 1826. The seventh edition of the "Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica" was commenced in 1827, 
 and completed in 1842. It was edited by Mr 
 Macvey Napier, Professor of Conveyancing in 
 the University of Edinburgh, who was assisted 
 in the greater part of the work by Dr James 
 Browne as sub-editor. Browne had been trained 
 as an advocate at the Scottish bar, but relin- 
 quished law in favour of literature. He was 
 also at this time editor of the Caledonian Mer- 
 cury. The total expense of the twenty-one 
 quarto volumes was, in a trial in the Jury Court 
 of Scotland, proved to have been no less a sum 
 than £125,66.7. 9s. 3d. Nine years later, in 
 1852, the eighth edition was commenced, under 
 the editorship of Dr Thomas Stuart Traill, Pro- 
 fessor of Medical Jurisprudence in the Uni- 
 
 versity of Edinburgh, who was assisted for some 
 time by his son, Mr Thomas Stuart Traill, and 
 after his death by the late Mr John Downes, 
 A.M., and others whose names are commemor- 
 ated in the preface. The eighth edition was 
 completed in 1860. Both editions extended to 
 twenty-one volumes quarto, and met with con- 
 siderable success. 
 
 Since the completion of the eighth edition, so 
 many changes have taken place in all depart- 
 ments of knowledge, that it has been thought 
 advisable to prepare for the publication of a 
 ninth edition, the editorial charge of which has 
 been intrusted to Mr Thomas Spencer Baynes, 
 Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the 
 University of St Andrews. A work of such 
 magnitude, and comprising such multitudinous 
 details, must necessarily occupy a considerable 
 time in preparation, and it is now in course of 
 publication. So far as the prospects of the 
 forthcoming edition are concerned, judging from 
 the talents of the editor, and his peculiar fit- 
 ness for the work, it is expected that it will 
 surpass in intrinsic merit and systematic treat- 
 ment all its predecessors. It is being compiled 
 on the same principle as the former editions, 
 viz., that of employing the best writers for all 
 important subjects, so as to maintain its char- 
 acter as a repository of original writings, stamped 
 with the authority of the authors' names. 
 
 "constable's miscellany." 
 
 It was about the year 1825 that Archibald 
 Constable devised the scheme of his MisceU 
 lany. " If I live for half-a-dozen years," he said 
 to Sir Walter Scott, "I shall make it as impos- 
 sible that there should not be a good library in 
 every decent house in Great Britain, as that the 
 shepherd's ingle nook should want the ' saut 
 poke.' " 
 
 "Troth," said Scott, "if you live you are 
 indeed likely to be 
 
 •The great Napoleon of the realms otprinV*' 
 
 "If you outlive me," replied Constable, "I 
 bespeak that line for my tombstone. . . . 
 a three shilling or half-a-crown volume every 
 month, which must and shall sell, not by thou- 
 sands or tens of thousands, but by hundreds of 
 thousands— ay, by millions! Twelve volumes 
 in the year, a halfpenny of profit on every copy 
 of which will make me richer than the posses- 
 sion of all the copyrights of all the quartos that 
 ever were, or ever will be, hot-pressed ! Twelve 
 volumes so good that millions must wish to 
 have them, and so cheap that every butcher's 
 callant may have them if he pleases to let me 
 tax him sixpence a week." 
 
 The failure of Constable & Co. in January 
 1826 interrupted this scheme for a time, until 
 in 1827 the proposed Miscellany was inaugur- 
 ated with Captain Basil Hall's " Voyages." The 
 
186 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 author had kindly presented this work to the 
 publisher, who, just as his prospects were 
 brightening, died on the 21st July of the same 
 year. 
 
 The Scotsman of January 6, 1827, expressed 
 itself thus regarding the prospects of literature 
 at that time, suggested by the issue of Con- 
 stable's Miscellany. These remarks seem as 
 pertinent now as when they were first made : 
 
 "To estimate what may be the effect of this 
 class of works, let us look to the recent changes 
 in our literature. There are two species of pub- 
 lications which have given a new impulse to 
 thought, and prodigiously accelerated the pro- 
 gress of knowledge within the last sixty years — 
 we mean encyclopaedias and reviews which deal 
 in discussion. Both of these owe some portion 
 of their usefulness to a circumstance common to 
 all periodicals — that, coming out in parts, they 
 neither press heavily on the time nor the purse, 
 and are thus within the reach of multitudes in 
 the middle and lower walks of society. The 
 former made scientific knowledge and general 
 information more widely accessible; the latter 
 familiarised the people with the principles of 
 philosophy, and taught them to take compre- 
 hensive views of passing events and of their own 
 situation. But both from their nature are sub- 
 ject to restrictions. The one can take in no 
 article which exceeds thirty or forty octavo 
 pages, and excludes some species of reading 
 altogether; the other, being compelled by its 
 plan to embrace many subjects which nobody 
 cares for, can assign but a small space to 
 others which are far more attractive. A life 
 of Washington or Nelson in two volumes, a 
 ' History of India ' in three volumes, a * Narra- 
 tive of Hall's Voyages ' of a similar size, could 
 find admission into neither. Yet many readers 
 will deem these as interesting and profitable as 
 anything in the pages of a review, and for ninety- 
 nine in a hundred they are infinitely more attrac- 
 tive than a long treatise on botany, mineralogy, 
 or the genus mammalia. An encyclopaedia is a 
 work three-fourths of which are necessarily use- 
 less to its possessor ; but in a miscellany, fettered 
 by no system in the compiling, nine parts in ten 
 will have a value to every reader. Of our 
 modern magazines, filled up with flash and 
 flummery, it is needless to speak. They sparkle 
 like champagne at the moment of decanting, 
 but are so stale and vapid one month after they 
 issue from the press, that no man out of his 
 dotage ever opens them a second time. An 
 encyclopaedia in twenty volumes costs forty 
 pounds ; and, for the same sum, those who sub- 
 scribe for a miscellany of this kind, will have a 
 library of 266 volumes, in every one of which an 
 ordinary reader will find instruction or rational 
 amusement. In short, the great merit of this 
 
 project is, that the principle of progressive and 
 periodical publication, which has so many ad- 
 vantages, but has hitherto been applied only to 
 a few old standard books, to ephemeral discus- 
 sions, and summaries of science, is rendered 
 applicable to the great floating mass of our 
 literature, and thus furnishes a prodigious engine 
 for the diffusion of every species of useful and 
 ornamental knowledge through the lower and 
 middle classes of society. We anticipate one 
 further, and, in our opinion, very great advan- 
 tage, from the establishment of such publica- 
 tions. Generally speaking, at present, books are 
 esteemed by all persons in the middle and lower 
 ranks as something of the nature of luxuries or 
 superfluities. They are something which it is 
 very convenient and pleasant to have, but which 
 can quite well be wanted. Casual circumstances 
 make an individual lay out half-a-guinea or a 
 guinea, at a rare juncture, upon some volume 
 which strikes his fancy ; but no man (a professed 
 collector excepted) sets apart a portion of his 
 income to buy books, as he does to buy food, 
 clothes, or furniture. Now, it occurs to us that 
 when three or four of the great publishing book- 
 sellers have commenced their miscellanies, and 
 have thus broken down the mass of our mental 
 aliment (as chandlers do our corporeal food) into 
 portions for daily and weekly consumption, 
 literature will take its rank among the necessaries 
 of life, and a library will be considered — as it 
 ought to be by every man in decent circum- 
 stances — an indispensable part of household fur- 
 niture. Few persons would want a collection of 
 books, if one adapted to their tastes and habits 
 could be procured by laying out a shilling 
 weekly. But we hesitate when £2, 12s. are to 
 be expended in buying only two quartos or four 
 octavos — first, because so large a sum as 13s. to 
 26s. can ill be spared at once ; secondly, because, 
 when books are at such a price, we despair of 
 forming a useful collection ; and, thirdly, that as 
 we cannot get what we would wish, we find few 
 single volumes so tempting as to break through 
 our habit, and put our hands in our pockets. 
 But things will be greatly changed when the 52s. 
 which buys only four volumes at present, per- 
 haps on one single subject, will buy seventeen 
 volumes of equal size as to reading, and embrac- 
 ing a great variety of instructive or interesting 
 matter. In a few years, we predict that every 
 young man, when his apprenticeship is done, 
 will lay aside a shilling weekly for books — that 
 a young couple taking up house will reckon 
 thirty or forty volumes of Constable's Miscellany 
 as indispensable as a chest of drawers, or an 
 eight-day clock — and that the question * Who is 
 your bookseller?' will be as pertinent in every 
 decent family as * Who is your grocer ' o» 
 'clothier?'" 
 
ROBERT SO UTHE K 
 
 187 
 
 EGBERT SOUTHEY, 
 
 [1774-1843.] 
 By WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 [Egbert Southet maybe said to have spent 
 one of tlie most honourable and industrious of 
 lives devoted to literature which we have on 
 record. With unceasing application, he was in 
 private life sincere and generous. The only 
 human frailty which Hazlitt, whom we quote, 
 could discover in him, was political inconsist- 
 ency and want of charity. Perhaps this judg- 
 ment also argued a want of charity on the part 
 of the critic who made it. The eldest surviving 
 son of a Bristol linendraper, he was born in that 
 town in August 1774. His earliest years were 
 spent with an aunt, Miss Tyler, of Bath ; this 
 lady was somewhat eccentric in her habits, 
 and passionately fond of the theatre. After 
 attending three schools in succession, he was 
 sent to Westminster School, from which he was 
 dismissed in 1792. He had been identified with 
 a periodical called the Flagellant^ contributing 
 to it an article on corporal punishment, which 
 had so incensed the head-master that he was 
 accordingly dismissed from school. His father 
 died about this time, and his affairs being em- 
 barrassed, an uncle befriended young Southey ; 
 he was entered as a student at Balliol College. 
 Embracing what were called the liberal opinions 
 abroad at the time, he went to an extreme in 
 his expressions of them. He worked hard and 
 read a great deal while there, and wrote an enor- 
 mous quantity of verse, which was torn up and 
 burned. His views preventing him from en- 
 tering the Church, he was ready to embrace 
 any Utopian scheme which might offer. He 
 and a young Quaker, Richard Lovell, and 
 Coleridge had each been united to members 
 of the Fricker family of Bristol; it was their 
 intention at this time to emigrate to North 
 America, where they would found what was 
 called a *' Pantisocracy." * Want of funds para- 
 lysed this scheme, and Southey for a time sup- 
 ported himself by lecturing on history. Cottle, 
 the Bristol publisher, gave him fifty guineas for 
 his poem "Joan of Arc." He accompanied his 
 uncle, Mr HiL, At this time, to Portugal, which 
 introduced him to a knowledge of the language 
 and literature of fiJpain and Portugal. On his re- 
 turn he studied law ; in 1801 he became private 
 secretary to Mr Corry, with a salary of £350 a 
 year. This post he held six months. In 1804 he 
 settled at Greta Hall, near Keswick, in Cumber- 
 land, wherehe remained for forty years. Coleridge 
 
 * Coleridge's connection with this scheme ia dis- 
 cussed ante^ p. 143. 
 
 and his family were staying there at the time, 
 and Wordsworth at Rydal, near Ambleside, 
 about fourteen miles distant. Coleridge left 
 Keswick in September 1803, leaving his wife and 
 children to Southey's care and keeping. At this 
 time Southey's political opinions underwent a 
 violent change, and became decidedly Conserva- 
 tive. A sentence from one of his letters will 
 show how unweariedly industrious he was. 
 "My actions are as regular as those of St 
 Dunstan's quarter-boys. Three pages of history " 
 (of Portugal) " after breakfast (equivalent to five 
 in small quarto printing); then to transcribe 
 and copy for the press, or to make my selections 
 and biographies " (for " Specimens of the English 
 Poets "), " or what else suits my humour, tiU din- 
 ner-time ; from dinner-time till tea I read, write 
 letters, see the newspaper, and very often in- 
 dulge in a siesta. . . . After tea, I go to 
 poetry" (he was now writing the "Curse of 
 Kehama"), "and correct, and re-write, and copy 
 till I am tired, and then turn to anything else 
 to supper. And this is my life." He produced 
 above a hundred volumes of various sizes, and 
 over a hundred papers upon history, biography, 
 politics, morals, and general literature, for the 
 (Quarterly Review. He wrote the historical 
 portion of the Edinburgh Annual Register for 
 some years, and also contributed to the Critical 
 Review, and the Foreign Quarterly. His read- 
 ing was at all times extensive, and he was a 
 regular correspondent. In 1807 a pension, 
 which amounted to £160 a year, was bestowed 
 upon him for literary service. In November 
 1813 he was appointed poet laureate on the 
 death of Pye. In 1821 he received the degree 
 of LL.D. from the University of Oxford. A 
 pension of £300 a year was bestowed upon him 
 by the Government of Sir Robert Peel. A 
 baronetcy was also proferred to him, but this 
 was declined. His first wife died in 1837; he 
 married again on 4th June 1839, with Miss 
 Caroline Bowles, the poetess. Southey after 
 this time gradually sank into mental imbecility, 
 from which death released him on March 21, 
 1843. He left a son and three daughters. His 
 library, one of the best of its kind in the king- 
 dom, was disposed of in London by public 
 auction. Southey's poetry, much of which was 
 very popular when published, is now little 
 known, and less read by the present generation 
 of readers, but his lives of Nelson and of Wesley 
 have been universally read and admired. These 
 brief biographical details may perhaps serve tc 
 
188 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 introduce a notice of this excellent man by one 
 of his contemporaries.] 
 
 Mr Southey, as we formerly remember to 
 have seen him, had a hectic flush upon his 
 cheek, a roving fire in his eye, a falcon glance, 
 a look at once aspiring and dejected — it was 
 the look that had been impressed upon his face 
 by the events that marked the outset of his life, 
 it was the dawn of liberty that still tinged his 
 cheek, a smile betwixt hope and sadness that 
 still played upon his quivering lip. Mr Southey's 
 mind is essentially sanguine, even to over-ween- 
 ingness. It is prophetic of good; it cordially 
 embraces it; it casts a longing, lingering look 
 after it, even when it is gone for ever. He can- 
 not bear to give up the thought of happiness, 
 his confidence in his fellow-man, when all else 
 despair. It is the very element, "where he 
 must live or have no life at all." While he sup- 
 posed it possible that a better form of society 
 could be introduced than any that had hitherto 
 existed, while the light of the French Kevolu- 
 tion beamed into his soul (and long after, it was 
 seen reflected on his brow, like the light of 
 setting suns on the peak of some high moun- 
 tain, or lonely range of clouds, floating in purer 
 ether !), while he had this hope, this faith in man 
 left, he cherished it with child-like simplicity, 
 he clung to it with the fondness of a lover, 
 he was an enthusiast, a fanatic, a leveller; he 
 stuck at nothing that he thought would banish 
 all pain and misery from the world — in his im- 
 patience of the smallest error or injustice, he 
 would have sacrificed himself and the existing 
 generation (a holocaust) to his devotion to the 
 right cause. But when he once believed, after 
 many staggering doubts and painful struggles, 
 that this was no longer possible, when his 
 chimeras and golden dreams of human perfecti- 
 bility vanished from him, he turned suddenly 
 round, and maintained that " whatever is, is 
 right." Mr Southey has not fortitude of mind, 
 has not patience to think that evil is insepar- 
 able from the nature of things. His irritable 
 sense rejects the alternative altogether, as a 
 weak stomach rejects the food that is distaste- 
 ful to it. He hopes on against hope, he believes 
 in all unbelief. He must either repose on actual 
 or on imaginary good. He missed his way in 
 Utopia, he has found it at Old Sarum — 
 
 "His generous ardour no cold medium knows;" 
 
 his eagerness admits of no doubt or delay. He 
 is ever in extremes, and ever in the wrong. 
 
 The reason is, that not truth, but self-opinion 
 is the ruling principle of Mr Southey's mind. 
 The charm of novelty, the applause of the 
 multitude, the sanction of power, the venerable- 
 ness of antiquity, pique, resentment, the spirit 
 of contradiction, have a good deal to do with his 
 preferences. His inquiries are partial and 
 hasty; his conclusions raw and unconcocted, 
 
 and with a considerable infusion of whim and 
 humour and "a monkish spleen. His opinions 
 are like certain wines, warm and generous when 
 new ; but they will not keep, and soon turn flat 
 or sour, for want of a stronger spirit of the 
 understanding to give a body to them. He 
 wooed Liberty as a youthful lover, but it was 
 perhaps more as a mistress than a bride ; and 
 he has since wedded with an elderly and not 
 very reputable lady, called Legitimacy. "A 
 wilful man," according to the Scotch proverb, 
 "must have his way." If it were the cause to 
 which he was sincerely attached, he would 
 adhere to it through good report and evil 
 report; but it is himself to whom he does 
 homage, and would have others do so ; and he 
 therefore changes sides, rather than submit to 
 apparent defeat or temporary mortification. 
 Abstract principle has no rule but the under- 
 stood distinction between right and wrong ; the 
 indulgence of vanity, of caprice, or prejudice is 
 regulated by the convenience or bias of the 
 moment. The temperament of our politician's 
 mind is poetical, not philosophical. He is 
 more the creature of impulse, than he is of reflec- 
 tion. He invents the unreal, he embellishes the 
 false with the glosses of fancy, but pays little 
 attention to "the words of truth and sober- 
 ness." His impressions are accidental, im- 
 mediate, personal, instead of being permanent 
 and universal. Of all mortals he is surely the 
 most impatient of contradiction, even when he 
 has completely turned the tables on himself. 
 Is not this very inconsistency the reason? Is 
 he not tenacious of his opinions, in proportion 
 as they are brittle and hastily formed? Is he 
 not jealous of the grounds of his belief, because 
 he fears they will not bear inspection, or is con- 
 scious he has shifted them ? Does he not con- 
 fine others to the strict line of orthodoxy, 
 because he has himself taken every liberty? Is 
 he not afraid to look to the right or the left, 
 lest he should see the ghosts of his former 
 extravagances staring him in the face? Does 
 he not refuse to tolerate the smallest shade of 
 difi'erence in others, because he feels that he 
 wants the utmost latitude of construction for 
 differing so widely from himself? Is he not 
 captious, dogmatical, petulant in delivering his 
 sentiments, according as he has been incon- 
 sistent, rash, and fanciful in adopting them? 
 He maintains that there can be no possible 
 ground for differing from him, because he looks 
 only at his own side of the question ! He sets 
 up his own favourite notions as the standard of 
 reason and honesty, because he has changed 
 from one extreme to another! He treats his 
 opponents with contempt, because he is him- 
 self afraid of meeting with disrespect ! He says 
 that "a Keformer is a worse character than a 
 housebreaker," in order to stifle the recollec- 
 tion that he himself once was one ! 
 We must say that *'wfe relish Mr Southey 
 
ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
 189 
 
 more in the Reformer" than in his lately acquir- 
 ed, but by no means natural or becoming char- 
 acter of poet laureate and courtier. He may rest 
 assured that a garland of wild-flowers suits him 
 better than the laureate- wreath: that his pastoral 
 odes and popular inscriptions were far more 
 adapted to his genius than his presentation 
 poems. He is nothing akin to birthday suits 
 and drawing-room fopperies. **He is nothing, 
 if not fantastical. " In his figure, in his move- 
 ments, in his sentiments, he is sharp and angu- 
 lar, quaint and eccentric. Mr Southey is not 
 of the court, courtly. Everything of him and 
 about him is from the people. He is not classi- 
 cal, he is not legitimate. He is not a man cast 
 in the mould of other men's opinions ; he is not 
 shaped on any model ; he bows to no authority; 
 he yields only to his own wayward peculiarities. 
 He is wild, irregular, singular, extreme. He is 
 no formalist, not he ! All is crude and chaotic, 
 self-opinionated, vain. He wants proportion, 
 keeping, system, standard rules. He is not 
 teres et rotundus. Mr Southey walks with his 
 chin erect through the streets of London, and 
 with an umbrella sticking out under his arm, in 
 the finest weather. He has not sacrificed to the 
 Graces, nor studied decorum. With him every- 
 thing is projecting, starting from its place, an 
 episode, a digression, a poetic licence. He does 
 not move in any given orbit, but, like a falling 
 star, shoots from his sphere. He is pragmatical, 
 restless, unfixed, full of experiments, beginning 
 everything anew, wiser than his betters, judg- 
 ing for himself, dictating to others. He is 
 decidedly revolutionary. He may have given 
 up the reform of the State ; but depend upon it, 
 he has some other hobby of the same kind. 
 Does he not dedicate to his present Majesty 
 that extraordinary poem on the death of his 
 father, called the "Vision of Judgment,"* as a 
 specimen of what might be done in English hexa- 
 meters? In a court poem all should be trite 
 and on an approved model. He might as well 
 have presented himself at the levee in a fancy 
 or masquerade dress. Mr Southey was not to 
 try conclusions with majesty — still less on such 
 an occasion. The extreme freedoms with de- 
 parted greatness, the party petulance carried to 
 the throne of grace, the unchecked indulgence 
 of private humour, the assumption of infallibility 
 and even of the voice of Heaven in this poem, 
 are pointed instances of what we have said. 
 They show the singular state of over-excitement 
 of Mr Southey's mind, and the force of old 
 habits of independent and unbridled thinking, 
 which cannot be kept down even in addressing 
 his sovereign 1 Look at Mr Southey's larger 
 poems, his "Kehama," his "Thalaba," his 
 "Madoc," his "Roderic." Who wiU deny the 
 spirit, the scope, the splendid imagery, the 
 
 * Now only remembered by Byron's merciless satire 
 and parody, published under the same title. 
 
 hurried and startling interest that pervades 
 them? Who will say that they are not sus- 
 tained on fictions wilder than his own Glen- 
 doveer, that they are not the daring creations 
 of a mind curbed by no law, tamed by no fear, 
 that they are not rather like the trances than 
 the waking dreams of genius, that they are not 
 the very paradoxes of poetry? All this is very 
 well, very intelligible, and very harmless, if we 
 regard the rank excrescences of Mr Southey's 
 poetry, like the red and blue flowers in corn, as 
 the un weeded growth of a luxuriant and wander- 
 fag fancy ; or if we allow the yeasty workings 
 of an ardent spirit to ferment and boil over — the 
 variety, the boldness, the lively stimulus given 
 to the mind may then atone for the violation of 
 rules and the offences to bed-rid authority ; but 
 not if our poetic libertine sets up for a lawgiver 
 and judge, or an apprehender of vagrants in the 
 regions either of taste or opinion. Our motley 
 gentleman deserves the strait-waistcoat, if he is 
 for setting others in the stocks of servility, or 
 condemning them to the pillory for a new mode 
 of rhyme or reason. Or if a composer of sacred 
 dramas on classic models, or a translator of an 
 old Latin author (that will hardly bear transla- 
 tion) or a vamper-up of vapid cantos and odes 
 set to music, were to turn pander to prescription 
 and palliater of every dull, incorrigible abuse, it 
 would not be much to be wondered at or even 
 regretted. But in Mr Southey it was a lament- 
 able falling off. It is indeed to be deplored, it 
 is a stain on genius, a blow to humanity, that 
 the author of **Joan of Arc" — that work in 
 which the love of liberty is exhaled like the 
 breath of spring, mild, balmy, heaven-born, 
 that is full of tears and virgin sighs, and yearn- 
 ings of affection after truth and good, gushing 
 warm and crimsoned from the heart — should 
 ever after turn to folly, or become the advocate 
 of a rotten cause. After giving up his heart to 
 that subject, he ought not (whatever others 
 might do) ever to have set his foot within the 
 threshold of a court. He might be sure that he 
 would not gain forgiveness or favour by it, nor 
 obtain a single cordial smile from greatness. 
 All that Mr Southey is or that he does best, is 
 independent, spontaneous, free as the vital air 
 he draws — when he affects the courtier or the 
 sophist, he is obliged to put a constraint upon 
 himself, to hold in his breath, he loses his 
 genius, and offers a violence to his nature. His 
 characteristic faults are the excess of a lively, 
 unguarded temperament — oh! let them not 
 degenerate into cold-blooded, heartless vices ! 
 If we speak or have ever spoken of Mr Southey 
 with severity, it is with **the malice of old 
 friends," for we count ourselves among his sin- 
 cerest and heartiest well-wishers. But while he 
 himself is anomalous, incalculable, eccentric, 
 from youth to age (the "Wat Tyler" and the 
 *' Vision of Judgment" are the alpha and omega 
 of his disjointed career), full of sallies of humour. 
 
190 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 of ebullitions of spleen, making jieis-f^'eaMrc, cas- 
 cades, fountains, and water-works of his idle 
 opinions, he would shut up the wits of others 
 in leaden cisterns, to stagnate and corrupt, or 
 bury them under ground — 
 
 " Far from the sun and summer gale ! " 
 
 He would suppress the freedom of wit and 
 humour, of which he has set the example, and 
 claim a privilege for playing antics. He would 
 introduce a uniformity of intellectual weights 
 and measures, of irregular metres and settled 
 opinions, and enforce it with a high hand. 
 This has been judged hard by some, and has 
 brought down a severity of recrimination, per- 
 haps disproportioned to the injury done. *' Be- 
 cause he is virtuous " (it has been asked), ** are 
 there to be no more cakes and ale ? " Because 
 he is loyal, are we to take all our notions from 
 the Quarterly Review t Because he is orthodox, 
 are we to do nothing but read the " Book of the 
 Church?" We declare we think his former 
 poetical scepticism was not only more amiable, 
 but had more of the spirit of religion in it, im- 
 plied a more heartfelt trust in nature and pro- 
 vidence than his present bigotry. We are at 
 the same time free to declare that we think his 
 articles in the Quarterly Review, notwithstand- 
 ing their virulence and the talent they display, 
 have a tendency to qualify its most pernicious 
 effects. They have redeeming traits in them. 
 *'A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump ; " 
 and the spirit of humanity (thanks to Mr 
 Southey) is not quite expelled from the Quar- 
 terly Revieio. At the corner of his pen *' there 
 hangs a vaporous drop profound" of indepen- 
 dence and liberality, which falls upon its pages, 
 and oozes out through the pores of the public 
 mind. There is a fortunate difference between 
 writers whose hearts are naturally callous to 
 truth, and whose understandings are hermeti- 
 cally sealed against all impressions but those of 
 self-interest, and a man like Mr Southey. ' * Once 
 a philanthropist and always a philanthropist." 
 No man can entirely balk his nature : it breaks 
 out in spite of him. In all those questions, 
 where the spirit of contradiction does not inter- 
 fere, on which he is not sore from old bruises or 
 sick from the extravagance of youthful intoxica- 
 tion, as from a last night's debauch, our " lau- 
 reate " is still bold, free, candid, open to con- 
 viction, a reformist without knowing it. He 
 does not advocate the slave trade, he does not 
 arm Mr Malthus's revolting ratios with his 
 authority, he does not strain hard to deluge 
 Ireland with blood. On such points, where 
 humanity has not become obnoxious, where 
 liberty has not passed into a by-word, Mr 
 Southey is still liberal and humane. The elas- 
 ticity of his spirit is unbroken ; the bow recoils 
 to its old position. He still stands convicted of 
 his early passion for inquiry and improvement. 
 He was not regularly articled as a Government 
 
 tool ! Perhaps the most pleasing and striking of 
 all Mr Southey's poems are not his triumphant 
 taunts hurled against oppression, are not his 
 glowing effusions to liberty, but those in which, 
 with a wild melancholy, he seems conscious of 
 his own infirmities of temper, and to feel a wish 
 to correct by thought and time the precocity 
 and sharpness of his disposition. May the 
 quaint but affecting aspiration expressed in one 
 of these be fulfilled, that as he mellows into 
 maturer age, all such asperities may wear off, 
 and he himself become 
 
 " Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree ! " 
 
 Mr Southey's prose style cmi scarcely be too 
 much praised. It is plain, clear, pointed, fami- 
 liar, perfectly modern in its texture, but with a 
 grave and sparkling admixture of archaisms in 
 its ornaments and occasional phraseology. He 
 is the best and most natural prose writer of any 
 poet of the day ; we mean that he is far better 
 than Lord Byron, Mr Wordsworth, or Mr Cole- 
 ridge, for instance. The manner is perhaps supe- 
 rior to the matter, that is, in his essays and 
 reviews. There is rather a want of originaHt} 
 and even of impetus, but there is no want of 
 playful or biting satire, of ingenuity, of casu- 
 istry, of learning, and of information. He is 
 "full of wise saws and modern" (as well as 
 ancient) "instances." Mr Southey may not 
 always convince his opponents, but he seldom 
 fails to stagger, never to gall them. In a word, 
 we may describe his style by saying that it has 
 not the body or thickness of port wine, but is hke 
 clear sherry with kernels of old authors thrown 
 into it ! He also excels as an historian and 
 prose translator. His histories abound in infor- 
 mation, and exhibit proofs of the most indefati- 
 gable patience and industry. By no uncommon 
 process of the mind, Mr Southey seems willing 
 to steady the extreme levity of his opinions and 
 feelings by an appeal to facts. His translations 
 of the Spanish and French romances are also 
 executed con amore, and with the literal fidelity 
 and care of a mere linguist. That of the " Cid," 
 in particular, is a masterpiece. Not a word 
 could be altered for the better in the old scrip- 
 tural style which it adopts in conformity to the 
 original. It is no less interesting in itself, or as 
 a record of high and chivalrous feelings and 
 manners, than it is worthy of perusal as a 
 literary curiosity. 
 
 Mr Southey's conversation has a little re- 
 semblance to a common-place book; his ha- 
 bitual deportment to a piece of clockwork. He 
 is not remarkable either as a reason er or an 
 observer, but he is quick, unaffected, replete 
 with anecdote, various and retentive in his 
 reading, and exceedingly happy in his play 
 upon words, as most scholars are who give 
 their minds this sportive turn. We have chiefly 
 seen Mr Southey in company where few people 
 appear to advantage, we mean in that of Mi 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 19i 
 
 Coleridge. He has not certainly the same range 
 of specalation, nor the same flow of sounding 
 words, hut he makes up by the details of know- 
 ledge, and by a scrupulous correctness of state- 
 ment for what he wants in originality of thought, 
 or impetuous declamation. The tones of Mr 
 Coleridge's voice are eloquence; those of Mr 
 Southey are meagre, shrill, and dry. Mr Cole- 
 ridge's forte is conversation, and he is conscious 
 of this. Mr Southey evidently considers writ- 
 ing as his stronghold, and if gravelled in an 
 argument, or at a loss for an explanation, refers 
 to something he has written on the subject, or 
 brings out his portfolio, doubled down in dog- 
 ears, in confirmation of some fact. He is 
 scholastic and professional in his ideas. He 
 sets more value on what he writes than on 
 what he says; he is perhaps prouder of his 
 library than of his own productions — them- 
 selves a library 1 He is more simple in his 
 manners than his friend Mr Coleridge; but at 
 the same time less cordial or conciliating. He 
 is less vain, or has less hope of pleasing, and 
 therefore lays himself less out to please. There 
 is an air of condescension in his civility. With 
 a tall, loose figure, a peaked austerity of coun- 
 tenance, and no inclination to embonpoint, you 
 would say he has something puritanical, some- 
 thing ascetic in his appearance. He answers 
 to Mandeville's description of Addison, "a par- 
 son in a tye-wig." He is not a boon companion, 
 nor does he indulge in the pleasures of the 
 table, nor in any other vice ; nor are we aware 
 that Mr Southey is chargeable with any human 
 frailty but — want of charity. Having fewer 
 errors to plead guilty to, he is less lenient to 
 those of others. He was born an age too late. 
 Had he lived a century or two ago, he would 
 have been a happy as well as blameless char- 
 acter. But the distraction of the time has un- 
 settled him, and the multiplicity of his preten- 
 sions have jostled with each other. No man in 
 our day (at least no man of genius) has led so 
 uniformly and entirely the life of a scholar from 
 
 boyhood to the present hour, devoting himseU 
 to learning with the enthusiasm of an early 
 love, with the severity and constancy of a 
 religious vow — and well would it have been for 
 him if he had confined himself to this, and not 
 undertaken to pull down or to patch up the 
 State! However irregular in his opinions, Mr 
 Southey is constant, unremitting, mechanical in 
 his studies, and the performance of his duties. 
 There is nothing Pindaric or Shandean here. 
 In all the relations and charities of private life, 
 he is correct, exemplary, generous, just. We 
 never heard a single impropriety laid to his 
 charge ; and if he has many enemies, few men 
 can boast more numerous or stauncher friends. 
 The variety and piquancy of his writings form 
 a striking contrast to the mode in which they 
 are produced. He rises early, and writes or 
 reads till breakfast-time. He writes or reads 
 after breakfast till dinner, after dinner till tea, 
 and from tea till bedtime — 
 
 "And follows so the ever-running year 
 With profitable labour to his grave " — 
 
 on Derwent's banks, beneath the foot of Skid- 
 daw. Study serves him for business, exercise, 
 recreation. He passes from verse to prose, from 
 history to poetry, from reading to writing, by a 
 stop-watch. He writes a fair hand, without 
 blots, sitting upright in his chair, leaves off 
 when he comes to the bottom of the page, and 
 changes the subject for another, as opposite as 
 the antipodes. His mind is after all rather the 
 recipient and transmitter of knowledge, than 
 the originator of it. He has hardly grasp of 
 thought enough to arrive at any great leading 
 truth. His passions do not amount to more 
 than irritability. With some gall in his pen, 
 and coldness in his manner, he has a great deal 
 of kindness in his heart. Rash in his opinions, 
 he is steady in his attachments — and is a man, 
 in many particulars admirable, in all respect- 
 able — his political inconsistency alone excepted ! 
 
 CHAELES LAMB. 
 
 [1775-1834.] 
 
 [Although Charles Lamb once remarked that 
 his '* biography would go into an epigram," yet 
 in the case of his own life, and no less of his 
 writings, knowledge leads to love; and so the 
 influence of his life and the fame of his writings 
 have grown from a small mustard-seed to a 
 tree with widely-spreading branches. Charles 
 Lamb, the youngest son of John and Elizabeth 
 Lamb, was born in Crown Office Row, Inner 
 
 Temple, London, on Friday, the 10th of Feb- 
 ruary 1775. He was the youngest of seven 
 children, three of whom survived: John and 
 Mary were both older than himself. His father 
 held the post of clerk to Mr Samuel Salt, a bar- 
 rister, and came from a stock who were natives 
 of Lincolnshire. His mother's family could be 
 traced to Hertfordshire. After attending a little 
 day-school, Charles, when in his eighth year. 
 
192 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was presented to Christ's Hospital by Timothy 
 Yeates, Esq., the governor. He entered this 
 great school on the 9th October 1782, and re- 
 mained till his fifteenth year, 23d November 
 1789. One of his schoolfellows has described 
 the young scholar: "His complexion was clear 
 brown, his countenance mild, his eyes differing 
 in colour, and he had a slow and peculiar 
 walk." Owing to an impediment in his speech, 
 he was disqualified from an exhibition to Cam- 
 bridge, to which it is said he was fully entitled 
 by scholarship and superior ability. After leav- 
 ing Christ's Hospital, along with his sister Mary 
 he had access to the library of Mr Salt ; they 
 were '* tumbled into a spacious closet of good 
 old English reading, and browsed at will on that 
 fair and wholesome pasturage." When he left 
 the Hospital he was able to read Greek, and had 
 gained some facility in Latin composition. Two 
 essays, *' Kecollections of Christ's Hospital " 
 and "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years 
 Ago," give his impression of the establishment. 
 At school there he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
 who was two years his senior ; they became life- 
 long friends. Lamb's very touching letter on 
 the death of Coleridge is given on page 162. 
 
 Lamb's elder brother John held a clerkship in 
 the South Sea House; Charles passed a short 
 time under his charge, gaining some knowledge 
 of figures. In 1792 he obtained a situation in 
 the accountant's office of the East India Com- 
 pany, when in his seventeenth year. There he 
 remained for thirty-three years, till his salary 
 had gradually risen from about £70 to £600 per 
 annum. In the beginning of the year 1825 he 
 had intimated to the managers his intention of 
 resigning. The directors of the East India 
 House, calling him to a private room, compli- 
 mented him on his long and meritorious service, 
 and suggesting that his health did not appear to 
 be good, intimated their intention of granting 
 him a pension for life of two-thirds of his salary. 
 "I don't know what I answered," Lamb said 
 afterwards, "between surprise and gratitude; 
 but it was understood that I accepted this pro- 
 posal, and I was told that I was free from that 
 hour to leave their service. I stammered out a 
 bow, and, at just ten minutes after eight, I 
 went home — for ever." His annuity amounted 
 to the handsome sum of £400. By a provision 
 also made for his sister, who was to be provided 
 for should she survive him, an annuity was to 
 be made payable to Mary Lamb, which somewhat 
 reduced his own available income. To Words- 
 worth he wrote: "I came home — for ever — on 
 Tuesday last. The incomprehensibleness of my 
 condition overwhelmed me. It was like passing 
 from time into eternity. . . . Mary wakes 
 every morning with an obscure feeling that 
 some good has happened to us." He did not 
 enjoy his leisure so well as he had expected. 
 "In idleness alone," as Carlyle remarks, **is 
 perpetual despair." To the active mind or body 
 
 retirement from all occupation is often death. 
 He took long walks into the country and made 
 calls on his friends. He had removed to a 
 house at Enfield, near London, in 1827. "I 
 assure you," he wrote to Bernard Barton in 
 1829, '* wo work is worse than overwork. The 
 mind preys on itself, the most unwholesome 
 food. I have ceased to care almost for any- 
 body." He spoke of going ** to my hole at En- 
 field," and of hiding "like a sick cat in a corner." 
 Again: "Home I have none. Never did the 
 waters of heaven pour down on a forlorner head. 
 What I can do, and overdo, is to walk. I am a 
 sanguinary murderer of time. But the snake is 
 vital.— Your forlorn C. L." His friend Hazlitt 
 died in 1830, and his "fifty-years' old friend" 
 Coleridge died in 1834. Towards the close of 
 his life there was little falling off in either mind 
 or body; his morning walks were taken as 
 usual. One day he stumbled against a stone, 
 and falling, his face was slightly wounded. Ery- 
 sipelas followed, his frame had not strength to 
 throw off the disease, and so he sank gradually 
 until December 27, 1834, when he died. His 
 death took place at Edmonton, whither he had 
 removed. Lamb was in his fifty-ninth year at 
 his death. His accumulated savings amounted 
 to £2000. In his will provision was made for 
 the comfort of his sister. Many of his trea- 
 sured books were left to Edward Moxon, the pub- 
 lisher, whose wife, Emma Isola, had spent much 
 time before her marriage under the protection of 
 Lamb and his sister. Mary Lamb, who sur- 
 vived him thirteen years, died on May 20, 1847, 
 and was laid beside him in the churchyard of 
 Edmonton, Middlesex. Barry Cornwall has 
 thus summarised Lamb's different places of resi- 
 dence: 1775 — Charles Lamb, born in Crown 
 Office Row, Temple. 1795— lives at No. 7 Little 
 Queen Street, Holborn. 1800 (early) — lives at 
 No. 45 Chapel Street, Pentonville. Same year 
 — lives in Southampton Buildings, Chancery 
 Lane. Same year — removes to No. 16 Mitre 
 Court Buildings, Temple. 1809 — removes to 
 No. 4 Inner Temple Lane. 1817 — removes to 
 Russell Street, Covent Garden. 1823 — removes 
 to Colebrook Row, Islington. 1826— removes 
 to Enfield. 1829 — removes into lodgings in En- 
 field. 1830 — lodges in Southampton Buildings. 
 1833— lives at Mrs Walden's, in Church Street, 
 Edmonton, where he dies on 27th December 1834. 
 There seems to have been a taint of hereditary 
 insanity in the Lamb family. Charles Lamb, 
 towards the end of 1795 and the beginning of 
 1796, was placed under restraint, for a short 
 time, in Hoxton Lunatic Asylum. The dark 
 shadow which never ceased to brood over the 
 lives of the brother and sister fell over them in 
 the year 1796. Mary Lamb, who had been 
 moody and ill for some time, in a fit of uncon- 
 trollable madness stabbed her mother to the 
 heart, on the 23d September 1796. This hap- 
 pened just before dinner. She was committed 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 193 
 
 to the asylum, where she soon recovered; but 
 to the close of her life she was subject to 
 periodical fits of insanity. At this time Lamb 
 wrote: "My aunt was lying apparently dying, 
 my father with a wound in his poor forehead, 
 and my mother a murdered corpse in the next 
 room. I felt that I had something else to do 
 than to regret. I had the whole weight of the 
 family upon me ; for my brother — little disposed 
 at any time to take care of old age and infirmity 
 — ^has now, with his bad leg, exemption from 
 such duties, and I am now left alone." This 
 was the noble work which Lamb, without ques- 
 tion, took up — the care of those immediately 
 around him. His love and regard for his sister, 
 says Proctor, *' was the deep life-long love of the 
 tenderest son." He could write thus: "It was 
 not a family where I could take Mary with me ; 
 and I am afraid that there is something of dis- 
 honesty in any pleasures I take without her." 
 Again; "It is no new thing for me to be left 
 with my sister. When she is not violent her 
 rambling chat is better to me than the sense 
 and sanity of the world. To say all that I find 
 her would be more than I think anybody could 
 possibly understand. She is older, wiser, and 
 better than I am ; and all my wretched imper- 
 fections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking 
 on her goodness. She would share life and 
 death with me." Whether he gave up any 
 intention of marriage for his sister's sake is not 
 clear, but this is plain, that his nature was 
 capable of such a sacrifice. He proved this in 
 all his actions. When his sister showed signs 
 of complete recovery in Hoxton Asylum, to 
 which she had been committed after the terrible 
 home tragedy, he entered into the solemn under- 
 taking of providing for her in the event of her 
 i^elease. In this his brother John had showed 
 no willingness to co-operate. He secured lodg- 
 ings for her in Hackney, and spent his Sundays 
 and holidays with her, and soon afterwards she 
 came home to live with him entirely. " When- 
 ever the approach of one of her fits of insanity 
 was announced," writes Barry Cornwall, "by 
 some irritability or change of manner, he would 
 take her under his arm to Hoxton Asylum. It 
 was very afficting to encounter the young 
 brother and his sister walking together (weep- 
 ing together) on this painful errand; Mary 
 herself, although sad, very conscious of the 
 necessity for temporary separation from her 
 only friend. They used to carry a strait-jacket 
 with them." 
 
 "The fact," writes Barry Cornwall, "that 
 distinguished Charles Lamb from other men was 
 his entire devotion to one grand and tender pur- 
 pose. There is, probably, a romance involved 
 in every life. In his life it exceeded that of 
 others. In gravity, in acuteness, in his noble 
 battle with a great calamity, it was beyond the 
 rest. Neither pleasure nor toil ever distracted 
 him from his holy purpose. Everything was 
 
 made subservient to it. He had an insane 
 sister, who, in a moment of uncontrollable 
 madness, had unconsciously destroyed her own 
 mother ; and to protect and save this sister — a 
 gentle woman, who had watched like a mother 
 over his own infancy — the whole length of his 
 life was devoted. What he endured, through 
 the space of nearly forty years, from the in- 
 cessant fear and frequent recurrence of his 
 sister's insanity, can now only be conjectured. 
 In this constant and uncomplaining endurance, 
 and in his steady adherence to a great principle 
 of conduct, his life was heroic." 
 
 It has seldom happened that an author who 
 wrote so little as Lamb has become so famous, 
 and held so high a place in the regard of the 
 world of men and women. His first composi- 
 tions were in verse, and were prompted by Cole- 
 ridge's poems. " John Woodvil " is a tragedy 
 after the manner of the Elizabethan dramatists, 
 which was published in 1801. A farce entitled 
 "Mr H.," produced in 1804, was unsuccessful. 
 The series of tales from Shakespeare, written in 
 conjunction with his sister, were produced in 
 1807. This work is still widely known and 
 read. In 1808 appeared " Specimens of English 
 Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of 
 Shakespeare." The " Essays of Elia," on which 
 his fame as a writer chiefly rests, were contri- 
 buted to the London Magazine between 1820-25. 
 The largest sum which he received for these 
 essays is said to have been £170 a year for two 
 years together. In 1830 a small volume of 
 " Album Verses," a reprint of various poetical 
 pieces, was published by Edward Moxon, to 
 whom it was dedicated. He assisted his sister 
 iu the production of a small juvenile book, now 
 almost forgotten, " Mrs Leicester's School." A 
 selection of his "Poetry for Children, and 
 Prince Dorus," with some unedited poems now 
 first collected, was reprinted from the recently 
 discovered unique copies in 1877. This collec- 
 tion was originally published in 1809 by Wil- 
 liam Godwin. For about half a century no copy 
 of it was known to exist until in 1877, by the 
 courtesy of the Hon. William Sandown, the 
 book in two volumes was sent to the present 
 London publishers from Adelaide in South 
 Australia. About one-third of the book is the 
 contribution of Charles Lamb. A silver medal 
 is now given annually at Christ's Hospital for 
 the best English essay, bearing on its obverse 
 a profile portrait of Lamb.] 
 
 ELIA, BY WILLIAM HAZLITT.* 
 
 Mr Lamb has succeeded not by conforming to 
 the spirit of the age, but in opposition to it. 
 He does not march boldly along with the crowd, 
 but steals off the pavement to pick his way in 
 the contrary direction. He prefers by-ways to 
 highways. When the full tide of human life 
 
 Spirit of the Age." 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 poiirs along to some festive show, to some page- 
 ant of a day, Elia would stand on one side to 
 look over an old bookstall, or stroll down some 
 deserted pathway in search of a pensive inscrip- 
 tion over a tottering doorway, or some quaint 
 device in architecture, illustrative of embryo art 
 and ancient manners. Mr Lamb has the very 
 soul of an antiquarian, as this implies a reflect- 
 ing humanity; the film of the past hovers for 
 ever before him. He is shy, sensitive, the re- 
 verse of everything coarse, vulgar, obtrusive, 
 and common-place. He would fain *' shuffle off 
 this mortal coil," and his spirit clothes itself in 
 the garb of elder time, homelier, but more dur- 
 able. He is borne along with no pompous para- 
 doxes, shines in no glittering tinsel of a fashion- 
 able phraseology; is neither fop nor sophist. 
 He has none of the turbulence or froth of new- 
 fangled opinions. His style runs pure and clear, 
 though it may often take an underground course, 
 or be conveyed through old-fashioned conduit 
 pipes. Mr Lamb does not court popularity, nor 
 strut in gaudy plumes, but shrinks from every 
 kind of ostentatious and obvious pretension into 
 the retirement of his own mind. 
 
 " The self -applauding bird, the peacock see — 
 Mark what a sumptuous Pharisee is he ! 
 Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfold 
 His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold : 
 He treads as if, some solemn music near, 
 His measured step were governed by his ear : 
 And seems to say— Ye meaner fowl, give place, 
 I am all splendour, dignity, and grace ! 
 Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes, 
 Though he too has a glory in his plumes. 
 He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mien 
 To the close copse or far sequestered green, 
 And shines without desiring to be seen." 
 
 These lines will describe the modest and deli- 
 cate beauties of Mr Lamb's writings, contrasted 
 with the lofty and vain-glorious pretensions of 
 some of his contemporaries. This gentleman is 
 not one of those who pay all their homage to the 
 prevailing idol : he thinks that 
 
 " New-born gauds are made and moulded of things 
 past;" 
 
 nor does he 
 
 *' Give to dust that is a little gilt 
 More laud than gilt o'er-dusted." 
 
 His convictions "do not in broad rumour lie," 
 nor are they "set off to the world in the glis- 
 tering foil" of fashion; but "live and breathe 
 in those pure eyes, and perfect judgment of all- 
 seeing time." Mr Lamb rather affects and is 
 tenacious of the obscure and remote— of that 
 which rests on its own intrinsic and silent 
 merit; which scorns all alliance, or even the 
 suspicion of owing anything to noisy clamour, 
 to the glare of circumstances. There is a fine 
 tone of chiaro-oscuro, a moral perspective in his 
 writings. He delights to dwell on that which is 
 fresh to the eye of memory; he yearns after and 
 
 covets what soothes the frailty of human nature. 
 That touches him most nearly which is with- 
 drawn to a certain distance, which verges on the 
 borders of oblivion — that piques and provokes 
 his fancy most, which is hid from a superficial 
 glance. That which, though gone by, is still re- 
 membered, is in his view more genuine, and has 
 given more "vital signs that it will live," than 
 a thing of yesterday, that may be forgotten to- 
 morrow. Death has in this sense the spirit of 
 life in it; and the shadowy has to our author 
 something substantial in it. Ideas savour most 
 of reality in his mind ; or rather his imagination 
 loiters on the edge of each, and a page of his 
 writings recalls to our fancy the " stranger " on 
 the grate, fluttering in its dusky tenuity, with its 
 idle superstition and hospitable welcome ! 
 
 Mr Lamb has a distaste to new faces, to new ' 
 books, to new buildings, to new customs. He 
 is shy of all imposing appearances, of all assump- 
 tions of self-importance, of all adventitious orna- 
 ments, of all mechanical advantages, even to a 
 nervous excess. It is not merely that he does 
 not rely upon, or ordinarily avail himself of 
 them ; he holds them in abhorrence, he utterly 
 abjures and discards them, and places a great 
 gulf between him and them. He disdains all 
 the vulgar artifices of authorship, all the cant of 
 criticism, and helps to notoriety. He has no 
 grand swelling theories to attract the visionary 
 and the enthusiast, no passing topics to allure 
 the thoughtless and the vain. He evades the 
 present, he mocks the future. His affections 
 revert to, and settle on the past, but then, 
 even this must have something personal and 
 local in it to interest him deeply and tho- 
 roughly; he pitches his tent in the suburbs of 
 existing manners ; brings down the account of 
 character to the few straggling remains of the 
 last generation; seldom ventures beyond the 
 bills of mortality, and occupies that nice point 
 between egotism and disinterested humanity. 
 No one makes the tour of our southern metro- 
 polis, or describes the manners of the last age so 
 well as Mr Lamb — with so fine and yet so formal 
 an air — ^with such vivid obscurity, with such 
 arch piquancy, such picturesque quaintness, 
 such smiling pathos. How admirably he has 
 sketched the former inmates of the South Sea 
 House; what "fine fretwork he makes of their 
 double and single entries 1 " With what a firm 
 yet subtle pencil he has embodied " Mrs Battle's 
 Opinions on Whist!" How notaoly he em- 
 balms a battered beau; how delightfully an 
 amour that was cold forty years ago revives in 
 his pages! With what well-disguised humour 
 he introduces us to his relations, and how freely 
 he serves up his friends 1 Certainly, some of his 
 portraits are fixtwres^ and will do to hang up as 
 lasting and lively emblems of human infirmity. 
 Then there is no one who has so sure an ear for 
 **the chimes at midnight," not even excepting 
 Mr Justice Shallow ; nor could Master Silence 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 195 
 
 himself take his *' cheese and pippins" with a 
 more significant and satisfactory air. With what 
 a gusto Mr Lamb describes the inns and courts 
 of law, the Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had 
 been a student there for the last two hundred 
 years, and had been as well acquainted with the 
 person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his 
 portrait or writings ! It is hard to say whether 
 St John's Gate is connected with more intense 
 and authentic associations in his mind as a part 
 of old London Wall, or as the frontispiece (time 
 out of mind) of the Oentleman^s Magazine. He 
 haunts Watling Street like a gentle spirit ; the 
 avenues to the playhouses are thick with pant- 
 ing recollections, and Christ's Hospital still 
 breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his de- 
 scription of it ! Whittington and his Cat are a 
 fine hallucination for Mr Lamb's historic muse, 
 and we believe he never heartily forgave a cer- 
 tain writer who took the subject of Guy Fawkes 
 out of his hands. The streets of London are his 
 fairyland, teeming with wonder, with life and 
 interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to 
 the eager eye of childhood ; he has contrived to 
 weave its tritest traditions into a bright and 
 endless romance ! 
 
 Mr Lamb's taste in books is also fine, and it is 
 peculiar. It is not the worse for a little idiosyn- 
 crasy. He does not go deep into the Scotch 
 novels, but he is at home in Smollett and Field- 
 ing. He is little read in Junius or Gibbon, but no 
 man can give a better account of Burton's "Ana- 
 tomy of Melancholy," or Sir Thomas Browne's 
 "Urn-Burial," or Fuller's "Worthies," or John 
 Bunyan's " Holy War." No one is more unim- 
 pressible to a specious declamation ; no one 
 relishes a recondite beauty more. His admira- 
 tion of Shakespeare and Milton does not make 
 him despise Pope ; and he can read Parnell with 
 patience, and Gay with delight. His taste in 
 French and German literature is somewhat de- 
 fective ; nor has he made much progress in the 
 science of political economy or other abstruse 
 studies, though he has read vast folios of con- 
 troversial divinity, merely for the sake of the 
 intricacy of style, and to save himself the pain 
 of thinking. Mr Lamb is a good judge of prints 
 and pictures. His admiration of Hogarth does 
 credit to both, particularly when it is consider- 
 ed that Leonardo da Vinci is the next greatest 
 favourite, and that his love of the actual does 
 not proceed from a want of taste for the ideal. 
 His worst fault is an over-eagorness of enthusi- 
 asm, which occasionally i.:alc«s him take a sur- 
 feit of his highest favourites. Mr Lamb excels 
 in familiar conversation almost as much as in 
 writing, when his modesty does not overpower 
 his self-possession. He is as little of a proser as 
 possible; but he blurts out the finest wit and 
 sense in the world. He keeps a good deal in the 
 background at first, till some excellent conceit 
 pushes him forward, and then he abounds in 
 whim and pleasantry. There is a primitive 
 
 simplicity and self-denial about his manners; 
 and a Quakerism in his personal appearance, 
 which is, however, relieved by a fine Titian 
 head, full of dumb eloquence. Mr Lamb is 
 a general favourite with those who know him. 
 His character is equally singular and amiable. 
 He is endeared to his friends not less by his 
 foibles than his virtues ; he ensures their esteem 
 by the one, and does not wound their self-love 
 by the other. He gains ground in the opinion 
 of others, by making no advances in his own. 
 We easily admire genius where the diffidence of 
 the possessor makes our acknowledgment of 
 merit seem like a sort of patronage, or act of 
 condescension, as we willingly extend our good 
 offices where they are not exacted as obligations, 
 or repaid with sullen indifference. The style of 
 the essays of Elia is liable to the charge of a 
 certain mannerism. His sentences are cast in 
 the mould of old authors; his expressions are 
 borrowed from them ; but his feelings and obser- 
 vations are genuine and original, taken from 
 actual life, or from his own breast ; and he may 
 be said (if any one can) "to have coined his 
 heart for jests," and to have split his brain for 
 fine distinctions ! Mr Lamb, from the peculiar- 
 ity of his exterior and address as an author, 
 would probably never have made his way by 
 detached and independent efforts ; but, fortun- 
 ately for himself and others, he has taken ad- 
 vantage of the periodical press, where he has 
 been stuck into notice, and the texture of his 
 compositions is assuredly fine enough to bear 
 the broadest glare of popularity that has hitherto 
 shone upon them. Mr Lamb's literary efforts 
 have procured him civic honours (a thing un- 
 heard of in our times), and he has been invited, 
 in his character of Elia, to dine at a select party 
 with the Lord Mayor. We should prefer this 
 distinction to that of being poet laureate. We 
 would recommend to Mr Waithman's perusal (if 
 Mr Lamb has not anticipated us) the "Rosa- 
 mond Gray" and the "John Woodvil" of the 
 same author, as an agreeable relief to the noise 
 of a city feast, and the heat of city elections. 
 A friend, a short time ago, quoted some lines * 
 from the last-mentioned of these works, which 
 meeting Mr Godwin's eye, he was so struck with 
 the beauty of the passage, and with a conscious- 
 ness of having seen it before, that he was uneasy 
 till he could recollect where, and after hunting 
 in vain for it in Ben Jonson, Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, and other not unlikely places, sent to 
 Mr Lamb to know if he could help him to the 
 author I 
 
 A PARTY AT LAMB'S.f 
 
 At Lamb's we used to have lively skirmishes 
 
 * The description of sports in the forest: 
 " To see the sun to bed and to arise, 
 Like some hot amoxirist with glowing eyes," etc 
 t HazUtt'8 •' Plain Speaker," vol i., p. 62. 
 
at these Thursday evening parties. I doubt 
 whether the small coalman's musical parties 
 could exceed them. Oh for the pen of John 
 Buncle to consecrate a petite souvenir to their 
 memory! There was Lamb himself, the most 
 delightful, the most provoking, the most witty 
 and sensible of men. He always made the best 
 pun and the best remark in the course of the 
 evening. His serious conversation, like his seri- 
 ous writing, is his best. No one ever stammered 
 out such fine piquant, deep eloquent things, in 
 half-a-dozen sentences as he does. His jests 
 scald like tears, and he probes a question with a 
 play upon words. What a keen laughing hair- 
 brained vein of home-felt truth ! What choice 
 venom ! How often did we cut into the haunch 
 of letters ! How we skimmed the cream of criti- 
 cism! How we picked out the marrow of 
 authors ! Need I go over the names ? They were 
 but the old everlasting set — Milton and Shake- 
 speare, Pope and Dryden, Steele and Addison, 
 Swift and Gay, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Rich- 
 ardson, Hogarth's prints, Claude's landscapes, the 
 cartoons at Hampton Court, and all those things 
 that, having once been, must ever be. The Scotch 
 novels had not then been heard of, so we said 
 nothing about them. In general we were hard 
 upon the moderns. The author of the '• Ram- 
 bler " was only tolerated in Boswell's life of him, 
 and it was as much as any one could do to edge 
 in a word for Junius. Lamb could not bear Gil 
 Bias — this was a fault. I remember the greatest 
 triumph I ever had was in persuading him, after 
 some years' difficulty, that Fielding was better 
 than Smollett. On one occasion he was for 
 making out a list of persons famous in history 
 that one wished to see again, at the head of 
 whom were, Pontius Pilate, Sir Thomas Browne, 
 and Dr Faustus, but we blackballed most of his 
 list ! But with what a gusto would he describe 
 his favourite authors, Donne or Sir Philip Sid- 
 ney, and call their most crabbed passages delici- 
 ous. He tried them on his palate, as epicures 
 taste olives, and his observations had a smack in 
 them, like a roughness on the tongue. With 
 what discrimination he hinted a defect in what 
 he admired most — as in saying the display of 
 the sumptuous banquet in "Paradise Regained" 
 was not in true keeping, as the simplest fare was 
 all that was necessary to tempt the extremity of 
 hunger; and stating that Adam and Eve, in 
 "Paradise Lost," were too much like married 
 people. He has furnished many a text for 
 Coleridge to preach upon. There was no fuss or 
 cant about him; nor were his sweets or sours 
 ever diluted with one particle of affectation. 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF CHARLES LAMB, 
 BY BARRY CORNWALL.* 
 
 When my thoughts turn backward, as they 
 
 * "Charles Lamb: a Memoir," by Barry Comn^all. 
 London: E. Moxon & Co., 1866. 
 
 sometimes do, I see :aiy dear old Charles Lamb 
 again — ** in ray mind's eye, Horatio ; " with his 
 outstretched hand, and his grave sweet smile of 
 welcome. It was always in a room of moderate 
 size, comfortably but plainly furnished, that he 
 lived. An old mahogany table was opened out 
 in the middle of the room, round which, and 
 near the walls, were old high-backed chairs 
 (such as our grandfathers used), and a long plain 
 bookcase completely filled with old books. 
 These were his "ragged veterans." In one of 
 his letters he says, "My rooms are luxurious, 
 one for prints and one for books ; a summer and 
 winter parlour." They, however, were not 
 otherwise decorated. I do not remember ever 
 to have seen a flower or an image in them. He 
 had not been educated into expensive tastes. His 
 extravagances were confined to books. These 
 were all chosen by himself, all old, and aU in 
 "admired disorder ;" yet he could lay his hand 
 on any volume in a moment. " You never saw," 
 he writes, "a bookcase in more true harmony 
 with the contents than what I have nailed up in 
 my room. Though new it has more aptitude 
 for growing old than you shall often see ; as one 
 sometimes gets a friend in the middle of life who 
 becomes an old friend in a short time." 
 
 Here Charles Lamb sat, when at home, always 
 near the table. At the opposite side was his 
 sister, engaged in some domestic work, knitting 
 or sewing, or pouring over a modem noveL 
 " Bridget in some things is behind her years." 
 In fact, although she was ten years older than 
 her brother, she had more sympathy with mod- 
 ern books and with youthful fancies than he 
 had. She wore a neat cap of the fashion of her 
 youth; an old-fashioned dress. Her face was 
 pale and somewhat square, but very placid, with 
 grey intelligent eyes. She was very mild in her 
 manner to strangers ; and to her brother gentle 
 and tender always. She had often an upward 
 look of peculiar meaning, when directed towards 
 him; as though to give him assurance that all 
 was then well with her. His afi'ection for her 
 was somewhat less on the surface ; but always 
 present. There was great gratitude intermingled 
 with it. "In the days of weakling infancy," he 
 writes, " I was her tender charge, as I have been 
 her care in foolish manhood since." Then, ho 
 adds, pathetically, "I wish I could throw into 
 a heap the remainder of our joint existences, 
 that we might share them in equal division." 
 
 Lamb himself was always dressed in black. 
 "I take it," he says, "to be the proper costume 
 of an author." When this was once objected to 
 at a wedding, he pleaded the raven's apology in 
 the fable, that " he had no other." His clothes 
 were entirely black; and he wore long black 
 gaiters, up to the knees. His head was bent a 
 little forward, like one who had been reading ; 
 and, if not standing or walking, he generally 
 had in his hand an old book, a pinch of snujff, 
 or, later in the evening, a pipe. He stammered 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 197 
 
 a little, pleasantly, just enough to prevent his 
 making speeches; jurst enough to make you 
 listen eagerly for his words, always full of mean- 
 ing, or charged with a jest; or referring (but 
 this was rare) to some line or passage from one 
 of the old Elizabethan writers, which was always 
 ushered in with a smile of tender reverence. 
 When he read aloud it was with a slight tone, 
 which I used to think he had caught from Cole- 
 ridge ; Coleridge's recitation, however, rising to 
 a chant. Lamb's reading was not generally in 
 books of verse, but in the old lay writers, whose 
 tendency was towards religious thoughts. Lamb 
 wrote much, including many letters; but his 
 hands were wanting in pliancy ("inveterate 
 clumsiness" are his words), and his handwrit- 
 ing was therefore never good. It was neither 
 text nor running hand, and the letters did 
 not indicate any fluency ; it was not the hand- 
 writing of an old man nor of a young man; 
 yet it had a very peculiar character; stiff, re- 
 solute, distinct; quite unlike all others that I 
 have seen, and easily distinguishable amongst 
 a thousand. 
 
 No one has described Lamb's manner or merits 
 so well as Hazlitt: "He always made the best 
 pun and the best remark in the course of the 
 evening. His serious conversation, like his 
 serious writing, is his best. No one ever 
 stammered out such fine piquant, deep, elo- 
 quent things, in half-a-dozen sentences, as he 
 does. His jests scald like tears ; and he probes 
 a question with a play upon words. There was 
 no fuss or cant about him. He has furnished 
 many a text for Coleridge to preach upon." 
 Charles was frequently merry ; but ever, at the 
 back of his merriment, there reposed a grave 
 depth, in which rich colours and tender lights 
 were inlaid. For his jests sprang from his 
 sensibility, which was as open to pleasure as to 
 pain. This sensibility, if it somewhat impaired 
 his vigour, led him into curious and delicate 
 fancies, and taught him a liking for things of 
 the highest relish, which a mere robust jester 
 never tastes. 
 
 There was an utter want of parade in every- 
 thing he said and did, in everything about him 
 and his home. The only ornaments on his walls 
 were a few engravings in black frames: one 
 after Leonardo da Vinci ; one after Titian ^ and 
 four, I think, by Hogarth, about whom he has 
 written so well. Lnages of quaint beauty, and 
 all gentle, simple things (things without pre- 
 tension), pleased him to the fullest extent ; per- 
 haps a little beyond their strict merit. I have 
 heard him express admiration for Leonardo da 
 Vinci that he did not accord to Kaffaelle. 
 Raffaelle was too ostentatious of meaning; his 
 merits were too obvious — too much thrust upon 
 the understanding ; not retired nor involved, so 
 as to need discovery or solution. He preferred 
 even Titian (whose meaning is generally obvious 
 enough) to Raffaelle ; but Leonardo was above 
 
 both. Without doubt, Lamb's taste on several 
 matters was peculiar ; for instance, there were a 
 few obsolete words, such as arride, agnisey 
 burgeon, etc., which he fancied, and chose to 
 rescue from oblivion. Then he did not care for 
 music. I never heard a song in his house, nor 
 any conversation on the subject of melody or 
 harmony. "I have no ear," he saj'-s; yet the 
 sentiment, apart from the science of music, gave 
 him great pleasure. He reverenced the fine 
 organ playing of Mr Novello, and admired the 
 soaring singing of his daughter — "the tuneful 
 daughter of a tuneful sire ; " but he resented 
 the misapplication of the theatres to sacred 
 music. He thought this a profanation of the 
 good old original secular purposes of a play- 
 house. 
 
 As a comprehension of all delights he loved 
 London — with its bustle and its living throngs of 
 men and women ; its shops, its turns and wind- 
 ings ; the cries and noises of trade and life — 
 beyond all other things. He liked also old 
 buildings and out-of-the-way places ; colleges ; 
 solemn churchyards, round which the murmur- 
 ing thousands floated unheeding. In particular 
 he was fond of visiting in his short vacations 
 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Al- 
 though (he writes) "mine have been anything 
 but studious hours," he professes to have re- 
 ceived great solace from those "repositories of 
 'mouldering' learning." "What a place to be 
 in is an old library ! where the souls of the old 
 writers seem reposing, as in some dormitory or 
 middle state." The odour of the "moth- 
 scented" coverings of the old books is "as 
 fragrant as the blooms of the tree of knowledge 
 which grew in the happy orchard." 
 
 When I speak of his extreme liking for Lon- 
 don, it must not be supposed that he was in- 
 sensible to great scenery. After his only visit 
 to the Lake country, and beholding Skiddaw, 
 he writes back to his host : " Oh ! its fine black 
 head, and the bleak air at the top of it, with a 
 prospect of mountains all about, making you 
 giddy. It was a day that will stand out like a 
 mountain in my life;" adding, however, "Fleet 
 Street and the Strand are better places to live 
 in, for good and all. I could not live in Skid- 
 daw. I could spend there two or three years ; 
 but 1 must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street 
 at the end of that time, or I should mope and 
 pine away." He loved even its smoke, and 
 asserted that it suited his vision. A short time 
 previously he had, in a touching letter to Words- 
 worth (1801), enumerated the objects that he 
 liked so much in London. " These things," he 
 writes, "work themselves into my mind: the 
 rooms where I was born ; a bookcase that has 
 followed me about like a faithful dog (only ex- 
 ceeding him in knowledge), wherever I have 
 moved ; old chairs ; old tables ; squares where 
 I have sunned myself ; my old school : these are 
 my mistresses. Have I not enough, without 
 
198 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 your mountains ? I do not envy you ; I should 
 pity you, did I not know that the mind will 
 make friends with anything." 
 
 None of Lamb's intimates were persons of 
 title or fashion, or of any political importance. 
 They were reading men, or authors, or old friends 
 who had no name or pretentions. The only tie 
 that held these last and Lamb together was a 
 long-standing mutual friendship ; a sufficient 
 link. None of them ever forsook him ; they 
 loved him, and in return he had a strong regard 
 for them. His affections, indeed, were con- 
 centrated on few persons ; not widened (weak- 
 ened) by too general a philanthropy. When 
 you went to Lamb's rooms on the Wednesday 
 evenings (his "At Home"), you generally found 
 the card-table spread out. Lamb himself one of 
 the players. On the corner of the table was a 
 snuff-box ; and the game was enlivened by 
 sundry brief ejaculations and pungent questions, 
 which kept alive the wits of the party present. 
 It was not "silent whist ! " I do not remember 
 whether, in common with Sarah Battle, Lamb 
 had a weakness in favour of "Hearts." I sup- 
 pose that it was at one of these meetings that 
 he made that shrewd remark which has since 
 escaped into notoriety : " Martin " (observed 
 he), "if dirt were trumps, what a hand you 
 would hold." It is not known what influence 
 Martin's trumps had on the rubber then in pro- 
 gress. When the conversation became general. 
 Lamb's part in it was very effective. His short 
 clear sentences always produced effect. He 
 never joined in talk unless he understood the 
 subject ; then, if the matter in question inter- 
 ested him, he was not slow in showing his ear- 
 nestness ; but I never heard him arg^e or talk 
 for argument's sake. If he was indifferent to 
 the question, he was silent. 
 
 The supper of cold meat, on these occasions, 
 was always on the side table ; not very formal, 
 as may be imagined ; and every one might rise, 
 when it suited him, and cut a slice or take a 
 glass of porter, without reflecting on the abstin- 
 ence of the rest of the company. Lamb would, 
 perhaps, call out and bid the hungry guest help 
 himself without ceremony. We learn (from 
 Hazlitt) that Martin Burney's eulogies on books 
 were sometimes intermingled with expressions 
 of his satisfaction with the veal pie which em- 
 ployed him at the sideboard. After the game 
 was won (and lost) the ring of the cheerful 
 glasses announced that punch or brandy and 
 water had become the order of the night. 
 
 It was curious to observe the gradations in 
 Lamb's manner to his various guests, although 
 it was courteous to all. With Hazlitt he talked 
 as though they met the subject in discussion 
 on equal terms ; with Leigh Hunt he exchanged 
 repartees; to Wordsworth he was always re- 
 spectful; with Coleridge he was sometimes 
 jocose, sometimes deferring ; with Martin Bur- 
 ney fraternally familiar; with Manning affec- 
 
 tionate; with Godwin merely courteous; or if 
 friendly, then in a minor degree. 
 
 Notwithstanding Lamb's somewhat humble 
 description of his friends and familiars, some 
 of them were men well known in literature. 
 Amongst others, I met there Coleridge, Man- 
 ning, Hazlitt, Haydon, Wordsworth, Barron 
 Field, Leigh Hunt, Clarkson, Sheridan Knowles, 
 Talfourd, Kenney, Godwin, the Bumeys, Payne 
 Collier, and others whose names I need not 
 chronicle. I met there also on one or two 
 occasions, Liston and Miss Kelly, and, I be- 
 lieve, Eickman. Politics were rarely discussed 
 amongst them. Anecdotes, characteristic, show- 
 ing the strong and weak points of human nature, 
 were frequent enough. But politics (especially 
 party politics) were seldom admitted. Lamb 
 disliked them as a theme for evening talk ; he 
 perhaps did not understand the subject scienti- 
 fically. And when Hazlitt's impetuosity drove 
 him, as it sometimes did, into fierce expressions 
 on public affairs, these were usually received in 
 silence ; and the matter thus raised up for assent 
 or controversy was allowed to drop. 
 
 Lamb's old associates are now dead. " They 
 that lived so long," as he says, " and flourished 
 so steadily, are all crumbled away." The 
 beauty of these evenings was that every one 
 was placed upon an easy level. No one out- 
 topped the others. No one — not even Cole- 
 ridge — was permitted to out-talk the rest. No 
 one was allowed to hector another or to bring 
 his own grievances too prominently forward, so 
 as to disturb the harmony of the night. Every 
 one had a right to speak, and to be heard ; and 
 no one was ever trodden or clamoured down (as 
 in some large assemblies) until he had proved 
 that he was not entitled to a hearing or until he 
 had abused his privilege. I never in all my life 
 heard so much unpretending good sense talked 
 as at Charles Lamb's social parties. Often a 
 piece of sparkling humour was shot out that 
 illuminated the whole evening. Sometimes 
 there was a flight of high and earnest talk that 
 took one half toward the stars. 
 
 CHARLES LAMB (1815), BY T. N. TALPOUBD. 
 
 Methinks I see him before me now, as he 
 appeared then, and as he continued, with 
 scarcely any perceptible alteration to me, dur- 
 ing the twenty years of intimacy which fol- 
 lowed, and were closed by his death. A light 
 frame, so fragile that it seemed as if a breath 
 would overthrow it, clad in clerk-like black, 
 was surmounted by a head or form and expres- 
 sion the most noble and sweet. His black hair 
 curled crisply about an expanded forehead ; his 
 eyes, softly brown, twinkled with varying ex- 
 pression, though the prevalent feeling was sad ; 
 and the nose slightly curved, and delicately 
 carved at the nostril, with the lower outline of 
 
CHARLES LAMB, 
 
 199 
 
 the face regularly oval, completed a head which 
 was finely placed on the shoulders, and gave 
 importance, and even dignity, to a diminutive 
 and shadowy stem. Who shall describe his 
 countenance — catch its quivering sweetness — 
 and fix it for ever in words? There are none, 
 alas ! to answer the vain desire of friendship. 
 Deep thought, striving with humour ; the lines 
 of suffering wreathed into cordial mirth ; and a 
 smile of painful sweetness, present an image to 
 the mind it can as little describe as lose. His 
 personal appearance and manner are not unfitly 
 characterised by what he himself says in one of 
 his letters to Manning of Braham — "a com- 
 pound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the 
 angel." He took my arm, and we walked to 
 the Temple, Lamb stammering out fine remarks 
 as we walked ; and when we reached his stair- 
 case, he detained me with an urgency which 
 would not be denied, and we mounted to the 
 top story, where an old petted servant, called 
 Becky, was ready to receive us. We were soon 
 seated before a cheerful fire; hot water and its 
 better adjuncts were beside us; and Lamb in* 
 sisted on my sitting with him while he smoked 
 "one pipe" — for, alas ! for poor human nature ! 
 he had resumed his acquaintance with his 
 "fair traitress." How often the pipe and the 
 glasses were replenished, I wUl not undertake 
 to disclose ; but I can never forget the conversa- 
 tion ; though the first, it was more solemn, and 
 in higher mood, than any I ever after had with 
 Lamb through the whole of our friendship. 
 How it took such a turn between two strangers, 
 one of them a lad of not quite twenty, I cannot 
 tell ; but so it happened. We discoursed then 
 of life and death, and our anticipation of a 
 world beyond the grave. Lamb spoke of these 
 awful themes with the simplest piety, but ex- 
 pressed his own fond cleavings to life — to all 
 well-known accustomed things — and a shivering 
 (not shuddering) sense of that which is to come, 
 which he so finely indicated in his " New Year's 
 Eve," years afterwards. It was two o'clock 
 before we parted, when Lamb gave me a hearty 
 invitation to renew my visit at pleasure; but 
 two or three months elapsed before I saw him 
 again. 
 
 The years which Lamb passed in his chambers 
 in Inner Temple Lane were, perhaps, the hap- 
 piest of his life. His salary was considerably 
 augmented, his fame as an author was rapidly 
 extending; he resided near the spot which he 
 best loved; and was surrounded by a motley 
 group of attached friends, some of them men of 
 rarest parts, and all strongly attached to him 
 and to his sister. Here the glory of his Wed- 
 nesday nights shone forth in its greatest lustre. 
 If you did not meet there the favourites of for- 
 tune — authors whose works bore the highest 
 price in Paternoster Eow, and who glittered in 
 the circles of fashion — you might find those who 
 had thought most deeply, felt most keenly, and 
 
 were destined to produce the most lasting in- 
 fluences on the literature and manners of tha 
 age. There Hazlitt, sometimes kindling into 
 fierce passion at any mention of the great re- 
 verses of his idol Napoleon, at other times bash- 
 fully enunciated the finest criticism on art ; or 
 dwelt with genial iteration on a passage in 
 Chaucer ; or, fresh from the theatre, expatiated 
 on some new instance of energy in Kean, or 
 reluctantly conceded a greatness to Kemble ; or 
 detected some popular fallacy with the fairest 
 and the subtlest reasoning. There Godwin, as 
 he played his quiet rubber, or benignantly 
 joined in the gossip of the day, sat an object of 
 curiosity and wonder to the stranger, who had 
 been at one time shocked or charmed with his 
 high speculation, and at another awe-struck by 
 the force and graphic power of his novels. 
 There Coleridge sometimes, though rarely, took 
 his seat ; and then the genial hubbub of voices 
 was still; critics, philosophers, and poets were 
 contented to listen; and toil-worn lawyers, 
 clerks from the India House, and members of 
 the Stock Exchange, grew romantic while he 
 spoke. Lamb used to say that he was inferior 
 then to what he had been in his youth ; but I 
 can scarcely believe it ; at least there is nothing 
 in his early writing which gives any idea of the 
 richness of his mind so lavishly poured out at 
 this time in his happiest moods. . . . 
 
 The first time I met him, which was on one 
 of those Wednesday evenings, we quitted the 
 party together, between one and two in the 
 morning ; Coleridge took my arm, and led me, 
 nothing loth, at a very gentle pace, to his lodg- 
 ings at the Gloucester Coffee-house, pouring 
 into my ear the whole way an argument by 
 which he sought to reconcile the doctrines of 
 necessity and free-will, winding on through a 
 golden maze of exquisite illustration ; but find- 
 ing no end, except with the termination of that 
 (to me) enchanted walk. . . . Men of "great 
 mark and likelihood" attended those delightful 
 suppers, where the utmost freedom prevailed — 
 including politicians of every grade, from God- 
 win up to the editor of the New Times. 
 
 SAYINGS BY CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 He wrote thus to Mr Gillman, a surgeon: 
 "Coleridge is very bad, but he wonderfully 
 picks up, and his face, when he repeats his 
 verses, hath its ancient glory ; an archangel a 
 little damaged." 
 
 He remarked of an eccentric person, "Why 
 does not his guardian angel look to him ? He 
 deserves one — maybe he has tired him out." 
 
 " Charles," said Coleridge to Lamb, "I think 
 you have heard me preach?" "I n — n — nevei 
 heard you do anything else," replied Lamb. 
 
 Leigh Hunt, having expressed his surprise at 
 the prodigality and intensity of Coleridge's 
 
200 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 religious expressions, Lamb tranquilised him 
 by, "Ne — ne — never mind what Coleridge says; 
 he's full of fun." 
 
 Of a Scotchman, " His understanding is 
 always at its meridian. Between the affirma- 
 tive and the negative there is no border-land 
 with him. You cannot hover with him on the 
 confines of truth." 
 
 A fine sonnet of his, **The Gipsy's Malison," 
 being refused publication, he exclaimed, " Hang 
 the age ! I will write for antiquity." 
 
 Mrs K., after expressing her love for hei 
 young children, added, tenderly, " And how do 
 you like babies, Mr Lamb?" His answer, im- 
 mediate, almost precipitate, was, "Boi — boi — 
 boiled, ma'am." 
 
 Hood, tempting Lamb to dine with him, said, 
 "We have a hare." "And many friendjs?" 
 inquired Lamb. 
 
 The Scotch, whom he did not like, ought, he 
 said, to have double punishment, and to have 
 fire without brimstone. 
 
 EEV. JOHI^ THOMSON. 
 
 [1778-1840.] 
 By ALEXANDER SMITH. 
 
 In glancing backward over the last century and 
 a half of Scottish history, it will be noticed that 
 distinguished men have come in clusters, and 
 that the intellectual products of these are visible 
 in well-defined belts or zones. Nature there, as 
 elsewhere, built capacious brains, and when her 
 hand was in, it was her habit to build more than 
 one ; and so the clever Scotchmen of a generation 
 have a family resemblance, and the works pro- 
 duced by them have a family resemblance also. 
 Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith came to- 
 gether ; and through these we have the philo- 
 sophic and historical belt. Scott and Gait 
 created the imaginative belt ; Jeffrey, Wilson, 
 and Lockhart the critical belt. In any enumera- 
 tion of eminent Scotchmen the name of Bums 
 cannot be omitted, but then Burns has no place 
 in any such loose generalisations. In his great- 
 ness he is the loneliest of all the northern geni- 
 uses. He had, strictly speaking, no predecessor, 
 he had no companion, he has had no successor. 
 Critics have delighted to point out that the 
 "Farmer's Ingle" of Fergusson was the proto- 
 type of the " Cottar's Saturday Night," but the 
 truth is, that Fergusson had no more share in 
 the most exquisite of homely idylls than the 
 leaves of the mulberry tree on which the silk- 
 worm feeds has a share in the silk which is pro- 
 duced. Putting Burns aside, as in some sense 
 a special phenomenon, who must be considered 
 by himself if considered at all, the three broadly- 
 marked belts or zones of Scottish mental activity 
 are indicated by the *' Essays, Moral and Philo- 
 sophical," and the "Wealth of Nations;" the 
 novels of Scott and Gait ; and the Edinburgh 
 Jieview and Blackwood's Magazine. So much 
 one can see looking back on the past ; but it 
 would be extremely diflficult to say what, since 
 the establishment of the famous Meview, and 
 the still more famous Magazine, is the salient 
 outstanding feature of Scottish intellectual life. 
 
 And the difiiculty lies in this, that, ecclesiastical 
 matters apart, there has, during the last twenty 
 or twenty-five years, been hardly any distinctive 
 Scottish life at all. " Stands Scotland where it 
 did?" asks Macduff; and the answer to-day is, 
 "No; if you seek Scotland, you must go to 
 London for her." The old frontier line has 
 been effaced by the railway and the post-office. 
 The Tweed no longer divides peoples with dif- 
 ferent interests. Scotland and England have 
 melted into each other and become Britain, just 
 as red and blue melt into each other and become 
 purple ; and in the general intellectual activity 
 of the empire, it would be as difficult to separate 
 that contributed by north and south as to sepa- 
 rate the waters of the Forth and the Humber in 
 the German Ocean, or the taxes gathered on 
 either side of the Tweed in the imperial ex- 
 chequer. John Bull and Patrick serve in the 
 ranks of the Black Watch and the Greys, and 
 Sandy is a sentry at the Horse Guards. An 
 English professor is the most distinguished 
 disciple of the Scottish Sir William Hamilton ; 
 and the representative of a metropolitan con- 
 stituency — a Scot at least by extraction — is the 
 intellectual descendant of the English Bentham. 
 It is from this interconnection of the two 
 peoples, that for the last quarter of a century 
 there has been so little distinctive Scottish in- 
 tellectual life. Scotland has overflowed its 
 boundaries, and it has no longer a separate 
 existence in thought or geography. It is not, 
 however, to be supposed that, although working 
 under different conditions, there is any diminu- 
 tion in the northern vigour. The Scot thinks 
 as shrewdly and acts as prudently in Cheapside 
 as at Aberdeen or at John o' Groat's ; and when 
 great things have to be done — when, for instance, 
 a treaty has to be negotiated with China, when 
 a revolted India has to be subdued, when a 
 "Life of Frederick" has to be written— the 
 
THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 201 
 
 doers of those feats of diplomacy, arms, and 
 letters, are not unfrequently found wearing 
 Scottish names. But the difficulty of pointing 
 out any broad, salient, outstanding feature in 
 Scottish intellectual life, does not altogether 
 arise from the cessation of that life in the sense 
 which has been explained, but in some degree 
 from the fact that, since the establishment of 
 Blackwood's Magazine^ Scottish intellect and 
 fancy have more and more sought a new mani- 
 festation and direction. For long, Scotland 
 was the best educated and least aesthetic nation 
 in Europe. Beauty and ornament had never 
 specially been the denizens of the Scottish house 
 or the Scottish street ; and at the Reformation 
 they were sternly thrust forth and forbidden to 
 enter the ecclesiastical edifice. In Scotland, 
 Beauty was churchless, and on Sundays had to 
 abide with the daisy in the field, the cloud- 
 shadow on the hill-side, and to consort with the 
 poet, who was a commoner of Nature like her- 
 self, and under the same social ban. Not the 
 least religious nation in the world, the Scotch 
 were content to worship in barn-like buildings, 
 with windows hard in outline and innocent of 
 colour as those of factories ; and Music, sus- 
 pected of popish parentage, and of haunting 
 the playhouse and the opera, was turned away 
 from the church-door, and had to go romp in 
 the fields with Beauty and the poet. Untouched 
 by the softening influences of art, the Scottish 
 nation was devout, deep-hearted, humorous, 
 sincere ; but it was harsh in manner, deficient 
 in graciousness and suavity. The visitor, on 
 coming to Scottish towns, was struck by the 
 lack of politeness on the part of the inhabitants. 
 He saw them, unyielding as tides, jostle each 
 other on the pavement. If he asked to be di- 
 rected to a particular street, he not unfrequently 
 received a churlish response. He noted that in 
 these towns statues and public monuments were 
 rare, that they were disregarded and often ill 
 kept; and, if a travelled man, he drew dis- 
 advantageous comparisons between the Scottish 
 towns and the French or Italian ones. This 
 hardness and lack of graciousness, this lack of 
 art and of regard for art, was attributable to a 
 considerable extent to the national poverty and 
 the national faith. There is no social civiliser 
 like art, but art does not grow in poor countries 
 any more than grapes on poor soils. You may 
 keep a poet on £70 a year, and get a good deal 
 out of him, just as our fathers for something 
 like that sum got a tremendous deal out of 
 Bums; but you cannot so cheaply maintain 
 painters and sculptors. If you will adorn your 
 apartments with their works, they can at least 
 claim upholsterers' wages. And, putting inspira- 
 tion out of the question altogether, pigments 
 and marble are much more expensive than pens 
 and ink, and the backs of old letters, or excise 
 schedules at a pinch. On Calvinism you can 
 breed first-rate men, but not so easily first-rate 
 
 artists. Art delights in minster and cathedral, 
 in painted window and fuming incense, in gor- 
 geous vestments and the voices of singing-men 
 and singing-women, and finds but little suste- 
 nance in barn-like churches, discordant psal- 
 mody, rigid pews, and intrepid, closely-knit, 
 logical discourses, Scotland was a well-edu- 
 cated country, as countries went, but it wanted 
 artistic susceptibility ; and it was only when it 
 became comparatively rich, and when its social 
 atmosphere became a little more genial, that 
 art began to develop itself in any general or 
 unmistakable manner. The picture and the 
 statue came with wealth into the private apart- 
 ment; the ornate church, the famous man in 
 bronze or marble, came with wealth into the 
 street ; and the public eye becoming accustomed 
 to these things, gradually learned to enjoy them. 
 The establishment of the Edinburgh Review and 
 Blackwood' s Magazine was the last distinct phase 
 of Scottish — that is, of Scottish as distinct from 
 British — intellectual life ; and at that time Scot-- 
 tish art was in its vigorous youth, and quite 
 abreast of Scottish literature. Scotchmen, save 
 in isolated instances, and generally out of their 
 own country, have done nothing very remarkable 
 in literature since ; but at home there has grown 
 up a school of art, distinct, vigorous, individual, 
 which has spread far and wide, and which has 
 more than one representative amongst the Forty 
 of the Royal Academy. The pen was long 
 the favourite weapon of the clever Scot, but 
 since John Wilson's time the cleverest men in 
 Scotland have wielded the brush rather than 
 the pen. 
 
 The school of Scottish art had at first, as was 
 natural, a good deal in common with the more 
 favourite form of Scottish literature — of poetry 
 more especially. When the northern genius was 
 not piercingly lyrical — tingling to the very 
 marrow in song and ballad — it was for the most 
 part garrulous and manners-painting. Rustic 
 life, with its humours, its fun, its jealousies, its 
 petty passions, its coarseness even — when these 
 were reflected in some incident like a marriage, 
 a festival, a fair, or a wapinschaw — ^has always 
 had special attraction for the Scottish muse. 
 This vein of manners-painting is visible from 
 "Christ's Kirk on the Green," down through 
 the "Gentle Shepherd" of Ramsay, the "Leith 
 Races" of Fergusson, the "Jolly Beggars" and 
 "Hallowe'en" of Burns, to the "Anster Fair" of 
 Tennant ; and in the same way, and for the same 
 reasons, the Scottish school of painting abounds 
 in admirable representations of rustic life : wit- 
 ness the best pictures of David Allan, the "Penny 
 Wedding," and a dozen others of Sir David 
 Wilkie, the "Curlers" of Mr Harvey, and the 
 works of many others less distinguished. The 
 Scottish painters have in an indirect, yet most 
 sufficient manner, illustrated the Scottish poets. 
 In this special department Scottish art will take 
 rank with Dutch — with the advantage that it 
 
202 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 has more esprit and less of mere vulgar swilling 
 and boorisliness. In the domain of highest art — 
 just as there is no northern Spenser or Milton — 
 Scotland is "behind England, and has, perhaps, 
 no proper representative, if we except the late 
 Mr David Scott and the present Sir J. Noel 
 Paton. In portraiture and landscape the Scot- 
 tish school excels. In the department of por- 
 traiture the Scotch are distinguished by a 
 solidity of basis and treatment, and a direct 
 going at essentials to the neglect of subsidiaries. 
 Any one looking at the men Sir Henry Raeburn, 
 Sir John Watson Gordon, and Sir Daniel Mac- 
 nee have painted, will see that, in the delinea- 
 tion of characteristic heads and faces, of men 
 who are individual and not conventional, the 
 national shrewdness, humour, biographical tal- 
 ent, and insight, have in the most mysterious 
 way become mixed with the colours. I say the 
 men these artists have painted, for somehow 
 they have not succeeded so well with women. 
 If the Scotch style has a specialty, it is that of 
 robustness, of solid force and character — ele- 
 ments which are much more masculine than 
 feminine. Given a granite-faced Provost of 
 Peterhead, wrinkled all over with shrewd, 
 pawky, tell-tale lines, and there are half-a- 
 dozen Scotchmen who will paint him so to the 
 life, that the spectator will know what kind of 
 a voice he has, whether he has been married 
 twice, and what ho usually takes for breakfast. 
 Given an elegant lady, and perhaps Sir Francis 
 Grant is the only Scotchman who can paint 
 her in her self-possession and easy security — 
 high bred to the finger-tips, and perfectly comma 
 il faut in every least matter of detail. Sir 
 Henry Raeburn struck the key-note of Scottish 
 portrait painting, and it is vibrating still. In 
 Scottish landscape again — which partakes of 
 similar characteristics — the key-note was struck 
 by the Rev. John Thomson of Duddingstone ; 
 and his influence is still observable, not only 
 in Mr MaccuUoch's "cold and splendour of 
 the hills," in the Wordsworth ian repose of 
 Harvey's pastoral hill-sides, but in Mr Peter 
 Graham's "Mountain River in Flood," when 
 amongst the landscapes of the Royal Academy, 
 the observed of all observers. 
 
 Mr Thomson, while he lived, was the most 
 distinguished landscape painter of the Scottish 
 school ; and he was unique in this, that he was 
 clergyman as well as painter; that it was his 
 work to study the page of nature and the page 
 of revelation. It would be interesting to know, 
 if it were at all now possible, how he conducted 
 this double life— if the artistic and clerical ele- 
 ments lived together, reciprocally enriching and 
 assisting each other — the one bringing reverence 
 and sanctity into his studio, the other bringing 
 pictures into his sermons. When discoursing 
 on the Dead Sea, did he behold in imagination 
 the red hills of Moab looming low on the 
 horizon? If prelecting on the passage — as in 
 
 the course of his ministrations it is likely that 
 he would prelect — "And Abraham rose up early 
 in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took 
 two of his young men with him, and Isaac his 
 son, and clave the wood for the burnt-offering, 
 and rose up, and went unto the place of which 
 God had told him. Then on the third day 
 Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place 
 afar of" — one would like to know what mental 
 image he formed of the yet untempled Moriah ; 
 was it a Syrian mount, or the double-peaked 
 Benledi — the Hill of God of his own country— 
 with the Scottish morning spread above it? 
 One would like to know, if one could, whether 
 Thomson brought the landscape painter with 
 him into the pulpit. But of his quality as 
 a preacher no information can be obtained. 
 The people who bought his pictures did not 
 care for his sermons; the people who listened 
 to his sermons did not care for his pictures. 
 His parishioners regarded his landscape paint- 
 ing as they regarded his violin playing — a 
 pretty amusement enough, but one not in the 
 least befitting the dignity of his cloth. Thorn- 
 son was, no doubt, an excellent preacher, after a 
 quiet, elegant, unenthusiastic, charitable fashion. 
 He was in every way an accomplished man. He 
 had a competent knowledge of literature, and, 
 when working on his landscapes, was in the 
 habit of reciting from the classical and English 
 poets passages that seemed to illustrate the scene 
 he was depicting ; he was an exquisite musician ; 
 he was well read in the natural sciences, and 
 contributed several papers on such subjects to 
 the Edinburgh Review. We know how he 
 painted, we can guess how he preached; and 
 the fact that he was both preacher and painter 
 takes him out of the category of ordinary men. 
 A solitary, sad-eyed, mediaeval monk, illuminat- 
 ing missals in a cloistered silence, broken only 
 by the tinkling of refectory or prayer bells, is 
 familiar enough to the imagination; but a 
 modern Presbyterian clergyman, painting pic- 
 tures on week-days, and preaching sermons on 
 Sundays; writing papers on optics for the 
 Edinburgh Review^ and drawing tears in the 
 evening in his drawing-room by his violin per- 
 formances; throwing down his brushes of a 
 forenoon, placing against the wall a picture of 
 the Bass, with a thunder-cloud blackening over 
 it ; going out to see an ailing parishioner, noting 
 on his way how a sunbeam made gleam the ivies 
 on Craigmillar which a shower had just wet, and 
 returning to receive to dinner Sir Walter Scott, 
 fresh from the "Bride of Lammermoor;" or Sir 
 David Wilkie, fresh from Spain and the study 
 of Velasquez — this complex activity, this variety 
 of duty, this fulness of noble life, is something 
 not very frequently met with. 
 
 Young Thomson was born at Dailly, in Ayr- 
 shire, of which parish his father was minister, in 
 the latter half of the last century ; and there, 
 amid the beautiful scenery surrounding him, he 
 
THE MINISTER^PAINTER. 
 
 203 
 
 nourished his taste for landscape. His father 
 destined him for the sacred profession ; and, in 
 accordance with a Scottish fashion not yet 
 obsolete, at a very early age he was sent to the 
 University of Edinburgh, to attend literary and 
 philosophical classes, preparatory to entering on 
 the study of divinity. At the lodgings of his 
 elder brother, who had come to Edinburgh some 
 years before, and who, in after-life, became dis- 
 tinguished as a feudal lawyer and an anti- 
 quarian, the enthusiastic young man made the 
 acquaintance of Walter Scott, Francis Jeffrey, 
 and others. He stuck to his work during the 
 winter sessions ; but in his summer vacations at 
 home he devoted himself to painting and violin 
 playing, to the no small consternation of his 
 father, who could not help marvelling at the 
 strange bird growing up in the quiet, orderly, 
 clerical nest. All this while, whatever may 
 have been his progress, he had no teacher but 
 nature, and it was only during the last year of 
 his theological curriculum that he had the ad- 
 vantage of lessons from Alexander Nasmyth, and 
 that only for the period of one month. At the 
 age of twenty-one he was licensed ; and on the 
 death of his father, in the first year of the cen- 
 tury, he succeeded to the Dailly manse and the 
 Dailly pulpit. A year after, he married ; and in 
 a house rapidly filling with babies he composed 
 his sermons, painted his pictures, and played on 
 his violin. In 1805 he was translated to the 
 parish of Duddingstone, near Edinburgh — a 
 place perhaps the best suited for him in Scot- 
 land — where he could walk out into the fields at 
 eventide, like Isaac ; where he could watch the 
 purple thunder-gloom gathering on the distant 
 hills, like Claude. 
 
 In May, passing along the Queen's Drive in 
 a south-easterly direction — sheep and lambs 
 bleating above, the starling glistening as it 
 sweeps past through the sunshine — you see 
 Duddingstone Loch beneath you, with its 
 stunted and pollard willows, whitey-green in 
 the wind, its banks and promontories of rushes, 
 its swans and beds of water-lilies, its cloud- 
 shadows crossed by the trail of low-flying teal. 
 Proceeding some twenty yards or so, you come 
 in sight of the little village itself, and note its 
 grey, low-roofed, Norman-like church, its scat- 
 tered houses, with garden slopes behind filled 
 with plum and apple blossom ; its yellow-faced 
 inn, in which tradition mumbles Prince Charles 
 slept the night before the battle of Prestonpans, 
 or else the night after ; and the swiftly-greening 
 woods beyond, stretching towards Portobello 
 and the sea. As you look down upon it from 
 the Drive, 'tis a mere toy-village, breathing soft 
 smoke pillars, breathing fruit-tree fragrance. 
 The quietest place in the whole world, you 
 would say ; not a creature to be seen in the 
 little bit of a street visible ; silent as Pompeii 
 itself ; motion only on the lake, when the coot 
 shoots across its surface, or when a swan, thrust- 
 
 ing its long neck under water, tilts itself upward 
 in its preposterous fashion. And this little 
 clachan of twenty or thirty houses is walled, 
 too, like a Babylon or Nineveh ; its wall not 
 one on which six chariots could race abreast, 
 but of strictly modest pretensions. Descending 
 on Duddingstone, you find it retired, low-lying, 
 sunshiny, umbrageous ; a place in which in 
 summer you may expect plenty of dust in the 
 narrow streets, plenty of drowsy bees around 
 the double-flowered white and purple stocks in 
 the gardens, plenty of flies buzzing in the sunny 
 parlour windows. You see the old low-roofed 
 Norman-looking church — several centuries old 
 some portions of it, antiquaries say — with its 
 pointed windows and flagged roof ; the church- 
 yard heaped and mounded with generations on 
 generations of village dead; the rusty "jougs" 
 — an iron collar, in which malefactors did pen- 
 ance of old — hanging on the churchyard wall 
 near the gate of entrance, with its " louping-on- 
 stane," well worn by the hobnails of dead 
 farmers. Near the church is the manse, in 
 which the minister-painter lived, looking out 
 with all its windows on the lake ; on ivied 
 Craigmillar, in which Queen Mary dwelt ; on 
 the low hills of Braid, over which Marmion 
 rode, and on which Fitz Eustace 
 
 *' Raised his bridle hand, 
 And made a demivolte in air," 
 
 at sight of the old Edinburgh of the Jameses, 
 smoke-swathed ; and beyond, on the lovely un- 
 dulating line of the Pentlands, stained, as in 
 these bright spring days, with the white uproU- 
 ing vapour of the heather-burnings. Dudding- 
 stone is the prettiest place in the neighbourhood 
 of Edinburgh in summer ; and it is, if possible, 
 still more worth seeing about Christmas. Then 
 the swans are of course gone ; the chestnuts 
 have lost their broad drooping fans, and have 
 donned their strange snow draperies ; from out 
 the frosty blue, white Arthur's Seat looks down 
 on the little village. At that season Edinburgh 
 flocks Duddingstone-wards. Pedestrians and 
 carriages stand along the margin of the loch ; 
 carriages and pedestrians move slowly along the 
 Queen's Drive above. The lake itself is crowded 
 as Vanity Fair ; skaters shoot hither and thither ; 
 while in a carefully-preserved circle, members 
 of the Edinburgh Skating Club go through the 
 most graceful evolutions, and interweave with 
 each other the prettiest loops and chains. At 
 a little distance the curlers are busy, their faces 
 red with exercise, their eyes bright with excite- 
 ment, the on-lookers stamping their chilled feet 
 in the snow, and attempting to breathe a little 
 warmth into their frostbitten fingers. Else- 
 where, on great belts of slides, people are work- 
 ing their arms like awkward windmills. Here 
 skims a skate-shod Diana — fleet huntress of 
 men ! — yonder, in a sleigh driven by admirers, 
 sits a lady enveloped in furs. Past your ear 
 
204 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 whizzes a shinty ball, and down upon you in 
 hot pursuit thereof comes, with a noise like a 
 troop of wild horses, a horde of young fellows, 
 each armed with a cudgel, a long-haired High- 
 lander leading the charge — as Murat was wont 
 to do — several lengths in front. The Highlander 
 is up with the hall, as he turns on it his foot 
 slips, and in a moment the crowd are over him. 
 There is a general milee, and then out of the 
 crowd, and in an opposite direction, spins the 
 ball, another fellow leading the pursuit now, 
 the eager crowd streaming behind him like a 
 comet's tail. So around Duddingstone the 
 seasons come and go — so they came and went 
 while Thomson lived there, with umbrageous- 
 ness of summer, pallor of winter ; each differing 
 from the other, yet each aiding the painter's 
 education. 
 
 In the pretty Duddingstone manse Thomson 
 established himself, and there, for thirty-five 
 years, his life flowed on peacefully, prosper- 
 ously, honoured by high and low. As a clergy- 
 man, he was much esteemed by his parishioners, 
 consisting mainly of well-to-do folks who lived 
 in villas, small market-gardeners who brought 
 their produce into Edinburgh, and washerwomen 
 who worked for the inhabitants of the city, 
 washing the clothes in the loch, and bleaching 
 and drying them on the slopes of Arthur's Seat, 
 where they caught the scent of the broom. To 
 the former class, the minister commended him- 
 self by his accomplishments, his gentlemanly 
 manners, and his distinction ; to the latter by 
 his liberality and kind-heartedness, and his 
 frank ways of going in and out amongst them. 
 The price of many a landscape came to the poor 
 people, when sickness or distress was prevalent, 
 in the shape of bottles of wine or even of com- 
 forts more substantial. It was at Duddingstone 
 that Thomson first devoted himself to landscape 
 painting as a profession. Craigmillar was be- 
 fore his eyes every time he looked out of his 
 window, and this subject he frequently painted 
 — often with grand effect by moonlight. While 
 at Dailly he distributed landscapes amongst his 
 friends ; at Duddingstone he accepted payment. 
 The first picture was sold for fifteen guineas ; 
 and the artist, it is said, was so startled by the 
 mighty sum, that it was only when Mr Williams, 
 the delineator of Greek scenery, whom he con- 
 sulted on the subject, told him that the work 
 was worth three times as much, that he could 
 comfortably consign the coins to his breeches' 
 pocket. As his reputation rose the demand for 
 his works increased, and in his hey-day of health 
 and artistic prosperity, he was in the receipt of 
 £1800 per annum. Some idea of Thomson's 
 industry may be gathered from the prices he 
 received. For a picture thirty inches long, and 
 from twenty to twenty-five inches broad, he got 
 twenty-five guineas ; for one forty-eight or fifty 
 inches by thirty-six, his price was fifty guineas. 
 Riese were high prices for a Scottish artist at 
 
 that date ; and for the works executed for the 
 Duke of Buccleuch, and which may be seen at 
 Bowhill, he received still larger sums. Hia 
 passion for his art grew with his years, and ho 
 searched the country for subjects for his easel 
 with greater ardour, one almost fears, than he 
 showed in searching the Scriptures for texts for 
 his sermons. His pulpit at Duddingstone had 
 to be filled of course, but then the capital was 
 near and probationers were plentiful. By the 
 time the young artist left the manse on Saturday 
 afternoon, the probationer had arrived with a 
 couple of sermons in his carpet-bag. In com- 
 pany with his friend Mr Williams — "Grecian 
 Williams" he was called, familiarly and affec- 
 tionately, from those pictures already alluded 
 to on which his reputation mainly rests — he 
 explored the country for ancient houses with 
 trees round them, picturesque glens, castles 
 beetling over the sea, and bare moors with a 
 group of old Scotch firs, their bronze trunks 
 and black-green crowns glowing in the fires of 
 autumn sunset. The two friends sketched to- 
 gether and were each the other's critic. In these 
 passionate sketching pilgrimages, extending over 
 many years, Thomson visited the most pictur- 
 esque districts of Scotland, and painted Dun- 
 staflfnage, Dunluce, Wolf's Crag, the Falls of 
 Kilmorack, Glenfinlas, Lochs Awe and Etive; 
 nay, he even penetrated as far as Skye and 
 painted the magnificent peak of Ben Blaven, 
 and the edges of CuchulUn holding dark com- 
 munion with the cloud.* Being a clergyman, 
 Thomson, although urged to do so, would never 
 become a member of any incorporated body of 
 artists ; but he alwaj-'s sent his pictures to the 
 exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy. 
 From 1808 to 1840 he contributed to those 
 exhibitions one hundred and nine works. He 
 not the less was strangely disinclined to exhibit 
 in London, and, as a rule. Englishmen are not 
 acquainted with his pictures. In the beginning 
 of the year 1840 his health began to fail ; but 
 though no improvement took place during sum- 
 mer, he still worked on at picture and sermon. 
 Conscious that his end was nigh, on a lovely 
 October afternoon he desired to be taken to a 
 window, and propped up by pillows, that he 
 might watch once more the setting sun. It was 
 a last interview between the ancient friends— an 
 eternal farewell-taking. The sun set ruddily. 
 Thomson was dead next morning. He was twice 
 married — happily both times — and his portrait, 
 
 * He visited Sir David Brewster while he was stay- 
 ing at Belville, Invernesshire. " Exploring romantic 
 Glen Feshie," writes the daughter and biographer of 
 Brewster, "my father was startled by the exclama- 
 tion, 'Lord God Almighty!' and on looking round 
 he saw the strong man bowed down in a flood of 
 tears, so much had the wild grandeur of the scene 
 and the sense of the One creative hand possessed the 
 soul of the artist. Glen Feshie afterwards formed the 
 subject of one of Thomson's best pictures." 
 
by his son-in-law, Mr Robert Scott Lauder, hangs 
 in the Scottish National Gallery. 
 
 During Thomson's life, Duddingstone manse 
 was not more remarkable for exquisite picture 
 painting and violin playing than for the distin- 
 guished men occasionally gathered under its 
 roof. When Thomson came up to Edinburgh 
 as a student, he made the acquaintance of Scott 
 and Jeffrey, and during life his friendship with 
 both remained unimpaired. Sir Thomas Dick 
 Lauder, and John Clerk (Lord Eldin), who with 
 a Homeric conviviality, broad humorous speech, 
 and eccentric manners, combined a love of art, 
 and had made an admirable collection of paint- 
 ings, drawings, prints, and etchings, were fre- 
 quent visitors at the manse. John Wilson, as 
 great a landscape painter in words as Thomson 
 in colours, occasionally dropped in on the 
 minister to discuss the Greek and Latin poets 
 with him, and to see what landscape was smil- 
 ing or glooming on his canvas. I am indebted 
 for the following note concerning the painter's 
 artistic friends to Mr W. B. Johnstone, curator 
 of the Scottish National Gallery, and himself an 
 admirable artist, the extent of whose informa- 
 tion on such matters is only equalled by his 
 courtesy in imparting it : 
 
 "I think Thomson preferred the company of 
 artists to that of literary men or lawyers, and 
 after painters he liked to have musicians about 
 him. During his earlier career there were few 
 artists of sujG&cient standing to be associated 
 with him on equal terms. I can only call to 
 remembrance Alexander Nasmyth, Raeburn, 
 and H. W. Williams, who could be ranked pari 
 passu. But when Thomson was at his best, 
 Nasmyth had become an old cynical man ; and 
 although it is said that Thomson had taken 
 lessons from him, their styles were wide apart, 
 and Thomson's was more generally admired. 
 Raeburn, engrossed with the study of character 
 and eirpression in the human face, looked on 
 landscape as a mere accessory to art. He was 
 intimate with Thomson, admired his genius and 
 general accomplishments, respected his social 
 position ; but the congeniality of feeling be- 
 tween the men may be doubted from the fol- 
 lowing transaction: They agreed to change 
 pictures ; Raeburn was to paint Thomson's por- 
 trait, and in return Thomson was to paint a 
 landscape. Thomson sat to Raeburn, and the 
 portrait was painted; and although Thomson 
 repeatedly offered to fulfil his part of the agree- 
 ment, Raeburn declined to give up the portrait, 
 and accordingly it has never been out of the 
 possession of Raeburn and his family. 'Gre- 
 cian Williams ' was a man after Thomson's own 
 heart. They were about the same age, they 
 were ardent worshippers of nature, which they 
 looked on exactly in the same preconceived idea 
 or aspect, viz., the classic form, and no petty 
 jealousy could have place between them, as the 
 one worked in oils, the other in water colours. 
 
 Williams was possessed of some literary taste, 
 was quiet and gentlemanly in his manners, and 
 was, like Thomson, on terms of intimacy with 
 most of the principal Edinburgh men. William 
 Allan and Andrew Wilson were on friendly 
 terms with the minister, and were with him 
 occasionally at the manse; but Thomson had 
 now achieved a high position, and a number of 
 clever young artists were springing up, and he 
 took pleasure in having them rather than their 
 elders around him. Of the young artists, 
 Robert Scott Lauder and William Simson were 
 most frequently at the manse. Lauder was 
 there almost daily ; his admiration of Thomson 
 was unbounded. The rich tones of colour he 
 generally attained in his own pictures much 
 resembled those Thomson often successfully 
 produced, and Thomson's liking for the young 
 artist was confirmed when he afterwards became 
 his son-in-law. Simson's style was not what 
 Thomson aimed at, yet the feeling for nature 
 and the admirable execution impressed Thom- 
 son most favourably ; and many of the figures, 
 vessels, etc., in Thomson's pictures are evi- 
 dently the work of this artist's dexterous hand. 
 Thomas Duncan was an occasional visitor. 
 Thomson marked him as a rising man, and 
 Duncan had a high respect for the talent of 
 Buddy y as he styled the minister (who was 
 rather slovenly in his dress, the front of his 
 waistcoat being generally besmeared with snuff), 
 but their aims in art were widely apart ; Dun- 
 can could never get up, or cared to evince the 
 same admiration for a landscape as for a figure 
 picture. Thomson showed a great liking for 
 Horatio MaccuUoch, and when he came up from 
 Glasgow or Hamilton, where he then resided, to 
 the opening of the annual exhibition at Edin- 
 burgh, he had him always to dine at the manse. 
 Many other young artists — Sir Francis Grant, 
 the President of the Royal Academy, then com- 
 mencing his career; E. T. Crawford, Robert 
 Gibb, and others — were kindly noticed by 
 Thomson and asked to his house. He kept 
 almost an open house ; and when distinguished 
 artists came from London — Wilkie or Turner, 
 for instance — his young friends were always 
 invited to dine at the manse, in order that they 
 might meet and be introduced to the brilliant 
 strangers." 
 
 All this shows a kindly, composed, generous 
 disposition, far above professional vanity and 
 rivalry, which is pleasant to contemplate. 
 Turner was frequently at the manse, and we 
 all know the story how when the minister took 
 the brusque painter into his studio and showed 
 him his works, he called out, '* You beat me in 
 frames, Thomson!" On another occasion, at 
 Duddingstone, when Francis Grant and Mr 
 Horsman, M.P., were present, Grant, who then 
 resided in Regent's Park, near the Zoological 
 Gardens, asked the great painter to dine with 
 him, " I'll be very glad," cried Turner, 
 
506 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 jocosely; "I often come to see the wild beasts 
 feed." 
 
 Thomson, during his lifetime, was the greatest 
 Scottish landscape painter, and even yet he is 
 one of the greatest which the northern school 
 has produced. His style was based on classic 
 models, he was a devout student of Claude and 
 the Poussins, but this study of the old masters 
 of landscape was supplemented by a constant 
 reference to nature. He worked constantly in 
 the open air, and face to face with his subject. 
 While a young man, and living in his father's 
 manse at Dailly, he would frequently go out at 
 two o'clock on a summer morning, and walk 
 several miles, to watch the effect of the early 
 sunbeams penetrating the tree branches, retir- 
 ing step by step to note the changes of the light. 
 Many of the old fastnesses on the Scottish coast 
 he sketched on the spot. Although defective 
 in drawing, he was fond of colour, and by re- 
 painting on his pictures succeeded in producing 
 a surface which increased the richness and lustre 
 of his tints. But his gains in this way were not 
 entirely clear. In the hurry and excitement of 
 his task, he often worked over his surface before 
 the under colours were dry; and as in laying 
 on his colours he used various kinds of medium, 
 or vehicle, to attain brilliancy and depth of 
 tone, many of his pictures have suffered by con- 
 traction and cracking, and are now but the dim 
 ghosts of themselves — the battle flag, shot-torn 
 and smoke-stained, as compared with the origi- 
 nal silken sheet. An incomplete draughtsman, 
 Thomson had yet tine general ideas of form and 
 the effect of grand lines. His works are always 
 bold, picturesque, vigorous, and they never fail 
 to impress the imagination. He is always great 
 in masses, and having by that means touched 
 the soul of the spectator, he allows the spectator 
 to supply the details. He pours himself, so to 
 speak, on the key of the position in gloomy 
 brigades of strength, and, having won that, is 
 satisfied — he does not waste himself in skirmish- 
 ing, however brilliant. There is no play in his 
 pictures. The truth is, he was always a little 
 divided in his allegiance between nature and 
 the Poussins. He was all for nature in his 
 sketch in the open air, he was all for Poussin 
 while working in his studio. His pictures, with 
 their incontestable fine qualities, are just a little 
 
 too like pictures. Nature in them smells of oil, 
 somehow. Bold and noble as was his imagina- 
 tion, able to cope with scenes of gloom and piled- 
 up rocky wildness, he lacked a tender sense of 
 beauty and an exquisiteness of colour. His 
 picture of the Trossachs, in the Scottish National 
 Gallery, is ugly almost ; the hills are lumpy and 
 unrelieved by the grace of twinkling birch woods, 
 and there are no distant peaks, as in nature, 
 softened by miles of airy azure. Light, which 
 laughs and plays, and sleeps smilingly when it 
 does sleep, is sad-visaged in this work as a mute 
 at a funeral. In colour, again, Thomson, 
 although often grand and imposing in a broad 
 general way, is seldom what can be called 
 exquisite— the world with a sun shining upon 
 it is not cloaked in drabs, russets, dark-greens, 
 and blacks, as the artist loved to attire her. 
 Thomson's pictures have many of them lost their 
 pristine brilliancy and freshness ; but even when 
 straight from his hand one can hardly conceive 
 them to have been other than deficient in this 
 respect. 
 
 The stranger entering the Scottish National 
 Gallery, after he has passed Tintoretto's "Vene- 
 tian Senators," Vandyck's " Italian Nobleman 
 in Armour" — who seems one of "God's spies," 
 watching every person in the room, listening to 
 every word they utter — and the seven or eight 
 glowing Ettys, will probably seek the works of 
 the first great master of Scottish landscape. 
 There are seven of them, four the bequests of 
 the late Professor Pillans. " Bruce's Castle of 
 Turnberry," a sunset, grand and sombre, but 
 cracked through the use of some pestilent 
 vehicle, will give some idea of what Thomson 
 was at his best; while "The Firth of Clyde, 
 with Benlomond in the distance," " Ravensheuch 
 Castle, near Kirkcaldy, Sunset," are beautiful 
 reminiscences of that richness and depth of tone 
 which distinguished this artist's works when 
 they were fresh from his hand. And, having 
 satisfied himself with these, if he will step 
 across the room and study Mr Horatio Mac- 
 culloch's "Inverlochy Castle," he will see 
 what progress in the painting of landscape has 
 been made in Scotland during the last twenty 
 years ; how far it has receded from Claude and 
 the Poussins, how much closer it has come to 
 nature. 
 
 THOMAS CHALMEES. 
 
 [1780-1847.] 
 By HUGH MILLER, GEORGE GILFILLAN, J. G. LOCKHART, Etc. 
 
 [Thomas Chalmers, the distinguished Scottish 
 divine, was born at Anstruther, in the coimty 
 of Fife, March 17, 1780. During his college 
 
 career at St Andrews he showed a strong liking 
 for the study of mathematics, and acted for 
 some time as assistant mathematical teacher 
 
DR CHALMERS. 
 
 207 
 
 there. He was ordained minister of Kilmany 
 in 1803. In addition to his labours as a parish 
 minister he showed activity in other depart- 
 ments of work. He lectured on chemistry in 
 several parts of the country; he became an 
 officer in a volunteer corps ; besides publishing 
 a work on the resources of the country and 
 some pamphlets. He wrote the article "Chris- 
 tianity" for the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia." 
 The writing of this article impressed his whole 
 nature more fully with the power and scope of 
 Christianity. In 1815 he removed to St John's 
 parish, Glasgow, where he worked unceasingly 
 for the moral elevation of his parishioners. 
 His fame as a preacher and orator was now 
 established. In 1823 he removed to St Andrews, 
 as Professor of Moral Philosophy in the United 
 College, and in 1828 he was elected Professor of 
 Divinity in Edinburgh University. The dis- 
 ruption in the Scottish Established Church took 
 place in 1843, with which Chalmers was so nobly 
 identified. He died May 30, 1847.] 
 
 DR CHALMERS, BY HUGH MILLER. 
 
 Has the reader ever heard a piece of heavy ord- 
 nance fired amid the mountains of our country ? 
 First there is the ear-stunning report of the 
 piece itself — the prime mover of those airy 
 undulations that travel outwards, circle beyond 
 circle, towards the far horizon ; then some hoary 
 precipice, that rises tall and solemn in the im- 
 mediate neighbourhood, takes up the sound, 
 and it comes rolling back from its rough front 
 in thunder, like a giant wave flung far seaward 
 from the rock against which it has broken ; then 
 some more distant hill becomes vocal, and then 
 another and another, and anon another ; and 
 then there is a slight pause, as if all were over 
 — the undulations are travelling unbroken along 
 some flat moor, or across some expansive lake, 
 or over some deep vallej'', filled, haply, by some 
 long withdrawing arm of the sea ; and then the 
 more remote mountains lift up their voices in 
 mysterious mutterings, now lower, now louder, 
 now more abrupt, anon more prolonged, each 
 as it recedes taking up the tale in closer suc- 
 cession to the one that had previously spoken, 
 till at length their distinct utterances are lost 
 in one low continuous sound, that at last dies 
 out amid the shattered peaks of the desert 
 wilderness, and unbroken stillness settles over 
 the scene, as at first. Through a scarce volun- 
 tary exercise of that faculty of analogy and com- 
 parison so natural to the human mind, that it 
 converts all the existences of the physical world 
 into forms and expressions of the world moral 
 and intellectual, we have oftener than once 
 thought of the phenomenon and its attendant 
 results as strikingly representative of effects 
 produced by the death of Chalmers. It is an 
 event which has, we find, rendered vocal the 
 echoes of the world ; and they are still return- 
 
 ing upon us, after measured intervals, according 
 to the distances. First, as if from the nearer 
 rocks and precipices, they arose from the various 
 towns and cities of Scotland that possess their 
 periodicals ; then from the great southern metro- 
 polis, and the other towns and cities of England, 
 as if from the hills immediately beyond ; from 
 Ireland next ; and next from France and Geneva, 
 and the European continent generally. And 
 then there was a slight pause. The tidings 
 were passing in silence, without meeting an in- 
 telligent ear on which to fall, across, the wide ex- 
 panse of the Atlantic. And then, as if from more 
 distant mountains, camethe voices of the States, 
 and the colonies, and the West Indian Islands. 
 It was no uninteresting task to unrobe from 
 their close brown covers, that spake in colour 
 and form of a foreign country, the Transatlantic 
 journals, and read tribute after tribute to the 
 worth and intellectual greatness of the departed ; 
 and to hear of funeral sermons preached far 
 away, on the very verge of the civilised world, 
 amid half-open clearings in the vast forest, or 
 in hastily-erected towns and villages that but a 
 few twelve-months before had no existence. 
 Nor have all the echoes of the event returned to 
 us even yet. They have still to arise from, if 
 we may so express ourselves, the more distant 
 peaks of the landscape — from the Eastern Indies, 
 Australia, and the antipodes. Every more re- 
 mote echo, while it indicates how great the dis- 
 tance which the original undulations have tra- 
 versed and how wide the area which they fill, 
 serves also of necessity to demonstrate the far- 
 piercing character and greatness of the event 
 which first set them in motion. Dryden, in 
 describing the grief occasioned by the death of 
 some august and "gracious monarch," describes 
 it as bounded, with all its greatness and extent, 
 by his own dominions ; 
 
 " Thus, when some great and gracious monarch dies, 
 Soft whispers first and mournful murmurs rise 
 Among the sad attendants ; then the sound 
 Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around 
 Through town and country, till the dreadful blast 
 Is blown to distant colonies at last." 
 
 There have been no such limitations to the sor- 
 row for Chalmers. The United States and the 
 Continent have sjTiipathisingly responded— of 
 one mind in this matter, as of one blood, with 
 ourselves — to the regrets of Britain and the 
 colonies. We have few men left whose names 
 so completely fill the world as that of Chalmers. 
 The group of great men to which Thomas 
 Chalmers belonged has now well-nigh disap- 
 peared. Goldsmith has written an ingenious 
 essay ito show that the "rise or decline of 
 literature is little dependent on man, but re- 
 sults rather from the vicissitudes of nature." 
 The larger minds, he remarks, are not un- 
 frequently ushered into the world in groups; 
 and after they have passed away, there inter- 
 
208 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 vene wide periods of repose, in which there are 
 only minds of a lower order produced. " Some 
 ages have been remarkable," he says, "for the 
 production of men of extraordinary stature; 
 others for producing particular animals in great 
 abundance; some for excessive plenty; others, 
 again, for seemingly causeless famine. Nature, 
 which shows nerself so very different in her 
 visible productions, must surely differ also from 
 herself in the production of minds ; and, while 
 she astonishes one age with the strength and 
 stature of a Milo or a Maximian, may bless 
 another with the wisdom of a Plato or the 
 goodness of an Antonine." In glancing over 
 the history of modern Europe, and more especi- 
 ally that of the British empire, civil and 
 literary, one can scarce fail to mark a cycle 
 of production of this character, which now 
 seems far advanced in its second revolution. 
 The seventeenth century was in this country 
 peculiarly a period of great men. Cromwell 
 and Shakespeare were so far contemporary, that 
 when, little turned of fifty, the poet lay on his 
 deathbed, the future Lord Protector, then a lad 
 of seventeen, was riding beside his father, to 
 enter as a student the University of Cambridge ; 
 and the precocious Milton, though still younger, 
 was, we find, quite mature enough to estimate 
 the real stature of the giant that had fallen, and 
 to deplore his premature death in stanzas de- 
 stined to live for ever. And when, in after-life, 
 the one great man sat writing, to the dictation of 
 the other, the well-known noble letter to Louis in 
 behalf of Continental Protestantism, the mathe- 
 matician Isaac Newton sat ensconced among 
 his old books in the garret at Grantham; the 
 metaphysician John Locke was engaged at 
 Oxford in his profound cogitation on the nature 
 and faculties of mind ; John Bunyan was a 
 soldier of the Commonwealth; Cowley was 
 studying botany [in Kent ; Butler was pouring 
 forth his vast profusion of idea in the dwelling 
 of Sir Samuel Luke ; Dryden, at the ripe age of 
 twenty-seven, was making his first rude efforts 
 in composition in Trinity College ; Sir Matthew 
 Hale was administering justice in London, and 
 planning his great law works; and, though 
 Hampden and Selden were both in their graves 
 at the time, the former, had he escaped the 
 fatal shot, would still have been in but middle 
 life, and the latter was but four years dead. 
 The group was assuredly a very marvellous one. 
 It passed away, however, like all that is of 
 earth ; and there arose that other group of men, 
 admirable in their proportions, but of decidedly 
 lower stature, that all in any degree acquainted 
 vnth English literature recognise as the wits of 
 Queen Anne. To this lower but very exquisite 
 group, the Popes, Swifts, and Addisons, the 
 Gays, Parnells, and Priors, belong. It also 
 passed ; and a still lower group arose, with, it 
 is true, a solitary Johnson and Burke raising 
 their head and shoulders above the crowd, but 
 
 attaining not, at least in the mass, to the 
 stature of their immediate predecessors. And 
 they themselves were well aware of their in- 
 feriority. Is the reader possessed of a copy of 
 Anderson's "Poets?" From its chronological 
 arrangement, it illustrates very completely the 
 progress of that first great cycle of production 
 from the higher to the lower minds to which 
 we refer; and with the works of the Jenyns, 
 the Whiteheads, the Cottons, and the Black- 
 locks, the collection closes. And then the 
 cycle, as if the moving spring had been sud- 
 denly wound up to its original rigidity, begins 
 anew. The gigantic figure of Napoleon appears 
 as the centre of a great historic group ; and we 
 see ranged around him the tall figures of states- 
 men such as Pitt and Fox ; of soldiers such as 
 Soult, Ney, and Wellington ; of popular agita- 
 tors such as Cobbett and O'Connell ; of theo- 
 logical writers and leaders such as Hall, Foster, 
 and Andrew Thomson; and of literary men 
 such as Goethe, Chateaubriand, Sir Walter 
 Scott, and Wordsworth. The group is very 
 decidedly one of men large and massy of 
 stature; and to this group, great among the 
 greatest, Thomas Chalmers belonged. It has, 
 we repeat, nearly passed away. Wellington, 
 Wordsworth, and Chateaubriand — all well 
 stricken in years, turned very considerably, 
 the youngest of them, of the threescore and 
 ten — alone survive. Immediately beneath 
 these, and bearing to them a relation very 
 similar to that which the wits and statesmen of 
 Queen Anne bore to the Miltons and Crom- 
 wells, their predecessors, stands a group, the 
 largest of their day, including as politicians the 
 Peels and Russells, and as literary men the 
 Lockharts and Macaulays, of the present time. 
 They may be described generally, with reference 
 to their era, as men turned of forty ; and, so far 
 as may be judged from the present appearance 
 of things, the younger and succeeding group, 
 just entered on the stage, are composed, as 
 during the middle of the last century, of men 
 of a third class, that seem well-nigh as inferior 
 in height and muscle to those of the second, as 
 the second are inferior in bulk, strength, and 
 massiveness, to those of the first. The third 
 stage of the second cycle of production is, it 
 would appear, already full in view. In the 
 poetical department of our literature this state 
 of things is strikingly apparent. Ere the Cow- 
 pers and Burnses arose to herald the new and 
 great era, the latter half of the last century had 
 its Wartons and its Langhorns — true and sweet 
 poets, but, it must be confessed, of somewhat 
 minute proportions. The present time has its 
 Moirs and its Alfred Tennysons ; and they are 
 true poets also, but poets on a not large scale — 
 decidedly men of the third era. 
 
 In glancing over the various tributes to the 
 memory of Chalmers, one is struck with a grand 
 distinction by which they may be ranged into 
 
DR CHALMERS. 
 
 209 
 
 two classes. Belonging, as he did, to two dis- 
 tinct worlds — the worlds literary and religious 
 — we find estimates of his character and career 
 made by representatives of hoth. In the one, 
 the appreciation hinges, as on a pivot, on a 
 certain great turning incident in his life ; in the 
 other, there is either jno reference made to this 
 incident, or the principles on which it occurred 
 are represented as of a common and obvious, 
 and not very important character. Is it not 
 truly strange, that the most influential event 
 that can possibly take place in the history of 
 individual man — which has lain at the founda- 
 tion of the greatest revolutions of which the 
 annals of the species furnish any record, and 
 which constitutes the main objective theme of 
 revelation — should be scarce at all appreciated, 
 even in its palpable character as a fact, by the 
 great bulk of the acutest and most intelligent 
 writers of the present age ? That change in the 
 heart and life which sent the apostles forth of 
 old to Christianise the world, and the Refor- 
 mers at a later time to re-Christianise it — 
 which, forming the charm of the successes of 
 Cromwell, preserved to Britain its free consti- 
 tution — and which altered in toto the destinies 
 of Chalmers — that change, we say, is rightly 
 appreciated, in even its obvious character as a 
 fact, by none of our purely literary men ; or, at 
 least, if we must make one exception, by 
 Thomas Carlyle alone. It constitutes a mighty 
 spring of action — by far the mightiest in this 
 world — of which the rest are ignorant. Re- 
 garded in this point of view, the following 
 extract from the People^s Journal — a periodi- 
 cal conducted chiefly, it is understood, by Uni- 
 tarians — is not uninstructive. It refers to the 
 conversion of Chalmers, and describes that 
 event as occurring on a few obvious common- 
 place principles. 
 
 "A new era in the development of Chalmers's 
 mind commences with his engagement upon the 
 article 'Christianity.' The powerful devotional 
 tendency of his mind had hitherto, to all appear- 
 ance, lain dormant. The protracted and unin- 
 termittuig attention to religious questions which, 
 in the compilation of that essay, he was com- 
 pelled to bestow, was favourable to the forma- 
 tion of a devotional habit of mind in one who, 
 like all men of poetical temperament, was emi- 
 nently liable to take the tone and colour of his 
 mind from the element in which he lived. The 
 Leslie controversy, too, had bridged over the gulf 
 which had hitherto intervened between the higher 
 orders of minds among the literati and the ortho- 
 dox clergy of Scotland. The Dugald Stewarts 
 and the Jeffreys on the one hand, the Mon- 
 creiffs and Thomsons on the other, had, while 
 acting in concert, learned to know and appre- 
 ciate each other's peculiar merits. The senti- 
 ment of political independence, and that liberal 
 tolerance, the most uniform feature of superior 
 minds, had infused permanent feelings of mutual 
 
 goodwill into minds which by their organisation 
 were irreconcilably different. Chalmers, who 
 had been thrown among the purely intellectual 
 class in a great measure by the accident of 
 position, was now attracted to the religioua 
 class, with whom his natural sympathies were, 
 if anything, still greater. He devoted himself 
 more exclusively to the duties of his ministerial 
 office, and, carrying into the pulpit the same 
 buoyant enthusiasm, the same Herculean powers, 
 he soon became one of the most distinguished 
 inculcators of 'evangelical' views of religion." 
 
 Among the numerous funeral sermons of 
 which the death of Chalmers has proved the 
 occasion, we know not a finer, abler, or better 
 toned, than one of the Transatlantic discourses. 
 It is from the pen of Dr Sprague, Albany, 
 United States, so well known in this country 
 by his work on revivals. His estimate of the 
 great change which not only expanded the 
 heart, but also in no slight degree developed 
 the intellect, of Chalmers, differs widely, as 
 might be expected from the general tone of his 
 writings, from that of the Unitarian in the 
 People's Journal. It is strange on what 
 analogies men ingenious in misleading them- 
 selves when great principles are at stake, con- 
 trive to fall. We have lately seen Cromwell's 
 love of the Scriptures, and his diligence, accord- 
 ing to the Divine precept, in searching them, 
 attributed to the mere military instinct, grati- 
 fied, in his case, by the warlike stories of the 
 Old Testament, as the resembling instinct was 
 gratified in that of Alexander the Great by the 
 stories of the Iliad. 
 
 "He [Dr Chalmers] removed to Kilmany," 
 says Dr Sprague, "in 1803, where he laboured 
 for several years, and where occurred at least 
 one of the most memorable events of his life. 
 It was nothing less, as he himself regarded it, 
 than a radical change of character. Previous to 
 that period he seems to have looked upon the 
 duties of his profession as a mere matter of 
 official drudgery ; and not a small part of his 
 time was devoted to science, particularly to the 
 mathematics, to which his taste more especially 
 inclined him. But having been requested to 
 furnish an article for the ' Edinburgh Encyclo- 
 paedia' on the evidences of Divine revelation, 
 in the course of the investigation to which he 
 was led in the prosecution of this effort he was 
 brought into communion with Christianity in 
 all its living and transforming power. He not 
 only became fully satisfied of its truth, of which 
 before he had had only some indefinite and in- 
 operative impression, but he discovered clearly 
 its high practical relations ; he surrendered him- 
 self to its teachings with the spirit of a little 
 child; he reposed in its gracious provisions 
 with the confidence of a penitent sinner ; and 
 from that time to his dying hour he gloried in 
 nothing save in the cross of the Lord Jesus> 
 Christ. He stood forth before the worla 
 
 
 
strangely unlike what he had ever been before. 
 TheTo was a sacred fervour, an unearthly 
 ipajesty, in all his utterings and all his writ- 
 in^B, Scotland, Britain, the world, soon came 
 to look at him with wonder, as one of the 
 brightest luminaries of his time — as destined 
 to exert a controlling influence upon the age, if 
 not to work an epoch in the world's history. 
 It was quickly found that there was a far 
 higher effect produced by his ministrations than 
 mere admiration — that the sword of the Spirit, 
 wielded with such unwonted energy, was doing 
 its legitimate work ; for worldliness could not 
 bear his rebuke; scepticism could not stand 
 erect in his presence ; while a pure and living 
 Christianity was constantly reproducing itself 
 in the hearts of some one or other of his 
 enchained hearers." 
 
 Dr Sprague's estimate of the intellectual char- 
 acter of Chalmers seems eminently just, and, 
 formed at the distance of more than three 
 thousand miles from the more immediate scene 
 of Chalmers's personal labours — for distance in 
 space has greatly the effect in such matters of 
 distance in time — it may be regarded as fore- 
 shadowing the judgment of posterity. 
 
 *'The intellectual character of Dr Chalmers 
 was distinguished chiefly by its wonderful com- 
 bination of the imaginative, the profound, and 
 the practical. If there be on earth a mind con- 
 stituted with greater power of imagination than 
 his, we know not where to look for it. And 
 because he was so pre-eminent in respect to this 
 quality, I am inclined to think that some have 
 underrated his more strictly intellectual powers 
 —his ability to comprehend the more distant 
 bearings of things, or to grapple with the sub- 
 tilties of abstract philosophy ; and they have 
 reached their false conclusion on the ground 
 that it were impossible that a mind so highly 
 gifted in one respect should be alike dis- 
 tinguished in the other. But if his produc- 
 tions may be allowed to speak for him, I think 
 it will be difficult to show that he was not 
 equally at home in the depths as on the heights ; 
 and some of his works, particularly that on 
 * Natural Theology,' exhibit the two qualities 
 blended in beautiful proportions. I hesitate 
 not to say, that any man who could reason like 
 Chalmers and do nothing else, or any man who 
 could soar like Chalmers and do nothing else, or 
 any man who could contrive and execute like 
 Chalmers, as is evinced by his connection with 
 the whole Free Church movement, and do 
 nothing else, would be a great man in any 
 country or in any age; but the union of the 
 several faculties in such proportion and such 
 degree constitutes a character at once unparal- 
 leled and imperishable." 
 
 Among the various references to this genius 
 of Chalmers for the practical, which, according 
 to Sprague, would have constituted him a great 
 man even had it been his only faculty, we know 
 
 not a finer or more picturesque than that which 
 we find in a truly admirable article in the last 
 number of the North British Review. The 
 picture — for a picture it is, and a very admir- 
 able one — (exhibits specially the inspiriting effect 
 of the quality in a time of perplexity and trial. 
 It is when dangers run high that the voice of the 
 true leader is known : the storm in its hour of 
 dire extremity exhibits the skill of the accom- 
 plished pilot. 
 
 *' When the courts of law revoked," says the 
 reviewer, "the liberty of the Scottish Church, 
 much as he loved its old Establishment, much as 
 he loved his Edinburgh professorship, and much 
 more as he loved his two hundred churches, 
 with a single movement of his pen he signed 
 them all away. He had reached his grand 
 climacteric ; and many thought that, smitten 
 down by the shock, his grey hairs would descend 
 in sorrow to the grave : it was time for him 'to 
 break his mighty heart and die.' But they little 
 knew the man. They forgot that spirit which, 
 like the trodden palm, had so often sprung erect 
 and stalwart from a crashing overthrow. We 
 saw him that November. We saw him in its 
 convocation — the sublimest aspect in which we 
 ever saw the noble man. The ship was fast 
 aground; and as they looked over the bulwarks, 
 through the mist and the breakers, all on board 
 seemed anxious and sad. Never had they felt 
 prouder of their old first-rate, and never had 
 she ploughed a braver path, than when, contrary 
 to all the markings in the chart, and all the ex- 
 perience of former voyages, she dashed on this 
 fatal bar. The stoutest were dismayed; and 
 many talked of taking to the fragments, and, 
 one by one, trying for the nearest shore : when, 
 calmer because of the turmoil, and with the 
 exultation of one who saw safety ahead, the 
 voice of this dauntless veteran was heard pro- 
 pounding his confident scheme. Cheered by his 
 assurance, and inspired by his example, they 
 set to work ; and that dreary winter was spent 
 in constructing a vessel with a lighter draught 
 and a simpler rigging, but large enough to carry 
 every true-hearted man who ever trod the old 
 ship's timbers. Never did he work more blithely, 
 and never was there more of athletic ardour in 
 his looks, than during the six months that this 
 ark was a-building, though every stroke of the 
 mallet told of blighted hopes, and defeated toil, 
 and the unknown sea before him. And when 
 the signal psalm announced the new vessel 
 launched, and leaving the old galley high and 
 dry on the breakers, the banner unfurled, and 
 showing the covenanting blue still spotless, and 
 the symbolic bush still burning, few will forget 
 the renovation of his youth, and the joyful 
 omen of his shining countenance. It was not 
 only the rapture of his prayers, but the radiance 
 of his spirit, which repeated, ' God is our refuge.' 
 It is something heart-stirring to see the old 
 soldier take the field, or the old trader exerting 
 
DR CHALMERS. 
 
 211 
 
 every energy to retrieve his shattered fortunes ; 
 but far the finest spectacle of the moulting eagle 
 ■was Chalmers with his hoary locks beginning 
 life anew. But, indeed, he was not old. They 
 who can fill their veins with every hopeful, 
 healthful thing around them — those who can 
 imbibe the sunshine of the future, and transfuse 
 life from realities not come as yet — their blood 
 need never freeze. And his bosom heaved with 
 all the newness of the Church's life, and all the 
 bigness of the Church's plans. And, best of all, 
 those who wait upon the Lord are always young. 
 This was the reason why on the morning of that 
 exodus he did not totter forth from the old 
 Establishment a blank and palsy-stricken man, 
 but, with flashing eye, snatched up his palmer- 
 staff, and, as he stamped it on the ground, all 
 Scotland shook, and answered with a deep God- 
 speed to the giant gone on pilgrimage." 
 
 Of all the tributes to the memory of Chalmers 
 which we have yet seen, one of at once the 
 ablest and most generous is that of Dr Alex- 
 ander of this city.* Belonging to a different 
 family of the Church catholic from that whose 
 principles the illustrious deceased maintained 
 and defended, and at issue with him on points 
 which neither deemed unimportant, the Doctor 
 has yet come forward, in the name of their com- 
 mon Christianity, to record his estimate of his 
 character and his sorrow for his loss. It was 
 one of the points worthy of notice in Chalmers, 
 that none of his opponents in any controversy 
 settled down into personal enemies. We saw, 
 among the thousands who attended his funeral. 
 Principal Lee, with whom he had the contro- 
 versy regarding the moderatorship ; Dr Ward- 
 law, his opponent in the great controversy on 
 establishments ; and the carriage of the Lord 
 Provost, as representative of the provost him- 
 self, with whom he had the controversy regard- 
 ing the Edinburgh churches and their amount 
 of accommodation, and who was on business in 
 London at the time. And to this trait, and to 
 what it indicated, Dr Alexander finely refers. 
 The Doctor was one of Chalmers's St Andrews 
 pupils ; and his opportunities of acquaintance- 
 ship at that period furnish one or two singularly 
 interesting anecdotes illustrative of the char- 
 acter of the man. 
 
 "Sometimes it was my lot to be his com- 
 panion," says the Doctor, " to some wretched 
 hovel, where I have seen him take his seat by 
 the side of some poor child of want and weak- 
 ness, and patiently, affectionately, and earnestly 
 strive to convey into his darkened mind some 
 ray of truth, that may guide him to safety and 
 to God. On such occasions it was marvellous 
 to observe with what simplicity of speech that 
 great mind would utter truth. One instance of 
 
 * "A Discourse on the Qualities and Worth of 
 Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D., etc., etc." By Wil- 
 liam Lindsay Alexander, D.D. 
 
 this I must be allowed to mention. The scene 
 was a low, dirty hovel, over whose damp and 
 uneven floor it was difficult to walk without 
 stumbling, and into which a small window, 
 coated with dust, admitted hardly enough of 
 light to enable an eye unaccustomed to the 
 gloom to discern a single object. A poor old 
 woman, bedridden and almost blind, who occu- 
 pied a miserable bed opposite the fireplace, was 
 the object of the Doctor's visit. Seating himself 
 by her side, he entered at once, after a few 
 general inquiries as to her health, etc., into 
 religious conversation with her. Alas ! it seemed 
 all in vain. The mind which he strove to en- 
 lighten had been so long closed and dark, that 
 it appeared impossible to thrust into it a single 
 ray of light. Still on the part of the woman 
 there was an evident anxiety to lay hold upon 
 something of what he was telling her ; and, en- 
 couraged by this, he persevered, plying her, to 
 use his own expression, with the offers of the 
 Gospel, and urging her to trust in Christ. At 
 length she said, 'Ah, sir, I would fain do as 
 you bid me, but I dinna ken how : how can I 
 trust in Christ?' *0 woman,' was his expres- 
 sive answer, in the dialect of the district, *just 
 lippen to Him.' *Eh, sir,' was her reply, *and 
 is that a'?' 'Yes, yes,' was his gratified re- 
 sponse; 'just lippen to Him, and lean on Him, 
 and you'll never perish.' To some, perhaps, 
 this language may be obscure ; but to that poor 
 blind dying woman it was as light from heaven ; 
 it guided her to the knowledge of the Saviour; 
 and there is good reason to believe it was the 
 instrument of ultimately conducting her to 
 heaven." 
 
 We had marked for quotation various passages 
 in this admirable discourse, unequalled, we hold, 
 by aught that has yet appeared, as an analysis 
 of the mental and moral constitution of him 
 whom Dr Alexander at once eloquently and 
 justly describes as "a man of brilliant genius, 
 of lovely character, of sincere devotion, of digni- 
 fied and untiring activity, the most eminent 
 preacher our country has produced, the greatest 
 Scotchman the nineteenth century has yet seen." 
 We have, however, much more than exhausted 
 our space, and so must be content for the 
 present with recommending to our readers an 
 attentive perusal of the whole. One passage, 
 however, we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure 
 of extracting. It meets, we think, very com- 
 pletely, a frequent criticism on one of the pecu- 
 liarities of Chalmers ; and shows that what has 
 been often instanced as a defect was in reality 
 a rarely attainable excellence. 
 
 "In handling his subjects Dr Chalmers dis- 
 played vast oratorical power. He usually 
 selected one great truth or one great practical 
 duty for consideration at a time. This he 
 would place distinctly before his hearers, and 
 then illustrate, defend, and enforce it through- 
 out his discourse, again and again bringing it 
 
212 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 up before them, and urging it upon them. By 
 acme this has been r<i--'arded as a lefect rather 
 than a merit, in his pulpit addresses; and it 
 has been ascribed ti!' some peculiarity ol his 
 mind, in virtue of which he has been supposed 
 incapable of turning away from a subject when 
 once he had hold on it, or, rather, it had laid 
 hold on liim. I believe this criticism to have 
 been quite erroneous. That his practice in this 
 respect was not an accidental result of some 
 mental peculiarity, but was purposely and 
 designedly followed by him, I know from his 
 own assurance; indeed, he used publicly to 
 recommend it to his students as a practice 
 sanctioned by some of the greatest masters in 
 oratory, especially the great parliamentary 
 orator, Charles James Fox; and the only 
 reason, I believe, why it is not more frequently 
 adopted is, that it is immeasurably more 
 diflScult to engage the minds of an audience by 
 a discourse upon one theme, than by a discourse 
 upon several. That it constitutes the highest 
 grade of discourse, all writers on oratory, from 
 Aristotle downward, are agreed. But to occupy 
 it successfully requires genius and large powers 
 of illustration. When the speaker has to keep 
 to one theme, he must be able to wield all the 
 weapons of address. He must be skilled to 
 argue, to explain, to persuade, to apply, and, 
 by a fusion of all the elements of oratory, to 
 carry his point whether his audience will or no. 
 Now these requisites Dr Chalmers possessed in 
 a high degree. He could reason broadly and 
 powerfully ; he could explain and illustrate 
 with exhaustless profusion ; he could persuade 
 by all the earnestness of entreaty, all the pathos 
 of affection, and all the terrors of threatening ; 
 he could apply, with great skill and knowledge 
 of men's ways, the truth he would inculcate; 
 and he could pour, in a torrent of the most 
 impassioned fervour, the whole molten mass of 
 thought, feeling, description, and appeal, upon 
 the hearts and consciences of his hearers. Thus 
 singularly endowed, and thus wisely using his 
 endowments, he arrived at a place of the 
 highest eminence in the highest walk of popular 
 oratory." 
 
 DR CHALMERS, BY GEORGE GILFILLAN. 
 
 The effects of his eloquence have been often 
 described. Many orators have produced more 
 cheers, and shone more in brilliant individual 
 points : Chalmers's power lay in pressing on his 
 whole audience before him, through the sheer mo- 
 mentum of genius and enthusiasm. He treated 
 his hearers as constituting *' one mind," and 
 was himself "one strength," urging it, like a 
 vast stone, upwards. In this he very seldom 
 failed. He might not always convince the 
 understandings — he often offended the tastes ; 
 but, unlike Sisyphus, he pushed his stone to 
 the summit — he secured at least a temporary 
 triumph. 
 
 This he pained greatly from the intensity of 
 Lis views, as well as from the earnestness of his 
 temperament, and the splendour of his genius. 
 He had strong, clear, angular, although often 
 one-sided and mistaken, notions on the subjects 
 he touched ; and these, by incessant reiteration, 
 by endless turning round, by dint of dauntless 
 furrowing, he succeeded in ploughing into the 
 minds of his hearers. Or it seemed a process of 
 stamping: **I must press such and such a truth 
 on them, whether they hear or forbear. I shall 
 stamp on till it is fixed undeniably and for ever 
 upon their minds." Add to this the uncon- 
 sciousness of himself. He never seerned, at 
 least, to be thinking about himself, nor very 
 much of his hearers. He was occupied entirely 
 with those "big bulking" ideas of which he 
 was the mere organ, and he taught his audience 
 to think of them principally too. How grand 
 it was to witness a strong and gifted man trans- 
 figured into the mere medium of an idea ! — his 
 whole body so filled with its light that you 
 seemed to see it shining through him, as through 
 a transparent vase ? 
 
 His imagination was a quality in him of which 
 much nonsense used to be said. It was now 
 made his only faculty, and now it was described 
 as of the Shakespeare or Jeremy Taylor order. 
 In fact, it was not by any means even his high- 
 est power. Strong, broad, Baconian logic was 
 his leading faculty; and he had, besides, a 
 boundless command of a certain order of lan- 
 guage, as well as all the burning sympathies 
 and energies of the orator. Taking him all in 
 all, he was unquestionably a man of lofty 
 genius : but it very seldom assumed the truly 
 poetic form, and was rather warm than rich. 
 Power of illustration he possessed in plenty; 
 but in curiosa felicitas, short, compact, hurry- 
 ing strokes as of lightning, and that fine sudden 
 imagery in which strong and beautiful thought 
 so naturally incarnates itself, he was rather 
 deficient. He was, consequently, one of our 
 least terse and quotable authors. Few sen- 
 tences, collecting in themselves the results of 
 long trains of thinking, in a new and sparkling 
 form — like "apples of gold in a network of 
 silver " — are to be found in his writings. Nor 
 do they abound in bare, strong aphorisms. 
 Let those who would see his deficiency in this 
 respect compare him, not with the Jeremy Tay- 
 lors, Barrows, and Donnes, merely, but with 
 the Burkes, Hazlitts, and Coleridges of a later 
 day, and they will understand our meaning. 
 His writings remind you rather of the sublime 
 diffusiveness of a Paul, than of the deep, soli- 
 tary, and splendid dicta of the great preacher- 
 Idng of ancient Israel. 
 
 A classic author he is not, and never can be- 
 come. From this destiny, his Scotticisms, vul- 
 garities, and new combinations of sounds and 
 words, do not necessarily exclude him ; but his 
 merits (as a mere literary man) do not counter- 
 
DR CHALMERS. 
 
 213 
 
 balance his defects. The power of the works, 
 in fact, was not equal to the power of the man. 
 He always, indeed, threw his heart, but not al- 
 ways his artistic consciousness, into what he 
 wrote. Hence he is generally "rude in speech, 
 although not in knowledge." His utterance is 
 never confused, but it is often hampered, as of 
 one speaking in a foreign tongue. This some- 
 times adds to the effect of his written composi- 
 tion — it often added amazingly to the force of 
 those extempore harangues he was in the habit 
 of uttering, amid the intervals of his lectures, 
 to his students. Those stammerings, strug- 
 glings, repetitions, risings from and sittings 
 down into his chair — often, however, coming to 
 some fiery burst, or culminating in some rapid 
 and victorious climax — reminded you of Words- 
 worth's lines : 
 
 ** So have I, not unmoved in mind, 
 Seen birds of tempest -loving kind, 
 Thus beating up against the wind." 
 
 Yon liked to see this strong winged bird of the 
 storm matching his might against it — now soar- 
 ing up to overcome it — now sinking down to 
 undermine it — now screaming aloud in its teeth 
 — now half-choked in the gust of its fury — but 
 always moving onwards, and sometimes riding 
 triumphant on its changed or subjugated billow ! 
 But all this did not (except to those who had 
 witnessed the phenomenon) tend to increase the 
 artistic merit or permanent effect of his works. 
 
 No oratory can be printed entire. Every 
 speaker, who is not absolutely dull and phleg- 
 matic, says something far more throiigh his 
 tones, or eye, or gestures, than his bare words 
 can tell. But this is more the case with some 
 than with others. About the speaking of Whit- 
 field there was a glare of — shall we say vulgar ? 
 — earnestness, which, along with his theatrical, 
 but transcendent elocution, lives only in tradi- 
 tion. It was the same with Klirwan, a far more 
 commonplace man. Struthers, a Relief minister 
 in Edinburgh, at the beginning of this century, 
 seems to have possessed the same incommuni- 
 cable power, and his sermon on the battle of 
 Trafalgar lives as a miraculous memory on the 
 minds of a few, and nowhere else. The late Dr 
 Heugh of Glasgow possessed a Canning-like 
 head, as well as a certain copperplate charm in 
 his address, which have not, as they could not, 
 be transferred to his printed sermons. And so, 
 in perhaps a still larger degree, with Dr Chal- 
 mers; the difference being, that while in the 
 others the manner seemed to fall out from the 
 man, like a gay but becoming garment, in 
 Chalmers it was wrapped convulsively around 
 him, like the mantle of a dying Csesar. It is 
 but his naked body that we now behold. 
 
 Finer still it was, we have been told, to come 
 in suddenly upon the inspired man in his study, 
 when the full heat of his thought had kindled 
 up his being into a flame — when, in concert with 
 
 the large winter fire blazing beside him, his eye 
 was flaming and speaking to itself — his brow 
 flushing like a cloud in its solitude — his form 
 moving like that of a Pythoness on her stool — 
 and now and then his voice bursting silence, 
 and showing that, as often in the church he 
 seemed to fancy himself in solitude, so, often in 
 solitude, he thought himself thundering in the 
 church. Those who saw him in such moods 
 had come into the forge of the Cyclops ; and yet 
 so far was he from being disturbed or angry, he 
 would rise and salute them with perfect polite- 
 ness, and even kindliness ; but they were the 
 politeness and kindliness of one who had been 
 interrupted while forming a two-edged sword 
 for Mars, or carving another figure upon the 
 shield of Achilles. 
 
 It is curious, entering in spirit into the studies 
 or retirements of great authors, in the past or 
 the present, and watching their various kinds 
 and degrees of excitement while composing their 
 productions. We see a number of interesting 
 figures — Homer, with his sightless eyes, but ears 
 preternaturally open, rhapsodising to the many- 
 sounding sea his immortal harmonies — ^schylus, 
 so agitated (according to tradition) while fram- 
 ing his terrible dialogues and choruses, that he 
 might have been mistaken for his own Orestea 
 pursued by the Furies — Dante, stern, calm, 
 silent, yet with a fierce glance at times from his 
 hollow eye, and a convulsive movement in his 
 tiger-like lower jaw, telling of the furor that 
 was boiling within — Shakespeare, serene even 
 over his tragic, and smiling a gentle smile over 
 his comic, creations — Scott, preserving, alike in 
 depicting the siege of Torquilstone, the humours 
 of Caleb Balderstone, and the end of the family 
 of Eavenswood, the same gruff yet good-natured 
 equanimity of countenance — Byron, now scowl- 
 ing a fierce scowl over his picture of a ship- 
 wreck, and now grinning a ghastly smile while 
 dedicating his "Don Juan" to Southey — Shelley, 
 wearing on his fine features a look of perturba- 
 tion and wonder, as of a cherub only half fallen, 
 and not yet at home in his blasphemous attitude 
 of opposition to the Most High — Wordsworth, 
 murmuring a solemn music over the slowly- 
 filling page of "Kuth," or the "Eclipse in 
 Italy " — Coleridge, nearly asleep, and dreaming 
 over his own gorgeous creations, like a drowsy 
 bee in a heather bloom — Wilson, as Hogg 
 describes him, when they sat down to write 
 verses in neighbouring rooms, howling out his 
 enthusiasm (and when he came to this pitch, 
 poor Hogg uniformly felt himself vanquished, 
 and threw down his pen!) — or, in fine, Chalmers, 
 as aforesaid, agonising in the sweat of his great 
 intellectual travail ! 
 
 We have spoken of Chalmers as possessed of 
 an idea which drowned his personal feelings, 
 and pressed all his powers into one focus. This 
 varied, of course, very much at different stages 
 of his history. It was, at first, that of a purely 
 
214 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 scieEtific theism. Tie believed in God as a dry, 
 demonstrated fact, which he neither trembled 
 at nor loved — whose personality he granted, but 
 sc-arcely seems to have felt. From thi s he passed 
 to a more decided form of belief, worship, and 
 love for the great I Am, and is said to have 
 spent a portion of his youth in constant and de- 
 lighted meditation upon God and His works, 
 like one of the ancient Indian or Egyptian mys- 
 tics. From this pillar he descended, and, as a 
 preacher, tried to form a compromise between 
 science and a certain shallow and stripped form 
 of Christianity. The attempt was sincere, but 
 absurd in idea, and unsuccessful in execution. 
 The vitality of Christianity became next his 
 darling argument, and was pled by him with 
 unmitigated urgency for many years. Chris- 
 tianity must be alive, active, aggressive, or was 
 no Christianity at all. This argument began, 
 by-and-by, in his mind to strike out into various 
 branches. If alive and life-giving, Christianity 
 ought to give life, first of all, to literary and 
 scientific men ; secondly, to the commercial 
 classes ; thirdly, to the poor ; and fourthly, to 
 governments. And we may see this four-headed 
 argument pervading his book on astronomy, his 
 "Sermons on Commerce," his "Christian and 
 Civic Economy of large Towns," and his in- 
 numerable brochures on the questions of Church 
 extension and of non-intrusion. Nay, in his 
 penultimate paper in the North British Remew, 
 we find him, almost with his last breath, renew- 
 ing the cry for "fruit," as the main answer to 
 that tide of German scepticism which none saw 
 more clearly than he coming over the Church 
 and the world. That he always pled this great 
 argument of practicalising Christianity with 
 discretion or success, we are far from asserting ; 
 nay, • we grant that he committed as many 
 blunders as he gained triumphs. Nor have the 
 results been commensurate. Literary and scien- 
 tific men have not, alas, listened to the voice of 
 this charmer, but have walked on their own un- 
 easy way, over the "burning marie" of unhappy 
 speculation. The commercial spirit of the times 
 is far enough yet from being thoroughly Chris- 
 tianised ; and the golden rule does not yet hang 
 suspended over our warehouses and dockyards. 
 The poor are, as a mass, sinking every year 
 more and more deeply into the gulfs of infidelity 
 and vice ; and the great problem of how the 
 State is to help — if it help at all — the Church, 
 seems as far from solution as in the year 1843 or 
 1847. Still, Chalmers has not lived in vain. 
 He has left a burning testimony against many 
 of the crying evils of his time, especially against 
 that selfishness which is poisoning almost all 
 ranks alike, and in which, as in one stagnant 
 pool, so many elements, otherwise discordant, 
 are satisfied to "putrefy in peace." He has 
 taken up the reproach of the Gospel, and bound 
 it as a crown around his brow. From the most 
 powerful pulpit in the land, he preached Christ 
 
 and Him crucified. He has created various 
 benevolent and pious movements, which are 
 likely long to perpetuate his memory. And he 
 has laid his hand upon, and to some degree, 
 although not altogether, shattered those barriers 
 — either absurd in the folly of man, or awful in 
 the providence of God — which have too long 
 separated Christian principle from general pro- 
 gress, the Bible from the people, the pulpit from 
 the press, and made religion little else than "a 
 starry stranger " in an alien land. We accept 
 him as a rude type of better things— as the dim 
 day-star of a new and brighter era. 
 
 We linger as we trace over in thought the lead- 
 ing incidents of his well-known story. We see 
 the big-headed, warm-hearted, burly boy, playing 
 upon the beach at Anstruther, and seeming like 
 a gleam of early sunshine upon that coldest of 
 all coasts. We follow him as he strides along 
 with large, hopeful, awkward steps to the gate 
 of St Andrews. We see him, a second Dominie 
 Sampson, in his tutor's garret at Arbroath, in 
 the midst of a proud and pompous family — him- 
 self as proud, though not so pompous, as they. 
 We follow him next to the peaceful manse of 
 Kilmany, standing amid its green woods and 
 hills, in a very nook of the land, whence he 
 emerges, now to St Andrews to battle with the 
 stolid and slow-moving professors of that day, 
 now to Dundee to buy materials for chemical 
 research (on one occasion setting himself on fire 
 with some combustible substance, and requiring 
 to run to a farmhouse to get himself put out !), 
 now to the woods and hills around to botanise 
 — ay, even on the Sabbath-day ! — and now to 
 Edinburgh to attend the General Assembly, 
 and give earnest of those great oratorical powers 
 which were afterwards to astonish the Church 
 and the world. With solemn awe we stand by 
 his bedside during that long, mysterious illness, 
 which brought him to himself, and taught him 
 that religion was a reality, as profound as sin, 
 sickness, and death. We mark him then, rising 
 up from his couch, like an eagle newly bathed — 
 like a giant refreshed — and commencing that 
 course of evangelical teaching and action only 
 to be terminated in the grave. We pursue him 
 to Glasgow, and see him sitting down in a plain 
 house in Sauchiehall Koad, and proceeding to 
 write sermons which are to strike that city like 
 a planet, and make him the real King of the 
 West. We mark him next, somewhat worn and 
 wearied, returning to his ahna mater, to resume 
 his old games of golf on the links, his old baths 
 in the bay, and to give an impetus, which has 
 never yet entirely subsided, to that grass-grown 
 city of Rutherford and Halyburton. Next we 
 see him bursting like a shell this narrow con- 
 fine, and soaring away to "stately Edinburgh, 
 throned on crags," to become there a principality 
 and power among many, and to give stimulus 
 and inspiration to hosts of young aspirants. 
 With less pleasure we follow the atter-steps 
 
DR CHALMERS, 
 
 215 
 
 of his career — the restless and uneasy agitations 
 in which he engaged, which shook the energies 
 of his constitution, impaired the freshness of his 
 mind, and paved the way for his premature and 
 hasty end. With deep interest, however, we 
 see him sitting at the head of a new and power- 
 ful ecclesiastical body, which owed, if not its 
 existence, yet much of its glory, to him ; so that 
 the grey head of Chalmers in that Canonmills 
 hall seemed to outshine the splendours of 
 mitres, and coronets, and crowns. We watch 
 him vnth still profounder feelings, preaching to 
 the poor outcasts of the West Port, or sitting 
 like a little child beside them, as others are tell- 
 ing them the simple story of the cross. We 
 follow him on his "last pilgrimage" to the 
 south — confronting senates — going out of his 
 way to visit the widows of Hall and Foster — 
 bursting into the studies of sublime unhappy 
 sceptics, and giving them a word in season — 
 preaching wherever he had opportunity, and re- 
 turning in haste to die ! And our thoughts and 
 feelings rise to a climax, as we hear the mid- 
 night cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!" 
 raised beside his couch ; and, entering in, behold 
 the grand old Christian giant — the John Knox 
 of the nineteenth century — laid gently on his 
 pillow, asleep, with that sleep which knows no 
 waking, till the trumpet shall sound, and when 
 HE surely shall be among the foremost to rise to 
 meet the Master, and to go in with Him into 
 the eternal banqueting-room. 
 
 What divine of the age, on the whole, can we 
 name with Chalmers? Horsley was, perhaps, 
 an abler man, but where the moral grandeur ? 
 Hall had the moral grandeur, and a far more 
 cultivated mind; Foster had a sterner, loftier, 
 and richer genius ; but where, in either, the 
 seraphic ardour, activity, and energy of Christian 
 character possessed by Chalmers ? Irving, as an 
 orator, had more artistic skill, and, at the same 
 time, his blood was warm with a more volcanic 
 and poetic fire ; but he was only a brilliant 
 fragment, not a whole — he was a meteor to a 
 star — a comet to a sun — a Vesuvius, peaked, 
 blue, crowned with fire, to a domed Mont Blanc, 
 that altar of God's morning and evening sacri- 
 fice. Chalmers stood alone ; and centuries may 
 elapse ere the Church shall see — and when did 
 she ever more need to see ? — another such spirit 
 as he. 
 
 DR CHALMERS,* BY J. Q. LOCKHART. 
 
 Yesterday, being Sunday, I threw myself 
 into the midst of one of these overwhelming 
 streams, and allowed myself to float on its 
 swelling waves to the church of the most cele- 
 brated preacher in this place, or rather, I should 
 say, the most celebrated preacher of the day in 
 the whole of Scotland — Dr Chalmers. I had 
 
 * " Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk." 
 
 heard so much of this remarkable man in Edin- 
 burgh, that my curiosity in regard to him had 
 been wound up to a high pitch, even before I 
 found myself in the midst of this population, to 
 which his extraordinary character and genius 
 furnish by far the greatest object of interest 
 and attention. . . . 
 
 I was a good deal surprised and perplexed 
 with the first glimpse I obtained of his counte- 
 nance, for the light that streamed faintly upon 
 it for the moment did not reveal anything like 
 that general outline of feature and visage for 
 which my fancy had, by some strange work- 
 ing of presentiment, prepared me. By-and-by, 
 however, the light became stronger, and I was 
 enabled to study the minutiae of his face pretty 
 leisurely, while he leaned forward and read 
 aloud the words of the psalm — for that is 
 always done in Scotland not by the clerk, but 
 the clergyman himself. At first sight, no 
 doubt, his face is a coarse one — but a mysteri- 
 ous kind of meaning breathes from every part 
 of it, that such as have eyes to see cannot be 
 long without discovering. It is very pale, and 
 the large half-closed eyelids have a certain 
 drooping melancholy weight about them, which 
 interested me very much, I understood not 
 why. The lips, too, are singularly pensive in 
 their mode of falling down at the sides, although 
 there is no want of richness and vigour in their 
 central fulness of curve. The upper lip, from 
 the nose downwards, is separated by a very 
 deep line, which gives a sort of leonine firmness 
 of expression to all the lower part of the face. 
 The cheeks are square and strong, in texture 
 like pieces of marble, with the cheek-bones very 
 broad and prominent. The eyes themselves are 
 light in colour, and have a strange dreamy 
 heaviness, that conveys any idea rather than 
 that of dulness, but which contrasts, in a 
 wonderful manner, with the dazzling watery 
 glare they exhibit when expanded in their 
 sockets, and illuminated into all their flame 
 and fervour, in some moment of high entranced 
 enthusiasm. But the shape of the forehead is 
 perhaps the most singular part of the whole 
 visage; and indeed it presents a mixture so 
 very singular, of forms commonly exhibited 
 only in the widest separation, that it is no 
 wonder I should have required some little time 
 to comprehend the meaning of it. In the first 
 place, it is without exception the most marked 
 mathematical forehead I ever met with — being 
 far wider across the eyebrows than either Mr 
 Playfair's or Mr Leslie's — and having the eye- 
 brows themselves lifted up at their exterior 
 ends quite out of the usual line — a peculiarity 
 which Spurzheim had remarked in the counte- 
 nances of almost all the great mathematical or 
 calculating geniuses — such, for example, if I 
 rightly remember, as Sir Isaac Newton himself, 
 Kaestener, Euler, and mtiny others. Immedi- 
 ately above the extraordinary breadth of this 
 
216 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 region, which, in the heads of most mathemati- 
 cal persons, is surmounted by no fine points of 
 organisation whatever — immediately above this, 
 in the forehead of Dr Chalmers, there is an arch 
 of imagination, carrying out the summit boldly 
 and roundly, in a style to which the heads of 
 very few poets present anything comparable — 
 while over this again there is a grand apex of 
 high and solemn veneration and love — such as 
 might have graced the bust of Plato himself — 
 and such as in living men I had never beheld 
 equalled in any but the majestic head of Can ova. 
 The whole is edged with a few crisp dark locks, 
 which stand forth boldly, and afford a fine 
 relief to the death-like paleness of those massive 
 temples. 
 
 Singular as is this conformation, I know not 
 that anything less singular could have satisfied 
 my imagination after hearing this man preach. 
 You have read his sermons, and therefore I need 
 not say anything about the subject and style of 
 the one I heard, because it was in all respects 
 very similar to those which have been printed. 
 But of all human compositions, there is none 
 surely which loses so much as a sermon does, 
 when it is made to address itself to the eye of a 
 solitary student in his closet — and not to the 
 thrilling ears of a mighty mingled congrega- 
 tion, through the very voice which nature has 
 enriched with notes more expressive than words 
 can ever be of the meanings and feelings of its 
 author. Neither, perhaps, did the world ever 
 possess any orator, whose minutest peculiarities 
 of gesture and voice have more power in increas- 
 ing the efi"ect of what he says — whose delivery, 
 in other words, is the first, and the second, and 
 the third excellence of his oratory, more truly 
 than is that of Dr Chalmers. And yet, were 
 the spirit of the man less gifted than it is, there 
 is no question these his lesser peculiarities would 
 never have been numbered among his points of 
 excellence. His voice is neither strong nor 
 melodious. His gestures are neither easy nor 
 graceful ; but, on the contrary, extremely rude 
 and awkward — his pronunciation is not only 
 broadly national, but broadly provincial — dis- 
 torting almost every word he utters into some 
 barbarous novelty, which, had his hearer leisure 
 to think of such things, might be productive of 
 an effect at once ludicrous and offensive in a 
 singular degree. 
 
 But of a truth these are things which no 
 listener can attend to while this great preacher 
 stands before him, armed with all the weapons 
 of the most commanding eloquence, and sway- 
 ing all around him with its imperial rule. At 
 first, indeed, there is nothing to make one 
 suspect what riches are in store. He com- 
 mences in a low, drawling key, which has not 
 even the merit of being solemn— and advances 
 from sentence to sentence, and from paragraph 
 to paragraph, while you seek in vain to catch a 
 single echo that gives promise of that which is 
 
 to come. There is, on the contrary, an appear- 
 ance of constraint about him, that affects and 
 distresses you — you are afraid that his breast is 
 weak, and that even the slight exertion he 
 makes may be too much for it. But then with 
 what tenfold richness does this dim preliminary 
 curtain make the glories of his eloquence to 
 shine forth, when the heated spirit at length 
 shakes from it its chill confining fetters, and 
 bursts out elate and rejoicing in the full splen- 
 dour of its disimprisoned wings ! Never was 
 any proof more distinct and speaking, how 
 impossible it is for any lesser disfavours to 
 diminish the value of the truer and higher 
 bounties of nature. Never was any better 
 example of that noble privilege of real genius, 
 in virtue of which even disadvantages are con- 
 verted into advantages — and things which would 
 be sufl&cient to nip the opening buds of anj 
 plant of inferior promise are made to add only 
 new beauty and power to its uncontrollably ex- 
 panding bloom. 
 
 I have heard many men deliver sermons far 
 better arranged in regard to argument, and 
 have heard very many deliver sermons far 
 more uniform in elegance both of conception 
 and of style. But most unquestionably I have 
 never heard, either in England or Scotland, or 
 in any other country, any preacher whose 
 eloquence is capable of producing an effect so 
 strong and irresistible as his. He does all 
 this too without having recourse for a moment 
 to the vulgar arts of common pulpit enthusiasm. 
 He does it entirely and proudly, by the sheer 
 pith of his most original mind, clothing itself 
 in a bold magnificence of language, as original 
 in its structure, as nervous in the midst of its 
 overflo"\ving richness as itself. He has the very 
 noblest of his weapons, and most nobly does he 
 wield them. He has a wonderful talent for 
 ratiocination, and possesses, besides, an imagi- 
 nation both fertile and distinct, which gives all 
 richness of colour to his style, and supplies his 
 argument with every diversity of illustration. 
 In presence of such a spirit subjection is a 
 triumph — and I was proud to feel my hardened 
 nerves creep and vibrate, and my blood freeze 
 and boil while he spake — as they were wont to 
 do in the early innocent years, when unques- 
 tioning enthusiasm had as yet caught no lessons 
 of chillness from the jealousies of discernment, 
 the delights of comparison, and the example of 
 the unimaginative world. 
 
 I trust his eloquence produces daily upon 
 those who hear it effects more precious than the 
 mere delights of intellectual excitement and 
 admiring transports. I trust that, after the 
 first tide has gone by, there is left no trivial 
 richness of sediment on the souls over which its 
 course has been. I trust the hearers of this 
 good man do not go there only because he is a 
 great one — that their hearts are as open to his 
 sway as their minds are ; and that the minister 
 
MAJ^Y SOMERVILLE. 
 
 217 
 
 of Christ is not a mere orator in their eyes. 
 Were that the case, they might seek the species 
 of delight most to their taste in a theatre, with 
 more propriety than in a church. I speak, I 
 confess, from feeling my own feebleness in the 
 presence of this man — I speak from my own 
 experience of the difficulty there is in heing 
 able, amidst the human luxury such a sermon 
 affords, to remember with sufficient earnestness 
 the nature of its object — and the proper nature 
 of its more lasting effects. What is perhaps 
 impossible, however, on a first hearing, may, no 
 doubt, become easy after many repetitions — so 
 I hope it is. Indeed, why should I doubt it? 
 The tone of serious deep-felt veneration, in 
 which I hear this great preacher talked of by 
 all about him, is a sufficient proof that mere 
 human admiration is not the only element in 
 the feelings with which they regard him — that 
 with the homage paid to his genius, there is 
 mingled a nobler homage of gratitude to the 
 kind affectionate warmth with which he renders 
 this high genius subservient to the best in- 
 terests of those in whose presence its triumphs 
 are exhibited. . . . 
 
 His private manners and conversation are, 1 
 assure you, quite as admirable as his eloquence 
 in the pulpit. He is, without any exception, 
 the most perfectly modest man I ever met with 
 — the most averse to all kind of display — the 
 
 most simple and unaffectedly kind good man. 
 Yet he is one of the most original men in con- 
 versation I have ever had the fortune to meet 
 with — and I think throws out more new ideas, 
 in the course of a few plain sentences, appar- 
 ently delivered without the smallest conscious- 
 ness that they embody anything particularly 
 worthy of attention, than any one of all the 
 great men I have become acquainted with since 
 I came to Scotland. It is easy to see that he 
 has a mind most richly stored with all kinds of 
 information — he is a profound master of mathe- 
 matics — and, at the same time, more passion- 
 ately fond of ancient learning than any of the 
 Scottish literati I have seen. But all his stores 
 are kept in strict subservience to the great pur- 
 poses of his life and profession — and I think, 
 various as they are, they gain instead of losing, 
 both in value and interest, from the uniformity 
 of the object to which he so indefatigably bends 
 them. It is the fault of the attainments of 
 most of the gifted men of our time, that they 
 seem to be in a great measure destitute of any 
 permanent aim, with which these attainments 
 are connected in any suitable degree. But with 
 him there is ever present the sense and presid- 
 ing power of an aim, above all others noble and 
 grand — the aim, namely, and the high ambition 
 of doing good to his countrymen, and of serving 
 the cause of religion. 
 
 MAKY SOMEEVILLE. 
 
 [1780-1872.] 
 
 Mart Somerville was one of the most extra- 
 ordinary of all scientific women ; her calm, 
 noble, studious, and observant life — lengthened 
 out to a period far beyond the Psalmist's three- 
 score years and ten, bright and beautiful to the 
 very close — is one placed high above the reach 
 of most, and stands apart in a sacred niche of 
 its own untouched, even almost unapproached, 
 by others. Well may her daughter observe, in 
 the introduction to her mother's autobiography, 
 " Few thoughtful minds will read without emo- 
 tion my mother's own account of the wonderful 
 energy and indomitable perseverance by which, 
 in her ardent thirst for knowledge, she overcame 
 obstacles apparently insurmountable at a time 
 when women were well-nigh totally debarred 
 from education; and the almost intuitive way 
 in which she entered upon studies of which she 
 had scarcely heard the names, living as she did 
 among persons to whom they were utterly un- 
 known, and who disapproved of her devotion 
 to pursuits so different from those of ordinary 
 young girls at the end of the last century, especi- 
 
 ally in Scotland, which was far more old-fashioned 
 and primitive than England." And this thirst for 
 knowledge, with the attendant energy and per- 
 severance in satisfying it, continued active and 
 alive to the end. Girlhood passed, womanhood 
 dawned, middle age came, and finally extreme 
 old age; but the desire for and love of know- 
 ledge survived, and in her ninety-second year 
 she watched the eruption of Vesuvius as eagerly 
 as when a girl she watched the flight of wild 
 geese at Burntisland. 
 
 The father of Mary Somerville, Sir William 
 Fairfax, was a brave and courageous naval officer, 
 who had shown rare capacity and intrepidity in 
 several engagements with vessels superior in 
 force to his own ; he was cool and ready-witted, 
 and in moments of danger exhibited great pre- 
 sence of mind and variety of resource. For the 
 distinguished part he played in the action of 
 Camperdown, under Admiral Duncan, he re- 
 ceived the honour of knighthood. He also pos- 
 sessed true religious feelings ; and his daughter 
 tells a pleasing little story which clearly proves 
 
218 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 this. Oue night, in a violent storm, the vessel 
 which he commanded took refuge with many 
 others in Yarmouth Roads, where they saw light 
 after light disappear as vessels near them foun- 
 dered. Having done all that his knowledge as 
 a seaman made it possible for him to do, for the 
 safety of his ship and her crew, he descended 
 to his cahin to secure a little rest. The rolling 
 of the vessel made it impossible to shut the cabin 
 door closely, and the man standing sentry, peep- 
 ing into the cabin, saw his captain on his knees 
 praying, and began to think that all would 
 soon be over, and himself with the rest of the 
 crew find a watery grave ; but when he saw his 
 superior rise from his knees, and calmly undress- 
 ing himself, go to bed and fall asleep, he felt 
 no more fear of drowning. 
 
 Her mother was the daughter of a Solicitor of 
 the Customs for Scotland, and although not 
 pretty, was exceedingly distinguished and lady- 
 like both in manners and appearance ; and was 
 kind and indulgent to her children, who were 
 perfectly at ease with her. She was fond of 
 reading the newspaper, sermons, and her Bible, 
 sincere and devout in her religion ; was also re- 
 markable for good sense, and could express her- 
 self with some degree of force both in writing 
 and conversation. She was much afraid of 
 thunder, and could tell when a storm was near 
 by the appearance of the clouds, and would 
 prepare for it by taking out the steel pins which 
 fastened her cap on ; removing as far as possible 
 from the fireplace, she would open her Bible 
 and read portions from it, especially those por- 
 tions of the Psalms which described the terrors 
 of storms. At the first clap of thunder. Pointer 
 (the dog) would rush from the garden into the 
 house and thrust his head into Mary's lap, while 
 her father would laugh at the fear, and offering 
 a glass of wine to his wife, would say, "Drink 
 that. Peg ; it will give you courage, for we are 
 going to have a rat-tat-too." But she would 
 beg him to shut the window-shutters, and 
 although no longer able to see, would still keep 
 the Bible on her knee for protection. 
 
 It was on the 26th of December 1780 that 
 Mary Somerville first saw the light in the old 
 manse of Jedburgh, though her early years were 
 spent at a little quiet seaport town named 
 Burntisland, of which she has given us a pleas- 
 ing description, and also narrated a few of the 
 old-fashioned customs which still prevailed there 
 at the close of the last century, while now we 
 suppose all remnants of them are swept away, 
 as the place, situated on the northern slope 
 of the Firth of Forth, has become a place of 
 resort in the summer time for busy Edinburgh 
 citizens. 
 
 •' Burntisland," she writes, " was then a small 
 quiet seaport town, with little or no commerce, 
 situated on the east coast of Fife, immediately 
 opposite to Edinburgh. It is sheltered at some 
 distance ou the north by a high and steep hill 
 
 called the Bin. The harbour lies on the west, 
 and the town ended on the east in a plain of 
 short grass called the Links, on which the towns- 
 people had the right of pasturing their cows and 
 geese. The Links were bounded on each side by 
 low hills covered with gorse and heather, and 
 on the east by a beautiful bay with a sandy 
 beach, which, beginning at a low, rocky point, 
 formed a howe, and then stretched for several 
 miles to the town of Kinghorn, the distant part 
 skirting a range of high precipitous crags. 
 
 " Our house, which lay to the south of the 
 town, was very long, with a southern exposure, 
 and its length was increased by a wall covered 
 with fruit trees, which concealed a courtyard, 
 cowhouse, and other offices. From this the gar- 
 den extended southwards, and ended in a plot 
 of short grass covering a ledge of low, black 
 rocks washed by the sea. It was divided into 
 three parts by narrow, almost unfrequented 
 lanes. These gardens yielded abundance of com- 
 mon fruit and vegetables ; but the warmest and 
 best exposures were always devoted to flowers. 
 The garden next to the house was bounded on 
 the south by an ivy-covered wall, hid by a roM' 
 of old elm-trees, from whence a steep, mossy 
 bank descended to a flat plot of grass with a 
 gravel walk and flower borders on each side, 
 and a broad gravel walk ran along the front of 
 the house. My mother was fond of flowers, and 
 prided herself on her moss-roses, which flour- 
 ished luxuriantly on the front of the house; 
 but my father, though a sailor, was an excellent 
 florist. He procured the finest bulbs and flower 
 seeds from Holland, and kept each kind in a 
 separate bed. 
 
 ** The manners and customs of the people who 
 inhabited this pretty spot at that time were ex- 
 ceedingly primitive. Upon the death of any of the 
 townspeople, a man went about ringing a bell at 
 the doors of the friends and acquaintances of the 
 person just died; and after calling out *Oyez!' 
 three times, he announced the death which had 
 occurred. This was still called by the name of 
 the passing-bell, which in Catholic times invited 
 the prayers of the living for the spirit just passed 
 away. There was much sympathy and kindness 
 shown on these occasions ; friends always paid 
 a visit of condolence to the afflicted, dressed in 
 black. The gudewives in Burntisland thought 
 it respectable to provide dead-clothes for them- 
 selves and the ' gudeman,' that they might have 
 a decent funeral. I once saw a set of grave- 
 clothes nicely folded up, which consisted of a long 
 shirt and cap of white flannel, and a shroud of 
 fine linen made of yarn, spun by the gudewife 
 herself. ... 
 
 " Penny- weddings were by no means uncom- 
 mon in my young days. When a very poor 
 couple were going to be married, the best man, 
 and even the bridegroom himself, went from 
 house to house, asking for small sums to en- 
 able them to have a wedding suj)per, and pay 
 
MAR Y SOMER VILLE. 
 
 219 
 
 the town fiddler for a dance. Any one was ad- 
 mitted who paid a penny. I recollect the pri- 
 soners in the Tolbooth letting down bags from 
 the prison windows, begging for charity. I do 
 not remember any execution taking place. 
 
 "Men and women of the lower classes smoked 
 tobacco in short pipes, and many took snuff — 
 even young ladies must have done so, for I have a 
 very pretty and quaint gold snuff-box which was 
 given to my grandmother as a marriage pre- 
 sent. Licensed beggars, called ' gaberlunzie men,' 
 were still common. They wore a blue coat, with 
 a tin badge, and wandered about the country, 
 knew all that was going on, and were always wel- 
 come at the farmhouses, where the gudewife 
 liked to have a crack (gossip) with the blue-coat, 
 and, in return for his news, gave him dinner or 
 supper, as might be. Edie Ochiltree is a per- 
 fect specimen of this extinct race. There was 
 another species of beggar of yet higher anti- 
 quity. If a man were a cripple, and poor, his 
 relations put him in a hand-barrow and wheeled 
 him to their next neighbour's door and left him 
 there. Some one came out, gave him oat-cake 
 or peasemeal bannock, and then wheeled him to 
 the next door ; and in this way, going from house 
 to house, he obtained a fair livelihood." 
 
 Amid such scenery, and surrounded by such 
 primitive manners and customs, her girlhood 
 was passed ; and a strangely inquiring girlhood 
 it was. Her mother taught her to read the 
 Bible and to say her morning and evening 
 prayers, but otherwise allowed her to grow up a 
 wild creature, finding her chief delight in 
 rambles on the beach for shells, and wandering 
 among the furze on the Links. She never cared 
 for dolls, and had no companions with whom to 
 play, and so amused herself in nature's great 
 school, finding endless pleasure in watching the 
 flight of strings of wild geese that frequented 
 the common in the autumn of the year, and the 
 impotent attempts of the tame ones, which 
 would rise in a body and try to follow them. 
 Her love of birds was great. The swallows were 
 never prevented from building above the win- 
 dows of the house, and when the ground was 
 covered with snow, crumbs were plentifully 
 spread for the robins, and the windows thrown 
 open, so that at breakfast time they might hop 
 in and pick up their meal from the family table. 
 She knew the names of most of the birds that 
 visited the garden, their flight and their habits. 
 This love of birds continued through life. In 
 extreme old age she grieved over the loss of a 
 pet mountain sparrow, which, she tells us, had 
 for eight years been her constant companion, 
 sitting on her shoulder, pecking at her papers, 
 and eating out of her mouth. But it was this 
 love of nature and natural objects, the tending 
 her birds and pets, that was gradually training 
 her to accomplish the great work of her after- 
 life. The woman of science owed much to the 
 curiously observant little girl who was allowed 
 
 to "grow up a wild creature " amid the beauties 
 of scenery, and uninfluenced by the companion- 
 ship of girls of her own age. 
 
 Although at the close of the last century, in 
 so quiet a seaport town as Burntisland, the idea 
 of a liberal education for a woman extended no 
 further than teaching her to read her Bible, be- 
 have prettily at a party, and make her a clever, 
 thrifty housewife, one phase of it was never 
 neglected, namely, being well grounded in the 
 Catechism of the Kirk of Scotland. In due time 
 the half-wild country girl, Mary, had one placed 
 in her hands, and was likewise sent to the 
 public examinations in the church. This she 
 found a severe trial, for, besides being timid 
 and shy, she possessed a bad memory, and did 
 not understand one word of the Catechism. 
 These meetings, which always began with 
 prayer, were attended by all the children of the 
 town and neighbourhood, with their mothers, 
 and a great many old women, who went to be 
 edified. These same old women, we are told, 
 were an acute race, and could quote chapter 
 and verse of Scripture as glibly as the minister 
 himself. As she tells us, she remembers to have 
 heard the question once put to one of them by 
 the minister : " Peggie, what lightened the world 
 before the sun was made?" To which, after 
 thinking awhile, the old woman replied : " Deed, 
 sir, the question is more curious than edifying." 
 Besides the misery of attending a public exami- 
 nation at the kirk, Mary had to undergo the in- 
 fliction of the minister's annual home visitation, 
 when each individual was examined as to the 
 state of his or her soul and conduct, and ques- 
 tioned as to his or her knowledge of the 
 Catechism. 
 
 When, between the years of eight and nine, 
 her father returned from a sea voyage, he was 
 shocked to find her such a little savage, and 
 immediately set about the task of improvement ; 
 but his choice of books was unfortunate. She 
 had herself travelled through the enchanting 
 pages of the "Arabian Nights," "Robinson 
 Crusoe," and the "Pilgrim's Progress;" but 
 now, besides a daily chapter from the Bible, she 
 was made to read a paper from the Spectator 
 every morning aloud immediately after break- 
 fast, which made the book so hateful to her that 
 she never after opened it. Hume's " History of 
 England" shared the same fate; much more 
 readily did the girl share her father's garden 
 pursuits, experiencing real pleasure in helping 
 him to cultivate his flowers. 
 
 Home education not prospering, Mary was 
 sent, when ten years of age, to a boarding-school 
 at Musselburgh, kept by a Miss Primrose, where, 
 to use her own expression, she was "utterly 
 wretched." The change from perfect freedom 
 to perpetual restraint was anything but plea- 
 sant, added to which the schoolmistress, though 
 not unkind, wore an habitual frown which even 
 the elder girls dreaded; and her companions, 
 
220 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 who on the whole were kind to her, frequently 
 bathed her eyes that the stem mistress might 
 not see she had been weeping. A few days after 
 her commencement of school, although as free, 
 straight, and lithe as Wordsworth's Lucy, she 
 was enclosed in stiff stays with a steel busk in 
 front, while above her frock, bands drew her 
 shoulders back till the shoulder-blades met; 
 then a steel rod, with a semicircle which went 
 under the chin, was clasped to the steel busk in 
 the stays ; and in this constrained position the 
 little captive had to learn her lessons, the chief 
 of which was to get by heart a page of Johnson's 
 Dictionary. 
 
 A twelvemonth was all that was deemed 
 necessary at this elegant school, yet little seems 
 to have been learnt during the stay. Her 
 writing was of the half-text hand kind, and 
 very bad, and her spelling on a par, for in 
 writing to her brother at Edinburgh, she in- 
 formed him that she had enclosed him a "bank- 
 hnoV (note) to buy something for her. Her 
 mother thought the money which had been 
 spent on her education quite thrown away, and 
 said she would have been contented had her 
 daughter learnt to write well and keep accounts, 
 which was as much as a woman was expected to 
 know. All this soon passed over, and the 
 emancipated school-girl went almost wild with 
 delight. But she has herself described her joy 
 at once again regaining her freedom, and the 
 pursuits in which she indulged, which we must 
 give to our readers in her own words, present- 
 ing as it does a unique picture of the girlhood 
 of an extraordinary woman : 
 
 "I was like a wild animal escaped out of a 
 cage. I was no longer amused in the gardens, 
 but wandered about the country. When the 
 tide was out I spent hours on the sands, looking 
 at the star-fish and sea-urchins, or watching the 
 children digging for sand-eels, cockles, and the 
 spouting razor-fish. I made a collection of 
 shells, such as were cast ashore, some so small 
 that they appeared like white specks in patches 
 of black sand. There was a small pier on the 
 sands for shipping limestone brought from the 
 coal mines inland. I was astonished to see the 
 surface of these blocks of stone covered with 
 beautiful impressions of what seemed to be 
 leaves. How they got there I could not 
 imagine, but I picked up the broken bits, and 
 even large pieces, and brought them to my 
 repository. I knew the eggs of many birds, 
 and made a collection of them. I never robbed 
 a nest, but bought strings of eggs, which were 
 sold by boys, besides getting sea-fowl eggs from 
 saihirs who had been in whalers or on other 
 northern voyages. . . . 
 
 "In the rocks at the end of our garden there 
 was a shingly opening, in which we used to 
 bathe, and where at low tide I frequently waded 
 among masses of rock covered with sea-weeds. 
 With the exception of dulse and tangle, I knew 
 
 the names of none, though I was well acquainted 
 with and admired many of these beautiful 
 plants. I also watched the crabs, live shells, 
 jelly-fish, and various marine animals, all of 
 which were objects of curiosity and amusement 
 to me in my lonely life. The flora on the Links 
 and hills around was very beautiful ; and I soon 
 learned the trivial names of all the plants. There 
 was not a tree nor bush higher than furze in 
 this part of the country ; but the coast to the 
 north-west of Burntisland was bordered by a 
 tree and brushwood-covered bank, belonging to 
 the Earl of Morton, which extended to Aber- 
 dour. I could not go so far alone, but had 
 frequent opportunities of walking there and 
 gathering ferns, fox-gloves, and primroses, 
 which grew on the mossy banks of a little 
 stream that ran into the sea. The bed of this 
 stream, or burn, was thickly covered with 
 fresh -water mussel, which I knew often con 
 tained pearls, but I did not like to kill the 
 creatures to get the pearls. . . . 
 
 "When the bad weather began, I did not 
 know what to do with myself. Fortunately we 
 had a small collection of books, among which I 
 found Shakespeare, and read it at every moment 
 I could spare from my domestic duties. These 
 occupied a great part of my time ; besides, I had 
 to shew (sew) my sampler, working the alphabet 
 from A to Z, as well as the ten numbers, on 
 canvas. My mother did not prevent me from 
 reading ; but my aunt Janet, who came to live 
 in Burntisland after her father's death, greatly 
 disapproved of my conduct. She was an old 
 maid, who could be very agreeable and Avitty, 
 but she had all the prejudices of the time with 
 regard to women's duties, and said to my 
 mother, * I wonder you let Mary waste her time 
 in reading, she never shews (sews) more than if 
 she were a man.' Whereupon I was sent to the 
 village school to learn plain needlework. I do 
 not remember how long it was after this that an 
 old lady sent some very fine linen to be made 
 into shirts for her brother, and desired that one 
 should be made entirely by me. This shirt was 
 so well worked that I was relieved from attend- 
 ing the school, but the house linen was given 
 into my charge to make and to mend. We had 
 a large stock, much of it very beautiful, for the 
 Scotch ladies at that time were very proud of 
 their napery; but they no longer sent it to 
 Holland to be bleached, as had once been the 
 custom. We grew flax, and our maids spun it. 
 The coarser yarn was woven in Burntisland, and 
 bleached upon the Links ; the finer was sent to 
 Dunfermline, where there was a manufactory of 
 table-linen. 
 
 "I was annoyed that my turn for reading was 
 so much disapproved of, and thought it unjust 
 that women should have been given a desire 
 for knowledge if it were wrong to acquire it. 
 Among our books I found Chapone's * Letters 
 to Young Women,' and resolved to follow the 
 
MARY SOMERVILLE. 
 
 221 
 
 course of history these recommended ; the more 
 so as we had most of the works she mentions. 
 One, however, which my cousin lent me was in 
 French, and here the little I had learnt in 
 school was useful, for with the help of a dic- 
 tionary I made out the sense. What annoyed 
 me was my memory not being good — 1 could 
 remember neither names nor dates. Years 
 afterwards I studied a ' Memoria Technica ' then 
 in fashion, without success; yet in my youth 
 I could play long pieces of music on the 
 piano without the book, and I never forget 
 mathematical formulae. In looking over one of 
 my MSS. which I had not seen for forty years, 
 I at once recognised the formulae for computing 
 the secular inequalities of the moon. 
 
 "We had two small globes, and my mother 
 allowed me to learn the use of them from Mr 
 Reed, the village schoolmaster, who came to 
 teach me for a few weeks in the winter even- 
 ings. Besides the ordinary branches, Mr Reed 
 taught Latin and navigation, but these were out 
 of the question for me. At the village school 
 the boys often learned Latin, but it was thought 
 suflBcient for the girls to be able to read the 
 Bible; very few even learned writing. I re- 
 collect, however, that some men were ignorant 
 of book-keeping ; our baker, for instance, had a 
 wooden tally in which he made a notch for 
 every loaf of bread, and of course we had the 
 corresponding tally. They were called nick- 
 stacks. 
 
 "My bedroom had a window to the south, 
 and a small closet near had one to the north. 
 At these times I spent many hours studying the 
 stars by the aid of the celestial globe. Although 
 I watched and admired the magnificent displays 
 of the aurora, which frequently occurred, they 
 seemed to me so nearly allied to lightning, that 
 I was somewhat afraid of them. At an earlier 
 period of my life there was a comet, which I 
 dreaded exceedingly." 
 
 At the age of thirteen, during a winter spent 
 in Edinburgh, Mary was sent to school to learn 
 the art of writing, and by diligence soon ac- 
 quired a good hand. She also studied the com- 
 mon rules of arithmetic ; and an uncle making 
 her a present of a pianoforte, she was allowed 
 to have music lessons from an old lady who 
 lived in the top story of one of the highest 
 houses in the Old Town. On her return to 
 Burntisland she began to teach herself Latin, 
 and by patient perseverance was soon enabled 
 to read Caesar's "Commentaries." And a visit 
 paid about this time to her uncle, Dr Somer- 
 ville, at Jedburgh, appears not only to have 
 left a most pleasing impression on her mind as 
 being a sunny little episode in her early life, 
 but seems to have given her a breath of en- 
 couragement in her self-imposed studies. He 
 approved of her thirst for knowledge, and 
 manifested so much kindness for her, that she 
 found courage suflBcient to tell him that she had 
 
 been trying to learn Latin, at the same time ex- 
 pressing her fear that her efforts would be in 
 vain, as boys who had every assistance spent 
 years in acquiring it. The kindly doctor 
 cheered the young student by assuring her that 
 in ancient times many women, even some of the 
 highest rank, had been very elegant scholars, 
 and ended by oflfering to read Virgil with her 
 every morning before breakfast, an offer readily 
 and gladly embraced. This visit to Jedburgh 
 was altogether a pleasant affair. She says she 
 was never happier in her life than during the 
 months spent in her uncle's house. Her aunt 
 proved herself to be a most charming com- 
 panion, witty, and full of anecdote, and was 
 better read than most women of that day, 
 Shakespeare being her favourite author. Here, 
 too, she first heard the name of one who in 
 after-years became one of her most valued 
 friends, David Brewster, then studying in Edin- 
 burgh, who was teaching her cousins to write. 
 
 During a second winter spent in Edinburgh, 
 she was sent to a dancing-school to learn de- 
 portment and dancing ; and her first lesson was 
 how to walk and make a courtesy, her master 
 saying, *' Young lady, if you visit the Queen, 
 you must make three courtesies, lower and lower 
 and lower as you approach her. So — o — o," 
 leading her on and making her courtesy. " Now, 
 if the Queen were to ask you to eat a bit of 
 mutton with her, what would you say?" Every 
 Saturday afternoon all the scholars, both boys 
 and girls, practised in the public assembly 
 rooms, when the young gentlemen gave their 
 partners gingerbread and oranges. 
 
 After her return to Burntisland, and during 
 an evening visit to drink tea, a young lady 
 showed her the coloured plates of fashion in a 
 monthly magazine, when on turning a page she 
 was "surprised to see strange-looking lines 
 mixed with letters, chiefly X's and Y's." She 
 inquired what they meant, and was told it was 
 a kind of arithmetic called algebra; but her 
 informant could tell her nothing about it. So, 
 when she went home, she hunted through all 
 the books in the house to find out what algebra 
 meant, and was sadly disappointed when 
 Robertson's "Navigation" failed to satisfy her, 
 although in studying it she learned that astro^ 
 nomy did not consist in star-gazing. She had 
 no one to help her in her dilemma ; her relatives 
 and acquaintances were as ignorant as herself. 
 "I was very often sad and forlorn," she writes; 
 "not a hand held out to help me." 
 
 While attending lessons in drawing at Edin- 
 burgh, she for the first time heard it distinctly 
 said that "Euclid's Elements of Geometry" 
 were the "foundation, not only of perspective, 
 but of astronomy and all mechanical science." 
 This was the information most wanted by Mary, 
 for she saw at once that it would help her to 
 understand some parts of Robertson's " Naviga- 
 tion " which were now all dark to her ; but how 
 
to get the desired books she could not tell. 
 Help, however, came from an unexpected 
 quarter. A Mr Craw came to live in her 
 father's house as tutor to her youngest brother, 
 fie was a fair scholar, but no mathematician ; 
 but being a simple and good-natured man, she 
 persuaded him to procure her some elementary 
 books about algebra and geometry, and through 
 him at last became possessed of "Euclid" and 
 Bonnycastle's "Algebra." 
 
 "Now," she writes, "I had got what I so 
 long and earnestly desired. I asked Mr Craw 
 to hear me demonstrate a few problems in the 
 first book of 'Euclid;' and then I continued 
 the study alone with courage and assiduity, 
 knowing I was on the right road. Before I 
 began to read algebra, I found it necessary to 
 study arithmetic again, having forgotten much 
 of it. . . . I had to take part in the house- 
 hold affairs, and to make and mend my own 
 clothes. I rose early, played on the piano and 
 painted during the time I could spare in the 
 daylight hours, but I sat up very late reading 
 
 * Euclid.' The servants, however, told my 
 mother ' it was no wonder the stock of candles 
 was soon exhausted, for Miss Mary sat up read- 
 ing till a very late hour;' whereupon an order 
 was given to take away my candle as soon as I 
 was in bed. I had, however, already gone 
 through the first six books of 'Euclid,' and 
 now I was thrown on my memory, which I 
 exercised by beginning at the first book, and 
 demonstrating in my mind a certain number of 
 piroblems every night, till I could nearly go 
 through the whole. My father coming home 
 for a short time, and somehow or other finding 
 out what I was about, said to my mother, 
 
 * Peg, we must put a stop to this, or we shall 
 have Mary in a strait-jacket one of these days. 
 
 There was X , who went raving mad about 
 
 the longitude!'" 
 
 Thus the early years of this eminent woman 
 were passed in the pleasures derived from self- 
 imposed studies: in acquiring Latin, Greek, 
 algebra, mathematics ; in learning dancing, 
 painting, music ; in fulfilling household duties, 
 and in the enjoyments of social intercourse and 
 pleasures. Kising in the early morning, winter 
 or summer, before the other members of the 
 household were astir, she would devote hours to 
 her favourite pursuits ; and when wearied with 
 abstruse studies, turn to the delights of poetry 
 for relaxation to the overstrained mind. Her 
 early years were years of intense political ex- 
 citement — years of the French Revolution. 
 Though sympathising with the masses of the 
 people in their sufferings, and in her very heart 
 of hearts wishing they would oppose the cruel 
 wrongs to which they were subjected, she yet 
 gloried in the brilliant achievements of the 
 English armies on land, and the navy on the 
 ocean ; was intensely excited by the threatened 
 invasiou of the country by the French, enthusi- 
 
 astically declaring she would have died to pre- 
 vent a Frenchman from landing on the coast, 
 and fully anticipating the moment to exhibit 
 such devotion had arrived, when one night she 
 was awakened by hearing the yeomanry gallop 
 into the town, and seeing the beacons on the 
 hills around fiercely burning, as a signal that 
 the foe had actually landed. She had grown 
 exceedingly pretty, with a rare and delicate 
 beauty both of face and figure, and by her 
 friends and acquaintances was called the "Rose 
 of Jed wood." 
 
 In the year 1804, Mary Fairfax was married 
 to her cousin, Samuel Greig, a commissioner of 
 the Russian navy, and Russian Consul for 
 Britain, and removed with her husband to 
 London. Her first marriage does not appear 
 to have been one of the happiest ; her husband, 
 entertaining a very poor opinion of the capacity 
 of her sex, had no sympathy with her in her 
 studies. She was alone the whole of the day, 
 and had but little pleasure during the long 
 hours save what she derived from assiduously 
 following her own pursuits. After three years 
 of married life, she returned to her father's 
 house in Burntisland, a widow, with two little 
 boys, the youngest of whom died in childhood. 
 
 After her return to her early home she re- 
 sumed her former studies with zest ; did not go 
 much into society, but rose early and devoted 
 her time to her favourite mathematics. By 
 this time she was familiar with plane and 
 spherical trigonometry, conic sections, and 
 Fergusson's "Astronomy." She attempted 
 Newton's "Principia," but found it too diffi- 
 cult, and for a time was compelled to lay it on 
 one side. Fortunately she became acquainted 
 with Professor Wallace of Edinburgh, with 
 whom she exchanged notes, and who especially 
 helped her in the purchase of a good mathe- 
 matical library. Being no longer a child, and 
 thoroughly independent, she made no secret of 
 her studies, but pursued them openly and with 
 increased assiduity. She was considered eccen- 
 tric and foolish, and her conduct highly disap- 
 proved of by many, especially by some members 
 of her own family, who, she says, "expected 
 me to entertain and keep a gay house for them, 
 and in that they were disappointed. As I was 
 quite independent, I did not care for their 
 criticism. A great part of the day I was occu- 
 pied with my children; in the evening I worked, 
 played piquet with my father, or played on the 
 piano, sometimes with violin accompaniment." 
 
 During her five years of widowhood several 
 offers of marriage were made to her. One 
 suitor for her hand sent her a volume of ser- 
 mons, with the page turned down at the ser- 
 mon on the duties of a wife, "which were 
 expatiated upon in the most illiberal and 
 narrow-minded language." Thinking this not 
 only a little premature, but also very imperti- 
 nent, the recipient returned the book and 
 
MAR V SOMER VILLE. 
 
 
 refused the proposal. Even when, in 1812, she 
 was engaged to marry her cousin, William 
 Somerville, one of his sisters sent her a letter in 
 which she said she hoped she would now give 
 up her foolish manner of life and studies, and 
 make a respectable and useful wife. This letter 
 was shown to her future husband, who was 
 very indignant, and returned a severe and angry 
 letter, after which none of the family dared 
 again interfere. 
 
 In her second husband Mary Somerville found 
 a warm encourager and sympathiser in her 
 studies. He had led an adventurous life 
 abroad, was well informed and intelligent, was 
 a good classical scholar, had a lively interest in 
 all branches of natural history, and was an 
 excellent botanist and mineralogist. He shared 
 her studies, aiding her in those in which he 
 himself was more proficient, and suggesting 
 others that should claim her attention. These 
 were happy days. For a time they were not 
 permanently settled, and lived during the sum- 
 mer at Jedburgh. They saw a great deal of Sir 
 Walter Scott and other notabilities, and made 
 many friends. They were both at the seaport 
 when, years after, Sir Walter embarked to go 
 abroad for relaxation and in search of health. 
 The great man kissed his old friend, saying, 
 "Farewell, my dear; I am going to die abroad, 
 like other British novelists," 
 
 In the year 1816, Mr Somerville was appointed 
 a member of the Army Medical Board, and re- 
 moved with his family to London, fixing his 
 residence in Hanover Square. Soon after their 
 arrival in London they became acquainted with 
 the family of the Herschels, going down to 
 Slough by appointment to spend a day at their 
 house, where Sir William entertained them with 
 great kindness, showing them his celebrated tele- 
 scopes, and explaining their mechanism. He 
 also allowed them to see his manuscripts, in 
 which the numerous astronomical discoveries he 
 had made were recorded. The talented sister 
 of their host was at the time of their visit 
 abroad, but his son, afterwards Sir John, then 
 quite a youth, was at home. He afterwards 
 became a very dear friend of Mrs Somerville, 
 always ready with friendly advice and criticism. 
 
 In London, Mrs Somerville took fresh lessons 
 in painting, aud attended the chemical lectures 
 of Sir Humphry Davy at the Koyal Institution 
 in Albemarle Street. She soon became intimate 
 with a number of eminent scientific gentlemen ; 
 and when the illustrious Frenchmen MM. Arago 
 and Biot visited England, she was always invited 
 to meet them by her friends. They were told 
 that she had a turn for science, and had read 
 the works of La Place. Biot expressed surprise 
 at her youth. 
 
 One summer, Mr Somerville proposed a Conti- 
 nental tour to his wife, who readily agreed, and 
 who has left in her recollections a very pleasing 
 record of the delights of the trip, part of the 
 
 Parisian portion of which we must quote: "At 
 Paris we were received with the kindest hospi- 
 tality by M. and Mme. Arago. I liked her 
 much, she was so gentle and ladylike. He was 
 tall and good-looking, with an animated counte- 
 nance and black eyes. His character was noble, 
 generous, and singularly energetic ; his manners 
 lively and even gay. He was a man of very 
 general information, and, from his excitable 
 temperament, he entered as ardently into the 
 politics and passing events of the times as into 
 science, in which few had more extensive know- 
 ledge. On this account I thought his conversa- 
 tion more brilliant than that of any of the 
 French savans with whom I was acquainted. 
 They were living at the Observatory, and M. 
 Arago showed me all the instruments of that 
 magnificent establishment in the minutest detail, 
 which was highly interesting at the time, and 
 proved more useful to me than I was aware of. 
 M. Arago made us acquainted with the Marquis 
 de la Place, and the Marquise, who was quite an 
 elegante. The marquis was not tall, but thin, 
 upright, and rather formal. He was distin- 
 guished in his manners, and I thought there waa 
 a little of the courtier in them, perhaps from 
 having been so much at the court of the Em- 
 peror Napoleon, who had the highest regard for 
 him. Though incomparably superior to Arago 
 in mathematics and astronomical science, he 
 was inferior to him in general acquirements, so 
 that his conversation was less varied and popu- 
 lar. We were invited to go early and spend a 
 day with them at Arcceuil, where they had a 
 country house. M. Arago had told M. de la 
 Place that I had read the ' Mecanique Celeste,' 
 so we had a great deal of conversation about 
 astronomy and the calculus, and he gave me a 
 copy of his ' Systeme du Monde,' with his in- 
 scription, which pleased me exceedingly. I 
 spoke French very badly, but I was less at a 
 loss on scientific subjects, because almost all my 
 books on science were in French. The party at 
 dinner consisted of MM. Biot, Arago, Bouvard, 
 and Poisson. I sat next M. de la Place, who 
 was exceedingly kind and attentive. In such 
 an assemblage of philosophers I expected a very 
 grave and learned conversation. But not at all ! 
 Every one talked in a gay, animated, and loud 
 key, especially M. Poisson, who had all the 
 vivacity of a Frenchman. Madame Biot, from 
 whom we received the greatest attention, made 
 a party on purpose, as she said, to show us Hes 
 personnes distinguees.' Madame Biot was a 
 well-educated woman, and had made a transla- 
 tion from the German of a work which was pub- 
 lished under the name of her husband. The 
 dinner was very good, and Madame Biot was at 
 great pains in placing every one. Those present 
 were Monsieur and Madame Arago, Monsieur 
 and Madame Poisson, who had only been married 
 the day before, and Baron Humboldt. The con- 
 versation was lively and entertaining. , . , 
 
224 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Soon after our dinner party at Arcoeuil, we 
 went to pay a morning visit to Madame de 
 la Place. It was late in the day ; but ste re- 
 ceived us in bed, elegantly dressed. I think the 
 curtains were of muslin with some gold orna- 
 ments, and the coverlet was of rich silk and 
 gold. It was the first time that I had ever seen 
 a lady receive in that manner. Madame de la 
 Place was lively and agreeable ; I liked her very 
 much." 
 
 On their way back to England, Mrs Somerville 
 became seriously ill with a fever at Lausanne ; 
 upon recovering from which her husband deter- 
 mined to spend the winter in Italy. At Venice 
 they saw Lord Byron, and at Florence were pre- 
 sented to the widow of the Pretender, by whom 
 Mrs Somerville was not agreeably impressed, 
 the only remark addressed to her by the countess 
 being, "So you don't speak Italian; you must 
 have had a very bad education, for Miss Clephane 
 Maclane there [who was close by] speaks both 
 French and Italian perfectly." At Eome the 
 travellers were presented to Pope Pius VII., 
 who received them in a summer-house in the 
 garden of the Vatican, and made the lady 
 sit beside him on the sofa, and gave her his 
 blessing when they took their leave. In the 
 Eternal City, Mrs Somerville also made the 
 acquaintance of Sir Eoderick and Lady Mur- 
 chison. Sir Roderick was not then the eminent 
 geologist he afterwards became, indeed at that 
 time he hardly knew one stone from another ; 
 but the acquaintance ripened into a life-long 
 friendship. 
 
 On her return home, as far as domestic affairs 
 and care of her family allowed, Mrs Somerville 
 resumed and prosecuted her mathematical 
 studies. She also devoted a good deal of time 
 to minerals, of which she and her husband had 
 made a fine collection. Their house in Hanover 
 Square became quite a resort for eminent scien- 
 tific and literary men. It was there, one bright 
 morning, that Dr Wollaston first made known 
 his discovery of the seven dark lines crossing the 
 solar spectrum, out of which came the wonder- 
 ful knowledge as to the substance of the globe. 
 Closing the window shutters so as to leave only 
 a narrow line of light, he put a small glass prism 
 into Mrs Somerville's hand, telling her how to 
 hold it ; and observing his instructions, she saw 
 the seven dark lines distinctly. Babbage and 
 Buckland were also constant visitors, Sydney 
 Smith, Maria Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, and others. 
 The death of her eldest girl, who appears to 
 have been a child of great intelligence, and whom 
 she had lovingly tended through a long illness, 
 plunged her into profound grief. In writing 
 to her father-in-law to communicate the sad in- 
 telligence, she says: "I never was so long of 
 y/riting to you, but when the heart is breaking, 
 it is impossible to find words adequate to its 
 relief. We ar(i in deep affliction, for though 
 the first violence of grief has subsided, there 
 
 has succeeded a calm sorrow not less painful, a 
 feeling of hopelessness in this world which only 
 finds comfort in the prospect of another, which 
 longs for the consummation of all things, that 
 we may join those who have gone before. To 
 return to the duties of life is irksome, even to 
 those duties which were a delight when the 
 candle of the Lord shone upon us." But how- 
 ever irksome, household and home duties were 
 not neglected. She carefully superintended the 
 education of her children, procured them proper 
 governesses to teach them modem languages, 
 that in this respect they might never experience 
 the same mortification she had herself endured 
 through ignorance of them. In a letter to a 
 friend. Miss Edgeworth, who appreciated her 
 intellectual and moral qualities, writes of her as 
 drawing beautifully, "and while her head is 
 among the stars, her feet are firm upon the 
 earth." 
 
 About this time, on her husband's being 
 appointed physician to Chelsea Hospital, she 
 was compelled to leave her cheerful, comfort- 
 able house in Hanover Square, and remove to 
 a dreary, unhealthy situation in Chelsea. In 
 one respect the appointment was welcome; it 
 was a somewhat lucrative one, and they had 
 lost nearly all their private fortune through the 
 dishonesty of one in whom they had placed 
 implicit trust. 
 
 It was on their return from a very pleasant 
 tour in Holland that Mrs Somerville was 
 startled at a proposal made to her in a letter 
 her husband received from Lord Brougham. 
 " I fear you will think me very daring," ran the 
 letter, "for the design I have formed against 
 Mrs Somerville, and stiU more for making you 
 my advocate with her, through whom I have 
 every hope of prevailing. There will be sent to 
 you a prospectus, rules, and preliminary treatise 
 of our society for diffusing useful knowledge, 
 and I assure you I speak without any flattery 
 when I say, that of the two subjects which I 
 find it most difficult to see the chance of 
 executing, there is one, which — unless Mrs 
 Somerville will undertake — none else can, and 
 it must be left undone, though about the most 
 interesting of the whole, I mean an account of 
 the * Mecanique Celeste.' . . . The kind 
 of thing wanted is such a description of that 
 divine work as will both explain to the un- 
 learned the sort of thing it is — the plan, the 
 vast merit, the wonderful truths unfolded or 
 methodised — and the calculus by which all this 
 is accomplished, and will also give a somewhat 
 deeper insight to the uninitiated. ... In 
 England there are now not twenty people who 
 know this great work, except by name; and 
 not a hundred who know it even by name. My 
 firm belief is, that Mrs Somerville could add 
 two cyphers to each of those figures." 
 
 A few days after the receipt of this letter, 
 Lord Brougham followed it up by his personal 
 
MAR V SOMER VILLE. 
 
 225 
 
 appearance at her house, and united with her 
 husband in persuading her to undertake the 
 work. But it was only after much thought 
 and some amount of pressure that she at length 
 promised, and then only upon one condition. 
 " I am afraid," she said, with her usual modesty, 
 "I am incapable of such a task; but as you 
 both wish it so much, I shall do my very best 
 upon condition of secrecy, and that if I fail the 
 manuscript shall be put into the fire." This 
 was agreed to, and with characteristic energy 
 she immediately set about a task which, as she 
 herself observes, changed the whole character 
 and course of her future life. 
 
 Her own condition of secrecy added some- 
 what to the difficulties of her task, and during 
 its progress she was subject to many and fre- 
 quent interruptions. "I rose early," she writes, 
 "and made such arrangements with regard to 
 my children and family affairs that I had time 
 to write afterwards; not, however, without 
 many interruptions. A man can always com- 
 mand his time under the plea of business; a 
 woman is not allowed any such excuse. At 
 Chelsea I was always supposed to be at home ; 
 and as my friends and acquaintances came so 
 far out of their way on purpose to see me, it 
 would have been unkind and ungenerous not to 
 receive them. Nevertheless, I was sometimes 
 annoyed when, in the midst of a difficult 
 problem, some one would enter and say, *I 
 have come to spend a few hours with you.' 
 However, I learned by habit to leave a subject 
 and resume it again at once, like putting a 
 mark into a book I might be reading. This 
 was the more necessary as there was no fire- 
 place in my little room, and I had to write in 
 the drawing-room in winter. Frequently I hid 
 my papers as soon as the bell announced a 
 visitor, lest any one should discover my secret." 
 
 It was some time before Mrs Somerville com- 
 pleted her task. But in spite of the many and 
 various distractions which hampered the pro- 
 gress, it was at length finished and sent to 
 Lord Brougham, with the request that it might 
 be thoroughly examined and criticised, and if a 
 failure, destroyed. But the competent judges 
 to whom it was submitted declared, one and 
 all, that it was a masterpiece, alike in simplicity 
 of style, in clearness of arrangement, and in 
 point of knowledge. Sir John Herschel him- 
 self wrote to the authoress a letter of congratu- 
 lation, saying, "I have read your manuscript 
 with the greatest pleasure, and will not hesitate 
 to add (because I am sure you will believe it 
 sincere), with the highest admiration. . . . 
 What a pity that La Place has not lived to see 
 this illustration of his greatest work! You 
 will only, I fear, give too strong a stimulus to 
 the study of abstract science by this perform- 
 ance." A copy was sent to Dr Whewell, who, 
 in acknowledging it, said : " I shall have peculiar 
 satisfaction in possessing it as a gift of the 
 
 author, a book which I look upon as one of the 
 most remarkable which our age has produced, 
 which would be highly valuable from any one, 
 and which derives a peculiar interest from its 
 writer." And he enclosed in his letter the 
 following sonnet : 
 
 "TO MRS SOMERVILLE, 
 " On her ' Mechanism of the Heavens.' 
 '* Lady, it was the wont in earlier days, 
 When some fair volume from a valued pen, 
 Long looked for, came at last, that grateful men 
 Hailed its forthcoming in complacent lays : 
 As if the Muse would gladly haste to praise 
 That which her mother, Memory, long should keep 
 Among her treasures. Shall such usage sleep 
 With us, who feel too slight the common phrase 
 For our pleased thoughts of you, when thus we find 
 That dark to j'ou seems bright, perplexed seems 
 
 plain, 
 Seen in the depths of a pellucid mind, 
 Full of clear thought, pure from the ill and vain 
 That cloud the inward light? An honoured name 
 Be yours ; and peace of heart grow with your grow- 
 ing fame." 
 
 It was speedily introduced into the course of 
 studies at Cambridge, and the author elected an 
 honorary member of the Royal Astronomical 
 Society (at the same time as Miss Herschel). 
 The Royal Society of London unanimously 
 voted that her bust should be placed in their 
 great hall, and Chantrey was chosen as the 
 sculptor. A great shipbuilder at Liverpool 
 called a fine ship he had just built the " Mary 
 Somerville," and had a copy of her bust as a 
 figure-head ; and from the Civil List a pension 
 of £200 a year was granted her by Sir Robert 
 Peel. Those relations and friends who had 
 most severely criticised and ridiculed her on 
 her marriage because of her studies, astonished 
 at her success, were now the loudest of all in 
 her praise ; but what most affected her was the 
 heartiness and warmth with which her husband 
 entered into her success. 
 
 But while exceedingly pleased at the results 
 of her labours, having, as she herself observes, 
 " once got into the habit of writing, she did not 
 know what to do with her spare time." Her 
 first work, however, soon opened up the way 
 for more. In re-writing the preface of the 
 "Mechanism of the Heavens" for a later 
 edition, she was struck by the mutual depend- 
 ence and connection in many branches of 
 science. This led her to project her second 
 great work, "The Connection of the Physical 
 Sciences." This involved an immense amount 
 of research in both British and foreign authors ; 
 and in the midst of the labour thus undertaken, 
 her health, which had never been good at 
 Chelsea, became so bad as to render a change 
 necessary. She was accordingly taken to Paris, 
 partly because it was so near London, that her 
 husband, who could not remain long with her 
 at a time, might have the opportunity of fre- 
 
226 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 quently crossing the Channel for a flying visit. 
 After her arrival she was so weak and ill, that 
 for some little time she remained every day in 
 bed till one o'clock writing, and then either 
 went to sit in the Tuileries gardens or else 
 received visits. As strength returned, and she 
 was better able to undergo the fatigues of 
 society, old friends clustered round her, and 
 new friendships were formed. Every one com- 
 petent to the task was only too willing to aid 
 her in her work. M. Arago gave her some 
 interesting memoirs, and lent her a mass of 
 manuscripts, with leave to make what extracts 
 she might deem necessary. When the work 
 was completed, the printing proved a somewhat 
 tedious business, as all the corrected proof- 
 sheets had to be sent through the embassy. 
 
 In time, by care and the most loving atten- 
 tion of her daughters, a measure of health was 
 at length restored to her, and she returned 
 again to England and home. As soon as she 
 was once more settled at Chelsea, her " Connec- 
 tion of the Physical Sciences " made its appear- 
 ance. The first edition was dedicated to Queen 
 Adelaide, and was received by those capable of 
 appreciating its beauties of style and matter 
 with great favour. The fame of its gifted 
 author was greatly extended, and after it had 
 run through eight editions, the Quarterly Review 
 in an able article thus spoke of it : *' Unassum- 
 ing in form and pretensions, but so original in 
 design and perfect in execution, as well to merit 
 the success of eight editions, each carefully 
 embodying all of augmentation that science had 
 intermediately received. Though rich in works 
 on particular sciences, and richer still in those 
 eminent discoveries which establish the relations 
 amongst them, yet had we not before in Eng- 
 lish a book professedly undertaking to expound 
 these connections, which form the greatest 
 attainment of present science, and the most 
 assured augury of higher knowledge beyond. 
 Mrs Somerville held this conception steadily 
 before her, and admirably fulfilled it. Her 
 work, indeed, though small in size, is a true 
 Cosmos in the nature of its design, and in the 
 multitude of materials collected and condensed 
 into the history it affords of the physical phe- 
 nomena of the universe. In some respects, her 
 scheme of treating these topics so far resembles 
 that since adopted by Humboldt, that we may 
 give Mrs Somerville credit for partial priority 
 of design, while believing that she would be the 
 last person to assert it for herself." 
 
 No sooner had this new book made its appear- 
 ance in the world of science, than Mrs Somer- 
 ville, at the suggestion of M. Poisson, com- 
 menced writing a volume on the form and 
 rotation of the earth and planets, as a kind 
 of complement to the "Mechanism of the 
 Heavens." This work also included the analy- 
 tical attraction of spheroids, the form and rota- 
 tion of the earth, the tides of the ocean and 
 
 atmosphere, and small undulations. This 
 finished, the active mind projected, and the no 
 less active fingers accomplished, a work of 246 
 pages, on curves and surfaces of the second and 
 higher order. While writing this last, as she 
 observes, "con amore, a new edition of the 
 • Physical Sciences ' was much needed, so I put 
 on high pressure and worked at both." The 
 two manuscripts above mentioned, however, 
 were put on one side and forgotten, and it was 
 not till years afterwards the author found them 
 among her papers; and in her eighty-ninth 
 year she amused herself by repairing the time- 
 worn parts, surprised to find that she still 
 retained facility in the calculus. 
 
 Mrs Somerville was already meditating and 
 collecting materials for her work on " Physical 
 Geography," when the dangerous illness of her 
 husband and her own delicate health necessi- 
 tated removal to a more genial climate than 
 England, and the family accordingly went to 
 Rome ; and from that time she never again re- 
 mained for any long continued period in her 
 own country, and visits were very few, the 
 after portion of her life being principally spent 
 in Italy. Rome, Florence, Albano, Venice, 
 Naples, were each and all favoured in turn. 
 And wherever her temporary abode for the 
 time might be, she seemed the chief attraction 
 to men of science, literature, and art. To 
 merely recapitulate the names of those illustri- 
 ous by birth or attainments who, either as 
 friends or acquaintances, entered into her life, 
 would take up far more space than we can 
 spare. 
 
 In Florence, an American friend invited her 
 to an evening party, to meet an American 
 authoress, who was desirous of making her 
 acquaintance. On the evening in question the 
 lady was placed beside her, that she might have 
 an opportunity of conversing. Mrs Somerville 
 addressed her several times, and gained nothing 
 but very dry answers in return ; at length the 
 lady fairly turned her back upon her, and took 
 no further notice. But the rudeness of the 
 American authoress was far more than com- 
 pensated for, by an introduction to Mrs Brown- 
 ing, "distinguished," says Mrs Somerville, "as 
 much by her high mental qualities and poetical 
 genius as by her modesty and simplicity." 
 
 Staying for a month at Bellaggio (then a most 
 lonely village) on Lake Como, and one day 
 making a boat excursion to Menaggio, at the 
 upper end of the lake, she and her family 
 encountered a storm that nearly proved fatal; 
 it blew quite a gale, and the lake was one sheet 
 of foam. The terrified boatmen, instead of 
 attending to their boat, fell down on their 
 knees in prayer to the Madonna. Mr Somer- 
 ville himself was compelled to seize the helm 
 and lower the sail, or all would have been 
 drowned. 
 
 It was during a visit to her relations on the 
 
MAR Y SOMER VILLE. 
 
 227 
 
 banks of the Tweed, when for a short period in 
 England, that her "Physical Geography " was 
 completed, and preparations were being made 
 for its publication when Humboldt's ** Cosmos " 
 appeared. She at once determined to put her 
 own manuscript in the fire; fortunately her 
 husband thought otherwise, and said, •* Do not 
 be rash — consult some of our friends — Herschel, 
 for instance. " Sir John advised her by all means 
 to publish it ; and the favour with which it was 
 received, and the success it met with on its ap- 
 pearance, justified the eminent astronomer's 
 advice. Sir Henry Holland favourably reviewed 
 it in the Quarterly. This was the third great 
 work with which Mrs Somerville had enriched 
 the world of science and letters, and six edi- 
 tions of the work were required during the 
 author's lifetime. Its success, however, would 
 perhaps have been greater but for one reason. 
 **No one," says Mrs Somerville, "has attempt- 
 ed to copy my 'Connection of the Physical 
 Sciences,' the subjects are too difficult; but 
 soon after the publication of the * Physical 
 Geography,' a number of cheap books appeared, 
 just keeping within the letter of the law, on 
 which account it has only gone through five 
 editions. However, a sixth is now required." 
 
 Mrs Somerville was residing in Florence when 
 the Italian war of liberation broke out, and saw 
 the entry of the French troops under Prince 
 Jerome Napoleon, with the enthusiastic wel- 
 come they received from the inhabitants, who 
 hailed them as their deliverers from the Aus- 
 trians. She likewise witnessed the entry of Victor 
 Emmanuel into Florence, from the balcony of 
 her friend, the Marchesa Lajatico. Indeed, she 
 took a most lively interest in the afifairs of Italy, 
 throwing all her sympathies into the popular 
 cause ; her letters to her son fully prove this, 
 and her account of the universal sorrow felt by 
 the Italians on the death of Cavour is very 
 touching. "Italy," she writes, "has been 
 thrown into the deepest affliction by the death 
 of Cavour. In my long life I never knew any 
 3vent whatever which caused so universal and 
 ieep sorrow. There is not a village or town 
 throughout the whole peninsula which has not 
 had a funeral service, and the very poorest 
 people, who had hardly clothes on their backs, 
 had black crape tied round their arm or neck. 
 It was a state of consternation, and no won- 
 der!" 
 
 In June 1860, Mrs Somerville lost her hus- 
 band after only three days' illness, a loss she 
 felt severely ; and in 1865 her beloved son sud- 
 denly expired. But between those two dates a 
 work had been commenced and finished — her 
 fourth great work, " Molecular and Microscopic 
 Science." Speaking of it herself, she says she 
 made a great mistake in writing it, and repented 
 doing so, adding, " Mathematics are the natural 
 bent of my mind. If I had devoted myself ex- 
 clusively to that study, I might probably have 
 
 written something useful, as a new era had 
 begun in that science." 
 
 Extreme old age did not for one moment 
 damp the intellectual ardour of this remarkable 
 woman; no social or scientific question was 
 started but received her instant and earnest 
 attention, whether merely of passing or deeper 
 and more permanent interest. She could alike 
 feel interest in the problems of higher algebra, 
 the speculations of Darwin, or the fate of Mr 
 Herbert's bill for the protection of land birds. 
 The beauties and glories of the earth, sea, and 
 sky were always an unfailing source of delight 
 to her, and her love for all living creatures 
 never, while life lasted, ceased. Hear her 
 beautiful confession, written in her eighty- 
 ninth year : 
 
 " I have lately entered my eighty-ninth year, 
 grateful to God for the innumerable blessings 
 He has bestowed on me and my children ; at 
 peace with all on earth, and I trust that I may 
 be at peace with my Maker when my last hour 
 comes, which cannot now be far distant. . . . 
 The short time I have to live naturally occupies 
 my thoughts. In the blessed hope of meeting 
 again with my beloved children, and those who 
 were and are dear to me on earth, I think of 
 death with composure, and perfect confidence in 
 the mercy of God. Yet to me, who am afraid 
 to sleep alone on a stormy night, or even to 
 sleep comfortably any night unless some one is 
 near, it is a fearful thought that my spirit must 
 enter that new state of existence quite alone. 
 We are told of the infinite glories of that state, 
 and I believe in them, though it is incompre- 
 hensible to us ; but as I do comprehend, in some 
 degree at least, the exquisite loveliness of the 
 visible world, I confess I shall be sorry to 
 leave it. I shall regret the sky, the sea, with 
 all the changes of their beautiful colouring, the 
 earth with its verdure and flowers ; but far more 
 shall I grieve to leave animals who have followed 
 our steps afi'ectionately for years, without know- 
 ing for certainty their ultimate fate, though I 
 firmly believe the living principle is never ex- 
 tinguished. Since the atoms of matter are in- 
 destructible, as far as we know, it is difficult to 
 believe that the spark which gives to their union 
 life, memory, affection, intelligence, and fidelity, 
 is evanescent. Every atom in the human frame, 
 as well as in that of animals, undergoes a peri- 
 odical change by continual waste and renova- 
 tion ; the abode is changed, not its inhabitant. 
 If animals have no future, the existence of many 
 is most wretched ; multitudes are starved, cruelly 
 beaten and loaded during life ; many die under 
 a barbarous vivisection. I cannot believe that 
 any creature was created for uncompensated 
 misery ; it would be contrary to the attributes 
 of God's mercy and justice. I am sincerely 
 happy to find that I am not the only believer in 
 the immortality of the lower animals." 
 
 In her ninetieth year. Professor Peirce of 
 
228 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 America sent her a "lithographed copy of a 
 very profound memoir in linear and associative 
 algebra." In reading the work, she met with a 
 few difficulties, and from Mr Spottiswoode pro- 
 cured some books to lend her assistance in over- 
 coming them. " Now I got exactly what I 
 wanted," she writes, *' and I am very busy for a 
 few hours every morning ; delighted to have an 
 occupation so entirely to my mind. I thank 
 God that my intellect is still unimpaired. I am 
 grateful to Professor Peirce for giving me an 
 opportunity of exercising it so agreeably. Dur- 
 ing the rest of the day I have recourse to Shake- 
 speare, Dante, and more modern light reading, 
 besides the newspapers, which always interested 
 mo much. I have resumed my habit of working, 
 and can count the threads of a fine canvas with- 
 out spectacles. I receive every one who comes 
 to see me, and often have the pleasure of a visit 
 from old friends very unexpectedly. In the 
 evening I read a novel, but my tragic days are 
 over. I prefer a cheerful conversational novel 
 to the sentimental ones. I have recently been 
 rewl'ng Walter Scott's novels again, and en- 
 joyed the broad Scotch in them. I play a few 
 games of bezique with one of my daughters, for 
 honour and glory, and so our evenings pass 
 pleasantly enough." 
 
 Her remarkable powers of activity both of 
 mind and body remained almost unimpaired to 
 the close. A few months before her death, and 
 in her ninety-second year, she drove about to 
 see the splendid eruption of Vesuvius of 1872, 
 of which she has left a very graphic account. 
 And in this ninety-second year of her age she 
 thus writes : "I am now in my ninety-second 
 year, still able to drive out for several hours. 
 I am extremely deaf, and my memory of ordi- 
 nary events, and especially of the names of 
 people, is failing, but not for mathematical and 
 scientific subjects. I am still able to read books 
 on the higher algebra for four or five hours in 
 the morning, and even to solve the problems. 
 Sometimes I find them difficult, but my old ob- 
 stinacy remains ; for if I do not succeed to-day, 
 I attack them again on the morrow. I also 
 enjoy reading about all the new discoveries and 
 theories in the scientific world, and on all 
 branches of science." 
 
 But even Mary Somerville, whose life extended 
 over so many years, was loath to say farewell 
 to the world. She regretted she should not live 
 long enough to see several things accomplished 
 and several mooted questions settled. " Though 
 far advanced in years," she writes, "I take as 
 lively an interest as ever in passing events. I 
 regret that I shall not live to know the result of 
 the expedition to determine the currents of the 
 ocean, the distance of the earth from the sun, 
 
 determined by the transits of Venus, and th«» 
 source of the most renowned of rivers, the dis- 
 covery of which will immortalise the name of Dr 
 Livingstone. But I regret most of all that I 
 shall not see the suppression of the most atro- 
 cious system of slavery that ever disgraced 
 humanity — that made known to the world by 
 Dr Livingstone and by Mr Stanley, and which 
 Sir Bartle Frere has gone to suppress by order 
 of the British Government. " 
 
 But in the next and concluding paragraph 
 of her " Personal Kecollections," we find words 
 of submission, resignation, and gratitude for a 
 life so long preserved. "The Blue Peter has 
 been long Hying at my foremast, and now that I 
 am in my ninety-second year, I must soon ex- 
 pect the signal for sailing. It is a solemn voy- 
 age, but it does not disturb my tranquillity. 
 Deeply sensible of my utter unworthiness, and 
 profoundly grateful for the innumerable bless- 
 ings I have received, I trust in the infinite mercy 
 of my Almighty Creator. I have every reason to 
 be thankful that my intellect is still unimpaired ; 
 and although my strength is weakness, my 
 daughters support my tottering steps, and by 
 incessant care and help, make the infirmities 
 of age so light to me that I am perfectly 
 happy." 
 
 The end soon came; quietly and gently she 
 passed from life unto death. Those around her 
 were scarcely conscious when the great change 
 came. She passed away in her sleep on the 
 morning of the 29th of November 1872. Her 
 grave is in the English Campo Santo of Naples. 
 
 Such was the life of Mary Somerville, a life 
 without reproach. Profoundly and sincerely 
 religious, with a solemn, deep-rooted faith, in- 
 fluencing thought and action, in the God she 
 reverenced and loved, *• which gave her strength 
 to endure many sorrows, and was the mainspring 
 of that extreme humility which was so remark- 
 able a feature of her character," she was not 
 one to talk glibly of her feelings and faith, hold- 
 ing them far too sacred to be talked of lightly, 
 but with dear and intimate friends she spoke of 
 them freely. She was indeed censured byname 
 from the pulpit of York Cathedral; but all 
 whom the pulpit has censured and condemned 
 have not been infidels or unbelievers — ^perhaps 
 in most instances, at least in many, better 
 Christians even than those fulminating against 
 them. Surely it is not the holding of this or 
 that doctrine that makes the Christian, but in- 
 stead, a life of consistency, purity, of duty cheer- 
 fully fulfilled, and of love towards God and Hia 
 earthly children. And such was Mary Somer- 
 ville's faith, and such her life. May her memory 
 long be preserved among us, and her life care- 
 fully studied ! 
 
SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 
 
 229 
 
 SIK DAVID BEEWSTEE. 
 
 [1781-1868.] 
 
 Jedburgh, the county town of Roxburghshire, 
 stands by the peaceful Jed, about ten miles 
 from the Cheviot Hills, the boundary line be- 
 tween England and Scotland. It is peculiarly 
 a Border town ; and in the days of Border war- 
 fare the cry of " Jethart's here" was a famous 
 battle-cry. It was burned six or seven times by 
 the invading armies of the English. The Earl of 
 Surrey, writing to Henry VIII. after burning 
 the abbey and spoiling the town, said, " I found 
 the Scottes at this time the boldest men and the 
 hottest that ever I saw in any nation." The 
 Raid of Redeswire, which was fought on the 
 slopes of Carter Fell, ended in victory for the 
 Scots, mainly through the presence of the Jed- 
 burgh worthies. "Jeddart justice," to hang 
 first and try afterwards, has become proverbial, 
 and speaks plainly of the rudeness of the times. 
 Jedburgh Castle was destroyed as early as 1490. 
 David I. had his royal castle at Jedworth ; Mal- 
 colm IV. died there ; and the marriage of Alex- 
 ander III. virith Jolande of France was celebrated 
 within its walls. Professor Cosmo Innes speaks, 
 of the woods and "meadows, those fairy fields 
 by the side of the Jed," as forming " one of the 
 most beautiful and peculiarly Scotch scenes I 
 have ever seen." Queen Mary had her court at 
 Jedburgh on several occasions, and on her return 
 from her visit to Bothwell, at Hermitage Castle, 
 Liddesdale, she lay sick of a fever for a whole 
 month, in a house which still stands, in what is 
 now called Queen Street. 
 
 Jedburgh Abbey, which was so often muti- 
 lated by English soldiers, was founded by David 
 I. After the consummation of the Union be- 
 tween England and Scotland, Jedburgh sank in 
 importance and its trade decayed. The old 
 abbey, like the neighbouring ruin of Melrose, 
 was used as a quarry for building purposes, and 
 in one of its aisles a school was held for many 
 years. 
 
 Robert Burns when he visited Jedburgh in 
 1787 spoke of— 
 
 " Eden scenes on crystal Jed." 
 
 William and Dorothy Wordsworth, when on 
 their tour through Scotland in 1803, met that 
 marvellous old person which the poet commem- 
 
 erated : 
 
 " Under Jedburgh tower 
 A matron dwells who, though she bears 
 Our mortal complement of j'ears, 
 Lives in the light of youthful glee. 
 And she will dance and sing with thee." 
 
 Mr Scott, then the "Sheriff," and afterwards 
 Sir Walter, sat with the two travellers for an 
 
 hour or two after their arrival, and repeated to 
 them a portion of the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," 
 then unpublished. The windows of their rooms 
 overlooking the churchyard, the keen eye of 
 Dora Wordsworth detected some of the women 
 of the town who entered the churchyard, and 
 used the top of some of the flat gravestones on 
 which to "bittle" or mangle their clothes. 
 William Laidlaw, from Yarrow, the friend, 
 afterwards the factor and amanuensis of Sir 
 Walter Scott, with newly awakened admiration 
 for Wordsworth's poetry, as strong as that 
 which may have dwelt in the breast of De 
 Quincey, accompanied them on a walking excur- 
 sion up the Jed. Scott was with them too, and 
 where could the company have found a better 
 guide in broad Scotland? The Wordsworths 
 were struck with the beauty of the woods around 
 Ferniehirst. Dr Somerville, the historian, and 
 uncle of the celebrated Mary Somerville, called 
 upon them there, and invited them to the manse. 
 Visiting the court to hear the judge pronounce 
 the charge, Miss Wordsworth afterwards spoke 
 of it in her journal as "the most curious speci- 
 men of old woman's oratory and newspaper 
 paragraph loyalty that was ever heard." Scott 
 accompanied the two travellers to Hawick. 
 "Mr Scott," says Miss Wordsworth, "pointed 
 out to us Ruberslaw, Minto Crags, and every 
 other remarkable object in or near the Vale of 
 Teviot, and we scarcely passed a house for which 
 he had not some story." How striking in their 
 simplicity, too, are her remarks in passing 
 through Denholm, the birthplace of John Ley- 
 den ! "We passed through a village, whither 
 Leyden, Scott's intimate friend, the author of 
 * Scenes of Infancy,' was used to walk several 
 miles of moorland country every day to school, 
 a poor bare-footed boy. He is now in India, 
 applying himself to Oriental literature, and I 
 doubt not, it is his dearest thought that he may 
 come and end his days upon the banks of Teviot, 
 or some other of the Lowland streams — for he 
 is, like Mr Scott, passionately attached to the 
 district of the Borders." Alas ! this was not to 
 be, and 
 
 "A distant and a deadly shore 
 Has Leyden's cold remains." 
 
 But a monument has been erected to his memory 
 on the village green of Denholm. They parted 
 from Scott at Hawick, no doubt with regret on 
 both sides. 
 
 David Brewster, the third child and second 
 son of James Brewster, rector of Jedburgh 
 Grammar School, was born in the Canongato 
 
230 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 there, on the 11th of December 1781. Several 
 remarkable men had received their education at 
 the parish school, notably, John Rutherfurd, 
 afterwards principal of St Salvator's College, St 
 Andrews ; Samuel Rutherford, who was born at 
 Nisbet, near Jedburgh ; and Thomson the poet, 
 who was born at Ednam, near Kelso, but whose 
 father was translated to Southdean, near Jed- 
 burgh, when the future poet was only two years 
 of age. The elder Brewster had the reputation 
 of being "the best Latin scholar and the quick- 
 est temper in Scotland." Young Brewster's 
 mother, an accomplished woman for the times 
 she lived in, died when he was in his ninth year. 
 A stepmother died also, when the cares of the 
 household devolved on Grisel, the only daughter, 
 who was three years his senior. David, natu- 
 rally gifted with a keen intellect, was quick at 
 his lessons. An aisle in the old abbey formerly 
 used as a school was called the "howff;" feats of 
 climbing were indulged in, and stepping across 
 a "gap" in one of the walls at a height of ninety 
 feet from the ground. An old nurse of young 
 Brewster filled his young imagination with 
 many a ghost story, the remembrance of which 
 haunted him into mature life. 
 
 In point of companionship, young Brewster 
 was well off. Besides the members of several 
 intelligent middle-class families, many of whom 
 were distinguished in after-life, he was brought 
 into contact with Dr Somerville, the parish 
 minister, the uncle and father-in-law of Mary 
 Somerville, and who is spoken of as having been 
 the kind friend and patron of many young men 
 who gathered around him. Brewster not unfre- 
 quently acted as his amanuensis, and gained 
 from him some valuable lessons in composition. 
 Somerville was the historian of William and 
 Mary and Queen Anne, and his ** Reminiscences 
 of his own Times" are still remembered. A 
 still more remarkable man, ten years his senior, 
 was James Veitch of Inchbonny, near Jedburgh. 
 Veitch was a workman of genius, who, originally 
 trained to make ploughs, had greatly improved 
 and modified them. He contributed various 
 articles on mechanical science to the "Edinburgh 
 Encyclopaedia." The making of telescopes was 
 a favourite occupation with him. He also 
 studied astronomy, and was the first to discover 
 the great comet of 1811. Sir Walter Scott, who 
 knew him well, used to say: "Well, James, 
 when are you coming amongst us in Edinburgh 
 to take your place with our philosophers? " The 
 reply would be, "I will think of that, Sir 
 Walter, when you become a Lord of Session." 
 Scott spoke of him in a letter to Mr Ellis of 
 Otterburn as " a very remarkable man, a self- 
 taught philosopher, astronomer, and mathema- 
 tician, residing at Inchbonny ; and certainly one 
 of the most extraordinary persons I ever knew. 
 He is a connection of Ringan Oliver, and is in 
 possession of his sword, a very fine weapon. 
 James Veitch is one of the very best makers of 
 
 telescopes, and all optical and philosophical ia- 
 struments, now living, but prefers working at 
 his own business as a ploughwright, excepting 
 at vacant hours. If you cross the Border, you 
 must see him as one of our curiosities ; and the 
 quiet, simple, unpretending manners of a man 
 who has, by dint of private and unaided study, 
 made himself intimate with the abstruse sciences 
 of astronomy and mathematics, are as edifying 
 as the observation of his genius is interesting.' 
 
 The workshop at Inchbonny was the scene of 
 the first and truest practical education of David 
 Brewster. At the age of ten years, after re- 
 peated visits to Veitch's workshop, he had 
 finished the construction of a telescope with 
 which to observe the starry hosts. A certain 
 Margaret Somerville in Jedburgh manse is said 
 to have first awakened the tender passion in his 
 breast, but as he never told his love, nothing 
 came of it. In the year 1793, at the age of 
 twelve, we find him a student at Edinburgh 
 University. At that time, in preference to the 
 lumbering coach, it was no unusual thing for 
 him to walk home, a journey of forty-five miles, 
 and immediately afterwards repair to Inchbonny. 
 Young Brewster was intended for the ministry, 
 his father being a staunch supporter of the Estab- 
 lished Church of Scotland. Three of his brothers 
 afterwards became able ministers ; their names 
 were — James, George, and Patrick. But the 
 leaning of his own mind at this time was to- 
 wards science. His college career, as has been re- 
 marked by his daughter, who wrote the record 
 of his home life, was both brilliant and solid. 
 He took his degree of M.A. in 1800, and in the 
 same year made his first discovery in the science 
 of optics. In his twentieth year he became 
 editor of the Edinburgh Magazine, to which he 
 had previously been a contributor. He also 
 acted as tutor in the family of Captain Hors- 
 burgh of Pirn, Peebleshire, remaining with 
 them till 1804. All the while he was busying 
 himself with scientific experiments, making ex- 
 periments in light or amusing himself with an 
 electrifying machine. At last Brewster was 
 licensed as a minister of the Church of Scotland, 
 and his first sermon was preached in St Cuth- 
 bert's Church, Edinburgh. Dr Paul, one of the 
 ministers of the " West Elirk " at the time, has 
 left the following record of the event : 
 
 " Having passed through the Hall, and having 
 been licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, 
 Brewster preached his first sermon in St Cuth- 
 bert's, or, as it is familiarly termed, the West 
 Kirk of Edinburgh, one of the largest in Scot- 
 land, accommodating 2500 hearers. This spa- 
 cious church, with its double tier of galleries, 
 was on this occasion unusually crowded, for the 
 reputation he had acquired drew together not 
 only numbers of his fellow-students, but of lite- 
 rary and scientific men, anxious to hear how he 
 would begin his professional career. The mini- 
 sters were present — Sir Henry Moncrieff and Dr 
 
SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 
 
 231 
 
 Paul — and the appearance of that vast congrega- 
 tion which the youthful preacher was to address 
 was most imposing, and to a person of his anxi- 
 ous, nervous temperament, must have been most 
 formidable. He ascended the pulpit, and went 
 through the whole service, for a beginner evi- 
 dently under excitement, most admirably. He 
 had his discourse thoroughly committed to 
 memory, and delivered it with great energy, 
 increasing to the close, which was in these last 
 words : ' Let it be our firm resolution, our con- 
 stant endeavour, our importunate prayer, that so 
 long as we have being and breath, we will serve 
 the Lord.' " 
 
 Although fairly successful in his first attempt 
 at preaching, the undercurrent of his mind was 
 still for science. From the first, he was troubled 
 with a nervous infirmity, which prevented him 
 from thoroughly enjoying any of his own efforts. 
 In 1804, Brewster entered the family of General 
 Dirom, of Mount Annan, in Dumfriesshire, as a 
 tutor ; and there he remained till 1807. In the 
 year 1805 he was spoken of as a candidate for 
 the chair of Mathematics in the University of 
 Edinburgh, but this appointment was afterwards 
 conferred on Mr Leslie. He became a candidate 
 for the same chair in the University of St 
 Andrews, but he did not succeed. This same 
 year he was made LL.D. of Aberdeen Univer- 
 sity and M.A. of Cambridge. In January 1808 
 he was elected a non-resident member of the 
 Royal Society of Edinburgh. In the same 
 year we find him busy with the editorship of 
 the ** Edinburgh Encyclopsedia," the scheme of 
 which had been casually suggested to him by 
 two of his friends. In 1808 he was presented to 
 the living of Sprouston, near Kelso, vacant by 
 the removal of Dr Andrew Thomson of Perth ; 
 but owing to a competing presentation by an- 
 other patron, he withdrew, as he had no wish to 
 assert his right by litigation. Some records 
 remain of a visit he made to London in 1809, 
 and of an interesting tour through England. On 
 the 31st July 1810, he was manied to Juliet, 
 youngest daughter of James Macpherson, known 
 as " Ossian Macpherson." Perhaps through the 
 influence of the connection he had now formed, 
 he all along never entertained a doubt as to 
 the authenticity or the authorship of " Ossian's 
 Poems." 
 
 The success of the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia," 
 which was only completed in 1830, does not seem 
 to have fully justified, from a pecuniary point of 
 view, the enormous labour which it necessarily 
 entailed on Brewster. The extreme irregularity 
 of its issue is said to have harmed its popularity. 
 This was owing in a great measure to the want 
 of punctuality on the part of the contributors. 
 It was in connection with this work that Brew- 
 ster wrote to the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, Kil- 
 many, for an article on Christianity. The 
 writing of this article is said to have brought 
 home to him with greater force and power the 
 
 vital truth and meaning of Christianity. It also 
 established a friendship, broken only by the 
 death of Chalmers in 1847. Besides this regular 
 work, in 1811 he edited a new edition of Fergu- 
 son's "Astronomy." In 1813 he sent a paper to 
 the Royal Society of London on "Some Proper- 
 ties of Light." In the same year he published 
 a "Treatise on New Philosophical Instruments 
 for Various Purposes in the Arts and Sciences." 
 The state of his health in 1814 rendered a change 
 of scene imperative. He parted from his wife 
 and young family in Duke Street, Edinburgh, 
 with much regret that they could not accom- 
 pany him. He kept a journal of this foreign 
 tour, which is still preserved. The following, 
 from the diary kept during his tour abroad, are 
 sharp pen-and-ink sketches of some Paris savans: 
 
 ^^Carnot. — He resembled very much the pic- 
 ture of him which I have, but appears to be 
 dissatisfied and discontented, and in bad health. 
 
 ^^Legendre. — A very tall and very thin man, 
 with an expressive and intelligent countenance, 
 white powdered hair, tied and curled above the 
 ears. 
 
 " Desmarets. — An old reverend-looking man. 
 One of the old chemists. 
 
 " Poisson. — A young and active little man, 
 with a sweet and expressive countenance. 
 
 **Arago. — Young (28), good-looking, dark, 
 very pleasant, and intelligent. 
 
 *^Monge. — Below the middle size, stoops, has 
 a full face, and white curled hair. 
 
 "Lamarck. — A good-looking old man, with a 
 light coat and an embroidered waistcoat ; little 
 and rather crooked. 
 
 "Portal. — A fine, reverend-looking old man, 
 with a small face. 
 
 " Oay-lMssac. — ^A slender young man, a little 
 marked on the face with small-pox ; apparently 
 a great enthusiast in chemistry. 
 
 " Rossel. — A little thick and active man, 
 
 " Charles. — An old man, intelligent face. 
 
 "Burckhardt. — A thin, pale, and slender 
 young man. 
 
 " Delamhre. — Alittle, oldish man, very yellow; 
 a little marked with the small-pox. 
 
 " Cuvier. — Has rather the appearance of being 
 self-sufficient ; is a little man, with a projecting 
 brow and chin. 
 
 " Huissard. — A stout and rather corpulent 
 man. He sat on the left hand of the president; 
 spectacles, and sallow. V. -president. 
 
 " Prony. — Not handsome ; large nose ; intelli- 
 gent and active. 
 
 "Lefevre Gineau. — Like Prony; so much so, 
 that I took the one for the other. He is presi- 
 dent of the class." 
 
 He returned to engage in his " Encyclopgedia " 
 work with renewed ardour. In 1815 he became 
 a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, from 
 which society he received in succession six 
 medals, in each case for discoveries in light. In 
 1816 the French Institute awarded to him half 
 
232 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the prize of 3000 francs, given for the two 
 most important discoveries of Physical Science 
 in Europe. 
 
 **In the whole history of science there is not, 
 perhaps, any discovery of ancient or of modern 
 date that promised so rich a reward to the 
 inventor, and was so completely anticipated, as 
 in the case of the kaleidoscope.* The very 
 announcement of the patent, by which the 
 discovery was intended to he secured, was 
 immediately followed by an infringement so 
 extensive, as to leave all legal redress unattain- 
 able. But the piracy did not terminate here; 
 for various attempts were made to deprive its 
 author. Sir David Brewster, of the merits of the 
 discovery, and to refer it to Baptista Porta, 
 Harris, Wood, Bradley, etc. All these were 
 very satisfactorily answered by Sir David 
 Brewster, confirmed by Professor Playfair, Mr 
 Watt, and Professor Pictet, who attested the 
 originality of the invention. 
 
 **It was in the year 1814, when Sir David 
 Brewster was engaged in experiments on the 
 polarisation of light by successive reflections 
 between plates of glass, the reflectors being in 
 some cases inclined to each other, that he had 
 occasion to remark the circular arrangement of 
 the images of a candle round a centre, or the 
 multiplication of the sectors formed by the 
 extremities of the glass plates. In repeating at 
 a subsequent period the experiments of M. Biot 
 on the action of fluids upon light, Brewster 
 placed the fluids in a trough formed by two 
 plates of glass cemented together at an angle. 
 The eye being necessarily placed at one end, some 
 of the cement which had been pressed through 
 between the plates appeared to be arranged into 
 a regular figure. The symmetry of this figure 
 being very remarkable. Sir David Brewster set 
 himself to investigate the cause of the pheno- 
 menon, and in doing this he discovered the 
 leading principles of the kaleidoscope. 
 
 "Upon these principles. Sir David Brewster 
 constructed an instrument, in which he fixed 
 permanently across the ends of the reflectors 
 pieces of coloured glass, and other irregular 
 objects; but the great step towards the com- 
 pletion of the instrument remained yet to be 
 made, and it was not till some time afterwards 
 that the idea occurred to the inventor of giving 
 motion to objects, such as pieces of coloured 
 glass, etc., which were placed loosely in a cell 
 at the end of the instrument. When this idea 
 was carried into execution, the kaleidoscope in 
 its simple form was completed. 
 
 "The next, and by far the most important 
 step of the invention, was to employ a draw 
 tube and lens, by means of which beautiful 
 forms could be created from objects of all sizes, 
 and at all distances from the observer. In this 
 
 * " Great Triumi)]is of Great Men." W. P. Nimmo, 
 London and Edinburgh. 
 
 way the power of the kaleidoscope was in- 
 definitely extended, and every object in nature 
 could be introduced into the picture, in the 
 same manner as if these objects had been re- 
 duced in size, and actually placed at the end of 
 the reflectors. 
 
 " The kaleidoscope being now completed, 
 Brewster was urged by his friends to secure the 
 exclusive property of it. After the patent was 
 signed, and the instruments in a state of for- 
 wardness, the gentleman who was employed to 
 manufacture them under the patent, carried one 
 to show to the principal London opticians, for 
 the purpose of taking orders for them. These 
 gentlemen naturally made one for their own 
 use and the amusement of their friends; and 
 the character of the instruments being thus 
 made public, the manufacture extended to tin- 
 men and glaziers ; and kaleidoscopes were soon 
 hawked about the streets of London at all 
 prices, some even as low as a shilling. No 
 proof of the originality of the kaleidoscope 
 could be stronger than the sensation which it 
 created in London and Paris. In the memory 
 of man, no invention and no work, whether 
 addressed to the imagination or the understand- 
 ing, ever produced such an effect. A universal 
 mania for the instrument seized all classes, 
 froEi the lowest to the highest, from the most 
 ignorant to the most learned ; and every person 
 not only felt, but expressed the feeling, that a 
 new pleasure had been added to their existence. 
 
 *' The pirated instruments, of course, were only 
 of the simple form, and necessarily of rude and 
 unscientific construction. They, however, had 
 the effect of deeply injuring the property of the 
 inventor ; but the rage was soon over, and they 
 were thrown aside as a pleasing but useless toy. 
 
 " This, however, is not the case with the patent 
 kaleidoscope, which is of great service in ex- 
 hibiting an infinite variety of beautiful patterns, 
 which are transferred to several of our manu- 
 factures. The system of endless changes is 
 named as one of the most astonishing properties 
 of the kaleidoscope. With a number of loose 
 objects — pieces of glass, for example — it is im- 
 possible to reproduce any figure we have 
 admired, when it is once lost; centuries may 
 elapse before the same combination returns. 
 If the objects, however, are placed in the cell so 
 as to have very little motion, the same figure may 
 be recalled ; and, if absolutely fixed, the same 
 pattern will return in every evolution of the object 
 plate. A calculation of the number of forms is 
 given upon the ordinaryprinciples of combination, 
 namely, that 24 pieces of glass may be combined 
 13917242888872552999425128493402200 times, an 
 operation the performance of which would take 
 hundreds of thousands of millions of years, even 
 upon the supposition that twenty of them were 
 performed every minute. This calculation, sur- 
 prising as it appears, is false, not from bairg 
 exaggerated, but from being far inferior to tne 
 
S/Ji DA VID BRE WSTER, 
 
 233 
 
 reality. It proceeds upon the supposition that 
 one piece of glass can exhibit only one figure, 
 and that two pieces can exhibit only two figures ; 
 whereas it is obvious that two pieces, though 
 they can only be combined in two ways on the 
 same straight line, yet the one can be put above 
 and below the other, as well as on its right side 
 or its left side, and may be joined so that the 
 line connecting those centres may have an in- 
 finite number of positions with respect to an 
 horizontal line." 
 
 In the course of years the title of the Edin- 
 burgh Magazine was changed to that of the 
 Edinburgh Philosophical Journal^ which he 
 edited along with Professor Jameson, the min- 
 eralogist ; this magazine afterwards appeared as 
 the Edinburgh Journal of Science. In 1821 he 
 assisted in founding the Koyal Scottish Society 
 of Arts, of which he was afterwards named a 
 director. In 1820 he became a member of the 
 Association of Civil Engineers in London, and 
 in 1822 of the Royal Irish Academy of Arts and 
 Sciences. Amongst other miscellaneous literary 
 work, he found time to edit a translation of 
 Legendre's "Geometry," four volumes of Pro- 
 fessor Robison's "Essays on various Subjects of 
 Mechanical Philosophy," and, in 1823, Euler's 
 "Letters to a German Princess," with notes 
 and a life of the author. His method of work 
 was to throw himself entirely into his subject 
 for the time being. "I am one of those ill- 
 organised people," he wrote to Miss Edgeworth, 
 "who cannot work by rule. I must be in a fit 
 of either unremitting labour or of absolute re- 
 laxation, taking no amusement in the one par- 
 oxysm, and doing no business in the other." 
 By way of retirement and healthy relaxation, 
 he fixed on a site for a country dwelling, in the 
 vale of the Tweed, near Melrose, and just op- 
 posite Melrose Abbey. Here he bought a small 
 farm, and built a dwelling-house upon it, which 
 he called Allerly. This latter name was a 
 reminiscence of his Jedburgh boyhood, in recol- 
 lection of AUars, and of Allerly Well, where he 
 had so often quenched his thirst in his younger 
 days. This pleasant country residence became 
 the home of the Brewsters in the spring of 1824, 
 and the household removed there entirely in 1827. 
 
 Miss Edgeworth, in one of her visits made to 
 Scotland, formed an acquaintance with Brewster 
 in 1823, which resulted in a lively correspond- 
 ence on both sides. The MS. of her "Sequel to 
 Harry and Lucy " was subjected to his scien- 
 tific criticism. About this time he was engaged 
 in endeavouring to discover the secret regarding 
 the authorship of the letters of "Junius." His 
 admiration of these letters is said to have been 
 intense, leading him to write an article after- 
 wards on the subject in the pages of the North 
 British Review. Further honours flowed in 
 upon Brewster. In 1825 he was made a corres- 
 ponding member of the French Institute. To 
 quote his biographer, "the large book in which 
 
 the letters, diplomas, burgess tickets, announce- 
 ments of medals, etc. , are collected, is a remark- 
 able one for size and value. The large towns of 
 Switzerland, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, 
 Russia, Belgium, Portugal, Austria, Sweden, 
 and Norway, South Africa, Antigua, the vari- 
 ous states of America, besides the towns and 
 universities of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
 all contributed their quota of honours to this 
 man of research and industry. A cape received 
 his name in the Arctic regions, a river in the 
 Antarctic, and a new plant discovered by Dr 
 Muellin in Australia was named Cassia Brew- 
 steri. He received, besides the Copley, Rum- 
 ford, and Royal medals, two Keith medals from 
 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, two from the 
 French Institute, one from Denmark, one from 
 the Societe Fran^aise de Photographie, and 
 various others ; of some of the most valuable of 
 these, duplicates were sent to him, one of gold, 
 which he turned into plate, and a fac-simile of 
 frosted silver, all being preserved as heirlooms. 
 
 When Brewster settled at Allerly, Melrose, in 
 1827, he was surrounded with no ordinary circle 
 of literary friends and acquaintances. First, 
 and greatest, his intimacy with Sir Walter Scott, 
 which was close and frequent. Chiefswood, in 
 the near vicinity, was tenanted at one time by 
 Captain Hamilton, author of " Cyril Thornton," 
 and afterwards by John Gibson Lockhart, the 
 biographer and son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott. 
 Sir Adam Ferguson had his residence at Huntly 
 Burn. Maxpoffle, some miles to the south- 
 wards beyond the Eildon Hills, was for some 
 time the residence of G. P. R. James, the novel- 
 ist. A club was formed amongst the families 
 in the neighbourhood, which was called "The 
 Barley Broth Club," one of the rules of which 
 was a habit of dining at each other's houses 
 every Saturday. Brewster's first and greatest 
 sorrow was the death by drowning of his son 
 Charles, a promising lad of fifteen. He had 
 been bathing in the Tweed one fine summer 
 afternoon in 1828, with his two brothers. It is 
 said that he had been learning to swim, with 
 the assistance of two bundles of hollow water 
 weeds, called seggs, when he met with his death 
 by drowning. 
 
 In a review of Babbage's work, " Reflections 
 on the Decline of Science in England, and on 
 some of its Causes," in the Quarterly Review, 
 Brewster laid down a plan whereby the evil 
 might be remedied. "An association of our 
 nobility, clergy, gentry, and philosophers, can 
 alone draw the attention of the sovereign and 
 the nation to this blot upon its fame. Our aris- 
 tocracy will not decline to resume their proud 
 station as the patrons of genius ; and our Boyles 
 and Cavendishes, and Montagues and Howards, 
 will not renounce their place in the scientific 
 annals of England. The prelates of ouj National 
 Church will not refuse to promote that know- 
 ledge which is the foundation of pure religion, 
 
and those noble inquiries which elevate the 
 mind and prepare it for its immortal destination! 
 If this effort fail, we must wait for the revival of 
 "better feelings, and deplore our national misfor- 
 tune in the language of the wise man: *I re- 
 turned and saw under the sun, that there is 
 neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to 
 men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of 
 skill.'" The plan of the "British Association 
 for the Advancement of Science " was shortly 
 afterwards drawn up, and the first meeting was 
 held at York in September 1831. **The suc- 
 cess of the meeting," wrote Brewster to his 
 wife, "has infinitely surpassed all our most 
 sanguine expectations. No fewer than 325 
 members have enrolled their names, and a zeal 
 for science has been excited which will not soon 
 subside." He also wrote ably on behalf of the 
 national endowment of science and literature, 
 and at his death it was perhaps truly stated, 
 "that the improved position of men of science 
 in our times is chiefly due to Sir David Brewster." 
 In 1831 Brewster received the honour of knight- 
 hood from the king, William IV. He wrote a 
 "Treatise on Optics" for Lardner's "Cyclo- 
 paedia" at this time, also a popular "Life of 
 Sir Isaac Newton," for Murray's family library. 
 Another work, "Letters on Natural Magic," 
 was contributed to the same series. An accident 
 happened to him at this time which very nearly 
 ruined his eyesight. While pursuing some ex- 
 periments, a chemical substance exploded right 
 in his face, which disabled him for weeks. His 
 circumstances were particularly embarrassed at 
 this time, according to his biographer, and this, 
 with other family cares, frequently depressed 
 him. He was only completely freed from these 
 cares in 1836 by a Government pension of £200, 
 in addition to £100 which had been previously 
 given, and also by the gift from the Crown of 
 the principalship of the United College of St 
 Salvador and St Leonard, in the University of 
 St Andrews. He was inducted to his new office 
 on the 6th of March, and in April following he 
 took up his residence in St Andrews. In 1833 
 he had become a candidate for the chair of 
 Natural Philosophy, in the University of Edin- 
 burgh, vacant by the death of Sir John Leslie. 
 The successful candidate, however, was Mr James 
 Forbes. At this time he removed with his 
 family to Belville, the property of his wife's 
 sister, where he had formerly spent many happy 
 hours of recreation. Macpherson had purchased 
 three properties in Inverness-shire in 1790, one 
 of which he had named Belville. He speedily 
 improved this Highland property, and secured 
 the warm attachment of the tenantry around. 
 The Rev. James Thomson of Duddingstone, the 
 noted landscape painter, paid him a visit in his 
 northern home, and was much struck by the 
 glories of the Grampian scenery. ' * Exploring ro- 
 mantic Glen Feshie," writes Brewster's daughter, 
 **my father was startled by the exclamation, 
 
 * Lord God Almighty ! ' and on looking round 
 he saw the strong man bowed down in a flood of 
 tears, so much had the wild grandeur of the 
 scene and the sense of the One creative hand 
 possessed the soul of the artist. Glen Feshie 
 afterwards formed the subject of one of Thom- 
 son's best pictures." Sir David Brewster was 
 deeply interested in the experiments made by 
 Mr Fox Talbot in photography, from 1834 to 
 1839, although these were not made known to 
 the world until the latter year. 
 
 Brewster's residence at St Andrews was called 
 St Leonards, and the old house had at one time 
 formed part of the building of the old college of 
 St Leonard. It had been the residence of George 
 Buchanan, and in the chapel near by were in- 
 terred the remains of John Rutherfurd, a pre- 
 decessor in the principalship, who received, as 
 we have mentioned, his education at Jedburgh 
 grammar school. The grave of Samuel Ruther- 
 ford, the divine, is also near by in the Cathe- 
 dral cemetery. In 1837 Brewster published a 
 "Treatise on Magnetism," and in 1841 appeared 
 one of his most popular works, "Martyrs to 
 Science," the lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and 
 Kepler. When the Disruption took place in 
 the Church of Scotland, Brewster cast in his lot 
 with the Free Church. For this step he was 
 threatened with deposition from the principal- 
 ship of St Andrews University. But the storm 
 passed over, and he remained both an ornament 
 and a power in the Church courts and in private. 
 He regularly attended the meetings of the Free 
 Church Assembly in Edinburgh, and was fre- 
 quently elected a member of many important 
 committees. In opinion he never was a pure 
 voluntary, but his heart went with the negotia- 
 tions for union which were afterwards pending 
 between the Free Church and that of the United 
 Presbyterians, and three days before his death 
 he spoke of it as "the cause of God." In 1844, 
 the year following the Disruption, it occurred 
 to several gentlemen in Edinburgh "that there 
 was both room and need for a review of the 
 highest class, the organ of no party, political or 
 ecclesiastical, and which, instead of ignoring or 
 affecting to disown Christianity, was imbued 
 with its spirit." This was the starting-point of 
 the North British Review^ which immediately 
 appeared under the editorship of Rev. Dr Welsh. 
 Many of its promoters were members of the Free 
 Church, which led some to suppose that Church 
 influence was dominant in its management. It 
 numbered amongst its contributors, however, 
 members of all denominations, from Rev. Charles 
 Elingsley to Dr Hanna. Brewster had previously 
 contributed largely to the Edinbv/rgh Review^ 
 but this new periodical was more to his mind, 
 and for twenty years he contributed an article 
 to almost every quarterly number. Professor 
 Fraser, who conducted the Review from 1850 to 
 1857, said of his scientific contributor, that he 
 always found him * m the highest degree kind. 
 
SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 
 
 235 
 
 cordial, and considerate. The freshness of his 
 nature was shown in his extraordinary readiness 
 to sympathise with the life and movement of 
 the age. He was among the most remarkable 
 in a band of contributors, which then included 
 the ablest men of the time in Great Britain, not 
 only for the brilliancy and vivacity of his writ- 
 ings, but for the punctual regularity with which 
 they were delivered. He contributed an article 
 to each number during the time I was editor, 
 and in each instance, after we had agreed to- 
 gether about the subject, the manuscript made 
 its appearance on the appointed day with punc- 
 tual regularity, and its successive instalments 
 were placed by him in the editor's hands with 
 mechanical precision." Professor Blaikie, als» 
 editor of the Review for a time, spoke of him as 
 **a model contributor in every way, and so full of 
 well-put and attractive information. He was of 
 great use in giving introductions to eminent 
 men, his name being a guarantee that the 
 channel in which they were asked to write 
 would not be unworthy of them." His reviews 
 were always carefully elaborated; it was his 
 habit to collect fresh information regarding the 
 subject and weave it up with the article. His 
 review of " Vestiges of the Natural History of 
 Creation " is said to have been one of the most 
 remarkable. On 18th September 1845, an event 
 took place, which added greatly to his happi- 
 ness. This was the marriage of his eldest son, 
 who was employed in the Bengal Civil Service, 
 to a lady of good family in Fifeshire. Before 
 returning to India they resided within easy call- 
 ing distance of St Andrews. In 1847 Brewster 
 was made a Chevalier of the Order of Merit by 
 the King of Prussia, who had met him at Tay- 
 mouth Castle. Another great sorrow fell on 
 Brewster, in the death of his beloved wife, 
 which took place 27th January 1850. 
 
 After his wife's death, partly for change of 
 air and scene, he spent some time on the Conti- 
 nent, visiting Brussels and Antwerp, and re- 
 maining some time in Paris. In the latter town 
 he renewed acquaintanceship with M. Arago, 
 whose works he had noticed from time to time 
 in the North British Review. He also met and 
 conversed with M. Guizot. On his return jour- 
 ney he spent a week or two in London, when he 
 made the acquaintanceship of Frederica Bremer, 
 the novelist. The twentieth meeting of the 
 British Association was held in Edinburgh, on 
 23d July of the same year, when Sir David 
 Brewster acted as president. His opening 
 address bore directly on the cause of science, 
 and was afterwards separately published. In 
 1851 he acted as a juror of the Great Exhibition 
 in London this year. He was specially inter- 
 ested in the examination of precious stones, in 
 the testing of the genuineness of which he had 
 prepared an instrument which he called a litho- 
 scope. Many ladies brought their jewels to 
 him to have them tested, and in many instances 
 
 he branded them as glass. At the instance of 
 Prince Albert, in 1852 he made an examination 
 of the Koh-i-noor diamond, belonging to the 
 Queen, and gave it as his opinion that this gem 
 was not the real one, as had been previously 
 represented. On 22d, 23d, and 24th July 1851, 
 he acted as president of the Congress of Peace. 
 The address he delivered, which was prepared 
 under considerable difficulties, he afterwards set 
 a high value upon. In returning northwards in 
 October he made an excursion to the Conway 
 and Britannia tubular bridges. While inspecting 
 these vast engineering works, he learned for the 
 first time, that while the merit of the original 
 idea rests with Kobert Stephenson, that its 
 actual existence and success was owing to Wil- 
 liam Fairbairn of Manchester. In November 
 Brewster made his last public appearance for 
 the year, in an address which he delivered to 
 the members of the Edinburgh Philosophical 
 Institution. In May 1852 he wrote from London: 
 •* I have just returned from an hour and a half's 
 interview with the Prince, who unfolded to me 
 his plan of a great central industrial institution, 
 to which the £500,000 obtained from the Exhibi- 
 tion is to be devoted. I have been much im- 
 pressed with his sagacity and knowledge and 
 great frankness. He told me of a letter which 
 the Queen received from some Indian grandee, 
 addressed to the Right Honourable Sir George 
 Victoria, Queen of the East India Company." 
 This scheme, much to Brewster's disappoint- 
 ment, was never carried out. In a pamphlet 
 afterwards published, entitled "Scientific Edu- 
 cation in our Schools," he impressed upon his 
 readers the benefits to be derived from a scien- 
 tific training : 
 
 "With such means in our power, cheaply 
 obtained, and easily applied, a large portion of 
 scientific instruction would be instilled into the 
 youth of our schools, familiarising them with 
 the works of their Maker, and preparing them 
 for the reception of that higher revelation with 
 which the truths of science cannot fail to 
 harmonise. The knowledge thus imparted will 
 not be confined to the schoolroom. It will 
 elevate the amusements of the holiday and the 
 leisure hour. It will pass into the cottage, 
 amusing and enlightening its inmates. It will 
 find its way into the workshop, giving skill to 
 the workman, and value to his work. It will 
 insinuate itself into the servants' hall, and even 
 into the boudoir and the drawing-room, return- 
 ing a usurious interest upon the liberality 
 which introduced it into the school. Thus, 
 diffused among our now popular constituencies, 
 and appreciated by those above them, the 
 truths of science may rise into the regions of 
 legislation, wresting from the still reluctant 
 statesmen a measure of secular, scientific, and 
 compulsory education, by which the benighted 
 and criminal population around us may be 
 taught to fear God and honour the king." 
 
236 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 In the autumn of 1862 he visited Ireland, 
 spending a month in the "green isle." He 
 spent a week at Birr Castle, Parsonstown, the 
 seat of William Parsons, Lord Kosse, the archi- 
 tect of the famous six-feet mirror telescope. 
 His visit was afterwards described in his life of 
 Sir Isaac Newton. **We have enjoyed the 
 great privilege of seeing and using this noble 
 instrument, one of the most wonderful com- 
 binations of art and science which the world 
 has yet seen. We have in the morning walked, 
 again and again, and ever with new delight, 
 along its mystic tube, and at midnight, with 
 its distinguished architect, pondered over the 
 marvellous sights which it discloses — the satel- 
 lites and belts and rings of Saturn ; the old and 
 new ring, which is advancing with its crest of 
 waters to the body of the planet ; the rocks, and 
 mountains, and valleys, and extinct volcanoes of 
 the moon; the crescent of Venus, with its 
 mountainous outline; the systems of double 
 and triple stars ; the nebulae, and starry clusters 
 of every variety of shape ; and those spiral 
 nebular formations which baffle human compre- 
 hension, and constitute the greatest achieve- 
 ment in modern discovery." The instrument 
 was further described by his daughter, who 
 accompanied him : 
 
 "Between two large piers or walls is sus- 
 pended the great telescope. Upon reaching the 
 top by a slender staircase, we were introduced 
 into a small but apparently steady gallery. 
 The telescope was pointed to the heavens, 
 about twenty feet from where we stood ; be- 
 neath us was a depth of sixty feet, and no 
 apparent way of abridging the chasm. At last 
 one of the assistants, stationed a few steps 
 below, turned a small windlass, and lo ! we 
 began to move gently through the aii' till we 
 arrived at the mountain-like side of the tele- 
 scope, about four or five feet from the mouth. 
 With no supports from beneath, it appeared as 
 if we were poised in mid air ; strong wooden 
 beams, however, secured by iron slides, sup- 
 ported the gallery from the wall which we had 
 just left. So imperceptible is the motion, that 
 one night a gentleman, unconscious of having 
 left the solid landing-place, opened the gallery 
 door, and walked sixteen or twenty feet with 
 no other footing than a narrow, unrailed beam, 
 but, almost miraculously, he reached tho other 
 side in safety, although he fainted the next 
 morning on being taken to see the escape he 
 had made. The six-feet concave mirror or 
 speculum is made of tin mixed with copper, and 
 polished to an exceeding brightness. In look- 
 ing into the mouth of the telescope by what is 
 called the front view, we see the inverted 
 image formed by reflection from this min*or in 
 tremulous and dazzling radiance, but it is not 
 thus that ordinary observations are made; a 
 second mirror of small size is placed at an 
 angle of 45°, so as to refect the image tc the 
 
 side of the instrument, where it is viewed 
 through eye-pieces of different magnitudes. 
 We took our places at this point by aid of 
 the aforesaid 'aerial machine.' The evening, 
 though lovely to unastronomical eyes, was not 
 altogether favourable for observations; how- 
 ever, we saw 
 
 * The galaxy, that milky way. 
 Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest 
 Powdered with stars.' 
 
 " It is impossible to describe the distinctness, 
 and the nearness, and the individuality of the 
 'starry powder;' in the middle of it was a 
 double star (always a peculiar object of interest 
 and study to my father) — ' twin suns,' as they 
 have been called, * moving in their mysteri- 
 ously united beauty and brightness.' Of course 
 the great object of ambition was to see the 
 nebulae — the resolution of which by the giant 
 tube destroyed that plausible theory, which 
 when canied to its greatest extent, made such 
 dangerous aggressions against the Divine crea- 
 tive acts, originating all worlds from a slowly 
 progressing vapour and fire mist. The atmo- 
 sphere would only allow us to see the Dumb 
 Bell Nebula, so called from a supposed resem- 
 blance in its form to that instrument ; it is only 
 a partially resolved one, however, even by the 
 large instrument — the portion of white vapour 
 which is still observable, though 
 
 * Sown with stars, thick as a field,' 
 
 will require some higher process to be yet 
 developed. 
 
 "We could not see the moon through the 
 six-feet telescope, as she was not within the 
 meridional range, which in this instrument is 
 limited by the two walls ; the disadvantage of 
 which is counterbalanced by the speed and 
 steadiness with which it can be lowered or ele- 
 vated. We accordingly repaired to the three- 
 feet telescope, which can be pointed to all 
 quarters of the heavens, and to which the fol- 
 lowing high comparative praise has been given : 
 *To look through Herschel's four-feet mirror, 
 compared with Lord Rosse's three-feet mirror, 
 is like a short-sighted person looking at the 
 stars without his spectacles.* 
 
 "The ladder of ascent was a very precarious 
 one, and my father missed his footing in the 
 imperfect light, narrowly escaping serious in- 
 jury. It was the second accident of the kind 
 which he had met with— the first having occur- 
 red, I believe, about forty years before, when 
 examining a large telescope belonging to Mr 
 Ramage of Aberdeen. 
 
 "Once ascended in safety, we gazed with 
 wonder upon the lunar valleys, mountains, and 
 caverns, so near and so distinct, that there 
 seemed no obstacle to taking a quiet walk 
 amidst their lights and shadows, their deep 
 ravines, their volcanic cores and cavities. Tha 
 
SIJ^ DAVID BREWSTER, 
 
 237 
 
 silence and the immobility of that bright world 
 was almost oppressive ; one gazed and listened, 
 expecting to see and hear life, but no life was 
 there. It is believed that if there were large 
 buildings like a church, or a mill, or railway- 
 works, they could be clearly discerned; but 
 there has been no change or furrow since 
 human eyes were permitted to draw nigh its 
 calm surface. Were there inhabitants, they 
 must be independent of air and water, and must 
 be scorched in light and heat one-half of each 
 month, and frozen in cold and darkness the other. 
 
 "The whole scene, even in the intervals of 
 active vision, was one suggestive of much solemn 
 thought. Every now and then a meteor flashed 
 excitedly amidst the calm stars and planets, and 
 even as swift and short seemed the career of man 
 in comparison with the ages of the past and 
 future, chronicled before us in the heavens. 
 * Hither shalt thou come, and no further ' 
 seemed legibly written before the genius of man ; 
 while all that he yearns to know, and cannot 
 know, is known, it may be, to the babe that has 
 gone but yesternight to glory." 
 
 Another honour was bestowed upon Brew- 
 ster in 1853 by the Emperor of the French, the 
 decoration of the Legion of Honour. He was 
 ilso elected president of the Working Men's 
 Educational Union. 
 
 Early in 1854, though prostrated by illness, 
 he began a review for the North British on a 
 volume called, " Of the Plurality of Worlds." 
 This article was afterwards expanded into his 
 popular book, " More Worlds than One." Hav- 
 ing previously written a short life of Sir Isaac 
 Newton, and having entertained a life-long ad- 
 miration for him, in the summer of 1855 was 
 published the ** Memoirs of the Life, Writings, 
 and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton," with a 
 dedication to Prince Albert. This same summer 
 he was chosen one of the jurors of the Paris Ex- 
 hibition for the department of optical instru- 
 ments. Towards the end of 1856, Sir David 
 made arrangements for spending the winter at 
 Cannes, in the south of France. Travelling to 
 Cannes by diligence, he met Miss Jane Kirk 
 Pumell, in whose society he spent a great part 
 of the winter at Nice. He was married to this 
 lady on March 27, 1857, and immediately set 
 out for a visit to Rome and the north of Italy. 
 He had the pleasure of examining the telescopes 
 and other instruments which had belonged to 
 Galileo, visited the Vatican library, was pre- 
 sented to Cardinal Antonelli, of whom he said, 
 "A more interesting person I never saw." In 
 September 1859, in company with Lady Brew- 
 ster, he attended the meeting of the British Asso- 
 ciation at Aberdeen, and also spent a day at 
 Balmoral. The following is his own account of a 
 day spent there : 
 
 "We left Banchory at five a.m., set off from 
 Aberdeen at six, and from Banchory-Ternan at 
 seven, in five omnibuses, containing each about 
 
 twenty-five outside and fourteen inside, arriving 
 at Balmoral, a distance of thirty-two miles, at 
 one o'clock. About two o'clock, when the 
 Highland games commenced on the lawn, the 
 Queen and the royal party came out to the 
 flower-garden to see them. Soon after this we 
 all rushed to the great hall to a standing lunch, 
 and when this was over, Jane and I went to a 
 large tent prepared for the members of the 
 Association. On our way there, the Queen and 
 Prince Albert came past us, and recognising 
 Jane, to whom H.R.H. had previously spoken, 
 stopped and introduced her to the Queen. All 
 the Highland clans in full dress were present at 
 the games ; and when they were over, and we had 
 had coffee in the great hall, we set off for Aber- 
 deen, and arrived there about half-past twelve 
 o'clock. The day was, upon the whole, good ; but 
 at Ballater, about ten miles from Balmoral, it 
 rained heavily, and the wet philosophers were 
 obliged to dry themselves in the royal kitchen." 
 
 The news reached him by telegram at this time 
 that he was appointed principal of the Univer- 
 sity of Edinburgh. In the following month he 
 decided to resign his appointment at St Andrews 
 and accept that connected with Edinburgh. He 
 had gained many warm friendships and admirers 
 at St Andrews, and he left with the best wishes 
 of all his former colleagues. 
 
 It is said by his biographer that he had a sin- 
 gular aversion to having a tooth drawn, and on 
 describing the agonies of toothache which he 
 had endured to a friend, he was asked what he 
 did to relieve them. "Do!" said Sir David, 
 " I just sat and roared ! " His reply to those 
 who recommended him to a dentist was, " What ! 
 would you have me part with one of the bones 
 of my body?" A gifted gentleman who had 
 passed some time in his company, remarked, 
 " When I have been with other great men, I go 
 away, saying, 'What clever fellows they are;' 
 but when I am with Sir David Brewster, I say, 
 'What a clever fellow I am.'" This was in 
 allusion to Brewster's faculty of drawing out 
 that which was best in another without at the 
 same time obtruding his own personality. To 
 any one who showed signs of roundabout or 
 direct complimentary allusion to his successes, 
 he would say, "Don't tell me any flummery." 
 His mind, while remarkably versatile, like that 
 of many men of genius, was capable of complete 
 absorption in any work which he took up. On 
 a railway journey, so absorbed was he in the 
 perusal of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which he had 
 picked up at a railway book-stall, that he was 
 in tears, quite unconscious of his surroundings, 
 and that he might be the object of attention. 
 Reading Macaulay's "History of England," for 
 the purpose of reviewing it, he became so tho- 
 roughly absorbed in the narrative that he ex- 
 claimed, with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks, 
 "Only think what that villain James has done 
 next." His correspondence, like that of every 
 
eminent man, was very extensive, many of his 
 letters being from people eminent in rank and 
 in various walks of life. His faculty of observa- 
 tion was strong and incessant, every walk, talk, 
 or new scene supplied him with fresh material 
 for experiment and scientific research. His 
 materials were ever at hand, such as the colours 
 and forms of plants, the eyeballs of fish, gam- 
 bols of mice, the scratching of snail-shells on 
 the windows, the jewels and ribbons which 
 adorned his lady visitors, patterns of carpets 
 and wall-papers, rose-leaves, the blue haze of 
 distance, and the surfaces of various kinds of 
 cloths. While thus minutely technical, he had 
 an eye for the grand and the beautiful in 
 scenery. Sir James Y. Simpson, the eminent 
 physician, while in the same room beside him 
 at St Andrews, remarked that Brewster became 
 entirely unconscious of his presence in the room, 
 so earnestly engaged was he with his microscope. 
 He would throw himself suddenly back in his 
 chair, and lifting his hands, exclaim, "Good 
 God! good God! how marvellous are Thy works." 
 The same observer, who was with him on the 
 Sunday morning before he died, mentioning to 
 him how it had been given to him to show forth 
 much of God's marvellous works, received this 
 reply: "Yes, I found them to be great and 
 marvellous, and I have felt them to be His." 
 Both in early and later life he was extremely 
 fond of poetry, and was always anxious to en- 
 courage those of his children who showed any 
 poetical propensities. An old lady, in allusion 
 to Sir David's bonhommie in society, said, "It's 
 no use to be admired by Sir David — he admires 
 everybody." His daughter says of his study, 
 that "no antiquary more dreaded the advent 
 of a housemaid or a duster, and yet all his 
 books, papers, and instruments were in a state 
 of perfect arrangement and preparedness for his 
 own use, although unintelligible to others. His 
 powers of contrivance and 'garrin' the most 
 unlikely things ' do ' his bidding were carried to 
 an amusing extent. Much of his apparatus to 
 unlearned eyes appeared a mass of bits of broken 
 glass, odds and ends of brass, tin, wire, old 
 bottles, burned corks, and broken instruments. 
 Yet it was kaleidoscopic in its nature, and all 
 resulted in effective and beautiful work. Ex- 
 periments in the midst of this dusty medley 
 formed the chosen and delightful occupation of 
 his life. Writing was performed * doggedly ' as 
 the labour and the duty, but the long dark 
 passages, the round hole or chink in the shutter, 
 the ingeniously cobbled instruments, as well as 
 his more elaborate telescopes and microscopes, 
 formed the material of his greatest earthly 
 enjoyment. He always, on these occasions, 
 indulged in a sort of low purring whistle, which, 
 though utterly destitute of music, was the 
 sweetest of sounds in the ears of those who 
 loved him, for then it was known that he was 
 entirely free from all malaise of mind or body." 
 
 Brewster in his religious beliefs adhered to the 
 good old orthodox truths of religion, which he 
 had tested in his own life experience, and re- 
 ceived from his father. It was not, however, 
 until after his wife's death in 1850, that it be- 
 came apparent that religion was a great power 
 both in his outward and inward life. This only 
 after a considerable mental struggle. "Sir 
 David Brewster," writes his biographer, in re- 
 marking on his religious history, "was not one 
 who could or did speak much with his lips for 
 his Master, but his full personal acceptance of 
 Christ as the Wisdom of God and as the accepted 
 Righteousness for man, may be of more use than 
 many sermons to minds cast something in his 
 own mould." Speaking to a friend of many of 
 the lax modern views regarding Divine truth, 
 he said, "As for me, I have the Bible, audit 
 all seems so clear and simple, that I find all I 
 want in it — the pure Word of God." 
 
 In the month of February 1860, Sir David 
 Brewster left St Andrews for Edinburgh, and 
 soon after his arrival he was appointed Vice- 
 Chancellor of the University, Lord Brougham 
 being elected Chancellor. He settled again at 
 Allerly, Melrose, during three or four months 
 of the year ; while the work of the session was 
 going forward he took a house in town, and at 
 other times when duty called him to town, he 
 came and returned on the same day. At this 
 time he became a member of council of the 
 National Association of Social Science, and he 
 was afterwards chosen a vice-president. A new 
 honour was also conferred upon him by the Uni- 
 versity of Berlin at this time, which was the 
 bestowal of M.D. The old love for his native 
 Border-land was now re-awakened within him, and 
 he took many a drive to Jedburgh, and along the 
 valley of the Tweed, where every footstep is classic 
 in ancient story, while over it all broods the fresh- 
 ness and softened beauty of to-day. With much 
 truth, perhaps, John Buskin has termed the 
 Border-land the sweetest pastoral country in the 
 world. "He used to tell," says his daughter, 
 "with peculiar interest that 'Sorrowless Field' 
 was so named because in 1513 it was the only 
 valley in Scotland where there was 'no sorrow' 
 — its every inhabitant, young and old, matron, 
 maid, and infant, going forth to the death at 
 Flodden. He delighted in pointing out the 
 short solitary grave on the narrow tongue of 
 uncultivated land stretching into the meadows, 
 where was fought the battle of Ancrum Moor in 
 1545, still called Lilliard's Edge, in commemora- 
 tion of 'fair maiden Lilliard,' who fought be- 
 side her lover against the English invaders, and 
 earned the dubious fame of being a feminine 
 Withrington. The ' Eildon Tree Stone,' where 
 tradition declares that 'true Thomas* of 
 Ercildoune met the Queen of Fairyland — the 
 'Rhymer's Glen' — the beauties of Bemersyde, 
 with its ancient and well-known prophetical 
 rhyme — the Cowden knowes, with its ' bonnift. 
 
67/? DAVID BREWSTER. 
 
 239 
 
 bonnie "broom' — the beautiful scenery of the 
 Yair — ^the towers of Sraailholm and Damick, 
 Ashiestiel, Chiefswood, and Abbotsford— and 
 the * Fairy Dean,' with its three ruined 
 * peels,' are but a few of the localities which 
 gave him the vivid pleasure and interest which 
 he never failed to reproduce in others." 
 
 In 1862 he was chosen as the first President of 
 the Inventors' Institute. The organ of this insti- 
 tute was called the Scientific Review; to this 
 journal he was a frequent contributor. A post- 
 humous article of his on scientific education in 
 our schools, appeared in its pages after his 
 death. It had been sent in to the editor but a 
 few days previously, with the note, "I am glad 
 to see that the Review is prospering. I wish I 
 could do something to help you, but I am very 
 unwell, and not able to write." A neglected 
 cold during a stay in London in 1864, led to 
 some alarming symptoms. Lady Brewster was 
 sent for, but he rallied rapidly, and was able to 
 take his usual recreative holiday at Banchory 
 House, Aberdeenshire. This same year he was 
 appointed President of the Royal Society, 
 Edinburgh, and gave an address, comprising 
 some details of the earlier history of the Society, 
 and he also had either delivered or read for him 
 an address in each of the few years he held the 
 post. The council of the Inventors' Institute 
 which met in 1864, awarded to him the palm of 
 having, in the year 1811, adopted from Buffon, 
 "a suggestion of a new form of lens, invented a 
 mode of building up this lens in segments, 
 which for the first time made it capable of con- 
 struction. . . . That this combination, after- 
 wards called a holophote, embodied the funda- 
 mental features and principles of the most per- 
 fect optical apparatus for lighthouses now in 
 use." The credit of this invention has been 
 divided between M. Fresnel, a French engineer, 
 and Sir David Brewster. Certain it is that 
 Fresnel's invention was very similar to that 
 recommended by Brewster in the *' Edinburgh 
 Encyclopaedia" of 1811, so much so that it is 
 thought he must have seen Brewster's article on 
 burning glasses, which had been deposited in the 
 library of the French Institute for six years. 
 During 1867 it was plain that Brewster's strength 
 was sinking, he had been seized with more than 
 one fainting fit while in the prosecution of his 
 duty. At the beginning of 1868 his mind was 
 still clear and active, but he was unable to 
 attend the meetings of the University Court, in 
 the business of which he was deeply interested 
 at the time. Conscious that the end of a long 
 working life was drawing near, he began to set 
 his affairs in order. The week before he was 
 finally set aside was spent in writing or dictating 
 letters, arranging papers, and putting away 
 books. The last day he spent in his study, 
 he was visited by the Rev. W. Cousin, minister of 
 the Free Church, Melrose. Sir David remarked 
 to him that he knew he was dying. •' My race 
 
 is run," he said ; and there was something al- 
 most of the old scientific habit of thought in 
 what he added, *' From the palpable failure of 
 strength from one day to another, I feel as if I 
 could count the very day on which all must 
 close. , . . Never man," he continued, "had 
 more cause for thankfulness than I, but with 
 all that, now that I can be of no use to myself 
 or any one else, I have no wish to linger here." 
 
 The Rev. James C. Herdman, Melrose, who 
 also saw him before he died, relates that *'he 
 had no difficulty in believing all the Bible : in 
 these days scepticism was common among scien- 
 tific men. 'Common!' alas, few received the 
 truth of Jesus. But why ? It was the pride of 
 intellect — straining to be wise above what is 
 written ; it forgets its own limits, and steps out 
 of its province. How little the wisest of mor- 
 tals know — of anything! how preposterous for 
 worms to think of fathoming the counsels of the 
 Almighty. . . . Did the Christian mys- 
 teries give him no trouble ? None. Why should 
 they ? We are surrounded by mysteries. His 
 own being was a mystery — he could not explain 
 the relation of his soul to his body. Everybody 
 believed things they could not understand. The 
 Trinity or the atonement was a great deep ; so 
 was eternity, so was providence. It caused him 
 no uneasiness that he could not fully account 
 for them. There were secret things that belonged 
 to God. He made no attempt to reconcile the 
 sovereignty of grace with the responsibility of 
 man ; they were both true — ^he could wait to see 
 their harmony cleared; they were not contrary 
 to reason, however incomprehensible. When he 
 found a doctrine plainly stated in the Bible, 
 that was enough ; God knew ; he could depend 
 on His word: we should not expect in this 
 world to be free from obscurities and apparent 
 discrepancies, and things beyond our grasp. 
 He thanked God the way of salvation was so 
 simple; no laboured argument, no hard attain- 
 ment, was required. To believe in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ was to live ; he trusted in Him and 
 enjoyed His peace." His mind was clear and 
 collected to the last, and on the 10th February 
 he passed away peacefully. His remains were 
 laid to rest in a grave beside a sculptured window 
 of the old Abbey of Melrose. The massive tomb- 
 stone, besides the usual inscription, bears the suit- 
 able words: "The Lord is my light" (Ps. xxvii. 1). 
 
 A memorial window to the late Sir David 
 Brewster of AUerly, K.H., has been placed in 
 Melrose Free Church, where he worshipped 
 while in the neighbourhood. The presentation 
 of Lady Brewster, the window is in two divisions, 
 representing the "Adoration" and the "Ascen- 
 sion." The former shows the philosopher 
 grouped along with the wise men. The family 
 crest and the monogram D.B. are introduced, 
 and at the base of the window is the following 
 inscription: "In memoriam, David Brewstw, 
 K.H. Bom 1781, died 1868." 
 
240 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 GEOEGE STEPHENSOK 
 
 [1781-1843.] 
 
 A RAILWAY train, a steamer, or our complicated 
 system of telegraphy, are all often triumphantly 
 pointed to as the high-water mark of modern 
 civilisation. While there is nothing wrong in 
 this, it is at the same time self-evident that it 
 is well to bear the thought in mind, that our 
 boasted progress has been a slow growth, that a 
 thousand lives and influences have been used to 
 help it forward, and that the men of the present 
 age are laying down or recreating the founda- 
 tions of the life and well-being of the genera- 
 tions to come. When we think of railways and 
 the locomotive, the names of James Watt and 
 of George Stephenson rise to mind. We intend 
 briefly and simply to trace the principal inci- 
 dents in the career of the latter. To all true 
 workers it is full of stimulus and encourage- 
 ment, for work done wisely, worthily, and well, 
 anywhere, unites the worker to that great fellow- 
 ship, known or unknown to the world, who 
 labour as in the sight and hope of heaven, and 
 do well the little common duties of every day. 
 
 George Stephenson was born on the 9th of 
 June 1781, at the village of Wylam, about eight 
 miles west of Newcastle-on-Tyne. His parents 
 were poor but respectable, and his father, 
 Robert Stephenson, was fireman of the pumping 
 engine at Wylam, and he is described by Mr 
 Smiles as of an amiable disposition. While 
 tending his engine fire he would draw around 
 him the young folks of the village and tell them 
 the story of Sindbad the Sailor, or Robinson 
 Crusoe. He was partial to birds, and would 
 sometimes go bird-nesting, and once took young 
 Georgetoseeanestful of young blackbirds, asight 
 which he never forgot. None of Stephenson's 
 children went to school, as his limited income 
 would not admit of it. The common two-storied, 
 red-tiled building, where they dwelt, stood just 
 beside the wooden tramway on which the coal 
 waggons were drawn by horses from the coal-pit 
 to the loading quay, and one of the duties of 
 the elder children was to watch and keep the 
 younger ones out of the way of the waggons, 
 which were daily dragged up and down by 
 horses. Eight years of his life had passed when 
 the Stephenson family removed to Dewley Burn. 
 Young Stephenson's first actual employment 
 was to herd a neighbour's cows at the wage of 
 twopence a day. Like other boys of his age, he 
 spent much of his time in bird-nesting, in mak- 
 ing whistles, and in erecting little water-mills 
 in the streams near by. "But his favourite 
 amusement at this early age was in erecting 
 clay engines in conjunction with his chosen 
 playmate, Tom Thirlaway. They found the 
 
 clay for their engines in the adjoining bog ; and 
 the hemlock, which grew about, supplied them 
 with abundance of imaginary steam-pipes. " His 
 next work was to lead the horses when plough- 
 ing, or to hoe turnips and other farm work. 
 When taken on at the colliery and employed to 
 clear the coal of stones, bats, and dross, his 
 wages were advanced to sixpence a day, and 
 afterwards to eightpence, when he was set to 
 drive the gin-horse. While driving the gin at 
 Black Callerton Colliery, two miles from Dewley 
 Burn, he indulged his fondness for bird-nesting 
 in the hedgerows as he passed along to and from 
 his work. He also indulged himself in a stock 
 of tame rabbits, and used to pride himself on 
 the superiority of his breed. When fourteen 
 he was appointed assistant fireman to his father 
 at Dewley Burn, at the wage of one shilling a 
 day. His great ambition at the time was to be- 
 come an engineman. When his wages were 
 afterwards raised to twelve shillings a week, at 
 another place, on announcing the fact to his 
 fellow- workmen, he added, "I am now a made 
 man for life." At seventeen, he had charge of 
 a pumping engine at which his father acted as 
 fireman. His duty was to watch the engine 
 and see that it worked well, also that the pumps 
 were drawing efficiently. But Stephenson was 
 no mere mechanical engineman, he applied him- 
 self to the study of its different parts, taking it 
 down and putting it together again, so that he 
 was soon able to dispense with the assistance of 
 the engineer of the colliery. When eighteen 
 years of age, and when in charge of the engine 
 at a wage of twelve shillings a week, he began 
 to remedy his defective education, and com- 
 menced to learn to read. His first teacher was 
 Robin Cowens, a poor teacher in Walbottle, 
 who kept a night school, which was attended 
 by a few of the colliers and labourers' sons in 
 the district. This school was exchanged for 
 one kept by a Scotch dominie, where Stephenson 
 made rapid progress in arithmetic, and also 
 learned to write. When twenty years of age he 
 had become brakesman at Black Callerton pits. 
 The duty of the brakesman was to superintend 
 the working of the engine and machinery by 
 means of which the coals were drawn out of the 
 pit. He also took his turn on the night shift, 
 and his vacant night hours were either utilised 
 in doing sums, in practising writing, or in shoe- 
 making or mending. An attachment formed at 
 this time for a young woman named Fanny 
 Henderson, a servant at a neighbouring farm- 
 house, stimulated him in the extra efforts he 
 was making. He married Fanny Henderson 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 241 
 
 when he was twenty-one; by thrift, sobriety, 
 and industry he was enabled to take up house, 
 although in very humble style, at Willington 
 Ballast Quay. The marriage took place on 
 the 28th November 1802. At his daily work 
 Stephenson continued to study the principles of 
 mechanics, and to master the laws by which his 
 engine worked. His evenings spent at home be- 
 side his young wife were always turned to some 
 account. An attempt to discover perpetual 
 motion, although it did not succeed, certainly 
 helped to awake his inventive faculties. Having 
 taken his own clock to pieces and cleaned it, 
 and this becoming known in the neighbourhood, 
 he soon had plenty to do in the same line. 
 
 His only son Robert was born at Willington 
 Quay on the 16th October 1803. After working 
 for about three years as a brakesman at Willing- 
 ton, he removed, in 1804, to West Moor Colliery, 
 Killingworth, to a similar situation. Killing- 
 worth lies about seven miles north of Newcastle, 
 and it was here that his practical ability as a 
 workman and engineer began to be recognised 
 by his employers. Shortly after his settlement 
 in his new home, to his great sorrow, his wife 
 died. An engagement to superintend the work- 
 ing of one of Boulton & Watt's engine at Mont- 
 rose, in Scotland, took him away from Killing- 
 worth for about a year. On his return he had 
 greatly increased his practical knowledge, and 
 had also saved about £28. The journey both 
 going and returning was accomplished on foot. 
 He found his father had met with an accident, 
 and was in great poverty. George Stephenson 
 paid off his debts and made provision for him. 
 His prospects during the years 1807-8 were very 
 discouraging. Great Britain was engaged in a 
 war, the necessaries of life were heavily taxed, 
 and finally, he was drawn at that time for the 
 militia. He found a substitute, however, by 
 paying a certain sum. So down-hearted was he 
 at this time that he meditated emigrating to the 
 United States. An opportunity was not long 
 in occurring, which, being taken advantage of, 
 materially helped him forward. The engineers 
 of that time, as Mr Smiles tells us, worked very 
 much in the dark, and, for the most part, with- 
 out any knowledge of the principles of mechanics. 
 An atmospheric or Newcomen engine, made by 
 Smeaton, had proved a failure, and no engineer 
 or workman could put it right. A speech which 
 Stephenson had made being reported to the 
 head- viewer of the pit as to his ability to " alter 
 her and make her draw," and he being dead 
 beat at the time, he at once entrusted him with 
 the work. ''Well, George," said the viewer, 
 "they tell me you think you can put the engine 
 at the High Pit to rights." "Yes, sir," said 
 George, "I think I could." "If that's the 
 case, I'll give you a fair trial ; and you must set 
 to work immediately. We are clean drowned 
 out, and cannot get a step further. The engi- 
 neers are all beat, and if you really succeed in 
 
 accomplishing what they cannot do, you may de- 
 pend upon it I will make you a man for life. " The 
 repairs occupied Stephenson about four days, 
 and were done, if roughly, yet on scientific prin- 
 ciples ; and before the end of the same week the 
 pit was so far clear of water that the miners 
 could be sent to the bottom. For the successful 
 accomplishment of this work, Stephenson re- 
 ceived the sum of £10, with which he was highly 
 gratified. In addition, he was appointed en- 
 gineman at the High Pit on good wages. His suc- 
 cess in doctoring the engine led to his being very 
 extensively consulted by the owners of wheezy 
 and ineffectual pumping-machines in the neigh- 
 bourhood; and in his treatment of them he is 
 said to have left the regular engineers far 
 behind. 
 
 Robert Stephenson was meanwhile receiving 
 as good an education as his father could afford. 
 After the village school of Long Benton had 
 done something for him, he was sent to Bruce's 
 Academy, Newcastle, to which place he rode 
 backwards and forwards on a donkey. To his 
 home, near West Moor Pit, Killingworth, which 
 originally consisted of but one apartment on 
 the ground floor, Stephenson gradually added 
 until he made it a comfortable four-roomed 
 dwelling. In the garden attached, it was his 
 pride to cultivate gigantic leeks and large cab- 
 bages. In his leisure time he was still fond of 
 displays of feats of strength and agility, at which 
 he often distanced his competitors. In 1812, 
 the engine-wright at Killingworth was killed by 
 an accident, when George Stephenson was pro- 
 moted to his post at a salary of £100 a year. 
 This relieved him from the routine of manual 
 labour, but his brain and his hands were kept as 
 busy as ever. The first winding-engine for 
 drawing the coals out of the pit, and the first 
 pumping-engine erected by him for Long Benton 
 Colliery, were both successful. In some evi- 
 dence which he gave before a select committee 
 of the House of Commons in 1835, he thus spoke 
 of his life at this time : "After making some im- 
 provements in the steam-engines above ground, 
 I was then requested by the manager of the col- 
 liery to go underground along with him to see if 
 any improvement could be made in the mines 
 by employing machinery as a substitute for 
 manual labour and horse-power in bringing the 
 coals out of the deeper workings of the mine. 
 On my first going down the Killingworth pit, 
 there was a steam-engine underground for the 
 purpose of drawing water from a pit that was 
 sunk at some distance from the first shaft. The 
 Killingworth coalfield is considerably dislocated. 
 After the colliery was opened, at a very short 
 distance from the shaft, one of these dislocations 
 was met with. The coal was thrown down about 
 forty yards. Considerable time was spent in 
 sinking another pit to this depth. And on my 
 going down to examine the work, I proposed 
 making the engine (which had been erected some 
 
242 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 time previously) to draw the coals up an inclined 
 plane, which descended immediately from the 
 place where it was fixed. A considerable change 
 was accordingly made in the mode of working 
 the colliery, not only in applying the machinery, 
 but employing putters instead of horses in 
 bringing the coals from the hewers; and by 
 those changes, the number of horses in the pit 
 was reduced from about 100 to 15 or 16. During 
 the time I was engaged in making these im- 
 portant alterations, I went round the work- 
 ings in the pit with the viewer almost every 
 time that he went into the mine, not only 
 at Killingworth, but at Mountmoor, Der- 
 wentcrook, Southmoor, all of which col- 
 lieries belonged to Lord Ravensworth and his 
 partners; and the whole of the machinery in 
 these collieries was put under my charge." The 
 fact of his son Robert being a member of the 
 Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Institu- 
 tion was of some assistance to hi.s father. He 
 brought home books, or failing that, drawings 
 from scientific articles, which were talked over 
 between the father and son at home, and made 
 to conduce to the improvement of both. 
 
 Before we come to the details of George 
 Stephenson's improvements on the locomotive, 
 it might be well to glance at the 
 
 EARLY mSTORT OF THE RAILWAY.* 
 
 Two centuries ago, in the life of Lord Keeper 
 Guildford, we read the following: "When men 
 have pieces of ground between the colliery and 
 the river, they sell leave to lead coals over their 
 ground, and so dear, that the owner of a rood of 
 ground will expect £20 per annum for this leave. 
 The manner of the carriage is by laying rails of 
 timber from the colliery down to the river, ex- 
 actly straight and parallel ; and bulky carts are 
 made with four rowlets fitting these rails, ■ 
 whereby the carriage is so easy that one horse j 
 will draw down four or five chaldrons of coals, I 
 and is an immense benefit to the coal merchants." , 
 
 There is mention made of tramways as early 
 as 1602 ; but there is some convenience in ac- 
 cepting the period of two centuries as the start- 
 ing-point in noticing the history of railways. 
 The tramways described in the above extract 
 were of wood, and it was not till the opening of 
 the eighteenth century, that the wood came to 
 be protected with iron. In the early part of 
 that century many tramways appear to have 
 been laid down to connect collieries with the 
 ports whence the coal was shipped. One of 
 these has obtained some historical interest; 
 namely, the railway between Tranent colliery 
 and its port of Cockenzie, in East Lothian— a 
 railway still in existence — part of the embank- 
 ment of which was used as a position for his 
 cannon by ** Johnny Cope" in the battle of 
 
 * Aa given in "A Book about Travelling, Past and 
 Present." W. P. Nimmo, London and Edinburgh. 
 
 Prestonpans in 1745. In the travels of St Fond 
 it is mentioned that coals could be imported 
 from England at Marseilles cheaper than French 
 coals of inferior quality, and the facilities for 
 conveying coals to the ports in this country, by 
 the use of the tramways, and the method of 
 shipping direct from the waggons, is believed to 
 have had sr^me share in bringing about this 
 result. 
 
 One of the earliest records of the use of iron to 
 protect the wooden trams is in connection with 
 the ironworks at Colebrookdale, in Shrop.shire, 
 subsequently celebrated for the erection of the 
 first considerable iron bridge, and where, about 
 1760, iron plates were nailed to the wooden 
 rails, as well to diminish friction as to prevent 
 abrasion. This soon led to the substitution of 
 rails of solid iron, which was attended with 
 rapid success, and adopted in various parts of 
 the country. There was, for instance, a railway 
 five miles long, from the collieries in the vicinity 
 of Derby into that town ; there was another 
 called the Park Forest Railway, about six miles 
 long ; and another, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in 
 Leicestershire, which had four miles of double 
 and eight miles of single rails. Towards the 
 beginning of the present century, railways had 
 made their way into all coal«nd mining districts, 
 and their progress was so rapid that in 181] 
 there were in South Wales not less than 150 
 miles of railways, of which the Merthyr Tydvil 
 Company possessed thirty miles. 
 
 Amongst personal reminiscences of these primi- 
 tive railways by persons living to our own day, 
 it may be interesting to quote those of Mr 
 Robert Reid, who was born in 1772. In his 
 interesting memoirs of " Old Glasgow," he says: 
 "I remember the coal quay, which stood at the 
 present ferry, west end of Windmill Croft. It 
 was built by the Dumbarton Glass Work Com- 
 pany to convey coals from the lands of Little 
 Govan to their works at Dumbarton. The river 
 was then deeper at the coal quay than at the 
 Broomielaw. There was a timber tramway from 
 the Little Govan works to the said quay, which 
 ran through the lands of Kingston, and by the 
 road on the east side of Springfield. / have 
 walked upon this tramroad^ which I believe was 
 the first of our Glasgow railways. The Dum- 
 barton Glass Work Company also possessed a 
 tramroad on the north side of the Clyde, from 
 the coal works in the neighbourhood of Gart- 
 navel." 
 
 But while in regard to the transit and ship- 
 ment of coals this considerable advance was 
 made, the other branches of trafiic, depending 
 on the wretched country roads of last century, 
 remained for half-a-century longer in the depths 
 of barbarity. 
 
 *'I observed to-day," says Boswell, in his 
 "Tour to the Hebrides," "that the common 
 way of carrying home their grain here ia in 
 loads, on horseback. They have also a few 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON, 
 
 245 
 
 sleds or carsy as we call them in Ayrshire, 
 clumsily made and rarely used." An aged 
 East Lothian farmer, recently dead, informed 
 the writer that in his youth the mode of bring- 
 ing grain to the market at Haddington was on 
 pack horses. This was within recent memory, 
 before there were either made roads or railways ! 
 
 The solid iron rails mentioned as having been 
 introduced at Colebrookdale were called "scant- 
 lings," and consisted of five feet long pieces, 
 four inches in breadth, which were laid down 
 under the wheel, simply to decrease friction, as 
 the wooden trams had previously been. The 
 next stage, that of casting rails with an upright 
 flange to keep the wheels on the track, was 
 reached about 1776, in connection with a col- 
 liery belonging to the Duke of Norfolk, near 
 Sheffield. Though the flange was subsequently 
 taken from the rail and put on the wheel, the 
 first century of railway history closes with the 
 adoption of the two chief features of the railway 
 as a travelling track — the use of cross sleepers 
 on which to fasten the rails, and the introduc- 
 tion of the flange to keep the cars upon the 
 track. 
 
 A quarter of a century brought the invention 
 of the oval rail, with a grooved tire upon the 
 wheels, another step towards the realisation of 
 subsequent success. This '* edge railway," as it 
 was called, was first used at Lord Penrhyn's 
 slate quarries in Wales. It being found that the 
 oval rail wore into the wheel and caused it to 
 stick, the next step was to make the surface of 
 the rail and the edge of the wheel flat, and, mola 
 tout, the railway as we know it was made. 
 There have been many improvements in the 
 mode of manufacture, in the kinds of sleepers 
 used (stone or wood), in the method of fastening 
 them, in the introduction of steel rails ; in the 
 discovery, very recently, that iron rails can be 
 made even more durable and less expensive than 
 steel. But the fundamental condition of the 
 rail remains unchanged, and on the plan thus 
 introduced early in the century all our great 
 progress of to-day has been made. 
 
 Mr K L. Edgeworth, writing in Nicholson's 
 Journal of the Arts, in 1802, describes a project 
 formed by him many years before for laying iron 
 railways for baggage waggons on the great roads 
 of England, Objections as to first cost and 
 maintenance had deterred him from promoting 
 it, and to obviate the latter he proposed to use a 
 series of smaller cars — the modem "train" — in 
 order to save the wear of the rails. In 1768 he 
 obtained the Society of Arts' gold medal, for 
 models of his carriages, and twenty years later 
 he made four carriages which were used for some 
 time on a wooden line of rails to convey lime for 
 farming purposes. Besides using his proposed 
 railways for heavy waggons at a slow pace, Mr 
 Edgeworth thought means might be found of 
 enabling stage-coaches to go six miles an hour, 
 and post-chaises and gentlemen's travelling 
 
 carriages at eight miles an hour, both with one 
 horse. Another proposal he made was that 
 small (stationary) engines placed from distance 
 to distance might by means of circulating chains 
 be made to draw the carriages along roads with 
 a great diminution of horse labour and expense. 
 
 An attempt to take a systematical commercial 
 view of the utility of railways was made in 1800, 
 by Dr James Anderson, in the fourth volume of 
 his "Recreations in Agriculture." He proposed 
 to construct railways by the side of the turnpike 
 roads, so as to follow the ordinary levels and 
 lines of traffic : to commence with the highway 
 from London to Bath. Where the road ascended 
 a hill, the level was to be sought by going round 
 its base, constructing a viaduct, or piercing a 
 tunnel ; and so carefully were these contingencies 
 discussed, that, with the exception of horses 
 being the moving power, his plans and arguments 
 might be accepted as the description of a rail- 
 way of the present day. One point particularly 
 insisted on was, that the railways should be man- 
 aged by Government, not by private companies, 
 who would unite monopoly with speculation; 
 but should "be kept open and patent to all 
 alike who shall choose to employ them, as the 
 king's highway, under such regulations as it 
 shall be found necessary to subject them by law." 
 No immediate result followed the publication of 
 Dr Anderson's views ; no one had then thought 
 of railways independent of other thoroughfares, 
 and to border the latter by iron routes, was not 
 to be entertained. 
 
 There is another name connected with the rise 
 of railways which cannot be left unnoticed — 
 Thomas Gray of Leeds. Hearing, while on the 
 Continent in 1816, that a canal had been pro- 
 jected to connect the coalfields of Belgium with 
 the frontier of Holland, he recommended the 
 making of a railway instead. His mind had 
 been for some time directed to the subject; and 
 in 1818 he showed to his friends a manuscript 
 containing observations on a railroad for the 
 whole of Europe. Soon after he returned to 
 England for the purpose of making his scheme 
 public, and in 1820 he published a volume en- 
 titled, " Observations on a General Iron Rail- 
 way, or Land Steam Conveyance, to supersede 
 the Necessity of Horses in all Public Vehicles : 
 Showing its vast Superiority in every respect 
 over the Present Pitiful Methods of Conveyance 
 by Turnpike-Roads and Canals." In this work, 
 among advantages to result from the new sys- 
 tem, Gray showed that fish, vegetables, agricul- 
 tural and other perishable produce might be 
 rapidly carried from place to place; that two 
 post deliveries in the day would be feasible: 
 and that insurance companies would be able to 
 promote their own interests by keeping railway 
 fire-engines, ready to be transported to the scene 
 of a conflagration at a moment's warning. The 
 cost of construction was calculated at £12,000 
 a mile ; and his plan included a trunk line from 
 
244 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 London to Plymouth and Falmouth; lines to 
 Portsmouth, Bristol, Dover, and Harwich; an 
 offset from the latter to Norwich, a trunk line 
 from London to Birmingham and Holyhead, 
 another to Edinburgh by Nottingham and Leeds, 
 with secondary lines from Liverpool to Scar- 
 borough, and from Birmingham to Norwich. 
 His system was not only remarkable for its sim- 
 plicity, but comprehended all the important 
 towns of the kingdom, and was in many respects 
 preferable to the lines subsequently made. His 
 plan for Ireland had a grand trunk line from 
 Dublin to Derry, another to Kinsale, and by 
 lesser lines ramifying from these he sought to 
 connect all the chief towns with the Irish capital. 
 Regarding his projects, Sir John Hawkshaw, in 
 his British Association speech (1875), remarked : 
 " No sooner had our ancestors settled down with 
 what comfort was possible in their coaches, well 
 satisfied that twelve miles an hour was the 
 maximum speed to be obtained or that was de- 
 sirable, than they were told that steam convey- 
 ance on iron railways would supersede their 
 * present pitiful ' methods of conveyance. Such 
 was the opinion of Thomas Gray, the first pro- 
 moter of railways, who published his work on a 
 general iron railway in 1819. Gray was looked 
 on as little better than a madman. ' When 
 Gray first proposed his great scheme to the 
 public,' said Chevalier Wilson, in a letter to Sir 
 Robert Peel in 1845, ' people were disposed to 
 treat it as an effusion of insanity.' The struggles 
 which preceded the opening of the first railway 
 were brought to a successful issue by the deter- 
 mination of a few able and far-seeing men ; and 
 the names of Thomas Gray and Joseph Sandars, 
 of William James and Edward Pease, should 
 always be remembered in connection with the 
 early history of railways, for it was they who 
 first made the nation familiar with the idea." 
 
 Whatever effect Gray's persevering labours 
 may have had in directing attention to the sub- 
 ject of railways, he himself gained neither reward 
 nor honour. His late years were passed in ob- 
 scurity as a dealer in glass on commission at 
 Exeter, in which city he died in October 1848 
 at tlie age of sixty-one. He died, it is said, 
 "steeped to the lips in poverty." 
 
 In an early number of Blackioood' s Magazine 
 we have a notice of a railway in Munich nearly 
 contemporary with the proposals of Gray : " We 
 have received a report from Munich, which, if it 
 be not exaggerated, well deserves the attention 
 of our countrymen. A model, on a large scale, 
 of an iron railroad, invented and completed by 
 the chief counsellor of the mines, Joseph von 
 Baader, has been received at the Royal Reposi- 
 tory for Mechanical Inventions, which is said to 
 surpass in utility whatever has been seen in Eng- 
 land ; some say by a proportion of two-thirds, 
 although it costs less by half. On a space per- 
 fectly level, laid with this invention, a woman 
 or a child may draw with ease a cart laden with 
 
 fifteen or sixteen hundredweight. And if no 
 greater inclination than six inches and a half on 
 a hundred feet in length be allowed, the carts 
 will move of themselves, without any external 
 impulse. A single horse may be the means of 
 conveying a greater weight than twenty-two 
 horses of the same strength on the best of com- 
 mon roads." 
 
 Wliile there was thus a gathering together of 
 testimony as regards the improvement of the 
 roads over which wheeled vehicles were to be 
 drawn, there was gradually being developed the 
 idea of employing another and more powerful 
 agent for the propulsion of the vehicles. There 
 cannot be the least doubt that the numerous 
 attempts to apply steam to navigation acted on 
 the minds of men of skill and invention in order 
 to have the same powerful agent applied to the 
 ordinary requirements of the road. Indeed, the 
 first invention of William Symington was ap- 
 plied to a carriage as well as to a barge, and his 
 diagram and detail of a steam- carriage were con- 
 temporary with his invention of a steamship. 
 It was probably in the knowledge that such 
 ideas were being wrought out into practical 
 shape that the lines were written by Dr Darwin, 
 to which the reputation of prophecy has almost 
 attached : 
 
 ** Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam ! afar 
 Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car ; 
 Or on the wide-waving wings expanded bear 
 The fljing chariot through the fields of air ! " 
 
 So wrote Dr Darwin in his Botanic Garden in 
 1793, and the vision of the "flying chariot" 
 does not appear to-day much more extravagant 
 than did, when these lines were published, the 
 prediction of ** rapid " travelling by means of a 
 steam-engine. Yet, nearly a century before, a 
 very fair attempt at the construction of a loco- 
 motive steam-engine had been made. The scene 
 of the experiment was Japan, and the actors in 
 it were the Jesuit missionaries, who sought to 
 find favour with the Emperor Kanghi. They 
 caused a waggon of light wood to be made, in 
 the middle of which they placed a brazen vessel 
 full of live coals, and on them an "eolipile," the 
 wind from which issued through a little pipe 
 upon a sort of wheel made like the sail of a 
 windmill. This little wheel turned another with 
 an axle-tree, and by that means the waggon was 
 set a-running for two hours together. This de- 
 scription is rather that of a hot-air engine than 
 a steam-engine, but it was a locomotive, and is 
 the earliest of its race. 
 
 In the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in 
 Paris is preserved the steam-carriage constructed 
 by M. Cugnot in 1763, which was a remarkable 
 machine, like a long brewer's cart, with a 
 boiler and engine at one end. It went with 
 such force that it knocked down a wall, and its 
 power was in consequence considered too great 
 for ordinary use, and it was put aside as a dan- 
 gerous invention. 
 
A model of a steam-carriage was made in 1784 
 "by William Murdoch, the friend and assistant of 
 Watt, but it was of very diminutive proportions. 
 
 The suggestion for such an application of 
 steam had been made by Dr Robison of Edin- 
 burgh, in 1759, to James Watt, who included 
 the idea in his fourth patent, but seems to have 
 doubted the safety of the carriage. He men- 
 tioned the idea to Murdoch, who proved practi- 
 cally, on a small scale, the correctness of the 
 calculations that had been made. Of Murdoch's 
 machine, it is narrated that on a dark night in 
 the year named, the venerable clergyman of 
 Redruth, in Cornwall, when walking in a lonely 
 lane leading to his church, heard a most un- 
 earthly noise, and beheld approaching him, at 
 great speed, an indescribable creature, glowing 
 with internal fires, and whose gasps for breath 
 seemed to denote some internal struggle of a 
 deadly kind. His cries brought the inventor, 
 William Murdoch, to his side, who explained to 
 him that this terrible monster was nothing more 
 or less than a locomotive he had invented, and 
 which had broken away from his control. 
 
 An equal amount of terror was created in some 
 minds by the steam-carriage of Richard Tre- 
 vithick, an eccentric engineer connected with 
 the Cornish tin-mines, who had seen Murdoch's 
 small carriage. In 1802 he took out a patent 
 for this novel machine, which was exhibited to 
 large crowds of spectators on what is now the 
 site of Euston station. Coleridge relates that, 
 when it was being conveyed from the place 
 in Cornwall where it was constructed to the port 
 at which it was shipped to London, after carry- 
 ing away a portion of the rails of a gentleman's 
 garden, it came in sight of a closed toll-gate. 
 Trevithick immediately shut off the steam, but 
 the momentum was so great that the carriage 
 proceeded some distance, coming dead up, how- 
 ever, just on the right side of the gate, which 
 was opened like lightning by the gatekeeper. 
 *' What have us got to pay here ? " asked Tre- 
 vithick's cousin, Andrew Vivian, who accom- 
 panied him. The poor toll-man, trembling in 
 every limb, his teeth chattering in his head, 
 essayed a reply : " Na, na, na, na." " What have 
 us got to pay, I say ? " '* No — , noth — , nothing 
 to pay ! My dear Mr Devil, do drive on as fast 
 as you can ! Nothing to pay ! " 
 
 Trevithick constructed another steam-carriage 
 for railway purposes, which, in 1804, ran on the 
 Merthyr Tydvil tramway in South Wales. It 
 drew a load of ten tons at the rate of five miles 
 an hour. 
 
 The earliest locomotives were designed to run 
 upon a perfectly smooth line and a straight 
 road, and for many years it was supposed that 
 they could not climb hills or be made to go 
 round corners unless the wlieels were provided 
 with a cogged rim to work on a corresponding 
 rack along the rails. The cogged or toothed 
 wheels and rails were introdnced in 1811 by Mr 
 
 Bleiikinsop of Leeds. It was not till 1813 that 
 Mr Blackett of Wylam, a coal proprietor, estab- 
 lished the fact that locomotives, running with 
 smooth wheels on smooth rails, could draw 
 heavy loads up a moderate incline. His engine, 
 called the '* Puffing Billy," was otherwise clum- 
 sily constructed. It had only a single cylinder, 
 and was full of pumps, plugs, and other gear, 
 which were always getting out of order. 
 
 Lord Ravensworth, the principal partner in the 
 Killingworth collieries, when the subject of con- 
 structing a travelling engine was brought before 
 him and his partners by Stephenson in 1813, 
 empowered him to proceed. "The first loco- 
 motive that I made," said Stephenson in a speech 
 made many years afterwards, " was at Killing- 
 worth Colliery, and with Lord Ravensworth's 
 money. Yes, Lord Ravensworth and partners 
 were the first to entrust me with money to make 
 a locomotive engine. That engine was made 
 thirty-two years ago, and we called it *My 
 Lord.' I said to*my friends, there was no limit 
 to the speed of such an engine if the works 
 could be made to stand it." It was tried on the 
 Killingworth railway on the 25th of July 1814. 
 *'Blucher," as this locomotive was popularly 
 called, was not eminently successful until the 
 introduction of the steam-blast. At first it 
 drew a load of thirty tons at the rate of four 
 miles an hour. His second engine, patented in 
 1815, doubled this speed. "Thus," as Mr 
 Smiles remarks, "Mr Stephenson, by dint of 
 patient and persevering labour — by careful 
 observation of the works of others, and never 
 neglecting to avail himself of their suggestions 
 — had succeeded in manufacturing an engine 
 which included the following important im- 
 provements on all previous attempts in the 
 same direction, viz. : simple and direct com- 
 munication between the cylinder and the wheels 
 rolling upon the rails ; joint adhesion of all the 
 wheels, attained by the use of horizontal con- 
 necting rods ; and finally, a beautiful method 
 of exciting the combustion of the fuel by em- 
 ploying the waste steam, which had formerly 
 been allowed uselessly to escape into the air. 
 Although many improvements in detail were 
 afterwards introduced in the locomotive by Mr 
 Stephenson himself, as well as by his equally- 
 distinguished son, it is perhaps not too much to 
 say that this engine, as a mechanical contriv- 
 ance, contained the germ of all that has since 
 been effected. It may in fact be regarded as 
 the type of the present locomotive engine." 
 
 Explosions of fire-damp frequently took place 
 in Stephenson's time, which were as disastrous 
 in their results as those of more modern times. 
 In the year 1814 an alarm was raised at one of 
 the Killingworth mines, that one of the deepest 
 mains was on fire. Stephenson coming to the 
 pit mouth ordered the engineman to lower him 
 down the shaft. Getting six men to volunteer 
 
ne 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 to follow him, he speedily ran up a wall at the 
 entrance to the main, which extinguished the 
 fire and saved many in the mine from a violent 
 death. One of the men, by name Kit Heppel, 
 asked him at this time, " Can nothing be done 
 to prevent such awful occurrences ? " Stephen- 
 son replied that he thought something might be 
 done. "Then," said Heppel, "the sooner you 
 start the better; for the price of coal-mining 
 now is pitmen's lives." This set him a-thinking 
 and working, and in the course of 1815 he endea- 
 voured to give his idea of a miner's safety-lamp 
 a practical shape. He described this lamp to the 
 committee of the House of Commons, when 
 sitting on the subject of Accidents in Mines. 
 He began by saying that he knew nothing of 
 chemistry at the time. *' Seeing the gas lighted 
 up, and observing the velocity with which the 
 flame passed along the roof, my attention was 
 drawn to the contriving of a lamp, seeing it 
 required a given time to pass over a given dis- 
 tance. My idea of making a lamp was entirely 
 on mechanical principles ; and I think I shall 
 be found quite correct in my views from mechan- 
 ical reasoning. I knew well that the heated 
 air from the fire drove round a smoke-jack, and 
 that caused me to know that I could have a 
 power from it. I also knew very well that a 
 steam-engine chimney was built for the purpose 
 of causing a strong current of air through the 
 fire. Having these facts before me, and know- 
 ing the properties of heated air, I amused my- 
 self with lighting one of the blowers in the 
 neighbourhood of where I had to erect machin- 
 ery. I had it on fire ; the volume of flame was 
 coming out the size of my two hands, but was 
 not so large but that I could approach close to 
 it. Holding my candle to the windward of the 
 flame, I observed that it changed its colour. 
 I then got two candles, and again placed them 
 to the windward of the flame ; it changed colour 
 still more, and became duller. I got a number 
 of candles, and placing them all to the wind- 
 ward, the blower ceased to burn. This then 
 gave me the idea, that if I could construct my 
 lamp so as, with a chimney at the top, to cause 
 a current, it would never fire at the top of the 
 chimney ; and by seeing the velocity with which 
 the ignited fire-damp passed along the roof, I 
 considered that, if I could produce a current 
 through tubes in a lamp equal to the current 
 that I saw passing along the roof, I should make 
 a lamp that could be taken into an explo^ve 
 mixture without exploding externally." After 
 many experiments his third and most successful 
 safety-lamp was constructed, and tested on the 
 30th November 1815, before he had ever heard 
 of Sir Humphry Davy's experiments. After 
 being exhibited before the Literary and Philo- 
 sophical Society of Newcastle, it came into use 
 in the Killingworth collieries. Since its intro- 
 duction no accident is known to have taken 
 place from its use. To distinguish it from the 
 
 "Davy" lamp it is known as the "Geordy" 
 lamp. Stephenson's claim for the independent 
 invention of a safety-lamp was acknowledged at 
 a public dinner given in the Assembly Rooms 
 at Newcastle, in January 1818, when he was 
 presented with £1000 and a silver tankard. Mr 
 Smiles is of opinion that the "Geordy" lamp, 
 when severely tested in the mines by an escape 
 of gas, is decidedly the safer of the two. Cases 
 have occurred where the "Davy" lamp has 
 grown red-hot in an explosive atmosphere, while 
 the "Geordy" was entirely extinguished. 
 
 The locomotives constructed by George Ste- 
 phenson in 1816 were, until lately, working 
 regularly on the Killingworth railway, dragging 
 coal trains at the rate of between five and six 
 miles an hour. This says much for the thorough- 
 ness with which they were manufactured. 
 " There were many highly-educated engineers," 
 writes Mr Smiles, "living in his day, who 
 knew vastly more than he did — trained as they 
 had been in all the science and learning of the 
 schools ; but there was none so apt in applying 
 what they knew to practical purposes as the 
 Killingworth 'brakesman' and ' engine- wright' 
 The great secret of his success, however, was 
 his cheerful perseverance. He was never cast 
 down by obstacles, but seemed to take a pleasure 
 in grappling with them, and he always rose from 
 each encounter a stronger as well as a wiser man. 
 He knew nothing of those sickly phantasies 
 which men, who suppose themselves t« be 
 'geniuses,' are so apt to indulge in; nor did 
 his poverty or necessities ever impair the 
 elasticity of his character. When he failed in 
 one attempt, he tried again and again, until 
 eventually he succeeded." Speaking at a 
 soiree of the Leeds Mechanics' Institute, he 
 said: "He had commenced his career on a 
 lower level than any man present there. He 
 made that remark for the purpose of encourag- 
 ing young mechanics to do as he had done — to 
 persevere. And he would tell them that the 
 humblest amongst them occupied a much more 
 advantageous position than he had done on 
 commencing his life of labour. They had 
 teachers who, going before them, had left their 
 great discoveries as a legacy and a guide ; and 
 their works were now accessible to all, in such 
 institutions as that which he addressed. But 
 he remembered the time when there were none 
 thus to guide and instruct the young mechanic. 
 With a free access to scientific books, he knew, 
 from his own experience, that they could be 
 saved much unnecessary toil and expenditure 
 of mental capital." 
 
 We now give a resume of railway progress in 
 the United Kingdom, with which Stephenson 
 was afterwards so vitally connected, and which 
 will bring the story of his life up to 1830.* 
 
 * AVe quote from " A Book about Travelling, Past 
 and Present," issued by the publisher of this volumei 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 247 
 
 PROGBESS OF THE RAILWAY IN THE UNITED 
 KINGDOM, 1801-1830. 
 
 The first Act of Parliament for the construc- 
 tion of a railway was passed in 1801, and was 
 promoted by the Surrey Iron Company, for a 
 railway nine miles long, from Wandsworth to 
 Croydon, with a branch to Carshalton. The 
 capital was £60,000, being about what is now 
 considered the normal cost for a ** light " rail- 
 way or local single line locally promoted, 
 namely £5500 per mile. This, the first line 
 opened under parliamentary sanction, was com- 
 pleted in 1805; and, in connection with its 
 opening, some very interesting experiments in 
 traction were made. Taking the estimate of 
 the draught of a horse, upon a good road, at 
 fifteen hundred pounds, the party of gentlemen 
 who assembled to witness the testing of the 
 line were enabled to judge practically the ad- 
 vantages offered. Twelve waggons were filled 
 with stones till each waggon weighed three 
 tons, and a horse attached to them drew the 
 load, with apparent ease, a distance of six 
 miles in an hour and three-quarters. In the 
 course of the journey the horse was repeatedly 
 stopped to show that he had the power of start- 
 ing the load with apparent ease. At each 
 stoppage other waggons were attached, and the 
 men employed on the line, to the number of 
 about fifty, were also directed to mount the 
 waggons. At the end of the journey the entire 
 load was found to have reached rather more 
 than fifty-five tons ! 
 
 In all about twenty Acts were passed prior to 
 that of the Stockton and Darlington line, mostly 
 for short lengths, the longest being a line of 
 thirty miles, from Sutton Pool, near Plymouth, 
 to the neighbourhood of Dartmouth prison, the 
 capital of which is stated at the extremely low 
 total of £35,000. 
 
 The first line authorised in Scotland was from 
 Edlmarnock to Troon, in Ayrshire, for which 
 an Act was obtained in 1808, and which, for a 
 length of about ten miles, was estimated to cost 
 £65,000. This line was opened in 1810, and 
 forming as it does an integral part of the large 
 system now embraced under the name of the 
 Glasgow and South-Western Railway, it entitles 
 that company to be considered the premier rail- 
 way in Scotland. 
 
 It was about this time that Thomas Telford 
 projected a very extensive scheme to connect 
 the east and west of Scotland by a grand line, 
 starting from Berwick, and proceeding by the 
 valley of the Tweed to Kelso, Peebles, and 
 Lanark, to the town of Ayr! "We admire," 
 says the compiler of the "Scottish Railway 
 Shareholders' Manual," in 1849, "the genius 
 and sagacity evinced by so magnificent a design ; 
 but we do not wonder that, in face of prejudice 
 and ignorance on the part of the public, in the 
 infancy of railway undertakings, it should have 
 
 been laid aside and forgotten." In 1811 the 
 Berwick and Kelso Company projected a line 
 occupying part of Telford's ground, but this 
 particular railway was never carried out. The 
 scheme lay dormant for many years — for, unlike 
 more modern Acts, no limitation of time was 
 put in the Act, so that the powers did not lapse 
 — and no step was ever made to carry it out. 
 It is true that later works have occupied nearly all 
 the ground projected by Telford, so that a rail- 
 way journey by Kelso, Peebles, and Lanark to 
 Ayr, can at this day be made per rail, over sub- 
 stantially the same ground as was taken up by 
 the great engineer. But the main lines of con- 
 nection for traffic purposes, between the east 
 and west of Scotland, have been found else- 
 where. 
 
 The greater number of the companies incor 
 porated by the Acts up to this time embraced 
 but few persons, and consisted mostly of mer- 
 chants or owners of collieries seeking an outlet 
 for their goods. Thus, the capital of the Pen- 
 rhynmaur line, for which an Act was obtained in 
 1812, was held by two men, the Earl of Ux- 
 bridge and Mr Holland Griffith. On none of 
 the lines for which Acts were obtained up to 
 1820 was any other motive power used or de- 
 signed than that of horses, and not one of the 
 companies even propos.^d the adoption of th« 
 steam-engine, though tLo invention was by this 
 time beginning to attract attention, nor did 
 the idea of conveying passengers seem to be 
 entertained. 
 
 This was, however, to be completely changed 
 by the Act obtained in 1821, in which the clause 
 defining the method of haulage spoke of ** the 
 making and maintaining of the tramroads and 
 the passage upon them of waggons and other 
 carriages, with men, and horses, or otherwise " 
 — words sufficiently elastic to admit of any 
 power being used. However, taking the Act 
 altogether, it can hardly be considered that Mr 
 Edward Pease, who was the chief promoter of 
 the line, had it in view to use anything else than 
 horse-power, or that he was much moved by Sir 
 Richard Phillips's recommendation that they 
 should use " Blenkinsop's steam-engine." 
 
 The Stockton and Darlington scheme had to 
 run the gantlet of a fierce opposition in three 
 successive sessions of Parliament. The applica- 
 tion of 1818 was defeated by the Duke of Cleve- 
 land, who afterwards profited so largely by the 
 construction of the railway. The ground of his 
 opposition was that the line would interfere 
 with one of his fox covers, and through his 
 influence the bill was thrown out. 
 
 Several energetic men, however, were now at 
 the head of the scheme, and they determined to 
 persevere with it. Amongst these, Edward 
 Pease might be regarded as the backbone of the 
 concern. Opposition did not daunt him, nor 
 failure defeat him. When apparently over- 
 thrown, he rose again, like Antaeus, stronger 
 
248 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 than before, and made another and stronger 
 eifort. He had in him the energy and patient 
 perseverance of many men. 
 
 The next year, 1819, an amended survey of 
 the line was made ; and, the Duke of Cleveland's 
 fox cover being avoided, his opposition was thus 
 averted. But as Parliament was dissolved on 
 the death of George III., the bill was necessarily 
 suspended until another session. 
 
 The principal opposition now came from the 
 road trustees, who spread it abroad that the 
 mortgagees of the tolls arising from the turnpike 
 road leading from Darlington to West Aukland 
 would be seriously injured by the formation of 
 the proposed railway. On this, Mr Edward 
 Pease issued a printed notice requesting any 
 alarmed mortgagees to apply to the company's 
 solicitors at Darlington, who were authorised to 
 purchase their securities at the price originally 
 given for them. This notice had the effect of 
 allaying the alarm, and the bill, though still 
 strongly opposed, was allowed to pass both 
 Houses of Parliament in 1821. 
 
 The preamble of the Act sets forth the public 
 utility of the proposed line for the conveyance 
 of coal and other commodities from the interior 
 of the county of Durham to Stockton and the 
 northern parts of Yorkshire. Nothing was said 
 about passengers, for passenger traffic was even 
 then not contemplated; and nothing was said 
 about locomotives, as it was at first intended to 
 work the line entirely by horse-power. The 
 road was to be free to all who chose to place 
 their waggons and horses upon it for the haul- 
 age of coal and other merchandise, provided 
 they paid the tolls fixed by the Act. 
 
 The company were empowered to charge four- 
 pence a ton per mile for all coal intended for 
 land sale ; but only a halfpenny a ton per mile 
 for coal intended for shipment at Stockton. The 
 latter low rate was introduced in the Act through 
 the influence of Mr Lambton, afterwards Earl of 
 Durham, for the express purpose of preventing 
 the line being used in competition against him ; 
 for it was not believed possible that coal could 
 be carried at that rate except at a heavy loss. 
 As it was, the low rate thus fixed proved the 
 vital element in the future success of the Stock- 
 ton and Darlington Railway. 
 
 The capital specified by the Act was of small 
 amount, and, as events proved, it was altogether 
 inadequate. The share capital was fixed at 
 £82,000, in shares of £100 each, and, in the 
 event of this not being found sufficient, power 
 was given to raise £20,000 more by shares. If 
 the shares were not taken by the public, then 
 the necessary capital, within the above limits, 
 might be raised by the issue of mortgages or 
 promissory notes. These powers were necessarily 
 greatly enlarged by subsequent Acts to enable 
 the line to be completed and placed in sound 
 working order. 
 
 While the Stockton and Darlington Railway 
 
 scheme was still before Parliament, Mr Edward 
 Pease was writing articles for a York newspaper, 
 urging the propriety of extending it southward 
 into Yorkshire by a branch from Croft. It is 
 curious now to look back upon the arguments 
 by which Mr Pease sought to influence pubUc 
 opinion in favour of railways, and to observe the 
 very modest anticipations which even its most 
 zealous advocate entertained as to their supposed 
 utility and capabilities. 
 
 " The late improvements in the construction 
 of railways," Mr Pease wrote, "have rendered 
 them much more perfect than when constructed 
 after the old plan. To such a degree of utility 
 have they now been brought, that they may be 
 regarded as very little inferior to canals." 
 
 •* Though the railways at Carron [in Scotland] 
 are not exempt from slight risings and depres- 
 sions, the reduction which they have occasioned 
 in a distance of six miles merits much attention. 
 Before their establishment the Carron Company 
 paid £1200 monthly on an average for carriage, 
 but since then the number of horses employed 
 has been diminished by three-fourths, and the 
 expenditure on carriage reduced to about £300 
 a month, effecting a saving to the company of 
 equal to £10,000 a year. Coal, lime, stone, and 
 grain can also be conveniently weighed by 
 machines placed under the railway dep6ts and 
 at different points of loading and discharging. 
 The weighing on departing and arriving would 
 also be a great check to fraud. 
 
 "One horse can draw, by means of a railway, 
 on a level or slightly-inclined plane, from eight 
 to sixteen waggons of one ton each, and each 
 waggon may be loaded with different kinds of 
 goods to suit the traffic on the line. 
 
 "If we compare the railway with the best 
 lines of common road, it may be fairly stated 
 that in the case of a level railway the work will 
 be increased in at least an eightfold degree. 
 The best horse is sufficiently loaded with three- 
 quarters of a ton on a common road, from the 
 undulating line of its draught, while on a rail- 
 way it is calculated that a horse will easily draw 
 a load of ten tons. At Lord Elgin's works, Mr 
 Stevenson, the celebrated engineer, states that 
 he has actually seen a horse draw twenty-three 
 tons thirteen cwt. upon a railway, which was in 
 some parts level, and at others presented a 
 gentle declivity ! 
 
 "The formation of a railway, if it creates no 
 improvement in a country, certainly bars none, 
 as all the former modes of communication re- 
 main unimpaired ; and the public obtain, at the 
 risk of the subscribers, another and better mode 
 of carriage, which it will always be to the 
 interest of the proprietors to make cheap and 
 serviceable to the community. 
 
 " On undertakings of this kind, when com- 
 pared with canals, the advantages of which 
 (where an extensive traffic on the ascending or 
 descending line can be obtained) are nearly 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 249 
 
 equal, it may be remarked that public opinion 
 is not easily changed on any subject. It re- 
 quires the experience of many years, sometimes 
 ages, to accomplish this, even in cases which by 
 some may be deemed obvious. Such is the 
 effect of habit, and such the aversion of mankind 
 to anything like innovation or change. Although 
 this is often regretted, yet, if the principle be 
 investigated in all its ramifications, it will per- 
 haps be found to be one of the most fortunate 
 dispositions of the human mind. 
 
 "The discovery of the cast-iron railway is 
 comparatively of recent date. It is not only 
 intimately connected with inland navigation, 
 and originated with it, but will be found, as it 
 becomes more perfect, to add to the efficiency 
 and utility of that system of communication, 
 whilst every step in advance must materially 
 promote the interests of the agriculturist, the 
 miner, the merchant, the mariner, and, in short, 
 of the community at large. 
 
 *' The system of cast-iron railways is as yet to 
 be considered but in its infancy. It will be 
 found to be an immense improvement on the 
 common road and also on the wooden railway. 
 It neither presents the friction of the tramway 
 nor partakes of the perishable nature of the 
 wooden railway, and, as regards utility, it may be 
 considered as the medium between the navigable 
 canal and the common road. We may, there- 
 fore, hope that as this system develops itself 
 our roads will be laid out as much as possible 
 on one level, and in connection with the great 
 lines of communication throughout the country." 
 
 Such were the modest anticipations of Edward 
 Pease respecting railways, about the year 1818. 
 Ten years after, and an age of progress, by com- 
 parison, had been made. Mr Pease did not at 
 first so much as dream of the locomotive, his 
 anticipations being solely based on the employ- 
 ment of horse-power. 
 
 If no other, the Act of 19th April 1821, had 
 one important and immediate consequence in 
 bringing "the engine-wright of Killingworth " 
 (as George Stephenson modestly styled himself) 
 into contact with Edward Pease. He called at 
 his house, as he told the worthy Quaker, be- 
 cause he had heard of the Act, bringing with 
 him a letter of introduction from the director of 
 the Killingworth pits. The conversation that 
 followed, after George Stephenson had presented 
 his letter to Edward Pease, was highly char- 
 acteristic of both men. As recorded by Mr 
 Smiles, the originator of the Stockton-Darling- 
 ton line "very soon saw that his visitor was 
 the man for his purpose. The whole plans of 
 the railway being still in an undetermined state, 
 Mr Pease was glad to have the opportunity of 
 gathering from Mr Stephenson the results of his 
 experience. The latter strongly recommended 
 a railway in preference to a tramroad, in which 
 Mr Pease was disposed to concur with him. 
 The conversation next turned to the trar'dve 
 
 power which the company intended to employ, 
 and Mr Pease said that they had based their 
 whole calculations on the employment of horse- 
 power. *I was so satisfied,' said he afterwards, 
 *that a horse upon an iron road would draw 
 ten tons, for one ton on a common road, that I 
 felt sure that before long the railway would be- 
 come the king's highway.' 
 
 " Mr Pease was scarcely prepared for the bold 
 assertion made by his visitor, that the locomo- 
 tive engine with which he had been working the 
 Killingworth railway for many years past was 
 worth fifty horses, and that engines made after 
 a similar plan would yet entirely supersede all 
 horse-power upon railroads. Mr Stephenson 
 was daily becoming more positive as to the 
 superiority of his locomotive; and on this, as 
 on all subsequent occasions, he strongly urged 
 Mr Pease to adopt it. * Come over to Killing- 
 worth,' said he, *and see what my "Blucher" 
 can do. Seeing is believing, sir.' And Mr 
 Pease promised that on some early day he 
 would go over to Killingworth with his friend 
 John Richardson, and take a look at this 
 wonderful machine that was to supersede horses. 
 On Mr Pease referring to the difficulties and 
 the opposition which the projectors of the rail- 
 way had had to encounter, and the obstacles 
 which still lay in their way, Stephenson said to 
 him, ' I think, sir, I have some knowledge of 
 craniology, and from what I see of your head I 
 feel sure that if you will fairly buckle to this 
 railway you are the man successfully to carry it 
 through.' *I think so too,' rejoined Mr Pease, 
 ' and I may observe to thee, that if thou succeed 
 in making this a good railway, thou may con- 
 sider thy fortune as good as made.*" The 
 remark and reply were alike characteristic of 
 the promoters of the first railway. 
 
 The graphic description, by an early friend, 
 of Mr Edward Pease, that "he was a man who 
 could see a hundred years ahead," was strikingly 
 proved in the weeks that followed his first inter- 
 view with George Stephenson. Having accepted 
 the invitation to "come over to Killingworth," 
 and having seen with his own eyes what "my 
 'Blucher' can do," his mind became at once 
 clear as to the immense future awaiting the 
 introduction of the "iron horse" upon the iron 
 railway, and he not only strongly advocated the 
 use of locomotives, but made himself Stephen- 
 son's partner in their manufacture. Through 
 his influence the still unknown engine-wright at 
 Killingworth was appointed engineer of the 
 Stockton-Darlington line, and at his urgent 
 request Mr Pease applied for a new Act of 
 Parliament giving the Stockton-Darlington Com- 
 pany power to work the railway by means of 
 locomotive engines, and to employ them for 
 the haulage of passengers as well as goods. The 
 Act was obtained with some difficulty, against 
 the bitter opposition of » number of powerful 
 peers, such as the Duke of Cleveland, in the 
 
250 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 session of 1823, when the construction of the 
 railway, under George Stephenson's supervision, 
 was already going on actively. The first rail of 
 the Stockton and Darlington line had been laid, 
 with considerable ceremony, near the town of 
 Stockton, on the 23d of May 1822, and notwith- 
 standing the uninterrupted opposition, fre- 
 quently growing into acts of personal violence, 
 of hundreds of enemies, backed by the whole 
 mob of the district, the works were pushed on 
 so vigorously, that it was possible to open the 
 line on the day fixed, the 27th of September 
 1825 — eventful day in railway history, well 
 worthy the great "Jubilee" held at Darlington 
 in 1875. 
 
 Of the first interview between Stephenson and 
 Pease, very graphic accounts have been given 
 by Mr Smiles, who had an interview with Mr 
 Pease in 1854, four years before his death, and 
 when he had reached the patriarchal age of 
 eighty-eight. Hale and hearty, and full of 
 reminiscences of the past, sound in health, with 
 his eye not dimmed or his natural force abated, 
 Mr Pease narrated many circumstances which 
 the biographer of the engineer has made full 
 use of. He described the appearance of Ste- 
 phenson as having "an honest, sensible look 
 about him, and so modest and unpretending 
 withal." Stephenson spoke in the strong Nor- 
 thumbrian dialect of his district, and described 
 himself as "only the engine- wright of ELilling- 
 worth — that's what I am." In the course of the 
 interview, Edward Pease said to Mr Smiles, 
 with much truth — referring to the growth of 
 the trees in front of his house which he had 
 planted as a boy— "Ay, but railways are a far 
 more extraordinary growth even than these. 
 They have grown up not only since I was a boy, 
 but since I was a man. When I started the 
 Stockton and Darlington, some five-and-thirty 
 years since, I was already fifty years old. No- 
 body would then have dreamt what railways 
 would have grown to in one man's lifetime." 
 
 The 27th day of September 1825 deserves to 
 be marked as a red-letter day in the calendar 
 of the world's history. On that morning the 
 greatest revolution of modern times was to be 
 inaugurated — the painfully slow development of 
 men's ideas up to that point being followed, 
 though not quite immediately, by results which 
 were none the less consequent upon that day's 
 proceedings, that the persons chiefly engaged in 
 the work failed entirely to see what the future 
 had in store for the world in supplement to the 
 success of the opening. 
 
 Tuesday, the 27th of September 1825, was a 
 great day for Darlington. The railway, after 
 having been under construction for more than 
 three years, was at length about to be opened. 
 The project had been the talk of the neighbour- 
 hood for so long that there were few people 
 within a range of twenty miles who did not feel 
 more or less interested about it. Was it to be 
 
 a failure or a success? Opinions were pretty 
 equally divided as to the railway, but as re- 
 garded the locomotive, the general belief was 
 that it would " never answer." However, there 
 the locomotive was — " No. 1 " — delivered on to 
 the line, and ready to draw the first train of 
 waggons on the opening day. 
 
 A great concourse of people assembled on the 
 occasion. Some came from Newcastle and Dur- 
 ham, many from the Aucklands, while Darling- 
 ton held a general holiday and turned out all 
 its population. To give kclat to the opening, 
 the directors of the company issued a programme 
 of the proceedings, intimating the times at 
 which the procession of waggons would pass 
 certain points along the line. The proprietors 
 assembled as early as six in the morning at the 
 Brusselton fixed engine, where the working of 
 the inclined planes was successfully rehearsed. 
 In this trial, as in the subsequent ceremony, a 
 train of waggons laden with coals and merchan- 
 dise was drawn up the western incline by the 
 fixed engine in seven and a half minutes, and 
 then lowered down the incline on the eastern 
 side of the hill in five minutes. 
 
 In spite of the evil prognostications heard on 
 all sides, the inauguration of the Stockton-Dar- 
 lington Railway passed over most satisfactorily. 
 The programme issued by the company, dated 
 ' ' Railway Office, September 19th, 1825," was as 
 follows : 
 
 "The Stockton and Darlington Railway Com- 
 pany do hereby give notice that the formal open- 
 ing of this railway will take place on the 27th 
 inst., as announced in the public papers. The 
 proprietors will assemble at the Permanent 
 Steam-Engine, situated near the Brusselton 
 Tower, about nine miles west of Darlington, at 
 eight o'clock, and, after examining their exten- 
 sive inclined planes there, will start from the 
 foot of the Brusselton descending plane at nine 
 o'clock in the following order : 
 
 "1. The company's locomotive engine. 
 
 "2. The engine's tender, with water and 
 coals. 
 
 " 3. Six waggons laden with coals, merchan- 
 dise, etc. 
 
 " 4. The committee, and other proprietors, in 
 the coach belonging to the company. 
 
 "5. Six waggons with seats reserved for 
 strangers. 
 
 " 6. Fourteen waggons, for the conveyance of 
 workmen and others. 
 
 " The whole of the above to proceed to Stock- 
 ton. 
 
 "7. Six waggons laden with coals, to leave 
 the procession at the Darlington branch. 
 
 " 8. Six waggons, drawn by horses, for work- 
 men and others. 
 
 "9. Ditto. 
 
 "10. Ditto. 
 
 "11. Ditto. 
 
 " The company's workmen to leave the pro- 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON, 
 
 251 
 
 cession at Darlington and dine at that place at 
 one o'clock, excepting those to whom tickets are 
 specially given for Yarm, and for whom convey- 
 ances will be provided on their arrival at Stock- 
 ton. 
 
 "Tickets will be given to the workmen who 
 are to dine at Darlington, specifying the houses 
 of entertainment. 
 
 "The proprietors, and such of the nobility 
 and gentry as may honour them with their com- 
 pany, will dine precisely at three o'clock at the 
 Town Hall, Stockton. Such of the party as 
 may incline to return to Darlington that even- 
 ing will find conveyances in waiting for their 
 accommodation, to start from the company's 
 wharf there precisely at seven o'clock. 
 
 •'The company take this opportunity of en- 
 joining on all their workpeople that attention 
 to 50&ne<y and decorum which they have hitherto 
 had the pleasure of observing. 
 
 "The committee give this public notice, that 
 all persons who shall ride upon, or by the sides 
 of the railway, on horseback, will incur the 
 penalties imposed by the Acts of Parliament 
 passed relative to this railway." 
 
 Appended to the programme was the following 
 footnote : 
 
 "Any individual desirous of seeing the train 
 of waggons descending the inclined plane from 
 Etherley, and in progress to Brusselton, may 
 have an opportunity of so doing, by being on 
 the railway at St Helen's Auckland, not later 
 than half-past seven o'clock." 
 
 At the foot of the Brusselton incline the pro- 
 cession of vehicles was formed, consisting of the 
 locomotive engine, " No. 1," driven by George 
 Stephenson himself; after it six waggons loaded 
 with coals and flour, then a covered coach con- 
 taining directors and proprietors, next twenty- 
 one coal waggons fitted up for passengers (with 
 which they were crammed), and lastly six more 
 waggons loaded with coals. 
 
 Strange to say, a man on a horse, carrying a 
 flag, with the motto of the company inscribed on 
 it, Periculum privatum, utilitas puhlicay headed 
 the procession! A lithographic view of the 
 great event, published shortly after, duly ex- 
 hibits the horseman and his flag. It was not 
 thought so dangerous a place after all. The 
 locomotive was only supposed to be able to go 
 at the rate of from four to six miles an hour ; 
 and an ordinary horse could easily keep ahead 
 of that. 
 
 Off" started the procession, with the horseman 
 at its head. A great concourse of people stood 
 along the Une. Many of them tried to accom- 
 pany it by running, and some gentlemen on 
 horseback galloped across the fields to keep up 
 with the engine. The railway descending with 
 a gentle incline towards Darlington, the rate of 
 speed was consequently variable. At a favour- 
 able part of the road, Stephenson determined to 
 try the speed of the engine, and he called upon 
 
 the horseman with the flag to get out of the 
 way! Most probably deeming it unnecessary 
 to carry his Periculum privatum further, the 
 horseman turned aside, and Stephenson "put 
 on the steam." The speed was at once raised 
 to twelve miles an hour, and, at a favourable 
 part of the road, to fifteen. The runners on 
 foot, the gentlemen on horseback, and the 
 horseman with the flag, were consequently soon 
 left far behind. 
 
 Although only George Stephenson's name is 
 mentioned as the driver of the locomotive "No. 
 1," his principal helper, Mr William Huntley, 
 who still (1877) lives, deserves some notice. Mr 
 Huntley, who was bom at Acklington in 1798, 
 was ten years in the employment of Stephenson 
 and Co. , and superintended the erection of the 
 "first locomotive." On the opening day, he 
 drove it in turn with George Stephenson. 
 Huntley afterwards erected the first locomotive 
 that drew a passenger train in Scotland, in 
 1831, and since that period he has been con- 
 nected with the railway system at Dundee. Mr 
 Huntley has attracted attention by his "con- 
 tinuous grip-brake," for stopping trains at high 
 speed, for which he has decided not to take out 
 a patent, presenting it freely to the consideration 
 of the railway world. 
 
 In 1824 an Act was obtained for the construc- 
 tion of the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, 
 from Palace Craig, in Lanarkshire, to the banks 
 of the canal at Kirkintilloch, in Dumbarton- 
 shire. The line was completed and opened a 
 year after the Stockton and Darlington, namely, 
 in September 1826, and was at first used only 
 for the conveyance of coal for shipment at the 
 canal. The waggons were drawn by steam loco- 
 motives. As it was found that passenger trafiic 
 could be cultivated, the directors, early in 1827, 
 added to most of the coal-trains a coach for the 
 conveyance of passengers, with considerable 
 profit to the company. The Ballochney Rail- 
 way, opened in 1828, also had some of its trains 
 drawn by locomotives ; and here, too, the addi- 
 tion of a passenger carriage proved a source of 
 convenience to the public and of profit to the 
 company. 
 
 The Canterbury and Whitstable was the fourth 
 completed line in the kingdom which used loco- 
 motives and carried passengers, and perhaps 
 from the fact that it did not, any more than the 
 two Scotch lines above named, attract much 
 public attention, its story is deserving of record 
 now. The Act for the formation of the line was 
 got in 1825, and with a capital of £35,000, it 
 was proposed to make a line six and a quarter 
 miles long, with heavy gradients, and a tunnel 
 half-a-mile long. This proved inadequate, and 
 subsequent Acts were obtained in 1827 and 1828 
 to raise new capital. As even these additions 
 proved too little, loans and mortgages were re- 
 sorted to, and it was only in May 1830 that the 
 public opening took place. Worked on a seriea 
 
252 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of inclined planes, partly by locomotives and 
 partly with fixed engines, the Canterbury and 
 Whitstable Kailway was a sufficiently remark- 
 able undertaking to attract public curiosity; 
 still the event of its opening was disposed of 
 briefly in the newspapers, as a thing of no more 
 importance than the maldng of a few miles of 
 ordinary road. It was, in fact, left to the 
 Liverpool and Manchester line, which was 
 opened four months later (September 15th) to 
 arouse the press and the public to the fact that 
 there was in existence a process for conveying 
 passengers and goods along the surface of the 
 earth immensely superior to anything known 
 in the world's history. The use of locomotive 
 engines both for passengers and goods was a 
 process fully established. Two lines of railway 
 in England and two in Scotland were daily prov- 
 ing its enormous value, yet the reports of the 
 inauguration of the railway connecting the great 
 port of Liverpool with the manufacturing centres 
 of Lancashire — perhaps not less by the success 
 of the proceedings than by the tragic death of a 
 popular statesman by which they were saddened 
 — were the first to open the eyes of the nation 
 and the world to the fact that the advent of the 
 iron horse was about to revolutionise not only 
 travelling but trade, and to bring to light a new 
 power which, whether for peace or war, was to 
 distance and displace all existing methods of 
 conveyance, and bring about a new social era. 
 
 Application was made to Parliament for leave 
 to lay down a railway from Liverpool to Man- 
 chester — a work then become indispensable to 
 those two increasing and important towns. At 
 that period, and for some time afterwards, 
 canal boats, and slow, heavy road waggons were 
 the only available means for the transport of 
 heavy goods or bulky merchandise. The charge 
 for conveyance from London to Yorkshire 
 amounted frequently to £13 per ton, and even 
 at this high cost the service was very imperfect. 
 Beneficial as canals had proved, they were be- 
 coming inadequate to the growing requirements 
 of trade. Besides the road there were two 
 canals for the traffic between Liverpool and 
 Manchester, the distance by the latter fifty- 
 five miles, and the carriage of goods in some 
 instances £2 per ton. Manchester was so en- 
 tirely dependent on Liverpool that better accom- 
 modation became a necessity. Another canal 
 could not be made, so a railway was projected ; 
 and the prospectus being issued in 1824, an Act 
 was obtained, after failure in the session of 
 1825, in the year 1826. 
 
 It was the intention of its projectors to run 
 the carriages upon it at a high rate of speed. To 
 do this with horses was expensive ; and to work 
 it by steam-power, it was supposed that station- 
 ary engines would be required at short intervals 
 along the road, to draw the trains by ropes from 
 one station to another. While the necessity for 
 the projected railway was admitted on all hands. 
 
 the idea of its being worked by locomotives at a 
 speed exceeding eight or nine miles an hour was 
 ridiculed. And when George Stephenson stated 
 that he could make the locomotive travel at the 
 rate of twenty miles an hour, it was received 
 with incredulity, and doubts were whispered as 
 to his sanity. A reviewer in the Qua/rt&dy 
 stated that nothing could be more palpably 
 absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives 
 travelling twice as fast as stage coaches, and 
 that people would as soon suffer themselves to be 
 fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets 
 as trust themselves to the mercy of a machine 
 going at such a rate. When examined before a 
 parliamentary committee, Stephenson's estimate 
 of speed caused one member of the committee 
 to remark that the engineer could only be fit 
 for a lunatic asylum. The following case was 
 put before Stephenson: "Suppose, now, one of 
 those engines to be going along a railroad at the 
 rate of nine or ten miles an hour, and that a 
 cow were to stray upon the line and get in the 
 way of the engine, would not that, think you, 
 be a very awkward circumstance?" "Yes," 
 replied the witness, with a twinkle in his eye, 
 "very awkward indeed— /or the cool" The 
 honourable member did not proceed further 
 with his cross-examination; and, saya Mr 
 Smiles, "to use a railway phrase, he was 
 shunted." 
 
 A premium of £500 was at length offered for 
 the best engine, one that should not produce 
 smoke, should draw three times its own weight 
 for thirty miles, at the rate of ten miles an 
 hour, should be supported on springs, shou-d 
 not weigh more than six tons, and should not 
 cost more than £550, At the time appointed, four 
 locomotives were presented for trial, and the com- 
 petition took place on the 6th of October 1829, 
 before many thousand spectators. One of the 
 competing engines, the "Perseverance," made 
 by Mr Burstall, being found unable to move at 
 more than five or six miles an hour, was with- 
 drawn. Another, called the "Novelty," made 
 by Messrs Braithwaite and Ericsson, was unable 
 to complete the trial owing to the bellows for 
 creating the blast having given way. A third, [ 
 called the "Sanspareil," submitted by Mr 
 Hackworth, succeeded in drawing a load at the 
 rate of fourteen miles an hour ; but at its eighth 
 trip along the two-mile level which formed the 
 course the cold-water pump got wrong, and it 
 could proceed no further. The "Kocket," 
 made by George Stephenson, however, made an 
 experimental trip of twelve miles, which was 
 performed without accident in about fifty-three 
 minutes. 
 
 Another day was fixed for the final trial of 
 the competing engines ; and on the morning of 
 the 8th of October the "Rocket" was again 
 ready for the contest. "On that occasion," 
 says Mr Smiles, " the engine was taken to the 
 extremity of the stage, the firebox was filled 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 253 
 
 with coke, the fire lighted, and the steam raised 
 until it lifted the safety-valve, loaded to a pres- 
 sure of 50 lbs. to the square inch. This pro- 
 ceeding occupied fifty-seven minutes. The 
 engine then started on its journey, dragging 
 after it ahout thirteen tons' weight in waggons, 
 and made the first ten trips, backwards and 
 forwards along the two miles of road, running 
 the thirty-five miles, including stoppages, in an 
 hour and forty-eight minutes. The second ten 
 trips were in like manner performed in two 
 hours and three minutes. The maximum velo- 
 city attained during the trial trip was twenty- 
 nine miles an hour, or about three times the 
 speed that one of the judges of the competition 
 declared to be the limit of possibility! The 
 average speed at which the whole of the jour- 
 neys were performed was fifteen miles an hour, 
 and five miles beyond the rate specified in the 
 conditions published by the company. The 
 entire performance excited the greatest astonish- 
 ment amongst the assembled spectators. The 
 directors felt confident that their enterprise was 
 now on the eve of success ; and George Stephen- 
 son rejoiced to think that, in spite of all false 
 prophets and fickle counsellors, his locomotive 
 system was safe. When the 'Rocket,' having 
 performed all the conditions of the contest, 
 arrived at the "grand stand" at the close of its 
 day's successful run, Mr Cropper, one of the 
 directors favourable to the fixed-engine system, 
 lifted up his hands and exclaimed, 'Now has 
 George Stephenson at last delivered himself.' 
 This interesting engine, the parent of the loco- 
 motives at present in use, is still to be seen in 
 the Patent Museum at South Kensington." 
 
 The prize of £500 was at once awarded to the 
 maker of the "Rocket." The engine was not 
 only remarkable for its speed, but also for the 
 contrivances by which that speed was attained. 
 Most important among them was the introduc- 
 tion of tubes passing from end to end of the 
 boiler — said to have been suggested by Mr 
 Booth, secretary to the company — by means of 
 which so great an additional surface was exposed 
 to the heat of the fire, that steam was generated 
 much more rapidly, and a higher temperature 
 maintained at a smaller expenditure of fuel than 
 usual. The tubular boiler was indeed the grand 
 fact of the experiment. Without tubes steam 
 could never have been produced with the rapidity 
 and heat essential to quick locomotion ; and by 
 burning coke instead of coal, the stipulated 
 suppression of smoke was effected. The quan- 
 tity of fuel consumed by the "Rocket" during 
 the experiment was half a ton, the coke and water 
 being carried in a tender attached to the engine. 
 
 One of George Stephenson's crowning achieve- 
 ments was the formation of the Manchester and 
 Liverpool line; a project which, despite the 
 sarcasms and incredulity with which it was 
 assailed, succeeded beyond the engineer's most 
 sanguine hopes. 
 
 "Mr George Stephenson," says Mr Smiles in 
 his most interesting biography, " was no sooner 
 appointed engineer than he removed his resi- 
 dence to Liverpool, and made arrangements to 
 commence the works. He began with the im- 
 possible — to do that which the most distinguished 
 engineers of the day had declared that ' no man 
 in his senses would undertake to do ' — namely, 
 to make the road over Chat Moss ! The drain- 
 age of the moss was commenced in June 1826. 
 It was, indeed, a most formidable undertaking ; 
 and it has been well observed that to carry a 
 railway along, under, or over such material as 
 the moss presented, could never have been con- 
 templated by an ordinary mind. Michael Dray- 
 ton supposed Chat Moss to have had its origin 
 at the Deluge. Nothing more impassable could 
 have been imagined than that dreary waste ; 
 and Mr Giles only spoke the popular feeling of 
 the day when he declared that no carriage could 
 stand on it ' short of the bottom.' In this bog, 
 singular to say, Mr Roscoe, the accomplished 
 historian of the Medicis, buried his fortune in 
 the hopeless attempt to cultivate it. Neverthe- 
 less, farming operations had for some time been 
 going on, and were extending along the verge of 
 the moss ; but the tilled ground, underneath 
 which the bog extended, was so soft that the 
 horses when ploughing were provided with flat- 
 soled shoes to prevent their hoofs sinking deep 
 into the soil. 
 
 " For weeks the stuff was poured in, and 
 little or no progress seemed to have been made. 
 The directors of the railway became alarmed, 
 and they feared that the evil prognostications 
 of the eminent civil engineers were now about 
 to be realised. 
 
 "Mr Stephenson was asked for his opinion; 
 and his invariable answer was, 'We must per- 
 severe.' And so he went on; but still the in- 
 satiable bog gaped for more material, which was 
 emptied in truck-load after truck-load without 
 any apparent effect. Then a special meeting of 
 the board was summoned, and it was held upon 
 the spot, to determine whether the work should 
 be proceeded with or abandoned. Mr Stephen- 
 son himself afterwards described the transaction 
 at a public dinner given at Birmingham on the 
 23d of December 1837, on the occasion of a piece 
 of plate being presented to his son, the engineer 
 of the London and Birmingham Railway. He 
 related the anecdote, he said, for the purpose of 
 impressing upon the minds of all who heard 
 him the necessity of perseverance. 
 
 "'After working for weeks and weeks,' said 
 he, 'in filling in materials to form the road, 
 there did not yet appear to be the least sign of 
 our being able to raise the solid embankment 
 one single inch : in short, we went on filling in 
 without the slightest apparent effect. Even my 
 assistants began to feel uneasy, and to doubt of 
 the success of the scheme. The directors, too, 
 spoke of it as a hopeless task, and at length they 
 
254 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 became seriously alarmed ; so much so, indeed, 
 that a board meeting was held on Chat Moss to 
 decide whether I should proceed any further. 
 They had previously taken the opinion of other 
 engineers, who reported unfavourably. There 
 was no help for it, however, but to go on. An 
 immense outlay had been incurred; and great 
 loss would have been occasioned had the scheme 
 been then abandoned and the line taken by an- 
 other route. So the directors were compelled to 
 allow me to go on with my plans, of the ulti- 
 mate success of which I myself never for one 
 moment doubted. Determined, therefore, to 
 persevere as before, I ordered the work to be 
 carried on vigorously; and to the surprise of 
 every one connected with the undertaking, in 
 six months from the day on which the board 
 had held its special meeting on the moss, a loco- 
 motive engine and carriage passed over the very 
 spot with a party of the directors' friends on 
 their way to dine at Manchester.'" 
 
 The works were so far advanced that the line 
 was expected to be ready for opening on 1st 
 January 1830. A desire to secure greater pro- 
 minence to the event postponed the opening to 
 a later date, and it was not till the 15th of 
 September that the inauguration took place. 
 
 After the opening of the Liverpool and Man- 
 chester line, Stephenson took up his residence 
 near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, where 
 he resided for some years. In company with 
 two Liverpool friends, he purchased an estate in 
 the neighbourhood of Ashby, called Snibston, 
 where he sank several shafts; and after over- 
 coming no common difficulties, by means of the 
 Leicester and Swannington Railway, the people 
 of Leicester were enabled to purchase coals at 
 8s. a ton. This, Mr Smiles remarks, must have 
 had the effect of saving about £40,000 per 
 annum to the inhabitants. His correspondence 
 had now increased so much that he was obliged 
 to engage a private secretary. In the year 1835, 
 during his busy season, he dictated no fewer than 
 thirty-seven letters daily. At another time, he 
 dictated letters and reports for twelve hours at 
 a time, until his secretary was like to drop from 
 his chair with fatigue, and was obliged to ask 
 for a suspension from labour. These years end- 
 ing 1837 are said by his biographer to have been 
 the busiest of his life ; amongst other duties, he 
 was engaged in the survey as principal engineer 
 of the North Midland Railway from Derby to 
 Leeds, the York and North Midland from Nor- 
 manton to York, the Manchester and Leeds, the 
 Birmingham and Derby, and the Sheffield and 
 Rotherham Railways. In 1841 he said that 
 there was hardly a railway in England which he 
 had not had to do with. In the survey of a pro- 
 posed line in Scotland between Edinburgh and 
 Newcastle, by the vale of the Gala (now occupied 
 by the Waverley route), and by Carter Fell on 
 the Cheviots, as against a coast route by way of 
 
 Berwick-on-Tweed, his report was strongly in 
 favour of the latter. The reasons were apparent 
 — the railway would follow that low coast-line, 
 possessing levels of a favourable nature, and 
 being near the coast the snow would not lie so 
 long on the line. The rush for railway Acts, as 
 Mr Smiles tells us, was now extraordinary. In 
 the year 1836, thirty-four bills passed the legis- 
 lature, authorising the making of 994 miles of 
 new railway, the cost being estimated at 
 £17,595,000. During 1837 no less than 118 
 notices of new railway bills were given in. Of 
 these, seventy-nine were introduced to Parlia- 
 ment, forty-two Acts were obtained, fourteen 
 companies were incorporated and authorised to 
 construct 464 miles of railway at a cost of 
 £8,087,000. From 1838 till 1844 the desire for 
 new railway works was moderated, and in 1845 
 another tide of railway speculation set in. 
 Powers were granted by Parliament during that 
 year to construct 2883 miles of new railways in 
 Britain, and next year the power was conceded 
 for still larger undertakings. 
 
 Speaking at Blackburn in 1840, Stephenson 
 intimated his intention of retiring from the more 
 arduous portion of his duties, which he did by 
 resigning his charge as chief engineer on several 
 of the railways with which he was connected. 
 He had removed in 1838 to Tapton House, near 
 Chesterfield, and he was able to enjoy the 
 grounds, which he greatly improved. His name 
 and presence were common at this time with the 
 Mechanics' Institutes of the Midland Counties. 
 In 1844 he was appointed engineer to the White- 
 haren and Mary port Railway, and at about the 
 same time was elected chairman of the Yar- 
 mouth and Norwich Railway. The Newcastle 
 and Darlington line was completed and publicly 
 opened in 1844. By this line direct communi- 
 cation was gained with London. Mr Stephen- 
 son, Mr Hudson, and a distinguished party, tra- 
 velled from London to Newcastle in nine hours. 
 At the banquet in the evening, the honourable 
 Mr Liddell, M.P., occupied the chair, and paid 
 a high compliment to George Stephenson and 
 his son Robert. " Mr Stephenson," he said, 
 ** might truly be looked upon as the great paci- 
 ficator of the age. And yet a few years ago he 
 was but a working engineman at a colliery. But 
 he was a man not only of talent but of genius. 
 Happily, also, he was a man of industry and of 
 character. He constructed the first successful 
 engine that travelled by its own spontaneous 
 power over an iron railroad, and on such a road, 
 and by such an engine, a communication had 
 now been established between London and New- 
 castle. The author of this system of travelling 
 had lived long enough for his fame but not long 
 enough for his country. He bad reared to him- 
 self a monument more durable than brass or 
 marble, and based it on a foundation whereon 
 it would rest unshaken by the storms of time." 
 Stephenson replied as follows : "As the honour- 
 
GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
 255 
 
 able member," said he, "has referred to the en- 
 gineering efforts of my early days, it may not he 
 amiss if I say a few words to you on that sub- 
 ject, more especially for the encouragement of 
 my younger friends. Mr Liddell has told you 
 that in my early days I worked at an engine at 
 a coal-pit. I had then to work early and late, 
 and my employment was a most laborious one. 
 For about twenty years I had often to rise to my 
 labour at one and two o'clock in the morning, 
 and worked till late at night. Time rolled on, 
 and I had the happiness to make some improve- 
 ments in engine-work. The company will be 
 gratified when I tell them that the first locomo- 
 tive that I made was at Killingworth Colliery. 
 The owners were pleased with what I had done 
 in the collieries, and I then proposed to make 
 an engine to work upon the smooth rails. It 
 was with Lord Ravensworth's money that my 
 first locomotive was built. Yes, Lord Ravens- 
 worth and his partners were the first gentlemen 
 to entrust me with money to make a locomotive. 
 This was more than thirty years ago, and we 
 first called it ' My Lord.' I then stated to some 
 of my friends now living that those high velo- 
 cities with which we are now so familiar would 
 sooner or later be attained, and that there was 
 no limit to the speed of such an engine, provided 
 the works could be made to stand ; but nobody 
 would believe me at that time. The engines 
 could not perform the high velocities now reached 
 when they were first invented, but, by their 
 superior construction, an immense speed is now 
 capable of being obtained. In what has been 
 done under my management, the merit is only 
 in part my own. Throughout I have been most 
 ably seconded and assisted by my son. In the 
 early period of my career, and when he was a 
 little boy, I felt how deficient I was in educa- 
 tion, and made up my mind that I would put 
 him to a good school. I determined that he 
 should have as liberal a training as I could afford 
 to give him. I was, however, a poor man ; and 
 how do you think I managed ? I betook myself 
 to mending my neighbours' clocks and watches 
 at night after my daily labour was done. By 
 this means I saved money, which I put by ; and 
 in course of time I was thus enabled to give my 
 son a good education. While quite a boy he 
 assisted me and became a companion to me. He 
 got an appointment as under-viewer at Killing- 
 worth, and at nights when we came home we 
 worked together at our engineering. I got leave 
 from my employers to go from ELillingworth to 
 lay down a railway at Hetton, and next to Dar- 
 lington for a like purpose ; and I finished both 
 railways. After that, I went to Liverpool to 
 plan a line to Manchester. The directors of that 
 undertaking thought ten miles an hour would 
 be a maximum speed for the locomotive engine, 
 and I pledged myself to attain that speed. I 
 said I had no doubt the locomotive might be 
 made to go much faster, but we had better be 
 
 moderate at the beginning. The directors said 
 that I was quite right ; for if, when they went 
 to Parliament, I talked of going at a greater 
 rate than ten miles an hour, I should put a cross 
 on the concern. It was not an easy task for me 
 to keep the engine down to ten miles an hour, 
 but it must be done ; and I did my best. I had 
 to place myself in the most unpleasant of all 
 positions — the witness-box of a parliamentary 
 committee. I was not long in it, I assure you, 
 before I began to wish for a hole to creep out at. 
 I could not find words to satisfy the committee 
 or myself, or even to make them understand my 
 meaning. Some said, 'He's a foreigner.' *No,' 
 others replied, 'he's mad.' But I put up with 
 every rebuff, and went on with my plans, deter- 
 mined not to be put down. Assistance gradu- 
 ally increased ; great improvements were made 
 in the locomotive, until to-day, a train which 
 started from London in the morning has brought 
 me in the afternoon to my native soil, and en- 
 abled me to meet again many faces with which 
 I am familiar, and which I am exceedingly 
 pleased to see once more." 
 
 When the question of the use of atmospheric 
 railways versus the locomotive came before 
 Parliament in 1845, the locomotive triumphed. 
 "The king of railway structures," the high- 
 level bridge over the Tyne, was first promul- 
 gated by Mr R. W. Brandling in 1841. The 
 designs for the bridge were Mr Robert Stephen- 
 son's, and the name of George Stephenson ap- 
 peared in the committee of management. In 
 1835 George Stephenson and his son had been 
 consulted as to the establishment of an efficient 
 railway system throughout Belgium. During a 
 visit to Belgium the king appointed him a Knight 
 of the Order of Leopold. From the opening of 
 the first lines in 1835 until 1844, about six and 
 a half millions sterling had been laid out in 
 railways there. The Belgian lines being exe- 
 cuted as an entire system by the State, their 
 railway system is said by Mr Smiles to have 
 averaged in cost less than one-half that of Eng- 
 land. Stephenson was present at the public 
 opening of the line from Brussels to Ghent, and 
 on the day following had the honour of dining 
 with the king and queen at their own table at 
 Laaken. The engineers of Brussels entertained 
 him to a magnificent banquet. A model of 
 the "Rocket" was placed upon the centre table 
 at dinner, under a triumphal arch. The king 
 had a private interview with him, when he is 
 said to have been easy and self-possessed while 
 explaining to him the structure of the Belgian 
 coalfields, with the rise and progress of trade and 
 manufactures, which were so closely dependent 
 for their existence on these coalfields. In 1845 
 he visited Spain, in order to report on "the Royal 
 North of Spain Railway," but his report was so 
 unfavourable that the scheme was abandoned. 
 
 Towards the close of his days, George Stephen- 
 son lived the life of a country gentleman, and 
 
256 
 
 TREASUR V OR MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 began to take a greater interest than he had 
 ever previously time or opportunity to do in 
 horticultural pursuits. He built melon-houses, 
 pineries, and vineries, and workmen were con- 
 tinually busied in his garden. He also carried 
 on farming operations to some extent. His old 
 love for birds and other animals returned, and 
 he soon knew every bird's nest in the neighbour- 
 hood. He read few books, loving to gather the 
 most of his information from intelligent con- 
 versation, and the most of his letters were 
 dictated. His simple tastes in eating and 
 drinking continued to the last, and he could 
 still enjoy a bowl of "crowdie," a dish made 
 with oatmeal and boiling water — a reminiscence 
 of his pitman days. He despised foppery of all 
 kinds, and one day when a young man, desirous 
 to be an engineer, came to him for advice, 
 flourishing a gold-headed cane, he said, "Put 
 by that stick, my man, and then I will speak 
 to you." To another affectedly-dressed young 
 man he one day said, "You will, I hope, Mr 
 
 , excuse me ; I am a plain-spoken person, 
 
 and am sorry to see a nice-looking and rather 
 clever young man like you disfigured with that 
 fine-patterned waistcoat, and all these chains 
 and fang-dangs. If I, sir, had bothered my 
 head with such things when at your age, I 
 would not have been where I am now." Occa- 
 sionally he would visit old scenes at Newcastle, 
 but generally avoided, if possible, what was 
 called fine company ; he also refused Sir Kobert 
 Peel's offers of knighthood. Projectors of 
 various kinds would seek his advice on sub- 
 jects connected with mechanical engineering. 
 During the last year of his life Mr Stephenson 
 met Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great American 
 
 i thinker and writer. Emerson afterwards re- 
 marked " that it was worth crossing the Atlantic 
 to have seen Stephenson alone ; he had such 
 native force of character and vigour of intellect." 
 Universally respected, and simple-minded and 
 upright to the last, George Stephenson passed 
 away on the 12th August 1848, in his sixty- 
 seventh year. 
 
 Mr Smiles has drawn the following word- 
 portrait of the great engineer : " His fair, clear 
 countenance was ruddy, and seemingly glowed 
 with health. The forehead was large and high, 
 projecting over the eyes ; and there was that 
 massive breadth across the lower part, which is 
 usually observed in men of eminent constructive 
 skill. The mouth was firmly marked; and 
 shrewdness and humour lurked there as well as 
 in the keen grey eye. His frame was compact, 
 well-knit, and rather spare. His hair became 
 grey at an early age, and towards the close of 
 his life it was of a pure silky whiteness. He 
 dressed neatly in black, wearing a white neck- 
 cloth ; and his face, his person, and his deport- 
 ment at once arrested attention, and marked 
 the gentleman." His distinguished son Robert 
 only survived him eleven years. His death 
 took place in 1859, when in his fifty-sixth year, 
 and he received the honour of a public funeral, 
 and was interred in Westminster Abbey. He 
 designed the high-level bridge across the Tyne 
 at Newcastle, and with Sir William Fairbaim 
 of Manchester he divides the honour of the 
 j Conway and the Britannia tubular bridges in 
 i North Wales. The honour of the invention of 
 the tubular system of bridge-building rests with 
 Fairbairn. The tubular bridge across the St Law- 
 rence at Montreal was also Stephenson's design. 
 
 JOHN WILSOK 
 
 [1785-1854.] 
 
 John Wilson, the "Christopher North" of 
 Blackwood's Magaaine^ and the genial and in- 
 spired Professor of Moral Philosophy in Edin- 
 burgh University, was born at No. 40 High 
 Street, Paisley, 18th May 1785. His father was 
 a manufacturer there ; his mother, Margaret 
 Sym, came from a respectable family in the 
 west of Scotland. The rudiments of his educa- 
 tion he received at the schools of his native 
 town, and at the manse of Mearns, Renfrew- 
 shire, under Dr Macletchie. Reminiscences of 
 his early days, with his trouting excursions, and 
 his other sports and exercises, occur in many 
 of his after magazine contributions. He also 
 spent some time in Glenorchy, in the Highlands, 
 under the tuition of Rev. Dr Joseph M'Intyre, 
 
 where he laid the foundation of his love and 
 knowledge of the scenery of the Highlands. He 
 became a student of Glasgow University when 
 in his fifteenth year, made rapid progress in 
 Greek under Professor Young, but his intellect 
 was still further developed by an attendance on 
 the logic class of Professor Jardine. He went 
 to Oxford in 1804, where he was a leader in 
 every kind of sport and recreation, became 
 noted for feats of strength and agility, and con- 
 tinued his classical studies. He was the best 
 boxer, runner, and leaper, at the university. 
 Amongst other honours, he gained the Newdi- 
 gate prize in 1806 for an English poem, " On the 
 Study of Greek and Roman Architecture." He 
 was "a fair-haired Hercules-Apollo ' says a 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH 
 
 257 
 
 certain writer, speaking of his life at this time, 
 "and with plenty of money, enabling him to 
 gratify his tastes whatever they might be, he 
 had scarcely left Oxford when he signalised his 
 double character by purchasing or having pur- 
 chased for him by his father the small but 
 beautiful estate of Elleray, on Lake Winder- 
 mere, where, as Hercules, he might yacht about 
 at his pleasure, beat the best boatmen at the 
 oar, and wrestle or box with the strongest dales- 
 man, and as Apollo he might revel in the quiet 
 beauties of the finest of English scenery, indulge 
 undisturbed in poetic dreams of his own, and 
 cultivate with due reverence the society of 
 Wordsworth." 
 
 He also gained the friendship and acquaint- 
 ance of Coleridge, Southey, and De Quincey. 
 In 1810 he met an English lady, Miss Jane 
 Penny, the daughter of a wealthy Liverpool 
 merchant, and falling in love with her at first 
 sight, she was wooed and won in a short time. 
 He had published some anonymous writings 
 in Coleridge's Friend and elsewhere, when 
 in 1811, on the death of his friend the Rev. 
 ifames Grahame, he published an elegy to his 
 memory. Part of the year he now spent in 
 Edinburgh. In 1812 he published " The Isle of 
 Palms," a poem in four cantos. He was called 
 to the Scottish bar in 1815, but never practised, 
 but from that time forward took up his residence 
 in Edinburgh. 
 
 By the negligent management of his property 
 by a maternal uncle, a guardian, and through 
 his own carelessness in pecuniary matters, he 
 felt the necessity of adopting some profession. 
 As the law failed him, he drifted into literature. 
 He contributed one criticism on the fourth canto 
 of " Childe Harold " to the Edinburgh Review, 
 his only article in that periodical. " His pre- 
 possessions, both political and literary, led him 
 to attach himself to the little band of young 
 Tories, with Scott as a cautious veteran to advise 
 them, who were disposed to break out in 
 rebellion against Jeffrey's Whig supremacy in 
 the northern world of letters ; and, accordingly, 
 when Blackwood (1817) started his magazine to 
 afford an outlet for native Scottish Toryism 
 similar to that which had been already provided 
 in the Quarterly Review for British Toryism in 
 general, Wilson was one of the first to join hira. 
 He had just then added to his laurels, as one of 
 the Lakists, by the publication (1816) of a poem 
 of some length, entitled "The City of the 
 Plague;" his magnificent physique was the 
 admiration of Edinburgh, so that, as he walked 
 hurriedly along Princes Street, in somewhat 
 wild costume, and with his fair hair streaming 
 from under his broad white hat, heads were 
 turned to look at him ; and his reputation in 
 social circles was that of a young Goth of genius 
 with powers undeveloped, which would one day 
 astonish Britain." He exercised such a marked 
 influence on the fortunes oi Blackwood' sMagazine, 
 
 that he was commonly regarded as its editor, 
 but all along the editorship has mainly rested 
 with the publishers. *' Blaxkwood is his monu- 
 ment," says Hannay, "as the Edinburgh is 
 Jeffrey's, though Wilson has now probably fifty 
 readers for Jeffrey's one. To Blackwood Wilson 
 was what Fonblanque was to the Examiner, what 
 Captain Sterling for a period was to the Time*, 
 what Lockhart was to the Quarterly." 
 
 Mr J. G. Lockhart, in "Peter's Letters to his 
 Kinsfolk," gives the following sketch of his per- 
 sonal appearance at this time : "A very robust, 
 athletic man, broad across the back, firm set 
 upon his limbs, and having altogether very 
 much of that sort of air which is inseparable 
 from the consciousness of great bodily energies. 
 I suppose, in leaping, wrestling, or boxing, he 
 might easily beat any of the poets, his contem- 
 poraries, and I rather suspect, that in speaking, 
 he would have as easy a triumph over the whole 
 of them, except Coleridge. In complexion, he 
 is the best specimen I have ever seen of the 
 genuine or ideal Goth. His hair is of the true 
 Sicambrian yellow ; his eyes are of the lightest, 
 and at the same time of the clearest blue ; and 
 the blood glows in his cheek with as firm a fer- 
 vour as it did, according to the description of 
 Jornandes, in those of the 'Bello gaudentes, 
 prselio ridentes Teutones' of Attila. I had 
 never suspected, before I saw him, that such 
 extreme fairness and freshness of complexion 
 could be compatible with so much variety and 
 tenderness, but above all, with so much depth 
 of expression. His forehead is finely but 
 strangely shaped ; the regions of pure fancy and 
 of pure wit being both developed in a very 
 striking manner, which is but seldom the case 
 in any one individual, and the organ of observa- 
 tion having projected the sinus frontalis to a 
 degree that is altogether uncommon. I have 
 never seen a physiognomy which could pass with 
 so much rapidity from the serious to the most 
 ludicrous of effects. It is more eloquent, both 
 in its gravity and in its levity, than almost any 
 countenance I am acquainted with is in any one 
 cast of expression; and yet I am not without 
 my suspicions, that the versatility of its lan- 
 guage may, in the end, take away from its 
 power." 
 
 He was elected by the Edinburgh Town 
 Council to the chair of Moral Philosophy in the 
 university in 1820, more on the grounds of his 
 political opinions, and the promise of his genius, 
 than on account of any solid work already ac- 
 complished in the field of philosophy or meta- 
 physics. Sir William Hamilton was a defeated 
 candidate on the occasion. His first professed 
 prose work was a series of tales, published in 
 1822, under the title of " Lights and Shadows 
 of Scottish Life." Another work, "The Trials 
 of Margaret Lyndsay," followed in 1823. " He 
 wrote," says a certain author, "political articles 
 on the questions of the day, in which he blazed 
 
 R 
 
258 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 out as a Tory in a manner heartily satisfying to 
 his instincts, and yet not possible had he kept 
 to metre. He wrote literary criticisms in which 
 he advanced and expounded canons of taste, 
 especially in poetry, deeper than those of 
 JejGFrey, and vindicated against that critic and 
 his disciples the poetic claims of Wordsworth 
 and the writers associated with him. He wrote, 
 either as lectures or as articles, subtle philo- 
 sophical disquisitions, not very connected or 
 systematic perhaps, but gleaming with brilliant 
 ideas, and tinged throughout with that rich and 
 highly-coloured mode of metaphysics which Cole- 
 ridge was diffusing through England. Lastly, 
 careless of the formality conventionally identi- 
 fied with the gown of a Scotch professor, and 
 that the gown of a professor of moral philosophy, 
 he wrote papers for the magazine in which he 
 was seen relapsing ideally into his character as 
 an untrammelled human being, a bruiser at 
 country fairs, a sportsman on Scottish hills and 
 rivers, a boon-companion among bacchanalians, 
 commenting on men and manners, on life and 
 literature, from the point of view of an inspired 
 king of the gipsies, or from amid the uproarious 
 conditions of a city orgy." The most famous of 
 his papers to Blackwood was the series called 
 *'Noctes Ambrosianse," begun in 1822, and 
 continued till the death of the Ettrick Shepherd 
 in 1836. The series which followed from 1836 
 to 1846, called "Dies Boreales," were not so 
 popular. His wife died in March 1837, and he 
 never recovered from the shock which this event 
 gave him. He was now less active than he had 
 been. In 1850 he was elected the first president 
 of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, and 
 in 1851 a Civil List pension of £300 was con- 
 ferred upon him by the Queen on the recom- 
 mendation of the Premier, Lord John Russell. 
 In 1852 he was obliged to resign his professor- 
 ship in consequence of impaired health. *'In 
 the autumn," says a certain writer, "his old 
 comrade, the 'Scorpion,' pays him a visit. 
 They spend a few hours together, talking of old 
 days. They part; and Wilson stands at the 
 door and watches Lockhart till the carriage is 
 out of sight. They have parted for the last 
 time. Week by week he grows feebler. The 
 mighty limbs that did the six miles ' toe and 
 heel' on the Renfrew road within the hour, 
 and that cleared the wide-flowing Cherwell at 
 one bound, and made play of a twenty-six miles' 
 walk from Loch Tull for the top of a fishing-rod, 
 cannot now so much as support the gigantic 
 frame from which the last ebbings of former 
 strength are fast draining away. But he has 
 not forgotten the glorious days when he * used 
 to gallop to the glens like a deer, over a hundred 
 heathery hills, to devour the dark rolling river 
 or the blue breezy loch,' He has not forgotten 
 the days when his heart leapt to hear the thun- 
 ders of the nearing waterfall. For, as he rests 
 in bed, propped up with pillows, he has the 
 
 coverlet bestrewn with fishing-tackle. See how 
 neatly he picks out each elegantly-dressed fly 
 from the bunch, drawing it out with trembling 
 hand along the white coverlet, and then replac- 
 ing it in his pocket-book. Ah! Christopher, 
 thy days are over ; thou shalt never throw a fly 
 into Loch Tull again for ever ; thou shalt never 
 again stride through the rushing torrent to the 
 glorious music of thy running and ringing reel 
 It is the noise of far other waters that is sound- 
 ing in thine ears now. The first of April comes, 
 and the birch is brightening with another spring 
 in the Mearns woods, but Christopher lies dying 
 in his bed. A mortal change has come over 
 him. A shock has paralysed him, and he is 
 unable to speak. Another day goes by, and 
 still he breathes. At times, with his feeble 
 hand he knocks on the table that stands at his 
 bedside. It is his old signal for his servant. 
 Perhaps he means it for his thanks for her long 
 and faithful services, or perhaps he is thinking 
 of other days. The day wears by, and the night 
 closes in that shall have to him no morning. 
 Towards midnight he passes his hand frequently 
 across his eyes and head, as if to remove some- 
 thing obstructing his vision. At last the su- 
 preme moment, that comes to all of us, arrives. 
 A bitter expression for an instant crosses his 
 face, then all is over. The city clocks chime 
 the midnight hour, and the spirit of Christo- 
 pher North has passed away for ever." He died 
 on the 3d of April 1854, and his remains were 
 consigned to the Dean Cemetery. The collected 
 edition of his works was edited by his son-in- 
 law, Professor Ferrier, and his life was written 
 by his daughter, Mrs Gordon. A monumental 
 statue in bronze has been erected to his memory 
 in the Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh. 
 
 Although Carlyle and Professor Wilson met 
 but seldom, the letter which follows shows 
 what a high place Wilson had in the regard of 
 the former. It is dated Craigenputtoch, 19th 
 December 1829. 
 
 **Mt dear Sir, — Your kind promise of a 
 Christmas visit has not been forgotten here; 
 and though we are not without misgivings as 
 to its fulfilment, some hope also still lingers; 
 at all events, if we must go unserved, it shall 
 not be for want of wishing and audible asking. 
 Come, then, if you would do us a high/awwr, 
 that warm hearts may welcome in the cold New 
 Year, and the voice of poetry and philosophy, 
 numeris lege solutis, may for once be heard in 
 these deserts, where, since Noah's deluge, little 
 but the whirritig of heath-cocks and the lowing 
 of oxen has broken the stillness. You shall 
 have a warm fire, and a warm welcome ; and we 
 will talk in all dialects, concerning all things ; 
 climb to hill tops, and see certain of the king- 
 doms of this world, and at night gather round 
 a clear hearth, and forget that winter and the 
 devil are so busy in our planet. There are 
 seasons when one seems as if emancipated from 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH 
 
 259 
 
 the 'prison called life,' as if its bolts were 
 hroken, and the Russian ice-palace were changed 
 into an open sunny Temper and man might love 
 his brother without fraud or fear ! A few such 
 hours are scattered over our existence, other- 
 wise it were too hard, and would make us too 
 hard. . . . 
 
 " I have some thoughts of beginning to pro- 
 phesy next year, if I prosper; that seems the 
 best style, could one strike into it rightly. 
 
 " Now, tell me if you will come, or if you 
 absolutely refuse. At all events, remember me 
 as long as you can in goodwill and affection, as 
 I will ever remember you. My wife sends you 
 her kindest regards, and still hopes against hope 
 that she shall wear her Goethe brooch this 
 Christmas — a thing only done when there is a 
 man of genius in the company." 
 
 PROFESSOR WILSON.* 
 
 When we first saw Professor Wilson — now 
 more than three-and-thirty years ago — no more 
 remarkable person could have attracted atten- 
 tion. Physically and mentally he was the em- 
 bodied type of energy, power, and self-reliance. 
 The tall and elastic frame, the massive head 
 that crowned it, the waving hair, the finely-cut 
 features, the eye flashing with every variety of 
 emotion, the pure and eloquent blood which 
 spoke in the cheek, the stately lion-like port of 
 the man — all announced, at the first glance, one 
 of nature's nobles. And to the outward presence 
 corresponded the mind within ; for rarely have 
 qualities so varied been blended in such mar- 
 vellous and harmonious union. The culture of 
 English scholarship had softened the more 
 rugged features of his Scottish education. The 
 knowledge of life, and sympathy with all its 
 forms, from the highest to the lowest, had 
 steadied the views and corrected the sentimental 
 vagueness of the poetical temperament : a strong 
 and practical sagacity pervaded, and gave reality 
 to, all the creations of his imagination. Ex- 
 tensive and excursive reading — at least in English 
 literature and the classics — combined with a 
 singular accuracy and minuteness of natural 
 observation, had stored his mind with facts of 
 every kind, and stamped the results upon an 
 iron memory. Nature and early training had 
 so balanced his faculties that all themes seemed 
 to come alike to his hand : the driest, provided 
 only it bore upon the actual concerns of life, 
 had nothing repulsive for him: he could ex- 
 patiate in the field of the mournful as if it were 
 his habitual element, and turn to the sportive 
 and the fantastic, as if he had been all his life a 
 denizen of the court of Comus. The qualities 
 of the heart partook of this expansive and uni- 
 versal character. Affections as tender as they 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, May 1854. 
 
 were impetuous, checked and softened the im- 
 pulses of a fiery temper and vehement will, and 
 infused a pathetic and relenting spirit into 
 strains of invective that were deviating into 
 harshness. That he should have been without 
 warm dislikings, as well as warm attachments, 
 would imply an impossibility. But from every- 
 thing petty or rancorous he was absolutely free. 
 Most justly wa3 he entitled to say of himself, 
 that he never knew envy except as he had studied 
 it in others. His opposition, if it was uncom- 
 promising, was always open and manly : to the 
 great or good qualities of his opponent he 
 generally did justice from the first — always in 
 the end ; and not a few of those who in early 
 life had regarded him merely as the headlong 
 leader of a partisan warfare, both in literature 
 and politics, came to learn their mistake, to 
 reverence in him the high-toned and impartial 
 critic, and to esteem the warm-hearted and 
 generous man. 
 
 His conversation and his public speaking had 
 in them a charm to which no other term is 
 applicable but that of fascination, and which, 
 in the zenith of his powers, we never met with 
 any one able to resist. While his glittering eye 
 held the spectators captive, and the music of 
 the ever-varying voice, modulating up and down 
 with the changing character of the theme, fell 
 on the ear, and a flood of imagery invested the 
 subject with every conceivable attribute of the 
 touching, the playful, or the picturesque, the 
 effect was electric, indescribable : it imprisoned 
 the minds of the auditors ; they seemed to fear 
 that the sound would cease — they held their 
 breath as if under the influence of a spell. 
 
 Thus accomplished by nature and education, 
 did Professor Wilson apply himself to his self- 
 imposed task in this magazine — that of impart- 
 ing to periodical literature in general, and to 
 literary criticism in particular, a new body and 
 a new life ; of pulling down the old conventional 
 walls within which they had been confined, and 
 of investing criticism itself with something of 
 the creative and poetic character of the great 
 works of imagination to which it was to be 
 applied. 
 
 And in what a noble and true-hearted spirit 
 was that task accomplished. Much had no 
 doubt been done within the century to enlarge 
 the basis of our critical views, to exchange the 
 criticism of particulars for that of generals, to 
 contemplate and decide according to the essence 
 rather than the form. But we hesitate not to 
 say, that practically the criticism of the day 
 was sectarian and political : class criticism, not 
 catholic. It denied or coldly accorded merit to 
 those beyond the pale of the reviewer's own 
 opinions ; it was too apt to assume in all cases 
 an air of condescending superiority ; and it was 
 in its form inflexible, demurely decorous, and 
 solemn, banishing from its sphere all that wide 
 field of illustration afforded by the homely and 
 
the ludicrous, from the judicious contrast and 
 opposition of which so much of added interest 
 and novelty of view might fairly be derived. 
 These wants the criticisms of Professor Wilson 
 for the first time effectually supplied. Reve- 
 rential in all cases where reverence was justly 
 due, his keen sense of the ludicrous made him 
 at the same time unsparing of ridicule, when, 
 either in its moral or artistic aspect, the subject 
 of the criticism required and justified the ap- 
 plication of such a weapon. Strong as might 
 be his party opinions, they faded out of view 
 whenever he had to deal with any of the greater 
 questions of literature or the pretensions of its 
 genuine candidates ; while to how many of the 
 humblest aspirants for fame did his cordial and 
 unstinted praise, blended with just advice and 
 chastened censure, speak hope and comfort 
 amidst discouragement and poverty and pain ! 
 From every nook of nature, from every mood of 
 mind, he drew his allusions and illustrations, 
 ever-shifting, iridescent: under his guidance, 
 humour and feeling, long separated, walked 
 hand in hand ; and even the gravest minds 
 readily reconciled themselves to his gay and 
 fanciful embroideries on the web of life, because 
 they felt that none knew better than he that its 
 tissue was, after all, of a sombre hue — because 
 every page of these compositions, quaint and 
 startling as they were, impressed them with the 
 assurance that wherever the shafts of his ridicule 
 might light, the nobler qualities of the soul it- 
 self — love, honour, duty, religion, and all the 
 charities of lite — were safe as in a sanctuary 
 from their intrusion. 
 
 It would be idle, as it would be endless, to 
 refer to particular examples in dealing with the 
 criticisms of Professor Wilson. But we hesitate 
 not to say, humbly, but with the conviction of 
 its truth, that his contributions to this magazine 
 contain an amount of original and suggestive 
 criticism, unparalleled in any publication to 
 which the present time has given birth. From 
 the "Noctes" alone what an armoury of bright 
 and polished thought might be supplied ! In his 
 other papers, what a new aspect is given to old 
 themes ! The gentle and devout spirit of Spenser 
 seems never before to have met with a congenial 
 exponent. The infinite depths of Shakespeare's 
 mind are made to reveal new treasures. Mil- 
 ton's stately fabric appears to expand its pro- 
 portions, and to grow, at once classic and colos- 
 sal, under his hand. Dryden's long-resounding 
 march here meets with a spirit-stirring accom- 
 paniment: and he who '* stooped to truth, and 
 moralised his song," finds a defender, who can 
 appreciate the sterling vigour and condensation 
 of his thoughts, and the lucid felicities of their 
 expression. Towards the few genuine poets 
 who illumined the twilight of the last century 
 — towards those who gilded the morning of the 
 new — towards Scott, and Byron, and Coleridge, 
 and Wordsworth — towards the lessei stars re- 
 
 volving within the orb of those greater lumin- 
 aries — how just, how discriminating have been 
 his acknowledgments ! And in proof that these 
 judgments, all glowing and impassioned as they 
 seem, were yet founded on the truest apprecia- 
 tion of the principles of art, we would ask (and 
 we do so with some confidence), in how few 
 instances has the public shown any disposition 
 to reverse the sentence which a deep poetical 
 insight had dictated, and a lofty sense of duty 
 had kept so impartial and so pure ? 
 
 Nor is it to the mere professed criticism of 
 literature that these observations are applicable. 
 The same peculiarities and the same originality 
 pervaded his numerous and varied essays, 
 where he came more palpably into that field 
 which Addison and Johnson and Goldsmith had 
 trod before him. The humblest and most un- 
 promising topics were on system made the 
 vehicles of important truths ; deep reflections 
 "rose like an exhalation " out of hints thrown 
 out as if in a spirit of dalliance ; but the result 
 was to exhibit man and his nature in many a 
 new light, and to enforce reflection on many a 
 vital question, where, under a more formal treat- 
 ment of the subject, it would unquestionably have 
 been evaded. Never, perhaps, was the power 
 and value of the principle of surprise more aptly 
 illustrated than in these essays, where we are 
 suddenly withdrawn from some vulgar and 
 prosaic foreground ; led off"— blindfold, it may 
 be, and through brake and brier — yet, as we 
 feel, by no unfriendly hand, till, when the 
 journey ends, and the mask drops, we find our- 
 selves translated to some mysterious mountain 
 height, with the ocean of this life spread beneath 
 our feet, and around us "the breath of heaven 
 fresh blowing." 
 
 This, we feel, is no fit place for entering on 
 the social or moral qualities of Professor Wilson. 
 "Something we might have said, but to what 
 end ? " The depth and tenderness of his domes- 
 tic affections are not themes for such discussion. 
 His charities, his generosity, liberal and unfail- 
 ing as they were, we would leave in that ob- 
 scurity to which it was his own wish they should 
 be consigned. His appreciation of all worth, 
 however humble ; his readiness to assist strug- 
 gling merit ; his utter absence of all affectation 
 of superiority in himself ; his toleration for the 
 faults or presumption of others ; his reluctance 
 consciously to inflict pain on any one — a feeling 
 which grew on him, as it grows on all good 
 men, with advancing years ; are they not written 
 on the memories of all who were the objects of 
 his aid or his forbearance ? The charms of his 
 social intercourse, who is likely to forget, 
 whether first experienced "in life's morning 
 march, when his spirit was young," or when 
 added years and experience had pruned the 
 luxuriance and softened the asperities of youth, 
 but left all the bright and genial qualities of the 
 mind undimmed, and the sympathies of the 
 
THOMAS BE QUINCEY. 
 
 261 
 
 soul at once deepened and diffused ? To those 
 •who had the privilege of enjoying his intimate 
 acquaintance, as familiar friends or fellow- 
 labourers in the same seed-field ; to the many 
 who have been indebted to him for that which 
 he never failed to afford — wise and considerate 
 counsel ; to the thousands whom he has formed, 
 guided, encouraged, admonished, or corrected, 
 the thought of Professor Wilson will be among 
 those recollections which they would most wish 
 to arrest — those visions which, when they be- 
 gin to fade, they would be most anxious to 
 recall. 
 
 As a proof how completely he was superior to 
 any feeling of party where a question of litera- 
 ture and genius was involved, and how his 
 kindly disposition could urge him to exertion, 
 even under the pressure of disease, we may 
 mention that the last occasion on which he can 
 be said to have appeared in public, was when 
 be left his brother's house, and, supported by a 
 friendly arm, came up to record his vote for a 
 political opponent, Mr Macaulay. The last 
 occasion on which he left his own threshold, 
 was when he drove out to congratulate a friend 
 
 on an event on which he believed his happiness 
 in life was likely to depend. 
 
 So lived, so died Professor Wilson — in the 
 union of his varied mental gifts, in the attrac- 
 tive and endearing qualities of his character, 
 one of the most remarkable men whom Scot- 
 land, in the present or any other century, has 
 produced. In our remarks we have confined 
 ourselves to his services to this magazine, and 
 through that to literature. We have not re- 
 ferred to his other productions, nor to his 
 academical prelections. If the value of the 
 latter were to be estimated by the effect which 
 they produced in stimulating the minds and 
 awakening the interest of his auditory, they 
 would be entitled to a high rank. In other 
 respects, opinion has given the preference to his 
 prose over his poetry, and to his essays over his 
 narrative fictions. The judgment has been so 
 general that it is probably just. In poetry, in 
 prose fiction, he seems overmatched by other 
 men : in the field of the discursive essay, with 
 its "numerous prose," he is felt to be unique 
 and unapproachable — without a prototype, and 
 in all probability without a successor. 
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 [1785-1859.] 
 
 The father of the English Opium-Eater was a 
 Manchester merchant, carrying on a large trade 
 with America and the West Indies. His son 
 afterwards described him as cultured and intelli- 
 gent, and as possessing literary tastes. His 
 mother, whose maiden name was Penson, was 
 the daughter of an English officer, with the gift 
 of writing letters, which displayed strong and 
 masculine sense, and a power over pure mother 
 English.* Thomas was the fifth child and second 
 son, and was born at Greenheys, near Manches- 
 ter, on 15th August 1785. Not long after his 
 birth, his father fell into ill health, when he was 
 compelled to reside abroad. Keason dawned 
 early, and memory in after-years carried him 
 back to the time when he was only two years of 
 age. Then, too, his dream-life began, when his 
 imagination at this immature age conjured up a 
 ** remarkable dream of terrific grandeur about a 
 favourite nurse, which is interesting to myself, 
 for this reason, that it demonstrates my dream- 
 ing tendencies to have been constitutional and 
 not dependent upon laudanum ; and, secondly, 
 the fact of having connected a profound sense 
 
 * The main facts in this sketch are drawn from 
 *' Thomas de Quincey: His Life and Writings." By 
 H. A. Page. London : John Hogg & Co., 1877. 
 
 of pathos with the reappearance, very early in 
 the spring, of some crocuses." The death of 
 his sister Jane, which also happened about this 
 time, made a deep impression upon him. The 
 death of another sister, called Elizabeth, while 
 in his sixth year, produced even a more pro- 
 found impression upon him. "For thou, dear, 
 noble Elizabeth, around whose ample brow, as 
 often as thy sweet countenance rises upon the 
 darkness, I fancy a tiarcL of light or a gleaming 
 aureola^ in token of thy premature intellectual 
 grandeur — thou whose head, for its superb de- 
 velopment, was the astonishment of science — 
 thou next, but after an interval of happy years, 
 thou also wert summoned away from our nur- 
 sery ; and the night, which for me gathered upon 
 that event, ran after my steps far into life ; and 
 perhaps at this day I resemble little for good or 
 for ill that which else I should have been. Pil- 
 lar of tire, that didst go before me to guide and 
 to quicken — pillar of darkness, when thy coun- 
 tenance was turned away to God, that didst too 
 truly reveal to my dawning fears the secret 
 shadow of death — by what mysterious gravita- 
 tion was it that my heart was drawn to thine ? " 
 While she was lying a corpse, he kissed the 
 cold lips in a passion of grief. His father came 
 home to die when young De Quincey was in his 
 
262 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 seventh year. When his death took place, in 
 his thirty-ninth year, it was found that their 
 former way of living could not be maintained. 
 The family estate amounted only to £1600 a 
 year, with an allowance to the two boys of £150, 
 and to each of the girls £100. Young De Quin- 
 cey's elder brother, who had been with his father 
 at Lisbon, and who had also passed through the 
 ordeal of a grammar school at Louth, in Lin- 
 colnshire, now began to lord it over him and to 
 torment him. ** Physically, therefore, and in- 
 tellectually," said he, " 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." Both the boys were sent to study classics 
 under the Eev. Samuel Hall, at Salford, near 
 Greenheys. His elder brother was never on 
 good terms with the factory boys, and so the 
 way to and from school was the scene of many 
 a skirmish, in which young De Qaincey was ob- 
 liged to help. The progress of the latter in 
 Latin had been so remarkable that he was sent, 
 while in his eleventh year, to Bath grammar 
 school. Here his passion for books had mani- 
 fested itself, so much so, that he got into debt 
 to the extent of three guineas. The master was 
 in the habit of praising his Latin verses before 
 the elder boys, which only excited a species of 
 hatred or contempt towards him. At thirteen 
 he could write Greek with ease, and at fifteen 
 he had gained such thorough command of the 
 language that he could compose Greek verses in 
 lyric metres, and also converse fluently in the 
 same language. One of the masters said of him 
 in the presence of a stranger, *' That boy could 
 harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I 
 could address an English one." An illness caused 
 his removal from Bath, when he was sent to 
 another school at Winkfield, in the county of 
 Wilts, principally because of "the religious 
 character of the master." Here he was a great 
 favourite, and assisted the other boys in their 
 lessons during the twelvemonth which he spent 
 at this school. We find him next at Eton, 
 drawn thither to join his friend, Lord Westport, 
 for a tour in Ireland. On his return, he parted 
 with Lord Westport at Birmingham, and started 
 for Northamptonshire on a visit to Lady Car- 
 bery at Laxton. Here he was questioned by 
 tier regarding many difficulties in Greek, and 
 she also provided tutorage for him. He was 
 obliged also to surrender himself for two hours 
 daily for lessons in horsemanship by the prin- 
 cipal groom. 
 
 His guardians, in 1801, decided to send him 
 to Manchester grammar school for three years. 
 He entered this school somewhat against his 
 will, when we find him expressing marked con- 
 tempt towards the classical teacher. Lady Car- 
 bery passed the Christmas and winter of that 
 year in Manchester, and he also made the 
 dcquaintance of the Eev. John Clowes, A.M., 
 
 rector of St Marys, Manchester, a disciple of 
 Swedenborg. The attractions of home life, 
 which were freely enjoyed by young De Quincey 
 in the dwelling of Mr Clowes, are said to have 
 kept him longer in Manchester than he might 
 otherwise have been. De Quincey has described 
 Mr Clowes as ** the most spiritual-looking, the 
 most saintly in outward aspect, of all human 
 beings whom I have known throughout life. 
 He was rather tall, pale, and thin; the most 
 unfleshly, the most sublimated spirit, dwelling 
 already more than half in some purer world, 
 that a poet could have imagined." Amongst 
 the other literary spirits met with at this time 
 were Dr Currie, the biographer of Burns; Mr 
 Roscoe, a translator from the Italian; and Mr 
 Shepherd, who had also done something in 
 literature. Mr Clarke, the gentleman with 
 whom De Quincey stayed at this time, was 
 wealthy and well travelled. He amused him- 
 self by studying Greek, for which purpose he 
 and De Quincey would meet at sunrise every 
 summer morning. When in the company of 
 Dr Currie, in 1801, De Quincey took the 
 liberty of differing from him as to Bums having 
 been ungracious to his patrons, ungrateful, and 
 with pride falsely directed. In a letter written 
 to his mother at this time, he complained bit- 
 terly of the routine at Mr Lawson's school, 
 which deprived him of health, society, amuse- 
 ment, liberty, congeniality of pursuits, and as 
 also admitting of no variety. This letter had no 
 effect on his mother's feelings; it was indeed 
 decided that he must either choose a profession 
 or remain where he was. This decided him; 
 he determined not to face the drudgery of a law- 
 yer's office, and determined to leave school behind 
 him for ever. Applying to Lady Carbery for 
 money, she sent him a remittance of £10. This 
 sura, with £2 he had in hand, was all his avail- 
 able cash at the time. His own private income 
 was £150 a year, which he thought too little to 
 maintain him at Oxford. He left £3 out of the 
 twelve in the hands of a fellow-scholar, to be 
 given in gratuities to the servants. As all the 
 incidents of "that morning, from which, and 
 from its consequences, my whole succeeding life 
 has in many important points taken its colour- 
 ing," are very minutely set down in the "Con- 
 fessions of an English Opium-Eater," we may be 
 excused giving them in any extended form here. 
 "The name," says Blackwood's 3Iagazine, 
 "by which he chose to be known, and the sub- 
 ject upon which he chose nominally to issue his 
 confessions, have given the public, never too 
 clever in investigating the means of its own 
 entertainment, a vague idea that it is the phan- 
 tasmagoria of his opium-inspired dreams which 
 is the chief theme of De Quincey. But this is a 
 mere superficial impression ; for it is De Quincey 
 before the age of opium — the alarmed little 
 dreamy boy, the over-reflective visionary lad at 
 school, the young outcast forlorn in the London 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 263 
 
 streets — whose story is by far the most interest- 
 ing portion of the narrative. These early chap- 
 ters of his life are the diploma of his genius. 
 Nothing that follows is half so iine, so full of 
 character and nature, of humour, and fancy, 
 and truth. The confused and confusing grandeur 
 in which the world and all about hira vaguely 
 clothes itself to a child of genius ; the intense 
 self-consciousness of expanding youth, its accept- 
 ance of all things as inevitable, yet superiority 
 to all things, whether luxury or misery, amid 
 each of which it stands unmoved, always its own 
 equal — these afford us a picture unsurpassed, 
 and to which we know few pendants. There is 
 a great deal of 'reading' besides in Mr De 
 Quincey's works — many fine criticisms and 
 strange speculations, not to speak of the other 
 personal revelations which are less entirely 
 justifiable than those which concern himself; 
 but for our own part, we step from the autobio- 
 graphical picture of his boyhood, given to the 
 world some half-century since, to the letters of 
 his old age,* published the other day, with the 
 liveliest sense of continuity and completeness, 
 and confidence that this portrait of his own 
 being will be the most lasting, as it is the most 
 interesting legacy he has left to the world." 
 
 After this escapade he went home for a time, but 
 meeting with little sympathy, we find him next in 
 Wales, living on an allowance of a guinea a week, 
 sleeping *' for nine nights in a fortnight " in the 
 open air " among ferns and furze on a hill-side." 
 When the weather changed, this became impos- 
 sible, and so he went to London. He had the in- 
 tention of raising £200 on his personal security, 
 backed by that of Lord Westport at Eton. He 
 was kept waiting for months by his money- 
 lender until all his own money was exhausted, 
 when the very climax of his misery was reached. 
 Then it was that there was enacted that saddest 
 experience of his life ; the youth, scarce seven- 
 teen, became an outcast, slept in the vacant 
 house of Brunell, the attorney, where he found 
 a little nameless girl of ten. They both slept 
 there, and crept together for warmth. How his 
 life was saved by one of the victims of the 
 street, poor Ann, with whom, "for many 
 weeks," he says, **I had walked at nights with 
 this poor friendless girl up and down Oxford 
 Street, or had rested with her on steps and 
 under the shelter of porticoes. She could not be 
 so old as myself; she told me, indeed, that she 
 had not yet completed her sixteenth year. " How 
 he gazed afterwards along the miserable pave- 
 ments, looking for bis deliverer night after night, 
 but she came cot — will all be found in the "Con- 
 fessions ci an English Opium-Eater. " To the 
 Hardships endured during these miserable London 
 experiences, De Quincey attributed the pain and 
 suffering which led him to become an opium-eater. 
 
 * "De Quincey's Life and Writings." By H. A. 
 Page. 
 
 We next find that De Quincey was sent to 
 Worcester College, Oxford, through the inter- 
 position of an uncle. He is said to have studied 
 hard, but not in the lines which lead to university 
 honours. A perusal of the "Lyrical Ballads," 
 published by Wordsworth and Coleridge, had at 
 this time no small influence in the unfolding of 
 his mind. In 1804, his second year at college, 
 he began to use opium to subdue a neuralgic 
 affection, brought on no doubt by his sufferings 
 in London. As may be seen from the conclusion 
 of De Quincey's paper on Coleridge, he was no 
 great admirer of Goethe ; however, in 1805, he 
 turned his attention to the German language, 
 and speedily mastered it. His life at college 
 was varied by visits to friends at Liverpool and 
 Everton. A notable student, John Wilson by 
 name, was at this time well known at Magdalen 
 College, but De Quincey seems to have been so 
 self-absorbed as never to have heard of one who 
 was afterwards to exercise a very considerable 
 influence for good over his own life. In 1803 he 
 had commenced a correspondence with Words- 
 worth, which continued for some years. Later 
 he had gone to Westmoreland to visit the poet, 
 but, between reverence and shyness, he turned 
 back within a short distance of Wordsworth's 
 door without making himself known. Drawn 
 too towards Coleridge by reverence and intellec- 
 tual sympathy, he had made inquiries regarding 
 him in 1805, and saw him for the first time in 
 1807, at Bridgewater. The article on Coleridge, 
 in a former part of this volume, contains a 
 minute record of their first meeting. He accom- 
 panied Mrs Coleridge and her family to the 
 north country, where the family were to visit 
 Wordsworth, and afterwards to be taken in 
 charge by Southey. Beaching the door of 
 Wordsworth's cottage, "never before or since," 
 he says, "can I reproach myself with having 
 trembled at the approaching presence of any 
 creature that is born of woman, excepting only, 
 for once or twice in my life, woman herself. 
 . . . Through the little gate, I pressed for- 
 ward ; ten steps beyond it lay the principal door 
 of the house. To this, no longer clearly con- 
 scious of my own feelings, I passed on rapidly ; 
 I heard a step, a voice, and, like a flash of light- 
 ning, I saw the figure emerge of a tallish man, 
 who held out his hand, and saluted me with 
 most cordial expressions of welcome." He 
 accompanied the Wordsworths in a common 
 farmer's cart to Ambleside, about three and a 
 half miles distant. He also visited Kobert 
 Southey. On his return to Bristol, and learn- 
 ing that Coleridge was in embarrassed cir- 
 cumstances, he generously placed £300 at his 
 disposal. This transaction was accomplished 
 with the mediation of Joseph Cottle, the well- 
 known Bristol bookseller, and is highly hon- 
 ourable as displaying the unworldly side of 
 De Quincey's character. Returning to Oxford 
 for a short time, he left again, and spent the 
 
264 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 earlier part of 1808 in London, where he had 
 repeated opportunities of seeing Coleridge. 
 The reader will be apt to wonder how a past 
 generation of bookbinders would be able to 
 comprehend the following directions for bind- 
 ing a Bible. It occurs in a letter ^vritten to his 
 sister, 10th June 1808: "On further examina- 
 tion it seems to me a very excellent Bible, both 
 for use and appearance. It has marginal refer- 
 ences (as I think your Christmas letter directed). 
 I gave the fullest directions for the binding, as 
 that it should have an open back (which I sup- 
 pose you forgot to mention), ribbons, etc., and 
 that he must be frugal in his gilding, with 
 which the binders absolutely yellow-wash books 
 that they mean to make fine. I summed up, or 
 perorated, by impressing on his misguided mind 
 that it was to be 'simply elegant,' or 'chastely 
 magnificent,' if he could understand those 
 words, and, if he could not, he was to take as 
 his analogical model (or bright ideal) my coat, 
 i.e., that as my coat was to the ephemeral 
 generations of coats, so was the binding to be 
 in relation to all tawdry bindings." Further, 
 "it was to look massive and monumental, and 
 anti-fugitive, and more like an inheritance than 
 a purchase." We find him again at Oxford at 
 the close of 1808. He remained in Words- 
 worth's cottage till February 1809, when, as 
 Wordsworth had lately left it, he made arrange- 
 ment? for taking a lease of the cottage. He 
 now went to Somersetshire, and also visited 
 London. While in London he saw "The Con- 
 vention of Cintra," a pamphlet, through the 
 press for Wordsworth. In November 1809 he 
 took up his abode in his cottage in Westmore- 
 land. ' ' Cottage immortal in my remembrance ! " 
 he has written, " as well it might be, for this 
 cottage I retained through just seven-and- 
 twenty years : this was the scene of struggles 
 the most tempestuous and bitter within my 
 own mind: this the scene of my despondency 
 and unhappiness : this the scene of my happi- 
 ness — a happiness which justified the faith of 
 man's earthly lot as upon the whole a dowry 
 from heaven ! " 
 
 While at Grasmere he made the acquaintance 
 of Professor Wilson, Charles Lloyd, andSouthey, 
 and his intimacy with Wordsworth was strength- 
 ened. While Coleridge was Wordsworth's guest 
 in 1809-10, De Quincey was a frequent visitor 
 on the latter. The friendship thus formed with 
 Professor Wilson continued through life. Some- 
 times he would join an angling excursion, and 
 sometimes he would enjoy a wander after night- 
 fall, with the chance of being taken for a lunatic. 
 The death of little Catherine Wordsworth, to 
 whom he was passionately attached, was a 
 terrible blow to him. This event took place in 
 June 1812. Professor Wilson, on the partial 
 loss of his fortune, betook himself to Edinburgh 
 to practise at the Scottish bar. De Quincey 
 visited him during the winter of 1814-15. He 
 
 was well received by the best society of the 
 Scottish capital, and his wonderful talk, and 
 equally wonderful memory, so richly stored 
 with knowledge, made a powerful impression 
 on all who heard and knew him. He was 
 united by marriage, about the end of 1816, to 
 Margaret Simpson, the daughter of a Westmore- 
 land farmer. She was only eighteen at the 
 time, and is described by those who ought to 
 know her, as a gracious and beautiful lady. 
 Before this event he had limited his supplies of 
 opium, but we find him in 1818 again over- 
 mastered by the old enemy. His opium dreams 
 at this time are fully recorded in his " Confes- 
 sions." His wife was his unwearied companion 
 and nurse through all his illnesses and night 
 visions: "Thou wast my Electra! and neither 
 in nobility of mind nor in long-suffering affec- 
 tion, wouldst permit that a Grecian sister should 
 excel an English wife. For thou thoughtest 
 not much to stoop to humble offices of kind- 
 ness, and to servile ministrations of tenderest 
 affection, to wipe away for years the unwhole- 
 some dews upon the forehead, or to refresh the 
 lips when parched and baked with fever; nor 
 even when thy own peaceful slumbers had by 
 long sympathy become infected with the spec- 
 tacle of my dread contest with phantoms and 
 shadowy enemies, that oftentimes bade me 
 ' sleep no more 1 ' not even then didst thou utter 
 a complaint or any murmur, nor withdraw thy 
 angelic smiles, nor shrink from thy service of 
 love more than Electra did of old." Towards 
 the close of 1819, we find him, contrary to all 
 precedent, engaged as non-resident editor of a 
 Kendal newspaper. He was obliged to keep a 
 clerk on the salary allowed, which reduced his 
 own remuneration to about one guinea a week. 
 The newspaper was called the WestTnor eland, 
 Gazette, and was established to counteract the 
 influence of Lord Brougham's levelling doctrines. 
 This post he filled for the greater part of a year. 
 At this time also Blackwood's Magazine, as he 
 calculated, would allow him to write as much as 
 would produce sixty guineas a year, and the 
 Quarterly Review as much as would yield him 
 120 guineas a year. We find him, however, 
 writing to his uncle, Colonel Penson, to relieve 
 him from monetary embarrassments, and in 
 1821 his patrimony was exhausted, and him- 
 self in difficulties. Eemoving to London in the 
 same year to seek employment as a writer, he 
 was made welcome by Charles Lamb. He has 
 left a pen-and-ink sketch of him, whom he de- 
 scribed as "a man in a sense more eminent 
 than would be conceivable by many people, 
 princely — nothing short of that — in his bene- 
 ficence." Lamb was the means of introducing 
 De Quincey to Messrs Taylor & Hessey, the 
 publishers of the London Magazine. With the 
 exception of an occasional trip to Westmore- 
 land, we find him settled at York Street, Covent 
 Garden. His ' * Confessions " " were written in a 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 265 
 
 little room at the back of what afterwards be- 
 came Mr H. G. Bohn's premises, No. 4 York 
 Street, Covent Garden, and where De Quincey 
 resided, in comparative seclusion, for several 
 years. He had previously lived in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Soho Square, and for some years 
 was a frequent visitor at the shop of Mr Bohn's 
 father, then the principal dealer in German 
 books." The first two portions of the '* Confes- 
 sions of an English-Opium Eater" appeared in the 
 London Magazine for October and November 
 1821. Few magazine articles, says his bio- 
 grapher, have ever produced a deeper or a more 
 general impression. His other contributions 
 were various German translations and "Letters 
 to a Young Man whose Education has been 
 Neglected." These letters drew from Charles 
 Lamb the *' Letter to an Old Man whose Educa- 
 tion had been Neglected." Charles Knight, the 
 eminent publisher, with whom De Quincey re- 
 sided for some time in London, tells the follow- 
 ing story regarding him: "Vast as were his 
 acquirements, intuitive as was his appreciation 
 of character and the motives of human action, 
 unembarrassed as was his demeanour, pleasant 
 and even mirthful his table-talk, De Quincey 
 was as helpless in every position of responsi- 
 bility as when he paced * stony-hearted Oxford 
 Street,' looking for the lost one. He was con- 
 stantly beset by idle fears and vain imaginings. 
 His sensitiveness was so extreme, in combina- 
 tion with the utmost ultra-courtesy of a gentle- 
 man, that he hesitated to trouble a servant with 
 any personal request without a long prefatory 
 apology. My family were in the country in the 
 summer of 1825, when he was staying at my 
 house in Pall Mall, East. A friend or two had 
 met him at dinner, and I had walked part of the 
 way home with one of them. When I returned, 
 I tapped at his chamber door to bid him good- 
 night. He was sitting at the open window 
 habited as a prize-fighter when he enters the 
 ring. 'You will take cold!' I exclaimed. 
 'Where is your shirt?' * I have not a shirt — 
 my shirts are unwashed.' 'But why not tell 
 the servant to send them to the laundress?' 
 * Ah ! how could I presume to do that in Mrs 
 Knight's absence.' " 
 
 Professor Wilson, in the "Noctes Ambrosi- 
 anse " in Blackwood, in October 1823 and 1825, 
 spoke very highly of De Quincey, which was 
 a proof that his fame was spreading. In No- 
 vember 1825, Wilson wrote him a pressing 
 letter for some contributions to Blackwood. 
 This was all required at the time to brighten 
 his lot, as we find him in London in the be- 
 ginning of 1826, well-nigh overpowered with 
 difficulties. In November 1826 appeared the 
 first of a series of papers in Blackwood, en- 
 titled, "Gallery of the German Prose Writers," 
 beginning with "Lessing." This was followed 
 by the "Last Days of Kant," "Murder con- 
 sidered as one of the Fine Arts," and the 
 
 " Toilette of the Hebrew Lady." Removing to 
 Edinburgh in 1828, he contributed to the Edin- 
 burgh Literary Gazette, and made fresh engage- 
 ments with Blackwood. He was joined by Mrs 
 De Quincey and the younger children in 1830. 
 "Klosterheim," a novel, was issued by Black- 
 wood in 1832. With Taifs Magazine De 
 Quincey succeeded in forming a profitable con- 
 nection at this time ; many of his most valuable 
 and interesting papers appeared in its pages. 
 In 1832-34 his contributions to Blackwood com- 
 prised a series of articles on the Csesars, on 
 Hannah More, and Animal Magnetism. His 
 autobiographic sketches were begun in TaiVs 
 Magazine in 1834. The close, personal nature 
 of his remarks on Wordsworth and Coleridge, 
 offended both families. Meanwhile, though 
 very successful from a literary point of view, 
 the hand of death entered his family. First, 
 his son Julius died in 1833, aged four years; 
 then his eldest son William, scarcely eighteen, 
 brilliant and talented, passed away in 1835, 
 from brain disease. Mrs De Quincey' s own 
 health broke down also ; she died in 1837, 
 and was buried in St Cuthbert's Churchyard, 
 Edinburgh. From 1830 till the year 1834, 
 he lived with his family either in King 
 Street, Forres Street, or Duddingstone. In 
 1840 they removed to a small retired cottage, 
 near Lasswade, called "Mavis Bush." Pre- 
 vious to this time, and after his wife's death, hu 
 had taken lodgings in Lothian Street, Edin- 
 burgh, in a house kept by Mrs Wilson and her 
 sister Miss Stark. This was the same house in 
 which he died. The character of his eldest 
 daughter, although not herself past the need of 
 a mother's care, rapidly developed itself at the 
 spur of circumstances. As her younger sister 
 afterwards remarked regarding her: "She be- 
 came the able and upright mistress of the house- 
 hold almost immediately, and her and her next 
 brother's wise resolution it was — the two being 
 still little beyond childhood — which removed the 
 family from the expensive and undesirable life 
 of a town to the quiet and wholesome little home 
 near Lasswade, she sacrificing much personal 
 enjoyment and companionship at the time to 
 secure what she felt to be for the honour of the 
 family — the power to live within our small 
 means." 
 
 Between 1837-40 De Quincey was busy and 
 productive, contributing largely to Blackwood 
 and Tait. He also wrote several of the biogra- 
 phies for the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," of 
 which " Shakespeare " was the most notable. In 
 1841-43 we find De Quincey restless, and again 
 a victim to his passion for opium. He was 
 much in Glasgow between the dates just men- 
 tioned, residing sometimes in lodgings and 
 sometimes with his friends Professor Nichol or 
 Professor Lushington. During 1844 his daily 
 allowance of opium had reached something like 
 five thousand drops of laudanum. By a strong 
 
266 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 effort he gradually unwound this accursed chain, 
 in so far as his indulgences in opium were very 
 limited, and he enjoyed greater quiet and repose. 
 His income was now more than sufficient to 
 maintain himself and family in quiet comfort. 
 Two of his sons, Horace and Frederick, went 
 into the army; a third, Francis, hecame a 
 medical man. In the early part of 1847 he was 
 again in Glasgow, occupying lodgings in 79 Ren- 
 field Street; from this address he regularly 
 wrote to and received letters from the different 
 members of his family. Returning to Lasswade 
 at the end of 1847, we are told that, whether 
 residing at Lasswade or in Lothian Street, Edin- 
 burgh, his habits were more regular, while he 
 continued steadily active. His habits were now 
 simple almost to asceticism. The early neural- 
 gic affection having ruined his teeth, from the 
 delicacy of his system, a little coffee or soup 
 would often prove the whole of his dinner. 
 While dressing or undressing, should a thought 
 strike him, "he would stop with his coat just 
 taken off or not put on, without stockings at 
 all, or with one off and one on, and becoming 
 lost in what grew out of this thought, he would 
 work on for hours, hardly even noticing the 
 coffee, which was his chief support at such 
 times." The following sketch of his personal 
 habits is by one of his daughters : 
 
 ** His other extravagance grew out of the mor- 
 bid value he set upon his papers and their not 
 being disturbed. He was in the habit of accu- 
 mulating these till, according to his own descrip- 
 tion, he was * snowed up,' which meant, when 
 matters came to such an extremity, that there 
 was not a square inch of room on the table to 
 set a cup upon, that there was no possibility of 
 making his bed for the weight of papers gath- 
 ered there, that there was no chair which could 
 be used for its legitimate purpose, and that the 
 track from the door to the fireplace, which had 
 always to be considered, had been blotted out, 
 even for his own careful treading; then he 
 locked the door upon this impracticable state of 
 things and turned elsewhere, leaving his land- 
 lady, if simple and honest, fearfully impressed 
 with the mysterious sin of meddling with his 
 papers; but, if dishonest, with such a handle 
 for playing upon his morbid anxieties as was a 
 source of livelihood. At his death there were, 
 I believe, about six places where he had these 
 deposits ; it may be imagined at what expense. 
 Such a thing has been known as his gradually 
 in this way papering his family out of a house ; 
 but in later years his daughters in the home at 
 Lasswade were wary, and the smallest deposit of 
 papers was carefully handed down into the one 
 irrecoverable desert in which he worked when he 
 left them after spending the evening with them, 
 which he almost always did. These evenings 
 were very pleasant. The newspaper was 
 brought up, and he, telling in his own delight- 
 ful way rather than reading the news, would. 
 
 on questions from this one and that of the party 
 — often including young friends of his children, 
 neighbours, or visitors from distant places — illu- 
 minate the subject with such a wealth of memo- 
 ries, of old stories, of past or present experi- 
 ences, of humour of suggestion, even of pro- 
 phecy, as by its very wealth makes it impossible 
 to give any taste of it. It was the happiest 
 flow of real conversation growing out of the cir- 
 cumstances of the moment in which the youngest 
 and shyest of the party, encouraged by his 
 gentleness and power of sympathy, that made 
 him catch in a moment what the stammering 
 youth or maiden might wish to say, took their 
 part. 
 
 "He was not a reassuring man for nervous 
 people to live with, as those nights were excep- 
 tions on which he didn't set something on fire, 
 the commonest incident being for some one to 
 look up from work or book to say casually, 
 ' Papa, your hair is on fire,' of which a calm *Is 
 it, my love ? ' and a hand rubbing out the blaze, 
 was all the notice taken. One evening a maid 
 rushed in upon two quiet girls with a horrified 
 face, and in a burst of smoke, to announce that 
 Mr De Quincey's room, by this time on the 
 point of being ' snowed up,' was on fire. Some 
 important papers and a little money were 
 secured, and then they descended to the scene 
 of action to find that a hard frost had taken 
 away all chance of help from water; but the 
 Mississippi might have flowed past his door, and 
 Mr De Quincey would have had none of it, as it 
 would have ruined the beloved papers. He 
 therefore determined to conquer the fire with- 
 out water, or to perish with them. All he 
 would take in was a heavy rug, and he locked 
 the door in dread of the abhorred water being 
 poured in in spite of the injury the fire might 
 cause. Presently we were assured that all 
 danger was over, though, in the presence of 
 occasional bursts of smoke, and a very strong 
 smell of fire, it argued an extraordinary confi- 
 dence in his power of manoeuvring with that 
 dread element that we all went to bed and 
 slept." 
 
 As in the case of some of Carlyle's better- 
 known works, De Quincey's miscellaneous writ- 
 ings were first collected and published in America. 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing to J. T. Fields, 
 remarked the shortcomings of an article in a 
 British periodical regarding De Quincey : " The 
 article is pretty well, but does nothing like 
 adequate justice to De Quincey; and, in fact, 
 no Englishman cares a pin for him. We are ten 
 times as good readers and critics as they." An 
 issue of his " Collected Writings " was begun in 
 1849 by Mr James Hogg, the publisher. Mr 
 Hogg, in describing his personal appearance on 
 his first introduction to him, says: "It was 
 some time before the extreme refinement of the 
 face was noticed — not, indeed, till the voice, 
 gentle, clear, and silvery, began to be heard; 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCE Y, 
 
 267 
 
 when the eye ceased to be diverted "by a certain 
 oddity in the general appearance, and was 
 attracted by the brow, which, from its promi- 
 nence, gave an aspect of almost childlike small- 
 ness to the nnder-face, and by the eyes, which 
 combined a singular power of quiet scrutiny with 
 a sort of dreamy softness that suggested some- 
 thing of weariness." He proved himself an 
 excellent pedestrian while the printing of his 
 collected works was going forward, regularly 
 walking between Lasswade and Edinburgh. 
 "Even at seventy years of age," says Mr Hogg, 
 "he was active and vigorous, and easily out- 
 walked me, though I was a much younger 
 man." Some of the dilemmas into which 
 he was plunged, amusing enough to read of, 
 must have been distracting enough to both 
 author and printer. For instance, take the 
 following : 
 
 " My dear Sir, — It is useless to trouble you 
 with the ins and outs of the process — the result 
 is, that, working through most parts of the 
 night, I have not yet come to the missing copy. 
 I had fancied that when the press sent for the 
 notes, this implied that the whole of the text 
 was received. But as it turns out that I was 
 mistaken, I am going on with the search yet — 
 being walled in by superfluous furniture, in so 
 narrow an area (not larger than a post-chaise, 
 as regards the free space), I write with diffi- 
 culty, and the stooping kills me. I greatly fear 
 that the entire day will be spent in the search." 
 
 Some of his letters display a delightful 
 humour. Writing to his daughter Emily in 
 Ireland, who was at Pegsboro,' Tipperary, on 
 the occasion of the birth of a daughter, on 
 learning it was to be named Eva, he reasons 
 thus: " This name naturally throws back one's 
 thoughts upon the original person who bore it — 
 that unhappy lady, the fairest of her own 
 daughters, but also, one must suppose, the 
 most woe-begone, if she knew the extent of her 
 own trespass. * For this we may thank Adam !' 
 is the dreadful cry of reproach ascending from 
 billions of generations which the Miltonic Adam 
 figures to himself in sad anticipation. But, 
 begging his pardon, he had himself, like a veri- 
 table sneak, forestalled that reproach. He had, 
 in the language of London villains, * split ' on 
 his partner — the very last baseness even amongst 
 our domestic rogues, that final and crowning 
 step which, being foreborne, leaves even to the 
 thief a conscious arrearage of nobility and 
 possible redemption. A man that should have 
 stolen a pocket-handkerchief might (I conceive), 
 by some memorable act of public service, redeem 
 
 himself, but . . . This whole matter of 
 
 naming, however, if we cast a backward glance 
 at its earliest beginnings, though an inscrutable, 
 would — were it not so — be an interesting theme 
 for investigation. It is not only a prehistoric, 
 but a premythical, not only a premythical, 
 but even a prefabulous and a pretraditional 
 
 thesis. My thesis ends by indicating in Eve 
 one feature of intellectual delicacy which places 
 her in advance of her species by perhaps a 
 myriad of generations, and to this recent 
 baptismal epoch in the first year of dear little 
 Eva's experience it is a most appropriate 
 feature — renewing and reverberating from a 
 modem case echoes of the very same solicitude 
 in the proper choice of a name as naturally dis- 
 played itself in the very earliest cases. Eve, 
 like the council of Pegsboro', put forth an 
 earnest anxiety (for earnest it must have been 
 to secure any commemoration at all in a record 
 necessarily so austerely condensed as the Mosaic) 
 in order to construct a significant name for her 
 sons. . . . Eve sought for a name that 
 should, by a sort of shorthand, express signifi- 
 cantly any pathetic circumstantialities con- 
 nected with the birth (or with the immediate 
 antecedences to the birth) of the particular son 
 concerned in the nomination. Events or changes 
 externally attached to the biography of the 
 child were naturally contemplated as the key- 
 notes for the several names; so that the bare 
 names of Eve's sons composed a solemn register 
 — cryptical and shadowy, as being abstracts so 
 severely condensed, but to herself fearfully 
 significant, as secret mementoes of sad or joyous 
 revolutions." 
 
 In another letter, dated 11th January 1855, 
 we have the following : 
 
 *'In all the Edinburgh newspapers, nine or 
 ten in succession, has appeared a notification 
 that might have puzzled you had you chanced 
 to stumble on it, viz. , * Miss Florence and Miss 
 Emily de Quincey, Lasswade, £1, Is.,' amongst 
 the subscriptions to the Patriotic Fund. It was 
 I that sent this little offering, my motive being 
 this, that for a special reason I could not my- 
 self subscribe, or fancied so. Yet it seemed al- 
 most disgraceful that no expression, small or 
 great, of sympathy with so national a cause, 
 should appear on behalf of our Mavis Bush fire- 
 side ; and therefore I forced myself to fork out 
 a guinea. This sacrifice cost me a pang, even 
 the extra shilling I wanted dismally. Yet, 
 after all, on the scriptural canon, I really have 
 my reward. I took out this reward in sheer 
 ostentation ; for, being fully determined that 
 not only my left hand should know what my 
 right hand had been doing, but also that my 
 left foot should know it, in case the said foot 
 would oblige me by listening, I drew up the 
 entry loaded with a double Christian name, 
 which forced the printers (as I meant it should) 
 to double round, thus : 
 
 Miss Florence and Miss Emily de 
 Quincey, Lasswade, 
 
 £1 1 0" 
 
 so as to clear out a wide space of blank paper 
 as a foil or relief to the black emblazonry of the 
 donation. It happened also that the very next 
 in succession on the roll of contributors (a scamo 
 
268 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 "who had the presumption to give only nine 
 shillings) came hoppirg along with some name 
 as short as ' Bob.' Of course, if he would not 
 belie and mystify his own identity to his whole 
 circle of friends, he durst not prolong himself 
 into *Eobertus.' Consequently he furnished 
 what seemed a commensurate pedestal or basis 
 to Mavis Bush folk riding overhead. This 
 arrangement ran along through ten successive 
 days, so long Florence and you rode upon the 
 shoulders of Mr Bob." 
 
 Another break in the family occurred when 
 his second daughter, Florence, went out to India 
 and was married to Colonel Baird Smith, a 
 gentleman who was afterwards distinguished 
 for his achievements in civil engineering. In 
 the autumn of 1857 he paid a visit to Pegsboro', 
 at the cost of much trouble and inconvenience, 
 to see his daughter and son-in-law there. 
 
 But the end of a long and chequered life was 
 drawing near. Any little work became weari- 
 some and a worry to him. Dr Warburton 
 Begbie was sent for towards the end of October 
 1859, and attended him in his last illness. The 
 medical attendant was unable to discover the 
 presence of any specific disease, and death may 
 be said to have been the result of a decay of the 
 vital powers. During the last fourteen years of 
 his life he had relinquished the excessive use of 
 opium. He was kind and gentle and consider- 
 ate to the last. One of his daughters, who 
 attended him in his last illness, has left a 
 graphic picture of how he passed away. 
 
 **I saw my father was anxious about some- 
 thing, and I went and sat down beside him to 
 listen. He then treated me to one of those 
 curious turns that his passing attacks of delirium 
 would take. 'I am grieved,' he said, *at the 
 coarse manners that some rough fellows dis- 
 played. ' I said, ' Why ? What have they done ? ' 
 * Well, you know, I and the children were in- 
 vited to the great supper. Do you know what 
 supper I mean?' *No,' I said. 'Well, I was 
 invited to come, and to bring the children to 
 the great supper of Jesus Christ. So, wishing 
 the children to have suitable dresses for such an 
 occasion, I had them all dressed in white. 
 They were dressed from head to foot in white. 
 But some rough men in the streets of Edinburgh, 
 as we passed on our way to the supper, seeing 
 the little things in white, laughed and jeered at 
 us, and made the children much ashamed.' We 
 had rarely heard him mention his father's name 
 during his life, he having died early. But one 
 day he said, * There is a thing I much regret, 
 that is, that I did not know more of my dear 
 father, for I am sure that a juster, kinder man 
 never breathed.' He then went on to tell me 
 many traits of his father's character which he 
 had learned from clerks and servants, and which 
 he had treasured up for years in his memory. 
 At length his illness became so serious that we 
 thought it better to telegraph to his only 
 
 daughter within reach, viz., Mrs Craig. She 
 came over from Ireland the day before his 
 death. Great was his pleasure at seeing her, 
 though for some time, we fancied that he did 
 not know her. Such was his constant thought 
 of children, that he viewed her simply as 
 connected with his grandchildren. *How is 
 mamma?' he said, when he saw her; nor did he 
 address her as anything else but mamma again. 
 Towards the evening his weakness became ex- 
 treme, and he said to my sister, 'Mamma, I 
 cannot bear the weight of clothes upon my feet.' 
 My sister at once pulled off the heavy blankets, 
 and wrapped a light shawl round his feet. ' Is 
 that better ? ' she asked. * Yes, my love, much 
 better ; I am better in every way — I feel much 
 better. You know these are the feet that Jesus 
 washed.' As the night wore on, our kind friend 
 Dr Warburton Begbie came and sat with us, as 
 my father's life slowly ebbed away. Twice only 
 was the heavy breathing interrupted by words. 
 He had for hours ceased to recognise any of us, 
 but we heard him murmur, though quite dis- 
 tinctly, ' My dear, dear mother. Then I was 
 greatly mistaken.' Then as the waves of death 
 rolled faster and faster over him, suddenly out 
 of the abyss we saw him throw up his arms, 
 which to the last retained their strength, and 
 say distinctly, and as if in great surprise, 'Sister ! 
 sister 1 sister!' The loud breathing became 
 slower and slower, and as the world of Edin- 
 burgh awoke to busy work and life, all that 
 was mortal of my father fell asleep for ever " 
 
 The writer in Blackwood already quoted, re- 
 marks : "As the curious, and the cultivated, and 
 those who really loved literature, and those who 
 pretended to love it, sought his company while 
 he lived, and listened rapt to his silver tongue, so 
 to the world of readers who love a delicate ex- 
 citement, but not to be wearied or undergo any 
 strain of their attention, his works are always 
 welcome, and will continue to be so. It is still 
 a silver tongue to which we listen, with nothing 
 in it resonant or penetrating, but sweet with 
 the softest tinkle as of water, or the chiming of 
 far-away bells. What a wonderful brotherhood 
 it was that died out finally with De Quincey ! 
 Coleridge, more dreamy still than he, his own 
 rival in that obscure and vision-haunted path ; 
 Wordsworth, serene as one of his own moun- 
 tains ; kind Southey, laborious and learned ; 
 Charles Lamb, whom we all love by instinct; 
 John Wilson, the strong yet laughing Jupiter 
 of the band, the most living and splendid per- 
 sonality of all. The world has fallen upon a 
 smaller generation, a race of meaner stature 
 now." 
 
 His death took place in December 1859, when 
 in his seventy-fifth year, and all that is mortal 
 of Thomas de Quincey was laid to rest in the 
 West Kirk Churchyard, beneath the shadow of 
 the Castle Kock, where his wife and son were 
 laid many years before. 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCE Y, 
 
 269 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THOMAS DE QUINCET, 
 BY THE REV. FRANCIS JACOX. 
 
 [The following "Eecollections" are contri- 
 buted by the Rev. Francis Jacox to the work 
 entitled, "Thomas de Quincey: His Life and 
 Writings," by H. A. Page, and are here given 
 by permission of the editor.] 
 
 It was on the 13th of July 1852 that I saw Mr 
 De Quincey for the first time ; but the welcome 
 he gave me at this first meeting was that of an 
 old friend. 
 
 He showed interest in learning from how early 
 a date my interest in him had been cherished. 
 It must have been in the first year of my teens 
 that I became acquainted with his name, as a 
 youthful prodigy in Greek, whose feats of 
 scholarship were commemorated to a class of 
 very different scholars, in Kensington grammar 
 school, by the head-master (in my time), the 
 Rev. W. H. Whitworth. For particulars we 
 were referred to the " Confessions of an English 
 Opium-Eater ; " and that author's consummate 
 mastery of the English language, especially in 
 the range of impassioned prose, was impressed 
 upon us with admiring sympathy. It was not 
 my good fortune to lay hands on the memorable 
 volume until my school career was ending or 
 ended; but when I did, there were mingled 
 with the reading grateful memories of the man 
 who commended its writer, and of the manner 
 of the commendation. Between that time, how- 
 ever, and the period of my summer visit to 
 Mavis Bush, Lasswade, my appetite for the 
 author's ojpera omnia had been constantly 
 growing by what it fed on ; and when, a year 
 or two before my becoming his guest, he had 
 forwarded to me a list of his remembered and 
 recognised contributions to periodical literature, 
 with a view to collect and reprint them, or at 
 least a selection from them, requesting me at 
 the same time to make any additions to the list, 
 if, from internal evidence, I could — it was in my 
 power to more than double the total. Many of 
 the best and most characteristic of his anony- 
 mous essays he had clean forgotten, but there 
 was no mistaking his sign manual ; and he was 
 amusedly surprised at the voluminous expanse 
 of his authorship. 
 
 And now I was seated beside the author him- 
 self, a listener to the dulcet tones of that earnest 
 but softly subdued voice, often tremulous with 
 emphasis, and most musical when most melan- 
 choly. Gladly and gratefully would I have 
 compounded for listening only. But Mr De 
 Quincey was himself jealous of his rights as a 
 listener too, even where, as in my case, those 
 rights might have been absolutely renounced to 
 our common advantage. Nothing could better 
 manifest the innate courtesy, the even sensitive 
 considerateness of the man, than his conduct in 
 this respect. A master of the art of conversa- 
 
 tion, this he is on all sides known to have been ; 
 but I do not remember to have seen justice 
 done to his surpassing attainments as a good 
 listener. He was always for giving way; scrupu- 
 lously on the watch for any, the slightest token 
 of interruption, objection, comment, assent, 
 question, or answer, nothing could exceed the 
 tone of unaffected deference with which he gave 
 heed as well as ear to whatever his companion 
 might have to say. Whether his talk was equal 
 to that of Coleridge, or even was superior to it, 
 may be a question that very few survivors now 
 are competent to decide, or so much as to dis- 
 cuss. But if Madame De Stael was right in 
 characterising S. T. C. as "de monologue," and 
 so in implying his incapacity to listen patiently, 
 his monopoly of the prerogatives and privileges 
 of harangue, then was Mr De Quincey the fl,it 
 opposite of that other "old man eloquent" iT» 
 this defect or effect, or, as Polonius might word 
 it, effect defective. 
 
 The same inborn and inbred spirit of benig- 
 nant courtesy was perpetually cropping up in 
 other ways — byways some of them, but leading 
 to the same conclusion. His manner to his 
 three daughters, for instance, was the perfection 
 of chivalric respect as well as affection. Very 
 noticeable was his unfailing habit of turning 
 courteously to them and explaining, in his own 
 choicely-finished and graphic diction, any casu- 
 ally-employed term from the "dead languages," 
 which presumably might lie outside the pale of 
 ladies' lore. When I chanced, at dinner that 
 day, to recall the pronounced preference of his 
 sometime friend and almost neighbour, the 
 self-styled Robert the Rhymer, who lived at the 
 Lakes — " But gooseberry pie is best" — at once 
 the father turned to the daughters to remind 
 them that Southey was here pleasantly parody- 
 ing a line of Pindar's, which might furnish 
 water-drinkers with a plea for all occasions, and 
 temperance societies with a motto for all time. 
 
 While sitting with him alone after dinner, he 
 gave me an account of the lets and hindrances 
 which impeded his design of republishing select 
 volumes of his miscellaneous works — a design 
 which was mainly strengthened and justified by 
 the success of the American edition, published 
 by Messrs Ticknor & Fields, eight volumes of 
 which he showed me with obvious gratification, 
 qualified though it might be by his too consci- 
 ous exclusion from actual editorial supervision. 
 Grateful he nevertheless was to the enterprising 
 Boston firm for collecting what he had hitherto 
 lacked energy to collect. " I must explain to 
 you," he said, "that I have suffered for the last 
 ten years and more from a most dreadful ail- 
 ment, to an extent of which I never heard in any 
 other instance" — a stagnation of blood in the 
 legs, resulting in an effect upon the system of 
 "intense, intolerable torpor," during which it 
 was impossible to hold, or at any rate to guide 
 a pen; the torpor being, however, compatible 
 
:J70 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 with a " frightful recurrence of long-ago imagery 
 and veriest trifles of the past." The tendency 
 to sleep was irresistible, but the waking sensa- 
 tions made up a crisis of torture. Relief he 
 found, but slight relief only, in walking from 
 six to seven miles on an average daily. But 
 then the weariness of having to walk so far for 
 a relief so slight ! So many literary schemes he 
 had in contemplation — an elaborate history and 
 an historical novel among the number — some of 
 which, if not all of which, he would fain finish 
 before he died. Yet of these not one was so 
 much as begun. Could he but begin at once ! 
 Referring to Wordsworth's happy immunity 
 from distracting anxieties and carking cares, 
 his lettered ease and tranquil surroundings, Mr 
 De Quincey exclaimed, "Heavens! had I but 
 ever had his robust strength, and healthy 
 stomach, and sound nerves, with the same 
 glorious freedom from all interruptions and 
 embarrassment ! . . . But, in point of fact, 
 never have I written but against time, pressed 
 by overbearing anxieties, and latterly more 
 especially pressed down by ph3rsicaJ. suffering." 
 For the last six mouths he had reverted to the use 
 of opium in small doses ; but any mitigation of 
 his malady it might afford was avowedly counter- 
 balanced by the specific suffering that it in turn 
 inflicted. As to the suggested employment of 
 an amanuensis, he replied that he never could 
 dictate, and that his suffering would be increased 
 by the sense of implicating another in the im- 
 broglio of his nervous vacillations. 
 
 Of current literature, and of men of letters 
 past and present, he talked on that day, and on 
 subsequent ones, with freedom and vivacity. 
 With interest he heard that Professor Wilson, 
 ailing as he was, had been driven into Edinburgh 
 expressly to record his vote for Macaulay ; and 
 much he had to tell me of Christopher North 
 and his way, and of their joint association with 
 the Lakes and with Blackwood. One quarrel 
 he had with his old comrade-in-arms — for that 
 magazine was politically a militant one — was 
 his trick of spoiling a story in the telling. 
 " For example, when I had lodgings over Water- 
 loo Bridge, near the Surrey Theatre, in 1814, 
 every night towards twelve o'clock a terrific din 
 was caused in and around the playhouse by the 
 explosion scene in a piece that involved the 
 burning of the Kremlin ; regularly, to a minute, 
 that explosion awoke a contiguous cock; this 
 cock, in full crow, awoke another; the second 
 cock a third, and the definite three an indefinite 
 chorus, or antiphony, of others ; which chorus, 
 again, awoke and provoked a corresponding 
 series of dogs ; and so on with other clamorous 
 voices in succession — gradually swelling the 
 aggregate of tumultuous forces. Now when 
 Professor Wilson, who found my story of the 
 midnight din amusing, retold it in his owu 
 vigorous but inaccurate fashion, he spoilt the 
 effect by making the uproar synchronous, in- 
 
 stead of gradually successive." John Gait was 
 another of the Blackwood staff discussed, and 
 my host spoke with lively appreciation of the 
 "Annals of the Parish," the peculiar interest 
 of which he ascribed to the character of the 
 narrator, as in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wake- 
 field," where we are entertained by Dr Primrose's 
 shrewd insight into his wife's weak points, while 
 he seems to have no inkling of his own absurdi- 
 ties in the polemics of deuterogamy. Of another 
 contributor, the late R. P. Gillies, he spoke with 
 wistful regret, feelingly deploring the straits 
 and shifts to which that ill-starred scholar had 
 been reduced. This, probably, may have been 
 the friend who wrote from the precincts of 
 Holyrood to Mr De Quincey, to announce his 
 enforced sojourn in that sanctuary, and to whom 
 the reply came, in a style that savours of Charles 
 Lamb, "I will be with you on Monday (D. F.); 
 but on Tuesday {D. V. or not)." Of Sir WilUam 
 Hamilton much was said, and the strain then 
 heard was in a higher mood. But his friend and 
 critic deemed him less subtle than Ferrier, 
 though more comprehensive, and took exception 
 to his "unnecessary display of erudite quota- 
 tions " all to back up a truism. Dr Chalmers 
 came in for a word of admiration, on the score 
 of his broad spirit of liberality, and his tolerance 
 of that German theology which, said Mr De 
 Quincey, " I studied at my peril thirty or forty 
 years ago." Admiration was expressed too for 
 the "Christian Year." Isaac Taylor's works 
 had been read, but without much sense of a 
 remunerative return. "It is one of the aflic- 
 tions of life," said he, with a gentle smile, 
 "that' one must read thousands of books only 
 to discover that one need not have read them." 
 
 Of Talfourd, Mr De Quincey spoke with evi- 
 dent regard, but thought his "Ion" consider- 
 ably overrated. He was emphatic in praise of 
 Harriet Lee's "The German's Tale," as being 
 almost unequalled in narrative skill, so artistic 
 is the arrangement of the story, and so exquisite 
 the delineation of Josephine's character. "I 
 had believed Miss Lee to have been dead long 
 since, or I should certainly have called upon her 
 in Bath, to offer her my personal respects and 
 to express my gratification at her intellectual 
 prowess." As, to his own regret, he had as- 
 sumed Miss Lee to be dead, equally so in an- 
 other case he had assumed Mr Gillman to be 
 alive when the review of the "Life of Cole- 
 ridge" was contributed to Blackwood. "Lock- 
 hart wrote to Wilson, * What does De Quincey 
 mean by attacking in that sort of way a man in 
 his grave ? ' Now this, when told me, was the 
 first intimation I had of Mr Gillman's death." 
 
 He owned to a decided disrelish for Miss 
 Edgeworth's novels, assuming, as they seem to 
 do, the existence of no higher virtues than 
 prudence, discretion, and the like sober sistei- 
 hood. Both her and Lady Morgan he reckoned 
 inferior in racy Irish portraiture to Maturin (the 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCE Y. 
 
 271 
 
 "Wild Irish Boy"). Dickens he complained 
 of as repeating himself in "Bleak House," then 
 in course of publication ; and a heavier cause of 
 complaint lay in the popular author's dead set 
 against the "upper classes" as such, and his 
 glorification at their expense of the idealised 
 working-man. But Dickens he unhesitatingly 
 preferred, because of his genial humanity, to 
 Thackeray, whom I in vain tried to vindicate 
 from the charge of a prevailing " spirit of caus- 
 tic cynicism." Mr De Qiiincey appeared to re- 
 gard as simply a crotchety illusion or a blind 
 partiality my remonstrances in favour of the 
 author of "Pendennis," when for him I claimed 
 the merit of supreme tenderness and benignity 
 of heart, as well as sarcasm in its severest and 
 irony in its most subtle forms. It has always 
 been a puzzle to me how such a gracious nature, 
 so delicately responsive to every fine touch, so 
 acutely predisposed to the appeals of genuine 
 pathos, should have missed the force and beauty 
 of what is tender in Thackeray. 
 
 I have a note of a sauntering to and fro 
 with Mr De Quincey in his garden on the fore- 
 noon of the 22d, when more than once he was 
 asked for alms by some passing mendicant, and 
 each time with success. There was something 
 at once deprecating and deferential in the tones 
 with which he accosted the applicants severally, 
 whether man or woman, as though he were in 
 fear of hurting their feelings by putting them 
 under an obligation. It was the same when, in 
 my walks with him along the country roads, he 
 was similarly beset. In every case he gave at 
 once, and without inquiry or inspection. He 
 had in former years been shocked by the vehe- 
 mence with which Edward Irving, as they were 
 walking together in London by night, upon one 
 occasion repelled and reproached a street-beg- 
 gar. He would probably have owned to being 
 equally shocked by Archbishop Whately's 
 sternly systematic repression of any weakness 
 for such casual relief. But with Whately he 
 would have had very little in common. 
 
 During the days that I was his guest, I could 
 not but take note of the vicissitudes of tempera- 
 ment and spirits to which he was subject. For 
 gome time in the morning of each day he ap- 
 peared to be grievously depressed and prostrate ; 
 the drowsy torpor of which he complained so 
 keenly was then in fullest possession of him, and 
 futile were all endeavours to rouse or to interest 
 him until that tyranny was overpast. Some- 
 times it extended further on into the day ; and 
 more than once, when there were visitors at his 
 table, he appeared to be utterly baffled in every 
 effort he made to shake off that oppressive 
 lethargy, as certainly the most persistent and 
 adventurous of those visitors were baffled in 
 their endeavours to cheer him up and to draw 
 him out. In fact, had I seen him, at this period 
 of his life, only in company, I should not have 
 seen him at all. It was when alone with him 
 
 that I learned to know him. A walk in the fresh 
 air would by degrees revive him ; but nothing 
 could I observe so effectual to refresh and rein- 
 vigorate him, no spell so potent to disperse his 
 languor, as a cup of good coffee. I have seen it 
 act upon him like a charm, bracing up his 
 energies, clearing up his prospects, accelerating 
 his speech as well as the march of his ideas, 
 and inspiring him with a new fund of that 
 eloquence which held the listener rapt, yet 
 swayed him to and fro at its own sweet will. 
 The eye that had been so heavy, so clouded, so 
 filmy, so all but closed — the eye that had looked 
 so void of life and significance, that had no 
 speculation in it, nothing but a weary look of 
 uttermost lassitude and dejection — now kindled 
 with lambent fire, sparkled with generous ani- 
 mation, twinkled with quiet fun. The attenu- 
 ated frame seemed to expand, and the face, if 
 stiU pallid, revealed new capacities of spiritual 
 expression, the most noteworthy a dreamy, far- 
 off look, as though holding communion with 
 mysteries beyond our ken, with realities behind 
 the veil. 
 
 In his hours of languishing, when "drooping 
 woeful wan, like one forlorn," his utterance re- 
 minded me of Wordsworth's lines : 
 
 " His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, 
 But each in solemn order followed each, 
 "With something of a lofty utterance drest — 
 Choice words and measured phrase, above the reach 
 Of ordinary men ; a stately speech." 
 
 Music he spoke of as a "necessity" to his 
 daily life. If ever again he visited London, it 
 was his hope to frequent the opera, though as 
 to the theatres, he felt no kind of attraction in 
 anything they could promise him. The idea of 
 seeing "Lear" on the stage, environed by the 
 surroundings of mere pleasure-seekers and fri- 
 volous play-goers, seemed to him profanity out- 
 right. He adverted, however, with cordial 
 admiration, to the Antigone of Miss Helen 
 Faucit, of whom and of her distinguished hus- 
 band (Mr Theodore Martin) he spoke in terms 
 of personal regard. The latter he had recently 
 met, I think he said at Mrs Crowe's, one of the 
 most intimate, at this time, of his literary 
 friends in Edinburgh. To Mrs Henry Siddons, 
 too, as a graceful, aerial actress, he referred in 
 terms of lively appreciation. Fond as he was 
 of music, he was not often in the room while 
 the two younger of his daughters played or sang 
 during my stay ; but he was a good listener, for 
 all that, in his "den" downstairs, and would 
 comment on his favourites among their pieces 
 when he rejoined us. Devout was his reverence 
 for Beethoven, who alone, I used to think was 
 capable, among the great composers, of setting 
 his dream fugues to music, or of interpreting 
 their hidden mysteries and complex transitions 
 in strains of some choral symphony. Men- 
 delssohn he had not as yet come really to ad- 
 
272 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 mire; not even the "Songs without Words" 
 seemed to speak home to his heart of hearts; 
 and alike to "May-bells" and "Oh, wert thou 
 in the cauld blast," warbled by sweet sister- 
 voices, he could listen without a thrill. Bellini 
 was so far a favourite with him, that he often 
 asked his daughters Florence and Emily to give 
 him the well-worn "Deh Conte;" nor would 
 he tire of gems from the "Don Giovanni," or 
 of "Questo Semplice," or of such time-tried 
 strains as "Time hath not thinned," " lovely 
 Peace," "In chaste Susanna's praise," "Down 
 the dark waters," "By limpid streams," "And 
 will he not come again," " Birds blithely sing- 
 ing," etc. He exulted in the fervour of expres- 
 sion and the musician-like touch and facility of 
 execution with which his youngest daughter, 
 still under professional instruction, rendered 
 Beethoven's "Sonata Pathetica," Weber's "In- 
 vitation," and Pergolesi's "Gloria in Excelsis.'* 
 When he had written to invite me to visit him, 
 he had promised me, if I liked such things, music 
 and laughter in abundance, on the part of his 
 three days. And well was the promise kept. 
 Yet did he not promise me two things — music 
 and laughter ? In effect I found it to be all one, 
 for the laughter itself was music. 
 
 His eldest daughter's delicate health was at 
 this period a matter of grave anxiety to him, 
 and the doctor's report of organic mischief in 
 progress at the lungs overwhelmed him with 
 solicitude and misgivings. She kept house for 
 him, and he expressed to me, with the most 
 charming naivete and innocent candour, his 
 supreme amazement at the economical tact 
 with which, while exercising all the year round 
 a quiet system of modest hospitality, she con- 
 trived to make both ends meet. Comfortable 
 as she made his home, and happy as she and 
 her two sisters made himself, he yet lamented 
 piteously the inroads on his time caused by 
 visitors. His only salvation, he said, for this 
 chronic curse of distracting interruptions would 
 entail the loss to his daughters of their only 
 relaxation. He lamented, too, the smallness of 
 his " den," overcrowded with books and papers. 
 In this room he had left himself space only to 
 slide along to his table through piles of volumes. 
 His daughters told me this was the first house 
 he had not built them out of with these ever- 
 accumulating books. Thrice in Westmoreland 
 had such been their fate, and they laughed at 
 their own imprudence in leaving a bath in this 
 room of his, which he instantly utilised past 
 recovery as a receptacle for literary matter, 
 heaped up, pressed down, shaken together, and 
 running over. They laughed, too, over his 
 quaint trick of carrying off every scrap of paper 
 he could lay his hands on — any old envelope or 
 newspaper, not unfrequently on the bland pre- 
 text of " burning it for you" in that fire of his 
 which was never allowed to go out the whole 
 Tear round, and which, in a little room so 
 
 densely charged with combustible matter, was 
 to them a source of some natural anxiety. 
 
 It was on 22d July that I repeated my visit, 
 remaining with him at Mavis Bush until the 
 27th. Meanwhile, he had been gratified by 
 a visit from Mr Fields, of Boston, U.S.A., 
 who, on leaving, had put into Miss De 
 Quincey's hands a cheque for a part of the 
 profits accruing from the sale of the American 
 edition of his works, to be kept from her father's 
 knowledge till he should have returned home 
 from seeing his American guest to the coach. 
 Miss Martineau had spent the afternoon with 
 him the day before, and he spoke of her with 
 real liking in his words and manner. If her 
 size had impressed him, so had her quietness of 
 demeanour ; and adopting Elia's phrase, he de- 
 signated her the gentle giantess. She, on her 
 part, had been pleasantly impressed by his 
 voice, and had exclaimed to his eldest daughter 
 apart, alluding to her own deafness, " Oh, what 
 a voice ! so clear, so soft, so sweet ! so delightful 
 a contrast to the way people have of bawling 
 to me." 
 
 On the 25th, he hoped to have taken me to morn- 
 ing service at the Episcopal chapel on the Duke of 
 Buccleuch's grounds, Dalkeith, but was not well 
 enough at the appointed hour; and I accom- 
 panied his three daughters to the chapel, driving 
 through Bonnyrigg and Lowton, and coming 
 within view of Cockpen Tower and of theLammer- 
 moor Hills by the way. He talked of the service 
 on our return, and showed how far his sym- 
 pathies went with a moderately-ornate ritual. 
 Sound Church of England man, as it was his 
 great right and his pride to call himself, he 
 avowed that his antagonism to Eome was mainly 
 as a political system. On this Sunday afternoon 
 he avowed the vehement hatred he had always 
 cherished for the Judaic continuance of a Sab- 
 bath in the Judaic sense. Sabbath he hailed as 
 a sublime word, but its exclusive beauty and 
 significance were ruined, to his sense, by the 
 " base universal usage of it on the most trivial 
 occasions." For some Presbyterian ministers, 
 notably Dr Hanna, with whom he had agreeable 
 relations in contributing to the North British 
 Review, his regard was unaffectedly cordial. It 
 must be remembered that a Scottish Broad 
 Church party, such as could have better claimed 
 his sympathies, as a party was hardly then in 
 existence. The Norman Macleods and the Tul- 
 lochs, as a power in the Kirk, were yet to come. 
 He was curious to know more about Professor 
 Maurice, who "has been talked of to me as the 
 greatest man in the Church of England," but 
 who thus far had failed to impress him with a 
 sense of real or definite power. All seemed so 
 indefinite when looked closely into. What 
 seemed firm ground gave way beneath your 
 tread. As to Charles Kingsley and the Chris- 
 tian Socialist, " I am puzzled to know what in 
 the world they would be at." Mr Gladstone's 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCE Y, 
 
 273 
 
 splendid powers had a charm for him: "But 
 what am I to think [1852] of his sympathies with 
 a party abroad which at home would be identi- 
 fied with extreme democracy ? " Not that ex- 
 treme democracy in politics, any more than 
 abstract atheism as such, was to Mr De Quincey 
 otherwise than philosophically interesting. One 
 of the periodicals of the day which he seemed to 
 read with great zest was the Leader^ of the 
 editor of which, Mr G. H. Lewes, he spoke with 
 inquiring eagerness. During our walk together 
 into Edinburgh on the day of my finally quitting 
 Mavis Bush, he expatiated with unprecedented 
 animation on German theology of the advanced 
 school, and freely recognised the "enormity" 
 of the difl&culties which rigid orthodoxy had to 
 confront. Passing on to speak of practical dif- 
 ficulties, he said: " Frightfully perplexed I am 
 to this hour as to what constitutes the so-called 
 appropriation of the benefits of Christ's death. 
 Never could I get any one to clear it up to me. 
 Coleridge was utterly vague on the subject. He 
 talked all about it and about it, but never 
 talked it out, that I could discover. Often have 
 I discussed the question with my mother, a 
 clear-headed and thoughtful woman, devoted to 
 the evangelical system, and a devout supporter 
 of the Record — which paper I honour, as, in 
 the other extreme, but for the same reason, I do 
 the Leader, for its candid and obvious earnest- 
 ness in enforcing the views it has so sincerely 
 at heart — but she would utterly fail to compre- 
 hend my difficulties. * My dear child,' she would 
 repeat, ' you have simply to trust in the blood 
 of Christ.' *Very well,' I would reply, *and 
 I am quite willing; I reverence Christ; but 
 what does this trusting mean? How am I to 
 know exactly what to do ? Upon what specifi- 
 cally am I to take hold to support me when flesh 
 and heart faileth, in the hour of death, and at 
 the day of judgment?' Countless different 
 schemes there are to expound this doctrine of 
 trust and of appropriation, but they remind me 
 of the ancilia at Eome, the eleven copies of the 
 sacred shield or palladium — to prevent the true 
 one being stolen, the eleven were made exactly 
 like it. So with the true doctrine of the atone- 
 ment — it is lurking among the others that look 
 like it, but who is to say which of them all 
 it is?" 
 
 After taking cofi'ee with me that evening, Mr 
 De Quincey surpassed himself in copious elo- 
 quence and vivid variety of discourse, from 
 grave to gay, from lively to severe. He talked 
 of the history he proposed to write — a " philo- 
 sophical history of England, perhaps up to the 
 period when Macaulay begins." The novel he 
 had in contemplation was to be about two pri- 
 soners in Austria, in the time of Maria Theresa. 
 He said of his translated novel, "Walladmor," 
 that it arose out of a hasty review of the German 
 
 original inserted in the London Magazine. Tay- 
 lor & Hessey being struck with the extracts a& 
 he had Englished them, commissioned him to 
 translate the complete work. The complete work, 
 he said, turned out to be complete trash ; but he 
 did his best, partly recast the story, and gave 
 more point to the conversations. It found a 
 few admirers, among whom it was gratifying to 
 him to reckon Dora Wordsworth (Mrs Quillinan). 
 As I walked with him along Princes Street 
 to the Mound on his way home, I noticed the 
 nervous solicitude with which he refrained from 
 any gesture, while passing a cabstand, that might 
 seem to warrant any driver in concluding him- 
 self summoned and engaged. Some unhappy 
 experience of a mistake of this kind may have 
 been the secret of his disquiet, for evidently he 
 entertained a dread of the "overbearing brutality 
 of these men." He spoke of his short-sighted- 
 ness, which at Oxford had been so marked, that 
 he was rumoured to be a bit of a Jacobin because 
 he failed to "cap" the master of his college 
 (Worcester) when he met him, only from sheer 
 inability to recognise him by sight. We paused 
 to look at the display of French and German 
 books in Seton's window, and he would willingly 
 have lingered there till sunset, glancing from 
 author to author, with a word for (or against) 
 each. Seeing in Bell & Bradfute's window a 
 copy of Hawthorne's " Mosses," about which I 
 had been talking to his daughters, I went in to 
 buy it, he readily undertaking the light porter- 
 age ; and it led him to talk of Hawthorne's geniua, 
 and to mention a recent visit of Emerson's — to 
 neither of whom could he accord quite the degree 
 of admiration claimed for them by the more 
 thoroughgoing of their respective admirers. Our 
 way lay through George Square to the Meadows, 
 and at the end of "Lovers' Walk" he insisted on 
 my not incurring the fatigue of accompanying him 
 further. It was between eight and nine on that 
 lovely July evening that I took leave — my last 
 leave — of the man to whom I owed so much. 
 At the very moment of parting, all seemed to 
 me like a dream : that we had ever met, that we 
 were now parting. Could it all be but the base- 
 less fabric of a vision, and was this the break-up, 
 to leave not a rack behind ? 
 
 " The old man still stood talking by my side; 
 But now his voice to me was like a stream 
 Scarce heard ; nor word from word could I divide ; 
 And the whole body of the man did seem 
 Like one whom I had met with in a dream." 
 
 The parting was over, and he went on his 
 way. Lingering, I watched that receding figure, 
 as it diminished in the distance. The last I saw 
 of him, he had opened Hawthorne's book, and 
 went along reading as he walked. In that atti- 
 tude I lost sight of him. He went on his way, 
 and I saw him no more. 
 
CHAELES KNIGHT. 
 
 [1791-1873.] 
 
 Charles Knight, the eminent publisher and 
 author, was born at Windsor in 1791. His 
 mother, the daiighter of a wealthy yeoman from 
 Buckinghamshire, died shortly after his birth, 
 when he was left to the care of his father, who 
 was a bookseller possessing literary tastes, and 
 who to his bookselling business had added that 
 of printing. He published a "Windsor Guide," 
 and a magazine called the Microcosm, which 
 was conducted by Etonians. This brought Mr 
 Knight the elder into contact with some youths 
 of talent, amongst them George Canning. 
 Charles early formed a taste for reading, which 
 was abundantly nourished with the literature 
 found in his father's shop. He was left a good 
 deal to himself, and when sent to school he 
 complained that it was rather dreary, and did 
 not take kindly to his lessons. Returning 
 home from school one day he was a witness of 
 the bread riots, in which the poor people of the 
 town, believing that the high price of corn was 
 due to combination on the part of corn-factors, 
 millers, and bakers, smashed the windows of 
 several bakers' shops in the town. The price of 
 the quartern loaf at that time was Is. 9d. In 
 his boyish days he was familiar with the face 
 and form of George III., who seemed to know 
 and remember everybody. He caught a glimpse 
 of Pitt waiting outside Windsor Palace until 
 the king and queen should descend the Eastern 
 Terrace. *' The immobility of those features, the 
 erectness of that form, told of one born to com- 
 mand. The loftiness and breadth of the forehead 
 spoke of sagacity and firmness — the quick eye, 
 of eloquent promptitude — the nose, somewhat 
 twisted out of the perpendicular, made his enemies 
 say his face was as ;crooked as his policy." He 
 had glimpses of other notables, such as Dr and 
 Fanny Burney. The people of Windsor, as he 
 remarks, "vegetated, although living amidst a 
 continual din of royalty going to and fro— of 
 bell-ringing for birthdays— of gun-firing for vic- 
 tories — of reviews in the park — of the relief of 
 the guard, with all pomp of military music — of 
 the chapel bell tolling twice a day, unheeded 
 by few besides official worshippers— of crowding 
 to the Terrace on Sunday evenings — of periodical 
 holidays, such as Ascot races and Egham races 
 — of rare festivities, such as afite at Frogmore." 
 The business people of Windsor conducted their 
 callings on the most easy-going principles, and 
 did not dream of the exacting competition of a 
 later time. 
 
 When twelve years of age Charles Knight was 
 sent to a classical school at Ealing, kept by 
 the Rev. Dr Nicholas. The time at Ealing was 
 
 spent happily enough ; when in 1805 he was 
 taken from school and apprenticed to his father's 
 business at Windsor, his father saying that he 
 had acquired knowledge enough to fit him for 
 his station in life. 
 
 The change in his life was not without its 
 attendant dangers, as it gave the " opportunity 
 for desultory reading to the neglect of all syste- 
 matic acquirement ; the tendency to day-dreams 
 and morbid fancies, in the utter want of im- 
 proving companionship." From the age of four- 
 teen to seventeen he worked irregularly at 
 learning the printer's trade. It was a time of 
 great political excitement, and besides the read- 
 ing of many classic English authors he carefully 
 scanned the daily newspapers. He became im- 
 pressed with the injustice of the many injudicious 
 taxes then levied, and the miserable condition 
 of the lower classes. An old folio edition of 
 Shakespeare which had come into his possession, 
 though sadly mutilated, gave him an opportunity 
 of showing his skill and taste in restoring the 
 portions of the text which had been destroyed. 
 
 At one time he entertained an idea of study- 
 ing for the bar, but this notion being relinquished 
 he began to think that literature in some form 
 or another must be his vocation. He would be 
 a journalist, and he began to prepare himself 
 for his future vocation by the study of De 
 Lolme, Blackstone, and Burke. In 1810 he 
 thought he might do something to dissipate the 
 proud ignorance which hung over Windsor, by 
 starting a reading society, the influence of 
 which proved so far beneficial for the short 
 time it lasted. Tired of Windsor life he came 
 to London, and commenced his apprenticeship 
 to literature by becoming a reporter on the 
 Globe newspaper. The experience he thus 
 gained in the House of Commons, and of Lon- 
 don life generally, was of immense importance 
 to him, and he went back to Windsor in 1812, 
 with what he terms "some enlargement of my 
 intellectual vision." 
 
 He had for some time cherished the project 
 of a newspaper which might help to "reform 
 many things" in the neighbourhood of his native 
 Windsor, advocate everything that thinking 
 men will support — toleration, education of the 
 poor, diffusion of religious knowledge, public 
 economy. In his twenty-first year he became 
 editor and proprietor along with his father of 
 the Windsor and Eton Express. The work of 
 periodical writing begun with the issue of this 
 newspaper was continued for fifty years. The 
 publication of a newspaper at that time was 
 heavily burdened with taxation. The news- 
 
CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 
 275 
 
 paper stamp was then fourpence, the adver- 
 tisement duty was three shillings. The 
 censorship of the press was also extremely 
 rigid. In 1810 William Cobbett had been 
 sentenced to two years* imprisonment and to a 
 fine of a thousand pounds for his plain speaking 
 regarding flogging in the local militia of Ely. 
 "Moore's Almanac" had a great circulation, 
 and was implicitly believed in by the illiterate. 
 *'If," says Charles Knight, "the great astrolo- 
 ger prophesied disaster, few would be the be- 
 lievers in success. There was scarcely a home 
 in Southern England in which this two shillings' 
 worth of imposture was not to be found. There 
 was scarcely a farmer who would cut his grass 
 if the almanac predicted rain. No cattle-doctor 
 would give a drench to a cow unless he consulted 
 the table in the almanac showing what sign the 
 moon is in, and what part of the body it 
 governs." In 1813 he wrote a play, which he 
 called "Armiuius," which was afterwards pub- 
 lished. 
 
 Meanwhile, as editor and reporter, his educa- 
 tion was going on, and one means of bettering 
 the condition of the poor, about which he never 
 had any doubt, was that they should be 
 thoroughly educated. His nomination in 1818 
 to the post of one of the overseers of the parish 
 of Windsor was a valuable initiation into public 
 business. After some months' experience of 
 paupers and pauperism, he ventured to propose 
 to his brother officers that they should visit the 
 out-door poor in their own homes. This start- 
 ling proposal was carried out, when they saw 
 many things with their own eyes calculated to 
 lessen theorising. In addition to parish affairs 
 his mind was continually busied with literary 
 schemes. "I may truly say," he remarks, 
 "and I say it for the encouragement of any 
 young man who is sighing over the fetters of his 
 daily labour, and pining for weeks and mouths 
 of uninterrupted study — that I have found 
 through life that the acquisition of knowledge, 
 and a regular course of literary employment, 
 are far from being incompatible with com- 
 mercial pursuits. I doubt whether, if I had 
 been all author or all publisher, I should have 
 succeeded better in either capacity." His first 
 venture as publisher and editor was a reprint of 
 Fairfax's " Tasso," to which he prefixed a life 
 of Tasso and a life of Fairfax. 
 
 The literature of the period was of a very low 
 cast, and as early as 1814 he had entertained 
 the notion of supplanting, by something purer 
 and better, the literature embraced in "Lives 
 of Highwaymen," or the "History of Witch- 
 craft," and the cheap novels which revelled in 
 murders, adulteries, and familiarity with the de- 
 tails of crime. These, with the ' ' Newgate Calen- 
 dar," and the "Book of Dreams," were almost 
 the only variety to be found in the hawker's 
 pack. There was little good and useful reading 
 within the reach of the multitude when Charles 
 
 Knight made his first distinct venture into the 
 region of popular literature, with an article in 
 the Windsor Express, on 11th December 1819, 
 under the heading of "Cheap Publications." 
 "There is a new power " he wrote, "entrusted 
 to the great mass of the working people, 
 and it is daily becoming of wider extent and 
 wider importance. . . . Knowledge must 
 have its worldly as well as its spiritual range ; 
 it looks towards heaven, but it treads upon the 
 earth. The mass of useful books are not acces- 
 sible to the poor ; newspapers, with their admix- 
 ture of good and evil, seldom find their way 
 into the domestic circle of the labourer or 
 artisan; the tracts which pious persons distri- 
 bute are exclusively religious, and the tone of 
 these is often either fanatical or puerile. The 
 'twopenny trash,' as it is called, has seen 
 further, with the quick perception of avarice or 
 ambition, into the intellectual wants of the 
 worldng classes. It was just because there was 
 no healthful food for their newly-created appe- 
 tite, that sedition and infidelity have been so 
 widely disseminated." The publication of this 
 article led to Mr Knight's introduction to Mr 
 Locker, and one of the results was the publica- 
 tion of the Plain Englishman on 1st February 
 1820. This was continued for three years. On 
 the title-page of this work it was described 
 as "comprehending original compositions, and 
 selections from the best writers, under the 
 heads of 'The Christian Monitor,' 'The British 
 Patriot,' 'The Fireside Companion.'" This 
 division he afterwards looked upon as a mis- 
 take, and mentions the fact that Dr Arnold 
 spoke in terms of high commendation of a short 
 article on Mirabeau which he had written, in 
 which the religious feeling was infused as part 
 of the whole. Illustrations in the then state of 
 wood-engraving would have been too poor and 
 too expensive for the Plain Englishman; and 
 as the exciting events of the day lent a supreme 
 interest to the newspaper, this publication was 
 abandoned in 1822. One of the papers in the 
 last volume bore the title of "Diffusion of Use- 
 ful Knowledge," and seemed a forecast of the 
 honourable work in which Charles Knight as 
 author and editor was so shortly afterwards to 
 be engaged. 
 
 The late connection with Mr Locker led Mr 
 Knight to become editor of the Quardian, a 
 London weekly, which he speedily improved. 
 One of his articles, entitled " Magazine Day," 
 excited not a little interest in Paternoster Row, 
 as it afforded a glimpse of magazine publishing 
 half a century ago. Blackwood's Magazine had 
 just started on its brilliant and prosperous 
 career. The London was the only English 
 monthly which could be compared to it, 
 although the points of difference were many. 
 There was a Monthly, a Ladies', a New Monthly 
 and the sober brown-coated Gentleman's Ma- 
 gazine. The best of all forms of literary go- 
 
276 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 vernment in magazine editing Knight describes 
 as **a secret despotism." With growing ex- 
 perience, and with schemes of new magazines 
 in his head, it was not to be supposed that 
 he would remain editor of the Guardian^ and 
 so we find, in the season of 1823, that he had 
 taken up his position as a publisher in Pall 
 Mall, East. His previous connection with, and 
 the fact of the publication of the Etonian, 
 along with his father, was now of service to 
 him. This little magazine had become a nucleus 
 around which many talented young writers had 
 gathered themselves, notably, Walter Blunt, 
 Winthrop Mackworth Praed, T. B. Macaulay, 
 Henry Nelson Coleridge, Moultrie, and others. 
 As soon as the plan of KnighVs Quarterly 
 Magazine was settled, he found himself in pos- 
 session of contributions sufficient in number 
 and quality to guarantee immediate publication. 
 "There is," says Mr Knight, "no happiness of 
 the editorial life equal to that of first reading 
 the manuscript of a contributor in which 
 original genius is so manifest that none but a 
 blockhead would venture upon an alteration." 
 This happiness he experienced thus early in his 
 editorial career. Some of the most spirited of 
 Macaulay's ballads appeared in its pages, and 
 some of the best of Moultrie's poems. Though 
 full of wit, humour, and earnest thinking, it 
 was not pecuniarily successful, and so was dis- 
 continued after the sixth number. He was 
 fairly settled as a publisher in 1824. One of 
 the birds of passage who came to him with 
 many brilliant literary schemes was Eobert 
 Mudie. Literary adventurers, neglected authors, 
 would waste much precious time for him in re- 
 tailing their woes to the young publisher. For 
 a short time he was personally occupied in 
 editing and publishing versions of French 
 memoirs. He published the " Pedestrian Jour- 
 ney through Eussia and Siberian Tartary," by 
 Captain John Dundas Cochrane, with great suc- 
 cess. In this connection he remarks: "In a 
 varied intercourse, such as that of an aspiring 
 publisher, he must have very dull faculties to 
 allow them to stagnate. Give him a prosperous 
 career, and few occupations can be happier, 
 great as may be his risks and responsibilities." 
 In July 1825 a work of unusual importance was 
 issued by him, " Milton's Treatise on Christian 
 Doctrine," which had been discovered in the 
 State Paper Office. The large and comprehen- 
 sive scheme of a "National Library," a cheap 
 series of works which should condense the in- 
 formation contained in voluminous and expen- 
 sive works, was launched at this period. The 
 subjects of about a hundred volumes were 
 settled. In conjunction with Colburn and 
 Whittaker the scheme was arranged to be taken 
 up at once. But the general commercial dis- 
 tress prevalent at the time, when the firm of 
 Hurst & Kobinson fell, dragging down Con- 
 stable, Ballantyne, and Sir Walter Scott, pre- 
 
 vented this arrangement being carried out. 
 After rearranging his scheme, it so happened 
 that Lord Brougham was engaged in establish- 
 ing the Society for the Difl^asion of Useful 
 Knowledge. Brougham sent for Mr Knight, 
 the matter was quickly arranged, and heartily 
 entered into, and Knight's business was merged 
 into that of Mr Murray. But differences of 
 opinion about the editorial responsibility arose, 
 the arrangement as to the purchase of stock and 
 copyrights presented new obstacles, and so in 
 1827, ' ' I was heartsick at last, and abandoning 
 the whole scheme, left it for the imitation of 
 others of more independent means." 
 
 These troubles in his outward life did not 
 entirely destroy his peace of mind, his domestic 
 life with his wife and four little girls was 
 happy, and with ready power of adapting him- 
 self to new circumstances, we find him next 
 engaged as a writer in the Sphinx, a paper edited 
 by Mr Silk Buckingham. This course of jour- 
 nalism was not, however, agreeable to him. He 
 left the office, and for a short time superintended 
 the publication of an annual called Friend- 
 ship's Offering. This employment was made 
 all the more agreeable to him, in that several of 
 his old friends, contributors to the Quarterly 
 Magazine, also wrote for this venture. In July 
 1827 he took a very important step in life in 
 assuming the superintendence of the works 
 issued by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
 Knowledge. Lord Brougham's introductory 
 manual in the "Library of Useful Knowledge" 
 had been very successful, and emboldened the 
 society and its new editor in the issue of another 
 series, to be called the " Library of Entertaining 
 Knowledge. " A perusal of the existing almanacs, 
 which were superstitious, incorrect, and crowded 
 with senseless absurdities, led him in 1827 to 
 elaborate the scheme of a more rational and use- 
 ful almanac. Although the sanction of the 
 society was only gained for this scheme in the 
 middle of November, "The British Almanac" 
 made its appearance before the 1st of January, 
 price half-a-cro wn. Tenthousand copies of it were 
 sold within a week. This led to the issue of "A 
 Companion to the Almanac," and he afterwards 
 remarked with satisfaction regarding both, that 
 " the pair have travelled on together for thirty- 
 seven years under my direction, through many 
 changes of times and men," while " the general 
 features of these publications have undergone 
 very little change during this long period." He 
 superintended their publication up till 1868, 
 when the work was handed on to another, with 
 its high character unimpaired. In the interest 
 of the society and its publications, he made an 
 enjoyable and instructive tour through the 
 busiest industrial parts of England. 
 
 The schemes of the society were grovring in 
 extent, so much so that Mr Murray, the pub- 
 lisher, parted from the concern. Making terms 
 with the society for the sale of their publications, 
 
CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 
 277 
 
 and finding a capitalist willing to bear his part 
 in his new venture, Charles Knight was in 1829 
 established as a publisher in Pall Mall, East. 
 His connection with the society had brought 
 him into terms of intimacy with Lord Brougham, 
 Sir John Herschel, Mr Spring Rice, and Pro- 
 fessor George Lillie Craik, well known as the 
 author of the "Pursuit of Knowledge under 
 Difficulties." In January 1831 Charles Knight 
 received the formal thanks of the society for the 
 publication of a volume, addressed to the work- 
 ing classes, on machinery, which the chairman, 
 Mr Spring Rice, said had effected more good for 
 the repression of outrage than a regiment of 
 horse would have effected in any disturbed 
 country. This work was followed by another, 
 not less useful in its own way, entitled *' Capital 
 and Labour." 
 
 The young publisher had an offer made to him 
 in February 1832, which, had he accepted of it, 
 might have changed his after-career. Lord 
 Auckland, at that time President of the Board 
 of Trade, proposed to him the acceptance of the 
 new office for digesting and arranging parlia- 
 mentary and other official documents. He re- 
 spectfully declined the offer, and introduced a 
 friend of his own, who entered the office. His 
 mind was meanwhile busy projecting his great 
 scheme, the issue of the Penny Magazine. He 
 had some difficulty at first in gaining the sanc- 
 tion of the society ; but Lord Brougham was 
 not accustomed to let difficulties stand in the 
 way, so the first number appeared on 31st March 
 1832, with Charles Knight as editor, he also 
 taking the risk of the publication. The issue of 
 Chambers's Edinburgh Journal was commenced 
 only a few weeks previous to this time. Both 
 journals marked a new era in publishing and 
 book buying. They brought home, for the first 
 time in such a form, to the poorest cottage in 
 the land, wholesome, entertaining, and instruc- 
 tive literature. 
 
 Charles Knight, remarking on the success of 
 the Penny Magazine, says that it "was an 
 astonishment to most persons ; I honestly con- 
 fess it was a surprise to myself. It was not till 
 the autumn that an attempt was made by the 
 means of woodcuts to familiarise the people 
 with great works of art. There were presented 
 them engravings of a costly character, of such 
 subjects as the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvedere, 
 the cartoons, and the great cathedrals, British 
 and foreign. At the end of 1832 the Penny 
 Magazine had reached a sale of 200,000 in 
 weekly numbers and monthly parts. In the 
 preface to the first volume, under the date of 
 December the 18th, I thus wrote : It was con- 
 sidered by Edmund Burke, about forty years 
 ago, that there were 80,000 readers in this 
 country. In the present year it has been shown, 
 by the sale of the Penny Magazine, that there 
 are 200,000 purchasers of one periodical work. 
 It may be fairly calculated that the number of 
 
 readers of that single work amounts to a mil- 
 lion. If this incontestable evidence of the 
 spread of the ability to read be most satisfac- 
 tory, it is still more satisfactory to consider the 
 species of reading, which has had such an ex- 
 tensive and increasing popularity. In this work 
 there has never been a single sentence that could 
 inflame a vicious appetite ; and not a para- 
 graph that could minister to prejudices and 
 superstitions which a few years since were com- 
 mon. There have been no excitements for the 
 lovers of the marvellous — no tattle or abuse for 
 the gratification of a diseased taste for person- 
 ality, and, above all, no party politics." On 
 the 18th July 1833, a short stout man, of about 
 thirty years of age, of sallow complexion, bright 
 eyes, and lofty forehead, presented himself with 
 a letter of introduction at Mr Knight's place of 
 business in Ludgate Street. This was John 
 Kitto, whose after-career was one of honourable, 
 and to him fairly profitable literary industry. 
 He received steady employment on the Penny 
 Magazine and *' Penny Cyclopaedia," while the 
 other works he afterwards produced from time 
 to time on biblical subjects still remain useful 
 and popular books. 
 
 The success of the Penny Magazine had 
 opened up the way for the issue of the "Penny 
 C^'^clopsedia," which was commenced on 2d Janu- 
 ary 1833. Every article was to be original, and 
 written by men who were authorities on the 
 subjects taken up. Had it been only a careful 
 compilation, instead of an original work, Knight 
 calculated that it might have been a fortune to 
 him. Mr Long was the responsible editor. The 
 history of this publication will be best given 
 in his own words. "'The committee [of the 
 Useful Knowledge Society] had the honour 
 of the work, in its extended form, but with- 
 out incurring any of the risk, or contributing 
 one shilling to the cost, the literary expenditure 
 alone having reached nearly £40,000. Upon 
 the completion of the " Cyclopaedia," the balance 
 upon the outlay above the receipts was £30,788.' 
 The regular decrease in the sale was very 
 marked. While it continued to be published 
 upon its original plan of one number weekly, 
 the sale was 75,000. The instant there was an 
 issue of two numbers a week it fell to 55,000, 
 and at the end of its second year it had fallen 
 to 44,000. When the twopence a week became 
 fourpence, the rate of diminution became still 
 more rapid. The sale of the first year was 
 double that of the fourth year. The sale of the 
 fourth year doubled that of the eighth year. It 
 then found its level, and became steady to the 
 end— the 55,000 of the latter months of 1833 
 having been reduced to 20,000 at the close of 
 1843. The committee of the society, when the 
 original project had been departed from, and 
 they saw that the undertaking had become to 
 me a burden and a loss, passed a resolution 
 that no rent be paid upon the first 110,000 copies 
 
of each number of the * Penny Cyclopaedia.' 
 Rent was then to commence ; and to continue 
 till the work had reached a sale of 200,000, when 
 the society would no longer ask for a remunera- 
 tion for its superintendence. No doubt I was 
 grateful for this sanguine anticipation of a good 
 time coming, but it is scarcely prudent or satis- 
 factory for a commercial man to postpone his 
 profits ad Calendas OrcBcas. The chronic loss 
 for eleven years, which was induced by the 
 *Cyclop83dia,' and which fell wholly upon me, 
 absorbed every other source of profit in my ex- 
 tensive business, leaving me little beyond a bare 
 maintenance, without the hope of laying by for 
 the future." 
 
 The publication of the "Penny Cyclopaedia," 
 begun in 1833, was finished in 1846. One of the 
 reasons Mr Knight gives for its want of com- 
 mercial success, was the excessive sum which 
 had been paid to the Excise. Shortly after the 
 issue of the "Penny Cyclopaedia," the sale of 
 the Penny Magazine declined. Although a new 
 series was started, it did not maintain its former 
 place, and in 1847, when the society had decided 
 to suspend their operations, Charles Knight 
 also decided that the publication should cease 
 as far as he was concerned. The following is 
 his concluding address to the Penny Magazine^ 
 in which he alludes in pointed terms to those 
 authors and to those publishers who, instead of 
 elevating, are making the mental and moral 
 degradation of their readers a source of gain to 
 themselves. "I rejoice," he says, "that there 
 are many in the field, and some who have come 
 at the eleventh hour deserve the wages of 
 zealous and faithful labourers. But there are 
 others who are carrying out the principle of 
 cheap weekly sheets, to the disgrace of the 
 system, and who appear to have got some con- 
 siderable hold upon the less-informed of the 
 working people, and especiallj'- upon the young. 
 There are manufactories in London whence hun- 
 dreds of reams of vile paper and printing issue 
 weekly ; where large bodies of children are em- 
 ployed to arrange types at the wages of shirt- 
 makers, from cojpy furnished by the most ignor- 
 ant at the wages of scavengers. In truth, such 
 writers, if they deserve the name of writers, are 
 scavengers. All the garbage that belongs to 
 the history of crime and misery is raked to 
 diffuse a moral miasma through the land in 
 the shape of the most vulgar and brutal fic- 
 tion." 
 
 His idea of a Penny Miscellany seems to hare 
 been the root idea from which sprung what was 
 best in his after publishing career. His three 
 later cyclopaedias, the "National," the "Im- 
 perial," and the " English," were all based on 
 this idea. The Quarterly Review has said of 
 the "English Cyclopaedia," that "it is a work 
 that, as a whole, has no superior — very few 
 equals of its kind ; that, taken by itself, sup- 
 plies the place of a small library, and in a large 
 
 one is found to present many points of informa- 
 tion that are sought for in vain in any other 
 cyclopaedia of the English language." 
 
 We pass on to notice briefly some of the other 
 great undertakings in which Charles Knight was 
 engaged up till the close of a long- working life. 
 The scheme of an illustrated edition of the Bible 
 was suggested by the "Bilder Bibel" a* coarse 
 and inelegant publication issued in Germany. 
 There was some difficulty at first in finding a 
 suitable editor, when, on mentioning the matter 
 to Mr Kitto, he said at once, "I will undertake 
 it all." He was released from his other employ- 
 ments, and went steadily to work at his task, 
 which to him proved a labour of love. The first 
 number of the "Pictorial Bible" was brought 
 out at the beginning of 1836, and it was com- 
 pleted in two years and a half. It turned out to 
 be profitable to the publisher, although the 
 woodcuts were very costly. In addition to the 
 salary of £250 a year which Mr Kitto received 
 while working at the book, Mr Knight was 
 enabled to present him, on its completion, with 
 a sum which he says appeared to him a little 
 fortune. Mr Kitto's next undertaking was a 
 book on "Palestine," and having found his 
 sphere of work, he laboured at biblical subjects 
 until the close of his life. An edition of the 
 "Arabian Nights' Entertainment," by Edward 
 Lane, with illustrations by William Harvey, 
 gave to the English public, for the first time, a 
 faithful rendering of this work. A "Popular 
 History of England" was his next great project; 
 it was issued in monthly parts at 6d. His aim 
 was " really to vrrite a history in which all the 
 movements that had gone to form the character 
 of the people should be traced out and exhi- 
 bited." This work was well illustrated, and the 
 Times remarked regarding it, that it was pro- 
 bably the best history of England we possess. 
 One of its very able and popular successors, the 
 "Short History of England for the English 
 People," by Mr John Richard Green, has like- 
 wise been very successful. The editing of the 
 " Pictorial Shakespeare " he has called the most 
 congenial undertaking of his literary life. The 
 text of Knight's " Shakespeare " was carefully 
 collated with a copy of the first folio edition. 
 As an assistance to help him to answer the 
 question, "Did Shakespeare visit Scotland?" 
 Mr Knight visited Edinburgh and Glasgow, 
 where he was well received and entertained. 
 "London" and "The Land We Live In," 
 works issued in serial form, followed. When 
 "Knight's Weekly Volume" made its appear- 
 ance in June 1844, it received the patronage 
 of the Queen, who had previously ordered that 
 copies be supplied to all the libraries estab- 
 lished at the palaces. The first volume con- 
 sisted of a book written by Charles Knight, the 
 editor of the series, entitled, " William Caxton, 
 the first English Printer: a Biography." The 
 publication of this series was continued over 
 
EDWARD IRVING, 
 
 279 
 
 four years, but it did not prove a commercial 
 success. Somewhat less than twenty volumes 
 reached a sale of ten thousand, hut the average 
 sale was scarcely five thousand. The editor had 
 to complain that the humbler classes, for whom 
 they were provided, did not seem to find in them 
 the mental aliment they desired. Fiction was 
 wanted of a kind which this series did not 
 supply. When inclined to a wholesale condem- 
 nation of that kind of literature provided by 
 such publications as the London Jowmal^ Charles 
 Dickens, with a swifter and surer interpretation 
 of the taste of the masses, and with what might 
 be termed an apology for his own profession, 
 wrote thus : 
 
 "The English are, so far as I know, the 
 hardest worked people on whom the sun shines. 
 Be content if, in their wretched intervals of 
 leisure they read for amusement and do no 
 worse. They are born at the oar, and they live 
 
 and die at it. Good , what would we have 
 
 of them?" 
 
 Long after Charles Knight had ceased to be a 
 publisher, his industry continued unabated; 
 work after work was originated by him, all 
 containing the germ of something practically 
 suitable, and meeting a want in the life of the 
 time. The publication of the first series of 
 ** Half-Hours with the Best Authors," the work 
 of a twelvemonth, was begun in 1847. 
 
 He completed a record of his working life 
 when in his seventy-fourth year, calling it 
 "Passages of a Working Life during Half a 
 Century." It contains memorials of men and 
 books, of social progress and changing manners. 
 "Shadows of the Old Booksellers" was its im- 
 mediate successor, and was completed in October 
 1865. This was followed by "Half-Hours with 
 the best Letter- Writers and Autobiographers," 
 which occupied him till November 1866. He 
 completed another series of this book in 1868. 
 Although his sight was failing fast, and his 
 hand could scarcely guide the pen, he began the 
 composition of an historical novel, " Begg'd at 
 Court," the last lines of which were written on 
 his seventy-sixth birthday. Owing to a failure 
 
 of sight, the story was dictated. He became 
 gradually feebler, but to the last watched with in- 
 terest the course of public events and what books 
 were published. In these last years he found 
 both pleasure and refreshment in a perusal of 
 the sermons and life of the Rev. F. W. Robert- 
 son of Brighton. Charles Knight passed away 
 calmly on Sunday, 9th March 1873, tended to 
 the last by his faithful wife and daughters. Had 
 he lived another day he would have completed 
 his eighty-second year. His remains rest in 
 the family vault in the old burial-ground at 
 Windsor. 
 
 The life and work of Charles Knight was a 
 distinct benefaction to his time. Long ere the 
 end came he had given up the idea of gathering 
 a " muckhill " of riches to those who might fol- 
 low him. This he never was ambitious to do ; 
 judging that if a man had wisely incurred a 
 liberal expenditure of capital on his children's 
 education, had placed his sons where they could 
 earn their own living, had taught his daughters 
 to fill sensibly and gracefully, as child, wife, or 
 mother, the duties of the position to which they 
 might be called to occupy ; that this was the 
 nobler side of the science of the "wealth of 
 nations," leading to the "happiness of the 
 greatest number." His own domestic life, too, 
 was happy. And although many of his ideals 
 were never realised, and although he bitterly 
 lamented the popular taste which would prefer 
 the garbage of literature to that which was 
 mentally and morally improving, no publisher 
 or author in the nineteenth century gave a more 
 distinct impetus to the cause of cheap and good 
 popular literature. The original works and 
 compilations which his genius and industry 
 were the means of originating, wander, many of 
 them, in "pagan lands." They have been scat- 
 tered over the warehouses of many of our mis- 
 cellaneous publishers. Yet the continued suc- 
 cess of many of his books, although in changed 
 hands, and the success of many ideas for books 
 to which he first gave currency, are a testimony 
 to the sound sense, knowledge, and judgment of 
 him who first made them. 
 
 EDWAKD lEVING. 
 
 [1792-1834.] 
 By THOMAS CARLYLE, GEORGE GILFILLAN, Etc. 
 
 The father of the "celebrated" Irving was a 
 tanner in Annan ; his mother was the daughter 
 of a landed proprietor in the same neighbour- 
 hood, their peaceful home "standing midway 
 between the homely refinements of the Dumfries- 
 shire manses and the rude profusion of the 
 
 Annandale farms." Edward was the second son, 
 and born on the 4th of August 1792, in a small 
 house near the old town-cross of Annan. The 
 squint which afterwards marred the symmetry 
 of his countenance, is said to have been occa- 
 sioned by lying in his wooden cradle with one 
 
280 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 side of his face turned towards the light of the 
 long windowin his mother's bed-chamber. When 
 of age he attended a dame school, and afterwards 
 the Annan Academy, the same school at which 
 Thomas Carlyle, from Ecclefechan, was after- 
 wards a pupil. Irving at school did not dis- 
 tinguish himself in any especial way, and was 
 perhaps more famous for feats of swimming, 
 walking, rowing, climbing, and every kind of 
 out-of-door exercise. His school education at 
 Annan was over when thirteen years of age, 
 when he began his studies at Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity. His elder brother, John, accompanied 
 him to town, where he intended to study medi- 
 cine. He took his degree when seventeen years 
 of age, in April 1809. His miscellaneous reading 
 during his college term was very varied, from 
 Hooker's works to the "Arabian Nights" and 
 Ossian's poems. 
 
 In 1810, on the recommendation of Sir John 
 Leslie and Professor Christison, he received the 
 appointment to a school at Haddington, seeking 
 thus as many other Scotch students have done 
 to assist himself while passing through the 
 college. He acted as tutor for a time to a 
 daughter of Dr Welsh of Haddington. After 
 two years of teaching at Haddington he was 
 promoted to the mastership of a newly-founded 
 academy at Kirkcaldy. His preliminary studies 
 over, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery 
 of Kirkcaldy in June 1815. 
 
 A humorous description of his first sermon is 
 given by a friend : " The 'hail toun,' profoundly 
 critical and much interested, turned out to hear 
 him ; even his ancient teachers, with solemn 
 brows, came out to sit in judgment on Edward's 
 sermon. A certain excitement of interest un- 
 usual to that humdrum atmosphere, thrilled 
 through the building. When the sermon was in 
 full current, some incautious movement of the 
 young preacher tilted aside the great Bible, and 
 the sermon itself, that direful 'paper' which 
 Scotch congregations hold in high despite, 
 dropped out bodily and fluttered down upon 
 the precentor's desk underneath. A perfect 
 rustle of excitement ran through the church. 
 Here was an unhoped-for crisis ! What would 
 the neophyte do now? The young preacher 
 calmly stooped his great figure over the pulpit, 
 grasped the manuscript as it lay, broadways, 
 crushed it up in his great hand, thrust it into 
 a pocket, and went on as fluently as before. 
 There does not exist a congregation in Scotland 
 which that act would not have taken by storm. 
 His success was triumphant. To criticise a 
 man so visibly independent of 'the paper' 
 would have been presumption indeed." 
 
 He afterwards acted as assistant to Dr Chal- 
 mers in Glasgow for three years, when he re- 
 ceived a unanimous call to a Presbyterian chapel 
 in Cross Street, Hatton Garden, which he ac- 
 cepted. Previous to receiving this call he had 
 been offered a charge in Kingston, Jamaica, but 
 
 this he was dissuaded by his relatives from ac- 
 cepting. An empty church was speedily filled, 
 and the rank, fashion, and talent of the time were 
 all represented in his crowded audiences. The 
 chapel, which at his arrival did not count more 
 than fifty hearers, had, at the end of three 
 months, fifteen hundred applicants for sittings. 
 A new church was built in Regent Square, cap- 
 able of accommodating at least two thousand 
 persons. His successor, the Rev. James Hamil- 
 ton, D.D., has given a graphic sketch of Irving: 
 
 " Towards this hot and hazy capital was tend- 
 ing, during the dog-days of 1822, a genial and 
 magnificent spirit, such as is rarely found 
 amongst the sons of men. No mere spirit, 
 however, for the eye was met by a splendid 
 colossus, which towered head and shoulders 
 above Cockaigne. He was a preacher. He 
 regarded himself as a messenger from the living 
 God to dying but immortal men ; and there was 
 nothing which any preacher had ever been — 
 Luther, Chrysostom, the Baptist — but in the 
 name of his God he believed that he might 
 venture and with the help of his God repeat. 
 With a great forthgoing towards the common 
 people he did not despair of standing before 
 kings ; and he liked to entertain as a possible 
 consummation the prospect of martyrdom. 
 Loyal to God, he was impatient at the scanty 
 justice which the truths of God — aU save some 
 two or three — receive at the hands of tne modem 
 ministry ; and reverential towards the past, his 
 contemplation of Christianity as it existed in 
 his Albigensian and covenanting forefathers 
 made him disdainful of the cozy, self-coddling 
 ways of modern professorship. It is a great 
 thing to have life, and to have it more abun- 
 dantly. Superior insight makes a cold nature 
 cynical ; it only made Edward Irving an idealist 
 With a physical overflow, which in its prodigal 
 excess courted toil, and feared no exhaustion, 
 he had a heart which held the whole of London. 
 Accepting the call of his fifty Caledonians as an 
 invitation from the united million, on a high 
 spring-tide of hope and gratitude he flowed in 
 upon the capital, and in proud consciousness of 
 the wealth which could enrich it, at once began 
 to unlade his argosy. It did not matter that 
 London was out of to\vn, or that Hatton Garden 
 was a name unknown in the haunts of fashion ; 
 He who had given him his talents and his com- 
 mission had also given him an open letter of 
 introduction to all mankind, and, confident in 
 their goodwill and assuming their actual pre- 
 sence, he instantly began. 
 
 "Before going southwards he had mentioned 
 to a friend his great desire to make a demon- 
 stration for a higher style of Christianity, some- 
 thing more magnanimous, more heroical than 
 this age affects. The purpose was in keeping 
 not only with his exalted conception of the 
 Christian character, but with the grandeur of 
 his own spirit ; and with a litth more practical 
 
EDWARD IRVING. 
 
 281 
 
 wisdom the effect, which was for the moment 
 unprecedented, might have endured to this day. 
 By bringing out the fulness of the boundless, 
 all-embracing Bible, and by carrying hearers 
 who had hitherto rested in texts right into the 
 truths which these texts contain, he relieved 
 evangelism from the reproach of intellectual 
 poverty ; and whilst extorting from many minds 
 their first homage to the Gospel, he made others 
 as if under his leadership they could start afresh 
 and go on to perfection. And he himself went 
 grandly. Living in the presence of the King of 
 kings, and never for a moment forgetting his 
 high calling, his bearing was august, and from 
 before the steps of his straightforward faith 
 mountains and sycamine-trees were removed. 
 And whilst walking with God thus lustily it 
 was a marvellous fund of loving-kindness which 
 he carried forth among his fellow-men. Taking 
 the little children in his arras, and blessing 
 them as no one had ever done since his Master 
 said, 'Let them come unto me;' casting the 
 spell of his own transcendentalism over com- 
 monplace people, and leaving them thencefor- 
 ward on a higher level. 
 
 " Looking to the gifted men who crowded to 
 his church, and who from his profuse, sugges- 
 tive sermons, received new germs of thought, 
 as from his valiant, outspoken faith, they de- 
 rived new impressions of Divine realities, for 
 the first three or four years it was an unpre- 
 cedented ministry. At last, yielding partly to 
 his own excursive instincts, partly to the 
 temptation to tell some new thing to an ex- 
 cited throng, who returned Sunday after Sun- 
 day expecting a new sensation, historical 
 themes, like John the Baptist, were exchanged 
 for prophecy, and speculations regarding the 
 source of the Saviour's sinlessness, such as 
 racked Oriental ingenuity in the early ages, 
 took the place of the lively oracles. The 
 higher that the speculation soared, and the 
 further behind that it left the personal and the 
 practical, the better it suited that class of 
 hearers who think nothing so tiresome as the 
 Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Command- 
 ments, and the wilder that it grew the more 
 it was enjoyed by those devotees who mistake 
 for pious feelings a sort of spiritual galvanism. 
 Such persons now became Irving's inner circle. 
 They closed around him and appropriated him ; 
 they shut out friends who were not the less 
 affectionate because they were sober-minded; 
 and surrounded by a coterie of charlatans and 
 moonshiny mystics, visionary men and hysteri- 
 cal women, who domineered and flattered by 
 turns, nothing remained but to drift helplessly 
 on in the dizzy, imperious vortex. The buoy 
 which good sense flung in to his rescue he 
 hurled back with disdain ; and when, with the 
 tear in its eye, ancient friendship held out its 
 hand, the offer was tearfully declined. Ser- 
 mons were preached on the restoration to the 
 
 Church of miraculous gifts, and weird prayer- 
 meetings were held in the dark cold mornings, 
 followed by strange colloquies and expoundings 
 throughout the day, till the natural upshot was 
 that outburst of * tongues ' which, in the words 
 of Carlyle, brought 'Bedlam and chaos' into 
 the new church in Regent Square." 
 
 A charge of heresy was brought against 
 Irving at a meeting of the Presbytery of Lon- 
 don, 20th November 1830. Among other re- 
 ligious extravagances which he had introduced, 
 was that of speaking in unknown tongues, 
 which had originated among some females in 
 Glasgow, and which had been transferred to his 
 own church. The finding of the presbytery 
 being against him, the trustees of the church in 
 Regent Square deposed him in 1832. He wa? 
 deposed from the ministry by the Presbytery oi 
 Annan in 1833. Irving had caught cold on a 
 journey to Scotland, which developed into con- 
 sumption, and he died on the evening of Sun- 
 day, 6th December 1834, and was buried in 
 the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral. Irving was 
 married, on the 13th October 1823, to Miss 
 Isabella Martin, one of his old pupils, and a 
 daughter of the parish minister of Kirkcaldy. 
 She proved in every sense a worthy helpmate 
 for him, and his letters to her during her ab- 
 sence from home are as full of spiritual wis- 
 dom and affectionate tenderness as those of 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 DEATH OF EDWARD IRVING,* BY THOMAS 
 CARLYLE. 
 
 Edward Irving's warfare has closed ; if not in 
 victory, yet in invincibility, and faithful endur- 
 ance to the end. The spirit of the time, which 
 could not enlist him as its soldier, must needs, 
 in all ways, fight against him as its enemy : it 
 has done its part, and he has done his. One of 
 the noblest natures ; a man of antique heroic 
 nature, in questionable modern garniture, which 
 he could not wear! Around him a distracted 
 society, vacant, prurient; heat and darkness, 
 and what these two may breed : mad extremes 
 of flattery, followed by madder contumely, by 
 indifference and neglect ! These were the con- 
 flicting elements; this is the result they have 
 made out among them. The voice of our *' son 
 of thunder " — with its deep tone of wisdom that 
 belonged to all articulate-speaking ages, never 
 inaudible amid wildest dissonances that belong 
 to this inarticulate age, which slumbers and 
 somnambulates, which cannot speak, but only 
 screech and gibber — has gone silent so soon. 
 Closed are those lips. The large heart, with its 
 large bounty, where wretchedness found solace- 
 ment, and they that were wandering in dark- 
 ness the light as of a home, has paused. The 
 strong man can no more : beaten-on from with- 
 
 * Fraser'8 Magazine, No. 61. 
 
out, undermined from within, he has had to 
 sink overwearied, as at nightfall, when it was 
 yet but the mid-season of day. Irving was 
 forty-two years and some months old : Scotland 
 sent him forth a Herculean man; our mad 
 Babylon wore him and wasted him, with all 
 her engines ; and it took her twelve years. He 
 sleeps with his fathers, in that loved birth-land : 
 Babylon with its deafening inanity rages on; 
 but to him henceforth innocuous, unheeded — 
 for ever. 
 
 Reader, thou hast seen and heard the man, as 
 who has not — with wise or unwise wonder ; thou 
 shalt not see or hear him again. The work, be 
 what it might, is done ; dark curtains sink over 
 it, enclose it ever deeper into the unchangeable 
 past. Think, for perhaps thou art one of a 
 thousand, and worthy so to think, that here 
 once more was a genuine man sent into this our 
 wwgenuine phantasmagory of a world, which 
 would go to ruin without such ; that here once 
 more, under thy own eyes, in this last decade, 
 was enacted the old tragedy, and has had its 
 fifth act now, of "The Messenger of Truth in 
 the Age of Shams" — and what relation thou 
 thyself mayest have to that. Whether any? 
 Beyond question, thou thyself art here; either 
 a dreamer or awake ; and one day shalt cease to 
 dream. 
 
 This man was appointed a Christian priest, 
 and strove with the whole force that was in him 
 to he it. To be it — in a time of tithe contro- 
 versy, encyclopsedism, Catholic rent, philan- 
 thropism, and the revolution of three days ! 
 He might have been so many things; not a 
 speaker only, but a doer ; the leader of hosts of 
 men. For his head, when the Fog-Babylon 
 had not yet obscured it, was of strong far- 
 searching insight; his very enthusiasm was 
 sanguine, not atrabiliar ; he was so loving, full 
 of hope, so simple-hearted, and made all that 
 approached him his. A giant force of activity 
 was in the man ; speculation was accident, not 
 nature. Chivalry, adventurous field-life of the 
 old Border, and a far nobler sort than that, ran 
 in his blood. There was in him a courage, 
 dauntless not pugnacious, hardly fierce, by no 
 possibility ferocious; as of the generous war- 
 horse, gentle in its strength, yet that laughs at 
 the shaking of the spear. But, above all, be 
 what he might, to be a reality was indispensable 
 for him. In his simple Scottish circle, the 
 highest form of manhood attainable or known 
 was that of Christian; the highest Christian 
 was the teacher of such. Irving' s lot was cast. 
 For the foray-spears were all rusted into earth 
 there ; Annan Castle had become a town hall ; 
 and prophetic Knox had sent tidings thither — 
 prophetic Knox, and, alas, also sceptic Hume; 
 and, as the natural consequence, diplomatic 
 Dundasl In such mixed incongruous element 
 had the young soul to grow. 
 
 Grow, nevertheless, he did, with that strong 
 
 vitality of his — grow and ripen. What the 
 Scottish uncelebrated Irving was, they that 
 have only seen the London celebrated and dis- 
 torted one can never know. Bodily and spiritu- 
 ally, perhaps there was not, in that November 
 1822, when he first arrived here, a man more 
 full of genial energetic life in all these islands. 
 
 By a fatal chance, fashion cast her eye on 
 him, as on some impersonation of novel Came- 
 ronianism, some wild product of nature from 
 the wild mountains; fashion crowded round 
 him, with her meteor lights and Bacchic dances ; 
 breathed her foul incense on him — intoxicating, 
 poisoning. One may say, it was his own noble- 
 ness that forwarded such ruin ; the excess of his 
 sociability and sympathy, of his value for the 
 suffrages and sympathies of men. Siren songs, 
 as of a new moral reformation (sons of Mammon, 
 and high sons of Belial and Beelzebub, to be- 
 come sons of God, and the gumflowers of 
 Almack's to be made living roses in a new 
 Eden), sound in the inexperienced ear and 
 heart. Most seductive, most delusive ! Fashion 
 went her idle way, to gaze on Egyptian croco- 
 diles, Iroquois hunters, or what else there might 
 be ; forgot this man, who unhappily could not 
 in his turn forget. The intoxicating poison had 
 been swallowed; no force of natural health 
 could cast it out. Unconsciously, for most 
 part in deep unconsciousness, there was now 
 the impossibility to live neglected ; to walk on 
 the quiet paths, where alone it is well with us. 
 Singularity must henceforth succeed singularity. 
 foulest Circean draught, thou poison of 
 popular applause ! madness is in thee, and 
 death ; thy end is Bedlam and the grave. For 
 the last seven years, Irving, forsaken by the 
 world, strove either to recall it, or to forsake 
 it, shut himself up in a lesser world of ideas and 
 persons, and lived isolated there. Neither in 
 this was there health : for this man such isola- 
 tion was not fit, such ideas, such persons. 
 
 One light still shone on him ; alas, through a 
 medium more and more turbid — the light from 
 heaven. His Bible was there, wherein must 
 lie healing for all sorrows. To the Bible he 
 more and more exclusively addressed himself. 
 If it is the written Word of God, shall it not be 
 the acted Word too? Is it mere sound, then; 
 black printer's ink on white rag paper? A 
 half-man could have passed on without answer- 
 ing; a whole man must answer. Hence pro- 
 phecies of millenniums, gifts of tongues— 
 whereat orthodoxy prims herself into decent 
 wonder, and waves her avauntl Irving clave 
 to his belief, as to his soul's soul ; followed it 
 whithersoever, through earth or air, it might 
 lead him ; toiling as never man toiled to spread 
 it, to gain the world's ear for it — in vain. Even 
 wilder waxed the confusion without and within. 
 The misguided noble-minded had now nothing 
 left to do but die. He died the death of the 
 true and brave. His last words, they say. 
 
EDWARD IRVING, 
 
 283 
 
 were : " In life and in death I am the Lord's." — 
 Amen 1 Amen ! 
 
 One who knew him well, and may with good 
 cause love him, has said: "But for Irving, I 
 had never known what the communion of man 
 with man means. His was the freest, brother- 
 liest, bravest human soul mine ever came in 
 contact with : I call him, on the whole, the best 
 man I have ever, after trial enough, found in 
 this world, or now hope to find. 
 
 "The first time I saw Irving was six-and- 
 twenty years ago, in his native town, Annan. 
 He was fresh from Edinburgh, with college 
 prizes, high character and promise; he had 
 come to see our schoolmaster, who had also 
 been his. We heard of famed professors, of 
 high matters classical, mathematical, a whole 
 wonderland of knowledge; nothing but joy, 
 health, hopefulness without end, looked out 
 from the blooming young man. The last time 
 I saw him was three months ago, in London. 
 Friendliness still beamed in his eyes, but now 
 from amid unquiet fire; his face was flaccid, 
 wasted, unsound ; hoary as with extreme age ; 
 he was trembling over the brink of the grave. 
 Adieu, thou first friend; adieu, while this con- 
 fused twilight of existence lasts! Might we 
 meet where twilight has become day !" 
 
 EDWARD IRVING, BY GEORGE QILPILLAN. 
 
 What a life his had been ! Short, if years are 
 the only measurement of time; but long, if 
 time be computed by the motion of the higher 
 stars of thoughts, feelings, and sorrows ! His 
 life, too, was a strangely-blended one. It was 
 made up of violent contrasts, contradictions, 
 and vicissitudes. At college his career was 
 triumphant; he carried all easily before him. 
 Then, after he obtained license, came two great 
 reverses — unpopularity as a preacher, and, if 
 general report be credited, a love-disappoint- 
 ment. He was discouraged by these to the ex- 
 tent of preparing to leave his native land, and 
 undertake the duties of a missionary to the 
 heathen. In this case he would probably have 
 perished early, and his fame had been confined 
 to the corner of an obituary in a missionary 
 magazine. Then in a moment — whether fortu- 
 nate or unfortunate, how shall we decide? — 
 Chalmers heard him preach, and got him ap- 
 pointed as his colleague in Glasgow. Then 
 London rose up to welcome him, as one man, 
 and his pulpit became a throne of power, re- 
 minding you of what Knox's was in Edinburgh 
 in the sixteenth century. Not since that lion- 
 hearted man of God had thundered to nobles 
 and maids of honour, to senators and queens, 
 had any preacher in Britain such an audience 
 to command and such power to command it as 
 Irving. There were princes of the blood, ladies 
 high in honour and place, ministers of state, 
 celebrated senators, orators, and philosophers, 
 
 poets, critics, and distinguished members of the 
 bar and of the Church, all jostled together into 
 one motley yet magnificent mass, less to listen 
 and criticise, than to prostrate themselves be- 
 fore the one heroic and victorious man ; for it 
 seemed rather a hero of chivalry than a divine who 
 came forward Sabbath after Sabbath to uplift the 
 buckler of faith, and to wield the sword of the 
 Spirit. The speaker was made for the audience, 
 the man for the hour. In Glasgow he was an 
 eagle in a cage ; men saw strength, but strength 
 imprisoned and embarrassed. In London, he 
 found a free atmosphere, and eyes worthy of 
 beholding his highest flight. It was a flight 
 prompted by enthusiasm, sustained by sym- 
 pathy, accelerated by ambition, and consecrated 
 by Christian earnestness. There might be in- 
 deed a slight or even a strong tinge of vanity 
 mingled with his appearances, but it was not the 
 vanity of a fribble, it was rather that of a child. 
 It was but skin deep, and did not affect the 
 simplicity, enthusiasm, and love of truth which 
 were the bases of his character and of his elo- 
 quence. His auditors felt that this was no 
 mouthing, ranting, strutting actor, but a great 
 good man, "speaking from a full intellect and a 
 warm heart ; and that if he had, and knew that 
 he had, a strange and striking personal presence, 
 and a fine deep voice thoroughly under his man- 
 agement, and which he wielded with all the 
 skill of an artist, that was not his fault. These 
 natural and acquired advantages he could not 
 resign, he could not but be aware of, he must 
 use, and he did consecrate. What less and what 
 more could he have done? 
 
 We have heard him so often described by eye- 
 witnesses, not to speak of the written pictures 
 of the period, that we may venture on a sketch 
 of a Sabbath, during his palmy days, in the 
 Caledonian Chapel. You go a full hour before 
 eleven, and find that you are not too early. 
 Having forced your way with difficulty into the 
 interior, you find yourself in a nest of celebri- 
 ties. The chapel is small, but almost every per- 
 son of note or notoriety in London has squeezed 
 him or herself into one part or another of it. 
 There shine the fine open glossy brow and speak- 
 ing face of Canning. There you see the small 
 shrimp-like form of Wilberforce, the dusky 
 visage of Denman, the high Roman nose of Peel, 
 and the stern forehead of Plunket. There 
 Brougham sits coiled up in his critical might, 
 his nose twitching, his chin resting on his hand, 
 his eyes retired under the dark lids, his whole 
 bearing denoting eager but somewhat curious 
 and sinister expectation. Yonder you see an 
 old venerable man with mild placid face and 
 long grey hair ; it is Jeremy Bentham, coming 
 to hear his own system abused as with the 
 tongue of thunder. Near him, note that thin 
 spiritual-looking little old individual, with quiet 
 philosophic countenance and large brow: it is 
 William Godwin, the author of "Caleb Wil' 
 
284 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 liams." In a seat behind him sits a yet more 
 meagre skeleton of man, with a pale face, eager 
 eyes, dark close-cropped hair and tremulous 
 nervous aspect ; it is the first of living critics, 
 "William Hazlitt, who had "forgot vhat the in- 
 side of a church was like," but who has been 
 fairly dragged out of his den by the attraction 
 of Irving's eloquence. At the door, and stand- 
 ing, you see a young, short, stout person, carry- 
 ing his head high, with round face, large eyes, 
 and careless schoolboy bearing : it is Macaulay, 
 on furlough from Cambridge, where he is as yet 
 a student, but hopes sook to be equal with the 
 proudest in all that crowded Caledonian Chapel. 
 And in a corner of the church, Coleridge — the 
 mighty wizard, with more knowledge and more 
 genius under that one white head than is to be 
 found in the whole of the bright assembly — 
 looks with dim nebulous eyes upon the scene, 
 which seems to him rather a swimming vision 
 than a solid reality. And then, besides, there 
 are belted earls, and feathered duchesses, and 
 bishops not a few, and one or two of the 
 Guelphic race included in a throng which has 
 not been equalled for brilliance in London since 
 Burke, Fox, and Sheridan stood up in West- 
 minster Hall, as the three accusing spirits of 
 Warren Hastings. 
 
 For nearly half an hour the audience has been 
 fully assembled, and has maintained, on the 
 whole, a decent gravity and composure. Eleven 
 o'clock strikes, and an of&cial appears, bearing 
 the Bible in his hands, and thus announcing the 
 approach of the preacher. Ludicrous as might 
 in other circumstances seem the disparity be- 
 tween the forerunner and the coming man, his 
 appearance is welcomed by the rustle and com- 
 motion which pass through the assembly, as if 
 by a unanimous cheer— a rustle which is in- 
 stantly succeeded by deep silence, as, slowly 
 and majestically, Edward Irving advances, 
 mounts — not with the quick hasty step of 
 Chalmers, but with a measured and dignified 
 pace, as if to some solemn music heard by his 
 ear alone — the stairs of the pulpit, and, lift- 
 ing the Psalm-book, calmly confronts that 
 splendid multitude. The expression of his 
 bearing while he does this is very peculiar ; it 
 is not that of fear, not that of deference, still 
 less is it that of impertinence, anger, or con- 
 tempt. It is simply the look of a man who says 
 internally, "I am equal to this occasion and to 
 this assembly, in the dignity and power of my 
 own intellect and nature, and more than equal 
 to it, in the might of my Master, and in the 
 grandeur and truth of my message." Ere he 
 proceeds to open the Psalm-book, mark his 
 stature and his face? He is a son of Anak in 
 height, and his symmetry and apparent strength 
 are worthy of his stature. His complexion is 
 iron grey, his hair is parted at the foretop, and 
 nangs in sable masses down his temples, his eye 
 has a squint which rather adds to than detracts 
 
 from the general effect, and his whole aspect is 
 spiritual, earnest. Titanic; yea, that of a Titan 
 among Titans — a Boanerges among the sons of 
 thunder. He gives out the psalm — perhaps it is 
 his favourite psalm, the twenty-ninth — and as 
 he reads it, his voice seems the echo of the 
 "Lord's voice upon the waters," so deep and 
 far-rolling are the crashes of its sound. It 
 sinks, too, ever and anon into soft and solemn 
 cadences, so that you hear in it alike the moan 
 and the roar, and feel both the pathos and the 
 majesty of the thunderstorm. Then he reads a 
 portion of Scripture, selecting probably, from a 
 fine instinctive sense of contrast, the twenty- 
 third psalm, or some other of the sweeter of the 
 Hebrew hymns, to give relief to the grandeurs 
 that have passed or that are at hand. Then he 
 says, "Let us pray," not as a mere formal 
 preliminary, but because he really wishes to 
 gather up all the devotional feeling of his hearers 
 along with his own, and to present it as a whole 
 burnt - offering to Heaven. Then his voice, 
 "like a steam of rich distilled perfumes," rises 
 to God, and you feel as if God had blotted out 
 the church around, and the universe above, 
 that that voice might obtain immediate entrance 
 to His ear. You at least are conscious of no- 
 thing for a time save the voice and the Auditor. 
 " Reverence and lowly prostration are most 
 striking," it has been said, "when paid by a 
 lofty intellect, and you are reminded of the trees 
 of the forest clapping their hands unto God." 
 The prayer over, he announces his text, and 
 enters on his theme. The sermon is upon the 
 days of the Puritans and the Covenanters, and 
 his blood boils as he describes the earnest spirit 
 of their times. He fights over again the battles 
 of Drumclog and Bothwell ; he paints the dark 
 muirlands, whither the Woman of the Church 
 retired for a season to be nourished with blood, 
 and you seem to be listening to that wild elo- 
 quence which pealed through the wilderness and 
 shook the throne of Charles II. Then he turns 
 to the contrast between that earnest period and 
 what he thinks our light, empty, and profane 
 era, and opens with fearless hand the vials of 
 apocalyptic vengeance against it. He denounces 
 our "political expediencies," and Canning smiles 
 across to Peel. He speaks of our "godless 
 systems of ethics and economics," and Bentham 
 and Godwin shrug their shoulders in unison. 
 He attacks the poetry and the criticism of the 
 age, inserting a fierce diatribe against the patri- 
 cian Byron in the heart of an apology for the 
 hapless ploughman Burns ; knocking Southey 
 down into the same kennel into which he had 
 plunged Byron ; and striking next at the very 
 heart of Cobbett ; and Hazlitt bends his brow 
 into a frown, and you see a sarcasm (to be 
 inserted in the next Liberal) crossing the 
 dusky disc of his face. Nay, waxing bolder, 
 and eyeing the peers and the peeresses, the ora- 
 tor denounces the "wickedness in high places' 
 
"whio.h abounds, and his voice swells into its 
 deepest thunder, and his eye assumes its most 
 portentous glare, as he characterises the false- 
 hood of courtiers, the hypocrisy of statesmen, 
 the hollowness, licentiousness, and levity of 
 fashionable life. It is Isaiah or Ezekiel over 
 again, uttering their stern yet musical and 
 poetic burdens. The language is worthy of 
 the message it conveys, not polished, indeed, or 
 smooth, rather rough and diffuse withal, but 
 vehement, figurative, and bedropt with terrible 
 or tender extracts from the Bible. The manner 
 is as graceful as may well co-exist with deep 
 impetuous force, and as solemn as may evade the 
 charge of cant. The voice seems meant for an 
 "orator of the human race," and fitted to fill 
 vaster buildings than earth contains, and to 
 plead in mightier causes and controversies than 
 can even be conceived of in our degenerate days. 
 It is the "many-folded shell" of Prometheus, 
 including in its compass "soft and soul-like 
 sounds," as well as loud and victorious peals. 
 The audience feel in contact, not with a mere 
 orator, but with a demoniac force. 
 
 That this sketch is not exaggerated, we have 
 abundant testimony. Canning repeatedly de- 
 clared that Edward Irving was the most power- 
 ful orator, in or out of the pulpit, he ever heard. 
 Hazlitt has written panegyric after panegyric 
 upon him, annexing, indeed, not a few critical 
 cavils and sarcasms, as drawbacks from his 
 estimate. De Quincey called him once to us a 
 "a very demon of power," and uniformly in his 
 writings speaks with wonder, not unmingled with 
 terror, of the fierce, untamed, resistless energy 
 which ran in the blood and spoke in the talk 
 and public oratory of Edward Irving. 
 
 Yet there can be little doubt that these splen- 
 did exhibitions, while exciting general admira- 
 tion in London, were not productive of com- 
 mensurate good. They rather dazzled and 
 stupefied, than convinced or converted. They 
 sent men away wondering at the power of the 
 orator, not mourning over their own evils, and 
 striving after amendment. They served, to say 
 the most, only as a preface, paving the way for 
 a volume of instruction and edification, which 
 was never published ; as an introduction, to 
 secure the attention and gain the ear of the 
 public, for a sermon, and an application thereof 
 of practical power, which was never preached. 
 
 Irving, indeed, left himself no choice. He 
 had so fiercely and unsparingly assaulted the 
 modes of thought and styles of preaching which 
 prevailed in the Church, that he was compelled, 
 in consistency and self-defence, to aim at a 
 novel and original plan of promulgating the old 
 doctrines. By-and-by, intercourse with Cole- 
 ridge, added to his own restless spirit of specu- 
 lation, began to shake his confidence in many 
 parts of our ancient creeds. A new system, of 
 colossal proportions, founded, indeed, on the 
 basis of Script^ire, but ascending till its summits 
 
 were lost in mist, began to rise under his Baby- 
 lonian hand. He saw, too, for the first time^ 
 the mountain ranges of prophecy lowering before 
 him, dark and cloud-girt for the most part, but 
 with strange gleams shining here and there upon 
 their tops, and with pale and shadowy hands 
 beckoning him onwards into their midst. These 
 were to him the Delectable Mountains, and to 
 gain the summit of Mount Clear became hence- 
 forth the object of his burning and lifelong 
 ambition. He toiled up these hills for many a 
 weary hour and with many a heavy groan, but 
 his strong faith and sanguine genius supported 
 him; in the evening of each laborious day he 
 fancied he saw, on the unreached pinnacle, 
 
 "Hope enchanted smile, and wave her golden hair;" 
 
 and each new morning found him as alert as 
 ever, climbing the mountains towards the city. 
 Again and again, he imagined that he had 
 reached the far-seen and far-commanding sum- 
 mit, and certainly the exaltation of his language, 
 and the fervour of his spirit, seemed sometimes 
 those of one who was beholding a "little of the 
 glory of the place ; " but, alas ! the clouds were 
 perpetually gathering again, and many main- 
 tained that the shepherds Watchful and Experi- 
 ence (whatever Sincere might have done) had 
 not bid him "welcome to the Delectable Moun- 
 tains," and that he had mistaken Mount Clear 
 for Mount Error, which hangs over a steep 
 precipice, and whence many strong men have 
 been hurled headlong, and dashed to pieces at 
 the bottom. 
 
 It was certainly a rapid, a strange, a fearful 
 "progress," that of our great-hearted pilgrim 
 during the ten last years of his life. What 
 giants he wrestled with and subdued — what 
 defiles of fear and danger he passed — what hills 
 of difl&culty as well as of delight he surmounted 
 — what temptations he resisted and defied — what 
 by-paths, alas 1 too, at times he was led to ex- 
 plore ! All subjects passed before him, like the 
 animals coming to be named of Adam, and were 
 scanned and classified, if not exhausted; all 
 methods of "concluding" men into the obedi- 
 ence of his form of the faith were tried ; now he 
 "piped" his Pan's pipe to the mighty London, 
 that its inhabitants might dance; now he 
 "mourned" to them his wild prophetic wail, 
 that they might lament. All varieties of char- 
 acter he met with and sought to gain — all places 
 he visited — all varieties of treatment and ex- 
 perience he encountered and tried to turn to 
 high spiritual account. We see him now 
 preaching among the wildernesses of Galloway, 
 and seeming a Kenwick Redivivus, and now 
 Samson-like, overthrowing the chui-ch of Kirk- 
 caldy, by the mere pressure produced by his 
 popularity. Now he is seen by Hazlitt laying 
 his giant limbs on a bench in the lobby of the 
 Black Bull, Edinburgh ; and now, at five in the 
 morning, in the same city, ere the sun has 
 
286 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 climbed the back of the couchant lion of Arthur 
 Seat, or turned the flag floating o'er the castle 
 into lire, he is addressing thousands in the West 
 Church on the glorious and dreadful advent of 
 a brighter sun from heaven. Now we see him 
 (as our informant did) sitting at his own hospi- 
 table morning board, surrounded by a score of 
 disciples, holding a child on his knee, a teapot 
 in his hand, and, with head and shoulders 
 towering over the rest, pouring out the while 
 the strong element of his conversation. Now 
 we watch him shaking farewell hands with 
 Carlyle, his early friend, whom he has in vain 
 sought to convert to his views, and saying with 
 a sigh, ' ' I must go up this hill DiflBculty ; thou 
 art in danger of reaching a certain wide field, 
 full of dark mountains, where thou mayest 
 stumble and fall, and rise no more." Now he 
 pleads his cause before the judicatories of the 
 Church of Scotland, where he is sisted for error, 
 
 but pleads it in vain ; and in the afternoon of 
 the day on which he has been cast out from her 
 pale, stands up with tears in his eyes, and 
 preaches the Gospel in his own native Annan to 
 weeping crowds. Now he prevents the dawning 
 to translate "Ben Ezra" into English, and to 
 prefix to it that noble apology for the personal 
 advent, which a Milton's ink might have written 
 and a martyr's blood sealed. Now he appears, 
 after years of estrangement, before the view of 
 his ancient ally, Carlyle, suddenly as an appari- 
 tion, in one of the parks, grey-haired with 
 anguish, pale and thin as a spectre, blasted, but 
 blasted with celestial fire, and they renew friendly 
 intercourse for one solemn hour, and then part 
 for ever. And now he expires in Glasgow, 
 panting to keep some dream-made appointment 
 in Edinburgh, whither he was bound, but saying 
 at last, with child-like resignation, "Living or 
 dying, I am the Lord's." 
 
 THOMAS CAELYLE. 
 [1795 .] 
 
 The life of an author by profession seldom fur- 
 nishes much of startling incident to the biogra- 
 pher, and the life of the greatest writer of 
 modern times has been so evenly balanced, so 
 free from vagrant follies, that the publication of 
 his various books from time to time may be 
 looked upon as marking the principal epochs of 
 his career. He has described himself as a 
 "writer of books" by profession, and for over 
 fifty years he has given his working energies to 
 literature, having spent more intellectual force 
 on any one of his productions than any two 
 ether writers in general literature. There is a 
 legitimate curiosity to satisfy, however, in the 
 case of a writer who may have pleased or in- 
 structed us; and there is the fact of circum- 
 stance so colouring ideas and life-work, that the 
 details of the life and the life found in an 
 author's books are often best placed over against 
 one another by way of self-interpretation. We 
 do not set ourselves to decide as to the moral 
 influence of all Carlyle's works, but would think 
 it best to say that those readers who cannot 
 fully sympathise with such a writer might suc- 
 ceed better in a perusal of his works if they 
 would bring to the reading of them, possess in 
 their own minds the very qualities which they 
 deem to be awanting in Carlyle. In this way, 
 if in no other, their profit would be greater. "A 
 hundred years hence," says Mr Froude, "per- 
 haps people at large will begin to understand 
 how vast a man has been among them." Charles 
 Kingsley furnishes an example of how a Chris- 
 
 tian pastor may make the best and most of our 
 author. He was able throughout a hard-work- 
 ing life to draw knowledge and inspiration from 
 his works. " No man," says the Eev. Cunning- 
 ham Geikie, " of any recent age has moved the 
 hearts of this generation, and through the 
 young men, that of the generations rising, wave 
 behind wave, as Carlyle has through a long life. 
 I confess to a profound respect for him, and 
 gratitude to him, for no man has more power- 
 fully quickened my nature. If I have had to 
 write a line in which conviction has forced me 
 to differ from so grand a man, I have done so 
 only because, though Cato be dear, truth is 
 dearer." These tributes might be multiplied. 
 
 The father of Thomas Carlyle, originally a 
 stone-mason, rented a small farm, and after- 
 wards a larger, which a son still occupies, in the 
 neighbourhood of Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. 
 He was a man of energy and decision, and of 
 more than ordinary intelligence. His mother 
 was of a like mind, and to her influence, or 
 spiritual instinct, is generally ascribed the view 
 of Cromwell which her celebrated son after- 
 wards gave to the world. Both parents were 
 members of the Secession Church. Thomas 
 Carlyle was born on Tuesday, 4th December 
 1795. On the occasion of his eightieth birth- 
 day, it might be remarked, he was presented 
 by a numerous circle of literary friends and 
 admirers with a gold medal and an address. 
 His name and bust occupied one side of the 
 medal, on the other were the words, " In com- 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 287 
 
 memoration, Dec. 4, 1875." Having been sent 
 to the parish school for several years, in 1810, 
 after some further training in the burgh school 
 of Annan, he came to the University of Edin- 
 burgh. While at Annan school he formed a 
 friendship with Edward Irving. When Carlyle 
 entered the Edinburgh University he had not 
 completed his fifteenth year. He was a hard 
 student, applying himself diligently to classics, 
 but making mathematics his principal study. 
 In prosecuting this branch of study too closely, 
 he first injured his naturally robust health. 
 Speaking to the Edinburgh students in 1866, he 
 naturally sounded a very serious warning to 
 them on this very subject, and asking them to 
 give the consideration and care of their health 
 a first place. Besides his ordinary studies, his 
 reading in all kinds of literature was assiduous 
 and extensive. His parents had designed him 
 for the Church, but a change of views when he 
 was twenty-one made this impracticable. In 
 May 1814 he left Edinburgh, having gone 
 through the usual art curriculum, and gained 
 the teachership of mathematics in the burgh 
 school of Annan. Eemaining two years in 
 Annan, he was promoted to the teachership of 
 mathematics and classics in an academy at 
 Kirkcaldy. Here he also remained for two 
 years, when, towards the end of 1818, he went 
 across to Edinburgh with no definite prospects 
 before him, but with decided leanings towards 
 literature. 
 
 The next three years were spent in Edinburgh, 
 during which time he read as assiduously as 
 ever, and began to contribute to that ill-fated 
 commercial adventure, Brewster's ''Edinburgh 
 Encyclopeedia, " also to the Edinburgh Re- 
 view. In 1821 he became tutor to Charles 
 Buller. In 1823 the first instalment of his 
 "Life of Schiller" was sent to the London 
 Magazine. In the following year he produced 
 a translation of "Legendre's Geometry," with 
 an original essay on proportion, also his trans- 
 lation of "Wilhelm Meister." About this 
 period he is said to have visited Germany, ac- 
 quiring an accurate knowledge of the German 
 language, increasing his knowledge of the litera- 
 ture, and establishing a familiar intimacy with 
 Goethe. His "Life of Schiller" appeared in 
 a separate form in 1825. In 1826 he married 
 Miss Jane Welsh, daughter of Dr John Welsh of 
 Haddington, a lineal descendant of John Knox. 
 He remained with his wife in Edinburgh, resid- 
 ing at Comely Bank, in the extreme north side 
 of the town, until he had completed and pub- 
 lished four volumes of translations from German 
 romance. He did not set a very high value on 
 these translations, but spoke of them as 
 "honest journey-work in defect of better." 
 In 1828 he retired to the farm of Craigenput- 
 toch, in Dumfriesshire, a property belonging to 
 his wife, and there he remained until his re- 
 moval to London in 1834. 
 
 He had now voluntarily devoted himself to 
 literature. He began to contribute to various 
 periodicals — the Edinburgh Review, the Foreign 
 Quarterly, Eraser's Magazine, these notable 
 contributions being afterwards issued in his 
 " Miscellanies." The essay on Burns (1828), on 
 Boswell's "Johnson," and his estimates of Rich- 
 ter, Werner, Goethe, Heyne, Novalis, Schiller, 
 Voltaire, Diderot, were all the fruit of this 
 period. His first great original work, which, 
 like De Quincey's "English Opium-Eater," be- 
 came the diploma of his genius, entitled " Sar- 
 tor Resartus " (The Tailor Done Over), was also 
 the product of this solitude. After being re- 
 jected by several London publishers, it was at 
 length accepted by Eraser's Magazine, and ap- 
 peared in its pages, 1833-34. The most casual 
 reader of the remarkable essay on Robert Burns 
 may be led to notice in it a slight difference in 
 style as compared with some of his other more 
 characteristic productions. " I observed," said 
 Charles Sumner to Lord Jeffrey, " that I thought 
 Carlyle had changed his style very much since 
 he wrote the article on Burns. 'Not at all,' 
 said he, 'I will tell you why that is different 
 from his other articles — / altered it.' " The 
 best picture of Carlyle's life at Craigenputtoch 
 is to be gained from his own letters. We give 
 two, also an account of a visit paid to him by 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 From a Letter to Goethe. 
 
 "Craigenputtoch, lUh September 1828. 
 "You inquire with such warm interest rt*- 
 specting our present abode and occupations, 
 that I am obliged to say a few words al/out 
 both, while there is still room left. Dumfries 
 is a pleasant town, containing about fifteen 
 thousand inhabitants, and to be considered the 
 centre of the trade and judicial system of a 
 district which possesses some importance in the 
 sphere of Scottish activity. Our residence is 
 not in the town itself, but fifteen miles to the 
 north-west of it, among the granite hills and the 
 black morasses which stretch westward through 
 Galloway, almost to the Irish Sea. In this 
 wilderness of heath and rock, our estate stands 
 forth a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly 
 enclosed and planted ground, where corn ripens 
 and trees afford a shade, although surrounded 
 by sea-mews and rough-woolled sheep. Here, 
 with no small effort, have we built and furnished 
 a neat, substantial dwelling ; here, in the absence 
 of a professional or other office, we live to 
 cultivate literature according to our strength, 
 and in our own peculiar way. We wish a joyful 
 growth to the roses and flowers of our garden ; 
 we hope for health and peaceful thoughts to 
 further our aims. The roses, indeed, are still in 
 part to be planted, but they blossom already 
 in anticipation. Two ponies, which carry us 
 everywhere, and the mountain air, are the best 
 
288 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 medicine for weak nerves. This daily exercise, 
 to which I am much devoted, is my only recrea- 
 tion; for this nook of ours is the loneliest in 
 Britain— six miles removed from any one likely 
 to visit me. Here Kousseau would have been 
 as happy as on his island of Saint Pierre. My 
 town friends, indeed, ascribe my sojourn here 
 to a similar disposition, and forbode me ao good 
 result. But I came hither solely with the de- 
 sign to simplify my way of life, and to secure 
 the independence through which I could be 
 enabled to remain true to myself. This bit of 
 earth is our own ; here we can live, write, and 
 think, as best pleases ourselves, even though 
 Zoilus himself was to be crowned the monarch 
 of literature. Nor is the solitude of such great 
 importance ; for a stage-coach takes us speedily 
 to Edinburgh, which we look upon as our British 
 Weimar. And have I not, too, at this moment, 
 piled upon the table of my little library a whole 
 cart-load of French, German, American, and 
 English journals and periodicals — whatever may 
 be their worth? Of antiquarian studies, too, 
 there is no lack. From some of our heights I 
 can descry, about a day's journey to the west, 
 the hill where Agricola and his Eomans left a 
 camp behind them. At the foot of it I was 
 born, and there both father and mother still 
 live to love me. And so one must let time 
 work. But whither am I wandering ? Let me 
 confess to you, I am uncertain about my future 
 literary activity, and would gladly learn your 
 opinion respecting it ; at least pray write to me 
 again, and speedily, that I may ever feel myself 
 united to you. . . . The only piece of any 
 importance that I have written since I came 
 here is an ' Essay on Burns.' Perhaps you never 
 heard of him, and yet he is a man of the most 
 decided genius ; but born in the lowest rank of 
 peasant life, and through the entanglements of 
 his peculiar position, was at length mournfully 
 wrecked, so that what he effected is compara- 
 tively unimportant. He died in the middle of 
 his career, in the year 1796. We English, 
 especially we Scotch, loved Burns more than 
 any poet that lived for centuries. I have often 
 been struck by the fact that he was born a few 
 months before Schiller, in the year 1759, and 
 that neither of them ever heard the other's 
 name. They shone like stars in opposite hemi- 
 spheres, or, if you will, the thick mist of earth 
 intercepted their reciprocal light." 
 
 To Thomas de Quincey, who had recently come 
 to reside in Edinburgh. 
 
 " Craigenputtoch, l\th December 1828. 
 "My deae Sir,— Having the opportunity of 
 a frank, I cannot resist the temptation to send 
 you a few lines, were it only to signify that two 
 well-wishers of yours are still alive in these re- 
 mote moors, and often thinking of you with the 
 old friendly feelings. My wife encourages me 
 
 in this innocent purpose ; she has learned lately 
 that you were inquiring for her of some female 
 friend ; nay, even promising to visit us here, 
 a fact of the most interesting sort to both of us. 
 I am to say, therefore, that your presence at 
 this fireside will diffuse no ordinary gladness 
 over all members of the household; that our 
 warmest welcome, and such solacements as even 
 the desert does not refuse, are at any time and 
 at all times in store for one we love so well. 
 Neither is this expedition so impracticable. We 
 lie but a short way out of your direct route to 
 Westmoreland ; communicate by gravelled roads 
 with Dumfries and other places in the habitable 
 globe. Were you to warn us of your approach, 
 it might be all made easy enough. And then 
 such a treat it would be to hear the sound of 
 philosophy and literature in the hitherto quite 
 savage wolds, where, since the creation of the 
 world, no such music, scarcely even articulate 
 speech, had been uttered or dreamed of ! Come, 
 therefore, come and see us ; for we often long 
 after you. Nay, I can promise, too, that we 
 are almost a unique sight in the British empire ; 
 such a quantity of German periodicals and 
 mystic speculation embosomed in plain Scottish 
 Peat-moor being nowhere else that I know of 
 to be met with. 
 
 "In idle hours we sometimes project found- 
 ing a sort of colony here, to be called the 
 'Misanthropic Society;' the settlers all to be 
 men of a certain philosophic depth, and in- 
 tensely sensible of the present state of litera- 
 ture; each to have his own cottage, encircled 
 with roses or thistles as he might prefer; a 
 library and pantry within, a huge stack of turf- 
 fuel without ; fenced off from his neighbours 
 by fir woods, and, when he pleased, by cast- 
 metal railing, so that each might feel himself 
 strictly an individual, and free as a son of the 
 wilderness ; but the whole settlement to meet 
 weekly over coffee, and there unite in their 
 Miserere, or what were better, hurl forth their 
 defiance, pity, expostulation, over the whole 
 universe, civil, literary, and religious. I reckon 
 this place a much fitter site for such an estab- 
 lishment than your Lake country, a region 
 abounding in natural beauty, but blown on by 
 coach-horns, betrodden by picturesque tourists, 
 and otherwise exceedingly desecrated by too 
 frequent resort ; whereas here, though still in 
 communication with the manufacturing world, 
 we have a solitude altogether Druidical — grim 
 hills tenanted chiefly by wild grouse, tarns and 
 brooks that have soaked and slumbered un- 
 molested since the deluge of Noah, and nothing 
 to disturb you with speech, except Arcturus 
 and Orion, and the Spirit of Nature, in the 
 heaven and in the earth, as it manifests itself in 
 anger or love, and utters its inexplicable tidings, 
 unheard by the mortal ear. But the misery is 
 the almost total want of colonists. Would you 
 come hither and be king over us, then indeed 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE, 
 
 289 
 
 vre had made a fair beginning, and the *Bog 
 School' might snap its fingers at the 'Lake 
 School ' itself, and hope to be one day recognised 
 of all men. 
 
 "But enough of this fooling. Better were it 
 to teU you in plain prose what little can be said 
 of my own welfare, and inquire in the same 
 dialect after yours. It will gratify you to learn 
 that here in the desert, as in the crowded city, 
 I am moderately active and well; better in 
 health, not worse ; and though active only on 
 the small scale, yet in my own opinion honestly, 
 and to as much result as has been usual with 
 me at any time. We have horses to ride on, 
 gardens to cultivate, tight walls and strong fires 
 to defend us against winter; books to read, 
 paper to scribble on, and no man or thing, at 
 least in this visible earth, to make us afraid ; 
 for I reckon that so securely sequestered are we, 
 not only would no Catholic rebellion, but even 
 no new Hengist and Horsa invasion, in anywise 
 disturb our tranquillity. True, we have no 
 society; but who has, in the strict sense of that 
 word? I have never had any worth speaking 
 much about since I came into this world ; in the 
 next, it may be, they will order matters better. 
 Meanwhile, if we have not the wheat in great 
 quantity, we are nearly altogether free from the 
 chaffs which often in this matter is highly an- 
 noying to weak nerves. My wife and I are 
 busy learning Spanish; far advanced in "Don 
 Quixote " already. I p^^^pose writing mystical 
 reviews for somewhat more than a twelvemonth 
 to come; have Greek to read, and the whole 
 universe to study (for I understand less and 
 less of it) ; so that here as well as elsewhere I 
 find that a man may "dree his wierd" (serve 
 out his earthly apprenticeship), with reasonable 
 composure, and wait what the flight of years 
 may bring him, little disappointed (unless he is 
 a fool) if it bring him mere nothing save what 
 he has already — a body and a soul — more cun- 
 ning and costly treasures than all Golconda and 
 Postosi could purchase for him. What would 
 the vain worm, man, be at ? Has he not a 
 a head, to speak of nothing else, a head (be it 
 with a hat or without one) full of far richer 
 things than Windsor Palace or the Brighton 
 teapot added to it ? What are all Dresden pic- 
 ture-galleries and magazines, des arts et des 
 metiers, to the strange painting and thrice won- 
 derful and thrice precious workmanship that 
 goes on under the cranium of a beggar ? What 
 can be added to him or taken from him by the 
 hatred or love of all men? The grey paper or 
 the white silk paper in which the gold ingot is 
 wrapped; the gold is inalienable; he is the 
 gold. But truce also to this moralising. I had 
 a thousand things to ask concerning you ; your 
 employments, purposes, sufferings, and plea- 
 sures. Will you not write to me? Will you 
 not come to me and tell ? Believe it you are 
 well loved here, and none feels better than I 
 
 what a spirit is for the present eclipsed in 
 clouds. For the present it can only be ; time 
 and chance are for all men; that troublous 
 season will end ; and one day with more joyful, 
 not deeper or truer regard, I shall see you 
 'yourself again.* 
 
 "Meanwhile, pardon me this intrusion, and 
 write if you have a vacant hour which you 
 would fill with a good action. Mr Jeffrey is 
 still anxious to know you ; has he ever suc- 
 ceeded? We are not to be in Edinburgh, I 
 believe, till spring ; but I will send him a letter 
 to you (with your permission) by the first con- 
 veyance. Eemember me with best regards to 
 Professor Wilson and Sir W. Hamilton, neither 
 of whom must forget me ; not omitting the 
 honest Gordon, who I know will not. 
 
 "The bearer of this letter is Henry Inglis, a 
 young gentleman of no ordinary talent and 
 worth, in whom, as I believe, es steckt gar viel. 
 Should he call himself, pray let this be an intro- 
 duction, for he reverences all spiritual worth, 
 and you also will learn to love him. With all 
 friendly sentiments, I am ever, my dear sir, 
 most faithfully yours, T. Carlyle." 
 
 Kalph Waldo Emerson, the American trans- 
 cendentalist, called at Craigenputtoch with a 
 letter of introduction, in August 1833. 
 
 "I came from Glasgow to Dumfries," writes 
 Emerson, "and being Intent on delivering a 
 letter which I had brought from Eome, inquired 
 for Craigenputtoch. It was a farm in Nithsdale, 
 in the parish of Dunscore, sixteen miles distant. 
 No public coach passed near it, so I took a 
 private carriage from the inn. I found the 
 house amid desolate heathery hills, where the 
 lonely scholar nourished his mighty heart. 
 Carlyle was a man from his youth, an author 
 who did not need to hide from his readers, and 
 as absolute a man of the world, unknown and 
 exiled on that hill-farm, as if holding in his 
 own terms what is best in London. He was 
 tall and gaunt, with a cliff-like brow, self- 
 possessed, and holding his extraordinary powers 
 of conversation in easy command; clinging to 
 his northern accent with evident relish ; full of 
 lively anecdote, and with a streaming humour, 
 which floated everything he looked upon. His 
 talk playfully exalting the familiar objects, put 
 the companion at once into an acquaintance 
 with his Lars and Lemurs, and it was very 
 pleasant to learn what was predestined to be a 
 pretty mythology. Few were the objects and 
 lonely the man, * not a person to speak to with- 
 in sixteen miles except the minister of Duns- 
 core;' so that books inevitably made his topics. 
 
 " He had names of his ovm for all the matters 
 familiar to his discourse. Blackwood's was the 
 'sand magazine;' Fraser's nearer approach to 
 possibility of life was the 'mud magazine;' a 
 piece of road near by that marked some failed 
 enterprise was 'the grave of tl^e last sixpence. 
 
 T 
 
290 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 When too much praise of any genius annoyed 
 him, he professed hugely to admire the talent 
 shown by his pig. He had spent much time 
 and contrivance in confining the poor beast to 
 one enclosure in his pen, but pig, by great 
 strokes of judgment, had found out how to let 
 a board down, and had foiled him. For all 
 that, he still thought man the most plastic 
 little fellow in the planet, and he liked Nero's 
 death, *Qualis artifex pereol' better than most 
 history. He worships a man that will manifest 
 any truth to him. At one time he had inquired 
 and read a good deal about America. Landor's 
 principle was mere rebellion, and that he feared 
 was the American principle. The best thing he 
 knew of that country was, that in it a man can 
 have meat for his labour. He had read in 
 Stewart's book, that when he had inquired in a 
 New York hotel for the boots, he had been 
 shown across the street, and had found Mungo 
 in his own house dining on roast turkey. 
 
 "We talked of books. Plato he does not 
 read, and he disparaged Socrates; and, when 
 pressed, persisted in making Mirabeau a hero. 
 Gibbon he called the splendid bridge from the 
 old world to the new. His own reading had 
 been multifarious. * Tristram Shandy ' was one 
 of his first books after * Eobinson Crusoe,' and 
 Robertson's ' America ' an early favourite. 
 Rousseau's * Confessions ' had discovered to him 
 that he was not a dunce ; and it was now ten 
 years since he had learned German, by the 
 advice of a man who told him he would find in 
 that language what he wanted. 
 
 "He took despairing or satirical views of 
 literature at this moment; recounted the in- 
 credible sums paid in one year by the great 
 booksellers for pufiing. Hence it comes that 
 no newspaper is trusted now, no books are 
 bought, and the booksellers are on the eve of 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 "He still returned to English pauperism, the 
 carowded country, the selfish abdication by 
 public men of all that public persons should 
 perform. * Government should direct poor men 
 what to do. Poor Irish folk come wandering 
 over these moors. My dame makes it a rule to 
 give to every son of Adam bread to eat, and 
 uupplies his wants to the next house. But here 
 are thousands of acres which might give them 
 'ill meat, and nobody to bid these poor Irish go 
 ^o the moor and till it. They burned the 
 stacks, and so found a way to force the rich 
 people to attend to them.' 
 
 "We went out to walk over long hills, and 
 looked at Criffel, then without his cap, and 
 down into Wordsworth's country. There we 
 sat down, and talked of the immortality of the 
 soul. It was not Carlyle's fault that we talked 
 on that topic, for he had the natural disinclina- 
 tion of every nimble spirit to bruise itself 
 against walls, and did not like to place himself 
 where nc step can be taken. But he was honest 
 
 and true, and cognisant of the subtle links that 
 bind ages together, and saw how every event 
 affects all the future. * Christ died on the tree : 
 that built Dunscore kirk yonder : that brought 
 you and me together. Time has only a relative 
 existence.' 
 
 "He was already turning his eyes towardg 
 London with a scholar's appreciation. London 
 is the heart of the world, he said, wonderful 
 only from the mass of human beings. He 
 liked the huge machine. Each keeps its own 
 round. The baker's boy brings muifins to the 
 window at a fixed hour every day, and that is 
 all the Londoner knows, or wishes to know, on 
 the subject. But it turned out good men. He 
 named certain individuals, especially one man 
 of letters, his friends, the best mind he knew, 
 whom London had well served."* 
 
 " Carlyle," he further says, "was already 
 turning his eyes towards London," and a few 
 months after the interview just described he 
 did finally fix his residence there, in a quiet 
 street in Chelsea, leading down to the river- 
 side. Here, in an old-fashioned house, built in 
 the reign of Queen Anne, he has lived ever 
 since. Daniel Maclise, the distinguished artist, 
 lives but a few doors off, around the corner at 
 No. 4 Cheyne Walk. The artist made a per- 
 trait-sketch of his neighbour for Fraser in 1835. 
 
 This removal to London took place in 1834. 
 Writing to Sir William Hamilton after this 
 event, he says : " We have broken up our old 
 settlement, and, after tumult enough, formed a 
 new one here under the most opposite condi- 
 tions. From the ever-silent whinstones of Niths- 
 dale to the mud-rattling pavements of Picca- 
 dilly, there is but a step. I feel it the strangest 
 transition, but one uses himself to all. Our up- 
 holsterers, with all their rubbish and clippings, 
 are at length handsomely swept out of doors. 
 I have got my little book-press set up, my table 
 fixed firm in its place, and sit here awaiting 
 what time and I, in our questionable wrestle, 
 shall make out between us." "Sartor Resartus" 
 was much admired in America, and along with 
 some of his other essays, was reprinted at 
 Boston in 1836. He began to lecture to crowded 
 but select audiences in London. In 1837 he 
 gave a course of six public lectures on German 
 literature; in 1838 a course of twelve, on "The 
 History of Literature, or the Successive Periods 
 of European Culture ; " in 1839 a course on " The 
 Revolutions of Modern Europe;" in 1840 a 
 course on "Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the 
 Heroic in History." The last course only has 
 been published. These lectures created a great 
 sensation in literary circles, but his success as a 
 lecturer does not seem to have emboldened him 
 or to have given him confidence to continue 
 them. 
 
 * "English Traits," by R, W. Emerson, 
 visit to England. 
 
 Rn.-t 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE, 
 
 291 
 
 " I heard Carlyle lecture the other day," said 
 Charles Sumner ; " he seemed like an inspired 
 boy; truth and thoughts that made one move 
 on the benches came from his apparently un- 
 conscious mind, couched in the most grotesque 
 style, and yet condensed to a degree of inten- 
 sity, if I may so write." 
 
 Harriet Martineau, in her autobiography, gives 
 the following account of these lectures: "It 
 was our doing — that friend's and mine — that he 
 gave lectures for three or four seasons. He had 
 matter to utter, and there were many who 
 wished to hear him ; and in those days, before 
 his works had reached their remunerative point 
 of sale, the earnings by his lectures could not 
 be unacceptable. So we confidently proceeded, 
 taking the management of the arrangements, 
 and leaving Carlyle nothing to do but to meet 
 his audience and say what he had to say. When- 
 ever I went, my pleasure was spoiled by his un- 
 concealed nervousness. Yellow as a guinea, 
 with downcast eyes, broken speech at the be- 
 ginning, and fingers which nervously picked at 
 the desk before him, he could not for a moment 
 be supposed to enjoy his own effort; and the 
 lecturer's own enjoyment is a prime element of 
 success. The merits of Carlyle's discourses 
 were, however, so great that he might probably 
 have gone on year after year till this time 
 with improving success and perhaps ease ; but 
 the struggle was too severe. From the time 
 that his course was announced till it was 
 finished, he scarcely slept, and he grew more 
 dyspeptic and nervous every day, and we were 
 at length entreated to say no more about his 
 lecturing, as no fame and no money or other 
 advantage could counterbalance the misery which 
 the engagement caused him." 
 
 In the year 1837 appeared one of his master- 
 works, "The French Kevolution," bearing his 
 name on its title-page. In this "storm" of a 
 book all his wonderful powers are seen to full 
 advantage. He is profoundly critical, imagina- 
 tive, dramatic, keenly sympathetic, or full of 
 withering sarcasm. The life and intensity of 
 the book are perhaps some of its recommenda- 
 tions ; in no other modern book do we find the 
 same vivid historical portraiture. The leading 
 characters who figured in the French Revolu- 
 tion of 1789 are painted as by a flash of light- 
 ning. "Sartor Resartus" and the first edition 
 of his "Miscellanies" were published in 1838. 
 We may most conveniently give the dates of 
 publication of his other works here. In 1839 
 appeared "Chartism," an attack on the corrup- 
 tions of society, and the inefficiency of all ex- 
 tant methods of reform. " Past and Present," a 
 sequel to the foregoing, appeared in 1843; it 
 presents a vivid contrast between the state of 
 English society in the Middle Ages and English 
 society of the present day. ' ' Cromwell's Letters 
 and Speeches " was published in 1845, and met 
 vith a quicker sale than any of his previous 
 
 works. "Latter-Day Pamphlets," issued in 
 1850, treat of the conditions of society. His 
 biography of John Sterling, which contains a 
 good deal of autobiographical matter, was issued 
 in 1851. After this time he was absorbed in 
 writing his great historical work, "The History 
 of Frederick II., commonly called the Great." 
 The publication began in 1858, and was com- 
 pleted in 1865. 
 
 With all their defects, we can point to no list 
 of modern books in which in his critical essays 
 we find such grand even-handed justice and deep 
 insight, and in his historical works such vivid 
 historical portraiture. In 1867 he sent a con- 
 tribution to Macmillan^s Magazine^ entitled 
 " Shooting Niagara, and After," which prophe- 
 sied gloomy consequences from the Reform 
 Bill. His latest work is entitled " Early Kings of 
 Norway, with an Essay on the Portraits of John 
 Knox." His Reminiscences appeared in 1881. 
 
 He was elected, in the session of 1865-66, to be 
 Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, and suc- 
 ceeded Mr Gladstone in that office. This public 
 appearance excited great interest amongst the 
 intelligent public on the occasion of the delivery 
 of his installation address.* The following ac- 
 count of his appearance, and of the great occa- 
 sion, is by the Rev. David Macrae ; 
 
 "At five minutes past two there is a sudden 
 stir and buzz of excitement behind, towards 
 which all faces instantly turn, most of the people 
 swarming up upon the seats to get a better view. 
 A glittering object borne aloft, and slowly 
 threading its way down the passage, indicates 
 that the bedellus, with the mace on his shoulder, 
 is heading the procession to the platform. On 
 its reaching the foot of the hall, up steps Sir 
 David Brewster, Principal of the University, in 
 his robes. The appearance, next, of a spare old 
 man, slightly bent with age, and wearing on his 
 shoulders the spangled robe of the Lord Rector, 
 is the signal for a tremendous outburst of ap- 
 plause, repeated again and again like peals of 
 thunder. Thomas Carlyle at lastl There he is 
 before us, the grand old hero, grey-headed now 
 and frail, with a certain dreary, dreamy haze 
 about his eye that only vanishes afterwards 
 when his soul is stirred. Uncouth, too, with 
 antiquated dress-coat ; black stock not unlike a 
 policeman's, and high old-fashioned collar hedg- 
 ing in his face on both sides. Altogether a sin- 
 gular figure, as of some old prophet who has 
 been living for half a century in the wilderness. 
 His huge collar seems to give him considerable 
 uneasiness. You can see him adjusting his 
 cheeks between the tall white blades, and then 
 hitching his head up and rolling his eyes as if 
 his spirit were fretting over them. 
 
 " Preliminaries over — Huxley and some others 
 
 * This address will be found entire in the 
 "Treasury of British Eloquence." W. P. Nimmo 
 & Co., Edinburgh. 
 
292 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 invested in doctor's robes— Carlyle rose, and, 
 before commencing, threw oflf the gown. 
 
 " He had not been speaking two minutes be- 
 fore it became evident that his voice would not 
 fill the hall. It was painful at first to see the 
 efforts which the old hero made to rouse his 
 voice to what it had done a quarter of a century 
 ago. But after a few unsuccessful attempts, he 
 settled down into his ordinary tone, and ad- 
 dressed those who could hear, speaking out of 
 the fulness of his heart as a father might speak 
 to his children. No attitudinising, no rhetori- 
 cal tricks, no attempt at fine speaking. It was 
 simple, quiet, earnest talk — what he might him- 
 self have called the authentic utterance of his 
 heart. Many of the people, too far back to 
 hear, were ebbing away, having satisfied their 
 curiosity. But great numbers, though too far 
 back to hear distinctly, stood crowded together, 
 leaning forward eagerly with bated breath to 
 catch any word that might reach so far. It was 
 a wonderful speech — such as no man but Thomas 
 Carlyle would or could have delivered — full of the 
 same wisdom that pervades his books ; the same 
 terrible irony darting down like forked light- 
 ning upon its object; the same grotesque ming- 
 ling of humour and sad pathos ; and everywhere 
 the same abhorrence of ' unveracities ' and shams. 
 Back to truth, back to simplicity, back with 
 holy reverence to whatsoever is nobler and purer 
 than ourselves, in order that we may become 
 more like it — this was the gist of Carlyle's 
 speech, as it has been the utterance of the man's 
 whole life." 
 
 He had not returned to London when the news 
 was sent to him that Mrs Carlyle had died on 
 Saturday, April 21. Her remains were conveyed 
 to Scotland and laid in the family burying- 
 ground at Haddington, in the centre of the old 
 cathedral. Carlyle afterwards caused the fol- 
 lowing inscription to be placed on his wife's 
 tombstone : 
 
 "Here likewise now rests Jane Welsh Carlyle, 
 spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London. 
 She was born at Haddington, 14th July 1801 ; 
 only child of the above John Welch and of 
 Grace Welch, Caplegell, Dumfriesshire, his wife. 
 In her bright existence she had more sorrows 
 than are common, but also a soft invincibility, 
 a capacity of discernment, and a noble loyalty 
 of heart which are rare. For forty years she 
 was the true and loving helpmate of her husband, 
 and by act and word unweariedly forwarded 
 him as none else could in all of worthy that he 
 did or . attempted. She died at London, 21st 
 April 1866, suddenly snatched away from him, 
 and the light of his life as if gone out." 
 
 When moved to it, Carlyle had from time to 
 time written with powerful effect letters on 
 current events to the columns of the news- 
 paper. The latest of these contributions were 
 letters on the Franco-Prussian War, and the 
 Russo-Turkish War. Even more honourable, 
 
 because so deeply helpful and sympathisinfj, have 
 been his earnest words sent to young men who 
 might apply to him for counsel and guidance. 
 Besides, we hear of many benefactions, and 
 much encouragement given to struggling authors, 
 who valued any token of encouragement from 
 such a high quarter. Letters of his, thoughtful, 
 valuable, all containing the real gold dust, and 
 not the sweepings of the intellectual laboratory, 
 come to light from time to time. He was 
 as painstaking and sincere a correspondent as 
 Kingsley seems to have been. Leigh Hunt, 
 Thackeray, Ruskin, J. A. Froude, Charles 
 Kingsley, and a host of unnamed celebrities, 
 men and women, known or unknown to the 
 world on both sides of the Atlantic, have con- 
 fessed their obligations to him. His writings 
 have been fruitful in stimulus, and in suggesting 
 ideas. He has not only preached the dignity of 
 labour, but his whole life is an example of it. 
 His critical, and biographical, and historical 
 methods of writing have all had a powerful 
 influence in moulding the thoughts and the line 
 of work of many of our literary men, 
 
 Carlyle died 5th Feb. 1881, and his remains 
 rest at Ecclefechan. Mr Froude wrote his Life, 
 and edited his Reminiscences, as well as a 
 Selection from his wife's Letters. 
 
 LETTER TO A YOUNG MAN. 
 
 "Some time ago your letter was delivered 
 me ; I take literally the first free half-hour I 
 have had since to write you a word of answer. 
 
 ** It would give me true satisfaction could any 
 advice of mine contribute to forward you in 
 your honourable course of self -improvement, 
 but a long experience has taught me that advice 
 can profit but little ; that there is a good reason 
 why advice is so seldom followed ; this reason, 
 namely, that it so seldom, and can almost neve: 
 be, rightly given. No man knows the state o:' 
 another; it is always to some more or less 
 imaginary man that the wisest and most honest 
 adviser is speaking. 
 
 *'As to the books which you — whom I know 
 so little of — should read, there is hardly any- 
 thing definite that can be said. For one thing, 
 you may be strenuously advised to keep reading. 
 Any good book, any book that is wiser than 
 yourself, will teach you something — a great 
 many things, indirectly and directly, if your 
 mind be open to learn. This old counsel of 
 Johnson's is also good, and univrersally appli- 
 cable : * Read the book you do honestly feel a 
 wish and curiosity to read.' The very wish and 
 curiosity indicates that you, then and there, are 
 the person likely to get good of it. *Our 
 wishes are presentiments of our capabilities;' 
 that is a noble saying, of deep encouragement 
 to all true men; applicable to our wishes and 
 efforts in regard to reading as to other things. 
 Among all the objects that look wonaerful or 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE, 
 
 293 
 
 beautiful to you, follow with fresh hope the one 
 which looks wonderfullest, beautifuUest. You 
 will gradually find, by various trials (which trials 
 see that you make honest, manful ones, not 
 silly, short, fitful ones), what is for you the 
 wonderfullest, beautifuUest — what is your true 
 element and province, and be able to profit by 
 that. True desire, the monition of nature, is 
 much to be attended to. But here, also, you 
 are to discriminate carefully between true desire 
 and false. The medical men tell us we should 
 eat what we trvXy have an appetite for; but 
 what we only falsely have an appetite for we 
 should resolutely avoid. It is very true; and 
 flimsy, desultory readers, who fly from foolish 
 book to foolish book, and get good of none, and 
 mischief of all — are not these as foolish, un- 
 healthy eaters, who mistake their superficial 
 false desire after spiceries and confectioneries 
 for their real appetite, of which even they are 
 not destitute, though it lies far deeper, far 
 quieter, after solid nutritive food ? With these 
 illustrations, I will recommend Johnson's advice 
 to you. 
 
 "Another thing, and only one other, I will 
 say. All books are properly the record of the 
 history of past men — what thoughts past men 
 had in them — what actions past men did : the 
 summary of all books whatsoever lies there. It 
 is on this ground that the class of books specifi- 
 cally named History can be safely recommended 
 as the basis of all study of books — the prelimi- 
 nary to all right and full understanding of any- 
 thing we can expect to find in books. Past 
 history, and especially the past history of one's 
 own native country, everybody may be advised 
 to begin with that. Let him study that faith- 
 fully; innumerable inquiries will branch out 
 from it ; he has a broad-beaten highway, from 
 which all the country is more or less visible; 
 there travelling, let him choose where he will 
 dwell. 
 
 " Neither let mistakes and wrong directions — 
 of which every man, in his studies and else- 
 where, falls into many — discourage you. There 
 is precious instruction to be got by finding that 
 we are wrong. Let a man try faithfully, man- 
 fully, to be right, he will grow daily more and 
 more right. It is, at bottom, the condition 
 which all men have to cultivate themselves. 
 Our very walking is an incessant falling — a fall- 
 ing and a catching of ourselves before we come 
 actually to the pavement ! — it is emblematic of 
 all things a man does. 
 
 "In conclusion, I will remind you that it is 
 not books alone, or by books chiefly, that a 
 man becomes in all points a man. Study to do 
 faithfully whatsoever thing in your actual situa- 
 tion, there and now, you find either expressly 
 or tacitly laid to your charge; that is your 
 post; stand in it like a true soldier. Silently 
 devour the many chagrins of it, as all human 
 situations have many ; and see you aim not to 
 
 quit it without doing all that it^ at least, re- 
 quired of you. A man perfects himself by work 
 much more than by reading. They are a grow- 
 ing kind of men that can wisely combine the 
 two things — wisely, valiantly, can do what is 
 laid to their hand in their present sphere, and 
 prepare themselves withal for doing other wider 
 things, if such lie before them. 
 
 "With many good wishes and encourage- 
 ments, I remain, yours sincerely, 
 
 "Thomas Carltlb. 
 
 "Chelsea, \Zth March 1843." 
 
 The following letter will be regarded by some 
 as especially interesting, because of its bearing 
 on matters of religion. It was addressed to the 
 late Mr Erskine, of Linlathen, and dated 12th 
 February 1869 : 
 
 "I was agreeably surprised by the sight of 
 your handwriting again, so kind, so welcome ! 
 The letters are as firm and honestly distinct as 
 ever — the mind too, in spite of its frail environ- 
 ments, as clear, plump-ujp, calmly expectant, as 
 in the best days ; right so ; so be it with us all, 
 till we quit this dim sojourn, now grown so 
 lonely to us, and our change come ! * Our 
 Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy 
 name. Thy will be done ; ' what else can we say ? 
 The other night in my sleepless tossings about, 
 which were growing more and more miserable, 
 these words, that brief and grand prayer, came 
 strangely into my mind, with an altogether 
 new emphasis ; as if written and shining for me 
 in mild, pure splendour, on the black bosom of 
 the night there ; when I, as it were, read them 
 word by word — with a sudden check to my 
 imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness 
 of composure which was much unexpected. 
 Not for perhaps thirty or forty years had I 
 once formally repeated that prayer; nay, I 
 never felt before how intensely the voice of 
 man's soul it is; the inmost aspiration of all 
 that is high and pious in poor human nature ; 
 right worthy to be recommended with an 
 'After this manner pray ye.' " 
 
 From Mr Carlyle, on Lady Sinclair's death, 
 etc. : "'It is the way of all the earth;' yea, 
 and has been since man was first made. And 
 yet there is a strange originality in it to every 
 one of us when it comes upon him in its course. 
 I grieve to think how sad you are. Words are 
 very idle, so are wishes : I will say no more on 
 the subject. Time, by degrees, smoothes away 
 the first asperities; then death has a kind of 
 bland aspect, most sad but also most sacred: 
 the one home appointed to us all. I am still 
 kept overwhelmingly busy here; my strength 
 slowly diminishing, my work progressing still 
 more slowly— my heart really almost broken. 
 In some six or eight months — surely not longer 
 than eight — I hope to have at last done : it will be 
 the gladdest day I have seen for ten years back, 
 pretty much the one glad day! I have still 
 

 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 half a volume to do; still a furious struggle, 
 and tow de force, as there have been many, to 
 wind matters up in half a volume. But this is 
 the last, if I can but do it ; and if health holds 
 out in any fair measure, I always hope I can. 
 Your pamphlet on Napoleon has never come. 
 I am happy to agree entirely in what you say 
 about that renowned Corsican gentleman, and 
 about his sham synonym of these present times, 
 which I still more heartily dissent from, and 
 even take the liberty of despising. Probably 
 nothing can be written upon them that will do 
 much good. There is such an outpouring of 
 disloyal platitudes and vocal jackassery, of 
 every figure, in these times, as quite disgusts 
 one with the pen and almost with the tongue 
 itself. Farewell, dear sir; may your pious 
 heart soon compose itself, and be able to say — 
 what wisdom has in all dialects prescribed since 
 wisdom first was — 'Good is the will of the 
 Lord.'" 
 
 The following letter to Sir J. Whitworth, re- 
 garding the announcement made of the latter's 
 intention to supplement the savings of his work- 
 people by a bonus, was read by the Hon. and 
 Rev. W. H. Lyttelton, at a meeting of the 
 Stourbridge School of Art : 
 
 "I have heard of your offer on behalf of the 
 thrifty workpeople of Darley, and of the thank- 
 ful acceptance of it by the district authorities of 
 the place. I cannot resist the highly unwonted 
 desire that has arisen in me to say that I highly 
 approve and applaud the ideas you have on that 
 subject, and to declare in words that, in my 
 opinion, nothing wiser, more beneficent, or 
 worthy of your distinguished place as a master 
 of workers, has come before me for many a year. 
 Would to Heaven that all or many of the cap- 
 tains of industry in England had a soul in them 
 such as yours, and could do as you have done, 
 or could still further co-operate with you in 
 works and plans to the like effect 1 The look of 
 England is to me at this moment abundantly 
 ominous; the question of capital and labour grow- 
 ing ever more anarchic — insoluble altogether by 
 the notions hitherto applied to it — pretty sure 
 to issue in petroleum one day, unless some 
 other gospel than that of the * dismal science * 
 come to illuminate it. Two things are pretty 
 sure to me — the first Is that capital and labour 
 never can or will agree together till they both 
 first of all decide on doing their work faithfully 
 throughout, and like men of conscience and 
 honour, whose highest aim is to behave like 
 faithful citizens of this universe and obey the 
 eternal commandment of Almighty God who 
 made them. The second thing is, that a sadder 
 object than even that of the coal strike or any 
 other conceivable strike is the fact that, loosely 
 speaking, we may say all England has decided 
 that the profitablest way is to do its work ill, 
 slimly, swiftly, and mendaciously. What a 
 contrast between now and say only a hundred 
 
 years ago! At that latter date, or still mora 
 conspicuously for ages before that, all England 
 awoke to its work with an invocation to the 
 Eternal Maker to bless them in their day'a 
 labour and help them to do it well. Now, all 
 England — shopkeepers, workmen, all manner of 
 competing labourers — awaken as with an un- 
 spoken but heartfelt prayer to Beelzebub : * Oh, 
 help us, thou great lord of shoddy, adulteration, 
 and malfeasance, to do our work with the maxi- 
 mum of slimness, swiftness, profit, and men- 
 dacity, for the devil's sake. Amen.'" 
 
 TABLE TALK, CHARACTERISTICS, ETC. 
 
 I have seen Carlyle's face under all aspects, 
 from the deepest gloom to the most reckless or 
 most genial mirth ; and it seemed to me that each 
 mood could make a totally different portrait. 
 The sympathetic is by far the finest in my eyes. 
 His excess of sympathy has been, I believe, the 
 master pain of his life. He does not know what 
 to do with it, and with its bitterness, seeing 
 that human life is full of pain to those who look 
 out for it ; and the savageness which has come 
 to be a main characteristic of this singular man 
 is, in my opinion, a mere expression of his 
 intolerable sympathy with the suffering. He 
 cannot express his love and pity in natural acts, 
 like other people ; and it shows itself too often 
 in unnatural speech. But to those who under- 
 stand his eyes, his shy manner, his changing 
 colour, his sigh, and the constitutional pudmr 
 which renders him silent about everything that he 
 feels the most deeply, his wild speech and abrupt 
 manner are perfectly intelligible. I have felt 
 to the depths of my heart what his sympathy 
 was in my days of success and prosperity and 
 apparent happiness without drawback ; and 
 again in sickness, pain, and hopelessness of ever 
 being at ease again. I have observed the same 
 strength of feeling towards all manner of 
 sufferers ; and I am confident that Carlyle's 
 affections are too much for him, and the real 
 cause for the ' * ferocity " with which he charges 
 himself, and astonishes others. It must be 
 such a strong love and honour as his friends 
 feel for him that can compensate for the pain 
 of witnessing his suffering life. When I knew 
 him familiarly, he rarely slept, was wofuUy 
 dyspeptic, and as variable as possible in mood. 
 When my friend and I entered the little parlour 
 in Cheyne Row, our host was usually miserable. 
 Till he got his coffee, he asked a list of ques- 
 tions, without waiting for answers, and looked 
 as if he was on the rack. After tea, he bright- 
 ened and softened, and sent us home full of 
 admiration and friendship, and sometimes with 
 a hope that he would some day be happy. . . . 
 In 1837 he came to me to ask how he should 
 manage, if he accepted a proposal from Fraser, 
 to publish his pieces as a collection of "Mis- 
 cellanies." After discussing the money part of 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 595 
 
 the business, I begged him to let me undertake 
 the proof correcting, supposing of course that 
 the pieces were to be simply reprinted. He 
 nearly agreed to let me do this, but afterwards 
 changed his mind. The reason for my offer was 
 that the sight of his proofs had more than once 
 really alarmed me — so irresolute, as well as 
 fastidious, did he seem to be as to the expres- 
 sion of his plainest thoughts. Almost every 
 word was altered, and revise followed upon 
 revise. I saw at once that this way of proceed- 
 ing must be very harassing to him ; and also 
 that profit must be cut off to a most serious 
 degree by the absurdly expensive method of 
 printing. I told him that it would turn out 
 just so if he would not allow his " Miscellanies " 
 to be reprinted just as they stood, in the form 
 in which people had admired, and now desired 
 to possess them. As might be expected, the 
 printing went on very slowly, and there seemed 
 every probability that this simple reprint would 
 stand over to another season. One day, while 
 in my study, I heard a prodigious sound ot 
 laughter on the stairs ; and in came Carlyle, 
 laughing loud. He had been laughing in that 
 manner all the way from the printing-office in 
 Charing Cross. As soon as he could, he told 
 me what it was about. He had been to the 
 office to urge on the printer ; and the man said, 
 "Why, sir, you really are so very hard upon us 
 with your corrections. They take so much 
 time, you see!" After some remonstrance, 
 Carlyle observed that he had been accustomed 
 to this sort of thing — that he had got works 
 printed in Scotland, and 
 
 "Yes, indeed, sir," interrupted the printer. 
 "We are aware of that. We have a man here 
 from Edinburgh ; and when he took up a bit of 
 your copy, he dropped it as if had burned his 
 fingers, and cried out, ' Lord have mercy, have 
 you got that man to print for? Lord knows 
 when we shall get done — with all his correc- 
 tions.'" Carlyle could not reply for laughing, 
 and he came to tell me that I was not singular 
 in my opinion about his method of revising. 
 
 He has now been a very long time about his 
 "Frederick the Great," which I must, there- 
 fore, like a good many more, die without see- 
 ing. I could never grow tired of his biogra- 
 phies. From the time when I first knew him I 
 am not aware that he has advanced in any 
 views, or grown riper in his conclusions; and 
 his mind has always seemed to me as inacces- 
 sible as Wordsworth's, or any other constitu- 
 tionally isolated like theirs ; and therefore it is 
 that I prefer to an outpouring of his own notions, 
 which we have heard as often as he has written 
 didactically, and which were best conveyed in 
 his "Sartor Kesartus," a commentary on a 
 character, as in biography, or on events, as in a 
 history. For many reasons, I prefer his bio- 
 graphies. I do not think that he can do any 
 more effectual work in the field of philosophy or 
 
 morals, but I enjoy an occasional addition to 
 the fine gallery of portraits which he has given 
 us. I am now too much out of tlie world to 
 know what is the real condition of his fame 
 and influence, but for my own part I could not 
 read his " Latter-Day Pamphlets," while heartily 
 enjoying his life of his friend Sterling, and, in 
 the main, his "Cromwell." No one can read 
 his "Cromwell" without longing for his " Fre- 
 derick the Great ; " and I hope he will achieve 
 that portrait and others after it. However 
 much or little he may yet do, he certainly ought 
 to be recognised as one of the chief influences of 
 his time. Bad as our political morality, and 
 grievous as our social shortcomings, we are at 
 least awakened to a sense of our sins; and I 
 cannot but ascribe this awakening mainly to 
 Carlyle. What Wordsworth did for poetry, in 
 bringing us out of a conventional idea and 
 method to a true and simple one, Carlyle has 
 done for morality. He may be himself a most 
 curious opposition to himself, he may be the 
 greatest mannerist of his age while denouncing 
 conventionalism, the greatest talker while eulo- 
 gising silence, the most woful complainer 
 whilst glorifying fortitude, the most uncertain 
 and stormy in mood while holding forth serenity 
 as the greatest good within the reach of man, 
 but he has nevertheless infused into the mind 
 of the English nation a sincerity, earnestness, 
 healthfulness, and courage, which can be appre- 
 ciated only by those who are old enough to tell 
 what was our morbid state when Byron was 
 the representative of our temper, the Clapham 
 Church of our religion, and the rotten-borough 
 system of our political morality. If I am war- 
 ranted in believing that the society I am bidding 
 farewell to is a vast improvement upon that 
 which I was born into, I am confident that the 
 blessed change is attributable to Carlyle more 
 than to any single influence besides. — Harriet 
 Martineau^s Autobiography. 
 
 The tongue has the "sough" of Annandale — 
 an echo of the Solway, with its compliments to 
 Old Father Thames. A keen, sharp, singing 
 voice, in the genuine Border key, and tranquil 
 and sedate withal, neighbourly and frank, and 
 always in unison with what is uttered. In his 
 conversation he sees the very thing he speaks of 
 — it breathes and moves palpable to him, and 
 hence his words form a picture. When you 
 come from him, the impression is like having 
 seen a great brilliant panorama ; everything has 
 been made visible and naked to your sight. But 
 more, and better far than that, you bear home 
 with you an indelible feeling of love for the man 
 — deep at the heart, long as life. No man has 
 ever inspired more of this personal affection. 
 Not to love Carlyle when you know him is some- 
 thing unnatural, as if one should say they did 
 not love the breeze that fans their cheek, or the 
 vine-tree which has refreshed them both with its 
 
2m 
 
 TREASURY 02^ MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 leafy shade and its exuberant juices. — James 
 
 DODDS. 
 
 His manners and conversation are as unformed 
 as his style, and yet, withal, equally full of 
 genius. In conversation he piles thought upon 
 thought, and imagining upon imagining, till the 
 erection seems about to topple down with its 
 weight— Charles Sumner. 
 
 MARGARET FULLER ON CARLTLE. 
 
 From a letter dated Paris, 16th November 
 1846: 
 
 Of the people I saw in London, you will wish 
 )»ie to speak first of the Carlyles. Mr C. came 
 to see me at once, and appointed an evening to 
 be passed at their house. That first time, I was 
 delighted with him. He was in a very sweet 
 humour — full of wit and pathos, without being 
 overbearing or oppressive. I was quite carried 
 away with the rich flow of his discourse, and the 
 hearty, noble earnestness of his personal being 
 brought back the charm which once was upon 
 his writing, before I wearied of it. I admired 
 his Scotch, his way of singing his great full sen- 
 tences, so that each one was like the stanza of a 
 narrative ballad. He let me talk now and then, 
 enough to free my lungs and change my posi- 
 tion, so that I did not get tired. That evening 
 he talked of the present state of things in Eng- 
 land, giving light, witty sketches of the men of 
 the day, fanatics and others, and some sweet, 
 homely stories he told of things he had known 
 of the Scotch peasantry. 
 
 Of you he spoke with hearty kindness, and he 
 told, with beautiful feeling, a story of some 
 poor farmer, or artisan in the country, who on 
 Sunday lays aside the cark and care of that 
 dirty English world, and sits reading the essays 
 and looking upon the sea. 
 
 I left him that night, intending to go out very 
 often to their house. I assure you there never 
 was anything so witty as Carlyle's description 
 of . It was enough to kill one with laugh- 
 ing. I, on my side, contributed a story to his 
 fund of anecdote on this subject, and it was 
 fully appreciated. Carlyle is worth a thousand 
 of you for that; he is not ashamed to laugh 
 when he is amused, but goes on in a cordial, 
 human fashion. 
 
 The second time Mr C. had a dinner-party, at 
 which was a witty, French, flippant sort of man, 
 author of a "History of Philosophy,"* and 
 now writing a "Life of Goethe," a task for 
 which he must be as unfit as irreligion and 
 sparkling shallowness can make him. But he 
 told stories admirably, and was allowed some- 
 times to interrupt Carlyle a little, of which one 
 was glad, for that night he was in his more 
 acrid mood, and though much more brilliant 
 than oil the former evening, grew wearisome to 
 
 * George Henry Lewes. 
 
 me, who disclaimed and rejected almost every- 
 thing he said. 
 
 For a couple of hours he was talking about 
 poetry, and the whole harangue was one elo- 
 quent proclamation of the defects in his own 
 mind. Tennyson wrote in verse because the 
 schoolmasters had taught him that it was great 
 to do so, and had thus, unfortunately, been 
 turned from the true path for a man. Bums 
 had, in like manner, been turned from his voca- 
 tion. Shakespeare had not had the good sense 
 to see that it would have been better to write 
 straight on in prose ; and such nonsense, which, 
 though amusing enough at first, he ran to death 
 after a while. 
 
 The most amusing part is always when he 
 comes back to some refrain, as in the French 
 Eevolution of the sea-green. In this instance, 
 it was Petrarch and Laura, ttie last word pro- 
 nounced with his ineff'able sai^T^m of drawl. 
 Although he said this over fifty times, I could 
 not help laughing when Laura would come. 
 Carlyle running his chin out when he spoke it, 
 and his eyes glancing till they looked like the 
 eyes and beak of a bird of prey. Poor Laura ! 
 Luckily for her that her poet had already got 
 her safely canonised beyond the reach of this 
 Teufelsdrockh vulture. 
 
 The worst of hearing Carlyle is, that you can- 
 not interrupt him. I understand the habit and 
 power of haranguing have increased very much 
 upon him, so that you are a perfect prisoner 
 when he has once got hold of you. To inter- 
 pret him is a physical impossibility. If you 
 get a chance to remonstrate for a moment, he 
 raises his voice and bears you down. True, he 
 does you no injustice, and, with his admirable 
 penetration, sees the disclaimer in your mind, 
 so that you are not morally delinquent ; but it 
 is not pleasant to be unable to utter it. The 
 latter part of the evening, however, he paid us 
 for this, by a series of sketches, in his finest 
 style of railing and raillery, of modem French 
 literature, not one of them, perhaps, perfectly 
 just, but all drawn with the finest, boldest 
 strokes, and, from his point of view, masterly. 
 All were depreciating, except that of Beranger. 
 Of him he spoke with perfect justice, because 
 with hearty sympathy. 
 
 I had afterwards some talk with Mrs C, whom 
 hitherto I had only seen, for who can speak 
 while her husband is there? I like her very 
 much ; she is full of grace, sweetness, and talent. 
 Her eyes are sad and charming. 
 
 December 1846. — Accustomed to the infinite 
 wit and exuberant richness of his writings, his 
 talk is still an amazement and a splendour 
 scarcely to be faced with steady eyes. He does 
 not converse — only harangues. It is the usual 
 misfortune of such marked men — happily not 
 one invariable or inevitable — that they cannot 
 allow other minds room to breathe, and show 
 themselves in their atmosphere, and thus miss 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE, 
 
 297 
 
 the refreshment and instruction which the great- 
 est never cease to need from the experience of 
 the humblest. 
 
 Carlyle allows no one a chance, but bears 
 down all opposition, not only by his wit and 
 onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as 
 60 many bayonets, but by actual physical supe- 
 riority — raising his voice, and rushing on his 
 opponent with a torrent of sound. This is not 
 in the least from unwillingness to allow freedom 
 to others. On the contrary, no man would more 
 enjoy a manly resistance to his thought. But 
 it is the impulse of a mind accustomed to fol- 
 low out its own impulse, as the hawk its prey, 
 and which knows not how to stop in the chase. 
 Carlyle, indeed, is arrogant and overbearing; 
 but in his arrogance there is no littleness, no 
 self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some old 
 Scandinavian conqueror; it is his nature, and 
 the untamable impulse that has given him power 
 to crush the dragons. You do not love him, 
 perhaps, nor revere ; and perhaps, also, he would 
 only laugh at you if you did ; but you like him 
 heartily, and like to see him the powerful smith, 
 the Siegfried, melting all the old iron in his 
 furnace till it glows to a sunset red, and burns 
 you, if you senselessly go too near. 
 
 He seems to me quite isolated — lonely as the 
 desert — yet never was a man more fitted to 
 prize a man, could he find one to match his 
 mood. He finds them, but only in the past. 
 He sings rather than talks. He pours upon you 
 a kind of satirical, heroical, critical poem, with 
 regular cadences, and generally catching up near 
 the beginning some singular epithet, which 
 serves as a refrain when his song is full, or 
 with which, as with a knitting needle, he catches 
 «p the stitches, if he has chanced, now and then, 
 to let fall a row. 
 
 For the higher kinds of poetry he has no 
 sense, and his talk on that subject is delightfully 
 and gorgeously absurd. He sometimes stops a 
 minute to laugh at it himself, then begins anew 
 with fresh vigour ; for all the spirits he is driv- 
 ing before him seem to him as Fata Morganas, 
 ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them 
 turn about; but he laughs that they seem to 
 others such dainty Ariels. His talk, like his 
 books, is full of pictures; his critical strokes 
 masterly. Allow for his point of view, and his 
 survey is admirable. He is a large subject. I 
 cannot speak more or wiselier of him now, nor 
 needs it ; his works are true, to blame and 
 praise him — the Siegfried of England — great and 
 powerful, if not quite invulnerable, and of a 
 might rather to destroy evil, than legislate for 
 good.* 
 
 CARLYLE AND LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 At a small party Leigh Hunt had said some- 
 
 * "Memoh-3 of Marg-aret Fuller Ossoli" (Boston, 
 1852). Vol. iii., pp. 96-104. 
 
 thing about the islands of the blest, or El Dor- 
 ado, or the Millennium, and was flowing on his 
 bright and hopeful way, when Carlyle dropped 
 some heavy tree-trunk across Hunt's pleasant 
 stream, and banked it up with philosophical 
 doubts and objections at every interval of the 
 speaker's joyous progress. But the unmitigated 
 Hunt never ceased his overflowing anticipations, 
 nor the saturnine Carlyle his infinite demurs to 
 those finite flourish ings. The listeners laughed 
 and applauded by turns ; and had now fairly 
 pitted them against each other, as the philoso- 
 pher of hopefulness and of the unhopeful. The 
 contest continued with all that ready wit and 
 philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and 
 profundity, that extensive knowledge of books 
 and character, with their ready application in 
 argument or illustration, and that perfect ease 
 and good-nature which distinguished both of 
 these men. The opponents were so well matched 
 that it was quite clear the contest would never 
 come to an end. But the night was far ad- 
 vanced, and the party broke up. They all 
 sallied forth, and leaving the close room, the 
 candles, and the arguments behind them, sud- 
 denly found themselves in presence of a most 
 brilliant star-light night. They all looked up. 
 " Now," thought Hunt, " Carlyle's done for ! he 
 can have no answer to that ! " " There," shouted 
 Hunt, "look up there, look at that glorious 
 harmony, that sings with infinite voices an 
 eternal song of hope in the soul of man." 
 Carlyle looked up. They all remained silent to 
 hear what he would say. They began to think 
 he was silenced at last — he was a mortal man. 
 But out of that silence came a few low-toued 
 words, in a broad Scotch accent. And who on 
 earth could have anticipated what the voice 
 said? " Eh ! it's a sad sight ! " Hunt sat down 
 on a stone step. They all laughed — then looked 
 very thoughtful. Had the finite measured itself 
 with infinity, instead of surrendering itself up 
 to the influence? Again they laughed — then 
 bade each other good-night, and betook them* 
 selves homeward with slow and serious pace. — 
 E. H. HORNK 
 
 I went to Cheyne Row on Monday to tea; 
 Carlyle was very pleasant. It was very interest- 
 ing to hear his account of his visit to the Bishop 
 of St David's, and his feelings upon morning 
 prayers, etc., which he attended, he said, be- 
 cause he had no right to go to a bishop's house 
 and not conform to his ways. He was particu- 
 larly struck by no one saying good-morning to 
 his neighbour when they met in chapel in the 
 morning, before or after. "It was all very well 
 done. It was like so many souls pouring in 
 through all the doors to ofi'er up their orisons to 
 the God who sent them on earth. We were 
 no longer men, and had nothing to do with 
 men's usages then; and after it was over, all 
 these souls seemed to disperse again silently 
 
298 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 into space, and then, when we met in the draw- 
 ing-room, came the human greetings and civili- 
 ties." You can hardly imagine the eflfect of his 
 words, unless you can remember the singular 
 diction which he uses, and the earnestness 
 with which he speaks. — Charlotte Williams 
 Wtnn. 
 
 I did not wish to disturb Mr Carlyle, but he 
 came, and an uncommon-looking man he is; an 
 eagle-like look in his great glaring eyes, hair 
 half grey, and a strong Dumfriesshire tongue. 
 He was in a robe de chambre, most kind and 
 courteous. I got him upon the neglect of the 
 uneducated and lapsed masses ; he and I were 
 quite at one. He uttered a number of great 
 thoughts in magnificent language; lightened 
 and thundered away in sublime style — at the 
 heads of governors, ladies and gentlemen, and 
 this selfish world ; and looked to me very much 
 — as he swung his arm, clenched his fist, and 
 glared round him with his black beard, and 
 shining eyes, and grizzly hair — like an incarna- 
 tion of Thor, or Woden, or some other Scan- 
 dinavian divinity. — Rev. Thomas Guthrie, 
 D.D. 
 
 As the morning mists clear from the Thames, 
 various figure may be seen strolling about with 
 that peculiar air which indicates expectation 
 in its possessor. The pilgrim is sometimes a 
 broad-shouldered Scot, sometimes a little towns- 
 man from the Midlands, now and then an 
 obvious artisan, long-limbed and bowler-hatted. 
 They can all read, these lingerers by the Thames. 
 They diligently peruse the morning papers, and 
 now and then cast an eager look towards the 
 end of Cheyne Row, for they have come many a 
 weary mile to look upon their hero, who has 
 taught them, in round terms, to appreciate 
 their betters. At last emerges a tall, slightly 
 bowed figure, surmounted by a wide-awake of 
 ample brim ; and as Thomas Carlyle takes his 
 early morning stroll they gaze, neither curiously 
 nor impertinently, but reverently. Unheeding 
 he passes on, as one whose spirit is not stirred 
 by public observation. This before breakfast 
 promenade is part of a regular programme, 
 through which the inventor of the clothes 
 philosophy works daily. Breakfast over, work 
 commences; and here be it observed that Mr 
 Carlyle does not qualify reading and study as 
 work, reserving the letter term for actual pro- 
 duction. In this he differs widely from the 
 great army of literary nihilists — the men of 
 letters who pass their days in the reading-room 
 of the British Museum, and take their full 
 value out of the London Library, but never 
 produce anything. His hours of work are 
 short — from half-past ten or eleven till two; 
 the rest of the afternoon being devoted to exer- 
 cise, either in the form of a long walk with an 
 old friend and congenial companion, or of a 
 
 jaunt up to town in a Chelsea omnibus. The 
 last-named dissipation is a great favourite with 
 Mr Carlyle. He believes that the shaking, 
 from which the effeminate hansom is compara- 
 tively free, but which may be thoroughly 
 enjoyed in an omnibus, is a peculiarly whole- 
 some species of exercise. Till within a few 
 years he rode and drove a great deal. Making 
 a rapid calculation one day, he said that during 
 the time he was engaged in the production of 
 ** Friedrich IL," he rode twice round the world. 
 On alighting from the omnibus he will stroll in 
 any direction, not bent entirely upon exercise, 
 but observing keenly the human comedy visible 
 on a London afternoon. His tastes would not 
 occur to one who met him for the first time 
 during his afternoon stroll, as being of a literary 
 complexion. He is no loiterer at bookstalls or 
 grubber among curiosities. Returning home 
 from his afternoon promenade, he reposes until 
 dinner-time. This important ceremony over, he 
 again wanders out for a short space, and then 
 sits down, not to work, as he puts it, but to 
 read till two o'clock in the morning. , . , 
 
 The reading preferred by the author of 
 " Hero - Worship " is almost entirely confined 
 to books. It has been said that it is general 
 enough in character, but the reader is imbued 
 with a certain preference for works in a bound 
 and otherwise complete condition. Of news- 
 papers he, despite his many commendations of 
 the "able editor," is no lover. They occupy 
 too much space, and their perusal too much 
 time. Public Opinion and All the Year Round 
 are the only periodical publications welcomed 
 within the walls of the house in Cheyne Row, 
 and the rhetoric of the leading journals is for 
 the most part lost on the historian of the Seven 
 Years' War. Books too, apart from a few com- 
 panions of early life, are valued by him not as 
 books, as choice editions, and so forth, but 
 simply as shells which, when the kernel is 
 extracted, may be flung away. The smallness 
 of Mr Carlyle's library — perhaps the smallest, 
 saving mere books of reference, that ever be- 
 longed to a great man of letters — is explained 
 by his magnificent memory. When a book is 
 read, read with that intensity of attention which 
 he brings to bear upon it, it is no longer of 
 value. He has made it his own. Whatever of 
 fact and truth and life is in it, it is absorbed, 
 and the husk is valueless. — The World. 
 
 carlyle's portrait. 
 
 You can see that fine old face, snowed up by 
 the winter of time, rugged and lined with 
 channels of thought, in most photographic 
 shops and in many albums. The earnest eyes 
 still flash beneath the rugged brows. He wears 
 such a beard "as youth gone out has left in 
 ashes ; " there is something scoriae about the 
 face, as if the fires of a volcano had nearly burnt 
 themselves out and yet reserved some force. 
 
DR ARNOLD. 
 
 299 
 
 Age has added to it, not subdued it. Compare 
 it with earlier portraits and you will recognise 
 the truth that, wherever wisdom dwells age 
 steals not, but reveals true beauty. No ruin of 
 a strong tower clothed with ivy is more fine and 
 touching than that head. The portrait, leaning 
 thougMfully on the hand that has laboured so 
 long and so well with the pen, presents the 
 '* vera eflBgiis " of a true king of men. Here, at 
 least, cries the gazer, is no phantasm, no sham 
 captain, but a man. — J. H. Friswell. 
 
 I am no worshipper of force. I see nothing 
 to admire in mere power, i.e., in its quantity 
 apart from its quality. Carlyle's earnestness is 
 very touching and noble ; but it seems to me 
 that, according to his teaching, if you could 
 conceive an omnipotent devil, you ought to 
 worship him as much as Israel's Jehovah. 
 [So that he is in one sense a modern Manichee.] 
 I suspect so. And an omnipotent militia of 
 darkness would be the very horror of horrors. 
 . . . The connection between Carlylism and 
 despotism I see, but the link is nowhere ex- 
 plicitly avowed. Carlyle is sometimes difficult 
 to understand, and very difficult to judge. 
 Why did he call Chalmers the last of the Chris- 
 tians ? I suppose he forgets what he has written 
 elsewhere. Hero-worship ! ah well, he and I 
 have to meet a strange hero yet — Gd^aros — the 
 greatest that I know of, next to him who over- 
 came him. Carlyle has great faith in the devil, 
 
 but I suspect he always appreciates quantity of 
 being and of power more than quality. — Dr 
 John Duncan. 
 
 carlyle's vocation. 
 
 England, says Bunsen, "has in this century re- 
 turned to the course rather indicated than traced 
 by Bacon. History has here to name — first, the 
 genius of Coleridge, greater still by his inspiring 
 influence than his own writings. The progress in 
 this line is marked, in two diverging directions 
 and schools, by Frederick Maurice and by Thomas 
 Carlyle." . . . As Maurice may be called the 
 Semitic exponent of the deepest elements of 
 English thought and life in this field, Carlyle, 
 as a philosopher on history, . . . may be 
 designated its Anglo-Germanic prophet. He 
 considers it his principal vocation to point out 
 that all real progress and all development in 
 history are due, as far as man is concerned, to 
 the inward truth and reality in man, and, in 
 the highest degree, to the heroes of mankind. 
 Both individuals and nations who act against 
 that reality fulfil their destiny in perishing. 
 Although his exposition and that of Maurice 
 may appear diametrically opposed to each other, 
 the Continental inquirer will easily discover in 
 both the same national instinct to consider real 
 life and action as the final object of man, as 
 the highest reality of thought, and the safest, 
 if not the only safe standard of truth. — Memoir 
 of Charles Kingsley. 
 
 THOMAS AENOLD, D.D. 
 
 [1795-1842.] 
 
 Thomas Arnold was born on 13th June 1795 
 at West Cowes, in the Isle of Wight. His 
 father was a collector of customs at Cowes. In 
 1803 he was sent to Warminster school, in 
 Wiltshire, under Dr Griffiths, and in 1807 he 
 removed to Winchester College, where he re- 
 mained till 1811. He was at this time of a shy 
 and retiring disposition, with peculiar pursuits 
 of his own, the style and tone of his letters 
 plainly showing that they were produced by 
 living chiefly amongst his elders, and hearing 
 read to him books suited for a more advanced 
 age. One of his schoolfellows said of him, 
 that "he was stiff in his opinions, and utterly 
 immovable by force or fraud, when he had 
 made up his mind, whether right or wrong." 
 He was fond of ballad poetry, and composed a 
 long poem, in imitation of Scott's "Marmion," 
 entitled "Simon de Montfort," which gained 
 him the distinction of being called "Poet 
 Arnold." He also excelled in his knowledge of 
 history and geography. 
 
 In his sixteenth year he was elected a scholar 
 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His name 
 was placed in the first class in Litterse Humani- 
 ores in 1814; in the following year he was 
 elected Fellow of Oriel College ; and in 1815 and 
 1817 he gained the Chancellor's prize for two Uni- 
 versity essays — Latin and English. Amongst 
 the friends made during his college career were 
 J. T. Coleridge, afterwards Lord Coleridge, Dr 
 Hawkins, and Dr Whately, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin. He next took private pupils, 
 and read extensively in the Oxford libraries, 
 making abstracts of the books read, and writing 
 original sketches in history and theology. In 
 his historical reading he adopted the plan of 
 making himself thoroughly master of one par- 
 ticular period. 
 
 Fixing on his future course of life, he was 
 ordained deacon at Oxford in December 1818; 
 and on 11th August 1820 he married Mary Pen- 
 rose, youngest daughter of the Rev. John Pen- 
 rose, rector of Fledborough, Nottinghamshire. 
 
300 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Previous to this event he had settled at ' Lale- 
 ham, near Staines, with his mother, aunt, and 
 sister. Here he remained nine years, preparing 
 young men for the universities. Six out of his 
 nine children were born here. Here also his re- 
 ligious convictions gained depth and strength, 
 grew to be the life of his life, A friend said : 
 "No one could know him even a little, and not be 
 struck by his absolute wrestling with evil, so that 
 like St Paul he seemed to be battling with the 
 wicked one, and yet with the feeling of God's 
 help on his side, scorning as well as hating him, " 
 His retirement at Laleham was only broken by 
 short tours in England or on the Continent 
 during his vacation. In 1823 he wrote, "I 
 have always thought, with regard to ambition, 
 that I should like to be aut Ccesar aut nullus, 
 and as it is pretty well settled for me that I 
 shall not be Caesar, I am quite content to live 
 in peace as nullus." His favourite passage of 
 Holy Writ at this time was: "Seek ye first the 
 kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
 then all other things shall be added to you." 
 He was in the habit of assisting the curate of 
 the place in the parish church and the work- 
 house, and in visiting the villagers ; this latter 
 privilege he valued highly. 
 
 The spirit in which he entered into his work 
 as private tutor will be best given in his own 
 words, written afterwards : 
 
 **I know it has a bad name, but my wife and 
 I always happened to be fond of it, and if I 
 were to leave Eugby for no demerit of my own, 
 I would take to it again with all the pleasure in 
 life. I enjoyed, and do enjoy, the society of 
 youths of seventeen or eighteen, for they are all 
 alive in limbs and spirits at least, if not in 
 mind, while in older persons the body and 
 spirits often become lazy and languid without 
 the mind gaining anj'^ vigour to compensate for 
 it. Do not take your work as a dose, and I do 
 not think you will find it nauseous. I am sure 
 you will not, if your wife does not, and if she is 
 a sensible woman, she will not either if you do 
 not. The misery of private tuition se^ms to 
 me to consist in this, that men enter upon it as 
 a means to some further end, are always im- 
 patient for the time when they may lay it aside ; 
 whereas if you enter upon it heartily as your 
 life's business, as a man enters upon any other 
 profession, you are not then in danger of grudg- 
 ing every hour you give to it, and thinking of 
 how much privacy and how much society it is 
 robbing you ; but you take to it as a matter of 
 course, making it your material occupation, and 
 devote your time to it, and then you find that 
 it is in itself full of interest, and keeps life's 
 current fresh and wholesome by bringing you 
 in such perpetual contact with all the spring of 
 youthful liveliness. I should say, have your 
 pupils a good deal with you, and be as familiar 
 with them as you possibly can. I did this con- 
 tinually more and more before I left Laleham, 
 
 going to bathe with them, leaping, and all other 
 gymnastic exercises within my capacity, and 
 sometimes sailing or rowing with them. They, 
 I believe, always liked it, and I enjoyed it my- 
 self like a boy, and found myself constantly the 
 better for it." 
 
 An old pupil, Mr Price, bears witness to the 
 conscientious work of this period : 
 
 ** The most remarkable thing which struck me 
 at once on joining the Laleham circle was, the 
 wonderful healthiness of tone and feeling which 
 prevailed in it. Everything about u>e I immedi- 
 ately found to be most real; it was a place 
 where a new-comer at once felt that a great and 
 earnest work was going forward. Dr Arnold's 
 great power as a private tutor resided in this, 
 that he gave such an intense earnestness to life. 
 Every pupil was made to feel that there was a 
 work for him to do — that his happiness as well 
 as his duty lay in doing that work well. Hence 
 an indescribable zest was communicated to a 
 young man's feelings about life ; a strange joy 
 came over him on discovering that he had the 
 means of being useful, and thus of being happy; 
 and a deep respect and ardent attachment sprang 
 up towards him who had taught him thus to 
 value life and his own self, and his work and 
 mission in this world. All this was founded on 
 the breadth and comprehensiveness of Arnold's 
 character, as well as its striking truth and re- 
 ality; on the unfeigned regard he had for work 
 of all kinds, and the sense he had of its value 
 both for the complex aggregate of society and 
 the growth and perfection of the individual. 
 Thus, pupils of the most different natures were 
 keenly stimulated ; none felt that he was left 
 out, or that, because he was not endowed with 
 large powers of mind, there was no sphere open 
 to him in the honourable pursuit of usefulness. 
 This wonderful power of making all his pupils 
 respect themselves, and of awakening in them a 
 consciousness of the duties that God assigned to 
 them personally, and of the consequent reward 
 each should have of his labours, was one of 
 Arnold's most characteristic features as a trainer 
 of youth ; he possessed it eminently at Rugby; 
 but, if I may trust my own vivid recollections, 
 he had it quite as remarkably at Laleham. His 
 hold over all his pupils I know perfectly aston- 
 ished me. It was not so much an enthusiastic 
 admiration for his genius, or learning, or elo- 
 quence which stirred within them; it was a 
 sympathetic thrill, caught from a spirit that was 
 earnestly at work in the world — whose work 
 was healthy, sustained, and constantly carried 
 forward in the fear of God — a work that was 
 founded on a deep sense of its duty and its 
 value ; and was coupled with such a true humil* 
 itj"", such an unaffected simplicity, that others 
 could not help being invigorated by the same 
 feeling, and with the belief that they too in their 
 measure could go and do likewise. 
 
 "In all this there was no excitement, no pre- 
 
DR ARNOLD, 
 
 301 
 
 dilection for one class of work above another ; 
 no enthusiasm for any one-sided object ; but a 
 humble, profound, and most religious conscious- 
 ness that work is the appointed calling of man 
 on earth, the end for which his various faculties 
 were given, the element in which his nature is 
 ordained to develop itself, and in which his pro- 
 gressive advance towards heaven is to lie. Hence, 
 each pupil felt assured of Arnold's sympathy 
 in his own particular growth and character of 
 talent; in striving to cultivate his own gifts, in 
 whatever direction they might lead him, he 
 invariably found Arnold not only approving, 
 but positively and sincerely valuing for them- 
 selves the results he had arrived at; and that 
 approbation and esteem gave a dignity and a 
 worth both to himself and his labour." 
 
 The study of philology and history engaged 
 his attention while at Laleham. He also em- 
 ployed himself on a Lexicon of Thucydides, an 
 edition of this author, with notes, Latin and 
 English, a short history of Greece, and several 
 articles for the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana." 
 The reading of Niebuhr's "History of Eome," he 
 said, " opened wide before my eyes the extent 
 of my own ignorance," and he resolved to delay 
 any independent work on this subject until he 
 had studied the new field of inquiry suggested 
 to him. A volume of his sermons, which had 
 been preached in the parish church of Laleham, 
 was published in 1828, and met with a favour- 
 able reception. In the preface he explained the 
 aim of the sermons being "to bring the great 
 principles of the Gospel home to the hearts and 
 practices of my own countrymen in my own 
 time, and particularly to those of my own 
 station in society, with whose sentiments and 
 language I am naturally most familiar, and for 
 this purpose I have tried to write in such a style 
 as might be used in real life, in serious conver- 
 sation with our friends, or with those who 
 asked our advice ; in the language, in short, of 
 common life, and applied to the cases of com- 
 mon life ; but ennobled and strengthened by those 
 principles and feelings which are to be found 
 only in the Gospel." This volume is regarded 
 by Dean Stanley, his biographer, as the best 
 introduction to all his later works, and as among 
 the first real attempts to break through the 
 conventional phraseology with which English 
 preaching had been long encumbered. 
 
 The head - mastership of Rugby becoming 
 vacant in August 1827, by the resignation of Dr 
 Wooll, Arnold, although coming late amongst 
 the list of applicants, became a candidate. His 
 testimonials were read last, amongst those of the 
 numerous candidates ; one letter from Dr Haw- 
 kins predicted that if Arnold were elected to 
 the head-mastership of Rugby, he would change 
 the face of education in English public schools. 
 He was elected in December 1827. Writing to 
 the Rev. F. C. Blackstone, he says : " It would 
 be foolish to talk of the deep love that I bear to 
 
 Laleham, and the wrench which it will be to 
 part from it ; but this is quite consistent with a 
 lively interest in Rugby. . . . May God 
 grant that I may labour with an entire con- 
 fidence in Him, and with none in myself with- 
 out Him." And to the Rev. John Tucker 
 he wrote: "The Rugby prospect I contem- 
 plate with a very strong interest ; the work I 
 am not afraid of if I get my proper exercise ; 
 but I want absolute play like a boy, and neither 
 riding nor walking will make up for my leaping- 
 pole and gallows, and bathing, when the youths 
 used to go with me, and I felt completely for 
 the time a boy as they were. It is this entire 
 relaxation, I think, at intervals, such again as 
 my foreign tours have afforded, that gives me so 
 keen an appetite for my work at other times, 
 and has enabled me to go through it not only 
 with no fatigue, but with a sense of absolute 
 pleasure." Entering upon his work with whole- 
 heartedness, his vigorous and upright character 
 impressed itself upon every department of the 
 school and upon its pupils ; the ultimate aim of 
 all his teaching being to train them up to be- 
 come Christian men, "whose age did not pre- 
 vent their faults from being sins, or their ex- 
 cellences from being noble and Christian virtues ; 
 whose situation did not of itself make the 
 application of Christian principles to their 
 daily lives an impracticable vision." Tho 
 education given was not based upon religion, 
 but was itself religious. "It was felt," says his 
 biographer, "that he had the power, in which 
 so many teachers have been deficient, of saying 
 what he did mean, and of not saying what he 
 did not mean— the power of doing what was 
 right, and speaking what was true, and think- 
 ing what was good, independently of any pro- 
 fessional or conventional notions that so to act, 
 speak, or think, was becoming or expedient." 
 The reforms which he carried out, and his 
 method of education are arranged by his bio- 
 grapher under the divisions of the general dis- 
 cipline of the school, the system of instruction, 
 the chapel services, and his own personal inter- 
 course and influence. 
 
 Punishment was kept as much as possible in 
 the background in the higher part of the school ; 
 he endeavoured instead, by kindness and en- 
 couragement, to attract the "good and noble 
 feelings of those with whom he had to deal." 
 He stated the matter thus : 
 
 " The beau-ideal of school discipline with re- 
 gard to young boys would seem to be this, that 
 whilst corporal punishment was retained on 
 principle as fitly answering to and marking the 
 naturally inferior state of boyhood, and there- 
 fore as conveying no peculiar degradation to 
 persons in such a state, we should cherish and 
 encourage to the utmost all attempts made by 
 the several boys, as individuals, to escape from 
 the natural punishment of their age by rising 
 above its naturally low tone of principle^" 
 
Flogging he mostly confined to grave offences, 
 to lying, drinking, or habitual idleness. The 
 sight of a knot of vicious boys gathered round 
 the school-house fire, made him think that he 
 saw the devil in the midst of them. His great 
 anxiety was, to have "infused into a society of 
 boys sucli elements as, without being too dis- 
 similar to coalesce thoroughly with the rest, shall 
 yet be so superior as to raise the character of 
 the whole." He looked to the governing power, 
 and to the influence of the highest class in the 
 school, for securing control over the younger 
 scholars. He would seriously address them 
 thus after making a few remarks on their work 
 in the lessons: "Speaking to you, as to young 
 men who can enter into what I say, I wish you 
 to feel that you have another duty to perform, 
 holding the situation that you do in the school ; 
 of the importance of this I wish you all to feel 
 sensible, and of the enormous influence you 
 possess, in ways in which we cannot, for good or 
 for evil, on all below you; and I wish you to 
 see fully how many and great are the oppor- 
 tunities oflfered to you here of doing good — 
 good, too, of lasting benefit to yourselves as 
 well as to others ; there is no place where you 
 will find better opportunities for some time to 
 come, and you will then have reason to look 
 back to your life here with the greatest pleasure. 
 You will soon find, when you change your life 
 here for that at the universities, how very few 
 in comparison they are there, however willing 
 you may then be, — at any rate during the first 
 part of your life there. That there is good, 
 working in the school, I most fully believe, and 
 we cannot feel too thankful for it ; in many in- 
 dividual instances, in different parts of the 
 school, I have seen the change from evil to good 
 — to mention instances would of course be 
 wrong. The state of the school is a subject of 
 congratulation to us all, but only so far as to 
 encourage us to increased exertions ; and I am 
 sure we ought all to feel it a subject of most 
 sincere thankfulness to God ; but we must not 
 stop here ; we must exert ourselves with earnest 
 prayer to God for its continuance. And what I 
 have often said before I repeat now : what we 
 must look for here is, 1st, religious and moral 
 principle; 2dly, gentlemanly conduct; 3dly, 
 intellectual ability," 
 
 He had entered on his work convinced that 
 "the first, second, and third duty of a school- 
 master is to get rid of unpromising subjects," 
 and until this was done a great public school, 
 he believed, would never be what it might be, 
 and what it ought to be. He endeavoured to 
 make the school work really a religious work, 
 and introduced a prayer before the first lesson 
 in the sixth form. He had little regard for 
 mere cleverness aside from goodness. A plod- 
 ding boy was always encouraged by him. " If 
 there be one thing on earth," he said, "which 
 iij truly admirable, it is to see God's wisdom 
 
 blessing an inferiority of natural powers, when 
 they have been honestly, truly, and zealously 
 cultivated." He maintained from the begin- 
 ning that classical studies should be the basis 
 of intellectual teaching. It was not knowledge, 
 but the means of gaining knowledge, which he 
 had to teach. He was the first Englishman, 
 says his biographer, who drew attention in our 
 public schools to the historical, political, dnd 
 philosophical value of philology and of the 
 ancient writers, as distinguished from the mere 
 verbal criticism and elegant scholarship of the 
 last century. The study of modern history, 
 modern languages, and mathematics, were by 
 him first incorporated into the work of the 
 school. It was his practice to teach by ques- 
 tioning, and he seldom gave information, unless 
 the recipient was prepared to receive it. Of 
 younger boys he said : " It is a great mistake to 
 think that they should understand all they 
 learn ; for God has ordered that in youth the 
 memory should act vigorously, independent of 
 the understanding — whereas a man cannot 
 usually recollect a thing unless he understands 
 it." For himself, he felt the necessity of being 
 perpetually learning, and of the necessity of 
 keeping above the level of his scholars. In his 
 Scripture lessons he showed that he held fresh 
 views of our Lord's life and death, "his rich 
 mind filled up the naked outline of the Gospel 
 history, to him the most interesting fact that 
 has ever happened — as real, as exciting as any 
 recent event in modern history of which the 
 actual eff^ects are visible." In the school chapel 
 he displayed dignity, simplicity, and manliness 
 of devotion, while performing the chapel service. 
 His preaching had a powerful eff'ect on the boys 
 assembled. "His very presence," says his 
 biographer, in speaking of his private influence, 
 "seemed to create a new spring of health and 
 vigour within them, and to give to life an 
 interest and an elevation which remained with 
 them long after they had left him." With 
 regard to his own work, he said, "I suppose 
 the desirable feeling to entertain is always to 
 expect to succeed, and never think that you 
 have succeeded." 
 
 The life and welfare of the nation was to him 
 an individual thing, so intensely interested 
 was he in the advance of political and social 
 reform. "He was an idoloclast," said Arch- 
 deacon Hare, " at once zealous and fearless in 
 demolishing the reigning idols, and at the same 
 time animated with a reverent love for the ideas 
 which those idols carnalise and stifle." He had 
 a rare facility of turning spare time to account, 
 and readily mastered the contents of any book 
 before him. His love of history grew upon 
 him, and historical characters and events were 
 to him great realities. He was himself strongest 
 in the political department of history ; he felt 
 the greatest delight in studying the history of 
 Greece and Rome. He was first led to the 
 
DR ARNOLD. 
 
 303 
 
 study of the history of Rome, which in some 
 degree he felt to be the history of the world, by 
 the personal regard for, and the encouragement 
 received from Niebuhr and Chevalier Bunsen. 
 Three volumes of his projected history of Rome 
 were issued, when it was broken off by his death 
 at the end of the second Punic War. His views 
 as to the connection between Church and State 
 were decided, and are thus given by his bio- 
 grapher : 
 
 " Convinced as he was, that the founders of 
 our present constitution in Church and State 
 did 'truly consider them to be identical, the 
 Christian nation of England to be the Church 
 of England, the head of that nation to be for 
 that very reason the head of the Church,' he 
 asked with an indignant sorrow, * whether it 
 were indeed indifference or latitudinarianism, 
 to wish most devoutly that this noble, this 
 divine theory might be fully and for ever 
 realised.' It was still the vision which closed 
 the vista of all his speculations; the ideal 
 whole, which might be incorporated part by 
 part into the existing order of society; the 
 ideal end which each successive age might 
 approach more closely — its very remoteness 
 only impressing him more deeply with the 
 conviction of the enormous efforts which must 
 be made to bring all social institutions nearer 
 to that perfection which Christianity designed 
 for them, of the enormous mass of evil which 
 lay undisturbed because so few dared to acknow- 
 ledge the identity of the cause of reform with 
 the cause of Christianity. It was still, in its 
 more practical form, the great idea of which the 
 several parts of his life were so many distinct 
 exemplifications; his sermons — his teaching — 
 his government of the school — his public acts — 
 his own personal character; and to which all 
 his dreams of wider usefulness instinctively 
 turned, from the first faint outline of his hopes 
 in his earliest letters down to the last evening 
 of his life, when the last thought which he be- 
 stowed on the future, was of ' that great work, 
 if he might be permitted to take part in it.'" 
 
 His life at home, in his study or in the 
 private circle, was cheerful, free, and uncon- 
 strained. His biographer speaks of the "almost 
 awful happiness of his domestic life." He was 
 father, guide, general referee, and playfellow 
 amongst his children. His intercourse with the 
 poor was also manly and unaffected. *' I never 
 knew such a humble man as the doctor," said 
 the parish clerk at Laleham ; **he comes and 
 shakes us by the hand as if he was one of us." 
 This was also true in his life, during his latter 
 years, at Fox How, a small estate between 
 Rydal and Ambleside, which he purchased in 
 1832, with the view of forming a retreat, should 
 he retire from school, or to his family in case of 
 his death. **I feel," he said, "that I love 
 Middlesex and Westmoreland, but I care no- 
 thing for Warwickshire, and am in it like a 
 
 plant sunk in the ground in a pot ; my roots 
 never strike beyond the pot." 
 
 Writing to the Rev. J. Tucker, 26th October 
 1829, he says : 
 
 " If we are alive fifteen years hence, I think 
 I would go with you gladly to Swan River, if 
 they will make me schoolmaster there, and lay 
 my bones in the land of kangaroos and opossums. 
 I laugh about it ; yet if my wife were alive, and 
 able to go, I should think it a very great benefit 
 to the good cause to go out with all my family, 
 and become a Swan River man ; and I should 
 try to get others of our friends to go out with 
 us. My notion is, that no missionaryising is 
 half so beneficial, as to try to pour sound and 
 healthy blood into a young civilised society ; to 
 make one colony, if possible, like the ancient 
 colonies, or like New England— a living sucker 
 from the mother-country, bearing the same 
 blossoms and the same fruits, not a reproduc- 
 tion of its vilest excrescences, its ignorance, and 
 its wickedness, while all its good elements are 
 left behind in the process. No words can tell 
 the evil of such colonies as we have hitherto 
 planted, where the best parts of the new society 
 have been men too poor to carry with them or 
 to gain much of the higher branches of know- 
 ledge; or else mere official functionaries from 
 England, whose hearts and minds have been 
 always half at home, and who have never 
 identified themselves with the land in which 
 they were working. But if you and your 
 sisters were to go out, with half Southborough 
 after you — apothecary, lawyers, butchers, 
 bakers, tailors, carpenters, and labourers — and 
 if we were to join with a similar draught from 
 Rugby and Laleham, I think we should deserve 
 to be AuaypaiTTol vipryerai. both here and in 
 Swan River. Such are my notions about it; 
 and I am not clear that I shall not devote my 
 first £1000 that I make here to the purchase of 
 land in Swan River, that I may have my estate 
 and the school buildings got into due order, 
 before I shut up shop at Rugby. Meantime, I 
 hope you will not think I ought to shut up 
 shop forthwith, and adjourn to the next asylum 
 for daft people, because I am thus wildly 
 dreaming about Swan River, instead of talking 
 soberly about Rugby. But Rugby is a very 
 nice place all the same, and I wish you would 
 come and form your own judgment of it, or 
 that some of your sisters would, if you cannot 
 or will not." 
 
 Deeply interested in the state of the country, 
 a gloom was cast over his spirit by the rural 
 disturbances of 1830, by the agitation connected 
 with the Reform Bill, and by the visitation of 
 cholera in 1831-32. **I cannot understand," 
 he said, speaking of the duty of the clergy in 
 this connection, " what is the good of a national 
 Church if it be not to Christianise the nation, 
 and introduce the principles of Christianity 
 into men's social and civil relations, and expose 
 
304 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 the wickedness of that spirit which maintains 
 the game laws, and in agriculture and trade 
 seems to think that there is no such sin as 
 covetousness, and that if a man is not dishonest, 
 he has nothing to do but to make all the profit 
 of his capital that he can." 
 
 The following important communication re- 
 garding the publications of the "Society for the 
 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," contains his 
 views as to the proper conduct of such an enter- 
 prise. It was a matter of great regret after- 
 wards to Charles Knight, that these communi- 
 cations had not been placed in his hands while 
 superintending the society's publications : 
 
 **I am not wishing to see the Society's tracts 
 turned into sermons — far less to see them inter- 
 meddle in what are strictly theological contro- 
 versies ; but I am sure that, with the exception 
 of the Unitarians, all Christians have a common 
 ground in all that is essential in Christianity, 
 and beyond that I never wish to go; and it 
 does seem to me as forced and unnatural in us 
 now to dismiss the principles of the Gospel and 
 its great motives from our consideration — as is 
 done habitually, for example, in Miss Edge- 
 worth's books — as it is to fill our pages with 
 Hebraisms, and to write and speak in the words 
 and style of the Bible. The slightest touches 
 of Christian principle and Christian hope in the 
 society's biographical and historical articles 
 would be a sort of living salt to the whole ; and 
 would exhibit that union which I never will 
 consent to think unattainable, between good- 
 ness and wisdom — between everything that is 
 manly, sensible, and free, and everything that 
 is pure and self-denying, and humble, and 
 heavenly. " 
 
 "There was a show of reason," he said, "in 
 excluding Christianity from the plan of the 
 society's works, so long as they avowedly con- 
 fined themselves to science or to intellectual 
 instruction ; but in a paper intended to improve 
 its readers morally, to make men better and 
 happier, as well as better informed, surely 
 neutrality with regard to Christianity is, virtu- 
 ally, hostility." " For myself," he adds, "lam 
 well aware of my own insignificance, but if 
 there were no other objection to the Penny 
 Magazine assuming a decidedly Christian tone 
 than mere difficulties of execution, I would 
 most readily offer my best services, such as 
 they are, to the society, and would endeavou?r 
 to furnish them regularly with articles of the 
 kind that I desire. My occupations here are so 
 engrossing, that it would be personally very 
 inconvenient to me to do so ; and I am not so 
 absurd as to think my offer of any value, 
 except in the single case of a practical difficulty 
 existing as to finding a writer, should the 
 principle itself be approved of. I am fully 
 convinced that if the Penny Magazine were 
 decidedly and avowedly Christian, many of the 
 clergy throughout the kingdom would be most 
 
 delighted to assist its circulation by every 
 means in their power. For myself, I should 
 think that I could not do too much to contri- 
 bute to the support of what would then be so 
 great a national blessing ; and I should beg to 
 be allowed to offer £50 annually towards it, so 
 long as my remaining in my present situation 
 enabled me to gratify my inclinations to that 
 extent." 
 
 An attempt of his own to set up a weekly 
 newspaper, The Englishman's Register, more 
 fully to carry out his views, was not successful. 
 It led, however, to his sending several com- 
 munications, bearing on the main causes of 
 social distress in England, to Mr Piatt, editor 
 of the Sheffield Courant. 
 
 To his Nephew, J. Ward, Esq., on his Marriage. 
 
 " Brathat Hall, 7th July 1832. 
 ". . . A man's life in London, while he 
 is single, may be very stirring, and very in- 
 tellectual, but I imagine that it must have a 
 hardening effect, and that this effect will be 
 more felt every year as the counter tendencies 
 of youth become less powerful. The most 
 certain softeners of a man's moral skin, and 
 sweeteners of his blood, are, I am sure, domestic 
 intercourse in a happy marriage, and intercourse 
 with the poor. It is very hard, I imagine, in 
 our present state of society, to keep up inter- 
 course with God without one or both of these 
 aids to foster it. Romantic and fantastic 
 indolence was the fault of other times and 
 other countries; here I crave more and more 
 every day to find men unfevered by the con- 
 stant excitement of the world, whether literary, 
 political, commercial, or fashionable; men who, 
 while they are alive to all that is around them, 
 feel also who is above them. I would give 
 more than I can say, if your Useful Knowledge 
 Society committee had this last feeling, as 
 strongly as they have the other purely and 
 beneficently. ... I care not for one party 
 or the other, but I do care for the coiintry, and 
 for interests more precious than that of the 
 country, which the present disordered state of 
 the human mind seems threatening. But this 
 mixes strangely with your present prospects, 
 and I hope we may both manage to live in 
 peace with our families in the land of our 
 fathers, without crossing the Atlantic." 
 
 The following is a loving sketch of his sister 
 Susannah Arnold, who died at Laleham, 20th 
 August 1832, after twenty years' trouble from 
 spinal complaint : 
 
 "I must conclude with a more delightful sub- 
 ject — my most dear and blessed sister. I never 
 saw a more perfect instance of the spirit of 
 power and of love, and of a sound mind; in- 
 tense love, almost to the annihilation of selfish- 
 ness — a daily martyrdom for twenty years, 
 during which she adhered to her early-formed 
 
DR ARNOLD. 
 
 305 
 
 resolution of never talking about herself; 
 thoughtful about the very pins and ribands of 
 my wife's dress, about the making of a doll's 
 cap for a child — but of herself, save only as 
 regarded her ripening in all goodness, wholly 
 thoughtless, enjoying everything lovely, grace- 
 ful, beautiful, high-minded, whether in God's 
 works or man's, with the keenest relish; in- 
 heriting the earth to the very fulness of the 
 promise, though never leaving her crib, nor 
 changing her posture; and preserved through 
 the very valley of the shadow of death, from all 
 fear or impatience, or from every cloud of im- 
 paired reason, which might mar the beauty of 
 Christ's Spirit's glorious work. May God grant 
 that I might come but within one hundred 
 degrees of her place in glory ! " 
 
 The political agitation for reform in 1832, 
 taking the shape of a cry for Church reform, he 
 issued a pamphlet on "The Principles of Church 
 Reform." "Most earnestly do I wish to see 
 the Establishment reformed," he said, "at once, 
 for the sake of its greater security and its greater 
 perfection ; but whether reformed or not, may 
 God in His mercy save us from the calamity of 
 seeing it destroyed." Its publication created a 
 sensation, and within six months of its issue it 
 passed through four editions. To the Edinburgh 
 Review of 1836 he contributed an article on 
 "The Oxford Malignants," which was a strong 
 condemnation of the opinions and the conduct 
 of the High Church party. He accepted a fellow- 
 ship in the senate of the new London University, 
 which was offered to him by Mr Spring Rice, then 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1835. Three 
 years afterwards he retired, owing to some dif- 
 ference amongst the members upon the principle 
 of voluntary examinations. In 1838 his summer 
 tours to the Continent were resumed with great 
 benefit to his health, and in the same year he lec- 
 tured before the Mechanics' Institute at Rugby 
 on the divisions of knowledge. Two sermons on 
 prophecy, with notes, were published during the 
 same year. "The Chartist disturbances of 1839-40 
 moved him deeply. "Itfillsme,"he said, "with 
 astonishment to see anti-slavery and missionary 
 societies so busy with the ends of the earth, and 
 yet all the worst evils of slavery and of heathen- 
 ism are existing among ourselves." His favourite 
 expression at this time was, "The bitterest of 
 all griefs, to see clearly and yet be able to do 
 nothing." His sermons published from time to 
 time palpitate with the life of the time. Again, 
 in 1841, his spirit was roused against the Oxford 
 school of theology. " It is because my whole 
 mind and soul repose with intense satisfaction 
 on the truths taught by St John and St Paul 
 that I abhor the Judaism of the Newmanites ; it 
 is because I so earnestly desire the revival of 
 the Church that I abhor the doctrine of the 
 priesthood." In a letter to Mr James Marshall, 
 dated Fox How, 23d January 1840, he makes a 
 confession of his political opinions : 
 
 " My differences with the Liberal party would 
 turn, I think, chiefly on two points. First, I 
 agree with Carlyle in thinking that they greatly 
 over-estimate Bentham, and also that they over- 
 rate the political economists generally ; not that 
 I doubt the ability of those writers, or the 
 truth of their conclusions, as far as regards theij 
 own science, but I think that the sumrmcm honum 
 of their science, and of human life, are not iden- 
 tical; and therefore many questions in which 
 free trade is involved, and the advantages of large 
 capital, etc., although perfectly simple in an 
 economical point of view, become, when con- 
 sidered politically, very complex ; and the eco- 
 nomical good is very often, from the neglect of 
 other points, made in practice a direct social 
 evil. 
 
 " But my second difference is greater by much 
 than this : I look to the full development of the 
 Christian Church in its perfect form, as the 
 kingdom of God, for the most effective removal 
 of all evil, and promotion of all good ; and I can 
 understand no perfect Church or perfect State 
 without their blending into one in this ultimate 
 form. I believe, further, that our fathers at 
 the Reformation stumbled accidentally, or 
 rather were unconsciously led by God's provi- 
 dence, to' the declaration of the great principle 
 of this system, the doctrine of the king's supre- 
 macy — which is, in fact, no other than an asser- 
 tion of the supremacy of the Church or Christian 
 society over the clergy, and a denial of that 
 which I hold to be one of the most mischievous 
 falsehoods ever broached — that the government 
 of the Christian Church is vested by divine right 
 in the clergy, and that the close corporation of 
 bishops and presbyters — whether one or more 
 makes no difference — is and ever ought to be the 
 representative of the Christian Church. Hold- 
 ing this doctrine as the very corner-stone of all 
 my political belief, I am equally opposed to 
 Popery, High Churchism, and the claims of the 
 Scotch presbyteries on the one hand, and to all 
 the Independents, and advocates of the separa- 
 tion, as they call it, of Church and State, on the 
 other : the first setting up a priesthood in the 
 place of the Church, and the other lowering 
 necessarily the objects of law and government, 
 and reducing them to a mere system of police, 
 while they profess to wish to make the Church 
 purer. And my fondness for Greek and Ger- 
 man literature has made me very keenly alive 
 to the mental defects of the Dissenters as a 
 body; the characteristic faults of the English 
 mind — narrowness of view, and a want of learn- 
 ing and a sound critical spirit — being exhibited 
 to my mind in the Dissenters almost in carica- 
 ture. It is nothing but painful to me to feel 
 this ; because no man appreciates more than I 
 do the many great services which the Dissenters 
 have rendered, both to the general cause of 
 Christianity, and especially to the cause of 
 justice and good government in our own country : 
 
 U 
 
306 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 and my sense of the far less excusable errors, 
 and almost uniformly mischievous conduct of 
 the High Church party, is as strong as it can be 
 of any one thing in the world. 
 
 "Again, the principle of Conservatism has 
 always appeared to me to be not only foolish, 
 but to be actually felo de se : it destroys what 
 it loves, because it will not mend it. But I 
 cordially agree with Niebuhr — who in all such 
 questions is to me the greatest of all authori- 
 ties ; because, together with an ability equal to 
 the highest, he had a universal knowledge of 
 political history, far more profound than was 
 ever possessed by any other man — that every 
 new institution should be but a fuller develop- 
 ment of, or an addition to, what already exists ; 
 and that if things have come to such a pass in a 
 country, that all its past history and associa- 
 tions are cast away as merely bad, reform in 
 such a country is impossible. I believe it to be 
 necessary, and quite desirable, that the popular 
 power in a state should, in the perfection of 
 things, be paramount to every other; but this 
 supremacy need not, and ought not, I think, to 
 be absolute ; and monarchy, and an aristocracy 
 of birth — as distinguished from one of wealth or 
 of office — appear to me to be two precious 
 elements which still exist in more parts of 
 Europe, and to lose which, as has been done 
 unavoidably in America, would be rather our 
 insanity than our misfortune. But the insolen- 
 cies of our aristocracy no one feels more keenly 
 than I do: the scandalous exemption* of the 
 peers from all ignominious punishments short 
 of death — so that for a most aggravated man- 
 slaughter a peer must escape altogether, as the 
 old Lord Byron did, or as the Duchess of King- 
 ston did, for bigamy; the insolent practice of 
 allowing peers to vote in criminal trials on their 
 honour, while other men vote on their oath; 
 the absurdity of proxy voting, and some other 
 things of the same nature. All theory and all 
 experience show, that if a system goes on long 
 unreformed, it is not then reformed, but de- 
 stroyed. And so, I believe, it will be with our 
 aristocracy and our Church ; because I fear that 
 neither will be wise in time. But still, looking 
 upon both as positive blessings, and capable — 
 the latter especially — of doing good that can be 
 done by no other means, I love and would 
 maintain both, not as a concession or a compro- 
 mise, but precisely with the same zeal that I 
 would reform both, and enlarge the privileges 
 juid elevate the condition of the mass of the 
 community. As to your difiference of opinion 
 with Carlyle about the craving for political 
 rights, I agree with you fully. But I think 
 that, before distress has once got in, a people 
 whose physical wants are well supplied, may be 
 iept for centuries by a government without a 
 
 * "This, 80 far as it is here correctly stated, was 
 abolished by 4 & 5 Vict., c. 22."— Stanley. 
 
 desire for political power ; but, when the ranks 
 immediately above them have been long con- 
 tending earnestly for this very power, and 
 physical distress makes them impatient of their 
 actual condition, then men are apt, I think, to 
 attach even an overvalue to the political remedy, 
 and it is then quite too late to try to fatten 
 them into obedience : other parts of their nature 
 have learnt to desire, and will have their desire 
 gratified." 
 
 The year 1841 opened with an unusual mor- 
 tality amongst his scholars — one of his colleagues 
 and seven of his pupils had died during the first 
 quarter. During his stay at Fox How, Lord 
 Melbourne offered him the Kegius Professorship 
 of Modern History at Oxford, vacant by the 
 death of Dr Nares. His inaugural lecture was 
 delivered on the 2d of December. This inaugu- 
 ral lecture was a definition of history in general, 
 of modern history in particular ; the eight lec- 
 tures which followed were an expansion of this 
 definition. 
 
 "You may perhaps have heard my news al- 
 ready," he wrote to Dr Hawkins, "but I must tell 
 you myself, because you are so much connected 
 with my pleasure in it. I have accepted the 
 Kegius Professorship of Modern History, chiefly 
 to gratify my earnest longing to have some 
 direct connection with Oxford; and I have 
 thought with no small delight that I should 
 now see something of you in the natural course 
 of things every year, for my wife and myself 
 hope to take lodgings for ten days or a fortnight 
 every Lent term, at the end of our Christmas 
 holidays, for me to give my lectures. I could 
 not resist the temptation of accepting the office, 
 though it will involve some additional work, 
 and if I live to leave Rugby, the income, though 
 not great, will be something to us when we are 
 poor people at Fox How. But to get a regular 
 situation in Oxford would have tempted me, I 
 believe, had it been accompanied with no salary 
 at all." 
 
 During the last year of his life the ordinary 
 routine of his work was interrupted by his lec- 
 tures at Oxford. Privately he was busy writing 
 his Roman history ; his lecture on Gregory the 
 Great had also been occupying his thoughts. 
 He had also begun to make final arrangements 
 for an edition of St Paul's Epistles. About six 
 weeks before his death he explored the field of 
 Naseby with Thomas Carlyle, who, on leaving 
 his house at Rugby, expressed the wish that it 
 might " long continue to be what was to him one 
 of the rarest sights in the world — a temple of 
 industrious peace." 
 
 On the 5th of June his last and farewell ser- 
 mon was given in the chapel to the boys. The 
 succeeding week was crowded with examination 
 work and the general winding up of the school 
 business. On the Saturday morning prerioas to 
 his death he was engaged in examining itorae al 
 the boys in Ranke's ' ' History of the Fojic^i." 
 
DR ARNOLD. 
 
 307 
 
 Prizes were distributed to tlie boys before their 
 dispersion, and he took leave of those who would 
 not be returning after the holidays. At nine 
 o'clock in the evening was a supper to the boys 
 of the sixth form, given at his own house, when 
 he appeared lively and cheerful. Then the 
 school business was over. Between five and six 
 o'clock on Sunday morning he awoke with a sharp 
 pain across his chest, the symptoms increased, 
 and medical aid was called in. He continued 
 in ejaculatory prayer, suffering a good deal, and 
 just before eight o'clock he breathed his last. 
 He was buried on the following Friday. The 
 shock to his immediate circle of friends, and to 
 his pupils, was overwhelming. Most of the 
 periodicals of 1842, '43, '44, of all shades of 
 opinion, had a notice of his death. A public 
 subscription, set on foot after his death, was 
 devoted in the first place to the erection of a 
 monument to him in Kugby Chapel, the re- 
 mainder of the proceeds to be devoted to the 
 foundation of scholarships at Rugby and Ox- 
 ford. 
 
 A former pupil, writing to his widow, 16th 
 November 1842, thus gave expression to his 
 own feelings, and to a sense of the loss, public 
 and private, which had been sustained by his 
 death. The letter is headed Hobart Town, Van 
 Dieman's Land. 
 
 "If you knew the true afi'ection I had for him 
 whom we have lost, you would not forbid my 
 writing of my grief to one most near and dear to 
 him when here below. No one inspirited and 
 encouraged my undertaking here as he did ; no 
 letters were so sure to bring fresh hopes and 
 happiness as those which can never again come 
 from him. It was not so much what he said in 
 them, as the sense which they conveyed, that he 
 still was, as he had ever been, the same earnest, 
 faithful friend. It was this which made one 
 feel that, while he was alive, it would indeed be 
 pusillanimous to shrink from maintaining what 
 was true and right. This I felt the last time I 
 ever saw him, in the autumn of 1839. He rose 
 early and spent the last hour with me, before 
 we separated for ever; he to his school work 
 and I to my journey here. We were in the 
 dining-room, and I well remember the autumnal 
 dawn — it was calm and overcast, and so im- 
 pressed itself on my memory, because it agreed 
 with the more than usual quietness; the few 
 words of counsel which still serve me from time 
 to time; the manner in which the commonest 
 
 kindnesses were offered to one soon to be out of 
 their reach for ever; the promise of support 
 through evil fortune or good, in few words, once 
 repeated, exceeding my largest deserts; and 
 then the earnest blessing and farewell from lip3 
 never again to open in my hearing. His coun- 
 tenance, and manner, and dress — his hand, and 
 every movement, are all before me now more 
 clearly than any picture — and you will under- 
 stand full well how a quiet scene like this has an 
 irapressiveness unrivalled by the greatest excite- 
 ments. The uncertain consciousness that this 
 parting might be the last hung about it at the 
 time; and preserved the recollection of it, till 
 now that the sad certainty gives a new import- 
 ance to the slightest particular. 
 
 '* I feel how unequal I am to offer you any con- 
 solation that you do not already possess, in the 
 far more solemn and painful parting to which 
 you have been called. But how unhappy would 
 it have been, had you foreseen that each day 
 was drawing nearer and nearer to that fatal 
 event, as surely as you now know that every 
 passing hour is an hour nearer to a happy re- 
 union. Fear not but that he will be himself 
 again — some good men fall asleep in Jesus so 
 full of infirmities, that they cannot but be 
 greatly changed both in body and mind by the 
 healing miracle of the resurrection. But will 
 not those who die, as Moses and Elias did, in 
 the fulness of their labours and their strength, 
 be as quickly recognised as were Moses and 
 Elias by the faithful in God's holy mount ? As 
 our Saviour's wounds were healed on the morn- 
 ing of the resurrection, so shall his mortal dis- 
 ease be healed, and all that we most loved in 
 him shall become immortal. The tone of ear- 
 nestness shall be there, deepened perhaps into a 
 more perfect beauty by a closer intercourse with 
 the Son of Man, when his ears have heard the 
 'Verily, verily, I say unto you,' that once 
 used to be heard upon the earth — the cheerful- 
 ness shall be there without a cloud to dim it 
 throughout all eternity — and how will the most 
 aspiring visions of reformation that ever filled 
 his mind on earth be more than accomplished in 
 that day of the restitution of all things ! How 
 will he rejoice in his strength and immortality, 
 as he busies himself to perform the whole coun- 
 sel of God, no longer doubted or disputed by 
 men! What member of the Divine body will 
 glory more than he will in the catholic and per- 
 fect union of men with each other and with Godl" 
 
308 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 WILLIAM AND EOBEET CHAMBEES. 
 [William, 1800-1883. Egbert, 1802-1871.] 
 
 It has not unfrequently happened that publish- 
 ers have had much to do in forming public taste 
 and opinion, and in guiding an author into 
 certain lines of popular, useful, and successful 
 working. The particular bent of a publisher's 
 mind, with the associations and friendships he 
 may form, are all reflected in his business life — 
 in the works which he may issue from time to 
 time. The publishing firm of W. & R. Cham- 
 bers more particularly bears the impress of two 
 minds. This, however, which has been the source 
 of its peculiar strength, may in time become a 
 weakness. Along with Constable and Charles 
 Knight, they divide the honour of being pioneers 
 in the region of cheap and good popular literature. 
 The lives of the two brothers William and 
 Robert Chambers have been so interwoven in 
 business and literary life, that we shall best ac- 
 complish our present purpose by narrating the 
 joint details in the order in which they have 
 already been given in the memoir by the elder 
 of the two brothers. William Chambers was 
 born in Peebles in 1800, and his brother Robert 
 in 1802. Both brothers came into the world 
 with six fingers on each hand and six toes on 
 each foot. In the case of William the redundant 
 members were removed without injury; with 
 Robert the operation caused a slight permanent 
 lameness, which in youth deterred him from 
 active sports. Their paternal grandfather, who 
 carried on the manufacture of woollen and linen 
 cloths, was upright, pious, and benevolent, and 
 held the honourable office of elder of the church 
 for thirty years. Margaret Kerr, their grand- 
 mother, was a woman of piety and considerable 
 force of character. Their father was a man of 
 easy, pliant disposition, possessed of consider- 
 able general knowledge, and having made some 
 progress in scientific attainments. He had pur- 
 chased a copy of the '* Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica," which perhaps, more than anything else, 
 contributed to form in the two young men a 
 taste for reading and literature. To Robert, 
 who found the volumes stufi'ed into a chest in 
 the attics, it was a new world. "I felt," he 
 says, "a profound thankfulness that such a 
 convenient collection of human knowledge ex- 
 isted, and that here it was spread out like a 
 well-plenished table before me. What the gift 
 of a whole toy-shop would have been to most 
 children, this book was to me. I plunged into 
 it. I roamed through it like a bee. I hardly 
 could be patient enough to read any one article 
 while so many others remained to be looked into. 
 . . . What a year that was to me, not merely in 
 intellectual enjoyment, but in mental formation ! 
 
 I believe it was my eleventh, for before I was 
 twelve misfortune had taken the book from us 
 to help in satisfying creditors." Besides this 
 work, while attending school, both brothers read 
 right through the library of Mr Alexander Elder, 
 the village bookseller, without much regard for 
 methodical study. The early acquaintance thus 
 made with the writings of Fielding, Sterne, and 
 Smollett, created a lifelong partiality for them, 
 and William has ascribed not a little of his after- 
 success in life to this reading privilege. 
 
 The elder Chambers being unfortunate in 
 business, the family removed to Edinburgh in 
 1813, settling first in West Nicolson Street, 
 then in Hamilton's Entry, Bristo Street, over- 
 looking the little old building with the tiled 
 roof where Walter Scott first went to school, 
 and afterwards removing to Joppa Pans, a 
 cluster of cottages half-way between Portobello 
 and Musselburgh. William was now fourteen 
 years of age, with an undefined longing to be 
 a bookseller, while Robert was still pursuing 
 his education. As a frequent attendant at the 
 evening book auctions, he gained some useful 
 knowledge of bibliography and of human nature. 
 The principal of these book auctions were Car- 
 frae's in Drummond Street, and that of Peter 
 Cairns's in the Agency Office, opposite the uni- 
 versity. 
 
 "The sales," he writes, "were indicated by a 
 lantern, with panes of white calico, at the door, 
 on which was inscribed, 'Auction of Books.' 
 Carfrae's was the more genteel and dignified, 
 Cairns's was the more amusing of these lounges. 
 Peter was a dry humorist, somewhat saturnine 
 from business misadventures. Professedly he 
 was a bookseller in South College Street, and 
 exhibited over his door a huge sham copy of 
 Virgil by way of sign. His chief trade, how- 
 ever, was the auctioning of books and stationery 
 at the Agency Office. Warm, well lighted, and 
 comfortably fitted up with seats within a railed 
 enclosure environing the books to be diposed of, 
 this place of evening resort was as good as a 
 reading-room — indeed, rather better, for there 
 was a constant fund of amusement in Peter's 
 caustic jocularities — as when he begged to remind 
 his audience that this was a place for selling, not 
 for reading books — sarcasms which always pro- 
 voked a round of ironical applause. His favour- 
 ite author was Goldsmith, an edition of whose 
 works he had published, which pretty fre- 
 quently figured in his catalogue. On coming to 
 these works, he always referred to them with 
 profound respect — as, for example: *The next 
 in the catalogue, gentlemen, is the works of 
 
WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 309 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, the greatest writer that ever 
 lived, except Shakespeare ; what do you say for 
 it? I'll put it up at ten shillings.' Someone 
 ■would perhaps audaciously bid twopence, which 
 threw him into a rage, and he would indignantly 
 call out, 'Tippence, man; keep that for the 
 hrode,' meaning the plate at the church door. If 
 the same person dared to repeat the insult with 
 regard to some other work, Peter would say: 
 
 * Dear me, has that poor man not yet got quit 
 of his tippence?' which turned the laugh, and 
 effectually silenced him all the rest of the even- 
 ing. Peter's temper was apt to get ruffled when 
 biddings temporarily ceased. He then declared 
 that he might as well try to auction books in 
 the poor-house. On such occasions, driven to 
 desperation, he would try the audience with a 
 bunch of quills, a dozen black-lead pencils, or a 
 
 * quare ' of Bath-post, vengefully knocking which 
 down at the price bidden for them, he would 
 shout to 'Wully,' the clerk, to look after the 
 money." 
 
 In 1814 William was apprenticed to John 
 Sutherland, bookseller, Calton Street. His 
 term of apprenticeship was to be five years, 
 and his weekly wages were four shillings a 
 week. As his family had by this time removed 
 from Edinburgh to Joppa Pans, he was thrown 
 fairly upon his own resources, and determined 
 to make his weekly four shillings suffice for all 
 his wants. He secured lodgings with a Peebles 
 woman, in the top story of a building in the 
 West Port, where he had a bed, what attend- 
 ance and cooking he required, was allowed to 
 sit at her fireside, all for the modest sum of 
 eighteenpence a week. A further sum of one- 
 and-ninepence he deemed sufficient for his 
 weekly food, and as his daily fare and the 
 amount it cost are curiosities in their way, they 
 are given verbatim : 
 
 Breakfast — porridge, |d.; butter-milk, id., £0 1 
 Dinner — broth, |d. ; bread, |d., . . .001^ 
 Supper — same as breakfast, . .001 
 
 £q_0_3| 
 
 "I had ninepence over for miscellaneous de- 
 mands," he writes, " chiefly in the department 
 of shoes, which constituted an awkwardly heavy 
 item. On no occasion did I look to parents 
 for the slightest pecuniary subsidy." This 
 room in the crowded and dirty West Port he 
 for a time shared with a young divinity student, 
 and afterwards with his brother Robert. Thither 
 he had conveyed all his belongings, which con- 
 sisted of a few articles of clothing and two or 
 three books, including a pocket Bible — the 
 whole contained in a small blue-painted box, 
 which he carried on his shoulder along the 
 Grassmarket. This box has since been deposited 
 in the Chambers's Institute, Peebles. Here, 
 along with his brother Robert, he made some 
 })rogress in study, rising at five o'clock in the 
 morning when that was practicable, reading in 
 
 this way such works as Smith's "Wealth of 
 Nations," Locke's "Human Understanding," 
 etc. ; he also kept an accurate record of his 
 expenditure. 
 
 Robert, though far from being at home in 
 this humble lodging, yet made his leisure hours 
 to assume the nature of instruction by ram- 
 bling through the old courts and closes, and ex- 
 amining the ancient inscriptions. What he 
 had seen being stored in a retentive memory, 
 became of use to him in writing his well-known 
 "Traditions of Edinburgh." Further domestic 
 misfortunes caused Robert's removal from school. 
 He was now between fifteen and sixteen years 
 of age, when William suggested a possible 
 means of earning his livelihood, 
 
 "My brother Robert," he writes, "who had 
 been endeavouring to support himself, first by 
 private teaching, and latterly by filling a junior 
 post in a merchant's counting-house, now saw 
 both species of employment fail. He was there- 
 fore left utterly without any means of procuring 
 a livelihood. This was a critical moment of his 
 career. I had for some time been pondering on 
 a scheme which might possibly help him out of 
 his difficulties. My suggestion was that, aban- 
 doning all notions of securing employment as a 
 clerk, teacher, or anything else, he should, in 
 the humblest possible style, begin the business 
 of a bookseller. The idea of such an enterprise 
 had passed through his own mind, but had been 
 laid aside as wild and ridiculous, for he posses- 
 sed neither stock nor capital, nor could he have 
 recourse to any one to lend him assistance. ' I 
 have thought of all that,' I said, ' and will show 
 you how the thing is to be done.' I now ex- 
 plained that in the family household there were 
 still a number of old books, which had been 
 dragged about from place to place, and were 
 next to useless. The whole, if ranged on a 
 shelf, would occupy about twelve feet, with 
 perhaps a foot additional by including a Horace 
 and other school-books. They were certainly 
 not much worth, but, if offered for sale, they 
 might, as I imagined, form the foundation on 
 which a business could be constructed. I added 
 that there was at the time an opening for the 
 sale of cheap pocket Bibles, respecting which I 
 could aid by my knowledge of the trade, and 
 even go the length of starting him with one or 
 two copies out of my slender savings. The 
 project being turned over and over and can- 
 vassed, proved acceptable. My father, so far 
 from having any objections, assented to the 
 scheme. The old books, Horace and all, were 
 collected and carried off, the only one left being 
 an old tattered black-letter Bible, of the date 
 1606, that had been in the family for two hun- 
 dred years, and which, with scribblings on the 
 blank pages, formed a kind of register of births, 
 deaths, and marriages, during that lengthened 
 period. Too sacred to be ruthlessly made an 
 article of commerce, it was fortunately reserved, 
 
and in due time became my onlj'' patrimony. 
 With the fev/ old books so collected, Robert 
 began business in 1818, when only sixteen years 
 of age, from which time he became self-support- 
 ing, as I had been several years earlier." 
 
 A letter, dated 1st March 1854, and addressed 
 to Hugh Miller, contains a truthful record of 
 Robert's feelings and circumstances at this time. 
 
 "Your autobiography has set me a-thinking 
 of my own youthful days, which were like yours 
 in point of hardship and humiliation, though 
 different in many important circumstances. 
 My being of the same age with you, to exactly 
 a quarter of a year, brings the idea of a certain 
 parity more forcibly upon me. The differences 
 are as curious to me as the resemblances. Not- 
 withstanding your wonderful success as a writer, 
 I think my literary tendency must have been 
 a deeper and more absorbing peculiarity than 
 yours, seeing that I took to Latin and to books 
 both keenly and exclusively, while you broke 
 down in your classical course, and had fully as 
 great a passion for rough sport and enterprise 
 as for reading, that being again a passion of 
 which I never had one particle. This has, how- 
 ever, resulted in making you, what I never was 
 inclined to be, a close observer of external 
 nature — an immense advantage in your case. 
 Still I think I could present against your hardy 
 field observations by firth and fell, and cave and 
 cliff, some striking analogies in the finding out 
 and devouring of books, making my way, for 
 instance, through a whole chestful of the ' Ency- 
 clopaedia Britannica,' which I found in a lumber 
 garret. I must also say, that an unfortunate 
 tenderness of feet, scarcely yet got over, had 
 much to do in making me mainly a fireside 
 student. As to domestic connections and condi- 
 tions, mine being of the middle classes, were 
 superior to yours for the first twelve years. 
 After that, my father being unfortunate in 
 business, we were reduced to poverty, and 
 came down to even humbler things than you 
 experienced. I passed through some years of 
 the direst hardship, not the least evil being a 
 state of feeling quite unnatural in youth — a 
 stern and burning defiance of a social world in 
 which we were harshly and coldly treated by 
 former friends, differing only in external re- 
 spects from ourselves. In your life there is one 
 crisis where I think your experiences must 
 have been somewhat like mine ; it is the brief 
 period at Inverness. Some of your expressions 
 there bring all my owb early feelings again to 
 life. A disparitj'- between the internal con- 
 sciousness of powers and accomplishments, and 
 the external ostensible aspect, led in me to the 
 very same wrong methods of setting myself for- 
 ward as in you. Here, of course, I meet you 
 in warm sympathy. I have sometimes thought 
 of describing my bitter painful youth to the 
 world, as something in which it might read a 
 'lesson; but the retrospect is still too distress- 
 
 ing. I screen it from the mental eye. The on« 
 grand fact it has impressed, is the very small 
 amount of brotherly assistance there is for the 
 unfortunate in this world. Till I proved that 
 I could help myself, no friend came to me. 
 Uncles, cousins, etc., in good positions in life — 
 some of them stoops of kirks, by-the-by — not 
 one offered or seemed inclined to give the 
 smallest assistance. The consequent defying, 
 self-relying spirit in which, at sixteen, I set out 
 as a bookseller, with only my own small collec- 
 tion of books as a stock — not worth more than 
 two pounds, I believe — led to my being quickly 
 independent of all aid ; but it has not been all 
 a gain, for I am now sensible that my spirit of 
 self-reliance too often manifested itself in an 
 unsociable, unamiable light, while my recollec- 
 tions of ' honest poverty ' may have made me 
 too eager to obtain and secure worldly pro- 
 sperity." 
 
 At the age of nineteen, and late one Saturday 
 evening in May of the year 1819, William left 
 his master's shop a free man, with the sum of 
 five shillings in his pocket with which to com- 
 mence business on his own account. On the 
 day succeeding a trade book sale, in which he 
 had been of great assistance to the manager, he 
 attended to assist in packing up, in the course 
 of which he was questioned regarding his future 
 plans. "I stated to the friendly inquirer," 
 writes William, "that I was about to begin 
 business, but that I had no money ; if I had, I 
 should take the opportunity of buying a few of 
 his specimens, for I thought I could sell them 
 to advantage. ' WeU,' he replied, *I like that 
 frankness; you seem an honest lad, and have 
 been useful to me, so do not let the want of 
 money trouble you: select, if you please, ten 
 pounds' worth of my samples, and I will let you 
 have the usual credit.' That was a turning- 
 point in my life. In a strange and unforeseen 
 manner I was to be put in possession of a small 
 collection of saleable books, sufficient to estab- 
 lish me in business. Gladly embracing the 
 offer, I selected a parcel of books, great and 
 small, to the value of ten pounds, which I pro- 
 ceeded to pack into an empty tea-chest, and 
 carrying off without incurring the aid and ex- 
 pense of a porter. Borrowing the hotel truck, 
 I wheeled the chest to my shop in Leith Walk, 
 elated, it may be supposed, in no ordinary 
 degree at this fortunate interest, and not the 
 least afraid of turning the penny long before 
 the day of payment came round. There is an 
 old saying, that *we should not leave till to- 
 morrow what can be done to-day.' On this 
 maxim I made the improvement of ' not leaving 
 till the next five minutes what can be done in 
 the present,' and so hastened to get to woik 
 with as little delay as the circumstances per- 
 mitted. With the five shillings which I had 
 received as my last week's wages, I purchased a 
 few deals at a neighbouring woofiyard, and 
 
WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 311 
 
 from these, with a saw, hammer, and nails, I 
 soon constructed all the shop furniture which I 
 required; the most essential articles being a 
 pair of stout trestles, on which was laid a board, 
 whereupon to exhibit my wares to the public. 
 
 "Having at length prepared everything to 
 my mind, I was able one day, at the beginning 
 of June, when the weather happened to be 
 good, to commence my small business. Picture 
 me, on a fine sunny morning, planting a pair of 
 trestles on the broad sideway in front of my 
 little shop, then laying on them a board, and 
 last of all carrjdng out my stock of books and 
 arranging them in three rows — the smaller ones 
 in front and the larger ones behind, with 
 pamphlets embellished with plates stuck allur- 
 ingly between. The whole, I fancied, made a 
 respectable appearance, with a certain air of 
 originality. 
 
 *'Like an angler who eagerly watches his 
 bait, I am to be supposed as waiting patiently 
 at my door, ready to be spoken to by intending 
 purchasers — not obtrusively, for fear of scaring 
 away the timid— just hanging about in an easy, 
 indiflFerent sort of way, within hail; but ner- 
 vously anxious when a passenger, glancing 
 cogitatingly over my wares, took heart to ask 
 the price of any book that happened to strike 
 his fancy. I entertain a pleasant recollection of 
 my first business transaction. It was the sale 
 of a copy of Robertson's ' History of Charles V., 
 in five volumes duodecimo, a rather neat but 
 not fine edition of the work. At night I carried 
 it home to the purchaser. My other sales 
 during the day were of less moment. They con- 
 sisted of a copy of Hervey's ' Meditations ' and 
 a sixpenny song-book. Altogether I cleared a 
 profit of nine shillings and threepence the first 
 day, which put me in high spirits, notwith- 
 standing some exhaustion of stomach; for I 
 had been too anxious to think about my regular 
 dinner, and contented myself with a little bread 
 and milk. In this self-sacrificing assiduity, 
 however, I claim no special merit. It is what 
 every youth who has to win his way can do if 
 he likes. 
 
 "By studying to sell cheaply, my profits in 
 the aggregate were not great; but, along with 
 Robert, I lived frugally. Our united daily 
 expenses in housekeeping did not exceed a 
 shilling. For years after beginning business, 
 the cost of my own living was limited to a six- 
 pence a day, and all that was over I laid out in 
 adding to my stock. As my sales were to a 
 large extent new books in boards, I felt that 
 the charge made for the boarding of them was 
 an item that pressed rather heavily upon me. 
 Whj'', thought I, should I not buy the books in 
 sheets, and put them in boards myself ? It is 
 true I had not been taught the art of bookbind- 
 ing, but I had seen it executed in my frequent 
 fisits to a bookbinder's workshop, and was 
 '•onfident that, if I had the proper apparatus, I 
 
 could at least put books in boards, for that was 
 but a rudimentary department of the craft. 
 The articles available for the purpose at length 
 fell in my way. After this I procured my 
 books in sheets, which I forthwith folded, 
 sewed, and otherwise prepared for my satisfac- 
 tion, thereby saving on an average threepence 
 to fourpence a volume, my only outlay being on 
 the material employed, for my labour was 
 reckoned as nothing." 
 
 About this time he set his mind upon procur- 
 ing a small printing-press : " It would be enough 
 if I could procure an apparatus sufficient for 
 executing small pamphlets, and the humbler 
 varieties of job printing. For some time my 
 inquiries failed to discover what would be within 
 the compass of my means, until at length a 
 person who had constructed a press for his own 
 use, intimated his desire of selling off, in order 
 to remove to a distant part of the country. The 
 whole apparatus, including some types, was to 
 be disposed of cheaply by private bargain. The 
 price sought could not be considered excessive. 
 It was only three pounds. To set up as a 
 printer on a less capital than this was surely 
 impossible. I paid the money, and became the 
 happy possessor. The press, which was con- 
 structed to stand on a table, was an imperfect 
 little machine, with a printing surface of not 
 more than eighteen inches by twelve, and when 
 wrought, a jangling and creaking noise was pro- 
 duced that might be heard as far as two houses 
 off. As regards my fount of types, it consisted 
 of about thirty pounds' weight of brevier, dread- 
 fully old and worn, having been employed for 
 years in the printing of a newspaper, and, in 
 point of fact, only worth its value as metal. 
 Along with the fount, I had a pair of cases, in 
 which the letters were assorted. My bargain 
 did not embrace a frame or stand for the cases. 
 That I supplied by the ordinary resource of 
 wood bought from a timber-yard, and the 
 application of my carpenter's tools. For a small 
 additional outlay, I procured a brass composing- 
 stick, some quoins and other pieces of furniture, 
 an iron chess, and a roller, along with a pound- 
 weight of printing ink. I was now complete. 
 As soon as I had arranged all parts of my appar- 
 atus, I looked abroad over the field of literature 
 to see which work should first engage my atten- 
 tion. My best plan, as I thought, would be to 
 begin by printing a small volume on speculation 
 — sell the copies, and with the proceeds buy a 
 variety of types for executing casual jobs which 
 might drop in. A small volume I must print, 
 and finish in a marketable style, that is clear, 
 in order to raise funds. Fixed in this notion, I 
 selected for my first venture a pocket edition of 
 songs of Robert Burns. I had never been 
 taught the art of the compositor ; but when a 
 bookseller's apprentice, I had been frequently 
 sent errands to the printing-office of Mr Ruth- 
 ven, in Merchant's Court, where I was, while 
 
312 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 waiting for proofs, favoured with an opportunity 
 of seeing the compositors pursue their ingenious 
 art, and learning how types were arranged in 
 lines and pages. Recollections of what I had 
 thus seen of compositorship were now revived, 
 and I began to set up my song-book without 
 receiving any special instruction ; my composing 
 frame being placed in such a situation that I 
 was ready to attend to my book-stall. My pro- 
 gress in compositorship was at first slow ; I had 
 to feel my way. A defective adjustment of the 
 lines to a uniform degree of tightness was my 
 greatest trouble, but this was got over. The 
 art of working my press had next to be acquired, 
 and in this there was no difficulty. After an 
 interval of fifty years, I recollect the delight I 
 experienced in working off my first impression 
 — the pleasure since of seeing hundreds of thou- 
 sands of sheets pouring from machines in which 
 I claim an interest being nothing to it ! I think 
 there was a degree of infatuation in my attach- 
 ment to that jangling, creaking, wheezing little 
 press. Placed at the only window in my apart- 
 ment, within a few feet of my bed, I could see 
 its outlines in the silvery moonlight when I 
 awoke ; and there, at the glowing dawn did its 
 figure assume distinct proportions. When day- 
 light came fully in, it was impossible to resist 
 the desire to rise and have an hour or two of 
 exercise at the little machine. With an imper- 
 fect apparatus, the execution of my song-book 
 was far from good. Still it was legible in the 
 old ballad and chapbook style, and I was 
 obliged to be content. Little by little I got 
 through the small volume. It was a tedious 
 drudgery. With my limited fount, I could set 
 up no more than eight small pages, forming the 
 eighth part of a sheet. After printing the first 
 eight, I had to distribute the letter and set up 
 the second eight, and so on throughout a hun- 
 dred pages. Months were consumed in the 
 operation. The number of copies printed was 
 750, to eff'ect which I had to pull the press 
 20,000 times. But labour, as already hinted, 
 cost nothing. I set the types in the intervals of 
 business, particularly during wet weather, when 
 the stall could not be put out, and the press- 
 work was executed late at night or early in the 
 morning. The only outlay worth speaking of 
 for the little volume was that incurred for paper, 
 which I was unable to purchase in greater quanti- 
 ties than a few quires at a time, and therefore 
 at a considerable disadvantage in price. Ulti- 
 mately, when the printing was completed, and 
 the volume had been put in boards, I sold the 
 entire issue, either in single copies at a shilling, 
 or wholesale to other stall-keepers, and, after 
 paying all expenses, cleared about nine pounds 
 by the transaction." 
 
 "As my business increased my typographical 
 capabilities also became greater, and I was accord- 
 ingly led to new aspirations. Robert, who had 
 made corresponding advances in business, but 
 
 exclusively in connection with bookselling, was 
 occupying his leisure hours in literary composi- 
 tion, which came upon him like an inspiration 
 at nineteen years of age. His tastes and powers 
 in this respect suggested the idea of a small 
 periodical which we might mutually undertake. 
 He was to be the editor and principal writer. 
 I was to be the printer and publisher, and also 
 to contribute articles as far as time permitted. 
 The periodical was duly announced in a limited 
 way, and commenced. A name was adopted from 
 the optical toy invented by Sir David Brewster, 
 about which all classes were for a time nearly 
 crazy. It was called the Kaleidosco;pe ; or, 
 Edinburgh Literary Amusement. In size, it 
 was sixteen pages octavo, the price threepence, 
 and it was to appear once a fortnight. The 
 first number was issued on Saturday, 6th Octo- 
 ber 1821. The mechanical execution of this 
 literary serial sorely tested the powers of my 
 poor little press, which received sundry clasp- 
 ings of iron to strengthen it for the unexpected 
 duty. My muscular powers likewise underwent 
 a trial. I had to print the sheet in halves, one 
 after the other, and then stitch the two to- 
 gether. I set all the types, and worked off all 
 the copies, my younger brother James, a fair- 
 haired lad, rolling on the ink, and otherwise 
 rendering assistance. This was the hardest 
 task I had yet undergone; for, being pressed 
 by time, there was no opportunity for rest. 
 Occupied with business, the composing-frame, 
 and the press, also with some literary composi- 
 tion, I was in harness sixteen hours a day; took 
 no more than a quarter of an hour to meals; 
 and never gave over work till midnight. Some- 
 times I had dreadful headaches. Of course, I 
 do not justify this excessive application. It 
 was clearly wrong. I was acting in violation 
 of the laws of health. Enthusiasm alone kept 
 me up — certainly no material stimulus. My 
 only excuse for this ardently -pursued labour, 
 which must have been troublesome to quietly- 
 disposed neighbours, was what at the same 
 period might have been offered by my brother 
 for his incessant self-sacrificing exertions — a 
 desire to overcome a condition that provoked 
 the most stinging recollections. I should pro- 
 bably have broken down but for the weekly 
 repose and fresh air of Sunday, when, after 
 attending church I had an exhilarating ramble on 
 the sands and links. Robert wrote nearly the 
 whole of the articles in the Kaleidoscope, verse 
 as well as prose. My contributions consisted of 
 only three or four papers. The Kaleidoscope did 
 not last. It sold pretty well, but only to the 
 extent of paying expenses, yielding no reward 
 whatever for literary efforts. The concluding 
 number appeared on the 12th of January 1822." 
 When Robert Chambers in 1822 had issued 
 his " Illustrations of the Author of Waverley," he 
 had fairly begun an industrious literary career. 
 This work was well received, and was followed 
 
WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 313 
 
 itt 1824 by "Traditions of Edinburgh," a work 
 which, from his previous training, he was well 
 qualified to write. This led to an acquaintance 
 with Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and a friend- 
 ship with Sir Walter Scott. The author of 
 "Waverley" forwarded a budget of reminis- 
 cences to the young author. "Walks in Edin- 
 burgh," a companion to the " Traditions," ap- 
 peared in 1825, and his "Popular Rhymes of 
 Scotland " was issued early in 1826. His " Pic- 
 ture of Scotland," partly the result of previous 
 historical study, and of walks over various dis- 
 tricts of Scotland, appeared in the same year. 
 All the while he was engaged in the prosecution 
 of the bookselling business, which had been 
 gradually growing upon him. His " History of 
 the Rebellion of 1745," and some other similar 
 works, appeared in the series called Constable's 
 Miscellany. "Scottish Ballads and Songs," 
 and the "Biography of Distinguished Scots- 
 men," appeared in 1829; and in the same year 
 he married. Between 1829 and 1832 he edited 
 a Conservative newspaper called the Edinburgh 
 Advertiser. William for a time relinquished 
 his printing, and along with Robert was engaged 
 in a "Gazetteer of Scotland," for which they were 
 to be paid £100. This helped still further to 
 bring them into notice. 
 
 In 1832 the country seemed ripe for a higher 
 class of cheap literature. The Edinburgh School 
 of Arts, founded in 1821, was the pioneer of 
 other similar institutions which were started 
 throughout the country. The writings of Scott, 
 Byron, Southey, and Wordsworth, the discus- 
 sions regarding the Reform Bill, with the rapid 
 development of the newspaper press and the 
 higher class reviews and magazines, had as- 
 sisted this consummation. That William Cham- 
 bers understood the signs of the times, we learn 
 from his biography. "In 1831 I resolved to 
 take advantage of the evidently growing taste 
 for cheap literature, and lead off, as far as was 
 in my power, in a proper direction. Before 
 taking any active step, I mentioned the matter 
 to Robert. Let us, I said, endeavour to give a 
 reputable literary character to what is at present 
 mostly mean or trivial, and of no permanent 
 value; but he, thinking only of the not very 
 creditable low-priced papers then current, did 
 not entertain a favourable opinion of my pro- 
 jected undertaking. With all loyalty and affec- 
 tion, however, he promised to give me what 
 literary assistance was in his power, and in this 
 I was not disappointed. Consulting no one 
 else, and in that highly-wrought state of mind 
 which overlooks all but the probability of suc- 
 cess, I at length, in January 1832, issued the 
 prospectus of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, 
 a weekly sheet at three-halfpence. Announcing 
 myself as editor, I stated that "no communica- 
 tions inverse or prose were wanted." . . . The 
 first number appeared on Saturday, the 4th of 
 February 1832. It contained an opening ad- 
 
 dress, written in a fervid state of feeling. . . . 
 High, however, as were my expectations, the 
 success of the work exceeded them. In a few 
 days there was, for Scotland, the unprecedented 
 sale of 60,000 copies; and at the third number, 
 when copies were consigned to an agent in 
 London for dispersal through England, the sale 
 rose to 80,000, at which it long remained, with 
 scarcely any advertising to give it publicity. 
 . . . Until the fourteenth number of the 
 work, Robert was only in the position of con- 
 tributor. Then abandoning his separate pro- 
 fessional relations, he became joint-editor, and 
 was also associated with me in the firm of 
 W. & R. Chambers." 
 
 The first number of Charles Knight's Fenny 
 Magazine was issued on the 31st March 1832. 
 Chambers's Journal still survives in a green old 
 age, having witnessed the death of a host of 
 imitators, and still possessing a larger circula- 
 tion than many of its younger contemporaries. 
 
 The success of 1832 was a hopeful basis for 
 further operations. Combining business and 
 literary talent in a happy and successful partner- 
 ship, the two brothers entertained the compre- 
 hensive design of editing, printing^ and pub- 
 lishing works of a popularly instructive and 
 entertaining tendency. Their after-success is 
 now a matter of history. The well-known 
 "Information for the People" was first issued 
 in 1833. It aimed at giving distinct informa- 
 tion on interesting branches of science — physical, 
 mathematical, and moral — natural history, poli- 
 tical history, geography, and literature, and 
 various miscellaneous topics. Since its first 
 issue over 170,000 sets have been sold. In 
 1835 a series of school-books was commenced, 
 which comprehended a section on physical 
 science. Robert Chambers, besides other 
 volumes, contributed a " History of the 
 British Empire," and "History of the Eng- 
 lish Language and Literature" to this series. 
 Objections have been raised as to the too secular 
 character of some of these school-books, but it 
 may be remembered at the same time, that in 
 avoiding anything of a controversial nature, 
 they also solved the "religious difliculty " with 
 many. When the "Miscellany of Useful and 
 Entertaining Tracts" appeared, it was also 
 highly successful. What they have justly de- 
 scribed as their "crowning effort in cheap and 
 instructive literature," was the commencement 
 in 1859, under the editorship of Dr Andrew 
 Findlater, of the "Encyclopaedia: a Dictionary 
 of Universal Knowledge for the People." This 
 work was completed in ten volumes in 1868, 
 and has since been revised by competent hands. 
 The first volume of an entirely new edition 
 appeared in 1888. This work, perhaps the most 
 useful of all their publications, has had large 
 circulation, and has become a standard work 
 in Great Britain, America, and the Colonies. 
 
 Of independent works, William Chambers 
 
314 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 found time to write and publish: "The Book 
 of Scotland," "The Youth's Companion and 
 Counsellor," 1860; "Something of Italy," 1862; 
 "History of Peeblesshire," 1864; "Wintering 
 in Mentone," 1870 ; " France : its History and 
 Revolutions," 1871, and "Chambers's Social 
 Science Tracts." Robert Chambers was no 
 less actively industrious, confining himself more 
 exclusively to the literary side of publishing. 
 His papers to Chambers' s Journal did not oc- 
 cupy him longer than one or two days a 
 week, and the remainder of his time was 
 well utilised. In conjunction with Profes- 
 sor Wilson he assisted in producing a work 
 on the "Land of Burns," which was published 
 by Messrs Blackie & Sons. He projected a 
 " Cyclopaedia of English Literature," that 
 should form a history, critical and biographi- 
 cal, of British authors, from the earliest to the 
 present times, accompanied with a systematised 
 series of extracts — a concentration of the best 
 productions of English intellect, set in a bio- 
 graphical and critical history of the literature 
 itself. In this work he was assisted by Dr 
 Robert Carruthers of Inverness. The book was 
 finished in 1844, and has proved both useful and 
 successful. A new and revised edition, with 
 many additions and alterations, was issued in 
 1877. His "Select Writings," in seven volumes, 
 were issued in 1847. His researches in geology, 
 and in the mutations that had in the course of 
 ages taken place on the earth's surface, partly 
 the result of a course of foreign travel, were 
 published in 1848, under the title of "Ancient 
 Sea-Margins." His "Life and Works of Burns" 
 appeared in 1850; "Tracings in Iceland and 
 the Faroe Islands " in 1856 ; " Domestic Annals 
 of Scotland," 1859; "Memoirs of a Banking 
 House," 1860; "Edinburgh Papers," 1861; 
 "The Book of Days," a miscellany of popular 
 antiquities in connection with the calendar, 
 including anecdotes, biographies, curiosities of 
 literature, and oddities of human life and char- 
 acter, on the plan of Hone's "Every Day 
 Book," was to be his last great work. In its 
 
 production he overtaxed his strength, and he 
 retired to his country house at Abbey Park, 
 St Andrews, in shattered and enfeebled health. 
 A "Life of Smollett," with characteristic speci- 
 mens of his writings, was the only other sepa- 
 rate work from his pen. In 1868 he received 
 the honorary degree of LL.D. from the Uni- 
 versity of St Andrews. Domestic afflictions, 
 the death of his wife and a daughter in 1863, 
 pressed heavily upon him. He married again 
 in 1867, and his last years were spent, for the 
 most part, in the pleasant retirement of his 
 country house. His second wife died in January 
 1870. He now felt that his days were numbered, 
 and after several changes of air and scene, he 
 died on 17th March 1871, in his sixty-ninth 
 year. His death had without doubt been 
 hastened by overwork. In his interesting me- 
 moir William writes: "My brother produced 
 upwards of seventy volumes, exclusively of de- 
 tached papers, which it would be impossible to 
 enumerate. His whole writings had for their aim 
 the good of society — the advancement in some 
 shape or other of the true and beautiful. It 
 will hardly be thought that I exceed the proper 
 bounds of panegyric in stating that in the long 
 list of literary compositions of Robert Cham- 
 bers, we see the zealous and successful student, 
 the sagacious and benevolent citizen, and the 
 devoted lover of his country." 
 
 William Chambers, in 1859, perhaps mindful 
 of what Alexander Elder's circulating library 
 had been to him in the early Peebles days, 
 gifted to his native town a suite of buildings, 
 consisting of a library of ten thousand volumes, 
 reading-room, museum, gallery of art, and 
 lecture-hall. In 1865 he was elected Lord 
 Provost of Edinburgh, and succeeded while in 
 office in securing an Act of Parliament for the 
 sanitary improvement of a great part of the 
 over-crowded and badly-ventilated portion of 
 the old town of Edinburgh. He died 20th May 
 1883 ; his latest act was the restoration of 
 St. Giles' Cathedral. A statue was erected 
 to his memory in Edinburgh. 
 
 LOED MACAULAY. 
 
 [1800-1859.] 
 
 Few names are more familiar to the English 
 reading public than that of Lord Macaulay, 
 poet, essayist, and historian. His biography 
 by his nephew, Mr Trevelyan, shows a success- 
 ful life, happy, industrious, and beneficent. 
 Macaulay was descended from a line of Scotch 
 parish ministers, his great-grandfather being 
 minister of Tiree and Coll; his granduncle, of 
 A.rdnamurchan ; his grandfather, John Macau- 
 
 lay, was successively the minister of Barra, 
 South Uist, Inverary, and Cardross. One of his 
 uncles, becoming a clergyman in the Church of 
 England, made the acquaintance of Mr Thomas 
 Bubington, owner of Rotheley IVsmple, Leicester- 
 shire. He afterwards married one of Macau- 
 lay's aunts, and presented his brother-in-law to 
 the living of Rotheley. His father, Zachary 
 Macaulav. born in 1768, had been sent out to 
 
LORD MAC AULA Y, 
 
 315 
 
 Jamaica by a Scotch house of business as book- 
 keeper on an estate, where he became sole 
 manager. His close contact with and know- 
 ledge of the evils of negro slavery caused him 
 to throw up his situation when he was four-and- 
 twenty from conscientious scruples, and return 
 to his native country. He became the colleague 
 of Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, and Thornton, 
 as a slave abolitionist. For some time he re- 
 sided at Sierra Leone, promoting various philan- 
 thropic objects ; afterwards he became a thriving 
 merchant, but neglecting his business in his 
 over-zeal as a reformer, he brought poverty on 
 the family. He married Miss Mills, a Quakeress. 
 Thomas Macaulay was born in the house of his 
 aunt, Mrs Babington, at Rotheley Temple, on 
 25th October 1800. While still very young, he 
 remembered standing by his father's side look- 
 ing out of the nursery window at a cloud of 
 black smoke which was pouring out of a tall 
 chimney, and asking if that were the mouth of 
 hell. His early years were spent at Clapham, 
 where his precocity and his command of language 
 were equally remarkable. His childhood was 
 quiet and happy, and from three years of age 
 he read incessantly. His memory retained the 
 bookish phraseology. Here are three anecdotes 
 regarding this period : 
 
 **His father took him on a visit to Lady 
 Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, and was much 
 pleased to exhibit to his old friend the fair 
 bright boy, dressed in a green coat with red 
 collar and cuffs, a frill at the throat, and white 
 trousers. A servant who was waiting upon the 
 company in the great gallery spilt some hot 
 coffee over his legs. The hostess was all kind- 
 ness and compassion, and when, after a while, 
 she asked how he was feeling, the little fellow 
 looked up in her face, and replied, * Thank you, 
 madam, the agony is abated.' 
 
 " He had a little plot of ground at the back 
 of the house, marked out as his own by a row 
 of oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw 
 away as rubbish. He went straight to the 
 drawing-room, where his mother was entertain- 
 ing some visitors, walked into the circle, and 
 said very solemnly, ' Cursed be Sally ; for it is 
 written. Cursed is he that removeth his neigh- 
 bour's landmark.* 
 
 "Mrs Macaulay explained to Tom that he 
 must learn to study without the solace of bread 
 and butter, to which he replied, * Yes, mamma, 
 industry shall be my bread and attention my 
 butter.'" 
 
 He went to school at first with extreme re- 
 luctance. In his eighth year he was a busy 
 young author. He had prepared a compendium 
 of universal history, written a paper to per- 
 suade the people of Travancore to embrace the 
 Christian religion, and fired with the perusal of 
 Scott's "Lay" and "Marmion," he commenced 
 writing a poem in six cantos, to be called the 
 "Battle of Cheviot." Three cantos of this 
 
 work only were finished. He had also com- 
 posed several hymns. At a later date he wrote 
 " Fingal," a poem, in twelve books. Hannah 
 More and her sister made a companion of him 
 during his visits at Barley Wood, where he would 
 read prose and declaim poetry by the hcur to 
 these worthy ladies. Till her death Hannah 
 More was his admirer and friend. In 1812 the 
 young historian, having outgrown his Clapham 
 school, was sent to a private school at Little Shel- 
 ford, near Cambridge. "He was not unpopu- 
 lar among his fellow-pupils, who regarded bim 
 with admiration, tempered with the compassion 
 which his utter inability to play at any sort of 
 game would have excited in every school, public 
 or private alike." Here he read widely, unceas- 
 ingly, and rapidly, his powerful memory enabling 
 him to take in almost at a glance the contents 
 of a printed page. The letters he wrote at this 
 time have a bookish tone. In the eyes of his 
 sisters, who regarded him with passionate love 
 and devotion, he could do no wrong, and they 
 enjoyed his unruffled sweetness of temper, his 
 unfailing flow of spirits, and his amusing talk. 
 Strangers he cared little for, and while at home 
 with his sisters working around him, he would 
 read aloud from a novel, or, by way of variety, 
 they would take a walk together outside. 
 Poetry and novels, unless when he was at home 
 for the holidays, were forbidden in the daytime 
 in the Macaulay family, and were referred to as 
 "drinking drams in the morning." Zachary 
 Macaulay entirely disapproved of novel read- 
 ing; but the young people had their way, 
 and became confirmed novel readers. While 
 editor of the Christian Observer, an anonymous 
 letter was inserted, which he afterwards dis- 
 covered was written by his own son. This 
 letter eulogised Fielding and Smollett, and 
 drew down upon him the wrath of many of the 
 contributors. Young Macaulay nevertheless con- 
 tinued to be reverent, devoted, and respectful 
 towards his father, and eventually became the 
 mainstay and support of the whole family. 
 
 Macaulay took up his residence at Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, in October 1818. He was 
 the author of two prize poems, was elected to 
 the Craven scholarship in 1821, and became a 
 Fellow of Trinity College in 1822. He detested 
 the labour of manufacturing Greek and Latin 
 verse, cared little for mathematics, and his 
 advice to writers of Latin prose was, " Soak 
 your mind with Cicero." He distinguished 
 himself in debating, and began to take an in- 
 terest in politics. He still continued to read 
 novels — good, bad, and indifferent — and he 
 would cry over the pathetic passages. His 
 first public appearance as a speaker was at a 
 meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society in June 
 1824. The Duke of Gloucester was in the chair, 
 and his speech was highly successful. His 
 father made but one remark on the speech, to 
 the effect that, "It was ungraceful in so young 
 
316 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 a man to speak with folded arms in the presence 
 of royalty." Macaulay was called to the bar in 
 .1826, and joined the northern circuit at Leeds, 
 hut he did not look seriously upon the law as a 
 profession, and he got little business either in 
 London or on circuit. "When Charles Knight 
 started his Quarterly Magazine^ Macaulay was 
 one of its most reliable and attractive contribu- 
 tors. His father, however, disapproved of the 
 whole publication from beginning to end, and 
 Macaulay withdrew his name for a time from 
 the list of contributors. His father having 
 withdrawn his objections after the issue of the 
 second number, Macaulay continued to be a 
 contributor until the premature death of the 
 periodical. Macaulay's connection with the 
 Edinburgh Review began in August 1825, with 
 the publication of his article on Milton. Like 
 Lord Byron, says his biographer, he awoke one 
 morning and found himself famous. Murray, 
 the London publisher, declared it would be 
 worth the copyright of "Childe Harold" to 
 have him on the staff of the Quarterly. His 
 breakfast-table was covered with cards of invita- 
 tion to dinner, while his father foresaw that the 
 law would be less to him than it had ever pre- 
 viously been. Lord Jeffrey had some time 
 before this shown himself anxious to secure 
 fresh blood for the Edinburgh Review. Writ- 
 ing to a friend in London he said : *' Can you not 
 lay your hands on some clever young man who 
 would write for us? The original supporters of 
 the work are getting old, and either too busy or 
 too stupid, and here the young men are mostly 
 Tories." In acknowledging the receipt of Mac- 
 aulay's manuscript, he said : *' The more I 
 think the less I can conceive where you picked 
 up that style." In personal appearance, Praed's 
 description of him in KnighVs Quarterly Maga- 
 zine is said to be correct: "There came up a 
 short nianly figure, marvellously upright, with 
 a bad neckcloth, and one hand in his waistcoat 
 pocket. " His wardrobe was always overstocked. 
 Later in life he indulged in a succession of em- 
 broidered waistcoats. When outside he wore 
 new kid gloves, into which his fingers were 
 usually slipped only half-way. He was 
 destitute of bodily or athletic accomplish- 
 ments. The exercise in which he most excelled 
 was in walking rapidly, and perhaps reading 
 rapidly at the same time, through some of the 
 London thoroughfares. Indoors he was mostly 
 on his feet, moving rapidly up and down the 
 room as he talked. Crabb Kobinson gave the 
 following note of his appearance and manners 
 in society in 1826: "I had a most interesting 
 companion in young Macaulay, one of the most 
 promising of the rising generation I have seen 
 for a long time. He has a good face — not the 
 delicate features of a man of genius and sensi- 
 bility, but the strong lines and well-knit limbs 
 iif a man sturdy in body and mind. Very 
 eloquent and cheerful. Overflowing with words, 
 
 and not poor in thought. Liberal in opinion, 
 but no Eadical. He seems a correct as well as a 
 full man. He showed a minute knowledge of 
 subjects not introduced by himself." With 
 people whom he really did not like, it may be 
 noted, he would not even live on terms of ap- 
 parent intimacy. The Macaulay family had 
 settled in 50 Great Ormond Street in 1823, and 
 these years were years of intense happiness to 
 young Macaulay and to his sisters, by whom he 
 was still looked up to and idolised. Between 
 the years 1829 and 1834, his income from his 
 Trinity fellowship brought him £300, and his 
 income from the Edinburgh Revieto rather less. 
 A commissionership of bankruptcy bestowed 
 upon him by Lord Lyndhurst in consideration 
 of his Tory antecedents, while he held it, brought 
 his income up to about £1000. 
 
 When the Cambridge Senate resolved to peti- 
 tion against the Catholic claims, a majority in 
 favour of emancipation was gained by carrying 
 down a stage-coachful of young Whig Masters 
 of Arts, who were afterwards described by their 
 opponents as "godless and briefless barristers." 
 He visited Edinburgh in 1828, establishing a 
 friendship with Lord Jeffrey, which ceased only 
 with life. Mr Trevelyan describes the will of 
 the nation in 1830, as paralysed within the 
 senate, effectual care being taken that its voice 
 should not be heard without. "The press was 
 gagged in England, and throttled in Scotland." 
 Macaulay entered Parliament as member for 
 Calne in 1830, and on the 5th of April addressed 
 the House of Commons on the second reading 
 of Mr Eobert Grant's bill for the removal of 
 Jewish disabilities. In the autumn of this 
 year he had his first taste of Continental travel, 
 enjoying a visit to Paris. This visit was sad- 
 dened by the news of the death of his sister 
 Jane; his mother never recovered the shock, 
 and died in 1832. An epitomised history of a 
 period of French history was commenced by 
 him for Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopaedia," but 
 was never finished. When he entered Parlia- 
 ment his commissionership of bankruptcy was 
 swept away, and with it his income. The pro- 
 duce of his pen brought him some £60 or 
 £70 a quarter, while he had the support of the 
 family mainly thrown upon him. At the height 
 of his parliamentary fame, he was reduced to 
 sell his gold medals gained at Cambridge ; he 
 was, however, never in debt, and never wrote 
 or published anything contrary to his literary 
 or political conscience. In a letter to a life- 
 long friend, Thomas Flower Ellis, he described 
 what took place in the memorable division in 
 the House of Commons on the second reading 
 of the Keform Bill, which was carried by a ma- 
 jority of one: "The 'ayes' and 'noes' were like 
 two volleys of cannon from opposite sides of a 
 field of battle. When the Opposition went out 
 into the lobby, an operation which took up 
 twenty minutes or more, we spread ourselves 
 
LORD MA CA ULA V. 
 
 317 
 
 over the benches on both sides of the House; 
 for there were many of us who had not been 
 able to find a seat during the evening. When 
 the doors were shut we began to speculate on 
 our numbers. Everybody was desponding. 
 *We have lost it. We are only 280 at most. 
 I do not think we are 250. They are 300. 
 Alderman Thompson has counted them. He 
 says they are 299.' This was the talk on our 
 benches. I wonder that men who have been 
 long in Parliament do not acquire a better coup 
 d'ceil for numbers. The House, when only the 
 ' ayes ' were in it, looked to me a very fair House 
 — much fuller than it generally is even on de- 
 bates of considerable interest. I had no hope, 
 however, of 300. As the tellers passed along 
 our lowest row on the left-hand side, the inter- 
 est was insupportable, 291, 292 — we were all 
 standing up and stretching forward, telling with 
 the tellers. At 300 there was a short cry of joy 
 — at 302 another — suppressed, however, in a 
 moment ; for we did not yet know what the 
 hostile force might be. We knew, however, 
 that we could not be severely beaten. The 
 doors were thrown open and in they came. 
 Each of them, as he entered, brought some 
 different report of their numbers. It must have 
 been impossible, as you may conceive, in the 
 lobby, crowded as they were, to form any exact 
 estimate. First we heard that the)' were 303 ; 
 then that number rose to 310, then went down 
 to 307. Alexander Barry told me that he had 
 counted, and that they were 304. We were 
 all breathless with anxiety, when Charles Wood, 
 who stood near the door, jumped up on a 
 bench and cried out, 'They are only 301.' 
 We set up a shout that you might have heard 
 to Charing Cross, waving our hats, stamping 
 against the floor, and clapping our hands. The 
 tellers scarcely got through the crowd ; for the 
 House was thronged up to the table, and all the 
 floor was fluctuating with heads like the pit of 
 a theatre. But you might have heard a pin 
 drop as Duncannon read the numbers. Then 
 again the shouts broke out, and many of us 
 shed tears. I could scarcely refrain. And the 
 jaw of Peel fell ; and the face of Twiss was as 
 the face of a damned soul ; and Herries looked 
 like Judas taking his necktie off for the last 
 operation. We shook hands, and clapped each 
 other on the back, and went out laughing, cry- 
 ing, and huzzaing into the lobby. And no 
 sooner were the outer doors opened than an- 
 other shout answered that within the House. 
 All the passages and the stairs into the waiting- 
 rooms were thronged by people who had waited 
 till four in the morning to know the issue. We 
 passed through a narrow lane between two thick 
 masses of them; and all the way down they 
 were shouting and waving their hats, till we got 
 into the open air. I called a cabriolet, and the 
 first thing the driver asked was, *Is the bill 
 ftarriei?' 'Yes, by one.' 'Thank God for it. 
 
 sir.' And away I rode to Gray's Inn ; and so 
 ended a scene which will probably never be 
 equalled till the reformed Parliament wants re- 
 forming ; and that, I hope, will not be till the 
 days of our grandchildren — till that truly ortho- 
 dox and apostolical person, Dr Francis Ellis, is 
 an archbishop of eighty." 
 
 He recommended his sister Hannah at one time 
 to "get Blackwood's new number. There is a 
 description of me in it. What do you think he 
 says that I am? 'A little, splay-footed, ugly 
 dumpling of a fellow, with a mouth from ear to 
 ear.' Conceive how such a charge must affect a 
 man so enamoured of his own beauty as I am." 
 He thus spoke of his own defects as an orator : 
 
 "I said a few words the other night. They 
 were merely in reply, and quite unpremeditated, 
 and were not ill received. I feel that much 
 practice will be necessary to make me a good 
 debater on points of detail, but my friends tell 
 me that I have raised my reputation by show- 
 ing that I was quite equal to the work of ex- 
 temporaneous reply. My manner, they say, is 
 cold and wants care. I feel this myself. No- 
 thing but strong excitement and a great occa- 
 sion overcomes a certain reserve and mauvaise 
 honte which I have in public speaking ; not a 
 mauvaise honte which in the least confuses me 
 or makes me hesitate for a word, but which 
 keeps me from putting any fervour into my 
 tone or my action. This is perhaps in some 
 respects an advantage ; for when I do warm, 1 
 am the most vehement speaker in the House, 
 and nothing strikes an audience so much as the 
 animation of an orator who is generally cold. 
 
 " I ought to tell you that Peel was very civil, 
 and cheered me loudly; and that impudent 
 leering Croker congratulated the House on the 
 proof which I had given of my readiness. He 
 was afraid, he said, that I had been silent so 
 long on account of the many allusions which 
 had been made to Calne. Now that I had risen 
 again he hoped that they should hear me often. 
 See whether I do not dust that varlet's jacket 
 for him in the next number of the blue and yel- 
 low. I detest him more than cold boiled veal." 
 
 In a letter to his sister Hannah he described 
 a first visit to Holland House, where he became 
 a favourite with Lord and Lady Holland. He 
 concludes a description with the words: "But, 
 for all this, I would much rather be quietly 
 walking with you : and the great use of going 
 to these fine places is to learn how happy it is 
 possible to be without them." Samuel Rogers 
 at this time, in trying to dissuade him from 
 writing reviews, paid him a high compliment: 
 "You may do anything, Mr Macaulay." An 
 amusing tribute to the fame of Sir Walter Scott, 
 was the fact of all the servant maids, in a house 
 where he was dining, asking leave to stand in 
 the passage and see him pass. Macaulay, in his 
 usual direct way, condemned the character of 
 Lord Byron, one of his principal reasons being 
 
that he "never heard a single expression of 
 fondness for him fall from the lips of any of 
 those who knew him well." 
 
 Writing to Ellis he remarked regarding his 
 review of Croker's " Bos well " in the Edinburgh 
 Review: "My article on Croker has not only 
 smashed his book, but has hit the Westminster 
 Review incidentally. The utilitarians took on 
 themselves to praise the accuracy of the most 
 inaccurate writer that ever lived, and gave as an 
 instance of it a note in which, as I have shown, 
 he makes a mistake of twenty years and more. 
 John Mill is in a rage, and says that they are in 
 a worse scrape than Croker : John Murray says 
 that it is a damned nuisance ; and Croker looks 
 across the House of Commons at me with a leer 
 of hatred which I repay with a gracious smile 
 jf pity." 
 
 When the Eeform Bill at last became law, 
 Macaulay was appointed one of the Commis- 
 sioners of the Board of Control. He was 
 triumphantly returned for the borough of Leeds 
 in 1832. Writing in this same year he says : 
 
 ' ' The attachment between brothers and sisters, 
 blameless, amiable, and delightful as it is, is so 
 liable to be superseded by other attachments 
 that no wise man ought to suffer it to become 
 indispensable to him. That women shall leave 
 the home of their birth, and contract ties dearer 
 than those of consanguinity, is a law as ancient 
 as the first records of the history of our race, 
 and as unchangeable as the constitution of the 
 human body and mind. To repine against the 
 nature of things, and against the great funda- 
 mental law of all society, because, in conse- 
 quence of my own want of foresight, it happens 
 to bear heavily on me, would be the basest and 
 most absurd selfishness. 
 
 "I have still one more stake to lose. There 
 remains one event for which, when it arrives, I 
 shall, I hope, be prepared. From that moment, 
 with a heart formed, if ever any man's heart 
 was formed, for domestic happiness, I shall 
 have nothing left in this world but ambition. 
 There is no wound, however, which time and 
 necessity will not render endurable : and, after 
 all, what am I more than my fathers, — than the 
 millions and tens of millions who have been 
 weak enough to pay double price for some 
 favourite number in the lottery of life, and who 
 have suffered double disappointment when their 
 ticket came up a blank?" 
 
 When he received the news that his sister 
 Margaret was to be married to Mr Edward 
 Cropper of Liverpool, he wrote thus from 
 Leeds : "I am sitting in the midst of two hun- 
 dred friends, all mad with exultation and party 
 spirit, all glorying over the Tories, and thinking 
 me the happiest man in the world. And it is all 
 that I can do to hide my tears, and to command 
 my voice, when it is necessary for me to reply 
 to their congratulations. Dearest, dearest sister, 
 you alone are now left to me. Whom have I on 
 
 earth but thee ? But for you, in the midst of 
 all these successes, I should wish that I were 
 lying by poor Hyde Villiers. But I cannot go 
 on. I am wanted to write an address to the 
 electors: and I shall lay it on Sadler pretty 
 heavily. By what strange fascination is it that 
 ambition and resentment exercise such power 
 over minds which ought to be superior to them? 
 I despise myself for feeling so bitterly towards 
 this fellow as I do. But the separation from 
 dear Margaret has jarred my whole temper. I 
 am cried up here to the skies as the most affable 
 and kind-hearted of men, while I feel a fierce- 
 ness and restlessness within me quite new and 
 almost inexplicable." 
 
 Macaulay offered to resign his office of Com- 
 missioner of the Board of Control when the 
 Slavery Emancipation Bill came up before Par- 
 liament, but the difficulty was removed by the 
 members departing from their first proposal. 
 In the autumn of 1834 he was offered a member- 
 ship of the Supreme Council of Calcutta, to 
 draw up a new code of Indian laws, which he 
 accepted, because it would allow him to secure 
 a competence. Political thraldom was hateful 
 to him. " I went to India," he said afterwards, 
 "to get an independence, and I have got it." 
 His sister Hannah accompanied him, but she had 
 not been long in Calcutta when she married Mr, 
 afterwards Sir Charles Trevelyan. He read as 
 industriously as ever in the new country. " Cal. 
 cutta," he wrote to Mr Macvey Napier, "is 
 called, and not without some reason, the city of 
 palaces; but I have seen nothing in the East 
 like the view from the Castle Rock [Edinburgh], 
 nor expect to see anything like it till we stand 
 there together again. " On his return home in 
 1838 he found that his father was dead. While 
 in India he saved about £20,000; this, with the 
 legacy of £10,000, left him by General Macau- 
 lay, his uncle, made him independent for life. 
 The essays which he afterwards wrote on Lord 
 Clive and Warren Hastings had the most exten- 
 sive sale on separate publication, as compared 
 with the others. 
 
 When asked to write a review of Lockhart's 
 " Life of Scott " by the editor of the Edinburgh 
 Review, the following were some of his reasons 
 for not undertaking that work: "I have not, 
 from the little that I know of him, formed so 
 high an opinion of his character as most people 
 seem to entertain, and as it would be expedient 
 for the Edinburgh Review to express. He seems 
 to me to have been most carefully, and success- 
 fully, on his guard against the sins which most 
 easily beset literary men. On that side he 
 multiplied his precautions, and set double 
 watch. Hardly any writer of note has been so 
 free from the petty jealousies and morbid irrita- 
 bilities of our caste. But I do not think that he 
 kept himself equally pure from faults of a very 
 different kind, from the faults of a man of the 
 world. In politics a bitter and unscrupulous 
 
LORD MAC A UL AY. 
 
 319 
 
 partisan ; profuse and ostentatious in expense ; 
 agitated by the hopes and fears of a gambler ; 
 perpetually sacrilicing the perfection of his 
 compositions, and the durability of his fame, 
 to his eagerness for money; writing with the 
 slovenly haste of Dryden, in order to satisfy 
 wants which were not like those of Dryden, 
 caused by circumstances beyond his control, but 
 which were produced by his extravagant waste 
 or rapacious speculation; this is the way in 
 which he appears to me. I am sorry for it, for 
 I sincerely admire the greater part of his works ; 
 but I cannot think him a high-minded man, or 
 a man of very strict principle." Accordingly he 
 recommended that Lord Jeffrey be asked to 
 write the article. 
 
 Macaulay had no admiration for Lord 
 Brougham, and when the latter quarrelled with 
 his party, and tried to use the Edinhurgh 
 Review, then under the editorship of Mr Mac- 
 vey Napier, towards the punishment of his old 
 friends, he wrote regarding him to Ellis, in Sep- 
 tember 1838 : *' Empson brings a sad account of 
 poor Napier; all sorts of disquiet and trouble, 
 with dreadful wearing, complaints which give 
 his friends the gravest cause for alarm. And, 
 as if this were not enough, Brougham is perse- 
 cuting him with the utmost malignity. I did not 
 think it possible for human nature, in an edu- 
 cated civilised man — a man, too, of great intel- 
 lect — to have become so depraved. He writes 
 to Napier in language of the most savage hatred, 
 and of the most extravagant vaunting. The min- 
 isters, he says, have felt only his little finger. 
 He will now put forth his red right hand. They 
 shall have no rest. As to me, he says that I 
 shall rue my baseness in not calling on him. 
 But it is against Empson that he is most furious. 
 He says that he will make it the chief object 
 of his life to prevent Jeffrey from ever being 
 Lord President of the Court of Session. He 
 thinks that there is some notion of making Emp- 
 son editor of the Review. If that be done, he 
 says, he will relinquish every other object in 
 order to ruin the Review. He will lay out his 
 last sixpence in that enterprise. He will make 
 revenge on Empson the one business of the re- 
 maining years of his life. Empson says that 
 nothing so demoniacal was ever written in the 
 world." In the autumn of this same year Mac- 
 aulay started for a tour in Italy. Although he 
 never went into rhapsody over a fine landscape, 
 either in real life or in the printed page, yet he 
 could quickly detect the fine points of a scene. 
 He viewed everything with the eye of the his- 
 torian; the associations and traditions of the 
 places which he visited rose up at once to his 
 wonderful memory. Writing in Rome of the 
 Papal Government, he says : " The Government 
 treats us very well. The pope winks at a Pro- 
 testant chapel, and indulges us in a reading- 
 room, where the Times and Morning Chronicle 
 make their appearance twelve days after they 
 
 are published in London. It is a pleasant city 
 for an English traveller. He is not harassed or 
 restrained. He lives as he likes, and reads what 
 he likes, and suffers little from the vices of the 
 administration ; but I can conceive nothing more 
 insupportable than the situation of a layman 
 who should be a subject of the pope. In this 
 Government there is no avenue to distinction 
 for any but priests. . . . Corruption infects all 
 the public offices. Old women above, liars and 
 cheats below — that is the papal administration. 
 The states of the pope are, I suppose, the worst 
 governed in the civilised world." The following 
 criticism of Bulwer occurs in his Italian journals: 
 *' He has considerable talent and eloquence ; but 
 he is fond of writing about what he only half 
 understands, or understands not at all. His 
 taste is bad, and bad from a cause which lies 
 deep, and is not to be removed, from want of 
 soundness, manliness, and simplicity of mind." 
 At Rome he met W. E. Gladstone, Avith whom 
 he had some conversation, characterising him 
 afterwards as both a clever and an amiable man. 
 In 1839 Macaulay accepted the Secretaryship of 
 War: many of the leading journals bearing a 
 grudge against him, made distinct enough ex- 
 pression of it. In 1840 he was elected M.P. for 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 The great historian was in the habit of pick- 
 ing up street ballads and preserving them. He 
 left behind him a scrap-book, containing eighty 
 ballads. In 1842 his ** Lays of Ancient Rome " 
 were issued by Longman, without any preli- 
 minary puffing, and became instantly popular. 
 Professor Wilson, in Blackwood, gave the book 
 a most cordial welcome. Up till 1875 upwards 
 of 100,000 copies had been sold. The Ameri- 
 can publishers, quick to discern a profitable 
 literary scheme, especially when there is no 
 copyright in the question, had, as in the case 
 of Carlyle and De Quincey's essays, reprinted 
 a selection of Macaulay's essays from the Edin- 
 burgh Review. As copies of this American 
 edition were finding their way into the English 
 market, by way of self-defence, Messrs Longman 
 urged upon Macaulay the necessity of setting 
 about an authorised edition of his essays. 
 Early in 1843 he began the work ; when pub- 
 lished they were immensely successful, and have 
 continued to be increasingly in demand ever 
 since. In spite of the applause and profit 
 gained by their publication, he said, in writing 
 to Napier, that ' ' there are few of them which I 
 read with satisfaction. These few, however, are 
 generally the latest, and this is a consolatory 
 circumstance. The most hostile critic must 
 admit, I think, that I have improved greatly as 
 a writer. The third volume seems to me worth 
 two of the second, and the second worth ten of 
 the first." In revising these essays for publi- 
 cation, he was careful to remove the passing 
 strictures made on the author from that which 
 was of permanent literary value. In 1841 
 
320 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Serjeant Talfourd brought in a measure into the 
 House of Commons for extending the term of 
 copyright in a book to sixty years from the 
 death of the author. A speech made by Macau- 
 lay induced the House to reject this bill. Lord 
 Mahon in the following year introduced a 
 scheme giving protection to authors for twenty- 
 five years from the date of death. Macaulay 
 unfolded a counter scheme, giving protection for 
 forty-two years from the date of publication, 
 and backed by a terse and vigorous speech. 
 The bill was remodelled in accordance with the 
 principle of giving forty-two of copyright from 
 the date of publication, and this was adopted 
 by a large majority. The fact remains that 
 Macaulay's own essays, coming under the scope 
 of the act which he helped to create, have been 
 reprinted in several rival editions by different 
 publishers. After the rising of the session of 
 Parliament in 1843, Macaulay started for a trip 
 up and down the Loire. His letters to his sister, 
 says his biographer, abundantly prove that he 
 could have spoken off a very passable historical 
 handbook for Central France, without any special 
 training for the subject. In 1845, what between 
 attendance on the House of Commons and writ- 
 ing articles, Macaulay had dropped his connec- 
 tion with the Edinburgh Review. In 1846 he 
 acted as Paymaster-General of the Army, and in 
 July of the same year went down to Edinburgh 
 to seek re-election, where he was successful. In 
 the following year, at a general election, he lost 
 his seat for Edinburgh. "The vague charge," 
 says Mr Trevelyan, " of being too much of an 
 essayist, and too little of a politician, was the 
 worst that either saint or sinner could find to 
 say of him." Writing to his sister Hannah 
 after the result had been declared, he mentioned 
 that "Radicals, Tories, Dissenters, Voluntaries, 
 Free Churchmen, spirit drinkers, who are angry 
 because I will not pledge myself to repeal all 
 taxes on whisky, and great numbers of persons 
 who are jealous of my chief supporters here, 
 and think that the patronage of Edinburgh has 
 been too exclusively distributed among a clique, 
 have united to bear me down, I will make no 
 hasty resolutions ; but everything seems to indi- 
 cate that I ought to take this opportunity of 
 retiring from public life." His table was after- 
 wards covered with letters of condolence from 
 friends, and with invitations to stand for other 
 constituencies. 
 
 His attitude and conversational manner are 
 thus sketched by Mr Trevelyan: " Sitting bolt 
 upright, his hands resting on the arms of his 
 chair, or folded over the handle of his walking- 
 stick ; knitting his great eyebrows if the subject 
 was one which had to be thought out as he went 
 along, or brightening from the forehead down- 
 wards when a burst of humour was coming ; his 
 massive features and honest glance suited well 
 with the manly sagacious sentiments which he 
 set forth in his pleasant, sonorous voice, and in 
 
 his racy and admirably intelligible language. 
 To get at his meaning, people had never the 
 need to think twice; and they certainly had 
 seldom the time. And with all his ardour and 
 all his strength and energy of conviction, he was 
 so truly considerate towards others, so delicately 
 courteous with the courtesy which is of the 
 essence and not only in the manner. However 
 eager had been the debate, and however pro- 
 longed the sitting, no one in the company ever 
 had personal reasons for wishing a word of his 
 unsaid, or a look or a tone recalled." While his 
 historical studies were engrossing more and more 
 of his attention, it became difficult to induce 
 him to step outside into society beyond his own 
 more immediate circle of friends and relations, 
 where he was always happiest and most at home. 
 The society of his sister Hannah's children was 
 thoroughly enjoyed by hini; he was an inimi- 
 table playfellow — inventing games and dramas for 
 their amusement. When absent from his nieces 
 he would write them playful letters. He was 
 himself easily moved at whatever appealed to 
 his sentiment of pity in a novel or in real life. 
 He was never happier than in spending an after- 
 noon with his nephews and nieces sight-seeing 
 in London. During the Easter holidays he 
 would also often take them on a brief visit to 
 some of the cathedral towns of England, varied 
 sometimes by a trip to the Continent. 
 
 When the first volumes of Macaulay's great 
 work, the "History of England," were pub- 
 lished, congratulations flowed in upon him from 
 all quarters. Before it appeared, he had written 
 to his publishers : " When I compare my book 
 with what I imagine history ought to be, I feel 
 dejected and ashamed ; but when I compare it 
 with some histories which have a high repute, 
 I feel reassured." The fortune of the book was 
 secure in three days. Thirteen thousand copies 
 were sold in less than four months. "It was 
 greeted by an ebullition of national pride and 
 satisfaction, which delighted Macaulay's friends, 
 and reconciled to him most who remained of his 
 old political adversaries." Lord Jeffrey wrote: 
 " My dear Macaulay, the mother that bore you, 
 had she been yet alive, could scarcely have felt 
 prouder or happier than I do at this outburst of 
 your graver fame. I have long had a sort of 
 parental interest in your glory, and it is now 
 mingled with a feeling of deference to your in- 
 tellectual superiority which can only consort, I 
 take it, with the character of a female parent." 
 He was delighted with the pleasure which he 
 gave to Miss Edgeworth. A gentleman near 
 Manchester read the volume every night after 
 work to his poorer neighbours. At the close of 
 the last meeting, one of the audience rose and 
 proposed a vote of thanks to Mr Macaulay "for 
 having written a history which working-men 
 can understand." In his journal, Macaulay 
 commented on the fact by saying, "I really 
 prize this vote." Rival editions of the work 
 
tcion alac appeared in America and on the Con- 
 tiri*.tit. 
 
 The history of the rise and progress of this 
 great work will be best given in notes from his 
 own journals. In a letter written to Napier on 
 20th July 1838, shortly after his return from 
 India, the first mention is made of this work. 
 
 "There is little chance that I shall see Scot- 
 land this year. In the autumn I shall probably 
 Bet out for Eome, and return to London in the 
 spring. As soon as I return, I shall seriously 
 commence my * History.' The first part (which, 
 I think, will take up five octavo volumes) will ex- 
 tend from the Eevolution to the commencement 
 of Sir Robert Walpole's long administration — a 
 period of three or four and thirty very eventful 
 years. From the commencement of Walpole's 
 administration to the cormnencement of the 
 American War, events may be despatched more 
 concisely. From the commencement of the 
 American War it will again become necessary to 
 be copious. These, at least, are my present no- 
 tions. How far I shall bring the narrative down 
 I have not determined. The death of George IV. 
 would be the best halting-place. The 'His- 
 tory' would then be an entire view of all the 
 transactions which took place between the Re- 
 volution which brought the Crown into harmony 
 with the Parliament and the Revolution which 
 brought the Parliament into harmony with the 
 nation. But there are great and obvious objec- 
 tions to contemporary history. To be sure, if I 
 live to be seventy, the events of George IV. 's 
 reign will be to me then what the American War 
 and the coalition are to me now." 
 He wrote from Rome in the same year : 
 *' Tuesday, December 18.— I stayed at home 
 till late reading and meditating. I have altered 
 some parts of ' Horatius ' to my mind, and I have 
 thought a good deal during the last few days 
 about my 'History.' The great difficulty of a 
 work of this kind is the beginning. How is it 
 to be joined on to the preceding events ? Where 
 am I to commence it ? I cannot plunge, slap 
 dash, into the middle of events and characters. 
 I cannot, on the other hand, write a history of 
 the whole reign of James 11. as a preface to the 
 history of William III. ; and if I did, a history 
 of Charles II. would still be equally necessary as 
 a preface to that of the reign of James II. I 
 sympathise with the poor man who began the 
 war of Troy gemino ah ovo. But, after much 
 consideration, I think that I can manage, by 
 the help of an introductory chapter or two, to 
 glide imperceptibly into the full current of my 
 narrative. I am more and more in love with 
 the subject. I really think that posterity will 
 not willingly let my book die." 
 
 Three years later, on 5th November 1841, 
 Macaulay writes to Napier : 
 
 " I have at last begun my historical labours, 
 I can hardly say with how much interest and 
 delight. I really do not think that there is in 
 
 our literature so great a void as that which I am 
 trying to supply. English history, from 1688 
 to the French Revolution, is, even to educated 
 people, almost a terra incognita. I will venture 
 to say that it is quite an even chanoe vyuetb*"r 
 even such a man as Empson or Senior can re- 
 peat accurately the names of the Prime Mini- 
 sters of that time in order. The materials for an 
 amusing narrative are immense. I shall not be 
 satisfied unless I produce something which shall 
 for a few days supersede the last fashionable 
 novel on the tables of young ladies. I should 
 be very much obliged to you to tell me what are 
 the best sources of information about the Scotch 
 Revolution in 1688, the campaign of Dundee, the 
 massacre of Glencoe, and the Darien scheme. I 
 mean to visit the scenes of all the principal 
 events both in Great Britain and Ireland, and 
 also on the Continent. Would it be worth my 
 while to pass a fortnight in one of the Edinburgh 
 libraries next summer ? Or do you imagine that 
 the necessary information is to be got at the 
 British Museum? By-the-by, a lively picture 
 of the state of the Kirk is indispensable." 
 
 After the two first volumes had been pub- 
 lished, he wrote thus in his journal : ** I have now 
 made up my mind to change my plan about my 
 'History.' I will first set myself to know the 
 whole subject — to get, by reading and travel- 
 ling, a full acquaintance with William's reign. 
 I reckon that it will take me eighteen months 
 to do this. I must visit Holland, Belgium, 
 Scotland, Ireland, France. The Dutch archives 
 and French archives must be ransacked. I wiU 
 see whether anything is to be got from other 
 diplomatic collections. I must see London- 
 derry, the Boyne, Aghrim, Limerick, Kinsale, 
 Namur again, Landen, Steinkirk. I must turn 
 over hundreds, thousands of pamphlets. Lam- 
 beth, the Bodleian, and the other Oxford libra- 
 ries, the Devonshire papers, the British Museum, 
 must be explored, and notes made; and then I 
 shall go to work. When the materials are 
 ready, and the history mapped out in my mind, 
 I ought easily to write on an average two of my 
 pages daily. In two years from the time I 
 begin writing I shall have more than finished 
 my second part. Then I reckon a year for 
 polishing, retouching, and printing. This brings 
 me to the autumn of 1853. I like this scheme 
 much. I began to-day with Avaux's despatches 
 from Ireland, abstracted almost a whole thick 
 volume, and compared his narrative with James's. 
 There is much to be said as to these events." 
 
 " When employed upon his * History,' " says Mr 
 Trevelyan, " he habitually preserved in writing 
 such materials as were gathered elsewhere than 
 from the shelves of his own library, instead of 
 continuing the facile, though hazardous, course 
 which he had pursued as a reviewer, and trust- 
 ing to his memory alone. The fruits of many a 
 long hour passed among the Pepsyian book-cases, 
 the manuscripts at Althorp, or the archivea 
 
 X 
 
322 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the French War Office, were garnered into 
 a multitude of pocketbooks of every possible 
 shape and colour. Of these a dozen still remain, 
 ready to the hands of any among Macaulay's 
 remote heirs who may be tempted to commit 
 the posthumous treachery of publishing the 
 commonplace book of a great writer. His 
 industry has had its reward. The extent and 
 exactness of his knowledge have won him the 
 commendation of learned and candid writers 
 who have travelled over ground which he has 
 trod before. Each in his own particular field 
 recognises the high quality of Macaulay's work ; 
 and there is no testimonial so valuable as the 
 praise of an enlightened specialist. Such praise 
 has been freely given by Mr Bagehot, the editor 
 of the Economist^ in that delightful treatise 
 which goes by the name of * Lombard Street.' 
 He commences one important section of the 
 book with a sentence in which, except for its 
 modesty, I am unwilling to find a fault : * The 
 origin of the Bank of England has been told by 
 Macaulay, and it is never wise for an ordinary 
 writer to tell again what he has told so much 
 better.' And Mr Buckle, who was as well ac- 
 quainted with the social manners of our ances- 
 tors as is Mr Bagehot with their finance, ap- 
 pends the following note to what is perhaps the 
 most interesting chapter in his 'History of 
 (Civilisation : * ' Everything Mr Macaulay has 
 said on the contempt into which the clergy 
 fell in the reign of Charles II. is perfectly 
 accurate, and from evidence which I have col- 
 lected, I know that this very able writer, of 
 whose immense research few people are com- 
 petent judges, has rather understated the case 
 than overstated it. On several subjects I should 
 venture to differ from Mr Macaulay ; but I can- 
 not refrain from expressing my admiration of 
 his unwearied diligence, of the consummate skill 
 with which he has arranged his materials, and 
 of the noble love of liberty which animates his 
 entire work. These are qualities which will 
 long survive the aspersions of his puny detrac- 
 tors — men who, in point of knowledge and 
 ability, are unworthy to loosen the shoe-latchet 
 of him they foolishly attack.' 
 
 " The main secret of Macaulay's success lay 
 in this, that to extraordinary fluency and facility 
 he united patient, minute, and persistent dili- 
 gence. He well knew, as Chaucer knew before 
 
 him, that 
 
 ' There is na workeman 
 That can bothe worken wel and hastilie. 
 This must be done at leisure parfaitlie.' 
 
 Ef his method of composition ever comes into 
 fashion, books probably will be better, and un- 
 doubtedly will be shorter. As soon as he had 
 got into his head all the information relating to 
 any particular episode in his ' History ' (such, for 
 instance, as Argyle's expedition to Scotland, or 
 the attainder of Sir John Fenwick, or the calling 
 in of the clipped coinage), he would sit down 
 
 and write off the whole story at a headlong 
 pace ; sketching in the outlines under the genial 
 and audacious impulse of a first conception; 
 and securing in black and white each idea, and 
 epithet, and turn of phrase as it flowed straight 
 from his busy brain to his rapid fingers. His 
 manuscript, at this stage, to the eyes of anv one 
 but himself, appeared to consist of column after 
 column of dashes and flourishes, in which a 
 straight line, with a half-formed letter at each 
 end and another in the middle, did duty for a 
 word. It was from amidst a chaos of such 
 hieroglyphics that Lady Trevelyan, after her 
 brother's death, deciphered that account of the 
 last days of William which fitly closes the 
 * History.' 
 
 " As soon as Macaulay had finished his rough 
 draft he began to fill it in at the rate of six sides 
 of foolscap every morning, written in so large 
 a hand, and with such a multitude of erasures, 
 that the whole six pages were, on an average, 
 compressed into two pages of print. This por- 
 tion he called his * task,' and he was never quite 
 easy unless he completed it daily. More he 
 seldom sought to accomplish ; for he had learned 
 by long experience that this was as much as he 
 could do at his best; and except when at his 
 best, he never would work at all. 'I had no 
 heart to write,' he says in his journal of March 
 6, 1851. * I am too self-indulgent in this matter, 
 it may be; and yet I attribute much of the 
 success which I have had to my habit of writing 
 only when I am in the humour, and of stopping 
 as soon as the thoughts and words cease to flow 
 fast. There are therefore few lees in my wine. 
 It is all the cream of the bottle.' 
 
 " Macaulay never allowed a sentence to pass 
 muster until it was as good as he could make it. 
 He thought little of recasting a chapter in order 
 to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing 
 whatever of reconstructing a paragraph for the 
 sake of one happy stroke or apt illustration. 
 Whatever the worth of his labour, at any rate it 
 was a labour of love. 
 
 ' Antonio Stradivari has an eye 
 That winces at false work, and loves the true.' 
 
 "When at length, after repeated revisions, 
 Macaulay had satisfied himself that his writing 
 was as good as he could make it, he would sub- 
 mit it to the severest of all tests, that of being 
 read aloud to others. Though he never ven- 
 tured on this experiment in the presence of any 
 except his own family, and his friend Mr Ellis, 
 it may well be believed that, even within that 
 restricted circle, he had no difficulty in finding 
 hearers. *I read,' he says, in December 1849, 
 *a portion of my " History" to Hannah and Tre- 
 velyany with great effect. Hannah cried and 
 Trevelyan kept awake. I think what I have 
 done as good as any part of the former yoiomec: 
 and so thinks Ellis.' 
 
LORD MACAULAY. 
 
 323 
 
 "Whenever one of his books was passing 
 through the press, Macaulay extended his inde- 
 fatigable industry and his scrupulous precision 
 to the minutest mechanical drudgery of the 
 literary calling. There was no end to the 
 trouble that he devoted to matters which most 
 authors are only too glad to leave to the care 
 and experience of their publisher. He could 
 not rest until the lines were level to a hair's 
 breadth, and the punctuation correct to a 
 comma; until every paragraph concluded with 
 a telling sentence, and every sentence flowed 
 like running water. I remember the pleasure 
 with which he showed us a communication from 
 one of the readers in Mr Spottiswoode's office, 
 who respectfully informed him that there was 
 one expression, and one only, throughout the 
 two volumes of which he did not catch the 
 meaning at a glance. And it must be rem em* 
 bered that Macaulay's punctilious attention to 
 details was prompted by an honest wish to in- 
 crease the enjoyment, and smooth the diffi- 
 culties, of those who did him the honour to buy 
 his books." 
 
 He was much amused in passing through the 
 streets of London to see a copy of Hume's 
 "History of England" exposed for sale in a 
 bookseller's window, with the label, "Only 
 £2, 2s., Hume's 'History of England,' in eight 
 volumes, highly valuable as an introduction to 
 Macaulay." In 1848 he was elected Lord Kector 
 of the University of Glasgow : in his inaugural 
 address he gave a retrospect of the history and 
 condition of the university at the commence- 
 ment of each successive century of its existence. 
 In 1849 he was offered the Professorship of 
 History at Cambridge, by the Prince Consort, 
 which he declined. The half of August of this 
 year he spent in Ireland, studying the literature 
 of the country. In 1850 Macaulay dined at the 
 Palace, and was presented to royalty, and in 
 January 1851 he was again at Windsor Castle. 
 "When we went into the drawing-room," he 
 says, " the Queen came to me with great anima- 
 tion, and insisted on my telling her some of my 
 stories, which she had heard at second hand 
 from George Grey. I certainly made her laugh 
 heartily. She talked on for some time, most 
 courteously and pleasantly. Nothing could be 
 more sensible than her remarks on German 
 affairs." In 1852 Macaulay was returned Mem- 
 ber of Parliament for Edinburgh, the enthusiasm 
 of his election not being confined to his own 
 party. He had no intention, says his bio- 
 grapher, of again aspiring to be a leader; and 
 he very soon was taught that he must not even 
 hope to count as an effective among the rank 
 and file of politicians. In the autumn of this 
 year, writing became a burden to him, and the 
 doctor pronounced his heart to be affected. In 
 March 1853, he wrote : " Last July was a crisis 
 in my life. I became twenty years older in 
 * week. A mile is more to me now than ten 
 
 miles a year ago." In the winter which fol- 
 lowed, he had an attack of bronchitis, and for 
 the remainder of his life was troubled with con- 
 firmed asthma, and was also tormented by fre- 
 quent fits of coughing; and in 1854, " instead of 
 writing, as on a pinch he loved to write, straight 
 on from his late and somewhat lazy breakfast 
 until the moment of dinner found him hungry 
 and complacent, with a heavy task successfully 
 performed, he was condemned, for the first time 
 in his life, to the detested necessity of breaking 
 the labours of the day bj' luncheon." 
 
 In 1853, on the occasion of an imperfect and 
 pirated edition of his speeches having been 
 issued by a London publisher, in self-defence 
 he himself prepared an authorised edition. 
 Shortly after its publication, he applied him- 
 self to his " History," a work which was now 
 the business and the pleasure of his life. He 
 ceased to be a Member of Parliament, and 
 formally resigned his seat in 1856. In No- 
 vember 1855, another instalment of the "His- 
 tory" was finished. The following entry is 
 from his journal of 23d November: "Long- 
 man came. All the 25,000 copies are ordered. 
 Monday, the 27th of December, is to be the 
 day. But on the evening of the preceding 
 Saturday, those booksellers who take more 
 than a thousand are to have their books. 
 The stock lying at the bookbinder's is insured 
 for £10,000. The whole weight is fifty-six tons. 
 It seems that no such edition was ever published 
 of any work of the same bulk. I earnestly hope 
 that neither age nor riches will narrow my 
 heart." 
 
 The sale of Macaulay's "History" within 
 but a generation of its first appearance, is 
 stated to have been 140,000 copies. Its sale ia 
 the United States was immense, rivalling that 
 of the Bible and one or two very popular school- 
 books. Six translators were at one time busy 
 translating rival editions into the German lan- 
 guage. Honours were plentifully bestowed 
 upon him. He was made a member of the 
 Academies of Utrecht, Munich, and Turin. He 
 was named a Knight of the Order of Merit by 
 the King of Prussia. He was elected a member 
 of the Institute of France, and the Oxford Uni- 
 versity conferred upon him the degree of Doctor 
 of Civil Law. In 1854 he was chosen President 
 of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. 
 Longman reported to him on the last day of 
 February 1856, that 26,500 copies of his "His- 
 tory" were sold in ten weeks. "I should not 
 wonder," he remarks in his diary on this success, 
 "if I made £20,000 this year by literature. 
 Pretty well, considering that twenty-two years 
 ago I had just nothing when my debts were 
 paid ; and all that I have, with the exception of 
 a small part left me by my uncle, the general, 
 has been made by myself." When the £20,000 
 had been paid over to his account by his pub- 
 lisher, he further remarked: "What a suju to 
 
324 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 be gained by one edition of a book ! I may say 
 gained in one day, but that was harvest-day. 
 The work had been near seven years in hand." 
 
 In 1856 Macaulay, after a farewell address 
 to his Edinburgh constituents, settled down in 
 retirement and well-earned leisure, in Holly 
 Lodge, a villa at Kensington, the garden and 
 surroundings of which he thoroughly enjoyed. 
 He went into society less than ever, but still en- 
 joyed a tour to the Continent. Macaulay never 
 was a speculator in money affairs, his jvigment 
 was always sound in any investments he made, 
 and his economical maxims were to treat official 
 and literary gains as capital, and to pay all his 
 bills within the twenty-four hours. Prompt 
 payments he looked upon as a moral duty, when 
 he reflected on the evils caused by deferred 
 payments. He spent freely on others, and he 
 was generous to the last to those who sought 
 his aid, even when he knew absolutely nothing 
 regarding them. 
 
 In August 1857, he was elevated to the peer- 
 age, with the title of Baron Macaulay of Rothe- 
 ley. On 1st October 1856, his journal showed 
 that he was again at work on the fifth volume 
 of his "History:" *'To the Museum, and turned 
 over the Dutch despatches for information about 
 the fire at Whitehall. Home, and wrote a sheet 
 of foolscap, the first of part iii. God knows 
 whether I shall ever finish that part. I begin 
 it with little heart or hope." In the summer of 
 1857 he remarks: "How the days steal away, 
 and nothing done ! I think often of Johnson's 
 lamentations repeated every Easter over his own 
 idleness. But the cases differ. Often I have 
 felt this morbid incapacity to work ; but never 
 so long and so strong as of late — the natural 
 effect of age and ease." On the 14th of July in 
 the same year: *'I wrote a good deal to-day; 
 Darien. The humour has returned, and I shall 
 woo it to continue. What better amusement 
 can I have, if it should prove no more than an 
 amusement." And again: "Read about the 
 Darien affair. It will be impossible to tell the 
 truth as to that matter without putting the 
 Scotch into a rage. But the truth shall be told." 
 
 "The intrinsic importance of the work on 
 which Macaulay was now engaged," says his 
 biographer, "could hardly be over-rated; for 
 the course of his ' History' had brought him to a 
 most momentous era in the political annals of 
 our country. It was his business to tell the 
 story, and to point the lesson, of the years from 
 1697 to 1701 — those years when the majority in 
 the House of Commons was already the strongest 
 force in the State, but when the doctrine that 
 the executive administration must be in the hands 
 of ministers who possessed the confidence of 
 that majority had not as yet been recognised as 
 a constitutional axiom. Nothing which he has 
 ever written is more valuable than his account 
 of the grave perils which beset the kingdom 
 during that period of transition, or than his 
 
 vivid and thoughtful commentary upon our 
 method of government by alternation of parties. 
 No passage in all his works more clearly illus- 
 trates the union of intellectual qualities which 
 formed the real secret of his strength — the com- 
 bination in one and the same man of literary 
 power, historical learning, and practical famili- 
 arity with the conduct of great affairs. . . . 
 
 " However effective were the episodes which 
 thickly strew the portion of his history that he 
 did not live to publish, there can be no question 
 that the alacrity with which he had once pursued 
 his great undertaking had begun to languish. ' 1 
 find it difficult,' he writes in February 1857, *to 
 settle to my work. This is an old malady of 
 mine. It has not prevented me from doing a 
 good deal in the course of my life. Of late 1 
 have felt this impotence more than usual. The 
 chief reason, I believe, is the great doubt which 
 I feel whether I shall live long enough to finish 
 another volume of my book.' He already knew, 
 to use the expression which he applied to the 
 dying William of Orange, 'that his time was 
 short, and grieved, with a grief such as only 
 noble spirits feel, to think that he must leave 
 his work but half finished.' " 
 
 In the autumn of 1859 he visited Scotland 
 and the north of England. While travelling he 
 was made the subject of much honour and at- 
 tention. The close of the year was saddened 
 by the thought of losing the companionship of 
 his sister Hannah by her removal to India, in 
 February of the following year. He drowned 
 these thoughts in absorbing study in his library. 
 But his health was failing rapidly. Four vol- 
 umes of his "History" were issued during his 
 lifetime.; the fifth, upon which he had been 
 working, and which had not received his final 
 revision, was published after his death, which 
 took place at Holly Lodge, in his sixtieth year, 
 December 28, 1859. He died peacefully in his 
 library, dressed and seated in his easy chair, 
 having ceased to breathe when in that posture, 
 with the first number of the Comhill Magazine 
 lying on the table beside him. "He died," 
 says Mr Trevelyan, "as he had always wished 
 to die, without pain, without any formal fare- 
 well, preceding to the grave all whom he loved, 
 and leaving behind him a great and honourable 
 name, and the memory of a life every action of 
 which was as clear and transparent as one of his 
 own sentences." His funeral took place on the 
 9th January 1860, and he was buried in Poets' 
 Corner, Westminster Abbey. The stone there 
 bears the inscription : 
 
 "Thomas Babingtow, Lord Macaulay, 
 
 Born at Rotheley Temple, Leicestershire, 
 
 October 25, 1800. 
 
 Died at Holly Lodge, Camden Hill, 
 
 December 28, 1859. 
 
 * His body is buried in peace, 
 
 but his name liveth for evermore.' " 
 
HUGH MILLER. 
 
 325 
 
 HUGH MIL LEE. 
 
 [1802-1856.] 
 
 The name of Hugh Miller is one which com- 
 mands universal regard and respect, whether 
 we view him as a geologist, a man of letters, or 
 as a stone-mason, who possessed sturdy indepen- 
 dence of character, and indomitable persever- 
 ance. In telling the story of his life we have at 
 least two good sources of information. There is 
 the interesting autobiography which he wrote, 
 " My Schools and Schoolmasters ; or, the Story 
 of my Education," and also "The Life and 
 Letters of Hugh Miller," by Peter Bayne, M. A. 
 Besides this, although not so generally recog- 
 nised at the time, Dr Guthrie paid him a hand- 
 some and deserved tribute for what he accom- 
 plished as editor of the Witness, in connection 
 with the Disruption in the Church of Scotland 
 of 1843. 
 
 Hugh Miller was born in the town of Cromarty, 
 10th October 1802. His father, who was brave 
 and gentle, and seldom angry without just cause, 
 had a strange dream regarding his first-born. 
 There was a dash of Celtic blood in his descent, 
 but his character belonged more to the Lowland 
 type. His paternal ancestors had all been sea- 
 faring men ; and for more than a hundred years 
 before his birth not one of these ancestors had 
 been laid to rest in the churchyard of Cromarty. 
 His own father perished at sea when he was but 
 live years old. Of this sad event, and before 
 the news of it had arrived at his home, Miller 
 writes : 
 
 "There were no forebodings in the master's 
 dwelling ; for his Peterhead letter — a brief but 
 hopeful missive — had been just received; and 
 my mother was sitting, on the evening after, 
 beside the household fire, plying the cheerful 
 needle, when the house door, which had been 
 left unfastened, fell open, and I was despatched 
 from her side to shut it. What follows must be 
 regarded as simply the recollection, though a 
 very vivid one, of a boy who had completed his 
 fifth year only a month before. Day had not 
 wholly disappeared, but it was fast posting on 
 to night, and a grey haze spread a neutral tint 
 of dimness over every more distant object, but 
 left the nearer ones comparatively distinct, 
 when I saw at the open door, within less than a 
 yard of my breast, as plainly as ever I saw any- 
 thing, a dissevered hand and arm stretched 
 towards me. Hand and arm were apparently 
 those of a female : they bore a livid and sodden 
 appearance; and directly fronting me, where 
 the body ought to have been, there was only 
 blank, transparent space, through which I could 
 see the dim forms of the objects beyond, I was 
 fearfully startled, and ran shrieking to my 
 
 mother, telling what I had seen ; and the house- 
 girl whom she next sent to shut the door, ap- 
 parently affected by my terror, also returned 
 frightened, and said that she too had seen the 
 woman's hand; which, however, did not seem 
 to be the case. And finally, my mother going 
 to the door, saw nothing, though she appeared 
 much impressed by the extremeness of my terror 
 and the minuteness of my description. I com- 
 municate the story, as it lies fixed in my 
 memory, without attempting to explain it 
 The supposed apparition may have been merely 
 a momentary affection of the eye, of the nature 
 described by Sir Walter Scott in his ** Demono- 
 logy," and Sir David Brewster in his " Natural 
 Magic." But if so, the affection was one of 
 which I experienced no after-return ; and its co- 
 incidence, in the case, with the probable time 
 of my father's death, seems at least curious." 
 
 This superstitious feeling was no doubt nursed 
 by his mother, who entertained a belief in fairies, 
 witches, dreams, ghosts, and presentiments. 
 She was but eighteen when married, while her 
 husband was forty-four. Young Hugh was 
 sent to a dame school, where he learned to 
 read, and during his sixth year spelt through 
 the Shorter Catechism, the Proverbs, and the 
 New Testament. He read the Old Testament 
 narrative, especially the story of Joseph, with 
 growing interest. He also perused those classics 
 for youth, "Jack the Giant Killer," "Jack and 
 the Bean Stalk," and followed them up with 
 Pope's Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey," and 
 Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." In process of 
 time he also devoured all the voyages, travels, 
 and romances upon which he could lay his 
 hands. His mother, a young widow with her 
 son of five, and two daughters emerging from 
 infancy, with a fixed income of but twelve 
 pounds, betook herself to her needle, and was 
 otherwise befriended by her two brothers, men- 
 tioned in "My Schools and Schoolmasters" 
 under the names of Uncle James and Uncle 
 Sandy. Thinking themselves called upon to 
 take his father's place in the work of his in- 
 struction and discipline. Miller remarks that he 
 owed much more of his real education to them, 
 than to any of the teachers whose schools he 
 afterwards attended. 
 
 •*My elder uncle, James," he writes, "added 
 to a clear head and much native sagacity, a 
 singularly retentive memory, and great thirst of 
 information. He was a harness-maker, and 
 wrought for the farmers of an extensive district 
 of country ; and as he never engaged either 
 journeyman or apprentice, but executed all hi 
 
326 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 work with his own hands, his hours of labour, 
 save that he indulged in a brief pause as the 
 twilight came on, and took a mile's walk or so, 
 were usually protracted from six o'clock in the 
 morning till ten at night. Such incessant occu- 
 pation left him little time for reading; but he 
 often found some one to read beside him during 
 the day ; and in the winter evenings his portable 
 bench used to be brought from his shop at the 
 other end of the dwelling, into the family 
 sitting-room, and placed beside the circle round 
 the hearth, where his brother Alexander, my 
 younger uncle, whose occupati(m left his even- 
 ings free, would read aloud from some interest- 
 ing volume for the general benefit — placing him- 
 self always at the opposite side of the bench, so 
 as to share in the light of the worker. Occa- 
 sionally the family circle would be widened by the 
 accession of from two to three intelligent neigh- 
 bours, who would drop in to listen ; and then 
 the book, after a space, would be laid aside, in 
 order that its contents might be discussed in 
 conversation. In the summer months Uncle 
 James always spent some time in the country, 
 in looking after and keeping in repair the har- 
 ness of the farmers for whom he wrought ; and 
 during his journeys and twilight walks on these 
 occasions there was not an old castle, or hill- 
 fort, or ancient encampment, or antique ecclesi- 
 astical edifice, within twenty miles of the town, 
 which he had not visited and examined over and 
 over again. He was a keen local antiquary; 
 knew a good deal about the architectural styles 
 of the various ages, at a time when these sub- 
 jects were little studied or known; and pos- 
 sessed more traditionary lore, picked up chiefly 
 in his country journeys, than any man I ever 
 knew. What he once heard he never forgot; 
 and the knowledge which he had acquired he 
 could communicate pleasingly and succinctly, 
 in a style which, had he been a writer of books, 
 instead of merely a reader of them, would have 
 had the merit of being clear and terse, and 
 more laden with meaning than words. From 
 his reputation for sagacity, his advice used to 
 be much sought after by the neighbours in 
 every little difiiculty that came their way ; and 
 the counsel given was always shrewd and 
 honest. I never knew a man more entirely 
 just in his dealings than Uncle James, or who 
 regarded every species of meanness with a more 
 thorough contempt. I soon learned to bring 
 my story-books to his workshop, and became, in 
 a small way, one of his readers — greatly more, 
 however, as may be supposed, on my own 
 account than his. My books were not yet of 
 the kind which he would have chosen for him- 
 self ; but he took an interest in my interest; 
 and his explanations of all the hard words 
 saved me the trouble of turning over a diction- 
 ary. And when tired of reading, I never failed 
 to find rare delight in his anecdotes and old- 
 world stories, many of which were not to be 
 
 found in books, and all of which, without ap. 
 parent effort on his own part, he could render 
 singularly amusing. Of these narratives, the 
 larger part died with him; but a portion of 
 them I succeeded in preserving in a little tradi- 
 tionary work published a few years after his 
 death. I was much a favourite with Uncle 
 James — even more, I am disposed to think, on 
 my father's account than on that of his sister, 
 my mother. My father and he had been close 
 friends for years; and in the vigorous and 
 energetic sailor he had found his beau-ideal of 
 a man. 
 
 "My Uncle Alexander was of a different cast 
 from his brother, both in intellect and tempera- 
 ment; but he was characterised by the same 
 strict integrity; and his religious feelings, 
 though quiet and unobtrusive, were perhaps 
 more deep. James was somewhat of a humorist, 
 and fond of a good joke. Alexander was grave 
 and serious; and never, save on one solitary 
 occasion, did I know him even attempt a jest. 
 On hearing an intelligent but somewhat eccen- 
 tric neighbour observe, that * all flesh is grass,' 
 in a strictly physical sense, seeing that all the 
 flesh of the herbivorous animals is elaborated 
 from vegetation, and all the flesh of the carnivor- 
 ous animals from that of the herbivorous ones, 
 Uncle Sandy remarked that, knowing, as he 
 did, the piscivorous habits of the Cromarty 
 folk, he should surely make an exception in his 
 generalisation, by admitting that in at least one 
 village * all flesh is fish.' My uncle had acquired 
 the trade of the cartwright, and was employed 
 in a workshop at Glasgow at the time the first 
 war of the French Eevolution broke out ; when, 
 moved by some such spirit as possessed his 
 uncle — the victim of Admiral Vernon's unlucky 
 expedition — or Old Donald Roy, when he 
 buckled himself to his Highland broadsword, 
 and set out in pursuit of the caterans— he 
 entered the navy. . . . 
 
 " Early on the Sabbath evenings I used regu- 
 larly to attend at my uncle's with two of my 
 maternal cousins, boys of about my own age, 
 and latterly with my two sisters, to be cate- 
 chised, first on the Shorter Catechism, and then 
 on the Mother's Catechism of Willison. On 
 Willison my uncles always cross-examined us, 
 to make sure that we understood the short and 
 simple questions ; but, apparently regarding the 
 questions of the Shorter Catechism as seed sown 
 for a future day, they were content with having 
 them well fixed in our memories. There was a 
 Sabbath class taught in the parish church at the 
 time by one of the elders ; but Sabbath-schoola 
 my uncles regarded as merely compensatory 
 institutions, highly creditable to the teachers, 
 but very discreditable indeed to the parents and 
 relatives of the taught; and so they of course 
 never thought of sending us there. Later in the 
 evening, after a short twilight walk, for which 
 the sedentary occupation of my Uncle James 
 
HUGH MILLER, 
 
 32: 
 
 formed an apology, but in which my Uncle 
 Alexander always shared, and which usually 
 led them into solitary woods, or along an unfre- 
 quented s««-shore, some of the old divines were 
 read ; and I used to take my place in the circle, 
 though, I am afraid, not to much advantage. I 
 occasionally caught a fact, or had my attention 
 arrested for a moment by a simile or metaphor ; 
 but the trains of close argument, and the 
 passages of dreary * application,' were always 
 lost." 
 
 "I quitted the dame's school at the end of the 
 first twelvemonth, after mastering that grand 
 acquirement of my life — the art of holding con- 
 verse with books, and was transferred straight- 
 forth to the grammar school of the parish, at 
 which there attended at this time about a hun- 
 dred and twenty boys, with a class of about 
 thirty individuals more, much looked down 
 upon by the others, and not deemed greatly 
 worth the counting, seeing that it consisted of 
 only lassies. . . . The building in which 
 we met was a low, long, straw-thatched cottage, 
 open from gable to gable, with a mud floor 
 below, and an unlathed roof above ; and stretch- 
 ing along the naked rafters, which, when the 
 master chanced to be absent for a few minutes, 
 gave noble exercise in climbing, there used fre- 
 quently to lie a helm, or oar, or boathook, or 
 even a foresail — the spoil of some hapless peat- 
 boat from the opposite side of the firth. . . . 
 The parish schoolmaster was a scholar and an 
 honest man, and if a boy really wished to learn, 
 he certainly could teach him. ... He was 
 in the habit of advising the parents or relations 
 of those he deemed his clever lads, to give them 
 a classical education ; and meeting one day with 
 Uncle James, he urged that I should be put on 
 Latin. I was a great reader, he said; and he 
 found that when I missed a word in my English 
 tasks, I almost always submitted a synonym in 
 the place of it. And so, as Uncle James had 
 arrived, on data of his own, at a similar conclu- 
 sion, I was transferred from the English to the 
 Latin form, and, with four other boys, fairly 
 entered on the *Eudiments.' I laboured with 
 tolerable diligence for a day or two ; but there 
 was no one to tell me what the rules meant, or 
 whether they really meant anything ; and when 
 I got on as far aspenna, a pen, and saw how the 
 changes were rung on one poor word, that did 
 not seem to be of more importance in the old 
 language than in the modern one, I began miser- 
 ably to flag, and to long for my English read- 
 ing, with its nice amusing stories, and its pic- 
 ture-like descriptions. The * Rudiments was by 
 far the dullest book I had ever seen. It em- 
 bodied no thought that I could perceive — it 
 certainly contained no narrative — it was a per- 
 fect contrast to not only the * Life and Adven- 
 tures of Sir William Wallace,' but to even the 
 voyages of Cook and Anson. None of my class- 
 fellows were bv any means bright; they had 
 
 been all set on Latin without advice of the 
 master; and yet, when he learned, which he 
 soon did, to distinguish and call us up to our 
 tasks by the name of the ' heavy class,' I was, 
 in most instances, to be found at its nether end. 
 Shortly after, however, when we got a little 
 further on, it was seen that I had a decided turn 
 for translation. The master, good simple man 
 that he was, always read to us in English, as 
 the school met, the piece of Latin given us as 
 our task for the day; and as my memory was 
 strong enough to carry away the whole transla- 
 tion in its order, I used to give him back in the 
 evening, word for word, his own rendering, 
 which satisfied him on most occasions tolerably 
 well. There were none of us much looked after; 
 and I soon learned to bring books of amusement 
 to the school with me, which, amid the Babel 
 confusion of the place, I contrived to read un- 
 detected. Some of them, save in the language 
 in which they were written, were identical with 
 the books proper to the place. I remember 
 perusing by stealth in this way Dryden's 
 'Virgil,' and the *Ovid' of Dryden and his 
 friends; while Ovid's own '^vdd ' and Virgil's 
 own 'Virgil' lay beside rr.3, sealed up in the 
 fine old tongue, which I ^.i&s thus throwing away 
 my only chance of acquiring. 
 
 "One morning, having the master's English 
 rendering of the day's task well fixed in my 
 memory, and no book of amusement to read, I 
 began gossiping with my nearest class-fellow, a 
 very tall boy, who ultimately shot up into a lad 
 of six feet four, and who on most occasions sat 
 beside me, as lowest in the form save one. I 
 told him about the tall Wallace and his exploits ; 
 and so eflfectually succeeded in awakening his 
 curiosity, that I had to communicate to him, 
 from beginning to end, every adventure recorded 
 by the blind minstrel. My story-telling voca- 
 tion once fairly ascertained, there was, I 
 found, no stopping in my course. I had to 
 tell all the stories I ever heard or read; all 
 my father's adventures, so far as I knew them, 
 and all my Uncle Sandy's — with the story oi 
 Gulliver, and Philip Quarll, and Robinson 
 Crusoe ; of Sindbad, and Ulysses, and Mrs Rad- 
 cliffe's heroine Emily, with, of course, the love 
 passages left out; and at length, after weeks 
 and months of narrative, I found my available 
 stock of acquired fact and fiction fairly exhausted. 
 The demand on the part of my class-fellows 
 was, however, as great and urgent as ever ; and, 
 setting myself, in the extremity of the case, to 
 try my ability of original production, I began to 
 dole out to them by the hour and the diet, long 
 extempore biographies, which proved wonder- 
 ful'ly popular and successful. My heroes were 
 usually warriors like Wallace, and voyagers 
 like Gulliver, and dwellers in desolate islands 
 like Robinson Crusoe; and they had not un- 
 frequently to seek shelter in huge deserted 
 castles, abounding in trap-doors and secret 
 
passages, like that of Udolpho. . . . With 
 all my carelessness, I continued to be a sort of 
 favourite with the master; and, when at the 
 general English lesson, he used to address to me 
 little quiet speeches, vouchsafed to no other 
 pupil, indicative of a certain literary ground 
 common to us, on which the others had not en- 
 tered. 'That, sir,' he has said, after the class 
 had just perused, in the school collection, a 
 Toiler or Spectator — 'that, sir, is a good paper 
 — it's an Addison;' or, 'That's one of Steele's, 
 sir;' and on finding in my copy-book, on one 
 occasion, a page filled with rhymes, which I 
 had headed ' Poem on Care,' he brought it to his 
 desk, and, after reading it carefully over, called 
 me up, and with his closed penknife, which 
 served as a pointer, in the one hand, and the 
 copy-book brought down to the level of my eyes 
 in the other, began his criticism. * That's bad 
 grammar, sir,' he said, resting his knife-handle 
 on one of the lines; 'and here's an ill-spelt 
 word ; and there's another ; and you have not at 
 all attended to the punctuation ; but the general 
 sense of the piece is good — ^very good indeed, 
 sir.' And then he added, with a grim smile, 
 * Care, sir, is, I daresay, as you remark, a very 
 bad thing ; but you may safely bestow a little 
 more of it on your spelling and your grammar. ' " 
 "There were several other branches of my 
 education going on at this time outside the pale 
 of the school, in which, though I succeeded in 
 aaausing myself, I was no trifler. The shores of 
 Cromarty are strewed over with water-rolled 
 fragments of the primary rocks, derived chiefly 
 from the west during the ages of the boulder 
 clay ; and I soon learned to take a deep interest 
 in sauntering over the various pebble-beds when 
 shaken up by recent storms, and in learning to 
 distinguish their numerous components. But I 
 was sadly in want of a vocabulary; and as, 
 according to Cowper, 'the growth of what is 
 excellent is slow,' it was not until long after 
 that I bethought me of the obvious enough 
 expedient of representing the various species of 
 simple rocks by certain numerals, and the 
 compound ones by the numerals representative 
 of each separate component, ranged, as in vul- 
 gar fractions, along a medial line, with the 
 figures representative of the prevailing materials 
 of the mass above, and those representative of 
 the materials in less proportions below. Though, 
 however, wholly deficient in the signs proper to 
 represent what I knew, I soon acquired a con- 
 siderable quickness of eye in distinguishing the 
 various kinds of rock, and tolerably definite 
 conceptions of the generic character of the por- 
 phyries, granites, gneisses, quartz-rocks, clay- 
 slates, and mica -schists, which everywhere 
 strewed the beach. In the rocks of mechanical 
 origin I was at this time much less interested ; 
 but in individual, as in general history, minera- 
 logy almost always precedes geology." 
 When twelve years of age Miller wrote some 
 
 verses on a singular adventure which he and 
 another companion experienced in a place called 
 the Doocot Cave. He wrote four successive 
 accounts of this experience. The first was 
 executed in enormously bad verse, which, how- 
 ever, excited the wonder of Miss Bond, the 
 mistress of the Cromarty boarding-school; at 
 nineteen he altered and polished the verses ; in 
 the vigour of early manhood he described the 
 adventure in a letter to Principal Baird; and 
 when over fifty years of age, he gave the most 
 glowing and perfect account of all in "Schools 
 and Schoolmasters." 
 
 After this romantic occurrence he visited some 
 friends in the Highlands of Sutherland, which 
 had the effect of familiarising his mind with the 
 scenery, character, and condition of the High- 
 lands. At this time he showed considerable 
 activity of mind in the peculiar character of his 
 amusements. He made small vessels like those 
 he had read about in the voyages of Anson and 
 Cook, and launched them in a horse-pond. In 
 turn he tried chemistry, and painting, and 
 sculpture, and palmistry. He would also draw 
 a map of a particular country in the sand, and, 
 having collected quantities of variously-coloured 
 shells from the beach, he arranged them in such 
 a way as to represent its inhabitants. Or head- 
 ing a band of schoolfellows, they would pene- 
 trate one of the steepest precipices on the south 
 foot of the Hill of Cromarty, and personate out- 
 laws and buccaneers. Meanwhile his mother 
 and uncles found him a troublesome lad to 
 manage. He would sometimes play truant from 
 school for three weeks out of four, and he con- 
 tinued obstinate and wilful. In the winter of 
 1816 he lost both his two little sisters, and 
 could not but be touched at his mother's grief. 
 His schooling finished when he was fifteen in a 
 pitched battle with his teacher. Before that 
 time he had proved himself a desperate fighter 
 in his combats with the other boys. In his 
 fight with his master he was mauled in a way 
 that filled him with aches and bruises for a full 
 month after. 
 
 After a widowhood of more than thirteen years 
 his mother married again, and he was forced to 
 begfn and work in earnest at some trade. So 
 he determined being a mason. Without object- 
 ing to the match, "you may be certain," he 
 wrote to a friend some years later, "that it 
 gave me much disgust at the time." In making 
 this decision, he thought that perhaps literature 
 or natural science might be his proper vocation, 
 but at the same time he determined that much 
 of his leisure, in spite of his misspent youth, 
 should be given to the study of the best English 
 authors. His Uncle James would have liked 
 had he chosen some of the learned professions 
 requiring a college training, such as a lawyer or 
 a minister. But as they were all decided that a 
 minister could not be manufactured by a few 
 years' study, they at length consented that h^ 
 
HUGH MILLER, 
 
 329 
 
 should begin a life of manual labour. He was 
 accordingly apprenticed to the husband of one 
 of his maternal aunts for a term of three years, 
 and he began work in earnest. "Noble, up- 
 right, self-relying toil !" he writes. " Who that 
 knows thy solid worth and value would be 
 ashamed of thy hard hands, and thy soiled 
 vestments, and thy obscure tasks — thy humble 
 cottage, and hard couch, and homely fare ! 
 Save for thee and thy lessons, man in society 
 would everywhere sink into a sad compound of 
 the fiend and the wild beast; and this fallen 
 world would be as certainly a moral as a 
 natural wilderness. But I little thought of the 
 excellence of thy character and of thy teachings, 
 when, with a heavy heart, I set out about this 
 time, on a morning of early spring, to take my 
 first lesson from thee in a sandstone quarry." 
 The work oppressed his growing frame at first, 
 but use gave ease to the young stone-mason. 
 How he escaped the vice of "dram-drinking" is 
 thus related by himself : " The drinking usages 
 of the profession in which I laboured were at 
 this time many: when a foundation was laid, 
 the workmen were treated to drink ; they were 
 treated to drink when the walls were levelled 
 for laying the joists ; they were treated to drink 
 when the building was finished; they were 
 treated to drink when an apprentice joined the 
 squad; treated to drink when his 'apron was 
 washed ; ' treated to drink when * his time was 
 out;' and occasionally they learned to treat one 
 another to drink. In laying down the founda- 
 tion-stone of one of the larger houses built this 
 year by Uncle David and his partner, the work- 
 men had a royal 'founding-pint,' and two 
 whole glasses of the whisky came to my share. 
 A full-grown man would not have deemed a gill 
 of usquebaugh an overdose, but it was consider- 
 ably too much for me; and when the party 
 broke up, and I got home to my books, I found, 
 as I opened the pages of a favourite author, the 
 letters dancing before my eyes, and that I could 
 no longer master the sense. I have the volume 
 at present before me — a small edition of the 
 essays of Bacon, a good deal worn at the cor- 
 ners by the friction of the pocket ; for of Bacon 
 I never tired. The condition into which I had 
 brought myself was, I felt, one of degradation. 
 I had sunk, by my own act, for the time, to a 
 lower level of intelligence than that on which it 
 was my privilege to be placed ; and though the 
 state could have been no very favourable one for 
 forming a resolution, I in that hour determined 
 that I should never again sacrifice my capacity 
 of intellectual enjoyment to a drinking usage ; 
 nnd, with God's help, I was enabled to hold by 
 the determination." 
 
 During the winter when mason work was no 
 longer possible, he paid a visit to Strathcarron, 
 a wild Highland glen, where he made some 
 observations on a Scotch pine forest. His year 
 c<f toil had rendered him sober and thoughtful. 
 
 He formed a bosom friend in a young house- 
 painter called William Ross. "He was a lad 
 of genius," writes Miller, "drew truthfully, had 
 a nice sense of the beautiful, and possessed the 
 true poetic faculty; but he lacked health and 
 spirits, and was naturally of a melancholy tem- 
 perament, and difl&dent of himself." This 
 friendship was of the highest importance to 
 Miller. Ross told him that his drawings and 
 verses were but commonplace, that he would 
 be better employed in cultivating his writing 
 powers, in turning his attention to the cultiva- 
 tion of a good prose style. In the spring of 
 1821, work was again resumed. He laboured 
 for a while at Cononside, and was introduced 
 for the first time to the barrack or bothy life 
 amongst a squad of rough masons. Amid this 
 barbarous life he was not entirely unhappy. 
 Their.food consisted for the most part of oatmeal 
 porridge or cakes, and milk when it could be 
 got. He was charmed with the scenery of 
 Strathpeflfer, about five miles from Cononside; 
 and during the summer nights when he had 
 from three to four hours to himself, he could 
 explore the valleys and climb the ridges of the 
 hills with which he was surrounded. He dived 
 into the woods and feasted on the raspberries 
 and gueans to be found there. ' ' My recollec- 
 tions," he said afterwards, "of this rich tract 
 of country, with its woods and towers, and 
 noble river, seem as if bathed in the red light 
 of gorgeous sunsets." In a letter to William 
 Ross, he thus spoke of this period : " When the 
 task of the day was over, and I walked out 
 amid the fields and woods to enjoy the cool of 
 the evening, it was then that I was truly happy. 
 Before me the Conon rolled her broad stream to 
 the sea ; behind, I seemed shut up from all in- 
 tercourse with mankind by a thick and gloomy 
 wood, while the tower of Fairburn, and the 
 blue hills behind it, formed the distant land- 
 scape. Not a cloud rose upon the sky, not a 
 salmon glided beneath me in the river, nor a 
 leaf shook upon the alders that o'erhung the 
 stream, but raised some poetic emotion in my 
 breast." The next winter and spring were 
 spent at Cromarty, where he again met William 
 Ross, but in the working season of 1822 he 
 returned to Cononside. In a letter written at 
 this period, he says : "I had determined early 
 this season to conform to every practice of the 
 barrack, and as I was an apt pupil, I had in a 
 short time become one of the freest, and not the 
 least rude of its inmates. I became an ex- 
 cellent baker, and one of the most skilful of 
 cooks. I made wonderful advances in the art 
 of practical joking, and ray bon-mots were 
 laughed at and repeated. There were none of 
 my companions who could foil me in wrestling, or 
 who could leap within a foot of me ; and after 
 having taken the slight liberty of knocking down 
 a young fellow who insulted me, they all began 
 to esteem me as a lad of spirit and promise." 
 
330 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 The neighbourhood of Cononside enabled 
 Miller to extend his geologic explorations in a 
 definite direction. He had been urged by the 
 foreman of the squad with which he was con- 
 nected to study geometry and architecture, and 
 these he pursued for some time. He finished 
 his apprenticeship on the 11th November 1822, 
 amidst great hardship, while working at a wall 
 and farm-steading in the neighbourhood of Crom- 
 arty, often standing " day after day with wet feet 
 in a water-logged ditch." "How these poor 
 hands of mine," he says, "burnt and beat at 
 night at this time, as if an unhappy heart had 
 been stationed in every finger; and what cold 
 chills used to run, sudden as electric shocks, 
 through the feverish frame." Ere the winter was 
 over he had gained his ordinary robust health. 
 
 "I read, wrote, drew," he says, "corre- 
 sponded with my friend William Boss (who 
 had removed to Edinburgh), re-examined the 
 Eathie Lias, and re-explored the Eathie Burn — 
 a noble Old Red Sandstone ravine, remarkable 
 for the wild picturesqueness of its cliffs and the 
 beauty of its cataracts. I spent, too, many an 
 evening in Uncle James's workshop, on better 
 terms with both my uncles than almost ever 
 before — a consequence, in part, of the sober 
 complexion which, as the seasons passed, my 
 mind was gradually assuming, and in part, of 
 the manner in which I had completed my en- 
 gagement with my master. 'Act always,' said 
 Uncle James, ' as you have done in this matter. 
 In all your dealings, give your neighbour the 
 cast of the hauk — "good measure, heaped up 
 and running over " — and you will not lose by it 
 in the end.' I certainly did not lose by faith- 
 fully serving out my tyrni of apprenticeship. 
 It is not uninstructive to observe how strangely 
 the public are led at times to attach paramount 
 importance to what is in reality only subordin- 
 ate^y important, and to pass over the really para- 
 mount without thought or notice. The destiny 
 in life of the skilled mechanic is much more 
 influenced, for instance, by his second educa- 
 tion — that of his apprenticeship — than by his 
 first — that of the school; and yet it is to the 
 education of the school that the importance is 
 generally regarded as attaching, and we never 
 hear of the other. The careless, incompetent 
 scholar has many opportunities of recovering 
 himself; the careless, incompetent apprentice, 
 who either fails to serve out his regular time, or 
 who, though he fulfils his term, is discharged 
 an inferior workman, has very few ; and further, 
 nothing can be more certain than that inferior- 
 ity as a workman bears much more disastrously 
 on the condition of the mechanic than inferior- 
 ity as a scholar. Unable to maintain his place 
 among brother journeymen, or to render him- 
 self worthy of the average wages of his craft, 
 the ill-taught mechanic falls out of regular em- 
 ployment, subsists precariously for a time on 
 occasional jobs, and either, forming idle habits. 
 
 becomes a vagabond tramper, or, getting intp 
 the toils of some rapacious task -master, be- 
 comes an enslaved sweater. For one workman 
 injured by neglect of his school education, there 
 are scores ruined by neglect of their apprentice- 
 ship education. Three-fourths of the distress 
 of the country's mechanics (of course not reckon- 
 ing that of the unhappy class who have to com- 
 pete with machinery), and nine-tenths of theii 
 vagabondism, will be found restricted to in. 
 ferior workmen, who, like Hogarth's * careless 
 apprentice,' neglected the opportunities of their 
 second term of education. The sagacious painter 
 had a truer insight into this matter than most of 
 our modern educationists." 
 
 Miller's first kindly act on becoming a jour- 
 neyman was to build a cottage for his Aunt 
 Jenny, on a piece of ground he had inherited 
 from his father in Cromarty. The cottage still 
 stands a worthy monument of such an act. In 
 his correspondence with William Ross, who was 
 now in Edinburgh, he enclosed from time to 
 time a selection from his poems. These poems, 
 says Mr Bayne, " are fluent and vivacious, but 
 display little original power or depth of melody." 
 In midsummer 1823 he found work at Gairloch, 
 on the west coast of Ross-shire. He was now 
 not yet twenty-one, and the different hovels he 
 lived in were damp and uncomfortable, and his 
 food was of the plainest, often oatmeal without 
 milk. The winter of 1823 he spent as usual at 
 Cromarty, but a small property at Leith having 
 been left to his mother, which had been a con- 
 stant source of annoyance ever since his father's 
 death, he left in the spring of 1824 to investi- 
 gate the affair on the spot. He had also deter- 
 mined to try his fortune among the stone-cutters 
 of Edinburgh, "perhaps the most skilful in 
 their profession in the world." On the fourth 
 day after leaving Cromarty, his vessel was thread- 
 ing the waters of the Firth of Forth. " Many a 
 long-cherished association drew my thoughts to 
 Edinburgh. I was acquainted with Ramsay, 
 and Fergusson, and the ' Humphrey Clinker ' of 
 Smollett, and had read a description of the 
 place in the * Marmion ' and the earlier novels 
 of Scott ; and I was not yet too old to feel as if 
 I were approaching a great magical city — like 
 some of those in the 'Arabian Nights' — that 
 was even more intensely poetical than natm'e 
 itself. I did somewhat chide the tantalising 
 mist, that, like a capricious showman, now 
 raised one corner of its curtain, and anon 
 another, and showed me the place at once very 
 indistinctly, and only by bits at a time; and 
 yet I know not that I could in reality have seen 
 it to greater advantage, or after a mode more in 
 harmony with my previous conceptions. The 
 water in the harbour was too low during the 
 first hour or two after our arrival to float our 
 vessel, and we remained tacking in the road- 
 stead, watching for the signal from the pier- 
 head, which was to intimate to us when the tide 
 
HUGH MILLER. 
 
 331 
 
 had risen high enough for our admission ; and 
 so I had sufficient time given me to con over the 
 features of the scene, as presented in detail. 
 At one time a flat reach of the New Town 
 came full into view, along which, in the general 
 dimness, the multitudinous chimneys stood up 
 like stacks of corn in a field newly reaped ; at 
 another, the Castle loomed out dark in the 
 cloud ; then, as if suspended over the earth, the 
 rugged summit of Arthur's Seat came strongly 
 out, while its base still remained invisible in the 
 wreath; and anon I caught a glimpse of the 
 distant Pentlands, enveloped by a clear blue 
 sky, and lighted up by the sun. Leith, with its 
 thicket of masts, and its tall round tower, lay 
 deep in shade in the foreground — a cold, dingy, 
 ragged town, but so strongly relieved against the 
 pale smoky grey of the background, that it 
 seemed another little city of Zoar, entire in 
 front of the burning." 
 
 Hugh Miller visited the burying-grounds, the 
 churches, and the various places of historical 
 interest in and around Edinburgh, and found 
 employment at his trade at Niddrie House, in 
 the neighbourhood. That his life there minis- 
 tered to his growth is abundantly evident, 
 although the workmen with whom he was ob- 
 liged to associate were many of them of a low 
 type of character. After working two seasons 
 at Niddrie he returned to Cromarty, where he 
 was welcomed by his uncle, his cousin George, 
 and other relatives. His two years' work had 
 given him the ** stone-cutter's malady," which 
 probably weakened his lungs for life. At home 
 he renewed acquaintanceship with John Swan- 
 son, and corresponded with William Ross, 
 whom he had left in Edinburgh. His friend- 
 ship and correspondence with Swanson was of 
 immense benefit to him from a religious point of 
 view. Swanson would not let young Miller rest 
 until he had asked of himself a reason for the 
 faith that was in him. In January 1826 he 
 wrote to this effect : " Go on, my dear Hugh, go 
 on, and the Lord himself will bless you. If 
 you are not under the teaching of the Spirit of 
 God I am deceived, and if I do not find you 
 soon established in the way of happiness, peace, 
 and life, I shall be miserably disappointed." 
 Miller in turn, in writing to his friend Ross, 
 assumed the same tone of friendly earnestness 
 regarding his highest welfare. He had in the 
 meantime pursued his occupation as stone- 
 cutter, as health and opportunity permitted. 
 In the spring of 1828 he drew up a list, headed, 
 "Things which I intend doing, but many of 
 which, experience says, shall never be done." 
 This list comprised many projects in geometry, 
 architecture, sculpture, and in literary prose 
 composition. In the summer he formed the 
 acquaintanceship of Mr Robert Carruthers, 
 editor of the Inverness Courier, which was after- 
 wards of so much use to him, Mr Carruthers 
 printed for him a collection of his verses, under 
 
 the title of "Poems written in the Leisure 
 Hours of a Journeyman Mason," and his book 
 met with a moderate success. Amongst the 
 friends which the publication of his poems pro- 
 cured for him was a Mr Strahan, who also 
 wrote poetry. One of his sons was Alexander 
 Strahan, whom Miller introduced to Messrs 
 Johnstone & Hunter, publishers, Edinburgh, 
 with a view of learning the business, and who 
 has since become well known in the publishing 
 world. 
 
 After many experiments in versification, he 
 made up his mind that poetry was not his proper 
 vocation, and accordingly he next tried prose. 
 His famous letters on the herring fishing were 
 written for the Inverness Courier in the sum- 
 mer of 1829, and attracted much attention. 
 The publication of his poems, though anony- 
 mous, yet made him the literary lion of Crom- 
 arty, and extended his friendships even beyond. 
 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Mr Isaac Forsyth of 
 Elgin, Miss Dunbar of Boath, and Principal 
 Baird, for whom he wrote a sketch of his life up 
 till 1825, all gave him their patronage in the 
 disposal of his volume. In 1831 he was vitally 
 concerned in a newspaper correspondence. The 
 minister of the Gaelic chapel, Cromarty, had 
 petitioned to the eff'ect that he either be assigned 
 a parish within the bounds of the parish ol 
 Cromarty, or a collegiate charge with Rev. Mr 
 Stewart. Hugh Miller acted as the mouthpiece 
 of nearly eight hundred of his fellow parishion- 
 ers, and the letters in the newspapers and the 
 pamphlet he published were successful in avert- 
 ing the possibility of this proposal becoming a 
 reality. 
 
 While working in the churchyard at his occu- 
 pation of stone-cutting he had occasional visi- 
 tors. His own minister would come and chat 
 with him for hours together, and he also saw Sir 
 Thomas Dick Lauder and Professor Pillans while 
 thus engaged. In the summer of 1831 he first 
 saw his future wife. Miss Lydia Mackenzie 
 Fraser. Talking with two ladies beside a sun- 
 dial in his uncle's garden, she ' ' came hurriedly 
 tripping down the garden-walk" and joined 
 them. She was in her nineteenth year at the 
 time, and, as described by Miller, "she was 
 very pretty, with a light petite figure, waxen 
 clearness of complexion, making her look more 
 like a fair child than a grown woman," 
 
 The growth of the intimacy with Miss Fraser 
 is thus pleasantly told in Miller's autobiography ; 
 
 "Only a few evenings after, I met the same 
 young lady, in circumstances of which the 
 writer of a tale might have made a little more. 
 I was sauntering, just as the sun was sinking, 
 along one of my favourite walks on the hill — a 
 tree-skirted glade — now looking out through the 
 openings on the ever fresh beauties of the 
 Cromarty Firth, with its promontories, and 
 bays, and long lines of winding shore, and anon 
 marking how redly the slant light fell through 
 
332 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 intersticial gaps on pale lichened trunks and 
 huge boughs, in the deeper recesses of the wood 
 — when I found myself unexpectedly in the 
 presence of the young lady of the previous 
 evening. She was sauntering through the wood 
 as leisurely as myself — now and then dipping 
 into a rather bulky volume which she carried, 
 that had not in the least the look of a novel, 
 and which, as I subsequently ascertained, was 
 an elaborate essay on causation. We, of course, 
 passed each other on our several ways without 
 sign of recognition. Quickening her pace, how- 
 ever, she was soon out of sight; and I just 
 thought, on one or two occasions afterwards, of 
 the apparition that had been presented as she 
 passed, as much in keeping with the adjuncts — 
 the picturesque forest and the gorgeous sunset. 
 It would not be easy, I thought, were the large 
 book but away, to furnish a very lovely scene 
 with a more suitable figure. Shortly after, I 
 began to meet the young lady at the charming 
 tea-parties of the place. Her father, a worthy 
 man, who, from unfortunate speculations in 
 business, had met with severe losses, was at 
 this time several years de- \ ; and his widow 
 had come to reside in Cromarty, on a somewhat 
 limited income, derived from property of her 
 own. Liberally assisted, however, by relations 
 in England, she had been enabled to send her 
 daughter to Edinburgh, where the young lady 
 received all the advantages which a first-rate 
 education could confer. By some lucky chance, 
 she was there boarded, with a few other ladies, 
 in early womanhood, in the family of Mr George 
 Thomson, the well-known correspondent of 
 Burns ; and passed under his roof some of her 
 happiest years. Mr Thomson — himself an en- 
 thusiast in art — strove to inoculate the youthful 
 inmates of his house with the same fervour, and 
 to develop whatever seeds of taste or genius 
 might be found in them ; and, characterised till 
 the close of a life extended far beyond the 
 ordinary term by the fine chivalrous manners 
 of the thorough gentleman of the old school, 
 his influence over his young friends was very 
 great, and his endeavours, in at least some of 
 the instances, very successful. And in none, 
 perhaps, was he more so than in the case of the 
 young lady of my narrative. From Edinburgh 
 she went to reside with the friends in England 
 to whose kindness she had been so largely in- 
 debted ; and with them she might have perma- 
 nently remained, to enjoy the advantages of 
 superior position. She was at an age, however, 
 which rarely occupies itself in adjusting the 
 balance of temporal advantage; and her only 
 brother having been admitted, through the 
 interest of her friends, as a pupil into Christ's 
 Hospital, she preferred returning to her widowed 
 mother, left solitary in consequence, though 
 with the prospect of being obliged to add to 
 her resources by taking a few of the children of 
 the town as day-pupils. 
 
 "Her claim to take her place in the intel- 
 lectual circle of the burgh was soon recognised. 
 I found that, misled by the extreme youthful- 
 ness of her appearance, and a marked juvenility 
 of manner, I had greatly mistaken the young 
 lady. That she should be accomplished in the 
 ordinary sense of the term — that she should 
 draw, play, and sing well — would be what I 
 should have expected ; but I was not prepared 
 to find that, mere girl as she seemed, she should 
 have a decided turn, not for the lighter, but for 
 the severer walks of literature, and should have 
 already acquired the ability of giving expression 
 to her thoughts in a style formed on the best 
 English models, and not in the least like that of 
 a young lady. The original shyness wore away, 
 and we became great friends, I was nearly ten 
 years her senior, and had read a great many 
 more books than she ; and, finding me a sort of 
 dictionary of fact, ready of access, and with ex- 
 planatory notes attached, that became long or 
 short just as she pleased to draw them out by 
 her queries, she had, in the course of her 
 amateur studies, frequent occasion to consult 
 me. There were, she saw, several ladies of her 
 acquaintance, who used occasionally to converse 
 with me in the churchyard; but in order to 
 make assurance doubly sure respecting the per- 
 fect propriety of such a proceeding on her part, 
 she took the laudable precaution of stating the 
 case to her mother's landlord, a thoroughly 
 sensible man, one of the magistrates of the 
 burgh, and an elder of the kirk ; and he at once 
 certified that there was no lady of the place who 
 might not converse, without remark, as often 
 and as long as she pleased with me. And so, 
 fully justified, both by the example of her 
 friends — all very judicious women, some of 
 them only a few years older than herself — and 
 by the deliberate judgment of a very sensible 
 man, the magistrate and elder — my young lady 
 friend learned to visit me in the churchyard, 
 just like the other ladies ; and, latterly at least, 
 considerably oftener than any of them. We 
 used to converse on all manner of subjects con- 
 nected with the belles lettres and the philosophy 
 of mind, with, so far as I can at present remem- 
 ber, only one marked exception. On that 
 mysterious affection which sometimes springs 
 up between persons of the opposite sexes when 
 thrown much together — though occasionally dis- 
 cussed by the metaphysicians, and much sung 
 by the poets — we by no chance ever touched. 
 Love formed the one solitary subject which, 
 from some curious contingency, invariably 
 escaped us. 
 
 **And yet, latterly at least, I had begun to 
 think about it a good deal. Nature had not 
 fashioned me one of the sort of people who fall 
 in love at first sight. I had even made up my 
 mind to live a bachelor life, without being very 
 much impressed by the magnitude of the sacri- 
 fice ; but I daresay it did mean something, that 
 
HUGH MILLER. 
 
 333 
 
 in my solitary walks for the preceding fourteen 
 or fifteen years, a female companion often 
 walked in fancy by my side, with whom I ex- 
 changed many a thought, and gave expression 
 to many a feeling, and to whom I pointed out 
 many a beauty in the landscape, and communi- 
 cated many a curious fact, and whose under- 
 standing was as vigorous as her taste was fault- 
 less and her feelings exquisite." 
 
 Mrs Eraser finding out the state of affairs, and 
 afraid that her daughter might form an alliance 
 with a mechanic, interdicted the correspondence 
 between the two for a time. The young lady 
 was disconsolate at this. Her mother finding 
 out that on the whole it would be more judicious 
 to permit them to meet together, when things 
 had gone thus far, removed the interdict, and 
 they were again permitted to enjoy each other's 
 society. An understanding was arrived at 
 between them. They were to remain for three 
 years more on the existing terms of intimacy, 
 when, should no suitable field of exertion occur 
 for Miller at home, they were then to quit the 
 country for America. With a view of proving 
 what he could do in the field of literature 
 and editorial work, he resolved to publish his 
 ** Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland ; 
 or, the Traditional History of Cromarty." This 
 was attended with some difficulty, but it was 
 eventually published by Adam Black of Edin- 
 burgh. At this time occurred what he has 
 termed one of the special providences of his 
 life. The Commercial Bank of Scotland having 
 decided to start a branch in Cromarty, Miller 
 was offered the accountantship of the branch 
 bank, without any security being required- 
 This post he accepted, and travelled south to 
 Edinburgh for instructions and initiation into 
 the mysteries of banking. Linlithgow, a town 
 west from Edinburgh, was chosen as the place 
 where he would receive the training which was 
 necessary for a bank-agent. Looking backwards 
 at this period, he says : *' I had wrought as an 
 operative mason, including my term of appren- 
 ticeship, for fifteen years — no inconsiderable 
 portion of the more active part of a man's life ; 
 but the time was not altogether lost. I enjoyed 
 in these years fully the average amount of 
 happiness, and learned to know more of the 
 Scottish people than is generally known. Let 
 me add — for it seems to be very much the 
 fashion of the time to draw dolorous pictures 
 of the condition of the labouring classes — that 
 from the close of the first year in which I 
 wrought as a journeyman up till I took final 
 leave of the mallet and chisel, I never knew 
 what it was to want a shilling; that my two 
 uncles, my grandfather, and the mason with 
 whom I served my apprenticeship — all working- 
 men — had had a similar experience ; and that it 
 was the experience of my father also." He was 
 also deeply conscious at this time of the change 
 ^rhich had passed over him since meeting with 
 
 Miss Eraser. He could write thus to her: 
 " How very inefficient, my L , are the friend- 
 ships of earth ! My heart is bound up in you, 
 and yet I can only wish and regret, and — yes, 
 pray. Well, that is something. I cannot regu- 
 late your pulses, nor dissipate your pains, nor 
 give elasticity to your spirits ; but I can implore 
 on your behalf the great Being who can. . . . 
 I would fain be rich, that I might render you 
 comfortable; powerful, that I might raise you 
 to those high places of society which you are 
 so fitted to adorn; celebrated, that the world 
 might justify your choice." After a five years' 
 courtship, on the 7th January 1837 the two 
 were happily united, when his salary, with a 
 small addition from the earnings of his wife, 
 who kept a few pupils, did not amount to much 
 more than £100 a year. 
 
 He was now at Cromarty, a regular bank- 
 agent, and as usual investigating and looking 
 about for any opening which might present itself, 
 by which he could turn his leisure hours to ac- 
 count. Accordingly he contributed as many tales 
 as would form a volume to the serial publication 
 called Wilson's "Border Tales." This brought 
 him about £25. The publication of his *' Scenes 
 and Legends" had established his fame as a 
 writer of vigorous prose. Leigh Hunt and 
 Robert Chambers each spoke well of it in 
 their respective journals ; and Dr Hetherington 
 "made it the subject of an elaborate and very 
 friendly critique in the Presbyterian Review." 
 His life at this time he thus described in a 
 letter to Mr Robert Chambers : "I am leading 
 a quiet and very happy life in this remote 
 corner, with perhaps a little less time than I 
 know what to do with, but by no means over- 
 toiled. A good wife is a mighty addition to a 
 man's happiness ; and mine, whom I have been 
 courting for about six years, and am still as 
 much in love with as ever, is one of the best. 
 My mornings I devote to composition ; my days 
 and the early part of the evening I spend in the 
 bank ; at night I have again an hour or two to 
 myself; my Saturday afternoons are given to 
 pleasure — some sea excursion, for I have got a 
 little boat of my own, or some jaunt of observa- 
 tion among the rocks and woods ; and Sunday as 
 a day of rest closes the round." Here he wrote 
 several articles for Chambers's Journal. One or 
 two of his sketches having been returned to 
 him by the Scottish Christian Herald, he thus 
 moralises, in the style of Dr Arnold regarding the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge : 
 "I would fain see a few good periodicals set 
 agoing of a wider scope than either those of the 
 world or of the Church — works that would bear 
 on a broad substratum of religion the objects of 
 what I may venture to term a week-day interest. 
 I can cite no book that better illustrates my 
 beau-ideal of such a work than the Bible itself." 
 One of his own future coadjutors on the Wit- 
 ness newspaper, the late Dr Andrew Cameron, 
 
334 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 helped to carry this wish into practice by origi- 
 nating the Christian Treasury and the Family 
 Treasury ; but it remained for one of his own 
 proUgis, Mr Alexander Strahan, to give even 
 a broader and more distinct impulse to this type 
 of literature in the different magazines — Good 
 Words, Sunday Magazine, and Day of Rest — 
 all of which we owe to his genius and enterprise. 
 
 The question of spiritual independence was 
 beginning to agitate the breasts of the people of 
 Scotland. The patron of the parish of Auchter- 
 arder, Lord Kinnoul, had presented the Rev. 
 Mr Young to the charge. Only three indi- 
 viduals in the congregation had signed the call, 
 three hundred had distinctly declined that he 
 should be their pastor, and forty had remained 
 neutral, and in this case the presbytery refused 
 to sanction the ordination of Mr Young, The 
 Court of Session decided against this conclu- 
 sion of the presbytery, and in May 1839 their 
 decision was confirmed by the House of Lords. 
 He wrote a pamphlet on the Non-intrusion con- 
 troversy, which spread his fame, and became an 
 Introduction to the leaders of the movement in 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 In 1839 Hugh Miller found himself in Edin- 
 burgh for the third time. The first time he had 
 come as a journeyman mason in search of work, 
 the second time to qualify himself for the bank 
 agency, and the third time he arrived with his 
 reputation made, and at the request of Mr 
 Robert Paul. He was introduced to Dr Cun- 
 ningham, Dr Candlish, Dr Abercromby, and 
 others, and finally he was offered the editorship 
 of a projected Non-intrusion newspaper, to be 
 called the Witness. In spite of the confidence in 
 his own powers which his recent success might 
 have inspired, he was doubtful for a time of ac- 
 cepting it, but eventually he did so, and it was 
 arranged that the Witness should start at the be- 
 ginning of 1840. Of this turning-point in his 
 career, he writes in his autobiography : '* I closed 
 my connection with the bank at the termination 
 of its financial year ; gave a few weeks very sedu- 
 lously to geology, during which I was fortunate 
 enough to find specimens on which Agassiz has 
 founded two of his fossil species ; got, at parting, 
 an elegant breakfast-service of plate from a kind 
 and numerous circle of friends, of all shades of 
 politics and both sides of the Church ; and was 
 entertained at a public dinner, at which I at- 
 tempted a speech, that got on but indifferently, 
 though it looked quite well enough in my friend 
 Mr Carruthers's report, and which was, I sup- 
 pose, in some sort apologised for by the fiddlers, 
 who struck up at its close, * A man's a man for 
 a' that.' It was, I felt, not the least gratifying 
 part of the entertainment that old Uncle Sandy 
 was present, and that his health was cordially 
 drunk by the company in the recognised char- 
 acter of my best and earliest friend. And then, 
 taking leave of my mother and uncle, of my 
 respected minister, and my honoured superior 
 
 in the bank, Mr Ross, I set out for Edinburgh, 
 and in a few days after was seated at the 
 editorial desk — a point at which, for the preoent, 
 the story of my education must terminate. I 
 wrote for my paper during the first twelve- 
 month a series of geological chapters, which 
 were fortunate enough to attract the notice of 
 the geologists of the British Association, as- 
 sembled that year at Glasgow, and which, in 
 the collected form, compose my little work on 
 the Old Red Sandstone. The paper itself rose 
 rapidly in circulation, till it ultimately attained 
 to its place among what are known as our 
 first-class Scottish newspapers ; and of its sub- 
 scribers, perhaps a more considerable propor- 
 tion of the whole are men who have received a 
 university education than can be reckoned by 
 any other Scotch journal of the same number of 
 readers. And during the course of the first 
 three years my employers doubled my salary. 
 I am sensible, however, that these are but small 
 achievements. In looking back upon my youth, 
 I see, methinks, a wild fruit-tree, rich in leaf 
 and blossom; and it is mortifying enough to 
 mark how very few of the blossoms have set, 
 and how diminutive and imperfectly formed the 
 fruit is into which even the productive few have 
 been developed. A right use of the oppor- 
 tunities of instruction afforded me in early 
 youth would have made me a scholar ere my 
 twenty-fifth year, and have saved to me at least 
 ten of the best years of life — years which were 
 spent in obscure and humble occupations. But 
 while my story must serve to show the evils 
 which result from truant carelessness in boy- 
 hood, and that what was sport to the young lad 
 may assume the form of serious misfortune to 
 the man, it may also serve to show that much 
 may be done by after-diligence to retrieve an 
 early error of this kind — that life itself is a 
 school, and nature always a fresh study — and 
 that the man who keeps his eyes and his mind 
 open will always find fitting, though, it may be, 
 hard schoolmasters, to speed him on in his life- 
 long education," 
 
 These are noble words with which to close 
 the record of his life up till this time. He 
 lodged in St Patrick Square, Edinburgh, until 
 joined by Mrs Miller and her daughter Har- 
 riet in April 1840, when they occupied a small 
 house at No. 5 Sylvan Place, Meadows. Mil- 
 ler's salary at this time was £200; and as 
 the sale of his household goods at Cromarty 
 had only brought him £40, the furnishing of 
 his house was only accomplished gradually. 
 Mrs Miller would herself occasionally contri- 
 bute to the columns of the Witness. Mr 
 James Mackenzie, the sub-editor, was a great 
 favourite with Miller. Miller himself was never 
 a ready leader-writer; but, as Dr Chalmers re- 
 marked, " when he did go off, he was a great 
 gun, and the reverberation of his shot was long 
 audible, but he required a deal of time to load," 
 
HUGH MILLER. 
 
 335 
 
 His biographer, Mr Peter Bayne, remarks re- 
 garding these leaders that "he meditated his 
 articles as an author meditates his books, or a 
 poet his verses, conceiving them as wholes, 
 working fully out their trains of thought, 
 enriching them with far-brought treasures of 
 fact, and adorning them with finished and 
 apposite illustration. ... As complete jour- 
 nalistic essays, symmetrical in plan, finished 
 in execution, and of sustained and splendid 
 ability, the articles of Hugh Miller are un- 
 rivalled." He conducted the newspaper, which 
 was published twice a week, for sixteen years, 
 and is said to have written no fewer than a 
 thousand articles for its pages. There was a 
 difference between him and some of the eminent 
 Free Church leaders as to the style of conduct- 
 ing the Witness^ which led to a private quarrel, 
 in which Miller triumphed. It, however, made 
 him shy of dealing with purely one-sided Church 
 affairs ever afterwards. It left him in proud 
 isolation, and with little recognition from Free 
 Church leaders, who were all the while reaping 
 the benefit of his advocacy of their cause. 
 
 Dr Guthrie, in his autobiography, pays the 
 lollowing tribute to Hugh Miller : 
 
 "Had the ten years," he says, "from 1833 
 to 1843, been spent only in the discussion of 
 keen, subtle, and constitutional questions, and 
 of previous legal proceedings and precedents, 
 the Free Church of Scotland — if it ever had 
 existed at all — would have been but a small 
 affair. The battle of Christ's rights, as Head of 
 the Church, and of the people's rights, as mem- 
 bers of the body of which He is the Head, was 
 fought and won in every town, and in a large 
 number of the parishes of Scotland, mainly by 
 Hugh Miller, through the columns of the Wit- 
 ness newspaper, and by men who, gifted with 
 the power of interesting, moving, and moulding 
 public audiences, addressed them at public 
 meetings regularly organised, and held up and 
 down all the country. It was thus, to use Mr 
 Disraeli's phrase, we were educated for the Dis- 
 ruption, which had otherwise been a failure." 
 
 "This is not sufficiently indicated in the 
 *Ten Years* Conflict,* an otherwise fair, full, 
 and able book. In fact, the ignoring of Hugh 
 Miller, and the influence of the Witness news- 
 paper there, reminds one of the announcement 
 of the play of * Hamlet * without the part of the 
 Prince of Denmark. This is to be regretted ; 
 because other churches, taking that history as 
 their guide, may, in their battle for liberty, 
 neglect to seize on, and occupy, the most in- 
 fluential of all positions — that, namely, of 
 carrying, through the press and public meet- 
 ings, the heads and hearts of the masses of the 
 people." 
 
 " I feel this the more, that Hugh Miller was 
 a member, and indeed an office-bearer, in my 
 congregation — one of my intimate and most 
 trusted friends. With his extraordinary powers 
 
 as a writer the public are well acquainted, and 
 to such an extent also with the details of his 
 history, as given both by himself and others, 
 that I need not dwell on them. He was a man 
 raised up in Divine providence for the time and 
 the age. His business was to fight — and like 
 the war-horse that saith among the trumpets. 
 Ha, ha, and smelleth the battle afar off, fighting 
 was Miller's delight. On the eve of what was 
 to prove a desperate conflict, I have seen him in 
 such a high and happy state of eagerness and 
 excitement, that he seemed to me like some 
 Indian brave, painted, plumed, leaping into the 
 arena with a shout of defiance, flashing a toma- 
 hawk in his hand, and wearing at his girdle a 
 very fringe of scalps, plucked from the heads of 
 enemies that had fallen beneath his stroke.*' 
 
 " Much of Miller's power lay in the way the 
 subject on which he was to write took entire 
 possession of his mind. For the time being, he 
 concentrated his whole faculties and feelings on 
 it ; so that, if we met a day or two before the 
 appearance of any remarkable article in the 
 Witness newspaper (of which he was editor), I 
 could generally guess what was to be the sub- 
 ject of his discussion, or who was to be the 
 object of his attack. From whatever point it 
 started, the conversation — before we were done 
 — came round to that; and, in a day or two, 
 the public were reading in the columns of the 
 Witness very much of what I had previously 
 heard from his own lips. The subject took 
 possession of him, rather than he of the 
 subject." 
 
 With reference to his powers of memory, 
 Guthrie told the following story: "We were 
 sitting one day in Johnstone's (the publisher's) 
 back shop, when the conversation turned on a dis- 
 cussion that had recently taken place in the Town 
 Council, on some matters connected with our 
 church affairs. Miller said it reminded him of 
 a discussion in Gait's novel of * The Provost ;' 
 and thereupon proceeded, at great length, to 
 tell us what Provost this, and Bailie that, and 
 Councillor the other, said on the matter; but 
 when he reached the * Convener of the Trades,' 
 he came suddenly to a halt. Notwithstanding 
 our satisfaction with what he had reported, he 
 was annoyed at having forgotten the speech of 
 the convener ; and, getting a copy of the novel 
 from the shelves in Johnstone's front shop, he 
 turned up the place and read it, excusing him- 
 self for his failure of memory. But what was 
 our astonishment, on getting hold of the book, 
 to find that Miller had repeated pages almost 
 verbatim, though it was some fifteen years or 
 more since he had read the novel." 
 
 More at home in the fields of literature and 
 science, his " Old Red Sandstone," which had 
 appeared as a series of seven articles in the 
 columns of the Witness, was issued in 1841. 
 His charming book, "First Impressions of Eng- 
 land and its People," was the result of eight 
 
336 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 weeks* autumnal wandering in 1845, and the 
 writing of it occupied six months of his editorial 
 leisure. His fame was now established, and 
 without ambition to shine in fashionable society, 
 he politely declined all the invitations where he 
 felt he would be out of his true sphere. A lady 
 who met him shortly after his coming to Edin- 
 burgh as editor of the Witness says : " His 
 appearance was that of a superior working-man 
 in his Sunday dress. His head was bent for- 
 ward as he sat, but when he spoke he looked 
 one full in the face with his sagacious and 
 thoughtful eye. There was directness in all he 
 said ; to isK^ve spoken without having something 
 to say would never have occurred to him. He 
 had not the light, easy, inaccurate manner of 
 speech one usually meets with — every word was 
 deliberate, and might have been printed. There 
 was a total want of self-assertion about him, but 
 at the same time a dignified simplicity in the 
 way he jilaced his mind alongside that of the 
 person with whom he conversed. . . . His 
 manner to women I always thought particularly 
 good — wholly wanting in flattery, but full of 
 gentle deference." 
 
 The greater portion of Hugh Miller's autobio- 
 graphy appeared in the Witness in 1853 ; it was 
 published in the beginning of 1854, under the 
 title of " My Schools and Schoolmasters." In 
 the spring of 1854 he lectured in Exeter Hall 
 to the Young Men's Christian Association. His 
 autumn holiday he always spent profitably, en- 
 larging his knowledge of the geological features 
 of Scotland. In the summer of 1855 he com- 
 plained of weakness, and that his working power 
 was not what it had been. He was troubled too 
 with the lingering bad effects of the mason's 
 disease. He began to carry pistols, as his ima- 
 gination was haunted with the stories of robber- 
 ies and outrages committed by desperate crim- 
 inals, which were rife at that time. In the 
 meantime he was labouring hard at the comple- 
 tion of his "Testimony of the Rocks." Night 
 after night, in spite of his wife's entreaties, he 
 would return to his writing, and often only 
 retired to rest in the early morning. Mrs 
 Miller, who was herself in poor health, aware 
 that his nervous system was disordered, dreaded 
 an attack of apoplexy. Two doctors were con- 
 sulted, and it was found that he was suffering 
 from an overworked mind, disordering his diges- 
 tive organs, enervating his whole frame, and 
 threatening serious head affection. His book 
 was finished by this time. On the night of the 
 24th December 1856, he seems to have arisen 
 from bed, and, in a paroxysm of madness, raised 
 the thick woven seaman's jacket he wore over 
 his chest, applied the muzzle of his revolver to 
 his left side above the heart, and fired. The 
 
 ball entered the left lung, grazed the heart, and 
 cutting through one of the main arteries lodged 
 in the rib on the right side. The pistol slipping 
 from his hand fell into the bath close by. He 
 had left in writing on a folio sheet of paper, 
 which was lying on the table, the following words: 
 
 *' Dearest Lydia, — My brain burns. I nfiist 
 have walked ; and a fearful dream rises upon me. 
 I cannot bear the horrible thought. God and 
 Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy 
 upon me. Dearest Lydia, dear children, fare- 
 well. My brain burns as the recollection grows. 
 My dear, dear wife, farewell. 
 
 "Hugh Miller." 
 
 And "so passed this strong heroic soul away." 
 When Hugh Miller shot himself Dr Guthrie 
 had been absent from home. " On my return to 
 the house next day," he writes, "I had two 
 very painful duties to perform. The first was at 
 the request of his eldest daughter, a very amiable 
 as well as able young creature, to go up to the 
 room where her father lay, and cut off a lock of 
 his hair for her. I shall never forget the ap- 
 pearance of the body as I entered the room and 
 stood alone by the dead : that powerful frame, 
 built on the strongest model of humanity ; that 
 mighty head, with its heavy locks of auburn hair ; 
 and the expression of that well-known face, so 
 perfectly calm and placid. The head was a 
 little turned to one side, and the face thrown 
 upwards, so that it had not the appearance of 
 an ordinary corpse, but wore something of a 
 triumphant, if not a defiant air, as if he were 
 still ready for battle in the cause of truth and 
 righteousness — defying his enemies to touch his 
 great reputation as a man of the highest emi- 
 nence in science, of the most unblemished char- 
 acter, or the most extraordinary ability, and, 
 more than any one of his compeers, entitled to 
 be called a defender of the faith. The result of 
 the post-mortem examination showed that his 
 reason had given way, and that he was in no 
 way responsible for his acts." 
 
 Letters of condolence to the bereaved family 
 flowed in from all quarters, including heartfelt 
 expressions of sympathy from Charles Dickens, 
 Thomas Carlyle, and John Ruskin. His re- 
 mains rest in the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh, 
 beside the dust of Dr Chalmers; and twenty 
 years afterwards, on the 11th March 1876, she 
 who had been the true helpmate, the love and 
 inspiration of his life, was laid beside him. His 
 well-known works, in which there is so much 
 of the pure gold of research and intellect, fill 
 thirteen volumes. His wife and eldest daughter 
 have also contributed to the field of light 
 literature. 
 
EEV. THOMAS GUTHEIE, D.D. 
 [1803-1873.] 
 
 The venerable Dr Guthrie in his sixty-sixth year 
 began his autobiography with a remark regard- 
 ing the way in which human life is needlessly 
 abused and shortened. He hints that very few 
 people have really reached the true art of living. 
 "Some are murdered, but the greater part, who 
 have arrived at years of discretion, commit 
 suicide of a sort, through their neglect of the 
 ordinary rules of health, or the injudicious use 
 of meat, drink, or medicine." He expresses the 
 hope that the great art of living will eventually 
 take its place, and receive attention as an im- 
 portant branch of education. Looking over his 
 own life, we are forced to the conclusion that 
 like many other public men, it, too, was short- 
 ened, or at least weakened towards the close, 
 by the strain of public and private work. 
 
 Thomas Guthrie was born at Brechin, Forfar- 
 shire, on the 12th of July 1803. He was the 
 twelfth child and the sixth son of David Guthrie 
 and Clementina Cay. Thirteen children were 
 born to them, of whom ten grew up. He came 
 of an old and respectable family, which could 
 count kin with James Guthrie the martyr, as 
 also with William, the author of the work en- 
 titled, "The Trial of a Saving Interest in 
 Christ." His paternal grandfather was a far- 
 mer, like his father before him. His paternal 
 grandmother was a strict disciplinarian, as he 
 had often too good reason to remember, saying 
 what in her conscience she thought right, and 
 with a notion that children of the rising genera- 
 tion were over-indulged. For many years down 
 to the time of her death, she set apart one whole 
 day in each week for fasting and prayer. Her 
 piety, though of this stern character, was genuine 
 enough. On one occasion hearing that her 
 eldest son had fallen in love with the daughter 
 of a neighbouring farmer, and lacking the bold- 
 ness to ask her, his mother ordered a horse to be 
 saddled, when, mounting behind him on a pillion, 
 her arm round his waist, she ordered him to 
 ride direct towards the farm. Arrived there 
 she had the matter arranged with the girl and 
 her parents before he had the horse stabled. 
 To this ancestor Dr Guthrie was wont to trace 
 what share of decision of character he possessed. 
 The bulk of his mental, moral, and physical 
 qualities can be traced to his mother. '* It was," 
 he says, "at my mother's knee that I first 
 learned to pray ; that I learned to form a reve- 
 rence for the Bible as the inspired Word of God ; 
 hat I learned to hold the sanctity of the Sab- 
 oath; that I learned the peculiarities of the 
 Scottish religion ; that I learned my regai-d to 
 the principles of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 which have made me hate oppression, and, 
 whether it be a pope, or a prelate, or a patron, 
 or an ecclesiastical demagogue, resist the op- 
 pressor." An old servant who was in the house 
 when he was born characterised him as a 
 " real ready-witted, sympatheesin' kind o' a 
 laddie." Dr Guthrie's father, engaged in the 
 business of a general merchant, was for some 
 time Provost of Brechin, and brought up 
 and provided for a family of thirteen. He 
 was an influential citizen, upright and hon- 
 ourable in all his transactions. The habits 
 of strict discipline and Sabbath observance 
 which prevailed in his youth he afterwards 
 looked upon as a valuable means of training the 
 young in habits of patient endurance, obedience, 
 and self-denial, and in giving to Scotsmen that 
 thoughtful and intellectual cast and hard- 
 headedness which has made them so success- 
 ful in pushing their fortunes in the world. 
 Speaking of the sneers which had been 
 levelled at Scotch Sabbath observance, ho 
 says : " The best answer I can, perhaps, fur- 
 nish to these libels aflfecting Scotland is to draw 
 an honest and candid picture of the manner in 
 which the Lord's Day was observed in the home 
 of my youth. Conversation about the ordinary 
 business of life was not engaged in nor allowed. 
 No letters were taken from the post-office, nor any 
 but religious books read. Nor were the news- 
 papers looked at, although in these days our armies 
 were in the battle-field fighting the French. No 
 walk was taken but in the garden and to the 
 church, which we attended regularly both fore- 
 noon and afternoon. In the evening, my father, 
 who had the catechism — the Shorter Catechism 
 of the Westminster assembly of divines — at his 
 finger-ends, as they say, used to put us through 
 our drill as to its questions and theology ; and I 
 think I see him still in his knee-breeches, white 
 woollen stockings, and white cravat — ^his cos- 
 tume both on Sunday and Saturday — tall, erect, 
 his dark, crisped hair dashed with grey, walk- 
 ing up and down the floor of the dining-room, 
 as was his wont, with nine children and three 
 women servants ranged up by the walls, each in 
 turn having a question to answer. Besides this, 
 the younkers had to repeat portions of the 
 Psalms which they had committed to memory, 
 and also the texts of the day; while an elder 
 brother, who had a powerful intellect and 
 gigantic memory, gave a summary of the ser- 
 mons. Tlie Sabbath passed awaj like a flood 
 that fertilises the land it overflows, leaving a 
 blessing behind it." Twice in his lifetime he 
 had to record a providential escape from drown* 
 
338 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ing. At school he was usually dux, but prided 
 himself as much on being a good fighter, often 
 undertaking to fight any boy of his own size and 
 age with his left hand tied behind his back. 
 This martial spirit was nursed and fostered by 
 the news of the wars of Napoleon. Sides would 
 be taken at school and pitched battles fought, 
 and in the mU^e young Guthrie once received a 
 thud on the hip from the opposing " French," 
 which lamed him for a day or two. 
 
 After spending a summer with the Rev. Robert 
 Simpson, at twelve years of age he was sent to 
 Edinburgh University. Apart from the expense 
 of books, his first session would not cost his 
 father over £10. He occupied a room in Bristo 
 Street, for which he paid — cooking, coals, and 
 attendance included — not more than 5s. or 6s. 
 a week. The usual fare was tea once, oatmeal 
 porridge twice a day, and fresh herrings and 
 potatoes for dinner. " Beyond the departments 
 of fun and fighting, I was," he says, "no way 
 distinguished at college." During his first year 
 he was twice in the hands of the college porter 
 and policeman, with the threatening of being 
 reported to the Senatus Academicus ; the second 
 year, twice fined by one of the professors, and, 
 besides, set apart on a " cutty stool " as a public 
 spectacle. His remarks on the curriculum of a 
 divinity student are worth noting. It was a 
 lifelong thought with him that the ministers of 
 the churches in Scotland were under-paid, and 
 a lifelong desire to see them better supported. 
 "The Church of England," he says, "has, 
 strange to say, no prescribed course of study for 
 her clergy. The Church of Scotland, on the 
 contrary, as she still does, and as, with slight 
 modifications in some instances, all Presbyter- 
 ians in Scotland do, requires her students to 
 study literature and philosophy for four years, 
 and divinity for other four ; and even after this 
 no young man is allowed to preach, nor any licen- 
 tiate ordained to the ministry, till he has given 
 proof of his fitness by delivering a certain num- 
 ber of discourses before the presbytery, and 
 submitting to an examination by them also on 
 all the subjects he has studied during his eight 
 years at the university. No profession requires 
 so long, and few so costly an apprenticeship, 
 which, I may remark, makes it all the more dis- 
 graceful that, with a preparation so great, minis- 
 ters should usually receive a payment so small, 
 starvings being a better name than livings for 
 many of their charges. Some gentlemen pay 
 their French cooks, and many merchants their 
 clerks, a larger salary than he receives who has 
 charge of their souls, and in whom they expect 
 the piety of an apostle, the accomplishments of 
 a scholar, and the manners of a gentleman. 
 Look at my own case. It occupied me eight 
 years to run my curriculum. I attended the 
 university, as I have mentioned, for two addi- 
 tional years before I became a licentiate, and 
 other five years elapsed before I obtained a pre- 
 
 sentation to a vacant church, and became minis- 
 ter of the parish of Arbirlot. Here were fifteen 
 years of my life spent, the greater part of them 
 at no small cost, qualifying myself for a profes- 
 sion which, for all that time, yielded me nothing 
 for my maintenance." 
 
 He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery 
 of Brechin, 2d February 1825, and preached his 
 first public discourse to a considerable audience 
 in the cathedral church of that town. Before 
 securing a settled charge, G-uthrie visited London 
 and Paris. In the latter town he gained a know- 
 ledge of French language and manners, and 
 walked the hospitals and gained some know- 
 ledge of medicine. "I was once," he says in 
 his journal, "disposed to think the French an 
 honest people ; but since they have played some 
 of their swindling tricks upon myself I have 
 widely changed my opinion. ... I neither 
 like French weather nor French ways, French 
 men nor French manners." He returned home- 
 wards through Belgium, April 1827; and for 
 two years afterwards filled the post of a bank- 
 agent in his native town, acting thus in room of 
 his elder brother who had died, and until his 
 son should come of age to take his place. This 
 he afterwards looked upon as not the least part 
 of his training and education, becoming ac- 
 quainted with both mercantile and agricultural 
 affairs, and was thus enabled to take a more 
 hearty and thorough interest in the affairs of 
 his people. For five Sabbaths before he had 
 become banker he had acted as assistant to a 
 minister in the neighbourhood, and for this he 
 received five guineas, "all the remuneration I 
 ever earned, though, as a licentiate or preacher, 
 I had been five years what might be called a 
 journeyman, and as an apprentice, so to speak, 
 had spent ten years at the university." He 
 was presented to the parish of Arbirlot in May 
 1830, at an expense to himself of £60, the fees 
 to the Crown costing £30, and another £30 was 
 required for the complimentary dinner given on 
 the occasion. On 6th October 1830, Thomas 
 Guthrie was married to Anne, eldest daughter 
 of the Rev. James Burns, Brechin. 
 
 Some good stories are told in Dr Guthrie's 
 autobiography regarding his new charge. A 
 " Moderate " minister having been convicted of 
 drunkenness, the presbytery had some little 
 diflBculty in proving the crime and bringing it 
 home to the offender. "Besides other proofs 
 of drunkenness, having drawn this out of him, 
 that the minister on that occasion, as he lolled 
 over the side of the pulpit — being, in fact, un- 
 able to stand upright — said that he loved his 
 people so much, that he would carry them all 
 to heaven on his back, I asked him, 'Now, 
 John, when you heard him say so, what impres- 
 sion did so strange a speech make on you?' 
 Others, to the same question, as unwilling 
 witnesses as John, had already said that, though 
 they would not say he was drank at the 
 
jDR GUTHRIE. 
 
 339 
 
 tiini?, they certaiwly thoaght so. But John 
 sliowe.i hiBiMelf eqnal to the occasion. ' Weel," 
 he rej.»lied, 'Maistor Guthrie, TU just tell you 
 what I thought. There was a great fat wife, 
 you see, sitting in the seat before me, and 
 thinks I, " My lad, if you set off to the king- 
 dom of heaven with that wife on your back, 
 my certie, you'll no be back for the rest o' us in 
 a hurry."'" 
 
 He has the following story to tell of his pre- 
 decessor: "Like many other ministers of his 
 time, my predecessor acquired penurious habits, 
 and allowed them, I fear, to obtain too great a 
 mastery over him. There was current a story 
 of another parsimonious minister who evaded 
 discovery by an uncommonly clever manoeuvre. 
 When working one day in his garden, or glebe, 
 in his ordinary beggar-like attire, he was 
 alarmed to see the carriage of his patron, the 
 proprietor of the parish, whirling rapidly along 
 the road to his manse. It was too late to 
 attempt a retreat, and get himself put in decent 
 order to receive 'my lord.' To retreat was im- 
 possible. To remain where he was — to be 
 shamed and disgraced. With a promptitude 
 seldom or never surpassed, he stuck his bat- 
 tered hat down on his shoulders, drew up his 
 hands into the sleeves of his ragged coat, struck 
 out his arms at an acute angle, planted his legs 
 far apart, and throwing rigidity into all his form, 
 stood there in the potato ground the very beau- 
 ideal of what in England is called a ' scarecrow,' 
 in Scotland a 'potato-bogle,' never suspected 
 by the visitors as they drove up to the front 
 entrance, while he made for the back door to 
 don his Sunday garb. Another of whom I have 
 heard, standing one evening on the bridge near 
 his manse, was accosted |by a mendicant, who, 
 judging the minister by his dress to be one of 
 the fraternity, and wishing for information 
 (being himself a stranger in that part of the 
 country), said, ' And whaur are ye to put up 
 the nicht, man?'" 
 
 "Arbirlot, with its shores washed by the Ger- 
 man Ocean, lies on the sea-coast, reaching 
 almost to the town of Arbroath. In front of 
 it, some twelve miles out to sea, stands the Bell- 
 Kock Lighthouse; and to this position of my 
 first parish, where for seven years I was familiar 
 with the great ocean in aU its ever-changing 
 phases, is due, no doubt, the numerous allusions 
 io it which occur in my sermons and speeches." 
 He found the manse in a rickety condition. 
 The floor of the small parlour was like an in- 
 clined plane, and "the dining-room, which, un- 
 less when we had company, was only used as 
 my study, was so open through many a cranny 
 %o the winds of heaven, that the carpet in 
 stormy weather rose, and feD. and flapped like 
 a ship's sail." A new church was built in pre- 
 ference to a new manse, and he settled down to 
 seven years of steady work. The stipend was 
 £197 a year on an average. His parishioners 
 
 wore noted for their intelligence and sobriety. 
 Many of them were weavers who carried their 
 webs when finished to the town of Arbroath, 
 Many of them were also great readers ; a parish 
 library which he instituted, the different Sabbath- 
 schools and prayer-meetings which he had set 
 a-going in the various districts of the parish, 
 together with a savings-bank, in which when he 
 left there v^as £600— all told in the way of 
 moral elevation and reformation. Sabbath pre- 
 paration had to be gone through early in the 
 week, as Saturday night was devoted to the 
 bank and library, both of which he personally 
 superintended. "The lads and lasses," he says, 
 " liked that their minister should see that they 
 were economical and self-denying," and also to 
 have a "crack" with him about books. This 
 practice he recommends to all who wish their 
 people to realise that he is among them, not as 
 their master, but as their minister, and thus 
 establish himself in the hearts of his people. 
 The presence every Sabbath in his church of 
 superior, able, and pious hearers, helped, also 
 to stimulate him, and to keep him "up to his 
 work." In 1832, the cholera year, our trust, 
 he says, was in God and prevention. Stringent 
 measures were adopted to prevent any communi- 
 cation being kept up with the plague-stricken 
 districts, and a medicine chest was got and 
 placed in the manse under the care of the 
 minister. A terrible epidemic, typhus fever, 
 visited the parish in 1834, and the mortality 
 was great. One farmhouse was, he says, like 
 the ward of an infirmary, the father and nine 
 children being all stricken down at one time by 
 the fever. They all recovered. '^ Trusting in 
 God," and no doubt fortified by his slight pre- 
 vious medical experience, he visited freely 
 amongst the distressed cottages. A.t one time 
 he cured a youth who had taken lock-jaw after 
 drinking a glass of whisky, by dipping him in a 
 barrel of hot water. 
 
 It was at Arbirlot too that he laid the founda- 
 tion of his after pulpit successes. He laboured 
 at his sermons in manuscript, "cutting out dry 
 bits, giving point to dull ones, making clear 
 any obscurity, and narrative parts more graphic, 
 throwing more pathos into appeals, and copying 
 God in His works by adding the ornamental to 
 the useful." It was always a wonder to Hugh 
 Miller how a minister could come out Sunday 
 after Sunday with even one good and finished 
 discourse. Guthrie quoted in this connection 
 the answer Kobert Hall made to the question as 
 to how many discourses a minister might get up 
 each week. " If he is a deep thinker and great 
 condenser," was Hall's answer, " he may get up 
 one ; if he is an ordinary man, two ; but if he 
 is an ass, sir, he will produce half-a-dozen." 
 Along with these views on preaching he paid 
 more than ordinary attention to the art of elo- 
 cution. One reform in the Sabbath service 
 which he was the means of introducing was, 
 
340 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAFHY. 
 
 instead of two services, which he found wear- 
 ing out to the people, to give one slightly longer 
 service, relieved in the middle by the singing of 
 a hymn and a short prayer. A Sahbath night 
 eervice, at six o'clock, for the young people, was 
 warmly taken up by the sons and daughters of 
 the chief farmers, as well as the families of their 
 cottars and ploughmen. The area of the church 
 was usually filled, many having walked three 
 miles to be present. After singing and prayer, 
 the subjects of examination were a few ques- 
 tions from the Larger Catechism, explained and 
 illustrated by examples and anecdotes, and 
 questions on the sermon or lecture of the fore- 
 noon, which was treated with greater simpli- 
 city and freedom than could be done from the 
 pulpit. 
 
 On the 16th September 1837, with a trembling 
 heart, Thomas Guthrie left Arbirlot to come to 
 Edinburgh. He had been chosen to the colle- 
 giate charge of Old Greyfriars' parish, and al- 
 though he had strictly held back from election, 
 he was eventually chosen. The prominent part 
 he had played on an Arbroath platform in con- 
 nection with the Voluntary question had assisted 
 in making him known. He settled at first in 
 Argyle Square (now demolished), but eventually 
 became owner and occupant of a house at No. 
 1 Salisbury Eoad — '^ whence I have a view of 
 Arthur's Seat, Salisbury Crags, and the re- 
 markable crystallised trap rock, called 'Samp- 
 son's Ribs ; ' of Duddingstone Loch, with its 
 wooded banks, swans, and picturesque church ; 
 and of the sea beyond, breaking on the shores 
 of Aberlady Bay — a scene of the most beautiful 
 description, spread out before me in its glory of 
 a fine summer morning — without lifting my head 
 from my pillow." 
 
 He became very popular in Old Greyfriars, 
 and in the Magdalene Chapel in the Cowgate, 
 where he went to preach more particularly to 
 the poor of his parish. Being a collegiate charge, 
 he had but one sermon to prepare, and towards 
 its preparation he bent all the energies of his 
 growing strength. It was a habit with him at 
 this time to rise, summer and winter, at five 
 o'clock in the morning; by six his dressing and 
 devotions were finished, and a fire was kindled, 
 a cup of coffee prepared, and he had three 
 unbroken hours before him for preparation. 
 "This, being my daily practice, gave me as 
 much as eighteen hours in each week, and — 
 instead of a Friday or Saturday — the whole six. 
 days to ruminate on and digest, and do the utmost 
 justice in my power to my sermon. A prac- 
 tice this I would recommend to all ministers, 
 whether in town or country. It secures ample 
 time for pulpit preparation, brings a man fresh 
 every day to his allotted portion of work, keeps 
 his sermon simmering in his mind all the week 
 through, till the subject takes entire possession 
 of him, and, as the consequence, he comes on 
 Sunday to the pulpit to preach with fulness, 
 
 feeling, and power." Most of the day was 
 liable to continual interruption, and was spent 
 outside amongst his parishioners. Remember, 
 ing the sad fate of many ministers' families, he 
 religiously gave up his evenings to his children. 
 He remarked long afterwards regarding this 
 period of his life: "I had not laboured three 
 months in that parish, when I became perfectly 
 satisfied of this, that it was impossible to raise 
 the lower classes in towns, unless through the 
 means of the rising generation. In labouring in 
 that district I became also convinced of this, 
 that the only way of reaching the rising genera- 
 tion of the lapsed masses of the community was 
 by such ragged schools as have brought together 
 this assembly." And again: "Seven years of 
 my ministry were spent in one of the lowest 
 localities of Edinburgh ; and it almost broke my 
 heart, day by day to see, as I wandered from 
 house to house, and from room to room, misery, 
 wretchedness, and crime ; the detestable vice of 
 dnmkenness, the cause of all, meeting me at 
 every turn, and marring all my efforts. Nothing 
 ever struck me more, in visiting those wretched 
 localities, than to find that more than a half of 
 these families were in the churchyard. The 
 murder of innocent infants in this city by 
 drunkenness * out-Herods Herod.' I believe we 
 will in vain plant churches and schools, though 
 they be as thick as trees in the forest, until this 
 evil is stopped." And his noble scheme of 
 church work and church extension he sketched 
 out as follows in 1867: "Let the ministers or 
 representatives of the different denominations 
 within the city — Episcopalian, Baptist, and 
 Independent ; United Presbyterian, Free Church, 
 and Established Church — meet, and form them- 
 selves into a real working evangelical alliance. 
 Agreeing to regard all old divisions of parishes 
 with an ecclesiastical right over their inhabitants 
 as now-a-days a nullity — and, so far as these are 
 preventing Christian co-operation and the sal- 
 vation of the people, as worse than a nullity — 
 let them map out the dark and destitute dis- 
 tricts of the city, assigning a district to each 
 congregation. Let every congregation then go to 
 work upon their own part of the field, and giv- 
 ing each some five hundred souls to care for, 
 you would thus cover the 'nakedness of the 
 land.'" 
 
 From the year 1840 public calls upon him in- 
 creased in number and variety. He entered a 
 new church, called St John's, in the "West Bow, 
 in that year. The Disruption in the Scottish 
 Established Church was near at hand. In the 
 preparation of the Scottish mind for this event, 
 Dr Guthrie pays a well-merited compliment to 
 Hugh Miller: "The 'Battle of the Banner,' 
 which preceded the Disruption of the Scottish 
 Church, was not fought so much en the floor of 
 courts, either civil or ecclesiastical, a» outside 
 these, through the columns of the press, and 
 from the platforms of public meetings. , . . 
 
DR GUTHRIE. 
 
 341 
 
 Had the ten years from 1833 to 1843 been 
 spent only in the discussion of keen, subtle, and 
 constitutional questions, and of previous legal 
 proceedings and precedents, the Free Church of 
 Scotland — if it even had existed at all — would 
 have been but a small affair. The battle of 
 Christ's right, as Head of the Church, and of 
 the people's rights, as members of the body of 
 which He is the head, was fought and won in 
 every town, and in a large number of the parishes 
 of Scotland, mainly by Hugh Miller, through 
 the columns of the Witness newspaper, and by 
 men who, gifted with the power of interest- 
 ing, moving, and moulding public audiences, 
 addressed them at public meetings, regularly 
 organised, and held up and down all the 
 country." 
 
 Dr Guthrie's own position during this con- 
 troversy is best described in his own words: 
 ** Before the Disruption I oftener found myself 
 at the guns than at the wheel. ... I have 
 never taken an active part in the management 
 of our Church. . . . No man can be more 
 thankful than I am that God has, in His kind 
 providence, furnished our Church with so many 
 men who have not only the talent but the taste 
 for Church courts." Dr[Candlish said of him at 
 this time : " Guthrie was a power, unique in 
 himself, and rising in his uniqueness above other 
 powers. He did not, indeed, venture much on 
 the uncongenial domain, to him, of ecclesiastical 
 polemics, or the wear and tear of ordinary 
 Church administration ; leaving that to others 
 whose superiority in this department he was 
 always the first to acknowledge. But in his 
 own sphere, and in his own way, he was, to us, 
 and to the principles on which we acted, a tower 
 of strength. His eloquence alone — so expressive 
 of himself, so thoroughly inspired by his per- 
 sonal idiosyncrasy, so full always of genial 
 humour, so apt to flash into darts of wit, and 
 yet withal so profoundly emotional and ready 
 for passionate and affectionate appeals — that 
 gift or endowment alone made him an invalu- 
 able boon to our Church in the time of her ten 
 years' conflict and afterwards." The ecclesi- 
 astical atmosphere of Scotland was deeply 
 moved; 782 distinct pamphlets on the subject 
 were published during these years. The bone 
 of controversy was very clearly shown by 
 Lord Cockburn, in his "Life of Lord Jeffrey:" 
 "The contest at first was merely about 
 patronage, but this point was soon . . . 
 absorbed in the far more vital question whether 
 the Church had any spiritual jurisdiction inde- 
 pendent of the control of the civil power. This 
 became the question on which the longer cohe- 
 rence of the elements of the Church depended. 
 The judicial determination was, in effect, that 
 no such jurisdiction existed. This was not the 
 adjudication of any abstract political or ecclesi- 
 astical nicety; it was the declaration, and, as 
 those who protested against it held, the intro- 
 
 duction of a principle which affected the whole 
 practical being and management of the Estab- 
 lishment." When Guthrie was leaving the door 
 of his house in Lauriston Lane on the morning of 
 the 18th May 1843, he turned round to his wife 
 and said : *' Well, Anne, this is the last time I 
 go out at this door a minister of an Established 
 Church." And speaking about twenty years 
 after the Disruption was consummated, he said : 
 '* There is something more eloquent than speech. 
 I am bold to say that Hall, Foster, or Chalmers 
 never preached a sermon so impressive or sub- 
 lime as the humblest minister of our Church did 
 on the 18th day of May 1843, when he gave up 
 his living to retain his principles, and joined 
 the crowd that, bursting from the doors of St 
 Andrew's Church, with Chalmers at its head, 
 marched out file by file in steady ranks — giving 
 God's people, who anxiously thronged the streets, 
 occasion to weep tears, not of grief, but of joy, 
 as they cried, * They come ! they come ! Thank 
 God, they come.' . . . We did not come 
 out a small and scattered band ; but, on the day 
 of the Disruption, burst out of St Andrew's 
 Church as a river bursts out from a glacier — a 
 river at its birth. In numbers, in position, in 
 wealth, as well as in piety, our Church, I may 
 say, was full-grown on the day it was born. 
 Above all, and next to the prayers which sanc- 
 tified our cause, we were followed by a host of 
 countrymen, whose enthusiasm had been kindled 
 at the ashes of the martyrs, and who saw in our 
 movement but another phase of the grand old 
 days that won Scotland her fame, and made her 
 a name and a praise in the whole earth." Four 
 hundred and seventy-four ministers thus volun- 
 tarily were disestablished and disendowed. 
 " I'm proud of my country," remarked Lord 
 Jeffrey when he heard of this; "there is not 
 another country on earth where such a deed 
 could have been done." Headed by the late Dr 
 Duff, the foreign missionaries of the Church of 
 Scotland sided with the out-going party. 
 
 The funds of the Free Church of Scotland pros- 
 pered; £363,871 were collected in the first year 
 of its existence. In the meantime, more was re- 
 quired, and the necessity of a manse scheme for 
 the ministers of country churches was admitted. 
 It was agreed that the case be met by a general 
 fund for the whole Church, which was fixed at 
 £100,000, and by a local fund for each congre- 
 gation. Guthrie, who was peculiarly well fitted 
 for the work, devoted the year 1845-46 to it, 
 addressed meetings and received subscriptions 
 over the whole of Scotland, and he was enabled 
 to assure the General Assembly of 1846 that the 
 amount subscribed exceeded what was proposed, 
 being £116,370, 14s. Id. The severe labours in 
 connection with this scheme had, however, taxed 
 his strength, and laid the seeds of heart disease, 
 to which he finally succumbed. He remarked 
 regarding his work : "I once thought — seeing 
 that I have made a fortune of £116,000 in twelre 
 
342 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 months — of getting a ticket posted, with the 
 words ' Retired from Business ' printed on it in 
 large black letters ! I have now only one re- 
 quest to make of the Church, and that is, that 
 they would let me alone ! " 
 
 Although there were ragged schools in exist- 
 ence before Dr Guthrie redirected such a tide of 
 public sympathy in their favour, yet he has been 
 truly called the "Apostle of the Ragged School 
 Movement." Sheriff Watson had opened a 
 school in Aberdeen in 1841. His idea of a 
 ragged school implied a place where an educa- 
 tion, both sacred and secular, was provided, and 
 food, clothing, and a training in some useful 
 industry were also given. " On first coming to 
 Edinburgh," he wrote in 1872, "I had not spent 
 a month in my daily walks in our Cowgate and 
 Grassmarket without seeing that, with worth- 
 less, drunken, and abandoned parents for their 
 only guardians, there were thousands of poor 
 innocent children, whose only chance of being 
 saved from a life of ignorance and crime lay in 
 a system of compulsory education." And 
 again he said: "My first interest in the cause 
 of ragged schools was awakened by a picture 
 which I saw in Anstruther, on the shores of the 
 Firth of Forth. It represented a cobbler's 
 room ; he was there himself, spectacles on nose, 
 an old shoe between his knees ; that massive 
 forehead and firm mouth indicating great de- 
 termination of character; and from beneath his 
 bushy eyebrows benevolence gleamed out on a 
 group of poor children, some sitting, some 
 standing, but all busy at their lessons around 
 him. Interested by this scene, we turned from 
 the picture to the inscription below ; and with 
 growing wonder, read how this man, by name 
 John Pounds, by trade a cobbler, in Ports- 
 mouth, had taken pity on the ragged children, 
 whom ministers and magistrates, ladies and 
 gentlemen, were leaving to run wild, and go to 
 ruin on their streets ; how, like a good shepherd, 
 he had gone forth to gather in these outcasts, 
 how he had trained them up in virtue and know- 
 ledge, and how, looking for no fame, no recom- 
 pense from man, he, single-handed, while earn- 
 ing his daily bread by the sweat of his face, 
 had ere he died rescued from ruin and saved to 
 society no fewer than five hundred children. 
 
 "I confess that I felt humbled. I felt 
 ' ashamed of myself. I well remember saying to 
 my companion, in the enthusiasm of the mo- 
 ment, and in my calmer and cooler hours I 
 have seen no reason for unsaying it : ' That man 
 is a honour to humanit3\ He has deserved the 
 tallest monument ever raised on British shores.' 
 Nor was John Pounds only a benevolent man. 
 He was a genius in his way; at any rate, he 
 was ingenious; and, if he could not catch a 
 poor boy in any other way, like Paul he would 
 win him by guile. He was sometimes seen 
 hunting down a ragged urchin on the quay of 
 Portsmouth, and compelling him to come to 
 
 school, not by the power of a policeman, but a 
 potOvto. He knew the love of an Irishman for a 
 potato, and might be seen running alongside an 
 unwilling boy with one held under his nose, 
 with a temper as hot and a coat as ragged as his 
 own." With the idea of founding a ragged 
 school in Edinburgh floating through his brain, 
 his "Plea for Ragged Schools" was pubhshed 
 in 1847. It was successful in gaining money, 
 and in exciting sympathy in favour of the new 
 movement. Subscriptions to the amount of 
 £700 were in his hands in a few weeks, and by 
 the end of 1847, three schools had been estab- 
 lished in Edinburgh. In the fifth report for 
 1851, it was stated that 216 children had been 
 sent out from these schools to earn an honest 
 livelihood; it was also made evident by the 
 statistics regarding the Edinburgh jail, that the 
 proportion of juvenile criminals was decreasing. 
 In 1872 the report of the prison governor was to 
 the effect that, "contrasted with the state of 
 matters in 1847, when the Original Ragged 
 School was started, there is now just one juve- 
 nile committed to prison for six at that time." 
 The proportion of children trained thus who 
 have turned out well is between 80 and 90 per 
 cent. The annual meetings of the Original 
 Ragged School in the Music Hall were always 
 "red-letter days" with him, when he usually 
 made the speech of the day. That the salva- 
 tion of these waifs afforded him the most intense 
 satisfaction, we learn from his own lips: "I 
 never engaged in a cause," he says, "as a man 
 and a Christian minister, that I believe on my 
 death-bed I will look back on with more plea- 
 sure or gratitude to God, than that He led me 
 to work for ragged schools. I have the satis- 
 faction, when I lay my head upon my pillow, 
 of always finding one soft part of it; and that 
 is, that God has made me an instrument in His 
 hand of saving many a poor creature from a life 
 of misery and crime." 
 
 For a period of twenty-one years, 1843 to 
 1864, Dr Guthrie continued a work of power 
 and influence in the pulpit and amongst a 
 large and increasing congregation in Edinburgh. 
 Of the sound and sensible nature of his preach- 
 ing we have abundant testimony. "In times 
 like these," remarks Dr Donald Fraser, "when 
 many court popularity by affecting secular 
 themes in sacred places, it is well worth remem- 
 bering that the most popular preacher of this 
 generation always dealt with simple Gospel 
 truths," "I believe," writes Dr Hanna, "that 
 there is not on record another instance of a 
 popularity continued without sign or token of 
 diminution for the length of an entire genera- 
 tion. Nor is there upon record the account of 
 any such kinds of crowds as those which con- 
 stituted continuously, for years and years, Dr 
 Guthrie's audiences in Free St John's. Every 
 afternoon crowds gather round the church long 
 before the hour of meeting. Soon as the doors 
 
DR GUTHRIE. 
 
 343 
 
 are opened, they break impetuously in, soon 
 filling every pew, and blocking up all the pass- 
 ages, till standing room for one man more is not 
 to be found in all the area of the building. Look 
 round while all are settling themselves as best 
 they can; you have before you as mixed and 
 motley a collection of human beings as ever as- 
 sembled within a church. Peers and peasants, 
 citizens and strangers, millionaires and me- 
 chanics, the judge from the bench, the carter 
 from the roadside, the high-born dame, the 
 sewing maid of low degree — all for once close 
 together. But in the crowd there is always one 
 conspicuous figure. Looking only at the rough, 
 red, shaggy hair, or at the chequered plaid hung 
 over the broad shoulders across the manly 
 breast from which it seldom in any circum- 
 stances is withdrawn, you may think that it is 
 some shepherd from the distant hills who has 
 wandered in from his shieling among the moun- 
 tains to hear the great city preacher. But look 
 again. The massy head, the broad projecting 
 brow, the lips so firmly closed, the keen grey 
 eye, and, above all, the look of intelligent and 
 searching scrutiny cast around — all tell of some- 
 thing higher than shepherd life. It is Hugh 
 Miller, the greatest of living Scotchmen, never 
 to be missed in this congregation, of which he 
 was not only a member but an ofiice-bearer. 
 How often as I sat opposite him, Sunday after 
 Sunday, have I gazed upon his mysterious 
 countenance; the head inclined always to one 
 side, bent half-way down ; the eyes askance, 
 fixed generally upon the floor, but occasionally 
 lifted up, scanning curiously the uplifted faces 
 of the crowd; and ever and anon, as the 
 preacher warmed into some glow of high emo- 
 tion or spread out some new picture, turning up 
 to and concentrating upon him for a moment or 
 two such a look as could come from no other 
 eyes than his." And again: "No discourses 
 ever delivered from the pulpit had more the 
 appearance of extempore addresses. None were 
 ever more carefully thought over, more com- 
 pletely written out beforehand, or more accur- 
 ately committed to memory. If ever there was 
 any one who might have trusted to the spur of 
 the moment for the words to be employed, it 
 was he. No readier speaker ever stepped upon 
 a platform ; but such was his deep sense of the 
 sacredness of the pulpit, and the importance of 
 weighing well every word that should proceed 
 from it, that he never trusted to a passing im- 
 pulse to mould even a single phrase. Yet in 
 the manuscript there were often phrases, sen- 
 tences, illustrations, that one on hearing them 
 could scarcely believe to have been other than 
 the suggestion of the moment, linking them- 
 selves, as apparently they did, with something 
 that was then immediately before the speaker's 
 eye. The explanation of this lay in the power 
 (possessed in any considerable degree by but 
 few, possessed by him in perfect measure) of 
 
 writing as if a large audience were around him, 
 writing as if speaking, realising the presence of 
 a crowd before him, and having that presence 
 as a continual stimulus to thought and constant 
 moulder of expression. The difference in fact 
 that there almost invariably is between written 
 and spoken address, was by his vivid imagina- 
 tion and quick sympathies reduced to a mini- 
 mum, if not wholly obliterated." 
 
 Towards the end of 1847 he was obliged to retire 
 from pulpit and pastoral work for a time in con- 
 sequence of impaired health. A gift of money 
 having been given him by his attached congrega- 
 tion, he travelled in various parts of England 
 and in the Scottish Highlands. In April 1849 
 the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred 
 upon him by the University of Edinburgh. In 
 October of the same year he returned to his 
 pulpit work, after a silence of about two years. 
 He had now grave premonitions of heart disease, 
 and he felt that he would no longer be fit for 
 rough work. This made the step of securing a 
 colleague absolutely necessary, and accordingly 
 the Rev. William Hanna, LL.D., was inducted 
 to the post on the 7th November 1850. He was 
 quick to realise, what many ministers are in- 
 clined to ignore, the utilising of the holiday 
 months of the year — especially August and 
 September — when so many people are on the 
 wing. "I think these two months," he wrote, 
 "in a sense, the most important of the year. I 
 know that many hear me then who are not in 
 the way at other times of hearing a sound 
 Gospel preached." Thackeray and Ruskin and 
 other celebrities, all found their way to St 
 John's when he was preaching. Hugh Miller 
 and Sir James Y. Simpson both occupied seats 
 in the area of the church. Lord Cockburn was 
 also there "with the high dome-like head, and 
 solemn, almost pensive air." He was beyond 
 middle life ere any of his collected sermons 
 were published. "Above any kind of print- 
 ing," he wrote on one occasion, "I have been 
 averse to the idea of printing modern — I don't 
 say moderate — sermons, thinking that for ser- 
 mon-composition the men of the present day 
 are not fit to hold the candle to the masters of 
 the seventeenth century." "The Gospel in 
 Ezekiel," a volume of sermons, was issued in 
 1855, and over 40,000 copies have now been 
 sold. His other works, including reprinted 
 contributions from Good Words and the Sun- 
 day Magazine, have all been more or less suc- 
 cessful. He published in all about twenty 
 volumes. An Englishman travelling on the 
 Continent remarked that he "is the only man 
 I ever heard of who has written sermons which 
 one can read pleasantly in a railway carriage." 
 D. L. Moody, the evangelist, once remarked to 
 one of his sons, "I owe more to the writings of 
 your father than to those of any other man." 
 In 1862 Dr Guthrie was elected as Moderator of 
 the General Assembly of the Fn-o Church of 
 
344 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Scotland. His closing address urged home the 
 fact, that in order to utilise the rising talent, 
 and genius, and energy of the country, in order 
 that the minister may be generous, and hospi- 
 table, and open-handed, give his family a liberal 
 education, and conform to the usages of genteel 
 life, the ministry should be well paid. As his 
 writings and sermons show, he was early devoted 
 to the cause of total abstinence. "Independent 
 of the good it did to my family and others, it 
 was a great personal advantage to myself. It 
 made my health better, my head clearer, my 
 spirits lighter, and my purse heavier." In his 
 work for ragged schools he found that in eight 
 cases out of ten the miserable condition of the 
 outcast children was due to careless and drunken 
 parents. "It is," he said, "impossible to 
 exaggerate, impossible truthfully to paint, the 
 effect of this vice on those who suffer from it — 
 most of all on those poor innocent children that 
 are dying under cruelty and starvation, that 
 shiver in their rags upon our streets, that walk 
 unshod the winter snows, and with their matted 
 hair, and hollow cheeks, and sunken eyes, and 
 sallow countenances, glare out on us, wild and 
 savage-like, from those patched and dusty win- 
 dows." While abstaining for personal safety, 
 and for the influence of his example, he laid 
 down no hard and fast rule for others. He was 
 one of the founders of the Free Church Temper- 
 ance Society, of the Scottish Association for the 
 Suppression of Drunkenness, endeavoured to 
 reduce the number of licensed houses in Edin- 
 burgh, and in 1850 published a lengthy pamphlet 
 entitled, "A Plea on Behalf of Drunkards, and 
 against Drunkenness." He also wrote several 
 tracts and a volume of sermons — " The City : 
 its Sins and Sorrows" — on the same subject. 
 The author was not a little amused at one time, 
 while standing engaged in conversation with his 
 publisher, to hear a bookseller's apprentice 
 enter and ask for " twenty copies of Guthrie's 
 *Sins. '" "Strange," he once wrote, "that minis- 
 ters will meet in General Assemblies and dis- 
 cuss this thing and that thing, nor address 
 themselves aright and with self-denial to this 
 spring and well-head of miseries and murders, 
 the damnation of souls, and the ruin of our 
 land." He would often contrast the shocking 
 sights to be seen in the High Street or Lawn- 
 market of Edinburgh with the comparative 
 sobriety of Continental towns. He looked with 
 pleasure on the progress made in the cause of 
 temperance reform within the Church of Eng- 
 land. Approving highly of the effort to secure 
 better dwellings for the working-classes, he be- 
 came a shareholder in a building investment 
 company. He lent his countenance and pre- 
 sence to innocent amusements for the people. 
 When called in question for his attendance at a 
 popular concert, he said, " Consider whether 
 ihe interests of religion and morality are not 
 more likely to be promoted by ministers and | 
 
 religious people taking an interest in such inno- 
 cent amusements, than by their standing aloof 
 with a sour face and a frown on their brows, or 
 by their endeavouring to dam up waters which, 
 if not directed into pleasant and profitable 
 channels, will break out in some mischievous 
 immoral and destructive way." He did not 
 consider the Free Church's scheme of education 
 instituted in 1843 as a truly national method, 
 and welcomed the English Education Act. 
 He wrote : " My great hope is, under God, in 
 the Education Act passed last session. If, as 
 I hope and think, it will be fairly and vigor- 
 ously wrought out, it will, I tell them here, 
 prove itself in time the most important and 
 blessed measure passed in Parliament since the 
 Reformation." At another time ho broke off 
 his argument in one of his speeches, and with 
 tears exclaimed: "What care I for the Free 
 Church, or any church upon earth, in compari- 
 son with my desire to save and bless those poor 
 children in the High Street ? " 
 
 We have already seen how he endeavoured, as 
 far as possible, to give his evenings to his family. 
 " Next to the love of God," writes Dr Ker, "his 
 spirit was sustained in his last days by the love 
 of his children." He was blest with eleven chil- 
 dren, ten of whom — six sons and four daugh- 
 ters — he was spared to see grow up. When 
 travelling abroad he was careful to keep the 
 home circle posted up in his movements; and 
 when members of his own family went out into 
 the world, his letters show his earnest solicitude 
 for their welfare. Here is one, dated Edin- 
 burgh, 1858 : 
 
 " I find it very difficult now to get anything 
 into my mind, it has become so hard with age. 
 That impressible season, therefore, through 
 which you are now passing, should be taken 
 advantage of to store up that best knowledge 
 which the Word of God furnishes. . . 
 Before I was fourteen years of age, I had read 
 through all Robertson's histories, David Hume's 
 * England,' books of voyages and travels, I know 
 not how many. There is too little solid read- 
 ing now-a-days among all ; and books on trade, 
 political economy, law, geography, and history, 
 would profitably fill up any spare time you 
 have from business and exercise, and go far to 
 strengthen your position by making all men feel 
 that in knowledge you were much above the 
 common run of men." 
 
 " I have made it a point, since my earliest 
 days at school, to do my best to keep in the front 
 rank, whatever work I was engaged in ; and, 
 were I you, I would do my best, before many 
 years were come and gone, to let people know that 
 I was one of the best-informed men in the town, 
 knowing my own business thoroughly, and a 
 little of almost every other body's. I have found 
 that I raised myself much in the estimation of 
 other men by showing them that I knew some- 
 thing of their business as well as my own. 
 
Farming and manufactures, for instance, you 
 should read on, and pump everybody on them. 
 There is nothing pleases men more than asking 
 them questions about their business. It gives 
 them an opportunity of appearing as instructors, 
 and impresses them, moreover, with a very favour- 
 able opinion of you as one anxious to acquire 
 knowledge, so that there is a double advantage 
 here. You get useful information, and make a 
 favourable impression besides — and all knowledge 
 is useful, even to the making of a pin or shoe-nail. 
 
 "Amenity of manners is one of the most im- 
 portant things that you can cultivate. I have 
 been propounding it for years, as the result of a 
 long and large observation on mankind, that a 
 man's success in life, in almost every profession, 
 depends more on his agreeable, pleasant, polite, 
 kind, and complacent manners than on anything 
 else. I don't want you to profess anything that 
 is not true ; but you cannot be too studious of 
 saying and doing things that will please others, 
 and saying and doing nothing unnecessarily 
 which will in the slightest degree hurt them or 
 grate on their self-complacency ; when you have 
 to differ from them, do it with all possible re- 
 luctance and modesty ; and when duty requires 
 you to refuse any request, do it with the utmost 
 politeness and tenderness." 
 
 Here is a portion from another letter : "Let 
 your daily prayer be, 'Lord, lead us not into 
 temptation 1 ' Our safety lies in fleeing from it. 
 Good people are not without their imperfec- 
 tions, it may be, sometimes their extravagances 
 in ideas or conduct ; still, overlooking these 
 small faults, cultivate their society; it is safe 
 walking with them, and such company and con- 
 duct is specially important at your age, when 
 your character for life is in the mould." 
 
 He greatly enjoyed the visits made to Dun- 
 keld, to Inverary Castle, the seat of the Duke of 
 Argyll, and to his Highland retreat at Lochlee, 
 and latterly the time spent nearly every season 
 in London ; he entered with keen zest into the 
 pleasures of social life or society, which Shake- 
 speare has termed "the happiness of life." "I 
 never," writes the Rev. Newman Hall, " heard 
 Dr Guthrie's equal for vivacity and variety in 
 conversation. Sometimes he convulsed us with 
 laughter by his witty anecdotes. Sometimes 
 every eye was moistened, in sympathy with his 
 own, at some tale of sorrow or of love. Some- 
 times he would charm us by his descriptions of 
 scenery and of fishing, his chief pastime; and 
 throughout all there was interwoven the golden 
 thread of Christian love and hope." At his 
 annual retreat at Lochlee, Forfarshire, he would 
 indulge in boating and fishing. 
 
 After visiting Switzerland in 1856, he would 
 say to those on his return, who had not been 
 there : "Then save up as much money as will 
 take you there. You will get a new revelation 
 of the Creator's glory. I say to everybody, See 
 the Alps before you die ! " "I only regret I do 
 
 not know the French tongue more thoroughly," 
 he writes from Martigny in 1856. " I would 
 jaw to everybody, and gather a vast mass 
 of interesting knowledge. Everybody, Papist 
 and Protestant, man and woman, grey-haired 
 patriarchs and the sucking child, Donald of the 
 Highland hills, or a shepherd of the Alps, all 
 like to be spoken to, and treated as bone of our 
 bone and flesh of our flesh." He interested 
 himself latterly in the Waldensian Church, and 
 was one of the founders of the Waldensian Aid 
 Society ; and one of the last addresses he ever 
 delivered was in the cause of Italian evangelisa- 
 tion in London. The state of his health obliged 
 him to demit his charge in Free St John's, 17th 
 May 1864. Another sphere of public useful- 
 ness opened to him. Mr Alexander Strahan, 
 the well-known publisher, made overtures to 
 him regarding the editorship of a new magazine, 
 to be called the Sunday Magazine; the Rev. 
 W. G. Blaikie, D.D., to be assistant editor. He 
 accepted, and in a letter to his eldest son he 
 says : "I cannot be too thankful that, in God's 
 good providence, I have such a pleasant prospect 
 before me — a suitable sphere of usefulness in the 
 evening of my day." This magazine was at 
 once successful. It has been the organ through 
 which a bright and refreshing stream of Chris- 
 tian literature has gone forth to bless the land. 
 A proposal from Messrs Cassell, the London 
 publishers, to write a " Life of Christ," he de- 
 clined. This project has since been admirably 
 and successfully accomplished by Canon Farrar. 
 But the end was approaching. Obliged to 
 move about for change of air and scene, he died 
 quietly at St Leonards-on-Sea, surrounded by 
 eight of his ten children, on 23d February 
 1873. His last illness was soothed by the tender 
 hand of affection. " Give me a bairn's hymn," 
 he would say ; and in response, his children 
 would sing, "Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear 
 me," or " There is a Happy Land." The High- 
 land servant who attended him was the first to 
 remark the death-sign: "Surely the wrinkles 
 on the brow are smoothing out," she said. His 
 remains were interred in the Grange Cemetery, 
 Edinburgh, amidst a concourse of about 30,000 
 spectators. In the large funeral procession there 
 were 230 children from the Original Ragged 
 Schools. A little boy and girl were led forward 
 from amongst them and laid a wreath upon the 
 green sod over his grave. We may very fitly 
 conclude this notice with his favourite motto, 
 given in so many of his speeches, and which 
 shows the drift and tendency of his life : 
 
 " I live for those that love me, 
 
 For those that know me true, 
 For the heaven that smiles above me, 
 
 And waits my coming too ; 
 For the cause that needs assistance. 
 For the wrongs that need resistance, 
 For the future in the distance, 
 For the good that I can do." 
 
34 G 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 EALPH WALDO EMEESON, LL.D. 
 
 [1803-1882.] 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philo- 
 sopher, poet, and essayist, wasthe son of a Uni- 
 tarian clergyman of Boston, and was born in 
 the latter city, 25th May 1803. In 1821, when 
 jeventeen years of age, he graduated at Harvard 
 University, and turning his attention to theology, 
 was ordained minister of the second Unitarian 
 church of Boston. Embracing some peculiar 
 views as to the forms of worship, he abandoned 
 preaching, and retiring to the village of Con- 
 cord — like Carlyle at Craigenputtoch — he gave 
 himself up to thinking and writing, chiefly 
 regarding the nature of man and his relation to 
 the universe. He delivered ** Man-Thinking," an 
 oration, before the Phi-Beta-Kappa Society in 
 1837. An address before the senior class in 
 Divinity College, Cambridge, attracted even 
 greater attention. He did not pretend to 
 reason, but to discover. He acted as a seer, 
 and announced, not argued. One of his dis- 
 tinctive doctrines is, that the Deity is im- 
 personal, and comes to self-consciousness only 
 in individuals. In distinction from pantheism, 
 Emerson "sinks God and nature in man." He 
 has been termed a "seeker with no past at his 
 back." In 1838 he published "Literary Ethics," 
 an oration; in 1839, "Nature: an Essay." In 
 1840 he commenced the Dial, a magazine of 
 literature, philosophy, and religion, which he 
 continued for four years. Margaret Fuller was 
 associated with him in the conduct of this 
 magazine. In 1841 he published " The Method 
 of Nature," "Man theEeformer," three lectures 
 on the times, and the first series of his essays. 
 In 1844 a second series of his essays was pub- 
 lished. In 1846 the first volume of his poems 
 was issued. He visited England in 1848, and 
 delivered lectures on " The Mind and Manners 
 of the Nineteenth Century." "Representative 
 Men," a volume containing six lectures on 
 eminent men, was issued in 1850. In connec- 
 tion with Mr W. H. Channing he published in 
 1852 the "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller, Marchesa 
 d'Ossoli." Emerson's other works are: "Eng- 
 lish Traits," 1856; "The Conduct of Life," 
 1860; an "Oration on the Death of President 
 Lincoln," 1865; "May Day," and other pieces 
 in verse, 1867; "Society and Solitude;" a 
 third volume of essays, 1870; an introduction 
 to Professor Godwin's translation of " Plutarch's 
 Morals," 1871; "Parnassus: Selected Poems," 
 1871; and another volume of essays, being the 
 fourth, in 1871. In 1866 he received the 
 honorary degree of LL.D. from the University 
 of Harvard. Emerson died the 27th day of April 
 1882. 
 
 AN EVENING WITH EMERSON.* 
 
 According to arrangement, I met Emerson 
 one evening at the Parker House, to accompany 
 him to Roxbury (a suburb of Boston), to hear 
 one of his public lectures. We walked part of 
 the way along Washington Street, brilliant with 
 its shop-lights, till the horse-cars should over- 
 take us — the philosopher, with characteristic 
 homeliness, carrying his manuscript under his 
 arm, wrapped in a bit of newspaper. When the 
 car came up all the seats were occupied, so we 
 had to stand — no one rising to offer a seat to 
 Emerson, either because in the dim light he was 
 not recognised, or because, in that land of 
 equality and fraternity, one man is as good as 
 another. 
 
 Leaving the omnibus at Roxbury, we made 
 our way to the Mechanics' Institution, where 
 the lecture was to be delivered, and found the 
 chairman waiting in the ante-room. On the 
 chairman asking what the subject of lecture was 
 to be, Emerson said he had brought two lectures 
 with him, and would take a look at the audience 
 before deciding which to give. 
 
 "Have you a good light falling on the desk?" 
 he inquired; "for if not, I must trouble you to 
 get a lamp. I am an old man, and need light." 
 
 The hall was so crowded that I had to carry 
 in a chair for myself over the heads of the 
 people. When Emerson appeared there was 
 some applause; but a Scotchman misses in 
 America the enthusiasm that in this country 
 would greet a man like Emerson. 
 
 The chairman having announced the subject 
 for next meeting, said: "I have now the plea- 
 sure of introducing, as the lecturer for this 
 evening, Mr Emerson." This is the stereotyped 
 form at all such meetings, and the chairman has 
 nothing else to do. 
 
 The gaunt man, simple and homely in his ap- 
 pearance, rose, took off his overcoat, laid it 
 across the back of a chair, took his place at the 
 desk, and began to adjust his manuscript, which 
 (made up of sheets and scraps of every size, age, 
 and hue) looked like a handful of invoices taken 
 from a merchant's file. 
 
 Let me try to convey an idea of his manner 
 and style. When he stood up, there was still 
 some talking amongst the audience, and move- 
 ment of people coming in. Emerson stood 
 waiting, with head inclined, and his calm, deep, 
 thoughtful eyes passing dreamily over the sea of 
 
 * Bj^ David llacrae, in "Tlie Americans at Home," 
 and here reproduced by permission. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 347 
 
 faces, till there was perfect silence. Then he 
 began — "The first lesson of nature is perpetual 
 ascension." He paused, as if to let the key-note 
 of his lecture be distinctly caught. " There is 
 a doctrine among physicists," he began again, 
 *'that a pot of earth may remain a hundred 
 years the same; but put in a seed, and all is 
 changed — not the seed only but every atom of 
 earth. Now, 'put a man into the world T^ he 
 cried with sudden energy, '■^ and see how soon 
 that great pot will he changed!" 
 
 "Man," he resumed, falling back into the old 
 tone, "man brings in the element of reason. 
 There goes reason to the boiling of an egg, to 
 the fighting of battles, to the making of an 
 alphabet. It is a long scale from the gorilla to 
 the gentleman — to Plato, to Aristotle, to Shake- 
 speare I But there is always an accelerated 
 march. There are many kinds of men — men of 
 horses and guns, men of scrip and stock, men of 
 dinners and dancing-parties, men with power 
 reaching as far as the pop of a champagne cork, 
 and then they are done. But I want to see men 
 of many thoughts — men like Newton, like Col- 
 umbus, like Copernicus ! Aristocracy means 
 truth and reality — doing what is elsewhere only 
 pretended to be done. The hero must be well- 
 born — must have the force of a hundred men in 
 him. Douglas can throw the bar a further cast. 
 Coeur-de-Lion can slay more Saracens. . . . 
 Heroes are they who can serve themselves at a 
 pinch. Homer's heroes (Achilles, Agamemnon, 
 and the rest) were of this make. Peter the 
 Great would learn to build ships. Napoleon 
 said, * If there is no gunpowder, I will manufac- 
 ture it ; if no gun-carriages, I will make them ; 
 if no bridge, I will construct one.' Truly, a 
 competent man, who, throw him as you will, 
 always fell upon his feet." 
 
 Emerson went on thus for an hour and a half 
 — standing at the desk, his thin piquant face 
 full of kindly light, and that " slow wise smile " 
 continually stealing over it. He speaks with 
 great deliberation, and has less fiuency of utter- 
 ance than is common with the Americans ; but 
 his hesitation never assumes the form of a stam- 
 mer, or causes any cessation of sound. He will 
 sometimes dwell upon a word as if gathering his 
 strength and then hurl out the next like a 
 thunderbolt. Once or twice, when he seemed 
 anxious to impress his thought upon the audi- 
 ence, the large hand that hung at his side 
 clenched itself and began to work convulsively, 
 jerking downwards as if stabbing some one at 
 the knee; then suddenly, just as his thought 
 exploded, the long arm was flung out with the 
 fingers clenched, and the great thumb sticking 
 up like the blade of a broken sword. 
 
 Let me give a few of the more memorable 
 passages of his lecture that night, and those 
 most appreciated by the audience : 
 
 "I want the American," he said, "to be 
 dipped in the Styx of universal experience. The 
 
 youth should learn to row, to fish, to hunt, to 
 camp in the woods, to work equations. I hap- 
 pened to be at West Point once attending an 
 examination. After the examination was over, 
 I saw a bed rolled up. I said to the cadet, 
 'Who makes your bed?' He said, 'I do.' 
 ' Who cooks your food ? ' ' I do.' ' Who blacks 
 your boots?' *I do.' Here was the capable 
 man, able to do for himself. The man of science 
 must find out the cause of ill and the cure. 
 We must say, *Mr Professor of Entomology, 
 can you tell us what insect this is that has been 
 destroying our fruit-trees these eight years ? If 
 not, make way for one who can.' ... In 
 the Swedish shipyards there was a rot in the 
 timber. The king sent for Linnseus to examine 
 it. Linnseus found in it an insect which laid its 
 eggs in April. He said, 'Let the logs be kept 
 submerged from ]\[arch till May.' It was done, 
 and the rot ceased." 
 
 "The fame truly attaches to the man who 
 thinks, not to those who make money of it. 
 The man who thinks is the king ; all else are 
 journeymen. The mob cheers the publisher, 
 not the inventor — they do not see the house in 
 plan. But when it makes 10, 20, 50 per cent., 
 they say, ' It is the voice of God ! ' " 
 
 " From a ferry-boat one day a friend pointed 
 out to me how, in houses, convenience has been 
 sacrificed to elegance. I am fond of books, and 
 I suff'er in houses from want of light. The 
 chandeliers are hung high — are no better for old 
 eyes than moonshine. There is a want here of 
 common sense. The English do not fail in this. 
 They are renowned for common sense. Montes- 
 quieu thought the true article was not to be 
 found out of that island. ... In India, the 
 Duke of Wellington sent guides to find a ford 
 for his troops. They said, 'There is none 
 nearer than so many miles above.' The duke 
 said, 'Here is a town on this side, there is 
 a town on that side, there must be a ford here ! ' 
 — and took his men across. So Lord Palmer- 
 ston, when he was asked by the city of Edin- 
 burgh to proclaim a fast because of the cholera, 
 made reply, 'Clean out your drains!' The 
 English rush to practical measures : they tolerate 
 no flights of oratory : they demand facts ending 
 in a policy and vote. I like to see the singing 
 and the dancing master penetrating into the 
 prairie! It is nothing in itself: but the more 
 piano the less wolf; the more of dancing-master 
 the less of bear and wilderness. . . . Moral- 
 ity is the object of government — not democracy 
 or monarchy, but a state of things in which crime 
 shall not pay y 
 
 One does not listen long to Emerson without 
 feeling that, though an impressive speaker, he is 
 more of a thinker than an orator. He is himself 
 interested deeply in his subject ; but often his 
 interest seems more that of one looking at his 
 own thought than of one who has to impress 
 his thought upon others. In this one sees 
 
348 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the student, the man of books and solitary 
 habits. 
 
 In so far as he speaks to the audience, he is 
 curt, aphoristic, oracular. There is no reason- 
 ing, no explaining, no bridging the gaps for 
 little feet or unaccustomed limbs; the giant 
 hurls his stepping-stones into the river-bed and 
 strides across, seldom looking back to see if you 
 can follow. Hence the impression he leaves of 
 being fragmentary, incoherent, diflficult to fol- 
 low. "If you blow your nose," said one gentle- 
 man, *' you may lose him and never be able to 
 pick him up again the whole night." I think it 
 was the Marquis of Lome who compared one of 
 Emerson's lectures to a number of propositions 
 written on separate pieces of paper, shaken up 
 in a hat, and read just as they happened to 
 come out ! 
 
 And yet there is an indescribable power about 
 this man which attracts large audiences wherever 
 he goes, and sends every listener away richer 
 than he came, if only by so many splinters of 
 glittering ore. That night a few in the audience 
 were listless — one or two even asleep — before 
 the philosopher was done ; but the mass of the 
 people listened with steady attention to the 
 close, though with what comprehension of the 
 subject it would be difficult to say. As we were 
 dispersing, I asked a man beside me what he 
 thought of the lecture. "Why," said he, "I 
 suppose it's very fine, because it is Emerson; 
 but darned if I know what it's been all 
 about." Others were full of enthusiasm about 
 it — having, let us hope, a deeper apprehension 
 of its meaning. 
 
 "We returned to Boston together, and spent 
 the rest of the evening at the Union Club. 
 Longfellow was there ; old Dana, the poet, with 
 his snow-white hair and patriarchal look ; Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, sprightly, nervous, and lively ; 
 Lowell, with his classic head, brown curling 
 beard and moustache, and hyacinthine locks; 
 Hayes, the Arctic voyager, small, black-haired, 
 with quick dark eye and resolute face ; Agassiz, 
 big, jovial, and ruddy; and Fields, the pub- 
 lisher, with one or two of his partners. 
 
 Speaking to Emerson about lecturers in 
 America, he said : " Gough can draw vast audi- 
 ences all over the country, and command his 
 price— $200 or $250 a night. Curtis is a fine 
 speaker. Henry Ward Beecher is a flame of 
 fire. Wendell Phillips is the man who has 
 most power of bringing others at the moment 
 to think with him. People go to hear him who 
 detest his ideas, and come away applauding. I 
 envy Phillips. I have often asked him about 
 his method, but have got nothing satisfactory 
 out of him. Every man should learn when 
 young to arrange his ideas with rapidity, and 
 express them without confusion. It is a rare 
 and most valuable accomplishment." 
 
 Speaking of education in America and this 
 country, he said, "The Americans read more, 
 
 and are more extensively educated than your 
 people." He scouted the idea that education 
 made people dissatisfied with humble life. 
 "People look," he said, "to what makes bread. 
 A man will rather live as a storekeeper than 
 starve as a doctor." 
 
 Of the agitation against the Liquor Laws 
 which was going on in Boston at the time, he 
 said: "I voted against prohibition. I never 
 touch the freedom of the individual when it 
 can possibly be helped. No doubt there are 
 men who cannot keep from drink, and when a 
 poor woman comes to a bar-keeper and says : 
 ' My husband is a good, kind man except when 
 he gets drink, and then he becomes a brute; 
 may I vex you not to let him have any ; ' and 
 still the bar-keeper sells it to him, one feels as 
 if he would like a law to prevent him. But this 
 is only part of the question. We must find 
 some other way of working. I am a fanatic for 
 individual liberty." 
 
 Keferring to British politics and the Reform 
 Bill which had passed, he said, "It is a wise 
 step. It has probably averted revolution. Your 
 Government lasts because it has learned to bend 
 when it would otherwise break." 
 
 The case of Governor Eyre was exciting at- 
 tention at the time. Emerson expressed his 
 astonishment that Thomas Carlyle should have 
 taken the governor under his wing, and wanted 
 to know what was thought of it in this country. 
 He did not believe that men like Tennyson, 
 Buskin, and Kingsley would have mixed them- 
 selves up with the affair had Carlyle not led the 
 way. He thought Carlyle was losing himself. 
 
 He asked about Sterling — " the Scotch Hege- 
 lian," as he called him. He had read his book. 
 Sterling was an able man, and had good meta- 
 physical insight. His work was "good gym- 
 nastics." He spoke of Robertson of Brighton, 
 and was anxious to know what influence his 
 sermons were producing on the popular theo- 
 logy.* 
 
 * Emerson's own theological position may be in- 
 ferred from the following passages from his lectures 
 and books : " Our age is retrospective; it builds the 
 sepulchre of the fathers. Foregoing generations 
 beheld God face to face; we through their eyes. 
 Why should not we also enjoy our original relation 
 to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry 
 and philosophy of insight, and not of tradition : and 
 a religion by revelation to us, and not a history of 
 theirs ? Embosomed for a season in nature, . . • 
 why should we grope among the dry bones of the 
 past, or put the living generation into masquerade 
 out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day 
 also. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. 
 Let us demand our own works and laws and worship." 
 And again : * ' Alone in history Christ estimated the 
 greatness of man. Christ said, ' I am divine. 
 ;Phrough me God acts : through me speaks. Would 
 you see God, see me ; or see thee when thou also 
 thinkest as I (the Christ) now think.' Churches are 
 built not on Christ's principles but on His tropes." 
 
LORD LYTTON, 
 
 34C 
 
 Emerson has been a public man now for over 
 forty years. He was ordained pastor of a Uni- 
 tarian church in Boston in the year 1829, but 
 resigned his charge two years after, because, 
 like the Quakers, he believed the Lord's Supper 
 to be a thing of inward communion, and to be 
 sensualised by the presentation of actual bread 
 and wine. Four years later he married his 
 second wife and went to reside at Concord, a 
 little town about seventy miles out from Boston. 
 It is said that when his wife wanted the children 
 baptized, Emerson said, ''When we find a man 
 who is as good as they are I shall not object." 
 When Channing went to Concord, Emerson 
 said, "This is the man," and the children were 
 baptized. He lives in comparative seclusion, 
 thinking and reading. He is a devout student 
 of nature, loves to hold silent communion 
 with her, and draws to those who are engaged 
 in exploring her mysteries. He and Agassiz 
 are great friends. They look at nature from 
 different sides, but the facts and the spiritual 
 meanings of nature reflect and glorify each 
 other. Emerson is often in Boston, and never 
 
 fails on such occasions to find his way to Fields' 
 publishing house in Tremont Street, which is 
 the great rendezvous for literary men in " the 
 Hub." During the winter he is much engaged 
 in lecturing. But he is now turning an old 
 man, is neither so able nor so willing as he once 
 was to bear the fatigue of travelling, and every 
 season brings with it fears that he will not 
 appear on the platform again. To me his ap- 
 pearance suggested no reason why he should not 
 go on for ten years more, just as he has done for 
 the ten years past. But Americans, when they 
 get to a certain age, especially if they shave 
 smooth as Emerson does, never seem as if they 
 were growing older. Moreover, there is a child- 
 likeness about Emerson that keeps him even 
 younger in nature than he is in appearance. In 
 manner he is quiet, cordial, unaffected, witL a 
 freshness of sympathy that makes it impossible 
 not to love as well as admire him. In his so- 
 ciety one becomes conscious of his genius with- 
 out humiliation. It steals round one like the 
 morning light, giving a sense of pure enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 LOED LYTTOK 
 
 [1805-1873.] 
 
 [Edward George Earle Lttton Bulwer, the 
 accomplished and versatile poet and novelist, 
 was born in 1805, and educated at Cambridge, 
 commencing his literary career in 1826 by the 
 publication of a volume of poems called " Weeds 
 and Wild Flowers." His first work of fiction 
 was entitled "Falkland," and was published 
 anonymously. "Pelham" followed in 1828, 
 and its success decided his career as a novelist 
 and man of letters. He afterwards published a 
 long series of popular and well-known novels, 
 and several volumes of graceful poetry, and 
 some dramas. He entered Parliament in 1831, 
 as member for St Ives, and joined the Whig 
 party. In 1852 he was returned for Herts, and 
 joining the Conservative party, became Colonial 
 Secretary in 1858. He succeeded to the Kneb- 
 worth estates in 1844, worth £12,000 a year, and 
 from this time adopted his mother's maiden 
 name Lytton, and became known as Sir Edward 
 Bulwer-Lytton. He was created a baronet in 
 1835, and in 1854 was installed as honorary 
 president to the associated societies of the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh, and in 1856 was installed 
 as Lord Rector of Glasgow University for a 
 second time. He was raised to the peerage as 
 Baron Lytton in 1866. He died at Knebworth 
 in 1873. His only son, the Right Hon. Edward 
 Robert Bulwer-Lytton, is also an elegant poet.] 
 
 LORD LTTTON.* 
 
 Lord Lytton played many characters in his 
 life, and every one of them with distinction. 
 He has left evidences of his versatile talent and 
 indefatigable industry in almost every depart- 
 ment of literature. His dramas have laid firm 
 hold on the stage; his poems have deserved 
 even more admiration than they have obtained ; 
 his essays embody at once profound and practi- 
 cal lessons of life, although they may be robbed 
 of something of their power by the graces and 
 polish of their style. But it is mainly on the 
 fame of his novels that he will live in the ap- 
 preciation of posterity. In saying so much, 
 and it is much to say considering what he has 
 written, we do not mean to aver that he was a 
 heaven-born novelist. Richly gifted as he was, 
 he was not gifted with the genius that seems to 
 read the bottom of the human heart as by in- 
 stinct ; that analyses the subtler motives of ac- 
 tion as if by intuition ; that reproduces feelings 
 and passions as if it had lived through them all 
 in some previous state of existence ; that seems 
 capable of transferring itself into the being of 
 each of its creations, throwing out all those 
 little unrevealed traits which indicate an indi- 
 
 * From the Times. 
 
350 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 viduality, although they must escape the obser- 
 vation of the shrewdest and keenest external 
 observer. There was wanting, perhaps, that 
 somethiDg which it is difficult to hint at, and 
 altogether impossible to describe or define, 
 although the most careless and least sympa- 
 thetic reader is so quickly conscious of its pre- 
 sence or absence. We may vaguely indicate it 
 as heart-reading and heart-writing, and we may 
 find no bad illustration of what we mean in the 
 novel we are inclined to regard as his master- 
 piece. Audley Egerton addresses himself to the 
 world from the hustings at Lansmere over the 
 heads of the reporters and the mixed multitude 
 who have gathered to listen to him. His speech 
 dazzles and fascinates all who hear it; it will be 
 quoted as a triumph of oratory when it is read 
 in the journals on the morrow. But Harley 
 L'Estrange follows, who has little of his friend's 
 experience, and still less of his cultivation ; yet 
 at once he touches the hearts of his audience, 
 refined and unrefined, and he plays on their 
 innermost chords just as he will. 
 
 Lord Lytton was rather the Egerton of novel 
 writing than its Harley L'Estrange ; yet, if we 
 deny him that mysterious power which should 
 insure its happy possessor immortality, we may 
 grant him in very large measure almost every- 
 thing else which goes to make a successful 
 novelist. He had keen power of observation, 
 sharpened by growing experience, deep know- 
 ledge of human nature, and a force of graphic 
 expression. He had the faculty of clever con- 
 struction, an instinct for shaping dramatic 
 situations. He shone and sparkled in dialogue, 
 and his dialogues reflected easily and naturally 
 those infinite varieties of character he delighted 
 in analysing. Wit he had in abundance, 
 although the wit had something of a foreign 
 flavour, by which the dialogue sometimes lost 
 and sometimes gained. He had humour, and 
 the humour is often admirably embodied in his 
 creations, although, perhaps, we have a feeling 
 that it is less natural and spontaneous than 
 artificial. Pathos, as distinguished from senti- 
 ment, seemed to come to him with an efi"ort, 
 although there were times when it flowed from 
 the very fulness of the heart. Now and again 
 you had a sense that he was bowing his head as he 
 bent over the couch of the sufl"erer, or stooped 
 to enter the cottages of the poor. Yet he bent 
 with infinite grace and tenderness ; it was some- 
 thing of — not heartlessness, but the morgue of a 
 reserved and somewhat sensitive nature which 
 embarrassed him. Poetical feeling pervaded all 
 he wrote, generally ennobling and refining it. 
 It gave their fitting charm to those historical 
 romances which none but dramatic poets should 
 ever dare attempt. Harold's death at Hastings 
 reads like some stanzas from the chant of the 
 *' Romance of Ron," and Rienzi succumbs in the 
 Capitol of fallen Rome to a stirring burst of 
 mournful but martial music. His later domes- 
 
 tic novels were soft idylls of English : ural life, 
 breathing in every line profound but unobtrusive 
 poetic feeling. But for a time his poetic sensi- 
 bility threatened to be a snare to him ; poetry 
 tended to degenerate into sentimentality. It 
 may have been that such sharp parodies as 
 Thackeray's " George de Barnwell " brought him 
 back to a purer and more natural taste. lu 
 what we may call the mechanism of writing he 
 excelled; restlessly industrious as he was, he 
 never did himself injustice by hurried or slovenly 
 execution. Possibly he might have left even 
 nobler monuments had he concentrated his con- 
 ceptions and been more chary of repeating his 
 ideas. Yet his, we must remember, was essen- 
 tially a versatile mind ; thought worked swiftly 
 with him, if execution was laborious and care- 
 ful ; and had he been less profuse of his talent, 
 it is probable that even posterity would have 
 lost more than it gained. His tact told him 
 sooner or later when it was time to shift his 
 ground ; and each time he shifted it he devel- 
 oped resources previously perhaps unsuspected 
 even by himself. The many sides of his busy 
 existence all served him in their turn ; there was 
 not an acquisition or an experience he did not 
 utilise for the more profound purposes of his 
 pictures. Frequently he figured himself in 
 his noblest and most impressive characters. 
 The mature politician and the veteran man 
 of the world lived again in the novels of his 
 later life — in Trevelyan, in Egerton, in Bar- 
 rel. It was, no doubt, on memory more than 
 imagination he drew for the details of that 
 inimitable Lansmere election which stands out 
 among scores of companion studies an excep- 
 tional picture of the genuinely English life and 
 humour. The scholar showed himself every- 
 where, and seldom or never with the affected 
 pedantry of recondite attainments, for Mr Caxton 
 was meant to be a book-worm igar excellence. 
 The *' Man about Town " wrote of Mayfair and 
 Pall-Mall according to his age and habits ; the 
 young blood of Pelham's time developed into 
 the dignified statesman and senator who has 
 taken his undisputed place in the world of our 
 own days. But while, as the English country 
 gentleman, he always delighted in retiring to 
 the solitude of his estates, closing his park gates, 
 and indulging his literary tastes in luxurious 
 libraries, whose windows opened on his lawns 
 and his coverts, when the question was of lite- 
 rary men, their fears, their hopes, their anxieties, 
 and their recompenses. Lord Lytton always 
 throws himself into them with all the passion of 
 an author who has struggled and been success- 
 ful. " John Burley " or " Leonard Fairfield "— 
 the worn, dissipated adventurer, or the fresh 
 young poet, it is all the same — it is there the 
 novelist seems to us to write with his fullest 
 spirit and most generous sympathy. Thanks to 
 this manifold activity of his mind, he made the 
 most of extraordinary advantages, natural and 
 
LORD LYTTON. 
 
 351 
 
 adventitious. He kept himself at school th« 
 •whole of his life. He had the world, the library., 
 and his ovm active mind for his teachers, and 
 we have the result in the long series of volumes 
 that mark the steady ripening of his powers, 
 without indicating any decay of his fancy. 
 
 Tliat is the rare peculiarity of Lord Lytton's 
 genius. He has written enormously, but, so 
 far from writing himself out, his latest novels 
 are the most admirable. He has written novels 
 in so many and such varied styles that they 
 almost defy regular classification. Yet we think 
 we may venture to indicate three broadly com- 
 prehensive stages, although we are far from 
 pretending that they observe steadily the unities 
 either of time or style. The first may be taken 
 to begin with "Pelham" — we make no account 
 of "Falkland," which was subsequently sup- 
 pressed — and runs through such works as 
 "Ernest Maltravers," "Alice," "Devereux," 
 etc., and may be roughly characterised as 
 sensational or sentimental. The second com- 
 prises his historical works. The third includes 
 those inimitable pictures of English life which 
 must give their author rank among English 
 classics, and which will furnish flesh and colour 
 to historical skeletons arranged by some future 
 Macaulay. 
 
 "Pelham; or. The Adventures of a Gentle- 
 man," written when he had just attained his ma- 
 jority, showed singular promise, and, indeed, 
 performance, although there was little origin- 
 ality in the leading idea. It was a fashionable 
 novel like another, when fashionable novels 
 were the fashion. Yet its spirit and freshness 
 were in unquestionable contrast to the vapidity 
 characteristic of the novels of the day. Al- 
 though effeminately brought up, and indolent 
 by habit rather than nature, the hero was no 
 drawing-room simperer. He had a mind of his 
 own, and energy, and could act like a hero on 
 occasions. The truth is, Bulwer had followed 
 the simplest and surest road to great success by 
 taking himself, in a measure, for his model. 
 Pelham, like Bulwer, was a home-bred boy, and 
 naturally showed the shortcomings of his home 
 education when he went forth into the world. 
 Worshipper, as Lord Lytton professedly was, 
 of the ideal, as idealised as he was to a great 
 extent in the character of his hero, yet he im- 
 pressed his readers with a sense of his hero's 
 reality. He sent him from the atmosphere of 
 fashion to seek adventures ; made him quit the 
 London drawing-rooms for the salons of Paris, 
 where his esprit found a more original and still 
 more appropriate sphere. What is more. Lord 
 Lytton, from the first, went in search of sensa- 
 tion to the picturesquely Bohemian side of 
 society. He stimulated interest by transport- 
 ing his fashionable readers to scenes and circles 
 they had no previous knowledge of. He dared 
 more than the writers of drawing-room fiction 
 had dared before him, and ventured to a certain 
 
 extent on the vein that Sue and Dumas have 
 since worked so successfully in France, only he 
 toned down and subordinated his sensation, 
 while they made it a prominently offensive 
 feature. The novels which immediately suc- 
 ceeded "Pelham" showed marked advances on 
 it as works of art. Of all writers Bulwer was 
 most likely to improve himself by careful self- 
 criticism as well as accumulating experiences. 
 In "The Disowned," in "Ernest Maltravers," 
 in "Alice," and "Night and Morning," there is 
 more profound thought, an infinitely nicer dis- 
 crimination of the shades of character, and an 
 increasing vigour and grace of expression. In 
 "Devereux," moreover — we do not name his 
 "svorks chronologically — the elaborate and com- 
 plicated plot is admirably consistent and in- 
 genious throughout. Yet all of these had a 
 c:)mmon fault, whether we regard them as works 
 o\ art, or as books intended to be popular. 
 The worship of the ideal was becoming idolatry. 
 T^ue poetry, as we said, threatened to degenerate 
 into sickly and fine-spun sentimentality. The 
 author indulged himself in perpetual flights 
 that carried him away from the sympathies and 
 intelligence of his readers. But Lord Lytton 
 was too much a man of the world to persist in 
 gratifying personal predilections at the expense 
 of reputation. After all, he was writing for the 
 world, and not for himself. We may add, be- 
 sides, that his correct taste must infallibly have 
 recalled him, sooner or later, from any false 
 path into which his weaknesses might have 
 betrayed him. He took counsel with himself, 
 and, as the critics were beginning to ridicule 
 him, of a sudden he abandoned the sentimental 
 romance, and betook himself to the historical 
 novel. 
 
 Yet there are three of his books in particular 
 which belong neither to the one category nor 
 the other, but which cannot be passed over 
 without a word of remark. "Paul Clifford" 
 was a criminal romance of the French school 
 clothed in English dress — Bow Street in place 
 of the Rue Jerusalem. The highwaymen, its 
 heroes, were distinctly English. The contact 
 of guilt and unconscious innocence lent them- 
 selves to painful contrast and powerful effect. 
 The loves of the vulture and turtle demanded 
 daring yet delicate treatment. It was eagerly 
 read, and provoked harsh and stern criticism, 
 to which its author made a plausible and telling 
 reply. Waiving the broad question of morality, 
 there can be no question "Paul Clifford" was a 
 great intellectual feat, yet in that respect it was 
 surpassed by "Eugene Aram." There Bulwer 
 selected an essentially unpleasing subject, while 
 he deliberately dispensed with the excitement 
 of an unforeseen denouement. Eugene Aram's 
 history was notorious, and his fate known be- 
 forehand. But Aram was a criminal of a loftier 
 type than Clifford, of a type the most likely to 
 enlist all his author's sympathies. He wa.2 co 
 
352 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 deeply in love with knowledge, that for know- 
 ledge's sake he could do violence to his better 
 nature, while he sought to calm his conscience 
 by the subtle reasoning that was powerless to 
 silence subsequent remorse. Yet, much as he 
 loves knowledge, he has room in his heart for a 
 mortal mistress as well, and the conflict of these 
 twin passions with the slow expiation of his 
 crime by him and the woman he adores, while 
 he has crushed her, is one of the finest efforts 
 of modern fiction. Very different is the "Pil- 
 grims of the Rhine," although it, too, is a 
 gloomy tale of unhappy love. Perhaps the 
 most genuinely pathetic work of its author, with 
 its melancholy burden and its numberless deli- 
 cate touches of tenderness, it is brightened by a 
 sparkling melange of tales and legends, all ex- 
 quisitely tinted with appropriate local colour. 
 The adventures of Reincke Fuchs were never 
 V)etter told in German or English than by Bul- 
 wer; and we are sure that, whether the story 
 of the ineffable love that thought a moment's 
 relief from purgatory to comfort his love cheaply 
 bought by a thousand years of torture be ori- 
 ginal or not, it gains unspeakably in Bulwer's 
 touching way of telling it. 
 
 If the "Pilgrims of the Rhine" are tinted 
 with local colour, the Italian historical romances 
 are steeped in it. No wonder that a scholar, a 
 poet, and a romancist like Lord Lytton, could 
 not tread the dust of mouldering Rome, or 
 muse among the disinterred memories of the 
 old city of Campania, without dreaming of 
 making their past live again. It was a bold con- 
 ception, and there must be the magic of genius 
 in the pen that revives a forgotten world for 
 you, and makes you thrillingly follow the for- 
 tunes of its personages as if you had known 
 them in flesh and blood. The sound archaeology 
 of the " Last Days of Pompeii " is so thickly 
 strewn with the flowers of fiction that visitors 
 assume as a matter of course the genuine iden- 
 tity of the houses of Diomed and Glaucus, and 
 give themselves up to the received illusion when 
 the guide points out the rich form of Julia im- 
 pressed on the lava walls of the cellar where she 
 had sought for refuge. It needs little romance 
 to conjure up the litter of Sallust carrying the 
 good-natured epicure through the showers of 
 falling ashes, or to look out pensively on the 
 blue waters of the bay, as if the unhappy Nydia 
 had really buried herself there with her un- 
 happy lover. There was a whole epitome of a 
 departed world in the "Last Days of Pompeii," 
 while " Rienzi " was but an episode in the long 
 vicissitudes of Rome. Yet the episode was 
 admirably selected for the author's purpose, 
 and the proof of his power is that, as we sus- 
 pect, he has permanently swayed the opinion 
 of history as to the character of the tribune. 
 Great as Rienzi was, Bulwer has raised him 
 higher than he deserved in the cosmopolitan 
 Valhalla. We have no time to linger over 
 
 ' * Harold " and the * ' Last of the Barons. " The 
 former was a feat of rapid writing only ren- 
 dered possible by the closeness with which its 
 author followed the early chroniclers and 
 Thierry, but bearing in every dramatic scene 
 down to the crowning and tragic denouement 
 the unmistakable stamp of his special genius. 
 The latter we like less. We cannot help sus- 
 pecting that his pride in a long historical 
 descent had its part in inducing him to pitch 
 upon times when the Knight of Lytton played 
 a conspicuous part. The barons of the Wars 
 of the Roses were as unpromising subjects for 
 poetical fiction as Colonnas and Orsinis, with 
 their savage feuds; while, great as the King- 
 maker was, he did not contain the elements of 
 contrast to them like the greater and nobler 
 tribune, while for once there is tedious side- 
 play that drags on the action of the plot, and 
 the story of Adam Warner's mechanical studies 
 is almost as rude and cumbrous as his infant 
 printing-press. 
 
 Lord Lytton stood scarcely as high as he had 
 done, when, in 1849, the novel of "The Cax- 
 tons" made its appearance in Blackwood! i 
 Magazine. If his fame had been waning, "The 
 Caxtons" retrieved it, as Scott's "Waverley" 
 avenged his "Waterloo." Followed by "My 
 Novel," and "What Will He Do With It?" it 
 seemed as if it was only then that he had made 
 his way into the sphere the most congenial to his 
 powers. Undoubtedly, for him and for us, it 
 was as well that he had waited. In his rare 
 pictures of English life he found a competent 
 critic in every one of his readers, yet all of them 
 owned that he threw novel and striking lights 
 on the most hackneyed and familiar scenes. 
 Long and elaborate as was "My Novel," there 
 were few who would have wished it shorter or 
 who condemned it as over-laboured. It was in it 
 he gave the freest play to his long and extensive 
 knowledge of life, that he practically developed 
 in their widest range his ripened and varied ex- 
 periences. Yet, while eminently a study of 
 character, it was equally a triumph of construc- 
 tion ; each seemingly unconsidered circumstance 
 was seen to fit into the plot with a marvellous 
 precision, and while its personages grew older, 
 better, or worse, no one of them was ever 
 suffered to contradict himself. The wit and 
 humour were as bright as ever, but they were 
 more subdued and more English. Sensation 
 there was in abundance, although it was never 
 suffered to predominate; the style, without 
 losing polish, had been growing purer and 
 simpler. In short, in all its aspects there was a 
 harmony of something approaching perfection 
 that, to our mind, as we have said, made one of 
 his latest works his best one. 
 
 We have not even attempted to name all his 
 books, and we have omitted those that, dipping 
 into mysticism, were doomed from their birth 
 to an ephemeral reputation. We have left our- 
 
LORD BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 353 
 
 selves little more to add, had we the space or 
 time to prolong our article. Only before leav- 
 ing the subject, we must observe that Lord 
 Lytton has more than once exercised a mental 
 influence on coi>temporary writers, sometimes 
 for good, and sometimes, perhaps, for evil. 
 But if "Paul Cliiford" fathered a long series of 
 stories from the "Newgate Calendar" cast in 
 
 romances, if some of his earlier novels stimulated 
 a morbid sentimentalism, his later ones corrected 
 the debased taste of the age, and set his con- 
 temporaries a worthy model after which to 
 aspire. Lord Lytton's fame cannot fail to live, 
 for he was earnest, thoughtful, conscientious, 
 and accurate, in spite of his being the most ver- 
 satile writer of his day. 
 
 LOED BEACONSFIELD. 
 
 [1804-1881.] 
 
 The Eight Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, Lord 
 Beaconsfield, was the oldest son of Isaac Disraeli, 
 author of the " Curiosities of Literature," and 
 was born in London, 21st December 1804. The 
 first appearance of the Disraeli family in Eng- 
 land was in the shape of a Venetian convert 
 from Judaism, who came to this country in 
 1748, was successful in business, and settled 
 down in retirement at Enfield, Middlesex. His 
 only son Isaac was the father of Lord Beacons- 
 field. He was articled in a solicitor's office, and 
 while very young published "Vivian Grey," a 
 novel, which was followed afterwards by "The 
 Young Duke," "Henrietta Temple," and others. 
 After travelling in the East, he devoted himself 
 to politics and literature. In 1837 he entered 
 Parliament as member for Maidstone, which 
 was exchanged for Shrewsbury in 1841. He 
 obtained a seat for Buckinghamshire in 1847, 
 which he continued to represent up till 1876. 
 At the death of Lord G. Bentinck he became 
 the acknowledged leader of the Conservatives in 
 the House of Commons. Under Lord Derby he 
 acted as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 
 February to December 1852, from February 
 1858 to June 1859, and from July 1866 to 
 February 1868. He acted as First Lord of the 
 Treasury till 8th December 1868. In 1866, 
 while Chancellor of the Exchequer, he brought 
 forward his Keform Bill, which was passed, 
 giving a great extension to the franchise. In 
 February 1868 he succeeded Lord Derby as 
 Premier, but resigned in December when the 
 Conservatives were defeated at the general 
 election, and Mr Gladstone succeeded him as 
 Premier. On Mr Gladstone's appeal to the 
 country in 1874, the result was that 351 Con- 
 servative members and 302 Liberals were re- 
 turned to Parliament. Mr Gladstone resigned, 
 and Mr Disraeli became Prime Minister at the 
 head of the Conservative Government. He was 
 a D.C.L. of Oxford, a Privy Councillor, a 
 trustee of the British Museum, a trustee of the 
 National Gallery, a Deputy-Lieutenant of 
 
 Bucks, and a Eoyal Commissioner of the Ex- 
 hibition of 1851. He was chosen Lord Kector 
 of the University of Glasgow in 1873, and again 
 re-elected in 1874. In 1876 he accepted a seat 
 in the House of Lords with the title of Lord 
 Beaconsfield. The Conservative Government 
 was severely tested and criticised during the 
 Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and while the 
 peace negotiations were pending between the 
 two countries, great alarm and uncertainty 
 prevailed all over the country, as to whether 
 Great Britain would or would not be plunged 
 into war with Russia. "See him when you 
 will," says a writer in Fraser's Magazine, "he 
 glides past you noiselessly without being appar- 
 ently conscious of the existence of externals, 
 and more like the shadow than the substance 
 of the man. When he is speaking he equally 
 shrouds himself in his own intellectual atmo- 
 sphere. You would think he paid no regard to 
 the thought of whom he was addressing, but 
 only to the ideas he was enunciating in words. 
 Still with downcast eyes, still with what may 
 almost be called a torpor of the physical powers, 
 he seems more than an intellectual abstraction, 
 — a living man of passions and sympathies, if 
 some one of his friends interrupts him to offer 
 a friendly suggestion, or to correct a misstate- 
 ment of facts, the chances are that he will not 
 notice him at all, or if he does, that it will be 
 with a gesture of impatience, or with something 
 like asnarl. This singvilar self -absorption betrays 
 itself even when he is in a sitting posture. You 
 never see him gazing around him, or lolling back 
 over his seat, or seeking to take his ease as 
 other men do in the intervals of political excite- 
 ment." His novel "Lothair" appeared in 
 1870, and "Endymion" in 1880. Mr Disraeli 
 in 1839 married a wealthy lady, Mrs Lewis, 
 widow of Wyndham Lewis, Esq., M.P. She 
 was created Viscountess Beaconsfield in her 
 own right in 1868, and died in 1872, leav- 
 ing no family. The earl died 19th April 
 
 1881. 
 
 Z 
 
354 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 DISRAELI IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.* 
 
 A man of middle height, of spare "but well- 
 proportioned frame, of scrupulous neatness of 
 dress, and possessed of a countenance which no 
 one can forget who has once looked upon it — 
 this is Mr Disraeli, as we see him now quietly 
 walking up the floor of the House to his place 
 on the front Opposition hench. Arrived at his 
 seat he removes his hat — he alone amongst the 
 gentlemen upon that bench — and sits down, 
 folding his arms, and stretching out his legs in 
 a fashion which recalls bygone days, when out 
 of every twenty honourable gentlemen in the 
 House, nineteen of them stretched out their 
 legs in exactly the same way. 
 
 Over the high arched forehead — surely the fore- 
 head of a poet ? — there hangs from the crown of 
 the head a single curl of dark hair, a curl which 
 you cannot look at without feeling a touch of 
 pathos in your inmost heart, for it is the only 
 thing about the worn and silent man reminding 
 you of the brilliant youth of "Vivian Grey." 
 The face below this solitary lock is deeply marked 
 with the furrows left by care's ploughshare; 
 the fine dark eyes look downwards, the mouth 
 is closed with a firmness that says more for this 
 man's tenacity of will than pages of eulogy 
 would do ; but what strikes you more than any- 
 thing else is the utter lack of expression upon 
 the countenance. No one looking at the face, 
 though but for a moment, could fall into the 
 error of supposing that expression and intelli- 
 gence are not there ; they are there, but in con- 
 cealment. 
 
 Much is said of the power possessed by 
 Napoleon III. of hiding his thoughts from the 
 keenest scrutiny ; but more than once even his 
 power over his countenance has been sorely 
 taxed, and he has been glad of the grateful 
 shelter of the curling moustache that shades his 
 mouth. Without any such help, however, Mr 
 Disraeli has a face that is simply inscrutable. 
 Again and again have hundreds of keen eyes 
 been turned at critical moments towards that 
 face, to read, if it might be possible, something 
 of the thoughts of the man himself ; but never 
 once, not even in the most exciting crisis of per- 
 sonal or political conflict, has the face unwit- 
 tingly relaxed, or friend or foe been able to read 
 aught there. It is the face of a sphinx, inscru- 
 table and unfathomable ; it is, as men of every 
 party will admit, the most remarkable face in 
 England. 
 
 We have dwelt thus long upon it, because by 
 its very absence of outward expression, it gives 
 a clue to the general character of the man him- 
 self. It is not for us to attempt to sound the 
 depths of his soul. They are beyond the reach 
 
 * From " Cabinet Portraits : Sketches of States- 
 men," by T. Wemyss Reid. London: H. S. King 
 and Co. 
 
 of our plummet, nay, of any plummet that has 
 yet been dropped into them. There have been 
 many men— a few friends, a vast number of 
 foes — who have imagined that they have dived 
 down into the innermost recesses of Mr Disraeli's 
 nature, and who have come to the surface again, 
 to tell us about everything that they saw there, 
 to explain every hidden motive, each smothered 
 passion, and to reduce the man himself to a 
 mere piece of mechanism — an automaton chess- 
 player — whose motive power, and springs, and 
 wheels, and wires, are to be discovered by any 
 one who will take the trouble to look for them. 
 We intend to be guilty of no such folly. 
 
 Mr Disraeli's mind is no more to be analysed 
 than his countenance is to be fathomed. He is 
 here ; we know what he has done, we have seen 
 his labours, we acknowledge his genius, we be- 
 lieve him to be intellectually one of the greatest 
 men not of his own time only but of all English 
 history. Beyond that we cannot go, and we 
 must leave to future critics, who will see him 
 through a clearer medium than that through 
 which it is possible for us to behold him, and 
 who may have new lights thrown upon his char- 
 acter which are withheld from us, to decide 
 what he is, and what precisely is the motive 
 power of his life. All that we know at present 
 is that he is an intellectual prodigy, and like 
 other prodigies he must be tried by exceptional 
 rules and standards. . . . 
 
 He is a great party-leader. That is beyond 
 dispute. To him belongs the honour of having, 
 with an exquisite tact and skill, led the House 
 of Commons, when he had only a minority of 
 supporters at his back, and of having led it in 
 such a way that the most watchful of foes were 
 unable to trip him up, or even to change the 
 secretly-formed purpose of his mind. Those 
 who saw him first as Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, then as Prime Minister during the last 
 Conservative administration, leading his party 
 and the House of Commons at the same time, 
 witnessed a spectacle, the like of which has per- 
 haps never been seen before ; for we have no 
 previous record of such generalship as that 
 which Mr Disraeli then displayed. 
 
 The writer, when watching him during that 
 eventful period, was curiously enough constantly 
 reminded of a line in Cowper's well-known 
 hymn, for if ever a man seemed to " ride upon 
 the storm" of party politics, to be above it, 
 and superior to its fury, it was Mr Disraeli. 
 Once and again there was mutiny in the ranks 
 of his own party : as a minister he could have 
 cried with the Psalmist against his own familiar 
 friend in whom he trusted; opposite to him 
 was a foe bent upon mischief, superior in 
 numbers, and led by a man who, with many 
 great and noble qualities of his own, has never 
 once during a long career been betrayed into 
 the weakness of an act savouring of tenderness 
 towards his brilliant rival. From this man 
 
Mr Disraeli had to look for nothing hut the 
 most uncompromising and relentless opposition 
 — and he knew it. He was himself engaged in 
 a task which, to the most sanguine of his own 
 followers, had hut a short time before seemed 
 an utterly helpless one, and which, to those 
 of them who were unable to see as far as he did, 
 seemed worse than hopeless — suicidal. 
 
 But he went on, in spite of difficulties and 
 discouragements which would have broken the 
 spirit and destroyed the strength of any other 
 party -leader of modern times. And he went on 
 with wonderful success. Past rocks and shoals, 
 and quicksands, without number, and by a 
 channel on which it had never before entered, 
 he steered the vessel of the State ; he faced 
 obstacles which seemed insurmountable, and 
 which to any other man would have been what 
 they seemed, and lo ! they vanished away under 
 his marvellous manipulation; with a party 
 sorely reduced in strength, he kept at bay the 
 overwhelming numbers of the enemy; nay, he 
 even used them as instruments of his own, and 
 it was by their aid that he passed the great 
 measure which will henceforth be associated 
 with his name, and balked his eager rivals. 
 This is what Mr Disraeli has accomplished with- 
 in Ithe last few years ; and no impartial man 
 will deny that it is one of the greatest political 
 achievements recorded in the history of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 It was during the trying period between 1866- 
 69 that he developed his ripest powers. Until 
 he became leader of the House of Commons on 
 the last occasion, he had never shown his re- 
 markable fitness for such a post. On previous 
 occasions he had done well; but then he did 
 his work superlatively well. It is true that 
 when he had formerly been leader of the House 
 he had laboured under the disadvantage of hav- 
 ing opposed to him the skilled veteran who was 
 the most popular party man ever seated within 
 the walls of Parliament. 
 
 THE EARL OP BEACONSFIELD AT HUGHENDEN.* 
 
 An admirer of Edmund Burke, Mr Disraeli 
 could not have paid a more delicate tribute to 
 the memory of the great statesman than by 
 selecting as a title, first for his wife, and after- 
 wards for himself, the name of the spot where 
 the illustrious accuser of Warren Hastings spent 
 so much of his leisure, but with which the lord 
 of Hughenden has absolutely no territorial con- 
 nection. This is not the only way in which the 
 Tory chief has given expression to his admira- 
 tion — a sentiment which may have its source in 
 a certain congeniality of taste and similarity of 
 genius — for the orator and author whose periods 
 he has so profoundly studied. In a spirit of the 
 
 * " English Celebrities at Home," No. vi., from the 
 World. By permission. 
 
 sincerest flattery Mr Disraeli has apparently 
 striven to emulate the conduct of Burke out- 
 side the senate even more than to follow his 
 style of oratory within, though perhaps with 
 less success. The home life of Burke at Beacons- 
 field was animated by a love of rural pursuits, 
 and an intimate knowledge of the details of 
 agriculture which not only enabled him to hold 
 his own among the squires of the neighbour- 
 hood, but won him a reputation as one of the 
 most practical farmers in Buckinghamshire. 
 Mr Disraeli has conspicuously failed to achieve 
 the same measure of this particular variety of 
 fame. Burke was equally at home in the theory 
 and the practice of economical cattle-breeding 
 and the profitable cultivation of the soil ; Lord 
 Beaconsfield, though he has never failed to 
 speak with much learned authority on these 
 topics at bucolic gatherings, has seldom been 
 known to put his theories to the test of practice. 
 By diligent use of the experience of others he 
 has amassed much interesting information that 
 has enabled him to play the rdle of the country 
 gentleman for a brief hour at many county 
 gatherings, and to sustain the character with 
 some distinction when away from home; but 
 in the retirement of Hughenden he has never 
 attempted it. 
 
 Countrymen — perhaps because they know 
 comparatively little about other matters — are 
 severely critical on all who aspire to distinction 
 in their own walk of life ; and Lord Beaconsfield 
 is hardly endowed with the temperament proper 
 to a country squire. A lenient landlord and 
 highly popular among the few whom he favours 
 with his friendship, he is hardly looked upon 
 by his people as the ruler of the little com- 
 munity over which he holds territorial dominion, 
 or by the county magnates about him as one of 
 themselves. With the fox-hunting squires and 
 game preservers he has no community of tastes. 
 Living in the midst of pleasant woodlands, he 
 has none of the ordinary attractions of country 
 life to offer his visitors. No cheery cackle of 
 pheasants is ever heard in his coverts, and the 
 sound of breechloaders never wakes the echoes 
 over the many acres of his upland stubble. At 
 his country house his life is one of almost com- 
 plete seclusion, to which only a few select guests 
 are admitted who care more for brilliant literary 
 companionship and the attractions of a well- 
 ordered table than for the relaxation of rural 
 pleasures. The rest and retirement which he 
 finds here are welcome and pleasant after pro- 
 tracted labour ; but they are enjoyed at long 
 intervals, and then somewhat sadly. The 
 Premier when in retreat is much given to 
 solitary wandering among the woodland paths, 
 which the taste of the late Lady Beaconsfield 
 did so much to beautify; and probably he is 
 not far wrong in preferring this communion 
 with nature to an interchange of thoughts with 
 his neighbours on parochial politics. In the 
 
woods themselves there is much to justify the 
 preference. The tall and noble beech -trees that 
 crown the knolls above Hughenden, and flank 
 the house on either hand with delightful 
 shadowy groves, have long furnished materia.1 
 for the industry whereby the people of Wy- 
 combe mainly exist; and the owner, as he 
 walks through the apparently interminable 
 paths, has the proud knowledge that these 
 woods are not beautiful wildernesses growing 
 simply for his selfish indulgence, but as much 
 a xneans of giving food to the toilers as the 
 briglit cornfields that are charmingly set in 
 their fringe of dark foliage. So cunningly are 
 the narrow paths cut along the contours of the 
 hills — now jutting out with a swelling spur, 
 now running back into a sudden hollow — and 
 so thick the screen of foliage on either hand, 
 that the visitor seems to wander through end- 
 less avenues of vast woodlands, while he is 
 really traversing a narrow curve. If he catches 
 once a glimpse of some sunny upland, or the 
 gable of a farmhouse rising above tree-tops, his 
 next view of the same object will be from a 
 point which so alters the aspect of things that 
 he seems to be looking on an entirely different 
 scene. Thus a hundred or two acres of woods, a 
 noble park, and a manor-farm swell, by the aid 
 of subtle art, into the proportions of a grand 
 forest, surrounded by smiling homes set in the 
 midst of rich fields, and diversified by charming 
 pleasure-grounds. Not that the beech-woods 
 are of mean extent, even when the trick that 
 magnifies their proportions has been discovered, 
 and they have points of attraction which the 
 lover of nature would willingly linger to con- 
 template in serene leisure. Tall straight shafts 
 of ruddy pine crested with rustling needles 
 alternate with the swelling grey boles and 
 delicate foliage of the beeches ; here and there 
 the narrow twisting paths widen into open 
 glades, where only a few giant trees are left 
 standing to give a chequered shade to the 
 verdant sward of a trim lawn, and then close 
 again into delightfully shady avenues. 
 
 In these woods it was Mr Disraeli's pleasure 
 to wander, when Lady Beaconsfield would 
 superintend the planting of trees and the cut- 
 ting of paths ; and there he delights to wander 
 still, with head bent contemplatively, hands 
 thrust into the deep pockets of his velvet coat, 
 and a broad felt hat shading his brow. But 
 deep in thought though he may be, his step is 
 jaunty and his eye is quick to note all that 
 passes around him. Except the path that leads 
 from the town to the little rural church lying 
 under the shadow of the great house, all are 
 closed against the vulgar herd hy the stern 
 "Trespassers will be prosecuted;" and when 
 the lord of the manor is known to be at home, 
 few venture there. Still when he meets any of 
 the country people, on his own domain or in 
 the neighbouring by-ways, he seldom omits an 
 
 opportunity of acquiring some information 
 about their calling that may serve him for 
 happy illustration. His visits to the farms 
 down in the hollow and away over the hills are 
 frequent ; and the outcome of the long conver- 
 sations with the shrewdly practical tenants may 
 be marked in his next speech at a Buckingham- 
 shire agricultural gathering, when he discourses 
 learnedly of Oxford down sheep or the proper 
 succession of crops. One source of information 
 he has neglected: some of his cottagers, who 
 have lived on the estate for many years, have 
 never received a visit from him up to the pre- 
 sent hour. 
 
 Hughenden House, promising much from its 
 towering situation on the crest of a bold knoll, 
 where it rises high above the ranges of level 
 terraces, and from the dignified expanse of its 
 broad front, is somewhat disappointing. The 
 renaissance ornamentation that encrusts win- 
 dows and parapets is the veneer of a very prim 
 eighteenth-century mansion ; within there is no 
 renaissance vastness or richness of decoration 
 in which the exuberant Oriental fancy of the 
 owner might be expected to revel. A narrow 
 hall leads, on the one hand, to a dining-room 
 that is almost severe in the simplicity of its 
 bare panelled walls, straight-backed chairs, and 
 colourless drapery; on the other, to a library 
 that is half study, half drawing-room, where 
 the earl spends much of his time during his 
 visits to Hughenden. As a compromise between 
 the somewhat Bohemian comfort dear to artistic 
 minds and the ordered luxury and affectation 
 in which those of more feminine tastes delight, 
 this room perhaps embodies more than any 
 other in the house the character of the man who 
 is the presiding genius of the place. Writing- 
 tables, couches covered with yellow satin and 
 profusely gilt, oak cabinets ornamented with 
 caryatides columns and entablatures of Dresden 
 china, make up a whole so confused, that the 
 ordinary mind fails to grasp at once the uses to 
 which such a room may be applied, though 
 none can fail to appreciate the taste that can 
 combine so many incongruous elements, and yet 
 subdue anything like tawdry effect. A door 
 from this library leads into the drawing-room, 
 where love of gilt chairs, gaily-flowered hang- 
 ings, tables inlaid with pearl, and cabinets 
 thickly crusted with Dresden china and porce- 
 lain, is indulged to the full. On the walls, 
 among other paintings, hang Koberwein's por- 
 trait of the Queen (presented by her to the 
 Prime Minister), D'Orsay's youthful likeness of 
 Mr Disraeli, and Chalon's painting of the face 
 which inspired the Eight Hon. George Dawson 
 with those pompous lines in which he describes 
 the fair original as 
 
 " Intelligent and gay— the joyous smile 
 Speaking a bosom free from art and guile ; 
 Pure as the consciousness of well-spent life ; 
 Perfect as friend, as daughter, sister, wife.' 
 
Her spirit still lingers round the house, and 
 though many things — amongst others the low 
 wicket — have disappeared, every corner of the 
 place still breathes something of her influence. 
 The elaborate tomb by the chancel of the little 
 church, the tall monument on the hill raised by 
 her in affectionate remembrance of D'Israeli the 
 elder, but inscribed also with the name of Mary 
 Anne Disraeli, Viscountess Beaconsfield, are not 
 the only memorials of the lady to whom Hughen- 
 den owes so much. It has been more than once 
 said of Mr Disraeli that he held with a light and 
 readily-relaxed grasp the objects that he ap- 
 parently cherished most. This certainly can- 
 not be said of him in his home life. In the 
 simple little study upstairs, where he takes his 
 matutinal tea and toast — the Earl of Beacons- 
 field is not an early riser, and seldom appears at 
 breakfast — and where, by the aid of Mr Montagu 
 Corry, he gets through the mass of official cor- 
 respondence that is always heavy even in his 
 days of retirement, he sits surrounded by 
 memories. Miniatures of his father, mother, 
 and brother hang above the mantelpiece, and 
 portraits of departed friends or colleagues look 
 upon him from the walls ; while he gazes from 
 the windows on broad terraces bright with 
 variegated blossoms, and flanked with noble 
 beeches and firs, where traces of the wife's lov- 
 ing care still linger. The walls of the bijou 
 morning-room, of the staircases, and of the 
 yellow room set aside for the most distinguished 
 visitors, are all hung with sketches or paintings 
 of those whom the ties of friendship or long 
 association in political work have endeared to 
 the lord of Hughenden. 
 
 The manor over which the youngest of our 
 earls holds dominion has been associated with 
 not a few names of distinction. In a chapel of 
 the old church are many knightly tombs of the 
 De Monforts and Wellesburnes, once lords of the 
 manor. At Hughenden Philip Stanhope, Earl 
 of Chesterfield, frequently resided while the 
 estate belonged to him. But of all its successive 
 owners none has made more distinct a mark on 
 his age than, or imprinted his name in characters 
 so brilliant on the page of history as, he who, 
 uniting the dash of a De Monfort with the polish 
 of a Chesterfield, has, step by step, risen to 
 be prime minister of a mighty empire. 
 
 A CONVERSATION WITH DISRAELI. 
 
 [Speaking of his own novels, Mr Disraeli said :] 
 •'I never aimed too high, and so I have no 
 great fall to deplore. Novel-writing in Eng- 
 land is different from what it is in France. 
 With you plot is everything, with us compara- 
 tively little. The novel invariably bears the 
 characteristics of the nation. You Frenchmen 
 are fond of dramatic effects; we are fonder of 
 gradual transitions. What seems magnificent to 
 you sometimes appears ludicrous to us ; and what 
 
 we consider very fine and substantial, you look 
 upon as dull and prosy. Make the rounds of the 
 various literatures, and you will always find the 
 characteristic of the respective nations strongly 
 imprinted upon the productions of their novel- 
 ists. There are phenomenal exceptions to this 
 rule, gifted individuals soaring high above the 
 multitude of even good writers. . . . Still I 
 must say that every now and then I dearly love 
 to read one of your crisp, nervous French novels. 
 Time was when I eagerly perused * The Wander- 
 ing Jew' and the 'Mysteries of Paris;' and I 
 think that our English critics have uniformly 
 underrated the talents of Eugene Sue." 
 
 " His influence upon the literature of France 
 should not be underrated," I said. "His im- 
 agination was an extraordinary one, and his 
 facility of composition absolutely marvellous. 
 You spoke of M. de Tocqueville. That man, 
 otherwise so fair-minded and just, held Eugene 
 Sue in great abhorrence. He was on excellent 
 terms with my father, and remained so even 
 when their political views widely diverged. But 
 he often censured my father, jocosely, of course, 
 for giving French literature such an enfant 
 terrible as Eugene Sue. A favourite saying of 
 M. de Tocqueville was : ' Rousseau lived twenty 
 years, and then begat Bernardin de St Pierre; 
 Bernardin de St Pierre lived twenty years, and 
 then begat Chateaubriand ; Chateaubriand lived 
 twenty years, and then begat Victor Hugo; 
 Victor Hugo, being tempted of the devil, is 
 begetting every day Eugene Sues, and the like.' " 
 
 When our merriment had subsided, Mr Dis- 
 raeli began to speak of our French parliamentary 
 orators. He said he would greatly like to hear 
 Jules Favre, whose speeches he said read splen- 
 didly. I told him that M. Favre's speeches could 
 hardly be recognised in the imperfect printed 
 reports. 
 
 " I heard M. Thiers many years ago," he said, 
 "and was somewhat disappointed. He seemed 
 to give directions to the Chamber of Deputies 
 rather than to appeal to its judgment. Nor was 
 his delivery faultless. But, perhaps," he con- 
 tinued, drily, "I was prejudiced at the time 
 against M. Thiers, for he was speaking against 
 my friend Louis Philippe, who, the day before, 
 had treated me with charming kindness." 
 
 I then took my leave of Mr Disraeli. 
 
 This conversation had been carried on in a 
 small oblong room, whose walls were entirely 
 covered by book-shelves. It would have looked 
 like a bookworm's cosy cell, but for the gorgeous 
 frescoes on the ceiling, the candelabra of the 
 rarest workmanship, the coloured windows, of 
 which Mr Disraeli seems extremely fond, and 
 the heavy black and yellow curtains of the door 
 and windows. On the tables there was no pic- 
 turesque disorder: everything was very neat, 
 and great care seemed to be constantly taken 
 that everything should be in its right place. — 
 The late Francois Victor Hugo. 
 
358 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 HENKY WADSWOETH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 [1807-1882.] 
 
 [Few modern poets are so widely and favourably 
 known as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His 
 verses are in every school collection, and his 
 poems, by their sweetness, simplicity, and purity, 
 have made their way into every British home. 
 Born at Portland, Maine, 27th February 1807, he 
 entered Bowdoin College at the age of fourteen, 
 where he took his degree with high honours in 
 1825. For a few months he was a law student 
 in his father's office. He spent three years in 
 foreign travel in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, 
 Holland, and England, returning to the United 
 States in 1829. His experience in travel was 
 intended to fit him for the professorship of 
 modern languages in Bowdoin College. In 1835 
 he succeeded to the professorship of modern 
 languages and of the belles-lettres in Harvard 
 College, vacant by the death of Mr George Tick- 
 nor. After a twelvemonth's travel in the north 
 of Europe, and after gaining a knowledge of the 
 language and literature of the countries visited, 
 he returned to enter upon his duties as professor 
 at Cambridge, United States. He resigned his 
 professorship in 1854, in order to keep himself 
 free for his literary pursuits, when he was suc- 
 ceeded by James Russell Lowell. While a 
 student, he wrote many fine poems, which he 
 contributed to the United States itYerar^/ (rase^iJe, 
 and also wrote for the North American Review. 
 From 1833 till his death in 1882, he had 
 published over twenty separate works, poetry 
 and prose. Collected editions of his poems have 
 been freely reprinted and sold in Great Britain, 
 and also translated into many Continental lan- 
 guages. Between 1876 and 1879 he published 
 a compilation from the whole field of British and 
 American poetry, entitled " Poems of Places," in 
 thirty-one volumes. In 1868 and 1869 he was 
 again in Europe. In the latter year the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford conferred upon him the honorary 
 degree of D.C.L.; he was also elected a member 
 of the Russian Academy of Science in 1873.] 
 
 LONGFELLOW AT HOME.* 
 
 At Cambridge, a few miles out of Boston, lives 
 the poet Longfellow — one of the men in all 
 America whom I was most anxious to meet, 
 and to whom, before leaving Scotland, I had 
 been provided with introductions. How well 
 I remember that particular foreitoon when I 
 took the Cambridge horse-cars and drove out 
 along the Mount Auburn road, feeling as if it 
 
 * By permission from "The Americans at Home." 
 By David Macrae. 
 
 were a dream that within half-an-hour I was to 
 see Henry Longfellow face to face. At last the 
 conductor stopped to let me out, and said: 
 '* You take the cross-road here. Mr Long, 
 fellow's house is the third to the left." 
 
 I walked down the road very slowly, for anti- 
 cipation is sweet, and one does not like to hurry 
 over a joy that can never be had but once. My 
 bosom was filled with strange emotion. I was 
 about to see the man who had touched the heart 
 of Christian humanity with his songs — one who 
 had filled my own early life with the music of 
 his dreams. It is always sweet to pay homage to 
 the poet, but to few, either in the New World 
 or in the Old, could I have paid it with so much 
 heart as to Longfellow. How pure his influence 
 upon the world had been ! How many hearts 
 his "Psalm of Life," his "Evangeline," and his 
 " Excelsior," had kindled with a nobler enthu- 
 siasm ! How many toilers in the dark cells of 
 humanity his "Architects of Fate " had awakened 
 to the nobleness and immortality of faithful 
 work ! Among the mountains of sorrow how 
 many melancholy wanderers had ho cheered! 
 How many a mother's heart, throbbing with 
 anguish over the withered corpse of her child, 
 had he comforted with his sweet song of " The 
 Reaper and the Flowers !" 
 
 The old Craigie House, once the Washington 
 headquartars, which had been occupied by 
 Longfellow since 1837, and from which, in 1839, 
 he dated his " Hyperion," was now before me— 
 a large white mansion, standing on a gentle emi- 
 nence, partially screened from the Mount Auburn 
 road by a grove of elms. A footpath led to it 
 from the gate through the gently sloping lawn. 
 Just as I reached the door, a short-haired terrier 
 came racing round, and began to jump up to my 
 hand and wriggle joyfully about my feet. I had 
 only been in a minute when Longfellow made 
 his appearance. He looked older and more 
 venerable than I had expected to find him — his 
 long clustering hair and shaggy beard white as 
 snow. I was struck, too, with a look of latent 
 sadness in his eyes — an expression which vanishes 
 at times when he is moved to laughter, but 
 steals back into the thoughtful eye, and into 
 every line of the face, as soon as the passing 
 thought is gone. Those lines of Mrs Browning's 
 often occurred to me when I looked at him : 
 
 ' O sorrowful great gift. 
 Conferred on poets, of a twofold life, 
 Wlien one life has been found enough for pain.' 
 
 I heard, however, from some of Longfellow's 
 friends, that the tragic death of his wife, to 
 
HENR Y WADS WOR TH L ONGFELL O W. 
 
 359 
 
 ■whom he was devotedly attached, had made a 
 great change in his appearance, and brought a 
 shadow over his life that nothing had ever been 
 able to drive away. 
 
 The family were at an early dinner, but Long- 
 fellow insisted upon my joining them. The 
 Scotch terrier went in with us, and was still 
 making demonstrations to attract my attention. 
 
 "That terrier is intensely national," said 
 Longfellow, with a smile. "I never knew a 
 Scotchman come here but that terrier found 
 him out, and wanted to make friends with 
 him." 
 
 After dinner he took me to his study, wheeled 
 a big arm-chair for me to the fireside, and, seat- 
 ing himself in another, with a cigar, began to 
 ask about his literary friends in Scotland. He 
 spoke of Alexander Smith and his " City 
 Poems," and of Gilfillan's early recognition of 
 their author's genius, and expressed deep regret 
 at Smith's premature death. Aytoun he knew 
 chiefly by his "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers." 
 Tennyson, he said, was exceedingly popular all 
 over America. He showed me a beautiful copy 
 of the laureate's works that stood among the 
 books on his study-table. He spoke of George \ 
 Mac Donald, and of Dr John Brown, whose 
 "Spare Hours" \Hor(B Subsecivce] was much 
 admired. "But he is best known," he said, 
 " by some of his shorter pieces. * Rab and his 
 Friends' is everywhere." 
 
 Speaking of international copyright law, he 
 said: "We have done all we could to get such 
 a law passed. You would gain by it even more 
 than we. The difficulty lies with the lower 
 class of publishers and booksellers here. They 
 cry out against it. But houses like Fields' are 
 strongly in its favour, and have lent all their in- 
 fluence to obtain it. My own idea," he added, 
 "is this: Any copyright taken out on the one 
 side should hold on the other; and lohenever it 
 expires on the side on which it is taken out it 
 should expire on the other. This, I think, would 
 cover the whole ground, and would avoid all 
 difficulty arising from the different lengths of 
 time for which copyright is granted in the two 
 countries." 
 
 Of newspapers and journals he said: "Ours 
 are not equal to yours. We have no such classic 
 writing here as you have in the Times, Spectator, 
 and Saturday Review. But our standard is 
 rising." 
 
 Dpeaking of the war, he said: "When the 
 Marquis of Lome was here, I asked hira why the 
 English aristocracy were so exultant over the 
 
 split of our Union. The Marquis said it was 
 the instinct of caste. He was the first noble- 
 man I met who perceived, or at least confessed 
 the truth. I was surprised to hear the con- 
 fession even from him." 
 
 He looked at some photographs that I hap- 
 pened to have with me. On coming to Cruik- 
 shank's, he said, sadly, " How changed he is 
 since I first met him at the door of Dickens's 
 house. It makes me feel old to look at him." 
 He admired a picture of Thomas Carlyle, 
 taken by Elliot & Fry, but was amused beyond 
 measure at the philosopher's appearance in the 
 handsome cloak which the artist had thrown 
 over his shoulders to give effect to the picture, 
 and over which the face of Sartor Resartus ap- 
 peared, wearing an expression of ludicrously 
 doleful resignation. 
 
 Speaking of "Hiawatha" and the Indians, 
 I told Longfellow how much I preferred the 
 Indian of romance to the Indian of reality, as 
 far as my experience of him had gone. 
 
 He said, "You see no true specimens now. 
 They are all degenerated by contact with white 
 men and by rum. I doubt if there is a pure 
 uncontaminated Indian left on this continent. " 
 
 He said that the correct pronunciation of 
 Hiawatha was "Hea-wah-tha." 
 
 When I spoke of "Evangeline," but expressed 
 my doubt if the hexameter would take root in 
 English soil, he said, " I don't know; I think it 
 will. It is a measure that suits all themes. It 
 can fly low like a swallow, and at any moment 
 dart skywards. What fine hexameters we have 
 in the Bible, * Husbands, love your wives, and he 
 not litter against them.' And that line, ^God is 
 gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of 
 a trumpet I * Nothing could be grander or finer 
 than that ! " 
 
 "When I wrote 'Evangeline,'" he added, 
 " friends here said, ' It is all very well, but you 
 must take an English metre; that hexameter 
 will never do.* But my thoughts would run 
 into hexameter. However, to please them, I 
 translated some passages into heroic measure; 
 but they agreed, when they heard them together, 
 that the hexameter was best." But whatever 
 might be thought of classic measure for new 
 poems, Homer and Virgil ought, if possible, 
 he said, to be preserved in their native hexa- 
 meter. Attempts to modernise Homer, and put 
 him into English metre, were apt to become 
 absurd. It was like putting a statue in crino- 
 line, or converting Achilles into a modern gentle- 
 man. 
 
360 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 ELIZABETH BAEEETT BEOWNIITG. 
 
 [1809-1861.] 
 
 By EDMUND CLAEENCE STEDMAN.* 
 
 There are some poets whom we picture to our- 
 selves as surrounded with aureolas ; who are 
 clothed in so pure an atmosphere that when we 
 speak of them — though with a critical purpose 
 and in this exacting age — our language must 
 express that tender fealty which sanctity and 
 exaltation compel from all mankind. We are 
 not sure of our judgment : ordinary tests fail 
 us ; the pearl is a pearl, though discoloured ; 
 fire is fire, though shrouded in vapour, or tinged 
 with murky hues. We do not see clearly, for 
 often our eyes are blinded with tears ; we love, 
 we cherish, we revere. 
 
 The memory and career of Elizabeth BaiTett 
 Browning appear to us like some beautiful ideal. 
 Nothing is earthly, though all is human ; a 
 spirit is passing before our eyes, yet of like 
 passions with ourselves, and encased in a frame 
 BO delicate that every fibre is alive with feeling 
 and tremulous with radiant thought. Her 
 genius certainly may be compared to those 
 sensitive, palpitating flames, which harmoni- 
 cally rise and fall in response to every sound- 
 vibration near them. Her whole being was 
 rhythmic, and, in a time when art is largely 
 valued for itself alone, her utterances were the 
 expression of her inmost soul. 
 
 I have said that while the composite period 
 has exhibited many phases of poetic art, it is 
 not difficult, with respect to each of them taken 
 singly, to find some former epoch more distin- 
 guished. The Elizabethan age surpassed it in 
 dramatic creation, and in those madrigals and 
 canzonets which — to transpose Mendelssohn's 
 fancy — are music without harping ; the protec- 
 torate developed more epic grandeur — the 
 Georgian era, more romantic sentiment and 
 strength of wing. Eecent progress has been 
 phenomenal, chiefly, in variety, finish, average 
 excellence of work. To this there is one excep- 
 tion. The Victorian era, with its wider range 
 of opportunities for women, has been illumined 
 by the career of the greatest female poet that 
 England has produced — nor only England, but 
 the whole territory of the English language ; 
 more than this, the most inspired woman, so 
 far as known, of all who have composed in 
 ancient or modern tongues, or tiourisnea m any 
 land or time. 
 
 What have we of Sappho, beyond a few ex- 
 quisite fragments, a disputed story, the broken 
 
 * By permission from ' ' Victorian Poets." London ; 
 Cnatto & W Indus. 
 
 strings of a remote and traditional island-lyre? 
 Yet, from Sappho down, including the poetry 
 of Southern and Northern Europe and the 
 whole melodious greensward of English song, 
 the remains of what woman are left to us, which 
 in quantity and inspiration compete with those 
 of Mrs Browning ? What poet of her own sex, 
 except Sappho, did she herself find worthy a 
 place among the forty immortals grouped in the 
 hemicycle of her own "Vision of Poets?" Take 
 the volume of her collected writings — with so 
 much that we might omit, with so many weak- 
 nesses and faults — and what riches it contains ! 
 How diff'erent too, from other recent work, 
 thoroughly her own, eminently that of a woman 
 — a Christian sibyl, priestess of the melody, 
 heroism, and religion of the modern world ! 
 
 What is the story of her maidenhood ? Not 
 only of those early years which, no matter how 
 long we continue, are said to make up the 
 greater portion of our life ; but also of an un- 
 wedded period which lasted to that ominous 
 year, the thirty-seventh, which has ended the 
 song of other poets at a date when her own— so 
 far as the world heard her — had but just begun. 
 How grew our Psyche in her chrysalid state? 
 For she was like the insect that weaves itself a 
 shroud, yet by some inward force, after a season, 
 is impelled to break through its covering, and 
 come out a winged tiger-moth, emblem of spirit- 
 uality in its birth, and of passion in the splen- 
 dour of its tawny dyes. 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Barrett was born of wealthy 
 parents, in 1809, and began her literary efforts 
 almost contemporaneously with Tennyson. Ap- 
 parently — for the world has not yet received the 
 inner history of a life, which, after all, was so 
 purely intellectual that only herself could have 
 revealed it to us — apparently, I say, she was 
 the idol of her kindred; and especially of a 
 father who wondered at her genius and encour- 
 aged the projects of her eager youth. Other- 
 wise, although she was a rhymer at the age of 
 ten, how could she have published, in her seven- 
 teenth year, her didactic essay, composed in 
 heroics after the method of Pope ? Apparently, 
 too, she had a mind of that fine northern type 
 which hungers after learning for its own sake, 
 and to which the study of books or nature is 
 an instinctive and insatiable desire. If Mrs 
 Browning left no formal record of her youth, 
 the spirit of it is indicated so plainly in "Aurora 
 Leigh," that we scarcely need the letter: 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 361 
 
 " Books, books, books ! 
 I had found the secret of a garret-room 
 Piled high with cases in my father's name; 
 
 The first book first. And how I felt it beat 
 Under my pillow, in the morning's dark, 
 An hour before the sun would let me read ! 
 My books ! 
 
 At last, because the time was ripe 
 I chanced upon the poets." 
 
 Doubtless this sleepless child was one to 
 whom her actual surroundings, even if observed, 
 seemed less real than the sights in dreamland 
 and cloudland revealed to her by simply open- 
 ing the magical covers of a printed book. An 
 imaginative girl sometimes becomes so entranced 
 with the ideal world as to quite forego the bill- 
 ing and cooing which attend upon the spring- 
 time of womanhood. Such natures often awake 
 to the knowledge that they have missed some- 
 thing : love was everywhere around them, but 
 their eyes were fixed upon the stars, and they 
 perceived it not. This abnormal growth is 
 perilous, and to the feebler class of dreamers, 
 who have poetic sensibility without true con- 
 structive power, ensures blight, loneliness, pre- 
 mature decay. For the born artist, such ex- 
 periences in youth not only are inevitable, but 
 are the training which shapes them for their 
 after-work. The fittest survive the test. 
 
 Miss Barrett's early feasts were of an omni- 
 vorous kind, the best school regimen for genius : 
 
 " I read books bad and good — some bad and good 
 At once : . . . 
 
 . . . And being dashed 
 From error on to error, every turn 
 Still brought me nearer to the central truth." 
 
 A gifted mind in youth has an unconsciousness 
 of evil, and an affinity for the beautiful and 
 true, which enable it, when given the freedom 
 of a library, to assimilate what is suited to its 
 needs. Fact and fiction are inwardly digested, 
 and in maturer years the logical faculty invol- 
 untarily assorts and distributes them. Aurora 
 reads her books, 
 
 " Without considering whether they were fit 
 To do me good. Mark, there. We get no good 
 By being ungenerous, even to a book, 
 And calculating profits, ... so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound. 
 Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth — 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book." 
 
 Much of this reading was of that grave char- 
 acter to which court-maidens of Eoger Ascham's 
 time were wonted, for her juvenile '* Essay on 
 Mind" evinced a knowledge of Plato, Bacon, 
 and others of the world's great thinkers : I do 
 Lot say familiarity with them ; scholars know 
 what that word means, and how loosely such 
 terms are bandied. She gained that general 
 conception of each, similar to what we learn of 
 
 a man upon first acquaintance, and often not 
 far wrong. 
 
 With time and occasion afterward came the 
 more disciplinary process of her education. 
 Fortunate influences, possibly those of her 
 father — if we may still follow ''Aurora Leigh " — 
 guided her in the direction of studies as refining 
 as they were severe. She read Latin and Greek. 
 Now, it is noteworthy that a girl's intellect is 
 more adroit in acquirement, not only of the 
 languages, but of pure mathematics, than that 
 of the average boy. Any one trained at the desks 
 of a New England high-school is aware of this. 
 In later years the woman very likely will stop 
 acquiring, while the man still plods along and 
 grows in breadth and accuracy. Miss Barrett 
 became a loving student of Greek, and we shall 
 see that it greatly influenced her lit.;rary progress. 
 
 Among her maturer friends was the sweetly 
 gentle and learned Hugh Stuart Boyd, to whom 
 in his blindness she read the Attic dramatists, 
 and under whose guidance she explored a re- 
 markably wide field of Grecian philosophy and 
 song. What more beautiful subject for a 
 modern painter than the girl Elizabeth — "that 
 slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark 
 curls falling on each side of a most expressive 
 face, large tender eyes richly fringed with dark 
 eyelashes, and a smile like a sunbeam" — than 
 this ethereal creature seated at the feet of the 
 blind old scholar, her face aglow with the rhap- 
 sody of the sonorous drama, from which she 
 read of (Edipus, until 
 
 " the reader's voice dropped lower 
 When the poet called him blind ! " 
 
 Here was the daughter that Milton should 
 have had ! An oft-quoted stanza from her own 
 "Wine of Cyprus," addressed to her master in 
 after-years, may be taken for the legend of the 
 picture : 
 
 " And I think of those long mornings, 
 
 Which my thought goes far to seek, 
 When, betwixt the folio's turnings, 
 
 Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek. 
 Past the pane the mountain spreading, 
 
 Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise. 
 While a girlish voice was reading. 
 
 Somewhat low for ai's and oVs." 
 
 Aside from repeated indications in her other 
 writing, this graceful poem shows the liberal 
 extent of her delightful classical explorations. 
 Homer, Pindar, Anacreon — "^Eschylus the 
 thunderous," "Sophocles, the royal," "Euri- 
 pides, the human," "Plato, the divine one" — 
 Theocritus, Bion — not only among the immortal 
 pagans did Miss Barrett follow hand in hand 
 with Boyd, but attended him upon his favourite 
 excursions to those "noble Christian bishops" 
 — Chrysostom,Basil,Nazianzen — "who mouthed 
 grandly the last Greek." 
 
 What other woman and poet of recent times 
 has passed through such a novitiate, in the 
 
academic groves and at the fountain-heads of 
 poetry and thought ? I dwell upon Miss Bar- 
 rett's culture, because I am convinced that it 
 had much to do with her pre-eminence among 
 female poets. Many a past generation has pro- 
 duced its songsters of her sex, whose voices 
 were stifled for want of atmosphere and train- 
 ing. An auspicious era gave her an advantage 
 over predecessors like Joanna Baillie, and her 
 culture placed her immeasurably above Miss 
 Landon, Mrs Hemans, and others who flourished 
 at the outset of her own career. Lady Barnard, 
 the Baroness Nairne, Mrs Norton — women like 
 these have written beautiful lyrics ; but here is 
 one, equally feminine, yet with strength beyond 
 them all, lifting herself to the height of sustained 
 imagination. Georges Sand, Charlotte Bronte, 
 and Mrs Lewes have been her only compeers, 
 but of these the first, at least in form, and the 
 two latter both in form and by instinct, have 
 been writers of prose, before whom the poet 
 takes precedence, by inherited and defensible 
 prerogative. 
 
 It was a piece of good fortune that Miss Bar- 
 rett's technical study of roots, inflections, and 
 what not, was elementary and incidental. She 
 and her companion read Greek for the music 
 and wisdom of a literature which, as nations 
 ripen and grow old, still holds its own — an ex- 
 ponent of pure beauty and the universal mind. 
 The result would furnish a potential example 
 for those who hold, with Professor Tayler Lewis, 
 that the classical tongues should be studied 
 chiefly for the sake of their literature. She was 
 not a scholar, in the grammarian's sense; but 
 broke the shell of a language for the meat which 
 it contained. Hence her reading was so varied 
 as to make her the most powerful ally of the 
 classicists among popular authors. Her poetical 
 instinct for meanings was equal to Shelley's — as 
 for Keats, he created a Greece and an Olympus 
 of his own. 
 
 Her first venture of significance was in the 
 field of translation. " Prometheus Bound, and 
 Miscellaneous Poems " was published in her 
 twenty-fourth year. The poems were equally 
 noticeable for faults and excellences, of which 
 we have yet to speak. The translation was at 
 that time a unique effort for a young lady, and 
 good practice ; but abounded in grotesque pecu- 
 liarities, and in fidelity did not approach the 
 modern standard. In riper years she freed it 
 from her early mannerism, and recast it in the 
 shape now left to us, *'in expiation," she said, 
 " of a sin of my youth, with the sincerest appli- 
 cation of my mature mind." This later version 
 of a most sublime tragedy is more poetical 
 than any other of equal correctness, and has the 
 fire and vigour of a master-hand. No one has 
 succeeded better than its author in capturing 
 with rhymed measures the wilful rushing melody 
 of the tragic chorus. Her other translations 
 were executed for her own pleasure, and it rarely 
 
 was her pleasure to be exactly faithful to her 
 text. She was honest enough to call them what 
 they are; and we must own that her "Para- 
 phrases on" Theocritus, Homer, Apuleius, etc., 
 are enjoyable poems in themselves, preserving 
 the spirit of their originals, yet graceful with 
 that freedom of which Shelley's " Hymn to Mer- 
 cury" is the most winsome English exemplar 
 since Chapman's time. 
 
 Our poet was always healthful and at ease 
 wherever her classicism blossomed on the sprays 
 of her own song. "The Dead Pan" is an in- 
 stance of her peculiar utilisation of Greek tradi- 
 tion, and in other pieces her antique touches are 
 frequent. Late in life, when unquestionably 
 failing — her eyes growing dim and her poetic 
 force abated — amid a peal of verses that sound 
 to me like sweet bells jangled, there is no clearer 
 strain than that of "A Musical Instrument." 
 For a moment, indeed, as she sang a melody of 
 the pastoral god, her 
 
 " sun on the hill forgot to die, 
 And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly 
 Came back to dream on the river." 
 
 A distinction between Landor's workmanship 
 and that of Mrs Browning was, that the former 
 rarely used his classicism allegorically as a 
 vehicle for modern sentiment; the latter, who 
 did not write and think as a Greek, goes to the 
 antique for illustration of her own faith and 
 conceptions. 
 
 Of Miss Barrett's life we now catch glimpses 
 through the kindly eyes of Miss Mitford, who 
 became her near friend in 1836. She had en- 
 tered upon a less secluded period, and probably 
 the four years which followed the appearance of 
 her '* Prometheus " were as happy as any of her 
 maidenhood. But, always fragile, in 1837 she 
 broke a blood-vessel of the luugs ; and after a 
 lingering convalescence, was again prostrated in 
 1839 by the death of her favourite brother- 
 drowned in her sight off the bar of Torquay. 
 Months elapsed before she could be removed to 
 her father's house, there to enter upon that 
 absolute cloister-life which continued for nearly 
 seven years. It was the life of a couch -ridden 
 invalid, restricted to a large but darkened cham- 
 ber, and forbidden all society but that of a few 
 dear friends. I think of her, however, in that 
 classic room as of one shut up in some belvedere, 
 where, by means of a camera, the outer world is 
 reflected upon the table at your breast. For 
 she returned to her books as a diversion from 
 her thoughts, and with an eagerness that her 
 physicians could not restrict. Miss Mitford says 
 that she was now "reading almost every book 
 worth reading in almost every language, and 
 giving herself, heart and soul, to that poetry of 
 which she seemed born to be the priestess." 
 The creative faculty reasserted itself ; the moon 
 will draw the sea despite the storms and darkness 
 that brood between. 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 363 
 
 In 1838 she published "The Seraphim and 
 other Poems ; " in another year, "TheRomaunt 
 of the Page," a volume of ballads entitled from 
 the one which bears that name. In 1842 she 
 contributed to the London Athenceum some 
 essays on the Greek-Christian and English 
 Poets— the only specimens of her prose left to 
 us — enthusiastic, not closely written, but show- 
 ing unusual attainments and critical perception. 
 Inl844 — her thirty-fifth year — she found strength 
 for the collection of her writings in their first 
 complete edition, which opened with "A Drama 
 of Exile." These volumes, comprising the bulk 
 of her works during her maiden period, furnish 
 the material and occasion for some remarks upon 
 her characteristics as an English poet. 
 
 Her style, from the beginning, was strikingly 
 original, uneven to an extreme degree, equally 
 remarkable for defects and beauties, of which 
 the former gradually lessened and the latter 
 grew more admirable as she advanced in years 
 and experience. The disadvantages, no less than 
 the advantages, of her education were apparent 
 at the outset. She could not fail to be affected 
 by various master-minds, and when she had out- 
 grown one influence was drawn within another, 
 and so tossed about from world to world. " The 
 Seraphim," a diffuse, mystical passion-play, was 
 an echo of the .^schylean drama. Its meaning 
 was scarcely clear even to the author ; the rhythm 
 is wild and discordant; neither music nor mean- 
 ing is thoroughly beaten out. I have mentioned 
 Shelley as one with whom she was akin — is it 
 that Shelley, dithyrambic as a votary of Cybele, 
 was the most sexless, as he was the most spiri- 
 tual, of poets? There are singers who spurn 
 the earth, yet scarcely rise to the heavens; 
 they utter a melodious, errant strain that 
 loses itself in a murmur, we know not how. 
 Miss Barrett's early verse was strangely com- 
 bined of this semi-musical delirium and ob- 
 scurity, with an attempt at the Greek dramatic 
 form. Her ballads, on the other hand, were a 
 reflection of her English studies ; and, as being 
 more English and human, were a vast poetic 
 advance upon *' The Seraphim." Evidently, in 
 these varied experiments, she was conscious of 
 power, and strove to exercise it, yet with no 
 direct purpose, and half doubtful of her themes. 
 When, therefore, as in certain of these lyrics, 
 she got hold of a rare story or suggestion, she 
 made an artistic poem ; all are stamped with her 
 sign-manual, and one or two are as lovely as 
 anything on which her fame will rest. 
 
 My own youthful acquaintance with her works 
 began, for example, with the "Rhyme of the 
 Duchess May." It was different from any 
 romance-ballad I had read, and was to me a 
 magic casement opening on " faerylands for- 
 lorn;" and even now I think, as I thought 
 then, that the sweetness and power of scenery 
 and language, the delicious metre, the refrain of 
 the passing bell, the feeling and action, are 
 
 highly poetical and have an indescribable 
 charm. The blemishes of this lyric are few: 
 it is nicely adjusted to the proper degree of 
 quaintness ; the overture and epilogue are ex- 
 quisitely done, and the tone is maintained 
 throughout — an unusual feat for Mrs Browning. 
 I have never forgotten a pleasure which so con- 
 trasted with the barren sentiment of a plain 
 New England life, and here fulfil my obligation 
 to lay a flower of gratitude upon her grave. 
 Yes, indeed : all she needed was a theme to 
 evoke her rich imaginings, and I wish she had 
 more frequently ceased from introspection and 
 composed other ballads like that of the ' ' Duchess 
 May." 
 
 Of her minor lyrics during this period — 
 •'Isobel's Child," "The Romaunt of the Page," 
 "The Lay of the Brown Rosary," "The Poet's 
 Vow," etc. — few are so good as the example 
 just cited; but each is quite removed from 
 commonplace, and, with its contrasts of strength 
 and weakness, entirely characteristic of its 
 author. 
 
 The effect of Miss Barrett's secluded life was 
 visible in her diction, which was acquired from 
 books rather than by intercourse with the living 
 world ; and from books of all periods, so that 
 she seemed unconscious that certain words were 
 obsolete, or repellent even to cultured and 
 tasteful people. Reviewers who accused her of 
 affectation were partly correct; yet many un- 
 couth phrases and forgotten words seemed to 
 her no less available than common forms ob- 
 tained from the same sources. By this she 
 gained a richer structure; just as Kossuth, 
 learning our language from books, had a more 
 copious vocabulary than many English orators. 
 But she lost credit for good sense, and certainly 
 at one time had no sure judgment in the use of 
 terms. Since she explored the French, Spanish, 
 and Italian classics as eagerly as those of her 
 own tongue, perhaps the wonder is that her 
 diction was not even more fantastical. Her 
 taste never seemed quite developed, but through 
 life subordinate to her excess of feeling. So 
 noble, however, was the latter quality, that 
 the critics gave her poetry their attention, and 
 endeavoured to correct its faults of style. For 
 a time she showed a lack of the genuine artist's 
 reverence, and not without egotism followed 
 her wilful way. The difficulty with her obso- 
 lete words was that they were introduced un- 
 naturally, and produced a grotesque effect 
 instead of an attractive quaintness. Moreover, 
 her slovenly elisions, indiscriminate mixture of 
 old and new verbal inflections, eccentric rhymes, 
 forced accents, wearisome repetition of favoured 
 words to a degree that almost implied poverty 
 of thought— such matters justly were held to be 
 an outrage upon the beauty and dignity of 
 metrical art. An occasional discord has its use 
 and charm, but harshness in her verse was 
 the rule rather than the exception. When she 
 
364 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 tad a felicitous refrain — a peculiar grace of her 
 lyrics — she frequently would mar the effect and 
 give a shock to her readers by the introduction 
 of some whimsical or repulsive image. Her 
 passion was spasmodic ; her sensuousness lacked 
 substance ; as for simplicity, it was at one time 
 questionable whether she was not to be classed 
 among those who, with a turbulent desire for 
 utterance, really have nothing definite to say. 
 Her sonnet on "The Soul's Expression" showed 
 that the only thing clear to her mind was that 
 she could state nothing clearly : 
 
 " With stammering lips and insufficient sound 
 I strive and struggle to deliver right 
 That music of my nature, day and night 
 With dream and thought and feeling interwound." 
 
 Metaphysical reading aggravated her natural 
 vagueness and what is termed transcendentalism 
 —perilous qualities in the domain of art. Long 
 afterward she herself spoke of "the weakness 
 of these earlier verses, which no subsequent re- 
 vision has succeeded in strengthening." 
 
 In *'A Drama of Exile," where she had a 
 more definite object, these faults are less appar- 
 ent, and her genius shines through the clouds ; 
 60 that we catch glimpses of the brightness 
 which eventually lighted her to a station in the 
 Valhalla of renown. 
 
 During her years of illness she had added 
 some knowledge of Hebrew to her acquirements, 
 and could read the Old Testament in the ori- 
 ginal. The grander elements of her imagination 
 received a new stimulus from the sacred text, 
 with which, after all, her mind was more in 
 sympathy than with the serene beauty of the 
 Greek. In the "Drama of Exile " she aimed at 
 the highest, and failed ; but such failures are 
 impossible to smaller poets. It contains wonder- 
 fully fine passages ; is a chaotic mass, from 
 which dazzling lustres break out so frequently 
 that a critic aptly spoke of the "flashes" of her 
 "wild and magnificent genius," the "number 
 and close propinquity of which render her book 
 one flame. " My review presupposes the reader's 
 familiarity with her writings, so that citation of 
 passages does not fall within its intention. Yet, 
 let me ask what other female poet has risen to 
 such language as this of Adam to Lucifer ? 
 
 " The prodigy 
 Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes 
 Which comprehend the heights of some great fall. 
 I think that thou hast one day worn a crown 
 Under the eyes of God." 
 
 And where in modern verse is there a more 
 vigorous and imaginative episode than Luci- 
 fer's remembrance of the couched lion, " when 
 the ended curse left silence in the world ? " 
 
 " Right suddenly 
 He sprang up rampant and stood straight and stiff, 
 As if the new reality of death 
 Were dashed against his eyes— and roared so fierce 
 
 (Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat 
 Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear) 
 And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills 
 Such fast, keen echoes crumbling down the vales 
 Precipitately— that the forest beasts, 
 One after one, did mutter a response 
 Of savage and of sorrowful complaint 
 Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once, 
 He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height 
 Into the dusk of pines." 
 
 Miss Barrett in this drama displayed a true 
 conception of the sublime; though as yet she 
 had neither grace, logic, nor sustained power. 
 The most fragile and delicate of beings, she 
 essayed, with more than man's audacity, to 
 reach the infinite and soar to "the gates of 
 light." 
 
 That she was a tender woman, also, and that 
 her hand had been somewhat trained by varied 
 lyrical eff'orts, was manifest from some of those 
 minor pieces through which she now began to 
 attract the popular regard. Among those not 
 previously mentioned, the tributes to Mrs He- 
 mans and Miss Landon, "Catarina to Camoens," 
 "Crowned and Wedded," "Cowper's Grave," 
 "The Sea-Mew," "To Flush, my Dog," and 
 " The Swan's Nest," were more simple and open 
 to general esteem than their companion pieces. 
 "An Island," "The Lost Bower," and "The 
 House of Clouds " are pure efforts of fancy, for 
 the most part charmingly executed. "Bertha 
 in the Lane " is treasured by the poet's admirers 
 for its virginal pathos — the sacred revelation of 
 a dying maiden's heart — an exquisite poem, 
 but greatly marred in the closing. It was diffi- 
 cult for the author, however fine her beginnings, 
 to end a poem, once begun, or to end it well 
 under final compulsion. "The Cry of the 
 Human," with its impassioned refrain and al- 
 most agonised plea that the ancient curse may 
 be lightened, evinced her recognition of the 
 sorrows and mysteries of existence: all these 
 things she "kept in her heart," and uttered 
 brave invectives against black or white slavery, 
 and other social wrongs. " The Cry of the 
 Children," uneven as it is, takes its place beside 
 Hood's "Song of the Shirt," for sweet pity and 
 frowning indignation. In behalf of the little 
 factory-slaves, after reading Home's report of 
 his commission, her soul took fire and she did 
 what she could. If the British mill-owners 
 were little likely to be impressed by her imagi- 
 native ode, with its Greek motto, it certainly 
 affected the minds of public writers and speak- 
 ers, who could fashion their more practical 
 agitation after the pattern thus given them in 
 the Mount. 
 
 But "Lady Geraldine's Courtship" was the 
 ballad — and often a poet has one such — which 
 gained her a sudden repute among lay-readers. 
 It is said that she composed it in twelve hours, 
 and not improbably ; for, although full of melo- 
 dious sentiment and dainty lines, the poem is 
 
marred by commonplaces of frequent occur- 
 rence. Many have classed it with "Locksley 
 Hall," but, while certain stanzas are equal to 
 Tennyson's best, it is far from displaying the 
 completeness of that enduring lyric. I value it 
 chiefly as an illustration of the greater freedom 
 and elegance to which her poetic faculty had 
 now attained, and as her first open avowal, and 
 a brave one in England, of the democracy which 
 generous and gifted spirits, the round world 
 over, are wont to confess. As for her story, 
 she only succeeded in showing bow meanly a 
 womanish fellow might act, when enamoured of 
 one above him in social station, and that the 
 heart of a man possessed of healthy self-respect 
 was something she had not yet found out. Her 
 Bertram is a dreadful prig, who cries, mouths, 
 and faints like a school-girl, allowing himself to 
 eat the bread of the Philistines and betray his 
 sense of inequality, and upon whom Lady 
 Geraldine certainly throws herself away. He 
 is a libel upon the whole race of poets. The 
 romance, none the less, met with instant popu- 
 larity on both sides the Atlantic, and has passed 
 into literature, somewhat pruned by later 
 touches, as one of its author's more conspicu- 
 ous efforts. 
 
 Miss Barrett now, at the relatively mature age 
 of thirty-five, appeared to have completed her 
 intellectual growth. It was a chance whether 
 her future should be greater than her past. 
 Thus far I regard her experience as merely for- 
 mative. Much of her vagueness and gloom had 
 departed with the physical prostration that so 
 long had borne her down. For her improving 
 health showed that study and authorship, though 
 against the wishes of her attendants, were the 
 best medicine for a body and mind diseased. 
 
 As the scent of the rose came back "above the 
 mould," she was to emerge upon a new life, 
 different from that which we hitherto have con- 
 sidered as the day is from the night. She was 
 not to be enrolled among the mournful sister- 
 hood of women, who 
 
 " sit still 
 On winter nights by solitary fires 
 And hear the nations praising them far off." 
 
 The dearest common joys were yet to be hers, 
 and that full development which a woman's 
 genius needs to make it rounded and complete. 
 There is a pretty story of her first meeting with 
 the poet Browning, based upon the lines refer- 
 ring to him in *' Lady Geraldine's Courtship." 
 This, however, is not credited by Theodore Tilton, 
 her American editor, who wrote the memorial pre- 
 fixed to the collection of her ' * Last Poems. " Four 
 lyrics, thrown off at this time — entitled " Life 
 and Love," "A Denial," " Proof and Disproof," 
 and *' Inclusions " — go far to show Miss Bar- 
 rett's humility, and inability to comprehend the 
 happiness which had come to her. But, never- 
 theless, the poet wooed and won her; and in 
 
 1846, her thirty-seventh year, she was taken 
 from her couch to the altar, and at once borne 
 away by her husband from her native land. 
 Some facts in my possession with respect to this 
 event have too slight a bearing upon the recDrd 
 of her literary achievements to warrant their 
 insertion here. It is well known that the mar- 
 riage was opposed by her father, but she builded 
 better than he knew. Her cloister-life of maid- 
 enhood in England was at an end. Fifteen 
 happy and illustrious years in Italy lay before 
 her ; and in her case the proverb Ccelum, non 
 animumf was unfulfilled. Never was there a 
 more complete transmutation of the habits and 
 sympathies of life than that which she experi- 
 enced beneath the blue Italian skies. Still, 
 before all and above all, her refined soul re- 
 mained in allegiance to the eternal muse. 
 
 He is but a shallow critic who neglects to take 
 into his account of a woman's genius a factor 
 representing the master-element of love. The 
 chief event in the life of Elizabeth Barrett was 
 her marriage, and causes readily suggest them- 
 selves which might determine the most generous 
 parent to oppose such a step on her part. The 
 dedication of her edition of 1844 shows how 
 close was the relation existing between her 
 father and herself, and I am told by one who 
 knew her for many years that Mr Barrett *' waa 
 a man of intellect and culture, and she had 
 been his pride, as well as the light of his eyes, 
 after he became a widower." To such a parent, 
 now well in the vale of years, a marriage which 
 was to lift his fragile daughter from the couch 
 to which she had been bound as a picture to its 
 frame must have seemed a rash experiment, and 
 a cruel blow to himself, however eminent and 
 devoted the suitor who had claimed her. But 
 when the long-closed tide-ways of a woman's 
 heart are opened, the torrent comes with double 
 force at last, sweeping kith and kin away by 
 nature's inexorable law. If the old West India 
 merchant had not afterwards acted with utter 
 selfishness in respect to the marriage of another 
 daughter, I should be disposed to estimate his 
 wounded love for Elizabeth, as she herself did, 
 by his steadfast refusal, despite her " frequent 
 and heart-moving " appeals, to be reconciled to 
 her throughout the remainder of his darkened life. 
 
 Wedlock was so thoroughly a new existence 
 to her that her kindred well might fear for the 
 result. A veritable Lady of Shalott, she now 
 entered the open highways of a peopled world. 
 She left a polar region of dreams, solitude, in- 
 trospection, for the equatorial belt of outer and 
 real life. The beneficent sequel shows how wise 
 are the instincts of a refined nature. To Mrs 
 Browning, love, marriage, travel, were happi- 
 ness, desire of life, renewed bodily and spiritual 
 health; and when, in her fortieth year, the 
 sacred and mysterious functions of maternity 
 were given her to realise, there also came that 
 
ripe fruition of a genius that hitherto, blooming 
 in the night, had yielded fragrant and impas- 
 sioned but only sterile flowers. 
 
 The question of an artist's married life, it 
 seems to me, has wholly different bearings when 
 considered from the opposite standing-points of 
 the two sexes. A discerning writer has recently 
 mentioned an artist whose view was, that a 
 man devoted to art might marry " either a plain, 
 uneducated woman devoted to household mat- 
 ters, or else a woman quite capable of entering 
 into his artistic life;" but no one between the 
 two extremes. The former would be less peril- 
 ous than to marry a daughter of the Philistines, 
 " equally incapable of comprehending his pur- 
 suits, but much more likely to interfere with 
 them." Yet in behalf of a man of artistic genius 
 and sensibility, who is born to a career if he 
 chooses to pursue it, I would not accept even 
 the first-named alternative, unless he has suffi- 
 cient wealth to insure him perfect independence 
 or seclusion. Ad author's growth, and the hap- 
 piness of both parties, are vastly imperilled by 
 his union with the most affectionate of creatures, 
 if she has an inartistic nature and a dull or com- 
 monplace mind. The laureate makes the simple 
 wife exclaim: *' I cannot understand: I love!" 
 — but there is no perfect love without mutual 
 comprehension; at the best, a wearisome, un- 
 emotional forbearance takes its place. On the 
 one part jealousy, active or disguised, of the 
 other's wider range, too often exerts a restrictive 
 influence, by which the art-impulse, and the 
 experiences it should feed upon, are modified or 
 repressed. It is a law of psychological mathe- 
 matics that the constant force of dulness will in 
 the end overcome any varying force resisting it ; 
 and when Pegasus can be driven in harness, one 
 generally finds him yoked with a brood-mare, 
 — ay, and broken-in when young and more or 
 less defenceless. 
 
 Again, we so readily persuade ourselves to 
 lapse from the efforts of creative labour, when 
 temptation puts on the specious guise of duty! 
 The finest kind of art — that possessing originality 
 — is unremunerative for years ; and who has the 
 courage to pursue it, while responsible for the 
 conventional ease and happiness of those who 
 possibly regret that he is not so practical as 
 other men, and look with distrust upon his 
 habits of life and labour ? Ordinary people can 
 more easily attain to that perfect mating which 
 is the sum of bliss. But let an artist marry art, 
 and be true to it alone, unless by some rare 
 chance he can find a companion whose soul is 
 kindred with his own, who can sympathise with 
 his tastes, and aid him with tact and circum- 
 stance in his social and professional career. If 
 she has genius of her own, and her own purposes 
 in any department of art, then all obligations 
 can be entirely mutual, and under favourable 
 auspices the highest wedded felicity should be 
 the result. 
 
 The relations of art and marriage, where the 
 development of female genius is concerned, are 
 of a distinctive character, and must be so con- 
 sidered. It is no doubt true that a woman, also, 
 can only arrive at extreme happiness by wedlock 
 founded upon entire congeniality of mind and 
 purpose; and yet there are conditions under 
 which it may become essential to her complete 
 development as an artist that she should marry 
 out of her own ideal rather than not be married 
 at all. So closely interwrought are her physical 
 and spiritual existences that otherwise the pro- 
 duct of her genius may be little more than a 
 beautiful fragment at the most. We must 
 therefore esteem Mrs Browning doubly fortu- 
 nate, and protected by the gods themselves. 
 For marriage not only had given her, by one of 
 nature's charming miracles, a precious lease of 
 life, but had united her with a fellow-artist 
 whose disposition and pursuits were in absolute 
 harmony with her own — the one man in the 
 world whom she would have chosen, yet who 
 sought her out, and deemed it his highest joy to 
 possess her as a wife, and cherish her as com- 
 panion, lover, and friend. In this life of incon- 
 gruities it is encouraging to find such an instance 
 of the serene fitness of things. The world is 
 richer for their union, than which none more 
 distinguished is of record in the annals of author- 
 ship. 
 
 The ten years following the date of Mrs 
 Browning's marriage were the noonday of her 
 life, and three master-works, embraced in this 
 period, represent her at her prime. "Casa 
 Guidi Windows" appeared in 1851, the same 
 volume including the matchless "Sonnets from 
 the Portuguese." "Aurora Leigh" was pub- 
 lished in 1856. None of her later or earlier 
 compositions were equal to these in scope; 
 method, and true poetical value. 
 
 At first the influence of her new life was of a 
 complex nature. It opened a sealed fountain 
 of love within her, which broke forth in celestial 
 song : it gave her a land and a cause to which 
 she thoroughly devoted her woman's soul ; 
 finally, a surprising advance was evident in the 
 rhythm, language, and all other constituents of 
 her metrical work. The Saxon English, which she 
 hitherto had quarried from the basis of her verse, 
 now became conspicuous throughout the whole 
 structure. Her technical gain was partly due 
 to the stronger themes which now bore up her 
 wing — and partly, I have no doubt, to the com- 
 panionship of Robert Browning. Even if he 
 did not directly revise her works, neither could 
 fail to profit by the other's genius and experi- 
 ence; and the blemishes of his wife's earlier 
 style were such as Browning at this time would 
 not relish, for they were of a different kind from 
 his own. Besides, we are sensitive to faults in 
 those we love, while committing th-em ourselves 
 as if by chartered right. 
 
 I am disposed to consider the "Sonnets from 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 
 
 367 
 
 the Portuguese " as, if not the finest, a portion 
 of the finest subjective poetry in our literature. 
 Their form reminds us of an English prototype, 
 and it is no sacrilege to say that their music is 
 showered from a higher and purer atmosphere 
 than that of the Swan of Avon. We need not 
 enter upon cold comparison of their respective 
 excellences ; but Shakespeare's personal poems 
 were the overflow of his impetuous youth — his 
 broader vision, that took a world within its ken, 
 was absolutely objective; while Mrs Browning's 
 love sonnets were the outpourings of a woman's 
 tenderest emotions, at an epoch when her art 
 was most mature, and her whole nature exalted 
 by a passion that to such a being comes but 
 once and for all. Here, indeed, the singer rose 
 to her height. Here she is absorbed in raptur- 
 ous utterance, radiant and triumphant with her 
 own joy. The mists have risen and her sight is 
 clear. Her mouthing and affectation are for- 
 gotten, her lips cease to stammer, the lyrical 
 spirit has full control. The sonnet, artificial in 
 weaker hands, becomes swift with feeling, red 
 with a "veined humanity," the chosen vehicle 
 of a royal woman's vows. Graces, felicities, 
 vigour, glory of speech, here are so crowded as 
 to tread each upon the other's sceptred pall. 
 The first sonnet, equal to any in our tongue, is 
 an overture containing the motive of the canticle 
 — "not Death, but Love" had seized her un- 
 aware. The growth of this happiness, her wor- 
 ship of its bringer, her doubts of her own 
 worthiness, are the theme of these poems. She 
 is in a sweet and, to us, pathetic surprise at the 
 delight which at last had fallen to her : 
 
 " The wonder was not yet quite gone 
 From that still look of hers." 
 
 Never was man or minstrel so honoured as her 
 "most gracious singer of high poems." In the 
 tremor of her love she undervalued herself — 
 with all her feebleness of body, it was enough 
 for any man to live within the atmosphere of 
 such a soul! In fine, the "Portuguese Sonnets," 
 whose title was a screen behind which the 
 singer poured out her full heart, are the most 
 exquisite poetry hitherto written by a woman, 
 and of themselves justify us in pronouncing 
 their author the greatest of her sex — on the 
 ground that the highest mission of a female poet 
 is the expression of love, and that no other 
 woman approaching her in genius has essayed 
 the ultimate form of that expression. An 
 analogy with "In Memoriam" may be derived 
 from their arrangement and their presentation 
 of a single analytic theme; but Tennyson's 
 poem — though exhibiting equal art, more sub- 
 tile reasoning and comprehensive thought — is 
 devoted to the analysis of philosophic grief, 
 while the sonnets reveal to us that love which 
 is the most ecstatic of human emotions and 
 worth all other gifts in life. 
 Mrs Browning's more than filial devotion to 
 
 Italy has become a portion of the history of our 
 time. Independently of her husband's enthusi- 
 asm, everything in the aspect and condition of 
 the country of her adoption was fitted to arouse 
 this sentiment. It became a passion with her ; 
 she identified herself with the Italian cause, and 
 for fourteen years her oratory in Casa Guidi was 
 vocal with the aspiration of that fair land 
 struggling to be free. Its beauty and sorrow 
 enthralled her ; its poetry spoke through her 
 voice ; its grateful soil finally received her ashes, 
 and will treasure them for many an age to come. 
 Nothing can be finer than the burst of song 
 at the opening of her Italian poem — 
 
 " I heard last night a little child go singing, 
 'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church, 
 bella liberta, bella J " — 
 
 unless it be the passages which begin and close 
 the second portion of the same work, composed 
 after an interval of three years, when the hope 
 of the first exultant outbreak was for the time 
 obscured. Between the two extremes the chant 
 is eloquently sustained, and is our best example 
 of lucid sonorous English verse composed in a 
 semi-Italian riTTia. While full of poetry, its in- 
 crease of intellectual vigour shows how a singer 
 may be lifted by the occasion and capacity for 
 pleading a noble cause. Deep voice, strong 
 heart, fine brain — the three must go together in 
 the making of a great poet. "Casa Guidi 
 Windows " won a host of friends to Italy, and 
 gained for its devoted author an historic name. 
 During the interval mentioned she had given 
 birth to the child whose presence was the awak- 
 ening of a new prophetic gift : 
 
 " The sun strikes through the windows, up the floor; 
 
 Stand out in it, my own young Florentine, 
 Not two years old, and let me see thee more ! 
 
 It grows along thy amber curls to shine 
 Brighter than elsewhere. Now look straight before, 
 
 And fix thy brave blue English ej^es on mine, 
 And from thy soul, which fronts the future so 
 
 With unabashed and unabated gaze, 
 Teach me to hope for what the angels know 
 
 When they smile clear as thou dost ! " 
 
 While experience of motherhood now had 
 perfected her woman's nature, Mrs Browning 
 was also at the zenith of her lyrical career. Hei 
 minor verses of the period are admirable. She 
 revised her earlier poetry for the edition of 
 1856, and Mr Tilton has pointed out some of 
 her fastidious and usually successful emenda- 
 tions. It was the happiest portion of her life, 
 as well as the most artistic. The sunshine of 
 an enviable fame enwreathed her; rare and 
 gifted spirits, wandering through Italy, were 
 attracted to her presence and paid homage to its 
 laurelled charm. Hence, as a secondary effect 
 of her marriage, her knowledge of the world in- 
 creased; she became a keen though impulsive 
 observer of men and women, and of the thought 
 and action of her own time. Few social move- 
 
ments escaped her notice, whether in Europe or 
 our own unrestful land; her instincts were in 
 favour of agitation and reform, and her imagina- 
 tion was ever looking forward to the golden 
 year. And it was now that, summoning all 
 her strength — alas ! how unequal was her frail 
 body to the tasks laid upon it by the aspiring 
 soul ! — with heroic determination and most per- 
 sistent industry, she undertook and completed 
 her caj^o cCopera — the poem which, in dedicat- 
 ing to John Kenyon, she declares to be the 
 most mature of her works, "and the one into 
 which my highest convictions upon life and art 
 have entered." 
 
 If Mrs Browning's vitality had failed her be- 
 fore the production of "Aurora Leigh " — a poem 
 comprising twelve thousand lines of blank-verse 
 — her generation certainly would have lost one 
 of its representative and original creations : re- 
 presentative in a versatile, kaleidoscopic pre- 
 sentment of modern life and issues; original, 
 because the most idiosyncratic of its author's 
 poems. An audacious, speculative freedom per- 
 vades it, which smacks of the New World rather 
 than the Old, Tennyson while examining the 
 social and intellectual phases of his era, main- 
 tains a judicial impassiveness ; Mrs Browning, 
 with jfiner dramatic insight, the result of intense 
 human sympathy, enters into the spirit of each 
 experiment, and for the moment puts herself 
 in its advocate's position. "Aurora Leigh" 
 is a mirror of contemporary life, while its 
 learned and beautiful illustrations make it, al- 
 most, a handbook of literature and the arts. 
 As a poem, merely, it is a failure, if it be fair 
 to judge it by accepted standards. One may 
 say of it, as of Byron's "Don Juan" (though 
 loath to couple the two works in any compari- 
 son), that, although a most uneven production, 
 full of ups and downs, of capricious or prosaic 
 episodes, it nevertheless contains poetry as fine 
 as its author has given us elsewhere, and enough 
 spare inspiration to set up a dozen smaller poets. 
 The flexible verse is noticeably her own, and 
 often handled with as much spirit as freedom ; 
 it is terser than her husband's, and, although 
 his influence now began to grow upon her, is 
 not in the least obscure to any cultured reader. 
 The plan of the work is a metrical concession to 
 the fashion of a time which has substituted the 
 novel for the dramatic poem. Considered as a 
 " novel in verse," it is a failure by lack of either 
 constructive talent or experience on the author's 
 part. Few great poets invent their myths ; few 
 prose character-painters are successful poets ; the 
 epic songsters have gone to tradition for their 
 themes, the romantic to romance, the dramatic to 
 history and incident. Mrs Browning essayed to 
 invent her whole story, and the result was an in- 
 congruous framework, covered with her throng- 
 ing, suggestive ideas, her flashing poetry and 
 metaphor, and confronting you by whichever 
 gateway you enter with the instant presence of 
 
 her very self. But either as poem or novel, how 
 superior the whole, in beauty and intellectual 
 power, to contemporary structures upon a simi- 
 lar model, which found favour with the ad- 
 mirers of parlour romance or the lamb's-wool 
 sentiment of orderly British life ! As a social 
 treatise it is also a failure, since nothing de- 
 finite is arrived at. Yet the poet's sense of 
 existing wrongs is clear and exalted, and if her 
 exposition of them is chaotic, so was the transi- 
 tion period in which she found herself involved. 
 Upon the whole, I think that the chief value and 
 interest of "Aurora Leigh" appertain to its 
 marvellous illustrations of the development, 
 from childhood on, of an sesthetical, imaginative 
 nature. Nowhere in literature is the process of 
 culture by means of study and passional experi- 
 ence so graphically depicted. It is the metricaf 
 and feminine complement to Thackeray's "Pen- 
 dennis;" a poem that will be rightly appre- 
 ciated by artists, thinkers, poets, and by them' 
 alone. Landor, for example, at once received it 
 into favour, and also laid an unerring finger 
 upon its weakest point : " I am reading a poera," 
 he wrote, " full of thought and fascinating with 
 fancy. In many pages there is the wild imagi- 
 nation of Shakespeare. ... I had no idea 
 that any one in this age was capable of such 
 poetry. . . . There are, indeed, even here, 
 some flies upon the surface, as there always will 
 be upon what is sweet and strong. I know not 
 yet what the story is. Few possess the power 
 of construction." 
 
 The five remaining years of Mrs Browning's 
 life were years of self-forgetfulness and devotion 
 to the heroic and true. Her beautiful char- 
 acter is exhibited in her correspondence, and in 
 the tributes of those who were privileged to know 
 her. What poetry she wrote is left to us, and 
 I am compelled to look upon it as belonging to 
 her period of declines However fine its motive, 
 "we are here," as M. Taine has said, to judge 
 of the product alone, and "to realise, not an 
 ode, but a law." Physical debility was the 
 main cause of this lyrical falling off'. Her ex- 
 hausted frame was now, more than ever, what 
 Hillard had pronounced it, "nearly a trans- 
 parent veil for a celestial and immortal spirit." 
 Her feelings were again more imperative than 
 her mastery of art ; her hand trembled, her 
 voice quavered with that emotion which is not 
 strength. She now, as I have said, uncon- 
 sciously began to yield to the prolonged in- 
 fluence of her husband's later style, and it 
 affected her own injuriously, though it must be 
 acknowledged that her poetry acquired, toward 
 the last, a new and genuine, but painful, dram- 
 atic quality. Her "Napoleon III. in Italy," 
 and the minor lyrics upon the Italian question, 
 are submitted in evidence of the several points 
 just made. Some of her later poems were con- 
 tributed to a New York newspaper, with whose 
 declared opinions she was in sympathy, and 
 
^hich was the mouthpiece of her warmest Ameri- 
 .^an admirers ; and, in the effort to promptly 
 Tueet her engagements, she tendered unrevised 
 and faulty work. At intervals the production 
 of some gracious, healthful hour would be a 
 truly effective poem, and such lyrics as *' De 
 frofundis," "A Court Lady," "The Forced 
 Recruit," ** Parting Lovers," and "Mother and 
 Poet," made the world realise how rich and 
 tuneful could be the voice still left to her. One 
 evening it was my fortune to listen to a recita- 
 tion of the last-named poem, from the lips of a 
 beautiful girl who looked the very embodiment 
 of the lyric muse, and I was struck with the 
 truthfulness and strength displayed in the poet's 
 dramatic conception of the mingled patriotism 
 and anguish in a bereaved Italian mother's 
 heart. But the dominant roughness which too 
 generally pervades her "Last Poems" shows 
 how completely she had accepted Browning's 
 theory of entire subordination, in poetry, of 
 the art to the thought, and his method of giving 
 expression to the latter, no matter how inchoate, 
 at any cost to the finish and effectiveness of the 
 work in hand. 
 
 In a former part I wrote of "an inspired 
 singer, if there ever was one — all fire and air — 
 her song and soul alike devoted to liberty, aspira- 
 tion, and love." The career of this gifted 
 woman has now been traced. In conclusion, 
 let us attempt to estimate her genius and dis- 
 cover the position to be assigned to her among 
 contemporary poets. 
 
 And first, with regard to her qualities as an 
 artist. She was thought to resemble Tennyson 
 in some of her early pieces, but this was a 
 mistake, if anything beyond form is to be 
 considered. In reading Tennyson you feel that 
 he drives stately and thoroughbred horses, and 
 has them always under control ; that he could 
 reach a higher speed at pleasure ; while Mrs 
 Browning's chargers, half-untamed, prance or 
 halt at their own will, and often bear her away 
 over some rugged, dimly-lighted tract. Her 
 verse was the perfect exponent of her own 
 nature, including a wide variety of topics in its 
 range, but with the author's manner injected 
 through every line of it. Health is not its pro- 
 minent characteristic. Mrs Browning's creative 
 power was not equal to her capacity to feel ; 
 otherwise there was nothing she might not have 
 accomplished. She evinced over-possession, and 
 certainly had the contortions of the Sibyl, 
 though not lacking the inspiration. We feel 
 that she must have expression, or perish — a 
 lack of restraint common to female poets. She 
 was somewhat deficient in aesthetic conscientious- 
 ness, and we cannot say of her works, as of Ten- 
 lyson's, that they include nothing which has 
 failed to receive the author's utmost care. She 
 had that distrust of the " effect " of her produc- 
 tions which betrays a clouded vision; and in 
 
 truth, much of her vaguer work well might be 
 distrusted. Her imagination was radiant, but 
 seldom clear ; it was the moon obscured by 
 mists, yet encircled with a glorious halo. 
 
 Her metres came by chance, and this often to 
 her detriment ; she rarely had the patience to 
 discover those best adapted to her needs, but 
 gave voice to the first strain which occurred to 
 her. Hence she had a spontaneity which ie 
 absent from the laureate's work. This charming 
 element has its drawbacks: she found herself 
 hampered by difficulties which a little fore- 
 thought would have avoided, and her song, 
 though as fresh, was too often as purposeless as 
 that of a forest-bird. There is great music in 
 her voice, but one wishes that it were better 
 trained. She had a gift of melodious and effec- 
 tive refrains: "The Nightingales, the Nightin- 
 gales," " Margret, Margret," " You see we're 
 tired, my Heart and I," " Toll slowly ! " " The 
 River floweth on," " Pan, Pan is dead ! " — 
 these and other examples captivate the memory, 
 but occasionally the burden is the chief sus- 
 tainer of the song. One of her repetends, " He 
 giveth His beloved Sleep," is the motive of an 
 almost celestial lyric, faultless in holy and melo- 
 dious design. It is a poem to read by the weary 
 couch of some loved one passing away, and 
 doubtless in many a heart is already associated 
 with memories that "lie too deep for tears." 
 
 Her spontaneous and exhaustless command of 
 words gave her a large and free style, but like- 
 wise a dangerous facility, and it was only in 
 rare instances, like the one just cited, that she 
 attained to the strength and sweetness of re- 
 pose. Her intense earnestness spared her no 
 leisure for humour, a feature curiously absent 
 from her writings ; she almost lacked the sense 
 of the ludicrous, as may be deduced from some 
 of her two -word rhymes, and from various ab- 
 surdities solemnly indulged in. But of wit and 
 satire she has more than enough, and lashes all 
 kinds of tyranny and hypocrisy with supernal 
 scorn. It is perhaps due to her years of indoor 
 life that the influence of landscape-scenery is 
 not more visible in her poetry. Her girlhood, 
 nevertheless, was partly spent in Herefordshire, 
 among the Malvern Hills, and we find in "Au- 
 rora Leigh," and in some of her minor pieces, 
 not only reminiscences of that region, but other 
 landscape, both English and Italian, executed in 
 a broad and admirable manner. But when she 
 follows the idyllic method, making the tone of 
 the background enhance the feeling of a poem, 
 she uses by preference the works of man rather 
 than those of nature: architecture, furniture, 
 pictures, books above all, rather than water, sky, 
 and forest. Men and women were the chief 
 objects of her regard — her genius was more 
 dramatic than idyllic, and lyric first of all. 
 
 The instinct of worship and the religion of 
 humanity were pervading constituents of Mrs 
 Browning's nature, and demand no less attentiop 
 
 2 A 
 
370 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 than the love which dictated her most fervent 
 poems. A spiritual trinity, of zeal, love, and 
 worship, presided over her work. If in her out- 
 cry against wrong she had nothing decisive to 
 suggest, she at least sounded a clarion-note for 
 the incitement of her comrades and successors, 
 and this was her mission as a reformer. Reli- 
 gious exaltation breathes through every page of 
 her compositions. Her eulogist aptly called her 
 the Blaise Pascal of women, and said that her 
 books were prayer-books. She had a profound 
 faith in Christian revelation, interpreted in its 
 most catholic sense. Her broad humanity and 
 religion, her defence of her sex, her subtile and 
 tender knowledge of the hearts of children, her 
 abnegation, hope, and faith, seemed the apotheosis 
 of womanhood, and drew to her the affection of 
 readers in distant lands. She was the most 
 beloved of minstrels and women. Jean Paul 
 said of Herder that he was less a poet than a 
 poem, but in Mrs Browning the two were 
 blended ; she wrote herself into her works, and 
 I have closely reviewed her experience, because 
 it is inseparable from her lyrical career. The 
 English love to call her Shakespeare's daughter, 
 and in truth she bears to their greatest poet the 
 relation of Miranda to Prosper©. Her delicate 
 genius was purely feminine and subjective, attri- 
 butes that are made to go together. Most in- 
 trospective poetry, in spite of Sidney's injunc- 
 tion, wearies us, because it so often is the petty 
 or morbid sentiment of natures little superior 
 to our own. Men have more conceit, with less 
 tact, than women, and, as a rule, when male 
 poets write objectively they are on the safer 
 side. But when an impassioned woman, yearn- 
 ing to let the world share her poetic rapture or 
 grief, reveals the secrets of her burning heart, 
 generations adore her, literature is enriched, 
 and grosser beings have glimpses of a purity 
 with which we invest our conceptions of disen- 
 thralled spirits in some ideal sphere. 
 
 I therefore regard Mrs Browning as the repre- 
 sentative of her sex in the Victorian era, and a 
 luminous example of the fact that ''woman is 
 not undeveloped man, but diverse ; " as the pas- 
 sion-flower of the century; the conscious medium 
 
 of some power beyond the veil. For, if she was 
 wanting in reverence for the form and body of 
 the poet's art, she more than all her tuneful 
 brethren revered the poet's ins^piration. To her 
 poets were 
 
 " the only truth-tellers now left to God; 
 The only speakers of essential truth. 
 Opposed to relative, comparative, 
 And temporal truths; the only holders by 
 His sxin-skirts." 
 
 And this in a period when technical refinement 
 has caused the mass of verse-makers to forget 
 that art is vital chiefly as a means of expression. 
 Like her Hebrew poets, she was obedient " to 
 the heavenly vision," and I think that the form 
 of her religion, which was in sympathy with the 
 teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, enables us 
 clearly to understand her genius and works. I 
 have no doubt that she surrendered herself to 
 the play of her imagination, as if some angelic 
 voice were speaking through her — and of what 
 other modern poet can this be said? With 
 equal powers of expression, such a faith exalts 
 the bard to an apocalyptic prophet — to the con- 
 secrated interpreter, of whom Plato said in 
 "Ion," "A poet is a thing light, with wings, 
 and unable to compose poetry until he becomes 
 inspired and is out of his sober senses, and his 
 imagination is no longer under his control ; for 
 he does not compose by art, but through a divine 
 power." 
 
 At the close of the first summer month of 
 1861, a memorable year for Italy, the land of 
 song was free, united, once more a queen among 
 the nations ; but the voice of its sweetest singer 
 was hushed, the golden harp was broken; the 
 sibylline minstrel lay dying in the City of 
 Flowers. She was at the last, as ever, an en- 
 raptured seer of celestial visions. Some efflux 
 of imperishable glory passed before her eyes, 
 and she said that it was beautiful. It seemed, 
 to those around her, as if she died beholding 
 
 "in jasper-stone as clear as glass, 
 The first foundations of that new, near day 
 Which should be builded out of heaven to God." 
 
 OLIVEE WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 [1809 .] 
 
 Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes, a son of Abiel 
 Holmes, D.D., was born at Cambridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, 29th August 1809; he graduated at 
 Harvard University in 1829 ; afterwards studied 
 law for some time, but finally devoted himself 
 to medicine. He visited Europe in 1833, 
 attended the hospitals in Paris, and other 
 
 capitals. Returning to Boston in 1835, he 
 took his medical degree in 1836. He wai 
 elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiolofj7 
 in Dartmouth College in 1838 ; he succeeded Dr 
 Warren as Professor of Anatomy in the medical 
 department of Harvard University in 1847. In 
 1849 he retired from practice to devote himself 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 371 
 
 to authorship. Early in life he had been a 
 contributor in verse to various periodicals. His 
 reputation was established by the publication 
 of a metrical essay called "Poetry." He has 
 been placed in the front rank as a popular 
 lecturer, and as a writer of songs, lyrics, and 
 festive poems. He has also contributed largely 
 to medical literature. The charming series of 
 papers under the title of " The Autocrat of the 
 Breakfast-Table," were commenced in the 
 Atlantic Monthly in 1857, and were followed 
 by "The Professor at the Breakfast-Table," 
 and "The Poet at the Breakfast-Table." He 
 issued a novel entitled " Elsie Venner " in 1861, 
 "Songs in Many Keys," 1864; "Soundings 
 from the Atlantic," 1864; "The Guardian 
 Angel," 1868; and "Mechanism in Thought 
 and Morals," 1870. "The 'Autocrat,'" writes 
 Dr Mackenzie, "is somewhat more than an 
 essayist : he is contemplative, discursive, poeti- 
 cal, thoughtful, philosophical, amusing, ima- 
 ginative, tender — never didactic." He usually 
 resides in Boston during the winter ; the rest of 
 the year is spent on his estate, on the banks of 
 the Housatonic, Pittsfield, Berkshire County, 
 Massachusetts. A recent writer thus describes 
 his literary style : 
 
 " Holmes cannot be properly called forcible, 
 and he is never flashy. He does not speak as 
 an orator to an excited crowd, he talks with you 
 —gravely and humorously, sometimes patheti- 
 cally, but never losing his equanimity in the 
 excitement of argument. * Talking,' he says 
 himself, *is one of the fine arts — the noblest, 
 the most important, and the most difiicult. 
 That conversation which is suggestive rather 
 than argumentative, which lets out the most of 
 each talker's result of thought, is commonly the 
 pleasantest and the most profitable.' Occasion- 
 ally he warms with his subject, and becomes 
 eloquent ; but he keeps a check on his emotion, 
 and only for a moment allows you to have a 
 glimpse of his earnestness. You may detect a 
 flash in his eye, a smile on his lip, a break in 
 his voice ; but if you look for a fierce invective, 
 or a roar of laughter, or a flood of tears, you 
 will be wofully disappointed. Style is, like 
 physiognomy, a great index of a man's char- 
 acter; and from peculiarities of style we can 
 often deduct peculiarities of nature. More 
 than this, style and physiognomy being the two 
 most direct manifestations of an author's inward 
 self, we can sometimes form a fair guess at the 
 expression of face from a knowledge of the way 
 of writing. . . . 
 
 " Moreover, Holmes is decidedly un-American 
 in the manner he treats of in his books. Most 
 of our Transatlantic cousins, poets and prose- 
 writers, have something new, something start- 
 ling, or at least urgently important, to tell us. 
 Walt Whitman raises his clear strong voice in 
 a hymn to universal brotherhood. Bret Harte 
 gives us in his own marvellous way a glimpse 
 
 at what life is in the Far West. Lowell in the 
 ' Biglow Papers ' hammers out stern truths that 
 frighten politicians. Even Mark Twain, when 
 he ceases to be a buffoon, surprises us by 
 earnestness in the description of strange facts. 
 But Holmes is not one of these. He has only 
 one theory that can be called in any sense 
 startling. He does not profess to be a prophet 
 of coming events, or an apostle of novel creeds. 
 He is even conservative in his literary tenden- 
 cies ; an odour of Old World life pervades his 
 books. It is with the unchanged and unchange- 
 able things of nature that he occupies himself. 
 A thought about love or friendship, as they 
 were in the time of ancient Nineveh, and as 
 they will be when the process of evolution shall 
 have reached its climax : a sighing glance at the 
 irrevocable past — a word of yearning pity for 
 the unloved — a sympathetic speech to those 
 who wear themselves away in hard routine- 
 tasks — a half-humorous, half-solemn warning 
 to the dilettante — a cheering encouragement to 
 the doubter — these are the things that we look 
 for and find in Oliver Wendell Holmes. Simple 
 themes they are, very simple and very old, be- 
 longing to no time or nation in particular, 
 interesting to all." 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AS A LECTURER.* 
 
 I was glad to hear that the opening of the 
 medical classes would give me an opportunity of 
 hearing Oliver Wendell Holmes deliver the in- 
 augural lecture, f Mr Fields, the publisher, 
 
 * From "The Americans at Home." By David 
 Macrae. 
 
 t It is a coincidence worthy of note, that America's 
 two greatest humorists — Holmes and Lowell — should 
 have both been born at Cambridge, and should both 
 have graduated at Harvai'd, where both are now 
 professors. Holmes is best known in this country 
 by his "Autocrat" — undoubtedly his chef-d'oeuvre 
 — but it will be remembered by many that it was hia 
 " Old Ironsides " that saved the historic frigate "Con- 
 stitution " from being broken up in 1836, when she 
 was taken for that purpose into the navy j/ard at 
 Charleston. The poem formed part of a "Metrical 
 Essay " delivered before the Harvard Phi-Beta-Kappa 
 Society, and began : 
 
 "Ay, tear her battered ensign down. 
 Long has it waved on high, 
 And many an eye has danced to see 
 That banner in the sky." 
 
 And so on to the grandest verse of all : 
 
 " O better that her shattered hulk 
 Should sink beneath the wave ; 
 Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 
 And there should be her grave. 
 
 " Nail to the mast her tattered flag, 
 Set every threadbare sail ; 
 And give her to the god of storms, 
 The lightning and the gale." 
 
 This poem, published in the Boston Adverlivn', 
 
372 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 who went with me, took me round to the 
 museum behind the lecture-hall, where we 
 found a number of the literary and scientific 
 men of Boston assembled to accompany Dr 
 Holmes to the platform. The doctor himself 
 was there, but was altogether a different-look- 
 ing man from what I had supposed him to be. 
 I had conceived of him, for what reason I know 
 not, possibly from his poetry, as a tall, thin, 
 dark-eyed, brilliant-looking man. This is not, 
 perhaps, the conception one gets from his 
 "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table;" but I read 
 his poems first, and first impressions are apt to 
 remain. Holmes is a plain little dapper man, 
 his short hair brushed down like a boy's, but 
 turning grey now; a trifle of furzy hair under 
 his ears ; a powerful jaw, and a thick, strong 
 under-lip that gives decision to his look, with a 
 dash of pertness. In conversation, he is ani- 
 mated and cordial — sharp too, taking the word 
 out of one's mouth. When Mr Fields said, "I 
 
 sent the boy this " "Yes ; I got them," said 
 
 Holmes. He told me I should hear some refer- 
 ences to Dr John Brown of Edinburgh in his 
 lecture ; also some thoughts he had taken from 
 Dr Brown's fine essay on Locke and Sydenham. 
 "But you see," he added with a smile, "I 
 always tell when I steal anything ! " 
 
 Near us, under one of the lofty windows, two 
 men were standing whom I would have travelled 
 many a league to meet. One of them was Pro- 
 fessor Louis Agassiz — big, massive, genial-look- 
 ing ; the rich healthy colour on his broad face 
 still telling of the Old World from which he 
 came — altogether a man who, but for his dark, 
 keen eyes, would look more like a jovial Eng- 
 lish squire than a devotee of science. Beside 
 him stood a man of strangely different build — 
 a gaunt, long-limbed man, dressed in a high- 
 collared surtout — his piquant New England 
 face peering down over the old-fashioned black 
 kerchief that swathed his long thin neck. It 
 was Emerson, the glorious transcendentalist of 
 Concord. He stood in an easy, contemplative 
 attitude, with his hands loosely folded in front 
 and his head slightly inclined. He has the 
 queerest New England face, with thin features, 
 prominent hatchet nose, and a smile of child- 
 like sweetness and simplicity arching the face, 
 and;drawing deep curves down the cheek. Eyes, 
 too, full of sparkling geniality, and yet in a 
 moment turning cold, clear, and searching, like 
 the eyes of a god. I remember, when intro- 
 duced to him, how kindly he took my hand, 
 and with that smile still upon his face, peered 
 deep with those calm blue eyes into mine. 
 
 WTien the hour arrived we went into the 
 lecture-room. Let me try to bring up the scene 
 again. The room is crowded to the door — so 
 
 ran like wildfire through the States, aroused the 
 patriotic sentiment of the people, and saved the old 
 ship. 
 
 crowded that many of the students have to sit 
 on the steps leading up between the sections of 
 concentric seats, and stand crushed three or 
 four deep in the passages along the walls. What 
 a sea of pale faces, and dark, thoughtful eyes. 
 
 Holmes, Emerson, and Agassiz are cheered 
 loudly as they enter and take their seats. The 
 principal opens proceedings with a short prayer 
 — the audience remaining seated. Dr Holmes 
 now gets up, steps forward to the high desk 
 amidst loud cheers, puts his eye-glasses across 
 his nose, arranges his manuscript, and without 
 any prelude begins. The little man, in his 
 dress coat, stands very straight, a little stiff 
 about the neck, as if he feels that he cannot 
 afford to lose anything of his staturo. He reads 
 with a sharp, percussive articulation, is very 
 deliberate and formal at first, but becomes more 
 animated as he goes on. He would even gesticu- 
 late if the desk were not so high, for you see 
 the arm that lies on the desk beside his manu- 
 script giving a nervous quiver at emphatic 
 points. The subject of this lecture is the spirit 
 in which medical students should go into their 
 work — now as students, afterwards as practi- 
 tioners. He warns them against looking on it 
 as a mere lucrative employment. "Don't be 
 like the man who said, 'I suppose I must go 
 
 and earn that d d guinea ! ' " He enlivens his 
 
 lecture with numerous jokes and brilliant sallies 
 of wit, and at every point hitches up his head, 
 looks through his glasses at his audience as he 
 finishes his sentence, and then shuts his mouth 
 pertly with his under-lip as if he said, "There, 
 laugh at that ! " 
 
 Emerson sits listening, with his arms folded 
 loosely on his breast — that queer smile of his 
 effervescing at every joke into a silent laugh, 
 that runs up into his eyes and quivers at the 
 corners of his eyebrows, like sunlight in the 
 woods. Beside him sits Agassiz, leaning easily 
 back in his chair, trifling with the thick watch- 
 guard that glitters on his capacious white waist- 
 coat, and looking like a man who has just had 
 dinner, and is disposed to take a pleasant view 
 of things. 
 
 Holmes is becoming more animated. His 
 arm is in motion now, indulging in mild move- 
 ments towards the desk, as if he meant to kill a 
 fly, but always repents and doesn't. He shows 
 less mercy on the persons and opinions that he 
 has occasion to critcise. He comes down 
 sharply on "the quacks, with or without 
 diplomas, who think that the chief end of man 
 is to support the apothecary." He has a passing 
 hit at Carlyle's "Shooting Niagara," and his 
 discovery of the legitimate successor of Jesus 
 Christ in the drill-sergeant. He has also a fling 
 at Dr Cumming of London, and " his prediction 
 that the world is to come to an end next year or 
 next week, weather permitting, but very sure 
 that the weather will be unpropitious." 
 
 The lecture lasted about an hour, and at its 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 373 
 
 close was applauded again and again — Holmes 
 l)eing a great favourite with the students. I 
 met him afterwards at a dinner given to Long- 
 fellow and his literary friends, in congratulation 
 on the completion of the poet's translation of 
 Dante; and hoped there to enjoy one of the 
 Autocrat's after-dinner speeches, which are said 
 to be amongst his most brilliant performances. 
 Longfellow, however, unlike most Americans, 
 
 shrinks from any kind of public speaking him- 
 self, and Mr Fields came round at dessert to 
 inform us that Longfellow had declared, that 
 if he had to make a speech he should be in tor- 
 ment all the evening, and lose the enjoyment of 
 his dinner. It had, therefore, been resolved 
 that there should be no speeches : so Holmes's 
 power as an improvisatore had no opportunity 
 for exercising itself that night. 
 
 ALFKED, LOKD TENNYSOK 
 
 [1809 .] 
 
 By EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.* 
 
 [Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet laureate, is 
 the third son of Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, 
 LL.D., the elder brother of the late Right Hon. 
 C. Tennyson D'Eyncourt, and was born at the 
 parsonage of Somerby, Lincolnshire, in 1809. 
 His father is said to have been a man of great 
 energy of character, and remarkable for both 
 strength and stature. His mother, who died 
 in 1865, was a daughter of the Rev. Stephen 
 Fytche. He was educated by his father, and 
 in due season entered Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, where he lived in the centre of some of 
 the most distinguished young men of the uni- 
 versity. He obtained the gold medal given by 
 the Chancellor of the University for the best 
 English poem, the subject being "Timbuctoo." 
 This prize poem was printed with his name, and 
 noticed at length in the Athenceum, the critic 
 remarking that it indicated "really first-rate 
 poetical genius, and which would have done 
 honour to any man that ever wrote. . . . 
 How many men have lived for a century who 
 could equal this ? " When about seventeen years 
 of age, in conjunction with his brother (now the 
 Rev. Charles Turner), ** Poems by Two Brothers," 
 was issued by J. & J. Jackson, Market Place, 
 Louth. In 1830 appeared the *' Poems, chiefly 
 Lyrical," by Alfred Tennyson; London, EfiHng- 
 ham Wilson, Royal Exchange. This volume re- 
 ceived a kindly notice from the hand of Arthur 
 H. Hallam in the Englishman's Magazine, and 
 another presumably by John Stuart Mill in the 
 Westminster Review. In 1833 Edward Moxon 
 issued a small volume, entitled " Poems by Al- 
 fred Tennyson." He was again silent for some 
 years, when in 1842 he broke the silence by an 
 edition of his poems in two volumes. The first 
 volume contained some new pieces, others were 
 rewritten, the second was entirely composed of 
 new pieces. His merits were now generally 
 
 * By permission. From "Victorian Poets." Lon- 
 don : Chatto & Windus. 
 
 acknowledged, and fresh editions of his poems 
 were called for in 1843, 1845, 1847, and after- 
 wards in more rapid succession. The beauty 
 and purity of his poems attracted royal favour, 
 and in 1846 a pension was conferred on him from 
 the Crown. Lord Lytton attacked him in the 
 *' New Timon ; " Tennyson replied in the pages of 
 Punch. The latter poem is still printed, along 
 with some other dropped poems, in the American 
 edition of his complete works. After Words- 
 worth's death, in 1850, as rightfully belonging 
 to one who already stood in the front rank of 
 English poets, he received the 
 
 ** Laurel, greener from the brows 
 Of him who uttered nothing base." 
 
 The "Ode on the Duke of Wellington" was 
 published in 1852. The poem, " The Charge of 
 the Light Brigade," was originally contributed 
 to the Examiner. Moxon the publisher issued 
 it in a quarto sheet of four pages. Tenny- 
 son wrote regarding it : ** Having heard that 
 the brave soldiers before Sebastopol, whom I am 
 proud to call my countrymen, have a liking 
 for my ballad on 'The Charge of the Light 
 Brigade ' at Balaclava, I have ordered a thousand 
 copies of it to be printed for them." The fol- 
 lowing are the dates of issue of his other poems : 
 "The Princess, a Medley," in 1847; "In 
 Memoriam" (anonymous), 1850; "Maude, and 
 other Poems," in 1855; "The Idyls of the 
 King," in 1858; "Enoch Arden, and other 
 Poems," in 1864; "The Holy Grail, and other 
 Poems," in 1869; "The Window; or, the Songs 
 of the Wrens," in 1870 ; " Gareth and Lynette," 
 in 1872. "Queen Mary," "Harold," "The 
 Falcon," "Cup," "Promise of May," and 
 " Becket " are all dramas. He issued Ballads, 
 etc., in 1880, and another volume in 1885. 
 "A Concordance to the Entire Works of Alfred 
 Tennyson" was issued in 1869. Mr Tennyson 
 received the degree of D.C.L. from ihe Univer- 
 sity of Oxford in 1855. In 1869 he was elected 
 
374 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 an honorary fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, and 
 his bust by Woolner was placed in the vestibule 
 of their library. A separate poem, in honour 
 of the marriage of one of his sisters to Professor 
 Lushington of Glasgow, appears at the con- 
 clusion of "In Memoriam." Tennyson was 
 raised to the peerage in 1883, under the title of 
 Baron Tennyson of Aldworth, in the county of 
 Surrey, and of Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight. 
 His works have been issued in succession by 
 Moxon, Strahan, Kegan Paul, and latterly by 
 Macmillan & Co. 
 
 Tennyson has given a very accurate sketch 
 of his former residence at Farringford, near 
 Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, in one of his 
 poems : 
 
 " Where, far from noise and smoke of town, 
 I watch the twilight falling brown ; 
 
 All round a careless ordered garden. 
 Close to the ridge of a noble down. 
 
 •' For groves of pine on either hand. 
 To break the blasts of winter stand ; 
 And further on, the hoary channel 
 Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand." 
 
 His present residence at Haslemere has been 
 thus described: "The house is modern Gothic, 
 designed in admirable taste, with wide mullioned 
 windows, many-angled oriels in shadowy re- 
 cesses, and dormers whose gables and pinnacles 
 break the sky-line picturesquely. Within every- 
 thing is ordered with a quiet, refined elegance 
 that has in it, perhaps, just a sou;pgon of an aflfec- 
 tation of sestheticism not quite in keeping with 
 the spirit either of modern or mediaBval life. 
 The hall, in spite of its richly tassellated pave- 
 ment, has a delightful sense of coolness in its 
 soft half-light. The lofty rooms have broad, 
 high windows, the light of which is tempered 
 by delicately-coloured hangings, walls of the 
 negative tints in which modern decorators de- 
 light, diapered with dull gold, and panelled 
 ceilings of darkly-stained wood with moulded 
 ribs and beams. High-backed chairs of ancient 
 and uncompromising stiffness flank the table, 
 typifying the poet's sterner moods; while in 
 cosy corners are comfortable lounges that indi- 
 cate a tendency to yield sometimes to the soft 
 seductions of more effeminate inspirations. No- 
 where is the spirit vexed by garish ornament or 
 the eye by glaring colour. A few good etchings 
 and paintings hang on the walls, among them 
 an excellent copy of the Peter Martyr, which is 
 doubly valuable since the destruction of the 
 original. But there is one room in which all 
 that is most interesting in this house centres. 
 The door opens noiselessly, and the tread of 
 your feet is muflled as you enter a dim corridor, 
 divided from the room by a high screen. The 
 air is heavy with the odour of an incense not 
 unfamiliar to men of letters ; and if you could 
 doubt whence it arose, your doubts would be 
 
 speedily dissolved as the occupant of the cham- 
 ber comes forward to meet you, the inseparable 
 pipe still between his teeth. The figure, though 
 slightly bent, bears the burden of its sixty-six 
 years lightly; the dark mass of hair faUing 
 backward from the broad, high forehead, and 
 the knightly growth fringing his lips, are but 
 sparely streaked with silver; and the face, 
 though rugged and deeply lined with thought, 
 is full of calm dignity and of a tenderness 
 strangely at variance with his somewhat brusque 
 tone and manner. His disregard of the conven- 
 tionalities of life is thoroughly natural and un- 
 affected. His suit of light grey, hanging about 
 him in many a fold like the hide of a rhinoceros, 
 the loose ill-fitting collar and carelessly-knotted 
 tie, the wide, low boots, are not worn, you may 
 be sure, for artistic effect or with the foppish- 
 ness of a Byron. . . . But his chief delight 
 is not in communion with his fellows. Eather 
 it is to sit here in this quiet and secluded study, 
 surrounded by a few choice books of favourite 
 authors ; and when not working at the desk by 
 the window that overlooks the pine glen and the 
 purple down westward, to lounge by the larger 
 one that looks down on the bright blossoming 
 terrace over the dense belt of the beeches and 
 hazels, where the whirring of night-jars sounds 
 carelessly in the twilight, away to the grey line of 
 undulating hills and the streak of silver sea. 
 Whatever he is doing, the eternal pipe is ever 
 ready at hand, and a huge tobacco-jar, big enough 
 for an ancestral urn, on the floor beside him. At 
 other times he will wander down to the zig-zag 
 pathways that meander in all directions through 
 the tall hazel-twigs which hem his house around, 
 where one comes suddenly on a little secluded 
 dale bright with mossy verdure, or a garden 
 laden with odours from a score of pine-trees, or 
 a bigger lawn devoted to the innocent pursuit 
 of croquet or lawn-tennis. Less frequently he 
 may be seen walking through the neighbouring 
 byways and exciting the curiosity of the village- 
 folks by the strangeness of his mien and the 
 eccentricity of his costume. In all his out-of- 
 door excursions he is sure to be accompanied 
 by one or other of his handsome sons, ' full- 
 limbed and tall.' She, the ' dear, near, and 
 true,' whose sweet faith in him was ever the 
 incentive to greater labour and higher aspira- 
 tions, is no longer able to be by his side in 
 work ; but invalid as she is, she still finds 
 opportunity for ministering to the wants of the 
 poor about her gates."*] 
 
 That a new king should arise "over Egypt, 
 which knew not Joseph," was but the natural 
 order of events. The wonder is that nothing 
 less than the death of one Pharaoh, and the 
 succession of another, could oust a favourite 
 from his position. Statesman or author, that 
 
 * The World. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 375 
 
 public man is fortunate who does not find him- 
 self subjected to the neglectful caprices of his 
 own generation, after some time be past and the 
 duration of his influence unusually prolonged. 
 There is a law founded in our dread of mono- 
 tony, in that weariness of soul which we call 
 ennui — ^the spiritual counterpart of a loathing 
 which even the manna that fell from heaven 
 at last bred in the Israelites ; a law that affects, 
 as surely as death, statesmen, moralists, heroes 
 — and equally the renowned artist or poet. The 
 law is nature's own, and man's perception of it 
 is the true apology for each fashion as it flies. 
 But nature, with all her changes, is secure in 
 certain noble, recurrent types ; and so there are 
 elevated modes of art, to which we sometimes 
 not unwillingly bid farewell, knowing that after 
 a time they will return, and be welcome again 
 and for ever. 
 
 At present we have only to observe the work- 
 ing of this law with respect to the acknowledged 
 leader, by influence and laurelled rank, of the 
 Victorian poetic hierarchy. He, too, has veri- 
 fied in his recent experience the statement that, 
 as admired poets advance in years, the people 
 and the critics begin to mistrust the quality of 
 their genius, are disposed to revise the laudatory 
 judgments formerly pronounced upon them, 
 and, finally, to claim that they have been over- 
 rated, and are not men of high reach. Such is 
 the result of that long familiarity whereby a 
 singer's audience becomes somewhat weary of 
 his notes, and it is exaggerated in direct ratio 
 with the potency of the influence against which 
 a revolt is made. In fact, the grander the suc- 
 cess the more trying the reaction. It is what 
 the ancients meant by the envy of the gods, 
 unto which too fortunate men were greatly sub- 
 jected. Alternate periods of favour and rejec- 
 tion not only follow one another in cycles, by 
 generations, or by centuries even ; but the in- 
 dividual artist, during a long career, will find 
 himself tested by minor perturbations of the 
 same kind, varying with his successive achieve- 
 ments, and the varying conditions of atmosphere 
 and time. 
 
 The influence of Alfred Tennyson has been 
 almost unprecedently dominant, fascinating, 
 extended, yet of late has somewhat vexed the 
 public mind. Its reposeful charm has given it 
 a more secure hold upon our affections than is 
 usual in this era, whose changes are the more 
 incessant because so much more is crowded into 
 a few years than of old. Even of this serene 
 beauty we are wearied ; a murmur arises ; re- 
 bellion has broken out ; the laureate is irre- 
 verently criticised, suspected, no longer wor- 
 shipped as a demi-god. Either because he is not 
 a demi-god, or that through long security he has 
 lost the power to take the buffets and rewards 
 of fortune "with equal thanks," he does not 
 move entirely contented within the shadow that 
 for the hour has crossed his triumphal path. 
 
 A little poem, "The Flower," is the expression 
 of a genuine grievance ; his plant, at first novel 
 and despised, grew into a superb flower of art, 
 was everywhere glorious and accepted, yet now 
 is again pronounced a weed because the seed is 
 common, and men weary of a beauty too fami- 
 liar. The petulance of these stanzas reveals a 
 less edifying matter, to wit, the failure of their 
 author in submission to the inevitable, the lack 
 of a philosophy which he is not slow to recom- 
 mend to his fellows. If he verily hears "the 
 roll of the ages," as he has declared in his 
 answer to "A Spiteful Letter," why then so 
 restive ? "Why not recognise, even in his own 
 case, the benignity of a law which, as Cicero 
 said of death, must be a blessing because it is 
 universal? He himself has taught us, in the 
 wisest language of our time, that 
 
 " God fulfils Himself in many ways. 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 
 
 No change, no progress. Better to decline, if 
 need be, upon some inferior grade, that all 
 methods may be tested. Ultimately, disgust of 
 the false will bring a reaction to something as 
 good as the best which has been known before. 
 
 Last of all, the world's true and enduring 
 verdict. In calmer moments the laureate must 
 needs reflect that a future age will look back, 
 measure him as he is, and compare his works 
 with those of his contemporaries. To forestall, 
 as far as may be, this steadfast judgment of 
 posterity, is the aim and service of the critic. 
 Let us separate ourselves from the adulation 
 and envy of the moment, and search for the 
 true relation of Tennyson to his era — estimating 
 his poetry, not by our appetite for it, but by its 
 inherent quality, and its lasting value in the 
 progress of British song. 
 
 There have been few comprehensive reviews 
 of Tennyson's poetical career. The artistic ex- 
 cellence of his work has been, from the first, so 
 distinguished that lay critics are often at a loss 
 how to estimate this poet. We have had ad- 
 mirable homilies upon the spirit of his teach- 
 ings, the scope and nature of his imagination, 
 his idyllic quality — his landscape, characters, 
 language, Anglicanism — but nothing adequately 
 setting forth his technical superiority. I am 
 aware that professional criticism is apt to be 
 unduly technical ; to neglect the soul, in its 
 concern for the body, of art. My present effort 
 is to consider both ; nevertheless, with relation 
 to Tennyson, above all other modern poets, how 
 little can be embraced within the limits of an 
 essay ! The specialist reviewer has the advan- 
 tage of being thorough as far as he goes. All 
 I can hope is to leave no important point un- 
 touched, though my reference to it may be re- 
 stricted to a single phrase. 
 
 It seems to me that the only just estimate of 
 Tennyson's position is that which declares him 
 
576 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 to be, by eminence, the representative poet of 
 the recent era. Not, like one or another of his 
 compeers, representative of the melody, wisdom, 
 passion, or other partial phase of the era, but of 
 the time itself, with its diverse elements in har- 
 monious conjunction. Years have strengthened 
 my belief that a future age will regard him, 
 independently of his merits, as bearmg this 
 relation to his period. In his verse he is as 
 truly "the glass of fashion and the mould of 
 form " of the Victorian generation in the nine- 
 teenth century as Spenser was of the Eliza- 
 bethan court, Milton of the Protectorate, Pope 
 of the reign of Queen Anne. During his 
 supremacy there have been few great leaders, at 
 the head of different schools, such as belonged 
 to the time of Byron, Wordsworth, and Keats. 
 His poetry has gathered all the eleraents which 
 find vital expression in the complex, modern art. 
 
 Has the influence of Tennyson mide the 
 recent British school, or has his geni.as itself 
 been modified and guided by the period ? It is 
 the old question of the river and the valley. 
 The two have taken shape together ; yet 
 the beauty of Tennyson's verse was so potent 
 from the first, and has so increased in potency, 
 that we must pronounce liim an independent 
 genius, certainly more than the mere creature 
 of his surroundings. 
 
 Years ago, when he was yet comparatively 
 unknown, an American poet, himself finely 
 gifted with the lyrical ear, was so impressed 
 by Tennyson's method, that, *'in perfect sin- 
 cerity," he pronounced him *' the noblest poet 
 that ever lived." If he had said "the noblest 
 artist," and confined this judgment to lyrists of 
 the English tongue, he possibly would have 
 made no exaggeration. Yet there have been 
 artists with a less conscious manner and a 
 broader style. The laureate is always aware 
 of what he is doing ; he is his own daimon — the 
 inspirer and controller of his own utterances. 
 He sings by note no less than by ear, and 
 follows a score of his own inditing. But, ac- 
 knowledging his culture, we have no right to 
 assume that his ear is not as fine as that of any 
 poet who gives voice with more careless rapture. 
 His average is higher than that of other English 
 masters, though there may be scarcely one who 
 in special flights has not excelled him. By 
 Spenser's law of progress, founded on the dis- 
 tribution of values, his poetry is more eminent 
 than most which has preceded it. 
 
 I have inferred that the very success of 
 Tennyson's art has made it common in our 
 eyes, and rendered us incapable of fairly judg- 
 ing it. When a poet has length of days, and 
 sees his language a familiar portion of men's 
 thoughts, he no longer can attract that romantic 
 interest with which the world regards a genius 
 freshly brought to hearing. Men forget that 
 ne, too, was once new, unhackneyed, appetising. 
 But recall the youth of Tennyson, and see how 
 
 complete the revolution with which he has, at 
 least, been coeval, and how distinct his music then 
 seemed from everything which had gone before. 
 
 He began as a metrical artist, pure and simple, 
 and with a feeling perfectly unique — at a long 
 remove even from that of so absolute an artist 
 as was John Keats. He had very little notion be- 
 yond the production of rhythm, melody, colour, 
 and other poetic effects. Instinct led him to 
 construct his machinery before essaying to 
 build. Many have discerned, in his youthful 
 pieces, the influence of Wordsworth and Keats, 
 but no less that of the Italian poets, and 
 of the early English balladists. I shall here- 
 after revert to " Oriana," " Mariana," and "The 
 Lady of Shalott," as work that in its kind is 
 fully up to the best of those Pre-Eaphaelites 
 who, by some arrest of development, stop pre- 
 cisely where Tennyson made his second step 
 forward, and censure him for having gone be- 
 yond them. 
 
 Meaningless as are the opening melodies of 
 his collected verse, how delicious they once 
 seemed, as a change from even the greatest pro- 
 duction ; which then held the public ear. Here 
 was something of a new kind ! The charm was 
 legitimate. Tennyson's immediate predecessors 
 were so fully occupied with the mass of a com- 
 position that they slighted details ; what beauty 
 they displayed was not of the parts, but of the 
 whole. Now, in all arts, the natural advance is 
 from detail to general effect. How seldom those 
 who begin with a broad treatment, which apes 
 maturity, acquire subsequently the minor graces 
 that alone can finish the perfect work! By 
 comparison of the late and early writings of 
 great English poets — Shakespeare and Milton — 
 one observes the process of healthful growth. 
 Tennyson proved his kindred genius by this 
 instinctive study of details in his immature 
 verses. In marked contrast to his fellows, and 
 to every predecessor but Keats — "that strong, 
 excepted soul " — he seemed to perceive from the 
 outset, that ;poetry is an art, and chief of tlie 
 fine arts : the easiest to dabble in, the Imrdest in 
 which to reach true excellence; that it has its 
 technical secrets, its mysterious lowly paths 
 that reach to aerial outlooks, and this no less 
 than sculpture, painting, music, or architecture, 
 but even more. He devoted himself, with the 
 eager spirit of youth, to mastering this exquisite 
 art, and wreaked his thoughts upon expression, 
 for the expression's sake. And what else should 
 one attempt, with small experiences, little con- 
 cern for the real world, and less observation of 
 it? He had dreams rather than thoughts; but 
 was at the most sensitive period of life with 
 regard to rhythm, colour, and form. In youth 
 feeling is indeed "deeper than all thought," 
 and responds divinely to every sensuous con- 
 frontment with the presence of beauty. 
 
 It is difficult now to realise how chaotic was 
 the notion of art among English verse-makers 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 377 
 
 at the beginning of Tennyson's career. Not 
 even the example of Keats had taught the need- 
 ful lesson, and I look upon his successor's early 
 efforts as of no small importance. These were 
 dreamy experiments in metre and word-paint- 
 ing, and spontaneous after their kind. Eeaders 
 sought not to analyse their meaning and grace. 
 The significance of art has since become so 
 well understood, and such results have been 
 attained, that " Claribel," «* Lilian," "The 
 Merman," "The Dying Swan," "The Owl," 
 etc., seem slight enough to us now; and even 
 then the affectation pervading them, which was 
 merely the error of a poetic soul groping for its 
 true form of expression, repelled men of severe 
 and established tastes; but to the neophyte 
 they had the charm of sighing winds and 
 babbling waters, a wonder of luxury and weird- 
 ness, inexpressible, not to be effaced. How we 
 lay on the grass, in June, and softly read them 
 from the white page ! To this day what lyrics 
 better hold their own than "Mariana" and the 
 " Kecollections of the Arabian Nights." In 
 these pieces, however, as in the crude yet 
 picturesque " Ode to Memory," the poet ex- 
 hibited some distinctness of theme and motive, 
 and, in a word, seemed to feel that he had 
 something to express, if it were but the arabesque 
 shadows of his fancy-laden dreams. Of a mass 
 of lyrics, sonnets, and other metrical essays, 
 published theretofore — some contained in the 
 "Poems by Two Brothers," and others in the 
 original volume of 1830 — I say nothing, for 
 they show little of the purpose that character- 
 ises the few early pieces which our poet him- 
 self retains in his collected works. One of 
 them, "Hero and Leander," is too good in its 
 way to be discarded; the greater number are 
 juvenile, often imitative, and the excellent 
 judgment of Tennyson is shown by his rejection 
 of all that have no true position in his lyrical 
 rise and progress. 
 
 The volume of 1832, which began with "The 
 Lady of Shalott," and contained "Eleanore," 
 "Margaret," "The Miller's Daughter," "The 
 Palace of Art," "The May Queen," " Fatima," 
 "The Lotos-Eaters," and "A Dream of Fair 
 Women," was published in his twenty-second 
 year. All in all, a more original and beautiful 
 volume of minor poetry never was added to our 
 literature. The Tennysonian manner here was 
 clearly developed, largely pruned of manner- 
 isms. The command of delicious metres; the 
 rh^rhmic susurrus of stanzas whose every word 
 is as needful and studied as the flower or scroll 
 of ornamental architecture — yet so much an 
 interlaced portion of the whole, that the special 
 device is forgotten in the general excellence ; the 
 effect of colour, of that music which is a passion 
 in itself, of the scenic pictures which are the 
 coanterparts of changeful emotions; all are 
 here, and the poet's work is the epitome of 
 every mode in art. Even if these lyrics and 
 
 idyls had expressed nothing, they were of price- 
 less value as guides to the renaissance of beauty. 
 Thenceforward slovenly work was impossible, 
 subject to instant rebuke by contrast. The 
 force of metrical elegance made its way ,a,nd 
 carried everything before it. From this day 
 Tennyson confessedly took his place at the head 
 of what some attempt to classify as the art- 
 school; that is, of poets who largely produce 
 their effect by harmonising scenery and detail 
 with the emotions or impassioned action of their 
 verse. 
 
 The tendency of his genius was revealed in 
 this volume. The author plainly was a college- 
 man, a student of many literatures, and, though 
 an Englishman to the core, alive to suggestions 
 from Italian and Grecian sources. His Gothic 
 feeling was manifest in "The Lady of Shalott" 
 and "The Sisters," his classicism in "(Enone;" 
 his idyllic method, especially, now defined it- 
 self, making the scenery of a poem enhance the 
 central idea — thought and landscape being so 
 blended that it was difficult to determine which 
 suggested the other. 
 
 I have elsewhere examined with some care 
 the relations between Tennyson and Theocritus, 
 and the general likeness of the Victorian to the 
 Alexandrian period, and at present need not 
 enter upon this special ground. Enough to say 
 that the Greek influence is visible in many por- 
 tions of the volume of 1832, sometimes through 
 almost literal translations of classical passages. 
 "CEnone," modelled upon the new-Doric verse, 
 ranks with " Lycidas " as an Hellenic study. 
 While this most chaste and beautiful poem fasci- 
 nated every reader, the wisest criticism found 
 more of genuine worth in the purely English 
 quality of those limpid pieces in which the 
 melody of the lyric is wedded to the sentiment 
 and picture of the idyl — "The Miller's Daugh- 
 ter," " The May Queen," and " Lady Clara Vere 
 de Vere." More dewy, fresh, pathetic, native 
 verse had not been written since the era of "As 
 You Like It " and "A Winter's Tale." During 
 ten years this book accomplished its auspicious 
 work, until the author's fame and influence had 
 so extended that he was encouraged to print the 
 volume of 1842, wherein he first gave the name 
 of idyls to poems of the class that has brought 
 him a distinctive reputation. 
 
 At the present day, were this volume to be 
 lost, we possibly should be deprived of a larger 
 specific variety of Tennyson's most admired 
 poems than is contained in any other of his 
 successive ventures. It is an assortment of 
 representative poems. To an art more restrained 
 and natural we here find wedded a living soul. 
 The poet has convictions : he is not a pupil, but 
 a master, and reaches intellectual greatness. 
 His verses still bewitch youths and artists by 
 their sentiments and beauty, but their thought 
 takes hold of thinkers and men of the world. 
 He has learned not only that art, when followed 
 
for its own .^cake, is alluring, but that, when 
 used as a means of expressing what cannot 
 otherwise be quite revealed, it becomes seraphic. 
 We could spare, rather than this collection, 
 much which he has since given us; possibly 
 "Maud" — without doubt, idyls like ''The 
 Golden Supper" and ''Aylmer's Field." Look 
 at the material structure of the poetry. Here, 
 at last, we observe the ripening of that blank- 
 verse which had been suggested in the *' QEnone. " 
 Consider Tennyson's handling of this measure — 
 the domino of a poetaster, the state garment of 
 a lofty poet. It must be owned that he now 
 enriched it by a style entirely his own, and as 
 well defined as those already established. Fore- 
 most of the latter was the Elizabethan, marked 
 by freedom and power, and never excelled for 
 dramatic composition. Next, the Miltonic or 
 Anglo-Epic, with its sonorous grandeur and 
 stately Roman syntax, of which "Paradise Lost" 
 is the masterpiece, and "Hyperion" the finest 
 specimen in modern times. That it really has 
 no place in our usage is proved by the fact that 
 Keats, with true insight, refused, after some 
 experience, to complete "Hyperion," on the 
 ground that it had too many ' ' Miltonic inver- 
 sions." Meanwhile blank verse had been used 
 for less imaginative or less heroical work ; not- 
 ably, for didactic and moralising essays, by 
 Cowper, Wordsworth, and other leaders of the 
 contemplative school. 
 
 Tennyson's is of two kinds, one of which is 
 suited to the heroic episodes in his idyllic poetry 
 — the first important example being the " Morte 
 d' Arthur," which opened the volume of 1842, 
 and is now made a portion of the "Idyls of the 
 King." I hold the verse of that poem to be his 
 own invention, derived from the study of Homer 
 and his natural mastery of the Saxon element in 
 our language. Milton's Latinism is so pro- 
 nounced as to be un-English; on the other 
 hand, there is such affinity between the simple 
 strength of the Homeric Greek and that of the 
 English in which Saxon words prevail, that the 
 former can be rendered into the latter with 
 great effect. Tennyson recognises this in his 
 prelude to "Morte d' Arthur," deprecating his 
 heroics as "faint Homeric echoes, nothing 
 worth." But almost with the perusal of the 
 first two lines, 
 
 •' So all day long the noise of battle rolled 
 Among the mountains by the winter sea," 
 
 we see that this style surpasses other blank 
 verse in strength and condensation. It soon 
 became the model for a score of younger aspir- 
 ants ; in short, impressed itself upon the artistic 
 mind as a new and vigorous form of our grandest 
 English measure. 
 
 The other style of Tennyson's blank verse is 
 found in his purely idyllic pieces, "The Gar- 
 dener's Daugh ter, " " Dora, " " Godiva, " and, upon 
 a lower plane, such eclogues as " Audley Court " 
 
 and "Edwin Morris." "St Simeon Stylites" and 
 " Ulysses " have each a special manner. In the 
 first-named group, the poet brought to complete- 
 ness the Victorian idyllic verse. The three are 
 models from which he could not advan^^; in 
 surpassing beauty and naturalness unequalled, 
 I say, by many of his later efforts. What 
 Crabbe essayed in a homely fashion, now, at the 
 touch of a finer artist, became the perfection of 
 rural, idyllic tenderness. "Dora" is like a 
 Hebrew pastoral, the paragon of its kind, with 
 not a quotable detail, a line too much or too 
 little, but faultless as a whole. Who can read 
 it without tears? "Godiva" and "The Gar- 
 dener's Daughter" demand no less praise for 
 descriptive felicity of another kind. But, for 
 virile grandeur and astonishingly compact ex- 
 pression, there is no blank-verse poem, equally 
 restricted as to length, that approaches the 
 "Ulysses;" conception, imagery, and thought 
 are royally imaginative, and the assured hand is 
 Tennyson's throughout. 
 
 I reserve for later discussion the poet's general 
 characteristics, fairly displayed in this volume. 
 The great feature is its comprehensive range ; it 
 includes a finished specimen of every kind of 
 poetry within the author's power to essay. The 
 variety is surprising, and the novelty was no 
 less so at the date of its appearance. Here is 
 "The Talking Oak," that marvel of grace and 
 fancy, the nonpareil of sustained lyrics in 
 quatrain verse ; as exquisite in filigree- work as 
 "The Rape of the Lock," with an airy beauty 
 and rippling flow, compared with which the 
 motion of Pope's couplets is that of partners in 
 an eighteenth-century minuet. Here is the 
 modern lover reciting "Locksley Hall," which, 
 despite its sentimental egotism and consolation 
 of the heart by the head, has fine metrical 
 quality, is fixed in literature, and furnishes 
 genuine illustrations of the poet's time. In 
 "The Two Voices" and "The Vision of Sin" 
 the excess of his speculative intellect makes 
 itself felt, but the second of these seems to me 
 a strained and fantastic production ; for which 
 very reason, perchance, it drew the attention of 
 semi-metaphysical persons who have no percep- 
 tion of the true mission of poetry, and, by a 
 certain affectation, mistaken for subtilty, has 
 excited more comment and analysis than it de- 
 serves. " The Day-Dream," like "The Talking 
 Oak," gives the poet an opportunity for dying 
 falls, mellifluous cadences, and delicately fanci- 
 ful pictures. The story is made to his hand; 
 he rarely invents a story, though often, as in the 
 last-named poem, chancing upon the conceit of 
 a dainty and original theme. Here, too, are 
 "Lady Clare," "The Lord of Burleigh," and 
 "Edward Gray," each a simple, crystalline, and 
 flawless ballad. Nor has Tennyson ever com- 
 posed, in his minor key, more enduring and sug- 
 gestive little songs than " Break, break, break ! " 
 and "Flow down, cold Rivulet, to the Seal" 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON, 
 
 379 
 
 both, also, in this volume. His humour, which 
 seldom becomes him, is at its best in that half- 
 pensive, half-rollicking, wholly poetic composi- 
 tion, dear to wits and dreamers, "Will Water- 
 proof s Lyrical Monologue." In this collection, 
 too, we find his early experiments in the now 
 famous measure of "In Memoriam." Purest 
 and highest of all the lyrical pieces are "St 
 Agues" and "Sir Galahad," full of white 
 light, and each a stainless idealisation of its 
 theme. "Sir Galahad" must be recited by a 
 clarion voice, ere one can fully appreciate the 
 sounding melody, the knightly, heroic ring. 
 The poet has never chanted a more ennobling 
 strain. 
 
 Such is the excellence, and such the unusual 
 range of a volume in which every department of 
 poetry, except the dramatic, is exhibited in 
 great perfection, if not at the most imaginative 
 height. To the author's students it is a favour- 
 ite among his books, as the one that fairly re- 
 presents his composite genius. It powerfully 
 affected the rising group of poets, giving their 
 work a tendency which established its general 
 character for the ensuing thirty years. 
 
 There comes a time in the life of every aspir- 
 ing artist, when, if he be a painter, he tires of 
 painting cabinet pictures — however much they 
 satisfy his admirers ; if a poet, he says to him- 
 self: " Enough of lyrics and idyls ; let me essay 
 a masterpiece, a sustained production, that shall 
 bear to my former work the relation which an 
 opera or oratorio bears to a composer's sonatas 
 and canzonets." It may be that some feeling of 
 this kind impelled Tennyson to write "The 
 Princess," the theme and story of which are 
 both his own invention. At that time he had 
 not learned the truth of Emerson's maxim that 
 "tradition supplies a better fable than any 
 invention can ; " and that it is as well for a poet 
 to borrow from history or romance a tale made 
 ready to his hands, and which his genius must 
 transfigure. The poem is, as he entitled it, "A 
 Medley," constructed of ancient and modern 
 materials — a show of mediaeval pomp and move- 
 ment, observed through an atmosphere of latter- 
 day thought and emotion ; so varying, withal, in 
 the scenes and language of its successive parts, 
 that one may well conceive it to be told by the 
 group of thoroughbred men and maidens who, 
 one after another, rehearse its cantos to beguile a 
 festive summer's day. I do not sympathise with 
 the criticisms to which it has been subjected 
 Qpon this score, and which is but the old outcry 
 of the French classicists against Victor Hugo 
 and the romance school. The poet, in his pre- 
 lude, anticipates every stricture, and to me the 
 anachronisms and impossibilities of the story 
 seem not only lawfal, but attractive. Like 
 those of Shakespeare's comedies, they invite the 
 reader off-hand to a purely ideal world; he 
 seats himself upon an English lawn, as upon a 
 Persian enchanted carpet — hears the mystic 
 
 word pronounced, and, presto ! finds himself in 
 fairyland. Moreover, Tennyson's special gift 
 of reducing incongruous details to a common 
 structure and tone is fully illustrated in a poem 
 made 
 
 " to suit with time and place, 
 A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
 A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
 A feudal knight in silken masquerade. 
 
 This were a medley ! we should have him back 
 Who told the ' Winter's Tale ' to do it for us." 
 
 But not often has a lovelier story been recit td. 
 After the idyllic introduction, the body of the 
 poem is composed in a semi-heroic verse. Other 
 works of our poet are greater, but none is so 
 fascinating as this romantic tale: English 
 throughout, yet combining the England of 
 Coeur-de-Lion with that of Victoria in one be- 
 witching picture. Some of the author's most 
 delicately musical lines — "jewels five words 
 long " — are herein contained, and the ending of 
 each canto is an effective piece of art. 
 
 The tournament scene, at the close of the fifth 
 book, is the most vehement and rapid passage 
 to be found in the whole range of Tennyson's 
 poetry. By an approach to the Homeric swift- 
 ness, it presents a contrast to the laborious and 
 faulty movement of much of his narrative verse. 
 The songs, added in the second edition of this 
 poem, reach the high- water mark of lyrical 
 composition. Few will deny that, taken to- 
 gether, the five melodies: "As through the 
 land," "Sweet and low," "The splendour falls 
 on castle walls," "Home they brought her 
 warrior dead," and "Ask me no more!" — that 
 these constitute the finest group of songs pro- 
 duced in our century ; and the third, known as 
 the "Bugle Song," seems to many the most 
 perfect English lyric since the time of Shake- 
 speare. In "The Princess " we also find Tenny- 
 son's most successful studies upon the model of 
 the Theocritan isometric verse. He was the 
 first to enrich our poetry with this class of 
 melodies, for the burlesque pastorals of the 
 eighteenth century need not be considered. Not 
 one of the blank-verse songs in his Arthurian 
 epic equals in structure or feeling the " Tears, 
 idle tears," and "0 swallow, swallow, flying, 
 flying south ! " Again, what witchery of land- 
 scape and action ; what fair women and brave 
 men, who, if they be somewhat stagy and tradi- 
 tional, at least are more sharply defined than 
 the actors in our poet's other romances ! Besides, 
 "The Princess" has a distinct purpose — the 
 illustration of woman's struggles, acpirations, 
 and proper sphere ; and the conclusion is one 
 wherewith the instincts of cultured people are 
 so thoroughly in accord, that some are used to 
 answer, when asked to present their view of the 
 "woman question," "You will find it at the 
 close of 'The Princess.'" Those who disagree 
 with Tennyson's presentation acknowledge that 
 
380 
 
 7REASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 if it be not true it is well told. His Ida is, in 
 truth, a beautiful and heroic figure : 
 
 " She bowed as if to veil a noble tear. 
 
 Not peace she looked, the head : but rising up 
 "Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 
 To the open window moved. . . . 
 . . . She stretched her arms and called 
 Across the tumult and the tumult fell." 
 
 Of the author's shortcomings in this and other 
 poems we have to speak hereafter. I leave 
 "The Princess," deeming it the most varied and 
 interesting of his works with respect to freshness 
 and invention. All mankind love a story-teller 
 such as Tennyson, by this creation, proved him- 
 self to be. 
 
 In the youth of poets it is the material value 
 of their work that makes it precious, and for 
 certain gifts of language and colour we esteem 
 one more highly than another. When a sweet 
 singer dies prematurely, we lament his loss ; but 
 in a poet's later years character and intellect 
 begin to tell. His other gifts being equal, he 
 who has the more vigorous mind will draw 
 ahead of his fellows, and take the front position. 
 Tennyson, like Browning and Arnold, has that 
 which Keats was bereft of, and which Words- 
 worth, Landor, and Procter possessed in full 
 measure — the gift of years, and must be judged 
 according to his fortune. In mental ability he 
 comes near to the greatest of the five, and in 
 synthetic grasp surpasses them all. Arnold's 
 thought is wholly included in Tennyson ; if you 
 miss Browning's psychology, you find a more 
 varied analysis, qualified by wise restraint. His 
 intellectual growth has steadily progressed, 
 and is reflected in the nature of his successive 
 poems. 
 
 At the age of forty a man, blessed with a 
 sound mind in a sound body, should reach the 
 maturity of his intellectual power. At such a 
 period Tennyson produced *' In Memoriam," his 
 most characteristic and significant work; not 
 so ambitious as his epic of King Arthur, but 
 more distinctively a poem of this century, and 
 displaying the author's genius in a subjective 
 form. In it are concentrated his wisest reflec- 
 tions upon life, death, and immortality, the 
 worlds within and without, while the whole 
 song is so largely uttered, and so pervaded with 
 the singer's manner, that any isolated line is 
 recognised at once. This work stands by itself: 
 none can essay another upon its model, without 
 yielding every claim to personality and at the 
 risk of an inferiority that would be appalling. 
 The strength of Tennyson's intellect has full 
 b,^eep in this elegiac poem — the great threnody 
 of our language, by virtue of unique conception 
 and power. "Lycidas," with its primrose 
 beauty and varied lofty flights, is but the ex- 
 tension of a theme set by Moschus and Bion. 
 Shelley, in "Adonais," despite his spiritual 
 ecstasy and splendour of lament, followed the 
 
 same masters — yes, and took his landscape and 
 imagery from distant climes. Swinburne's dirge 
 for Baudelaire is a wonder of melody ; nor do 
 we forget the "Thyrsis" of Arnold, and other 
 modern ventures in a direction where the sweet 
 and absolute solemnity of the Saxon tongue is 
 most apparent. Still, as an original and intel- 
 lectual production, "In Memoriam" is beyond 
 them all ; and a more important, though possibly 
 no more enduring, creation of rhythmic art. 
 
 The metrical form of this work deserves at- 
 tention. The author's choice of the transposed- 
 quatrain verse was a piece of good fortune. Its 
 hymnal quality, finely exemplified in the open- 
 ing prayer, is always impressive, and, although 
 a monotone, no more monotonous than the 
 sounds of nature — the murmur of ocean, the 
 soughing of the mountain pines. Were "In 
 Memoriam " written in direct quatrains, I think 
 the efi"ect would grow to be unendurable. The 
 work as a whole is built up of successive lyrics, 
 each expressing a single phase of the poet's 
 sorrow -brooding thought; and here again is 
 followed the method of nature, which evolves 
 cell after cell, and, joining each to each, con- 
 structs the sentient organisation. But Tenny- 
 son's art-instincts are always perfect; he does 
 the fitting thing, and rarely seeks through 
 eccentric and curious movements to attract the 
 popular regard. 
 
 As to scenery, imagery, and general treat- 
 ment, "In Memoriam" is eminently a British 
 poem. The grave, majestic, hymnal measure 
 swells like the peal of an organ, yet acts as a 
 break on undue spasmodic outbursts of dis- 
 cordant grief. A steady, yet varying marche 
 funebre; a sense of passion held in check, of 
 reserved elegiac power. For the strain is every- 
 where calm, even in rehearsing a bygone 
 violence of emotion, along its passage from 
 woe to desolation, and anon by tranquil stages, 
 to reverence, thought, aspiration, endurance, 
 hope. On sea and shore the elements are calm ; 
 even the wild winds and snows of winter are 
 brought in hand, and made subservient, as the 
 bells ring out the dying year, to the new birth 
 of Nature and the sure purpose of eternal God. 
 
 Critical objections are urged against "In 
 Memoriam ; " mostly, in my opinion, such as 
 more fitly apply to poems upon a lower grade. 
 It is said to present a confusion of religion 
 and scepticism, an attempt to reconcile faith 
 and knowledge, to blend the feeling of Dante 
 with that of Lucretius ; but, if this be so, the 
 author only follows the example of his genera- 
 tion, and the more faithfully gives voice to its 
 spiritual questionings. Even here he is accused 
 of "idealising the thoughts of his contempor- 
 to which we rejoin, in the words of 
 
 aries 
 
 another, "that great writers do not anticipate 
 the thought of their age ; they but anticipate 
 its expression." His scientific language and 
 imagery are censured also, but do not his efforts 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 381 
 
 in this direction, tentative as they are, consti- 
 tute a special merit ? Failing, as others have, 
 to reconcile poetry and metaphysics, he suc- 
 ceeds better in speculations inspired by the 
 revelation of lens and laboratory. Why should 
 not such facts be taken into account? The 
 phenomenal stage of art is passing away, and all 
 things, even poetic diction and metaphor, must 
 endure a change. It is absurd to think that a 
 man like Tennyson will rest content with ignor- 
 ing or misstating what has become everyday 
 knowledge. The spiritual domain is still the 
 poet's own ; but let his illustrations be derived 
 from living truths, rather than from the worn 
 and ancient fables of the pastoral age. A cer- 
 tain writer declares that Tennyson shows sound 
 sense instead of imaginative power. Not only 
 sense, methinks, but " the sanity of true 
 genius ; " and the Strephon-and-Chloe singers 
 must change their tune, or be left without a 
 hearing. A charge requiring more serious con- 
 sideration is that the sorrow of "In Memoriam " 
 is but food for thought, a passion of the head, 
 not of the heart. The poet, however, has 
 reached a philosophical zenith of his life, far 
 above ignoble weakness, and performs the office 
 which an enfranchised spirit might well require 
 of him ; building a mausoleum of immortal 
 verse — conceiving his friend as no longer dead, 
 but as having solved the mysteries they so often 
 have discussed together. If there is didacticism 
 in the poem, it is a teaching which leads ad 
 astra, by a path strictly within the province of 
 an elegiac minstrel's song. 
 
 For the rest, " In Memoriam" is a serene and 
 truthful panorama of refined experiences ; filled 
 with pictures of gentle scholastic life, and of 
 English scenery through all the changes of a 
 rolling year; expressing, moreover, the thoughts 
 engendered by these changes. When too 
 sombre, it is lightened by sweet reminiscences ; 
 when too light, recalled to grief by stanzas that 
 have the deep solemnity of a passing bell. 
 Among its author's productions it is the one 
 most valued by educated and professional 
 readers. Eecently, a number of authors having 
 been asked to name three leading poems of this 
 century which they would most prefer to have 
 written, each gave "In Memoriam" either the 
 first or second place upon his list. Obviously it is 
 not a work to read at a sitting, nor to take 
 up in every mood, but one in which we are 
 sure to find something of worth in every stanza. 
 It contains more notable sayings than any other 
 of Tennyson's poems. The wisdom, yearnings, 
 and aspirations of a noble mind are herfe ; curi- 
 ous reasoning, for once, is not out of place ; the 
 poet's imagination, shut in upon itself, strives 
 to irradiate with inward light the mystic pro- 
 blems of life. At the close, nature's eternal 
 miracle is made symbolic of the soul's palin- 
 genesis, and the tender and beautiful marriage- 
 lay tranquillises the reader with the thought of 
 
 the dear common joys which are the heritage of 
 every living kind. 
 
 In the year 1850 Tennyson received the laurel, 
 and almost immediately was called upon by the 
 national sentiment to exercise the functions of 
 his poetic office. The " Ode on the Death of 
 the Duke of Wellington" was the first, and 
 remains the most ambitious, of his patriotic 
 lyrics. This tribute to the "last great English- 
 man" may be fairly pronounced equal to the 
 occasion ; a respectable performance for Tenny- 
 son, a strong one for another poet. None but a 
 great artist could have written it, yet it scarcely 
 is a great poem, and certainly, though Tenny- 
 son's most important ode, is not comparable 
 with his predecessor's lofty discourse ujaon the 
 "Intimations of Immortality." Several pass- 
 ages have become folk-words, such as "0 good 
 grey head which all men knew !" and 
 
 " This is England's greatest son- 
 He that gained a hundred fights, 
 Nor ever lost an English gun ! " 
 
 but the ode, upon the whole, is laboured, built 
 up of high-sounding lines and refrains after the 
 manner of Dryden, in which rhetoric often is 
 substituted for imagination and richness of 
 thought. 
 
 The laureate never has been at ease in 
 handling events of the day. To his brooding 
 and essentially poetic nature such matters seem 
 of no more moment, beside the mysteries of 
 eternal beauty and truth, than was the noise of 
 catapults and armed men to Archimedes study- 
 ing out problems during the city's siege. If he 
 succeeds at all with them, it is by sheer w>U 
 and workmanship. Even then his voice is 
 hollow, and his didacticism, as in " Maud," 
 artificial and insincere. The laurel, and the 
 fame which now had come to him, seemed for a 
 time to bring him more in sympathy v/ith his 
 countrymen, and he made an honest endeavour 
 to rehearse their achievements in his song. 
 The result, seen in the volume "Maud, and 
 other Poems," illustrates what I say. Here are 
 contained his prominent occasional pieces, " The 
 Charge of the Light Brigade," the Wellington 
 ode, and the metrical romance from which the 
 volume takes its name. After several revisions, 
 the Balaclavan lyric has passed into literature, 
 but ranks below the nobler measures of Drayton 
 and Campbell. "Maud," however, with its 
 strength and weakness, has divided public 
 opinion more than any other of the author's 
 works. I think that his judicious students will 
 not demur to my opinion that it is quite below 
 his other sustained productions ; rather, that it 
 is not sustained at all, but, while replete with 
 beauties, wc k and uneven as a whole — and 
 that this is due to the poet's having gone out- 
 side his own nature, and to his surrender of the 
 joy of art, in an effort to produce something 
 
382 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that should at once catch the favour of the 
 multitude. "Maud" is scanty in theme, thin 
 in treatment, poor in thought ; but has musical 
 episodes, with much fine scenery and diction. 
 It is a greater medley than "The Princess," 
 shifting from vague speculations to passionate 
 outbreaks, and glorying in one famous and 
 beautiful nocturn — but all intermixed with 
 cheap satire, and conspicuous for affectations 
 unworthy of the poet. The pity of it was that 
 this production appeared when Tennyson sud- 
 denly had become fashionable, in England and 
 America, through his accession to the laureate's 
 honours, and for this reason, as well as for its 
 theme and eccentric qualities, had a wider read- 
 ing than his previous works : not only among the 
 masses,to whom the other volumeshadbeen sealed 
 books, but among thoughtful people, who now 
 first made the poet's acquaintance and received 
 "Maud" as the foremost example of his style. 
 First impressions are lasting, and to this day 
 Tennyson is deemed, by many of the latter 
 class, an apostle of tinsel and affectation. In 
 our own country especially, his popular reputa- 
 tion began with "Maud" — a work which, for 
 lack of constructive beauty, is the opposite of 
 his other narrative poems. 
 
 A pleasing feature of the volume of 1855 was 
 an idyl, "The Brook," which is charmingly 
 finished and contains a swift and rippling inter- 
 lyric delightful to every reader. A winsome, 
 novel stanzaic form, possibly of the laureate's 
 own invention, is to be found in "The Daisy," 
 and in the Horatian lines to his friend Maurice. 
 Here, too, is much of that felicitous word-paint- 
 ing for which he is deservedly renowned : 
 
 " O Milan, O the chanting quires, 
 The giant windows' blazoned fires. 
 
 The height, the space, the gloom, the glory ! 
 A mount of marble, a hundred spires ! 
 
 " How faintly-flushed, how phantom-fair, 
 Was Monte Rosa, hanging there 
 
 A thousand shadowy-pencilled valleys 
 And snowy dells in a golden air." 
 
 We come at last to Tennyson's master-work, 
 so recently brought to a completion after the 
 labour of twenty years— during which period 
 the separate "Idyls of the King " had appeared 
 from time to time. Nave and transept, aisle 
 after aisle, the Gothic minster has extended, 
 until, with the addition of a cloister here and a 
 chapel yonder, the structure stands complete. 
 I hardly think that the poet at first expected to 
 compose an epic. It has grown insensibly, 
 under the hands of one man who has given it 
 th« best years of his life — but somewhat as 
 Wolf conceived the Homeric poems to have 
 grown, chant by chant, until the time came for 
 the whole to be welded together in heroic form. 
 Yet in other great epics the action rarely ceases, 
 the links are connected, and the movement 
 
 continues from day to day until the end. Here, 
 we have a series of idyls — like the tapestry-work 
 illustrations of a romance, scene after scene, 
 with much change of actors and emotions, yet 
 all leading to one solemn and tragic close. It 
 is the epic of chivalry — the Christian ideal of 
 chivalry which we have deduced from a barbaric 
 source — our conception of what knighthood 
 should be, rather than what it really was ; hut 
 so skilfully wrought of high imaginings, fairy 
 spells, fantastic legends, and mediaeval splen- 
 dours, that the whole work, suffused with the 
 Tennysonian glamour of golden mist, seems like 
 a chronicle illuminated by saintly hands, and 
 often blazes with light like that which flashed 
 from the holy wizard's book when the covers were 
 unclasped. And, indeed, if this be not the 
 greatest narrative poem since " Paradise Lost," 
 what other English production are you to name 
 in its place? Never so lofty as the grander 
 portions of Milton's epic, it is more evenly sus- 
 tained and has no long prosaic passages ; while 
 " Paradise Lost " is justly declared to be a work 
 of superhuman genius impoverished by dreary 
 wastes of theology. 
 
 Tennyson early struck a vein in the black- 
 letter compilation of Sir Thomas Malory. A 
 tale was already fashioned to his use, from 
 which to derive his legends and exalt them with 
 whatsoever spiritual meanings they might re- 
 quire. The picturesque qualities of the old 
 Anglo-Breton romance fascinated his youth 
 and found lyrical expression in the weird, 
 melodious, pre-Raphaelite ballad of "The Lady 
 of Shalott." The young poet here attained 
 great excellence in a walk which Rossetti and 
 his pupils have since chosen for their own, and 
 his early studies are on a level with some of 
 their masterpieces. Until recently, they have 
 made success in this direction a special aim, 
 while Tennyson would not be restricted even to 
 such attractive work, but went steadily on, 
 claiming the entire field of imaginative research 
 as the poet's own. 
 
 His strong allegorical bent, evinced in that 
 early lyric, was heightened by analysis of the 
 Arthurian legends. The English caught this 
 tendency, long since, from the Italians; the 
 Elizabethan era was so charged with it, that the 
 courtiers of the Virgin -Queen hardly could 
 speak without a mystical double-meaning— for 
 an illustration of which read the dialogue in 
 certain portions of Kingsley's "Amy as Leigh." 
 From Sidney and Spenser down to plain John 
 Bunyan, and even to Sir Walter Scott, allegory 
 is a natural English mode ; and, while adopted 
 in several of Tennyson's pieces, it finds a special 
 development in the "Idyls of the King." 
 
 The name thus bestowed upon the early in- 
 stalments of this production seems less adapted 
 to its complete form. Like the walls of Troy, it 
 
 " Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, 
 A cloud that gathered shape." 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 383 
 
 The shape no longer is idyllic, and doubt no 
 longer exists whether a successful epic can be 
 vrritten in a mature period of national literature. 
 We have one here, but subdivided into ten 
 distinct poems, each of which suits the canonical 
 requirement, and may be read at a single sitting. 
 To my mind, there is a marked difference in 
 style between the original and later portions of 
 this work. The "Morte d' Arthur" of 1842 is 
 Homeric to the furthest degree possible in the 
 slow, Saxon movement of the verse; grander, 
 with its " hollow oes and aes," than any succeed- 
 ing canto, always excepting "Guinevere." Nor 
 do I think the later idyls equal to those four 
 which first were issued in one volume, and 
 which so cleared the laureate's fame from the 
 doubts suggested by " Maud, and Other Poems." 
 *' Vivien " is a bold and subtle analysis, a closer 
 study of certain human types than Tennyson is 
 wont to make. "Elaine" still remains, for 
 pathetic sweetness and absolute beauty of narra- 
 tive and rhythm, dearest to the heart of maiden, 
 youth, or sage. "Enid," while upon the lower 
 level of " Pelleas and Ettarre " and " Gareth and 
 Lynette," is clear and strong, and shows a 
 freedom from mannerism characteristic of the 
 author's best period. It would seem that his 
 creative vigour reached its height during the 
 composition of these four idyls ; certainly, since 
 the production of "Enoch Arden," at an early 
 subsequent date, he has not advanced in fresh- 
 ness and imagination. His greatest achievement 
 still is that noblest of modern episodes, the canto 
 entitled "Guinevere," surcharged with tragic 
 pathos and high dramatic power. He never has 
 so reached the passio vera of the early dramatists 
 as in this imposing scene. There is nothing 
 finer in modern verse than the interview between 
 Arthur and his remorseful wife ; nothing loftier 
 than the passage beginning : 
 
 " Lo ! I forgive thee, as eternal God 
 Forgives : do thou for thine own soul the rest. 
 But how to take last leave of all I loved ? 
 
 golden hair, with which I used to play 
 Not knowing ! O imperial-moulded form. 
 And beauty such as never woman wore, 
 Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee — 
 
 1 cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine, 
 
 But Lancelot's : nay, they never were the king's." 
 
 When this idyl first appeared, what elevation 
 seized upon the soul of every poetic aspirant as 
 he read it ! What despair of rivalling a passion 
 so imaginative, an art so majestic and supreme ! 
 I have referred to the Homeric manner of the 
 fragment now made the conclusion of the epic, 
 and entitled "The Passing of Arthur." The 
 magnificent battle-piece, by which it is here pre- 
 luded, is so different in manner from the ori- 
 ginal "Morte d' Arthur," that both are injured 
 by their juxtaposition. The canto, moreover, 
 plainly weakens at the close. The epic properly 
 ends with the line, 
 
 "And on the mere the wailing died away." 
 
 The poet's sense of proportion here works injuri- 
 ously, urging him to bring out fully the moral 
 of his allegory, albeit the effect really is harmed 
 by this addition of the sequel, down to the line 
 which finishes the work : 
 
 "And the new sun rose bringing the new year." 
 
 In conclusion, observe the technical features 
 of "Gareth and Lynette," a canto recently 
 added to the poem. It displays Tennyson's 
 latest, not his best manner, carried on to an 
 extreme; the verse is clamped together, with 
 every conjunction omitted that can be spared, 
 yet interspersed with lines of a galloping, re- 
 dundant nature, as if the laureate were some- 
 what influenced by Swinburne and adapting 
 himself to a fashion of the time. A special 
 fault is the substitution of alliteration for the 
 simple excellence of his standard verse. This 
 may be a concession to the modern school, or 
 a result of his mousing among pre-Chaucerian 
 ballads. It palls on the ear, as does the poet's 
 excessive reiteration and play upon words. We 
 are compensated for all this by a stalwart pre- 
 sentation of that fine old English which Emerson 
 has pronounced "a stern and dreadful language. " 
 The public is indebted to Tennyson for a restora- 
 tion of precious Saxon words, too long for- 
 gotten, which, we trust, will hereafter maintain 
 their ground. He is a purifier of our tongue, a 
 resistant to the novelties of slang and affecta- 
 tion intruded upon our literature by the mixture 
 of races and the extension of English-speaking 
 colonies to every clime and continent in the 
 world. 
 
 It is not probable that another sustained 
 poem will hereafter be written upon the Arthu- 
 rian legends. Milton's dream inconsonant with 
 his own time and higher aspirations, has at last 
 its due fulfilment. The subject waited long, a 
 sleeping beauty, until the "fated fairy-prince" 
 came, woke it into life, and the spell is for ever 
 at an end. But who shall say whether future 
 generations will rate this epic as highly as we 
 do ; whether it will stand out like " The Faerie 
 Queene" and "Paradise Lost," as one of the 
 epochal compositions by which an age is symbol- 
 ised? More than one poem, or series of poems 
 — Drayton's " The Barons' Wars," for instance- 
 has wrongly in its own time been thought a work 
 of this class, though now men say of it that 
 only the shadow of its name remains. At pre- 
 sent we have no right to declare of the " Idyls 
 of the King," as of "In Memoriam," that it is 
 so original, so representative both of the author 
 and of his period, as to defy the dust of time. 
 
 A famous life often falls short of its promise. 
 Temperament and circumstance hedge it with 
 obstacles; or, perhaps, the "Fury with the ab- 
 horred shears" slits its thin-spun tissue before the 
 decisive hour. In the case of Tennyson this has 
 been reversed. He has advanced by regular stages 
 to the highest office of a poet. More fortunate 
 
384 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 than Landor, he was suited to the time, and the 
 time to his genius; he has been happier than 
 Keats or Shelley in length of years, and, in ease 
 of circumstances, than Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
 or Hood. Had he died after completing the 
 epic, his work would still seem rounded and 
 complete. Surely a poet's youthful dream never 
 was more fully realised, and we must regard the 
 laureate's genius as developed through good 
 fortune to the utmost degree permitted by inher- 
 ent limitations. 
 
 During the growth of this epic he has, how- 
 ever, produced a few other poems which take 
 high rank. Of these, *' Enoch Arden," in sus- 
 tained beauty, bears a relation to his shorter 
 pastorals similar to that existing between the 
 epic and his minor heroic verse. Coming within 
 the average range of emotions, it has been very 
 widely read. This poem is in its author's purest 
 idyllic style; noticeable for evenness of tone, 
 clearness of diction, successful description of 
 coast and ocean — finally, for the loveliness and 
 fidelity of its genre scenes. In study of a class 
 below him, hearts "centred in the sphere of 
 common duties," the laureate is unsurpassed. 
 A far different creation is " Lucretius," a brood- 
 ing character with which Tennyson is quite in 
 sympathy. He has invested it with a certain 
 restless grandeur, yet hardly, I should conceive, 
 wrought out the work he thought possible when 
 the theme was first suggested to his mind. He 
 found its limits and contented himself with por- 
 traying a gloomy, isolated figure, as strongly 
 and subtly as Browning would have drawn it, 
 and with a terseness beyond the latter's art. 
 
 I have already spoken of "The Golden Supper" 
 and " Aylmer's Field," Among other and better 
 pieces, "Sea-Dreams" — a poem of measureless 
 satire and much idyllic beauty — "Tithonus," 
 ' ' The Voyage " — a fine lyric — and such masterly 
 ballads as "The Victor," "The Captor," and 
 " The Sailor-Boy," will not be forgotten. It is 
 worth while to observe the few dialect poems 
 which Tennyson has written — thrown off, as if 
 merely to show that he could be easily first in a 
 field which he resigns to others. The ' ' Northern 
 Farmer" ballads, old and new, are the best 
 English dialect studies of our time. Among his 
 minor diversions are light occasional pieces and 
 some experiments in classical measures — often 
 finished sketches, germs of works to which he 
 has given no further attention. He saw that 
 " Boadicea" offered no such field as that afforded 
 by the Arthurian legends, and wisely gave it 
 over. Again, he unquestionably could have 
 made a great blank-verse translation of Homer, 
 but chose the better part in devoting his middle 
 life solely to creative work. The world can ill 
 afford to lose a poet's golden prime in the labours 
 of a translator. 
 
 In whatsoever light we examine the character- 
 istics of the laureate's genius, the complete and 
 
 even balance of his poetry is from first to last 
 conspicuous. It exhibits that just combination 
 of lyrical elements which makes a symphony, 
 wherein it is difiicult to say what quality pre- 
 dominates. Reviewing minor poets, we think 
 this one attractive for the wild flavour of his 
 unstudied verse ; another, for the gush and 
 music of his songs ; a third, for idyllic sweetness 
 or tragic power ; but in Tennyson we have the 
 strong repose of art, whereof^as of the perfec- 
 tion of nature— the world is slow to tire. It has 
 become conventional, but remember that nothing 
 endures to the point of conventionalism which is 
 not based upon lasting rules ; that it once was 
 new and refreshing, and is sure, in future days, 
 to regain the early charm. 
 
 The one thing longed for, and most frequently 
 missed, in work of this kind, is the very wilding 
 flavour of which I speak. We are not always 
 broad enough and elevated enough to be content 
 with symphonic art. Guinevere v,rearies of 
 Arthur. There are times when a tart apple, a 
 crust of bread, a bit of wild honey, are worth 
 more to us than all the delicacies of the larder. 
 We wish more rugged outbreaks, more impetu- 
 ous discords ; we listen for the sudden irregular 
 trill of the thicket songster. The fulness of 
 Tennyson's art evades the charm of spontaneity. 
 How rarely he takes you by surprise! His 
 stream is sweet, assured, strong; but how seldom 
 the abrupt bend, the plunge of the cataract, the 
 thunder and the spray ! Doubtless he has 
 enthusiasms, but all are held in hand ; college 
 life, study, restraint, comfort, reverence, have 
 done their work upon him. He is well broken, 
 as we say of a thoroughbred — proud and true, 
 and, though he makes few bursts of speed, keeps 
 easily forward, and is sure to be first at the 
 stand. 
 
 We come back to the avowal that in technical 
 excellence, as an artist in verse, Alfred Tenny- 
 son is the greatest of modern poets. Other 
 masters, old or new, have surpassed him in 
 special instances; but he is the one who rarely 
 nods, and who always finishes his verse to the 
 extreme. Not that he is free from weaknesses ; 
 to the present day, when pushed for inspiration, 
 he resorts to inventions as disagreeable as the 
 affectation which repelled many healthy minds 
 from his youthful lyrics. Faults of this sort, 
 in " Maud " and later poems, have somewhat pre- 
 judiced another class of readers — people who, 
 with what a critic denominates their "eighteenth 
 century " taste, still pay homage to the genius 
 of Pope for merits which the laureate has in even 
 greater excess. A question recently has been 
 mooted, whether Milton, were he living in our 
 time, could write "Paradise Lost?" A no laes 
 interesting conjecture would relate to the kind 
 of poetry that we should have from Pope, were 
 he of Tennyson's generation. The physical 
 traits of the two men being so utterly at vari- 
 ance, no doubt many will scout my suggestion 
 
ALFRED TENNYSOK 
 
 385 
 
 that the verse of the former might closely 
 resemble that of the latter. Pope excelled in 
 qualities which, mutatis mutandis, are noticeable 
 in Tennyson: finish and minuteness of detail, 
 and the elevation of common things to fanciful 
 beauty. Here, again, compare "The Rape of 
 the Lock" with "The Sleeping Beauty," and 
 especially with "The Talking Oak." A faculty 
 of "saying things," which, in Pope (his being a 
 cruder age, when persons needed that homely 
 wisdom which seems trite enough in our day), 
 became didacticism, in Tennyson is sweetly 
 natural and poetic. Since the period of the 
 "Essay on Man," from what writer can you cull 
 so many wise and fine proverbial phrases as 
 from the poet who says : 
 
 '"Tis better to have loved and lost, 
 Than never to have loved at all ; " 
 
 *' Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 
 And simple faith than Norman blood ; " 
 
 *' There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds ; " 
 
 who puts the theory of evolution in a couplet 
 when he sings of 
 
 " one far-off divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves ; " 
 
 who so tersely avows that 
 
 " Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers ; " 
 "Things seen are mightier than things heard; " 
 
 and, again: 
 
 " Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ; " 
 
 from whom else so many of these proverbs, 
 which are not isolated, but, as in Pope's works, 
 recur by tens and scores ? Curious felicities of 
 verse : 
 
 " Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere ; " 
 
 lines which record the most exquisite thrills of 
 life: 
 
 " Our spirits rushed together at the touching of the 
 Ups;» 
 
 and unforgotten similes: 
 
 *' Dear as remembered kisses after death ; " 
 
 »nch beauties as these occur in multitudes, and 
 literally make up the body of the laureate's 
 Bong. In feeling, imagination, largeness of 
 heart and head, the diminutive satirist can 
 enter into no comparison with our poet, but the 
 situation is otherwise as respects finish and 
 moralistic power. The essence of Pope's art was 
 false, because it was the product of a false age ; 
 Dryden had been his guide to the stilted heroics 
 of the French school, which so long afterwards. 
 Pope lending them such authority, stalked 
 through English verse. In this day he would, 
 like Tennyson, have found his masters among 
 the early, natural poets, or obtained, in a 
 direct manner, what classicism he needed, and 
 
 not through Gallic filters. Yet it is not long 
 since I heard an eminent man lauding Pope for 
 the very characteristics which, as here shown, 
 are conspicuous in Tennyson ; and decrying the 
 latter, misled by that chance acquaintance with 
 his poetry which is worse than no acquaintance 
 at all. In suggestiveness Pope was singularly 
 deficient ; his constructive faculty so prevailed, 
 that he left nothing to the reader's fancy, 
 but explained to the end. He had no such 
 moods as those evoked by "Tears, idle tears," 
 and "Break, break, break!" and therefore his 
 verses never suggest them. In irony Tennyson 
 would equal Pope, had he not risen above it. 
 The man who wrote *' The New Timon and the 
 Poets," and afterwards rebuked himself for so 
 doing, could write another " Dunciad," or, with- 
 out resort to any models, a still more polished 
 and bitter satire of his own. 
 
 Tennyson's original and fastidious art is of 
 itself a theme for an essay. The poet who 
 studies it may well despair ; he never can excel 
 it, and is tempted to a reactionary carelessness, 
 trusting to make his individuality felt thereby. 
 Its strength is that of perfection ; its weakness, 
 the over-perfection which marks a still-life 
 painter. Here is the absolute sway of metre, 
 compelling every rhyme and measure needful 
 to the thought; here are sinuous alliterations, 
 unique and varying breaks and pauses, winged 
 flights and falls, the glory of sound and colour, 
 everywhere present, or, if missing, absent of the 
 poet's free will. Art so complex was not possible 
 until centuries of literature had passed, and an 
 artist could overlook the field, essay each style, 
 and evolve a metrical result, which should be to 
 that of earlier periods what the music of Meyer- 
 beer and Rossini is to the narrower range of 
 Piccini or Gluck. In Tennyson's artistic con- 
 scientiousness, he is the opposite of that com- 
 peer who approaches him most nearly in years 
 and strength of intellect, Robert Browning. 
 His gift of language is not so copious as Swin- 
 burne's, yet through its use the higher excel- 
 lence is attained. But I shall elsewhere write 
 of these matters. Let me conclude my remarks 
 upon the laureate's art with a reference to his 
 unfailing taste and sense of the fitness of things. 
 This is neatly exemplified in the openings, and 
 especially in the endings of his idyls. "Audley 
 Court" very well illustrates what I mean. 
 Observe, also, the beautiful dedication of his 
 collected works to the Queen, and the solemn 
 and faithful character-painting of the tribute to 
 Prince Albert which forms the prelude to the 
 " Idyls of the King." The two dedications are 
 equal to the best ever written, and each is z 
 poem by itself. They fully sustained the wisdom 
 of Victoria's choice of a successor to 
 
 ♦* This laurel, greener from the brows 
 Of him that uttered nothing base." 
 
 Leaving the architecture of Tennyson's poetry 
 
 2b 
 
and coming to the sentiment which it seeks to 
 express, we are struck at once by the fact that an 
 idyllic, or picturesque mode of conveying that 
 sentiment is the one natural to this poet, if not 
 the only one permitted by his limitations. In 
 this he surpasses all the poets since Theocritus ; 
 and his work is greater than the Syracusan's, 
 because his thought and period are greater. 
 His eyes are his purveyors ; with ** wisdom at 
 one entrance quite shut out " he would be help- 
 less. To use the lingo of the phrenologists, his 
 locality is better than his individuality. He 
 does not, like Browning, catch the secret of a 
 master-passion, nor, like the old dramatists, the 
 very life of action ; on the contrary, he gives us 
 an ideal picture of an ideal person, but set 
 against a background more tangible than other 
 artists can draw — making the accessories, and 
 even the atmosphere, convey the meaning of his 
 poem. As we study his verse, and the sound 
 and colour of it enter our souls, we think with 
 him, we partake of his feeling, and are led to 
 regions which he finds himself unable to open 
 for us except in this suggestive way. The fidel- 
 ity of his accessories is peculiar to the time; 
 realistic, without the Flemish homeliness ; true 
 as pre-Raphaelitism, but mellowed with the 
 atmosphere of a riper art. This idyllic method 
 is not that of the most inspired poets and the 
 most impassioned periods. But merely as a 
 descriptive writer, who is so delightful as Ten- 
 nyson ? He has the unerring first touch, which 
 in a single line proves the artist ; and it justly 
 has been remarked that there is more true Eng- 
 lish landscape in many an isolated stanza of *' In 
 Memoriam" than in the whole of '* The Seasons " 
 — that vaunted descriptive poem of a former 
 century. A paper has been written upon the 
 Lincolnshire scenery depicted in his poems, and 
 we might have others, just as well, upon his 
 marine or highland views. He is a born ob- 
 server of physical nature, and, whenever he 
 applies an adjective to some object, or passingly 
 alludes to some phenomenon which others have 
 not noted, is almost infallibly correct. Possibly 
 he does this too methodically, but his opponents 
 cannot deny that his outdoor rambles are guided 
 by their eloquent apostle's "Lamp of Truth." 
 
 His limitations are nearly as conspicuous as 
 his abundant gifts. They are indicated, first, 
 by a style pronounced to the degree of manner- 
 ism, and, secondly, by failure, until within a 
 very recent date, to produce dramatic work of 
 the genuine kind. 
 
 With respect to his style, it may be said that 
 Tennyson — while objective in the variety of his 
 themes, and in ability to separate his own ex- 
 perience from their development — is the most 
 subjective of poets in the distinguishable flavour 
 of his language and rhythm. Reading him you 
 might not guess his life and story — the reverse 
 of which is true with Byron, whom I take as a 
 fftTTiiliar example of the subjective in literature: 
 
 nevertheless, it is impossible to observe a single 
 line, or an entire specimen, of the laureate's 
 poems, without feeling that they are in the 
 handwriting of the same master, or of some 
 disciple who has caught his fascinating and 
 contagious style. 
 
 I speak of his second limitation, with a full 
 knowledge that many claim a dramatic crown 
 for the author of the "Northern Fanner," 
 "Tithonus," "St Simeon Stylites"— for the 
 poet of the Round Table and the Holy Grail. 
 But isolated studies are not sufficient ; a group 
 of living men and women is necessary to broad 
 dramatic action. Tennyson forces his char- 
 acters to adapt themselves to preconceived, 
 statuesque ideals of his own. His chief success 
 is with those in humble life ; in " Enoch Arden," 
 and elsewhere, he has very sweetly depicted the 
 emotions of simple natures, rarely at a sublime 
 height or depth of passion. He also draws — 
 with an easy touch occasionally found in the 
 prose of the author of "The Warden" — a group 
 of sturdy, refined, comfortable fellows upon 
 their daily rambles, British and modern in their 
 wholesome talk. But the true dramatist instinc- 
 tively portrays either exceptional characters, 
 or ordinary beings in impassioned and extra- 
 ordinary moods. This Tennyson rarely essays 
 to do, except when presenting imaginary heroes 
 of a visioned past. A great master of contem- 
 plative, descriptive, or lyrical verse, he falls 
 short in that combination of action and passion 
 which we call dramatic, and often gives us a 
 series of marvellous tableaux in lieu of exalted 
 speech and deeds. 
 
 This lack of individuality is somewhat due to 
 the influence of the period ; largely, also, to the 
 habit of solitude which the poet has chosen to 
 indulge. His life has been passed among his 
 books or in the seclusion of rural haunts ; when 
 in town, in the company of a few chosen friends. 
 This has heightened his tendency to reverie, and 
 unfitted him to distinguish sharply between men 
 and men. The great novelists of our day, who 
 correspond to the dramatists of a past age, have 
 plunged into the roar of cities and the thick of 
 the crowd, touching people closely and on every 
 side. It must be owned that we do not find in 
 their works that close knowledge of inanimate 
 nature for which Tennyson has foregone "the 
 proper study of mankind." The one seems to 
 curtail the other, Wordsworth's writings being 
 another example in point. "Men my brothers, 
 men the workers," sings the laureate, and is 
 pleased to watch and encourage them, but 
 always from afar. 
 
 With few exceptions, then, his most poetical 
 types of men and women are not substantial 
 beings, but beautiful shadows, which, like the 
 phantoms of a stereopticon, dissolve if you 
 examine them too long and closely. Hia 
 knights are the old bequest of chivalry, yet 
 how stalwart and picturesque ! His early ideals 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 387 
 
 of women are cathedral-paintings — scarcely flesh 
 and blood, but certain attributes personified 
 and made angelical. Where a story has been 
 made for him he is more dramatic. Arthur, 
 Lancelot, Merlin, Guinevere, are strong, wise, 
 or beautiful, and so we find them in the 
 chronicle from which the poet drew his legend. 
 He has advanced them to the requirements of 
 modern Christianity, yet hardly created them 
 anew. It is not improbable that Tennyson 
 may force himself to compose some notably 
 dramatic work; but only through skill and 
 strength of purpose, in this age, and with his 
 habit of life. In a dramatic period he might find 
 himself as sadly out of place as Beddoes, Darley, 
 Landor, have been in his own century. By 
 sheer good fortune he has flourished in a time 
 calling for tenderness, thought, excellent work- 
 manship, and not for wild extremes of power. 
 So chaste, varied, and tuneful are his notes, 
 that they are scornfully compared to piano- 
 music, in distinction from what he himself has 
 entitled the *' God-gifted organ voice of Eng- 
 land." Take, however, the piano as an instru- 
 mental expression of recent musical taste, and 
 see to what a height of execution, of capacity 
 to give almost universal pleasure, the art of 
 playing it has been carried. A great pianist 
 is a great artist ; and it is no light fame which 
 holds, with relation to poetry, the supremacy 
 awarded to Liszt or Schumann by the refined 
 musicians of our time. 
 
 The cast of Tennyson's intellect is such, that 
 his social rank, his training at an old university, 
 and his philosophic learning have bred in him a 
 liberal conservatism. Increase of ease and fame 
 have strengthened his inclination to accept 
 things as they are, and, while recognising the 
 law of progress, to make no undue effort to 
 hasten the order of events. He sees that "the 
 thoughts of men are widened with the process 
 of the suns," but is not the man to lead a re- 
 form, or to disturb the pleasant conditions in 
 which his lot is cast. No personal wrong has 
 allied him to the oppressed and struggling 
 classes, yet he is too intellectual not to per- 
 ceive that such wrongs exist. It must be re- 
 membered that Shakespeare and Goethe were 
 no more heroic. Just so with his religious 
 attitude. Reverence for beauty would of itself 
 dispose him to love the ivied church, with all 
 its art, and faith, and ancestral legendary asso- 
 ciations ; and therefore, while amply reflecting 
 in his verse the doubt and disquiet of the age, 
 his tranquil sense of order, together with the 
 failure of iconoclasts to substitute any creed for 
 that which they are breaking down, have 
 brought him to the position of stanch Sir 
 William Petty {dbiit 1687), who wrote in his 
 will these memorable words : "As for religion, 
 I die in the profession of that faith, and in the 
 practice of such worship, as I find established 
 by the law of my country, not being able to 
 
 believe what I myself please, nor to worship 
 God better than by doing as I would be done 
 unto, and observing the laws of my country, and 
 expressing my love and honour unto Almighty 
 God by such signs and tokens as are understood 
 to be such by the people with whom I live, God 
 knowing my heart even without any at all." 
 
 So far as the "religion of art" is concerned, 
 Tennyson is the most conscientious of devotees. 
 Throughout his work we find a pure and 
 thoughtful purpose, abhorrent of the mere 
 licentious passion for beauty, 
 
 "such as lurks 
 In some wild poet, when he works 
 Without a conscience or an aim." 
 
 In my remarks upon "In Memoriam" I have 
 shown that in one direction he readily keeps 
 pace with the advance of modern thought. A 
 leading mission of his art appears to be that of 
 hastening the transition of our poetic nomen- 
 clature and imagery from the old or phenomenal 
 method to one in accordance with knowledge 
 and truth. His laurel is brighter for the fact 
 that he constantly avails himself of the results 
 of scientific discovery, without making them 
 prosaic. This tendency, beginning with * ' Locks- 
 ley Hall" and "The Princess," has increased 
 with him to the present time. If modern story- 
 writers can make the wonders of chemistry and 
 astronomy the basis of tales more fascinating 
 to children than the Arabian Nights, why 
 should not the poet explore this field for the 
 creation of a new imagery and expression? 
 There is a remarkable passage in Wordsworth's 
 preface to the second edition of his poems ; a 
 prophecy which, half a century ago, could only 
 have been uttered by a man of lofty intellect 
 and extraordinary premonition of changes even 
 now at hand : 
 
 "The objects of the poet's thoughts are 
 everywhere ; though the eyes and senses of men 
 are, it is true, his favourite guides, yet he will 
 follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere 
 of sensation in which to move his wings. 
 Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge — it 
 is immortal as the heart of man. If the labours 
 of the men of science should ever create any 
 material revolution, direct or indirect, in our 
 condition, and in the impressions which we 
 habitually receive, the poet will sleep then no 
 more than at present ; he will be ready to fol- 
 low the steps of the man of science, not only in 
 those general indirect effects, but he will be at 
 his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the 
 objects of the science itself. The remotest dis- 
 coveries of the chemist, the botanist, or minera- 
 logist will be as proper objects of the poet's art 
 as any upon which it can be employed, if the 
 time should ever come when these things shall 
 be familiar to us, and the relations under which 
 they are contemplated by the followers of the 
 respective sciences shall be manifestly and pal- 
 pably material to us as enjoying and suffering 
 
beings. If the time should ever come when 
 what is now called science, thus familiarised to 
 men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form 
 of flesh and blood, the poet will lend his divine 
 spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will wel- 
 come the being thus produced, as a dear and 
 genuine inmate of the household of man." 
 
 It is not unlikely that Tennyson was early 
 impressed by these profound observations ; at 
 all events, he has seen the truths of science 
 becoming familiar "to the general," and has 
 governed his art accordingly. The poet and 
 man of science have a common ground, since 
 few discoveries are made without the exercise 
 of the poet's special gift — the imagination. 
 This faculty is required to enable a child to 
 comprehend any scientific paradox ; for in- 
 stance, that of the rotation of the earth upon 
 its axis. The imagination of an investigator 
 advances from one step to another, and thus, 
 in a certain sense, the mental processes of a 
 Milton and a Newton are near akin. A plod- 
 ding, didactic intellect is not strictly scientific ; 
 nor will great poetry ever spring from a merely 
 phantasmal brain: "best bard because the 
 wisest," sings the poet. 
 
 M. Taine's chapter upon Tennyson shows an 
 intelligent perception of the laureate's rela- 
 tions to his time, and especially to England; 
 but though containing a fine interlude upon the 
 perennial freshness of a poet and the zest which 
 makes nature a constant surprise to him — de- 
 claring that the poet, in the presence of this 
 world, is as the first man on the first day — with 
 all this excellence the chapter fails to rightly 
 appreciate Tennyson, and over-estimates Alfred 
 de Musset in comparison. M. Taine's failure, I 
 think, is due to the fact that no one, however 
 successful in mastering a foreign language, can 
 fully enter into that nicety of art which is the 
 potent witchery of Tennyson's verse. The 
 minute distinction between one poem and an- 
 other, where the ideas are upon a level, and the 
 diflFerence is one of essential flavour, a foreigner 
 loses without perceiving his loss. Precisely 
 this delicacy of aroma separates Tennyson from 
 other masters of verse. An English school-girl 
 will see in his work a beauty that wholly 
 escapes the most accomplished Frenchman: 
 the latter may have ten times her knowledge of 
 the language, but she ** hears a voice he cannot 
 hear" and/eeZs an influence he never can fairly 
 understand. Again, M. Taine does not allow 
 credit for the importance of the works actually 
 produced by Tennyson. Largeness and pro- 
 portion go for something in edifices; and 
 although De Musset, the errant, impassioned, 
 suffering Parisian, had the sacred fire, and gave 
 out burning flashes here and there, his light was 
 fitful, nor long sustained, and we think rather 
 of what one so gifted ought to have accom- 
 plished than of what he actually did. 
 But Taine's catholicity, and the very fact that 
 
 he is a foreigner, have protected him, on the 
 other hand, from the overweening influence of 
 Tennyson's art that holds us 
 
 "above the subject, as strong galea 
 Hold swollen clouds from raining;" 
 
 have made him a wiser judge of the poet's in- 
 tellectual and imaginative position. In this 
 matter he is like a deaf man watching a battle, 
 undisturbed by the bewildering power of sound. 
 His remarks upon the limitations of a "com- 
 fortable, luxurious, English" muse are not 
 without reason ; all in all, he has a just idea of 
 Tennyson's representative attitude in the pre- 
 sent state of British thought and art. He has 
 laid too little stress upon the difference between 
 Tennyson and Byron, by observing which we 
 gather a clearer estimate of the former's genius 
 than in any other way. 
 
 Tennyson is the antithesis of Byron, in both 
 the form and spirit of his song. The Georgian 
 poet, with all the glow of genius, constantly 
 giving utterance to condensed and powerful 
 expressions, never attempted condensation in 
 his general style ; there was nothing he so little 
 cared for; his inspiration must have full flow 
 and break through every barrier; it was the 
 roaring of a mighty wind, the current of a great 
 river — prone to overflow, and often to spread 
 thinly and unevenly upon the shoals and 
 lowlands. Tennyson, though composing an 
 extended work, seeks the utmost terseness of 
 expression ; howsoever composite his verse, it is 
 tightly packed and cemented, and decorated to 
 repletion with fretwork and precious stones; 
 nothing is neglected, nothing wasted, nothing 
 misapplied. You cannot take out a word or 
 sentence without marring the structure, nor can 
 you find a blemish ; while much might be profit- 
 ably omitted from Byron's longer poems, and 
 their blemishes are frequent as the beauties. 
 Prolixity, diffuseness, were characteristic of 
 Byron's time. Again, Tennyson is greater in 
 analysis and synthesis, the two strong servitors 
 of art. In sense of proportion Byron was all 
 abroad. He struck bravely into a poem, and, 
 trusting to the fire of his inspiration, let it write 
 itself, neither seeing the end nor troubling his 
 mind concerning it. Certainly this was true 
 with regard to his greatest productions, " Childe 
 Harold" and "Don Juan;" though others, 
 such as "Manfred," were exceptions through 
 dramatic necessity. In Tennyson's method, as 
 in architecture, we are sure that the whole 
 structure is foreseen at the outset. Every block 
 is numbered and swings into an appointed 
 place; often the final portions are made first, 
 that the burden of the plan may be off the 
 designer's mind. Leaving the matter of art, 
 there is no less difference between the two 
 poets as we consider their perceptive and ima- 
 ginative gifts, and here the largeness of Byron's 
 vision tells in his favour. Tennyson, sometimes 
 
JV. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 389 
 
 grand and exalted, is equally delicate— an artist 
 of the beautiful in a minute way. Of this 
 Byron took little account ; his soul was exalted 
 by the broad and mighty aspects of nature ; for 
 mosaic- work he was unfitted: a mountain, the 
 sea, a thunder-storm, a glorious woman — such 
 imposing objects aroused his noble rage. You 
 never could have persuaded Mm that the micro- 
 cosm is equal to the macrocosm. Again, his 
 subjectivity, so intense, was wholly different 
 from Tennyson's, in that he became one with 
 nature — a part of that which was around him. 
 Tennyson is subjective, so far as a pervading 
 sameness of style, a landscape seen through one 
 shade of glass, can make him, yet few have stood 
 more calmly aloof from nature, and viewed her 
 more objectively. He contemplates things 
 without identifying himself with them. In 
 these respects, Tennyson and Byron not only 
 are antithetical, but — each above his contem- 
 poraries — reflect the antithetical qualities of 
 their respective eras. In conclusion, it should 
 be noticed that, although each has had a host 
 of followers, Byron affected the spirit of the 
 people at large, rather than the style of his 
 brother poets; while Tennyson, through the 
 force of his admirable art, has affected the 
 poets themselves, who do not sympathise with 
 his spirit, but show themselves awed and in- 
 structed by his mastery of technics. Byron's 
 influence was national; that of Tennyson is 
 professional to an unprecedented degree. 
 
 If the temperament of Byron or of Mrs Brown- 
 ing may be pronounced an ideal poetic tempera- 
 ment, certainly the career of Tennyson is an 
 ideal poetic career. He has been less in contact 
 with the rude outer world than any poet save 
 Wordsworth ; again, while even the latter wrote 
 much prose, Tennyson, "having wherewithal," 
 and consecrating his life wholly to metrical art, 
 has been a verse-maker and nothing else. He 
 has passed through all gradations, from obscur- 
 ity fo laurelled fame ; beginning with the lightest 
 lyrics, he has lived to write the one successful 
 epic of the last two hundred years ; and though 
 he well might rest content, if contentment were 
 possible to poets and men, with the glory of a 
 far-reaching and apparently lasting renown, he 
 still pursues his art, and seems, unlike Campbell 
 
 and many another poet, to have no fear of the 
 shadow of his own success. His lot has been 
 truly enviable. We have observed the disad 
 vantages of an amateurship in the case of Landoi 
 and noted the limitations imposed upon Thomas 
 Hood by the poverty which clung to him through 
 life ; but Tennyson has made the former condi- 
 tion a vantage-ground, and thereby carried his 
 work to a perfection almost unattainable in the 
 experience of a professional, hard-working lit- 
 Urateur. Writing as much and as little as he 
 chose, he has escaped the drudgery which breeds 
 contempt. His song has been the sweeter for 
 his retirement, like that of a cicada piping from 
 a distant grove. 
 
 Eeviewing our analysis of his genius and 
 works, we find in Alfred Tennyson the true 
 poetic irritability, a sensitiveness increased by 
 his secluded life, and displayed from time to 
 time in "the least little touch of the spleen;" 
 we perceive him to be the most faultless of 
 modern poets in technical execution, but one 
 whose verse is more remarkable for artistic per- 
 fection than for dramatic action and inspired 
 fervour. His adroitness surpasses his invention. 
 Give him a theme, and no poet can handle it so 
 exquisitely — yet we feel that, with the Malory 
 legends to draw upon, he could go on writing 
 "Idyls of the King" for ever. We find him 
 objective in the spirit of his verse, but subjec- 
 tive in the decided manner of his style; pos- 
 sessing a sense of proportion, based upon the 
 highest analytic and synthetic powers — a faculty 
 that can harmonise the incongruous thoughts, 
 scenes, and general details of a composite 
 period ; in thought resembling Wordsworth, in 
 art instructed by Keats, but rejecting the pas- 
 sion of Byron, or having nothing in his nature 
 that aspires to it ; finally, an artist so perfect in 
 a widely-extended range, that nothing of his 
 work can be spared, and, in this respect, ap- 
 proaching Horace and outvying Pope ; not one 
 of the great wits nearly allied to madness, yet 
 possibly to be accepted as a wiser poet, serene 
 above the frenzy of the storm ; certainly to be 
 regarded, in time to come, as, all in all, the 
 fullest representative of the refined, speculative, 
 complex Victorian age. 
 
 WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE. 
 
 [1809 .] 
 
 The Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone 
 was born at Liverpool, on the 29th December 
 1809. He is the fourth son of the late Sir John 
 Gladstone, Bart, of Fasque, county of Kincar- 
 dine, a Liverpool merchant. He studied at 
 
 Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and after some 
 time spent in Continental travel, he entered 
 (1832) the House of Commons as member for 
 Newark in the Conservative interest. Sir Robert 
 Peel, early recognising his business and admini- 
 
390 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 strative talent, in the autumn of 1834 appointed 
 him Under-Secretary for the Colonies. In the 
 revision of the British tariff in 1842, his ex- 
 planation and defence of the policy of the 
 Government, and his complete mastery of its 
 details, led to its being passed almost without 
 alteration in both Houses. In 1851 he left the 
 Conservative, and has ever since appeared on 
 the Liberal side. He has held office as follows : 
 Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and 
 Master of the Mint, from September 1841 to 
 May 1843 ; President of the Board of Trade from 
 May 1843 to February 1845 ; Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies, 1846 ; appointed Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, in Lord Aberdeen's ministry, 
 28th December 1852; resigned along with the 
 Aberdeen ministry 30th January 1855 ; held the 
 same office under Lord Palmerston 5th February, 
 resigned 21st February 1855 ; held office as 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer from 18th June 
 1859 to 5th July 1866 ; represented South 
 Lancashire in Parliament from 1865 to 1868 ; 
 was elected for Greenwich in November 1868, 
 and was elected First Lord of the Treasury on 
 8th December of the same year. In 1868 he was 
 Premier, and carried the bill for the disestablish- 
 ment of the Irish Church in the same year. Al ong 
 with his party he demitted office in 1874, and 
 he resigned his leadership of the Liberal party 
 early in 1875. On announcing liis intention to 
 retire from the leadership of the Liberal party 
 in a letter to Earl Granville, he said : "At the 
 age of sixty-five, and after forty-two years of a 
 laborious public life, I think myself entitled to 
 retire on the present opportunity. This retire- 
 ment is dictated to me by my personal views as 
 to the best method of spending the closing years 
 of my life." During the agitation which pre- 
 vailed in the country consequent on the Russo- 
 Tui-kish war of 1877-78, he denounced the 
 policy of the Conservative Government. He 
 was again in office, 1880-85. Mr Gladstone has 
 long been noted as a fluent, clear-headed, per- 
 spicuous orator, uniting the abilities of a first-rate 
 financier with those of the orator, showing a 
 wonderful grasp and mastery of the details of 
 public business. "Whilst the classic grace of 
 his speeches," says an anonymous writer, "may 
 preserve them, like the orations of Cicero, to 
 mould the utterances of statesmen in far distant 
 ages, their fulness of thought, breadth of con- 
 ception, far-reaching human sympathies, and 
 moral splendour of purpose, will give to them, 
 like the 'Republic' of Plato, a power, which 
 the centuries cannot exhaust, over the nobles 
 among men and women, quickening their re- 
 solves to create, as much as in them lies, the rule 
 of righteousness on earth. . . . What he be- 
 lieves he avows with a courageous boldness, and 
 what he seeks he pursues with a quenchless 
 enthusiasm. He has little respect for tradition 
 or routine when they cross his path, and would 
 keep him back from some noble object on which 
 
 his heart is set." He has published "The 
 Church Considered in its Relations with the 
 State ;" a translation of Homer in three volumes ; 
 " Juventis Mundi;" a critique on "Ecce 
 Homo," reprinted from Qood Words; and many 
 articles hi the Contemporary Review, the I^ine- 
 teenth Century, etc., with separate pamphlets 
 on important questions of the day. As a letter- 
 writer, Mr Gladstone is indefatigable. 
 
 A modern journalist thus describes Mr Glad- 
 stone's appearance in Parliament: "The face 
 is in the highest degree characteristic of the 
 man. There never was a statesman more im- 
 pulsive than the [late] Prime Minister; never 
 one who took less pains to hide the workings of 
 his mind from those around him, or who was 
 more determined to wear his heart upon his 
 sleeve. His openness in this respect is at once 
 his fault and his virtue. It is an error in any 
 man to whom are committed great destinies, and 
 the policy of a mighty nation, and we cannot 
 wonder that his critics should often have com- 
 plained of it. But it has at the same time re- 
 deemed not a few of the mistakes and inconsist- 
 ences of his career, and has given the world 
 evidence of the fact that, however impulsive 
 and at times imprudent he may be, he is at least 
 thoroughly sincere, even in his most impulsive 
 actions. . . . Despite his admitted failure 
 as a party-leader, a failure due chiefly to his 
 lack of the elements which ought to enter so 
 largely into the character of such a man, he 
 is certainly unsurpassed and possibly unap- 
 proached in the power of framing a great legis- 
 lative measure on a vexed and intricate question 
 like that of the Irish land laws, and in the 
 skill with which he handles every part of it, 
 down to the minutest and most insignificant 
 detail. As a debater he stands without a rival 
 in the House of Commons. Mr Disraeli pos- 
 sesses a brilliant wit, and powers of sarcasm to 
 which he can lay no claim ; but no one who has 
 seen Mr Gladstone take his part in a great party 
 battle, will question his superiority as a debater 
 to any of his rivals or colleagues. He is never 
 seen to so much advantage as when, at the close 
 of a long discussion, he rises in the midst of a 
 crowded House, impatient for the division, to 
 reply to Mr Disraeli or Mr Hardy. The readi- 
 ness with which he replies to a speech just de- 
 livered is amazing ; he will take up, one after 
 another, the arguments of his opponent, and 
 examine them and debate them with as much 
 precision and fluency as though he had spent 
 weeks in the preparation of his answer. Then, 
 too, at such moments time is precious, and he 
 is compelled to repress that tendency to pro- 
 lixity, which is one of his greatest faults as an 
 orator. His sentences, instead of wandering 
 on interminably, are short and clear, and from 
 beginning to end of the speech there is hardly a 
 word which seems unnecessary. The excite- 
 ment, too, which prevails around him, always 
 
W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 391 
 
 infects him strongly ; his pale face twitches, his 
 magnificent voice quivers, his body sways from 
 side to side as he pours forth argument, plead- 
 ing, and invective, strangely intermingled. The 
 storm of cheers and counter-cheers rages around 
 him, as it can rage nowhere except in the House 
 of Commons on such an occasion, but high and 
 clear above the tumult rings out his voice, like 
 the trumpet sounding through the din of the 
 battle-field. As he draws to a close something 
 like a calm comes over the scene, and upon both 
 sides men listen eagerly to his words, anxious 
 to catch each sentence of his peroration, always 
 delivered with an artistic care which only one 
 other Member of Parliament can equal, and 
 seldom failing to impress the House with its 
 beauty. Then it is that his great powers are 
 seen to the fullest advantage — voice, and accent, 
 and gesture — all giving force and life to the 
 words which he utters." 
 
 MR GLADSTONE AS AN ORATOR.* 
 
 When the armies of political parties are set in 
 battle array, Mr Gladstone's transcendent abili- 
 ties as an orator alone have full play. When, 
 before rising to speak, he has definitely made 
 up his mind which of three or more courses he 
 shall take, and has nothing to do but declare 
 his colours, build around them a rampart of 
 argument, and seek to rally to them halting 
 friends, then the marvellous clearness of his 
 perception and his unusual ability for making 
 dark places light is disclosed. After purporting 
 to answer a simple question, and taking a 
 quarter of an hour to do it in, Mr Gladstone 
 has sometimes sat down leaving the House in a 
 condition of dismayed bewilderment, hopelessly 
 attempting to grope its way through the intri- 
 cacies of the sonorous sentences it has been 
 listening to. But if he desires to make himself 
 understood, there is no one who can better effect 
 the purpose. There are few instances of a 
 Government measure which met with more de- 
 termined and diversely motived opposition than 
 the Irish University Act, introduced in the 
 session of 1873. It is a matter of history that 
 it broke the power of the strongest ministry 
 that has ruled England in these latter days. 
 The provisions of the measure were singularly 
 intricate, but when Mr Gladstone sat down, 
 after speaking for upwards of three hours in 
 explanation of the measure, he had not only 
 made it clear from preamble to schedule, but 
 he had momentarily talked the House of Com- 
 mons over into the belief that this was a bill it 
 would do well to accept. Mr Horsman has been 
 much laughed at because, whilst the glamour of 
 this great speech was still strong upon him, he 
 wrote an enthusiastic letter to the Times hailing 
 
 * " Men and Manner in Parliament." By the Mem- 
 oer for the Chiltern Hundreds. 
 
 Mr Gladstone and his bill as among the most 
 notable of recent dispensations of a beneficent 
 Providence, words which he subsequently ate 
 in the presence of a crowded House. But Mr 
 Horsman differed from seven-eighths of the 
 House of Commons only in this, that he put 
 pen to paper whilst he was yet under the in- 
 fluence of the orator's spell, whereas the rest of 
 the members contented themselves by verbal 
 and private expressions of opinion. Mr Glad- 
 stone's oratorical manner is much more strongly 
 marked by action than is Mr Bright' s. He em- 
 phasises by smiting his right hand in the open 
 palm of his left ; by pointing his finger straight 
 out at his adversary, real or representative ; 
 and, in his hottest moments, by beating the 
 table with his clenched hand. Sometimes in 
 answer to cheers he turns right round to his 
 immediate supporters on the benches behind 
 him, and speaks directly to them ; whereupon 
 the Conservatives, who hugely enjoy a baiting 
 of the emotionable ex-Premier, call out "Ordei 1 
 order!" This call seldom fails in the desired 
 effect of exciting the right hon. gentleman's 
 irascibility, and when he loses his temper his 
 opponents may well be glad. Mr Bright always 
 writes out the peroration of his speeches, and at 
 one time was accustomed to send the slip of 
 paper to the reporters. Mr Disraeli sometimes 
 writes out the whole of his speeches. The one 
 he delivered to the Glasgow students in Novem- 
 ber 1873, was in type in the of&ce of a London 
 newspaper at the moment the right hon. gentle- 
 man was speaking at the university. Mr Glad- 
 stone never writes a line of his speeches, and 
 some of his most successful ones have been 
 made in the heat of debate, and necessarily 
 without preparation. His speech in winding 
 up the debate on the Irish University Bill has 
 rarely been excelled for close reasoning, brilliant 
 illustration, and powerful eloquence ; yet if it 
 be referred to it will be seen that it is for the 
 greater and best part a reply to the speech of 
 Mr Disraeli, who had just sat down, yielding 
 the floor to his rival half an hour after midnight. 
 Evidence of the same swift reviewing of a posi- 
 tion, and of the existence of the same power of 
 instantly marshalling arguments and illustra- 
 tions, and sending them forth clad in a panoply 
 of eloquence, is apparent in Mr Gladstone's 
 speech when commenting on Mr Disraeli's an- 
 nouncement of the withdrawal of the main por- 
 tion of the Endowed Schools Act Amendment 
 Bill. The announcement, and especially the 
 manner in which it was made, was a surprise 
 that almost stunned and momentarily bewil- 
 dered the House of Commons. Mr Gladstone 
 was bound to speak, and to speak the moment 
 Mr Disraeli resumed his seat. He had no 
 opportunity to take counsel, and no time to 
 make preparations for his speech ; but the re- 
 sult of his masterly oration at this crisis was 
 that the unpopularity and dissatisfaction created 
 
392 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 by the course he had taken in the matter of the 
 Regulation of Public Worship Bill melted like 
 enow in the firelight, and the conviction was 
 borne in upon his discontented followers that as 
 long as Mr Gladstone lived, and chose to hold 
 the office, there was no other leader possible for 
 the Liberal party. 
 
 It is speeches like these that add poignancy 
 to the regret with which we think of Mr Glad- 
 stone's everyday style of talking, and that 
 cause us eagerly to welcome the signs visible 
 in the records of the session of 1874, that, re- 
 lieved from the trammels of office and the 
 fancied necessity for incessant speech-making, 
 he may hereafter be content to speak less fre- 
 quently and in fewer words. 
 
 MR GLADSTONE AT HAWARDEN.* 
 
 As all roads lead to Rome, so do many paths 
 lead to Hawarden ; but perhaps the pleasantest 
 of all is that from the "sands o' Dee," where 
 the lusty salmon "snoo" as the ebbing tide 
 rolls on, stained with the rosy hues of evening 
 light, like the broad pavement of a great cathe- 
 dral, when the sun streams through the parti- 
 coloured crystal, and flings its rich dyes athwart 
 the choir. It is a delightful stroll from tranquil 
 Queensferry towards the hill on which Hawar- 
 den church-tower rises through the trees. Past 
 glowing cornfields, through a trim village with 
 its dapper schoolhouse, past cool moss-covered 
 walls, and under the leafy screen of overhanging 
 boughs winds the path to the agreeable dwelling 
 which serves the recluse of Hawarden for a 
 hermitage. The modern castle, with its rich 
 parterres enamelled in a thousand brilliant 
 hues, lies at the foot of a richly-wooded knoll, 
 crowned by the picturesque remains of an old 
 fortalice, now reduced to the dimensions of a 
 ** sconce," that would have delighted the strate- 
 gic soul of Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket. 
 Beyond the pretty flower-garden, with its central 
 hawthorn of venerable antiquity, rises a great 
 green wave of emerald turf, which, when not 
 covered by strenuous Liberals and awakened by 
 brass bands, affords a delicious repose to the 
 eyes of beholders. Across the^ emerald wave 
 flash bright streaks of sunshine, intermingled 
 with the long shadows of giant oaks and um- 
 brageous beeches. Against the blue and almost 
 cloudless sky the fragments of the shattered don- 
 jon cut a jagged outline, telling of the days when 
 Hawarden, together with Ludlow and similar 
 castles, formed a species of cordon against the 
 wild Welshmen, who, avoiding the great strong- 
 hold of Chester, were wont to exercise the privi- 
 lege of mountaineers in urging chronic war 
 against the surrounding country. It is a curious 
 instance of the revenges of time that this ancient 
 
 * •• English Celebrities at Home," No. iii., from the 
 World. By permission. 
 
 stronghold of the Stanleys should become the 
 home of him who of all living English statesmen 
 has proved the sturdiest opponent of the lords 
 of Knowsley. After the execution of James, 
 seventh Earl of Derby, dismantled Hawarden 
 was bought from the agents of sequestration 
 by Serjeant Glyn, or Glynne, Cromwell's Lord 
 Chief-Justice, who pressed the crown upon the 
 Protector in an elaborate speech, which he actu- 
 ally republished after the Restoration, in proof 
 of his royalism, under the title, "Monarchy 
 asserted to be the Best, most Ancient and Legal 
 Form of Government." Butler alludes to Glyn 
 in "Hudibras:" 
 
 " Was not the king by proclamation 
 Declared a rebel all over the nation? 
 Did not the learned Glyn and Maynard 
 To make good subjects traitors strain hard?" 
 
 Glyn, however, was a stronger man than poor 
 Butler, and held so fast by Hawarden that his 
 seed abide there unto this day. It is a beautiful 
 spot. From the crest of the fortified knoll the 
 eye stretches far over the estuary of the Dee, 
 the prospect being bounded on either side by 
 the Welsh and Shropshire hills and the fainter 
 outline of the Yorkshire and Lancashire moors. 
 Within, Hawarden Castle, though not ambi- 
 tiously large, contains more than one roomy 
 cell for its scholar-recluse. At every corner the 
 signs of taste and culture abound. The pictures 
 have been only slightly thinned by the hand- 
 some contribution to the Wrexham Exhibition, 
 and curious china, despite the sale of last year, 
 is not entirely absent. Oriental jars and costly 
 cabinets of Japanese lacquer are scattered about 
 the handsome rooms with tasteful carelessness, 
 and here and there are specimens of art needle- 
 work, in the revival of which Mrs Gladstone is 
 known to take great interest. But the peculiar- 
 ity of the house is the vast flood of books, 
 which no one apartment can contain. Out of 
 one library into another, and into drawing- 
 room and dining-room, books have flowed in a 
 resistless stream, pushing other things aside, 
 and establishing themselves in their place. 
 There are books new and old, rare and common, 
 choice editions and ordinary manuals of refer- 
 ence, ponderous tomes of controversial theology 
 and snappish little pamphlets on the currency, 
 with other equally light and pleasan^ subjects. 
 Over all reigns that air of easy f *nral 
 
 luxury which forms the principal c^ 
 English country-house proper, as distinguished 
 from the comfortless vastness of foreign chdteaitx 
 and the pretentious splendour of the suburban 
 villa of the nouveau riche. The castellan, how- 
 ever, is no admirer of nooks and snuggeries, 
 loving most to get through his morning reading 
 in an especially large apartment, garnished with 
 movable bookshelves — a transparent hive for a 
 working bee — amid abundant air and floods of 
 sunshine. "Air and light," and plenty of them, 
 are among his prime conditions of existence. 
 
IV. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 393 
 
 As the hermit of Hawarden steps across his 
 cell, he presents few indications of advancing 
 age. He loves to disclaim any intention of 
 again taking a "leading part " in the history of 
 his country. He is, he says, " too old " to again 
 advance into the forefront of the battle, and for 
 the future he wishes nothing more than such 
 space as the Fates may allow of lettered ease. 
 But there is no evidence of either mental or 
 physical decay. The grey hair has become 
 thinner, the face a shade paler than of old, but 
 the square shoulders have not shrunk, the ex- 
 pression is eager as ever, and the figure is still 
 erect. More striking yet is the youthful feeling 
 of the great Liberal leader. The statesman who 
 could form and almost carry out in its integrity 
 a colossal scheme for giving "justice to Ireland" 
 flings off the weariness of toil, and takes refuge, 
 after a morning spent in congenial occupation, 
 in pleasant converse with his visitors. Mr Glad- 
 stone has ever been an *' early man." Since his 
 retirement in Flintshire, he is, if possible, 
 earlier than before. Shortly after eight o'clock 
 in the morning he walks down to prayers at the 
 village church. Early devotion and breakfast 
 over, the remainder of the morning, till the 
 gong sounds at two o'clock, is devoted to work 
 — to reading, writing, meditation, or to the 
 performance of arithmetical feats which no 
 cabinet minister has ever surpassed. Luncheon 
 over— it may interest the gentleman who wrote 
 to Mark Twain concerning the importance of 
 fish as "brain-food," and was recommended to 
 "begin with a couple of whales," to know that 
 the great finance minister drinks bitter beer 
 with his luncheon — there is more reading, or, if 
 there be visitors in the house, pleasant gossip, 
 or, if the weather be tempting, leng walks to be 
 taken or tough oaks to be hewn. Loving air 
 and exercise, Mr Gladstone is a singularly tem- 
 perate man in his meat and drink. Still, he is 
 only abstemious, not ascetic. A glass or two of 
 claret at dinner, and sometimes a glass of port, 
 that nectar of orators, satisfy his very moderate 
 requirements for stimulant. For the informa- 
 tion of intending orators, it may be well to add 
 that a single ^g'g, newly laid, beaten up in 
 sherry, and secured in a tiny glass jar, is the 
 fortifier with which he supplies himself when 
 about to make one of his great speeches of three 
 or four hours' duration. Constitutionally full 
 of "dash" and "go," Mr Gladstone is yet, like 
 his friend Mr Bright, deficient in that sporting 
 instinct supposed to be inherent in the Briton, 
 and, if induced to be present at a fox-hunt, 
 would undoubtedly sympathise with the fox. 
 He takes small account of Nimrod and his 
 kind, he cares not to "witch the world with 
 noble horsemanship," nor is he a son of Nimshi, 
 to affright the peaceable rustics by driving 
 "furiously." His hats have long caused anxi- 
 ous speculation among the few rising Liberals of 
 the day. But the Gladstonian shoe is more of 
 
 a marvel even than the Gladstonian hat. There 
 is none of the coquetry of utility about it. It 
 looks rather as if it would be a "Lancashire 
 clog" if it could, but failing a wooden sole "takes 
 it out" in several rows of formidable nails. 
 Thus protected against roads ' ' fanged with 
 murderous stones," Mr Gladstone takes mighty 
 walks, and in the season when the sap is down 
 fells giant oaks. In this occupation his son, the 
 excellent rector of Hawarden, is an admirable 
 "second" to his energetic father. Much talk 
 and some odd moralising have been extracted 
 from the arboricidal tastes of the master of 
 Hawarden ; but he ought surely to find favour 
 in the eyes of Mr Ruskin for doing work which 
 is really useful. There are trees, and to spare, 
 in the park, and in laying the axe to the bole of 
 some of them the owner is getting magnificent 
 exercise out of useful toil. There is a certain 
 originality in the amusement, but it is not less 
 rational than playing at cricket or rowing in an 
 outrigger. Sawing wood has long been known 
 as an excellent exercise, but it is dull work 
 compared with the pleasure of striking at a 
 huge tree, putting out of the question the possi- 
 bility of mentally coupling with each well-aimed 
 blow the destruction of a political opponent. 
 In wood-cutting deshabille so little does the 
 lord of the soil look like himself that he has 
 often been accosted by "practical" hands, and 
 received, meekly as is his wont, a lesson from 
 them, the practical hand remaining all the while 
 ignorant of the manner of man he was addressing. 
 In his moments of mental and physical relaxa- 
 tion the Napoleon of oratory (whose heavy 
 artillery is always brought up at the right 
 moment) and the champion of amateur woodmen 
 vanish in the genial host, whose high spirits 
 break out at every moment, and who is never 
 more rejoiced than when he can play a comedy 
 part on his own or his son's lawn. It would 
 be incorrect to say that on the occasion of 
 popular celebrations, of local fancy fairs and 
 cottage gardening shows, Mr Gladstone plays 
 down to the level of his audience. On the con- 
 trary, he exhibits just sufficient sympathy to 
 raise them to enthusiasm and no more. 
 
 The portals of Hawarden Park are opened 
 widely enough, and its proprietor is untiring in 
 receiving deputations and speaking to excur- 
 sionists and demonstrations of a local charac- 
 ter. It is, indeed, not long since the Leigh 
 and Tyldesley Liberal Societies were received 
 in Hawarden Park with a few words from Mr 
 Gladstone, and then roamed over the demesne 
 at their will. They occupied the older castle in 
 force. They pulled sprigs off the trees. Some 
 of the more adventurous spirits essayed to climb 
 the low wall which separates the garden from 
 the park, clawing its ivy-covering somewhat 
 rudely in the attempt. At one moment it 
 looked as if the pretty flower-garden, with its 
 bright patches of scarlet geranium, yellow cal- 
 
394 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ceolaria, and blue forget-me-not, were about to 
 undergo an invasion ; but a few of the sterner 
 spirits recalled the too daring invaders, the 
 flowers remained intact, and the ivy was only 
 slightly damaged. Then the staunch supporters 
 of the Liberal cause lit their short pipes, and by 
 circulating over the sloping lawn added greatly 
 to its liveliness, if not to its beauty. About 
 two o'clock all of the "Leigh brigade" that 
 could be got down out of the trees and weaned 
 from the attractions of the Glynne Arms col- 
 lected close to the house, and, equipped with a 
 formidable band, opened fire with a selection of 
 popular airs. Dancing soon commenced, and 
 was kept up with some spirit until it was known 
 that Mr Gladstone would shortly address the 
 Liberals of Leigh. Then ensued waiting and 
 impatience, as ever and again the brass band 
 set up a wail, as if imploring the host to come 
 out. At last he emerged from behind his own 
 marble bust, advanced to the low wall, and 
 after reiterating his welcome, proceeded to 
 address his Lancashire guests in a style which 
 somewhat bewildered them. After a few re- 
 marks on the old castle, he pointed out that 
 they were in Flintshire in Wales, and "the 
 Welsh were a very good people ; " adding that 
 he "should be glad to bear testimony to their 
 good qualities even if they were Tories, but was 
 still more delighted to do so as they were sound 
 Liberals." The Lancashire "lads" looked at 
 one another and shouted on principle, but they 
 did not quite " see it." Mr Gladstone con- 
 tinued that " the Welsh very rarely committed 
 crimes of violence — ^hardly ever those of the first 
 magnitude — and that the judges on circuit were 
 often presented with white gloves." Young 
 Lancashire looked puzzled, and could not quite 
 bring it home to its mind that it was being 
 "chaffed." Young Lancashire laughed and 
 cheered nevertheless. The host then went on 
 to describe the beauties of the park, alluded to 
 the various points of view, and particularly 
 directed attention to a magnificent oak-tree on 
 the right, and a superb beech with massive 
 foliage drooping gracefully on the opposite side, 
 as if doing homage to tha superior powers of 
 endurance possessed by its rival. "We are 
 very proud of our trees," continued Mr Glad- 
 stone, "and are therefore getting anxious, as 
 the beech has already shown symptoms of 
 decay. We set great store by our trees." 
 "Why, then," roared a Lancashire lad, "do 
 you cut 'em down as you do?" The riposte 
 was swift and sudden — the rapier-thrust of 
 Valentine to the bludgeon-blow of Orson. "We 
 cut down that we may improve. We remove 
 rottenness that we may restore health by letting 
 in air and light. As a good Liberal you ought 
 to understand that." Lancashire set up a roar 
 of delight, and the discomfited interrogator 
 came in for many a fleer from his companions, 
 who had not been bold enough to "bell the 
 
 cat." Having now satisfied his own sense of 
 humour and that of his auditors, the member 
 for Greenwich continued in high good humour 
 to banter the " lads " on their taste for music 
 in general, but avoided all reference to the brass 
 band from which he had suffered during the 
 day. During the whole of the speech, or rather 
 the pleasant talk on the lawn, Mrs Gladstone 
 remained by the side of her husband, nursing 
 her grandchild, and when she was alluded to as 
 his " missis," a ringing cheer went up from the 
 assembled lads, and the lasses were fairly beside 
 themselves with joy. A Welsh shower damped 
 the conclusion of \hQfite; but the six hundred 
 drifted out of the park, and trudged away to 
 the railway-station at Queensferry in a high 
 state of enthusiasm, one ancient gentleman com- 
 plaining that the crowd had kept him from ap- 
 proaching his idol. " Ah shou'd ha' loiked to 
 ha' shook hands wi' 'im, and Ah could ha' died 
 'appy," murmured the elderly "lad," as he 
 "made a bee line" for the Glynne Arms. 
 
 Among all the country round Mr Gladstone 
 is deservedly popular, a few grumbling farmers, 
 who complain that there are too many clauses 
 in their agreements, being perhaps excepted. 
 His frank and free manner, the liberal style in 
 which he opens his beautiful park to the public, 
 and the keen interest he displays in all local 
 improvements, have made him one of the best- 
 loved of English celebrities. On Sunday morn- 
 ing, as the bells of Hawarden Church— where 
 the service is of the orthodox Anglican order- 
 ring out through the heavy autumn air, vigorous 
 pedestrians may be observed marching up the 
 hill, their dusty raiment and shiny countenances 
 proclaiming that their walk to church has been 
 a long one. This determination towards Hawar- 
 den as a place of devotion is not owing to a 
 dearth of chiirches in the neighbourhood. There 
 are churches at Mold and elsewhere, but in none 
 of these are the lessons read in the sonorous 
 tones of the ex-Premier of England. 
 
 MR RICHARD HOLT HUTTON ON MR 
 GLADSTONE.* 
 
 Mr Gladstone's curious relation to so many 
 different elements in the State reminds us of 
 some of those vexatious Chinese puzzles in which 
 a medley of differently shaped pieces of wood 
 are closely ringed together round their thin 
 middle section, and the riddle is, how they are 
 to be discomposed without violence. Of course, 
 a sensible man gives it up at once, and of course 
 it turns out to be quite simple when he is told. 
 Mr Gladstone is the uniting band of such a poli- 
 tical and moral puzzle, and a very simple puzzle 
 when you see how it grew together. He con- 
 nects the commercial — even the idtra-commercial 
 
 * From "Studies in Parliament: a Series of Sketchea 
 of Leading Politicians." By R. H. Hutton. 
 
W. E. GLADSTONE, 
 
 395 
 
 — with the ultra-ecclesiastical element in the 
 State. He links the school of aristocratic criti- 
 cism with the school of democratic progress. He 
 mediates between a "spirited foreign policy" 
 and the soft principles of the peace, or the sel- 
 fish principles of the non-intervention party. 
 He cares even more than trades' unions for the 
 welfare of the working-men ; more than the 
 manufacturers for the interests of capital ; more 
 for the cause of retrenchment than the most 
 jealous and avowed foes of Government expendi- 
 ture ; more for the spread of education than the 
 advocates of a compulsory national system; 
 more for careful constitutional precedent than 
 the Whigs ; and more for the spiritual indepen- 
 dence of the Church than the highest Tories. 
 He unites cotton with culture, Manchester with 
 Oxford, the deep classical joy over the Italian 
 resurrection and Greek independence, with the 
 deep English interest in the amount of the duty 
 on Zante raisins and Italian rags. The great 
 railway boards and the bishops are about 
 equally interested in Mr Gladstone. The former 
 look to him as the most likely man to revolu- 
 tionise the railway system of England ; the 
 latter as the most likely man to revolutionise 
 the ecclesiastical system in dealing with heresy. 
 That is a striking illustration of the character 
 of his power — which consists in the moral 
 colouring which Mr Gladstone naturally gives 
 to material interests, and in the material colour- 
 ing which he is also apt to give to moral inter- 
 ests. Any one who has read carefully his great 
 financial speeches, knows that the commerce of 
 the country becomes transfigured in Mr Glad- 
 stone's mind into the greatest of moral agencies. 
 Any one who studies his books on Church 
 matters, or his tract on the royal supremacy in 
 relation to spiritual tribunals, will see at once 
 that he treats moral agencies less with the 
 subtlety of a pure thinker, or the warmth of an 
 ardent believer, than with the ingenuity of an 
 acute administrator who looks at them as sub- 
 ordinate to the ecclesiastical institutions to 
 which they give rise. Mr Gladstone's mind 
 mediates between the moral and material inter- 
 ests of the age, and rests in neither. He moral- 
 ises finance and commerce, and (if we may be 
 allowed the barbarism) institutionalises ethics 
 and faith. 
 
 There are three cardinal facts which need to 
 be remembered in estimating Mr Gladstone's 
 powers and difiiculties as a statesman. He is a 
 Lancashire man, an Oxford thinker, a Peelite 
 politician. In some respects all these influences 
 have worked differently, and in some, still more 
 important perhaps, they have co-operated. In 
 Lancashire he learned that profound appreciation 
 of the might and right of capital without which 
 probably no creative financier can be made. It 
 was the blood of the Lancashire spinner in the 
 late Sir Robert Peel, that made him, in spite of 
 his protective prejudices, the first great modern 
 
 reformer of our finance— the man who taught far 
 more liberal theorists how to multiply the re- 
 sources and economise the expenditure of the 
 State. Similarly, it was the business element, 
 combining with great natural powers, in the 
 late Mr James Wilson which gave fertility and 
 tension to his financial conceptions, and made 
 them greatly superior in practical originality to 
 those of the only considerable Whig financier 
 the country has recently produced — Sir G. 
 Cornewall Lewis. The Lancashire feeling for 
 capital is strong in Mr Gladstone. He muses 
 on the money market; he loves to ponder on 
 the resources which a low rate of interest might 
 open to the Government, in the night-watches. 
 He does his work at the Treasury, not as a 
 matter of business, but as a matter of love. As 
 a novelist's mind swarms expedients for bringing 
 out the points of his favourite characters, Mr 
 Gladstone's mind swarms financial ideas small 
 and great. He thinks of the revenue and the 
 productive power of the country as a manu- 
 facturer thinks of his manufactory, and the 
 chance of striking a new vein of profit. And 
 his inventive power is greater than his judg- 
 ment, though this is, however, to some extent 
 steadied by the instinct of the orator, which 
 tells him which of his ideas it will be easy, and 
 which impossible, to present in a telling and 
 popular form to the country. It is in great 
 measure these oratorical instincts which oblige 
 him to dwell on the moral aspects of material 
 wealth — the only aspects in which economy be- 
 comes a really popular topic. 
 
 But Mr Gladstone is so much more than a 
 Lancashire man, that to most minds the first 
 idea which presents itself in connection with 
 his name is that of classical taste and scholastic 
 subtlety. No doubt these qualities give the 
 charm even to his financial ingenuity and re- 
 source. And while his Oxford training greatly 
 widened the scope of his genius, it tended, we 
 think, to strengthen his natural disposition to 
 accept the actual condition of things as his 
 starting-point, and rather choose his principles 
 by carefully examining what was open to him, 
 than to mould his policy resolutely to first 
 principles If any one of our readers has 
 attempted to read perhaps the most difficult 
 book in the English language, Mr Gladstone's 
 "Church Principles considered in their Results," 
 he will see at once what we mean ; and will see, 
 too, how the Oxford of Mr Gladstone's uni- 
 versity life — the Oxford before "the movement 
 of 1833" — the Oxford which made the Aris- 
 totelian dogma that virtue is the half-way house 
 between two opposite vices its ethical rule, and 
 which took the Church as it was as the true 
 starting-point in religion — the Oxford which 
 had not yet begun to dig after the roots of prin- 
 ciple — tended to turn Mr Gladstone's acutely 
 discriminating powers towards consequences 
 rather than first principles. This habit it is 
 
which, while it secures for Mr Gladstone a prac- 
 tical tone, denies him the highest triumphs of 
 an otherwise scarcely rivalled oratory. Mr 
 Bright excels him as a mere orator, because Mr 
 Bright fetches his inspiration from the deepest 
 fountains of human passion. Mr Gladstone 
 does not sink his rhetorical wells deep. He 
 keeps in the middle region of practical fancy, of 
 applied imagination. Indeed, Mr Gladstone's 
 Oxford training has, in one direction, injured 
 his parliamentary influence. He does not go 
 deep into human nature for his contrasts ; he 
 does not make them strong and broad ; and he 
 draws his practical distinctions out too fine, so 
 as to provoke comment and invite retort. We 
 remember some one's remarking years ago on a 
 significant sequence in the marginal index to 
 two paragraphs in Hallam's "Sixteenth and 
 Seventeenth Centuries." It was about the Jan- 
 senists, and Mr Hallam had noted in the mar- 
 gin of one paragraph, "The Jansenists take a 
 distinction;" in the margin of the next, "And 
 are persecuted." That would tell the history 
 of many of Mr Gladstone's parliamentary diffi- 
 culties. He takes distinctions which he should 
 ignore, and is persecuted. 
 
 The Peelite education of Mr Gladstone in 
 political life is the third great influence that 
 has made him what he is. It tended, no doubt, 
 to enhance his power as an administrator, and 
 to impress to some extent upon him that pru- 
 dential character which so strikingly character- 
 ised all Sir Robert Peel's administration. Mr 
 Gladstone's tendency was virtually, we have 
 seen, to look rather at consequences than prin- 
 ciples, to consider even "Church principles in 
 
 } their results/^* But, as in most original Lanca- 
 shire men, there are wild possibilities in Mr 
 Gladstone, a craving for great schemes, an enter- 
 prising force, of which Sir Robert Peel knew 
 nothing. No doubt the influence of Sir Robert 
 Peel was taming on Mr Gladstone's mind. It 
 made him look at things with the eyes of cautious, 
 slow country gentlemen, as well as simply in the 
 consequences as he saw them. Sir Robert Peel's 
 influence again fostered the pacific and com- 
 mercial side of Mr Gladstone's imagination and 
 sentiment, and also did something to teach him, 
 as far as he could be taught, to think of the 
 public's sleepy view of his plans. It probably 
 strengthened greatly the administrative powers 
 of Mr Gladstone's mind, balanced it with what- 
 ever of caution and judgment it has, did some- 
 thing to diminish his tendency to too nice distinc- 
 tions, but very much heightened the tendency to 
 ignore first principles, and start from things as 
 he found them. 
 
 These are the influences which seem to us to 
 have made Mr Gladstone what he is — a states- 
 man of the very highest class of the second 
 rank — or, as some one epigram matically said of 
 him, " a statesman of second-rate intellect in a 
 first-rate state of effervescence : " a statesman 
 on whom we could scarcely rely to direct our 
 policy in moments of difficulty, or to sway 
 alone the mind of Parliament ; but yet a states- 
 man of far greater power than those who would 
 be competent to guide and lead him — a states- 
 man of wonderful resource on all subjects, of 
 fine insight on many — but not a statesman of 
 deeply-matured political principles, nor one of 
 the safest judgment. 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 [1811-1863.] 
 By JAMES HANNAY, J. T. FIELDS, Etc. 
 
 HANNAT'S sketch op THACKERAY. 
 
 A MERE rhapsody of admiration is generally in- 
 spired by the writer's wish to be admired him- 
 self; but men of sense will, it is hoped, be 
 thankful for a careful accumulation of the kind 
 of details on which alone a judgment about 
 character can be formed. These have been 
 grouped together here, with the object of mak- 
 ing Mr Thackeray's life and writings illustrate 
 each other, as far as the humble scale of the 
 essay permit. The more fully his life is made 
 known to the world, the more clearly will the 
 harmony of his works with it appear. Per- 
 fect frankness and honesty of character will be 
 seen to be his great distinction. He laid bare 
 
 all his severest thoughts about human nature 
 and life in obedience to the law of this char- 
 acter, though he knew it exposed him to shallow 
 charges of cynicism, and though he cannot but 
 have been conscious of unaffected benevolence 
 towards all the world, of a ready sympathy 
 with every form of excellence, and of a hearty 
 activity in doing good to everybody who came 
 in his way. On this honesty, as a basis, rested 
 the whole of his genius — the positive side of 
 which produced his deep and truthful delinea- 
 tions of life — the negative — his hearty and plea- 
 sant satire, always Horatian rather than Juve- 
 nalian— always exciting mirth rather than hate. 
 If he ever erred in literary judgment at all, it 
 was when his anxiety to do justice to the weak 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 
 
 !97 
 
 made him press a little hard on the strong. 
 This is curiously illustrated in a passage which 
 the reader -will find quoted from one of his 
 letters. 
 
 There was nothing more charming about 
 Thackeray — and this too receives illustration in 
 what follows — than the kindly footing on which 
 he stood with the younger generation. He was 
 not a man to have a little senate ; he held syco- 
 phants, pnd all who encouraged them, in con- 
 tempt ; Lis friends and acquaintances were of all 
 varieties of class and character, and differed 
 from him in their ways of thinking about every- 
 thing. But he made it a duty to befriend and 
 cherish anybody in whose merit and sincerity he 
 believed, however casual the accident which had 
 brought them under his notice. These are the 
 traits which endear his memory to all who 
 knew him, and which will pleasantly connect 
 him henceforth in their minds, with the best 
 and greatest of the humorists and moralists to 
 whom he is now gathered. 
 
 By birth Mr Thackeray belonged to the upper 
 middle class — a section of our curiously-divided 
 society which contains many cadets of old fami- 
 lies, and forms a link between the aristocracy and 
 the general bulk and the liberal professions. He 
 used sometimes to say that "it takes three 
 generations to make a gentleman ; " and though 
 this was not a maxim which he would have ap- 
 plied strictly in the case of another man, he 
 was far from insensible to the advantage in 
 himself. He was descended from an old Saxon 
 stock long settled in Yorkshire. His great- 
 grandfather was Dr Thackeray, of Harrow, who 
 went to Cambridge in 1710, an excellent scholar 
 and clever man, who partly educated Sir William 
 Jones, and whose epitaph was written by his 
 pupil, Dr Parr. The son of the Doctor married 
 a Miss Webb, of the old English family to 
 which the brigadier Webb, of Marlborough's 
 wars, belonged — whose portrait is drawn with 
 something of the geniality of kinsmanship in 
 "Esmond." This Thackeray, we believe, was 
 the first of the race to settle in India, where 
 his son also sought his fortunes, and where his 
 grandson the novelist was born — at Calcutta — 
 in 1811. There are numerous descendants of 
 the scholarly old headmaster of Harrow scat- 
 tered over the English Church, and in the 
 Indian service, and traces of the influence of 
 family connections are found all through the 
 books of the man who has made his name 
 famous. The feudal feeling of Scott — which in 
 any case is Scotch rather than English — Thack- 
 eray did not share. Heraldry to him had only 
 the quaint interest and prettiness of old china. 
 But it is impossible to appreciate either his 
 philosophy, his style, or his literary position, 
 without remembering that he was a well-born, 
 well-bred, and well-educated gentleman. 
 
 Like other English children born in India, 
 
 young Thackeray was sent home early, and the 
 voyage — during which he had an eager and 
 wondering peep at the great Napoleon in his 
 island prison — was among his earliest recollec- 
 tions. He received his education at Charter- 
 house — the well-known Greyfriars of his stories 
 — an ancient and famous public school. He 
 somewhere talks of the "monkish seclusion" of 
 his school-days, and in his critical and question- 
 ing moods he has sufficiently proved that he 
 knew the weak points of the old educational 
 system. But he never lost an opportunity of 
 showing his respect for Charterhouse, and he 
 was perfectly aware how much he owed to it. 
 In after-life, he let most of his Greek slip away ; 
 but his acquaintance with the Latin language, 
 and especially the Latin poets, was eminently 
 respectable, and exercised a profound influence 
 over his genius and his diction. The Odes of 
 Horace he knew intimately well, and there are 
 subtle indications of the knowledge — the smell 
 of Italian violets hidden in the green of his 
 prose — only to be truly enjoyed by Horatians. 
 A quotation from Horace was one of the favour- 
 ite forms in which he used to embody his jokes. 
 If you bored him with genealogy, he would be- 
 gin : 
 
 "Quantum distet ab Inacho," 
 
 which was quite a sufficient hint ; and when a 
 low fellow in London hanged himself, he observed 
 that it was a "dignus vindice nodus." Latin 
 writers, French writers, and English eighteenth- 
 century men were the three sources at which his 
 genius fed, and on which it was nourished. 
 
 From Charterhouse he went to Cambridge, 
 which he left without taking a degree ; and he 
 entered on life with health, strength, a noble 
 figure, an excellent genius, and £20,000 — the 
 last of which blessings was the first (owing, it 
 is said, to unfortunate speculations) to leave 
 him. But this loss was not complete, till he 
 had had the full benefit of a good culture and a 
 good experience. He travelled over Europe, 
 and resided in its capitals, while his mind was 
 young and fresh, and laid in those stores of 
 observation to which we owe sketches with 
 which everybody is familiar. He had an inter- 
 view with Goethe at Weimar, his description of 
 which may be seen in the "Life of Goethe," by 
 Mr Lewes ; and he studied art at Rome. If he 
 had had his choice, he would rather have been 
 famous as an artist than as a writer ; but it was 
 destined that he should paint in colours which 
 will never crack and never need restoration. 
 All his artist experience did him just as much 
 good in literature as it could have in any other 
 way ; and, in travelling through Europe to see 
 pictures, he learned not them only, but men, 
 manners, and languages. He read German ; he 
 knew French well and spoke it elegantly ; and 
 in market-places, salons, hotels, museums, 
 studios, the sketch-book of his mind was al- 
 ways filling itself. Paris was one of his most 
 
398 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 important headquarters in every way, and to 
 his stay there the world owes perhaps the best 
 of his poems — the "Chronicle of the Drum." 
 His poetic vein was curiously original. He was 
 not essentially poetical, as Tennyson, for in- 
 stance, is. Poetry was not the predominant 
 mood of his mind, or the intellectual law by 
 which the objects of his thought and observa- 
 tion were arranged and classified. But inside 
 his fine sagacious common-sense understanding, 
 there was, so to speak, a pool of poetry — like 
 the impluvium in the hall of a Roman house, 
 which gave an air of coolness and freshness and 
 nature to the solid marble columns and tessel- 
 ated floor. The highest products of this part of 
 his mind were the "Chronicle" above mentioned, 
 the "Bouillebaisse," the lines on Charles Bul- 
 ler's death at the end of one of his Christmas 
 books, and the " Ho, pretty page with dimpled 
 chin" of another of them. A song or two in 
 his novels, and some passages in which rural 
 scenery is quietly and casually described, might 
 also be specified. But all this is chiefly valu- 
 able as showing that his nature was complete, 
 and that there wanted not in his genius that 
 softer and more sensitive side natural to one 
 whose observation was so subtle and his heart 
 so kind. He was essentially rather moralist 
 and humorist — thinker and wit — than poet; 
 and he was too manly to over-work his poetic 
 vein as a man may legitimately work his mere 
 understanding. This honourable self-restraint, 
 this decent reticence, so natural to English 
 gentlemen, was by some writers of the "gushing 
 school" mistaken for hardness. The "gusher" 
 is always for plenty of sentimentalism — for show- 
 ing his heart on his sleeve, after having pre- 
 viously inflated the vessels of that organ with 
 wind to make it look bigger; and he sheds 
 "blinding tears" — as the lower animals perform 
 all the properly secret operations of nature — in 
 public. This kind of thing was not in Thack- 
 eray's way, and wide as his sympathies were, 
 he despised it. "I shall not try to describe her 
 grief," he makes Sara Titmarsh say in the 
 "Hoggarty Diamond," "for such things are 
 sacred and secret ; and a man has no business to 
 place them on record for all the world to read." 
 Few of his sentences are more characteristic. 
 
 Thackeray was still young and opulent when 
 he began to make the acquaintance of London 
 men of letters. Certain it is, that he lent — or, 
 in plainer English, gave — £500 to poor old 
 Maginn, when he was beaten in the battle of 
 life, and like other beaten soldiers made a 
 prisoner — in the Fleet. With the generation 
 going out — that of Lamb and Coleridge — he 
 had, we believe, no personal acquaintance, 
 Sydney Smith he met at a later time ; and he 
 remembered with satisfaction that something 
 which he wrote about Hood gave pleasure to 
 that delicate humorist and poet in his last 
 days. But his first friends were the Fraseriaus, 
 
 of whom Father Prout * — always his intimate— 
 xnd Carlyle — always one of his most appreciat- 
 ing friends — survive. From reminiscences of 
 the wilder lights in the Fraser constellation 
 were drawn the pictures of the queer fellows 
 connected with literature in "Pendennis" — 
 Captain Shandon — the ferocious Bludyer — stout 
 old Tom Serjeant — and so forth. Magazines in 
 those days were more brilliant than they are 
 now, when they are haunted by the fear of 
 shocking the Fogy element in their circulation ; 
 and the efi"ect of their greater freedom is seen in 
 the buoyant, riant, and unrestrained comedy of 
 Thackeray's own earlier Fraser articles. "I 
 suppose we all begin by being too savage," is 
 the phrase of a letter which he wrote in 1849; 
 " I know one who did." He was alluding here 
 to the "Yellowplush Papers" in particular, 
 where living men were very freely handled. 
 This old, wild satiric spirit it was which made 
 him interrupt even the early chapters of " Vanity 
 Fair," by introducing a parody, which he could 
 not resist, of some contemporary novelists. In 
 the last fifteen years of his life he wrote under 
 greater restraint, and with a sense of his graver 
 responsibilities as one of the leading men of 
 letters of the country. But his satire was never 
 at any time malignant ; and the fine freedom of 
 his early writing developed his genius as the 
 scenes of the arena developed the athlete. He 
 was writing for twelve or thirteen years, as a 
 professional author, before "Vanity Fair" made 
 him really known to the world at large. The 
 best works of that epoch will be found in the 
 "Miscellanies " published by Bradbury & Evans 
 in 1857. But there is much of his writing 
 buried in periodicals, some of which have been 
 long dead. He was connected with at least one 
 failure, the Parthenon — an ill-omened name 
 borne after a long interval by another journal 
 quite recently defunct. He certainly contri- 
 buted some things to the Times, during Barnes's 
 editorship — an article on Fielding amongst them; 
 though not, we should think, leading articles — 
 a kind of work for which he had no relish, and 
 for which he believed himself to have no turn. 
 Fraser was the organ with which he was most 
 successfully connected till the days of his Punch 
 engagement. It was indeed as a magazinist that 
 he educated himself for a novelist. With a 
 playful reference to his early and never-for- 
 gotten ambition to be an artist, he called him- 
 self Michael Angelo Titmarsh, and published 
 under that name not only articles but books. 
 The "Paris Sketchbook," the "Second Funeral 
 of Napoleon" (comprising the "Chronicle of a 
 Drum "), the " Fatal Boots," the " Hoggarty 
 Diamond," the "Irish Sketchbook," the "Jour- 
 ney from Cornhill to Grand Cairo," suflOiciently 
 attest his activity during the years which pre- 
 ceded the great epoch of " Vanity Fair." These 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 399 
 
 books are full of sense, and wit, and humour, 
 and it seems extraordinary that their author 
 should have been within a year or two of forty 
 before he was really famous. Their very truth- 
 fulness, however— the easy quiet of their best 
 philosophy— the slyness of their choicest irony 
 —the gentlemanly taste of their heartiest ahan- 
 don — all this was caviare to the vulgar, includ- 
 ing the vulgar of the critical press. The offer 
 of "Vanity Fair" was declined by one pub- 
 lisher; and good judges said that a necessary 
 impulse was given to its appreciation, by an 
 article during its progress, in the Edinburgh 
 Review. It was still the fashion, as far as it 
 was fashionable to speak of Thackeray at all, to 
 treat him as a satirist. An admirable satirist 
 he had, indeed, just proved himself in the " Snob 
 Papers " — a series that stands high above any- 
 thing ever given to the world in Punch, except- 
 ing Hood's "Song of the Shirt." Nor was 
 Thackeray ever ashamed of the title of satirist, 
 knowing by what great men it had been borne 
 before him, and how much honest work there 
 was in the world for satire to do. But that he 
 was a satirist only, he had proved, long before 
 the "Snob Papers," to be absurd. Anybody 
 who can read, for instance, the story of Sam 
 Titmarsh's sufferings and the loss of his child, 
 after the Diddlesex catastrophe, in the "Hog- 
 garty Diamond," without seeing that the writer's 
 tenderness and power of representing tenderness 
 were exquisitely deep and exquisitely real, may 
 conclude himself disqualified by nature for hav- 
 ing an opinion on literary matters. There are 
 few whose judgment on such things is much 
 worth — but his is certainly worth nothing. 
 
 When Thackeray wrote "Vanity Fair," in 
 1846-48, he was living in Young Street, Ken- 
 sington — a street on your left hand, before you 
 come to the church; and here, in 1848, the 
 author of this sketch had first the pleasure of 
 seeing him, of being received at his table, and 
 of knowing how essentially a kind, humane, 
 and perfectly honest man he was. "Vanity 
 Fair" was then unfinished, but its success was 
 made, and he spoke frankly and genially of his 
 work and his career. "Vanity Fair" always, 
 we think, ranked in his own mind as best in 
 story of his greater books ; and he once pointed 
 out to us the very house in Russell Square 
 where his imaginary Sedleys lived — a curious 
 proof of the reality his creations had for his 
 mind. The man and the books were equally 
 real and true ; and it was natural that he should 
 speak without hesitation of his books, if you 
 wished it ; though as a man of the world and 
 a polished gentleman who knew the world 
 thoroughly, literature "to him only took its 
 turn among other topics. From this point of 
 view, his relation to it was a good deal like that 
 of Scott. According to Lockhart, people were 
 wrong in saying that Sir Walter declined 
 at all markedly to talk about literature, and 
 
 yet his main interest was in active life. Jnst 
 so, Thackeray was not bookish, and yet turned 
 readily to the subject of books, if invited. 
 His reading was undoubtedly large in memoirs, 
 modern history, biography, poetry, essays, 
 and fiction — and, taken in conjunction with 
 his scholarship, probably placed him, as a man 
 of letters, above any other novelist except Sir 
 Bulwer Lytton. Here is a characteristic frag- 
 ment from one of his letters, written in August 
 1854, and now before us: "I hate Juvenal," 
 he says; "I mean I think him a truculent 
 brute, and I love Horace better than you do, 
 and rate Churchill much lower ; and as for 
 Swift, you haven't made me alter my opinion. 
 I admire, or rather admit, his power as much 
 as you do ; but I don't admire that kind of 
 power so much as I did fifteen years ago, or 
 twent}'- shall we say. Love is a higher intel- 
 lectual exercise than hatred ; and when you get 
 one or two more of those young ones you write 
 so pleasantly about, you'll come over to the 
 side of the kind wags, I think, rather than the 
 cruel ones." Passages like this — which men 
 who knew him will not need to have quoted to 
 them — have a double value for the world at 
 large. They not only show a familiar command 
 of writers whom it is by no means easy to know 
 well — but they show what the real philosophy 
 was of a man whom the envious represented to 
 the ignorant as a cynic and a scoffer. Why, his 
 favourite authors were just those whose influence 
 he thought had been beneficial to the cause of 
 virtue and charity. "I take off my hat to 
 Joseph Addison," he would say, after an ener- 
 getic testimony to his good effect on English 
 life. He was, in fact, even greater as a moralist 
 than as a mere describer of manners ; and his 
 very hatred of quackery and meanness was 
 proved to be real by his simplicity, humanity, 
 and kindliness of character. In private, this 
 great satirist, whose aspect in a crowd was 
 often one of austere politeness and reserve, 
 unbent into a familiar naivete which somehow 
 one seldom finds in the demonstratively genial. 
 And this was the more charming and precious 
 that it rested on a basis of severe and profound 
 reflection, before the glance of which all that 
 was dark and serious in man's life and prospects 
 lay open. The gravity of that white head, with 
 its noble brow, and thoughtful face full of feel- 
 ing and meaning, enhanced the piquancy of his 
 playfulness, and of the little personal revela- 
 tions which came with such a grace from the 
 depths of his kindly nature. When we con- 
 gratulated him, many years ago, on the touch 
 in "Vanity Fair" in which Becky "admires" 
 her husband when he is giving Lord Steyne the 
 chastisement which ruins her for life, "Well," 
 he said, " when I wrote the sentence, I slapped 
 my fist on the table, and said, ' That is a touch 
 of genius ! ' " The incident is a trifle, but it will 
 reveal, we suspect, an element of fervour, as 
 
400 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 well as a heartiness of frankness in recording 
 the fervour, both equally at variance with the 
 vulgar conception of him. This frankness and 
 bonhomie made him delightful in a titc-d-tiie, 
 and gave a pleasant human flavour to talk full 
 of sense, and wisdom, and experience, and 
 lighted up by the gaiety of the true London 
 man of the world. Though he said witty things, 
 now and then, he was not a wit in the sense in 
 which Jerrold was, and he complained, some- 
 times, that his best things occurred to him after 
 the occasion had gone by ! He shone most — as 
 in his books — in little subtle remarks on life, 
 and little descriptive sketches suggested by the 
 talk. We remember in particular, one even- 
 ing, after a dinner-party at his house, a fancy 
 picture he drew of Shakespeare during his last 
 years at Stratford, sitting out in the summer 
 afternoon watching the people, which all who 
 heard it, brief as it was, thought equal to the 
 best things in his lectures. But it was not for 
 this sort of talent — rarely exerted by him — that 
 people admired his conversation. They admired, 
 above all, the broad sagacity, sharp insight, 
 large and tolerant liberality, which marked him 
 as one who was a sage as well as a story-teller, 
 and whose stories were valuable because he was 
 a sage. Another point of likeness to him in 
 Scott was that he never overvalued story-telling, 
 or forgot that there were nobler things in litera- 
 ture than the purest creations of which the 
 object was amusement. " I would give half my 
 fame," wrote Scott, "if by so doing I could 
 place the other half on a solid basis of science 
 and learning." "Now is the time," wrote 
 Thackeray, to a young friend in 1849, "to lay 
 in stock. I wish I had had five years' reading 
 before I took to our trade." How heartily we 
 have heard him praise Sir Bulwer Lytton for 
 the good example he set by being "thoroughly 
 literate!" We are not going to trench here on 
 any such ground as Thackeray's judgments 
 about his contemporaries. But we may notice 
 an excellent point bearing on these. If he 
 heard a young fellow expressing great admira- 
 tion for one of them, he encouraged him in it. 
 When somebody was mentioned as worshipping 
 an eminent man just dead — "I am glad," said 
 Thackeray, "that he worships anybody." 
 
 After "Vanity Fair," Thackeray's fame 
 steadily increased. "Pendennis" appeared 
 during 1849 and 1850, and though it was gene- 
 rally considered inferior in mere plot to its pre- 
 decessor, no inferiority was perceived in the 
 essential qualities of character, thought, hum- 
 our, and style. The announcement in the 
 summer of 1851 that he was about to lecture on 
 the English humorists gave a thrill of pleasure 
 to intellectual London; and when he rose in 
 Willis's Rooms * to commence the course with 
 
 * Tbp statement of an Edinburgh writer that it was 
 "here " he "first " lectured, is of course a blunder. 
 
 Swift, all that was most brilliant in the capital 
 was assembled to hear him. Amidst a throng 
 of nobles, and beauties, and men of fashion, 
 were Carlyle and Macaulay — Hallam with his 
 venerable head — and Charlotte Bronte, whose 
 own fame was just at its height, and who saw 
 in the lecturer her ideal of an elevated and high- 
 minded master of literary art. The lectures 
 were thoroughly appreciated. Everybody was 
 delighted to see the great masters of English of 
 a past age brought to life again in their habits 
 as they lived, and endowed with the warm 
 human reality of the lecturer's Dobbins, and 
 Warringtons, and Pendennises. It was this 
 power, and not the literary criticism, which 
 constituted the value of Thackeray's lectures, 
 and will secure their place in the biographical 
 literature of the country. 
 
 Towards the close of 1852, "Esmond" ajr 
 peared, and Thackeray sailed for America * 
 "Esmond" constituted a new epoch in his 
 career. By this time his celebrity, and the im- 
 pression made by his distinct and peculiar 
 genius — so diflFerent from that of the commm 
 sentimental schools — had provoked a cert/ in 
 amount of reaction. Cads who disliked him as 
 a gentleman — Mechanics' Institute men yibo 
 disliked him as a scholar — Radicals who kntw 
 that he associated with the aristocracy — and 1 he 
 numerous weaklings to whom his severe tri'th 
 and perfect honesty of art seemed horrible af ler 
 the riotous animal spirits, jolly caricature, a id 
 lachrymose softness of the style which he ah as 
 putting out of fashion — this crew, we say, vi as 
 by no means satisfied with the undoubted fait 
 that Thackeray was becoming the favourite 
 writer of the cultivated classes. They accord- 
 ingly began to call his honesty cynicism, an d 
 his accuracy reporting. They forgot that teai s 
 are pure in proportion to the depth from which 
 they come, and not to the quantity in which 
 they flow, and that the tenderness of a writer is 
 to be estimated by the quality of his pathos. 
 They also forgot that as what they called hard- 
 ness was mere fidelity to truth, so what they 
 called stenographic detail was mere finish of art. 
 The richer imaginativeness of "Esmond," and 
 the freer play of feeling in which the author 
 allowed himself to indulge when dealing with a 
 past age, came in good time to rebuke cavillers, 
 and prove that Thackeray's mind was rich as 
 well as wide. "Esmond," we take it, is the 
 favourite novel of his choicest admirers. He 
 takes certain liberties with history in it. For 
 instance, the Duke of Hamilton, whom he re- 
 presents as about to marry Beatrix when he is 
 cut off in a duel, left a widow, spoken of by 
 Swift in the " Journal to Stella." But as Scott 
 
 * He recalled the present writer from a tour in 
 Scotland in October, and placed the MS. of the " Hum- 
 orists " in his hands to edit and annotate during his 
 absence. 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 401 
 
 makes Leicester quote the " Midsummer Night's 
 Dream" in "Kenilworth," when Shakespeare 
 was about twelve or thirteen years of age, this 
 may be excused. 
 
 It is a pity that Thackeray did not write ex- 
 pressly on America, for we think that he would 
 have written the most impartial English book 
 to which that country has yet given rise. When 
 he returned from this first visit, he was a good 
 deal away from town. *' Since my return from 
 America," he writes in August 1854, "I have 
 hardly been in London at all, and when here, in 
 such a skurry of business and pleasure as never 
 to call a day my own scarcely." The passage is 
 significant. Few lives were more engrossed 
 than his, discharging, as he did, at once the 
 duties of a man of letters and a man of fashion. 
 He dined out a great deal during the season. 
 He went to the theatres. He belonged to three 
 clubs — the Athenaeum, Keform, and Garrick — 
 to say nothing of minor associations for the pro- 
 motion of good fellowship. With less of this 
 wear and tear, we should have had more work 
 from him — should have had, perhaps, the history 
 which long dwelt in his imagination as one of 
 the creations of the future. As it is, he 
 achieved a great deal during the last eight or 
 ten years of his life. Two such elaborate novels 
 as the ** Newcomes " and "Virginians," a second 
 trip to America, and a ranible over Great Britain, 
 with a new set of lectures on the " Four Georges " 
 — not to mention a contested election, and 
 what he did for the Comhill established on the 
 strength of his name, and for a time directly 
 conducted by him — these were great doings for 
 a man who, though naturally robust, was plagued 
 and menaced by more than one vexatious dis- 
 order of long continuance. And he did them 
 greatly — going into the world gaily and busily 
 to the last, and always finding time for such 
 holy little oflSces of personal kindness and char- 
 ity as gave him — we believe and know — more 
 real pleasure than all his large share of the 
 world's applause. He was much gratified by 
 the success of the "Four Georges" (a series 
 which superseded an earlier scheme for as many 
 discourses on "Men of the World") in Scot- 
 land. "I have had 3 per cent, of the whole 
 population here," he wrote from Edinburgh, in 
 November 1856. ** If I could but get 3 per 
 cent, of London 1" He thoroughly appreciated 
 the attention and hospitality which he met with 
 during these lecturing tours. And if, as would 
 sometimes happen, a local notability's adoration 
 became obtrusive, or such a person thrust his 
 obsequious veneration upon him beyond the 
 limits of the becoming, his forbearance was all 
 the more respectable on account of his sensitive- 
 ness. 
 
 Latterly he had built himself a handsome 
 house in Kensington, to which he moved from 
 Onslow Square, Brompton— his residence after 
 leaving the Young Sti^'^ io which he wrote 
 
 "Vanity Fair." It was a dwelling worthy of 
 one who really represented literature in the 
 great world, and who, planting himself on his 
 books, yet sustained the character of his profes- 
 sion with all the dignity of a gentleman. A 
 friend who called on him there from Edinburgh, 
 in the summer of 1862, knowing of old his love 
 of the Venusian, playfully reminded him what 
 Horace says of those who, regardless of their 
 sepulchre, employ themselves in building houses: 
 
 " Sepulchri 
 Immemor, struis domes." 
 
 "Nay," said he, "I am memor sepulcJiri, for 
 this house will always let for so many hundreds 
 (mentioning the sum) a year." How distant, 
 then, seemed the event which has just happened, 
 and with which the mind obstinately refuses to 
 familiarise itself, though it stares at one from a 
 thousand broadsheets! Well, indeed, might 
 his passing-bell make itself heard through all 
 the myriad joy-bells of the English Christmas ! 
 It is long since England has lost such a son — it 
 will be long before she has such another to lose. 
 He was indeed emphatically English — English 
 as distinct from Scotch — no less than English as 
 distinct from Continental — a different type of 
 great man from Scott, and a different type of 
 great man from Balzac. The highest purely 
 English novelist since Fielding, he combined 
 Addison's love of virtue with Johnson's hatred 
 of cant— Horace Walpole's lynx-like eye for the 
 mean and the ridiculous, with the gentleness 
 and wide charity for mankind as a whole, of 
 Goldsmith. Non omnis mortuus est. He will 
 be remembered in his due succession with these 
 men for ages to come, as long as the hymn of 
 praise rises in the old Abbey of Westminster,* 
 and wherever the English tongue is native to 
 men, from the banks of the Ganges to those of 
 the Mississippi. t This humble tribute to his 
 illustrious and beloved memory comes from one 
 whom he loaded with benefits, and to whom it 
 will always throw something of sadness over the 
 great city where he first knew him, that it con- 
 tains his too early grave. 
 
 BKCOLLECTIONS BY J. T. FIELDS. 
 
 The most finished and elegant of all lecturers, 
 Thackeray often made a very poor appearance 
 when he attempted to deliver a set speech to a 
 public assembly. He frequently broke down 
 after the first two or three sentences. He pre- 
 pared what he intended to say with great ex- 
 actness, and his favourite delusion was that he 
 was about to astonish everybody with a remark- 
 able effort. It never disturbed him that he 
 commonly made a woful failure when he at- 
 
 * " Dum Capitolium 
 Scandet cum tacita virgine Pontifex." 
 f " Dicar qua violens obstrepit Aufidus," etc. 
 
 2 C 
 
402 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tempted speech-making, but he sat down with 
 such cool serenity if he found that he could not 
 recall what he wished to say, that his audience 
 could not help joining in and smiling with him 
 when he came to a stand-still. Once he asked 
 me to travel with him from London to Man- 
 chester to hear a great speech he was going to 
 make at the founding of the Free Library 
 Institution in that city. All the way down he 
 was discoursing of certain effects he intended to 
 produce on the Manchester dons by his eloquent 
 appeals to their pockets. This passage was to 
 have great influence with the rich merchants, 
 this one with the clergy, and so on. He said 
 that although Dickens and Bulwer and Sir 
 James Stephen, all eloquent speakers, were to 
 precede him, he intended to beat each of them 
 on this special occasion. He insisted that I 
 should be seated directly in front of him so that 
 I should have the full force of his magic elo- 
 quence. The occasion was a most brilliant one ; 
 tickets had been in demand at unheard-of prices 
 several weeks before the day appointed ; the 
 great hall, then opened for the first time to the 
 public, was filled by an audience such as is sel- 
 dom convened, even in England. The three 
 speeches which came before Thackeray was 
 called upon were admirably suited to the occa- 
 sion, and most eloquently spoken. Sir John 
 Potter, who presided, then rose, and after some 
 complimentary allusions to the author of ' ' Vanity 
 Fair," introduced him to the crowd, who wel- 
 comed him with ringing plaudits. As he rose 
 he gave me a half-wink from under his spec- 
 tacles, as if to say : ' ' Now for it ; the others 
 have done very well, but I will show 'em a 
 grace beyond the reach of their art." He began 
 in a clear and charming manner, and was abso- 
 lutely perfect for three minutes. In the middle 
 of a most earnest and elaborate sentence he sud- 
 denly stopped, and gave a look of comic despair 
 at the ceiling, crammed both hands into his 
 trousers' pockets and deliberately sat down. 
 Everybody seemed to understand that it was 
 one of Thackeray's unfinished speeches, and 
 there were no signs of surprise or discontent 
 among his audience. He continued to sit on 
 the platform in a perfectly composed manner, 
 and when the meeting was over he said to me 
 without a sign of discomfiture, " My boy, you 
 have my profoundest sympathy; this day you 
 have accidentally missed hearing one of the 
 finest speeches ever composed for delivery by a 
 great British orator." And I never heard him 
 mention the subject again. . . . 
 
 Thackeray rarely took any exercise, thus liv- 
 ing in striking contrast to the other celebrated 
 novelist of our time, who was remarkable for 
 the number of hours he daily spent in the open 
 air. It seems to be almost certain now, from 
 concurrent testimony, gathered from physicians 
 and those who knew him best in England, that 
 Thackeray's premature death was hastened by 
 
 an utter disregard of the natural laws. His 
 vigorous frame gave ample promise of longevity, 
 but he drew too largely on his brain and not 
 enough on his legs. High living and high 
 thinking, he used to say, was the correct reading 
 of the proverb. 
 
 He was a man of the tenderest feelings, very apt 
 to be cajoled into doing what the world calls fool- 
 ish things, and constantly performing feats of 
 un-wisdom, which performances he was immo- 
 derately laughing at all the while in his books. 
 No man has impaled snobbing with such a 
 stinging rapier, but he always accused himself 
 of being a snob, past all cure. This I make no 
 doubt was one of his exaggerations, but there 
 was a grain of truth in the remark, which so 
 sharp an observer as himself could not fail to 
 notice, even though the victim was so near Lome. 
 
 Thackeray and the Oyster. — Thackeray an- 
 nounced to me by letter in the early autumn of 
 1852 that he had determined to visit America, 
 and would sail for Boston by the ** Canada " on 
 the 30th of October. All the necessary arrange- 
 ments for his lecturing tour had been made 
 without troubling him with any of the details. 
 He arrived on a frosty November evening and 
 went directly to the Tremont House, where 
 rooms had been engaged for him. I remember 
 his delight in getting off the sea, and the enthu- 
 siasm with which he hailed the announcement 
 that dinner would be ready shortly. A few 
 friends were ready to sit down with him, and 
 he seemed greatly to enjoy the novelty of an 
 American repast. In London he had been very 
 curious in his inquiries about American oysters, 
 as marvellous stories, which he did not believe, 
 had been told him of their great size. We 
 apologised — although we had taken care that 
 the largest specimens to be procured should 
 startle his unwonted vision when he came to 
 the table — for what we called the extreme small- 
 ness of the oysters, promising that we would 
 do better next time. Six bloated Falstaffian 
 bivalves lay before him in their shells. I noticed 
 that he gazed at them anxiously with fork up- 
 raised ; then he whispered to me with a look of 
 anguish, " How shall I do it?" I described to 
 him the simple process by which the free-born 
 citizens of America were accustomed to accom- 
 plish such a task. He seemed satisfied that the 
 thing was feasible, selected the smallest one in 
 the half-dozen (rejecting a large one, " because," 
 he said, "it resembled the high priest's ser- 
 vant's ear that Peter cut off"), and then bowed 
 his head as if he were saying grace. All eyes 
 were upon him to watch the effect of a new 
 sensation in the person of a great British author. 
 Opening his mouth very wide, he struggled for 
 a moment, and then all was over. I shall never 
 forget the comic look of despair he cast upon 
 the other five over-occupied shells. I broke the 
 perfect stillness by asking him how he felt. 
 "Profoundly grateful," he gasped, "and as if 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 403 
 
 I had swallowed a little baby." It was many- 
 years ago since we gathered about him on that 
 occasion, but if my memory serves me, we had 
 what might be called a 'pleasant evening. In- 
 deed, I remember much hilarity, and sounds as 
 of men laughing and singing far into midnight. 
 I could not deny, if called upon to testify in 
 court, that we had a good time on that frosty 
 November evening. 
 
 The " Cornhill Magazine.'*— Th.Q enormous 
 circulation achieved by the Cornhill Magazine, 
 when it was first started with Thackeray for its 
 editor-in-chief, is a matter of literary history. 
 The announcement by his publishers that a sale 
 of 110,000 of the first number had been reached 
 made the editor half delirious with joy, and he 
 ran away to Paris to be rid of the excitement 
 for a few days. I met him by appointment at 
 his hotel in the Eue de la Paix, and found him 
 wild with exultation and full of enthusiasm for 
 excellent George Smith, his publisher. "Lon- 
 don," he exclaimed, " is not big enough to con- 
 tain me now, and I am obliged to add Paris to 
 my residence ! Great heavens," said he, throw- 
 ing up his long arms, "where will this tre- 
 mendous circulation stop ! Who knows but 
 that I shall have to add Vienna and Rome to 
 my whereabouts ? If the worst come to the 
 worst. New York, also, may fall into my 
 clutches, and only the Rocky Mountains may 
 be able to stop my progress ! " Those days in 
 Paris with him were simply tremendous. We 
 dined at all possible and impossible places 
 together. We walked round and round the 
 glittering court of the Palais Royal, gazing in 
 at the windows of the jewellers' shops, and all 
 my efforts were necessary to restrain him from 
 rushing in and ordering a pocketful of dia- 
 monds and " other trifles," as he called them; 
 '* for," said he, *' how can I spend the princely 
 income which Smith allows me for editing the 
 Cornhill, unless I begin instantly somewhere ? " 
 If he saw a group of three or four persons talk- 
 ing together in an excited way, after the manner 
 of that then riant Parisian people, he would 
 whisper to me with immense gesticulation, 
 "There, there, you see the news has reached 
 Paris, and perhaps the number has gone up 
 since my last accounts from London." His 
 spirits during those few days were colossal, and 
 he told me that he found it impossible to sleep, 
 "for counting up his subscribers." 
 
 I happened to know personally (and let me 
 modestly add, with some degree of sympathy) 
 what he suffered editorially, when he had the 
 charge and responsibility of a magazine. With 
 first-class contributors he got on very well, he 
 said, but the extortioners and revilers bothered 
 the very life out of him. He gave me some 
 amusing accounts of his misunderstandings with 
 the "fair" (as he loved to call them), some of 
 whom followed him up so closely with their 
 poetical compositions, that his house (he was 
 
 then living in Onslow Square) was never free 
 of interruption. "The darlings demanded," 
 said he, "that I should re-write, if I could not 
 
 understand their nonsense, and put their 
 
 halting lines into proper form." " I was so ap- 
 palled," said he, "when they set upon me with 
 their *ipics and their ipecacs,' that you might 
 have knocked me down with a feather, sir. It 
 was insupportable, and I fled away to France." 
 As he went on, waxing drolly furious at the 
 recollection of various editorial scenes, i' could 
 not help remembering Mr Yellowplush's recom- 
 mendation, thus characteristically expressed: 
 " Take my advice, honrabble sir — listen to a 
 humble footmin : it's genrally best in poatry to 
 understand puffickly what you mean yourself, 
 and to igspress your meaning clearly afterwards 
 — in the simpler words the better, p'r'apa." 
 
 He took very great delight in ]ds young 
 daughter's first contributions to the Cwnhill, 
 and I shall always remember how lie made me 
 get into a cab, one day in London, tlj at J might 
 hear, as we rode along, the joyful nefi s he had 
 to impart, that he had just been ve^^Jing his 
 daughter's first paper, which was i"rititled, 
 " Little Scholars. " " When I read it," asiid he, 
 "I blubbered like a child, it is so good, so 
 simple, and so honest ; and my little girl wrote 
 it, every word of it." . . . 
 
 Thackeray was a master in every sense, hav- 
 ing, as it were, in himself a double quantity of 
 being. Robust humour and lofty sentiment 
 alternated so strangely in him, that sometimes 
 he seemed like the natural son of Rabelais, and 
 at others he rose up a very twin brother of the 
 Stratford seer. There was nothing in him 
 amorphous and unconsidered. Whatever he 
 chose to do was always perfectly done. There 
 was a genuine Thackeray flavour in everything 
 he was willing to say or to write. He detected 
 with unfailing skill the good or the vile wher- 
 ever it existed. He had an unerring eye, a 
 firm understanding, and abounding truth. 
 "Two of his great master powers," said the 
 chairman at a dinner given to him many years 
 ago in Edinburgh, "are satire and sympathy." 
 George Brinely remarked "that he could not 
 have painted ' Vanity Fair ' as he has, unless 
 Eden had been shining in his inner eye." He 
 had, indeed, an awful insight, with a world of 
 solemn tenderness and simplicity in his com- 
 position. Those who heard the same voice that 
 withered the memory of King George IV. repeat 
 "The spacious firmament on high," have a re- 
 collection not easily to be blotted from the 
 mind, and I have a kind of pity for all who 
 were born so recently as not to have heard and 
 understood Thackeray's lectures. But they can 
 read him, and I beg of them to try and ap- 
 preciate the tenderer phase of his genius, as 
 well as the sarcastic one. He teaches many 
 lessons to young men, and here is one of them, 
 which I quote memoriter from "Barry Lyndon :" 
 
404 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 **Do you not, as a boy, remember waking 
 of bright summer mornings and finding your 
 mother looking over you? Had not the gaze 
 of her tender eyes stolen into your senses long 
 before you woke, and cast over your slumber- 
 ing spirit a sweet spell of peace, and love, and 
 fresh-springing joy?" My dear friend, John 
 Brown of Edinburgh (whom may God long pre- 
 serve to both countries where he is so loved and 
 honoured), chronicles this touching incident: 
 *'We cannot resist here recalling one Sunday 
 evening in December, when Thackeray was 
 walking with two friends along the Dean Road 
 to the west of Edinburgh — one of the noblest 
 outlets to any city. It was a lovely evening ; 
 such a sunset as one never forgets ; a rich dark 
 bar of cloud hovered over the sun, going down 
 behind the Highland hills, lying bathed in 
 amethystine bloom. Between this cloud and 
 the hills there was a narrow slip of the pure 
 ether, of a tender cowslip colour, lucid, and as 
 if it were the very body of heaven in its clear- 
 ness, every object standing out as if etched 
 upon the sky. The north-west end of Corstor- 
 phine Hill, with its trees and rocks, lay in the 
 heart of this pure radiance ; and there a wooden 
 crane, used in the granary below, was so placed 
 as to assume the figure of a cross ; there it was, 
 unmistakable, lifted up against the crystalline 
 sky. All three gazed at it silently. As they 
 gazed, Thackeray gave utterance in a tremulous, 
 gentle, and rapid voice, to what all were feeling 
 in the word, 'Calvary!' The friends walked 
 on in silence, and then turned to other things. 
 All that evening he was very gentle and serious, 
 speaking as he seldom did of Divine things, of 
 death, of sin, of eternity, of salvation, express- 
 ing his simple faith in God and in his Saviour. " 
 Thackeray was found dead in his bed on Christ- 
 mas morning, and he probably died without 
 pain. His mother and his daughters were 
 sleeping under the same roof when he passed 
 away alone. Dickens told me that, looking on 
 him as he lay in his coffin, he wondered that 
 the figure he had known in life as one of such 
 noble presence could seem so shrunken and 
 wasted; but there had been years of sorrow, 
 years of labour, years of pain, in that now ex- 
 hausted life. It was his happiest Christmas 
 morning when he heard the Voice calling him 
 homeward to unbroken rest.* 
 
 THACKERAY AT HOME.f 
 
 I used to see a good deal of Mr Thackeray. 
 He was liviog at that time in his new house in 
 Brompton, which he told me he had purchased, 
 together with the furniture contained in it, from 
 the proceeds of his lectures in America upon the 
 
 * "Yesterdays with Authors." By J. T. Fields. 
 \ "Memories of Many Men and of Some Women." 
 By Maunsell B. Field. 
 
 '* Four Georges." When I found him at home, 
 he was sometimes engaged in dictating to his 
 daughter, and my calls upon these occasions 
 were necessarily brief. His health was not 
 very good, and he often dictated lying upon 
 the bed, while Miss Thackeray sat upon a chair 
 at its side, with a table before her upon which 
 she wrote. I dined with him one day at the 
 Reform Club. He was a great gourmet, although 
 not a great eater, and that day he was suffering 
 from a severe headache. After the soup and 
 the fish had both been removed, he told me that 
 the next dish would be one of his own invention. 
 It proved to be a boiled pheasant with a soubise 
 sauce, and it was really delicious. Between us 
 we could not eat more than half of the bird, 
 and he sent what remained with his compli- 
 ments to a friend, who was dining on the other 
 side of the room. Such a proceeding would 
 look odd in one of our New York clubs, but 
 I presume that it could not be unusual there. 
 
 After dinner we withdrew, or rather ascended, 
 to the smoking-room, where Mr Thackeray in- 
 troduced me to several Members of Parliament, 
 and, excusing himself on account of his head- 
 ache, retired, leaving me to be entertained by 
 them. I have always found it a severe ordeal 
 to be left to the tender mercies of a Member of 
 Parliament. They are so well-informed about 
 this country, so familiar with the Federalist 
 and other writings of the Fathers, and so 
 thoroughly versed in our more recent his- 
 tory, that it is not very easy to hold up one's 
 end of the rope in a conversation with them 
 turning upon these subjects. And these are 
 the subjects upon which they naturally desire to 
 hear an American talk. 
 
 I was one day walking with Mr Thackeray, 
 when something was said by me about JMr 
 Dickens. Thereupon Thackeray, in the most 
 naive manner in the world, remarked to me 
 that it was very strange, but nevertheless a 
 fact, that Dickens's publishers sold five copies of 
 any one of his books, for one copy which his 
 booksellers sold of any of his. It did not 
 appear to me so very singular, but I did not say 
 so. The one appealed to only the cultivated 
 class, the other to all classes. The one was a 
 great humorist and moral anatomist, and the 
 other a great humanitarian. I then referred to 
 the rumour, at that time in general circulation, 
 that Dickens was in pecuniary embarrassments 
 by reason of his extravagant living, and was 
 contemplating a flight from England to avoid 
 his creditors. Thackeray with great warmth 
 denied this story as a gross calumny. He said 
 that he was acquainted with Dickens's affairs, 
 and that, so far from exceeding his means, he 
 had always lived within them. He complained 
 very much of the annoyances of notoriety. He 
 said that he could not walk a foot in London 
 without being recognised, and that he found 
 til is a great penalty for literary fame. 
 
:SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. 
 
 405 
 
 CHARACTER OP THACKERAY. 
 
 A hundred admirers of Thackeray might 
 nndertake to write a memoir of him, and yet 
 the task of doing full justice to his character 
 and career must necessarily be left to a chosen 
 future historian, who shall zealously gather to- 
 gether all the bits and fragments to be found 
 scattered among books and men, and blend 
 them into a substantial and permanent shape. 
 But it must be admitted that there is an excep- 
 tional difficulty in regard to Thackeray, inas- 
 much as there were few whom he allowed to 
 know him, in the true sense of the phrase — that 
 is to say, there was a constitutional reserve in 
 his manner, accompanied, at times, by a cold 
 austerity which led to some misgivings as to the 
 possibility of his being the pleasant social com- 
 panion his intimates often described him to be. 
 And yet it is well known to those who saw 
 much of Thackeray in his familiar moments 
 that he could be essentially "jolly" (a favourite 
 term of his) when the humour suited him, and 
 that he would on such occasions open his heart 
 as freely as if the word "reticence" formed no 
 part of his vocabulary ; whereas at other times 
 he would keep himself entirely within himself, 
 and answer a question by a monosyllable, or 
 peradventure by a significant movement of the 
 head. At one moment he would look you full 
 in the face and greet you jauntily, at another he 
 would turn from you with a peculiar waving of 
 
 the hand, which of course indicated that he had 
 no desire to talk. Men who were members of 
 the same club with him have been heard to say 
 that sometimes he would pass them in the 
 lobbies unnoticed, and at others he would cheer- 
 fully initiate a conversation, and leave behind 
 him an impression that sullenness or hauteur 
 was wholly foreign to his nature. It should be 
 stated, however, that his health for many years 
 had never been entirely unimpaired, and that 
 his acute sensibility often rendered it irksome 
 to him to come in contact with his fellow-men. 
 In short, he was essentially of a nervous tem- 
 perament, and altogether deficient in that vigor- 
 ous self-possession which enables a man to shine 
 in public assemblies, for it was absolute pain 
 to him to be called upon to make a speech, and 
 even in ordinary conversation he showed no 
 particular desire to hold a prominent place. 
 But the above considerations apart, it would be 
 easier to know many men in a few days than it 
 would be thoroughly to understand Thackeray 
 in the same number of years ; for semjper idem 
 was not his motto, and his genius was — as it un- 
 doubtedly had a perfect right to be — wayward 
 and capricious. Douglas Jerrold, dating his 
 acquaintance with Thackeray from the time 
 that the latter, by some curious hazard, illus- 
 trated his book of "Men of Character," was 
 often heard to say, " I have known Thackeray 
 eighteen years, and don't know him yet."— - 
 
 HODDER. 
 
 SIK JAMES Y. SIMPSOK 
 [1811-1870.] 
 
 Bathgate, a Scottish country town of fair 
 size, lies in a district rich in coal, shale, 
 ironstone, and limestone, about eighteen miles 
 west from Edinburgh. Looking southwards 
 from the slope of the hill overlooking the town, 
 the eye meets the line of the Pentlands, inter- 
 sected with deep valleys and ravines, the country 
 between is dotted with oil-works, which at night 
 look like a village on fire. Eastward Arthur's 
 Seat and Edinburgh Castle loom largely through 
 the haze of distance ; westward is an undulating 
 agricultural tract ; northwards the eye meets the 
 blue line of the Firth of Forth, extending up- 
 wards towards Stirling. The town probably 
 did not number over 3000 inhabitants when 
 James Young Simpson was born there, 7th 
 June 1811. His immediate ancestry on both 
 father and mother's side came of a good farmer's 
 stock. Further back, on his mother's side, he 
 was allied with the gentle blood of Scotland; 
 on the father's side with a race of vigorous limb, 
 
 strong will, and great shrewdness and industry. 
 His father's name was David Simpson, and his 
 mother's Mary Jarvey. At the time of the birth 
 of the seventh son and eighth child, the fortunes 
 of David Simpson were at a very low ebb. The 
 drawings in the baker's shop, on the day on 
 which James Y. Simpson was born, amounted 
 to 8s. 3d. Mrs Simpson, a woman of energy 
 and tact, discovering this state of affairs, turned 
 her attention to the details of the business, which 
 afterwards continued fairly prosperous. 
 
 Mary Simpson was one of the best of mothers, 
 always displaying much force of character, along 
 with a quiet, loving disposition. She died when 
 James was nine years of age, but the memory of 
 her prayers remained with him through life. 
 The cares of the household then fell upon his 
 only sister Mary. He was sent to school when 
 four years of age. His school tasks were easy 
 work for him, and his love of knowledge and of 
 a good bone of fact was insatiable ; so much so, 
 
406 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 that on overhearing some one say that "the 
 Bible and Shakespeare are the best books in the 
 world," he remarked, "The Bible, and Shake- 
 speare, and Oliver & Boyd's Almanac ! At 
 least I know the Almanac would have been the 
 greatest prize for me when a boy." At home 
 he was gentle and obliging, and made himself 
 useful in the shop, and in delivering bread 
 around the neighbourhood. He never felt the 
 straits of pinching poverty which so nearly 
 threatened his elder brothers, the business hav- 
 ing prospered from the date of his birth. During 
 one of his earliest visits to Edinburgh he made 
 his way direct to Greyfriars Churchyard, where 
 he copied an inscription on one of the tomb- 
 stones. 
 
 With an early longing for student life he 
 entered Edinburgh University at the age of four- 
 teen, attending the junior Greek and Humanity 
 classes in session 1825-26, under Professors Dun- 
 bar and Pillans. In 1827-28 he enrolled as a 
 student of medicine, and during the same session 
 attended the classes of Natural Philosophy, 
 Moral Philosophy, and the third Greek class. 
 When entering on his second session he was 
 fortunate enough to secure a bursary of the 
 value of £10, tenable for three years. He had 
 joined an old friend, John Reid, who then lodged 
 with Dr Macarthur, in No. 1 Adam Street. One 
 of the first books he bought on coming to Edin- 
 burgh was " The Economy of Human Life," for 
 which he paid ninepence. He was strictly 
 economical, and kept an exact note of his ex- 
 penses, which at the end of the session he sub- 
 mitted to the family. The rent of his room was 
 not more than three shillings a week. His 
 little cash-book contained such entries as the fol- 
 lowing : *' Vegetables and ' Byron's Beauties ; ' " 
 " Finnen Hadies, 2d; and Bones of the Leg, 
 £1, Is.;" "Subject, £2; Spoon, 6d. ; and 
 Bread and Tart, one shilling and eightpence ; 
 Fur Cap, 14sh. ; Mary's Tippet, 2sh. and 6d. ; 
 Duncan's 'Therapeutics,' 9d, ;" "SuuflF, l|d. ; 
 and a book on 'Early Rising,' 9|d." One of 
 his father's letters to him, written in 1826, ran 
 as follows : 
 
 " My dear Son, — I am glad to hear by John 
 Pearson that you are well. I intended to be in 
 Edinburgh this month, but I find it is out of 
 my power. Be so good as write me what 
 money you will take to bring you out. James, 
 I am now turning old, and wearing awa' like 
 the snaw among the thaw. I have had a weary 
 winter, but will be glad to see you at Bathgate." 
 David Simpson died in 1839. 
 
 He attended closely, and benefited largely 
 from, Professor l4iston's surgery classes. It was 
 while attending Liston's surgery classes, and 
 witnessing the operations, " that he first began 
 to grope after means for the alleviation of pain 
 when the patient was in the hands of the 
 operator. After seeing the terrible agony of a 
 Highland womar under amputation of the 
 
 breast, he left the class-room, and went straight 
 to the Parliament House to seek work as a 
 writer's clerk." So the question, "Can any. 
 thing be done to make operations less painful?" 
 became a pressing one with him. He passed 
 with ease and credit in the examination for his 
 degree, and became a member of the Royal 
 College of Surgeons before he was nineteen 
 years of age. As he could not take his degree 
 as a physician until he was twenty-one, he re- 
 turned for a time to Bathgate. He entered 
 college again in 1831, and became first assistant 
 to Dr Gairdner in dispensary work, to whom he 
 gave the utmost satisfaction. In 1832 he re- 
 ceived the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Re- 
 ferring to this period of his life, long after- 
 wards, he said: '"Tis fully forty years since I 
 came first to Edinburgh, and entered its uni- 
 versity as a very, very young, and very solitary, 
 verypoor, and almost friendless student. . . . 
 Nor was my original ambition in any way very 
 great. After obtaining my surgical diploma I 
 became a candidate for a situation in the west 
 of Scotland, for the attainment of which I 
 fancied I possessed some casual local interest. 
 The situation was surgeon to the small village 
 of Inverkip, on the Clyde. When not selected I 
 felt perhaps a deeper amount of chagrin and 
 disappointment than I have ever experienced 
 since that date. If chosen, I would probably 
 have been working there as a village doctor still. 
 But like many other men I have, in relation to 
 my whole fate in life, found strong reason to 
 recognise the mighty fact, that assuredly 
 
 ' There's a Divinity that shapes our ends. 
 Rough hew them as you will.' 
 
 Yes, in the language of the French proverb, 
 'Man proposes, but God disposes.'" 
 
 When his literary studies at the university 
 were finished, he threw himself, heart and soul, 
 into his medical studies. Dr John Thomson, 
 an eminent physician, saw in young Simpson a 
 possible assistant, and engaged him at the 
 modest salary of £50 a year. This sura he 
 made to sufllce for all his wants. "Professor 
 Thomson," he wrote, "engaged me as his assis- 
 tant, and hence, in brief, I came to settle down 
 a citizen of Edinburgh, and fight amongst you a 
 hard and uphill battle of life for bread, and 
 name, and fame." Between the years 1831-36, 
 at Dr Thomson's request, he turned his atten- 
 tion to the study of obstetric medicine. Already 
 he had shown marked powers of concentration 
 of mind, and in commendation of work and 
 diligence he once said: "Sir Isaac Newton, 
 whose gigantic genius and intellectual strength 
 have fixed upon him the admiration and wonder 
 of his race, modestly averred that his mental 
 superiority, if any, consisted, in his own opinion, 
 only of unusual powers of patient thought and 
 industry. The unparalleled greatness in the 
 results of his thoughts was owing, according to 
 
S//^ JAMES V. SIMPSON. 
 
 407 
 
 his own interpretation, merely to his hahit of 
 unparalleled endurance and assiduity in the 
 exercise of thinking." When he was cautioned 
 by his sister Mary in 1834 for working too hard, 
 he said: "Well, I am sure, it's just to please 
 you all." In 1833 he became a member of the 
 Koyal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and in 
 1835, in company with Dr Douglas Maclagan, 
 and by the ever-ready liberality of his brothers, 
 Alexander and John, he was enabled to visit 
 the chief schools of medicine, and the hospitals 
 of England and France. In session 1835-36 he 
 was elected senior president of the Royal Medical 
 Society. His appearance, when presiding at one 
 of the meetings of the society, has been thus 
 described: *'As we entered the room his head 
 was bent down, to enable him, in his elevated 
 position, to converse with some one on the floor 
 of the apartment, and little was seen but a mass 
 of long, tangled hair, partially concealing what 
 appeared to be a head of very large size. He 
 raised his head, and his countenance at once 
 impressed us. A poet has since described him 
 as one of 'Iconic aspect.' Not such do we re- 
 member him. A pale, large, rather flattish 
 face, massive, brent brows, from under which 
 shone eyes, now piercing as it were to your 
 inmost soul, now melting into almost feminine 
 tenderness, a coarsish nose, with dilated nos- 
 trils, a finely-chiselled mouth, which seemed 
 the most expressive feature of the face, and 
 capable of being made at will the exponent of 
 every passion and emotion. Who could describe 
 that smile ? When even the sun has tried it he 
 has failed ; and yet who can recall those features 
 and not realise it as it played round the deli- 
 cate lites of the upper lip, where firmness was 
 strangely blended with other and apparently 
 opposing qualities?" His general deportment 
 has thus been summed up : "He could be con- 
 siderate in a sick room, genial at a feast, joyous 
 at a festival, capable of discourse with many 
 minds, large-souled, not to be shrivelled up into 
 anyone form, fashion, or temperament." When 
 rapidly climbing the ladder of life, and when he 
 was daily gaining an increased practice, he still 
 kept himself interested in all his old school- 
 mates and Bathgate friends. 
 
 We now come to a turning-point in his career. 
 Professor Hamilton resigned the Midwifery chair 
 in the university in 1839, and Dr Simpson an- 
 nounced himself as a candidate. By hard work 
 and a stiff canvass amongst the members of the 
 town council, who were the patrons, he was 
 elected by a majority of one. Partly because 
 his celibacy had been an objection to his elec- 
 tion, and now that his position fairly war- 
 ranted such a change, he was married, on the 
 26th of December 1839, to Miss Jessie Griudlay, 
 daughter of Mr Grindlay, shipowner, Liverpool. 
 The honeymoon was protracted until after the 
 election, and his Liverpool letter, telling of his 
 success, ran thus : 
 
 *'Mt dear Mother, — Jessie's honeymoon 
 and mine is to begin to-morrow. I was elected 
 professor to - day by a majority of one. 
 Hurrah 1 ! . — Your ever affectionate son, 
 
 "J. Y. Simpson." 
 
 The congratulations of his sister Mary, who 
 was just leaving for Van Dieman's Land with her 
 husband, were very true, and tender, and sisterly : 
 "My dear, dear, and fortunate brother," she 
 wrote, " I have taken up my pen to wish you 
 joy^ joy; ^^^ I feel I am scarcely able to write. 
 I never believed till now that excess of joy was 
 worse to bear than excess of grief. I cannot 
 describe how, but I certainly feel as I never 
 did all my life. I hope we will still be here 
 to-morrow to learn all the particulars of this 
 happy event. My dear, dear James, may God 
 himself bless you, and prosper you in all your 
 ways. — Your sincerely affectionate sister. Mart 
 Pearson. " And long afterwards she again wrote 
 to his wife: "I am delighted with your description 
 of your dear little Maggie. All that you write 
 of James, my James (for I have both a mother's 
 and a sister's love for him), is just what I ex- 
 pected. I knew he would be as kind a husband 
 as a brother. It is with feeliD.js of proud joy I 
 hear of his unbounded success. Long, long may 
 he be spared to be useful to others, and a joy tc 
 us all." Professor Duns, his biographer, truly 
 remarks that "Mary had guided him from 
 childhood with deep and watchful love. In her 
 care and keeping he had often felt ' as one whom 
 his mother comforteth.' Her praise had fre- 
 quently been to him an excitement and spur to 
 exertion. The care with which he preserved 
 her note from * Ramsgate Harbour,' shows how 
 much calm content it bad given him — linking, 
 as it forcibly did, this triumph in a great con- 
 test with the memory of all the love and en- 
 couragement that he had received from her and 
 his brothers, but chiefly from her and his be- 
 loved 'Sandy.'" 
 
 The members of the medical profession, it has 
 been remarked, are often peculiarly conserva- 
 tive regarding new discoveries or new methods 
 of work. Simpson was entirely free from this, 
 indeed, "in the advocacy or defence of new 
 methods of treatment, or of new remedies, he 
 seldom took into account the prejudices, or even 
 the honest convictions, of others." In his first 
 session as professor, he met with some sharp 
 antagonism, which he repelled as sharply. Re- 
 garding the way in which he did his professorial 
 work, Professor Duns writes: "His genial bear- 
 in<^ among the students, the earnest way in 
 which he did the work of the class, the forcible 
 and lucid style of his prelections, his breadth of 
 view as a public teacher, the pleasant talk and 
 sallies of quiet humour with which he often re- 
 lieved the dry exposition of methods of research 
 or the didactic statement of principles, tho 
 abundance and freshness of his illustrative facts. 
 
and his happy art of laying fields of thought out- 
 side of his profession under contribution, to give 
 force and clearness to the special topics under 
 review, all conduced to make him a favourite of 
 the students generally, and to win the admira- 
 tion, respect, and love of those who were fore- 
 most among them in mental power and accom- 
 plishments." 
 
 An address which Professor Simpson delivered 
 to medical students contains the following high 
 ideal of his profession : 
 
 **The profession is," he said, "in many re- 
 spects, the most important secular profession 
 which a man can follow. Its importance de- 
 pends on the priceless value of the objects of the 
 physician's care and study, viz., the guardian- 
 ship of the health and lives of our brother men, 
 and the defence of the human body and human 
 mind against the attacks and effects of disease. 
 Other pursuits become insignificant in their 
 objects when placed in comparison with this. 
 The agriculturist bestows all his professional 
 care and study in the rearing of crops and 
 cattle; the merchant spends his energies and 
 attention on his goods and his commissions ; the 
 engineer, upon his iron wheels and rails; the 
 sailor, upon his ships and freights ; the banker, 
 upon his bills and his bonds ; and the manufac- 
 turer, upon his spindles and their products. 
 But what, after all, are machinery and merchan- 
 dise, shares and stocks, consols and prices current, 
 or the rates of cargoes and cattle, of corns and 
 cottons, in comparison with the inestimable 
 value and importance of the health and the very 
 lives of those fellow-men who everywhere move, 
 and breathe, and speak, and act around us? 
 What are any, or what are all, of these objects 
 when contrasted with the most precious and 
 valued gift of God to earth — human life? And 
 what would not the greatest and most success- 
 ful followers of such varied callings give out of 
 their professional stores for the restoration of 
 health and for the prolongation of life, if the 
 first were once lost to them, or if the other were 
 merely menaced by the dreaded and blighted 
 finger of disease ? , . . Nat^^re has happily 
 ordained it as one of the great laws on which 
 she has founded our moral happiness, that the 
 performance of love and kindness to others 
 should be a genuine and never-failing source of 
 pleasure to our own hearts. It is thus strictly 
 as well as poetically true : 
 
 ♦That seeking others' good, we find our own.' 
 
 "The exercise of the profession is, when fol- 
 lowed out in its proper spirit, a continued 
 realisation of active beneficence, and, in this 
 view, a continued source of moral satisfaction 
 and happiness to the generous heart. The 
 objects and powers of your art are alike great 
 and elevated. Your aim is, as far as possible, 
 to alleviate human suffering and lengthen out 
 haman existence. Your ambition is to gladden 
 
 as well as to prolong the course of human life, 
 by warding off disease as the greatest of mortal 
 evils, and restoring health, and even, at times, 
 reason itself, as the greatest of mortal blessings. 
 If I may borrow the beautiful language of the 
 author of * The Village : ' 
 
 " * Glorious your aim — to ease the labouring heart. 
 To war with death, and stop his flying dart ; 
 To trace the source whence the fierce contest 
 
 grew, 
 And life's short lease on easier terms renew ; 
 To calm the phrensy of the burning brain, 
 And heal the tortures of imploring pain ; 
 Or, when more powerful ills all eflEorts brave, 
 To ease the victim no device can save, 
 And smooth the stormy passage to the grave. 
 
 I repeat it — if you follow these, the noble objects 
 of your profession, in a proper spirit of love and 
 kindness to your race, the pure light of benevo- 
 lence will shed around the path of your toils 
 and labours the brightness and beauty that will 
 cheer you onwards, and keep your steps from 
 being weary in well-doing ; while, if you practise 
 the art that you profess with a cold-hearted 
 view to its results merely as a matter of lucre 
 and trade, your course will be as dark and 
 miserable as that low and grovelling love that 
 dictates it." 
 
 He was now a prosperous man, and in the 
 first three months of 1844 he received £1000 as 
 fees. At the close of 1845, his practice was still 
 increasing amongst the nobility and aristocracy. 
 He bought a house at No. 62 Queen Street, 
 where, even at this early date, patients sought him 
 in such numbers, that his limited time and other 
 engagements would not permit him to overtake 
 half of them. Country cases received his special 
 attention. His correspondence increased, and 
 he received frequent visits from strangers — 
 English, Continental, and American — who all 
 made demands upon his time. Those who were 
 still disaffected towards him spread the report 
 that his patients were neglected. One man of 
 wealth enclosed him £10 where £100 might have 
 been expected. He received an urgent and in- 
 sulting note from the friends of a lady in the 
 country for inattention. It turned out that the 
 '* very urgent matter " was whether three leeches 
 should be applied to the hip-joint, as recom- 
 mended by him, or if two only should be applied, 
 as recommended by the country practitioner. 
 In January 1847 he received the honour of ap- 
 pointment as one of her Majesty's physicians 
 for Scotland, regarding which the Queen, in a 
 private letter to the Duchess of Sutherland, had 
 said, "his high character and abilities make 
 him very fit for." 
 
 When a young man, as we have already 
 noticed, he had been much affected by the 
 terrible agony endured by a Highland woman 
 who had been undergoing a surgical operation. 
 Aware of the fact that, by inhaling sulphuric 
 ether, the patient was rendered insensible to 
 
SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. 
 
 409 
 
 pain, during the summer of 1847 lie could think 
 of naught else. He contributed a paper to the 
 Monthly JournOfl of Medical Science, entitled, 
 " Notes on the Inhalation of Sulphuric Ether in 
 the Practice of Midwifery." These notes were 
 separately printed and widely distributed 
 amongst professional men at home and abroad. 
 Turning his attention to other drugs, he became 
 convinced that chloroform was much superior to 
 ether for the purpose he had in view, and in 
 March 1847 he communicated a paper on its use 
 to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh. 
 From these notes we learn that " chloroform 
 was first discovered and described at nearly the 
 same time by Soubeiran (1831) and Liebig (1832); 
 its composition was first accurately ascertained 
 by the distinguished French chemist, Dumas, in 
 1835. . . . It is a dense, limpid, colourless 
 liquid, readily evaporating, and possessing an 
 agreeable, fragrant, fruit-like odour, and a 
 saccharine pleasant taste." Cases were cited 
 wherein its use had been successful. These in- 
 vestigations were afterwards published in a 
 pamphlet form, of which four thousand copies 
 were sold in a few days. Believing that he 
 could only at first truly test the value of his dis- 
 covery by personal experience, he, as a matter of 
 course, tried its effects on himself. "On the 
 first occasion," he writes, ** on which I detected 
 the anaesthetic effects of chloroform, the scene 
 was an odd one. I had had the chloroform 
 beside me for several days, but it seemed so 
 unlikely a liquid to produce results of any kind, 
 that it was laid aside, and on searching for an- 
 other object among some loose paper, after 
 coming home very late one night, my hand 
 chanced to fall upon it, and I poured some of 
 the fluid into tumblers before my assistants, 
 Dr Keith and Dr Duncan, and myself. Before 
 sitting down to supper, we all inhaled the fluid, 
 and were all ' under the mahogany ' in a trice, 
 to my wife's consternation and alarm. In pur- 
 suing the inquiry thus rashly, perhaps, begun, I 
 became every day more and more convinced of 
 the superior anaesthetic effects of chloroform, as 
 compared with ether," Several attempts were 
 made both in England and America to rob him 
 of the honour of his discovery, which led to a 
 prolonged controversy. His butler, Clarke, 
 who had a high opinion of the properties of 
 "chlory," as he called chloroform, found him 
 lying in his room, apparently unconscious, and 
 suffering from the effects of a recent experiment. 
 To some friends who were watching him, with 
 a good deal of alarm, the butler remarked, 
 "He'll kill himsel' yet wi' thae experiments; 
 an' he's a big fule, for they'll never find ony- 
 thing better nor chlory." On another occasion, 
 he rushed into the dining-room, saying, "For 
 God's sake, sir, come doun ; I've pushioned the 
 cook." When Dr Simpson, with some others, 
 got downstairs, they found the patient lying 
 on the floor snoring heavily. This incident 
 
 created a hearty laugh. The butler had handed 
 the cook the remains of an effervescing drink, 
 prepared with chloric ether, calling it cham- 
 pagne. She drank it with the above result. 
 Dr Simpson had also to appear in print regard- 
 ing what was termed the religious side of the 
 use of chloroform. Many quoted the primary 
 curse in Genesis as a reason why chloroform 
 should not be used in midwifery. These would- 
 be religious objections Dr Simpson successfully 
 disposed of, and, after more than twenty years 
 had elapsed since its discovery, he found the 
 best answer to all arguments of this kind was 
 to point to the steady increase in its production, 
 and to its ever extending use. 
 
 About this time a medical officer of the Indian 
 Army wrote thus to the Bombay Telegraph and 
 Courier: "Decidedly the most wonderful man 
 of his age — I mean of the age in which he lives 
 — is Simpson of Edinburgh. In him are realised 
 John Bell's four ideals of the perfect Esculapius 
 — the brain of an Apollo, the eye of an Eagle, 
 the heart of a Lion, and the hand of a Lady. 
 Nothing baffles his intellect ; nothing escapes 
 his penetrating glance ; he sticks at nothing and 
 he bungles nothing. If his practice be worth a 
 rupee per annum, it is worth £10,000 — twice as 
 much as Dr Hamilton ever realised, and nearly 
 twice the amount of the late Abercrombie's 
 practice. From all parts, not of Britain only, 
 but of Europe, do ladies rush to see, consult, 
 and fee the man. He has spread joy through 
 many a rich man's house by enabling his wife 
 to present him with a living child, a feat which 
 none but Simpson ever dared to enable her to 
 do. To watch of a morning with his poor 
 patients (them only of course was I permitted 
 to see) is a treat. In comes a woman with a 
 fibrous tumour, which fifty other practitioners 
 have called by fifty other names. One minute 
 suffices for his diagnosis ; another sees her in a 
 state of insensibility, and in less than a third, 
 two long needles are thrust inches deep into the 
 tumour, and a galvanic battery is at work dis- 
 cussing it. 'Leave her alone quietly,' says 
 Simpson, * she'll take care of herself — no fear.' 
 One up, another down, is the order of the day. 
 What other men would speculate as to the pro- 
 priety of for hours, Simpson does in a minute 
 or two. He is bold, but not reckless ; ever 
 ready, but never harsh. He is prepared for 
 every contingency, and meets it on the instant. 
 Everything seems to prosper in his hands. As 
 to ether and chloroform, they seem like invisible 
 intelligences, doomed to obey his bidding — 
 familiars who do his work because they must 
 never venture to produce effects one iota greater 
 or less than he desires. While other men 
 measure out the liquids, fumble about and 
 make a fuss, Simpson, in what an Irishman 
 would call the most promiscuous manner pos- 
 sible, does the job in a minute or two. He is 
 indeed a wonderful man." 
 
The account given "by Dr Channing of Bos- 
 ton, U.S., of a visit to Queen Street is equally- 
 interesting: "At half -past one his consulta- 
 tions at home begin, and last till nearly or 
 quite six. When he began this system of 
 home clinics, for such they strictly are, his 
 house v\ras filled at all hours, so that it was im- 
 possible to keep any order. People would come 
 at seven a.m. in order to be first. They would 
 get breakfast at six, or earlier, and disturb 
 their own families much. To prevent this, he 
 fixed the hour at half-past one to half-past 
 five. The patients of the two divisions are in 
 different but equally large rooms. They draw 
 lots for priority, have tickets, and come in as 
 called, and so the most perfect order prevails. 
 Everybody knows what are Professor S.'s 
 hours, and everybody observes them. He has 
 an assistant who writes prescriptions to his dic- 
 tation, directions, letters, etc., and also attends 
 to cases. He examines cases daily when there 
 is occasion to do so. From long experience and 
 constant observation, the habit of recording 
 cases, and of distinguishing them with all the 
 accuracy in his power, he is able to arrive ut 
 conclusions in the cases before him in a very 
 short time, or to make his diagnosis. I see 
 most, or many of his cases, examine them after 
 him, and I have again and again been struck, 
 in new ones, how true is his diagnosis. He 
 proceeds at once to the treatment. If an opera- 
 tion is to be, he does it at once. Applications 
 of remedies are made and prescriptions given, 
 with directions, and the patient is desired to 
 call in a week^ fortnight, in two days, etc., as 
 circumstances may indicate. At times the case 
 is written down from the answers of patients to 
 questions. This is always the case if it be a 
 new case, or it is probable that changes may 
 be required in treatment, or the eff'ects of treat- 
 ment noted. Some notion may be got of this 
 portion of Professor S.'s indoor or home pro- 
 fessional life. He goes through this great 
 labour quietly and methodically, and with as 
 gentle, kind, cheerful spirit as man ever mani- 
 fested. The moral character of the daily service 
 in disease is quite as striking as the profes- 
 sional. The moral presides over the whole, 
 and renders it one of the most interesting 
 matters for observation that can occur. I have 
 been utterly surprised at its executive patience, 
 its efficient activity. Here are the poor and the 
 rich together, with no other distinctions than 
 such as will best accommodate both. And I can 
 say, from a long and wide observation, that 
 there is no difference in their treatment. The 
 great fact of each in Professor S.'s regard 
 is the fact that disease exists, which it is the 
 physician's business to investigate and try'to re- 
 move. He knows what is the prospect of success 
 or of failure, and makes his prognosis accord- 
 ingly. But, even when the worst is announced, 
 It is not spoken of as utterly hopeless, and some- 
 
 thing is done, all is done, for present comfort, 
 when nothing may be done fpr cure. I am sur- 
 prised again at the varieties of disease which 
 congregate at No. 52, and of the number of 
 which is presented in each kind. It is this 
 which gives character to the whole, and makes 
 these clinics the very best schools. I have been 
 every day a pupil here. I have every day 
 learned much ; yes, a great deal, which will aid 
 me in all my professional, yes, my moral life. 
 I had designed to visit Ireland, but so few days 
 remained to me that I was sure the visit could 
 amount to nothing important, and I concluded 
 to remain at Professor Simpson's house, in the 
 midst of his home practice, and to visit with 
 him abroad such patients as he could show me. 
 Wherever we went the professor was received 
 with the same bright welcome, the same cheer- 
 ful face, and I thought this made the beauty of 
 his professional life. One was glad to see him 
 so soon again. Another had been waiting with 
 such patience as could be commanded for a visit. 
 But with all was the appearance and the con- 
 sciousness that something good was to come 
 from the call. He had time for everything. 
 He took his seat, and with his * Come along 
 now, how are you? how have you been?' etc, 
 was always answered to satisfy perfectly the 
 various objects in view. There were directions 
 in his questions, or directions to his patients; 
 but it was so quiet, so easy, that, though time 
 was pressing on new engagements, it seemed 
 that the present one only occupied his mind. 
 There was persuasion with command, or demand 
 in such proportions that the patient was only 
 anxious to do the very best for himself, or for 
 herself, and for the doctor. In this way or by 
 this manner, which seems no manner at all. Pro- 
 fessor S. is able to do a great deal in a short 
 time. His coachman understands by a hint 
 where he is to go, and goes rapidly through his 
 various service. As we pass along some object 
 of interest is at hand — the Botanic Garden, a 
 ruin, a hill, a beautiful prospect. He pulls the 
 string, opens the door which lets down the step, 
 and 'Come away' tells you there is something 
 for you to see, something to please you, and 
 there is time enough to see it. ' I visit here, 
 and for ten minutes I will leave you ; go down 
 there and you vsdll find something.' Off he goes 
 to his patient, and off I go to see what he has 
 indicated. The professor is well made for 
 despatch. He is short, stout, with small feet, 
 and his step is short and very quick. He is of 
 excellent age for vigour — about thirty-nine — and 
 * goes ahead ' of all walkers. I have almost to 
 run somewhat, not to lose him. Let me finish 
 his picture. You have his length, but not his 
 full length. His head is large, covered with a 
 profusion of black hair, which obeys its instincts, 
 and more strikingly so when he thrusts his very 
 small hands into and all over it. His forehead 
 is of good height, but the hairs grow low upon 
 
S/J? JAMES Y. SIMPSON. 
 
 411 
 
 it ; and to me this is the most "becoming manner 
 cf its gro\rth, and the antique, the Apollo, the 
 Clyte, etc., support my taste. His face is 
 broad, of fair length, and its expression just 
 such as such mind and heart always produce. 
 His eyes are singularly loquacious, and always 
 begin to talk before he utters a word. His 
 knowledge is more various than I have before 
 met with. Nothing escapes him. Science and 
 literature are his pleasures. Archaeology is a 
 favourite pursuit ; and his friends frequently 
 send him books and specimens, which help his 
 studies. I never saw so many presents. I 
 went up last night late. 'I must make some 
 visits,' said he, ' say at eleven.' Off drove his 
 coach. This morning, before anybody else was 
 up, I went below for my spectacles. On the side- 
 board was a basket of fine peaches, * which was 
 not so before.' In the morning bouquets came 
 in. I could fill pages with a list of such offer- 
 ings as are daily poured in. He has game at 
 every meal. * Our friends,' said one, 'keep us 
 supplied with game.' His family pass the 
 summer in a very pleasant place a few miles 
 from the city, but his house affairs go on by 
 themselves, very much as of themselves, and 
 knew how, and are all in perfect order. Said he 
 to me when he carried me bodily from my hotel, 
 * I am a bachelor — no woman; but come away, 
 you shall have the best I have.' Night before 
 last he was called into the country. I found 
 him at table in the morning, and with a heavy 
 but hearty yawn said he, *I had a drive last 
 night, over a stony road, in a carriage without 
 springs. I changed it, but was no better off, 
 and I feel well pounded.' This was not a com- 
 plaint, but an experience, and as soon as break- 
 fast was over, eaten as it was with all sorts of 
 interruptions, he was ready for his visit to the 
 
 Duchess of , and everybody else. He cats 
 
 little, and as if almost unconscious of the func- 
 tion. In this he constantly reminds me of . 
 
 "He receives a great deal of money, I have 
 heard. But he seems wholly regardless of 
 money, and, as I have further heard, it is only 
 lately that he had begun to accumulate pro- 
 perty. He is paid at the visit or consultation, 
 which saves him from one of the most incon- 
 venient offices, charging and collecting fees. 
 We feel both the inconvenience and loss in 
 America. I have seen fees paid him. It is 
 when the patient is leaving him, and by offering 
 the hand for farewell the fee is deposited in his. 
 I really think if he were subjected to our system 
 he would get no money at all. *At night,' 
 said a patient of his, whom he sent to me when 
 she came to America, ' his pockets are emptied. 
 He knows nothing of their contents before, and 
 so his money is cared for.' I said his meals are 
 often interrupted. His butler brings in cards, 
 notes, letters. 'There,' says he, and lays by 
 note after note. Then two or three ladies come 
 in. If he be not in, down they sit on the sofa, 
 
 and take up books or newspapers. Then gentle- 
 men, with or without ladies, appear. They are 
 always asked to table by Miss , his sister- 
 in-law, or somebody else. When the professor 
 is at table he places them. But he is reading 
 and eating, or giving bread to a spotted Danish 
 coach-dog named Billy, of fine size, and a uni- 
 versal pet, I feed him always. Professor S. 
 talks to the comers. Then learns of strangers 
 what they want, gets their residence if visits 
 are wanted, or goes into a room hard by and 
 sees them alone. His house is very large and 
 full of rooms, and always seems inhabited. At 
 length he gets ready to go out. ' Come away,' 
 says he to me. I rim up to put on a different 
 coat, to get hat, etc., and always find him hat 
 on at the door, ready to run down the steps for 
 the morning's work. This is the way every day. 
 He wears a narrow-brimmed hat, and puts it on 
 well back, and shows his whole face and part of 
 his head. His dress is always black, with a 
 remarkably nicely-arranged white neck-cloth, 
 with a very carefully made bow in front. So 
 you see he is always dressed. I think, M., 
 you would want to give the hat a different set. 
 You could not improve the rest of the toilet. 
 Now, is it not a great privilege to be the inmate 
 of such an establishment as this? Is it not a 
 thing to prize, to be the companion of a man so 
 wholly devoted to others, and yet who is so 
 cheerful, so constantly happy himself? You 
 are admitted by such a man into the society of 
 his thought and of his act. He always talks to 
 the purpose, and yet he is the least of a formalist 
 of any man with whom I have been acquainted. 
 He has large information, for he is habitually 
 an observer and a student ; and yet he has no 
 pedantry, no obtrusion of learning for its (or 
 rather his) own sake, but that his companions 
 may be helped by what he know He is almost 
 daily making new observations, discovering 
 something new, or using the known in a new 
 way. And yet he is not in the remotest degree 
 a dogmatist. It is not to support a doctrine 
 that he talks, but to afford you an opportunity 
 to speak more fully of it, to get knowledge from 
 it, or to aid you by the knowledge he communi- 
 cates. I have been chiefly a questioner in the 
 society of Professor S., and I always have got 
 good answers. If he has no answer, if he can- 
 not explain the unexplained in my own mind, 
 he turns himself round in his coach, for it is in 
 driving I have the best of his society, and says, 
 ' I don't know, I cannot explain that.' He will 
 add, ' I have had the same difficulty you have, 
 and cannot clear it up.' One advantage has 
 arisen out of this intercourse with Professor S., 
 which declares itself to me every day. I am 
 conscious of a daily review of my own pro- 
 fessional life, of thought, of reading, and of 
 study. I speak constantly of books, of cases, 
 of results of treatment. Professor S. has read 
 all, and infinitely more than I have, and yet 
 
412 
 
 IREASUR y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 how small is his study. * Here is my study,' 
 said he the other night, as I was passing his 
 sleeping-room, on my way to bed ; * come along.' 
 In I went. The room was small. There was 
 his bed, and, in place of a night-stand, there 
 was at the head of the bed a book stand or 
 case, with two or three shelves about a foot and 
 a half wide, filled with books. The filling took 
 but few. Taking hold of a movable gas-burner 
 he brought it forward, so that he could easily 
 read on his pillow. 'Here,' said he, *is my 
 study. Here I read at night.' I only said, 
 • What a privilege it is to be able to read in this 
 way. I never could;' and then * Good-night.' 
 I heard his night-bell almost every night. " 
 
 In the spring of 1850 he had a serious attack 
 of illness, resulting from an abscess in the arm- 
 pit. At the close of the college session of that 
 year he made a short Continental tour, which he 
 enjoyed very much, seeing the principal uni- 
 versities in France, Germany, Holland, and 
 Belgium, and everywhere receiving great kind- 
 ness and attention. On his return, in spite of 
 the overwhelming number of his engagements 
 and professional duties, he found time to make 
 some inquiries regarding leprosy and leper- 
 houses, and continue the study of astronomy, 
 in which latter study he was greatly assisted by 
 the late Sir William Keith Murray of Ochter- 
 tyre. His professional income had now in- 
 creased so largely, that he frequently returned 
 the fees to many of his poorer patients. Sums 
 of £30, £25, £10, and £5, were, in 1850 and 1851, 
 returned to those who had sent them. To a 
 clergyman he once wrote : ** Many kindest 
 thanks for the fee which you have sent me. 
 But you must be so good as allow me to return 
 it, as (with many others of my professional 
 brethren) I do not think it right to take any 
 professional remuneration from clergymen or 
 their families. Give me your prayers, and I 
 will value them far more." With the accumu- 
 lated increase in his own income, he embarked 
 in various speculations. In April 1853 Mr 
 Robert Chambers inserted a paper in Chambers s 
 Journal from his own pen, on the subject of 
 "Oil- Anointing." This subject had been sug- 
 gested to him by Simpson's researches. When 
 on a professional visit to Galashiels, Roxburgh- 
 shire, Dr Macdougall remarked to him the 
 healthy state and robust appearance of many of 
 the operatives in the large woollen factories in 
 the town. They seemed all specially and strik- 
 ingly exempt from consumption and scrofulous 
 diseases. This led him to recommend "oil- 
 anointing " in all cases of weakness and threat- 
 ened consumption. On 1st March 1853 he re- 
 ceived the high honour of being elected a 
 Foreign Associate of the Academy of Medicine, 
 Paris. 
 
 Amusement was not altogether forgotten. At 
 a series of tableaux vivants held in his house at 
 Queen Street, the fifth in order represented the 
 
 "Babes in the Wood," and was greeted with 
 roars of laughter and rounds of applause. " Dr 
 Simpson and his colleague, Dr L. P., were 
 'the Babes.' They entered sucking oranges, 
 and dressed as children — short dresses, pina- 
 fores, frilled drawers, white socks, and chil- 
 dren's house-shoes. After wandering about a 
 while, they began to weep, then lay down and 
 died, to the great delight of the juveniles." 
 
 Acupressure, a new blood-stopping process, 
 discovered by him, and founded on the tem- 
 porary metallic compression of arteries, was 
 first described to the Royal Society of Edin- 
 burgh, 19th December 1859. Its use speedily 
 spread, and its application became very general 
 and successful. The instruments he proposed 
 to use were very sharp-pointed, slender needles 
 or pins of passive or non-oxidisable iron, headed 
 with wax or glass, and passed freely through 
 the walls and flaps of wounds. These needles 
 would cause little disturbance or irritation in 
 the wounded part. Towards the end of 1861, 
 he had begun, like Dr Chalmers when writing 
 his article on "Christianity," to question him- 
 self as to the faith that was in him. The result 
 was a change of thought and feeling, and it 
 became apparent that religion was a greater 
 power in his life. At the end of this year, 
 he entered a sick - room saying, " My first 
 happy Christmas ; my only happy one." The 
 death of one of his children, "wee Jamie,' 
 deepened these impressions, and for a time he 
 continued to address religious meetings. But 
 he still continued to work with the old earnest- 
 ness, and his archaeological studies were as deal 
 to him as ever. In 1866 the Queen conferred a 
 baronetcy upon him. This was the signal for 
 congratulations from all quarters, and the 
 Lancet^ in commenting upon it, said: "The 
 conferring of this distinction must give, we 
 think, universal satisfaction. Sir James has 
 long been foremost in his department of practice, 
 and his name is associated with the discovery 
 of that invaluable boon to suffering humanity — 
 chloroform. This alone would entitle him to 
 the honour he has received. Sir James Y. 
 Simpson is distinguished as an obstetric practi- 
 tioner, as a physiologist, as an operator, and as 
 a pathologist of great research and originality. 
 His reputation is European, and the honour is 
 fully deserved." The death of his eldest son, 
 Dr David James Simpson, shortly after receiving 
 this honour, cast a gloom over No. 52 Queen 
 Street. The death of a daughter, Jessie, at the 
 early age of seventeen, was a new stroke to 
 him. "Standing by her coffin, " says his bio- 
 grapher, "he was able, as when he knelt by 
 those of Jamie and of Davie, to say, ' Even so. 
 Father; not my will, but Thine be done;' and 
 to hear Christ's very voice, 'What I do thou 
 knowest not now, but thou shalt know here- 
 after.'" But his work, the true antidote for 
 sorrow, was entered into as heartily as before. 
 
JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 413 
 
 In 1866 he received the degree of Doctor of 
 Civil Law from the University of Oxfqi'd. 
 
 During the years 1866-67 he was busier than 
 ever with his archaeological studies. When any 
 discovery of consequence was made in any part 
 of the country, the result was pretty sure to be 
 communicated to him. He published his own 
 most important contribution to the science of 
 this subject under the title of ''Archaic Sculp- 
 turings of Cups, Circles, etc., upon Stones and 
 Eocks in Scotland, England, and other Coun- 
 tries." On the 25th August 1868, he received a 
 note from Provost William Chambers telling 
 him that it was the intention of the Lord Pro- 
 vost, Magistrates, and Council, to present him 
 with the freedom of the city. The presentation 
 took place about a year after this date. In the 
 autumn of 1868 he gained the close acquaint- 
 ance of Mr Spurgeon. That this acquaintance 
 was useful and valuable on both sides, is seen 
 from one of Mr Spurgeon' s notes, written after 
 Sir James had made a professional call upon his 
 wife. "I am writing far into the night to tell 
 friends how my dear wife has sped. That dear 
 angel of mercy. Sir James Simpson, has been 
 very successful, as usual, and the operation is 
 well over ; patient, very patient, and in good 
 spirits. If you know ten thousand eloquent 
 men in Scotland, I would give them work for 
 the next hundred years, viz., to praise the Lord 
 for sending to us such a man, so skilful and so 
 noble a doctor." 
 
 Early in 1870 it became clear to his familiar 
 friends that he was more easily "knocked up than 
 usual." In February Simpson had some severe 
 
 attacks of illness, and by the end of the month he 
 was quite prostrate. Those who were privileged 
 to be present, said it was a wonderful sick-room. 
 He would say : " I have not lived so near to Christ 
 as I desired to do. I have had a busy life, but have 
 not given so much time to eternal things as I 
 should have sought. Yet I know it is not my 
 merit I am to trust to for eternal life. Christ is 
 all." Then he added with a sigh, '' I have not got 
 far on in the divine life." A friend said we are 
 complete in Him. " Yes, that's it," he replied 
 with a smile. "The hymn expresses my thought : 
 
 ' Just as I am, without one plea, 
 But that Thy blood was shed for me.' 
 
 1 50 like that hymn." The days passed on. "The 
 brother," says his biographer, "who had watched 
 over him so tenderly in childhood, helped him in 
 youth, and rejoiced in all the successes of his bright 
 career, spent with him his last night but one on 
 earth. He sat on the pillow with Sir James's 
 head on his knee, on which he had been dandled 
 in childhood, hearing ever and anon throughout 
 that night's silent watching, the touching words, 
 soft, and low, and slow, as if a weary sick 
 child spoke, * Sandy, Sandy ! '" On 6th May 
 1870 he died without a struggle. A grave for 
 the great departed in Westminster Abbey was 
 offered to the family, but knowing Sir James's 
 wish, this was declined, and the funeral took 
 place to Warriston Cemetery, on the 13th May. 
 The funeral was one of the largest ever wit- 
 nessed in Edinburgh. It was computed that 
 over thirty thousand persons were present, either 
 as spectators or as taking part in the procession. 
 
 JOHN BKIGHT, 
 
 [1811 .] 
 
 The Right Hon. John Bright was born near 
 Rochdale in 1811, and is a partner in the firm 
 of John Bright & Brothers, manufacturers there. 
 During the discussion of the Reform Bill of 
 1831-32, he distinguished himself, and also 
 became one of the earliest members, and was a 
 powerful orator and advocate, along with Rich- 
 ard Cobden, in favour of the Anti-Corn Law 
 League. After the triumph of this league, by 
 the legislature decreeing free trade, this body 
 was dissolved at Manchester in 1846. He re- 
 presented Durham in Parliament from 1843 to 
 1847, when in the latter year he was returned 
 for Manchester. He represented Manchester in 
 the House of Commons from 1847 to 1857, when 
 in the latter year he was returned for Birming- 
 ham, which he has represented ever since. Mr 
 Bright's name stands identified with many popu- 
 
 lar measures; chief amongst them are his la- 
 bours on behalf of free trade, and a scheme for 
 the reform of the electoral representation. Dur- 
 ing the discussion of the Eastern Question, under 
 Lord Aberdeen's ministry, he denounced the 
 Russian War ; and he has been no less plain and 
 decided in calling in question the policy of 
 the Conservative Government in their treat- 
 ment of the Eastern Question in connection 
 with the civil war in Turkey. He advocated 
 the policy of the North during the American 
 civil war. On November 3, 1868, he was pre- 
 sented with the freedom of the city of Edin- 
 burgh, and in 1869 he accepted oflace as president 
 of the Board of Trade. In August 1873 he was 
 appointed to the Chancellorship of the Duchy 
 of Lancaster, and held the post until the dissolu- 
 tion of the Liberal Government, February 1874. 
 
414 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 THE ORATOR.* 
 
 Mr Bright, the orator 'par excellence of the 
 House of Commons, is almost precisely the 
 moral and political antithesis of Mr Disraeli. 
 . . . Whilst political animosity has passed 
 by no ditch through the mire of which it might 
 drag Mr Bright, it has never accused him of 
 speaking with an uncertain sound, or of having 
 upheld yesterday that which he denounces to- 
 day. To an orator this atmosphere of acknow- 
 ledged sincerity and honest conviction is a 
 mighty power. All men, save those of a low 
 and illiberal order of mind, will listen with 
 respect to one who propounds a theory, however 
 illogical and distasteful it may be, provided 
 they discern, or think they discern, that the man 
 himself is very much in earnest, and is an 
 honest believer in his own statements. When 
 to this conviction is added a reputation slowly 
 built up on the realisation of prophecies and 
 plans set forth years ago — then derided and 
 hooted — it will be understood that if Mr Bright 
 spoke like Lord John Manners, and gesticulated 
 like Mr Synan, he still would be a great power 
 in parliamentary debate. 
 
 But to the strong and sure foundation of char- 
 acter, Mr Bright adds the airy graces of oratory, 
 that make the structure of the statesman com- 
 plete. His manner when speaking is quiet and 
 subdued, but it is the apparent subjugation 
 which a bar of iron undergoes when it passes 
 from the red-hot stage to the condition of white 
 heat. The red-hot bar sputters and sends forth 
 sparks, and is, on the whole, the more imposing 
 to the passing glance. But there are more heat 
 and power in the quiet-looking bar that stead- 
 fastly burns, content without calling attention to 
 the process by occasionally spluttering forth an 
 ineffectual shower of sparks. In the course of a 
 speech Mr Bright generally manages to say some 
 things damaging to his opponents and helpful 
 to the cause he advocates. But when he sits 
 down, there is invariably a feeling amongst his 
 audience that he has by no means exhausted 
 himself, but could, if he pleased, have said a 
 great deal more that would have been equally 
 effectual. To this end, his quiet, self-possessed 
 manner greatly tends. He has himself well in 
 hand throughout his orations, and therefore 
 maintains his hold upon his audience. His 
 gestures are of the fewest; but, unlike Mr 
 Disraeli's, they always seem appropriate and 
 natural. A simple wave of the right hand, and 
 the sentence is emphasised. Nature has gifted 
 him with a fine presence, and a voice, the like of 
 which has but seldom rung through the rafters of 
 St Stephen's. " Like to a bell" is the illustration 
 usually employed in the endeavour to convey 
 by words an impression of its music. But I 
 
 * "Men and Manner in Parliament." By the 
 Member for the Chiltem Hundreds. 
 
 should think it better to say like a peal of bells, 
 for a single one could not produce the varied 
 tones in which Mr Bright suits his expressions 
 to his theme. On the whole the dominant note 
 is one of pathos. Possibly because nearly all 
 Mr Bright's great speeches have been made 
 when he has been pleading the cause of the op- 
 pressed or denouncing a threatened wrong, a 
 tone of melancholy can be heard running through 
 all. And for the expression of pathos, there are 
 marvellously touching tones in his voice, tones 
 which carry right to the listeners' hearts the 
 tender thoughts which come glowing from the 
 speaker's, and are clad in simple words as they 
 pass his tongue. Who that heard it will ever 
 forget the solemn sentence that fell from the 
 orator's lips nineteen years ago, when the Vienna 
 negotiations for peace with Kussia promised to 
 interrupt the Crimean War? "The angel of 
 death has been abroad throughout the land; 
 you may almost hear the very beating of his 
 wings." This was a bold oratorical flight to 
 take in the House of Commons, which is above 
 all things practical, and kills by good hearty 
 laughter any approach to mere sentimentality. 
 
 MR R. H. BUTTON ON MR BRIGHT.* 
 
 Mr Bright's political friends are, for a differ- 
 ent reason, guilty of as great a mistake in wish- 
 ing to see him in the cabinet, as were the Duke 
 of Wellington's in wishing to see him at the 
 head of the Government. When a man has 
 discharged a solitary function in the history of 
 his time so as to command the admiration of 
 mankind, it is a pitiable thing to tempt him to 
 dwindle into a part in itself perhaps great, but 
 one in which he will never seem so — one which 
 will be marred by incongruous associations 
 floating round all his words and deeds. Mr 
 Bright is a grand figure in the history of the 
 last quarter of a century — a figure almost as 
 unique in politics as an active volcano in a 
 quiet and tranquil country of wooded slopes and 
 sunny uplands. Unlike the agitators of former 
 days, who only gave vent to a wrath with the 
 suppressed vibrations of which the whole earth 
 around them was trembling, Mr Bright has 
 sent up cloud after cloud of ashes left by the 
 political combustion of past eras, flash after 
 flash of living democratic fire, stream after 
 stream of boiling denunciation for aristocratic 
 institutions, without any visible connection with 
 the agitated social strata whence such eruptions 
 usually flow. Perhaps we might suppose that, 
 as in other such cases, the volcanic force was in 
 subterranean and submarine connection with 
 the revolutionary feeling of Poland or France, 
 were it not notorious that, so far as it depends 
 upon them at all, it is fed, not by sympathy 
 
 * From " Studies in Parliament: a Series of Sketches 
 of Leading Politicians." Bv R. H. Hutton. 
 
JOHN BRIGHT, 
 
 415 
 
 with, "but by antipathy to, these movements. 
 It shows more connection indeed with Trans- 
 atlantic than European phenomena, and per- 
 haps it is due only to the solitary character of 
 the outlet, that disturbing forces which seem 
 so mild and governable in America should be so 
 fiery and subversive here. But account for it 
 as we may, it has been Mr Bright's picturesque 
 characteristic as a politician to concentrate in 
 our own tranquil times mere popular dissatis- 
 faction into stinging irony and magnificent 
 scorn ; nay, as far as we can see, to burn with 
 even more splendid and eloquent wrath against 
 the aristocracy after they had ceased to oppose 
 the most pressing of popular reforms than he 
 did while yet the corn laws were the legitimate 
 fuel for the fire of his revolutionary passion. 
 Mr Bright in the cabinet would both extinguish 
 and be extinguished. He would cause the 
 downfall of his companions, and he would no 
 longer present the unique and solitary historic 
 form which has made him a splendid if often 
 mischievous agency in our political world. If a 
 revolutionary Government should ever be formed 
 in England, Mr Bright might take the reins, 
 and by the grandeur of his revolutionary modera- 
 tion gain new fame as an English Gracchus or 
 Kienzi. But Mr Bright meekly carrying out 
 the policy of Sir Charles Wood, Mr Bright 
 rising to vindicate his noble friend the Duke of 
 Somerset from the imputations of the Opposi- 
 tion, would surely awaken that sense of the 
 incongruous and the ridiculous which is more 
 fatal to a great man's fame than even a political 
 crime, the motive of which is in keeping with 
 his previous career. There would have been 
 nothing of this incongruity, were Mr Cobden 
 living, in his moderating his views to suit the 
 temper of a Liberal administration, for Mr 
 Cobden represented the lucid intelligence, the 
 political ingenuity, the rational acuteness of his 
 party, while Mr Bright represents its passion 
 and imagination. There is nothing incongruous 
 in intelligence, even though holding to its own 
 convictions, yielding something for the sake of 
 compromise, and biding its time. But for the 
 passionate resentment of wronged and sufiFering 
 patriotism to unsay its burning words — for the 
 visionary imagination of the democratic prophet 
 to surrender its dream of a millennium, take 
 back its anathemas, and at the request of defied 
 and defiant adversaries, give up its indepen- 
 dence — could not but be a fatal indecorum. It 
 would have been almost as fitting for Tiberius 
 Gracchus to have accepted as a colleague the 
 Octavius whom he had persuaded the people to 
 depose, or for Rienzi to have combined with 
 Colonna, as for Mr Bright to lay aside the 
 scathing lightning of his democratic invective 
 and coalesce with the aristocracy against whom 
 he has denounced so many woes. 
 
 It is Mr Bright's most striking characteristic 
 as a politician that with little more than the 
 
 bald and negative political creed of a schoolboy 
 Radical — a creed of two articles, one expressing 
 abstract belief in the majesty of the people, 
 and one expressing living scorn for the arbitrary 
 conventions which assign so much influence to a 
 class favoured only by the "accident of birth" 
 — he combines so much wealth of feeling, so 
 much splendour of imagination, so much ex- 
 quisite literary discrimination. Usually a man 
 — at least a mature man — who wishes to break 
 with history, shows a cold imagination and a 
 naked literary taste. But Mr Bright, who 
 speaks of the principle of our foreign policy for 
 centuries as a "foul idol" deluged with the 
 blood of hiiman victims — who describes the 
 provision made for our military and naval ser- 
 vices as resembling the Scythian sacrifices to the 
 old scimitar which was hung up as the symbol 
 of Mars — who never delivers a great speech 
 without pouring the vials of his wrath over the 
 House of Lords, one day declaring that the 
 British army is a "gigantic system of out-door 
 relief" for the aristocracy of this country, or 
 that the nobles of 1688 have ever since followed 
 their prey like "the jackals of the desert," 
 another day lamenting that "not the smallest 
 modicum of freedom or justice can come to the 
 people till it has gone through the very fine 
 meshes of the net of the House of Lords " — whe 
 cannot allude to the national Church without 
 indignant disgust, speaking of a bishop as "that 
 creature of monstrous, nay, even of adulterous 
 birth, the spiritual peer " — Mr Bright, who thus 
 seems to loathe the oppressive heritage of the 
 ages because it has denied so much to plebeian 
 genius and stored up so much for patrician in- 
 capacity, has yet always shown, even in his 
 curses, a delicate literary feeling for his subject 
 which has given weight to his destructive rage, 
 and splendour even to his maledictions. 
 
 Mr Bright has, we suspect, been injured as a 
 politician by his early Quakerism. The exag- 
 gerated borror of all deference for human 
 authority — the conventional hatred of conven- 
 tionalities — the unnatural, because impossible, 
 effort to weigh everything habitually at its true 
 spiritual value without regard to its actually 
 social estimation — the non-resistance creed, so 
 fascinating to an aggressive mind like Mr 
 Bright's, because, instead of plunging him into 
 contests here and there, it sets him to battle 
 against the world — the pacific passion for com- 
 jj^erce — and the radical feud with history — all 
 of which Quakerism has ever endeavoured to 
 implant in its converts, early engaged Mr 
 Brit^ht's nature much more strongly than the 
 ecclesiastical crotchet which constitutes its 
 creed, and left no proper work for his fine 
 imagination, except to impeach those political 
 institutions which seemed to him to foster most 
 the conventional falsehoods thus condemned by 
 his early faith. There is nothing worse for a 
 man of Mr Bright's power of mind than to he 
 
416 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 educated in a sort of moral pique against Provi- 
 dence, and yet to see, or think he sees, a state 
 of society in one special quarter of the world 
 which seems to show that the abstract ideal at 
 the foundation of his original belief is not quite 
 a dream. In a mind so powerful as Mr Bright's, 
 the mere vision of a republic would have pro- 
 duced little effect, had he not had what seemed 
 like a real knowledge of a nation apparently 
 without traditions to thwart reason, without 
 ranks to break up the natural equality of man, 
 without centralisation to absorb the individual 
 citizen in the common government, and at one 
 time almost without war or the fear of war, 
 devoting itself to commerce and domestic pur- 
 suits, and seeming to aspire to little beyond. 
 This sight, as he has seen it, has probably 
 helped him to believe that all history, except 
 that of the United States, has been a tissue of 
 crime and blunder which resolute democracy 
 may yet root out, and has confirmed him in his 
 moods of almost Shelleyan invective against the 
 tyranny of the past. The ethics and politics of 
 Quakerism have a sort of bald simplicity about 
 them which, once having fascinated a strong 
 nature, necessarily drives all the higher faculties 
 of the mind into resistance and aggression, 
 instead of engaging them to enter by sympathy 
 into the human nature that history has formed, 
 and to appreciate with fine discrimination the 
 merits and blemishes of institutions ripened or 
 decayed by time. 
 
 Mr Bright's political creed is, then, crude and 
 bald and forgetful of the past. Yet his wonder- 
 ful command of pure and rich language, and the 
 delicate shades of his expression \z supporting 
 that creed, show an insight into thoughts in- 
 consistent with it, and almost prove that the 
 tenacity of his prejudices has kept his imagina- 
 tion at arm's reach, and used it as a mere 
 resource for giving external brilliance to his 
 thought, without altering its essence. If any 
 one noticed only Mr Bright's exquisite taste in 
 using the Saxon and the Latin elements of our 
 language, he would argue that no speaker in 
 the country was more likely to understand the 
 relative value of homely truths and grand 
 associations. Mr Bright knows as well as any 
 man that the Saxon basis of our language, 
 strong, homely, and all-important as it is, can- 
 not quite dispense with the aid of the engrafted 
 Latin elements, and no great orator ever used 
 the latter with such happy and skilful dis- 
 crimination. A critical eye can scarcely read 
 a single speech of his without being struck by 
 this. Take, as the briefest illustration we can 
 give, the conclusion of that great speech in 
 which he anticipated the time when "England, 
 the august mother of free nations, shall herself 
 be free." Mr Bright, judged by his political 
 creed alone, had scarcely a right to that term 
 "august," It suggests naturally a cloud of 
 associations which he would regard as consti- 
 
 tuting not her glory, but her shame. But^ Mr 
 Bright's imagination has modified his language, 
 though not his creed, and while he tries to think 
 away all imperial hopes and memories, their 
 echoes linger in his ear. His style of invective, 
 too, shows the same conflict of deep inward 
 forces as his mere language. No one feels more 
 strongly than Mr Bright— we may say, no one 
 resents so strongly — the actual power and 
 authority of those historical precedents and that 
 social prestige with which he wages internecine 
 war, and hence no doubt the keen and effective 
 irony which runs through his greatest speeches 
 like a shooting pain. In all irony the meaning 
 most opposite, most antithetical to the real 
 thought, is suggested to the mind, but suggested 
 only to be shamefully exposed. Thus, when Mr 
 Bright repelled the accusation that he had de- 
 preciated the aristocracy of this country, in the 
 words, "Who that knows me would believe that 
 I ever engaged in a work of supererogation so 
 absurd?" — or when he denounced the con- 
 temptuous negligence of Lord Stratford de Ked- 
 cliffe towards Colonel Williams who defended 
 Kars, in the words, " If Lord Stratford had been 
 a Kussian noble and had so behaved, before 
 taking his seat in the House of Peers and going 
 on a special mission to Constantinople, he would, 
 have had the advantage of going on a special 
 mission to Siberia" — he contrives, with an art 
 that he exercises a dozen times in every one of 
 his great orations, to bind the notion which he 
 wishes to ridicule as a humiliated captive to the 
 car of that which he intends to triumph. No 
 form of eloquence expresses a deeper sense of 
 bitterness, or at least of internecine war of feel- 
 ing, than irony, and it is because Mr Bright 
 feels so sternly the contrast between the bald 
 simplicity of his own creed and the forces of 
 historic usage and human feeling which he has 
 to contend with, that it pervades his whole 
 mind and speeches as it does. 
 
 Perhaps for a similar reason Mr Bright can- 
 not be said to be a powerful political reasouer. 
 His intellect is scarcely sufficiently at liberty to 
 reason ; he is too much occupied with the para- 
 doxes of political fact and feeling. In the great 
 free-trade agitation Mr Cobden probably con- 
 vinced a hundred, who did not agree with him 
 before, to every one converted by Mr Bright; 
 indeed, we doubt whether the latter ever gained 
 a pure intellectual victory at all, though he 
 no doubt has often awakened passionate demo- 
 cratic yearnings in minds in which they had 
 previously been latent or subdued. It may be 
 said of him as Dr Johnson said of "Junius," 
 "As a rhetorician he has had the art of persuad- 
 ing when he seconded desire ; as a reasoner he 
 has convinced those who had no doubt before." 
 There is no intellectual patience in him (which 
 is the necessary condition of all successful reason- 
 ing), though there is plenty of industry. Mr 
 Bright's rhetorical strength has almost always 
 
JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 417 
 
 consisted in assuming the falsehood and even 
 the wickedness of his adversaries' position, and 
 repelling it in limine as unworthy of anything 
 but denunciation. He can never feel sufficient 
 sympathy with an opponent's view to attempt 
 to convince him. All he does is to inspire his 
 followers with enthusiasm and his foes with 
 wrath. Mr Bright has never, as far as we know, 
 given detailed attention to the expenditure he 
 so keenly denounces, because he has no patience 
 to persuade the House of Commons that they 
 might save £100,000 on their own principles, 
 when he is angry — and thinks he does well to 
 be angry— with them for not saving £10,000,000 
 on his. His mind is not a persuading mind, 
 but a withstanding mind. In a cabinet we 
 should infer that he would be either useless or 
 dangerous. 
 
 We do not say he is not capable of modera- 
 tion, but it is of revolutionary moderation — of 
 moderation in applying a totally different set of 
 principles from those by which our statesmen 
 have hitherto been guided. He would take a 
 rating suffrage if statesmen would give up argu- 
 ing for a representation of thoughts and inter- 
 ests. He would, perhaps, consent to keep up a 
 large volunteer force for defence, if statesmen 
 would shatter finally their " foul idol " of bal- 
 ance of power, and reduce the army forthwith 
 to a purely defensive standard. He would very 
 likely consent to devote ecclesiastical property 
 to the education of the people, if the "adulter- 
 ous " connection between Church and State could 
 be dissolved. He might even favour life-peers 
 for a House of Lords if he could get rid of the 
 hereditary principle. He is not an immoderate 
 man in working out his own principles, but 
 utterly intolerant of the principles of his foes. 
 If a democratic revolution ever succeeded in 
 England, Mr Bright would probably act the 
 part of a stronger and abler Lamartine. But if 
 he tries the part of a constitutional statesman, 
 carrying out the accepted principles of the pre- 
 sent day, he will either destroy the Government 
 or injure himself. 
 
 MR JOHN BRIGHT AT ONE ASH.* 
 
 From the bustling town of Rochdale, the 
 borough that once returned Cobden to Parlia- 
 ment, and which was the birthplace of the prin- 
 ciple of co-operation, the pilgrimage to the home 
 of the erewhile tribune of the people is arduous 
 but brief. Uphill lies the path ; past the gilded 
 spire of the town-hall and the terrible carillon 
 which plays the "Swiss Boy" every quarter of 
 an hour ; far from the twin hillocks enthroned 
 on which St Chad and Co-operation frown de- 
 fiance at each other ; past gaunt factories with 
 their chequered windows, and long rows of 
 artisans' dwellings, till the edge of the moor is 
 
 * By permission from the World newspaper. 
 
 reached, and Rochdale comes to an end. At the 
 beginning of a wild stretch of country which, 
 rolling past Blackstone Edge into Yorkshire, 
 springs suddenly from the valley-side, there 
 stands a tall chimney towering over a mass ©f 
 buildings of the unmistakable cotton-mill type. 
 As the clock strikes half-past twelve the gates 
 open, and an army of Lancashire lasses and lads 
 pours down the hill. The girls step along 
 briskly enough, and the rattle of their clogs 
 speaks merrily of dinnftr-time; they are all 
 white aproned, and are hooded with the plaid 
 shawl pulled over the back of the head, which 
 has the effect of making one woman look exactly 
 like another, and suppressing whatever beauty 
 nature may have endowed her withal. These 
 are the people among whom John Bright dwells. 
 Were the stranger to follow them into their 
 homes or to the other places where they most do 
 congregate, he would hear but one opinion ex- 
 pressed as to the character of John Bright as 
 master and employer. Stripped of the peculi- 
 arities of the local vernacular, the verdict is 
 that he gives a fair wage for a fair day's work — 
 neither more nor less. Among the order to 
 which Mr Bright himself belongs, the rival 
 manufacturers of the neighbourhood, the esti- 
 mate may not be so favourable or so nearly 
 unanimous ; and rivals who are also critics are 
 not wanting who might hint that the ventilation 
 of the chambers in which John Bright's hands 
 work is defective, or that his sympathy with 
 the children of labour is not in all its details 
 thoroughly practical. The pilgrim may settle 
 this point as he will ; let him now turn his gaze 
 from moor and chimney to dwell on a pleasant 
 house of red brick, built almost under the 
 shadow of the tall tower before mentioned. 
 The cheerful homestead looks as if it had 
 dropped from the clouds among the chimneys, 
 or had been blown over the moors from breezy 
 Todmorden, so strong is the contrast it pre- 
 sents to its sombre surroundings. Within the 
 wall and always open gate is a pleasant gar- 
 den, a cleanly-shaven lawn sloping down from 
 a little terrace gay with flowers to a border 
 of shrubbery. In this pretty home, breathing 
 of peace and simple good taste, among the 
 cutting winds of the moorland, dwells the most 
 purely English orator of our time. 
 
 The guest at One Ash is not compelled to roii 
 the gantlet of plush-coloured flunkeys. Nest. 
 handed Phillis admits him, and replies, without 
 hesitation, that Mr Bright is at home. There 
 is no mystery, no *'I will see," about the hand- 
 maid of One Ash, whose utterance is as precise 
 as her costume. At the first glance the char- 
 acteristic of John Bright's house is seen to be 
 the perfect absence of pretence. The estal;- 
 lishment breathes an air of comfort without 
 ostentation, and of culture without dilettantism. 
 On the walls hang a few water-colour drawings 
 — a large photograph of Richard Cobden taken 
 
 2 D 
 
418 
 
 TREASUR V OR MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 in his prime, another of M. Michel Chevalier, 
 and a few engravings of political celebrities and 
 personal friends. There are busts, too, in 
 Parian and in plaster — the Parian bust of Mr 
 Cobden, with the defects and excellences of 
 Parian work ; the bust of Mr Villiers, a recent 
 work by Mr Theed — altogether excellent. One 
 end of the room is almost filled by a handsome 
 case of oak and glass, containing the choicest 
 productions of the Staffordshire potteries, and 
 presented to Mr Bright by some StajQFordshire 
 friends, as an expression of personal regard and 
 keen appreciation of his sympathy with Stafford- 
 shire industries. The specimens are selected 
 with a view to embodying the various forms of 
 English ceramic art — Parian statuettes, vases 
 painted after the style of the old Chelsea ware, 
 enamelled cups, and mighty dishes. 
 
 On the table lie a few books — a copy of 
 "Picturesque America," and a recent edition of 
 the works of John Milton. In thorough keep- 
 ing with the neat orderly dwelling is its owner. 
 The author who should essay to describe the 
 apostle of free trade after the image of a great 
 French novelist was once depicted, as "Balzac 
 in his slippers," would find himself in difficulties 
 — for the want of the slippers. One Ash is 
 not the abode of slippers, eccentric shoot- 
 ing-jackets, or dressing-gowns held together 
 with a single pin, or by the more potent aid of 
 a pair of bell-ropes. At home as abroad Mr 
 Bright maintains that scrupulous neatness of 
 apparel proper to the Society of Friends ; not 
 the costume or uniform of a sect, be it well 
 understood, but the quiet severe dress of an 
 English gentleman. The firm well-knit figure, 
 the bright blue eye, the leonine head with its 
 mane of snowy locks, are too well known in the 
 senate to require description. And there are 
 other places besides the House of Commons and 
 his home at Koch dale where, to some at least, 
 the presence of Mr Bright will seem equally 
 natural and familiar. See him arrayed as a 
 fisherman in the blustering March weather, 
 casting a salmon fly in the foaming currents 
 which eddy round the rocks and shallows of 
 Speyside, with hand as light, eye as keen, and 
 touch as sure, as if time had stood still for more 
 than a score of years, with mind as wholly in- 
 tent upon the pastime of his heart as if there 
 were no such things as party politics and 
 factories in existence; no such questions as 
 Burial Bills and Church Establishment waiting 
 solution ; no Tory reaction to rebuke, and no 
 huge business concerns to keep going. Or 
 look at him in a somewhat different aspect 
 — time, place, and circumstances each wholly 
 changed. The hour is five p.m., and the well- 
 known figure enters with measured tread the 
 dining-room of the Reform Club. The states- 
 man has something upon his mind — nothing 
 else, in fact, than dinner. He walks up to the 
 desx, inspects the bill of fare, gives his order, 
 
 and departs for the morning-room. A glance 
 at the papers is enough, and friendly chat and 
 gossip constitute the more congenial relief which 
 he finds from the cares of politics. He can 
 rally a friend upon the imperfections of his 
 billiard-play, or take and give a sportive thrust 
 of satire on some subject intelligible it may be 
 only to the pair themselves, and calling up the 
 memory of some humorous episode, in the 
 terms of strictly esoteric discourse, which has 
 caused them each to laugh in time past. But it 
 is with the impression conveyed by him on the 
 visitor at One Ash that we have now to do. 
 There the great Saxon orator stands by his own 
 hearthside, fresh, hale, and vigorous as ever. 
 In early middle age (perhaps) the cheeks, more 
 rounded than they are now, concealed the fine 
 lines of a countenance which, for combined 
 fearlessness and thoughtfulness, has now few 
 equals. A low-toned musical voice, admirably 
 modulated even in the most ordinary conversa- 
 tion, hardly betrays that powerful organ which 
 has made twenty thousand pairs of ears tingle 
 in Bingley Hall. A wonderful vocabulary of 
 English words is poured out with a purely Eng- 
 lish intonation equally removed from pedantic 
 precision, fashionable affectation, and local 
 peculiarity. As the clear cut sentences ring on 
 the ear, it is impossible not to recognise the 
 implied rebuke which is given to the lisping 
 dandies of the clubs, or to ignore the fact that 
 John Bright speaks English as it should be 
 spoken. Whether he be enunciating a prin- 
 ciple, refuting a fallacy, or gently, and with 
 rare tact and courtesy, recalling a wandering 
 disputant to the real point at issue, or launch- 
 ing an epigram at the backsliders of the Liberal 
 party — the unworthy ones who have looked 
 back from the plough — or describing to atten- 
 tive ears the art and mystery of making an 
 "Umberslade " pudding, according to a precious 
 recipe in the possession of the lady of One Ash, 
 he not only makes manner entirely subservient 
 to matter, but subdues that manner to a de- 
 lightfully equable style of speech free from the 
 twang of Lancashire, the flute-like tones of 
 young Oxford, and the harsher drawl of the last 
 generation of exquisites. 
 
 When John Bright first lifted up his voice in 
 favour of free trade, few people, possibly he the 
 least of all, dreamt of the rapid development of 
 the faculty in which he was destined to excel — 
 in speaking plain truths to the English people in 
 language so purely English, so clear and ner- 
 vous, that the highly cultured and the almost 
 unlettered could alike feel its force and charm. 
 The slightest acquaintance with Mr Bright in 
 his own house will convince any one fortunate 
 enough to enjoy that privilege that his peculiar 
 oratorical power is the legitimate expression of 
 character, strengthened and polished of course 
 by practice and study. He is no eclectic philo- 
 sopher, but a strong steadfast man, who on all 
 
CHARLES DICKENS, 
 
 419 
 
 great subjects, and some little ones, has views 
 perfectly clear and defined. As lie warms with 
 his subject — the lion-like head flung back, the 
 blue eyes flashing with a keener light, and the 
 characteristic mouth curving more decidedly 
 than before — his presence compels the thought 
 that his strikingly-vivid sentences are not built 
 up by art, but are the simple reflex of clear per- 
 ception and strong conviction. His unrivalled 
 power of expression is of all things that which 
 Mr Bright confesses himself most unable to 
 explain. Less than any living orator is he in- 
 debted to the imitation of models and the pre- 
 cepts of schools. It would be an act of gross 
 irreverence to compare the famous Lancastrian 
 with those "persons of quality who know all 
 without having learned anything," or with that 
 other French gentleman who had '* spoken prose 
 all his life without knowing it ; " and yet there 
 is in him no such salient quality as that of 
 spontaneity. On all the subjects for which he 
 cares, his utterances can never be mistaken. 
 And it may be added that John Bright — his 
 fellow-townsmen scornfully ignore the ''Mr" — 
 does not talk about things unless he cares for 
 them. The disciples of Izaak Walton and " Red 
 Spinner" would shudder could they hear the 
 man whom they rejoice over as one of themselves 
 express himself of salmon-fishing to the effect 
 that its principal advantage is the "long hours 
 in the open air." It is a sad duty to take away 
 from the gentle race of anglers the sweet solace 
 that they count Mr Bright as a brother. Actu- 
 ally, he took up salmon-fishing during his con- 
 valescence from a severe illness twenty years 
 ago, and has since pursued it for its health-giv- 
 ing qualities, rather than from any feeling ana- 
 logous to love of sport. Perhaps this is because 
 he is a keen lover of animals. As he stands 
 on the hearthrug of his cheerful drawing-room, 
 discoursing, with his own peculiar earnestness, 
 on the position of that Liberal party to which 
 he is so strongly attached, and delivering his 
 
 opinion in no doubtful terms of those waverers 
 and falterers to whom its present condition may 
 be attributed, his pet dog — a long-bodied and 
 long-haired creature — pursues with immense 
 clatter a crusade against the flies. Under these 
 circumstances many strong-minded people might 
 become confused, but Mr Bright loves his dog 
 even more than trenchant sentences, perhaps be- 
 cause he has so many of the latter at command. 
 An admirable conversationist over the dinner- 
 table, Mr Bright, however liberal may be his 
 views as to the out-door liquor traffic, is him- 
 self a total abstainer as a matter of habit and 
 preference, and affords in this respect a marvel- 
 lous contrast to many of the great orators who 
 preceded him in the House of Commons. Like 
 Reni, who proclaimed in the "right Etruscan" 
 the virtues of regal Montepulciano, and Clau- 
 dius, who called upon the German Biirschen to 
 wreathe with laurel "the brimming, brimming 
 beaker," he eschews wine ; and even when fish- 
 ing in the moist climate of the Highlands abhors 
 the counsel of Christopher North as a hideous 
 combination of Toryism and the pagan worship 
 of Bacchus. More than this, he inclines to the 
 opinion that our medical advisers, in counselling 
 the use of stimulants, have arrested the progress 
 of the people towards sobriety by encouraging 
 tippling in those high places from which fashion 
 promulgates her decrees. Whatever may be 
 best for the world at large, he has no doubt as 
 to what is best for himself, and drinks iced 
 water with a relish which must endear him to 
 the ladies of America, if not to those of Eng- 
 land. Mr Bright is now, as ever, in his own 
 words, a "plain man" with strong convictions. 
 He has also "retired from public life," but his 
 admirers— and what Englishman is not proud of 
 him ? — may rest assured that from his beautiful 
 home on the brink of the moor he yet watches 
 the political horizon with an eye, not perhaps 
 flaming as of old with the light of battle, yet 
 steadfast, if not hopeful. 
 
 CHAKLES DICKENS. 
 
 [1812-1870.] 
 
 Charles Dickens, one of England's most popu- 
 lar novelists, was born at Landport, Portsmouth, 
 on the 7th February 1812. His father, John 
 Dickens, was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and 
 receiving a pension in 1815, he removed to Lon- 
 don with his wife and seven children, when he 
 joined the staff of the Morning Chronicle as par- 
 liamentary reporter. Dickens was educated first 
 at a private school at Chatham, and afterwards 
 attended Wellington House Academy, London. 
 His first employment was in a blacking ware- 
 
 house, where he was sent to be as useful as he 
 could for 6s. or 7s. a week. His father after- 
 wards sent him to the office of a solicitor. He 
 soon after acted as reporter for some time for a 
 publication entitled the Mirror of Parliament. 
 He next obtained a situation as reporter for 
 the Morning Chronicle, then edited by Mr John 
 Black. In this journal his first ambitious prose 
 sketches were published. In a collected form 
 they are known as " Sketches by Boz." Messrs 
 Chapman & Hall engaged him to write a story 
 
420 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 In monthly parts. The result was the popular 
 and well-known ** Pickwick Papers;" the circu- 
 lation of which in parts rose from 400 to 40,000 
 copies. The success of "Pickwick" led Mr 
 Bentley, the publisher, to secure his services 
 as editor of his Miscellany. "Oliver Twist" 
 was contributed to its pages. Henceforward 
 a work by Charles Dickens was eagerly read 
 and inquired for. Work after work flowed 
 from his pen, with no diminution but rather 
 increase to his popularity. He visited America, 
 and on his return gave to the world his "Ameri- 
 can Notes for English Circulation." On Janu- 
 ary 1, 1846, the first number of the Daily 
 News was published, Dickens being advertised 
 as at " the head of the literary department ; " 
 he also had been one of its projectors, but re- 
 tired from the editorship after a few months' 
 experience. In 1850 he started a cheap weekly 
 periodical called Household Words, but a quarrel 
 with his publishers led to a change of title, and 
 so afterwards it appeared as All the Year Round. 
 He appeared as a public reader of his own 
 works in America, also in London, Edinburgh, 
 Glasgow, and many important provincial towns. 
 He gave a series of farewell readings towards the 
 close of 1868, the last taking place at St James's 
 Hall, 15th March 1870. In November 1868 
 Dickens had intimated that in the future he 
 would cease to issue Christmas numbers, which, 
 as in the case of the " Christmas Carol," had be- 
 come immensely popular. Of " Mugby Junction " 
 upwards of a quarter of a million copies were sold. 
 He had commenced a new novel, " The Mystery 
 of Edwin Drood," but death found him busy at 
 his task, and called him away ere the mystery 
 for the public was solved. He died at his resi- 
 dence, Gad's Hill, of effusion of blood on the 
 brain, brought on by over-work, 9th June 1870, 
 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, 14th 
 June 1870. Inclusive of reprinted pieces, Mr 
 Dickens has had to do with upwards of forty 
 separate volumes. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS.* 
 
 The career of Mr Dickens has been one of the 
 wonders of the nineteenth century. Without 
 a university education, without literary influ- 
 ence of any kind, by the sheer force of his 
 genius, he rose at once to the position of the 
 most popular author of the age. In the face of 
 carping critics, and of a throng of able rivals, he 
 kept his place triumphantly ; and for more than 
 thirty years, with the long series of his wonderful 
 creations, he has continued to charm the great 
 English-reading public in all parts of the world. 
 
 * A lecture on the "Genius and Writings of Charles 
 Dickens," by David Pryde, M.A., LL.D., Lecturer on 
 English Literature in the Edinburgh School of Arts, 
 and Head-master of the Edinburgh Educational 
 Institution. 
 
 And lately, just when reviewers were hinting 
 that he had exhausted himself, he began by his 
 matchless power of reading to give to his works 
 a more exquisite finish than ever. Formerly, 
 like other novelists, he had merely described his 
 personages; but now he also embodies them. 
 Formerly he had simply given their written 
 characters and conversations ; but now he also 
 gives their features, manner, and voice. For- 
 merly he had presented them to the imagination, 
 but now he places them before the senses. A 
 great author and a great actor in one, he is the 
 most thoroughgoing representer of whom we 
 have any record ; and his works and his readings 
 combine to form one of the most wonderful 
 illusions of modern times. 
 
 A popularity so great and so lasting is surely 
 a most important subject ; and it seems to us 
 that to inquire into its causes would be a most 
 interesting and a most useful study. Let us 
 ask then the plain question, Why is Mr Dickens 
 so popular ? We shall endeavour to answer it 
 in two ways, generally and particularly. 
 
 Speaking generally, we would say that Mr 
 Dickens is so wonderfully popular because he 
 has in his nature that which suits every one. 
 In his own person he has the desires, feelings, 
 and thoughts of all grades of society. He is, 
 in fact, 
 
 "A man so various, that he seems to be 
 Not one, but all mankind's epitome," 
 
 In other words, Mr Dickens is more popular 
 than other authors because he has a larger and 
 richer humanity. 
 
 But we shall see the causes of Mr Dickens's 
 popularity more clearly if we examine particu- 
 larly the different parts of his novels. These 
 parts will naturally come up in the following 
 order: the plots, the characters, the scenes, 
 the pathos, and the humour ; and in considering 
 these we shall see with what entire abandon- 
 ment he throws himself into whatever descrip 
 tion he undertakes. 
 
 Let us first examine his plots; and that we 
 may understand their excellence more thor- 
 oughly, let us, first of all, ask. What are the 
 essential elements of a good plot or story? To 
 answer this, let us suppose the case of a man 
 telling the simplest of all stories, namely, a 
 child's story. What must he do? He must 
 make the tale interesting, for otherwise it would 
 have no effect whatever. He must manage to 
 catch the child's eye, and keep it riveted from 
 the beginning to the very end. But this is not 
 all. He will sometimes be interrupted in tha 
 course of the narrative by the question, " Is this 
 true?" Accordingly, he must contrive to in- 
 vest all the incidents with an air of truthfulness. 
 These, then — interest and truthfulness — are the 
 essential elements of a story; and these the 
 stories of Mr Dickens possess. Look, in the 
 first place, at the interest which he studies to 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 421 
 
 throw into his plots. Eacli novel is occupied 
 with some iiew and striking event which sus- 
 tains the attention throughout. For example, 
 we have in *' Oliver Twist" the adventures of a 
 friendless country boy, who falls into the 
 clutches of a gang of London thieves ; in the 
 "Old Curiosity Shop," the wanderings of a 
 heroic little girl who is drawing away her in- 
 fatuated grandfather from the temptations of 
 the gambling- table ; in "Bleak House," the 
 career of a beautiful and haughty lady, moving 
 in triumph in the circles of fashion, yet hiding 
 under her calm demeanour the greatest agonies 
 of remorse and terror ; and in the '* Tale of Two 
 Cities," the case of a helpless and hopeless 
 drunkard, who, inspired by holiest love, lays 
 down his life for his friend. And, at the same 
 time, all the details are arranged with artistic 
 skill. There are neither any wearisome digres- 
 sions, nor yet any perplexing gaps in the narra- 
 tive. The one incident rises on the top of the 
 other — like the steps of a stair, leading up the 
 reader gradually and easily to the grand climax 
 of the story. Look, in the second place, at the 
 air of truthfulness with which he invests his 
 novels ; and this is a quality in which Mr Dickens 
 has no superior, and therefore we would call 
 particular attention to it. By his magical genius 
 he not only creates his characters, but he throws 
 himself into them, and undergoes all their ad- 
 ventures. Speaking of his "Tale of Two Cities," 
 he says, " I have so far verified what is done and 
 suffered in these pages, as that I have certainly 
 done and suffered it all myself." Being thus 
 placed in the persons of his characters, he sees 
 the smallest circumstances which surround them, 
 and feels the importance of the smallest events 
 which befall them. Accordingly, when he tells 
 the story, we feel that he does it, not like one 
 who is inventing, but like one who is relating 
 from memory. Above all, the little incidents 
 to which he refers in passing, impress us with a 
 sensd of the truthfulness of the narrative. A mere 
 inventor, we think, would never introduce them, 
 because they are not necessary to his plot. It 
 Is only an eye-witness, we imagine, that would 
 mention them in order to make his account as 
 exact as possible. Many instances of this 
 minute narration might be given, but we have 
 only space for one. David Copperfield, describ- 
 ing his boyhood in London, says : 
 
 "I was so young and childish, and so little 
 qualified— how could I be otherwise ?— to under- 
 take the whole charge of my own existence, that 
 often in going to Murdstone & Grinsby's of a 
 morning, I could not resist the stale pastry put 
 out for sale at the pastrycook's door, and spent 
 in that the money I should have kept for my 
 dinner. Then I went without my dinner, or 
 bought a roll or a slice of pudding. I remem- 
 ber two pudding-shops, between which I was 
 divided according to my finances. One was in 
 a court close to St Martin's Church— at the 
 
 back of the church — which is now removed alto- 
 gether. The pudding at that shop was made of 
 currants, and was rather a special pudding, but 
 was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than 
 a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A 
 good shop for the latter was in the Strand, 
 somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt 
 since. It was a stout, pale pudding, heavy and 
 flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in 
 whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot 
 at about my time every day, and many a day 
 did I dine off it." 
 
 This passage is pervaded by an air of reality. 
 The plain statements, the abrupt sentences, the 
 very repetitions, all make it resemble a report 
 of evidence given in a witness-box. And notice 
 especially the force of that account of his man- 
 ner of dining. We feel that no writer, except 
 one who had gone through the adventures, 
 would have referred to the two kinds of pudding, 
 would have mentioned the very places where 
 they were bought, and would have been so 
 particular in describing the latter as "stout 
 and pale," "heavy and flabby," and "with great 
 flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide dis- 
 tances apart." 
 
 At the same time, while Mr Dickens invests 
 his plots with striking interest and truthfulness, 
 he does not fall into a mistake very common in 
 the present day. Many novelists make their 
 plots far too exciting. Their staple incidents 
 are unexpected meetings, unexpected dangers, 
 and unexpected rescues. Everything is sudden, 
 startling, and out of the ordinary course of 
 nature. Accordingly, the effect of their novels 
 is most hurtful. The attention of the reader is 
 drawn away from the characters, the scenes, 
 and the style, and concentrated upon the mere 
 story ; and a morbid curiosity is cultivated, to 
 the utter neglect of all the other faculties. But 
 Mr Dickens takes far too complete a view of life 
 to fall into this mistake. Although he makes 
 his plots interesting, he also sets his characters 
 and scenes in a light so vivid, that they exact 
 an equal share of our attention ; and the result 
 is, that not only our curiosity, but all the 
 powers of our nature, are called into healthy 
 exercise. 
 
 Let us now look at the characters. There are 
 very few novelists, indeed, that can represent a 
 really living character. It is not enough to 
 know human nature intimately ; it is not enough 
 to bring forward some strong passion or bundle 
 of passions, and to label it with the name of a 
 person. There are two other things that are 
 necessary. In the first place, there must be a 
 master - passion, running through the others, 
 and keeping them together, and making them 
 consistent ; and, in the next place, life must be 
 infused into the whole, so as to make the differ- 
 ent passions move and act as in a sensible and 
 rational being. In Mr Dickens's novels we find 
 . all these essentials. His relish for life has evi* 
 

 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 dently led him to every place where character 
 is to be seen — to crowded streets, to fairs, to 
 theatres, to elections, to inns, to railway 
 stations; and there he has studied keenly all 
 grades of men — noblemen, politicians, lawyers, 
 adventurers, showmen, tramps, and thieves. 
 Accordingly, his novels swarm with many- 
 coloured groups of men and women of every 
 age, dress, and complexion. Nor are these 
 characters mere lay-figures, arranged and de- 
 corated artistically. Full of a rich vitality 
 himself, he has entered by turns into them all, 
 and has animated and nerved every faculty. 
 They are not personifications of virtues and 
 vices ; they are not mere conglomerations of 
 impulses, driven hither and thither without any 
 laws ; but they are rational beings, with some 
 ruling principle, giving order and consistency 
 to all their actions. Many examples of these 
 many-sided creations might be given ; but three 
 will suffice. 
 
 Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet of Chesney 
 Wold, is a gentleman of many good qualities. 
 He is chivalrous to "my lady," beneficent to 
 his poor relations, and magnificently condescend- 
 ing to his dependants. But the ruling passion 
 which runs through all these, like a strong and 
 stiff backbone, and which gives form and con- 
 sistency to the whole character, is his family 
 pride. If he is certain of anything, it is this 
 fact, that the world was made for the Dedlocks 
 and their connections ; and the present order of 
 things, which sets them on the high places of 
 the earth, must be perfect. "Whatever is, must 
 be right. He, therefore, groans with satis- 
 faction under the gout, because it is a long- 
 established and highly aristocratic disease ; and 
 when anything startling is said, he believes his 
 ears, not because they are good, but because 
 they have been handed down through a long 
 line of ancestry. He even approves of the 
 tedious and heart-sickening Court of Chancery ; 
 for it is **a slow, expensive, British, constitu- 
 tional kind of thing." In fact, in the pithy 
 words of Mr Dickens himself. Sir Leicester 
 Dedlock is **an honourable, truthful, high- 
 spirited, intensely - prejudiced, perfectly un- 
 reasenable man." 
 
 Another striking portrait is that of Bucket 
 the detective. He is a healthy and hearty 
 Englishman. Although his work is arduous 
 and disagreeable, he takes everything as plea- 
 santly as possible ; for why should he, In- 
 spector Bucket, despise the blessings of life? 
 He enjoys breakfast before beginning the busi- 
 ness of the day ; when his employers offer him 
 wine, he declares his preference for ** a toothful 
 of your fine old brown East Inder sherry ; " and 
 at social meetings, when the song goes round, 
 he has no objection to take his turn. Yet his 
 master-motive is love of his profession ; and it 
 is under the influence of this feeling that he 
 chiefly appears. His great aim, of course, is to 
 
 pick up information ; and he, therefore, tries to 
 throw people off their guard, and to lay them 
 open to detection. In the street he lounges 
 along as if he were remarking nothing. In com- 
 pany he seems completely at his ease. He 
 dandles the children on his knee ; he declares 
 to the mother that he could never have fancied 
 her old enough to be the parent of these 
 youngsters, had they not been so very like her; 
 and he enters with the father into all the de- 
 tails of his business. So ardent is his sym- 
 pathy with all classes of men, that it often 
 carries him beyond the truth. There is not a 
 profession mentioned in which some brother, or 
 uncle, or cousin of his has not been engaged ; 
 and thus he goes on, with his free sociality, 
 flatteries, and plausible fables, disarming the 
 suspicions of his hearers, and enticing them to 
 be open and communicative. But all the while 
 he is on the alert for information. His keen 
 dark eyes are watching under his eyebrows, and 
 his very face appears to be listening. And 
 when he begins to make inquiry, in what a 
 cunning way he does it ! He throws out a host 
 of trifling questions, and under cover of these 
 puts a few questions that are really important. 
 The trifling questions he comes back upon and 
 dwells upon ; the important questions he seems 
 to treat carelessly and by the way. Take, for 
 example, the masterly manner in which he 
 worms from the tall footman the information 
 that Lady Dedlock went out dressed in a par- 
 ticular way on the night of Tulkinghorn's 
 murder : 
 
 << < Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?' says 
 Mr Bucket. 
 
 *' ' Three,' says Mercury. 
 ** 'Are you so much ? But then, you see, you 
 are broad in proportion, and don't look it. 
 You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you 
 ain't. Was you ever modelled now?' Mi 
 Bucket asks, conveying the expression of an 
 artist into the turn of his eye and head. 
 "Mercury never was modelled. 
 " ' Then you ought, you know,' says Mi 
 Bucket ; * and a friend of mine, that you'll 
 hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor, 
 would stand something handsome to make a 
 drawing of your proportions for the marble. 
 My lady's out, ain't she ? ' 
 '"Out to dinner.' 
 
 *' ' Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?' 
 "'Yes.' 
 
 " * Not to be wondered at. Such a fine woman 
 as her, so handsome, and so graceful, and so 
 elegant, is like a fresh lemon on a dinner-table, 
 ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father 
 in the same line of life as yourself? ' 
 "Answer in the negative. 
 "'Mine was,' says Mr Bucket. 'My father 
 was first a page, then a footman, then a butler, 
 then a steward, then an innkeeper. Lived uni- 
 versally respected, and died lamented. Said 
 
with his last breath that he considered service 
 the most honourable part of his career ; and so 
 it was. I've a brother in service, and a brother- 
 in-law. My lady a good temper ? ' 
 
 "Mercury replies, 'As good as you can ex- 
 pect.' 
 
 "'Oh!' says Mr Bucket, *a little spoilt, a 
 little capricious? Lord! what can you antici- 
 pate when they're so handsome as that? . . . 
 She's a lovely woman, too ; she really is. Don't 
 look quite healthy, though.' 
 
 "Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. 
 Suffers much from headaches. 
 
 "Keally? That's a pity. Walking, Mr Bucket 
 would recommend for that. Well, she tries 
 walking. Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes 
 for two hours when she has them bad. By 
 night, too. 
 
 " 'Are you sure that you're quite so much as 
 six foot three ? ' asks Mr Bucket—' begging your 
 pardon for interrupting you for a moment.' 
 
 " Not a doubt about it. 
 
 " 'You're so well put together that I should 
 not have thought it. But the household troops, 
 though considered fine men, are built so strag- 
 gling. Walks by night, does she ? When it's 
 moonlight, though?' 
 
 " Oh, yes I When it's moonlight ! Of course. 
 Oh, of course ! Conversational and acquiescent 
 on both sides. 
 
 '"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking 
 much yourself?' says Mr Bucket. 'Not much 
 time for it, I should say.' 
 
 "Besides which. Mercury don't like it. Pre- 
 fers carriage exercise. 
 
 '"To be sure,' says Mr Bucket, 'that makes 
 a difference. Now I think of it,' says Mr 
 Bucket, warming himself, and looking pleasantly 
 at the blaze, 'she went out walking the very 
 night of this business.' 
 
 " ' To be sure she did ! I let her into the 
 garden over the way.' 
 
 " 'And left her there. Certainly you did. I 
 saw you doing it.' 
 
 " 'I didn't see you,' says Mercury. 
 
 " 'I was rather in a hurry,' says Mr Bucket, 
 'for I was going to visit an aunt of mine that 
 lives at Chelsea — next door but one to the Old 
 Original Bun House. Ninety years old the lady 
 is, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to 
 be passing at the time. Let's see. What time 
 might it be? It wasn't ten? ' 
 
 "'Half-past nine.' 
 
 " ' You're right. So it was. And if I don't 
 deceive myself, my lady was muffled up in a 
 loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it.' 
 " ' Of course she was.' 
 
 " Of course she was. Mr Bucket must return 
 to a little work he has got to do upstairs ; but 
 he must shake hands with Mercury in acknow- 
 ledgment of his agreeable conversation; and 
 will he — this is all he asks — will he, when he 
 has a leisure half-hour, think of bestowing it on 
 
 the Koyal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of 
 both parties." 
 
 Here Mr Bucket has a very difficult task. 
 The stately Mercury is taciturn, for he deems it 
 his mission not to talk but to look gorgeous 
 and grand in his livery. Besides, he naturally 
 shrinks from committing himself in speech to a 
 detective. Mr Bucket, therefore begins by 
 smoothing him down, and making him gentle 
 and yielding. He praises his height and hand- 
 some proportions; he insinuates that he is a 
 finer man than any of the Life Guards; and, 
 putting on the look of an artistic critic, implores 
 him, for the benefit of the fine arts, to sit to a 
 sculptor. He then descants upon the respecta- 
 bility of being in service, and, of course, it turns 
 out that he has several relations in that line of 
 life — a father, a brother, and a brother-in-law. 
 And when, like a clever pickpocket, he has 
 thus engrossed the attention of his victim, he 
 begins to abstract the information from him 
 gradually and imperceptibly. And, when the 
 most important fact comes dropping out, notice 
 how he refrains from betraying any interest in 
 it, but turns the conversation to another subject. 
 "She sometimes walks by night," remarks 
 Mercury, and Mr Bucket, instead of crying 
 out, "Indeed, that's remarkable," merely says, 
 "Are you sure that you're quite so much as 
 six foot three," as if that were the great subject 
 that is puzzling his brain. Nor does he fail to 
 keep this pleasing illusion till the last. His 
 parting question is not, "Are you sure that 
 Lady Dedlock went out on that particular 
 night?" but, "Will you, when you have a 
 leisure half-hour, sit to that sculptor, whom I 
 have mentioned, for your statue?" 
 
 Bailey, the serving-boy at Mrs Todgers's lodg- 
 ing-house, is another masterly sketch. He is 
 not a one-sided character ; but is represented as 
 having several striking qualities. He has an 
 ardent love of knowledge, which drives him to 
 pry into all matters, both domestic and social. 
 His generosity is also great, for he freely com- 
 municates his information to every one he meets. 
 Wonderful too is his patience, for he bears, 
 with the endurance of a martyr, "the small 
 articles of ironmongery and hardware " that are 
 hurled at his head by his provoked mistress. 
 But the ruling power in his character is his 
 overflow of animal spirits, which drives him to 
 commit the most apish tricks. Sometimes, in 
 the midst of his work, he makes " excursive 
 bolts " into the neighbouring alleys to play at 
 leap-frog, with vagrant lads, "until pursued 
 and brought back by the hair of his head or the 
 lob of his ear," At other times, when showing 
 to strangers the view from the roof, he lingers 
 behind to walk upon the parapet, and to con- 
 template, "with a delight peculiar to his sex 
 and time of life, any chance of dashing himself 
 into small fragments." And, when there is any 
 particular bustle in the lodging-house, this wild 
 
424 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 humour becomes rampant ; and he pervades all 
 parts of the house like a mischievous imp. An 
 instance of this occurs on the evening before the 
 grand dinner, given by the lodgers to Pecksniff 
 and his two daughters, on the occasion of their 
 visit to London. 
 
 *' On that particular Saturday evening," says 
 Mr Dickens, "he honoured the Miss Pecksniffs 
 with a deal of notice ; seldom passing the door 
 of Mrs Todgers's private room where tbey sat 
 alone before the fire, working by the light of a 
 solitary candle, without putting in his head and 
 greeting them with such compliments as, * There 
 you are again!' 'Ain't it nice,' and similar 
 humorous attentions. 
 
 *' 'I say,' he whispered in one of his journeys 
 to and fro, * young ladies, there's soup to-mor- 
 row. She's a-making it now. Ain't she a-put- 
 ting in the water? Oh ! not at all neither V 
 
 "In the course of answering another knock, 
 he thrust in his head again. 
 
 ** * I say ! There's fowls to-morrow. Not 
 skinny ones. Oh no ! ' 
 
 "Presently he called through the keyhole, 
 'There's fish to-morrow. Just come. Don't 
 eat none of him ! ' and, with this special warn- 
 ing, vanished again. 
 
 " By-and-by he returned to lay the cloth for 
 supper; it having been arranged between Mrs 
 Todgers and the two young ladies, that they 
 should partake of an exclusive veal cutlet to- 
 gether in the privacy of that apartment. He 
 entertained them on this occasion by thrusting 
 the lighted candle within his mouth, and exhibit- 
 ing his face in a state of transparency, after the 
 performance of which feat he went on with his 
 professional duties, brightening every knife as he 
 laid it on the table, by breathing on the blade, 
 and afterwards polishing the same on the apron 
 already mentioned. When he had completed 
 his preparations he grinned at the sisters, and 
 expressed his belief that the approaching colla- 
 tion would be of ' rather a spicy sort.' 
 
 " 'Will it be long before it's ready, Bailey?' 
 asked Mercy. 
 
 " 'No,' said Bailey, 'it is cooked. When I 
 came up she was dodging among the tender 
 pieces with a fork, and eating them,' 
 
 " But he had scarcely achieved the utterance 
 of these words, when he received a manual com- 
 pliment on the head, which sent him staggering 
 against the wall ; and Mrs Todgers, dish in hand, 
 stood indignantly before him. 
 
 "'Oh! you little villain!' said that lady. 
 * Oh ! you bad, false boy ! ' 
 
 "'No worse than yourself,' retorted Bailey, 
 guarding his head on a principle invented by Mr 
 Thomas Cribb. 'Ah! come now. Do that 
 agin, will yer ? ' 
 
 "'He's the most dreadful child!' said Mrs 
 Todgers, setting down the dish, . . . 'that 
 I am afraid nothing but hanging will ever do 
 him any good.' 
 
 ' ' ' Won't it ! ' cried Bailey. ' Oh, yes ! Wot do 
 you go a-lowerin' the table-beer for then, and 
 destroying my constitooshun ? ' 
 
 " 'Go downstairs, you vicious boy,' said Mrs 
 Todgers, holding the door open. ' Do you hear 
 me, go along ! ' 
 
 " After two or three dexterous feints, he went, 
 and was seen no more that night, save once 
 when he brought up some tumblers and hot 
 water, and much disturbed the two Miss Peck- 
 sniffs by squinting hideously behind the back 
 of the unconscious Mrs Todgers. Having done 
 this justice to his wounded feelings, he retired 
 underground, where, in company with a swarm 
 of black beetles and a kitchen candle, he em- 
 ployed his faculties in cleaning boots and brush- 
 ing clothes till the night was far advanced." 
 
 In this lively sketch, Mr Dickens illustrates 
 the maxim that he has stated elsewhere, namely, 
 that "a boy is the enemy of all creation." 
 Bailey is in high spirits himself; and that is a 
 reason why he should throw all his fellow-crea- 
 tures into low spirits. He is supremely happy 
 himself; and, therefore, he must make other 
 people perfectly miserable. He destroys the 
 Misses Pecksniffs' prospect of a sumptuous 
 dinner on the morrow, by telling them that the 
 soup is watery, that the fowls are skinny, and 
 that the fish is uneatable. And, having rained 
 their future, he is not content until he has also 
 blighted their present. He informs them, that 
 the supper of which they are about to partake, 
 has been tampered with, that the tender pieces 
 have been picked out and devoured by Mrs 
 Todgers. And, lest they should have any 
 particle of comfort in eating the hard bits that 
 are left, he shows the short and easy process by 
 which the knives are cleaned. And, when he 
 has thus fulfilled his mission, he descends, like 
 a real imp of darkness, with a hideous squint on 
 his face, to the infernal regions, to the company 
 of black beetles. 
 
 There is one part of character-painting in 
 which Mr Dickens has no equal ; and that is 
 the description of oddities. He sees the peculi- 
 arities of even the least important among his 
 personages so distinctly, and he describes them 
 in a manner so happy and striking, that they 
 cannot fail to arrest our attention. The result 
 is that, amid the great multitude of his char- 
 acters, each stands out distinguished from his 
 neighbour by some notable idiosyncrasy. Some 
 are remarkable for their appearance. We have 
 — Dora's aunts, "not unlike birds altogether, 
 having a sharp, brisk, sudden way of adjusting 
 themselves like canaries ; " the apoplectic Major 
 Bagstock, "with a complexion like a Stilton 
 cheese, and eyes like a prawn's," and who not 
 only rose in the morning, "like a giant re- 
 freshed, but conducted himself at breakfast like 
 a giant refreshing ; " the gawky fisher lad. Ham, 
 whose trousers were so stiff that they could have 
 stood alone, and who did not exactly wear a hat. 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 425 
 
 but was "covered in a-top, like an old build- 
 ing, with something pitchy;" Captain Cuttle, 
 every inch a sailor, with a handkerchief twisted 
 round his neck like a rope, a large shirt collar 
 like a small sail, and a glazed hat so hard that 
 it made your very head ache to look at it ; the 
 old sailor in the lighthouse, "with his face as 
 damaged and as scarred with hard weather as 
 the figure-head of an old ship, and who struck 
 up a sturdy song that was like a gale ; " a 
 genuine tar, by the name of Blogg, " a weazen, 
 old, crab-faced man, in a suit of battered oil-skin, 
 who had got tough and stringy from long pick- 
 ling in salt water, and who smelt like a weedy sea- 
 beech when the tide is out ; " Bill Sykes, whose 
 bulky legs always appeared "in an unfinished 
 and incomplete state, without a set of fetters to 
 garnish them ; " a prize-fighter, named the Game 
 Chicken, "whose face bore the marks of having 
 been frequently broken and but indifferently 
 mended;" and shabby-genteel Tony Jobling, 
 the rim of whose hat "had a glistening appear- 
 ance as if it had been a favourite promenade for 
 snails." Other characters are distinguishable by 
 fiome peculiarity in their disposition. There is 
 Pecksniff, the very ideal of a hypocrite, "like a 
 direction-post always pointing out the road to 
 virtue, and never going there himself." There 
 is Miggs, a gaunt servant-of-all-work, who ima- 
 gines that she is soaring to the very height of 
 Christian charity, when she exclaims, "I hopes, 
 I hates, and despises, both myself and all my 
 fellow-creeturs. " Then there is John Willett, 
 the stolid landlord of the Maypole, who can 
 never think unless he is basking before a roaring 
 fire, whose head in fact requires to be cooked 
 before it will let out any ideas. There is also 
 the immortal Micawber, threadbare, poverty- 
 stricken, helplessly in debt ; but always grand 
 and glorious, when he describes his misery in 
 grandiloquent words and long-resounding sen- 
 tences. And, last of all, we must mention Mr 
 Richard Swiveller, who moralises in the follow- 
 ing strain about a small kitchen slave whom he 
 had surnamed the Marchioness : " The Marchion- 
 ■ess is a very extraordinary person — surrounded 
 by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of beer, un- 
 acquainted with her own name (which is not so 
 remarkable), and taking a limited view of society 
 through the key-holes of doors." 
 
 The last feature that we must notice under 
 this head, is the artistic taste which Mr Dickens 
 shows in making even his most odious char- 
 acters tolerable. There is scarcely one of them 
 that does not excite within us some feeling 
 •either of sympathy or amusement. We appreci- 
 ate the wild humour of Quilp, which tempts 
 him to listen at the door, while his wife, his 
 mother-in-law, and his lawyer are consoling 
 themselves for his supposed death by drowning, 
 and calmly taking measures for the identifica- 
 tion of his body, when it should be washed 
 ashore. We are amused at the absurd spectacle 
 
 which Pecksniff makes of himself, when he at- 
 tempts to moralise in the following strain: 
 "What are we but coaches? Some of us are 
 slow coaches— some of us are fast coaches. Our 
 passions are the horses, and rampant animals 
 too, and virtue is the drag. We start from the 
 Mother's Arms, and we run to the Dust Shovel." 
 And who can refrain from laughing at Mr 
 Squeers's dissertation on philosophy ? ' ' Measles, 
 rheumatics, hooping-cough, agers, and lum- 
 bagers is all philosophy together ; that's what it 
 is. The heavenly bodies is philosophy, and the 
 earthly bodies is philosophy. If there's a screw 
 loose in a heavenly body, that's philosophy; 
 and if there's a screw loose in an earthly body, 
 that's philosophy too ; or, it may be, that some- 
 times there's a little metaphysics in it, but 
 that's not often. Philosophy's the chap for me. 
 If a parent asks a question in the classical, com- 
 mercial, or mathematical line, says I gravely, 
 'Why, sir, in the first place, are you a philo- 
 sopher?' 'No, Mr Squeers,' he says, 'I ain't.' 
 'Then, sir,' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I 
 shan't be able to explain it.' Naturally, the 
 parent goes away, and wishes he was a philo- 
 sopher, and equally naturally thinks I am one." 
 
 In spite of all these great merits, there are 
 some critics that object strongly to Mr Dickens's 
 characters. They declare that his characters 
 are unnatural ; and they conclude that there- 
 fore they are not legitimate representations, or, 
 in other words, that they are not life-like. 
 Now, we admit that some ot them are un- 
 natural ; but we deny that this fact proves 
 that they are not life-like. A character may be 
 unnatural, and yet may be life-like. Are there 
 not many unnatural people in the world ? Could 
 we say that all our acquaintances are thoroughly 
 natural ? Are we not surrounded by living cari- 
 catures, and are not these a fit subject for c 
 novelist? But, then, the objectors reply that 
 Mr Dickens exaggerates even these living cari- 
 catures; "for," they say, "we never saw such 
 persons in real life as some of the characters in 
 his books." Now, we would simply ask these 
 critics, if the fact that they have never seen 
 such people proves that such people cannot 
 exist? Is it not possible that Mr Dickens, with 
 an experience of life which is admitted by all to 
 be wonderful, may not have seen more than 
 they have seen? And even although their ex- 
 perience be equal to his, is it not possible, 
 that he, with his astonishing powers of observa- 
 tion, may have detected strange peculiarities 
 of character, which they are totally unable to 
 detect ? 
 
 But the best proof, after all, that Mr Dickens's 
 characters are real, is the fact that they still 
 exist in the memory of the public. They are 
 not like the personages in the majority of novels. 
 They do not flit like ghosts before the excited 
 imagination, and then vanish as soon as the 
 light of reality is let in upon them. Their 
 
nature is so true that they live and thrive in the 
 atmosphere, the bustle, and the glare of this 
 world. We sympathise with them ; we quote 
 their words as if they were living authorities ; 
 and we cannot help thinking that they are 
 actually existing and moving amongst us. We 
 are still under the illusion that Mr Pickwick 
 may be heard of at the George and Vulture ; we 
 scrutinise every portly Cockney coachman, in 
 the hope of detecting under his wrappings the 
 veritable Tony Weller ; and we often expect to 
 see Mr Micawber in his brown surtout, black 
 tights, and quizzing-glass, "turn up" amid the 
 throngs of London. 
 
 We come now to the scenes in Mr Dickens's 
 novels. In these the author shows the same 
 wealth of genius as in the plots and characters. 
 During his early life he seems unconsciously to 
 have trained his eye to observe accurately. For 
 years it has been catching the shape and com- 
 plexion of all kinds of outward objects ; and it 
 has stored his memory with the forms of men, 
 animals, plants, crowded towns, and open land- 
 scapes. And thus, when he begins to form his 
 pictures, he works at a mighty advantage. He 
 has a rich storehouse of clearly-defined and 
 freshly-coloured images ; he can choose such as 
 are exactly suitable ; and, to increase their 
 correctness, he can give them "a local habita- 
 tion and a name," by placing them in some 
 well-known town or country district. Accord- 
 ingly, his scenes are marked by almost every 
 kind of truthfulness. We shall illustrate a few 
 of their more characteristic qualities. 
 
 The first particular in these scenes worthy ol 
 special notice is theii completeness. These are 
 no fragments of pictures. Nor are the pictures 
 overlaid with unnecessary details. With his 
 comprehensive mind he takes in the whole of 
 a scene, and catches at once its general char- 
 acter, or, in other words, its general efl'ect. 
 Knowing the general effect, he soon discerns 
 what objects are unnecessary, and what are 
 necessary. The former he rejects ; the latter 
 only he introduces. Then the picture is com- 
 plete ; and each detail is found to be in har- 
 mony with the rest, and to aid in bringing out 
 the great general effect. This art is so pre- 
 eminently a practice of Mr Dickens's, that the 
 most careless reader cannot fail to notice it. 
 Examples may be found in every page ; but we 
 shall merely give the first that comes to hand. 
 It is taken from "Martin Chuzzlewit," and is a 
 description of a rainy morning in winter. 
 
 " The day was dawning from a path of watery 
 light in the east, and sullen clouds came driving 
 up before it, from which the rain descended in 
 a thick wet mist. It streamed from every twig 
 and bramble in the hedge ; made little gullies 
 in the path ; ran down a hundred channels in 
 the road ; and punched innumerable holes into 
 the face of every pond and gutter. It fell with 
 an oozy, slushy sound among the grass; and 
 
 made a muddy kennel of every furrow in the 
 ploughed fields. No living creature was any. 
 where to be seen. The prospect could hardly 
 have been more desolate, if animated nature 
 had been dissolved in water, and poured down 
 upon the earth again in that form." 
 
 In this passage every detail is in keeping, and 
 tends to produce one great impression. The 
 "watery light," the "wet mist," the streaming 
 twigs and brambles, the running channels in the 
 road, the muddy kennels in the ploughed fields, 
 "the oozy, slushy sound among the grass" — all 
 give us the idea of a ceaselessly dripping and 
 drenching day. It seems, indeed, as if not only 
 animated nature, but the whole of the material 
 universe, were dissolving in water. 
 
 Very often the pervading feeling of the scene 
 takes such thorough possession of Mr Dickens, 
 that he represents inanimate objects as sym- 
 pathising with living creatures. For example, 
 in his description of the freezing night in the 
 "Christmas Carol," not only the people shiver 
 in the street, but the church steeple strikes " the 
 hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous 
 vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chat- 
 tering in its frozen head." 
 
 The second merit in Mr Dickens's scenes is, 
 we think, their variety. He is at home in every 
 place, whether in town or in the country, whether 
 familiar or strange. And wherever he goes his 
 hearty and pliant sympathy is of mighty ser- 
 vice. It enables him to throw himself into the 
 scene, to become a part of it, to catch its tone, 
 and to describe it with fidelity and effect. It 
 does not matter what picture he attempts to 
 paint: he is equally successful with them all. 
 In scenes of imagination and fancy he rivals 
 Scott ; in pathetic descriptions he is as touching 
 as Thackeray ; in making crowds of details in- 
 teresting he is as happy as Defoe ; and he sur- 
 passes even Washington Irving in his charming 
 sketches of the humours of society. His works, 
 in fact, are a picture of the real world : varied 
 with hill and dale, smoky city and peaceful vil- 
 lage ; chequered with sunshine and shadow ; and 
 animated with human beings of every dress and 
 character. In travelling through them, there- 
 fore, we are entertained by an endless diversity 
 of scenes, boldly defined and strikingly coloured. 
 At one time we find ourselves in the lighted 
 streets of London, " with their long double rows 
 of brightly-burning lamps, dotted here and there 
 with the chemists' glaring lights," with their 
 streams of people jostling each other and hurry- 
 ing forward; and with "vehicles of all shapes 
 and makes " mingled up together in one great 
 moving, roaring torrent. At another time we 
 are in a market town — " a dull little town, with 
 a church spire, and a market-place, and a mar- 
 ket-cross, and one intensely sunny street, and a 
 pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it, 
 and a very few men sleepily lying and standing 
 about in narrow little bits of shade." Here we 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 427 
 
 have a picture of poor little Copperfield, with 
 his hat like "an old, battered, handless sauce- 
 pan ; " with his clothes " stained with heat, dew, 
 grass, and the Kentish soil on which he had 
 slept ; " with his face, neck, and hands burnt to 
 a berry-brown ; and ** powdered almost as white 
 with chalk and dust as if he had come out of a 
 limekiln." There we have a view of the stage- 
 coach, with the four greys skimming alorg, the 
 bugle playing, the coachman chiming in v.ith his 
 voice, the wheels humming cheerfully in unison, 
 the brass work on the harness ringing like an 
 orchestra of little bells, and the whole concern, 
 in fact, as it goes jingling, clinking, rattling 
 smoothly along, forming one great instrument 
 of music. We take up the "Tale of Two Cities," 
 and we read the following description of the 
 demoniacal merriment of the bloody French 
 Kevolutionists : " They danced to the popular 
 Eevolution song, keeping a ferocious time that 
 was like the gnashing of teeth in unison. Men 
 and women danced together, women danced to- 
 gether, men danced together, as hazard had 
 brought them together. At first they were a 
 mere storm of coarse red caps and coarse woollen 
 rags, but as they filled the place . . . some 
 ghastly apparition of a dance-figure gone raving 
 mad arose among them. They advanced, re- 
 treated, struck at one another's hands, clutched 
 at one another's heads, spun round alone, caught 
 one another and spun round in pairs, till many 
 of them dropped. . . . Suddenly they stopped 
 again, struck out the tune afresh, formed into 
 lines the width of the public way, and with their 
 heads low down and their hands high up, swooped 
 screaming away." We take up the "Christmas 
 Carol," and there we have a vision of a very dif- 
 ferent dance : "In came a fiddler with a music- 
 book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made 
 an orchestra of it, and tuned away like fifty 
 stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast 
 substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fez- 
 ziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six 
 young followers whose hearts they broke. In 
 came all the young men and women employed in 
 the business. In came the housemaid with her 
 cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her 
 brother's particular friend, the milkman. In 
 came the boy from over the way, who was sus- 
 pected of not having board enough from his 
 master ; trying to hide himself behind the girl 
 from next door but one, who was proved to have 
 had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they 
 all came, one after another — some shyly, some 
 boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some 
 pushing, some pulling — in they all came anyhow 
 and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty 
 couples at once; hands half round and back 
 again the other way ; down the middle and up 
 again; round and round in various stages of 
 afl'ectionate grouping; old top couple always 
 turning up in the wrong place ; new top couple 
 starting off again as soon as they got there ; aU 
 
 top couples at last, and not a bottom one to 
 help them. When this result was brought about, 
 old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the 
 dance, cried out, ' Well done ! ' and the fiddler 
 plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, espe- 
 cially provided for that purpose." 
 
 The third peculiarity which Mr Dickens shows 
 in his descriptions is a love of home scenes. Lord 
 Jeffrey, in one of his letters, remarks that Mr 
 Dickens's " kind heart is his greatest talisman," 
 and that opinion seems to us to be true. It is 
 his kind heart that makes him dwell upon those 
 firesides, where selfishness and malice never ap- 
 pear, and where guilelessness, affection, and hap- 
 piness shine in every face. So fondly does he 
 love such scenes, that he returns to them again 
 and again in every one of his stories. He does, 
 in fact, for England, what Burns has done for 
 Scotland — that is, he gives us a life-like picture 
 of the homes of the poor. And let us notice in 
 what a genial manner he executes the whole task. 
 His love for the scene is so great, that he cannot 
 omit any detail, however small. He depicts the 
 different articles of furniture, and even the orna- 
 ments on the wall. He describes their simple 
 meals — what dishes are at the head of the table, 
 what are at the foot, and with what innocent 
 jokes they heighten the relish of their food. 
 Then with what a kindly touch he sketches the 
 likenesses of the family group — the toil-worn 
 father, the anxious mother, the merry boys anc^ 
 girls ! Even the very infant is not overlooked ; 
 for it is represented to be, what it really is, the 
 most important personage in the house. As a 
 proof of this, let us quote his account of Tetter- 
 by's baby : 
 
 " It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose 
 insatiate altar the whole existence of this par- 
 ticular young brother was offered up a daily sac- 
 rifice. Its personality may be said to have 
 consisted in its never being quiet in any place 
 for five consecutive minutes, and never going to 
 sleep when required. ' Tetterby's baby ' was as 
 well known in the neighbourhood as the post- 
 man or the pot-boy. It roved from doorstep 
 to doorstep in the arms of little Johnny Tet- 
 terby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops 
 of juveniles who followed the tumblers or the 
 monkey ; and came up, all on one side, a little 
 too late for everything that was attractive, from 
 Monday morning until Saturday night. Wher- 
 ever childhood congregated to play, there was 
 little Moloch making Johnny fag and toil. When- 
 ever Johnny wanted to stay, little Moloch be- 
 came fractious and would not remain. Whenever 
 Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch was asleep and 
 must be watched. Whenever Johnny wanted to 
 stay at home, Moloch was awake and must be 
 taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded 
 that it was a faultless baby, without its peer in 
 the realms of England; and was quite content to 
 catch such glimpses of things in general from 
 behind its skirts, or over its limp flapping bon- 
 
428 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 net, and to go staggering about with it, like a 
 very little porter with a very large parcel, which 
 was not directed to anybody, and could never 
 be delivered anywhere." 
 
 In the descriptions of such scenes as these 
 lies one of the great charms of Mr Dickens's 
 writings. Other great authors may transport 
 us to strange scenes ; but Mr Dickens places us 
 in those which are endeared by our fondest 
 remembrances. They may excite our wonder ; 
 but he calls forth our most pleasing emotions. 
 We may associate their names with some of the 
 most striking creations of the human mind ; but 
 we associate his name with bright firesides, 
 genial feasts, and beaming faces. We may look 
 upon them as eminent men whom we are con- 
 tented to have once met ; but we look upon 
 him as a friend to whom we are never tired of 
 listening. 
 
 The last peculiarity which we shall notice 
 under this head is Mr Dickens's haypy treat- 
 ment of commonplace objects. "Genius," says 
 Professor Terrier, *'is nothing else than the 
 power of seeing wonders in common things." 
 If this be a true definition, the genius of Mr 
 Dickens must be of a very high cast. There is 
 scarcely an ordinary circumstance in which he 
 does not detect wonders, and which he cannot 
 make wonderful to his readers. He is, indeed, a 
 magician — a greater magician by far than all 
 your wizards, and professors of sleight-of-hand. 
 He takes up an everyday object, touches it 
 with his fancy as with a conjuring rod, utters a 
 few words, and, lo! we have an object trans- 
 formed into something that is fresh and interest- 
 ing. The result is, that every page abounds 
 with happy descriptions, with small cabinet 
 pictures, if we may so speak. Let us give a 
 few examples. A portrait he calls *'the col- 
 oured shadow of a man." The houses of Lon- 
 don he represents as " peppered with smoke." 
 "The town," he says, "hemmed Todgers's 
 round, and hustled it, and crushed it, and stuck 
 its brick and mortar elbows into it, and kept 
 the air from it, and stood perpetually between 
 it and the light." A heavy door in an old 
 rambling house is represented as "firing a long 
 train of thundering reverberations." Copper- 
 field's bed in the inn was "an immense four- 
 poster, which was quite a little landed estate." 
 The pockets of the Artful Dodger were so large 
 that they seemed to undermine his whole suit 
 of clothes. A certain dragoon was so tall that 
 "he looked like the afternoon shadow of some- 
 body else." Trotty Veck's mittens had "a 
 private apartment only for the thumb, and a 
 common room or tap for the rest of the fingers." 
 Roger Riderhood had "an old sodden fur cap, 
 formless and mangey, and that looked like a 
 furry animal, dog or cat, puppy and kitten, 
 drowned and decaying." See also how much he 
 can make of an old mat: "Being useless as a 
 mat, it had for many years directed its industry 
 
 into another channel, and tripped up every 
 one." And, last of all, as a longer specimen of 
 the same kind, take his graphic description of 
 such a trifling subject as a toy-shop: "There 
 were Noah's arks, in which the birds and beasts 
 were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you ; 
 though they could be crammed in anyhow at 
 the roof, and rattled and shaken into the small- 
 est compass. By a bold poetical license, most 
 of these Noah's arks had knockers on the doors 
 — inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as sugges- 
 tive of morning callers and a postman, yet a 
 pleasant finish to the outside of the building. 
 There were scores of melancholy little carts, 
 which, when the wheels went round, performed 
 most doleful music. . . . There were little 
 tumblers in red breeches, incessantly swarming 
 up high obstacles of red tape, and coming down 
 head first on the other side ; and there were 
 innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not 
 to say venerable, appearance, insanely flying 
 over horizontal pegs, inserted for the purpose in 
 their own street doors. There were beasts of 
 all sorts ; horses in particular of every breed, 
 from the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a 
 small tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred 
 rocker on his highest mettle. " 
 
 Let us look now at the fourth great quahty 
 of his works, namely, the pathos. In his pathetic 
 descriptions he shows more art than in almost 
 any other part of his writings. He does not 
 try to describe directly the speechless agonies 
 of the human soul. He could not adequately 
 represent them ; and even if a just representa- 
 tion were possible, it would serve no other end 
 than to pain the mind. Far more efi"ective is 
 the plan which he takes. He describes some of 
 the surrounding circumstances of the grief, and 
 these suggest the great central feeling, and then 
 leave the imagination of the reader to complete 
 the picture. He does not bring before us the 
 appalling form, of the King of Terrors. He 
 merely shows to us his awful shadow, lying 
 dark and motionless upon the neighbouring 
 landscape. For example, in the " Old Curiosity 
 Shop," no attempt is made to analyse the agony 
 of the helpless old grandfather, who has been 
 bereaved of his only stay and comfort, the brave 
 little Nell. He is merely represented as cling- 
 ing to the hope that she is only asleep, as 
 treasuring up her little homely dress, and as 
 being found at last dead upon her grave. 
 
 We come now to the fifth and last great di- 
 vision of our subject, namely, Mr Dickens's 
 humour. The great sources of this quality, we 
 think, are those exuberant animal spirits which 
 make him pull his characters into odd attitudes, 
 plant them down among the most unexpected 
 circumstances, put the most whimsical sayings 
 in their mouths, and envelop the whole in a 
 sunny atmosphere of geniality. To prove this, 
 let us take up the most humorous of all his 
 works, namely, "Pickwick," and examine its 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 429 
 
 chief features. We see at once that it is the 
 representation of one great holiday frolic, in 
 which the characters are overflowing with all 
 kinds of pleasant oddities. 
 
 The heroes, Mr Pickwick, Mr Tupman, Mr 
 Winkle, and Mr Snodgrass, are healthy, hearty 
 gentlemen, free from any care or encumbrance. 
 They are bachelors, their digestions are sound, 
 their spirits light, and their purses heavy. 
 Away they set on the top of the coach, having 
 comfortable seats and pleasant fellow-travellers. 
 They whirl merrily along, past trim cottages, 
 down green lanes, through quiet market-towns, 
 and out again into the open country. They are 
 welcomed by jolly farmers ; are entertained in 
 snug and roomy farmhouses ; and are detained 
 there for days with every kind of feast and pas- 
 time. In every town that they visit there is a 
 fine old inn. What place of entertainment 
 could be more comfortable than the Angel, or 
 the Bull, or the Peacock, or the Magpie and 
 Stump, or the White Horse, or the White Hart, 
 or the Blue Lion ? The waiters are smug and 
 polite, the landlord is radiant, and the whole 
 air is redolent of meat and drink. To quote the 
 words of Mr Samuel Weller : " Wery good little 
 dinner they can get ready in half an hour — pair 
 of fowls and a veal cutlet, French beans, 'taturs, 
 tart and tidiness." But not only do they enjoy 
 all the pleasures of the road, but they go to 
 every amusing sight that is to be seen. They 
 are present at a review of troops; at a public 
 breakfast where the guests are in fancy costume ; 
 at the great cricket-match in which the All Mug- 
 gletonians bowl out the Dingley Dellers ; at the 
 patriotic election in which Horatio Fizkin, Esq. , 
 and the Hon. Samuel Slumkey, contest the 
 borough of Eat-an' -Swill. Nor do they fail to 
 meet with those odd adventures which give such 
 a zest to an excursion. To the great amusement 
 of his friends, Mr Pickwick, the most benevo- 
 lent, the most simple-minded, the most innocent 
 of creatures, falls, through the tyranny of cir- 
 cumstances, into the most alarming scrapes. 
 He is suspected of horse-stealing. He is caught 
 lurking in a garden at midnight, and is locked 
 up in a cellar. He falls asleep in a wheel-bar- 
 row, and wakens up to find himself imprisoned 
 in a village pound, and pelted with turnips, 
 potatoes, and eggs. He is charged with the in- 
 tention of fighting a duel, is seized by a strong 
 body of officials, thrust into a sedan chair, and 
 carried before a magistrate. Above all, he is 
 convicted of breach of promise of marriage, and 
 in default of payment of damages, is imprisoned 
 in the Fleet Prison. At the same time, every 
 person near the excursionists catches the farcical 
 humour of the scene, and displays a superabun- 
 dant amount of energy. The cabman that 
 drives them to the Golden Cross attacks the 
 whole four of them in the street, and dances 
 round them; "sparring away like clock-work." 
 One of Mr Wardle's servants seizes Mr Pickwick 
 
 by the leg, and brushes away at his boot till his 
 corns are red hot ; while another shampoos Mr 
 Winkle with a heavy clothes-brush, accompany- 
 ing the operation with a hissing sound. There 
 are also Jingle, the strolling player, who riots in 
 the wildest fictions, and finds believing listen- 
 ers; the celebrated Serjeant Buzfuz who, from 
 a note containing nothing else than *' chops and 
 tomato sauce," argues that Mr Pickwick must be 
 guilty of "revolting heartlessness and systematic 
 villainy ; " and the immortal Tony Weller, who 
 gravely propounds the doctrines that poetry is a 
 low thing, fit only for "a beadle on boxing-day, 
 or Warren's blacking, or Eowland's oil," and 
 that death is an institution expressly got up for 
 the benefit of the undertakers. The very horses 
 are infected with the same rollicking spirit; for 
 one drifts sideways up the road with Mr Winkle 
 on his back, and another knocks a post-chaise 
 to pieces against a bridge, and then stands still 
 .to examine the ruins. In fact, the whole book 
 is pervaded by the richest humour ; and, as a 
 sunny view of life in merry England, it has 
 never been surpassed. 
 
 Mr Dickens has many other merits which we 
 might have noticed. There is scarcely a beauty 
 of style which he does not exemplify in his 
 descriptions ; and there is scarcely a blemish of 
 style which he does not ridicule in the speeches 
 of his absurd characters. Above all, there is 
 scarcely one of his works which has not some 
 high moral purpose, and which does not satirise 
 some social abuse. At the same time, there are 
 certain features in his works which seem to us 
 to be faults. Had our space permitted, we 
 might especially have dwelt upon the fact, that 
 he describes the dark side of English dissenting 
 preachers, without even so much as hinting that 
 there is a bright side, that he invariably repre- 
 sents them as absurd fanatics, and thus leaves 
 the ignorant reader to infer that there are no 
 such qualities amongst them as intelligence and 
 true piety. 
 
 In conclusion, we would remark, that although 
 Mr Dickens is the most popular axithor of the 
 day, he is not sufficiently appreciated by the 
 great majority of his readers. Young people 
 who think him the most fascinating of vsriters, 
 should also bear in mind that he is one of the 
 greatest masters of the English tongue. They 
 should not read him merely for amusement, but 
 also for profit. While their fancy is entertained 
 their criticising powers should be also at work. 
 While they are admiring the extraordinary 
 effect of his representations, they should like- 
 wise study the art by which that effect is pro- 
 duced. And thus they would attain what we 
 have always deemed the ideal of study, as well 
 as of every other effort, namely, to make our 
 pleasure and our business coincide, to draw 
 amusement from what is intended for our advan- 
 tage, and advantage from what is intended for 
 our amusement. 
 
EEV. NOEMAN" MACLEOD, D.D. 
 
 [1812-1872.] 
 
 The social, religious, and ecclesiastical life of 
 Scotland has gained in freedom, freshness, and 
 earnestness by the life of Norman Macleod. 
 The grandfather of this gifted minister of the 
 Church of Scotland bore the same name, had 
 the same calling, and became minister of the 
 parish of Morven, in Argyleshire, in 1774. ' ' He 
 was," writes Donald Macleod, "noble-looking 
 and eloquent, a good scholar, and a true pastor ; 
 he lived as a patriarch among his people." 
 Sixteen children were born in the manse ; the 
 piety there exemplified was earnest and genial, 
 and the children received a healthy and whole- 
 some training. The mistress of the manse, we 
 are told, was a tender and wise woman. Nor- 
 man's father "was full of geniality, of wit, and 
 poetry," carrying into his work a healthy human 
 sympathy. In appearance he is described as 
 having been remarkably handsome, with a broad 
 forehead, and an open countenance ; an eloquent 
 rpeaker, and full of tact and common sense. 
 Norman wrote at his father's death: "Were I 
 asked what there was in my father's teaching 
 and training which did us all so much good, I 
 would say, both in regard to him and my be- 
 loved mother, that it was love and truth. They 
 were both so real and human ; no cranks, twists, 
 crotchets, isms, or systems of any kind, but 
 loving, sympathising — giving a genuine blowing- 
 up when it was needed, but passing by trifles, 
 failures, infirmities, without making a fuss. 
 The liberty they gave was as wise as the re- 
 straints they imposed. Their home was happy 
 — intensely happy. Christianity was a thing 
 taken for granted, not forced with scowl and 
 frown." Agnes Maxwell, his mother, passed her 
 early youth with an uncle and aunt, "sur- 
 rounded by old but wise and sympathetic 
 people , and, being left much to the companion- 
 ship of nature, wandering by herself along the 
 glorious shore which looks across to islands 
 washed by the Atlantic surf, her mind, naturally 
 receptive of poetic impression, awoke to the 
 sense of the beautiful in outward things." 
 When she returned to her home at Aros, where 
 her father was "tacksman" and chamberlain 
 to the Duke of Argyle, after some time spent 
 at an Edinburgh school, "her home became 
 doubly sweet to her by the merriment of a 
 household of brothers and sisters, the tender- 
 ness of a mother who loved every living thing, 
 and, above all, by the companionship of her 
 father, who delighted in her sweet render- 
 ing of his favourite Scotch music, and shared 
 with her all his own stores of old romance. 
 All this tended to form that character which, 
 ripening into purest Christian life, has been as 
 
 a living Gospel to her children and her children's 
 children." She was married to Norman Macleod 
 in 1811, and settled at Campbeltown, where the 
 subject of this sketch was born, 3d June 1812. 
 
 Campbeltown lies at the head of a loch about 
 two miles long, in the promontory of Kintyre. 
 It is essentially a seaport town, the bay form- 
 ing a secure harbour, where there is a continual 
 movement, and forming a haven for hundreds 
 of fishing smacks and wherries. An occasional 
 merchantman calls there, with smaller crafts, 
 and yachts and revenue cruisers. The officers 
 and men of the revenue cutters made Campbel- . 
 town their home, and they were not without 
 employment, as smuggling was then carried on 
 to a considerable extent. Retired half-pay 
 officers, naval and military, the officers of ex- 
 cise to watch the distilleries, the duke's chamber- 
 lain, with doctors, writers, bankers, and a fair 
 proportion of elderly maiden ladies, helped to 
 make up the miscellaneous population of the 
 town. The father of young Norman was well 
 liked by all classes of the community. His son 
 was sent to the burgh school, where all classes 
 met and mingled with freedom. Several of his 
 schoolboy friends he afterwards portrayed in 
 his "Old Lieutenant." Along with these com- 
 panions he made himself familiar with every 
 part of the vessels at the pier, and became a 
 leader in boyish games and expeditions. His 
 father sent him for a time to Morven to the 
 dwelling of a worthy schoolmaster, where it was 
 understood he would be taught Gaelic. Every 
 week from Friday till Monday was spent at the 
 manse of his grandfather. The life of this early 
 time shines out in his "Reminiscences of a 
 Highland Parish." That it was a wholesome 
 influence, the following extract shows: "Oh, 
 sunshine of youth, let it shine on ! Let love 
 flow out fresh and full, unchecked by any rule 
 but what love creates, and pour itself down 
 without stint into the young heart. Make the 
 days of boyhood happy ; for other days of labour 
 and sorrow must come, when the blessing of 
 those dear eyes and clasping hands and sweet 
 caressings will, next to the love of God from 
 whom they flow, save the man from losing faith 
 in the human heart, help to deliver him from 
 the curse of selfishness, and be an Eden in the 
 memory when he is driven forth into the wilder- 
 ness of life." Long afterwards he wrote to an 
 old friend: "Those Campbeltown times and 
 those old companions have had an immense in- 
 fluence on my life. The code of honour which 
 emanated from your father's roof, I always 
 recognised as one of the great powers which 
 have helped to build me up to what I am." In 
 
NORMAN MACLEOD. 
 
 431 
 
 the year 1825 his father removed from Campbel- 
 town to the parish of Campsie, in Stirlingshire. 
 Here Norman was sent for a year to school, 
 and afterwards to the University of Glasgow, 
 where he took his curriculum of arts. The 
 Logic class was the only one in which he at- 
 tained academical honours. He gave himself 
 more to the study of general literature and 
 natural science, than to his ordinary class sub- 
 jects. Intimacy with lads of precocious literary 
 power led to his acquaintance with Shakespeare 
 and Wordsworth, both to him a new world. 
 He read much and thought freshly, and, says 
 his brother, "next to the grace of God, his 
 aflFection for home and its associations kept him 
 steady." His short visits during the college 
 session to his home at Campsie were sometimes 
 dreaded by his worthy parents ; he was so full 
 of fun, disturbing the very quiet of the Sabbath. 
 In 1831 he came to Edinburgh to study theology, 
 where he was stimulated and thrilled by the 
 eloquence of Chalmers, and benefited much 
 under the able Dr Welsh, who then taught 
 Church History. Chalmers valued the char- 
 acter of the student, and recommended him as 
 tutor to the son of the then High Sheriff of 
 Yorkshire, Henry Preston, Esq. of Moreby 
 Hall. He acted as tutor for three years, and 
 part of the time was spent at Moreby, and 
 in travelling on the Continent, and part at 
 Edinburgh. At this time he was the life of any 
 social circle in which he moved. *' With a few 
 of his chosen companions round him, he made 
 the evening instructive and delightful." He 
 quoted poetry, told a good story, uttered para- 
 doxes, and defended them. "The sparkling 
 effervescence of his mind," wrote an old com- 
 panion, ' ' often astonished, and always charmed 
 and stirred the thoughts, feelings, and enthusi- 
 asm of his companions." The first great sorrow 
 of his life was the death of his brother James, 
 who, in contradistinction to Norman, was clever, 
 orderly, fond of practical work and mechanics. 
 His heart was opened in prayer in his brother's 
 sick-chamber. When he left the room, his 
 dying brother James called his mother, and 
 putting his arms around her neck, said, ' * I am 
 so thankful, mother, Norman will be a good 
 man." This proved indeed a crisis or turning- 
 point in his life, from which he ever afterwards 
 dated the beginning of an earnest Christian life. 
 "May I follow his footsteps," he wrote in his 
 journal; "may I join with James in the uni- 
 versal song ! I know not, my own brother, 
 whether you now see me or not. If you know 
 my heart, you will know my love for you, and 
 that in passing through this pilgrimage I shall 
 never forget you who accompanied me so far. 
 'Thy will be done on earth as it is done in 
 heaven.'" Again: "I seem a merry, thou^t- 
 less being. But I spent many a thinking and 
 pleasant hour in that sick-room." 
 His life on the Continent, at Weimar, the city 
 
 of Goethe, Herder, Schiller, and Wieland, with 
 his young pupil, was beset with danger to a 
 student of divinity. But perhaps, as his 
 brother says, "the very fact that he entered 
 with them into all their innocent enjoyments 
 and gaieties gave him greater power to restrain 
 them in other things. . . . He was passion- 
 ately fond of music, sang well to the guitar, 
 sketched cleverly, was as keen a waltzer as any 
 aitacM in Weimar, and threw himself with a 
 vivid sense of enjoyment into the gaieties of the 
 little capital." The results Of his life there have 
 thus been summarised : ' 'His views were widened, 
 his opinions matured, his human sympathies 
 vastly enriched, and while all that was of the 
 essence of his early faith had become doubly 
 precious, he had gained increased catholicity of 
 sentiment, along with knowledge of the world." 
 In this connection he thus wrote to his mother 
 in 1834, on his twenty-second birthday: "A 
 knowledge of the world either spoils a man or 
 makes him more perfect. I feel it has done me 
 good in a thousand ways. I have been made to 
 look upon man as man, I see mankind like so 
 many different birds in the same atmosphere, 
 alike governed and elevated by the same feathers. 
 This a clergyman should know; to feel it is 
 invaluable." He returned from the Continent 
 in April 1835, and went to Glasgow in the 
 autumn of the same year to resume his theologi- 
 cal studies. He now studied hard and with 
 method, and when his father was elected Modera- 
 tor of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 
 he went to Edinburgh to hear the debates in the 
 Assembly. Before leaving England he had 
 paid a visit to Wordsworth, whose poetry he 
 admired so much, and who acted as an inspira- 
 tion and a teacher to him. Coleridge was his 
 next favourite amongst poets. 
 
 The following notes were written down at the 
 time: ''Ambleside, 19th August. — I have to-day 
 accomplished what I have long sought. I have 
 seen, talked, and spent two or three hours with 
 Wordsworth. I set off in the morning with a 
 note of introduction by myself, for myself. I 
 arrived at the door of a sweet, beautiful cottage, 
 and was ushered into a small parlour with a 
 small library, chiefly filled with books of poetry 
 among which was a fine edition of Dante. Pre- 
 sently the old man came in in an old brown 
 great-coat, large straw hat, and umbrella, and 
 ushered me into a small, plainly-furnished par- 
 lour. Here we sat some time, talking about 
 Germany, its political state, and the character 
 of its inhabitants — of the Scotch Church and the 
 levelling system, and right of voting ; and here 
 he read me the note from his last volume. We 
 then went out and stood on the lovely green 
 mound commanding views of Rydal and Winder- 
 mere. There I said to him, ' We are sorry that 
 you are not a friend of Ossian.' This set him 
 agoing, in which he defended himself against 
 the charge, and saying ' that although self-praise 
 
432 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was no honour, yet he thought he might say 
 that no man had written more feelingly than he 
 in his favour. Not the Ossian of M'Pherson, 
 ■which was trash, but the spirit of Ossian was 
 glorious; and this he had maintained.' He 
 then brought his works, and read many passages 
 in the bower showing this. He said that he 
 had more enemies in Scotland than elsewhere ; 
 that his little volume could not fight against all 
 the might of a long-established Review — it was 
 stupidity or envy ; but that his book had now 
 got greater circulation than they or it ever had. 
 His books must be studied to be understood — 
 they were not for ladies, to be read lounging on 
 a sofa. 
 
 "He said that Professor Wilson was an ex- 
 ceedingly clever man, and that it was such a 
 pity that his talents and energies were not 
 directed to one point. On our return to the 
 house, he said he had suffered much distress. 
 His dear sister was dead, his daughter was lying 
 ill with spine, and now an old family servant 
 was dying ; * but I endeavour to amuse myself 
 as I can.' 
 
 "I blessed the dear old man, came away ; and 
 he said he might wander into my house some 
 day or other in Scotland. Oh, how I felt as I 
 heard him read in his deep voice some of his own 
 imperishable verses — the lovely evening — the 
 glorious scene — the poetry and the manl" 
 
 Here are some passages from his journal kept 
 while a student in Glasgow : 
 
 ** Glasgow, 2Sd December 1835. — This day two 
 years ago James died. I shall ever consider this 
 day as worthy of my remembrance, because to 
 me it marks the most important era of my life. 
 Amidst temptations it has warned me ; in my 
 Christian course it has cheered me. In far other 
 scenes than these I have remembered it with 
 solemn feelings, and I trust I may never forget 
 it or the habits it has engendered. The more I 
 see of the world, the more I look upon the dear 
 boy as the purest being I ever met with ; and 
 now I rejoice he is in heaven. Lord, may I 
 never forget that time. 
 
 *'27th; last Sunday o/1835.— I never felt a 
 greater zest for study than now. The truth, 
 sincerity, simplicity, and the eloquence of the 
 older divines is a source of much pleasure. I 
 have adopted the plan of keeping a note-book, 
 which I call 'Hints for Sermons,' in which I 
 put down whatever may prove useful for my 
 future ministrations." 
 
 His father, who had been translated from 
 Campsie to the new charge of St Columba's, 
 Glasgow, arranged for the reception of four 
 boarders, by way of adding to his limited in- 
 come. John C. Shairp, afterwards Professor 
 Shairp, who was at this time boarded with one 
 of his aunts, was also counted as one of the 
 family. Professor Shairp writes of him at this 
 time thus : " Norman was then a young divinity 
 student, and had nearly completed his course in 
 
 Glasgow college. To him his father committed 
 the entire care of the three young men who 
 lived in his house, and it was arranged that I, 
 living with his aunt, should be added as a 
 fourth charge. Norman was then in the very 
 hey-day of hope, energy, and young genius. 
 There was not a fine quality which he after- 
 wards displayed which did not then make itself 
 seen and felt by his friends, and that youthful- 
 ness of spirit, which was to the last so delight- 
 ful, had a peculiar charm then, when it was set 
 off by all the personal attractions of two or 
 three and twenty. His training had not been 
 merely the ordinary one of a lad from a Scotch 
 manse, who has attended classes in Glasgow and 
 Edinburgh Universities. His broad and sympa- 
 thetic spirit had a far richer background to draw 
 upon. It was Morven and the sound of Mull, 
 the legends of Skye and Dunvegan, and the shore 
 of Kintyre, that had dyed the first and inmost 
 feelings of childhood with their deep colouring. 
 Then as boyhood passed into manhood came his 
 sojourn among Yorkshire squires, his visit to 
 Germany, and all the stimulating society of 
 Weimar, on which still rested the spirit of the 
 lately-departed Goethe. All these things, so 
 unlike the commonplace experience of many, 
 had added to his nature a variety and compass 
 which seemed wonderful, compared with that of 
 most young men around him. ... On his 
 intellectual side, imagination and humour were 
 his strongest qualities, both of them working on 
 a broad base of strong common sense and know- 
 ledge of human nature. On the moral side, 
 sympathy, intense sympathy, with all humanity 
 was the most manifest, with a fine aspiration 
 that hated the mean and the selfish, and went 
 out to whatever things were worthy of a man's 
 love. . . . He was stout, . . . vigorous, 
 and active in figure. His face as full of mean- 
 ing as any face I ever looked on, with a fine 
 health on his cheeks, as of the heather bloom ; 
 his broad, not high brow, smooth, without a 
 wrinkle, and his mouth firm and expressive." 
 Young Macleod made a short telling speech at a 
 Conservative banquet held in Glasgow in Janu- 
 ary 1837, which drew a remark from Peel to his 
 father, and which was pronounced as a great 
 success by all who heard it. Amongst the stu- 
 dents who laid the deepest hold upon his heart 
 was John Mackintosh, whose life he afterwards 
 embalmed in "The Earnest Student." 
 
 Norman Macleod was ordained minister of 
 Loudoun, in Ayrshire, 15th March 1838. He 
 received the appointment through the recommen- 
 dation of Dr Chalmers, from the widow of Lord 
 Hastings, who was for so long a time Governor- 
 General of India. His first interest in India is 
 supposed to have been received from his inter- 
 course with this family. Like Guthrie and 
 Kingsley in their country charges, he began 
 work in earnest amongst the rural population. 
 A small proportion of his parishioners were 
 
NORMAN MA CLEOD. 
 
 433 
 
 fanners and farm-workers, the remainder were 
 hand-loom weavers. Some of the farmers were 
 full of Covenanting traditions ; Drumclog and 
 Both well Brig being in the locality, the tradi- 
 tions were still freshly repeated. He found the 
 morality of his parish then at a low ehb. He 
 began careful house to house visitation, coming 
 into direct contact with the people, and finding 
 out the real character of those with whom he 
 had to deal. He opened classes and organised 
 a Sabbath school. He lectured on geology, and 
 gained over not a few sceptics. The frankness 
 and manliness of his method of dealing with the 
 people, together with his tact and sense in 
 adapting himself to circumstances, soon made 
 him a powerful influence for good. His private 
 habit at this time was to rise early, the morning 
 and forenoon were given to hard study, the 
 afternoon and evening were spent in parochial 
 work. He was a welcome visitor at Loudoun 
 Castle, the seat of the Countess of Loudoun, 
 and her daughters, Ladies Sophia and Adelaide 
 Hastings. His sister Jane, at this time, acted 
 as his housekeeper, a position she retained for 
 eleven years. Meanwhile the intense commo- 
 tion in the Church, which preceded the Disrup- 
 tion, made itself felt in his quiet country parish. 
 He studied the matter, and determined to stand 
 by the Church of Scotland. He spoke to his 
 own congregation and secured them in his way 
 of thinking almost to a man. He published the 
 first of three racy pamphlets, entitled "A Crack 
 aboot the Kirk;" all these pamphlets were 
 widely read. '* I hoped," he wrote to a friend, 
 " to be let alone to win souls quietly in this 
 sweet bay where we only felt the pulse-beating 
 of that great ocean which was roaring and raging 
 outside. But no ! The country must be raised 
 and excited, and my parish, of course, did not 
 e.'Cape." What his real feelings were when the 
 Disruption became an actual fact may be learned 
 from his journal: 
 
 *^June 2c^, 1843. — I have returned from the 
 Assembly of 1843, one which will be famous in 
 the annals of the Church of Scotland. Yet who 
 will ever know its real history? The great 
 movements, the grand results, will certainly be 
 known, and everything has been done in the 
 way most calculated to tell on posterity (for how 
 many have been acting before its eyes!); but 
 who in the next century will know or under- 
 stand the ten thousand secret influences, the 
 vanity and pride of some, the love of applause, 
 the fear and terror of others, and, above all, 
 the seceding mania, the revolutionary mesmer- 
 ism, which I have witnessed within these few 
 days? 
 
 "It was impossible to watch the progress of 
 this schism without seeing that it was inevit- 
 able. 
 
 "To pass and to maintain at all hazards laws, 
 which by the highest authorities were declared 
 to be inconsistent with and subversive of civil 
 
 statutes, could end only in breaking up the 
 Establishment. So Dr Cook said. So Dr 
 M'Crie said in his evidence before the House of 
 Commons. The procurator told me that when 
 the Veto Law was first proposed, Lord Moncreiff" 
 gave it as his opinion that the Church had power 
 to pass it ; that he was unwilling to go to Parlia- 
 ment for its approval until it was certain that 
 its approval was necessary, but that should this 
 become apparent, then unquestionably the 
 Church ought to apply for a legislative enact- 
 ment. This advice was not taken, and all the 
 subsequent difficulties have arisen out of the 
 determination to force that law. 
 
 ' * The event which made a disruption neces- 
 sary was the deposition of the Strathbogie 
 ministers for obeying the interpretation of 
 statute law given by the civil court, instead of 
 that given by the Church court. The moment 
 one part of the Church solemnly deposed them, 
 and another as solemnly determined to treat 
 them as not deposed, the Church became virtu- 
 ally two Churches, and their separation became 
 inevitable. 
 
 " Thursday the 18th was a beautiful day ; but 
 a general sense of oppression was over the town. 
 Among many of the seceding party, upon that 
 and on the successive days of the Assembly, 
 there was an assumed levity of manner — a smil- 
 ing tone of countenance, which seemed to say, 
 'Look what calm, cool, brave martyrs we are.' 
 There were two incidents which convinced me 
 that the old and soberer part of the seceders 
 had a very different feeling from the younger 
 and more violent regarding the magnitude and 
 consequence of this movement. I was in St 
 Giles's half-an-hour before Welsh began his 
 
 sermon; two or three benches before me 
 
 and , with a few of this hot genus omne, 
 
 were chattering and laughing. During the sing- 
 ing of the paraphrase old Brown (dear, good 
 man) of St John's, Glasgow, was weeping ; but 
 
 was idly staring round the church. So in 
 
 the procession some were smiling and appeared 
 heedless, but the old men were sad and cast 
 down. Welsh's sermon was in exquisite taste, 
 and very calm and dignified ; but its sentiments, 
 I thought, were a century ahead of many of his 
 convocation friends. His prayer at the opening 
 of the Assembly was also beautiful. The 
 Assembly presented a stirring sight. But still 
 I was struck by the smiling of several on the 
 seceding side, as if to show how light their 
 hearts were when, methinks, they had no cause 
 to be so at the beginning of such a great revolu- 
 tion. The subsequent movements of the two 
 Assemblies are matters of history. The hissing 
 and cheering in the galleries and along the line 
 of procession were tremendous. 
 
 ♦'Never did I pass such a fortnight of care 
 and anxiety. Never did men engage in a task 
 with more oppression of spirit than we did, as 
 we tried to preserve this Church for the benefit 
 
 2 E 
 
of our children's children. The Assembly was 
 called upon to perform a work full of diflSculty, 
 and to do such unpopular things as restoring 
 the Strathbogie ministers, rescinding the veto, 
 etc. We were hissed by the mob in the galler- 
 ies, looked coldly on by many Christians, ridi- 
 culed as enemies to the true Church, as lovers 
 of ourselves, seeking the fleece ; and yet what 
 was nearest my own heart and that of my friends 
 was the wish to preserve this Establishment for 
 the well-being of Britain. While 'the perse- 
 cuted martyrs of the covenant,' met amid the 
 huzzas and applauses of the multitude, with 
 thousands of pounds daily pouring in upon 
 them, and nothing to do but what was in the 
 highest degree popular ; nothing but self-denial 
 aud a desire to sacrifice name and fame, and all 
 but honour, to my country, could have kept me 
 in the Assembly. There was one feature of the 
 Assembly which I shall never forget, and that 
 was the f&oer of secession, the restless nervous 
 desire to fly to the Free Church. No new truth 
 had come to light, no new event had been de- 
 veloped, but there was a species of frenzy which 
 seized men, and away they went. One man 
 
 ( of ) said to me, * I must go ; I am a 
 
 lover of the Establishment, but last autumn I 
 signed the convocation resolutions. All my 
 people will leave me. I never will take a 
 church left vacant by my seceding brethren. 
 If I do not, I am a beggar. If I stay I lose all 
 character. I must go ; ' and away he went, «ick 
 at heart ; and many I know have been uncon- 
 sciously led step by step, by meetings, by 
 pledges, by rash statements, into a position 
 which they sincerely lament but cannot help. 
 There are many unwilling Latimers in that 
 body. This I know right well. It amuses me, 
 who have been much behind the scenes, to read 
 the lithographed names of some as hollow- 
 hearted fellows as ever ruined a country from 
 love of glory and applause. But there are also 
 many others there who would do honour to any 
 cause." 
 
 One result of the Disruption for him was his 
 being offered the charge of eight different vacant 
 parishes. With some regret he left Loudoun, 
 and went to Dalkeith. He found more poverty, 
 ignorance, and squalor in the lower parts of this 
 town than he expected. He organised various 
 benevolent associations, encouraged his members 
 to work among the poor and ignorant, opened 
 mission stations in several localities, and, by 
 personal visitation, endeavoured, in all possible 
 ways, to elevate the life of the community. In 
 1844, along with Mr Herdman, he was sent to 
 the north of Scotland on behalf of an associa- 
 tion for the promotion of female education in 
 Hindostan. Writing in March 1845 to his 
 mother, he says : ' ' There is a marked change in 
 the town, whatever the reason may be. The 
 police sergeant told me j^esterday that the 
 change during the last three montba is in- 
 
 credible. Instead of ten a week in the lock-up 
 for drunkenness, he has not had one case for 
 a month; while the streets, formerly infested 
 with low characters, are now a? quiet as possible. 
 This is gratifying, and should make us thank 
 God and take courage." In 1845 he was absent 
 from home for five months, as one of a deputa- 
 tion to the congregations connected with the 
 Church of Scotland in British North America. 
 His journal during this period is a record of 
 hard work, of constant travel and preaching. 
 He united himself with the Evangelical Alliance, 
 and attended the conference then held at Bir- 
 mingham. He also visited, in company with 
 the late Dr Herschell of London, some of the 
 reformed churches of Poland. The result of all 
 his varied experience was to refresh and deepen 
 and strengthen his own spirit, and make him 
 more satisfied with his own Presbyterian Estab- 
 lished Church of Scotland, only longing for a re- 
 vival throughout its borders. His own spiritual 
 life had now become higher and more even in 
 tone. The life of Thomas Arnold of Rugby, 
 published at that time, touched him deeply from 
 the "manliness, the healthy common sense, and 
 unswerving truthfulness and Christian faithful- 
 ness of the great head-master of Rugby." His 
 cousin, the late John Macleod Campbell of Row, 
 also powerfully influenced his theological lean- 
 ings. His preaching at this time became less meta- 
 physical and doctrinal, and fuller of a sense of the 
 presence and clearer realisation of a personal 
 Christ. John Shairp, fresh from Oxford, and the 
 devout John Mackintosh, also became a power over 
 him. And like all true and earnest workers, he saw 
 the real needs of the world, and the only way to 
 supply that need. "The world, if ever it is to 
 be reformed by men and through men, can only 
 be so by the personal intercourse of living men 
 — living epistles, not dead ones. . . . God 
 has always dealt through living men with men, 
 and He himself deals with them through a per- 
 sonal Spirit. When Christ left the world. He 
 did so that He might for ever dwell in it in His 
 people. Neither money, nor schools, nor tracts, 
 nor churches, can ever be substituted for living 
 men. It is this we want. It is this the lanes 
 and closes want. Not ministers merely going 
 their rounds, like policemen, with black clothes 
 and white neckcloths; not elders taking sta- 
 tistics, or deacons giving alms, or ladies tracts 
 — all good (what should we have been without 
 these, the only salt hitherto !) ; but we want 
 Christians, whether they be smiths, or shoe- 
 makers, or tailors, or grocers, or coach drivers, 
 or advocates, to remember their own responsi- 
 bilities, their immense influence for good, and 
 to be personal ministers for good." 
 
 An illness, brought on by overwork, caused 
 him to seek a change of scene and rest, all of 
 which he found at Shandon on the Clyde. How 
 ho enjoyed his holiday will be apparent from 
 the following in his journal : 
 
NORMAN MACLEOD, 
 
 435 
 
 "SJiandon, 2dd May 1848.— To-day I set off 
 on a cruise to discover a glen about which there 
 were vague traditions at Shandon. It was 
 called Glen Fruin, which, in ancient Celtic, I 
 understand, was the Glen of Weeping. Dr 
 Macleod, a Gaelic authority, who is with us (a 
 great friend, by-the-by, of my mother's), says 
 that the bodies of the dead used to be carried 
 through the said glen, from some place to some 
 other place — hence weeping. Well, I set off. 
 Behold me, stiff in the limbs, my feet as if they 
 ' were clay and iron ' — hard, unbending, yet 
 weak; but the head of gold, pure, pure gold; 
 though now, like Bardolph's, unfortunately un- 
 coinable. Behold me, puffing, blowing, passing 
 through the upper park. Bathed ere I reached 
 the birch wood, and soon reclined near my burn, 
 with Shakespeare as my only companion. But 
 even he began to be too stiff and prosy. The 
 ferns, and water, and cuckoo beat him hollow ; 
 so I cast him aside and began creeping up the 
 burn, seeking for deeper solitude, like a wild 
 beast. I was otter-like in everything save my 
 size, shape, and clothes, and having Shakespeare 
 in my pocket. Then I began to gather ferns, 
 and found beautiful specimens. Then I studied 
 the beautiful scene around me, and was so glad 
 that I dreamt, on and on, listening to that sweet 
 inland murmur. 
 
 "The power of the hills is over me ! Away 
 for Glen Fruin, two miles uphill ! Hard work ! 
 Alas, alas ! that I should come to this. Try it. 
 Be off. So off I went — and on and on. Green 
 braes — there march dykes — there withered 
 heather — there mossy. Very near the first ridge 
 which bounds the horizon. Puff, puff — on, on ! 
 *Am I a bullet?' On — at last — I must lie 
 down ! 
 
 "This will never do. Go ahead, Norman. 
 Get up — get on. I do not think that, on 
 principle, I should stop. Go ahead. What's 
 that ? ' Cock, cock, ock, whiz-z-z-z ' — grouse ! 
 That's cheering. What's that ! * Wheadleoo, 
 wheadleoo ' — a curlew ! Hurrah, we are going 
 ahead. Another pull. The loch out of sight. 
 Something looming in the far distance. Arran 
 hills ! So, ahead, my boy — limbs better — steam 
 up — the spirit of the hills getting strong — the 
 ghosts of my fathers and my mothers beckoning 
 me onwards. The moor getting boggy — soft — 
 more hags — first rate. Ladies don't walk here. 
 This is unknown to dandies. Another hill. 
 And then — up I am. Now, is not this glorious ? 
 Before me, pure Loch Gare — and beyond the 
 most sublime view I almost ever saw. Terraces 
 apparently of sea and land — the sea a mirror. 
 Vessels everywhere— the setting sun tinging the 
 high peaks of Arran, kissing them and the hills 
 of Thibet with the same glow, laying the one 
 asleep with a parting kiss, and with another 
 waking up her eastern children. There's poetry 
 for you ! 
 
 "The great hills of Arran, 'like great men,' 
 
 as Jean Paul says, * the first to catch, the last 
 to lose the light.' Was not all this glorious! 
 not to speak of the sea, the ships, and solitude. 
 Do you know I never think at such times ? I 
 am in a state of unconscious reception, and of 
 conscious deep joy. No more. 
 
 "Glen Fruin lay at my feet, with sloping 
 green hills like the Yarrow ' bare hills,' as Billy 
 says ; but like all such hills, most poetical and 
 full of 'pastoral melancholy.' Well, I shall 
 only state that I came down, in case you imagine 
 that I am there still. And when I came down, 
 what then ? Most amiable and most literary — 
 crammed a listening audience with Wordsworth, 
 Tennyson, and Shakespeare." 
 
 Being lonely one day in Dalkeith he marched 
 off with a volume of Wordsworth to read and chat 
 with a certain Mrs Huggins. " I read the intro- 
 duction," he says, "and the following conver- 
 sation ensued : 
 
 " /. — We have here, I think, a fine combina- 
 tion of the poet with the poetic artist. 
 
 "-&. — I wadna doot. How's yer sister ? 
 
 " I. — Well, I thank you. She has been a long 
 time cultivating the ideal under me ; but her 
 talent is small, her genius nothing. 
 
 "H. — Is her coch (cough) better? 
 
 " /. — Bather, Mrs Huggins. But pray, how do 
 you like Wordsworth ? 
 
 " H. — I dinna ken him. Whar does he leeve ? 
 In Pettigrew's Close ? Is he the sticket minister ? " 
 
 In 1849 he became editor of the Edinburgh 
 Christian Magazine, published in connection 
 with the Church of Scotland, His journalistic 
 work thus begun may be said to have paved the 
 way for his after-connection with Good Words. 
 In 1851 his much-loved friend John Mackintosh 
 died at Cannstadt, where he had just been to 
 bid him farewell. In July of the same year he 
 was translated to the Barony Parish, Glasgow. 
 The following is an account of his trial sermon : 
 
 " Another milestone in this awful journey is 
 over — another bend in the great stream has 
 swept me nearer the unfathomable gulf. I had 
 such a crowd — passages, stairs, up to the roof! 
 That is but a means, not an end. Yes ! I had 
 one of those high days which sometimes are 
 granted to me ; when I feel the grandeur of my 
 calling and forget man, except as an immortal 
 and accountable being ; when the heart is sub- 
 dued, awed, blessed ! I believe souls were 
 stirred up to seek God. I was dreadfully 
 wearied — done up — but I cared not. I felt 'the 
 night cometh — work ! ' Is it not strange — and 
 yet it is not — that, as usual, the moment I 
 entered the pulpit and saw that breathless 
 crowd, Cannstadt arose before me, and remained 
 there all the day ! He was a vision haunting 
 me, yet sobering me, elevating me; pointing 
 always upward; so purifying, so solemnising 
 and sanctifying; and I felt dear friends with 
 me, bidding me be good and holy ; and when 
 the oreat song of praise arose, my heart rose 
 
436 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 with it, and I felt all that is good will live, and 
 we shall have a great, an endless, and blessed 
 day in heaven. On earth I know not what may- 
 be. God's will be done. . . , 
 
 *'As to distraction in prayer, how / know 
 this, and have to struggle against it ! but it is 
 not good, and dare not be allowed, but must be 
 conquered. To do this (1.) have a fixed time 
 for prayer; (2.) pray earnestly at commence- 
 ment against it ; (3.) divide the prayer, so as to 
 have confession for a few minutes, then thanks- 
 giving, etc. This gives relief to the strain on 
 the mind. T speak as a man who looks back 
 with horror at my carelessness in secret prayer. 
 Backsliding begins in the closet, and ends — 
 where ? " 
 
 On the 11th August 1851, he married Catherine 
 Ann Mackintosh, sister of John Mackintosh, his 
 dearest friend. " He loved Glasgow," writes 
 his brother, "and rejoiced in the practical 
 sense, the enterprise and generosity which char- 
 acterised its kindly citizens. The very noise of 
 its busy streets was pleasant to his ears. . . . 
 It was his habit to rise very early, and after 
 giving the first hours to devotion, he wrote or 
 studied till breakfast time. The forenoon was 
 chiefly employed receiving persons calling on 
 business of every conceivable description, and 
 the afternoon was occupied with parochial visi- 
 tation, and other public duties. When it was 
 possible, he reserved an hour during the evening 
 for the enjoyment of music or for reading aloud. 
 Every Saturday he took the only walk of the 
 week which had no object but enjoyment. The 
 first part of this walk usually brought him to 
 John Macleod Campbell's house, which was two 
 miles out of town, and, with him as his com- 
 panion, it was continued into the country. But 
 in whatever direction he went the day seldom 
 ended without his visiting the Broomielaw, 
 where, for a while, he would wander with de- 
 light among the ships and sailors, criticising 
 hulls and rigging, and looking with boyish 
 wonder at the strange cargoes that were being 
 discharged from the foreign traders." His 
 parish in the Barony, Glasgow, embraced 87,000 
 souls, and was on the increase. Every Sabbath 
 his church was crowded with interested hearers. 
 As we have already seen, he had formulated his 
 ideas as to the work of the church in a crowded, 
 ignorant, and poverty-stricken locality. "There 
 are," he said, "in every congregation men and 
 women who have great powers in them of some 
 kind, which have been given them by God, and 
 which, though lying dormant, are capable of 
 being brought out by fitting causes. Nay, every 
 man is enriched with some talent or gift, if we 
 could only discover it, which, if educated and 
 properly directed, is capable of enriching others." 
 The kirk session of elders and deacons had direct 
 control over all the agencies he intended to em- 
 ploy. He established district meetings with his 
 pwple, day-schools. Sabbath-schools^ a congre- 
 
 gational penny savings bank, and a refreshment 
 room. At one time there were five missionaries, 
 lay and clerical, at work in the parish, with 
 three Bible-women and a colporteur, all under 
 the superintendence of the kirk session. Social 
 festivals were occasionally held, at which a re- 
 port of the work done was read. Personally 
 he had always two, and sometimes three, services 
 to conduct every Sabbath. His preaching in the 
 mission churches is said to have been finer than 
 anything he gave elsewhere. He presided at the 
 monthly meetings of his Sabbath-school teachers, 
 carefully going over the lessons with them. 
 "Certainly," says Dr W. C. Smith, "never 
 since Thomas Chalmers, was there such a per- 
 vading moral power in that city as Norman 
 Macleod." His life at this time was quite as 
 full of work as when he wrote to a friend a few 
 years later: " Here am I with a Indian Mission 
 to conduct, addressing congregations, presby- 
 teries, and synods, a committee to manage, 
 papers to write, correspondence to carry on, 
 missionaries to send out and to buy their outfit, 
 to finger shirts and examine towellings, to visit 
 my people two days a week, preach thrice, teach 
 a class every Sunday, collect money to build 
 schools and churches (at the rate of £1000 a year 
 for fourteen years), to hear every man and 
 woman who call on me about everything down 
 to a sore finger, besides having to rear a family 
 and keep my liver right. High art ! " Yet 
 amidst the pressure of duty, besides other 
 literary work, he found time in 1852-53 to write 
 the memoir of John Mackintosh, the " earnest 
 student." 
 
 " 6^A Sept. 1852.— Eose at six. This day I be- 
 gin the memoir of my beloved John. my God 
 and his, guide my pen ! In mercy keep me 
 from writing anything false in fact or sentiment. 
 May strict truth pervade every sentence ! May 
 I be enabled to show in him the education of the 
 grace of God, so that other scholars in Thy school 
 may be quickened and encouraged to be followers 
 of him as he was of Christ ! I feel utterly un- 
 worthy to undertake this memoir, or of any of 
 even the least of Thy saints. But Thou who 
 hast given me this work in Thy providence, and 
 called me to preach the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ, wilt enable me, I doubt not, to show 
 the riches of Christ as displayed in a poor sin- 
 ner, and so to write that Thy Church on earth 
 will approve, because it is such as is approved 
 of by Jesus. Hear me. Lord ! " 
 
 " To Thomas Constable, Esq., ISth July 1854. 
 — I have always addressed you more as the 
 friend of John Mackintosh than as the publisher 
 of the memorials of his life. As such you will 
 be glad to receive the conclusion of the last 
 chapter, which I send by this post. I have 
 been writing the?.e latter pages since early dawn ; 
 and, deeply affecting though they be, I cannot 
 think they will cost my readers as many tears 
 as they have cost me while penning thenu I 
 
NORMAN MACLEOD, 
 
 437 
 
 feel concluding this book as a positive loss to 
 myself. It is like a second death and burial. 
 It was never a weariness, but a delight to me. 
 I fear that I have failed to convey but a very 
 feeble impression of those days at Cannstadt. 
 I wish it had been possible for me to have said 
 less, and to have permitted him to say more ; 
 yet I cannot think any one will fail to discover 
 in all I have written the details of a true story 
 of one of the truest men that ever blessed the 
 earth by his presence. For myself, I return 
 my most hearty thanks to Almighty God for 
 having honoured me so far as to have permitted 
 these hands of mine to erect this memorial of 
 my beloved friend for the good of the Church 
 and of the world. Many will think the work a 
 small one in this world of many works and 
 great teachers, but had I done nothing more 
 than accomplish this one alone, I should feel 
 that I had not been born in vain, and that it 
 was worth living for. It has been begun, carried 
 on, and ended in prayer ; and with the sincere 
 desire, above all others, that in him his Lord 
 may be glorified. 
 
 "You know that I refuse all fee and reward 
 for this book in the shape of money. Love is 
 its own reward, but I hope to receive an im- 
 mense return for my little labour in hearing 
 from time to time that the character of my dear 
 friend is being better known and loved, and his 
 example followed by many to the glory of God. " 
 " When he undertook the congenial task of 
 writing the life of his dear friend," writes his 
 orother, "he determined that it should be 
 wholly a labour of love, and with the hearty 
 consent of his mother-in-law, Mrs Mackintosh, 
 he resolved to devote whatever profit might 
 accrue from the sale of the memoir to the Foreign 
 Mission of the Free Church. Mackintosh had 
 been a Free Church student, and the book was 
 virtually his, and thus not only under a sense 
 of the propriety of the act, but delighted at the 
 opportunity of giving expression to those feel- 
 ings of goodwill which he entertained for the mis- 
 sionary labour of all Churches, and especially of 
 that Church which, in spite of recent contro- 
 versies and separations, was yet nearest his own 
 in doctrine and government, he forwarded with 
 sincere pleasure £200 to her Indian Missions. 
 The Free Church Assembly took the earliest 
 opportunity of recording its thanks, which were 
 embodied in the following minute : 
 
 " * In acknowledging receipt from the bio- 
 grapher and representatives of the late John 
 Mackintosh of £200 — the entire profit derived 
 from the sale of his memoir — the Assembly de- 
 sires to record its deep and grateful sense of 
 the faithful and graceful manner in which the 
 memoir has been written, of the loss which this 
 Church has sustained in his premature removal, 
 and of the considerate regard to his memory 
 which has prompted this generous donation, and 
 they instruct their convener to communicate the 
 
 same to Mrs Mackintosh and the Eev. Norman 
 Macleod.'" 
 
 In 1854 he was called to preach before the 
 Queen at Crathie. We give his own account of 
 the visit, with other interesting glimpses of his 
 first connection with royalty : 
 
 '■''Crathie^ October 1854. — This has been a 
 heavenly day of beauty — the sky almost cloud- 
 less ; the stones on the hill-side so distinct that 
 they might be counted ; the Dee swinging past 
 with its deep-toned murmur. I preached without 
 a note the same sermon I preached at Morven ; 
 and I never looked once at the royal seat, but 
 solely at the congregation. I tried to forget the 
 great ones I saw, and to remember the great 
 Ones I saw not, and so I preached from my 
 heart, and with as much freedom, really, as at a 
 mission station. And so the day has ended for 
 the present. The Lord brought me here. He 
 has heard my prayer, and sustained my heart, 
 and enabled me to do His will. And now I 
 pray that this talent, given me in love, may be 
 for His glory. Kiss the bairns, thank God for 
 me, and in after-years teach your boy this lesson 
 — not to seek his work, but to receive it when 
 given him, and to do it to God without fear." 
 
 ^^From his Journal — Retrospect. — I had re- 
 ceived an invitation to preach at Crathie when 
 I was at Kirkcaldy. I refused to go. I had 
 announced the opening of my church, after it 
 had been closed for two months to be repaired, 
 and it seemed to me that my duty to open it 
 was greater than to accept of Mr Anderson's in- 
 vitation to preach before the Queen. The going 
 there, therefore, was not sought for by me. I 
 returned home at eight, Thursday night, and 
 found a letter from Mr A., stating that he asked 
 me at the Queen's own request. My duty being 
 clear, I accepted it. The weather was superb, 
 and I was much struck with the style of the 
 scenery. I have never seen Ross-shire, but I see 
 a marked difference between the Highlands of 
 Morayshire and Aberdeenshire and the West 
 Highlands, especially in the glens, and the 
 large, full-flowing rivers, such as the Spey, the 
 Findhorn, and the Dee, which sweep so majes- 
 tically through them, with abundance of elbow- 
 room, and not cramped by slate and granite 
 into raging, roaring streams. And then the 
 decided marks of culture in the valleys— the 
 broad plantations, the green fields, and the 
 stately homes of a wealthy aristocracy, and— 
 that I do not forget it — the colouring of the 
 floors of the woods ! No long, damp grass, but 
 the glorious mosses, rich and golden, illumined 
 by the fiery heather-bell. 
 
 "The Sunday at Balmoral was perfect in its 
 peace and beauty. I confess that I was much 
 puzzled what to preach. I had with me some 
 of my best sermons (as people would call them); 
 but the struggle which had begun on Friday 
 morning was renewed — as to what was best in 
 the truest, most spiritual sense, for such au 
 
438 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 occasion ; until, iDy prayer, I resolved to preach 
 without any notes a sermon I never wrote fully 
 out, but had preached very often, perhaps fif- 
 teen times, solely because I found that it had 
 found human spirits, and had done good. It 
 was from Matt. xi. 28-30, Mark x. 17-31. I 
 tried to show what true life is— life in the spirit — 
 a finding rest through the yoke of God's service, 
 instead of the service of self, and by the cross of 
 self-denial, instead of self-gratification, illus- 
 trated by the young man who, with all that 
 was so promising, would not peril his happiness 
 by seeking it with Christ in God. 
 
 "I preached with intense comfort, and by 
 God's help felt how sublime a thing it was to be 
 His ambassador. I felt very acutely how for 
 our sakes the Queen and the Prince were placed 
 in so trying a position, and was profoundly 
 grateful for the way in which they had governed 
 us; and so it was that I was able to look back 
 from the future, and to speak as I shall wish I 
 had done. It would be most ungrateful in me 
 not to record this singular mercy of God to me ; 
 for I do know, and rejoice to record for the 
 strengthening of my faith in prayer, that He 
 did it. Thus I enjoyed great peace. 
 
 "In the evening, after daundering in a green 
 field with a path through it which led to the 
 high road, and while sitting on a block of granite, 
 full of quiet thoughts, mentally reposing in the 
 midst of the beautiful scenery, I was roused 
 from my reverie by some one asking me if I was 
 the clergyman who had preached that day. I was 
 soon in the presence of the Queen and Prince ; 
 when her Majesty came forward and said with a 
 sweet, kind, and smiling face, 'We wish to 
 thank you for your sermon.' She then asked 
 me how my father was — what was the name of 
 my parish, etc. ; and so, after bowing and smil- 
 ing, they both continued their quiet evening 
 walk alone. And thus God blessed me, and I 
 thanked His name. I posted home by Glenshee 
 — not well — and was in bed all the week. So 
 ends my story. I read its commencement and 
 ending to remind me how God is always faith- 
 ful. '0 ye of little faith, wherefore did ye 
 doubt?'" 
 
 In the journal of her life in the Highlands, 
 the Queen thus alluded to the service : " October 
 29, 1851 — We went to kirk as usual at twelve 
 o'clock. The service was performed by the Rev. 
 Norman Macleod of Glasgow, son of Dr Macleod, 
 and anything finer I never heard. The sermon, 
 entirely extempore, was quite admirable, so 
 simple, and yet so eloquent, and so beautifully 
 argued and put. Mr Macleod showed in the 
 Bermon how we all tried to please self, and live 
 for that, and in so doing found no rest. Christ 
 had come not only to die for us, but to show 
 how we were to live. The second prayer was 
 very touching ; his allusions to us were so simple, 
 saying, after his mention of us, 'Bless their 
 children.' It gave me a lump in my throat, as 
 
 also when he prayed for ' the dying, the wounded, 
 the widow, and the orphans.' Every one came 
 back delighted ; and how satisfactory it is to 
 come back from church with such feelings 1 The 
 servants and the Highlanders — all — were equally 
 delighted." 
 
 While in this connection we give further in- 
 teresting particulars regarding his visits to 
 Balmoral : 
 
 ^'•From his Journal— May 8, 1862.— I am 
 commanded by the Queen to visit at Balmoral 
 from Saturday till Tuesday. Few things could 
 be more trying to me than, in present circum- 
 stances, to meet my afflicted sovereign face to 
 face. But God, who calls me, will aid me. 
 My hope is in Him, and He will not put me to 
 shame. May He guide me to speak to her 
 fitting truth as to an immortal being, a sister in 
 humanity, a Queen with heavy, heavy trials to 
 endure, and such duties to perform ! May I be 
 kept in a right spirit, loving, peaceful, truthful, 
 wise, and sympathising, carrying the burthen of 
 her who is my sister in Christ and my sovereign. 
 Father, speak by me ! " 
 
 'To Mrs Macleod— Balmoral, May 12, 1862. 
 — You will return thanks with me to our Father 
 in heaven for His mercy and goodness in having 
 hitherto most surely guided me during this 
 time which I felt to be a most solemn and im- 
 portant era in my life. All has passed well- 
 that is to say, God enabled me to speak in pri- 
 vate and in public to the Queen in such a way as 
 seemed to me to be truth, the truth in God's 
 sight — that which I believed she needed, though 
 I felt it would be very trying to her spirit to 
 receive it. And what fills me with deepest 
 thanksgiving is, that she has received it, and 
 written to me such a kind, tender letter of 
 thanks for it, which shall be treasured in my 
 heart while I live. 
 
 "Prince Alfred sent for me last night to see 
 him before going away. Thank God, I spoke 
 fully and frankly to him — we were alone — of his 
 difficulties, temptations, and of his father's ex- 
 ample ; what the nation expected of him ; how, 
 if he did God's will, good and able men would 
 rally round him; how, if he became selfish, a 
 selfish set of flatterers would truckle to him and 
 ruin him, while caring only for themselves. He 
 thanked me for all I said, and wished me to 
 travel with him to-day to Aberdeen, but the 
 Queen wishes to see me again. I am so thank- 
 ful to have the Duke of Argyll and my dear friend 
 Lady Augusta Bruce here. The Duchess of 
 Athole also — a most delightful, real woman." 
 
 ^^From his Journal — May lith. — Let me if 
 possible recall some of the incidents of these 
 few days at Balmoral, which in after-years I 
 may read with interest, when memory grows 
 dim. . . . 
 
 "After dinner I was summoned unexpectedly 
 to the Queen's room. She was alone. She met 
 me, and with an unutterably sad expression 
 
NORMAN MACLEOD, 
 
 439 
 
 which filled my eyes with tears, at once began to 
 speak about the Prince. It is impossible for me 
 to recall distinctly the sequence or substance of 
 that long conversation. She spoke of his excel- 
 lences — his love, his cheerfulness, how he was 
 everything to her; how all now on earth seemed 
 dead to her. She said she never shut her eyes 
 to trials, but liked to look them in the face ; 
 how she would never shrink from duty, but that 
 all was at present done mechanically ; that her 
 highest ideas of purity and love were obtained 
 from him, and that God could not be displeased 
 with her love. But there was nothing morbid 
 in her grief. I spoke freely to her about all I 
 felt regarding him — the love of the nation and 
 their sympathy ; and took every opportunity of 
 bringing before her the reality of God's love and 
 sympathy, her noble calling as a queen, the 
 value of her life to the nation, the blessedness of 
 prayer. 
 
 ^^ Sunday. — The whole household, Queen, and 
 Eoyal Family were assembled at 10.15. A 
 temporary pulpit was erected. I began with a 
 short prayer, then read Job xxiii. , Psalm xlii. , 
 beginning and end of John xiv., and end of 
 Eevelations vii. After the Lord's Prayer I ex- 
 pounded Hebrews xii. 1-12, and concluded with 
 prayer. The whole service was less than an hour. 
 I then at twelve preached at Crathie on 'All 
 things are ours.' In the evening at Crathie on 
 'Awake, thou that sleepest.' The household 
 attended both services. On Monday I had 
 another long interview with the Queen. She 
 vras much more like her old self — cheerful, and 
 full of talk about persons and things. She of 
 course spoke of the Prince. She said that he 
 always believed he was to die soon, and that he 
 often told her that he had never any fear of 
 death. I saw also the Princesses Alice and 
 Helena, each by herself. No words of mine can 
 express the deep sympathy I have for these 
 mourners. From my soul I shall ever pray for 
 them that God would make them His own dear 
 children. 
 
 "What a drive we had on Monday up to the 
 falls of the Garbhalt ! The great pines, the 
 mossy flooring of the woods, the pure streams, 
 the herds of deer, the awful purple of the hills, 
 the white snow on their tops, the enamelled 
 grass so characteristic of this season, the marvel- 
 lous lights ! Oh, what a glorious revelation of 
 Godl I returned yesterday full of praise. 
 
 "The more I learn about the Prince Consort, 
 the more I agree with what the Queen said to 
 me about him on Monday, * that he really did 
 not seem to comprehend a selfish character, or 
 what selfishness was.' And on whatever day his 
 public life is revealed to the world, I feel cer- 
 tain this will be recognised. Dr Becker, to 
 whom I was complaining of Humboldt's treat- 
 ment of the Prince, told me that the only thing 
 the Prince said or wrote about it to him was, ' I 
 am sorry for poor Humboldt.' He felt that 
 
 such things injured one whom he so much loved 
 and admired." 
 
 ^^From his Journal — May 25, 1862. — I re- 
 turned last night from Balmoral. The weather 
 magnificent. I was in singularly dull spirits. 
 I saw the Queen on Sunday night, and had a 
 long and very confidential talk with her. I feel 
 she wishes me to utter, as I do, anything which 
 in my soul I feel to be true, and according to 
 God's will. She has a reasoning, searching 
 mind, anxious to get at the root and the reality 
 of things, and abhors all shams, whether in 
 word or deed. Truly I need a higher wisdom 
 than my own to use the great talent God has 
 given me to speak the truth in wisdom, and in 
 love without fear of man." 
 
 "To Mrs Macleod— Balmoral, 15th October 
 1866. — The Queen is pleased to command me to 
 remain here till Tuesday. I found Mr Cardwell 
 had been in the Barony, and, to the great amuse- 
 ment of the Queen, he repeated my scold about 
 the singing. After dinner, the Queen invited 
 me to her room, where I found the Princess 
 Helena and Marchioness of Ely. The Queen sat 
 down to spin, at a nice Scotch wheel, while I 
 read Robert Burns to her: 'Tam o' Shanter,' 
 and *A man's a man for a' that,' her favourite. 
 The Prince and Princess of Hesse sent for me to 
 see their children. The eldest, Victoria, whom 
 I saw at Darmstadt, is a most sweet child ; the 
 youngest, Elizabeth, a round, fat ball of loving 
 good-nature. I gave her a real hobble, such as 
 I give Polly. I suppose the little thing never 
 got anything like it, for she screamed and 
 kicked with a perfect furore of delight, would 
 go from me to neither father, nor mother, or 
 nurse, to their great merriment, but buried her 
 chubby face in my cheek, until I gave her 
 another right good hobble. They are such dear 
 children. The Prince of Wales sent a message 
 asking me to go and see him. . . . When I 
 was there the young Prince of Wales fell on the 
 waxcloth, after lunch, with such a thump as 
 left a swollen blue mark on his forehead. He 
 cried for a minute, and then laughed most 
 bravely. There was no fuss whatever made 
 about him by mother, father, or any one ; yet it 
 must have been very sore, and I would have 
 been nervous about it if it had happened to 
 Polly. He is a dear, sweet child. All seem to 
 be very happy. We had a great, deal of plea- 
 sant talk in the garden. Dear, good General 
 Grey drove me home." 
 
 The advice he sent to his brother Donald when 
 abroad is very similar in point to Dr Guthrie's 
 desire to *'jaiv away " with everybody : " I re- 
 joice that you are getting into good French 
 society. See as many persons as you possibly 
 can, as various types of opinion as possible 
 Be not ashamed to confess ignorance, and be 
 always asking, and you will learn much. Men, 
 jj^en — meet men ! Beware with intense watch- 
 fulness against the sensualising tendency of ez- 
 
440 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 citement and living abroad. The society of 
 the good is the best help against this next to 
 devotion." 
 
 He made the following entry in his journal 
 on his birthday in 1858: "3d June again ! I 
 am now forty-six, and the future uncertain ! 
 And so this life of mine, which seems to me 
 about to begin, is fast ending ! I declare it 
 makes the perspiration break out on my brow. 
 Oh ! cursed idleness, desultory study, want of 
 hard reading and accurate scholarship when 
 5'^oung — this has been a grievous evil, a heavy 
 burthen to me all my life. I have wanted tools 
 for my mental powers. Had my resources been 
 trained by art, so that they could have been 
 wisely directed during my past life, I feel that 
 I could have done something to have made me 
 look back with more satisfaction on these 
 bygone years. my Father, if I but felt assured 
 that I should be a little child, then would I 
 never mourn the loss of my first childhood, nor 
 fear the coming on of my old age ! Glory to 
 Thee, now and for ever, that I have been born 
 twice in Thy kingdom." 
 
 Mr Alexander Strahan, the acute and enter- 
 prising publisher, when looking out for an 
 editor for a periodical which should realise Dr 
 Arnold's idea, that it should not be a religious 
 one, and yet should have a religious spirit, asked 
 Norman Macleod to become editor of the new 
 venture. * After due consideration he consented, 
 and from time to time, up till his death, the 
 works by which he became known to the public 
 appeared in its pages, such as "The Gold 
 Thread," "Recollections of a Highland Parish," 
 "Wee Davie," "The Old Lieutenant and his 
 
 * "I esteem it no common honour/' writes Mr 
 Strahan, " to have known such a man as intimately, 
 I believe, as any one outside his family circle knew 
 him. My acquaintance with him began in this way. 
 When I was a young^ man of twenty -four, quite un- 
 known, I formed a project of starting a magazine, to 
 contain (as Dr Arnold puts it) not so much articles of 
 a religious character as articles of a general character 
 written in a religious spirit. But where was I to 
 find a fit editor for it? Whilst I was pondering this 
 difficulty, I chanced to read in the Scotsman a report 
 of a chat on ' Cock Robin,' and other nursery ballads 
 and stories, which Dr Macleod had had with children, 
 at the close of an examination in an Ayrshire school- 
 room. His words seemed to me so kindly, so wise, as 
 well as witty ; there was so much broad humanity in 
 his humour that I said to myself, ' Here's the man, if 
 I can but get him.' 
 
 " I offered the editorship of this embryo periodical 
 to Dr Macleod. He drolly replied that his only qualifi- 
 cation for the post was the fact that for ten years he 
 had conducted the Edinburgh Christian Magazite, 
 with heavy loss to himself and all concerned. This 
 did not frighten me, however. I continued to im- 
 portune him, and at last prevailed. 'I'll become the 
 captain,' he said, ' provided you become the sailing- 
 master. More than this I dare not undertake, in face 
 of my heavy pulpit and parish duties.'"— i^Tormaw 
 Macleod, by A. Strahan. 
 
 Son," " The Starling," and many noble sermons. 
 The last-mentioned story was the most elabo- 
 rated of anything he produced, and is remark- 
 able for the fact that the interest of the story 
 does not centre, as in most novels, on the love 
 plot. A circulation of over 70,000 copies was 
 speedily gained for Good Words, and now it 
 may be said to be known wherever the English 
 language is spoken. The story of the founding 
 of Good Words is thus given in his memoir : 
 
 " Good Words was not projected by him, but 
 by the publishers, Mr Strahan and his partner 
 Mr Isbister. "When Mr Strahan (to whose en- 
 terprise and genius as a publisher the magazine 
 greatly owed its success) asked him to become 
 its editor, he for a time declined to accept a 
 task involving so much labour and anxiety. 
 But he had long cherished the conviction that 
 a periodical was greatly required of the type 
 sketched by Dr Arnold, which should embrace 
 as great a variety of articles as those which give 
 deserved popularity to publications professedly 
 secular, but having its spirit and aim distinc- 
 tively Christian. The gulf which separated the 
 so-called religious and the secular press was, in 
 his opinion, caused by the narrowness and 
 literary weakness of even the best religious 
 magazines. He could see no good reason for leav- 
 ing the wholesome power of fiction, the discus- 
 sion of questions in physical and social science, 
 together with all the humour and fun of life, to 
 serials which excluded Christianity from their 
 pages. His experience while conducting the 
 Edinburgh Christian Magazine served only to 
 deepen his desire to have an ably- written periodi- 
 cal which would take up a manly range of 
 topics, and while embracing contributions of a 
 directly religious character, should consist mainly 
 of articles 'on common subjects, written,' as 
 Arnold said, 'with a decidedly Christian tone.' 
 "The opposition to Good Words, which he 
 had anticipated from a section of the religious 
 world, and of which some faint murmurs had 
 already reached him, at last broke out with a 
 violence for which he was certainly not pre- 
 pared. The Record newspaper published a 
 series of criticisms of the magazine, especially 
 referring to the contributions of Principal 
 Tulloch, Dr Lee, Dr Caird, and Dr Macleod, 
 which, besides wrath and bitterness, displayed 
 so much deliberate dishonesty, that he was 
 utterly shocked by the revelation it gave of the 
 spirit reigning in the narrower circle of the 
 ' Evangelical ' world. The maledictions of the 
 Record, reprinted in the form of a pamphlet, 
 and widely circulated in England and Scotland, 
 were caught up and re-echoed by kindred organs 
 throughout the country, and had the effect of 
 making the editor of the offending periodical an 
 object of suspicion to many whose goodwill he 
 valued. A ludicrous anti-climax was reached 
 in the controversy when tlie Presbytery of 
 Strathbogie gravely 'overtured' the General 
 
NORMAN MA CLEOD, 
 
 441 
 
 Assembly of the Free Church to take Good 
 Words into its consideration. If Dr Macleod 
 was indignant under this treatment, he was still 
 more grieved and ashamed. He never, however, 
 lost the confidence of the healthier * Evangelical ' 
 party in all Churches, and an able exposure of 
 the spiteful character of the criticisms in the 
 Record which appeared in the Patriot, did much 
 even to remove the suspicions under which he 
 lay with the weaker brethren. 
 
 **In the same year in which he was attacked 
 by the Recoo'd, he had an opportunity of 
 showing how little ground there was for the 
 most serious of the charges brought against him 
 as editor. He had asked a celebrated novelist, a 
 personal friend, for whose character and opinions 
 he ever retained unqualified respect, to write 
 the tale for the following year. But when the 
 story was submitted to him, he saw that it was 
 not suitable for the magazine. There was, of 
 course, nothing morally wrong in its tone, but 
 as all its 'religious' people were drawn of a 
 type which justly deserved the lash of the 
 satirist, he felt that to publish it in Good Words 
 would be to lend the sanction of its conductors 
 to what he had long considered the injustice of 
 modern novelists in ignoring healthy Christian- 
 ity. A friendly correspondence followed, from 
 which it appeared that the editor and his friend 
 had misunderstood each other ; but so deter- 
 mined was Dr Macleod and his publishers not 
 to compromise the character of Good Words, 
 that the forfeit of £500 was paid and the story 
 declined. 
 
 ^^From his Journal — Lauder, Feb. 22, 1861. 
 — I have been reading M'Cheyne. How thank- 
 ful I should be if I had a thousandth part of 
 his devotedness. How simple, yet how diffi- 
 cult! Who can doubt human corruption and 
 utter vileness, when we find it difficult to de- 
 vote ourselves to God." 
 
 "June 3. — This day enter my fiftieth year — 
 half a century old. 
 
 • Would that my tongrue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me.' 
 
 "Verily God's mercies are more than can be 
 numbered. I desire Thee, God, to help me to 
 live more usefully, more devotedly to Thee; 
 and, above all other things, to have fellowship 
 with Christ in His mind towards all men, so as 
 to be in everything a fellow- worker with Himself. 
 
 "Many good people don't understand the 
 purpose of Good Words, and so it sometimes 
 shocks or scratches them — so much so that the 
 Tract Society of Edinburgh have, I hear, de- 
 bated how far they can patronise it ; and I 
 know the 'Pure Literature' (pure water, and 
 sometimes pure nonsense) Society of London 
 won't recommend it. They don't think 'Wee 
 £)avie ' * — my dear wee mannie ! — sufficiently up 
 
 * " "Wee Davie " was written in his brother Donald's 
 
 to the mark of piety because it omits important 
 truth — ^just as St James's Epistle and varioiw 
 other books of the Bible do ! From my heart I 
 regret this, because I believe it is the fusion- 
 less, unreal, untruthful, 'pious' story -telling, 
 which some of our tract societies alone patron- 
 ise, that has produced the story-telling without 
 piety, but with more truth and more trash, 
 which is devoured by the working - classes. 
 Now I have a purpose — a serious, solemn pur- 
 pose — in Good Words. I wish in this peculiar 
 department of my ministerial work to which I 
 have been called, and in which I think I have 
 been blessed, ' to become all things to all men, 
 that I might by all means gain some.' I can- 
 not, therefore, write stories merely as a literary 
 man, to give amusement, or as works of art 
 only, but must always keep before roe the one 
 end of leading souls to know and love God. 
 Most popular stories are based on the natural ; 
 the finest characters are assumed to have been 
 the growth of the old man, at all events to have 
 been irrespective of any knowledge and recogni- 
 tion of Christ. Now I believe, in my soul, that 
 all which one discovers of out-and-out good 
 among men, really and truly, is ever found, as 
 a fact, to have arisen from the recognition of 
 the supernatural — a power coming to the soul 
 through Jesus Christ. Therefore, I must make 
 this the open and confessed source of strength 
 in my characters, because I find it in society as 
 well as in the Bible. But, again, in writing 
 sketches of character, I must also give that 
 mixture of clay which all of us have, and ex- 
 press the inner life in print, just as I see it 
 expressed in actual life ; and I am bold enough 
 to assert that my life-sketches are truer far as 
 tracts than those productions are which make 
 working-men, ay, young children, speak like 
 Eastern patriarchs or old apostles. I may be 
 wrong in my idea as to how Good Words should 
 be conducted, and I cannot, of course, realise it 
 as I wish to do, but I have a purpose which I 
 believe to be right, and can therefore pray to 
 Christ to bless it ; and can also humbly, but 
 firmly, go ahead, whatever the religious world 
 may say. I know that I seek so to conduct it 
 that I would not be ashamed to have it beside 
 me on my death-bed. If it is not pleasing to 
 Christ, from my soul I desire that He may bring 
 it to nought." 
 
 «' To A. Strahan, ^sg-,— 1868. Friday. — I 
 send for yourself only, the enclosed hints from 
 
 , Now you know the real love he has to u» 
 
 personally, and to G. W. I therefore value 
 such hints, though I confess that I do not know 
 to what he alludes. But to guard against the 
 possibility of a single expression being printed 
 
 manse at Lauder, during a snowstorm, and was fin- 
 ished after two sittings. When Nomian tried, on itj 
 completion, to read it aloud, he was more than once 
 80 choked with tears that he had to lay it down. 
 
442 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 by us which the weakest Christian could be 
 pained by, I beseech you to let me see every 
 MS. or proof before being printed off. I, as a 
 minister, am more conversant than you can be 
 with religious topics and the pulse of the re- 
 ligious world. Besides, as you also know, my 
 chief delight in Good Words is its power of 
 doing good. God knows this is more precious 
 to me than all the gold and silver on earth could 
 be." 
 
 Although this magazine may have declined 
 somewhat in popularity and influence since 
 his death, it has accomplished much in bring- 
 ing the thoughts of many cultured minds down 
 to the masses, and sowing broadcast the seeds 
 of a good and wholesome literature. 
 
 The fun and drollery, as well as the deep 
 earnestness of his table-talk, could not of course 
 be preserved. But his letters and occasional 
 poems, which have been preserved, are a suffi- 
 cient evidence of it. His brother Donald thus 
 writes of his method of training his children : 
 
 **He was so much in sympathy with them 
 that he seemed to grow with their growth from 
 their earliest years. When he was worn out 
 with study his resort was the nursery, where he 
 would invent all sorts of games, turn chairs up- 
 side down to represent ships, rig up newspapers 
 as mimic sails, and give the baby an imaginary 
 voyage round the room. Or he would in the 
 evenings lie on the sofa or floor, with all the 
 little ones nestled about him, listening to 
 music, or telling them the wonderful adventures 
 of * Little Mrs Brown' and 'Abel Feragus.' 
 These stories went on like the 'Arabian Nights,' 
 with new incidents invented for each fresh occa- 
 sion. They were all told dramatically, and often 
 the fun was so great that he would himself laugh 
 as heartily as the children. But he had a higher 
 object in view than mere amusement when com- 
 posing his nursery tales ; they were never with- 
 out an under-current of moral teaching, and 
 never failed to impress lessons of kindness, 
 generosity, bravery, and truth. He never left 
 home for any length of time without bringing 
 some little memento to each child, and to each 
 servant as well. Carrying out this principle of 
 companionship with his children, he would 
 watch for their return when they had been at 
 any holiday entertainment, and have them * tell 
 from the beginning ' all they had seen and heard. 
 When in the Highlands during summer, he en- 
 tered like one of themselves into all their amuse- 
 ments. They remember with special delight 
 one moonlight night, when, sciatica notwith- 
 standing, he insisted on playing hide-and- 
 seek with them, and became so excited with 
 the game, that although both shoes had fallen 
 ofi", he continued rushing over the grass and 
 through the bushes till they were all exhausted, 
 his wife in vain entreating him to take care. 
 His desire was, in short, to possess their frank 
 confidence, and to make their memory of home 
 
 thoroughly happy, and in both these respects 
 his efforts were rewarded with abundant suc- 
 cess. It was quite characteristic of him that 
 he made it a principle always to keep his word 
 with his children, even in trifles, and to avoid 
 the irritation of fault-finding in little things. 
 Only on two points was he uncompromising 
 even to sternness. The slightest appearance of 
 selfishness or of want of truth was at once 
 severely dealt with ; but when the rebuke was 
 given, there was an end of it, and he took pains 
 to make the culprit feel that confidence was 
 completely restored, for he believed that the 
 preservation of self-respect was as important a 
 point as any in the education of a child. These 
 summers, spent with his family in the High- 
 lands, were full of a glory which every year 
 seemed only to deepen. Whether at his favourite 
 Cuilchenna, on the Linnhe Loch with its majestic 
 views of Glencoe, or Glengoar, or at Java Lodge 
 in Mull, commanding ' one of the finest pano- 
 ramas in Europe,' or at Aird's Bay, fronting the 
 Buachaill Etive and Ben Cruachan, or at Geddes, 
 with its hallowed associations, he entered into 
 the joy of nature with a rapture even greater 
 than in youth." . . . 
 
 *' This participation in the amusements of his 
 children passed naturally, as they grew older, 
 into the higher companionship of sharing all 
 their pursuits and studies. His method of con- 
 veying to them religious instruction was as effec- 
 tive as it was simple. He trained them to speak 
 to him on religious subjects, and tell him their 
 difficulties, and so educated them in the truest 
 sense. Especially in later years, when his Sun- 
 day evenings were not so fully occupied with 
 public duty, he spent hours that were as happy 
 to them as to himself, in hearing what they had 
 to say, while some parts of Scripture was read in 
 common. However trivial the idea or the diffi- 
 culty of the child might seem to others, he al- 
 ways dealt carefully with it, and tried by means 
 of it to impress some principle which was worth 
 remembering. ' When I asked him about any- 
 thing I did not understand,' writes one of his 
 daughters, *my dear father would say, "That's 
 right. On your way through life you'll come 
 across many a stumbling-block that you will 
 think quite impassable, but always come to your 
 father, for he's an old traveller who can show 
 you a path through many a difficulty. " I treasure 
 what he said to me when I spoke to him about 
 some fault of natural temperament: "Don't 
 be discouraged. It involves in many ways a 
 benefit. The cure is to think more about God. 
 Look at yourself as much as you can as you 
 think He would look at you, and look on others 
 in the same way." Oh that I were like him! 
 Such trust, such love, such utter forgetfulness 
 of self, such sympathy and charity and energy ! 
 Surely these things are born with people, and 
 not acquirements. Yet he once said to me, 
 "You have no right to blame your natural dis- 
 
NORMAN MACLEOD, 
 
 443 
 
 position. By so doing you blame God who 
 gave it to you. No quality is bad unless per- 
 verted."'" 
 
 Of his preaching, Dean Stanley thus wrote in 
 the Times: "Other preachers we have heard, 
 both in England and France, more learned, 
 more eloquent, more penetrating to particular 
 audiences, but no preacher has arisen, within 
 our experience, with an equal power of riveting 
 the general attention of the varied congregations 
 of modern times. . . . None who so com- 
 bined the self-control of the prepared discourse 
 with the directness of extemporaneous effort ; 
 none with whom the sermon approached so 
 nearly to its original and proper idea— of a con- 
 versation — a serious conversation, in which the 
 fleeting thought, the unconscious objection of 
 the listeners, seemed to be readily caught up by 
 a passing parenthesis — a qualifying word of the 
 speaker ; so that, in short, the speaker seemed 
 to throw himself with the whole force of his 
 soul on the minds of his hearers, led captive 
 against their will by something more than elo- 
 quence." Mr Gladstone in writing of him has 
 remarked that, "He stands out as having sup- 
 plied, after Dr Chalmers, one of the most dis- 
 tinguished names in the history of Presbyterian- 
 ism. In some respects, much after Dr Chalmers ; 
 in others probably before him. He had not, so 
 far as we see, the philosophic faculty of Chalmers, 
 nor his intensity, nor his gorgeous gift of elo- 
 quence, nor his commanding passion, nor his 
 absolute simplicity, nor his profound, and, to 
 others, sometimes embarrassing humility. Chal- 
 mers, whose memory, at a period more than forty 
 years back, is still fresh in the mind of the 
 writer of these pages, was, indeed, a man greatly 
 lifted out of the region of mere flesh and blood. 
 He may be compared with those figures who, in 
 Church history or legend, are represented as 
 risen into the air under the influence of religious 
 emotion. Macleod, on the other hand, had 
 more shrewdness, more knowledge of the world, 
 and far greater elasticity and variety of mind. 
 Chalmers was rather a man of one idea, at least 
 one idea at a time ; Macleod receptive on all 
 hands and in all ways. Chalmers had a certain 
 clumsiness, as of physical, so of mental gait ; 
 Macleod was brisk, ready, mobile. Both were 
 men devoted to God ; eminently able, earnest, 
 energetic ; with great gifts of oratory and large 
 organising power. A Church that had them 
 not may well envy them to a Church that had 
 them. Nor do they stand alone. The Presby- 
 terianism of Scotland, which has done but little 
 for literature or for theology, has, notwithstand- 
 ing, been adorned, during the last fifty years, by 
 the names of many remarkable persons, men of 
 high and pure character: with great gifts of 
 government and construction, like Candlish ; of 
 winning and moving oratory like Guthrie ; and 
 only a notable fertility in the production of such 
 men could have enabled the National Establish- 
 
 ment of that small country to endure the fearful 
 drain, which has been brought upon it, since its 
 establishment at the Ptevolution, by repeated 
 catastrophes within its borders. " 
 
 In company with Mr Strahan the publisher, 
 and his brother Donald, he visited Palestine 
 early in 1864. The outline of this journey was 
 given to the world in Good Words under the 
 title of *' Eastward." He enjoyed the trip thor- 
 oughly. In this same year he was appointed to 
 the convenership of the India Mission by the 
 General Assembly. This oflSce he accepted, 
 mission work having all along taken strong 
 possession of his spirit. "Thank God," he 
 wrote in his journal, "for calling me in my 
 advanced years to so glorious and blessed a 
 work. ... I wish £10,000 a year at least, 
 and ten men at least, to preach Christ to India. 
 If I had not faith in Christ I should despair." 
 A speech made in 1866 led to a severe contro- 
 versy on the authority on which the observance 
 of the Sabbath rested. He felt that he had 
 lost much influence in Scotland through it, but 
 he believed that the next generation would reap 
 freedom from it. In 1867 he was appointed, 
 along with Dr Watson of Dundee, to visit the 
 mission field, and represent the Church of Scot- 
 land in India. He left for India at the end of 
 the year. "They were welcomed," writes his 
 brother, " as friends by the representatives and 
 agents of every Church and mission, from the 
 bishops of the Church of England in India down 
 to the poorest native catechist, and received from 
 them all every possible aid and information. 
 They enjoyed the frankest intercourse with edu- 
 cated natives of all varieties, of creed and of no 
 creed, and with the conductors of the press, religi- 
 ous and secular. Christian and Hindoo." " The 
 presence of Dr Macleod," wrote the Friend of 
 India, "has cheered many a worker and helped 
 to enlighten many a doubter. More remarkable 
 than his receptive power, amounting to genius, 
 which enables him to appreciate the merits of 
 abstruse political questions ; more striking than 
 his marvellous conversational gifts; more im- 
 pressive than his public speeches, have been his 
 sermons. That is the perfection of art without 
 art. Of his three sermons in Calcutta two were 
 addressed to doubters, being devoted to a semi- 
 philosophical exposition of our Lord's divinity 
 and atonement. He spoke as a man to men, 
 not as a priest to beings of a lower order; he 
 reasoned, as one who had himself felt the dark- 
 ness, avowedly to help those who were still in 
 the gloom. Affectation seems as foreign to the 
 character as it is to the thought of this John 
 Bright of the pulpit. The lesson taught to 
 preachers by the crowds of high and low who 
 flocked to hear him was, as it seems to us, that 
 truth and honesty, guided by faith and uncon- 
 sciousness of self, and expressed in manly speech 
 face to face, will restore to the pulpit a far 
 higher function than the press lias taken from it." 
 
444 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 He was prostrated by illness at Calcutta, and 
 oT)liged suddenly to leave the country. At the 
 next meeting of the General Assembly, after his 
 return, he gave an address, embracing the result 
 of his visit to India, which was afterwards pub- 
 lished. His "Peeps at the Far East," contri- 
 buted to Good Words, gave, as we have said, his 
 impressions of India. In 1869 he was elected 
 Moderator ©f the Scotch General Assembly. 
 *' The moderatorship was a time of great peace 
 of heart," he afterwards wrote. After the 
 Assembly he attended an anti-patronage com- 
 mittee in London. His wish regarding the 
 Church was to re-build it on a foundation suffi- 
 ciently wide to include the Presbyterianism of 
 Scotland. From what he had seen of the work- 
 ings of Voluntaryism in America and in this 
 country, he became convinced that, when exist- 
 ing alone, it became insufficient for the proper 
 support of the Church in poor districts. He 
 resumed his work of addressing presbyteries 
 and public meetings in various parts of the 
 country on behoof of his India Mission. He 
 expressed himself thus as to the life led on many 
 country farms: '*I have the poorest possible 
 opinion of the morality, the common decency 
 that is too frequently observed on the farms of 
 
 Scotland. As Dr Chalmers said of , so I 
 
 may say of a mass of our agriculturists — they 
 are a set of ' galvanised divots ' (sods). " And so 
 they may long continue until the introduction of 
 steam and other machinery shall lighten the 
 labours of the field, and shorten the hours of 
 labour, and leave sufficient vitality in the ani- 
 mal frame of the labourer to make intellectual 
 labour something of a pleasure. While denying 
 the canon of criticism which would do away 
 with the religious moral — pointing to the fact 
 that it would even exclude Christ's teaching by 
 parables, and would stop himself or any minister 
 from writing stories, he had this to say regard- 
 ing the ordinary work of the novelist: "I so 
 bate those eternal love-stories, this everlasting 
 craving after a sweetheart ! I wish they would 
 marry in the first chapter and be done with it. 
 Is there nothing to interest human beings but 
 marriage? What a fuss to make about those 
 two when in love ! " 
 
 The busy life which he led at this time 
 may be seen from the following letter to his 
 publisher : 
 
 " Whatever may be my fault, it does not con- 
 sist in my chariot- wheels tarrying, as the follow- 
 ing statement will prove : 
 
 '' Friday, 2>0th September. — Left Glasgow for 
 Aberdeen at nine p. m. , arrived at Aberdeen at 
 three a.m. 
 
 "Saturday, 1st October.— LqH for Balmoral. 
 Dined with Her Majesty. 
 
 *^ October 2. — Preached a sermon on *War 
 and God's Judgments,' which the Queen asks me 
 to publish, and to dedicate to herself, as soon i 
 as possible — not a line having been written. I 
 
 ^^ October 3. — Joined my wife in Perthshire, 
 dead beat. 
 
 ^* October 4. — Bested my chariot-wheels and 
 greased them. 
 
 ^^ October 5. — Returned to Glasgow, and 
 answered twenty letters; wrote long minutes 
 for Sealkote and Calcutta ; had prayer-meeting 
 in the evening. 
 
 '•^October 6, — Commanded by the Prince of 
 Wales, and left at seven a.m. for Dunrohin, 220 
 miles off. Dined at half-past nine, left the 
 drawing-room at half-past one a.m., and smok- 
 ing-room at half-past three. Left per train at 
 six A.M., and never halted five minutes, being 
 past time, until I reached Glasgow, at half-past 
 six P.M. 
 
 *^ October 7. — A weary Saturday, to prepare 
 two new sermons for Sunday amidst manifold 
 interruptions. 
 
 ** October 8. — Preached twice. 
 
 ^^ October 9. — Again dead beat, and went to 
 see my old mother the first time for six weeks. 
 
 ''October 10. — Returned, and received a letter 
 from a patient friend, asking, ' Why tarry thy 
 chariot-wheels ?'!!!! 
 
 "Bother the chariot- wheels ! 
 
 "I am as nervous as an old cat." 
 
 Again he wrote: "As a public man I am 
 worked from six a.m. till ten p.m., and if a man 
 must be occupied twenty-four hours in killing 
 rats or planting carrots it is practically the same 
 to him, as far as time is concerned, as if he were 
 attacking Paris." 
 
 His health was so precarious in the beginning 
 of 1871 that he sought quiet and rest at Ems 
 for a time. The hymn, "Trust in God and do 
 the Right," he published in Good Words in 
 1872. He now keenly felt the pressure of his 
 severe labours, but devoted himself with even 
 more conscientiousness than ever to pulpit pre- 
 paration. His call for men and money for his 
 beloved India Mission had not met with a 
 ready response from his own Church. The 
 closing words of an address he gave at St 
 Andrews were : " If by the time next General 
 Assembly arrives neither of those are forthcom- 
 ing, there is one who wishes he may find a 
 grave ! " The death of his spiritual friend, John 
 Macleod Campbell, also afi"ected him deeply. 
 In the Assembly of 1872 he delivered with great 
 clearness and power a telling speech on Indian 
 Missions, giving the conclusions he had arrived 
 at regarding the way in which mission work 
 should be conducted there. It was his last great 
 effort ; he preached but once in his own church 
 afterwards. He was stricken down shortly 
 afterwards, and on his death-bed he had a dream. 
 " I thought," he said, " the whole Punjaub was 
 suddenly Christianised, and such noble fellows, 
 with their native churches and clergy." He 
 passed away in the stillness of the Sabbath fore- 
 noon, 16th June 1872. 
 
 The news of his death created a profound 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 445 
 
 impression wherever it was known. The Queen 
 sent an affectionate note of inquiry and condol- 
 ence. Other letters of condolence flowed in 
 from all quarters. Dean Stanley wrote a sketch 
 of his life for the Times^ while appreciative 
 papers appeared in the magazines. A tablet to 
 his memory has been erected in Loudoun Parish 
 Church, Two stained windows have been in- 
 
 serted in Crathie Church to his memory, by 
 command of the Queen. His ashes rest at 
 Campsie, and as the great funeral procession 
 moved with them to their last resting-place, a 
 brawny working-man was heard to say, "There 
 goes Norman Macleod ; if he had done no more 
 than what he did for my soul, he would shine 
 as the stars for ever." 
 
 HENEY WAED BEECHEK. 
 [1813-1887.] 
 
 In New York, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr 
 Beecher, and hearing him preach and lecture on 
 several occasions. He is a man so singular as 
 not easily to be classed or compared with others. 
 It was, indeed, an old Boston saying, than man- 
 kind was divisible into three classes — the good, 
 the bad, and the Beechers ! * 
 
 He is led by his impulsive nature to say and 
 do the strangest things at times, and yet in 
 most cases one can feel a noble Christian heart 
 throbbing underneath. Take a single case: 
 Beecher was walking down the Bowery one 
 day, when he noticed a poor little withered boy 
 sitting on the kerb-stone selling matches. He 
 stopped, spoke to the little fellow, and found 
 that he was a poor castaway child, likely to 
 perish for want of proper care. Beecher thought 
 for a moment, and then asked the boy if he 
 could sing. 
 
 Yes ; he sometimes tried. 
 
 "Let me hear you," said Beecher. 
 
 The boy began to sing ; Beecher stood with 
 folded arms, listening. A crowd began to col- 
 lect. 
 
 "Very good," said Beecher, when the boy 
 finished ; "let me hear another." 
 
 By the time the second song was finished, a 
 large crowd had gathered. Beecher bent down, 
 took the little boy, slung him upon his shoulder, 
 and faced the crowd. 
 
 "Now, my little fellow," he said, "there are 
 listeners for you ; give them a song." 
 
 The child, perched on the great preacher's 
 shoulder, sang again. As soon as he had fin- 
 ished, Beecher asked the little fellow for his 
 cap, and went round the crowd, holding it out 
 for contributions. In a few minutes, some- 
 thing like two hundred dollars was collected. 
 Beecher took the boy to a friend's office, got 
 him clothed and provided for, and the balance 
 of money banked for his use. I cannot vouch 
 for all the details, but there undoubtedly you 
 have the man. 
 
 * From "Tfc* A7it»iMJi3 at Home." By David Macrae. 
 
 In America, Beecher is an independent power. 
 
 Wherever he lectures or preaches people 
 crowd to hear him ; his sermons are printed in 
 the newspapers as far west as California ; demo- 
 crats abhor him ; grog-sellers dread him ; Prince- 
 ton theologians shake their heads over his theo- 
 logy; but everywhere, liked or disliked, the 
 name of Henry Ward Beecher is known, and 
 his power recognised. 
 
 The Southern people only know him as an 
 uncompromising antagonist of slavery, and a 
 preacher of the "isms" which they regard as 
 the damnation of America. There was a time 
 when his life would not have been worth a day's 
 purchase south of Mason and Dixon's line. It 
 is said that a literary lady from the South, 
 visiting Brooklyn before the war, went to hear 
 Beecher as she would have gone to see a ghoul. 
 She was surprised to hear an earnest Gospel 
 sermon. She went back and heard another 
 even more unexceptionable than the first. She 
 went and heard him at meetings too, till her 
 preconceived opinion of him was entirely 
 changed. She sought an introduction, and 
 said, after some conversation, " Mr Beecher, the 
 South misunderstands you, and you misunder- 
 stand the South. I want you to come and see 
 Dixie for yourself, and let the Southern people 
 hear you." 
 
 ** Madam," said Beecher, "my neck is short, 
 and not handsome ; but it is the only one God 
 has given me, and I had rather retain it in its 
 natural state than have it elongated by external 
 appliances." 
 
 This was at a time when Southern feeling was 
 exasperated beyond the point of endurance by 
 Northern movements against slavery. 
 
 Even now, the feelings engendered by that 
 angry controversy rankle in the Southern breast. 
 It struck me sometimes that the firm Southern 
 belief in the existence of hell was moored to the 
 felt necessity for some place of torment for 
 Wendell Phillips, Lloyd Garrison, and the 
 whole family of Beechers. I scarcely ever met 
 a Southerner who had any hope of the salvation 
 
44G 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of Mrs Stowe. The feeling is that "Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin " of itself was enough to drag the 
 whole of New England to endless perdition, 
 even supposing that world of " isms " to have 
 ever had any opposite tendency. There ap- 
 peared in some minds to be a certain glimmer- 
 ing of hope for Henry Ward. I met with good 
 Southerners who seemed, since Beecher's address 
 on behalf of General Lee's College, to cherish a 
 desperate hope that, after a few thousand years 
 of purgatorial fire, he might find a way of ap- 
 proach on his knees to the heaven of redeemed 
 planters. The Southern people will think more 
 of Beecher when they know him better. Even 
 Parson Brownlow, visiting Brooklyn in his pro- 
 slavery days, and attending service at Plymouth 
 Church, wrote back to his friends in Tennessee : 
 "If any of you ever find your way to heaven, 
 don't be surprised if you meet Beecher ! " 
 
 Beecher is, in New York, what Spurgeon is in 
 London, and what Dr Guthrie used to be in 
 Edinburgh. Every one visiting the empire city 
 is expected to hear him. His church is in 
 Brooklyn, itself a city of immense size, lying 
 across the river from New York, as Birkenhead 
 lies from Liverpool. Plymouth Church is away 
 in one of the side streets, but you have no diflB- 
 culty in finding it if you are on your way to 
 Beecher's. At ten in the morning or six in the 
 evening, cross at the Fulton Ferry and follow 
 the crowd; or, if you are in Brooklyn, come 
 down in the Fulton Avenue cars, and when the 
 one in which you are travelling stops at a cer- 
 tain crossing and disgorges almost the whole of 
 its human freight, get out and follow the stream 
 down Plymouth Street, and it will pilot you to 
 the place. 
 
 The first time I heard Beecher in his own 
 church was at a forenoon service. If the reader 
 will in imagination accompany me, I will try to 
 give him a glimpse of the man and the place. 
 Crowds of people are waiting at the doors of the 
 great brick building to get their chance of a 
 place when the regular congregation is seated ; 
 but you and I are strangers from a distant land, 
 we tell our errand to one of the officiating 
 deacons, and are at once conducted away up the 
 aisle to a good seat, not many yards from the 
 pulpit. What a vast church we are in ! Gallery 
 above gallery piled up to the roof. I wonder if 
 those people in the topmost gallery yonder, with 
 their heads almost touching the ceiling, will hear 
 anything ! The seats are painted white, with a 
 brown beading, which gives the whole place a 
 bright and elegant appearance. The church is 
 crowding fast, and yet it is still half an hour 
 from the time. 
 
 I spoke of the pulpit — but I should have said 
 the desk. Beecher dislikes those "sacred ma- 
 hogany tubs " — hates, as he says himself, to be 
 shut off from the people, and plastered up . 
 against the wall like a barn swallow in its nest. 
 He quotes the saying of Daniel Webster, that , 
 
 the survival of Christianity in spite of high 
 pulpits, is one of the evidences of its divinity. 
 Beecher likes an open platform, where he can 
 walk to and fro, and face every man whom he 
 wishes to address. 
 
 It is an interesting platform that on which we 
 are now looking. Some of the most extraordin- 
 ary sermons that the Americans of this genera- 
 tion have listened to have been preached from 
 it. It was standing on that platform that 
 Beecher poured forth those philippics against 
 slavery that ran like wildfire through the North, 
 and helped to kindle the conflagration of '61. 
 Let me describe one scene that was enacted here. 
 After the sermon one day, Beecher said: "Here 
 is a letter I got the other day from a friend in 
 Washington, saying that a young woman, a 
 slave, is to be sold this week unless she can buy 
 herself off, and this will cost twelve hundred 
 dollars. The trader has allowed her to make 
 subscriptions, and has himself headed the list 
 with a hundred dollars. She has not been able, 
 however, with all her begging round Washing- 
 ton, to raise more than five hundred more, and 
 if the other six are not raised she will be sold 
 the day after to-morrow. When I got this letter 
 about it," said Beecher, "I wrote back, saying, 
 *It is of no use unless the young woman comes 
 herself.' The trader has such confidence in her 
 that he has let her come. She is here tww." 
 Amidst breathless excitement he turned to that 
 door leading in from the vestry, and said, 
 "Come up, Nancy." The young woman ap- 
 peared, and took up her place timidly beside 
 Beecher on the platform. " Now," said Beecher, 
 "if we don't raise six hundred dollars, this 
 woman will be sold the day after to-morrow to 
 the highest bidder." The deacons were on their 
 feet in an instant, and the plates went round. 
 The excitement was intense. One Southern 
 planter put in fifty dollars. Ladies who had no 
 money put in their rings or brooches. The 
 plates were piling up. In the meantime, two 
 gentlemen (Arthur Tappan, I think, was one of 
 them), went up and announced, through Beecher, 
 that whatever the collection was, they would 
 guarantee the six hundred. There was a burst 
 of applause — the woman was free ! There was 
 no repressing the enthusiasm. It was the 
 church; but people clapped their hands and 
 cheered as (Beecher said) "in holy joy." The 
 collection turned out to be sufficient, not only 
 to buy off the woman but her little boy. This 
 is one of the stories of Plymouth Church. 
 
 Three minutes from the time now ! Beecher 
 will be in soon. The church seems crammed, 
 and still the people keep crowding in. 
 
 Suddenly a stir in the church, and a turning 
 of all eyes to the platform. See, there he is! 
 Beecher himself, with that old smile of good- 
 humoured defiance on his face. He has come in 
 as quietly and unconcernedly as if Jie were to be 
 a mere listener. He has his overcoat on— his 
 
HENRY WARD B EEC HER, 
 
 447 
 
 rubbers, too (goloshes, as we should call them 
 here), and his ha.t in his hand, just as if he had 
 been called in for a few moments from the street. 
 No pulpit-gown, no beadle, no ceremony, in this 
 land of liberty and equality. 
 
 Beecher deposits his hat in the corner, takes 
 off his rubbers in presence of the whole congre- 
 gation, seats himself at ease in the chair, and, 
 taking the hymn-book from the little table 
 beside him, begins to turn over the leaves. 
 
 At half-past ten, sharp on the minute, the 
 organ begins. In front of it, seated in the 
 orchestra gallery, just above Beecher, is the 
 choir — a row of twenty or thirty young ladies 
 and gentlemen, whose heads alone are visible 
 behind the low crimson screen. They are not a 
 paid choir ; they belong to the congregation. 
 
 As soon as the voluntary is ended, Beecher 
 rises, takes off his overcoat, and, stepping for- 
 ward to the desk, says, "Let us invoke the 
 blessing of God." He does so in a few solemn 
 words, ending with, "Through Christ, our 
 Redeemer, Amen." Then he opens the Bible 
 and begins to read a chapter — the sixth of Paul 
 to the Ephesians. 
 
 He stands erect with a brave look, one foot 
 planted a pace forward. His white collar is 
 turned over a black tie ; his long hair, turning 
 grey now, is brushed back behind his ears. His 
 large grey light-floating eye is full of sunny 
 light ; and about his whole face, especially about 
 his mouth and chin, that singular expression of 
 smiling defiance. Altogether he has the look of 
 a brave, strong man, exulting in his strength — 
 the look of one who is going to fight you, and 
 knows that he will win, but means to let you off 
 without much punishment. 
 
 The people are still crowding in at all doors, 
 choking the passages. 
 
 After a hymn comes the prayer. There is a 
 solemn stillness; Beecher's voice, wonderful in 
 Hs pathos and power, filling the whole place, 
 and rising up with its pleadings to the throne of 
 grace. He prays for the poor and those left in 
 ignorance — for Sunday-schools, colleges, and 
 universities. "Behold," he cries with emotion, 
 " how many there are to be lifted up ! " He 
 prays that more men may come forward to 
 make sacrifices for the truth. Then, with 
 kindling voice, "0 that Thou wouldst make 
 men more heroic for God ! Lord Jesus, Thou 
 who hast beheld the heels of tyrants bathed in 
 the blood of those they have crushed — oh, wilt 
 Thou not come in Thy shining armour and set 
 the people free?" Then, with a pause and 
 sudden revulsion of feeling, he says — his voice 
 broken down with sadness — " The darkness is 
 very thick. Life walks with weary feet." The 
 depth of feeling that trembles in Beecher's voice 
 when his heart is full, it is almost impossible to 
 describe. 
 
 After another hymn come the intimations, 
 some of which are rather odd. Miss Lucy Stone 
 
 is to deliver a lecture somewhere or other on 
 "Shall women vote?" The prayer-meeting is 
 to be shifted this week from Wednesday to 
 Saturday, as there is to be a children's concert 
 on Wednesday, "at which," says Beecher, "the 
 eminent singer, Parepa Rosa, will perform, 
 unless a providential interference shall prevent 
 her." Another intimation is to the effect that 
 
 Captain D , of this church, will, on such a 
 
 night, repeat his lecture on the East. Beecher 
 looks at the paper a second time, and says, with 
 a merry twinkle in his eye — * ' ' His great lecture,' 
 he calls it." This excites a chuckle all over the 
 church at the expense of the captain, who is 
 pointed out to us sitting in his seat in view of 
 the whole congregation, and who evidently in- 
 tends, from his look (he and Beecher are always 
 bantering one another), to pay his pastor back 
 in his own coin at the earliest possible date. 
 
 There is another hymn, and then Beecher 
 comes forward and gives out the text. It is in 
 Eph. vi. 7 : "With goodwill doing service, as to 
 the Lord and not to men." 
 
 He pauses for several moments, looking up 
 into the gallery with that peculiar smile upon 
 his face, as if he knew there was some one there 
 afraid of him, and begging him mutely not to 
 begin with him. He lets him alone and opens 
 quietly, showing how Paul is urging men to the 
 fulfilment of their duties — children to parents, 
 parents to children. 
 
 "We come next," he says, "to slaves." At 
 that word, the key-note of so many fierce con- 
 flicts, there is the first flash of fire. 
 
 "I have heard it alleged," says the preacher 
 (warming up), "that these passages justified 
 the sin of slavery ! But mark well the apostle's 
 word. When he speaks to children, he says, 
 'Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is 
 right.' But when he comes to the slaves, he 
 says, 'Serve your masters' — not your masters 
 in the Lord — but your masters 'according to 
 the flesh,' those that happen to be your masters 
 according to the ways of the world — serve them 
 with energy and sincerity of purpose. And then 
 he jumps the master, as though the slave had 
 no motive for service that could be derived from 
 him, and says, 'Do it as unto Christ.' I can- 
 not do it for my master's sake ; there is no con- 
 sideration growing out of this relationship that 
 will be a just and proper motive for me to give 
 him a slave's obedience ; but Christ says, ' Do 
 it for me.'" Beecher's voice has been kindling 
 through all the paragraph. He looks up now 
 with flaming eye. "This distinction," he cries 
 with a voice of thunder, " this implication is a 
 prodigious argument against slavery ! " 
 
 That is his introduction. He launches out 
 now upon his subject — showing that this is 
 a principle of universal application — that we all 
 have duties to perform that are disagreeable or 
 painful, and that we should help ourselves to 
 their discharge by looking beyond them to thy 
 
448 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Lord — doing the service loyally as to Him. He 
 shows how God, to receive this service, con- 
 nects Himself with all persons and all events. 
 "Here," he cries, "springs up the doctrine of 
 Christian Pantheism — the doctrine of a personal 
 God clothed with affection, who has so joined 
 Himself to men and events that there is not one 
 thing that is not united in some way with God, 
 as in a family where, if a child is sick or hurt, 
 it goes back at once to the heart of its parents. " 
 He shows how all men work more easily when 
 acting from the higher than from the lower 
 motives ; how, therefore, when a man trains 
 himself to work from this highest motive of all, 
 doing service as to the Lord, the yoke becomes 
 easy and the burden light. 
 
 This is the central idea of his discourse, which 
 he illustrates in a hundred different ways, a^d 
 sends home with amazing power. 
 
 His manner is peculiar. His manuscript is 
 on the desk, but he does not stay much beside 
 it. He reads a few sentences at first ; but as 
 soon as the thought seizes him, he moves back 
 and begins to *' orate " and gesticulate all round 
 the platform, till the idea is exhausted : then 
 he goes back. He looks like a man going for 
 lance after lance to his armoury, brandishing one 
 awhile in the air, hurling it suddenly at the 
 enemy, and, as soon as he has seen it strike, 
 turning for another. 
 
 His wealth of illustration is boundless. In 
 this he resembles Guthrie ; but Guthrie draws 
 more from nature, Beech er from human life. 
 He seems to search the faces of his audience as 
 he goes along, to see what manner of men they 
 are, and what their thoughts are busied with in 
 life, that he may know with what arguments 
 and appeals to reach them. He hesitates at 
 nothing. If he come on politics he dashes in, 
 and says, without the slightest circumlocution, 
 exactly what he means. He never calls a spade 
 an agricultural implement, or alludes to a man's 
 wife as the partner of his joys and sorrows. He 
 comes for an instant to-day on the subject of 
 political corruption. He declares that public 
 offices are bought and sold in the United States 
 like beef in the shambles. He tells his audience 
 that he says nothing of New York, for New 
 York is clean gone like Sodom and Gomorrah ; 
 nothing of Albany, for it is a hissing and a by- 
 word among the nations. He speaks of the 
 country at large, and he declares that ninety- 
 five out of every hundred offices are bought and 
 sold like things in the market. The reference 
 to the gone condition of New York excites a 
 laugh, but it is over in an instant. Beecher is 
 on with kindling face to something else, and in 
 two minutes after you could hear a pin fall, as 
 the audience listens to some simple story of the 
 Saviour's love. Then he is off again, flaming 
 with some new thought, but always sweeping 
 on upon the same broad track, till suddenly he 
 is done, and standing there with the fire and en- 
 
 thusiasm still in his face that has been kindling 
 in it through his last appeal. The closing exer- 
 cises are brief but solemn, and the vast congre- 
 gation begins to disperse. 
 
 People quote Beecher's funny sayings as they 
 used to quote Spurgeon's, but these are the 
 mere bubbles on the surface of the rushing 
 stream. You may have laughed with the others 
 at some odd illustration, but you leave the 
 church a better man than when you entered it. 
 You have got an impulse in the right direction : 
 you go away with higher thoughts and pur- 
 poses. This, after all, is the test of a good ser- 
 mon. Of the two extremes, it is perhaps better 
 to laugh and get good, than to sleep and get 
 none. / 
 
 Many of the peculiarities of Beecher's style 
 spring from his peculiar training. His father 
 gave him the very best education within his 
 reach ; but ** Henry " left college with no thought 
 of the Church, was rather a wild youth, and, 
 with two companions, followed the pioneers to 
 the backwoods to shoot, hunt, and fish. In the 
 midst of this wild life he happened to hear a 
 Methodist minister, and the truth struck home 
 to his heart. The effect was instantaneous. 
 Like Saul when he was struck down on his way 
 to Damascus, his first question was — "What 
 wilt Thou have me to do ? " Beecher's enthusi- 
 astic nature admitted of nothing else. He sold 
 his rod and gun for a horse, and began to move 
 from place to place, preaching to the backwoods- 
 men. This was the beginning of Beecher's 
 ministry. At first he used to try and write hid 
 sermons, as he had seen his father do : with 
 sometimes nothing but the end of a log or the 
 lid of a pot to rest the paper on. But he found 
 that a log-cabin full of children was not a place 
 favourable to composition of this kind, and he 
 gave it up. Thereafter his studying was done 
 as he rode from one settlement to another, on 
 the back of his old horse. This went on for 
 three years, before he settled down in a regular 
 charge. It was during these years that he 
 acquired his power of homely and forcible illus- 
 tration, and his habit, still so marked, of seizing 
 everything from around him that can help to 
 drive truth home to the heart. Without this 
 he would never have succeeded amongst the 
 rough backwoodsmen as he did. At last a con- 
 gregation was formed in Indiana, and Beecher, 
 assisted by some of the farmers, got a little 
 church put up. It was a rude affair, and he 
 had to keep it in order himself. He swept the 
 place every Sunday morning with his own hands. 
 
 *'I would have rung the bell too," said 
 Beecher, " if there had been a bell to ring !" 
 
 When he was called to Brooklyn, and exam- 
 ined prior to his settlement, some of the older 
 and more rigid clergymen on the examining 
 committee were horrified at his apparent ignor- 
 ance of technical theology — and he a son of 
 
HENRY WARD BEE CHER. 
 
 449 
 
 Lyman Beecher ! Horace Bushnell stood up for 
 him, said the right spirit was in this man, and 
 he would soon work out for himself the details 
 of theology. Some of the others were less satis- 
 fied. *' I would protest against this settlement," 
 said one, "were I not in hope that his theology 
 will gradually be rectified by his wise and estim- 
 able brother," referring to Dr Edward Beecher. 
 When this brother startled the orthodox with 
 his "Contest of Ages," Beecher said to his old 
 friend, * 'You see we are now getting our theology 
 gradually rectified by that wise and estimable 
 brother of mine ! " 
 
 One or two other stories of that examination 
 are still current. Beecher was asked by a New 
 England minister of the stricter sort, if he be- 
 lieved in the doctrine of the Perseverance of the 
 Saints. 
 
 "I used to believe in that doctrine," said 
 Beecher ; "but when I went out West, and saw 
 how the New England saints behaved themselves 
 when they got away there, I gave it up." He 
 was not questioned further on that point. 
 
 He was warned, however, by the presiding 
 minister, against the indulgence of wit in the 
 pulpit. "Ah, doctor," said Beecher, "if you 
 knew how much I keep down as it is, you would 
 say I did very well. Suppose, now," he added, 
 "God had endowed you with any wit, would 
 you not use it to His glory ? " 
 
 Beecher has wrought a perceptible change in 
 the American pulpit. He has done so, speaking 
 literally as well as figuratively, for he has helped 
 to clear away the box pulpits and introduce the 
 open platform. He carries the same idea into 
 his preaching. He wants room, freedom, lati- 
 tude. He must speak what he thinks and feels, 
 no matter whether it make the people applaud, 
 or laugh, or cry. All the faculties that God 
 has given him he demands the liberty to use in 
 His service — whether it be wit, logic, sarcasm, 
 pathos, or humour. He is warring with the 
 devil, and every arrow in his quiver must fly. 
 The question with him is not " Which shaft is 
 considered the most proper T' but "Which will 
 fly straightest and strike deepest ? " 
 
 He must also be allowed to deal with any and 
 every subject. If he thinks the interests of reli- 
 gion are bound up in any crisis with the ascen- 
 dancy of the Kepublican party, he will preach 
 Eepublican politics. It will be remembered 
 how in the crisis of '64 he declared that he would 
 preach Abraham Lincoln till the election was over. 
 He foUows his instincts — attacks the grog-shops, 
 the slave-system, the Government, the State 
 Legislature, the corrupt tribunals of New York 
 — every person, institution, or practice in whom 
 or in which he thinks the devil is dangerously 
 entrenching himself. 
 
 This makes his church a power in the land. 
 Evil-doers are afraid of him. If a New York 
 millionaire or a cabinet minister, no matter 
 who he is, do^s any conspicuously wicked or 
 
 dastardly thing, Henry Ward Beecher will hava 
 his clutches on him next Sunday night, and 
 hold him up in Plymouth Church to the execra- 
 tion of the whole country. 
 
 But if Beecher is a terror to evil-doers, he is 
 equally a praise to such as do well. He has a 
 large and generous heart. If he was one of the 
 first to inflame the war spirit of the North 
 against slavery, he was also one of the first to 
 preach magnanimity and mercy to the conquered 
 South. His speech at Sumter, in '65, is an im- 
 perishable monument, not only to his nobleness 
 of heart, but to his generosity and Christian 
 statesmanship. 
 
 Beecher's influence on the American pulpit 
 may be summed up in a few words. He has 
 lowered its level, but increased its power. He 
 has made it stoop — to conquer. 
 
 Conversing one day with Beecher on the sub- 
 ject of the war, he said, " Our triumph is pro- 
 ducing a speedier effect upon you than upon 
 ourselves. It will take time here. It has 
 shown its influence in England already, in the 
 Reform Bill. The first effect of that bill will 
 be to revolutionise the educational system. I 
 should also think, but I don't know, that it 
 would affect the Church and the land tenure. 
 The land question is vital. Now, we in America 
 are invulnerable, unapproachable, because every 
 one has property in the country. Immigration 
 makes no difference. If all Europe came here 
 we should not have people enough for the soil. 
 The root of patriotism," he said, with emphasis, 
 "is property in land." 
 
 Speaking of American institutions, he said he 
 had implicit faith in the good government of 
 an educated people. 
 
 I spoke of the misgovernment of New York. 
 
 " New York," he said, "is an exception, be- 
 cause of the mass of foreign ignorance and vice 
 that has accumulated in it. The Irish and 
 German vote controls the election. But that 
 mass will one day be educated and American- 
 ised." 
 
 He had been in Canada shortly before, spend- 
 ing the time there necessary to secure the copy- 
 right of "Norwood." He said Canada was a 
 fine country. He had no idea of it till he had 
 seen it. He paid what evidently seemed to him 
 the highest conceivable compliment when he 
 added that it appeared not very different from 
 the States. 
 
 On another occasion, speaking of Charles 
 Dickens and his visit to America, I asked if he 
 thought his "American Notes" and "Chuzzle- 
 wit " would tell against him with the people. 
 
 "No," said Beecher, "not now. There was 
 a time when they would, but the feeling has 
 cooled down. We were very sensitive at the 
 time these books first came out. It was the 
 difference between the young man of sixteen 
 and the man of thirty. A young man of sixteen 
 is very anxious about people's opinion of him, 
 
 2 F 
 
450 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 He doesn't know whether he is really a man or I exclaimed Beecher. " They are little sections 
 not. "We have got past that stage now." of the people that step out of the line of the 
 
 Speaking of Hep w^orth Dixon's book on "New j nation's march, live a little time, and die. 
 America," and the prominence he gives to Sha- | * New America ! ' — you might as well draw a 
 kers, Mormons, and other exceptional communi- ' picture of a wart on a man's nose and call it the 
 ties, **What are these in this great nation?" New Man!" 
 
 THE BAEONESS BUEDETT-COUTTS. 
 
 [1814 .] 
 
 Everybody knows, at least by name, the famous 
 banking-house of Coutts & Co., in the Strand, 
 London. Perhaps no firm of private bankers in 
 the world can boast of a clientelage so aristo- 
 cratic. The early history of the bank is inter- 
 esting, and illustrates very favourably the suc- 
 cess of Scottish enterprise in England. 
 
 In the latter part of the sixteenth century 
 William Coutts, a cadet of the Auchintolil 
 family, was "provost" of Montrose. His grand- 
 son, Patrick Coutts, became a merchant in Edin- 
 burgh, and died there in 1704, leaving a wife 
 and three children, and an estate of £2600 to 
 be divided between them. 
 
 Patrick's eldest son, John, succeeded to his 
 father's business, and extended it greatly. His 
 firm of John Coutts & Co., general merchants, 
 was widely known and highly respected. In 
 1742 he was elected Lord Provost of Edinburgh, 
 the highest municipal dignity that can be 
 attained in Scotland. In his later years ill- 
 health made it necessary for him to reside in 
 Italy, and he died at Nola, near Naples, on 
 March 23, 1750, at the age of fifty-one. 
 
 Before leaving Scotland John Coutts had 
 assumed as partners his eldest son Patrick and 
 a Mr Trotter. The capital of the new firm was 
 only £4000. They dealt in corn, acted as com- 
 mission agents, and negotiated bills on the Con- 
 tinental Bourses. In the course of time their 
 business on 'Change became so extensive that 
 they ceased to act as general merchants and 
 devoted themselves entirely to banking. In 
 1773 Sir William Forbes, Sir James Hunter 
 Blair, and Sir Robert Herries came to be the 
 chief partners in the firm, and the bank was 
 long known as "Sir W. Forbes, J. Hunter, and 
 Co. " In 1 830 it becam e the Union Bank of Scot- 
 land, one of the greatest banks in the country.* 
 
 * It is stated in Notes and Queries (4th S. X., 
 898), that Mansfield's Bank, established in 1738, was 
 the first private bank in Edinburgh, "except perhaps 
 Coutts's, which is supposed to have had the prece- 
 dence." Probably neither of them in the early part 
 of their history limited its business to banking in the 
 strict sense of the term. Both seem to have been at 
 first mercantile houses, receiving deposits at interest, 
 »nd dealing in bills of exchange at home and abrofcd. 
 
 Lord Provost Coutts left four sons. James 
 became a banker in St Mary Axe, in London, 
 but subsequently joined his younger brother 
 Thomas in establishing the banking-house of 
 Coutts & Co. in the Strand. He was for some 
 time M.P. for Edinburgh, and died in 1778. 
 Thereupon Thomas Coutts became the sole 
 manager of the bank in the Strand. In course 
 of time the private account of King George was 
 kept at Coutts's, and the principal members of 
 the aristocracy soon followed the lead of the 
 sovereign. It became fashionable to have an 
 account there ; and even yet there is a certain 
 undefinable prestige in paying your bills by a 
 cheque on "Coutts's." 
 
 Prudence, economy, and punctuality soon 
 made Thomas Coutts a millionaire. He married 
 first Susan Starkie, who died in 1815, leaving 
 three daughters — Susan, married in 1796 to the 
 Earl of Guildford ; Frances, married in 1800 to 
 the first Marquis of Bute ; and Sophia, married 
 in 1793 to Sir Francis Burdett, Bart. The 
 youngest daughter of Sir Francis by this marriage 
 was Angela Georgina Burdett — now the Baro- 
 ness Burdett-Coutts — the subject of the present 
 memoir. 
 
 Miss Burdett was not born heir to the princely 
 fortune which afterwards fell to her lot, and of 
 which she has made so noble a use. Soon after 
 the death of his first wife, Thomas Coutta 
 married, in 1815, Miss Harriet Mellon, an 
 actress more celebrated for her beauty than for 
 her professional talent ; and at his death, which 
 took place on February 22, 1822, she succeeded 
 under his will to his entire property. 
 
 In 1827 Mr Coutts's widow was married to 
 William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, Duke of St 
 Albans. She died on 6th August 1837, and left 
 the whole of the fortune she had derived from 
 the Coutts family to Miss Angela Georgina, the 
 youngest and then the only unmarried daughter 
 of Sir Francis Burdett, only subject to an 
 annuity of £10,000 a year to her husband, the 
 Duke of St Albans, and a liferent in his favour 
 of her mansion in Piccadilly, and of her High- 
 gate properties, including Holly Lodge. With 
 many peculiarities, and perhaps not a few weak- 
 nesses, she was a generous and kind-heartod 
 
BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS. 
 
 451 
 
 woman ; and it is said that she disposed of her 
 wealth in the way we have mentioned under the 
 conviction that justice required that Mr Coutts's 
 fortune should revert at her death to one of his 
 own family. 
 
 Sir Francis Burdett, the representative of an 
 ancient Derbyshire family which had been raised 
 to the baronetage in 1618, was born on the 25th 
 January 1770, and educated at Westminster 
 School and the University of Oxford. He lived 
 in France during the revolutionary times, and 
 was an eye-witness of many of the horrors that 
 were then perpetrated. His Continental experi- 
 ence greatly liberalised his political opinions. 
 His history is not yet forgotten. As a politician 
 he was far in advance of his day ; a reformer 
 before the time of parliamentary reform ; an 
 energetic and effective advocate of those wise 
 measures which have placed our country in the 
 van of progress, and which made the British 
 throne stable in the midst of the almost uni- 
 versal instability of European dynasties during 
 the first portion of this century. 
 
 Long before young Burdett reached manhood, 
 associations of various kinds for promoting 
 parliamentary reform had begun to be formed 
 in England. One of the earliest, if not the very 
 first of these, was established in 1779 by the 
 celebrated Major Cartwright, of whom Fox, in 
 presenting to the House of Commons one of his 
 petitions for the remedy of existing abuses, 
 said, " Major Cartwright is one whose enlight- 
 ened mind and profound constitutional know- 
 ledge place him in the highest rank of public 
 characters, and whose purity of principle and 
 consistency of conduct through life command 
 the most respectful attention to his opinions." 
 The society founded by him was called "The 
 Society for Constitutional Information." Its 
 first chairman was the Duke of Richmond, but 
 that noble patriot, having received from Govern- 
 ment the post of Master of the Ordnance, took 
 an early opportunity of deserting his colleagues 
 in the society, and was afterwards the bitterest 
 opponent of all such political associations. 
 Among the other members of Cartwright' s 
 society were the Duke of Norfolk, Lords Cam- 
 den and Surrey, Earl Stanhope, Lord Mahou, 
 Pitt, Fox, Erskine, and Sheridan, besides many 
 other influential and celebrated men. Pitt and 
 Fox, however, did not long remain members, 
 neither did the Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 After his university education had been com- 
 pleted, Burdett spent several years in travel. 
 It was the period of the first French Revolution, 
 and the young aspirant to parliamentary honours 
 came home deeply impressed with the conviction 
 that unless a rapid and radical change in the 
 administration of English affairs should be 
 effected, the streets of London and other Eng- 
 lish cities would ere Icmg be scenes of horror 
 and blood, as those of Paris had recently been. 
 
 By this time the Society for Constitutional 
 
 Information and its metropolitan coadjutor, the 
 Corresponding Society, one of whose most active 
 members was Home Tooke, had spread their 
 branches over the whole country, and were 
 acting as propaganda of Liberalism everywhere. 
 Mr Burdett became a leader in these societies, 
 advocating, both at their meetings and in public, 
 measures which at that time were regarded as 
 revolutionary, but most of which have since 
 been adopted. 
 
 In 1794 the famous trial of Hardy, Tooke, 
 and others took place, and desperate efforts 
 were made by the Government to get them 
 found guilty of treason, and thereby to strike a 
 death-blow at all Liberal political associations. 
 As is well known, the arbitrary proceedings of 
 the Crown officers recoiled upon themselves. 
 Hardy and his associates were one by one 
 triumphantly acquitted of the charge of "con- 
 structive" treason, and freedom of discussion 
 and liberty of the press were established on a 
 firmer basis than ever. 
 
 Mr Burdett took strong ground on the Liberal 
 side during these proceedings. Lord. Campbel], 
 speaking of a period seven years later, when 
 Home Tooke had retired to Wimbledon to 
 spend the latter years of his life, gives a curious 
 glimpse of the sort of society which Burdett 
 frequented. "The ex-chancellor,"* he says, 
 *' would likewise occasionally dine with the ex- 
 parson,f and joyously meet the motley company 
 there assembled — Hardy, the shoemaker, sitting 
 on one side of him, and Sir Francis Burdett on 
 the other" ("Lives of the Chancellors," vii., 
 284, 4th edition, 1857). 
 
 We have already said that Mr Burdett married 
 Miss Sophia Coutts in 1793. In 1796 he waa 
 elected Member of Parliament for Borough- 
 bridge, in Yorkshire, and in 1797 he succeeded 
 his grandfather in the baronetcy. In the House 
 of Commons he was a vigorous opponent of the 
 Government, especially on the war question, 
 and an ardent advocate of Roman Catholic 
 emancipation, in favour of which he introduced 
 bill after bill, struggling perseveringly against 
 a large but constantly decreasing majority of 
 the House. 
 
 In 1802 he was a candidate for the representa- 
 tion of Middlesex, but he was afterwards un- 
 seated; and in 1806, when he again contested 
 that constituency, he was unsuccessful. Next 
 year he fought a duel with Mr James Paull, 
 who had contested Westminster in the preceding 
 year, and in 1807 he was elected Member of 
 Parliament for Westminster, his colleague being 
 Lord Cochrane. 
 
 In 1810 he was imprisoned in the Tower 
 under most memorable circumstances. In that 
 year Parliament met on the 23d January, and 
 Lord Porchester immediately moved for an in- 
 quiry by a committee into the policy and con- 
 
 Thvu-low. 
 
 t Tooke was in holy ordera. 
 
45l' 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 duct of the rocent Walcheren Expedition, which 
 had proved so disastrous to the country, and to 
 nearly all the ill-fated men who had embarked 
 in it. Lord Porchester expressly stated that 
 his object "was not a select and secret com- 
 mittee before whom garbled extracts might be 
 laid by ministers themselves, in order to produce 
 a partial decision, but a committee of the whole 
 House, by which oral evidence might be ex- 
 amined at the bar." The motion was carried 
 by a majority of nine in a House of 381 
 members. 
 
 The House of Commons was occupied in this 
 investigation from the 2d February till the 26th 
 March, the result being that Lord Porchester's 
 resolutions censuring the advisers of the expedi- 
 tion were negatived ; but Lord Chatham, who 
 was in command of the troops, was censured 
 for having laid a narrative directly before the 
 king vindicating his own conduct as commander- 
 in-chief, and condemning that of the naval part 
 of the expedition. 
 
 During the whole investigation the standing 
 order against admitting strangers to the House 
 had been rigidly enforced, and much public 
 indignation was excited against the member 
 (Yorke) on whose motion the people had been 
 excluded. 
 
 On the 19th of February Yorke complained 
 to the House that his parliamentary conduct 
 had been made the subject of discussion in a 
 debating club called the British Forum, managed 
 by a certain Mr John Gale Jones, and demanded 
 that Jones should be summoned to the bar for 
 breach of privilege. This was done, and the 
 unfortunate owner of the British Forum was 
 committed to Newgate under a Speaker's war- 
 rant. 
 
 Sir Francis Burdett was not present when 
 this took place. He held that the House of 
 Commons " had no right to imprison the people 
 of England." On the 12th March he moved 
 that Jones should be discharged, his imprison- 
 ment being illegal. The House held fast to its 
 prerogative, and the motion was negatived by 
 an overwhelming majority. 
 
 Sir Francis immediately published his speech 
 on the motion, and prefixed to it a letter to the 
 electors of Westminster, in which he repeated 
 his assertion that the Commons had no right to 
 imprison an Englishman. This letter was held 
 by the House to be a scandalous and libellous 
 paper, and after a protracted debate on the 
 course to be taken to vindicate their rights, the 
 Commons resolved by 190 votes against 152 that 
 Sir Francis Burdett should be committed to the 
 Tower. 
 
 The warrant to commit was signed by the 
 Speaker and handed to the Serjeant-at-Arms at 
 the close of the debate at seven o'clock in 
 the morning of the 6th April, and Sir Francis 
 was allowed to retire to his mansion in Picca- 
 dilly, on stating that he would be "ready to 
 
 receive " the serjeant next morning. The recep- 
 tion that officer met with next morning was not 
 what he expected. 
 
 Sir Francis's house was barricaded, and its 
 owner, maintaining that the warrant against 
 him was illegal, refused to proceed to the Tower 
 unless taken by force. With the aid of a strong 
 body of police and a detachment of troops, an 
 entrance was ultimately effected, and the pris- 
 oner was driven to the Tower under their escort. 
 A dreadful riot ensued. Vast crowds assembled 
 in the vicinity of the barricaded house, and the 
 troops which had accompanied the prisoner to 
 the Tower were attacked by the mob on their 
 return, two or three lives being lost, and several 
 persons wounded. The Parisian newspapers 
 reported that there was a revolution in London. 
 
 Sir Francis remained a prisoner till the pro- 
 rogation of Parliament released him. He took 
 legal measures against all parties to the arrest, 
 his determination being to show through the 
 law courts that the House of Commons had ex- 
 ceeded its powers. But he was unsuccessful in 
 all the actions he raised, and the House still 
 retains the right he fought so persistently to 
 wrest from it. 
 
 In 1819 he was again prosecuted for publishing 
 a letter to his constituents condemning the con- 
 duct of the magistrates and yeomanry in dis- 
 persing the great Reform meeting at Manchester, 
 on which occasion several lives were lost, and 
 many hundreds of the crowd more or less 
 severely injured. He was fined £2000, and also 
 imprisoned for three months. The disappoint- 
 ment of the extreme Tories of those days at the 
 mildness of the sentence may be gathered from 
 a letter addressed by Mr C. W. Wynn to the 
 Marquis of Buckingham on 10th February 1821, 
 in which he says : 
 
 "I agree with you in considering the sentence 
 on Burdett — a sentence so unexpected as to call 
 for the plaudits of all the Radicals who sur- 
 rounded the Court, and the congratulations of 
 his friends — as most calamitous; and unfortu- 
 nately it is not the first instance in which the 
 Court of King's Bench, or rather the present 
 judges of it, have shown that they are not proof 
 against popular clamour and the apprehension 
 of personal danger." * 
 
 Sir Francis represented Westminster for thirty 
 years. In later life he went over to the Con- 
 servative party, and sat for Wiltshire. In the 
 early part of his career he was the idol of the 
 London populace. No political speaker of the 
 day could sway a mass meeting more powerfully 
 than he could. Perhaps the Toryism of his old 
 age was a natural consequence of the ultra- 
 Liberalism of his youth. 
 
 Such was the father of Miss Angela Burdett ; 
 such the school of politics in which she was 
 
 * Duke of Buckingham's " Memoirs of the CJourt of 
 Gfcorge IV.," vol. i., p. 121. 
 
BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS. 
 
 453 
 
 reared. Her early infancy saw the end of the 
 mighty struggle which had long convulsed 
 Europe, and which closed with the battle of 
 Waterloo ; in her opening womanhood the great 
 Reform agitation in which her father had taken 
 so active a part culminated in the bill of 1832, 
 and piping times of peace once more revisited 
 the weary land. As a natural consequence party 
 contests became less bitter. Old animosities 
 were forgotten, or at least buried, and a regene- 
 rated populace set themselves earnestly to the 
 development of industry and art. 
 
 Character is moulded by circumstances to a 
 larger extent than is generally supposed, for 
 which reason we have given a more detailed 
 account than we should otherwise have done of 
 Miss Burdett's family, and of their connection 
 with the history of the times. 
 
 The death of the Duchess of St Albans took 
 place, as has been said, in 1837, when the Derby- 
 shire baronet's daughter suddenly found herself 
 the richest woman in England. Untold wealth 
 was at her command. She might have chosen a 
 life of pleasure or of ambition. She chose one 
 of never-ceasing beneficence, and great riches 
 were never employed to more noble ends than 
 the riches of Miss Burdett. 
 
 By the will of the duchess she was bound to 
 assume the name and arms of Coutts. She was 
 therefore now known as Miss Burdett-Coutts. 
 
 Of Holly Lodge, which became one of her 
 residences on the death of the Duke of St Al- 
 bans, in 1849, William Howitt says, in his 
 "Northern Heights of London:" "In the 
 house and grounds of the late Duchess of St 
 Albans now resides Miss Burdett-Coutts, famous 
 for her wealth, her extensive benevolence, her 
 erection of dwelling-houses for the poor, churches 
 for churchgoers, and bishoprics for the colonies. 
 A daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, she has not 
 appeared ambitious to follow in his democratic 
 steps, but rather to become a nursing mother to 
 the Church of England. I suppose no other 
 woman under the rank of a queen ever did so 
 much for the Established Church; had she done it 
 for the Catholic Church, she would undoubtedly 
 be canonised as St Angela. But perhaps the 
 noblest and most enduring of her works is seen 
 in the clean and smiling hearths of hitherto too 
 much neglected and ill-housed poverty." 
 
 People who are not thoroughly acquainted 
 with London have generally the idea that West- 
 minster is a district of palaces and mansions. 
 They have read of the venerable Abbey, of the 
 Houses of Parliament, of the new Government 
 of&ces. Perhaps in the course of a hurried visit 
 to town they have seen these splendid edifices. 
 The Londoner knows that around and behind 
 these, not many yards away, lies one of the 
 most wretched, squalid, and poverty-stricken 
 portions of the metropolis. 
 
 In this miserable locality Miss Burdett-Coutts 
 began her great work of charity. She chose it 
 
 for her first public effort in remembrance ol 
 her father's long connection with the borongh. 
 In 1850 she erected in Rochester Row the Church 
 of St Stephen the Martyr, a fine specimen of 
 Gothic architecture. She afterwards built a 
 parsonage house and three schoolhouses, and 
 crowned her munificent gift by amply endowing 
 the whole. The Duke of Wellington presented 
 an altar-piece to the church. 
 
 This is only one of the least of Miss Burdett- 
 Coutts's beneficent deeds. During the time 
 when the Church of St Stephen was building, 
 her bountiful hand was providing for the religi- 
 ous wants of more than one of the colonies. In 
 1847 she endowed the bishopric of Cape Town ; 
 the Rev. Robert Gray was consecrated and 
 appointed to the see, and in the following year 
 he commenced his labours in Africa. In the 
 same year she endowed the bishopric of Ade- 
 laide, in South Australia, and Dr Short was 
 appointed to the see. Since then (1858) she has 
 contributed the funds necessary not only to en- 
 dow a bishopric in British Columbia, but also 
 to provide for the clergy of the diocese. The 
 sum she devoted to the Church in Columbia 
 amounted to £25,000, and altogether the estab- 
 lishment of the three colonial bishoprics cannot 
 have cost her less than £50,000. In addition to 
 all this she founded an institution in South 
 Australia for the education of the aborigines. 
 
 Bethnal Green is one of the poorest suburbs 
 of London. The locality formerly known as 
 Nova Scotia Gardens was one of the poorest in 
 the district. The site of these "Gardens" is 
 now occupied by a block of model lodging- 
 houses for the poor, which has been named 
 Columbia Square. In the centre of the square 
 there is a handsome clock-tower. The dwellings 
 are fitted up with baths, wash-houses, and every 
 convenience that can encourage habits of cleanli- 
 ness and comfort. Over three hundred families 
 live there at low weekly rentals, each in its own 
 separate abode. Columbia Square is the work 
 of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and, thanks to 
 another millionaire, whose name will be long 
 remembered as a benefactor of the London poor, 
 buildings constructed on the same plan and for 
 the same purpose have been set down in more 
 than one of the most squalid districts of the 
 great city. Mr George Peabody is one o" the 
 few who do not need to blush when their good 
 deeds are mentioned in connection with those of 
 Baroness Coutts. 
 
 The building of Columbia Square was com- 
 menced in May 1858, and finished in May 1862. 
 On 28th April 1869, Columbia Market was 
 opened, another gift of the Baroncsa to the 
 Bethnal Green district. Her intention was that 
 this market should place within reach of the 
 dense population around it supplies of pro- 
 visions, and especially of fish, of better quality, 
 and at more reasonable prices than they could 
 be procured through the small dealers and buck- 
 
454 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 sters who had previously monopolised the trade. 
 The market, which was opened in the presence 
 of royalty, is one of the most elaborate pieces of 
 Gothic art in the metropolis. Its cost is said to 
 have been about a quarter of a million sterling, 
 and we have reason to believe that no small part 
 of this sum was spent on architectural detail, 
 mainly with the view of creating employment 
 for stone-masons in the district, of whom a large 
 number were, at the time, out of work and al- 
 most destitute. 
 
 The building did not succeed as a fish-market. 
 The great wholesale fish-dealers of Billingsgate 
 could not brook a rival establishment trading 
 directly with the coast and thereby depriving 
 them of their profits. For a time the Baroness 
 subsidised the trade in Columbia Market ; but 
 the Billingsgate opposition was too powerful, 
 and her efforts to contend with it were unsuc- 
 cessful. Lady Coutts then transferred the 
 building to the Corporation of London as a free 
 gift, on condition that they should do what they 
 could to promote the objects for which she had 
 erected it. But the trade opposition which had 
 defeated her ladyship's attempt to establish a 
 wholesale fish-market was strong enough to 
 defeat all the efforts made by the corporation 
 for the same purpose, and in 1874 the splendid 
 building was re-conveyed to the Baroness. 
 
 In December 1875 the market was re-opened 
 under an arrangement with three of the great 
 railway companies, whose united influence, it 
 was thought, would secure sufficient support to 
 the fish trade. The Baroness, anxious only for 
 success in her philanthropic purpose, undertook 
 to indemnify the companies against any loss they 
 might incur in connection with the venture. 
 The enterprise, we regret to saj'', has resulted in 
 another failure. A recent newspaper describes 
 the market in the following words : 
 
 "Most of the tenants have left their shops, 
 the great hall is closed, and the majestic beadle, 
 an old veteran, is being consumed with ennui, 
 for even the very children of the district seem 
 to shrink from invading these desolate precincts 
 for fear of hearing the echo of their own voices 
 or footsteps, while the 'Sir Francis Burdett' 
 Arms in the north-west corner oi the quadrangle 
 is probably the only public-house in the metro- 
 polis, perhaps in the whole kingdom, which is 
 without guests. It is almost impossible to 
 describe the desolation which reigns supreme; 
 and the very sight of the buildings, which are 
 handsome and costly enough for a college or 
 a palace, is really more depressing to the spirits 
 of a beholder than the mouldering ruins of an 
 abbey or some ancient city." — London Standard, 
 3d April 1876. 
 
 It is said that a scheme is at present on foot 
 for establishing a provision market in the "Col- 
 umbia" on an entirely novel plan. The chief 
 feature of the new project is the purchase of 
 wholesome food of all descriptions in the cheap- 
 
 est Continental markets, to be imported direct 
 to Columbia Market, and sold at prices greatly 
 lower than those of similar articles of food in 
 the home markets. It is calculated that meat, 
 poultry, etc., can be packed in ice safes and 
 transmitted with perfect safety from the Conti- 
 nent to London without being unpacked on the 
 way, and that this can be done profitably at 
 much less cost to the consumer than the present 
 home prices. All who are interested in promot- 
 ing the comfort of the poor will wish every suc- 
 cess to the enterprise. 
 
 "We have not yet exhausted our account of the 
 benefactions of the Baroness to Bethnal Green. 
 To give a complete account of them would be 
 impossible, for it is well known that her private 
 charities in the district have been large and 
 wide-spread. For example, in a time of great 
 destitution and distress, she undertook the 
 Admiralty contract for supplying shirts to the 
 iiavy, gave out the work at high rates of wages 
 to the unemployed needle-women of Bethnal 
 Green, established a school to teach needlework 
 to those who were unable to execute it, and 
 thereby kept hundreds of poor people from 
 starvation. In many other ways has she found 
 employment for the destitute, medical skill for 
 the sick, and help for the helpless. 
 
 We have not adhered strictly to the order of 
 time in our mention of the Baroness Coutts's 
 works of benevolence during the years we have 
 been writing of. Our aim has rather been to 
 group together works of a similar character, so 
 as to show how thoroughly, how energetically, 
 how unweariedly she carries her plans into execu- 
 tion ; how persevering she is amidst disappoint- 
 ments ; and with what undamped spirit she sets 
 herself to contend with difficulties. We must 
 now go back to the year 1854, and describe 
 some of her efforts in the cause of education. 
 
 In that year she began to take an active part 
 in promoting the industrial training of young 
 women. Among other institutions established 
 for the purpose of giving industrial education to 
 girls is the Whitelands Training Institution at 
 Chelsea. To this institution Miss Burdett-Coutts 
 gave £50 a year to be annually distributed in 
 prizes after a competition among the pupils on 
 questions of household economy ; * and the per- 
 sonal interest she took in the training of the 
 scholars, her kindly counsels, and words of en- 
 couragement have doubtless left a lasting im- 
 pression on many, and influenced their whole 
 after-life for good. 
 
 * A department of education which had been pre- 
 viously much neglected. At the national schools 
 sanctioned by the Privy Council many accompUsh- 
 ments were taught, useful no doubt as elevating in- 
 fluences to the classes who attend them, but often 
 detrimental when they were permitted to usurp the 
 place of the economical arts, which have to be prac- 
 tised in the daily life of the wives and mothers and 
 Bisters of the humbler classes. 
 
BARONESS B URDETT-CO UTTS. 
 
 Her efforts in the cause of education were not 
 confined to questions of industrial training. In 
 1865 she suggested to the Committee of the 
 Privy Council on Education a scheme for group- 
 ing the small and then generally inefficiently- 
 conducted schools of outlying parishes into dis- 
 tricts, each of which should be under the super- 
 vision of a superior teacher. Her scheme was 
 adopted, and the existing Education Act, so far 
 as school inspection is concerned, is in effect an 
 extension of the system. 
 
 In 1864 the diocese of Carlisle was represented 
 by the bishop to be ip a state of great spiritual 
 destitution. The Baroness at once offered to 
 provide a church for one of the districts of the 
 town, and in March of that year she laid the 
 foundation of St Stephen's Church, which was 
 completed in 1 865 at a cost of £6000, borne en- 
 tirely by herself. 
 
 At Shepherd's Bush the Baroness established 
 a shelter and reformatory for fallen women. 
 The results were so gratifying that nearly half 
 of the inmates of the house, during the seven 
 years of its existence, were reclaimed; homes 
 were also provided for them in the colonies by 
 assistance lent them to emigrate, from the ever- 
 ready hand of the founder of the institution. 
 
 Emigration is a subject in which the Baroness 
 has taken a deep interest, and she has often 
 generously aided destitute families by trans- 
 planting them to suitable districts in the colo- 
 nies. At a time of great distress in the country 
 she effected an arrangement with the Cunard 
 Company, by which many families from all parts 
 of the country were enabled to emigrate. Our 
 Irishmen will readily remember how she came 
 forward to the rescue of the inhabitants of the 
 islands of Cape Clear, Shirkin, etc., close to 
 Skibbereen, at a time when starvation was star- 
 ing them in the face. 
 
 It will not surprise our readers to learn that 
 the Baroness is the patron of the Royal Society 
 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The 
 deep tender feeling towards suffering humanity 
 which is the spring of all her charities to the 
 poor, could not exist in a bosom inaccessible to 
 the unworded appeals of the lower animals in 
 their sufferings. Her exertions on behalf of the 
 society have been unremitting, and they are 
 singularly illustrative of her sympathetic and 
 kindly nature. No pain that can be spared or 
 alleviated seems to escape her watchful eye. 
 To mention a single example — some years ago 
 she wrote to the Times (14th September 1869) 
 complaining of the cruel usage to which imported 
 cattle were subjected, and suggesting "to all 
 persons engaged in teaching, in whatever rank 
 of life, that some plan should be adopted for 
 inculcating, in a definite manner, principles of 
 humanity towards animals, and a knowledge of 
 their structure, treatment, and value to man. " 
 Nor was she less careful of our home animals. 
 The cattle sent up to London from the remote 
 
 districts of England and Scotland used to suffer 
 intensely in their transit per railway from thirst 
 and often from hunger. At her own expense 
 she provided the fittings for trucks constructed 
 so as to enable the cattle to eat and drink on 
 the road to London, and such trucks are now in 
 general use on all the great traffic lines.* 
 
 The peerage of England is recruited from 
 many sources. Some of these are not, or at 
 least in times past were not, of the purest. 
 These we pass over. Some have won their way 
 to a coronet by the sword, some by the tongue, 
 some by the pen. But the roll of British nobles 
 contains no name more honoured or more worthy 
 of honour and of love than that of Angela 
 Georgina, Baroness Burdett-Coutts. To that 
 roll her name was added in 1871. 
 
 The poet Moore gives us, in his diary, under 
 date May 1845, an interesting glimpse of Miss 
 Burdett-Coutts "at home." " That night," he 
 says, "or the next, there was a large ball at the 
 Queen's to which I was not invited, nor shall 
 ever, I daresay, again, having lately declined 
 two or three of her invitations ; nor have I ever 
 indeed gone but to one of her assemblies, when 
 I met with Lord Lansdowne. 
 
 "This time, however, I was sufficiently amused 
 by going about different houses, where I saw 
 some very pretty specimens both of dress and 
 beauty ; but none that gave me so much pleasure 
 as our bright and smiling Lady Mount-Edg- 
 cumbe. 
 
 "Next day I called upon Miss Coutts, whom I 
 had seen in all her splendour the night before, 
 and found her preparing to send it back to the 
 bank. * Would you like,' she asked, *to see it 
 by daylight?' and on my assenting took me to 
 a room upstairs where the treasure was deposited. 
 Amongst it was the precious tiara of Marie 
 Antoinette; and on my asking her what alto- 
 gether might be the value of her dress last night, 
 she answered, in her quiet way, * I think about 
 a hundred thousand pounds.' " 
 
 During a recent visit to Scotland the Baroness 
 Coutts was presented with the freedom of the 
 city of Edinburgh, and another link was thus 
 added to the long chain which connects the 
 Coutts family with the home of their ancestors. 
 
 * Among the multitude of other wise and en- 
 lightened acts that have flowed from the ever active 
 and thoughtful benevolence of the Baroness, we may 
 mention the encouragement she gave to the develop- 
 ment of cotton culture on the Guinea Coast of Africa. 
 A correspondent of the London Standard (2d Sept. 
 1876) says: "The trade of Lagos, which is the chief 
 port of the Egban countries, is greater than that of 
 the whole of the Gold Coast. They have grasped the 
 advantages which civilisation has set before them, 
 and are now known as a truly commercial people. 
 Since the Baroness Burdett-Coutts first gave a cotton 
 gin to the missions at Abeokeuta the cotton trade, 
 which is almost entirely in the hands of the natives, 
 has wonderfully increased, the approximate yearly 
 export being upwards of 10,000 bales." 
 
456 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Here we close our imperfect sketch of Baroness 
 Burdett-Coutts. We might have described other 
 efforts of her liberality. We find, for example, 
 that we have omitted to mention that the topo- 
 graphical survey of Jerusalem made under the 
 
 direction of Sir Henry James was conducted at 
 her expense.* 
 
 On 12th February 1881 she was married 
 to William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett. 
 
 THOMAS EDWAED, 
 
 THE BANFF NATURALIST. 
 
 [1814-1886.] 
 
 The world is now familiar with the names of 
 two men connected with the north of Scotland, 
 who, with an inborn passion for scientific re- 
 search, persevered in the pursuit, until, through 
 untold difficulties, their laboars were so far 
 crowned with success. The name of the one is 
 Hugh Miller, the geologist, of the other, Thomas 
 Edward, the naturalist. Hugh Miller shed a 
 lustre on the sphere of life from which he 
 sprung, and shed an equal lustre on the position 
 in the world of letters which he afterwards so 
 worthily gained. He worked hard as a stone- 
 mason during the day, and equally hard at his 
 books and papers in the evening. It may be 
 wrong to call a geological holiday a bit of task 
 work; but when off to the quarries, or to the 
 sea-shore, he was hard at work there too. And 
 he was happy, supremely happy, as far as his 
 nature would permit — for wholesome employ- 
 ment within the limits of prudence is often 
 wholesome enjoyment; and so while enriching 
 the world with positive knowledge, he escaped 
 from himself and from brooding cares. Had the 
 end been different, for his life went out with a 
 pistol-shot, it would have been pleasanter to 
 contemplate; but there is always so much of 
 mystery connected with death, and the con- 
 current causes of it, that we must curtain the 
 last scene with the cloak of charity, and believe 
 that his own reason had fled when the rash deed 
 was done. The points of difference in the two 
 lives which we have mentioned together will be 
 apparent enough to the attentive reader; but 
 they were both one in this, that they possessed 
 indomitable perseverance, and were both true 
 to the master passion of their nature. And 
 amongst all the works to which we are indebted 
 to Mr Samuel Smiles, his life of Thomas Ed- 
 ward perhaps will continue to be one of the 
 most popular and readable, and may be ex- 
 pected to live as long as the language. 
 
 Thomas Edward, the son of John Edward, a 
 private in the Fifeshire Militia, was born at 
 Gosport on the 25th December 1814. His father 
 had enlisted at Cupar, joined his regiment at 
 Aberdeen, and while in the latter town, had 
 married Margaret Mitchell, a native of the 
 
 place. The war on the Continent had caused 
 the militia to be scattered amongst the coast 
 towns to act w guard and garrison, while the 
 regular troops were engaged with the wars of 
 Napoleon. After the battle of Waterloo, John 
 Edward returned to Kettle, in Fifeshire, his 
 native place ; and when the militia were disem- 
 bodied, resumed his old trade as a handloom 
 weaver. Then he left for Aberdeen, and settled 
 in the Green, one of the oldest quarters of the 
 city. When quite a youngster, Thomas Edward 
 caused his mother trouble, and was difficult to 
 manage, she declaring he was the worst child 
 she had ever nursed. When only about four 
 months old, he had leapt from his mother's arms 
 to catch the flies in the window at Gosport, and 
 was only saved by being caught by the long 
 clothes. That "unseen something, that in- 
 ternal impulse," apparent even then, "grew in 
 the man into an irresistible and inconquerable 
 passion, and engendered in him an insatiable 
 longing for, and earnest desire to be always 
 amongst " the forms of nature and animal life. 
 When he could walk, and while at Kettle, he 
 made friends with the cats and dogs, and with 
 Bet the sow, who was always known to be 
 ferocious when she had a litter of pigs. He 
 would stand and gaze through the splits of the 
 sowhouse at Bet and her young pigs. One day 
 he was lost, he was sought for far and near, the 
 gipsies were blamed for running off with him, 
 when a neighbour woman returned with him in 
 her arms, saying: " There, woman, there's your 
 bairn ! but for God's sake keep him awa frae 
 yon place, or he may fare waur next time." He 
 had slept below Bet and her pigs all night. 
 
 At Aberdeen he was quite at home on the 
 Inches, or low levels partially overflowed and 
 surrounded with water, where he could find 
 eels, crabs, and worms. A manure-heap close 
 by was the place to see flies, beetles, rats, and 
 sparrows. The Denburn at the foot of the Green 
 yielded horse-leeches, tadpoles, frogs, etc. He 
 began to bring home these animals, and was 
 spoken to for this. His frogs hopped about, 
 
 * Dublin University Magazine, October 1876. 
 
THOMAS EDWARD. 
 
 457 
 
 his leeches would crawl about and bite the legs 
 of the inmates, and the beetles, moles, and rats 
 made their escape into holes when possible. He 
 was flogged and talked to, but he only repeated 
 the dose, and returned with a fresh instalment 
 of his favourite "beasts." He was set some- 
 times to rock the cradle, or play with the 
 younger children ; but when his mother's back 
 was turned he had disappeared. When sent a 
 message, he would oftener wander away bird- 
 nesting. 
 
 As a punishment for various misdeeds, he 
 was once ordered to stay in the house all 
 day, and part of his clothes were taken away ; 
 he was tied to the table leg, and his wrists 
 were also bound. A younger sister was left to 
 watch him while his mother was out. He made 
 her help him to get out of his bondage, and 
 pushing the table near the grate, he burned 
 through the cords which bound him. His 
 mother appearing, he hid behind the door, and 
 then ran off. When she came in, the house was 
 in danger of being set on fire, as the table which 
 had been pushed into the fireplace was on fire. 
 On the next occasion, his clothes were taken 
 from him altogether by his father. His mother 
 pinned a bit of an old petticoat round his neck, 
 and thought he was a prisoner for that day. 
 But tying a bit of cord round his middle, he 
 seized the first opportunity to gain his freedom, 
 and was soon quite happy amongst his " beasts. " 
 The result of this last exploit, however, was 
 that he was prostrated with fever for several 
 weeks. When well again, and able to be out of 
 doors, the ruling passion was as strong as ever. 
 Once he brought home a wasps' byke (nest) 
 wrapped up in his shirt. His nude condition 
 being discovered by his brother, who exclaimed, 
 " Eh, mother, mother, look at Tarn ! He hasna 
 gotten on his sark," led to some inquiry by 
 his father, when the *' yellow bumbees' byke," 
 as he called it, was drowned with water, inside 
 the shirt, and discovered to be really a wasps' nest. 
 
 When between four and five years of age he 
 was sent to a dame school, kept by Bell Hill, 
 a school where he was confined for four hours 
 a day. This he did not like, and frequently 
 played truant, and would haunt the fish-mar- 
 ket, amusing the fishwives by his inquisitive- 
 aess. His grannie sometimes took him in hand, 
 and then there was no escape until he was safe 
 within the school door. One day he was sent 
 to buy three rolls for breakfast, but instead of 
 coming straight home, meeting with three other 
 boys, they all went together to the Denburn, 
 where he got a lot of horse-leeches. His grannie, 
 however, having discovered him, was just in the 
 act of laying hold of him by the nape of the 
 neck, when, making a sudden bound to the 
 other side of the burn, he got out of her clutches. 
 She missed him and fell splash into the water. 
 The boys cried out, "Tam, Tarn, yer grannie's 
 droonin'!" He never stopped to look back, 
 
 however, and after some further explorations in 
 some favourite haunts, he returned home, and 
 underwent a severe cross-questioning and just 
 narrowly escaped a good whipping. 
 
 How he further fared at the dame school will 
 be best told in the words of Mr Smiles: "Ed- 
 ward had been accustomed to bring many of his 
 
 * beasts ' with him to school. At last he brought 
 with him an animal of a much larger sort than 
 usual. It was a kae, or jackdaw. He used to 
 keep it at home, but it made such a noise that 
 he was sent out with it one morning, with strict 
 injunctions not to bring it back again. He 
 must let it go, or give it to somebody else. But 
 he was fond of his kae, and his kae was fond of 
 him. It would follow him about like a dog. 
 He could not part with the kae. So he took it to 
 school with him. But how could he hide it? 
 Little boys' trousers were in those days but- 
 toned over their vest; and as Tom's trousers 
 were pretty wide he thought he could get the 
 kae in there. He got it safely into his breeks 
 before he entered the school. So far so good. 
 But when the schoolmistress gave the word 
 *Pray,' all the little boys and girls knelt down, 
 turning their backs to Bell. At this movement 
 the kae became fractious. He could not accom- 
 modate himself to the altered position. But 
 seeing a little light overhead, he made for it. 
 He projected his beak through the opening be- 
 tween the trousers and vest. He pushed his 
 way upwards, Tom squeezed him downwards to 
 where he was before. But this only made the 
 kae furious. He struggled, forced his way up- 
 wards, got his bill through the opening, and 
 then his head. The kae immediately began to 
 cre-waw ! cre-waw ! ' The Lord preserve's a' ! 
 Fat's this noo?' cried Bell, starting to her feet. 
 
 * It's Tarn Edward again ! ' shouted the scholars, 
 'wi' a craw stickin' out of his breeks!' Bell 
 went up to him, pulled him up by his collar, 
 dragged him to the door, thrust him out, and 
 locked the door after him. Edward never saw 
 Bell Hill again." He was expelled from his 
 next school as a nuisance, by the angry dominie, 
 who was annoyed at some of his boys being 
 bitten in the leg by a horse-leech. He was also 
 expelled from his third and last school after 
 undergoing a severe thrashing. His father ia- 
 tending to take him back with him next day, 
 found that he was gone. He did not come nome 
 that night, but slept amongst a pile of logs by 
 the Dee. He was barefooted, his clothes were 
 ragged and thin, the rats disturbed him, and 
 the night was so bitterly cold that he shivered 
 till his teeth chattered. On coming home, but 
 for the neighbourly intercession of a neighbour, 
 Mrs Kelman, he would have received a warm 
 reception ; he was packed off to bed, when it 
 was found that his shirt was hard with clotted 
 blood and sticking to his back, from the effects of 
 the thrashing he had received on the previous 
 day. He fainted away while his wounds were 
 
458 
 
 TREASUR y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 being attended to. His parents never asked 
 him again to go back to his old school. 
 
 He was now free for some time to make ex- 
 cursions to the banks of the Dee and Don, and 
 to all his old favourite haunts. One day with 
 considerable trouble he succeeded in capturing 
 an adder on the hills. He thought it was a 
 large eel, and returned in triumph with it to his 
 own neighbourhood. Eushing among a group 
 of women who were standing with his mother, 
 he exclaimed, "See, mother, sic a bonnie 
 beastie I've gotten." Edward's mother cried 
 out, **The Lord preserve's! what the sorrow's 
 that ye hae noo?" *'0 Meggy, Meggy," said 
 Mrs Kelman, "it's a snake! dinna let him in! 
 For ony sake dinna let him in, or we'll a' be 
 bitten." He was left outside with the beast in 
 his hand, and the door was bolted. He suc- 
 ceeded in disposing of his ** beast " to Dr Fergu- 
 son, who kept a druggist's shop, for the hand- 
 some sum of fourpence. His father encountered 
 him on his return home with the words, 
 "Where's that venomous beast that you had?" 
 "I left it with Dr Ferguson." "But have you 
 no more?" "No." "That's very strange! 
 You seldom come home with so few things 
 about you. But we shall see." He was then 
 taken to the back yard, his father standing by 
 with a stick, when he was ordered to strip. 
 Nothing further was found upon him and he 
 was allowed to return to bed. 
 
 As all attempts to keep him at any decent 
 school had proved an utter failure, it was de- 
 cided that he should be sent oflf to work at 
 something useful. Accordingly he was sent to 
 a tobacco work, where he earned at first four- 
 teenpence a week. He stayed there for two 
 years, and afterwards entered a factory at 
 Grandholm, two miles from Aberdeen, where 
 the wages were better. One strong reason he 
 had for making this change was the opportunity 
 it gave him of roaming through the woods and 
 amidst the beautiful scenery which lay on his 
 way to the factory. The hours were from six 
 o'clock in the morning till eight at night. Be- 
 fore he left this mill, the wages which he him- 
 self received, and also an older brother, were 
 from five to six shillings a week. Young 
 Edward liked the factory work, for he was 
 happy whilst he was employed there. He 
 made himself familiar with the insects, wild 
 flowers, and plants, to be found in the woods 
 on his way. The sight of a kingfisher, by the 
 river-side, awoke his admiration, and he was 
 60 taken by it, that he watched it till evening. 
 When engaged on night work, and when quit 
 at six o'clock in the morning, instead of return- 
 ing straight home he would make an extensive 
 detour^ and perhaps return home by dinner- 
 time, although he had to be at work again by 
 eight o'clock in the evening. "Ah ! these were 
 happy days," he writes. "There were no tawse 
 to fear, and no tyrannical dominie to lay them 
 
 on. True, the farm people did halloo at me at 
 times, but I generally showed them a clean pair 
 of heels. The gamekeepers, also, sometimes 
 gave me chase, but I managed to outstrip them ; 
 and although no nests were to be got, there was 
 always something to be found or seen." 
 
 When eleven years of age, much to his regret, 
 he left the factory, and was bound apprentice 
 to Charles Begg, a shoemaker in Gallowgate, 
 Aberdeen. His apprenticeship was to last for 
 six years, and his wages were to begin at 
 eighteenpence a week, rising sixpence each year. 
 Mr Smiles describes Begg as a dissolute vaga- 
 bond, and it could scarcely be expected that 
 young Edward could be either comfortable or 
 happy with him. Begg had no sympathy with 
 him in his love for the works of nature, and 
 would rifle his pockets when entering the shop 
 to see that they contained none of his favourite 
 animals. He declared he would "stamp the 
 fool out of him," and gave him many a blow to 
 prove he was in earnest. After three years 
 spent with this drunken master, who was going 
 from bad to worse, and after being dreadfully 
 abused by him, one day he left his service alto- 
 gether. He had thoughts of going to sea, and 
 on oflFering himself as a cabin-boy would have 
 been taken had he been able to gain his father's 
 consent. Then remembering that he had an 
 uncle at Kettle in Fifeshire, he thought he 
 might be able to do something for him, and so 
 he ran away from home, and began a walk of 
 about a hundred miles to see this uncle. He 
 required at least sevenpence in money — a penny 
 to cross Montrose bridge, and sixpence to cross 
 the Tay at Dundee — but sixpence was all he had 
 in the world. Believing that he would raise the 
 needed penny by selling his knife, he started, 
 taking with him two quarters of oatcakes and 
 a parcel of oatmeal. Before going far he divested 
 himself of his working garb, and putting on his 
 Sunday clothes, buried the old ones in the 
 ground, and swinging his shoes and stockings 
 over his shoulder, marched onwards. He met 
 with some adventures by the way, but the chief 
 difficulty with him was to get a penny to cross 
 Montrose bridge, and he only succeeded by 
 selling his knife. His uncle did not give him a 
 very cordial reception, and so he returned on 
 the second day after his arrival. His return 
 was as eventful as his outward journey — only 
 he had now eighteenpence in his pocket given 
 him by his uncle. He went back to his old 
 trade of shoemaking, this time with a different 
 master ; and as his work was lighter, and his 
 master of a more kindly disposition, he was 
 freer to indulge his wandering propensities. 
 Trade falling flat he was paid off. He first tried 
 to emigrate, but finally listed in the Aberdeen- 
 shire Militia. He was taken to the guard-house 
 for leaving the ranks during drill to chase a 
 butterfly, but some ladies interceding for him, 
 he was acquitted with a reprimand. 
 
THOMAS EDWARD, 
 
 459 
 
 Deciding to leave Aberdeen he went to Banff. 
 "Edward," says Mr Smiles, " was about twenty- 
 years old when he left Aberdeen and went to 
 Banff to work at his trade. He found a master 
 willing to employ him. Shoemaking had not 
 improved. Their hours were from six in the 
 morning till nine at night. They had scarcely 
 an interval of time that they could call their 
 own. Edward found the confinement more 
 miserable than the wages ; and yet he contrived 
 to find some time to follow his bent. He went 
 after birds, and insects, and butterflies. He 
 annoyed his shopmates almost as much as he 
 had annoyed his school-fellows. In summer- 
 time he collected a number of caterpillars, and 
 put them in a box beside him in the workshop 
 for the purpose of watching them, and observing 
 their development into the chrysalis state. In 
 spite of his care, some of the caterpillars got 
 out, and wandered about the floor, sometimes 
 creeping up the men's legs. Some of the work- 
 men did not care, but one of them was almost 
 thrown into convulsions when he knew that a 
 *worm was out.' The other men played tricks 
 upon him. When any of them wanted a scene, 
 they merely said, 'Geordie, there's a lad oot!' 
 Then Geordie would jump to his feet, and would 
 not sit down again until he was assured that all 
 the worms were fast in their boxes. Edward 
 was forced to keep his caterpillars in the work- 
 shop, as the landlady with whom he lodged 
 would not allow any of his 'vermin,' as she 
 called them, to enter her house. He had one 
 day taken in about a dozen caterpillars of the 
 puss moth, and asked her for a box to hold 
 them in. The landlady told him at once to get 
 out of the house with his 'beasts.' She never 
 could understand her lodger. She could not 
 fathom 'fat kin' o' a chiel he was. A'body 
 tried to keep awa frae vermin but himsel ! ' " 
 
 Just as he got heartless again, the idea began 
 to float through his mind that he should emi- 
 grate. He met with his future wife, a Huntly 
 lass at the farm of Boyndie. After a short 
 courtship, and when just twenty -three years of 
 age, he was married. His earnings at this time 
 did not amount to more than 9s. 6d. a week, 
 but he had now a happy home. He now began 
 to explore the rocky cliffs between Macduff and 
 Gamrie; learned the art of preserving birds 
 and insects, and to make a collection also of 
 moths and butterflies. His education at this 
 time was very imperfect ; he could only read 
 with difficulty, knew nothing of arithmetic, and 
 he had not learned to write. He had few, if 
 any, companions, and knew nothing regarding 
 natural history from books. He took, however, 
 unbounded delight in learning at first hand, 
 from nature herself, all about the form, habits, 
 and characteristies of all the birds and animals 
 which came under his observation. In the 
 spring of 1838 he had commenced to make a 
 collection of natural objects. The only gun he 
 
 possessed he had bought for 4s. 6d., with the 
 barrel tied to the stock with twine. Some 
 insect bottles, and a book for botanical speci- 
 mens, completed his equipment. His working 
 hours were from six in the morning till nine at 
 night. His researches were made after the 
 latter hour, when he would start with his 
 insect boxes and bottles, often with his supper 
 in his hand. He captured moths, beetles, birds, 
 or any other living thing he could secure, and 
 collected plants while it was light. When it 
 grew dark he lay down and slept by the side of 
 a bank, bush, or tree, until daylight, when he 
 would continue his explorations until it was 
 time for him to be back again to work. Sab- 
 bath-day he made an entire day of rest. The 
 coldest places he slept in were among the rocks 
 at the seaside, or the shingle, or on the sea- 
 braes along the coast. "In summer-time," 
 says Mr Smiles, " especially, he would lie down 
 on the grass and sleep soundly, with the lock of 
 his gun for his pillow, and the canopy of heaven 
 for his blanket. His ear was always open for 
 the sounds of nature, and when the lark was 
 carolling his early hymn of praise, long before 
 the sun had risen, Edward would rise and watch 
 for daybreak — 
 
 ' When from the naked top 
 Of some bold headland he beheld the sun 
 Rise up, and bathe the world in light." 
 
 In the course of his wanderings inland, he was 
 frequently overtaken by storms in the hills. 
 He carried no cloak, nor plaid, nor umbrella, 
 so that he often got completely soaked before 
 he could find shelter." 
 
 One of the most disagreeable nights Edward 
 ever spent was in Boyndie Churchyard, where 
 he witnessed a terrific thunderstorm, and crept 
 under a flat tombstone to escape the blast. An- 
 other night while moth-hunting, he was met on 
 the foot-path by the river-side by three badgers, 
 and in attempting to capture one of them, and 
 while in the act of giving it a tremendous kick, 
 he fell suddenly flat on his back on the ground, 
 receiving such injuries that caused a bump on 
 the back of his head as large as a turkey's egg. 
 The period of his night wanderings usually ex- 
 tended between spring and autumn, although 
 he was occasionally out in the winter-time, 
 especially in moonlight. He learned to dis- 
 tinguish the noises or gruntings of the different 
 animals by which he was surrounded in his 
 wanderings. He was at first much puzzled by 
 the harlc emitted by the roe-deer, and the hleak^ 
 hleak of the hare. The rabbit he found returned 
 to its burrow at sunset, and again emerged a 
 little before sunrise. He used to witness their 
 fighting, when they leaped over one another, 
 kicking out with their hind-legs. The fox, the 
 badger, the polecat, the stoat, the weasel, the 
 hedgehog, and nearly the whole family of mico 
 he found to be true night-roamers. The fox 
 
barks like a poodle dog, and when suddenly 
 surprised, growls harshly, and shows and snaps 
 its teeth. The badger utters a snarling grunt, 
 in a kind of quick succession. The otter has a 
 sort of squeak. The field-mice "besides their 
 squeaking lilt a low and not unmusical ditty for 
 hours together." The bite of the weasel or pole- 
 cat is long in healing, and the whole of this 
 tribe are impertinent and aggressive. "Re- 
 turning one morning," he says, "from an excur- 
 sion in the Buchan district, when between 
 Fraserburgh and Pennan, I felt so completely 
 exhausted by fatigue, want of sleep, and want 
 of food (for my haversack had become exhausted), 
 that I went into a field near the road, lay down 
 by a dyke-side, and fell fast asleep. I had not 
 slept long, however, when I was awakened by 
 something cold pressing in betwixt my forehead 
 and the edge of my hat. There were some 
 small birds in my hat which I had shot, and 
 they were wrapped in wadding. On putting up 
 my hand to ascertain the meaning, I got hold 
 of a weasel, which had been trying to force its 
 way in to the birds. I threw him away to some 
 distance amongst the grass and went to sleep 
 Jigain. The fellow came back in a few minutes 
 and began the same trick. I gripped him hard 
 this time, and tossed him across the dyke into 
 another field, but not before he had bitten my 
 hands. I began to close my eyes once more, 
 when again the prowler approached. At last, 
 despairing of peace, I left the spot where I had 
 been seated, and went into a small plantation 
 about a hundred yards off, and now, I thought, 
 I would surely get a nap in comfort. But the 
 weasel would not be refused. He had followed 
 in my track. I had scarcely closed my eyes be- 
 fore he was at me again. He was trying to get 
 into my hat. I awoke and shoved him off. 
 Again he tried it, and again he escaped. By 
 this time I was thoroughly awake. I was a good 
 deal nettled at the pertinacity of the brute, and 
 yet could not help admiring his perseverance. 
 But, thinking it was now high time to put an 
 end to the game, instead of falling asleep I kept 
 watch. Back he came, nothing daunted by his 
 previous repulses. I suffered him to go on with 
 his operations until I found my hat about to roll 
 off. I then throttled and eventually strangled 
 the audacious little creature, though my hand 
 was again bitten severely. After getting a few 
 winks of sleep I was again able to resume my 
 journey." 
 
 Edward contradicts the received idea that the 
 otter is an amphibious animal. The longest 
 time he has noticed it remain under water was 
 from three to four minutes, and the usual time 
 from two to three minutes. His encounter 
 with a polecat in Boyne Castle, about five miles 
 west of Banff, and one of his favourite haunts, 
 was one of the most deadly and severe he ever 
 experienced. He was in the habit of taking 
 shelter in one of the lower vaults, and one night 
 
 while resting on a stone and dozing or sleeping 
 he was awakened by something pat-patting 
 against his legs. He raised himself up and it 
 went away, but returned in a few minutes, 
 advancing higher up his body. He swept 
 his hand across his breast to remove it, when he 
 discovered by its shriek that it was a polecat. 
 He shifted his position, and believing that this 
 animal had scented out a water-hen which he 
 had in his breast pockets, he made these more 
 secure to prevent its reaching it, and turning 
 himself so as to be opposite the doorway 
 and see his antagonist between him and the 
 sky, he waited patiently. "Well," he writes, 
 "just as I hoped and expected, in about twenty 
 minutes I observed the fellow entering the vault, 
 looking straight in my direction. He was very 
 cautious at first. He halted, and looked behind 
 him. He turned a little, and looked out. I 
 could easily have shot him now, but that would 
 have spoilt the sport ; besides, I never wasted 
 my powder and shot upon anything that I could 
 take with my hands. Having stood for a few 
 seconds he slowly advanced, keeping his nose to 
 the ground. 
 
 "On he came. He put his fore-feet on my 
 legs, and stared me full in the face for about a 
 minute. I wondered what he would do next — 
 whether he would come nearer or go away. 
 When satisfied with his look at my face, he 
 dropped his feet, and ran out of the vault. I 
 was a good deal disappointed, and I feared that 
 my look had frightened him. By no means. 
 I was soon reassured by hearing the well-known 
 and ominous squeak-squeak of the tribe. It 
 occurred to me that I was about to be assaulted 
 by a legion of polecats, and that it might be 
 best to beat a retreat. I was just in the act of 
 rising, when I saw my adversary once mora 
 make his appearance at the entrance. He 
 seemed to be alone. I slipped quietly down 
 again to my former position, and waited his 
 attack. After a rather low and protracted 
 march, in the course of which he several times 
 turned his head towards the door — a manoeuvre 
 which I did not at all like — he at last approached 
 me. He at once leaped upon me, and looked 
 back towards the entrance. I lifted my head, 
 and he looked full in my face. Then he leaped 
 down, and ran to the entrance once more, and 
 gave a squeak. No answer. He returned, and 
 leaped upon me again. He was now in a better 
 position than before, but not sufficiently far up 
 for my purpose. Down went his nose, and up, 
 up he crawled over my body towards the bird 
 in my breast pocket. His head was low down, 
 so that I couldn't seize him. 
 
 "I lay as still as death; but being forced to 
 breathe, the movement of my chest made the 
 brute raise his head, and at that moment I gripped 
 him by the throat ! I sprang instantly to my 
 feet, and held on. But I actually thoujjht that 
 he would have torn my hands to pieces with his 
 
THOMAS EDWARD, 
 
 461 
 
 claws. I endeavoured to get him turned round, 
 BO as to get my hand to the back of his neck. 
 Even then I had enough to do to hold him fast. 
 How he screamed and yelled ! What an un- 
 earthly noise in the dead of night ! The vault 
 rung with his howling. And then what an 
 awful stench he emitted during his struggles ! 
 The very jackdaws in the upper stories of the 
 castle began to caw ! Still I kept my hold. But 
 I could not prevent his yelling at the top of- his 
 voice. Although I gripped and squeezed with all 
 my might and main, I could not choke hira. 
 
 "Then I bethought me of another way of 
 dealing with the brute. I had in my pocket 
 about an ounce of chloroform, which I used for 
 capturing insects. I took the bottle out, undid 
 the cork, and thrust the ounce of chloroform 
 down the fumart's throat. It acted as a sleep- 
 ing draught. He gradually lessened his struggles. 
 Then I laid him down upon a stone, and, press- 
 ing the iron heel of my boot upon his neck, I 
 dislocated his spine, and he struggled no more. 
 I was quite exhausted when the struggle was 
 over. The fight must have lasted nearly two 
 hours. It was the most terrible encounter that 
 I ever had with an animal of his class. My 
 hands were very much bitten and scratched, and 
 they long continued inflamed and sore. But 
 the prey I had captured was well worth the 
 struggle. He was a large and powerful animal 
 — a male ; and I desired to have him as a match 
 for a female which I had captured some time 
 before. He was all the more valuable, as I suc- 
 ceeded in taking him without the slightest injury 
 to his skin." 
 
 For upwards of fifteen years the researches 
 made by Thomas Edward were made at night, 
 with snatches of sleep between sunset and sun- 
 rise. His rounds extended along the shores of 
 the Moray Firth for seven miles in one direction 
 and six in another. His inland excursions ex- 
 tended for about five or six miles, and these 
 three districts he generally managed to visit 
 twice a week. When he had wandered too far 
 away, he would hide his hunting outfit in a hole 
 and run home, in order to be at his work in 
 proper time. Sometimes he would lose some 
 days in his favourite pursuit, as when he watched 
 two geese, the first of their kind he had ever seen^ 
 and lost a week before he could run them down. 
 A hunt after a little stint cost him two days 
 and a night before he shot it. When he had 
 night work on hand, he would go to bed and 
 sleep soundly for an hour or an hour and a half, 
 and rise refreshed at the exact time he wished. 
 Besides stuffing his own birds, he also stuffed 
 those of other people, for which he got paid. 
 One of the reasons why he visited his different 
 districts so frequently was to examine the various 
 traps which he had set. He met with a severe 
 disappointment once. He had a collection of 
 916 insects, pinned down in twenty boxes, the 
 result of four years' labour. These boxes were 
 
 lying, previous to glazing them, in the garret, 
 and were found totally empty one morning when 
 he examined them, having been destroyed by 
 rats or mice. His wife asked him what he in- 
 tended to do now. "Weel," said he, "it's an 
 awfu' disappointment ; but I think the best 
 thing will be to set to work and fill them up 
 again." He set to work again; and in about 
 four years more he had his collection tolerably 
 complete, although wanting in some of the 
 previous specimens. 
 
 In 1845 Edward had nearly two thousand speci- 
 mens of living animals, which he had collected 
 in the neighbourhood of Banff. Half of these 
 consisted of quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, 
 Crustacea, starfish, zoophytes, corals, sponges, 
 etc. , also an immense number of plants. With 
 the aid of his shoemaker's knife, a saw, and a 
 hammer, he made cases with glass fronts to show 
 and preserve his specimens. He had about 
 three hundred cases in all. He gave an exhibi- 
 tion of his collection at the Brandon Fair, May 
 
 1845, in the Trades Hall. His large collection 
 was a surprise to the natives, and it paid ex- 
 penses. He repeated his exhibition again in 
 
 1846, with such success as to induce him to 
 remove his collection to Aberdeen, a much 
 larger and more important city. There he ex- 
 pected a greater share of public patronage. He 
 re-arranged his birds into dramatic groups ; one 
 of these groups represented the death of Cock 
 Robin, another the babes in the wood, with the 
 two robin redbreasts covering their bodies with 
 leaves. One really fine case contained a phea- 
 sant, with six young birds, beautifully stuffed. 
 His collection filled six large carrier's carts, and 
 so he set out with his wife and five children, 
 31st July 1846, for Aberdeen. He secured a 
 place in Union Street, one of the finest streets 
 in the town, for his exhibition. He issued an 
 appeal, handbills, and advertised in the local 
 journals. The terms were : ' ' Ladies and gentle- 
 men, 6d. ; tradesmen, 3d. ; children, half price. 
 The Aberdeen Journal^ commenting on his col- 
 lection, said : " We have been particularly struck 
 with the very natural attitudes in which the 
 beasts and birds of prey are placed, some being 
 represented as tearing their victims, others 
 feeding their young, and some looking sideward 
 or backward, with an expression of the eye 
 which indicates the fear of interruption. The 
 birds are very beautiful, and the entomological 
 specimens will be found exceedingly interest- 
 ing." But the public did not patronise his col- 
 lection; those who did call, and who were 
 interested in such matters, speaking kindly to 
 him and inviting him to their homes. Some 
 of the professors who called told him that "the 
 people of Aberdeen were not yet prepared 
 for such an exhibition, especially as it had been 
 the work of a poor man. He had come several 
 centuries too soon." He began to believe this, 
 and that the hearts of the people were made of 
 
their own native granite, as, although he had 
 reduced the entrance-fee to a penny, the ** mil- 
 lions" did not come. On the Friday of the 
 fourth week of his exhibition he had altogether 
 lost hope. His old master had written to him 
 that unless he returned to his work he would 
 give his job to another. His wife and five 
 children were dependent upon him, and the 
 rent of his shop had to be paid, and he had no 
 money to pay it. Despair took hold of him. He 
 left the shop, rushed down Union Street with 
 the idea of drowning himself. His hat, coat, 
 and waistcoat had been thrown ofif before rush- 
 ing into the sea, when he observed a flock of 
 sanderlings alight upon the sands near him. 
 Amongst them was a larger bird of which he 
 did not know the habits, and which awakened 
 his attention. He followed them for more than 
 an hour, and by this time the mad thought of 
 putting an end to his life had left him. He 
 looked upon this bird afterwards, with some 
 reason, as his special providence. After a sleep- 
 less night, he arose more composed in mind, and 
 took breakfast, the first food he had partaken of 
 since the previous morning. The only way out 
 of his difficulties which presented itself to him 
 was to sell his collection. He accordingly sold 
 it for £20, 10s. to a certain Mr Grant, who 
 wished it for his boy. He afterwards heard 
 that, owing to its being placed in some damp 
 and unsuitable room, and from being otherwise 
 neglected, it had come to ruin. After an 
 absence of six weeks he returned to his home, 
 alone, without a single specimen, or a penny in 
 his pocket that he could call his own. His wife 
 and family had remained at Aberdeen, as they 
 could not travel the fifty miles on foot. He felt 
 a strange sense of desolation on entering his 
 deserted home, which was now stripped of his 
 collection, and empty of his wife and children. 
 After the return of his wife and family, he set 
 to work at his old trade again, and in the ensu- 
 ing spring was as busy as ever amid his old 
 haunts, "with heart as light as a feather, to 
 search, as long as light remained, for tenants of 
 the woods, the fields, and the sea-shore." 
 
 "His zeal," says Mr Smiles, "was more than 
 renewed. It was redoubled. He proceeded 
 with even greater perseverance than before. . . . 
 He adopted the self- same plan that he had 
 formerly employed. As soon as his day's work 
 was over, he started on his nightly expedition. 
 During five months of the year he slept out, 
 excepting on Saturday and Sunday nights, or 
 when the weather was stormy. To his former 
 equipment he added a small trowel for digging 
 up plants and grubs, and a hammer for splitting 
 fossils or chipping off parts of any rock that he 
 might wish to preserve." He used chip boxes 
 to carry the insects which he collected. The 
 following is his own description of his hunting 
 gear: " My coat had eight pockets, four outside 
 and four inside. The two lower inside ones 
 
 were * meal pocks ' for size. My waistcoat, too, 
 had four rather big receptacles : the term * waist- 
 coat pockets ' could scarcely describe them. Be- 
 sides these, I had a number of bags or wallets hung 
 over my shoulders, or tied round my middle, 
 or under my coat, according to their intended 
 uses. I had also several queer-looking things 
 which I carried in my hands, and called * acces- 
 sories ; ' for there is no other specific name for 
 the articles. Nevertheless, all had their quota 
 of chip boxes, except my butterfly and moth 
 case, and my plant book. These were generally 
 kept sacred for their respective purposes. " Hav- 
 ing got a terrible drenching while crossing a 
 moor, and while his pockets were full of the 
 objects of his collection, the chip boxes had 
 given way, and, on taking shelter in a cottage 
 he found himself one creeping mass of half- 
 drowned spiders, beetles, ants, and caterpillars. 
 The housewife, thinking he was crawling with 
 vermin, ordered him out of the house at once. 
 As he was now well known, people referred to 
 him about all the natural objects in the district 
 His friends told him he should extend his 
 researches through the whole counties of Banff, 
 Aberdeen, and Elgin, but, as Mr Smiles remarks, 
 no one offered to help him. He did extend his 
 investigations in these counties as far as possible, 
 and for this end obtained a certificate, which 
 enabled him to use his gun in his researches. 
 His wages at this time were no more than about 
 fifteen or sixteen shillings a week. His wife 
 used to work also at the lighter departments of 
 shoemaking, for which she was separately paid. 
 Edward met with a very serious accident at 
 Tarlair, about three miles east of Banff. Near 
 the bottom of the cliffs in the face of the rocks 
 there was a very large, high, and wide-mouthed 
 cave fronting the sea. This was a resort of 
 martens and where they built their nests every 
 season. Coming home one morning he shot a 
 marten, but instead of landing at his feet it fell 
 on the top of the cliffs. He attempted to 
 scramble right up the face of the cliff in order 
 to secure the bird, taking his gun in his hand. 
 He climbed up all right till about the middle of 
 the ascent, when to get farther up seemed im- 
 possible, and where the only way to descend 
 seemed by tumbling down headlong. At last 
 he did manage to get up within a few yards of 
 where the bird lay apparently dead. On at- 
 tempting to pick it up it fluttered away, and 
 went over the precipice. "In his eagerness to 
 catch it, or perhaps from the excited state in 
 which he was from mounting the cliff, Edward 
 grasped at the bird, missed it, lost his footing 
 on the smooth rock, and fell over the precipice. 
 His gun fell out of his hand and lodged across 
 two rocks jutting out from the beach below* 
 Edward fell upon his gun, and smashed it to 
 pieces ; but it broke the force of the blow and 
 probably saved his life. A fall of at least forty 
 feet on rocks and stones would certainly have 
 
THOMAS EDWARD. 
 
 463 
 
 killed most men, or at least broken many of 
 their bones. When afterwards endeavouring to 
 recall his feelings on the occasion, Edward said : 
 *I remember that, on losing my balance, my 
 gun slipped from my hand, and I uttered the 
 exclamation, "0 God!" Then my breath 
 seemed to be cut by a strong wind, which made 
 me compress my lips. I shut my eyes, and felt 
 a strange-like sensation of a rushing sound in 
 my ears, and then of coming suddenly and 
 violently, with a tremendous thud, upon a 
 stony rock.' His breath was gone, and it was 
 long before he could recover it. He was for a 
 time utterly senseless. On slightly recovering 
 consciousness, he thought he was under the 
 influence of a nightmare. He seemed to be in 
 bed, and saw before him hideous faces, grinning 
 and grimacing like so many demons. He tried 
 to shake them off, to shut them out. But no ! 
 the monsters were still there in all their hideous- 
 ness, and still he was utterly helpless. At 
 length two ploughmen, who had been working 
 in the adjoining field, and seen Edward fall 
 over the cliff, came forward to its edge, and 
 looked down upon him wedged among the 
 rocks. *Ye're no dead yet, are ye?' said one 
 of the men. Edward was unable to make any 
 answer. *Fa is't?' said the other man. *0u! 
 it's that feel chiel that's aye gaun aboot wi' his 
 gun and his wallets!' The men looked down 
 again in consternation, with eyes that seemed 
 about to leap from their sockets. Edward at 
 length began to feel about him. He felt himself 
 wedged, as in a vice, between two long and oval 
 pieces of rock, and quite unable to set himself 
 free. The two countrymen went round by 
 Tarlair pathway in order to get Ed^«Td out of 
 his fixture. It seemed to him ai p^^e before 
 they arrived. They at first took him by the 
 shoulder and tried to lift him out. j^ut this 
 was so painful to him that at last they desisted. 
 They then tried to remove one of the rocks, 
 between which he lay clasped. This also proved 
 fruitless. Edward then observed that the other 
 rock, which they had not yet tried to remove, 
 consisted of a loose shale. It had either dropped 
 from the cliff or been tossed inshore by the 
 sea. Edward desired them to try and move it 
 a little. But their joint efforts proved unavail- 
 ing. Many attempts were made to no purpose. 
 A stout fisherman then appeared on the scene. 
 He put his shoulder to the rock, and the block 
 was at last moved sufficiently far, so as to enable 
 Edward to be dragged out of the vice. He 
 eat down and felt himself all over. His 
 left shoulder and left side were extremely sore. 
 The back of his head was also very painful 
 But he was thankful to find that neither his 
 arms nor his legs were broken. Ke was not so 
 sure about his left ribs. He was very much 
 bruised and cut on that side. One of the 
 splinters of the gun stock was found sticking 
 through his coat. An old copper powder-flask, 
 
 which he had left in his pocket, wag as flat as a 
 flounder; all its contents were dashed out. 
 Resting awhile in the cave where the men had 
 left him, he gathered together the scattered frag- 
 ments of his gun, and with many rests on the 
 way, he managed to get home. No ribs were 
 broken, but he had sustained some severe con- 
 tusions. He had over a month's illness as a re- 
 sult, and during that time he sold a great part of 
 his collection to help in supporting his family.'* 
 Edward speaks of the rook as keeping late 
 hours, or as being nocturnal in his habits until 
 its young are hatched and leave the nest. **I 
 must," he says, "give the rook the very first 
 and highest character for attention to its young. 
 It is first out in the morning to search for food, 
 and the last to provide for its family at night. 
 The starling is very dutiful in that way, but the 
 rook beats him hollow." As far as his observa- 
 tion went, the skylark was the first songster in 
 the morning, and the corn-bunting the last in the 
 evening. The blackbird from the brake is the first 
 to welcome the morning beams of the sun, and is 
 the last to retire to rest at night. To the eastward 
 of Macduff, which lies within a mile of Banff, 
 the coast and the precipitous rocks descend in 
 many cases about 600 feet sheer down to the 
 sea. Gamrie in the vicinity was a favourite 
 resort of his. On firing a gun in the neighbour- 
 hood of the cliffs the effect is startling. *' The 
 air is immediately darkened with the multitudes 
 of birds which are roused by the report. The 
 ear is stunned by the varied and discordant 
 sounds which arise. The wailing note of the 
 kittywake, the shrill cry of the tamny-norio, 
 and the hoarse voice of the guillemot, resembling, 
 as it were, the laugh of some demon in mockery 
 of the intrusion of man amidst these majestic 
 scenes of nature ; all these combined, and 
 mingled occasionally with the harsh scream of 
 the cormorant, are heard above the roar of the 
 ocean, which breaks at the foot of these tremen- 
 dous and gigantic precipices." Hugh Miller has 
 described this neighbourhood in his "Rambles 
 of a Geologist." It was the scene of one of the 
 most marvellous adventures which Edward ever 
 experienced. Hugh Miller saw the district 
 under the most favourable auspices. "The 
 keen morning improved into a brilliant day, 
 with an atmosphere transparent as if there had 
 been no atmosphere at all, through which the 
 distant objects looked out as sharp of outline, 
 and in as well-defined light and shadow, as if 
 they had occupied the backgroimd, not of a 
 Scotch, but of an Italian landscape. A few 
 speck-like sails, far away on the intensely blue 
 sea, which opened upon us in a stretch of many- 
 leagues, as we surmounted the moory ridge over 
 Macduff, gleamed to the sun with a radiance 
 bright as that of the sparks of a furnace blown 
 to a white heat. The land, uneven of surface^ 
 and open, and abutting in bold promontories on 
 the firth, still bore the sunny hue of harvest, and 
 
464 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 Keemed as if stippled over with shocks from the 
 ridgy hill summits, to where ranges of giddy cliffs 
 flung their shadows across the beach. ... A 
 steep bulwark in front, against which the tide 
 lashes twice every twenty-four hours ; an abrupt 
 hill behind ; a few rows of squalid cottages 
 built of red sandstone, much wasted by the 
 keen sea-winds ; a wilderness of dunghills and 
 ruinous pig-sties ; women seated at the doors, 
 employed in baiting lines or mending nets, 
 groups of men lounging lazily at some gable-end 
 fronting the sea ; herds of ragged children play- 
 ing in the lanes — such are the components of 
 the fishing village of Gardenstown. " Thomas 
 Edward's adventure in this neighbourhood has 
 thus been summarised by a certain writer from his 
 account in the Banffshire Journal : Every Scotch- 
 man of the old type has a religious scruple about 
 working on New Year's Day ; and so, on such an 
 occasion many years ago, the Banff naturalist 
 abandoned his lapstane and set out, gun in 
 hand, along the rocky coast to visit some friends 
 at Gardenstown. As he proceeded on his jour- 
 ney he was attracted to the verge of a precipice 
 fjy the scream of birds ascending from the beach, 
 and, peering over, he discovered a pair of Ice- 
 land gulls. It was a sore temptation, and a 
 slight track which he detected gave him an 
 excuse for hazarding himself among the steep 
 cliffs. He soon came to the end of the track ; 
 a precipice lay beneath him, but with a daring 
 hope he swung himself over a ledge that jutted 
 out some little distance below. It was impos- 
 sible to return ; on the narrow ledge that he 
 had reached two foxes were snarling fiercely at 
 their disturber ; he was now bound to force his 
 passage. His ingenuity was equal to the peril- 
 ous occasion. Laying his gun out of harm's way 
 on the safe side of the ledge, he crouched down 
 with his back to the foxes, whose teeth were 
 chattering rather unpleasantly all the time, and 
 gave one of them a kick, whereupon Eeynard 
 number one mounted our adventurer's back, 
 quickly followed by his fellow, and both bounded 
 up the precipice. Alas ! he could not follow 
 them. From cliff to cliff he swung and scrambled 
 downward ; stones that might almost be called 
 rocks — some of them — were loosened from their 
 slim hold, rattled about him, battered him 
 badly, and almost bumped him into the abyss 
 beneath ; twilight descended. At last he reached 
 an isolated rock ; fifty feet of wall-like cliff were 
 beneath him ; boats passed, but his little signals 
 were unnoticed. Yet in the face of death his 
 passion for scientific observation brought him a 
 moment of curious and calming pleasure. He 
 saw a peregrine falcon alight close by and begin 
 to tear a partridge — a novel sight even to him, 
 who had played the spy on nature's wild chil- 
 dren perhaps more than any living man. It 
 was only for a moment, however, that his pains 
 and danger were forgotten, for the bird quickly 
 flew away, scared by the presence of a human 
 
 being, and Edward was recalled with a new 
 shock to the recollection of his fearful situation. 
 It was a leap for death that lay before him. He 
 dropped his good old gun, which he had hugged 
 in many a wild night and blessed a hundred 
 times, and heard it reach the bottom of the 
 cliff. Then swathing his head in the napkins 
 with which he was accustomed to sling his gun, 
 and committing himself to God, he too dropped 
 down the precipice. He was, of course, stunned 
 by the fall, and when he awoke from the swoon 
 blood was streaming from his nose and ears, but 
 fortunately, almost miraculously, not a bone 
 was broken. His pluck was entire still ; and 
 when those little birds appeared for which he 
 had thrown himself into the jaws of death, he 
 actually loaded his gun, although reeling like a 
 drunken man. It vexed him sorely that he 
 could not raise the gun to his shoulder to take 
 aim, and so, wounded, weak, and disappointed, 
 he clambered in agony over a huge rock, and 
 made his way towards shelter and rest in the 
 queer little village. 
 
 Having been solicited by the Kev. James 
 Smith, a minister in the neighbourhbod, to 
 write down his researches, he was encouraged 
 to do so from time to time in the Banffshire 
 Journal, These natural history notes show that 
 he wrote from direct observation, and are always 
 lively and graphic. Mr Smith also obtained 
 from him some of the notes of his observations, 
 which he re- wrote and published in the Zoologist. 
 Edward also became a contributor to the Natural- 
 ist, the Ibis, the Linnean Journal, and other 
 natural history publications. The Rev. Mr 
 Boyd of Crimond was another of Edward's 
 friends, and did what he could to assist and 
 encourage him, but death deprived him of both 
 Smith and Boyd. He sold some more of his 
 collection in 1855, to relieve his more pressing 
 wants, but by 1858 he had another splendid 
 collection, which was his third, and, as Mr 
 Smiles aays, probably his best. His midnight 
 wanderiags were beginning to tell upon him 
 severely. Although often advised, he never 
 took a drt^^ /^ whisky with him. Oatmeal 
 cakes and a drink of water often formed his 
 meals. Sometimes he had an egg with him 
 when he could afford it. In 1858, when in his 
 forty-fourth year, he had a month's illness 
 from rheumatic fever, with an ulcerated throat, 
 brought on by damp and the hardships which 
 he had undergone. The doctor warned him that, 
 unless he wished to kill himself outright, he 
 must cease his night wanderings. To meet the 
 doctor's expenses he was obliged to part with 
 upwards of forty cases of birds and three 
 hundred specimens of mosses and marine plants. 
 
 Edward, from 1856 onwards, had turned his 
 attention to marine objects; he explored the 
 coast of the Moray Firth very thoroughly. He 
 was in the habit of keeping up a correspond- 
 ence with several naturalists, to whom he sent 
 
the specimens which he discovered, and who 
 gave him the scientific names of them. It was 
 thus amongst his researches that he made many 
 discoveries. Of 294 crustaceans found in the 
 Moray Firth, 26 new species were added by 
 Edward himself. Speaking of the possibility of 
 dredging the Moray Firth, he said: *'If I were 
 but possessed of half the means that some are, 
 it should not long be so. "Wind and weather 
 permitting, I should have it dredged from the 
 one end to the other, over and over again. 
 Alas ! that Nature, that fair and comely damsel 
 whom I supremely admire and love so well, 
 should have called me into existence at. the very 
 moment when Want and Starvation stood hand 
 in hand, ready to stamp the unconscious heir of 
 immortality with their accursed brands. Money, 
 it is said, is the root of all evil; but tell me, ye 
 who know, what the want of it is ? " Of his 
 powers of correct perception Mr Smiles writes : 
 "Nothing that once came under his eyes was 
 forgotten. He remembered, and could describe 
 fluently and vividly the forms, habits, and habi- 
 tats of the immense variety of animals that came 
 under his observation. " On the 5th of April 1 866, 
 Edward was elected a member of the Linnean 
 Society, all the greater honour, when we con- 
 sider that the number of associates is limited to 
 thirty. A little later he was admitted a member 
 of the Aberdeen Natural History Society, and 
 in March 1867 he was furnished with the dip- 
 loma of the Glasgow Natural History Society. 
 "Although," as Mr Smiles remarks, "Banff 
 possessed an Institution for Science, Literature, 
 and the Arts, and for the encouragement of 
 native genius and talent, . . . the Banff 
 institution, finding no native nor any other genius 
 and talent to encourage, became defunct in 1875, 
 and handed over their collection to the corpora- 
 tion, whose property it now is." 
 
 He was again comx>elled to abandon his re- 
 searches, through ill-health, early in 1868. He 
 tried photography, as a means of livelihood, for 
 a short time, but he did not succeed very well, 
 and was obliged to return and *' stick to his 
 last." Owing to frequent ill-health, he was 
 obliged to confine his observations within a 
 much narrower limit than formerly. All honour 
 to him, he had managed to bring up a family of 
 eleven children respectably and virtuously. In 
 a letter written to his biographer, in spite of the 
 hardships of his life, he wrote : *' I thought you 
 knew — yes, I am sure you knew — that any one 
 having the mind and the will need not stick fast 
 even in this world. True, he may not shine so 
 greatly as if he were better polished and better 
 educated, but he need not sink in the mire alto- 
 gether." On another occasion he wrote : *' I say, 
 and am ready to maintain against every opposi- 
 tion, that no one who steps this earth, or even 
 crawls upon it, need ever despair after what I 
 have done, of achieving whatever of good they 
 have once set their minds by. Firmness of 
 
 purpose and the will to do and dare will accom- 
 plish, I may say, almost anything. The will is 
 the key that opens the door to every path, 
 whether it be of science or or nature, and every 
 one has it in his power to ehoose the road for 
 himself." When his wife was asked what she 
 thought of his wanderings, she replied, " Weel, 
 he took such an interest in beasts, that I didna 
 compleen. Shoemakers were then a very 
 drucken set, but his beasts keepit him frae 
 them. My man's been a sober man all his life ; 
 and he never negleckit his wark, sae I let him 
 be." He had always a happy home, and, says 
 Mr Smiles, " there was no better conducted family 
 in Banff." 
 
 Although he tried photography as a means of 
 subsistence, and endeavoured to procure other 
 situations beyond the curatorship of thB Banff 
 Museum, which he held for a time, yet in June 
 1875 he said : "I betook myself to my old and 
 time-honoured friend, a friend of fifty years' 
 standing, who has never yet forsaken me, nor 
 refused help to my body when weary, nor rest 
 to my limbs when tired — my well-worn cobbler's 
 stool. And here I am still on the old boards, 
 doing what little I can, with the aid of my well- 
 worn kit, to maintain myself and my family, 
 with the certainty that, instead of my getting 
 the better of the lapstone and leather, they will 
 very soon get the better of me. And although 
 I am now like a beast tethered to his pasturage, 
 with a portion of my faculties somewhat im- 
 paired, I can still appreciate and admire as 
 much as ever the beauties and wonders of 
 nature, as exhibited in the incomparable works 
 of our adorable Creator." 
 
 No sooner was the story of his life, which was 
 so graphically and conscientiously told by Mr 
 Smiles, enriched with suitable illustrations by 
 Mr George Eeid, in the hands of the public, 
 when the subject of the memoir became the lion 
 of the hour in circles outside Scotland. Ten 
 thousand copies of the work were printed within 
 as many months, and public sympathy was 
 drawn out towards him. On Christmas morn- 
 ing 1876, he received a letter from the Earl of 
 Beaconsfield with the glad intelligence that the 
 Queen had bestowed upon him a Civil List 
 pension of £50 a year. Mr J. Norman Lockyer, 
 at one of the committee meetings for the dis- 
 posal of " the new Royal Society grant of £4000, 
 proposed that lump sum should be given (as an 
 annuity under the conditions of Parliamentary 
 grants being out of the question) to Mr Edward, 
 to enable him to pursue in comfort his researches 
 in natural history. Curiously enough, says one, 
 the proposal was opposed by Mr Spence Bahl, 
 one of Edward's leading friends and corres- 
 pondents, on the ground that Edward needed 
 money, not to carry out any special investiga- 
 tions, but to free him from the drudgery of 
 making 'ladies' uppers' at the rate of about 
 nine shillings a week." 
 
 2o 
 
Although the people of Aberdeen, like true 
 patrons, did not turn out to see Thomas Ed- 
 ward's exhibition in Union Street, when his 
 fortunes were at a low ebb, yet they befriended 
 him in a very real way in the end. 
 
 On the 21st of March 1877, in the Song School, 
 Aberdeen, he was presented with a testimonial, 
 consisting of 333 sovereigns enclosed in a hand- 
 some olive-wood casket. 
 
 "Lord Provost Jamieson presided on the 
 occasion, and after shortly introducing the pro- 
 ceedings, called upon Dean of Guild Walker, 
 who said : * Scarcely were the sheets of Mr 
 Smiles' volume dry before it occurred to several 
 gentlemen in Aberdeen to try how far their 
 high estimate of Mr Edward was shared by the 
 public. This they did by forming a committee, 
 and at once opening a subscription list. This 
 heap of letters, every one of which beside its 
 money enclosure contained expressions of the 
 kindliest interest in Mr Edward, many of them, 
 like that of the estimable Madame Van de 
 Weyer, contained also the information that they 
 doubled what they meant to give, in order to 
 mark their high estimate of the sterling qualities 
 of Mr Edward. Mr Edward, wherever the 
 English tongue is spoken, wherever an English 
 book is read, wherever your countrymen are 
 settled, your story and your struggles are 
 already known; "a wonderful true story of a 
 wonderful true man ; a story to bring tears into 
 the eyes, and to fill the heart with sadness and 
 gladness ; a story to make those who read it better, 
 humbler, gentler, and, above all, more thankful 
 to the Great Father of all, who can so mysteri- 
 ously teach and guide, strengthen and lead up 
 one of the humblest of His children, from eleven 
 years of age till sixty-three, an earner of distress- 
 ful bread at a cobbler's stool, with an average 
 wage of nine shillings a week." The kindly 
 band which penned the words I have just quoted 
 adds, in the next sentence, "Thomas Edward 
 has lived two lives." Yes, you have too long 
 sustained and borne heroic fights, beginning 
 with the poor and drunken Charlie Begg in the 
 Gallowgate, and ending when on that Christmas 
 morning you received the Earl of Beacons- 
 field's letter, telling you of her Most Gracious 
 Majesty's generous act. " Slow rises worth, by 
 poverty depressed." Often in your life's battle 
 you must have felt it so ; but thanks to the in- 
 domitable and resolute Scotchness of your 
 nature, you have, through it all, nobly carried 
 yourself, and you are now about to enter on 
 that third and easier life which every reader of 
 your interesting volume wishes the Fates had 
 favoured you with long years ago. Here you 
 are still, Mr Edward, and we are all glad to see 
 you. A London correspondent of an Edinburgh 
 daily told its readers yesterday, in writing of 
 our meeting here to-day, " that they were aware 
 you were now blind." It is a very sincere 
 pleasure to myself, to the friends around you. 
 
 and to the thousands to whom your name has 
 now become "familiar as a household word," 
 to know that you are neither blind nor lame, 
 but hale and hearty, able still to worship at the 
 old shrine — 
 
 *' Still watch the jasper under the sea 
 And all the dry fixed things that be 
 In the hueless mosses under the sea." 
 
 And now, my Lord Provost, I have much pleasure 
 in putting into your hands this casket of olive 
 wood, with its three hundred and thirty and 
 three sovereigns, with the request that you will, 
 in the subscribers' names, present the same to 
 Mr Edward.' 
 
 "The Lord Provost then, amid loud cheers, 
 handed the casket and contents to Mr Edward. 
 
 " Mr Edward, who was received with cheers, 
 then said : ' Thanks, ladies and gentlemen, 
 many thanks ! But do not be disappointed. 
 I am no speaker, and scarcely a reader either ; 
 but for fear that there should be a slip, I have 
 putten down a few words here like a lazy minis- 
 ter, and if you wish I will read them as well as 
 I can. Now, you must give me time. Accept 
 my best thanks for the hearty greeting you 
 have given me ; believe me it will do me about 
 as much good as the finding of a new bit beastie 
 would have done, and it is so cheering to get 
 such a welcome! But, ladies and gentlemen, 
 be not surprised when I tell you that I have 
 risen in the full assurance of making a fool of 
 myself. But I shall try not to make a fool of 
 you, although I will blunder a good deal, like 
 the Irishman who put the horse before the cart 
 — I mean the cart before the horse. I feel like 
 a friend of mine who went to a social meeting 
 at Christmas, at which I happened to be the 
 chief topic after the paper bags and the tea. This 
 friend said, after hearing all the others talk, 
 "I'd hae liket tae say something aboot Tarn 
 mysel', but I've kent him sae lang I widna ken 
 far or fat wae tae begin." That is my own ex- 
 perience, for I scarcely know where to begin. 
 I suppose I have to address myself first to you, 
 sir, just now. Well, I have to thank you very 
 kindly in my own and in my wife's name for 
 this handsome and, I may say, well-filled casket. 
 Permit me to express my own gratitude and 
 my wife's, and to say that we feel deeply grate- 
 ful ; my thanks also are due for the very flatter- 
 ing manner in which you have alluded to my 
 labours and researches, and for the very high 
 honour you have conferred upon my wife — my 
 ever-faithful helper — and also upon my ever- 
 kind and helping family. I have also to thank 
 those who first proposed the testimonial, and 
 to tender our most cordial acknoAvledgments to 
 all who have in the least way helped to fill this 
 bit boxie — for in the so doing they have shown 
 themselves to be our friends and benefactors. 
 Nothing shows one's friendship better for an- 
 other than noble actions and honourable deed*. 
 
DR LIVINGSTONE, 
 
 46; 
 
 Mere words are nothing — nothing tut Irish 
 blarney. " The freend in need is the freend 
 indeed." You've all heard that. Our warmest 
 thanks, too, are due in a special manner to the 
 committee for the admiral)le way in which they 
 have performed the work, and particularly to 
 my friend the treasurer for his laborious work. 
 Having got about the end of my tether with 
 my thanks, I may now say that it is a very 
 strange fact— but, nevertheless, a true one— 
 that I have always been considered a rich man 
 in my own place, although but a cobbler. Now, 
 look at my bit coatie and my bit hattie, and 
 you will see that I would be none the worse o' 
 twa-three bawbees to get better anes.' 
 
 "Mr Edward then narrated an incident as 
 showing the truth of the statement he had just 
 made about his being considered a rich man 
 *hyne awa in the cauld country.' Coming 
 home from one of his excursions on a Monday 
 morning, he had been accosted by a gentleman, 
 who had blandly said, ' You must have plenty 
 of money,' and gave as his reason the fact that 
 no working-man could devote so much time to 
 the pursuits which Edward followed if he had 
 not means to enable him to do so. Edward had 
 thereupon informed him that he had a fortune, 
 and would be glad to let the gentleman see it. 
 His friend said he had no time, and, besides, 
 the banks were not open so early in the morn- 
 ing. Edward replied that he did not keep his 
 fortune in the bank — that it was occasionally in 
 one place and occasionally in another; that 
 when he had left home it was in the washing- 
 
 tub. His friend said that was a queer place to 
 keep it, and refused to go. Now, he might tell 
 them that he had this, his only fortune, still ; 
 and he wanted to know if they would like a 
 sicht of it ? Mr Edward then brought forward 
 his wife to the front of the platform, where she 
 was greeted with loud cheers. "When these 
 cheers had subsided, Mr Edward again expressed 
 his thanks and the thanks of his family for the 
 kindness they had received, and concluded by 
 saying, *I wish you all well,' sitting down 
 amidst loud cheers. 
 
 "An amusing incident occurred in the course 
 of the latter portion of Mr Edward's speech. 
 Turning to his right, and looking over a flower- 
 ing shrub at the edge of the platform, Mr 
 Edward for the lirst time became aware of the 
 presence of reporters ; he stopped abruptly, 
 and, turning to the provost, asked if * this was 
 the way they did things in Aberdeen?' assuring 
 his lordship that if he had known that these 
 * loons ' were there he would never have spoken 
 a word. The provost said that reporters were 
 always present at public meetings, and Mr 
 Edward's rejoinder was, * I wid lock them oot 
 then.' Mr Edward again turned to the re- 
 porters and said: 'This is my first, mind, and 
 
 if ye dinna mak' it a' richt I'll ' shaking 
 
 his head significantly. Mr Edward evidently 
 
 i did not forget that the reporters had been too 
 
 I many for him, for about the close of his speech, 
 
 ' after bowing to the audience, he shook his head 
 
 and fist in the direction of the representatives of 
 
 the press." This extraordinary man died in 1886 
 
 DAYID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D., D.C.L. 
 [1813-1873.] 
 
 With Notes of the Discoveries of Commander Cameron and H. M. Stanley. 
 
 The facts in the early life of Livingstone, though i 
 familiar enough, have an undying interest to the 
 student of biography. In a character which 
 embraced so many simple, sincere, and earnest 
 elements, there is a danger of overlooking his 
 simple, manly greatness. His great-grandfather 
 fell at the battle of Culloden, his grandfather 
 was a small farmer in Ulva, where Neil Living- 
 stone, his father, was born, and his youth was 
 nurtured amongst the traditionary legends of a 
 past age. David Livingstone was born at Blan- 
 tyre, near Glasgow, in 1813. 
 
 Livingstone relates that his grandfather could 
 give particulars of the lives of his ancestors for 
 six generations. One of these traditions told of 
 a hardy islander, wlio, on his death-bed, called 
 hia children round him, and said, "Now, in 
 
 my lifetime, I have searched most carefully 
 through all the traditions I could find of our 
 family, and I never could discover that there 
 was a dishonest man among our forefathers. 
 If, therefore, any of you, or any of your chil- 
 dren, should take to dishonest ways, it will not 
 be because it runs in our blood; it does not 
 belong to you. I leave this precept with you. 
 Be honest ! " Like many of the Highlanders, 
 his ancestors were Roman Catholics, but he 
 says, "They were made Protestants by the laird 
 coming round with a man having a yellow staff, 
 which would seem to have attracted more atteu- 
 tion than his teaching, for the new religion went 
 long afterwards, perhaps it does so still, by the 
 name of ' the religion of the yellow stick.' " 
 The island of Ulva yielding insufficient sup. 
 
port for a numerous family, his grandfather had 
 removed to Blantyre Works, situated on the 
 Clyde, near Glasgow. Kis sons were received 
 as clerks in the factory there. His uncles 
 entered the army or navy, but his father re- 
 mained at home, carrying on the business of a 
 small tea-dealer, but was, as his son remarks, 
 too conscientious to become rich. They were 
 members of the Church of Scotland, a religious 
 establishment which he speaks of as having 
 been an incalculable blessing to the country. 
 During the last twenty years of his life, how- 
 ever, he went to an Independent church in 
 Hamilton, where he held the office of deacon. 
 Livingstone revered his father's memory, and 
 spoke of him as presenting to his family a 
 continuously consistent, pious example. His 
 mother he remembered as an anxious housewife, 
 striving to make both ends meet. 
 
 David Livingstone, at the age of ten, was sent 
 to the factory as a " piecer," to help the house- 
 hold income. Part of his first week's wages he 
 expended in buying Ruddiman's "Kudiments 
 of Latin." The study of Latin he vigorously 
 pursued at an evening school, which met between 
 the hours of eight and ten at night. Not un- 
 frequently he would continue his studies till 
 twelve o'clock, although he had to be at the 
 factory by six o'clock in the morning till eight 
 in the evening, with intervals for breakfast and 
 dinner. He said, in vn-iting his " Missionary 
 Travels," that he knew Virgil and Horace better 
 in these early days than he did at that time. 
 In addition he read everything he could lay his 
 hands on, except novels. Works of travel, or 
 books relating to scientific research, were his 
 favourites; and with his limited leisure he 
 managed to make himself acquainted with the 
 scenery, botany, and geology of his native 
 district. He had a habit of fixing upon the 
 spinning-jenny the book he was reading, so that 
 his eye could catch the sentence as he passed on 
 his work. His father, with a narrowness of 
 mind characteristic of many good men in his 
 position, would have preferred that he should 
 have been poring over such works as the * ' Cloud 
 of Witnesses," or "Boston's Fourfold State," 
 to reading such miscellaneous literature. In 
 the fresh glow of Christian ardour, Livingstone 
 determined upon becoming a medical missionary 
 to China, and began to turn his mind towards 
 preparation for the mission field. 
 
 Livingstone was promoted to the more labori- 
 ous toil of a cotton-spinner while in his nine- 
 teenth year, and he was thus enabled to support 
 himself while attending the medical, Greek, and 
 Divinity classes in Glasgow. "I never," he 
 wrote, " received a farthing of aid from any one, 
 and should have accomplished my project of 
 going to China as a medical missionary in the 
 course of time by my own efforts, had not 
 some friends advised my joining the London 
 Missionary Society, on account of its perfectly 
 
 unsectarian character. It sends neither Episco- 
 pacy, nor Presbyterianism, nor Independency, 
 but the Gospel of Christ to the heathen. This 
 exactly agreed with my ideas of what a mis- 
 sionary society ought to do ; but it was not 
 without a pang that I offered myself, for it was 
 not quite agreeable to one accustomed to work 
 his own way to become, in a measure, dependent 
 on others. And I would not have been much 
 put about though my offer had been rejected." 
 When properly qualified to carry out his original 
 plan, the opium war was raging in China, so he 
 found it inexpedient to go there. Turning his 
 thoughts to Africa, where Moffat was labouring, 
 he went through a more extended theological 
 course in England than he had previously done 
 in Glasgow. In 1840, after a preliminary ex- 
 amination, he was ordained as a medical mis- 
 sionary by the London Missionary Society. He 
 sailed for the Cape, where, after a brief stay, he 
 landed at Port Natal, and soon made personal 
 acquaintance at Kuruman with the Rev. Robert 
 Moffat, whose daughter he afterwards married. 
 
 After remaining at Kuruman and the neigh- 
 bourhood for a few months, Livingstone took up 
 his quarters in the Bakwain coimtry at Lepel61e ; 
 and cutting himself off from all intercourse with 
 Europeans for six months, devoted himself to 
 acquiring an insight into the habits, ways ot 
 thinking, laws, and language of the Bechuanas, 
 and in laying the foundations of a settlement 
 by making a canal for irrigation purposes from 
 a river near by. He visited the Bakaa, Baman- 
 gwato, and the Makalaka, living between 22«> 
 and 23° south latitude. Obliged to leave the 
 country of the Bakwains, he settled in the 
 valley of Mabotsa, the home of the Makatla 
 branch of the Bechuana tribe. The place was 
 infested with lions, which would attack the 
 herds sometimes in broad daylight. It was in 
 this neighbourhood that Livingstone had the 
 memorable encounter with the lion, when the 
 bone of his left arm was crushed into splinters. 
 After labouring earnestly for some time among 
 the Makatla, he visited Cape Town in 1844, 
 and during his visit was married to Moffat's 
 eldest daughter. In 1845 they set up house at 
 Skokuane, then the headquarters of the Bak- 
 wain chief, Sechele, who, although a rain-maker, 
 helped forward the work of the noble-hearted mis- 
 sionary, and even proposed to convert his people 
 in a body through the agency of whips made of 
 rhinoceros-hide. The description which Living- 
 stone gave of the belief of the white man, and 
 of "the great white throne, and Him who shall 
 sit on it," caused this chief to exclaim, "You 
 startle me. These words make all my bones to 
 shake. I have no more strength in me ; but my 
 forefathers were living at the same time as yours 
 were, and how is it they did not send them word 
 about these terrible things sooner ? They all 
 passed into darkness without knowing whither 
 they were going." His early efforts among the 
 
Bakwains were greatly retarded by a drought, 
 which lasted three years, and which was partly 
 attributed to Livingstone's influence overSechele, 
 their rain-maker and chief. 
 
 The exertions of those explorers who preceded 
 David Livingstone, however useful, were mostly 
 limited to the Kaffir regions ; and it was not till 
 the time of Livingstone that any attempt was 
 made to pass what is called the desert of Kala- 
 hari, comprehending the space from the Orange 
 Kiver, in south latitude 29°, to Lake Ngami in 
 the north, and from about 24° east longitude, to 
 near the west coast. Dr Livingstone formed the 
 resolution to pass this desert ; and from 1849 he 
 was engaged in carrying that resolution into 
 efifect. The region of the desert is occupied by 
 the Bakalahari and the Bushmen, who prey 
 upon the game, chiefly antelopes, which require 
 only a scanty supply of water, and feed upon 
 the grass and numerous tuberculous plants. The 
 start was made in June, and the party proceeded 
 without interruption. They came on the second 
 day to Serotli, where the country is flat, and 
 composed of white sand. After passing the 
 salt-pan district of Ncho-kotsa, where the play 
 of the mirage on the salt incrustations deceived 
 them into the belief that the reservoirs were 
 lakes, they came to the river Zouga, running to 
 the north-east, and described by the people as 
 coming out of the Lake Ngami. The people of 
 this district possess a language which shows that 
 they are connected by lineage with the north. 
 On ascending the river, described as beautifully 
 wooded, they found a large stream flowing into 
 it called the Tamunak'le. The information re- 
 ceived that this stream came from a country of 
 rivers, first suggested to Dr Livingstone that 
 there might be a highway capable of being tra- 
 versed by boats to an unexplored region; and 
 when the party came to the lake, this idea be- 
 came so predominant that it seemed to diminish 
 the value of the actual discovery. The lake, 
 supposed to be about seventy miles in circum- 
 ference, is shallow, and never can be of much 
 commercial importance. Dr Livingstone re- 
 turned to Kolobeng. His next purpose was to 
 go up the Tamunak'le and visit Sebituane, the 
 chief of the Makololo, who live in the swamps 
 between the Chobe and the Zambesi. In June 
 1851 he saw, in the centre of the continent, the 
 Zambesi itself, which was not previously known 
 to exist there at all ; and having come to a re- 
 solution to ascend it from Sesheke, he subse- 
 quently made the necessary preparations. He 
 collected canoes to the number of 33, with about 
 160 men. They went rapidly along, admiring 
 the beauty of the banks, a mile asunder, and 
 the many islands finely wooded. The occur- 
 rence of cataracts forced them at times to carry 
 their canoes ; but they soon made their way to 
 the Barotse valley, a hundred miles in length, 
 and bearing a resemblance to that of the Nile, 
 with its capital, Naliele, erected on an eminence. 
 
 Up to Libonta the river presents the appearance 
 of low banks without trees ; but twenty miles 
 beyond that the forest comes down to the 
 water's edge, and along with it the plague of 
 Africa — the tsetse, a fly whose bite is fatal to 
 domestic oxen, and to no other animals. Hav- 
 ing at length arrived at Ma-Sekeletu, the chief 
 who accompanied the expedition resolved to 
 return, and the party accordingly made again 
 for Shesheke. The Doctor having failed to dis- 
 cover a healthy place for a settlement, now de- 
 termined on endeavouring to open a path to the 
 west coast. This he put into execution by 
 what may be called his third journey. In thia 
 he reached the junction of the Loeti and the 
 Zambesi, and having returned to Linyanti, he 
 started for the west coast. Beaching the con- 
 fluence of the Leeba with the Zambesi, he 
 crossed the Quango, and arrived at Loanda. On 
 his return to Linyanti, once more he visited the 
 falls called Victoria, arrived at Tete, and finally 
 at Quilimane, on the east coast. 
 
 Dr Livingstone had thus laid open a wide 
 zone, comprehending the country of rivers ; but 
 as the Zambesi was fed by large streams from 
 the north, it was necessary that these should be 
 explored. One of these, the Shire, he ascended 
 by means of a small steamer in 1859. He found 
 it a stream with a breadth of 160 yards, and a 
 depth of ten or twelve feet. By this means he 
 was led to the Shirwah, a lake 200 miles long 
 and fifty broad, with an elevation above the sea- 
 level of 1500 or 2000 feet, and, like the Tan- 
 ganyika, surrounded by verdant mountains, 
 whereof one. Mount Zomba, is 8000 feet high. 
 In the vicinity of this the members of the mis- 
 sion were located. Fish, leeches, alligators, and 
 sea-cows abound in the lake, the water of 
 which is brackish. 
 
 In August 1861 Dr Livingstone and his party 
 proceeded to explore another lake called Nyasjsa, 
 by ascending further the Shir6, and passing 
 through a valley with many villages and planta- 
 tions. Coming to a series of rapids called 
 Murchison Cataracts, they were obliged to carry 
 a four-oared boat for a period of three weeks to 
 get again to the navigable part of the river. 
 These cataracts extend over thirty-five miles of 
 latitude, with a total fall, from the first to the 
 last, of 1200 feet. These obstacles having been 
 surmounted, the travellers again launched their 
 boat in the upper parts of the Shire, and soon 
 thereafter they found themselves floating on the 
 Nyassa Lake, or, as it is sometimes called, the 
 Star Lake, the western shores of which they 
 explored for 200 miles, partly by the banks on 
 foot, and partly by the boat. 
 
 This lake they found to be exposed to fre- 
 quent storms, so violent that the party could 
 not venture far from the shore; yet they 
 got some rough measurements by triangulation 
 at those places where the opposite bank could 
 be seen. The lake is represented as having 
 
something of the boot shape of Italy, being 
 narrowest at the ankle, where it is twenty miles 
 across, and increasing gradually to fifty or sixty. 
 It is estimated as lying 1200 feet above the sea- 
 level, and being about 350 miles from the coast of 
 Mozambique. The party could learn nothing as 
 to its northern extremity, but it is supposed to 
 extend beyond the parallel of the tenth degree 
 south, its southern extremity being in the four- 
 teenth degree. It is surrounded by low marshy 
 plains, frequented by water-fowl, and forming a 
 haunt for the elephant and other wild beasts. 
 Beyond, at a distance of eight miles, were seen 
 ranges of granite hills covered with wood. The 
 party estimated the depth of the lake by the 
 colour of the water ; near the shore it is bright 
 green, and towards the centre a deep blue, like 
 the colour of the sea. Within a mile of the 
 shore a sounding-line of 200 fathoms failed to 
 reach the bottom. The temperature of the 
 water was 72** of Fahrenheit, and fish were 
 plentiful. It was further observed that the lake 
 is fed by many streams, no fewer than twelve 
 having been crossed by the party as they pro- 
 ceeded on the west side; and the consequence 
 is, that during the rainy season the waters rise 
 sometimes to the extent of three feet. 
 
 The natives inhabiting the country to the 
 south of the lake are of one tribe and one 
 language, rearing their villages so close together 
 that they form a continuous line. They are of 
 a superior class of negroes ; good cultivators of 
 the soil, and hardy fishermen. Like most of 
 the people in the countries traversed by the 
 party, those in this region were civil to the 
 strangers, and exacted no tribute. The slave- 
 trade, which seems to embrace all regions 
 occupied by the negro, was found here to be 
 carried on with activity; there being even a 
 boat called a dhow, ready for carrying the 
 victims from one side to the other. 
 
 Thus was another of the African problems 
 solved ; for although Portuguese travellers had 
 mentioned that there was a lake in the quarter, 
 and even given it a name, Maravi, according to 
 which it figures in some old maps, yet the 
 accounts were so vague and valueless that the 
 lake did not appear in the more modern maps. 
 Other problems remained, such as the origin of 
 the Kovuma River, which fell into the Indian 
 Ocean about the tenth degree of southern lati- 
 tude. At this time Dr Livingstone and a party 
 went up it thirty miles, but the waters began to 
 fall so rapidly that they were obliged to return. 
 
 In the Nyassa district traces of the odious 
 slave-trade were everywhere met with in the 
 shape of ruined villages, broken utensils, and 
 human skeletons. The extent of the slave-trade 
 in this district was borne out by the fact that 
 19,000 slaves alone pass through the custom- 
 house of the island of Zanzibar. 
 
 On the 27th April 1862, Mrs Livingstone died 
 from the effects of climate at Shupanga, on the 
 
 Zambesi, where she was buried. The Rev. James 
 Stewart of the Free Church of Scotland read the 
 service over the grave. Livingstone now em- 
 ployed himself in exploring the Rovuma, which 
 he found to have two feeders, one from the south- 
 west, rising in the mountain Nyassa, the other 
 from the west-north-west. He next continued 
 his researches on the Zambesi and Shir6. In 
 January 1863, the "Pioneer" steamed up the 
 Shire, with the *' Lady Nyassa " in tow. Traces 
 of the dreadful results of a slave raid were every- 
 where visible. The miserable inhabitants who 
 had been spared were in a state of semi-starvation. 
 Dead bodies were frequently met in the huts 
 ''with the poor rags round the loins, the skull 
 fallen off the pillow ; the little skeleton of the 
 child, that had perished first, rolled up in a 
 mat between two large skeletons." Mr Thorn- 
 ton, geologist of the expedition, after assisting 
 Baron Vanderdecken in a survey of the Kili- 
 manjaro Mountains, proving the height of the 
 highest member of the range to be 14,000, and 
 the height of the highest peak above the level 
 of the sea to be 20,000 feet, was attacked with 
 fever and died on the 21st April. 
 
 While engaged in making a road through the 
 forest to connect the lower Shire with the 
 upper, the Rev. Charles Livingstone, and Dr 
 John Kirk, after having been repeatedly seized 
 with fever and dysentery, were obliged to part 
 from Livingstone on the 19th of May 1863, and 
 return home. Only two months later he re- 
 ceived a despatch from Lord John Russell, 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs, withdrawing the 
 expedition. In accordance with these instruc- 
 tions, he proceeded to the mouth of the Zambesi 
 and to Zanzibar, and navigating the vessel him- 
 self, sailed for Bombay, a distance of over 2500 
 miles. He then disposed of his vessel the 
 "Lady Nyassa" for £2000. Unfortunately, 
 soon after this money was committed to the 
 hands of a Bombay banker, he became bankrupt, 
 and the whole sum was lost. On his return to 
 England in 1864, Livingstone would have retired 
 from active service. Sir Roderick Murchison 
 had asked him to name a leader for a new ex- 
 pedition to explore the watershed between 
 Nyassa and Tanganyika. The eminent traveller 
 who had been asked refused, and Sir Roderick 
 appealed to Livingstone, and overruled any 
 objections he had to make. 
 
 On the 14th August 1865, with recruited 
 health, and after having superintended the 
 publication of his explorations on the Zambesi, 
 the Shir6, the Rovuma, and Lake Nyassa, he 
 began to make preparations for a new expedi- 
 tion. Sir Roderick Murchison, president of 
 the Geographical Society, requested him this 
 time to undertake the exploration of the inter- 
 mediate country lying between Northern Nyassa 
 and Tanganyika. Earl Russell renewed Living- 
 stone's appointment as H.M. Consul to the 
 tribes in the interior. Mr James Young of 
 
DR LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 471 
 
 Kelly, one of his oldest friends, subscribed 
 £1000 to further this expedition, and £500 was 
 given by the Government, and another £500 
 by the Eoyal Geographical Society for a like 
 purpose. 
 
 He set out from England on the 14th August 
 1865, accompanied by his daughter Agnes as far 
 as Paris, thence proceeding alone direct to Bom- 
 bay. The Government of that Presidency as- 
 sisted him with a supply of arms and other 
 necessaries for the expedition. He also secured 
 the services of Chuma, Wakatani, Edward 
 Gardner, Simon Price, and other Zambesi liber- 
 ated slaves who were being educated in a 
 Nassick school there. Having supplied the 
 other necessary requirements for his explora- 
 tions, he sailed from Bombay to Zanzibar. At 
 Zanzibar the British consul, Dr G. E. Seward, 
 did all in his power to further the expedition. 
 
 * " On the 19th March 1866, he sailed from 
 Zanzibar for Mikindany Bay, a deep indentation 
 in the East African coast, about twenty miles 
 north of the river Rovuma, and about five 
 degrees of latitude south of the island of Zanzi- 
 bar. His expedition consisted of Dr Living- 
 stone himself, ten natives of Johanna, engaged 
 by Mr Sunley, the English consul, thirteen 
 natives of the Zambesi, whom the Doctor had 
 formerly left at Zanzibar as he was proceeding 
 homeward from the Zanzibar expedition, and 
 thirteen Sepoys of the Bombay Marine, alto- 
 gether thirty-six souls. The only European of 
 the party was Dr Livingstone. The animals 
 taken with him were six camels, four buffaloes, 
 four asses, and two mules, with which he had 
 resolved he should experiment, as to their 
 adaptability for African travelling. On the 
 24th of March the British man-of-war 'Pen- 
 guin' deposited the expedition at Mikindany 
 Bay. 
 
 "A few days afterwards Livingstone and his 
 party started for the interior in a south-westerly 
 direction, with the intention of crossing the 
 Rovuma to reach the north end of Lake Nyassa. 
 
 "A few letters reached the coast for friends at 
 home, informing them how he was succeeding 
 in his journey. Then there came a long pause, 
 to be broken, however, in December 1866, by 
 the sad intelligence of his murder by a predatory 
 band of the Mazitu, which inhabit the unex- 
 plored lands through which the western feeders 
 of the Rovuma flow. This grievous tale was 
 borne to Zanzibar by a Johanna man named 
 Musa. 
 
 "The summary of the information received 
 from this man was to the effect that after leaving 
 the southern bank of the Rovuma, Livingstone 
 had discharged the Bombay Sepoys, and had 
 left them on the route to return to Zanzibar. 
 One by one each of the Sepoys had fallen ill. 
 
 * "Life and Labours of Dr Livingstone." By H. 
 M. Stanley. From the Graphic. 
 
 The expedition had then gone on, had crossed 
 the Lake Nyassa, and begun their journey west- 
 ward, when they were suddenly attacked by a 
 band of the Mazitu, who slew Livingstone with 
 a blow from a war hatchet, and killed and dis- 
 persed his followers. 
 
 " From the fatal scene, which he said was be- 
 tween Marenga and Mukliosowa, Musa had 
 escaped with a few other members of the un- 
 fortunate expedition. 
 
 "After some deliberation, Sir Roderick Mur- 
 chison and the Geographical Society entreated 
 the Government to equip a boat expedition to 
 proceed to Lake Nyassa, to discover the truth 
 of the report, as there were a great many in- 
 fluential people in England, who, like Sir 
 Roderick, doubted, for several reasons, the 
 veracity of Musa. 
 
 " This boat expedition was entrusted to Mr E. 
 D. Young, a warrant-officer of the Royal Navy, 
 and Lieutenant Faulkner, of the 17th Lancers, 
 and departed from England on the 11th June 
 for the Zambesi. Arriving at that river, a port- 
 able steel boat, built in sections, was put to 
 gether, and the first search expedition aftei 
 Livingstone started for the Shire. 
 
 "At Chibisa's, below the Murchison Cataracts 
 of the Shire, the steel boat was disconnected, 
 thence carried overland a distance of forty miles, 
 then launched on the quiet waters of the upper 
 Shire, up which the party sailed for the Nyassa 
 Lake. Mr Young proved conclusively that 
 though no member of the expedition saw the 
 traveller, Dr Livingstone was not murdered any- 
 where near the locality mentioned by Musa. 
 The natives round about solemnly averred that 
 he had gone to the west in good condition and 
 health. At Marenga the people said that the 
 Johanna men had returned to their village, but 
 two days after they had departed from the lake 
 in company with the Doctor, and that when 
 they were asked why they had returned, they 
 replied that they had simply agreed to take him 
 so far, and therefore were at liberty to return. 
 This was, at least, confirmatory evidence that 
 the Johanna men had lied ; that they had only 
 concocted their tragic tale after their departure 
 from Nyassa, in order to obtain their pay from 
 the consul. 
 
 "In 1868, however, letters came from Living- 
 stone himself, dated at Bemba, February 1867, 
 wherein he explained that he had been unable 
 to send despatches before, owing to the absence 
 of caravans in the new lands he had traversed." 
 
 On the 18th of July 1868, Livingstone had 
 seen, for the first time, the shores of Lake 
 Bemba, or Bangweolo, which had never before 
 been visited by a European. The country around 
 the lake was all flat, and very much denuded of 
 trees except the motsikiri or mosikisi, which 
 has fine dark, dense foliage, and is spared for 
 its shade and the fatty oil yielded by its seeds. 
 The bottom of the lake consisted of fine whita 
 
472 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 sand, and a broad belt of strong rushes about 
 a hundred yards wide shows shallow water. 
 The innumerable springs in the neighbourhood 
 of this lake Dr Livingstone looked upon as the 
 primary or ultimate sources of the Zambesi, 
 Congo, and Nile. In his supposition regarding 
 the latter he was, however, mistaken. 
 
 In October of the same year, Livingstone had 
 made his way to Kalongosi. At Kabwabwata 
 some of his old servants who had previously 
 deserted returned to him. An outbreak of war 
 among the native tribes detained him here for 
 some time. He was now endeavouring to reach 
 Ujiji. Early in 1869 a dangerous illness left 
 evils behind it, from which he never fully, re- 
 covered. In January he had to be carried. On 
 14th February he again reached Tanganyika. 
 The cough and chest pain, from which he was 
 suffering, now diminished, although he was 
 greatly emaciated. On the 17th November he 
 reached the Luamo River (200 yards wide). In 
 .■^anuary 1870, Livingstone again suffered from 
 sickness and choleraic symptoms. In July he 
 was terribly troubled by irritable eating ulcers, 
 which had again fastened on his' feet. 
 
 While at Nyangwe, Manyuema, Mr Stanley said 
 he found, on diligent inquiries, that *' Living- 
 stone's residence, his travels hither and thither, 
 and his journeys from and to Ujiji, must have 
 embraced a period of three years or thereabouts. 
 The distance from Ujiji to Nyangwe is about 
 350 English miles, which we performed in forty 
 days, inclusive of halts. I find he was laid up 
 a very long time with a most painful disease of 
 the feet at Kabambarre. From native accounts 
 he seems to have been there from six to twelve 
 months. The traveller 'Daoud,' or David, is a 
 well-remembered figure in this region between 
 Nyangwe and the Tanganyika. He has made an 
 impression on the people which will not be for- 
 gotten for a generation at least. * Did you know 
 him ? ' old Mwana Ngoi, of the Luama, asked of 
 me, eagerly. Upon receiving an affirmative, he 
 said to his sons and brothers, * Do you hear what 
 he says ? He knew the good white man. Ah ! 
 we shall hear all about him.' Then, turning to 
 me, he asked me, 'Was he not a very good 
 man ? ' to which I replied, ' Yes, my friend ; he 
 was good: far better than any man, white or 
 Arab, you will ever see again.' 'Ah ! yes; you 
 speak true. He has saved me from being robbed 
 many a time by the Arabs, and he was so gentle 
 and patient, and told us such pleasant stories of 
 the wonderful land of the white people. Hm', 
 the aged white, was a good man, indeed ! ' Had 
 old Mwana Ngoi been able to speak as an edu- 
 cated person, I should, no doubt, have had 
 something like a narrative of David Living- 
 stone's virtues from him ; whereas, not being 
 educated, much of what he said was broken by 
 frequent hwHs and shakings of his head, as 
 though the traveller's good qualities were beyond 
 description or enumeration. He wisely left the 
 
 rest to my imagination, and so I leave them to 
 you. But what has struck me, while tracing 
 Livingstone to his utmost reach — thi* Arab 
 depot of Nyangwe — revived all my grief and 
 pity for him, greater, indeed, than even his own 
 relation of sorrowful and heavy things, in that 
 he does not seem to have been aware that he 
 was sacrificing himself unnecessarily, nor submit 
 to be warned of the havoc of age, and of the 
 little power left him. With the weight of many 
 years pressing on him, the shortest march weary- 
 ing him, compelling him to halt many days to 
 recover his strength, a serious attack of illness 
 frequently prostrating him, with neither men 
 nor means to obtain proper escort, and enable 
 him to make practical progress, Livingstone was 
 at last like a blind and infirm man, aimlessly 
 moving about. From my conscience — with not 
 a whit of my admiration and love for him lessened 
 in the smallest degree, but rather increased by 
 what I have heard from Arabs and natives — I 
 must say I think his very hardest taskmaster was 
 himself." 
 
 The natives of Bambarre and Manyuema he 
 found to be very superstitious. On the 18th 
 August he made the following notes in his 
 journal at Bambarre : 
 
 *' I learn from Josut and Moenepembe, who 
 have been to Kataflga and beyond, that there is 
 a lake N.N.W. of the copper mines, and twelve 
 days distant. It is called Chibungo, and is said 
 to be large. Seven days west of Katanga flows 
 another Lualaba, the dividing line between Rua 
 and Lunda or Londa. It is very large, and, as 
 the Lufira flows into Chibungo, it is probable 
 that the Lualaba West and the Lufira form the 
 lake. Lualaba West and Lufira rise by foun- 
 tains south of Katanga, three or four days off. 
 Luambai and Lunga fountains are only about 
 ten miles distant from Lualaba West and Lufira 
 fountains : a mound rises between them, the 
 most remarkable in Africa. Were this spot in 
 Armenia, it would serve exactly the description 
 of the garden of Eden in Genesis, with its four 
 rivers, the Gihon, Pison, Hiddekel, and Eu- 
 phrates. As it is, it possibly gave occasion to 
 the story told to Herodotus by the secretary of 
 Minerva in the city of Sais, about two hills with 
 conical tops, Crophi and Mophi. ' Midway be- 
 tween them,' said he, 'are the fountains of the 
 Nile, fountains which it is impossible to fathom ; 
 half the water runs northward into Egypt, half 
 to the south towards Ethiopia.' 
 
 "Four fountains rising so near to each other 
 would readily be supposed to have one source, 
 and half the water flowing into the Nile, and 
 the other half to the Zambesi, required but little 
 imagination to originate, seeing the actual visitor 
 would not feel bound to say how the division 
 was effected. He could only know the fact of 
 waters rising at one spot, and separating to flow 
 north and south. The conical tops to the mound 
 look like invention, as also do the names. 
 
DR LIVINGSTONE. 
 
 473 
 
 "A slave, "bought on Lualaba East, came from 
 Liiala"ba West in about twelve days. These 
 two Lualabas may form the loop depicted by 
 Ptolemy, and Upper and Lower Tanganyika be 
 a third arm of the Nile." 
 
 His ulcerated feet now became worse and 
 worse. He could not plant them on the ground 
 without causing a discharge of bloody matter. 
 In January 1871 he was still detained at Bam- 
 barre. He termed the Manyuema people the 
 most callous, bloody savages he ever knew. 
 One puts a scarlet feather from a parrot's tail 
 on the ground, and challenges those near to 
 stick it in the hair. He who does so must kill a 
 man or woman. No one was allowed to wear the 
 skin of the musk cat unless he had murdered 
 somebody. Guns alone, he said, prevented them 
 from killing them all. His men, who had been 
 despatched to the coast, arrived on the 4th 
 February, demanding more money from him, 
 and declaring they had orders from the consul 
 to force him back. He reached the Lualaba on 
 the 31st March. The part of the river he had 
 reached was 3000 yards across. Although under 
 the impression that it was one of the feeders of 
 the Nile, he suspected it might be the Congo, a 
 conclusion established by Stanley's more recent 
 discovery that it is identical with the river 
 Zaire or Congo. His ink having failed him here, 
 he was driven to the expedient of writing with 
 the juice of a plant across old newspapers. His 
 life was also endangered here by a plot amongst 
 his men, who intended to destroy him. They 
 did all in their power to prevent him crossing 
 the Lualaba. He determined to return to Ujiji 
 for other men. He reached Ujiji on the 23d 
 October, and Mr H. M. Stanley arrived on the 
 28th. 
 
 "The great traveller," says Mr Stanley, "was 
 reduced to a skeleton by illness and fatigue ; he 
 was sick, destitute, and forlorn. All his men 
 except four had either deserted or had died, and 
 there seemed to be no hope for him. His piteous 
 appeals for help to his friends at Zanzibar were 
 either neglected or his letters were lost. There 
 was no prospect but that of lingering illness and 
 death before him. Under the influence, how- 
 ever, of good cheer and nourishing food, and, 
 perhaps, social fellowship with another of his 
 race, he speedily recovered, and in six or seven 
 days after his rescue was enabled to accompany 
 a portion of the American expedition in a boat 
 to the north end of Lake Tanganyika, where 
 both Livingstone and the author saw a river 
 running through a broad gorge enclosed by lofty 
 mountains into the lake, with no possible outlet 
 whatever at any part in the firmly connected 
 mountain - walls which surround the entire 
 northern half of the Tanganyika. After a 
 journey of 750 miles, and a residence of over 
 four months together, Livingstone and the 
 American expedition became parted for ever at 
 Unyanyemb6 on 14th March 1872." 
 
 Before parting with Stanley the following in- 
 teresting conversation took place : 
 
 "Doctor," said Stanley, "so far as I can 
 understand it, you do not intend to return homt 
 until you have satisfied yourself about the 
 * Sources of the Nile.' When you have satisfied 
 yourself, you will come home and satisfy others. 
 Is it not so ? " 
 
 "That is it exactly. When your men come 
 back" (the men which Stanley was to hire at 
 Zanzibar) "I shall immediately start for Ufipa" 
 (on the south-eastern shores of Lake Tangan- 
 yika); "then . . . I shall strike south, and 
 round the extremity of Lake Tanganyika. Then 
 a south-east course will take me to Chikumbis, 
 on the Lualaba. On crossing the Lualaba, I 
 shall go direct south-west to the copper mines 
 of Katanga. Eight days south of Katanga the 
 natives declare the fountains to be. When I 
 have found them I shall return by Katanga to 
 the underground houses of Eua. From the 
 caverns, ten days north-east will take me to 
 Lake Komolendo. I shall be able to travel 
 from the lake in your boat, up the river Lufira, 
 to Lake Lincoln. Then, coming down again, I 
 can proceed north by the Lualaba to the fourth 
 lake, which will, I think, explain the whole 
 problem." 
 
 * ' And how long do you think this little j ourney 
 will take you ? " 
 
 "A year and a half at the furthest from the 
 day I leave Unyanyembe." 
 
 "Suppose you say two years; contingencies 
 might arise, you know. It will be well for me 
 to hire these new men for two years, the day of 
 their engagement to begin from their arrival at 
 Unyanyembe." 
 
 "Yes, that will do excellently well." 
 
 "Now, my dear Doctor, the best of friends 
 must part, you have come far enough ; let me 
 beg of you to tarn back." 
 
 ' ' Well, I will say this to you, you have done 
 what few men could do — far better than some 
 great travellers I know, and I am grateful to 
 you for what you have done for me. God guide 
 you safe home, and bless you, my friend." 
 
 "And may God bring you safe back to us all, 
 my dear friend. Farewell." 
 
 Livingstone gave a painful enough disclosure 
 of his feelings and circumstances previous to Mr 
 Stanley's arrival, in a note of thanks to Mr 
 James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald. 
 
 "If I explain the forlorn condition in which 
 he found me, you will easily perceive that I 
 have good reason to use very strong expressions 
 of gratitude. I came to Ujiji off a tramp of 
 between four and five hundred miles beneath a 
 blazing vertical sun, having been baffled, worried, 
 defeated, and forced to return, when almost in 
 sight of the end of the geographical part of my 
 mission, by a number of half-caste Moslem slaves 
 sent to me from Zanzibar instead of men. The 
 sore heart, made still sorer by the truly woful 
 
474 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 sights I had seen of 'man's inhumanity to 
 man,' reacted on the "bodily frame, and de- 
 pressed it beyond measure. I thought that I 
 was dying on my feet. It is not too much to 
 say, that almost every step of the weary sultry 
 way I was in pain, and I reached Ujiji a mere 
 ruckle of bones. Here I found that some £500 
 worth of goods I had ordered from Zanzibar had 
 unaccountably been entrusted to a drunken half- 
 caste Moslem tailor, who, after squandering 
 them for sixteen months on the way to Ujiji, 
 finished up by selling off all that remained for 
 slaves and ivory for himself. He had divined 
 on the Koran, and found that I was dead. He 
 had also written to the governor of Unyanyemb6 
 that he had sent slaves after me to Manyema, 
 who returned and reported my decease, and 
 begged permission to sell off the few goods that 
 his drunken appetite had spared. He, however, 
 knew perfectly well from men who had seen me, 
 that I was alive, and waiting for the goods and 
 men ; but as for morality, he is evidently an 
 idiot ; and there being no law here except that 
 of the dagger or musket, I had to sit down in 
 great weakness, destitute of everything save a 
 few barter cloths and beads I had taken the pre- 
 caution to leave here in case of extreme need. 
 The near prospect of beggary among Ujijians 
 made me miserable. I could not despair, because 
 I laughed so much at a friend, who, on reaching 
 the mouth of the Zambesi, said 'that he was 
 tempted to despair on breaking the photograph 
 of his wife ; we could have no success after that.' 
 After that, the idea of despair has to me such a 
 strong smack of the ludicrous, it is out of the 
 question. 
 
 "Well, when I had got to about the lowest 
 verge, vague rumours of an English visitor 
 reached me. I thought of myself as the man 
 who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho ; but 
 neither priest, Levite, nor Samaritan could 
 possibly pass my way. Yet the good Samaritan 
 was close at hand, and one of my people rushed 
 up at the top of his speed, and in great excite- 
 ment gasped out, * An Englishman coming ! I 
 see him ! ' And off he darted to meet him. An 
 American flag, the first ever seen in these parts, 
 at the head of a caravan, told me the nationality 
 of the stranger. I am as cold and non-demon- 
 strative as we islanders are usually reputed to 
 be, but your kindness made my frame thrill. 
 It was indeed overwhelming, and I said in my 
 soul, 'Let the richest blessings descend from 
 the Highest on you and yours.' 
 
 " The news Mr Stanley had to tell me was 
 thrilling: the mighty political changes on the 
 Continent, the success of the Atlantic cables, 
 the election of General Grant, and many topics 
 riveted my attention for days together, and had 
 an immediate and beneficial effect on my health, 
 I had been without news from home for years, 
 save what I could glean from a few Saturday 
 Reviews and copies of Punch for 1868. The 
 
 appetite revived, and in a week I began to feel 
 strong again. Mr Stanley brought a most kind 
 and encouraging despatch from Lord Clarendon, 
 whose loss I sincerely deplore — the first I have 
 received from the Foreign Office since 1866 — 
 and information that her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment had kindly sent £1000 to my aid. Up to 
 his arrival I was not aware of any pecuniary 
 aid. I came unsalaried, but this want is now 
 happily repaired ; and I am anxious that you 
 and all my friends should know that, though 
 uncheered by letters, I have stuck to the task 
 which my friend Sir Roderick Murchison set 
 me, with John-Bullish tenacity, believing that 
 all will come right at last." 
 
 Before the end came, he had resolved to satisfy 
 himself that the Nile really rose where he sup- 
 posed. Stanley had urged him to press on no 
 further, but Livingstone wrote : " My judgment 
 said, 'All your friends will wish you to make a 
 complete work of the exploration of the sources 
 of the Nile before you retire.' My daughter 
 Agnes says : ' Much as I wish you to come home, 
 I would rather that you finished your work 
 to your own satisfaction than return merely to 
 gratify me.' Rightly and nobly said, my dar- 
 ling Nannie. Vanity whispers loudly, ' She is a 
 chip of the old block ! ' My blessing on her and 
 on all the rest." 
 
 So he went on, reaching Unyanyembe, where 
 he remained waiting for some promised help. 
 The following entry occurs in his journal (1872) : 
 
 "19i^ March, — Birthday. My Jesus, my 
 King, my life, my all; I again dedicate my 
 whole self to Thee. Accept me, and grant, 
 gracious Father, that ere this year is gone I 
 may finish my task. In Jesus' name I ask it. 
 Amen, so let it be. David Livingstone." 
 
 An entry on May 31, 1872, is as follows : " In 
 reference to this Nile source, I have been kept in 
 perpetual doubt and perplexity. I know too 
 much to be positive. Great Lualaba, or Lua- 
 lubba, as Manuyema say, may turn out to be 
 the Congo or the Nile, a shorter river after all — 
 the fountains flowing north and south seem in 
 favour of its being the Nile. Great Westing 
 is in favour of the Congo. It would be com- 
 fortable to be positive like Baker. 'Every 
 drop, from the passing shower to the roaring 
 mountain torrent, must fall into Albert Lake, 
 a giant at its birth.' How soothing to be posi- 
 tive!" 
 
 These doubts about the Nile sources grew 
 stronger, but they never overcame his confidence. 
 He died in the faith that the Nile rose between 
 10" and 12" south latitude. 
 
 Livingstone's death took place on the 1st of 
 May 1873, at Ilala, in Central Africa. For some 
 time previous he had been very weak. Forcing 
 his feeble strength, however, he pushed on, 
 riding on a donkey. Then he had to be carried 
 on a kitanda or bedstead ; but soon after pass- 
 ing Ilala, he gave up travelling, and his servants 
 
DR LIVINGSTONE, 
 
 4T5 
 
 erected a hut, in which he lay for a few days, 
 gradually growing weaker, and at last, on the 
 day mentioned, he expired. 
 
 In his "Last Journals," the now familiar 
 death-scene is thus recorded: "The lad's evi- 
 dent alarm made Susi run to arouse Chuma, 
 Chowper6, Matthew, and Muanyas6r6, and the 
 six men went immediately to the hut. Passing 
 inside they looked towards the bed. Dr Living- 
 stone was not lying on it, but appeared to be 
 engaged in prayer, and they instinctively drew 
 backwards for the instant. Pointing to him, 
 Majwara said, ' When I lay down he was just as 
 he is now, and it is because I find that he does 
 not move that I fear he is dead.' They asked 
 the lad how long he had slept. Majwara said 
 he could not tell, but he was sure that it was 
 some considerable time. The men drew nearer. 
 A candle stuck by its own wax to the top of 
 the box shed a light sufficient for them to see 
 his form. Dr Livingstone was kneeling by the 
 side of his bed— his body stretched forward, his 
 head buried in his hands, upon the pillow. For 
 a minute they watched him. He did not stir. 
 There was no sign of breathing. Then one of 
 them (Matthew) advanced softly to him, and 
 placed his hands to his cheeks. It was sufficient 
 — life had been extinct some time, and the body 
 was almost cold. Livingstone was dead. His 
 sad-hearted servants raised him tenderly up and 
 laid him full length on the bed, then, carefully 
 covering him, they went out into the damp night 
 air to consult together. It was not long before 
 the cocks crew, and it is from this circumstance, 
 coupled with the fact that Susi spoke to him 
 some time shortly before midnight, that we are 
 able to state with tolerable certainty that he 
 expired early on the 1st of May." 
 
 The fourth Livingstone Search Relief Expedi- 
 tion arrived at Zanzibar in February 1873, com- 
 manded by Lieutenant Cameron, Murphy, and 
 Dr Dillon. It was sent to Africa under the 
 auspices of the G-eographical Society. At the 
 end of August 1873 the expedition arrived at 
 Unyanyembe ; in the following month Chuma, 
 one of Livingstone's servants, appeared in their 
 midst, informing them that Livingstone's body 
 was but twenty days behind, and was being 
 brought up by his followers. Soon afterwards 
 they appeared with their burden, and continued 
 their march to Zanzibar, which they reached in 
 February 1874. The remains of Livingstone 
 were conveyed by ship to Southampton, thence 
 to London. After a formal examination by Sir 
 William Fergusson, the left arm bone, which 
 had been splinterea by a lion's jaw over thirty 
 years before, offered convincing evidence that 
 Livingstone was really dead. The body of 
 Livingstone was borne, on Saturday, 18th April 
 1874, amidst tokens of profound and universal 
 respect, to its last resting-place in Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
 A memorial tablet, with the following in- 
 
 scription, now marks the spot in Westminster 
 Abbey where the remains of Dr Livingstone are 
 deposited: "Brought by faithful hands over 
 land and sea, here rests David Livingstone, 
 missionary, traveller, philanthropist. Born 
 March 19, 1813 ; died May 1, 1873, at Chitam- 
 bo's village, Ulala. For thirty years his life was 
 spent in an unwearied effort to evangelise the 
 native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, 
 to abolish the desolating slave-trade of Central 
 Africa, and where, with his last words, he 
 wrote: 'All I can add in my solitude is, may 
 Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one 
 — American, English, or Turk — who will help to 
 heal this open sore of the world.'" On each 
 side of the tablet are also the following inscrip- 
 tions: "Tantus amor veri, nihil est quod nos- 
 cere malim, quam fluvii causas per saecula tanta 
 latentes ; " and " Other sheep I have which are 
 not of this fold : them also I must bring, and 
 they shall hear my voice." 
 
 A Livingstone memorial statue has been 
 erected in the East Princes Street Gardens, 
 Edinburgh. The statue represents Livingstone 
 in thorough travelling costume; in his right 
 hand a Bible, and a revolver in his belt. The 
 statue stands about eight feet high, and is from 
 the design of Mrs D. 0. Hill. As a further 
 honour, Stanley has suggested that the great 
 Lualaba-Congo River be henceforth known as 
 the "Livingstone." 
 
 Amongst the tributes to his memory few are 
 more correct and appropriate than that by Sir 
 Samuel W. Baker: " The life of Dr Livingstone 
 is well known, but although his character as an 
 explorer has iDcen established for many years, 
 there are few persons beyond scientific geo- 
 graphers who truly appreciate his enormous 
 labours. When we examine the maps of all his 
 published works, we must be struck with amaze- 
 ment that any one man should have been able to 
 support the bodily fatigue of travelling over the 
 many thousand miles in Africa marked by that 
 thin and wandering line of red which denotes 
 his track. The world knows but little of such 
 fatigues— the toil of body in unhealthy climates, 
 the lack of food, constant exposure to both sun 
 and rain, perpetual anxiety, delays and passive 
 hostility that wear out the brain with over- 
 taxed patience; hopes deferred, followed by 
 that sickness of heart which is a greater strain 
 upon the nervous system than the heaviest 
 physical work. These are the trials that Liv- 
 ingstone sustained throughout his life of ex- 
 ploration ; and still he endured until he dropped 
 upon his road worn out in his great work ; and 
 in solitude he died upon his knees by his bed- 
 side, far from the world, but in communion 
 at the last with Him who had been his guide 
 and protector through a life of difficulties and 
 perils. 
 
 "His geographical opinions may or may not 
 be accepted on all points, but there can only be 
 
one opinion concerning the man: he was the 
 greatest of all explorers of this century ; he was 
 one of a noble army of martyrs who have de- 
 voted their lives to the holy cause of freedom ; 
 and he has laid down his life as a sacrifice upon 
 a wild and unknown path, upon which he has 
 printed the first footsteps of civilisation." 
 
 COMMANDER CAMBRON'S WALK ACROSS AFRICA. 
 
 The first "Livingstone Search Expedition" 
 was despatched by the Royal Geographical 
 Society under Lieutenant Dawson, with the 
 view of carrying food and supplies to Dr Living- 
 stone. They had only reached Bagamoyo, on 
 the African coast, when a message was re- 
 ceived from Mr Stanley to the effect that he 
 had discovered Livingstone, and that the great 
 traveller objected to any "slave" expedition 
 being sent to him. Lieutenant Dawson therewith 
 resigned the command of the expedition, which 
 in turn was taken up by Mr New, who died 
 shortly afterwards, then by Lieutenant Henn, 
 E.N., and lastly by Mr Oswell Livingstone, a son 
 of Dr Livingstone. The latter also gave up the 
 idea of reaching his father, and the expedition 
 was abandoned. When the Geographical Society 
 resolved on utilising the remainder of their 
 funds in another expedition. Lieutenant Cam- 
 eron was chosen commander. He drew up his 
 scheme of exploration by way of Victoria 
 Nyanza, fi^ounts Kenia and Kilima Njaro, and 
 the Albert Nyanza, and thence through Ulegga 
 and Nyangwe down the Congo to the west 
 coast. When he had reached Unyamyembe, 
 two-thirds on the way to Tanganyika, on the 
 20th October 1873, while lying in bed blind and 
 almost lifeless, the news was brought to him of 
 Livingstone's death. On 18th February 1874, 
 his eye rested on the blue expanse of Lake Tan- 
 ganyika, which had been discovered by Captain 
 Burton fifteen years previously. After three 
 years of unheard-of difficulties, in November 
 1875 he emerged at Benguela, on the west coast, 
 to which he had made his way 2000 miles 
 as the crow flies, from Bagamoyo on the east 
 coast. Some of the results of his journey 
 are his exploration of the southern water-part- 
 ing of the Congo; the fixing of the latitude and 
 longitude of all the places at which he halted ; 
 and in all probability in determining the sources 
 of the Congo as from Lake Tanganyika and Lake 
 Bemba, with an accurate survey of the shores 
 of the Tanganyika. Missionary effort is quickly 
 following in the footsteps of all our great ex- 
 plorers, and is having a due effect upon the 
 odious slave traffic. Ten thousand slaves were 
 formerly carried away every year from the dis- 
 trict around Lake Nyassa, but since the organisa- 
 tion of the Free Church Mission settlement there, 
 the number has been marvellously decreased. 
 The English Universities Mission is at the 
 northern extremity of Lake Nyassa ; the Estab- 
 
 lished Church of Scotland at Blantyre (after the 
 birthplace of Livingstone); the London Mis- 
 sionary Society at Lake Tanganyika; and the 
 Church Missionary Society at Lake Victoria 
 Nyanza. 
 
 HENRY MORETON STANLEY. 
 
 Mr Stanley, one of the bravest and most 
 daring journalists of the time, was born in 
 Denbigh, North Wales, and while still in his 
 teens, he emigrated to New Orleans. Joining 
 the Confederate army, he was taken prisoner at 
 the battle of Pittsburg Landing, on the 6th of 
 April 1862. He effected his escape while being 
 conveyed to prison, in a daring manner, and 
 returned to England for a few months. Com- 
 ing back to the United States, he enlisted in 
 the Federal navy and was present at the capture 
 of Fort Fisher on the 15th January 1865. He 
 acted as special correspondent for the New 
 York Tribune after the war. In this capacity 
 he accompanied General Hancock's expedition 
 against the Kiowa and Cheyenne Indians. On his 
 return, along with a companion of kindred spirit, 
 he accomplished nearly seven hundred miles of 
 the journey on a raft down the river Platte as 
 far as its junction with the Missouri. At a later 
 date, Stanley and two companions appeared at 
 the American Consulate, Constantinople, in a 
 totally destitute condition, having been robbed 
 and maltreated in attempting to reach the in- 
 terior of Asia Minor. Beaching New York, he 
 was engaged on the staff of the New York 
 Herald as special correspondent with the British 
 Military Expedition to Magdala in Abyssinia. 
 Before proceeding on his Livingstone search 
 expedition, he had accomplished a journey from 
 Constantinople, through Asia Minor, Persia, 
 and India, to Bombay, with only a single servant 
 as companion. We have already alluded to his 
 successful relief of Livingstone. 
 
 Stanley was sent out to Africa a second time 
 by the proprietors of the New York Herald and 
 the Daily Telegraph, arriving at Zanzibar in 
 September 1874. Before starting for the interior 
 he made a preliminary trip up the Rufiji, or 
 Lufji, a river flowing into the Indian Ocean 
 some miles south of the Kingani. He ascer- 
 tained that this river was navigable for large 
 vessels for about fifty miles inland, with water- 
 way sufficient for the passage of shallow steam 
 launches for 240 miles farther. He was accom- 
 panied in his journey to the interior by the 
 brothers Francis and Edward Pocock, sons of a 
 fisherman of Upnor, near Rochester, and by 
 another white man named Fred Barker. The 
 march began from Bagamoyo on the 17th Novem- 
 ber. His escort comprised 250 natives, forty- 
 seven of whom had either been in his own service, 
 or in that of Livingstone. Along with the baggage 
 they carried a pontoon called the "Livingstone," 
 and a small but admirably constructed steam 
 
H. M. STANLEY. 
 
 ^ni 
 
 launch called the *'iLady Alice," which could be 
 conveyed in sections on the shoulders of the 
 natives, when not in use. After crossing the 
 Kingani River in the " Lady Alice," the expedition 
 made its way along the caravan route to Kikoka. 
 From this place his route was mainly west-north- 
 west till Mpwapwa was reached, when it became 
 due west. The western frontier of Ugogo was 
 reached on the last day of 1874. 
 
 Stanley, crossing the uplands of Central 
 Africa, sighted Lake Victoria Nyanza on the 
 27th February 1875. He had quitted Mpwapwa, 
 journeying across the desert of the Mgunda 
 Mkali. "Good and evil fortune," says Stan- 
 ley, "alternated during our travels through 
 Ugogo." Some of his company died from 
 famine and fatigue, some were left behind sick, 
 others deserted. The white men of the party 
 did their part bravely ; "though suffering from 
 fever and dysentery, insulted by natives, march- 
 ing under the heat and equinoctial rain storms, 
 they at all times proved themselves of noble, 
 manly natures ; stout-hearted, brave, and — 
 better than all — true Christians. Unrepining 
 they bore their hard fate and worse fare ; re- 
 signedly they endured their arduous troubles, 
 and cheerfully performed their allotted duties." 
 The expedition reached the western boundary 
 of Ugogo on 21st December 1874. Resting 
 three days, they struck north, along a seemingly 
 level plain, which, as some said, extended to 
 the Nyanza. The district they were passing 
 through, according to the natives, was the 
 western extremity of Wahumba. Two days' 
 marching brought them to Usandawi, famous 
 for elephants. Farther on, at Muhalala, their 
 guides deserted. The new guides also absconded, 
 when they were left on the confines of a track- 
 less wilderness. Their march was renewed. 
 The second day they became entangled in a 
 wilderness of elephant and rhinoceros trails. 
 The next day brought them to a dense jungle 
 of acacia and euphorbia; they had to crawl 
 through the underwood, cutting the convolvuli 
 and creepers, thrusting aside the thorny bushes. 
 The first death occurred on the evening of the 
 third day. The fourth day they made fourteen 
 miles, and suffered severely for want of water. 
 Five men strayed from the path made by the 
 passing expedition, and were never seen again. 
 On the fifth day a small village called Uverivori 
 was reached, but the poor folks there were un- 
 able to supply them with any provisions. Mes- 
 sengers were sent to Suna, twenty-nine miles 
 north-west, to purchase food. Mr Stanley him- 
 self explored the woods in search of game, but 
 returned empty. The woful countenances of 
 his men so impressed him that, he says, "I 
 could have wept if I could have done so with- 
 out exciting fear of our fate in their minds ; 
 but I resolved to do something to relieve the 
 pressing needs of fierce hunger. To effect this 
 a sheet-iron trunk was emptied of its contents, 
 
 and, being filled with water, was placed on the 
 fire. I then broke upon our medical stores, and 
 took five pounds of Scotch oatmeal and three 
 tins of Revalenta Arabica, with which I made 
 gruel to feed 220 men." The messengers re- 
 turned from Suna with a store of grain, after an 
 absence of forty-eight hours. They marched 
 next to Suna, in Urimi, where they found the 
 people "remarkable for their manly beauty, 
 noble proportions, and utter nakedness." Stan- 
 ley says further, that "it required great tact and 
 patience to induce them to part with food in 
 exchange for our cloth and beads. They owned 
 no chief, but respected the injunctions of their 
 elders, with whom I treated for leave to pass 
 through their land." This permission was re- 
 luctantly given, and food was reluctantly sold. 
 Here Edward Pocock fell seriously ill of typhoid 
 fever ; and here also six men died, while those 
 on the sick-list numbered thirty. He halted 
 here four days, when, on the march being re- 
 sumed, they reached a place called Chiwyu. 
 Here Edward Pocock died ; he was buried at 
 night, a cross deeply cut in a tree marking his 
 resting-place. Two days' journey from this 
 place, at Mangara, one of his men, Helf Halleck, 
 was murdered by the natives and hacked to pieces. 
 
 Entering Ituru, a district of Northern Urisni, 
 they camped at a village named Vinyata. Here 
 the natives did not receive him very cordially, 
 and after several one-sided bartering experi- 
 ments through the duplicity of the "magic 
 doctor," he was led into several regular en- 
 counters with the natives. Here Stanley lost 
 twenty-one men killed, and the natives thirty- 
 five men. Recounting his losses on the march 
 northwards, he says : " We were still a formid- 
 able force, strong in numbers, guns, and pro- 
 perty, though, for an expedition destined to 
 explore so many thousand miles of new countries, 
 we had suffered severely. I had started from 
 the coast with over 300 men ; but when I re- 
 viewed the expedition at Mgongo Tembo, in 
 Iramba, which we reached three days after de- 
 parting from the scene of our conflict, I found I 
 had but 194 men left. In less than three months 
 I had already lost by dysentery, famine, heart 
 disease, desertion, and war, over 120 men, natives 
 of Africa, and one European." Passing through 
 the land of Iramba, passing Mgongo Tembo, 
 through the districts of Montiti, Usiha, Mondo, 
 Sengerama, and Marys, they reached the Vic- 
 toria Nyanza, after a march of 720 miles. 
 Having his little vessel the "Lady Alice" put 
 together, in a cruise which occupied fifty-eight 
 days he made an exploration of about 1000 
 miles of its shores. Stanley and his men had a 
 deadly encounter with the natives at Bambireh. 
 
 King Mtesa, having provided Stanley with an 
 escort of 2000 spearmen, he made his way in a 
 west-north-westerly direction to the frontier of 
 Ungoro, reaching the Albert Nyanza on 12th 
 January 1876, but was prevented from navigat- 
 
478 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 ing it. A despatch from "Kafurro, near 
 Rumainka's capital, Karagwe, Central Africa," 
 and dated 26th March 1876, told of the finding 
 of a new lake, and containing a description of 
 Mlgata. By June 1876 he had reached the 
 Arab town of Ujiji, where he rested a while to 
 recruit previous to his explorations on Lake 
 Tanganyika. In circumnavigating the lake his 
 researches were made thoroughly complete. He 
 examined the Lukuga creek discovered by 
 Cameron, and making his way across Manyuema 
 to Nyangwe, the last stage of his journey began. 
 At last the triumphant announcement was made 
 in the Daily Telegraph of Monday, 17th Sep- 
 tember 1877, that Mr Stanley had arrived at 
 Loanda, upon the west coast of Africa, after 
 bravely accomplishing, amid extreme perils and 
 difficulties, the continuous navigation of the 
 Lualaba, from Nyangw^ to the mouth of the 
 Congo, proving it to be the same river. His 
 despatch was as follows : 
 
 '^Emhoma, Congo River, West Coast of Africa, 
 10th August 1877.— On the 8th inst. I arrived 
 at this place from Zanzibar, with 115 souls, in 
 a fearful condition. We left Nyangwe in Man- 
 yema, 5th November 1876, travelling overland 
 through Ureggu. CTnable to make progress 
 through the dense forests, we crossed Lualaba, 
 and continued our journey along the left bank 
 through North-East Ukusu. Natives opposed 
 us, harassed us day and night, killed and 
 wounded our people with poisoned arrows. Our 
 struggle through these cannibal regions became 
 almost hopeless. We endeavoured to appease 
 the savages with gifts and mildness. Our gifts 
 they refused; our patient behaviour they re- 
 garded as cowardice. To make our position 
 still more deplorable, our escort of 140 men 
 engaged at Nyangw6 refused to proceed farther. 
 At the same time the natives made a grand 
 effort to crush us altogether. We defended 
 ourselves, but there was only one way to escape 
 from our hapless position — unless we accepted 
 the alternative of returning, and abandoning 
 the work which we had begun — and this was by 
 making use of our canoes. Though we had 
 decided advantage over the savages on the water, 
 still each day's advance was but a repetition of 
 the day previous. It was desperate fighting, 
 pushing on down river with might and main 
 until, in the midst of these successive struggles, 
 we were halted by a series of great cataracts — 
 five in number, not far apart — south and north 
 of the equator. To pass these we had to cut 
 our way through thirteen miles of dense forest, 
 and drag our eighteen canoes and exploring boat 
 overland, frequently exchanging the axes for the 
 rifles as we were attacked. After passing these 
 cataracts, we had a long breathing pause from 
 the toil of dragging our vessels overland. At 
 2'' north latitude the great Lualaba swerved 
 from its almost direct northerly course to north- 
 west, then west, then south-west — a broad j 
 
 stream from two to ten miles wide, choked 
 with islands. In order to avoid the exhausting 
 struggle with so many tribes of desperate 
 cannibals, we had to paddle between the islands, 
 until, compelled by hunger most extreme, after 
 three days passed without absolutely any food, 
 we resolved to meet our fate, and struck for the 
 mainland on the left bank. Happily we had 
 reached a tribe acquainted with trade. They 
 possessed four muskets from the West Coas^ 
 and called the great river Ikutu Ya Congo. We 
 made blood brotherhood, and purchased abun- 
 dance of provisions ; and endeavoured to con- 
 tinue our course along the left bank. Three 
 days later we came to a powerful tribe, all 
 armed with muskets, who, as soon as they 
 sighted us, manned fifty-four large canoes, and 
 attacked us. Not until three of my men were 
 killed did I desist from crying out we were 
 friends, and offering cloths. For a distance of 
 twelve miles the greatest and most desperate 
 fight on this terrible river was maintained. 
 This was the last save one of thirty-two battles 
 on the Lualaba, which river, after changing its 
 name scores of times, became known as we ap- 
 proached the Atlantic Ocean as the Kwango and 
 the Zaire. As the river runs through the great 
 basin which lies between E. long. 26", and E. 
 long. 17°., it has an uninterrupted course of 
 over 1400 miles, with magnificent affluents, 
 especially on the southern side. Thence, cleav- 
 ing the broad belt of mountains between 
 the great basin and the Atlantic Ocean, it 
 descends by about thirty falls and furious rapids 
 to the great river between the Falls of Yellala 
 and the Atlantic. Our losses have been most 
 severe, and my grief is still new over the loss of 
 my last white assistant, the brave and pious 
 young Englishman, Francis Pocock, who was 
 swept over the Falls of Massassa on 3d June last. 
 The same day I, with seven men, was almost 
 drawn into the whirlpools of Mowa Falls ; and 
 six weeks later myself and the entire crew of the 
 ' Lady Alice ' were swept over the furious falls of 
 Mbelo, whence only by a miracle we escaped. 
 My faithful young companion Kalulu is also 
 among the lost. 
 
 " From Boma I take the expedition by steamer 
 to Cabinda, thence to St Paul de Loanda. 
 
 " Mr Price, of the firm of Hatton & Cookson, 
 of Liverpool, will bring my letters to you per 
 'Angola.' Henry M. Stanley." 
 
 In a letter received at a later date he wrote : 
 "With a feeling of intense gratitude to Divine 
 Providence, which has so miraculously saved 
 me and my people from the terrors of slavery, 
 from the pangs of cruel death at the hands of 
 cannibals, from five months' daily toil through 
 fifty-seven cataracts, falls, and rapids — who 
 inspired us with manliness sufficient to oppose 
 the hosts of savages, and, out of thirty-two 
 battles, brought us safe across unknown Africa 
 to the Atlantic Ocean— I inform you that the 
 
CHARLES KINGSLEY, 
 
 479 
 
 work of the Anglo-American Expedition, which 
 you commissioned me to perform, has been per- 
 formed to the very letter. Other explorations 
 we imposed on ourselves, but their successful 
 prosecution depended on your means, and the 
 fruits of all our long labours are due to you. 
 Large as the number of cataracts and rapids 
 mentioned above may be, we have discovered 
 that the great highway of commerce to broad 
 Africa is the Congo, and happy will that power 
 seem which shall secure for itself a locality for 
 a depot at the extreme limit of the navigation 
 of the Lower Congo, and establish there a 
 people, such as the freed slaves, to assist it in 
 enriching itself, and the poor races employed in 
 the service, and commencing the redemption of 
 the splenidd central basin of the continent by 
 sound and legitimate commerce. In West Can- 
 tral Africa, from Lake Tanganyika to the mouth 
 of the CoDgo Elver, the peoples are gathered in 
 small, insignificant districts, towns, or villages, 
 each governed by its respective chief. As we ap- 
 proach nearer the West Coast, the explorer dares 
 not begin to classify the people after the usual 
 manner employed in Africa, as the districts are 
 so small, the population so great, the number 
 of villages so confusing, that there are as many 
 kings ruling over a hundred-acre plot as there 
 are officials in Greece, all animated by an intense 
 thirst for trade, and distinguished for their 
 idolatry, hostility to each other, and foolish 
 pride. The love of trade and barter, is, how- 
 ever, universal. Setting aside the contributions 
 of our expedition to geography, the grandest 
 
 discovery it has made is the great field for trade 
 it has opened to the world, especially to the 
 English, French, Germans, and Americans ; the 
 English especially, for greater attention to those 
 fabrics and wares generally purchased by Afri- 
 cans on the West Coast. In round numbers, 
 you have thrown open to commerce an area 
 embracing over 600,000 square miles, which con- 
 tains nearly 2000 miles of an uninterrupted 
 course of water communication, divided amongst 
 the Upper Congo and its magnificent afflu- 
 ents." 
 
 Mr Stanley has suggested, as we have already 
 said, that the Lualaba-Congo Kiver should be 
 named after his great predecessor, the Living- 
 stone. With his whole company, the gallant 
 explorer was conveyed in a British man-of-war 
 to the Cape of Good Hope, was publicly honoured 
 in Cape Town, and afterwards at Marseilles and 
 Paris. The complete account of his explora- 
 tions is entitled ** Through the Dark Continent," 
 containing upwards of one hundred illustrations 
 from photographs and sketches taken by the 
 author, and with several important maps. Ar- 
 rangements were also made for its simultaneous 
 publication in the English, French, German, 
 Danish, Italian, and other languages. 
 
 At an international conference held at Brussels 
 in 1867, at which many of the most eminent 
 African travellers of the day were present, it 
 was resolved to establish permanent stations 
 along the chief African routes, "for the relief of 
 travellers, the advancement of science, and the 
 promotion of peace." 
 
 EEY. CHAELES KINGSLEY. 
 
 [1819-1875.] 
 
 All that Charles Kingsley attempted in act, or 
 speech, or writing, was accompanied by enthusi- 
 asm and earnestness. It might be a work of 
 sanitary reform, a Chartist gathering, a study 
 on the sea-shore, a chapter on Greek heroes, or a 
 dissertation on geology— it mattered not, all were 
 alike dealt with in a way which arrested the atten- 
 tion and kindled the enthusiasm of the reader or 
 hearer. His glowing pictures of tropical forests, 
 or long-forgotten ages, of strange unknown seas, 
 and floating icebergs, and lonely peaks, in his 
 "Town Geology," are the fascinating mediums 
 for conveying the facts of science to the 
 minds of youth. His works are vitalised 
 with the life and thoughts which belong to 
 his own experience. His life itself was rich 
 in stimulus, and is calculated to awaken strong 
 personal love. His works may not be immor- 
 tal, but they have inspired and aided many; 
 
 and the noble life he lived, more than all the 
 books he has written, is calculated to be of 
 vital benefit to the world. The letters and 
 memoirs of his life recently published are 
 edited by his wife. 
 
 Charles Kingsley was bom on the 12th of 
 June 1819, at Holne Vicarage, under the brow 
 of Dartmoor, Devonshire. His father was a man 
 of culture, an artist, a linguist, a keen sports- 
 man, and fond of natural history. His family 
 had been soldiers for generations. His mother, 
 the daughter of a Barbadoes judge, was full of 
 poetry and enthusiasm, with a keen relish and 
 exquisite enjoyment of the romantic surround- 
 ings of her Devonshire home, and these she trans- 
 mitted to her son. Mr Kingsley, his father, was 
 successively curate at Burton-on-Trent, Clifton, 
 and Barnack, in the fen country. The first ten 
 years of Charles Kingsley's life were spent near 
 
Peterborough, and amongst the fens of the east 
 country. 
 
 Charles, being a precocious child, would write 
 little poems and sermons when not more than 
 four years of age. One of these juvenile sermons, 
 which has been preserved, was shown to the 
 Bishop of Peterborough. When eleven years of 
 age his father left the fen country and removed 
 to Ilfracombe, in Devonshire. The scenery of 
 the fens had become part of himself, however, 
 and he reproduced it in glowing language in 
 after-life. While at Ilfracombe his father was 
 presented to the living at Clovelly, which he 
 held till his removal to St Luke's, Chelsea, in 
 1836. 
 
 The scenery, the surroundings, and the people 
 of romantic Clovelly lent colouring and inspira- 
 tion to his young life. His father became popu- 
 lar amongst the people; they sprang to touch 
 the more readily under the influence of a man 
 who, physically their equal, feared no danger, 
 and could steer a boat, hoist and lower a sail, 
 "shoot" a herring net, and haul a seine as one 
 of themselves. He was in the habit of holding 
 a short religious service previous to the herring 
 fleet putting off to sea. *' Now that you have 
 seen Clovelly," he said to his wife, "you know 
 what was the inspiration of my life before I met 
 you." The scenes witnessed here must also 
 have enabled him to write *' The Three Fishers." 
 
 At first the boy had a tutor at home, but in 
 1831 Charles and his brother were sent to a pre- 
 paratory school at Clifton. While there he 
 witnessed the Bristol riots in 1831. In 1832 he 
 was sent to Helston grammar school, which was 
 under the head-mastership of the Kev. Derwent 
 Coleridge, son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The 
 second master there — Rev. Charles A. Johns — 
 encouraged his taste for botany and physical 
 science. Mr Coleridge speaks of him at this 
 time as "a tall, slight boy, of keen visage, and of 
 great bodily activity ; high-spirited, earnest, and 
 energetic ; giving full promise of the intellectual 
 powers and moral qualities by which he was 
 afterwards distinguished. Truly a remarkable 
 boy, original to the very verge of eccentricity, 
 and yet a thorough boy ; fond of sport, and up 
 to any enterprise — a genuine out-of-door English 
 boy." 
 
 At this school he became acquainted with 
 Richard Cowley Powles, who became a life-long 
 friend, and one of his own parishioners at Evers- 
 ley in 1869. On his father's removal to Chelsea 
 in 1836, he became a day-student at King's 
 College, London. He left the west country with 
 regret, and his much-loved botanical and geo- 
 logical studies. He hated the weary round of 
 parochial work, and what he called " clerical 
 conversation ; " and in after-life, in his own rec- 
 tory, took care not to "talk shop" before his 
 children, or to lower the tone of conversation 
 into mere parochial or clerical gossip. He 
 worked hard during the two years spent at* 
 
 King's College, and as a relief to study, and for 
 lack of other amusement, read every book he 
 could lay his hands on. In the autumn of 1838 
 he went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, 
 where he soon gained a scholarship, and other- 
 wise showed unmistakable marks of talent. On 
 the 6th of July 1839, he met his future wife in 
 Oxfordshire, and as he said fifteen years after- 
 wards, "That was my real wedding-day." "He 
 was then full of religious doubts," writes his 
 wife, " and his face, with its unsatisfied, hunger- 
 ing look, bore witness to the state of his mind. 
 It had a sad, longing expression, too, as if he 
 had all his life been looking for a sympathy he 
 had never found — a rest which he never would 
 attain in this world. This peculiar character 
 had not been understood hitherto, and his heart 
 had been half asleep. It woke up now, and 
 never slept again. For the first time he could 
 speak with perfect freedom, and he met with 
 answering sympathy. And gradually as the new 
 friendship (which yet seemed old — from the first 
 more of a recognition than an acquaintance) 
 deepened into intimacy, every doubt, every 
 thought, every failing, every sin, as he would 
 call it, was laid bare. Counsel was asked and 
 was given, all things in heaven and earth dis- 
 cussed ; and as new hopes dawned, the look of 
 hard defiance gave way to a wonderful humility 
 and tenderness, which were his characteristics 
 with those who understood him, to his dying 
 day." They had two months of happy inter- 
 course together at this period, and the time 
 passed all too swiftly away. At one time he had 
 grave doubts of ever being able to reach the goal 
 of his wishes, and in order to deaden the mental 
 conflict, threw himself into active outward sports. 
 Returning to Cambridge he threw his whole 
 energy into both work and play, enjoying sports 
 of all kinds, fishing, shooting, riding, and cards. 
 He was, too, no mean pedestrian, walking from 
 Cambridge to London, fifty-two miles in one day. 
 At last, in June 1841, he could write thus : 
 " Saved — saved from the wild pride and darkling 
 tempests of scepticism, and from the sensuality 
 and dissipation into which my own rashness and 
 vanity had hurried me before I knew you. Saved 
 from a hunter's life on the prairies, from be- 
 coming a savage, and perhaps worse. Saved 
 from all this, and restored to my country and 
 my God, and able to believe, believe. And I do 
 believe, firmly and practically, as a subject of 
 prayer, and a rule of every action of my life." 
 His religious opinions now being more firmly 
 fixed and definite, he altered his plan of life. 
 He decided on the Church instead of the law as 
 his profession. He left Cambridge in February 
 1842, having taken his degree, and, as his wife 
 and biographer tells us, "much exhausted in 
 body and mind from having, by six months' 
 desperate reading, done work which should have 
 been spread over his three years of university 
 Ufe." 
 
In the spring of 1842, while reading for holy- 
 orders, he was offered two vacancies in Hamp- 
 shire — one at Kingsley, the other at Eversley. 
 He chose the latter, and in the meantime com- 
 menced the writing of the life of St Elizabeth 
 of Hungary, his ideal saint, which he intended as 
 a present to his future wife on their marriage-day. 
 
 He settled down as curate of Eversley when 
 twenty-three years of age, and remained there 
 for thirty-three years. The population was 
 scattered, yet he began work in earnest, teach- 
 ing in a school every day, and visiting. How 
 eminently characteristic was the spirit in which 
 he began ! He realised the blessings he possessed 
 in a sound mind in a sound body, and he was 
 full of hopeful energy. He says: "The body 
 is the temple of the living God. . . . There 
 has always seemed to me something impious in 
 the neglect of personal health, strength, and 
 beauty which the religious, and sometimes 
 clergymen, of this day affect. It is very often a 
 mere form of laziness and untidiness ! . . . 
 I should be ashamed of being weak ; I could not 
 do half the little good I do here if it were not 
 for that strength and activity which some con- 
 sider coarse and degrading. Many clergymen 
 would half kill themselves if they did what I 
 do. And though they might walk about as 
 much they would neglect exercise of the arms 
 and chest, and become dyspeptic and consump- 
 tive. Do not be afraid of my overworking my- 
 self. If I stop I go down. I must work. . . . 
 How merciful God has been in turning all the 
 strength and hardihood I gained in snipe shoot- 
 ing, and hunting, and rowing, and jack fishing 
 in those magnificent fens to His work. While 
 I was following my own fancies He was pre- 
 paring me for this work. I could wish I were 
 an Apollo for His sake! Strange idea, yet it 
 seems so harmonious to me." 
 
 His versatile mind so identified itself with 
 the homely lives and pursuits of his parishioners 
 that they soon began to attend church, and to 
 look up to him as both a physical and spiritual 
 superior. The perusal of "The Kingdom of 
 Christ," by Eev. F. D. Maurice, at this time, is 
 said to have helped to establish his faith. The 
 tone of his mind, and how he was occupied, will 
 be best seen by an extract from one of his letters 
 —a letter full of hearty sympathy and advice, 
 intended for the guidance of her who aftei'wards 
 became his wife. After demolishing the idea of 
 the Pope school, that the noblest study of man- 
 kind is man, and hinting that some minds are 
 too subjective, too much inclined to the study 
 of self, he says : *' Study nature— not scientific- 
 ally—that would take eternity to do it so as to 
 reap much moral good from it. Superficial 
 physical science is the devil's spade, with which 
 he loosens the roots of the trees prepared for the 
 burning ! Do not study matter for its own sake, 
 but as the countenance of God ! Try to extract 
 every line of beauty, every association, every 
 
 moral reflection, every inexpressible feeling from 
 it. Study the forms and colours of leaves and 
 flowers, and the growth and habits of plants ; 
 not to classify them, but to admire them and 
 adore God. Study the sky! Study water 1 
 Study trees ! Study the sounds and scents of 
 nature ! Study all these, as beautiful in them 
 selves, in order to recombine the elements ol 
 beauty ; next, as allegories and examples from 
 whence moral reflections may be drawn ; next, 
 as types of certain tones of feeling, etc. ; but 
 remain (yourself) in God-dependence, superior 
 to them. Learn what feelings they express, but 
 do not let them mould the tone of your mind ; 
 else, by allowing a melancholy day to make you 
 melancholy, you worship the creature more than 
 the Creator. No sight but has some beauty and 
 harmony! . . . 
 
 *' Use your senses much, and your mind little. 
 Feed on nature, and do not try to understand 
 it. It will digest itself; it did so when you were 
 a baby the first time ! Look round you much. 
 Think little and read less ! Never give way to 
 reveries. Have always some employment in 
 your hand. . . . When you are doing nothing 
 at night pray and praise. 
 
 " See how much a day can do ! I have since 
 nine this morning cut wood for an hour, spent 
 an hour and more in prayer and humiliation, 
 and thereby established a chastened but happy 
 tone, which lasts till now ; written six or seven 
 pages of a difficult part of my essay ; taught in 
 the school; thought over many things while 
 walking ; gone round two-thirds of the parish 
 visiting and doctoring, and written all this. 
 Such days are lives, and happy ones. One has 
 no time to be miserable, and one is ashamed to 
 invent little sorrows for one's self while one is 
 trying to relieve such grief in others as would 
 kill us, if we gave way or fancied about them. 
 
 " Pray night and day, very quietly, like a little 
 weary child, to the good and loving God for 
 everything you want, in body as well as soul, 
 the least thing as well as the greatest. Nothing 
 is too much to ask God for, nothing too great 
 for Him to grant; and try to thank Him for 
 everything. Glory be to Thee, Lord ! . . . 
 I sometimes feel that eternity v/ill be too short 
 to praise God in, if it was only for making us 
 live at all; and then not making us idiots, or 
 cripples, or even only ugly and stupid ! What 
 blessings we have had ! How we must work in 
 return for them. Not under the enslaving sense 
 of paying off an indefinite debt, like the popish 
 saint, but with the delight of gratitude, glory- 
 ing that we are God's debtors." 
 
 Kingsley afterwards called that passage in his 
 life at this time, when involuntarily separated 
 from the woman to whom he had devoted the 
 love of his life, " as the most priceless passages 
 of my whole existence." He never lost faith, 
 and always believed that they would be given 
 to one another in God's own good time. 
 
 2 H 
 
482 
 
 TREASUR V OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 In 1844 he married Fanny, daughter of Pascoe 
 Grenfell, and shortly afterwards he was ap- 
 pointed rector of Eversley, where he settled 
 down with his young wife. The rectory was 
 found to be damp and unwholesome, and the 
 surroundings had to be drained before it could 
 be rendered habitable. The parishioners among 
 the rural population were both ignorant and 
 illiterate ; they could neither read nor write, and 
 they had little or no previous religious instruc- 
 tion. An adult school was accordingly held in 
 the rectory three nights a week for the winter 
 months, and a Sunday-school every Sunday 
 morning and afternoon, with weekly cottage 
 lectures in the outlying districts for the old and 
 feeble. A school club, a coal club, a maternal 
 society, a loan fund, and a lending library were 
 all also established one after the other. The 
 young rector had to battle with years of neg- 
 lect, and he slowly conquered, "He was with 
 them in their cottages, and made a point of talk- 
 ing to the men and boys at their field-work till 
 he was personally intimate with every soul in the 
 parish, from the women at their wash-tubs to the 
 babies in the cradle, for whom he always had a 
 loving word or look. Nothing escaped his eye. 
 . . . It was from his regular house-to-house 
 visiting in the week, still more than his church 
 services, that he acquired his power. If a man 
 or woman were suffering or dying, he would go 
 to them five and six times a day — and night as 
 well as day — for his own heart's sake, as well as 
 their souls* sake. Such visiting was very rare 
 in those days. For years he seldom dined out : 
 never during the winter months, when the adult 
 school and the cottage readings took up six 
 evenings in the week; and he seldom left the 
 parish except for a few days at a time to take 
 his family to the seaside, which occurred the 
 more frequently from the constant illness pro- 
 duced by the damp rectory, but he was never 
 easy away from his work." " No human being," 
 a friend wrote, "but was sure of a patient, in- 
 terested hearer in him. I have seen bira seat 
 himself, hatless, beside a tramp on the grass 
 outside his gate, in his eagerness to catch exactly 
 what he had to say." 
 
 Fishing, we are told, was almost his only mode 
 of recreation, and an occasional ride after the 
 hounds. He made the acquaintance of the Rev. 
 F. D. Maurice at this time, and the acquaintance 
 ripened into a life-long friendship. He wrote a 
 preface for his **Life of St Elizabeth," which, 
 begun in prose, ended in his giving it a dra- 
 matic form. It was published by Messrs Parker 
 in 1848. 
 
 This drama, we are told, though coldly re- 
 ceived by the general public, was eagerly read 
 at Oxford and attacked by the High Church 
 party. In this same year he became acquainted 
 with many remarkable men: Bishop Stanley of 
 Norwich, and his distinguished son, Archdeacon 
 Hare, Arthur Helps, John Hullah, J. A. Froude, 
 
 J. M. Ludlow, and Thomas Hughes, to the 
 latter of whom he became strongly attached. 
 He also accepted the professorship of English 
 Literature and Composition at Queen's College, 
 Harley Street, and lectured there once a week 
 during the session. His spirit was deeply 
 stirred during the Chartist riots of 1848. 
 "Kingsley," writes Thomas Hughes, "was very 
 deeply impressed with the gravity and dangers 
 of the crisis — more so, I think, than almost any 
 of his friends; probably because, as a country 
 parson, he was more directly in contact with 
 one class of the poor than any of them. How 
 deeply he felt for the agricultural poor, how 
 faithfully he reflected the passionate and restless 
 sadness of the time, may be read in the pages 
 of * Yeast,' which came out later in Fraser. 
 As the winter months went on, this sadness in- 
 creased, and seriously affected his health." He 
 contributed various papers to Politics for the 
 People, a short-lived publication. The following 
 is the text of a placard he wrote, and which was 
 posted up throughout London : 
 
 " Workmen of Englandf 
 
 " You say that you are wronged. Many of 
 you are wronged ; and many besides yourselves 
 know it. Almost all men who have heads and 
 hearts know it — above all, the working clergy 
 know it. They go into your houses, they see 
 the shameful filth and darkness in which you 
 are forced to live crowded together; they see 
 your children growing up in ignorance and 
 temptation for want of fit education ; they see 
 intelligent and well-read men among you shut 
 out from a freeman's just right of voting; and 
 they see, too, the noble patience and self-control 
 with which you have as yet borne these evils. 
 They see it, and God sees it. 
 
 "Workmen of England! you have more 
 friends than you think for ; friends who expect 
 nothing from you, but who love you because 
 you are their brothers, and who fear God, and 
 therefore dare not neglect you. His children; 
 men who are drudging and sacrificing themselves 
 to get you your rights; men who know what 
 your rights are better than you know yourselves, 
 who are trying to get for you something nobler 
 than charters and dozens of Acts of Parliament 
 — more useful than this fifty-thousandth share 
 in a Talker in the National Palaver at West- 
 minster gives you. You may disbelieve theit, 
 insult them — you cannot stop them working for 
 you, beseeching you, as you love yourselves, to 
 turn back from the precipice of riot, which ends 
 in the gulf of universal distrust, stagnation, and 
 starvation. 
 
 " You think the charter would make you free 
 — would to God it would ! The charter is not 
 bad, if the men who use it are not lad. But will 
 the charter make you free? Will it free you 
 from slavery to ten-pound bribes, slavery to beer 
 and giD, slavery to every spouter who flatters 
 
CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 483 
 
 your self-conceit, and stirs up bitterness and 
 lieadlong rage in you? That, I guess, is real 
 slavery— to be a slave to one's own stomach, 
 one's own pocket, one's own temper. Will the 
 charter cure that% Friends, you want more 
 than Acts of Parliament can give. 
 
 "Englishmen, Saxons, workers of the great, 
 cool-headed, strong-handed nation of England, 
 the workshop of the world, the leader of freedom 
 for seven hundred years! men say you have 
 common sense ; then do not humbug yourselves 
 into meaning • license ' when you cry for ' lib- 
 erty.' Who would dare refuse you freedom? 
 for the Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, the 
 poor Man who died for poor men, will bring it 
 about for you though all the Mammonites of 
 the earth were against you. A nobler dawning 
 for England, a day of freedom, science, industry! 
 But there will be no true freedom without 
 virtue, no true science without religion, no true 
 industry without the fear of God and love to 
 your fellow-citizens. Workers of England, be 
 wise, and then you must be free, for you will be 
 jit to be free." 
 
 Although his own tastes and feelings were 
 aristocratic, his sympathy with and knowledge 
 of the condition of the working-classes stimu- 
 lated him to help them. Both High and Low 
 Church united in looking upon him as a danger- 
 ous writer, both religiously and morally, and as 
 a factious agitator. 
 
 In the autumn of 1848, what with sermon 
 preparation, cottage visiting, and the writing of 
 *' Yeast " at night, his health gave way, and he 
 was ordered to Bournemouth for a time. One 
 of his letters, written at this period, has the fol- 
 lowing passage on marriage : " The highest state 
 I define as that state through and in which man 
 can know most of God, and work most for God, 
 and this I assert to be the married state. He 
 can know most of God, because it is through 
 those family ties and by these family names that 
 God reveals Himself to man, and reveals man's 
 relations to Him. Fully to understand the 
 meaning of a Father in heaven, we must be 
 fathers ourselves ; to know how Christ loved the 
 Church, we must have wives to love, and love 
 them ; else why has God used these relations as 
 symbols of the highest mysteries which we (on 
 the Komish theory) are the more saintly the less 
 we experience of them? And it is an historic 
 fact, that just the theologic ideas which celibate 
 priests have been unable to realise in their teach- 
 ing are those of the Father in heaven — the Hus- 
 band in heaven. Their distortion of the last 
 great truth requires a letter to itself. I will 
 only now add an entreaty that you will forgive 
 me if I have seemed too dogmatic. But God 
 has showed me these things in an eventful and 
 blissful marriage history, and woe to me if I 
 .preach them not." 
 
 From the beginning of 1849, till well on in 
 
 the year, he was disabled from work. While 
 resting at Ilfracombe, the idea of writing the 
 " Autobiography of a Cockney Poet " occurred 
 to him. Here also Mr J. A Froude, when 
 visiting him, met with his future wife, a sister 
 of Mrs Kingsley's. While resting at Clovelly in 
 the autumn, he wrote to J. M. Ludlow thus: 
 *' I am as stupid as a porpoise, and I lie in the 
 window, and smoke, and watch the glorious 
 cloud phantasmagoria, infinite in colours and 
 form, crawling across the vast bay and deep 
 woods below, and draw little sketches of figures, 
 and do not even dream — much less think. 
 Blessed be God for the rest, though I never 
 before felt the loneliness of being without the 
 beloved being whose every look, and word, and 
 motion are the keynotes of my life. People talk 
 of love ending at the altar — . . . fools. . . ." 
 The three striking sermons which he preached 
 this year on cholera, were afterwards published 
 under the title of "Who Causes Pestilence?" 
 
 He also contributed an article on the water 
 supply of London to the North British Review^ 
 which was part of his crusade in words against 
 dirt and bad drainage. 
 
 Mr C. Kegan Paul furnishes the following 
 picture of his daily life : 
 
 " The picturesque bow- windowed rectory rises 
 to memory as it stood with all its doors and 
 windows open on certain hot summer days, the 
 sloping bank with its great fir-tree, the garden 
 a gravel sweep before the drawing-room and 
 dining-rooms, a grass plat before the study 
 hedged off from the walk; and the tall active 
 figure of the rector tramping up and down one 
 or the other. His energy made him run every- 
 where, and to pervade every part of house and 
 garden. The MS, of the book he was writing 
 lay open on a rough, standing desk, which was 
 merely a shelf projecting from the wall; his 
 pupils — two in number, and treated like his 
 own sons — were working in the dining-room, 
 his guests perhaps lounging on the lawn, or 
 reading in the study. And be had time for all, 
 going from writing to lecturing on topics, or to 
 a passage in Virgil; from this to a vehement 
 conversation with a guest, or tender care of his 
 wife — who was far from strong — or a romp with 
 his children. He would work himself into a 
 sort of white heat over his book, till, too ex- 
 cited to write more, he would calm himself down 
 by a pipe, pacing his grass plat in thought and 
 with long strides. He was a great smoker, and 
 tobacco was to him a needful sedative. He 
 always used a long, clean, clay pipe, which 
 lurked in all sorts of unexpected places. But 
 none was ever smoked which was in any degree 
 foul, and when there was a vast collection of old 
 pipes they were sent back again to the kiln to 
 be rebaked, and returned fresh and new. This 
 gave him a striking simile, which in 'Alton 
 Locke ' he puts into the mouth of James Cross- 
 waithe, ' Katie here believes in purgatory, 
 
484 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 where souls are burned clean again like 'bacca 
 pipes.' . . . 
 
 " During these afternoon walks he would visit 
 one or another of his very scattered hamlets or 
 Bingle cottages on the heaths. Those who have 
 read * My Winter Garden,' in the miscellanies, 
 know how he loved the moor under all its aspects, 
 and the great groves of firs. Nothing was ever 
 more real than Kingsley's parish visiting. He 
 believed absolutely in the message he bore to 
 the poor, and the health his ministrations con- 
 veyed to their souls ; but he was at the same 
 time a zealous sanitary reformer, and cared for 
 their bodies also. I was with him once when 
 he visited a sick man suffering from fever. The 
 atmosphere of the little ground-floor bedroom 
 was horrible, but before the rector said a word 
 he ran upstairs, and, to the great astonishment 
 of the inhabitants of the cottage, bored, with a 
 large auger he had brought with him, several 
 holes above the bed's head for ventilation. His 
 reading in the sick-room and his words were 
 wholly free from ,cant. The Psalms and pro- 
 phets, with judicious omissions, seemed to gain 
 new meaning as he read them, and his hearers 
 afterwards were always cheerful and hopeful. 
 Sickness, in his eyes, seemed always to sanctify 
 and purify. He would say, with the utmost 
 modesty, that the patient endurance of the poor 
 taught him day by day lessons which he took 
 back again as God's message to the bedside from 
 which he had learnt them. 
 
 "One great element of success in his inter- 
 course with his parishioners was his abounding 
 humour and fun. What caused a hearty laugh 
 was a real refreshment to him, and he had the 
 strongest belief that laughter and humour were 
 elements in the nature of God himself." 
 
 In the year 1850, while times were bad, Charles 
 Kingsley finished the writing of "Alton Locke" 
 with a great efi'ort. He resigned, from conscien- 
 tious scruples, the sinecure ofiice of clerk in 
 orders in his father's parish of St Luke's, Chelsea, 
 which was a loss of £200 a year to him. " His 
 habit when writing," says Mrs Kingsley, "was 
 thoroughly to master his subject, whether book 
 or sermon, always out in the open air, in his 
 garden, on the moor, or by the side of a lonely 
 trout stream, and never to put pen to paper till 
 the ideas were clothed in words ; and these, ex- 
 cept in the case of poetry, he seldom altered. 
 For many years his writing was all done by his 
 wife from his dictation, while he paced up and 
 down the room." "Alton Locke" was pub- 
 lished in August of this year, and brought £150. 
 Mr Carlyle, Avho had introduced him to Messrs 
 Chapman & Hall, the publishers, sent him a 
 characteristic note of commendation regarding 
 it. In the meantime correspondence grew upon 
 him, and as his replies entailed a great amount 
 of conscientious labour, only his iron energy 
 and deep conscientiousness, as his wife remarks, 
 Rould have carried him through. " *One more 
 
 thing done,' he would say, * thank God,' as 
 each letter was written, each chapter of a book 
 or page of a sermon dictated to his wife ; ' and 
 oh ! how blessed it will be when it is all over to 
 lie down in that dear churchyard.' Officers in 
 both army and navy would write to him asking 
 his opinion on duelling ; others would ask him 
 to recommend a rational form of prayer for camp 
 or hut ; the atheist would tell his doubts ; the 
 profligate of his fall ; young men brought up to 
 go into holy orders, but filled with misgivings 
 about the Articles, the creeds, and, more than 
 all, on the question of endless punishment, 
 would pour out all their difficulties to him, and 
 many a noble spirit, now working as a priest 
 and pastor in the Church of England, would 
 never have taken orders but for Charles Kings- 
 ley." 
 
 " Hypatia," an historical romance of the fifth 
 century, was written in 1851 to help his income, 
 which, owing to the agricultural distress, and the 
 fact of his having voluntarily returned 10 per 
 cent, of his tithes, was under £400 that year. The 
 purpose of his new romance was to " set forth 
 Christianity as the only really democratic creed, 
 and philosophy, above all, spiritualism, as the 
 most exclusively aristocratic creed." A letter 
 sent to the Christian Socialist on teetotalism 
 was not inserted. Whilst arguing against the 
 rabid teetotalism which many displayed, he 
 took his stand on the facts of proper sanitary 
 reforms, and making the homes of working-men 
 comfortable, and of the establishment of small 
 associate home-breweries, which would free them 
 from the wretched public-house tyranny. He 
 also stood out in practice against the increasing 
 number of public-houses, and urged magistrates 
 and landlords to use their influence in refusing 
 licenses to fresh public-houses. The sight of 
 the Great Exhibition in London this year moved 
 him to tears on entering it. He preached a 
 sermon four days after the opening to a London 
 congregation, in which he contrasted the wide- 
 spread unbelief of the present day with the 
 simple faith in God held by our forefathers. 
 On 28th May he delivered a highly successful 
 lecture on behalf of the Society for Promoting 
 Working-Men's Associations. A sermon which 
 he preached to a large congregation gave rise to 
 some misunderstandings, which were, however, 
 quieted on the publication of the sermon itself. 
 This same year he enjoyed a holiday in Germany. 
 
 The Times had given a favourable notice of 
 his "Twenty-Five Village Sermons," which 
 were issued in 1849 ; his " Sermons on National 
 Subjects" were brought out in 1853, and spread 
 his fame still more widely. Many complained 
 that his style was too colloquial ; to others this 
 was his highest recommendation. His style of 
 preaching is shown in the following : 
 
 " Yes, my friends, these are real thoughts. 
 They are what come into people's minds every 
 day : and I am here to talk to you about what 
 
CHARLES KINGSLEY, 
 
 485 
 
 is really going on in your soul and mine ; not to 
 repeat to you doctrines at second-hand out of a 
 book, and say, ' There, that is what you have to 
 believe and do, and if you do not, you will go 
 to hell;' but to speak to you as men of like 
 passions witix myself— as sinning, sorrowing, 
 doubting, struggling human beings ; to talk to 
 you of what is in my own heart, and will be in 
 your hearts too some day, if it has not been 
 already." 
 
 Amongst those with whom Kingsley carried 
 on a remarkable correspondence was Thomas 
 Cooper, author of the " Purgatory of Suicides," 
 and he warmly commended his " Plain Pulpit 
 Talk" for its right old morality, common to 
 Puritans, old Anglican churchmen, apostles, and 
 prophets. The winter and spring of 1854 were 
 spent at Torquay, in consequence of his wife's 
 ill health, she having suffered from the damp- 
 ness of the Eversley rectory. The clergymen of 
 Torquay, influenced no doubt by the attacks of 
 the religious press which had been made upon 
 him, closed their pulpit doors in nearly every 
 case against him ; but this fact only gave him 
 a thorough rest and change of occupation. He 
 wandered with his children, collecting from the 
 rocks and pools of the sea-shore, sea-weed, shells, 
 and various marine animals. This experience, 
 and his communication with Mr P. H. Gosse, 
 prepared him for the writing of "Glaucus ; or, 
 the Wonders of the Shore." Dean Stanley, in 
 Kingsley's funeral sermon, spoke truly of his 
 " devouring curiosity," and of how alive and 
 awake he was in every pore to the beauty, the 
 marvels of nature." Professor Max Miiller, 
 who visited him at this period, bears a similar 
 testimony. In February 1854 he left for Scot- 
 land, to deliver four lectures on the " Schools of 
 Alexandria " to the members of the Edinburgh 
 Philosophical Institution. Nervous at first, 
 these lectures went off well, and he thoroughly 
 enjoyed the hospitality of his friends in Scot- 
 land. 
 
 Speaking of the hard work which frequent 
 money difficulties had entailed upon him, he en- 
 deavoured to look upon it as God's way of pre- 
 venting the cup of bliss being over-sweet, and as 
 calling into actual life the possible but sleeping 
 embryo of the very noblest faculties. "If we can- 
 not be happy now," he said, ** with ten times the 
 blessings which nine-tenths of God's creatures 
 have, we shall never be happy though we lived a 
 thousand years. Let us lay this solemnly to heart, 
 and take no thought for the morrow. " His spirit 
 was deeply stirred during the progress of the 
 Crimean War. He wrote a tract by request, 
 "Brave Words for Brave Soldiers," which was 
 circulated amongst the soldiers at the Crimea. 
 He began what is considered by many as his 
 most powerful and successful novel at Bride- 
 ford, in North Devon, in 1854. Writing to 
 Maurice, he said that the work it had entailed 
 had done him much good. ** I have been living 
 
 in those Elizabethan books, among such grand, 
 beautiful, silent men, that I am learning to be 
 sure of what I all along suspected, that I am a 
 poor, queasy, hysterical, half-baked sort of a 
 fellow, who would not have been half as good a 
 boy as Alexander Smith if I had not had ten 
 times his advantages, and so am inclined to sing 
 small." It dealt with the lives of the age of 
 Elizabeth, and was published under the title of 
 "Westward Ho!" Some remarks which he 
 wrote from this place to a lady who was about 
 to join a sisterhood are wise and pointed : "My 
 object has been and is, and I trust in God ever 
 will be, to make people see that they need not, 
 as St Paul says, go up into heaven, or go down 
 to the deep, to find Christ, because He, the 
 Word whom we preach, is very near them, in 
 their hearts and on their lips, if they would but 
 believe it; and ready, not to set them afloat 
 on new untried oceans of schemes and projects, 
 but ready to inspire them to do their duty 
 humbly and simply where He has put them; 
 and believe me, madam, the only way to re- 
 generate the world is to do the duty which lies 
 nearest us, and not to hunt after grand, far- 
 fetched ones for yourselves. If each drop of 
 rain chose where it should fall, God's showers 
 would not fall, as they do now, on the evil and 
 on the good alike. I know — I know from the 
 experience of my own heart — how galling this 
 doctrine is — how, like Naaman, one goes away 
 in a rage because the prophet has not bid us do 
 some great thing, but only to go and wash in 
 the nearest brook and be clean. But, madam, 
 be sure that he who is not faithful in a little 
 will never be fit to be ruler over much. He 
 who cannot rule his own household will never, 
 as St Paul says, rule the Church of God; and 
 he who cannot keep his temper, or be self- 
 sacrificing, cheerful, tender, attentive at home, 
 will n'^ver be of any real and permanent use to 
 God'r ,:tr abroad." 
 
 The beginning of 1855 was saddened for him 
 by the death of his friend, Charles Blackford 
 Mansfield, for whose travels in South America 
 he wrote a brief sketch of the author's life. In 
 the end of May of this year he left Devonshire, 
 and gave a valuable lecture in London on the 
 work of ladies in the country parish. A volume 
 of "Sermons for the Times," and a book of 
 Greek fairy tales for children, issued under the 
 title of " The Heroes," were also the work of this 
 year. The removal from the damp rectory at 
 Eversley to Farley Court in Swallowfield parish 
 was of great benefit to his own health, and also 
 to that of wife and family. The year 1856 was 
 characterised by miscellaneous correspondence 
 and writing, by a visit to Aldershot in July to 
 witness the march past of the remnant of the 
 Crimean army during the Queen's visit ; and in 
 August he made an expedition to Snowdon with 
 Thomas Hughes, which resulted in his com- 
 posing "Two Years Ago." He was visited, 
 
486 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 too, by American visitors, drawn to his home 
 by a knowledge of his writings, which were 
 much appreciated on the other side of the 
 Atlantic ; and amongst those visitors were Mrs 
 Beecher Stowe, and her sister, Mrs Perkins. 
 The following farewell was written to his niece, 
 Mrs Theodore Walrond, then Charlotte Grenfell, 
 and is dated from Ray Lodge, 1856 : 
 
 ** My fairest child, I have no song to give you ; 
 No lark could pipe in skies so dull and grey ; 
 Yet, if you will, one quiet hint I'll leave you. 
 For every day. 
 
 " rU tell you how to sing a clearer carol 
 Than lark who hails the dawn or breezj' down ; 
 To earn yourself a purer poet's laurel 
 
 Than Shakespeare's crown. 
 
 ■' Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever; 
 Do noble things, not dream them, all day along ; 
 And so make life, death, and that vast forever. 
 One grand, sweet song." 
 
 In the family circle Charles Kingsley appeared 
 in a most amiable light. To see him with his 
 wife and family, as one of his sons has remarked, 
 was to know what the man was. "I wonder," 
 he would himself remark, "if there is so much 
 laughing in any other home in England as is in 
 ours." It was the testimony of one who had 
 known him intimately "that whatever he had 
 done or achieved was due to the love that had 
 come to him at a great crisis to guide and to 
 strengthen and glorify his life." The real secret 
 of his home influence lay in the fact that "in 
 his own life he showed, spoke, and lived his 
 doctrines, so that all his utter unselfishness, 
 his quiet tenderness towards their mother and 
 themselves, gave the children an example that 
 could not be passed by unnoticed, however 
 unworthily followed." 
 
 Reverence for those older and, as he thought, 
 wiser than himself, was one of the strongest 
 traits in his character, and this was also re- 
 quired at the hands of his children. In 1857 
 the church at Eversley would often be crowded 
 with strangers, but his whole soul and energy 
 were so entirely thrown into the service that he 
 avoided, if possible, any promiscuous intercourse 
 afterwards. He at one time received an invita- 
 tion to the Manchester Exhibition; but he 
 declined it, as he had a sick man to attend, 
 who would miss his daily visits. As time went 
 on he turned his attention more and more to 
 sanitary science, and his various lectures in 
 London, or in the diocese of Winchester, were 
 frequently on this subject. In the year 1859 he 
 was made one of her Majesty's chaplains. In 
 July he made a remarkable speech before the 
 Ladies' Sanitary Association, London, in which 
 he described in glowing language the import- 
 ance of attending to the laws of health, and of 
 the value of one young infant's life to the com- 
 munity. In 1860 he was appointed to the pro- 
 fessor£,hip of Modem History, Magdalene Hall, 
 
 Cambridge. The summer of 1860 being a very 
 wet one, and rain falling for three months, the 
 farmers were frightened, and the clergy all over 
 the country began to use the prayer against 
 rain. This Kingsley did not see his way to do, 
 and in an explanatory sermon, he showed that 
 the rain might be saving them from some greater 
 evil — cholera, or some other epidemic. 
 
 Early in 1861 he received a message through 
 the tutor to the Prince of Wales from the Prince 
 Consort to form a special class for instruction in 
 Modern History at Cambridge. He kept up his 
 connection with this class until the lamented 
 death of tlie Prince Consort. In the beginning 
 of 1862 he was again at Eversley, after a hard 
 year's professional work at Cambridge. From 
 a letter written in 1862 we learn that "Thomas 
 Carlyle now says that the Church of England is 
 the most rational thing he sees now going, and 
 that it is the duty of every wise man to support 
 it to the uttermost." The " Waterbabies " was 
 written this year, the matter flowing upon him 
 like an inspiration. In 1863 he was made a 
 Fellow of the Geological Society. His health 
 during 1864 was far from reassuring, and an un- 
 equal conflict with Dr Newman, the most subtle 
 and dexterous controversialist of modern times, 
 on the relation of the human conscience to truth 
 or to authority, was added to the weight of his 
 other duties. This year he also visited France. 
 A course of parish penny readings, got up to re- 
 lieve and mitigate the sameness and the colour- 
 less lives of the country labourer, were eminently 
 useful and successful. In the spring of 1867 he 
 undertook the editorship of Fraser's Magazine 
 for a few months to relieve Mr Froude, who re- 
 quired to go to Spain on some historical researches. 
 Kingsley took this opportunity to introduce seve- 
 ral papers on science into its pages. His visits to 
 Scotland were always fully enjoyed. "Those dear 
 Scots folks, I should like to live always among 
 them, they are so full of vigorous life and heart." 
 
 In the year 1869 he closed his professorial 
 work at Cambridge, and began his work as 
 canon of Chester, to which he had received an 
 appointment. He wrote, and lectured much at 
 various industrial and mechanics' institutions. 
 His penny readings were more successful than 
 ever. On 2d December, leaving the work of a 
 laborious year behind him, he sailed with his 
 daughter from Southampton for the West Indies. 
 This was in willing compliance with the invita- 
 tion of Sir Walter Gordon, then governor of 
 Trinidad, and it fulfilled, as his wife says, one 
 of the dreams of his life. An account of this 
 journey, which refreshed his brain and strength- 
 ened his health, is given in his "At Last." We 
 are told that, on the occasion of a great heath 
 fire which sometimes encroached on the firs of 
 Bramshill Park, he would be all activity ; and 
 this happening once during divine service, 
 " Kingsley, on hearing of it, left the curate to 
 finish the service, rushed to the scene of action, 
 
CHARLES KINGS LEY. 
 
 487 
 
 taking a flying leap, in surplice, hood, and stole, 
 over the churchyard palings. The fire was an 
 extensive one ; but he, armed with a bill-hook, 
 and now divested of everything ecclesiastical, 
 was everywhere, organising bands of beaters, 
 and, begirt with smoke and flame, resisting the 
 advance of the fire at every advantageous point." 
 His duties as canon of Chester were thoroughly 
 enjoyed, and faithfully discharged. He was the 
 means of establishing, while in Chester, the 
 beginning of what grew to be the Chester 
 Natural History Societj^ with its numbering of 
 five or six hundred. The exceedingly interest- 
 ing course of lectures which he delivered before 
 them was afterwards published under the title 
 of " Town Geology. " On to the close of his life, 
 as had been from the beginning, the deepest 
 leanings of his nature were in the direction of 
 physical science. As he said in his address at 
 the Social Science Congress, Bristol, " No one 
 is more deeply, yea, awfully convinced than I 
 am of the need of sound religious teaching. But 
 no one is more deeply, yea, awfully convinced 
 than I am that even the best religious teaching, 
 especially in these days, will bear but stinted 
 and shrivelled fruit unless accompanied by 
 physical teaching ; and thus supported (as all 
 human thought should be) in the minds of 
 teachers and of children alike, on a substratum 
 of truth, reason, and common sense." 
 
 Deeply afi"ected by the illness of the Prince 
 of Wales, on his recovery he took occasion to 
 preach a sermon on ** Loyalty" at the Chapel 
 Royal, St James's, in which he urged the need 
 of sanitary reform. " Let us repent of," he 
 said, "and amend that scandalous neglect of 
 the well-known laws of health and cleanliness 
 which destroys thousands of lives yearly in the 
 kingdom without need or reason, in defiance 
 alike of science, of humanity, and of our Chris- 
 tian profession." 
 
 To the great regret of all who knew him he 
 left Chester to fill an appointment to a vacant 
 stall in Westminster Abbey which had been 
 offered to him. His eldest son returning at the 
 time from America, and being much struck with 
 his broken appearance, urged him to take rest 
 and change before undertaking his new duties. 
 He began his work at Westminster in Septem- 
 ber 1873, and his last sermon that year was 
 preached in November, its subject being *• The 
 Beatific Vision." In December he returned to 
 Eversley with his family, and left at the end of 
 January 1874, with his daughter, for New York, 
 taking some of his lectures with him, as his 
 biographer remarks, "to meet his expenses." 
 He enjoyed this visit, with its excitement of 
 travel, but caught a severe cold while at San 
 Francisco, which caused him to hasten his return 
 home. Mr J. G. Whittier, the poet, who met 
 him at Boston, says that he felt he was " in con- 
 tact with a profoundly earnest and reverent 
 spii'it. His heart seemed overcharged with in- 
 
 terest in the welfare, physical, moral, and 
 spiritual, of his race. I was conscious in his 
 presence of the bracing atmosphere of a noble 
 nature. He seemed to me one of the manliest 
 of men. . . . Since I have seen him, the 
 man seems greater than the author." On his 
 return to Eversley he plunged again into his 
 parish work. 
 
 When he went up to his work at Westminster 
 he had a severe attack of congestion of the liver, 
 which prevented his preaching on the first Sun- 
 day after his arrival, and was only able after- 
 wards to preach once a day during his residence. 
 The illness of his wife in October also distressed 
 him much. He preached his last sermon in the 
 Abbey on 29th November with intense fervour. 
 He left London on the 3d December for Eversley 
 in good spirits, with his invalid wife. When 
 they reached Eversley she appeared to be dying, 
 when he endeavoured to console himself and 
 those around him with comfortable words from 
 the book of God and by self-repression. Care- 
 less of himself, a neglected cold developed into 
 bronchitis, from bronchitis into pneumonia, 
 until he lay himself on his death-bed. He was 
 kept under the influence of opiates during this 
 last illness, when his dreams were always of his 
 travels in the West Indies, the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, and California. These scenes he would 
 recount to the nurse who watched beside him. 
 In spite of all medical prohibitions, he rose 
 before the end came, and making his way to 
 his wife's side, and taking her hand, he said, 
 •' This is heaven ; don't speak." The cough re- 
 turned upon him, he could say no more, and 
 they never met again. He sent her pencilled notes 
 from his bed until illness overcame him, and he 
 could write no more. Thinking her gone before 
 him, he asked no questions regarding his wife 
 during the last two days, only saying, " I, too, 
 am come to an end ; but it is all right, all as it 
 should he." His last words evinced a child-like 
 faith in his Heavenly Father. On one of his 
 last nights he was heard to say, ** How beauti- 
 ful God is." He passed away on the 23d of 
 January 1875, under the impression that his 
 wife had gone before him. The hearty, earnest 
 work of thirty -two years in Eversley was over, 
 and when the coffin was laid in the churchyard 
 it was carried to the grave by villagers " who 
 had known, loved, and trusted him for years." 
 Every profession, rank, and school of thought 
 was represented there. On the white marble 
 cross which marks his resting-place are inscribed 
 these words in Latin commemorating his life- 
 long attachment to his wife : *' Amavimus, Ama- 
 MUS, Amabimus," and the words above them, 
 "God is love." 
 
 " If in the highest, closest of earthly relation- 
 ships," writes his wife, " a love that never failed 
 — pure, patient, passionate, for six-and-thirty 
 years — a love which never stooped from its own 
 I lofty level to a hasty word, an impatient ges- 
 
488 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ture, or a selfish act, in sickness or in health, 
 in sunshine or in storm, by day or by night, could 
 prove that the age of chivalry has not passed 
 away for ever, then Charles Kingsley fulfilled 
 the ideal of a ' most true and perfect knight ' to 
 the one woman blessed with that love in time 
 and to eternity. To eternity, for such love is 
 eternal ; and he is not dead. He himself, the 
 man, lover, husband, father, friend, he still 
 lives in God, who is not the God of the dead 
 but of the living." 
 
 As an author, Charles Kingsley published in 
 all thirty-five books. By nature a poet, many 
 of his lyrics may be expected to live as long as 
 the language. A Kingsley Memorial Fund, Set 
 on foot in February 1875, ended in the enlarge- 
 ment and adornment of Eversley church ; and 
 his bust has been placed beside that of his 
 friend Maurice in the baptistry of Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
 With all their sound sense, eloquence, imagi- 
 native vigour, and point, some theologians have 
 alleged that in his sermons he has kept the 
 atonement of Christ in the background. His 
 weakness, in the words of one of his critics, 
 is: "The regarding of the death of Christ 
 as mainly or entirely intended to produce a 
 moral effect on the hearts and minds of those 
 who believe, and to serve as an example of per- 
 fect self-devotion and obedience to God, thus 
 producing in the human heart an impression so 
 powerful as to draw it to love Him, who has 
 given us so great an Example, Teacher, and 
 Guide ; in short, to set man at one with God, 
 and thus reconcile him to his Creator." These 
 so-called imperfect doctrinal statements have 
 been ascribed to the want of proper and sys- 
 tematic theological training for the ministry 
 amongst clergymen of the Church of England. 
 
 MAX MULLEB ON CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 Never shall I forget the moment when, for the 
 last time, I gazed upon the manly features of 
 Charles Kingsley, features which death had 
 rendered calm, grand, sublime. The con- 
 stant struggle that in life seemed to allow no 
 rest to his expression, the spirit, like a caged 
 lion, shaking the bars of his prison, the mind 
 striving for utterance, the soul wearying for 
 loving response — all that was over. There re- 
 mained only the satisfied expression of triumph 
 and peace, as of a soldier who had fought a good 
 fight, and who, while sinking into the stillness 
 of the slumber of death, listens to the distant 
 sounds of music and to the shouts of victory. 
 One saw the ideal man, as nature had meant 
 him to be, and one felt that there is no greater 
 sculptor than death. As one looked on that 
 marble statue, which only some weeks ago had 
 so warmly pressed one's hand, his whole life 
 flashed through one's thoughts. One remem- 
 
 bered the young curate and the "Saint's Tra- 
 gedy ; " the Chartist parson and " Alton Locke ;" 
 the happy poet and the " Sands of Dee ; " the 
 brilliant novel -writer and "Hypatia" and 
 "Westward Ho!" the rector of Eversley and 
 his village sermons ; the beloved professor at 
 Cambridge, the busy canon at Chester, the 
 powerful preacher in Westminster Abbey. One 
 thought of him by the Berkshire chalk-streams 
 and on the Devonshire coast; watching the 
 beauty and wisdom of nature, reading her 
 solemn lessons, chuckling too over her inimi- 
 table fun. One saw him in town alleys, preach- 
 ing the Gospel of godliness and cleanliness, 
 while smoking his pipe with soldiers and 
 navvies. One heard him in drawing-rooms, 
 listened to him with patient silence, till one of 
 his vigorous or quaint speeches bounded forth, 
 never to be forgotten. How children delighted 
 in him ! How young, wild men believed in 
 him, and obeyed him too ! How women were 
 captivated by his chivalry, older men by his 
 genuine humility and sympathy ! All that was 
 now passing away — was gone. But as one looked 
 on him for the last time on earth, one felt that 
 greater than the curate, the poet, the professor, 
 the canon, had been the man himself, with his 
 warm heart, his honest purposes, his trust in 
 his friends, his readiness to spend himself, his 
 chivalry and humanity, worthy of a better age. 
 Of all this the world knew little — yet few men 
 excited wider and stronger sympathies. Who 
 can forget that funeral on the 28th January 
 1875, and the large sad throng that gathered 
 round his grave ? There was the representative 
 of the Prince of Wales, and close by the gipsies 
 of the Eversley common, who used to call him 
 their Patrico-rai, their priest-king. There was 
 the old squire of his village, and the labourers, 
 young and old, to whom he had been a friend 
 and a father. There were governors of distant 
 colonies, officers and sailors, the bishop of his 
 diocese, and the dean of his abbey ; there were 
 the leading Nonconformists of the neighbour- 
 hood, and his own devoted curates, peers, and 
 members of the House of Commons, authors 
 and publishers ; and outside the churchyard, 
 the horses and hounds and the huntsmen in 
 pink, for though as good a clergyman as any, 
 Charles Kingsley had been a good sportsman 
 too, and had taken in his life many a fence as 
 bravely as he took the last fence of all, without 
 fear or trembling. All that he had loved, and 
 all that had loved him was there, and few eyes 
 were dry when he was laid in his own yellow 
 gravel bed, the old trees which he had planted 
 and cared for waving their branches to him for 
 the last time, and the grey sunny sky looking 
 down with calm pity on the deserted rectory, 
 and on the short joys and the shorter suflferings 
 of mortal men. 
 
JOHN EUSKIN, LL.D. 
 [1819 .] 
 
 A GIFTED art critic, one of the greatest interpre- 
 ters of outward nature of the age, and a writer 
 of eloquent prose, he has added from time to 
 time a fresh chapter to his autobiography in 
 many of his published works. As far as now 
 available, we may attempt to tell the chief inci- 
 dents in his career in the briefest form. The 
 aon of a London wine merchant, born in 1819, 
 in his youth he possessed every advantage of 
 culture and fortune. " I was born in London," 
 he says, "and accustomed for two or three 
 years to no other prospect than that of the 
 brick walls over the way ; had no brothers, nor 
 sisters, nor companions ; and though I could 
 always make myself happy in a quiet way, the 
 beauty of the mountains had an additional 
 charm of change and adventure which a country- 
 bred child could not have felt." His father, 
 early recognising his art-gift, fostered it by 
 every means in his power. Affirming in one of 
 his works the consciousness of special endow- 
 ment, he has said, *'This art-gift of mine could 
 not have been won by any work or any conduct ; 
 it belongs to me by birthright, and came by 
 Athena's will when I was hardly nine years old, 
 from the air of English country villages and 
 Scottish hills, " In the third volume of " Modern 
 Painters," in the chapter on the moral influence 
 of landscape, he says : "The first thing which I 
 remember, as an event in life, was being taken 
 by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Craig, on 
 Derwentwater ; the intense joy, mingled with 
 awe, that I had in looking through the hollows 
 in the mossy roots, over the craig, into the dark 
 lake, has associated itself more or less with all- 
 twining roots of trees ever since." His intense 
 pleasure in mountains is " comparable only to 
 the joy of a lover in being near a noble and 
 kind mistress, but no more explicable or defin- 
 able than the feeling of love itself." Following 
 these autobiographical remarks, he tells us that, 
 "almost as soon as I could see or hear, I had 
 got reading enough to give me associations with 
 all kinds of scenery." 
 
 From early boyhood he wrote in verse, and a 
 collection of his verses was printed for private 
 circulation amongst his friends and relatives. 
 These verses show fine feeling, and a delicate 
 appreciation for the beauty of outward nature. 
 At the age of fifteen he was a contributor in 
 verse to an annual called Friendshija' s Offer- 
 ing. Mr Thomas Pringle, the editor, was the 
 means of introducing young Ruskin to the 
 veteran poet Rogers, but unfortunately for any 
 good impression which he might be led to enter- 
 tain for the future author of " Modern Painters," 
 
 it was found, on being cross-questioned, that he 
 knew more about the vignettes than the verses 
 in the poem "Italy." Under the signature of 
 Kata Phusin he contributed a series of essays to 
 the Architectural Magazine. The late Mr 
 William Henry Harrison he has called his 
 literary master, and literary godfather, under 
 whose careful eye Mr Ruskin's works generally 
 passed twice over. "He was," he says, "in- 
 exorable in such matters, and many a sentence 
 in ' Modern Painters,' which I had thought quite 
 beautifully turned out after a forenoon's work 
 on it, had to be turned outside in after all, and 
 cut into the smallest pieces and sewn up again, 
 because he had found out there wasn't a nomina- 
 tive in it, or a genitive, or a conjunction, or 
 something else indispensable to a sentence's 
 decent existence and position in life." 
 
 At Oxford he carried off the Newdigate prize 
 for an English poem. He gained the degree of 
 Master of Arts in 1842. Since that time he has 
 received the distinction of an honorary Oxford 
 studentship, and the degree of LL.D., which 
 was conferred upon him by the University of 
 Cambridge in 1871. The first volume of the 
 work which established his fame as an inde- 
 pendent thinker, and a masterly and eloquent 
 writer on art, was issued in 1843. It was en- 
 titled " Modern Painters : their Superiority in 
 the Art of Landscape Painting to all the Ancient 
 Masters proved, etc., by a Graduate of Oxford." 
 This work, a defence of Turner's style of paint- 
 ing, was produced in five volumes, the last ap- 
 pearing in I860.* 
 
 Lecturing in Edinburgh in 1853, he spoke thus 
 of Turner : "I tell you the truth which I have 
 given fifteen years of my life to ascertain, that 
 this man, this Turner, of whom you have known 
 so little while he was living among you, will 
 one day take his place beside Shakespeare and 
 Verulam, in the annals of the light of England. 
 Yes ; beside Shakespeare and Verulam, a third 
 star in that central constellation, round which, 
 in the astronomy of intellect, all other stars 
 make their circuit. By Shakespeare, humanity 
 was unseated to you ; by Verulam, the princi- 
 ples of nature ; and by Turner, her aspect. All 
 
 * An instance of the influence of Ruskin's opinions 
 on public artistic taste is seen in some recent sales of 
 Turner's drawings in London. Between fiftj' and 
 sixty water-colour drawings by Turner, about the 
 size of the palm of the hand, brought £21,000. At a 
 later sale a small collection of his pictures brought 
 the large sum of 41,560 guineas. In 1843 a water- 
 colour drawing, which brought only 72 guineas, Bold 
 for £1018 in 1878. 
 
490 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 these were sent to unlock one of the gates of 
 light, and to unloc.k it for the first time. But 
 of all the three, though not the greatest, Turner 
 was the most unprecedented in his work. Bacon 
 did what Aristotle had attempted ; Shakespeare 
 did perfectly what iEschylus did partially ; but 
 none before Turner had lifted the veil from the 
 face of nature ; the majesty of the hills and 
 forests had received no interpretation, and the 
 clouds passed imrecorded from the face of the 
 heavens which they adorned, and of the earth to 
 which they ministered." 
 
 In 1878 he again writes of Turner : *' He was 
 born on St George's Day in 1775. He produced 
 no work of importance till he was past twenty ; 
 working constantly, from the day he could hold 
 a pencil, in steady studentship, with gradually- 
 increasing intelligence, and, fortunately for him, 
 rightly-guided skill. His true master was Dr 
 Munro. To the practical teaching of that first 
 patron, and the wise simplicity of water-colour 
 study, in which he was disciplined by him, and 
 compauied by Girtin, the healthy and constant 
 development of the youth's power is primarily 
 to be attributed. The greatness of the power 
 itself it is impossible to over-estimate. As in 
 my own advancing life I learn more of the laws 
 of noble art, I recognise faults in Turner to 
 which once I was blind ; but only as I recognise 
 also powers which my boy's enthusiasm did but 
 disgrace by its advocacy." 
 
 The "Seven Lamps of Architecture," which 
 sprung out of memoranda collected for one of the 
 sections of the third volume of "Modern Paint- 
 ers," was published in 1849. "I think," wrote 
 Mary EusseU Mitford in 1851, " that the most 
 distinguished of our young writers are, the one a 
 dear friend of mine, John Ruskin," the other was 
 Charles Kingsley. " The Stones of Venice," in 
 three volumes, was issued between the years 1851- 
 53. The greater part of the sixth chapter of the 
 second volume of this book, " On the Nature of 
 Gothic Architecture, and the True Functions of 
 the Workman in Arts," was republished in a 
 cheap form in 1854. The profits arising from 
 its sale were handed over to the Working-Men's 
 College, now at 45 Great Ormond Street. Two 
 works on drawing, "The Elements of Drawing," 
 and " The Elements of Perspective," were the 
 written results of Mr Ruskin's labours while 
 superintending the instruction of its members. 
 The fourth volume of " Modern Painters " was 
 issued in 1855. In July 1857 he lectured at 
 Manchester on art, and in the course of addresses 
 he examined some of the modern theories of 
 political economy. He also visited Scotland, 
 examining the abbeys of Dunblane and Jed- 
 burgh. On his return to London he commenced 
 what was to him a labour of love, the arrange- 
 ment of the Turner drawings belonging to the 
 nation. The autumn and winter of 1857 were 
 devoted to this work. Much exhausted, he 
 sought a change of scene in a visit to Switzer- 
 
 land. The following winter and spring he 
 studied Titian's works. 
 
 Mr Ruskin warmly recommended Holman 
 Hunt's great picture, "The Light of the World," 
 in a letter to the Times. He issued criticisms 
 on the paintings exhibited by the Royal Aca- 
 demy between 1855-59. He also issued a pam- 
 phlet on "Pre-Raphaelism." He lectured be- 
 fore the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution in 
 1853 on "Architecture and Painting." These 
 lectures afterwards formed a separate volume. 
 Three lectures, under the title of "The Crown 
 of Wild Olive," were issued in 1866. 
 
 Some of these lectures and essays, published 
 in a collected form, bear such titles as "The 
 Ethics of the Dust," "Sesame and Lilies," 
 "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds," an 
 ecclesiastical pamphlet, and "Unto this Last," 
 a reprint of four articles which appeared in the 
 Comhill Magazine. Mr Ruskin's other chief 
 works are: "Study of Architecture in oui 
 Schools," "The Queen of the Air," being a 
 study of the Greek myths of cloud and storm ; 
 "Lectures on Art," "MuneraPulveris," "Essays 
 on Political Economy," "AratraPentilici," "Lec- 
 tures on the Elements of Sculpture," "The 
 Eagle's Nest," "Time and Tide," lectures on 
 laws of work ; " Ten Lectures on the Relation of 
 Natural Science to Art," "Giotto and his Works," 
 " Harbours of England," etc. Mr Ruskin has 
 said recently that "all my first books, to the 
 end of the 'Stones of Venice,' were written in 
 the simple belief I had been taught as a child ; 
 and especially the second volume of 'Modem 
 Painters ' was an oratory of enthusiastic praise 
 of religious painting, in which you will find me 
 placing Fra Angelico above all other painters." 
 In his Fors Clavigera, he has absolutely for- 
 bidden the members of St George to read Miss 
 Martineau's works. Mr Ruskin has been cen- 
 sured for leaving the safe path of art criticism 
 for that political economy. His works are now 
 somewhat difficult of purchase, owing to their 
 being withdrawn from the ordinary channels of 
 publication; but in their purple calf bindings 
 and gilt edges, the most of them may be had 
 from Mr Allen, Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent. 
 Some years ago he started a periodical pamphlet 
 called Fors Clavigera (Fortune's Keeper of the 
 Keys), only to be had on direct application to 
 an agent, which expounds his particular views 
 on art, literature, and the social life around him 
 in England. 
 
 "My book," says Mr Ruskin, in answer to 
 one who grumbled at its price, "is meant for 
 no one who cannot reach it. If a man with all 
 the ingenuity of Lancashire in his brains, and 
 breed of Lancashire in his body; with all the 
 steam and coal power of Lancashire to back his 
 ingenuity and muscle ; all the press of literary 
 England vomiting the most valuable informa- 
 tion at his feet; with all the tenderness of 
 charitable England aiding him in his efforts, 
 
JOHN RUSKIN. 
 
 491 
 
 and ministering to his needs; with all the 
 liberality of republican Europe rejoicing in his 
 dignities as a man and a brother ; and with all 
 the science of enlightened Europe directing his 
 opinions on the subject of the materials of the 
 sun, and the origin of his species ; if, I say, a 
 man so circumstanced, assisted, and informed, 
 living besides in the richest country of the globe, 
 and, from his youth upwards, having been in 
 the habit of ' seeing that he had value for his 
 money,' cannot, as the upshot and net result 
 of all, now afford to pay me tenpence a month 
 — or an annual half-sovereign — for my literary 
 labour, in Heaven's name, let him buy the best 
 reading he can for twopence-halfpenny. For 
 that sum, I clearly perceive he can at once pro- 
 vide himself with two penny illustrated news- 
 papers and one halfpenny one — full of art, senti- 
 ment, and the Tichborne trial. He can buy a 
 quarter of the dramatic works of Shakespeare, 
 or a whole novel of Sir Walter Scott's. Good 
 value for his money, he thinks ! — reads one of 
 them through, and in all probability loses some 
 five years of the eyesight of his old age ; which 
 he does not, with all his Lancashire ingenuity, 
 reckon as part of the price of his cheap book. 
 But how has he read? There is an act of "Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream" printed in a page. 
 Steadily and dutifully, as a student should, he 
 reads his page. The lines slip past rvis eyes 
 and mind, like sand in an hour-glass ; he has 
 some dim idea at the end of the act that he has 
 been reading about fairies, and flowers, and 
 asses. Does he know what a fairy is ? Cer- 
 tainly not. Does he know what a flower is? 
 He has perhaps never seen one wild, or happy, 
 in his life. Does he even know — quite distinctly, 
 inside and out — what an ass is ? " 
 
 The Slade professorship on art, arising from a 
 bequest by the late Felix Slade, and worth be- 
 tween £300 and £400 per annum, was again 
 conferred on Mr Euskin in 1876. He has held 
 this important professorship since its foundation 
 in 1869. 
 
 Mr Euskin, while staying in Edinburgh in 
 1853, attended St John's Free Church, and 
 heard Dr Guthrie preach. This divine was 
 gratified one day at receiving the three volumes 
 of his "Stones of Venice" from their distin- 
 guished author. The accompanying note was 
 as follows : 
 
 ''Saturday, 26th, 1853. 
 
 "I found a little diflficulty in writing the 
 words on the first page, wondering whether you 
 would think the 'affectionate' misused or in- 
 fiincere. But I made up my mind at last to 
 write what I felt — believing that you must be 
 accustomed to people's getting very seriously 
 and truly attached to you, almost at first sight, 
 and therefore would believe me. 
 
 " You asked me, the other evening, some kind 
 questions about my father. He was an Edin- 
 burgh boy, and in answer to some account by 
 
 me of the pleasure I had had in hearing you, 
 and in the privilege of knowing you, as also ol 
 your exertions in the cause of the Edinburgh 
 poor, he desires to send you the enclosed — to 
 be applied by you in such manner as you may 
 think fittest for the good of his native city. I 
 have added slightly to my father's trust. I wish 
 I could have done so more largely, but my pro- 
 fession of fault-finding with the world in general 
 is not a lucrative one. — Always respectfully and 
 affectionately yours, J. Euskin." . 
 
 In April 1876 Mr Euskin finished the restora- 
 tion of a spring of water between Croydon and 
 Epsom, by erecting a tablet over it. About 
 £500 was spent upon it altogether, converting 
 what was a dirty pond into a clear pool of 
 running water, fed from the springs below the 
 chalk. The inscription is as follows : 
 
 "In obedience to the Giver of Life, of the 
 brooks and fruits that feed it, of the peace that 
 ends it, may this well be kept sacred for the 
 service of men, flocks, and flowers, and by kind- 
 ness called Margaret's Well. This pool was 
 beautified and endowed by John Euskin, Esq., 
 M.A., LL.D." 
 
 The pool is situated by the highway, and is 
 surrounded by trees and flowers. The dedica- 
 tion is a beautiful tribute to his mother, whose 
 Christian name was Margaret. 
 
 Mr Euskin is responsible for the founding of 
 the company or guild of St George. An estate 
 called Abbeydale is being cultivated by com- 
 panions on those principles, by which its mem- 
 bers may truly become healthy, wealthy, and 
 wise. One of his theories is the abolition of 
 interest and rent, which he calls the great devil's 
 law of theft by the rich from the poor, in the 
 two terrific forms, either of buying men's tools 
 and making them pay for the loan of them (in- 
 terest), or buying men's lands, and making them 
 pay for the produce of them (rent). His tenant 
 farmers at Abbeydale are to regard themselves 
 " in the spirit of a body of monks gathered for 
 missionary purposes." Their ranks, he teUs 
 them, will not be thinned by disease or famine, 
 and the simple question for each of them every 
 day will be, not how they or their families shall 
 live, but how much good service they can do to 
 their country. In March 1878 Mr Euskin was 
 prostrated by a severe illness consequent upon 
 his labours preparatory to an exhibition of his 
 Turner drawings in New Bond Street. The 
 introduction to his illustrative notes on these 
 drawings contains the following interesting pas- 
 sage: "Morning breaks as I write along those 
 Coniston Fells, and the level mists, motionless 
 and grey beneath the rose of the moorlands, veil 
 the lower woods, and the sleeping village, and 
 the long lawns by the lake shore. Oh, that 
 some one had but told me, in my youth, when 
 all my heart seemed to be set on these colours 
 and clouds that appear for a little while and 
 
492 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 then vanish away, how little my love of them 
 would serve me, when the silence of lawn and 
 wood in the dews of morning should be com- 
 pleted, and all my thoughts should be of those 
 whom, by neither, I was to meet more." 
 
 THE DISPOSAL OF MR RUSKIN'S FORTUNE. 
 
 I have known for some time that Mr Ruskin's 
 theories of political economy had so impressed 
 their author with a sense of their beauty and 
 necessity that he had applied them to his own 
 affairs, and that one of his latest convictions 
 was that a man ought to die poor. Nothing 
 can be more opposed to our usual English theory, 
 much believed in also by Americans, that the 
 beauty of dying, and its blessed consolation, is 
 the sweet assurance that we shall *' cut up 
 handsomely." " I shall die rich," said a Lanca- 
 shire manufacturer to me, with the conviction 
 that it was a beautiful end to look forward to. 
 For Mr Ruskin there will be no such bliss. 
 Whatever may be said against his views, nobody 
 can deny that they are more easily carried into 
 practice than those of my manufacturing friend. 
 To die poor is given to many ; to die rich is the 
 lot of a few. Even the rich man may die poor 
 if he will only spend freely and be liberal beyond 
 his income. This is what Mr Ruskin has done 
 and been. His father and mother left him 
 £157,000 in hard cash, and a lot of property also 
 in houses and lands, besides a valuable collection 
 of pictures. Following the advice of wise busi- 
 ness men, he invested one-third of the cash in 
 mortgages, whereby he lost £20,000. This 
 seems to be the only loss of importance of a 
 quite involuntary kind. A sum of £17,000 has 
 been freely given to poor relations ; another of 
 £17,000 has been lent to a cousin, to whom the 
 debt is also freely forgiven. Mr Ruskin's gifts 
 to Sheffield and Oxford have cost him £14,000. 
 The rest of the cash has gradually disappeared 
 by the familiar process of fixing expenditure 
 above income, the annual expenditure being 
 £5500, and kept steadily to that figure when 
 the capital had been so reduced as no longer to 
 yield that interest. The most curious thing is, 
 that this year, 1877, is the last of Mr Ruskin's 
 existence as a rich man, so he allows himself a 
 trifle of £3000 to be spent in amusement at 
 Venice or elsewhere. He does not intend to 
 commit suicide next December, but merely to 
 invest money enough in the funds to bring him 
 in a pound sterling per day, or a fraction less. 
 He keeps his house, but gives most of his 
 other properties away. This line of action 
 has from the first been dictated by Mr Ruskin's 
 natural temper, which is not one of careless- 
 ness about money matters in the usual sense, 
 but extravagance and generosity on principles of 
 his own. Perhaps he may rather object to my 
 word extravagance, since his expenditure has 
 always been carefully restricted. Well, so it 
 has, but to a sum considerably beyond what ho 
 
 could really afford, and the best proof of an 
 extravagant disposition is this allowance of 
 £3000 for mere amusement this year in Italy, 
 I need hardly observe that a single man might 
 amuse himself during a whole year in Italy for 
 a fifth of that sum, seeing everything, and living 
 at the best hotels. I do not question Mr 
 Ruskin's right to do what he likes with his 
 £3000, especially after his gifts of much larger 
 sums to others ; but for a man who is to live on 
 £1 a day during the rest of his existence, such 
 a costly excursion is an odd apprenticeship to 
 poverty. Again, Mr Ruskin tells us that ho 
 spent £15,000 on his country house, which was 
 certainly extravagant in proportion to his means. 
 I think I have proved the extravagance; the 
 generosity needs no proving. Mr Ruskin, after 
 a fashion of his own, is one of the most generous 
 of men, and will still continue to be so, as he 
 reserves his literary earnings for his charities. 
 It seems very doubtful whether, before this 
 voluntary acceptance of comparative poverty, 
 Mr Ruskin has fully realised its consequences. 
 It may not matter so much now, but money was 
 a wonderful help to him during his most produc- 
 tive years. It is a great thing to have capable 
 assistance, to be able to withhold a volume until 
 it is ripe, to be able to reject and destroy en- 
 gravings which are not quite up to the mark. 
 It is a great thing to have full leisure for the 
 collection of materials, ample time and means 
 for comfortable travelling, so that all the galleries 
 of Europe are within a day or two of your writ- 
 ing-desk whenever you choose to visit them. 
 Besides this, in a country like England a wealthy 
 writer has a prestige which a poor one has not. 
 The advantages which he has are very great, 
 but people imagine them to be still greater, and 
 have confidence in his superior opportunities for 
 information. They are glad to think that he 
 does not write for money, and so believe in his 
 honesty. The general report exaggerates a rich 
 man's means, and so gets him greater respect. 
 Mr Ruskin's fortune, before his own revelations, 
 was estimated in London at half-a-million ster- 
 ling, and his opinions came with the weight of 
 all that gold behind them. His voluntary pov- 
 erty will diminish his authority as a writer, not 
 at all among really superior people, but with 
 the vulgar, who are the majority. It is an odd 
 coincidence that Mr Ruskin's periodical publi- 
 cation should be called Fortune, Keeper of the 
 Keys {Fors Clavigera), when we reflect with 
 how little tenacity fortune has kept the keys of 
 his own treasury. Mr Ruskin sells his own 
 books now through an agent who lives in a 
 country place, and only for ready money. Ten 
 per cent, is the allowance to the trade. Includ- 
 ing this percentage, the price of the illustrated 
 volumes is 30s. each, and that of the volumes 
 without plates £1. All this is done in obedi- 
 ence to the author's theories of political economy. 
 The books are well bound in blue calf, yet dear 
 
JOHN RUSKIN, 
 
 493 
 
 nevertheless. Even the dearness is a matter of 
 principle, as Mr Kuskin objects to cheap books, 
 forgetting that the difficulty of purchasing is 
 variable when the price is not, being dependent 
 always upon the means of the buyer. "I do 
 not care," he says, "that anybody should read 
 my books who grudges me a doctor's fee per 
 volume." Surely this is a wrong view of the 
 subject. One man may be a great admirer of 
 Mr Ruskin and begrudge him nothing, yet 
 simply not have the means to buy expensive 
 books, while another may care very little about 
 him, yet toss him a sovereign for the gratifica- 
 tion of an evening's transient curiosity. For 
 my part, I always wish that the money question 
 could be ignored entirely, and books given for 
 nothing to all who cared to have them.— P. G. 
 Hamerton. 
 
 THE ART WORK OF MR RUSKIIf. 
 
 Considering Mr Ruskin's work simply as I 
 should that of any other student, I recognise in 
 it, first, on the favourable side, that knowledge 
 of the nature of objects which is the foundation 
 of art. Mr Ruskin has not drawn anything 
 without having ascertained i'.-.r himself the laws 
 of its existence ; if he draws an arch or a capital, 
 it is either doing duty now or has been capable 
 of service in time past, and as much as possible 
 of its history is conveyed to us by the rounding 
 wear of rain, by frost-splitting, by slow crumb- 
 ling in sun and wind, by stains of creeping vege- 
 tation, or nestlings of bolder plants. This is 
 dne to a certain tenderness or pensiveness in his 
 mind which, although not a mark of intellectual 
 strength, is a delightful quality in an artist. 
 The strongest intellects have no especial rever- 
 ence for antiquity, and past history overawes 
 them no more than the history we read in the 
 newspapers ; they read it Avith interest mainly 
 on account of the light it throws on human 
 nature, but do not reverence the antiquity of the 
 record. Now, the loving and patient care with 
 which Mr Ruskin follows the effects of time 
 upon a building is due to a feeling which the 
 strongest minds cast from them as a tender 
 superstition. He does reverence the antiquity 
 of the record, and every trace of the slow cen- 
 turies is valued by him with a feeling infinitely 
 more delicate and poetical than any antiquari- 
 anism. The past is not to him profane and in- 
 consistent like the present, nor can he approach 
 it in the same temper, for the present is a time 
 for biting sarcasm and bitter condemnation ; but 
 the Middle Ages were the ages of faith and 
 light, when duty was the predominant thought 
 and Christ the hope of the world. Every remnant 
 of the noble architecture of that time is there- 
 fore to Ruskin the most precious of human com- 
 mu nications ; he reads it as a sacred writing, whose 
 lost syllable can never be restored. We should 
 know all this from his drawings and etchings if he 
 
 had never written a page about architecture. . . . 
 The best etchings Ruskin has done are the illus- 
 trations to the "Seven Lamps." . . . It is 
 said that artists are sometimes so affected by 
 what they do that they see the things they love 
 through tears ; the poet weeps as he writes alone 
 in his quiet room, and tears fall on the keys of 
 the piano when the great composer dreams out a 
 mournful requiem. So there are bits of old 
 buildings in Ruskin's memoranda which seem to 
 have been drawn in a spirit as sad and regretful 
 as theirs ; and if not drawn with dimmed eyes, 
 the tears seem to have been restrained only 
 lest they should hinder the clearness of vision. 
 What this artist was drawing to-day, the de- 
 stroyers cast down on the morrow; and he 
 worked with a sorrowful heart, the sound of 
 their hammers in his ears. — From '■^Etching and, 
 Etchers" hy rhilip Gilbert Hamerton. 
 
 RUSKIN AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTE. 
 
 Look at him at the Royal Institute. Leave 
 the country by an early train, dine in London, 
 and then, favoured by a Fellow, present your 
 ticket to Ruskin's lecture. A long, thin, sham- 
 bling gentleman, like a country clergyman, with 
 hair red, and after the "pound of candles " style 
 in its method of tumbling over his face — a Scotch 
 face, full of shrewdness ; very ugly, if we be- 
 lieve some photographs ; very winning, bright, 
 and clever — nay, sweet and charming — if we trust 
 to George Richmond's portrait and to reality. The 
 mouth is small, the nose somewhat retrousse^ 
 the forehead small, but so is the whole face ; 
 yet the head is capable, and the fiery soul seems 
 to work upwards and flash out of the windows 
 of those eyes, as the eloquent words, hurried 
 onward in a torrent, flash too, and light up whole 
 tracts of darkness. A word, a hint, a slight 
 reference to some gargoyle or spandrill, some 
 carved work in stone, and you see it all. A dry 
 subject becomes luminous; thecold, deadstonesof 
 Venice begin to move and raise themselves to life. 
 After hearing Ruskin, you understand how it 
 was that Apollo made the stones dance and form 
 in order to build Troy walls, which you never 
 did before. But Ruskin had tried higher game 
 than art." — J. H. Friswell. 
 
 AN EXAMPLE OF BROAD CULTURE. 
 
 The present age has produced one man whom 
 I accept as one of the most beautiful instances 
 of broad culture in high life with which I am 
 acquainted, through observation or history. I 
 have no fitting words with which to express my 
 admiration of this man. With a power, grace, 
 and brilliancy of poetic expression which place 
 him in the front rank of those who write the 
 English language, an industry that is tireless in 
 its search after and study of truth, a love for 
 and a knowledge of art far surpassing all who 
 
live and all who have lived before him, a moral 
 courage that tramples upon conventionalities as 
 if they were chaff, and that gallantly attacks 
 the most venerable errors, regardless of the spite 
 of their petty upholders— with all these he 
 unites the most reverent adoration of the great 
 Jehovah, the sweetest trust in Jesus Christ, and 
 the sublimest faith in the revelations of the Old 
 and New Testaments. To this man, the intellect 
 of the world bows as to a master. The lovers of 
 art accept his dictum as that of an anointed 
 king. The man of culture is content if he can 
 read, understand, and expound him; but the 
 Christian, whether high or humble, recognises 
 him as a brother in Jesus Christ. 
 
 No man can read the works of John Ruskin 
 without learning that his sources of pleasure are 
 well-nigh infinite. There is not a flower, nor a 
 cloud, nor a tree, nor a mountain, nor a star; 
 not a bird that fans the air, nor a creature that 
 walks the earth ; not a glimpse of sea or sky or 
 meadow-greenery ; not a work of worthy art in 
 the domains of painting, sculpture, poetry, and 
 architecture ; not a thought of God as the great 
 Spirit presiding over and informing all things, 
 that is not to him a source of the sweetest plea- 
 sure. The whole world of matter and of spirit, 
 and the long record of human art, are open to 
 him as the never-failing fountains of his delight. 
 In these pure realms he seeks his daily food and 
 has his daily life. — J. G. Holland. 
 
 MR BUSKIN ON HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 In one of the numbers of Fors Clavigera Mr 
 Ruskin gave the following reply to a corre- 
 spondent who considered that language too 
 harsh had been employed by him when refer- 
 ring to other writers: You will find, if you 
 think deeply of it, that the chief of all the 
 curses of this unhappy age is the universal 
 gabble of its fools, and of the flocks that follow 
 them, rendering the quiet voices of the wise 
 men of all past time inaudible. This is, first, 
 the result of the invention of printing, and of 
 the easy power and extreme pleasure to vain 
 persons of seeing themselves in print. When it 
 took a twelvemonth's hard work to make a 
 single volume legible, men considered a little 
 the difference between one book and another ; 
 but now, when not only anybody can get them- 
 selves made legible through any quantity of 
 volumes in a week, but the doing so becomes a 
 means of living to them, and they can fill their 
 stomachs with the foolish foam of their lips, the 
 universal pestilence of falsehood fills the mind of 
 the world as cicadas do olive leaves, and the first 
 necessity for our mental government is to extri- 
 cate from among the insectile noise the few books 
 and words that are divine. And this has been 
 my main work from my youth up — not caring to 
 speak my own words, but to discern, whether 
 in painting or sculpture, what is eternally good 
 
 and vital, and to strike away from it pitilessly 
 what is worthless and venomous. So that now, 
 being old, and thoroughly practised in this 
 trade, I know either of a picture, a book, or a 
 speech, quite securely whether it is good or not, 
 as a cheesemonger knows cheese; and I have 
 not the least mind to try to make wise men out 
 of fools, or silk purses out of sows' ears ; but 
 my one swift business is to brand them of base 
 quality, and get them out of the way, and I do 
 not care a cobweb's weight whether I hurt the 
 followers of these men or not, totally ignoring 
 them, and caring only to get the facts concern- 
 ing the men themselves fairly and roundly 
 stated for the people whom I have real power 
 to teach. And for qualification of statement 
 there is neither time nor need. Of course there 
 are few writers capable of obtaining any public 
 attention who have not some day or other said 
 something rational ; and many of the foolishest 
 of them are the amiablest, and have all sorts of 
 minor qualities of a most recommendable char- 
 acter — propriety of diction, suavity of temper, 
 benevolence of disposition, wide acquaintance 
 with literature, and what not. But the one 
 thing I have to assert concerning them is that 
 they are men of eternally worthless intellectual 
 quality, who never ought to have spoken a word 
 in this world, or to have been heard in it, out 
 of their family circles ; and whose books are 
 merely so much floating fogbank, which the 
 first breath of sound public health and sense 
 will blow back into its native ditches for ever. 
 
 Remarking on Ruskin's early poems, which 
 were printed only for private circulation, Mr 
 Peter Bayne, A.M., says: We have in [his] 
 poems, as in a magic mirror, the faintly 
 shadowed outline of all that Ruslcin was to be. 
 Their broad qualities are stateliness and splen- 
 dour of language, burning purity of feeling, and 
 elevation of thought. The most comprehen- 
 sively characteristic, perhaps, of all, is one 
 written when he was twenty- three. No man is 
 perfectly true to his own ideal, but when we 
 look along the records of Ruskin's life, we can 
 affirm that it has, on the whole, been pervaded 
 with the spirit, the sentiment, the principles, of 
 the following noble verses : 
 
 CHARITEB. 
 
 The beams of morning are renewed, 
 The valley laughs their light to see ; 
 
 And earth is bright with gratitude, 
 And heaven with Charitie. 
 
 Oh, dew of heaven ; oh, light of earth ! 
 
 Fain would our hearts be filled with thee, 
 Because nor darkness comes, nor death 
 
 About the home of Charitie. 
 
 God guides the stars their wandering way, 
 He seems to cast their courses free ; 
 
 But binds unto Himself for aye, 
 And all their chains are Charitie. 
 
GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 495 
 
 When first He stretched the signed zone. 
 And heaped the hills, and barred the sea, 
 
 Then wisdom sat beside His throne 
 But His own word was Charitie. 
 
 And still, through every age and hour, 
 Of things that were and things that be, 
 
 Are breathed the presence and the power 
 Of everlasting Charitie. 
 
 By noon and night, by sun and shower. 
 By dews that fall and winds that flee. 
 
 On grove and field, on fold and flower, 
 Is shed the peace of Charitie. 
 
 The violets light the lonely hill, 
 The fruitful furrows load the lea ; 
 
 Man's heart alone is sterile still. 
 For lack of lowly Charitie. 
 
 He walks a weary vale within — 
 
 No lamp of love in heart hath he ; 
 His steps are death, his thoughts are sin, 
 
 For lack of gentle Charitie. 
 
 Daughter of heaven ! we dare not lift 
 
 The dimness of our eyes to thee; 
 Oh ! pure and God-descended gift ! 
 
 Oh ! spotless, perfect Charitie ! 
 
 Yet forasmuch Thy brow is crossed 
 With blood-drops from the deathful tree, 
 
 We take Thee for our only trust. 
 Oh ! dying Charitie ! 
 
 Ah ! Hope, Endurance, Faith — ye fail like death. 
 
 But Love an everlasting crown receiveth ; 
 For she is Hope, and Fortitude, and Faith, 
 
 Who all things hopeth, beareth, and believeth. 
 
 GEOEGE ELIOT. 
 
 [1819-1880.] 
 
 Until the publication, in 1885, of "George 
 Eliot's Life Eelated in Her Letters and 
 Journals," arranged and edited by her husband, 
 J. W. Cross, little was correctly known regard- 
 ing the family life and personality of Mary Ann 
 Evans. The appearance of this work dissipated 
 all previous misconceptions, and revealed the 
 history and building up of some of the most 
 notable works of fiction that have been written 
 in our time. 
 
 Mary Ann Evans was born at Arbury Farm, 
 "Warvdckshire, 22d November 1819. In March 
 of the following year the Evans family removed 
 to Griff, a charming red-brick, ivy-covered 
 house on the Arbury estate, where the future 
 novelist spent the first twenty-one years of her 
 life. Her father, Robert Evans, was a remark- 
 able man, trained as a builder and carpenter, 
 but at this time agent for Mr. Francis 
 Newdigate. Her mother was a shrewd, prac- 
 tical person, with great force of character. In 
 her childhood the future novelist was affec- 
 tionate, proud, and sensitive in the highest 
 degree. Her first school was at Attleboro', to 
 which she was sent in her fifth year ; in her 
 ninth year she was sent to Miss Wallington's 
 school at Nuneaton. Books were then a passion 
 with her, and the reading of Scott's Waverley 
 made a powerful impression on her young mind. 
 In her thirteenth year she attended a school 
 kept by the Misses Franklin, daughters of a 
 Baptist minister at Coventry. On the death of 
 her mother, and the marriage of a sister, the 
 entire management of the household devolved 
 upon her. She became a most exemplary 
 housewife, spent a good deal of time in visiting 
 the poor, organizing clothing clubs, and other 
 works of charity. Her studies were not ne- 
 glected, however, — a master of languages came 
 over to Griff regularly and gave her lessons in 
 
 Italian and German, her music lessons were 
 also continued, and she read in a most miscel- 
 laneous manner. 
 
 The pent-up power in her nature seemed to 
 find repose in this activity. "You may try," 
 she says, ' ' but you can never imagine what it 
 is to have a man's force of genius in you, and 
 yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl ! " In 
 1841 she removed with her father to Foleshill 
 Road, in the neighbourhood of Coventry, where 
 she made the acquaintance of Mr and Mrs 
 Bray and Miss Sara Hennell, whose friendship 
 and opinions had a powerful effect in colouring 
 her whole after career. The reading, in 1838, 
 of Charles Hennell's "Inquiry Concerning the 
 Origin of Christianity," and her intercourse with 
 her new friends, led her to adopt a more sceptical 
 standpoint in matters of religion, and she gave 
 up going to church for a time. The dis- 
 crepancies between the profession and practice 
 of many religious people is said to have helped 
 to confirm this state of mind. 
 
 Her first important literary work was a 
 translation of Strauss' "Life of Jesus," sug- 
 gested by the Hennells. After her father's 
 death in 1849, she had a trip to the Continent 
 with the Brays. On her return we find her 
 contributing to the Westminster Review, and 
 afterwards settling in London as assistant editor. 
 She was now fairly launched upon London liter- 
 ary life, and the acquaintance made with George 
 Henry Lewes, to whom she was afterwards mar- 
 ried, in 1854, being the most important. This 
 was the one questionable act in her life, as she 
 went to reside with Lewes while his wife, who 
 had deserted him, was still living. She lived 
 happily vsdth him till his death in 1878, the 
 chief events in the career of both being the 
 publication of their respective books. 
 
 Saddened by the death of Lewes, her marriage 
 
496 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 on 6tli May 1880 to Mr J. W. Cross, Weybridge, 
 seemed like a renewal of life to the great 
 novelist. "Marriage," she says, "has seemed 
 to restore me to my old self. I was getting 
 hard, and if I had decided differently I think 
 I should have become very selfish. To feel 
 daily the loveliness of a nature close to me, and 
 to feel grateful for it, is the fountain of tender- 
 ness, and strength to endure." But this period 
 of happiness was of brief continuance. A cold, 
 caught at one of the Saturday Popular Concerts 
 at James's Hall, developed into laryngeal sore 
 throat, and she passed away 22d December 
 1880. 
 
 In George Eliot's life the intellectual side is 
 the all-important part ; we see her engrossed 
 in her studies, ever striving to widen the 
 boundaries of her knowledge. The chief events 
 in her uneventful private life are trips to the 
 Continent, and the composition and publication 
 of her various works of fiction. In the pro- 
 duction of these she put forth her full strength, 
 she never scamped anything. She was a care- 
 ful and powerful literary workwoman, as she 
 had been a careful housewife in earlier days. 
 
 The success of her works enabled her to earn 
 a large sum by literatvire. The following table 
 shows her income from the first sale of her 
 books only : — 
 
 !^ ^ 
 
 S cd 
 
 
 C3 c3 
 
 <S ^ X " 2i 
 
 03-tJ'c3 
 
 < 
 
 >5 
 
 o '^ 
 u «5 
 
 Ph 
 
 
 a — 
 
 OT 
 
 O) 
 
 3 '^ 9.U 
 
 ^B « ?2 
 
 0-* 
 
 T-1.9 CM O 
 
 „ (-, ,-1 CO 
 «NpL,qiqi 
 
 CU Cf} 
 
 o ^^ n 
 ^ '^ o 
 
 Pm 
 
 q? 
 
 
 <A fi, 'A 
 
 o Pj .2 o< 
 .0.22 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 1^ 
 
 o S 
 
 
 OQ 
 
 I 
 
 1^ 
 
 M Cj U 
 r^ O CD 
 
 CO Ph fM 
 
 ^ '^ 
 
 i-H CO ■» CO 
 
 CD CO o r— 
 
 CO c» OO CO 
 
 It will thus be seen that she received in cash 
 down for the first sale of her books about £40,000, 
 or about £2000 a year. Yet at the beginning of 
 
 her career she was often somewhat straitened 
 for money. She lived in apartments in London 
 in quite a humble way. When in Switzerland, 
 in 1849, she tried to sell her books and globes 
 in order to raise money. After the publication 
 of " Adam Bede " she was in easy circumstances. 
 She liked money for the feeling of indepen- 
 dence which it gave her ; but she sacrificed 
 £3000 on "Eomola," rather than consent to ita 
 appearing in shorter portions at a time in the 
 Cornhill Magazine. 
 
 The beginning of a great writer in the art of 
 fiction is always interesting. After some years, 
 spent in miscellaneous work, and in writing for 
 the Westminster Review, Mr. Lewes encouraged 
 her to try her hand at fiction. After reading 
 an article of hers upon Canning he became 
 convinced of her genius for writing, and told 
 her so while walking in Richmond Park in 
 August in 1855 ; she was then thirty-six years 
 old. In September 1856 she began to try 
 fiction. She says : "It had always been a vague 
 dream of mine that some time or other I might 
 write a novel, and my shadowy conception of 
 what the novel was to be, varied, of course, 
 from one epoch of my life to another. But I 
 never went further towards the actual writing 
 of the novel than an introductory chapter 
 describing a Staffordshire village and the life 
 of the neighbouring farm-houses ; and as years 
 passed on I lost any hope that I should ever be 
 able to write a novel, just as I desponded about 
 everything else in my future life. I always 
 thought I was deficient in dramatic power, both 
 in construction and dialogue, but I felt that I 
 should be at my ease in the descriptive parts of 
 a novel. George used to say, 'It may be a 
 failure, but you have wit, description, and 
 philosophy— those go a good way towards the 
 production of a novel. It is worth while for 
 you to try the experiment.' . . . One 
 morning as I was thinking what should be the 
 subject of my first story, my thoughts merged 
 themselves into a dreamy doze, and I imagined 
 myself writing a story, of which the title was 
 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos 
 Barton.' I was soon wide awake again, and 
 told G. ; but I did not begin my story till 
 September 22. After I had begun it, as we 
 were walking in the park, I mentioned to G. 
 that I had thought of the plan of writing a 
 series of stories containing sketches drawn from 
 my own observation of the clergy, and calling 
 them 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' opening with 
 ' Amos Barton.' He at once accepted the 
 notion as a good one— fresh and striking ; and 
 about a week afterwards, when I read him the 
 first part of 'Amos,' he had no longer any 
 doubt about my ability to carry out the plan. 
 The scene at Cross Farm, he said, satisfied him 
 that I had the very element he had been 
 doubtful about — it was clear I could write 
 good dialogue. There still remained the ques- 
 
GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 497 
 
 tion whether I could command any pathos, and 
 that was to be decided by the mode in which I 
 treated Milly's death. One night G. went to 
 town on purpose to leave me a quiet evenmg 
 for writing it. I wrote the chapter, from the 
 news brought by the shepherd to Mrs. Hackit 
 to the moment when ' Amos ' is dragged from 
 the bedside, and I read it to G. when he came 
 home. We both cried over it, and then he 
 came to me and kissed me, saying, * I think 
 your pathos is better than your fun.'" 
 
 Lewes transmitted the first instalment of 
 " Scenes of Clerical Life " to Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine, and Mr John Blackwood had the credit of 
 discovering and dealing liberally with a writer 
 of genius. She set a high value upon his 
 approval and critical opinions at all times. 
 
 The germ of Adam Bede was an anecdote 
 told her by a Methodist aunt, of a scene she had 
 witnessed in visiting a condemned criminal, an 
 ignorant girl who had murdered her child and 
 refused to confess ; how she • had stayed with 
 her praying through the night, and how the 
 poor creature at last broke out into tears and 
 confessed her crime. This aunt afterwards 
 went with the girl, in the cart, to the place of 
 execution. The character of Dinah grew out of 
 her recollections of her aunt ; but Dinah was 
 not at all like her aunt in personal appearance, 
 &s the latter was a very small, black-eyed 
 woman, and very vehement in her style of 
 preaching. The character of Adam, and one or 
 two incidents connected with him, were sug- 
 gested by her father's early life ; " but Adam is 
 not my father," she wrote, '' any more than 
 Dinah is my aunt." 
 
 Mr Cross says that the writing of *' Romola " 
 ploughed into her more than any of her 
 books. 
 
 She said, " I began it a young woman ; I 
 finished it an old woman. I think it must be 
 nearly ten years since I read the book before, 
 but there is no book of mine about which I 
 more thoroughly feel that I could swear by 
 every sentence as having been written with 
 my best blood, such as it is, and with the most 
 ardent care for veracity of which my nature is 
 capable. It has made me often sob with a sort 
 of painful joy as I have read the sentences 
 which had faded from my memory." For the 
 writing of "Felix Holt" she read through the 
 Times of 1832-34, and Mr Frederic Harrison 
 assisted her with the legal side of the book. 
 The title " The Mill on the Floss " was adopted 
 in deference to Mr Blackwood's opinion; her 
 own choice was " The Tullivers ; or. Life on th-e 
 Floss." "Daniel Deronda" she liked because 
 of its spiritual teaching about the Jews. In 
 addition to works of fiction she published " The 
 Spanish Gypsy," a poem, 1868 ; " Agatha," a 
 poem, 1869 ; " The Legend of Jubal, and other 
 Poems, " 1874. A selection of her ' ' Wise, Witty, 
 and Tender Sayings " has also been made. 
 
 EIOHARD HOLT BUTTON ON GEOEGE ELIOT. 
 
 To me, indeed, George Eliot's scepticism seems 
 one of the greatest of the limitations on her 
 genius. One rises from the study of her works 
 profoundly impressed with their thoroughness, 
 their depth, their rich colouring, their marvel- 
 lous humour, their laborious conscientiousness, 
 their noble ethical standard, and their weari- 
 ness — the weariness of a great speculative in- 
 tellect which can find no true spring of elasticity, 
 and in vain forces from herself a certain amount 
 of enthusiasm for optimist views of that "wide, 
 grey, lampless, deep, unpeopled world," from 
 which Shelley makes Beatrice Cenci recoil in 
 horror. The only flaw I can see in George 
 Eliot's intellect consists in her attempts to con- 
 form her mind cheerfully to facts against which 
 she inwardly rebels. In "The Mill on the 
 Floss "she spoilt her story by endeavouring to 
 paint the physiological attraction of a certain 
 kind of animal character for a nature far above 
 it, as if it were more nearly irresistible than in 
 fact I think it is, and, as far as I can see, only 
 because she had arrived at a conviction that, as 
 physiological attractions exert a great influence 
 in human life, realists should put a certain 
 amount of force on their own dislike to recognise 
 them fully. But, in truth, George Eliot was 
 here making the best of a bad business, trying to 
 discover virtues in inevitable destiny because it 
 is inevitable. It would have been more like her, 
 I think, to admit at once that while the expecta- 
 tion of death does actually stimulate finite and 
 selfish men to energy, the hope by which it 
 thus stimulates them is empty air, if death be 
 all it seems. The laborious enthusiasm of the 
 "Legend of Jubal" seems to me profound 
 melancholy in disguise — melancholy striving for 
 a calm and serenity it does not feel. 
 
 George Eliot, with a faith like that of her own 
 "Dinah," would, to my mind, be one of the 
 greatest intellectual personages the world had 
 ever seen. Her imagination would gain that 
 vivacity and spring the absence of which is its 
 only artistic defect ; her noble ethical concep- 
 tions would win certainty and grandeur ; her 
 singularly just and impartial judgment would 
 lose the tinge of gloom which now seems always 
 to pervade it ; and her poetic feelings would be 
 no longer weighed down by the superincumbent 
 mass of a body of sceptical thought with which 
 they struggle for the mastery in vain. Few 
 minds at once so speculative and so creative 
 have ever put their mark on literature. If she 
 cannot paint the glow of human enterprise like 
 Scott, or sketch with the easy rapidity of Field- 
 ing, she can do what neither of them could do — 
 see and explain the relation of the broadest and 
 commonest life to the deepest springs of philo- 
 sophy and science. With a quicker pulse of 
 life, with a richer, happier faith, I hardly see 
 the limit of her power. 
 
 2 I 
 
498 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 CHAELES HADDON SPUEGEOK 
 [1834 .] 
 
 The name of C H. Spurgeon has now become a 
 household word in the land amongst members 
 of every denomination. It will, therefore, prove 
 of some interest and importance that we should 
 trace the facts and incidents in his life until they 
 unfold themselves in one of the most ample, 
 energetic, and influential channels of Christian 
 influence known to our times. He was born at 
 the village of Kelvedon, in Essex, 19th June 1834. 
 His father was John Spurgeon, the second son 
 of the Kev. James Spurgeon, who, giving up 
 business, acted as pastor of several Independent 
 churches in succession. His mother was the 
 youngest sister of Charles Parker Jervis, Esq., 
 of Colchester, and a woman of sincere and re- 
 markable piety. While still very young, he 
 was placed under the guardianship of Ann 
 Spurgeon, his father's sister, at his grandfather's 
 residence at Stambourne, in Essex. Here he 
 developed rapidly, and shoAved a precocious 
 delight in books and pictures. At six years of 
 age he showed a decided love for reading, and 
 the seven years which he spent under his grand- 
 father's roof were years which served to develop 
 his nature, both mentally and morally. Like 
 many children, he would frequently pose his 
 elders with unanswerable questions, which 
 showed the presence of an inquisitive mind. 
 Reading one day of the "bottomless pit" of 
 the Revelation, he said, "Grandpa, what can 
 this mean ? " ** Pooh, pooh, child, go on." He 
 persevered in reading this chapter until he had 
 an opportunity of putting his question again in 
 even more difficult form, " If the pit aforesaid 
 had no bottom, where would all those people 
 fall to who dropped out at its lower end ? " He 
 returned to Colchester, whence his father had 
 removed from Kelvedon, and entered a school 
 conducted by Mr Henry Lewis. At this school 
 he continued four years, took prizes, and made 
 considerable progress in any branch of know- 
 ladge which he cared to take up. When ten 
 years of age, and while spending the vacation 
 at his grandfather's at Stambourne, the Rev. 
 Richard Knill of Chester took particular notice 
 of him, and laying his hand on his head, said, 
 *'I do not know how it is ; but I feel a solemn 
 presentiment this child will preach the Gospel 
 to thousands, and God will bless him to many 
 souls." Mr Spurgeon's father, in speaking of 
 the early training of his family to a friend, said : 
 ** I had been from home a great deal trying to 
 build up weak congregations, and felt that I 
 was neglecting the religious training of my own 
 children, while I toiled for the good of others. 
 I returned home with these feelinsrs. T opened 
 
 the door, and was surprised to find none of the 
 children about the hall. Going quietly up the 
 stairs, I heard my wife's voice. She was en- 
 gaged in prayer with the children. I heard her 
 pray for them one by one by name. She came 
 to Charles, and specially prayed for him, for he 
 was of high spirit and daring temper. I listened 
 till she had ended her prayer, and I felt and 
 said, * Lord, I will go on with Thy work. The 
 children will be cared for.'" His father else- 
 where remarked, that " as the parent of seven- 
 teen children, he had frequently worn a shabby 
 coat when he might have possessed a good one, 
 had he cared less for his children's education." 
 
 At fifteen years of age he attended an agricul- 
 tural college at Maidstone, kept by one of his 
 relatives; he was a successful prizeman at the 
 examination, and here he remained for one year. 
 In 1849 he accepted the office of usher under 
 Mr Swindell, who kept a school at Newmarket. 
 Here he studied Greek and French with some 
 diligence. The turning-point in his life took 
 place in his sixteenth year. ** One wintry Sab- 
 bath day, while hungering for the bread of life, 
 he turned into a sanctuary at Colchester. The 
 preacher was a * lean-fleshed man,' who, after 
 giving out his text, * Look unto me, and be ye 
 saved, all the ends of the earth,' cried, 'Look, 
 look, LOOK ! ' The truth at once became clear to 
 the seeker's mind, and he has ever since been 
 happy in believing." The Rev. Robert Eaglen 
 was the Primitive Methodist who preached that 
 day at Colchester. 
 
 His leisure time at Newmarket was spent in 
 tract distribution, and other religious work ; he 
 attached himself to a Sabbath-school, and gave 
 addresses in the hall of the Independent Chapel. 
 After one year spent in Newmarket, in 1850 he 
 removed to Cambridge, and became usher under 
 Mr Henry Leeding, who had recently opened a 
 school for young gentlemen there. He identi- 
 fied himself with a Baptist church in Cambridge, 
 took part in children's addresses, and although 
 only sixteen, he was received as a member of 
 the " Lay Preachers' Association." His first 
 sermon was preached in a cottage in the village 
 of Taversham, about four miles from Cambridge. 
 The work of the Lay Preachers' Association con- 
 sisted in inducing the poorer classes around 
 Cambridge to turn out to a service where dress 
 would be no barrier to their appearance there, 
 and where the preacher wo i] i suit the Gospel 
 to their understanding and needs. Thirteen 
 villages around Cambridge were chosen an a 
 scene for these labours; young Spurgeon en- 
 tered heartily into the work, and set himself te 
 
CHARLES ff ADDON SPURGEON. 
 
 499 
 
 deliver one sermon each evening. The people 
 in the village of Waterbeach, about five miles 
 from Cambridge, were so satisfied with his 
 preaching that they invited him to become their 
 pastor in the little Baptist church there. The 
 building then used as a chapel was formerly a 
 bam, with a high-pitched roof, covered with 
 thatch. The walls consisted of conglomerate, 
 well white- washed. The population of the vil- 
 lage on an average might consist of 1300 inhabit- 
 ants, who were mostly engaged in agricultural 
 operations. When called to the Baptist Chapel, 
 the membership numbered forty individuals, but 
 during his short stay amongst them this number 
 was more than doubled. Many lives in this village 
 were reformed, and one of the deacons, speaking 
 of his ministrations there, has said: "He was 
 generally well received, and soon became quite 
 popular as a preacher. It was no unusual 
 thing to see the labourers on the farm at a dis- 
 tance from the village literally running home 
 when the duties of the day were over that they 
 might be in time to attend his ministry in the 
 evening. At the early age of eighteen he was 
 unanimously chosen pastor of oiir little church. 
 We have often sat under his ministry with a mix- 
 ture of pleasure, profit, and surprise, and have 
 been ready to exclaim with the inquiring Jews 
 in the Gospel, Whence hath this young man 
 this wisdom and these mighty words? Our 
 congregation soon rapidly increased, so that 
 both the seats and the aisles were generally 
 filled, and some could not obtain admission into 
 the place. . . . When, after preaching for 
 some months on the Sabbath morning and after- 
 noon, he was met by the request to preach on 
 the Sabbath evening also, he modestly replied, 
 * I cannot always preach three times, for I am 
 not so strong as a man.' " While working here, 
 his father and other friends deemed it advisable 
 that he should go to college ; this he declined, 
 saying in later life that he has "a thousand 
 times thanked the Lord very heartily for the 
 strange providence which forced his steps into 
 another and far better path." It is a fact, how- 
 ever, that arrangements were at one time made 
 whereby he might begin a college training. He 
 was to meet Dr Angus, who was tutor in a col- 
 lege at Stepney, in the house of Mr Macmillan, 
 the well-known publisher. At the place of 
 meeting, Spurgeon was shown into one room by 
 the absent-minded servant-maid, and Dr Angus 
 was shown into another ; and so the latter, after 
 waiting until he was tired, left for London with- 
 out seeing the famous young preacher, who thus 
 narrowly missed receiving a regular college 
 training. He has himself remarked : "Person- 
 ally, I owe much to many hours, and even days, 
 spent alone under an old oak-tree by the river 
 Medway. Happening to be somewhat indisposed 
 at the time when I was leaving school, I was 
 allowed considerable leisure, and, armed with 
 an excellent fishing-rod, I caught a few small 
 
 fishes, and enjoyed many day-dreams, inter- 
 mingled with searchings of heart and much 
 ruminating of knowledge acquired. If boys 
 would think, it would be well to give them less 
 class-work and more opportunity for thought." 
 
 If further testimony were needed to his pre- 
 cocity as a preacher, we might add the fact, that 
 one who heard him preach his first sermon, when 
 about sixteen years of age, says that "he then 
 read, prayed, and expounded the Word, being 
 attired in a round jacket and broad, turn-down 
 collar, such as I remember to have seen in 
 fashion at that period." Another eye-witness 
 has to tell that he remembers Mr Spurgeon 
 preaching at Somersham, when he would be 
 about seventeen years of age. He was then 
 wearing a round jacket and turn-down collar. 
 The words of the text were, '* Fear not, thou 
 worm Jacob." 
 
 In 1853, and when in his nineteenth year, he 
 was invited to preach in New Park Street Chapel ; 
 the congregation was small, and the text was 
 from James i. 17. He further agreed to preach 
 in London on three Sabbaths early in 1854. The 
 result was that on 25th January he was invited 
 to occupy the pulpit for six months on proba- 
 tion. The probation was not required, for on 
 19th April it was resolved unanimously by the 
 deacons and members of the church, *' that we 
 tender our brother, the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, a 
 most cordial and affectionate invitation forth- 
 with to become pastor of this church, and we 
 pray that the result of his services may be owned 
 of God with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit 
 and a revival of religion in our midst, that it 
 may be fruitful in the conversion of sinners and 
 in the edification of those that believe." To 
 this request Mr Spurgeon sent an answer in the 
 affirmative on 28th April 1854. On commencing 
 his ministrations, the congregation multiplied 
 so that in the evening, when the gas was lit, 
 he remarked that the place became like the 
 Black Hole of Calcutta. One who heard him 
 about this time said: "His voice is clear and 
 musical ; his language plain ; his style flowing, 
 yet terse; his method lucid and orderly; his 
 matter sound and suitable ; his tone and spirit 
 cordial ; his remarks always pithy and pungent, 
 sometimes familiar and colloquial, yet never 
 light or coarse, much less profane." In his 
 career of self-training, he said : " Once I put all 
 my knowledge together in glorious confusion, 
 but now I have a shelf in my head for every- 
 thing; and whatever I read or hear, I know 
 where to stow it away for use at the proper 
 time." 
 
 Under the title of the New Park Street Pul- 
 pit, Mr Joseph Passmore, a friend, and member 
 of Mr Spurgeon's congregation, began to issue 
 his sermons in numbers. These sermons have 
 been regularly published since, and have found 
 their way wherever the English language is 
 spoken. Their circulation is 25,000 copies 
 
tv'eekly; one of tliem, on "Baptismal Eegeue- 
 ration," has sold to the extent of 200,000 
 copies. Eegarding these sermons, a good autho- 
 rity has said: "We have the accounts of many 
 young preachers ; we know of none whose early 
 sermons read so like their later, and exhibit 
 such a clear view of the whole field of truth, 
 such an instinctive apprehension in the first 
 moments of the ministry, of the gi'eat fontal 
 springs of the whole Christian life and character. 
 There is something truly and divinely natural 
 in the fact that a character destined to achieve, 
 even in the early years of life, so much, should 
 seem to be consecrated and set apart from very 
 boyhood. The same Providence which bent the 
 early destinies of William Jay and John Angell 
 James, and multitudes besides, from their boy- 
 hood, gave a distinct course to the life of Charles 
 Spurgeon." 
 
 Shortly after his settlement in London, he 
 toiled until his own life was endangered, until his 
 physical energies were exhausted, amongst those 
 who were suffering and dying from cholera. He 
 has himself related an incident which took place 
 at this time, during his first year in London in 
 "The Treasury of David," under Psalm xci. : 
 "When I had scarcely been in London twelve 
 months, the neighbourhood in which I laboured 
 was visited by Asiatic cholera, and my congre- 
 gation suffered from its inroads. Family after 
 family summoned me to the bedsides of the 
 smitten, and almost every day I was called to 
 visit the grave. I gave myself up with youth- 
 ful ardour to the visitations of the sick, and was 
 sent for, from all corners of the district, by 
 persons of all ranks and religions. I became 
 weary in body and sick at heart. My friends 
 seemed falling one by one, and I felt or fancied 
 that I was sickening like those around me. A 
 little more work and weeping would have laid 
 me low among the rest. I felt that my burden 
 was heavier than I could bear, and I was ready 
 to sink under it. As God would have it, I was 
 returning mournfully home from a funeral, when 
 my curiosity led me to read a paper which was 
 wafered up in a shoemaker's window in the 
 Dover Eoad. It did not look like a trade an- 
 nouncement, nor was it ; for it bore in a good 
 bold handwriting these words: 'Because thou 
 hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even 
 the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no 
 evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come 
 nigh thy dwelling.' The effect upon my heart 
 was immediate. Faith appropriated the pas- 
 sage as her own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt 
 with immortality. I went on with my visita- 
 tion of the dying in a calm and peaceful spirit ; 
 I felt no fear of evil, and I suffered no harm. 
 The providence which moved the tradesman to 
 place those verses in his window I gratefully 
 acknowledge, and in the remembrance of its 
 marvellous power I adore the Lord my God." 
 Speaking one eytniug in Ne:T Park Street 
 
 Chapel, he exclaimed, "By faith the walls of 
 Jericho fell down, and by faith this wall at the 
 back shall come down too." He was reproved 
 for these sentiments afterwards by a deacon, 
 who said, "Let us never hear of that again." 
 " What do you mean?" said the preacher ; "you 
 will hear no more about it when it is done, and 
 therefore the sooner you set about doing it the 
 better." 
 
 While New Park Street was being enlarged, 
 worship was carried on at Exeter Hall from 
 11th February 1855 to 27th May of the same 
 year. On returning to New Park Street, it was 
 found again to be too small to accommodate the 
 crowds who flocked thither. His first wonder- 
 ful successes in London led to a feeling of de- 
 pression of spirit. "Who was I that I should 
 continue to lead so great a multitude ! I would 
 betake me to my village obscurity, or emigrate 
 to America, and find a solitary nest in the back- 
 woods, where I might be sufficient for the things 
 which would be demanded of me. It was just 
 then that the curtain was rising upon my life- 
 work, and I dreaded what it might reveal. I 
 hope I was not faithless, but I was timorous, 
 and filled with a sense of my own unfitness. I 
 dreaded the work which a gracious Providence 
 had prepared for me." Many hundreds were 
 turned away, and those who did secure sitting- 
 room were uncomfortably packed together, and 
 the heat was unbearable. The newspapers 
 meanwhile kept up the excitement by circula- 
 ting what Mr Spurgeon calls "ridiculous 
 stories" and "cruel falsehoods," and various 
 caricatures adorned the windows of the print- 
 sellers with such titles as "Brimstone and 
 Treacle," and " Catch-'em-alive-O ! " He never, 
 however, replied to any personal satire or attack. 
 Several volumes are preserved in his library at his 
 home in Nightingale Lane, which are filled with 
 newspaper cuttings, which he is in the habit 
 of showing with a humorous smile to his guests. 
 Some of the epithets by which he was designated 
 were — mountebank, buffoon, blasphemer, hypo- 
 crite, and villain ; this did not, however, dis 
 turb his equanimity or provoke reply. 
 
 In June 1856 Mr Spurgeon was again obliged 
 to return to Exeter Hall, preaching there in the 
 morning, and in his own chapel in the evening ; 
 but as this was found unsuitable, and as Exeter 
 Hall could not be regularly let, measures were 
 adopted for raising a fund for the erection of a 
 larger place of worship. The large hall in the 
 Royal Surrey Gardens was meanwhile secured for 
 the Sabbath evening service. A lamentable acci- 
 dent occurred in this hall on 19th October 1856, 
 which was thus recorded in the church book: 
 " On the evening of this day, in accordance with 
 the resolution passed at the church meeting, 6th 
 October, the church and congregation assembled 
 to hear our pastor, in the Music Hall of the 
 Royal Surrey Gardens. A very large number 
 of persons (about 7000) were assembled on that 
 
CHARLES HADDON SPURGhON. 
 
 501 
 
 occasion, and the service was commenced in the 
 usual way, by singing, reading the Scriptures, 
 and prayer. Just, however, after our pastor 
 had commenced his prayer, a disturbance was 
 caused (as it is supposed, by some evil-disposed 
 persv->ns acting in concert), and the whole con- 
 gregation were seized with a sudden panic. 
 This caused a fearful rush to the doors, particu- 
 larly from the galleries. Several persons, either 
 in consequence of their heedless haste, or from 
 the extreme pressure of the crowd behind, were 
 thrown down on the stone steps of the north- 
 west staircase, and were trampled on by the 
 crowd pressing upon them. The lamentable 
 result was that seven persons lost their lives, 
 and twenty-eight were removed to the hospitals 
 seriously bruised and injured. Our pastor not 
 being aware that any loss of life had occurred, 
 continued in the pulpit, endeavouring by every 
 means in his power to alleviate the fear of the 
 people, and was successful to a very consider- 
 able extent. In attempting to renew the ser- 
 vice, it was found that the people were too 
 excited to listen to him, and the service was 
 closed, and the people who remained dispersed 
 quietly. This lamentable circumstance produced 
 very serious eJffects on the nervous system of 
 our pastor. He was entirely prostrated for 
 some days, and compelled to relinquish his 
 preaching engagements. Through the great 
 mercy of our heavenly Father, he was, however, 
 restored so as to be able to occupy the pulpit in 
 our own chapel on Sunday, 31st October, and 
 gradually recovered his wonted health and 
 vigour. * The Lord's name be praised ! ' 
 
 "The church desire to note this event in their 
 minutes, and to record their devout thankful- 
 ness to God that in this sad calamity the lives 
 of their beloved pastor, the deacons, and mem- 
 bers were all preserved ; and also with the hope 
 that our heavenly Father from this seeming 
 evil may produce the greatest amount of real 
 lasting good. " 
 
 A newspaper of the day made some bitter 
 comments on the accident: "Mr Spurgeon is a 
 preacher who hurls damnation at the heads of 
 his sinful hearers. Some men there are who, 
 taking their precepts from Holy Writ, would 
 beckon erring souls to a rightful path with fair 
 words and gentle admonition; Mr Spurgeon 
 would take them by the nose and bully them 
 into religion. Let us set up a barrier to the 
 encroachments and blasphemies of men like 
 Spurgeon, saying to them, 'Thus far shalt thou 
 come and no further ; ' let us devise some power- 
 ful means which shall tell to the thousands who 
 now stand in need of enlightenment — this man, 
 in his own opinion, is a righteous Christian, 
 but in ours nothing more than a ranting charla- 
 tan. We are neither straightlaced nor Sabba- 
 tarian in our sentiments; but we would keep 
 apart, widely apart, the theatre and the church 
 -above all, would we place in the hand of every 
 
 right-thinking man, a whip to scourge from 
 society the authors of such vile blasphemies as 
 on Sunday night, above the cries of the dead 
 and the dying, and louder than the wails of 
 misery from the maimed and suffering, resounded 
 from the mouth of Mr Spurgeon in the Music 
 Hall of the Surrey Gardens." Subscriptions 
 were raised for those who had suffered through 
 the accident, while these services were continued 
 for three years. 
 
 A letter in the Times about this time from an 
 influential source was of some use in establish- 
 ing him in public regard. We quote part of the 
 letter : 
 
 " ' I want to hear Spurgeon ; let us go.' Noxv, 
 I am supposed to be a High Churchman, so I 
 answered, * What ! go and hear a Calvinist — a 
 Baptist ! — a man who ought to be ashamed of 
 himself for being so near the Church, and yet 
 not within its pale ? ' ' Never mind ; come and 
 hear him.' Well, we went yesterday morning 
 to the Music Hall, in the Surrey Gardens. . . . 
 Fancy a congregation, consisting of 10,000 souls, 
 streaming into the hall, mounting the gallerieo, 
 humming, buzzing, and swarming — a mighty hive 
 of bees — eager to secure at first the best places, 
 and, at last, any place at all. After waiting more 
 than half an hour — for if you wish to have a 
 seat you must be there at least that space of 
 time in advance — Mr Spurgeon ascended his 
 tribune. To the hum, and rush, and trampling 
 of men, succeeded a low, concentrated thrill 
 and murmur of devotion, which seemed to run 
 at once, like an electric current, through the 
 breast of every one present ; and by this mag- 
 netic chain, the preacher held us fast bound for 
 about two hours. It is not my purpose to give 
 a summary of his discourse. It is enough to say 
 of his voice, that its power and volume are suffi- 
 cient to reach every one in that vast assembly ; 
 of his language, that it is neither high-flown nor 
 homely ; of his style, that it is at times familiar, 
 at times declamatory, but always happy, and 
 often eloquent; of his doctrine, that neither 
 the Calvinist nor the Baptist appears in the 
 forefront of the battle which is waged by Mr 
 Spurgeon with relentless animosity, and with 
 Gospel weapons, against irreligion, cant, hypo- 
 crisy, pride, and those secret bosom sins which 
 so easily beset a man in daily life ; and to sum 
 up all in a word, it is enough to say of the man 
 himself, that he impresses you with a perfect 
 conviction of his sincerity. 
 
 ' ' But I have not written so much about my 
 children's want of spiritual food when they 
 listened to the mumbling of the Archbishop of 
 
 , and my own banquet at the Surrey 
 
 Gardens, without a desire to draw a practical 
 conclusion from these two stories, and to point 
 them by a moral. Here is a man not more Calvin- 
 istic than many an incumbent of the Established 
 Church who 'humbles and mumbles,' as old 
 Latimer says, over his liturgy and text — hero is 
 
502 
 
 TREASUR Y OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 a man who says the complete immersion, or 
 something of the kind, of adults is necessary to 
 baptism. These are his faults of doctrine ; but 
 if I were the examining chaplain of the Arch- 
 bishop of , I would say, 'May it please 
 
 your grace, here is a man able to preach elo- 
 quently, able to fill the largest church in Eng- 
 land with his voice, and, what is more to the 
 purpose, with people. And may it please your 
 grace, here are two churches in the metropolis, 
 St Paul's and Westminster Abbey. What does 
 your grace think of inviting Mr Spurgeon, this 
 heretical Calvinist and Baptist, who is able to 
 draw 10,000 souls after him, just to try his 
 voice some Sunday morning in the nave of 
 either of those churches ? ' " 
 
 When a day of national humiliation was ap- 
 pointed for the Indian Mutiny, at a service in 
 the Crystal Palace, Mr Spurgeon preached to 
 over 23,000 people. The collection received was 
 such as to admit of £686 being paid over to the 
 National Fund. When the first stone of the New 
 Tabernacle was laid, on 1 6th August 1859, by Sir S. 
 Morton Peto, the subscriptions in hand amounted 
 to £16,868. In 1860 Mr Spurgeon visited Paris, 
 and preached in the Eglise de I'Oratoire and in 
 the American Chapel to large audiences. Also 
 in the same year in the cathedral of Geneva 
 from John Calvin's pulpit, and in Mr D'Aubigne's 
 church. The following is his own account of 
 his preaching in John Calvin's pulpit : **I think 
 I must be a little proud, notwithstanding Mr 
 Stovel's advice to the contrary, for I was 
 allowed to stand in the pulpit of John Calvin. 
 I am not superstitious, but the first time I saw 
 this medal, bearing the venerated eflfigy of John 
 Calvin, I kissed it, imagining that no one saw 
 the action. I was very greatly surprised when 
 I received this magnificent present, which shall 
 be passed round for your inspection. On the 
 one side is John Calvin, with his visage worn by 
 disease and deep thought, and on the other is a 
 verse fully applicable to that man of God, * He 
 endured as seeing Him who is invisible. ' That 
 is the very character of the man — that glorious 
 man Calvin ! I preached in the cathedral. I 
 do not think half the people understood me in 
 the cathedral of St Peter's ; but they were very 
 glad to see and join in heart with the worship 
 which they could not join with understanding. 
 I did not feel very happy when I came out in 
 full canonicals, but the request was put to me 
 in the following beautiful way : ' Our dear 
 brother comes to us from another country. 
 Now when an ambassador comes from another 
 country, he has a right to wear his own costume 
 at court ; but as a mark of very great esteem, 
 he sometimes condescends to the manners of the 
 country which he visits, and wears the court 
 dress.' 'Well,' I said, 'yes, that I will, cer- 
 tainly, if you do not require it, but merely ask 
 it as a token of my Christian love. I shall feel 
 like running: in a sack, but it will be your fault.' 
 
 But it was John Calvin's cloak, and that recon- 
 ciled me to it very much. I do love that man 
 of God, suffering all his life long, enduring not 
 only persecutions from without, but a complica- 
 tion of disorders from within, and yet serving 
 his Master with all his heart." 
 
 The congregation left the Surrey Music Hall 
 in December 1859, and met in Exeter Hall from 
 that time till 1st March 1861. By May of that 
 year regular work was begun at the Metropoli- 
 tan Tabernacle, and more remarkable still, the 
 building was free of debt, no less a sum than 
 £31,332, 48. lOd. having been received and paid. 
 A gentleman in Bristol alone gave £5000 towards 
 the building. The length of the Tabernacle is 
 146 feet ; breadth, 81 feet ; height, 62 feet. In- 
 side the church there are 5500 sittings, with 
 room for 6000 persons without overcrowding. 
 The lecture hall is calculated to hold 900, the 
 children's schoolroom 1000. There are also six 
 classrooms, kitchen, lavatory, and various re- 
 tiring rooms. Also a ladies' room for working 
 meetings, young men's classroom, secretary's 
 room, three vestries for pastors, deacons, and 
 elders. The accommodation, notwithstanding 
 all this, is still too small. The membership in 
 June 1877 was 5152. In 1863 Mr Spurgeon 
 visited Holland, and had an interview with the 
 Queen of the Netherlands, and found that his 
 sermons were largely circulated in the Dutch 
 language. In the autumn of 1867, owing to fre- 
 quent illness, Mr J. A. Spurgeon, the brother of 
 the great preacher, was asked to become co- 
 pastor in the church. Mr Spurgeon, in acknow- 
 ledging his services, says that no more efficient 
 or sympathetic helper could be found. His work 
 for the most part consists in the general over- 
 sight of the church. 
 
 Dr Guthrie, in visiting the Tabernacle, re- 
 marks : " There was, as usual, a great crowd — 
 some six or seven thousand people — and we had 
 a grand sermon. We went into the vestry after 
 the service, and had a crack with the greatest 
 of English preachers. Had he more of the 
 emotional, great as he is, he would be still 
 greater. He was very genial and kindly." 
 
 Of the many benevolent, charitable, and prac- 
 tically useful institutions which are kept up by 
 the pastor and members of the Metropolitan 
 Tabernacle, perhaps the Almshouses, the Pas- 
 tors' College, and the Stockwell Orphanage are 
 amongst the most important. The accommoda- 
 tion at the Almshouses consists of seventeen 
 almsrooms, two schoolrooms, and a classroom, 
 which are occupied by 380 children on week-days, 
 with house for the master. Sabbath-schools, chil- 
 dren's services, and evangelistic services are also 
 conducted on the premises. The parties eligible 
 for this charity are members of the church, 
 women over sixty years of age. The following 
 inscription has been placed over the door of the 
 girls' school: "These buildings are connected 
 with the ancient church now worshipping in 
 
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON, 
 
 503 
 
 the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Six of the alms- 
 houses, together with a schoolroom, were built 
 and endowed under the pastorate of Dr John 
 Rippon, at New Park Street, Southwark. The 
 present structures were completed March 1868. 
 C. H. and J. A. Spurgeon, Pastors." The 
 Stockwell Orphanage owes its origin to a Mrs 
 Hillyard, who placed £20,000 at the command 
 of Mr Spurgeon for founding and endowing such 
 an institution. The scheme of the Orphanage 
 was to do away with all voting and canvassing, 
 and also "to form the orphans together into 
 large families, instead of massing them together 
 upon the workhouse system. This last idea 
 was convenient for the raising of money, for it 
 enabled us to propose that individual donors 
 should each give the amount to build a house." 
 From time to time Mr Spurgeon recorded the 
 progress of this work in the pages of his maga- 
 zine, the Sword and Trowel. These entries tell, 
 in a graphic way, how the money was subscribed, 
 and how the prayer of faith was answered : 
 
 ^'June 1867.— The Lord is beginning to ap- 
 pear for us in the matter of the Orphanage; 
 but, as yet, He has not opened the windows of 
 heaven as we desire and expect. "We wait in 
 prayer and faith. We need no less than £10,000 
 to erect the buildings, and it loill come,; the 
 Lord will answer the prayer of faith. Our 
 esteemed friend, Mr George Moore, of Bow 
 Churchyard, has, with spontaneous generosity, 
 sent £250. Three friends have offered £50 each, 
 in the hope that seventeen others will give the 
 same." 
 
 ^'■August 1867. — Let the facts, which with 
 deep gratitude we record this month, strengthen 
 the faith of believers. In answer to many fer- 
 vent prayers, the Lord has moved His people to 
 send in during the last month, in different 
 amounts, towards the general funds of the 
 Orphanage, the sum of £1075, for which we 
 give thanks unto the name of the Lord. More 
 especially do we see the gracious hand of God in 
 the following incidents. A lady who has often 
 aided us in the work of the College, having been 
 spared to see the twenty-fifth anniversary of her 
 marriage-day, her beloved husband presented 
 her with £500 as a token of his ever-growing 
 love to her. Our sister has called upon us, and 
 dedicated the £500 to the building of one of the 
 houses, to be called The Silver Wedding House. 
 The Lord had, however, another substantial gift 
 in store to encourage us in our work ; for a day 
 or two ago a brother beloved in the Lord called 
 upon us on certain business, and when he had 
 retired, he left in a sealed envelope the sum of 
 £600, which is to be expended in erecting 
 another house. This donation was as little ex- 
 pected as the first, except that our faith expects 
 that all our needs will be supplied in the Lord's 
 own way. The next day, when preaching in the 
 open air, an unknown sister put an envelope 
 'nto my hand, enclosing £20 for the College, and 
 
 another £20 for the Orphanage. *What hath 
 God wrought ! ' " 
 
 During 1867 over £2000 had been brought 
 in, and the foundation-stones of four houses 
 were laid, for which the land had been pur- 
 chased and the houses provided for without 
 trenching upon Mrs Hillyard's original gift. 
 During 1868, as a token of esteem, and in aid 
 of this home for orphan boys, Mr Spurgeon was 
 presented with a purse containing £1200, which 
 sum was afterwards made up to £1765. Some 
 of the entries during 1868 are as follows : 
 
 ^^ January 1868. — About three weeks ago, the 
 noble sum of £1000 was brought us by an un- 
 known gentleman, towards the erection of two 
 other houses." 
 
 *' March 1868. — Just at the last moment, as we 
 were going to press, we received £2000 from 
 A. B., an unknown friend. We call upon all 
 our friends to magnify the Lord for this amazing 
 instance of His care. How base a thing is un- 
 belief, and how largely does the Lord honour 
 His servants' faith ! The note which attended 
 this munificent gift proves it to be from the 
 same donor who gave £1000 a few weeks ago. 
 We have feared that the Orphanage might im- 
 poverish the College ; see, dear readers, how 
 graciously the Lord rebukes this unbelieving 
 fear ! " 
 
 ** ' Mtdear Sir, — You will remember my in- 
 tention to send a donation to your College ; I have 
 this day dropped into your letter-box an enve- 
 lope containing two bank-notes (£2000), one of 
 which is for the College and the remaining 
 £1000 to help complete the Orphanage. The 
 latter led me to contribute to the former. I 
 am a stranger to you but not to your sermons 
 (printed). May the Lord give you health and 
 strength many years to preach His Word, and 
 carry on His work. — A, B.' " 
 
 The building of the Orphanage was completed 
 at the end of 1869, at a total cost of £10,200, 
 and entirely free of debt. The endowments of 
 the institution were at one time valued at 
 £30,000; about £5000 a year, or not less than 
 £80 a week, being required for the support of 
 the place and its 240 inmates. How the money 
 was often afterwards providentially forthcoming 
 when required will be seen from the following 
 entry : 
 
 ^'December 1869. — As our friends are aware, 
 we have been suddenly laid aside by an attack 
 of small-pox. When we thus found ourselves 
 put out of the way just when we were wanted 
 in a thousand places, we cried to the Lord to 
 let none of our work suffer, and especially we 
 begged Him to care for the Orphanage and 
 College. Within a few hours a beloved friend, 
 knowing nothing of our affliction, called and 
 left £500 for the Orphanage. How condescend- 
 ingly did the Lord thus ease His poor servant's 
 mind ! We felt a sweet peace and holy joy in 
 leaving all the rest of our work in the same 
 
504 
 
 TREASURY OF MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 hands. A day or two after, Wednesday, 17th 
 November, a letter was received, enclosing 
 £1000. Here again we bless the name of the 
 Lord, and set to our seal that God is true." 
 
 The following is Mr Spurgeon's own descrip- 
 tion of the buildings : *' On looking from under 
 the arch the visitor is struck with the size and 
 beauty of the buildings, and the delightfully 
 airy and open character of the whole institu- 
 tion. It is a place of sweetness and light, where 
 merry voices ring out and happy children play. 
 The stranger will be pleased with the dining- 
 hall, hung round with engravings given by Mr 
 Graves, of Pall Mall ; he will be shown into the 
 board-room, where the trustees transact the busi- 
 ness ; and he will be specially pleased with the 
 great play -hall in which our public meetings are 
 held and the boys' sports are carried on. There 
 is the swimming bath, which enables us to say 
 that nearly every boy can swim. Up at the top 
 of the buildings, after ascending two flights of 
 stairs, the visitor will find the schoolrooms, 
 which from their very position are airy and 
 wholesome. The floors, scrubbed by the boys 
 themselves, the beds made, and the domestic 
 arrangements all kept in order by their own 
 labour, are usually spoken of with approbation. 
 The matrons are glad to show friends over their 
 houses ; Mr Charlesworth, the excellent master, 
 is always pleased to arrange for friends to look 
 over the schools and the buildings, and when 
 there is no contagious disease abroad, he will 
 conduct them to the infirmary, where the best 
 of nurses will be glad to show them their 
 domains." 
 
 When Mr Spurgeon visits the Stockwell 
 Orphanage, it is a pleasant sight, says one 
 writer, to see the *' two hundred and forty boys 
 fed, clothed, and taught there. As he steps on 
 to the broad green which forms the centre of 
 the quadrangle, his burly form is soon espied by 
 the taller boys on the playground at the upper 
 end, and a ringing volley of cheers welcomes 
 their pastor and master, who, while enjoying 
 his reception, quietly remarks that his arrival 
 is too good an excuse for making a noise to be 
 passed over. As the boys collect round him, 
 each eager for a word or smile of recognition, he 
 recollects that their number exactly corresponds 
 with that of the pence in a sovereign, and hands 
 over that coin to Mr Charlesworth, the excellent 
 master, to be by him reduced to coppers and 
 distributed. " 
 
 But of all the institutions begun by C. H. 
 Spurgeon, that of the Pastors' College has most 
 closely recommended itself to his prayers, and 
 sympathy, and work. This College was com- 
 menced without any idea on the part of the 
 founder that it would grow and expand as it 
 has done. The raison d'etre of the college 
 may be given in the words of the founder : 
 "There were springing up around me, as my 
 own spiritual children, many earnest young 
 
 men who felt an irresistible impulse to preach 
 the Gospel, and yet with half an eye it could be 
 seen that their want of education would be a 
 sad hindrance to them. It was not in my heart 
 to bid them cease their preaching ; had I done 
 so they would in all probability have ignored 
 my recommendation. As it seemed that preach 
 they would, though their attainments were very 
 slender, no other course was open but to give 
 them an opportunity to educate themselves for 
 the work. ... I thought the Calvinism of 
 the theology usually taught to be very doubtful, 
 and the fervour of the generality of the students 
 to be far behind their literary attainments. It 
 seemed to me that preachers of the grand old 
 truths of the Gospel, ministers suitable for the 
 masses, were more likely to be found in an in- 
 stitution where preaching and divinity would 
 be the main objects, and not degrees and other 
 insignia of human learning. I felt that without 
 interfering with the laudable objects of other 
 colleges, I could do good in my own way. These 
 and other considerations led me to take a few 
 tried young men, and to put them under some 
 able minister that he might train them in the 
 Scriptures, and in other knowledge helpful to 
 the understanding and proclamation of the 
 truth." A fit tutor was found in Mr George 
 Rogers, and afterwards a complete staff of tutors 
 was added. The College grew rapidly, and the 
 number of students was advanced from one to 
 forty, and from eighty to a hundred. Difficulty 
 was experienced at first in procuring sufficient 
 funds to go on with, yet these funds increased 
 as the need enlarged, till in 1869 the income 
 stood at £1869. The usual period of study for 
 each student is two years ; this is lengthened 
 to three or four years as circumstances may re- 
 quire. Devotional habits are cultivated amongst 
 the students, and they are each expected to 
 engage in as much evangelistic work as the 
 pressure of their other studies will allow. They 
 are boarded out for the most part in twos and 
 threes amongst the friends around the Taber- 
 nacle. This secures that they shall be accus- 
 tomed to family habits, mix in fair society, and 
 also that they do not live too far apart from the 
 struggles of everyday life. At first the College 
 met in rooms below the Tabernacle, but now 
 commodious new buildings have been erected at 
 a cost of £15,000, with suitable classrooms, 
 library, and other accessories. Upwards of 430 
 men trained in the College have become pastors 
 in connection with the Baptist denomination. 
 Upwards of £5000 a year, or £120 a week, is re- 
 quired to carry on the work. 
 
 The Colportage Association, of which Mr 
 Spurgeon acts as president, employs above 
 sixty agents in twenty-seven counties, in the 
 dissemination of pure literature. Mrs Spurgeon 
 looks after a book fund for supplying poor 
 pastors with theological works. 
 
 A.S an author, Mr Spurgeon has been also 
 
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON, 
 
 o05 
 
 signally successful. In addition to the monthly 
 issue of a periodical called the Sword and 
 Troioel, and to his weekly sermons, which are 
 widely circulated throughout Great Britain and 
 America, and which have been translated into 
 Dutch, German, Swedish, and French; many 
 useful and practical Christian treatises have pro- 
 ceeded from his pen. The best known of these 
 books are "John Ploughman's Talk," which is 
 racy, humorous, and sensible; "The Treasury 
 of David," a commentary on the Psalms; and 
 his magnum opus, the "Interpreter," a book 
 of family prayer; "Morning by Morning," and 
 "Evening by Evening," containing daily read- 
 ings after the manner of Bogatzsky's "Trea- 
 sury;" "Feathers for Arrov/s," a series of 
 illustrations for the use of teachers and 
 preachers; "Lectures to my Students," and 
 "Commenting and Commentaries," etc. 
 
 A MORNING IN THE TABERNACLE.* 
 
 It is spring-time, the sun is high in the 
 heavens ; but within the building the gas is 
 burning, while the view is partially interrupted 
 by a misty atmosphere in sympathy with the 
 slight fog without doors. The immense area, 
 which, to a stranger, might appear to be already 
 nearly filled, must undergo the process of filling 
 till it is packed. The movements of the people 
 can only be compared with the motion of a 
 swarm of insects, not, however, eager and im- 
 patient like the crowd outside ; for the new 
 arrivals are merely taking up their regularly- 
 appointed places. Onward move the great 
 hands of the giant clock overhead, until they 
 point to 10.40, when we witness a transforma- 
 tion scene both lively and extensive. Hitherto 
 the "regulars" and "irregulars" had leisurely 
 entered by side-doors, with the comfortable con- 
 sciousness of being privileged persons ; but now 
 all the main front entrances are opened at once, 
 and in pour the broad living streams, to occupy, 
 to the last inch, the standing room of what 
 appears to be an already overcrowded building. 
 Look this way or that way, or take a general 
 view, and it will be hard to distinguish between 
 aisles and pews. The new comers are manifestly 
 a little excited in their anxiety to find seats; 
 and yet the bustle is not altogether like any 
 other bustle which is witnessed in public build- 
 ings. The coughing, talking, and feet shuffling, 
 produce a compouiid sound peculiar to the Taber- 
 nacle; and this is instantly hushed when Mr Spur- 
 geon appears on the platform. . . . When the 
 first word of the service is uttered, the multitude 
 of faces are all turned in one direction — towards 
 the preacher. Those who occupy seats in proxi- 
 mity to Mr Spurgeon's table, may perhaps have 
 observed that the tones of his voice seem to be 
 
 * From "Twelve Realistic Sketches of Mr Spur- 
 •<eon." London : Jaines Clarke Si Co. 
 
 nicely adapted to the requirements of those who 
 are near, as well as to those who are farther 
 away. To persons sitting near they are never un- 
 pleasantly loud ; to those in the remotest corner 
 they are loud enough, while they are never 
 indistinct. Not that so vast a concourse can be 
 addressed even by a man of the greatest living 
 power, without a strong effort, though in this 
 instance, the strain is barely observed even by 
 those who listen immediately beneath the clock. 
 As seen from the deacons' standpoint, it is also 
 interesting to note how the leviathan congrega- 
 tion allows itself to be managed. It is subject 
 to certain influences, as if it were one great being 
 instead of six thousand atoms. It has its re- 
 cognised coughing times ; by way of acknow- 
 ledging a touch of humour, it smiles like one 
 vast creature which is particularly sensitive. 
 Then it sings " faster " or "slower " according to 
 directions, and is in all respects most admirably 
 managed. 
 
 While reading the concluding verse of "Rock 
 of Ages " the pastor is visibly affected, just as 
 a few minutes before he seemed to catch and 
 diffuse the spirit of "that wonderful Gospel 
 chapter," Isaiah Iv. Anon the quiet earnest- 
 ness of the sermon seems to extend its influence 
 throughout the entire space of the building, 
 until the rapt attention of the crowd as they 
 listen to exposition and appeal based on the 
 words, "Without money and without price," is 
 found to kindle feelings akin to actual awe. 
 To handle what are called commonplace or 
 hackneyed texts in a manner strikingly original 
 is the forte of a great man ; the ability to do 
 this with consummate art, is characteristic of 
 the genius of Mr Spurgeon. 
 
 AN EVENING IN THE TABERNACLE.* 
 
 In accordance with a request from Mr Spurgeon, 
 strangely at variance with entreaties on the 
 same subject more usual in other places of 
 worship, the congregation at the Tabernacle on 
 Sunday night scrupulously refrained from at- 
 tending the service. The request was preferred 
 on the preceding Sunday in furtherance of a 
 scheme recently devised by Mr Spurgeon with 
 the object of acquiring fresh ground to work in. 
 Sunday after Sunday the vast building familiarly 
 known in London as the "Tabernacle" is 
 crowded to its doors for the most part by 
 regular seat-holders, only the fringe of the 
 great audience being made up of the outside 
 public. Mr Spurgeon resolved to ask his con- 
 gregation four times a year to stay away from 
 the place, and leave it free to all comers. The 
 doors of the Tabernacle are usually thrown open 
 at six o'clock ; but this night a crowd began to 
 assemble at half-past five, and by ten minutes 
 to six it bad grown so dense that in order tc 
 
 Daily Xc.ir^. 
 
prevent its overflowing beyond the railings, and 
 so interfering with the street traffic, the doors 
 were straightway opened. In little more than 
 a quarter of an hour every seat appeared to be 
 occupied, and by a quarter-past six the aisles 
 were thronged, and, to the inexperienced ob- 
 server, the problem of what was to be done 
 with the stream that still poured in through a 
 dozen opened doors seemed insoluble. But the 
 deacons and pew-openers at the Tabernacle have 
 by constant practice obtained a remarkable 
 degree of perfection in packing a crowd. They 
 found odd seats here and there in the long rows 
 of pews; they filled the benches running all 
 round the walls; they got a few more on the 
 platform beneath the preacher's desk ; and, all 
 this done, flaps were let down from either side 
 of the benches opening in the various aisles, 
 and hereon alone were disposed a number of 
 people who, in one of the old churches now 
 disappearing from the city, would comprise a 
 startlingly large Sunday congregation. All 
 classes were represented, from the lady in silk 
 to the wearer of carefully-preserved print calico, 
 and from the man in broadcloth and fine linen 
 to the costermonger ineffectually disguised in a 
 frock-coat. 
 
 At half-past six precisely Mr Spurgeon ap- 
 peared, making his way through the crowd that 
 blocked the approaches to the platform, level 
 with the lower gallery, from which he preaches. 
 At this moment the interior presented a spectacle 
 such as it would be diflicult to match amongst 
 Sunday evening gatherings. The Tabernacle 
 was built to seat six thousand persons. This 
 night the numbers present were nearer seven 
 thousand, for up and down, from ground-floor 
 to the spacious galleries, there was not a square 
 yard of available room unoccupied. This was 
 at half-past six, and for nearly half an hour 
 later a constant stream of people arrived at the 
 gates, taking a desperate chance of finding ad- 
 mission. In the hope of catching some of these 
 a prayer meeting was held in the lecture hall, 
 which speedily became full to its utmost capa- 
 city. Mr Spurgeon opened the service by a brief 
 prayer. Then, upon his invitation, the whole 
 congregation rose, and with hearty goodwill 
 sang the "Old Hundredth," There is no organ 
 at the Tabernacle, a gentleman stepping for- 
 ward from Mr Spurgeon's side and raising the 
 tune. But after the first note of the first verse 
 his voice was heard no more, being lost in the 
 mighty sound of thousands of voices that rolled 
 forth the familiar tune, waiting for no signal 
 and owning no leadership. After this Mr Spur- 
 geon read a portion of the eleventh chapter of 
 Matthew, choosing as an appropriate exordium 
 the fifteenth verse, " He that hath ears to hear, 
 let him hear." The reading of what elsewhere 
 
 would be called the lesson was accompanied by 
 a running commentary of homely explanation 
 and earnest exhortation. Another hymn, heartily 
 joined in by the congregation, a second and 
 longer prayer, and then Mr Spurgeon began to 
 preach, or rather to talk to the manifestly inter- 
 ested crowd. 
 
 He took as his text the three last verses of the 
 chapter from which he had read, and spoke 
 about it in a simple and at times passionately 
 earnest manner for the space of fifty minutes. 
 The sermon was singularly free from those un- 
 conventionalities of style which occasionally 
 mark Mr Spurgeon's pulpit utterances. " Come 
 unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest," was the burden of the 
 text, and the preacher was content with reiter- 
 ating and varying this invitation, insisting on 
 the illimitability of the proffered welcome, and 
 dwelling on the perfection of the promised rest. 
 Twice only did he vary his discourse by the 
 introduction of illustrations in parable form, 
 which he is much accustomed to use for the 
 enforcement of his text. One of these was 
 short, and contained within itself the main 
 argument of the discourse. "There is a doctor 
 who visits you," he said. "You have called 
 him in because you are feeling very ill, and the 
 first thing he says to you is, * Do you trust me 
 entirely?' You say, 'Oh, yes, doctor, I trust 
 you entirely.' 'Very well; now tell me what 
 you eat and what you drink.' You tell him, 
 and he declares that you are eating and drinking 
 the very things that feed your disease. He tells 
 you you must give up those things, and asks 
 you if you will take some medicine he will send 
 you. Oh, yes, you will do everything he tells 
 you, and he goes away. A few days after he 
 calls again, and finds you worse. * Why, how 
 is this?' he says; 'your disease is getting a 
 firmer hold upon you.' But when he comes to 
 inquire, he finds that you have been going on 
 eating and drinking the same things as before. 
 ' Did you take the medicine ? ' * Well,' you say, 
 *I just tasted it, but found it was nasty, and 
 there it is.' Then the doctor knows that you 
 have not trusted him, and he goes away sorrow- 
 ful; for he knows that without that trust he 
 can do you no good. It is just so with Jesus 
 Christ. You must trust Him entirely and 
 do everything He tells you, for those are the 
 sole conditions upon which He will give you 
 rest." 
 
 This was, in brief, the sermon. Its fuller 
 recital was listened to throughout with never- 
 faltering attention by the great congregation, 
 to whom, seated or standing in whatever remote 
 comer of the hall, the preacher's sonorous tones 
 were as audible as if he were speaking to them 
 across a table. 
 
AN ADDITIONAL GEOUP 
 
 OP 
 
 MODEEN MEN AND WOMEN. 
 
 ARNOLD, MATTHEW, the eldest son of the 
 late Dr Arnold of Rugby, was born at Laleham, 
 near Staines, 24th December 1822, and was 
 educated at Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol 
 College, Oxford. His college career was a dis- 
 tinguished one ; he gained the Newdigate prize 
 for English verse in 1843, graduated in honours 
 in 1844, and became a Fellow of Oriel College 
 in 1845. While secretary to the late Lord 
 Lansdowne, his first volume of poems, "The 
 Strayed Reveller," was issued. In 1851 he 
 received an appointment as one of the Lay 
 Inspectors of Schools, under the Committee of 
 Council on Education. In 1853 he issued " Em- 
 pedocles on Etna, and Other Poems," and in the 
 following year appeared a collection and selec- 
 tion of his previous poems. In 1857 he was 
 elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 
 1859-60 he acted as Foreign Assistant Com- 
 missioner in the inquiry on the educational 
 system of France, Germany, and Holland. In 
 1865 he again visited the Continent on behalf of 
 the Royal Commission on Middle-Class Educa- 
 tion, to gather information respecting foreign 
 schools for the upper and middle classes. He 
 was an LL.D. of the Universities of Edinburgh 
 and of Oxford, and received the order of Com- 
 mander of the Crown of Italy from the King of 
 Italy. His other principal works are: "Mer- 
 ope," a tragedy, issued in 1858; "On Transla- 
 ting Homer," three lectures, 1861 ; " Essays in 
 Criticism," prose contributions to magazine 
 literature, 1865; "Lectures on the Study of 
 Celtic Literature," 1868 ; " New Poems," 1868 ; 
 "Culture and Anarchy," 1870; "St Paul and 
 Protestantism," 1870; "Friendship's Garland," 
 1871; "Literature and Dogma: an Essay to- 
 wards a better apprehension of the Bible," 1873 ; 
 " God and the Bible : A Review of Objections 
 to 'Literature and Dogma ; ' " "Last Essays on 
 Church and Religion." Mr Arnold has edited a 
 selection from Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," 
 and a selection from his own poems appears in 
 the ** Golden Treasury " series. He died in 1888. 
 
 BAILEY, PHILIP JAMES, the poet, was born 
 at Nottingham, 22d April 1816. He wa3 
 
 educated in his native town and at Glasgo'w 
 University. He began the study of law in 
 1833, was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn in 
 1835, and in 1840 was called to the bar. Having 
 no heart-love for legal work, much of his leisure 
 time was spent in reading at home and in the 
 libraries of the British Museum and Lincoln's 
 Inn. From early years he was accustomed to the 
 composition of verse ; " Festus," his great poem, 
 was conceived and planned in 1836, and published 
 in 1839, when the poet was in his twenty-third 
 year. It has been looked upon as a most marvel- 
 lous achievement of its kind to have been pro- 
 duced at so early an age. Since its first publica- 
 tion, every subsequent edition has been corrected 
 and altered by the author. A revised and altered 
 edition, being the tenth, was published in 1877. 
 Mr Bailey's other poems are: "The Angel 
 World," " The Mystic," 1855 ; " The Age," a 
 satire, in 1858; and "The Universal Hymn," 
 in 1867 Mrs Browning, in writing to Mr R. 
 H. Home, expressed herself regarding "Festus" 
 in these terms: "The misfortune of the poem 
 is, that it is formed upon Goethe's, and has thus 
 no originality of design. Its fault is an extra 
 ordinary inequality, so that really one falls 
 down precipices continually, and from pinnacles 
 of grandeur into profundities of badness. Parts 
 of the poem are as bad and weak as is well 
 possible to conceive of. . . . But when all 
 is said, what poet stuflf remains ! what power ' 
 what fire of imagination worth the stealing of 
 Prometheus. A true poet indeed." 
 
 BAZER, SIE SAMUEL WHITE, K.C.B., 
 F.R.S., the great African traveller, the son of 
 Samuel Baker, Thorngrove, Worcestershire, was 
 born in 1821. Being educated as an engineer, 
 at an early age he showed a desire to travel, 
 and went to Ceylon, where he was partly occu- 
 pied in organising an agricultural settlement. 
 Fond also of sport and adventure, he published 
 "The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon," 1854, and 
 "Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon," 1855. 
 In 1860 he married a young Hungarian lady, 
 daughter of F. Von Sass, who has since accom- 
 pfviiied him in many of his wanderings. In 
 
508 
 
 BLA CK—BLA CKIE, 
 
 1861 he went to Africa with the view of form- 
 ing an expedition to meet Captains Speke and 
 Grant at the sources of the Nile. On reaching 
 Khartlim, he organised his expedition to the 
 Great White Nile. Starting from Khartiim 
 with his attendants, Gondoroko was reached in 
 1863. Here he met Speke and Grant, whom he 
 relieved. They informed him of their discovery 
 of the Victoria Nyanza, and also that the 
 natives had told them of another great lake. 
 With his brave wife he set out in search of this 
 new lake, and after passing through some re- 
 markable adventures they gained a sight of the 
 lake, which he named the Albert Nyanza, 14th 
 March 1864. For the relief of Speke and Grant, 
 Baker in 1864 received the medal of the Eoyal 
 Geographical Society; and on 10th November 
 1866, he was knighted. He headed an expedition 
 of 1500 picked troops in 1869, under the auspices 
 of the Khedive, to suppress the slave trade on 
 the White Nile. On this expedition Bari and 
 Unyoro were annexed to Egypt. His chief 
 works are : "The Albert Nyanza," 1866 ; "The 
 Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia," 1871; "Is- 
 mailia," 1874; etc. 
 
 BLACK, WILLIAM, a skilful and favourite 
 modern novelist, was trained as a journalist. 
 Born in Glasgow in 1841, he was educated at 
 various private schools. Mr Black was for a time 
 editor of the London Review, and afterwards of 
 the Examiner. His best known novels are: 
 " In Silk Attire," 1868 ; "A Daughter of Heth," 
 1871, the latter of which is now in its eleventh 
 edition. His other novels are : "Love or Mar- 
 riage," "Kilmeny," "The Monarch of Mincing 
 Lane," "Three Feathers," "Lady Silverdale's 
 Sweetheart, and Other Stories," "Strange Ad- 
 ventures of a Phaeton," 1873 ; a sequel to the 
 latter is called "Green Pastures and Piccadilly ;" 
 "The Princess of Thule," 1873 ; "The Maid of 
 Ejlleena, and Other Stories," 1874; "Madcap 
 Violet," 1877; and "Macleodof Dare," 1878. Mr 
 Euskin has expressed himself in terms of warm 
 commendation of "The Strange Adventures of 
 a Phaeton," describing it "as a very delightful 
 and wise book of its kind ; very full of pleasant 
 play, and deep and pure feeling ; much inter- 
 pretation of some of the best points of German 
 character ; and, last and least, with pieces of 
 description in it which I should be glad, sel- 
 fishly, to think inferior to what the public 
 praise in * Modern Painters ; ' I can only say, 
 they seem to me quite as good." 
 
 BLACKIE, JOHN S., emeritus Professor of 
 Greek in t heUniv ersityof Edinburgh , is one of the 
 most accomplished and versatile of living Scot- 
 tish authors. He is far more than a mere 
 scholar. He has travelled much, and has been 
 a careful and thoughtful observer of men and 
 things. His finely-strung nature is cultured in 
 a very high degree by habitual eontemplation of 
 
 all that is beautiful and good in nature, in lite- 
 rature, and in art ; and his writings reflect his 
 character with singular clearness. There is a 
 freshness and buoyancy about them all, indica- 
 tive of free and healthy intellectual life in the 
 writer, and peculiarly suggestive and stimulat- 
 ing to the reader. Professor Blackie is an emin- 
 ently independent thinker; remarkably free 
 from conventionalism in his mode of dealing 
 with his subjects, and vigorous and enthusiastic 
 in his advocacy of the principles he adopts. The 
 son of an Aberdeen banker, he was born in 
 Glasgow in July 1809, and educated at Mari- 
 schal College, Aberdeen, and at the University of 
 Edinburgh. After a complete course of imi- 
 versity training in Scotland, he visited the Con- 
 tinent, and prosecuted his studies for several 
 years at Gottingen, Berlin, and finally in Rome. 
 He thus acquired a thorough command of the 
 languages of Germany and Italy, and an inti- 
 mate acquaintance with the topography as well 
 as the literature of these countries. His keen 
 artistic instinct led him to study with more 
 than usual care the masterpieces of architecture, 
 sculpture, and painting, with which the Conti- 
 nental cities abound. In the preface to one of 
 his works, published in 1858, he makes the 
 following reference to his life at this period: 
 "About twenty -five years ago, after returning 
 from a prolonged residence in Germany and 
 Italy, and with my head full of pictures, 
 statues, churches, and other beautiful objects, 
 I naturally began to speculate on the subject of 
 beauty generally, and to attempt to reduce my . 
 multifarious observations to general principles. 
 I still possess among my manuscripts a complete 
 schMne of a large work on sestbetical philosophy, 
 drawn out by me at that time. But, being con- 
 vinced afterwards, that the British mind is re- 
 markably intolerant of big books on theoreti- 
 cal subjects, I allowed the projected work to 
 drop." * In 1834 Mr Blackie published a metri- 
 cal translation of Faust. The task was by no 
 means an easy one; but it was achieved with 
 such success that Mr George Henry Lewes, the 
 biographer of Goethe, and, perhaps, the man in 
 all England who is best acquainted with his 
 works, pronounced it to be, in some respects, 
 the best existing translation of that wonderful 
 poem. We have often heard the professor him- 
 self, however, denounce the book as raw and 
 juvenile ; and we understand he has thoroughly 
 revised the translation, and re-written whole 
 scenes, and that the remodelled work lies now 
 ready for the press. In the same year Mr 
 Blackie was called to the Scottish bar ; but he 
 did not prosecute the profession to practical 
 ends. He became an extensive contributor to 
 
 * " On Beauty : Three Discourses, delivered in the 
 University of Edinburgh. With an Exposition ol 
 the Doctrine of the Beautiful according to piatx>." 
 Edinburc^h, 1858. 
 
BLACKIE, 
 
 509 
 
 the reviews and other periodicals, and continued 
 to be a devoted student of letters. In 1841 Le 
 was appointed Professor of Humanity (Latin 
 Literature) in MariscLal College, Aberdeen, a 
 cliair which he filled for more than ten years. 
 While there he published a translation of 
 ^Eschylus in English verse, which received 
 the warmest commendation of the learned 
 world, and led, in 1852, to his election to the 
 Greek chair in the University of Edinburgh. 
 He spent several months of the year 1853 in 
 Greece, personally examining the antiquities of 
 the country, thereby acquiring a practical ac- 
 quaintance with its ancient and modern history, 
 and a thorough knowledge of its language as 
 spoken now as well as in ancient times. He was 
 the first, we believe, in this country, in the face 
 of a very common prejudice of academical men, 
 to direct attention to the fact that Greek is still 
 a living language; and he has done much to 
 illustrate the ancient Greek by comparing it 
 with the tongue as now spoken. Professor 
 Blaclde is an admirable teacher. He trains his 
 students to think, while many professors in 
 Scotland and elsewhere impart a merely mechani- 
 cal knowledge of the languages they profess. 
 His three discourses on beauty, delivered in the 
 University of Edinburgh, are excellent speci- 
 mens of true academical teaching. They are 
 really learned, and at the same time entirely 
 free from the pedantry of learning. ... In 
 a note appended to a translation of part of the 
 Platonic dialogue, he says : " It will be observed 
 that I do not translate literally, after the fashion 
 of most of Bohn's translators, whose system of 
 minute and verbal accuracy, whether proceeding 
 from pedantic affectation or tasteless stupidity, 
 has done more harm to the just appreciation of 
 the beauties of classical writers among the 
 general public, than the most unlicensed vague- 
 ness which so often characterised the handiwork 
 of English translators." A teacher who has the 
 boldness to speak thus is deserving of every 
 respect; and his teaching is of more practical 
 utility than that of a dozen linguists who treat 
 ancient language and literature as a mere horhis 
 siccus. . . . Professor Blackie has done 
 yeoman's service in the cause of university 
 reform in Scotland, and he still labours with 
 unflagging zeal in the interests of education. 
 Much has been done during the last twenty 
 years for Scottish universities ; and he was one 
 of the earliest and most earnest advocates of the 
 happy reform which has taken place. School 
 reform is now imperatively required, in order 
 that young men before entering the colleges 
 may have the opportunity, each in his own dis- 
 trict of the country, of acquiring at least so 
 much of the rudiments of knowledge as shall 
 enable them to benefit by the higher tuition 
 which it is the special function of a university 
 to impart. This necessity Professor Blackie 
 sees, and he devotes much time and trouble 
 
 to press on the needed improvements. While 
 others are meditating, he is generally acting — 
 an "excellent thing" in a professor. . . . 
 Professor Blackie is a reverent and devout 
 worshipper in the temple of nature ; but he is 
 far from being a puling sentimentalist or a 
 creed-bound bigot. " A Sabbath Meditation in 
 Arran " opens with the following admirable 
 lines illustrative of this feature of his character: 
 
 " The Sabbath bells are travelling o'er the hill ; 
 The gentle breeze across the fresh-reaped fields 
 Blows fitful ; scarcely on the broad smooth bay, 
 With full white gleaming sail the slow ship moves 
 Thin float the clouds ; serene the mountain stands , 
 And all the plain in hallowed beauty lies. 
 God of the Sabbath, on Thy holy day, 
 'Tis meet to praise Thee. In the high-domed fane, 
 Glorious with all the legendary pomp 
 Of pictured saints, where skilful singers swell 
 The curious chant, or on the lonely hill, 
 Where, on grey cliff and ijurple heather, shines 
 The shadowless sun at noon, Thou hear'st alike. 
 Vainly the narrow wit of narrow men 
 Within the walls which priestly lips have blest, 
 In the fixed phrases of a formal creed, 
 Would crib Thy presence : Thou art more than all 
 The shrines that hold Thee ; and our wisest creeds 
 Are but the lispings of a forward child, 
 To spell the Infinite." 
 
 This *' Meditation," and another poem called 
 "A Psalm of Ben More," remind us, in some 
 passages, of Coleridge's " Hymn in the Vale of 
 Chamouni." The line of thought pursued is 
 very similar, though the individuality of each 
 writer is always distinctly preserved. Cole- 
 ridge's mind had no practical side. Professor 
 Blackie is intensely practical. His "Psalm of 
 Loch Duich," another Sunday meditation, is as 
 good a practical summary of religion as we hav* 
 found in books or from pulpits : 
 
 " Hark ! from the base of that green copsy knoP 
 The gentle call of the familiar bell 
 Invites the plaided worshippers to join 
 The Sabbath service, solemn and severe, 
 Of Presbyterian piety. Go thou 
 And worship with them, if so be thy heart 
 Spontaneous rising to the source of good 
 Chime with their hymns, and thy well-tutored lips 
 Spell the dread mysteries of their iron creed 
 With awful pleasure. But if far from these 
 Thy spirit dwells, then let thy song ascend 
 Apart, with mine, upon the lonely hills. 
 God numbers not the heads but weighs the hearts 
 Of them that worship. Here nor preacher needs 
 With gusts of studied passion to upstir 
 The dull heart's stagnant pool, nor with set styles 
 To train thy finite mind with blind embrace 
 To clutch the Infinite ; all the vasty world 
 Sublime, the living temple of His power 
 Invades thy sense and occupies thy thouglit. 
 There have been fools — no void and vacant souls. 
 But super-subtle, self -confounding ivits, 
 Eager to doubt and studious to deny, 
 Who in the mighty marvel of His ivorks 
 Owned not the workman; let such pass; but thou 
 With open eye and reverent-cUnginy heart 
 Worship, and with pure homage of consent 
 
510 
 
 BRADDON, 
 
 Accept His doings. What He is He shows, 
 And what He shows, interpreted, becomes 
 Thy law and thy religion; thou art bound 
 By Him as by the chain that bindeth all." 
 
 The italics in the above quotation are ours, not 
 Professor Blackie's, and we have emphasised the 
 lines because we think they are peculiarly char- 
 acteristic of him. In addition to the works we 
 have mentioned, Professor Blackie is the author 
 of many others of learning and taste ; he has 
 translated Homer's Iliad into ballad metre ; and 
 is the author of multitudinous pamphlets on pro- 
 fessional and other subjects. He has also devoted 
 his leisure hours in the summer to the study of 
 the Gaelic language, and has published a book 
 on the language and literature of the Scottish 
 Highlands, which, besides a philological analysis 
 of the Gaelic tongue as now spoken, and a dis- 
 cussion of the Ossianic question, contains poetical 
 versions of some of the most popular pieces in 
 Gaelic poetry. It would be difficult to name a 
 more useful Scotchman, or one who has more 
 honourably earned a position of high repute in 
 and beyond his own country. His recent book 
 on "Self-Culture," now in the ninth edition, 
 should be in the hands of every youth. Latterly, 
 much of his time has been devoted to securing 
 the establishment and endowment of a Celtic 
 chair in his own university. The people have 
 so liberally responded to his appeals for money, 
 that his purpose may now be considered as 
 accomplished. As a scholar, perhaps, his most 
 original achievements are his exposition of the 
 theory of Greek accents, and his philological 
 analysis of the Neo-Hellenic language. In his 
 views with regard to the origin of language, and 
 the interpretation of myths, he has taken up a 
 decided position antagonistic to Professor Max 
 Miiller. His detailed lucubrations on these and 
 cognate subjects were published in a separate 
 volume, under the title of "Horse Hellenicae." 
 His "Hellenic Dialogues" — Greek and English 
 — have been welcomed in many quarters, as 
 containing excellent materials for the introduc- 
 tion of the conversational method of the Platonic 
 dialogues into the educational practice of school 
 and college in this country.* The professor 
 spent the spring of 1878 in Egypt. 
 
 BRADDON, MARY ELIZABETH (Mrs John 
 Maxwell), is a daughter of Henry Braddon, 
 solicitor, was born in London in 1837, and early 
 in life began to contribute to periodical litera- 
 ture. Her knowledge of sporting events and 
 incidents she has derived from her father, who 
 was a native of Cornwall, and who contributed 
 to the Sporting Magazine under the noms de 
 plume of "Kough Eobin" or "Gilbert For- 
 rester." She issued a volume of verse in 1861 
 under the title of " Garibaldi, and Other.Poems." 
 
 * Dublin University Magazine. 
 
 For the stage she has written "Griselda" and 
 the "Loves of Arcadia," a comedietta which 
 was produced at the Royal Strand Theatre 
 in 1860. Her first successful novel, "Lady 
 Audley's Secret," established her name in the 
 front rank of "sensational" novelists. It ap- 
 peared in a serial called Robin Goodfellow, now 
 defunct, and was immediately successful when 
 issued in a three volume form. Dickens is her 
 favourite author amongst novelists, though she 
 has studied closely the writings of Balzac, 
 Bulwer, and George Eliot. Since her first 
 successes, besides contributing largely to BeU 
 gravia^ a London magazine which she conducts, 
 from time to time she has issued the following 
 novels in rapid succession : "Lady Lisle," "Cap- 
 tain of the Vulture," "Trail of the Serpent," 
 "Ralph the Bailiff," "Aurora Floyd," "Eleanor's 
 Victory," "John Marchmont's Legacy," "Henry 
 Dunbar," "The Doctor's Wife," " Only a Clod," 
 "Sir Jasper's Tenant," "The Lady's Mile," 
 "Rupert Godwin," "Run to Earth," "Birds 
 of Prey," " Charlotte's Inheritance," " Dead Sea 
 Fruit," "Fenton's Quest," "To the Bitter 
 End," "Lucius Davoring," "Strangers and 
 Pilgrims," 1873; "Lost for Love," 1874; 
 "Taken at the Flood," 1874; "An Open Ver- 
 dict," 1878. The method of work of this popu- 
 lar novelist is thus described by a modern 
 journalist: "The hour of work arrives — of 
 quick work, too, for the author of 'Aurora 
 Floyd' rarely writes for more than two hours 
 a day. This may not seem a very long spell of 
 toil ; but in Mrs Maxwell's case the stamping in 
 black and white of the scene or subject pre- 
 viously thought out with great care is rapidly 
 performed, the two hours sufficing for the pro- 
 duction of four pages of letterpress. Probably 
 literature has no more earnest devotee ; for 
 apart from her canter in Richmond Park and 
 her household duties, her entire time is devoted 
 to literature, to reading omniverously, to think- 
 ing out new subjects, accumulating facts, acquir- 
 ing technical expressions, and inventing illustra- 
 tions. Above the pretty drawing-room, ad- 
 jacent to the grounds where stood Pagoda 
 House, is a certain blue chamber, from which 
 the profane are rigidly excluded. This is the 
 literary workshop. In the centre of the room is 
 a great square table, covered with books of refer- 
 ence and a litter of pamphlets and papers, odds 
 and ends of every imaginable kind. There is 
 also a huge office table and an upright desk, 
 with a regiment of drawers opening and shutting 
 simultaneously. But not one of these aids to 
 composition is favoured by Mrs Maxwell, who 
 prefers an eccentric attitude of her own. By 
 the fireside is a particularly low uncomfortable 
 chair. In this the novelist huddles herself up, 
 with a piece of thick card-board resting on her 
 lap, and a little ink-bottle held firmly against 
 it with her left hand. This apparently crrmped 
 position appears to be favourable to the com- 
 
BRONTE— BROUGHAM, 
 
 511 
 
 position, for the pen moves over the great 
 square slips of paper, and the corrections are 
 few and far between. If we are not mistaken. 
 It was once an article of popular belief that the 
 cahgraphy of literary folk was the worst pos- 
 sible quality, and that they took a savage de- 
 light in leaving something to the compositor's 
 imagination. This has ceased to be, at least, 
 universally, the case now. Those who write a 
 great deal now, ought to know that it saves 
 time to be very legible, and Mrs Maxwell, who 
 has written more than thirty three -volume 
 novels since she penned the 'Trail of the Sep- 
 pent,' writes a singularly clear hand on the 
 inner edge of the pen, and punctuates most 
 exactly. In the handwriting itself there is 
 nothing feminine— it might have been written 
 by the adjutant of a cavalry regiment ; but the 
 woman peeps out in the tailor's thimble which 
 protects the middle finger from the brand of 
 ink. Mrs Maxwell has by practice reduced 
 writing— the mere production of copy— to a 
 science. From the outer edge of the pen she 
 has turned to the inner, as affording more rest for 
 the hand, and has systematically reduced the size 
 of her letters, because she has discovered a 
 truth which deserves to be published— that the 
 massive character now in fashion takes more 
 time than a smaller style, because the writer 
 must cover more ground. Having been ad- 
 mitted to the privilege of seeing Mrs Maxwell 
 at work, we hardly feel in revealing a secret 
 without which the information we have supplied 
 would be worthless. There is * copy ' all over 
 the room, as there are pictures, as there are 
 books, as there are receipted bills and house- 
 keeping accounts, but the * copy ' is merely the 
 outward expression, the visible sign of work. 
 Where is the hidden spring ? In a small drawer 
 carefully locked, repose the * skeletons ' of the 
 novelist. They occupy very little space, these 
 dry bones, to be afterwards ' clothed on,' as Mr 
 Tennyson has it, with flesh and blood, light and 
 warmth, life and atmosphere. 'Dead Men's 
 Shoes ' in the ' skeleton ' hardly covers a couple 
 of pages, and there has evidently been much 
 resetting of the bones and rearrangement of the 
 vertebrae. The difficulty of the writer is not in 
 making the 'skeleton,' but in clinging faithfully 
 to it to the end. As the work goes on and the 
 creature breathes and moves, it displays an 
 irrepressible instinct either to break out of 
 bounds, to multiply the number of its vertebrae, 
 or to abandon the higher form altogether and 
 dwindle into an invertebrate of one volume." 
 
 BRONTE, CHARLOTTE, daughter of the Eev. 
 Patrick Bronte, curate of Haworth, Yorkshire, 
 was born in 1816. Along with her sisters Anne 
 and Emily, her days were passed in seclusion, 
 and in what literary culture the quiet manse 
 could afford. In 1846 the three sisters issued 
 a volume of poems. They wrote under the 
 
 assumed names of Currer, Acton, and Ellis 
 Bell, The publication of "Jane Eyre" created 
 some sensation with the reading public, and at 
 once gave the writer high rank as a popular 
 novelist. " Shirley " and ' ' Villette " followed. 
 In 1854 she married her father's curate, the 
 Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, and died in the 
 following year. The publication of her life by 
 Mrs Gaskell raised a feeling of wonder in many 
 minds as to how the production of such works 
 of fiction had been possible under such untoward 
 circumstances, and also the amount of true 
 culture she had achieved. A fresh memoir of 
 Charlotte Bronte was issued in 1877, by Mr T. 
 Wemyss Reid. "We learn from it that her 
 father's name was originally Prunty, which was 
 altered to Bronte when he left Ireland to come 
 to England. Throughout his whole career, he is 
 represented as selfish, self-willed, vain, and 
 habitually cold in his demeanour towards his 
 family. The turning-point in Charlotte's career 
 is represented as her visit to Brussels, and not 
 the death of her dissipated brother Branwell. 
 
 BROUGHAM, HENRY, LORD, son of Henry 
 Brougham, younger of Brougham Hall, "West- 
 moreland, was born in Edinburgh in 1778 or 
 1779. He was sent to the High School, and 
 early showed signs of great mental precocity. 
 He went to the university, and in 1796 con- 
 tributed a paper to the Philosophical Trains- 
 actions on "Experiments and Observations on 
 the Inflection, Reflection, and Colours of Light." 
 After the publication of the third number of 
 the Edinburgh Review he was invited to be- 
 come a contributor, and, as Lord Jeffrey after- 
 wards said, "did more work for us than any- 
 body." The Edinburgh Review is said to have 
 been more indebted for its success to Brougham's 
 versatile pen than to any other of the contri- 
 butors. Having studied for the Scottish bar, 
 he went to London, became distinguished for 
 his fearlessness and vehement oratory, and in 
 1810 he entered the House of Commons and 
 joined the "Whig opposition. His labours in 
 connection with the Society for the Diffusion of 
 Useful Knowledge are worthy the everlasting 
 remembrance of the people of England. In 
 1830 Brougham was elevated to the office of 
 Lord Chancellor, while his name was merged in 
 that of Lord Brougham and Vaux. He held 
 office for four years, retiring in November 1834. 
 This was the end of his official life, but he be- 
 came distinguished as an author and law re- 
 former. He died 7th May 1868. "Lord 
 Brougham," says Mr R. H. Hutton, "was the 
 hundred-handed Briareus of his party. There 
 was nothing he did not touch ; nothing he did 
 not touch with some temporary effect. He has 
 not exactly an intellect^ so much as a bundle 
 of ingenious intelligences. His 'prehensile' 
 powers, as the physiologists call the powers of 
 catching hold, are vast and numberless ; but 
 
512 
 
 BRO WN—B UCHANAN, 
 
 when lie has caught hold of his subject, he does 
 not really make it his own. His intelligence 
 was to the calm considerate intellect of such a 
 man as Lord Lyndhurst, for example, what the 
 spinal ganglia are to the brain, or a lot of little 
 knots of active ideas to the calm reflective 
 depths of tranquil judgment. His intellect in 
 this respect is thoroughly bourgeois; not, of 
 course, that intellect admits in itself of any 
 artificial class distinction, but that the want of 
 leisure in the middle class tends to deprive it of 
 that unity and clearness which repose and time 
 to settle — time to let the lees of thought sink to 
 the bottom — give to equally powerful intellects 
 among the aristocracy. There are always signs 
 of the mud stirred up by over-haste and imper- 
 fect fermentation in the proper bourgeois in- 
 tellect. And all these symptoms are perceptible 
 in the intellectual efforts of Lord Brougham. 
 They are multifarious, scrappy, wanting in 
 depth and thoroughness — the hand-to-mouth 
 achievements of an energy more than pro- 
 portioned to thought. Lord Brougham once 
 said of Newton, that all his investigations 
 * were the easy and natural work of one great, 
 simple mind, versatile in the direction of its 
 efforts, but uniform in its mode of operation ; 
 not the attempt of an ordinary intellect strain- 
 ing at universality by ambitious mimicry of 
 different talents.' Here Lord Brougham de- 
 scribes Newton's intellect graphically by con- 
 trast with his own. . . . Lord Brougham, 
 as we all know, writes on refraction, on the 
 integral calculus, on natural theology, on chem- 
 istry, on the objects, advantages, and pleasures 
 of science, on the eloquence of the ancients, on 
 colonial policy, on the state of the nation, on 
 education, on the statesmen of the time of 
 George III., on numberless subjects, in fact, 
 besides laws, so that it was falsely said of him 
 that if he had known a little law, he would have 
 known a little of everything. In fact, there is 
 probably nothing of which he ever did know so 
 much as of law ; but then he knew too much of 
 other things to be a deep lawyer. His mind 
 has something cometary about it. A loose 
 straggling tail of acquirements, like the comet's 
 *hair' moving with brilliant display and great 
 velocity over the sky a little in the rear of a 
 small centre or head which dwindles to a point 
 in comparison with its great train — such was 
 the impression Lord Brougham made on the 
 generation which best knew him. A hundred- 
 handed intellect with small head ; a body of 
 eccentric orbit ; a spasmodic motive-power ; a 
 destructive sign in the political firmament — such 
 was Lord Brougham." 
 
 BROWN, JOHN, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., etc., a son of 
 
 the well-known minister and theologian, the late 
 Kev. Dr Brown of Edinburgh, was born at Biggar, 
 Lanarkshire, September 1810, and received his 
 education at the High School and University of 
 
 Edinburgh. The works by which he is best known 
 are the three series of ' 'Horse Subsecivae, " contain- 
 ing the inimitable "Rab and his Friends," and 
 " Our Dogs." His writings, though scanty, have 
 been highly appreciated in Britain and America. 
 He contributed to the Witness, the North 
 British Review, Good Words, and the Scotsman, 
 This wise, genial, and gentle writer died 11th 
 May 1882. 
 
 BROWNING, ROBERT, one of the most emi- 
 nent of contemporary poets, was born at Cam- 
 berwell in 1812, and received his education at 
 the University of London. His first acknow- 
 ledged poem was "Paracelsus," issued in 1836. 
 "Pippa Passes" succeeded, and was rather 
 more popular than the previous volume. Three 
 tragedies, "Strafford" (1843), "Sordello," and 
 " The Blot on the Scutcheon," failed. He has 
 issued "Men and Women," 1856; "King Victor 
 and King Charles," "Dramatic Lyrics," "Re- 
 turn of the Druses," "Colombe's Birthday," 
 "Dramatic Romances," "The Soul's Errand," 
 " The Ring and the Book; " " Balaustion's Ad- 
 venture, including a transcription from Euri- 
 pides," 1871; "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, 
 Saviour of Society," 1871 ; "Fifine at the Fair," 
 1872 ; " Red Cotton Night-cap Country," 1873; 
 " Aristophenes' Apology," 1875. His dramatic 
 works and tragedies have been issued under the 
 title of "Bells and Pomegranates;" his later 
 works are : " Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in 
 Distemper," with other poems ; " The Inn Al- 
 bum," "La Saisiaz," and "The Two Poets of 
 Croisic." A uniform edition of his works has 
 been issued, also a selection from the same. As 
 is well known, Mr Browning married Miss Eli- 
 zabeth Barrett, the poetess, in 1846. How she 
 regarded this union may now be seen in her 
 " Sonnets from the Portuguese," where the 
 gradual growth of her love to the calm of con- 
 scious possession, may be clearly read in these 
 verses. 
 
 BUCHANAN, ROBERT, poet and novelist, was 
 born at Caverswall, Staffordshire, 18th August 
 1841, and educated at the High School and Univer- 
 sity of Glasgow. He has been devoted to litera- 
 ture from an early age. He has settled in London, 
 and from time to time has published the follow- 
 ing poems: "Undertones," 1860; "Idyls and 
 Legends of Inverburn," 1865; "Loudon Poems," 
 in 1866. He edited and published "Wayside 
 Poems" in 1868, translating the Danish ballads. 
 His other works are: "St Abe" and "White 
 Rose and Red," issued anonymously; "Napo- 
 leon Fallen: a Lyrical Drama," 1871; "The 
 Land of Lome, including the Cruise of the 
 'Tern' to the Outer Hebrides," 1871; "The 
 Drama of Kings," 1871; 'The Fleshly School 
 of Poetry," an attack on the poems of Mr D. G. 
 Rossetti and Mr A. C. Swinburne, 1872 ; " Master 
 Spirits," 1873. He has also published a. prose 
 
B UR TON-^B URRITT. 
 
 513 
 
 romance, "The Shadow of the Sword." Mr 
 Buchanan is also the author of "A Madcap 
 Prince," a tragedy which was brought out at 
 Sadler's Wells Theatre, and a comedy in three 
 acts at the Haymarket in August 1874. A 
 unifonn edition of his works has been issued in 
 five volumes. In 1878 he appeared as the editor 
 of a high-class weekly and monthly journal 
 called lAght. In 1870 Mr Gladstone conferred 
 a pension of £100 per annum upon him in con- 
 sideration of his merits as a poet. " To our 
 mind," writes Mr R. H. Hutton, " after long 
 knowledge of his poems, they seem to us nearly 
 perfect of their kind, realistic and idealistic alike 
 in the highest sense. Nor has the voice of dumb 
 wistful yearning in man towards something 
 higher — of yearning such as the brute creation 
 seemed to show in the Greek period towards the 
 human — found as yet any interpreter equal to 
 Buchanan." Mr E. C. Stedman, an American 
 critic, writes: "Judged either by his verse or 
 his critical writings, Robert Buchanan seems to 
 have a highly-developed poetic temperament, 
 with great earnestness, strength of conviction, 
 and sensitiveness to points of right and wrong. 
 Upon the whole, he represents, possibly more 
 than any other rising man, the Scottish element 
 in literature — an element that stubbornly retains 
 its characteristics, just as Scotch blood manages 
 to hold its own through many changes of emi- 
 gration, intermarriage, or long descent. The 
 most prosaic Scotsman has something of the 
 imagination and warmth of feeling that belong 
 to a poet; the Scottish minstrel has the latter 
 quality, at least, to an extent beyond ordinary 
 comprehension. He wears his heart upon his 
 sleeve ; his naivete and self-consciousness sub- 
 ject him to charges of egotism ; he has strong 
 friends, but makes as many enemies by telling 
 against other people's convictions, and by zealous 
 advocacy of his own." 
 
 BURTON, JOHN HILL, LL.D., was born at 
 Aberdeen, August 22, 1809. He studied at 
 Marischal College, where he took his degree of 
 M.A. Apprenticed to law work for a time, 
 he left his native city and came to Edinburgh, 
 and passed at the Scottish bar in 1831. His 
 leisure time he devoted to the study of law, his- 
 tory, and political economy. For many years 
 he contributed to the Westminster Review, the 
 Edinburgh Review, and Blackwood's Magazine. 
 In 1854 he was appointed Secretary to the Prison 
 Board of Scotland by Lord Aberdeen's Govern- 
 ment. The Queen was also pleased to confer 
 upon him the old office of "Historiographer 
 Royal," soon after the publication of the first 
 four volumes of his * * History of Scotland. " The 
 list of Mr Burton's writings is a long and miscel- 
 laneous one. The following are the most im- 
 portant: "Life and Correspondence of David 
 Hume," 1846; "Lives of Simon, Lord Lovat, 
 and Duncan Forbes of Culloden," 1847 ; " Poli- 
 
 tical and Social Economy," 1849; "Narratives 
 from Criminal Trials in Scotland," 1852; "A 
 Manual of the Law of Scotland," a "History of 
 Scotland, from the Revolution to the Extinction 
 of the Last Jacobite Insurrection," the " Scot 
 Abroad," and the " Book Hunter ; " a " History 
 of Scotland, from Agricola's Invasion to the 
 Revolution of 1688," in seven vols. 8vo ; "A His- 
 tory of the British Empire during the Reign of 
 Queen Anne," etc. He died 10th August 1881. 
 
 BURTON, CAPTAIN RICHARD F., as an 
 
 author and explorer, is certainly one of the 
 most indefatigable of living men. If he is not 
 travelling, then he seems to be writing, and if he 
 is not writing, then depend upon it he is travel- 
 ling. He has written quite a small library of 
 boqjcs of travel. He is the son of Lieut. -Colonel 
 Joseph Netterville Burton of Tuam, Galway, 
 and was born in 1821. He entered the Indian 
 army in 1842, and became a captain in 1857. 
 He then served five years in Sciude under the 
 late Sir Charles J. Napier. He has travelled in 
 Arabia, endeavouring to explore it in the guise 
 of an Afghan pilgrim ; also a large portion of the 
 unexplored regions of Africa and North America. 
 Along with Lieutenant Speke, he penetrated the 
 region of the Upper Nile, and discovered and 
 explored Lake Tanganyika. He is said to have 
 acquired no less than thirty-five languages and 
 dialects. He is an expert at the use of the 
 sword and as a huntsman. After acting as 
 British consul at Fernando Po and Damascus, 
 he filled the same office at Trieste, in Austria. 
 More recently he again visited the East. He 
 has written an exhaustive work on the sword, 
 which contains an explanation of his own art of 
 fencing, as well as a description of the Spanish, 
 Italian, French, German, and English art of 
 arms. He is of middle height, frame rather 
 powerful, and bronzed with exposure. One 
 result of his stay at Damascus has been the 
 publication of a work on " Harem Life in Syria," 
 by his wife, Isabel Burton. She had oppor- 
 tunities, denied to her more adventurous hus- 
 band, of visiting the interiors of the harems ; of 
 describing and sympathising with the life led by 
 the native women; and she has written in a 
 vivid and interesting way about what she saw 
 and heard. At the request of the Khedive of 
 Egypt, he was engaged during 1876-77 in ex- 
 ploring the gold mines of Midian, regarding 
 which he has published a book. His chief 
 works are : " Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage 
 to El Medinah and Meceah," 1855; "The Lake 
 Regions of Central Africa," 1860; "The City 
 of the Saints," 1861 ; " Abeokuta; or, the Came- 
 roon Mountains," 1863 ; " Zanzibar, City, Island, 
 and Coast," 1872 ; " Ultima Thule, a Summer in 
 Iceland," 1875; "Two Trips to Gorilla Land," 
 1876; " The Gold Mines of Midian," 1878. 
 
 BURRITT, ELIHU, was bom in New Britain, 
 
 2 K 
 
514 
 
 BYRON— CHISHOLM. 
 
 { Connecticut, 8tli December 1810. His father, 
 who was a shoemaker, died when he was six- 
 teen, and he was apprenticed to a blacksmith. 
 During his apprenticeship he gained a know- 
 ledge of English literature, and began the study 
 of mathematics in his twenty-first year. In 
 spring and summer he worked at his trade, and 
 devoted the greater portion of the winter to his 
 studies. He gained in this way a knowledge 
 of Latin, French, Spanish, Greek, and Hebrew. 
 He afterwards studied Italian, German, Portu- 
 guese, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, 
 Icelandic, Welsh, Gaelic, and Russian. He be- 
 came, too, a successful temperance orator. In 
 1844 he acted as editor of a newspaper, and in 
 1846 came to England, labouring there and on 
 the Continent in the interests of the League of 
 Brotherhood, an association for the abolition of 
 war. Twenty-five years of his life were spent 
 in England ; during part of this time he acted 
 as U.S. consul at Birmingham. He exerted 
 himself in the promotion of emigration from 
 Great Britain to the United States, contri- 
 buted to different periodicals, and advocated 
 various movements for the bettering of the 
 working classes. In 1875 he was resident in 
 New Britain teaching Sanskrit to ladies. His 
 best known works are: *' Sparks from the 
 AnvH," 1848 ;" Olive Leaves," 1853 ;" Thoughttt 
 on Things at Home and Abroad," 1854; "A 
 "Walk from John o'Groat's to Land's End," 1865 ; 
 in 1869, "Lectures and Speeches," "The Black 
 Country and its Green Borders," "Ten Minutes' 
 Talk on all Sorts of Topics. " Died Mar. 7, 1879. 
 
 BYRON, HENRY J., actor and dramatist, son 
 of Mr Henry Byron, British consul at Port-au- 
 Prince, Hayti, was a native of Manchester. He 
 attended a school in Essex, and afterwards went 
 to St Peter's College, Eaton Square, of which he 
 was afterwards elected a fellow. Though origin- 
 ally intended for the navy, he studied medicine, 
 but soon betook himself to the hard life of a 
 country player. Tired of this life, while still 
 young he entered the Middle Temple. Next he 
 took to play- writing ; his first play was brought 
 out at Buxton ; his first London work was "Era 
 Diavolo," a burlesque played at the Strand 
 Theatre in 1858. From that time till his death 
 in 1884 he wrote upwards of a hundred suc- 
 cessful burlesques and comedies. Amongst 
 these might be mentioned the " Maid and the 
 Magpie," "Aladdin," "Esmeralda," "The Lady 
 of Lyons," "The Prompter's Box," "Daisy 
 Farm," "The Pilgrim of Love," "The English 
 Gentleman," "Not such a Fool as He Looks," 
 "Cyril's Success," "A Fool and His Money," 
 "Our Boys." The latter comedy had the im- 
 mense run of upwards of eleven hundred nights 
 at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, besides hav- 
 ing been played about seven hundred times in 
 the provinces. For a time Mr Byron edited the 
 Qomio News. A novel from his pen appeared in 
 
 Temple Bar, called "Paid in Full," which haa 
 gone through three editions. He also con- 
 tributed occasionally to Punch, and to various 
 dramatic journals, and latterly undertook the 
 editorship of a short-lived humorous journal 
 called Mirth. He died 11th April 1884. 
 
 CHISHOLM, MRS CAROLINE, was bom at 
 
 Wootton, Northamptonshire, about 1810. Her 
 father, a well-to-do yeoman, was known in his 
 county for a philanthropic disposition and a 
 wisely-directed energy in public affairs ; he died 
 young, but her mother gave her a remarkably 
 complete training and an exceptionally thorough 
 education. In her twentieth year she married 
 Archibald Chisholm, Esq., of Her Majesty's 
 Indian Army, and soon left England with him 
 for Madras. Here she began to tend young girls, 
 daughters of soldiers, whose morals were en- 
 dangered by a camp life, and started a school in 
 which they were taught the rudiments of learning 
 and the duties of housekeeping. The " School 
 of Industry" succeeded, and is carried on to this 
 day, remaining a memorial of her energy. 
 
 In 1839 Captain Chisholm and his wife de- 
 parted for Australia, and settled in Sydney. 
 Emigration was new then ; before 1836 the land 
 was cultivated by men who had been trans- 
 ported, and the flocks were tended by convicts. 
 In that year it was decided that no more pris- 
 oners were to be sent to Australia, so farmers 
 and stockowners were glad to hire emigrants; 
 and it was just at this juncture that a clear head 
 and vigorous hand were wanted to counsel and 
 protect the young girls on landing in a new 
 country, and to put them in the way of earning 
 an honest livelihood. Mrs Chisholm established 
 a home, and had an uphill fight, as she received 
 but little aid from others. Gradually, however, 
 colonists began to subscribe, and the girls were 
 sent to the country ; but the journey proved 
 perilous, and many were afraid to go. It was 
 then that she began a series of most enterprising 
 expeditions. She went into the country herself 
 with bands of girls, sometimes as many as 
 eighty, and distributed them in the farmhouses 
 of the interior as she went along. She paid the 
 expenses ; and, as a specimen of the character 
 of her work, it is on record that she once re- 
 ceived en masse from a ship sixty-four girls, 
 who had a trifle over 14s. between them. She 
 took them up country, and in two years most 
 of them were married, and every one had kept 
 her character. On her return to Sydney she 
 opened a labour market, and lent money to take 
 the servants to their employments ; and, al- 
 though she advanced £10,000, to the honour of 
 the emigrants be it recorded, she never lost but 
 £10. So popular was her name and purpose 
 that when she appeared at an inn with her 
 girls she found shelter without charge. In her 
 busy life she wrote "Pictures of Australian 
 Emigrants," a book that had an enormous sale; 
 
COBDEN—CR UIKSHANK. 
 
 515 
 
 45he addressed Earl Grey, Colonial Secretary, on 
 "emigration and transportation," and succeeded 
 in persuading Government to send out the wives 
 and families of convicts who were on ticket-of- 
 leave. She even herself took one shipload, 
 collected from nearly all the unions in the king- 
 dom. This was a most noble achievement in 
 the cause of enlightened humanity. Mrs Chis- 
 holm was also the cause of much reformation in 
 emigrant ships ; it may be said in this way that 
 she anticipated Mr Plimsoll and forestalled Miss 
 Rye. After some years' experience Mrs Chis- 
 holm recognised that, if crime was to be cor- 
 rected at home, there must be an exodus of 
 those whose poverty made everything a tempta- 
 tion. With a view of inducing men and women 
 of the labouring classes to leave overcrowded 
 towns, she began to travel and take notes, and 
 the volume entitled "Voluntary Information 
 from the People of New South Wales." the 
 result of this labour, is both curious and in- 
 structive. In 1846 the Chisholm family returned 
 to England, the colonists presenting her with 
 an address and a purse of sovereigns. Arrived 
 in England, she continued her good work, and 
 enlisted the sympathies of the Government. In 
 this she perfectly succeeded, for Lord Derby 
 more than once expressed the high sense he 
 entertained of her services on behalf of emi- 
 grants, and Mr Lowe declared that her mission 
 was one of the most original that was ever 
 devised or undertaken by man or woman, and the 
 object, the labour, and the design were beyond 
 all praise. In all her toil Mrs Chisholm never 
 neglected home duties. Her six children and 
 her husband possessed her untiring love. For 
 some years before her death she was a confirmed 
 invalid. She possessed a personal character of 
 a very high order ; those who knew her best 
 testify to a heart that understood woman's 
 mission — she never recognised pain without an 
 eifort to cure it.* 
 
 Mrs Chisholm died, after a long illness, on 
 the 25th of March 1877, at her residence in 
 London. 
 
 COBDEN, RICHARD, was born at Dunford, 
 near Midhurst, in Sussex, in 1804. He served 
 an apprenticeship in a London warehouse, and 
 after acting as a commercial traveller for a short 
 time, became a partner in a cotton firm at Man- 
 chester. He all the while took a deep interest 
 in politics, especially in the Reform Bill. As 
 the result of a tour through Egypt, Greece, 
 Turkey, and the United States, he in 1834 pub- 
 lished pamphlets, entitled, "England, Ireland, 
 and America," and "Russia." In 1838 he 
 devoted all the energies of his nature towards 
 the advancement of the Anti-Corn Law League. 
 He entered Parliament as member for Stockport 
 in 1841, where he distinguished himself, and in 
 
 1846 witnessed the repeal of the corn laws. He 
 was elected Member of Parliament for the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire in 1847. Lord Palmerston 
 in 1859 offered him the presidentship of the 
 Board of Trade, which he did not accept. A 
 baronetcy, and a seat in the Privy Council, he 
 also declined. "His simple and manly char- 
 acter, and his kindly disposition," says a living 
 writer, " attracted attachment and goodwill. 
 He was exempt from nearly all the ordinary 
 failings of self-taught men who have raised them- 
 selves from an obscure position. His speeches 
 were expressed in the purest English, and he 
 wrote as well as he spoke." He died in London, 
 2d April 1865. 
 
 COOE, ELIZA, the popular poetess, was born 
 in London in 1818. She was the niece of Alder- 
 man Harmer, founder of the Weekly Dispatch^ 
 in which journal many of her poems first 
 appeared. She began to write at an early age, 
 and became a contributor to the various current 
 periodicals. A collection of her poems, issued 
 in 1840, established her fame with the public. 
 She assumed the editorship of a journal, which 
 made its appearance weekly from 1849 until 
 1854. This enterprise had to be abandoned 
 on account of failing health. An illustrated 
 edition of her poems was issued in 1860. "New 
 Echoes, and Other Poems," was published in 
 1864. In this same year a pension of £100 per 
 annum was conferred upon her. 
 
 The Queen. 
 
 ^CRUTKSHATnC'tfEQR^EJ'^'T^ar^m in Lon- 
 
 don, 27th September 1792. He inherited artis- 
 tic talent from his father, who was a water-colour 
 draughtsman and caricaturist. After a long 
 life of fruitful artistic work, he died in London, 
 February 1, 1878. "George Cruikshank," says 
 the Bookseller for March 1878, "has been called 
 the successor of Gillray and Rowlandson ; but in 
 felicity of invention and satirical humour he far 
 surpassed either of those celebrated and now 
 but slightly known caricaturists. When Gillray 
 died, Cruikshank was twenty-three years old, 
 and had already made a name as a caricaturist. 
 When Rowlandson died, he had attained his 
 thirty-fifth year, and had arrived at a height of 
 distinction unsurpassed by either of his con- 
 temporaries. The amazing industry, the per- 
 severance, the precocity, and the originality of 
 Cruikshank will be acknowledged by all who 
 examine the wonderful series of sketches now 
 exhibiting at the Westminster Aquarium. 
 Among them are thirteen caricatures bearing 
 dates between 1799 and 1800. His first draw- 
 ing was therefore made when he was only seven 
 years of age! From that time to almost the 
 day of his death he was incessantly at work. 
 His latest drawing bore date only last year: 
 eighty years of artistic labour — and yet this 
 artist died poor. Cruikshank's earliest efi'orts 
 consisted of a long series of frontispieces to 
 
616 
 
 CRUIKSHANK. 
 
 children's books, popular songs, tracts, chap- 
 books, and party pamphlets. He, with his 
 brother Eobert and others, illustrated the 
 'Universal Songster' — perhaps the largest col- 
 lection of songs in the English language. The 
 very earliest cut by Cruikshank in the British 
 Museum Library bears date 1806; and from 
 that year to about 1830, we find chap-books and 
 political satires bearing the initials G. C, pub- 
 lished by Fairburn, of the Minories ; Smeeton, 
 of Covent Garden ; Swain, of Newington Cause- 
 way; Duncombe, of Queen Street, Cheapside; 
 Sherwood, of Paternoster Row ; Tegg, of Cheap- 
 side ; and Hone, the publisher of the well-known 
 * Year Book ' and * Strutt's Sports and Pastimes.' 
 The first book, properly so called, illustrated by 
 George Cruikshank, is the * Scourge,' a sort of 
 satirist ; and the next is the * Meteor,' a copy 
 of which we do not find in the British Museum 
 Library. Cruikshank did a large quantity of 
 magazine work. He illustrated Arliss' Pocket 
 Magazine^ Auldjo's Constantinojole^ CasselVs 
 Exhibitor, Family Paper, and Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin Almanack; he made drawings for 
 CasselVs Magazine, for the Illustrated News 
 (a few at various times), for the Bon Ton Maga- 
 zine in 1820-21, for Sharpens Magazine in 
 1854, for the Comet, about the same time ; 
 for the programmes of Albert Smith's ' Mont 
 Blanc;' and for numerous temperance books 
 and pamphlets published by Tweedie, Who 
 remembers the literature of these works ? Who 
 that ever saw them forgets the illustrations by 
 Cruikshank? Truly did Thackeray say, as 
 long ago as 1840, ' Cruikshank has given a thou- 
 sand new and pleasant thoughts to millions of 
 people!' What more can we say to-day? 
 Cruikshank was an artist, pure and simple: 
 with all the frankness, the kindness, the open- 
 handed carelessness, the tenderness, and the 
 sensitive touchiness peculiar to the artist-nature. 
 He was one of the best known and most cordially 
 received men in London ; one of the hardest 
 of workers, and the most unselfish of friends. 
 Blythe and active to the last — a volunteer at 
 eighty! Earnest as a lecturer, urgent as an 
 advocate of temperance in all things, popular as 
 never artist was before ; with troops of friends, 
 and not a single enemy — when shall we look 
 upon his like again ? " Remarking on the col- 
 lection of Mr George Cruikshank's works, pur- 
 chased by the directors of the Westminster 
 Aquarium, and exhibited in the gallery of that 
 institution, the Times says : "As displaying the 
 work of one man, the collection is most remark- 
 able in the extraordinary number, not only of 
 rapidly executed sketches and drawings, but 
 of highly-finished etchings, not one of which is 
 unworthy of his hand, while the genius of the 
 artist in his keen perception of character, and 
 his sense of the humorous and the ridiculous is 
 felt throughout the whole range of subjects 
 treated with the delightful extravagance of his 
 
 pencil. From the first attempts of his boyhood 
 in 1799 to the great work of his life, his picture 
 of the 'Worship of Bacchus,' painted some 
 fifteen years ago, the exhibition shows us several 
 thousands of works. These are all touched with 
 the same life and vigour, largely leaning towards 
 caricature and satire, but with a fair proportion 
 of really earnest and expressive pictures illustra- 
 ting fairy stories, the comic scenes of the 
 Waverley Novels, Dickens's 'Oliver Twist,' and 
 Harrison Ainsworth's 'Tower of London.' Of 
 these last the etchings are admirably well de- 
 signed, and in point of expression and interest 
 they lent to the story far before the works of 
 the present day. The etchings for the Humor- 
 ist, the Comic Almanac, and various other 
 publications of the kind, are too numerous to 
 name. Historically, the caricatures have also 
 a useful and instructive side; we are reminded, 
 oddly enough, of the Polar expedition of 1819, 
 with a party of shaggy-haired sailors landing 
 a huge Polar bear ; of the great Napoleon war, 
 by the caricature of 'Old Bony' riding in the 
 air upon an eagle from the field of Waterloo, 
 with its companion print of John Bull wishing 
 him good-bye, addressing him as ' Mr Themis- 
 tocles ' in the stern of the ship that took him to 
 St Helena. His 'Monstrosities' of fashion, done 
 in style of Gillray and Rowlandson, with less 
 grimace, much better artistic expression, and 
 more truth as to costume, form a sort of supple- 
 ment to those caricaturists, and, allowing for 
 the dash of absurdity in them, they serve as a 
 record of no small value and interest of such 
 astounding vagaries of dress and manners as 
 could not be credited without the testimony of 
 this graphic nature. The Park in 1812, with 
 gentlemen with tall top hats and narrow brims, 
 ladies with their waists under the armpits, and 
 Guardsmen in long white gaiters and huge bear- 
 skins, or another, rather later, taking off the 
 gentlemen's fashion of balloon trousers and small 
 waists, with the ladies in long dresses, held up 
 to show silk stockings and sandalled shoes, are 
 not at all more preposterous than the fashion 
 was. The ' Bloomers ' of 1852, with the High- 
 lander cleverly contrasted with a very stout 
 party in a pink skirt and full white trousers, 
 and other grotesque figures, must have done 
 something to make the attempt too ridiculous. 
 But one of the most interesting of George Cruik- 
 shank's works to be seen here is the original of 
 the bank-note which is said to have led to the 
 stopping of executions for forging the one-pound 
 notes. The story is told in a pencil note on 
 the amount of this, how he was passing the 
 Old Bailey, and saw several hanging, of whom 
 two were women, who, he found, were hung for 
 forging a one-pound note. His note was a pro- 
 missory one, signed 'J. Ketch,' with ghastly 
 accessories of fetters, halter, and gibbet, and 
 the Britannia, with skulls and crossbones bor- 
 der. It was sold by Hone on Ludgate Hill, 
 
DERB Y—EORBES. 
 
 517 
 
 and such a crowd surrounded the shop that the 
 Lord Mayor ordered the street to be cleared; 
 and such was the demand for it that Cruikshank 
 had to sit up all night to engrave a second plate. 
 Hone cleared £700, and George Cruikshank 
 says, • I had the satisfaction of knowing that no 
 man or woman was ever hung after this for 
 passing one-pound forged notes.' " 
 
 DERBY, THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD 
 HENRY SMITH STANLEY, EARL OF, was born 
 at Knowsley, 21st July 1826, and educated at 
 Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge. He 
 succeeded Lord G. Bentinck in the representa- 
 tion of Lynn Regis, and in 1850 delivered a tell- 
 ing speech in the House of Commons on the 
 sugar colonies. He had previously visited the 
 West Indies; he now visited India, and while 
 there was nominated, in March 1852, Under- 
 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under 
 Lord Derby's administration. In 1855 Lord 
 Palmerston offered him a position in the Colonial 
 OflSce, which he refused. In 1858 he became 
 Secretary of State for India, and under his 
 surveillance the management of the government 
 of India was transferred from the Board of 
 Directors of the East India Company to the 
 responsible advisers of her Majesty. He became 
 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in July 
 1866, which office he held until the accession of 
 the Gladstone Government to power in 1868. 
 He was installed Lord Rector of Glasgow Uni- 
 versity, 1st April 1869, and of Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity in 1874. Under the Conservative Gov- 
 ernment he was again installed at the Foreign 
 Office as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 
 On the declaration of war between Russia and 
 Turkey in 1877, he issued an important reply 
 to the Russian circular, condemning the line of 
 action Russia had adopted. In the complica- 
 tions which ensued after the defeat of Turkey, 
 he afterwards withdrew from the cabinet. 
 
 FARADAY, MICHAEL, the son of James and 
 
 Margaret Faraday, was born in London, 22d 
 September 1791. His father was a blacksmith 
 and a native of Clapham, Yorkshire ; his mother 
 was a farmer's daughter from Mallestang, near 
 Kirkby Stephen. His education was of the 
 most ordinary description, consisting of little 
 more than the rudiments of reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic, at a common day-school. In 
 the year 1804, at the age of thirteen, he entered 
 the shop of a bookseller and bookbinder, where 
 he remained, learning chiefly the latter business. 
 After work hours he would read the books he 
 had been binding. Two books which especially 
 nelped him to direct his mind towards science 
 and to stimulate him in the course of self-im- 
 provement were the '* Encyclopeedia Britannica," 
 and Mrs Marcet's "Conversations in Chemistry." 
 He became a member of several societies for 
 iiutual improvement, and in March 1813, he 
 
 was fortunate enough to secure a situation as 
 assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institu* 
 tion at a salary of 25s. per week and a room 
 in the house. He accompanied Sir Humphry 
 Davy on a foreign tour in 1813-14. In 1821 
 he was appointed superintendent of the house 
 and laboratory. He was very happily married 
 in 1821, to Miss Sarah Barnard, daughter of an 
 elder in the Sandemanian chapel which Faraday 
 attended. Soon after this time he was made a 
 director in the Royal Institution, and his fame as 
 a lecturer and experimentalist was thoroughly 
 established. He made many discoveries in 
 magnetism and electricity, and his ceaseless 
 activity was only varied by an occasional trip 
 at home and abroad. The Queen in 1858, at 
 the suggestion of Prince Albert, granted him a 
 house at Hampton Court, where he died in 
 1867, in his seventy-lifth year. 
 
 FARRAR, THE REV. FREDERIC WILLIAM, 
 D.D., F.R.S., Archdeacon of Westminster, is the 
 son of Rev. C. R. Farrar, rector of Sidcup, Kent, 
 and was born in the Fort, Bombay, in 1831. 
 He was educated at King William's College, 
 Isle of Man; King's College, London; and 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated 
 B.A. of the University of London in 1860, and 
 took the same degree of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, in 1854. His academical course at Cam- 
 bridge was a distinguished one, taking the 
 chancellor's prize for the best English poem in 
 1852, and two other important prize essays in 
 1855 and 1856. He became assistant and master 
 at Harrow School in 1855, University Preacher 
 in 1868, 1874, and 1875 ; Hulsean Lecturer at 
 Cambridge, 1870; Master of Marlborough Col- 
 lege, 1871 ; Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen 
 in 1873. Since his promotion as Canon of 
 Westminster, he has become a public advocate 
 of the cause of temperance. Besides con- 
 tributing to all the more important modern 
 encyclopaedias. Canon Farrar has written the 
 following successful tales: "Eric; or. Little by 
 Little," "Julian Home," "St Winifred's ; or, the 
 World at School." His philological works are : 
 "The Origin of Language," "Chapters on Lan- 
 guage," "Greek Grammar Rules," "Greek Syn- 
 tax," and " Families of Speech." His theological 
 works are : " The Fall of Man, and Other Ser- 
 mons," 1865; "Seekers after God," 1869; 
 "The Witness of History to Christ," "The 
 Silence of the Voice of God," and "The Life of 
 Christ," two vols., 1874, which passed through 
 twelve editions in one year, and which is now 
 (1878) in its twenty-third edition. He has 
 published a later volume of sermons on the 
 subject of the future life, under the title of 
 "Eternal Hope," which had a rapid and exten- 
 sive sale, and aroused some little controversy. 
 
 FORBES, ARCHIBALD, the wall-known war 
 correspondent, is a native of Morayshire, in 
 
518 
 
 FORSTER— GILBER T, 
 
 Scotland, and was born in 1838. He attended 
 Aberdeen University, and afterwards served 
 several years in the Royal Dragoons. As special 
 correspondent of the Daily News, he represented 
 that paper throughout the whole of the Franco- 
 German War. Since that time he has, in 
 the same capacity, visited France, Spain, and 
 India. His brilliant letters from Turkey during 
 the Russo-Turkish War were eagerly looked 
 for and read by the public. The principal 
 events of the latter campaign have been worked 
 into a telling lecture, which he has delivered in 
 London and elsewhere. The names of some of 
 his works are : *' Drawn from Life," a military 
 novel; *'My Experiences of the War between 
 France and Germany;" and ** Soldiering and 
 Scribbling," etc. 
 
 FORSTER, THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM 
 EDWARD, was the son of William Forster, a 
 minister of the Society of Friends, and was born 
 at Bradpole, Dorset, in 1818. He received his 
 education at a Friends' school, in Tottenham, but 
 was without a university training. Becoming a 
 worsted manufacturer in Bradford, in 1850 he mar- 
 ried Jane Martha, eldest daughter of Dr Arnold, 
 of Rugby. In 1861 he was returned as Member 
 of Parliament for Bradford. Under Lord Russell 
 he acted as Under-Secretary for the Colonies for 
 a short time, and under Mr Gladstone he was 
 appointed vice-president of the Committee of 
 Council on Education. " Mr Forster," says a 
 writer in the Scholastic World, "first distin- 
 guished himself as a statesman by the ability 
 and tact which he displayed in carrying the 
 Education Bill through the House of Commons 
 in 1870. He disarmed the opposition of the 
 Conservative party by bringing in a measure 
 which, to use his own words, was intended to 
 supplement and not to supersede the existing 
 voluntary system, and by insisting on the im- 
 portance of religious instruction in schools. His 
 conduct throughout the discussion which rose 
 upon the bill, was marked by a conciliatory 
 temper and strong common sense. Fully con- 
 vinced as he was of the importance of compul- 
 sion, he saw that the country was hardly then 
 ripe for it, and therefore he proposed that each 
 school board should be left to frame its own 
 by-laws on this subject — subject to the ap- 
 proval of the Education Department — when it 
 found itself in a position to enforce them. Com- 
 pulsory measures have now been adopted by 
 about half the boards in England. . . . His 
 views on all educational questions are sound and 
 liberal. His principle is that if we are to keep 
 our place among other nations, we must utilise 
 all the available talent in the country, and that, 
 therefore, education should be afforded to all, 
 80 that the poorest boy in the land may, if he 
 has the necessary ability, have an opportunity 
 of rising to the highest post in the State." On 
 Mr Gladstone's retirement from the leadership 
 
 of the Liberal party in 1875, his name was men- 
 tioned as successor, but he declined the honour^ 
 Mr Forster was a magistrate and deputy-lieuten- 
 ant for the West Riding of Yorkshire. Died 1886. 
 
 FROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY, M.A., LL.D.,. 
 
 was born at Dartington, Devonshire, 23d April 
 1818. He was educated at Oriel College, Ox- 
 ford, and in 1842 was elected a fellow of Exeter 
 College. Under the Rev. J. H. Newman, he 
 was connected with the High Church party, and 
 contributed to a work entitled "The Lives of 
 the English Saints." In 1844 he took deacon's 
 orders. Two books which he published in 
 1847-49, entitled " The Shadows' of the Clouds," 
 and ''The Nemesis of Faith," received the 
 severe reprobation of the university authorities. 
 He resigned his orders as a deacon, but after- 
 wards returned to the communion of the Church 
 of England as a layman. Mr Froude has acted 
 as editor for some time, and largely as a con- 
 tributor, to Frazer's Magazine; he has also con- 
 tributed to the Westminster Revieio. His most 
 important works are his " History of England, 
 from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the 
 Spanish Armada," "The English in Ireland 
 during the Eighteenth Century," and "Short 
 Studies on Great Subjects," three vols. He was 
 installed Rector of St Andrews University in 
 1869. The degree of LL.D. was also conferred 
 upon him at this time. In 1872 he lectured 
 in the United States of America on the 
 relations between England and America. At 
 the close of 1874 he was sent by the Earl of 
 Carnarvon, Secretary of State, to the colonies. 
 Cape of Good Hope, to make inquiries regard- 
 ing the Caffre insurrection, returning to Lon- 
 don in March 1875. As Carlyle's literary 
 executor he edited his Reminiscences, Life and 
 Letters, and also a Selection of Mrs Carlyle's 
 Letters. 
 
 GILBERT, SIR JOHN, A.R.A., was born in 
 1817. A water-colour drawing, " The Arrest of 
 Lord Hastings by the Protector, Richard, Duke 
 of Gloucester," was shown in the Suffolk Street 
 Gallery in 1836, and was his first exhibited pic- 
 ture. He exhibited an oil-painting in the Royal 
 Academy in the same year. He exhibited ak 
 the British Institution in 1839, and since th» 
 time has exhibited almost regularly there, an: 
 occasionally at the Royal Academy. His chie. 
 oil paintings are : "The Education of Gil Bias," 
 " Don Quixote giving Advice to Sancho Panza," 
 "Othello before the Senate," "The Murder of 
 Thomas Becket," "The Plays of Shakespeare," 
 "Charge of Cavaliers at Naseby," " A Dra wing- 
 Room at St James's," "A Regiment of Royalist 
 Cavalry," etc. In 1871 he was elected President 
 of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours. 
 He next received the honour of knighthood. 
 Besides being an honorary member of many 
 artists' societies, he was elected an Associate of 
 
GILBERT—GILFILLAN. 
 
 519 
 
 the Royal Academy in 1872. "Thirty years 
 have elapsed," says the Daily Telegraph, "since 
 he first became known to the public ; and it is 
 not too much to say that his earliest published 
 designs— a series of lithographed scenes from 
 English history, serving only as illustrations to 
 a school-book — manifested powers of drawing, 
 composition, light and shade, which could hardly 
 have been surpassed by the veteran artists of 
 that day. Just as the young Charles Dickens 
 calmly stepped from the ranks of the reporters 
 to take his place at the head of English writers 
 of fiction, first scaring, then infuriating, but 
 ultimately subduing his seniors, so precisely did 
 the young John Gilbert tranquilly take his place 
 at the head of English draughtsmen. He founded 
 — or, rather, he revived — a new school — that of 
 the Magnificent. Without straining or exaggera- 
 tion, his hand, as facile as it was powerful, 
 began to people the pictorial stage with knights 
 as valiant as Bayard, with courtiers as accom- 
 plished as Raleigh, with ladies as fair, good, and 
 wise as the sister of Sidney and the mother of 
 Pembroke. He astonished and delighted the 
 public with a manner that might find a parallel 
 in Macaulay's definition of the prose style of 
 Milton. It was stiff with gold and embroidery. 
 Tapestry glowed, velvet gave its rich reflections, 
 armour gleamed, jewels and goldsmiths' ware 
 sent out a rare sheen in the drawings of John 
 Gilbert. He became the Cid of art — gallant, 
 dazzling, picturesque, sumptuous; and if he 
 drew a beggar, the mendicant was as one of 
 Murillo's bisoflosos, imposing and romantic in 
 his rags. His achievements as a draughtsman cul- 
 minated in the designs contributed to the superb 
 edition of Shakespeare, published by Messrs 
 Routledge. Stothard, Fuseli, Westall, Harvey, 
 Kenny Meadows, had all tried their hands with 
 varying success in a graphic embodiment of the 
 great bard's conceptions ; it remained for John 
 Gilbert to grasp the full meaning of the poet — 
 to give us lines now broad and sweeping, now 
 graceful and tender ; all the daintiness of Ariel, 
 and all the unworthiness of Caliban; all the 
 grossness of Falstaff, and all the delicacy of 
 Imogen; all the moodiness of Hamlet, and all 
 the madness of Lear. Sir John's career has been 
 one of curious duality. His first exhibited 
 picture, a water-colour, was shown to the public 
 at the Suffolk Street Gallery so far back as 1836. 
 Since that period he has continuously exhibited 
 works both in oil and aquarelle at the Royal 
 Academy, and at the art displays of that water- 
 colour society of which he is the president. 
 But there is another John Gilbert, there is a 
 Sir John, who has been an illustrator of books 
 and pictorial newspapers — an illustrator so inex- 
 haustibly fertile in production, that Stothard, 
 with his four hundred book vignettes— that old 
 Daumier, the Frenchman, who numbered one of 
 his Charivari cartoons the other day * 8305 ' — 
 that Callot, qui ne Jinissait Jamais, seem mere 
 
 idlers compared with him. He has been the 
 Lope de Vega of wood-draughtsmen. The back 
 volumes of the Illustrated London JSews contain, 
 literally speaking, tho".sands of drawings from 
 his untiring pencil. Romance after romance in 
 the London Journal was illustrated by John 
 Gilbert. He has been one of the most valuable 
 allies that the Religious Tract Society, and the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 
 ever possessed. He has drawn pictures for 
 whole libraries of children's books, and even 
 for the lids of boxes of toy games. He has 
 drawn for Punch. While the walls in Trafalgar 
 Square and Pall Mall, as now in Piccadilly, have 
 displayed his grand historical compositions, 
 glowing with rich colour and dignified grouping, 
 the humblest newsvendors' shops have exhibited 
 tribes of penny periodicals, which have owed a 
 large share of their popularity to John Gilbert's 
 pencil. The man is a representative type and 
 exemplar. He has been one of the soldiers of 
 light — one of those schoolmasters whom Harry 
 Brougham sent abroad — a pioneer marching in 
 the forefront of an army of teachers to cut 
 down the jungle of ignorance, ugliness, and 
 barbarism." 
 
 GILFILLAN, THE REV. GEORGE, was born 
 at Comrie in 1813, where his father, the Rev. 
 Samuel Gilfillan, was minister of the Secession 
 church. His own account of his father's life 
 will be found on page 89. At a public meet- 
 ing held in Dundee in 1877, he was presented 
 by his numerous friends with a public testi- 
 monial of £1000, the interest of which was to be 
 paid to Mr and Mrs Gilfillan during their lives, 
 and after that to be applied to the providing of 
 two scholarships for the sons of humble but 
 honest parents. Mr Gilfillan, after briefly 
 alluding to his early years, said : "I may allude 
 to my residence at Glasgow College, where I 
 derived much benefit from the teachings of the 
 brilliant Sir Daniel Sandford, the erudite Robert 
 Buchanan, and the profound James Milne. 
 Thence I went to Edinburgh, and came in con- 
 tact with the foremost man then probably in 
 the world, Professor Wilson, listened to his 
 magnificent prelections, and gained from him a 
 smile of approbation, which was long a solitary 
 ray of sunshine upon my obscure head. I knew 
 also afterwards three of the dii majoram 
 gentium of Scottish literature, De Quincey, 
 Thomas Carlyle, and Thomas Aird, and met 
 with great kindness in my early literary efforts 
 from all these. In 1835 I was licensed by the 
 Presbytery of Edinburgh, two of whose mag- 
 nates, Dr John Brown and Dr John Ritchie, 
 were my warm patrons when a student. I was 
 settled here in March 1836, having previously 
 refused a call to Comrie, my native place. Nor 
 do I regret the step I took ; for, although my 
 course here has been chequered, I have met 
 always in Dundee kindly and generous sym- 
 
620 
 
 GILFILLAN—GO UGH, 
 
 pathy, both from my own congregation and the 
 general public. In the year 1846 I appeared 
 first as an author, having collected sketches, 
 originally written in my friend Thomas Aird's 
 Dumfries Herald^ into a volume called *A 
 Gallery of Literary Portraits,' and since then I 
 have written between ninety and a hundred 
 separate productions, large or small, besides 
 innumerable papers in periodicals, reviews, 
 magazines, and newspapers. During all this 
 term of thirty years' authorship, my congrega- 
 tion, instead of dwindling away, has increased, 
 and for twenty years at least has been a large, 
 flourishing, and united body. I deem it due to 
 myself also to say that whatever favour or 
 power I have acquired, has been not by bending 
 to popular caprice or courting popular favour- 
 ites. I have never bent except to those who 
 were higher than myself — never praised those 
 but whom I thought worthy of it, and never 
 defended what I thought either intellectually 
 weak or morally wrong. In the course of my 
 career I have been instrumental in helping on 
 many deserving persons, notably authors, out 
 of a number of whom I may mention specially 
 Alexander Smith, Sydney Dobell, and John 
 Stanyan Bigg. These were the first three, but 
 there were nearly three hundred after them. 
 The public causes to which I claim being of 
 some service in this town and elsewhere, are 
 the Voluntary cause, in the beginning of my 
 career; the anti-slavery cause, afterwards; the 
 cause of the diffusion of general knowledge, 
 specially as connected with the Watt Institution 
 and other societies here ; and latterly, and in 
 my judgment best of all, the cause of liberal 
 and progressive thought. These are the leading 
 landmarks in my career. If God spare me, I 
 have more work, and especially more literary 
 work, to do. I have sundry books more or less 
 half-finished ; and so long as I live I will 
 and must work." Mr GilfiUan contributed to 
 the Scottish Review^ Hogg's Instructor, the 
 Eclectic, British Quarterly Review, and Taifs 
 Magazine. He wrote the prefatory memoir 
 to a cheap edition of the poets in forty-eight 
 vols., issued by Mr Nichol of Edinburgh; his 
 chief works besides his "Gallery of Literary 
 Portraits " are : " Bards of the Bible," " Martyrs 
 and Heroes of the Scottish Covenant," "The 
 History of a Man," 1856 ; " Christianity and 
 our Era," 1857 ; " Remoter Stars in the Church 
 Sky," 1867 ; " Modern Christian Heroes," 1869 ; 
 "Life of Sir Walter Scott," 1870; "Life of Dr 
 William Anderson," of Glasgow, 1873; "Life 
 of Robert Burns," etc. Died August 13, 1878. 
 
 GOUGH, JOHN B., was born on August 22, 
 1817, at Sandgate, in the county of Kent. His 
 father was a pensioner ; and his mother, a pious 
 woman, kept a school. He was precocious, and 
 H great reader. When times were bad he was 
 Bftnt out to America along with another family 
 
 who were leaving his village at the same time. 
 He remained at a farm in Oneida County for two 
 years, and in 1831 went to try his fortune in 
 New York. After the death of his father and 
 mother he led a dissipated life, working in turn 
 as a bookbinder, an actor, and a sailor. He 
 married, and reformed for a time, but again 
 fell into very dissipated habits, and became a 
 slave to drink. His wife and daughter died, 
 and he sank deeper. At last he signed the 
 pledge, and he began to speak in public on 
 temperance subjects, and his fame as an orator 
 spread abroad. He visited the Southern States 
 and Canada ; in the Northern States, in Massa- 
 chusetts, in the course of two years he travelled 
 12,000 miles, delivered 605 lectures, and induced 
 31,760 persons to sign the pledge. He visited 
 England in 1863, lecturing with powerful effect 
 in Exeter Hall, London, and in various parts of 
 the country. He went back to America, work- 
 ing with increased popularity and success. In 
 1857 he visited England again, returning to the 
 Dnited States in 1860. He resided in a fine 
 mansion at Worcester, Massachusetts. He died 
 18th February 1886. What follows are ex- 
 tracts from his autobiography. Speaking of 
 his early remuneration and lecture work, he 
 says : " For the first year or two of my work I 
 laboured hard. In 365 days I gave 383 addresses, 
 and received from them 1059 dollars, out of 
 which I paid all expenses ; travelled 6840 miles, 
 and obtained 15,218 signatures to the pledge. 
 It was my custom to speak an hour or more, 
 then invite signatures, sing songs, and give short 
 exhortations, relating anecdotes, etc. I received 
 from seventy-five cents to six dollars for a 
 lecture, the latter sum being paid me in the 
 city of Boston, and eighty-three addresses were 
 given gratuitously in that time. Probably the 
 remuneration was all they were worth; but I 
 sometimes found it hard to keep up with my 
 necessary expenditure. I remember, at one 
 place I had spoken on three evenings, when the 
 committee told me they had no funds in the 
 treasury, and did not like to take up a collec- 
 tion, but if I would come again, and give them 
 three more lectures, they would pay me. I 
 made the arrangement, and some time afterward 
 went again. At the close of the second lecture 
 a gentleman rose and said: *I believe the gentle- 
 man who has addressed us left this town on the 
 occasion of his last visit with no remuneration 
 for his services. I propose that a collection be 
 now taken up for the purpose of paying him.' 
 Another gentleman rose and said: 'I dislike 
 collections ; but if we must have one, I propose 
 that it be postponed till to-morrow evening, 
 when we will come prepared.' The third even- 
 ing was very rainy, and a collection was taken 
 up, amounting to one dollar and eighty cents. 
 A gentleman standing near the table where the 
 money was being counted, remarked: *It is 
 very small ; I do not mind making it up out of 
 
G O UGH—HAZLITT, 
 
 521 
 
 my own pocket to two dollars ; ' and as he laid 
 two ten cent pieces on the table, said, with a 
 great deal of emphasis: *For the labourer is 
 worthy of his hire.' I refused to take two 
 dollars for six days' work, at an expense to me 
 of five dollars, and left. The next morning 
 three liquor sellers sent me a note with five 
 dollars enclosed, as they thought I had worked 
 hard enough to be paid. On another occasion, 
 after I had been speaking for nearly two hours, 
 and taken my seat, bathed in perspiration, the 
 chairman rose and proposed a vote of thanks for 
 the lecture, which was passed unanimously. 
 As the audience were being dismissed, I asked 
 if that vote of thanks 'could be given me in 
 writing, as perhaps the conductor on the train 
 would take it for my fare.' The hint was sufii- 
 cient, and a collection was taken up, amounting 
 to four dollars. " The following is an example of 
 his realism : • ' I find," he writes, «* people do not 
 generally prefer to sit on the stand while I am 
 speaking; perhaps desiring to 'see him go it 
 with his feet,' or fearful of being kicked off; and 
 it is dangerous to get too close to me when I am 
 * going it. ' Dr Beman once, when I was speak- 
 ing in his church, stepped very softly behind me 
 to arrange a refractory gas burner, just as I 
 threw back my fist, and he received a ' stinger ' 
 in his face. When I felt his hard teeth and soft 
 lips against my knuckles, as my hand came in 
 contact with them so violently, a chill ran 
 through me ; but when I apologised afterwards, 
 the good doctor said, with a smile : ' Remember, 
 sir, you are the first man that ever struck me 
 with impunity.' I have found blood on my 
 hand more than once, and occasionally a black 
 bruise, and I certainly could not tell how it was 
 done; but guessed that, while I was 'going it,' 
 I must have struck my hand somewhere. I 
 have said — and I believe — that when a man is 
 thoroughly absorbed in his theme — when his 
 subject fills him — he will so far forget all, and 
 everything, in his intense desire to make his 
 audience feel as he wishes them to feel, that 
 physical suffering will be not only endured and 
 triumphed over, but he may become unconscious 
 of pain, in the overwhelming power of his sub- 
 ject on himself. I know that on the subject of 
 temperance I feel what I say. I know it. I 
 must feel on this theme deeply. No lapse of 
 time can weaken the intensity of my feeling. 
 Burned into my memory are the years of suffer- 
 ing and degradation, and I do feel deeply, and 
 must ever, on this great question. Sometimes, 
 when speaking on temperance, I seem to be 
 absolutely engaged in a battle, the enemy before 
 me — not as a man of straw, but the real, living 
 horror ; and in the wrestling with that, face to 
 face, hand to hand again — like the blind war- 
 horse when hearing the trumpet's charge — rush 
 on, fearing and caring for nothing, but that I 
 may deal heavy blows, and send the fiend away 
 crippled and howling. This may seem rhapsody 
 
 and romance ; but it is true. I have forgotten 
 audience and circumstances, sickness and pain, 
 under the power of this reality. In Jersey 
 City, while addressing young men, I felt some- 
 thing of this power over me. I was in a pulpit. 
 On either side of the desk was a marble scroll, 
 with sharp edges. I struck my clenched fist 
 with great force on the sharp edge of that marble ; 
 for a moment I saw stars ; strange colours danced 
 before my eyes, but I continued speaking more 
 than an hour after the blow. When I concluded 
 I dropped on the seat, and the minister threw a 
 glass of water on my face, startled by my pale- 
 ness. My hand was frightfully swollen and very 
 much discoloured; and before morning every 
 nerve from my fingers to my hip throbbed with 
 pain. I had injured the bone of my hand, so 
 that for some time I could not write without 
 suffering, and my hand is tender in that spot 
 to-day ; yet while speaking, except occasionally 
 a pang reminding me that I was hurt, I forgot 
 it. I narrate this in illustration of the fact that 
 there are times when a speaker, by the over- 
 whelming power of his subject on himself, rises 
 above even physical suffering." 
 
 HAELITT, WILLIAM, the acute critic and 
 essayist, son of a Unitarian minister of the same 
 name, and the author of several papers quoted in 
 this volume, was born at Maidstone on the 10th of 
 April 1778. When only five years old his father 
 visited America, and for a short time ministered 
 there, and afterwards returning to England, 
 settled down at Wem, in Shropshire. When 
 nine years of age he was sent to school at Wem, 
 and gave various indications at this early 
 period of mental precocity and the possession 
 of varied knowledge. In 1793 he was entered 
 as a student at the Unitarian College at Hack- 
 ney, but possessing no liking for his father's 
 profession, devoted his time to the study of 
 moral and political philosophy. Having early 
 shown a taste for drawing and a love of pictures, 
 he next determined to follow out the profession 
 of a painter, and in 1802 visited Paris for the 
 purpose of studying the paintings in the Louvre. 
 On his return to England this new line of study 
 was soon abandoned. In 1803 he appeared in 
 London and published his essay on the "Prin- 
 ciples of Human Action." In 1808 he married 
 a Miss Stoddart, the sister of Dr (afterwards Sir 
 John) Stoddart, when he settled in Wiltshire, 
 and devoted his time and attention to literature. 
 His life was afterwards one course of unin- 
 terrupted Literary exertion, and his labours 
 brought him in a considerable income had his 
 imprudence not helped to dissipate it. In 1822 
 he was divorced from his wife, but he married 
 again a second time, two years afterwards. 
 Hazlitt lectured on English philosophy, and on 
 the English poets generally, and contributed to 
 the Morning Chronicle^ the Examiner, and the 
 Edinburgh Review, but his literary reputation 
 
522 
 
 HAZLITT— HOLLAND. 
 
 now chiefly rests on his essays. Hazlitt died 
 in 1830. Barry Cornwall, writing of Hazlitt, 
 says that "he had nothing that was parsi- 
 monious or mean in his character, and I believe 
 that he never thought of eating or drinking, 
 except when hunger or thirst reminded him of 
 these wants. With the exception of a very rare 
 dinner or supper with a friend or intimate, his 
 time was generally spent alone. After a late 
 breakfast he took his quire of foolscap paper, 
 and commenced writing (in a large hand almost 
 as large as text) his day's work. I never saw 
 any rough draft or copy. He wrote readily — 
 not very swiftly, perhaps, but easily, as if he 
 had made up his mind — the manuscript that I 
 believe went to the printer. In his latter years 
 he dined generally at the Southampton Coffee- 
 house, in Southampton Buildings, and was 
 much interested by the sayings of people whom 
 he met there ; and would often repeat and com- 
 ment on them when they served to develop 
 character. Hazlitt was of the middle size, with 
 eager, expressive eyes; near which his black 
 hair, sprinkled sparely with grey, curled round 
 in a wiry resolute manner. His grey eyes, not 
 remarkable in colour, expanded into great ex- 
 pression when occasion demanded it. Being 
 very shy, however, they often evaded your 
 steadfast look. They never (as has been as- 
 serted by some one) had a sinister expression ; 
 but they sometimes flamed with indignant 
 glances, when their owner was moved to anger, 
 like the eyes of other angry men. At home his 
 style of dress (or undress) was perhaps slovenly, 
 because there was no one to please ; but he 
 always presented a very clean and neat appear- 
 ance when he went abroad. His mode of walk- 
 ing was loose, weak, and unsteady; although 
 his arms displayed strength, which he used to 
 put forth when he played at racquets with Martin 
 Bumey and others. He played in the old Fives 
 Court (now pulled down) in St Martin's Street, 
 and occasionallly exhibited impatience when 
 the game went against him. It was here that 
 he witnessed the play at fives of the celebrated 
 John Cavanagh, of whom he has written so 
 delightfully. He lived mainly alone — the life 
 of a solitary thinker. This gave originality to 
 some of his essays ; sometimes it deprived him 
 of the advantage of comparing his opinions with 
 those of others. There is no doubt that his 
 strong passions and determined likings often 
 interfered with his better reason. His admira- 
 tion of Napoleon would not allow of any quali- 
 fication. And in the case of the heroine of the 
 * Liber Amoris ' (Sarah "Walker), his intellect was 
 completely subdued by an insane passion. He 
 was, for a time, unable to think or talk of any- 
 thing else. He abandoned criticism and books 
 as idle matters ; and fatigued every person 
 whom he met by expressions of his love, of her 
 deceit, and of his own vehement disappoint- 
 ment. This was when he lived in Southampton 
 
 Buildings, Holborn. Upon one occasion I 
 know that he told the story of his attachment 
 to five different persons in the same day, and at 
 each time entered into minute details of his 
 love story." 
 
 HOLLAND, JOSIAH GILBERT, was bom at 
 
 Belchertown, Massachusetts, 24th July 1819. 
 His father was a machinist and an inventor, 
 and is said to have been a man of singular 
 simplicity and purity of character. His health 
 having failed him while fitting out for college, 
 in his twenty-first year, he entered the office 
 of Drs Barret and Thompson of Northamp- 
 ton as a student of medicine. He graduated 
 M.D. at the Berkshire Medical College, Pitts- 
 field, in 1845, and afterwards practised for a 
 year or two at Springfield. In 1849 he became 
 associate editor of the Springfield Republican, 
 which rapidly rose in power and influence. As 
 in the case of Samuel Smiles, we have here a 
 medical man abandoning the medical profession, 
 and becoming exceedingly useful and popular 
 in that of literature. His works at this time 
 are : " History of Western Massachusetts," 1855 ; 
 " Bay Path," a novel, 1857. The series of letters 
 from the Springfield -Re^wSZtcaw, published under 
 the nom deplume of " Timothy Titcomb," became 
 widely popular. *' Gold-Foil " is the immediate 
 successor of " Titcomb's Letters," and has been 
 reprinted in this country by the publishers of 
 this volume. Among his other better known 
 publications are "Kathrina" (of which 40,000 
 copies were sold within six months of its pub- 
 lication), and "Mistress of the Manse," both 
 poems of great beauty; "Lessons in Life," 
 " Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects." His chief 
 novels are: "Miss Gilbert's Career," "Arthur 
 Bonnicastle," "Sevenoaks," and "Nicholas 
 Minturn." The latter story deals with several 
 vexed social problems in a masterly style, while 
 the writing and the teaching throughout the 
 book renders it amongst the best and most 
 popular of all his works. It deserves the 
 attention of moral reformers everywhere. 
 Like Charles Kingsley, Holland preserves a 
 high ideal of the work and mission of woman 
 throughout all his books, setting her forth 
 as the guide, purifier, and inspirer of the 
 man. Dr Holland, conjointly with Mr 
 Roswell Smith, founded, and edited Scribner's 
 Magazine until his sudden death on 12th 
 October 1881. Readers of this magazine 
 are aware how accomplished and versatile 
 he proved himself to be in this department. 
 With other rivals in the field, it gained 
 and kept a leading place amongst popular 
 monthlies, by the freshness and interest 
 of its leading fiction and other articles, 
 and by the great beauty and number of its illus- 
 trations. It is also, as nearly as possible, a 
 purely American magazine, and comes to those 
 interested in its pages as its own best recommen- 
 
dation. At twenty-six, Dr Holland married 
 Elizabeth L. Chapin, of Springfield, the same 
 "Elizabeth" to whom •* Kathrina" is dedicated. 
 His summer residence was called Bonniecastle, 
 and was situated on one of the thousand islands 
 of the St Lawrence. His town residence was at 
 Park Avenue,New York. Hewas connected with 
 the Church of the Covenant, a Presbyterian place 
 of worship, Kev. Martin R. Vincent, pastor. He 
 became a member of the Board of Education 
 for New York City in 1872, was subsequently 
 elected president of that body, but declined 
 re-appointment in April 1873. At this same 
 time he also held the chairmanship of the Board 
 of Trustees of New York College. He died 12th 
 Oct. 1881. In personal appearance he has been 
 described as a gentleman of a quiet and dignified 
 manner, and with a very finely-organised body 
 and brain. " He is not large or heavily built, 
 but of good size, well proportioned, above the 
 medium height, and as lithe and springy as a 
 race-horse." Further, he was spoken of as a 
 clear thinker, a sharp observer, a man of intense 
 feeling; his brain working easily and rapidly, 
 often too intensely for health, had he not been 
 rather remarkable for toughness and endurance. 
 
 HOUGHTON (BARON), THE RIGHT HON. 
 RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, D.C.L., F.R.S., 
 
 was born 19th June 1809. He graduated M. A. at 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1831. He was 
 elected Member of Parliament for Pontefract in 
 1837 ; in 1863 he was elevated to the peerage. 
 Lord Houghton supported Sir Robert Peel in the 
 repeal of the corn laws ; but afterwards joined 
 Lord John Russell's party. In 1846 he brought 
 in a bill to Parliament for the establishment of 
 juvenile reformatories, and was elected president 
 of the reformatory establishment at Red Hill. 
 He received the degree of LL.D. from Edin- 
 burgh University in 1878. He published 
 several pamphlets and prose volumes. His 
 chief volumes of Poems are entitled " Poems of 
 Many Years," and "Palm Leaves." He issued 
 in 1873 his "Monographs, Personal and Social." 
 His death took place in 1885. 
 
 HUXLEY, THOMAS HENRY, LL.D., Pli,D., 
 F.R.S., was born at Ealing, Middlesex, in 1825, 
 and studied at Ealing School, and at the Medical 
 School at Charing Cross Hospital. In 1846 he 
 acted as assistant surgeon in H.M.S. "Rattle- 
 snake," visiting the South Pacific. In 1854 he 
 became professor at the Royal School of Mines, 
 Jermyn Street. In 1870 he was elected a mem- 
 ber of the London School Board, and made a 
 distinct stand against denominational teaching 
 in schools, and also against Roman Catholicism. 
 He was installed Lord Rector of Aberdeen 
 Ukiiversity, 27th February 1874. He has con- 
 tributed scientific papers to the Transactions 
 and Journals of the Royal Society, also to the 
 Geological, the Linnean, and the Zoological 
 
 Societies. His chief works are : " Oceanic- 
 Hydrozoa," ** Man's Place in Nature," " Lec- 
 tures on Comparative Anatomy," "Lessons in 
 Elementary Physiology," "An Introduction to 
 the Classification of Animals," " Lay Sermons, 
 Addresses, and Reviews," "Manual of the 
 Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals," "Critiques 
 and Addresses," " Physiography," etc. 
 
 INGELOW, MISS JEAN, a graceful and delicate 
 poet and novelist, was born at Ipswich about 
 1830. Her chief works are: " Tales of Orris," 
 1860; "The Round of Days," a volume of 
 poems, which carried her name throughout 
 England and America ; a volume entitled 
 " Home Thoughts and Home Scenes," issued in 
 1864, contained some of her poetical contribu- 
 tions; "A Story of Doom, and Other Poems," 
 was issued in 1867; "Mopsa the Fairy," in 
 1869; "Little Wonder Horn," in 1872; and a 
 novel, entitled " Off the Skelligs," was issued 
 in 1873. 
 
 LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, was bom at 
 
 Warwick, England, 30th January 1775, and- 
 died in Florence, Italy, 17th September 1864, 
 thus having almost reached hiy ninetieth jear. 
 His literary life is perhaps the longest on re- 
 cord ; his first published work appeared in 
 1795, his last was written in 1863; between 
 them is a space of almost threescore years 
 and ten. His works speak for themselves. 
 The so-called " Complete Collection," published 
 by Moxon in 1846, wants many of his produc- 
 tions up to that date; a new edition supplies 
 this deficiency. Of these latter works there are 
 not a few which we might wish had never seen 
 the light; yet among even the very latest are 
 some worthy of his prime. Landor's place in 
 English literature is already fixed by the judg- 
 ment of the instructed few, which will in the 
 long run outweigh that of the uninstructed 
 many. In the ordinary sense of the word, he is 
 not and never will be popular; but the "Ima- 
 ginary Conversations," " Pericles and Aspasia," 
 and the "Pentameron," will never die; and 
 "Gebir," "Count Julian," and "Andrea of 
 Hungary " will not fail to find audience in all 
 after-time, perhaps few in any one age. The 
 man himself is also worth study. No man ever 
 lived whose life seemed so utterly beyond any 
 law but his own caprice ; no man ever wrought 
 whose course of thought upon all great subjects- 
 was more strictly subordinated to universal law. 
 In his life he was the ungoverned Berserker of 
 the Scandinavian sagas; in his writings he is 
 the sage and philosopher who might have given 
 lessons to Plato or Cicero. We have three- 
 characteristic portraits of Landor. The first 
 represents him at thirty. One might suppose 
 it to be the picture of an ancient gladiator or a 
 modern prize-fighter. The black hair comes 
 down almost to the square uplifted eyebrow, 
 
524 
 
 LANDOR—LE WES. 
 
 teneath which glares a keen eye. Unless one 
 noticed the distance from ear to crown, he would 
 think the forehead was of the lowest. The long 
 upper lip is sullenly drawn in; the retreating 
 chin is almost lost in the heavy jowl and thick 
 neck; the whole aspect is that of brute force 
 and untamed will. In the third portrait, taken 
 half a century later, the hair has fallen off, dis- 
 closing a lofty, un wrinkled forehead ; the lines 
 of the lips are delicately carved; the face is 
 smoothly shaven, and the whole aspect is that 
 of a genial sage and philosopher. The second 
 portrait, taken midway between these, is singu- 
 larly like both. The outlines might almost 
 have been traced from the first one; the high 
 forehead, with its fringe of grey hair, is like the 
 second. All present the same man, scarcely 
 changed with the lapse of years. As in features, 
 so in character, the Landor of thirty was the 
 Landor of almost thrice thirty.* *' The position 
 occupied by Landor in society and in literature," 
 says a writer in the Athenceum, *' is equally 
 anomalous. A man of gentle and courteous dis- 
 position, indignant only against falsehood and 
 oppression, he yet came to be regarded as a fire- 
 brand, and waa to his own generation almost as 
 much of a mystery and a terror as was Lord 
 Camelford to the generation preceding. A poet 
 and a dramatist, he influenced less than any man 
 of equal and approximate mark the literature 
 of his age, and left behind him nothing that has 
 been judged capable of stage presentation. The 
 delight in his writings expressed by the most 
 intellectual thinkers has begotten no correspond- 
 ing or responsive enthusiasm in the general 
 public. The few gems in his poetry capable of 
 being extracted for quotation are ignored or 
 assigned to other authors ; his reputation rests 
 on what has been said of him rather than on 
 what he has done, and the memory of the extra- 
 vagances of his life has survived that of the purity 
 and nobility of his work. It can scarcely be 
 said of him as of Wordsworth, ' What a man to 
 revive 1' for in a sense he has never lived in 
 literature, and, in the sense in which he has 
 lived, he has never died. His works are still 
 prized by those who ever prized them, and have 
 gained and lost nothing in the course of pro- 
 gressing years. That they will obtain universal 
 acceptance and win their way into popular 
 editions is not to be hoped ; what may be ex- 
 pected from the appearance of the first collected 
 edition is that they will extend beyond the 
 esoteric few to whom they are now familiar, 
 and reach that large circle of readers of average 
 intelligence whence are taken the jurors in litera- 
 ture; that they will pass, in short, from the 
 aristocracy of letters to that middle class which 
 in art, as in politics, remains the principal 
 power. To the fact that so little has been 
 known of Landor, it is probably ascribable that 
 
 * Galaxy. 
 
 the position claimed for him by his more ardent 
 admirers has never been contested, and that no 
 such controversy as was waged over the merits 
 of Byron or Wordsworth has arisen concerning 
 him. There seems, indeed, some truth in the 
 description of Landor given by one of his critics, 
 who speaks of him as * a man remarkable both for 
 his talents and the unsuccessful employment of 
 them, with a name extensively known and pro- 
 ductions universally unknown ; having eloquence 
 and dignity of style, which men are willing to 
 receive upon trust, and publishing books which 
 meet with every kind of reception except a 
 perusal.' Landor's intellectual stature is great 
 without being commanding. It is a possible 
 explanation that his proportions are so just and 
 symmetrical, that the sense of size is lost. A 
 more satisfactory theory is that he does not 
 know how to hold himself. Instead of moving 
 the wonder of men, and drawing after him a 
 school of disciples, he is ushered forward by the 
 majority of his admirers with something like an 
 apology, an attempted explanation of the reason 
 why his talents remain ineffective and his merits 
 unacknowledged. Coleridge declares him * desti- 
 tute of imagination in its highest form, and 
 Douglas Jerrold asserts that his chief defect is 
 'lack of spirituality;' the most vehement up- 
 holders of his prose style question whether he 
 can claim to rank as a poet, and the most ardent 
 champions of his sincerity are doubtful about 
 his judgment." 
 
 LEWES, GEORGE HENRY, was born in Lon- 
 don, on 18th April 1817, and was educated at 
 Greenwich and abroad. Becoming a clerk in 
 the office of a Russian merchant, he quitted 
 business, and betook himself to literature. To 
 further his studies he went through a course of 
 training in Germany, after which he returned 
 to London and devoted himself to literature. 
 He has written for the Edinburgh, Foreign 
 Quarterly, British and Foreign, and British 
 Quarterly Reviews; also to Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine, etc. His chief works are: "Biographical 
 History of Philosophy," '* Life of Robespierre," 
 "Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences," "The 
 Life and Works of Goethe," "Physiology of 
 Common Life," "Aristotle : a Chapter from the 
 History of Science," "History of Philosophy 
 from Thales to Comte," "Problems of Life and 
 Mind," "Foundations of a Creed," etc. Be- 
 sides, he has written several novels, a tragedy, 
 acted as literary editor of the Leader newspaper 
 from 1849 until 1854, was the founder of the 
 Fortnightly Review, and has also read several 
 scientific papers before the British Association. 
 He died November 30, 1878. "If we want 
 a perfect type and pattern of versatility," wrote 
 Justin Macarthy, "we may find it in the per- 
 son of George Henry Lewis. What man of our 
 day has done so many things, and done them 
 so well ? He is the biographer of Goethe and 
 
LEWES, 
 
 525 
 
 of Robespierre ; he has compiled the ' History 
 of Philosophy,' in which he has something really 
 his own to say of every great philosopher, from 
 Thales to Schelling ; he has translated Spinoza ; 
 he has published various scientilic works ; he 
 has written at least two novels ; he has made 
 one of the most successful dramatic adaptations 
 known to our stage ; he is an accomplished 
 theatrical critic ; he was at one time so success- 
 ful as an amateur actor that he seriously con- 
 templated taking to the stage as a profession, 
 in the full conviction, which he did not hesitate 
 frankly to avow, that he was destined to be the 
 successor to Macready. He did actually join a 
 company at one of the Manchester theatres, 
 and perform there for some time under a feigned 
 name ; but the amount of encouragement he 
 received from the public did not stimulate him 
 to continue on the boards, although I believe 
 his confidence in his own capacity to succeed 
 Macready remained unshaken. Mr Lewes was 
 always remarkable for a frank and fearless 
 self-conceit, which, by its very sincerity and 
 audacity, almost disarmed criticism. Indeed, I 
 do not suppose any man less gifted with self- 
 confidence would have even attempted to do 
 half the things which George Henry Lewes has 
 done well. Margaret Fuller was very unfavour- 
 ably impressed by Lewes when she met him at 
 Thomas Carlyle's house, and she wrote of him 
 contemptuously and angrily. But these were 
 the days of Lewes's Bohemianism, days of an 
 audacity and self-conceit unsubdued as yet by 
 experience and the world, and some saddening 
 and some refining influences ; and Margaret 
 Fuller failed to appreciate the amount of in- 
 tellect and manliness that was in him. Char- 
 lotte Bronte, on the other hand, was quite 
 enthusiastic about Lewes, and wrote to him and 
 of him with an almost amusing veneration. In- 
 deed, he is a man of ability and versatility that 
 may fairly be called extraordinary. His merit 
 is not that he has written books on a great 
 variety of subjects. London has many hack 
 writers who could go to work at any publisher's 
 order and produce successively an epic poem, a 
 novel, a treatise on the philosophy of the con- 
 ditioned, a handbook of astronomy, a farce, a 
 life of Julius Caesar, a history of African ex- 
 plorations, and a volume of sermons. But none 
 of these productions would have one gleam of 
 genuine native vitality about it. The moment 
 it had served its purpose in the literary market 
 it would go, dead, down to the dead. Lewes's 
 works are of quite a different style. They 
 have positive merit and value of their own, and 
 they live. It was a characteristic audacious 
 thing to attempt to cram the history of philo- 
 sophy into a couple of medium-sized volumes, 
 polishing off each philosopher in a few pages- 
 draining him, plucking out the heart of his 
 mystery and his system, and stowing him away 
 in the glass jar designed to exhibit him to an 
 
 edified class of students. But it must be avowed 
 that Lewes's has been a marvellously clever and 
 successful attempt. He certainly crumples up 
 the whole system of metaphysics, sweeps away 
 transcendental philosophy, and demolishes a 
 priori reasoning, in a manner which strongly 
 reminds one of Arthur Pendennis upsetting, in 
 a dashing criticism and on the faith of an hour's 
 reading in an encyclopaedia, some great scientific 
 theory of which he had never heard previously, 
 and the development of which has been the life's 
 labour of a sage. But Lewes does, somehow or 
 other, very often come to a right conclusion, 
 and measure great theories and men with accur- 
 ate estimate ; and the work is immensely inter- 
 esting, and it is not easy to see how anybody 
 could have done it better. His ' Life of Goethe ' 
 is undoubtedly a very successful, symmetrical, 
 and comprehensive piece of biography. Some 
 of his scientific studies have a genuine value, 
 and they are all fascinating. One of his pieces — 
 adapted from the French, of course, as most so- 
 called English pieces are — will always be played 
 while Charles Mathews lives, or while there are 
 actors who can play in Charles Mathews' style. 
 . . . Lewes first became prominent in litera- 
 ture as a contributor to the Leader, a very re- 
 markable weekly organ of advanced opinions 
 on all questions, which was started in London 
 eighteen or twenty years ago, and died, after 
 much flickering and lingering, about 1861. 
 The Leader, in its early and best days, fairly 
 sparkled all over with talent, originality, and 
 audacity. It was to extreme philosophical radi- 
 calism (with a dash of something like atheism), 
 what the Saturday Review now is to cultured 
 swelldom and Belgravian Sadduceeism ; Miss 
 Martineau wrote for it. Lewes and Thornton 
 Hunt (they were then intimates, unfortunately 
 for Lewes) were among its principal contri- 
 butors ; Edward Whitty flung over its pages the 
 brilliant eccentric light which was destined to 
 immature and melancholy extinction. The 
 Leader^ probably, never paid; it was far too 
 iconoclastic and eccentric to be a commercial 
 success, but it made quite a mark and will 
 always be a memory. It did not succeed in its 
 object ; but, like the arrow of the hero in Virgil, 
 it left a long line of sparkles and light behind 
 it. Lewes has abandoned Bohemia long since, 
 and Edward Whitty and Thornton Hunt are 
 both dead. Bohemianism, and novel-writing, 
 and amateur acting, and persiflage, and epi- 
 gram, are all gone by now with Lewes. He has 
 settled into a gi'ave and steady writer, for the 
 most part of late confining himself to scientific 
 subjects. A few years ago he started the 
 Fortnightly Review, in the hope of establishing 
 in England a counterpart of the Revue des 
 Deux Mondes. The first number was enriched 
 by one of the most thoughtful, subtle, beautiful 
 essays lately contributed to literature ; and it 
 bore the signature of Georgo Eliot. Lewes 
 
526 
 
 LO WELL— MA CDONALD. 
 
 Himself wrote a series of essays on ' The Prin- 
 ciples of Success in Literature,' very good, very 
 sound, but not very lively reading. A great 
 English novelist was pleased graciously to say, 
 aprojpos of these essays : * Success in literature ! 
 What does Lewes know about success in litera- 
 ture?' and the small devotees of the great suc- 
 cessful novelist laughed and repeated the joke. 
 It is certain that the Fortnightly Review was 
 not a success under the editorship of George 
 Henry Lewes ; and people said, I do not know 
 how truly, that a good deal of the nobly-earned 
 money paid for ' Silas Marner ' and the * Mill on 
 the Floss,' disappeared in the attempt to erect 
 a British Revue des Deux Mondes. The Fort- 
 nightly lives still, and is called Fortnightly still, 
 although it now only comes out once a month, 
 but Lewes has long since ceased to edit it." 
 
 LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL.— One sees be- 
 tween Brattle and Auburn Streets, in Cambridge, 
 Massachusetts, what is, on the whole, about the 
 most attractive of all the residences of American 
 authors — Elmwood, the home of James Kussell 
 Lowell.* Save the porter's lodge, an entire square 
 is occupied by the wide grounds surrounding 
 the old house, which is of wood, nearly square, 
 and three stories high. It was built about 1760 
 by Thomas Oliver, the last lieutenant-governor 
 of the province. Four thousand patriots mobbed 
 the house in 1774, and demanded Oliver's resig- 
 nation ; and he, fearing for the life of his family, 
 handed them back a paper signed thus : " My 
 house at Cambridge being surrounded by four 
 thousand people, in compliance with their de- 
 mands I sign my name, Thomas Oliver." He 
 went to England in 1776, and died there in 
 1815. Elbridge Gerry succeeded him as occu- 
 pant some years later, and in 1817 the Rev. 
 Charles Lowell, father of the poet, bought it of 
 Mrs Gerry, the vice-president's widow. Mr 
 Lowell was pastor of the West Church, Boston, 
 a Unitarian organisation, which in these days, 
 under Dr Bartol, has become a headquarters of 
 the Free Religious Wing of the denomination. 
 Mr Lowell, however, was hardly so radical in 
 his views, and never permitted himself to be 
 called a Unitarian. He preached in the old 
 edifice for the great space of fifty years. James 
 Russell Lowell was born in the house on Wash- 
 ington's birthday, 1819, only two years after his 
 father occupied it, and he has had the somewhat 
 rare good fortune, for this country, of living all 
 his life in his birthplace. He graduated at 
 Harvard in 1838, in the class with Nathan Hale, 
 W. W. Story, Dr Rufus Ellis of Boston, Dr E. 
 A. Washburn of New York, and Professor 
 Eustis, of the Lawrence Scientific School. R. H. 
 Dana, jun., and Henry Thoreau were in the 
 class before him, and Edward E. Hale in the 
 succeeding one. 
 
 * Harper's Monthly. 
 
 Few remember that Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 began life as a law student, and not many 
 more care to learn that Lowell did the same 
 thing, and was actually admitted to the bar 
 and opened an office in Boston. Whether 
 his legal duties were arduous or not, he soon 
 relinquished them, and four or five years after 
 his graduation entered the field of periodical 
 literature as editor, with Robert Carter, at pre- 
 sent also a resident of Cambridge, of the Pioneer, 
 a very aesthetic magazine, for which Poe and 
 Hawthorne wrote, and which went to the tomb 
 after the publication of three numbers. In this 
 magazine William W. Story, then a Boston 
 lawyer, made his first essays in art in the shape 
 of some outlines in the Flaxman manner. 
 Lowell's early volumes were almost all published 
 at Cambridge. Mr John Owen, who first pub- 
 lished them, and also Longfellow's "Voices of 
 the Night," "Ballads," "Poems on Slavery," and 
 "The Belfry of Bruges," is still alive, and as he 
 walks around Cambridge, with long white hair 
 and venerable beard, is one of the most notice- 
 able of its citizens. One of Mr Lowell's first 
 books was dedicated to William Page, the artist, 
 in language of the most extravagant sentimen- 
 talism. Those were the days of sentimental 
 friendships ; but Page, Lowell, and Mr Charles 
 F. Briggs, who then formed a triad of kindred 
 minds, still retain their mutual esteem. In 1853 
 died Mr Lowell's wife, Maria White, of Water- 
 town, herself a poet ; and the next year Long- 
 fellow commemorated the event by publishing 
 in Mr Briggs' magazine "The Two Angels," one 
 of his best poems. From his Elmwood windows 
 Mr Lowell can look across the flats stretching 
 toward Boston, four miles away, while on the 
 other side lies Mount Auburn. The grounds are 
 not adorned with any modern landscape garden- 
 ing, but stand in simple beauty, while the tall 
 trees to the westward are almost sombre when 
 the night breeze blows through them. The old 
 yellow house is a poet's home, and thither bards, 
 as well as birds, seem naturally to fly. When 
 the owner was in Europe once for a couple of 
 years, he gave his keys for occupancy of the 
 house to Mr Thomas Bailey Aldrich, whose 
 dainty verse was written meanwhile to the 
 crooning of the Elmwood chimneys mentioned 
 somewhere by the elder poet. Mr LoweU is 
 now in the full vigour of middle life. His hair 
 and beard are tinged with auburn and streaked 
 with grey ; but he is a muscular bard, in perfect 
 health, and of uniform courtesy and good nature. 
 In his personal appearance, as in the manage- 
 ment of his afi'airs, there is nothing of the tradi- 
 tional heedlessness of the poet. The poetical 
 nature, he thinks, is akin to order, and in his 
 own case certainly the opinion is true. Mr 
 Lowell has been consul to the U.S. Government 
 at Madrid and in London. 
 
 MACDONALD, GEORGE, LL.D., one of the 
 
most successful of living Scottish poets and 
 novelists, is a native of Huntly, Aberdeenshire, 
 and was born there in the year 1825. Like Scott 
 in his boyhood, when at school he would some- 
 times attract a circle of listeners to the tales 
 which he would improvise for their benefit. On 
 leaving school he entered King's College, Aber- 
 deen, taking his degree of M.A. Educated for 
 the ministry of the Congregational Church, of 
 which he was for some time a minister, he 
 has since devoted himself entirely to a literary 
 life, and become a member of the Church of 
 England. His first publication was "Within 
 and Without," a dramatic poem, dedicated to 
 his wife, which was issued in 1855 and well 
 received. "A Hidden Life, and Other Poems" 
 appeared in 1864, and in 1867 "The Disciple, 
 and Other Poems." His poems have been pro- 
 duced in ten volumes, in a handsome uniform 
 edition. " Phantastes, a Faerie Romance," in 
 prose, appeared in 1858. His best known novels 
 are: "Alec Forbes of Howglen," "Robert Fal- 
 coner," "David Elginbrod," " Annals of a Quiet 
 Neighbourhood," "The Seaboard Parish," "The 
 Vicar's Daughter," " Wilfrid Cumbermede," 
 "Malcolm," "The Marquis of Lossie," "St 
 George and St Michael," "The Wise Woman," 
 etc. He is the author of several theological 
 works, including "Unspoken Sermons," first 
 and second series, and the "Miracles of our 
 Lord," and he is also a powerful and interesting 
 lecturer on literary sub j ects. He also takes high 
 rank as a writer for the young ; the names of some 
 of his juvenile tales are as follows: "Ranald 
 Bannerman's Boyhood," "At the Back of the 
 North Wind," "The Princess and the Goblin," 
 "Dealings with the Fairies," " Guttaperchie 
 Willie." Mrs MacDonald has also published a 
 volume, "Chamber Dramas for Children." 
 
 MILL, JOHN STUART, the modern apostle of 
 utilitarianism, was the eldest son of James 
 Mill, the author of "British India," and was 
 born in London, on the 20th May 1806. His 
 father was the son of a small farmer and petty 
 tradesman at North Waterbridge, in the county 
 of Angus ; his abilities attracting attention, he 
 was educated for the Scottish Church at Edin- 
 burgh University. After a preliminary course 
 of study and being licensed, he found that he 
 could not believe the doctrines of any church, 
 and so for a few years he acted as tutor in 
 various families, amongst them the Marquis of 
 Tweeddale. At last he took up his residence in 
 London, ; and supported himself by authorship 
 until he received an appointment in the India 
 House. Young Mill was a prodigy, commencing 
 Greek when three yetrs old, and beginning to 
 learn Latin along with a younger sister when in 
 his eighth year. In his twelfth year he had 
 commenced the systematic study of logic, read- 
 ing Latin treatises on scholastic logic, and also 
 Hobbe's " Computatio Sive Logica." Fuller's 
 
 "History of India" was another work which he 
 read with profit. The influence of his father's 
 beliefs began to impress themselves on his own 
 nature ; he had begun to reject not only the 
 belief in revelation, but also the foundations of 
 natural religion. In the summer of 1822, his 
 first argumentative essay was written on the 
 subject of the aristocratic prejudice, that the 
 rich were likely to be superior to the poor in 
 moral qualities. His father encouraged him 
 now to turn his mind to compositions of an 
 oratorical kind, when he wrote two speeches in 
 imitation of the Athenian orators. After this, 
 he says, " I continued to write papers on sub- 
 jects very much beyond my capacity, but with 
 great benefit, both from the exercise itself, and 
 from the discussions which it led to with my 
 father." A society of young men which never 
 numbered more than ten members, was founded 
 in the winter of 1822-23, and called by the 
 name of the " Utilitarian Society." Utility was 
 their standard in ethics and politics ; the name 
 Utilitarian was borrowed from Gait's novel, 
 "The Annals of the Parish," where the parish 
 minister warns his people not to leave the 
 Gospel and become utilitarians. Mill was early 
 appointed to a clerkship in the India House, 
 and rose to the grade of examiner of Indian 
 correspondence, the post occupied by his father. 
 His early writings appeared in the Westminster 
 and the Edinburgh Reviews. His first great 
 work was his "System of Logic, Ratiocinative 
 and Inductive," published in 1843. Then fol- 
 lowed " Essays on some Unsettled Questions of 
 Political Economy," 1844 ; " Principles of Poli- 
 tical Economy," 1861. His other chief works 
 are: "An Essay on Liberty," "Thoughts on 
 Parliamentary Reform," 1859 ; " Considerations 
 on Representative Government," 1861; "Ex- 
 amination of Sir William Hamilton's Philo- 
 sophy," 1865 ; "Utilitarianism," and his "Auto- 
 biography," in October 1873. He represented 
 Westminster in Parliament from 1865 to 1868. 
 He died in 1873. Appended are two passages 
 from his "Autobiography," giving in his own 
 words a history of two important epochs in his 
 life. The first has reference to a crisis in his 
 mental history, in the autumn of 1826. "But 
 the time came when I awakened from this as 
 from a dream. It was in the autumn of 1826. 
 I was in a dull state of nerves, such as every- 
 body is occasionally liable to— unsusceptible to 
 enjoyment or pleasurable excitement ; one of 
 those moods when what is pleasure at other 
 times become insipid or indifferent — the state, 
 I should think, in which converts to Methodism 
 usually are when smitten by their first convic- 
 tion of sin. In this frame of mind it occurred 
 to me to put the question directly to myself, 
 Suppose that all your objects in life were real- 
 ised, that all the changes in institutions and 
 opinions which you are looking forward to could 
 be completely effected at this very instant — 
 
528 
 
 MILL—MOFFAT. 
 
 would this be a great joy and happiness to you ? 
 And an irrepressible self- consciousness dis- 
 tinctly answered *No.' At this my heart sank 
 within me ; the whole foundation on which my 
 life was constructed fell down ; all my happi- 
 ness was to have been found in the continual 
 pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to 
 charm, and how could there ever again be any 
 interest in the means? I seemed to have no- 
 thing left to live for." The following gives his 
 own account of the beginning of what he has 
 called the most valuable friendship of his life : 
 *' My first introduction to the lady who, after a 
 hardship of twenty years, consented to become 
 my wife, was in 1830, when I was in my twenty- 
 fifth and she in her twenty-third year. With 
 her husband's family it was the renewal of an 
 old acquaintanceship. His grandfather lived in 
 the next house to my father's in Newington 
 Green, and I had sometimes when a boy been 
 invited to play In the old gentleman's garden. 
 He was a fme specimen of the old Scotch Puritan 
 — stern, severe, and powerful, but very kind to 
 children, on whom such men make a lasting 
 impression. Although it was years after my 
 introduction to Mrs Taylor before my acquaint- 
 ance with her became at all intimate or confi- 
 dential, I very soon felt her to be the most admir- 
 able person I had ever known. It is not to be 
 supposed that she was, or that any one at the age 
 at which I first saw her could be, all that she 
 afterwards became. Least of all could this be 
 true of her, with whom self-improvement, pro- 
 gress in the highest and in all senses, was a law 
 of her nature — a necessity equally from the 
 ardour with which she sought it, and from the 
 spontaneous tendency of faculties which could 
 not receive an impression nor an experience 
 without making it the source or the occasion of 
 an accession of wisdom. Up to the time when 
 I first saw her, her rich and powerful nature 
 had chiefly unfolded itself according to the 
 received type of feminine genius. To her outer 
 circle she was a beauty and a wit, with an air of 
 natural distinction felt by all who approached 
 her ; to the inner, a woman of deep and strong 
 feeling, of penetrating and intuitive intelligence, 
 and of an eminently meditative and poetic 
 nature. Married at an early age to a most up- 
 right, brave, and honourable man of liberal 
 opinions and good education, but without the 
 intellectual or artistic tastes which would have 
 made him a companion for her, though a steady 
 and affectionate friend for whom she had true 
 esteem and the strongest affection through life, 
 and whom she most deeply lamented when dead, 
 shut out by the social disabilities of women 
 from any adequate exercise of her highest facul- 
 ties in action on the world without, her life was 
 one of inward meditation, varied by familiar 
 intercourse with a small circle of friends, of 
 whom one only (long since deceaoed) was a per- 
 son of genius or of capacities of feeling or intellect 
 
 kindred with her own, but all had more or less 
 of alliance with her in sentiments and opinions. 
 Into this circle I had the good fortune to be 
 admitted, and I soon perceived that she pos- 
 sessed in combination the qualities which in- 
 all other persons whom I had known, I had 
 been only too happy to find singly. In her, 
 complete emancipation from every kind of 
 superstition (including that which attributes a 
 pretended perfection to the order of nature and 
 the universe), and an earnest protest against 
 many things which are still part of the estab- 
 lished constitution of society, resulted not from 
 the hard intellect, but from strength of noble 
 and elevated feeling, and co-existed with a 
 highly reverential nature. In general spiritual 
 characteristics, as well as in temperament and 
 organisation, I have often compared her, as she 
 was at this time, to Shelley, but in thought and 
 intellect Shelley, so far as his powers were 
 developed in his short life, was but a child 
 compared with what she ultimately became. 
 Alike in the highest regions of speculation and 
 in the smaller practical concerns of daily life, 
 her mind was the same perfect instrument^ 
 piercing to the very heart and marrow of the 
 matter, always seizing the essential idea or prin- 
 ciple. The same exactness and rapidity of 
 operation, pervading, as it did, her sensitive as 
 well as her mental faculties, would, with her 
 gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her 
 to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and 
 tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would 
 certainly have made her a great orator, and her 
 profound knowledge of human nature and dis- 
 cernment and sagacity in practical life, would 
 in the times when such a career was open to 
 women, have made her eminent among the 
 rulers of mankind. Her intellectual gifts did 
 but minister to a moral character at once the 
 noblest and the best balanced which I have ever 
 met with in my life." 
 
 MOFFAT, ROBERT, the well-known African 
 missionary, was born at Ormiston, Scotland, 
 in 1795. In 1816, under the auspices of the 
 London Missionary Society, he became a mis- 
 sionary to the barbarous tribes of South Africa, 
 and went first to Erromanga, then to Namaqua- 
 land, and the Bechuana country. He returned 
 to Great Britain in 1840, giving a vivid account 
 of various adventures and experiences in the 
 mission field at several public meetings. Two 
 years later he published a "History of Mis- 
 sionary Labours in South Africa," and in 1843, 
 "Farewell Services," edited by Dr Campbell. 
 He also completed at this time a translation 
 of the New Testament and Psalms into the 
 Bechuana language. In 1870 he again visited 
 England. His daughter Mary was married to 
 Dr Livingstone in 1844, and became the com- 
 panion of his wanderings till her death at 
 Shupanga, on the Zambesi, in 1862. In recog. 
 
MORRIS— NIGHTINGALE, 
 
 529 
 
 nition of his services lie was presented with the 
 sum of £5800. He died in 1883. 
 
 MORRIS, WILLIAM, takes rank as one of the 
 most original poets of the nineteenth century. 
 This " idle singer of an empty day" was born in 
 1834:, and has published, amongst other works, 
 the "Defence of Guenevere," the "Life and 
 Death of Jason," the " Earthly Paradise ; " along 
 with Eirikir Magnusson he translated from the 
 Icelandic the ' ' Volsunga Saga. " *' Mr Morris," 
 says Blackwood's Magazine, "was born to be a 
 teller of the tales of old, and he has not despised 
 his vocation. He belongs to a brotherhood dear 
 to all ages and to all lands ; which owns for 
 members the Greek rhapsodists ; the singers of 
 King Arthur and his knights, of Roland and 
 Charlemagne ; the Eastern reciters of the fortunes 
 of Sindbad and Aladdin ; and the minstrel re- 
 hearsers of the exploits of Robin Hood, or the 
 sad fate of Syr Cauline. To him a story of the 
 olden time is dear for its own sake ; the task he 
 chooses is to set it forth in all the grace and 
 beauty which are its rightful dowry, not to 
 use it as a vehicle for subtle analysis of motive, 
 or as an introduction to philosophical reflec- 
 tions. Now, it is here that we especially admire 
 Mr Morris's boldness. He has dared to be him- 
 self. He has not sought to put off, or conceal, 
 his love for the objective, in deference to a pre- 
 sumed love for the subjective on the part of his 
 audience. He has sung to satisfy the promptings 
 of his own mind ; and, by so doing, has pleased 
 his audience as much as he can have pleased him- 
 self. The love of hearing a story is universal 
 in early life, as every nursery can bear witness ; 
 and most of us show filial respect for that child 
 who * is father to the man,' by dutifully imi- 
 tating him whenever we meet that rara avis, a 
 thoroughly good story-teller. For, alas ! one 
 reason why added years bring added sorrow is, 
 that we grow so terribly fastidious ; so intolerant 
 of those repetitions, digressions, and improba- 
 bilities which were so small a trouble to our strong 
 youthful digestions. Now the primary qualifi- 
 cation for his task is possessed by Mr Morris in 
 an eminent degree. He tells a story as well as 
 Ohaucer himself does; and possesses much of 
 the straightforwardness and simplicity, the fire 
 and the tenderness, of that admirable narrator. 
 Doubtless we find many things in Chaucer's 
 writings which do not appear in the poems 
 before us. We miss his wit and humour, for 
 the exhibition of which qualities there is no 
 stage provided here. We look in vain also for 
 his nice appreciation of shades of character; 
 since the personages of 'Jason' and of the 
 ' Earthly Paradise ' interest us in general rather 
 by what they do and suffer than by what they 
 are. Well, too, as Mr Morris loves nature, an 
 unstudied word or line here and there of his 
 master (as he affectionately calls Chaucer), 
 breathes a more hearty delight in her than many 
 
 a pleasing but more laboured description by the 
 scholar. But not the master of English poetry 
 himself can more vividly arouse our interest for 
 the creatures of his fancy, or succeed better 
 than Mr Morris does in dissolving romance or 
 fable in the crucible of a poet-brain, to issue 
 it afresh with the impress of a master-hand 
 stamped on its clear-cut outline. This gift of 
 relating a story well is, as we have said, a rare 
 gift in these days ; at least if many of our poets 
 possess it, they decline to exert it for our profit ; 
 sacrificing it perchance to the exercise of higher 
 endowments, but depriving their hearers of a 
 great and innocent pleasure. They needlessly 
 contract their circle of audience; repelling, by 
 avoidable obscurities and misplaced metaphysics, 
 many women and children for whom their re- 
 spectful pity should have carefully provided 
 accommodation. Mr Morris kindly takes his 
 stand in the market-place, and sings his sweet 
 song to all comers. Its subject-matter varies, 
 being drawn from many ages and many lands : 
 its charm remains the same." 
 
 MULOCE, DINAH MARIA (MRS CRAIE), 
 a popular novelist, was born at Stoke-upon- 
 Trent, Staffordshire, in 1826. In 1864 she 
 received a pension of £60 a year, and in the 
 following year was married to Mr George Lillie 
 Craik, of the publishing house of Messrs Mac- 
 millan & Co. The list of her novels and contri- 
 butions to juvenile literature is a long one. Her 
 first novel, " The Ogilvies," was issued in 1849; 
 "Olive," 1850; "The Head of the Family" 
 and "Alice Learmont," a fairy tale, in 1851; 
 "Agatha's Husband," 1852; "John Halifax, 
 Gentleman," 1857; "A Life for a Life," "Chris- 
 tian's Mistake," "Two Marriages" and "A 
 Noble Life," 1866; "Hannah," 1871; "The 
 Woman's Kingdom," "A Brave Lady," "A 
 Legacy: being the Life and Remains of John 
 Martin, Schoolmaster and Poet," 1878, etc. Her 
 books for the young are : " How to Win Love ; 
 or, Rhoda's Lesson," "Cola Monti; or, The 
 Story of a Genius," "A Hero: Philip's Book," 
 " Little Lychetts," "Our Year," "Bread Upon 
 the Waters," "The Unkind Word, and Other 
 Stories," "Fair France," 1870; "Little Sun- 
 shine's Holiday," 1871; "Adventures of a 
 Brownie," 1872; "My Mother and I," 1874; 
 " The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling 
 Cloak," 1874. She died 12th October 1887. 
 
 NIGHTINGALE, FLORENCE, the daughter of 
 William Edward Nightingale, of Lea Hurst, 
 Derbyshire, and Embley Park, Hampshire, was 
 born at Florence in May 1820. Besides becom- 
 ing mistress of the ordinary accomplishments of 
 an English lady, she became proficient also in 
 modern languages. Her native earnestness and 
 benevolence led her to make some serious effort 
 for the amelioration of moral and physical evil 
 and distress. In order to find out by practical 
 
 2 L 
 
630 
 
 OLIPHANT—PALMERSTON, 
 
 experience the working of the Continental hospi- 
 tals, after examining the schools and hospitals 
 in the neighbourhood of her father's estate, in 
 London, and in several of the large provincial 
 towns, she took up her abode at Kaiserworth, 
 on the Rhine, in an abode of Protestant Sisters 
 of Mercy. Here she acted as voluntary nurse, 
 and after visiting similar institutions in various 
 parts of Germany, came back to London and 
 founded the Sanatorium for English invalid ladies, 
 in Upper Harley Street. Another opportunity 
 to show her noble devotedness and unselfish 
 character was at hand. At the request of Mr 
 Sidney Herbert, then Secretary of War, she 
 undertook to go to the Crimea to superintend 
 the staff of voluntary nurses. In this staff of 
 forty-two nurses were many ladies of rank and 
 fortune. She remained at the Crimea organising 
 and conducting from November 1854 until the 
 return of the army in 1856. During this time 
 her zealous devotion to her work continued 
 unabated, except during the period when she 
 was herself down with hospital fever. On her 
 return to England, a testimonial fund, amount- 
 ing to £50,000, was subscribed in recognition of 
 her services. At her own request it was set 
 aside to found an hospital for the training of 
 nurses. Besides her philanthropic exertions, 
 she has endeavoured to educate the public mind 
 through the press, and has published, "Notes 
 on Hospitals," 1859; "Notes on Nursing," 
 1860; "Observations on the Sanitary State of 
 the Army in India," 1863; "Notes on Lying-in 
 Institutions," 1871, etc. 
 
 OLIPHANT, MRS MARGARET, one of the 
 
 most prolific novelists of the time, is of Scotch 
 extraction, and was born at Liverpool about 
 1818. In 1849 she issued her first novel, entitled, 
 " Passages in the Life of Mrs Margaret Maitland 
 of Sunnyside." Since that time she has never 
 ceased from year to year to add to the increas- 
 ing list of her works, all of which have met with 
 a fair reception from the press and the public 
 both in England and America. A literary 
 pension of £100 has been bestowed upon Mrs 
 Oliphant. Her chief novels are : "Merkland," 
 1851: "Adam Graeme of Mossgray," 1852; 
 "Harry Muir," 1853; "Magdalen Hepburn," 
 1854; "Lilliesleaf," 1855; "Zaidee," "Katie 
 Stewart," "The Quiet Heart," "Chronicles of 
 Carlingford," "Salem Chapel," "Agnes," 1866; 
 "The Minister's Wife," 1869; "John: a Love 
 Story," 1870; " Three Brothers," 1870; "Squire 
 Arden," 1871; "Ombra," 1871; "At His 
 Gates," 1872; "Innocent," 1873; "A Rose in 
 June," 1874; "For Love and Life," 1874; 
 "May," "Valentin and His Brother," "White- 
 ladies," "A Son of the Soil," "The Curate in 
 Charge," "Carita," "Within the Precincts," 
 1878; and a juvenile work, "Agues Hopetoun's 
 School-Days." Her biographical works are: 
 " Life of Edward Irving," " St Francis of Assisi," 
 
 " Memoir of the Comte de Montalembert," 
 "Historical Sketches of the Reign of George 
 II.," "The Makers of Florence— Dante, Giotto^ 
 Savonarola— and their City. " She has also under- 
 taken the editorship of Blackwood's "Foreign 
 Classics for English Readers," "Dante," th& 
 first volume in the series, being from her pen. 
 
 PALMERSTON, LORD, HENRY JOHN 
 TEMPLE, third Viscount Palmerston, was bom 
 at Westminster, 20th October 1784. He was 
 educated at Harrow School, at Edinburgh, and 
 at St John's College, Cambridge. Choosing a 
 political career, he graduated M. A. in 1806, and 
 offered himself as a candidate for the University 
 of Cambridge in 1806, afterwards in 1807, but 
 was defeated both times, but finally succeeded 
 in 1811, when he represented the university in 
 Parliament for the next twenty years. His first 
 ofiicial post was that of Lord of the Admiralty, 
 and in 1809, under the ministry of the Right 
 Hon. Spencer Percival, he was appointed Secre- 
 tary of War, an office which he held for about 
 twenty years through all the changes of Govern- 
 ment. In November 1830, on the formation of 
 a Whig ministry, he became Secretary of State 
 for Foreign Affairs, a post which he filled, with 
 one short exception, till September 1841. In 
 1855 he became Prime Minister, and successfully 
 carried out the policy of alliance with France, 
 and the war with Russia, which ended with the 
 fall of Sebastopol, September 1855. Lord Derby 
 was minister for a short time, but Palmerston 
 was restored in 1859, and held it till his death 
 in 1865. " We believe," says Mr R. H. Hutton, 
 ' ' that in great measure he achieved his extraor- 
 dinary success as a politician, like the English 
 nation itself, if we may be allowed the paradox, 
 by not being too political — by being, to a con- 
 siderable extent, impervious to the agitations of 
 politics, even when he was applyfng the strongest 
 impulse of a strong character and will to politics, 
 and when politics were most agitating. . . . 
 Loyal and generous to his friends, dangerous 
 but never unfair to his foes, aristocratic rather 
 than popular in his preference, liberal — that 
 is, a free giver, rather than democratic, or a 
 popular devmnder—m his political principles, 
 and in his own statesmanship shrewd, ambitious, 
 self-contained, Europe and England alike lost in 
 him the last of a great race, the politicians of the 
 salon. Even Lord Russell, his oldest colleague, 
 and far more Mr Gladstone, the greatest living 
 statesman of the next generation, mark a new 
 era— the era of politicians of a creed — a class 
 more earnest, more anxious, more identified 
 with specific principles and ' causes ' than Lord 
 Palmerston, but on that very account more 
 sensitive, often more narrow, more pliant to 
 temporary gusts of opinion, more in danger of 
 sacrificing honourable ties and personal obliga- 
 tions to abstract principles. The ease, freedom 
 shrewdness of judgment, and keen jealousy of 
 
PALMERSTON-^PROCTER. 
 
 531 
 
 diminishing our national weight in the counsels 
 of Europe, which marked the school of Canning, 
 made a great historical figure of Lord Palmer- 
 ston; and henceforth no single personality is 
 ever likely to be associated more closely with 
 the name of England, either in the west or in 
 the east. He was certainly the greatest of those 
 statesmen — 
 
 * Who know the seasons when to take 
 Occasion by the hand, and make 
 The bounds of freedom wider yet.' 
 
 May only the new school of greater depth, more 
 scrupulous conscience, more anxious tempera- 
 ment, accomplish as much hoth for England 
 and freedom. His great attraction as a states- 
 man was the curious blending of social ease, 
 kindliness, and humour with the temper of a 
 strong, hard man of the world. He was essen- 
 tially a masculine politician. He stood to the 
 other statesmen of his day much in the same 
 relative position in which public schoolboys 
 stand to home-bred boys. He denounced ' the 
 puerile vanity of consistency,' and had no scorn 
 too great for political 'romance.' . , . Yet 
 on this hard kernel of character was grafted the 
 ease and almost fresh schoolboy humour which, 
 late, indeed, in his career (for he had to wait for 
 success till the domestic questions to which he 
 was unequal were cleared out of the way), but 
 completely at last fascinated England. He was 
 not earnest, but he was easy and genial. He 
 was not eloquent, but he could enjoy and give 
 enjoyment. He was not witty, but he was 
 playful, and even humorous. This was a very 
 fascinating quality in a man of that worldly 
 sense which usually has a touch of cynicism." 
 
 PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER, sixty years 
 since, was one of the lesser lights in that galaxy 
 of poets of which Scott and Wordsworth, Byron 
 and Moore, were the chief luminaries. He com- 
 menced with the Literary Gazette in 1815, and 
 during the next eight years produced several 
 works — "Dramatic Scenes," "Marcian Co- 
 lonna," the "Sicilian Story," and "Mirandola," 
 a tragedy. The last was brought on the stage, 
 Macready, Charles Kemble, and Miss Foote 
 being the principal performers, and had a run of 
 sixteen nights. In 1832 he closed his career as 
 a poet by publishing his "English Songs" — his 
 best productions. Fortunately Mr Procter was 
 not dependent on his poetry for his comfort in 
 life. He was a successful lawyer, and held the 
 office of Metropolitan Commissioner of Lunacy, 
 which was worth about £900 a year, besides 
 having a legacy of £6500 left to him by a friend. 
 He lived to the great age of eighty-seven, enjoy- 
 ing the society of nearly all the eminent men of 
 his time. One point of personal interest in his 
 long life was the distinguished position taken 
 by his daughter, Adelaide, as a poetess. Her 
 ** Leo-ends and Lyrics " instantly became popu- 
 
 lar, and promised still richer fruits, but all such 
 expectations were blighted by her premature 
 death in 1864. Mr Procter was a native of 
 London. His father, a man of independent 
 means, sent him to Harrow School in his thir- 
 teenth year. There he had two eminent associ- 
 ates — Sir Robert Peel and Lord Byron. He used 
 to relate how Peel undertook, on one occasion, to 
 write for him an imposition of Latin verse for a 
 consideration of half-a-crown, but whether the 
 great financier ever got paid was more than Mr 
 Procter could remember. For Byron, as a boy, 
 he appears not to have had much liking or 
 admiration, though he renewed his acquaintance 
 in after-years. He thus refers to the noble 
 poet: "He was loud, even coarse, and very 
 capable of a boy's vulgar enjoyments. He 
 played at hockey and racquets, and was occa- 
 sionally engaged in pugilistic combats. In 1818 
 he was the most popular poet of his day. I had 
 not seen him since he was a scholar in Dr Drury's 
 house, with an iron cramp on one of his feet, with 
 loose corduroy trousers plentifully relieved by 
 ink, and with finger-nails bitten to the quick. 
 He was then a rough, curly-headed boy, and 
 apparently nothing more. In 1817 he had 
 passed through various gradations of refinement ; 
 was a dandy, a handsome polished travelled man 
 of the world, and was surmounted by a repu- 
 tation outshining that of every contemporary 
 poet." Of his literary friends Mr Proctor, in 
 his seventy-ninth year, wrote some recollections, 
 not very copious or striking, but apparently 
 truthful and characteristic. Wordsworth's 
 egotism is well known. Procter describes him 
 as a tall and ungainly man ; with a grave and 
 severe face, and a manner that indicated tran- 
 quillity and independence rather than high breed- 
 ing. Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt 
 were among Procter's most intimate associates. 
 They were, as he says, a most remarkable trio 
 of men. Only one of them (Hunt) cared much 
 for praise. Hazlitt's sole ambition was to sell 
 his essays, which he rated scarcely beyond their 
 marketable value. But Hazlitt has himself 
 confessed that he was proud of being noticed 
 and pointed out in the streets and elsewhere. 
 He lived mainly alone — the life of a solitary 
 thinker. Hazlitt was undoubtedly an able 
 writer, especially in criticism, but Procter rates 
 him too highly, as much so as he underrates De 
 Quincey. Of Charles Lamb we have a long dis- 
 criminating notice, but without any feature ol 
 novelty. He says Lamb's pleasures, apart from 
 his pipe, lay amongst the books of the old Eng 
 lish writers. Godwin was no favourite witt 
 Procter. " Godwin was always the same — very 
 cold, very selfish, very calculating. His philo- 
 sophy, such as it was, never generated pity or 
 gratitude. His sympathies, and generosities, 
 and liberal qualities showed themselves only in 
 print. His conduct tov/ards Shelley was merely 
 an endeavour to extract from Lim as much 
 
632 
 
 PROCTERS-ROBERTSON. 
 
 money as was possible." Carlyle, he admits, is 
 a very original thinker, quick, deep, and in 
 many things differing from all other men; hut 
 he sometimes exhibits too much respect for 
 mere power — a just remark: "Mr Carlyle's 
 style, which is at first repulsive, becomes in the 
 end very attractive. His humour, although 
 grave, is not saturnine — some of his graver epi- 
 grams, indeed, pierce at once to the very heart 
 of a subject. He worships the hero ; yet, he is 
 in general thoroughly radical. He loves the 
 poor worker in letters, the peasant, the farmer 
 with his horny hand, the plain speaker, the 
 bold speaker ; yet, he has no pity for the negro, 
 who, he says, should submit to slavery because 
 he is not fit for freedom. It follows from this 
 that the man must remain poor who has not 
 obvious means to achieve riches, and that op- 
 pression and misfortune are reasonable decrees of 
 fate, against which our feelings should not cavil 
 or rebel. Mahomet, the prophet, and Cromwell, 
 the soldier, shine in his list of heroes ; and he 
 loves the real worker." Of Edward Irving— a 
 man who made a strong impression on his con- 
 temporaries, but which his writings have failed 
 to perpetuate — we have a long and aflfectionate 
 notice : *' Edward Irving's life was very hopeful 
 once — to some it was lovely, and his death threw 
 a gloom upon many hearths. His last words are 
 the words of a true believer, *In life and in 
 death I am the Lord's.' The verse of Joshua 
 (xxiv. 15) appears to have been often in his mind. 
 On my marriage he gave my wife and me a large 
 Bible, on the fly-leaf of which he expressed his 
 kind wishes for our temporal and eternal happi- 
 ness, adding, ' But as for mo and my house, we 
 will serve the Lord.' " At the end of his memoir 
 are a few 1-etters from literary friends, including 
 two from Procter's "old schoolfellow and well- 
 wisher," Byron. "As to what ' Don Juan ' may 
 do in England you will see," says its noble 
 author. "If you had had the experience which 
 I have had of the grand monde in that and other 
 countries, you would be aware that there is no 
 society so intrinsically (though hypocritically) 
 intriguante and profligate as English high life" 
 — an opinion which must be taken with many 
 grains of allowance. Jeffrey writes to Procter 
 about a poetical article for the Edinburgh 
 Revieio, concerning which he was always fidgety 
 and anxious, but confesses to a fortnight spent 
 at Loch Lomond, ' ' glad to find that our own hills 
 and lakes were not at all injured by recollections 
 of Switzerland." He asked his English friend 
 to visit him. "I have a little antique mansion 
 about three miles from Edinburgh, called Craig- 
 crook, where you and I may sit up late and talk 
 about poetry and youth, and other fantastical 
 things, to the winking stars above and the 
 rustling weeds around us." Charles Lamb 
 writes: "I have more than £30 in my house, 
 and am independent of quarter-day, not having 
 received my pension. The money is literally 
 
 rotting in my desk for want cf u;ve ! " Happy 
 Elia! Carlyle had been rambling in Wales: 
 " I was not a little disappointed in Wales gene- 
 rally; a poor, bare, scraggy country; the few 
 beautiful objects drowned, generally, in rain 
 and mist; infested on every pide by the fatal 
 generation of view-hunters ! I do not care to 
 look on it again for some time." Longfellow 
 was charmed with Procter's songs : "They are 
 rivalled only by a few songs of the olden time, 
 found in the dramatists or the pages of Dryden." 
 Leigh Hunt prefers port to any other wine, but 
 his head diff"ers with him on the subject. 
 "Claret, which has so fine and choice a sound, 
 is really quite wasted upon me ; I perceive 
 nothing of its famous bouquet." Landor had 
 been reading Shakespeare and his contempor- 
 aries — *' I mean the dramatists who rejoice in 
 the title of Elizabethans, as if that paltry snar- 
 ling old ought to give her name to anything 
 
 S'j great as even a moderate-sized poet. But all 
 things are now Elizabethan, from poets that 
 nobody can read to windows that nobody can 
 look out of." And so on. Procter had a body 
 of attached friends who admired his talents, but 
 still more emphatically knew and prized his 
 private worth, and loved to communicate with 
 him. "I believe," he said, "the best mode of 
 making one's way to a person's head is through 
 his heart," and his friends had all been attracted 
 by this magnet.* 
 
 ROBERTSON, REV. F. W., the son of Cap- 
 tain F. Robertson of the Royal Artillery, was 
 born in London, 3d February 1816. He was 
 educated at Beverley, Yorkshire, and at Edin- 
 burgh Academy. A proficient in classics, with 
 a taste for "heroic daring," he studied law, but 
 eventually, in obedience to his father's wishes, 
 entered Brasenose College, Oxford, to study for 
 the Church. He was successively curate of St 
 Maurice and St Mary, Calendar ; of Christ 
 Church, Cheltenham ; and of St Ebbes, Oxford. 
 Eventually he became incumbent of Trinity 
 Chapel, Brighton. He died of consumption 
 there, universally regretted, 15th August 1853. 
 His life was one of great purity and unselfish 
 devotion to his work, and his published sermons 
 have been welcomed wherever the English lan- 
 guage is understood. A living divine has thus 
 sketched an outline of his character and life: 
 What were the qualities which rendered him in 
 the general judgment the best preacher of his 
 day ? They are numerous, and we will now 
 proceed to mention a few of the principal. He 
 was eminently, like the wise men of Issachar of 
 old, a discerner of his time. He saw, below the 
 confusion and controversy which were raging, 
 the strong silent procession of great principles \ 
 and he had confidence in their ultimate success. 
 To see a principle through the flying shadows 
 
 * R. Carruthers, LL.D. 
 
ROBERTSON. 
 
 533 
 
 and empty ceremonies or shows by which it is 
 often clouded or caricatured is a great proof of 
 mental power. But to realise it, to hold it fast, 
 and to place implicit belief in its validity and 
 its future triumph, is one of the rarest of moral 
 feats. And although Robertson was not at one 
 with the majority of Christians on many minor 
 points, and had little regard for dogmas as dog- 
 mas, few have held more tenaciously to the 
 really great principles of our faith. The Person- 
 ality and Fatherhood of God — the incomparable 
 grandeur, beauty, tender humanity, and tower- 
 ing Divinity of the character and teaching of 
 Christ — the moral and spiritual supremacy of 
 the Christian religion — as well as its merciful- 
 ness and condecension to man, seeming, like the 
 figure of a kneeling god, to bend before human- 
 ity and beseech it to be reconciled — its catho- 
 licity, as not only adapting itself to every class 
 and intellect of men, but absorbing and trans- 
 figuring all the elements of the good and the 
 true to be found in other religions and systems 
 — its progressiveness, no marble fixture in some 
 mouldering shrine of the past, but a "fire un- 
 folding itself," a power at work still, acting in 
 the living present, feeding on the products of 
 the new, and growing with what it feeds on as 
 well as enriched by the spoils of the past, 
 evolving continually new aspects, and destined 
 to appropriate to itself and surround its central 
 truths with all genuine sciences and philosophies 
 — the contact our religion ever establishes with 
 the conscience, the heart, and the practice — and 
 the sympathies it always has extended to the 
 humbler and more ignorant classes, feeling for 
 the forlorn, remembering the forgotten, teaching 
 the poor to be independent of their poverty, and 
 the lowly to feel the dignity of labour and the 
 duty of self-respect ; these, which are only a 
 few of what we call the eternal and living verities 
 of Christianity, are the main arguments of 
 Robertson's powerful eloquence, or shall I 
 rather say of his song ? for a song in its poetic 
 fervour and simple yet swelling melody it often 
 is. Such principles and varieties of Christianity 
 Robertson did not only assert to exist in it, but 
 exemplified in his own mode of teaching it. 
 One of these, which we have not hitherto men- 
 tioned, was largely developed in his manner of 
 public instruction, I mean the boldness of its 
 utterance. Christ, with all the mildness of His 
 spirit, was also the most daring of teachers, 
 'rhere was not a prejudice or prepossession of 
 His day, not a consecrated or unconsecrated 
 sham, not a popular but unworthy sect or sec- 
 tion, or even prominent guilty individual of the 
 time, whom or which He did not expose, de- 
 nounce, or utterly blast in the blaze of His 
 moral indignation. This devouring fire some- 
 times lurked in parable, sometimes was shaded 
 by the screen of irony, and sometimes burst out 
 in the forked flashes of invective ; but it was 
 always ihtre^ and was felt to be the more terrible 
 
 because it was the wrath of the Lamb. Now, 
 while keeping in reverent remembrance the vast 
 gulf which must ever separate the Divine Master 
 from the very loftiest of His followers, it is im- 
 possible to read some of Robertson's sermons 
 without being struck with their resemblance in 
 this respect to the discourses of the Great 
 Teacher. He shows this boldness in the selec- 
 tion of his topics as well as treatment. He 
 takes often his texts not so much from the book 
 of Revelation as from the book of Providence, 
 from the aspects and evils of the present time. 
 It is not the fossil Pharisee in Jerusalem that he 
 digs out to denounce ; it is the Pharisee seated 
 in a comfortable pew within his own sight. 
 When he sends the ** message of the Church to 
 men of wealth," he does not send it to the 
 skeletons of the rich men who erst sat beside 
 the Jewish treasury, but to those living but 
 often selfish men who crowd the Royal Exchange 
 or sit in the House of Lords. We have heard 
 already how he addresses the Pharisaic class ; 
 let us hear now the grave and almost awful 
 words with which he concludes his sermon to 
 the rich : *' Alas ! we, the clergy of the Church 
 of England, have for three long centuries taught 
 submission to the powers that be, as if that 
 were the only text in Scripture bearing on the 
 relations between the rulers and the ruled. 
 Rarely have we dared to demand of the powers 
 that be, justice — of the wealthy and of the titled, 
 duties. We have produced folios of slavish 
 flattery upon the Divine right of power. Shame 
 on us ! We have not denounced the wrongs 
 done to weakness ; and yet for one text in the 
 Bible which requires submission and patience 
 from the poor, you will find a hundred which 
 denounce the vices of the rich. In the writings 
 of the noble old Jewish prophets, that and almost 
 that only, — that in the Old Testament, with a 
 deep roll of words that sound like Sinai's thun- 
 ders, — and that in the New Testament in words 
 less impassioned and more calmly terrible, from 
 the apostles and their Master : and woe to us in 
 the great Day of God, if we have been the syco- 
 phants of the rich instead of the redressers of 
 the poor man's wrongs." Boldness is some- 
 times said to spring from vanity or fanaticism, 
 or from a mixture of both ; and from these 
 charges we cannot absolutely free even such a 
 great, good, and sincere man as Edward Irving. 
 But Frederick Robertson seems to have had no 
 vanity, he was too sad a hearted man for that : 
 vanity is usually the vice of selfish natures, 
 although sometimes it is found in noble men ; 
 and from fanaticism he was saved by the liberal- 
 ity of his religious views and by the extreme 
 breadth of his intellectual sympathies. As we 
 have already indicated, he looked upon Chris- 
 tianity not as a narrow collection of bristling 
 points, but as an expansive, all-sided and pro- 
 gressive system, — if a system indeed it can be 
 called, and not rather a Divine element o/ 
 
534 
 
 ROBERTSON. 
 
 spiritual insight and of spiritual life, ready to 
 coalesce with all things that are true and lovely 
 and of " good report," wherever it meets them 
 on its immortal journey. And of the relations 
 of science and philosophy to religion, our 
 author appears to have had views as just as 
 they were liberal. He thought they were 
 powers — or orbs shall we call them? — which, 
 when kept within their own spheres, were 
 amicable and bound by beautiful harmonies; 
 but when one-sided or fanatical men — and he 
 knew right well that there were fanatics in 
 science and philosophy as well as in religion — 
 seek to push them out of their spheres into colli- 
 sion with each other, or to demand for any one an 
 absolute superiority over the rest, or to bring them 
 into closer union by main force or by trans- 
 parent sophistry, he felt that they were in reality 
 injuring the influence of all three. He felt too 
 that to reconcile the letter of science with that 
 of revelation was as yet impossible ; that, even 
 though never fully in this sense reconciled, 
 Christianity in its genuine acceptation would 
 continue as independent of science as science of 
 it, and that the s;pirit of all true science, true 
 philosophy, and true religion was essentially the 
 same ; being that of reverence, of wondering 
 worship, of love and humility, of patient and 
 believing research, and of out-bursting and 
 never-ending praise. We do not know what 
 would have been Kobertson's attitude had he 
 lived to confront the theories of Darwin and 
 Lyell; but we are certain it would not have 
 been on the one hand that of blind determina- 
 tion to reject them d, priori and whatever their 
 evidence might be ; nor on the other of mere 
 stupid and panic fright, stumbling in the earth- 
 quake itself had caused ; nor, in another direc- 
 tion still, of hasty, eager, interested, and ill- 
 omened reception, as if each new theory were a 
 new dagger to plunge into the heart of the 
 sinking Csesar of the grand old Christian faith. 
 We believe that he, in a beautiful blending of 
 philosophy and religion, would have in patience 
 possessed his soul, and waited anxiously but 
 fearlessly for the results of mature and final 
 investigation. . . . We have often heard 
 the originality of Robertson's mind and main 
 thoughts questioned. But really we are not 
 careful to answer in such a matter, since abso- 
 lute origination is a thing which, like original 
 innocence, has long since fled the earth. All 
 thinkers must borrow either premises, or conclu- 
 sions, or the intermediate links between them, 
 or peradventure all three. But still Robertson 
 may be held so far original in various important 
 respects. For example, how many English 
 clergymen, or clergymen anywhere, could or 
 durst — particularly nearly twenty years ago — 
 have spoken in the style and spirit of the 
 extracts we have just read ? That manly bold- 
 ness, that wide sympathy, even were it a little 
 overstretched, was originality or something 
 
 better. It proclaims, too, such a calm and 
 deep confidence in his present convictions, that 
 he can look back with a mild pity on his past 
 experiences, as well as on those still labouring 
 in the same waters of perplexity. It is from a 
 rock, as he says himself, that he bids his welter- 
 ing brethren to take courage and to draw near. 
 But we find another element of natural, if not 
 absolutely original, power in the marvellous 
 faculty he has of presenting thought in essences, 
 in aphorisms, in short and simple sentences. He 
 offers us his deep truths and comprehensive 
 intuitions in a succession of little, almost fairy 
 cups, each charged with what might have been 
 diluted through a thousand common vessels. 
 And he often seems playing in flowers about the 
 brink of a subject, while in reality he has been 
 probing it to the heart. We could quote hun- 
 dreds of these pregnant and poignant sentences, 
 but as his works are in so many hands it is quite 
 needless. And above all, he might be called, 
 if not original, certainly very singular in the 
 simplicity and sincerity of his aims. Not 
 Clarkson, not Garibaldi, in their very different 
 walks were more devoted with a single eye to 
 the purpose which, like martyr flames, at once 
 consumed and glorified them, than Robertson to 
 his high calling. One who knew him well 
 writes us concerning him thus: "His whole 
 life was a burning, blazing self-sacrifice to 
 truth and to duty." To bring essential Chris- 
 tianity to bear upon men's hearts and lives — to 
 get men not only to believe, but to realise their 
 faith — to bring religion down from the altitudes 
 of metaphysics, from the dreary regions of 
 abstraction with all its frosted folios, and up 
 from the swamps of ceremonialism, with its 
 beggarly elements and bloated bubbles — and to 
 fix it on the foundations of common sense and 
 of Christian consciousness, that was his noble 
 task — a task from which no amount of detrac- 
 tion, and no feeling of isolation and solitude 
 could deter him. Nay, he was of that noble, 
 heroic nature, that he fought the more bravely 
 and strenuously because he was fighting alone. 
 His motto was — "This one thing I do, and I 
 cannot help doing it." In another respect 
 Robertson, for his class, was very singular, if 
 not entirely solitary ; we mean in his deep 
 interest in the working classes. The admired 
 of all the fashionable worshippers in the most 
 fashionable of watering-places, a man of the 
 highest culture and most refined taste and 
 genius, he yet threw himself into the very heart 
 of the masses, now to encourage, now to sym- 
 pathise, and now faithfully to warn and counsel 
 them. Of course he was altogether above the 
 suspicion of seeking for their suffrages in any 
 paltry interest of his own — of being what is 
 called a "mob orator." He had nothing in one 
 sense either to gain or to lose by them. He 
 knew the people's faults, and he told them so to 
 their faces. But he knew that they are not as 
 
ROBERTSON. 
 
 535 
 
 you hear some pretend — totally and thoroughly 
 corrupt. He looked at them besides, to employ 
 a distinction he was fond of using — not so much 
 in their actual as in their ideal aspect ; not in 
 what they were, but what they might become. 
 As he illustrates the thought himself— "When 
 the agriculturist sees a small white almond-like 
 thing rising from the ground, he calls that an 
 oak ; but that is not the truth of fact, it is an 
 ideal truth. The oak is a large tree with spread- 
 ing branches and leaves and acorns ; but that is 
 only an inch long, and imperceptible in all its 
 development. Yet the agriculturist sees in it 
 the ideal of what it shall be, and if I may 
 borrow a scriptural phrase, he imputes to it the 
 majesty and excellence and glory which are to 
 be hereafter." And so to Robertson's brotherly 
 and prophetic eye the masses of the community 
 seem transfigured in the light of that "good 
 time coming," when having gained self-control, 
 cast off ignorance and infidelity, obtained tho- 
 rough sympathy from their superiors, and 
 accepted a manly, enlightened, humane, and 
 progressive form of the Christian faith, they 
 shall become men as well as working men, and 
 by the elevation of their platform, shall con- 
 tribute to the elevation, ay and to the confirma- 
 tion too, of that of the middle and upper classes 
 of the community. How does he define a true 
 man of the labouring class? It is as "a man 
 whose respect is not servility, whose religion is 
 not superstition, and whose obedience is not the 
 drudgery of 'dumb, driven cattle.'" From 
 such views, imperfect as they are, of Robert- 
 son's grand moral aims, it may seem a very 
 steep descent to come down on his merely intel- 
 lectual and artistic qualities, and it were a mere 
 impertinence now to dwell long upon them. 
 His genius was strong, and was clear as well as 
 far-reaching in its vision ; his power of illus- 
 tration was nearly as rich, but far better regu- 
 lated than that of Jeremy Taylor ; his style was 
 nervous, sententious, and in its severe and curt 
 simplicity seems sometimes to tremble below 
 the weight of the thoughts and the splendour of 
 the images which were superimposed upon it. 
 For those sermons, which may live as long as 
 the English language, he himself cared nothing ; 
 they came off from him with as little effort as 
 the leaves on a frosty autumnal morning fall 
 down from the parent tree ; but the stream into 
 which they dropped was the river of immortality. 
 , . . In more maturely considering the reve- 
 lation given by the life and letters, we were 
 struck with the early acceptance by Robertson 
 of his life as a life of duty and suffering. Even 
 when he became a most devout and decided 
 Christian, we find little or none of the joy and 
 peace which are so frequently associated with 
 first religious impressions, at least after the 
 agony of what is called the new birth is past. 
 On such felicity he seems to have looked down 
 as on a fool's paradise, in which he had neither 
 
 the wish nor the power to continue long. Like 
 the war-horse he smelled the battle afar off, the 
 thunder of the captains, and the shouting. He 
 had become not a sluggish and dreamy disciple, 
 but a soldier of Jesus Christ, and he must sup- 
 port the character by brave and earnest struggle. 
 The ardour and energy he brought to the fight 
 were attended no doubt by a lofty satisfaction ; 
 but grief was still his close companion. The 
 bravest soldier must carry his shadow with him 
 to the noblest field. Caesar Malan truly divined 
 Robertson's spirit when he told him his would 
 be a sad life and a sad ministry. In vain did 
 he bear about the key Promise in his bosom — 
 ay, a key inscribed in golden letters with the 
 hope of the speedy personal advent of Christ. 
 This hope seems gradually to have faded away 
 from his mind, as it does from many powerful 
 and progressive thinkers, who begin to feel it is 
 not a solution but an evasion of Christian diffi- 
 culties, and would probably have left even 
 Edward Irving's if his life had been spared and 
 his mind had got free of its fanatical leanings. 
 There was undoubtedly in Robertson's mind, 
 apart from all external circumstances and the 
 phases of his faith, that divine discontent, that 
 nameless unrest, that lonely exile feeling which 
 has distinguished somany of the very greatest and 
 most far-seeing of intellects. One is reminded 
 of the Highland seer, as described by Scott, the 
 visionary of the second sight becoming the 
 victim of his privilege, trembling, perspiring, 
 rolling his eyes hideously, writhen by convul- 
 sions, or falling down as a dead man, now upon 
 the heathery moorland, now upon the high 
 naked crag, now in the dim forest depth, and 
 now by the side of the lonely cataract, while 
 sight is pouring through him its terrible surge, 
 at one time sweeping over him the present, and 
 anon starting some monstrous event from the 
 cavern of the future, and hurling it against his 
 eye till at last awaking he cries, NOT to " dream 
 again," and says with Cassandra, 
 
 " Oh, ill to me the lot awarded. 
 Thou evil Pythian god ! " 
 
 Strange how, literally or spiritually, such 
 victims of Apollo have abounded in every age 
 and country, and their power has seldom been 
 a blessing to them, often a curse. It is recorded 
 to have rendered Cassandra miserable; and even 
 if her story be a myth, it is one founded on fact 
 and full of meaning. It co -existed in Balaam 
 with deceit, witchcraft, and other evils. Even 
 Samuel ** the seer " does not seem to have been 
 as happy as he was good and gifted. How 
 miserable in their might and holiness the Hebrew 
 prophets, always bowing under "burdens," 
 ever uttering " woes ! " And have not almost all 
 prophetic minds among the poets — Lucretius, 
 Dante, Petrarch, Milton, Young, Coleridge, 
 Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, and Bailey- 
 been sad-hearted men, — 
 
D36 
 
 ROBERTSON— SALT, 
 
 "Id suffering learning what they taught in song?" 
 
 On the 23d of August 1853, there appeared in 
 the streets of Brighton, on the way to its extra- 
 mural cemetery, such a multitude as had never 
 assembled in that town before. It was the 
 funeral of Frederick Robertson. Besides a 
 numerous body of the parochial clergy, two 
 dissenting ministers at least — namely, Mr 
 Goulty, of the Congregational Church, and Mr 
 Ross — had the manliness to forget their differ- 
 ences, and to follow his revered dust to the 
 grave. After them came the committees of the 
 Brighton Athenaeum, the Mechanics' Institute, 
 and several other bodies of which the dead man 
 had been the decus et tutamen, the foundation 
 and the ornament. And, behind, last and truest 
 of all the mourning train, walked fifteen hundred 
 hard-headed, hard-handed working men, three 
 abreast, covering half a mile, and weeping as 
 they went at the loss of their counsellor, their 
 guide, who had added a stimulus to their studies, 
 and poured a glory on their rugged life. 
 
 SALT, SIR TITUS, was born at the village of 
 Morley, Yorkshire, and was educated at Wake- 
 field. His mother was a Miss Grace Smithies, 
 daughter of a drysalter in Morley, who has been 
 described as a woman of gentle disposition, with 
 rare gifts of affection and tact. His father, Daniel 
 Salt, originally an ironfounder, married in 1802, 
 gave up his former trade, and became a whitecloth 
 merchant and drysalter in Morley. Titus was 
 the eldest in a family of three sons and four 
 daughters, and was born on the 20th September 
 1803. His father, giving up the drysalting, 
 embarked in farming, when Titus was in his 
 tenth year; next we find him at Bradford in 
 1822 acting as a woolstapler. At the age of 
 nineteen Titus entered the woollen factory of 
 Messrs Rouse & Sons as an ordinary workman. 
 The experience gained here enabled him to 
 become acquainted with the work of wool- 
 stapling in all its branches, when he entered 
 into partnership with his father. The wool of 
 the alpaca is chiefly imported from Chili and 
 Peru, and in 1836 it was his good fortune to 
 discover its valuable properties for manufacture. 
 Charles Dickens has related the incident of the 
 discovery thus : **A huge pile of dirty-looking 
 sacks, filled with some fibrous material, which 
 bore a strong resemblance to superannuated 
 horse hair, or frowsy elongated wool, or any- 
 thing unpleasant or unattractive, was landed in 
 Liverpool. When these queer-looking bales had 
 first arrived, or by what vessel brought, or for 
 what purpose intended, the very oldest ware- 
 houseman in Liverpool docks couldn't say. 
 There had once been a rumour — a mere ware- 
 houseman's rumour — that the bales had been 
 shipped from South America on 'spec,' and 
 consigned to the agency of C. W. & F. Foozle 
 and Co. But even this seems to have been for- 
 
 gotten, and it was agreed upon all hands that 
 the three hundred and odd sacks of nondescript 
 hair-wool were a perfect nuisance. The rats ap- 
 peared to be the only parties who approved at 
 all of the importation, and to them it was the 
 finest investment for capital that had been 
 known in Liverpool since their first ancestors 
 had emigrated thither. Well, these bales seemed 
 likely to rot or fall to the dust, or be bitten up 
 for the particular use of family rats. Merchants 
 would have nothing to say to them; dealera 
 couldn't make them out ; manufacturers shook 
 their heads at the bare mention of them ; while 
 the agents, C. W. & F. Foozle & Co. look at 
 the bill of lading, and had once spoken to their 
 head-clerk about shipping them to South America 
 again. One day — we won't care what day it was, 
 or even what week or month it was, though 
 things of far less consequence have been chronicleci 
 to the half minute — one day a plain business-look- 
 ing young man, with an intelligent face, quiet 
 manner, was walking along through these same 
 warehouses in Liverpool, when his eye fell upon 
 some of the superannuated horse hair projecting 
 from one of the ugly dirty bales. Some lady rat, 
 more delicate than her neighbours, had found it 
 rather coarser than usual, and had persuaded 
 her lord and master to eject the portion from 
 her resting-place. Our friend took it up, looked 
 at it, felt at it, rubbed it, pulled it about; in 
 fact, he did all but taste it, and he would have 
 done that too if it had suited his purpose, for 
 he was 'Yorkshire.' Having held it up to the 
 light, and held it away from the light, and held 
 it in all sorts of positions, and done all sorts of 
 cruelties to it, as though it had been his most 
 deadly enemy, and he was feeling quite vindic- 
 tive, he placed a handful or two in his pocket, 
 and walked calmly away, evidently intending to 
 put the stuff to some excrucia,ting private torture 
 at home. What particular experiments he tried 
 with this fibrous substance I am not exactly in 
 a position to state, nor does it much signify; 
 but the sequel was, that the same quiet business- 
 looking young man was seen to enter the oflice 
 of C. W. & F. Foozle & Co., and ask for 
 the head of the firm. When he asked that 
 portion of the house if he would accept eight- 
 pence per pound for the entire contents of the 
 three hundred and odd frowsy dirty bags of 
 nondescript wool, the authority interrogated felt 
 so confounded that he could not have told if 
 he were the head or tail of the firm. At first he 
 , fancied that our friend had come for the express 
 purpose of quizzing him, and then that he was 
 an escaped lunatic, and thought seriously of 
 calling for the police, but eventually it ended in 
 his making it over, in consideration of the price 
 offered. It was quite an event in the little dark 
 ofiice of C. W. & F. Foozle & Co., which had 
 its supply of light (of a very injurious quality) 
 from the old grim churchyard. All the esta- 
 blishment stole a peep at the buyer of th'^ 
 
SALT, 
 
 537 
 
 * South American stuff.' The chief clerk had 
 the curiosity to speak to him, and hear his 
 reply. The cashier touched his coat-tails. The 
 book-keeper, a thin man in spectacles, examined 
 his hat and gloves. The porter openly grinned 
 at him. When the quiet purchaser had de- 
 parted, C. W. & F. Foozle & Co. shut them- 
 selves up, and gave all their clerks a holiday." 
 In three years after its successful introduction 
 into the English market, the import "of the 
 vvool had risen to 2,186,480 pounds ; the value 
 of the annual import now stands at £1,600,000. 
 AS the industry grew, vast warehouses and 
 spacious mills had to be erected to keep pace 
 with its manufacture. Then new buildings were 
 erected at Saltaire, in order to concentrate this 
 vast industry as far as possible. The buildings 
 cover twenty-five acres, and the machinery is 
 capable of turning out 30,000 yards of finished 
 alpaca every day. Four thousand hands are 
 employed in the works; and it is said he has 
 expended no less a sum than £100,600 on work- 
 men's dwellings. Saltaire, which has all the 
 appearance of a town, contains 895 dwellings, 
 without one single public-house. In the centre, 
 too, the great manufacturer reared a Congrega- 
 tional church at a cost of £16,000. A good autho- 
 rity writes: "The Saltaire mills are situated in 
 one of the most beautiful parts of the romantic 
 valley of the Aire. The site has been selected with 
 uncommon judgment as regards its fitness for the 
 economical working of a great manufacturing 
 establishment. The estate is bounded by high- 
 ways and railways, which penetrate to the very 
 centre of the building, and is intersected by 
 both canal and river. Admirable water is ob- 
 tained for the use of the steam-engines, and for 
 the different processes of the manufacture. By 
 the distance of the mills from the smoky and 
 cloudy atmosphere of a large town, unobstructed 
 and good light is secured ; whilst, both by land 
 and water, direct communication is gained for 
 the importation of coal and all other raw pro- 
 duce on the one hand, and for the exportation 
 and delivery of manufactured goods on the 
 other. Both porterage and cartage are entirely 
 superseded ; and every other circumstance which 
 could tend to economise production has been 
 carefully considered. The estate on which 
 Saltaire is built will gradually develop itself to 
 a considerable extent ; and the part appropriated 
 to the works, which is literally covered with 
 buildings, is not less than six and a half acres 
 in extent. Here the heavy operations of the 
 manufacture are carried on ; but the superficies 
 given to the several processes and to the storage 
 of goods, or, in other words, the floor area of 
 the establishment, is in all about twelve acres. 
 The main range of buildings, or the mill proper, 
 runs from east to west, nearly parallel with the 
 lines of railway from Shipley to Skipton and 
 Lancaster. This pile is six stories high, 550 feet 
 in length, 50 feet in width, and about 72 feet in 
 
 height ; and the architectural features, to avoid 
 monotony, have been most skilfully treated by 
 the architects. A bold Italian style has been 
 adopted ; and the beautiful quality of the stone 
 of which the whole is massively built, displays 
 its features to great advantage. Immediately 
 behind the centre of the main mill, and at right 
 angles with it, runs another six-story building 
 devoted to warehouse purposes, such as the re- 
 ception and examination of the newly-manufac- 
 tured goods ; and on either side of this again lie 
 the combing-shed (or apartment where the fibres 
 of the alpaca, mohair, wool, etc., are combed 
 by machinery), the handsome range of buildings 
 devoted to oflBces, and the great shed for weav- 
 ing by power-looms. It was in the combing 
 shed that, in September 1853, 3500 of Sir [then 
 Mr] Titus Salt's guests sat down to dinner, 
 without confusion or crowding, and with per- 
 fect ventilation. The great loom-shed would 
 have accommodated under its single roof a party 
 twice as numerous as this. Arranged in con- 
 venient situations are washing-rooms, packing, 
 rooms, drying-rooms, and mechanics* shops. In 
 the formation of the new roads, which were re- 
 quisite to secure free and easy access to the 
 different parts of the mills. Sir Titus Salt availed 
 himself of the most recent experience ; therefore 
 we find bridges of the most durable and solid 
 construction, both in cast and wrought iron, one 
 of these viaducts, on the tubular girder system, 
 crossing the canal and river Aire, being not less 
 than 450 feet in length." On 21st August 1830, 
 he married Caroline Whitelan, daughter of a 
 farmer at Grimsby, and one of a family ot 
 eighteen. In early life he was extremely frugal 
 and industrious: one instance of his economy 
 being the fact that he dented himself a gold 
 watch until he had saved one thousand pounds. 
 He was liberal and open-hearted in all that con- 
 cerned the moral and physical well-being of his 
 work-people. He was eminently a man of deeds, 
 not words ; for he wrote little, and spoke less. 
 It has been calculated that in the course of his 
 life he must have expended at least a quarter of 
 a million in schemes of charity alone. As in- 
 stances of his charity, he gifted £1000 to Peel 
 Park, Bradford, nearly £5000 to the Bradford 
 Fever Hospital, and £5000 to the Lancaster 
 Lunatic Asylum. Sir Titus Salt acted for a 
 time as a magistrate for the borough of Brad- 
 ford, for the West Riding of Yorkshire, and was 
 a deputy-lieutenant for the latter. He repre- 
 sented Bradford in the Liberal interest from 1859 
 to 1861. In 1869 he had conferred upon 
 him the Legion of Honour. On receiving his 
 baronetcy, he chose these words to inscribe on 
 his coat of arms, Q,Vjid non deo Juvantet 
 ("What is impossible, by the help of God?") 
 In 1874 a marble statue of Sir Titus Salt, cost- 
 ing one thousand guineas, was placed in the 
 centre of Bradford by his townsmen. His reply tc 
 one who asked him regarding his personal history 
 
was, " My history has nothing particular about 
 it." This great manufacturer and truly noble 
 man died on the 19th December 1876, and was 
 buried in the family mausoleum in Saltaire 
 Ohurch. 
 
 SHAFTESBURY, THE RIGHT HON. AN- 
 THONY ASHLEY -COOPER, EARL OF, born 
 28th April 1801, received his education at Christ 
 Church, Oxford. He graduated M.A. in 1832, 
 and received the degree of D.C.L. in 1841. In 
 1826 he was returned to Parliament as member 
 for Woodstock, and afterwards acted as a com- 
 missioner of the Board of Control under the Duke 
 of Wellington, and supported the Government 
 of Liverpool and Canning. In 1830 he was 
 returned for Dorchester, in the following year 
 for Dorsetshire ; this latter county he repre- 
 sented till 1846. He represented Bath from 
 1847 till 1851. In the latter year he succeeded 
 his father in the peerage. In Sir Robert Peel's 
 administration he was a Lord of the Admiralty. 
 His lordship was president of the Bible Society, 
 ^tlie.PastQral Aid -Society , and the Society for the 
 Conversion of the Jews. He also acted as a 
 president of the Protestant Alliance. One of the 
 maiaaims^f his useful life was the amelioration 
 >.,of the moral and social condition of the working 
 classes, for which he laboured unweariedly 
 in and but of Parliament. On 13th April 1878, 
 he was presented with the freedom of the city 
 of Edinburgh in recognition of his public ser- 
 vices as a social and sanitary reformer. The 
 then Lord Provost, Mr T. J. Boyd, in bestowing 
 the honour, spoke as follows of his career: 
 "My lord, I am now to have the honour of 
 placing in your hands the document which con- 
 fers upon you the freedom of this ancient city, 
 to mark our high appreciation of those success- 
 ful efforts which, with untiring devotion during a 
 long life, you have made to ameliorate the moral 
 and physical condition of the labouring classes, 
 and in recognition generally of the work which 
 you have performed as a Christian philanthro- 
 pist. One of the first great movements to which 
 you devoted yourself after entering Parliament as 
 Lord Ashley was that for the reduction of the 
 hours of labour for children and young persons 
 in the cotton and other mills of the country. 
 The moral and physical evils of the system 
 which then prevailed were of such a character 
 that, viewed from the time in which we live, 
 seems hardly credible. The daily hours of 
 labour during which children of tender years of 
 both sexes were compelled to work in factories 
 were so prolonged that their health was im- 
 paired and their lives shortened ; and they were, 
 besides, not unfrequently subjected to cruel 
 treatment at the hands of those set over them. 
 In some mills, children walked in a day, while 
 accomplishing their task, a distance of thirty 
 miles, which your lordship truly described in 
 your place in Parliament as a labour more 
 
 severe than that imposed on soldiers in forced 
 marches, or under arms before an enemy. In 
 such circumstances, the possibility of their 
 getting anything better than the most meagre 
 education was utterly hopeless. This great 
 movement for the reduction of the hours of 
 labour began in the year 1830, but Mr Sadler, 
 one of its most zealous and eloquent advocates, 
 lost his seat in the next Parliament. It was 
 then, my lord, in 1833, that you espoused the 
 cause of those oppressed children, by intro- 
 duced your Ten Hours Bill. The Government 
 declined to accept its most important part, but, 
 feeling that humanity demanded a change, 
 passed a measure in which they granted some 
 concessions, including the great principle that 
 education and labour should go together. Your 
 lordship's eloquent and powerful pleadings on 
 behalf of these operatives, that their hours of 
 labour should be restricted, were received in 
 the most hostile manner. Manufacturers, sup- 
 posing that their profits would be seriously 
 lessened by such a change, gave your bill the 
 most determined opposition ; and a portion of 
 the press advocated their views. Nearly all the 
 the leading statesmen of the time, whatever 
 their politics, were also against the ten hours' 
 principle, and successive Governments declined 
 to accept it. But, my lord, strong in the 
 righteousness of your cause, and nothing daunted, 
 you continued your work of mercy. The mea- 
 sure which the Government had passed was 
 allowed to become practically inoperative, and 
 they declined or delayed to take further action. 
 Discontent began to arise in the manufacturing 
 districts. A tremendous evil existed. The 
 children of the poor continued to be oppressed 
 for the further aggrandisement of the rich. 
 During the struggle you declined the profi'ered 
 honour of joining Sir Robert Peel's administra- 
 tion, because that statesman would not adopt 
 your bill — and it is here worthy of note, that 
 notwithstanding this, the same high principle 
 which guided your other actions made you sup- 
 port his proposal to remove the duty on corn, 
 although your doing so caused you to lose your 
 seat in Parliament. You cried for justice, and 
 justice you determined to obtain. Through 
 long years, amidst much obloquy, you fought 
 the battle until the victory was gained. And 
 when your lordship visited the manufacturing 
 districts after this great work was accomplished, 
 the enthusiastic ovation which greeted you 
 showed how much your labours were appreciated 
 by those immediately concerned ; and I am sure 
 it must be a source of supreme satisfaction to 
 your lordship now to know that all classes of the 
 community cheerfully acknowledge the wisdom 
 and beneficence of the measure you were instru- 
 mental in getting passed into law. In 1840, 
 when the principle of the ten hours' limit for 
 the labours of factory children had been ac- 
 cepted by the country, although a law enacting 
 
SHAFTESBURY. 
 
 539 
 
 it tiad not then been passed by the Government, 
 you proceeded towards carrying out the next part 
 of your work. Accordingly, you succeeded in 
 getting a royal commission appointed to in- 
 quire into the employment of children in mines 
 and collieries, and in various branches of trade 
 and manufacture in which numbers of children 
 worked together. Regarding collieries and mines 
 — to which I shall only refer — the commission 
 revealed facts which filled the public mind with 
 horror and indignation. Children— infants, I 
 should say — of only four or five years of age 
 Vfere made to toil in the mines in a manner 
 which was a disgrace to humanity, while women 
 laboured at employment degrading to their sex. 
 Young children, girls as well as boys, were made 
 to draw loads by a chain and girdle through 
 places so narrow that they had to pass on all 
 fours ; and the regular hours of work for chil- 
 dren were from eleven to thirteen a day, and 
 sometimes more. Six months' labour in the 
 mines was sufficient to effect a very visible 
 change on their appearance, and the baneful 
 results of the system upon their constitution 
 could not well be exaggerated. Notwithstand- 
 ing the facts brought to light by the commis- 
 sioners, the time had not arrived when such 
 extensive changes as were required could be 
 effected, but ultimately a bill was passed which 
 altogether prohibited females from working 
 underground, and no boys under a specified age 
 were permitted to be employed. Your lord- 
 ship's efforts on behalf of children engaged in 
 agricultural labour came next in order. For 
 these children you asked that their hours of 
 work might be regulated as in factories and 
 mines, and you introduced a bill dealing with 
 the subject. Your labours also in the cause of 
 education, and as chairman of the Ragged School 
 Union — over which you have presided since its 
 formation four-and-thirty years ago — have left 
 a great mark upon the country. Before that 
 time, the appalling fact had been ascertained 
 that there were upwards of one million of chil- 
 dren in the country wholly destitute of the 
 means of education, of whom upwards of one hun- 
 <ired thousand were in London. You brought 
 the subject before the House of Commons, and 
 showed, from the state of vice and ignorance in 
 almost every large town, the great need which 
 existed for diffusing the benefits and blessings 
 of a moral and religious education among the 
 labouring classes. The result was that great 
 efforts were at once made by educational and 
 missionary societies to remedy that state of 
 matters. It was, however, seen that large num- 
 bers of children were excluded from the ordinary 
 day and Sunday schools in consequence of their 
 ragged and neglected condition, many of whom 
 were almost never off the streets, and it was 
 therefore resolved to establish special schools 
 for these destitute children. The Ragged School 
 Union was formed. Your lordship took the 
 
 movement under your fostering care, and the 
 beneficial results have been truly wonderful. 
 In 1870, when the Educational Bill was passed, 
 the union had been in active operation for 
 twenty-six years, and was carrying on work in 
 about two hundred separate buildings. That 
 work consisted of day schools, night schools, 
 and Sunday schools ; classes for industry, ragged 
 churches, and parents' meetings, etc., etc., the 
 whole being conducted at an annual cost of 
 £45,000. Concurrently with all this, success- 
 ful efforts were made to meet the necessities of 
 those children who passed through the schools, 
 such as enabling many of them to emigrate to 
 the colonies, and others to support themselves 
 at home. Altogether, I do not over-estimate 
 the fact when I say, that the ragged schools of 
 London, since their establishment, have rescued 
 from neglect and vicious courses at least two 
 hundred thousand children and placed them in 
 the way of gaining an honest livelihood. Your 
 lordship has presided at every one of the anni- 
 versary meetings of the union without a single 
 exception, and during its whole existence you 
 have laboured in its interests with unflagging 
 perseverance. And while, in conducting this 
 great movement, there have been associated 
 with you a large number of earnest and God- 
 fearing men and women, to your lordship's in- 
 fluence and zeal are mainly due its extension 
 and success. But further let me say, that 
 among the many benevolent institutions which 
 your lordship has originated, the National Re- 
 fuges for Homeless and Destitute Children, and 
 the training-ships 'Chichester' and 'Arethusa,' 
 take a prominent place. Upwards of a quarter 
 of a century ago you presided at a meeting for 
 the inauguration of the first of these refuges. 
 From want of funds the committee were only 
 able to receive nine children ; but the necessity 
 for such an institution became at once apparent, 
 and in six months that number was increased to 
 about a hundred. The applications for admis- 
 sion became numerous ; the public gave addi- 
 tional support ; and now there are five homes. 
 Twelve years ago the training-ship * Chichester ' 
 was established in the Thames ; afterwards, a 
 farm school in Surrey; and subsequently the 
 * Arethusa' was also fitted up as a training-ship. 
 It is interesting to know the origin of the first 
 training-ship. Your lordship became aware that 
 a large number of destitute boys were nightly 
 compelled to fly for shelter to the casual wards 
 of workhouses, and you resolved to do some- 
 thing for them if they could only be laid hold 
 of. One night they were invited to one of the 
 refuges to a supper — a grand supper for them. 
 Nearly three hundred accepted the invitation ; 
 but such a scene of rags and human misery had 
 probably never before been congregated in one 
 spot, and many friends who had been invited to 
 help in serving the supper were moved to tears 
 at what they witnessed. The feast being over. 
 
540 
 
 SMILES— STAN LE V. 
 
 the boys and company adjourned to an upper 
 room, where your lordship addressed the lads 
 in a feeling, fatherly, and sympathising spirit, 
 and when you had finished, you asked who 
 would be willing to go on board a training-ship, 
 supposing one could be obtained. Every hand 
 in the room went up, and then you saw that the 
 way was clear for rescuing this mass of human 
 waste. The boys were dismissed for the night, 
 money having been given to them to pay for 
 their lodging. Next day forty were received 
 into the refuge, and efforts were at once made for 
 obtaining the loan of an old man-of-war to fit up 
 as a training-ship. And so this supper was the 
 beginning of the 'Chichester's' organisation; and 
 such has been the success of the effort, that now 
 there are no less than twelve other training- 
 ships — two for Scotland, two for Ireland, and 
 the rest for the coast of England. Your lord- 
 ship's position in connection with the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society stands out so pro- 
 minently, that to it I must make a passing 
 allusion. You have been the president of that 
 important institution for the last twenty-seven 
 years, and have always been present at its 
 annual gatherings in Exeter Hall. The con- 
 spicuous progress it has made in that time has 
 been greatly aided by the active part you have 
 taken in its affairs. In these years about 
 seventy new translations of the Scriptures have 
 been printed by the society, and the number of 
 copies of the Bible it circulated last year was 
 upwards of two millions and a half, being more 
 than double the circulation at the time you took 
 office. Then the total number of copies issued 
 was twenty-four millions, now it is upwards of 
 eighty millions. Before this, I should have 
 mentioned that on your succession to the peer- 
 age your increased influence was all used on 
 behalf of the objects of philanthropy and re- 
 ligion which you had at heart. The course of 
 your life all through has been the unselfish pro- 
 motion of the well-being of others. Nor, as we 
 have seen, have you confined yourself to your 
 own country. Not only has your eye of pity 
 fallen upon the ragged and deserted child of the 
 street, but the enslaved son of Africa has also 
 elicited your commiseration, and from them up- 
 wards through the social scale you have sought 
 to do good to all. The records of those religious 
 and benevolent societies to which I have referred 
 show that your charity extended to all lands, 
 and that the aspiration of your soul was that 
 the time might speedily come when the grace of 
 God would regenerate all men. Permit me to 
 say that you have lived a noble life, have accom- 
 plished a noble work, and will leave behind you 
 a noble example." He died 1st October 1885. 
 
 SMILES, SAMUEL, LL.D., a deservedly popu- 
 lar writer, was born at Haddington in 1816. 
 Having been educated for the medical profession, 
 and having practised as a surgeon at Leeds for a 
 
 time, he abandoned his practice for literature, 
 succeeding the late Mr Kobert Nicol as editor 
 of the Leeds Times. In 1845 he acted as secre- 
 tary of the Leeds and Thirsk Eailway ; in 1852 
 he served the South-Eastern Railway in a similar 
 capacity, retiring from the service in 1866. Mr 
 Smiles received the degree of LL.D. from the 
 Edinburgh University in 1878. He has contri- 
 buted largely to the Quarterly Review, also to 
 Good Words, and other periodicals. His chief 
 works are : " Physical Education ; or. Nature of 
 Children," 1837; "History of Ireland," '* Rail- 
 way Property, its Conditions and Prospects," 
 1849; "Life of George Stephenson," "Self- 
 Help, with Illustrations of Character and Con- 
 duct," 1860; "Workmen's Earnings, Strikes, 
 and Wages," 1861; ** Lives of Engineers, with 
 an Account of their Works," 1862 ; " Industrial 
 Biography," 1863; "Lives of Boulton and Watt," 
 1865; *'The Huguenots: their Settlements, 
 Churches, and Industries in England and Ire- 
 land," "Character," "Thrift, a Book of Domes- 
 tic Counsel," "The Huguenots in France," 
 " George Moore, Merchant and Philanthropist," 
 " Life of a Scotch Naturalist " (Thomas Edward), 
 1877. The issue of this latter work was the 
 means of awakening considerable public interest 
 in the career of Edward. On Christmas morn- 
 ing 1876 Edward received notice that a Civil List 
 pension of £50 per annum had been bestowed 
 upon him; and at a public meeting, held in Aber- 
 deen on the 21st March 1877, he was presented 
 with a testimonial, consisting of 333 sovereigns 
 enclosed in a handsome olive-wood casket. 
 
 STANLEY, THE REV. ARTHUR PENRHYN, 
 D.D., son of the late Dr Stanley, Bishop of Nor- 
 wich, was born about 1815, and educated under 
 Dr Arnold at Rugby, and at Balliol College, 
 Oxford. He distinguished himself at college, 
 obtaining a scholarship, the Newdigate prize for 
 an English poem, a first-class in classics in 1837, 
 the Latin essay prize in 1839, and the English 
 essay and theological prizes in 1840. In 1851 he 
 became Canon of Westminster; from 1858 to 
 1864 he filled the posts of Regius Professor of 
 Ecclesiastical History at Oxford, Canon of 
 Christ Church, and chaplain to the Bishop of 
 London. In 1864 he became Dean of West- 
 minster. Besides contributing largely to re- 
 views, magazines, and Dr Smith's "Diction- 
 aries," he was author of the well-known "Life of 
 Dr Arnold of Rugby," 1844; "Stories and 
 Essays on the Apostolical Age," 1846 ; "Memoir 
 of Bishop Stanley," 1850; "The Epistle to the 
 Corinthians," 1854; "Historical Memorials of 
 Canterbury," 1854; "Sinai and Palestine in 
 Connection with their History," 1855; "Ser- 
 mons and Essays on the Apostolical Age," 
 1874; "Lectures on the Jewish Church," and 
 many other works of importance. He received 
 the degree of LL.D. in 1871. He was elected one 
 of the select preachers at Oxford in 1872, and in- 
 
STANLE Y—S WINB URNE. 
 
 541 
 
 ftalled Lord Kector of St Andrews University in 
 1875. "Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of West- 
 minster," says an American writer, ** is one of 
 the greatest living masters of the English tongue, 
 and the possessor of varied and extensive attain- 
 ments. He is eminent as a poet, scholar, critic, 
 traveller, and controversialist, but it is chiefly 
 to his qualifications as a preacher that we would 
 now direct attention. His sermons have a dis- 
 tinctive character. They have a large infusion 
 of the leading article, and frequently address 
 themselves to the prevailing thought or the great 
 event of the day. This tendency is illustrated 
 by an anecdote that is told of a dignitary of the 
 Church, who went one Sunday morning to the 
 services at Westminster Abbey, it having been 
 announced that the dean would preach. * How 
 did you like the sermon?' asked the lady with 
 whom he was staying. * Oh,' was the reply, * it 
 was very good — there was nothing to object to 
 —but it was not what I went to hear ; I went to 
 hear about the way to heaven, and I only heard 
 about Palestine.' He seeks to make his sermons 
 vivid and interesting by bringing anecdotes, and 
 letters, and history under contribution ; and in 
 the effort his imagery is often coloured by local 
 allusions, and even his subject is suggested by 
 local circumstances. Thus at Venice he preached 
 on the text, ' How shall we sing the Lord's song 
 in a strange land?' at Rome, on the subject of 
 *St Paul at Eome;' at the Convent of St 
 Catherine, from the appropriate text, 'This 
 Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia ; ' at Jerusalem 
 the subject was * Christ on earth and Christ in 
 heaven.' His sermons are remarkable for their 
 brevity, seldom exceeding ten or fifteen minutes 
 in the delivery. He has no action, and his 
 voice is monotonous, and thin, and weak. His 
 ■physique is not imposing. Frequently when he 
 was preaching in the Abbey or in St Paul's 
 Cathedral, he could hardly be heard beyond the 
 immediate circle that surrounded him. He 
 rarely preaches the same sermon twice, is ever 
 ready to advocate from the pulpit any cause 
 which receives his approval, and although he 
 certainly lacks the highest qualities of an orator, 
 the eloquence of his language is very ornate and 
 winning. To listen to his sermons is highly 
 enjoyable. They contain many a vein of literary 
 and historical allusions as rich as any in Macau- 
 lay. Occasionally he introduces in a translation 
 a suggestive sentence from a Greek or Latin 
 author, or from some foreign modern classic. 
 Now he will give an extract from a play of 
 Sophocles, now from a dialogue of Plato, and 
 again from the « Confessions ' of St Augustine. 
 His versatility, his imagination, and liis pictorial 
 power are amazing and fascinating." Died l«»i. 
 
 SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, was 
 
 born in London, 5th April 1837. His father 
 was Admiral Charles Henry Swinburne He 
 ^as ed'1-ated at Balliol College, Oxford, but 
 
 left without taking his degree. Visiting Flor- 
 ence afterwards, he spent some time with Walter 
 Savage Landor. In 1861 he issued two plays, 
 "The Queen Mother " and " Rosamond." These 
 were followed in succession by "Atalanta in 
 Calydon: a Tragedy," 1864; "Chastelard: a 
 Tragedy," 1865; "Poems and Ballads," 1866; 
 "A Song of Italy," 1867; "William Blake: a 
 Critical Essay," 1867; "Siena: a Poem," 1868; 
 "Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition," 
 1868; "Ode on the Proclamation of the French 
 Republic, September 4," 1870;" "Songs before 
 Sunrise," 1871 ; "Bothwell: a Tragedy," 1874. 
 "George Chapman," an essay; "Essays and 
 Studies," "Erechtheus: a Tragedy," "Note of 
 an English Republican on the Muscovite Crus- 
 ade," and "A Note on Charlotte Bronte." Mr 
 E. C. Stedman, the American critic, writing of 
 Swinburne's gift of melody, has remarked: 
 "Before the advent of Swinburne we did not 
 realise the full scope of English verse. In his 
 hands it is like the violin of Paganini. The 
 range of his fantasias, roulades, arias, new effects 
 of measure and sound, is incomparable with any- 
 thing hitherto known. The first emotion of one 
 who studies even his immature work is that of 
 wonder at the freedom and richness of his dic- 
 tion, the susurrus of his rhythm, his unconscious 
 alliterations, the endless change of his syllabic 
 harmonies — resulting in the alternate softness 
 and strength, height and fall, riotous or chas- 
 tened music of his affluent verse. How does he 
 produce it? Who taught him all the hidden 
 springs of melody? He was born a tamer of 
 words; a subduer of this most stubborn, yet most 
 copious of the literary tongues. In his poetry 
 we discover qualities we did not know were in 
 the language — a softness that seemed Italian, a 
 rugged strength we thought was German, a 
 blithe and debonair lightness we despaired of 
 capturing from the French. He has added a 
 score of new stops and pedals to the instrument. 
 He has introduced, partly from other tongues, 
 stanzaic forms, measures, and effects untried 
 before ; and has brought out the swiftness and 
 force of metres like the anapaestic, carrying each 
 to perfection at a single trial. Words in his 
 hands are like the ivory balls of a juggler, and 
 all words seem to be in his hands. His fellow- 
 craftsmen, who alone can understand what has 
 been done in their art, will not term this state- 
 ment extravagance. Speaking only of his com- 
 mand over language and metre, I have a right to 
 reaffirm, and to show by many illustrations, that 
 he is the most sovereign of rhymists. He com- 
 pels the inflexible elements to his use. Chaucer 
 is more limpid, Shakespeare more kingly, Mil- 
 ton loftier at times, Byron has an unaffected 
 power — but neither Shelley nor the greatest of 
 his predecessors is so dithyrambic, and no one 
 has been in all moods so absolute an autocrat of 
 verse. With equal gifts, I say, none could have 
 been, ^'or Swinburne comes after and profits by 
 
542 
 
 TALMA GE^ TYNDALL. 
 
 the art of all. Poets often win distinction by 
 producing work that differs from what has gone 
 before. It seems as if Swinburne, in this ripe 
 period, resolved to excel others by a mastery of 
 known melodies, adding a new magic to each, 
 and going beyond the range of the furthest. 
 His amazing tricks of rhythm are those of a 
 gymnast outleaping his fellows. We had Keats, 
 Shelley, and Coleridge, after Collins and Gray, 
 and Tennyson after Keats, but now Swinburne 
 adds such elaboration, that an art which we 
 thought perfected seems almost tame. In the 
 first place he was born a prodigy — as much so 
 as Morphy in chess ; added to this he is the 
 product of these latter days, a phenomenon im- 
 possible before. It is safe to declare that at 
 last a time has come when the force of expres- 
 sion can no further go. I do not say that it has 
 not gone too far. The fruit may be too lusci- 
 ous, the flower of an odour too intoxicating to 
 endure. Yet what execution ! Poetry, the 
 rarest poetic feeling, may be found in simpler 
 verse. Yet again, what execution ! The voice 
 may not be equal to the grandest music, nor 
 trained and restrained as it should be. But the 
 voice is there, and its possessor has the finest 
 natural organ to which this generation has 
 listened." . . . "While recognising his 
 thorough honesty, we do not assent to his 
 judgment of American poetry. In * Under the 
 Microscope ' he pays a tribute to Poe, and has a 
 just understanding of the merits and defects of 
 Whitman. His denunciation of all the rest, as 
 either mocking-birds in their adherence to 
 models, or corncrakes in the harshness and 
 worthlessness of their original song, results, it 
 is plain, not from prejudice, but ignorance of 
 the atmosphere which pervades American life. 
 A poet must sing for his own people. Whit- 
 man, for instance, well and boldly avows him- 
 self the mouthpiece of our democratic nation- 
 ality. Aside from the unconscious formalism 
 that injures his poems, and which Swinburne 
 has pointed out, he has done what he could, and 
 we acknowledge the justice shown to one, at 
 least, of our representative men." 
 
 TALMAGE, THE REV. DR T. DE WITT, 
 
 the somewhat sensational, though powerful 
 American preacher, was bom at Boundbrook, 
 New Jersey, in 1832, and was the youngest of 
 twelve children. When his schooling was com- 
 pleted, he studied law for three years, and in 
 his nineteenth year began to study with a 
 special view to the Christian ministry, spend- 
 ing some time at college in New Brunswick, 
 and becoming a graduate of New York Univer- 
 sity. His first church was at Belleville, New 
 Jersey, where he laboured for three years, next 
 removing to Syracuse, State of New York. He 
 
 next accepted a call to Philadelphia, where he 
 remained for seven years, and he became widely 
 popular as minister of the first Eeformed church 
 there. While labouring there, he received three 
 calls to different parts of the country, one \^> 
 Chicago, a second to San Francisco, and a third 
 to Brooklyn, New York. He chose the latter, 
 and left a flourishing church to enter upon one 
 consisting of a mere handful of people, in March 
 1869. In a short time the church was found to 
 be too small to contain the crowds of people 
 who flocked to hear him. A building was begun 
 in 1870 capable of seating three thousand per- 
 sons. This place was burned on Sabbath, 22d 
 December 1872. A still more commodious place 
 of worship, capable of seating five thousand per- 
 sons, was built and opened in February 1874. 
 A college for the training of lay workers exists 
 in connection with the tabernacle. Dr Talmage's 
 sermons have bid fair to rival those of Mr Spur- 
 ge on in popular favour, although the reader 
 would be more likely to tire of a continued 
 perusal of them. 
 
 TYNDALL, JOHN, LL.D., F.R.S., the dis- 
 tinguished natural philosopher, was bom at 
 Leighlin Bridge, near Carlow, Ireland, about 
 1820. He was for some time employed in the 
 Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom. He 
 also studied for some time in Germany. In 
 1853 he was elected Professor of Natural Philo- 
 sophy in the Royal Institution, London, suc- 
 ceeding Michael Faraday as superintendent. 
 He visited Switzerland for purposes of scien- 
 tific research during the years 1856-59. The 
 result of these researches, on one of which occa- 
 sions he was accompanied by Professor Huxley, 
 were partly contained in a volume on the 
 "Structure and Motion of Glaciers." Besides 
 honours received from various scientific societies, 
 he was made LL.D. of Cambridge in 1855, and 
 of Edinburgh in 1866, on the same occasion as 
 that on which Thomas Carlyle was installed 
 Lord Rector. He also received the honorary 
 degree of D.C.L. from Oxford, 18th June 1873. 
 He undertook a lecturing tour through the 
 United States in 1872. The balance of the money 
 which he received for lecturing, amounting to 
 $13,000, he left in the hands of a committee, as a 
 fund for assisting students in original research. 
 Professor Tyndall presided at the annual meet- 
 ing of the British Association, at Belfast, August 
 1874. Professor Tyndall's chief works are: 
 "The Glaciers of the Alps," "Mountaineering," 
 "A Vacation Tour," " Faraday as a Discoverer," 
 "Hours of Exercise in the Alps," ^' Fragments 
 of Science," "Heat a Mode of Motion," "Lec- 
 tures on Molecular Physics, on Light, and on 
 Electricity," "The Forms of Water in Clouds 
 and Rivers," " Ice and Glaciers," etc 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 507. 
 Arnold, Thomas, D.D., 299-307. 
 
 Bailey, Philip James, 507. 
 
 Baker, Sir Samuel White, 507. 
 
 Ballantyne & Co., failure of, 121, 179. 
 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, 353-357— at Hughenden, 
 355. 
 
 Beecher, H. W., 445-450. 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 9. 
 
 Black, William, 508. 
 
 Blackie, John Stuart, 508. 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine, 201 — on Professor Wil- 
 son, 259, 275, 289— on Macaulay, 317. 
 
 Booksellers, the Edinburgh, 170. 
 
 Braddon, Mary Elizabeth, 510. 
 
 Brewster, Sir David, 229-239. 
 
 Bright, John, 413-419— the Orator, 414— R H. 
 Hutton on, 414 — at One Ash, 417. 
 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 511 — A, C. Swinburne on, 
 497. 
 
 Brown, John, M.D., 512. 
 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 360-370. 
 
 Browning, Robert, 512. 
 
 Brougham, Henry, Lord, 511. 
 
 Buchanan, Robert, 512. 
 
 Burke's Writings, Erskine's knowledge of, 30. 
 
 BuRRiTT, Elihu, 513. 
 
 Burton, Captain Richard F., 513. 
 
 Burton, John Hill, 513. 
 
 Byron, Henry J., 514. 
 
 Cameron's walk across Africa, 476. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas— life of, 286-299— on Cole- 
 ridge, 163 — letter to Professor Wilson, 258— on 
 death of Edward Irving, 281— letter to Goethe, 
 287— to Thomas De Quincey, 288— to a young 
 man, 292 — table talk, characteristics of, 
 294. 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas, 206-217. 
 
 Chambers, W. & R., 308-314. 
 
 Chisholm, Mrs Caroline, 514. 
 
 Chloroform, discovery of, 409. 
 
 Cobden, Richard, 515. 
 
 Cobbett, William, 65-75. 
 
 CoBBETT, Miss, 75. 
 
 Coleridge, Lord, on Wordsworth, 106-116. 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 76, 129-164. 
 
 Coleridge, Sara, 160, 161. 
 
 Constable, Archibald, 170-186. 
 
 Constable's Miscellany, 177-185. 
 
 Constable & Co., failure of, 121, 179. 
 
 Cook, Eliza, 515. 
 
 Cornwall, Barry, on Charles Lamb, 196— life of, 
 531. 
 
 Cottle, Joseph, 139. 
 
 CouTTS, THE Baroness Burdett, 450-456. 
 
 CaABBE, Rev. George, 41-47. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, and Wellington compare 1, 94. 
 Cruikshank, George, 515. 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, on Coleridge, 129— on 
 Wordsworth, 263— life of, 261-273. 
 
 Derby, Earl op, 517. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 419-429. 
 
 Disruption in the Scottish Church, the, 335, 341, 
 433. 
 
 Dowden, Professor Edward, on George Eliot, 
 496. 
 
 Edinburgh Review, the, 107, 165, 177, 201, 202, 
 
 316, 511. 
 Edward, Thomas, 456-467. 
 "Edinburgh Encyclopsedia," the, 231. 
 Eliot, George, 495-497. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 289, 346-349. 
 *' Encyclopsedia Britannica," 171, 180. 
 Erskine, Lord, 15-32. 
 " Essay on the Principle of Population," 83. 
 
 Fairfax, Mary, 222. 
 
 Faraday, Michael, 517. 
 
 Farrar, Rev. F. W., 517. 
 
 " Festus," by P. J. Bailey, 507. 
 
 Fields, J. T., on Thackeray, 401. 
 
 Forbes, Archibald, 517. 
 
 Fors Clavigera, 490, 492, 494. 
 
 FORSTER, W. E., 518. 
 
 Friend, the, by Coleridge, 142, 149. 
 
 Friswell, J. H., onRuskin, 493. 
 
 Froude, J. A., 518. 
 
 Fuller, Margaret, on Carlyle, 296. • 
 
 Garrick, David, engages Mrs Siddons, 49. 
 
 GiLFiLLAN, Rev. George, 519. 
 
 GiLFiLLAN, Rev. Samuel, 89-93. 
 
 Gilbert, Sir John, 518. 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., 389-396— as an orator, 391 
 
 — at Hawarden, 392. 
 Godwin, William, 57-64. 
 Good Words, 440. 
 Gordon, trial of Lord George, 16. 
 GOUGH, J. B., 520. 
 Grant, Mrs, op Laggan, 32-40. 
 Guthrie, Rev. Thomas, D.D., 337-345. 
 
 Hall, Robert, 75-79. 
 
 Hamerton, P. G., on Ruskin, 492, 493. 
 
 Hannay, James, on Thackeray, 396. 
 
 Hardy, Thomas, trial of, 24. 
 
 Hazlitt, William, on Bentham, 9 — on God- 
 win, 57 — on Cobbett, 74 — on Sir James Mac- 
 kintosh, 79— on T. R. Malthus, 83— life of, 521. 
 
 Hartleian philosophy, the, 135. 
 
 Hastings, Warren, trial of, 19. 
 * Holland, Josiah Gilbert, 522. 
 
544 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 370-373. 
 
 Houghton, Lord, 523. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, and Carlyle, 297. 
 
 Hutton, K H., on W. E. Gladstone, 394— on 
 
 Mr Bright, 414— on George Eliot, 497. 
 Huxley, T. H., 523. 
 
 iNGELOW, Jean, 523. 
 Irving, Edward, 279-286. 
 
 Jacox, Rev. Francis, on De Quincey, 26^. 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 164-169. 
 
 Kaleidoscope, the, 232. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, and the doctrine of annihila- 
 tion, 136. 
 
 Kemble, Sarah, 47. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, ^ca^^^ Christian Socialist, 
 272— life of, 479-488— Max Mtiller on, 488. 
 
 Knight, Charles, 274-279. 
 
 Kitto, Dr John, 277. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, life of, 191-200— Elia, 193— on 
 Coleridge,162 — a party at Lamb's, 195 — say- 
 ings, 199. 
 
 Lanark, New, the mills at, 15. 
 
 La Fontaine, 10. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, 523. 
 
 "Lay of the Last Minstrel," the, 119. 
 
 Lewes, George Henry, 608, 524. 
 
 Livingstone, Dr, 467-476. 
 
 London Magazine, the, 193. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 358, 359. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, 526. 
 
 Lytton, Lord, 349-353. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 314-324 — "History of Eng- 
 land" by, 320-323. 
 MacDonald, George, 526. 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, 79-83. 
 Macleod, Norman, D.D., 430-445. 
 Macvicar, Ann, 33. 
 Malthus, T. R., 83-89. 
 " Marmion," 119. 
 
 Martin eau, Harriet, on Carlyle, 295. 
 Maxwell, Sir William Stirling, on Scott, 123. 
 Medical profession, Simpson's speech on, 408. 
 Mill, John Stuart, 526. 
 Miller, Hugh, 325-336. 
 Moffat, Robert, 528. 
 Morris, William, 529. 
 " Mountains, Letters from the," 34, 38. 
 Mulock, Dinah Maria, 529. 
 
 Nightingale, Florence, 529. 
 North British Review, the, 234, 272. 
 NoBTH, Christopher, 256-26L 
 
 Oliphant, Mrs Margaret, 530. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 22, 74. 
 Palmerston, Lord, 530. 
 Panopticon, the, 13. 
 Pantisocracy, the, 143, 187. 
 Procter, Bryan Waller, on Lamb, 196— life 
 of, 531. 
 
 Quarterly Review, founding of the, 120, 187. 
 
 Ragged School movement, the, 342. 
 
 Railway, early history of the, 242 — progress of, 
 
 247. 
 Register, the, by Cobbett, 73. 
 Robertson, Rev. F. W., 532. 
 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 9. 
 Royal Family, the, 437-439. 
 "Rural Rides," by Cobbett, 65. 
 RusKiN, John, 489-495. 
 
 Salt, Sir Titus, 536. 
 
 Scots Magazine, the, 177. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 116-129— centenary, 123. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 538-540. 
 
 SiDDONS, Sarah, 47-57. 
 
 Simpson, Sir J. Y., 405-413. 
 
 Smiles, Samuel, 540. 
 
 SOMERVILLE, Mary, 217-228. 
 
 SouTHEY, Robert, 187-191. 
 
 Spurgeon, Charles Haddon, 498-506. 
 
 Stanley, Dean, on Norman Macleod, 443— life 
 
 of, 540. 
 Stanley, H. M., 473, 476-479. 
 Stephenson, George, 240-256— Robert, 256. 
 Stockdale, Erskine's speech on the trial of, 19. 
 "St Leon," by Godwin, 62. 
 Swinburne, A. C, 497 — life of, 541. 
 
 Tabernacle, the, 502 —a morning in the, 505— an 
 
 evening in the, 505. 
 "Tales," by Crabbe, 4L 
 Talfourd, T. N., on Charles Lamb, 198. 
 Talmage, Rev. Dr T. De Witt, 542. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 373-389. 
 Thackeray, W. M., 396-405. 
 Thomson, Rev. John, 200-206. 
 Tyndall, John, LL.D., 542. 
 
 Washington and Wellington compared, 94. 
 Waverley Novels, commercial success of the, 
 
 122, 123, 178, 179. 
 WELXiNGTdN, Duke of, 94-97. 
 Wilson, John, 256-261. 
 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 58. 
 Wordsworth, William, 98-116— Dora, 103-106. 
 Wynn, C. W., on Carlyle, 298. 
 
 MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 
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