Pribbles gPrabbles ^^^"QWen to Pribbles and Prabbles" Merry Wives of Windsor Act V. Scene V. General Maxwell CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PN 6245.M46" """"""^ """'^ 3 1924 027 238 504 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/cu31924027238504 Fribbles and Prabbles Pribbles and Prabbles or Rambling Reflections on Varied Topics ILLUSTRATED BY ANECDOTE, REFERENCE, AND QUOTATION BY THE LATE MAJOR-GENERAL PATRICK MAXWELL, LL.D. Translator of Schiller's ' Maid of Orleans,' Schiller's ' William Tell,' Lessing's ' Nathan the Wise,' Lessing's ' Minna von Bamhelm,' ' Essays, Dialogues and Thoughts of Count Giacomo Leopard!,* etc. "Leave your prabbles, 'oman — what is the focative case, William?" ]\derry Wives of Windsor, iv. 2, " Pribbles and Prabbles."— /&Vi v. j. l/OnDon SKEFFINGTON & SON 34 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. PUBLISHERS TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING 1906 RiOHARD Clay & Sons, Limited, BREAD STREET HILL, E.G., AND BUN OAT, SUFFOLK. PREFACE There are in this world some terrible people who know everjrthing. There are some others who think they do. To such persons this little book is not addressed. But if any plain folk can find in it anything which is new to them, or anything which may amuse them, my utmost ambition will be amply satisfied. It may contain some errors, but none, I trust, of a vital character. In the case of matters culled from other quarters, I have given the source from which such matters are drawn, save in some few instances where I had unfortunately preserved no record of such source. Some portions of the whole have previously appeared — from my own pen — in sundry magazines and serials. These, how- ever, have been materially modified, extended, and emended ; and the editors of the publications referred to have not withheld their consent to their embodiment in this volume. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAOE Future of the English language — Baboo English— Blunders in con^ versation — Blunders in translation— Queer Bibles — Changes in meaning of words — Changes in pronunciation — Pleonasm in word-buUding — Change, a condition of living languages . . 1 CHAPTER II On commonplace books— Proverbs in various languages — Proverbial sayings on season and climate — Sententious domestic inscriptions — Punctuation — Equivoque — 'Fert, Fert, Fertj' — BusiUis — Giusti on decorations — Pasquinades — William Barnes . . . .33 CHAPTER III Homeriana — Simplicity of heroic times — Analogues of Balaam's ass — Army Doctors — Female servants 'tubbing' heroes — Blaming the gods for our misfortunes — Character of Hector — Laconic prayer . 61 CHAPTER IV Good Homer sometimes nods — Tug-of-war over a corpse — Generals wrestling — Stereotyped imagery — Voltaire on Homer — Profits of Homer — Of other ancient writers — Of modern writers — Authors' skulls — Barabbas — Liberality of publishers — George Eliot — Her ' Spanish Gypsy '—Why she called herself George Eliot — Tyraimy of rhyme — Rhymed lines in Homer, Horace, Virgil, and Cicero — Rhyme to Niagara — To pentameters . . 75 nn CONTENTS CHAPTER V PAGE Printers' blunders — Legible writing leads to misprinting — Illegible writing — Punctuation and order — Misreporting — Mistranslation — Misdescription in'catalogues — On Latin quotations — Voltaire on the classics— Queer plurals — Shakespeare v. Bacon — Curiosities of nomenclature — Corruptions of names — Grecian stairs — Devil looking over Lincoln — Huguenot names — Strange pronunciation of some names — Captain Cook on place-names . . .97 CHAPTER VI Some curiosities of etymology — Desdemona, etc. — ' Credat Judseus ' — Pox's aunts — A wonderful word — Translation — Landor's view — Memory — Overrating the past — Ancestry — Morality and geo- graphy — Disasters at a distance — Gold in the teeth of the dead — Paper money — Horace on money — ' Come, my lad, and drink some beer ' — Browning — Carlyle — George Meredith . . . 125 CHAPTER VII Religion— George Eliot on— Henry Taylor on— Proude on— Massimo d'Azeglio on — Dissent and dissension— Sermons and preaching- Sale of indulgences — Conscience and fraud — Missions and missionaries— Jowett on Bishops— Bishop of Perugia— St. Enoch — St. Rollox — St. Ursula— A dialogue on eschatology . . . 157 CHAPTER VIII Burial of Sir John Moore— The letter H— Curious lines— J. G. Lockhart— ' Quem deus vult'— True humour w. puns— Bekos —Gibberish— Enricus Cordus on Simony— Anthropomorphism- Quondam friends— Ritagli di tempo-Cardinal Borromeo— Soot- tiana— Egmont and Kenilworth— Scott and tobacco— Lines on St. Luke — Celebrated sayings jgg CONTENTS ix CHAPTER IX PAGE The Sudan and Afghanistan — Butchers' bills — Omdurman — Consoli- dation of the Empire — Character of the Indian Army — Foreign opinion regarding it — Its employment out of India — Hannibal's maxim — The four slain Battyes — Invasion by Russia— SkobelefFs opinion^Attitude and disposition of the peoples of India . . 213 CHAPTER X Titanic features of India — Education in India— The Indian Codes- Indian magnate in retirement — The mysterious chupatties— A wonderful telegram — Palmerston and Suez Canal — Average illness in a decade — Balaam Box — Astrologer and king— Horace and Milton— Disraeli in 1832— Puns in Shakespeare— Parricide in China— Thomas Atkins v. Lall Sing— Jackass purring— Zouaves and Spahis — Warfare with savage races . . . 249 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES CHAPTER I Pufcure of the English language — Baboo English — Blunders in convers- ation — Blunders in translation — Queer Bibles — Changes in meaning of words — Changes in pronunciation — Pleonasm in word-building — Change, a condition of living languages. Whatev|IR future may await the British Empire, a very glorious one unquestionably awaits the British tongue — the glory, to wit, of becoming the speech of the majority of civilised men. Already virtually the language of commerce and of navigation throughout the world, what a development awaits it in the mouths of the millions present and to come of America and of Australasia ! While venerable tongues like French and German are possibly doomed to dwindle and decline as instru- ments of speech, our English language is obviously destined to be employed more and more by ever-multiplying millions, and, like the river of the poet, " Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis sevum," until, in fine, it shall become almost a universal tongue. But the medal has its reverse — uhi uher ibi tuber — and this supreme consummation will probably be attended by a fatal danger inherent in its own conditions. The very triumph of our speech will engender the seeds of its decay ; and the English language is in all probability destined to undergo grave deterior- ation as the price of prodigious diffusion. Just as the pure Latin of the Augustan age gradually assumed Protean forms of change and distortion in the mouths of the motley myriads of 2 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES the later Empire, so must the world expect to see a gradual, but sure metamorphosis of the English tongue in proportion as it overspreads the globe. Already in America can be discerned the beginnings, not perhaps of absolute deterioration, but of distinct divergence from the parent type, both in terminology and in pronunciation, and who can tell when this divergence may amount to metamorphosis, or what may be the cumulative result of a thousand years of creeping alteration in that continent, and still more so in the future States of the Pacific ? Looking to the changes which have occurred in our language within our own four seas from the time of Chaucer until now, he would be a bold man who should venture to predict, or even to imagine, what altered forms a world-wide English may assume at the end of a few centuries from the present time, especially when the Hindoo and the Chinaman shall have contributed their grotesque quotas to its transformation. Small peoples may indeed conserve their speech from change, as Greece has done, whose language at this day differs but little from that employed by Xenophon ; but the liability to lingual alteration increases in almost geometric ratio with the numbers and diffusion of those who use a given language; and therefore it must be expected that the English of the twenty-fifth or thirtieth century — if the world lasts so long — will be radically different from the English of to-day. A whole paper — and a very interesting one — might be written on the single subject of 'Pigeon English' — that amazing dialect or jargon which the Chinamen have already brought to such a stage of development that it might now be almost crystallised into a grammar and lexicon of its own ; but, leaving China for the present, let us consider for a moment the potentialities of metamorphosis which are involved in our con- ■ nection with India ; and what the ' educated Baboo ' may yet achieve in the way of altering the English tongue. PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 3 It is, of course, idle to suppose that English will ever sup- plant the various vernaculars of India so as to become the speech of all its heterogeneous races ; but none the less it is absolutely certain that our language will take root there more or less vigorously ; and that it will in time become at least the written language of some millions in that vast peninsula. It is equally certain that, whenever that shall come to pass, our " well of English undefyled " will be found to have undergone some very startling changes at the hands of our Indian fellow- subjects. Just to show that they have already made a tolerably fair beginning in this direction, I would here cite one or two samples of the ' Baboo English ' of to-day ; which I make bold to think wiU at once curdle the blood of the grammarian and prove amusing to the general reader. The following is a true and unmanipulated copy of part of a local news-letter which was lately sent for publication to an Anglo-Indian journal : " It is a matter of impressing on the minds of those inhabiting this dark mundane ocean the excitement of fever which was caused on April first, 1889, by the different informations brought to Patna by means of the different throats, entreating that some fifty or sixty robbers are certain to come to plunder some rich portion of the city. On the very day from 8 p.m. to the dead of night the space between the eastern and the western gates of Patna were so crowded by the armed stout and drastic policemen that it was undoubtedly hoped by the State theory to have no effect of the arms of the robbers on those of the policemen. But soon after the day wended away the information of the robbery was after a deep cogitation known to be a mendacious fabrication." The next specimen is a copy of a letter addressed to an English official in India by a Bengal Baboo desirous of being appointed to a clerkship in that gentleman's office : 4 PRIBBLES AND BRABBLES "Honored Sib, "last evening while peregrinating through city I am hearing from friend who was likewise enjoying evening zephyrs that vacancy took place to-day in your highness's office by death of Baboo. Poor man, I am greatly sorrowful for his demise, he has left gigantic family ; who will feed their mouths the Devil knows. Your Honour will see that I am well-meaning, hard- working, extra-energetic sort, requiring abundant fields for display of copious brain-power. Please note I am preternaturally well up in precise writing, draughting, and docking, and other ramifications too numerous to mention. I am no orthodox, believing all rotten superstitions of ancient forefathers, but I am iconoclast to great detriment of hippocrites and scoundrels. It is with fervency I solicit your Majesty's hand and heart in moving this petition, and will pray long and continually for your honour and your honour's gracious lady, and all your posthumous children to follow up." The following is a copy of an official report written by a Baboo on the subject of an epidemic of influenza which had prevailed in the district in which he was stationed : " Sir, " As I am required by your honour to write an essay on influenza, all I can say is that this Infernal Epidemic which has fallen on our mother country like a great calamity, is caused by the concentrated efforts of minute bacus of the animalculae tribe of unforeseen microscopical animal life. Like the old plagues of Egypt, it is deteriorating in the extreme, carrying its venomous degenerating contamination through every house- hold families, not excepting your humble servant, who has suffered too much the details of fever in its augmented state, with a pertinacity that would have done the heart of Euscapalius good to have interviewed. "Notwithstanding, nevertheless, I am now all square, your FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 5 honour, enjoying salubrity of health, hence my ability to write this hard subject matter — although the Infernal inhuman disease is not dangerous except for the old decrepid one-foot-in- the-grave sort of paralitic people, yet it is frought with two great after-consequences, such as Pneumonia, Bronchitis, Catarrha, et hoc genus omne ; (you see I am versed in few Latin terms) causing thereby some care to be taken with ourselves afterwards. "It is great pity your honour asked me to write such kind of great difficult inexperienced task. No B.A., I am surej would be spritely enough to attempt to undertake such eccentric task without purloining his intellectual faculties to the utmost tenision. "Your honour will kindly excuse my writing to a greater length, although I could give much information on the statistic of this great and down-felling disease, on bed with all items of fever, and nose running all day and night. My wife is still suffering, but I am earnestly working the oracle with the gods to minimise the malady by giving alms and all things to poor helpless beggars, asking much from your humble servant, who is at present greatly impecunious for want of job ; two children besides wife and myself to feed, and one more child coming soon but yet unborn owing to wife's fault. Hoping to be favoured by your kind consideration, I am," etc. Still more racy is the subjoined true and exact copy of a petition lately submitted to an English official in India : " Respectfully showeth : that your honor's servant is a poor man in agricultural behaviour, and much depends on seasons for staffs of life. Therefore he prays that you will favour upon him and take him into your saintly service, that he may have some permanently labour for the support of his soul and his family. Wherefore he falls on his family's bended knee, and implores you of this merciful consideration to a damnable 6 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES miserable, like your honor's unfortunate petitioner. That your Lordship's servant was too much poorly during the late rains, and was resuscitated by much medicines, which made magnifi- cent excavations in the coffers of your honourable servant, whose means are already circumcised by his large family of five female women and three masculine, the last of whom are still taking milk from mother's chest, and all damnably noiseful through pulmonary catastrophe of the interior abdomen. Besides the above-named, an additional birth is through the grace of God very shortly occurring to my beloved wife of bosom. That your honor's petitioner was officiating in several capacities during past generations, but has become too much old for espousing hard labour in this time of his bodily life ; but was not drunkard nor thief nor swindeller, nor any of these kind ; but was always pious and affectionate to his numerous family, consisting of the aforesaid five feminine women and three masculine, the last of whom are still milking the parental mother. That your generous hoQUr's Lordship's servant was entreating magistrate for employment in State to remove filths, &c., but was not granted petition. Therefore your Lordship will give to me some light work in the department ; for which act of kindness your noble Lordship's poor servant will as in duty bound ever pray," etc. It may be objected to the foregoing startling compositions that they are the productions of ignorant Indians of humble station and deficient instruction, and that for that reason they ought not to be taken au grand s4rievx ; but their style is only too true a type of that of the ' educated Baboo ' ; and there is little doubt that they are the handiwork of that gentleman himself, who is usually employed by natives of the poorer sort for the purpose of engrossing their petitions. However that may be, no such extenuation can be advanced on behalf of the following accredited extracts from a published book of no FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 7 inconsiderable pretensions. I refer to a memoir of the late Honourable Justice Oonookul Mookerjee, said to have been written by his nephew, Mohendro Nauth Mookerjee, and printed at Calcutta. Describing the grief of the family on the death of his uncle, the author says : " the house presented a second Babel or a pretty kettle of fish." Further on, describing the professional career of the Justice, he states that "his first business on making an income was to extricate his family from the diflScul- ties in which it had been lately enwarped, and to restore happi- ness and sunshine to those sweet and well-beloved faces on which he had not seen the soft and fascinating beams of a simper for many a grim-visaged year." In another place he tells us that " this was the first time that we see a pleader taking a seat on the Bengal Legislative Council solely by dint of his own legal weapon ; and he was an au fait, and therefore undoubtedly a transcendental lucre to the Council." Again he informs the world that " Justice Mookerjee very well understood the boot of his client, for which he would carry a logomachy as if his wheel of fortune depended on it ; " and he adds that " his elevation created a catholic ravishment throughout the domain." In a touching sketch of the personal appearance of the Justice, the biographer prettily observes : " when a boy he was filamen- tous, but gradually in the course of time he became plump as a partridge." Several good, and short, samples of this remarkable dialect were given in Lady Dufferin's recent and most readable book on India. Of these I shall here cite only two. An Indian thus ended a letter to an English gentleman : " You have been very kind to me, and may God Almighty give you tit for tat." Another commenced a petition to Colonel Sir Euan Smith with the startling words : ' Honoured Enormity ' ! A grateful Baboo closed a letter to an English benefactor with the curious aspiration : " May God pickle your worship ; " 8 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES intending to convey the idea that he trusted that God would preserve him ; and on one occasion a head servant puzzled his wondering mistress by entering in all seriousness among the items in his weekly account of expenditure, ' one goose's pup ' ; which turned out to have been a gosling. It will thus be apparent that our friend the Baboo is a per- sonage not to be trifled with, and that he can by no means be regarded as a 'negligible quantity' in any forecast of the possible future of the English language. Before, however, bidding him to 'stand dpwn,' justice compels the admission that not all educated Baboos employ such a travesty of our language, and that some of them are capable of expressing themselves in English in a manner worthy of Macaulay. Not unallied to the above specimens of tortured English are those grotesque blunders which educated Europeans are so apt to make in the use of languages other than their own. Thus, for example, the other day a Belgian lady, speaking to a friend of mine, and desiring to compliment him on his personal appearance, and to imply that he was in good case, "fat and well liking," in short, beamingly exclaimed to him : " my dear sir, I declare you are quite meaty." A German professor, expressing to an English friend his hope that Mr. Gladstone was then in good health, inquired, " is he wholesome now ? " thus quaintly mistranslating his native word 'gesund.' A French lady, in a railway carriage, desiring to signify to a new-comer that a certain place was occupied, said to him : " Sir, this seat is busy." An Italian lady, complaining of a certain house that it was deficient in passages, and consequently did not afford free access to its various apartments — too common a fault, by the way, in Italy, even in so-called ' palazzi ' — solemnly observed: "in this house the rooms are all slaves," meaning thereby that they were not free, or freely accessible. An Italian naval friend of mine told me, among other good things, of an English lady who, being at an entertainment, PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 9 and being pressed to take something more to eat, which she did not desire to do, instead of saying, "Ho mangiato bastamente, non voglio anc5ra," which would have meant, "I have eaten enough, and do not wish for anything more," startled the company by saying, "Ho mangiato bastimento, non voglio ancora," which actually meant, "I have eaten a ship, and do not wish to eat the anchor also." Most people have heard that Victor Hugo, in his Toilers of the Sea, called the Firth of Forth "the First of the Fourth"; and styled the bagpipes the ' bugpipes ' ; and what is more, when his attention was called to these ridiculous blunders, he preferred his old mumpsimus to the new sumpsirmis, and stoutly stuck to his guns. Again, in the introduction to Quentin Durward, the Marquis de Hautlieu persists in speaking of the ' Bridle of Lammermore ' ; or, at all events, Scott, doubtless with good reason, represents him as doing so, and the same estimable nobleman substitutes — " Showing the code of sweet and bitter fancy," for ' chewing the cud ' thereof. Not long since, a Dutch gentleman of my acquaintance, one who spoke fair English too, in describing to me a tragical explosion which had then recently occurred on a Dutch ship of war, causing its destruction and that of the greater part of its crew, comically observed that ' his kettle sprang ' ; a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous certainly, and yet most natural, since the Dutch word ' ketel ' means not only a kettle, but also the boiler of a steamship, and ' springen ' signifies not only to spring but to burst. I myself heard the following absurd blunder from the lips of an English lady in Florence, one of that too numerous class who, on the strength of a smattering of Italian, fancy they know the language. Entering a stationer's shop, and desiring an envelope (busta), she gravely asked for ' un busto ' — a pair of stays. The surprise of the polite Florentine stationer may be imagined. 10 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES One more specimen of this sort of thing. An English lady, at an evening party in Rome, requesting an Italian ecclesiastic to conduct her to an adjoining apartment, and soliciting the assist- ance of his arm, begged him to take her ' abbracciato,' instead of ' a braccetto,' the latter phrase meaning arm-in-arm, the former denoting clasped in a loving embrace ! When will the English get rid of the fond delusion that Italian is an easy language. No foreign language is easy to speak well. Then again, what may be permissible in one language may be deadly in another. A foreign nobleman, of undoubted polish and courtesy, was talking to an American girl, and in reference to a statement which fell from her, to her horror he exclaimed, " Oh, that is a lie." He was perfectly unconscious that such a double-shotted discharge was regarded in English as unparlia- mentary — or, should I say, in view of the amenities of a reformed House of Commons, only too parliamentary ? — ' O, che bugia ! ' would have been a blank cartridge. Akin to the foregoing are the grotesque mistakes which sometimes occur in translations, even when these are the work of writers of fair general scholarship. In these perform- ances we too often meet with renderings which fully justify the Italian saying, traduttore traditore, "the translator proves a traitor." It is said that the first French translation of Guy Mannering rendered Dominie Sampson's epithet of 'a stickit minister,' in the startling form of 'un prgtre assassine'; leaving the Gallic reader to make what sense he could out of these mystic words, and to reconcile as best he might the idea of the living dominie with that of an assassinated priest. Our old friend ' Welsh rabbit ' has figured in foreign translation as "lapin du pays de Galles," with a foot-note informing the reader that in Wales these rodents are exception- ally large and well-flavoured. The title of Colley Gibber's first comedy, Love's last Shift, was gravely reproduced in French FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 11 as " la derniere chemise de Tamour " ; and Congreve's single tragedy The Mourning Bride, was felicitously called " I'^pouse du matin." Cusani's generally excellent translation of Bulwer Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii contains several extraordinary blunders. In explanation of the term ' Mayfair ' he has a solemn foot- note to the following effect : " letteralmente Bel Maggio, luogo assai ameno faori di Londra, ove nella bella stagione v'ha gran concorso di gente che gironza, balla, ecc," which, being inter- preted, means : " literally, Beautiful May, a very charming spot in the outskirts of London, where in the fine season large numbers of people assemble to ramble about, dance," &c. ! In the same romance, book iv. chapter 17, Sosia says to Nydia : " So far as an innocent chat goes, I have no objection to indulge you." This is positively translated thus : " ti lascero muovere appunto come un gatto innocente," — " I will let thee move exactly like an innocent cat " ; making absolute nonsense, our word ' chat ' being strangely and inexcusably confounded with the French ' chat.' Again, in the same chapter Sallust, when pressed to take another cup of wine, declines it on the ground that it is over-iced, and says : " it is a thought too cold," meaning, of course, a trifle too cold — a little too cold for his taste. This is translated : " pensiero che mi fa rabbrividire," — " a thought which makes me shudder " ; not only a blunder in translation, but also quite nonsensical in relation to the context. This last blunder forcibly illustrates the difficulty which must always present itself in the endeavour to translate idiomatical expressions, and words employed in an idiomatic sense. Here the English writer used the phrase, ' a thought ' in an idiomatic adverbial sense, in order to denote : ' a little,' or, ' in a slight degree;' and it straightway becomes a pitfall to the unhappy translator. It is said that Jules Janin rendered Macbeth's ' out, out, brief candle ! ' by ' sortez, chandelle, sortez ! ' while another 12 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES French writer, in translating the lines in Henry IV., Part II., I. i.: " Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless. So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone," was good enough to render their last three words thus : ' ainsi, douleur, va-t'en ' ! ' therefore, grief, be off with you ! ' or, 'be gone, dull care.' A certain English writer, referring to an incident which occurred during the seven years' war, stated that Lord George Sackville was ' broken ' for misconduct at the battle of Minden. The English writer, of course, meant only that the officer in question had been degraded from his rank in the army, and expelled from the service ; but a French writer translated the expulsion ' broken ' by the French word * rou^,' meaning 'broken on the wheel,' and forthwith proceeded to comment with severity on the barbarity of the English customs. A certain Italian newspaper, called H giornaU delU due Sicilie, not long ago had occasion to report and comment upon an atrocious case of murder in England, in which a man had killed his wife with a poker. In the course of its remarks on this subject, the journal observed as follows : " non sappiamo per certo se questo pdlcero inglese sia uno stromento domestico, o bensi chirurgico," — " we do not know for certain whether this English word ' poker ' means a domestic utensil of some kind, or rather some description of surgical instrument ! " But, to let alone foreigners, plenty of instances could be presented of bulls and blunders perpetrated even by good writers in the use of their own language; though sometimes such alleged blunders are more apparent than real. It is very common, for example, to condemn as a double-barrelled bull Milton's well-known lines: "Adam, the goodliest man of men since bom, His sons ; the fairest of her daughters Eve ; " and audaciously to cast ridicule on them, on the ground that PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 13 they involve the absurdity of representing Adam as one of his own sons, and Eve as one of her own daughters. Well, it must be admitted that the expressions here applied , to our first parents, are on the face of them undoubtedly absurd and untenable ; but Milton was not a man likely to commit a gratuitous blunder, and therefore the tenor of these lines must be accounted for on special grounds. It is well known that he was positively saturated with classic forms and modes of thought, and it is abundantly certain that in this passage he was purposely employing that peculiar archaic construction which, for want of a better name, has been distinguished by some grammarians as the ' inclusive superlative ' ; a construction in which the persons or objects under description are illogically comprehended among the persons or objects wherewith they are compared. It need hardly be said that bigoted idolaters of all that is to be found in the great classics of all times stoutly defend this constmction, and allege in its defence that it is an ancient and well-established Greek construction, and that it was freely adopted or imitated by Latin writers — nay, more ; as is the manner of such zealous advocates, they profess to see a positive beauty in it, just as fanatical admirers of Messrs. Robert Brown- ing and George Meredith profess to see special beauties in the most obscure eccentricities of these writers, or as Mr. Ruskin might rave about the most indefensible oddities of Botticelli. It may not be uninteresting to collect and present in this place some of the most conspicuous examples of this perverse construction which are to be found in the classics, both ancient and modem. If this should have no interest for non-classical readers, they can skip it. In the Iliad, I. 505, Thetis, in pleading before Jove the cause of her son Achilles, calls that hero biKvfiopdraTos &W(av — the most early-doomed, or most short-lived, of the other Greeks. In Iliad, II. 673, of Nireiis it is said : NipeiSs, 3s KdWiixros av^p inrh "Wtop ^\dev 14 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Nireiis, the handsomest man who came to Troy of the other Greeks, after, or next to, the distinguished son of Peleus. In the Odyssey, 1. 132, we have : liap S'aliThs K\urfi.hv eiro iroiiclKov, tKroBev tWav MvriffT^pav ; where Telemachus is represented as placing for himself a seat apart from the other suitors, as if he himself had been one of them. In the Odyssey, XI. 469, of Ajax it is said : . ... is &pi(rros ii)V eiSos t€ Sefias Te T«v iiAXmj' Aavauy, etc. " Who was noblest in appearance and form of the other Greeks ; " and in the same canto, line 550, almost the same expression occurs : Atavd, 3s irept fi^v elSos, iript S' German by reference to what may be called the 3 33 34 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES antagonistic element ; thus : ' aus dem Regen in die Traufe kommen ' ; which is said of a person who, in seeking shelter from a shower of rain, takes up his position under a spout from a roof, and so, instead of escaping a wetting, catches a ducking. The Italian saying on the same point is on all fours with our own : ' cader dalla padella nella brace,' — ' to fall from the pan into the fire.' The old caution, to 'let sleeping dogs lie,' is found nearly word for word the same in Italian : ' non molestar il can che dorme.' But that sprightly language has another and a sufficiently picturesque proverb for the expression of the same idea ; ' non stuzzicare il vespaio,' — ' stir not the wasp's nest.' The Germans convey the same warning by a slightly different formula : ' was dich nicht brennt das blase nicht,' — ' fan not the flame which burns thee not.' I do not at present remember any English proverb touching the folly of discarding what is essential along with that which is not essential ; that which is valuable along with that which is worthless, although very probably such an aphorism may exist in our language, but the idea is happily expressed by the German saying: "man darf nicht das Kind mit dem Bade ausschiitten," — "when you throw away the contents of the baby's washing-tub, don't throw away the baby too." The German couplet — "Wer will haben gute Ruh, Der hor und seh und schweig dazu," — " he who would lead a quiet life, let him hear and see and hold his tongue," has a neat enough counterpart in the Italian distich : " Vedi odi e taci Se vuoi viver in pace." The sound maxim to the effect that "persons who live in glass houses should not throw stones," figures in German in almost identical terms : " Wer im Glashaus sitzt soil keine Steine PRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 35 werfen." I wonder which is the original and which the copy. So with that other well-known and wholesome piece of advice to people to mind their own business : " shoemaker, stick to thy last," which is presented in the German in words precisely corre- sponding : " Schuster bleib hei deinem Leisten." Both of these phrases are obviously translations of the old Latin saying : ' sutor ne supra crepidam.' By the way, I may observe that the coiTect reading of this latter proverb is, as I have given it, ' swpra crepi- dam,' and not, as commonly but erroneously supposed, 'ultra crepidam.' The sentiment implied in 'ill weeds grow apace' is well represented both in German and in Italian. In the former it takes the form of ' Unkraut stirbt nicht,' — ' the worthless weed dies not.' Your Italian says : ' la mal erba vien su presto,' — 'noxious vegetation shoots up quickly.' Our saying to the effect that ' still waters run deep ' is expressed in the lively Italian with an additional shade of picturesque vigour : ' acqua quieta rovina il ponte,' — ' the silent stream saps the bridge.' Weather proverbs of course abound in all languages ; but they also abound in a diversity due doubtless to diversities of latitude and longitude. Everybody knows our superstition — for it is nothing more than superstition — about St. Swithin : "St. Swithin'a day, gif ye do rain. For forty days it will remain ; St. Swithia's day, an ye be fair. For forty days 'twiU rain nae mair." The French have a similar popular belief touching the 8th of June: "S'il pleut le jour de St. M(5dard, n pleut quarante jours plus tard ; " and ia some parts of France the peasantry hold the same super- stition as regards the 19th of the same month : "S'il pleut le jour de St. Gervais, II pleut quarante jours apres." 36 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES The Italians, however, hold that whatever the weather may happen to be on April 3, such weather will continue for forty consecutive days; and they express that belief in a sort of jingling rhyme of the kind dear to the genius of their language, but more than usually defiant of strict grammar in its structure : " Terzo Aprilante Quaranta di durante." It seems to be the fate of most popular delusions to be swept away by the relentless besom of scientific observation. Thus, I believe it has been demonstrated by a long series of meteoro- logical records that the St. Swithin forecast is all nonsense. I have no doubt that a like fate has attended the French oracles on the same subject; and I know that the Italian jingle as to April 3 governing the weather for the forty following days has been found to have absolutely no foundation in fact. In like manner the venerable delusion to the effect that the moon influences the weather, though it dies hard among old-fashioned and ignorant people, is pretty nearly exploded among the well- informed. Many more instances might be cited of popular fallacies demolished by science, yet emulating the cat in tenacity of life, especially in minds of an antiquated and superstitious cast. Take, for example, the ludicrous custom of sprinkling salt on the table-cloth when wine — especially red wine — has been spilt upon it. Chemists know that this custom is ridiculous, since no acid contained in any wine is sufiiciently energetic to separate the chlorine and the sodium which together compose the salt, and thereby release the former and enable it to act upon the stain. Nevertheless the custom holds its own, and is devoutly believed in by many, if not most, persons, on the principle, probably, of TertuUian's ' credo quia impossibile,' and no amount of argu- ment or demonstration will avail to wean them from the time- honoured and cherished delusion. But what a collection might PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 37 be made of the popular fallacies and superstitions which in all countries and in all ages have clustered round the single subject of domestic salt. To return to weather proverbs. Some of these are distinctly founded on actual probabilities, and are, pro tanto, entitled to some respect. Take, for instance, those regarding Candlemas, which so persistently crop up in many languages. Thus the Scottish peasant says : "If Candlemas day be dry and fair, The half of winter 's to come and mair ; If Candlemas day be wet and foul, The half of winter's gane at yule." Again : "If Candlemas day be fair and bright. Winter will have another flight; But if it be dark with clouds and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again. And this : "As far as the sun shines on Candlemas day, So far the snow will blow in before May." And as to its influence on the wind : " Where the wind is on Candlemas day. There it wiU stick to the end of May.'' The following lines forcibly express the feelings of the peasantry on the point : "The hind had as soon see his wife on her bier As on Candlemas day that the sun should shine clear." And the following couplet denotes a still stronger dread of such a phenomenon : "If Candlemas day be bright and clear. The swain had as lief see his wife on her bier." Finally, in order to accentuate the rustic belief to the effect that for practical farming purposes the second of February is mid-winter we have the following popular couplet : " Lock in the bam on Candlemas day The half of your corn and the half of your hay." 38 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES On this subject the Italians have the following quaint lines : "Per la Candelora Se nevica o se plora Dell' inverno siamo fuora. Ma s'e sole o solicello, No' siamo a mezzo il verno," — that is to say : At Candlemas, if it snows or rains, we are done with winter; but if there be sunshine, or even so much as a glimpse of the sun, then we are in mid-winter. Hudibras tells us that "They who write ia rhyme still make The one verse for the other's sake." Well, that being so, and considering the liberties taken with the Italian language in the first two of these lines in order to pro- duce a rhyme — candelara being violently twisted into candelora, and a rare verb, plorare, to weep, being employed instead of piovere, to rain — it seems strange that the proverb-monger or manufacturer was not more successful in the endings of the two last lines, which are at once rugged and unrhymed. The sayings on the subject of Candlemas may be summed up by the old dog-Latin distich, or canine couplet : "Si sol splendescat Maria purificante, Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante." The whole of this body of belief on the subject is obviously only in consonance with the prosaic probability that unseasonable weather at one time of the year will be followed by unseasonable weather later on, and consequently that if it be warm and fine in winter, it will probably prove inclement at a subsequent period,. on the principle that a certain amount of bad weather is likely to occur in the course of the year ; as the French say : "Si I'hiver ne fait son devoir Aux mois de d^cembre et Janvier, Au plus tard U se fera voir En fdvrier." FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 39 And similarly the Italians have it : " Camevale al sole, Pasqiia al fuoco ; Carnevale al fuoco, Pasqua al sole : " that is to say : " Carnival in the sun speUs Easter at the hearth ; but Carnival at the hearth spells Easter in the sun." In this country we generally hold that a halo round the moon is a sign of approaching rain ; and so it probably is ; but there are halos and hales. The Italians draw a very important dis- tinction in this matter. They say that such a halo indicates impending rain only if it describes a wide circle extending far beyond the moon ; but that if the circle is small, and close to the moon, it is a sign that rain is not at hand. Their saying on the subject runs thus : " Cerchio lontano, aoqua vicina; Cerchio vicino, acqua lontana." And truly I. think the Italians are right in this matter. I well remember that once during an Indian famine the hopes of the pining peasants were constantly being raised by halos round the moon ; but no rain came. The halos were small in diameter and close to the satellite. Some years ago, in the course of an article in a London magazine, I had occasion to quote the above-cited Italian proverb, whereupon a gentleman living in the county of Suffolk obligingly wrote to me to the effect that in his neighbourhood there prevailed a fairly well-known popular saying with regard to the appearance of halos round the moon, and that the saying in question was precisely similar to the Italian distich. It seems that in the local Suffolk parlance the halo is called a 'burr,' and the saying in that part; of the county runs as follows : "Near burr, far rain; Far burr, near rain." This coincidence is distinctly curious. 40 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Before proceeding to other matters, I may as well present to the reader one more line which ascribes to the varying com- plexion of the moon various sorts of influence over the weather, or various prophetic indications of its probable nature. It runs thus: " Pallida luna pluit, flat rubra, sed alba serenat : " which may be translated thus : " a pale moon heralds rain ; a ruddy one means wind ; a white one marks clear weather." Though it is not very easy to see the difference between a pale moon and a white one. Among popular sayings regarding weather and climate, I may here note that of the Spaniards touching the climate of Madrid, which they, justly or unjustly, denounce as being deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ; as thus : " el aire de Madrid no apaga una cerilla, pero quita la vida & un hombre," — " the air of Madrid will not blow out a taper, and yet it will blow out the life of a man." They have the same sentiment in a fuller and rhyming form : "El aire de Madrid es tan sutil Que mata & un hombre, Y no apaga & un candil," — "the air of Madrid is so treacherous that it will kill a man, and yet it will not extinguish a candle." It is evident that the Madrilenos are not proud of their climate, since they them- selves have applied to it the following somewhat gruesome description : "Tres meses invierno, Y nueve meses de infierno : which, being interpreted, means: "three months winter, and nine months hell." In this connection it may not be out of place to cite a some- what startling Italian saying as to the tertian ague, to the FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 41 effect that it will actually invigorate a young man, but that it is sure to kill an old one : "La febbre terzana I giovani li risana, Ed ai vecchi Fa suonar la campana," — "The tertian fever makes the young man whole, But for the old it makes the knell to toll." Travellers in Germany and Switzerland must be familiar with the quaint, sententious inscriptions so often to be seen on houses in those countries, and presenting a curious medley of combined piety and prudence — for example : " Kirchengehen saumet nioht, Armengeben armet nicht, Wagenschmieren hinderfc nicht : " that is to say : " church-going delays not ; almsgiving im- poverishes not; wheel-greasing hinders not." The first of these lines forcibly reminds one of the sentiment which Sir Walter Scott so often puts in the mouths of his characters, to the effect that " meat and mass never hindered work." This comfortable phrase seems indeed to have been a special favourite of Scott's, since he employs it in no less than five different places, namely in A%%e, of Geierstein, chapter 30 ; in the Legend of Montrose, chapter 20 ; in Quentin Durward, chapter 11 ; in Bob Boy, chapter 29 , and in St. Bonan's Well, chapter 14. But to return to these solemn wise saws so common in Switzerland and Germany ; here is another specimen of them : "Denken, dann sagen, Wagen, dann wagen ; Leicht ist zerbroohen, Doch langsam gebaut : '' which in our vernacular means : " first think, then speak ; first ponder, then venture; 'tis easy to dismember, but hard to construct;" a Mthful saying, truly, and one worthy of all 42 PRIBBLES AND BRABBLES acceptation ; and the whole of which, but especially its last two lines, might well be commended to those restless and mischievous politicians who sometimes talk so glibly of pulling to pieces the British constitution and dismembering the British empire. But some of these sanctimonious mural legends are occasionally horribly and indecently selfish, like that sometimes to be seen on the walls of wooden buildings in the Tyrol, which structures are, of course, very liable to be destroyed by fire. Here is the sweet aspiration in question : " Aoh ! heiliger Sanct Florian, Behtit mein Haus, Und zund des Nachbar's an ; " of which the gentle purport is : " Ah ! holy St. Florian, protect my house, and burn my neighbour's down." St. Florian, as many people know, was the patron saint of Poland, and in default of fire insurance companies, he is regarded in various primitive countries as the ex officio protector against what the disciples of Pennialinus love to call ' the devouring element.' The German equivalent of our saying: "don't halloo till you're out of the wood " is : " den Tag nicht preise bevor der Abend kommt": "praise not the day till evening comes," a caution almost identical with that of the crusty and sententious Solon to poor, rich, light-hearted Croesus : " call no man happy till he is dead " ; and the solemn Don has not failed to point the cheerful sentiment, and improve the occasion with his " hasta el fin nadie es dichoso," — "until the end no man is happy." Our old saw to the effect that " the pot calls the kettle black " is expressed a whole shade more graphically in Italian thus : " la padellaidice al paiuolo, tirati in \k, che tu mi tingi," — " the frying-pan says to the kettle, Get out, lest thou soil me " ; and the Italians have another neat enough saying about the frying- pan, namely, " aver un occhio alia padella, e uno al gatto," — " to have one eye on the frying-pan, and one on the cat," in order to denote simultaneous attention to two different things. FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 43 • Here is a curious and pithy old German saying, of which I cannot recall any equivalent in our language : " die Frau kann mit der Schiirze mehr zum Hause hinaustragen als der Mann mit dem Heuwagen hinein," that is to say : " the goodwife can carry more out of the house with her apron than the goodman can carry into it with his hay-wagon," an aphorism employed to accentuate the potentialities of female extravagance, just as the Italian proverb has it : " la donna savia rifa la casa, e la matta la disfa," — " the wise woman builds up the home, the foolish one destroys it." Many are the sayings in many tongues as to the supposed unluckiness of Friday, but the Italians in one of their quaint jingling proverbs pay Tuesday the compliment of inclusion in the prejudice ; thus it runs : "N6 di venere ne di marfce Nfe si sposa nfe si parte," — " no man would wed, or would set forth on a journey on a Friday or a Tuesday." It is difiScult to see how or why the Tuesday came in, except by referring its introduction to the time- honoured connection between Venus and Mars. For " nothing venture, nothing have," the Italians have another of their somewhat grammatically-strained jingles: ''chi non risica non rosica," — "he who risks not eats not." To match our saying on the subject of the wearing of the cap which fits, the Germans have "jedem Narren gefallt seine Kappe," — "every fool is pleased with his cap," although this sajdng may also be employed to mean that every fool is prone to over-ride his hobby, just like the Spanish " cada loco con su tema," — " every idiot has his darling topic." The former of these two senses is tersely rendered by the French phrase : " Qui se sent morveux qu'il se mouche," which, not being so polite as it is pithy, may go without translation. The overweening self-satisfaction which is ridiculed by our saying to the effect that " some people's geese are all swans," 44 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES is well mocked by the German proverb : " was dem einen eine Eulejist dem andern eine Nachtigall," — "what to one man is but an owl, to another is a nightingale." On the same subject the Germans have another saying, expressed in rhyme : " Fangt einer einen Spatz einmal, Und denkt es sei 'ne Nachtigall, Sag 's ihm bei Leibe nicht," — " if one should chance to catch a sparrow, and should fancy it a nightingale, on thy peril undeceive him not." Our "cut your coat according to your cloth" is somewhat amplified — or shall we say diluted ? — by the German saying on the point : "War sich nicht nach der Decke streckt, Dem bleiben die Fiisse unbedeckt," — which literally means : " he who stretches himself not in pro- portion to his coverlet, leaves his feet exposed." Similarly with our — or was it Napoleon's ? — saying on the subject of washing dirty linen at home, which is not improved by the German proverb : " Wer da bauet an die Strassen Muss die Leute reden lassen," — " he who builds by the roadside must let folks talk." To indicate inequalities of fortune, the Germans say : " Der eine spiimt die Seide ; Der andere tragt sie zum Kleide," — "one man merely spins the silk; another wears the silken robe ; " which reminds one of a short specimen of ' Baboo English,' which occurs in Lady Dufiferin's book on India : " the rich man welters in crimson, while the poor one snorts on silk ; " though it would be hard to say what the elegant Baboo intended to convey by the latter clause of his dictum ; or what he meant by his ' weltering ' and ' snorting.' The indubitable fact that tall men are not invariably the cleverest, is well expressed by the following German saying : PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES 45 " Hauser mit vielen Stockwerken pflegen im ob^rsten schlecht bewohnt zu sein," — "houses of many storeys are wont to be poorly inhabited in the topmost storey." Again, with a rhyme : " Gross sein thut es nicht allein, Sonst holte die Kuh den Hasen ein," — "size is not everything, otherwise the cow would catch the hare." Similarly Bacon says : " My Lord St. Albans held that wise nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret four stories high; and therefore that exceeding tall men had ever very empty heads." Is not that ' ever ' just a little too much ? Surely not all tall men are fools. Old Fuller, too, has his fling at big men : " Often the cock-loft is empty in those whom nature hath buUt many stories high." That ' often ' is better — surely we have heard of soTne men who were not only tall, but also clever. It is not right to be too hard on the sons of Anak. " Hell is paved livith good resolutions " is well represented, rather than directly expressed, by the following Italian saying : " Del senno di poi son piene le fosse," — " the ditches are full of after-thoughts." For calling a spade a spade, the Italians say : " Chiamar la gatta gatta e non micia," — " call the cat cat, and not puss." " A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush " is pretty much the same in German : " ein Sperling in der Hand ist besser als zwei auf dem Dache," — " a sparrow in the hand is better than two on the house-top ; " and the idea is expressed still more effectively in Italian : " meglio un uovo oggi che una gallina domani," — " better an egg to-day than a hen to-morrow." The verity that ' murder will out ' is somewhat ponderous and lengthy in German: "Es ist nichts so fein gesponnen, Es kommt endlich an die Sonnen : " but then it boasts the glory of a rhyme, I do not remember any German or Italian saying which corresponds to ours as to speech being silver, but silence golden 46 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES though doubtless the sentiment is expressed in those languages. Moliere, however, puts it with true Gallic neatness in his " qui parle sem^, qui ^coute moissonne." The familiar fact expressed by our proverb' as to the im- possibility of making " a silk purse out of a sow's ear," or of changing one's nature, whether inborn or inbred, has of course been represented in many languages and in various ages. There is, for example, the well-known and well-worn line in the Epistles of Horace : "Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque reourret," — "you may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she will ever return." And on the same theme we have his famous second epode, with its concluding lines : " Haee ubi locutus fenerator Alfius, Jam jam futurua rustious, Omnem redegit Idibus pecuniam, Quaerit Kalendis ponere : " where the poet comically represents the Roman usurer, weary of the city and of the sordid cares of his calling ; and resolved to abandon both. After drawing to himself an entrancing picture of the sweets of rural life, he calls in the whole of his invested hoards, with the determination of applying them to the purchase of a country seat ; but nature and ingrained habit finally prevail over his new-formed dream, and he straightway lays out the money in usury as before. The Spaniards express this idea by the following rhyming proverb : "La mona aunque se vista de seda, Mona se queda," — " the ape, even if clad in silk, remains an ape ; " and Sheikh Sadi has a Persian couplet to much the same effect : "Akibat goorgzada goorg shavad, Garcheh ba admi boozoorg shavad," — " the wolf-cub, though reared among men, in the end turns out FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 47 but a wolf." And yet, on the principle, probably, that no rule is without its exception, the same poet elsewhere adduces a case to show the very opposite : " Sug i ashab i kahaf roze chand Pei i nekan girift, adam shud," — " the dog of the companions of the cave for many days clung to the footsteps of the virtuous, and in the end itself became a man." The' allusion is, of course to Katmir, the faithful hound which attached itself to the Seven Sleepers, and which eventually, as a reward for its fidelity, was promoted to manhood and admitted to Paradise. Our " do at Rome as the Romans do " is expressed in Italian without any reference to Rome, but simply, and with more general application, by "paese dove vai usa come trovi," — "whatever land you visit, there do as you find the natives do." Much to the same purport the Italians say : " quando si e in ballo, bisogna ballare," — "when you are at a ball you must needs dance." " Brevity is the soul of wit " is tersely rendered in Italian by " ogni buon giuoco dura poco," — " every good jest is soon over." This last saying, however, is also employed in order to repress exuberant or ill-timed, or unduly prolonged merriment. Somewhat akin to our ' diamond cut diamond ' is the Italian maxim " duro con dure non fa buon muro," which strictly means, in builder's phrase, that two hard substances, employed together, make a bad wall; the idea being that such substances are antagonistic to each other. " One swallow does not make a summer/' figures as " un fiore non fa prima vera," — " a single flower does not make spring." " A cat may look at a king " is less pithy in Italian : " anco ai tapini ^ dato guardare alle stelle," — " even the lowly may look at the stars." "Strike while the iron is hot" has two representatives in Italian, one of them identical with ours : " bisogna battere il ferro 48 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES fin ch'fe caldo ; " and the other with a different idea : " aspettar la palla al balzo,"— " watch for the ball at the hop." " Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other" is expressed in Italy by two diverse sayings : " Se non e Inpo, b can bigio," — " if it is not a wolf, it is a grey dog; " and another of curious tenor : " Se non ^ zuppa, h pan molle/' — " if it is not soup, it is soft bread ; " which does not seem to make much sense, at least to our minds ; nevertheless, it is employed as the equivalent of our saying just quoted. It should be noted, however, that both of these Italian sayings are always used in a contemptuous and depreciatory sense. " Solvitur ambulando " is denoted in Italy by " per via s'aggiusta la soma," — "the load fits, or settles itself, by the way." Our "much cry and little wool" has two forms in Italian : " molto fumo e poco arrosto," — " much smoke but little roast meat ; " and " assai pampani (second ' a ' short) e poco uva," — " plenty of leaves, but precious few grapes." Much diversity of opinion or of desires is indicated by " chi la vuole a lesso, e chi arrosto," — " one wants boiled, another wants roast." Some German youth-hater must have invented the harsh saying: " Jugend hat keine Tugend," — "youth is destitute of virtue;" but then in proverb-building a rhyme or a jingle generally constitutes a strong temptation to the construction of the proverb. There is, however, pith as well as good jingle in the German ' Eile mit Weile,' which is equivalent to ' festina lente ' ; or to our sajdng " the more haste, the less speed." It may be remembered that ' festina lente ' forms the a,ppropriate motto of the family of Onslow. " Unverhofft kommt oft " is pretty much the same thing in German as the French saying: "rien n'arrive que I'imprevu." Our old jingling proverb : " Needles and pins, Needles and pins. When a man marries His sorrow begins " FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 49 figures more crisply, and certainly more grimly, in German as " Ehestand ist Wehestand," — " matrimony is misery." There would seem to be a considerable consensus of opinion among mankind to the efifect that domestic visits ought to be brief. There is our old saying : " rest day, dress day, and press day," to denote that a visit ought ordinarily to |be restricted to three clear days, extendible, possibly, to a fourth. On the first, the visitor should have a quiet time for repose after his journey — journeys formerly were more formidable matters than they are now. On the second day, a party should be given in his honour. On the third, he ought in common decency to be pressed to stay another day. Similarly our Indian fellow-subjects say : " mihmani ki shart teen din talak hai," — " the limits of hospitality extend to three days." The German proverb on this point is still less generous, if not positively churlish : " dreitagiger Gast wird eine Last," — " the guest who stays three days becomes a nuisance; while it is said that there is a Chinese aphorism which would tend to show that the Celestials, whatever their other virtues may be, are certainly not ' given to hospitality.' I am not familiar with the Chinese language, but I believe that the genial sentiment in question runs to the effect that " when the guest is gone, the host is glad." Of course there are sundry sayings in sundry tongues illus- trative of the importance of punctuation. Most people have heard of the various villainous oracular responses of ancient times, which hinge on this point, such as the paltering line : " Ibis, redibis, non morieris in bello," — "thou shalt go, thou shalt return, thou shalt not die in the war," vrith its sense fatally inverted by the transposition of its second comma. Then there was the shameful deception of poor Croesus by the juggling fiends of Delphi ; although, truly, this latter was not effected by any shabby trick of mere punctuation, but rather by equivoque of a subtler sort. The Italians have a 50 PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES more modem example of the thing in their saying: "per un punto Martin perse la cappa,"— " Martin lost his prior's hood by a comma;" since, instead of writing on the convent door: "Porta patens esto, nulli claudatur honesto," — "let this door be open, let it be closed to no good man," he wrote : "Porta patens esto nulli, claudatur honesto,'' which, unfortunately, meant the very reverse. Another, and a somewhat fresher example of equivoque, though not dependent on punctuation, will be in the recollection of some people as having been ascribed to the third Napoleon. It is somewhere related that on his famous — or infamous — second of December, St. Arnaud rode up to him and asked him for instructions as to how he should deal with the ' insurgents.' Napoleon chanced to be suffering from a very convenient cough, and, for reply to the question of the marshal, he ejaculated between its paroxysms : ' ma sacree toux ! ' : " Oh, this blessed — or cursed — cough of mine ! " — which, however, was interpreted by his interrogant as : ' massacrez tons,' — ' kill them all ! ' Spanish proverbs are quaint and forcible. A good Spanish equivalent for our " give a dog a bad name, and hang him," though inverse in its sense, is: "cria buena fama, y echate d, dormir," — " make a good name for yourself, and then you may go to sleep." The following, too, is a good Spanish saying : " Sabe mas el loco en su casa que el cuerdo en la agena," — "the fool knows more in his own house — that is, about his own affairs — than thetsage knows about other people's business." That good cheer alleviates distress is well expressed by : " los duelos con pan son menos," — " sorrows accompanied by bread grow less ; " and we learn from Homer that even Niobe, in the transports of her grief for the loss of her children, drew consolation from so material a source as creature comforts. Another Spanish wise saw is : " mal de muchos consuelo de FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 51 tontos," — " the calamity of the many is the comfort of fools ; " an allusion to that strange perversity of our fallen nature, by the operation of which, according to La Rochefoucauld, and to older philosophers, we sometimes derive a sort of grim delight from the misfortunes of our neighbours — the 'Schadenfreude' of the Germans, the eTrtxa'peta/c^a of Aristotle, and the KOKo'xapros of Hesiod. " In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man " — whom Carlyle rather affectedly calls the Arimaspian — " is king," seems to have been either translated from the Spanish to the English or vice versa: " en la tierra de los ciegos el tuerto es rey." The folly of weak vessels contending with their betters is well set forth by the saying of the Don : " si da el cantaro en la piedra, la piedra en el cantaro, mal para el cantaro," — " whether the pitcher comes in contact with the stone, or the stone comes in contact with the pitcher, it fares ill with the pitcher." Our "tell that to the maxines," the Spaniard renders by "a otro perro este hueso," — " offer that bone to some other dog." " Mis- fortunes never come singly " is in Spanish " un ruin ido, otro venido," — "one evil gone, another comes on." Of course to Englishmen the most familiar and famous saying on this subject is Shakespeare's — "When sorrows come, they come not smgle spies, But in battalions." The same sentiment is expressed by Homer in the beautiful lament of Briseis for the slain Patroclus — •Iliad, XIX. 290. It is also found in the Hecuba and in the Troades of Euripides, and doubtless it has been sorrowfully sung by many other poets, and in every age of suffering man. Here is one more Spanish proverb, which I cite on the ground that it is distinctly a shade more forcible than ours on the same subject. We say that "the scalded cat shuns the fire;" but the Spaniards, with undoubtedly greater pith, say : " el gato 52 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES escaldado del agua fria huye," — " the scalded cat dreads even cold water." Our saying to the effect that "one good turn deserves another" has two versions in German: "eine Liebe ist der andern werth ; " and, somewhat more picturesque : " Wascht eine Hand nicht die andere ? " — " doth not the one hand wash the other ? " Our '' well begun is half done " appears in German as "frisch gewagt ist halb gewonnen," — "what is boldly ventured on is half won." In Italian the idea is expressed by the more simple phrase : " tutto sta nel principiare," — " all consists in commencement ; " and of course we have it in the well-worn French dictum, "ce n'est que le premier pas qui coilte." To denote confusion worse confounded the Germans say : " man weiss nicht wer Koch und wer Kellner sei," — " no one knows which is the cook and which is the waiter." " New brooms sweep clean" is nearly the same in German: "neue Besen (besoms) gut fegen." Touching the much-bewritten theme of the alleged mutability of women — the " varium et mutabile semper femina " of Virgil — the Italians have, as might be expected, sundry sayings, such as — "La donna h la luna, Oggi Serena, domani bruna," — "woman is like the moon: to-day bright, to-morrow dark." Also " la donna h un barometro che segna sempre variabile," — " woman is a barometer which always marks change." Perhaps in order to compensate for this most unjust sneer, they indicate the irresistible power of the fair sex by their curious saying drawn from the field of grammar : " I'uomo e un nome in caso accusative retto dal verbo attivo donna," — " man is a noun in the accusative case governed by the active verb woman." Surely this notion must have sprung from the brain of a hen-pecked professor. By the -n^ay, they have a pithy PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 53 rhyming couplet to denote the domestic state of things where " the grey mare is the better horse : " " In quella casa k poca pace Dove gallina canta e gallo tace," — " there is little peace in that house where the hen crows and the cock is mute." What the Greeks called ixen-^ijioipCa, or dissatisfaction with one's lot — the 'qui fit, Maecenas,' etc. of Horace — must surely be the subject of many sayings in many tongues ; and yet the sole one bearing on the point, in modern languages, which now occurs to me is the French one : " quand on n'a pas ce qu'on aime, il faut aimer ce qu'on a." Of course the ever pertinent Horace has his "Invidus alterius macresoit rebus opimis," — " the envious man pines away at the thought of the prosperity of his neighbour ; " and elsewhere : "Optat ephippia bos, piger optat arare caballus," — " the ox longs for the trappings of the horse ; and the sluggish steed affects the plough; " in still another passage he presents the same idea with the words : "Quodque aliena capella gerat distentius uber Tabescat," etc. — "the discontented peasant is consumed by the thought that his neighbour's she-goat bears a more distended udder than his own." While Ovid in the same vein sings: " Fertilior segea est alienis semper in agria, Vicinumque pecus grandius uber habet," — " our neighbours' fields bear always richer crops than ours ; the neighbouring herd displays more swelling udders." The whole idea is one of universal and eternal truth. Travellers and tourists in Italy are often sorely puzzled by the words, or, more properly, by the letters, F. E. R. T. — F. E. R. T. — F. E. R. T.— always thus repeated thrice, which are seen on the 54 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES rims or edges of Italian coins, as well as on the collar of the Order of the Annunziata, and sometunes elsewhere. The mysterious monosyllable is said to be composed of the initial letters of the words which form the sentence : " fortitudo ejus Rhodum tenuit," — " his valour preserved Rhodes ; " which was said of Amedeus V. of Savoy, in reference to his undaunted defence of Rhodes against the assaults of the Turks in the thirteenth century. By the way, it is much to be desired that printers and others would spell the above name in the way above given, and not, as it is so commonly and erroneously spelt, ' Amadeus,' a form not only unknown to the House of Savoy, but also destructive of the significance and etymology of the name. But, to return to the three cryptic words, I may mention that flippant young Italians, Florentine ' mashers,' and others of that kidney, occasionally make merry with a jocular interpretation of the four letters which compose them, which they will gravely tell the inquiring stranger mean nothing else than ' femina erit ruina tua' — 'a woman will be thy ruin'; a drollery akin to that of the London alderman who, being asked by a lady to explain the meaning of the letters S. P. Q. R. which figured conspicuously at a civic entertainment, promptly replied : " Oh, madam, that's the short for small profits and quick returns." Readers of Italian — a diminished number, in these days, I fear — must know the curious word 'busillis,' sometimes, but erroneously, spelt ' busilis ' ; meaning a great difficulty, a crux, a poser or puzzler. Yet it is not Italian ; and even Italians are sometimes ignorant of its genesis, which latter is distinctly interesting. The word occurs in the thirteenth chapter of the ' Promessi Sposi,' where the grand chancellor, Antonio Ferrer, rescues the vicario di Provvisione from the howling mob of Milan in the famous episode of the bread riots. When Antonio bids the trembling vicario to run the gauntlet through the surging crowd from his house to the chancellor's carriage, he FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 55 exclaims in his native Spanish : " aqui est^ el busillis ; Dios nos valga ! " — " here's the diflScult point, or the point of danger ; may God help us ! " The expression often occurs too in modern Italian, in the newspapers, and in conversation : " qui h il busillis " — " here's the rub." It is said to be derived from the following curious circumstance. A young candidate for the priesthood, being under his examination for holy orders, was required, among other tests, to read an old Latin manuscript in which, after the manner of these exhilarating documents, there were no stops, and the words composing it were joined together and run into one another in a highly aggravating way. In this cheerful paper there occurred the words : ' in diebus illis ' ; but, unfortunately for our candidate, the first part of the words ' in diebus ' formed the end of a line — thus, ' indie ' — and the following line commenced with the remaining syllable of the word ' diebus,' carefully run into the succeeding word — thus : ' busillis.' All went smoothly enough with our young friend till he came to this formidable point. He translated ' indie ' fairly enough, though in this instance wrongly, ' nel giorno,' — ' in the day ' ; but of ' busillis ' he could make neither head nor tail ; and he finally threw up the sponge, exclaiming in his despair ; " quel busiUis h un punto assai oscuro e difiicile " — " this busillis is a most obscure and difficult point." Well, if not true, it is pretty well found. Anyhow, the word is now well rooted and vigorously established in the national speech. Persons who have lived much in Italy, and who have moved to any extent in Italian society, cannot fail to have been struck by the extravagant profusion with which orders, crosses, and other decorations seem to be lavished on men of all sorts and conditions. In a Roman or Florentine ball-room every second man appears to be positively plastered with such badges of distinction ; to such an extent that, like Talleyrand on a well- known occasion, one feels disposed to think that true distinction is best marked by the absence of decoration ; and I have known 66 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES a young military officer whose breast blazed with crosses and medals, and who to my knowledge had never really seen war This blot did not escape the falcon glance vof Giuseppe Giusti, the Italian satirist, who levelled against it the following pungent epigram : "In tempi barbari e piu feroci S'appiccavan i ladri in suUe croci ; In tempi men barbari e piu leggiadri S'appiccano le croci in petto ai ladri," — which may be roughly rendered thus : "In barbarous days and ruder, times The rogues were hung on crosses ; In these degenerate mawkish days On rogues they hang the crosses." It is said that Victor Emmanuel was specially prone to the bestowal of decorations, even on persons destitute of merit, but pertinacious in application for such things ; and if at any time any of his counsellors ventured to remonstrate with him on such a profanation of the fountain of honour, he was wont to reply with a good-natured shrug of his shoulders, " un sigaro o una croce non si nega a nessuno," — " it is impossible to refuse a cigar or a cross to any poor devil." The following is a good specimen of the once celebrated political utterances of Pasquino and Marforio — those quaint and pungent Fescennine verses by means of which the modern Roman vox populi used to find expression. It is cited in his ' Ricordi ' by Massimo d'Azeglio, as having been pronounced in reference to the death of Pope Leo XII. : " Tre danni ci facesti, O Padre Santo; Prima accettare il manto ; E poi di campar tanto; Morir di carnevale per esser pianto," — three wrongs thou didst to us, holy father : first in assuming the purple at all ; then in living so unconscionably FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 57 long; and lastly in dying in mid-carnival in order to be mourned;" or, to attempt a rhyming version : "Your Holiness three grievous wrongs hath done: First, that you ever put the purple on; Next, that you wore it for so many years; Then died in carnival to draw our tears." I would fain present one or two more examples of the pasquinade, but they figure best in their native Italian, and like other exotic pleasantries, they suffer seriously in translation, during which process the best of their humour evaporates. I will, however, cite just one more, partly because it illustrates the hatred of the papal government which used to animate the Roman populace. During the time of Pio Nono it once chanced that an aeronaut visited Rome, and requested the pontifical authorities to permit him to exhibit an ascent of his balloon. The Pope said he would grant the solicited permission ; but only on the condition that the aeronaut should not endanger his life by accompanying the ascent, but should place a sheep in the car of his balloon instead of occupying it himself. When this had been done, " Pasquino si diede una fregatina di mani, e disse a Marforio, 'caro mio, ora che h volata la pecora, preparati a vedere il volo del pastore,' " — " Pasquino rubbed his hands with glee, and said to Marforio, ' my dear fellow, now that the sheep has taken to flight, you may expect to see the shepherd follow suit.'" The following excellent squib on Papal infallibility appeared some years ago in Sir Frederick Pollock's amusing reminiscences. It has probably not been seen by everybody ; and, in any case, it is good enough to brave the reproach of being crambe repetita : "Quando Eva morse e morder fece U pomo, Iddio per salvar I'uomo si fece uomo; Ma il vicario di Cristo Pio Nono Per far I'uomo sohiavo si fece Dio," — which, literally translated, means : " when Eve bit the apple, 58 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES and caused her spouse to bite it, God, to save man, made Himself a man ; but now Christ's vicar, Pio Nono, to make man his slave, has made himself a god : "—or, to attempt a rendering in rhyme : " When Eve to Adam gave the apple she had bitten, God, to save man, on earth in man's form trod; But now Christ's vicar, with ambition smitten, To make mankind his slaves, proclaims himself a god." Many persons may not have seen, and may care to see, William Barnes's clever tetraglot epigram — or epigram in four languages — to the comprehension of the second line of which it is only needful to know that the Latin for ' thief ' is ' fur,' a word of three letters; and that, consequently, the Romans used euphemistically to call a thief ' a man of three letters.' Here are the lines : " Se I'uom che deruba un tomo Trium literarum est homo, Celui qui d&obe trois tomes A man of letters must become." We may presume that some friend of his had stolen, or failed to return, three volumes of the poet's books ; whereupon he observes, as above, that if the man who steals one volume may be called a man of three letters (a thief), he who steals three volumes is likely to become a man of letters indeed. There is no doubt that Barnes was a genius in his way, and that he produced many pastoral poems of considerable beauty, though it may be questioned whether local dialect is a good vehicle for poetry or anything else. But the Dorsetshire dominie was in some matters what the Americans call a downright 'crank.' He undoubtedly had a bee in his bonnet, and that bee buzzed chiefly to the tune of the eradication from our language of all elements but those drawn from the strictest English or Saxon sources. The faintest trace of Latin, Greek, or any other foreign origin in any given word was to him what a red rag is to a bull. In his opinion all such words ought to FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 59 be ruthlessly rooted out from our speech. To sane people it is obvious that this is not only undesirable, but impossible. We know that the truly English element in our language forms but a fraction of the grand and marvellous compound which we call English. Professor Meiklejohn, himself a reasonable champion of Saxon, truly says that the Latin element is indispensable, and that, without it, the writings of Shakespeare and of Milton would have been simply impossible, and the same author cites a brief passage written by Leigh Hunt in express condemnation of the use of Latin derivatives, and enjoining the employment of the Saxon element alone ; and yet that very passage, brief as it is, contains no less than thirty-five words of Latin extraction ; or about one half of the whole passage. In point of fact, it would be almost impossible to write, or to accept, an invitation to dinner without the use of words drawn from Latin sources ; and even if it were possible to dispense with such words, it would be undesirable and ridiculous to do so ; just as ridiculous, in fact, as it would be for us to discard the comfortable and complete clothing of the present day, and return to the nide and scanty habiliments of Gurth and Wamba; or, to use a still homelier simile, it would be as absurd as to try to make a plum pudding out of suet alone, rejecting all the othervaluable and indispensable ingredients which go to make up that delicacy. In the pursuit of this ridiculous fad Barnes regaled the world with some most extravagant and ludicrous forms of speech. He wanted to abolish the word ' language ' itself, and to call it ' speechcrafb.' Adjectives were in future to be ' markwords of suchness.' Degrees of comparison were to be known as ' pitch- marks ' ; and he gravely tells us that 'pitchmarks offmark sundry things by their sundry suchnesses.' ' Carnivorous ' was to become ' flesh- eatsome'; "ruminating' was henceforth to be 'cud- chewsome ' ; ' logic ' was to be known as ' rede-craft ' ; a syllogism was in future to be styled ' a redeship of three thought-puttings ' ; and so forth. However, to cut the matter 60 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES short, I append a brief list containing a few well-known English words, as now by custom established, placing opposite to each the gruesome and grotesque new-fangled expression which Mr. Barnes kindly proposed to substitute in its place. Here it is : Criticism . Deemsterhood, Democracy Folkdom. Quadrangle Fourwinkle. Ambassador Statespellman Botany Wortlore. Telegram . Wirespell. Perambulator Pushwainling. Omnibus . Folkwain. Generation Child-team. Butler Cellar-thane. Electricity . Fire-ghost. Epidemic . Manqualm. But enough of these nauseating absurdities. Let us wash away the taste of them with the following deft French punning couplet, which appears I know not where : "Ce gage d'amiti^ plus qiCun autre me touche, Un serrement de main vaut dix serments de bouche." CHAPTER III Homeriana — Simplicity of heroic times— Analogues of Balaam's ass — Army Doctors — Female servants ' tubbing ' heroes — Blaming the gods for our misfortunes — Character of Hector — Laconic prayer. Dear old Homer! — et ttot er]v ye. Yes, to use his own oft- repeated phrase, if he ever existed. What human feeling does he not re-echo; what chord of human interest does he not touch ? WeU might he have said of himself : " Humani nihil a me alienum puto." We are never tired of him; we never exhaust him. Countless generations of scholars, philoso- phers, poets, and plain men have browsed on him, and will browse on him. He is never used up. It is possible to glean in his grand old pages even after a grand old man. However much we may pick his dear old bones, yet, as an elegant American writer gracefully observed regarding another great literary cadaver, "there is meat on him still." Like the elephant, which can uproot a palm or lift a pin, so our old friend can handle alike imperial themes and trifles light as air ; the deeds of heroes, or the qualms of ocean ; and there is hardly a topic, from pitch and toss to manslaughter, which he does not touch upon. The pages of Homer — and of Virgil, too, for that matter — are sometimes damaging to certain usurped reputations. To judge from these authors, our old friend Aeneas — the pious Aeneas — would seem to have been a somewhat overrated character at the least, if not a distinctly ' shady ' one. He may have been very ' pious ' ; but his conduct seems to have been 61 62 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES on sundry occasions very doubtful, to say the least of it. That perpetually paraded ' piety ' of his is a bad sign. Let us see what Homer has to say of this sanctimonious gentleman. Without any declared intention of running him down, or holding him up to reprobation, old Maeonides never- theless rarely represents him in a creditable light. In the Iliad, V. 224, he is found coolly proposing to Pandarus that they should prepare forthwith to run away, saying of his vaunted steeds that they are well fitted to bear himself and his comrade safe out of the fight : rii Koi vwi 'jr6\tvSe ffat&fferoy, efTrep &v aSre " If after all, Jove purpose still to exalt The son of Tydeus, these shall bear us safe Back to the city," — and he makes this disgraceful proposal before so much as attempting to strike a single blow ! In the Iliad, XIII. 459 sqq., we find him skulking well in the rear of the fighting line at a critical moment of the combat. Deiphobus goes in search of him, and what is the result of his search ? rhp S' uVtotoi' cSpcv i/iiAov " Him he found apart Behind the crowd." Then, again, in Iliad, XVII. 533, he is found turning his back without even an effort to defend himself, and fleeing from the two Ajaces; and although on this occasion he flees in good company — that, to wit, of Hector himself — still, the action — or rather want of action — was anything but creditable to him: Toiis vnorapfiiiffavTes ix^P't""'" "'''A"' a?Tis "EKTwp 'hivelas t' : " Before them Hector and Aeneas both . in alarm recoiled ; " FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 63 ay, and in fleeing they basely abandoned their wounded comrade Aretus, and left him to be cut up ! Once more, in Iliad, XX. 79 sqq., Apollo, in the borrowed form of Priam's son Lycaon, urges him to advance and meet the onset of Achilles, at the same time taunting him with his previous boasts over the winecups. But, oh, no; the pious hero flatly declines to do anything of the kind, and unblush- ingly admits that once before, on Mount Ida, he had run away from Pelides : TlpiaiilSji, rl fie ravra /col ovk efle'XoCTO /ceXcieis aVTta TlTj\cici]PQs inrep^vfioLo fidx^a'Oat; etc. : "Why, son of Priam, urge me to contend Against my will, with Peleus' mighty son? I met him once And fled before his spear, on Ida's hill," etc. — and although he does, after all, for very shame, screw up his courage to confront Achilles, yet very shortly, as often on other occasions, he has to be delivered by that shabby device, the intervention of a god — ^this time Neptune — who blinds Achilles with a fog, and bears away our pious hero. So much for Homer's testimony on the subject. Now let us put Virgil into the witness-box. In the second book of the Aeneid we find this pious gentle- man, during the sack of Troy, by his own admission, looking on calmly and passively at the slaughter of Priam by Pyrrhus ; making no sort of efibrt to intervene ; and not even apologising for, or attempting to explain, his conduct. Thus, Aeneid, II, 501: "Vidi Hecubam centumque nurus, Priamumque per aras Sanguine foedantem, quos ipse sacraverat, ignes," — "I saw the unhappy queen. The hundred wives, and where old Priam stood To stain his hallowed altars with his blood." Then, again, his loss of his first wife, poor Creiisa, was, to say the least of it, 'fishy.' The whole of the circumstances 64 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES attending her sudden and mysterious disappearance were most suspicious. See Aeneid, II. 735 sqq. "Hie mihi nescio quod trepido male numen amicum Confusam eripuit mentem," etc. "Some hostile god, for some unknown offence. Had sure bereft my mind of better sense ; For while through winding ways I took my flight. And sought the shelter of the gloomy night, Alas ! I lost Creiisa," etc. As to his treatment of poor Dido, and its mournfully tragic results for her, the less said, the better. Altogether it is pretty evident that this oveiTated ' pious ' gentleman was, after all, no better than he should have been. As Pococurante says in Gandide : " Pour son pieux Enee, et le fort Cloanthe, et I'ami Achates et le petit Ascanius, et I'imbecile roi Latinus, et la bourgeoise Amata, et I'insipide Lavinia, je ne crois pas qu'il y ait rien de si froid et de plus desagr^able. J'aime mieux le Tasse, et les contes k dormir debout de TArioste." One of the most winsome features of Homer consists in his numerous hints or pictures of the quaint simplicity which would seem to have characterised what we may call the heroic times. Of this a good example is afforded in Iliad, IX. 205 sqq., which presents a description of the reception by AchiUes of the deputation consisting of Ulysses, Telamonian Ajax, and the aged Phcenix, who had been sent by Agamemnon to try to mollify the sulking hero. Here Achilles and his friend Patroclus with their own hands cook the food and serve it to their guests : aiirap 9ye Kpeiov jue-ya KiifiBa\€v iy irvphs aiiy^f iv 8' Spo vSnov iBriK' i'ios Kol irlovos alyis, ti/ Se iTv))s fn6.\oio hd-x^v T^BaKvlav hKoit^ : "Patroclus his commands obeyed; Meantime AchUles in the fire-light placed Upon an ample tray, a saddle each Of sheep and goat, and with them, rich in fat, A chine of well-fed hog." FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 65 See, too, the moving scene where Priam ventures to the Grecian camp, and dares to ask from Achilles the hody of his son Hector. Achilles springs up, and with his own hands slays a sheep, which his followers — ^themselves chiefs — flay, dress, and serve to the sorrowing king. Iliad, XXIV. 621 : ^ Kt^ vi.va%as, otv &pyv^ov uiKvs AxtWsbs ffipd^'' eTapot 8' ^Sep6v re Kot &fitpewov iZ Kara KSiTfiov. "So spake Achilles, and upstarting slew A sheep whitefleeoed, which his attendants flayed," &c. Then, again, it would seem that the steeds of Hector were fed by Andromache, his wife, with her own hands. See Miad, VIII. 184: &s elv^v 'LifirouXLV iKeK\eTO tpiivTjfrep re* Bdvde re Kol ai, n6Sapye, Kol 'AiBav, Ad/ine tc SU, vvv fiot T^v KOfitS^i/ atrorlyeToVf ^v fid\a iroW^v 'AvSpofiAxVt Bvyarqp 'fieya^iiTopos 'HeTiavos iifiiv nap irpoTepoia't fjie\lij)pova irvphv i6TjKei/ : " He said, and thus with cheering words addressed His horses : Xanthus and Podargus, thou Aethon, and Lampus, now repay the care On you bestowed by fair Andromache, Eetion's royal daughter ; bear in mind How she with ample store of provender Tour mangers still supplied, before e'en I," &c. So, too, Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, and her high- born maidens, with their own hands wash their own clothes at the rural cistern. Odyssey, VI. 25 and 90 : Toi 8* CtTT* avfiVTjs eXfiUiTa xepfflc €\ovto, koI iff(p6peov /x4\aj/ liStop ffTel^ov 8' iv 066pot(n, Bows ^ptSa •7rpoap 8' ^/juite Kapiiari- iraaa Sk X"^''?;, C^6y\Tjs ^^epi'TTovira Trapct ^u^!)!/ 6v8as iKavev, avSiieVTa 3' tBijKc Bsh \evKii\cvos "Hpri. "To whom in answer, from beneath the yoke Xanthus, the noble horse with glancing feet, Bowing his head the while till all his mane, Down from the yoke-band streaming, reached the ground, By Juno, white-armed Queen, with speech endowed." The same hero's coursers bewailed the death of his friend Patroclus, and shed salt tears for him. See Iliad, XVII. 426 : Viriroi S' AiaKiBao, juc^xis airdvevBev eiJi/Tes K\aiOV, eiretS^ irpwra 'jrv64(T6i}v ifvi^xoto iv Kovlriffi ■7rea6vTos iip' "EKTopos av8poip6voio, etc. "Meantime the horses of Aeacides From fight withdrawn, soon as they understood Their charioteer fallen in the dust beneath The arm of homicidal Hector, wept. FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 67 Beneath the splendid car they stood, their heads Down-drooping to the ground, while scalding tears Dropped earthward from their eyelids, as they mourned Their charioteer." In our day restless army doctors, apparently anxious to conceal the fact that they are doctors, and to pose as copper captains, have lately wrung from a weak-kneed government a sort of pinchbeck military titles, to the merriment of all sane men. By the way, why should these gentlemen he ashamed of their own noble profession, and desire to posture as military men ? Surely a doctor is at least as good as a captain. Moreover, it might be argued that if army doctors are to be colonels and generals, then army chaplains should be colonels and generals as well ; and navy doctors should likewise be commodores and admirals. However, having won these most ridiculous titles, the army doctor might go a step further, and might cite Homer as affording good precedent for conferring on him actual military command ; for is it not written in Eiad, II. 729 sg^., that two Grecian army surgeons commanded the combined contingents of Oechalia, Tricca, and Ithome ? o1 '^' fx"" Oixtt\lriv, ■k6Kiv Eipirov OixaKirjos, Tav o88 iiyelirSriv 'A(rKKr)inov Sio iraiSe, iijTijp' ayaSii, TloSaXfipios iiSe Haxaav. "From Tricca, from Ithom^ rough and rude With rocks and glens, and from Oechalia, town Of Eurytus Oechalian-born, came forth Their warlike youth by Podalirius led, And by Machaon, healers both expert Of all disease." Another translator more closely describes these medico-military leaders as — "Two skilful leeches, Aesculapius' sons." To my mind, it would have seemed fitter that these two medical gentlemen should have commanded 'Magnesia's troops,' 68 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES mentioned a little lower down, at line 756. This reminds me, by the way, that that pleasant potion, rhubarb and magnesia, terror of our childhood, seems to have passed to the limbo of disuse, along with senna tea, black draught, and sundry other now forgotten delicacies. Homer, however, in Iliad, XI. 514-, pays a tribute no more than just to the value of the army doctor : iois t' iKT6,fiueiv iirl -r* ^wta tftiipfiaKa vao-(T€iv, Avhich Cowper renders thus : "Since one so skilled in medicine, and to free The inherent barb, is worth a multitude." And Cordery, as follows : "For whoso hath the sage physician's art To cut forth arrows and to spread soft salves. Is worth the lives of many a common man." It is curious to observe, from this passage, as well as from line 833 of the same book, that the whole Grecian army pos- sessed only two surgeons. Fortunately, however, the Trojans had no Lee-Metford rifles, or maxim guns, and, above all, no Lyddite shells. In Odyssey, XVII. 88, XIX. 317, and in many other places. Homer gives us to understand that female servants used to wash the heroes in their baths, just as now nurses wash infants in their tubs. Indeed, in Odyssey, III. 464, he states that Nestor's own daughter Polycast^ herself tubbed Telemachus in this way; and there is no reason to suppose that on these occasions the gentlemen wore bathing-drawers, or any other covering, for, in Odyssey, VI. 218, we find Ulysses, with a delicacy greatly to his credit, refusing to be bathed by the maidens of Nausicaa, or even to bathe himself in their presence, seeing that he was what the Spaniards call 'in cuerpo,' FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 69 The banquets of the heroes, though characterised by a somewhat coarse profusion, were always of the most primitive description, and pork seems to have been with them what the Germans call a ' ZieUingssjpeise,' or favourite food. The attend- ance, too, was always of the simplest kind. Thus, in Odyssey, I. 139, we learn that even at the board of the luxurious and ostentatious 'suitors' the principal attendant was a female servant — a toju^tj — and it was just the same at the feasts of the great King Alcinous, as may be seen from Odyssey, VII. 166. Then, again, Homer generally represents Ulysses and .other heroes, when landing on any strange coast, as meeting the daughter of the king of the country carrying water from the well, or the like; see Odyssey, X. 105, where the comrades of Ulysses, on reconnoitring Lsestrygonia, meet the daughter of the monarch on her way to the spring to fetch water for the royal palace; while Priam, on his adventurous visit to Achilles, with the view of ransoming the body of Hector, himself drives the cart containing the gifts by which he hopes to effect his object. Iliad, XXIV. 188 sqq. While on the subject of heroes, it may be well to note that in Homer the term 'hero' — ijpoos — is applied not only to valiant warriors, but also to persons who had nothing to do with war, as in Odyssey, VIII. 483, where it is used with reference to the blind old bard Demodocus; while in Odyssey, IV. 21, it is appUed to Telemachus when he was a boy, and had as yet done nothing warlike. Again, in Odyssey, XVIII. 423, the herald Mulius is called a hero. True, it might be said that the occupation of a herald had at least something to do with war ; but in Odyssey, VII. 44, the term is applied to the inhabitants of Phasacia, who, in the same poem, VIII. 246, are described by their own king Alcinous to Ulysses as being absolutely unwarlike. The fact is, that the term seems to have been, or to have become, a mere honorary title, just like dyitiJ/xwj', which, meaning 10 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES ' blameless,' is by Homer applied to the greatest rascals, as, in Odyssey, I. 29, to the infamous Aegisthus. Indeed, it appears to have meant no more than our title ' Excellency.' Now an 'Excellency' might be, and perhaps often is, a man of bad moral character, just as a 'noble Lord' might be, though I hope seldom is, a scoundrel. It is curious that Homer never represents mortals as being appalled, or even astonished, by supernatural apparitions. Thus Achilles is not a whit terrified by the appearance of the ghost of Patroclus, but on the contrary, desires to embrace it (Iliad, XXIII. 93). Similarly with Ulysses and the ghost of his mother, Odyssey, XI. 84 and 152; although this is not so remarkable, since Ulysses was then actually engaged in a preternatural expedition to Hades, and, of course, expected to meet ghosts. From sundry passages of Homer it is evident that the ancient Greeks were in the habit of giving wine to infants, see Odyssey, XVI. 444, where Eurymachus the suitor tells Penelope that Ulysses had often taken him on his knee when he was a child and administered to him 'the red wine.' And see also the moving appeal of old Phoenix to Achilles, in the ninth book of the Iliad, where the aged hero draws a touching picture of the infancy of his fierce friend, and reminds him how he. Phoenix, used to take him on his knees and feed him with dainties and ply him with wine, which the wayward child would spout out of his mouth and therewith stain the tunic of his tutor. 7ro\Ac£/ci /xot KareSevtras iirl aT^d^ffffi x^Twyo iivov, aTroP\i(av iv vrjirieri a\ey€ivf : "I placed thee on my knees, with my own hand Thy viands carved, and fed thee, and the wine Held to thy lips, and many a time, in fits Of infant frowardness, the purple juice Rejecting, thou hast deluged all my vest, And filled my bosom." On the other hand, many passages in Homer serve to show PRIEBLES AND PEABBLES 71 that in those days wine was not very strong, and therefore an occasional sip of it might not be very hurtful to infants. Nevertheless, to show that it could intoxicate we have two palmary incidents, both of which ought to serve as a salutary warning to drunkards. The first of these is the case of Polyphemus the Cyclops who, after having devoured six of the comrades of Ulysses, would assuredly have gobbled up the rest of them, and their leader into the bargain, had not the latter freely plied the monster with a fine, full-bodied wine; and, when he was helplessly drunk, bored out his one eye with his own walking-stick. Odyssey, IX. 347 sqq. The other caution to those who love wine not wisely but too well is afforded by the untimely fate of Elpenor who, having got drunk at an inopportune moment, falls asleep in an upper chamber, and when Ulysses and the remnant of his band are leaving the halls of Circe, suddenly wakes up, hurries after them, misses the stairs, tumbles down from the roof, and breaks his neck. Odyssey, X. 550. The same luckless wight, or rather the crapulent ghost of him, shortly after meets his late master in Hades, and piteously deplores his folly. Odyssey, XI. 61 : Stre jue Saiftofos aJffa kok^ Kal ad4a'<^aros olfos : etc. "Fooled by some demon, and the intemperate bowl, I perished in the house of Circe ; there The deep-descending steps I heedless missed, And fell precipitated from the roof." Homer's heroes, like other worthies ia more modem times, were sometimes prone to ascribe their own errors, and the consequences thereof, to the innocent gods, to destiny, and to the Furies. Thus we find that Agamemnon, when apologising to Achilles for his past follies, repudiates all responsibility for them, and lays the blame on the supernatural powers. Iliad, XIX. 85 : ^y^ 5* ovK aXriSs et/ii, aWh. Zehs Kol Motpo. ical ^€pooiTis ''E.ptv{is, etc. 72 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES " Yet the blame Rests not with me : Jove, Destiny, and she Who roams the shades, Erinnys, caused the oflfence." And in the assembled council of the gods, we find Jupiter bitterly complaining of this perverse propensity on the part of mortals. Odyssey, I. 32 : & vSiroi otov S^ vv BeoTis ^porol aiTi6taVTai ^1 Tifiewv y6,p fpafft kAk' i^fievar ol Se koI avTol ff^tTiv araffGaXlrifftv virepfiopov }kKye^ %x°^^^^ • "Alas ! how prone are human kind to blame The powers of heaven ! From us, they say, proceed The iUs which they endure, yet more than Fate Herself inflicts, by their own crimes incur." Of course this notion is not confined to Homer, but is pretty common in all literature. Thus, in King Lear, I. ii, we have Edmund's pithy observation: "This is theexceUent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeit of our own behaviour — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars ; as if we were villains on necessity ; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical pre- dominance ; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore- master man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star," etc. Similarly, Schiller, with reference to Wallenstein, says : "Und walzt die grossre Halfte seiner Schuld Den ungliickseligen Gestirnen zu." Many are the praises of Hector in the Iliad; but perhaps none of them surpasses that exclaimed by Helen as she surveyed his bleeding corse. Iliad, XXIV. 767 : aK7^ o^iro) ffeu liuova'a Kaxhv ^iros ou5' &ffiiv 4tre\ \ipev, oixl fieSUr HdrpoKKos i'erepaBev ix^v iroZ6s' ot 5e 5^ &\\ol TpSies Kai Aavaol ff^vayov Kparep^v vfrfilvrjv : 75 76 PEIBBLES AND PEABBLES "First Hector seized his head, nor loosed his hold, Patroclus next, his feet, while all beside Of either host in furious battle joined." In Homer all the most striking feats of strength are performed by the generals, who are usually represented as being the most skilful wrestlers, and so forth. This is well exemplified at the funeral games in honour of the slain Patroclus, in Book XXIII. of the Eiad, more especially at line 708 sqc[., where Ulysses and Telamonian Ajax, stripping to their work, wrestle with each other before the whole assembly, and, after a desperate and prolonged struggle, marked by all the tricks and wiles of the art, Ulysses, by a cunning tour de force, succeeds in throwing his adversary — just as if Lord Wolseley and Lord Roberts were the best wrestlers in the British Army, and, stripped to the buff, pulled each other about before the assembled forces. There is one feature in Homer, and a feature probably peculiar to him, or at all events more pronounced in him than in any other writer that I know of — a feature, moreover, which seems to be seldom adverted to by commentators, and certainly not in terms of censure. I refer to the fact that he may be said to keep on hand — I was nearly saying, on tap — a certain stock of set forms in order to describe certain things. Is it the equip- ment of a warrior, a storm at sea, a sacrifice to the gods, or what not, out comes the stereotyped description. It reminds the reader of the levers in a railway refreshment-room, arranged for the supply of particular beverages. If stout be wanted, down goes the polished lever for that drink ; if ' bitter ' be desired straightway the neat-handed Phillis of the region deftly depresses the lever which releases the amber ale. So with Homer, if a tempest or a shipwreck is to be described, it is generally described in the set form of words appropriated to such a theme. If he represents a hero arming himself for battle, the wonted formula is turned on. If a solemn sacrifice to the heavenly powers be his subject, forthwith the stock lines are FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 77 trotted out. This, no doubt, is archaic, and characteristic of primitive poetry, and the same thing, though to a far less extent, is to be seen in the Bible. But is it not just a little overdone ? Of course idolatrous admirers see nought but beauty in it — ^as Pococurante says in Gandide, " les sots admirent tout dans un auteur estim^," but it is absolutely certain that it would not for a moment be tolerated in a modem writer. Who could imagine the existence of such a feature in the pages of Shakespeare or of Milton ? Well, there is certainly one thing to be said in its defence. It has proved a godsend to countless thousands of the suffering race pf schoolboys, whose young hearts must have often leaped with joy on the reappearance in their daily task of one of these familiar passages. Before saying good-bye, for the present at least, to the queer dear quaint old bard, it may not be out of place to note what Voltaire has to say about him — whether seriously or not, deponent knoweth not — ^in the twenty-fifth chapter of Gandide : " On se mit h table, et aprfes un excellent diner, on entra dans la bibliotheque. Gandide, en voyant un Homere magnifique- ment relie, loua Tillustrissime sur son bon gout. ' Voilk,' dit-il, 'un livre qui fesait les delices du grand Pangloss, le meilleur philosophe de I'Allemagne' — 'II ne fait pas les miennes,' dit froidement Pococurante : ' on me fit accroire autrefois que j'avais du plaisir en le lisant ; mais cette repetition continuelle de com bats qui se ressemblent tous ; ces Dieux qui agissent toujours pour ne rien faire de decisif ; cette Hel^ne qui est le sujet de la guerre, et qui k peine est une actrice de la pi^ce ; cette Troie qu'on assifege et qu'on ne prend point ; tout cela me causait le plus mortel ennui. J'ai demand^ quelquefois k des savans s'ils s'ennuyaient autant que moi k cette lecture : tous les gens sinc^res m'ont avoud que le livre leur tombait des mains, mais qu'il fallait toujours I'avoir dans sa bibliotheque, comme 78 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES un monument de I'antiquite, et comme les medailles rouilMea qui ne peuvent Stre de commerce." Doubtless some true believers will think these words rank blasphemy. Others of the Philistine type, will secretly, if not openly, approve of them. One thing, however, seems tolerably certain, and that is that there is a good deal of humbug in the world, and that consequently there is a considerable dash of affectation in the enthusiastic admiration of Homer so often expressed, especially by people who know very little about him. Some fine morning, possibly, society may wake up, rub its eyes, and wonder why it has so long lain prostrate at the feet of the old bard, throwing dust on its head on account of the supposed woful inferiority of all modern singers ; while he himself, unless he was cremated, would probably turn in his grave with amazed admiration could he see the magical creations of Milton or of Shakespeare, or could he read such lines as the following : "Must we but weep o'er days more blest, Must we but blush? — Our fathers bled — Earth ! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead ! Of the three hundred grant but three To make a new Thermopylae ; " or, for a description of natural phenomena : " The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! Oh night. And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong ! Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman ! Par along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud. But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud." No, no ; Homer, like other people, might well exclaim : ' save me from my friends.' Then let bigots abstain from over-lauda- tion of him. As has been well said by a French philosopher, on diminue tout ce qu'on exagdre. PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES 79 However much fame Homer may have reaped from his works, we are given to understand that he reaped little profit from them. As Heywood sang : "Seven cities warred for Homer, being dead. Who, living, had no roofe to shrowd his head ! " or, as I think still better put by a bard unknown to me : "Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread." And yet some of the ancient writers would seem to have been fairly well paid for their work. We are told, for example, that the Athenians gave Herodotus no less than ten talents of gold for a single public recital of a single portion of his History ; and if it be the fact that ten talents of gold were equal to over £2400 of our money, this cannot be considered altogether bad ' gate-money.' Again, it is said that the Emperor Augustus paid Virgil a sum equal to £80 for each of the twenty-seven lines in the sixth book of the Aeneid which constituted the famous rhapsody touching his nephew, and adopted son, and son-in-law, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Well, £2160 was no contemptible fee for twenty-seven hexameter lines. By the way, the story goes that when Virgil recited this passage before the Imperial family, Octavia, the mother of Marcellus, burst into tears at the opening lines, and when the poet came to the words : "Heu miserande puer ! Si qua fata aspera rumpas, Tu, Marcellus eris," she is reported to have swooned away from overpowering emo- tion. I grieve, however, to say that Leopardi, in describing his proposed ' Academy of Listening ' — that bitter diatribe against the practice of authors spouting their own compositions — brutally expresses his belief that the poor princess swooned, not from emotion at all, but from sheer boredom and weariness of the recitation. 80 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES But probably such windfalls as those just mentioned were rare in those ancient times ; so let us see some of the prices which have been realised by modern writers. Some of them are certainly calculated to cause authors' mouths to water. Of course all the world has heard of the glorious single cheque for £20,000 which the Messrs. Longmans gave to Macaulay as his share of the profits on the second and third volumes of his History of England; and it is further stated that that firm profited well by the share which they reserved for themselves. It has been said that, previously to this transaction, Macaulay had made these publishers a present of his Lays of Ancient Home, which he did not at that time think likely to have much marketable value. If this be so, he was well compensated for his gift. Sir Walter Scott got no less than £18,000 for his Life of Napoleon, in eight volumes. For Woodstock alone he got £8228 ; and he himself says that he wrote that novel in less than three months. For eleven of his novels, together with his Tales of my Landlord, he got no less than £110,000, and in the short period between November, 1825, and June, 1827, he is said to have made by his magic pen the sum of £26,000. It is believed that Bulwer Lytton realised £80,000 by his novels. Anthony TroUope piled up £70,000 in the course of twenty years of that patient, plodding, methodical writing which he himself so frankly described in his autobiography. Wilkie Collins is said to have got £3000 for No Name; and the sum which he realised by Armadale is variously stated as either £5000 or £7000. George Eliot, they say, was paid £10,000 for Bomola ; and it is asserted that her publishers made a good profit by the bargain. She got £12,000, it seems, for Middlemarch ; but in this case it was understood that her publishers lost by the operation. Charles Dickens got £5000 for his Chimes, and a stUl greater sum for Our Mutual Fnend; and it is commonly sup- FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 81 posed that in the zenith of his popularity his books were bringing him in as much as £10,000 a year. Thackeray's makings were far inferior to this; and it is believed that no single novel of his brought him in as much as £5000. Lord Beaconsfield got £10,000 for his Endymion, but this high price was doubtless in a great measure due to the fact that the book was written by Lord Beaconsfield, for it cannot be supposed that it would have commanded such a price if it had been the work of an obscure writer. It is a curious fact that Gibbon got no more than £10,000 for his Decline and Fall of the Soman Umpire. But it should be remembered that in Gibbon's time, when the reading public was neither so large nor so rich as it is now, monstrous prices could not be expected. It is understood that in the course of a few years Byron got from the house of Murray as much as £23,000. Moore realised £3000 by his Life of Byron ; and about the same sum by his Lalla Boohh. Paley was paid £2000 for his Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy. Charlotte Bronte did not make high prices. By her three novels, Jane Eyre, Villette, and Shirley, she won only £1500 ; and after her death, her widower, Mr. NichoUs, eventually got £250 for the copyright of her first, and unsuccessful, story, The Professor. Miss Austen, in 1803, sold the manuscript of Northanger Abbey to a bookseller in Bath for £10 ! And, what is more, the purchaser had not the pluck to publish it ; but subsequently returned the manuscript to one of the writer's brothers, and actually got back his money. Her Sense and Sensibility had a little better luck, since it fetched £150. But up to the time of her death she had made only £700 by all her other novels. Of course all the world knows that Milton's Paradise Lost fetched at first precisely the same sum as I have just said poor 6 82 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES Miss Austen got for her Northanger Alley; and, in connection ■with this, most people have doubtless heard the epigrammatic saying, that Milton lost more by his Paradise Eegained than he had gained by his Paradise Lost, though here a different sort of gain is referred to than filthy lucre. Poor Martin Tupper, as may now be supposed, made little profit by his Proverbial Philosophy ; at all events, the pecuniary profit which he made by that book bore but a small proportion to the estimation which the book enjoyed during the first two decades after its appearance, and before an irreverent hand had hurled the idol from its pedestal. People not yet very old can remember the positive veneration in which that solemn and pretentious work was held thirty years ago, especially by ladies — the present scribbler, on one of his birthdays, was presented with a copy of it by a lady of no mean intelligence. There was something in the scriptural ring of it which inspired a sort of religious awe ; and some people seemed to think it was ir- reverent and immoral to make light of it ; and that persons who could do so were the sort of people who were capable of speaking disrespectfully of the equator. The book reached no less than fifty editions. More than two hundred thousand copies of it were sold in England, and half-a-million were purchased in America. N, P. Willis wrote of it that its author would rank with the very first spirits of the British world of letters, and that it would live as long as the English language lasted.l He rever- ently refrained from citing any particular passages as samples of it, alleging that it was ' one solid sparkling gem,' which liquid be impious to cut into specimens. The Spectator declared that by this performance Tupper " had won for himself the vacant throne waiting for him among the Immortals ; and that he had been adopted by the suffrage of mankind, and the final decree of publishers, into the same rank with Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning." But alas ! in spite of all this, his ultimate fate resembled that of poor Robert Montgomery ; and his monu- FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 83 mental book shared the sad destiny of Satan and The Omni- presence of the Deity. After his fall, so deep was the decline of his Proverbial Philosophy, that 1,500,000 copies of it, being brought to the hammer in the United States, fetched only £80. As a contrast to that, it is said that the magazines used to give Lord Tennyson a guinea a line for short poems contributed to them by him. As to foreign writers, it has been stated that the memoirs of General Grant — if we can call an American a foreigner in these days of happier feeling between the States and Great Britain — fetched no less a sum than 200,000 dollars in house-to-house sale by hawkers throughout America. Thiers and Lamartine each made as much as £19,000 by a single history. Victor Hugo, who in 1823 had been glad to get, or, at all events, content to take, 300 francs for his Hans d'lslande, in 1862got 400,000francs, or £16,000, for LesMisiraUes; and the story goes that on one occasion when his publisher declined to give him 150,000 francs for a minor work of his, he printed it at his own cost and risk, and, selling it for a franc per copy, made by its sale twice the sum which he had demanded from his recalcitrant publisher. As to Eugene Sue, the Journal des Bihats paid him the equivalent of £6000 for his Mysteries of Paris in the form of a feuilleton in that paper ; and another journal gave him £4000 for The Wandering Jew in the same form. Dumas, too, made large sums by feuilletons. It seems that at first he used to be paid by the line ; so he contrived to compose many lines containing only two or three words in each ; whereupon his employers wisely changed their system, and paid him by the letter ; but the rate fixed was prodigious ; in the case of his San Felice, for example, the scale of remuneratioti was fixed at ten centimes per letter. While on the subject of authors and publishers, it may be remembered that Peter Pindar — alias Dr. John Wolcot — in 84 PRIBBLES AND BRABBLES reference to the alleged hardness of the terms in his time con- ceded by publishers to writers, and the oppressive parsimony of the dons of the book trade, bitterly asserted that while unhappy writers starved in garrets, booksellers quaffed their wine, after the manner of the heroes in the halls of Odin, ' out of authors' skulls.' I lately met a very eminent publisher who had never heard — or declared that he had never heard — this pleasant saying. Perhaps it was too unpalatable for his taste. It would be strange if he really had never heard it ; and yet I once met a bishop who had never heard the fine old crusted story of Bishop Blomfield on extemporary preaching. Well, if that story was unknown to a bishop, it may possibly be unknown to humbler people ; so I am almost tempted to narrate it here. Before leaving Peter Pindar, I may observe that it scarcely lay in Ms mouth to revile booksellers, seeing that, in 1795, these gentlemen were so liberal as to give him £250 a year as con- sideration for the copyrights of his books. There is another well-known abusive remark about publishers which I may here mention, were it only in order to correct the too prevalent error as to the person who first uttered it. It was not Byron, as frequently asserted, but Thomas Campbell, who penned the injurious saying : " now Barabbas was a publisher." For this statement I have no less authority than that of that delightful book, A PuUisher and Ms Friends, Volume I, page 336. I do not remember- what justification — if any — or what provocation, Campbell had for expressing such a sentiment. Countless well-authenticated incidents go to prove that, far from being ungenerous in their dealings with writers, our great publishers have generally acted with chivalrous liberality towards that class. Of this I will cite but one instance ; and it is one which, so far as I know, has not hitherto been made public. The Rev. Dr. Caird — noted, at least in Scotland, as a preacher— once asked Mr. John Blackwood to publish a volume of his sermons. Blackwood shook his shrewd head, and declined to incur the FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 85 risk, alleging that sermons, however edifying they might he, were not a very paying article. Not long afterwards Dr. Caird preached a sermon before the Queen. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to praise that sermon, and to command that it should be printed. Of course it soon became fashionable. Then the reverend doctor again approached John Blackwood, and asked him to publish the fortunate discourse. Blackwood agreed to do so, and gave Caird £100 for it ; thinking that sum a pretty good equivalent for a single sermon, however good it might be. But it seems that the royal favour had imparted such singular value to this homily that it had an enormous sale, and one fine day John Blackwood, quite spontaneously, and though under no obligation to do so, sent the reverend writer a cheque for £500, in addition to the stipulated £100. It is said that, subsequently, Blackwood gave the doctor another £500, for a volume of other sermons ; but this, not having the royal blessing, never realised £100. Yet the chivalrous Blackwood bore the loss very quietly, and never expected Dr. Caird to disgorge any part of the price. Talking of George Eliot, her life and letters reveal many strange things, and suggest some strange reflections. Her diary, where it dwells upon the subject of her reading, contains state- ments which I, for one, have difficulty in swallowing. Let us take one or two samples : " 1869, July 15. (I read) Nisard's History of French Literature, Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, Christine de Pisan, Philip de Comines, Villers. July 16. Read the articles Phcenicia, and Carthage, in Ancient Geograjphy. Jewitt's Universal History again, for Carthaginian religion. Sismondi's Litt&ature du Midi, for Roman de la Rose ; and ran through the first chapter about the formation of the Romance languages. Read about Thallogens and Acrogens in The Vegetable World. Read Drayton's Nymphidia, a charming poem ; and a few pages of his Polyolbion. Re-read Grote, V. vii., on Sicilian affairs, down to rise of Dionysius. July 19. 86 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Writing an introduction to Middlemarch. Ee-read the 15tli Idyll of Theocritus ; and have written three more sonnets. In the afternoon to the old water colours, etc. Read Nisard on Rabelais and Marot. July 22. Read Reybaud's book on Les mformatews Modernes. July 23. Read Theocritus, Idyll 16 ; meditated characters for Middlemarch. July 25. Read Plato's Republic in various parts; Nisard; and Littre on Comte. August 1. Have finished eleven sonnets on Brother and. Sister. Read Littre ; Nisard ; part of 22nd Idyll of Theocritus ; and Ste. Beuve (aloud). Looked through Dickson's Fallacies of the Faculty. Yesterday, sitting in Thome's room, read through all Shakespeare's sonnets. Sept. 10. Reading on medical subjects, Eacyclopedia about the medical colleges, Cullen's life, Russell's Heroes of Medicine. Also Aristophanes' Fcclesiazume ; and Macbeth. Sept. 21. Finished studying again Becker's Gharicks ; Mandeyille's Travels;" and so forth; such trifles as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey — in the Greek of course — constantly thrown in; and all the while writing, 'meditating' her books, going into society, receiving visitors, etc. ; and throughout it all, in very bad health ! Well, the whole thing taxes one's powers of belief — unless, indeed, when she says she ' read ' any given book, she only meant that she read a little bit of it. George Eliot held peculiar ideas on the subject of blank verse ; and it must be confessed that she had the courage of her convictions, for she certainly carried out these ideas in her poetical compositions — whether to the beautification of these last, or otherwise, is possibly a matter of opinion. In a letter to John Blackwood, dated July 30, 1868, and in allusion to her Spanish Gypsy, she thus writes : — " I think I never told you that the occasional use of irregular verses, and especially verses of twelve syllables, has been a principle with me ; and is found in all the finest writers of blank verse." Again, in a letter of the same date, to Canon MacIIwaine, who had ventured to find fault with some such lines in that poem, she writes : " Some of PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 87 the passages marked for revision were deliberately chosen irregu- larities. George Eliot adheres strongly to the principles : first, that metrical time must be frequently determined in despite of syllable-counting; and, secondly, that redundant lines are a power in blank verse. Milton is very daring, and often shocks the weaklings who think thart- verse is (*. e. ought to be) sing- song." Well, at the risk of being set down as a ' weakling,' I cannot hold or believe this, unless it be on some such principle as that on which, I believe, in music an occasional discord — accordo del diavolo — is by some considered to be a beauty ; possibly by the effect of contrast, and the pleasure of ' resolving,' as musicians call it, again into harmony, and thus preventing insipidity. To me it seems tantamount to saying that a countenance other- wise regular and beautiful would be improved by a mis-shapen nose, and thereby saved from being insipid : "Hiinc ego me si quid componere curem Non magis esse velim quam naso vivere pravo, Spectaudum nigris oculis nigroque capillo," while the examples sometimes cited of such irregularities in Milton do not prove that they are beauties, or that Milton himself so regarded them — does not good Homer himself some- times nod ? — and then he was Milton, and not Marian Evans. As to Shakespeare, many of the lines in his plays which we think to be defective, were probably not so in his time, since it is certain that in his day many words were pronounced quite differently from their present pronunciation ; thus, in Hev/ry VI, Part I., act iii. scene 2, where Joan says : " Care is no cure, but rather corrosive ; " and in Trdlus and Cressida, I, 3 : " Peaceful commerce from dividable shores ; '' when Shakespeare wrote, it is probable, or at least conceivable, that the word ' corrosive ' had the stress on its first syllable ; 88 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 'commerce' on its last syllable, and that the second 'i' in ' dividable ' was short. We all know that blank verse of the English heroic metre, in its strictly perfect form, consists of lines, each of which contains five iambuses, each iambus being accented on its last syllable. It has been in other words defined as " a decasyllabic metre, having the second, fourth, sixth, and tenth syllables accented ; " thus, the following is an example of a strictly perfect line in snch metre : " When down along by pleasant Tempo's stream ; " but we all know also that a whole poem written in such lines would be intolerable from its monotony — would in fact be what George Eliot denounced as ' sing-song.' But this monotony can be cured by constant variety in the incidence of the accent; and matters are not mended by piling up redundant syllables ; or, if such be occasionally resorted to, it should be very rarely ; and it is to be observed that this licence is more allowable in dramatic verse than in verse of any other kind. George Eliot's sentiments on childhood, and its supposed exceeding happiness, are sound in character and pithily expressed : " I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest . . . childhood is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown ; witness colic, and whooping-cough, and dread of ghosts ; to say nothing of hell, and Satan, and an offended deity in the sky, who was angry when I wanted too much plum-cake. . . . We are happier than when we were seven years old; and we shall be happier when we are forty than we are now " — though some thinkers hold that, just as it is supposed that the human blood is always at the same temperature, so happiness — or its opposite — is at all times pretty evenly distributed, not only among all conditions of men, but among all the ages of the human being ; and that it is merely a question of proportion — as Leopardi says: "If we FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 89 weigh the circumstances of each condition of men, with due consideration of their hahits and desires, we shall find that the rich and the poor, the master and the servant, the prince and the peasant, generally enjoy nearly the same measure of happiness." Many of George Eliot's isolated sayings are capital. Thus, in one of her letters to Miss Sarah Hennell, she quaintly says : " not being either a swindler or a philanthropist, I don't like to incur obligations which there is not a reasonable certainty of my being able to meet." Then again: "some people do prosper — that is a comfort — the rest of us must fall back on the Beatitudes — blessed are the poor, etc." No doubt she was a wonderful creature, though perhaps in some respects, and by some people, a little overrated. In the zenith of her popularity there prevailed among her idolaters an opinion that she was more than mortal, and could do anything in the literary line ; and a graceless wag said that such people thought that she would, or could, have written the Bible if she had not un- fortunately been forestalled. Many people have wondered why she called herself George Eliot. Of course we know that, like many other female writers, especially in that day when publishers were supposed to have a prejudice against such, she made her first overtures to Blackwood through Lewes under male disguise, and for some time Blackwood thought she was a man, and addressed her as such. But why did she choose that particular name? In William Blackwood and his Sons, chapter xxiii, the authoress, Mrs. Oliphant, alluding to Amos Barton, describes it as " the first, yet one of the most perfect, of the productions of the woman of genius whose name of George Eliot, fictitious as it is, and without connection with anything in her history, has been now inscribed in all the lists of fame as (that of) one of the great writers of her time." Again, J. W. Cross, in his Life of George Eliot, S3i.y^ : " My wife told me that the reason she fixed 90 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES on this name was, that ' George ' was Mr. Lewes's Christian name, and ' EUot ' was a good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word." Well, I have a theory of my own — for it is my own — on this subject. I think it probable that there may have been something behind all this, and that the name was perhaps not so entirely casual, and so destitute of all connection with her history as Mrs. Oliphant imagined, and as the great novelist apparently wished her husband and the rest of the world to suppose. My reason for this belief is as follows : — Many years ago — some time in the forties — a young officer of the Bengal cavalry — a very fine young man, I believe — called George Donnithome Eliot, was accidentally drowned in the lake of Nynee Tal, in the lower Himalayas. Now it will be admitted that Donnithorne is a very uncommon name ; yet we have ' Arthur Donnithorne ' in Adam Bede ; and we have the rest of that young man's name, ' George Eliot,' as the novelist's pseudonym. I think there is something in this. It is too remarkable a coincidence to be due to mere chance. Who knows but that the George Donnithorne Eliot of Nynee Tal was an early Mend, flame, or ideal of Marian Evans ; and hence her adoption of the name George Eliot. Having just referred to the subject of metre, this may be a fitting place to say a word or two about rhyme. Somebody has said that the man who writes in rhyme too often says, not what he ought to say, or wants to say, but what he miist say ; and we have already seen what is said on this subject in old Hudi- bras: "Those who write in rhyme still make The one verse for the other's sake ; Since one for sense, and one for rhyme They think sufficient at a time." By the way, this last rather feeble line is in itself not a bad illustration of the argument. Many illustrations might be adduced to prove the truth of FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 91 this principle ; and the theme was cleverly handled some years ago in the Qitarterly Beview. Take, for instance, Dryden's translation of the phrase which occurs in the eleventh line of the first book of Virgil's Aencid : " Tantaene animis coelesti- bus irae ! " which four words, forming only a part of one Hne, are expanded to fourteen words, and two complete lines, chiefly by the needless and wanton addition of wholly extraneous matter in order to produce a rhyme, thus : "Can heavenly minds such high resentment show, Or exercise their spite in human woe ?/' Here the second line corresponds to nothing in the original, is sheer surplusage, and is thrown in merely to make a rhyme. It is, in fact, " the one verse for the other's sake " of Butler. Then, again, see the very last line of the Iliad : this is well enough rendered by Pope : "Such honours IHon to her hero paid ;" but of course a rhyme was wanted, so he adds out of his own head the worthless and gratuitous line : "And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade." One more example; of this sort of thing. Classical scholars know the mournful truth expressed in Juvenal's third Satire, line 164 : "Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi ; " this was suflSciently satisfactorily Englished by Johnson : " Slow rises3worth by poverty^oppressed ; " but it is immediately marred by the miserable gratuitous verse thrown in for the sake of a rhyme : "This mournful truth is everywhere confessed l" Ay, the exigencies of rhyme are sometimes oppressive, and 92 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES antagonistic to reason ; and I think the ancients showed their good sense in having nothing to do with them. And yet rhymes are to be found in the ancient classic writers, whether as the effect of pure chance, or perpetrated on purpose, it skills not to say. Our old friend Homer has rhymed endings in the following places : In the niad, II. 87, 88, we find the following : •Trerprfs 4ic y\a(pvp7is aiei yeov ipxafiGvauy. In the Iliad, IX. 389, 390, we find : ovS' el XP^^^^V *A^poSiTT7 icdWos epi|oi, Hpya 5' 'Adrjpal-p y\avKdt>inBi ia'o<(>api^oi. At Iliady XIV. 10, 11, we have : Keifievov iv KXuriy @paffvfi'i}Beos ittttoSojUoio, XoA/c^ Tra/xtpOLVoVi 6 6* e^' affTrida narphs koto. At Iliady XXI. 523, 525, we have actually a triple rhyme : &ffreos ai6o/j.evoio, Qe Se 5l!a) ffKd(ovTe $drriv "Apeos BepiirovTe ; and at the 143rd line of the same book : 5wpa 5e roi BepairoPTeSj ^fjiijs Traph vrjhs e\6vTes. Again, in the Odyssey, I. 40 : 4k ydp 'OpiuTao -rlais iffaerai 'ArpiiSao, and at line 397 of the same book : avT^p iyiiv oIkoio &va^ fffo/j,' riiieripoto. And in the Odyssey, XII. 70 : *Apyd) TTaffL fi4\ov(Ta, irap* At^rao TrXtovffa. And again, Odyssey, XIII. 281 : aW* aiSras avofidvres ^Ketfieda VTjhs airayrcs. Finally, in the Odyssey, XIV. 199, we have the last of these curious jingles : 4k juef KpTjTduv yevos cff^o^uai evpeiduv, I have desired to make the list of these passages as complete as possible ; and if the subject be to some persons uninteresting, it can always be skipped. So far as I can make out, the following are the only examples of rhymed lines in Horace, Satires, I. i. 78, 79 : "Ne te compilent fugientes, hoc juvat? Horum Semper ego optarim pauperrimus ease bonorum." I!2)istles, II. i. 41, 42 : "Inter quos referendus erit? veteresne poetas, An quos et praesens et postera respuat aetas." Ars Poetica, 99, 100 : "Non satis est pulchra esse poemata : dulcia sunto, Et quocunque volent animum auditoris agunto." 94 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES And in the same piece, lines 176, 177 : "Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles Mandentur juveni partes pueroque viriles." But he has also his half-rhymes, or jingles; thus, Epistles, I. xii. 25 : " Ne 4ameu ignores quo sit Romana loco res ; " And, Epistles, I. xiv. 7 : "Fratrem moerentis, rapto de fratre dolentis.'' Virgil, too, has sundry examples of rhymed lines, thus : Georgics, II. 500, 501 :— " Quos rami fructus, quos ipsa volentia rura Sponte tulere sua, carpsit ; nee ferrea jura." Aeneid, I. 625, 626 : "Ipse hostis Teucroa insigni laude ferebat, Seque ortum antiqua Teucrorum ab stirpe volebat." Aeneid, II. 124, 125 : " Plagitat : et mihi jam multi crudele canebant Artificis scelus, et taoiti ventura videbant." Aeneid, II. 456, 457 : "Saepius Andromache ferre incomitata solebat Ad soceros, et avo puerum Astyanacta trahebat.'' Aeneid, IV. 256, 257 : "Haud aliter terras inter coelumque volabat Litus arenosum Libyae ventosque secabat." Aeneid, V. 385, 386 : "Ducere dona jube — cunoti simul ore fremebant Dardanidae, reddique viro promissa jubebant." Aeneid, IX. 182, 183 : "His amor unus erat, pariterque in bella ruebant : Turn quoque communi portam statione tenebant." FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 95 And, finally, Aeneid, X. 804, 805 : " Praecipitant, omnis campis diffiigit arator, Omnia et agricola, et tuta latet arce viator.'' I can find only one half-rhyme in Virgil: it occurs in the Aeneid, IX. 634 : "Trajicit — I, verbis virtutem illude superbis." I believe that other examples of occasional, or what we may call sporadic, rhyming are to be found in other ancient writers ; but it would seem that the critics have not yet made up their minds as to whether these ' sports,' to use a gardener's phrase, occurred by sheer accident, or were deliberately manufactured. Even the immaculate Cicero was sometimes capable of perpetrating a jingle ; witness the following : "O fortunatam natam me consule Romam !" which he might easily have avoided by transposing ' natam ' and ' Romam,' thus : " O fortunatam Bomam me consule natam ; though even then the line would not be too pretty. Moreover, in a letter to Brutus, he has : " res mihi invisae visae sunt. Brute;" and in his De Officiis, he commits the almost comic jingle : ' pleniore ore.' Dean Hole, in his amusing Memories, brings in the following queer jingling lines : "Cane Decane canis, sed ne cane, cane Decane, De cane, sed canis, cane Decane, cane." Now no man living can tell who wrote these lines. They have been ascribed to Person, in the same way as good jokes are often feithered on Sydney Smith; but there is nothing to connect Person with them. They are supposed to have been intended as a reproof to some elderly dean — probably of the name of Hoare, or Grey — who was attached to venery, and given to the singing of hunting ditties. In Notes and Queries, 1st S. 96 PRIBBLES AND BRABBLES vi. 64, they were translated as follows by a correspondent signing himself ' W. H. K.' : "Good Dean Grey, the sportsman's lay 111 becomes thy tresses grey ; Grey-haired Grey, thy theme be, then. Not greyhounds, but grey-haired men." And now this rambling chapter may be wound up with two very startling examples of rhyme. The first of these, giving a rhyme to 'Niagara,' and culled from Tom Moore's 'Fudge Family in Paris,' is undoubtedly very vigorous and quaint : " Taking, instead of rope, pistol, or dagger, a Desperate dash down the falls of Niagara." And equally good, perhaps, is the following, by James Russell Lowell, in reference to Edgar Allan Poe : "He talks like a book of iambs and pentameters. In a way to make people of common sense damn metres." By the way, talking of hexameters and pentameters, many people doubtless know, but some possibly do not know, the famous example of a hexameter line and a pentameter one, all comprised in four words : " Perturbabantur Constantinopolitani Imiumerabilibus soUicitudinibus. " To this, it is true, it was objected that the first line contained two false quantities, since the second 'i' in 'Constantinopoli- tani ' ought to be long and the second ' o ' in the same word ought to be short; but it seems that this might easily be rectified by the inversion of the order of the two words composing that line ; thus : Constantinopolitani perturbabantur. The subject may be closed by Tennyson's mocking lines on that measure, as one unsuited to modern languages : "Hexametdrs no worse than daring Germany gave us. Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexamet&s." CHAPTER V Printers' blunders — Legible writing leads to misprinting — Illegible writing — Punctuation and order — Misreporting — Mistranslation — Misde- scription in catalogues — On Latin quotations — Voltaire on the classics — Queer plurals — Shakespeare v. Bacon — Curiosities of nomenclature — Corruptions of names — Grecian stairs — Devil looking over Lincoln — Huguenot names — Strange pronunciation of some names — Captain Cook on place-names. In Chapter II. of these Prabbles, among other funny Bibles, mention has been made of the Printers' Bible ; so called, it will be remembered, because in that version, in the 161st verse of the 119th Psalm, instead of ' Princes have persecuted me without a cause,' the text asserted that printers had wrought that wanton wrong on the royal Psalmist. Well, never was truer word said, since these gentlemen frequently do play fantastic and aggravating tricks in the exercise of their mystery. At the risk of possibly a little repetition, let me here parade one or two samples of this verity. In The Tempest, II. ii., Caliban, among his tempting offers to Trinculo, says : " I '11 bring thee To clust'ring filberds, and sometimes I '11 get thee Young scamela from the rook." Now no man living knows, or ever knew, what ' scamels ' are ; and I believe the mystic word for long baffled the ingenuity of toiling commentators. Some thought it was an obsolete or local name for limpets or some other crustacean dainty. Some were 7 97 98 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES inclined to read instead of it, ' staniels,' that is to say, kestrels, or stone-hawks ; and others had still other theories on the point. But all such conjectures proved futile ; and at last it dawned upon experts that it was a mere misprint for ' seamews,' or possibly ' seamels,' a rare form of the same word ; meaning, of course, a species of gull or other sea fowl which frequents the rocky shores of the ocean. On this point Mr. Andrew Lang somewhere says : " If an Elizabethan compositor could not turn an ' e ' into'a ' c,' and a ' w ' into an ' 1,' he must have been a most culpable and unimaginative printer. Worse mistakes have been made in ' copy ' of my own, as ' wiseacre ' for ' universe.' ' Seamels ' for ' seamews ' seems quite feasible." So now the mysterious term seems to be simply enough elucidated. But how often do such explanations lie unperceived under the very nose of the commentator while he vainly explores the remote and the improbable in quest of the object of his search. A good American misprint was the following, which is warranted as true and genuine. It occurred in the proof-sheets of a scientific treatise. The sentence, as written by the author, ran as follows : " Filtration is sometimes assisted by the use of albumen." This came out as : " Flirtation is sometimes arrested by the use of aldermen." Again, Dr. W. G. A. Boswell, in his Philosophy of Eating avd Drinking, wrote these words : " I had some rice boiled plainly, with as little sugar in it as possible." It is said that the ingenious compositor transmogrified this into the following startling form : " I had sown vice baited plainly, with as little swearing in it as possible " ! The following queer sample also is cited; but it has a suspicious look of manufacture about it ; and it is, more- over, a bit of a ' chestnut ' ; but it may be new to some people : ' When I wrote of the dewdrops on freshly-blown roses. The miscreants printed it — freshly-blown noses; " PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 99 Which reminds one that in Pope's lines : "Here shall the spring its earliest sweets bestow, Here the first roses of the year shall blow," Miss Catherine Maria Fanshawe, the writer of the famous lines on the letter H, changed ' sweets ' into ' coughs,' and ' roses ' into ' noses.' A very good and amusing illustration of the mistakes of printers was given by Mr. Andrew Lang in Longman's Magazine for March, 1S97, and it is the more curious inasmuch as it shows how the most extraordinary blunders may arise from the most simple and natural causes. It seems that, not long previously, in a magazine article of his own, he found, to his intense surprise, the following mystic phrase, as he himself called it : — " The want of historical perspective, which makes the moment hide the great Shakespeare of time." This fairly staggered him, and no wonder. Well, it appears that in his manuscript he had written : " the great abysm of time." The unusual word ' abysm ' had aroused the suspicions of the printer, or of the proof-reader — these gentlemen are prone to suspicions — accordingly, in transmitting the proof-sheet to the writer, he put a ' query ' at that formidable word. In reference to that query, Mr. Lang wrote in the margin the word ' Shakespeare,' meaning that that was his authority for the use of the suspected term ; and so the printer removed the word ' abysm,' and substituted ' Shakespeare ' in its stead ! But compositors are prone, not to suspicion only ; sometimes they are apt to have opinions of their own, and to be cock-sure of them too. It was one of this kidney who, having to set up a quotation of the words in As You Like It, about "books in the running brooks, sermons in stones," etc., said to himself : " stuff and nonsense ! who ever heard of books in brooks, or sermons in stones ? It 's a palpable slip of the pen ; " and accordingly off his own bat he printed : " Stones in the running brooks, sermons in books," and so forth. 100 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Of a more ordinary, if not positively vulgar, sort, and a sort smacking somewhat of manipulation, are such as the following : " Sir Robert Peel, with a party of friends, is shooting peasants in Ireland." " After a desperate struggle — at Inkerman — the enemy was repulsed with great laughter." " The bridesmaids wore handsome breeches, the gift of the bridegroom." But what follows is undoubtedly curious, and very probably true. Many people have wondered why the last emperor of the French came to be called Napoleon III., instead of Napoleon II., which in fact he was. It is credibly said to have come about in this wise. Amid the throes of the coup d'itat, one of his secretaries wrote at his dictation, after some other hasty directions, the following final sentence : " et que le mot d'ordre soit, vive NapoUon ! ! ! " with three emphatic notes of exclama- tion. The printers mistook these three notes for Roman numerals, and printed it so ; and it was stuck to. I have already mentioned curious Bibles. In addition, how- ever, to those curiosities, the following strange misprints have occurred in various editions of the Bible, and some of them are of quite recent date. An Oxford version of the year 1811, in Isaiah 57. 12, had: " I will declare thy righteousness and thy works, for they shall profit thee," instead of " for they shall not profit thee." A version printed in Edinburgh in 1823, in Acts 12. 4, has : "intending after Esther to bring him forth to the people," instead of ' after Easter.' In a Bible printed at Oxford in 1792, in the Gospel according to St. Luke, 22. 34, the printer made Jesus name Philip instead of Peter, as the disciple who should deny Him thrice before the cock should crow. In four several versions of the Bible, and in one version of the Prayer-book, there occurred a startling variation of Psalm 37. 29, which is rendered : " the righteous shall be punished." In one Oxford edition of the Authorised Version, Proverbs 6. PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 101 20, runs thus : " My son, keep thy father's commandment, and for like not the law of thy mother," instead of ' forsake not.' The Bible printed in 1614 by Robert Barker, in Jeremiah 8. 22, has the strange misprint, "Is there no blame in Gilead ? " In no less than four well-known versions, Romans 6. 13, has the following : '' Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin," instead of ' unrighteousness.' And again, in 1 Corinthians 6. 9, these versions have, or had : " Know ye not that the unrighteous shall iulierit the kingdom of God ? " omitting the word ' not ' between ' shall ' and ' inherit.' Sometimes, however, supposed misprints are not misprints at all, but merely good old English, no longer understood or recognised as such. Thus, in a version printed by Brockett in 1716, the 9th verse of the 141st Psalm runs as follows : " Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the grins of the workers of iniquity." Some people have imagined the word ' grins ' in this passage to be a misprint for ' gins,' and indeed subsequent versions have substituted the latter word for the former, not only in the passage just cited, but also in Psalm 140, verse 5, and in Job 18. 9. But this view of the matter is itself founded on error, since the word ' grin ' or ' grinne,' is a good old English word meaning ' a trap ' or ' snare.' Moreover, it occurs not only in Brockett's Bible, but in all of the three passages now referred to it is employed by the Authorised Version of 1611 ; and accordingly in this case the word ' gin ' should be regarded as a printer's spurious changeling, and the word ' grin ' as the genuine and true reading. This last word, meaning a ' snare or trap,' occurs in Johnson's original dictionary, accompanied by a reference to Job 18. 9, and by the following quotation from Chaucer : "Like a bridde that hasteth to his gryn, Not knowing the perile ; " and indeed I believe that the quaint old term is not even yet 102 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES quite dead, but that it still survives in America, that fostering home of early English, where so many expressions familiar here in the time of the Mayflower, but now forgotten in the land of their birth, stiU enjoy currency, though by us in our ignorance denounced and derided as americanisms. So much for printers' blunders — and let no man in the innocency of his heart imagine that misprints may be escaped by clear handwriting. This, it would seem, is a fond delusion ; and I have high authority for saying so. A very eminent London printer assured me that perhaps the best and surest way to bring about misprinting is to write a highly legible manuscript. Truth lurks in paradox and the explanation of this startling statement is perfectly simple. Very clear and legible ' copy ' is, naturally enough, turned over to the tiros of the trade; whereas a hopeless set of pot-hooks such as made Dean Stanley the terror of printers, is committed to some veteran compositor gifted with the instinct and the fl,air of a ChampoUion. The tiro suffers his thoughts to go wool-gathering over his easy manuscript, and imports into it ingenious blunders, while the veteran, with every faculty bent on his pot-hooks, steers safely through every difficulty, and successfully shuns the smallest typographic error. But if illegible handwriting may pass muster with experi- enced compositors, perhaps no one of the minor woes of life has caused more distress and waste of time to suffering man- kind than that produced by this vile cause. Unfortunately, we are not all experienced compositors, nor do we receive good wages for deciphering pot-hooks, and it is a hardship of no trivial order to have to wrestle nearly every morning with the hieroglyphics which the postman delivers at our doors. It is ardently to be desired that people would reflect that it is just as rude and inconsiderate to write illegibly, as it would be to speak indistinctly or inaudibly. I often think of the comical reproach on this subject patheti- PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES 103 cally addressed by the American writer, T. B. Aldrich, to Pro- fessor Morse, who wrote an execrable hand : — " Dear Morse, "It was a pleasure to me to get your letter the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter had I been able to read it. I don't think I made out anything beyond its date — which I knew — and its signature — ^which I guessed. There is a singular and perennial charm in a letter from you ; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty. One can say to oneself every morning : there's that letter of Morse's, I haven't read it yet. I think I'll have another shy at it to-day, and may- be I shall be able, in the course of a few years, to make out what he means by those 't's' that look like 'w's,' and those 'i's' that have no eyebrows. Other letters are read, and thrown away, and forgotten ; but yours are kept for ever — unread ; one of them will last a reasonable man a life-time." Then again, Charles Mathews, the younger, in acknowledging the receipt of a letter from Edmund Yates, editor of The World, who, it seems, wrote a most detestable hand, said that at the first blush he thought it was a letter in Arabic from an old drago- man of his, and that he was only undeceived by seeing at its foot the cryptic symbol which he knew to do duty for the signature of his friend. Connected with handwriting is the subject of punctuation. Already, in my first chapter, I have presented classic examples of the importance of such little things as commas, and have shown how they have power at times to govern the sense of language, and to sway the destinies of man. In this place I propose to adduce some humbler instances of the same thing. A clergyman is said to have put the following startling statement into a letter addressed to one of his friends: "Last Sunday a young man fell from one of the benches of 104 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES my church, whilst I was preaching in a shocking state of intoxication." On the diary of a deceased person, a friend of his wrote as follows : " These lines were written, nearly fifty years ago, by a gentleman who has for some years lain in the grave for his own amusement." On the return of the Guards from Egypt, a daily paper, expatiating on the enthusiasm displayed by the inhabitants of London, stated that " in several instances cabmen drove soldiers from Egypt to their barracks in London without charge." In another journal, in the description of the dresses which had been worn at a certain wedding, a statement to the effect that one Mrs. Brown had on that occasion worn nothing in the nature of a dress that was remarkable, was reproduced thus : " Mrs. Brown wore nothing in the nature of a dress — that was remarkable.'' Another journal — a local one — contained the following an- nouncement: "A handsome memorial has been erected to the late Mr. John Phillips, accidentally shot as a mark of affection by his brother.'' It should, however, be observed that the above ridiculous sentences owe their absurdity perhaps less to peculiarity of punctuation than to defective arrangement of the words com- posing them. I shall give but one more example of this sort of thing, just to show the importance of due arrangement and subdivision in the construction of sentences. " Next came Lord Roberts, riding on a grey arab steed wear- ing a splendid scarlet uniform covered with medals on his head ; a field-marshal's hat with plumes in his hand ; the baton of a field-marshal on his rugged features ; a smile of pleasure as he acknowledged the thundering cheers of the crowd." The misreporting of the utterances of public men is a fruit- ful cause of curious results. At a certain public meeting* PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 105 Archbishop Whately had occasion to allude to the attitude of the people in relation to some burning question of the hour, and he had occasion to do so in terms of disapproval. In the course of his remarks he happened to employ the expression, 'the masses.' In the published report of his address, this ha,rmless expression assumed the quaint metamorphosis of 'them asses.' Again, Mr. W. E. Forster, in the course of a speech in the House of Commons, described the militia as 'our great con- stitutional force.' The reporter changed this last word into ' farce.' The late Earl of Carnarvon, on some public occasion ex- pressed the opinion that, "in these days clergymen were ex- pected to possess the wisdom and learning of a Jeremy Taylor." The closing words were transmogrified by the reporter into ' a journeyman tailor.' A certain dignitary of the Church, in a certain public address, expressed the hope that his audience would find no obscurity in his language. ' Obscurity ' was changed into ' obscenity.' But this last should probably be regarded as an error on the part of the printer rather than of the reporter. Among blunders of another kind may be cited the following : In a certain book, the 'Sainte Ampoule' — that is, the holy ampulla or vial which contains the consecrating oil in the ceremonies of the Church of Rome — contrived to get rendered as ' St. AmpuU ' — a new and hitherto unknown saint. It is said that Mr. Gladstone on one occasion expressed his conviction that none but a Daniel could walk unscathed in the fiery furnace. Blackwood's Magazine for March, 1896, in an article called ' The Philosophy of Blunders,' cited some amusinfg blunders perpetrated by pupil-teachers when undergoing examination. The river Mahavelli-Ganga, in Ceylon, was by one of the catechumens called 'the Machiavelli-Ganglia.' Another, in a 106 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES paper on money matters, wrote about investment in ' consuls.' A third dilated on ' neatly-paired finger-nails.' Carbonic acid figured as ' car bonny cassid.' Lacteal ducts became ' lack tail ducks.' Another of these originals stated that the man who insured his life for £100, received that sum on his decease. Quarantine assumed the form of ' quadrantine,' and one of the examinees, in a paper dealing with economic questions, wrote that " each girl who buys a penny dinner, gets a good deal more than a penny's worth; but when many buy the loss is not great." Then strange mistranslations occur from time to time, in quarters, too, where we might expect better things. Not long ago, a writer in the Bevue des Deux Mondes, in citing from an English composition, translated ' Gallio-like ' as ' pareils a des Frangais,' and rendered ' tract society ' as ' track society ' : describing it as an association " qui va mettre en I'air toutes les bonnes femmes du pays enregiment^es pour d^pister (track out) les pauvres hferes (wretches) susceptibles de conversion." Well, Frenchmen, with all their ingenuity, seem to be in- capable of being accurate as to matters English, but it is not necessary to go to France in order to find blunders in translation. We are quite capable of manufacturing the article at home. For a good specimen of a fine, full-bodied blunder, see Bohn's translation of Schiller's Revolt of the Netherlands (1872), on about the third page of the introduction. Alluding to the position of William the Silent at the commencement of the revolt, the German author says, inter alia, " Philipp der Zweite sendet ihm so viele Verstarkungen zu als seines Mittlers grausame Habsucht Bottler machte. " This the translator actually rendered as follows : " Philip II. sent as many reinforcements as the dreadful impor- tunity of his viceroy begged for ! " It is difficult to imagine a more criminal blunder, not only revealing a stupendous ignorance of German, but utterly destroying the vigorous sense of the original, which any boy or girl of fair intelligence could have FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 107 told the precious translator means: "Philip II. sent him as many reinforcements as the gruesome cupidity of his viceroy rendered beggars ; " that is to say, Alva's oppressions ruined the inhabitants of the Netherlands, and reduced them to beggary, and all whom he thus ruined flocked to the standard of revolt. What wiU not publishers sometimes print, and the public some- times swallow ? Misdescriptions and blunders in catalogues, too, are sometimes most excellent fooling. For example, an eminent firm of publishers in Germany once catalogued Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines under the general heading of Alttestamentliche Iiitteratur, which I may tell those who don't know German means ' Old Testament literature,' a classification calculated to surprise Mr. Haggard, and to astonish, if not to disappoint, worthy Teutons who might buy a copy of the book, expecting to find that it dealt with the Septuagint. Then, again, a certain English journal which is published in connection with the interests of mechanical pursuits, lately treated its readers to a fine bull of this description. In a cata- logue lately published by it, under the head of New Trade Books, it included Max MuUer's Chips from a German Workshop, under the curious impression apparently that the book in question was a handbook of carpentry, or a description of furniture or cabinet work made in Germany. Among other publications of this class is one called The Reference Catalogue, which professes to serve as a guide to buyers and sellers of books. A strange guide, truly, and itself in some need of guidance, since, not long ago, its index contained the following delicious morsel under the heading of ' Lead ' : Lead, copper in ,, kindly light (Nexmnan) ,, metallurgy of ,, poisoning, etc., etc. The good public, too, occasionally make droll mistakes as to 108 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES announcements in catalogues and advertisements. As all the world knows, Miss Maria Edgeworth wrote, among other things, an Essay on Irish Bulls, meaning, of course, the blunders commonly so-called. On its announcement, it is said that the Secretary of the Agricultural Society forthwith ordered a copy of it to be supplied to the library of that association, thinking that it could not fail to throw a useful light on the subject of cattle-breeding ; and a worthy farmer, hearing of Mr. Ruskin's Notes on the Construction of Sheep/olds, immediately wrote for a copy of that work, feeling assured that it would be a serviceable guide to him in the management of his flocks and herds, and in blessed ignorance of the fact that it was a treatise on the discipline of the Church. Among the curiosities of cataloguing, I ought to have mentioned the following, which I lately saw in Notes and Queries. In the monthly catalogue of the firm of Gerold, booksellers in Vienna, and under the heading of ' Religion and Theology,' the following startling entry appeared : ' Handley Cross, selections from.' What would our old friend Mr. Jorrocks, or his shade, think on finding himself classed with such venerable figures as Thomas Aquinas or Melanchthon ! The same paper mentioned that an Edinburgh publisher, in one of his catalogues, lately had the following entry : " Knight, Thomas B., M.D., Pseudodoxia Epidemica," etc., where the reference was to Sir Thomas Browne, Knt, the title of knight having been curiously mistaken for the surname of the writer. For many reasons, perhaps, it is a good thing that Latin quotations have gone out of fashion in speeches in Parliament and on the platform. The practice of introducing them on such occasions, besides being a nuisance to some of the hearers, was often a fruitful source of 'grief ' to the quoters. Classical readers will remember the proverbial Latin saying : ' magnum vectigal est parsimonia ' — and many will remember the story how one evening in the House of Commons, Burke, greatly daring. FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 109 ventured to quote that saying ; but, alas, to the horror of all purists present, he pronounced the ' i,' short — vectigal — and was, of course, immediately ' sat upon.' Strange to say, on the same evening, apparently rendered hazy about his 'i's,' he was ill- advised enough to say ' nlmirum,' instead of ' nimirum ' ; and was in consequence covered with obloquy and confusion, though Lord North kiadly and cleverly tried to exculpate him by saying that only one man in the world ever understood the true ■quantity' of that formidable word, quoting in proof of this position Horace, Epistles, I. ix. 1 : " Septimius, Claudi, nimirum intelligit unus." Personally, I love the ancient classics — as a pastime. Being an idle man, and interested in languages, I like to toy with my Homer or my Horace, just as another man might like to play the fiddle. But, on the score of positive value, and of practical benefit to mankind, it is probable that these languages have been greatly overrated, and I think that there are palpable signs which indicate that their prestige is on the wane. When we reflect how very few among educated men of the world have any appreciable knowledge of Greek or Latin, and that practi- cally the whole female sex have no knowledge of these languages, we cannot fail to perceive that their essential vahie is of small real account. It is absurd to contend that they help us in the composition of English. John Bright, and many of the best masters of vigorous English, had no Greek or Latin. Women seem to write and speak very well without them. And as to wisdom, philosophy, poetry, and so forth, our own language contains ample store of these things, and in the most admirable forms ; to say nothing of the fact that the ancient languages can be made to yield to the world their best treasures through the medium of translation, though possibly with some evapora- tion of their beauties in the process. 110 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES I have already cited the opinion of Voltaire as to Homer and Virgil ; let us now see what he seemed to think of Horace and of Cicero, as humorously set forth in the 25th chapter of his Gandide. "' Oserais-je vous demander, monsieur,' dit Candide, 'si vous n'avez pas un grand plaisir k lire Horace ?' 'II y a des maximes,' dit Pococurante, ' dont un homme du monde peut faire son profit, et qui, dtant resserr^es dans des vers energiques se gravent plus ais6ment dans la memoire : mais je me soucie fort peu de son vogage h, Brindes, et de sa description d'un mauvais diner, et de la querelle de crocheteurs entre je ne sais quel Pupillus, dont les paroles, di-il, ^taient pleines de pus, et un autre dont les paroles ^taient du vinaigre. Je n'ai lu qu' avec un extreme d^goftt ses vers grossiers centre des vieilles et centre des sorcieres; et je ne vois pas quel m^rite il peut y avoir k dire k son ami Mdcenas que s'il est mis par lui au rang des pontes liriques, il frappera les astres de son front sublime — Les sots admirent tout dans un auteur estime — Je ne lis que pour moi ; je n'aime que ce qui est k mon usage.' Candide, qui avait ^td ^lev(5 k ne jamais juger de rien par lui-mgme, ^tait fort etonn^ de ce qu'il entendait ; et Martin trouvait la faQon de penser de Pococurante assez raisonnable." Then, as to Cicero : " ' Oh ! voici un Cic^ron,' dit Candide — ' Pour ce grand homme la, je pense que vous ne vous lassez point de le lire ' — ' Je ne le lis jamais,' r^pondit le V(5nitien— ' Que m'importe qu'il ait plaids pour Rabirius ou pour Cluentius ? J'ai bien assez des proems que je juge ; je me serais mieux accommod^ de ses oeuvres philosophiques ; mais quand j'ai vu qu'il doutait de tout, j'ai conclu que j'en savais autant que lui, et que je n'avais besoin de personne pour Stre ignorant.' " Funny things occasionally crop up in the way of queer plurals. As examples of these, we have all seen 'ignorami,' PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES 111 ' vade-meca,' and so forth ; but these exploits have generally been achieved by persons with no just pretension to the literary character. The latest queer plural, however, which I have observed, occurs in a book of very considerable literary pretension ; com- posed, too, by a very practised writer. For the present I desire to keep this gentleman, like Manzoni's ' Innominate,' unnamed ; but I desire to say that he always makes the plural of ' mauso- leum,' ' mausolea ' ; as to which I would observe that one might just as fitly make the plural of ' museum,' ' musea,' or of ' asylum,' ' asyla.' I take it that when a word becomes naturalised in our language, it must conform to the laws of that language. Perhaps the sole exceptions to this wholesome rule are to be found in the case of certain words derived from the Greek, and terminating in the syllable ' on ' ; thus ' phenomena ' — we have not yet come to speak of ' phenomenons ' ; but, in time, no doubt, we shall do so. While on the subject of plural formations, Heaven forefend that with rash hand I should rip open the chronic controversy as to the proper plural of ' spoonful,' et hoc genus omne. At present, and for the present, that controversy is happily slumber- ing, and I would say, non molestar il can che dorme — let sleeping dogs lie. It is very sure to wake up ere long of its own accord and vex us. Yet I cannot refrain from citing one word of that irritating class which, strange to say, has hitherto, so far . as I know, been overlooked in that controversy, and which yet ought to be decisive of it. That word is 'mouthful.' Now, if the advocates of ' spoonsful,' ' cartsful,' etc., have any pretensions to consistency, they must doubtless maintain that the proper plural of this word is ' mouthsful.' Well, if this be so, I would only submit that if any person should be invited or directed to take a few mouthsful of milk or of tea, he would be tempted to ask — like Sydney Smith, when enjoined by his doctor to take an occasional walk on an empty stomach — whose? 112 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES In the columns of the Weekly Dispatch, not long ago an excited working man launched out into a tirade against capital and capitalists, in the course of which, amid a torrent of invec- tives, he freely used the word ' sic ' among various other parts of speech, with no sort of reference to its usual application, or to any other word in the sentences where he employed it, but as some independent particle of withering but unknown force. There are some curious points connected with the subject of names, both of persons and of places. Of course, as I have already remarked, there are some people who know everything, and, equally of course, these poor Brabbles are not intended for such terrible people. But possibly there may be some ordinary persons who may not know, or who may have forgotten some of the following facts. Take the name ' Voltaire ' for example. This gentleman's real name was ' Arouet ' — Francois Marie Arouet — not very like Voltaire. And yet it is in fact a sort of anagram of the latter. He made Voltaire out of it on this wise : originally, he had always signed his name ' Arouet le Jeune,' in order to distinguish himself from bis elder brother. But, in so signing, he soon came to use only the initial letters of the last two words, thus : ' Arouet 1. j.' Next he represented the ' u ' of 'Arouet' by a ' v,' and the 'j,' the initial of 'jeune,' by an ' i,' and then, by a simple anagrammatic process, he evolved ' Voltaire ' — simple enough after all ; as simple as the egg trick of Columbus. A very similar tour deforce was wrought by Sir Walter Scott with his own name. He at one time adopted, as a sort of trade- mark of his works, the device of a gate, or portcullis, bearing the motto : ' clausus tutus ero ' — closed I shall be safe — which was merely an anagram of 'Walterus Scotus,' melting down the two ' u's ' into a ' w.' While still on the subject of French names, it is perhaps worth while to record the following. Cardinal Janson once said to Boileau : " Why don't you call yourself ' Boivin,' since surely FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 113 wine is better than water ? " To whom retorted Boileau: " Why don't you call yourself ' Jean Farine,' since surely flour is better than bran ? " Undoubtedly the most extraordinary of anagrams is that lately evolved out of ' honorificabilitudinitatibus ' — 'horresco referens — by the lunatics who contend that Shakespeare's plays were written by Bacon, and this particular anagram has acquired a bad eminence by reason of the absurd controversy on this subject. The ridiculous word in question, as most people know, is by Shakespeare put into the mouth of the pedant Holofernes, in Love's Lahoit/r's Lost, Act V. scene i. ; and the lunatics just referred to have been pleased to resolve it into : " Hi ludi, tuiti sibi, Fr, Bacono nati" — a sentence of the shakiest latinity, and the most dubious sense. Some persons have translated these words as follows : " These plays, claimed for himself (i. e. Shakespeare), were sprung from Francis Bacon." I do not, however, think that the passive sense in the word ' claimed' can well be read into the word ' tuiti ' ; and if this be so, then that translation will not hold water. Another rendering is presented in a recent number of the Quarterly Review : " These plays, entrusted to themselves, proceeded from Francis Bacon ; " regarding which the reviewer justly adds, " magnificent, but not Latin." Very quaint, very curious, and highly Homeric in character, is the alleged origin of the name and family of Tweedie. This, avowedly culled from some old legend embalmed in the min- strelsy of the Scottish border, is pithily narrated by Sir Walter Scott in his first introduction to The Betrothed. For the con- venience of the reader, I condense it here. In Tweedside, whilome, there dwelt a Scottish baron who, when something stricken in years, married a buxom bride who, in point of age, might have been his own daughter ; and, shortly thereafter, went crusading to the Holy Land. Seven or eight 8 114 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES years later, returning to his home, he found his lady accom- panied by a bouncing boy who addressed her as mother ; and whose existence the baron could in no wise connect with himself, having due regard to the date of his own departure for the Holy Sepulchre. Then there were like to be ' Avigs on the green.' At length, after a sufficiently moving scene, the lady, with floods of tears, declared that during the absence of her lord, one fine day, as she walked by the side of the Tweed, the deity of that river suddenly arose in human form from out the stream, and Ion gri mal gri became the father of the sturdy fellow whose appearance had so much surprised her husband. It is further related that the worthy baron quietly smothered any scruples he may have felt as to this somewhat apocryphal tale ; and bred up the miraculous child as his heir, and in course of time the latter — ever under the commemorative name of Tweedie — founded the, once powerful family of that name in the bonny border land. I have said that this incident is highly Homeric in its com- plexion. For confirmation of this view of the matter, let the judicious reader turn to the twenty-first book of the Iliad, line 141 sg'g'., where, in reference to Pelegon, the father of Asteropaeus, the poet says : Til/ S* *A|i!)s evpup4€6pos yelvaro, Kal Uept^ota 'AKeffffaficvoio Ovyarpuv irpeff^vTaTTj* Tp yap ^a fiiyr] irorafihs ^aQvStvTjs ; " Fair Periboea, daughter eldest born Of Acessamenus, his father bore To broad-streamed Axius, who had clasped the nymph In his embrace." So Cowper — some may prefer the rendering of Cordery : " But Pelegon was son of Axius' stream By womb of Periboea, eldest child Of Acessamenus." The name Tallejrand is said to be a corruption of taillez les rangs — cleave the ranks. Talboys is certainly a corruption PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 115 of taille bois — feller of forests, or, more humbly, wood-cutter. TroUope is believed to be derived from the following circum- stance : a certain Norman knight who came to England with William the Conqueror, being out hunting one day along with that monarch in the New Forest, happened to kill — possibly or probably, with a single arrow — three wolves, in consequence of which feat, or ' fluke,' he was thenceforth dubbed Trois Loups — hence Trollope. The name of Carlyle's early residence in Dumfriesshire, Craigenputtock, was perhaps not musical in sound, but it was certainly poetical in sense, meaning as it did, the crag of the hawk. The word puttock means a species of hawk or kite; and this not only in the dialect of Galloway, but in the language of Shakespeare ; see Gynibdine, Act I. scene i., where Imogen "I chose an eagle, And did avoid a puttock : " and Henry VI. Part II., Act III. scene ii. : — "Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest. But may imagine how the bird was dead." Akin to this is the name of Gladstone, which strictly means, the stone, or rock, of the ' gled,' or kite — a somewhat ominous etymology of the patronymic of a ' grand old man.' Boanerges is a word familiar enough in our mouths, and most of us know its meaning too; but probably few s^ve divines, and possibly not all of them, know its construction. It is a corruption, and a rolling into one, of the Syriac words, ' Ben- i-ro-gaz,' meaning, the son of thunder. Many other words in the New Testament, commonly regarded as Hebrew, are, like Boanerges, in reality Syriac. Examples of such are the follow- ing : Ephphatha, Talitha cumi, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, Aceldama, Golgotha, Gethsemane, and Mammon. Also Bar- Jona, Bar-Tholomew, Bar- Abbas, Bar-Nabas, and Bar-Timseus ; 116 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES the syllable ' Bar ' in all such words, meaning ' son ' ; just like the Scottish 'Mac/ the Welsh 'ap/ the Irish 'O,' and the Norman ' Fitz.' It may be noted in passing that the expression in Mark x. 46, " blind Bartimseus, the son of Timseus," is, as may be seen from the above, pleonastic and redundant; afford- ing another example of the tendency to pleonasm in language, already referred to in my second chapter. This pleonasm in the present instance would have been avoided if the text had said, " blind Bartimseus, that is to say, the son of Timseus ; " but the matter is unimportant. The word Trocadero, the name of the locality in Paris which has formed the site of so many of the great exhibitions in that city, has puzzled many people, who cannot account for such a Spanish-looking name in a French metropolis. This name embalms a commemoration of the siege of Cadiz by the French, in 1823. In France it was first of all given to a garden and children's playground at St. Cloud. Subsequently it came to be applied to the elevated ground on the bank of the Seine where the Paris Exhibitions have so often been held. The word Trocadero means the Exchange ; from the Spanish verb ' trocar,' to exchange, or to barter ; which, again, is connected with the French ' troquer,' and with our own English ' truck.' In the pronunciation of the word the stress is on the third syllable. During the heroic defence of Lucknow, in the great mutiny, much prominence was acquired by the name ' Bailie Guard,' as having been the scene of some of the most desperate assaults by the enemy, and some of the most brilliant resistances by the faithful remnant of our Sepoys under the gallant Aitkin. Now this name puzzled everybody in India at the time, and, so far as I know, has puzzled everybody since. Why Bailie Guard ? Who, or what was Bailie ? There was no man of that name in any, way connected with the occupation or defence of the position in question. What could it mean ? Well, Sir Walter Scott helps us here, as in so many other matters — bless FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 117 him. It seems that Bailie, or Bailey, or Bayley — for the word is spelt in aU these ways — is an old name for a fort, or for a par- ticular post in a fortress. Thus, in The Betrothed, chapter viii.. Father Aldovrand thus addresses the Flemish sentinel whom he had found sleeping on his post on the battlements of the Garde Doloureuse : " Peace, and get thee down to the under bayley." Again, in The Abbot, chapter xxxiii., old Dryfesdale speaks to the Lady of Lochleven of " the warder's tower, the bailie, and the donjon," and in Quentin Durward, chapter xii., we find mention of 'the inner Bailley.' Then there is the Old Bayley, or Bailey, in London, while at Oxford there is the church of St. Peter le Bailey ; so called, I believe, because it is situated in the outer ballium of Oxford Castle. Thus some etymologists hold it to be derived from the Low Latin lallium, meaning a space beyond the main rampart of a fortress; and in the same connection we have the French ' bailler,' to put in custody ; the middle English ' to put in baile,' or prison ; the ' bail dock ' in the Old Bailey ; the legal term, ' to bail,' the 'law of bailment,' and so forth. Some again consider that the word is connected with the Latin 'vallum,' a wall, or a rampart. All this throws sufiScient light on the origin and meaning of the word; but how it ever came to be applied to a position in the entrenched Residency of Lucknow, no man can imagine. Possibly it was a whimsical idea of some ardent lover of his Scott. The corruptions of personal names are sometimes very curious. In the middle ages, the Italians contrived to twist ' Hawkwood ' into ' I'Acuto.' It may be remembered that Sir John Hawkwood was one of those English soldiers of fortune, then called ' condottieri,' or ' capitani di ventura,' who, like Dugald Dalgetty at a later period, sold their services to foreign governments; notably to Italy in the wars of the fourteenth century. These leaders, and their motley bands, were often so notorious for their ferocity and cruelty as to give rise to the 118 PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES popular saying of the time : " Inglese italianato h diavolo incarnato;" and an Italian writer of that period also says regarding them : " Non era nulla di piu terribile che udire il solo nome degl' inglesi." However that may be, they managed to distort this leader's name into ' I'Acuto.' Effendi, though not a name, but a title of honour, is a curious corruption. It is said to be a modification of the modern Greek form of avdivTrjs, the secondary meaning of which is, a ruler, or master ; and it is now equivalent to little more than our ' Mr.,' or ' Esquire ' ; although it also denotes a grade in an order of dis- tinction, as in our ' Commander of the Bath,' or the everlasting Italian ' Commendatore,' who meets us at every street comer in Florence. 'Joss-house,' commonly used by us to signify a Chinese temple, is said to be formed from the Spanish, or possibly Portu- guese, ' Dios,' God. At all events the word ' joss ' is not Chinese. Similarly ' mandarin ' is a word unknown to the Chinese, and it is believed to be formed from the Spanish verb ' mandar,' to command ; though some, with considerable plausibility, hold that it is derived from, or at least connected with, the Sanscrit word 'mantri,' meaning a minister, or the president of a de- partment of the State. In like manner, the word ' cheroot,' de- noting a kind of cigar manufactured in the Philippine Islands, is there unknown ; and it is impossible to declare its genesis. One of the best corruptions of names that I know of is the following, lately brought to notice by a writer in Mackwoo^s Magazine. It seems that the old Scottish chronicler Calder- wood, in treating of Maitland of Lethington, who flourished in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, and in allusion to his cunning and astuteness, calls him a veritable ' Michael Wylie,' This mystic epithet, after puzzling the learned for a long time, turned out to be only a corruption of ' MachiavelK ' ! Most people, I fancy, have heard of the ' Grecian stairs ' at Lincoln. This is an example of a very strange corruption. In FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 119 this the word ' Grecian ' is a distortion of ' grisen,' an old plural of the word ' grise/ or ' grize,' meaning a grade or step, from the Old French 'gres,' which, again, is from the Latin 'gressus.' Thus, in Shakespeare, Othello, I. iii., the Duke of Venice says : "Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence Which, as a grise or step may help these lovers Into your favour." Again in Timon of Athens, IV. iii. : " For every grize of fortune Is smoothed by that below." Once more, in Twelfth Night, III. i., Olivia says to Viola : "That's a degree to love " ; and Viola replies : " No, not a grise." And in this example, as so often happens in the case of cor- ruptions, ' grisen ' having been changed into ' Grecian, and having thus lost its meaning, the necessary signification had to be supplied by adding the word ' stairs,' whereby a redundancy of meaning is created, just like that which I have already in- dicated as occurring in the names ' Orkney Islands,' ' Faroe Islands,' and other words, such as ' mongibello,' a local name of Mount Etna, which name is composed of two words which both mean hill, namely, the Latin ' mons,' and the Arabic ' gibel ' or ' giber,' which latter again figures in a distorted and fragmentary form in the word Gibraltar. Before leaving Lincoln I would advert to the curious old say- ing as to the devil looking over that city, a saying which has puzzled many people, and which, so far as I know, has never yet been satisfactorily explained. In The Fortwnes of Nigel, chapter xxi., Dame Ursula Suddlechop says to Jenkin Vincent: "You look on me as the devil looks over Lincoln." Again, in Kenil- worth, chapter i., the jolly landlord of the ' Black Bear' says to the moody Tressilian : " Here be a set of good fellows willing to be merry; do not scowl on them like the devil looking over 120 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Lincoln ; " and no doubt the expression occurs in many other places ; as, for example, in Pope's lines : "Yet there are wights who fondly call their own Half that the devU o'erlooks from Lincoln's town." Some time ago a correspondent of Notes and Queries wrote as follows on this point : " A gargoyle near the splendid south porch of Lincoln Cathedral represents a diabolic figure on a witch's back. This is one claimant for the honour of being Lincoln's overseer. At the east end of the south chapel of the nave, the consistory court, is another sculpture, representing the gentle- man alone; this is the second claimant for the honour; but when the tradition or saying on the subject arose has never yet been made out." Another correspondent of the same paper, in reply to a query from myself on the point, furnished the following extract from Edwards's Words, Facts, and Phrases : — " An old proverb says that the devil looks over Lincoln. The tower of this cathedral is the highest in England, and, when the spire was standing on it it must, if in proportion, have exceeded that of old St. Paul's, which was 325 feet. The monks are said to have been so proud of this structure that they thought the devil looked upon it with an envious eye ; whence arose the proverb, said of one who looks envious and malignant, ' he looks as the devil did over Lincoln.' " This correspondent, however, adds his own conviction " that the more probable theory is, that the proverb originated in the circumstance that a small figure of the devil stands on the top of Lincoln College at Oxford." Still another correspondent, in reply to my query, expressed his belief that Pope and his successors had assigned the devil to the wrong Lincoln, quoting at the same time the following extract from The Gentleman's Magazine, 1731, page 402: "The famous devil that us'd to overlook Lincoln College in Oxford PKIBBLES AND PRABBLES 121 was taken down on Wednesday, September 15, 1731, having, about two years since, lost his head in a storm." Such appears to be all that is known, or conjectured, as to the origin and meaning of this curious phrase. With these materials before him, let the judicious reader decide the point for himself. A curious transmogrification of names took place among the Huguenot refugees who flocked to England after the revocation by Louis XIV. of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. I think the matter is fuUy set forth by Mr. Samuel Smiles in his book on the Huguenots in England. It seems that many of these perse- cuted Frenchmen, clinging affectionately to their old names, yet apparently anxious to shake off the odious associations connected with them, devised a strange plan for throwing them off, and yet retaining them. They translated them into English, some- times with a slight alteration of their sense. The subjoined table wUl show the nature of this process: Oeioinal Name Becahb Original Name Became Boileau Drinkwater Le Jeune Young Delamere Bythesea Le Maur Brown Dulau Waters Le Monnier MiUer Jolifemme Pretyman Le Noir Black Lacioix Cross Le Roy King Le Blanc White L'Oiseau Bird Le Fevre Smith, and Planchd Plank Faber Sauvage Savage, and WUd. Some of their names, however, fell into ordinary corruption. Thus, Beaufoy subsided into Boffy; Chapuis into Shoppee; jCond^ into Cundy; de Moulins into Mullins; d'Orldans into Dorling ; de Preux into Diprose ; Momerie into Mummery — this last a Dover name, I believe — Pelletier into Pelter, and Taille- bois into Talboys. The subject is certainly curious. One other peculiar feature in connection with names — both of 122 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES persons and of places — is worthy of notice. This is the tendency of some names, especially names of foreign origin, or of cumbrous length, to get pronounced in a strange, and generally, though not always, contracted way, far different from that which would be suggested by their spelling. The following table, which does not pretend to be by any means complete or exhaustive, exhibits some examples of this process. Name Pronounced Name Peonodnced Abergavenny Abergenny Jervaux Jarvis Ardilaun Ardillan Keighley Keithley Auchinleck Affleck Kilravock Kilrock Beauchamp Beecham Leominster Lemster Beaumaris Bomorris Leveson-Gower Lewson-Gore Beauvoir and Magheramorne Maramorne Belvoir Beaver Marjoribanks Marchbanks Bethune Beaton Menzies Mingles Birkbeck Birbeck in Scotland Blount Blunt Mildenhall Minal, or Brougham Broom Minnal Cftrew Carey Monson Munson Carshalton Casalton Pall Mall Pell MeU Charteris Charters Pepys Peps and Peeps Cholmondeley Chumley Ponsonby Punsonby Coke Cook Puleston PUston Cololough Cokely Ruthven Riven Colquhoun Cahoon Sawbridge- Sapsworth (?) Coningham Cunningham worth Dillwyn Dillon Shrewsbury Shrewsbury Duchesne Ducane St. Clair Sinclair Geoghegan Gehegan, and St. John Sinjun Gagan St. Leger SUlinger Grlamis Glams St. Paul Simple Goodnestone Gunston Uttoxeter Uxeter Gower Gore Waldegrave Walgrave Hawarden Harden Walsall Wossal Home Hume Wemyss Weems Inglis ' Ingles in Woburn Wooburn Scotland Wymondham Windham FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 123 Captain Cook, in the account of his voyages of discovery, adduces a curious example of the liability of explorers and navigators to fall into error and confusion in apprehending the place-names of foreign, and especially of savage countries. He tells us that the language employed by the natives in the northern parts of New Zealand, as compared with that spoken in its southern districts, differed from the latter chiefly in the matter of pronunciation ; and inasmuch as the names of places in the north and in the south were not always reduced to writing by one and the same officer ; one officer, in order to represent a particular sound, might possibly employ more letters than another officer might use for the same purpose; or he might even use different letters for that purpose ; since the entire process was purely phonetic in its methods. Moreover, it was the custom of the natives, especially in the southern districts, to put some article or particle before each name, just as we sometimes put ' the,' or ' a,' before a word. The particles thus employed in this part of New Zealand were generally ' ke,' or ' ko.' Furthermore, it was common for the islanders to add the expletive factor ' oeia ' to any given name, especially in the case of iteration, or in answer to any doubt expressed by the inquirer ; just as we might, in similar circumstances, say, ' yes indeed,' or 'certainly.' This sometimes led Captain Cook's exploring officers into the formation of words of extraordinary length, and totally unlike the words which the natives really intended to express. " Thus," he says, " in the Bay of Islands there is a remarkable isle called by the natives, ' Matuaro.' One of my officers having asked a native the name of that isle, the latter replied, employing the above-mentioned particle, ' ke,' ' Kematuaro.' The officer, hearing the sound imperfectly, repeated his question ; whereupon the native repeated his reply adding the above-named expletive, ' oeia ; ' which made the word into ' Kematuarooeia ;' and thus it happened that, in the log- 124 PKIBBLES AND PRABBLES book, Captain Cook found 'Matuaro' transformed into ' Cumettiwarroweia.' " The gallant and ingenious captain adds with truth that a no less startling transformation might, by similar means, happen to an English word. Suppose a New Zealander — a real old- fashioned man-eating Maori; not Macaulay's London Bridge and St. Paul's one — being on a visit to England, to find himself at Hackney ; and to inquire of a rustic : ' What viUage is this ? ' The answer might be, ' It is Hackney.' Suppose the question to be repeated, with an air of doubt and uncertainty. The answer might then be : 'It is Hackney indeed ' — and then the New Zealander would probably enter in his note-book for the benefit of his co-cannibals, that during his residence in Eng- land he had visited a village which rejoiced in the name of ' Ityshakneeindede ! ' So let navigators and explorers beware. Nowadays, everybody can buy a good etymological dictionary for a trifle. Personally, I find Stormonth good, and filling at the price, since I can't afford Murray. That being so, I will not ramble far in the field of derivation. I must, however, mention one rather good derivation which I lately saw in Blackwood's Magazine, in an article entitled ' Cambridge by an Oxonian.' The writer of that article said that the Cambridge word ' gyp ' — the meaning of which is known over the wide world — comes from yv^, yviros, a vulture. Now a vulture is nearly allied to the Harpies, who, of course, are the bed-makers. There are certain derivations which are highly curious, but scarcely fit for eyes or ears polite. Among these are ' Fascination,' ' Orchid,' and ' Pencil.' These I would just indicate, as through a glass darkly ; and then draw a veil over them ; leaving it to people who possess Latin dictionaries and Greek lexicons — and who know how to use them — to withdraw that veil for themselves, if so disposed. As for us, in the words of Virgil to Dante, I would say : "Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa." CHAPTER VI Some curiosities of etymology — Desdemona, etc. — Credat Judoeus — Fox's aunts— A wonderful word — Translation — Landor's view — Memory — Overrating the past — Ancestry — Morality and geography — Disasters at a distance — Gold in the teeth of the dead — Paper money — Horace on money — " Come, my lad, and drink some beer " — Browning — Carlyle — George Meredith. Language sometimes plays fantastic tricks, especially when the genius of modern speech runs counter to the due con- struction of words evolved from Greek roots ; and it is strange that Italian — a language in itself so fascinating, and in the matter of pronunciation so loyal to the canons of the classic models — should in some respects be a prime offender in this particular. It is well enough known that the Italian alphabet contains no ' y ,' and practically no ' h,' save for the purpose of governing pronunciation in certain cases. But it is not so generally noticed that this fact causes much corruption in the form and spelling of certain words, as well as much obscuration of their origin and meaning. A striking illustration of this — as regards the letter ' y ' — is afforded by the word Desdemona, which, from this cause, has unfortunately lost at once its right form, its right pronunciation, and, worst of all, its whole meaning. This word, as is known to those who are curious in such matters, was originally a sort of transliteration of the Greek adjective bva-baiixoiv ; and it meant, the unfortunate or unhappy one. But since the Italian language has no ' y,' the Greek ' w,' in words formed from the 125 126 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Greek, is always represented in Italian by the letter ' i.' Hence, in that language the word necessarily becomes Disdemona, and it is so spelt in Giraldo Cintio's Hecatomiti, III. 7, from which source it is believed that Shakespeare drew the material for his Othello. But even when the word became thus partially disguised, the ' e ' in its second syllable still remained long ; and the ' o ' in its third syllable remained short ; as thus, Disdemona ; and to this day the word is so pronounced by all Italians. But unhappily, in process of time, the ' i ' in the first syllable, already disguised by the necessities of Italian literation, became wantonly cor- rupted into ' e ' ; and the tonic accent, or stress, got transferred from the second syllable to the third, as thus, Desdemona ; and in this way the interesting old word lost at once its true form, its true pronunciation, its whole meaning, and all trace of its origin. Another lamentable example of the same destructive process is aflforded by the word Posilipo, which, now too generally pronounced Posilipo, that is to say with the tonic stress on the second syllable, was originally pronounced Posilipo, with the stress on the third syllable, and which ought to be so pro- nounced ; while it originally contained a beautiful meaning, now lost by reason of its mispronunciation. The word is, of course, formed from the Greek adjective TsavcrCkvTios, meaning, allaying pain or grief; such being the epithet which the Emperor Augustus conferred on his villa at this spot, in order to indicate that there no care could enter — just as the Great Frederick gave the name of ' Sans-Souci ' to his favourite retreat at Potsdam — and the second ' u ' in nava-ikvnos is long. But unhappily, owing to the non-existence of the letter ' y ' in Italian, the word has lost its significance, its origin is obscured, and its pronunciation is vitiated. Many more examples of the same thing might be cited, but I shall adduce but one more, which I select because it well FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 127 illustrates the confusion and obscurity which sometimes arise from the Italian treatment both of the letter ' y ' and of the letter ' h/ when etymological considerations would require the presence of those letters in the formation of their compound words. Visitors to Florence have often been mystified by the name of the large theatre in that city, called the PoKteama. They naturally bethink them of irokis, iroXtV?js, or some such wordsi and imagine that the name has some reference to the citizens, or to matters municipal ; when in fact the word only means, the place where many things can be seen — a sort of theatre of varieties — and we should spell it Polytheama. Even the little word mifo, a myth, is shrouded in an almost impenetrable disguise by the operation of the same cause; since in that single monosyllable myth, in its Italian form, the 'y ' becomes an 'i,' and the 'h' is suppressed. Thus the word Hecatomiti, quoted above, which iq that form might well defy detection, merely means, the hundred myths, or fables. A very thorny and mysterious word is Philately. Everybody, of course, knows what it means ; but not everybody knows what is its derivation and construction; although this is now well enough known to scholars. On this point, some time ago, I vainly consulted the ETbcyclopedia Britannica, Chambers's Encyclo- pedia, six dictionaries, and seven learned friends. Most of these books mentioned the word, and its meaning — which I already knew — but none of them gave its etymology and composition. My learned friends, too, were mostly nonplussed. So I had nothing for it but to try and worry it out for myself. The ' phil ' was, of course, obvious ; but how about the rest of the word ? The sole solution that I could think of was, that if it was anything human, it must be connected with the Greek word arek'^s, which, being compounded of alpha privative and TeKos, a tax or charge, means among other things, free of charge ; 128 FRIBBLES AND PKABBLES and hence, by a very arbitrary and far-fetched process, it might be applied to a label, by affixing which to a letter or parcel, the same is delivered free of further charge — a postage stamp, in fact. Thus, formerly, letters used to be ' franked,' or rendered free of postage, by members of Parliament ; and even now, the Italian for a postage stamp is francobollo. All this, however, seemed very strained; and if this was really the construction of the word, I did not think its coiner had much reason to be proud of his coinage. In fact, one of my learned friends, one of those "Who could speak Greek As naturally as pigs squeak," and of whom it might have been said that to him "Latin was no more diffioUe Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle," utterly scouted my solution of the matter, derided it as sheer nonsense, and evidently set me down as a fool ; while another learned friend, possessed of a fine sense of humour, said, with some truth, that if the word philately was derived as above stated, it would be a better name for love of evasion of the Income Tax than for love of collecting postage stamps. And yet I proved to be right after all. It was another case of truth proceeding out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. A reference by me to the oracle of Chancery Lane, Not(& and Queries, to wit, elicited the following response : " It would be well if many recent formations could have their origin as definitely traced as ' Philately.' The word, in a French form, was invented by M. G. Herpin, one of the pioneers of the scientific study of stamps, and a frequent contributor to the early literature of the subject. In the Oollectionneur de Timbres Paste for November 1864, p. 20, appears an article from his pen, entitled 'BaptSme.' After discussing the objections to the word timbromanie, which had been previously employed, M. PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 129 Herpin goes on to propose as preferable : ' Philatelie, formd de deux mots grecs, C\os, ami, amateur, et dreA?js, franc, libre de toute charge ou impot ; substantif, areXeia. Philatelie signifierait done amour de I'etude de tout ce qui se rapporte k raffranchissement.' The words philately, philatelist, and philatelic were introduced to English collectors in The Stamp Collectors' Magazine for 1865, see pp. 112, 127 and 182. The form philatelical was first used by the late Mr. Edward L. Pemberton, in his Philatelical JourTial, in January, 1872." This communication was signed " P. J. Anderson." Another correspondent of the same useful journal, over the signature of' ' W. T. Lynn,' wrote on the same subject as follows : " The derivation of this word suggested by General Maxwell is stated as probably the true one in the Encyclopmdic Dictionary. The first number of The Philatelist — a monthly journal, not now, I believe, in terra viventuom — was issued on December 1, 1866; and it begins with an article by Mr. Camoens, from which I quote the following : " Having secured a position, a suitable name of title next became indispensable. Timhromania was its first designation ; but this being suggestive of madness, and as no one likes to be thought mad, it soon became unpopular. Timhrophily and Timhrology next had a short reign, as a technical term; till Philately, having the double charm of being very euphonious (?) as well as slightly incomprehensible to all but the learned, has proved to be the right word in the right place." So now philately may rest in peace. The expression ' credat Jud^eus ' is one which sometimes exercises some people. Its genesis and meaning are well known to readers of Horace. In the fifth Satire of his first Book, the poet gives the celebrated humorous account of his journey to Brundusium; and in this piece he relates, among other things, that at Egnatia they showed him a temple where the priests pretended that the incense on the altar was ignited 9 130 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES spontaneously without the application of fire; whereupon he exclaims : "Credat Judaeus Apella, Non ego," — "The Jew Apella may believe that— but not I," and this expression is still commonly employed in order to denote incredulity in regard to any monstrous fib. So far, all is plain sailing. But the question has often been asked. Who was the Jew Apella ? That is a question which no man has ever answered. Nobody knows. Nothing more is said about him in the above passage ; and there is no mention of him anywhere else in the whole range of extant Latin literature. Commentators have often tried to solve this knotty point ; but they have never settled it in any way ; and it need hardly be said that they have never agreed in their attempted solutions of it. Bentley seemed to think the reference must have been to some specially credulous Jew of that name, not elsewhere mentioned ; and various learned conjectures have been made upon the subject, but without any satisfactory result. But it is well known that, in the time of Horace, Apella was a very common name among Jewish fi-eedmen dwelling in Transtiberine Rome; in evidence of which we find Cicero, in one of his letters saying to his correspondent : " Ne Apellse quidem liberto tuo dixeris," etc. ; besides many other passages and inscriptions which go to prove that that name was frequently borne by the Roman Jews in early times. Now, to a Roman, and especially to a sneering sceptic like Horace, all Jews must have appeared excessively credulous, by reason of their religious beliefs ; and hence that class doubtless became in the eyes of the Romans the very type of superstition and credulity; and since, as we have seen, Apella was a common Jewish name in Rome, it would be natural enough for a Roman to say, regarding anything which he considered preposterous and incredible, " Let Apella the Jew believe that." FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 131 Seamen think, or used to think, or to pretend to think, that the marines were specially credulous and gullible ; and Joe used to be a common generic nickname for a marine. Hence it might easily happen that a sailor, in speaking of something incredible, might exclaim with derision : " Joe the marine may believe that ; not I ; " and two thousand years hence, learned commentators of a future nation, meeting the expression in some book or play of our time, might launch out into futile speculations as to who this Joe the marine might have been. Some scholars have thought that Apella was not a personal name at all ; but an adjective ; that it ought to commence with a small ' a ' ; and that it means circumcised, being composed of alpha privative and iriKXa, skin ; but this interpretation has been rejected by all later criticism, and is, in fact, absolutely untenable, since no such word exists in Greek, or is met with anywhere except in this single passage. On the supposed superstitions and credulous character of the Jews, see also Woodstock, chapter xvi., where Bletson says to Markham Everard : " These Jews have always been superstitious ; ever since Juvenal's time, thou knowest." " Qualiacunque voles Judaei somnia vendunt." It is a curious fact, perhaps not generally known or re- membered, though doubtless familiar to Macaulay's omniscient schoolboy, that Charles James Fox had two aunts, of whom one died in 1655, and the other in 1826 ; the deaths of these two ladies having thus been separated by the extraordinary interval of 171 years. The particulars of this remarkable case are, of course, accessible to all students of biography ; but it may be a convenience to readers if I briefly recapitulate them in this place. The celebrated statesman's grandfather, Sir Stephen Fox, was bom in 1627 ; and, in 1654, being then twenty-seven years old, he married his first wife, who is described by the historian 132 PHIBBLES AND PRABBLES of the family as ' a sister of the king's surgeon.' By her he had a numerous family, the eldest of whom, a girl, died in infancy in 1655 ; while all the rest of his children by that marriage died childless. But in 1703 Sir Stephen, being then seventy- six years old, and being moreover, as is quaintly recorded of him, ' of a vegete and hale constitution,' was, naturally enough, unwilling that his abundant estate should pass out of his family for want of heirs of his body ; and accordingly this vegete old gentleman then married his second wife, who is stated to have been ' the daughter of a Grantham clergyman.' By this lady he had, among other progeny, a son, Henry, who, in 1744, married Lady Caroline Lennox, the eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond; and the said Henry's second son by her was Charles James Fox. Now, the Duke of Richmond's youngest daughter. Lady Sarah Napier — who, of course, was an aunt of Charles James Fox — survived till 1826 ! while the infant daughter of Sir Stephen Fox — his other aunt — died, as above stated, in 1655 ; and thus there was an interval of 171 years between the deaths of these two aunts of our hero. The matter may be rendered more clear by the appended genealogical table. Sib, Stephen Fox, bom 1627 Married in 1654 Married iii 1703 his iirst wife his second wife Daughter died, a | | baby, in 1655. Stephen Henry Aunt of C. J. I Fox 1 Married in 1744, Caroline, daughter second Duke of Richmond > C. J. Fox! 1 This lady's youngest sister. Lady Sarah Napier, lived till 1826. Aunt of C. J. Fox. PKIBBLES AND PRABBLES 133 And the widow of Charles James Fox survived till 1842, or nearly 200 years after the death of her aunt by marriage. In my copy of Boswell's Life, of Johinson, near the end, there is a description of the monument which was erected in memory of the lexicographer, in St. Paul's Cathedral ; and in that description it is stated that on that monument the figure of the Doctor holds in its right hand a scroU bearing the following inscription : ENMAKAPE22mONnNANTHAI02IEHAMOIBH Now a great part of this alleged inscription is palpably absurd, the Greek having been mercilessly mangled by our friend the printer, since, avv^aLoo-ie is sheer gibberish. And yet in many subsequent editions of this popular book, this extraordinary blunder remained unobserved and uncorrected. I believe the inscription is given accurately in Croker's edition ; and possibly it may have been produced rightly in other editions of the book ; but it certainly stands in all its pristine atrocity in the very last edition of it which has appeared ; I refer to that of Mr. Augustine Birrell, in 1896. And what is more, I do not think that the blunder has ever been noticed by anybody. If left to his own devices, any person possessed of a moderate knowledge of Greek would find it easy enough to imagine what the tenor of the inscription ought to be. However, let the monument speak for itself. On it the line — for it forms a hexameter line — runs as follows: ENMAKAPESSinONnNANTAHIOSEIHAMOlBH ; or, in small Greek characters : that is to say, "amid the blest may he have a reward com- mensurate with his labours." Even to this line some persons might be inclined to take exception, inasmuch as avrd^ios, though a compound adjective, is one of those which have three terminations, and therefore, in 134 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES strictness, it ought to be in the feminine — avrd^M — in order to agree with the feminine substantive afioL^rj. But the probability is that the line is a quotation from some late Greek writer ; and it is well known that, in the later Greek, adjectives of three terminations are often treated, like most compound adjectives, as if they had but two terminations. But to pass over this as unimportant, and to return to the inscription as given in Malone's note to Boswell, I contend that it amounts to a curiosity of bibliography that so ridiculous a blunder — and that, too, in so famous and popular a book — should have so long passed, not only uncorrected by successive editors, but absolutely unnoticed by the reading public ; and I regard the circumstance as a lurid example of the amount of error which the said public is capable of calmly swallowing. I verily believe that they would never wink if an author of celebrity were solemnly to foist upon them any piece of absolute nonsense in the Greek character, even if it were as absurd as the following : liiroC ^ctoCkis aiyic' 'hri) (popet ffavi) ffaviiffav ju^, i,v^s' Ti (raiet ffavTjffav ; which the ingenious reader will readily perceive to be our old friend : "I saw Esau kissing Kate, And the fact is, we all tliree saw ; For I saw Esau, 'e saw me, And she saw I saw Esau." Before leaving Johnson's epitaph, I may observe that a writer in Notes and Queries, over the signature of ' J. S.,' says that the line — the correct one, of course — is a modification of the follow- ing, which occurs in the Periegesis of Dionysius of Alexandria, written in the third century : and it seems that this line formed the closing words of The FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 135 Bamhler. Its adoption for Dr. Johnson's monumental scroll was suggested, it seems, by Seward and Dr. Parr; and the latter altered it to its present tenor for reasons which may be found in Johnstone's Life of him. I lately spotted a very neat little blunder in no less august a quarter than The Quarterly Bsmew — corrwptio ojptimi pessima. That serial, in its issue for April, 1898, contains an article called "Prehistoric Arts and Crafts"; and that article, at page 414 of the volume, contains a description of the still existing relics of the lake-dwellings of the neolithic period, in which the following passage occurs : "Scraps of fishing-nets have come to light showing the identical stitch still in use ; and so too have hanks of rope and twine; these latter, except for their being burnt to blackness, looking as new and untouched as if just come from the hands of the cordwainer.'' Here it is almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that the writer of the article thought that the word ' cordwainer ' means a maker of cords. But aU the dictionaries to which I have access state that this word means a shoemaker; that is, one who works in ' cordwain,' which latter word is a modification of ' cordovan,' a kind of leather formerly prepared at Cordova ; and the said dictionaries support this view by sundry quotations in prose and verse from writers of authority ; thus, in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess : " Whilst every shepherd's boy Puts on his lusty green, with gaudy hook, And hanging scrip of finest cordovan ; " and in Spenser's Faerie Queen : "Her straight legs most bravely were embay 'd In golden buskins of costly cordwain ; " and, lastly, in Bishop Hall's Balm of Gilead : " If the shoe be too big for the foot, it is but troublesome and 136 PRIBBLES AND PEABBLES useless ; and how poor an answer would it be of the cordwainer to say that he had of leather good store." Well, the question is, which is right — the dictionaries, or the Quarterly reviewer? If the latter blundered, I do think he ought to be just a little ashamed of himself. It is somewhat exasperating to hear the word ' cocaine ' now almost universally pronounced as a dissyllable, like the word ' Cocaigne ' — a barbarism which completely destroys the structure, and obscures the meaning of the unfortunate word. It cannot be too emphatically insisted that this word ought to be pro- nounced as a word of three syllables — co-ca-ine — signifying, as it does, the active principle of the narcotic shrub coca, which, by the way, has nothing to do with cocoa — this, propter simpliciiatem laicorum. In words of this formation the termination 'ine' always denotes the alkaloid or active principle of any given substance. Thus morphine, the active principle of opium ; nicotine, the active principle of tobacco ; quinine, that of cinchona ; strych- nine, that of nux vomica ; caffeine, that of coffee ; theine, that of tea ; and cocaine, that of coca. It commonly happens that if any person be pulled up for calling it ' cocane,' or ' cocaigne,' the culprit pleads, with an air of satisfied assurance, " Well, the doctor pronounced it so." If this be so, and I greatly fear it is too true, then all I have to say is, the worse for the doctor. The mention of doctors reminds one of a somewhat curious thing. In modern Europe from time to time certain persons attempt to raise an outcry against the growth of specialism in medical and surgical practice — a growth which, with all due regard to the general practitioner, is, for obvioUs reasons, as- suredly destined to increase. In view of the objections which some people entertain to the increase of medical and surgical specialism in our day, it is curious to note the remarkable extent to which it seems to have been carried by that astute people the ancient Egyptians, as recorded by Herodotus in the FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 137 following passage, which occurs in the eighty-fourth section of his second book : 7] Se irirpiKij Karh Ta5e fffjii SeBaffrai' fiiTJs voiffov tnaff'ns iTjrpSs 4(Tti koI ov n\e6v(ov. HayTO S* iTyrpap effri 7rA.ea' ol juev y^p otpBaX/xuv iTjTpol KareffratTi, ot 5f K€(j>a\7iSf ol Se 656vTti>Vf ol Se tui/ cL^aj'4QiV poiffuv, A physician for each disease — physicians for the treatment of the eyes ; others for affections of the head ; others for the teeth ; others for ailments of the stomach ; and others still for the more obscure internal complaints — a degree of specialism at least equal to any now prevailing. But doctors' bills must have been somewhat heavy in ancient Egj^t. The Arabic language is remarkable, among other things, for the strange variety and dissimilarity of the meanings which it sometimes assigns to its words. As an example of this I would here cite an Arabic substantive which presents such an extra- ordinary diversity and contrariety of meanings, that it may interest some people to make its acquaintance. That word is ' Ajuz,' whose various and varying significations are rendered as follows in Richardson's Persian and Arabic dictionary: " An old woman — A young woman of a delicate constitution — A traveller — A king — ^A kingdom — An army — A battalion — A governor of a province or city — A companion — Familiar — Inti- mate — A consort — Heaven — The universe — The world — The earth — The sun — A parhelion, halo, or red circle surrounding the sun — A heap of sand — A road, path, or way — The temple of Mecca — A Christian church — A monastery — The sea — A ship — A well — A hot wind — Hell — Calamity or misfortune — Con- trariety — Vanity — Hunger — Hungry — A fever — Health — The right hand — War — A tent — A shield — A kind of dart — The point of a sword — A stud or nail in a sword-hilt — A needle — A sting — A bow — A quiver — A standard or ensign — Colours — A drum — A feather — ^A dish or plate — A kettle, or pot — A bottle — A flask — A trivet — A grate — Anything supporting a pot, or holding fire — An impression made by burning — A page — A leaf 138 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES i — A sheet of paper etc. — A woman's shift or under garment — A dish of food made of sea herbs— Butter, boiled, purified, or salted — Wine — A species of perfume— Musk — Silver — Price or value— A weight of four drachms— Delay— A lion— A horse— A bull — A cow— A he-wolf— A she- wolf— -A she-camel — A hare — A hyena — A dog — Poison or venom — Uterus — Pubes ferae — A palm tree — A species of plant called summak — Five, or according to some, seven, days at the winter solstice — An ill- looking old woman — Infirm — Helpless — ^Unable to support life — Aged (woman)." A useful word, in all conscience, and one prepared to do duty in a considerable variety of capacities ; but, at the same time, one, the unwary employment of which might possibly be apt to lead to ambiguity. Much good abuse is often vented on translators ; and much uncalled-for contempt is frequently expressed in regard to the entire province of translation. But I do think that this is un- just and unreasonable. As Napoleon III. said in his Life of Ccesar, ' Soyons logiques, et nous serons justes.' To me it seems that, in every sample of such work, the question is, or ought to be : is it, or is it not, a good translation ? and if good, then it is fairly entitled to respect and admiration. In his imaginary conversation with the Abb6 Delille, Landor says, and says with truth : " To translate Milton well is more laudable than originality in trifling matters ; just as to transport an obelisk from Egypt, and to erect it in one ofour squares, must be considered a greater achievement than to build a new chandler's shop." And surely it is better to reproduce in another tongue the masterpiece of a master mind — so long as you do it well — than to brew small beer of one's own. And yet, as there is seldom smoke without fire, so it must be confessed that there is some justification for this abuse of translators and translations. The fact is that so much rubbish has been shot upon the market in the form of translation that FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 139 the world has grown cross over it all, and is now inclined to turn again and rend aU translators, and to assert that these unfortunate artists bear to writers about the same relation as dentists bear to doctors, or as the makers of surgical instruments do to surgeons — base mechanical toilers in a field of ancillary labour. But all this is most unjust. A fine translation of a fine work must always be itseK a fine work ; and a poem cannot be worthily translated except by one who is, at least to a certain extent, himself a poet. It is evident that the essential conditions of a good metrical translation are these : first, and assuredly foremost, that it shall faithfully express the sense of the original ; and, secondly, that it shall do this in correct metre and in elegant language. An ideally perfect translation would be one which should every- where, and in the highest conceivable degree, fulfil both these conditions. But it is practically certain that the perfect combin- ation of these two conditions in every part of such a work would be impossible. A translation which should be throughout absolutely literal, could not conceivably be throughout abso- lutely elegant. Therefore it results that, in all attempts at metrical translation, passages will present themselves in which it will be absolutely necessary to resort to some degree of com- promise between literal fidelity and elegant freedom ; but he is the most successful translator who most sparingly resorts to this compromise, and who, when compelled to resort to it, most delicately effects and controls it, with the smallest possible sacrifice of the verbal form of the original. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that fidelity to the original can be tested and appreciated only by those who under- stand the language of the original ; whereas the elegance of the English can be tested and appreciated by all who know English ; and it may be said that for one reader who can and will judge of the fidelity of a translation, there will be a hundred who, while incapable of judging of that, will be capable of judging of 140 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES the elegance, or otherwise, of its language. From this consider- ation it follows that the translator who desires to please the greatest number of readers, while he will conserve as far as possible fidelity to his original, yet he will not too largely sacrifice elegance of diction to verbal fidelity ; and where the two are incompatible, he will be constrained to make some considerable sacrifice of the latter. It must have been on some such principle as this that Coleridge wrote his translation of Wallenstein ; but, to my thinking, no legitimate observance of that principle can be held to justify the atrocious blunders in translation with which that performance bristles — blunders of a palpable and evident nature, which clearly prove that in the passages where they occur he entirely mis- apprehended the meaning of the German which he was professing to translate. Some day, when the glamour which surrounds a great name shall have in some degree abated, I doubt not that these blunders will be exposed; and that some considerable deduction will in consequence be made from the extravagant praises usually bestowed on that work. Many have marvelled at the extraordinary estimation which this piece has enjoyed, but it should be remembered that, in addition to its many unquestion- able beauties, it had in its favour all the prestige of a celebrated name ; and also that it was produced at a time when German was so little known in this country that Abraham Hayward was lionised in London society, and dubbed ' Faust Hayward,' merely on the strength of having written a prose version of about one half of Goethe's great masterpiece. On translation in general it has been smartly said by some one that, at the very best, a translation of any given work may be compared to the stuffed specimen of any given animal. The stuffed figure of a fox, or of a pheasant, in a glass case, actually and accurately represents the appearance of the animal when it lived — but — the life is gone — it is dead. The parallel is clever ; but it is scarcely true ; at all events not necessarily so. It is FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 141 possible for translation to preserve, not merely the form, but also tbe life, of the original. Some translations have done so — some few have even surpassed the life of the original. Who was the blasphemous critic who dared to say that Pope's Homer's Iliad was better than Homer's Homer's Iliad ? Well, there 's many a true word said in jest ; and paradox generally enfolds some germ of fact. More true than the foregoing, though lacking its Attic salt, is the comparison — made by Swinburne in his essay on Dante Gabriel Rossetti ; and possibly by others before him — the com- parison with the transfusion of a liquid from one vessel to another. The translator is figured as pouring the wine of verse from the golden bowl into the silver vase ; and it is conceivable that this operation might be performed by a skilful operator without spilling a drop. Finally, Walter Pater, in his Apprecia- tions I think, compares a good translation to a copy of a drawing faithfully produced by a careful delineation of the original through the medium of tracing paper. Some time ago, in some review or magazine, some fanatical champion of classical education vehemently repudiated the idea that any adequate notion of the masterpieces of antiquity could be derived from the perusal of translations, however good these might be ; and stoutly maintained that, in order to understand them, or to derive any benefit from them, it was absolutely necessary to learn Greek and Latin. Well, I would merely ask this champion : how about the book of books — the Bible ? I believe it is a translation — probably the outcome of many transla- tions, and of translations of translations — and I beUeve it has afforded comfort and direction to a few millions of human beings. Is it waste of time to read it ; and must we all learn Hebrew, and Syriac, and Greek, in order to understand it ? This is mere fudge. And I would ask, is Jowett's Plato destitute of value ? Another subject regarding which a good deal of nonsense is habitually talked is that of memory. We often hear people say 142 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES that they have a good memory for this, that, or t'other ; but a bad one for other things. This I believe to be a delusion. A man's memory may be good, or it may be bad ; but it cannot well be good for one thing and bad for another thing. You might as well say that a bottle was good for holding brandy, but bad for holding whisky. In the case of a feeble intellect, all its faculties will be feeble — memory, judgment, and all the rest ; but they will not be feeble for one purpose, and vigorous for another purpose. The fact is that our memory is in itself equally powerful or feeble for all purposes ; but we remember best those things which interest us most ; and so we say that we have good memories for such things ; while we forget those things which do not interest us, and say accordingly that we have bad memories for those things. Horace Walpole used to say that his memory was all-reten- tive as to the names of persons and of places, but absolutely impotent in regard to dates. It has been said that he could tell you the name of the grand-aunt of King Ethelwald, but he could not tell you whether she lived in the year 500, or the year 1500. The truth was that he took an interest in names and genealogies, and he took no interest in dates. Similarly, in his introduction to Anne of Geierstein, Scott aptly says : " I have through life been entitled to adopt old Beattie of Meikledale's answer to his parish minister, when the latter was eulogising him with respect to the same faculty. ' No, doctor,' said the honest border laird, 'I have no command of my memory ; it retains only what happens to hit my fancy, and like enough, sir, if you were to preach to me for a couple of hours on end, I might be unable at the close of the discourse to remember one word of it.' Perhaps there are few men whose memory serves them with equal fidelity as to many different classes of subjects; but I am sorry to say that while mine has rarely failed me as to any snatch of verse, or trait of FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 143 character that had once interested my fancy, it has generally been a frail support, not only as to names and dates and other minute technicalities of history, but as to many more important things." No, it is pretty certain that we have not got good memories for this, and bad memories for that, in any other sense than that we remember that which interests us, and forget that which does not do so. Before leaving the subject of memory, I may venture to mention the story about Dugald Stewart in this connection — a pretty old one, it is true, but a decidedly good one, and doubtless not known to everybody. A party of friends, of whom he was one, were comparing notes as to the earliest thing they could remember. One said that he remembered a thing which happened to him when he was three years old. Another stated that he had a . distinct recollection of an incident which had occurred when he was still younger, and so forth. At last it came to Dugald Stewart's turn to state his experience of the matter ; whereupon he gravely assured the company that the earliest thing he could remember was that one fine day when he was three months old, as he lay in his cradle, his nurse left him alone, and remained absent for a most un- conscionable period, and that he then and there resolved to report the circumstance to his mother as soon as he should be able to speak. It will be remembered that Fred Locker gave an improved version of the incident in the following lines : "I recollect a nurse called Ann, Who carried me about the grass ; And one fine day, a fine young man Came up and kissed the pretty lass ; She did not make the least objection — Thinks I, 'aha! When I can talk, I'll tell mama,' And that's mi/ earliest recollection." The subject of memory naturally suggests that of the past — 144 PKIBBLES AND PRABBLES of past times and past things. In connection with this perhaps the most curious feature observable is our absurd tendency to overrate all that is past, and to disparage all that is present and contemporaneous, overlooking the fact that the present will itself in course of time become the past, and will in that capacity enjoy all the eulogies now denied to it. I am not going to serve up here the many and various venerable tags on this subject, but I would commend to the notice of the reader, a very pretty and ingenious little reflection regarding it which Leopardi reproduces from the ' Corteggiano ' of Baldassar Castiglione. It is to be found among the 'Pensieri' of the famous pessimist, and is too lengthy for citation in its entirety in this place ; but I may appropriately quote from it the following translated extract: "The absurd delusion from which this habit springs is partly due to the fact that, as our years flee away, and rob us of so many physical properties, among other things they eliminate from the blood a great part of its vital essence, thus deteriorating the entire system, and debilitating those organs by whose operation the conclusions of the senses are unconsciously coloured." Of course this refers chiefly to the habit of the old to praise the past ; but that habit is by no means confined to the old. Horace, who shoots at all the follies of his time, bitterly rails at it in the first letter of the second book of his Epistles ; although in that passage his denunciation extends chiefly to the silly way in which his contemporaries overrated the literature of the past, and were blind to the merits of that which was recent or contemporaneous : " Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse, Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper ; " which, for the benefit of the ladies, I render into plain English thus : " I am indignant when any composition is condemned, not on the ground that it is composed rudely or inelegantly, but simply because it was composed recently." PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 145 And, not long ago, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, commenting in Murray's MagazvM on certain observations of Matthew Arnold, makes the following pertinent remark on the subject now under discussion : " I cannot help thinking that the difference which he makes between Washington and Lincoln is due to the fact that the one lived a century ago, and the other in our own time. A hundred years ago Englishmen would have laughed at the praise he gives to Washington. Fifty years ago they would have still con- sidered it extravagant. To-day, they think it just. So will it be with Lincoln. Compare what was said of him in his life- time with what is said of him even now, and we shall be able to form some idea of the verdict of the future.'' The fact is that the prophet has no honour — or at all events no adequate appreciation — not only in his own country, but also in his own day and generation. All who have passed their grand cKmacteric can remember how slow and how reluctant the public were to admit that Tennyson was a poet. Havelock and Nicholson were thought far more of in America than in England. They are thought more of by ourselves now than when they lived, and probably to our great-grandchildren they will loom as demigods. The pyramids seem small to one stand- ing at their base, but huge when viewed from Cairo. Standing immediately in front of St. Peter's at Rome, the size of it dis- appoints the spectator, but let him go to Tivoli, and he will find that of all Rome it is the sole object visible. In connection with the past, surely exaggerated pride in ancestry is an unreasonable thing. Who was it who wrote : "They who on glorious ancestry enlarge Produce their debt instead of their discharge " ? and well did Ovid sing : "Nam genus, et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco," — " Our birth, and ancestors, and deeds not done By us ourselves, I scarcely call our own." 10 146 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES A certain peer, founder of his line, who had won his peerage by his own great deeds, once heard that a long-descended noble- man — some ' tenth transmitter of a foolish face ' — ^looked down on him because of the newness of his rank, whereon the former exclaimed : " Well, there is this difference between his lordship and me — he is a descendant — / am an ancestor." In Laurence Oliphant's Haifa, or Life in Modern Palestine, we are told of a certain Bedouin sheik who, being asked whether he was descended from Abraham, shook his head with an air of disgust, and replied that he should be sorry if he could not trace his descent a little farther back, and a little better than that ; adding that, in point of fact, Abraham was not a sheik of very good family. In India there are peasant-proprietors of such ancient lineage that they would smile at the genealogies of some of our most ancient houses. Possibly some of our most long-descended dukes imagine that they represent the oldest and earliest holders of that rank. But how about the dukes mentioned in Genesis xxxvi. 15 sqq. ; in Exodus xv. 15 ; in Joshua xiii. 21 ; and in Maccabees x. 65 ? How about Duke Teman, Duke Omar, Duke Zepho, Duke Kenaz, and all the many more dukes mentioned in Holy Writ ? So much for ancestry. As to the moral qualities of various races of men, it is curious to reflect to how great an extent these qualities probably depend on physical surroundings. Darwin declared that his voyages convinced him that morality was to a great extent a matter of latitude and longitude. It is pretty certain that temperance is so. The peoples of the north and of cold climates are generally prone to intemperance ; while those of the south and of warm climates are temperate in the matter of intoxicants. Similarly eastern races are usually temperate ; but not so those of the west. The thing seems, in short, to depend mainly, if not wholly, on climate — cold climates seem to make men addicted to drunkenness ; warm ones appear to have the opposite effect, FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 147 although, prima facie, one would suppose that torrid regions would make men thirsty — but, after all, thirst is more effectually quenched by water than by strong drink. It is probable that if Mahomed had been born in Greenland or Lapland, he never would have inculcated total abstinence. Burke used to speak of " the morality of geography " ; as if a man would be moral in London, and immoral at Calcutta. And this reminds me that I never could understand how or why Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in so many of his earlier stories, ap- parently loved to represent Anglo-Indian society as being so desperately wicked — so much so, indeed, that, some time back, an article in one of our leading reviews said that he portrayed it as " Duty and red tape, tempered by picnics and adultery." I have always strongly doubted the truthfulness of this view of the matter. We all know that the members of that society are taken from the ranks of our own society — are, in fact, sons and daughters of the old country, only happening to live for a few years in India ; and I never could comprehend why or how, on migrating for a time to Hindostan, they should suddenly sink into depravity — nemo repente ficit tii/rpissimus. Then again, if they really do sink into such depravity, how is it, not only that, while in India, they often perform very noble actions, but that, on their return to England, they seem to have left their depravity behind them ; and to be very decent people ? A young girl, bom and reared in a clean English home, marries an Indian officer or official, similarly born and reared. She leaves this country pure and sweet as a lily. According to the gospel of Rudyard Kipling, on arrival in India she soon becomes little better than a wanton. This, of course, though not pro- bable, is possible and conceivable; but here comes in the wonderful thing. After a few years, this wanton returns to England, and, lo and behold, she is as pure and sweet as when she first sailed ! How is it that that which was so wholly black while in India should be so wholly white on its return to 148 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES England ? This, I confess, I cannot understand, save on the old supposition which represented that in early days Anglo-Indians, on their way out to Calcutta, used to leave their ' consciences in cases ' ^ at the Cape of Good Hope, and pick them up again on their way home. No — such knowledge is too wonderful for me ; I cannot attain unto it ; and I would say to Mr. Kipling : tell that to the marines, whether horse or foot, I care not. It really looks as if the gifted writer had, in his earlier^days, re- ceived some mortal offence at the hands of the society which he thus traduced, and had resolved to pay them off for it. But, if this be so, or whatever the explanation of the mystery may be — he has just a little overdone the thing. And then the question arises: Why were good people in England so ready to believe this senseless calumny ? This can only be explained on the principle enunciated by Silvio Pellico : " Sembra che la maggiorit^ degli uomini sia felice quando pu6 credere al male," — People are generally ready enough to believe slander, and to think ill of their neighbours ; and one touch of ill-nsituTe makes the whole world kin. Talking of geography reminds me that, in my last chapter, I mentioned the case of certain young ladies, pupil-teachers, who, under examination, made some remarkable mistakes. I wonder if these interesting young persons would know that Vancouver City is not in Vancouver Island, that Washington City is not in Washington State ; and that Mont Blanc is not in Switzerland ? I know a good many educated members of society who would come to grief over these points. Finally, what changes have come over the map of A&ica in the last few years. The dark continent is now pretty well ' pegged out ' as belonging to, or within ' the sphere of in- fluence ' of, one or other of the great powers. How different from the maps of our youth, which represented little more than ' " That keep their consciences in cases. As fiddlers do their crowds and bases." — Hudibras. PEIBBLES AND PEABBLES 149 vast Saharas, quaintly dotted over here and there with figures of wild beasts, in order to indicate their unexplored and desolate condition ; as the old Hudibrastic lines say : "So geographers, on Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want oi towns." It is curious to consider to how great an extent our estimation of things is affected by what may be called the perspective of distance; and how occurrences whose scene is remote, like objects viewed through the wrong end of a telescope, dwindle and shrink in their dimensions, and in the impression which they produce on our minds. In his History of European Mwals, Lecky has a striking passage to the following effect in illustration of this phenomenon ; although some of his words refer to remoteness of time as well as to geographical distance : " The most frightful catastrophe in South America, an earth- quake in China, or a famine in India, will cause us less real sorrow than the death of a single person with whom we are well acquainted; less horror than the sight of a man crushed to death on a railway ; possibly less absolute inconvenience than a toothache. The recollection of some isolated act of magnanimity displayed by Alexander or Julius Csesar moves us more than the thought of the 2000 prisoners the former crucified at Tyre, or of the 100,000 men on whose corpses the latter rose to fame. The petty vexations of Napoleon at St. Helena, and his bicker- ings with his gaoler, affect most men more than the thought of the nameless thousands whom he had hurried to the grave. We are more moved by the tears of some captive princess, by some trivial biographical incident which has floated down the stream of history, than by the woes of all the countless multi- tudes who perished beneath the sword of a Tamerlane, a Bajazet or a Zenghis Khan." 150 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Sir Walter Scott, writing to Miss Seward, then at Lichfield, says : " I should hear with much taore composure of a general conflagration at Constantinople than of a hut being on fire at Lichfield." In a parliamentary debate on India, in 1832, Macaulay observed that '' a broken head in Coldbath Fields produces a greater sensation than three pitched battles in India." And somebody else has somewhere said : " The accident of an over- turned bus in Piccadilly, which has resulted only in a few bruises, is of more thrilling interest than the news of a cyclone, or a tidal wave, which has destroyed thousands of lives in China " — strange, but only too true. It is commonly said that the condition of a millionaire is one to be deeply commiserated. Perhaps it may be so, yet probably some people would like to try it. Possibly these unhappy beings may fitly be compared with the struldbrugs of the island of Luggnagg ; and may be said to occupy in respect to wealth, and in relation to ordinary men, the same position which those monsters of longevity occupied in relation to the rest of the inhabitants of that island. We learn that they were profoundly to be pitied ; and that they deeply envied their more fortunate compatriots who could look forward with joyous hope to release from care by death. It wiU be remembered that the worthy Captain Lemuel Gulliver expressed a desire to see one or two specimens of these unfortunates, and that accordingly a few of them were collected for his inspection. Some of them had then lived nine hundred years or so ; others were only some six or seven hundred years old ; but, as Gulliver observed, at these ages, a century or two made little difference in the appearance of the sufferers. Similarly, in the case of these struldbrugs of the monetary world, a million or two more or less makes little difference in their lamentable condition. Who was it who said : " We can see what God thinks of wealth by observing the kind of people on whom He sometimes FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 151 bestows it " ? But this sentiment has a distinct smack of sour grapes about it. In a like vein, a Roman sage has said : " Pecunia sic in quosdam homines quomodo denarius in cloacam cadit," — that is : " money runs into some people's pockets just as a coin rolls into a sewer" — another obviously jaundiced observa- tion. However, when all is said and done, perhaps the condition which Agur prayed for is the best for all of us: "Give me neither poverty nor riches," etc. An ingenious American lately computed that in the United States alone, half-a-ton of pure gold, equivalent to half-a^million of dollars, was annually put, as stuffing, into the teeth of the living, or otherwise employed by the dentist on people's food- grinding apparatus; and inasmuch as none of this precious metal is ever extracted after death, our shrewd calculator ' reckoned ' that, at this rate, a quantity of gold equal to all that now in circulation would, in the course of three centuries, be lying buried in the earth. It is strange to think that one digger, the sexton to wit, is constantly returning to mother earth nearly as much gold as the other digger is constantly extracting from her bosom. Well, well, this perhaps does not matter much, in view of the constantly increasing supply of the yellow dross. Perhaps one of the wittiest and wisest passages in Oandide is the description of Eldorado, where gold was no more esteemed than brickbats, and where the unsophisticated inhabitants could not for the life of them comprehend why their visitors should set such store by it. Startling, too, is the change which has occurred, as compared with its value in earlier times, in the value of money. In describing the castle and domains of Kenilworth, Scott says that the Earl of Leicester had expended, in their improvement, sixty thousand pounds sterling, "a sum equal to half-a-million of our present money." And we are told that, in the time of Chaucer, the average price of a horse was eighteen shillings and fourpence ; of an ox, twenty-four shillings and sixpence ; of a 152 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES cow, seventeen shillings and twopence ; of a sheep, two shillings and sixpence ; of a goose, ninepence ; and of a hen, twopence ; while the wage of a day's labour was then only threepence. In short, the purchasing power of money generally was in those days nearly ten times greater than it is at the present day. In Oxford, in 1310, wheat was ten shillings the quarter; in December of the same year, it had fallen to seven shillings and eightpence ; and in October, 1311, it sank to only four shillings and tenpence. Singular, also, was the depreciation of paper money in the time of the French Revolution. In Carlyle's history of that convulsion, the following incident is related in illustration of this matter : " ' Combien ? ' said one to a hackney coachman, ' what is your fare ? ' ' Six thousand livres,' answered the fellow — some three hundred pounds sterling — in paper money." And, in his account of Wolfe Tone, the Duke of Argyll has the following passage : " The theatre pleased him much . . . His seat cost him eighty livres, which sounded large — but it was reckoned in assignats, and was equivalent to about fourpence sterling." Horace has stinging remarks on the subject ot money, and biting censure of the adoration rendered to it in his day. Thus, in his Satires, II. iii. 94 : " Omnis enim res, Virtus, fama, decus, divina humanaque pulchris Divitiis parent," etc. — " For everything — virtue, reputation, consideration — in a word, all things human and divine obey the call of glorious wealth." Again, Satires, II. v. 8 : " Et genus et virtus nisi cum re vUior alga est, ' — " Lineage, and every good gift, unless accompanied by wealth, are more worthless than the sea-weed on the shore." FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 153 And Upistles, I.i. 53: " cives, cives, quaerenda pecunia primum est ; Virtus post nummos," — " Oh, my fellow-citizens, seek money before all else ; What is virtue in comparison with wealth ? " And Epistles, I. vi. 36 : " Scilicet uxorem cum dote, fidemque et amicos Et genus et formam, regina Pecunia- donat, Ac bene nummatum decorat Suadela Venusque," — " Verily, money, lord of all, will bring to a man at once a well- dowered wife, credit and friends, rank and beauty ; and Venus herself, together with the goddess of persuasion, graces the moneyed man." And worst of all, Epistles, I. i. 65 : — "Rem facias, rem, " Si possis, recte, si non, quocunque modo rem, — "Get money — honestly, if you can — If not, then get it how you can." It is perhaps no great jump from money to champagne. It was lately stated in one of the monthly magazines — I forget which — that vin mousseux, or sparkling wine, was accidentally discovered in 1688 by a monk named Dom Perignon, who was cellarer of a Benedictine monastery at Hautvilliers on the Marne, near Epernay. It appears that the bursting of a closely-corked bottle led him to the apprehension of the principle involved. It is also said that the same excellent man was the first to introduce the use of corks, in lieu of plugs of flax saturated with oil ; which latter method, as most people know, is still employed in Italy for the stopping of flasks of wine. But oh, if all this be true, surely dear, good Perignon has been but scurvily treated by man. Such a benefactor to his species assuredly deserved a monument more enduring than brass. If the inventor of ' fiz ' deserves ' honourable mention ' in 154 PKIBBLES AND PRABBLES these pages, so does the estimable man who invented beer. That man, it seems, was one Gambrinus, king — only mythical, I fear — of Brabant. At all events, his effigy, riding on a cask, and holding in his hand a tankard, is as famUiar in German beer-cellars as is the elephant-headed figure of Gunesha, on the shops of the Hindoo money-changers. All honour, then, to king Gambrinus. It appears that a temperate British working man — no drunkard — commonly spends as much as twenty per cent, of his whole income on beer and tobacco — or as much as the entire annual income of more than seven Indian peasants ! This is pretty much the same thing as if a gentleman with a thousand a year were to spend two hundred a year on such things. This is reprehensible on the part of the temperate British working man. Most of us have heard the line : ' Come, my lad, and drink some beer ; ' but probably, in a general company, few could tell its genesis and history ; and, sooth to say, its source, on the face of it, is not a likely one. For this, we must go to Boswell. It seems that Johnson was one day ridiculing a certain poetaster of his time — name not mentioned — and, in the course of his remarks, he said : ' Why, the fellow would write thus ' : " Hermit hoar in solemn cell, Wearing out life's evening gray, Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell What is bliss, and which the way ; '' whereon he added, in the same strain of mockery, and as if tickled with the conceit : "Thus I spoke, and, speaking, sighed. Scarce repressed the starting tear ; When the smiling sage replied, 'Come, my lad, and drink some beer.'" Robert Browning is a ravishing bard, no doubt ; but I can't help thinking of the following observations on one of his poems, PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 155 which occur in Sir Charles Gavan Dufiy's Conversations with Garlyle : " One of my friends to whom I had lent Swdello, sent it back, with an inquiry whether, by any chance, it might be the sacred book of the Irvingite Church, written in their unknown tongue ; or, if it had a meaning, as I had assured him, was there any good reason why the problems of poetry should be made more abstruse and perplexing than the problems of mathematics ? " And we have all heard the story of how, when one of his admirers took to him a certain passage of his writings, and asked him what it meant, he replied, after reading it several times : " Well, only two people ever knew the meaning of this passage — myself, and God Almighty, now God Almighty only knows its meaning." But now, have at old Carlyle himself. The volume just quoted contains the following passage : " After supper one evening, as O'Hagan read aloud a chapter of Sartor JSesartus, a commercial traveller, who had strayed into the room, demanded if we were playing a practical joke, pretending to read and applaud such astonishing nonsense." And it is well known that Jejffrey, a fairly good judge of literary wares, and a warm friend of the Carlyles, always advised the sage of Chelsea to put that stuff Teufelsdroeck, as he had at first christened the Sartor, into the fire, since it was pestilent rubbish, which no sane pubhsher would print. And it is tolerably certain that no sane publisher ever would have printed it had not its author afterwards become so famous that anything from his pen went down with some people. As the Parisian publisher said to Dumas in his early days, " Make a name, sir, and I '11 publish anything you like." " True," replied Dumas ; "but how the devil can I make a name if I can't get pub- lished?" Before leaving obscure writers, I have only this much more to say. Of course Mr. George Meredith is a deHghtful and entrancing novelist. To deny that would, I suppose, be to 156 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES write oneself down an ass ; but I am free to confess that I do not always understand him. I wonder if he understands himself. For myself, I am a plain man, and when I read fiction I do so for the sake of amusement and diversion, not that I may be compelled to wrestle with the sentences in the book as if I were wrestling with Thucydides. And if any man will lay his hand upon his heart, and declare on his word of honour that he can make head or tail of, say, the first, or introductory chapter, of The Egoist, then all I can say is that, something like Mr. Grim-wig in Oliver Twist, I shall be happy to eat my walking- stick, or my umbrella, if so preferred. CHAPTER VII Religion— George Eliot on— Henry Taylor on— Froude on— Massimo d'Azeglio on — Dissent and dissension — Sermons and preaching — Sale of indulgences — Conscience and fraud— Missions and missionaries — Jowett on Bishops — Bishop of Perugia — St. Enoch — St. Rollox — St. Ursula — A dialogue on eschatology. This is going to be a religious chapter ; so I -warn all irreligious persons to steer clear of it. In The Monastery, chapter xxxii., the sub-Prior Eustace, addressing Edward Glendinning, calls religion "that precious alchemy which can convert suffering into happiness." And yet Lucretius says of the same thing : "Religio peperit scelerosa et impia facta." But of course it goes without saying that what the Epicurean poet-philosopher thus referred to was not religion at all, as we understand the thing, but the abuse of religion ; and we do not require him or anybody else to tell us that many impious and wicked actions have, in many ages, been committed in the name of religion, or under the cloak of its abuse. George Eliot, in a letter to Miss Lewis, dated 13th November, 1841, when she was only twenty-two years old, writes as follows on this topic : " What a pity that, while mathematics are indubitable, and no one doubts the properties of a triangle or a circle, doctrines infinitely important to man are buried in a charnel-heap of bones, over which nothing is heard but the barks and growls of contention." 157 158 PKIBBLES AND PEABBLES And I think that Sir Henry Taylor, insisting on the fact that questions concerning eschatology can never be determined by us, somewhere says : "It would seem that decisions on this subject, however important they may appear to us, have not been thought so by the Supreme Being, or Revelation would have left no doubt upon the subject — 'Si cette v^rite ^toit necessaire comme le soleil est k la terre, elle seroit brillante comme lui.' " J. A. Froude characterised agnosticism as "a humble and respectful attitude towards the Great Unknowable : " "Well hast thou said, Athena's wisest son, All that we know is — nothing can be known." And be it observed that a true agnosticism, unlike a daring and defiant atheism, is ever humble and reverent in its posture in regard to questions of eschatology. It neither asserts nor denies ; though some people ascribe this attitude of the mind to sheer pusillanimity and indolence — as Massimo d'Azeglio says : ' II dubbio e un gran scappafatiche.' Doubt on this stupendous subject is, at least in many cases, a very effectual way of shirking trouble. In one of his letters to Morritt, Sir Walter Scott refers to a foolish old man of his acquaintance, " who," he says, " has spent his whole life in finding out a north-west passage to heaven ; and, after trying many sects, has settled in what he calls the Universal Church of Christ, which consists of himself, his house- keeper, one of the maids, and a footboy. The butler is said to be in a hopeful way, but is not yet converted." This is doubtless very excellent fooliug, but it leads to very serious reflection, luridly suggesting as it does how incalculable is the mischief wrought by the infinite shades of religious dissent and dissension which unhappily exist among Protestant Christians ! The Mahomedan religion has only one dissentient sect. The Hindoos have none. The Roman Catholics have PEIBBLES AND PEABBLES 159 none. But the Protestants have, it is believed, at this day some two hundred conflicting sects ; and this unfortunate fissiparity of doctrine among our co-religionists has unquestionably proved one of the most formidable obstacles to the success of the missionary in all the fields of his effort, but most especially in India. Amid the clashing sects who claim his faith, the bewildered Hindoo knows not which way to turn, and he naturally hesitates to embrace any form of creed which he perceives to be so strangely split up and divided against itself; or to adopt a religious system so chequered as this ; if indeed that can properly be called a system which does not stand together. He goes to the Anglican missionary and is told one story ; he turns to the Moravian or American apostle, and he is told another story ; and finally the Roman Catholic propagandist tells him that all that he has previously been told is utterly erroneous and false. Under such circumstances what on earth is the unfortunate inquirer to do ? But moreover it would seem that there are other and not less serious impediments to missionary effort. Sir William Hunter, in an article in the Nineteenth Century, written some years ago, stated that Dr. Legge, professor of the Chinese language at Oxford, and himself a veteran and distinguished missionary, was of opinion " that the chief obstacles to the spread of Christianity were to be found in certain degrading customs and institutions which exist in Christian communities; and that so long as Christianity presents itself infected with the bitter internal animosities of the Christian sects, and associated with the drunkenness and prostitution so conspicuous among Christian nations, it will not do its work, and will not deserve to do its work, in the non-Christian world." Finally, are we quite sure that the methods and general modus operandi of the missionaries themselves are those best calculated to promote the object which they have in view ? Do they sufficiently identify themselves with the natives of the 160 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES countries where they operate ? Is the ascetic devotion of their lives such as to convince their catechumens — themselves, mostly pronounced admirers of asceticism — of the deadly earnestness of their purpose ? Is not perhaps something more impressive required in order to convince them that the missionary body in India is something more than a mere decorous and comfortable branch of Anglo-Indian Society ? Some years ago it was well, though somewhat caustically, said by somebody that if St. Paul, before starting on one of his missionary journeys, had first required St. James and a committee at Jerusalem to guarantee him five hundred a year, paid quarterly, and had provided himself with a commodious bungalow, a punkah, a pony carriage, a piano, and a wife, he would not have changed the history of the world. I desire to submit a few humble reflections on the subject of sermons and preaching. Well, with that logical precision which characterised their methods, the elder Schoolmen were wont to commence their disquisitions with what they called the definitio nominis, the definition of the name of the subject which they were about to discuss, before proceeding to the definitio rei, the definition and examination of that subject itself. Following that commendable example let us consider for one moment the word ' sermon,' and briefly inquire why or how that name should have come to be applied to the exhilarating addresses which we all know so well. Now, any decent Latin dictionary will show us that the word Sermo means, not only speech or speaking in general, but speech carried on and participated in by two or more persons — conver- sation, that is to say, or discussion — and we have it on the express authority of Varro that in his time that word could not fitly be applied to the utterance of a single individual ; but only to speech, or spoken intercourse or disputation, shared in by two or more persons, and this view of the matter is corroborated by Cicero, Virgil and Horace. It is therefore by one of the ironies FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 161 of chance that this word has been adopted in order to denote a speech or address uttered by a single person to a large company of other persons who are absolutely precluded from sharing that address or in any way discussing its propositions. It is not that I would for a moment advocate the toleration of any such discussion ; all that I contend is that the word ' sermon,' looking to its original sense, is curiously inappropriate as the name to be applied to such utterances ; and it is interesting to reflect in passing that the same objection may be advanced against the other word — of Greek derivation — employed to denote pulpit addresses, the word ' homily ' to wit, which, like ' sermon,' originally signified, not the utterance of a single person, but the intercourse or conversation or communing of several. In strictness then, and if these words had retained their original sense, a party of friends, in referring to a social entertainment where they had met and enjoyed agreeable conversation, might fitly say " we had a delightful sermon the other night ; " or a young lady might describe a successful dance as a highly enjoyable homily. Of course, everybody knows that words have a perfect right to change their meanings ; and our language teems with examples of such change, and of divergence from the original signification of words ; but I think it will be admitted that the words now under notice present a remarkable instance of such divergence. But, as the Father of History would say, enough said as to the name of the thing — now for the thing itself. Some years ago a writer in Macmillan's Magazine computed that in England alone, every year, two millions of sermons are preached, and it is probable that this estimate was well within the mark. WeU now, is it conceivable that all these sermons could have been original ? Is it conceivable that any consider- able number of them could have been good ? Is it possible for an ordinary man to say anything fresh or striking on a theme which has been declaimed on for two thousand years ? And, if 11 162 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES there le men capable of doing this, is it reasonable to expect every parish clergyman, or every curate, to perform this prodigy every Sunday of the year ? In my simplicity I should have supposed that it would be infinitely more difficult to compose a good sermon than to compose a good article for a magazine. Well, are there many men yfho could every week compose such an article as any sane editor would accept and pay for ? Are there many men, are there any men, who could compose two such articles in every week ? Then why expect every clergyman — sometimes every young curate — to perform the infinitely more difficult feat of composing a good sermon — possibly two good sermons — every week of the year ? The fact is that the power to preach effectively is a special gift, and an exceedingly rare gift — probably at least as rare as the gift of song — and the sooner this fact is frankly recognised, the better. In every hundred clergymen, it is probable that not more than five possess that gift ; and if this be so, why, in the name of common-sense, should every clergyman preach, and attempt to exercise a gift which he does not possess ? The result must obviously be disastrous. As matters now stand, the case is precisely the same as it there existed a profession, comprising some thirty thousand members, on every one of whom it was incumbent to sing in public, and every one of whom was invited or compelled to sing in public ; and to sing words and music composed by himself, fresh and fresh for each occasion on which he sang ; and all this utterly irrespectively of the consideration whether he had any voice, or any ear, or any knowledge of music. What would be the result of such a mode of procedure ? Well, one result, at all events, would be, that such of those singers as were destitute of voice and ear and music, would have very few listeners. The plain fact is that preachers ought to be specially and PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 163 carefully selected from those of the clergy who might by competent judges be found to possess the gift of preaching ; and that no others should be permitted to ascend the pulpit — and indeed I have heard that this is actually the practice of the sagacious Church of Rome ; although of this I have no certain knowledge. It would surely not be supremely difficult to make such a selection ; but, difficult or not, such a selection should be made. If it be not made, preaching will inevitably fall into contempt. The long ingrained habit of reverence for sacred things, and the sustained attitude of deference to custom, especially in matters connected with religion, may defer that result for a time, just as these alone can account for the tenacity of life of the present irrational system — but the awakening will assuredly come. Then again, if we must have sermons, why must every sermon which is preached be original, brand-new, and composed by the preacher for the particular occasion on which it is delivered ; and, I may add, for that occasion only ? Why should not good old sermons be occasionally read aloud by the officiating clergyman? Good old standard secular works are read aloud and recited again and again; and the interest which they inspire never palls or flags. Why then should not the best of the sermons of the past, the works of the masters of their craft, be occasionally read aloud in our churches, instead of the vapid and jejune compositions now so frequently heard ? The practice which now prevails in this matter is precisely as if society required that every song which was to be sung on the platform or in the salon, should be brand-new, composed, both as to words and music, by the singer himself, or herself, for that particular occasion alone ; and was never to be sung again in that or any other place. Such an idiotic system would very shortly produce one or other of two possible results — either we should have very few songs at all; or we should have some uncommonly bad songs. Yes, I said ' never to be sung again ' ; 164 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES for to so ridiculous a pitch is this folly now carried, that it seems that a clergyman may not ever re-preach a sermon, however good, which has once been preached by him, and which was originally composed by himself. The very Reverend Andrew Kennedy Hutchinson Boyd, long known to the public as A. K. H. B. — whose tragical death by accidental poisoning we lately had to deplore — in one of his books tells his readers a curious story in illustration of this egregious folly. It seems that once upon a time he contrived to compose a really fine sermon — he says it quite modestly — a really powerful and telHng sermon. Well, having that opinion of it, he thought it no wrong to re-preach it some months later in a distant parish. It so happened that, among those present at this re-preaching, was an idiot who had heard it in its virgin state, and who recognised it. This person bitterly denounced the preacher for this alleged plagiarism of himself; and the thing was generally regarded as a positive scandal ! When, oh ! when, wiU we import into these matters just a little common-sense ? If that sermon was as good as its author believed it to be, surely it ought to have been preached not twice only, but very many times. Who would pretend that a fine poem, or a vivid history, should be read but once, and then shelved for ever ! Then why this pestilent affectation that sermons must be always brand- new, composed ad hoc only, heard only once, and then for ever consigned to the limbo of the study drawer ? I am not altogether clear that preaching — at all events preaching to educated audiences of the same persuasion as the preacher — is not something of an anachronism. I can under- stand a missionary preaching to a South Sea Islander, in order to convert him. I can also see the fitness of preaching in an age when all learning was confined to the clergy. But I cannot see why a Christian clergyman should preach to educated Christians. The retention of the practice of selecting a text for a sermon seems to point to the original significance of that PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 165 practice. In an Uliterate age, when the laity could not read, or, if they could read, could not understand what they read, the priest selected a passage of Scripture the meaning of which it was his purpose to explain to his hearers, and then to inculcate its doctrine. At the present day, preachers stUl select and announce a text, but they hardly ever explain it — they have no need to do so in addressing people who know the meaning of words as well as they themselves do. They hardly ever preach about the text at all — sometimes they hardly even allude to it. In short, it has become little more than a mere motto for the sermon. In the church where, as Artemus Ward would have said, I sleep, the rector frequently selects a single word — often a monosyllable — for his text; and scarcely ever makes any allusion to it in his discourse, and I think it probable that the text will ere long die out altogether — cessante ratione cessat lex. I do not see why there should necessarily be a sermon at every service — or even on every Sunday — as a matter of course. Matters of course are apt to degenerate into matters of form. When any parish happens to possess a clergyman who has been declared by authority to have the gift of preaching, by all means let him preach. If not, let there be no sermon. The special preachers, selected because they possess that gift, should make a sort of circuits over the country, just as great actors, noted lecturers, and other eminent artists do ; and whenever one of these ' stars ' of the pulpit is expected to visit any particular church on any particular Sunday, previous notice should be given of the fact ; and then there should be a sermon. There can be little doubt that such sermons would arouse interest, and do good, all the more so because of the fact that they were special and rare occurrences, rather than a mere matter of routine ; and were preached by approved and selected specialists, rather than by ordinary performers. Then again, whether for the purpose of preaching, or for the reading of the lessons, surely it is not too much to ask that the 166 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES clergy should qualify themselves by some little study of the art of elocution. At present the delivery of some of our clergy — both from the pulpit and from the lectern — is too often painfully slovenly and bad. It would seem as if these gentlemen thought that any sort of elocution was good enough for a sermon, or for the public reading of the Holy Scriptures. Yet, if an actor were to present himself to the manager of the Haymarket Theatre, in quest of employment, without having previously undergone careful training in the art of elocution, I take it that he would very shortly be shown to the door. Then there is what, for want of a better name, I must call the pulpit whine. I have no desire to offend any man ; but the thing must be described and deprecated. I refer to that dolorous and affected sing-song tone of voice in which it pleases some divines to preach their sermons and to read the Scriptures. These gentlemen apparently think — or affect to think — that sacred subjects can be appropriately dealt with only in an un- natural sanctimonious drawl which they would never dream of employing for any other purpose in life. They seem to be quite unconscious that such affectation throws an air of unreality, if not of insincerity, over all their utterances ; deadens all interest in what they say ; and lulls the auditors to slumber. The rector of the church which I attend, being a man of conspicuous ability and rare common-sense, sedulously eschews this vile practice, and reads and preaches in the same tone which he would employ if he had to read aloud a lecture on astronomy or a leading article in The Times. The consequence is that he is listened to with interest and edification, and it is almost a pleasure to hear him. The whining parson, too, seems to think that there is a sweet savour — possibly like that of Mesopotamia — in sounding the letter ' e ' in the last syllable of the past tenses and participles of certain verbs, in which syllables that letter has long been mute. Such gentlemen always say : ' he washed his bauds '— FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 167 'he looked up' — 'he was amazed,' and so forth. This they would never think of doing in society ; and why should they do so in church ? As to prayer and praise, all will agree that no tone of voice, no mode of utterance, could possibly be too solemn and reveren- tial, too filled with awe and veneration, for the addressing of petitions, thanksgivings, or adorations to the Supreme Being — but, by an unaccountable contradiction, the clergy who adopt the pulpit whine, and the pulpit pronunciation in reading and in preaching, very generally gabble through the prayers in the most indecent and unintelligible fashion. There are certain other tricks of certain preachers which all preachers would do well to avoid. One of these consists in making a feeble display of pretended erudition by announcing to the audience that some specified text or passage of Scripture is inaccurately or inadequately translated in the Authorised Version. This device, as may well be supposed, is generally resorted to by the worst scholars, and its object apparently is to convey to the unwary the impression that the preacher is a good scholar. But, considering the qualifications of those who pro- duced the Authorised Version, and having regard to the time and care which they bestowed on their task, it is, to say the least of it, a little presumptuous in an unfledged smatterer to pick holes in their work. But it is more than this, and worse than this. It is calculated to produce positive mischief; for if congregations are to be constantly told that their Bibles are full of blunders, the very foundations of their confidence in the sacred volume will be shaken ; while the carper and the scofifer will be justified in alleging that if one passage of the Bible be wrongly translated, there may be hundreds of other passages in the same piteous plight. Then there is the preacher who practically demolishes belief in order to confirm it. This gentleman with much impressive- ness, and an only too fatal dexterity, marshals all the arguments 168 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES usually employed by the philosophic unbeliever in order to cast discredit on accepted views of theology, or on any special article of belief; and having done this in an only too effective manner, and knocked the whole edifice to atoms, he next proceeds to pick up the pieces, and endeavours to reconstruct that which he has just so cleverly destroyed. He rears a fanciful fabric of unbelief; then tries to dash it down, and to erect on its rubbish the structure of orthodox belief. This practice is a foolish one at the best, and a dangerous one at the least. We have all heard the story of the mighty juris- consult who, being retained on a momentous case, unhappily mistook or forgot the side which he was engaged to advocate, and, during the temporary absence from court of the agent in charge of the case, had nearly completed a smashing oration on the wrong side, when the agent returned, and in horror perceived the havoc which had been wrought. In an agonised whisper he apprised the counsellor of his fatal mistake; but the learned gentleman of the long robe made very light of the occurrence, and told the terrified agent to keep his hair on. Then, turning to the jury, he exclaimed : " Such, gentlemen, is the aspect of this case which might probably be presented to your minds by the forensic skiU of my learned brother whose services have been enlisted on the opposite side; and I have unfolded it to you merely in order that I may now the more effectually exhibit to you the actual verities of the case, heightened, as I nothing doubt, by contrast with the specious presentment of an inimical and erroneous advocacy ; " and thereupon he proceeded to pulverise the entire argument which he had previously pro- pounded, and won a triumphant verdict for his client. But no sane man would deliberately adopt such a modus operandi ; and if such ever could succeed, it could succeed only in the hands of a consummate master of rhetoric. Moreover, there is no earthly necessity for the adoption of such a method in the pulpit, and no conceivable advantage to be gained by its FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 169 adoption in that place. Therefore let preachers, in their sermons, eschew this destructive-constructive manoeuvre. Let them by no means imitate the accomplished Sir Hudibras, of whom we have all read: " He could raise scruples dark and nice, And, after, solve 'em in a trice; As if divinity had catched The itch on purpose to be scratched ; Or, like a mountebank, did wound And stab herself with doubts profound ; Only to show with how small pain The sores of faith are cured again ; Although by woful proof we find They always leave a scar behind." Whatever there is to be said for or against sermons, there is one thing which society has an undoubted right, not only to solicit, but to demand, from the powers that be ; and that is that these homilies shall not be forced upon any man against his will. Many excellent, intelligent, and able persons — especially of the feminine gender — delight in sermons. But, on the other hand, many excellent, intelligent, and able persons have the unaccountable bad taste to dislike them. Well, let there be no compulsion in the matter. I desire to deny to no man the pleasure of listening to sermons — if that be to him a pleasure — but let no man force me to listen to them, if I dislike them. Therefore, let the sermon be made a distinct function, separate from all other parts of divine service. Certain churches in London have long proceeded on this system. In these churches, at the conclusion of the prayers and praises, there is a pause, and a clear interval of some minutes is suffered to elapse, during which they who do not wish to hear a sermon have free licence and opportunity to withdraw, without giving offence to the clergy or scandal to the rest of the congregation, while they who do wish to hear a sermon remain in their places, and while 170 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES some persons who, by reason of advanced age or infirmity, were not present at the previous part of the service, and who wish to hear the sermon only, only then enter the church. This is as it should be, and this ought, I do think, to be the universal practice. This question is one of those ' hardy annuals ' which crop up from time to time in the public papers, and which will undoubtedly continue so to crop up until justice shall be done in the matter. Not long ago, and by no means for the first time, it was threshed out in the columns of The Times ; and after the subject seemed to be exhausted, and the patience of the public certainly was so, the thunderer summed up and pronounced judgment. That judgment was to the effect that so long as there was a demand for sermons, sermons oiight to be supplied ; but that they ought to be supplied only to those who demanded them; and that they ought not to be forced down the throats of people who demanded them not. That being so, the writer judged it to be desirable that the sermon should be separated off into a distinct service; and should be attended by those only who desired to hear it. But no — it looks as if the clergy dare not venture on free trade in this matter. The ' open door ' may be aU very well in China, but not in the English church. It looks as if divines have not such confidence in the attractive magnetism of their pulpit eloquence that they would dare to trust to it as the means for keeping their congregations in their pews when they ascend the rostrum. And this leads me to observe that if sermons were preached, not in churches, but in unconsecrated halls, and if half-a-crown were charged for admission to them, it is probable that, in the vast majority of cases, the attendance would be sparse. Well, let us fervently and patiently hope that one of these days common-sense — if it be not, as Leopardi averred, banished to the moon — will pierce the fogs which envelc p this FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 171 whole subject, and overthrow the tyranny which insensate custom has established in this particular domain of clerical action. Palsy, in his college lectures to embryo divines, used to give these youths the following advice on the subject of sermons : " As to preaching, if your situation requires a sermon every Sunday, make one and steal five." Most excellent advice too, always provided that the young gentlemen stole with judgment. Sermons, like other religious compositions, sometimes produce results little contemplated by their preachers or composers. In his Notes from a Diary, I think. Sir M. E. Grant Duff gives some curious examples of this, one of which, perhaps uncon- sciously or unconscientiously following Paley's advice just referred to, I here steal ; but with due confession and acknow- ledgment. Blenkinsop, it appears, once preached a magnificent sermon in proof of the truth of Christianity. A previously very orthodox friend and follower of his heard that sermon, and left the chapel of ease a confirmed atheist. Then most of us have heard the story — a trifle musty perhaps — about Bishop Blomfield (before he was a bishop), and the outcome of his first — and last — extempore sermon. He had taken for his text the words : " The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God ; " and he discoursed, as he hoped and thought, very eloquently thereon. Next day he asked his old sacristan what he had thought of that sermon. To his pi'ofound mortification the reply was : " Well, sir, it was no doubt a very powerful and very beautiful discourse ; but, for all you said, sir, I still believe there is a God." Blomfield, it is said, never again tried his hand at extempore preaching. This, as I have already hinted, is an old story — what is commonly called a chestnut — but it is a good chestnut, and comes in very much to the purpose here ; and I once met a real live bishop who had never 172 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES heard it. Now, if it could be new to a bishop, possibly it may be new to smaller people. The late master of Balliol, among other sensible obiter dicta, once recorded the following sentiment : " Life without society is but half a life. We cannot do our duties to mankind unless we live among them and visit them." I most earnestly com- mend this thought to some of our latter-day clergy, who seem to be too much engrossed in incessant and possibly superfluous services in church to be able to spare time to keep in personal touch with the members of their congregations. The clergy- man who loses that touch, and who becomes a sort of Thibetan Lama to his flock, neglects a source of influence more valuable possibly than many sermons, many early matins, and many evensongs. For a splendid specimen of the ridiculous ranting and canting style of preaching in which the puritans and covenanters used to riot, let the reader refer to the fourteenth chapter of Old Mortality, where the Reverend Gabriel Kettledrummer uplifts his voice in denunciation of Claverhouse, and the royalist party in general. And for a Scottish rustic's somewhat outspoken com- ment on pulpit oratory, there is the following story — vouched as true — of a little episode which, not so very long ago, occurred in a country kirk. At one time, and, for aught I know, it may be so stiU, in rural churches in the land o' cakes it was an ordinary thing for the ' minister ' to suspend his discourse at any time for the purpose of personally addressing and correct- ing any member of his congregation whose conduct in church met with his disapproval In such a church one sabbath day the preacher observed one of his flock sound asleep and snoring outrageously. Accordingly, somewhere about its fourteenth 'head,' he arrested his homily in order to rebuke this male- factor. " Saunders Macphee," he indignantly exclaimed, "wake up this instant. Do ye no think it shameful to be sleepin' FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 173 while Fm preaching to ye ? Oh, Saunders, Saunders, there '11 be no sleepin' in the fires of Gehenna." "Aweel," replied Saunders, utterly unabashed ; " aweel, minister, gin that be so, I'm thinkin' it'll no be for want o' preachers." Before leaving the subject of the kirk I may here cite a most irreverent opinion regarding it, said to have been uttered by James Hutton, and quoted by Scott in one of his letters to Morritt. It seems that the eminent geologist used to say that it was well worth while to go to a presbyterian kirk, were it only for the pleasure of coming out of it. Oh fie ! Mr. Hutton. In the Quarterly Review, not long ago, there was an article which dealt, among other things, with the sale of indulgences, and the other manifold corruptions which prevailed in the Church prior to the Reformation. Among other curious pas- sages that article contained the following pithy jest. Leo X., it seems, had been criminally addicted to the sale of indulgences. This pontiff chanced to die without having enjoyed the last sacraments of his Church ; whereupon, his follower Saanazarro wrote the following epigram on the subject : " Sacra sub extrema si forte requirifcis hora Cur Leo non potuit sumere — vendiderat," — which was very well translated as foUows : "Without the Church's sacraments Pope Leo died, I'm told; What wonder? How could he enjoy what he himself had sold?" Everybody knows that even the DevU can quote Scripture for his own ends; and, alas, it is too true that in the sacred volume a text can generally be found to prove almost any con- ceivable proposition. Some time ago I noticed an article in the Nineteenth Gentwry, written, I think, by W. S. Lilly, which contained, or quoted, the following clever couplet in reference to the Bible : " Hie liber est inquoquaerit sua dogmata quisque ; Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua; " 174 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES together with the following very passable rendering in English : "One day at least in every week, The sects of every kind Their dogmas here are sure to seek, And just as sure to find." In another place I have referred to the very peculiar imagery in which Homer sometimes indulges. The imagery of Scrip- ture, also, is occasionally just a little strange, at least as considered with reference to our modern standards of taste. Thus Solomon compares the nose of his beloved to the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus — a strong metaphor certainly. It has often been caustically, but truly, said that some people are most to be suspected when they assume the mask of piety, and begin talking of their consciences. Thus, in the intro- ductory epistle to The Monastery, old Mattocks the sexton, seeing the Benedictine unaccountably on his knees, says to Captain Clutterbuck: "It winna be amiss to keep an ee on him. My father, rest his saul, was a horse-couper, and used to say he never was cheated in a naig in his life, saving by a west country whig frae Kilmarnock, that said a grace over a dram o' whisky." Then again, in the fourth chapter of Woodstock, old Sir Henry Lee, in his discussion with Markham Everard, when the latter protests that his conduct had been guided by his conscience, exclaims : " Oh, an' you talk of conscience, I must have mine eye upon you, as Hamlet says. Never yet did Puritan cheat so grossly as when he was appealing to his conscience." Finally, in the eighth chapter of the same story, we have Roger Wildrake's impressions of the reformed hostelry at Windsor, " The master, whom Wildrake had remembered a dashing mine host of Queen Bess's school, had now sobered down to the temper of the times, shook his head when he spoke of the Parliament ; wielded his spigot with the gravity of a FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 175 priest conducting a sacrifice ; wished England a happy issue out of all her afflictions ; and greatly lauded his Excellency the Lord-General. , . . Wildrake also remarked that his measures were less, and his charges larger ; circumstances which he was induced to attend to by mine host talking a good deal about his conscience." Apropos of monks and monasteries, Scott, in a note to Boh Roy, records a pithy saying of the Earl of Pembroke in this con- nection. It seems that, at the Reformation, the nunnery of Wilton, like so many others, was dissolved, and was granted to that Earl by Henry VIII, or by his son Edward VI. On the accession of Mary, however, the Earl was compelled to disgorge this property, and " to reinstal the Abbess and her fair recluses ; which he did with many expressions of remorse, kneeling humbly to the Vestals, and inducting them into the convent and possessions from which he had expelled them." But when Elizabeth came to the throne, "the accommodating Earl again resumed his Protestant faith ; and a second time drove the nuns from their sanctuary. The remonstrances of the Abbess, who reminded him of his penitent expressions on the former occasion, could wring from him no other answer than — " Go spin, you jade, go spin." Sir George Bowen, in his Thirty Years of Colonial Government, tells a pretty good story of the ways of some of the heathen. It seems that an Anglican bishop in New Zealand was requested by a Maori chief to baptize him. But unfortunately the chief had two wives. So the bishop gently told him that, before he could be baptized, he must get rid of one of these ladies, and suggested that he should persuade her to return to the bosom of her family. The chief said he feared that that might prove difficult; however, he would see what could be done. After two months he returned looking very radiant, and said to the holy man : " Now, missionary, you can proceed to baptize me. 176 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES for now I have only one wife." Thereupon the bishop asked him how he had contrived to dispose of " our dear sister, your former second wife." To this the worthy chief replied, smack- ing his lips, ' I've eaten her.' I lately heard a fairly good story of a missionary. Most people know that the great evangelising societies make it a condition of emplojrment that these reverend gentlemen shall be married. It sometimes happens that the wives of missionaries die ; and as thes6 apostles cannot well afford to be running home to get new wives, they sometime^ leave it to the managing committee of the parent society to select new wives for them. This happened not long ago in the case of a certain missionary. In due time the new wife arrived; and a bosom friend of the reverend gentleman, happening to pay him a domiciliary visit after the arrival of the lady, instead of finding him in a state of radiant satisfaction, to his great surprise found him in a con- dition of profound dejection, not to say of positive disgust. On inquiring the cause of his depression, the unhappy man ex- claimed : " Would you believe it, red hair again ; and after so much prayer, too — oh, it is too hard." The incident is well told by Aliph Cheem in his amusing book of ballads. Lays of Ind, and his version of it winds up with these pathetic lines : "He called her his lamb, his own; He offered a fitting prayer ; But he cried with an inward groan, ' Again it is carroty hair ! ' " The late master of Balliol would seem to have had no very exalted opinion of bishops. Writing to Morier on the death of the Bishop of Winchester — Wilberforce — he says: "I do not think he was worse than about half the bishops. . . . The whole system of appointing bishops — giving great prizes for moderation, and sometimes for dishonesty — is demoralising. If PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 177 a man wants to get on in the Church, he must say what is eocpedient, not what is right and true ; and he must say it with a sanctimonious expression of countenance, first fancying himself, and then making other people believe, that he is better than they are, and the Church better than the world." While talking of Jowett, it may be well to quote his notion about learning. He somewhere writes : " How I hate learning ! How sad it is to see a man who is learned and nothing else — incapable of making any use of his knowledge. . . . Is learning of any use ? . . . For progress or mental improvement, learn- ing, without thought or imagination, is worse than useless." This reminds one of Bolingbroke's description of a 'learned pig': "He had read almost constantly twelve or fourteen hours a day for five-and-twenty or thirty years, and had heaped to- gether as much learning as could be crowded into a head. In the course of my acquaintance with him I consulted him once or twice ; not oftener, for I found this mass of learning of as little use to me as to its owner. The man was communicative enough, but nothing was distinct in his mind. How could it be otherwise ? He had never spared time to think — all was employed in reading. ... To ask him a question was to wind up a spring in his memory which rattled on with vast rapidity and confused noise, till the force of it was spent, and you went away with all the noise in your ears, stunned and misinformed." From bishops it is an easy jump to archbishops. It would hardly be conceived that a holy primate could ever have followed the unhallowed calling of a buccaneer. Yet it is credibly stated that Dr. Blackbourne, who, circa 1694, became Archbishop of York, was at one time a buccaneer ! I must steal one other story from Sir M. E. Grant Duff. Such acknowledged thefts may at all events operate as a good 12 178 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES advertisement of his diaries and reminiscences, and send people to the perusal of their pages, in quest, not of plunder, but of pabulum. It seems, then, that there was a certain good bishop of Perugia, who had under his roof, and under his care, a young nephew of his own, to whom he was greatly attached, and over whose morals he maintained a vigilant and jealous watch. It chanced that one fine night this youth remained abroad till past twelve o'clock. Next morning the bishop took him roundly to task for such dissolute behaviour. The young man, in his defence, alleged — what was indeed the fact — ^that he had been innocently attending a supper which had been given on the occasion of the marriage of one of his most intimate friends. Far from being mollified by this defence, the bishop stormed the more. Thereon his ward ventured to adduce, in justification of such festivities, the precedent of the marriage in Cana of Galilee. But all in vain, for the pious prelate, in reference to the case in point, angrily retorted : " Primo, chi sa se e vero ; e poi, non h la pill bella cosa che ha fatto nostro Signore " — shaky orthodoxy, to say the least of it, seeing that these words mean : " In the first place, who knows if that story is true ; and, secondly, if it is true, that was by no means the most creditable act which our Lord did." In a previous chapter I had the pleasure of making the reader acquainted with a brand-new saint manufactured by the in- genuity of a compositor. Now I desire to introduce him to two other saints whose names, I fear, are not to be found in the calendar. These worthies are St. Enoch, and St. Rollox. I have more than once puzzled divines by asking them to account for these titles, since it does not appear that the patriarch Enoch was ever canonised, and St. Rollox is unknown to the Church. Now, St. Enoch is the name of a church and square in the city of Glasgow, and it has been adopted by the terminus of the line FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 179 which carries passengers from St. Pancras to the north. There is there also a large hotel where the ' pockpuddings ' from the benighted south can have a magnificent Scotch breakfast — oh, such herrings !— for a very reasonable sum. Well, the mysteri- ous name is merely a corruption of St. Thenaw, or St. Thenew, who was the mother of St. Kentigern, or St. Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow. St. RoUox is the name of a locality in the same city, famous for the colossal chimney-stalk of Tennant's chemical works, which towers over the town at that point. The name is a corruption of St. Roque, or St. Roch, a thirteenth-century saint who came to be regarded as the patron saint of persons afflicted by the plague. If that saint have any virtue now, 'tis a pity he does not pay a visit to Bombay. Very curious is the fiction which has grown up about St. Ursula and the alleged 11,000 virgins at Cologne. Now, 11,000 is 'a large order'; but, in point of fact, instead of being accompanied by so great a bevy of young ladies, St. Ursula was attended by one only. That one rejoiced in the name of ' One- sima,' formed from the Greek word oviqa-Lixos, meaning the useful or profitable one ; a very appropriate name for a handmaiden. But ' Onesima ' soon assumed the endearing Latin diminutive form of ' OnesimiUa,' and then it was an easy task for marvel- mongers to corrupt that into ' undecim mille,' or 11,000 ; and fools readily swallowed the fiction which in time wove itself around the subject. The whole story is quaintly told by Charles Reade in the eleventh chapter of the third volume of his wise and witty work. The Cloister and the Hearth, where also the reader can see sundry admirable examples of fabricated names of saints. On the subject of superstitious proceedings, as well as in illustration of the principle that familiarity breeds contempt, there is a little story touching a French carpenter and a priest, 180 PMBBLES AND PRABBLES which may be new to some people. It seems that on one occa- sion the man of God rebuked the man of chips for not uncover- ing his head when he passed the image of the local patron saint. Now it happened that the worthy carpenter had himself fashioned that image to the order of the priest, and consequently found some difficulty in adoring it. So, with due humility, he endeavoured to excuse himself to his reverence with the homely observation : " Mon p^re, je I'ai connu poirier." This observation irresistibly reminds me of the eighth Satire of Horace's first book of Satires : "Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, Cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum, Maluit esse deum," etc. which, for the benefit of the uninitiated, I shall roughly translate as follows : "I was a wild fig once, a worthless trunk ; The village carpenter in anxious doubt Whether to make of me a kitchen stool Or a Priapus, finally resolved That I should form the god." And before leaving sacerdotal matters, it may be well to recall a saying of Cicero in his De Divinatione, where, in allusion, I think, to a sentiment of Gate's, he observes : " Mirabile videtur quod non rideat haruspex cum haruspicem vidit," which, being interpreted, means, " It seems to me a wonderful thing that when one augur meets another, they don't both burst out laughing." I lately chanced to hoar the following dialogue on the subject of eschatology, which took place between one Adaemon, which name means, the man who doesn't know ; and one Pantosophus, that is to say, the man who knows all about it. Expecting that these two gentlemen would say something worth hearing, I whipped out my materials and took it down in shorthand. PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 181 Pantosophus. You call yourself an Agnostic — a know-nothing — surely a somewhat pitiable position ! But even if you do not recognise the great truths of Christianity, and even if you have, as you say, no knowledge of the mysteries of eschatology — that is to say, of the destiny of man after death — yet surely you have some speculations on these subjects, some views regarding them. If so, I am curious to know what they may be. Adaemon. Surely I have views on these subjects, but these views are negative in their nature rather than positive. The Agnostic asserts nothing regarding such matters, and he denies nothing regarding them. I hold that all such matters lie out- side the domain of positive knowledge; and touching the mysteries of which you speak, I hold that nothing is or can be known regarding them; all is matter of conjecture, or, at most, of belief. Were it otherwise they would not be mysteries. However, I| may state my views as follows : — 1. — There is, or there is not, an unseen Being who governs the affairs and destinies of man — a Being whom we call God. 2. — ^I think — observe I do not know, for I am an Agnostic — I think there is such a Being. 3. — After death there is, or there is not, a future state of conscious existence. 4. — I think, for an Agnostic cannot be said to know, I think it probable that there is such a state. 5. — Such state may possibly be accompanied by memory of our present state, and knowledge of our personal identity in that state and in this. 6. — If there be no such a state, then, except the parting with dear ones — a grievous exception truly — then, I saj', there is nothing to fear in death any more than in profoundest dreamless sleep. Death would be but perfect rest. 182 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 7. — If there be such a state, and if there be a God, it may be presumed that He is at least as good as an average good man. 8. — Now an average good man would be incapable of inflict- ing intense and lasting torture on an erring fellow-creature, even if it were in his power to do so. 9. — Therefore I cannot hold that God would do so, and therefore I am not in fear. It is even conceivable that retribution for human error may be accomplished during human Kfe, but even if this be not the case, and if there be retribution after death, I cannot suppose that it can be either very intense or very prolonged, since that supposition would involve the conclusion that God is inferior to man, which were absurd. Pantosophus. You rely too much, I think, on the mercy of God. How about His justice ? Adaemon. It is difficult to conceive the justice which could inflict tremendous punishment for faults — often trivial ones — committed by beings created, and constituted as they are by the Judge Himself Retribution, I repeat, there may be — corrective and ameliorate retribution — for such faults, but it cannot be of a ferocious character. I would certainly rely on the goodness of God. Pantosophus. But how can you hope to escape the punish- ment expressly threatened to those who refuse to believe in the Divine revelation ? Adaemon. I am an Agnostic, and do not Jcnow whether there has ever been such a revelation. On the contrary, it seems but too evident that, doubtless for the wisest reasons, the Supreme Being has resolved that all such matters should for the present remain concealed behind an impenetrable veil. In any case, belief is not a thing which can be conceded or withheld at will, but a mental condition produced by the natural operation of FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 183 certain impressions acting on the mind. A man can no more force himself to believe a thing which does not present itself to his conviction, than he can force himself to see a thing which does not present itself to his eye. Belief can never depend on volition. There can be no merit in believiag what you believe, any more than there can be merit in seeing what you see; there can be no sin in not believing what you do not believe, any more than there can be sin in not seeing what you do not see. It would be monstrous to punish a man for finding himself unable to believe a thing. No man, surely, will be punished for genuine incapacity to believe — for 'honest doubt.' Pantosophus. If you are not certain of the existence of God, I presume you cannot pray to Him, and thereby you must lose the benefits of prayer — not only the possible concession of its petitions, but its reflex action on the mind and character. Adaemon. I said I think there is a God. Thinking so, I do pray to Him. But I pray for moral qualities, not for material conditions. I pray for wisdom, for courage, for submission to His will, for gentleness towards others, not for worldly prosperity or length of days; and I utterly condemn the practice of perpetually pestering Providence on all the most trivial occa- sions of life — graces at meals, and so forth. Those morning and evening prayers must be poor indeed which do not comprise thankfulness for a leg of mutton. Pantosophus. Have you then no fear of death ? Adaemon. Nay, I will not say that. From the idea of death we all naturally shrink. There is to our minds something awful in the mysterious change. We are loth to part from the body which we have so long inhabited, from the scenes which have so long been familiar to us, and from loved friends. We shrink also from the idea of the physical corruption which 184 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES awaits the body. But these sensations are, after all, senti- mental. On the approach of death they will be mercifully dulled by the very decline of our faculties. At death they will cease. After death — well, after death there may possibly be some reunion with dear ones — the Agnostic, as I said before, denies nothing. If there be no such reunion, some merciful Lethe may console us for the want of it ; while, as to that physical decay which now seems so terrible to us, we shall know nothing of it. After all, a thing which all living creatures since the world began have had to undergo, and which all will have to undergo, cannot surely be so cruel, or so very terrible. Its very universality points to its probable facility; if only some men had to die, as only some men have to undergo fatal railway collisions or shipwrecks, it might be reasonable to di-ead death ; but the universal lot of all cannot possibly be so very bitter. Leopardi well says " Ahhi per fernio che I'entrata e I'^ioscUa ddV anima sono parimente guiete facili e molli," — be well assured that the entrance of the spirit into life, and its departure from it, are alike quiet and easy and gentle. In the Bhagavatgita, the god who accompanies Arjuna in the shape of his charioteer says to him, " the living nature is insensible at its beginning, and insensible at its end." Collodi pithily observes, " La tnorte, a conti fatti, d wwa cosa molto seriaper noi che dohbiamo morire, ma per i morti.forse non d altro che un pensiero di meno," — when all is told death may be a very serious thing for us who have yet to die, but for the dead perhaps 't is but a care the less. Pliny affirmed that the process of dying was usually painless, often probably delightful : " Ipse discessus animae plerumque fit sine doloi'6, nonnunquam ctiam cum ipsa voluptate." It has been happily suggested by some ingenious thinker that it may very probably resemble the case of Don Quixote, PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 185 hanging suspended by his wrist from the stable window : Maritorues cuts the thong, and the knight falls — -fonr inches ! So perhaps death may be no such a mighty matter after all. ^ How beautiful is that Homeric thought of the ayava /3e'Aea, the benignant darts of death ! CHAPTER VIII Burial of Sir John Moore— The letter H— Curious lines— J. G. Lookhart — 'Quern deus vult' — True humour v. puns — Bekos — Gibberish — Bnricus Cordus on Simony — Anthropomorphism — Quondam friends — Ritagli di tempo — Cardinal Borromeo — Scottiana — Egmont and Kenilworth — Scott and tobacco — Lines on St. Luke — Celebrated sayings. It would seem monstrous to breathe a doubt as to the origin- ality of the Rev. Charles Wolfe's lines on the burial of Sir John Moore. Yet some time ago this was actually done by a French journal. The Quarterly Eeview for July, 1895, contained an article entitled 'Parody,' in which the writer stated that the IntermMiaire — a sort of Gallic counterpart of our Notes and Queries — had cited a French ode on the death of the Comte de Beaumanoir, killed at Pondicherry in 1749, which ode was asserted to be so nearly identical with Wolfe's lines, as to leave in the opinion of the French journalist no room for doubt that the latter were little more than a translation of the former ! This was, to say the least of it, strange, and it was regarded as a statement which it would be highly interesting to see threshed out. It was hoped either that it had no adequate foundation, or that it was at least absurdly exaggerated; or finally that, if there was in truth so remarkable a similarity between the two poems, it was to be trusted that we might be able to turn the tables on the Frenchman by supposing, or proving, that although Beaumanoir fell long before Moore, the ode on the death of the former may have been written long after the death of the latter, and that thus the plagiarism — if 186 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 187 there had been plagiarism in the matter — might be comfortably deposited at the door of a French bard. In the end, however, it happily turned out that the French lines which had so scared so many good people, were, in fact, one of the many clever hoaxes perpetrated by the Rev. Francis Sylvester Mahony, better known as Father Prout of Watergrass Hill, who had published in Fraser's Magazine and Bentley's Miscellany, sundry playful translations of well-known poems. This particular one appeared in the first number of Bentley's Miscellany, January, 1837, pages 96, 97. AU the world knows, or has heard of, the beautiful riddling lines, or versified riddle, on the letter H, beginning: "'Twas whispered in heaven, 'twas muttered in hell," but very erroneous notions sometimes prevail as to the authorship of those lines. They are frequently, if not commonly, ascribed to Byron, but they were in reality written by Miss Catherine Maria Fanshawe, who was bom in 1765, and died unmarried in 1834. This lady was the daughter of Mr. John Fanshawe, of Shabden, Surrey, one of the chief clerks of his Majesty's Board of Green Cloth in the household of George IV. She was the authoress of sundry poems, including the lines now under notice — see her Memorials (Harness, 1865), and her Literary Remains (Pickering, 1876). Her lines on the letter H originated in a conversation on the misuse of that letter, which conversation arose while she was on a visit to Mr. Hope at Deepdene, Surrey ; and she wrote them in the album of that gentleman, which is now preserved at Bedgebury, near Cranbrook, Kent. As these lines, so beautiful as well as so ingenious, are very seldom seen, it may be a convenience to the reader if I tran- scribe them here : — " 'Twas whispered in heaven, 'twas muttered in hell, And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell ; On the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest, And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed. 188 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 'Twill be found in the sphere when 'tis riven asunder ; 'Tis seen in the lightning, and heard in the thunder. 'Twas allotted to man from his earliest breath ; It assists at his birth, and attends him in death ; It presides o'er his happiness, honour, and health ; Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth. In the heap of th» raiser 'tis hoarded with care, But is sure to be lost in his prodigal heir. It begins every hope, every wish it must bound, It prays with the hermit, with monarchs is crowned. Without it the soldier and seaman may roam. But woe to the wretch who expels it from home. In the whispers of conscience 'tis sure to be found ; Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion is drowned. 'Twill soften the heart, and though deaf to the ear, 'TwUl make it acutely and constantly hear. But, in short, let it rest like a beautiful flower ; Oh, breathe on it softly, it dies in an hour." Speculation frequently arises as to the genesis of the signifi- cant lines written by some unknown satirist in allusion to the successful matrimonial alliances which were contracted by the house of Austria in the earlier stages of its career. Here are the lines in question: "Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube Nam quae Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus," of which a writer in Notes and Queries furnishes the following very fair translation: "Wage wars the rest; thou, lucky Austria, wed; Rich, not by battle-fields, but marriage bed." The same correspondent states that the true history of these lines is still enveloped in uncertainty. He tells us that he found them in the New Dictionary of Quotations, but he adds that that book fails to give their source; merely referring the inquirer to the preface to Coxe's House of Austria, in which the fortunes of that house are compared to those of the river Danube, " starting from insignificance and receiving rapid aggrandisement from tributary streams." This writer also says PEIBBLES AND PEABBLES 189 that the couplet was parodied at the beginning of the French Revolution, and that consequently it must have been written at least as early as 1791, and he informs us that its original suggestion sprang from Ovid's line : "Bella gerant alii; Protesilaus amet," — "Let others war, Protesilaus needs but love." Another writer in Notes and Queries says that the couplet, together with its history, is to be found in Buchmann's Geflugelte Worte, Berlin, 1892, pages 412, 413; while still another finds mention of it in Jeremy Collier's Great Historical Dictionary, which contains a passage in substance to the follow- ing effect : " Frederick IV. was the first who assumed the title of Archduke of Austria. He was elected Emperor in 1440, and died in 1493, leaving many children, who all died without issue, except Maximilian I. It seems that this Maximilian married Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, and at that time the wealthiest heiress in Europe. In 1493 he succeeded his father in the Empire, and, dying in 1519, he was succeeded by his son, Philip the Fair. Now, this latter prince had married, in 1496, Jane, daughter and heiress of Ferdinand v., surnamed 'The Catholic,' King of Aragon, Granada, and Sicily, whose wife, the mother of the said Jane, was Isabella, Queen of Castille and Leon, and "this new alliance raised the house of Austria to that height which it has ever since appeared in," and gave rise to this distich : "Bella gerunt fortes, tu felix Austria nube. Nam quae Mars aliis dat tibi regna "Venus," in the first of which lines we may observe a significant variation from the text of that quoted above, where the words ran : ' bella gerant aUi,' — ' let others wage wars ' ; whereas now it is : ' bella gerunt fortes,' — ' the brave wage wars,' a variation which reveals a certain shade of scorn. 190 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES But although the meaning of the allusion is thus made sufficiently clear, we are still left in ignorance as to who was the writer of the epigram ; and at what period, and in what connec- tion he wrote it. Some people may be glad to make the acquaintance of certain curious lines once composed in allusion to certain royal gifts made to Oxford and Cambridge respectively on a certain well- known occasion; while other persons who may have seen or heard them, may possibly be glad to see them again, and in a version whose accuracy is fairly well vouched. The following account of the matter, written by a correspond- ent of Notes and Queries, was elicited by a question addressed by myself to that journal : " After the death, in 1714, of Doctor John Moore, successively Bishop of Norwich and Ely, his library of 30,000 volumes was bought by George I., and presented by him to the University of Cambridge. At about the same time the attempt of the Old Pretender to recover the throne met with so much sympathy at Oxford that it was thought necessary to send a force of cavalry there to overawe the University. In connection with these two events, Doctor Joseph Trapp, Professor of Poetry in 1708, afterwards chaplain to Lord Bolingbroke, and rector of Harlington, Middlesex, and author of Praelectiones Poeticae, and of a Latin version of Paradise Lost, wrote the following epigram : " Our gracious monarch viewed with equal eye The wants of either University. Troops he to Oxford sent, well knowing why; That learned body wanted loyalty. But books to Cambridge sent, as well discerning That that right loyal body wanted learning." A somewhat different version has been ascribed to Thomas Warton the elder, who was also Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and the father of Joseph Warton, Head Master of Winchester, PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 191 and of Thomas Warton the younger, the historian of English poetry: "Our royal master saw with heedful eyes The state of his two Universities ; To one he sends a regiment, for why? That learned body wanted loyalty; To the other books he gave, as well discerning How much that loyal body wanted learning." and there are still other, and slightly varied versions of the epigram. To these lines Sir William Browne, who became a physician at Norwich, retorted as follows : "The King to Oxford sent a troop of horse. For tories own no argument but force ; With equal care to Cambridge books he sent, For whigs allow no force but argument." Dr. Johnson is said to have characterised these lines as one of the happiest extemporaneous productions he had ever met with. But non constat why the good doctor should have called the production ' extemporaneous.' Surely the adjective should have been 'contemporaneous.' Before leaving the subject, I should say that another correspondent of Notes and Queries holds that the Sovereign referred to was William III., but this is not proved. Tom Moore wrote some racy lines on John Gibson Lockhart, then editor of the Quarterly Review, and, as everybody knows, son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott. As they are not often met with, I give them here : "Alas! and must I close the list With thee, my Lockhart of the Quarterly ? So kind with bumper in thy fist, With pen so very gruflf and tartarly. Now in thy parlour feasting me,. Now scribbling at me from your garret. Till 'twixt the two, in doubt I be Which sourest is — thy wit or claret." 192 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES Lockhart was himself a formidable hand at similar verses; and what is more, he could on occasion almost improvise them, or, at all events, put them together in his clever head at very short notice. Of this I shall give one specimen. In his day there flourished in Edinburgh a Scottish Lord of Session hight Peter, or Patrick, Robertson — by the way, the Scotch used strangely to regard the name Peter as identical with Patrick, or as a sort of familiar form of it. This Peter Robertson was in his day, and in his own country, a noted wit, a poetaster, an indifferent lawyer, and a bit of a freethinker in religion. Well, one evening, — ^possibly at Ambrose's — this gentleman had been pouring out a succession of satirical impromptus — at least they claimed to be such — which dealt very trenchantly with the name and fame of sundry leading local men of the day. Lock- hart, who was present, determined to put him down, and did so, very effectively, with the following couplet, purporting to be an epitaph to be inscribed on Robertson's tombstone on his decease : "Here lies that peerless paper peer Lord Peter, Who scorned the laws of God, and man, and metre.'' It is, or used to be, the custom to call Scotch law lords, 'paper lords.' By the way, there used to be in Edinburgh another Judge of session, called Lord Cringletye, notorious for his ignorance of the law. On him a local wag penned the following pungent couplet : "Necessity and Cringletye tally to a tittle, Necessity knows no law, Cringletye as little." A very good skit used to be current as to Dickens, at the time when his pseudonym of ' Boz ' was penetrated, or laid aside : " Who the dickens ' Boz ' could be Puzzled many a curious elf, At length the mystery was solved. And ' Boz ' appeared as ' Dickens' ' self." PKIBBLES AND PRABBLES 193 But to return for a moment to Lockhart. He could be very solemn and touching when he chose ; indeed it is recorded of him that by temperament he was naturally more grave than gay, especially in his later years — witness the following fine lines from his hand : "But 'tis an old belief That on some solemn shore. Beyond the sphere of grief. Dear friends shall meet once more. Beyond the sphere of time, And sin and fate's control. Serene in changeless prime Of body and of soul. That creed I fain would keep. That hope I'll not forego. Eternal be the sleep. Unless to waken so." Some time ago, in the Army and Navy Magazine, I saw some vigorous and humorous German lines on arms of precision. These were : " Uncivilisierte Horden Kampten noch mit Schwert und Speer ; Menschen die humdn geworden, Mit dem Repetiergewehr ! " which were rendered into English thus : "Savage hordes their battles fight With swords and spears and such like trifles, Humane folk only have the right. And wish, to use repeating rifles." I fancy that most people, if asked to name the original habitat of the stirring ballad ' Bonnie Dundee,' would probably make a wrong guess. In point of fact I believe it is imbedded in a composition of Sir Walter Scott's which is now seldom named, to wit, ' The Doom of Devorgoil.' The ' Doom ' may fade from memory ; but the grand old song remains. And if anybody wants to puzzle a learned friend, let him ask 13 194 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES that friend to name the Latin author who wrote the well-known words : 'Quern deus vult perdere prius dementat,' and to point out the passage where they first occur. The chances are that the learned friend knows nothing about it; and may possibly spend a week in searching for it in vain. Whenever I quote the dead languages, I always think it well to give a translation of the words quoted, propter simplicitatem laicorwm ; as well as out of politeness to the ladies. So I may say that these words are commonly translated thus: 'whom God wishes to destroy, He first makes mad.' Now, in the entire range of Latin tags there is probably none so generally known, and so often quoted as this ; yet nobody can tell where it first occurs; and this for the best of all reasons, namely that it occurs nowhere. I think its history is mentioned in Boswell's Life of Johnson ; and it is sufficiently curious. It seems that a bet having once arisen on the subject, a band of competent scholars resolved to track the phrase to its source, or perish in the attempt. These gentlemen accordingly instituted an exhaustive search for it. But they only exhausted themselves. It was not to be found in any Latin writer ; and the search-party finally gave it up. The only thing at all resembling it which they could discover, was a certain alleged fragment of Euripides, which ran somewhat to the same effect, but itself of dubious Greek. I say that that fragment was itself of dubious Greek, because not the least curious thing about the phrase under discussion is that its latinity is questionable, if not absolutely spurious, inasmuch as there is no classical authority for the use of the verb ' deraento ' as an active verb, since in the only standard passage where it occurs, it is employed in a neuter sense, and is equivalent to the verb 'dementio,' which means to le mad, or go out of one's mind ; not to put out of one's mind ; a circumstance which of course destroys the sense of the saying. FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 195 In the same book Boswell mentions that Johnson told him that he had once been offered ten guineas if he could find out the original passage which contained the words: 'semel in- sanivimus omnes ' ; and that he utterly failed to do so at that time, and had to go without the ten guineas ; but that, many years afterwards, by pure chance, he stumbled upon them in the first Eclogue of Johannes Baptista Mantuanus, 'De honesto amore ' : "Id commune malum, semel insanivimus omnes,"— " This is a common ill, that we have all, at one time or another, played the fool." I think it is among the Epigrammatiea of Canon Harford — privately printed — that the following clever German punning epigram occurs, addressed to a young friend of his of the name of Allen, who, it seems, had bestowed praise on something which had been written by the Canon : "Man sagt dass Keiner hat's gethan, Der ganzen Welt gefallen, Falsch ist es, weil ich sagen kann, loh bin gelobt von Allen," — "They say that no man ever yet Contented all the world ; 'Tis false, for I can truly say. That I am praised by all " (Allen). Some severe authority has somewhere laid down the stern canon that the unfailing test and touchstone of true wit consists in its capability or otherwise of being translated into all languages without evaporation of its essence, and, consequently, that if an idea is truly humorous, it would be as funny in Chinese as in English. This principle would, of course, rule out all puns and other jokes whose fun consists only in verbal jingles and plays on words. Well, it may be admitted that the highest and truest humour — the humour which consists in a 196 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES thought or a sentiment — would lose nothing by translation, and would be equally amusing in all languages ; whereas the humour of a pun, being purely verbal, must perish if it were proposed to transplant it to another tongue. It cannot be transplanted. Nevertheless, let us concede that there is often much fun and ingenuity in these verbal jokes, and that they are a form of humour, though of a humbler kind than those con- ceits whose roots strike down to the subsoil of sentiment and idea. That is a quaint story in the second section of the second book of Herodotus about the method said to have been employed by King Psammetichus in order to ascertain what language would naturally be adopted by a child which from its birth had been absolutely secluded from all human intercourse, his ulterior object being to determine whether the Egyptians or the Phry- gians were the earlier race. From the homes of humble pai-ents he took two newly-born infants, and handed them over to a shepherd with strict injunctions that he should lock them up together in a room by themselves, that no person should have access to them, and that they should be nourished by the milk of goats, which were to be admitted to the chamber at stated times, his object being to observe what word they should first utter after they had left off the inarticulate lispings of infancy. This went on without result for two years, when one fine day the shepherd opened the door of the room, and the moment he did so the two children ran up to him, and, with extended hands, uttered the word * Bekos,' which, it appeared, was a Phrygian name for bread ; and so the point at issue was thus decided out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. This is very much in the manner of the Father of History — I was nearly saying, of something else. I wonder if he expected people to believe this tale, or believed it himself, Mr. G. T. Lloyd, in his book on Tasmania and Victoria, treats PRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 197 us to the following luminous specimen of the language of some of the aborigines of Australia : " Banyeek tarrecarmuke pud car- nock dedabul corra," which, it seems, means, " You stop and catch great kangaroo." The reader will observe that this graceful sentence contains no word at all resembling ' kangaroo,' a circumstance tending to bear out the statement of a recent authority on this subject to the effect that the word in question is some obscure European corruption, and is wholly unknown to the natives of Australia. Sir William Macgregor, Superintendent of British New Guinea, has informed a wondering world that in the language of the Dungerwab tribe in that island the number ten is expressed by the crisp little word ' Ambutondaambutondanabodand ' ! What must their word for a hundred be ? But, now I think of it, they fortunately do not carry their arithmetical calculations much beyond the number ten. Such gibberish as the above reminds one of that of Robin in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: " Polyphragmos Belseborams jframento pacostiphos tostu," etc. By the way, readers may remember that Scott, in Kenilworth, makes Master Erasmus Holiday tell us that the word ' gibberish ' is derived from the name of the Arabian alchemist Geber, who, in his treatises, used to employ a mystical jargon in order to conceal their meaning from the profane crowd : " Geber, ex nomine cujus venit verbum vemaculum gibberish." I wonder whether modern men of science have taken a leaf out of the book of that sage of Araby, for assuredly they too often adopt his cryptic methods of composition. It is obvious enough that the continued development of physical science involves the necessity of a continued coinage of new terms for the expression of newly-evolved ideas and for the specification of newly-discovered substances and conditions, and inasmuch as the exquisitely elastic structure of the Greek language lends 198 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES itself with peculiar efficacy to the formation of new vocables, it is natural, and I may say unavoidable, that the new terms required by advancing science should be usually constructed by factors drawn from that language. Granted. But I suspect — and I think it has been suspected by bigger men than me — that men of science are just a little too prone to the use of these new-fangled words. They seem to be extravagantly proud of them, and to riot in their use to a degree in excess of the strict necessities of the case, so much so that nowadays in some Reviews — popular, not scientific Reviews — one often meets articles which no human being can make head or tail of. I here append one or two samples of the kind of thing which a plain man may expect to run up against in his monthly magazine. Although manufactured by myself ad hoc, they are really hardly an exaggerated caricature of what one sometimes sees, and hardly less intelligible. . . . " On the other hand, however, Mr. Smelfungus was of opinion that this view, although undoubtedly ingenious, yet seemed scarcely tenable by the light of even a cursory examination of the remarkable Institutes of the Bunodont or Plantigrade Ascetics of the Caucasus, which have been fortunately preserved to the world by the labours of their great Archimandrite, the famous Ptolemy Pentadactyl, in the 14th Olympiad prior to the foundation of Antioch, and of which sect plentiful remains are still to be found in the old red sandstone and earlier pleiocene formations. Now, as lately indicated by a learned writer in a leading scientific journal, these Institutes would seem to establish, inter alia, the existence and general acceptance, even at that early epoch, of the doctrine of the telepathic nebulosity of the corpuscular particles composing the cosmic ether which forms the envelope of the physical globe, and on which it perpetually acts and reacts by a direct process of vertical radiation, popularly PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 199 known as the rectilinear inter-correlation of psychico-astral vibra- tion, whereof the systole is the effective product of two great antagonistic energies, the one centrifugal and permanent, the other spasmodic and centripetal ; whereas the diastole perpetually tends to absorption in the cosmic essence, and thence reacting on the molecular protoplasms of the embryonic tissues, and pervading the encephaloid cavities of the cerebral cortices, it produces purposive atavistic innervation of the ganglionic gemmules inherent in the somatic germ-centres, together with static automatism of the individuation and subconscious race- evolution in the pithecoid valves operating in vacuo, whence, extending by diatomic correlation to the initial organs of the motor-paths, it directly involves the unitary atomic action of the dynamic spectrum of the spinal cord, which mutatis mutdndis, forms the fundamental postulate of the neo-Lamarckian theory touching the embiyological ovules of the irporepov ^va-ei, as expounded in the Aristotelian physiology, resulting finally in the ultimate propulsion of the personal ether-germs, a condition now familiar to us as the hypnotic state, but first made known to the scientific world by the psychical researches of the ancient Rosicrucian fraternity of the Delia Cruscan Mahatmas of Coto- paxi, and still further elucidated by the Upanishad Rig Marol Veda of Vikramaditya, during the reign of the fourteenth prince of the Pandowi dynasty of Vencatachellum sovereigns in the Camatic." . . . Or if the theme lies in the domain of physical science, you will probably find something about as understandable as the following : — ... "The current number of the Physical Beview contains a luminous paper from the pen of Professor Butcher on the vexed question, touching the unicellular synostosis which so curiously 200 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES characterises the hyperboloid protamceba lately discovered in the older cetacean strata of the Lower Andes. " It will be in the recollection of our readers that Helmholz, and other observers belonging to what may be called the meso- thoracic school of thinkers, adhered strenuously to the theory that the chitinous proscutellum so conspicuous in the metatarsic larvae of these strata was uniformly pervaded by a species of dimorphic, if not absolutely polymorphic, germplasm, which on subjection to spectrum analysis, exhibited unmistakable traces of distinct dermal growth of a lemuroid and phylogenetic character. Now, however, in contravention of this hypothesis, Professor Butcher, in the article just mentioned, has propounded an argument, which to our view seems well nigh incontrovertible. Taking his stand on the established doctrine of the invariable presence of akinetic polar stenosis in the chromatin filaments of the earlier heliomythic entomostraca, and advancing from that position to a demonstration of the palaeolithic fissiparity, so uniformly to be distinguished in the ciliated parenchymatous tissues of the platycnemic cestodes recently brought to light in the caryophyllaceous idiosomes of the tertiary period, he con- tends that the connection between the molecular gemmation of these infusoria and that of the hyperbolar scyphomedusse of the glacial age, so far from being evidence of inherent plastidular idioplasm in these protozoa, is purely casual in its incidence, and affords no possible locus standi for any theory of latent amblyopsis, still less of polycellular rhizomatic organism as pervading the rhinodermal inotagmata so frequently met with in the later chologastric formations of that system. The Professor further contends that, paradoxical as it may appear, the undoubted kinetic stability of the latent primary con- stituents of the biophoric nototrema recently detected in the mucous membrane of the cetaceous marsupials of the Deccan, affords incontestable proof of the occasional presence of patho- FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 201 gnomonic phlegmon, or at all events of secondary asymptotic panmixia in the bunodont pithecoid polypoda of the earlier carboniferous ascidians ; which latter are on no account to be confounded with the hsemoglobular amblyrhynci of the pleiocene By all means, then, let men of science shun too much indulgence in the methods of Geber of Arabia. Enricus Cordus, the celebrated Humanist, about the year 1520, amid many pungent satirical attacks on the ecclesiastical abuses prevalent in his day, wrote the following epigram on the practice of simony in the Church : "Prima Simon Petrus fidei fundamina jecit Christicolasque novus dux fuit inter oves. At superas postquam Petrus migravit in arces, Hoc subiit solus munus ubique Simon. Hei mihi quam tenuis grex et pastore sub illo Quam gracili rarum tergore vellus habet I " which lines Mrs. Leighton, the translator of the Life, of Sophia, Eledress of Hanover, and of Medieval Legends, and other works, paraphrased in the following verses which, so far as I know, have never yet appeared inj print : " When first the church to earth was given, 'T was ruled by Simon Peter : When Peter soared from earth to heaven, 'Twas Simon's turn to treat her. Alas ! the flock Kept scarce a lock Unshorn by such a pastor ; 'Twas hardly known If skin or bone Was what she went to faster." The following satii'e on idolatry and anthropomorphism is deftly rendered by Leopardi, in his ' Errori Popolari,' from the lines of 202 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Clement of Alexandria, who ascribed the original idea to Xeno- phanes : "Or se leone o bue pinger potesse, Se, come a noi le dife, le mani ai bruti Date avesse natura ; i numi in forma Di cavalli o di buoi ritratti avrebbe II cavallo od il bue ; del proprio corpo Fra i bruti avria ciascun vestiti i Dei." These also have been ingeniously rendered by Mrs. Leighton in the following not yet published version : "Now, if the ox or lion could but paint, Ajid nature had on beasts our hands bestowed, Then had the deities on canvas glowed As horse or ox, by ox or horse depicted ; And ne'er a brute of form so rude or quaint. But had that form upon the gods inflicted." Many a sneer has been uttered by Southrons on the subject of the ludicrously small value of the old pound Scots, which so often deranges the calculations of those who read descriptions of Scotland in the olden time. Thus we have the old couplet cited in Waverley : "How can the rogues pretend to sense? Their pound is only twenty pence ; " a shilling Scots being equivalent to only a penny of Enghsh money. But the Scots — perhaps because they were a thirsty as well as a thrifty race — made up for this by their glorious pint, which was equal to no less than four puny pints of England. Hence the saying, recorded in Redgauntlet of a Scotchman who, being jeered on account of the insignificant value of his country's currency, retorted pithily enough: "Ay, ay, that may be sae, but the deil tak them that has the least pint stoup." The Reverend Doctor Sheridan, grandfather of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, once startled his hearers by an expression FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 203 which sounded very like a very big d . It seems he had been very badly treated, or thought he had been very badly treated, by some persons who had formerly been, or professed to have been, his friends, and who had subsequently turned against him. On one occasion one of his acquaintances happened to make some reference to his quondam friends, whereon the reverend gentleman angrily blurted out : "Quondam friends, forsooth, qaondamn them all ! " I believe Sir Walter Scott's fairourite maxim was : ' never be doing nothing ; ' and this is suggestive of the indubitable fact that it is only the idle who ever allege that they have no time to do any given thing. The busy always have leisure; In this connection I have somewhere seen a passage to the following effect, though I cannot remember where : — " Consider for a moment the literary and scientific work often accomplished by busy bankers like George Grote, or toiling merchants like Sir John Lubbock. James Mill wrote his history of British India during the scant leisure snatched from his duties at the India Ofiice. Macaulay wrote his Lays of Ancient Eome while busied at the War Office. Beaconsfield and Glad- stone, in the midst of their tremendous political labours, found time, the one, to write novels, the other, to comment on Homer. Lord Derby translated the Iliad amid the stress and strain of social and political life." To this I would add the case of Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, of whom Manzoni, in the twenty- third chapter of his Fromessi Sposi, says, among other things : " Stava studiando, come era suo costume di fare in tutti i ritagli di tempo," — " He was engaged in study, as it was his custom so to employ himself in all the odds and ends of time." Yes, it is the ritagli, the clippings, the little odds and ends of time, too commonly wasted, which do the business. I believe a great writer inscribed on a copy of one of his greatest works : " This book was written in the intervals of time whilst waiting for dinner." A personal friend of my own assured me that, one 204 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES summer, at the seaside, he learned the Italian grammar, and a good deal more of that language, in the intervals between the ' infusion ' of the tea and the sitting down to breakfast ; while another of my acquaintances, during the brief ' ritagli ' of time snatched from a very busy official life in India, learned, or rather taught himself, the main essentials of the German language. To return to Scott. I think he himself, in a letter to Morritt, says of Waverley, that all but a few opening chapters of that story was written in the evenings of three weeks ; and that Guy Mannering was the work of a Christmas vacation. Scott's manuscript must have been written in very small and very close character. In his journal one day he records : " I wrote six of my close pages yesterday, which is about twenty- four pages of print." They must indeed have been ' close,' or else his printed pages must have been small. In another place he says that seventy of his written pages " make a volume of the usual novel size," and, a little further on, he tells us that six of his close pages make about thirty pages of print. But, further on still, he says that three of his pages or leaves, make sixteen printed ones of Woodstock, or twelve of the Life of Buonaparte, from which last statement it seems clear that where he had previously spoken of pages, he really meant leaves written on both sides, or, in other words, two pages; and it is known that it was his practice to write on both sides of his paper, and that an amanuensis copied out all that he wrote. Still, when all is said and done, his manuscript must have been very closely written. It is a phenomenal fact that The Bride of Zammermoor and the Legend of Montrose were written down to Scott's dictation, while he lay on a sofa suffering agonies from a painful, though transient, affection. He himself has recorded that when these two books were printed, he had little or no recollection of their tenor I think it is Scott who says that the man who is besieged by PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES 205 a bore, and who bears bis trial stoutly, or, better still, who can rout the bore, and raise the siege, deserves to be graced with an obsidional crown — the decoration conferred by the ancient Romans on those captains who successfully withstood or raised an actual siege in war. Suffering from sleeplessness under the bitter burden of his debts, he says : " He who sleeps too long of a morning, let him borrow the pillow of a debtor ; " in reference to the Spanish saying on that subject : " El que no puede madrugar," or " que duerme demasiado por la manana," " que pide la almohada de un deudor," — " he who cannot rise early, or who sleeps too long o' mornings, let him use the pillow of a debtor." Sir Walter warns writers against over-polishing their writings. In a letter to Lady Abercom, he writes on this subject as follows, in reference to Boheby : " I had corrected the spirit out of it, as a lively pupil is sometimes flogged into a dunce by a severe schoolmaster. Since I have resumed the pen in my old cossack manner, I have succeeded rather more to my own mind." That is a happy touch in Wamrley, where he says that Colonel Talbot so hated the highlanders that " the white cockade on the breast, and the white rose in the hair, and the Mcui at the beginning of a name, would have made a devil out of an angel ; indeed he himself jocularly allowed that he could not have endured Venus herself if she had been announced in a drawing-room as Miss MacJupiter." Readers of Goethe will remember that, in the second scene of the third act of his Egmont, he makes that unfortunate noble- man pay a clandestine visit to his Clarchen, he being muflSed in a horseman's cloak, which he suddenly throws off, and stands before her in all the splendour of his state robes, and wearing on his breast his Golden Fleece amid his other numerous decora- tions. In obvious though perfectly legitimate imitation of this scene, Scott, in the eighth chapter of Kenilworth, represents Leicester as making a similar secret visit to Amy Robsart, 206 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES arrayed, to her amazement and delight, in similar magnificence. Eckermann, in his Conversations with Goethe, mentions that the great German poet failed not to note this circumstance, and that it afforded him distinct satisfaction. Scott, with characteristic good taste, was, it would appear, no admirer of the preposterous ostrich plumage which for many years now has adorned the bonnets of our highland regiments, and of which their ofiScers are so absurdly proud that, on a recent occasion, a proposal to abolish it evoked from them a tornado of indignation. In the thirty-sixth chapter of Boh Roy, he describes that worthy as standing on a rock " conspicu- ous by his long gun, waving tartans, and the single plume in his cap which in those days denoted the highland gentleman and soldier ; although I observe that the present military taste has decorated the highland bonnet with a quantity of black plumage resembling that which is borne before a funeral." It is a curious thing that throughout his novels Scott hardly ever mentions tobacco- smoking, and when he does so, it is generally in connection with low and vulgar persons, and never with the gusto of one who was himself a smoker. Now, Sir Walter was evidently a lover of the creature comforts. He delights in descriptions of feasting and conviviality, cosy suppers, and midnight jollifications ; yet, into these smoking never enters. This circumstance has led some people to suppose that he him- self did not smoke. But he did. Not much, indeed — a cigar or two after dinner — never pipes — but he smoked. His journal contains frequent mention of the fact. Under date 22nd of November, 1825, it contains the following entry: " I smoked a good deal about twenty years ago when at Ashestiel ; but, coming down one morning to the parlour, I found, as the room was small and confined, that the smeU was unpleasant, and laid aside the use of the nicotian weed for many years ; but was again led to use it by the example of my son, a hussar officer, and of my son-in-law, an Oxford student. I FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 207 could lay it aside to-morrow. I laugh at the dominion of custom in this and many things." Nevertheless, he did not lay it aside, for his journal of 26th of May, 1830, says he still smokes, though less than he had previously done ; and, in a letter to Cadell dated 12th of December, 1830, — and this, be it observed, subsequently to his first apoplectic seizure — he states that he still smoked then, though he adds that he had nearly given it up. The rarity of his references to this practice is probably to be accounted for by the fact that in his time there was a sort of temporary eclipse of smoking among people of fashion and breeding ; and that, for perhaps nearly a generation, it was regarded with disfavour. In confirmation of this view, I may observe that Captain Mahan states that in the correspondence of Nelson he can find no mention of tobacco- smoking, nor any allusion to it, or to the subject of tobacco at all. Another curious circumstance is that a writer so essentially Scotch, while portra3ring Scottish life and manners, hardly ever alludes to that Scottish beverage now so widely popular. When Scott refers to the use of spirituous liquors by any of his per- sonages, even of the humblest rank, it is always brandy that they use — never whisky — which latter indeed in the Monastery he describes as " a liquor strange to Halbert Glendinning ; " while, in Bedgauntlet, he makes Nanty Ewart call whisky " the nasty Scottish stuff that the canting old scoundrel Turnpenny has brought into fashion." In Bob Boy he thinks it necessary to give an explanation of the nature of that beverage. And see the death-bed scene of Dumbiedikes senior in the Heart of Mid- lothian ; and numerous other places ; while whisky is not even mentioned in his account of the hospitalities of Magnus Troil, where all other conceivable intoxicants are mentioned. — Pirate, chapter 17. Elsewhere he tells us that at the period referred to in his descriptions the people of Scotland were wont to use almost exclusively brandy, smuggled from France, mostly by way of the Isle of Man. 208 PRIBBLES AND PEABBLES The following fact as to Scott's debts, and his gallant struggle to wipe them out, is one of those matters which everybody has heard of, but which everybody generally forgets. When the smash came, he was held liable for about £120,000. By the time of his death, he had reduced this to about £54,000. On a fountain in Paris there is a very pretty inscription which inculcates the moral that true benevolence should seek conceal- ment ; or that the benefactor at least should do so. The lines run thus : "Quae dat aquas saxo latet hospita nympha sub imo. Sic tu quum dederis dona latere velis,"- — " The kindly Nymph who bids these waters flow, lurks modestly behind a rock ; in like manner do thou, when thou givest gifts, seek to be concealed ; " or, as expressed in the following quaint old lines : " If thou serve many, tell it not to any ; If any serve thee, tell the tale to many." Swift's epigram on rival musical composers is worth recalUng to mind among odds and ends of literature : "Some say that Signer Buononcini Compared to Handel is a ninny ; WhUe others say that to him Handel Is hardly fit to hold a candle : Strange that such difference should be 'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee" — of which the last two lines are alive and kicking now. In loftier and holier strain are the following lines on ' The Beloved Physician ' : "Lucas, Evangelii et medicinae munera pandens, Artibus hinc, illinc religione valet : Utilis ille labor per quem vixere tot aegri TJtilior per quem tot didicere mori ; " FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 209 which, for want of a better translation, may be roughly rendered thus : " Luke, dealing medical and gospel gifts, Wields the twin powers of science and of faith. Precious the gift which shows us how to live. More precious that which shows us how to die." I have already remarked on the liability of celebrated sayings to get ascribed to the wrong persons. Bons mots and epigrams seem to have a way of losing their true paternity, and getting fathered on Sydney Smith, Talleyrand, and such like notabilities. Society's maxim in such matters seems to be : when in doubt, say it's Talleyrand. Such fathering, indeed, makes a highly effective ' send-off ' to a jest ; and I would even go so far as to recommend all young farceurs to launch their own good things under the aegis of some such great name ; at all events until they have made at least some reputation of their own. Many a man will laugh consumedly at a joke which he believes to have been made by Sydney Smith, which he would take but sourly if he thought it was the manufacture of Brown, Jones, or Robinson. Therefore by all means let the budding joker introduce his callow jests under some such lofty patronage : " I suppose you remember what Sydney Smith said apropos of this circumstance," or : "I daresay you have heard Talleyrand's epigram on that point." The result will generally prove satisfactory as to the success of the mot, though, of course, barren of credit to its manufacturer ; but the joker should prefer the success of his joke to any credit of his own ; and he wiU at least always pass for a well-read man. I would here refer to a few well-known sayings, indicating at the same time the persons who really said them. It was Alphonse Karr who, writing an article on capital punishment, and after deriding the idea of its total abolition until murder ceased, wound up his argument with the pregnant words : " Effagons la peine de mort. Je le veux bien, mais — que messieurs les assassins commencent." 14 210 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES It was Steele who said of a certain noble lady : " to love her is a liberal education." It is common to apply this to sundry wrong ladies ; but its real subject was, I believe, Lady Elizabeth Hastings ; and I also believe that the vulgate : ' to know her,' instead of ' to love her,' is erroneous. It was La Rochefoucauld who uttered the cynical sentiment that the misfortunes of our friends are to us a source of joy : and Lucretius expresses the same notion in his lines : " Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem ; " which merely mean that it is very nice to be safe and sound on dry land, and to see our friends wrestUng with a storm at sea. It was Sir George Cornewall Lewis who said that life would be very bearable but for its pleasures. It was Bentham who said : ' Boards are screens ' — and he never said a truer word — because what the Board does is the act of nobody, and nobody can be made to answer for it. There- fore, he argued. Boards are not a fit instrument for executive business. It was Sheridan who, in reply to a speech by Dundas, said : "The right honourable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jokes, and to his imagination for his facts ; " and who once alluded to "that easy writing which makes such un- commonly difficult reading." I have already mentioned that it was Thomas Campbell — not Byron — who employed the caustic expression as to Barabbas having been a publisher. The sarcastic statement to the eflfect that the British shot Admiral Byng ' pour encourager les autres ' is, I think, fre- quently ascribed to Napoleon. The latter may have said it ; but I think it was first said by Voltaire in the twenty-third chapter of Candide. It was Emile OUivier who, on the outbreak of the Franco- FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 211 Prussian war in 1870, told Napoleon III. that he entered on that contest ' with a light heart.' The phrase ' to end a thing, or mend it ' was used by Glad- stone in reference to the House of Lords ; and has since that time been generally credited to him as his own idea. But this is a mistake. It occurs in The Heart of Midlothian, chapter 4 ; and again in The Monastery, chapter 19; and most probably it is pretty nearly as old as the hills; and when all's said and done, there's nothing very wonderful about it. John Lothrop Motley, before becoming famous by his Rise of the Dutch Republic and his Mistwy of the Netherlainds, had tried his hand at two novels, both of which were failures. Regarding these he wittily wrote as follows : " Then I knew how hard it was to write a novel — Haud inexpertus loquor. Did I not have two novels killed under me — as Balzac phrases it — before I found that my place was among the sappers and miners, and not the lancers ? " There is a good saying ascribed to Mrs. Grote. That lady knew Louis Napoleon during his first exile in England ; and she loved him not, nor was her love of him increased by his famous coup d'itat in 1852, and she always confidently predicted his speedy fall. Shortly after he became Emperor, she was presented to him at Paris. He, probably knowing her sentiments towards himself, received her coldly, and asked her whether she was likely to make a long stay in Paris. She had her revenge, for she replied : ' No, are you ? ' Some sayings, though correctly fathered, have a way of getting applied to a wrong subject. Thus the phrase : " He could be silent in seven languages." This is commonly, but erroneously, said of Von Moltke, in allusion to his command of languages, and of his own tongue. But in point of fact it was originally said of Immanuel Bekker, the philologist, who in addition to his extraordinary linguistic attainments, was peculiarly taciturn and reserved — " II se tait en sept langues." 212 PRTBBLES AND PRABBLES On the premature enumeration of expected poultry — called by common people, " counting your chickens before they 're hatched " — ^there are sundry quaint sayings. Thus in St. Bonan's Well, chapter 30, when Captain Jekyl says to old Touchwood that his memory has let slip Mr. Touchwood's name, the testy old nabob replies : " My name ! Why, your memory must have been like Pat Murtough's greyhound, that let the hare go before he caught it." Finally, there is the famous piece of advice to a lady whose ideas on the subject of matrimonial proposals were inclined to be somewhat proleptic and sanguine : "Don't you act like Nancy Baxter, Who refused a man before he axed her." CHAPTER IX The Sudan and Afghanistan — Butchers' bills — Omdurraan — Consolidation of the Empire — Character of the Indian Army — Foreign opinion regarding it — Its employment out of India — Hannibal's maxim — The four slain Battyes — Invasion by Russia — Skobeleffs opinion — Attitude and disposition of the peoples of India. DoGBEERT tells US that ' comparisons are odorous.' By the way, some people think that it was Mrs. Malaprop who said this. That lady may have said it, but honest Dogberry said it first. Well, in defiance of this maxim, Mr. L. Oppenheim, in the Nineteenth Century for December, 1898, had an admirable article entitled "The Tirah and Khartoum Expeditions"; in which he very forcibly compares, first, the degree of public interest aroused by these two expeditions respectively, and secondly, the military difficulties which severally characterised them. His comparison has nothing ' odorous ' about it. It is wholly free from all spirit of invidious contrast. It is as courteous as it is accurate ; and it is the more entitled to respect since he informs us that he was war correspondent with both of these expeditions, and was one of the very few who had the good fortune to witness them both. First, then, as to the comparative interest excited by these two campaigns, not in Great Britain only, but throughout Europe. In the eyes of Europe, the Egyptian question is a European question. The gaze of the whole civilised world is intently fixed on all events which may occur in the valley of the Nile ; while for Great Britain such events have naturally an 213 214 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES absorbing interest. In that valley there was a baleful and usurped authority to be overthrown; a vast territory to be recovered ; and the death of Gordon to be — I will not say, to be avenged — but, to be expiated. Accordingly the entire country positively palpitated with interest in the progress of the Sudan expedition ; and the Stock Exchange itself vibrated in harmony with its developments. Consider, on the other hand, the campaign in Tirah. In the eyes of Europe — if Europe ever gave it a thought — that was but an insignificant and local brawl ; and even to the average Briton it seemed to differ only in point of magnitude from the countless punitive expeditions which the Indian government has in the last forty years launched across its north-western frontier. Moreover, in that campaign it was impossible to achieve any of those dramatic triumphs which mark success in civilised warfare. The Afridis, dauntless and skilful as they are, were an invertebrate foe — a mere casual congeries of local clans, destitute of nationality and cohesion. In that quarter there was no government to overturn; no sovereign to dethrone ; no historic capital to seize— nothing, in a word, to accentuate success, or to symbolise victory. We killed a great many Afridis ; and the Afridis killed a great many of our people ; but we had nothing to show for it all. " Thus," as Mr. Oppenheim says, " a white light has shone over all the expeditions in the Sudan ; and the Nile valley, inundated with newspaper correspondents, has seemed to the public to have been a scene of arduous military operations, admirably executed ; while on the Indian frontier, where campaigning is a hundred times more full of hardships and dangers; where generalship is more tried; where the steadiness of troops is infinitely more tested, there has seemed to the public at large to have been no success at all — perhaps some mistakes — and a fearful loss of precious life, in return for which they seem to see no result whatever. FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 215 No wonder, then, that Sir Herbert Kitchener was acclaimed as the darling of the nation, and was instantly raised to the peerage; while that brilliant soldier Sir Williani Lockhart was quietly fobbed off with a G. C. B. This is doubtless perfectly just — still, it is hard. And now to compare the military difficulties which had to be encountered in the two expeditions respectively. In the case of the Sudan there had been abundant time for preparations of every kind. Mr. Oppenheim holds that " in a sense it is true to say that the preparation and concentration for the invasion of the Khalifa's country took fifteen years." There was abundance of excellent transport, both by land and water. The advance of the Anglo-Egyptian forces was easy and unmolested. It was facilitated by the waterway of the Nile, and by the Sudan rail- way ; and it was protected on both flanks by the desert ; " an absolutely impregnable line of communication." In the case of Tirah, circumstances rendered it necessary that the expedition should be organised and launched on the shortest possible notice, transport was both scarce and indifferent in quality, and the advance had to be made on " a mule-track two feet wide, commanded from every point by an enterprising enemy, along which the transport animals had to stumble one by one over the boulders, or from which they slipped down the mountain side." Contrast this with " a broad river up which gunboats, equipped with quick-firing guns and Maxims, towed large barges ; and it is at once clear that the vital questions of transport and commissariat, on which everything depends, afford comparatively few obstacles to an advance in the Sudan ; while in the Indian hills they are fraught with immense difficulties." In the Sudan, by reason of the facilities just mentioned the rate of progress of the baggage was two and a half miles an hour. In Tirah, by reason of the difficulties just mentioned, it was two and a half miles a day ; and even that rate of progress 216 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES was attained only provided that no attack was made on the escorting troops ; and it was seldom that such attacks were not made. In the Sudan, consequently, the baggage always joined the columns in good time ; and the men, after a comfortable meal, passed a comfortable night, unmolested by any foe. In Tirah, on the contrary, the troops were constantly, and un- avoidably, separated from their baggage ; and often, after many times crossing and recrossing semi-frozen mountain torrents, in the teeth of a determined enemy, they had to pass the night on some exposed and wind-swept plateau, destitute of food or fuel ; with their saturated clothes freezing on to their shivering frames; and frequently shot, as they lay, by the invisible 'sniper.' Then again, as Mr. Oppenheim says, " the battle of Omdurman lasted two hours and a half ; while the fighting in Tirah never ceased for two months and a half ; and, from the moment when the first gurkha set his foot in the Khanki valley on the 21st of October, 1897, to the moment when the last man of the rear- guard emerged from the Bara valley in the end of December, there was hardly a single hour of night or day during which a skirmish was not in progress." At Omdurman, the enemy, as if demented by the Deity, had the folly to advance on to the open plain, where seventy guns of the latest and deadliest type, thirty Maxims, and twenty thousand rifles of prodigious range and precision, rained shrapnel, high-explosive shells, and Lee- Metford bullets on their helpless masses; while our people were exposed only to a feeble and distant fusillade, and many of them were never under fire at all. As Lord Wolseley said, on a recent public occasion, " we literally pumped lead on them." It was physically impossible for them to cross the intervening zone of death. They could not reach us — and some twenty-five thousand of them simply fell dead or disabled where they stood. As Mr. Oppenheim says : " it was a battue, not a battle." The Afridis, on the other hand, crack marksmen armed with the FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 217 best of lifles, lay concealed behind rocks and 'sangars/ and "every hour of the day there were rearguard actions, ten minutes of which were more trying to the coolness of the troops engaged than the whole battle of Omdurman ; while eveiy night casualties occurred from the firing into the camp." Mr. Oppenheim justly concludes : " The triumph of Omdurman was a triumph of organisation — a triumph of mind over matter ; " and he thinks that those British regiments which have only been through that engagement " have yet to learn what are the sufferings and dangers of an arduous campaign." In the same issue of the same Review, Major-General F. Maurice told us that our struggle at Omdurman would have been far more formidable, and its result possibly very different, if the dervishes had attacked our camp by night. But we can- not consider ' ifs ' — we must deal with facts as they stand ; not as they might have been ; your ' if ' is a worthless particle. " If my aunt had been a man, she would have been my uncle." The small amount of our casualties at Omdurman proves beyond a doubt that that engagement was in no sense a ' struggle ' at all. Here again General Maurice reminds us that ' a big butcher's bill ' — a long list of losses sustained by the victor — is not necessarily a proof of merit in an engagement. Quite so. Losses in battle are often due to blundering on the part of the general, or to hesitation on the part of the troops. But the absence of losses is always a clear and sure proof that the resistance of the enemy cannot have been formidable ; and the fact that at Omdurman we lost only fifty-one men killed, and three hundred and thirty-six wounded, while the Dervish losses amounted to eleven thousand killed, sixteen thousand wounded, and four thousand prisoners — this fact, I say, proves beyond a doubt, not that the Dervishes failed to make a heroic effort to defeat us, but that all their heroism was rendered un- availing by the tremendous machinery of slaughter which was wielded by us. Of this I will give but one grisly example. 218 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Charles Neufeld, who was a prisoner at Omdurman City at that time, stated that " a single Lyddite shell, bursting in the middle of a small mosque, blew into fragments one hundred men out of one hundred and eighteen who were there engaged in prayer ! " What savage foe, however brave, could stand against engines such as this ? No man desires to make light of the Sudan expedition, and its luridly triumphant close. The entire operation, alike in its inception, its prosecution, and its conclusion, was a brilliant per- formance, of which any country might well be proud, and the rewards bestowed for which have been richly well deserved. But, from a mere historical point of view, it is surely desirable to call attention to the facilities which contributed to its success, as contrasted with the stupendous difficulties which had to be encountered in the war with the Afridis. It is just possible that we have crowed a little too loudly over this victory, and over special episodes which characterised it. Take, for instance, the case of the 21st Lancers. That regiment no doubt delivered a dashing charge, and did its duty well. But what else was to have been expected? Did we suppose that it would refuse to advance, or would run away ? In these ' piping ' times we seem to be absolutely astonished if a regi- ment does its duty ; and the fuss we make over any perform- ance of military duty in actual war, is simply preposterous. In that charge that regiment had, I think, about twenty men killed, and some thirty wounded — I write from memory, but it was something like that — and now that regiment is plastered with praise to an extent which must nauseate its members. It is understood that a golden shield is to be presented to it ; and its exploit is called a second Balaclava. If all tales be ti-ue, by the way, it in some respects did resemble that operation. But the whole thing is grievously overdone. In our wars with the Sikhs in India, far more arduous ex- ploits than that were often performed, and no particular notice PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 219 of them was ever taken. But in those days there were no war correspondents, or daily telegrams, or sensational newspaper headlines. At the battle of Moodkee, on the 18th of December, 184«5, the 3rd Light Dragoons — now called the 3rd Hussars — delivered a telling and most important charge, in which they lost sixty killed, and thirty-five wounded, besides 104< horses killed, and twenty-three wounded; while, three days later, at the battle of Ferozeshah, they again lost sixty men killed, and ninety-two wounded, besides sixty-eight horses. Their conduct was admired, and was spoken of with approval for a few days, but no sort of fuss was made about it, for the simple reason that it was looked upon as a matter of course, and be- cause such things were then happening every day. How different now ! I very much fear that the attitude of the present gener- ation, in relation to matters of this kind, can scarcely be regarded as a wholesome symptom of our military character. It may not be uninteresting to cite here a few examples of the losses sustained by troops on various fields of battle. In the Franco-Prussian war, in 1870, the heaviest loss sus- tained by any one regiment, in any one battle, occurred at Mars-la-Tour ; where the 3rd Westphalian regiment lost, in killed and wounded, no less than forty-nine per cent, of its whole strength. In the American Civil war, there were fifty-eight regiments, Federal and Confederate, each of which, in one combat or another, lost, in killed and wounded, fifty per cent, or more, of its entire number. At Inkerman, according to Kinglake, the British Guards, out of a total strength of 1331, had 694 killed and wounded. At Gettysburg, the 26th North Carolina regiment lost no less than 588, killed and woimded, out of 820, and one of its com- panies, eighty-four strong, had ewry man either killed or wounded, its orderly sergeant, who made out the casualty roll, himself having a bullet-wound through both his legs. 220 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES At the same battle, and in a single charge, a battalion of the 1st Minnesota regiment, out of a roll of 252, had 205 killed and wounded ; and this heavy loss was not due to any blundering on the part of the leaders, or any hesitation on the part of the troops. Moreover, in spite of such terrific carnage, the forty- seven survivors of the battalion held the position and the flag which it had captured. In the famous Balaclava charge, the Light Brigade of British cavalry, out of a total strength of 673, lost 277 in killed and wounded, besides 335 horses. Lady Sale — in her most interesting journal — now, it is to be feared, well-nigh forgotten — states that in one action with the Afghans in 1842 — not in the final massacre, but in fair fight — the grenadier company of the 37th Bengal infantry were all either killed or wounded except a corporal and two sepoys. At the battle of Chillianwala, fought against the Sikhs in 1849, the 24th Foot, out of a total strength of 800, lost 518 in killed and wounded, in fair fighting, and in a few minutes. The fortress of Bhurtpoor in Upper India was twice besieged by the British. Its first siege was commenced under the command of Lord Lake in 1804, and it was abandoned in 1805. During its course, four separate attempts were made to storm the place. They were all fruitless, and cost us, in killed and wounded, over 100 officers and 3000 rank and file ; indeed some writers estimate our losses in that unhappy undertaking at nearly 5000 men. Its second siege, under Lord Combermere, was commenced at Christmas, 1825 ; and terminated in the capture of the place on the 18th of January, 1826, with the very moderate loss to us of 812, in killed and wounded, of which casualties the greater part naturally occurred in the final assault. At the siege of Mooltan in the Punjab, in 1848-49, the Eritish had 270 men killed and 1320 wounded. It should be observed that, shortly after its first commencement, this siege FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 221 had to be raised by reason of the inadequacy of the forces which had been originally provided for the reduction of the place. At the siege of Delhi, in 1857, we had sixty officers and 952 men killed, and 189 officers and 2606 men wounded — a total of nearly 4000 casualties. Some authorities, indeed, reckon our total casualties in that siege at 4000 in all. The strength and composition of our original garrison at the defence of Lucknow, in 1857, is stated with slight variation by various writers. Of these, probably the most reliable authority is General McLeod Innes. He states that, at the commence- ment of the siege, the total number of souls within the intrench- ments was 3000. Of these the combatants numbered 1720. The remainder consisted of 240 European women, 320 Euro- pean children, forty other Europeans unfit for military service, and 680 native Indians, also incapable of assisting in the defence. The combatants included drummers, and all civilians who were capable of bearing arms ; and among the fighting men were 712 native sepoys who had remained faithful to their salt. Lady Inglis, in her narrative of the siege, says that quite double that number of native troops had remained true, and were anxious to assist us ; but that it was not thought advisable to retain them all, since in that case they would have outnumbered the European defenders ; and also because provisions were scarce. The little garrison mounted about thirty guns and mortars, but it had not a sufficient number of men to work them properly. When the first relief of the garrison took place, under Havelock and Outram, only 250 men of the 32nd Foot remained alive, and the other defenders had suffered in proportion. The following is a statement of some of the prices which prevailed during the defence. Brandy fetched £14 to £16 per dozen bottles ; ale £6 to £7 per dozen ; tinned provisions, from £7, according to the nature of the contents; one bottle 222 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES of preserved honey was sold for £4 ; chocolate fetched £3 to £4 per cake ; sugar there was none. f In the first relief of Lucknow, the tiny column of 2500 men, under Havelock and Outram, lost 535 in killed and wounded. The second relief, under Sir Colin Campbell, was not so costly to the relievers ; his force of 6000 men losing only 467 in killed and wounded. In the final capture of Lucknow, in March, 1858, the British force was nearly 30,000 strong, besides 9000 Nepaulese allied troops. The artillery comprised a siege train, sixty heavy guns, and forty field guns, besides twenty-four JNepaulese pieces. Our losses on that occasion were slight, being only 722 in killed and wounded. The following is a statement of some of our losses in our two wars with the Sikhs, in 1845-46, and 1848-49. At Ferozeshah, in December, 1845, killed 694, wounded 1729, total 2423. At Sobraon in February, 1846, killed 320, wounded 2063, total 2383. At Chillianwala, in January, 1849, killed 602, wounded 1755, total 2357. These figures show that these engagements were more bloody to us than any which occurred in the Crimea ; since at the Alma we had only 362 killed, and 1640 wounded, total 1983. At Inkerman we had 597 killed, and 1760 wounded, total 2357. At the first assault of the Redan, on the 18th of June, 1855, our total of killed and wounded was 1357, and in our second attack on that position, on the 8th of September of the same year, our killed and wounded amounted to 2271. Whatever may be the excellences and whatever the defects of our military arrangements, there is one thing we possess, so very excellent that I do not think it is even approached in excellence by any other military system in the world ; and it is so priceless in its quality as to atone for many defects in other directions, and to render success possible even when the other means at our command are — as they so often are — very inade- FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 223 quate for our purposes. That thing is the British regimental officer. We may, or we may not, have good generals — some- times we have ; sometimes we have not. But our regimental officers are almost always good, and there is nothing in the world — always excepting our gallant cousins in America, to praise whom is to praise ourselves — I say, that, with that exception, there is nothing in the world to touch them. Your French officer is brave, no doubt ; so of course is the German officer, the Russian officer, and the Italian officer. Those men may be relied on to do their duty with admirable courage in the hour of need, and to face necessary danger Tvithout flinching. By 'necessary' danger, I mean danger which must be met. But none of these loves danger for its own sake, or would go out of his way to seek it. The only officer in the world who does that is the officer of British blood on both sides of the Atlantic. Witness his very sports. They are all forms of war — they all have in them the character of battle. They are all imbued with the principle of danger. Tiger shooting ; pig-sticking — as with' manly modesty the Anglo-Indian calls the slaying of the wild boar with the spear alone, scorning the use of fire-arms — polo, in which warlike sport British officers constantly meet death itself; fox- hunting, steeple-chasing, and even football, sometimes the most formidable of all. These are the pastimes, these the pleasures, of the British officer. What foreign officer shows any stomach for warlike sports like these ? In addition to all this, the British officer is now admirably educated and trained; and, all these things being so, my firm conviction is that whether for the shock of battle, or for the endurance of the hardships and priva- tions of war, that officer will be ioxaxA facik princejps among the troop-leaders of the world. It is related that Prince Bismarck was once discussing with Von Moltke the reforms and improvements which the French, after their humiliation at Sedan, were striving to introduce into 224 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES their military organisation, in imitation of German models. After some conversation on this topic, the great chancellor with profound satisfaction exclaimed : " Mogen Sie machen was Sie woUen : eines konnen Sie uns nicht nachmachen — das ist der ' Preussische Seconde-Lieutenant,' — " Let them do what they please, there is one thing which they cannot copy from us — and that is, the Prussian second lieutenant." And I verily believe it is not in the power of any foreign army to copy from us the British regimental oflScer. One of the most remarkable qualities of the British officer is his wondrous power of moulding good soldiers out of the most unpromising material. I do not here refer to India, since iu that country the material, or much of it, is of the very best, and out of that material the British officer has elaborated a splendid engine of war. But see the marvels wrought by him in Egypt. Truly was it said by the great Frederick : " Better an army of hares led by a lion, than an army of lions led by a hare." I think we still stuff — or till lately did stuff — too much Latin and Greek down the throats of our embryo officers ; and to this day the powers that be obstinately refuse to assign any marks in the army examinations for physical endowments and skill in athletic exercises. When some future Macaulay shall treat his generation to a graphic picture of the England of to-day, he will encounter no small amount of incredulity when he informs his readers that in the latter part of the nineteenth century, in the selection of officers for the army, no account whatever was taken of physical properties and athletic fitness — always provided that the candidates were free from actual disease — and that admis- sion to the service was attained chiefly by means of a knowledge of dead languages, or of archaic British authors, of roots of words, and of abstract mathematics. I question if even the Chinese official hierarchy is selected on principles so pedantic and absurd; or if the Island of Laputa, or the Academy of Lagado, could have paralleled its folly. It is probable that if PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 225 Swift had lived in the present day, the fifth chapter of Gulliver's Third Voyage would have contained a passage somewhat to the following effect: — " I had hitherto seen only one side of the Academy, but the warder now carried me to the other wing of it, which is appro- priated to the examination of those young men who desire to become officers in the army of Balnibarbi, which process is conducted in a manner scarce imaginable to us in Europe. I discovered no little surprise on perceiving that the candidates were in many cases of meagre aspect and puny frame ; but my conductor explained to me that their philosophers had ascer- tained that bodily strength and good physical constitution were of little account in the military calling, and that the contrary supposition was one of the prejudices of the vulgar, which hath been long since exploded. " He proceeded to inform me that they had also discarded from their system, as worthless, all studies which had any practical bearing on the art of war, or indeed which had any real utility in any pursuit whatever, and that it was an attribute of the ignorant to suppose that what the common sort call useful knowledge hath any true worth. " The officers of the Balnibarbian Army are selected principally for their skill in the languages of Blooknak and Flinflam, two antient peoples who flourished many ages ago in a remote part of the continent adjoining to Balnibarbi, but which are now extinct, and their languages are quite dead: a circumstance which renders them peculiarly serviceable in the preparation for all callings, but more particularly for the military one : the great merit of these tongues being that they require for their acquisition many years of profound study, and that, when acquired, they are eminently useless. " The young men who compete for the army in that kingdom are also chosen to a great extent for their knowledge of antient 15 226 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Laputian writers, because such, being now quite obsolete and nearly unintelligible, are well nigh as useless as the dead authors. And with that people, a great passport to the profession of arms consists in an acquaintance with the most recondite roots of the least useful words in the Laputian tongue. "I told my conductor that in my country, philosophy not being there advanced so greatly as could be wished, we were so inconsiderate as to chuse out our officers from such youths as possessed bodily strength and fine frames ; and that we thought- lessly trained them in what we held to be the practical branches of learning. At this he smiled, and evidently formed a very mean opinion of the understanding of my countrymen, observing that such was to be expected in rude peoples; but that when we were more advanced in philosophy we would correct these errors; with other topics to the same purpose, to which I readily assented. " I must not conceal from my obliging readers that since I quitted Balnibarbi, I have heard from a great lord of that country with whom I had formed a correspondence, and who hath informed me that shortly after my visit to the Academy of Lagado, a war broke forth between the sovereign of Laputa and his antient enemy the Emperor of Blimdrag — a prince of poor understanding, who hath always been so foolish as to select his officers for warlike fitness — and that the army of Balnibarbi, notwithstanding the more philosophic principles on which its officers are selected, hath sustained a prodigious defeat — a catastrophe for which I can by no means account." . . . I yield to none in my admiration of the literature of Greece and Rome — though I am of those who hold that its empire in the educational domain is, to say the least, beginning to totter — but I do think it is nothing short of extravagant folly to rank it so highly as we do in the preparation for our military services. I regard such things as luxuries rather than as necessaries ; and, FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 227 to my miad, it is as absurd to make them principal tests for admission to the army as it would be to select our officers for skill in water-colour painting, or in playing the violin. . . . Not long ago a prize of fifty pounds was offered by a great public body for the best essay which should be submitted on the then cherished topic of imperial federation — a premium scarcely in due proportion to the magnitude and importance of the theme propounded. An essay of any practical value on such an argu- ment would surely be cheap at ten times the amount offered ; while one which should establish the feasibility of the idea, and unfold a working scheme for its attainment, might well be con- sidered priceless ; and I venture to think that, fifty years hence, when our vast dependencies shall either be linked with ourselves in an indissoluble and impregnable union, as the pious feder- ationist hopes, or shall have drifted away into separate greatness, men will possibly wonder that fifty pounds were once deemed an adequate reward for an essay on a topic so momentous. For in sooth the idea of imperial federation — whether it be practicable or not — is undoubtedly a profoundly fascinating conception to the patriotic mind. It is difficult to imagine any lover of his country dead to its glamour, and indifferent to the entrancing vision of an England permanently retaining and consolidating with herself those vast possessions which are at once the envy and the wonder of the world. Compacted to- gether with these, say the votaries of federation, the empire could defy the world in arms ; shorn of them, England would be indeed "the Niobe of nations," reft of her prestige in the councils of the world, crippled in her commerce, isolated in her position, and reduced to political insignificance. With India and our colonies at our back, we need fear no hostile combina- tion; we need depend on no alliance; we could smile at the threat of isolation, for how isolate a power which is everywhere, a might which is ubiquitous ? 228 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES No surer proof could be found of the priceless potential results of such a consolidation than in the feelings which its very name awakens in the breasts of some of our good friends on the mainland. Not very long ago a leading Parisian review contained an article on the subject, which showed how clearly the French perceive that the accomplishment of that grand idea would be the knell of all possible combination against England; would erect us into the position of the greatest Power on the globe, and secure us from every conceivable danger. The writer palpably quailed at the bare idea of such a wondrous consum- mation ; and frankly admitted that if that could be effected, the British Empire, instead of verging to its close, would be but entering on a more glorious and extended career, and, for purposes, let us say, of ' defence, not defiance,' would be unassail- able by any imaginable combination of foes. Again, during the Russo-Afghan scare, and our early troubles in the Sudan, Englishmen resident abroad were struck by the profound impression which was produced in foreign countries by the grand attachment of our colonies to the mother-country, and the no less grand devotion of our Indian Empire. This im- pression, moreover, was immeasurably deepened by the fact that it was a total and startling surprise, inasmuch as the very opposite of that happy condition of things had been generally supposed to exist. Foreigners almost universally believed, and asserted their belief, that our colonies were ripe for separation, and that India was panting to be free ; that at the first strain which might occur in our relations with the former, they would abandon us ; and that at the first blast of a Cossack clarion on the Hindoo Khoosh, India would spring at our throats, and, leagued with Russia, shake ofif our hated yoke. But no ! to para- phrase the well-known line, one touch of danger made the empire kin ; and Europe found to her amazement that there was not one England, but many Englands, and that the isolation of Great Britain had become an impossibility and an unmeaning phrase. FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 229 The question, however, remains yet unsolved — is such a federation possible ? Is it practicable to weld Great Britain and her numerous dependencies into a single mighty confedera- tion which shall hold together durably, and successfully with- stand all the shocks and strains which might be brought to bear upon it by geographical distance, conflicting interests, and the developing population and resources of its component parts ? It is a significant circumstance that even the most ardent advocates of the idea have as yet refrained from the attempt to formulate any working scheme for its attainment, or to grapple at close quarters with the many thorny difficulties which beset the question ; while there are some who hold that even if these difficulties were surmounted, the result, instead of proving advantageous to Britain, would be disastrous to her, and would in fact prove a sort of Frankenstein's monster which would produce, not the aggrandisement of England, but her political extinction. As recently observed by a writer in the North American Eeview, "If an imperial federation were established, it would necessarily assume one of two forms : it must either resemble the original union of the thirteen American colonies prior to the adoption of the federal constitution of 1787, or it must resemble the present American union as it has existed subsequently to that period. Now the original union was a mere alliance of independent sovereign states, none of which could be constitutionally coerced, with a central apology for a govern- ment, unable to raise men or money, and possessing no real sanction, authority, or power." Such an invertebrate and im- potent organisation would, in the writer's opinion, be obviously futile, and could not possibly work; while, if a true federal union were established, similar to that of the United States, the reviewer held that the result would in time prove fatal to England herself, inasmuch as in that case one or other of the two following things would necessarily ensue — first, either 230 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES England would rule the whole federal empire, and the British dog would then wag a splendid tail indeed ; but this would be a state of things which the outlying parts would not long submit to, especially when they grew in population and consequent political power; in which case — and this would be the sole possible alternative — a new federal government, constructed ad hoc, would rule the whole federal empire, including England herself "England would thus cease to be a sovereign state, and would become but a single unit in a world-wide federal empire ; and not only that, but a unit which would gradually but surely decline in relation to the other units; they must increase, she would proportionately decrease, and when the outlying parts of the empire numbered together fifty millions or a hundred millions of inhabitants, and so on, while England had but thirty millions or forty millions, she would necessarily be relegated to a subordinate position in the group " — and then the tail would wag the dog. There are some who hold that even if the result eventually took this form, it would not do so for a long time to come ; and that when it did arrive, it might possibly be better for England to be gradually overshadowed, and ultimately even absorbed, by her own offspring, and so eventually attain to a sort of political Nirvana in the bosom of the Anglo-Saxon stock, than swiftly to sink into comparative insignificance apart from it, while in the meantime she might, by a sagacious and conciliatory attitude now, secure for herself at once the hegemony and the material support of her political children, and, flanked by a powerful and enlightened India of her own creation, might defy all possible hostile combinations. However these things may be, and leaving it for the present to political specialists to puzzle out the possibilities of the future, even if a true and strict federation be unattainable or undesirable, there remains to be considered the possibility of FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 231 accomplishing that moral federation, that welding together of the aims and interests of England and her dependencies, which would for all practical purposes make them and keep them an undivided empire, at least for a long time to come. One of the first things which we have to do towards this end is to get rid of our Olympian self-satisfaction, and to bear in mind that we have quite as much to gain from union with our over-sea dependencies as they have ; nay, that in another generation it might be ours to sue, and possibly to sue in vain, for this connection. We ought to cultivate the wholesome habit of regarding these magnificent possessions as being just about the thing which we have most reason to be proud of, as indeed the other nations of the world actually do regard them ; and we should study to secure and to retain their affection and good-will by all the means at our command. At present they may be, as regards resources and population, " small and of no reputation ; " but they will not long be so. At present their auxiliary war contingents may be slender, and significant solely as s3anbolical of a friendly sentiment ; but in the brief course of another generation these dependencies will be populous and powerful, and their military and naval co-operation will be decisive of the gravest issues. We must cultivate habitual respect for communities which so well deserve it ; and, in fine, we must endeavour to form the habit so wisely recommended by Professor Seeley, of regarding our trans-oceanic possessions as part and parcel of our empire, just as much as Devonshire or Caithness, and our brethren across the sea as our countrymen iust as much as the men of Kent or Cornwall. Every exertion should be made to induce our outlying States to contribute towards the defence of the common empire, or rather to encourage and develop the efforts which they have already initiated in that direction. Canadian and Australasian youths should not only be qualified to hold commissions in the imperial army and navy, but a certain number of appointments 232 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES should be expressly reserved for their acceptance ; and every reasonable effort should be made to encourage them to enter these services, and to facilitate their doing so. It might also be at once graceful and easy to devise some complimentary acknowledgment of the military ardour of Australia on a late well-known occasion, by the formation of a force in that country, to be permanently incorporated in the armies of the empire, under some such commemorative title as ' The Loyal Australians,' ia the same manner as, some years ago, the body of men which now forms the first battalion of the Leinster regiment, or ' Royal Canadians,' was raised in Canada. Lastly, titles, orders, and decorations might probably with advantage be conferred, much more freely than it has hitherto been the practice to do, on eminent and meritorious inhabitants of our distant States. We learn from Lecky that shortly after the Restoration Charles II. created no less than thirteen baronets among the leading men of the single island of Barbadoes ; yet it is questionable if in our time we have up to the present moment created more than half that number from among tbe inhabitants of all our colonies put together. Surely some increased liberality in this respect might wisely be adopted; while, with a view to fostering the sentiment of community of empire, all such honorary distinctions should be essentially British or imperial in their character, since no policy could well be worse than that of instituting separate and local decorations, orders, badges, or flags, for use in our trans-oceanic States, unless our aim be, as indeed it too often seems to have been, to pave the way for separation. Austere philosophers, contemplating all things human and divine by the siccum lumen of pure reason, may flout all these things as trifles ; but trifles rule mankind ; and it is possible to be too wise. A coronet has attractions even for the poet and the sage ; and a ribbon is dear to the warrior. The above are but a few considerations of some of the things, PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES 233 in themselves trivial in appearance, but likely to be potent in operation; all of them just, and all of them easy and in- expensive, which might be thought of as aids to imperial consolidation. If nothing else, they would at least be proofs that we desire that grand consummation ; and the mere desire might form a step towards its attainment. Let us remember two things — ^first, that by our folly in the past we have already lost one vast colonial empire ; and, secondly, that if, by fresh folly or culpable apathy now or in the future, we lose that which still remains to us, this planet does not afford the means of replacing it ; and we should lament its loss vainly and too late. No aspirations for the consolidation of our imperial power ; no speculations on this great and complex subject, could be complete which should omit the consideration of India. The difficulties which beset the problem are in this quarter un- doubtedly far greater than they are with reference to our colonies; nevertheless, to overlook India in our visions of imperial consolidation is impossible. Without her colonies England might doubtless exist after a fashion; shorn of her magnificent empire in the East, her glory would be virtually extinguished. It would seem that comparatively few Englishmen realise the extent to which our position as a power in the world is bound up in our possession of India. Fewer still seem capable of imagining what the retention of that empire may raise us to in the future if we only act well our part. For one thing, and without adverting to countless other advantages direct and indirect, India is unquestionably capable of lifting us into the position of a great military power, and she will assuredly do so ere long if we administer her affairs with ordinary wisdom and generosity. That vast region, with its numerous hardy and warlike races, affords us a practically inexhaustible recruiting field whence we can at pleasure draw soldiers of varied 234 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES nationality and of proved bravery who, adequately officered and properly armed, are capable of encountering any enemy, as, indeed, they have already, and often with at least temporary success, encountered our own battalions, before we effected their subjugation, and when they had not, as they now have, the tremendous advantage of being led by British officers, armed with British rifles, trained by British discipline, and flanked by British troops. For the benefit of inaccurate or forgetful observers of history, as well as in order to confront any possible scepticism as to the mettle of our Indian soldiery, it may be convenient here to cite one or two authentic examples of it, culled from com- paratively recent records. At Ferozeshah, and Sobraon, and Chillianwala, battles, two of them at least, as we have just seen, more sanguinary than any which occurred in the Crimean war, the Sikhs, untrained, unarmed with weapons of precision, unled by us, and not greatly more numerous than ourselves, very nearly defeated us ; nay, at Chillianwala they did virtually defeat us, for in that battle, after inflicting upon us an appalling slaughter, and capturing some of our guns and standards, they occupied in the night the position on which we had fought during the engagement, and fired a royal salute in celebration of their success ; while in that desperate contest the Khalsa horse in their tempestuous onset temporarily overthrew some of our most renowned British squadrons. So in the great mutiny in 1857-58, and in the prolonged and arduous operations which succeeded it, the revolted Sepoys, though demoralised by military and other crime, bereft of British officers, and destitute of leaders worthy of the name, kept the field against us for the better part of two years, and on many occasions offered a desperate resistance to the flower of the British army. If these troops, labouring under all these disadvantages, could offer such resistance to ourselves, why should any person for a moment doubt their capacity to confront FRIBBLES AND PEABBLES 235 lossacks or Russians, or any other foe, when disciplined and rmed and led by us, and cheered by the animating knowledge hat they are fighting by the side of our own battalions ? Then again, as Professor Seeley so well reminded us, the lutiny itself was not suppressed by us alone ; but by us largely ided by faithful native troops. In our high and mighty Olym- lian way, we always talk and write of that terrific insurrection ,s having been quelled by us ; that is to say, by the unaided lower of the few British soldiers who were then in India ; and 'et, in point of fact, there was not a single action of any mportance fought in that protracted and stubborn contest in fhich our forces were not largely, if not mainly, composed of latives ; and in which we could possibly have succeeded without hat support. At the siege of Delhi, of the gallant men who for three months )esieged, and ultimately stormed the place, it is believed that ionsiderably more than half were natives. Native soldiers occu- jied some of the foremost points of danger and of honour in the ixduous and memorable siege ; as witness the Gurkhas at the ieadly position known as Hindoo Rao's House, which they nsisted on maintaining from first to last, scorning all pro- 30sals for their reUef, and amid the battered ruins of which, at ihe close of the operations, but a gallant remnant of them were 'ound surviving. What soldier for a moment supposes that ;he place could have been taken without the loyal co-operation )f these brave native soldiers, Sikhs, Punjabees, Gurkhas, and Pathans ? Even at Lucknow, as has been observed above, we were assisted by a brave and faithful remnant of the Sepoys «rho, undeterred by the threats, and unmoved by the taunts, Df their guilty comrades within hearing in the hostile position, stood staunchly by us throughout the dreadful defence, and held ;he ' Baillie Guard ' in the teeth of countless assaults, under their leader, the gallant Aitken. In the earlier days of the great struggle, the ' Guide Corps ' 236 PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES — now most fitly honoured by the proud title of ' The Queen's Own ' — under its dashing leader, Major — subsequently General Sir Henry — Daly, marched from Murdan in the far north-west, six hours after its receipt of the order to move, and on the following morning it was at Attock, thirty miles away. It reached Delhi, five hundred and eighty miles from Murdan, or fifty days of ordinary Indian marching, in twenty-one daily marches, thus accomplishing more than twenty-seven miles a day every day for three weeks, in the hottest season of the year. On the day of its arrival at Delhi, having that very morning marched thirty miles, it at once went into action, and engaged the enemy hand to hand, every one of its few British ofiScers being on that occasion wounded, and Lieutenant Quintin Battye killed, cheerfully exclaiming with his latest breath, " Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." Out of its six hundred men, the corps had three hundred and fifty killed and wounded in the siege ; of whom a hundred and twenty were killed. More than once during the investment every British officer of the regiment was laid up wounded, and an entirely new set had to be for the time appointed to it. Well might Sir John Lawrence express the joy he felt when, after the termina- tion of the siege, he once more saw ' the gallant rugged faces ' of the remnant of his much-loved Guides. During the same memorable war, the 4th Punjab Infantry especially covered itself with glory. Marching with extraordinary celerity over a thousand miles from its distant quarter on the north-west frontier, to Delhi, it shared in the assault of that place, as well as in the relief and capture of Lucknow, and in eleven separate engagements, beside numerous severe skirmishes. In April, 1858, after nine months of continuous fighting, and when reduced to one hundred and fifty-five men of all ranks, it took a prominent part in the battle of Royah ; there losing fifty- one of that poor remnant. In May, 1858, it returned to the Punjab with only two British officers, five native officers, and PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 237 seventy-nine non-commissioned officers and men ; having lost in about ten months, thirteen out of fifteen British officers, and over three hundred and seventy native officers, non-commissioned officers and men. So much for the exploits of some of our Indian troops during the great days of the mutiny. As to more recent operations, the Gordon and the Seaforth Highlanders tell with enthusiasm how their native comrades behaved by their side in Afghanistan ; while still fresher fields, as well as fields still nearer home, have illustrated anew the mettle of our Eastern soldiers. It is obvious that the excellence of our Indian army is a matter of the deepest import to us; and it is desirable that its excellence should be known throughout the world. The knowledge that in it we possess a valuable military instrument, well qualified to be employed in any conceivable field of action, cannot fail to contribute materially to our influence and prestige in the councUs of Europe. The far-seeing imagination of Lord Beaconsfield clearly discerned the potential importance of our Indian troops as a possible factor in European politics, and he signified the sentiment to Europe by the summons of seven thousand of these troops to Malta at a critical juncture in Eastern affairs. This measure was intended as a hint to the world that we had at command other military resources besides our slender British army ; and that we could also at need sum- mon to our side the warlike and practically innumerable races of the East : "Eoasque acies, et nigri Memnonis arma," — The eastern hosts, and sable Menmon's bands. It is therefore obviously to our interest to maintain by every means in our power not only the efficiency, "but also the reputa- tion for efficiency, of an element already so important in our military organisation ; and in all probability destined to exercise an increasing influence in the politics of the world. As to the imposing appearance of these troops, I would cite the 238 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES opinion of the correspondent of The Times who, on the occasion of a great military display at Delhi some years ago, thus wrote regarding some of the Indian troops there assembled : " Then came the infantry; the Highlanders marching splendidly through mud ankle-deep, and loudly cheered as they passed; the little Gurkhas, all muscle and sinew, and almost as broad as they were long ; last the Sikhs, looking each man a gentle- man and a soldier, swinging past with firm elastic tread. These sons of the ' Khalsa,' perhaps the handsomest race in the world, and soldiers born and bred, march in as if they never knew what it was to be tired ; " and it is an open secret that the foreign ofiScers who witnessed that imposing display, were simply amazed at the magnificent appearance of our Indian battalions ; while they pronounced the native cavalry to be almost the type of what that arm should be. Touching this latter portion of our Indian forces. Sir Charles Dilke has published a striking testimonial. In reference to the mounted troops which he saw assembled at one of the points visited by him, he wrote as follows : " The cavalry consisted of four magnificent regiments : the King's Dragoon Guards, the 1st and 12th Bengal Cavalry, and the 18th Bengal Lancers. This last regiment is, beyond all question, the finest-looking regiment of cavalry that I have ever seen, and, besides our own household cavalry, I know the Austrian cavalry, and the Prussian and Russian guards. The 18th Bengal Lancers wear long full coats of a splendid deep red — not scarlet — which goes wonderfully well with their turbans of strong blue. Their lances have red and white pennons; and their dress is completed, of course, by white breeches and black boots. I thought them more effective than the ' Cent Gardes' of the Second Empire, and of more noble aspect than the Chevalier Guard of Russia. The body of native officers consisted exclusively of men of magnificent physique and perfect features." FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 239 This description is probably calculated to surprise some people in England. By the way, it is said that young fellows of other Indian cavalry regiments, in allusion to this picture of the 18th Bengal Lancers, chaffingly, but in perfect good humour, now call that regiment 'Dilke's Own.' General von Kodolitsch, of the Austro-Hungarian cavalry, thus expressed himself, touching our Indian army: "I have but two words for my feelings on the subject — envy and admiration. I saw your native troops fight in Abyssinia, and they were fine-looking men, and fought well. But there is a wonderful improvement in them since that time. At the assault-at-arms which I witnessed at Poona, I was never more astonished in my life than at the horsemanship and skill dis- played by the native cavalry in their feats of arms. They are splendid-looking men, too, and their seat and bearing are very soldier-like. Everything about their saddlery and appointments was thoroughly clean, smart, and serviceable. I am an old cavalry officer myself, and I must say I consider your Indian cavalry quite up to the standard of any of the Continental powers, and able to hold their own, man for man, with any of the regiments of French or Russian cavalry. At Aligarh I was greatly struck by the way the native cavalry worked, and though day after day they had to do thirty or forty miles, still, at the review at the end of the camp, they looked as fresh and smart as if they had only just been marched on to the parade." In the bestowal of honorary distinctions of every kind on our Indian troops, every effort should be made to foster the sentiment of loyalty to Great Britain ; and all such distinctions should be essentially Imperial in their character, since no system could be more mischievous than that of instituting separate and local distinctions and decorations, unless indeed we desire to foster divergent ideas, and separate standards of ambition among our Indian forces. The Victoria Cross ought 240 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES to be open to every man who wears the British uniform ; and every possible expedient should be adopted to produce in the minds of our Indian soldiers the sentiment of community of empire, and identity of aims and interests in common with their British comrades. For the same reason, the long es- tablished and highly coveted ' Order of British India,' with its attendant pecuniary advantages, which has hitherto been unwisely restricted to native soldiers, should for the future be thrown open to British soldiers as well ; in the same manner as the Star of India is conferred alike on natives and Europeans, and we may be very sure that the native soldier would esteem that distinction all the more highly when he saw that it was eagerly desired and proudly worn by his British comrade; while the bestowal of it alike on both branches of the service would operate as a fresh link of union between them. There is no doubt that until recently the Indian army has somewhat languished under the cold shade of English pubUc opinion, although recent events have tended to educate the British public a little better in relation to the value of their Eastern forces. In former times their services were apt to be omitted from mention when all other branches of the service came in for liberal acknowledgment. After the Egyptian Campaign of 1882, in which a large and finely equipped Indian contingent rendered invaluable service, and when Lord Wolseley on many public occasions dwelt on the merits of the troops under his command in that campaign, he was invariably silent as to the Indian troops which, as admitted in his own de- spatches, had there behaved so well. He carefully mentioned every other conceivable element of his forces, and dwelt em- phatically on the Australian contingent, but he had never a word for the contingent of India. Now, the Australian contingent was truly a great and moving historical episode ; and one pregnant with political significance ; but was it not also a striking historical phenomenon, and one fraught with FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 241 potential significance of the deepest moment, that Sikhs and Hindoos and Mahomedans — those r7jAeK\etrol! ^-nUovpoL — drawn from the distant East, and from races but lately ranged in deadly strife against us, were by our side on those Egyptian sands, bravely fighting for our cause ? Philosophically viewed, this was surely a far greater marvel than that our kinsmen should come from Australia to help us, and, whatever Lord Wolseley may have thought of the matter, we may be very sure that continental observers were profoundly impressed by it, and that the historian in the future will dwell on it with wonder. This chapter opened with a comparison, and the ' odorous ' spirit seems to cling to it. The Times of India, in a very interesting article, recently compared the efficiency of the Indian army with that of our forces in the United Kingdom, and did so in a manner somewhat unfavourable to the latter. It insisted on the fact that India — not Aldershot — is the real training-school of the British forces, " so much so that in certain branches of military education, India no longer takes its cue from the Horse Guards, but shows the Horse Guards how things should be done. In the training of cavalry, more especially, India is far ahead of the United Kingdom — so much so that now the drill, and training, and organisation of British cavalry are being re-modelled on the system in vogue in India." Again the same writer says : " It is not hard to prophesy that ere long the musketry system of the Indian army will be adopted for the British forces, certainly in India; and probably also at home. No man who attends the great Indian rifle meetings can blind himself to the fact that the native soldier uses his rifle with greater skill and precision, and consequently with greater effect than his British comrade. There is no disguising this fact, despite the strict regulation which prohibits direct competition between the British and the native soldier. . As regards army signalling, too, although considerable pro- 16 242 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES ficiency has lately been attained at Aldershot in this art, the East is undeniably the field for that branch of military in- struction; while the home transport and commissariat are universally admitted to be less efficient than those of India. The Egyptian campaign of 1882 clearly proved this, and yet the army of India to-day is nothing to what it will be in future years, when the steady advance of Russia shall have brought the frontier of that empire into closer neighbourhood with that of India." If there be any law which prohibits the employment of Indian troops beyond the limits of India, the sooner such a law is abro- gated the better. We are assuredly the only people in the world who would deliberately tie up and place beyond its reach a powerful instrument of warfare. Rather we ought definitely to calculate on that practically unlimited source of strength for em- ployment wherever it may be required, and wherever its mem- bers are willing to be employed; and we have had abundant proofs that, whatever may have been the case with the old- fashioned Sepoy, the modern Indian soldier is willing to go any- where. We do not hear that Russia has forbidden herself to make use of her Cossacks, or that France has imposed on herself any local limitations as to the employment of her Spahis or Turcos. It is desirable that our Indian army should be more and more extensively employed beyond the confines of India, were it only because the more we disperse it, and the more we engage its members on scenes remote from their homes, the more likely they are to prove faithful and efficient. In this matter we ought to follow the astute example of Hannibal, who, as Livy tells us, habitually employed his levies on foreign and distant theatres of war, "ut Afri in Hispania, in Africa Sispani, melior procul ab domo futurus uterque miles, velut mutuis pignoribus ohligati, stipendia facer ent" that is to say, that while his African troops served in Spain, and his Spanish troops in Africa, these two elements of his forces, when thus FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 243 employed at a distance from their homes, would at once prove better soldiers, and would do their duty as men bound to his standard by common pledges of fidelity." I referred above to the death of Lieutenant Quintin Battye, of the Guides, at the Siege of Delhi, and his spirited expiring words. It is a romantic and touching circumstance that no less than four gallant brothers of that name have found a soldier's death in our recent Indian wars. In addition to the one just mentioned, his brother, Wigram Battye, no less amiable and chivalrous, was slain while leading the same corps in the second Afghan war. The third brother was killed in 1889 in the Black Mountain district of our north-western frontier ; and the fourth and last of the gallant brothers fell at the head of the Guides in the recent operations for the relief of Chitral, while skilfully extricating his brave regiment from an advanced position of extreme peril. AU four brothers were alike conspicuous for the highest qualities of the soldier ; and all of them possessed an almost magical power of winning the love and confidence of Indian troops. ' ' Di patrii, quorum semper sub numine Troia est, Non tamen omniao Teucros delere paratis, Cum tales animos juvenum et tam certa tulistis Pectoral" . . . It is a pet idea with the English to consider that an invasion of India by the Russians is a certainty of the nearer or farther future. We are told of the alleged will of Peter the Great, and his mandate to his countrymen never to rest until they had acquired the great peninsula. But it is now commonly believed that no such testament was ever penned, and that no such man- date was ever imposed. The probability is that no sane Russian dreams of such an undertaking, and if such an undertaking should ever be attempted, the probability is that the Russians, sane or insane, would meet with an uncommonly warm recep- 244 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES tion. So long as India is true to us, and so long as her soldiery is at our command, the invasion of India is probably as chimerical an idea as the invasion of England. We know very well that no expedition of that kind could be attempted without a very large force, supported by very large reserves, and accompanied by very large trains of supply. In Asia large forces, and large supply-trains, require the attendance of in- finitely larger bodies of camp-followers of various kinds. Now, how are these vast bodies of men and animals to be fed ? But some will point with misgiving to the fact that Russia will shortly have a railway running close up to the confines of India. Granted. Great battles, however, are not fought alongside of railway platforms. At one point or another the troops must leave the train and take the field, and the moment field movements commence, means of transport must be employed, provisions must be collected and carried, artillery and ammunition must be moved from point to point. Let any officer of the Intelligence Department just sit down and think the problem out, and he will shortly recognise the stupendous difficulties which would attend such operations, on such a scale as would be needful in such an undertaking, and in such a country. He would, I think, soon come to the conclusion that they were impossible. Yes, it always comes back to the old dictum : in such an undertaking a small force would be useless, and a large one would be immovable, or would starve. Let us see what Skobeleft himself said on this subject, to the English traveller Marvin, in reply to a question put to him by the latter: — " Conqu&'ir I'lnde ! Je ne voudrais pas en §tre charg^ ! Pour conqu^rir I'Akkal il nous a fallu cinq mille hommes, et vingt mille chameaux. Pour obtenir ces vingt mille chameaux il a fallu fouiller tout le Turkestan, tout le pays d'Orenbourg, et vous n'imaginez pas la peine que cela nous a donn^e. Pour envahir FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 245 rinde il nous faudrait une arm^e de cent cinquante naille hommes, et jugez du nombre de chameaux ! Ou prendrions nous tout cela ? Bon Dieu, non — laissons 1^ cette chimera ! " Yes. 150,000 fighting men would be the smallest number with which such an attempt could be entered upon. To these add at least another 150,000 of camp-followers ; and then judge of the number of transport animals which would be required. If 5000 Russians in the Akkal operations required 20,000 beasts of burden, it is easy to calculate how many would be re- quired for 300,000 men. General Von Kodolitsch, whose opinion of our Indian army has just been cited, was asked by his inter- Tiewer the following question: "Well, General, after seeing our frontier and our troops, what is your opinion as to Russia's chance of success in the event of her attempting an invasion ? " " None, absolutely none," replied the general, with vehemence. "Your railway system is now too well developed. You have complete, rapid, and thorough means of concentration. You have Afghanistan, Cashmere, and Thibet, to stop the way. Your magnificent roads, one of the things which have struck me most about India, are also an invaluable aid in bringing up your troops and transport trains in good order. The other day one of your officers told me that, in the Afghan War, more camels broke down and died on the twenty miles between Peshawur and Jumrood, at which point there was no road, than on the whole of the hundreds of miles which had been traversed on passable roads. No, the Russian chance of success would be absolutely none." But, even supposing that a Russian expedition of formidable proportions could reach, and did reach, the frontier of India, it would, as just said, undoubtedly meet with a very formidable reception ; and there is scant reason to suppose that the rash experiment would be attended with any chance of success so long as our Indian forces remained true to our standards, and so long as the various native states, and the vast populations in our 246 PEIBBLES AND PRABBLES rear maintained even a passive attitude, and there is no reason in the world to suppose that they would do otherwise. Indeed, the populations oflndia are, in a matter of this kind, a negligible quantity, since they have no political sentiments of any kind ; and if they had such sentiments, and if these were hostile to us, the hard drudgery of bread-winning leaves them no leisure to indulge them. With a 'scientific frontier' bristling with fortifications, and with our Indian army, European and native, sufficiently numerous and efficiently armed and organised, we may have an easy mind as to Russian or any other ' scares,' always provided that India herself is with us; and that she is with us, the last Russo- Afghan alarm very plainly proved. There may be some who choose to doubt the sincerity of those loyal professions which went forth to us from every part of India at the time when war seemed imminent — there are always some people who refuse to be comforted. But even if any reasonable doubt could be entertained as to the absolute sincerity of some of our professed well-wishers ; even if some persons might think that it was to some extent a manufactured article, due, at least in part, to adroit manipulation on the part of astute political agents, there was one feature of the time which could not possibly have been due to such causes, and which, consequently, served as a pohtical barometer of assured independence of action, and one^absolutely removed from the possibility of any tampering. This was the attitude which was assumed during the crisis by what may be called the radical section of the vernacular press, the organs of 'young Bengal' and of the 'educated Baboo.' These journals, which in peaceful times had been rioting in the most advanced anti-British utterances, and filling the air with the stage thunder of a factitious discontent, at the first note of danger from the side of Russia were forthwith sobered into loyalty, and joined the universal strain of fealty to England. This, at all events, was a genuine and spontaneous phenomenon, and it proved PKIBBLES AND PRABBLES ' 247 beyond the possibility of doubt that, with all our faults — faults which we must address ourselves to cure — India's peoples love us still; or at least prefer us to any other possible masters. A letter recently received by the present writer from an educated native of the Punjab — that manliest of Indian provinces — contains many striking expressions of an intelligent loyalty. Just as Herodotus tells us that Histiaeus the Milesian, in the conference of the lonians, fully recognised the benefits arising from the overshadowing power of Darius, so my Punjab corre- spondent frankly appreciates the inestimable blessings of the 'Pax Britannica'; and freely acknowledges that India cannot, at least for the present, dispense with the salutary control and guidance of some powerful and enlightened foreign nation ; and then he adds these pleasant words : " Our British rulers may have faults ; but India well knows, and assuredly the Punjab does, that there is no other nation in the world which would or could govern her with such benevolent aims and generous intentions as the British government do ; and they who doubt the sincerity of the loyal sentiments lately expressed by the peoples of India, know very little of her." No. India is not quite so simple as to wish to exchange the mild and beneficent tutelage of England — with all its shortcomings — for the domination of a Power whose foremost propagandist hesitated not, on a well-known occasion, with cynical chauvinism to publish to the world that it was her mission " to overspread the plains of India with rapine and bloodshed, and to bring back the days of Tamerlane." Let, then, the English in India strain every nerve to win and to retain the affections of the natives, and we may smile at all possible foes. If we treat India well and wisely, the world in arms could not disturb our rule. If we should treat her badly, we should lose her, and should deserve to do so. Great Britain, supported by India, Canada, Australasia, and 248 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Africa, and befriended by the United States of America, would resemble the majestic banian tree qf Hindostan, whose tendrils, descending to the soil, take root afresh, and rise around the parent tree — so many new and massive columns uprearing and sustaining its hale and venerable pile. CHAPTER X Titanic features of India — Education in India — ^The Indian codes — Indian magnate in retirement — The mysterious chupatties — A wonderful telegram — Palmerston and Suez Canal — Average Ulness in a decade — Balaam Box — Astrologer and king — Horace and MUton — Disraeli in 1832 — Puns in Shakespeare — Parricide in China — Thomas Atkins V. Lall Sing — Jackass purring — Zouaves and Spahis — Warfare with savage races. If anybody wants to know of a book on India wbicli, between the boards of a single moderate-sized volume, would tell him pretty nearly all he needs to know on that subject, and will moreover teU it in a very pleasant way, let him ask his book- seller for Sir John Strachey's work entitled India. I will not here enlarge on the many weighty political and economic questions embraced in that volume, but shall cite one or two facts illustrative of the magnitude of India, and the vast scale on which Indian things are constituted, a subject which the British intellect usually fails to grasp. Take, for example, the Himalaya Mountains — the Himalaya, or ' abode of snow.' Sir John tells us that this vast region of mountains extends from east to west some two thousand miles ; and that, from its southern to its northern margin, its average breadth is over five hundred miles. It would extend from England to the Caspian Sea. It covers a million of square miles, being an area equal to that of Great Britain, the German and Austrian empires, France, Spain, and European Turkey, all put together. He adds that the whole of the Bernese Alps might be deposited in a single Himalayan valley. In further 249 250 PRIBBLES AND BRABBLES illustration of the subject, a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, some time ago stated that while the largest of the Alpine glaciers, the Aletsch, is only some twenty miles long, the Biafo glacier in the Himalayas extends for sixty-four miles, a continuous mass of ice. Till the year 1879, when it was abolished, there existed in India a material barrier erected in order to prevent the intro- duction of contraband salt into certain parts of the country. This barrier, which was called the Salt Customs Line, used to extend across India from a point north of Attock on the Indus to the banks of the Mahanuddee river on the borders of the Presidency of Madras, being a distance of 2500 miles. It was an actual fence of colossal proportions, consisting of an impene- trable congeries of thorny plants and prickly bushes, supple- mented by masonry, and flanked by deep ditches, in so eflfectual a manner that it was impassable to man, beast, or vehicle. This titanic obstacle might fitly have been compared to the Great Wall of China. It would have extended from Moscow to Gibraltar. It was guarded by a preventive police force of twelve thousand armed men, who patrolled its vast length incessantly by day and night ; and were lodged in no less than seventeen hundred block-houses erected at intervals throughout its course. The mention of this stupendous barrier calls for a passing remark on that impost which from time to time excites so much passionate sympathy in philanthropic bosoms, but which, after all, is not such a hardship to the people of India as it is often supposed to be, and which, whether a hardship or not, is indis- pensable to the Indian Chancellor. I refer to the salt tax. At the time when Sir John Strachey wrote, it appears that this impost fell at the rate of about fivepence per annum per head of the population ; a rate which even the poorest population is well able to bear ; and it should always be remembered that it constitutes the only obligatory tax which is exacted from them, since the tax on intoxicating liquors it is in their power to avoid. PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 251 simply by not consuming such ; and the so-called land tax is in fact not a tax at all, but is the rent of land. Next, as to the proportions of the ancient literary monuments of India, it is sufficient to note that the great Sanscrit epic poem called the ' Mahabharat,' which was written before the time of Moses, is seven times as large as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey taken together, for while the Iliad contains only 15,693 lines, and the Odyssey 12,100 lines, the ' Mahabharat ' contains no less than 220,000 verses, and it has in consequence been aptly called 'an epic ocean.' The other great Indian epic poem, the ' Ramayana,' is constructed on a similar enormous scale ; but, as was remarked some years ago by a writer in the Quarterly Bevieio, while the admiring scholars of Europe discovered in India vast epic poems, exquisite dramas and refined systems of jurisprudence and metaphysics, couched in the Sanscrit tongue, "itself one of the most marvellous products of the human intellect," they could nowhere find a single composition in the nature of history. It is obvious that a society which could create and supply a demand for epic poetry on so grand a scale, for the drama in its most polished forms, and for a great mass of juridical and philo- sophic literature, must have been a society of advanced refine- ment and cultured leisure. It is mournful to reflect that all that condition of things disappeared many ages ago, submerged and obliterated by successive waves of invasion, and lengthened cycles of devastating war. Writing a few years ago, Sir Henry Sumner Maine estimated that in the 250,000,000 which may be assumed as the population of India, not 25,000 were then even educated at all, or only one in 10,000 ; and that of the 123,000,000 of women in the country, not so many as 500 could read or write. Doubtless these matters have improved considerably since that time, and are steadily, though slowly, on the mend ; but it is certain that many generations must come 252 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES and go before the teeming masses of India's people will attain to even a moderate standard of educated intelligence. But although education in India necessarily advances with what may be called geologic slowness, there are other boons which it is in the power of legislation to confer on the people of that country with instantaneous effect. One of these, and one of the most valuable that could be conceived, is a body of sound and luminous law, and Sir Henry Maine has assured us that " British India is now in possession of a set of codes which approach the highest standard of excellence which this species of legislation has reached ; and that in form, intelligibility, and comprehensiveness, the Indian codes stand against aU competi- tion." On this subject we have also the testimony of the late Sir Fitzjames Stephen, than whom no higher authority can be imagined. His verdict is to the following effect : " The Indian Penal Code is by far the best system of criminal law in the world. It may be described as the criminal law of England freed from all technicalities and superfluities, systemati- cally arranged, and modified in some few particulars to suit the circumstances of British India. ... It is practically impossible to misunderstand, and though it has been in force for more than twenty years, and is in daily use in every part of India by all sorts of courts, and among communities of every degree of civiUsation, and has given rise to countless decisions, no obscurity or ambiguity worth speaking of has been discovered in it. . . . Since its enactment it has been substantially the only body of criminal law in force in India, though a few other statutes contain penal provisions on various special subjects. ... It has been triumphantly successful. The rigorous administration of justice, of which it forms an essential part, has beaten down crime throughout the whole of India to such an extent that the greater part of that vast country would compare favourably, as far as the absence of crime goes, with any part of the United FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 253 Kingdom, except perhaps Ireland in quiet times and apart from political and agrarian offences. Besides this, it has met with another kind of success. Till I had been in India I could not have believed it to be possible that so extensive a body of law could be made so generally known to all whom it concerned, in its minutest details. I do not believe that any English lawyer or judge has anything like so accurate, and comprehensive, and distinct a knowledge of the criminal law of England as average Indian civilians have of the Penal Code ; nor has all the ingenuity of commentators been able to introduce any serious difficulty into the subject. After twenty years' use it is still true that any one who wants to know what the criminal law of India is, has only to read the Penal Code with a common use of memory and attention." As to the acumen and uprightness of the native judges of India, the Lord Chancellor stated in the House of Lords, in 1883, as the result of his experience of Indian cases appealed to the Privy Council, that in respect of integrity, of learning, of knowledge, of the soundness and satisfactory character of the judgments arrived at, the decisions of the native judges were quite as good as those of the judges in England. It is commonly alleged that in India the great bulk of public employment is monopolised by British officials. But this is erroneous. Sir John Strachey tells us that, of the total number of civil employes in India, no less than ninety per cent, are natives of the country ; though he admits that, for obvious and adequate reasons, the highest posts in the public service are filled by Europeans. At the time when he wrote, it seems that 765 high posts were held by British civil servants ; while 2600 posts, also of a high character, but not usually so high as those held by British officials, and certainly exclusive of the highest, were held by natives. It is curious to consider the august imperial position now held by the British in India, and to contrast it with the humble 264 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES and depressed posture of our countrymen in that empire in the year 1760. It is startling to recall the fact that it was regarded as a signal honour to Lord Clive when the Emperor of Delhi conferred on him the rank of a ' Mansabdar,' or commander of 6000 foot and 4000 horse ; and further bestowed on him the pinchbeck titles of ' Zabdit-ul-Mulk,' ' Nasir-ud-Dowla/ and ' Sabat Jung Bahadm-.' The Mansabdar, however, contrived to feather his nest to a pretty handsome tune. I think it is Mr. Lecky who tells us that when Clive first revisited England, being then aged only thirty-four, he had amassed a fortune of upwards of £40,000 a year — a prodigious sum at that time — besides having given £50,000 to various members of his family. We have all heard of his naive avowal that he himself was astonished at his own moderation! But the days of the pagoda tree and the nabob are gone, never to return ; and it is positively pathetic to consider how men who in India have filled positions of almost sovereign dignity and power are now, on their retirement, quietly absorbed into insignificance in the ocean of English society. There are plain men now walking our streets, undistinguished from the throng, who, when in India, ruled millions of their fellow men, and actually controlled subject princes and feudatory kings. I think it is Mr. Bosworth Smith who, writing of one of these, has the following striking passage : " He returned to England after thirty years' service, amidst the warm appreciation of all who knew what he had done, and how he had done it ; and, having wielded a power such as few European sovereigns wield, and with a devotion to the good of the people such as few European sovereigns show, he descended from a semi-regal position to a semi-detached villa, lived unnoticed, and passed to his grave without a single mark of distinction.'' That semi- detached villa is good. It is marvellous to reflect how absurdly small is the number of the British who dwell amid the millions of India, and at PEIBBLES AND PEABBLES 255 once protect, direct, and govern them. Very few people in England, or out of it, have any conception how small that number is ; and will be almost incredulous if told that it probably does not exceed 100,000, including the British troops. These latter now-a-days number 70,000 men ; and it may be taken as tolerably certain that the other Europeans in India, including the civil servants, merchants, traders, barristers, and planters, do not amount to 30,000 all told. Many have won- dered at the tame submission of so many Indians to so few Europeans, and even occasionally to violence on the part of individual Enghshmen — although there is reason to believe that this latter is now happily on the wane. When a native of India submits to harshness on the part of an English individual it is common to ascribe the circumstance to pusillanimity and want of spirit on the part of the native. But this is a great mistake. Such submission is in reality due, not to dread of the prowess of the single Briton, but to reverence for the prestige of the British government, and dread of its combined authority. Thus, in chapter vii. of The Abbot, the country bumpkin Ralph Fisher says to the fiery Roland Graeme : "Look you, my lady's page that was, when your switch was up, it was no fear of you, but of your betters, that kept mine down ; and I wot not what hinders me from clearing old scores with this hazel rung, and showing you it was your lady's livery coat I spared, and not your flesh and blood, Master Roland." It may be remembered that, just before the outbreak of the great Mutiny in 1857, the mind of the British community was disturbed by a very remarkable occurrence. I refer to the circulation of the mysterious ' chupatties.' Small cakes of unleavened bread, commonly called chupatties, were silently sent throughout the upper provinces of the country, from one village to another village. From what particular point this circulation commenced has never been precisely ascertained ; but its apparent method was as follows. An unknown stranger 256 PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES would bring one of these cakes to a given village, and would hand it over to the principal native of the hamlet, together with some cryptic sign, or word of might. Thereupon it became incumbent on that village to retain that cake, and forthwith to make another exactly similar to it, and to forward the latter, with similar mystery, and similar instructions, to the village nearest to it ; where the process was repeated till all the villages in the country had done their part in the mystic proceeding. Not much notice was taken of this matter at the time when it occurred ; but, after the outburst of the rebellion, it came to be generally regarded as a sort of fiery cross, or preconcerted signal, to prepare the population for the movement. All this is probably known to most people, but my object in referring to it now is ia order to call attention to the curious fact that, in the thirty-third section of the fourth book of Herodotus, men- tion is made of a somewhat similar mysterious transmission of sacred emblems from the Hyperboreans to the Scythians, and from the latter successively to contiguous tribes ; each city or town in the regions traversed being under the obligation to pass them on to the city or town which lay nearest to it. Before leaving India, I desire to make mention of what may well be called a wonderful telegram. Mr. Archibald Forbes, in his interesting book, A War Correspondent's Reminiscences, relates the story of this approximately in the following terms. In the early morning of the 22nd of November, 1878, the British and Indian forces under General Sir Samuel Browne, V.O. and G.C.B., assaulted and took the fortress of Ali Musjid, situated at the entrance of the Khyber pass. On the fall of that position, Forbes, who was then on the spot, instantly rode back to Jumrood, ten miles in the rear, and wired the news to London, his telegram being despatched from Jumrood at 10 o'clock a.m. Now, between Jumrood and London there is a difference of time amounting to five hours. In consequence of this, the Daily News containing the message regarding the FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 257 capture of Ali Musjid was selling in Fleet Street at 9 a.m. on the day of that occurrence. But between London and New York there is also a difference of five hours' time, and accord- ingly the same message appeared in the New York morning papers on the same day. The news was at once wired from New York to San Francisco, where, owing to the difference of time between that place and New York, the announcement appeared in the morning papers at 6 a.m., still on the same day. Thus it happened that an event which occurred on the borders of Afghanistan about 8 a.m. on the 22nd of November, 1878, was published in San Francisco, 13,000 miles away, two hours before it actually occurred ! Mr. Forbes fitly adds : " Puck said he could put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes; but this telegram went half round the globe in two hours less than no time ! " The same writer, in his IAf& of Havelock, Telates a fact which forms a lurid illustration of the extreme vicissitudes of temperature which have sometimes to be encountered in Afghanistan. He tells us that " Within the same twenty-four hours, one man of Sir Samuel Browne's division was killed by sunstroke, and another was frozen to death ! " . . . It is questionable whether England will ever forgive Lord Palmerston for his pig-headed opposition to the Suez Canal, whereby that enterprise fell into the hands of the French, and constituted, in their eyes at least, that strong claim to a para- mount interest in Egypt which was obviously at the bottom of all their former ' pin-prick ' tactics in the valley of the Nile — and elsewhere. In the memoirs of a statesman now departed the following passage occurs : " I told Lord Palmerston that I had been dining at a house where I had met Lesseps, and that he was full of his canal. ' He may be full of his canal,' replied the Premier, ' but his canal will never be full of water, as the world will ere long see." " But for the thrice-blessed and most 17 258 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES inexplicable refusal of the French to co-operate with us at Alexandria in 1882, England would probably never have attained that predominance in Egypt which has now fallen to her lot. What would Palmerston have said, had he been told that the Suez Canal shares which Lord Beacons^eld bought from Ismail Pasha for £4,000,000, would become in 1898 worth £20,000,000, and would yield an income which ought ere long to amount to a quarter of a million sterling a year ? . . . Now, to turn to some other things. A Scotch baronet of immense acreage told me the other day that the timber of 100,000 acres of forest land in the highlands was capable, under proper management, of yielding an income of £100,000 a year in perpetuity. Credat Judmus. In order to effect this, he said, the proprietor should, each year, cut down and send to market the timber on 1000 acres of his holding ; and as soon as that area was cleared, and ready for the operation, it should be at once replanted. He estimated that the timber yielded by one acre ought, on the most moderate computation, to fetch in the market £100. As to that, I may observe that Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, says that a single oak tree has been known to fetch as much as £60; so that £100 for the mis- cellaneous timber of an entire acre does not seem to be an unreasonable estimate; and if that be so, our proprietor's 100,000 acres would bring him his postulated £100,000 a year; and he contended that by the titoe the timber on the whole 100,000 acres had been felled, that is to say, before 100 years had expired, the timber which had been replanted on the first 1000 acres would be ready for the axe, and so on ad infinitum. The calculation is curious, and seems plausible ; but it is to be supposed that some accidents or hitches of one kind or another would in practice arise to disturb the results. Then again, there are not many men who have 100,000 acres of land for them to play with. PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 259 Possibly the process would have succeeded better a hundred years ago, when our navy, numerically far greater than it now is, was composed of timber. In his lAfe of Gollingwood, Mr. Clark Russell tells us that in order to construct an old-fashioned seventy-four gun ship, 3000 ' loads ' of timber were required ; each ' load ' consisting of fifty cubic feet. Thus, for this purpose 2000 large trees were needed ; each tree averaging two tons' weight of timber. Allowing a space of thirty-three feet for each of the trees growing on the ground, an acre of land would con- tain forty trees ; and thus the building of a seventy-four gun ship would absorb the timber produced on fifty acres of land. He adds that, in those days, the man who should have planted 500 acres of land with 20,000 oak trees which, in ninety or a hundred years' time, would be available for the construction of ten sail of the line, would have been regarded as a true patriot, and one, moreover, who would leave to his posterity an ample fortune. In those good old times wondrous windfalls in the way of prize-money occasionally came to our gallant naval defenders. The Gomhill Magazine lately gave us some striking instances of this. In 1799 the Ethalion captured the Thetis with 1,400,000 dollars on board of her; and the Naiad and Triton together took the Santa Brigida, carrying about the same amount of treasure. On these occasions each captain received as his share of the prize-money, £40,731 18s. ; each lieutenant received £5,091 7s. 3d. ; and each seaman, £182 4s. 9d. But even this was nothing in comparison with the following still more lucky haul. It is said that, in 1762, the Actseon and the Favourite captured the treasure ship Hermione, carrying such a prodigious amount of specie that each of the fortunate captains got £65,000; each lieutenant, £13,000; each petty officer, £2,000 ; and each seaman, £500 ! No wonder naval service was then popular. It is a curious fact that, towards the end of last century, one 260 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES of the most leading authorities on the subject of naval taxjtics was John Clerk of Eldin, a merchant in Edinburgh, son of the antiquary, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. John, the naval tactician, is mentioned as such by Scott, in a note to The Antiquary. Among other notions of his on the subject of naval warfare, he is by some supposed to have been the inventor of the manoeuvre for breaking the enemy's line at sea, and to have imparted the idea to Sir Charles Douglas, captain of the fleet under Lord Rodney, by which latter admiral it was employed for the first time, and with crushing success, in his victory over the French, on the twelfth of April, 1782. Another interesting fact is that some highly distinguished sailors were originally soldiers. Mr. Clark Russell, in his Betwixt the Forelands, says that Admiral Blake was originally a military officer, and was Colonel Blake when the Parliament, circa 1650, made a sailor of him ; so that he was " one day serving as a cavalry officer, and the next day, so to speak, was appointed to the supreme command of the fleet." Monk, too, was properly a soldier, and only at the age of forty-five first took to sailoring. At the present day we have a very distinguished example of the converse of the above, since General Sir Evelyn Wood was originally a naval officer, and served with the naval brigade in the trenches before Sebastopol. . . . We hear constantly of Sydney Smith's jokes, but seldom of those of his son, who, however, seems to have had a very pretty little humour of his own. Sir Francis Doyle tells us a good jest about that young gentleman. It seems that the youth was habitually very ' horsej' ' in his talk. One day it fell out that the Bishop of London was coming to dine at Sydney's house. The latter accordingly begged his son carefully to abstain from all horsey talk in the presence of the bishop, and to do all in his power to adapt his conversation to the taste of his Lordship. For a time all went well; but pre- FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 261 sently the young man startled the company by saying to the dignitary: "Pray, Bishop, how long do you think it took Nebuchadnezzar to get into condition after he came up from 1?" Sir Francis Doyle tells us that the same young man once underwent a long jobation from Lord Lansdowne on the subject of his dissipated habits. When the lecture was concluded, the young gentleman, apparently without any connection of ideas, suddenly said to his mentor : " By the way, Lord Lansdowne, do you know how Jones Lloyd & Co. made all their money ? " " No," said Lord Lansdowne, somewhat surprised by the seeming irrelevancy of the question. " Well, I'll tell you," said Smith ; " by minding their own business." Some years ago the Qtoarferly Beview cited a good story regarding Lord Holt, culled, I believe, from Sir George Trevelyan's Idfe of Mcicaulay. At the time when his Lord- ship was Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, this country was infested by certain impostors called Oamisards, who had come over among the Huguenot refugees, and who pretended to be divinely inspired. One day one of these fellows came into the Court of King's Bench, and said to Lord Holt that the Holy Ghost had sent him, the Camisard, to command his Lordship to enter a nolle prosequi in certain proceedings then pending before the court. To this worthy, Lord Holt dryly replied : " If the Holy Ghost had wanted a nolle prosequi, he would have bidden you to apply to the Attorney-General. The Holy Ghost knows very well that I cannot enter a nolle prosequi. But there is one thing which I can do. I can lay a lying knave by the heels ; " and with that he committed the fellow to prison. . . . In an article which appeared in the Contemporary Beview some years ago. Archdeacon Farrar quoted a saying of St. Augustine touching the human heart, to the effect that it is never altogether a sanctuary, or altogether a sewer ; and that 262 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES there are potentialities of good in the felon, and of evil in the saint. It was said of Fontenelle that he possessed as good a heart as could be made out of brains only ; and of Molifere it was epi- grammatically said : " E savait le cceur humain par cosur." . . . We are all prone to grumble and growl about our illnesses ; yet Sir Edwin Arnold has somehow or other arrived at the curious conclusion that the average number of days of illness in each decade for each individual, is only sixteen, or considerably less than two days in each year ! I wonder if this cheering calculation will in any degree modify our perpetual growling and grumbling ? I trow not. I fear there is not much joy in averages. In one of his many works Max Miiller computes that if one couple of persons had two children only, and if these two chil- dren again had, each of them, only two children, and if every succeeding marriage among their descendants produced only two children, the combined produce of the first couple would, in twelve hundred years, amount to a total of 274,877,906,944 ! — a sum which I, for one, am quite incapable of reading out. I wonder if it's all true. . . . The quaint old term ' Balaam Box,' once so familiar to editors, seems to have gone out of use, and I lately met a literary man who had never even heard of it. It seems that in newspaper offices, a receptacle used to be, and perhaps still is, set apart for the storage of scraps of ' copy ' touching remarkable productions of nature, monstrous gooseberries, and other unusual phenomena, which scraps were kept standing in type, ready to be used in the ' silly season,' in order to fill up space when topics of real interest ran short. Such matter being generally of a foolish or asinine character itself, or at all events suited to the taste of asinine people, seems to have led to the origin of the term PRIBBLES AND PEABBLES 263 'Salaam Box,' involving, evidently, some reference to the tallsing ass of the prophet of that name. Sometimes, too, ' copy ' of a doubtful character — literary trash, in short — is, or was, itself called ' Balaam ' simply. Thus Scott, talking to Ballantyne of one of bis novels regarding which the latter had expressed a poor opinion before its publication, but which had turned out very well, says of it : "I thought it was not such bad Balaam after aU." Touching asses, there is a good story about a certain Scottish nobleman of lofty rank but great stupidity, who shall here be innominato. It appears there had been some talk of conferring on him the order of the Thistle, when one who knew him well exclaimed : " That would never do ; why, he's such an ass that he would eat it." I mentioned Nebuchadnezzar but now. It is said that the Russians have read into tliat name a sentiment of extravagant loyalty to their ruler. They allege that, strictly speaking, it reads in their language : " Na bogh ad ne Czar," which, being interpreted, means : " There is no god but the Czar." I am not in a position to judge as to the linguistic accuracy of the Muscovite words just cited, but so the story goes. . . . In Quentin Durward, chapter 29, the astrologer Galeotti, being apprehensive that Louis XI. is about to cause him to be assassinated, hits on the happy device of telling that super- stitious tyrant that his art had revealed to him that the King himself was foredoomed to die just twenty-four hours after the death of his astrologer. By this means Louis is diverted from his murderous design, and the wily astrologer is saved. The original version of this story is, I think, to be found in the Annals of Tacitus, VI. 22, where it is related that the Emperor Tiberius bad in his service a soothsayer called Thrasullus, of whom the despot demanded whether, with all his pretended knowledge of the future, he could foretell the day of his own 264 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES decease. To this question the soothsayer replied that he wa indeed unable to pronounce directly the precise day on whichyQe should die, but that his art enabled him to state positively Aat his own death would take place exactly three days beforff^that of the Emperor. Thus he not only saved his skin at thh time, but also enjoyed the most fostering care on the pajt of the Emperor for the rest of his days. ... / Countless generations of schoolboys have groaned, and, I greatly fear, will yet groan, under the difficulties of Latin poetry, difficulties caused mainly by the occasional defiance of all reasonable order or arrangement in the position of the words which compose the text, these words being generally placed just where they may assist the metre, and without any regard to the sense. It is this feature of the Latin tongue which, to my thinking, renders it a far more difficult language than Greek, in which latter the arrangement of the words much more closely resembles that of English. The other day I was reading — not for the first time — the fourth ode of Horace's fourth book of Odes, and I was forcibly struck — also not for the first time — with the extreme difficulty of its first sixteen lines, and the extraordinary involution and confusion of the words which compose that thorny passage. In these formidable lines, from "Qualem ministrum fulminis alitem " down to " Dente novo peritura vidit," the words are so hopelessly jumbled together that it is a marvel that the meaning was ever made out at all by anybody, let alone by a schoolboy. If such treatment were permissible or possible in English poetry, the first sixteen lines of Paradise Lost might have run as follows : Restore that shepherd and the middle taste Of Oreb or of Sinai blissful woe, Wliose fruit that on the secret first regain, And all our tree brought that forbidden man; FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 26^ The death man's disobedience didst inspire And sing us, chaos, how of Sion seed Into the heavenly chosen loss of song, Till first one greater world with Eden thence. The Heavens and Earth of my adventurous brook. Invoke thy top and SUoa's seat that taught In the beginning, or if flowed the hill, Delight thee fast by oracle of God, I rose more out of unattempted yet. Who to no flight while mortal it pursues Above the Aonian prose or rhyme in aid, Intends to soar the muse with things that mount. This gibberish is composed wholly and solely of the words con- tained in Milton's first sixteen lines, and they are hardly more confused and nonsensical than the first sixteen lines of Horace's ode now under notice. Imagine a hapless boy of some future nation, two thousand years hence, learning English as our tortured boys now learn Latin, and having to wrestle with such stuff as that ! It must, of course, be admitted that the contusion of order in Latin is to some extent mitigated, and the meaning is rendered discoverable just as a riddle may be solved, by the inflectional terminations showing cases, moods, and tenses, which serve as a sort of mariner's compass to guide us through the bewildering maze ; whereas English, being analytic, or non- inflectional, could not indulge in such confusion with any possibility of being understood. And yet how good, how wise, how witty is our old friend — ror foe — Horace. Take, for example, the ninth of his first book of Epistles. Could anything surpass it as a model letter of introduction ? . . . How neat is the French phrase, 'Fens^e d'escalier.' It often happens to a man to have been present in a company where some interesting conversation or discussion has been going on, and in which he has taken a part, and perhaps no very brilliant 266 PRIBBLES AND BRABBLES part. He leaves that company, and is scarcely half way down the stairs when there flashes into his mind some happy thought or telling repartee which, had it only occurred to him in the drawing-room, would have won for him endless credit ; but now, alas, it is too late. That it is which our sprightly neighbours call la pens^e, or V esprit d'escalier. Racine well knew, and practised, the true principles of successful conversation, and the surest way of giving pleasure in society, when he said of his interlocutors : " Mon talent avec eux n'est pas de leur /aire sentir que j'ai de I'esprit, mais de lew apprendre gu'ils en out." Just so; not to try to impress the company by a display of one's own talents, but so to talk, and so to listen, as to make one's hearers fancy that they themselves are mighty clever fellows. Similarly Leopardi, in one of his Thoughts, says : " No man can become popular in society except at the price of some sacri- fice, or acquire the character of a pleasant companion, without practising some self-suppression. For in conversation he only is liked who ministers to the self-satisfaction of others, who listens much and speaks little ; who lets others talk their fill of them- selves and their affairs, and even starts them on such well-loved topics, and dwells on them himself. At the end of the conversa- tion the company will have a very favourable impression of that man, and he will be very sick of the company. And, conversely, if we retire from any company in a state of high satisfaction with ourselves, and regard that company as having been a very delightful one, we may take it as pretty certain that that com- pany will have formed a very unfavourable opinion of us. The conclusion of the matter is, that in general conversation, or private colloquy, where the object of the interlocutors is merely mutual entertainment, it inevitably happens that the satisfaction of one party implies the dissatisfaction of the other, and you must make up your mind either to be bored on the one hand, PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 267 or, on the other, to regret your brilliancy; and you will be a fortunate man if you experience these results in anything like equal proportions." . . . At the present day it is almost impossible to realise the extravagance and eccentricity of the dress and appearance of Benjamin Disraeli so lately as the year 1832. The following account of this matter appeared in Froude's Lord Beaconsfield : " Lady Dufferin told Mr. Motley that when she first met him at a dinner party, he wore a black velvet coat lined with satin, purple trousers with a gold band running down the outside seam, a scarlet waistcoat, long lace ruffles falling down to the tips of his fingers, white gloves with several brilliant rings out- side them, and long black ringlets rippling down to his shoulders." And N. P. Willis, the American editor of The Corsair, who met him at a dinner party at Lady Blessington's, says : " He was sitting at a window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays of sunlight reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent leather pumps, a white stick with a black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets." Another account says that he wore : " A velvet coat thrown wide open, ruffles on the sleeves, shirt coUar turned down in Byronic fashion, an elaborate embroidered waistcoat, from which issued voluminous folds of frill, shoes adorned with red rosettes, his black hair pomatumed and elaborately curled, and his person redolent with perfume." Assuredly no man who dressed in such a style in these latter days would be accounted fit for any place but Bedlam. . . . It is curious to note the remarkable increase which occurs in the prices of pictures by famous artists, after the latter have 268 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES attained celebrity. In 1832, Landseer's portrait of Lady Fitzharris cost £80. In 1884, his Monarch of the Glen fetched at Christie's £6000. Then take the case of Lady Butler's paintings. P. G. Hamerton states that the right of engraving two of these sold for twice as much as all Lord Byron's copyrights ! . . . In a previous passage allusion was made to the somewhat harsh canon which would rule all puns and plays on words as being outside the category of true humour, merely because they perish on translation. Yet all readers of Shakespeare are well aware that this was with him a favourite form of fun. I have myself counted no less than thirty-nine of such pleasantries which occur in his various plays. Many of these are of a some- what forced and strained character, and would not at the present day be thought particularly amusing. But the most violent and outrageous of them all is that which occurs in Much Ado about Nothing, Act II. scene i., where Beatrice says to Claudio : " The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well ; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion ; " where commentators are agreed that the word ' civil ' is a pun or play on the name ' Seville.' Such a joke would now-a-days be looked upon with positive disfavour. . . . The origin of the term 'Bluestocking' is variously stated. Dr. Brewer assigns to it a date as early as 1400, when, according to him, a society of ladies and gentlemen was formed at Venice, presumably for literary discussions; and that, being dis- tinguished by the colour of their stockings, they were called ' la society della calza.' But the doctor does not state what was the colour of those garments — if a stocking can be called, or can amount to, a garment. He professes to trace it to Paris about a century later, and finally to England, in 1780, when the badge of the ' Bas-bleu club ' was adopted in the assemblies of Mrs. FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 269 Montague, In Boswell's lAfe, of Johnson there is quite another account of the matter. It is there stated that, in the time of the lexicographer, it became the fashion for ladies to take part in certain assemblies gathered together for literary and scientific conversation. Of these assemblies, one of the leading members was Mr. Stillingfleet, who habitually wore blue stockings. When, as sometimes happened, he failed to attend their meetings, the other members used to say : " Ah, we can do nothing without the blue stockings." I myself think ' Bozzy ' has the best of it. The pages of these ' Prabbles ' have been rigorously closed to all riddles, puzzles, conundrums, and ' nonsense lines.' For good samples of the former I would refer readers to an amusing volume published some years ago by Sir Frederick Pollock. For the latter forms of fun I would direct them to the Diary, or Diaries, of Sir M. E. Grant Duff. Yet, on second thoughts, there is one riddle which I think I must admit, were it only because it is a peculiarly malignant specimen of that pestilent species of ingenuity. It is on the name Colenso; and it is couched in the following terms : " Divide 150 by nothing ; add two thirds of 10 ; and so ends my riddle." Give it up ? Well, in Roman numerals the number 150 is denoted by CL. To divide two things is to separate them by interposing some other thing between them. So let us divide or separate CL, by putting nothing, or a nought, between them. This gives COL. Now in the word ' ten ' there are three letters, ten; if to COL we add the ' e ' and the ' n ' of these three letters, we add two thirds of ten. This gives us COLEN ; and the addition of SO completes the word, and ends the riddle. To this I will add just one story, in the manner and com- plexion of those told by Sir Frederick Pollock — if indeed it be not actually one of them ; which I won't swear to. It is related that once upon a time a misguided man had the rashness to take to wife a young lady who was the daughter, by a previous 2Y0 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES marriage, of his own son's wife. Too late, he found to hiss horror that by this alliance he had become his own son's son- in-law, and his own grandfather ! It is said that the unhappy man went mad. . . . No one doubts that the Chinese are an astute and sagacious people. In corroboration of this position, I lately saw a remarkable statement in Blackwood's Magazine — 'that wonderful serial which lately issued to a grateful society its thousandth number ; and a splendid number it was, besides being a double one. It appears, then, that in China, if a man murders his own father, not only is he put to death as being the perpetrator of the most atrocious form of homicide, but the teacher or in- structor of the parricide is invariably put to death along with him. I wonder how English headmasters would relish this somewhat strained view of the responsibilities of instructors. It should be remembered, however, that, in ancient Greece, Socrates was not considered entirely unaccountable for the irregularities of Alcibiades. . . . It may interest some people to know that an average healthy man each day consumes a quantity of food equal to one fiftieth of his own weight. So, in cannibal communities — which I understand are still flourishing — if the climate was moderately dry and antiseptic, or if a portion of the cadaver, or carcass, was pickled, a fairly well-nourished missionary would last an average healthy savage nearly two months. Statistics of economy are always useful. . . . My attention was lately attracted by a brace of anecdotes illustrating one of the differences between our British and our Indian soldiers. Lall Sing is of a highly poetical and romantic temperament, as is shown by the following extract from Major C. E. Yate's Northern Afghanistan : " The evening we arrived FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES 271 at the Oxus," says the major, " some of us went down to the river, where I heard an old native officer of the 11th Bengal Lancers remark : ' Long is the arm of the Sirkar (the British government), for I have watered my horse in the Tientsin river in China, and to-day I have done so in the Amu Daria.' " Thomas Atkins, on the other hand, though brave enough at need, is eminently prosaic. He is warlike, no doubt, but not military. In fact, we are not a military nation. Soldiers in uniform are still, I regret to say, often excluded from places of public entertainment; and the respectable lower orders are often still ashamed of having a son or a brother in the army. This is mending, it is true, and doubtless will still further mend, but it yet lingers. A Punjab ploughman, when donatus rude, that is to say, when retired from the service, would say with pride : " I was a soldier once." But not so Mr. Atkins. An officer of a Hussar regiment told me that on one occasion one of his men, being in trouble, or possibly sighing over his de- graded position as being a soldier, exclaimed with a mixture of pride and regret, as one who had seen better days : " Ah, I was not always a soldier, I was once a pork-butcher!" The American soldier would seem to possess humour, if we may judge by the following incident, which is mentioned in ' Campaigning with Grant,' in the Century Magazine. " In the American civil war, once, as the troops were marching along the road near the Tennessee river, a jackass looked over the fence, pricked up his ears, and brayed in a way to deafen everybody within a mile of him. When he ceased, and a dead silence ensued, one of the soldiers quietly said to his comrades : ' Boys, did ye hear him purr ? '" . . . It is curious to consider the longevity — or rather, the want of longevity — of modem French governments. On the fourth of September, 1891, the present Republic attained its majority; and it is now quite the longest-lived government which France 272 FRIBBLES AND BRABBLES has known since the Revolution. The first Republic, which was terminated by the Consulate, lasted only seven years. The government of Napoleon, as Consul and as Emperor, endured for fourteen years. The restored Bourbons occupied the throne for sixteen years. Louis Philippe kept his seat for nearly eighteen years. The second Republic lasted less than four years; and the sway of Napoleon IIL extended to eighteen years. Accordingly, the existing regime in France is justly entitled to regard itself with considerable complacency as quite a veteran constitution as compared with its predecessors in the recent past. It may be interesting to some people to know, or to be reminded of, the derivation of the well-known French military term, 'Zouave,' as well as the origin of the celebrated corps which bore that name. The name itself was derived from that of a warlike and hardy Kabyle tribe of the Jurjura range of mountains in Algeria, who rejoiced in the name of 'Zouaoua,' a terrible welter of vowels, and one well fitted for a savage war- cry, but impossible of pronunciation by civilised tongues ; and therefore it was soon corrupted or improved into its present form. That tribe had always maintained a practical independ- ence, and its fighting men were celebrated for their valour and fidelity as mercenary soldiers. But, although the new levies took their name from that tribe, it appears that not many members of the clan actually joined the corps, either on its first formation or at any subsequent time. Probably, like the Afridis and other fierce Moslem warriors of our Afghan border, they were willing enough to fight, and to loot, but were impatient of the restraints of even the most rudimentary discipline. The first levy of Zouaves was raised in 1830 by General Clausel, who had then just succeeded to the command in Algeria on the resignation of its first conqueror. Marshal Bourmont, who, on the fall of Charles X. in the revolution of FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 273 that year, had refused to serve under Louis Philippe, and had accordingly thrown up his command. This levy, which con- sisted of two battalions, was originally composed of native African soldiers, with French officers and sergeants, like the Sepoys of the late East India Company. Later on, the Zouaves began to contain in their ranks a certain admixture of European soldiers, who were for the most part reckless political spirits from Paris, and roving adventurers from various countries of Europe, so that, in that respect, the corps then somewhat resembled the troops which the Dutch used to maintain in their East Indian possessions, which were a motley sort of olio of natives and Europeans. As time went on, this European element steadily increased ; indeed, it would appear that the service had at no time been very popular among the natives, since, like the high-caste Sepoys of the old Bengal army of the pre-mutiny days, they considered themselves degraded as soldiers by the enforced labour of pioneering and entrenching operations — they were willing to fight, but not to work. Not long after that, all the European members of the corps, other than French, were removed from the Zouaves, and were formed into the Foreign Legion. Later still, at the summons of Abd-el-Kader, large numbers of the native Zouaves deserted from the colours and joined the ranks of their compatriots ; in consequence of which the proportion of Frenchmen in the corps was greatly increased. In 1841 a third battalion was raised ; the corps was entirely remodelled, and it was decreed that thereafter there should be only one company of African natives in each battalion. From that time even that reduced proportion of natives steadily decreased, until, finally, the Zouaves became composed of Frenchmen only. Simultaneously with the first levy of Zouaves in 1830, General Clausel raised also the original nucleus of the well- known corps of African native cavalry, or ' Spahis.' Of course 18 274 PKIBBLES AND PRABBLES the term 'spahi' is etymologically identical with our Indian word ' sepoy/ which latter is nothing but a fantastic corruption of 'sipahi,' a Persian word signifying simply a soldier, from ' sipah/ an army. But, curiously enough, while in India the term has never been applied — at least by the British — to any but foot-soldiers, in Algeria it has, so far as I know, never been applied by the French to any but mounted troops. The Algerian Spahis have on numerous occasions covered themselves with glory ; and indeed they might well have been expected to prove most efficient light horse when we consider the chivalrous character of the races from which they were drawn. A French writer who, being French, would not be likely to disparage the soldiers of his own nation, has recorded that in Algeria it was often found that one Arab horseman was a match for three French dragoons. Nor need this so greatly surprise us when we recollect that Sir Henry Lawrence, in his Essays Military and Political, has informed us that during the Sutlej campaign in 1845-46, he had himself seen a single Sikh horse- man dealing successfully with two English dragoons at once. It has sometimes been the fashion with a certain school of military thinkers, who imagine that there is no balm but in the Aldershot Gilead, to assert that the French army under- went deterioration in their Algerian campaigns, and that their disasters in 1870 could be traced to that cause. This, however, has never been the opinion of authorities most competent to judge. War — real war — whatever its character, or wherever its scene, must ever be improving to soldiers. One ounce of the real article is worth a pound of sham fighting and peace manoeuvres ; and it is idle to suppose that a struggle with a numerous and brave people, in a distant and difficult country, could possibly have a demoralising effect on any army. No ; the misfortunes of the French in 1870 can be traced to causes much nearer home than Africa — to defective organisation and, simply, to the superiority of their antagonists. PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 275 In warfare with savage races or irregular foes, pedantic adherence to the theories and text-books of regular war may do harm, just as the canons of scientific fencing might prove ineffectual in dealing with a ruffian armed with a bludgeon. It is possible to be too regular, and drill books tend to kill originality and fertility of resource. The life-guardsman of the story, when asked how he came by a certain scar on his face, replied: "Well, you see, it was like this; I comes across a French queerasseer ; I gives him cut number one, and in due course I then comes to guard number two, whereupon he ought by rights to have delivered cut two at my right cheek, but the infernal scoundrel cut me over the wrong cheek, and very nigh did for me." Similarly, in Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Monsieur Jourdain plaintively exclaims to Nicole : " Oui, mais tu me pousses en tierce avant que de pousser en quarte, et tu n'as pas la patience que je pare." Well, it is good at times to cut over the wrong cheek, and to thrust in tierce when the adversary expects quarte. Sir Francis Doyle tells a good story to the effect that Monsieur Hamon, the famous French fencing-master, was once applied to by a gentleman for his aid or advice under the following circumstances. The gentleman had incurred a deadly quarrel with another, and it was agreed they were to fight a outrance — by the way, I once more implore people not to say d I'outrance. But a fortnight was allowed to both to set their affairs in order. The man who applied to Hamon knew nothing of fencing ; his antagonist was a skilled spadassin. So the former came to Hamon to ask him to teach him as much as he could of his art in the fortnight. " What ! " exclaimed Hamon, " teach you fencing in a fortnight ! Impossible ! Your only chance is to adopt some mode of attack utterly opposed to all the rules of science ; that may possibly baffle and confound him." This was done, and with success. Hamon's client killed his man. After Majuba Hill General Gordon wrote to The Times, 276 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES pointing out that, in dealing* with a brave irregular enemy on his own ground, the very regularity of regular troops was a disadvantage to them. The Italians in the neighbourhood of Massowah adhered too much and too pedantically to the rules and axioms of scientific warfare — if such a thing there be — and, while they never scored a single success, they incurred grievous disaster at Dogali and at Sanganeiti, and more grievous still, at Adowa. There are times to throw aside cast-iron rules and canons, or to act in defiance of them. Sometimes the greatest rashness is the greatest prudence. Red tape chokes self-reliance and kills initiative — our whole military history in India proves it. Almost every battle we have fought in that country was fought in defiance of the principles of text-book warfare, and ought to have been lost, but was won. No service develops a bold self- reliance, and a bold defiance of theory, so much as does the Indian service, a service where subalterns are accustomed to act on their own responsibility ia detached positions of great difficulty ; witness Herbert Edwardes- in the second Sikh war, a lieutenant commanding an army and leading it to victory, while the Commander-in-Chief, at the head of a regular force, held back ! Witness also Grant of Manipur. The whole of what a French writer calls ' the heroic period ' of the mutiny — that is, from its commencement till the arrival of the reinforcements under Sir Colin Campbell — was a brilliant series of dashing defiances of theory. The siege of Delhi itself was a glorious defiance of theory, where ten thousand men besieged one hundred thousand, in a position so extensive that the so-called besiegers could ' observe ' but a small part of the enemy's works, and were, in fact, themselves besieged. Yet they took the place. When Lawrence and other stout spirits urged the assault, the red-tapists said it was impossible, there was no precedent for such a thing, madness, and all the rest of it. Lawrence insisted ; and it was done, and we won. PRIBBLES AND PRABBLES 277 And that was a good story — suspiciously good, perhaps, more like ten trovato than vera — told of Lawrence in, I think, The Life of Sir Herbert Udwardes, as to General A , more famous for whist than war, wiring to Sir John that he must entrench his force and stand on the defensive ; and Sir John's reply : "Clubs are trumps, not spades." This smacks of Edwardes' own fun. Irreverent speculators have often wondered when Delhi would have fallen if Sir Colin Campbell had been in command, and with the means then available. He was too regular. Nicholson was the man for such a crisis. A pandour was better than a pedant — a Trenck was better than a Daun. In these days we hear a good deal about the so-called 'science of war,' and it is constantly and somewhat ostenta- tiously trumpeted in Lord Wolseley's latest book. But the question arises : Is there such a thing as a science of war? In the primary and simple sense, whereby the word science denotes merely a knowledge of, or an acquaintance with, any given subject, doubtless such a thing exists as a science of war, seeing that many men have a more or less vivid knowledge and experience of that scourge of humanity. But in modem par- lance the word science means something altogether different from this. How shall we best define what it is ? Well, in default of the precise and logical terms of a definition, we may to a certain extent illustrate the nature of the thing by stating some of the conditions which are invariably essential to it. Now, in the case of all true sciences there invariably grows up a literature which unfolds the subject to such a degree that any capable man who masters that literature may conceivably attain to a complete knowledge of the science of which it treats, so far as that science may have at any given time been fathomed by the mind of man, and may conceivably arrive at complete and assured success in dealing with the problems of that science. 278 FRIBBLES AND PRABBLES Astronomy, chemistry, botany, geology, law — all these are sciences possessing a literature, by the adequate study of which any man may attain to a competent knowledge of these subjects. But assuredly there exists not any didactic literature regarding war, by the study of which any man may ensure an unerring knowledge of its varied and ever varying problems, or any such sure mastery of its conditions and possibilities as would ensure success in its conduct. The conditions of war are far too uncertain and changeful to admit of its principles being crystallised into a science. Perhaps the officer who was most learned in the literature of war — the officer who in recent times was most saturated with that literature — was the ill-starred general whose name is indelibly associated with the disaster and disgrace of Majuba Hill. Will any man contend that Wellington or Hannibal were saturated with that or any other kind of literature ? No ; the successful commander, like the poet, is born, not made. He is the fortunate possessor of certain mysterious instincts or intuitions not given to other men. War, like poetry and the fine arts, has no science. There is no science of sculpture or of painting. Science lies open to every student; but not so poetryj or the fine arts, or war. Success in these fields is the appanage of genius alone. It is idle to talk of the science of war. Indeed, it is fervently to be hoped that the British officer may not be addled by too much ' strategy ' and ' tactics,' and other dry bones of this so-called science. Such studies have their dangers. No text-books can contain prescriptions for success or recipes for victory — these things wait on genius only. But text-books may well strangle initiative and paralyse dash. They may befog the mind of the ordinary officer ; and in the brief psychological moment of dubious battle, they may cause him to hesitate, to ponder on the canons of tactical science, just to see what the red book has to say about the PRIBBLES AND PEABBLES 279 matter; and during this fatal hesitation the golden moment may flee away. As to staff colleges, they cut both ways ; a staff college will probably make a good man better, but it will possibly make a bad man worse. And now I may say, with the worthy and reverend Sir Hugh Evans, "it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles and prabbles." THE END INDEX AFGHAMSTiN and Sudan, campaign- ing in, compared, 213 vicissitudes of temperature in, 257 Agnosticism, Froude on, 158 Massimo d'Azeglio on, 158 Dialogue on, 181 Anagram, Bacon -o. Shakespeare, 113 Voltaire, 112 Walter Scott, 112 Ancestry, on, 145 Apella the Jew, 130 Arms of precision, German lines on, 193 Australia, language of, 197 . Austria, political marriages in, 188 B Baboo English, 3-7 Bacon v. Shakespeare, 113 Bailie Guard, 116 Balaam Box, 262 Barnes, William, his fads on lan- guage, 59 Bella gerant alii, 189 Bible, curious copies of, 15, 100 Blank verse, George Eliot on, 87 Blunders in conversation, 8 in translation, 10 in writing, 12 Browning, his occasional obscurity, 155 C Cambridge and Oxford, royal gifts to, 190 Canal, Suez, and Palmerston, 257 Carlyle, an appreciation of, 155 Casualties in war, 217-219, 222 Chupatties, the mysterious, 255 Cicero, Voltaire on, 110 Classics, on the wane, 108 Cologne, and the 11,000 virgins, 179 Commonplace books, on, 33 Credat Judseus, 129 D Decorations, Giusti on, 56 Desdemona, 125 Dissent and dissension, 158 281 282 INDEX Eliot, George, her reading, 85 on blank verse, 87 her possible reason for adopt- ing that pseudonym, 89 Eschatology, Sir Henry Taylor on, 158 Dialogue on, 181 F Fert, Fert, Fert, 53 Fox's aunts, 132 G Gibberish, 197 scientific, 198 Grecian stairs, 118 Guide corps, 236 H "H," the letter, 187 Handwriting, 102 Hexameters, 96 Homer, 61-78 rhymed lines in, 92 Voltaire on, 77 a sober estimate of, 78 HonorificabUitudinitatibuB, 113 Horace, rhymed lines in, 93 Voltaire on, 110 Huguenot names, 121 India, importance of, 233 training school for British forces, 241 India, possible invasion of, 243 opinion of Skobeleff, 244 loyalty of, 247 titanic features of, 249 education in, 251 fewness of Europeans in, 255 Indian native troops, 234 exploits of, 236 value of, to British Empire, 237 appearance of, 238 Joss house, 118 Jowett on bishops, 176 on learning, 177 K Kangaroo, 197 Language, creeping changes in, 21-31 earliest, 196 Australian, 197 Latin quotations out of fashion, 108 limited value of, 109 Lincoln, Devil looking over, 120 Lockhart, J. G., 191 Lyddite shell, 218 M Machiavelli, corruption of, 118 Mahabhaxat, 251 Mandarin, 118 INDEX 283 Medicine, specialism in, 137 Memory, 142 Misdescription, in catalogues, 107 Misreporting, 104 Missions and missionajies, 159 Mistranslation, 106 Morality and geography, 146 N Names, some anagrams of, 112 abnormal pronunciation of some, 122 corruptions of some, 117 origins of some, 115 of places. Captain Cook on, 123 Napoleon m., 100 Nebuchadnezzar, 263 O Oxford and Cambridge, royal gifts to, 190 Palmerston and Suez Canal, 257 Pasquinades, 56 Past, overpraise of the, 144 Pentameters, 96 PhOately, 127 Plurals, queer, 110-111 Posilipo, 126 Preaching and sermons, 160 Proverbs, international, 33-53 Spanish, 60 weather, 35 Puns, 195 in Shakespeare, 268 Q Quem deus vult perdero, 194 R « Religion, George Eliot on, 157 Froude on, 168 Massimo d'Azeglio on, 158 Sir Henry.'Taylor on, 168 Rhyme, sporadic, 95 startling examples of, 96 Rhymed lines in Homer, 92 in Horace, 93 in Virgil, 94 S Saints unknown to the calendar, 178 Sayings, celebrated, 209 Scott, Sir Walter, on tobacco, 206 on whisky, 207 his MS., 204- sayings of, 203-205 Semel insanivimus omnes, 195 Sermons and preaching, 160 Shakespeare v. Bacon, 113 Simony, 201 Skobeleff. See India. Spahi, 273 Sudan and Tirah, campaigns com- pared, 213 Suez Canal and Lord Palmerston, 257 T Tavern signs, some, 20 Telegram, a wonderful, 266 284 INDEX Time, odds and ends of, 203 Tirah and Sudan campaigns com- pared, 213 Tobacco. See Scott. Translation and translators, 138 Trocadero, 116 Tweedie, 113 Virgil, rhymed lines in, 94 Voltaire on, 64 Voltaire, anagram of the name, 112 on Cicero, 110 on Homer, 77 Voltaire, on Horace, 110 on Virgil, 64 W War, so called science of, 277 Warfare with savage races and irre- gular enemies, 274 Wliisky. See Scott. Wit, alleged test of true, 195 Words, deterioration of meaning in, 21 Zouave, 272 &ichtxFd Clay ^ Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.