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 PRINTED IN 
 
 U. S. A, 
 
 CQf 
 
 NQ, 23233 
 
The original of tliis 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/cu31924013268242 
 
BYRON -SHELLEY- KEATS. 
 
 ^n ^emoriam 
 
 ENDOWED YEARLY PRIZES. 
 
 PRIZE ESSAYS 
 
 BY COMPETITORS. 
 
 4th set. 
 
 [Each Wrjteh is hesfomsible only for-her own Essay.] 
 
 WITH LIFE INCIDENTS OF THE FOUNDRESS, 
 ROSE MARY CRAWSHAY. 
 
 BRECONSHIRE : 
 MRS. CRAWSHAY, CATHEDINE, BWLCH. 
 

 
INDEX. 
 
 Mrs. Crawshay, from ' Noteworthy Men and Women of 
 Wales,' reprinted from the Western Mail newspaper 
 Mrs. Crawshay of Cyfarthfa Interviewed 
 Mrs. R. M. Crawshay, by Mrs. Haweis 
 Preface to First Thousand ... 
 Prize Essay on Byron's Fare Thee Well, etc 
 Second Prize do. do. ... 
 
 Kssay on Epipsychidion 
 
 13 
 21 
 30 
 43 
 52 
 57 
 
 Second Part. 
 Preface to Sixth Thousand of ' Domestic Service ' 
 ' Domestic Service for Gentlewomen ' — Part I. 
 Do. do. „ II. 
 
 I 
 
 8 
 
 23 
 
 Third Part. 
 Prize Essay on Keats' Sonnets 
 More Gossip 
 Thomas Norbury 
 New Books ' 
 
 On Ladies' Dress 
 Mars 
 
 The Sun and Moon 
 Colenso on the Pentateuch 
 ' Something Against Me ' 
 Mrs. Devas 
 
 Sir Wm. Grove, F.R.S. 
 Miss Durant 
 
 The Carmarthenshire Vans 
 Lord Denman 
 
 I 
 II 
 12 
 16 
 17 
 17 
 21 
 21 
 22 
 24 
 26 
 
 27 
 29 
 
 31 
 
IV 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Sir Edwin Arnold ... ... ... ... ... 31 
 
 Miss Frances Power Cobbe ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 Mr. Henry Irving ... ... ... ... ... 33, 
 
 Dr. Gray ... ... ... ... ... .... 34 
 
 Mr. Kenyon ... ... ... ... ... 35 
 
 Mr. Moncure Conway ... ... ... ... 36 
 
 Kesub Chunder Sen ... ... ... ... 38 
 
 Bishop Oliphant ... ... ... ... ... 39 
 
 Bishop Thirlwall ... ... ... ... ... 40 
 
 Doctor Jowett ... ... ... ... ... 41 
 
 Dean Stanley ... ... ... ... ... 42 
 
 Miss Vincent ... ... ... ... ... 42 
 
 Odd Coincidences, etc. ... ... ... ... 43 
 
 ' Travellers Troubles ' ... ... ... ... 46 
 
 John Bull's French... ... ... ... ... 48 
 
 Rev. Mr. Symonds ... ... ... ... ... 49 
 
 Impersonation ... ... ... ... ... go 
 
 On Physiognomy ... ... ... ... ... 51 
 
 Cyfarthfa ... ... ... ... ... ... 53 
 
 Cremation 
 
 Sir Wm. Tite's Visit 
 
 55 
 
 An Illness ... ... ... ... ... 55 
 
 Ratiocination ... ... ... ... ... 61 
 
 Dr. Peyton Blakiston ... ... ... ... 62 
 
 64 
 
 ' Aunt Mary Wood ' ... ... ... ... Qa 
 
 L'Africaine ... ... ... ... ... 6= 
 
 Mr. Rawdon Brown ... ... ... ... eg 
 
 Mr. Gallenga ... ... ... ... ... gg 
 
 Prince Camille de Rohan ... ... ... ... gg 
 
 Sir Richard Owen ... ... ... ... ... jo 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson ... ... ... .... ^ 
 
 Lord and Lady Amberley ... ... ... ... yi 
 
 The Right Honourable Leonard Courtney ... ... 71 
 
 Finale ... ... ... ... ... ... ^2 
 
PREFACE TO SECOND THOUSAND. 
 
 In offering to the world a second edition, it is al- 
 ways well to be able to say " with new matter " — 
 and as the following courtesies of the press are 
 now "out of print," they will be virtually to 
 some persons " new matter." 
 
 One who has been "well abused" in the 
 noontide of life may be pardoned ; when at the 
 sunset hour the lights have changed, and 
 actions and even " fads " are judged by a 
 different standard ; if she yield to the egotistical 
 temptation of the following reprints. 
 
 It is hoped that the coloured ink and 
 variations in the size of type may render the 
 following pages easy reading tor aged eyes. 
 
J^ote;wopt5)J Men ancL Women 0^ Wale:^. 
 
 MRS. ROSE MARY CRAWSHAY. 
 
 By C. Wilkins, F.G.S. 
 
 In the spring of the year 1846, upon a fine May day, 
 there was a break in upon the dull monotony of life at 
 Merthyr. The sound of work, of the incessant blazing 
 fires, and of the thud of the huge hammers, and the 
 passing to and fro of the army of labour, many as black 
 as night, came to a welcome pause. And thousands 
 literally abandoned work and home, and thronged for 
 miles down the Cardiff Road, for the news had gone 
 forth that Mr. Robert Crawshay was coming home that 
 day, and bringing with him his bride. Few men were 
 more popular than the great ironmaster, and there was 
 a hearty desire to welcome him home. And, in ad- 
 dition, there was a certain spice of curiosity, not con- 
 fined altogether to the gentler sex, for the rumour was 
 that she was very beautiful, and would have adorned the 
 noblest house in the land. So down the road went the 
 thousands, some carrying stout cords. It was not 
 fitting, said they, that the master and his wife should 
 come by train. The carriage must be drawn by lusty 
 fellows, and the cheers of loyal-hearted men should 
 make the hills resound. And it was done. 
 
The boys of that day are old men now, apt to saunter 
 by the wayside and exchange recollections with familiar 
 friends. Few events in their lives outshine the grand 
 entry of that day. Mr. Crawshay with delight beaming 
 from his face ; she, waving hands more fair than it had 
 been the lot of our dusky Hebes to witness, herself 
 beautiful as a poet's dream. And around surged the 
 dense crowd, huzzaing, with one mighty volume, until 
 the castle was reached, and with parting thanks the 
 great event came to an end, and the night fell, and 
 voices of the multitude died away. The event was 
 followed by a good deal of rejoicing, balls and banquets. 
 In some of the old Merthyr houses engravings are yet 
 preserved of the grand ball, taken in honour of the 
 occasion, when the grandsires and grand-dames of the 
 present generation attended in the stiff fashion of the 
 day, and tripped it merrily, the workmen thronging 
 around the place not forgotten, and all delighted. Such 
 was the entry of Mrs. Rose Mary Crawshay into her 
 new home, and from thence until comparatively late 
 years she became a prominent figure in Merthyr life. 
 At our request, Mrs. Crawshay, who now only resides 
 amongst the hills in midsummer, has penned her early 
 recollections. It will be fitting that these precede the 
 notice of her Merthyr career. We give the reply as 
 received : — 
 
 " You ask me for some of jny earliest recollections^ 
 to begin with, will give you one still earlier ! viz., that 
 I was born on January 17th, 1828, at Horton Grove, 
 the whole country round being at that time submerged. 
 
and boats plying in the four-mile-off town of Windsor. 
 My godmother, a schoolfellow of my mother, and a 
 romantic spinster, would not tell what name she would 
 give me until the moment to ' name this child ' should 
 arrive. Then, in the drawing-room of my father's 
 house, our facetious rector, Dr. Brown, officiating, she 
 said ' Rose,' immediately followed by my father saying 
 ' Mary,' this being my mother's name, and it was imme- 
 diately bestowed on me under the form of ' Rosemary.' 
 
 "When the year came in which I should be taught 
 to read, this knowledge was imparted by the wife of my 
 father's commanding officer. Colonel Wood (but no 
 relation to Colonel Wood, of Stouthall). My daily 
 lesson over, 1 played in the grounds of the manor 
 house, and always at this hour I ascended one side of a 
 flight of white marble double steps, and as regularly on 
 the opposite side came up a beautiful white Persian cat 
 to greet me, and as the tip of her tail was invariably 
 the first of her that came into view, I, even at that 
 early age, thought it a convincing proof that the world 
 was round ; for had I not been taught that a proof of 
 this axiom is to be found in the top of a ship's mast 
 first showing on the horizon, and, combined with the 
 evidence given by Flufi's tail, what stronger proof could 
 be desired ? 
 
 " Years after, when poor pussy died, her kind master. 
 Colonel Wood, wrote her epitaph, which I have re- 
 membered ' all these years ' — 
 
 Reader, arrest your steps awhile, 
 Beneath this larch's shade, 
 
Nor let me see a passing smile. 
 That here poor puss is laid. 
 
 ' For thirteen years the mouse's foe 
 In larder, house, and stable, 
 She filled the world with kittens, too, 
 As long as she was able.' 
 
 " I remember my mother being beautiful, with a rose- 
 leaf complexion, to which what did duty for society 
 journals in that day, did full justice on the occasion 
 of the first Court ball at Brussels, at which she appeared. 
 We have no picture of her, for she had the immense 
 aversion to ' sitting ' that I have inherited, and there 
 was then no photography to come to the help of the 
 victim. A picture of her brother, whom I have heard 
 she resembled, bears a strong likeness to poor Chatter- 
 ton, the boy-poet and suicide. 
 
 " Later on, I had the dearest of nursery governesses, 
 a certain Miss Howis, a Leominster woman, who under 
 the roof of Admiral Smyth, my father's intimate and 
 early friend, had given their first literary bent to those 
 distinguished sons and daughters now known to the 
 world as Professor Piazzi Smyth, the late Sir Warring- 
 ton Smyth, Colonel Henry Smyth, the governor of 
 INIalta, Mrs. Baden Powell, Lady Flower, and poor 
 Mrs. Toynbee, who died some years ago. 
 
 " My mother died, alas ! when T was young — she 
 herself had been early an orphan, and was brought up 
 by an elder brother, who, even in those far away days, 
 held the heterodox view that women's brains would 
 as well repay cultivation as men's, and, therefore, he 
 had his young sister taught, not only Latin and Greek, 
 
but also the ' ninety-nine points of good husbandrie,' 
 and such matters. Years after, during her last long 
 illness, I saw always a shabby, small, dark brown 
 leather volume on the table by the sofa, where she re- 
 clined all day ; and with childish curiosity I peeped into 
 it. It was The Moral Philosopliie of the Stoicks, printed 
 in what I have since found was ' black letter.' I did 
 not get beyond the title page, but now would willingly 
 read more of that little book. 
 
 " My father, W. Wilson Yeates, a godson of the late 
 Sir Maryon Wilson, Bart., of Hampstead fame, never 
 took rank, as he married very young, and it was made 
 a sine qua non that he should then leave the army. He 
 was a handsome man, 6ft. 2in., and strikingly like 
 Leopold, the late King of the Belgians — so much so 
 that, finding all the military saluting him at Ostend one 
 day, he enquired the reason, and was told that he was 
 mistaken for the king. This was on the occasion of a 
 journey we took to Brussels, which we children greatly 
 enjoyed, my father travelling with his own horses from 
 Horton to that capital, where we lived on a beautiful 
 boulevard, the name of which I have forgotten. I say ' we 
 children,' but, alas, there were but two of us, for three 
 were left in Horton churchyard, and it was their loss 
 which broke our mother's heart. She died in London, 
 and two years later was replaced by the sweetest of step- 
 mothers, whose love for me was such that at a sorrow- 
 ful period of my life she wrote to me, ' Dear child and 
 friend.' I well remember the dismay with which I heard 
 of another member being added to our family, for in 
 
three years I had known the loss of my paternal grand- 
 father, three sisters, my mother, and a dear governess; 
 and I felt it might be one more to lose ! Miss Howis 
 died after a twelfth-night party given for us. We were 
 already in bed, and she went to the drawing-room to 
 wish my father ' good-night ; ' the candle tottered in 
 her hand, and she fell dead. We never saw her again 
 — not even were we allowed to look on the face of 
 
 "The dead 
 Ere the first day of darkness had fled, 
 The first dark day of nothingness, 
 The last of gloom and of distress." 
 
 " The next morning the maids kept perpetually draw- 
 ing down blinds as fast as I pulled them up, and my 
 godmother came and spent a long day with us lonely 
 children, and tol3 us what had happened ! 
 
 " When my mother died, it was unknown to us until 
 we went through the usual formula in our prayers, which 
 I daresay still holds good in families of children : — 
 ' God bless my dear father and mother and brother 
 and sister, and make us good children.' Then the maid 
 said, ' You mustn't pray for your poor mother any more, 
 Miss Rose, for she is gone to heaven.' 
 
 " When I was fifteen, we went to live at Caversham 
 Grove, ten minutes walk from Caversham Park, and 
 the two families became very intimate. At the Christ- 
 mas Reading County Ball, two years later — that being 
 my ' first ball ' — 1 danced mj' first quadrille with my 
 husband that was to be ; and on May 23rd, 1846, when 
 I was eighteen, for his sake the kindly Merthyr folk and 
 
all the working people of the district gave us a brilliant 
 reception. Among the sorrows of widowhood came the 
 regret that my life would no longer be spent among 
 them ; for, though on many lines my thoughts and ways 
 were not theirs, still they did not hate me, and I loved 
 them." 
 
 There is a melancholy refrain in the closing sentences 
 which will touch the hearts of many an old friend and 
 co-worker intellectually in the Merthyr district. But 
 let us take up the thread, and note the prominent 
 characteristics exhibited in the after years. For some 
 time Mrs. Crawshay took little part outside of her home 
 life. Yet it was soon apparent to those with whom she 
 came in contact that, mentally, her standard was a high 
 one, and far above the average of ordinary women. 
 She craved something more than the mental supplies 
 which satisfy the majority, the railway series, the three 
 volume novel, where incidents are like the ringing of 
 changes and the denonement is " happy ever afterwards." 
 This, by the way, is not stated in an unkind or sarcastic 
 spirit, for, seeing the miseries which so often crowd 
 upon the girl-wife and the mother, it is no wonder that 
 they seek in fiction what is rarely found in fact. 
 
 Mrs. Crawshay was solicited to become a member of 
 the first school board at Merthyr, and it may be cited, 
 without any disrespect to the successive boards formed 
 up to this day, that it was the most important of any. 
 Mr. G. T. Clark, himself a host, was there ; the Rev. F. 
 Sonley Johnstone, afterwards for many years editor of 
 the Sovth Wales Daily Neivs; the Rev. ohn Griffith, 
 
rector of Merthyr; Father Miller; Mr. C. H. James, 
 subsequently M.P. for Merthyr ; such were a few of 
 Jilrs. Crawshay's colleagues on the board, and the great 
 task they had to grapple with was successfully managed. 
 In 1872 "Euthanasia" had appeared from the pen of 
 S. D. Williams, jun., with a preface from Mrs. Craw- 
 shay. During Mrs. Crawshay's absence in town an 
 anonymous letter was published in the Western Mail 
 giving garbled extracts from the pamphlet, and con- 
 demning the action of a member of the board for circu- 
 lating it. Upon her return she took an early oppor- 
 tunity of bringing the subject before the board, and 
 avowing the part she had taken. There was no con- 
 cealment. The work was "Euthanasia." She was 
 the member who lent it, and her eloquent advocacy at 
 the time was long remembered. Its drift, she said, " is 
 to consider whether much useless suffering might not be 
 spared if it were made legal for doctors, in cases of 
 hopeless and agonizing illness, at the earnest desire of 
 the patient, to put within his reach such anaesthetics as 
 would assuage pain, even though at the cost of shorten- 
 ing life. Vindicating herself at the board, she as vigor- 
 ously assailed her anonymous opponent in the Western 
 Mail. One or two extracts will be of interest. She 
 could not endorse all the remarks in " Euthanasia." 
 " I could wish some of them absent, but the grains of 
 gold are abundant enough to render the ore worth sifting, 
 and the author, as the first to break the ground, I 
 believe, at the present time, deserves the heartfelt 
 thanks of those who, like myself, have had their feel- 
 
ings harrowed by the sight of lingering, agonizing, 
 hopeless disease, lasting through days and nights, weeks 
 and months, of such misery as cannot be conceived 
 unless seen." 
 
 Again, " With regard to the religious aspect of the 
 question, believing, as I do, in a perfectly just God — I 
 see no make-weight for the happy immunity enjoyed 
 by the lower animals in ignorance of their fatal doom, ex- 
 cept the power man has, when life becomes intolerable 
 through anguish and hunger or disease, to lay it down. 
 And I can conceive life's weary pilgrim turning for rest 
 to the '■ Everlasting arms ' with as little misgiving as 
 the tired child when it throws itself to sleep on its 
 mother's breast." 
 
 Able as was her vindication, and accepted by the best 
 intellects around her, it may naturally be understood 
 that the popular opinion was against her. She was so 
 high above the level that, beyond a small circle, it 
 might be stated that there was little sympathy between 
 her and women critics especially, for what interest does 
 woman, as a rule man's helpmate, and in the old Welsh 
 homes regarded in the light of primitive Scriptural days 
 — Miriam, Leah — take in the evolution theory : in 
 the advance during countless ages from the monad to 
 man, in the possible inference from the relation of 
 physical forces to the analogy with the spiritual ; in 
 the revelations which year after year grow upon us 
 from the starry world, suggesting other histories and 
 dynasties, and higher advanced culture to our own in 
 the luminous globes which fill vast space even into the 
 
10 
 
 limitless profound. Briefly, none. To her all subjects 
 of high mental speculation had a charm, though, like the 
 line of the horizon " lurking from afar, even as we 
 follow," and realisation flies. 
 
 Cremation again she advocated, and this, too, was 
 not in accord with pubhc sentiment, though no one can 
 deny that we are fast trending to it. She could not 
 again understand why, in the light of strong Christian 
 faith possessed by the Welsh people, there should be so 
 much sorrow exhibited at funerals. The saddened face, 
 the black cloth, the sombre weeds, the darkened rooms. 
 " Draw up the blinds," she said, " and let sunshine 
 into your rooms. Such an exchange from a life of 
 trouble to the light of immortality should be a subject 
 of rejoicing more than of sorrow." 
 
 Her great aims in these and other directions were to 
 brush away narrow conceits and primitive prejudices 
 and improve her generation. She started reading- 
 rooms all over the district and supplied them with 
 popular, as well as advanced, literature. It was pos- 
 sible for a thoughtful collier or ironworker to know of 
 Darwin, of Herbert Spencer, of Justice Grove, and 
 other great minds, and others, too, not confined simply 
 to those of our own country. But here, again, she was 
 with us a generation or two too soon. We have lived 
 to see great progress even in the " IronopoHs," and still 
 the mass of the people are satisfied to band together 
 against the introduction of a free library both at 
 Merthyr and Aberdare, and a large section clings yet to 
 old habits. It was no wonder that with such advanced 
 
mental aims Mrs. Crawshay mixed amongst the most hon- 
 oured literary coteries in London, and Cyfarthfa Castle, 
 when she was at home, was the favoured scene of visits 
 by men of rank in the guild of learning. Mr. Justice 
 Grove, famous amongst profound thinkers for his great" 
 work on the Correlation of the Physical Forces, may be 
 named as one ; poets, sculptors, painters, essayists of 
 our own and of distant lands. To ourselves it will 
 always be a subject of regret that when Emerson visited 
 Cyfarthfa Castle an invitation to meet him came to us 
 when too far away to return in time. Mrs. Crawshay had too 
 strong a liking for literary and scientific pursuits to pass 
 by the humblest in position, and one of her principal 
 friends — a good botanist and astronomer, and one of the 
 best descriptive speakers we ever met, was nothing 
 more than a grocer in a small way — Thomas Norbury 
 about whom some day she will tell the world. 
 
 Her Merthyr life was abruptly marked by the death 
 of her husband, Mr. Robert Crawshay, who had suc- 
 ceeded his father, ^Ir. William Crawshay, in the proud 
 position of the Iron King, and from the date of her 
 widowhood the link with the district was almost severed. 
 On one occasion Cyfarthfa, for a brief time, renewed 
 its old glories, when one of the learned societies visited 
 Cardiff, and became her guests, and then the gloom fell 
 heavier after the event, by contrast, and now the old 
 residence stands out coldly, the white image of death, 
 for the soul has fled ! 
 
 Now and then ]Mrs. Crawshay is heard of by a stray 
 note in some literary journal, either dated from a mid- 
 
12 
 
 summer resort in Gwent, or from the South of France 
 or Italy, and an occasional notice is in the form of a 
 periodical offer of prizes to women essayists for the best 
 essay on Byron, Shelley or other poets. And it would 
 not be just to forget that, in times of stress, of suffering 
 amongst the poor, whom she once knew, in times ot 
 personal suffering, or of great inclemency of weather, 
 she never fails to express her sympathy in the best prac- 
 tical way. Far better at such a time than the pathos of 
 a tender voice, or the eloquent expression of regret by 
 letter in the case of misfortune and poverty, is the 
 talisman of help which brightens the sorrows of a 
 humble home. 
 
13 
 
 I 
 MRS. CRAWSHAY OF CYFARTHFA. 
 
 From "The Queen" Newspaper, March 5th, 1892, with large 
 first page portrait. 
 
 Mrs. Rose Mary Crawshay {ncc Yeates), whose 
 name is indissolubly linked with nearly every 
 movement for the benefit of women, is at Mentone, 
 where her cheery room overlooks the vast purple 
 bay of that pleasant watering-place. Her window 
 commands the richly wooded point of Cap Martin, 
 over which the white breakers toss like fountains. of 
 snow when the mistral blows, and the broad 
 gardens of the Hotel, full of oranges and lemons, 
 palm trees, and roses — a strange contrast this 
 winter to the fell fogs of London town. Mrs. 
 Crawshay, after a life of extreme activity, has well 
 earned her rest, and her winters are now spent on 
 the Riviera for the sake of her health. In the 
 " season" she is again seen in the thick of what 
 we oddly call society — which stands, in her opinion, 
 for noise, fatigue, shuffling of elbows, and drowning 
 
of voices with vacuous utterance — but not for long 
 at a time, since the first letter of Crawshay stands 
 for Common-sense. 
 
 Mrs. Crawshay is probably best known by her 
 lady-help project — an effort to enable women of 
 birth in impoverished circumstances to gain a live- 
 lihood. The word "lady-help" is her own. 
 Such unfortunate ladies at one time flooded 
 England. Not sufficiently educated to become 
 governesses, and not clever enough to push their 
 way without capital in any business requiring skill 
 or experience, crowds of ladies, reduced by the loss 
 of father or husband, were still eager to maintain 
 themselves honestly, and plucky enough not to 
 shrink before even menial duties, if by such 
 means they might help their sicklier sisters, 
 mothers, or children. It was Mrs. Crawshay who 
 first recognised the necessity of doing something 
 for this large and somewhat uninteresting, but 
 greatly-to-be-pitied, class of women. She observed 
 with terror the enormous preponderance of womeil 
 over men in this country, the growing disinclina- 
 tion to allow women to compete with men in 
 commerce, and the few choked avenues of industry 
 possible to respectable women ; and knowing how 
 many (and how naturally) women occupy their 
 
15 
 
 hands in their own homes in domestic work with- 
 out an)' loss of self-respect, Mrs. Crawshay formed 
 a plan for placing competent women as lady-helps 
 in the houses of persons kindly enough not to 
 render the position unbearable. She opened an 
 office in London in which ladies could be engaged 
 as upper and under helps in cooking, house work, 
 and nursing, and described her views very temper- 
 ately in her book, " Domestic Service for Gentle- 
 women," much on the same lines as those which 
 gained Mr. Ruskin so much kudos when he set the 
 Oxford undergraduates to road-making. No one 
 is degraded by the labour of his hands ; and the 
 hands help the head. 
 
 Considerable discussion in the chief London 
 journal ; much cheap derision and foolish opposi- 
 tion followed the lady-help movement, as it follows 
 all good work on novel lines. The precedent of 
 Pepys and his sister was quoted ; the country rang 
 with the lady-help cry. There was not a paper in 
 the United Kingdom that had not something to 
 say about Mrs. Crawshay, her book, and her 
 scheme. Its success may be described in her own 
 words, showing that it possessed a solid business 
 basis: " The first two years my office was open it 
 cost me /^200 per annum ; the next two years it 
 
 B 
 
i6 
 
 cost £ioo per annum ; the two years after, £^o per 
 annum ; and at the end of eight years it was on 
 the brink of paying its expenses, when I gave it up. 
 Not wishing to compete with those who gain their 
 livings by registry offices, and finding it quite able to 
 run alone, I made it over to the lady who had been 
 my superintendent for the whole eight years — Mrs. 
 Houston Smith — who 'placed' hundreds of poor 
 ladies at good wages in permanent situations, very 
 few proving failures. She still carries on the 
 business at 62, Regent Street, joining to it a 
 regular registry for governesses and ordinarj- 
 servants." The movement, however, sustained a 
 severe shock by the withdrawal of its " headpiece," 
 and, the world having awakened to the vital 
 necessity of providing new avenues for the employ- 
 ment of women, there was gradually less need on 
 the part of ladies to enter that particular position. 
 Thus, if the office for lady-helps has latterly 
 diminished in usefulness and popularity, that is 
 perhaps the most satisfactory result of Mrs. 
 Crawshay's long and patient efforts. There are 
 evidently no longer the same crowds of impecu- 
 nious and untrained gentlewomen, and Mrs. 
 Crawshay has been the means of carrying women's 
 work and women's ambition to higher departments 
 
17 
 
 than domestic service, by educating the public and 
 by convincing men of the determination and 
 capacity of M^omen to gain their hving honestly. 
 At the same time, Mrs. Houston Smith states that 
 the public have now so much better a conception 
 of Mrs. Crawshay's once Quixotic scheme, that 
 she can place comfortably any number of gentle- 
 women competent to undertake domestic service, 
 but happily few are now compelled by the misery 
 of their position to undertake it. 
 
 ]\Irs. Cravvshay's public work was superadded to 
 the onerous responsibilities of an important county 
 position. She married in 1846, when she was 
 barely eighteen, the well-known iron master, Mr. 
 Robert Crawshay, of Cyfarthfa, Merthyr Tidvil. 
 Many a girl at that childish age, and in the 
 full stream of social life, would have had few 
 ideas beyond her beautiful home and her personal 
 pleasures. Rose Mary Crawshay was only 
 eighteen when she formed a soup kitchen with the 
 relics of what servants commonly waste in large 
 establishments. Three times a week all the most 
 needy of Cefn and adjoining villages were allowed 
 to attend by ticket — about thirty each day— and 
 for thirty-three years, until, on Mr. Crawshay's 
 death, she gave up Cyfarthfa Castle to her eldest 
 
son, this excellent charity continued. Otfer 
 admirable schemes she set on foot. She started a 
 cutting-out class for the girls, to teach them to 
 make their own clothes, by means of Times news- 
 papers, using the lines of type to show the right 
 way of the threads. Mrs. Crawshay was 
 astonished when she found her class attended by a 
 number of small dressmakers, and on enquiring 
 " Wh}- ? " she was told, " Because you teach us 
 more in two lessons than we learn in a quarter 
 from the dressmakers in the trade, who try to keep 
 us back." 
 
 She instituted free readings, with songs and 
 recitations, long before the now popular Penny 
 Readings were thought of, in a great room to 
 which she had laid on gas from Merthyr at a cost 
 
 She opened seven free libraries within a radius 
 of two miles ofCyfarthfa Castle, eight years before 
 the Birmingham Free Library created so much 
 attention. These were always open on Sundays 
 as well as week days, and books were allowed to 
 be taken home. A librarian attached to each, 
 fires, lamps, with draughts and such like games, 
 rendered the annual cost no small matter, added 
 to which the minor graces were not forgotten ; cut 
 
19 
 
 flowers were constantly provided, which the poor 
 people were delighted to take home at night. 
 
 Beyond all these and similar local interests, 
 among which must not be forgotten the constant 
 training of young Welsh girls for domestic service 
 at Cyfarthfa, Mrs. Crawshay's active mind was 
 ever in advance of her surroundings. There is 
 hardly any subject of national importance bearing 
 on the interests of women, the Suffrage, the 
 population question, sanitation, marriage reform, 
 the School Board, &c., which Mrs. Crawshay was 
 not one of the first to study and to discuss. Nor 
 must it be forgotten how, at the commencement of 
 the School Board system, Mrs. Crawshay was the 
 first woman elected. She served simultaneously 
 on two boards, being president of one board for 
 eight years, and member of another for three. 
 
 Again, her endowment of the Poetic Memorial 
 Fund for the encouragement of a fuller study of 
 the beauties of our native poets, and her handsome 
 annual prizes for the best Essay on Byron, Shelley, 
 and Keats, are in themselves a sufficient answer to 
 any doubt whether she favours the higher educa- 
 tion of her own sex. 
 
 Mrs. Crawshay's unremitting labours have at 
 last somewhat injured her once robust health and 
 
20 
 
 indomitable spirit. But she is still the ready 
 friend of all who are trying to do good. Her bent 
 is now chiefly scientific, and her purse is open to 
 all who desire to help her in her endless projects 
 to ameliorate the position of the poor, and to draw 
 them out of the slough of superstition and unprofi- 
 table toil. In a position of great wealth and 
 influence, often so trying to human character, and 
 subversive of instincts of self-sacrifice, Mrs. 
 Crawshay has spent her strength and energy 
 continually for the comfort and happiness of others, 
 and, if later workers have come into the field and 
 reaped an equal, or a greater, reward, it is because 
 Mrs. Crawshay's courage and initiative first 
 showed them the way. 
 
 Our portrait is taken from a photograph by Van 
 der We3'de, 182, Regent Street, W. 
 
21 
 
 INTERVIEW. 
 MRS. ROSE MARY CRAWSHAY. 
 
 Bv Mrs. Haweis. 
 
 Mrs. Rose Mary Crawshay, of Lady-help celebrity, 
 and one of the most enlightened pioneers of woman's 
 
 emancipation, is staying at a handsome Hotel 
 
 at Mentone, where most of her winters are now 
 spent. A life of extraordinary activity, both in public 
 and private, has somewhat injured her once magnificent 
 store of health, and the quiet and beauty of the Riviera 
 draw her now away from the madding crowd, except for 
 a short time during the London season. 
 
 The benevolent scheme to find permanent employ- 
 ment for that large — fifteen years ago far larger — class 
 of women vaguely called reduced gentlewomen, brought 
 Mrs. Crawshay's name into enormous prominence- 
 When her book. Domestic Service for Gentlewomen, came 
 out, and her office for the supply of lady-helps opened 
 in Lower Seymour Street, there was probably not a 
 single newspaper in the United Kingdom that had not 
 some leader or paragraph or other comments upon the 
 extraordinary project. There was not a drawing-room, 
 club, or office, where the possibiHty and propriety of 
 women of birth, who could do nothing else for a liveli- 
 
22 
 
 hood, performing domestic services for a fixed salary, 
 was not discussed. And the thing "worked." Mrs. 
 Crawshay had had thirty years' experience in her 
 beautiful Welsh home, Cyfarthfa Castle, of the servant 
 difficulty. She had found that even ordinary housework, 
 and certainly cookery and nursing, were better done 
 and not worse done on a basis of education and refine- 
 ment. And as she began to place numerous gentle- 
 women (loo during the first few months) successfully in 
 houses of standing, and they did their work well, and 
 stayed long, without any loss of self-respect, the first 
 shout of derision of the lady-helps died into applause 
 and admiration. 
 
 At that time there were far fewer openings for women 
 than now, whilst their preponderance in numbers over 
 the men in the United Kingdom was very alarming. 
 There was a strong prejudice against every new outlet 
 in commerce. Yet what was to become of the hale, 
 active daughters of unsuccessful professional men — 
 girls who had lost their bread-winners by death, desertion 
 or what not — who had got to live, but who were not 
 educated enough to be governesses (and indeed there is 
 not an endless demand for governesses) nor competent 
 to run businesses alone ? Why should they not do for 
 a salary what most of them do at home when they could 
 not afford servants ? What many American ladies do 
 by choice rather than be ill-served by coarse and 
 ignorant immigrants ? Why not, indeed ? They turned 
 to, and did it. Many lady-helps are still happily and 
 wholesomely occupied ; many a mother is well-served 
 
23 
 
 and comfortable through Mrs. Crawshay's Agency. 
 Although it began as a charity, it had a sound business 
 basis. 
 
 " The first two years my office was opened," said Mrs. 
 Crawshay, " it cost me ^200 a year. The second two 
 years it cost me ;£'ioo a year. The next two years 
 only £"50 a year ; and in the eighth year it was on the 
 brink of paying its expenses when I gave it up, not 
 wishing to enter into unfair competition with those who 
 gained their living by keeping registry offices. I fdt 
 sure that it could run alone, and I gave it over to Mrs. 
 Houston Smith, who had been my superintendent for the 
 whole eight years. Though the office apparently re- 
 ceived a check by my withdrawal, it still exists, and is 
 carried on by the same lady at 62, Regent Street, com- 
 bined with a registry for governesses and for the ordinary 
 class of servant." 
 
 If the lady-help office is no longer as popular and 
 useful as it was some years ago, this is perhaps the 
 greatest result of Mrs. Crawshay's effort in the cause of 
 her fellow women. There are no doubt but a few gentle- 
 women now whose misery forces them into domestic 
 service. There are more openings for energy and skill 
 amongst the "majority," and public opinion has altered 
 very much for the better owing to the extraordinary 
 success of women's undertakings. All this is largely 
 owing to Mrs. Crawshay's enterprise and initiative, and 
 the publicity into which her charities brought the melan- 
 choly condition of half-educated ladies. Schooling itself 
 is on a better footing, and all women are more industrious 
 
24 
 
 and more independent, and competing successfully with 
 men in a thousand lines of life. But Mrs. Crawshay 
 taught the public the first practical lesson which we 
 should take to heart, viz., that any independence is pre- 
 ferable to starving on charity, and that no honest 
 honourable work can degrade the doer. 
 
 Whilst giving up so much of her time to the public 
 good, Mrs. Crawshay neglected no private duty, and as 
 she presided during her husband's life-time over an im- 
 mense establishment, Cyfarthfa Castle, attached to the 
 celebrated Steel Works near Merthyr, her domestic 
 occupations would have sufficed to occupy the energies 
 of any ordinary woman. She early organised her house- 
 hold with the utmost skill and method from kitchen to 
 garret. Her numerous servants had all their duties 
 planned and made plain to them by written lists. She 
 began to train, in addition, the rough Welsh girls be- 
 longing to the poorer classes on the estate, and we all 
 know what such a course involves. She instituted a 
 soup kitchen for the very poor of the surrounding 
 country, with that which is usually wasted by servants 
 in great houses. Three times a week thirty accredited 
 poor persons presented themselves, and Mrs. Crawshay 
 began to rejoice in the hearty looks of those in the 
 parish whom she so helped without pauperising. It is 
 remarkable in some degree that so young a girl (Mrs. 
 Crawshay became mistress of Cyfarthfa Castle at only 
 eighteen), extremely handsome, greatly admired, bercee 
 in every luxury and offered every temptation that could 
 turn her head and incline her to forget everything but 
 
25 
 
 her own pleasure — should so readily have seen the 
 responsibilities belonging to a great position, and 
 have continued so, steadily to try and share with 
 others her health, her enjoyments and her time and 
 strength. 
 
 Added to the usual domestic regime, Mrs. Crawshay's 
 time was straitened by the deafness of her husband. 
 Mr. Robert T. Crawshay, ironmaster, lost his hearing 
 whilst still a young man, and for nineteen years his 
 wife had to impart every kind of information and ex- 
 planation by writing. Nevertheless she dispensed a 
 large hospitality, as was natural in her place. She 
 brought up, educated, and married a family. But the 
 vast staff of workmen and their wives were not forgotten. 
 Excursions for them, entertainments for them, prizes, 
 education, refinements for them were all organised by 
 Mrs. Crawshay. 
 
 The women largely occupied her heart, though the 
 men were not forgotten. She established a cutting-out 
 class to teach girls how to make their own garments, 
 presiding o\-er it herself, and using the sheets of the 
 Times newspaper, the type of which indicated the way 
 which the threads should take. Even dressmakers 
 began to attend this class, and when Mrs. Crawshay 
 enquired the reason she was told, " because we learn 
 more from you in two lessons than we learn in the trade 
 in a whole quarter. The big dressmakers try to keep 
 us back." 
 
 Then she began to hold meetings at which she spoke 
 and lectured, to support the Suffrage for women, and to 
 
26 
 
 teach the women what were their rights, their wrongs, 
 and the redress possible, for themselves and their 
 children. This was as early as 1867. It is extraordinary 
 that the supineness and want of enterprise among the 
 mass of Englishwomen has left them still content to be 
 of no account, still unrepresented " cattle " — twenty-five 
 years after. 
 
 She opened seven free libraries within a radius of two 
 miles round Cyfarthfa Castle, eight years before the 
 Birmingham Free Library created so much attention. 
 They were open Sunday and week-days, books were 
 allowed to be taken away, and fresh flowers, weekly 
 supplied from the Castle, were also given to the 
 poor members, who were delighted to carry them 
 away. 
 
 Readings, recitations, music, lectures on all subjects, 
 from politics and the Suffrage to Astronomy and Puss 
 in Boots, with dissolving views and magic lantern slides, 
 were provided in the great IMerthyr Drill fiall, with gas, 
 fires, lamps, games, and the necessary attendants, all at 
 Mrs. Crawshay's expense. The magic lantern " plant " 
 alone cost £^^0. Mr. Crawshay allowed four of his own 
 private band to attend. 
 
 Long before the Cremation Society of England was 
 started, Mrs. Crawshay was taking the chair at Merthyr 
 Debating Society on cremation. She was one of the 
 first members of the Society established by Sir Henry 
 Thompson, Sir Spencer Wells, Rev. H. R. Haweis and 
 a few others, and on the council from beginning, at a 
 cost of several hundred pounds. She has been in the 
 
27 
 
 forefront in all scientific and national movements, 
 especially when they affected the position of her own 
 sex, and this with exemplary modesty, whilst never 
 failing in the courage of her opinions when need arose, 
 and never checked in what she believed to be right by 
 cavil or criticism. Even when Mr. Crawshay, himself, 
 shrank before the incon\eniences entailed by her train- 
 ing of lady-helps, and complained to her, " My dear, I 
 hear that Cyfarthfa Castle is being called the Refuge 
 for the Destitute." 
 
 " Nor could Cyfarthfa havea grander title," exclaimed 
 this excellent woman, and she pursued her noble work 
 in unshaken confidence and patience. 
 
 At the commencement of the School Board system, 
 Mrs. Crawshay was the first woman elected, and with 
 extraordinary energy she served on two Boards 
 simultaneously, being Chairman of one (X'aynor) for 
 eight years, and member of the other (Merthyr) for 
 three. 
 
 This, and the fact that for many years she had been 
 perpetually encouraging a study of literature amongst 
 women by gi^'ing annual prizes for the best essaj^ by a 
 woman on Byron, Shelley, Keats, &c., ought to dispose 
 of the stupid allegation, sometimes brought up against 
 her in return for her efforts for lady-helps, that she 
 wanted to keep women subordinate by making them 
 become domestic servants. 
 
 These prizes, and the annual competition for them, 
 scarcely receive adequate public attention, although 
 competitors increase year by year. The ''Byron, Shelley 
 
28 
 
 Keats, In Memonam yearly prizes " were instituted in 1882, 
 and in 1888, the centenary of Lord Byron's birth, Mrs. 
 Crawshay made them a Trust in the hands of William 
 M. Rossetti, and Charles Hancock, of 125, Queen's 
 Gate, in the hope of their remaining a perpetual act of 
 homage to the three great English poets ; and endowed 
 the Trust to the amount of ;^2,500. 
 
 Mrs. Crawshay employs a paid examiner to select for 
 her twice the number of essays that she has prizes to 
 give; and the final decision rests with herself. In 1891 
 about 150 essayists competed, but in the course of seven 
 years only twice have the recipients of prizes been in 
 the slightest degree known to Mrs. Crawshay. There 
 is therefore no fear that favouritism will carry the 
 day. 
 
 In 1892, in addition to the usual essay prizes, Mrs. 
 Crawshay (or her executors) will give three prizes of 
 ^20, ;^io, and £^, for the best original oil paintings of 
 incidents in the lives of Byron, Shelley, or Keats, or of 
 places they have inhabited — -to be painted of course by 
 women, and women of any nation. I could wish that 
 so excellent an example were followed by dozens 
 of women as rich as Mrs. Crawshay, who have 
 women's interests at heart, but who seldom hit upon a 
 means of encouragement and culture so good and so 
 wise. 
 
 That Mrs. Crawshay's career has been a very note- 
 worthy one, no one can doubt, especially if we remember 
 how much more difficult thirty years ago, were move- 
 ments such as many which Mrs. Crawshay headed or 
 
2g 
 
 supported very warmly in their budding stage. Her 
 untiring energy, her insatiable desire for knowledge, 
 truth and freedom, her far-seeing generosity, and kind- 
 ness, are a model for all womanhood, and the un- 
 answerable excuse for biographies of such women, and 
 published interviews with them in which they speak for 
 themselves, is, that the knowledge of what other people 
 have done and can do is an incentive to the languid and 
 the ignorant, and may arouse the most thoughtless to a 
 sense of how theytoo may help their country and their 
 kind. 
 
 From the " Woman's Herald" March igth, 1892. 
 
PREFACE TO FIRST THOUSAND. 
 
 In 1888, the centenary of Lord Byron's birth, Mrs. 
 Crawshay endowed her prizes to the amount of ^"2, 500. 
 On the 19th of April, being the sixty-fourth anniversary 
 of the poet's death, the trust deed was signed by W^ilHam 
 Michael Rossetti, Esq., 5, Endesleigh Gardens, Presi- 
 dent of the Shelley Society; Charles Hancock, Esq., 
 125, Queen's Gate; Arthur Spokes, Esq., 5, Pump 
 Court, Barrister-at-Law ; and by herself ; in the hope 
 that this trust may remain an ever-recurring act of 
 homage to the genius of Byron, of Shelley, and of 
 Keats. On this subject in a letter (1889), Mr. Robert 
 Browning thus kindly expressed himself : — 
 
 " I have long been aware of your love for the poets 
 and your munificence towards the' women who study so 
 as to intelligently honour them. Well done, says very 
 heartily, dear Mrs. Crawshay, yours, Robert Browning." 
 
 I am kindly permitted to quote a few words written 
 to me in 1890 by Mr. Frederic Harrison : — 
 
 "The girls' essays are excellent . . . shew sur- 
 prising thought. You must be gratified to feel that 
 your effort has met with success." 
 
 In 1890 prizes were taken by Dutch, German, and 
 New Zealand ladies. 
 
 The Prizes for 1894 will be as follows: — 
 
 Shelley's " Mont Blanc." — ist Prize £10 ; 2nd Prize 
 
 £5- 
 
 Shelley's " Letter to Maria Gisborne." — ist Prize 
 ;^io ; 2nd Prize £^. 
 
31 
 
 Byron's "The Prophecy of Dante." — ist Prize £^ ; 
 2nd Prize £7. los. 
 
 Byron's " The Morgante Maggiore." — ist Prize 
 £'^ ; 2nd Prize £2 los. 
 
 Byron's " Hints from Horace." — ist Prize £^ ; 2nd 
 Prize £2 IDS. 
 
 Byron's " The Devil's Drive." — ist Prize £^ ; 2nd 
 Prize £2 I OS. 
 
 Keats' " SoN'NETS " (20). — One Prize £^. 
 
 Mrs. Crawshay employs a paid examiner to select for 
 her twice the number of essays for which she has prizes 
 to give ; so that the final decision rests with herself, and 
 only thrice has it happened, during eight years, that the 
 recipients of prizes were even in the slightest degree 
 known to her. The rejected essays are not usually seen 
 by Mrs. Crawshay, which must be her excuse to friends 
 and acquaintances, who may have been surprised at the 
 return of their writings without a word of regret at their 
 non-success. These essays are mostly returned to the 
 authors .corrected, with the excellent result that after 
 several trials writers have succeeded in winning prizes. 
 
 Six ladies took Mrs. Crawshay's prizes for paintings. 
 
 Essays to he sent in before June ist, 1895, to Mrs. Rose 
 Mary Crawshay, Cathedine, Bwlch, Breconshire. 
 
 Prizes awarded in August, 1895. 
 
 Essays not to exceed 10 pages of 21 lines in length. 
 Only one side of the paper to be written on. 
 
 A narrow margin to be left. Pages to be numbered. 
 
 The writer's name and address, in full, to be written 
 on the back of the last page, also Christian name. 
 
 Pages to be fastened together with a metal clip on 
 the left-hand corner at the top. 
 
 Competitors may send in essays on all the subjects, 
 but cannot be awarded more than one^;'s^ prize. 
 
 Essays will be returned to those competitors only 
 who enclose a stamped and addressed cover. 
 
3^ 
 
 The subject of each essay to be named outside the 
 wrapper in which it is posted singly. 
 
 Essays may be typed if desired. 
 
 Winners of prizes are disqualified from taking prizes in after 
 years. 
 
 " Domestic Service for Gentlewomen," by R. M. 
 Crawshay, two plates, is. 
 
 " Euthanasia," by S. D. Williams. With preface 
 and thesis by R. M. Crawshay, is. 
 
 THE PRAYER OF NATURE. 
 
 Father of Light 1 great God of Heaven 1 
 Hear'st thou the accents of despair ? 
 
 Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven ? 
 Can vice atone for crimes by prayer ? 
 
 Father of Light, on Thee I call I 
 Thou see'st my soul is dark within ; 
 
 Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall, 
 Avert from me the death of sin. 
 
 No shrine I seek, to sects unknown ; 
 
 Oh point to me the path of truth I 
 Thy dread omnipotence I own ; 
 
 Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth. 
 
 Let bigots rear a gloomy fane, 
 
 Let superstition hail the pile. 
 Let priests, to spread their sable reign. 
 
 With tales of mystic rights beguile. 
 
 Shall man confine his Maker's sway 
 To Gothic domes of mouldering stone ? 
 
 Thy temple is the face of day ; 
 
 Earth, ocean, heaven. Thy boundless throne. 
 
 Shall man condemn his race to hell 
 Unless they bend in pompous form ; 
 
 Tell us that all, for one who fell. 
 Must perish in the mingling storm ? 
 
33 
 
 Shall each pretend to reach the skies 
 
 Yet doom his brother to expire, 
 Whose soul a different hope supplies, 
 
 Or doctrines less severe inspire ? 
 
 Shall these, by creeds they can't expound, 
 
 Prepare a fancied bliss or woe ? 
 Shall reptiles grovelling on the ground. 
 
 Their great Creator's purpose know ? 
 
 Shall those who live for self alone, 
 Whose years float on in daily crime — 
 
 Shall they by faith for guilt atone, 
 And live beyond the bounds of time ? 
 
 Father ! no prophet's laws I seek, — 
 Tliy laws in Nature's works appear — 
 
 I own myself corrupt and weak. 
 Yet will I pray, for Thou wilt hear ! 
 
 Thou, who canst guide the wandering star 
 Through trackless realms of sether's space ; 
 
 Who calm'stthe elemental war, 
 
 Whose hand from pole to pole I trace. 
 
 Thou, who in wisdom placed me here. 
 
 Who, when Thou wilt, canst take me hence, 
 
 Ah ! whilst I tread this earthly sphere, 
 Extend to me Thy wide defence. 
 
 To Thee, my God, to Thee I call 1 
 
 Whatever weal or woe betide, 
 By Thy command I rise or fall, 
 
 In Thy protection I confide. 
 
 If, when this dust to dust's restored. 
 
 My soul shall float on airy wing. 
 How shall Thy glorious name adored 
 
 Inspire her feeble voice to sing 1 
 
 But, if this fleeting spirit share 
 With clay the grave's eternal bed, 
 
 While life yet throbs I raise my prayer. 
 Though doom'd no more to quit the dead. 
 
 To Thee I breathe my humble strain, 
 
 Grateful for all Thy mercies past. 
 And hope, my God^ to Thee again 
 
 This erring life may fly at last. 
 
 Dec. 29th, 1805. Byron. 
 
34 
 
 No apology is needed for reprinting a poem which, 
 though now as much behind the hour of scepticism in 
 England as it was when written in advance of the hour 
 of orthodoxy, must still have its charm for fashionable 
 " Theosophists " in a day when the late Poet Laureate 
 has written : — 
 
 " Many a planet by many a sun may roll; 
 With the dust of a vanished race."* 
 
 Up to my eighteenth year I revelled in poetry. Then 
 came marriage, with life's work-day hours ; but in age 
 I have returned to my " First Love ", and find in poetry 
 the best solace for what time has taken away. It is 
 as the luxuriant " aftermath " or as "clouds of. glory 
 trailing " ; showing in the sunset hour, " Isles of the 
 Blest " floating in their golden seas. 
 
 I am writing in a poetically arranged house, freehold, 
 dating from the time of Charles II. Mathilde Blind's 
 apple trees " all gnarled and hoary "f guard the short 
 drive, which descends from the road almost at such an 
 angle as Lewis Morris in his "Epic of Hades" has 
 chosen for the descent of the stone of Sisyphus. A 
 picturesque church is on one side of the garden, in the 
 tower of which centuries ago a hermit lived. 
 
 Although I never saw a ghost in the churchyard I 
 have seen one hundred and twenty in my garden, 
 when the moon rising above the church tower threw 
 her pale and brilliant light in July on the " Madonna " 
 lilies, many of them five feet high, with trusses of 
 sixteen blooms, looking indeed like ghosts who had 
 strayed over the low wall. 
 
 My parish has its sad name " Cathedine ", signify- 
 ing " the vale of the sorrowful man," a deaf and dumb 
 prince:]: having in the early times before the Norman 
 
 '•■= " Demeter" and other poems, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. 
 
 t " The Ascent of Man,"by Mathilde Blind. 
 I It is a strange coincidence that the owner of this little 
 property, my late Husband, should have been for the last 
 
35 
 
 Conquest owned this lovely tract of land, with the 
 famed Langorse Lake, the Llyn Savaden of the 
 Romans, where a latter-day fisherman (the late charm- 
 ing and genial Mr. Kirkman, barrister-at-law) used to 
 fish with the old Roman bait — chicken soaked in 
 vervaine. 
 
 Here are plenty of wild fowl, rushes and reeds — it 
 is two miles long and half a mile wide. Several 
 county families have boat-houses, not " house-boats ", 
 Heaven be thanked ! on its shore. I have a boat- 
 house holding a boat for four and one for fourteen per- 
 sons. In this last I well remember was a valued friend 
 (Mr. W. Jones, then our head-man of business at 
 Cyfarthfa, now retired and a J. P.), when, on a tem- 
 pestuous day, and after we had shipped an unusually 
 big sea, I heard him say to himself, " Thank goodness 
 my life's insured ! " 
 
 It was a charming trait, this thought of wife and 
 children ! 
 
 There is a small island ; and one unusually dry 
 summer remains of the ancient "piles" connecting it 
 with the shore could be clearly seen under the water, 
 showing it to have been a " lake-dwelling." An account 
 of this was sent to some learned society by Mr. Steven- 
 son, then residing at Treholford, a beautiful house higher 
 up the hill-side than mine, and belonging to Mr. Gwynne 
 Holford of Buckland — the "Marquess Carrabbas " of 
 
 nineteen years of his life stone-deaf, necessitating even the 
 most trivial thoughts being put in writing for him. In con- 
 nexion with him occurred a curious incident as to bees. The 
 tower swarmed with them for twenty years. In the year 
 he died, when I took up my abode here, to my astonishment 
 the bees were gone, and on enquiry I was told they left in May, 
 that having been the month of my Husband's decease. They 
 have returned since, and I am often asked why I do not 
 possess myself of the fabulous stores of honey said to be there ; 
 the answer is, because I should have to unroof the tower, 
 and it would be analogous to burning my house to roast 
 the pig as in Charles Lamb's famous story. 
 
36 
 
 these parts — an ideal landlord, and as kind and generous 
 as he is otherwise richly endowed. 
 
 In the near distance among trees appear the pic- 
 turesque chimneys of Treberfydd, an Elizabethan house 
 with lovely gardens, but no land beyond its farms, 
 belonging to Mr. Raikes, and where for the last twenty 
 years dwelt one who might have been "the lady" of 
 Shelley's garden, where flourished " the sensitive 
 plant". Her sweet presence has happily not been 
 taken from us by death, but she has gone to make other 
 flowers bloom in another garden. " Ah ! woe is me ! " 
 
 Many of my artistic friends well remember Mrs. 
 Darby's wonderful "teas", which were a Sunday 
 institution. These artists all did their best to enliven 
 her solitude by music, for she possessed an organ, a 
 piano, and a harp; there came "Orion" Home with 
 his "daughter", as he fondly termed his guitar, and 
 many a time he stood on the huge case in which he 
 packed it for travelling, garbed as a Swiss moun- 
 taineer, and though long past his " meridian " made us 
 laugh by the cleverness of his " jodelling". He was an 
 expert in swimming, and would dive under a boat with 
 his feet tied together and his hands tied behind him in 
 the lake ; whence he would return in time for break- 
 fast, his soft hat garlanded with water lilies "in all 
 their glory ", while a sheaf of them was in his arms, 
 their long ropey stems trailing on the ground, and 
 making of him with his silvery locks a veritable 
 water-god. I never read " Orion '", a poem of about 
 two hundred pages I believe, for it was out of print 
 ere I knew Mr. Home, but he told me his reason for 
 selling it at one farthing was because he " wanted to 
 be read", and he could not go about the world asking 
 people to accept his work. 
 
 My sleeping room is " a gem ", the windows having 
 different aspects, the centre one over the fireplace, 
 plate-glass, seven feet by four, through which trees 
 and flowers look in, and whence many a "Peggy" in 
 many a Welsh " low-backed car " may be seen on a 
 
37 
 
 Thursday driving to Crickhowell Market. The cot- 
 tage has but one storey, except where a tower rises 
 twice its height, a tower containing two rooms, built 
 by my kind Husband, on hearing my regret that the 
 cottage did not afford a view of the charming lake. 
 Having invested in one of the very largest of Japanese 
 umbrellas, under which I proposed my smoking friends 
 should sit outside this tower, it was rather a disap- 
 pointment that it was rarely used, I cannot say whether 
 because of the many stairs to mount, or because the 
 winds were seldom sufficiently calm to be a guarantee 
 that the parachute might not carry off tower-top, battle- 
 ments, smokers, and all. 
 
 But though many did not sit outside the tower it has 
 at various times been tenanted by several. Mr. 
 Boughton, R.A., made from one of its four windows 
 a charming water colour of the lake in stormy weather, 
 which he most kindly presented to me, handsomely 
 framed, and with my name and his on the groundwork. 
 
 Professor W. K. Clifford, Mrs. Clifford* and their 
 children made a home here for two months. 
 
 It was when some hired horses came from Hereford 
 with a postillion in scarlet, that the Professor (who 
 had before seen only my private postillion from 
 Cyfarthfa with a jacket of some very dark shade) 
 turned to me and said " Why have you boiled your 
 lobster, Mrs. Crawshay ? " This was said with that 
 sweet wistful look his friends know so well, as if wait- 
 ing the solution of some great mathematical problem. 
 His " Elements of Dynamic " was written in this tower, 
 and when presenting me with a copy he kindly wrote in 
 it : — To Rose Mary Crawshay this dry fruit of her kind shelter 
 at Cathedine from her affectionate friend the Author. 
 
 The Right Hon. Sir William Grove, F.R.S., Privy 
 Councillor, ex-President of the Royal Society, and 
 author of " The Correllation of the Physical Forces " • 
 
 * Mrs. Clifford is well-known as the author of " Mrs. Keith's 
 Crime," and of " Aunt Anne." 
 
38 
 
 Dr. John Gray, F.R.S., of the British Museum ; Prof. 
 Mozley, F.R.S. ; Sir James Alexander, F.R.S. ; Prof. 
 Westlake, Q.C., and Mrs. Westlake, of School Board 
 fame ; Miss Grace Damien ; Miss Colenso ; Mr. Gallenga, 
 the world-renowned Times correspondent ; his wife, 
 eloquent in seven languages; Judge Walhouse, F.R.A.S., 
 translator of Sappho; Nora Gerstenberg, now Mrs. 
 Philipps ; Lady Belcher ; Maria, Lady Vincent ; Mr. 
 W. Stebbing ; Mrs. Eliza Howe ; and Rev. Dr. 
 Robbins, have all in turn watched the splendid " after- 
 glow " across the lake, said by the late dear Mrs. 
 Gwynne Holford to be as fine as any she had ever seen 
 out of Egypt. 
 
 No list, however incomplete, of those who have used 
 this tower, can be without the names Devas and Nor- 
 bury — both dear friends of mine, although unknown to 
 fame — the latter was the master of a small oilshop in 
 Merthyr, and both have gone, alas ! where perhaps there 
 are no oilshops — who knows ? 
 
 If readers should show themselves tolerant of my 
 " gossip "and I live a year longer, perhaps these friends 
 of mine may become theirs also. 
 
 Among those who have visited the tower were the 
 Misses Eastlake of art fame ; Mr. Hancock, and Mrs. 
 Hancock of the " Eihtto Skirt"; Mr. Thorndike ; Mr. 
 and Mrs. F. Tagart, art-patrons, as their loggia with 
 Story's sculpture shows, and who entertained in 
 princely fashion many of the savants at the Bristol 
 meeting of the British Association in 1875, where I 
 first made their acquaintance as one of their happy 
 guests. 
 
 During this meeting I went to stay from Saturday 
 until Monday with Sir William and Lady Grove, who 
 had then a beautiful residence near Gloucester. After 
 I had left Old Sneed Park, Mr. Tagart's lovely place, 
 to pay this visit, Mrs. Tagart happened on Sir James 
 Alexander measuring with a foot rule an immense box- 
 ottoman which occupied one side of a corridor near my 
 bedroom : on Mrs. Tagart enquiring what he was doing, 
 
39 
 
 he said : " I'm only just takin' th' dimensions of Mrs. 
 Crawshay's box that she brought with her to the meet- 
 ing of the British Association," and as Sir James 
 boasted of the " accurate " journal he always kept, who 
 knows but that these " dimensions " are duly chronicled 
 therein ? 
 
 Mr. Charles James, a learned Welshman, said 
 to me, " Thank you for showing me your bears," instead 
 of " lions."* 
 
 1 have only one neighbour within four miles, where 
 resides Sir Joseph Bailey, Bart., and Lord Lieutenant 
 for the County. 
 
 Eight miles distant, at Tregunter near Talgarth, lives 
 Major Francis Roche, M.A. (of "honours" fame at 
 Oxford), with his charming wife ; and in years gone by 
 Viscountess Harberton, of "the divided skirt," occupied 
 this house. 
 
 AN EXPIATION. 
 
 I find that some of the art-public are kind enough 
 to interest themselves in asking why, among all English 
 poets, from Chaucer to Tennyson, I should have selected 
 the glorious trio, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, for my 
 more special homage ? It is an expiation, and came 
 about in this wise : when there was talk of a statue to 
 Byron, I regret to say I was among the contributors, 
 and when I saw it I felt that some expiation was due to 
 my loved poet. What should it be ? another (hideous) 
 statue ? No ! perish the thought ; rather let his own 
 sweet song for ever hymn his praise, and as all taste is 
 not Byronic, might it not be wise to associate with his 
 name that of a still deeper thinker, Shelley ? and having 
 bracketed these two great poets together, what more 
 natural than that the modest Keats, studied by both, 
 
 * See Johnson's Tour in the Hebrides, where Boswell relates, having 
 introduced Henry Erskine to Johnson, he on leaving slipped a 
 shilling into Boswell's hand, saying, " I thank you for showing me 
 your bear." 
 
40 
 
 and who said his " name was writ on water,'' should 
 join them ? (Sometimes quoted as writ in water ", but) 
 rightly or wrongly, I must keep the word on, as it is the 
 "peg" whereon hangs Shelley's beautiful "fragment" to 
 Keats ; wherein, after describing the water turned to 
 ice, he writes : — 
 
 " Time's printless torrent grew 
 A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name 
 Of Adonais." 
 
 The last thought of Shelley, ere a watery doom sub- 
 merged him, was of Keats, already reposing in the 
 Protestant Cemetery at Rome, whose noble poem 
 " Endymion," was hastily thrust into Shelley's pocket 
 as the near "Silences and Immensities" rose to his 
 view. The remains of the two lie not many yards 
 apart ; both died in Italy, and Byron in Greece — 
 grateful Greece, which has never forgotten his devotion 
 to her. One cannot but regret, since England denies 
 him even a tablet with the one word " Byron," in 
 Poets' Corner, that his remains do not at any rate 
 repose on classic soil " far from the busy haunts of 
 men " whose proximity he deprecated ; and yet, alas ! 
 such is the irony of fate, that the once straggling 
 village, Hucknall-Torkard, where he lies, with its then 
 strange resemblance to his death-place, Missolongtii, 
 should have developed into a busy mercantile spot with 
 scarce a blade of grass or a tree to grace the tomb of 
 " Nature's Worshipper." 
 
 His grave inside the church is in exquisite taste, a 
 white mosaic ground with the one word " Byron " in 
 green mosaic, and surrounded by a wreath of bay 
 leaves. His friends did not forget that he had written, 
 " My epitaph shall be my name alone." 
 
 Still, since Englishmen permit Westminster Abbey 
 to remain unhonoured by his name, it had been well if 
 his address to his "Bark" had been remembered too, 
 when he wrote. 
 
41 
 
 " Nor care what land 
 Thou bear'st me to 
 So not again to mine 1" 
 
 And even in death this thought might have been 
 respected, and Greece ha\e kept her hero, from whom 
 she was so loath to part. 
 
 In a letter to Murray, dated Bologna, 1819, Byron 
 says, "/ trust they icoii't think of pickling and bringing me home 
 to Clod or Bhinderhis Hall. I am sure my hones would not 
 rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that 
 country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death 
 bed, could I suppose that any of my friends would be base 
 enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. I would not 
 even feed your worms, if I could help it." 
 
 And yet this is exactly what has been done ! 
 
 However, on this subject I was recently honoured by 
 a few lines from Mr. Sam. Timmins, the noted collector 
 of " Byroniana," who called my attention to stanzas ix. 
 and X., canto 4, of " Childe Harold," showing that at 
 any rate Byron, like the rest of us, had changeful 
 moods. 
 
 Byron is perhaps as much read abroad as in England. 
 " His Excellency " (our short for His Excellency 
 General the Baron von Stein), who has been in four- 
 teen engagements, and is the holder of twenty-three de- 
 corations, when I asked him if he knew Byron at all, 
 replied, 
 
 " Maid of Athens, ere we part, 
 Give, oh give me back my heart." 
 
 And when I alluded to the " Apostrophe to the Ocean," 
 in " Childe Harold," beginning, 
 
 " Roll on. Thou deep and dark blue Ocean roll 1" 
 
 his seventy-year old eyes sparkled with delight as he 
 said he knew it well. 
 
 I am often surprised at the familiarity of foreigners 
 with our classics, while we, alas ! know so few of 
 theirs. 
 
42 
 
 Schiller's" Wallenstein" I have read only in English, 
 as I told "His Excellency," when he discussed the 
 method of this play in its analogies with those of 
 Shakespeare, and proceeded to tell me how often on 
 the battlefield some of Shakespeare's glorious utterances 
 in his plays of the Henrys came to'comfort and encour- 
 age him. 
 
 "Didn't I just feel quite small?" as our American 
 cousins would say. 
 
 Rose AIary Crawshay. 
 
BYRON-SHELLEY-KEATS. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 ENDOWED 
 
 ANNUAL PRIZES. 
 
 First Prize £10. 
 
 ESSAY ON 
 
 BYRON'S "FARE THEE WELL,' 
 
 ■A SKETCH," AND "LINES ON HEARING 
 
 LADY BYRON WAS ILL." 
 
 Since the day that Lady Byron vohintarily withdrew 
 from the shelter of her husband's roof and refused to 
 return, the poet's domestic affairs have been the 
 business of the world. And small blame to it. It 
 was no case of vulgar curiosity prying around the 
 windows of a great man's privacy. The poet himself, 
 with his fine scorn of a less wide audience, took it 
 into his confidence. In the Domestic Pieces he gave 
 his version of the disagreement between himself 
 and his wife, and cried to the public " Judge thou 
 between us," and the notorious busybody, nothing loth, 
 has continued ever since to weigh evidence and con- 
 sider its verdict. We say "weigh evidence," but 
 there was none, or little, forthcoming beyond the poet's 
 
44 
 
 own statements. The offended wife, with more dignity 
 than her offending husband, refused to recognize the 
 interference of a third party or to open her lips before 
 the illegal tribunal, and her silence was taken by some 
 as a proof of unspeakable guilt on her husband's part, by- 
 others as the speechless lie with which a cruel, 
 treacherous lady did her lord's reputation to death. 
 During his lifetime Lady Byron could neither be 
 goaded, nor persuaded, into making a definite charge, 
 and except for the foulest slander ever uttered by one 
 woman against another, — at sound of which the 
 whole civilized world closed its outraged ears — no 
 attempt at an authoritative explanation of her case 
 has been made since. Justice forbids us, at the 
 mouth of one witness, to condemn or acquit any man 
 or woman — more especially when that witness is like- 
 wise the prisoner-at-the-bar — but at the same time, 
 from the poet's well-known habit of painting himself 
 many tints darker than his native hue, we may rest 
 assured that when we have read all he wrote on the 
 subject of this classic quarrel, we know the worst that 
 can be said on his side. 
 
 It may well be believed that so stately a "pattern of 
 all the virtues " as Lady Byron, saw much to shock 
 her, during her short nuptial experience, in the conduct 
 of her lawful and lawless spouse. In the light of the 
 open record of Byron's life, no one denies that she 
 received deep provocation for the step she took — a 
 modern jury has held a wife justified in leaving her 
 husband for far less — but she must have been in some 
 
45 
 
 measure prepared for the eccentricities of this strangely 
 undisciplined nature. She knew her husband's ante- 
 cedents, and if she did not know that he had run 
 through the whole gamut of dissipation, and drained 
 life's cup almost to its dregs, before he married her, she 
 was ignorant of what all the world could have told her. 
 Like all men impatient of control, he was singularly 
 amenable to kindness, and might be led where he could 
 never be driven. A fitter mate, one of those whom 
 Hofmes calls " heart-women," would, as he says of his 
 own dear sister, have " loved and pitied " the erring poet 
 the more "because he was erring," would have made 
 faster the links that bind man to his safest haven, 
 not snapped the harbour ties of home, and abandoned 
 so "noble a piece of work" to the mercy of wind and 
 wave to " beacon the rocks on which high hearts are 
 wrecked. " It is right for woman to hold up a high 
 standard, but surely she may stoop by the way to raise 
 up a fallen fellow-creature. Salvation, not vengeance, is 
 her mission. There is no virtue in Virtue if her march is 
 over ruined lives, if she lives on the blood of the slain. 
 But to do Lady Byron justice, whatever the original cause 
 of her displeasure, she had graver reasons than such as the 
 world usually assigns for her final action. " Whispering 
 tongues can poison truth," and the jealous wife stooping, 
 as many a better woman has done before her, to lend 
 an ear to slander and calumny, when she refused to 
 return to her husband, believed in her heart that he 
 was guilty of " offences she could only condone on the 
 supposition of his insanity.'' 
 
46 
 
 If, as Byron declares, he did not know the cause of 
 his wife's desertion, he knew at least the source from 
 which the calumnies, which had poisoned her mind 
 against him, emanated, and in the unenviably famous 
 Sketch he gibbets his calumniator upon the tree of 
 scorn, a spectacle for future generations to mock at. 
 In coarse and scathing lines — coarse and scathing even 
 for so great a master of abuse — he limns the repulsive 
 features of this "Hecate of domestic hells," the maid, 
 raised presumably for her evil offices to be companion 
 and confidaate, who by hsr slanderous tittle-tattle had 
 made wreck of his happiness, tracing her low origin to 
 its muddy source and laying bare the more miserable 
 secrets of her meaner soul. If Mrs. Clermont, Lady 
 Byron's whilom governess, be among those the poet 
 " spared whom he should not spare" for his wife's sake, 
 it is little mercy was accorded her beyond the with- 
 holding of her name. If she ever came to look upon 
 her portrait, how like an ugly phantom it must have 
 haunted her ever after, and how the curse of an injured 
 man must have rung in her ears, sleeping or waking. 
 
 It is a relief to turn from this foul caricature of the 
 hated maid to the more generously touched picture of the 
 still-loved mistress, whom the artist endows with every 
 virtue under the sun, except the " one sweet weakness — 
 to forgive." This is indeed Lady Byron's supreme re- 
 proach, almost her crime — it is all her husband charges 
 her with, all the world lays at her door — that she 
 chose rather to stand upon her earthly rights than 
 stoop to exercise her divine prerogative. Whatever 
 
47 
 
 may have been laid to her charge since, this portrait 
 estabHshes the fact that at the time of the separation 
 Lord Byron's grievance against his wife, — his only 
 grievance — was that she had been deluded by others 
 jnfo thinking him worse than he was, and that parting 
 from him under provocation, she refused to take him 
 into favour again. Neither by written nor spoken word 
 did he at this time bear other testimony than that she 
 was a good and virtuous, though over-righteous wife. 
 
 Nor, upon the same evidence of the Domestic Pieces, 
 was the husband the deeply-erring man the world has 
 been pleased to suppose. No doubt in this case, as in 
 so many others, to " understand all " would have been 
 " to forgive all," yet some wretched misunderstanding 
 kept husband and wife apart for life. That the mis- 
 understanding was on the part of the wife is matter of 
 history. Lord Byron, by his own showing, had no 
 grievous cause of complaint against his wife, but at the 
 same time, while acknowledging faults of which he asks 
 so reproachfully, 
 
 " Could no other arm be found 
 Than the one that once embraced me 
 To inflict a cureless wound," 
 
 he declares himself innocent of anything to justify a 
 separation. The Farewell — which, though not pub- 
 lished till a month later, when the poet's sorrow had 
 turned into anger, was written at the time of the separa- 
 tion while his heart was smarting under the recently 
 inflicted blow — is to an unforgiving woman, not to an 
 irreparably injured wife ; it is the sorrowfully indignant 
 
48 
 
 appeal of a wifeless husband and a childless father to 
 
 one who in merciless insistence on " what was due to 
 
 her" had rendered him both; the hopeless adieu of a 
 
 homeless exile who kisses the hand that needlessly 
 
 drives him forth. A poem, of course, cannot be taken 
 
 as an affidavit, nor, for truthfulness of detail, in any 
 
 sense as a sun picture, but allowing a wide margin for 
 
 the egotism of genius, the exaggerations of strong 
 
 feeling, and the many subtle influences that go to warp 
 
 a poet's true vision, it is inconceivable that the writer 
 
 of this most pathetic of love songs that moved a nation 
 
 to tears, could have been conscious of any unpardonable 
 
 domestic sin against her to whom it is addressed. 
 
 When the Farewell was penned the writer did not 
 
 believe it was "for ever." That its value as Love's 
 
 appeal is lost by being proclaimed at the street corners 
 
 by the common bellman,* and its pathos in the fact 
 
 that the first stage of the exile's journey was Geneva, 
 
 to meet, whether by accident or design, Claire 
 
 Clermont, Allegra's mother, does not invalidate it as 
 
 evidence. Though published in spite it was written in 
 
 good faith, and no future sin could blacken present 
 
 innocence. 
 
 " By sudden wrench believe not 
 Hearts can thus be torn away," 
 
 he says, and when he put the broad seas between them 
 it was in the hope and belief that he would ere long be 
 
 ' "It appears that these verses were not intended for the public 
 eye but were published by a friend who had been allowed to take 
 a copy of them." Note by Rose Mary Crawshay. 
 
49 
 
 recalled. It was not till this hope had begun to fade 
 till his overtures for a reconciliation — made a few 
 months later, at a time, too, when he was living in«sin 
 and showing little proof of repentance or amendment — 
 had been repulsed with scorn, that, smarting with rage 
 and disappointment, he took up his pen to satirise and 
 defame the woman for whom, to the end of his days, he 
 continued to entertain feelings at least of respect and 
 admiration. Hearing that Lady Byron was ill, and 
 assuming her illness to be the eflfect of remorse for her 
 part in his life's tragedy, he wrote the Lines — not 
 published, however, till after the author's death — in 
 which he gives us a portrait of a " Moral Clytemnestra" 
 as like that of the " sternly purest of her sex that live " 
 as virtue is to vice. A Pharisaic wife, with the skirts 
 of her clothing caught tightly around her, inciting a 
 murderous mob by casting the first stone at her erring 
 husband — and the last ; blind and deaf to all appeals for 
 mercy, driving him forth on the road to ruin, implacable, 
 unforgiving, then waiting, with closed lips, on that "monu- 
 ment whose cement was guilt " to receive the adulation 
 of the slanderous crowd. This is no pleasant picture 
 to look upon ; if it were but a broken image of the truth, 
 the cry of savage exultation, " I am too well avenged ! 
 but 'twas my right ! " was justified. But in judging of 
 its truthfulness to nature we must remember the cir- 
 cumstances under which it was drawn ; we must re- 
 member, too, the poet's own statement in later years 
 to the effect that whatever he had said or written 
 reflecting upon Lady Byron was attributable entirely 
 
5° 
 
 to anger and pique at her cool treatment of him. The 
 guilty silence he here charges her with, and which has 
 been made so much of, was (in the first instance at least) 
 so far as the public was concerned, proper reticence ; 
 and with regard to her husband if, as she naturally 
 supposed, he was conscious of his own wrongdoing, 
 speech was unnecessary. Silence became sin only by 
 remaining unbroken when misconstrued. Unless we 
 are greatly mistaken, it was the communicativeness of 
 the defendant, rather than the enormity of his offence, 
 that set a seal upon the complainant's mouth. It was 
 difficult for any self-respecting woman to offer an 
 explanation of her conduct to one who had taken his 
 cause out of her jurisdiction. Her answer to his public 
 complaint was in effect : " Hast thou appealed unto 
 Cffisar, unto Caesar shalt thou go,"' and she never 
 afterwards deigned to open her lips on the subject, but 
 left her husband and his self-chosen judge to settle it 
 between them as they chose. 
 
 Apart, however, from the consciously overdrawn 
 details of this portrait, the Lines written in anger give 
 in outline precisely the same view of the writer's case 
 as the tenderly reproachful Farewell and the unlovely 
 Sketch, viz., that though erring, his punishment was 
 unjustly severe. Unless then the moral standard of 
 husband and wife differed so widely that what one 
 called "faults" the other deemed " crimes," it must 
 be conceded that whatever mistaken idea was in 
 Lady Byron's mind, her husband was conscious of 
 nothing that could make a reconciliation impossible, 
 
51 
 
 and that he never gave up the hope. We who 
 have seen the finale of this hfe-drama know that 
 the hope was vain, that husband and wife were 
 never reconciled. Was it indeed that his Farewell 
 warning, " Love may sink by slow decay," had 
 fulfilled itself, and years of estrangement taken away 
 the will as well as the way of reconciliation ? Or was it 
 that the curtain fell before the play was played out 
 before the denouement for which a sympathetic audience 
 was waiting ? But whatever remained to be enacted 
 on the shadowy stage of What-might-have-been had the 
 poet's life been prolonged, the scene in history to which 
 the hand of Death wrote Jlnis was one of loneliness and 
 exile. " Oh the pity of it ! " cries a tearful world, 
 trying its best to find an answer to the insoluble 
 problem of " Who was to blame ? " which the greatest 
 personality of his day seems to have left as a legacy 
 to all future time. Yet why should we vex ourselves 
 over the rights and wrongs of a domestic strife the 
 victims of which have long since ceased to suffer, 
 and before the Great White Throne received, what no 
 earthly tribunal can give — perfect justice. Life at 
 best is a maze, the right path difficult to find. God 
 forgive them where they sinned, and keep our erring 
 feet from falling. 
 
 Kate Cashin, 
 
 Normanville, 
 
 Hastings. 
 
52 
 
 Second Prize £5. 
 
 Essay on 
 
 ''FARE THEE WELL," "A SKETCH," 
 
 AND 
 
 " LINES ON HEARING LADY BYRON WAS ILL. 
 
 We approach with diffidence these poems, touching as 
 they do the most delicate chord in the inner life of the 
 poet. 
 
 Before forming any opinion let us consider the 
 character of the man who wrote them. 
 
 Inheriting from both parents strong passions, and a 
 wayward and capricious temper. Lord Byron was early 
 left to the care of the most injudicious of mothers, or 
 in other words, this wilful spirit was entrusted to the 
 management of one yet more wilful, possessed of little 
 understanding, and to whom self-control, or the idea of 
 looking beyond self for a motive, was totally unknown. 
 
 At first glance our poet seemed to be dowered with 
 every blessing. Look again — each gift is cancelled by 
 untoward circumstances. A peer, but poor, poor with 
 the poverty of the high-born — that degrading struggle 
 to keep up appearances on insufficient means ; of 
 brilliant intellect, but lacking sound sense ; naturally 
 warm-hearted, generous and tender, but passionate 
 and irritable ; endowed with wondrous beauty of face 
 
53 
 
 and form, his pride in this mortified by a deformed foot. 
 Surely such a character would have required careful 
 training. 
 
 The uncultured child grew into the wild schoolboy, 
 and was succeeded by the university student whose 
 time was largely spent at hazard, sparring, etc. 
 
 His first poems appeared, and were treated with 
 more severity than they deserved ; his second were 
 extravagantly praised. 
 
 Thus the public seemed to have caught the infection 
 of his mother's treatment — stifling him with caresses 
 one minute, unjustly punishing him the next. 
 
 At twenty-four. Lord Byron found himself famous, 
 with a fame inferior only to that of Shakspere and 
 Milton. Worshipped by the nation, the idol of the 
 highest society, with his young ardent nature, can we 
 wonder that he plunged into all the pleasures and 
 dissipations open to him ? 
 
 Thus a few years pass. . . . His friends now 
 think it would be wise to chain the roving spirit in the 
 sober groove of matrimony. Byron thinks with them 
 and longs for the safeguard of a good woman's love and 
 sympathy. He proposes to Miss Milbanke ; is accepted. 
 They marry, and all goes well ; the happy bridegroom 
 writing to Moore declares that " though he still thinks 
 marriage ought to be taken on lease, he would renew 
 his lease for ninety-nine years." One year later Lady 
 Byron, after an affectionate parting with her husband, sets 
 out with her infant daughter to visit her parents. On 
 her arrival her father writes to acquaint Lord Byron 
 
54 
 
 that his wife will return to him no more. Stunned by 
 this blow, coming at a time when he was harassed by 
 pecuniary diflSculties, or to use his own strong expres- 
 sion, he was " standing alone on his hearth where all his 
 household gods lay shiver'd around him." 
 
 No sooner had Lord Byron received this letter than 
 he found himself the object of public detestation, with 
 the mortifying knowledge that not oneof those who were 
 railing at him knew anything of the real state of the case. 
 
 Lady Byron left her husband in January, and in 
 April " Fare Thee Well" and " A Sketch" appeared. 
 
 The former was looked upon by some as a " showy 
 effusion " impossible to one of deep feeling. To others, 
 it was a true and tender appeal which " no woman with 
 a heart could resist." 
 
 When we consider that these verses were not in- 
 tended for the public eye, but were placed there by a 
 friend who had been allowed to take a copy of them, we 
 are glad to agree with the more charitable view. As 
 the poet sat one night in his study musing over late 
 events, and filled with tender memories, he wrote these 
 stanzas, the tears falling fast on the paper. (The MS. 
 is blotted all over with the marks of tears.) 
 
 About "A Sketch" there can be only one verdict. 
 It was a pity it was ever written. The object of the 
 attack ought to have been as much beneath the notice 
 of Lord Byron, as her tales ought to have been beneath 
 that of her mistress. 
 
 The public had always encouraged Lord Byron to 
 make it his confidante, in fact told him the charm of 
 
55 
 
 his poetry lay in the frankness with which he did so, 
 therefore can we blame him very severely if in his 
 moment of despair and humiliation he exceeded a little 
 the line of good taste by doing as he had been invited, 
 nay, pressed to do ? 
 
 " Lines on hearing Lady Byron was ill " were written 
 immediately after the failure of the negotiations for 
 a reconciliation before the poet left Switzerland for 
 Italy, and were not intended for publication. They 
 breathe the most tender, touching reproach : — 
 
 "And thou wert sad, yet I was not with thee 
 And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near ; 
 Methought that joy and health alone could be 
 Where I was not." 
 
 " I would not do by thee as thou hast done.'" 
 
 We do not presume to judge Lady Byron. The pro- 
 fessional men whom she consulted advised her not to 
 return, but then they only heard one side of the story. 
 If Lord Byron had been, as was alleged, of unsound 
 mind, the shock of the separation and the execrations 
 of the nation would have completely upset his reason. 
 His most intimate friends found no insanity in him. 
 Eccentric he may have been, but which of us has not a 
 pet peculiarity ? 
 
 That he loved his wife cannot be doubted by anyone 
 reading these three poems and his letters to Moore. 
 As we have before stated, we do not presume to judge 
 Lady Byron, it would be absurd to attempt to do so, 
 knowing nothing of the reason of the estrangement. 
 The offers of reconciliation always came from his side. 
 
56 
 
 Usually it is the injured one who thus behaves. Surely 
 a man who through his life never lost a friend, for 
 whom a woman loved by him in his exile gave up 
 husband and position, who never failed to attach the 
 regard of those who came in contact with him,.o/ whose 
 conversation Shelley said, "It is a sort of intoxication, men 
 are held by it as by a spell" — of whose death Sir Walter 
 Scott wrote, "It is as if the sun had gone out"*- — surely 
 such a man cannot have been unworthy of forgiveness 
 and forbearance from a loved wife ! 
 
 Maria H. Russell, 
 
 31, Patrick's Hill, 
 
 Carle, Ireland. 
 
 • The italics are an interpolation by Rose Mary Crawshay. 
 
57 
 
 Second Prize, £^. 
 
 Essay on 
 
 "EPIPSYCHIDION.' 
 
 It is pleasant to feel that in taking Epipyschidion as 
 the subject of an essay, one is not now bound to assume 
 the attitude of championship. The passing years have 
 done their work well — -Shelley, " robed in dazzling 
 immortality," has ascended to that " kingless sphere," 
 which has always been his of right, and Epipsychidion, 
 the most ethereal and intangible of all his poems, has 
 long since taken its place among the brightest constella- 
 tions in the starry heavens of the world's poetry. It 
 might be suffered thus to remain, untouched by the 
 curious hand of criticism — " a thing of beauty, and a 
 joy for ever," for each true lover to interpret to his own 
 heart, but that there is an irresistible fascination in 
 taking such ^ perfect flower of thought, to linger with 
 loving wonder over each petal, pistil and stamen, noting 
 well every detail of its internal structure and arrange- 
 ment, and then passing into meditation over the divine 
 Idea which lies behind its magic of words. And in 
 such a process, every soul receptive of its subtle 
 influence, may be allowed to lay a humble thought- 
 tribute before the shrine where burns for ever the 
 sacred fire of love and reverence. 
 
58 
 
 EpipsycUdion would be a poem of priceless value, 
 were it only for its autobiographical interest — that it 
 lets us glimpse the poet's soul in a rare moment of 
 inspiration ; but its highest claim must ever lie in its 
 abstract, and not in its concrete application. A poet is 
 great in so far as he represents Universal Humanity' ; 
 personal colour has its charm, but to be immortal a 
 poem must mirror to each soul its own life-story. The 
 accident of circumstance which impelled the poet at 
 that particular moment to break forth into this glorious 
 hymn, and which bestowed a reflected immortality on 
 " the noble and unfortunate " Emilia Viviani, need be 
 here but slightly alluded to. Shelley has himself 
 chronicled the precise amount of his indebtedness to 
 the object of the dedication, and we may well surmise 
 that had Emilia never existed we should still possess 
 this priceless gem of song — some other occasion would 
 inevitably have called it forth, though perchance its 
 form might then have been different. 
 
 A recent well-known, if not too reliable, writer on 
 mysticism* has pointed out that knowledge, which fifty 
 years ago was confined to the initiated few, is now open 
 to all who are able to receive it. The mystical theory 
 of the twin-soul or two-in-one has found able suppor- 
 ters and exponents in this our day ; but who has clothed 
 it in the dazzling invincible vesture of words woven by 
 our poet ? That there should still be found anyone 
 '' dull" enough to see in it aught of earthly passion would 
 
 * Laurence Oliphant. 
 
59 
 
 be incredible, did we not recognise that till the moment 
 
 of development arri^-es when Spirit is seen to be all 
 
 and in all, it is as impossible for a soul to see beyond 
 
 the material environments that blind it to Truth as 
 
 for the caterpillar to cognise its future self in the 
 
 radiant psyche which alights for a moment beside it on 
 
 a cabbage leaf. 
 
 But Shelley makes his meaning transparent enough 
 
 to those who are at all enlightened. A few prefatory 
 
 words on the poem itself, — a loving tribute to the " fair 
 
 captive bird " to whom it is dedicated, and the poet 
 
 breaks forth into his Song of Praise. 
 
 " Seraph of Heaven ! too gentle to be human, 
 Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman 
 All that is insupportable in thee 
 Of light and love and immortality ! " 
 
 These lines have been spoken of as applying to the 
 Sistine Madonna, which may well be true in a way, 
 for Raffaelle with his brush, and Shelley with his pen, 
 have both sought to do homage to the Divine Feminine, 
 the " Ewig-Weibliche." The allusions here— "Sweet 
 Benediction in the Eternal Curse ! " — "Veiled glory of 
 this lampless universe ! " — are all too plain to be 
 ignored, as anyone at all familiar with the Mystic 
 Philosophy will perceive. 
 
 In Shelley's eflforts to put into words his conception 
 of Love he was for a long time persistently misunder- 
 stood, which was simply due to the utter inabihty of 
 his commentators to see aught save reference to the 
 external relation of the sexes, which was far enough 
 away from Shelley's thoughts — especially in this poem. 
 
6o 
 
 And thus it is impossible to get in any way at the true 
 meaning of the poem unless this be duly understood at 
 the outset. In Emily he allows himself to believe for 
 the moment that he sees that essential portion of his own 
 nature — that Higher Self — which, though externally 
 separated from, is for ever spiritually united to the soul 
 within him. " Ah me ! I am thine — I am a part of 
 thee ! " 
 
 The theory, which finds a place in Plato's Symposium, 
 somewhat disguised in burlesque by being put into the 
 mouth of Aristophanes, has been thrown into very con- 
 cise form by a modern student of mysticism.* " It is 
 only on the phenomenal plane that the two elements are 
 divided. The entity which came forth from God to be 
 born into this world in flesh, is in itself a bi-une thing 
 in the image and likeness of God. At some moment 
 between its coming forth and its birth into matter it is 
 rent asunder and becomes two halves, one of which is 
 born as a male child, the other as a female. In this 
 sundering, all recollection of its true nature and duality 
 is lost, but there remains the ceaseless yearning of the 
 one after the other, which is none the less strong when 
 it is utterly unable to explain itself, or what the im- 
 pulse to union really involves."! 
 
 And here it may well be remarked that throughout 
 Epipsychidion, Shelley shows unconsciously his adherence 
 
 • Rev. G. W. Allen. 
 
 f A deeper and far more esoteric interpretation of the theory is 
 to be found in the Illuminations of Dr. Anna Kingsford, entitled 
 " Clothed with the Sun," and edited by Mr. Edward Maitland, B.A. 
 
6i 
 
 to that profound philosophy — or theosophy as we 
 should now call it — which recognises Spirit as the only 
 Substance, IVlatter being non-real, or only a condition of 
 Spirit. A few quotations will make this clear. 
 
 " A mortal shape endued 
 With love and life and light and duty. 
 An image of some bright eternity ; 
 A shadow of some golden dream ... a tender 
 Reflection of the eternal moon of love." 
 
 " In many mortal forms I rashly sought, 
 The shadow of that idol of my thought." 
 
 " To whatsoe'er of dull mortality 
 Is mine remain a vestal sister still, 
 To the intense, the deep, the imperishable — 
 Not mine, but me — henceforth be thou united." 
 
 The visible creation he holds but as a shadow of the 
 real — 
 
 " The earth and ocean seem 
 To sleep in one another's arms, and dream 
 Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks and all that we 
 Read in their smiles, and call reality." 
 
 To Shelley, the Truth some find so difficult to grasp 
 is an ever-present reality, " The Good is all — there is 
 no reality in Evil." He finds that Good grows by what 
 it feeds upon — that by division it increases constantly 
 and each part is greater than the whole. To him this 
 is the Eternal Law. Shelley is again at one with the 
 modern mystic on another point. Compare the lines 
 beginning " I never was attached to that great sect " 
 with the statement in " Marriage from a Mystic's point 
 of view:" — "No man and no woman is harmed by 
 receiving the love and regard of any number of persons 
 of the opposite sex, etc." 
 
62 
 
 The first two hundred Hnes of the poem are more or 
 less disconnected — as though the thought, too great for 
 utterance, came forth in gushes of alternate joy and 
 sadness. But now, in mystical language, Shelley seeks 
 to portray the progress of his inner life — and in doing 
 so, tells the story of all high and aspiring souls. 
 
 It has been the intensely interesting task of Shelley's 
 biographers to trace out in this sketch the various 
 personal allusions which have so greatly added to the 
 enjoyment of the poem by all who know and love 
 Shelley as a man as well as a poet — if the two can, in 
 this case, ever be separated ! 
 
 The poet breaks swiftly, but without abruptness, into 
 the awakening of his early youth to the mystery of Life, 
 which came with unutterable intensity to this advanced 
 soul. His experience differs from that of the ordinary 
 being, inasmuch as it is a spiritual awakening. This 
 marks a high point in soul-development. It is a 
 common experience for the sensuous nature first to 
 unfold, and the spiritual awakening to come later as the 
 fruit of experience. Here is the line of demarcation 
 between the mystic and the non-mystic, mysticism being 
 here taken as that stage in the soul's development when 
 it becomes conscious of its own nature and its poten- 
 tialities. "The mystic knows what he is doing and 
 why he does it — and others do not. His object is ex- 
 perience, theirs is gratification." 
 
 How the youth awakens " in the clear golden prime '* 
 to a sense of that interior self, that " soul out of my 
 soul," as he rightly calls it, which, separated from him 
 
63 
 
 externally, he yet feels permeating every fibre of his 
 spiritual being — " robed in such exceeding glory, that I 
 beheld her not," yet ever present to his inner senses. 
 Like the first Adam, he could not rest in his blessed- 
 ness, but sought to realize it in some external fashion, 
 and in the seeking, lost the consciousness of its possession. 
 
 " O thou of hearts the weakest, 
 The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest." 
 Then I — "Where ? " The world's echo answered " Where ? " 
 
 Nay, he must now seek in all realms of his being for 
 this interior self — this woman soul out of his soul. He 
 seeks it first in the region of the senses — where it may 
 never be found. This early experience is recorded in a 
 few pregnant words. 
 
 " The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers, 
 Her touch was as electric poison." 
 
 He passes from the snare — but not scatheless ; the 
 soul indeed is untouched by taint, but the physical 
 being suffers, and he mourns over a young brow pre- 
 maturely whitened by the snows of age. 
 
 From his moral nature he tries yet once more to gain 
 the lost blessedness. With yearning gaze he seeks, 
 whether among friends young, beautiful, and wise, he 
 may find concealed this soul out of his soul. With a 
 touch of infinite wistfulness he alludes to his first ill- 
 fated union, and if we are to accept the latest version 
 of the pitiful story we may gaze reverently into the 
 depths of a heart cruelly wounded, and recoiling on itself 
 — for Harriett was to him as a beloved ptipil who most 
 disastrously misunderstood the spirit of his teaching. 
 
64 
 
 Deliverance comes in an intense intellectual passion, 
 absorbing as it seemed for the moment his entire being, 
 and well is described here the calm, illuminating in- 
 fluence of Mary, and the part she played during the 
 third decade of Shelley's life. In the thirteen lines 
 which follow, what tempests of the soul are revealed ! 
 We believe we have the key to this episode, but what 
 detail of biographer can equal the few words here, with 
 all they conceal, yet suggest :— 
 
 " The white Moon smiling all the while." 
 
 To the rest of the poem we must give ourselves up, 
 charmed and swayed as by a master enchanter — 
 although we know it must be read in the light of un- 
 fulfilled prophecy. For on this earth we know that 
 Shelley never touched the goal of his inmost desires. 
 But for the moment he seems to hold all within his 
 grasp, and we are immeasurably grateful that before 
 disillusion came, the lines were penned which will 
 surely remain for ever the perfect presentment of a 
 mystic marriage — spiritual man united to his interior 
 self, woman — Intellect mated with Intuition, Soul with 
 Spirit. 
 
 The description of the 
 
 " Isle 'twixt heaven, air, earth and sea" 
 is a divine idyll. It is Paradise restored — Nature at 
 one with herself — the spiritual creation, no longer dis- 
 guised and distorted by the veil we call matter, but 
 
 " An atom of the Eternal, whose own smile 
 Unfolds itself and may be felt, not seen." 
 
65 
 
 That it is a Paradise perfected by experience is glanced 
 at in the remains of human art in the palace of the 
 ocean-king. The whole air of the place breathes of love, 
 and of conscious ecstasy in its own blessedness — and as 
 there grows upon the poet the realization of unutter- 
 able bliss, he mounts and mounts on wings of fire, 
 like his own skylark ; till thought will no longer bear 
 the strain of words, which tremble, fail, and expire. 
 But the thought remains to us "burning, yet ever 
 inconsumable " — 
 
 " Like flame which points to heaven, and cannot pass away." 
 
 The few gentle, yet impassioned words which read as 
 
 epilogue, contain within themselves the lesson to be 
 
 learned in all Life's varied experience — 
 
 " Love's very pain is sweet ; 
 But its reward is in the world divine, 
 Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave." 
 
 And binding in one chain of sisterly affection the names 
 of those who represent to him the perfection of Woman- 
 hood, — the last word of the poet is, as the first, still a 
 hymn of praise to " das Ewig-Weibliche." 
 
 Alice M. Callow. 
 " Port-e-chee," 
 
 Tring, Herts. 
 
65 
 
 The following is a list of the ladies who have taken 
 prizes : — 
 
 1 885. 
 
 Atkinson 
 Muir 
 
 Quilter 
 Edwards 
 
 Hopkirk 
 Beal 
 
 Portal 
 Evans 
 
 Lorry 
 Melly 
 
 Hopkirk 
 
 
 1887. 
 
 Daniels 
 
 Brown 
 
 Cundall 
 
 Montizambert 
 
 Prynne 
 
 Kniper 
 
 Stewart 
 
 Wilson 
 
 Robinson 
 
 Reinsberg 
 Mitchell 
 Phillips 
 Melly 
 
 
 1888. 
 
 Butterworth 
 
 Penstone 
 
 Higginson 
 Balfour 
 Hall 
 Oldam 
 
 Martin 
 Page 
 Toplis 
 Beattie 
 
 May 
 
 Hodgson 
 
 James 
 
 
 
 1889. 
 
 Compton 
 Cochrane 
 
 Sheffield 
 Gilbert 
 
 Prothero 
 
 Pritchard 
 
 Sheffield 
 
 Gair 
 
 Wilson 
 
 Turner 
 
 Little 
 Frazer 
 
 Tilbey 
 Sergeant 
 
67 
 
 iSgo 
 
 Sharp 
 
 
 Storton 
 
 Slater 
 
 
 Gibson 
 
 CunlifFe 
 
 
 Elliott, B.A. (Ireland) 
 
 Debenham 
 
 
 Rathbone 
 
 Hebblewaith 
 
 
 Johnson 
 
 Samuel 
 
 
 Cuttall 
 
 Robertson 
 
 
 Drawsfield 
 
 Porter 
 
 189J 
 
 
 Pridham 
 
 
 Bennet 
 
 Dawson 
 
 
 Symes 
 
 Walker 
 
 
 Fisher 
 
 Walker 
 
 
 Barlow 
 
 Von Bunsen 
 
 
 McLaughlin 
 
 Ramage 
 
 
 Case 
 
 Woolley 
 
 
 Leigh 
 
 WooUey 
 
 189^ 
 
 ; 
 
 Jones 
 
 
 Dowrie 
 
 Callow 
 
 
 Underdown 
 
 Mitchell 
 
 
 Oakley 
 
 Lake 
 
 
 Walbrand-Evans 
 
 Weir 
 
 
 Cashin 
 
 Russell 
 
 
 Rich 
 
 Hutton 
 
 
 Ogier-Ward 
 
 Knox 
 
 
 Sharpley 
 
 Boulton 
 
 
 Galbraith 
 
 Seymour 
 
 1893 
 
 Banks, MiA. 
 
 Towler 
 
 
 Gilchrist 
 
 Mercer 
 
 
 D'Argent 
 
 Miinster 
 Logan 
 
 
 Shen 
 Weir, H.A. 
 
 Melville 
 
 
 Prettyman 
 
 Kimpster 
 
 
 Sholl 
 
 The Record for 1885 is unfortunately lost. — R.M.C, 
 
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH 
 THOUSAND. 
 
 The quick sale of the pamphlet Domestic 
 Service for Gentlewomen necessitates a reprint ; 
 to which is added a paper on the same subject, 
 read at a meeting of the British Association, 
 and other matter for the guidance of those who 
 favour the adoption of the system of ' ' lady- 
 helps." It has been thought desirable to add 
 to the sixth thousand a view of Cyfarthfa 
 Castle, for the benefit of the incredulous, who 
 may fancy that the scene of the following record 
 was more probably a ^^ chateau en Espagne'' 
 than one in Wales. The fact that applications 
 from strangers for my " photo " and autograph 
 are more than I can conveniently respond to, 
 will explain the autotypes. 
 
 Two reasons conspired to induce me to 
 utilise an old photograph — want of time to sit 
 for another ; and the desire to supply to my 
 readers something less "old and ugly" than 
 would result from a more recent likeness. 
 
 It is pleasant to find an opinion which I 
 published in the March number of CasseWs 
 Magazine, and which is re-printed on page 
 fourteen of the following brochure, elaborated 
 
in the Saturday Review of August 5th, in an 
 article which has gratified me much ; especially 
 the following passage : — 
 
 " There can be no question that many of our social 
 difficulties would be almost entirely mastered, if young 
 ladies would consent to become lady-helps in their own 
 homes." 
 
 The corollary to this is, that families rich 
 only in daughters will spare of their super- 
 abundant " helps," to serve as upper servants 
 in the houses of more wealthy people ; and in 
 those of the childless. Thus may the system 
 of " lady-helps " be established. 
 
 The assertion made by the Saturday Reviewer 
 that the measure can only be a temporary 
 success, proves nothing against it ; for of all 
 impertinences, that of pretending to legislate 
 for posterity seems the greatest ; excepting it 
 be that of refusing to adopt some arrangement 
 which would suit the day of our need — because 
 it will not suit posterity. Is it not an assumption, 
 that with this generation, the possession of 
 brain-power in human creatures is to die out ? 
 
 As an endorsement of the idea so well set 
 forth in the Saturday Review, I may, perhaps, 
 be excused for naming a recent experience of 
 my own. 
 
 Circumstances occasioned me to pay a visit 
 to the sister of a professional man, who since 
 her brother's death has become poor ; and who 
 is now located in a tiny cottage, commanding, 
 
Jjwever, a most charming view ; with a garden, 
 hich, although useful, is embellished by 
 orious showers of red, in the shape of fuchsia 
 trees, and by an arbour, of most primitive 
 construction ; yet often serving the purpose of 
 reading-room, and work-room. 
 
 Those who know the little use, sometimes 
 made of large gardens, by their wealthy 
 possessors, can but wonder, at how much 
 pleasure, even a small place, gives to those of 
 very limited means. Here does the widowed 
 sister of my hostess often take a walk ere 
 six a.m., gathering the fruit before the birds — 
 collecting the handful of raspberries, which are 
 ripe enough to add to her vinegar, in this 
 fashion gradually acquiring the name and 
 flavour of the fruit ! After an excellent break- 
 fast, served on the whitest of linen, in the little 
 room, hung with muslin curtains only, I found 
 my chief attraction in the drawing-room, where 
 lovely foliage of many hues met the eye ; while 
 the odour of clove carnations entered through 
 the windows, and mingled in a most harmonious 
 manner with the sounds of Mendelssohn's 
 '^Lieder;" wanting no words to say — "This 
 is heaven on earth." 
 
 The sweet girl who called forth these tones 
 had already made her own and her mother's 
 bed, and dusted their sleeping-room ; and when 
 her "practice" was over she made the most 
 delicate pastry, which, unlike that of the 
 professed cook, never disagreed with any one ! 
 
The dinner was always a success, each of the 
 few dishes being done to perfection. And why ? 
 Because each dish had been a kind of " labour 
 of love," and, cooked by that one of the party 
 of five, to whom all awarded the palm for doing 
 it best. One little servant did all the rough 
 work of the entire household, for she was never 
 required to do any of the finer work ; and 
 I — ashamed not also to be a "help" — 
 shelled peas or beans while chatting with my 
 hostess. 
 
 Besides all this work they made their own 
 ginger-beer ; alternating it with " sherbet." — 
 Classical name which set me thinking of the 
 " Osmanli ! " — But it proved to be only a clever 
 apportionment of acid, alkali, and sugar ; which 
 had merely to be shaken, in powder, from the 
 glass bottle, and on water being added, formed 
 a delicious effervescent drink. 
 
 I was pleased to have seen the working of 
 this excellent menage ; for it was " confirmation' 
 strong," that my theory of domestic duties 
 being compatible with the refinement of a lady 
 is not a mistake. The harp standing by the 
 piano, and the paintings on the walls, all of 
 home production, among which I recognised 
 the Falls of Terni, testified to this. 
 
 I have just heard of a lady who engaged 
 another to be her maid and courriere. In these 
 days when the courtier travels in the same 
 train with his party there is no anomaly in this. 
 The young lady gave great satisfaction to her 
 
employer, and they spent last winter abroad 
 most happily. 
 
 To meet the great demand for "lady-helps " 
 as cooks, having all rough work done for them, 
 I shall be happy to furnish ladies with 
 the means of taking instruction in cookery, the 
 cost to be repaid out of their salaries, which are 
 sure to be good. 
 
 In conclusion, I will ask my readers to 
 pardon anything which they may find amiss in 
 the ensuing statement, and to look rather to 
 the matter of it than to the manner. 
 
 Rose Mary Crawshay. 
 
PREFACE 
 TO THE FIRST THOUSAND. 
 
 It is very little to have given a happy home to 
 five ladies, as detailed in the following pages ; 
 but it would be something if five hundred were 
 thus provided for. Already in one other 
 house the plan is being tried. The family 
 consists of a lady and gentleman, keeping two 
 lady-helps and having a strong person in for a 
 few hours daily to do the roughest work. The 
 mistress may probably, as in my own case, 
 have no need to perform any act of manual 
 labour more than once ; and it scarcely matters 
 what little manual duty she undertakes, provided 
 that it be done with sufficient openness. The 
 object is a great one ; it is to make the 
 descent to manual work easy for our poorer 
 sisters, and thus to transplant them to healthy, 
 happy homes, instead of leaving them to pine 
 in semi-starvation. There are nine hundred 
 thousand more women than men in Great 
 Britain, for whom marriage is consequently 
 impossible. The laws of England shut women 
 out from paying work. Shall we not try to 
 find it for a few of the more delicately nurtured ? 
 
It is in the power of the wives of England to 
 do this, by giving the places of upper servants 
 to gentlewomen ; and they will themselves 
 have more comfort than with ordinary servants 
 of the present day ; for few can assert that they 
 have of late, where many women servants are 
 kept, had no change in a twelvemonth, which 
 has been our case. 
 
 No apology is made for puerility of detail in 
 the following pages, as it is hoped that their 
 aim may be considered a sufficient excuse. 
 
 Rose Mary Crawshay. 
 
 Cyfarthfa Castle, 
 
 Merthyr Tydvil, 
 
 November iSth, 1874. 
 
DOMESTIC SERVICE 
 
 FOR 
 
 GENTLEWOMEN, 
 
 BRING 
 
 ®JjE gCirrmtttt jof a Successful ®xpevitnent> 
 
 READ AT THE SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS, 1874. 
 
 Every lady who is supposed to have either 
 money or time at her disposal, in ever so 
 limited proportion, finds herself continually 
 solicited to do something for the less fortunate 
 of her own sex, more especially for the class 
 known as " distressed gentlewomen." 
 
 Bazaars, charity balls, localities where 
 needlework is sold — all ask her patronage in 
 turn ; but no one seems to have thought what 
 an untrodden and richly yielding field might 
 be opened to this truly to be pitied class, if 
 ladies keeping large establishments of servants 
 would reserve the upper places for them. 
 
 Those who used to take governesses' 
 situations can no longer obtain them, owing to. 
 certificates of proficiency in teaching being 
 
required, which they, .unfortunately, cannot 
 furnish. 
 
 The proposition that they should undertake 
 domestic service will probably appear very 
 shocking to some at first, but it will not 
 appear so long to the more sensible. 
 
 Many friends who have heard of my 
 successful experiment have said, " Could we 
 not try your plan with one lady as an upper 
 servant ? " My reply has been — ',' This would 
 only be the old useful companion, for, of 
 course, where but one lady was in the 
 establishment, she would have to look to her 
 employer for companionship. Where several 
 are together they form a little society of their 
 own ; and, while happy to associate on equal 
 terms with their employer, at such times as 
 may suit her, they are by no means dependent 
 on her for society." 
 
 The positions taken by ladies here are 
 the following : — cook, lady's-maid, kitchen- 
 maid, dairymaid, and upper housemaid. 
 They have the same rooms which used to be 
 occupied by these domestics, after thorough 
 cleansing, whitewashing, and painting. 
 
 They use the same linen, have yellow soap, 
 and wait on themselves far more than ordinary 
 upper servants do. They are quite ready to 
 "wash their own tea-things," ^nd to "set 
 their own table," the suggestion of which 
 actions to ordinary upper servants would by 
 them be deemed an insult. One very sweet 
 
young lady told me that many of her 
 acquaintance were greatly opposed to her 
 intention ; but she kindly read a letter after she 
 had been a short time here, to the following 
 effect : — " We are quite pleased to hear that 
 it is with Mrs. Crawshay that you are going 
 to live, for in her hands we feel that you are 
 quite safe, as she would ask nothing of you 
 which it would not be fitting that you should 
 do." And here is the secret : — -those who 
 may be induced to give ladies a trial must be 
 guided in what they require of them by what 
 they themselves, if in health, and with leisure, 
 could do. 
 
 When the idea was first named to the kind- 
 hearted matron of the Women's Employment 
 Society, it seemed fairly to take her breath 
 away. When I said, — " I shall always, if at 
 leisure, varnish my own shoes, and assist in 
 making my bed," she seemed to think there 
 was some hope, for she replied, — " If you will 
 do this, so as to show that you do not yourself 
 see anything ignoble in work, perhaps it 
 may succeed ; but, tell me, will these ladies 
 be treated as if of the family ? " I said, " To 
 treat five strangers as if of the family would 
 be quite impossible ; for if they all dined with 
 us there would be no such thing as privacy ; 
 but they will be treated with every con- 
 sideration, and will have a room appropriated 
 to their use, in which they will sit, and take 
 meals; and I shall be very glad of the 
 
II 
 
 company of one or two at a time." I may- 
 add that it is my constant habit, when driving 
 out, to send a message that I am going out at 
 such an hour in open or close carriage (as the 
 case may be), and have room for so many 
 ladies. I always find that they are ready in a 
 few minutes, and of course they enjoy the 
 little break in their regular work, to which, on 
 their return, they apply themselves with 
 redoubled ardour. 
 
 I keep, besides the five lady-helps, six 
 ordinary servants indoors, viz., two men 
 servants, my daughter's maid, two strong 
 under-housemaids, and a strong, willing, Welsh 
 scullerymaid, who comes daily, as a charwoman 
 might come in England. 
 
 When there happens to be extra work, it is 
 my habit to put on paper, early in the morn- 
 ing, what is to be done, leaving it to the ladies 
 how they will arrange it. For instance, half- 
 a-dozen visitors may be coming, with only a 
 few hours' notice. I name the rooms that 
 they will require, and adding perhaps some- 
 thing more than might be the ordinary work 
 of the day ; I beg the ladies to select that 
 which they prefer undertaking, and to give 
 orders about the rest to the two under-house- 
 maids. 
 
 In the course of half-an-hour two of the 
 ladies will have gone to make beds and to put 
 spare rooms in order ; another will wash the 
 white stairs, and afterwards sweep all the oil- 
 
12 
 
 cloth, followed by a strong housemaid on her 
 knees rabbing the said oilcloth with wash- 
 leather. On occasions of sudden emergency, 
 I have found them work with the greatest 
 industry until all was finished ; and it has 
 been a true pleasure to thank them for doing 
 all without any trouble to me beyond saying 
 that which was required. 
 
 They had the offer of coming to the draw- 
 ing-room of an evening, one or two at a time, 
 when we had visitors, but made the unanswer- 
 able objection — " If we mix in society, we 
 must spend far more on dress than we can 
 afford." Doubtless this will be an insuperable 
 objection until such time as a gentlewoman 
 can be comfortable in society although her 
 dress may have a flounce less than her neigh- 
 bour's : although her chigiwn may be of less 
 astounding proportions; and although her 
 heels may be an inch nearer the floor than 
 those of the mere occupants of the drawing-room . 
 
 But for this we must wait until " strikes," 
 and all the unpleasant processes the country 
 is now passing through, shall have brought 
 about more healthy and less artificial customs. 
 
 An allusion was made to sweeping oilcloth. 
 The first time that this was required I rightly 
 guessed that the young lady whom I begged 
 to sweep it was not proficient in sweeping, so 
 I assumed a knowledge, though I had it not ; 
 and, each taking a broom, we worked together, 
 with many a laugh at our mutual awkward- 
 
13 
 
 ness ; but we were by no means discouraged 
 at the result, and the young lady has gone on 
 improving by practice, while I fear that I have 
 stood still, as I have never required to repeat 
 the process of teaching. 
 
 If one of my kind, useful friends left, I. 
 should, on replacing her by a stranger, adopt 
 the same plan. 
 
 It is not the amount of work done by the 
 mistress that is of benefit ; nor does it much 
 matter how well or how ill she may do it ; the 
 point is, to put work on its proper basis, and 
 to lead others to reflect that there is nothing 
 ignoble in work per se. 
 
 With regard to varnishing boots — I var- 
 nished mine once or twice, but after that my 
 ' lady-help ' was always beforehand. My 
 reason for pursuing this particular branch of 
 industry was, because I felt that my " helps " 
 must clean their own shoes ; for we all know 
 that a revolt on the footman's part would have 
 been inevitable if required to blacken boots 
 and shoes for five persons besides the family ; 
 and as the helps had all in their own homes, 
 probably had their shoes cleaned for them, this 
 might have proved a serious stumbling-block. 
 I was glad at this juncture to find how easy 
 the blackening of her own boots, by a lady, 
 has been made through the invention of patent 
 varnishes, laid on with a little sponge attached 
 to the cork of the bottle by a long and strong 
 wire : so that no one need soil so much as 
 
14 
 
 even one finger in the process — a far cleanlier 
 one than decalcomanie. 
 
 There is nothing particularly virtuous in a 
 lady ' blacking shoes ; ' far from it, she might 
 in most cases be better employed looking 
 after her household, or children ; and in some 
 cases even in blackening paper ; but as a protest 
 against the idea that work is in itself degrading, 
 such an employment might occasionally have 
 its use. 
 
 Philanthropists are, I believe, agreed in 
 seeking to raise the status of the human race, 
 rather than in seeking to depress it ; and 
 exception has been taken to these plans, as 
 lowering the position of ladies rather than 
 raising that of servants ; but it is not for us to 
 ordain where demand for female labour shall 
 show itself; we can but deal with circumstances 
 as we find them. 
 
 At the present time we have a scarcity of 
 servants ; we have householders, consequently, 
 much inconvenienced, while, alas ! we have a 
 cruel abundance of starving ladies. What can 
 be more natural than to make one evil cure 
 the other ? If the ladies who accept domestic 
 service are thereby to lose their refinement, 
 their accomplishments, their knowledge of 
 current literature, and all that which makes 
 them superior to the servants, it would, indeed, 
 be a questionable benefit ; but this would be 
 the fault of the ' padrona.' It is for her to see 
 that they lose none of these charms. 
 
^5 
 
 Owing to their superior intelligence, ladies 
 ' get through ' work much faster than ordinary- 
 servants ; and, owing to the delicacy and 
 refinement of ladies, they make none of the 
 ' dirt ' servants are so famed for producing. 
 There is much less wear and tear of carpets 
 and floorcloths by the feet of young ladies, 
 as compared with those of ordinary house- 
 maids. 
 
 There are few, I would fain believe, in the 
 present day, who do not devote some little 
 time to charity; that time cannot be better 
 spent than in a case such as we suppose, by 
 devoting an occasional half-hour to telling 
 some pleasant news to the ' lady-helps,' or 
 some interesting anecdote connected with 
 those whom they know well by name, and 
 whom they serve with a devotion more 
 resembling the old feudal attachment than the 
 lip-service or non-service of the present day. 
 
 Many a time, I venture to predict, when a 
 lady, perhaps tired with entertaining her 
 visitors, shall, yet, with some little effort, give 
 a few minutes to those hand-maidens who 
 truly look to their mistress for everything, will 
 she find unexpected amusement and pleasure 
 in the task. 
 
 Most of us know the annoyance caused by 
 ordinary ladies'-maids frequently changing the 
 position of the ladies' articles of dress. We 
 can well understand that the change is 
 sometimes made in order to prevent ladies 
 
:6 
 
 becoming independent of extraneous help ; 
 sometimes, doubtless, the change arises from 
 carelessness on the maid's part ; but, not 
 unfrequently from the feeling that she thereby 
 exalts her office. 
 
 I have found the lady who attends to me 
 personally very careful to put everything 
 where I can readily find it, thus making me 
 very independent of assistance. 
 
 There is an aspect, perhaps overlooked by 
 those who protest against the " degradation " 
 of ladies by taking domestic service; it is 
 this, — they will make admirable wives for 
 high-class tradesmen, bringing to a thorough 
 practical knowledge of all duties connected 
 with a house, the refinement of gentlewomen. 
 The offspring of such marriages will have far 
 more refinement than where the mother is 
 herself wanting in it. 
 
 I should like it to be well understood that I 
 am not proposing employment for women who 
 can marry ; but we must not forget that the 
 woman who is both useful and ornamental is 
 likely to be sooner married than the one who 
 is only ornamental ; hence the foregoing 
 remark. 
 
 Supposing objectors think that their objection 
 is unanswered, it is, at any rate, cancelled by 
 a condition which raises a part of humanity in 
 proportion as it depresses the other ; always 
 supposing that we have to grant any degree of 
 depression, which I can by no means perceive 
 
17 
 
 as long as sufficient leisure for reading, writing, 
 and music be given. 
 
 There are many means whereby it is possible 
 to keep up the social status of such ladies as 
 choose to accept domestic service. Among 
 others, sending or taking them to any places 
 of public amusement, always putting them in 
 the highest-priced seats. Concerts are very 
 popular with my handmaidens, who are fair 
 musicians themselves. Here I shall be met 
 "by an objection on the score of expense. 
 Where the master of the house objects, I 
 would recommend any housekeeper to defray 
 the cost out of her own " pin-money," this 
 expenditure fairly coming under the heading 
 of, charity of the highest class. 
 
 It may be thought that servants would 
 dislike having to treat ladies with respect, but 
 I have not found this ; all servants, worth 
 having, have been far more willing to accord to 
 them consideration, than in most families they 
 are disposed to accord it to the governess. 
 
 In general, servants cannot bear waiting on 
 the governess. This trouble is at once sur- 
 mounted by the fact that the ladies are not 
 waited on ; they do all for themselves, except 
 cleaning the grates and scouring the floors of 
 their rooms ; duties which no head-servants 
 perform. 
 
 To show the kindly feeling existing towards 
 the ladies, I may name the following incident. 
 While the whole family was away, and work- 
 
i8 
 
 men were in the house, it happened that some 
 expected extra help did not arrive. What was 
 to be done ? A large hall required washing, 
 and the family was expected home. The ladies 
 were equal to the emergency ; they armed 
 themselves with buckets and flannejs, and, 
 locking the hall door, proceeded to try their 
 powers of scrubbing. At this moment an 
 under-housemaid happening to pass, expressed 
 herself as being thoroughly shocked, and fairly 
 drove them away, saying ' how angry Mrs. 
 Crawshay would be,' and that she herself 
 would work later to ' get through it.' I record 
 this, as no less honourable to the house- 
 maid, than as showing the devotion of the 
 ladies ; who would willingly have thus stepped 
 beyond the terms of the contract rather than 
 that the family should have been inconve- 
 nienced. 
 
 People have objected that they feel uncom- 
 fortable in being obliged to ask ladies for 
 anything which they desire with more politeness 
 than they would show to ordinary servants. 
 This is but a passing phase of discomfort ; for, 
 as a rule, nothing can exceed the politeness 
 with which people treat head-servants in all 
 households. The time is long past when 
 servants would tolerate being "ordered 
 about ; " and there is, generally speaking, a 
 feeling on the part of employers of labour, that, 
 while being served, they like to do what they 
 can, to efface the ' hard and fast ' lines. 
 
19 
 
 between those who wait and those who are 
 waited upon. 
 
 Perhaps this may be due to presentiment 
 that the time is fast passing away when one 
 set of people could say to another, — "You 
 shall do all the waiting, and we will do all the 
 eating." " You shall do all the work, and we 
 will do all the play." 
 
 Rose M. Crawshay. 
 
 Cyfarthfa Castle, 
 
 Merthyr Tydvil, 
 
 November i8th, 1874. 
 
DEDICATION OF A BOOKLET 
 
 ON 
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE FOR GENTLEWOMEN 
 
 TO 
 
 THOMAS INMAN, ESQ., M.D. (London) 
 
 Physician to the Royal Infirmary, Liverpool ; 
 Lecturer, successively on Botany, Medical 
 Jurisprudence, Materia Medica and Thera- 
 peutics, and on the Principles and Practice of 
 Medicine, &c., in the Liverpool School of 
 Medicine ; President of the Liverpool Literary 
 and Philosophical Society, &c. ; who died at 
 Clifton, May 3rd, 1876. 
 
 The sad news has just arrived of the death 
 of one who took great interest in Domestic 
 Service for Gentlewomen, and who showed it by 
 his kindness and hospitality at the time che 
 second paper on the subject was read. 
 
 Failing the great pleasure which I had pro- 
 mised myself in his friendly criticism, it is yet 
 a mournful satisfaction now to record the 
 gratitude of a wife and mother, for dear lives 
 kept beside her ; through his untiring watchful 
 zeal, and consummate skill in carrying out the 
 principles of his teacher, the late Dr. Todd. 
 
21 
 
 Anxious for the advancement of all classes, 
 he presented to each of my seven free libraries 
 for workmen, a copy of many essays from his 
 own pen ; among others, one on " The Preser- 
 vation of Health" on '■'■Neuralgia" and on 
 ^'■The Restoration of Health;" also a most 
 sensible work entitled " The Foundation for 
 a New Theory and Practice of Medicine " 
 (Churchill, London). He has likewise written 
 two large, volumes, on ^'■Ancient Faiths 
 embodied in Ancient Names" (Triibner) ; which 
 some day Protestant mothers, may think a 
 lesser evil to put into the hands of their 
 daughters ; than to let Rome daily make 
 converts of them, because they are not allowed, 
 to know the meaning of such pages, as one 
 hundred, and one-hundred-and-one ; of the 
 Earl of Southesk's very thoughtful and 
 courageous work, entitled '■^ Jonas Fisher" 
 (Triibner) ; the key to which may be found in 
 ^^ Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names;" 
 and also in a smaller work of Dr. Inman's, also 
 published by Mr. Triibner, but which I do not 
 name ; because, while the larger book abounds 
 in softening circumstances, due to evidently 
 laborious and scholarly work ; to tender 
 reverence expressed for matters really sacred ; 
 to deep regret perceptible for the cruel 
 necessity, imposed by truth, of overthrowing 
 some of our most cherished dogmas ; these 
 are, in the smaller work, owing to its 
 dimensions, necessarily absent ; and, conse- 
 
22 
 
 quently, any one reading this abridgment, 
 without the context of the larger book, might 
 form a very erroneous and unworthy estimate 
 of a man, whose dehcacy of feeHng, was only 
 subordinate to his devotion to truth. 
 
 To him, who has shared with the writer 
 anxious hours of watching beside sick beds, 
 must now a long " farewell " be said. 
 
 That his earnest labour to stem the tide of 
 superstition, both in medicine and in religion, 
 may bear its due harvest, although he may not 
 see it, is the heartfelt wish of his sincere friend 
 and admirer. 
 
 Rose Mary Crawshay. 
 May, 1876. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON FIRST THOUSAND. 
 
 " One of the most interesting of modern contributions to Social 
 Science and Political Economy." — The Pictorial World. 
 
 "An important pamphlet, . a really valuable contribu- 
 
 tion." — Westminster Review. 
 
23 
 
 DOMESTIC SERVICE 
 
 FOR 
 
 GENTLEWOMEN. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Being a Paper read August 26th, 1875, at a Meeting of the 
 BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 
 
 AT 
 
 BRISTOL. 
 
 Coming before you as I do this day to 
 advocate the adoption of ' lady-helps ' as 
 upper servants, it will occasion surprise when 
 I state that after a trial of the system for 
 fifteen months, during which time it worked 
 well, I parted with four of my 'helps,' 
 retaining only one as my own maid, this 
 young lady having previously been- my 
 kitchen-maid. Those who take an interest in 
 the subject have a right to know the reason 
 of this ; and I propose to give it ; at the same 
 time I hope that you will forgive the necessity 
 which obliges me to trouble so distinguished 
 an audience with petty detail. 
 
 The matter came about in a very simple 
 manner. My cook wished to leave in order 
 to live in London, in consequence of her only 
 
24 
 
 son, who was head clerk in an India house, 
 having returned to England. I need scarcely 
 say that there are at present, very few women 
 of refinement, who have the knowledge, 
 necessary to enable them, to become cooks in 
 large establishments. My cook wished to 
 leave at the beginning of last winter, and my 
 own health does not allow of my remaining in 
 Wales during the winter ; therefore it seemed 
 only reasonable that a young relative, who 
 would take the management of the house 
 during my absence, should have the 
 description of servants she preferred ; and it 
 will astonish no one that she should prefer 
 ordinary servants ; for I think that it is 
 proverbial, that the young stand on their 
 dignity, more, than those persons do, who 
 known life and its sorrow ; and who have 
 learnt that it is neither occupation, nor 
 length of purse, which ought to determine 
 whether a person be entitled to be treated as 
 a gentlewoman or not. 
 
 In my pamphlet on domestic service for 
 gentlewomen I stated that during twelve- 
 months with lady-helps as upper servants, we 
 had not a single change among our women 
 servants. Since my ' helps ' left, a period of 
 ten months, we have had seven changes among 
 our nine women servants. This is a sufficient 
 answer to those people who questioned whether 
 ordinary under-servants could work comfort- 
 ably with ladies as head servants. 
 
25 
 
 There is a feeling that although ladies may 
 nominally do the work of a house, it is doubt- 
 less really done by the few under-servants who 
 are kept. In reply to this I can only say that 
 the amount of extraneous aid given, was far 
 less than it was at any other time during the 
 twenty-nine years that I have " kept house ; " 
 and that not only did the ladies get through 
 all the work required of them, but that they 
 made an immense quantity of new house linen, 
 also wearing apparel ; and though last, not 
 least, cut out and made two carpets for large 
 spare bedrooms, better than most country 
 upholsterers would have made them. 
 
 To ladies who tremble to try domestic 
 service, fearing that they may not have strength 
 for such duties as are required ; I may say 
 that those who served me are considered by 
 their friends in no degree to have fallen off in 
 looks during their fifteen months of servitude ; 
 but quite the contrary — and I can answer for 
 their health being far superior to that of most 
 ladies who are waited on ; and whose exercise 
 consists chiefly in an afternoon roll in a 
 nicely-padded double-springed carriage. 
 
 People have asked, what was the exact 
 social position of my helps ? The father of 
 three of them was for thirty years head clerk 
 in the ofl&ce of a professional man, in whose 
 hands he placed all his earnings. His 
 employer failed, and he found himself, when 
 past middle age, with a wife and nine children. 
 
26 
 
 called upon to begin life afresh. I have read 
 accounts in newspapers of the many prizes 
 this gentleman has taken from time to time as 
 an amateur gardener ; and of his daughters 
 being ' enthusiastically encored ' in songs which 
 they have sung at public concerts. One of my 
 ' helps ' was the wife of a fashionable West-end 
 tradesman, who, had he behaved well, would 
 have been driving his carriage from their house 
 in Westbournia to his place of business. An- 
 other was the daughter of a dissenting minister ; 
 and one was the daughter of a clergyman. 
 
 Among the conditions wherein lady-helps 
 might prove more economical than ordinary 
 servants, is that of a widow or of a spinster 
 living alone ; and perhaps at present keeping a 
 companion and an ordinary servant. If the 
 lonely lady had gentlewomen for ' helps,' not 
 only would the expense of her "companion" 
 be done away with, but she would have the 
 variety of two, three, or four companions, as 
 the case might be. This is no slight item in 
 the comfort of such a household, for people 
 condemned to the constant society of one paid 
 companion, know well how tired each party 
 gets of the other ; whereas with the possibility 
 of two or three companions in turn, how much 
 more bearable would the sad lonely life become ! 
 How greatly would pleasant companionship, 
 occasionally thus brought about, cement the 
 friendship which I hope would always be found 
 possible between a lady and her ' helps.' It 
 
27 
 
 has been said that there can be no friendship 
 without equality, and I have no wish to gain- 
 say this dictum ; but where is the exceeding 
 inequaUty in this case ? One gentlewoman 
 gives a home and a salary to another, who 
 repays these gifts by services rendered honestly 
 and lovingly. 
 
 An accusation against me is, that I have 
 made too great " pets " of my ' helps.' Surely 
 this is a venial offence. When persons of 
 refinement of feeling venture to tread a new 
 and untried path, it is pardonable to smooth 
 that path so far as maybe : consistently with 
 the performance of the duties which are 
 met with on it. When time shall have 
 familiarised us with the idea of "lady-helps," 
 neither householder nor ' help ' will have so 
 difficult a part to play as the first had. 
 
 It is well for the success of a movement 
 that those who have made the first experiment 
 should give to others the benefit of their 
 experience, even although it should necessitate 
 confession of error. Perhaps I made one in 
 allowing, in fact in insisting that my ' helps ' 
 should use the principal entrance. I have 
 found since that they would have been equally 
 happy to use a side entrance ; and this point 
 might, I think, fairly be made a matter of 
 special arrangement, according to the feeling 
 of the employer and to that of those employed; 
 and I should recommend everyone to consider 
 well beforehand what will tend to the less 
 
28 
 
 amount of gene on both sides. The difficulties 
 which loom on this, as on any untried path, 
 will melt away as we near them ; and when 
 the desirability and the possibility of lady- 
 helps superseding our present hindrances be- 
 come obvious ; their position will come to be 
 as clearly defined as the order of precedence 
 at Court. 
 
 The most extraordinary misconception I 
 have met with, is the idea on the part of 
 householders, sadly distressed for want of 
 cooks, that gentlewomen can be induced to 
 becorne cooks, and to associate with ordinary 
 servants. I have had many applications to 
 this effect, which, I confess, have sometimes 
 made me feel very indignant, the idea being 
 so thoroughly selfish. The householder writes 
 for an excellent cook, and offers a far lower 
 salary than would be accepted by a cook of 
 the ordinary type, and she makes no provision 
 whatsoever for this gentlewoman's comfort ! 
 
 It is constantly urged as a great privilege of 
 women that they have not to work — " Men 
 work for them." If so, still true are the words 
 of the song — " Men must work and women 
 must weep." The work which men do, is in 
 most cases congenial to their disposition, for 
 they generally select a profession, while women, 
 alas 1 have but one paying profession open to 
 them, that of marriage ; and this does not pay 
 when the woman happens to be kicked to 
 death by her husband. Surely it is not asking 
 
29 
 
 much that such fair-play shall hereafter be 
 meted out to women as will enable them to 
 choose whether they will embrace this pro- 
 fession where they assuredly must ' weep," or 
 whether they will not. I shall be told, 
 " women marry of their own free will ; no one 
 obliges them to marry ; they can remain 
 single if they prefer it." Yes, but remaining 
 single has another and a sterner name. 
 Women are not at present sufficiently well 
 educated to be able to maintain themselves ; 
 therefore remaining single means in some 
 cases starvation. 
 
 No reform ever escaped ridicule in the first 
 instance, and I am prepared for plenty of fun 
 and ' quizzing ' on the present occasion ; but 
 the remembrance of the heart-broken letters, 
 imploring me to do something for sorrowful, 
 needy, uneducated gentlewomen ; which have 
 reached me during the last twelvemonth, 
 makes the fun sound very hollow. 
 
 ADDENDUM. 
 
 In reply to many enquiries, I think it well 
 to state, that my ' helps ' when at work always 
 wore stout canvas aprons, having ' bibs,' and 
 tying at the back of the skirt. None wore 
 caps, excepting one who was of middle age ; 
 but each frequently wore a coloured bow in 
 
3° 
 
 her hair, or a lace butterfly of her own making, 
 such as was fashionable then. They all 
 appreciated brown holland costumes in 
 summer. Each has continued up to this time 
 to give satisfaction in the situation which she 
 took on leaving Cyfarthfa. 
 
 I have elsewhere mentioned that I allowed 
 my lady-helps each £'^ per annum in lieu of 
 beer, which some may consider an excessive 
 allowance. Would it be considered too much 
 for the butler, supposing that he were 
 allowanced ? Are his duties so hard and so 
 tiring as the poor scullery-girl's, on whom 
 devolves frequently the stoning of a large 
 amount of flooring and the scouring of in- 
 numerable " pots and pans " ? 
 
 Because a girl's physiqtie is less robust than 
 a man's, is that a reason for limiting her 
 sustenance ? Ergo, the woman servant who 
 does harder work than the man-servant 
 requires no less beer than he does. 
 
 Could I have offered to my ladies a less 
 sum of money than I would offer to ordinary 
 servants ? — for although ladies they were poor. 
 My reply to myself was, "No" — hence 
 the £5. 
 
 The misconception as to the work which 
 lady-helps could undertake would be amusing, 
 were it not sad to find the utter want of 
 sympathy of many rich ladies with their poor 
 sisters. 
 
 Surely many a wealthy lady could look 
 
31 
 
 around her home and imagine the duties 
 which she, if poor but with good health, could 
 herself perform. Here is an unerring guide, 
 for such as are disposed to mitigate the silent 
 suffering ; which although lying often almost at 
 our doors, yet can only be guessed, not known, 
 for the reason that it is silent. 
 
 Above all things, in engaging helps, does it 
 seem needful that ladies should, do unto 
 others as they would that others should do 
 unto them, were their positions reversed ; and 
 if householders and helps were both guided by 
 that divine rule of conduct, the benefit would 
 be mutual, and friendships would be formed 
 such as are now impossible, owing to the 
 entire divergence of thought and of interest 
 between the employer and those employed. 
 
 Ah, gentlemen ! — ^you who write such hard 
 things of my scheme, and say how impossible 
 it is that ladies should stoop to such degrada- 
 tion as entering domestic service — try to 
 imagine what a hard thing it must be to starve ! 
 Know, too, that there is an excess of nearly a 
 million women in Great Britain for whom 
 marriage is consequently impossible, and to 
 thousEtnds of whom any degradation is prefer- 
 able to that one which no law says shall be 
 poorly paid. 
 
 Would that I could touch some of your 
 hearts ! For although you think that in your 
 own interests it is well to encourage an 
 abundance of starving women, much as 
 
32 
 
 starving dogs are encouraged in the East — tor 
 their services — yet you have hearts ; and 
 although you fancy that you see in all efforts 
 to render v^^omen independent of men, a 
 limitation of the pleasures of men — yet think, 
 •when justice is done to women, how sturdy a 
 race of heroes will arise ! Men with strong 
 bodies and strong minds, seeing what is 
 injustice so clearly, that they will no longer 
 decree as you do ; that no woman who does 
 not belong soul and body to some man shall 
 live. Some men would rather see women 
 starve than live, unless every bit of bread be 
 put into their mouths by men. 
 
 What is the reason of the tremendous 
 opposition made, to allowing women who have 
 the necessary talent and taste, to become 
 doctors ? It is disguised under the pretty 
 sentiment that "the work of a doctor is too 
 hard;" that "a woman must not see 
 immodest sights;" that "her native purity 
 (poor starving wretch) may not be infringed 
 by her doing the disgusting work of the 
 dissecting-room," &c., &c., ad nauseam. There 
 is no decree that female nurses may not 
 attend at all hospitals ; that if particularly 
 horrible operations are to be performed, the 
 nurses are to be exempted from seeing them ; 
 that if any very wearisome labour be involved 
 in attendance on a patient, no woman nurse 
 shall do it. A nurse's work is often more 
 fatiguing and more unpleasant than a doctor's, 
 
33 
 
 and it is without the joy that excitement and 
 a sense of responsibiUty bring to the doctor. 
 
 The secret of the opposition is this : a 
 physician's work is, as a rule, well paid ; 
 therefore, say men, " Let's keep it for our- 
 selves; " a nurse's work is hard and more 
 poorly paid — "we'll give it to the women." 
 
 What have these remarks to do with 
 domestic service for gentlewomen ? Only 
 this : honest work must be found for those 
 women who desire it, and domestic service is 
 one road where-on they may find it. There 
 is now a frightful scarcity of good servants, 
 and there are thousands of needy gentlewomen 
 suffering the agony of genteel poverty, which, 
 like the 
 
 ' grief that does not speak, 
 
 Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.'' 
 
 Entirely agreeing with those who advocate 
 lady-nurses, I yet hope that further thought 
 may induce many to see the desirability, both in 
 the interest of employer and employed, of 
 other positions in domestic service being 
 likewise filled by poor gentlewomen. 
 
 The arcance of the kitchen, at present so 
 carefully guarded from the intrusive eye, could 
 show frightful examples of " scamping." 
 
 With the constantly increasing number of 
 contrivances to economise labour, why should 
 not cookery become one of the fine arts, having 
 its votaries among a class who will not only 
 
34 
 
 bring to its use dainty fingers, but also 
 common-sense and conscience ? 
 
 I am delighted to find a growing fashion 
 among young ladies of the upper class, to make 
 occasionally some pretty dish for the admira- 
 tion of their father's guests. What a comfort 
 to these young ladies when, instead of the ill- 
 concealed resentment of the ordinary cook, the 
 empressement of the lady-help will welcome a 
 fellow-worker to the kitchen ! 
 
 Speaking of conscience reminds me of a cir- 
 cumstance, the recountal of which may pro- 
 bably amuse. 
 
 A bottle of brandy brought from the town 
 for my cook's private use was lost. She asked 
 the messenger who ought to have delivered it, 
 why he had not brought it straight to the 
 kitchen. 
 
 " Because Mrs. Crawshay was in the 
 kitchen at the moment, and I didn't think 
 you'd have liked her to know of it." 
 
 The reply was doubtless startling — 
 
 " I never do anything of which I do not 
 wish Mrs. Crawshay to know — she is quite 
 aware that I take brandy-and-water instead of 
 beer." 
 
 Fancy a kitchen where all was straight- 
 forward and honest ! 
 
 In the heat of summer my ladies found 
 immense comfort in *Leoni's gas-stove, which 
 
 * Warehouse, Great George Street, Westminster. 
 
35 
 
 did away with the necessity for a fire in the 
 kitchen, unless some very large joint, such as 
 a haunch of venison, had to be roasted. The 
 stove was also most useful for baking rolls for 
 breakfast, not needing the time that a brick 
 oven does for heating. 
 
 I would strongly recommend a gas stove in 
 every kitchen, where a lady is intended to 
 work, as doing away with heat, and as being 
 more easily cleaned than the ordinary " range." 
 The economical proclivities of a gentlewoman 
 who has known need, will be our protection 
 from the dreadful amount of waste committed 
 by most ordinary servants, in failing to turn 
 off the gas when not in use. 
 
 There seems a strong feeling that the place 
 of housekeeper is well suited to a lady. No 
 one considers her isolation. " It would be 
 such a bore to have her with us at all." 
 Isolation and the "worry of the servants" 
 will, before long, make the lady-housekeeper 
 sigh for a staff of upper servants of her own 
 class, and I do not expect that there will be 
 any dearth of active, kindly young women 
 ready to come forward ; in whose vocabulary 
 the words refinement and gratitude both 
 have places. 
 
 So much for the manner in which it seems 
 probable that a portion of the public will be 
 brought to see the desirability of adopting 
 lady-helps. 
 
 The question of how a supply of efficient 
 
35 
 
 helps will be provided, seems likely to be 
 answered by large families of daughters deter- 
 mining to be their own helps, by devoting two 
 hours each, or perhaps only one hour each, 
 per diem to household work ; and finding that 
 no one suffers thereby except the poor doctor, 
 whose fees will, from the moment this plan is 
 adopted, gradually dwindle. 
 
 The medical profession, of all professions, 
 seems least to fear any abrogation of its 
 income through greater knowledge on the part 
 of the public. How is this ? Is it from great 
 philanthropy, or from unwavering faith in the 
 folly and stolidity of the human race ? 
 
 Among the many objections to ladies taking 
 the places of upper servants, it has been urged 
 that ordinary servants will require to be bribed 
 by being called "lady-helps;" and that 
 mistresses of households are liable to be 
 imposed upon by people who are not ladies 
 representing themselves to be such. 
 
 If the mistress of a household does not know 
 a lady when she speaks with one, I do not 
 think that we need greatly deplore the 
 imposition practised on her ; and if ordinary 
 servants must now be bribed by being called 
 "lady-helps," surely employers would do better 
 to be served by lady-helps than by people who 
 merely assume their name. 
 
 In eight months about a hundred ladies have 
 obtained situations at my office ; six have 
 proved failures — three of them from inebriety 1 
 
37 
 
 In most cases the householders had not 
 taken the precaution of making enquiries as to 
 suitability, which they would have made before 
 engaging ordinary servants. In one case the 
 " lady-help " found that she did not like the 
 duties which she had undertaken, and imme- 
 diately left. She then came to my office 
 expecting to be found some more congenial 
 employment ; but her name was at once 
 crossed off the books, and she was told that 
 she would never have any further assistance 
 from me. 
 
 It is strange how furiously aggrieved many 
 people are, at my scheme for supplementing 
 some of the shortcomings of ordinary servants, 
 by superior intelligence and greater purity of 
 purpose ! Are they afraid that I shall abolish 
 ordinary servants more quickly than they will 
 abolish themselves ? Or that, whether people 
 like the system of " lady-helps " or not, they 
 will be obliged to employ them ? Vain fears 
 both 1 Domestic servants will continue to 
 find occupation until from sheer demoralisation 
 they cease to be. 
 
 People who object to " lady-helps " will no 
 more be obliged to employ them, than women 
 who do not want to vote, will be obliged to 
 vote : when the time comes that women shall 
 be allowed to have a share, if they wish for it, in 
 making the laws which they are bound to obey, 
 and in opposing those, the working of which, 
 is now so unjust and so injurious to women. 
 
38 
 
 I am often asked what are the class who 
 chiefly wish to take positions as " lady-helps " ? 
 Relations of gentlemen-farmers, of surgeons, 
 physicians, solicitors, clergymen, colonels in 
 the army, and of admirals in the navy, besides 
 those of literary men. Some of them have 
 been quite destitute. 
 
 The observation is sometimes made by 
 householders that they could not bear to 
 employ ladies as servants, because it would 
 hurt their own feelings to see them in such 
 positions. I fully feel the force of this remark, 
 but it seems to me very like the tender-heart- 
 edness which would allow a poor burnt moth 
 to linger on in agony ; because it is either too 
 much trouble, or too great a sacrifice of feeling, 
 to take away its life. 
 
 The analogy does not entirely hold good, for 
 instead of dealing death, we are called upon to 
 administer life — to take the starved and crushed 
 from miserable houses to homes of comparative 
 affluence. Surely this is a work of charity, 
 and under this aspect it may be possible to 
 accustom ourselves even to lady-parlourmaids ; 
 although, to me, this seems the most trying of 
 all positions that a lady might be called upon 
 to fill ; but I feel bound to add, that I have 
 heard many ladies say, that it is the one which 
 they would prefer ! 
 
 The question which continues to be more 
 frequently put to me than any other is — " Have 
 you not found great difficulty in getting 
 
39 
 
 ordinary servants to put up with ' lady-helps ' ? " 
 I have partly answered this on page seventeen ; 
 and having now to add that since our " helps " 
 left, in eighteen months, we have had more 
 than that number of fresh servants, and that 
 no one has remained so long as my own 
 attendant, (a " lady-help "), viz., two years and 
 a half, I consider the interrogation so com- 
 pletely met that I shall not again revert to it. 
 Another favourite query is — ^whether having 
 "lady-helps" as upper servants does not 
 entail many more under ones ? This question 
 I have also partly replied to on page twenty- 
 five, and in confirmation of the opinion given 
 there, I may add that we now find it necessary 
 to. have extra assistance for scrubbing, which 
 our three ordinary housemaids cannot get 
 through ; and also that, with a view to spare 
 their work, a large number of back passages 
 have been covered in the centre ; " which was 
 not so before." 
 
 It is hoped that no employer will seek a 
 " lady-help " to be a general servant, as the 
 rougher work must in all cases be done by an 
 ordinary servant. For this purpose young 
 girls from the country will be found more 
 likely to answer than London servants. 
 
 As it is probable that lady-helps may occupy 
 rooms used before by ordinary servants, em- 
 ployers are requested to have such rooms and 
 
40 
 
 bedding thoroughly cleansed : otherwise no 
 one could be surprised were a lady to leave 
 at once. 
 
 It is necessary that every " lady-help " 
 should have a bedroom to herself, unless by 
 special arrangement she were to consent to 
 use a separate bed in the same room with 
 another lady. 
 
 I will be no party to any lady engaging her- 
 self to scour floors, black-lead grates, clean 
 " pots and pans," nor to varnish any shoes but 
 her own ; neither to carry pails, water, nor 
 coal ; and hope that I may have the sympathy 
 of employers, in feeling that these are duties 
 which no lady ought to undertake. 
 
 The objection to black-leading grates does 
 not apply with equal force to kindling a fire, 
 nor to " taking up the ashes," should this be 
 found convenient. In chamois leather gloves 
 no detriment to the hands is likely to ensue — 
 and happy is the woman, of what-so-ever 
 grade, who has never been obliged to perform 
 these duties in the interest of some dear 
 invalid, who would have been distracted by 
 noise and dust. 
 
 No lady-help should be required to take her 
 meals with ordinary servants, but should carry 
 them herself to her own bedroom, failing any 
 other room being appointed for her. It is 
 desirable that no lady should enter a family 
 where less than two helps are employed, when 
 they would be almost sure to have some small 
 
41 
 
 room at their disposal. A nice clean kitchen 
 would be comfortable enough if no other 
 servants were kept ; and if the rough work were 
 done by a charwoman attending occasionally 
 for the purpose, who would of course, among 
 other duties, include " cleaning the doorsteps." 
 
 I allowed my helps to take newspapers and 
 magazines to their rooms for reading, providing 
 that they were returned, or that they were at 
 hand when called for. I also allowed the use 
 of a piano at such times as did not interfere 
 with the comfort of the family. I gave my 
 cook, kitchen-maid, and lady's-maid, each £%o ; 
 dairy-maid, and housemaid, had {^\'^. Each 
 was allowed ;^5 for beer money, and each salary 
 was raised ■£'^ at the end of the first year. 
 Travelling expenses were allowed second class. 
 
 It is exceedingly desirable that no engagement 
 should be made without an interview ; and, 
 possibly, some ladies might not object to 
 allowing the "helps" to see beforehand the 
 rooms that they would occupy, and the space 
 that they would be expected to keep clean, so 
 far as sweeping, dusting, cleaning brass door- 
 handles, and washing marble mantle-pieces. 
 Brass door-handles seem generally left to 
 themselves in England, but in Wales they are 
 great objects of pride, when shining like 
 burnished gold. 
 
 Probably no employer would object to her 
 "helps" receiving their friends on Sunday 
 afternoons, and giving them tea ; nor to 
 
42 
 
 allowing such as could be spared to go with 
 them to church, chapel, or for a walk ; their 
 friends leaving them at the door of the house 
 on their return. A good exchange from the 
 " follower " of kitchen notoriety ! 
 
 It has been frequently asked — "Are these 
 ' lady-helps ' at any time to mix on terms of 
 equality with the families whom they serve ? " 
 This is a matter which must be left absolutely 
 to be determined by the feeling of employer 
 and employed ; for there could be no greater 
 mistake than to make intercourse, which should 
 arise spontaneously with the growth of friend- 
 ship, a matter of barter. 
 
 Some ladies would doubtless prefer serving 
 in families where no men servants are kept, 
 while to others the duties of a parlour-maid 
 would be more embarrassing than any which 
 could fall to their lot. 
 
 Some employers would feel more gene, from 
 being waited upon at dinner by lady-helps ; 
 than where circumstances allowed of their 
 duties being performed out of sight. 
 
 Those who are familiar with parts of the 
 Continent, where the daughters of the host 
 attend on their father's guest, would not feel 
 this awkwardness. On the other hand, it is 
 probable that the divinity which " doth hedge " 
 a true gentlewoman, would be felt, even by 
 her fellow servants, of the masculine gender. 
 
 The lady-helps should always be more in 
 number than the servants under them ; as it is 
 
43 
 
 only the roughest work, which a lady could not 
 do, that would fall to the servants' share. 
 
 Some misconception, as to the work ladies 
 might be expected to undertake, has risen from 
 my having had a lady-cook and a lady-kitchen- 
 maid. The cook managed the soups, fish, and 
 savoury dishes ; the kitchen-maid undertook 
 all sweets, and gave assistance with the entrees. 
 Both were waited upon by the scullery-maid, 
 who scoured floors and tables, cleaned " pots 
 and pans," and lighted fires. This woman 
 also scoured the floor when required, and 
 scalded all dairy utensils once a week — the 
 young lady dairy-maid scalding them on the 
 other days. 
 
KEATS' SONNETS (20). 
 
 CHANDOS CLASSICS EDITION. 
 One Prize, £$, 
 
 Of the fifty sonnets written by Keats the twenty 
 given here can hardly be considered fairly repre- 
 sentative of his sonnet work at its best. It 
 is true that some of the sonnets excluded are 
 among his weakest — we notice without regret, for 
 instance, the absence of those addressed to Byron 
 and Chatterton — but we miss the beautiful Last 
 Sonnet (' Bright star, would I were steadfast as 
 thou art ') ; that beginning ' The da}' is gone, and 
 all its sweets are gone ' ; the Homeric one con- 
 taining the famous line 'There is, a budding 
 morrow in midnight,' and other favourites. The 
 sonnets under consideration — ranging as they do 
 from Keats' early efforts in this form of verse to 
 some of his finest and most finished productions — 
 are, naturally, very unequal in point of merit ; and 
 the admirer who should fail to recognise this fact 
 would pay a very poor compliment to the best 
 among them. Keats, like Cromwell, is ' big 
 enough to be painted with his warts ; ' and we 
 shall but prove our incapacity for rendering intelh- 
 
gent homage to the magic of his verse at its best 
 by any attempt to ignore palpable defects and 
 crudities. 
 
 Admitting, then, that some of these sonnets 
 appear to lack inspiration — admitting, too, that it 
 is not on his sonnets as a whole that Keats' claim 
 to immortality chiefly rests — the fact remains that 
 even those not specially noteworthy from the 
 artistic standpoint have yet a strong interest for 
 us in the light of his subsequent achievements, 
 and as adding their quota to our knowledge of the 
 poet, his friends, and surroundings. Moreover, 
 even in cases where the form is too dignified for 
 the subject- — and the sonnet never seems a fitting 
 vehicle for commonplace or trivial sentiments — 
 there is generally some touch that bespeaks the 
 real Keats, soon to rise so far above the tone of 
 ' chatty familiarity ' in which a few of these earlier 
 verses are conceived. 
 
 The due perception of relative values which 
 one great poet — Wordsworth — never attained, — the 
 sense of the subtle distinction between real poetry 
 and versified prose, — was only temporarily lacking 
 to Keats. While as yet the distinction remains un- 
 grasped, the sublime and the commonplace jostle 
 one another oddly in his poetry. Into some aerial 
 
palace reared by Fancy he will introduce a being 
 of mortal mould, and forthwith the whole faery 
 fabric crumbles into dust. Or he charms us into 
 some ethereal realm of the imagination, from which, 
 by a careless touch, we are made to fall headlong. 
 In the very first sonnet the line 
 
 ' E'en now, dear George, while this for you I write,' 
 
 brings us to earth with a jar that is positively 
 painful ; and the closing couplet, 
 
 ' But what, without the social thought of thee. 
 Would be the wonders of the sky and sea ? ' 
 
 rivets us there, which is all the more disappointing 
 as the ' laurelled peers who from the feathery gold 
 of evening lean ' had led us to expect something 
 very different. Then, too, in spite of our know- 
 ledge of Keats' devotion to his family, and to this 
 brother in particular, the fraternal sentiment here 
 seems certainly a little strained. A man who so 
 ' loved the principle of Beauty in all things ; ' 
 whose greatest pleasure was found in watching the 
 growth of flowers ; who, in his dying fancy, felt 
 ' the daisies growing over ' him, did not need the 
 * social thought ' of even a dearly loved brother, 
 to enable him to appreciate ' the wonders of the 
 sky and sea.' 
 
The domestic interest recurs again in a subse- 
 quent sonnet, To my Brothers, and again, with a 
 tinge of romance, in ' Nymph of the downward 
 smile and sidelong glance,' a sonnet addressed to 
 Miss Georgiana Wylie, the lady who, a little later, 
 married George Keats. 
 
 This was the time when the influence of Leigh 
 Hunt was supreme with his younger comrade, and 
 to the example of his literary sponsor we may trace 
 the familiar, colloquial, personal style a good deal 
 affected by Keats at this period. But if we hold 
 the author of Rimini responsible in part for the 
 fact that his friend and disciple sometimes wrote 
 verse that was little more than pleasant jingle, we 
 must not shirk the admission that all lovers of 
 Keats have much more cause to thank Leigh 
 Hunt than to blame him. In the pleasant literary 
 circle to which his friendship with the older poet 
 admitted him, Keats found yet other friends, and 
 in Hunt himself he had a generous and sympa- 
 thetic friend and adviser. These very sonnets 
 bear constant witness in one way or other to their 
 friendship. One is a greeting to Leigh Hunt on 
 his liberation from prison, keenly appreciative of 
 his sufferings in the cause of liberty, and insisting 
 strongly upon his essential freedom in spite of his 
 
bodily imprisonment. Of another (' O solitude ! 
 
 if I must with thee dwell ') we remember that it 
 
 was the first published of Keats' poems, and 
 
 brought out by Hunt in the Examiner of May 5th, 
 
 1816. The Grasshopper and Cricket was written in 
 
 a friendly competition with Hunt, and yet another 
 
 sonnet (' Keen fitful gusts ') was composed while 
 
 Keats was walking home one winter night from 
 
 Hunt's house at Hampstead, and while, as he 
 
 says, 
 
 ' Brimful of the friendliness 
 That in a little cottage I have found.' 
 
 The sonnet numbered XIV in this collection, 
 and beginning ' Great spirits now on earth are 
 sojourning,' celebrates Hunt as one of these ' great 
 spirits,' his compeers in this instance being Words- 
 worth, and Haydon, the painter, to whom the 
 sonnet is addressed. It is easy to recognise Leigh 
 Hunt in the lines, 
 
 ' He of the rose, the violet, the spring, 
 The social smiie, the chain for Freedom's sake : ' 
 
 and Haydon, in the description of one 
 
 ' Whose steadfastness would never take 
 A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.' 
 
 This latter friendship inspired two other sonnets: 
 the later of them (XIX), which enclosed that On 
 
the Elgin Marbles, containing some fine lines com- 
 memorative of Haydon's share in obtaining public 
 recognition of their merits : 
 
 ' Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine ; 
 
 Whose else ? In this who touch thy vesture's hem ? 
 For, when men stared at what was most divine 
 
 With brainless idiotism and o'erwise phlegm, 
 Thou hadst beheld the full Hesperian shine 
 
 Of their star in the East, and gone to worship them ! ' 
 
 However acceptable every personal detail or 
 suggestion to be found in these sonnets may be to 
 the lover of Keats, yet, from a literary point of 
 view, the characteristic touches occurring here and 
 there throughout them possess more value. Such 
 are the poetic reckoning of time, where in 
 sonnet V he describes a ramble in the fields, 
 
 ' What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew 
 From his lush clover covert,' 
 
 and the beautiful description in the lines to 
 
 Solitude, 
 
 ' Let me thy vigils keep 
 'Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer's swift leap 
 Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell,' 
 
 and in another place the likening of a passing 
 
 day to 
 
 ' The passage of an angel's tear 
 That falls through the clear ether silently.' 
 
The Grasshopper and Cricket has all through 
 much that is characteristic about it ; but there are 
 three or more of the sonnets that are altogether 
 on a higher level than the rest. The last — A 
 Dream — is one of these. Here Keats breaks fresh 
 ground with a reminiscence of Dante. He speaks 
 of the dream itself as ' one of the most delightful 
 enjoyments I ever had in my life ; ' and his own 
 criticism of the sonnet is, ' there are fourteen lines 
 in it, but nothing of what I felt.' Nevertheless, if 
 it failed fully to express the vivid fancy of the 
 poet, it conveys to the reader' something at least 
 of the charm that he experienced in his visionary 
 wanderings. He compares himself to Hermes, 
 lulling all the hundred eyes of Argus to sleep, and 
 profiting by his slumber to take wing. He, too, 
 by the music of his ' Delphic reed,' lulls the 
 ' dragon world ' to sleep, and then flies, not to Ida 
 or Tempe, but to ' that second circle of sad Hell ' 
 which Dante describes, 
 
 ' Where, 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw 
 Of rain and hailstones, lovers need not tell 
 Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw ; 
 Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form 
 I floated with about that melancholy storm.' 
 
 Here we see Keats under the spell of mediaeval 
 
romance ; but the ancient Greek mythology 
 possessed an even stronger charm for him, and its 
 fascination is evident in his poems. It is obvious, 
 too, that Greek art was not without its influence 
 upon him. The address to Haydon, laudatory of 
 his discrimination in regard to the Elgin Marbles, 
 has already been quoted from, and in his fine 
 sonnet upon the subject, sent to Haydon with this 
 address, Keats alludes to their effect upon him- 
 self — to the burden of mortality that weighs upon 
 him in view of heights to which he feels that he 
 cannot soar, and to the pain which the artist ever 
 suffers in face of unattainable perfection — 
 
 ' Such dim conceived glories of the brain 
 
 Bring round the heart an indescribable leud ; 
 
 So do these wonders a most dizzy pain 
 
 That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude 
 
 Wasting of old Time — with a billowy main, 
 A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.' 
 
 The sonnet on Chapman's Homer, though in 
 point of time among Keats' earlier poems, and 
 reputed indeed by some critics to be the only 
 really excellent thing in his first volume, remains 
 still his best known and most popular sonnet. 
 Familiar as it is, it is difficult to say exactly what 
 constitute its chief merits. It carries such strong 
 
internal evidence of a genuine inspiration derived 
 from a first intimate acquaintance with ' the 
 glamour of the world antique,' that we hardly 
 need the old story of the poet ' sitting up till day- 
 light ' over his Chapman, ' shouting with delight,' 
 to enable us to realise his enthusiasm. This en- 
 thusiasm Keats forthwith transmuted into im- 
 mortal verse, and we have the result in a sonnet 
 so much above ordinary criticism that, though we 
 might speak truly of its ' inevitableness,' its spon- 
 taneity, its felicity of simile and expression, as 
 among its excellences, we should be no nearer 
 discovering the secret of the charm it possesses. 
 Extracts fail to do justice to its unity of thought 
 and treatment, and it is too widely known to 
 quote in full ; but quotation is surely unnecessary 
 in dealing with a poem that all lovers of poetry 
 know and love. 
 
 Gertrude E. Clarke. 
 
 The Bank, 
 
 Chatteris, 
 
 Cambs. 
 
MORE " GOSSIP." 
 
 Many of the following odds and ends were written 
 for my husband's reading during his nineteen years 
 of deafness, and in some cases do not represent 
 my later thoughts ; but I leave them as written 
 because marking an era in mental history. 
 
 In pursuance of a promise in the first thousand 
 of the preceeding essays, I now add something 
 about Norbury and Devas." 
 
 These were written principally for my husband. 
 
 In the first thousand of three of the following 
 essays I wrote : ' If readers should be tolerant of my 
 ^^ Gossip " perhaps these friends of mine may become 
 theirs also — viz., Norbury and Devas.' 
 
 R. M. C. 
 
Thomas Norbury 
 
 was born at Bromsgrove. 
 
 Died at Merthyr July^ 14, 1872, 
 
 Aged 64. 
 
 For forty-nine years he kept a small oilshop 
 in Pont-y-storehouse, over which he built an 
 observatory. 
 
 ' Skilful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge 
 and understanding science. 
 
 ' He spake of trees, from the cedar that is in 
 Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out 
 out of the wall ; he spake also of the beasts, and 
 of fowls, and of creeping things. 
 
 ' After the way which they called heresy, so 
 worshipped he the God of his fathers.' 
 
 In Memoriam, 
 By Rose Mary Crawshay. 
 
 The above appears on a white marble tomb- 
 stone in Vaynor churchyard, two miles from 
 Merthyr. 
 
 Thomas Norbury was sent while young to visit 
 his maternal uncle, a large farmer in Radnorshire. 
 After a time he came to Merthyr, worked as a 
 
13 
 
 mechanic in various shops, going on Sundays to 
 friends among the hills. His uncle thought 
 him intelligent, and with many others wished 
 to make a parson of him. But he had seen 
 
 too much of the parson at to respect any. 
 
 He had seen him ' supported between two 
 people into the pulpit to preach,' and on other 
 occasions, when not tipsy, ' no sooner was his cas- 
 sock off than he would get his coat off too, and 
 throw up a ball as a challenge.' There were dog- 
 fights, rat hunts, and all kind of discreditable 
 amusements on a Sunday ; and, years after, 
 Norbury returned there to preach to them. He 
 never took a penny for this, and was no believer 
 in the value of any religious or educational 
 teaching which is paid for (!) . 
 
 Norbury used to speak of an old pupil named 
 William Williams, who had been gold-crushing 
 in Australia, had made about ;^900, and had bought 
 some houses, which he lets. He said : ' He is so 
 honest a man that if gold pieces (not his) lay as 
 thick as the rhododendron blooms around him he 
 would not touch one.' He also spoke of another 
 perfectly honest man, a mason of the name ot 
 Hyde. He had to build part of a wall round 
 Twynyrodyn Churchyard when Mr. Crawshay was 
 
H 
 
 Chairman of the Board of Health. Someone 
 complained that the wall was not well done. To 
 spare the Board, or rather the ratepayers, Mr. 
 Crawshay said he had a mason named Malifant, 
 a perfectly good judge of a wall, who should go 
 and see it. Malifant pronounced it not well done, 
 and Hyde had to do it again. He went through 
 the Bankruptcy Court, started for California, and 
 returned to Merthyr for no purpose but to pay 
 every farthing he owed. To one person he went 
 with £^0. The man said : ' Oh, that's all done 
 with ; it has been crossed off my books these ten 
 years.' ' Ah, but,' said Hyde, ' it is not crossed 
 off my conscience ; ' and he paid it, and took a 
 receipt, which Norbury saw. He went to Cardiflf 
 and Bristol, paying every farthing he had ever 
 owed, and then off to America again. Norbury 
 asked him, 'What about that wall ?' Hyde said: 
 ' I've been to see it, and my second doing is as 
 firm now as when I did it.' 
 
 I told him Mr. G had said to me that he 
 
 would rather see people, instead of leaving money 
 to endow churches, leave it for the education of 
 animals. He thought animals might be greatly 
 advanced by education and were quite susceptible 
 of it, seeing how peculiarities are transmitted from 
 
15 
 
 sire to offspring. Norbury said : ' You would not 
 thereby hurry on intelligence (?, R.M.C.). Every- 
 thing has its time appointed, and you could no 
 more hasten the dial of the universe in this way 
 than you could alter the time of day by pushing 
 on the hands of a clock.' 
 
 I was once rejoicing that I lived in this age of 
 the world instead of as a savage hundreds of years 
 ago. ' You are not in the least degree happier, 
 m'am. A vessel can but be full, and a thimble 
 may be as full as an ocean.' 
 
 I lent Norbury Thoreau's Walden, being an 
 account of how the author retired to the borders 
 of Walden Pond and built himself a house. He 
 greatly enjoyed reading it, and said, with glittering 
 eyes: ' Where is Mr. Thoreau ? I'd go a thousand 
 miles to meet that man.' 
 
 • Alas ! ' I said, ' You'd have to go further, for 
 he is dead.' 
 
 * Not so sure I should have to go further for all 
 that, for I believe the dead may be as near us as 
 the air we breathe.' 
 
 Still, in spite of this opinion, he greatly liked 
 my ' Thoughts on Death,' published with the 3rd 
 edition of ' Euthanasia,' which he had seen when 
 first printed. 
 
i6 
 
 At a time when there was so much discussion 
 in the newspapers on this subject, and more 
 especially when I spoke at the School Board on 
 Bible reading, alluding to the Vedas and other 
 books, of which we both knew something, he said: 
 
 ' This is your day, m'am. You have great 
 opportunities just now.' 
 
 ' Well, I suppose " every dog has his day ",' 
 was my reply. 
 
 ' Not so m'am ; there are some to whom it is 
 always night.' 
 
 ' You mean, I suppose, that some are of so 
 unhappy a disposition that their minds are always 
 dark.' 
 
 ' Precisely ; the kingdom of heaven is within 
 us.' 
 
 New Books. 
 
 ' Mr. Norbury, I have just got a new book.' 
 ' I'm very sorry to hear it ; there is far too much 
 reading, and too little thinking.' 
 
 I lent him Mr. Lecky's 'History of Rationalism 
 in Europe.' When he returned it he said : ' I 
 have just had enough previous reading greatly to 
 enjoy this, for I have read Glanville's Demono- 
 logy and also Casaubon. The last I found 
 
17 
 
 among a lot of old papers I had bought by the 
 pound, and knowing the name I read the book. 
 When I had finished it a Roman CathoHc priest 
 came and asked me to sell it him for ids. I 
 agreed, for having it in my head I did not want 
 it on my shelves.' A book collector passing through 
 the town heard of it, and purchased it for 30s., 
 and it ultimately fetched ^o, los. in London. 
 
 On Ladies' Dress. 
 One Sunday Norbury was very minute in his 
 enquiries after ' Miss Henrietta ' — hoped she was 
 well, and that nothing was the matter the Sunday 
 before. He said : ' Just at six o'clock, as I was 
 leaving, she passed through the hall very quickly.' 
 I said : ' I suppose that was because it was dinner 
 time, and we are very punctual, so I dare say she 
 was in a hurry.' 'Ah, but, m'am, the young lady 
 was only half dressed ! ' It is needless to say I 
 understood the reflection on a decolletee toilette. 
 
 Mars. 
 
 I offered to lend Norbury a copy of the 
 AthencBum containing a very interesting account 
 of the planet Mars. He said : ' Thank you ; I 
 
should like to see it, for I have been watching 
 him assiduously through all this season, he being 
 in a better position than has been the case for 
 eighteen years for observing the snows of his 
 southern hemisphere.' I found I needed not to 
 lend him the AthencBum, for this was what I 
 meant him to read. 
 
 He used to speak of some inhabitant of Merthyr 
 who had left it years ago, and was found by a 
 Merthyr man in the far west of America inhabiting 
 a lonely hut in the forest. She was then in a 
 dying state, and he stayed one day with her and 
 offered to remain until all should be over. ' Do 
 you think,' said she, proudly, ' that I who have 
 lived for thirty years alone am afraid to die alone ? ' 
 
 One lovely summer evening Henrietta and I 
 had walked with him by the Gurnos, and he said : 
 ' How little we value such an evening, and the 
 fact that we are all here enjoying our walk, free 
 from disease and from the pangs of hunger ! ' 
 ' Oh ! but I am very hungry,' said my daughter, 
 which amused him immensely. He had a curious 
 objection to meals being served at certain fixed 
 hours. He said this recurrence of meals led many 
 to eat when they were not hungry. ' I would 
 recommend you, m'am, to have bread and meat 
 
19 
 
 always on a table in your hall or room where 
 people might go and help themselves.' This 
 amused me as a novel arrangement for Cyfarthfa 
 Castle. I lent Mr. Norbury Mr. W. Rathbone 
 Greg's book, The Creed of Christendom. When he 
 returned it he said : ' You have read this book ? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' And you still continue to go to church ? ' 
 (severely) . 
 
 ' Yes ; after much thought I have concluded it 
 is better I should do so, although the time may 
 come when it would become impossible for me to 
 continue to do so. How could I expect my grown- 
 up children or my servants to attend church if I 
 never went ? — and possibly, too, in my position, 
 example may have an influence beyond my own 
 home — if those I have named gave up church- 
 going it would not be for my reason. They would 
 not give it up because convinced it had nothing 
 further to teach them — because they had studied 
 theology so deeply that the church creed was but 
 one of an infinite number which had been passed 
 in review. Added to which I am not an Atheist, 
 nor do I wish to give anyone the impression that 
 I am one, which my not attending any place of 
 worship might possibly do.' 
 
20 
 
 ' Well, m'am, I admit in your case there are 
 "extenuating circumstances." Still, I can hardly 
 consider you are right to go and hear that sublime 
 Being, whom we both reverence as perfect wisdom 
 and perfect love, maligned as He is maligned in 
 churches and chapels. Suppose there had been a 
 meeting at some public-house near here, and you 
 heard that Mr. Crawshay had been spoken very 
 ill of and abused, and you were told " Norbury 
 was there." You might say, " I am sure Norbury 
 could not have been abusing Mr. Crawshay; he 
 likes him too well to do that." Your informant 
 might say, " Well, at any rate Norbury was there, 
 and if he did not join in the abuse he sat quiet 
 and never contradicted it, and gave it the sanction 
 of his presence." ' 
 
 These were bitter words, and I felt them. 
 
 Mr. Norbury, in his younger days, always 
 attended church, and took an adult school for 
 many years r,egularly there. I observed to him : 
 ' You don't go to church now, Mr. Norbury ? ' 
 
 ' No. I am too near the end of my earthly 
 career to waste two hours every Sunday morning. 
 I shall never go again to church.' And he never 
 did. 
 
21 
 
 The Sun and Moon. 
 
 Some young men asked him if he believed the 
 sun did stand still in the valley of Ajalon, etc. ? 
 He told them he did not ; and proceeded from his 
 great astronomical knowledge to show the impossi- 
 bility of such an event, and told them, too, how 
 absurd is the idea suggested by some people that 
 the whole universe was not affected, but only the 
 earth arrested in its course. He showed these 
 young men that to stop the earth in its course 
 would cause such a concussion as would at once 
 smash everything on its surface, and kill every 
 living creature. That day the clergyman came to 
 him and asked him how he had presumed to give 
 such heretical teaching ? He replied : * When 
 the young men want your opinion, sir, I presume 
 they will go to you for it. When they want mine 
 they will come to me for it, and they shall have it.'' 
 
 CoLENSO ON ' The Pentateuch.' 
 
 The Rev. came into his shop one day and 
 
 found him reading Colenso on ' The Pentateuch.' 
 He was excessively angry, and would have damaged 
 the book if near enough. Norbury asked him why 
 
22 
 
 he did not read it instead of getting in such a rage. 
 He replied he had no time. But some weeks after 
 he came to ask Norbury to lend it, which Norbury 
 said he could not do, as it was only lent to him. 
 ' Why don't you buy the book, sir ? ' The Rev. 
 
 replied: ' I have no money.' ' Well, indeed, 
 
 sir ; you are poor ! Last week you told me you'd 
 no time, and now you say you've no money. 
 How sad a case ! ' 
 
 ' Something Against Me.' 
 
 This. ' Our Local Philosopher ' once said to 
 me : * Madam, I have something against you.' 
 
 ' And what may that be, Mr. Norbury ? ' 
 
 ' Last week the parson died, and when his 
 funeral was about to pass my wife wanted me to 
 put the shutters up. "No," I said, " I did not 
 respect him living, and I ihall not pretend to do so 
 now he is dead." So I went to the back of my 
 shop. Presently my wile called out : " Here's the 
 funeral, and the Squire's carriage following." 
 " Well, that is very kind of Mrs. Crawshay," said 
 I, "for he had been rude enough to her. But I 
 suppose it is ' forgive and forget.' " " Oh, but," 
 
23 
 
 said my wife, "the carriage is empty!" Now, 
 m'am, was that meant as an insult ? ' 
 
 I could scarcely speak for laughing as I 
 explained to him that in England friends send 
 their empty carriages to do honour to the 
 deceased. 
 
 ' Oh, then, m'am,' said he, ' next time I have 
 a friend dead I will send somebody with an empty 
 wheelbarrow after him.' 
 
 I was telling this anecdote to Professor Huxley, 
 and he said : ' Do not regret the smallness of your 
 visiting list while you have such a man as that to 
 chat with.' 
 
 The occasion on which he said this was when 
 we were both dining with Dr. Rae, the great 
 Arctic explorer. Miss Thompson, Mrs. Rae's 
 sister, had made an appropriate name-card 
 sketched in pen and ink for each of the brilliant 
 party they had kindly asked me to meet. Dr. 
 Tyndall arrived very late, having been driving 
 round without finding the house. Professor 
 Huxley's card was bounded on one side by a 
 giraffe, descending through all the smaller animals 
 until it finished with a mouse. For me this kind 
 lady had sketched Cyfarthfa Castle, surrounded by 
 
24 
 
 a wreath of rosemary (my name), and of which 
 blossom Keats wrote : 
 
 • Sweet scented flower, which blooms on January's front 
 severe, 
 And sheds its fragrance o'er the dying year.' 
 
 My birthday is in January. 
 
 Mrs. Devas 
 
 was the dearest and cleverest lady-friend I ever had, 
 and my indebtedness to Dr. Gray, of the British 
 Museum, who introduced us, can never be for- 
 gotten. I saw a letter to her from some dis- 
 tinguished German Professor, who wrote : ' You 
 complain of loneliness and want of sympathy. 
 Alas ! that must be the fate of those who have 
 climbed the High Alps of Thought.' 
 
 She was much inclined to Spiritism ; and when 
 her friends the Glennies went to America she and 
 her maid used nightly to consult a little three- 
 legged table to know the latitude and longitude 
 of their steamer, and its answers were carefully 
 written down ! But when they came to be com- 
 pared with the ship's log they proved mendacious, 
 which considerably shook her faith in the occult 
 powers. 
 
25 
 
 She was immensely amused, when having told a 
 very small boy, that she had taken the lease of her 
 new house for seven years, and asking him if he 
 thought that too long, he replied, after critically 
 looking her over, ' Well, I don't know, " Vas,"* but 
 I think five would have been enough.' 
 
 When Bishop Colenso and his family visited me 
 at St. Leonards, where I was lodging in apart- 
 ments, she daily sent her butler, with all the acces- 
 sories of a well-appointed dinner-table, 'to lay the 
 cloth ' and to wait on us. She herself came later, 
 and charming were the evenings we spent ; for the 
 Bishop was an ardent lover of music, and she 
 played the works of Beethoven and Mozart ad- 
 mirably. She had a ' companion ' a still greater 
 proficient than herself. This lady said to my son, 
 then aged six : ' What shall I play to you my 
 little man ? ' 'I don't care, so that it be some- 
 thing of Mozart's ; ' on which she played some- 
 thing for which he thanked her, but added : ' I 
 don't like that so well as his " Gloria in Excelsis" 
 in his Twelfth Mass.' It may seem incredible, but 
 at two months old he would show his delight 
 at the end of a phrase of music, but never until it 
 
 * The diminutive of Devas, 
 
26 
 
 was finished.* He is now a devot of Wagner, at 
 the shrine at Baireuth. 
 
 The Right Honourable Sir William 
 Grove, F.R.S. 
 
 The manner in which I became acquainted with 
 Sir William Grove, more than twenty-three years 
 ago, was as follows. A play, ' Marie Antoinette ' 
 was then running at a London theatre, and my 
 husband announced his intention of taking the 
 family to see it. I utterly declined to be one of 
 the party, as it is a chapter of history which I 
 cannot even read without being prostrated for the 
 day. 
 
 Miss Durant, the Sculpturess (that most charm- 
 ing and gifted woman whose demise passed without 
 any notice that I am aware of, except from Mr. 
 James Mortimer in the London Figaro), asked me 
 to accompany her to the South Kensington 
 Museum on the next day (Sunday) ,^ she, as a 
 working woman, having the entree. In the course 
 
 * I should not have courage to publish this were it not that someone 
 is c611ecting evidences of the thoughtfulness of babies under two years 
 of age. 
 
27 
 
 of conversation I mentioned the engagement of 
 the family to see ' Marie Antoinette ', and she 
 said, ' You will be alone that evening. Come and 
 dine with me, to meet Mrs. Andrew Crosse.' I 
 did so, and she appeared to know a great deal 
 more of me than I expected, which led me to 
 ask if she were any relation of the charming 
 Dr. Crosse, of St. Leonards. That clergyman'^ 
 having been educated as a barrister, knew well 
 how to glance lightly over the shallows of Theo- 
 logy. ' Nay, it is not from him that I have heard 
 of you, but your name is well known in the literary 
 and scientific world, and among others by Mr. 
 Grove. He is aware that you have read and liked 
 his " Correlation of the Physical Forces." You 
 must allow me to arrange a dinner, at which you 
 shall meet.' I thanked her, and shortly after 
 received an invitation, followed by a call at which 
 she said, ' I have heard that you are the mother of 
 two delicate boys, and are devoted to them ; and 
 I called to beg you not to break this engagement, 
 as Mr. Grove has declined a heavy retainer, in 
 order to meet you.' This at the time I thought 
 must be an invention to please me ; but I believe 
 from what I heard subsequently that it might 
 have been possible. The evening came. Mr. 
 
28 
 
 Grove chatted with me before dinner, took me 
 down to dinner, and we talked again after dinner, 
 I only wish I could now remember his charming 
 conversation. Correlation and philosophy were of 
 course topics, and I was amused to see that Mrs. 
 Crosse had on her table a decanter labelled 
 '' Electrified Water,' which proved to be whiskey j 
 but Mr. Grove was armed with his own little 
 pocket flask. I told him how much I valued 
 his ' Correlation of the Physical Forces,' which 
 during the previous summer had been my 
 nightly reading, in turn with John Stuart Mill on 
 ' Liberty,' for I always then, as now, liked to have 
 a choice of books by my bedside. I complained 
 to Mr. Grove (afterwards Sir William) of the 
 difficulty I had in understanding his book ; 
 many paragraphs I had read six times, not be- 
 cause of any obscurity in wording, but because the 
 thoughts were so entirely new to me and so original. 
 
 The Carmarthenshire Vans. 
 
 Never shall I forget that beautiful morning in 
 
 the year , when we left Cathedine at six 
 
 o'clock, in an open wagonette, the party consisting 
 
29 
 
 of Sir William Grove, my younger daughter, my 
 son Robert, and myself. We went to Brecon, 
 where we arrived about half-past seven, and took 
 train for the Carmarthenshire Vans, and thence 
 walked many miles to the Van Pools. We met 
 on the hillside a party of naturalists headed by 
 Mr. Symonds, Rector of Pendock, near Shrews- 
 bury, and Mr. Lee. We passed the first Pool 
 in deep shadow, though about twelve o'clock, and 
 went on to the second, and wandered over the 
 hills till it began to get late. We had sent our 
 servants to look for a conveyance at Brecon, and 
 bring it on to meet us. It so happened this was 
 the day of an election, and every vehicle was in 
 request in Brecon. We wandered on hoping to 
 see the brake arrive. One pleasant incident 
 occurred in our progress. I was a little in advance 
 of the rest of the party, and saw the rays of the 
 sun glinting on a Druidical circle of stones. On 
 pointing this out to the rest of the company I was 
 assured by those who had maps that I had made 
 the discovery of a ' Druidical circle ' hitherto 
 unknown ! I was advised to send particulars of 
 it to some learned society, but I gave up all rights 
 as to the discovery. At last we thought we had 
 wandered back nearly to the high road; but on 
 
30 
 
 ascending the eminence before us, instead of 
 seeing the high road, we found another gigantic 
 hill. Having surmounted this, we were in the 
 neighbourhood of a farmhouse, where we deter- 
 mined to stay all night if need be, or at least 
 until some conveyance reached us. There was 
 not room for the whole party even to sit down in 
 the cottage, so it was proposed that the ladies 
 should go to a better house about a mile-and-a- 
 half further on. But we entirely declined moving, 
 and, having been refreshed with tea and bread 
 and butter, prepared to spend the night there. 
 At this moment the welcome sound of wheels was 
 heard, and about nine we all got into the brake 
 and made our way home by Senai Bridge. On 
 our road the moon was shining brightly, but after 
 a time it ceased to give so much light as it had 
 done, but we none of us knew till next morning 
 that there had been an eclipse. 
 
 On one occasion when we went to meet Sir 
 William Grove at the top of Langorse Lake, Mr. 
 Symonds wearing splendidly violet stockings, Sir 
 William said * I might have expected to meet 
 " blue-stockings " here, but certainly not violet ! ' 
 
 When the first woman's club was started it 
 
31 
 
 was proposed that there should be two wings, 
 one for men and one for women, and the centre 
 part where both might meet. There was great 
 discussion as to what it should be called. Sir 
 William Grove (then Mr. Grove) suggested ' The 
 Apteryx ! ' (this being the name of a bird whose 
 wings have disappeared). 
 
 Lord Denman. 
 
 Those were pleasant days when I was privileged 
 to sit and watch Mr. Justice Denman and Mr. 
 Justice Grove, with the latter's two daughters, 
 playing lawn-tennis at the pleasant house called 
 
 H . There it was, whilst sitting one Sunday 
 
 afternoon in the drawing-room, I said : ' What an 
 extraordinary noise the turkeys are making, and 
 there is a donkey also ! What has happened to 
 all the animals ? ' ' Oh ! ' said Sir William, ' it is 
 only Denman in the hall imitating them.' 
 
 Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
 Many years ago, I was at Sir Edwin Arnold's 
 (then Mr. Arnold), and he said: 'I see my wife 
 has got Robert Browning here to-night, and I have 
 
32 
 
 just said to him, "Of all men, most have I avoided 
 thee." ' ' A very polite greeting that to a visitor 
 in your own house,' was my remark. ' Oh, but 
 you do not know the reason. I told Browning I 
 so intensely admire his poetry that I could only 
 fear lest the enchantment might be lessened.' 
 
 I well remember Sir Edwin's astonishment when 
 I quoted the Gospel according to Pontius Pilate, 
 wherein is a magnificent piece of writing ' against 
 sadness.' This is in the Apocryphal Gospels, of 
 which the following legend is given. There were 
 originally fourteen Gospels, which were placed on 
 an altar, while the elders of the Church sat round. 
 They fell asleep, and ten of the rolls of writing 
 fell off; consequently the remaining four according 
 to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had precedence. 
 
 Miss Frances Power Cobbe. 
 
 Happy indeed for us that the time of ' crino- 
 lines ' has gone ! May they never return ! Miss 
 Frances Power Cobbe, whose name is synonymous 
 with kindness to animals, was once badly repaid 
 for the shelter she had given to two homeless dogs, 
 who availed themselves of the occasion of her 
 being occupied in conversation with me, to have a 
 
33 
 
 fight under her crinoline. A nice little French 
 governess who was with my children, one day 
 suddenly jumped up from the luncheon table, 
 exclaiming ' Le souris ! le souris J ' And true 
 enough, a mouse had run up her crinoline, 
 followed by two kittens ! Miss Cobbe was once 
 much annoyed, when travelling, by the practising 
 of some ladies on a piano, the partition of the 
 room being very thin. She pushed under the 
 doorway a paper on which was written somewhat 
 thus: 
 
 ' Pity the sorrows of a poor old maid, 
 
 Whom wandering steps have driven to lodge next door ; 
 Oh ! pray, young ladies, practise less, 
 And she will bless you more.' 
 
 But it was of no avail, and poor Miss Cobbe had 
 to leave. 
 
 A missionary selected a wife because she made 
 such a good pie. ' Oh ! the pz-ous missionary ! ' 
 said Miss Cobbe. 
 
 Mr. Henry Irving. 
 
 Mr. Henry Irving has been justly noted for his 
 faculty of saying charming things to people he 
 meets. I can recall an occasion when we first met 
 at one of Professor Huxley's delightful ' high 
 
34 
 
 teas' to which his friends came without giving 
 any previous intimation. On this occasion we 
 were seventeen, and I sat opposite Mr. Irving, 
 who was next to Mrs. Huxley. 
 
 He addressed himself to me, saying, ' I have 
 just heard from our hostess that you are Mrs. 
 Crawshay, of Cyfarthfa, and I beg that you will 
 allow me to thank you in my own name and that 
 of all the members of my profession for your ex- 
 cellent letter in the newspaper advocating 
 
 the Drama as a mode of instruction. Perhaps 
 you will be surprised to hear that your letter 
 has gone the round of the world in the Era 
 newspaper, where it was copied.' 
 
 I was much surprised, the more so as I had 
 been the subject of much opprobrium from the 
 unco' guid. 
 
 Dr. Gray. 
 
 My first acquaintance with Dr. Gray, of the 
 British Museum, began on a journey by train, 
 when I found him wonderfully clever in writing 
 on a slate for my husband, who had, alas ! already 
 begun his nineteen long years of deafness. We 
 had a great deal of chat together, and I, thinking 
 
35 
 
 he was an M.D., spoke of many points with 
 less reserve than I should have done had I 
 known he was a Ph.D. We discussed the 
 ' missing link,' and when he got home that night 
 to the British Museum he told his wife that he 
 had met with a lady in the train who knew that 
 the great difference between monkey and man lay 
 in the hippocampi, major and minor. This was in 
 the days some forty years ago, when ladies had 
 not learnt all the ' ologies.' 
 
 Mr. Kenyon. 
 
 It was at the house of Professor John Westlake, 
 Q.C., that I had the pleasure of being ' taken in to 
 dinner ' by the late Mr. Kenyon, whose first words 
 were ' I hear that you have the misfortune of living 
 in the country.' As I by no means looked on this 
 as a misfortune, it proved a fertile source of con- 
 tention. I may safely say that as compared with 
 country life I hate any city I ever was in, even 
 London, Paris, Rome, Turin and Naples, my 
 only exception being Stuttgart. Among the many 
 amusing stories told me by Mr. Kenyon was the 
 one of his friend Mr. Kettle, who liked to sit on 
 his window sill, with his legs hanging outside ; 
 
36 
 
 and on his visitors remonstrating, said, ' What ! 
 mayn't a kettle sit on his own hob ? ' It was Sir 
 William Grove who told me of the famous elec- 
 tioneering ' squib ' : 
 
 ' 'Twixt Hill and hell and Hull 
 The difference is a letter ; 
 If Hill would go to h- 11, 
 
 For Hull 'twould be much better.' 
 
 Mr. Moncure Conway. 
 
 Mr. Moncure D. Conway was introduced to me 
 as the minister of South Place Chapel and 
 successor to W. J. Fox, M.P. His patrimony 
 would have consisted of slaves, he being the eldest 
 son of a Virginian slave holder, but he adopted 
 anti-slavery views in 1851, when he was nineteen. 
 The slaves were freed by the Civil War, and 
 Mr. Conway colonised them in Ohio. He main- 
 tained himself by literature and lectures. He 
 was now lecturing at two chapels in London and 
 largely engaged in literary work. 
 
 ' It is rare,' said Lady Lyell, ' to find any- 
 one who has made sacrifices for conscience sake.'* 
 
 * I regret that I have lost the charming notices which appeared 
 principally in American papers at the time of this dear woman's death. 
 The following is from the Boston (U.S.) Daily Advertiser: 'Her death 
 
37 
 
 Mr. Conway has told me how in the early 
 morning about three, he was startled by his slaves 
 singing. This was when they were in the cars on 
 their way to Ohio, and had just crossed the 
 frontier between Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
 which made them secure of their freedom. 
 
 Mr. Conway, when near Metz in the German- 
 French war (being a correspondent for a New 
 York journal), found the train so full of wounded 
 men that there was not even standing room for 
 him. He used his time in making presents of 
 cigars and wine to all the suffering soldiers, and 
 at the last moment, when too late to stop the 
 train, he jumped on top of a carriage ; all the 
 station master could do was to shout, ' Lie flat, 
 the tunnels are very low,' and thus did he travel 
 to Saarbruck. Travelling swiftly by private 
 carriage and railway to the coast, and crossing 
 the channel, he arrived in England to find total 
 ignorance of the great battle of Gravelotte. He 
 called on his friend Mr. Robinson of the Daily 
 News, its present editor, and was by him detained 
 until he had written the graphic account of the 
 
 falls upon the hearts that loved her with the shock of unexpectedness, and' 
 in parting from her, her friends must feel that to them something of the • 
 light of life has passed away from earth.' 
 
38 
 
 battle which appeared next day when every other 
 paper in England was silent. This article was 
 telegraphed to every part of Europe. 
 
 Mrs. Conway is a true and loving friend. She 
 assisted her husband in colonising his father's 
 slaves in Ohio, her native State. She told me the 
 most she ever saw a person doing at once was 
 when the wife of a .professor was examining a 
 student in Virgil, shelling peas, and rocking her 
 baby's cradle with her foot. 
 
 Kesub Chunder Sen. 
 
 Seeing an announcement in the Echo, then 
 edited by Mr. Arthur Arnold, that this great 
 reformer had arrived in town, I asked him to an 
 evening party I was giving, and had the pleasure 
 of hearing him say that he had there met the 
 people he most desired to know in London. Sir 
 Charles and Lady Lyell were among my guests, 
 and a few evenings after, at their house. Sir Charles 
 begged me to give Chunder Sen some supper, ' for 
 you know what he will eat,' added Sir Charles. 
 With me he only tasted a lemon ice ; and J 
 believe it was the same in Harley Street. He 
 was immensely shocked at our serving fowls whole. 
 
39 
 
 I had carefully instructed my servants not to 
 send this ' darkie ' away if he came, and to 
 announce him simply as Mr. Sen. My efforts 
 were more successful than those of Mrs. Vaughan 
 at the Temple, who, having arranged a magnifi- 
 cent party for several young princes then studying 
 law, was much surprised at their not appearing; 
 next day she obtained from her servants the 
 confession that they had sent away some black 
 men thinking they were Christy Minstrels ! 
 
 Bishop of Llandaff. 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant told me how a curate came to 
 lunch. In the afternoon, when the Bishop re- 
 turned, they talked business, and then came five 
 o'clock tea. Later on a candle was given him to 
 go up and dress for dinner. As he failed to make 
 his appearance at the dinner hour, the butler went 
 up and found him in bed. ' I have had my dinner, 
 I have had my tea, but if, verily, there be another 
 dinner, I will come down to it.' And so he did. 
 
 Doctor Oliphant, when visiting at Cyfarthfa, was 
 sitting on one of the large upholstered boxes madie 
 to contain music or work. He said : ' Why am 1 
 an instance of the Cross triumphing over the' 
 
40 
 
 Crescent ? Because I am a Bishop of the Church 
 of England sitting on an Ottoman.' 
 
 He was an enthusiatic lover of gardens, and 
 our house party was not a little amused seeing 
 him searching for a key supposed to be above the 
 door of a hothouse — the Bishop in apron, gaiters, 
 etc., in a wheelbarrow to add to his height. 
 
 Bishop of St. Davids. 
 
 Bishop Thirlwall never wore the insignia of 
 office when travelling, and being in a train with 
 our excellent Works' Doctor, Henry Thomas, and 
 a discussion on some point of history being raised, 
 Dr. Thomas laid down the law with much de- 
 cision, on which the elderly gentleman in the 
 corner, who was until then only a listener, said, 
 ' On whose authority do you make that assertion ? ' 
 *On Doctor Thirlwall's.' On reaching Swansea, 
 a servant approached and said, 'Your carriage 
 is waiting, my Lord,' on which the gentleman 
 begged Dr. Thomas to take a seat in it. This the 
 Doctor could not do ; but he asked the station- 
 master who that gentleman was. ' Don't you know 
 it's the great Bishop of St. David's ? ' clear proof 
 that the Doctor had not misquoted him. At 
 
41 
 
 Cyfarthfa, receiving him with only one of my 
 sons, I said, on leaving the dining room : ' Try 
 to persuade the Bishop to take another glass of 
 wine.' ' No, no, young sir, your mother may do 
 much ; but you can do nothing.' 
 
 When Dr. Thirlwall saw our dear three-legged 
 cat at Cyfarthfa (the lost leg was the result of an 
 accident), he said, ' Ah, a Manx cat ! Only in 
 this case civilization has improved a tail "on" 
 instead of " off." ' 
 
 The Bishop was very fond of cats, and I have 
 seen him walking in the grounds of Abergele 
 Palace with one or two following him. 
 
 Doctor Jowett. 
 
 In those far away days, when the revered Lady 
 Augusta Stanley was still with us, I recollect at 
 an afternoon tea following the Dean's Sunday 
 sermon, he and I asked the Master of Balliol 
 what was his opinion of Colenso's position ? Dr. 
 Jowett replied ' I fear he has been looking over 
 the hedge too far ! ' 
 
 But this did not prove to be correct. 
 
 I have his neat little signature in my birthday 
 book and a letter referring kindly to the pecuniary 
 
42 
 
 help I had given in the matter of ' Essays and 
 Reviews.' 
 
 Never shall I forget the profound impression 
 made by his three lectures on Plato, the subject, 
 of course, being Socrates. They were given in 
 Albemarle Street, and were listened to by the 
 chief English thinkers of that day ; and it was a 
 shock to step thence into the garish light and 
 noise of Bond Street at three o'clock in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 Dean Stanley. 
 
 When going over part of the Museum of 
 the College of Surgeons with the Dean and Lady 
 Augusta Stanley, we were all much amused at the 
 Dean's saying to Mr. Flower, ' I wish you could 
 have shown me some skulls of eminent persons.' 
 The future Sir William replied, laughing, ' We 
 don't get that sort here ! ' 
 
 Miss Vincent. 
 
 My first acquaintance with Mrs; Boughton's 
 sister. Miss Vincent, was very sweet, but very 
 sad. I had stayed at West House for a couple 
 
43 
 
 of days in the absence of the owners, being most 
 kindly entertained by Miss Vincent, and within 
 two months I heard of her death. 
 
 She had gone to Plymouth, taken cold in a 
 steamboat excursion up the Tamar, and had died 
 in a day or two, with barely time for her brother- 
 in-law to see her alive. 
 
 Odd Coincidences, etc. 
 
 Without any leaning towards spiritism, I must 
 yet confess to having experienced curious coin- 
 cidences. On one occasion, being asked by a lady 
 to accompany her for a drive, I agreed to do so ; 
 but she, being half an hour late, made me, of 
 course, half an hour late for various appointments. 
 I called on my good friend Miss Llewyn, the 
 Secretary of the * Women's Employment Society,' 
 in Berners Street, where I often had a pleasant 
 chat with her. On arriving I found everything 
 altered, and Miss Llewyn apologised for asking 
 me to go with her behind a screen, the entire 
 remainder of the room being occupied by the 
 annual meeting of the Society, Lord Shaftesbury 
 in the chair. We chatted in an undertone for 
 about two minutes, when she said : ' Listen ! 
 
44 
 
 They are talking about lady-helps ; ' and we 
 heard Lord Shaftesbury strongly objecting to any 
 notice of the matter appearing in the report. 
 
 The lady who was giving in the report observed: 
 ' This has been the most important feature of the 
 last year's work, so that we cannot well leave out 
 allk mention of it.' ' Well, I put it to the meeting,' 
 said Lord Shaftesbury, 'whether this shall be 
 passed over ? ' And passed over it was, though 
 they none of them had any idea that the originator 
 of the lady-help movement was within hearing of 
 the debate. 
 
 Another instance I will give. Dining at Sir 
 William Grove's, we were talking during dinner of 
 his sixth edition of ' The Correlation of the 
 Physical Forces,' just then out ; and on the 
 gentlemen joining us after dinner, he said to 
 Lady Grove : ' Where is that copy of my 
 book ? I want to give it to Mrs. Crawshay. It 
 was here before dinner on the table.' They 
 hunted high and low : Lady Grove searched. Sir 
 William searched, the two daughters searched ; 
 and it was on the point of being given up, when 
 I said : ' May I look ? ' ' Certainly,' was the 
 reply. I then went to a distant book-case, where 
 a book lay on its side, which I took for it, and 
 
45 
 
 it proved to be the required volume ; but there 
 could not have been any clue for me in its 
 appearance, as my copy of the first edition was 
 about half its thickness and bound in green, 
 whereas this was brown. Could it have been that 
 my ardent desire to possess the book on that 
 particular evening, when Sir William would write 
 my name in it, attracted me to the right spot ? 
 On looking at my newly-acquired prize, I naturally 
 turned to the newest portion, and there found an 
 account of the passage of the comet's tail over 
 Arcturus in 1857, and in this paragraph 
 occurred the only misprint in the whole book, 
 which I pointed out to Sir William, who cor- 
 rected it in pencil. 
 
 A well-intentioned governess, who knew my 
 aversion to caterpillars, desired me when a girl 
 about thirteen, to bring her in six of these every 
 day before dinner, and they were not allowed to be 
 on a leaf, but on my bare hand. About two days I 
 went through this business, but on the third the 
 doctor had to be called in, as, waking in the 
 night, I shrieked with terror that the bed was 
 covered with green caterpillars, I had also a 
 great objection to the fat of meat, but whenever I 
 left any at dinner it was duly taken care of and 
 
46 
 
 served up to me at the next meal. Still for all 
 that I have never overcome my dislike to fat. 
 And I do not think this kind of treatment will 
 ever succeed in overcoming a prejudice, for to this 
 day a green caterpillar is a terror to me. 
 
 It was at one of the great soirees of the Royal 
 Society at Burlington House that the Editor of 
 the AthencBum did me the favour of asking to be 
 introduced on account of his interest in the 
 foundress of the first seven free libraries opened on 
 Sundays in England, and which he had generously 
 mentioned in his paper when so much enthusiasm 
 was evoked by the opening of the Birmingham 
 Free Library on Sundays — erroneously announced 
 as the first in England, but mine had then been 
 ' running ' for about eight years. 
 
 Travellers' Troubles. 
 
 I constantly met in the ladies' carriage, going 
 to Monte Carlo, an Italian Countess, who 
 told me she was expecting all her family of 
 eight to stay a few days. They were to arrive 
 at eleven at night ; and she described graphically 
 how she had to order fire for one and not for 
 
47 
 
 another, hot bottles in some beds, none in others; 
 and she had got a nice supper ready, and went to 
 the station, but found the Italian train had missed 
 the French one at Ventimiglia, so they all slept 
 in the train. She had just told me this as the 
 whole party were getting into a train to go to the 
 races at Nice. Suddenly out jumped the father 
 of the family, saying someone had stolen his porte- 
 monnaie with £^o in it ; so he would stay behind. 
 Then out jumped the Countess and said she, too, 
 would stay behind. But this he would not allow, 
 so she entered just as the train moved on. At 
 Rocca-Bruna she asked the station master if she 
 had time to send a telegram. ' Plenty,' he replied. 
 So she got out, and in one minute off went 
 our train, leaving her behind. At Monte Carlo 
 her son-in-law left and gave into custody three 
 young men who had been seen pushing the 
 father. They were walked off to the gendarmerie 
 to be searched, while the family went on to Nice 
 — that is to say, what was left of it, for three had 
 been dropped on the road. The son-in-law was in 
 a great state of mind, not knowing if his mother- 
 in-law would stop at Rocca-Bruna, or take a 
 carriage on, or wait two hours for another train 
 to Nice. I was very sorry for them and as yet 
 
48 
 
 have failed to find out if anything has been heard 
 of the pocket-book or purse. 
 
 Lovely weather here now, like May in England 
 (February 2, 1886). I have just come in from a 
 long and beautiful walk in the old town, where I 
 was escorted by an elderly Swiss painter, a clever 
 man, who has won many medals. 
 
 The purse was never found, but it contained 
 ■£^o instead of ^50. Two minutes after I left the 
 party going on to Nice their engine broke down, 
 and they were left one hour and a-half at Monaco ! 
 They soon left Mentone, and I hope their luck 
 changed. The father had been sixteen years 
 Mayor of Milan. 
 
 John Bull's French. 
 
 We were a pleasant party of four in the ladies' 
 carriage travelling from Lyons to Marseilles — 
 Russian, German, French, and English. French 
 was the mode of conversation, being the only 
 language in which we were all fluent. The 
 French Madame la Marechale abused English 
 people for their manner of speaking French. She 
 said she had been at a hotel near one of the lakes, 
 
49 
 
 where she saw the following telegram received by 
 the master : ' Un Chambre d'une lit, la visage dans 
 la Lflc.'(!) Towards the end of our journey a 
 discussion arose as to my nationality. The 
 Russian lady said : ' There can be no doubt 
 madame is one of my compatriotes, and doubt- 
 less from St. Petersburgh.' ' No,' I said, ' I have 
 not the honour to be Russian.' ' At any rate, you 
 know I am paying you no bad compliment in 
 thinking you Russian.' ' I know well you are 
 paying me the highest compliment,' was my reply. 
 Then the German lady said : ' Madame est 
 peut-etre Allemande,' to which I said, ' No.' 
 And we parted without my enlightening them, as 
 I felt it would have been very trying for the 
 French lady, after her remark on English people's 
 French, to learn that I was English. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Symonds. 
 
 I rather think it was Mr. Symonds, the rector of 
 Pendock, who told me that on asking his house- 
 keeper whether any one had called, she replied, 
 ' No, Sir, only Dr. Pranks and the boy Dawkins.' 
 (Dr. Franks and Mr. Boyd Dawkins). 
 
50. 
 
 Impersonation. 
 
 When at the hotel at San Remo, in 1879, there 
 
 was an individual whom we will call General D, 
 
 He impressed Mrs. G. H. and also Miss M., but 
 
 I was not so much struck with him. He never 
 
 allowed anyone to leave the hotel without pressing 
 
 upon them his visiting card, which was to be 
 
 presented at the next hotel they went to, and then 
 
 he assured them they would receive the greatest 
 
 attention. He was always on the point of 
 
 departure, but never went. One day a party of 
 
 five had been to Bordighera, and while waiting for 
 
 our return train one of the party said to me : 
 
 'Come here, Mrs. Crawshay, and see a man who. 
 
 has got on the General's clothes.' I looked, and 
 
 there was a person exceedingly resembling the 
 
 General in size and dress, even to a scarlet silk 
 
 necktie, which he always wore. My young friend 
 
 said : ' He has even got a charm hanging to his 
 
 watch-chain and the General said he wished 
 
 someone would present him with one exactly like 
 
 it.' When the train came up this gentleman 
 
 placed himself in the only empty carriage, and, 
 
 there being just five seats left, we took them. He 
 
 began describing to us the advantages of an hotel 
 
 he had just left, and then said : ' Now, you would 
 
51 
 
 not believe it, but I am so well known on the 
 Riviera that I am travelling at this moment with- 
 out any money.' I thought this was a prelude for 
 a subscription for him ; but he said : ' When at 
 an hotel the first thing I do is to give up my 
 valuables, including my circular notes, to the care 
 of the manager. These notes, having my London 
 address on them, he stupidly posted, and thus I 
 find myself with no money.' When we arrived 
 at San Remo I saw the man waiting to notice 
 which hotel we should go to, but we agreed to 
 hold back until he had made his selection, which 
 he did, going to the Hotel Nazionale. At dinner 
 that night a lady who was not particularly partial 
 to the General said : ' Do you know, General, we 
 have seen a man exactly like you to-day ? ' Upon 
 this the General turned pale, and next morning 
 he was off. One of his admirers tried to explain 
 the effect on him as due to superstition, as he 
 thought we had seen his ' double.' But some of 
 us held a very different opinion. 
 
 On Physiognomy. 
 
 I have faith in physiognomy. On leaving Paris 
 early one morning, having to wait longer than I 
 
52 
 
 expected for the train to start, a gentleman who was 
 in the same predicament showed us various small 
 politesses, and we took our seats in the carriage 
 together. At Amiens the guard was shown the 
 tickets, and our fellow-tiraveller, who had got out 
 of the carriage, did not make his appearance. My 
 companion, Miss Hatton, child of the novelist, 
 of a very handsome Hebrew type of face, offered 
 to help our friend to find his carriage. I said to 
 her : ' Look out of the window ; ' and he shortly 
 came rushing to the compartment, on which I told 
 him my plan, and he said : ' Tete d'ange, Madame; 
 tete d'ange ! ' and proceeded to compliment me on 
 so charming a daughter. ' But she is not mine,' 
 I said. ' T ant pis pour vous, Madame ? ' he replied. 
 Miss Hatton said she did not understand French, 
 but I think she must have understood the compli- 
 ments which were thus offered to her. 
 
 On arriving at Calais we found six hundred 
 French gentlemen going to England for the Bona- 
 parte fete day. ' Allow me to take charge of your 
 parcel of rugs,' said the Frenchman ; and I was only 
 too glad to relinquish it. On reaching Victoria no- 
 where could we see our travelling companion, and 
 we were very much ' chaffed ' on making our 
 appearance minus our rugs. I went for a couple 
 
53 
 
 of days into the country, and on returning to town 
 a young friend said to me : ' Did you see that 
 advertisement in The Times yesterday for the lady 
 who, traveUing by the Calais boat, had left her 
 rugs in charge of a French gentleman, and begging 
 that she would call and ask for such a parcel at the 
 Charing Cross Hotel ? ' We lost no time in 
 posting off to the hotel, but arrived there to find 
 that the French gentleman had left that morning, 
 ' Has he left a parcel of rugs for a lady ? ' ' No ; 
 he took everything away with him.' So the 
 matter rested for many months, when I got a 
 letter from M. Legrand, saying that the French 
 gentleman, having kept the parcel all these months 
 in the hope of delivering it to me intact, at last 
 opened it, and there found a card of M. Legrand 
 at Brussels, to whom he wrote, and he, having my 
 address, was able to find me out. Thus I 
 recovered the parcel. But I always said, even 
 when its recovery seemed most unlikely,' that I 
 had faith in physiognomy, and that, if possible, 
 my bundle would yet reach me. 
 
 Cyfarthfa. 
 My earliest remembrance is of racing down an 
 avenue of elm trees with a dear black and tan 
 
54 
 
 terrier called ' Quiver.' This was at Horton, 
 where I often saw the cottage in which Milton 
 wrote Paradise Regained. It has now been ab- 
 sorbed into a ' villa residence ', and become 
 a scullery. Many a time, even at that early 
 age — for I was six when I left Horton — do I 
 remember wishing that we all had no hearts more 
 tender in feeling than flint stones, and envying 
 them when I was remonstrated with about some 
 childish fault. 
 
 I am now fat, and much more than forty ; but 
 years ago, after the birth of my third child, I was 
 so thin and miserable-looking that on entering a 
 shoe-maker's shop in London, after many months 
 absence, I was astonished by the good wife running 
 out of the shop, and shortly reappearing with her 
 husband: 'There! I could not help calling him, for 
 my husband said when you last left our shop, 'That 
 poor lady will never come for any more shoes ! " ' 
 
 An old servant of mine, who had had great 
 opportunities of seeing flowers arranged at 
 Cyfarthfa, once tried his hand, and succeeded 
 so admirably that I asked him how he managed 
 it. The reply was : ' Well, m'am, I suppose the 
 heart was born'd in me.' I concluded he meant 
 to say the ' art ' was born in him. 
 
55 
 
 Cremation. 
 
 My predilection for Cremation dates from many- 
 years back, when the Cremation Society was first 
 formed ; and I placed /^200 in the hands of Sir 
 Henry Thompson, to insure my remains being 
 taken to the furnace at Dresden. I had vainly 
 begged my husband to allow my funeral obsequies 
 to consist of nothing more than being thrown into 
 one of the furnaces of Cyfarthfa; but he objected 
 on the very reasonable ground that the workmen 
 would never again work there, saying the furnace 
 was ' haunted.' 
 
 Once, and once only, did I ever see a sunset at 
 Cyfarthfa rivalling in its effects the magnificent 
 Italian sunsets which were the glory of Tintoretto. 
 
 An Illness. 
 
 One of the episodes of my dear boy's illness still 
 remains in my mind. At Torquay we changed our 
 house twice or three times, in the hope of finding 
 an aspect to suit him. First we were on Beacon 
 Hill ; afterwards in a villa some distance off, and 
 no longer in sight of the sea. In each of these 
 
56 
 
 houses his Hfe was despaired of. In the first by 
 two doctors: in the last by myself. The doctor 
 whom I called in, soon after reaching Torquay, on 
 the first cold the poor darling took, was a young 
 man, who made up his mind that he was in a 
 decline, and gave him cod liver oil, which fearfully 
 upset his stomach, and which to this day he 
 remembers. Oh ! how he implored not to be 
 forced to take it ! He got worse and worse daily ; 
 the doctor came daily. At last, one night at nine, 
 I sent for him, and told my dreadful fears that the 
 child was slipping through our fingers, his dear 
 pale face more shadowy every day. ' Oh, no, my 
 dear madam ; you alarm yourself needlessly.' 
 
 At seven a.m. I sent for two blisters made to a 
 certain size, and these I reserved until I should 
 have made one more appeal to the doctor 
 to allow me to use them. At ten he came, and 
 soon left, saying that he should like a second 
 opinion, and would shortly return with his friend. 
 Dr. R. H. The poor little fellow was asleep when 
 they both arrived. I sent to beg that they would 
 not disturb him, but call again in two hours. Mr. 
 
 said he feared that would be too late, as he 
 
 dreaded the child had not two hours to live. 
 
 They saw him. The second doctor did not 
 
57 
 
 examine his chest, but, after a few minutes in 
 consultation, Dr. R. H. said : ' I am very sorry to 
 tell you that I in every respect endorse my friend 
 Mr. 's opinion. You had better at once tele- 
 graph to his father. Mr. tells me that you 
 
 wish to put on blisters. I can only say that you 
 will thereby hasten death, for mortification would 
 ensue. You may try giving him Liebig's essence of 
 beef, and we will send some medicine.' 
 
 How I hastened to give the new doctor his 
 two guineas, my only anxiety being to get him out 
 of the house as soon as possible, for I knew every 
 moment was making my chance of fighting death 
 successfully more desperate. 
 
 I did not dare tell governess or nurse-maid or 
 anyone that I was no longer going to act under 
 medical advice, for fear of insubordination, or that 
 they should weaken my nerve, for I knew that all, 
 humanly speaking, depended on myself. The 
 doctor who understood his case was at Dowlais, 
 close to Cyfarthfa, and, although I telegraphed to 
 him, on me it depended to hold the citadel of 
 life for the two days which must intervene before 
 he could arrive. 
 
 The two blisters, made after my own fashion, 
 and covered with silver paper, were put under the 
 
58 
 
 lovely clear white delicate little shoulder blades, 
 and a teaspoonful of cream with three drops of 
 brandy in it administered. Then I took him on 
 my lap before the fire, wrapped in a kind of thick 
 light blanket-cloak of my own. In half an hour 
 the beads of perspiration stood on the little brow : 
 the blisters were taken oflf, and there I sat with 
 him, for six hours, in a heavenly sleep. Once the 
 doctor called to enquire whether he were yet dead; 
 and hearing ' No,' came up, and said he saw a 
 slight change for the better. 
 
 ' What have you done for him ? Have you 
 given him any of our medicine ? ' 
 
 ' No ; there it lies on the table not unpacked.' 
 
 ' What have you given him ? ' 
 
 ' Brandy and cream.' 
 
 ' Ah, very nutritious, I daresay.' 
 
 At nine at night he called again, and remarking 
 something white about the child's lips, said : ' I 
 see you have been giving him more brandy and 
 cream.' 
 
 I replied : ' Frequently ; but what you see is a 
 portion of half a grain of calomel.' 
 
 He remarked : ' There is such an immense 
 change for the better, that we might now allow 
 you to put on a small blister.' 
 
59 
 
 ' Mr. , it is not in my nature to act a dis- 
 honest part by anyone ; and as you have mentioned 
 blisters, I may as well tell you I put on two this 
 morning directly you left, and you see the result.' 
 
 He rose from his chair by the bedside, made me 
 a low bow, and said : ' Mrs. Crawshay, you have 
 managed him admirably ! ' 
 
 After that he called every few hours ' to watch 
 the case,' never offering a suggestion, but merely 
 asking what I was doing. 
 
 At last, on the morning of the third day, the 
 joyful sound of Mr. White's step was heard, and 
 he said : ' Tell me all about the little fellow. I 
 
 met Mr. on the stairs, and asked him to tell 
 
 me the case. " Well," he said, " the case is this : 
 three days ago Dr. R. H. and I both agreed the 
 child had not two hours to live. Mrs. C. has 
 done everything diametrically opposite to our 
 orders, and she has cured him ! " ' 
 
 This was by no means the hardest trial I had 
 while at Torquay. After he had recovered from 
 this attack he took some chill, and the whole of 
 the breathing passages were involved. I made 
 him two waistcoats of spongio pyline, which were 
 soaked with gin and worn next the skin, and 
 changed as soon as they got dry. But before I 
 
6o 
 
 hit on this plan I had one fearful night. I did 
 not think it possible he should see daylight from 
 the violence of asthma and bronchitis combined ; 
 and how pitifully he asked, ' Is it near four ? ' — 
 that being the hour at which the asthma usually 
 remitted its violence. 
 
 At last, having done all that was possible, I 
 lay down on my little bed and moaned and 
 writhed with mental agony as I had never moaned 
 before, except in direst physical suffering. At 
 daylight I sent for a new doctor, having no 
 confidence in those who had so entirely mis- 
 taken the case before. Mr. , a nice kindly 
 
 man, came, and in the early grey morning, with 
 me, stood beside the bed on which the young 
 governess was sleeping a worn-out sleep, and the 
 child the troubled one of disease. After attentively 
 watching him, he accompanied me downstairs, 
 and said : ' I don't think the little fellow will die ; 
 but you, dear madam, you must think of your- 
 self.' 
 
 Soon after that our doctor from home came to 
 fetch us away, and at Exeter carried my boy round 
 the Cathedral, for he had already begun to im- 
 prove. For six weeks that we were at Torquay 
 we had scarcely seen anything but the view from 
 
6i 
 
 bedrQoms, and when at last we stood on the rail- 
 way platform, and the kindly post-master, Capt. 
 
 , greeted me, I said : ' We are going away in 
 
 all haste, or else I shall never take my boy away 
 alive, for the climate has nearly killed him.' 
 ' You ought to be very thankful, m'am.' 
 ' What do you mean — thankful that the climate 
 has nearly killed him ? ' 
 
 ' This climate only agrees with consumptive 
 patients ; therefore you may be sure your son is 
 free from consumption.' 
 
 Ratiocination. 
 It is curious how little the most attached 
 mother knows of the working of her children's 
 minds. I had a governess, for my invalid son, 
 who, I thought, was everything that I could wish; 
 but she had lived a great deal abroad, and had 
 strange views as to what was right for the diet of 
 children, and always after cutting up the child's 
 meat would put a quantity of bread crumbs and 
 deluge it with sloppy broth. At last it happened 
 that the great Dr. Todd had an opportunity , of 
 seeing the child, and said, ' You must give him 
 a mutton chop frequently, and a glass of wine.' 
 
62 
 
 When this was told to the governess she, with 
 many ominous shakings of the head, warned me 
 how valueless such a prescription would prove. 
 ' I am very sorry, but I cannot put your opinion 
 against that of one of the most eminent physicians 
 in England, and it must be as Dr. Todd says.' 
 She then remarked that she saw my confidence in 
 her was gone, and that it would be better she 
 should leave. I quite agreed, and she suggested 
 going the following week. On this my boy burst 
 into tears, and I, grieved at what a loss she would 
 be to him, said ' Don't cry. I will try to get you 
 some one who will be nice and kind to you even 
 
 as Mrs. M . Don't make yourself so miserable 
 
 at her going.' ' It is not that, but I'm so happy.' 
 This I fear must have been a sad blow to Mrs. 
 M , but she duly departed. 
 
 Dr. Peyton Blakiston. 
 
 My first acquaintance with Dr. Blakiston began 
 after one of my children had been a few days 
 ailing, when, not seeing the expected improve- 
 ment, I sent for him, saying I was sure that skilled 
 treatment was necessary. 
 
 On calling next day, the child being very much 
 
63 
 
 better, the doctor said : ' I told you that he would 
 soon improve.' 
 
 I replied : ' Yes ; but you know if he had not 
 been rightly treated a serious illness of at least a 
 fortnight would have ensued.' 
 
 ' A fortnight! Yes, and probably much longer; 
 but I can assure you this is the first time in my 
 practice of fifty years that I have had credit for 
 an illness saved.' 
 
 Soon after Dr. Blakiston had been of such signal 
 service to my son he dined with me tete-a-tete, and 
 conversation turning on medical matters, he told 
 me of a then new plan of treating inflammation by 
 alcohol and keeping up the patient's strength. I 
 said : ' I think I have read something very like 
 what you are saying in Dr. Todd's Clinical 
 Lectures on Pneumonia.' He laid down his knife 
 and fork, and said : ' Bless me ! Have we got 
 a lady who reads Dr. Todd's Clinical Lectures on 
 Pneumonia ? It was the very book I was quoting ! ' 
 
 On one occasion when he paid me a friendly 
 call, I sent word that I was ' in bed with a bad 
 cold, and too ill to see him.' About ten days 
 after I met him out walking. He said : ' Ah, 
 you've got well, then ! ' * Yes,' I said, ' and with- 
 out your help ! ' 
 
64 
 
 Sir W. Tite's Visit to Norfolk Crescent 
 was very funny. He called in his brougham one 
 Sunday afternoon when I was staying at my 
 father's, and followed the servant up to the first 
 floor bedrooms; but when requested to mount 
 still higher he made a stand, and said : ' Whom 
 do you take me for ? ' ' The doctor, sir, and I am 
 taking you to see Mrs. Crawshay, who is ill in 
 bed.' The mistake caused a good deal of amuse- 
 ment. Sir William, calling on me at my father's, 
 was not known to the servants, who were expecting 
 the doctor to call who was equally unknown to 
 them ! 
 
 Aunt Mary Wood. 
 
 Cyfarthfa in 1846 was much changed from the 
 time when, as my father-in-law told me, there 
 were carriages and four, driven by the owners of 
 Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, Plymouth and Pen-y-darren. 
 My husband's aunt, Mary Wood, and Mr. Wood, 
 were amongst my kindest friends. They invited 
 my husband and self to stay with them shortly 
 after our marriage, at ' The Sheet,' Ludlow, and 
 gave a very good reason for their early invita- 
 tion. • We are very glad to see you both, and 
 
65 
 
 can no doubt make you comfortable ; but we 
 never admit " babies," a baby would be to us 
 somewhat of a white elephant.' They were old- 
 fashioned people, each having their own carriage 
 and pair, for whom men-servants were required; 
 but no men-servants ever entered the house — 
 only a set of charming parlour-maids waited at 
 dinner, which in those days was remarkable, 
 although many people now appreciate the advan- 
 tage. It was about eleven o'clock one night, 
 when I said to my husband : ' Your uncle and 
 aunt are odd, and known for their eccentricities ; 
 but I never thought they would put men to rake 
 the gravel at this time of night.' Of course he 
 laughed as he explained that it was the Corn- 
 crake, which I heard for the first time ! 
 
 ' L'Africaine,' 
 
 When I first heard ' L'Africaine ' I was so en- 
 chanted that, although the opera lasted five hours, 
 I could have willingly sat through another five to 
 hear it again. 
 
 Writing this to Aunt Mary, she said: 'How 
 strange, my dear, that only you and I, so far as i& 
 known, seem to appreciate this wonderful music ! 
 
66 
 
 The critics and everybody are down upon it.* 
 And this was true, but how changed in a few 
 years ! 
 
 The same with Wagner's music. The first time 
 I heard it, at the Albert Hall, I met a musical critic 
 as I came out. He was abusing it. I said to 
 him : ' I am a great admirer of this music, and 
 predict that it will be the music of the future.' 
 'Yes,' he replied, 'truly of the future,' pointing 
 significantly downwards. Five years afterwards 
 I reminded him of this, and he said : ' Is it 
 possible that I ever said so ? ' Thus views 
 change. 
 
 Mr. Rawdon Brown. 
 At Venice, travelling with another lady and my 
 two young sons (then about nine and ten years of 
 age), we met an exceedingly pleasant man at the 
 table d'hote, who expressed his surprise b}' saying : 
 ' These, then, are your cavaliers, mesdames ? ' 
 He proposed to take us to a compatriot of ours, 
 where we should see the mode of Hfe in Venice. 
 The next day he arrived with a gondola and eight 
 gondoliers, and took us across the Lido to the 
 house of Mr. Rawdon Brown, who received us 
 
67 
 
 very kindly, and told us that he had come ' to 
 Venice intending to spend a fortnight, and had 
 been there thirty-six years.' He said: ' All places 
 are delightful in spring and summer, but Venice 
 is charming even in winter.' Years afterwards I 
 saw in a Saturday Review the notice of a book 
 in which, incidentally, the 'life-long labours' of Mr. 
 Rawdon Brown on the archives of Venice were 
 mentioned. I sent him this copy of the Review, 
 and received his delighted thanks, for he said, but 
 for me he should never have seen it ; and then 
 
 proceeded to tell me that Signer had married 
 
 a lady of very high rank, and a son had been born, 
 who was doubly entitled to a place in ' the golden 
 book.' 
 
 Mr. Brown told me that he had obtained per- 
 mission from the Syndicate of Venice that he 
 should be buried in the old Jewish cemetery on 
 the Lido. In i8gi I took a few flowers to place 
 on his grave, but failed to find it, either in the 
 new or old Jewish cemetery, and afterwards heard 
 that his friends had buried him in a church. 
 
 So much for wishes with regard to one's last 
 resting place ; but those of Richard Wagner were 
 respected, and he lies in his own garden at 
 Baireuth, opposite his study window. 
 
68 
 
 Mr. Gallenga, 
 
 I was pleased when the Bishop of Llandaflf was 
 here. Speaking of Mr. Gallenga, he said, he had 
 met him and his wife this spring ; that he was a 
 most charming man, and gave him the idea of a 
 thoroughly good, high principled person. He said 
 he has a very handsome house at LlandafF, and 
 kindly put up the Bishop's horses and servant as 
 there was not room at the Vicarage. 
 
 Mr. Gallenga, during a sharp earthquake, found 
 himself, with the rest of the people of the hotel, in 
 the garden. It became a question who should 
 fetch the rugs from the hall, and he volunteered. 
 When standing at the top of the flight of marble 
 steps another shock threw him down them on his 
 face, but the great quantity of wraps in his arms 
 saved him from injury. This does not appear in 
 his very entertaining work called ' Episodes of my 
 Second Life ' (Chapman and Hall), nor does the 
 following. He is an excellent linguist, but, going 
 to Russia in the service of The Times, he needed 
 an interpreter, and it was agreed that both gentle- 
 men were to fare alike in every respect. The 
 interpreter, hpwever, always ran the bill up for 
 extras by hors d'oeuvres before dinner, and recom- 
 
69 
 
 mended Mr. G to do the same just ' to wake 
 
 up his appetite.' ' Thank you, sir, my appetite 
 needs no awakening ; and if your's do, it must 
 be wakened at your own cost, not at that of Ths 
 Times.' 
 
 When learning Italian with Signor Gallenga, , 
 then known as Signor Mariotti, he astonished the 
 class by his knowledge of Tasso. We were short 
 of a book, but he said it did not matter, and giving 
 us the book, he recited word for word, page after 
 page ; but he never allowed any of his pupils, as 
 he termed it, ' to murder Dante.' 
 
 Prince Camille de Rohan. 
 
 When walking in the beautiful gardens of Mr. 
 Hanbury at Mortola, near Mentone, the lady who 
 was with me stopped to talk to three young men. 
 
 When she rejoined me she said, 'Those were 
 
 three princes : Prince , Prince , and 
 
 Prince Camille de Rohan.' 
 
 I replied, which was Prince Camille de Rohan ? 
 for I know his beautiful rose so well ; and on her 
 telling me, I saw how justly it had been named, 
 for his rich southern complexion with dark eyes 
 and hair made it quite appropriate. 
 
70 
 
 Sir Richard Owen. 
 
 The late Sir Richard Owen was very kind to 
 children. Once when a young son of mine was on 
 his knee, looking at some beautifully-coloured 
 zoological specimens, the candle which was behind 
 them set fire to the Professor's long hair. In a 
 moment I seized the flame with both hands and 
 extinguished it, retaining still the lock of hair 
 which came off. This occurred at Sheen Lodge, 
 after one of those charming Sunday dinners his 
 friends remember so well. Our menu was always 
 the same: Soup, a splendid joint of roast beef, 
 and apple tarts ; but the ' feast of reason ' varied, 
 and many were the Professor's anecdotes. The 
 last time I dined with Sir Richard he told me, in 
 terms of gratitude, of the Queen's goodness in 
 granting the use of the Lodge to his daughter-in- 
 law for life. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 When the great American Essayist, with his 
 daughter, visited Cyfarthfa in April, he was sur- 
 prised at seeing ripe strawberries, and enquired 
 why Wales was so much forwarder than London. 
 
71 
 
 An evasive reply was the only one that could be 
 given, as those w^ho had read his Rules for Good 
 Conduct in Life felt that the fruit would not be 
 touched had the Essayist known the cost of 
 forcing it. 
 
 When Professor Emerson was at Cyfarthfa, he 
 gave me a cordial invitation to visit him at Con- 
 cord, little thinking that soon after his house 
 would be burnt to the ground ; but, as is well 
 known, it was rebuilt by his friends and presented 
 to him on his return to America. 
 
 Lord and Lady Amberley. 
 
 It was a warm summer afternoon when they 
 drew rein at the gates of Cyfarthfa Castle, being 
 then on a riding tour through South Wales. Her 
 Ladyship dined with us in a borrowed muslin 
 gown, and in the evening we drove to one of the 
 Cyfarthfa free libraries a mile or two down the 
 Taff valley, and they were much struck with the 
 burning scoria by the roadside, and were charmed 
 with the collection of books. Next morning they 
 went over the works, were photographed by Mr. 
 Crawshay, and started on their long ride to their 
 home near Chepstow. 
 
72 
 
 The Right Honble. Leonard Courtney, M.P., 
 in the early seventies told me that he was present 
 at a dinner cooked by ladies, which was very 
 successful, ' only our hostess had a cold, which 
 somehow had communicated itself to the dishes ' ! 
 
 Finale. 
 
 On getting out of a Merthyr train at Cardiff, a 
 gentleman whose face I knew, though not his 
 name, came up hat in hand, saying, 'Half-a-dozen 
 of the trade of Merthyr seeing you, Madam, have 
 deputed me, being one of them, to express their 
 hopes that you will not be annoyed at our taking 
 the liberty of showing our great pleasure at 
 seeing you again in these parts.' Of course, I 
 thanked him, and then being temporarily lame, 
 addressed myself to the best way of avoiding 
 stairs ; which ended in my going down on the 
 luggage lift ; so the last thing the ' trade of Mer- 
 thyr' saw of me was my disappearance, to the 
 nether regions a la Don Juan. 
 
73 
 
 FOUND 
 
 ! 
 
 The record of prize takers for 
 
 
 1885! 
 
 
 Tayler 
 
 D'Arcy . 
 
 Llewellyn 
 
 Greenfield 
 
 Porta] 
 
 MiUy 
 
 1894. 
 
 
 Hughes 
 
 Fowler 
 
 Kenward 
 
 Cowan 
 
 Orel 
 
 Winston 
 
 Overton 
 
 Prettyman 
 
 Berrington 
 
 Page 
 
 Leslie 
 
 Clarke 
 
 A. BoHHER, Printer, 34 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, London, E.G. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 590.C89 1894 
 
 Byron-Shelley-Keats.ln memorlam endowed 
 
 3 1924 013 268 242