CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR1109.M46 
 
 Rainy days in a library. 
 
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RAINY DAYS IN A LIBRARY. 
 
Rainy Days 
 
 in a Library 
 
 by 
 
 SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., M.P. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FRANCIS P. HARPER 
 1896 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ROBERT BURTON, in his 'Anatomy of 
 Melancholy/ snarls at ' our ruder gentry ' 
 for their neglect of books in favour of 
 ' hawkes, hounds, lawsuits, vain building, gur- 
 mundizing, drinking, sports, playes, pastimes,' 
 etc.; nevertheless these said gentry of the reigns 
 of Queen Elizabeth and James I, seem to have 
 kept melancholy at" bay more effectually than poor 
 Burton himself, with all his love of books. On 
 the whole, ' Steenie,' Duke of Buckingham, is a 
 more brilliant subject of contemplation than the 
 dusty student of Christ Church, notwithstanding 
 the testimony of some of the ' ancients ' of that 
 college, quoted by Anthony a Wood, that Burton's 
 * company was very merry, facete and juvenile, and 
 no man in his time did surpass him for his ready 
 and dextrous interlarding his common discourses 
 among them with verses from the poets, or sen- 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 tences from classic authors ; which, being then all 
 the fashion in the university, made his company 
 all the more acceptable.' On the other hand, we 
 have it on Granger's authority, in his ' Biblio- 
 graphical History,' that although Burton began 
 his ' Anatomy ' as an antidote to his own depres- 
 sion, the labour did but deepen it, so that at last 
 it came to pass that the only device whereby he 
 could raise a smile was listening to the outrageous 
 ribaldry of bargemen on the Isis at Oxford Bridge. 
 On the whole, justly though the present genera- 
 tion delights in the ' Anatomy,' its verdict would 
 probably be that the ' ruder gentry ' did better for 
 their posterity by their ' vain building ' than by 
 directing more of their energy into letters. There 
 is a good deal that is dreary in Elizabethan liter- 
 ature, but the land is none too rich in such archi- 
 tectural treasures as Longleat or Levens. 
 
 It is scarcely likely that anyone tracing out the 
 sources of nineteenth-century melancholy would 
 assign neglect of reading as one of them. There 
 is no scarcity of books and no lack of readers. 
 Whether all the books are worth printing and 
 whether all readers read wisely is quite another 
 matter, and one with which there is here no con- 
 cern. But this is obvious, that we can afford to 
 be fastidious in the presence of so much plenty, 
 and there is no mood or circumstance which may 
 not be fitted to its own appropriate literature. 
 Sleeplessness o' nights may be changed from a 
 dreaded visitation to a positive luxury if the right 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 kind of book is at hand, and a railway journey 
 turned from irksomeness to recreation by printed 
 matter of a different sort. All depends on the 
 successful fitting of supply to demand. The first 
 time I ever went hunting in Ireland my host was 
 the well-remembered ' Chicken ' Hartopp. He 
 kept house near Navan, and the standing break- 
 fast dish on hunting-mornings (he hunted six days 
 a week and ran a drag before breakfast on Sunday 
 mornings) was an underdone leg of mutton. It 
 suited the occasion well enough, nor often did the 
 appetite of those strong young days recoil from 
 the encounter. But, once past the sixth lustre, 
 how many of us could face the daintiest Welsh 
 gigot before the sun had crossed the meridian ? 
 
 It is even so with books. It is in working hours 
 that knowledge must be drawn from the deep 
 cistern of history, and the lesson laid to heart 
 which long ago was formulated faultlessly by 
 Thucydides — 'to have a true view of what has 
 happened, and of the like or similar things which, 
 in accordance with human nature (Kara to avdpm- 
 iretov), probably will happen hereafter.' 
 
 But in the small hours of the morning, when 
 the sheets wreath into unsympathetic folds and the 
 pillows bulge intolerably round the wakeful head, 
 one wants to forget to avBpmireiov, which is often the 
 cause of his wakefulness, and such reading might 
 bring on serious mental indigestion. The novel 
 which at such times lulls the nerves and smooths 
 the descent to slumber would be all too trivial, with 
 
via Preface. 
 
 its mock predicaments and make-believe heroism, 
 for the realities of noontide. Even in broad 
 daylight there are hours and moods when it is 
 not unwise to be seduced into caprice. Duke est 
 desipere — and there is no safer locus than a country- 
 house library on a wet morning. How fondly 
 memory lingers over the vagabond reading of such 
 a place and time ! 
 
 Yes ; it must be a country-house. The eye 
 must be free to leave the printed page and travel 
 over the blackbird-haunted lawn to the wet wood- 
 land beyond. There must be no clatter of cabs 
 or risk of importunate door-bell. For choice, 
 the house should belong to somebody else, for 
 then there is no sense of impending duty ; the 
 thoughts, untrammelled by responsibility, are free 
 to dive or plod, to float or soar, to drink or sip, as 
 the wanton spirit moves. Above all, it must be a 
 really wet morning. There must be no mistake 
 about the duration of the downpour — no alluring 
 gleams of sunshine — no break in the gray canopy 
 of vapour, else you will be pricked by that incor- 
 rigible instinct, inherited by every Englishman 
 from his primaeval sires, to go out o' doors — a 
 frame of mind utterly unfitted for the fare pro- 
 vided in the shelves. 
 
 And, look you ! if you can go out, do so. 
 Keep books to their proper office — studiorum in- 
 strumental ' Nous ne trouvons que nous dans les 
 livres/ and out of doors you will find a great deal 
 else. But, given a quiet room, streaming panes, 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 a seacoal fire chirping and twinkling sympatheti- 
 cally, and a ' few bookshelves,' it is your own fault 
 if you miss felicity. 
 
 The charm of a country-house library consists 
 in the chances it offers. Here there is seldom 
 the forbidding formality of institutes or the classi- 
 fied order of clubs. There is no chilling severance 
 between natural history and belles lettres. You are 
 as likely to pull out an eighteenth-century drama- 
 tist as a treatise upon local agriculture. 
 
 The first book that comes to hand is not pro- 
 mising. It is an elaborate facsimile of a book on 
 deportment, with all the self-conscious pose that 
 renders reprints hateful in eyes trained to rever- 
 ence. Such are in no degree nearer real literature 
 than the gentlemen and ladies behind the foot- 
 lights approach the manner of everyday life. You 
 can't forget the make-up — the false hair, the 
 grease-paint, the lamp-black, the unnatural strut 
 and the inevitable mouthing. Nevertheless, as it 
 appears that only two copies of the original of 
 this book remain in the world, let us take 
 advantage of the counterfeit, and turn over its 
 pages. 
 
 Monreith, 1896. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ..... V 
 
 I ADAM PETRIE'S RULES . . .1 
 
 II. BALDASSARE'S PERFECT COURTIER . .II 
 
 III. THE OLDEST SPORTING JOURNAL . 23 
 
 IV. FIRMILIAN . . . . -33 
 V. BULWER'S ARTIFICIAL CHANGELING. . 43 
 
 VI. hayward's ART OF DINING . -S3 
 
 VII. JONSTON'S WONDERS . . .61 
 
 VIII. ST. JOHN'S HIGHLAND SPORT . -71 
 
 IX. TALLEMANT DES REAUX . . .81 
 
 X. ACTS OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT . 91 
 
 XI. CAPTAIN TOPHAM'S LETTERS . .101 
 
 XII. PITCAIRN'S CRIMINAL TRIALS . .Ill 
 
 XIII. BLAEU'S ATLAS . . . .121 
 
I. 
 
 ADAM PETRIE'S RULES. 
 
ADAM PETRIE'S RULES. 
 
 ADAM PETRIE was one of a rather numerous 
 class in the eighteenth century, when the 
 loftiest ambition of the Scottish peasant 
 was that he should live to see his son ' wag his pow 
 in the pulpit.' Adam was, in short, a 'stickit 
 minister,' who in 1712 had passed the trials, and 
 received licence to preach ; but, failing to get a 
 presentation, became, after the plan of ever dear 
 Dominie Sampson, tutor in the family of Sir 
 Robert Sinclair of Stevenston, in East Lothian. 
 The elaborate behaviour he witnessed in his new 
 sphere; and found that he was expected to comply 
 with, was something he had never imagined 
 hitherto. Apparently the suspicion had never 
 entered his thoughts that toothpicks and pocket- 
 handkerchiefs were anything but costly super- 
 fluities, or that it mattered in what manner food 
 should be conveyed to the mouth, provided it 
 arrived there plentifully and frequently. Such 
 
4 First Day. 
 
 refinements as he now acquired were, he knew, 
 utterly unknown among his kinsfolk and early 
 friends. So, being a thoughtful wight, and kindly 
 withal, he set about to make known to them and 
 others the details of the new-found refinement, 
 just as a traveller in Central Africa takes note of 
 the manners and customs of aboriginal tribes. 
 Thus in 1720 was published his little volume,* 
 now of exceeding rarity and value. Only three 
 copies of the original edition are known to exist, 
 one being in the library at Abbotsford, and it is 
 hard to say what price it might not realize under 
 the hammer. 
 
 The book captivated the curious fancy of Lord 
 Dundrennan, under whose direction a second 
 edition was published in 1835, and again in 1877 
 the works of Adam Petrie formed the first volume 
 of the shortlived Scotish (sic) Literary Club. 
 Petrie's book, therefore, now rests for appreciation 
 not on its scarcity, but on the artlessness of the 
 author. 
 
 The dedication is to the Lord Provost and 
 Bailies of Edinburgh, ' who are so thoroughly 
 acquainted with all the Steps of Civility and 
 good Breeding, that it is impossible for the least 
 Misrepresentation of them to escape their Notice.' 
 Further, there is an appeal to ' the Candid Reader 
 to excuse the Flatness of my Stile,' because, 
 
 * Rules of Good Deportment, or of Good Breeding, 
 for the Use of Youth. Edinbvrgh, printed in the year 
 M.DCCXX. (Price, stitch'd, is.) 
 
Adam Petrie's Rules. 
 
 ' having wrapt all in a very small Circumference,' 
 there lacks room for ' its being cloathed with 
 elegant Phrases and ornate Expressions.' There 
 is no saying to what levels of language the author 
 .might not have soared, were it not for this 
 circumference ; but, by dint of discriminate — 
 or indiscriminate — use of capital letters, some 
 of his passages make a very fine appear- 
 ance. 
 
 There are not wanting traces of the effort it cost 
 this master of deportment to cast his old slough 
 of rusticity. ' Good Manners,' he sighs, ' must 
 be. attained by Exercise and Use for some Tract 
 of Time.' It would be good to see him practising 
 his precepts for walking abroad. There are as 
 many things to remember as in striking a golf-ball 
 from the tee. 
 
 'A Gentleman ought not to run or walk too fast in the 
 Streets, lest he be suspected of going a Message ; nor ought 
 his Pace to be too slow ; nor must he take large Steps, nor 
 too stiff and stately, nor lift his Legs too high, nor stamp 
 hard on the Ground ; neither must he swing his Arms 
 backward and forward, nor must he carry his Knees too 
 close, nor must he go wagging his Breech, nor with his Feet 
 in a straight Line, but with the Inside of his Feet a little 
 out ; nor with his Eyes looking down, nor too much 
 elevated, nor looking hither and thither, but with a sedate 
 Countenance.' 
 
 It is a difficult art to acquire, you see, even if 
 the pupil has not to consider his acquaintances ; 
 but we cannot accompany our preceptor very far 
 before finding ourselves face to face with one who 
 
6 First Day. 
 
 springs out upon you at every turn — the Person of 
 Quality. His awful presence is provided for on 
 every page of Petrie's book. Life would be a 
 tolerably simple affair for ordinary folks but for 
 this terrible being. As matters are, it is at 
 our peril if we forget what is due to him. 
 Thus : 
 
 'When you walk with your Superior, let him have the 
 right Hand ; but if near a Wall, let him be next to it. In 
 Scotland the right hand only is given, but in England and 
 Ireland they give the most eminent Person the Wall, and to 
 all Ladies.' 
 
 That is fairly easy to remember, provided you 
 bear in mind in what part of the United Kingdom 
 the scene of your discipline is laid ; but great 
 presence of mind is called for in the presence of 
 more than one Person of Quality. 
 
 ' When you walk with your Superiors, you must not keep 
 the Middle, but let the most eminent Person have it, and 
 the next eminent Person his right Hand.' 
 
 This is harassing enough, but the situation 
 pales before the excruciating complexity of 
 carriage exercise. 
 
 ' If you be to travel in a Coach, let your Superiors enter 
 first ; and when you enter, take the worst Place. The 
 Hinder end is the best, the right Hand of the Hinder part 
 is the first Place, the left Hand is the second Place^ the 
 Place over against the Person of Quality is the third, and 
 his left Hand the fourth Place.' 
 
 The practice of printing every substantive with 
 
Adam Petrie's Rules. 
 
 a capital initial is surely rather a slight on the 
 Person of Quality, for whom this distinction might 
 appropriately be reserved. 
 
 Our preceptor overcomes his tremors in passing 
 from the Person of Quality to prescribe behaviour 
 towards Females, as he brusquely terms them, and 
 adopts a firm tone, tempered with compassion for 
 their inferiority to men. 
 
 ' It is good to carry somewhat reserved from the Fair 
 Sex, though of Merit, yet not to be wanting in Civility to 
 them. This will compensate for Deficiency in Familiarity. 
 It is undecent and immodest to see Women tigging, wrest- 
 ling and working with Men.' 
 
 Most people will agree with this, but here comes 
 something not so nice : 
 
 ' If a young Man and young Woman be in a Room, and 
 you be to remove from them, and if there be none with them, 
 it is imprudent and uncivil to shut the Door after You, for 
 if a Person of a narrow Soul shall come and find them shut 
 up in a Room, they may be ready to stain their Reputation.' 
 
 Petrie holds the gentle sex in such suspicion 
 that he is probably speaking from hearsay when 
 he pronounces it imprudent to trust women with 
 secrets, because ' tho some of them are more 
 reserv'd than Men, yet generally they are not so.' 
 Yet there is a chivalrous self-denial, beyond the 
 attainment of modern beaux, in his precept, 
 ' Smoak not a pipe before Ladies, tho Inferiors.' 
 But he does not waste much time over women ; 
 there is nobler game afoot, and he hurries his 
 readers back to contemplate the Person of Quality. 
 
8 First Day. 
 
 If that august being speaks crossly, or even 
 coarsely, you must not contradict him, for that 
 were to add ' Fewel to the Flame of his Anger.' 
 If you have occasion to write to him, let it not be 
 on common paper, but on gilt-edged. If you visit 
 him, you are to ' forbear hauking, spitting, yawn- 
 ing, and sneezing as much as possible ;' but pro- 
 vision is made for the infirmity of the flesh, and, 
 if you must indulge in any or all of these exer- 
 cises, then ' turn your Back to him when you do 
 it, and put your Hat or Handkerchief before you ; 
 and when you spit, do it in your Handkerchief and 
 not in the Room.' Further, you must on no 
 account ' pick your Teeth or Nose, scratch or 
 make Faces, rowl your Tongue in your Mouth . . . 
 clack your Fingers, shrug your Shoulders ... or 
 put off your Periwig,' on pain of instant dismissal 
 from the presence of the Person of Quality. This 
 must have been a hard saying to some of Petrie's 
 disciples : sua si bona norint ! They might have 
 come under a sharper lash. For, look you, how 
 reasonable our master is compared with some 
 others ! 
 
 ' Some think it rude to sit with their Back towards the 
 Picture of an eminent Person : For my part I see no 
 Reason for that Fancy ; for there are some Rooms that are 
 surrounded by such Pictures, so as there would be no sitting 
 in them.' 
 
 Directions for behaviour in general society are 
 less difficult to comply with. For instance : 
 1 When you wipe your Nose, or the Sweat off, you must 
 
Adam Petrie's Rules. 
 
 turn a little about from the Company, and hold up your Hat 
 or your Hand betwixt you and them. Beware of offering 
 your Handkerchief to any except they desire it.' 
 
 We are not told what would happen if one 
 refused the loan of his handkerchief. 
 
 Good manners at table are, as everyone knows, 
 not to be acquired without patient practice ; but 
 no one could go far wrong who should commit 
 Petrie's rules to memory. For example, if you 
 help the Person of Quality to something that 
 requires a spoon, it is better that you should not 
 already have used the spoon, and reassuring if at 
 the same time you say, ' My Lord, I have not used 
 this spoon.' When you do presume to use a 
 spoon, ' do not suck your Meat out of it with an 
 ungratefull Noise,' and remember that ' to wipe 
 the Nose or the Sweat of the Face with a Table 
 Napkin is most rude.' It is better not to take 
 snuff till after dinner, 
 
 • for the particles of it being driven from their Nose by 
 their Breath, and carried through the Air to the Company, 
 is most unpleasant. I have known some drive it the Breadth 
 of the whole Table, so that the whole Company had a share 
 of it from their Nose.' 
 
 Petrie gets very prosy in condemning stage- 
 plays and cards, nor can we feel much interest in 
 the discussion whether ministers should preach 
 in gloves or with bare hands. But there is an 
 interesting reminder of an ancient custom in his 
 directions how to behave in church. 
 
io First Day. 
 
 ' If a Minister preach in a Congregation where he knows 
 not the chief Heretor,* or where there is a Dispute betwixt 
 any of them for the Precedency, I think that after Sermon 
 he should bow to none of them. ... I have observed a 
 Piece of Rudeness in some, that after Prayer, seek a 
 Blessing, or giving of Thanks, that they have been so rude 
 that they have not stayed to give the Minister the Return of 
 his Salute, but have turned in such a hurry to the most 
 eminent Person.' 
 
 Manifestly it is not consistent with good deport- 
 ment to forget that terrible Person of Quality, 
 even at the most solemn moments. Of course, 
 what was thought proper in church was reflected 
 in family worship. In that observance — 
 
 ' It is thought uncivil for a Minister to turn his Back upon 
 eminent Persons. If in a Family, he should turn his Chair 
 towards the most eminent Persons.' 
 
 There are not wanting persons who sigh for the 
 better manners of a bygone age. On the whole, 
 however, it must be admitted that Persons of 
 Quality, and all who have to mell with such, enjoy 
 greater ease, and stand less in peril of taking or 
 giving offence, than was the case during the early 
 Georgian era. 
 
 * Landowner. 
 
II. 
 
 BALDASSARE'S PERFECT COURTIER. 
 
II. 
 
 BALDASSARE'S PERFECT COURTIER. 
 
 THREE hundred years before the happy 
 thought occurred to Sir Arthur Helps of 
 putting his observations on things in 
 general into the lips of imaginary guests in a 
 country house, the Count Baldassare Castiglione 
 had hit upon the same device, and published 
 a volume entitled ' II Cortegiano.' But there is 
 in it this difference from ' Friends in Council,' 
 that, instead of the pseudonymous Milverton, 
 Ellesmere, and the rest, we listen to the con- 
 versation of real men and women, of whom the 
 names of some have become historical. He would 
 greatly err who, misled by the title-page, should 
 cast this book' aside, under the impression that 
 it was no more than a treatise on deportment and 
 etiquette. It is full of calm, far-seeing philosophy, 
 and reflects, with charming minuteness, the 
 daily routine of a wealthy Italian's house at a 
 period of extraordinary social interest. It is 
 
14 Second Day. 
 
 a picture of society of the Renaissance at its 
 best. 
 
 Baldassare tells us by way of introduction how, 
 when Guid' Ubaldo di Montefeltro, Duke of 
 Urbino, died in 1508, he passed into the household 
 of the Duke Francesca della Rovere, who 
 succeeded his uncle as ruler of the little state. 
 Penetrated with a sense of the virtues of Guid' 
 Ubaldo, and being unwilling that the memory of 
 them should perish, he threw together in 1514 
 some notes of everyday events in his patron's 
 family circle, and lent the manuscript to the 
 Marchesa di Pescare, under promise of secrecy. 
 But when it came to his knowledge that this 
 faithless dame had directed copies to be made of 
 the most interesting parts, becoming apprehensive 
 di molti inconvenienti, che in simili cast possons 
 occorrere — of many disagreeable consequences 
 which may ensue in such cases — he took matters 
 into his own hands, and had the book printed at 
 the Aldine press of Venice in 1528. He apologizes 
 as Lombardo parlando Lombardo, instead of 
 imitating Boccaccio in the Tuscan speech, wisely 
 preferring his native tongue to one which he 
 could only use as a foreigner. It is strange that 
 neither here, in Baldassare's introduction, nor 
 when the admitted excellence of Tuscan over 
 other Italian dialects comes up for discussion in 
 the duchess's withdrawing room, is any allusion 
 made to the great master who first ennobled his 
 native Tuscan. The ' Divina Commedia ' is never 
 
Baldassare's Perfect Courtier. 15 
 
 so much as mentioned, but Boccaccio and 
 Petrarca are constantly referred to as the double 
 standard of perfection. 
 
 The scene is laid in the magnificent palace built 
 for the Duke Federigo by Luciano da Laurana, 
 wherein both Federigo and Guid' Ubaldo had laid 
 up store of art treasure, and collected a library of 
 the classics ; wherein also both father and son 
 loved to collect artists, authors, and men of 
 science. Guid' Ubaldo was a martyr to hereditary 
 gout, and a helpless cripple from his twentieth 
 year ; but he took great pleasure in the conversa- 
 tion of cultivated men, besides encouraging all 
 knightly exercises — opere delta cavahria. Jousts, 
 feats of arms, and music were the daily occupa- 
 tions of the guests, and the amusement of their 
 host. After supper the poor duke had to retire 
 early to bed, on which everyone repaired to spend 
 the evening in the duchess's apartments, where 
 the ragionimenti which form the bulk of the volume 
 took place, lightened by honeste f acetic 
 
 After protracted discussion as to what kind of 
 game they should agree to carry on from night to 
 night, they finally fixed on one which, in modern 
 society, might be found a trifle heavy. It was to 
 consist of a theme of which everyone was to con- 
 tribute to the discussion, and a fixed rule was that 
 no one, on pain of forfeit, was to take active part 
 in it without contradicting the previous speaker. 
 Piacque molto questo guioco — this game found favour 
 all round ; and on the suggestion of Messer 
 
1 6 Second Day. 
 
 Federico Fregoso it was agreed that the subject of 
 discussion should be the attributes of a perfect 
 gentleman. 
 
 Now, inasmuch as the idea of setting a party of 
 ladies and gentlemen of the nineteenth century to 
 air their ideas on good breeding during four con- 
 secutive nights is enough to set one yawning on 
 the spot, it is necessary to remember the state 
 of Italian society at the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, in order to understand why this proposi- 
 tion found so much favour with the company, and 
 became the subject of such an excellent book. The 
 revival of culture had been in progress for more 
 than a hundred years. The awakened intelligence 
 of the Italian people was saturated with the 
 artistic and literary spirit in a degree unparalleled, 
 so far as we know, except among the Greeks in 
 the time of Pericles, though we may suspect it 
 prevailed equally at certain periods of Egyptian 
 history. No one could aspire to the standing of a 
 gentleman who was uninstructed in letters, in- 
 sensible to beauty in art, or who was unable to 
 practise the graces of chivalry. Hence, among 
 leisured and well-to-do people no topic was of 
 such fresh and absorbing interest as the ideal 
 knightly attributes— Jthe perfect union of intel- 
 lectual and physical accomplishment^; the new 
 knowledge had been grafted upon? mediaeval 
 chivalry. Be it far from us to hint that know- 
 ledge has^lost any of its freshness in our time, but 
 
Baldassare's Perfect Courtier. ij 
 
 cheap and excellent handbooks have robbed it of 
 some of its novelty. 
 
 Urbino, during the reign of the Montefeltro 
 line, was a kind of placid backwater in the turbid 
 stream of Italian politics ; men sought its quiet 
 streets and stately courts as a resting-place from 
 the intrigue, the bloodshed, the rivalries, the 
 tyranny of other and more famous cities ; and in 
 those days every scrap of leisure seems to have 
 been turned to account in acquiring some of the 
 new learning. Hence the zest with which Fede- 
 rico Fergoso's suggestion was taken up by the 
 duchess's guests ; it gave opportunity for chatter- 
 ing about that which was the ruling passion of the 
 day — culture. 
 
 The discussion takes very much the same line 
 and leads to the same conclusion as would be 
 arrived at among ourselves. Count Ludovico da 
 Canossa leads off by affirming that gentle birth is 
 essential to a perfect gentleman ; Gaspar Palla- 
 vicino, while admitting the general prepossession 
 in favour of well-born persons, denies that there is 
 any limit to the heights to which an ignobile may 
 climb. The question, after a long discussion, is 
 left in suspense, and the conversation then runs 
 on the accomplishments necessary to a gentleman. 
 Arms and horsemanship (in the latter of which 
 Italians claimed to excel all other nations) held 
 the first place ; next to which came the chase, 
 athletic games and dancing. Count Ludovico 
 illustrates the advantage of being able to dance by 
 
 2 
 
1 8 Second Day. 
 
 a story of one whose name he considerately with- 
 holds, who, on being asked by a fair lady to dance, 
 replied that it was not his business at all. 'What, 
 then, is your business, signor ?' she asked. ' To 
 fight,' he replied, scowling. 'Well, then,' she 
 retorted, ' seeing that this is a time of peace, I 
 wonder you don't have yourself and your harness 
 greased and hung up in a wardrobe till there is 
 some use for you, lest you should become even 
 more rusty than you are.' 
 
 Great stress was laid by all the speakers in dis- 
 cussing these accomplishments on the absolute 
 necessity for absence of visible effort. The one 
 unpardonable blot is held to be affectation, and 
 the drawling accent of languid swells (fironuntiano 
 cosi afflitte) is voted intolerable. 
 
 This leads to animated debate whether the 
 literary style should be more stately and elaborate 
 than the conversational, which finishes with the 
 conclusion that both in writing and speaking it 
 behoves a gentleman to be fully conscious and at 
 the same time to seem unconscious. 
 
 The extent to which a gentleman may be an 
 amateur in painting, sculpture, or music, is a 
 question to which, after three hundred years, no 
 satisfactory answer has been found; and the 
 speculations of the company on this topic were 
 interrupted by a picturesque incident. The court- 
 yard suddenly rang with the clash of arms and 
 words of command ; the glare of torches shone 
 through the casements, and it turned out that an 
 
Baldassare's Perfect Courtier. 19 
 
 escort which had been conducting Pope Julius II. 
 to the frontier had returned under command of 
 the young Prefect. That gentleman and his suite, 
 as soon as they heard what the duchess was doing, 
 craved and were granted admission. The new- 
 comers were far too eager for intellectual pleasures 
 to accept proffered refreshment, so, seating them- 
 selves supperless among the rest, they begged that 
 they might be informed of the course taken by the 
 discussion in order that they might join in it ; but 
 it was voted too late, so the proceedings of the 
 first night wound up with a dance. 
 
 Baldassare modestly refrains from repeating any 
 part which he may have taken in these discussions, 
 but he takes occasion at the beginning of each 
 night's debate to confide in the reader by a kind 
 of aside. Like every true philosopher, he dis- 
 cusses the fallacy of the belief, prevalent in all 
 ages of the world, that men and manners have 
 deteriorated from some former high standard. He 
 makes gentle fun of those who sigh for the good 
 old times, and shows that, whereas every genera- 
 tion of which record remains has made the same 
 complaint, the world must long since have arrived 
 at the last degree of corruption (a quell' ultimo 
 grado di maid). 
 
 ' Old people/ he says, ' reprove younger ones for 
 doing many things which are in themselves neither 
 good nor bad, because they used not to do the like 
 when young. They say it is unbecoming for young 
 people to ride through the city, especially on 
 
20 Second Day. 
 
 mules ; to wear furred pelisses in winter or long 
 cloaks in spring, to wear a berreita before the age 
 of eighteen, and many such things to which, in 
 truth, they greatly object because such customs 
 have come in vogue . . . just as formerly, when 
 they were young, everyone chose to carry a 
 sparrow-hawk on his wrist, only to show himself 
 smart (per esser gallante), to dance without touching 
 the lady's hand, and to use many other fashions, 
 highly esteemed at the time, which now we con- 
 sider unbecoming.' 
 
 There is a curious discussion in the course of 
 the second evening as to the propriety of persons 
 of gentle birth taking part in village festivals. 
 Federico Fergoso declares against it, whereupon 
 he is taken to task by Gasparo Pallavicino, who 
 on all questions champions the democratic side. 
 He says that in his native Lombardy it is the 
 custom for the young nobles to join the villagers 
 in their sports, to dance all day in the sun, to 
 throw the weight, wrestle and race with them, all 
 without loss of dignity ; and, says he, ' I think this 
 familiarity {domestichezza) shows a kind of amiable 
 liberality.' 
 
 The success of the duchess's reunions was so 
 complete, and the enthusiasm of the company 
 so enduring, that at last they wind up with an 
 all-night sitting, the end of which is thus de- 
 scribed : 
 
 ' No one felt in the least sleepy, as almost always 
 is the case when one passes in vigil the accus- 
 
Baldassare's Perfect Courtier. 21 
 
 tomed hours for repose. Having opened the 
 windows on that side of the palace which looks on 
 the lofty crest of Mount Catari, they found the 
 East aglow with rosy sunrise. The stars had all 
 gone out save Venus, gentle empress of heaven, 
 who rules the confines of day and night, from 
 whom there seemed to move a gentle breeze 
 imparting a sharp freshness (mordente fresco) to the 
 air. And so, having reverently taken farewell of 
 the duchess, each one went his way to his chamber 
 without need of candle, for the torch of day 
 sufficed.' 
 
 Truly a pleasant picture to dwell on in a land 
 where the sun too often rose on sin and suffering 
 and lamentable misrule. 
 
 One is naturally disposed to ask how Castiglione 
 carried out the precepts which he has put into 
 such seductive language. He was a distinguished 
 diplomatist, and became the plenipotentiary of 
 Pope Clement VII. at the Spanish court. Strange 
 to say, he became naturalized in Spain, and was 
 created Bishop of Avila. Baldassare's memory 
 derived some advantage from the revival of arts 
 and letters in which he so greatly rejoiced, for 
 Tasso wrote a sonnet on him, Giulio Romano 
 executed his monument at Padua, and Rafael 
 painted his portrait, which is now in the Louvre. 
 He died at Toledo in 1529, just a year after 
 the publication of his book, and the Emperor 
 Charles V. declared that in him the world had 
 lost one of its best cavaliers. 
 
III. 
 
 THE OLDEST SPORTING JOURNAL. 
 
III. 
 
 THE OLDEST SPORTING JOURNAL. 
 
 MR. JOHN WHEBLE'S earlier experience 
 of literature was a thorny one. Pub- 
 lisher of the Middlesex Journal and the 
 devoted adherent of John Wilkes, he was trounced 
 for some articles contributed by Home Tooke to 
 his paper, and ordered to appear at the bar of the 
 House of Commons. He managed, however, to 
 keep out of the way until his patron Wilkes, 
 having at length established his own position, 
 threw his aegis over Wheble and induced the 
 House to forgive him. Thereafter Wheble, having 
 had enough of politics, cast about for a less stormy 
 sphere, and in 1793 launched the first number of 
 the Sporting Magazine ; or, Monthly Calendar of the 
 Transactions of the Turf, the Chase, and every other 
 Diversion Interesting to the Man of Pleasure and 
 Enterprise. It was the first periodical devoted 
 to field-sports, the source to which may be traced 
 the torrent of sporting literature that now flows 
 
26 Third Day. 
 
 monthly, weekly, daily, through the press of our 
 country. The best proof of the success of the 
 new magazine is that it continued to be published 
 until the year 1870; indeed, it proved so much 
 to the taste of the ' Man of Pleasure and Enter- 
 prise,' that one of its earlier correspondents sug- 
 gested that its name should be altered to the 
 Transporting Magazine. 
 
 It is not yet a century since its birth ; but to 
 what a different England from ours it takes us 
 back ! Not a land, perhaps, in which we should 
 find ourselves altogether at ease — among its 
 sporting circles, at least. Most of the pages are 
 intolerably dull ; their wit has a depressing effect 
 on the reader of to-day, though it may have 
 tickled the understandings of full-blooded, hard- 
 drinking squires on drowsy summer afternoons 
 or long winter evenings. Catholic as was the 
 prospectus, the new magazine attempted to fulfil 
 it to the letter ; everything that could be included 
 in the term ' sport,' as then understood, as well 
 as a great deal which according to our ideas 
 could not, was admitted. Although, on one hand, 
 deer-stalking and salmon-fishing — now reckoned 
 among the higher field-sports — were never so 
 much as alluded to, yet, on the other hand, the 
 editor regaled his subscribers with condensed 
 reports of the principal criminal trials; and if, 
 as was too often the case, they concluded with 
 a capital sentence, the culprits were followed to 
 the gallows, and a minute description was given 
 of their last moments. 
 
The Oldest Sporting Journal. 27 
 
 Some gruesome particulars are given of the 
 hanging of one Hubbard, with eight other convicts, 
 at Newgate on January 15, 1794. ' After the 
 bodies were suspended a child was brought under 
 the gallows, to which the convulsed hand of 
 Hubbard was applied, under the idea of its curing 
 a wen.' It was surely a curious scheme that 
 admitted such horrors into a magazine of sport. 
 The peculiar class of offences then designated 
 Crim. Con. were sympathetically classed under 
 the title ' Matrimonial Sporting,' and detailed in 
 semi-legal, semi-facetious phrases peculiarly offen- 
 sive to a later taste. In short, the Sporting 
 Magazine, in its earlier numbers, partook a good 
 deal of the character of three publications now 
 defunct, viz., the Newgate Calendar, Joe Miller's 
 JesUBook, and Bell's Life. 
 
 Yet, here and there the loitering reader will 
 find something to interest him, if it is only by 
 vivid contrast of that age and this. For example, 
 it comes as information to most of us to be told 
 that a century ago no person might kill game, 
 or have in his possession guns, bows, greyhounds, 
 setting-dogs, etc., unless he was the owner of 
 land of the value of £100 a year, or had a long 
 lease of the value of £150 a year, or was the 
 son and heir-apparent of an esquire or other 
 person of higher degree. The degree of esquire 
 was in those times accurately defined, and Black- 
 stone is quoted as recognising the decision of 
 heralds that colonels, serjeants-at-law, and 
 
28 Third Day. 
 
 doctors, in the three learned professions, ranked 
 above esquires. But this did not save an un- 
 fortunate Dr. Smart, who held a diploma from 
 St. Andrew's University, from conviction on a 
 charge of shooting game without being a person 
 duly qualified. Three judges out of four held 
 that, although Dr. Smart was a person of higher 
 degree than an esquire, yet he did not fulfil* the 
 requirements of the Act in that he was not ' the 
 son and heir-apparent of an esquire or other 
 person of higher degree,' so he had to pay a 
 substantial fine. 
 
 Every student of old literature must be familiar 
 with the complacency with which, in every age, 
 writers dilate on the perfection to which machinery 
 has been brought, and the impossibility of further 
 improvement. It is amusing to read here a 
 description of the fowling-piece of last century 
 (a single-barrelled weapon with a flint lock): ' The 
 genius and industry of the English gunmakers 
 have brought them to such a degree of perfec- 
 tion, that in theory only nothing more can be 
 hoped for.' The directions for reloading are 
 agreeably suggestive of deliberation : ' It is ex- 
 tremely necessary to prick the touch-hole after 
 every discharge, and to guard against all remains 
 of fuse or squib, by inserting into the touch-hole 
 the feather of a partridge's wing, which will clear 
 it of these dangerous remains.' It would be 
 difficult to prove that the enjoyment of the sport 
 was less to one in those days, armed with the 
 
The Oldest Sporting Journal. 29 
 
 best weapon then known, and contented with 
 two or three brace of cock-pheasants beaten out 
 of hedgerows, than it is to the modern hero, 
 wielding a pair of hammerless breechloaders, 
 fitted with ejectors and all the rest of it, and 
 surrounding himself with piles of slain. Some 
 of us, it may be, even now might be brought, 
 under the seal of confidence, to confess to a 
 sneaking regret for the obsolete paraphernalia of 
 the muzzle-loader, just as we used to hear an 
 older generation than ourselves mourning over 
 the departed glories of ' the road.' Memory 
 recalls fondly the more elaborate ceremonies 
 observed in our youth : the powder puffed off to 
 clear the nipples, the sharp tup-tup-tup of the 
 wadding rammed delicately home, the snap of 
 the ramrod returned, and, finally, the adjustment 
 of a pair of bright copper caps — all this was 
 part of the craft, and men took a pride in doing 
 it artistically ; whereas, now, any duffer can ram 
 a couple of green cases into his piece and the 
 thing is done : the only comfort being that he 
 too will come in his turn to be looked on as a 
 fogey. The improvement in firearms, however, 
 has favoured the development of sportsman-like 
 observances which seem to have been unknown 
 in the early days of this magazine. Few living 
 men would confess to having put in practice the 
 following precept : ' When a hare starts up at a 
 distance, it is often of use to follow her with 
 the eyes, because she will sometimes squat down, 
 
30 Third Day. 
 
 and you may soon after approach and shoot her 
 on the form.' In another place it is prescribed 
 that a good plan to shoot partridges in snow is 
 to go out on a moonlight night with a shirt over 
 the coat and a white cap on, and pot them on 
 the ground. 
 
 Cockfighting, as might be expected, bulks 
 largely as one of the diversions of the ' Man of 
 Pleasure and Enterprise,' and many pages are 
 filled with its records, laws, and approved prin- 
 ciples, as well as discussions on the merits of the 
 different ' piles ' or colours ; ginger red, birchin 
 yellow, and pied pile each had its enthusiastic 
 adherents. Pugilism, too, being then at the zenith, 
 is the subject of continuous chronicle. One is 
 reminded of the truly heroic scale on which 
 gambling prevailed among our great-grandfathers. 
 In our day the unfortunate Mr. Benzon was 
 regarded as a youth of exceptionally little 
 sagacity ; and though plenty of misery is still 
 hatched in private hells, the 'Jubilee Juggins' has 
 had few rivals. Gambling and betting disputes 
 were often the subjects of litigation. Perhaps an 
 English judge was never called upon to decide a 
 more grotesque case than that arising out of a 
 wager between the Earl of March and Mr. Pigot. 
 The former bet one thousand six hundred guineas 
 to five hundred that Sir William Codrington, aged 
 fifty, would outlive Mr. Pigot's father, aged 
 seventy. Unknown to any of the parties, Mr. 
 Pigot's father happened to have died that very 
 
The Oldest Sporting Journal. 31 
 
 morning ; on hearing which, Mr. Pigot junior 
 refused to pay up, and was sued by Lord March. 
 The jury awarded the five hundred guineas — a 
 decree that was sustained, on appeal, by the Lord 
 Chief-Justice and other judges. 
 
 Even cricket, which, as we know it, has a charm 
 for our countrymen independent of all pecuniary 
 stimulant, used formerly to be played for heavy 
 stakes. For instance, twenty-two of Middlesex 
 play eleven of England at Lord's on August 26, 
 1793, for one thousand guineas, and win it. The 
 return match, for a like sum, comes off on 
 September 9, and Middlesex wins again. A 
 thousand guineas seems to have been the usual 
 stakes in first-class matches, for in the same year 
 we hear of Essex playing Herts, and Surrey play- 
 ing All England, for that sum. Moreover, Surrey 
 twice won one thousand guineas that season from 
 the luckless county of Hants. Then, incredible 
 sums are stated to have been lost and won at 
 billiards. In a single day's play, on December 
 22, 1793, Mr. Br — gh — n is recorded to have lost 
 fifteen thousand pounds to Mr. L — s — n B — ck — d, 
 although early in the play the former stood a 
 winner of seven thousand pounds. A few months 
 later, the Prince of Wales is said to have lost 
 eleven thousand guineas in a single night's 
 billiards at White's Club to a gentleman whose 
 name Mr. Wheble does not disclose. 
 
 In the Sportsman's Calendar, which is given with 
 the January number of the Magazine, the time- 
 
32 Third Day. 
 
 honoured dates of opening the shooting season for 
 different kinds of game correspond with those 
 observed now. But there is one entry that strikes 
 the modern sportsman oddly enough, viz. : 
 ' December 25, Foxhunting begins.' What self- 
 denying ordinance was it that kept the hounds in 
 their kennel throughout November — of all the 
 moons that wax and wane the foxhunter's 
 favourite ? 
 
IV. 
 
 FIRMILIAN. 
 
IV. 
 FIRMILIAN. 
 
 A GENERATION has passed away since 
 ,the accomplishment of one of the most 
 elaborate, yet harmless, hoaxes ever per- 
 petrated in literature. In May, 1854, there 
 appeared in Blackwood's Magazine what purported 
 to be a review of the work of a new writer of 
 a new school — * Firmilian ; or, The Student of 
 Badajos : A Tragedy. By T. Percy Jones. 
 Printed for private circulation.' Such was the 
 title of the supposed dramatic poem, and the 
 reviewer let it be understood that its author 
 submitted it for criticism upon its claim to be the 
 type of the poetry of the future, marking the 
 genesis of the Spasmodic School. 
 
 It is easy now, with late-born sagacity, to read 
 between the lines of the review and detect the 
 scarcely veiled merriment of the writer at his 
 own fun ; but most of the newspaper critics 
 at the time reviewed it in sober earnest. Some 
 
36 Fourth Day. 
 
 took up the cudgels for the author against the 
 reviewer, and it is on record that one country 
 editor walked boldly into the pitfall, declared that 
 he had seen the whole poem, and protested that 
 it was ' another specimen of the injustice of 
 Blackwood to poets of that school.' The piquancy 
 of the joke lay in the fact that no such poem as 
 ' Firmilian ' existed when the review was written. 
 The copious extracts quoted therein were the 
 work of the reviewer himself, William Edmon- 
 stoune Aytoun ; nor was it until his treatment of 
 Mr. T. Percy Jones had been condemned or 
 approved by the critic's critics that he set to work 
 to finish a drama which is, indeed, infinitely more 
 readable than most works of more pretension. 
 Farce as it really is — Aytoun's biographer, Mr. 
 (now Sir) Theodore Martin, rightly terms it ' a 
 masterpiece of burlesque ' — it abounds in passages 
 of really fine poetry. The plot is sufficiently 
 exciting, the persons are graphically enough 
 portrayed, to keep the reader's interest alive to the 
 close. 
 
 The scene is laid in Badajos. Firmilian, a 
 student in the university there, is engaged in 
 composing a tragedy of 'Cain.' Being 'determined 
 to be realistic or nothing, he is sorely discouraged 
 by his inability to paint adequately the remorse 
 of which his hero was the prey. He soliloquises : 
 
 ' I've striven 
 To give due utterance to the awful shrieks 
 Of him who first imbued his hands in gore — 
 
Firmilian. 37 
 
 To paint the mental spasms that tortured Cain. 
 How have I done it ? Feebly. What we write 
 Must be the reflex of the thing we know ; 
 For who can limn the morning, if his eyes 
 Have never looked upon Aurora's face ? 
 Or who describe the sadness of the sea, 
 Whose ears were never open to the waves 
 Or the shrill windings of the Triton's horn ?' 
 
 He decides that in order to accomplish his task 
 he must do some deed so dreadful that he shall 
 himself endure the pangs of remorse : 
 
 ' What ! craven mind, 
 Shrink'st thou from doing, for a noble aim, 
 What every hour some villain, wretch, or slave 
 Dares for a purse of gold ? It is resolved — 
 I'll ope the lattice of some mortal cage 
 And let the soul go free !' 
 
 Then Firmilian proceeds to run over some of 
 his acquaintance from among whom he may 
 select the fittest victim. In doing so he reveals 
 so much of a career as might have been reason- 
 ably the source of genuine remorse to ordinary 
 men. For example, there is Lilian — ' the tender, 
 blushing, yielding Lilian ' — who has proved that 
 she loves him only too well ; but he will not slay 
 her for fear of her uncle, an Inquisitor, who might 
 make awkward inquiries. Moreover, as he argues, 
 her destruction would not really cause him re- 
 morse, for it would in one sense be an act of 
 mercy, saving her from the misery and shame 
 which is the penalty she is about to pay for their 
 
38 Fourth Day. 
 
 amour. Mariana, his betrothed, he will not hurt, 
 for she will bring him much wealth in their mar- 
 riage. A third mistress, Indiana, he spares 
 because he is not yet tired of her ; and Haverillo, 
 a poet and his intimate friend, because he has 
 acknowledgments of Firmilian's which might be 
 enforced by his heirs. Finally, he resolves to 
 poison three dear friends who are going to sup 
 with him on the morrow. 
 
 This is accomplished in the third scene, one of 
 genuine intensity. During the supper the friends 
 fall out, blows are struck, and Firmilian's design 
 is like to be anticipated by bloodshed. But the 
 quarrel is patched up by the common-sense of 
 Olivarez, who speaks plain prose to the blank 
 verse of the others, and a meeting is arranged for 
 the next morning between D'Aguilar and Firmilian. 
 The latter produces a choice vintage of Ildefronso 
 (whatever that may be), and all drink to the king. 
 Then Firmilian : 
 
 ' Drink to another King, 
 Whose awful aspect doth o'erawe the world — 
 The conqueror of conquerors — the vast 
 But unseen monarch to whose sceptre bow 
 The heads of kings and beggars ! 
 
 Perez. 
 
 That's the Pope. 
 
 Firmilian. 
 
 No, not the Pope ; but he that humbleth Popes. 
 Drink to King Death I You stare and stand amazed — 
 O you have much mista'en me if you think 
 
Firmilian. 39 
 
 That some slight spurting of Castilian blood, 
 
 Or poet's ichor, can suffice to lay 
 
 The memory of to-night's affront asleep. 
 
 Death has been sitting with us all the night, 
 
 Glaring through hollow eye-holes — to the doomed 
 
 He is invisible, but I have seen him 
 
 Point with his fleshless finger ! But no more — 
 
 Farewell ! I go : and if you chance to hear 
 
 A passing bell— be it a comfort to you ! [Exit.' 
 
 The others remain, discussing their friend's 
 strange behaviour, till, the poison beginning to 
 work, they die in agony, while the passing bell 
 tolls, monks are heard chanting the Penitential 
 Psalms, and slow and wailing music sounds as the 
 scene closes. 
 
 Next day Firmilian is chagrined to find that 
 his crime has brought him no knowledge of 
 remorse ; but this only strengthens his determina- 
 tion to do something that shall enlighten him as 
 to what Cain endured. He is meditating in the 
 cloisters when a priest and a graduate appear ; 
 their conversation, which he overhears, suggests 
 to him a new atrocity. Great is the temptation, 
 did space permit, to quote the whole passage, for 
 it abounds in really fine poetry. The graduate is 
 obviously Mr. Ruskin in masquerade (it will be 
 remembered that ' Modern Painters ' bore on the 
 title-page ' by a Graduate of Oxford ') ; he is in- 
 veighing eloquently against the Renaissance 
 architecture ' of the cathedral, and finishes his 
 diatribe : 
 
40 Fourth Day. 
 
 ' Yea, do not marvel if the earth itself, 
 Like a huge giant weary of the load, 
 Should heave them from its shoulders. I have said it ; 
 It is my purpose, and they all shall down ! [Exit.' 
 
 Firmilian sees his opportunity ; the priest is 
 very angry at the irreverent words spoken by the 
 graduate ; Firmilian joins him and impresses him 
 with their sinister import, designs and carries 
 out a plot to blow up the cathedral during Mass ; 
 the guilt is fixed on the graduate by his own ex- 
 pressed intention ; he pays the forfeit of his life, 
 but the student still awaits in vain the anticipated 
 horrors of remorse. ' 'Twas a grand spectacle,' 
 he exclaims : 
 
 ' The solid earth 
 Seemed from its quaking entrails to eruct 
 The gathered lava of a thousand years, 
 Like an imposthume bursting up from hell ! 
 In a red robe of flame the riven towers, 
 Pillars and altar, organ-loft and screen, 
 With a singed swarm of mortals intermixed, 
 Were whirled in anguish to the shuddering stars, 
 And all creation trembled at the din. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 And yet — and yet — what boots the sacrifice ? 
 I thought to take remorse unto my heart, 
 As the young Spartan hid the savage fox 
 Beneath the foldings of his boyish gown 
 And let it rive his flesh. Mine is not riven — 
 My heart is yet unscarred.' 
 
 His next attempt to gain the wished-for end is 
 carried out by flinging his gentle poet-friend, 
 
Firmilian. 41 
 
 Haverillo (in whom it may be suspected that 
 Aytoun designed a humorous reflection of his own 
 personality), from the top of a high column ; after 
 which crowning treachery he gives up his quest 
 in despair. He comes to the conclusion that he 
 is not meant to excel in tragedy, and resolves to 
 become the poet of love : 
 
 ' A graduate I, 
 And an expert one, too, in Cupid's lore — 
 What hinders me to raise a richer song 
 Than ever yet was heard in praise of love ? 
 
 He conceives the idea of inspiring his muse by 
 the delights of a joint-establishment, in which his 
 three mistresses and himself shall fathom all the 
 depths of rapture. He leads Mariana into a 
 garden, and, after getting her to acknowledge that 
 a bouquet is more perfect than a solitary rose, 
 translates the metaphor into reality by bringing 
 to her first Lilian, then Indiana. A lively scene 
 (as might be expected) follows : Mariana is nobly 
 indignant, Lilian is horrified, and Indiana is 
 frightened out of her senses. 
 
 The Inquisition was a dread reality in Badajos. 
 Aytoun makes use of a gentleman who relates 
 some of its doings to deliver a sly poke at Carlyle, 
 who, under the name of Teufelsdrockh, has been 
 condemned by it : 
 
 ' He most earnestly 
 Denounced all systems, human and divine ; 
 And so, because the weaker sort of men 
 
42 Fourth Day. 
 
 Are oft misled by babbling, as the bees 
 
 Hive at the clash of cymbals, it was deemed 
 
 A duty to remove him. He, too, spoke ; 
 
 But never in your life, sir, did you hear 
 
 Such hideous jargon ! The distracting screech 
 
 Of waggon wheels ungreased was music to it ; 
 
 And as for meaning — wiser heads than mine 
 
 Could find no trace of it. . . . 
 
 Faith, when I heard him railing in crank terms, 
 
 And dislocating language in his howl 
 
 At Phantasm Captains, Hair-and-leather Popes, 
 
 Terrestrial Law-words, Lords, and Law-bringers — 
 
 I almost wished the Graduate back again ; 
 
 His style of cursing had some flavour in 't.' 
 
 The suspicions of the Inquisition are roused by 
 Firmilian's accumulated crimes ; he has to fly, 
 and the last scene shows him hunted to death by 
 ignes fatui on a barren moor. In the perusal of 
 the poem the attention is so well riveted by 
 the constant, though extravagant, action, the 
 imagination so powerfully stirred by the flowing 
 verse, that it is provoking to remember that the 
 author has been laughing all the while behind his 
 mask. Some good people were annoyed when 
 the fun was explained ; serious folk asked why 
 the writer who gave so much evidence of poetic 
 power should fritter his gift in fooling — however 
 excellent. But good jokes are not so common 
 that we need set little store by this one, nor is its 
 value less because its literary merit is very far 
 above the average. 
 
V. 
 BULWER'S ARTIFICIAL CHANGELING. 
 
BULWER'S ARTIFICIAL CHANGELING. 
 
 THE seventeenth century was the doldrums 
 of English philosophical writing. Bacon 
 had claimed all knowledge as his pro- 
 vince, but the light which he had kindled had 
 served but to show how greatly it was beyond 
 the power of a single mind to explore its re- 
 cesses. Henceforward the lines of dogmatic 
 theology and natural science were to lie further 
 and further apart ; there was no more place for 
 the universal genius, and only specialists, like 
 Harvey and Newton, could contribute to the sum 
 of human intelligence. Writers and students of 
 the old school still abounded : their works, stored 
 in calf, darkened with lapse of years, may be con- 
 sulted to this day in many a country house 
 library ; but they are, for the most part, dreary 
 subjects of study, full of parade and irrelevant 
 exercise of pedantry, and teeming with quota- 
 tions from dead authors. Every kind of written 
 
46 Fifth Day. 
 
 evidence is cited ; awful eye-openers by Sir John 
 Mandeville jostle extracts from Herodotus and 
 Pliny, supported by opinions of the Fathers of 
 the Church ; the existence of monsters and the 
 occurrence of prodigies could not, it was thought, 
 be called in question, were they only vouched for 
 (on hearsay) by sufficiently sonorous authority. 
 
 John Bulwer. was a learned man, who really 
 accomplished so much, that it is provoking to 
 have to search for the grains of sound wheat which 
 he garnered among heaps of bombast and worth- 
 less references. It was he who first persuaded 
 his countrymen that persons born deaf and dumb 
 might be made to receive instruction. Until he 
 propounded his scheme for an Academy of the 
 Mute, these unfortunates were as completely 
 neglected and regarded as hopeless as if they 
 had been born idiots. Something, indeed, had 
 been already done for them by the devotion of 
 certain monks in Spain, for Sir Kenelm Digby 
 had already reported how the brother of the 
 Constable of Castile 'was taught to hear the 
 sounds of words with his eyes.' But it was 
 Bulwer who began the merciful work in this 
 country. It is strange that, although he was 
 the author of a treatise entitled ' Chirologia, or 
 the Natvrall Langvage of the Hand,' the forma- 
 tion of alphabetical signs with the fingers, as 
 now taught to deaf mutes, never seems to have 
 occurred to him. He advocated instead, and 
 successfully taught, ' the subtile Art, which may 
 
Bulwer's Artificial Changeling. 47 
 
 inable one with observant Eie, to Heare what 
 any man speaks by the moving of his lips.' 
 Perhaps the difficulties of spelling, then still at an 
 exhilarating stage of chaos, put the art of speaking 
 on the fingers beyond the power of most pupils. 
 
 In this enterprise Dr. Bulwer proved a 
 thoroughly successful reformer ; but when, later 
 in life, he attacked that which has been the 
 theme of satirists, moralists, and artists in all 
 ages — the fashionable disfigurement of the human 
 form — his book, though it lived through a second 
 edition, left its readers and their posterity as 
 perverse in the caprices of the toilet as ever. 
 
 In our day a spirited and polemical title-page 
 is the exception in the works of scientific men. 
 But it was otherwise in the sixteen-hundreds, 
 and Bulwer was not afraid to fling down the 
 gauntlet on the threshold. Here is the thunderous 
 legend which served as title to the edition in 
 quarto of 1653 : 
 
 ' Anthropometamorfihosis : Man transformed: OR THE 
 ARTIFICIAL CHANGLING Historically presented. In 
 the mad and cruell Gallantry, foolish Bravery, ridiculous 
 Beauty, filthy Finenesse, and loathsome Loveliness of most 
 NATIONS, fashioning and altering their Bodies from the 
 mould intended by NATURE ; with Figures of those 
 Transfigurations. To which artificiall and affected Deforma- 
 tions are added, all the Native and Nationall Monstrosities 
 that have appeared to disfigure the Human Fabrick. With 
 a VINDICATION of the Regular Beauty and Honesty of 
 NATURE. And an Appendix of the Pedigree of the 
 ENGLISH GALLANT.' 
 
48 Fifth Day. 
 
 The introduction is worded reasonably enough, 
 and at once engages our sympathy, besides prick- 
 ing us not a little with a sense of shame. For, 
 were John Bulwer to waken from his sleep of 
 two centuries and a half, and walk the earth 
 again, he would encounter almost as much to 
 rouse his ire as he set himself to denounce whilst 
 living. Here is the text on which he preached : 
 
 ' I would have all possible meanes used to prevent all 
 unnaturall and monstrous Incroachments upon the Humane 
 forme, and where there happens any, to reduce it to the 
 Naturall State : that so the bodies of men might (as neere as 
 can be) appeare unblemished and accompanied with all the 
 requisites of beauty it enjoyed in its originall perfection.' 
 
 Perhaps the only fashion of that day which 
 modern gallants have found enough self-respect 
 to discard is that of wearing artificial hair. Yet, 
 no one need despair of witnessing a return to 
 love-locks, for, although the Doctor wrote of hair- 
 powder as a thing of the past — a dirty cosmetic 
 which would never be seen again England — he 
 had scarce been in the grave for fifty years before 
 hardly a pate could be shown in good society 
 unless encrusted with powder. By this analogy 
 it would seem unwise for the Bench and the Bar 
 to count upon perpetual monopoly of periwigs. 
 
 Another fashion, which Bulwer mentions with 
 scorn as having been lately gone out of fashion, 
 is one to which Ovid gave a place among the 
 remedies of love — that of ' frizling and curling of 
 
Bulwer's Artificial Changeling. 49 
 
 Haire with hot Irons, an artificial imitation of a 
 naturall bush of Haire ' ; but it is certainly in high 
 favour at the close of the nineteenth century. 
 It is one of the least objectionable tricks of the 
 toilet, contributing not a little to feminine beauty 
 by softening the line between hair and forehead 
 which, in countenances of a Teutonic cast, is apt 
 to be rather harsh. Herein is a remarkable 
 illustration of the caprice of human fancy, for 
 whereas northern nations are at pains to acquire 
 curly heads, Negro and Australian aborigines, 
 when brought into contact with Europeans, show 
 the utmost impatience to get rid of the natural 
 frizzle. 
 
 Rational and impartial philosopher as he 
 claimed to be, John Bulwer showed something 
 short of candour in respect to another habit of 
 treating the natural hair. He had plenty of 
 censure to pour on the eccentricities of tonsure 
 affected by semi-civilized and barbarous nations, 
 but he was silent about the custom of shaving 
 some parts of the face and leaving others hairy. 
 He hardly could afford to be otherwise, and the 
 reason is apparent in a portrait of the author which 
 adorns his second edition. It is an excellent en- 
 graving by Faithorne, and shows a handsome man 
 in the prime of life and pink of fashion, with 
 shaven cheeks, a moustache and pointed chin-tuft, 
 trimmed in the fashion to which the last French 
 Emperor bequeathed the title of ' Imperial.' 
 Now, there are many modes of shaving infinitely 
 
 4 
 
So Fifth Day. 
 
 more disfiguring than this one ; still, it is just 
 one of those ' phantasticall Emendations of 
 Nature ' to inveigh against which was the whole 
 motive of this book, intended as it was to be ' a 
 Glasse for the pernitiously affected Gallants of 
 our time to looke in.' The philosophical reader 
 might see as much absurdity in the chin-tuft 
 worn by our author as in the frontal lock which, 
 as cultivated by the Italians, he jeers at for ' a 
 high trespass committed against the Majestie of 
 Nature.' 
 
 But of a truth there is no more direct inter- 
 ference with nature than is involved in the custom 
 of wearing clothes, and it would tax a more pene- 
 trating judgment than John Bulwer's to decide 
 the limits of absurdity in these. He himself would 
 attract some uncomplimentary attention if he were 
 to appear at this day in the Mall in the romantic 
 attire of our first Charles. However, he carries 
 the sympathy of every sensible person to his 
 attack on tight lacing : 
 
 ' No Maid here's handsome thought unless she can 
 With her short palmes her streight-laced body span : 
 Thus we most foolishly our life invade 
 For to advance the Body-maker's trade.' 
 
 It is a fond conceit that women dress to please 
 men. No man, either of this or that period, ever 
 felt the slightest admiration for an unnaturally 
 small waist. 
 
 Masculine raiment comes in for due reproof, 
 and the Doctor shall tell a story in point in his 
 
Bulwer's Artificial Changeling. 51 
 
 own words of what befell a gallant who was vain 
 in the matter of trunk hose. 
 
 ' He thought he excelled so much in this fashion that he 
 stuffed a Follado of Velvet, that he did wear, with branne, 
 and being set in seemely manner amongst some Ladies, to 
 whom he desired to show his bravery and neatnesse, he was 
 so exceedingly taken with delight that possessed him, that 
 he could not take notice of a small rent which was made 
 with a naile of the chaire that he sat upon, in one of his 
 two pockets of branne (who thought the harm was but in 
 his hose, yet he found it after in his heart) ; for, as he was 
 moving and stroaking himself (with much gallantry) the 
 branne began to drop out by little and little, without his per- 
 ceiving it, but the Ladies that sat over against him and saw 
 it (it being by his motion like meal that commeth from the 
 Mill as it grindeth) laughed much at it, and looked upon 
 one another, and the Gallant supposing that his good 
 behaviour, mirth, and sporting, was pleasing to them, laughed 
 with the Ladies for company ; and it so pleased him, that 
 the more he strove to delight the company, the more the 
 Mill did grinde forth the branne ; the laughter by little and 
 little increased, and he appeared as confident as a man that 
 had shed much bloud by a wound, untill he espied the heape 
 of branne which came out of his hose, and then he began to 
 recall himselfe, and dissembling his shame, he tooke his 
 leave and departed.' 
 
 And with this we take our leave of Dr. John 
 Bulwer. 
 
VI. 
 HAYWARD'S ART OF DINING. 
 
VI. 
 HAYWARD'S ART OF DINING. 
 
 THE life of Abraham Hayward was one of 
 success, to secure which, it would have 
 seemed, every ordinary precaution had 
 been neglected. He owed nothing, except exist- 
 ence, to his parentage, which was no more than 
 respectable ; none of his acquaintanceship, so 
 numerous in after - life, originated in the usual 
 way at a public school or a university, for he was 
 at neither ; he inherited no fortune, but began life 
 in a solicitor's office. No one could say how he 
 came to be a guest so much coveted by expert 
 hosts in town or country, and, ultimately, the 
 arbiter, whose approval, if not essential, at all 
 events ensured success in every social under- 
 taking on which it was bestowed. It is true he 
 had the knack of writing brightly in limpid Eng- 
 lish, which brought him acquaintance with certain 
 literary people ; but his contributions to the Morn- 
 ing Chronicle and his essays in the Edinburgh and 
 
56 Sixth Day. 
 
 Quarterly Reviews are not more remarkable than the 
 work of many writers who have never risen out 
 of the social ruck. It is needless for one who 
 never saw him to speculate on the character of 
 a man whom many still living remember; it is 
 clear that Hayward was one of those whom a 
 fine wit and sensitive instinct enable to derive 
 from accidental environment advantages which 
 great folks seek, often with greater expense than 
 success, to secure for their sons. When a man 
 like this sat down to write about the art of dining,* 
 he was sure not to be dull. No one was less likely 
 than he to forget that the pleasure of every feast 
 depends quite as much on what each guest brings 
 with him as on the skill of the host and his chef. 
 
 He denounced severely the practice of solitary 
 gourmandise, and held that those who dine alone 
 are little above the level of savages : 
 
 ' Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, 
 To fill the languid pulse with finer joy.' 
 
 Still, he was well able to appreciate the profes- 
 sional zeal of the head gargon at Grignon's, who 
 once apologized to him for the length of time 
 required to prepare a particular dish, and, hand- 
 ing him a neatly-bound octavo volume of bills- 
 of-fare, said reassuringly, ' Mais monsieur ne 
 s'ennuira point ; voila une lecture tres agreable !' 
 
 Hayward's little volume is much more than a 
 mere collection of recipes and cartes; like the 
 * ' The Art of Dining.' London: Murray, 1852. 
 
Hay ward's Art of Dining. 57 
 
 more famous Physiologic du GoM of Brillat-Savarin, 
 it is full of anecdote and aphorism, and of philo- 
 sophy in which one has to decide for himself 
 whether the author is serious or ironical. It is 
 like an ideal dinner-party — the dishes are all that 
 genius can prpject out of abundance, the wines 
 are ripe and rich, and we are introduced to the 
 company of the most amusing people who can 
 be brought together. 
 
 Nevertheless it is important that guests should 
 be coaxed into a happy vein by perfection in the 
 material part of the feast. Hence the dignity in- 
 separable from the profession of a great chef, on 
 which Hay ward lays due emphasis. ' Confidence 
 gives firmness, and a quick eye and steady hand 
 are no less necessary to seize the exact moment 
 of projection, and infuse the last soupcon of 
 piquancy, than to mark the changing fortunes of 
 a battle, or to execute a critical winning hazard 
 at the billiard-table.' He quotes with approval 
 the remark of M. Henrion de Pensey, that the in- 
 vention of a new dish is of infinitely more import- 
 ance to humanity than the discovery of a star, for 
 we have always stars enough, but we can never 
 have too many dishes. This should cause search- 
 ing of hearts in a land which, as yet, has produced 
 but one original dish — ham and eggs — and but 
 one sauce — melted butter ! 
 
 But even great ' artistes ' are no more than 
 mortal, and cannot shake from them the shackles 
 of time and temperature. Sir Walter Scott puts 
 
58 Sixth Day. 
 
 this confession in the mouth of one of the dinner- 
 party at the little Derbyshire inn in ' Peveril of 
 the Peak ' : ' We could bring no chaufettes with 
 any convenience, and even Chaubert is nothing 
 unless his dishes are tasted at the moment of pro- 
 jection.' Sometimes they yield to despair : as 
 when Vatel, distracted because the fish had not 
 arrived, stabbed himself to the heart. At other 
 times they throw the responsibility of failure upon 
 those who cause it ; thus Lord Albemarle's con- 
 fectioner, ' having prepared a middle dish of 
 gods and goddesses eighteen feet high, his lord 
 would not cause the ceiling of his parlour to be 
 demolished to enable it to be placed. " Imaginez- 
 vous," said he, " que milord n'a pas voulu faire 
 6ter le plafond !" ' Dr. Johnson declared that a 
 man who is careless about his table will generally 
 be found careless about other matters ; yet the 
 Duke of Wellington was so culpably neglectful 
 about what was set before him, that Felix, with 
 whom Lord Seaford parted for economic reasons, 
 and recommended to the Duke, refused to remain 
 at Apsley House, but implored his old master, 
 with tears in his eyes, to take him back at reduced 
 wages or no wages at all. ' I serve his Grace a 
 dinner,' he said, ' that would make Ude or Fran- 
 catelli burst with envy, and he says nothing; I 
 serve him a dinner dressed by the cookmaid, and 
 he says nothing. I cannot live with such a 
 master, if he were a hundred times a hero.' 
 Johnson's own gastronomical sense was deplor- 
 
Hay ward's Art of Dining. 59 
 
 ably coarse, his favourite dishes, according to Mrs. 
 Piozzi, being ' a leg of pork boiled till it dropped 
 from the boiie, a veal pie with plums and sugar, 
 and the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef.' 
 But even these were dainty plats compared with 
 an impromptu combination which he once per- 
 petrated by pouring lobster sauce over plum- 
 pudding. 
 
 In Hayward's time, as in our own, the sub- 
 sidiary art of waiting was not generally under- 
 stood. Servants in some houses are trained 
 to a caricature of chivalry, by dodging about to 
 offer dishes to ladies in the first instance, the 
 result being the destruction of that automatic 
 smoothness which ought to distinguish perfect 
 attendance at table. Hayward gives an instance 
 of the refinement which may be applied to the 
 duties of waiting at table. In discussing Brillat- 
 Savarin's advocacy of eprouvettes, he explains the 
 right nature of eprouvettes by negation : 
 
 'Cardinal Fesch, a name of honour in the annals of 
 gastronomy, had invited a large party of clerical magnates 
 to dinner. By a fortunate coincidence, two turbots of 
 singular beauty arrived as presents to his Eminence on the 
 very morning of the feast. 
 
 'To serve both would have appeared ridiculous, but the 
 Cardinal was most anxious to have the credit of both. He 
 imparted his embarrassment to his chef. " Be of good faith, 
 your Eminence," was the reply, " both shall appear ; both 
 shall receive the reception which is their due.'' The dinner 
 was served : one of the turbots relieved the soup. Delight 
 was in every face — it was the moment of the iprouvette 
 
60 Sixth Day. 
 
 positive. The maitre cFhdtel advances ; two attendants 
 raise the turbot, and carry him off to cut him up ; but one 
 of them loses his equilibrium : the attendants and the turbot 
 roll together on the floor. At this sad sight the assembled 
 Cardinals become pale as death, and a solemn silence 
 reigns in the conclave — it was the moment of the Sprouvette 
 negative; but the Tnaltre dfhdtel suddenly turns to the 
 attendant : " Bring another turbot," said he, with the most 
 perfect coolness. The second appeared, and the iprouvette 
 positive was gloriously renewed.' 
 
 It is by feats like these that cookery is exalted 
 to a place among the arts of nations. 
 
VII 
 
 JONSTON'S WONDERS. 
 
VII. 
 JONSTON'S WONDERS. 
 
 NO agreement has hitherto been reached as 
 to where, in spiritual matters, the line 
 may be drawn between faith and cre- 
 dulity. Theologians affirm that men have ever 
 been more prone to err in denying than in believ- 
 ing too much ; but this can hardly be maintained 
 of those matters which claim neither to rest on 
 dogma nor proceed from revelation. In science 
 the only safe method is searching and inexorable ; 
 even the Society for Psychical Research has been 
 constrained to adopt it, greatly to its good repute 
 among philosophers, but vastly to the disappoint- 
 ment of some of its original members. 
 
 It was not always thus. Authors had a capital 
 time before the age became so abominably scep- 
 tical, and appetite for the marvellous gave place 
 to a thirst for knowledge. A couple of centuries 
 ago a writer might take up almost any subject, or 
 as many subjects as he felt inclined for, with 
 
64 Seventh Day. 
 
 reasonable certainty of finding plenty of readers. 
 There is nothing to show that the most astound- 
 ing ' eye-openers ' excited any suspicion in the 
 minds of the reading public, or that their authors 
 were looked on more dubiously than such genuine 
 eye-witnesses as Ixtlilxochitl or Marco Polo. The 
 quotation of some earlier authority was all the 
 evidence required ; and if the alleged marvels 
 stuck in the throat of someone less credulous 
 than his fellows, he proceeded to their refutation 
 by quoting other and still earlier authorities. To 
 this day, ninety- nine out of every hundred new 
 books may be set down as containing no original 
 thought or fresh fact ; all their matter has been 
 printed over ,and over again in different forms. 
 But modern readers have a distaste for obvious 
 compilation ; writers are expected to throw a 
 semblance of originality over the stale ideas, and 
 give them the guise of independent observation, 
 much as a skilful cook knows how to produce 
 dainty dishes out of yesterday's joints. But until 
 the close of the seventeenth century it was other- 
 wise. The press gave birth to huge folios and 
 quartos, crammed by scholars with information 
 already stored in the folios and quartos of their 
 predecessors. Everyone who has idled his morn- 
 ing away in the library of some old country- 
 house must be familiar with this class of work — 
 must have marvelled at the excruciating assiduity 
 with which such volumes have been compiled, 
 have wondered how in the world our ancestors 
 
Jonston's Wonders. 65 
 
 ever could afford to buy them in days when cash 
 was notoriously scarce, and what satisfaction they 
 could derive from them when bought. 
 
 Now and then one lights upon a book of this 
 kind, redeemed from commonplace either by its 
 naivety and quaint language or by its rarity. 
 Such an one came into my hands lately, which, 
 seeing that it is unrecorded by the all -but- 
 omniscient Lowndes, may be held to be a scarce 
 volume. It is in folio, and bears the following 
 title : ' An History of the Wonderful Things of 
 Nature : Set forth in Ten Severall Classes. 
 Written by Johannes Jonstonus, and now Ren- 
 dered into English by a Person of Quality 
 London, 1657.' In an epistle dedicatory to 
 Edward, Lord Montague, Earl of Manchester, 
 the ' Person of Quality ' surrenders his anony- 
 mity, not only signing himself 'John Rowland, 
 but reminding his patron that he was ' formerly a 
 Schollar at Eaton Colledge, and contemporary 
 with your Honour; and that I once had the 
 happinesse to be domestick Servant unto your 
 Honour's Noble Father ;' with which somewhat 
 conflicting account of himself Mr. Rowland makes 
 his bow and introduces Johannes Jonstonus. In 
 the three hundred and fifty pages which follow, 
 Mr. Jonston deals with ' the wonders of the 
 heavens, of the elements, of birds, of four-footed 
 beasts, of insects, and things wanting blood, of man,' 
 etc. It would be paying him too high a compli- 
 ment to say he treats of these ; rather, having 
 
 5 
 
66 Seventh Day. 
 
 collected from every available source all that has 
 been asserted or speculated about them, he piles 
 the indigestible mass before the reader, and leaves 
 him pretty much alone to gratify his taste. One 
 with an appetite for marvels will have no difficulty 
 in satiating it. In our own day, the facts com- 
 pressed into ' popular science ' writings have been 
 pretty well sifted by genuine research. Stress is 
 laid on the beauty of nature, and the adaptation 
 of means to ends. But for any such feeling the 
 treatises of the old school may be searched in 
 vain. Nature was regarded as a system of 
 arbitrary affinities and repulsions, of hurtful and 
 violent properties, mingled pell-mell with those 
 that are useful and beneficial. Throughout the 
 whole of this portentous tome there is no hint of 
 reverence for what is beautiful ; nothing is thought 
 worth mentioning unless it is either terrible or 
 marvellous. Sometimes, but rarely, after the author 
 has inflamed his reader to a rare pitch of astonish- 
 ment by several papers of good thumping lies, he 
 damps him down by disparaging parenthesis. For 
 example, in the first chapter he observes that ' the 
 raging elephant grows calm if he sees a ram, and 
 if he sees a rhinoceros he is angry ' (the rhino- 
 ceros, be it noted, is not the pachyderm known 
 to us under that name, but, as is afterwards 
 explained, a bird with a horny snout, probably a 
 toucan) ; ' Cattell almost dead, and men faint, are 
 revived by the smell of bread;' ' Porphyrio, a bird, 
 will die if it look on a Whore ;' ' Turnsole will 
 
Jonston's Wonders. 67 
 
 make men invisible, and quicksilver put between 
 two reeds will hinder witchcraft.' For each of 
 these statements (and hundreds of such) he quotes 
 an authority ; and then, just as one is in a delicious 
 ecstasy of amazement, he dashes it all by quoting 
 one Delrius, who declares that some of them * are 
 fooleries, and confuted by propounding them.' 
 Then why, it may be asked, is it worth the while 
 of Mr. Jonston to report, and a person of quality 
 to translate them ? On the other hand, Mr. 
 Jonston cannot brook too simple an explanation 
 of mysteries ; for, in discussing the ' originall of 
 fountains,' he mentions that ' some would have it 
 that the springs of water come from rain,' and 
 adds ' this is scarce certain to believe,' for no rain 
 sinks more than ten feet into the earth, and 
 springs are found two hundred and three hundred 
 feet deep. The curious conclusion he prefers is 
 'that, fountains come from the sea by passage 
 under the earth,' and winds up with the reflection : 
 ' It is a hard matter to define all things, nor is it 
 to our purpose.' 
 
 Cruelty is ever the willing handmaid of super- 
 stition, and it makes the flesh creep to reflect 
 what unspeakable barbarities used to be prescribed 
 in order to rid the human carcase of some of its 
 ailments. Thus, a chapter upon that beautiful 
 bird the kite (alas ! now all but extinct in these 
 islands) concludes with the sentence : ' Burnt alive 
 in a pot it (the kite) is said to cure the falling 
 sickness.' Again, he says that ' a green lizzard, 
 
68 Seventh Day. 
 
 putt alive into a new earthen vessell, and boyl'd 
 with 3 Sextarses of wine to one Cyathus, is excellent 
 good for one sick of the Pthisick, if he drink it in 
 the morning fasting.' Less objectionable on the 
 score of humanity is the remedy he offers for the 
 bite of a scorpion : ' If he (the person bitten) sit 
 upon an Asse with his face toward the tayl, the 
 Asse will endure the pain and not he ;' and the 
 following receipt may be commended to the 
 favourable notice of the United Kingdom Alliance 
 as a short-cut to total abstinence : ' Owls' eggs 
 given for three days in Wine to drunkards will 
 make them loath it.' Future Chancellors of the 
 Exchequer, however, should be wary how they 
 try to indemnify the revenue for any falling off 
 caused by the anticipated conversion to temper- 
 ance, for we read in another part of the book 
 about some hot baths in Germany which went 
 dry when there was a tax set upon them, and 
 'something like this fell out in shell-fish at the 
 Sluce\ for when a kind of tribute was laid upon 
 the collecting of them they were no more found 
 there : they returned when the Tax was taken off.' 
 Jonstonus enlivens his pages with some pretty 
 good ' busters ' about the New World, where, he 
 observes, some mountains are above fifty miles 
 high. Yet he cannot endorse every tale he hears. 
 ' Some write that the devils hate St. John's-wort 
 so much that the very smell of it drives them 
 away. I think this is superstitious.' But he 
 thoroughly believes in the potency of certain other 
 
Jonston's Wonders. 69 
 
 herbs. ' If Oxen disagree, lay loosestrife on their 
 yokes and they will be quiet.' ' Mustard, besides 
 preserving one's health, ascends high into the 
 closet of reason, where the mind resides,' and it is, 
 therefore, recommended for ' stupidity proceeding 
 from moisture.' Perhaps the solitary bit of 
 original observation in the whole book is that 
 contained in a marginal manuscript note to the 
 chapter on the pike. ' It hath a natural Enmity 
 with the Frog,' quoth Jonstonus ; ' A proper bait,' 
 someone has written on the margin of the page 
 now before me. Implicit credence, of course, is 
 claimed for the venerable fable that ' clak-geese ' 
 are hatched out of barnacles, and many pages of 
 argument are devoted to its support. Perhaps a 
 single other quotation from this worthless treatise 
 may be endured as a typical example of the 
 author's style : ' Subus is an Amphibion with two 
 Horns : he follows shoals of fish swimming in the 
 Sea : Lobsters, Pagri, and Oculatse are fishes that 
 love him, but he cares for none of their love, but 
 makes them all his prey.' 
 
 Looking back over the troubled record of the 
 seventeenth century, it is difficult to imagine how 
 it was worth anyone's while to hold aloof from the 
 stirring events which at this distance of time seem 
 to have involved every section of the community, 
 in order to compose or translate this farrago of 
 rubbish. Eleven years before it was published 
 Sir Thomas Browne's inquiries into vulgar errors 
 had appeared. He may be credited with having 
 
jo Seventh Day. 
 
 exploded many fallacies, yet it should not be for- 
 gotten that, cynic and philosopher as he was in 
 some respects, he was also a firm believer in 
 astrology, derided the idea of the earth going 
 round the sun, and gave evidence for the prosecu- 
 tion in the trial of some witches. Nor must we 
 be unmindful of the beam that some of us suspect 
 to be in our own eye. There are still many genteel 
 persons who endure genuine alarm if they find 
 themselves seated at a dinner party of thirteen, 
 while others there be who do fondly trace the in- 
 fluence of the moon upon the weather ; and have 
 we not all agreed to entrust the destinies of our 
 country to ' the collective wisdom of individual 
 ignorances?' It was Sir Horace Walpole who 
 wrote to Sir Horace Mann : ' If curing old errors 
 will prevent the world falling into new ones — d la 
 bonne hmre !' 
 
VIII. 
 ST. JOHN'S HIGHLAND SPORT. 
 
VIII. 
 
 ST. JOHN'S HIGHLAND SPORT. 
 
 ' T ~X 7"HEN a new book comes out I go to my 
 \ \ shelves and take down an old one.' 
 The key of so much of the book-lover's 
 delight lies in this observation, that it is disgrace- 
 ful to have forgotten who made it. To no class 
 of literature may the precept be more fitly applied 
 than to that which has field-sports for its theme. 
 The contemporary production is so huge — from 
 the encyclopaedic series of the Badminton Library 
 to the hebdomadal volumes that issue from the 
 offices of the. Field — that one finds solace in the 
 thought that, the latest inventions apart, a few 
 old favourites really contain all that is required 
 to instruct the sportsman in his art or tune his 
 spirit to the right key. As to shooting, one 
 turns with a sigh of relief from the modern 
 chronicle of bloated bags to the works of some 
 of the older writers, who looked on slaughter as 
 only one — and that not always the principal — 
 
74 Eighth Day. 
 
 object of woodcraft : the study of wild animals 
 in their haunts, the delight in natural scenery, 
 and the training of the finer and nobler qualities 
 of dogs, being reckoned quite as essential to 
 enjoyment. Such a book is Charles St. John's 
 ' Natural History and Sport in Moray' (Edinburgh: 
 Edmondston and Douglas, 1863). Without any 
 pretence to literary grace — for the most part it 
 consists of jottings in a journal — every page is 
 full of interest. One seems in its perusal now to 
 smell the odour of the damp ground under the 
 pines, now to shiver in the gale sweeping over 
 the salt marshes, to lie on the hillside among the 
 grasses moving softly in the summer breeze, and 
 anon to feel the frozen snow crunching under 
 foot. The secret is revealed by the author when 
 he tells us that he has put down nothing of which 
 he could not verify the authenticity, and has 
 been careful to avoid hearsay. This method is 
 in marked contrast to that of the ' Person of 
 Quality ' whose lucubrations were noticed in the 
 last paper. 
 
 Charles St. John entered life in 1828 as a clerk 
 in the Treasury. In that capacity he was a dis- 
 tinct failure, and after four years' trial he gave up 
 the appointment. It must be confessed that his life 
 was, for awhile, unprofitable. Loafing about the 
 Highlands, with little cash and no definite occupa- 
 tion, he was lucky enough to marry a young lady 
 of some fortune, who fell in with his views about 
 country life and pursuits; and thenceforward he was 
 
St. John's Highland Sport. y$ 
 
 free to devote himself to natural history and sport. 
 But he might very likely have lived and died un- 
 known, except to a few farmers and gamekeepers 
 in his neighbourhood, but for the happy accident 
 of some stress of weather that, ten years after his 
 marriage, constrained him to take a night's shelter 
 with Cosmo Innes, who used to stay in a cottage 
 near Forres. His host, being struck by St. John's 
 fund of information on his favourite subjects and 
 the precision of observation on which it was 
 founded, asked him after dinner why he did not 
 employ his leisure in writing on sport and natural 
 history. St. John laughed at the idea, saying that 
 he had no turn for scribbling, being quite pleased 
 if he could write a decent note to a correspondent. 
 But in the end Innes persuaded him to try, with 
 the result that during the winter St. John sub- 
 mitted to his new friend several ' little essays on 
 mixed sport and natural history.' One of these, 
 the story of the ' Muckle Hart of Benmore,' Innes 
 incorporated in an article he contributed in 1845 
 to the Quarterly Review. Afterwards he read to 
 St. John a letter from Lockhart, the editor, ex- 
 pressing a very high opinion of Innes's unknown 
 collaborator, and insisted on dividing the produce 
 of the article with him. St. John was greatly 
 pleased at the first-fruits of his pen, set to work 
 systematically, and next year saw the publication 
 of his essays under the title, ' Wild Sport and 
 Natural History in the Highlands.' But it was to 
 the smaller and posthumous volume on Moray 
 
j6 Eighth Day. 
 
 that the precept at the head of this paper was 
 lately applied, a book in which is so apparent the 
 truth — the secret of all good literature — that the 
 writer shall have something to say. Few men 
 can write from experience of stalking and killing 
 a stag without assistance. The plan of the stalk, 
 down to its minutest details — even to drawing the 
 rifle from its cover — is arranged for most of us by 
 the stalker. We know just enough to make us 
 appreciate the narrative of how the Muckle Hart 
 of Benmore was laid low. 
 
 Death is the crowning act of all field-sports, 
 and it is unnecessary to enter here upon the con- 
 troversy about their consequent cruelty. But St. 
 John never revels in slaughter. It is upon the 
 minor incidents of a day on the hill or in the 
 woods that he dilates with most enthusiasm. He 
 opens the eyes of his readers to much that, with- 
 out his guidance, would pass unregarded. Here, 
 for example, is a piece of keen observation : 
 
 ' The eagle sits upright on some cliff of the same colour as 
 himself, huddled up into a shape which only the experienced 
 eye detects to be that of a bird. The attitudes and figures 
 of the whole tribe of hawks are very striking and character- 
 istic, and as unlike as possible to the stuffed caricatures 
 which one usually meets with, and in which the natural 
 character of the bird is entirely lost' (p. 53). 
 
 In forwarding a pair of peregrines to be stuffed, 
 he remarks in his journal : ' I should not have 
 shot the birds for any other reason than to 
 oblige Mr. Hancock, and see them live again as 
 
St. John's Highland Sport. jy 
 
 stuffed by him,' and he gives directions founded 
 on accurate observation of the birds' habits : 
 
 ' I have a fancy that a peregrine should not be the apex 
 of the group — i.e., that the rock should come up nearly as 
 high as the bird's head. When I think of the peregrines 
 wild, I remember them oftener as sitting on a projection 
 rather than on the summit of a cliff' (p. 99, note). 
 
 Like all true bird-lovers, St. John had a warm 
 love for the nobler birds of prey. Keen sportsman 
 though he was, he says (p. 51) : 'There is more 
 beauty and more to interest one in the flight and 
 habits of a pair of falcons than in a whole pack of 
 grouse.' Yet grouse had for him attractions other 
 than culinary. He tells us (p. 34) of a hen-grouse 
 that was caught in a trap set for ravens, whose 
 mate brought a quantity of young heather-shoots, 
 enough to fill a hat, and laid them beside the 
 unlucky captive. The devoted bird must have 
 spent hours in collecting them, and St. John 
 records his deep remorse for the tragedy. One 
 cannot help, however, even at this distance of 
 time, rejoicing that the mishap to the grouse 
 frustrated the capture of a less innocent, though 
 rarer and more intellectual bird, the raven. 
 
 To return for a moment to the peregrines. 
 St. John tells us enthusiastically of their generous 
 and docile disposition, which, combined with 
 their great courage, renders them capable of high 
 training ; but he also records an example of their 
 ferocity. One that he had as a pet, who lived 
 for some years in perfect amity with an owl, 
 
J$ Eighth Day. 
 
 ended by quarrelling with the latter over their 
 meals, and not only killed, but ate her ! In spite 
 of this misdeed, he does not lose faith in bird- 
 nature. 'There are few wild birds or other 
 animals,' he says, ' which could not be tamed 
 and made useful to us if, instead of constantly 
 persecuting them, we treated them with hospi- 
 tality and allowed them to live in peace and 
 plenty.' It is indeed a constant source of pain 
 to the lovers of wild animals that the rarer a 
 creature becomes the greater is the malignity with 
 which it is pursued. This is brought home with 
 simple pathos in the following record of the 
 arrival of some of the most beautiful of our 
 winter visitors : 
 
 ' I saw eight pure white swans arrive on the loch of Spynie 
 on the 30th September. . . . Short as their time must have 
 been in this land of fire-arms, I could plainly distinguish a 
 large mark of blood on the side of one of them staining its 
 snow-white plumage.' 
 
 But when killing is the object, St. John has 
 many wrinkles to impart to his reader. In wait- 
 ing for wood-pigeons at roosting-time he advises 
 the sportsman to ' remain quite motionless for a 
 minute or more after the wood-pigeon has alighted, 
 as for that time the bird is looking in all directions 
 below her for any enemy. After having done this 
 she is not so much on the alert, and the shooter 
 can raise his gun without her taking the alarm.' 
 Again, his directions for securing water-fowl when 
 winged are useful. He points out that while 
 
St. John's Highland Sport. 79 
 
 diving ducks, such as scaup and pochard, when 
 wounded swim out to the middle of the lake, 
 mallard and teal seek the shore, and may often 
 be picked up an hour or two after shooting at 
 them by hunting the grass and reeds of the margin 
 with a retriever. It is to be wished, I shall add, 
 that his consideration for dogs were more gener- 
 ally observed. He always carried a biscuit for 
 his retriever on cold days, and was careful when 
 waiting for wild-fowl to give him a plaid or game- 
 bag to lie on. He had no patience with sports- 
 men who, returning to a comfortable fireside, a 
 pipe, and other comforts, relegate their humble 
 companion to one of those barbarous wooden 
 boxes — too often the only shelter provided — in 
 which, as he justly says, it must be hours before 
 he gets dry and warm. The kitchen fire and 
 plenty of nourishing food, to keep a good layer of 
 fat on his ribs, he regarded as only fair to any dog 
 who has much water work to go through. 
 
 It is difficult to close these pages without 
 making long extracts from them. Good writing 
 on sport and natural history is far more common 
 now than it was in St. John's day ; but there 
 was an agreeable leisure and time to look about 
 one in his method of pursuing wild animals, in 
 which field-sports on the modern scheme are 
 sadly deficient. 
 
 Charles St. John's career is not one to be 
 commended as an example to discontented clerks 
 in Government offices. By a fortunate and happy 
 
8o Eighth Day. 
 
 marriage he was enabled to make a fresh start 
 after his initial failure ; but the odds were heavy 
 against any such combination of chances. As it 
 turned out, his life, brought to a premature close 
 by paralysis at the age of forty-seven, showed 
 what a sportsman may be, and too often is not. 
 
IX. 
 
 TALLEMANT DES REAUX. 
 
IX. 
 
 TALLEMANT DES REAUX. 
 
 WHAT Brantome did for French society 
 of the sixteenth, Tallemant des R6aux 
 undertook for that of the seventeenth, 
 century. He was one of the literary set which 
 the Marquise de Rambouillet delighted to gather 
 round her in the famous chambre bleu, and it was 
 to that accomplished lady that he owed his 
 familiarity with the Court and with people of 
 fashion. For, in spite of his sonorous name, the 
 parentage of Ged6on Tallemant des Reaux was 
 no loftier than lower middle class ; and the 
 peculiar bitterness and cynicism wherewith he 
 chronicled the foibles and vices of august per- 
 sonages was owing, probably, to resentment 
 against the haughty bearing of the noblesse, and 
 the disabilities imposed by custom on his own 
 class. It requires an effort to realize, in these 
 pluto-democratic days, the inflexible nature of the 
 barrier which fenced off the families of feudal rank 
 
84 Ninth Day. 
 
 from the French bourgeoisie of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. There is no parallel to it in modern society, 
 and perhaps the excessive rigour of the distinction 
 between chivalry and industry was not maintained 
 in our country after the days of the Norman kings. 
 Riches could effect no breach in it, for they con- 
 ferred none of the privilege which hedged in the 
 patrician houses ; but the intellectual revival 
 which radiated from the Hotel Rambouillet 
 helped men of law and letters to a station higher 
 than that to which many of them belonged, 
 though they still remained without the pale of 
 the territorial families. 
 
 Tallemant describes an instance of the effect 
 on himself of this social code. A certain Madame 
 Roger, daughter of a poor gentleman of Lorraine, 
 had stooped to marry the son of a rich gold- 
 smith in Paris, and, having a daughter to marry, 
 gave a great ball. It was the custom, it seems, 
 for smart young men to defray the charges of 
 the musicians employed by their entertainers. 
 Tallemant was present at Madame Roger's ball, 
 and it happened to be his turn to pay the piper, 
 a favour which the lady accepted indeed, but 
 with marked coldness. ' Je voyois bien a sa. 
 mine qu'elle avait quelque honte qu'un bourgeois 
 lui donnit les violons.' This sort of treatment 
 rankled in the mind of Tallemant, and he took 
 characteristic, though posthumous, revenge. The 
 ten volumes of ' Histoirettes,' edited by De 
 Chateaugiron, Jules Taschereau, and Monmerque,. 
 
Tallemant des Reaux. 85 
 
 and first published in 1834, are filled with anec- 
 dotes, mostly scurrilous, of Parisian society. If 
 the benign influence of the Hotel Rambouillet is 
 to be traced in these memoirs d'outre-tombe, it is 
 that, while treating of material very much the 
 same as Brantome used in his ' Dames Galantes,' 
 Tallemant employs terms a shade less gross. 
 If his spade is not always called a spade, you 
 are not left in the slightest doubt as to the real 
 character of the implement. This much, how- 
 ever, may be said for him (at least he says it for 
 himself), that he wrote for the same object for 
 which Grolier collected books — sibi et amicis. 
 His scandalous chronicle was not meant for 
 publication, but for the private amusement of 
 his intimates ; and, in fact, it lay unprinted for 
 two centuries and a half. Possibly it is to this 
 that we owe our acquaintance with this naughty 
 writer, for his ' Histoirettes ' are of the stuff apt to 
 come as fuel to the hands of the common hangman. 
 Tallemant enjoyed some distinction during his 
 life for historical and poetical works, but, such 
 is the irony of literary fame, none of these 
 survived him; and although his brother and 
 cousin were both members of the French 
 Academy, their writings have sunk into profound 
 oblivion, while Tallemant's scurrilous gossip, if 
 it has not secured his immortality, at least, is 
 sure of attentive readers at this day. Consider- 
 ing the lofty purpose which Madame de Ram- 
 bouillet set before herself and her intimate friends 
 
86 Ninth Day. 
 
 — that, namely, of raising social life out of the 
 unsavoury slough in which she found it, and of 
 creating a purer ideal in literature — the general 
 tone of the ' Histoirettes ' is somewhat remark- 
 able. Tallemant was constantly in the house 
 of the Marquise, and acknowledges her as the 
 authority for many of his stories ; yet he re- 
 counts the annals of immorality with perfect com- 
 placency, and smears some of his pages with 
 sheer Rabelaisian filth ; whereby, without intend- 
 ing it, he makes vice the reverse of attractive. 
 
 What fascinates us is his vivid and naive 
 description of manners and piquant illustration 
 of character at a time of great literary and 
 political activity; both description and illustra- 
 tion must have been greatly curtailed and modified 
 had the work gone to the press during the life- 
 time of the persons concerned. There is nothing 
 of the toady in Tallemant des R6aux. An easy 
 moralist at best, he spurns the principle quod 
 licet Jovi non licet bovi, and etches the irregu- 
 larities of the rich with an acid at least as 
 mordant as he employs for those of the middle 
 class. Though he was certainly at no pains to 
 add lustre to the actions or characters of high 
 or low, he did full justice to examples of de- 
 voted courage shown by persons in humble life. 
 He relates how M. de Bellegarde. had given 
 offence to the Marquise de Verneuil, who per- 
 suaded her lover (or shall we accept Tallemant's 
 limitation, and say — one of her lovers), the 
 
Tallemant des Reaux. 87 
 
 Prince de Joinville, to attack M. de Bellegarde 
 as he stood at the door of Madame Zamet's 
 house, where the king was supping. M. de Belle- 
 garde's people came to the rescue, and the Prince 
 had to fly for his life, which he would probably 
 have lost, had not the Vidame du Maas hap- 
 pened to pass and, in chivalrous part, taken the 
 weaker side in the mtlee. The Prince escaped, 
 but the Vidame was severely wounded, and was 
 carried into the house of Madame Zamet. That 
 hospitable dame placed him in her own bed, 
 where he was like to have died, for the physicians 
 declared that no means or instruments at their 
 command would extract the matter which gathered 
 between his ribs. But the Vidame's valet did 
 not shrink at the hazard of his own life from 
 applying his lips to the wound until his master 
 was cured. 
 
 The pleasantest chapters are those which Talle- 
 mant penned less as a libertine cynic than as 
 a warm-hearted friend. There are still, it is 
 believed, some simple souls capable of deriving 
 more pleasure from descriptions of frank love- 
 making and masculine sword-play, than from the 
 puling of heterodox hesitancy, and mawkish 
 maunderings around the sex problem ; people 
 who find something more refreshing in the 
 prodigious adventures of d'Artagnan than in the 
 homely vicissitudes of a Scottish minister. To their 
 attention may be commended ' Histoirette clxxii.,' 
 wherein the amours of Tallemant's bosom friend 
 
88 Ninth Day. 
 
 Patru, and the beautiful coquette, Madame 
 Levesque, are sympathetically related. Alexandre 
 Dumas never penned anything more stirring ; 
 and those who like psychological problems will 
 find plenty of material for reflection in the con- 
 duct of Patru, who, having fallen in love with 
 Mademoiselle Turpin, holds it beneath his dignity 
 to pay court to a mere girl, however lovely. 
 But as soon as she marries the ugly avocat, 
 Levesque, the play begins with spirit. Madame 
 Levesque's beauty soon brings other admirers to 
 her feet, among them one Abb6 Le Normand, 
 who, being jealous of Patru, arranges that another 
 abbe, La Terriere, should act as spy on his 
 rival. This plan fails, for La Terriere becomes 
 as deeply enamoured of the lady as his brother 
 abb6 ; accordingly, the worthy pair resolve to 
 obtain proof of Patru's criminality sufficient to 
 convince the least suspicious of husbands. Patru 
 is to receive absolution in Passover week ; the 
 two abbes gain over the confessor, who reveals 
 to them that Patru has confessed d' avoir couche 
 avec une femme marUe. This is enough for the 
 abbds, who hire an assassin to destroy Patru's 
 good looks with vitriol ; but the ruffian, being 
 one of ' milder mood,' with no stomach for that 
 particular kind of villainy, betrays his employers 
 to their intended victim. Shortly after, Levesque 
 dies, upon which Patru, whose intentions were 
 nothing if not strictly dishonourable, finding it 
 as insipid to be the lover of a widow as that of 
 
Tallemant des Reaux. 89 
 
 a maiden, tries to forget her. But she brings 
 him back to captivity by appearing in church 
 and elsewhere avec unc foule de petits galants. 
 
 The parts of this writer's works which have 
 received most attention are those which describe 
 the scenes within the celebrated Hotel Ram- 
 bouillet, especially the chambre bleu. There is in 
 his ink none of the accustomed gall when he 
 traces the charms of the fascinating Arthenice, 
 an elaborate anagram on her baptismal name 
 Catharine, by which Madame de Rambouillet was 
 known in her circle of precieuses, and, however 
 much may be reprehensible in his stories, much 
 must be forgiven to 'their author in gratitude 
 for the details which he alone has preserved of 
 this remarkable society. At the same time, the 
 ill-natured gossip which Tallemant delighted to 
 relate of Henri IV. and Louis XIII. was all 
 received by him from Madame de Rambouillet. 
 She had a bitter dislike for the Bearnais, and, 
 bearing that in mind, it is possible to discount a 
 good deal of Tallemant's detraction of the great 
 king. He does not hesitate to insinuate that 
 Henri was not insensible to physical fear. More 
 strange, and even less credible, is the hint that 
 the lover of la belle Gabrielle was not the vert 
 galant he was reputed to be. Some interest 
 attaches to the notice of persons who afterwards 
 grew into reputation far exceeding his own. 
 Thus he mentions Blaise Pascal as a gargon who 
 invented an excellent calculating machine, and La 
 
90 Ninth Day. 
 
 Fontaine as ce gargon de belles-lettres et qui fait des 
 vers. 
 
 Perhaps the most melancholy sentiment attach- 
 ing to the memoirs of their time is in the 
 constantly recurring notice of the ravages of 
 small-pox. Of how many of Tallemant's female 
 characters is it not recorded : elle etait nee fort 
 belle, mais la petite verole l'agdt/e. Probably nothing 
 contributes so much to a woman's material hap- 
 piness as personal beauty. Our gratitude for 
 comparative immunity from the loathsome scourge 
 of small-pox should be in proportion to the 
 suffering inflicted thereby in a less enlightened 
 age. 
 
X. 
 ACTS OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT. 
 
X. 
 ACTS OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT. 
 
 JOHN HILL BURTON excelled most men 
 in the knack of extracting amusement out 
 of the most arid tracts of print, and used 
 to delight in discovering gems in the most un- 
 promising places. To many of these he gave a 
 pretty setting in his ' Bookhunter ' — one of the 
 most charming books about books that ever was 
 penned — and one is almost tempted to quote once 
 more the oft-told tale of Mr. Justice Best's ' great 
 mind ' as an instance of the amusement which 
 even a law index may supply. Acts of Parliament 
 offer still less promise of diversion than law- 
 books, though even from them Burton had the 
 knack of extracting amusement, and quotes an 
 Act of George III. as an instance. The Bill, as 
 originally drawn, * proposed, as the punishment of 
 an offence, to levy pecuniary penalty, one-half 
 thereof to go to his Majesty and the other half to 
 the informer ; but it was altered in committee, in 
 
94 Tenth Day. 
 
 so far that, when it appeared in the form of an 
 Act, the punishment was changed to whipping and 
 imprisonment, the destination being left unaltered.' 
 But a rainy day in a country house (the true 
 book-lover's heure du berger) will be found all too 
 short to exhaust the good things stored up in a 
 volume of old Scots Acts of Parliament. 
 
 Towards the end of the sixteenth century it 
 dawned upon the rulers of Scotland that it was 
 somewhat hard upon the lieges that the laws, which 
 it was their duty to observe, had always been 
 written in Latin, a tongue which had never been 
 understood by the commonalty. Accordingly, King 
 James VI. of Scotland directed Sir John Skene, of 
 Curriehill, Clerk of the Register, to collect and 
 translate into Scots all the Laws and Acts of the 
 realm up to date, the result of which was the 
 publication in 1609 of a handsome volume, 
 entitled ' Regiam Majestatem : The Avid Lavves 
 and Constitvtions of Scotland, faithfvllie collected 
 fvrth of the Register, and other avid authentic 
 bukes, fra the dayes of King Malcolme the 
 second vntill the time of King James the first, 
 of gude memorie,' etc., etc. Sir John's transla- 
 tion, though known to be far from faithful, is an 
 excellent specimen of the Scottish language of the 
 day. Southron readers will not resent being 
 reminded that broad Scots (as it is called now) is 
 not merely a corrupt form of English. ' Hame ' 
 and ' bane ' have not been altered from ' home ' 
 and ' bone,' but, on the contrary, are conservative 
 
Acts of the Scottish Parliament. 95 
 
 forms of the Anglo-Saxon ' ham ' and ' bdn;' in 
 the Scottish pronunciation * Cawmul ' is preserved 
 the true etymology of the name genteelly rendered 
 ' Campbell,' with a spurious Norman complexion, 
 as if de Campo-bello. The Mercian dialect of 
 Anglo-Saxon happens to have become the standard 
 of English speech because the metropolis of South 
 Britain was fixed between Thames and Humber ; 
 but Lowland Scots is but one of the three great 
 branches — southern, midland, and northern — into 
 which Early English was cast. Dr. Murray 
 has pointed out that Richard of Hampole, who 
 lived within a few miles of a place so thoroughly 
 English as Sherwood Forest, and died in 1349, 
 wrote identically the same language as his Scottish 
 contemporaries, Wyntoun and Barbour. Many 
 of the old spellings, which seem barbarous or 
 arbitrary to modern eyes, are really grammatical 
 forms which have been lost to our literature. We, 
 for instance, make no distinction between the 
 gerund or noun of action and the present parti- 
 ciple; but it is clearly shown in the following 
 sentence from Sir John's Introduction : Congre- 
 gation of men dwelland together ... for the 
 better establishing of their estate.' We should 
 write ' dwelling, establishing,' thus confounding 
 two distinct parts of speech, the suffix -and of 
 the participle having long ago been assimilated 
 to that of -ing in the gerund. One more fact 
 for the philologist, and then pass we on to notice 
 some of the curiosities of ancient law. It is 
 
96 Tenth Day. 
 
 interesting to find the etymology of the word bird 
 (a thing bred, connected with Anglo-Saxon bredan, 
 to breed) confirmed by its application to a quad- 
 ruped. The short title of an Act of the seventh 
 Parliament of James I., held at Perth in 1427, 
 runs : ' The Woolfe and Woolfe-birdes suld be 
 slain.' The latter, in the Act itself, are called 
 * the quhelpes (whelps) of the Woolfes.' 
 
 The requirements of a monarchical govern- 
 ment could hardly be more succinctly expressed 
 than they are in the preface to ' Regiam Majesta- 
 tem,' viz. : ' Twa things are necessare to ane 
 King : ARMES, to dantoun his enemies ; and 
 LAVVES, to rule his peaceable subjects.' The 
 mode of the first is prescribed from time to time. 
 Under William the Lion ' ilk laick landed man 
 haueand ten punds in gudes and geir, sail haue 
 for his bodie, and for the defence of this Realme, 
 ane sufficient Acton (leathern jacket), ane basnet 
 (helmet), and ane gloue of plate, with ane speare 
 and sword. Quha hes not ane Acton and basnet, 
 he sail haue ane gude habirgeon (breast-plate) and 
 ane guid irn Jak (iron cuirass) for his bodie ; and 
 ane irn knapiskay (headpiece) and gloues of plate.' 
 As the use of gunpowder extended, the statu- 
 tory armour was modified. The preamble of an 
 Act of James V. (1540) sets forth the necessity of 
 keeping pace with other nations in the art of war : 
 ' Because the schot of gunnes, hagbuttes, hand- 
 bowes, and vther small artaillarie, nowe commonly 
 used in all Cuntries, baith be Sea and lande in 
 
Acts of the Scottish Parliament. 97 
 
 their weeres (wars), is sa felloun (deadly) and un- 
 eschewable to the pith of high courage of Noble 
 and vailzieant men, quhais actes and deedes cannot 
 be schawin without contrair provision bee had of 
 weere and battell,' etc. 
 
 Trial by battle and the ordeal by iron or water 
 were a part of early judicial procedure in Scot- 
 land, and are the subject of many statutes. But 
 the ' dome be water and irn as hes bene used in 
 auld times ' was abolished by an Act of Alexan- 
 der II. (1214-1249), except in Galloway, where an 
 Act of William the Lion gave the accused the 
 option of ' visnet ' (voisiriage), that is, trial by 
 jury, if he preferred it to the old-fashioned ordeal. 
 Under a statute of the same king, fisticuffs were 
 heavily discouraged : ' Gif ane man giues ane blow 
 with his neiue (fist) and drawes blood he shall 
 pay nine kine to the king and three to the man 
 he struck;' but if he did not draw blood, then 
 the fine is reduced to six and two kine re- 
 spectively. But wife - beating was regarded 
 with more leniency. King David (1124-1153) 
 passed a law absolving a certain man who gave 
 his wife * ane blow with his hand to teach and 
 correct her,' of which she died. It is true that it 
 is set forth in the Act that ' sche being angry with 
 hir husband after that day, wald not for na mans 
 request eat or drink vntil sche deceased;' and 
 so it seems to be held that she died to spite her 
 husband. 
 
 It behoved persons of homicidal proclivities, 
 
 7 
 
98 Tenth Day. 
 
 living in the days of William the Lion, to be dis- 
 criminating in the selection of their victims. The 
 price of an earl's ' blude ' is fixed at nine kye, of 
 an earl's son or of a thane ' sax kye,' but of an 
 husbandman only two kye; yet if this be held 
 as showing that the law was a respecter of per- 
 sons, it is gratifying to find that the principle was 
 held that noblesse oblige, and that malefactors were 
 punished with severity proportionate to their 
 rank. A later example of this is given in an Act 
 of Queen Mary (1551) ' anent them that swearis 
 abhominable aithes.' The preamble sets forth 
 that ' notwithstanding the oft and frequent 
 Preachings, in detestation of the grievous and 
 abhominable aithes (oaths), swearing, execra- 
 tiones, and blasphematioun of the name of God, 
 swearand in vain be his precious blud, bodie, 
 passion and wounds, Devil stick, cummer, gore, 
 roist, or reife them, and sik vther ougsum* aithes,' 
 the following penalties shall be enacted for bad 
 language, viz., ' Ane prelate of kirk, earle or lorde, 
 for everie fault, twelue pennies ; ane barronne or 
 beneficed man, constitute in dignitie ecclesiastical, 
 foure pennies ; ane landed man, etc., twa pennies ; 
 ane craftesman, seaman, ane servand-man, and 
 all vthers, ane pennie ' ; thus making blasphemy 
 an expensive luxury. As for ' the puir folkes that 
 hes na geare,' whose feelings should find vent 
 in Billingsgate, they were relegated to the 
 stocks. 
 
 * Ougsum, an archaic and alternative form of ' ugly.' 
 
Acts of the Scottish Parliament. 99 
 
 Early Acts relating to the fauna of the country 
 are interesting to the student of natural history. 
 The forest laws-were much milder than those of 
 the early kings of England : if a man found in 
 the king's forest ' will sweir upon his wapons ' 
 that he had lost his way, the forester ' sail convoy 
 him to the common way and there sail suffer him 
 to passe away without anie trouble ' ; but if he is 
 proved to be poaching, 'the forestar sail take 
 before witness his upmaist claith (mantle) and all 
 quhilk is in his purse.' Directions for the slaughter 
 of vermin are frequent : ' Ruikes, cravves (crows), 
 and vther foules of riefe, as eirnes (eagles), bis- 
 sertes (buzzards), gleddes, mittalles (hawks), sail 
 all utterly be destroyed be all manner of men.' The 
 ' slauchter of haires in time of snaw ' is forbidden 
 under Robert III. The following is the statutory 
 price of game in 1551, fixed on account of ' the 
 great and exorbitant dearth risen in this Realme ' : 
 crane and swan, 5s. ; wild goose, 2s. ; the claik 
 (bernacle goose), quink (golden eye), and rute 
 (brent goose), i8d. ; plover and small mure fowl, 
 4d. ; black cock and gray hen, 6d. ; the ' dousane 
 of Powtes ' (young moorfowl), I2d. ; the quhaip 
 (curlew), 6d.; the cunning (rabbit), 2s. ; the lapron 
 (leveret), 2d. ; the woodde - cocke, 4d. ; the snip 
 and quailzie, 2d. None of the Acts quoted above 
 — except, possibly, that against ' abhominable 
 aithes' — would be felt to be oppressive to the 
 general public of our day ; but there would be 
 considerable murmuring if some of the numerous 
 
ioo Tenth Day. 
 
 statutes prohibiting golf and football as ' vnpro- 
 fitable sports for the common gude of the Realme ' 
 were re-enacted. Probably the shortest Act of 
 Parliament ever passed was one of James I. of 
 Scotland, which runs thus: 'It is statute and 
 ordainit that na man play at the futball.' 
 
XI. 
 
 CAPTAIN TOPHAM'S LETTERS. 
 
XI. 
 
 CAPTAIN TOPHAM'S LETTERS. 
 
 ADMITTING that it is profitable to see our- 
 selves with the eyes of others, diversion 
 may sometimes be had from minute de- 
 scriptions of our forefathers, as they appeared to 
 strangers, and North Britons of to-day may do 
 worse than skim through a volume of ' Letters 
 from Edinburgh ; Written in the Years 1774 and 
 1775 ' (Edinburgh, 1776). The author was one 
 Captain Topham, an English Guardsman, who 
 spent six months in the Scottish capital, shortly 
 after Dr. Johnson and his henchman Boswell had 
 been perambulating the Land o' Cakes, and at 
 the very season when the publication of their 
 tour had set Edinburgh society buzzing like a 
 nest of angry wasps. The tenor of Captain Top- 
 ham's observations will be found so much more 
 agreeable to the national sensibilities than those 
 of the great bookman, that one is disposed at 
 first to suspect him of having been entrusted 
 
104 Eleventh Day. 
 
 with a brief for his hosts, until it is remembered 
 that these letters were addressed to private friends, 
 and that many of them had been written and 
 despatched before the appearance of Johnson's 
 volume. When it did appear, Topham was in- 
 dignant at what he reckoned to be its injustice ; 
 and the excuses made by the man of the world 
 for the narrow views of the man of the inkhorn 
 form not the least diverting passages in his 
 correspondence. 
 
 ' Poor Johnson, who probably had never travelled more 
 than a few miles from London . . . must naturally be 
 astonished at everything he saw, and would dwell upon 
 every common occurrence as a wonder. . '.' . He found 
 himself in a new world ; his sensations were those of a child 
 just brought forth into daylight ; whose organs are confused 
 with the numerous objects that surround him, and who dis- 
 covers his surprise at everything he sees. Men of the world 
 would not have descended to such remarks.' 
 
 Topham brings graver charges than this against 
 the philosopher, and, not hesitating to impugn his 
 veracity, seems to have been at some pains to 
 ascertain the truth as misrepresented by Johnson. 
 
 It was a time of great social vitality in Scot- 
 land. The legislative union with England had 
 been in force for two generations ; the poorer 
 country was just beginning to throw off habits 
 of penury contracted, during the centuries of' 
 hard fighting and heavy taxation which followed 
 the War of Independence, but had not yet 
 lost either its native peculiarities or the impress 
 
Captain Topham's Letters. 105 
 
 of prolonged political intimacy with France. The 
 difference between social customs at that time in 
 London and Edinburgh was far greater than it is 
 at the present day between those of London and 
 New York. Practically, Scotland was still a 
 foreign country to the Guardsman, who had not 
 only a keen eye, 'but a pretty gift of expression 
 whereby to communicate the result of his obser- 
 vation. Perhaps the most surprising parts of his 
 letters are those which draw a contrast between 
 the manners and bearing of well-to-do people in 
 the two countries. ' A man who visits this 
 country after having been in France will find in 
 a thousand instances the resemblance there is 
 betwixt these two nations. That air of mirth 
 and vivacity, that quick and penetrating look, 
 that spirit of gaiety which distinguishes the 
 French, is equally visible in the Scotch.' It is 
 hardly possible to imagine any remark less likely 
 to suggest itself to one who should now visit 
 Scotland for the first time. Yet our author gives 
 so many details of social peculiarities that it is 
 impossible to suspect him of unkind irony. 
 
 ' Whenever the Scotch of both sexes meet, they do not 
 appear as if they had never seen each other before, or 
 wished never to see each other again ; they do not sit in 
 sullen silence, looking' on the ground, biting their nails, and 
 at a loss what to do with themselves ; and, if someone 
 should be bold enough to break silence, start as if they were 
 shot through the ear with a pistol ; but they address each 
 other at first sight, and with an impressement (sic) that is 
 highly pleasing.' 
 
io6 Eleventh Day. 
 
 The bearing of good society being practically 
 identical in the two countries at the present 
 day, it must be left as matter for speculation 
 whether Scottish levity has leavened the English, 
 or English gravity reduced the Scots to their 
 somewhat sombre mode of address. Cast- 
 ing about for some reason to account for the 
 debonair demeanour of the North Briton, Captain 
 Topham propounds a curious psychological theory. 
 He declares the French are gay because, being 
 Catholics, they enjoy the ' blessed invention ' of 
 absolution, which ' renders the spirits free and un- 
 clouded, by placing all the burden of our sins upon 
 another man's back ;' whereas the Scots, although 
 as Presbyterians they have no absolution, yet 
 ' have something very like it — a superstitious 
 reliance on the efficacy of going constantly to 
 church,' where, he admits, they look so solemn 
 that one might think they were not only going to 
 bury their sins, but themselves ! 
 
 But if he shows a generous appreciation of the 
 social qualities of the Scots, our author devoutly 
 prays to be delivered from all share in their sports. 
 He betrays invincible ignorance of the august 
 mysteries of golf, and profanely describes it in a 
 paragraph wherein allusion is also made to ' the 
 insignificant pastimes of marbles, tops,' etc. 
 Golf an insignificant pastime ! Phoebus ! what a 
 phrase ! We would have Captain Topham to know 
 — but let that pass. He has just enough discretion 
 to admit that ' some skill and nicety are necessary 
 
Captain Topham's Letters. 107 
 
 to strike the ball to the proposed distance and no 
 further, and that in this there is a considerable 
 difference in players.' Heigho ! there be some of 
 us for whom the path through life were less thorny 
 if this were the whole matter. After all, there is 
 something in Captain Topham's failure to appre- 
 ciate the nobility of golf which may temper the 
 acerbity of his criticism when he says that though 
 Scottish gentlemen ' love shooting, hunting, and 
 the pleasures of the field, they are proficient in 
 none of them.' 
 
 The hazard table was then in universal vogue, 
 but owing to the scarcity of cash among fashion- 
 able folk, the inconvenient habit of keeping books 
 prevailed, and the gallant Captain's delicacy was 
 sorely wounded by being referred to twenty 
 different people before he could receive his 
 winnings. He protests, also, with all his might 
 against the practice of kissing ladies (in public, 
 bien entendu), and fortifies his objection by many 
 quotations from the classics. 
 
 ' When I see a beautiful girl of sixteen approaching to be 
 saluted by a row of strangers, it always gives me an idea of 
 tasting before you bid : and removes from my imagination 
 that semi-reducta appearance, which Ovid mentions as so 
 pleasing in the figure of Venus.' 
 
 On graver matters Captain Topham has plenty 
 of praise to bestow. He mentions with enthusiasm 
 the greater lenity of the Scottish, as compared 
 with the English criminal code. No man could be 
 capitally condemned for theft, unless he were 
 
io8 Eleventh Day. 
 
 proved a thief by habit and repute. Executions, 
 therefore, were very uncommon, and, when they 
 did take place, were conducted with more 
 solemnity than in other countries. Topham 
 was an eyewitness to a hanging in the Grass- 
 market, and he draws a favourable contrast 
 between the behaviour of the Scottish crowd and 
 that of the people whom he had seen collected in 
 Paris to view a poor wretch broken on the wheel. 
 The French crowd applauded the dexterity of 
 monsieur le bourreau ; whereas in Edinburgh, so 
 great was the abhorrence of the office of execu- 
 tioner, that the hangman had to be kept three or 
 four days in prison till the popular excitement had 
 subsided. 
 
 In the matter of funerals, Scottish customs 
 seem to have invaded England since Captain 
 Topham's day, for he observes that, whereas in 
 the south no signs of grief were ever seen, and 
 the only attendants at the grave were hired 
 mourners, in Scotland the relatives and friends 
 accompanied the body to its resting-place 
 with great solemnity. Moreover, the procession 
 was always on foot, whereas, says the Captain, 
 ' you frequently meet an Englishman's hearse at 
 full gallop, as if, after having been in an hurry all 
 his lifetime, it was decreed he should find no rest 
 even in death.' 
 
 Captain Topham, as a cultivated man, takes 
 pleasure in the literary flavour already diffused 
 through Edinburgh society. Writing forty years 
 
Captain Topham's Letters. 109 
 
 before the appearance of ' Waverley,' he was able 
 to declare that ' there was never an instance of a 
 man acquiring a fortune by the sale of his writings,' 
 a state of matters for which he blames the law of 
 copyright as it then stood between England and 
 Scotland. He paid a visit to the printing-office of 
 Foulis of Glasgow, the Aldine of the north, and 
 describes how the head of that firm lost his pre- 
 eminence in the trade by reason of his too 
 exclusive devotion to collecting pictures ; where- 
 upon the publishing and printing business 
 migrated to Edinburgh, where it was destined to 
 enjoy a distinction which has not yet wholly 
 passed away. Captain Topham's friends enjoyed 
 an enviable privilege in the receipt of these lively 
 and well -expressed letters, from which there 
 must have been expunged, previous to publication, 
 many personal details and pungent anecdotes. It 
 would not be easy for a writer in the last decade 
 of this century to impart so much local colour to 
 his pages, for the bane of uniformity has gone too 
 far towards engulfing these islands in their length 
 and breadth. 
 
XII. 
 PITCAIRN'S CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
XII. 
 PITCAIRN'S CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT'S indirect services 
 to literature were hardly less fruitful than 
 those of his own pen. So far was he 
 from the necessity of cudgelling his brains for 
 material for 'copy,' that he was continually 
 setting others to work on subjects which even 
 his ceaseless activity could not enable him to 
 overtake. It is easy to understand the attraction 
 a mind like his found in the early criminal records 
 of his country, and it is well that he persuaded 
 such a capable penman as Mr. Robert Pitcairn 
 to the heavy task of arranging, transcribing, and 
 editing these voluminous manuscripts. The result 
 remains in four quarto volumes, printed in the 
 masterly style of the house of Ballantine.* 
 
 Of all records, there are none so dolorous as 
 those of crime and its punishment. The reader's 
 
 * 'Criminal Trials in Scotland from A.D. 1488 to 1624' 
 Edinburgh, 1833. 
 
ii4 Twelfth Day. 
 
 gorge is made to rise as much by the stupidity 
 and cruelty of obsolete judicial procedure and 
 punishment as by the deeds of criminals them- 
 selves. Nay, too often the judges were them- 
 selves the chief malefactors, and their hapless 
 victims were men, women, and children, accused 
 of impossible crimes. It were incredible, were 
 the facts not coldly set forth in the official 
 records of the time, that within three centuries 
 of the present year of grace the monarch him- 
 self should have taken personal part in the ex- 
 cruciating scenes which accompanied trials for 
 witchcraft. Yet this seems to have been one of 
 the duties most congenial to James VI. of Scot- 
 land. In his notes on the trial of ' Johnne Feane,, 
 alias Cwninghame,' and others, for sorcery, witch- 
 craft, and incantation (1590), Pitcairn reprints, 
 a rare tract called Newes from Scotland, which 
 gives a full account of the sickening proceed- 
 ings. It is stated that the confessions of these 
 wretched people ' made the King in wonderful 
 admiration, who, in respect of the strangeness 
 of these maters, tooke great delight to be present 
 at their examinations ' ; at which, no doubt, 
 the royal author collected material for his work 
 on ' Daemonologie.' 
 
 And how were these examinations conducted 
 and the confessions extracted ? Take a repre- 
 sentative case : Geillis Duncan was the servant- 
 maid of one worthy David Seaton, deputy-bailhT 
 of Tranent, who, being annoyed because the girl 
 
Pitcairn's Criminal Trials. 1 1 5 
 
 sometimes went out at night, and, moreover, 
 'tooke in hand "to help all such as were troubled 
 or grieved with any kinde of sickness or infirmitie, 
 and in short did perfourme many matters most 
 miraculous,' resolved to ascertain if she were not 
 a witch. 
 
 ' Hir maister began to grow verie inquisitive, and examined 
 hir which way and by what means she was able to performe 
 matters of so great importance : whereat shee gave him no 
 answere ; nevertheless, her maister, to the intent that hee 
 might the better trie and finde out the truth of the same, 
 did with the help of others torment her with the torture of 
 the pilliwinkes upon her fingers, which is a grievous torture ; 
 and binding or wrinching her head with a cord or roape, 
 which is a most cruell torment also.' 
 
 Finally, the conscientious bailiff got, as was to 
 be expected, a confession from the girl exactly 
 to his liking. This confession involved, among 
 others, Dr. Fian or Cuninghame, a schoolmaster 
 at Saltpans, upon whose unhappy person the law 
 exhausted all the ingenuity of torture. Under 
 the supreme anguish of the boots, he made a 
 confession which was retracted as soon as the 
 punishment ceased, ' whereupon the King's Majestie, 
 perceiving his stubborn wilfulness . . . commanded 
 to have a most straunge torment,' namely, his 
 finger-nails were torn off with pincers, needles 
 were thrust in their places, and that proving 
 fruitless, Fian was 
 
 * with all convenient speede, by commandement, convaied 
 again to the torment of the bootes, where he continued a 
 
n6 Twelfth Day. 
 
 long time, and did abide so many blowes in them, that his 
 legges were crusht and beaten together as small as might 
 bee ; and the bones and flesh so bruised, that the bloud and 
 marrow spouted forth in great abundance ; whereby they 
 were made unserviceable for ever.' 
 
 The poor fellow could not be brought again 
 to admit the charges against him, so the ' King's 
 Majestie and his Councell' ordered him to be 
 strangled and burnt. All which was done 'by 
 commandement ' of gentle King Jamie ! (Pit- 
 cairn, i. 222). 
 
 Sometimes the tribunal, not content with simple 
 brutality, became fantastical in cruelty. In 1596 
 took place the trial of John Stewart, Master of 
 Orkney, for employing a witch to destroy his 
 brother-germane, the Earl of Orkney. Recourse 
 was had to torture by sympathy. Alison Bar- 
 bour, the suspected witch, was first submitted to 
 ' vehement torture of the caschielawis, quhairin 
 sche was kepit be the space of 48 houris.' When 
 her nerves had been reduced to a sufficient state 
 of receptivity, her husband, aged 81, her son and 
 daughter (merciful Lord ! the last was only seven 
 years old), were put to the torture in her presence, 
 ' to this effect, that hir said husband and bairnis 
 beand sua tormentit besyde hir, mycht move hir 
 to mak ony confessione for their relief.' Another 
 witness' in the same case, Thomas Palpla, was 
 kept in the ' caschielawis ' eleven days and nights ; 
 twice a day, for fourteen days in succession, he 
 was put in the • boots,' and scourged in such sort 
 
Pitcairn's Criminal Trials 117 
 
 that ' thay left nather flesch nor hyde upoun him.' 
 Both these witnesses recanted from their confes- 
 sions when the torture was removed, and, being 
 in consequence sentenced to death, persisted with 
 their last breath in declaring that what they had 
 confessed was false and extorted from them by 
 extremity of pain (Pitcairn, i. 375). 
 
 It is a relief to turn from these devilish deal- 
 ings to the records of more manly crime. A long 
 series of trials arose out of the ancient strife 
 between the Johnstones of Annandale and the 
 Maxwells of Nithsdale. This feud culminated on 
 December 7, 1593, in a battle fought on Dryfe 
 Sands, a flat plain now traversed by the Cale- 
 donian Railway about two miles north of Lockerby 
 Station. Lord Maxwell, then Warden of the 
 Western Marches, had with him about 2,000 
 troops, and may be held in virtue of his office to 
 have represented the cause of law and order — 
 such as it then was. Johnstone, with an almost 
 equal force, consisting, besides those of his own 
 clan, of Scotts of Teviotdale, Elliotts and 
 Grahames of Eskdale, besides ' divers English- 
 men, tressouhablie brocht within this realme,' 
 attacked and routed the Warden, killing, as some 
 authorities state, some 700 of his men.* The 
 
 * There is nothing less trustworthy than cotemporary 
 estimates of the numbers engaged in border warfare, except 
 the statements of the numbers slain. There can be little 
 doubt that the list of killed at Dryfe Sands has been hugely 
 exaggerated. 
 
n8 Twelfth Day. 
 
 Jeddart axes, wielded by the men of Teviotdale, 
 inflicted such ghastly slashes on the flying troops, 
 that the phrase a ' Lockerby lick' is still preserved 
 in the district to signify a deep wound. There 
 stand at this day, on the banks of Dryfe, two 
 thorn-trees, marking the spot where, it is said, 
 the wounded Warden was lying when the Lady 
 of Johnstone passed by. He appealed to her for 
 succour, but she, mindful of the unnumbered 
 wrongs, ' dingit out his harnis ' (knocked out his 
 brains) with the castle key which hung at her 
 girdle. The feud was, of course, taken up by 
 John, seventh Lord Maxwell, son of the slain 
 Warden, and, after twelve years -of incessant 
 skirmish and reprisals, a determined effort was 
 made by the friends of both chiefs to bring about 
 reconciliation. Accordingly Lord Maxwell, at- 
 tended by his kinsman, Charles, and the Laird of 
 Johnstone, accompanied by Will Johnstone, of 
 Lockerbie, met on April 6, 1608, near the house 
 of Beal, with Sir Robert Maxwell, of Spottis 
 (Johnstone's brother-in-law), to act as buffer 
 between them — fruitlessly as it turned out, for 
 the two seconds, who had been ordered to with- 
 draw during the conference, soon got to high 
 words and then to blows. Johnstone turned at 
 the noise, whereupon Lord Maxwell treacher- 
 ously shot him in the back. The wounded man 
 fell, and 
 
 ' luikand up to the hevins, said : " Lord, haif mercie on me ! 
 Chryst, haif mercie on me ! I am dissavit." Then the 
 
Pitcairn's Criminal Trials. 119 
 
 Lord Maxwell cryet to Charlis, "Cum away." Then the 
 said Charlis ansuerit, " My lord, will ye ryid away, and leif 
 this bludie theif (Will Johnstone) behind you ?" Then the 
 Lord ansuerit, " Quhat rak of him — for the uther hes 
 anewche !" And then thai bayth raid away togidder.' 
 
 For this slaughter under trust, Maxwell was 
 arrested and confined in Edinburgh Castle. Ap- 
 parently, however, he was treated as what we 
 should now call a first-class misdemeanant, for 
 having assembled ' ane gritt number of the Keiparis 
 of the Castell into his chalmer, quhair he drinkis 
 theme all fow,' he made good his escape in a 
 manner which is graphically described in the 
 original depositions (Pitcairn, iii. 31), and fled 
 the country. Four years later he had the temerity 
 to return, and paid for it by the loss of his head 
 — a penalty, it must be admitted, none too heavy 
 for his unknightly crime. 
 
 Human life was lightly disposed of in those 
 days. John Fleming, in Cockburnspath, was 
 hanged in 1615 for uttering ' dyuerse tressonable, 
 blasphemous, and damnable speichis aganis our 
 souerane lordis most sacred persone.' In the 
 following year the same fate overtook John Faa 
 and his son, Moses Baillie and his wife Helen, for 
 no other reason than that they were gipsies, and 
 because of their ' contemptuous repairing to this 
 cuntrie.' Eight more gipsies were sentenced to 
 be hanged together in 1624, but, by an act of 
 unusual clemency, their wives and daughters were 
 only banished. After that it may be thought 
 
i2o Twelfth Day. 
 
 squeamish to murmur at the decree of perpetual 
 banishment, under pain of death if he returned, 
 passed on a profane wretch from Selkirk, whose 
 
 offence layjin declaring that he didn't ' care a 
 
 of his for the Justices of the Peax.' So awful 
 
 was the divinity that hedged a seventeenth-century 
 beak! 
 
XIII. 
 BLAEU'S ATLAS. 
 
XIII. 
 BLAEU'S ATLAS. 
 
 IT may seem putting a strain on the term to 
 treat of a collection of maps as literature, 
 but those persons will not think so who have 
 turned over the sumptuous pages of the ' Geogra- 
 phia,' which issued from the famous printing-house 
 of the Blaeus of Amsterdam during the latter half 
 of the seventeenth century. It consists of twelve 
 noble volumes in folio, bound in vellum (the right 
 use of which seems to be lost to modern binders), 
 upon which Time, far from prevailing to impair, 
 has had only a mellowing effect. To the book- 
 lover it is a delight merely to handle the ample 
 leaves of pure flax paper, with their liberal margins 
 flowing around double columns of beautiful type. 
 How the workmanship and material put to shame 
 the slatternly printing and flimsy pages of so 
 many common modern books ! The title-pages 
 are masterpieces, bearing impressions of plates 
 measuring nearly seventeen inches by ten ; and 
 
124 Thirteenth Day. 
 
 the maps themselves are adorned with heraldic 
 and other illustrations of a high degree of merit. 
 
 But the ' Geographia Blaveana ' has a more 
 technical claim to be classed as literature than any 
 conferred by subsidiary adornment. The maps are 
 embedded in a perfect encyclopaedia of learning, 
 comprising not only geography and topography, 
 but writings by the best authorities of the day 
 on history, anthropology, philology, and natural 
 science. All the known world was included in the 
 scheme, the scale of which may be realized by the 
 fact that the letterpress about France alone occu- 
 pies seven hundred and eighty of these huge pages. 
 It is, indeed, a complete history of the country, 
 the author of which remarks somewhat caustically 
 in his preface : ' Ce qui nous a est6 une peine et 
 labeur incroyable . . . comme les Historiographes 
 ne conviennent pas tousiours sur les mesmes 
 sujets, ce nous a este" autant d'achopements, que 
 nous avons rencontre d'opinions diverses.' One is 
 reminded herein of a reflection in one of Horace 
 Walpole's letters. Some flagrantly false piece of 
 intelligence had appeared in the newspapers, upon 
 which he observes that could we but obtain a 
 Daily Advertiser printed in the reign of Edward I., 
 we should hold its evidence of contemporary 
 events to be unimpeachable because it was printed 
 in the capital. ' Yet how are old histories written ? 
 By monks at fifty or a hundred miles from the 
 metropolis, when there was no post, scarce a 
 highway. Those reverend fathers must have been 
 
Blaeu's Atlas. 125 
 
 excellently well informed ! I scarcely believe even 
 a battle they relate — never their details.' 
 
 However, in this great work Blaeu has spared 
 no trouble or expense to secure the best writers ; 
 even in the volume on America (a fruitful field for 
 the marvellous) the descriptions, though graphic, 
 are evidently those of trustworthy eye-witnesses. 
 The following is a genuine contribution to the 
 science of folklore, which had no recognised exist- 
 ence in those days. In a description of marriage 
 ceremonies among the natives of Brazil, it is 
 stated that the newly-married couple occupy a 
 hammock of network; the father of either of 
 them takes the opportunity of their slumber to 
 cut with a sharp stone the cord suspending 
 it — a necessary precaution, as they believe, to 
 prevent the future progeny having tails, which, 
 but for this operation, they would naturally 
 have. 
 
 England occupies a volume, the letterpress of 
 which, after a short introduction by the publisher, 
 consists of a reprint in the original Latin of 
 Camden's ' Britannia.' This writer, it will be 
 remembered, died long before Blaeu's work saw 
 the light in 1654. The ' Britannia' — ' the common 
 sun whereat our modern writers have all lighted 
 their little torches ' — was first published in 1586. 
 The enduring reputation which it has enjoyed 
 ever since is a meet reward for the laborious 
 devotion of its author, of whom we read that ' he 
 chose a single life, apprehending that the encum- 
 
126 Thirteenth Day. 
 
 brances of a married state were like to prove a 
 
 prejudice to his Studies.' The chief secret of its 
 
 excellence above hosts of contemporary works is 
 
 revealed in a single sentence of Camden's preface : 
 
 ' There is, I trust, nothing of obscurity, of fables, 
 
 or of random statement of which I need be 
 
 ashamed ... to fables I have not given the 
 
 slightest heed (fabulis tie tantulum quidem tribui).' 
 
 To this day these maps of the English counties 
 
 remain full of interest, presenting, as they do, 
 
 what must have been a faithful view of the land 
 
 nearly three centuries ago. London appears as a 
 
 stately, compact city, with its one bridge uniting 
 
 it to the modest suburb of Southwark, which in 
 
 turn is separated from the village of Lambeth by 
 
 Lambeth Marsh. The West Burn (a name still 
 
 preserved as ' Westbourne ' to the north of Hyde 
 
 Park, though the unhappy stream itself is doomed 
 
 to run underground through foul sewers) then 
 
 meandered through pleasant fields, passing on its 
 
 way the rural hamlets of Kelborne, Marybone, 
 
 and Paddington, till it entered Hyde Park (an 
 
 isolated chace), issuing from which it passed under 
 
 the Knight's Bridge. 
 
 The maps of Scotland (which, with those of 
 Ireland, fill the sixth volume) were prepared by 
 the Scottish minister, Timothy Pont, who died 
 about 1612. His papers passed into the hands of 
 Sir Robert Gordon, of Straloch, geographer and 
 antiquary, whose father, Sir John, was directed 
 by Charles I. to aid the Blaeus in preparing an 
 
Blaeu's Atlas. 127 
 
 atlas of Scotland for their great work. In a 
 magniloquent preface John Blaeu attributes the 
 projection of the work to ' amplissimo et magni- 
 ficentissimo viro,' Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet, 
 Chancellor of Scotland. This is followed by a 
 portentous topographical poem by Andrew Melvin, 
 consisting of 1,320 Latin hexameters, the descrip- 
 tive and historical text making up the remaining 
 150 pages being mainly by Sir Robert Gordon, 
 supplemented by the essays of parish ministers, 
 who were directed by the General Assembly to 
 assist in the work. Pont, who in 1600 was 
 appointed to the remote parish of Dunnett, in 
 Caithness, seems to have found his pastoral duties 
 consistent with prolonged and repeated absence 
 from his flock, for his maps must have been the 
 fruit of diligent and laborious personal survey. 
 They are wonderfully faithful and minute in detail, 
 and to realize the difficulties of preparing them 
 one has only to remember the state of the country, 
 social as well as physical. Undrained, unfenced, 
 almost without roads, the land was also in that 
 state of lawlessness which marked the close of 
 the feudal era in the Lowlands, while in the High- 
 lands the savagery of the old clan system was still 
 in full swing. 
 
 Not the least interesting part of Blaeu's Atlas 
 consists in the illustrations which adorn the 
 corners and margins of the maps. Heraldry was 
 still an honoured and accurate science ; the arms 
 of the different kingdoms, royal cadets, and cities 
 
128 Thirteenth Day. 
 
 are set forth in splendid engraving ; those of the 
 principal landowners appear in their proper 
 counties, and are sometimes blazoned in the text. 
 Camden, indeed, was aware that this was a some- 
 what ticklish proceeding. ' There are those, 'tis 
 probable, who will stomach it at a great rate, that 
 I have taken no notice of this or that Family, 
 when it was never my design to mention any but 
 the best.'* But of more general interest are the 
 spirited drawings of inhabitants of the various 
 countries in their national costume. A few years 
 ago a controversy arose as to the origin of the 
 Highland dress, some being found to deny to the 
 kilt and belted plaid any but a very moderate 
 antiquity. Anyhow, in 1653 they were reputed 
 ancient, for in the map of Scotia A ntiqua, given at 
 page 7 of this work, there are two figures, each 
 wearing broad bonnets, one with tartan trews, the 
 other with kilt, belted plaid, and hose. The map 
 of Aberdeen also shows a kilted figure, and that 
 of Lorn one with a feathered glengarry. 
 
 Some of the French plates are very interesting. 
 For instance, the map of Valois displays a gentle- 
 man and his attendant out hawking with four dogs 
 and all the minutiae of a hawker's equipment — 
 hoods, jesses, lures, gloves, hunting sword and 
 bugle. That of Calais gives a group of soldiers, 
 with arms and costume carefully delineated, down 
 to the smoking matches of the firelocks. Le 
 Main has a party with fowling-pieces and lots of 
 * Gibson's translation, 1695. 
 
Blaeu's Atlas. 129 
 
 game, furred and feathered. But it is in the maps 
 of partially explored countries that the largest 
 spaces available for illustration occur, and these 
 have been made full use of. The map of Rio 
 Grande shows but a strip of land along the sea- 
 coast, leaving a fine expanse of white paper 
 inland. This has been filled in with sketches 
 evidently made on the spot — landscapes, with 
 characteristic vegetation clustering round buildings 
 of adobe; a rude church, past which marches a 
 body of soldiers followed by women carrying 
 provisions on their heads, all drawn with skill and 
 vigour. Altogether, a leisure morning may be 
 devoted to far less pleasant occupation than the 
 examination of this masterpiece of Amsterdam 
 printing, and whosoever may be lured to the 
 contemplation of these tomes may receive to 
 himself Camden's favourite salutation : ' Vale, 
 fave etfruere!' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London.