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Cornell University 
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 The original of tiiis book is in 
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 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924104095959 
 
^rJh^eJ^^t&r-/^ 
 

 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
 
 REMARKABLE PEOPLE, 
 
 FROM PERSONAL RECOLLECTION 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS AND POEMS, 
 
 BY SPENCER T. HALL, 
 
 "The Sherwood Forester." 
 
 LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO. 
 1873- 
 

 TO MY WIFE AND CHILDREN. 
 
 Although seriously warned that " dedications are out of fashion," 
 
 I trust that natural affection is not. If it be, I must myself be out 
 
 of fashion too ; for, never liking to leave an unoccupied page, I am 
 
 impelled to seize the opportunity of inscribing this to you, hoping, 
 
 should the eyes of any of you fall upon it in after years, you may 
 
 then feel the assurance now given, that, while the present volume 
 
 was sent forth with love for all mankind, you had yourselves at the 
 
 time an inmost place in its Author's heart. 
 
 S. T. H. 
 
 o RMC % 
 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THIS BOOK. 
 
 HIS Book may be the better for some little preface. It was 
 from his birth-place being about half way between Newstead 
 Abbey and Hardwick Hall, within the ancient boundary of 
 Sherwood Forest, and from early writing of his native scenes, that its 
 author received his sobriquet of " The Sherwood Forester." In his 
 younger days he loved the society of children and old people, — that 
 of children for their innocence and candour, that of the aged for 
 their intelligence and information ; and not less the conversation of 
 all people dwelling or travelling off the track of common life, who 
 might therefore have something to tell him not ordinarily heard or 
 seen. Almost as intense was his love, too, of nature and books ; so 
 that, though very sociable and not averse to the frolics and hardy 
 sports of boys in general, a fondness of retirement, and of lonely 
 strolls, for abstract study or musing, also " marked him for its own." 
 Add to these, a sympathy, inherited from his parents, for suffering in 
 whatever form ; an admiration of genius, moral courage, and pic- 
 turesquen ess of thought, wherever manifest ; with readiness to catch 
 hope and joyousness from every source ; and the tone of much 
 that herein follows will be_ as easily traceable to its origin as a 
 stream to its fountain. 
 
 His contributions to the Mirror, Metropolitan, and Taifs Magazines, 
 and other periodicals of the time, and a few unpretentious volumes 
 chiefly of a rural character, had gained him a welcome, as subsequently 
 mentioned, to intellectual circles. Poetry had long before flung its 
 charm over all his being. Phrenology and Physiognomy had explained 
 to him many of his own comparative exuberances and deficiencies, 
 and Physiology and Psychology added to his mental store; when 
 La Fontaine came to England to give his mesmeric, or let us rather 
 
THE NATURAL HISTORY '^ 
 
 call them his zoomagnetic experiments. Arrested by the phenomena, 
 and induced to become himself an experimenter, the author struck 
 out of the accustomed course, and was presently the operative agent 
 in effects which, while he viewed them only as illustrations of first 
 principles, some of the profoundest minds regarded as important 
 "discoveries." On that account he was sought by and became a 
 familiar associate of many earnest and distinguished investigators ; 
 and the phenomena, though throwing light on various arcana which 
 had for ages been but little approached, were generally, as developed 
 by him, regarded with credence ; so that, even when such pursuits 
 were laid by, the social intercourse to which they had led was in some 
 degree continued. There were other periods of his life, too, and 
 other pursuits not less important if less recondite, often bringing him 
 in contact with noblest natures. Hence, though_ never seeking to 
 know people remarkable for public spirit, superiority of inteHect, or 
 private worth, with the least idea of writing about them; as he 
 enjoyed their mentographs upon himself, he wished others, in turn, 
 where it could be done without breach of the rules of hospitality or 
 the slightest hurt to personal feeling, to enjoy them with him. It was 
 for this reason most of the following memoirs were afterwards 
 penned, — some for the tasteful Supplement to the Manchester Weekly 
 Times, one for Good Words, one for The Reliquary, and several for 
 other publications ; whilst many of them now appear in print for the 
 first time. The reader will perceive that a few of the persons whose 
 lives are delineated furnish exceptions, being dead before the author's 
 day ; but the rest— though most of them are now also gone — he has 
 seen, and with the majority of them been on intimate and kindly 
 terms : still he can honestly say that in no instance has he consciously 
 taken undue advantage of private confidence or undue liberty with a 
 name. His book could, no doubt, have been enriched by sketches 
 of many rare living characters it is his happy privilege to know, but of 
 whom the full truth might seem like flattery, whilst less than the full 
 truth would be unjust. Few lives can be safely sketched with any 
 warmth before they are ended, in a world where prejudice and 
 misapprehension are so possible as in ours. Mrs. Jerram and 
 Edward Hind have passed away since the chapters in wliich they are 
 mentioned (see pages 296 and 323) were printed, — the former dying 
 about the same time as her husband, with whom she was buried in 
 one day and in one grave. 
 
 Respecting the " Miscellaneous Papers " in the Second Section 
 little need here be said, as they tell their own tale. Should any 
 of his readers think the author has been too caustic in the papers on 
 " Love of Distinction " and " Religious Differences," they may give 
 him some quarter in consideration of the fact he now states that he 
 has positively known men having the reputation of being " martyrs 
 for a cause " jealous of other martyrs for the same cause sharing that 
 reputation. 
 
OF THIS BOQK. V 
 
 Of the Poems in the closing section it may be said, that they too 
 tell sufificient of their own history to render elaborate introduction 
 needless. A few of them which have appeared in print before, in 
 Household Words, the Critic, or elsewhere, are thrown in with others 
 nevertofore appearing, because to the writer's mind it seemed that 
 they would here be " most at home." And poetry, if but true to 
 humanity and virtue, requires no apology ; for, in the apt language of 
 Ludwig Borne, as translated by James Standing — " Centuries pass by, 
 years roll away, the weather of fortune is changed. The stepraarks of 
 the ancients are moved. Nothing is lasting as change, nothing cer- 
 tain as death. Each beat of the heart leaves a wound, and life would 
 be a continual bleeding — but for poetry. It tells us what nature 
 forgets ; of a glorious time which never grows old ; a spring that 
 never fades ; cloudless pleasure and eternal youth. The poet is the 
 comforter of mankind ; he is certainly so, if heaven itself empowers 
 him, if God upon his forehead stamps His seal ; and if he does not 
 kill his heavenly gift by things too mean and unworthy of it." 
 
 So far the production ; and now a word as to the publication. 
 Accustomed to hearing readers of taste, and critics of acknowledged 
 acumen, say of many of the prose papers as well as poems that they 
 ought not to be lost sight of, but collected and pubUshed in a volume, 
 this was at last resolved upon, and announcements of it made as far 
 back as 1866 ; but from domestic suffering and other causes the issue 
 was delayed. Meanwhile other works of a somewhat similar bearing, 
 by various writers, were published, yet in no way connected with or 
 superseding this, which during the year 1871 was in part issued as a 
 serial, under the title of '• Morning Studies and Evening Pastimes," 
 with a result suggesting its re-issue in a more complete and solid 
 form ; and, though again sadly delayed, it is at last sent forth, not 
 without a hope that it may meet with such welcome as will justify its 
 being followed, ere long, by -another, touching however on different 
 though kindred themes. 
 
 Burnley, October 21st, 1872. 
 
wmm 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, ETC. 
 
 Portrait to face Title. 
 
 Erasmus Darwin, M.D. F.R.S. ... 
 
 William Cobbett 
 
 Professor Wilson... 
 
 Ebenezer Elliott, " The Corn Law Rhymer" 
 
 Dr. Samuel Brown, " The Galileo of Modern Chemistry " 
 
 William Hutton, F.A.S 
 
 Charles Reece Pemberton, "The Wanderer" ... 
 
 Mary Russell Mitford 
 
 John Henry, Fifth Duke of Rutland 
 
 The late D'Ewes Coke, Esq.... 
 
 An Irish Chief and his People ... 
 
 The two Montgomeries 
 
 Bloomfield and Clare 
 
 Combe, Gregory, and Liebig 
 
 Scotchmen at Home 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Dick, L.L.D. " The Christian Philosopher 
 
 James Silk Buckingham ... 
 
 The Author's Parents 
 
 The Seventh Earl of Carlisle 
 
 Glimpses of George Herbert... 
 
 John Gratton, " The Quaker Preacher," and his Times 
 
 Bernard Barton, " The Quaker Poet " 
 
 George Purseglove 
 
 Claude Gay ... 
 
 The Rector 
 
 Robert Owen ... 
 
 The Whiteheads 
 
 Frederic William Davies, " A Young Hero " 
 Glimpse of Florence Nightingale 
 
 It 
 
 22 
 
 33 
 
 ... 49 
 
 72 
 
 ... 8i 
 
 96 
 
 109 
 
 120 
 
 129 
 
 142 
 
 • •• 155 
 
 174 
 ... 184 
 
 ler" 193 
 
 ... 199 
 
 211 
 
 229 
 
 239 
 
 ... 245 
 
 257 
 ... 268 
 
 272 
 
 ... 275 
 
 275 
 
 ... 279 
 
 283 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Nanny Shacklock 
 
 Phoebe, Mother of the Howitts 
 
 Mrs. Wilberforce ... ... ... 
 
 Mrs. Jerram 
 
 First Literary Friends 
 
 Matthew Henry Barker, " The Old Sailor " 
 
 William Powers Smith 
 
 Walter Crisp Ellis 
 
 Robert Millhouse, Author of " Sherwood Forest," etc. 
 
 Richard Howitt, " The Wordsworth of Sherwood Forest " 
 
 William and Mary Howitt ... 
 
 Samuel Plumb, Poet 
 
 Thomas Miller, Poet and Novelist ... 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Ragg and others 
 
 Edward Hind, Poet ... 
 
 Christopher Thomson, Painter and Writer 
 
 Thomas Brown 
 
 Richard Furness, '' Poet of the Peak "... 
 
 John Edwards, "The Dovedale Poet" 
 
 James Gregor Grant 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 
 
 On Love of Distinction ... 
 
 Education and its Responsibilities . . . 
 
 On Religious Differences 
 
 Local and National Peculiarities 
 
 The Mission of the Press 
 
 Blondinism 
 
 Footsteps of Civilization (Speech at Robin 
 
 Words at a Meeting among the Lakes 
 
 Christmas... 
 
 New Year's Eve 
 
 Our Old Sherwood Gatherings ... 
 
 Hood's Well) 
 
 LAYS FROM THE LAKES, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 Near Windermere 
 
 The Lakes in Spring ... 
 
 Thoughts on Existence ... 
 
 Evening Light 
 
 Rich though Poor 
 
 Lizzie Warriner 
 
 A Lay in Spring ... 
 
 Response 
 
 " Little Sissy " 
 
 Richard Rigg, of Windermere 
 
The Upland Hamlet 
 
 A Day-Dream on Fox-Cloud : or the History of a Land 
 The Outlaw's Excursion to CHpston: a Tale of Sherwoo!.: 
 The Universal Teacher 
 
 The Botanist 
 
 The Soldier's Return... 
 
 The Negro's Breakfast ... 
 
 Be Kind 
 
 Mary's Dream 
 
 The Electric Light ... 
 
 A Time to Laugh 
 
 Rural Sonnet, to John Sutherland ... 
 
 Time's Teachings 
 
 To Henry Houlding, on his Poem, " In the Wood " 
 
 Trees and Men ... 
 
 To Lady Brewster 
 
 Burns and his Fame 
 
 Sunderland 
 
 The Dwellings of the Poor 
 
 Sarah in Heaven 
 
 Easter 
 
 Do Thy Best 
 
 Midnight ... 
 
 Sunset at Southport ... 
 
 To My First Grey Hairs 
 
 Evening Thought, near Newstead ... 
 
 scape 
 . Forest 
 
 404 
 
 406 
 
 413 
 
 423 
 
 425 
 426 
 427 
 429 
 430 
 432 
 433 
 435 
 435 
 436 
 437 
 438 
 
 439 
 440 
 441 
 443 
 444 
 445 
 447 
 447 
 448 
 449 
 
CORRIGENDA. 
 
 Page 7 —line 5 from bottom— for " symphonius " read symphonious . 
 
 Page 12 — line 16 — for " Took " read Tookc. 
 
 Page 79 — parapraph 3, line 3— for "development of domestic" read development 
 
 of the domestic. 
 Page 85— line 16 for "existence" read extravagance. 
 Page 92— line 24 - omit " ere now." 
 Page 127— par. 2 — omit " or was it Wilkinson ? " 
 Page 196— par. 3, line 3 -in memoir of Mr. Dick, for "born in 1744" read born 
 
 in 1774. 
 Page 200— par. 2, line 2 — in memoir of Mr. Buckingham, for 1768 read 1786. 
 Page 21 1 — for "June, 1856," read y;/;/6, 1866. 
 Page 216 — par. 3, line 5 — for "his" read is. 
 
 Page 257 — line 9 and elsewhere— for " mentagraph " read mentograph. 
 Page 265 — first line of poetical quotation — for " If this " read //' thns. 
 Page 266 -in poetical quotation — for " mortal truth" read moral truth. 
 Page 300— line 13— in sketch of Captain Barker, for " personal friend " read warm 
 
 admirer. 
 Page 322- line 6 — to Countess of Blessington add and Samuel Rogers. 
 Page 324 — line 6— for " Carter " read Crisp- 
 Same page — line 13 -for "perpetual" x^'sA perpetually. 
 Tn the poem on Burns and his Fame — stanza 4, line 3 —for " See " read Sees. 
 
 There may also be a few mis-accented letters and other typographical errors 
 which the educated reader will not need guiding to detect and correct. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
 
 ETC. 
 
Nature seems to exist for the excellent. . . Within the limits of 
 human education and agency, we say, great men exist that there may 
 be greater. The destiny of organised nature is amelioration, and 
 who can tell its Imiits ? It is for man to tame the chaos ; on every " 
 side while he lives, to scatter the seeds of science and of song, that 
 climate, com, animals, men, may be milder, and the germs of love 
 and benefit may be multiplied. —Emerson. 
 
 Great God ! I thank thee that a heart 
 Doth humn.nise the world. This truth gives strength 
 To me, and far off I behold a time, 
 When the unwholesome dream of strife and care 
 That holds mankind in bondage, shall have pass'd 
 Away, and Christ-like Love shall fill the world 
 With music, and become its life, its guide. 
 Its sole religion and supremest law. — A. Maudslay. 
 
Ijtapicr Jir^t 
 
 EEASMUS DARWIN, M.D. F.R.S. 
 
 (A Ceiticism — Jan. 1854.) 
 
 Did you ever noticG the similitude between the hcada of Dr. Danvin 
 and Dr. Samuel Johnson — and not between their heads only but 
 their general configuration, — their greatest constitutional difference 
 being one of temperament ? Their portraits being at this moment 
 side by side before us, how we wish it were possible to take off their 
 wigs, that we might trace still further their comparative cranial, as 
 clearly as we can their physiognomical development ! What a likeness 
 in the outlines of their massive foreheads, in their large noses, their 
 ample cheeks and double chins, and in several minor particulars of 
 expression, as well as in their abdominal rotundity ! It is true that, on 
 the whole, Johnson looks the more heavy and reflective of the two — ■ 
 more ponderous and pondering ; while Darwin has an apparent advan- 
 tage in vigilance and keenness. But this may be more or less owing 
 to pictorial accident ; and if any one unacquainted v/ith the facts of 
 the case were shown the tv/o engravings, he might very rationally 
 be disposed to think that they represented an elder and a younger 
 brother — or a father and son — or even the same person at different 
 ages ! And is there not also a striking analogy in their mental calibre 
 and, (with the allowance due to difference of education and pursuit,) 
 in their cast of thought ? What Johnson was in moral, Darwin was in 
 natural philosophy. They were much alike cumulative, analytical and 
 
2 CHAPTER I. 
 
 constructive, — one In his metaphysics the other In his physics, — and 
 were similarly addicted to the use of classical metaphor, to philology, 
 and a love of highly scholastic and sonorous phraseology, — to say 
 nothing whatever of their relation to the muses. Their personal history 
 and circumstances were, however, in many respects, widely different, 
 though even here again there is some analogy traceable, in each being 
 the leading spirit of a literary coterie — one metropolitan, the other 
 provincial — and each as absolute as he was intellectually fascinating. 
 
 According to biographical dictionaries and local histories, Erasmus 
 Darwin was born at Elton, in the vale of Trent, near Newark, Decem- 
 ber 12th, 1732 ; was sent for the rudiments of his education to the 
 school of the Rev. Mr. Burrows, at Chesterfield ; and pursued his 
 subsequent studies at St. John's College, Cambridge, where in 1755 he 
 took his bachelor's degree in medicine, jnaintaining in his thesis, on 
 that occasion, that the movements of the heart and arteries are 
 immediately produced by the stimulus of the blood. While at Cam- 
 bridge, and four years prior to taking his degree, he composed a poem 
 of no great merit, on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. From 
 Cambridge he went to Edinburgh, where he took the degree of Doctor 
 of Medicine, and had at first some thoughts of practising in Nottingham, 
 but very early removed to Lichfield. At this time Dr. Darvdn was 
 twenty-four years of age ; and Miss Anna Seward gives us his portrait 
 as follows: — "He was somewhat above the middle size; his form 
 athletic, and inclined to corpulency ; his limbs too heavy for exact 
 proportion. The traces of a severe small-pox ; features, and counte- 
 nance, which, vv4ien they were not animated by social pleasure, were 
 rather saturnine than sprightly ; a stoop in his shoulders, and the then 
 professional appendage of a large full-bottomed \\'ig, gave him at that 
 early period of life, an appearance of nearly twice the years he bore. 
 Florid health, and earnest good humour, a sunny smile on entering a 
 room and accosting his friends, rendered in his youth that exterior 
 agreeable, to which beauty and symmetry had not been propitious." 
 
 At the age of twenty-five Darwin married Miss Howard, a young lady 
 of eighteen, whose person is said to have been as lovely as her mind 
 was accomplished. And in the home to which her beautiful spirit gave 
 a constant and cheerful light, with a family growing round him, we 
 see -him rising fast in reputation and courted by most of the literary 
 and philosophical minds of the district and the time. Among his 
 frequent visitors we are told was Michell, a skilful astronomer ; Captain 
 Kier ; Boulton, the celebrated mechanic ; James Watt, his partner, 
 the great improver of the steam-engine ; a talented young physician. 
 Dr. Small, of Birmingham, who early died ; Mr. Edgoworth ; Day, the 
 
DR. ERASMUS DAmVIN. 3 
 
 author of " Sandford and Merton;" Sir Brooke Boothby ; Mr. F. N. C. 
 Mundy, of Markeaton ; and Anna Seward. To this circle he would 
 often read those passages of his works which he was yet afraid of 
 injuring his profession by introducing to the world. There was in his 
 time an anomaly in English ideas, which even yet is not quite extinct. 
 Society is very fond of imputing to medical men materialistic and other 
 kindred heresies, — sometimes justly, perhaps, hut often very unjustlj^ 
 This occasionally induces some of them to make great pretensions to 
 orthodox opinions, and to put on an outside show of life with which 
 their hearts have little sympathy. Providing such men assent duly to 
 all that the world and its Teatoddy circles require, they may indulge in 
 many curious habits and pastimes having no tendency whatever to 
 improve those feelings or advance that intelligence needful to the 
 healing art : all of which, however, is considered as fair, and by no 
 means unprofessional. But, let one of their body be caught with a 
 more intimate acquaintance with Nature, in her interior arcana or her 
 sublimer aspects, than the run of his fellows ; let him only add to his 
 dry anatomy, his physiology, and his pathology, some far-reaching 
 power of thought which tends to elucidate and beautify the science of 
 BEING in its higher and nobler relations ; especially, let him add the 
 charm of an occasional late evening or early morning hour of poetic 
 reverie to his arduous and useful pursuits ; — and, just in so far as he 
 aspires from the animal to the angelic, and snatches a little fire from 
 heaven to light his laborious path on earth ; just in the same proportion 
 the very people who are wont to charge the profession most with 
 materialism, are among the first to suspect the claims of a spirit thus 
 refined, and to say, "Ah, but you know he is so fond of poetry and 
 that sort of thing ; and one is so afraid he should forget his patients 
 for his books ! " Of this singular and incongruous prejudice Dr. 
 Darwin Vv^as so well aware, that, though he wrote much and would 
 often beguile a leisure hour by discoursing on literary topics with his 
 friends, some of his poetry was held back from the world many years 
 after it was written, hst its very merits should hinder his i^ractice — a 
 practice then becoming almost as important and lucrative as any in the 
 midland counties ! 
 
 [Since the foregoing was written has appeared the interesting Auto- 
 biography of Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, in which are a few characteristic 
 glimpses of the Doctor in his busy professional days. In one place she 
 says : — " It was in autumn that the celebrated Dr. Darwin first came 
 to see m-y mother at Barr (in Staffordshire). • • • In the latter 
 part of the morning a carriage drove up to our door, of that description 
 then called a " sulky," because calculated to hold one person only. 
 
 A 2 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Tho carriage was worn and bespattered with mud. Lashed on the 
 place appropriated to the boot in ordinary carriages was a largo pail 
 for the purpose of watering the horses, with some hay and oats beside 
 it. In the top of the carriage was a sky-light, with an awning which 
 could at pleasure be drawn ; this was for the purpose of giving light to 
 the Doctor, who wrote most of his works on scraps of paper with a 
 pencil as he travelled. The front of the carriage within was occupied 
 by a receptacle for writing paper and pencils, likewise for knife, fork, 
 and spoon ; on one side was a pile of books reaching from the floor to 
 nearly the front of the window of the carriage ; on the other, a hamper 
 containing fruit and sweetmeats, cream and sugar, great part of which, 
 however, was demolished during the time the carriage traversed the forty 
 miles which separate Derby from Barr. We all hastened to the 
 parlour window to see Dr. Darwin, of whom wo had heard so much, 
 and whom I was prepared to honour and venerate, in no common 
 degree, as the restorer of my mother's health. What then was my 
 astonishment at beholding him as he slowly got out of the carriage ! 
 His figure was vast and massive, his head almost buried in his 
 shoulders, and he wore a scratch-wig, as it was then called, tied up in 
 a little bob-tail behind. A habit of stammering made the closest 
 attention necessary, in order to understand what he said. Meanwhile, 
 amidst all this, the Doctor's eye was deeply sagacious, the most so I 
 think of any eye I remember to have seen ; and I can conceive that no 
 patient consulted who was not inspired with confidence on beholding 
 him ; his observation was most keen ; he constantly detected disease, 
 from his observation of symptoms so sHght as to be unobserved by 
 other doctors. • ■ • This is the recollection of my first childish 
 impressions of Dr. Darv/in."] 
 
 His first wife died in the year 1.770 ; and having married, about 
 eleven years after, Mrs. Pole, widow of Colonel Sacheverel Pole, of 
 Pi,adbourn, who had some dislike to Lichfield, he removed immediately 
 to Derby, where, with an increased income, he was able to set all 
 prejudice at defiance and give scope and freedom to his literary tastes. 
 
 In the year of his second marriage, appeared part of his remarkable 
 poem, " The Botanic Garden," in which is allegorised the Linnfean 
 system of botany — all the Rosicrucian array of gnomes, sylphs, nymphs, 
 and myths of every sort, being summoned from fancy's widest realm, 
 owing to their affording, as he says, "proper machinery for a botanic 
 poem, since it is probable that they were the names of hieroglj^phic 
 figures representing the different elements." In 1789 appeared the 
 second part of the same poem, called the "Loves of the Plants," 
 when he said that, as Ovid had "transmuted men, women, and even 
 
DR. EBASMUS DARWIN. O, 
 
 gods and goddesses into trees and flowers, he had undertaken, by einiilar 
 art, to restore some of them to their original animality, after having 
 remained prisoners so long in their respective vegetable mansions." 
 A third canto was added to " The Botanic Garden " in 1792. A 
 talented encyclopedist (Chambers) has expressed some surprise that a 
 work so full of fancy should have been the product of a man of Dr. 
 Darwin's scientific tendencies, so late in life ; but the probability is, 
 that its materials were nearly all collected in that earlier time when 
 it was prudent, as he thought, to hide his poetical light under a bushel. 
 Shortly after this was published his " Zoonomia, or the Laws of 
 Organic Life," in two volumes, at intervals of two years, for which ha 
 had been gathering materials not less than twenty-three years. In the 
 latter work is enunciated the theory of " progressive development," 
 from the fibre to the tree, the dog, the horse, etc., and finally to man. 
 Our business here is not to discuss this theory, but merely to state 
 it. Ho was one of those who argue that it in no wise derogates from 
 God's glory that many things should not have been produced spon- 
 taneously ; but that it is much more glorious to be the " Cause of 
 causes." This doctrine is, of course, a very debateable one ; and many 
 have been the objections raised against it on various grounds. It has 
 recently been very cleverly put forward in "Vestiges of Creation,"* 
 and, if the truth must be told, there are some other works which 
 have made more or less noise in the world from their supposed 
 novelty, the elements, germs, or similitudes of which might all be easily 
 pointed out in Darwin. And more than this ; we have reason to 
 suspect that some writers who have said what they could to make him 
 unpopular, have themselves sponged upon him considerably for the 
 materials of their own reputation. So much for literary consistency ! 
 But our business is, at present, with Darwin and his own works. 
 
 In 1801 he published another work, " Phytologia, or the Philosophy 
 of Agriculture and Gardening ; " and also wrote a short essay, intended 
 more especially for his own family, on " Female Education." About 
 the same time he removed to the Priory, near Breadsall, which he had 
 fitted up for his future residence, and with a view to the indulgence 
 of his favourite tastes in his declining years. But his days were cut 
 short in a most singular manner. In Hone's " Every Day Book," 
 under the date of April 18th, 1802, a story as absurd as it is incorrect 
 is thus told : — " His decease was sudden. Riding in his carriage, 
 he found himself m.ortally seized, pulled the check string, and desired 
 
 * Still more recently and prominently by Dr. Darwin's grandson, Charles, in his 
 celebrated work " The Origin of Species.' 
 
6 CHAPTER I. 
 
 his servant to help him to a cottage by the road-side. On entering, 
 they found a woman within, whom the Doctor addressed thus, ' Did 
 you ever see a man die ? ' ' No, sir.' ' Then you may.' The terrified 
 woman ran out of the door, and in a few minutes Darwin was no more." 
 Now the truth is that he died in his own house, as reference to every 
 reliable authority proves. He had for some time been liable to painful 
 disorders of the chest, and had on every such occasion made free use of 
 the lancet — a custom now going out of fashion in nearly every school of 
 therapeutics. Indeed, the practice could only have arisen when the 
 sanguineous principle was totally misunderstood ; and that its propriety 
 was not doubted immediately on the recognition of Harvey's discovery 
 of the circulation, is one of those anomalies at which future ages will 
 marvel. But confounding dynamic force with sanguiferous product 
 in the animal economy, mistaking the acceleration of the former for 
 an increase of the latter, and treating action as though it were 
 qnaiititi/, it has been common, age after age, to let off blood on every 
 trivial occasion, as though it came ever in primal freshness from some 
 exhaustless fountain. It was the mistake of the times, and Darwin, 
 notwithstanding all his profound researches, shared it. He had 
 repeatedly risen in the night and bled himself, and I'ecovered. But 
 at length arrived the fatal moment. On the morning of April 19th, 
 1802, after some illness during the night, he became worse while 
 writing a letter to his friend, Mr. Edgeworth ; and before the arrival 
 of his surgeon, who was sent for from Derby, life was extinct. He 
 was a total abstainer from fermented drink, and it has been m'ged 
 that a glass of brandy might have averted the fatal chill ; and so for 
 the time, no doubt, it might. But what is the use of increasing the fire 
 to keep the engine going, when all the fluid has been drawn from the 
 boiler ? It is the more probable that his death was greatly attributable 
 to his previous habit of bleeding, as, " on the body being opened (says 
 Davies, in his history of Derby,) no traces of a peculiar disorder were 
 found ; and the state of the viscera indicated a much more protracted 
 existence." 
 
 A posthumous work, "The Temple of Nature, or the Origin of 
 Society," a poem, with copious notes, which he had prepared for the 
 press a few months before his decease, was published in 1803. To 
 copy from its preface, " Its aim is simply to amuse, by bringing 
 distinctly to the imagination the beautiful and sublime images of the 
 operations of Nature in the order, as the author believes, in which the 
 progressive course of time presented them." Here then, again, we have 
 the theory of " progressive development," and it is certainly illustrated 
 with great brilliancy. 
 
DR. ERASMUS DAEWIK. 7 
 
 Such is an outline — of course a mere outline — of the life and aims of 
 Dr. Darwin. Let his works speak for themselves. "We are far from 
 agreeing with some of his opinions. He lived at a time when scientific 
 men saw not the reconcileability of natural truth with the spirit of 
 Holy Writ, and there are points in his philosophy, as well as in his 
 theology, to which we by no means feel inclined to subscribe. Nor do 
 we think that his poetry is of the highest order, or that he understood 
 the highest function of the poet. But let us do him no wrong. He 
 was a great man — great in his sincerity, his humanity, his learning, 
 and his elaborate research — greater still in the purpose for which he 
 plied them — that of interesting and, as he believed, benefitting his 
 fellow creatures. And let it be also remembered that he was exceed- 
 ingly kind and attentive to the poor, as well as hospitable to people 
 of his ovm level — without ostentation. 
 
 His poems, which were very popular for a time, had they appealed 
 as much to the heart as to the fancy, would have remained so. But 
 they have too little real life ; and, with only very few exceptions, fail 
 to kindle that genial warmth in the reader's soul, which must ever be 
 the genuine test of true poetry ; for there have hitherto, perhaps, been 
 few better definitions of poetry than Henry Larkiu's, who calls it 
 " thought that is felt." It is true, as already hinted, that Darwin 
 ransacks every region of nature and fancy for analogue and metaphor ; 
 but the one is often too remote and the other inapt. Although ho 
 makes his plants and his flowers human or divine, endowing some with 
 passion, some with sentiment, and others with both, they are not seldom 
 the mere passion and sentiment of polite and conventional, rather 
 than oi genuine life. All his women, it has been said, are "fine 
 ladies," and his goddesses are much the same. Writing in heroic 
 verse, his machinery is too Homeric for his more gentle themes. He is 
 often too pompous about things minute — marches among the daisies 
 on a small grass plot with measured stride ; and frequently reminds 
 one of a giant playing at push-pin, by the elaborate way in which 
 he treats a familiar topic. It is true he never writes about "the 
 indubitable ubiquity of the invulnerable ; " but he now and then makes 
 one think of the man who did. Little deals he in homely Saxon, but 
 most largely in words of Greek and Latin derivation. He tires us, 
 too, with repetitions of cold though glittering epithets. His streams 
 are mostly "lucid," save when they become "pellucid" or "trans- 
 lucent ; " his sounds " symphonius," his smiles "placid," and his 
 sighs " etherial." Yet despite these and many other similar disadvan- 
 tages, we might make extracts that would prove how truly he could 
 sometimes be at home in the beautiful and sublime ; and the following, 
 on the resurrection of Nature, is an instance : — 
 
y CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Roll on, ye stars ! exult in youtLful prime ; 
 Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time ; 
 Near and more near your beamy oars approach, 
 And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach ; — 
 Flowers of the sky ! ye, too, to age must yield, 
 Frail as your silken sisters of the field ! 
 Star after star from heaven's high arch shall rush, 
 Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush. 
 Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall. 
 And death, and night, and chaos mingle all ! 
 Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, 
 Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form. 
 Mounts from her fmieral pyre on wings of fiamo. 
 And soars and shines, another and the same ! " 
 
 His group of objects in the Court of Melancholy is as fine a piece of 
 literary sculpture as an artist need wish to contemplate : — 
 
 " Deep whelm'd beneath, in vast sepulchral caves. 
 Oblivion dwells amid unlabell'd graves ; 
 The storied tomb, the laurell'd bust o'erturns. 
 And shakes their ashes from the mouldering urns. 
 No vernal zephyr breathes, no sunbeams cheer, 
 Nor song, nor simper, ever enters here ; 
 O'er the green floor, and round the dew-damp wall. 
 The slimy snail, and bloated lizard crawl ; 
 While on white heaps of intermingled bones. 
 The Muse of Melancholy sits and moans : 
 Showers her cold tears o'er Beauty's early wreck. 
 Spreads her pale arms, and bends her marble neck." 
 
 The figures in the following are very striking and vivid those in 
 the lines italicised perhaps nearly equal to anything of the kind in 
 Shakespere : — 
 
 " And now the goddess sounds her silver shell, 
 And shakes with deeper tones the enchanted dell ; 
 Pale round her grassy throne, hedcioUl loith tears, 
 Flit the thin forms of Sorroivs and of Fears ; 
 Soft sighs responsive whisper to the chords. 
 And Indignations half-unsheath their swords." 
 
 And how finely involuted and compacted is the passage we cull 
 next, — leaving many quite equal, if not surpassing it, unquoted : — ■ 
 
 " Lo ! on each seed within its slender rind 
 Life's golden threads in endless circles wind ; 
 Maze within maze the lucid webs are rolled. 
 And, as they burst, the living flame unfold. 
 The pulpy acorn, ere it swells, contains 
 The oak's vast branches in its milky veins ; 
 
DE. ERASMUS DARVv'IN. a 
 
 Each ravol'd bud, fine film, and fibre-line, 
 Traced with nice pencil on the small design. 
 The young narcissus, in its bulb compresa'd. 
 Cradles a second nestling on its breast ; 
 In whose fine arms a younger embryon lies. 
 Folds its thin leaves, and shuts its floret-eyes ; 
 Grain within grain successive harvests dwell, 
 And boundless forests slumber in a shell. 
 — So yon gray precipice, and ivy'd towers, 
 Long winding meads and intermingling bowers, 
 Green piles of poplars o'er the lake that bow, 
 And glimmering wheel which rolls and foams below, 
 In one bright point with nice distinction lie 
 Plann'd on the moving tablet of the eye. 
 — So fold on fold earth's wavy plains extend. 
 And sphere iu sphere, its hidden strata bend ; 
 — Incumbent Spring her balmy plumes expands 
 O'er restless oceans and impatient lands, 
 With genial lustres warms the mighty ball, 
 And the great seed evolves, disclosing all ; 
 Life buds or breathes from Indus to the poles, 
 And the vast surface kindles as it rolls ! " 
 
 One extract more, in which a kindred idea has a yet more uniYersal 
 expansion : — 
 
 " Nymphs of primeval fire 1 your vestal train 
 
 Hung with gold tresses o'er the vast inane. 
 
 Pierced with your silver shafts the throne of night. 
 
 And charm'd young Nature's opening eyes with light; 
 
 When Love Divine, with brooding wings unfiu-l'd, 
 
 CaU'd from the rude abyss the living world. 
 
 — ' Let there be light ! ' proclaimed the Almighty Lord ; 
 
 Astonish'd Chaos heard the potent word ; 
 
 Through all his realms the kindling ether runs. 
 
 And the mass starts into a million suns ; 
 
 Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst. 
 
 And second planets issue from the first ; 
 
 Bend as they journ'^y with projectile force. 
 
 In bright ellipses their reluctant course ; 
 
 Orbs wheel in orbs, round centres centres roll, 
 
 And form, self-balanced, one revolving whole ! " 
 
 A word, in conclusion, in reference to the style and substance of 
 Darwin's prose, which is as vigorous and perspicuous as his verse is 
 lofty and sonorous, and by which, in truth, it is more fair to estimate 
 him ; for the poems themselves are little more than pegs on which 
 to hang an abundance of invaluable notes, that have since been bor- 
 rowed and attenuated by all manner of writers on nearly all kinds of 
 subjects. We have heard it said — we know not with what truth — that 
 
10 CHAPTER I. 
 
 he had an occasional habit of eating his food, not in courses, as 
 ordinarily brought to the table, but dished, blended, and presented all 
 together. And certainly this is somewhat the way in which he has 
 treated the intellectual appetite of his readers : for a volume before 
 us, besides containing several of his poems, teems with interesting 
 notes, amounting to four or five times the bulk of the text, and fraught 
 with such information on vegetable and animal physiology, natural 
 and experimental philosophy, metaphysics, philology, and the fine arts, 
 as proves his mind to have been a repository, not only of the elements, 
 but of the principles of them all. We do not wonder that, notwith- 
 standing his ungainly person and his stammering speech, he should, 
 with such a mind, have been so much beloved and respected while 
 living by those who had the privilege of sharing his conversations ; 
 and it was no small thing to have won, by his literary genius, the 
 warm praise of William Cowper, whose name will ever remain among 
 the dearest of England's hoiisehold words. 
 
ij , hauler Bi|coni 
 
 7 "7 
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 ' ' If any young man were to ask me what books he should read that he 
 might be sufficiently informed on subjects necessary to be understood, 
 I should say, read all the books that I have written." — Such, or 
 something like it, is the characteristic way in which the late Mr. 
 Cobbett commenced an advertisement of a list of his own publica- 
 tions, as I read it about forty years back, on oue of the fly leaves 
 of his English Grammar ; and that such an advertisement should 
 have been attached to such a book, by a man who had said that when 
 any one put pen to paper he ought to feel as though he were going to 
 do something that might last for ever, is one of the most memorable 
 curiosities in the history of literature. 
 
 To understand William Cobbett, requires that the times in which 
 he lived, and the circumstances in which he wrote and spoke, should 
 also be well understood. The artizan who frequents the modern reading- 
 room in his evening leisure, and skims the richest cream off the literary 
 supplies of the day ; or dives deep into woi'ks of reference at the 
 mechanics' library, preparatory to undergoing the usual examination 
 for a university certificate, at no greater cost of money to himself than 
 the price of a weekly newspaper, will, without special information on 
 the subject, be hardly able to comprehend it. As an illustration I 
 may just observe, that one of the best periodicals to be had by a boy in 
 the year — say 1823, was the "Youth's Instructor and Guardian." It 
 came out in monthly numbers, at fourpence, and I have a right to speak 
 kindly of it ; for it gave me much pleasure, as a dear elder sister, now 
 in a better world, furnished me with the coppers for procuring it, then. 
 But I am bound, in justice, to say that, when the year's volume, 
 including its supplementary number, was completed at the cost of four 
 
12 CHAPTER II. 
 
 shillings, the whole did not contain as much useful or entertaining 
 information as is now embodied in some weekly publications of our 
 own day for a few pence ! It was in those days that ' ' The Mirror 
 began to be published weekly, with a woodcut, for tvropenee, and was 
 regarded by young readers as something beyond the climax of all 
 their longings for such a boon. Yet at that time Cobbett, a man of 
 almost entirely self-developed talent, was in the zenith of a literary 
 and political reputation that made him admired and worshipped, where 
 he was not feared and hated, throughout this kingdom and the United 
 States of America. Certainly, there was a third class of people — 
 who laughed at him. But, as he often tried to make them laugh, and 
 they did so, it proved at least that they read, if they did not altogether 
 approve of, what he wrote. The steps by which he acquired this 
 influence, and dared to exercise it, — in the age of a Sidmouth and a 
 Castlereagh ; when Sir Francis Burdett was sent to the Tower ; 
 Thelwall, Home Took, and Hardy, were tried for high treason ; James 
 Montgomery and Charles Sutton (father of our gifted friend, Henry S. 
 Sutton, author of "Quinquinergia") were imprisoned for the most inad- 
 vertent breaches of the laws relating to printing ; Oliver the Spy was 
 deemed as necessary an employe of the state as at the present time is 
 Mr. Calcraft ; Jeremiah Brandreth was beheaded for treason committed 
 chiefly at the instigation of the said Oliver and his agents ; while 
 the memorable slaughter of Peterloo took place, and the aflairs of 
 government were greatly under the control of a man who had the logical 
 acumen to talk of " standing prostrate at the foot of the throne," — may 
 be pretty generally known to those who are familiar with the history of 
 the last half century. But a few of them may be worth pointing out 
 afresh for the information — yet not in all particulars for the imita- 
 tion — of younger readers of the present day. 
 
 William Cobbett was the son of a small farmer in the south of 
 England ; and being an independent, daring, and ambitious boy, he 
 early ran away from home. In time we find him a private soldier, but 
 using his leisure hours in the cultivation of his intellect, and in acquiring 
 a knowledge of the rules of composition. He rose in the ranks, until 
 the full possible number of stripes decked his arm : and as he seems 
 to have believed, not only that England was the chief country in the 
 world, but most devoutly that he was himself about the ablest man in 
 it, one can easily imagine that, had promotion above the ranks been 
 more open to such men, he might have remained, and in time 
 have become a leader, in the army. He quitted it, however ; set up 
 for a political writer ; and — as I once heard one of his contemporary 
 writers say — "having made old King George III almost tremble on 
 his throne, (but whether with rage or fear my informant did not say,) 
 
WILLIAM COBBETT. 13 
 
 he fled to the United States of America, turned that country upside 
 down, and had to flee from it in turn." 
 
 In a short time, therefore, he was back again in England — writing 
 copiously, not only on every political question as it arose, but on 
 agriculture and rural afl'airs in general, as well as on domestic and 
 social economy, besides sending out volume after volume of educational 
 books. To this hour, his English Grammar, though in some of its 
 elements defective, and marred by ephemeral illustrations and political 
 inuendos that have lost point from the subsequent changes in public 
 afiairs, has much to recommend it to those for whom it was written — 
 young men with little time or cash to spare, but earnest in their efforts 
 at self-education. Nor was this all. He was very frequently engaged 
 in public speaking ; was several times, before the passing of the first 
 reform bill, a candidate for parliament ; was at one time in prison — 
 where (as the victim himself, when grown into a tall compositor, 
 afterwards infonned me) he once kicked a P.D.'s breech and sent 
 him back in a hurry for bringing him a foul proof ; and went unscathed 
 through a series of vicissitudes, which, altogether, would have again 
 and again shaken any man of less pluck and persistency into the dust. 
 Eemembering hov/, in the neighbourhood of my birth-place, in the 
 Midlands, men of all grades and shades, whether they liked him or not, 
 asked, on the mooting of any notable question, "What does Cobbett 
 say of it ? " when he came to partake of a public breakfast given him 
 by his admirers at Nottingham — a breakfast, in deference to his own 
 private habits, as early as seven o'clock in the morning, — on seeing 
 him come down the steps of Thurland Hall, with a number of enthusi- 
 astic partizans around him, who appeared to exult not a litl^le in that 
 proximity— I, as a mere lad of seventeen, felt an inexpressible interest 
 in that glimpse of the portly body, the jolly face, and the smile serene, 
 of a farmer who had calmly pledged himself to be roasted alive on a 
 gridiron, if some political event he had prophesied did not occur before 
 a specific date ; and that glimpse was shortly followed by an excellent 
 opportunity of, not only seeing him, but hearing him lecture. 
 
 It was in the days of the old coaches, when the journey from London 
 to York was as slow as it was long, that he had been lecturing in some 
 of the great northern towns, and called upon his friends in Nottingham^, 
 to use his own words, on his " way back to give the fruit of his labours 
 to the Hampshire chopsticks." John Thelwall, who had by this time 
 quitted the arena of politics, delivered a lecture, much about the same 
 date, at Bromley House, in Nottingham, to a veiy small company, 
 on the comparative merits of Milton and Pope. Cobbett's lecture was 
 delivered in the Theatre, to an aiidience of, probably, four or five 
 
14 CHAPTER II. 
 
 hundred people, of all political shades, and the theme will be pretty 
 well indicated by what I shall presently have to tell of its conclusion. 
 The presence of a soldier in his red uuifomi, in the pit, could hardly fail 
 to be an agreeable figure in the scene to one with the lecturer's 
 recollections of j'oungor days ; but a greater contrast to a private soldier 
 in his general aspect than Cobbett, as he just then appeared, it would 
 be difficult to meet. 
 
 He came to the front of the stage alone — no chairman to introduce, 
 nor companions to "support" him, though partizans were not wanting 
 in every part of the theatre. It must be somewhere about forty 
 years back, but memory can clearly see him still — a tall and sturdy 
 Saxon, in the full bloom of his years ; round enough to be jolly, yet 
 oval enough to be intellectual, and florid enough to show that his 
 cheeks were on familiar terms with the morning breeze. He had 
 lightish hail', which was plainly cut and combed ; a shrewd " I'11-tell- 
 you-something-worth-heai-ing-just-now " sort of play in his eye and about 
 his mouth ; and near the eye, at times, a little crow-foot wrinkle, which 
 added something more of shrewdness to that knowing look. His 
 dress consisted of a plum-colom-ed coat with gilt buttons, (the colour 
 of the waistcoat I forget,) drab continuations neatly buttoned at the 
 knees, and white knitted stockings, in appropriate keeping with his well 
 glossed shoes. Such is the mentagraph I have of him as ho came 
 forward and said, in a somewhat husky voice, while leaning for the 
 moment with the utmost nonchalance on the back of a chair, "I am 
 suifering rather severely from a cold, to-night, and am hoarse, as you 
 perceive ; but inasmuch as it was sense and not sound you came for, 
 that can make very little difference to you." Of that chair he made 
 much and various use in the course of the evening, sometimes leaning 
 upon, and once or twice (mentioning his cold on doing so the first 
 time as a sort of half-apology) sitting in it quite at ease, as he talked. 
 Now he would thrust one hand into his bosom ; anon, both hands into 
 his breeches-pockets. Once, in a matter-of-course sort of way, his cold 
 being a little troublesome, he quietly spat on the boards, and then 
 drew his foot over the spot ! In short, during the v/hole discourse, 
 though much that was fine might bo seen throughout in addition, not one 
 single occurrence was allowed to indicate a want of the most complete 
 self-possession. The style of his speech was very colloquial ; his words 
 were deliberately and strongly pronounced, and sometimes peculiarly. 
 I remember, for instance, his rather emphatically pronouncing the word 
 kindred with the first sound of the /, as in kind. His meaning was 
 unmistakeable, and his satire, when he was satirical, very telling. 
 Take one example, in which he said he would relate to them a great 
 
WILLIAM COBBETT. 15 
 
 miracle — that of an image of the Virgin Mary, on the continent, being 
 one night moved without human agency, and found next morning, 
 duly placed by its own act, in a chapel at the distance of several 
 leagues. Now that was a very extraordinary miracle ; but it was 
 nothing compared to one which occurred in England at the close of 
 the last war with France — namely, that when, after the battle of 
 Waterloo, the army came home and was disbanded, so that a great 
 many officers were thrown upon half-pay, a very considerable number 
 of them had no sooner laid down their arms, which had been so 
 recently used in hot blood, than they were suddenly ' ' moved by the 
 Holy Ghost to preach the gospel," and immediately thereupon took 
 orders in the Church ! Now that, he thought, was one of the most 
 wonderful miracles ever known ! 
 
 The climax of his address was in keeping with its whole tenour. 
 Drawing himself to his full height, seeming for the moment to fling 
 aside his hoarseness as if by strength of will, and with an air of 
 deliberateness and self-confidence which left no doubt of his own belief 
 in what he was enunciating, he thus wound up: — "And now I have 
 shown you, beyond any man's power of confutation, fii'st, how the 
 property of the church may be appropriated to the uses of the state, 
 without any hindrance to religion ; next, how a standing army can 
 be dispensed with, with perfect safety to the nation ; and lastly, and 
 not less clearly, how — the — national debt — itself — can — be — abolished 
 — without — injustice to the fundholders ! (The last four words uttered 
 
 very rapidly.) And when I get into parliament " -At this point 
 
 many of his auditors burst into a loud laugh, as though the thing 
 were an absolute impossibility ; when, bending a little forward, bringing 
 his index finger into companionship with the crowfoot wrinkle near his 
 eye, and changing his voice to about three notes deeper than the key 
 in which he was previously speaking, he added, with a deliberation and 
 emphasis never to be forgotten by those who heard it, and which 
 subdued the laugh at once, and made all before him as still as death, — 
 "and — SUEE — I — AM — I — SHALL — BE — THEEE ! — if the minister for 
 the time being be but a sensible man, and I fail to convince him with 
 equal certainty of the same, then I'll confess myself to be as great a 
 fool as — the Chancellor of the Exchequer ! " Saying which he abrubtly 
 bade his audience good-night, and left the stage. 
 
 How vividly the memory of that evening came back, when (some 
 years afterwards) I was reading his criticism of Milton's "Paradise 
 Lost," which occurs in a tract he wrote against potatoes — food to which 
 he had an antipathy equal to his liking for Indian corn ! It has 
 sometimes been given as a proof of his lack of poetical sentiment ; 
 
16 CHAPTER II. 
 
 but poetry has many realms, and as no ono would say that a Canadian 
 has no knowledge of language because he is not able to understand 
 Hindostanee — so of poetry — it does not follow that Cobbett could see 
 poetry nowhere, because he could not see it in " Paradise Lost" : — 
 " It has," he says, "become the fashion, of late, to cry up the virtue 
 of potatoes, as it is to admire the writings of Shakspere and Milton. 
 God, all-wise and all-foreseeing, permitting his chief angel to rebel 
 against him, for which he is cast forth from heaven to a place called 
 hell, the local situation of which no man Imoweth ; His there allowing 
 him to gather around him an army of devils like himself and bring 
 them over gates — iron gates too ; His then directing His Son to a 
 drawer, where he finds a pan* of compasses, which he proceeds to use 
 in the drawing of a map, and then leads forth an army of angels to 
 meet this army of demons, in the aii* ; His permitting cannon to bo 
 brought into this battle in the clouds, and one angel or devil, I forget 
 which, to be split from crown to crotch, as we split a pig, and then for 
 both sides to go slap together again, entrails and all : this, and a great 
 deal more such trash I and you are said to want taste or sense, if you 
 do not turn up your eyes with admiration when the names of such 
 authors are named ; — while, if one of your own relations were to write 
 you a letter in the same strain, you would put him in the mad-house 
 and take his estate ! " 
 
 So ! Despite that iocredulous laugh in Nottingham Theatre, and 
 probably many a laugh twenty times as Lucredulous elsewhere, this 
 extraordinary home-forsaking, home-returning, poet-ridiculing, chancel- 
 lor-bothering, son of the plough, did at last work his way into parliament 
 — being one of the fii'st members who sat under the refonn bill, for 
 Oldham. That is now near forty years ago, and whether the property 
 of the church be secure or not, the standing army is increased by the 
 addition of the volunteers, and the national debt about as slowly 
 diminishable as ever ; while he who thus spoke and wrote is gone to that 
 world where, it is earnestly to be hoped, all theological doubts are 
 solved, and all political animosities unknown ! His career in parliament 
 was very short, though not less characteristic of him than his previous 
 pursuits. His individuality was too strong, his mind too tough, and 
 his habits of life too entirely his own, to let him, without being 
 altogether unselfed, fall suddenly, unless with risk of great personal 
 damage, into the usages — the long sittings and late hours of the House 
 of Commons. It is proverbial that anyone who has long been regarded 
 as an oracle outside that arena, and has adapted his general manner 
 and bearing to the multitude, (though there are some striking exceptions, 
 even in oiu" own day,) can rarely find himself at home within it ; or, 
 
WILLIAM COBBETT. 17 
 
 without long trial, command or win much deference there. Of this 
 Cobbett, like many other popular orators, soon had sufficient proof, 
 but was not, for that, the less determined to make his way. Thousands 
 of people can still remember his " Weekly Register," with the device 
 of a gridiron on its front page, not unsymbolical of the roasting which 
 many a public man got within. No writer had greater aptitude at 
 tacking a ludicrous nickname on anj^one he did not like ; and, however 
 his sarcasms might sometimes be sustained by well-tanned men without 
 much wincing, there are few, in any sphere of life, and especially 
 in public life, who would be thankful for such offensive suhriquets as 
 Cobbett was fond of bestowing. Hence it happened that one evening, 
 when he was attempting to speak on some question he considered of 
 great importance, his rising was but the signal for the most annojang 
 interruptions the rules of the House would permit. Loud talking, 
 laughing, affected coughing, scraping of the feet, and ironical " hear, 
 hears," were the order of the hour; but there stiU stood the unbend- 
 able Saxon, as sturdy and dauntless as an old oak in a field of rustling 
 corn on a windy day. At length, by some means, he got a moment's 
 hearing, and appalled every man in the house who had the fear of a 
 telling nickname before his eyes, as he said something to this effect : — 
 " Sir, honourable members seem determined to prevent what I have 
 to say being heard ; but I can afford to stand here as long as they will 
 have patience to sit ; and this I can promise, that as surely as any of 
 them interrapt me again, I will make every one of them read my 
 'Register' some morning before breakfast! " His point was gained, 
 and the old soldier was accorded, a deferential if not patient hearing. 
 
 At my age, and in the circumstances, any personal intimacy with such 
 a man, was altogether out of the question. It would therefore be 
 impossible for me to tell from observation anything of his habits 
 in hours of relaxation, amid the scenes of his rural reign. One might 
 almost wonder if it were possible for any politician so dogmatic and 
 belligerent ever to be cheerily domestic at all. But on this point we 
 are by no means left in the dark. My genial, intelligent, and truthful 
 friend, the late Mary Russell Mitford, has left a most graphic and 
 sunny pictui'e, in her discursory volume entitled " My Literary Life," of 
 what she saw, when young, on a visit with her father to the Cobbett 
 family. Should I be out of place in giving the epitome of her 
 impressions here ? My faith in her powers of observation and 
 accuracy of delineation makes me feel disposed to risk it. She says, 
 ' ' He had at that time (but this was long before he was in parliament) 
 a large house at Botley, (in Hampshire,) with a lawn and gardens 
 sweeping down to the Bursledon river, which divided his territories 
 
18 CHAPTER II. 
 
 from the beautiful grounds of the old friend where we had been origin- 
 ally staying, the great squire of the place. Mr. Cobbett's house — large, 
 high, massive, red, and square, and perched on a considerable eminence 
 — always struck me as being not unlike its proprietor. Lord Cochrane 
 was there, then in the very height of his warlike fame, and as nnlike 
 the common notion of a warrior as could be. A gentle, quiet, mild 
 young man, was this burner of French fleets and cutter-out of Spanish 
 vessels, as one should see in a summer day. He lay about under the 
 trees reading Selden on the Dominion of the Seas, and letting the chil- 
 dren (and children always know with whom they may take liberties) 
 play all sorts of tricks with him at their pleasure. His ship's surgeon 
 was also a visitor, and a young midshipman, and sometimes an elderly 
 lieutenant, and a Newfoundland dog ; fine sailor-like creatures all. 
 Then there was a very learned clergyman, a great friend of Mr. G-iiford, 
 of the ' Quarterly,' with his wife and daughter — exceedingly clever 
 persons. Two literary gentlemen from London and ourselves com- 
 pleted the actual party ; but there was a large fluctuating series of 
 guests for the hour or guests for the day, of almost all ranks and 
 descriptions, from the earl and countess to the farmer and his dame. 
 The house had room for all, and the hearts of the owners had room for 
 three times the number. I never saw hospitality more genuine, more 
 simple, or more thoroughly successful in the great end of hospitality ; 
 the putting everybody completely at ease. There was not the slightest 
 attempt at finery, or display, or gentility. They called it a farm-house, 
 and everything was in accordance with the largest idea of a great Eng- 
 lish yeoman of the old time. Everything was excellent — everything 
 abundant — all served with the greatest nicety by trim waiting damsels ; 
 and everything went on with such quiet regularity, that of the large 
 circle of guests not one could find himself in the way. I need not say 
 a word more in praise of the good wife, very lately dead, to whom this 
 admirable order was mainly due. She was a sweet motherly woman, 
 realising our notion of one of Scott's most charming characters, Ailie 
 Dinmont, in her simplicity, her kindness, and her devotion to her 
 husband and her children. 
 
 "At this time William Cobbett was at the height of his political 
 reputation ; but of politics we heard little, and should, I think, have 
 heard nothing, but for an occasional red-hot patriot, who would 
 introduce the subject which our host would fain put aside, and get rid 
 of as speedily as possible. There was something of Dandy Dinmont 
 
 about him, with his unfailing good humour and good spirits his 
 
 heartiness, his love of field sports — and his liking for a foray. He was 
 a tall, stout man, fair, and sunburnt, with a bright smile, and an air 
 
WILLIAM COBBETT. 19 
 
 compounded of the soldier and the farmer, to which his habit of 
 wearing an eternal red waistcoat contributed not a little. He was, I 
 think, the most athletic and vigorous person I have ever known. 
 Nothing could tire him. At home in the morning he would begin his 
 active day by mowing his own lawn, beating his gardener Robinson, 
 the best mower, except himself, in the parish, at that fatiguing work. 
 
 " For early rising, indeed, he had an absolute passion, and some of 
 the poetry that we trace in his writings, whenever he speaks of scenery 
 or of rural objects, broke out in his method of training his children 
 into liis own matutinal habits. The boy who was first down stairs was 
 called the Lark for the rest of the day, and had, amongst other indul- 
 gences, the privilege of making his mother's nosegay and that of any 
 lady visitor. Nor was this the only trace of poetical feeling that he 
 displayed. Whenever he described a place, were it only to say where 
 such a covey lay, or such a hare was found sitting, you could see it, 
 so graphic — so vivid — so true was the picture. He showed the same 
 taste in the purchase of his beautiful farm at Botley — Fairthorne : 
 even in the pretty name. To be sure, he did not give the name, but I 
 always thought that it unconsciously influenced his choice in the 
 purchase. The beauty of the situation certainly did. The fields lay 
 along the Bursledon Eiver, and might have been shown to a foreigner 
 as a specimen of the richest and loveliest English scenery. In the 
 cultivation of his garden, too, he displayed the same taste. Few per- 
 sons excelled him in the management of vegetables, fruits and flowers. 
 His green Indian com — his Carolina beans — his water melons could 
 hardly have been exceeded in New York. His wall fruit was equally 
 splendid, and much as flowers have been studied since that day, I never 
 saw a more glowing or more fragrant autumn garden than that at 
 Botley, with its pyramids of holyhocks, and its masses of China-astersi 
 of cloves, of mignionette, and of variegated geraniums. The chances of 
 life soon parted us, as, without grave faults on either side, people do 
 lose sight of one another ; but I shall always look back with pleasure 
 and regret to that visit." 
 
 Such is the testimony of one of the most genuine and tasteful 
 Englishwomen that ever breathed, to the home-life of one of the most 
 thoroughly English of men — an Englishman in exuberance — whose 
 chief ambition from young days was to be in parliament ; but, that 
 end, by years of long endeavour at last achieved, he almost immediately 
 paid for with the price of his life. And we must now bid him what 
 seems to me a fitting adieu, by observing, that it is not those in a pro- 
 cession who best see the order of it ; nor is it always that men who are 
 enacting history see which way it tends. They sometimes get into 
 b2 
 
20 CHAPTER II. 
 
 circumstances which to them appear perplexing and iuliarmonious, and 
 regard each other with jealousy, and with a sort of suspicion that 
 whenever they move it must necessarily be to tread on each others' 
 heels or toes. But in the great march of life there are no conflictirui 
 interests, if men would but view things all round, as from the summit 
 of a hill, instead of seeing them only partially, as from its base. For 
 time, to those who have afterwards profoundly reflected on true 
 progress, has ever shown, that those who have consistently walked on 
 with honest principles for their staves, have always been walking in 
 concert, whether by compact or not. As too rapid action tends to 
 dissipation, and action long diminishing has its terminus in stagnation : 
 so He that controls all forces, and regulates them to exact and useful 
 ends, may see how little need there is for rancour when men freely 
 assert what they as honestly believe. And so it is that, whenever the 
 end of the journey of life, is reached by one who has honestly striven 
 for the general good, he is almost sure to be as generally mourned. It 
 has recently thus been with Richard Cobden, and so it was once with 
 William Cobbett. There was, in one sense, but little analogy between 
 them. Cobbett was impulsive, and too frequently perhaps reasoned 
 less with his intellect than his feelings — provoking anon much fret and 
 foam. His propensity to invective sometimes not only drove but 
 marred him ; whilst Cobden, on the contrary, was ever steady, calm, 
 and cool, as a flowing river. But between them there was, or is, this 
 analogy at least : both were peasant born ; each boldly did his duty as 
 he understood it ; and the England that gave them birth, now their 
 dust is mingled again with her own, has no animosity, but much love, 
 for the memory of such children. William Cobbett was, in some 
 respects, a wayward son ; but no mother ever yet let a loving son go 
 unloved or unmourued because he had sometimes troubled her a little 
 with his crotchets. Many things, however, which were thought to be 
 crotchets in Cobbett's day have since been proved to be not crotchets 
 at all. He foresaw the potatoe famine, and tried to avert the starvation 
 by introducing to the British Isles the culture of Indian-corn. In that 
 he failed. But perhaps, beyond the bourne whence no traveller returns, 
 he may have shaken hands with Elhott, Cobden, and Peel, for having 
 in another way done so much to remedy the failure ; whilst the late 
 good old Duke of Rutland and others, who loved our island homes no 
 less than they, yet once opposed their views as to the best method of 
 blessing them, may now — not looking from ojjposite sides but from 
 above — see things as they are, and see alike. Blessed be the memory 
 of every true patriot, of whatever rank or name, for ever ! Let us 
 listen, in conclusion, to an elegiac tribute by Ebenezer Elliott : 
 
WILLIAM COBBETT. 21 
 
 " bear him where the rain can fall, 
 
 And where the winds can blow ! 
 And let the sun weep o'er his pall, 
 
 As to the grave ye go ! 
 And in some little lone churchyard, 
 
 Beside the growing corn, 
 Lay gentle Nature's stern prose bard, 
 
 Her mightiest peasant-born ! 
 
 Yes ! let the wild-flower wed his grave. 
 
 That bees may murmur near. 
 When o'er his last home bend the brave. 
 
 And say — " A man lies here." 
 For Britons honour Cobbett's name. 
 
 Though rashly oft he spoke ; 
 And none can scorn, and few wiU blame, 
 
 The low-laid heart of oak. 
 
 See, o'er his prostrate branches, see. 
 
 E'en factious hate consents 
 To reverence, in the fallen tree. 
 
 His British lineaments ! 
 Though gnarl'd the storm-toss'd boughs that braved 
 
 The thunder's gather'd scowl. 
 Not always through his darkness raved 
 
 The storm-winds of the soul. 
 
 Oh, no ! in hours of golden calm, 
 
 Morn met his forehead bold ; 
 And breezy evening sung her psalm 
 
 Beneath his dew-dropp'd gold. 
 The wren its crest of fibred fire 
 
 With his rich bronze compared, 
 While many a youngling's songful sire 
 
 His acorn'd twiglets shared. 
 
 The lark, above, sweet tribute paid. 
 
 Where clouds with light were riven ; 
 And true-love sought his blue-bell'd shade, 
 
 " To bless the hour of heaven." 
 E'en when his stormy voice was loud. 
 
 And guilt quaked at the sound, 
 Beneath the frown that shook the proud 
 
 The poor a shelter found. 
 
 Dead Oak, thou liv'st ! Thy smitten hands, 
 
 The thunder of thy brow, 
 Speak, with strange tongues, in many lands ; 
 
 And tyrants hear thee now ! 
 Beneath the shadow of thy name, 
 
 Inspired by thy renown, 
 Shall future patriots rise to fame. 
 
 And many a sun go down," 
 
Itaptcr 
 
 PKOFESSOE WILSON. 
 
 Bowness, May Bay, 1866. 
 
 It is impossible to live here, on the shores of Windermere, and not 
 see something or somebody, every day, calculated to remind one of 
 John Wilson. I turn out of doors in the morning, and one of the 
 first persons I may meet is an old man who saw him on the veiy day 
 he stripped off his coat and walked from Penrith to Kendal, beating 
 the coach which was too full to take him up. Stepping into the bar 
 of the Royal Hotel, I there see standing by the fireside that old easy 
 chair in which he was wont to sit asking questions and telling stories, 
 when "the Eoyal " was but comparatively a little wayside inn. That 
 chair is an heir-loom and goes with the house, whatever its increase 
 or whoever may happen to be landlord, and is well known all over 
 the district as " the Professor's Chair," — quite as well as was ever 
 known the Chair in his lecture-room at Edinburgh College by the 
 same distinction. If I go up to the Windermere Railway Station 
 or to Elleray, there are ten to one in favour of seeing somewhere 
 thereabouts old James Newby,* once his servant, and for some years 
 
 * Since this chapter was -written Elleray has been purchased by Mr. Haywood, 
 an opulent banker, who has demolished the large house and built, or is buildinc 
 a larger ; yet with excellent taste has renovated the old cottage and preserved its 
 character with that of the overshadowing tree. But, alas for the rapid changes of 
 time ! its old tenant, James Newby, has passed already from the scene. 
 
PEOFESSOR WILSON. 23 
 
 past living in the rustic cottage at Elleray where the Professor spent 
 a considerable portion of his early married life, and where two of 
 his eldest children, I believe, were bom ; while in the course of the day 
 I may just as easily meet with a dozen other people, any one of whom 
 can tell me something of his most daring feats or wildest pranks, 
 or perchance of some feat of kindness done in some odd way that 
 no other man on earth would have dreamed of. Near me, while 
 writing this, is a piece of the old yacht in which he had many a strange 
 adventure on the lake, as its ripple and his voice might be heard in 
 the evening when the sun went down cradled between the twin Pikes 
 of Langdale in clouds of gold, or at midnight as the bright moon hung 
 low over Brant Fell, — only drawing to the eastern shore as day had 
 got round and was peeping down over Orrest Head upon his upland 
 home. Or I have but to step, as can be done in less than ten minutes, 
 to the top of Busky How, above Bowness, and thence gaze across the 
 now peopled scene on that cottage he so loved and the less-loved larger 
 house he afterwards built, sheltered as they are, but not obscured, by 
 the woods he himself planted on Elleray, and where he was not 
 unfrequently visited by many of the brightest literary spirits of his 
 time — Wordsworth, Scott, Southey, the Coleridges, De Quincey, Lock- 
 hart, Dr. Blair, Thomas Au'd, the Ettrick Shepherd, and the rest. 
 Or perhaps in the course of duty, or in an hour of stolen leisure, 
 when all the world around is in repose, I find my way to the very spot, 
 and seated under the broad- spreading tree where he so often sat, muse 
 on the scenes and days to him so familiar there. 
 
 Wilson's choice of Elleray was a very tasteful one. It consisted 
 before he bought it of two little estates, and the cottage which he 
 afterwards adapted to his own use was beforetime occupied by the 
 family of a homely weaver — in days when large weaving factories any- 
 where were rare. A spring of pure water supplied the cottage, and a 
 wild little mountain-beck, gurgling, curvetting, foaming and sometimes 
 almost shouting from lin to lin, among shrubs and ferns and arching 
 hazels, divided it and "the Wood " from the neighbouring and equally 
 retired domain of " St. Catherine's." The whole scene is considerably 
 altered now, by the proximity of the railway terminus and hotel, the 
 rising of a little town, and a growing crowd of neighbouring villas. 
 Yet is it easy to see what it must have been in those days, — a sylvan 
 retreat, where the wildness of the noi-th had not quite tamed into the 
 blandness of the south, yet with more of summerly softness than his 
 native Scotland could altogether claim. This of itself, to say nothing 
 of beauty and grandeur not far distant, and the then literary society of 
 "the Lakes" (which in our day has given place to something about 
 
24 CHAPTER III. 
 
 as like to it as is the chance company of a modern watering place to 
 the ancient boast of Parnassus,) must have made it a perfect elysium 
 to a many-sided, romantic genius — one of the most remarkable com- 
 pounds of the most varied physical and mental qualities that could well 
 meet in the same person ! 
 
 Come, John Guest and old Christopher Thomson, who happen to be 
 very near my mind while I am writing, let us draw near and imagine 
 we see him at ease in this other favourite " professor's chair," this old 
 seat under his cottage-tree, looking and listening with heart and 
 thought the while ! What a soothing and dreamy undertone is made 
 by the many-voiced waters, near and far, as they seek the scarcely 
 ruffled lake from the mountain sides. How the lark's light treble 
 above, the thrush's loud lay below, the stock-dove's loving coo in the 
 woods, and the linnet's lighter voice from yon flowering thorn, all 
 blend and harmonise, while the cuckoo with its mellow double shout 
 counts time ! And what a rich array of harmonious colouring makes 
 music to the etje. The purple fox-glove, the broom's rich gold, the 
 azure beds of wild hyacinths, " the milk-white thorn " just beginning 
 to eclipse the wild cherry's falling pearls, the hoar of projecting crags, 
 and the masses of green foliage, made by " palmy ferns," spiral larches, 
 loftier pines, and all the varied leafiness of all the other trees ; and 
 then the freshness of all the rich pasturage between — the lake's blue 
 gleams, and the mountains growing more bold and defined in the 
 westering light ! Are not all these in their beautiful contrasts and 
 blendings as ravishing to Ids eye as would be the grandest oratorio to a 
 Beethoven's ear ? But lo ! the landscape dims, and the sky has lost 
 its glare ; the poet's gaze is rapt there awhile ; — and now let us read 
 the sonnet he has just composed on that 
 
 EVENING CLOUD. 
 
 A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun, 
 
 A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow. 
 Long had I watched the glory moving on, 
 
 O'er the still radiance of the lake below : 
 
 Tranquil its spirit seem'd, and floated slow ; 
 Bv'n in its very motion there was rest, 
 
 While every breath of eve that chanced to blow 
 Wafted the traveller to the beauteous west ; 
 
 Emblem, methought, of the departed soul, 
 To whose white robes the dream of bliss is given, 
 
 And by the breath of mercy made to roll 
 Eight onward to the golden gates of heaven ; 
 
 Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies 
 
 And tells to man his glorious destinies. 
 
PROFESSOR WILSON. 25 
 
 Now, who would believe that the man who could thus sit tJiere, he thus 
 entranced, and write such a sonnet, was at the very time keeping a lot 
 of fighting-cocks in the roosts behind the cottage ; and had himself 
 wrestled, leaped, and fought many a tough battle, and was by no means 
 unprepared to fight many another, in town street or country lane ; or 
 would start in his slippers and without a hat, and not return till he had 
 completed a ramble it would knock up any ordinary citizen to ride ; nay, 
 had perchance that very morning been astride an unsaddled horse, 
 riding through the roughest landscape in a hunt after one of the wildest 
 of bulls ; or calling his pen a crutch and himself crusty old Christopher 
 North, while he laid said crutch about the back of some young 
 adventurer he deemed a poacher in literaiy preserves, until he was 
 provoked to prove his claim to free warren or retreat altogether by 
 the way he had entered ? Yet, just such was that one man, who was 
 as ready to fight a main of cocks as to deliver a lecture on moral 
 philosophy, and was probably as little of a hypocrite in either as if he 
 had confined himself exclusively to the one line or the other ; for as he 
 was never wont to hide his light under a bushel, neither had he any 
 objection to make his "darkness visible." Good, bad, or indifierent, 
 there you had him — an impersonation of the profoundest principles and 
 the oddest whims, the gravest studies and the wildest fancies, the 
 kindliest emotions and the keenest satire — carrying everything he 
 thought or felt into visible or audible action ; but, after all, so remark- 
 ably self-controlled, and so methodical when he chose, as seldom to let 
 his strangest freaks interfere in the slightest with his normal duties, 
 but rather, as it might almost appear, performing the latter with the 
 greater and safer alacrity for having in the former blown ofi" all his 
 surplus steam ! It was, I presume, this very genuineness that made 
 the contrasts in his character so tolerable to all such friends as con- 
 sidered themselves judges of human action, and to his pupils, who 
 must have known not a little of his apparently incongruous predi- 
 lections. Had any man done hesitatingly or sneakingly the outrage- 
 ous things he did, he would have been kicked out of society, never 
 more to return. But when, on one occasion, he publicly thrashed an 
 overbearing pugilist in Hawick street, while the Edinburgh coach was 
 getting ready for the road, and then had for fellow passengers some 
 young men going thither to be members of the very class he taught in 
 the college, and who had heard all about the fistic transaction ; by his 
 frankness he left an impression upon them at last that physical and 
 mental prowess, with an impulsive generositj^, were by no means of 
 necessity unallied — ^not that he tried at all to persuade them so, but 
 left them with no chance of coming to any other conclusion from the 
 
26 CHAPTER III. 
 
 facta. My owa thought of him is that there was in him a good deal 
 of the natui-e of one of those old Greeks, who could take part as 
 regularly in the profoundest philosophical exercises as in the Olympian 
 games; and that as Britain is undoubtedly a countiy in which all 
 nations in all ages are virtually represented, Wilson was the " represen- 
 tative man" — the impersonation of anciently approved Grecian charac- 
 ter — the combination of sage and athlete, in the modem Athens. 
 There can be no doubt that his unconventional mode of life, coupled 
 with his knowledge of the very conventional life of others, afforded him 
 material for rare and piquant thought. In trath, the wealth of his 
 intellect must have been in great measm-e derived from this very source ; 
 and his aptitude for observing, acquiring, and applying, was alike 
 marvellous in all. A gentleman residing in the neighbourhood of 
 Windermere, and with whom the Professor was on the most iutimate 
 terms, was one day walking with another person along one of the streets 
 of Edinburgh, intending to call upon him some time before leaving, but 
 without having hitherto announced his intention of doing so, or of his 
 being in the city at all. While yet far off, the Professor coming along 
 descried his friend, and crossed the street to meet him ; and it being 
 within a few minutes of the time for lectui'e at the college, took him 
 there to hear it, placing him in a seat of honour near himself. As the 
 lecture went on, Wilson finely seized the occasion to fling in an episode 
 suggested by the presence of his old neighbour from Windermere — his 
 topic at the moment being the contiguity of time and place. Alluding 
 to the face of the friend thus accidentally present, he expatiated in the 
 most telling and glowing terms on the many periods of time, the long 
 range of events, the number of places, and remarkable grouping of 
 objects it suggested ; and not only events, places and objects, but the 
 variety of thoughts and emotions it excited ; while his young auditory, 
 kindled by his vivacity, and charmed by his rapid and graphic delinea- 
 tions, were caught up and carried on with him in a manner that won 
 the most marked manifestations of their approbation and delight. 
 
 [While reading the last proof of this chapter, I have been struck 
 with a quotation from the late Dr. James Hamilton in reference to 
 Wilson, and will here interpolate it : — ■" In some respects an incon- 
 gruous successor to Brown, Stewart, Ferguson, in the prodigal exuber- 
 ance of ' Christopher North ' there was imported into the old university 
 a prodigious accession of vital force. No doubt he was a humourist 
 and there was so little distinctively ' moral ' in the rollicking wit 
 of 'Blackwood's Magazine,' that all the learning of the land stood 
 aghast at his appointment ; but happy will it be for the future curators 
 if all their nominees do as much to justify their wisdom as Wilson did 
 
PROFESSOR WILSON. 27 
 
 to redeem the blunder which spirited into the throne of philosophy a 
 magnificent madcap. No 'book in breeches,' no academical automaton, 
 with parchment face and pedantic tones, grinding forth the same dry 
 formula year by year, he was intensely human ; and to young men 
 whose hatred is humdrum, whose delight is truth, courage, mastery, it 
 was a daily rapture when, like a strong man rejoicing to run his race, 
 the splendid luminary rose on their horizon. Eich in fancy, redundant 
 in matter, exulting in promise, he threw himself at once on his theme 
 as a lion springs on its prey ; and in the wonderful improvisation 
 which followed, so profuse was the imagery, so brilliant the diction, so 
 exciting the passion, that dull must have been the clod which did not 
 catch fire, very flat the fish which offered to no fly."] 
 
 I had the pleasure of hearing Wilson's first lecture to his moral- 
 philosophy class, on the opening of the winter session for 1844-5. 
 Tall, broad, massive, and energetic beyond the strongest men one 
 might see in some thousands, he came to his seat, not only briskly, 
 but somewhat brusquely. He has been variously described by those 
 who have written of him, and has been generally reported as of the 
 leonine type of physiognomy. But to me, as I have often thought of 
 him and remember him now, he appears to have had quite as much 
 about him of the eagle as of the lion. Before his locks were silvered 
 they were golden, and lay over his neck quite as much like the eagle's 
 ruff as the lion's mane. There was certainly more of the eagle than 
 the lion in his glance, as after a very few seconds, during which he 
 seemed to have seized upon and taken into his mind every person 
 before him, he rose up from his chair and flung out his gown in a 
 manner that reminded one of the kingly bird pluming his wings for 
 flight. His discourse that morning was on a no less lofty theme than 
 the " Genius and Writings of Milton ; " and as he spoke, he put forth 
 one hand and hovered above it with the other — the upper hand rising 
 higher and somewhat spirally with his argument ; or, sometimes when 
 his range of thought became more expansive, his hand would perform 
 a circuit, just as an eagle might be extending its flight, but always 
 returning to its point. At length, having led the mind of his audience 
 far up and out in the realms of imagination, but wishing to show that 
 since all truths must agree, what was true in poetry could not but be 
 consistent with what was true in philosophy, down, eagle-like, he 
 pounced at once on his hand and his argument, clenching the latter 
 with an axiom of Francis Bacon with a force equal to that with which 
 an eagle would pounce upon and clutch its prey — -so that it would be 
 impossible for any mind he had once caught to escape the force of his 
 conclusion. 
 
28 CHAPTER in. 
 
 I am not aware if that lecture on Milton has ever been published. 
 It was enriched by many fine passages, and its close was as charac- 
 teristic as it was eulogistic. The Professor at the time seemed to be 
 in want of some improvement in his dentistry — his s being in several 
 instances articulated as sh. Still there was an exceedingly fine cadence 
 in his closing words, ■which, though uttered more than twenty-two 
 years since, I remember, with the manner accompanying them, as well 
 as if it were but yesterday, so impressive were both style and senti- 
 ment, as he said, " And thus it was that, when Milton sang, the angels 
 suspended their harps — were mute — and listened." 
 
 There is scarcely one polite citizen in a hundred who knows how to 
 vmlk. Of course I am not so ungallant as to be speaking now of ladies 
 — many of whom have of late years been so sadly hampered with 
 various superfluities of costume that it would be downright cruelty to 
 expect it of them. My mention here is of gentlemen specifically — 
 especially of such as would laugh at a wagoner, who, after walking by 
 the side of his team all day, came into the town at night with a sort of 
 swing, in which every muscle and bone in his hide had a gentle share — 
 the laughers little dreaming that, owing to that very motion, he was 
 not more tired with a thirty than they, in their mode of doing the 
 business, would have been with a thive miles' walk. Now, John Wilson 
 felt this secret, if he had never studied it, and knew how to walk as 
 well as talk, — a grand and most useful combination of qualities in any 
 one man ! If a fellow screws all his bones save four or six to the 
 sticking-place, and walks as prim and stiif as if five-sixths at least of 
 his joints were anchylosed, the few left loose will naturally have five- 
 sixths more strain upon them than they ought ; and congestion of 
 blood, panting, palpitation, and general weariness of nerve and muscle, 
 may be but the natural results. The poor wagoner and plough-boy, 
 of whom the city urchins make game, walk, as natural instinct directs 
 them, tvith the entire body, the spinal column forming a sort of 
 axis ; and the consequences to them of this general distribution of force, 
 are an easy and regular respiration, a free circulation, and a power of 
 continuance that ought to shame many a great pretender to physio- 
 logical lore, as he adjusts his cravat, puts on his gloves, enters his 
 carriage with stately stifihess, and proceeds to give somewhere a 
 pedantic lecture on the animal functions. Now, just as John Wilson 
 was in the habit, when he thought, of thinking with his whole soul ; 
 or, when he talked or wrote, of indulging in most unshackled but not 
 less graceful rhetoric ; so, I take it, when he walked, he walked with 
 his whole body, and was therefore seldom if ever tired. There was 
 harmony in his action, as there was cogency in his ideas and eloquence 
 
PSOFESSOE WILSON. 29 
 
 in his speech, because of the coiisetitaiieousnesa of all the organs in his 
 frame. Think of this, my young readers, and learn, not to be rude, 
 but to be genuine while you are young ; and let neither your joints, 
 your thoughts, or your verbiage, grow anchylosecl ! I have known a 
 man, acting on this principle, freely and sweetly singing " Auld lang 
 syne," as he neared the top of a mountain, walking persistently on, 
 while not one of his companions could grunt out a single word without 
 first stopping and taking breath. At this moment I have by me, from 
 a public library, a copy of Mrs. Gordon's Memoirs of the Professor, in 
 which some previous reader has made incredulous annotations with a 
 pencil, against the passages describing various of his pedestrian feats. 
 If the same reader should ever cast his eye over these remarks of mine, 
 perhaps he will not think it unfair to get the book again and rub out 
 some of those sceptical pencillings. My friend, Dr. W. B. Hodgson, 
 once did a feat almost equal to any of them during a sojourn with us 
 at Matlock. These thoughts are just now suggested by the clear 
 memory I have of Professor Wilson's usual manner of walking along 
 the smooth flagged causeways of the New Town of Edinburgh, as if 
 they ivere too easy for him, and as if it were a pity he should waste on 
 such ' ' plainstanes ' ' the powers that would have been perfectly at 
 home over Kirkstone, or the Stake-pass, and that often bore him out of 
 sight quite as quickly as disappeared some stately carriage which had 
 come about the same time with him round a corner. Mr. UUock, who 
 in those days knew him so well, tells me that when Wilson lived at 
 EUeray, and the only post-office of the locality was a mile and a half 
 off, at Bowness, it was no uncommon thing with him to turn out of his 
 cottage for a breath of morning air without his coat, with his shirt 
 neck and waistcoat not yet buttoned, and with nothing stouter than 
 shppers on his feet ; and, thinking he would like his letters and news- 
 papers a little sooner than usual, run down for them himself, in that 
 dishevelled condition, leaping every one of the six gates then in his 
 way as he went ; and having thus secured his papers in an incredibly 
 short space of time, go quietly up the hill again reading them, without 
 seeming at all out of breath. 
 
 It may seldom perhaps if ever be that his country will see again in 
 one man such a remarkable association of the perceptive, reflective, 
 imaginative, combinative, and adaptative, with the dominative, com- 
 bative, affectionate, generous, and devotional faculties as in Professor 
 Wilson. If he had one fault more to be regretted than another, 
 perhaps it was that of sometimes going too fast and far in one swing, 
 and giving a blow before a reason for it. Holding the droll theory 
 that everything God had made was poetical except a rhymer, the 
 
30 CHAPTER in. 
 
 moment a poet new to him was presented for criticism, true to his 
 pugilistic instinct he put himself at once in an attitude of defence, if 
 not of attack, and sometimes (not with malice aforethought but from 
 sheer impulse) bruised his man severely, and even unjustly, before 
 comprehending his whole case. I know one writer of fine and culti- 
 vated taste as well as of great original and acknowledged power, 
 who, though he has written as good poetry as Wilson himself, still 
 winces under the remembrance of a castigation in ' ' Blackwood' ' many 
 a long year ago ; and if, as is not improbable, he should chance to read 
 what I am writing, perhaps he may now make some allowance for an 
 organisation and circumstances like Christopher North's ; while some 
 young man going into the profession of criticism may take this incident 
 to heart, and be careful with whom, and what, and how he meddles, 
 lest, when he is gone, not the ghosts of old grievances, but their 
 physical embodiments, should live to walk critically in their turn over 
 his grave, as Christopher thus rendered himself liable to be walked 
 over. 
 
 In his private affections and attachments. Professor Wilson, accord- 
 ing to the testimony of all who knew him, was one of the most tender, 
 fatherly, brotherly, and friendly of men. Nor had he feeling only 
 for the human species. Incongruous as it may appear, the very cocks 
 he was wont to pitch one against another in fight he loved in a 
 fashion ; and it was probably owing to the customs of the times and 
 the admiration with which he regarded everything "plucky," that he 
 indulged in a sport which all decent humanity now consents to shun, 
 if not to condemn. It may, however, console any " gentle angler " 
 who considers cockfighting reprehensible, to know that Wilson was 
 fond of angling too. For good horses and dogs he had a fervent 
 liking, as every man who loves his most noble and faithful servants 
 ought to have. The story of all this, and of his whole career, has 
 been so well told by his daughter, Mrs. Gordon, and so often referred 
 to by other writers, that there is little need for me to repeat more than 
 a few of its most prominent incidents, which it is perhaps as well to do, 
 for the sake of younger readers. 
 
 Professor Wilson was born in the populous and industrious to\vn of 
 Paisley, (whence other distinguished men of his name, and many a 
 "clever body" besides, have sprung,) May the 18th, 1785, — dying at 
 Edinburgh, as the clock chimed twelve, on the night of Sunday, April 
 2nd, 1854;, consequently near the age of sixty-nine. He had the 
 prospect of a large fortune, and was a student at Glasgow College from 
 the death of his father in 1797, to 1803, when he commenced a 
 correspondence with Wordsworth which grew in tim^e to friendship. 
 
PROFESSOE T7ILS0N. 31 
 
 About the time of, or Boon after leaving Glasgow he fell in love, 
 and then went to the University of Oxford, where his curriculum, 
 besides a good deal of hard scholastic labour, included a due proportion 
 of cock-fighting, pugiHsm, boating, leaping, and such other " muscular 
 Christianity " as was then thought essential to the education of a brave 
 and accomplished British gentleman. Crossed in his fii'st love, he 
 went into literary life with a sort of plunge — his circumstances and 
 accomphshments helping to win him a welcome to the members of the 
 Lake School. Hence, probably, his choice and purchase of Elleray. 
 During this period, and prior to living at Elleray, he had two rooms, 
 and his library, at the Royal Hotel, Bowness, to which he was wont to 
 betake himself in the vacations ; and at Bowness it was that (in the 
 parish church of Windermere there), on the 11th of May, 1811, he 
 married Miss Jane Penny — writing the same day to a friend that she 
 was " in gentleness, innocence, sense, and feeling, surpassed by no 
 woman," and adding that he would to his dying hour, " love, honour, 
 and worship her." It is pleasant to believe that time seemed rather to 
 ratify than weaken this attachment, Of the offspring of this marriage 
 I had the pleasure of meeting one (Mrs. Ferrier, widow of Professor 
 Ferrier), in the neighbourhood of Windermere, last autumn ; and, 
 making full allowance of course for femininity, it was interesting 
 during our conversation to see the striking resemblance Mrs. Ferrier 
 bears to her father, not only in physiognomical configuration and com- 
 plexion, but in expression. Through the failure of a relative, soon 
 after his marriage, Wilson lost most of his fortune. Before this he 
 had written his celebrated poem "The Isle of Palms," and he now 
 resolved to add the life of a barrister to that of a poet — studying for 
 and duly appearing at the Scottish bar. In 1817 was established 
 "Blackwood's Magazine," of which he became the ruling genius, en- 
 riching it to the end of his days, as all the world knows, with some of 
 the ripest fruits of his pen. In 1820 he stood a contest for the chair 
 of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, and gained it. 
 From this time there are few names or events of much literary note 
 with which his own is not in some way identified. Belonging to the 
 Conservative school, he was by no means for that fact unfair to ac- 
 knowledged genius in men of any other, and while himself writing 
 in favour of a continuance of the corn laws, gave honour to and a 
 noble notice of Ebenezer Elliott, the whole fervour of whose soul was 
 directed against them. Mrs. Grordon's memoirs of him are very copious 
 and interesting ; but there will be more to tell of him some day when 
 more of his correspondence has been collected and collated. In the 
 meantime, those who wish to see pictures of his domestic as well as lit- 
 
32 CHAPTER III. 
 
 erary and public life, will do well to read that work ; and just while I 
 am concluding this for the press, a chapter on him, by Mr. and Mrs. 
 S. C. Hall, in the "Art Journal," has been shown me. I have not 
 read it, but see how richly it is illustrated with portrait, views of 
 his birthplace, and houses at Elleray. 
 
 There is a beautiful passage in John Gralt's "La-mrie Todd," where 
 he makes Lawrie, speaking of his childhood, say: — "1 had often, 
 stripling as I then was, a wonderful experience that the scope of our 
 discernments is not confined to present things ; nor is this notion fan- 
 tastical, for future events have proved to me that the fancies of the boy 
 are many times the foretastes of the man's fortunes. Sometimes as I 
 lay with my hands beneath my head, on the gowany quilt of the sunny 
 hill-side, I have had marvellous communications with futurity ; and I 
 have seen such similitudes of unborn events, that when the issues of 
 Providence brought on the reality the acquist had nothing of surprise. 
 I have met with unbelieving men who regarded these intimations of 
 what shall be as mirages of enthusiasm ; but the traditions of all ages 
 have hallowed them to faith, and bound them up with the apocalypses 
 of religion." Could it have been something of this that, in the days 
 of Wilson's youth, entered into the prayer of the following sonnet, 
 which (so far as this world is concerned) was answered to the letter, 
 even to his dying on a Sunday : — 
 
 When Nature feels the solemn hour is come 
 
 That parts the sphit from her mortal clay, 
 May that hour find me in my weeping home, 
 
 Mid the blest stillness of a Sabbath day ! 
 
 May none I deeply love be then away ; 
 For through my heart the husht though sobbing breath 
 
 Of natural grief a holy calm will send ; 
 
 With sighs from earth will heavenly voices blend, 
 Till, as on seraph fair, I smile on death, 
 
 Who comes in peace, like an expected friend. 
 Dipt in celestial hues the wings of love 
 
 AVill o'er my soul a gracious shade extend ; 
 While, as if air were sun, gleams from above 
 
 The day with God, the Sabbath without end ! 
 
I^tepti^r px\xi\\ 
 
 EBENEZEE ELLIOTT. 
 
 " THE COKN-LAW RHYMER." 
 
 (Feb. 186fi.) 
 
 Fresh from the reading of Bloomfield, Burns, John Clare, and other 
 true poets of the class called self-educated ; filled, too, with emotions" 
 for which I had no language when gazing on beautiful landscapes in 
 the soft sunshine of a summer sabbath, and grateful to any writer 
 "whose thoughts acquainted me with my own," or whose words gave 
 expression to the poetic yearnings ■with which my young heart was 
 sometimes moved almost to ecstasy, I one day chanced to fall — it might 
 be in my nineteenth or twentieth spring — on a nevfspaper criticism 
 of the "Corn-Law Rhymes," poems, of which, or of their author, I 
 had never before heard. What surprised me much was, that the 
 newspaper, being a Conservative one, and strong in the agricultural in- 
 terest, should speak so warmly as it did of the genius of an energetic 
 repealer ; but it quoted Southey in justification, and illustrated its 
 eulogy by the following extracts from " The Ranter :" — 
 
 " Miles Gordon sleeps ; his six days' labour done, 
 He dreams of Sunday, verdant fields, and prayer : 
 O, rise, blest morn, unclouded ! Let thy sun 
 Shine on the artizan — thy purest air 
 Breathe on the bread-tax'd labourer's deep despair! 
 Poor sons of toil ! I grudge them not the breeze 
 That plays with Sabbath flowers, the clouds that play 
 With Sabbath winds, the hum of Sabbath bees, 
 The Sabbath walk, the skylark's Sabbath lay, 
 The silent sunshine of the Sabbath day." 
 
34 CHAPTEP. IV. 
 
 Then speaking of a widow, her son, and their pious and patriotic lodger, 
 he proceeds — the scene being near Sheffield :— 
 
 " And must she wake that poor o'erlabour'd youth ? 
 
 Oh, yes, or Edmund will his mother chide ; 
 
 For he this morn would hear the words of truth 
 
 From lips inspired, on Shirecliffe's lofty side, 
 
 Gazing o'er tree and tower on Hallam wide. 
 
 Up, sluggards, up ! the mountains one by one 
 
 Ascend in light ; and slow the mists retire 
 
 From vale and plain. The cloud on Stannington 
 
 Beholds a rocket — No, 'tis Morthen spire ! 
 
 The sun is risen ! cries Stanedge tipp'd with fire ; 
 
 On Norwood's flowers the dewdrops shine and shake ; 
 
 Up, sluggards, up I and drink the morning breeze. 
 
 The birds on cloud-left Osgathorpe awake ; 
 
 And Winoobank is waving all his trees 
 
 O'er subject towns, and farms, and villages 
 
 And gleaming streams, and woods, and waterfalls. 
 
 Up ! climb the oak-crown'd summit ! Hoober Stand 
 
 And Keppel's Pillar gaze on Wentworth's halls, 
 
 And misty lakes, that brighten and expand, 
 
 And distant hills that watch the western strand. 
 
 Up ! trace God's footprints where they paint the mould 
 
 With heavenly green, and hues that blush and glow 
 
 Like angels' wings ; while skies of blue and gold 
 
 Stoop to Miles Gordon on the mountain's brow. 
 
 Behold the Great Unpaid! the prophet, lo ! 
 
 Sublime he stands beneath the Gospel-tree, 
 
 And Edmund stands on Shirecliffe at his side ; 
 
 Behind him sinks, and swells, and spreads a soa 
 
 Of hills, and vales, and groves ; before him glide 
 
 Don, Rivelin, Lesley, wandering in their pride 
 
 From heights that mix their azure with the cloud ; 
 
 Beneath him spire and dome are glittering ; 
 
 And round him press his flock, a wo-worn crowd. 
 
 To other words, while forest echoes ring, 
 
 " Ye banks and braes o' bonny Boon," they sing ; 
 
 And, far below, the drover, with a start 
 
 Awaking, listens to the well-known strain, 
 
 Which brings Shihallian's shadow to his heart, 
 
 And Scotia's loneliest vales ; then sleeps again, 
 
 And dreams, on Loxley's banks, of Dunsinane. 
 
 The hymn they sing is to their preacher dear ; 
 
 It breathes of hopes and glories grand and vast, 
 
 While on his face they look with grief and fear ; 
 
 Full well they know his sands are ebbing fast ; 
 
 But, hark ! he speaks, and feels he speaks his last ! " 
 
 It was, perhaps, ten years after reading these glowing and graphic linos 
 that I stood with their author himself, one sunny Sunday mornino-, 
 
EBENEZEB ELLIOTT. 85 
 
 beneath "the Gospel-tree," at the top of Shh-eclifFe, as he pointed out 
 to me and made further comment on the most interesting features of 
 the vast and varied scene, observing how hke to the obeHsks of an 
 eastern city were some of the tall, and just then smokeless, Sheffield 
 chimnies, rising out of the distant crowd of roofs and domes. 
 
 Our personal acquaintance had grown out of a series of very natural 
 and characteristic events. It was impossible ever to forget the above 
 word-pictures, which had so charmed me in youth, at Nottingham ; 
 and in young manhood, I longed to express my gratitude to him at 
 Sheffield. Opportunities had in the meantime occurred of learning 
 something of his life : that he was the son of a Rotherham Radical ; a 
 slow boy at school ; a frequent tniant, and quick to be taught of 
 Nature in his wanderings in the meadov/s where Don and Rother meet,. 
 or still farther away among the wild Hallamshire streams, and in the 
 bleak moorland and mountain dells from which they descend to join, 
 *' like the five fingers of a hand," at Sheffield ; — that in those truancies 
 (to use a simile of John Clare's), he found his poems in the woods 
 and fields, and wrote them down ; — that he fell in love with a bonny 
 country girl, but never told his passion ; fell in love again, got married, 
 went into the battle of trade and failed ; then tried again, and won. 
 And how at length, with his family up-grown and his business as an 
 iron merchant more than established, but with the world-wide reputa- 
 tion of still being a working artisan or mechanic, he was reall}' dwelling 
 at Sheffield in suburban gentility, yet as Allan Cunningham once said 
 of him, " writing about the com laws, with the desperate energy of a 
 giant famishing on the highway for bread." 
 
 There can be no doubt, however, that Elliott had roughed it. His 
 sympathy with hard-handed toil was not of feather-bed growth ; and 
 when (being rather fond of paradox) he would sometimes show his 
 respect for labour by styling himself one of its most humble sons — just, 
 perhaps, to make some upstart brother feel ashamed of himself for 
 looking shy at it — he evidently drew as much upon memory as imagin- 
 ation for the features of his self-picture. Something of ah this I had 
 learnt from various sources, when, in the summer of 18S6, business 
 took me on a visit to Sheffield. 
 
 It was impossible at the time for any young lover of literature to 
 feel himself in that picturesque neighbourhood, with all its strange 
 mingling of the beautiful and wild, the primitive and grand, which 
 even its marvellous industry and smoke have never been able entirely 
 to obscure, without also feeling an additional interest in it from its being 
 the chosen home of two men like James Montgomery and the Corn 
 Law Rhymer. The former poet I had elsewhei'e seen and heard some 
 c 2 
 
36 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 years before ; and the latter, after some aching parleys with my diffi- 
 dence, I resolved to see. So calling one forenoon at his iron warehouse 
 in Gibraltar- street, where I was received with a kindly smile by one of 
 his sons, and ushered in, I had only to tell who I was and the feehng 
 of reverence for poetic genius that had constrained me, to be put at 
 ease immediately and made as welcome as an old acquaintance. It was 
 evident the laureate of labour felt a pleasure in my call, asking me with 
 much interest about some of the literary men and women of Notting- 
 hamshire who were known to me ; talking cheerfully and hopefully of 
 our yovmg "mutual friend "—Thomas Lister, the Quaker, who once 
 declined a good official birth rather than take an oath — an event that 
 led, through Lord Morpeth, to the abolishment of that legal disability ; 
 and then, softening his tone to the tenderest key, he gave me all the 
 information he possessed of the probable whereabouts and tried health 
 of the loved and lamented Charles Pemberton, " the Wanderer," whose 
 name was never mentioned by anyone that well knew him without deep 
 and generous emotion. 
 
 The little counting-house wherein our chat occurred, and in which 
 his son Benjamin, with his sleeves uptm'ned, came to join us after attend- 
 ing to a customer in another room, had about it a very orderly and 
 business-like, though quiet air. Yet the plain table (not desk) with 
 drawers at which he sat, a favourite bust or two in the room, as if just 
 for index, and the aspect of the man himself, all tended to make one 
 feel that other leaves than those of the day-book and the ledger were 
 sometimes written there. Behold him — not as in the wretched carica- 
 ture forming a frontispiece to some of his works, nor according to that 
 he once drew of himself in jest when he said, " What, after all, is the 
 Corn Law Ehymer like — made up, in appearance, as he is, of some- 
 thing of a Ranter preacher, something of a primitive Quaker, a shade 
 or two of the Jew clothesman, and a dash of the scavenger ? " True, 
 he was on that morning of my first call in a very calm and gentle, as 
 well as cheerful mood. All his passions were in repose, yet the 
 wrinkles and furrows of manifest thought and care had a peculiar play 
 of light amongst them that served to tell how a shade of indignation 
 might darken them if occasion came. Though an ardent admirer, in 
 some respects, of William Cobbett, a greater physical and physiog- 
 nomical contrast than they would have presented each to the other 
 could scarcely be imagined. A slender form, of little more than middle 
 height, clad in a black suit of decent but most simple cut ; a pair of 
 eye-glasses suspended from his neck by a narrow piece of black 
 galloon; an iron-gray complexion, and a roughed-up head of gray 
 hair, surmounting a square but rather uneven forehead ; somewhat 
 
EEENEZEK ELLIOTT. 37 
 
 projecting and bristly eye-brows ; an eye, not dark and flashing, but 
 rather light, and very earnest ; a manly nose, and a deep upper lip, 
 that looked as if it could, if called upon, be sufiiciently scornful ; an 
 affectionate rather than sensual chin ; a mouth that seemed — as was 
 just the fact — cut out for saying the kindest, tenderest, grandest, or 
 harshest things ; an expression of face, altogether, as if good-nature 
 and sarcasm were not unfrequently in the habit of playing hide and 
 seek behind it ; and a sententious utterance, in a tone of voice that 
 could be softened down into that in which you would like to hear the 
 most pathetic poetry, or raised to that in which you might imagine the 
 prophet Ezekiel addressing the degenerate Israelites. This latter — 
 the peculiar tone of the denouncing prophet — I observed, in after years, 
 he nearly always assumed, as if instinctively, when speaking of the 
 Corn Laws. Such at that time was the man, in — I suppose — about 
 his fifty-sixth year. 
 
 Occasional correspondence between us followed this interview, and, 
 when residing in my native place, on the edge of what once was 
 Sherwood Forest, I one morning received from him the letter subjoined, 
 of which I regret the impossibility of giving a. facsimile, the caligraphy 
 being as highly characteristic of him as the sentiments. It bears a 
 sixpenny post-mark, is written in a somewhat condensed but large and 
 rugged hand, and the words of the most emphatic passages, not under- 
 scored but leaning to the left, are penned in letters very enlarged — the 
 word " Yes ! " near the end of the extract from the lecture on Robert 
 Nicol being as large as what a printer would call double-pica, and, to 
 give it emphasis, spelled with two S's : — 
 
 Sheffield, 7th AprU, 1838. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I feel highly honoured by your letter of the third instant, and equally 
 hurt by your apology for writing it. Such an apology would be wrong if I were a 
 god ; but I am only a very ordinary man, precisely what any honest man may be, if 
 he chuses. What are my claims to be worshipped ? With a wish to be useful. I 
 have expressed in rhyme thoughts that are not good enough for prose. Yet you 
 apologise for addressing to me a letter which any man might be proud to receive. 
 
 Pemberton is now, I believe, about to sail from Gibralter to Malta. He is better, 
 he says, almost well, hut his hoarseness remains. If he stays abroad, he may live 
 long; but if he returns he will die of consumption, like poor Robert Nicol, and 
 many, many others ; best of the best. 
 
 My family being very large, and not altogether out of harm's way — it was my 
 wish to get invitations to lecture in Loudon, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, 
 Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, that I might see, before I die, Paris, Brussels, 
 Amsterdam, Hamburgh, Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland, ivitliout expence. 
 But I fear I have delivered my last lecture. I have for some time been visited by 
 sudden breathlessness, as if a valve closed at the bottom of my throat. The 
 symptoms usually follow, in a few hours, excitement of any kind, and especially 
 painful excitement. I find nothing painful in' leotm'ing but the sense of my 
 
38 CHAPTEB IV. 
 
 ignorance and Inefficiency. I am seriously warned, however, that I must abstain 
 from public speaking and all excitement, unless I mean to be hanged without a 
 rope. I passed the night after my last lecture in a state bordering on agony. 
 
 In sending your poems to the magazines you have adopted the right islan. Had 
 I done so at first, I could have got into notice thirty years before I did. 
 
 What I said of Kobert Nicol in my last lecture will apply to poor Millhouse, 
 and many others, best of the best. I will try to quote it from memory : " Eobert 
 Nicol 1 who was he ? Is he, then, already forgotten ? Why should you remember 
 a poor man's broken-hearted son? Kobert Nicol, soon after the publication of a 
 small volume of his poems — some of the finest ever written by a mere youth — be- 
 came editor of the ' Leeds Times,' the circulation of which paper he nearly trebled 
 in a few months. But in this country, " the labour of the poor is his life." 
 Eobert Nicol is another instance of self-sacrifice to duty — or, rather, to the death 
 struggle of competition, caused by laws which limit the food of a nation, whose 
 numbers they cannot limit. Unstained and pure, at the age of twenty-three, died 
 Scotland's second Bm'ns; happy in this, that without having been, like St. Paul, 
 " a blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious," he chose the right path. And 
 when the Terrible Angel said to his youth, ' Where is the wise ? where is the 
 ecribe ? where is the disputer ? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this 
 world?' he could and did answer, ' By the grace of God I am what I am.' But 
 do not the tears run down the widow's cheeks ? And is not her ci-y against them 
 who caused him to fail ? Yess ! ' for it is a truth worthy of all acceptation,' that 
 Bobert Nicol is another victim added to the thousands who are not dead but 
 gone before, to witness against the most merciless." I had hoped some of our 
 newspapers would have quoted these words, but was disappointed. 
 
 When shall we two meet again, mind to mind ? 
 
 I am, dear sir, yom's very truly, 
 Spencer T. Hall. Ebemezee Elliott. 
 
 Later in the same year, upon my venturing tlie issue of a rustic 
 little periodical called "The Sherwood Magazine," he volunteered me the 
 following shrewd warning: "Your magazine, I am afraid, will never 
 pay. No local magazine ever did. Stay! the 'Wath Magazme: ' ^/(fli 
 did pay, hut the subscribers 'didn't. So it went down, but not before the 
 editor had to pump for copy out of a dry well." And he was not very 
 far wrong as regarded mine. It went down too, after living, like all 
 such, its little day, — but not for want of "copy." And why should it ? 
 Contributions of all sorts — some of them very good ones — grew more 
 and more numerous ; and even a poor wandering clock-cleaner, in a 
 grave tone of patronage, most liberally assured me that, if I would only 
 continue it, he would himself " engage to furnish forty or fifty verses 
 a month, for a moderate consideration, if I could consent to allow him 
 the choice of subjects ! " — an offer with which Elliott was vastly amused 
 when I afterwards told him of it. 
 
 My first visit to Elliott's villa at Upperthorpe was in the spring of 
 1839. He had heard of my being in Sheffield, on the way to York, 
 and left word with a friend that I must go and dine with him, as there 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 89 
 
 would be a fine calf's head, which he always regarded as " a dish for a 
 poet." But he had a more generous purpose in view than that of 
 merely dining me — that of giving me friendly advice touching a literary 
 speculation into which he was fearful I was about to be drawn, and 
 which, had it been as he suspected, would no doubt have been ruinous. 
 On that, as on many subsequent occasions, his advice, without being 
 uncharitable, was shrewd and caustic ; and, like Burns, while touching 
 on the importance of shunning over-worldliness, he strongly urged the 
 value of riches and the honest gathering and saving of money— 
 
 " Not for to hide it in a hedge, 
 
 Nor for a train-attendant ; 
 But for the glorious privilege 
 
 Of being independent." 
 
 And such advice was made the more agreeable by my knowledge that, 
 but a short time before, he had in the most unaffected manner, with- 
 out any personal acquaintance with the man, sent a liberal sum of 
 money to a poor dying poet in another part of the kingdom. At 
 dinner he talked of Hazlitt and Madame de Stael as writers I ought to 
 read and study ; afterwards recited several passages from Carlyle's 
 "French Eevolution," which he pronounced "a great poem; " and 
 somewhat funnily, in allusion to a living writer, for whom he knew I 
 had much respect, said: "Ah! he's a fine brave fellow, and has 
 written some good things ; but, whenever he recites them, he makes 
 me think of John Wesley turned auctioneer." Alluding to my own 
 style of writing — after giving me praise that sounded painfully like 
 flattery — he added : ' ' But you are not artistic enough ; you should 
 give yourself more time. You write as the calf sucks. All my own 
 poems, like Pope's translations, were written nine times over." 
 
 Other conversation, of course, was intermingled— in which Mrs. 
 Elliott (a fine, tall, golden-haired, matronly lady, with much more pre- 
 cision of manner than the poet), freely and piquantly shared; whilst 
 their two interesting daughters, both then just blushing into woman- 
 hood, little more than listened. There were two topics that seemed to 
 excite him greatly. One was phrenology ; on mention of which he 
 sprang up and shouted, "Phrenology! Why there was Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, who had not in his army a general whose hat would not go 
 down to his shoulders, so comparatively small was his own head ; and 
 yet he was by far the greatest man of them all ! Then, there is 
 James Montgomery — no fool ! — and yet his head is half a turnip 1 " 
 He added, pacing about, with considerable vehemence : " You talk to 
 me, too, of your combativeness and destructiveness. Why, man 
 (beating the region of the heart with the right hand as he spoke). 
 
40 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 combativeness is here ! and (clenching his up-lifted fist, and rushing 
 towards me as if about to strike me down, he cried yet more loudly) 
 destructiveness is here ! " Still, I think he had a little hidden belief 
 in phrenology after all, which he opposed in this style chiefly (as he 
 did many other things) merely for the sake of fun and effect. The 
 last topic was the Corn Laws, on which he spoke long and warmly, 
 extolling General (then Colonel) Peyronnet Thompson as being one of 
 the greatest heroes in the then but partially organised struggle for 
 their abolition. He was fond of uttering startling aphorisms, and 
 much that he said in conversation might well be classed under the head 
 of " Anti-Corn-Law Ejaculations." Here is an instance when, speak- 
 ing of the final result of all restrictions of food, he lifted up his clenched 
 hands and his eyes towards heaven, and cried aloud in a terrific alto- 
 tenor voice, " God ! would they handcuff Thee ! " 
 
 Another year had passed, and I was again at dinner with him, at 
 Upperthorpe. Our talk on this occasion was chiefly of the scenery of 
 the district and its poetry ; and to hear him on these themes was a 
 great delight. His favourite of all the Hallamshire streams was the 
 Eivelin, and he gave me instructions for finding its most wild and 
 beautiful bends and falls. He knew them every one, and loved them as 
 dearest friends. The waters of that valley and its heather seemed to 
 murmur and bloom in his very soul. There was one of its tributaries 
 — not the "headlong Wyming," though that had several fine cascades, 
 but an overshaded brook, crossing the Glossop-road some mile or two 
 nearer Sheffield, which had no name at all poetical, until he christened 
 it "the Ribbledin " in one of his sweetest poems. The chief fall in 
 this he gave me directions to find in a stroll, and promised, after keep- 
 ing another engagement, to meet me there. But, owing to some of the 
 unpoetical people I met knowing it only as the Black-brook (so called, 
 no doubt, from its being in such depth of shade), and giving me 
 directions to a much less picturesque stream further on, I missed at 
 that time both the Ribbledin and its " godfather," which the latter 
 deeply regretted when we met in the evening, telling me how he and 
 his dog had been on the search for me up the valley, and how he had 
 carried with him " a bottle of fine sparkling ale " for my refreshment, 
 could we only have met. Here is part of the poem already alluded to 
 under the head of — 
 
 RIBBLEDIN ; OR THE CHRISTENING. 
 
 No name hast thou ! lone streamlet 
 
 That lovest Rivelin. 
 Here, if a bard may christen thee, 
 
 I'll call thee " Ribbledin ; " 
 
EBENElZEIi ELLIOTT. 41 
 
 Here, where fii'st murmuriug from thine urn, 
 
 Thy voice deep joy expresses; 
 And down the rook, lilce music, flows 
 
 The wildness of thy tresses. 
 
 iDim world of weeping mosses! 
 
 A hundred years ago, 
 Yon hoary-headed holly tree 
 
 Beheld thy streamlet flow : 
 See how he bends him down to hear 
 
 The tune that ceases never ! 
 Old as the rocks, wild stream, he seems, 
 
 White thou art young for ever. 
 
 Would that I were a river, 
 
 To wander all alone 
 Through some sweet Eden of the wild, 
 
 With music all my own ; 
 And bath'd in bliss, and fed with dew, 
 
 Distill'd o'er mountains hoary, 
 Return unto my home in heav'n 
 
 On wings of joy and glory ! 
 
 Or that I were a skylark, 
 
 To soar and sing above, 
 Filling all hearts with joyful sounds. 
 
 And my own soul with love ! 
 Then o'er the mourner and the dead. 
 
 And o'er the good man dying. 
 My song should come like buds and flowers 
 
 When music warbles flying. 
 
 Or that a wing of splendour, 
 
 Like yon wild cloud, were mine ! 
 Yon bounteous cloud, that gets to give, 
 
 And borrows to resign ! 
 On that bright wing, to climes of spring 
 
 I'd bear all wintry bosoms. 
 And bid hope smile on weeping thoughts. 
 
 Like April on her blossoms ; 
 
 Or like the rainbow, laughing 
 
 O'er Rivilin and Don, 
 When misty morning oalleth up 
 
 Her mountains, one by one, 
 While glistening down the golden broom. 
 
 The gem-like dew-drop raineth, 
 And round its little rocky isle 
 
 The little wave complaineth. 
 
42 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 that the truth of beauty 
 
 Were married to my rhyme, 
 That it might wear a mountain charra 
 
 Until the death of Time ! 
 Then, Ribbledin ! would all the best 
 
 Of Sorrow's sons and daughters 
 See Truth reflected in my song, 
 
 Like beauty in thy waters. 
 
 One year more and I had become Elliott's neighbour, when many a 
 pleasant fire-side hour and ramble we had together, generally accom- 
 panied by his favourite dog. This mention of the dog should, however, 
 be made with caution, as it brings to mind something not very compli- 
 mentary once said to another gentleman by the poet's son Frank in 
 reference to it. Frank was a young man of great originality as well as 
 attainments. He could write most beautiful poetry, but shrank from a 
 profession of literature because he could not come up to his own ideal, 
 or equal those writers he regarded as the best models. In his criti- 
 cisms, he was severe alike on himself and others, and would sometimes 
 say the most curious and censorious thiugs impromptu. Hence it was, 
 as he told me, that, being one day in conversation with some person 
 with whom he differed about his father's poetry, or his father's own 
 opinion of it, tlieu" talk ended by his opponent observing rather warmly, 
 " Well, but I should know something about it, for I often walk with 
 him;" and by Frank's immediate rejoinder, "Oh, yes! you may, no 
 doubt, understand him better for walking with him ; but you shouldn't 
 forget that his dog does the same I " There were two or three occasions 
 on which Frank said things equally pungent and ludicrous in my hear- 
 ing. We were once sitting near each other at a public meeting, where 
 one of the speakers bolted out his words so loudly and thickly as to 
 destroy almost entirely the effect of his oratory, when Frank, quietly 
 putting his lips to my ear, exclaimed, in by no means the lowest pos- 
 sible key, " Bull-and-Mouth ! " — The speaker who followed was one of 
 a different calibre, a small, eager, eaimest sort of man, who though 
 sadly lacking volume, laboured still to make a heavy impression by 
 pufiing and blowing between his words with might and main, when 
 Frank, turning towards me again, said in a whisper almost loud enough 
 to be heard on the platform, " Why doesn't the poor fellow get a 
 young earthquake to help him ? " 
 
 But this has been a longer digression than I had intended ; as I was 
 going to tell, more especially, of one ramble on which Elhott took me, 
 across the meadows of the Don, and up by the top of ShirecHffe, 
 naming as we went, and saying something of the qualities of, nearly all 
 
EBENEZEB ELLIOTT. 4S 
 
 tho flowers '\<re saw by our path. He was by no means an enthusiastic 
 admirer of Wordsworth, whose writings he regarded as generally too 
 wordy and diffus-e ; but whenerer we passed the lesser celandine, with 
 its little gleam of gold among the fresh green leaves, he seemed to 
 have a sincere pleasure in pointing to it as "Wordsworth's flower." 
 I remember particularly well how, in that walk, he lamented the 
 paucity of primroses in the neighbourhood, and we talked of getting 
 some roots elsewhere and quietly planting them in the hedge-bottoms 
 and by the sides of the little streams — a purpose which, from some 
 <jause, was never accomplished. He had distinguished the '* Gospel- 
 tree " from every other by a nail he once drove into it, and, when 
 pointing it out, lamented that, though in his poem he had called the 
 tree an oak, it was only an ash, and would have but a short life ; still, 
 he " hoped it would outlive the corn laws ! " And so it did ; and so 
 it will ! Not only when the corn laws, but when all the rancour and 
 strife they ever engendered and inflamed among the loyal of all parties 
 shall be mere matter of history, that tree will still flourish in the poet's 
 verse, like many other themes on which the Muse has confeiTed per- 
 petual bloom. 
 
 Elliott and James Montgomery had great respect each for the other's 
 genius ; and I remember his once holding up to me Montgomery's 
 versification as a model ; but there were several local and social reasons 
 why they were never personally very intimate, which was, perhaps, to 
 be regretted. Certainly, in many things, they were exceedingly dis- 
 similar. Montgomeiy, orthodox in his theology, cii'cumspect in his 
 language, diflident almost to timidity, and shrinking as much as duty 
 would let him from anything that could incur censure. Elliott, on the 
 other hand, bold in his condemnation of what he chose to regard as 
 cant, however respectable its pretensions ; confessing to no man what 
 religious faith he held ; often saying things the most outre, and even 
 coarse, as if in defiance of all politeness and in contempt of all approval ; 
 yet all the while — for proofs of it would now and then creep out — 
 yearning for distinction and fame with an intense though often dis- 
 guised yearning. Very remarkable, too, was his mannner of taking up 
 cudgels for a back-bitten enemy. When, one evening, at Upperthorpe, 
 conversation turned upon a public man for whom it was known he had 
 no respect, he expressed a sentiment which made Mrs. Elliot exclaim, 
 " Dear Ebby, I am quite surprised you should say that." Why ?" he 
 asked in a loud and earnest manner, "Why, dear," she replied, " be- 
 cause you know they say he is a hypocrite." "A hypocrite! " still 
 raising his voice and measuring his words out in a deliberate tone of 
 depr6ca,tion, "wJw says he's a hypocrite ? " "Mrs. So-and-so, my dear." 
 
44 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 (I withhold the names.) " Mrs. So-and-so !" shouted he, at the top of 
 his voice, "what business has Mrs. So-and-so to say he's a hypocrite ? 
 She has no right to smj it, for I am sure, if he be a hypocrite, he is by 
 far too deep a one ever to let that shallow fool know it ! " 
 
 So loud at times, and dramatic, were his harangues and recitations, 
 that a scandal once got abroad in Sheffield of domestic quarrels having 
 been overheard at Upperthorpe ; and I can easily imagine how unable 
 would be an ignorant servant, in his oa^ti or the nearest house, to 
 account for his impassioned utterances on any other hypothesis. One 
 evening's demonstration of this sort was notable in the extreme. We 
 were sitting very quietly, with our feet near the fire — Mrs. Elliott and 
 daughter (afterwards Mrs. Watkins) at a work-table not far off — when 
 I happened to say something occurring to me at the moment, in favour 
 of the aristocracy. Up in an instant jumped the poet, and, twining his 
 spectacle-suspender round his finger, began pacing about, just as John 
 Gough paces about his platform when lecturing, until excitement being 
 at the highest pitch, in a tone corresponding, he — still pacing backward 
 and forward, and with his hair bristling up — thus broke forth : " You ! 
 and why should you be one of theii- apologists ? What have they not 
 done ? Have they not taxed the very light ? (The window tax was 
 not then repealed.) Would they not like to box up the sunshine, that 
 they might deal it out in pennyworths ? and bad measure they would 
 make you ! Would they not like to catch the very rain from heaven 
 and put their own price to you on every drop ? I ask this, because 
 they have tried to chain the winds that would waft us bread ! Wliere 
 200,000 sheaves of corn once grew, there are now 200,000 people, 
 with no corn to eat ! But there will come a reckoning for this some 
 day, when, in the words of my friend, Thomas Carlyle, they will ' have 
 to thank God for bankruptcy ! ' Only see how they have oppressed 
 the poor, and so crushed out of his heart every motive for thankfulness, 
 as to make him almst forget to worship ! But (his voice suddenly 
 dropping) He ivill be worshipped. They can't prevent the mosses of 
 the dell from lifting up theii- tiny hands to Him! " Having said which, 
 he came and took his seat by my side, adding, in the gentlest and 
 kindliest tone, "Yet I ought, most assuredly, to make some exception, 
 for Lord Fitzwilliam's steward once gave me a piece of bread when I 
 was hungry." From this mood a sudden transition was made to a 
 conversation about the pathos of Eobert Bums. 
 
 It is not my business or pleasure here to gossip much about the rela- 
 tion in which the Corn-law Rhymer stood, or seemed to stand, to his 
 family and friends ; but a word on his public position in Sheffield, so 
 far as I could judge of it, may not be altogether out of place. He 
 
EBENKZER ELLIOTT. 45 
 
 never rushed into society ; nor did it ever seem to me that he very 
 much courted it. Yet was he highly sensitive to puhUc approbation, 
 and evidently valued any sincere complimentary recognition. He had 
 an unfortunate habit of sometimes breaking out into language worse 
 than " calling a spade a spade ; " and this was taken advantage of by 
 his enemies, as an excuse for blackballing him, where he could, had he 
 been gifted with more of the siiaviter in mudo, have outshone them all. 
 When he did appear in public it was not without effect, yet once, when 
 addressing 15,000 people in Paradise Square, that effect was sadly 
 marred by the slip of a word not usually spoken among the polite, 
 though pretty well understood by the crowd of cutlers. To my know- 
 ledge he deeply regretted it, but it was past recall, and he seldom spoke 
 in public afterwards. I think it was before that event that a meeting 
 was held in one of the public halls concerning the propriety of admitting 
 novels into the Mechanics' Library, in Watson's Walk. The sectarians 
 of nearly all creeds raised a strong opposition to the idea, and one 
 speaker dwelt at some length on the evil that had been done among 
 the young by the publication of " Jack Shepherd," just then very 
 popular. Elliott's voice rang powerfully forth on the other side. He 
 alluded to some of the parables of Scripture, and wound up by saying 
 that had Jack Shepherd himself been a reader of some of the best 
 novels, it would never have been his fate to be hanged for stealing. 
 
 It was pleasant to meet "the Bard of the Beggars," as he sometimes 
 called himself, in quiet circles, where, amongst men like John Fowler, 
 the biographer of Pemberton, Paul Rodgers, and good but sorrowing 
 Francis Fisher, he would listen as well as talk, reciting the productions 
 of others in preference to his own, even when something of his own was 
 asked for ; yet manifestly pleased to hear himself and his own referred 
 to. James Montgomery was the chief star in one local constellation, 
 including many of the elite, where one of his subsequent biographers 
 duly Boswelled what he said and did ; and very worthy was that sweet 
 singer of Israel of all the attention and honour that could be paid him. 
 But the litttle set that warmed round Elliott was of a much more 
 unconventional sort — consisting chiefly of people who thought more 
 independently, and freely uttered what they thought. 
 
 There was one rather large tea gathering which I can never forget. 
 It was when Samuel Bamford and John Critchley Prince, in the zenith 
 of their popularity, came on a kindly visit to some literary confreres 
 in Sheffield, where an evening was appointed to give them a fitting 
 welcome. Elliott was a warm admirer of Bamford, had reviewed his 
 works admirably in "Tait's Magazine," could recite his "Pass of 
 Death" and "Hours in the Bowers" without the book, and on this 
 
46 CHA.PTEK IV. 
 
 occasion acted, not as chairman, for the chair was occupied by some 
 one else, but naore as a sort of patriarchal host. Bamford's own 
 recital, by request, of the two poems I have mentioned, told well, as 
 did one or two of poor Prince's songs and the recitation of his "Epistle 
 to a Brother Poet," at the end of which Elliott shouted, " Aye ? while 
 we can have young poets among us like this, some of us may yet live 
 to see the corn laws abolished." Elliott recited a humourous satire, 
 but whether of his own writing or not he would not tell, and, as it is 
 not in his printed works, we never knew. There was an association 
 with that visit of the two Lancashire bards, which was at once very 
 pleasureable and painful in its effect upon me. In making their way 
 across the Peak, from Manchester towards Sheffield, they happened 
 to bait at an inn in Hathersage, where Bamford, picking up by chance 
 my little volume of " The Forester's Offering," expressed great plea- 
 sure on reading one of the poems, and being told that I resided in 
 the neighbourhood of SheiSeld (as he informed me afterwards) resolved 
 to see me in my home. Thus it was that, during the visit in question, 
 I was one- morning startled, very soon after daylight, on answering a 
 knock at the door, by finding Bamford standing there almost knee- 
 deop in snow, it being in the thick of winter, and he having walked up 
 from Sheffield (a distance of neai-ly two miles) in furtherance of that 
 friendly resolve to breakfast with me. Now Elliott had already invited 
 brave and honest " Sam " to dine with his family that day at Upper- 
 thorpe, which was nearly as far on the opposite side of the town. It 
 would have been a great, as it was an exceedingly desirable, event for 
 both. They had heard and said much of each other, but had never 
 before met ; and the Corn Law Rhymer in anticipation of it had said, 
 the night before, to Mrs. Elliott, " be sure and let us have to-morrow 
 the best dinner you ever made, for I am going to bring you a poet fit 
 TO BE SEEN ! " Alas, for the disappointment ! Glad and proud as I 
 (then a very young writer) was of Bamford's most welcome visit to me, 
 especially on such a morning, the veneration and regard I felt for 
 Elliott also, made me fearful of detaining him one minute too late at 
 my Ecclesall cottage, so that I rather hurried than delayed him when 
 he took his departure. But, as fate would have it, before Bamford got 
 down into Sheffield, his walk in the snow had pulled off the heel of one 
 of his shoes, and he was obliged to call and wait somewhere while a 
 new one was put on. All this time Elliott was waiting anxiously at his 
 warehouse to take him forward to Upperthorpe. But the stated hour 
 having passed, Bamford supposed Elhott would be gone without him, 
 and never went at all. I doubt much if poor Elliott had any dinner 
 'that day, for he was nearly broken-hearted about it, his anticipation of 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 47 
 
 the treat of their having such a meeting being so sanguine and cheery. 
 Nor was that all. Elliott felt quite sure, when he learnt where 
 Bamford had been, that I, by force of unfair hospitality — as I knew of 
 his own invitation — had invited the great Radical up, and kept him at 
 my house too long — a piece oi gaucherie I would have buried myself in 
 the snow rather than perpetrate. They met at the evening tea-party 
 in the town, where Elliott made a somewhat open complaint, and, 
 though Bamford explained matters as well as he briefly could, it was 
 hardly an occasion for telling the whole story of the shattered shoe ; 
 BO that Elliott still felt persuaded I had something to do with it, and, 
 if he ever forgave me, never forgot the disappointment, nor did I, for 
 it yet most keenly pains me whenever I think of it. 
 
 The last time I saw Elliott was when he was about leaving Sheffield 
 for his newly bought place at Hargitt Hill, beyond Barnsley. He 
 would have me to join him in some oysters and a glass of ale, near the 
 place where now stands his public statue, after which he went with me 
 to my home, then at the Hollis Hospital, and spent with us the whole 
 afternoon. That must be somewhat more than twenty-three years 
 ago. William Howitt, in one of his interesting books, John Watkins 
 (the poet's son-in-law), January Searle, and other biogi'aphers, have 
 given pictures of his life, and that of some of his family, at Hargitt 
 Hill ; and some of them have told us also how he died, December 1st, 
 1849, in his 69th year, and how his body was laid in the rural church- 
 yard of Darfield, in a spot that looks down, and o'er the winding river 
 Dearn, on the broad champaign. 
 
 Peace to his ashes 1 He was a remarkably-gifted, patriotic, indus- 
 trious, and sober man, achieving a double fortune, one half by mercan- 
 tile, and the other half by late-paid Hterary labour, and was generous, 
 according to his means, to all around him. For thirty years his earlier 
 poems were little heeded ; but when the question of abolishing the 
 corn-laws had seized on public feeling, he struck that chord, and ever 
 after continued to be its champion-minstrel. Sometimes he wrote with 
 wondrous power for his cause ; and his politics gained a popularity 
 which to his poeti-y had been denied. Yet Southey, a man of opposite 
 cast, saw deeper than many, descried the poet through the politician, 
 and not only aided in bringing his earlier works into better notice, but 
 in getting one of his sons (who became a clergyman, as did another 
 son afterwards,) a hving in the church. Against the evils he abhorred 
 he would call on his Maker to "fulmine o'er darken'd worlds a storm of 
 light;" yet, to use another line, could "pity the scorner of earth's 
 meanest thing." Strong alike in his sympathies and antipathies, he 
 sometimes did much to neutralise the former by the latter. He had 
 
48 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 also a habit of self-depreciation and flattery of others — especially of 
 young authors — which often did harm, by making them vain, when he 
 most likely meant nothing more than a little good-natured encourage- 
 ment ; and certain it is, good taste would gladly ignore many things he 
 wrote. Yet those who knew him well could easily believe that he not 
 unfrequently barbed his prejudices with sarcasm, from sheer bravado 
 and contempt for what he might — perhaps not always unjustly— regard 
 as orthodox inanity. All who read them wiU grant that there are 
 beauties, and more than beauties in his Corn Law Rhymes, which 
 will long have fame, and that he as honestly as fervently worked in the 
 cause he espoused, with others whose names do not take rank with 
 those of Cobden, Bright, and Peel, only because tbey toiled in the cool 
 of its seed-time, and not in the heat of its harvest. With all his zeal. 
 Ins face and his pen were ever set against physical violence; and in the 
 words of his own " Funeral Hymn," 
 
 " He thank'd the God of earth and sky, 
 For al! that creep, and all that fly ; 
 For weeds that silent anthems raise, 
 And thoughts that make their silence praise. 
 
 For every thorn and every flower ; 
 For conquering right and baffled jjower ; 
 For all the meek and all the proud, 
 He thank'd the Lord of sun and cloud. 
 
 For soul to feel and sight to see, 
 In all thy works but types of thee ; 
 For all thy works, and for thy word, 
 In life and death, he thanked thee, Lord ! 
 
 He thanked thee too for struggles long ; 
 For storms, that make the feeble strong ; 
 For every pang thy goodness gave ; 
 For hope deferr'd, and for the grave." 
 
 And in the lowly grave he rests, the gi-ave of his choice, where the 
 voice of the throstle, in the sunny spring time, is heard ; on which the 
 notes of the early lark can fall ; where the wild flowers bloom and the 
 wild bees hum around, while his spirit elsewhere receives its just rewai-d 
 from the God he loved and worshipped. 
 
j/tuptm' J'ifh. 
 
 J3K. SAMUEL BEOWN. 
 
 (March, 1866.) 
 
 " Without caring to protest against tbis amiable idol-worship of the immortal 
 Lavoisier, we deny that doctrinal or scientific oliemistry is the contemporary of 
 either the printing-press or any other modern instrument, whether of thought or of 
 handiwork. The Lavoisierian chemistry was only one of the epochs of the life of 
 that science. But there were epochal developments before that of Lavoisier, just as 
 the Daltonian theory has come after it. Each of these movements had not only its 
 grand and abiding truth to bring forward, but also some important and deciduous 
 error to leave behind it, as might easily be shown to be the case with the French 
 chemistry itself. • • • A true history of the science in fact would exhibit one 
 continuous stream of truth mingled with error, from the origin of alchemy down to 
 the latest discoveries and views. • • • It is desirable, however, to take a pre- 
 liminary glance at the ideas of classical Greece respecting the theory of nature, for 
 it will he found that those ideas have not a little to do not only with alchemy in 
 all its stages of evolution, but also with the chemistry of Dalton and the future. 
 ■ • Nor will the reader grudge the time and the labour bestowed on such 
 distant topics, when he finds that the consideration of them is fraught with lessons 
 of importance. He will learn that man never labours in vain when he is sincere, 
 devout, and industrious in his endeavours. • • • He 'will perceive to his deliglit, 
 moreover, that there is no such thing as revolution in the progress of science, hut 
 only the large and solemn growth of a living creature. Nor ivill it he difficult to 
 extend such precious verities from this, their private and particular sphere , into the 
 grander domain of universal history." 
 
 Let it not be forgotten that the above most significant passage v/as 
 wiitten by the person of whom we are about to read in tlie present 
 chapter. 
 
 Somewhat like Galileo in relation to astronomy, or Keats to poetry, 
 or Beethoven to music, lived, laboured, enjoyed, suffered, died> and 
 will live again, Dr. Samuel Brown in relation to chemistry. Galileo 
 
50 CHAPTER V. 
 
 knew more than circumstances permitted him to prove to his age ; — 
 nothing at the time at which it was written, (long before Fulton's day,) 
 could have appeared more chimerical than this couplet of Darwin's — 
 
 " Soon shall thy arm, iinconquered steam ! afar 
 Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid oar ; " — 
 
 Keats poured out beautiful and true poetry, to which, in Wilsonian lan- 
 guage, " angels, suspending their harps, might have mutely listened," 
 but not being to tunes in vogue, it was denounced by the arbitrary 
 critics of the hour as out of harmony, pretentious, and vain ; — while 
 it is said that some of the finest conceptions and compositions of 
 Beethoven have never adequately reached the ear of the world for want 
 of fitting instrumentality to convey them. And the brain of Samuel 
 Brown — that wonderful laboratory of mental chemics which may yet 
 some day find corroboration in physics, failed to make its grandest con- 
 ceptions manifest to his age only, perhaps, for want of some fitting 
 menstruum which time, however distantly, may still supply : for in his 
 chemistry he was a poet ; and how often has history shown, though it 
 may have taken ages to embody the prophetic trath in material fact, 
 that the conception of the poet, the deduction of philosophy, and the 
 realisation of the chemist or the mechanic, are a three-in-one ! Nay, it 
 was our Samuel Brown, while himself yet young, who wrote — " Could 
 the sacred theme be illustrated by the uncertain play of glowing figures, 
 a poet might declare that nature is not the prison-house of the soul, but 
 the nursery of his young endowments. • • By man alone is the high- 
 est function of the soul in nature ever performed ; and even by him 
 onlj imelj, neYBT contmuouslj, and alu-ai/s j^ai-tially as yet. 
 Manifold nature is the express image, and the true contemplation of 
 nature is the jubilee of the soul. The man in whom such contempla- 
 tion transpires, is among the blessed. He utters his joy ; he builds his 
 temples, carves shapes of ideal grace, paints the perennial beauty of 
 embodied Godhood, or hymns, in melting music, the harmony that 
 penetrates and dissolves him. He sings God and nature in the life of 
 man. If all the ravishing utterances of sense, and even the higher har- 
 monies of poetry, be for him swallowed up of the serener passion for 
 the True (which enfolds the beautiful as the sky embosoms the glowing 
 stars), he proclaims the law of God in nature. Such are the artist, 
 the poet, and the sage, — Handel and Raphael, Shakspere and Homer, 
 Spinoza and Plato. There is a form above them all, as far as the 
 heaven is above the earth. It is the saint. He realises, or wrestles to 
 realise, the ideal life. • • • A true life is the wisest philosophy ; a 
 beautiful life is the noblest work of art. Its melody is music, its 
 repose is the perfection of form, its radiance colours the world v/ith 
 
DB. SAMUEL BROWN. 61 
 
 its celestial hues, its eyo builds everj^vhere a fane ; and a good life is 
 the only true and beautiful Theology." It was only the earlier part of 
 this eloquent utterance I was intending to quote ; but the latter part, 
 although it may not strictly bear upon, will by no means mar our 
 argument. 
 
 It was in the winter of 1844-5, that dining one evening at the table 
 of Mrs. Crowe, in Edinburgh, I found myself in a select party of ten, 
 including, besides the distinguished hostess, Mr. George Combe, with 
 his calm open brow, silvery haii-, and deliberate speech ; Professor 
 (afterwards Sir) J. Y. Simpson, with his round practical head and not 
 less practical manner and tone ; Professor Groodsir, of whose person I 
 have a less clear recollection — though I do remember something 
 about him good-natured and cheerful ; tall, genial, manly Professor 
 Edward Forbes, just then down on a brief visit to old friends, from 
 London ; Mr. (now Dr.) and Mrs. Robert Chambers, taking a quiet, 
 deep, unaffected interest and occasional part in whatever intellectual 
 question came uppermost ; and one for whom it was impossible not to 
 feel friendship at first sight — the grandson of the celebrated commen- 
 tator on the Bible, of his name — son of the originator of itinerating 
 libraries — the Dr. Samuel Brown we are writing of, vrith his somewhat 
 pointed though not projectant features, his look altogether ingenuous, 
 his modest heart-in-hand manner, and voice most musically clear; 
 and with him another young gentleman, whose name I cannot now re- 
 call, but of whom Dr. Brown afterwards wrote me as " a very St. John 
 of a friend" he should like me to meet again with himself, at Glasgow, 
 where they were about that time engaged in some important chemical 
 experiments. 
 
 How apt we are to regret, in after years, when too late — when the 
 good and true we might have better known are passed away — that we 
 ever missed the slightest opportunity of kindly intercourse with them ! 
 Something occurred to prevent my getting to Glasgow just then, and 
 when I did go over neither Dr. Brown nor his young friend was there. 
 As for me, I had soon to go to London ; my own life was ardently 
 devoted to a work which long absorbed nearly every faculty ; and 
 three years passed on, to our subsequent mutual regret, without more 
 than the most casual correspondence between us — the greater loss 
 being on my part; for of all " man-childed Scotland's" gifted sons, 
 Samuel Brown was certainly one of the most gifted, ingenuous, intel- 
 lectual, and pure. 
 
 But before going further, let us glance at a few particulars of his per- 
 sonal history. He was born at Haddington, the fourth son of the good 
 Rev. Samuel Brown there, February 23rd, 1817. He seems to have 
 
 T> 9. 
 
52 CHAPTER V. 
 
 been different from any of his immediate family, but not unlike his ma- 
 ternal grandmother, who was noted for a " rare and ill-beloved trick of 
 thinking for herself, and of trusting her thought." There was nothing 
 extraordinarily precocious in his younger years. "He was," says a 
 faithful biographer in the "North British Review," " thoroughly and to 
 the soul a boy ; not over studious ; his occupations, his amusements, 
 the whole tenor of his life, those of a healthy-miuded boy ; " but — and 
 this went through all his after-life — ' ' whatever he did, he did it heartily, 
 almost enthusiastically." He was a lover of good-natured fun and 
 frolic, rambled or rested just according to his mood, mated with lads 
 of like pursuit and played a kindly joke on them, or took one from them, 
 as the case might be, but iwted everything and gave it thought. On the 
 whole, then, his character in youth may be said to have been cheery, 
 sociable, and happy, allowing him to grow naturally and gradually into 
 those studies and labours which ultimately became his very life. 
 
 There was nothing extraordinary in his course of learning prior to 
 entering the University of Edinburgh in the session of 1832-3. He 
 mastered whatever he took in hand ; but in truth, his bent was shown, 
 not so much on the beaten tracks of learning, as in the delight and 
 earnestness with which he was wont to penetrate the arcana of Nature, 
 away from the old spheres of scientific contest and eclat. Not that he 
 did not value the past or the established. He valued it at its full worth ; 
 but it was his nature to start where others had left off, instead of wast- 
 ing time in labouring to adorn himself with the laurels they laid down. 
 He never shunned a useful position, but cared the least of any man I 
 ever knew for a merely honorary one. Hence the history of his medi- 
 cal curriculum glitters but little with prize-medals ; yet his doctor's 
 degi'ee was honourably gained, and he was also at different times presi- 
 dent of the Hunterian and Eoyal Physical Societies. The truth pro- 
 bably is, as his biographer hints, that he entered the university more 
 for the sake of the study and discipline prescribed than for the ordinary 
 ends of a medical student. With one of the laughing letters he wrote me 
 many years afterwards, when I had myself been made a little anxious 
 about obtaining academical degrees, he sent me a beautiful and most 
 hearty certificate, but frankly told me at the same time that he had 
 himself only one degree — that of M.D. — and of it he was ashamed!" 
 Nevertheless, had he been tested by anyone adequate to the object, 
 there is probably no branch of medical science in which he might 
 not have shone brighter than the majority of his compeers. Yet with 
 knowledge, not gleaned but reaped, from almost every field of observa- 
 tion and discovery, and with heart and spirit as catholic as his intellect, 
 he staked his all on chemistry, as more capable than any other science 
 
DP... SAMUEL BROWN. 06 
 
 of revealing God's will in Nature to him, and in the pursuit of that he 
 became at once a hero and a martyr. 
 
 While Samuel Brown, John Goodsir and Edward Forbes were yet 
 students together, they founded a society the great object of which, 
 whatever its name, seems to have been that of mutual encouragement 
 to the most unshackled research, but from this, ere long. Brown found 
 himself wending almost alone. In 1837 his course of study at the 
 university was interrupted by his going to St. Petersburg to join his 
 eldest brother, a medical student there, preparatory to the completion 
 of his curriculum at Berlin. At St. Petersburg he was unfortunately 
 seized with typhus fever, followed by malignant dysentery — the com- 
 mencement of a disease which shattered his constitution and at length 
 wore out his life. You have read how King Alfred made all his greatest 
 and noblest achievements while an internal disease was slowly laying 
 his body low ; and so it was with Samuel Brown ; but he never faltered 
 in the prosecution of his scientific experiments so long as strength 
 remained. In 1839 he was again heavily stricken by the death of his 
 excellent father, to whom his attachment had been most close and tender 
 — more than ordinarily so even for persons in that near relation ; and 
 after this he flung himself, heart and soul, into his chemical work. At 
 Berlin he had learnt from Mitscherlich of isomorphism and isomer- 
 ism, with which that distinguished man's name had become identified 
 in the world of physics. Isomorphism has been defined as the quality 
 of assuming the same ciystaline form though composed of different ele- 
 ments or proximate principles, yet with the same number of equivalents ; 
 or, in other words, the quality of a substance by which it is capable of 
 replacing another in a compound, without an alteration of its primitive 
 form. Isomerism is defined as the identity of elements and proportions, 
 with diversity of properties. The scientific reader will see at once how 
 these doctrines were likely to bring those who entertained them to a re- 
 consideration of the pretensions and claims of ancient alchemy ; and 
 Samuel Brown was the more likely to be dravm in that direction from 
 the love he bore to a maxim of Coleridge, that " There are errors Avhich 
 no wise man will treat with derision, lest they should be the reflection 
 of some great truth yet below the horizon." Some have accused him in 
 this of having joined the ancient masters in chemistry in pursuing a 
 " will-o'-the-wisp " of the imagination. But those who have been taught 
 how all the elements and agencies in creation may have been educible 
 from one principle and may be reducible to it again, as I think was be- 
 lieved by Sir Isaac Newton himself — should, it seems to me, be rather 
 diifident about foreclosing so great a question ; and that Brown had the 
 courage to enter upon and ardently pursue the investigation, even though 
 
54 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 he did fail on being called upon for demonstration, ought to entitle his 
 bravery and industry to something better than censure. There are two 
 things, however, which the world but slowly forgives — one is success ; 
 the other, failure ; and, for the time, he failed. Ah, he failed ! and 
 who has ever counted the cost to the world, and to him ? He was 
 then but twenty-four years of age. 
 
 In the meantime — in 1840-1 — Dr. Brown, in conjunction with gifted 
 Edward Forbes, had appeared before the Edinburgh world (and that 
 means something) as a lecturer on the Philosophy of the Sciences. How 
 different the men ! yet here they harmonised, and did much to improve 
 the tone of popular lecturing in that grand old city. It might be three 
 years afterwards that I had a fine opportunity of seeing some of the 
 effects of their labours in this direction, when a mass of intellectual 
 foreheads, and many grateful looks, met one who, in his turn, was 
 doing as they had done, in disrobing mystery and making appreciable 
 some of the more recondite truths of nature. But Brown's lectures were 
 scarcely calculated for the crowd, though none could hear them without 
 some delight. To the more highly cultivated, young as he was, they 
 afforded the truest pleasure ; and what wonder, when he had already 
 won from men like Sir William Hamilton, Jeffrey, Chalmers, Hare, 
 Carlyle, Christison, and Forbes, "the testimony, as warm as words 
 could speak, that, turn where he might, victory and fame were sure to 
 him." His four profoundly interesting critical lectures on " The Atomic 
 Theory," and his unrivalled expositions of the science of Methodology, 
 had done much to win him this appreciance when, in the autumn of 
 1843, in consequence of the resignation of Dr. Hope, the chair of 
 chemisti-y in the University of Edinburgh became vacant. By the 
 urgent advice of his friends. Dr. Brown, young as he was, became a 
 candidate, having for his rival another most worthily distinguished man, 
 Dr. William Gregory. There was no little anxiety and excitement on 
 this occasion, and each party, no doubt, used all legitimate means to 
 ensure success. But both could not win, and Dr. Brown's chance of 
 being elected depended on the result of one most singular and subtle 
 class of experiments. In a paper entitled "Experiments on Chemical 
 Isomerism for 1840-1," read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, by 
 his friend Professor Christison, Dr. Bro^vn had not only asserted the 
 possibility of transmuting carbon into silicon, but laid down certain for- 
 mula for conducting illustrative experiments. Passing over all his 
 other claims to the professorship, his chance was made to hinge entirely 
 on his demonstration of this ; and in the experimental tests to which 
 he was subjected — and not before — it was found that there was such an 
 imperfection in the proof as must put an end at once to any hope of 
 
DR. SAMUEL BBOWN. 55 
 
 his election. He had been in some inexphcable way misled in one of 
 the antecedent experiments on which his faith was founded, and a greater 
 mortification to an honourable and sensitive spirit, or disappointment 
 to his friends, it is impossible to conceive. 
 
 This failure had a great and most important effect upon him. There 
 is no doubt that in one sense, after all his days and nights of toil in his 
 little surburban house and laboratory of two storeys, — his patient en- 
 durance, his brain-sweat, his manual industry, and strong hope, — -he 
 was cast down to the dust ; but, if that fall killed the " old man," it 
 was that the "new man" within him might rise more nobly. It is 
 God alone, after all, that can tell what is failure or what is success in 
 the highest sense; and in that "untoward event," as it appeared to 
 Samuel Brown, there was a transmutation far more sublime than that 
 of carbon into silicon — a resurrection to a higher life by. far than he 
 might ever have dreamed of had this world's honours been laid thick 
 upon him. It isolated him, no doubt, from much that he had desired, 
 but it compensated by giving him a warmer and more loving unity 
 Vv^iTH THE Being who neveb fails ; and henceforth, instead of being 
 merely an instructor of pupils, he became, though without any pre- 
 tension to it — perhaps almost to himself unconsciously — a teacher of 
 teachers, in philosophies as far transcending material chemistry as 
 the heavens transcend the earth. 
 
 Still his chemical experiments went on — still he daily penetrated more 
 deeply into the arcana of his wondrous science — and still the disease 
 that commenced at St. Petersburg was rapidly wearing his body down ; 
 and marriage with his cousin. Miss Helen Littlejohn, and a sweet little 
 daughter, though they brought him many joys, brought but little re- 
 turn of health. It was from this time — 1852 — my friendly intercourse 
 with him, from several causes, became more warm and constant. A 
 floating paragraph about some of his interesting lectures caught my eye, 
 and made me ask him if it were possible to get a reading of them in 
 extenso. He replied — 
 
 Portobello— Bath-st. 16— May 1, 1852. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I now dwell here, three miles from Edinburgh, by the sea shore, 
 peacefully. Those lectm-es of mine were only four in number, and I have no thought 
 of publishing them. They were extemporarily spoken things, which I gave in order 
 to supply the place of Isaac Taylor, who could not come to Edinburgh at that time, 
 on account of ill health. 
 
 I have often both heard and thought of you since we met. If you come near this 
 sea-shore of mine, you must come and see me and my wife and my child. The 
 last would please the Sherwood Forester, for her name is Spring — little Spring we 
 call her — an old family name, not a fanciful invention of our sea-side wits. Harriet 
 Martineau comes to us a few days this July. Mrs. Crowe is often with us. • • • 
 Pray, what are you about now ! Any more wonders and signs ? any more cures ? 
 
56 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 I have been seeing a little of Mesmerism lately in Gregory's hands. Did you hap- ■ 
 pen to see my review of Eeichenbach in the " North British " this day last year ? 
 
 I did not get your note till yesterday evening, on my return from Aberdeen, where 
 I had been on a visit. Happy to hear more particularly from you. • • • lam 
 sincerely yours, Samuel Beown. 
 
 A hearty correspondence followed this, in which he told me more about 
 his ailment. At that time I was living in a valley at Ashover, in Der- 
 byshire, — a valley calm and peaceful as a perpetual Sunday, — and asked 
 him to come and see me, and undergo some mild treatment for his ma- 
 lady, when he answered thus : — 
 
 Portobello, Sunday. 
 
 My dear Hall, — I have had a sort of relapse, else I should have answered your 
 last kind letter sooner. I am now almost well. It is fixed that we settle in one of 
 the western suburbs of London, such as Kew or Old Brompton ; but it will be two 
 months or more henoe. I am to go to my mother's in East Lothian this week for 
 a preliminary change of air ; and then I shan't have a day to spare from arranging, 
 packing, etc. It will not, therefore, be in my power to accept your hearty invita- 
 tion this autumn ; but we shall see what next Harvest-time will bring as ! By the 
 way, for three years back I have been much of a vegetarian, and now am wholly so 
 as well as a teetotaller ; so that I shall transcend even your frugality and innocence. 
 
 Thanks for your loving peep at poor dear Ireland. By the way, did you chance 
 to read two consecutive articles of mine in the " Massachusetts Quarterly Eeview," 
 (June and September, 1849) on Mesmerism? I made honourable though casual 
 mention of you two or three times over ; for I had seen and read your book at its 
 appearing — Mrs. Crowe's copy. 
 
 As I am still weakish and have a world of letters to answer, I must be brief. 
 Cherishing the hope of one day walking from tree to tree in Sherwood Forest for 
 many a mile with the Forester, I am, yours very truly, Samuel Bbows. 
 
 Several cheery letters I received in the course of the next six months, 
 and then this, on his receipt of my little work, "The Peak and the 
 Plain — Scenes in Woodland, Field and Mountain : " — 
 
 5, St. James's-square, Notting-hill, 
 Friday, Feb. 11th, 1853. 
 My dear Spencer Hall, — I received your charming country book on the morning 
 of Ash-Wednesday (an appropriate day for going with you into the sweet wilderness 
 of Nature) and I had read several chapters of it before the arrival of your note in 
 the evening. It is just one of the books that I love, when fi-ee to lap myself in 
 the wise idleness of a ramble. A city invalid like me, too, is always so glad to be 
 led out by the quiet waters ! I cannot go to them, but lo ! they can come to me. 
 Blessings on your hills and dales, and living streams — the blessings of the sick, the 
 busy dwellers in towns who are not yet lost to youth and innocence, and the sor- 
 rowful of every kind ! • • • This little piece of yours is a sweet thing. It will 
 give a world of pleasure wherever it comes ; but it is not in its nature to make a 
 noise. • • • Let me beg of you to send a copy to Thomas Aird, of Dumfries — a 
 true and noble but not popular poet, congenial with you in many things, and I shall 
 write him suggesting he should notice it in either his own paper or in Blackwood, 
 for whom he writes not a little. If you send him a note, tell him I put it into your 
 
DR. SAMUEL BROWN. 57 
 
 head, because I knew he should delight in your pastoral spirit. Otherwise I shall 
 
 do what I can for it. 1 think I can promise you an article in the . The 
 
 is stingy, and does not love simplicity and nature. But every organ is 
 
 chokeful of what seems more to the pm'pose, namely, of things which are already 
 making a noise. • • • 
 
 So you have settled at Derby. That is right. All success and honour to you, 
 say I. I do think I shall very certainly see you there sometime next summer. 
 Indeed I sometimes actually think of going down now to be mesmerised by you for 
 my weary little malady. 
 
 My wife is well, and thanks you. So is little Spring, that smile of God upon me 
 — as full of glee and a kind of singing as the sweetest of your rills. 
 God bless you, my brave Forester. — Yours most faithfully, 
 
 Samuel Beown. 
 
 P.S. — I send you a thing of mine, some two years old, which I am sure you will 
 
 enjoy, were it only for the passage on water and the sea Alchemy and the 
 
 Alchemists. 
 
 I have just been reading again the striking passage here alluded to, 
 and will copy it ; but the two volumes of Lectures and Essays, from 
 which it is taken, and which have been given to the world since her 
 husband's death by his faithful and affectionate widow, ought to be in 
 every library. They can still be had, I believe, through any bookseller, 
 of Messrs. Constable and Co., the Edinburgh publishers : — " It was 
 Thales, of Miletus, the father of Greek philosophy, who methodically 
 originated the conception that water is the first principle of things. He 
 inculcated the scientific dogma that water is the one substantial or un- 
 derlying essence, of which the rest of nature is but the manifold expres- 
 sion. Water was represented in his system as the sole and primeval 
 matter, convertible and actually converted, by some plastic power, into 
 the thousand-and-one familiar creatures in the universe : now into this 
 one, and now into that ; now into wood, and now into stone ; now into 
 the grass of the fields, and now into the body of man himself. Nor 
 does this doctrine appear to be fantastical, as has been remarked by 
 Ritter, when one reflects how rocks and salts can be extracted by mere 
 boiling and evaporation, not only out of the sea, but also from the most 
 insipid of lakes and streams, and even from rain. It is not yet beyond 
 the memory of man, that Lavoisier was careful to distil water back- 
 wards and forwards in an alembic for many long days and nights 
 together, in order to settle the question whether water were actually con- 
 vertible into earthy matter, as had been asserted and believed by his 
 immediate predecessors. Scheele, one of his most distinguished con- 
 temporaries, instituted another sort of experiment upon water, with a 
 view to the determination of the very same point. It is not fifty years 
 since Davy conducted his celebrated experiments upon the electrolysis 
 of water by means of the galvanic current, with very much the same 
 
68 CHAPTER V, 
 
 object ill view. It is, accordingly, easy to perceive that the ceaseless 
 circulation of the liquid element from the ocean into the air, and 
 through the air again to the earth, in dews and mists and rains, only 
 to run once more from springs and streams and lakes and rivers, down 
 to the ocean whence it rose, must have impressed the youthful science 
 of ancient and imaginative times with the supreme importance of water 
 in the economy of creation. But this contemplation of nature as one 
 vast alembic, for the revolution of that beautiful and lifelike creature, 
 was not the only motive to its exaltation as the best and first of things 
 in the mind of Thales. The marvellous effects of moisture in its vary- 
 ing forms of river, rain, and dew, in covering the hills, the valleys, and 
 the plains with verdure, during the flushing spiing of Asia Minor and 
 the Archipelago, to say nothing of the indispensable necessity of water 
 not only to vegetation, but also to animal vitality itself, must have 
 gone deeper still into the thoughts of those venerable seers who were 
 first visited by the inquisitive spirit of wonder. 
 
 " Willing to forget the moon and all sublunary science, we have stood 
 beside the sea the whole year round, and abandoned ourselves to its first 
 impressions in the spirit of antique faith and awe. It moved for ever 
 at our feet, now driving us before it, and then di-awing us after it, its 
 everlasting voices in our ear. One day it murmured about om' steps, 
 kissing the brown earth, and kissing it again, never weary of kissing 
 the softened beach ; another, it was testy as a great wayward child, 
 and chid the world the livelong day ; on a third, it was as angry as a 
 brawling woman, and chafed along the shore ; another time it panted 
 and heaved and lashed, like a hundred orators arousing the nations 
 with their ire. Anon it swelled and roared, like an assailing host or 
 an infuriated people ; and again it thundered responsive to the heavens, 
 flashing back flash for flash, reflecting an infernal blackness upon the 
 chaos of the falling sky. Its varieties of expression were as many as 
 the days of the year, and far more ; but always it was moved from its 
 very inmost, and always it moved to the impulse that stirred it, what- 
 ever that might be. It never lay still ; it could not be at rest ; it could 
 not get away from itself. In vain it threw up spray and vapour and 
 clouds ; they returned to its unresting bosom through unerring channels. 
 They went and they came as surely as it ebbed and flowed. They 
 and it were always one, and all nature was penetrated by the unity. 
 Wherever it touched, living things sprang into being : — plants, animals, 
 and man ; only to be resolved, again into the mighty organism of the 
 waters when their lives were done. The ocean, reaching down to Hades, 
 and stretching beyond the clouds, was the very blood of nature — ' the 
 blood which is the life.' Blind to sun, moon, and stars, insensible to 
 
DR. SAMUEL BROWN. 59 
 
 the firm earth on which we stood, and deaf to the solicitation of the air 
 and all its winds, we were lost in the contemplation of what seemed 
 more alive than they ; and then we understood how the first-born of 
 the Wise Men of old pronounced the great deep to be at once the womb 
 and the grave, the beginning and the end, of all created things ! " Dr. 
 Brown then dwells on the other three elements considered as primeval 
 by the ancients. 
 
 The next scraps of letters need little introduction or explanation : — 
 
 St. James's-square, March 24th, 1853. 
 
 My dear Forester, — I have suffered since T last wrote you . Having discovered 
 (after four years of it ! my physicians never discovered anything ! !) that I am and 
 have been the victim of [here he describes his painful disease, and the necessarily 
 painful mode of its treatment by one of the most distinguished surgeons of the day] , 
 the long process renders it impossible that I can leave town till May at the earliest, 
 but I do hope and intend to see you and your aboretum sometime in summer. In 
 addition to my personal sufferings, a dearly beloved yomig brother has just died, 
 and that suddenly. He is not yet btu:ied. The thing has stirred me to the depths, 
 and my whole heart is sore. 
 
 In these circumstances you will understand my silence and brevity. Yet I do 
 sympathise with your innocent delight on the reception of your charming book. 
 Write to me ere long. Tell me of spring. My little Spring is full of buds and 
 promise. My wife is sorrowful, but in good health, and wishes you and all inno- 
 cent men well. — Yours, Samuel Bkown. 
 
 May 5th, 1853. 
 My dear Spencer Hall, — " Thou shalt not " come to Bedford next week without 
 coming to town. Pray come, if only for a night. My wife wishes it. I wish it. 
 Wherefore come. • • • Yes or no ? • • • 
 
 From Blunham Orchards, in Bedfordshire, I sent a short note, with 
 an enclosure of flowers for " little Spring," saying I would run up and 
 spend Saturday evening with them at Notting-hill, and got the follow- 
 ing in reply : — 
 
 Dear Forester, — Come. But do not leave till Monday, mind. • • ■ These 
 flowers are as sweet as memory. The smell ! 
 
 Mrs. Crowe and Koffe, and perhaps Coventry Patmore, are to be here on Sunday 
 evening. 
 
 My duty in Bedfordshire done, I went forward, and was able to spend 
 nearly the whole of a day and night with the Galileo of his science — 
 the first time I had seen him since we parted at Edinburgh, more than 
 eight years before. Sad as it was to find him so weak and worn, what 
 a fine mental breathing was that visit to me ! To one who had formerly 
 been accustomed to such intercourse, but who was now somewhat cut 
 off from it by a life in which hard duty was its own and almost only re- 
 ward, there was a refreshment at our quiet little evening party — quiet 
 yet glad, and discoursing chiefly on high themes — equal to that of a 
 
60 CHAPTER V. 
 
 clear well in a weary laud. Coventry Patmore could not be there ; but 
 good Mrs. Brown and " little Spring," and the fatherly smile of the 
 poet-philosopher on us all, from his grave, earnest but loving and cheer- 
 ful face — made the visit a doubly happy, though touching one, to me ; 
 and then, soon after my return, I got this letter : — 
 
 5, St. James's-sqnare, Wendesday, 25th May, 1853. 
 
 My dear Forester, — I like yon all the better for yonr bright little visit. We en- 
 joyed it to the full. Mrs. Crowe, too, was drawn in heart towards you, and good 
 Alfred Roffe, and us more than we could sajr. Be sure your visit pleased us much. 
 But I have put off writing till I should have somewhat positive to say about Derby- 
 shire. 
 
 You must know that I have been particularly well ever since two days after you 
 were here. Quin's new course of medication is telling well on me. I am to go to 
 the country without delay — but I can't well leave till the 28th of June. I go to 
 Leamington first. But it is surmised that Derbyshire is not a good jjlace for me. To 
 eradicate this tendency to intermitting fever I must be not only high hut dry. I 
 am rrrged to go to Keigate, sheltered from east and north, and standing on one 
 hundred feet deep of gravel. But Derby hills or not, I shall certainly run down to 
 Derby itself to see you, either now or when I am stronger by country hfe and air. 
 Whether would you have me about the 10th of June, or during the waxing of a 
 harvest moon ? Say. • • • I have had many letters to write since I got better. 
 I also go out as much as I can this dear summer weather. Going to my surgeon 
 and physician costs me a whole day. My sister-in-law has come on a visit. A 
 
 good many people call on me now that we have fine weather and all these 
 
 things have retarded the flow of my will you-ward. By the way, you are greatly 
 wide of the mark, if you think I am taken up with these ghostly rappings. • ■ • 
 As for the table moving, it has occurred before me ; but it needs neither ghost nor 
 fluidism to do that. 
 
 You have left your compass here a bad omen ! I shall take it to you. 
 
 If j'our reply be later than the 1st of June, address it to me at Dr. Russell's, 
 Y'ork-terrace, Leamington. 
 
 Longing to be out a-neath the Sun and among these shifting warm breezes, I 
 cannot prolong my scrawl — but am always yours, Samuel Bkown. 
 
 "When at Leamington, Dr. Bro'wn resolved to come and stay near me 
 awhile in Derbyshire — partly from a kindred feeling, and partly from 
 the hope that I might be of some use to him ; and this was his pro- 
 gramme : — 
 
 My dear Forester, — • • • I shall to Derby first to see you, where, however, 
 I shall not tarry, since you speak of it as being on a " level." After consulting 
 you about a higher locality, you shall send me thither by the easiest road. I may 
 stay a couple of months. There you will surely come and see me at times, and I 
 shall certainly descend upon you from my hill-side tent again and again. It will 
 " be good for mo to be there " — in more ways than one. You will teach me many 
 things, and I shall help your study of some things in my turn. What do you say 
 to this plan ? 
 
 Of course the plan had all my heart, and in due time followed this : — 
 
DS. SAMUEL BEOWN. CI 
 
 17, York-terraoe, Leamington, 
 
 Monday, 13tli or 14th Jime. 
 My dear Hall,— Could you receive me at the end of this week, or beginning or 
 middle of next? If not at your lodging, yet at Derby— looking up the Hill 
 Country for a few days. Write and say. I got here only on Thursday, owing to a 
 febrile aggravation, etc. 
 
 Hopmg thus to see you and gi-asp your warm right hand again so soon, I am now 
 briefly but truly yours. 
 
 Wednesday morning. 
 Thus far had I written when I received yours yesterday morning. Don't come 
 over for me— of course : I'm not so feeble as that yet. But expect me on Monday 
 —I know not at what hour : but it doesn't matter. I am good at waiting. So we 
 understand each other. Good day. S. B. 
 
 My reply told him that I was engaged for Tuesday of the following 
 week, at a gathering of intelligent country-people to be held at Robin 
 Hood's Well, near Eastwood : so he had better come on the Monday, 
 and then accompany me on Tuesday, or let it be till Wednesday, as 
 might be most agreeable to him. His answer : — 
 
 Sunda}' — Leamington. 
 • My dear Bard, — Not to-morrow. You would certainly carry me to Robin Hood's 
 Well on Tuesday ; and it would hurt me. For safety, I shan't budge till Wednes- 
 day morning. I do not understand the trains, etc., only shall leave this as early 
 after ten a.m. as there is one starting. But no preparation for me, you know. 
 Besides, I am uncertain, owing to my complaint. It happened (through that) when 
 I was coming here I actually lost a train twice over. — Till some time or other on 
 Wednesday— Thine, Samuel Bkown. 
 
 He came, and no words can tell the tender responsibility one natur- 
 ally felt for such a man in such a case. At that time many of the 
 warmest and brightest souls in Scotland — many too in England — were 
 tremblingly anxious about him. They knev/ if he passed from sight he 
 would not leave his fellow, for them. And will it be foolish in me to 
 say how gi-ateful, as well as responsible, I felt for the brotherly confi- 
 dence of such a spirit at such a time ? He knows all about it now — 
 perhaps, better even than then — how all he loved, loved him ; and there 
 will be no hurt to the world in any example of good feeling being made 
 known. He was with me at my own quarters nearly a week in Derby, 
 and then we went and took lodgings for him at Bakewell, where he was 
 joined, anon, by Lady Agnew, with her kind nursing spirit, as well as 
 by his wife and " little Spring." That good wife's anxiety and tender- 
 ness will be best indicated by the following letter from her : — 
 
 My dear Dr. Hall, — Accept my best thanks for your kind and frank letter. Your 
 opinion about Samuel is very valuable to me; for "love quickens sight," and I 
 know besides that you would not deceive me in the least, by raising my hopes 
 higher than your own, in regard to his recovery. I do trust the repeated changes 
 
G2 CHAPTER V. 
 
 lie will hava this sunimer may do some good. We must be very careful for the 
 future. 
 
 Our house is still unlet, and until it is disposed of I shall not be able to join Lady 
 Agnew and Samuel at Bakewell, which I regret Tei7 much. However, I may be 
 released in time to enjoy a week with them. I must see you then too, or else will 
 insist on your half-i^romised visit to us, wherever we may be situated. 
 
 Eemember, I trust to your letting me know if my good husband should be ill, or 
 worse than he is even, for nothing would keep me here if that were the case. 
 
 Good Spring Brown is very well — she thinks Papa is with " Do'to' Hall," and 
 often talks of you both. — "With sincere esteem, I am, dear friend, yom-s very truly, 
 
 Thursday morning. Helen Bbown. 
 
 Meanwhile, though I was some years the elder, his clear and gigantic 
 though modest intellect made me feel immeasurably the younger, as we 
 enjoyed ourselves together like very brothers. Such days will never 
 come again to me ! Imagine the companionship of a man still young, 
 but who ten or eleven years before had discoursed in this manner on 
 the noblest themes : — " The progress of science is as orderly and deter- 
 minate as the movements of the planets, the solar systems, and the 
 celestial fii-maments. It is regulated by laws as exact and irresistable^ 
 as those of astronomy ; although the weather of our changeful English 
 atmosphere may not appear to be more fitful and capricious, that is to 
 say, at first sight and to an uninstracted eye. • • • It is certainly 
 the most provocative and wonderful thing in the history of positive 
 knowledge, that many of the latest results of modem science were an- 
 ticipated, some four or five centuries befoi-e Christ made the methods 
 of such science a practical possibility, by the physiological and other 
 schools of Greek or Egypto- Grecian philosophy. • • • In the art 
 of experiment, and in trying to find his way with untripped step among 
 details, the Greek was as feeble as a child : whereas, in the sphere of 
 ideas and general conceptions, as well as in the fine art of embodying 
 such universals and generalities in beautiful and appropriate symbols, 
 it is not a paradox to say that he was sometimes stronger than a 
 man. • • • Not that all the broad and general conceptions of 
 positive science were foreknown, and therein predicted, by pre-Christian 
 thinkers and seers ; but so many of the capital points of modern theory did 
 actually constitute principal elements of the Greek idea of nature, as to 
 arrest and astonish the historical inquirer at almost every turn. 
 The peculiar circumstances attending our re-discovery of their old 
 truths, is the fact of our having reached the summits in question by a 
 long course of observation and strict induction, climbing every step of 
 the ascent slowly and surely, while they sprang to the tops of thought 
 at one bound, from the standing-ground of the most obvious facts at 
 the very foot of the mountain-range set before them and us. Be the 
 
DE. SAMUEL BBOWN. 68 
 
 nature of this difference, and of all its results, v/liat it may — and the 
 secret will be opened in due time — it is certain, always speaking in a 
 very general style, that the whole fabric of inductive science was drawn 
 out in high-going, wide-flowing outline by the earliest masters of con- 
 scious thought ; the task of tilling in all the multitudinous parts, and 
 co-ordinating them into one living temple upon the world-wide basis of 
 experience and common sense, was left to us. Happily, the immense 
 labours of our modern method are accompanied at every step, richly 
 compensated and even glorified, by the most marvellous discoveries of 
 every kind, else its whole toils might have been too great for mortal man 
 to undergo. It takes fourteen years to make out a fact that is worth 
 while, said a living chemist of the true Baconian genius, on an occasion 
 in point some years ago ; and every discoverer in the world, whose 
 wealth of experience is not of yesterday, would assuredly endorse the 
 note ; — but what a strange contrast does that present to the swift im- 
 provisations of those patriarchal grandsires of the present race of in- 
 quirers ! The maximum of concrete labour and working talent — with as 
 much genius as can be — is the formula of the latter : the maximum of 
 genius and daring, with as httle experience as possible — was that of the 
 former. Tor example, Democritus and Empedocles foresaw those things 
 at once, but it was in a glass darkly. • • • Moses and David, Solomon 
 and Daniel, all the intellectual princes of Israel and Judah, knew as 
 much, but they built no deep -going, sky-confronting, universal theory ; 
 because their proper genius had other and holier kinds of work to do. 
 They had no bias, and not the gifts, for second causes ; their eye being 
 fixed, as if by fascination, on the Personal First Cause of all causes and 
 effects. If we of Christendom had disobeyed the call of our proper 
 tendency and talents, and not gone on to learn ever more and more of 
 the individual parts of our surrounding world by observation and ex- 
 periment, the idea of the homoemeric parts of the visible creation would 
 never have come into our work-a-day heads. • • • Every great 
 people, or cognate group of peoples, has its peculiar vocation or genius 
 — for character is destiny — and ours was not to exemplify the primor- 
 dial Godward instincts of humanity like the Hebrews, nor yet to seize 
 the first principles of things by the process of hypothetical inference 
 resembling divination like the Greeks,; but rather to magnify the 
 spiritual insights of the former, and to work out the conceptions of the 
 latter, by the slow and positive inductions of observative science, 
 adding an indivisible element of our own, even the spectacle of humble 
 industry as of a good and faithful servant, followed by all the triumphs 
 of specific discovery and invention. The Hebrews did one work for 
 the whole world, once for all ; the Greeks did theirs also once for all ; 
 
64 CHAPTfiE V. 
 
 and it becomes us, now that our turn is come, to conserve and assimi- 
 late the results of those national lives, in that which we are living, on 
 our own and all future men's behalf. • • • The Bible penmen and 
 the Greek masters should be the close companions of every man in this 
 busy and distracting age, whose proud heart swells in silent places, 
 when the spirit of science solicits him to go and once more demonstrate 
 the Christian art of discovery to be a blessing, not only to a nation or 
 an age, but to the whole world until the latest stroke of time." 
 
 Recognising thus the Atomic Theory as the normal scientific out- 
 growth of the ages past, and carefully and beautifully tracing its history 
 from ancient days to that of Dalton, Dr. Brown conceived that it still 
 lacked its crowning truth and glory, in that, while it regarded atoms, 
 for the purposes of the chemist, as solid nuclei, centres of attractive 
 and repulsive force, it further regarded them as existing in a manner 
 defying all possibility of calculating then- forces or movements ; where- 
 as he endeavoured to show that, however absolutely minute they be, 
 relatively to their own dimensions, their distances are as " measurably 
 great as planetary and astral distances are relatively to the unit masses 
 of planets, suns and stars ; — whence the forces, movements, actions, 
 and reactions, though subsensible, are conceivably within the power of 
 mathematical induction and geometrical calculus as strictly as are those 
 of the supersensible, on heavenly masses." Even the unscientific 
 reader will see the probable truth as well as the grandeur and beauty of 
 this idea ; while on the scientific mind, when first announced, it shot 
 like a gleam of morning light. It is thus that Brown draws to the 
 conclusion of one of his lucid disquisitions on " The Atomic Theory 
 before Christ and since " : — " Still the inquiry recm's, how the abori- 
 ginal idea or fundamental conception of this beautiful hundred-handed 
 theory came into the world : that idea which it might never have en- 
 tered into our heart to conceive ; and which was, in indisputable fact, 
 derived to us from a Hellenic and pre-Christian school. • • • The 
 process was as follows, in our humble opinion. The Grecian intellect 
 had an unprecedented and still unequalled keenness of eye for the 
 analogies of things. The slightest resemblance caught, charmed, and 
 fixed its glance. The analogy of the Milky Way doubtless carried the 
 swift glance of Democritus to the conception of a star-like constitution 
 for the sensible forms of nature. The Atomic Theory is just the fact 
 of the unitary world of stars come down, and imaged in a dew-drop, or 
 taking a sand-grain for its orrery. It is this analogy, in truth, which 
 at once constituted its clearness and perfection as a thought, and legiti- 
 matises it in the presence of a positive methodology. But the earlier 
 Greek sages were not positivists, whatever may have been claimed for 
 
DK. SAMUEL BROWN. 
 
 65 
 
 Aristotle. They rather believed in [their sense of analogies without 
 more ado. They knelt before the ideal creatures of their imagination. 
 Beauty and fitness were enough to command their faith, so they were 
 of the intellectual species of beautiful propriety'. • • • The moral 
 attitude of the Greek populace was that of vanity — of the philosophers 
 pride, intellectual pride : and no wonder ; for they were a marvellous 
 people, and their sages the most intellectual men the world has yet 
 been able to produce. • • • Christ, Christianity, and the Christian 
 era (surely about to be inaugurated in their purity ere long), present 
 an aspect the reverse of all this magnificent exaltation ; that is to say, 
 in their real character ; and their true nature has always been shaping 
 men more or less, directly or indirectly, especially our greatest men. 
 • • • It is now obedience that makes men free. If they would 
 •enter the Kingdom of Heaven they must come as little children ; and 
 Francis Bacon has finely said the kingdom of Nature admits no other 
 guests. • • • This is the moral clue to the new, most patient, self- 
 distrustful, yet always well-rewarded science of Christendom." 
 
 So far as Dr. Brown's health, while he was with me, would allow, 
 we sometimes walked, and at other times rode out together — being now 
 and then joined by that venerable seer, Henry Wild, of Nottingham, 
 who ought to be known all the world over by his " Observations on the 
 Three Powers of the Sun — Light, Heat, and Actinism, — showing how 
 this Triune Power in the Sun is that power which moves the Earth in 
 its Orbit, and on its Axis, without the help of the Centripetal or Centri- 
 fugal Force (so called) ; " and though Dr. Brown was not by any 
 means the person to see things at first sight in the way that Henry 
 saw them, he was of all others the man to enjoy such company and 
 listen to him. In truth, everyone who thought originally, and dared 
 to express himself ingenuously, on any topic, was just the person to 
 interest Samuel Brown; whilst I was a no less interested listener to 
 both. Wherefore, whether in a walk through the Arboretum, or a ride 
 to Chaddesdon, or a conversation at table or by the fireside, every hour 
 that he could spare from needful rest and treatment was one of instruc- 
 tion and delight to me. Talking of Chaddesdon reminds me of an 
 incident it would be wrong to omit telling, were it only for the light in 
 which it showed Dr. Brown's intuitive knowledge of character. I had 
 one day to visit a person there — a young man in a farm-house, whose 
 legs had lost all power, and who therefore had to sit, lie, or be carried 
 about, according to the requirements of the passing time, and the 
 Doctor went with me. It was a substantial and respectable farm-house ,^ 
 but afforded no index whatever to the probable pastimes of its inmates. 
 I knew that my patient was intelligent for one so confined in such ii, 
 
 E 
 
(56 CHA.PTER V. 
 
 place ; but Brown on the verj' first glance at his brow saw farther, and 
 rather startled me by asking him in a matter-of-course way, at what 
 age he had first read Milton; when the young farmer's reply startled 
 me still more as he said in the same free and easy tone as that of his 
 questioner, — " When I was about eleven. " No word concerning Milton 
 or any other poet had been previously dropped by any of us, nor was 
 there book or anything else referring to Milton v/ithin sight ; and such 
 a power of ready inference, all circumstances considered, seemed to 
 me Cuvierian. 
 
 On the Saturda)' evening we went out as far as Cromford, staying at 
 the Greyhound Hotel, and next day quietly drove up as far as Hollo- 
 way and Lea Hurst — a beautiful locality, become of late more distin- 
 guished as the occasional home of Florence Nightingale. England has 
 few more picturesque or lovely landscapes ; and my especial mission 
 there that day was to address words of encouragement and comfort 
 to a number of homely cottagers. There was one cottage in which re- 
 sided Philip Spencer, and still dwelling in the same place was the 
 little girl, by this time grown to maturity, with relation to whom the 
 following narrative is strictly true. I had myself heard it frequently 
 and already told it elsev.'here, but it was now told once again on the 
 spot, for the Doctor's special information. It ran thus : — ^Philip and 
 Ms first wife, Martha, having no children of their own, had adopted the 
 little daughter of a young woman who went to live at Derby, and by her 
 were called father and mother as soon as she could speak, as she could 
 not remember her own parents. When scarcely three years old, she one 
 day began to cry out that there was a woman looking at her, and want- 
 ing to come to her. According to her description of the person it must 
 have been her true mother. As no one^else saw the apparition, and the 
 child continued to be very excited, Philip took her out of the house to 
 that of a neighbour ; but the apparition kept them company, talking 
 (as it seemed to the little one) all the way. They then went to another 
 house, where it accompanied them still, and appeared as though want- 
 ing to embrace the child, but vanhhed at last in the direction of Derby, 
 in a flash of Jive. Derby is about thirteen miles distant from Holloway, 
 and as in that day there was neither railway nor telegraph, communi- 
 cation between them was much slower than at present. As soon, 
 however, as it was possible for intelligence to come, the news arrived 
 that the poor mother had been burnt to death ; that this happened at 
 the very time of the apparition ; and, in short, that she was sorrowing 
 and crying to be taken to her child during the whole period between 
 being set on fire and her expiration. This narrative, told with mani- 
 fest ingenuousness by these decent and by no means superstitious 
 
DR. SAMUEL BEOWN. 07 
 
 people, and some incidents of another kind characteristic of the locaHty, 
 evidently made a deep impression on the Doctor's mind, and are alluded 
 to in the following letter, — Philip's second wife, about the time, dj'ing 
 of what we thought paralysis of the pneumo-gastric nerve, with which 
 she had just been somewhat suddenly smitten : — 
 
 Bakewell — Tuesday. 
 • — I got here not well. I fpas more out of sorts 
 all the evening than for many weeks back. But no thanks to a most comfortless 
 hot bath I had taken. • ■ • However I got a good deal of sleep last night; 
 and I dare say I shall get along very nicely now. Yet, like you, I feel lonely after 
 so much hearty intercourse. • • • My portmanteau has not yet come to hand. 
 So I am bookless ; for my prayer-book and the map of Derbyshire are scarcely books. 
 Then it is cold : and altogether I should be rather cheerless, but for the prospect 
 of my wife and friend coming to me. Can you come before their arrival ? I fear 
 not. But you must come over some day next week when they are here. 
 
 Ah ! I too can sympathise with Philip the miner. In truth, these pious and 
 picturesque mountain Methodists will not go out of my head. Pray let me know 
 the issue. 
 
 Helen writes me of a visit she has just paid to a cousin's husband drawing near 
 to death. How a day might tear my wife and me asunder, and leave me alone 
 like you, Spencer Hall ! God forbid! Spring and she are well. 
 
 Do not blame yourself. You have been as kind as a brother. Nobody could 
 
 have done more for me except Helen. • • • Your sincere friend, 
 
 Samuel Beown. 
 
 It has drizzled all day, but I got a walk. My box has come to hand — thanks. 
 We shall be very comfortable here. 
 
 Wednesday Morning. 
 
 Dear S. H. — Just received your second note and envelope full of letters. Thanks. 
 Lady Agnew cannot come till Saturday, when I beg you'll receive her at 1-35, 
 
 and send her up to Rowsley. It is but dull here alone in such 
 
 weather, but it promises better now. Then I slept more last night than I've done 
 for a long time, and am really wonderfully well this morning. 
 
 With regard to these and other letters, it is perhaps due to the reader, 
 as well as to the memory of their writer, that a special word should 
 here be said. There is no doubt that such a man must have written 
 thousands, many of which might be far more interesting to general 
 readers. Were all gathered in and arranged according to their dates, 
 they would, collectively, show his mind on many points in an aspect 
 more beautiful than any biographical outline without them could, even 
 their least important topics being set a-light by his soul's warm glow. 
 Hence one reason for the insertion here of these, with the hope that 
 they may, with the rest, be found and transferred, soon or late, to some 
 nobler shrine. Another reason for here giving them is, the information 
 they afford, (and which cannot but be in some degree interesting to 
 many,) of the tried invalid's experiences and moods in Derbyshire 
 during this half-promising effort for his restoration. 
 E 2 
 
68 CHAPTER V. 
 
 After the arrival of good, motherly Lady Agnew, and the subsequent 
 arrival of Mrs. Brown and "little Spring," the sojourn at Bakewell was 
 one of continual refreshment and enjoyment. Sometimes I went over 
 and gave the Doctor-patient a zoomagnetic operation, besides Avhich he 
 was undergoing other mild treatment under the best advice that could 
 be commanded. And then those beautiful short walks and longer 
 drives ! One day it was to Haddon Hall or Chatsworth ; another day 
 to Mr. Bateman's celebrated museum of local antiquities, near Youl- 
 greave, and back by the Birchover Eocks, and Stanton. And there 
 was one sweet, sunny-evening drive I shall never forget, through Ash- 
 ford, and up by the side of the Wye, to Taddington Dale. The party 
 consisted not only of Dr. Brown, Lady Agnew, Henry Wild, and 
 myself, but (0, joy for the gentle invalid,) his dear wife and " little 
 Spring ! " Had I been possessed but of a shade of the distinguishing 
 faculty of a Boswell, and looking forward to at any time writing these 
 reminiscences, what a freight of beautiful and sublime, as well as many 
 playful and affectionate sayings, might I have conveyed to this little 
 sheet from that evening's conversations by the winding Wye ! And 
 perhaps to Henry Wild it was one of the most pleasant hours of his 
 life ; for — after seventy years of remarkable vicissitudes — it was in the 
 very midst of his native scenes he was enjoying that company. 
 
 From several — perhaps from all causes, there was marked improve- 
 ment in Dr. Brown's health during his Derbyshire sojourn. He had 
 some idea of the whole party coming and staying its closing week, 
 nearer to me, at Derby, but another plan was resolved on, as the 
 following tells : — 
 
 Bakewell, Friday morning. 
 
 My dear Hall, — -Will you forgive our caprice ? If you have not yet taken lodgings 
 for us, don't do it. If you have, then we shall enter them on Monday of course. 
 But we now for several reasons wish to stay here another week. Among other 
 things, I am now quite well again. • • • We probably go to Chatsworth 
 to-morrow. But won't you come another day and see us once more here ? 
 
 Monday or Tuesday ? I have business for you. The editor of the Review 
 
 wishes you to write a brief critique for him. • • • All here join issues in send- 
 ing you many thanks and good wishes. And I am yom's, always true, 
 
 Samuel Bbown. 
 
 I've gained other three pounds in weight — eight pounds in all during exactly 
 seven weeks. Good. S. B. 
 
 And there was another happy week at Bakewell, and further meet- 
 ings ; and then I bade the whole of the little party farewell, at the 
 
 Derby Railway Station, on their way back to London, and never 
 
 more saw my friend in the flesh : though in his letters (the hand- 
 writing of which is as clear and ingenuous as was his voice), in his 
 eloquent essays, and in some of the warmest, cheeriest, and tenderest 
 
DR. SAMUEL BEOWN. 69 
 
 of my memories, I can often see him almost as vividh^ as ever. The 
 following note needs no introduction. It tells its own tale of relapsing 
 health, and gives in a most significant hurrigraph one gifted writer's 
 impressions of another : — 
 
 Netting Hill, Monday, Aug. 21st. 
 
 My dear Spencer Hall, — It has not been from forgetfulness, but procrastination, 
 that you have not heard from me before now. Truth to tell, I have never been 
 well since I returned ! I am losing all the little good I got. I almost think of 
 flying to Buxton for the winter. Bntjiat voluntas. 
 
 I see you are sure to succeed in the Patmore article, for yoiir heart is in it. 
 • • • I know little of P.'s antecedents : — The son of the editor of the " Court 
 Journal," who was implicated in the Lookhart and Scott duel, he published a small 
 
 volume of iDoems at 18 or 19 — praised by the " Examiner," abused in " ." 
 
 Is in the British Museum Library. Has written loads of reviews in the " North 
 British" and elsewhere, chiefly on architecture and poetry: and now puts forth 
 the poesy you are reading. That's all I know, but that he has a fair wife whom 
 he dearly loves, and three children, and the prettiest of wee housies, and a very choice 
 little group of friends — Tennyson, Ruskin, Millais, and (0 anti-climax !) — Yours, 
 very dear Friend, Samuel Brown. 
 
 Addendum.— GoYentvj Patmore is remarkable for pure and high morality, and a 
 liberal though English Christianity. • • * I have always found him a very 
 good fellow. There are precious few men alive I hold in more esteem — solid 
 esteem. 
 
 Lady Agnew was spending the day with us on Saturday before returning to the 
 North ; and our whole party, down to " Good 'Pring Brown," wished to be remem- 
 bered to and by the Sherwood Forester. Remember me to Henry Wild. 
 
 And I also received other warm and brotherly letters, which, though 
 scarcely one of them lacked some fine touch of life and feeling, so re- . 
 lated at the same time to personal and domestic matters, as possibly 
 to make my omission of them here a matter of duty. Then this : — 
 
 6th Sept.— Notting-hill. 
 
 My dear Spencer Hall, — Accept a brother's sympathy with you; but rouse your- 
 self to action, which is the solvent not only of doubt, but of despondency. " No 
 intermission and no haste " — these be your watchwords ! 
 
 For myself I think I am doing pretty well on the whole. Sometimes amazingly 
 so. Sometimes resigning myself to slow death, sometimes crying out to heaven 
 that I will not die, but live, and discover the works of the Lord ! 
 
 Won't you be near London again soon ? By the way. Lady Ango (as Spring 
 Brown calls her) sends her reminiscences to you in her last letter. My wife does 
 so now. None of us will soon forget that beautiful Derbyshire, and you are bound 
 up in the remembrance of it and its dales, and footpaths, and high-going roads. — 
 God bless and help you. — Yours, Samuel Brown. 
 
 How it was I cannot at this moment recall. Could any letters be- 
 tween us have miscarried? Did I, amid matters which at the time 
 painfully crowded upon and sometimes overwhelmed my brain, receive 
 a letter that was laid by for the moment and then regarded as answered ? 
 
70 CHAPTEB V. 
 
 My meinory now does not clearly say. But Heaven forgive me if I 
 committed the crime of culpable indifference to any suffering man — 
 especially to one so noble and so true as Dr. Samuel Brown, who one 
 day wrote me this heart-breaking wail : — 
 
 Edinburgh, March 26th, 1854, (31, Morrison-street.) 
 My dear Dr. Hall, — Why have you never written me in my distress? Why never 
 answered my letter from York-place on our arrival here ? Are you well? — happy ? 
 . — miserable ? — or what ? 
 
 For me, I have had a sad and sore winter of it. " Whom the Lord loveth he 
 chasteneth." For my wife, she has been wondrous well on the whole. For little 
 Spring, she will be three years old on Wednesday, and she is already, like Jerusa- 
 lem to the prophet, " the joy of the whole earth " to me. For us all, we remember 
 " Dotto Hall," although he "has forgotten Joseph," even his friend in bonds, 
 
 Samuel Brown. 
 
 Within two months of the date of the above affecting letter, God 
 gave to " little Spring Brown" a brother, who bears his father's chris- 
 tian name — Samuel. 
 
 Not for his own sake alone, but for the sake of all he loved, Dr. 
 Brown several times changed his locality, and submitted to all the 
 means that science and friendship could suggest for recovery. But his 
 disease, an intestinal one, greatly accelerated by his former unremitting 
 devotion to his favourite science, mastered. At length leaving Had- 
 dington, he settled at Edinburgh, in a locality which he described to his 
 doctor (Professor Henderson) as "a sweet spot to live in," then signifi- 
 cantly added, " and a sweet spot to die in." And he did die there, in 
 holy resignation to the will of God his Saviour, in the thirty-ninth year 
 of his age. His last articulate words, on the evening of the 19th of 
 September, 1856, were to his wife — " You know there is no farewell 
 between us; " and, as adds the good biographer already quoted — 
 " there followed a brief but voiceless respite ; and then, as the fair 
 still dawn of the 20th brightened into morning. 
 
 His quiet eyelids closed, he had 
 Another morn than ours." 
 
 Thus passed away, in the prime of his manhood, one who ought to 
 be famous, were it for the eloquence and clearness of his diction alone, 
 but whose mental grasp encompassed the profoundest scientific ques- 
 tions, not only of modern, but of ancient times ; whose penetration 
 into some of the deepest secrets of Nature, and aspirations towards the 
 Spirit that governs it, seemed at times almost divine ; whose life was 
 pure, whose faith was sure, whose soul was as gentle and loving as a 
 child's, and whose moral bravery has never been surpassed since the 
 days of St. Stephen and St. Paul. As one who knew him well has 
 
DR. SAMUEL BEOWX. 71 
 
 said — " It would be impertinent, and, indeed, it would not be possible 
 to indicate to any one who never saw him, or heard his voice, or came 
 under the power of his personality, in what lay the peculiarity of 
 Samuel Brown's genius; — all who knew him, knew it, — none who did 
 not, can. • • • It vras as if a new flower had sprung up, which no 
 one ever before saw, and which no one looks for again. His letters and 
 his journal, and above all, his living voice and presence, could alone tell 
 what was best in him : there was a swiftness and a brightness about 
 his mind and expression, such as we never before witnessed ; its pene- 
 trative, transmuting power seemed like that of lightning in its speed 
 and keenness. With this brightness, and immediateness, and quick- 
 ness of mind, there was great subtlety — a power of clearly expressing 
 almost impossible thoughts, of working upon invisible points, which 
 was quite marvellous. It is therefore difficult to speak of him without 
 paradox and apparent exaggeration. To borrow an illustration from 
 his own science, his mind was molecular or atomic in its movements 
 and action. Atom upon atom, rather than mass upon mass. We 
 would have expected the convolutions of his brain to be deeper, finer, 
 and more numerous than is common." Above all, he was an unaffected 
 Christian in whatever he thought or wrought. 
 
 Let a part of one of his own sonnets put the conclusion to this rever- 
 ent though feeble tribute to his name. It is in alluding to Nature 
 and to the transcendent immortality of her student's soul, he says : — 
 
 • • • She helps the gentle mind. 
 
 I heard her sigh one summer eve to such ; — 
 
 O son of man, it doth rejoice me much 
 
 Within thy troublous heart this love to find. 
 
 Unequal children we of common Sire, 
 
 But thou hast that to do I cannot know, 
 
 Much to endure, acquire, enjoy, bestow. 
 
 Within thee burns an all-celestial fire : 
 
 see it nor destroy thee, nor expire ! 
 
 Come, let thy sister serve thee while she can, 
 
 Tend thou the heavenly flame, and tune a lyre. 
 
 Come, let her teach thee all becomes a man ; 
 For thou an angel art beneath thy seeming — 
 Ah ! I shall never see thy glory beaming ! 
 
^tapi^r m% 
 
 WILLIAM HUTTON, F.A.S. 
 
 (Jan. 1854.) 
 
 In the whole range of our biography, there are few hves more affecting 
 and triumphant than that of William Hutton, Mill-boy, Stocking- 
 weaver, Bookseller, and Antiquary. He has sometimes been called the 
 English Franklin ; and it must be admitted that he has several noble 
 features of character in common with the American. But there are 
 also many traits belonging pre-eminently to Hutton for which Franklin, 
 had he possessed them, would have been a still better as well as a 
 greater man than he was. With all his philosophy, his foresight and 
 energy, Franklin was in some things a sophist and man of expediency 
 ■ — sometimes selfish, even though his selfishness might be of an " en- 
 lightened " kind ; whereas Hutton did most things on a principle that 
 could not be gainsaid. While Franklin would ask, is it expedient ? 
 Hutton would do a thing because it was riijlit. With that fine sagacity, 
 that natural logic, in comparison with which mere scholasticism is 
 often foolishness, both were alike remarkably gifted. Nor were they 
 less so in their endurance of hardship, their long battle with poverty 
 and difficulty, their industry, the force and perspicuity with which they 
 could use the literary faculty, and the good taste with which they 
 gathered the fruits of these qualities, and wore their crowning laurels 
 when the battle of life was at last all on their own side. But there 
 were some things in which, though Franklin might display a more 
 aspiring and expansive intellect, he did not manifest so large and warm 
 
WILLIAM HUTTON. 73 
 
 a heart ; and one of the most important incidents in the life of each 
 will prove it — that involving the choice of a wife. Franklin, in his 
 autobiography, enumerates a long list of errors he would avoid were 
 his life to come over again ; but he does not include in it the fact 
 which in another passage he most coolly states, that he refused to 
 marry a young woman to whom he had paid his addresses, and whose 
 affections he had won, because her relatives would not give her a dower 
 of one hundred pounds, urging, as a reason, that they had not so much 
 to give. Whereupon, says he, " I showed them how easily it anight be 
 done, by viortyaging the house in which they lived ; " and the match was 
 broken off ! Franklin at this time was in their view little more than 
 an adventurer. In the corresponding passage of Hutton's life, we find 
 the following contrast. He is speaking of his interview with the 
 parents of the girl he loved, on the eve of his marriage : — " As I ever 
 detested being a beggar, I wished to have, in the first instance, as 
 much as they chose to give me, for I knew I should never ask after. 
 I answered faithfully whatever questions were asked me, and showed 
 the progressive state of my circumstances, having now an accumulation 
 of two hundred pounds. They offered one hundred. I replied, ' It 
 is rather too little.' ' You cannot (said the mother with mildness, for 
 she was one of the best of women,) desire more than we can give.' 
 Struck icith this reasonable reply, I could not call in one word to object. 
 If she had offered me nothing, I could not have given up my dear girl. 
 She little suspected how near that living treasure lay to my 
 heart." In the affections, then, at least, there is not an exact parallel 
 in the cases of Hutton and Franklin. 
 
 And what was the early history of the man who had thus already 
 honestly won two hundred pounds by his industry, and that " living 
 treasure " by his personal worth ? I wish every boy in England could 
 read and remember it. He was born at the bottom of Full-street, Derby, 
 in some premises on the bank of the Derwent, September 30th, 1723, 
 and was so ordinary, (a softer word for ugly) , that his mother said she 
 was afraid she should never love him — a poor reason for a mother not 
 loving her own offspring ! At two years of age he was nearly burnt to 
 death ; and this event, with the appearance of scenes on a journey 
 into Leicestershire, the same year, he could remember through life. 
 His family in Derby being exceedingly poor and distressed, he was sent, 
 at the tender age of four, to reside with some ill-natured relatives about 
 Mountsorrel, in Leicestershire, and was regarded by them as little 
 better than an interloper. The following passage in that period of his 
 life is affecting: — " Nothing is more common than for people, particu- 
 larly young women, to be fond of children. I can recollect numberless 
 
74 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 instances of insult, but not one civil thing they ever said. ' You are 
 an'ugly lad ; you are like your father. Your brother is a pretty lad ; 
 he is like your mother.' (She was their sister.) I was unable to re- 
 turn an answer. They might have considered that this, and other 
 evils, were out of my power to remove." 
 
 Let relatives in particular, and the educational world in general, 
 take a hint from this ; not only in reference to the body, but the mind 
 of infancy. Who, when doing violence to the feelings of « cldld, can 
 know what sort of record the man may make of it ? The three aunts 
 who thus invidiously treated the infant Hutton, were schoolmistresses ! 
 At the end of fifteen months he was sent back to Derby, and fared no 
 better, for he says — " I now went to school to one Thomas Meat, of 
 harsh memory, who often took occasion to beat my head against the 
 wall, holding it by the hair, but never could beat any learning into it. 
 I hated all books but those of pictures." And no wonder. How many 
 constitutions have been broken, how many fine characters blighted in 
 the bud, by false and cruel methods of tuition ! But a better time for 
 education is not coming merely ; it is come ; and instruction, if not 
 already — as it ought to be — as pleasant as play, is at all events less of 
 a sorrow than it was in days much later than those of poor William 
 Hutton's infancy. 
 
 At the age of six commenced his household toils, as the assistant of 
 his mother in the management of a gi'owing family ; and at seven com- 
 menced his slavery in the Old Silk-mill, (it was the first silk-mill built 
 in England,) where of three hundred persons employed, he was the 
 least and youngest ; for which reason he had to drag about from 
 morning till night, and every day but Sunday, in those weakly years, 
 a pair of high and heavy pattens. In his own words — " I had now to 
 rise at five every morning, submit to the cane whenever convenient to 
 the master, be the constant companion of the most rude and vulgar of 
 the human race, never taught by nature, or ever wishing to be taught. 
 A lad, lot his mind be in what state it would, must be as impudent as 
 they, or be hunted down. I could not consider this place in any other 
 light than that of a complete bear-garden." 
 
 To "this curious and wretched place," as he calls it (but let it be 
 borne in mind that it was more than a hundred years ago), he was 
 bound for seven years, and served his time, being the only one besides 
 his brother who had then been willing or able to stay so long ; and at 
 the close of that period was again bound apprentice, to a stocking- 
 maker, for a second seven years ! Here is one of his childhood's sad 
 experiences while employed at the silk-mill : — " The Christmas holi- 
 days (1731) were attended with snow, followed by shai-p frost. A 
 
WILLIAM BUTTON. 75 
 
 thaw came on in the afternoon of the 27th, but in the night the ground 
 was again caught by a frost which glazed the streets. I did not wake 
 the next morning till daylight seemed to appear. I rose in tears for 
 fear of punishment, and went to my father's bed-side to ask what was 
 o'clock? ' He beUeved six.' I darted out in agonies, and, from the 
 bottom of Full-street to the top of Silk-mill-lane, not two hundred 
 yards, I fell nine times ! Observing no lights in the mill, I knew it 
 was an early hour, and that the reflection of the snow had deceived 
 me. Eeturning, it struck two. As I now went with care I fell but 
 twice." 
 
 When ten years old he lost his mother by death ; and his father 
 having broken up house-keeping, "sold up" and spent the money, 
 they went (father and three children) to lodgings with a widow, who 
 had four children of her own. Here is another picture of hardship 
 from Hutton's autobiography : — " My mother gone, my father at the 
 ale-house, and I among strangers, my life was forlorn. I was almost 
 without a home, nearly without clothes, and experienced a scanty cup- 
 board. At one time I fasted from breakfast one day till noon the next, 
 and even then dined upon only flour and water boiled into a hasty 
 pudding. I was also afliicted with chin-cough and with boils." 
 
 After "seven years' heart-ache," and not without some foul scars on 
 his body, he left the old silk-mill, as already hinted, to be apprenticed 
 to his uncle, a stocking-maker at Nottingham. One short passage will 
 indicate the whole business : — "I now (1738) quitted my occupation, 
 my father, brother, friends, connexions, and place of nativity ; for 
 everything was new at Nottingham, where a scene opens for thirteen 
 years. I found a generous, friendly uncle ; a mean, sneaking aunt ; 
 he, seriously religious ; she, as serious a hjrpocrite ; two apprentices, 
 one a rogue, the other a greater." From these associations he once 
 struggled to free himself, by running away ; but shortly returned and 
 finished his apprenticeship honestly, having in the meantime learnt to 
 make a dulcimer, and to play it : for he loved music. The dulcimer 
 he sold, notwithstanding, and bought a coat with the money. Indeed, 
 with this, seven pounds saved by over-work, and thirty shillings bor- 
 rowed of his uncle, he was enabled to keep himself not indecently clad 
 during the whole of his apprenticeship, which ended the year before 
 that in which "the rebels came to Derby." 
 
 Yet now his love for music afforded room for still greater love of 
 books to accompany it. Just also, as from love of music, he made his 
 dulcimer ; from love of books he became a bookbinder and bookseller, 
 and, ultimately, a writer. Stocking-making he hated, and was deter- 
 mined to give it up ; bookselling he loved, and was equally determined 
 
76 CHAPTER VI, 
 
 to prosecute it. The latter, everybody who knew him except his sister, 
 discouraged. But he knew best his own bent, and resolved to follow 
 it. His sister aided him as well as she could — deathless be the memory 
 of her warm attachment to him ! — and he overcame a mountain of 
 difficulties. His small book trade was at first attempted in Nottingham 
 and Southwell. The latter place he visited once a week, paying at the 
 rate of twenty shillings a year for Ms shop. He had walked to London 
 and back at the expense of a few shillings, to purchase all the book- 
 binding materials he could for guineas equally few ; and now it was 
 his wont to walk fourteen miles and back upon a rugged road, along 
 the border of Sherwood Forest, frequently carrying with him a heavy 
 portion of his stock. But here it is impossible that anything can be 
 more gi'aphic than his own quiet language: — "During this rainy 
 weather I set out at five every Saturday morning, carried a burthen of 
 from three pounds weight to thirty, opened shop at ten, starved in it 
 all day upon bread, cheese, and half-a-pint of ale, took from one to six 
 shillings, shut up at four, and, trudging through the solitary night and 
 the deep roads five hom's more, I arrived at Nottingham by nine ; 
 where I always found a mess of milk-porridge by the fii-e, prepared by 
 my valuable sister. Nothing short of a sui-prising resolution and rigid 
 economy could have carried me through this scene. Li one of those 
 early morning journeys, I met upon Shei'wood Forest four deer stealers 
 returning with a buck. This put me in fear, lest I should be knocked 
 on the head to keep silence. I did not know them, but was afterwards 
 informed that they knew me." 
 
 At the age of twenty-seven he began to think of removing to Bir- 
 mingham, and shortly afterwards, (but not without many interesting 
 adventures, endurances, and achievements in the meantime,) the tran- 
 sition was accomplished. And though his first display there was of a 
 most moderate character, the best coat he wore having been his " best 
 for five years," he began to make his way ; in his second year of resi- 
 dence acquiring a new suit of black and a large and important increase 
 of friends. About the same time it was he became first acquainted 
 with his " Sarah," who has already been mentioned, and of whom, 
 forty-one years after, he tenderly and beautifully vsrote as follows : — 
 " Three months before her death, when she was so afilicted with an 
 asthma that she could neither walk, stand, sit, nor lie ; but, while on 
 a chair, I was obliged to support her head, I told her that she had 
 never approached me without diffusing a ray of pleasure over the mind, 
 except when any little disagreement had happened between us. She 
 replied, ' I can say more than that. You never appeared in my sight, 
 even in anger, without that sight giving me pleasure.' I received the 
 dear remark, as I now vn-ite it, with tears." 
 
Vi'ILI.IAM HUTTON. 77 
 
 And now, remembering wliat a negligent man — to say no worse of 
 him — had been Button's father, let us mark what follows. There is 
 hardly a more noble or touching passage in the whole literature of 
 England than this, by the man who had erst been a poor, despised, 
 thrashed, hirpliug and illiterate mill-boy : — "No event in a man's life 
 is more consequential than marriage ; nor is any more uncertain. 
 Upon this die his sum of happiness depends. Pleasing views arise, 
 "which vanish as a cloud ; because, like that, they have no foundation. 
 Circumstances change, and tempers with them. Let a man's prior 
 judgment be ever so sound, he cannot foresee a change ; therefore he 
 is liable to deception. I was deceived myself, but thanks to my kind 
 fate, it was on the right side. I found in my wife more than ever I 
 expected to find in woman. Just in proportion as I loved her, I must 
 regret her loss. If my father, with whom I only lived fourteen years, 
 and who loved me less, and has been gone forty years, never is a day 
 out of my thoughts, what must be those thoughts towards her who 
 loved me as herself, and with whom I resided an age ! " 
 
 Blest by this union and its offspring, and encouraged by a growing 
 business connexion — though not without an occasional adverse event to 
 remind him of the tenure by which all worldly prosperity must be held, 
 he soon became the most successful bookseller and stationer in Bir- 
 mingham, began to purchase landed property, and was chosen a Com- 
 missioner in the local Court of Requests, which he attended for nine- 
 teen years, adjudicating, in that time, in more than a hundred thousand 
 causes. He took part, also, in other important public matters, and 
 cultivated his literary and antiquarian tastes. It is pleasing to know 
 that in this prosperity he remembered his sister with gratitude, and 
 paid her periodical visits of affection at Nottingham. 
 
 In 1780, being now fifty-six years of age, he wrote his first book, 
 the " Histoiy of Birmingham," which Dr. Withering pronounced to be 
 " the best topographical history he had ever read." Hutton says he 
 took up the pen to this work " with fear and trembling ; " but the 
 attempt was successful, and in thirty years of his following life he pub- 
 lished thirteen other books. In 1782 he modestly says : — " A man 
 may live half a century and not be acquainted with his own character. 
 I did not know that I was an antiquary until the world informed me 
 from having read my history ; but when told, I could see it myself. 
 The Antiquarian Society of Edinburgh chose me a member, and sent 
 me an authority to splice to my name F.A.S. 
 
 In 1783 he revisited London, and afterwards wi'ote a most curious 
 and interesting account of the journey ; and this at a time when "going 
 to London " was a novelty. The year following he took his afflicted 
 
78 CHAPTEB VI. 
 
 wife into Derbyshire, in search of health ; and shortly afterwards saw 
 his sister, for the last time, at Nottingham. His wife one day riding 
 out with him, said she too must soon leave him, and ventured to name 
 some one she wished to be her successor ; but two years and a half 
 after her death, he still mourned her alone, and asked "if a cure could 
 be found for the man who had lost half of himself ! " 
 
 Space will allow of only a brief summary of William Hutton's re- 
 maining life, though his latter days were as strangely eventful as his 
 earliest. The most afflicting of them all, however, after he had become 
 a widower, was the destruction of his property by a brutal riot, at Bir- 
 mingham, July 14th, 1791, in which he suffered, with many others, 
 including Dr. Priestly, because of his dissent from the Established 
 Church. Three days did the ravages of the mob continue ; and he 
 says in one place : — ' ' I saw the ruins yet burning of that once happy 
 spot which had for many years been my calm retreat ; the scene of 
 contemplation ; of domestic felicity ; the source of health and content- 
 ment. Here I had consulted the dead, and attempted to amuse the 
 living. Here I had exchanged the world for my little family." And 
 such was the place, that, to save his life he was obliged, with his be- 
 loved daughter, to flee ; as though he had been the incendiary instead 
 of the owner ! 
 
 On recovering from this shock, having ample property, he resolved 
 to quit the busy world, and devote the remainder of his time to anti- 
 quarian researches, to meditation and to literature ; and in the prose- 
 cution of the first he performed. La his seventy-ninth year, one of the 
 most remarkable feats of pedestrianism, for an aged man, on record. 
 With his knapsack on his shoulders, while his daughter and her ser- 
 vant accompanied him on horseback, he walked in five weeks, about 
 six hundred miles among the then wild scenes of the north, for the 
 purpose of tracing the remains of the Great Roman Wall, extending 
 from the Tyne to the Solway Firth ; and, with eyes at once almost 
 telescopic and microscopic, was the work accomplished with compara- 
 tive ease. An account was written of it shortly after, as profound 
 and truthful as it is graphic and interesting, being as pleasant to read 
 as a Border romance. 
 
 The following are the dates at which his various works were pub- 
 lished : — "History of Birmingham," 1781 ; "Journey to London," 
 1784 ; " A Work on the Court of Requests," 1787 ; " The Hundred 
 Court," 1788 ; " History of Blackpool," 1788 ; " Battle of Bosworth 
 Field," 1789 ; " History of Derby," 1790 ; " The Barbers," a poem, 
 1793; "Edgar and Elfrida," a poem, 1793; "The Roman Wall," 
 1801 ; " Remarks upon North Wales," 1801 ; " Tour to Scarborough," 
 
WILLIAM HUTTON. 79^ 
 
 1803; "Poems," chiefly tales, 1804; "Trip to Coatham," 1808. 
 Of works so Yarious and voluminous it would be impossible to give the 
 merest summary in a chapter like this. Some of their passages are 
 written in a style so pure and piquant, that a young writer might study 
 them as models of composition. Of course, a fault may be detected 
 now and then ; yet the wonder is that such faults are so rare in a man 
 so late and so self-taught. Sometimes he becomes dignified, but never 
 bombastic ; and in descending to the commonest topics, he treats 
 them in a manner as lively, novel, and graceful, as it is simple and 
 unaffected. 
 
 In person, he is described by his daughter as having been " nearly 
 five feet six inches high, well made, strong, and active ; a little in- 
 clined to corpulence, which did not diminish till within four or five 
 months of his death, from which period he became gradually thin. 
 His countenance was expressive of sense, resolution, and calmness ; 
 though when irritated or animated he had a very keen eye. Such was 
 the happy disposition of his mind, and such the firm texture of his 
 body, that ninety-two years had scarcely the power to alter his ex- 
 pression or make a v/rinkle in his face." 
 
 Judging by his actions as a husband, father, neighbour and friend, 
 he must (phrenologically speaking), have been gifted with more than 
 an average development of domestic and social affections ; — and we may 
 see by his portrait that he had an unusual degree of firmnes, self- 
 respect, conscientiousness and veneration, with first-rate powers of 
 observation, retention, and adaptativeness. Dignity without ostentation, 
 and sincerity and intensity, must have been elements in all he thought, 
 or did, or felt. And though we sometimes find him saying a sarcastic 
 word against institutions as they existed and men as he found them ; 
 it must ever be borne in mind that he had much provocation — that 
 toil and sorrow were the daily bread of his being, from childhood to 
 maturity; and that in his advanced age the cry of " church and king" 
 (a wild war-whoop, having no relation Avhatever to religion or order), 
 came on the surges of popular violence, and carried away at one fell 
 swoop the sanctuary which it had occupied him years of afi'ection, 
 anxiety and endeavour to rear — his house being burnt, and his pro- 
 perty scattered, until " it paved nearly all the streets " of the town to 
 which he had devoted the best years of his life. Still, he was patriotic 
 and loyal to the last. 
 
 The mortal remains of this most patriarchal, ingenious and assiduous 
 worthy, were interred at Aston, near Birmingham, the birth-place of 
 his Sarah — Aston spire (as Charles Knight says), having been the 
 prettiest object seen from his house and grounds at Bennett's Hill. 
 
80 CHAPTEB VI. 
 
 But his usefulness still lives, extending as far as his native language, 
 and will continue to extend as long as that language is spoken — and 
 longer : for the spirit of a true and useful man is a harp of heaven, the 
 reverberations of whose tones end not with time. Should this inade- 
 quate sketch meet the eye of some suffering and struggling but hopeful 
 and generous-hearted boy in the humblest sphere of life, let it inspire 
 him anew with courage to press " onward and upward " in spite of 
 every difficulty : for moral and educational opportunities inferior to 
 those of William Hutton can hardly again be possible in England ; 
 while a triumph more complete, over ignorance, want and sorrow, it 
 would be difficult to imagine. 
 
 I have heard of, but not seen, a more copious memoir of him by Dr. 
 Samuel Smiles, from whose pen it cannot be otherwise than deeply in- 
 teresting, and may be well turned to by any one who reads this, yet 
 wishes for further information. In an age which an intellectual friend 
 of mine has said is pre-eminently one of avarice, fuss and worry, — when 
 a few "ambitious busy-bodies" have the power so to work on the mind 
 of peoples, otherwise brotherly and reciprocal, as to fret them up into 
 a bloody commotion, entailing want and woe upon millions, — it is well 
 to bring to the foregi'ound all the great industrial contributors to the 
 prosperity and peace of the many. Samuel Smiles has done as much 
 as most writers in this direction ; but though he may have given many 
 examples of men occupying "a larger space in the public; eye," he can 
 hardly have given one more modest yet more honourable in aU its 
 aspects than that of Willliam Hutton. 
 
CHAKLES KEECE PEMBEKTON, 
 
 THE WANDERBE." 
 
 (Feb. 1866.) 
 
 Let us be thankful that we are not all alike, but that God has summed 
 up in humanity, in addition to much that is grotesque enough, the 
 picturesqueness, beauty, and grandeur, of the world it inhabits. There 
 are minds for every sphere — some for delving, some for soaring — some 
 qualified to instruct, and others to amuse and cheer ; and a few who 
 have the happy gift of all three, though they may themselves have 
 been, as it were, nurtured in the fire and schooled in storms. One of 
 the latter was Charles Reece Pemberton, born in Wales sometime about 
 the year 1790, and of whom I have elsewhere said (as he appeared to 
 me in the ripeness of his manhood,) that he had a forehead almost like 
 that of Jean Paul Eichter, but with infinitely more flexibility of face ; 
 to which may be added a light, elastic, but not diminutive frame, a 
 wrinkle of care — or, rather, it might be a furrow of grief, — an eye of 
 love, a quiver of restrained satire, and a temperament of lightning. I 
 never saw anyone whose body was so spirit-like — so free in its motions, 
 so changeable in its expressions. There was no sentiment or passion 
 of which he could not render himself the especial impersonator in the 
 twinkling of a thought. He could be old or young, gay or grave, lively 
 
B2 CHAPTEH vn. 
 
 or severe — in short, anything he liked — ^by transitions magically sud- 
 den. Not one specimen alone of humanity was he, 
 
 "But all, by tnrns, 
 With transmigration strange." 
 
 This was during his ordinary hours of social relaxation, when his friends 
 were charmed out of their senses by his versatility and vivacity. Now 
 and then — just for a few seconds — he would be himself, as represented 
 in the portrait we have of him by Oakley ; and I hold it impossible for 
 any one with a right heart, who communed with him in his native 
 mood, to part with him without feelings of genuine esteem and affec- 
 tion— such was the blessedness of his influence then — his blending of 
 the art of the magician with the candour and frankness of the child. 
 
 It was when Philip James Bailey, the author of "Festus," Henry S. 
 Sutton, author of "Quinquinergia," and Anna Mary Howitt Watts, one 
 of the purest as well as one of the most earnest spirits of modem art- 
 iiteratui'e, were yet little children ; when men like Wordsworth, Alaric 
 Watts, and Allan Cunningham, were occasional visitors of Wilham and 
 Mary Howitt (then in the morning glow of their fame), and of their 
 brother Eichard, who has been not inaptly styled "the Wordsworth of 
 Sherwood Forest;" when Matthew Henry Barker, "the Old SaUor," 
 author of "Tough Yarns;" profound and versatile William Powers 
 Smith ; Thomas Bailey, father of Philip ; John Hicklin, author of 
 "Leisure Hours," and other men of literary mark, were among the 
 guides or leaders of the local press ; when many were yet living who 
 had been 'personally intimate with Kirke White ; when Thomas Eagg 
 (since in clerical orders) was weaving at once his stockings and his 
 verses — poor Samuel Plumb writing his keen epigrams, rural sonnets, 
 and pathetic tales — Miss Williams thinking bright thoughts, " like a 
 star apart," at Mansfield — and Eobert MUlhouse composing his Sher- 
 wood poems, — Millhouse, of whom it has been said that 
 
 Nature taught and Freedom fired his rhyme, 
 And Virtue dedicated it to Time ; 
 
 While Thomas Miller, who was afterwards to charm the world with so 
 many fresh and cheery books, was positively making baskets in the base- 
 ment story of the very building, — that Pemberton first came to lectm-e 
 at Bromley House, in Nottingham. 
 
 But before we listen to his lectures, let us endeavour to realise some 
 faint outline of his romantic history. 
 
 The Welsh cottage in which he was born, stood by the side of a 
 wild foaming torrent, the name of which, translated into English, 
 means the Stone-breaker. A small garden, " the ground of which was 
 
CHARLES REECE PEMEEKTON. 83 
 
 stolen from the woody hill, looked laughingly down on the cottage, 
 — a little whitewashed cottage, trellised with honeysuckles and roses — 
 circumscribed by a wall of rough unhewn fragments from the neigh- 
 bouring rocks." Cabbages were more abundant in the garden than 
 carnations, and leeks one might warrant were there : but the only 
 things he cared about were the borders of double daisies. Single 
 or double he always loved them ; better though ' ' the little wild thing 
 that lifts up its beautiful face in the fields and asks a kiss from your 
 feet. I never (he says) could crush them by treading on them." In 
 this last assurance of his tenderness even for a flower, in childhood, 
 what a key we have to the soul of the man of after-years, when he was 
 known to say that, if a smile could convey a solace or a pleasure to 
 any human being, it was cruel to withhold it ! His father was a work- 
 ing man (possibly a sort of overlooker or clerk), who contrived to make 
 all ends meet with twenty shillings a week ; but his mother,— a true 
 Welsh woman, who died while he was yet young, — boasted oft of her 
 high and noble, or even royal genealogy. "On this theme (he says) 
 she would talk with enthusiasm, to the bedevilment of the hog's pud- 
 dings which it was her business to fry for my father's dinner. When 
 her blood was on the carpet (our sanded floor) what a race it ran ! 
 ' There had been princes in her family; ' so there had been, and one of 
 their descendants was then skimming a pot of mutton broth, or darning 
 my father's hose." Her own share of the last relics of her family's 
 estates had been swallowed up in a law-suit in which she was u'inner! 
 Such was the home and origin of a man destined from that hidden nook 
 to wander in Eui'ope, Asia, Africa, and America, and to be able truth- 
 fully to say, when emigration was far less common than at present — 
 "I have acquaintances in either half the world. From Australia to 
 Hudson's Bay, from Ceylon to the Carribee Islands, are scattered 
 those who think they know me." But when, after thirty-three years 
 of wandering, he returned once more to his native spot, and stood on 
 the old gray bridge over the Stone-breaker, the whole scene was changed 
 — the mineral wealth of the neighbourhood had been torn out of the 
 earth, to the destruction of all its superficial beauty ; the cottage itself 
 had been defaced, and all around it scorched into one black scar on the 
 landscape by burning cinder-beds and iron furnaces ; and in place of 
 his loved daisy-border there was a dirty pigstye before the very door. 
 He says, however (thinking of the poor pig in it), " there was neither 
 cabbage-leaf nor root visible ; so I walked into the town, purchased two 
 penny loaves, returned, and gave them to him. This (I am quoting 
 from his Pel Verjuice papers) was all the communion I had with my 
 native place. I hastened from it. • • • My lachrymal ducts were 
 f2 
 
84 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 scorched, and the one compelled bead of a tear which expanded over 
 each ball of sight scalded my lids ; my breath was fire, and the pulsa- 
 tions of my heart were the throbs of mingling agony and maledictions. 
 You may laugh at this extravagance, if you will ; I am not asking your 
 sympathy ; I am writing a tale of confessions and facts — not spinning 
 apologies for my life and character. I had thought of this home of my 
 childhood through thirty-three years of absence from it with such sacred- 
 ness of emotion, that I believe I never once alluded to it, even to my 
 intimate friend. I had roamed more than a hundred thousand leagues 
 in foreign lands, and over distant seas ; I had meditated in wilder- 
 nesses of myrtle ; I had walked in regions of the vine and groves of 
 oranges, and woods of olives ; I had been alone in the jungles of Asia ; 
 the solitude of the entangled masses of Guiana I had enjoyed without 
 a disturbing companion ; and I had thought myself out of misery into 
 happiness, as I stepped through sun-impervious forests in the valley of 
 the Mississippi — I had gazed on nature in her terrific grandeur, and in 
 her richest beauty, and they all taiujltt me to look back ivitli deeper affec- 
 tion on that spot. In the danger of battles, storm, and shipwreck, I 
 had participated : death had waylaid me, and I had evaded him. He 
 had placed himself in a hundred attitudes to strike me ; and I was 
 drawn aside from the falling blow. He had repeatedly invited me to 
 his embrace, and alluring was the invitation, but I was enabled to re- 
 sist. A motive for resistance flashed across me, and I was strong 
 again. What was that motive ? Turn over every human cause for 
 human action which you can find in the metaphysicians' catalogue, and 
 guess beyond it ; you are still at a loss. I shall not in dii-ect words 
 inform you what has been, and is the motive ; this binding to resolute 
 endurance : read, watch, and you may trace it in the meanderings of 
 my story. Let me go on ; hear more. I had been borne along on the 
 torrent of prosperity, and suddenly dashed back upon utter worldly ruin. 
 I had been astonished at my own success, where eftbrts seemed to 
 many powerless, and the bare entertainment of the design was ridiculed 
 by others as insanity. This is rigid truth. "While lifting my foot to 
 take the loftiest point of earthly bliss, I have been hurled down to the 
 gulph of misery ; I have fled on hope's wings to within a hair's breadth 
 of my goal, triumph — to be blown away into distance, doubled by 
 failure. It was not strength that I lacked ; there was manoeuvering ne- 
 cessary in laying hold, and I ivoulcl not take a circuit. Without a friend 
 to recommend, or patronage to encourage him, a poor boy, with no 
 more than a pauper's education, has been the acquaintance, sometimes 
 the companion, perhaps not the despised one — true, they did not know 
 his origin — of intelligence, wealth, and station, how superior to his ! 
 
CHARLES REECE PEMBERTOX. 85 
 
 But through all, he never ceased to frown in secret at his beggarly 
 origin and the stings which poverty thrust into his heart. He was 
 stabbed hourly without the stabbers dreaming that he was their victim. 
 He saw, he felt, he knew he should be despised, scorned, soothed with 
 words, but sneered and scoffed at in practice. Gay equipages have 
 drawn up in the streets, and sparkling eyes, smiling lips, and music- 
 voices have echoed and reflected the delicate touch of the hand, which 
 was held out in congratulation of my "success." Success I was sure 
 it was not, but never so spoke. I have stood trembling with weakness 
 from hunger as I heard this, and bowed acceptance as those voices 
 have given me invitations to dinner. Frequently the only food I have 
 tasted for the day has been crude peas, gathered by me in the fields, 
 while during that day twenty tongues have drummed into my ears 
 eulogies on my ' talents.' And I was at that time hoarding shillings 
 by literally starving myself to pay debts which I had incurred, not in 
 supporting existence, but in labours by which only I could hope to 
 obtain bread ; and this, too, was accompanied by the blissful convic- 
 tion that I was all the while considered by my creditor, and not him 
 only, as an unprincipled ' individual ' for not paying my debts honour- 
 ably. It was just that he and they should think so, for I had concealed 
 the real cause of non-payment. I have quitted gay and festive scenes 
 in the metropolis, and walked the streets all night in my dinner-dress. 
 I had not sixpence to procure shelter ; for access to my home it was 
 too late. I was compelled to accept the invitation, because I dared not 
 shock a friend by the truth ; a false excuse I trembled under. 
 I have been piteously smiled at, while I remained unseen, by the clever 
 and richly mental, whose notice and approbation I have laboured so 
 hard, and endured so much, to win, from the mere fact of their lending 
 credence to the reports of blockheads respecting me. There is, unfor- 
 tunately for me and for thousands of others, a proneness, even in the 
 wisest, to hear fault-finding as discriminating truth. In me there are 
 abundance of mental weeds ; but many of those things which are now 
 regarded as weeds would be called flowers, if they were not looked at 
 through other people's spectacles. Through all the moral mountains 
 and gulphs of my existence, these vicissitudes of happiness and sorrow 
 • — these laudations and ridicule — I am sure I never designed injury, or 
 meditated ill will to any human being." 
 
 Such were the heart and fate of the man who, after those years of 
 absence, was turning once again, and finally, from the spot where he 
 was born ; while, at the bottom of his sorrows, lay one sad and dire 
 secret, which had been his companion wherever he had wandered, and 
 which he could not tell without being an accuser, so bore in silence 
 
bb CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 from land to land. Shall I tell it here ? Yes. He was in that most 
 grievous of all plights into which any man, especially a man of feeling, 
 can fall — that of being neither a husband, a bachelor, nor a widower. 
 The wife for whom he had turned from every other woman in the world, 
 and with whom he had reposed his heart, had forsaken him, and mated, 
 it has been said, with a man whose rank still gave him social advan- 
 tages from which the noble and tender-souled Pemberton was excluded, 
 and perhaps excluded the farther for the very wrong that had thus been 
 done him ! Alas, poor Charles ! Great and sad indeed was thy reason 
 for becoming " a wanderer ! " 
 
 But let us, as briefly as the subject will permit, go back to earlier 
 time, and glance at some of the events in the calendar of his singular 
 struggles before that woe of woes befel him. The memory of his first 
 leaving the cottage by the Stone-breaker, for some other far-off place 
 of residence, remained fresh through all. " By what means," says he, 
 ' ' we clambered over the hills and crags from my native place I have 
 no remembrance ; but I can yet see a clear, moonlight, frosty night, as 
 I peep through the canvas curtains of a loaded wagon, the broad wheels 
 of vv'hich groan and squeak as they slowly revolve, and with their weight 
 crush the crisp earth and young ice, that crackles and jingles beneath 
 the pressure, on a road, which to me seems as smooth as the sanded 
 floor of our home. A sheet of hoar covers an expanse of level country, 
 intersected by hedges and dotted with trees, sparkling with rime as far 
 as eye can reach on either side, and in the distance from the tail of the 
 
 wagon, whence the survey is made — but there are no hills ! and I 
 
 wept. They were the first tears of thought I ever shed." 
 
 He was then sent to a dame-school at wages of threepence per week; 
 but as he learnt little there except the "Brummagem" dialect which it 
 took his father a long time every evening to unteach, he was soon 
 removed from it to one where, in addition to better tuition, he had a 
 glorious common to scamper over, trees to chmb on its borders, birds' 
 nests to hunt, and wasps' nests to rifle — for which he often dearly paid. 
 He saw that common again, in the year 1829, and, to his great delight, 
 it was a common still. Writing of it three years after, he says : — 
 "God be praised, it is not civilised. There is nothing in the whole 
 range of English scenery, no beauty nor ornament, neither natural nor 
 artificial glory among all its delicious and enchanting variety, that 
 gladdens my eyes and heart so fully, and so instantaneous^, as a com- 
 mon of gorse-bush and fern ! Turn Blenheim into a potato garden ; 
 make brick fields of the bed of Windermere ; throw the fragments of 
 Spitalfields, Whitechapel, the Tower, and the Horse Guards into the 
 Wye, but do not touch the gorse-bush and fern common." 
 
CHAELES EEECE PEMBERTON. 87 
 
 In Ms ninth year, as he says, he was "taken off the common," when 
 some friendly or benevolent assistant of his father procured admission for 
 him. into a school, in which about thirty boys, all equally with himself 
 the children of poor parents, were " fed, clothed, flogged, and taught 
 gratis." Here he seems to have got into his full proportion of scrapes 
 and scrambles, learnt Robinson Crusoe by heart, made Philip Quarle 
 and Eobin Hood his mythology, and at the age of eleven had swallowed 
 the contents of every book of travels in the juvenile library — maps, the 
 latitudes and longitudes, and descriptions of far countries being his 
 heaven. At fifteen he left this school — having learnt, reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic, the words of Lindley Murray, and how to score a few 
 lines of cmwes and angles, but not how to apply them. He had also 
 acquhed some notion that William Rufus succeeded Wilham the Con- 
 queror, that Virgil had written one book of poetry and Homer another, 
 though remaining moderately ignorant of what they were about ; that 
 Milton had written " Paradise Lost" — a book which had no charm for 
 him; though he had learnt to "rattle off" some passages of Shak- 
 spere's plays, which suited him better — better still as time went on. 
 
 At fifteen he was bound apprentice to an uncle at Birmingham ; but 
 for manufacturing or mercantile life his nature was all unfit, and at 
 seventeen a painful incident closed his connection with it. He was one 
 day sent to purchase some stamps ; his mind was not sufficiently intent 
 on the transaction, and the stamp-seller made a mistake in giving him 
 change. His relative accused him of being something worse than merely 
 negligent in the matter. The stamp-seller was — we won't say what — 
 but, in defence of himself, became the poor boy's accuser, and as the 
 boy had no means of clearing himself against such odds, he became hot 
 with rage at the injustice, and then chilled. He somewhere says, that 
 his uncle, without one muscle of his face being disturbed, told him to 
 "go to business," and that he then felt as if his "heart had become a 
 baU of ashes." He was afterwards sure that his uncle believed him 
 innocent, and that he ought to have said so, as it might have saved 
 him from years of misery ; but the grievance rankled, and shortly, 
 breaking the tie of his apprenticeship, he ran away. 
 
 Ran away ! And the soul that was too sensitive for a Birmingham 
 counting-house soon found itself enslaved on board a ship of war ; for 
 at Liverpool he was kidnapped by a press-gang, and sent to sea, where, 
 says his biographer, Mr. John Fowler, "he was occasionally engaged 
 in skirmishes and battles, and passed through many strange adventures 
 consequent upon his sea-faring life." 
 
 In the meantime opportunities had occurred of seeing something of 
 the stage; he had learnt to study ShaJcspere for himself ; and (though 
 
83 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 long after he had left the navy) we hear of him in the West Indies as 
 an actor and manager of several theatres. "By this profession," adds 
 Mr. Fowler, " he there earned a brilliant reputation, with a prospect of 
 great pecuniary success, when untoward circumstances destroyed his 
 hopes. He married a lady of great beauty and talent, and anticipated 
 a Ufe of domestic happiness, but the marriage was not fortunate, and 
 his promised joy proved his certain misery. They had one son, of whose 
 fate I am ignorant. Pemberton's desire for change of scene returned 
 — if it had ever left him — with the departure of his heart's dear hopes. 
 He was without house and without home, and roamed all the world 
 over. He was acquainted with all classes of society, as well as with all 
 coasts of country ; and was subjected to all manner of vicissitudes. 
 He became, emphatically, a wandeeee." 
 
 The following incident will give some idea of the character and dis- 
 tance of his wanderings. Being one morning (it was in 1845) at break- 
 fast with Mr. Flower, late mayor of Stratford-on-Avon, I happened to 
 ask him if he knew anything of Charles Reece Pemberton. " Pember- 
 ton," said he ; " Certainly ! When we were residing many years ago 
 in the back woods of America, he one day dropped into our log-house 
 as by accident ; but he staid with us a month, and we should have 
 been glad could he have staid longer — such a Grod-send to us there 
 was the visit of such a man. But he has been with us since in Strat- 
 ford-on-Avon." 
 
 It does not appear very clear when he returned to England ; but in 
 1828 he was lecturing and acting in some of the provincial towns, 
 when Talfourd (aftewards judge) then on the Western Circuit, saw him 
 perform at Hereford and was so influenced by his representations of 
 " Shylock " and " Virginius," as to speak of him in terms of high 
 admiration in an article in the " New Monthly Magazine." This led 
 to his appearance at Covent Garden, when London criticism on his 
 performances was as various as London criticism was sure to be ; but 
 in glancing back, it is easy to see that the papers most remarkable for 
 independence and taste spoke most warmly in his praise. Still, he did 
 not long remain on the London boards, — one reason for this being (as 
 I have heard it stated, though I doubt its accuracy), that, in some 
 stage "passage at arms," he was so absorbed, soul and hand, in his 
 part, as to forget altogether for the moment that it was play, to the 
 serious hurt of the opposing actor. Whatever the cause, he seemed 
 thenceforth to prefer the platform to the stage, and appeared in various 
 parts of the kingdom as a lecturer on elocution and the drama. He had 
 also become a contributor of his celebrated Pel Verjuice and other papers 
 to the "Monthly Repository," edited by Mr. W. J. Fox; and it was 
 
CHARLES EEECE PEMBERTON. 89 
 
 about the same time — I think in 1833 — that he first made his appearance 
 amongst us as a lecturer, at Nottingham. Before this visit he had 
 himself written several dramas, which may he read in the volume of 
 his " Literary Remains." They are, "The Podesta," a tragedy ; "The 
 Banner," a tragedy ; and " The Two Catherines," a comedy. 
 
 Methinks I see him — and hear him — now. In the whole range of a 
 not very limited acquaintance with men, I have never met, to my notion, 
 with one so protean. He possessed somewhat extraordinary powers of 
 ventrilo(juism, corresponding with an equally varied play of the facial 
 muscles, a lithesomeness of frame that answered freely to both, and all 
 together to a rapidity of conception and vividness of imagination that 
 one usually attributes rather to incorporeal genii than to mundane 
 men. As I have already said in " The Peak and the Plain," and can- 
 not say anything more to the purpose now, Pemberton, in his readings, 
 gave not only all that was worthy of his author, but so threw around 
 the subject the light of his versatile genius, as to enkindle your own, — 
 to awaken ' the Shakspere within you,' should it be one of Shakspere'a 
 dramas, — in such a way as to make all machinery, scenery, adventi- 
 tious aids of any kind, quite needless. You felt and saw the poet's en- 
 tire conception represented in all its vast and varied relations. Upon 
 his simple platform, in the lecture-room, with no machinery but a 
 chair, no drapery but a plain scarf, and none to second him but the 
 ventriloquial spirit within him, he would go through all the best pas- 
 sages of Hamlet, and afterwards through some complicated comic 
 entertainment, with more effect upon a tasteful auditory than could 
 have been produced by any large company of performers ; because there 
 was nothing out of keeping with his ideal of the piece, — no marring by 
 imperfect supporters, — though not one material point of interest would 
 be omitted. His sudden change from some great hero to an old 
 woman afflicted with the toothache, in a large lone house, on a windy 
 night, with two or three drunken fellows coming home late and making 
 a disturbance at the door, and all this without any other addition to 
 the resources first mentioned than his pocket-handkerchief, — was pro- 
 bably one of the most magical transitions ever seen. Yet, what is re- 
 markable — in all this, or out of it, you never thought of him as of a 
 mere player. Free alike from the professional stalk and talk of the 
 stage, his bearing, manner, tone, everything about him, bespoke at 
 once the dignity, integrity, and kindliness, as well as the amplitude 
 and versatility of his soul. 
 
 Besides several lectures on some of Shakspere's greatest characters 
 — of which I remember " Hamlet," " Lear," and " Shylock " best — 
 he gave us some pleasant lectures on, and readings from, popular writers 
 
90 CHAPTER vn. 
 
 of the day. Indeed, his lectures on Social Reading, with examples, 
 were perhaps as interesting as any. But his influence was by no means 
 confined to the lecture-room. Wherever he was a guest, the longer he 
 staid, the more he was loved by all, for his hon Jiomme, his pathos, wit, 
 and fun. His racy anecdotes, his graphic descriptions, and his charac- 
 teristic representations of people he had met in every part of the world, 
 afforded an inexhaustible source of entertainment ; and of one of his 
 narratives of a remarkable rencontre he had with an old Indian chief, I 
 deeply regret it is not in my power to give even an outline at all worthy 
 of the subject. A description he also gave of an American camp meet- 
 ing, and his portraiture of one of the preachers, it would be equally 
 impossible adequately to follow him in. It was rich and rare in the 
 extreme. 
 
 One day while in Nottinghamshire he took a stroll, with William and 
 Eichard Howitt, to Annesley Hall, the ancestral home of Mary Cha- 
 worth, and on the way they called at Hucknall Torkard Church to see 
 Byron's tomb, where many years afterwards I read in the Album there, 
 the autograph of "C. R. Pemberton, a Wanderer;" but though "wan- 
 derer" he felt himself to be, he made that walk a hundredfold more 
 interesting to those tasteful and thoroughly-appreciative companions, 
 by the cheerful life and soul he put into the conversation as they went 
 along. Sometimes he would foot it alone as far as the grand old rem- 
 hant of Sherwood called Birkland, where to this day hundreds of oaks 
 remain, the youngest of which will be six or seven hundred years old 
 -^^and where some of those which have been felled had King John's 
 cypher deep under the bark. He once took such a walk from London, 
 between two lectures he was delivering to one of the metropolitan insti- 
 tutions, calling in Nottingham by the way, and afterwards published a 
 most original and beautiful description of the old wood (in the "Monthly 
 Repository" for June, 1894,) in which, with striking aptitude of meta- 
 phor, he calls it "a ruined PalmjTa of the forest." 
 
 But at Sheffield, as well as Nottingham, was Pemberton a frequent 
 and welcome visitor. In all his wanderings there were few places in 
 which he felt more at home ; for Sheffield (like old Nottingham in that 
 respect) had a circle of the very people for understanding and loving 
 such a man. Dwelling there in those days was a genial, large-hearted 
 Scotchman, Mr. John Bridgeford, who had formerly been a typographi- 
 cal employe of James Montgomery, and was now co-proprietor as well 
 as co-editor of the " Sheffield Iris." Mr. Bridgeford's literary power 
 was not great ; but he had the next great power, that of thoroughly 
 appreciating it in others, and making them mutually known. It was 
 quite enough for any intellectual stranger to find him out, and be in- 
 
CHARLES REECJE PEIIBEETON. 91 
 
 stantly made no stranger at all to men of like mind in Sheffield. 
 Whetlier it was owing to this or to other introduction, I am not clear ; 
 but I do know that there were few men anywhere to whom Pemberton 
 felt more attached than to Mr. Bridgeford, while, as time went on, 
 almost every person of mind and taste in the town and neighbourhood 
 had begun to regard Pemberton almost as a kinsman ; and I had the 
 assurance from Mr. Fowler that his friendly regard for me sprang first 
 from my manifest reverence and love for the Wanderer. 
 
 Yet, after all, it would be unjust to say that this feeling was confined 
 to any locality. At Woodbridge, with Bernard Barton ; with Mary 
 Eussell Mitford, in " Our Village," near Reading ; with a gentleman 
 named Elliott (then a farmer in the county of Durham, but now in 
 Austraha), just as with Mr. Flower at Stratford-on-Avon, I have heard 
 the same interest expressed concerning him, and the following little 
 anecdote is as good as a whole volume. Being, in the summer of 1840, 
 on an excursion in the country bordering Sherwood Forest and Yorkshire, 
 I called at the house of Mr. Astley Cooper Foulds, a surgeon, at Whit- 
 well ; and in the course of conversation with Mrs. Foulds, happened to 
 ask if they had ever seen or heard anything of Charles Reece Pemberton. 
 *' Pemberton ! " exclaimed the lady, in delight, " do you know Pember- 
 ton ? Look at that girl, sir : when she was yet a little child, I was 
 one day lifting my hand to beat her for some fault, but I felt my arm 
 suddenly arrested from behind, whilst the child was as suddenly raised 
 by the other hand of the person stopping me, and held away from me, 
 in the air. Turning round with amazement, I met a strange, expres- 
 sive, but most kindly face, with which it was impossible to be angry, 
 and, on asking an explanation, received such a reasonable lecture on 
 the susceptibilities of children that I have never beaten'^one since, and 
 never shall beat one again. The person who had thus singularly 
 interrupted me was Pemberton. He staid to a cup of tea with us, and 
 we could have liked him to stay for ever." 
 
 The last time we met was at Worksop, Notts, in the autumn of 1838. 
 A little cluster of Sheffield friends was there, by appointment, with the 
 addition of Thomas Lister, "Bard of the Rustic Wreath," from Barns- 
 ley. It was just after Pemberton's return from Gibraltar and Malta, 
 where he had been lingering some time in the hope of recruiting his 
 health, now sadly shaken. As we shook hands in the hall of the 
 Pestalozzian Institution on meeting, he startled me painfully by asking, 
 between coughs, in a husky voice (a large muffler being round his neck, 
 and a stick in his thin, tottering hand,) if I did not know that he was 
 "already a dead man, speaking from beyond the grave?" Ho had 
 been announced to deliver a lecture, but was not adequate to the effort. 
 
92 CHAPTKR VII. 
 
 In the evening, however, he was able to sustain a quiet conversation 
 with a few of us at his hotel — the Greorge. That few (at least two of 
 whom, besides Pemberton, have since crossed the dark valley into 
 brighter lands) consisted of Mr, Thomas Asline Ward, town-regent of 
 Sheffield, Mr. Edward Bramley, afterwards town-clerk, Mr. L. C. Sayle, 
 assayer, "Tom" Tunaley (as he was always familiarly called), Thomas 
 Lister, and myself. It was a touching scene, and a tender meeting, 
 for us all — thus to be with one who had so often instructed and en- 
 tranced us, and to see him hovering on the confines of two worlds, 
 
 " Grlancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," 
 
 with a look as bright, as intelligent, as benign, as though he really had 
 attained the better world before of this acquit ; while some of us felt 
 we were probably having our last interview with him in time. The 
 discourse, although of a subdued character, was to me deeply interest- 
 ing. It was chiefly on subjects that would have been dear to the heart 
 of any young poet ; and I cannot — I would not if I could — forget the 
 benign smile with which the worn Wanderer (who never smiled or spoke 
 falsely) alluded to some lines of mine in the "Iris," which had been 
 forwarded to him, to where he was lingering at the time, on the shores 
 of the Mediteranean. His intention now (and most wondrously, in 
 spite of our unanimous belief, he accomplished it) was once more to 
 pass that sea for Egypt, though sighing that he was unable to join us 
 even in a ramble in the forest hard by, of one portion of which he had 
 thus written : — ' ' A magnificent temple — the ruined Palmyra ere now 
 of the forest, roofed by the wide arch of heaven ! beautifully grand — • 
 awful, solemn, and deeply, intensely affecting : while it bows you do'mi 
 in adoration, it fills your spirit with love. There is nothing dark, no- 
 thing sad in your soul while you gaze — you do love it — it wraps you in 
 a sublimity of affection — you feel it is all your friend — your parent, 
 your guardian — it blesses you while you worship in it : and you bless 
 it for the blessing it bestows. • • ■ Grey and hoary with antiquity, 
 the massive columns, though scathed and rent and bruised by a thou- 
 sand storms, yet uplift themselves in stately dignity ; or like reverend 
 sages, more reverend from the scathe of elements, stretching out their 
 arms in counsel, or upwards in appeal to the Father of Creation : and 
 they look so nobly calm, so gently majestic. Enchained for a time is 
 every faculty, corporeal and intelligent, till wondering love grows bold, 
 familiar ; but in that boldness is no rudeness : it is reverential still : 
 like the confiding assurance of candid and unsophisticated youth in the 
 supervision of an ancient man. • • It is in the assurance of recipro- 
 cated affection that youth grows bold in ancient wisdom's presence, and 
 
CHAKLES EEECE PEMBEETON. 93 
 
 that such child is familiar with such parent. So, on the subsiding of 
 the floods of emotion, mingling awe and love and reverence, you stand 
 amidst this age-worn magnificence, and look upon those antique oaks 
 with a deep serene of joy. • • But turn your eyes to the left, west- 
 ward : what see you there ? Is it a sun-burst upon a line, a sheet, a 
 field of silver ? or the snowy haze of a dewy exhalation floating beneath 
 a denser and darker canopy of clouds ? Neither. What thus fix your 
 gaze in admiration are the thousands of white and glistening stems of 
 graceful birch-trees — silent spirits of beauty — sylphs in meditation — ■ 
 dryad damsels, assembled there to dream. Look at them, and wonder 
 at their glory." 
 
 A gentle farewell ; and next morning most of us were away in that 
 forest ; but, somehow, though we enjoyed the scenery very much, the 
 mellow and golden autumn day had throughout such associations with 
 our friend, we thought of him so often, and felt him so near our hearts, 
 that when evening came down upon us nearly twenty miles from where 
 we had left him, it seemed not unlike waking from a dream to find him 
 not there. 
 
 Between his return from Gibraltar and that day, Pemberton had 
 been able to give a few lectures, at Birmingham, Wisbeach, and Shef- 
 field. Of his first lecture at Shefiield, on this occasion, a correspondent 
 of the "Independent" remarked: — "When he stepped upon the plat- 
 form there was a tremendous outburst of cheering, which speedily sank 
 into a subdued manifestation of welcome. What a change had come 
 upon him ! He was but the shadow of himself; his manly bearing 
 and his free action were gone, and in their place had come the stooping 
 gait and the feeble walk. But oh ! what a tale of suffering was told 
 when he opened his mouth and spoke. His voice, which had been 
 sweet as the lute, and loud as the trumpet, had become weak, cracked, 
 and discordant ! And there was the dreadful cough, that appeared to 
 be everlastingly tearing at his heart strings ! Well, but, he did speak; 
 and wonderful to behold, as he gradually advanced he got the mastery 
 of his infirmities. The subject of the evening's lecture was Brutus, in 
 Julius Cffisar. He brought out, one by one, the beauties of the charac- 
 ter, and when he made it appear, as it really is, a glorious specimen of 
 the best qualities of human nature, he held it up for admiration and 
 instruction. Pemberton was no longer the man he had been some 
 short time before, — he had left all his own weakness and entered into 
 the loveliness and truth of Brutus. The illustrated passages were 
 given with the dehcacy and power of former times. It was life in 
 death ; and showed how the vigorous soul can impart energy to the 
 wasted body." 
 
9-4 CHAPTEB VII. 
 
 He lived on, however, for .nearly a year and a-half, some portion of 
 which he passed at the Pyramids, then returned and died, at Birming- 
 ham, in the house of a brother, whose daughters (one of whom was 
 afterwards married to Anthony Young, the actor,) kindly tended him to 
 the last. I have heard it said (I think it was by Edward Eobinson, 
 who married another of his neices,) that Mr. Gr. J. Holyoake (then a 
 very young man) was often with him in his closing days, and that one 
 day Pembcrton asked him to read a passage he pointed out in the New 
 Testament, — a passage that gave him a solace beyond his power to 
 express, — after which Holyoake read a favourite passage from Shak- 
 spere, asking Pemberton what he thought of it, when he replied with 
 some emotion, " Fine, very fine ! but (pointing to the Testament) not 
 like that." 
 
 In the month of January, 1843, I stood in Key Hill Cemetery, near 
 Birmingham, with Mr. Fowler (now also departed) and read, on a large 
 flat stone, the following inscription, composed by the late Mr. W. J. 
 Fox, who knew him well : — 
 
 Beneath this Stone 
 
 Best the Mortal Eemains op 
 
 CHARLES REECE PEMBERTON, 
 
 Who Died Makch 3bd, 1840, Aged 50. 
 
 His gentle and fervid nature. 
 
 His acute susceptibility, 
 
 And his aspirations to the beautiful and true, 
 
 Were developed and exercised 
 
 Through a life of vicissitude, 
 
 And often of privation and disappointment. 
 
 As a public Lecturer 
 
 He has left a lasting memorial 
 
 In the minds of the many 
 
 Whom he guided to a perception 
 
 Of the genius of Shakspere 
 
 In its diversified and harmonising powers. 
 
 At oppression and hypocrisy 
 
 He spurned with a force proportioned 
 
 To that wherewith he clung 
 
 To justice and freedom, kindness and sincerity. 
 
 Ever prompt for generous toil, 
 
 He won for himself from the world 
 
 Only the poet's dowry, 
 
 " The hate of hate, the scorn of scorn. 
 
 The love of love !" 
 
 Fowler, in his memoir, pays this further just tribute : — "After all that 
 has been said and done the world knows little— can know little — of the 
 
CHARLES REECE PEMBEETON. 95 
 
 trae greatness of Charles Eeece Pemberton. His geniiis, his indepen- 
 dence, and his truth may be examined'and described, but who can tell 
 the power of liis loving and loveable nature ? I have no doubt that he 
 left his blessing— the blessing of spontaneous and outpoured kindness 
 ■ — wherever he went. There must be many of all climes and all colours 
 who remember and revere him merely for liis looks, and smiles, and 
 words of gentleness." 
 
 And finally comes Elliott, one of his warmest personal friends, and 
 thus twines a last and lasting poetic wreath around his name : — 
 
 POOR CHABLES. 
 
 ' Shunned by the rich, the vam, the dull, 
 
 Truth's all forgiving son, 
 The gentlest of the beautiful, 
 
 His painful course hath run ; 
 Content to live, to die resignM ; 
 In meekness, proud of wishes kind, 
 
 And duties nobly done. 
 
 A god-like child hath left the earth, 
 
 In heaven a child is born; 
 Cold world ! thou could'st not know his worth. 
 
 Ami well he eara'd thy scorn ; 
 For he believed what all may be, 
 What martyrs are in spite of thee — 
 
 Nor wear thy crown of thorn ; — 
 
 Smiling he wreaih'd it round his brain. 
 
 And dared what martyrs dare ; 
 For God, who wastes nor joy nor jiiain. 
 
 Had " arm'd his soul to bear ; " 
 But vain his hope to find below. 
 That peace which heaven alone can know : 
 
 He died — to seek it there. 
 
 
|tapt4r |l0lt% 
 
 MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. 
 
 (Maech, 1866.) 
 
 There are two portraits before me of this dear friend of other daySf 
 one from a miniature taken at three years of age, the other as she 
 appeared in the evening of life ; and it is impossible to gaze at them 
 and think of her as I knew her, without thinking of mornuig and even- 
 ing sunshine. It is the custom of many to speak of "old maids" as if 
 the entire class of them lived in a sort of moral Siberia — a chill clime 
 of their own, if not of their own choice, so distinct from the world in 
 which our common sympathies glow as to make them of little practical 
 use to society. But this, as a moment's consideration ought to satisfy 
 anyone, is a great mistake. It is not needful to point to such women 
 as Miss Burdett Coutts or Miss Nightingale — one employing her wealth, 
 and the other giving her very life, for humanity; nor to the thousand and 
 one good maiden aunts to whom brothers and sisters, and the babies of 
 such, owe so much in emergencies when loving services u'hich could 
 never be hired are needed ; nor yet to those who, from a sense of filial 
 or fraternal duty, remain single for the sake of widowed parents or 
 brothers, that without the comfort of their presence would be solitary 
 indeed. Of such none but the thoughtless, or heartless, could ever be 
 forgetful. Without the slightest disparagement of those noble-hearted 
 matrons who, in addition to the well-performed duties of marital life, 
 still continue to give no little share of their physical and mental energies 
 for the good of the world at large, I allude just now more particularly 
 
MARY RUSSELL HITFORD. 97 
 
 to Buch as — themselves endowed with warmest and purest affections 
 and a strong attachment to their own firesides — think, feel, and work 
 every hour they are there, heart, brain, and pen, for everybody but 
 themselves ; or if selfish at all, on the principle perhaps of John Gait, 
 that we can never do an act of kindness to another but it is the bene- 
 volence of heaven directing us to achieve some good for ourselves. 
 And one of the best of these (judging by her actions) it always appears 
 to me, was Mary Kussell Mitford, whose writings have done so much 
 to cheer the homes of thousands of her fellow-creatures ; whilst to those 
 who knew her personally the acquaintance was a blessing indeed. 
 
 It will not be requisite here for me to give more than the merest out- 
 line of her personal history. The only child of her parents, and her 
 mother dying young, she was naturally made much of by her father — 
 a handsome, frank, hospitable English gentleman of a type now grow- 
 ing rare — a great fox-hunter as well as chairman of the county bench, 
 andlieeping a house as open as an hotel for all the hearty good fellows 
 who chose to come to it — and, no doubt, also for, now and then, a 
 rascal in disguise. Holding, too, some rather popular political senti- 
 ments, and not hesitating upon occasion to utter them — there need be 
 no wonder that he was a great favourite in his neighbourhood, and 
 frequently tempted to run to the full tether of his means. In addition 
 to this, as Miss Mitford once informed me, he became bound for 
 another to the extent of — I think it was thirty thousand pounds — and 
 lost it, losing about the same time a very expensive law-suit. So 
 that one day he and our friend, who had been beloved and petted in a 
 degree that could only fall to the lot of one so promisingly situated, so 
 amiable, and so intelligent withal, were both as homeless and almost 
 as penniless as the poorest people they had ever succoured. Twenty 
 thousand pounds, which Miss Mitford herself had won by a lottery- 
 ticket given to her when ten years of age, was involved in this general 
 A\Teck of the family fortunes. 
 
 As crushing brings out the juice of the grape and makes its rich 
 flavour known, so an event which threatened to hasten into obscurity 
 the spirit of that daughter and consign her father to absolute penury, 
 had the contrary effect of making the world acquainted with her ripen- 
 ing genius, and blessing his remaining years with an ungrudged liome. 
 Her literary powers were already known to her intimate friends ; and 
 it was thought that, if some of her productions could only be made 
 more widely known, it might facilitate her — not in making a livelihood 
 by them, but in acquiring some position in which a livelihood would 
 be more easily gained. They, however, did more. Like Byron, she 
 "awoke one morning and found herself famous," and it was now that 
 
aO CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 a new and happy thought occurred. In the very parish where their 
 former hospitaUty and urbanity had been in some way enjoyed by all, 
 she took a cottage — it was but a cottage — made, however, a mansion of 
 bliss by the spirit that was to tenant it ; got her father's old arm-chair 
 and placed it in the corner ; and securing his favourite dog for a com- 
 panion on the hearth, set resolutely to work, and there maintained him 
 by her pen, not only in comfort but in positive dignity, as long as he 
 lived ! 
 
 With much of this I was already acquainted, when in 1845 — in the 
 pleasant "season atween June and May" — I was invited to deliver a 
 course of lectures at Beading. It is with me a custom when I am lec- 
 turing — I will not call it a rule — perhaps it is (though without design) 
 to justify elevation and extension of the voice — ^to fix my gaze on a 
 few intelligent faces in the distance, rather than to concentrate my 
 attention on the persons nearest. But occasionally there are some 
 sitting near it is impossible to overlook or forget. This may arise 
 from that mental echo which, if a speaker once experiences it, not only 
 attracts but cheers him more than any vociferous applause, and sensi- 
 bly aids him both in thought and expression. It was some such 
 "magic of the mind" that at my first lecture in Beading made me 
 aware of a kindred little group in the front seats ; the most noteworthy 
 person in which was an elderly gentlewoman, with hau- quite white, 
 but with looks which bespoke a soul that could never grow old, beaming 
 not only through the eyes but lighting up every feature, and difi'using 
 warmth and brightness all around. Yet not more unostentatious is the 
 violet, that wins attention by its sweet and silent perfume as we pass, 
 than was this gifted being, unconsciously to herself exercising that 
 genial influence. And this was the gentle heroine who had quitted the 
 hall for the cottage ; had there made her father almost forget his fall by 
 her well-timed industry ; had written a drama which charmed the crowd 
 of a London theatre for forty nights ; had sent her vi^dd sketches of 
 rural life and character to enliven the social and to solace the solitary 
 in every nook and corner of the land ; and who, refusing ofler after 
 off'er of marriage and all its promised advantages, had kept herself free 
 that she might devote her life the more unrestrainedly to the exercise 
 and enjoyment of those faculties from which others were deriving so 
 much delight : this was Mary Bussell Mitford, 
 
 The lecture over, we met at the house of Mr. George Lovejoy — a 
 man as like his own name as like could be ; and Miss Perry, one of the 
 most vivacious and original of girls — for she was then but a girl — whom 
 my old friend Bernard Barton, having been as intimate as a brother 
 with her father, was in the habit, Avhenever he spoke of her, of calling 
 
MARY RUSSELL illTFOED. 99 
 
 "Jo," was also there, when it was arranged that the whole party should 
 meet, for strawberries and tea, sometime before my return, at Miss 
 Mitford's cottage, which stood about three miles from Reading, at 
 Three Mile Cross, just within the border of "Wiltshire, and on the side 
 of the turnpike road to Basingstoke. In those days my own soul lay 
 under a heavy grief, for which the fret and glare of the London life in 
 which I had become involved afforded but little relief ; and therefore 
 whatever in the way of kindness — and I met with much — thus beguiled 
 me of it, even if it were but for an hour, was an unspeakable blessing. 
 If this brief tribute should fall under the eyes of others to whom I was 
 indebted in the same way, I trust they will not think I remember them 
 with less love and gratitude, when saying how thankful I was to find 
 that little cii'cle at Reading added to their number, for it was the com- 
 mencement of a friendship that rises above the grave. Bless that good 
 old parson, who one day said to me, "Let us be thankful for the 
 meetings of genial spirits here, however brief: they will serve us at least 
 to know each other by as soon as we meet hereafter ! " 
 
 To those who do not know Reading it may be as well to say that it 
 is a large, clean town, on the edge of Berkshire, where the winding 
 Kennet falls into the broader Thames. The country around it is 
 pleasantly undulated and well wooded, and from every great road ex- 
 tend green winding lanes to the most rural villages and lonely farms. 
 Along the road towards Basingstoke, for some distance out of the town, 
 is a chain of villas, in one of which, at the time I am referring to, lived 
 a sister of Lord Brougham. Bearwood, the seat of Mr. John Walter, 
 of the " Times," could be seen in the distance, with Windsor Castle 
 somewhat farther. Silchester (an old Roman city) with its relics, and 
 Whiteknights, another place of antiquarian interest, were within the 
 scope of a moderate ramble, and often resorted to by pic-nic -inns, as 
 well as archasologians. And, in short, the whole region might be con- 
 sidered about as fair an epitome of old England as any lover of the 
 country could wish to see in the same space. Miss Mitford's cottage 
 stood exceedingly convenient for the enjoyment of such a neighbour- 
 hood. Near to the road-side, its hostess or her guests could always 
 take advantage of the passing coach, — yet be just far enough from the 
 town to be oblivious, when needful, of its bustle. A good garden at 
 the back of the house produced some of the finest geraniums and straw- 
 berries in the kingdom ; and, with presents of these to her London or 
 country friends, she could gracefully, and to them very agreeably, re- 
 pay their occasional presents of new books or game : for no woman 
 stood higher in the estimation of some of the " county families " than 
 did that good cottage-peeress, on whom they continued their calls and 
 G 2 
 
100 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 compliments just as in more showy, if not more happy days. In a 
 corner at the end of the garden was a rustic summer-house ; and this 
 was where our little party took tea, to which the hostess, by her quiet, 
 unaffected conversation added a charm that will be more easily under- 
 stood than I can otherwise describe it, when I say it was as rich and 
 piquant as her Village Stories, or that pleasant gossip to be found in 
 the volume she afterwards published under the title of ' ' Recollections 
 of a Literary Life," and with which, I trust, the whole country, for its 
 own sake, is now pretty familiar. 
 
 Miss Mitford's acquaintance with literary people — many of whom had 
 made pilgrimages to see her because of her genius and reputation, and 
 not a few to offer her marriage — was very extensive. But I do not 
 remember her speaking viith more enthusiasm of any one than of Miss 
 Barrett (afterwards Mrs. Barrett Browning), whom she described to me 
 as being at that time a prostrate invalid, but with a soul as vigorous 
 and soaring as a morning-lark towards heaven. It was a treat to hear 
 her read (as she volunteered to read for me) with her rich mellow voice 
 and a slight but by no means disagreeable lisp, Miss Barrett's poems 
 of " Geraldine " and " Pan is Dead ; " and I do not remember a con- 
 versation with her at any time in which she did not refer in some way 
 to that gifted woman ; nor can I easily forget the amazement and 
 interest with which, as time went on, she wrote me of Miss Barrett's 
 rapid recovery, and marriage with Mr. Robert Browning. 
 
 As our little party wended back to Reading in the evening she accom- 
 panied us all the way. It was just the evening for such a neighbour- 
 hood at such a time. I think in that three miles we could not have 
 heard less than a dozen nightingales ; and the colour of the sky, as 
 well as the blending hues of the landscape, seemed in positive harmony 
 with their notes. There was only one occasion of discord ; yet, was it 
 discord ? I am not quite sure. It happened that a maid she had 
 thoroughly trusted, had been instructed to pay some of her tradesmen's 
 bills in Reading, but had kept the money, and — if I remember the 
 history con'ectly — had professed to have lost the receipts : so that in 
 time she was called upon again for the payments. This, to begin with, 
 was, to a mind like Miss Mitford's, a great annoyance ; but some of 
 the neighbours, especially Mr. Walter, so urged her, on the ground of 
 public duty, to prosecute the girl, as to make it to her gentle and com- 
 passionate soul a greater grievance still. She stated the case to me in 
 all its particulars as we walked along, but more in the style of a person 
 pleading extenuating circumstances than that of an accuser, and at last 
 put the question to me, point blank : would I advise her to appear as 
 a prosecutrix in such a case, and thereby be subject to all the pain she 
 
MAKY RUSSELL MITPORD. 101 
 
 would necessarily feel for a girl she pitied about as much as she blamed, 
 besides having her name appearing throughout the kingdom in a police- 
 report ? The question somewhat posed me ; but viewing the matter 
 pathologically, perhaps, rather than judicially, and foreseeing the damp- 
 ing effect it might have on her own health and spirits — and that with- 
 out necessarily mending the girl or doing any good to the community, — 
 I gave kindness the benefit of a doubt, and said it appeared to me that 
 she ought in such a case to be left entirely to the dictates of her own 
 judgment and feelings. I think if any one had told her the millenium 
 had commenced, it could not possibly have produced a greater or more 
 cheery effect, as she exclaimed, "Thank you, thank you, dear Mr. 
 Hall ! that is another vote in favour of my view of the question, and I 
 shall certainly quote you to the opposite party! " 
 
 This visit led to a second invitation, respecting which there was 
 subsequent correspondence. Perhaps I ought to have said that my 
 lectures at Reading were on Vital Magnetism (I do not like the name 
 of Mesmerism), and they had furnished a motive for an opposition lec- 
 ture — a very sophistical one, by a Dr. Cowan, in which he stated there 
 were some diseases our good Creator never intended to be cured by 
 human agency : therefore, it might be that some of the cures of which 
 Mesmerism boasted were of those very diseases ; and *' if that be the 
 case (said the Doctor, lifting up his hands and speaking in tones and 
 with a face I won't describe), need I allude further to the quarter they 
 come from? " 
 
 Being present at that lecture, I got up at the close, and asked the 
 lecturer if he would kindly tell us what diseases they were that he 
 thought God intended should not be cured by human means ? It was 
 important to know — inasmuch as if while in Reading I happened to be 
 taken ill, it would be a sad waste of time should I send for Dr. Cowan 
 and after all find my disease one he was never intended to cure ! The 
 doctor was very irate at this question, adding, he had never heard any- 
 thing in his life more unphilosopliical : but some of my friends thought 
 otherwise ; and the following letter relates to my going again by their 
 wish to give him a public reply, — as well as to other matters. I think 
 the meeting at Silchester or Whiteknights was to be in connection with 
 
 some Institute anniversarv : — 
 
 July 1st, 1845. 
 My dear Mr. Hall, — I saw our friends Mr. Lovejoy and Mr. Cowderoy yesterday. 
 The former has wi'itten to you, and the latter intends to do so very shortly. I am 
 just in the height of my summer engagements, so you must give me notice and 
 come some afternoon (for I do not with impunity see anyone early in the day). 
 Perhaps a Sunday evening would be the best and quietest time for both. Whether 
 the Silchester gathering will take place before the autumn appears very uncertain. 
 Tlie present plan is to have a good meeting at Whitekniglils in about a month. 
 
102 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I rejoice to hear that j'oa are going on so well in London. Have you heard that 
 Archbishop Whateley is a convert, and means to get more light on the subject ? 
 Tills is a certain fact. I heard it from Mr. Kenyon, whom I met at Miss Barrett's 
 on Thursday, when I spent a few hours in Wimpole-street. I wish our doctor 
 could have the benefit of a good dressing from his most reverend hands. He is 
 one of the ablest and boldest men living, and will be a host for the science. 
 Heaven bless you. — Ever faithfully yours, M. E. M. 
 
 In the course of that summer I was again several times at Reading, 
 and never so without a welcome to Three Mile Cross. The next letter 
 has reference to one of those visits : — 
 
 Be quite sure, my dear Mr. Hall, that we shall all be delighted to see you again. 
 When our Silchester scheme is to take place I cannot tell — but after this present 
 week I shall be rejoiced to receive you any day, not very early, at my poor cottage, 
 and if you will give me timely notice shall try to persuade some intellectual friends 
 to give you the meeting. I am expecting Mr. Home the jioet, about that time, to 
 lodge in the village, to be near me — and a friend of mine who sometimes passes 
 two or three months in Beading for the same purpose will probably have arrived, 
 so that we shall have a pleasant evening. Perhaps, if you still wish to visit Sil- 
 chester — to join our little gathering — it would be better to combine the two objects. 
 I don't suppose that that party will be long delayed, and I think you would like the 
 scenery and the company. But this you will see. In any event I shall only be 
 too happy to talk over with you your destined book, in which I feel a very strong 
 and a very sincere interest. I saw our excellent friend Mr. Lovejoy last night. He 
 desires me to say that he should have written to you before but that he has been to 
 Hull, to establish a young friend — another act of kindness — and is returned with a 
 bad cold and cough. A certain Dr. Carter has published a pamphlet on Mesmerism 
 — of which you will see the advertisement, but which is not yet, I believe, forth- 
 coming in Beading, although the author lived there for some time, and probably 
 lives there still. He was, and I dare say is, a believer. It is enough to have one 
 in the place like Dr. Cowan. — Ever very faithfully yours. M. B. M. 
 
 It was arranged on another occasion that I should be there rather 
 earlier than usual, that Miss Mitford might go with me in a ramble 
 beyond the village. Chronic rheumatism compelled her often to use 
 her little pony-chaise, but on this occasion she felt better than ordi- 
 nary, and adequate to a long walk, in which she pointed out to me 
 many of the interesting places and objects made famous by her gi'aphic 
 and living descriptions. Those who have read "Our Village" will 
 know them all, and would be no better for any description that I could 
 give. But it was not rural scenery alone we talked of, for she was de- 
 sirous of knowing from me all I could tell her of several men of genius 
 or learning I had known. Especially do I remember how interested 
 she appeared by what I could tell her of ElHott, Richard Howitt, Barn- 
 ford, and Clare, and of some of the distinguished people I had'met in 
 Scotland. AVhcn I told her what Elhott once said to me about writing 
 his poems nine times over, to my then surprise she was much delighted, 
 
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. lO;] 
 
 and, on my asking the reason, she replied with animation, " How could 
 I do otherwise than admire a writer who would take such pains ? " My 
 rejoinder was, that from the apparent spontaneity and ease of all her 
 own writings, I should have thought she would have more valued the 
 game qualities in others. "Ah !" said she, looking at me with great 
 eai'nestness — and this was just in the centre of the scene of one of her 
 own best sketches — ' ' You little know how much labour and patience it 
 cost me to give that free and readable character to my books ! It is 
 the duty of every writer to study the ease and gratification, as well as 
 the instruction of the reader ; and though I admired Ebenezer Elliott 
 before, I admire him much more now, for what you tell me." It was 
 a beautiful lesson for a young author, and though I may not alwaijs 
 have acted upon, I have never forgotten it. Eichard Howitt once 
 gave me a similar one in different words. He had praised something 
 I wrote, after which I showed him something else, expecting similar 
 praise ; but seeing where my danger lay, he pointed out its faults only. 
 Rather disappointed, I asked him if it would not do. " Do ! " he re- 
 plied, "that is not the question. A young writer should never ask if 
 his work will do, but if it can be done better ; and if it can, do it." 
 
 Miss Mitford had a great dislike to what she called "fine writing" — 
 that is, writing elaborately ornate ; and in a very kind and voluntary 
 criticism she gave some of my own chapters prior to their re-appear- 
 ance in " The Peak and the Plain," she crossed with her pencil several 
 passages in which, in younger days, I had somewhat exulted ; and 
 wrote on the proximate margin, " this is fine writing." It may, there- 
 fore, be imagined how much more I could enjoy the praise of so chaste 
 and careful a critic, when she felt justified in giving it. And now, 
 before embodying the following letter from her, let me have a kindly 
 word with my present reader. Like nearly all her letters this is written 
 without date, in the smallest sc)-«te/i-hand, on the tiniest scrap of 
 paper, and enclosed, as was most she wrote me, in a turned envelope 
 previously received by her from some other correspondent. My 
 first impulse on re-perusing these mementos of such a friendship was 
 to withhold them, lest their publication should be construed into vanity 
 on my part. Nest, I considered it would be proper to give them, as 
 letters are sometime meagrely given, with most of the personal allusions 
 to myself struck out. But this I found would weaken their general 
 sense. Then, reflecting how honestly they were written, (as were 
 those in a previous chapter by Dr. Samuel Brown,) and that they had, 
 at any rate, the interest of being written by such a woman, it occurred 
 to me that their mutilation might be just as easily an act of vanity as 
 their pubHcation. I thought also of what Miss Mitford once said to 
 
101 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 mo herself of a writer slie very much admired, but who rather amused 
 her by the vanity he showed in trying to shun suspicion of being vain 
 at alL Therefore, vanity or no vanity, I venture to give the letter, as 
 well as the substance of some others written in the same encouraging 
 spirit — thankful that she thought me worthy of such encouragement. 
 This was received just after the publication of "Mesmeric Experiences," 
 in the autumn of 1845 : — 
 
 I thank you heartily, my dear Mr. Hall, for your most kind present. The book, 
 (Mesmeric Experiences,) is clear, honest, and convincing. It ought to do good to 
 the cause and the author, and I really think that it will do so. I particularly like 
 the gentlemanly and manly feeling of the article respecting Miss Martineau. 
 There is, as in all your writings, an impression of singleness of heart which has in 
 my mind the very highest charm — and which can hardly fail to tell with the public. 
 
 I have been keeping your MSS. till you should come for them ; but as the chance 
 of that seems diminished (though I still hope that we shall meet sooner than you 
 think), and as you will want the books directly, I shall send them to Mr. Lovejoy 
 when I send this letter to the post — he assuring me that he can convey them to 
 town safely and speedily. The Silohester gathering was put off in consequence of 
 the unfavourable weather — so that we shall hope to see you next year — the season 
 being too far advanced to allow any hope of a gathering at present. Our excellent 
 friend Mr. Lovejoy begs me to tell you that he only delayed writing till he had re- 
 ceived your books. I can truly assure you that he is your very sincere and very 
 zealous friend. Be quite sure that you have in our corner of the world those who 
 estimate you as you deserve. I can but trust that you may yet be as happy as we 
 v,'ish you — ay, and it may be happier. Say everything for me to Mr. Eichard 
 Howitt and to his brother and sister-in-law. — Ever faithfully yours, M. K. M. 
 
 The following was received about a year later, when I was residing 
 at Wilford Old Manor House, on the banks of the Trent, near Notting- 
 ham : — 
 
 I thank you very heartily. Dear Mr. Hall, for your last kind packet, and for many 
 occasional notices of your doings, which always give yom' friends great pleasure. 
 The verses are very beautiful. I was affected by your mention of Tom Thumb — 
 reminding me as it did of poor Haydon, my intimate friend and correspondent of 
 nearly forty years. His death was a great shock to me, and the heat and drought 
 which we have had here is a great trial to all but pulmonary patients, whom it suits. 
 My friend Miss Barrett has revived in it so much as to walk to the end of Wimpole- 
 street, and drive to Highgate and Hampstead — an unspeakable change and bless- 
 ing. Our good friend Blr. Eicliardson asked about you in a letter I received from 
 him to-day ; and dear Mr, Lovejoy speaks of you always. His sweet little girl is 
 
 better, thank Heaven ! I did not know dear 's destination until I received 
 
 your letter. It shocks me less than you, provided always that the people with 
 whom she is are kind and intelligent. Anything is better than the confinement, 
 mental and bodily, of a school ; and trade is in my eyes a very happy destiny. I 
 should have liked to keep a shop myself. 
 
 They are going to enclose the pretty common over which we walked last year, 
 which I think a great desecration. 
 
 Heaven bless you, dear Mr. Hall. — Very faithfully yours, M. E. Mitfokd. 
 
HAEY RUSdELL MITFORD. 105 
 
 In the spring of 1849 I was in Ireland, which beautiful land was 
 still sorrowing under the so-called " great potato famine." Believing, 
 from what I saw, thought and felt, at that time, that if there were a 
 country in Europe of which our English people generally knew too 
 little, it was this very country, on my return I published a little book, 
 "Life and Death in Ireland," in which were reflections and suggestions 
 that to some critics then seemed visionary, but the principles of which 
 I have lived to see (though I am not so conceited as to suppose from 
 what I thus wrote) carried into legislation. It must be to this book 
 that Miss Mitford refers in what follows. It is simply matter of fact 
 that the little work was read by the late Earl of Carlisle, Sir Eobert 
 Peel, and other distinguished statesmen ; and six weeks after its ap- 
 pearance not a copy could be purchased : — 
 
 Ah, dearest Dr. Hall, it would have been strange indeed if I had been other than 
 pleased with that kind mention. I have just been correcting the " KecoUections " 
 for a cheaper edition ; and if my health will permit, I shall comply with Mr. Bent- 
 ley's earnest desire for a second series, in which case I shall certainly give a chapter 
 to poor Pemberton and yom-self, and one or two others of the same class. Your 
 late book seems to me by very far the best you have ever written. I am expecting 
 to-morrow an influential person, to whom I shall very earnestly commend its 
 perusal. After being read it will commend itself to attention and admiration. 
 
 Ah, dear friend, anyone who could cure deep-seated rheumatism would be the 
 richest man alive ! With rheumatism in my case is joined a severe injury to the 
 principal nerves of the limb affected. From before Christmas I have been confined 
 partly to my bed and wholly to my room, and have no hope except in warm weather. 
 Coming so late, there is good hope that spring will come in all sincerity, and to 
 that I must trust. 
 
 What you say of King Alfred is most true. All real reformers — that is to say, all 
 renovators, must have passed for tyrants amongst the slaves of the customs they 
 displaced. I love in the Emperor much goodness and much greatness, and per- 
 haps I like in him his intense individuality as well as anything — that mixture of 
 the gentlest mercy and the firmest will — of jjolitical reserve and occasional outbursts 
 of natural feeling, never put before in royal speech or royal message. Above all, I 
 like the wedding — that finest homage to woman and that casting aside of the — to 
 some — baleful intermarriages. • • • Beranger called the first Napoleon " the 
 greatest poet of modem times," but he seems to me more than equalled by his 
 nephew. The best living writer of English prose, and Mrs. Browning, the greatest 
 English poetess, hold the same faith ; so if I sin, I sin in good company. 
 
 Adieu, dear Dr. Hall. I trust by this time you are well. — Yours faithfully, 
 
 M. K. M. 
 
 Between the receipt of the above and the next I am able to give, I 
 know that many letters were received on which it is impossible at pre- 
 sent to lay my hands. In one she again alluded to Louis Napoleon 
 as the man for France and his time. In another she expressed her 
 admiration of Hans Christian Andersen, and his child-like candour. 
 In a third she alluded to my practice of homoeopathy — -jocosely adding, 
 
lOG CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "I do not myself believe in it; but as you do, I have at least this 
 consolation — that you will never do any harm with it !" The follow- 
 ing letter has, for the reason she gives in it, a date. It refers at the 
 commencement to my rural volume, " The Peak and the Plain : " — 
 
 Swallowfield, near Eeading, Feb. 25th, 1853. 
 
 I thank you, heartily, dear Dr. Hall, for your kind and ■welcome letter, and your 
 charming book — charming I see that it is, although I have as yet only run through 
 it. • • • If it please God that I should be well enough to comply with Mr. 
 Bentley's earnest request for a second series of " Recollections," I shall be able to 
 give it a capital advertisement — half-a-dozen of the books mentioned in the first 
 having been reprinted in consequence. • • • 
 
 You will see from my date that I have removed from my old cottage, having staid 
 there too long, until the damp and consequent rheumatism laid hold of me. I am 
 now in a comfortable dwelling, three miles further from Eeading, on the same 
 road — not on the high road, but at a pretty corner, situated at a confluence of 
 woody lanes leading down to Strathfieldsaye. — The country is lovely — the neigh- 
 bourhood very kind and excellent — and if I were but in good health everything 
 would be going well with me. But I am criijpled with rheumatism, however, and 
 all last summer was confined with low fever ; and when getting better just before 
 Christmas I met with a very serious accident, being thrown violently out of my 
 pony carriage, in Lady Russell's park, on the hard road. No bones were broken, 
 but the nerves of the hip and shoulder were terribly injured ; and I have ever since 
 been lifted into bed and lifted out of bed, and not able to turn when in it — or to 
 stand, or to put one foot before another. Mr. May, our gi'eat Reading surgeon, 
 tells me that I shall probably get better as warm weather comes on. In the mean- 
 time it is a great blessing that my head and right hand were unharmed, and that 
 everybody is most kind, and that I still retain a vivid pleasm-e in poetry and litera- 
 ture. Should you come our way, I need not I hope, say how very glad I should be 
 to see you here. You must let me know a day or two before, and not come before 
 two o'clock. 
 
 Patty Perry is now Mrs. Phillip Bell. Her husband is a fine young man. • • 
 She has one child, and I hope is happy. 
 
 If you have not seen the enclosed curious instance of figures turning into a word, 
 and that word a prophecy, it will interest you. I think Louis Napoleon the only 
 great man since his uncle — perhaps the gi'eater of the two. 
 
 Adieu, dear friend. — Ever with the sincerest good wishes, yours very faithfiilly, 
 
 M. R. MiTFOKD. 
 
 Of the following, received somewhat later, I cannot ascertain the 
 exact date : — - 
 
 Thank you, dear Dr. Hall, for your attention. These are days of lectures, and I 
 am sure from what I know of you that you would not fail to do justice to the very 
 interesting subject which you have chosen. [My theme, I think, was Heroism in 
 Obscurity.] 
 
 Your book is, I rejoice to see, most favourably reviewed in every quarter which 
 has come under my observation. I have lost no opportunity of speaking of it as 
 I think to everyone whom I have seen, and you need not wish any higher commen- 
 dation than that imjilies. I am still so nearly a prisoner that my circle is limited, 
 for although got down stairs, and with the pony chaise (I hardly know how, I am so 
 
MAKT RUSSELL MITFORD. 107 
 
 •weak and so nervous,) my drives are limited to being led at a foot's pace round 
 the lanes. I wish I could show you our pretty neighbourhood, even in this igno- 
 minious way. You would be sure to like it. God bless you, dear friend.— Ever 
 yours truly, M. R. Mitfokd. 
 
 It was in July, 1853, that I one day received a most touching note, 
 kind and thoughtful for others as ever, in which she said that, having 
 undertaken some literary work that would require, in her very crippled 
 state, all the physical power she could summon to it, and that for a 
 long time, she was writing hasty notes to all her friends, to bid them a 
 sort of farewell, lest from her necessary silence they should think her 
 lacking in her wonted regard. The following is its conclusion, and the 
 last words I ever had from her by letter : — ■ 
 
 One last word — quite the last, dearest Dr. Hall, for this while — since the two 
 publications will be of two volumes each at least, and must engross all my time. 
 Your " Pemberton " is quite safe. If I had not been turned aside by the vehement 
 desire of Beswick to see my Plays and Domestic Scenes in a collected form, I 
 should have introduced him into a second series of " Kecolleotions," for which 
 Bentley was pressing me. This project is of course postponed ; but, if it please 
 God to spare my life, will probably be renewed. In the meanwhile I will try to 
 find a safe occasion to return the book. Perhaps next summer you may come and 
 fetch it. I trust you will obtain literary work of the congenial nature you mention, 
 which goes well with any liberal profession. 
 
 Adieu, dear Dr. Hall, — accept my own good wishes, — and believe me ever faith- 
 fully yours, M. K. Mitfokd. 
 
 And thus it was, secluded from the world she was propped up in her 
 bed to work for and to charm ; with rheumatism gnawing at the tender 
 fingers with which she had to nip and drive her scratching pen ; with 
 her once nut-brown hair as blanched as snow, perchance by past griefs 
 and cares of which she was never heard to complain ; that aged gentle- 
 woman, who had been born in the lap of luxury and nurtured amid the 
 loving and ambitious expectations of the fondest of parents, gave out at 
 last, like ripe fruit, the sweeter aroma for having been bruised. To use 
 her own words, she had been, at three years of age, perched on the 
 breakfast table by her father, and admired the more by his guests, 
 because "a small, puny child, looking far younger than she really was, 
 nicely dressed, as only children are, and gifted with an affluence of 
 curls which made her that she might have passed for the twin sister of 
 her own great doll." Yet thus was it that, when not very far on one 
 side or the other of her sixty-fifth year, she taught by example the true 
 philosophy of life — the realising of the greatest possible amount of 
 good in the most trying circumstances, and scattered that good broad- 
 cast over the land, with the love if not the facilities of an angel set free. 
 Then laying her body down at last in its painless rest, she joined the 
 kindred spirits gone before to a better world with the happy conscious- 
 
108 CHAPTEE virr. 
 
 ness of having made the best they could of this, not for themselves 
 alone, but for all. 
 
 This gifted descendant of the ancient Mitfords, of Mitford Castle, in 
 Northumberland, and of the Bertams who came over with William the 
 Conquerer, was born at Alresford, in Hampshire, in 1789 ; died at 
 Swallowfield, on the 10th of January, 1855 ; and was buried there, 
 without ostentation, on the 18th of the same month, in the presence of 
 a few friends, and in a spot which had been selected by herself, as my 
 friend Lovejoy quotes for me, "under that beautiful elm tree where the 
 rays of the setting sun might gild her gi-ave." 
 
 By me Miss Mitford will be remembered to my lat-est day as one in 
 whom genuine warmth, wit, and purity, dwelt together. For hers was 
 (and these are words of her own in relation to another) — 
 
 The expression calm and even, 
 Which tells of blest inhabitants within ; 
 A look as tranquil as the summer heaven ; 
 A smile that cannot light the face of sin ; 
 A sv^eetness so composed that passion's din 
 Its fair unruffled brow has never moved ; 
 Beauty, not of the features nor the skin, 
 But of the soul ; and loveliness best proved 
 By one unerring test — no sooner seen than loved. 
 
 Nor is this by any means my feeling alone ; it belongs t-o numbers of 
 good men and women who had known her much longer than myself, 
 and by whom the question must have been well tested and settled in 
 the affirmative, as to whether true friendship admits of more than one 
 object. Like that great heaven which is in the bosom of God for us 
 all, there is sometimes "a little heaven below" in the human heart, 
 having "many mansions" and many inhabitants, and it is pleasant, as 
 I gratefully lay down this poor pen, to feel that, whilst Mary Eussell 
 Mitford' s large heart had within it many older and, I trust, worthier 
 guests, without robbing them she could spare so large a share of good 
 will for me. I would it Vv-ere possible for me to pay a more adequate 
 tribute to her memory. 
 

 -^S^ 
 
 ^B4Bd^»(^' 
 
 Mister IJintk 
 
 THE FIFTH DUKE OF EUTLAND. 
 
 (Apkil, 186G.) 
 
 In the course of these chapters I have had, and if God spares ine may 
 have again, much occasion to speak highly of the lowly born. My 
 heart is ever with them and in their struggles ; my trust is for them ; 
 and I would rather myself be the humblest of them all than flatter any 
 other class to their injury. But let my pen be just — just to my feel- 
 ings, my honest opinions and my theme, while repeating what I wrote 
 at the time, that when on the 20th of January, 1857, Death seized on 
 his Grace, John Henry the fifth Duke and fourteenth Earl of Rutland, 
 he chilled one of the largest and warmest hearts in England — the heart 
 of one who, though seventy years a duke, never forgot that he was a 
 man, and whose life would probably have given dignity to the most 
 homely, as it threw a lustre around the distinguished position to which 
 in the order of Providence he was born. I was for twenty years the 
 friend of a person who had been his intiynate friend more than twice as 
 long, and being myself in the concluding years of his life one of his 
 Grace's invited and intimate correspondents, I can speak from much 
 knoivledge — as many others, probably, still better could. And — though, 
 should my writing of him thus freely now cause the slightest pain to 
 any of his noble relatives it would grieve me deeply — it would be dis- 
 loyalty to my own best instincts were I to proceed with this series of 
 " Recollections " without giving him in them a distinct and fitting place. 
 
110 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Born as he was, to the inheritance before he was ten years of age of a 
 princely territory, and to an income when he attained his majority of 
 £100,000 a-year, besides a vast sum of ready money accumulated during 
 his long minority — and scarcely more of his own educator than he was 
 his own maker — it is wonderful how at last his humanity, or perhaps I 
 had better say his Christianity, stood out from amid the splendour, lux- 
 ury, flattery, gayety, racket, and — I fear it may be added — the care and 
 anxiety, of his ducal lot. Whilst respecting himself, he scorned no 
 other being ; and, intense in his affections as honest to his principles, 
 he was in his domestic relations a model, in his friendships unfaltering, 
 and though a high Tory and a churchman, asked me one day to be his 
 guest, and placed me at his right hand at his family table at Belvoir 
 Castle, when he knew I was in the neighbourhood for the purpose of 
 addressing a very humble body of people at Grantham, in behalf of 
 their Sunday school ; — whereas some ostensibly very liberal people of 
 another to^vn where I had never before appeared as a lecturer -without 
 a crowded auditory, long afterwards gave me ' ' a tremendous letting 
 alone," for having once complied with a request to do the same thing 
 there. Such are among the paradoxes of human society ! 
 
 As I have said on some other occasion, every house, like every per- 
 son, has its ruling spirit. In one it may be acquisition, in another pride, 
 and in a third veneration, or any other cardinal principle of humanity; 
 but no one well acquainted with him could think of the late Duke, — ■ 
 with circle beyond circle around him, beginning with his kindred and 
 ending only with his remotest cottage tenantry, — without thinking at the 
 same time of the most genuine affection. Such was his love of the beau- 
 tiful Duchess, his wife, who died thirty years before him, that her pri- 
 vate apartments at Belvoir Castle, with all there she most valued, were 
 kept to the end of his life exactly as she left them, — for to him she 
 never died ; while to the very last, in writing to his friends, he was in 
 the habit of alluding to his family, (distinguished in politics or litera- 
 ture though some of them had become,) as "my children." Even when 
 in the feeblest health, ho would still cheer his friends of every rank 
 with the most lively letters, abounding with genial sentiments ; and as 
 for the poor, I believe he felt for them all in his inmost heart. His 
 opinions of the best methods of benefitting them, or his politics at large, 
 it is not my province here to discuss. He never interfered with or 
 questioned mine. 
 
 Sprung on one side from the family of Manners, lords in the twelfth 
 century of Ethale in Northumberland ; and on the other side from the 
 Avenals, Bassetts, and Vernons, of Haddon in the Peak, the D'Albinis 
 and Lords de Roos of Belvoir — families which had caught kinship by 
 
FIFTH DUKE OF EUTLAND. Ill 
 
 the way with many other families of note, including those of the Lord 
 William Russell who was beheaded, and the Dukes of Somerset and 
 Beaufort — John Henry Manners, grandson of the celebrated Marquis of 
 Granby, was born on the 4th of January, 1778, and on the death of 
 his father, the fourth duke of his line, was placed under the guardian- 
 ship of Mr. Pitt and the then Duke of Beaufort. He was educated at 
 Eton, and afterwards entered the university of Cambridge, where he 
 took his degree of M.A. in 1797. Immediately on attaining his ma- 
 jority, he married Lady Elizabeth Howard, fifth daughter of Frederick, 
 Earl of Carlisle, and in 1801, commenced rebuilding Belvoir Castle, in 
 designs for which and for the laying out of the adjacent grounds, that 
 beautiful peeress is said to have assisted with a taste and skill that 
 . might have been professional. He raised a regiment of militia on the 
 threatened invasion of 1803, afterwards going with it to Ireland, and 
 as years passed on, naturally fell in more or less with the pursuits of 
 most men of his rank and time, on the turf, in the field, the political 
 arena, or on the Tvild moors — yet not unfrequeutly gave his mind to 
 matters more grave ; and whatever he did, he did with alacrity and 
 entirety, so far as was possible. His great houses were open for all 
 the purposes of hospitality, and for public gratification, from which no 
 rank was excluded. There more than once the crowned head had wel- 
 come, and there the shoeless foot of the poorest wanderer found rest. 
 
 In 1814 was born his Grace's eldest son, the present Duke, of whom 
 delicacy will forbid my saying more here than that I doubt if there be 
 in the world a person of any rank having more affectionate regard for 
 the memorj- and traditions of a father. But the joy of that event was 
 followed in about two years by a serious calamity — the burning of a 
 great part of Belvoir Castle, with much plate and many paintings, in- 
 cluding "The Nativity" by Sir Joshua Reynolds, valued at three 
 thousand guineas. That event brought out no little of the Duke's 
 ripening character — most of all his gratitude and reverence, as was 
 indicated by a document placed under one of the towers of the renewed 
 building, of which the following is a copy : — 
 
 On Saturday morning, October 26, 1816, between two and three o'clock, the 
 Castle was visited by a most awful, destructive and alarming fire, which for a con- 
 siderable time appeared to defy the persevering efforts of my numerous friends of all 
 ranks and classes, who gave their prompt and zealous assistance on the occasion. 
 By the blessing of Providence, their manly exertions were at length crowned with 
 success ; and the south-west and south-east fronts were preserved perfect and en- 
 tire. The principal part of the plate, and more than one half the collection of 
 pictures were saved; and a mercy of still greater value to the Duchess and me, (then 
 absent at Cheveley Park,) was the preservation of our five dear children, and of 
 the whole family in the Castle. So true is it, that even in his just chastisements, 
 
112 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 an Almighty GoA is merciful, and that his severest dispensations possess sources 
 of comfort to the mind of a christian ! It is with a deep sense of the Divine 
 goodness, and witli a proper gratitude for the mercy of God, that I recommence on 
 this day the rebuilding of the north-west and north-east fronts of Belvoir Castle, 
 (which were totally destroyed by the fire,) having committed the superintendence 
 of the building to the Rev. Sir John Thoroton, knight, assisted by Mr. Thomas 
 Turner as clerk of the works ; — fully confiding in their ability to temper splendour 
 with prudence, and comfort with economy, but more particularly conscious that 
 
 Except the Lord build the house 
 Their laboivr is but lost that build it. 
 
 KUTLAND. 
 
 But a far greater calamity than the fire, was the death, in 1825, after 
 a very short illness, of the Duchess — acknowledged by all who knew 
 her to be one of the most beautiful of women, and scarcely less talented 
 and accomplished than beautiful. Like her husband she had con- 
 siderable taste and ability ; they had conjointly written pleasant his- 
 tories of some of their continental trips, which were richly illustrated 
 by her pencil ; they had lived in wedded happiness more than twenty- 
 six years, and as says a well-written brochure published at G-rantham 
 at the time of the Duke's decease, " she was snatched from him in the 
 prime of life, and in the possession of a mind whose comprehensive 
 faculties were daily more and more developing themselves." The 
 mausoleum which he erected over her remains at Belvoir is one of the 
 most tasteful and sublime works of its order. And there is a portrait 
 of her in the Castle from which a large and admirable engraving was 
 taken, and copies of it placed in houses associated with her memory, 
 or given to particular friends. It was perhaps twenty-seven years 
 afterwards that the Duke gave me one of them, companion to one he 
 gave me of himself, both to be held as keepsakes, in a little house I 
 had just furnished. I was myself at that time solitary enough, but 
 such mementos made me feel less solitary, and one afternoon as I sat 
 looking at the fine but chaste engraving, I could not help taking my 
 pen and writing — 
 
 Thou peerless index to a mind. 
 The loveliest of her lovely kind ! 
 I always thought the Graces three, 
 Until, fair form, I gazed on thee ; 
 I always thought the Muses nine. 
 Till, sweetest picture, thou wert mine ; 
 But thou hast made my Graces four. 
 My Muses ten, for evermore ! 
 
 How full of life and thought that face ! 
 In all that figure how much gi-ace ! 
 And from those eyes what looks of love, 
 ' The hearts of all to melt or move ! 
 
FIFTH DUKK OF EUTLAND. 113 
 
 Well may thy widow'd lord proclaim 
 Thy clierish'd name "a sainted name ! " 
 Well may he deem thee, even yet, 
 The " loveliest, best, he ever met ! " 
 
 On Belvoir's towers I see thee bent, 
 O'ergazing all the vale of Trent, 
 Whose landscape Eden's bloom doth leaven, 
 Whose stream smiles back the light of heavcu ; 
 While England's fairest sons and daughters 
 Are mirror'd in its glowing waters ; 
 Yet o'er the whole of that bright scene 
 Thou reignest matchless. Beauty's queen ! 
 
 I see thee walking Haddon's halls, 
 A light amid their shadowy walls ; 
 Or, venturous, riding forth to seek, 
 The wide-famed wonders of the Peak, 
 Where Nature, queen o'er change and time, 
 Has rear'd her mountain-throne sublime ; 
 Yet there, fair princess ! even there, 
 'Tis thine sweet Nature's fame to share ! 
 
 Thou art not dead^thou can'st not die ! 
 While art thus gives thee to the eye ; 
 While history to the mind doth give 
 Thy deeds when here 'twas thine to live ; 
 While heavenly hope, with sunny wings, 
 To where thou dwellest now upsprings ; 
 While faith doth all things crown with love. 
 And death below is life above. 
 
 Thou art not dead — thou can'st not die ! 
 Whate'er with beauty lights the eye, 
 Whate'er with goodness warms the soul. 
 Beyond mortality's control 
 Thenceforth, like all things good, retains 
 Part in the life that knows no pains, 
 In that blest sphere where woe comes never, 
 But joy once felt is joy for ever. 
 Such warmth, such light, oft hast thou given. 
 And, angel ! such are thine— in Heaven. 
 
 Derby, Feb. 14, 1855. 
 
 It is not my object hero to present an heraldic history of all the 
 honors inherited or achieved by a nobleman who, in such circumstances, 
 lived to the age of four score, nor indeed to give a history at all, but 
 rather to present a few of those good and genuine characteristics which 
 the dazzle of his surroundings could never obscure, and to add what 
 the title of this litte essay professes, a few of my own recollections of 
 him, and of the very natural course of events which led in time to 
 something like friendship. 
 
114 CHAPTEB IX. 
 
 It was a golden afternoon, early in the autumn of 1852. Tlie spires 
 of Bakewell and Stanton were telegraphing the time of day to each 
 other in reflected sunlight, with the bonny Wye, winding along the 
 vale between them, more bright than they ; while the hoary towers of 
 Haddon, as the river sped along, studied their architectural history in 
 the clear mirror it lent. The anniversary festival of the Bakewell and 
 High Peak Institute was going on in that famous ' ' History of Norman 
 England in stone." Every cotted mountain-side, every inhabited pas- 
 toral dell, within a dozen miles, had sent some eager and lively mind, 
 some warm and happy heart, or heart hoping to be happy there, to 
 join the throng. Many people there were too from great distances 
 ■ — old M. Bally, the worthy phrenologist, for one. Lords, ladies and 
 gentlemen were mingling for the nonce with some hundreds of the 
 people whose institution gave the jubilee its name. And there, too, 
 though seventy-five years of age, walking almost as erectly and looking 
 as happy as the youngest, was the representative of the long line of the 
 domain's ancient owners, the Duke of Eutland himself, with a kindly 
 word for any who felt free to court it, and for some who did not. As 
 evening came on, another distinguished person, the late Duke of Devon- 
 shire, arrived ; and I happened to be by when, in the great court near 
 the entrance, the host gave hearty welcome to that noble guest and led 
 him where the simple but cheery banquet was being held. Music 
 and speeches — less music and more speeches followed, in which I re- 
 member, besides the two dukes. Lord John Manners, the Eev. Canon 
 Trevor, and some of the local gentry taking part. The Duke of 
 Devonshire enjoyed the scene, but looked as if troubled by his deaf- 
 ness, and made a short but genial and graceful speech ; Canon Trevor 
 confessed that the effect upon him of the surrounding scenery, and the 
 historical character of the place in which they were assembled, had 
 made him almost too emotional for speaking at all. Lord John Man- 
 ners gave a jaunty, jovial sort of address, flinging in some hints about 
 bodily as well as mental cultivation — a cheerful word or two (though 
 without using the phrase) in favour of "muscular philosophy." The 
 speeches of the resident neighbours were naturally very congratulatory 
 and complimentary of the titled visitors, especially of the Duke of 
 Eutland. His appearance at the time was that of a hale, shrewd, polite, 
 and aomeyfh.B.i fatherhj man. There was keenness as well as kindness 
 in his glance — the kindness somewhat predominating. He had just the 
 look that, as occasion might be, could assure a friend or — if he'had one 
 — repel a foe. Altogether he had the appearance of being ten or more 
 years younger than he really was — much as though a trace of the smart 
 young country gentleman had threaded his whole life through and was 
 
FIFTH DUKE OF EUTLAND. 115 
 
 not obliterated yet, or as if a breath of morning air had lingered and 
 still mingled with his evening sunshine ; and his speech was decidedly 
 the most practical, concise, and pointed of them all. 
 
 The speaking done, fireworks of all hues followed on the lawn outside, 
 answering to the lights now streaming from the large oriel and latticed 
 windows, and flinging up to the towers and minaretted chimneys above, 
 and over the trees and old terraces around, a glow so grand and 
 strange, not only from the varied colours of the light, but from the 
 objects it fell upon, as to make the whole scene more like an "Arabian 
 night's entertainment" than anything having connection with the read- 
 ing-room of a quiet English market-town like Bakewell. And when 
 the two dukes had left, the dance began in that historical old ball-room 
 of which all the world has seen drawings, or heard, 
 
 Yv^here Dorothy Vei-non danced of yore, 
 And many a Vernon danced before. 
 
 And it was a little after this event that I was made known to the Duke 
 of Rutland. Among his most intimate friends for va-smj, many years, 
 was the late D'Ewes Coke, Esq., of Brookhill Hall, a gentleman of 
 great talent, both original and acquired — a lover of art and letters as 
 well as of antiquities — and mingling with his various tastes a love, too, 
 of encouraging young authors. From the days of my earliest literary 
 efforts Mr. Coke had manifested a kindly wish for my success, and he 
 it was that was the first to make me and my writings known to the 
 Duke, who from that hour to the last showed a similar interest, as the 
 tone of the following letters tells : — ■ 
 
 BelToir Castle, February 22, 1853. 
 Sir,— In acknowledging your letter of the 9th February, as well as the copies of 
 the work, " The Peak and the Plain," to which I had subscribed, I have great 
 pleasure in saying that not I only, but others who have perused many of its pages, 
 have been greatly delighted with it. It had to me as owner of some of the scenes 
 80 graphically and beautifully described much pleasurable anticipation attached to 
 it, — and I can truly say that such anticipation has been more than realised. I beg 
 that you will believe me, with many good wishes, sir, your very faithful servant, 
 
 RuTLiND. 
 
 Some days after, in writing to Mr. Coke, his Grrace added : — " I tliink 
 Dr. Spencer Hall's 'Peak and Plain' one of the most agreeable books 
 I ever read. I read it aloud in the evenings to my children. I have 
 complimented him upon it, and had a bsautifuliy expressed letter from 
 him in reply." 
 
 The "events" of my early life referred to in the subjoined letter 
 were these : — At the age of sixteen, stimulated by reading the life of 
 Dr. Franklin, I ran away from the home of my loving parents, longing 
 
116 CHAPTEa IX. 
 
 for some intellectual occupation, and resolved to make my own way In 
 the world. My hardships during that time were some of them severe 
 enough : one was lying on the cold floor of a workshop in Lough- 
 borough on a chill winter's night, when the snow, drifting through a 
 great hole at the bottom of the door, made, as it accumulated at my 
 side, a not very congenial bed-fellow. And when some twenty-five or 
 six years afterwards I was invited to lecture to the Philosopical Society 
 of the town, and several of the best people there were competing for 
 me as a guest, a few of us went to look at the old workshop (now a 
 carpenter's), and picked up some shavings from the spot I had lain 
 on, to bring away as mementos. Having soon after to write the Duke, 
 who knew Loughborough so well, and feeling the contrast between 
 being a run-away boy on a snowy night and now a correspondent, in- 
 vited too to be a guest, of the lord-lieutenant of the very county, I 
 enclosed one or two of the shavings in my letter and gave him some 
 outline of the adventure. Hence the allusion to it here : — 
 
 Stanton Woodhonse, Dec. 19, 1853. 
 
 Sir, — -I am favoured by more than one communication from you, each containing 
 matter interesting in no common degree. I can assure you that I was deeply in- 
 terested by the detail given in one of your letters of events in your early life — ■ 
 especially of an adventurous night spent in the town of Loughborough. I shall 
 retain and preserve the shavings [he made a book-marker of one of them] from 
 the carpenter's shop, kindly sent in your letter — a memento honourable to you and 
 most creditable to your feelings. 
 
 I have to t'aank you for the transmission of the "Derby Mercury" of the 7th 
 instant, which I will return should you desire to have it. You have been most 
 obligingly mindful of my wish in the guarded introduction into your lecture of 
 some lines in a letter of mine, of the desirableness of a good understanding be- 
 tween the upper and lower classes of our great community, which can alone be 
 brought about by the latter being made fally aware that they are cared for by the 
 former. The notice which you have taken of those sentiments in my letter is a 
 somxe of much pride and gratification to me. 
 
 I received witli deep interest the preface which you have written for the volume 
 of Poems by Mr. Edward Hind. It cannot fail to interest all who are desirous of 
 noticing oppressed merit. Is it the intention to publish Mr. Hind's poems by sub- 
 scription ? In that case I shall willingly place myself on the list. I trust that he 
 is recovering from the malady by which he was afflicted when you wrote. — Your 
 very faithful servant, Rutland. 
 
 Let me be just to my friend Edward Hind, a man of remarkable 
 poetical genius, and with all the sensitiveness of the poetical tempera- 
 ment. He asked no help. But I knew he was very ill, and perse- 
 cuted, and thought it only a duty to mention one of his projected 
 volumes to anyone who was likely to purchase it. There was some- 
 thing almost spontaneous — I was near saying intuitive — in the fine old 
 Duke's sympathy for him : as witness — 
 
FIFTH D'JiCK OF RUTLAND. 
 
 117 
 
 Beh'oir Castle, Apnl 3, 185 i. 
 
 Sir, — Various circumataiices have prevented me from noticing, and with many 
 thanks, communications vrith whicli you have favom-ed me, accompanied too by 
 some interesting extracts from newspapers containing reports of your labours. I 
 was much gratified to observe the reception you met at Leicester and Loughborough, 
 and perused with deep interest your several addresses so far as they were given. 
 I can readily understand what interest you must have felt in delivering a lecture at 
 Loughborough, after the anecdote you related to me in one of yom' letters, as appli- 
 cable to your early life. I sincerely hope that the world prospers with you, and 
 that you are gradually acquiring the elements of a happy latter end of life. I had 
 a letter a short time since from our mutual friend, Mr. D'Ewes Coke, and he pro- 
 nounced himself tolerably well, which I know will give you pleasure. I shall be 
 very glad to hear that Mr. E. Hind is better. It has been with much gratification 
 that I have looked through some of the pages of the volume of poems which you so 
 kindly sent to me, composed by Mr. Hind. Piloted by your observations, I was 
 enabled to go at once to the gems of the volume, and they are very clever and 
 agreeable. I am very anxious to acknowledge the pleasure which I have in their 
 perusal by transmitting something for his use. Would you object to be the re- 
 cipient of it for him ? and believe me, your very sincere and faithful servant, 
 
 Rutland. 
 
 The next letter needs but little introduction. 
 
 London, June 18, 1854. 
 
 Sir, — Since I received your letter of the 10th May, I have been so assiduously 
 occupied that it has been out of my power to acknowledge it and to assure you of 
 the interest with which I read its several subjects — first and foremost the account 
 of your recovery. 
 
 I herewith transmit to you the small token of respect for merit and talent which 
 you are kind enough to say you will place in the hands of Mr. E. Hind. It will 
 give me much satisfaction to know that his cure is permanent, and that he is en- 
 joving his return to the society of the busy world. 
 
 I have lately been living with my regiment, and took an occasion one morning on 
 
 parade to have a word passed for Henry W . He immediately came forward, 
 
 and he had a distinct recollection of the several interesting circumstances relating 
 to his early years, mentioned in your letter. He is now a comely young man, and 
 my adjutant gave him a good character. The conduct of the regiment is extremely 
 good, for with one thousand men in the large and hazardous town of Leicester we 
 had only five light punishments to inflict during the whole training, and not one 
 court-martial. 
 
 I observe that you are about to enter upon a house of your own at Derby. When 
 I retvirn to Belvoir Castle I shall have much jjleasure in looking out for one or two 
 articles to put into it, and shall be flattered by your acceptance of them. [These 
 were the fine portraits of himself and Duchess.] 
 
 The expression of " our mutual friend Mr. Coke " came, I assure you, very 
 naturally and sincerely from my pen, and I am glad I used it, for what it elicited 
 from you in turn. 
 
 With the repetition of an anxious wish for your renovated health and welfare, I 
 beg you to believe me your very faithful servant, Rutland. 
 
 The following letter, with its date on board his Grace's yacht, the 
 Resolution, is characteristic : — 
 
118 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Dartmouth, Eesolution Schooner, July 7, 1854 
 Sir, — I don't like to detain Mr. D'Ewes Coke's letter longer than is necessary, 
 therefore I return it. • • • I can readily believe the suggestion you throw 
 out accounting for the present characteristics of the population near Ilkeston, viz., 
 that they are the descendants of an immigrated body in former days, or that of a 
 race which has been kept distinct during the Koman or Saxon immigrations. 
 I have been on the coasts of Brittany, in France, where the French 
 which I spoke could not be understood by the population, and I was obliged to ob- 
 tain the aid of a Welsh ship-master as an interpreter. The Welsh designate them- 
 selves ancient Britons ; the inhabitants of Brittany are called Bretons ; and the 
 names of places are very similar in both countries ; — in Brittany Aber Vraoh, Aber 
 Benoit, etc. ; in Wales, Abermawr, Alserystwith, etc. 
 
 I was greatly pleased by a letter which I received from Mr. Hind a few days since ; 
 but the trouble which he took in writing it was supererogatory, and far more than 
 my letter to him deserved. — I remain with the best wishes, your very faithful ser- 
 vant, PiUILAND. 
 
 The next speaks for itself. The allusion to his long-depai-ted Duchess 
 is both striking and affecting. The reference to my letter about the 
 poachers, who were tried for killing Mr. Bagshaw, resulted from my 
 having been at the trial and carefully noted the men, who (as in my 
 letter I said) were prone by their very constitution to field adventure, 
 and ought therefore to be legitimately employed at home or in the 
 colonies, in something by which their faculties would be properly exer- 
 cised and gratified : — 
 
 Newmarket, November 13, 1851. 
 
 Sir, — In a letter which I received from you a short time since, you asked me 
 whether I would allow Mr. Hind to dedicate a volume of poems to me. I am sin- 
 cerely rejoiced that he should be restored to his interesting avocation. 
 I cannot decline in this case, having had much pleasure in looking through Mr. 
 Hind's last publication ; but I shall be obliged to him not to advertise the dedica- 
 tion as being " by permission," having refused this form to several others. 
 
 The two Derbyshire newspapers to which your letter of the 20th ult. refer.^i, 
 arrived safely. I have read them with much interest and now return them. No- 
 thing can be more powerful than the evidence referred to by you of the existence of 
 a Diety ruling the universe and superintending the destiny of everything having 
 life in the world. 
 
 You mention in far too warm terms the little present [of the portraits] which I 
 
 directed to you in September. It afforded me much pleasure. 
 
 The terms in which you allude to the Duchess are not only beautiful, but you de- 
 scribe her as if you had seen her. I have always said that I never yet saw 
 her equal, whether as to person or merit ; and it is a singular coincidence that I 
 am writing on her birth-day, and immediately after having addressed one hundred 
 and thirty villagers who were assembled at my seat at Cheveley, near this place, on 
 her virtues and perfections, and after having given out to each in her sainted name 
 articles of bedding and clothing. I have in my possession a letter from Mr. Buck, 
 the author of " Sublimities of Nature," with whom I became acquainted in a very 
 accidental manner, describing her as she appeared in a ball-room at Bury St. 
 Edmunds the year of our marriage. 
 
FIFTH DUKE OF RUTLAND. 
 
 119 
 
 Two evenings since I had the pleasure of reading to a oompanj' after dinner your 
 very interesting letter to me on the subjeot.x)f the trial of the poachers, with whom 
 Mr. Bagshaw was so fatally engaged in August last on the river Wye. — Your very 
 faithful servant, Rutland. 
 
 The winter following tlie date of the foregoing letter was one of 
 severe suffering for the good old Duke, whose constitution was evidently 
 breaking up. But he wrote sometimes, and to some of his friends fre- 
 quently. When he could not write much he would direct one friend to 
 call upon another for him ; and in that way his domestic chaplain, the 
 Rev. Philip Mules, called upon me at Derby, vath a message as he was 
 passing through. On the 26th of March, 1855, his Grace wrote me 
 himself, offering his vote by proxy to an allopathic friend of mine, can- 
 didate for the office of physician to an infirmary, and added : — 
 
 My long and serious illness has prevented me from acknowledging many letters 
 received from various correspondents, and among them one or two from you. 
 There was no occasion for you to suppose that your lines on my late Dnohess 
 could in any way offend me. My admiration of her whole being and my devotion 
 to the memory of her multifarious perfections make it impossible for me to think 
 any view taken of her merits, or any praise of her, exaggerated ; and I read the 
 lines with deep interest. 
 
 In one letter you gave me an agreeable detail of a journey which you made past 
 the [Stanton] Woodhouse. I was actually there at the time ; and had you heard 
 BO at the Rowsley Station and had journeyed so far out of your ordinary route as 
 to have called tliere, I should have been most happy. 
 
 It was here that, a few years before occurred a scene which is 
 thus described by one of the Duke's then guests : — " It happened that 
 I and one other private friend spent the last day of the year 1848, 
 which happened to be Sunday, with his Grace at a small house of his 
 in a very retired part of the Derbyshire hills. In the morning his 
 Grace and his two guests walked a couple of miles to attend the nearest 
 place of worship — a, kind of school-house chapel on one of his estates — 
 but at night the Duke himself read family prayers for his domestic 
 congregation, consisting of his two friends, a few of his ordinai'y ser- 
 vants, who accompanied him to the Woodhouse, as the little mansion 
 was called, and a larger number of the inferior servants belonging to the 
 locality. After the prayers his Grace read a short sermon — I think 
 one of Paley's — and after that he addressed them by the title of his 
 'kind friends,' praised them for the good order ' in which they had 
 conducted their several duties in the last year,' expressed his satisfac- 
 tion at having, as he hoped, contributed in return to their welfare and 
 happiness, and hoped that the year which was just about to begin, 
 might be equally propitious and prosperous to the whole domestic circle 
 and connection of v/hich he was proud and happy to be, he would not 
 
120 CIIAPTEB IX. 
 
 Eay the master, but the chief partner — the responsible head and guid- 
 ing hand. I never in my life heard a more appropriate and touching 
 allocution. It was both simple and more in detail than I have been 
 able to give it, though I made my note that evening ; and it was fol- 
 lowed by a respectful cordiality of assent from the little audience, and 
 an affectionate murmur of ' God bless your Grace,' which was very 
 affecting." 
 
 In one of the early months of 1856, at the age of four score, died at 
 Brookhill Hall, the Duke's and my old friend, Mr. D'Ewes Coke — an 
 English gentleman who wore his faults outwardly and made no parade, 
 or even profession, of better qualities, in which he was rich enough, 
 had he cloaked or gilded his failings, to have had one of the finest 
 worldly reputations. Though the inheritor of good estates (which he 
 did not diminish, but added to by an economy which, however, was 
 never allowed to check his generosity), he was brought up to the bar, 
 was a great friend of Lord Denman, when, as young men, they went 
 the circuit together, and might have risen to the highest rank in his 
 profession but for his deafness, which compelled him early to retire. 
 Of some of his opinions and his modes of manifesting them, it may not 
 be here out of place to say a passing word. He had a peculiar theory 
 of tenure and rental, which was — that the first persons having a right 
 to live on the produce of the land are they who cultivate it ; next, the 
 poor who cannot help themselves, — the landlords coming last and taking 
 what can be justly spared ; and this I believe he carried out on his own 
 domains. Waste of any kind was decidedly painful to him, from waste 
 land to waste paper, whether belonging to himself or others. He had 
 much to do in his day with common-inclosures ; yet he never therein 
 forgot the rights of the poor, but arranged in every needful instance 
 for leaving them their moiety of recreation-ground. His sense of order 
 was marvellous ; and, were he walking along the turnpike road the 
 least stone out of its place would catch his attention, and cause him to 
 adjust it to its right position with his walking-stick, if he had time. If 
 he saw a piece of loose writing-paper lying about any of his mansions 
 he would pick it up and turn it with quiet dexterity into an envelope, 
 using also a small seal to prevent extravagance in sealing wax ; yet, 
 not improbably, that very envelope would in due time enclose a gift to 
 some struggling worthy in literary, artistic or professional life ; or to 
 some poor clergyman's widow, or other decayed lady or gentleman, whom 
 the world was in danger of passing by in the winter of their age. He 
 was a person of tall, open, intelligent and manly port, and not indif- 
 ferent, but rather the contrary, to his genealogy, connected in some 
 wav with the oKlcn Sacheverills, and ovou the Plantagonets, as well 
 
FIFTH DUKE OF RUTLAND. 121 
 
 as more nearly, some two centuries back, with a secretary of state and 
 a bishop ; but there was not an humble cottage on his estate beneath 
 his watchful care, or that, if out of repair, wanting drainage, or afflicted 
 with a downward-smoking chimney, gave less pain to him than to the 
 tenant until it was rectified ; and I have good reason for knowing that 
 at one time he paid an annual sum to a doctor for attending to poor 
 people far around him when they were out of health. His counsel re- 
 garding their property was often sought by neighbouring landlords, one 
 of the chief of whom, distressed by some complaining tenants, asked 
 liim to look over the part of his estate they occupied and advise him 
 what to do. He did over-look it, and suggested a lowering of the rents 
 as the only just remedy, and it was as readily complied with as if the 
 suggestion had been to raise them. He would omit all needless show and 
 parade that he might spend what they would have cost, in building, 
 endowing, and subscribing to schools and libraries, or in providing for 
 those whom some in his sphere would have left to the parish or to chance. 
 He knew the immeasurable distance there is between politeness and 
 fuss ; his contempt for flattery was equal to his love of good sense. 
 And he had a grateful heart. While a boy at school, another boy lent 
 him money when his pockets had prematurely collapsed. That school- 
 fellow became a banker, and fifty years afterwards failed. The moment 
 Mr. Coke heard of this misfortune, he hurried off a note, offering his 
 friend the use of his own best mansion, with the servants and plate, 
 while matters might be arranged, — an offer declined not the less grate- 
 fully because another arrangement had been already made. That he 
 was not perfect is true ; but he certainly never held himself up as a 
 model, and the faultless alone may be left to cast stones at him. I 
 speak of him according to the side he chiefly presented towards me ; 
 and as he was one of my severest critics and sternest of advisers, so 
 through all vicissitudes was he a faithful friend. He was in most 
 things cautious, and could on occasion indicate proud reserve ; but 
 would I believe have braved the world, and all its possible censure of 
 appearances, rather than go a round-about way to his object or speak 
 falsely. It is of him the Duke makes kindly mention here : — 
 
 Belvoh- Castle, March 29, 1856. 
 Sir, — I regret much that two letters which you have had the kindness to write 
 and I the happiness to receive, should have been so long unacknowledged. My 
 health has shown no symptoms of amendment since it was taken aback on the 31st 
 March, 1855, and I feel gi'eat reluctance to write letters which I know must be im- 
 bued with the gloom generated by disease. But I cannot help thanking you for 
 the eloquent tribute of respect which your letter of the 22nd inst. contains to the 
 memory of our mutual friend, poor D'Ewes Coke. We know little of what may be 
 the immediate destiny of that which is immortal — ever-living — in us, when our last 
 breath is drawn on earth ; for sin is, I fear, the most certain portion of our worldly 
 
122 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 inheritance, and no doubt Mr. Coke had his frailties. • • • But he wag I 
 firmly think a believer in the doctrines and revelations of Sacred Writ ; and with 
 so many attributes of christian benevolence and charity towards his fellow-mortals, 
 we may envy him the amount which will be on the credit side of his great account. 
 His son (Mr. William Coke) informed me that he had great pleasure in hearing 
 from me constantly while prostrate in bed during the three last weeks of his valu- 
 able life, and I believe I did not miss more than two days during that period send- 
 ing him a letter. 
 
 I received a most interesting letter from you of the date of the 6th February. 
 My capacities are not equal to its reply at this moment. I am exceedingly feeble, 
 and the mind keeps pace with the body. I have been out of the Castle but once 
 since the IGth of December — enough without any other cause to impair the mental 
 faculties. 
 
 I can have no objection to your presentation to Mr. Greaves of the lines which 
 owe existence to your ready and able pen, and which had my never sufficiently to 
 be lamented Duchess for their subject. — I shall be most happy to receive any re- 
 collections of Mr. Coke. — Believe, me, sir, your very faithful servant, Rutland. 
 
 Hearing from me that I was going to be at Grantham at Easter, by 
 the desire of some homely but worthy people there, to give them an 
 address, and knowing also that I wished to have a good survey of the 
 Castle and the Vale of Belvoir, the Duke at once wrote me saying that 
 he hoped I would avail myself of all the enjoyment I could derive from 
 my visit to the neighbourhood, and asked me to lunch with his "family," 
 adding he did not think he should be able to be at the luncheon, but 
 would join us afterwards. On my arrival it was manifest that everything 
 had already been arranged, so far as was possible, for my information 
 and gratification. For many details this is not the occasion ; and to 
 give an accurate history of all I saw, thought, and felt, in that magni- 
 ficent mansion, its gardens, and the adjacent lands, — embracing within 
 all that taste could desire, and commanding outside all that a view 
 expanding into four or five counties could yield to one with whom 
 love of the picturesque from veriest childhood had been a passion, — 
 would require not a little chapter like this, but a volume. Yet it is 
 not easy to pass on without a word or two. 
 
 " Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill. 
 Green and of mild declivity — the last 
 As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such. 
 Save that it has no sea to lave its base. 
 But a most living landscape, and the wave 
 Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men," — 
 
 Belvoir Castle is among midland mansions one of the most beautiful as 
 well as one of the most conspicuous. Save that it is ducal in all its 
 style and appertainmcnts, it has little in common with Chatsworth, 
 Haddon, or Hardwick. Each of those distinguished places has its own 
 peculiar attractions, and so has this. Though without question a Castle, 
 
FITTH DUKE OF EUTLAXD. • 123 
 
 substantial, strong and commanding, it tas no frown, but somewhat of 
 a cheerful smile, as it looks in one direction to Lincoln cathedral and 
 in another to Nottingham town and castle, and on many an ancient 
 tower or spire besides, sharing the broad expanse of its rural reign. 
 And all within and immediately around it is in good keeping. There 
 is enough of everything, without anything being overdone — much that 
 is elegant or rechercJie, but nothing elaborately or oppressively ornate. 
 A stranger could not be in any room, or at any point, without a sense 
 of being in the atmosphere of surroundings more dignified than ordinary, 
 yet by some magic so tempered as to make him feel no stranger there. 
 What is this ? I have often experienced it in the houses of the truly 
 aristocratic ; but not always in the houses of their imitators. I sup- 
 pose it comes mostly from this — that, whether in the sphere of great- 
 ness or of humility, we breathe the more freely, and feel the more 
 happy, in proportion as the spirit that presides over the spot is itself a 
 genuine and unaffected one, and so catch its character. It is this that, 
 though a courteous man will take off his hat even in the cottage of a 
 labourer, makes him feel welcome and at ease in the noble's palace. 
 
 At an hour appointed the Duke sent for me to his private room. It 
 was a touching sight which met me as I entered that apartment — and 
 the memory of it is not less affecting now. "Another, yet the same ! " 
 Wasted, wiinkled, and sitting before the fire in an old man's doze, 
 with his right hand placed slenderly round his left wrist and his head 
 bowed down, was that noblest peer of all his race, — whose cheery 
 hunting call had been echoed a thousand times a thousand from wood 
 and hill and o'er the wide champaign, — the vigour and elasticity of 
 whose step, and precision of aim, had rendered him almost rivalless on 
 the mountain moors — whose language, eloquent because of its earnest- 
 ness, had won the applauses of three- score years — who had appeared in 
 his ancient palace in the Peak but a few autumns before with so much 
 ecldt — and had even so recently been writing letters daily to cheer his 
 old dying friend at Brookhill ! The difference in his appearance from 
 that festive -evening at Haddon to now was so startling that for the 
 moment I could scarcely believe what I saw. Yet, no sooner did he 
 hear my name than he arose almost erect ; a genial light suddenly 
 kindled in his eyes and beamed through all his face ; it was as if winter 
 had in a moment flushed into spring. There was more than a mere 
 touch of the life of younger days in him still, and the warmth of his 
 welcome — frank and coi'dial, but more deferential to one like me than 
 I had expected — it was not easy to forget. He came away from the 
 fire, and taking his seat at a large square table covered, nay heaped, 
 with books, papers, and many a memento of old friendships, he talked 
 
VM • CUAPTEH IX. 
 
 with me animatedly on topics that he knew would please me — repeated 
 with manifest sincerity some of his former praise of my humble writings 
 — asked questions about several in whom he knew I felt an interest — 
 spoke much and tenderly in memoiy of our departed friend Sir. Coke, 
 while showing me his photograph ; and then on his handing me another 
 photograph with a pleasant assurance that there were few among the 
 many about him he valued more, I was of course agreeably surprised 
 to find that it was iny own. 
 
 From some cause the Dake now felt better, and resolved to join the 
 family party at luncheon after all, taking the head of the table, with a 
 chair for me at his right hand ; — strange contrast to the cold winter's 
 night I spent at Loughborough when a boy, and of which he had just 
 sho's^Ti me in his room the treasured memento — that piece of wood 
 shaving I had once sent him ! Holding as a rule that, should anyone 
 be admitted to a private table, and then, without consent of the whole 
 party, make it public by reporting what passes, he ought never to be 
 invited to another, I ought perhaps only to add to this passage the re- 
 mark that if, as somebody has said, ' ' one of the finest of the fine arts 
 is, without extravagant professions, to make a guest feel happy and 
 that you are happy to see him," it never was practised better than at 
 Belvoir that day. For once, however, a slight step or two beyond my 
 rule may be forgiven. As the hour flitted away it was very pleasant to 
 see how the Duke revived, and before it was gone he looked almost as 
 bright and animated as on the evening at Haddon Hall. One of the 
 points in our conversation, on his part characteristic, was the scrupu- 
 lous way in which in every case where an event was mentioned he re- 
 quired the date of it. Thus it was, that at the conclusion of every 
 matter of information, he gave a more than usually expectant and ex- 
 acting glance, as with a voice in keeping with it, he put interrogatively 
 the two brief words — " The date ?" which but for the next kind word 
 or look that immediately followed might sometimes have slightly 
 troubled one when unable to give it. The doctor having, before his 
 Grace sat down, v/arned him against much speech, it gave an oppor- 
 tunity for others to say the more. Lord John (Manners, who sat next 
 me on my right hand) evidently with the kindly purpose of giving me 
 an easy topic, asked me if I happened to be an agriculturist. My 
 answer was that I had some pleasant domains in the field of thought — 
 the only field, except that of daily duty, I had much opportunity of 
 cultivating, on which he smiled and said he had been with me there. 
 Then he asked if I could tell him anything of the state of trade in 
 Perby ; he knew it was at the time very bad in Nottingham. I said 
 there was an old joke about Nottingham being a rather /Ws? and Derby 
 
FIFTH DUKE OF RUTLAND. 12.") 
 
 a sled-fast place, and it did so happen that, at the time, Derby seemed 
 the firmest of the two. His lordship then said that when he was on a 
 committee upon a bill affecting the framework-knitters, it singularly 
 appeared by the evidence that, of the three towns, the operatives in 
 Leicester were not uniformly so well off as those of Nottingham, nor 
 those of Nottingham as those of Derby. Could I account for that ? 
 My reply was that it might be hard to do so without some thought ; 
 but it did occur to me at the moment that as Leicester was, (as it was 
 at that time, but is not now), chiefly dependant on one manufacture 
 while Nottingham had two, and Derby, for its population, had a greater 
 variety of manufactures still, with the railway-plant besides, that might 
 possibly in some degree account for the difference — one branch of trade 
 being often better than another. Lord John's tone was that of a per- 
 son deeply interested in such questions, and he thought the reason I 
 gave might partly account for the difference mentioned. Opposite to 
 me, and near her venerable father, sat Lady Adeliza Norman, and as 
 she now and then threw kindly vi^ords into the conversation, his aged 
 face had more than usual light. Her husband, the Rev. Frederick 
 Norman, came in afterwards — one of the most unaffected and quiet 
 though earnest of clergymen. He it was who a few years afterwards 
 did Sunday service in the old banquetting-hall at Haddon, for a crowd of 
 navvies employed on the Ambergate and Buxton line. Not far off, and 
 amazingly like his own portrait then hanging behind him, was the Mar- 
 quis of Granby (the present noble Duke) with whom, after the party had 
 risen, I had pleasant conversation about some of the picturesque scenery 
 of the Peak. The rest of the family group that day consisted of Mr. 
 George Norman, the Rev. P. Mules, private chaplain, and Dr. Parsons, 
 the family physician. The Duke gave me, as he left me with the Mar- 
 quis, a genial good-bye, and about seven weeks afterwards I received 
 
 the following : — 
 
 Belvoir Castle, May 31, 1856. 
 Dear sir, — I write by desire of the Duke. • • • He would have written 
 himself, but I regret to say he is in bed and unable to write. He was seized last 
 Wednesday week with pain internally, but I am happy to say he is much more 
 comfortable — though we are still very anxious about him. — Believe me, dear sir, 
 yours very faithfully, Gkanby. 
 
 As his Grace recovered from this attack, I thought it would interest 
 him to hear a little history which I knew would have pleased Mr. Coke 
 had he been living, so sent it. One of the friends of my youth, poor 
 Tom Daubney, who had found me the ''lodging on the cold, cold 
 ground " on the memorable night at Loughborough, and for whom I 
 afterwards wrote several love letters, married early and died, after which 
 his first and therefore only child, "Lizzie," was born. She in time 
 
126 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 had grown up, was about to be married, and asked if I would take the 
 place of her father at the wedding, and "give her away." I did so, 
 from my own house, at Derby, for dear Tom's sake ; and when the 
 happy young couple had left, thinking over the strange course of events, 
 I wrote the letter to which, in this following, the Duke alludes : — 
 
 Belvoir Castle, September 20, 1856. 
 
 Dear Dr. Hall, — I am sorry to have been obliged to leave unanswered during so 
 long a period letters from you of much interest to the reader, and -which proved so 
 especially to me. Alas ! I am little able even now to attempt a reply to any of the 
 points successively (and I may add successfully) treated upon in your letters. 
 Under your guidance the pen seems capable of throwing light and interest on any 
 subject. • • • It reminds me of a Scotch keeper who, in praising the ex- 
 cellent qualities of a pointer he had for sale, described him as being able to " make 
 a muir-bird out of a flint-stane." 
 
 I know the labours to which your profession exposes you, but I trust that your 
 health has been sufficiently stout to bear you through them without let or hindrance. 
 I am sorry to say that since you last heard of or from me, I am almost bed-ridden ; 
 on no day during the past eighteen or nineteen weeks have I risen from bed before 
 the clock has tolled five p.m. ; and then only for three or four hours. Nor have I 
 much hope held out to me of any improvement at present. The fine part of the 
 year is over, and that which is so bleak and requires caution from all invalids is 
 coming on. My prospect is not brilliant. But this I know well, that in various 
 ways I am able to trace mercy in the chastisements and forbearing of a beneficent 
 Creator. There does not appear to be much chance of my recovering whoUy un- 
 less an improvement soon commences. I observe this opinion is somewhat oi^po- 
 site to what you had heard of me when you wrote me on the 14th ult. 
 In that letter you clothed the history of " Tom Daubney," with a degree of interest 
 which induced me to read it again and again, and with increased sooner than 
 diminished pleasure — thus inducing me to rejoice at your having thought me a 
 worthy successor of the late dear D'Ewes Coke, in being put into a knowledge of 
 the facts relating to Mr. Daubney's daughter " Lizzie." I hope you have a good 
 account of the first days of the young couple. 
 
 In one of your letters you gave me an account of the Peace rejoicings at Derby. 
 I suppose those who have been at Moscow will have been almost blinded by the 
 dazzle of Muscovite magnificence. I hope there may not be a mingling of dust 
 with the other article. But I have never been able to unravel the mysteries of the 
 late war from beginning to end. Why the Emperor of the French was so eager for 
 peace can in my mind be accounted for in one way only, viz., from the reflection 
 that another campaign might have witnessed the annihilation of the Russian navy, 
 which would have left England and France the only powers in the possession of a 
 navy. 
 
 I have written more than I am permitted generally at one sitting, but I will not 
 end without an assurance of my being, dear Dr. Hall, your sincere friend, 
 
 EUTLAND. 
 
 In my feeble state I must save my character for writing by adding the words 
 " errors excepted." 
 
 To me, the ability of that noble and venerable sufferer to write such 
 a letter at all at his age and after his long illness is amazing, especially 
 
FIFTH DUKE OF RUTLAND. 127 
 
 as one thinks of the other numerous and more pressing claims on his 
 attention at such a time. It would be sad ingratitude on my part to 
 let it die ; and if my children should still possess it when I am gone, 
 I trust they may treasure it tenderly and reverently for the writer's 
 sake, and mine. The next letter is the last he wrote me, and must 
 have been very nearly the last he wrote to anyone : — 
 
 Belvoir Castle, December 26, 1856. 
 
 My dear sir, — Your very kind remembrance of me in the portrait of om- friend 
 D'Ewes Coke, affords me the highest gratification. I wish I could express myself 
 as I feel on the occasion. The likeness is remarkable when caught in a good light. 
 My health is so bad that you must excuse me for being short in my letter : but 
 ■when I tell you that my last question on going to bed for several nights past has 
 related to the possibility of my life being preserved till the morning, you will know 
 that to write a single line gives much pain. I sincerely wish you well, and remain, 
 dear sir, yours truly, Rutland. 
 
 My son. Lord John Manners, has shown me your interesting letter to him. 
 
 The reader will not now wonder at the respect and regard I have 
 expressed for such a genuine patrician. Twenty-five days from the 
 penning of that letter the hand that held it was cold — the brain and the 
 heart that moved it, were still — and the body was soon after laid by the 
 side of that of his Duchess, in the beautiful mausoleum he had built 
 for her near their Castled Home. Blessings on his memory ! The 
 following impressive lines, said to have been composed on his last 
 birth-day and a few days later, have more than once been attributed 
 to his muse ; but I know that some of the family believe them to 
 have been composed by a clergyman of the name of Wilson — or was 
 it Wilkinson ? Whether some good and sympathetic pastor received 
 the thoughts from his lips in conversation and gave them rhythmical 
 expression, or they were adopted by his Grace because of their aptness, 
 I cannot tell ; but that they so well corresponded with his mood as to 
 become associated with his name at all, entitles them to a place in any 
 record of his closing hours : — 
 
 " Welcome from Heaven sweet dawn and sunrise bright, 
 That tell me of my birth-day, and of days 
 And years that have been mine — they passed — and now 
 Sing with the nights and days that bless the Lord. 
 Praise Him and magnify Him for ever. 
 They pass. Li Him who gave me life I am. 
 And shall be, though my sun of health hath set. 
 Through the long sickness, and the lonely hours, 
 The presence of my God has been my light ; 
 In him no darkness is — but all within 
 Luminous of his love, my perfect endless day. 
 I drink His goodness from the countless hearts 
 He cheers — their smiles, their happiness are mine. 
 
123 ClIAPTEK iX. 
 
 The world in which so many are in joy, 
 
 Fatlier, is still a world of joy to me 
 
 And through the months of sorrow will I cheer 
 
 My poor weak heart with thoughts of others' bliss, 
 
 And pray for them a welfare of bright days, 
 
 Days without spot, that they may be bright hereafter ; 
 
 And most for those most dear to me, and for liira, 
 
 Next to myself succeeding in my line, 
 
 Inheritor of all that I have been — 
 
 Lands, honours, and my name — heir of tiiem all in T'lce. 
 
 Welcome, unseen possession, hours to come, 
 
 Ye ministering spirits of my Maker's will, 
 
 Whether ye wake me to the matin prime 
 
 Of health re-orient, or, as still ye pass, 
 
 But touch my brow through many a sleepless night. 
 
 As with the gentle pressure of a friend, 
 
 Comforting softly where he cannot heal, 
 
 8ing me the anthem that I love to hoar, 
 
 Bing with the days and nights that have been mine, 
 
 Sing with the nights and days that bless the Lord, 
 
 Praise Him and magnify Him for ever. 
 
 A FEW DAYS LATER. 
 
 The wheel of life tm'ns slowly, the cold drops 
 
 Fall slow upon the cistern of my heart ; 
 
 But, my Saviour, deeper than my heart 
 
 The fountain is of Thy most precious blood. 
 
 Shed to cleanse every sin, heal every wound — 
 
 Thy blood — deep river of the water of life. 
 
 Fresh spring of the Immortal, of the Pure as thou art pure, 
 
 Thy Peace give unto me — Thy Grace — the Comforter. 
 
 I yet am in the world, but all how holy. 
 
 How calm and blest around. The world at vespers. 
 
 Silence is stealing o'er me — the sweet sleep 
 
 Till morn in Heaven : be hushed my soul. This still 
 
 And parting air : it is the breath of angels — 
 
 The soft low music lulls me to my rest, 
 
 " The Spirit and the Bride say come" up hither, come. 
 
 I come. Farewell to time, and hours, and years, 
 
 Lost in the distance — yet from age to age 
 
 Singing and making melody — Praise ye the Lord. 
 
 Farewell to those who love me. As ye love 
 
 And think of me in tender memory, 
 
 Many a far winter's morn and summer's eve, 
 
 Bless ye the Lord — love Him — and live to Him — 
 
 Praise Him and magnify Him for ever." 
 
|liapter p\\k 
 
 AN IRISH CHIEF AND HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 (May, 1866.) 
 
 Many years back I was the friend and occasional guest of a family of 
 some distinction, — the sire an undoubted descendant of Brian Boroihme, 
 one of the ancient kings of Ireland — his lady the sister of an English 
 peer — and both connected in various degrees with other houses of 
 note in either country. The gentleman I allude to was owner of a 
 large and beautiful estate in one of the midland counties of England, 
 and of thirty thousand acres, or thereabouts, of all sorts of land — some 
 wild, barren, and picturesque enough, but much of it richly arable and 
 pastoral — scattered over vai'ious parts of three counties in the sister 
 island. Without being a pretentious, the good chief was in several re- 
 spects a remarkable person. In build he was not unworthy of his tra- 
 ditional descent. Though not so gigantic as his royal ancestor, it was 
 manifest that no such frame as his ever sprang from a race of ordinary 
 men. Tall, manly, frank, and warm, he was a great favourite in the 
 English county where he usually resided, and was solicited to become 
 one of its representatives in parliament. This, however, he declined, 
 but recommended his son, whose name as a politician of the Conser- 
 vative school, and whose untimely death, owing as was said to medical 
 mistreatment, will be well remembered by those who were familiar with 
 public affairs at the time. The chief himself was in politics "Whig 
 
180 CIIAPTEH X. 
 
 and something more." In short, he once told me in a playful way 
 that he believed he was more than half a Radical. Whatever might or 
 might not be the other elements of his Irish heritage, it was certain 
 he possessed that of unbounded hospitality. His house was the con- 
 stant resort of a crowd, amongst whom no doubt were many who loved 
 and respected both him and his gifted lady, but many more who, it is 
 to be feared, so long as they could revel at his board, and share the 
 sports of the field which were carried on most magnificently and exten- 
 sively around, cared too little about the cost to him and his. And 
 certainly one thinks that of all others his seat was the very place for 
 attracting such. How clearly is its mentagraph defined to me now ! 
 Its lawns, and vistas, and woods waving away for long miles on one 
 side, and its artificial lake gleaming off into the blue distance on the 
 other. Its old church hard by; its fountain's " i-ibble-bibble " and 
 rooks' deliberate calls at hand, and the " wild buck's bell " or fox's 
 bark afar ; its boweriness and floweriness here, and wide-spreading, 
 well-herded forestry yonder ; with many a quiet, streamy dell and 
 sheltered, shrubby out-o'-the-way pensive nook to be enjoyed at will, 
 just for the finding ! No wonder that with a liberality still larger than 
 such a liberal domain, when the potato-blight descended on its kindi-ed 
 Irish estates, consternation and gloom seized upon even that English 
 elysium, and aroused considerations as to the propriety of closing its 
 renowned hospitalities and proceeding to make the best of things, bad 
 as they had become, on the other side of the Channel. 
 
 I did not know what it was that made such a family look with so 
 much reliance on a person like myself at such a juncture. I had visited 
 them, it was true, in brighter hours, and had been perhaps of some 
 little service to an invalid relative, and there might also have been 
 something in writings of mine that had won their regard. My own 
 feeling towards them was one of most respectful good-will for the con- 
 fidence and courtesy with which they had treated me from the first 
 hour of our acquaintance ; and this was the simple and only relation in 
 which I considered myself to be standing towards them, when, in one 
 of the early months of 1849, a letter came to me at Brighton saying 
 that, as they were about to leave their English estates for a residence 
 of some time in Ireland, and were going to have a large farewell party 
 before closing, they wished I would run over and be one of then- guests 
 on the occasion. I went, and it was indeed a remarkable gathering — 
 a strange mingling of all the constituents of a numerous connection in 
 an extensive neighbourhood. Clergymen and fox-hunters, representa- 
 tives of the army, the navy, and the law, literary and professional men, 
 relieved by a fair sprinkling of the gentle sex, all met — it was osten- 
 
IRISH CHIEF AND HIS PEOPT.E. 181 
 
 sibly to settle the afiairs of a society for aiding poor people to emigrate, 
 but in reality, as I have already said, not less to celebrate the closing (at 
 least temporarily) of a long series of such scenes, enacted from " the 
 days when George the Third was king." 
 
 Next day there was still considerable throng and excitement with the 
 guests who had remained over night — some of whom held conference 
 on one theme and some on another ; while others again rode or rambled 
 in the adjacent grounds, and some (to the great disturbance of a large 
 eagle chained on an island in its midst) took part in netting the lake 
 for one of the finest takes of fish I ever saw — part of the proceeds of 
 which were carted to a distant pond, and the rest distributed for frying 
 all over the neighbourhood. During these operations it was affecting 
 to see the number of poor Irish people who, sure of the chiefs sympa- 
 thy, had found their way to him here, and were kindly treated. He 
 took me to one of the farm-yards where an outhouse had been converted 
 by a poor family into the fac simile of their Irish cabin, with a fire on 
 the floor, and the doorway for a chimney. It was a touching sight. 
 The matron of the half-famished group had died as they were leaving 
 for England, bequeathing a baby which was still but a few weeks old, 
 and which from the time of her death had been suckled by a goat that 
 was performing that motherly part as I stood by — the poor goat, in 
 turn, being treated by them all with much tender regard as " one of 
 the family." 
 
 The dinner party at the Hall on the second day broken up, and most 
 of the other guests departed, I was sitting alone in the library, reading, 
 when a married daughter of my host and hostess came to me and said 
 how much they wished I would stay with them during their few remaining 
 days in England, and then accompany her mother to their Irish destina- 
 tion. They desired me the more, as a family friend, to take that part, 
 since her father, accompanied by a clerical friend then in the house, 
 would have to leave almost immediately, and her mother would not be 
 ready to depart so soon. Her father would himself also like me to stay 
 to the last, to put the family seal on some of the rooms she named, and 
 then give him the seal itself with my own hands in Ireland. Would I 
 not kindly comply with this wish ? 
 
 It was a startling request. Why from all their numerous connection 
 select me for this friendly office ? At first I did not see how I could 
 well spare the time ; but, on being pressed again, said I would try. 
 Their confidence, or reUance, itself seemed to leave me no alternative. 
 Besides, being convinced that Ireland was of all the countries in Europe 
 that of which we English people really knew about the least, and that I 
 myself knew far too little, was another inducement to seize such an 
 
132 CHAPTEK X. ' • 
 
 opportunity. Therefore in due time, I was on Board the Banshee, 
 Holyhead and Dublin steamer, and a few days later with the chief and 
 his lady at their mansion on the banks of the Shannon, nearly opposite 
 the ruins of Eng Brian Boroihme's Castle of Carrig a Guillan, — tran- 
 Bition from London and Brighton as rapid and inexplicably strange as it 
 was unanticipated ! 
 
 Yet, was it inexplicable ? It grew less so day by day. On my pre- 
 paring to return, the fine tall chief, in a tone and manner never to be 
 forgotten, asked me if, being at the time single, I had any tie to England 
 it would be impossible for me to break. From some cause he felt a 
 more than ordinary faith in my fidelity. Mistakes in the rent returns 
 had excited his suspicion. The friend who had preceded me with him 
 in this visit had detected them ; and if I would stay and look through 
 the books myself for the purpose of checking them, it might be a 
 friendliness of the greatest importance to him. He went still further, 
 and said it might lead to his asking me if I would like to stay in Ireland 
 altogether and take charge of some portion, if not the whole, of his 
 extensive property there ! 
 
 What a singular position, to be so suddenly placed in ! Could it be 
 a dream ? Not exactly that. There was evidently some discrepancy 
 in the books and consequent dissatisfaction with the agent, who said, 
 however, that it was but a mistake, which with a very little time granted 
 him he should be able to set right. As for me, being somewhat con- 
 sulted as to what it might be best to do in the case, I had only to say 
 " dismiss him and let me take his place," and it would have been im- 
 mediately done, — whereupon I should have had guaranteed to me ten 
 per cent, upon £15,000 annual rental, and been installed a justice of 
 peace, while the old agent would have been a ruined and humbled man. 
 But I took a contrary course, and to this hour am thankful for it. As 
 I was afterwards assured, the agent's accounts were in time satisfac- 
 torily cleared up and settled. He retained his post, and I did mine — 
 that of family friend still, acting also for the remaining two months of 
 my stay as my host's particular companion and occasional amanuensis, 
 which led to my seeing both him and Ireland in a light and aspect, to 
 a person of my mental cast and temperament, peculiarly interesting. 
 
 The chief being fond of fishing, as well as of agricultural experiments 
 — disposed also to take advantage of his present residence for making 
 observations of his widely scattered estates — we often rambled or rode 
 out together, sometimes to the falls of the Shannon, at Donass, some- 
 times to greater distances. The chateau in which we were domiciled, 
 though occupied for the present by the chief and his lady, had been a 
 gift to, and was now, with its surrounding domains, owned by his eldest 
 
IRISH CHIEF AXD IIIS PEOPLE. l'd'6 
 
 son, the member of parliament, to whom I have akeady alluded. Irish 
 in many particulars, it was especially so in being, like almost every- 
 thing else in the country, somewhat unfinished. Yet it was very beau- 
 tifully situated. The first object catching my eye, on awaking in the 
 morning, was a dark old ruined castle — one of the same sort marking 
 almost every distinct estate in the landscape, whatever else might have 
 sprung up in its neighbourhood. On the contrary side of the house 
 arose a shadowy old rookery. Behind, a neat carriage-drive through a 
 shubbery formed a link with the public road ; and beyond that some cul- 
 tivated fields, dotted here and there with white- washed cabins, extended 
 to the foot of a long, low wooded mountain, said to be the last vestige 
 of an ancient forest. On the southward front was a broad terrace, the 
 length of the house, and like it unfinished ; next a brief extent of lawn 
 and meadow ; and at the outlet of the vista a noble sweep of the Shan- 
 non, apparently nearly as wide as the Mersey at Liverpool, with its 
 salmon weirs, islands, passing ships and yachts, and a semi-cirque of 
 interesting country, stretching round from the Keeper mountain behind 
 the city of Limerick on the left, and embracing (besides the ruins of 
 Brian Boroihme's fortress and some dimly-developed scenes in county 
 Kerry) the gray towers of Bunratty as a closing point on the right ; a 
 magnificent back-ground being formed by the sometimes snowy peaks 
 of the Galtees, striking up with an effect almost sublime into the pale 
 and distant heaven. Such was the scene in which even then gaunt 
 Famine was still at work ; and though the immediate employes on the 
 estate were all industrious and well-fed, it was not uncommon to see 
 people coming from the " outside" and dropping faint at the gate, one 
 living skeleton carrying another still further famished, and both occa- 
 sionally falling together on our very path. Sometimes it was difiicult to 
 know which to pity most on these occasions, my aged, dignified, and 
 feeling host, or the poor people — come whence they might. After one 
 such scene I saw him stand for a full minute with his eyes wandering 
 over the beautiful landscape, then fixed awhile on space, as though he 
 were thinking of all the wealth that had been wasted in the feasts of 
 other years. He then smote his breast as if in self-reproach, and at 
 length found relief in a gush of tears. Matters like these, and others 
 that may follow, remember, my reader, I should never commit a breach 
 of hospitality or personal confidence by tolling here, but that I know 
 (from the tenour of some of our conversations) that were my old friend at 
 this moment alive he would have no objection whatever to my doing it. 
 Bather the contrary, for the sake of future times. 
 
 Although the potato blight was now nearly over, its effects were not. 
 There was just outside the city of Limerick a new grave, like one of the 
 
13i CIIAPTEH X. 
 
 ancient historical tumuli, which had been recently formed, upon the 
 principle of one trench (or grave) being made by throwing out the 
 earth to fill another. That grave, thus formed in one month, contained 
 nearly two thousand bodies that had died of starvation or cholera, and 
 in the neighbouring union of Newcastle one contractor had undertaken 
 to supply eight hundred coffins a-week ! At Limerick not only the or- 
 dinary poorhouse but a number of warehouses and hastily built sheds 
 were filled with poor people — to say nothing of the enormous number 
 scantily aided with out-door help, chiefly in rations of Indian-corn meal. 
 Such was the state of things, as, one sunny afternoon, the chief and I 
 turned out for a walk towards the mountain, when we found leaning 
 against a dyke, nearly dead, a poor fellow belonging to another estate, 
 who told us his name was Connor M'Inherny. His body and legs were 
 so oedematose that an indenture made any where by pressure of the 
 finger remained. On asking him how he came there, he said he had 
 escaped from Limerick workhouse, where his wife had already died, 
 and where two of his children would soon die too ; so he had come 
 away that he might breathe the fresh air, see the sunshine and noneens 
 (wild flowers) once more, and die among his people. But, though he 
 was an "outsider" — that is, not belonging to any of the chief's estates, 
 we had the poor fellow helped, cleaned, and fed, and before I came 
 away he was basking in the sunshine again, on the side of a flowery 
 dyke, not dying, but recovering "entirely." 
 
 Another day we went on a car far off into County Clare, where, after 
 receiving the Fergus, the Shannon, with its hundred islets, broadens 
 into one of the finest estuaries in Europe. The excitement created by 
 a live landlord among his tenantry on those shores was to me amazing, 
 and the scene altogether abounded in the richest and oddest traits of 
 human character, as well as the most pictm'esque lines of country. 
 One thing pleased me much : although numbers of the people were 
 two, three, or even four years behind in their rent, not one eviction 
 had taken place. It, however, added nothing to this solace to find 
 that though there was not a single Protestant on the whole estate, and 
 but little produce of late, the landlord, as he told me, was regularly 
 paying " tithe " for every inch of it. 
 
 It happened during my stay that the leases of two or three farms fell 
 in, and the chief himself, instead of the agent, was resorted to by per- 
 sons desirous of taking them. On our going out one day we were met 
 by a farmer who, after paying his compliments and getting a hearing, 
 quietly put into the chief's hands a roll of bank-notes (I believe to the 
 amount of £200). "What is this for?" asked the old gentleman. 
 " Sure then, it's that your honour may order me to be set down tenant 
 
IRISH CHIEF AND HIS PEOPLE. 185 
 
 for the farm that's at liberty, at ." " Indeed, I shall do nothing 
 
 of the sort ; take them back," he replied, as he handed them again to 
 the disappointed suitor, and then explained to me that it was no un- 
 common thing in Ireland for tenants thus to offer bribes to their land- 
 lords as well as to the agents, middlemen, and bailiffs, whatever 
 difficulties there might afterwards be with regard to the rent. Nay, 
 now and then they had even come over to him in England with that 
 temptation ! Such was the anxiety for land in a country so compara- 
 tively low in manufactures. 
 
 One day another person came about a farm in a different spirit, and 
 an arrangement was made that the chief should go over and perambu- 
 late it with him, and that I should be there for company. It had been 
 my resolve from the first never to carry arms in Ireland — rather to the 
 chief's disappointment, as he said it would be safer, and the people 
 need not know of it. "I beg your pardon," said I, "if you have a 
 pistol in your pocket, it gives you a feeling, the feeling gives you a 
 manner, and an Irishman being quick and intuitive can see it in your 
 very eye." On the morning of our start to the farm in question, when 
 ready to mount the car, the chief looked at his double-barrel and asked 
 his attendant servant if it were charged and in order. "All right, sir," 
 said the man. "And how are you off yourself?" "All right," again 
 answered the man, taking out and showing his well-garnished revolver. 
 "And you?" asked the old gentleman, as he turned to me with a sig- 
 nificant glance, and spoke with some emphasis. "All right, too," I 
 answered — perhaps somewhat laughingly. " Let me see what you've 
 got," he gravely said, on which I showed him my naked hands. "Ah !" 
 he banteringly observed, " a deal of use you'd be to me if anybody at- 
 tacked us ! " Feeling my heart grow suddenly warmer and larger as 
 he said this, and probably also with a flushing face, I drew to him 
 boldly but respectfully, saying, " Sir, I have one particular favour to 
 ask of you before we start." "What is that?" he enquired, with a 
 subdued sm'prise. " Only this," I answered, " that if any one offers 
 to molest you while we are out, you will allow me the privilege of 
 putting my person immediately between yours and danger ! " During 
 the whole of my remaining stay he never spoke to me about arms again. 
 
 When we reached the farm, which was distant about fifteen English 
 miles, the farmer who wished to be tenant was already there, and with 
 him another man, simply a peasant, but so like Daniel O'Connell, in 
 bodily figure, height, port, round face, active eye, dark hair, curls and 
 all, that — except for the difference of dress and circumstances — he 
 might have been the celebrated politician's " dopple-ganger." Nor was 
 that all ; from the first commencement of the survey to its finish, he 
 
136 CHAPTER X. 
 
 played the part of an " agitator," as though it was important that he 
 should take more than a mere observer's share in the proceedings. 
 Nay, even when checked, he took it all with exceeding good humour, 
 yet always consoled himself by immediately recommencing. But to 
 me the most amusing and characteristic touch of the whole business 
 was at its close. The perambulation completed, and the whole party 
 gathered near a cluster of trees, at the corner of a field, the chief and 
 the tenant-expectant proceeded to make their calculations previous to 
 negotiating the terms. The farmer went down on his hams upon the 
 grass, and turning up his shoe-sole for a slate, began to make figures 
 upon it with a bit of lime he had picked up for chalk. The landlord, 
 who had taken out his pocket-book, and written on one of its leaves 
 while resting it against a tree, looked down at the farmer and said — 
 "Now, my calculation is made, and written here; when yours is 
 finished, tell me what rent you'll offer, and I will show you what I've 
 written ; we shall then see how near we come : we can discuss the 
 difference afterwards." " Ready ! ye'r honour," said Patrick, spring- 
 ing up and naming the rent he would be glad to pay. " Look here," 
 said the chief, holding the book towards him : the landlord's Jifjures 
 tallied exactly tvith the tenant'' s hid. No further negotiation was needed ; 
 the farm was let, and in half-an-hour afterwards we were examining 
 some of the blithe, witty, and intelligent children of a distant school. 
 Little need for arms, that day ! Yet was it quite possible that the land- 
 lord might know of some reasons for fearing danger where a visitor, 
 new to all the circumstances, might not ; as witness one of our sub- 
 sequent adventures. 
 
 It was the last week in April, and the country around was glowing 
 in all the beauty of an Irish spring, when the chief, one of his sons, 
 and myself, went partly by rail and then on the saddle, to give hasty 
 supervision of an estate, comprising an entire electoral division near 
 the border of the counties of Limerick and Tipperary. We were met 
 at the railway station by a number of tenants, who, having greeted 
 their landlord and placed their best horses at our service, fell behind 
 and formed a regular cavalcade while escorting us to the little central 
 town of the district, almost every brick and stone of which, as well as 
 every acre of the country for several miles round it, belonged nominally 
 to the chief— though some portions of it yielded little, as one of his 
 ancestors had lavishly given large shces away to his needy friends on 
 perpetual leases, at rents it would never give them the least trouble 
 to pay. 
 
 The little town itself on this occasion — the real presence of a land- 
 lord being so rare — presented a lively but not all cheerful scene. Every 
 
lEISH CHIEF AND HIS PEOPLE. 137 
 
 man on the estate who could raise a horse or a mule soon joined the 
 cavalcade ; and those who were not rich enough for that came on foot 
 to swell the crowd, — most of them having some congratulation, peti- 
 tion, or complaint, which they were anxious to prefer. Many of their 
 requests would have struck some of our English proprietors with con- 
 sternation, their object being perhaps not only to obtain forgiveness of 
 two or three years' rent, but to get some bonus besides, sufficiently 
 large to pay the passage of a whole family to America. And in truth 
 there was no dispute about a landmark — no wrong between relative and 
 relative, or neighbour and neighbour, though smothered up for years — 
 no hope delayed — no service, real or imaginary, unrequited — no want 
 of any kind — that they did not seem to think could now be satisfactorily 
 settled, so unlimited was their faith in the influence of then- landlord. 
 
 On his asking me to take memoranda for him, as it was impossible 
 he could pay attention to them all, since some of them, old widows and 
 children, came clinging to his stirrups enough to pull him off his 
 balance, they then rushed from him to me, whilst he rode a little for- 
 ward. But the memoranda I was allowed to make were few, so fast 
 did the crowd around me increase and their entreaties multiply as I 
 tried to write. In truth, it took nearly all my skill to keep them from 
 under my horse's feet ; and when I lifted my eyes and saw the caval- 
 cade already winding away, two brothers who had some dispute about 
 sharing their mother's small holding, both clung to the stirrups, and 
 ran by my side nearly half a mile, reiterating their plea. 
 
 We were bound to the survey of some drainage works going on at a 
 considerable distance among the mountains ; and on arriving at length 
 at the head of a streamy glen, where a natural fountain was gushing 
 sweetly from the rock, we halted to take refreshment ; but I had scarcely 
 dismounted when the two brothers I had left miles away, in the plain, 
 having taken a short cut were with me once more that day (and after 
 that on another day at Limerick), renewing their story, and women and 
 children were coming in groups from all the cabins we could count 
 below. 
 
 But it was now past noon, and as we were mounted again, there was 
 a dash of the romantic in the landscape itself, and in our relation to it, 
 irresistably charming. We were now at about mid-height on the breast 
 of the Guanavon mountain, and very near the confines of the two coun- 
 ties already named. Backing out of the procession, I lingered some- 
 what apart, the better to catch and retain its character. Still winding 
 upwards, the cavalcade kept on its course — the old chief at its head, 
 with that noble frame-work of the Irish giant inlaid with some traits of 
 the English squire befitting him well. But how unlike was all the rest 
 
188 CHAx'TEB X, 
 
 of the scene to anything we ever behold in England ! The farmers, 
 nearly all in their long cloaks and capes, and their slouched hats, want- 
 ing little to make their costume completely Spanish, and many of them 
 talking in their ancient language too. The eager pedestrians in their 
 motley dress, some of them walking with, and others shouldering their 
 shilelaghs ; at one time spreading out from, and at another closing up 
 with and running alongside the horsemen ; and women and children in 
 costume equally picturesque, gathered or running here and there, both 
 on the heights above and the plain below, to watch the passing spec- 
 tacle ! Such was the scene one instant, yet changed the next. For 
 now we had come to a natural platform in the bosom of the hills, were 
 resting our horses, and gazing with its owner (not without emotion) on 
 the vast and variegated expanse, all glowing as it was, beneath as soft 
 and bright a sky as ever ravished the heart of an Italian painter. Un- 
 coiling itself in the middle of the plain was a shining river, and on its 
 banks the town through which we had come, dwindled in the distance 
 to a tiny hamlet. Here, comparatively near to us, crumbled the low 
 ruins of an abbey. Yonder, afar, were the towers of old castles, with 
 fields around them diminished in that perspective to the size of dia- 
 monds. The smoke of white cabins in the mid-view curled up in slow 
 and graceful columns, while that of those in the distance cast a filmy 
 haze, scarcely more dense than is often occasioned by the intense sun- 
 shine of a summer day. The bright peaks of some mountains beyond 
 all, completed the prospect. And there, in the position I have de- 
 scribed, sat the owner on his steed with his son and successor, also 
 well mounted, by his side, and his peasantry around him, o'er-gazing 
 the whole. My friend, to whom I am relating this simple tale of truth, 
 do you not envy him ? If so, let me further tell you that he had the 
 credit of being as good a landlord, with as good a tenantry, as any in 
 that part of the kingdom. For the greater part of that land he had 
 himself to pay a specific sum for tithes, and for no inconsiderable por- 
 tion of it the poor-rates too. Yet mark. Such had been the eifect of 
 the great potato blight, and so unfortunate the dependence of the main 
 bulk of the population on the potato alone, that there were scarcely 
 half-a-dozen persons among all who had gathered to greet his arrival, 
 who were not one, two, or three years behind in the payment of theu* 
 rent ; and on our descending again to the town in the afternoon, the 
 implorings of the poor for a trifle of money to buy food with were so 
 general and heart-rending, that we were obliged at last to tear ourselves 
 away to escape them ! 
 
 Yet was not the chiefs visit without good effect. About a week after 
 that day his agent was sitting to receive rents in Limerick, and he, 
 
IRISH CHIEF AND HIS PEOPLE. 139 
 
 accompanied by the same son and myself, v/as also there, when a man 
 who had long been employed on that estate as a bailiff was summoned 
 before him. What I am stating, from beginning to end of the chapter, 
 is simple matter of fact ; but names are withheld for obvious reasons. 
 Encouraged by the presence of their landlord to expect justice and 
 protection, the tenants en masse became accusers of the bailiff. His 
 position between the agent and them — and let me add that he was 
 one of their own couDtrymen — had given him an opportunity of delud- 
 ing them with the belief that he had almost unlimited influence at head- 
 quarters, and to be secure of his good will and their "holdings" they 
 must be continually bribing him. It was, however, understood that 
 this must be done on principles that would preclude any chance of his 
 afterwards being accused, and must therefore be managed through the 
 medium of a villainous "go-between." 
 
 The landlord and agent sat at the head of the table as the accused 
 bailiff was called in and the tenants appeared. One tenant, who was 
 also a poor-law guardian, said he had once bribed the bailiff with five 
 pounds, and that it was paid through the medium just mentioned, who 
 also was called in to explain. This ingenious person, was a little the 
 worse for whisky, and looked the very villain he proclaimed himself to 
 be, as he said it was not five pounds, but three, and was not given him 
 to hand to the bailiff at all, but to bribe him to ■ Here unfold- 
 ing his arms, compressing his lips, and tossing back his head, he gave 
 a significant twirl and a loud snap with his finger and thumb, to imply 
 that it was to bribe him to commit a murder ! On the landlord asking 
 him if he performed that part of the bargain, he answered, pointing to 
 the tenant with a contemptuous sneer, " Not likely then ! Why should 
 I run my neck into a string to serve hi in?" "But (continued the 
 landlord) do you think it right to receive money with such an under- 
 standing?" Answer — ^"And why should I not think it right to take 
 the money when a man is fool enough to offer it me ? Surely, when 
 I want the money I can take it, without doing the deed." Landlord — 
 "And do you mean to say, standing coolly there as you do, that you 
 would take such an offer at any time were it made to you?" The 
 manner of the reply to this question was even more characteristic than 
 the words. Partly unfolding his arms, poking his head forward, letting 
 his left arm still remain across his breast, but raising his right fore- 
 finger to the level of his cheek, and speaking every word deliberately 
 and earnestly as from his throat, the fellow said — "If your honour 
 were yourself to make me such an offer, when I had no money, I would 
 take it; but it does not follow that I would do any more." Signifi- 
 cant looks were shot over the table from eye to eye, and we each drew 
 
140 CHAPTEH X. 
 
 a longer breath as the room was relieved of the unholy presence of a 
 man who had already been tried for murder but acquitted, and whose 
 present tale the agent said was only a ruse to clear the bailiff and dam- 
 age his accuser. Some other tenants told similar and far worse stories. 
 One poor fellow said he had given the bailiff two sheep, but never got 
 what he was promised for them. Another said he could not get some 
 land that had been promised him without a bribe of money and lambs, 
 amounting on the whole to eleven pounds sterling. Nine of them declared 
 altogether that he had the use of their horses gratuitously whenever he 
 chose. One said he could not get his rights until he had given a cow, 
 which the bailiff rebutted by saying that the man was too poor to give 
 anything at all ! And another said that he had given nine pounds 
 that some land might be set to him, which he had got. The bailiff 
 was now, of course, dismissed — the agent observing to us by way of 
 palliation, that the man had but played his part in a system that in 
 Ireland was universal! He also said that the chief had not on all his 
 estates a set of more quiet, industrious, reputable tenants than those 
 who had just been making these statements. I am not sure that, among 
 the often talked of "wrongs of Ireland," this universal system of ex- 
 tortion and bribery may not be about the worst ; and the sooner it is 
 corrected the better will it be for all parties. 
 
 It always appears to me remarkable, when pondering on the above 
 affair, that it should have been upon the estate, not of a Saxon or a 
 Norman, but of an undoubted Ii-ish propiietor — descendant and bear- 
 ing the name of the very family reigning there in ancient days ; that 
 the bailiff himself should have been, not less than any of his victims, a 
 thorough Irishman, as his name implied — as also was the man who took 
 fees for murder, performed or not. And I could not but be impressed 
 with the fact, that when some of the tenants thought me, (as thorough 
 an Englishman,) coming to stay among them, they were glad. Certainly, 
 had it been so, that wretched game of extortion would not have re- 
 vived, unless I were shot out of the way for checking it. But the whole 
 thing seems to argue, whatever Fenianism may urge to the contrary, 
 that the griefs of Ireland are less a matter of I'ace than of system. 
 Rectify the latter, and all rancour on the score of the former will die 
 out. For, allow me to remark, that though I have seen much of the 
 various races and classes of the British family — and I wish to consider 
 Ireland as British as any other of our cluster of kindred isles — I have 
 never seen anywhere, despite the sad scene just described, greater 
 contrasts to it, or more in human nature to excite the kindhest feelings, 
 than in that beautiful land and among its people. Humanity at large 
 is still imperfect. Every country- —every family — every person — has 
 
IHISn CHIEF AND IIIS PEOPLE. 141 
 
 probably much to regret and correct, as well also as much to love ; and 
 I do not see why there should not be as glorious a future for Ireland as 
 for the rest,- — a happiness that, however, will not be gained by its 
 cultivation of discontent or its succumbing to despair ; not by submis- 
 sion to customs of extortion and bribery like those just mentioned, and 
 the consequent nursing of smothered rancour such injustice is sure to 
 beget ; not on one side by invidious sarcasm, invective, and exasper- 
 ating caricature, nor on the other by cherished jealousy and hate ; 
 but rather by an equitable, blessed and beautiful blending with English 
 independence, Scottish perseverance, and Welsh regard for order, that 
 genuine Hibernian warmth and wit which all the world admires, and 
 which thus interfused, by enlightened and mutually beneficial reci- 
 procities, would in time make our united national character one of the 
 most loveable as well as one of the most honourable the world has 
 ever known. 
 
 Taking leave (not without regret on both sides) of the chief and his 
 lady, about the beginning of June, I spent a few weeks among other 
 friends, then came away by the Nimrod steamer from Cork. The 
 scenery of the Lee and the Cove rose around in all its verdant beauty ; 
 the calm Atlantic, as we skirted it, stretched out, blue and bright as 
 the heaven it reflected ; and then, when evening came on and the sun 
 dipped down among the Wexford mountains, I felt a strange mingling 
 of gladness and sadness for all I was leaving behind me — glad of a 
 clearer acquaintance with much that I had but very faintly, if at all, 
 imagined before, and praying for the dawn of that bright and better 
 day, when man with man, and nation with nation, wherever men 'can 
 dwell, shall have learnt to "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly 
 before God," and green Erin shall enjoy, with her kindred isles, her 
 full share in the blessings of the world's new spring. 
 
,Iiafiff[r |Ii^uc|niI|. 
 
 THE TWO MONTGOMEPJES. 
 
 (June, 1866.) 
 
 In the language of my intense, intellectual and eloquent friend, the 
 Rev. W. H. Wylie, author of "Ayrshire Streams" — Where, "coming 
 down from the lone mossy tarn on the field of Drumclog, in Scotland, at 
 which the counties of Lanark and Ayr unite ; from Loudoun's 'bonny 
 woods and braes,' sacred to the memory of Moii'a, and of that fair but 
 ill-fated daughter of his ancient house, the Lady Flora Hastings, as 
 well as to the sweetly-plaintive muse of poor Robert Tannahill ; from 
 Kilmarnock, the little ' Ayrshire Manchester ' where Robert Burns 
 found his first friends and his first printer ; from Dundonald, favourite 
 seat of the Scottish king Robert II., in whose ruined castle (fine relic 
 though it really is) Samuel Johnson exclaimed to James Boswell ' What 
 a rat-hole for a king to die in ! ' — the river L-vinc, after gathering many 
 other waters of ' stream-loving Coila ' in its course, finds its way to 
 the sea right opposite to the Isle of Arran, and gives its own name to 
 the quiet town standing at the head of its estuary — in one of the minor 
 streets of which town is a little house, wherein might recently be heard 
 a weaver's shuttle, while over the lowly door is an inscription in native 
 stone, telling that there James Montgomery the poet was born on the 
 4th of November, 1771." 
 
 Aiiother scene. Where from the dark moors of Derbyshire descend 
 into Yorkshire, and converge at Sheffield, the musical streams of the 
 
THE TWO MONTGOMERIES. 143 
 
 Porter, which Ebenezer EUiott calls "Nature's thwarted child," and 
 the Sheaf, which he says " mourns in Eden," there arise picturesque 
 slopes on every hand. These, or several of them, are now in some 
 cases marred but in others much beautified by numerous buildings, 
 standing alone or in clusters, or extending in stately line, and looking 
 down upon a cemetery than which one in all respects more appropriate 
 for a poet it would be difficult in a long journey to find. And it was 
 high on one of those slopes, at a place called the Mount, that James 
 Montgomery spent the last and calmest days of his interesting life ; as 
 it is in that cemetery below, where they were deposited in the presence 
 of assembled thousands, that his honoured ashes now sleep. 
 
 The career of James Montgomery by which the two remote districts 
 named are linked in the mind was in many particulars a very remark- 
 able one. With a frame by no means robust, a constitutional timidity 
 of a sort that often made him appear one of the most sensitive and 
 weak of men, and a modesty that might easily be mistaken for, if it did 
 not absolutely shrink into shyness, he was yet in some respects, and 
 on great occasions, one of the bravest of men. He dared a good deal 
 for freedom, and was martyred for that temerity. He sang the song of 
 the oppressed, but for many years got little in return save the oppres- 
 sor's hate. The negro of the West Indies and that poor negro of 
 England, the little chimney sweep, the traditional "climbing boy," 
 had championship, not only of his muse but of his purse and speech. 
 And there is one fine thread in the web of his life of which I doubt 
 much if the world is at all aware. I have heard it said — and in a 
 quarter entitled to some credit — that, notwithstanding his great store 
 of tender love, a delicate sense of justice to the future induced him 
 voluntarily to forego all the comforts and solaces of a lot which the 
 majority of those who knew him would hardly think him otherwise 
 than eminently gifted to enjoy and bless ; and hence the reason of his 
 remaining a bachelor for life. Intense above all, perhaps, was his 
 devotion to the cause of missions to the heathen — especially of the 
 Moravian mission. In the Moravian fraternity having been born, and 
 owing to it his education, he cherished a filial love for its institutions 
 generally, but particularly for that one, which was proved by his lend- 
 ing it his exertions at every call. 
 
 John Montgomery, his father, a native of Ireland, having joined the 
 Moravian brotherhood settled at Grace Hill, in the county of Antrim, 
 was appointed thence to take charge of one of their Httle societies at 
 Irvine, where, as we have seen, his second child, the poet, was born. 
 Four years after that the parents returned to Ireland, whence James 
 was, at the age of six years, brought to England, and placed at the 
 
144 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Brethren's celebrated school at Fulneck, near Leeds. I have kno\Yn 
 several men, some of them not Moravians, who were educated there, 
 the late Mr. William Lang, of Glasgow, among the number ; and when 
 the latter gentleman spoke to me of the place and his early association 
 with it, his eyes were swimming with tears of affection, notwithstanding 
 the strict discipline to which he had been subjected. Nothing was in- 
 culcated or sanctioned there that did not tend to the formation and 
 development of a religious character. The literature indulged in must 
 therefore have been very select. But it included the "Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress," "Robinson Crusoe," and "Cowper's Poems," in addition to the 
 great Book of Scripture, which would be the better read for the scarcity 
 of other books, and never can be well read without opening to the truly 
 poetical mind, at any age, aji infinite heaven, not only of love and 
 truth, but of beauty and grandeur, which no other reading cmt, and in 
 which James Montgomery's was the very soul to breathe as in its 
 native air. With such lore, and looking to Cowper as a model, he 
 began to compose at a very early age ; and ere his tenth year had 
 passed he had filled with manuscript a volume echoing the spirit of his 
 readings. 
 
 " He struck the lyre's divinest tone, 
 And, touching earth, it reached to heaven." 
 
 Ten years Montgomery remained at Fulneck, his two brothers being 
 with him part of that time, and his parents in the West Indies, devoted 
 to missionary labour there. 
 
 Strangely, as he grew into youthhood, the Brethren, after first hoping 
 to make a teacher of him, thought him better fitted for shop-keeping, 
 and found a place for him in that capacity at Mirfield, when, according 
 to his own account of himself, he was "a slim, carrotty-headed lad of 
 sixteen, misspending his time in the composition of music and blowing 
 his brains out with a hautboy." The life there was altogether unfit for 
 him, and one fine Sunday in 1789, with a change of linen in his hand 
 and three shillings and sixpence in his pocket, he " walked off into the 
 wide woi'ld," and in a public-house at Wentworth met with a lad who 
 told him of a situation at Wath, which, with the consent of the Brethren, 
 he took, and, meeting with a good master, remained there a year. 
 Then he went on a literary adventure to London ; made some not very 
 successful attempts at composition while employed at a shop in Pater- 
 noster-row ; after a time returned to Wath, where he was well received 
 by his old friends, and subsequently took the situation of clerk in the 
 office of " The Shefiield Register," pubhshed by Mr. Joseph Gales, in 
 a place called the Hartshead in that town. Here was exercise for his 
 literary talent. He wrote tasteful and interesting paragraphs for the 
 
THE TWO MONTGOMJiEIES. ' 145 
 
 paper ; his master admired them, and entrusted more and more of that 
 employment to the writer. By this time the French Revolution had 
 broken out ; the " Sheffield Register" was on the side of free discus- 
 sion ; free pamphlets were printed at its office ; the government marked 
 its publisher, who sought safety in flight : the paper expired, and, with 
 the assistance of a gentleman named Naylor, Montgomery immediately 
 resuscitated it under the more poetical title of the "Iris." The "Ms" 
 declared its attachment to the constitution, and on its own pai't avoided 
 extreme politics, but copied from other commentators rather freely. 
 There are now on my table two of its early numbers — one for July 14, 
 1807, the other for December 20, 1808. I wish it were possible to 
 give a fac simile of each — its threepence-halfpenny government stamp 
 and all. It appears to the eye simply a demy sheet, printed in folio, 
 and its price was sixpence. When I was myself co-editor of the "Iris," 
 thirty-four years after, it contained about three times the matter for 
 about half the price, and was printed on paper as much finer in texture 
 as is a piece of starched cambric than an old soft calico rag. But 
 though to its very last it retained throughout the country something of 
 the literary prestige derived from its founder, and had always many 
 contributors of high if not the highest talent, there is a charm in those 
 ragged-looking old numbers, with Montgomery's imprint and the Misses 
 Gales' advertisement of their book-shop, that makes them in one sense 
 more sacred than all the rest. In a corner of the elder number, under 
 the engraved device of a poetic wreath with the word ' ' Poetry ' ' in its 
 centre, is "The Solitaey Reapek, by William Woedswokth," printed 
 with long s's, and commencing — ■ 
 
 " Behold her, single in the field, 
 
 Yon solitary Highland Lass ! 
 Eeaping and singing by herself; 
 
 Stoi5 here, or gently pass ! 
 Alone she cuts, and hinds the grain, 
 And sings a melancholy strain ; 
 Oh listen ! for the vale profound 
 Is overiiowing with the sound." 
 
 Among the nev.'S is an "Extract from the seventy-ninth bulletin of the 
 French Army," detailing the battle at Friedland in which Marshall Ney 
 figures very conspicuously : and the next article is ' ' The Fall of the 
 Ministry — from Cobbett's Political Register." Mr. Whitbread, Mr. 
 Wilberforce and Lord Milton figure in a very brief parliamentary sum- 
 mary. The details of the great poll in which Wilberforce was returned 
 for Yorkshire are given in a tabular form, but there is no political 
 "leader;" for as long before as the year 1795 Montgomery had been 
 twice fined and sentenced to imprisonment in York Castle, under the 
 
146 CHAPTER XT. 
 
 influence of a friglitened, impolitic, and vindictive government, that 
 little knew how much it was doing by such a course to promote demo- 
 cracy in England, but which still had the effect of making a man like 
 James Montgomery, (who from the first was more of a religious poet 
 than a politician), very careful lest he should again come under its 
 penal inflictions. Even from his prison he had felt compelled thus to 
 address the interim editor of his paper, which I think was then con- 
 ducted with the aid of Mr. John Pye Smith : — " Observe the path of 
 moderation and security. If any riots happen before my return, do not 
 tell any dangerous truths or any wilful falsehoods. The last part of 
 this advice is unnecessary ; but you must be particularly on your guard 
 to observe the former." God forbid that England should ever see such 
 times again ! So slight were the grounds for the young and uninten- 
 tionally-offending poet's imprisonment, that Sir Robert Peel felt it his 
 duty in after years to compensate him by advising the grant to him of 
 a handsome annual pension. The, paper became more and more of a 
 literary and a philanthropic than of a strictly political organ as time 
 went on ; yet was it open to free discussion — Montgomery once saying, 
 " I was not born, I have not lived, I shall not die, a demagogue or a 
 parasite." 
 
 The publication of Montgomery's volume under the title of " Prison 
 Amusements" brought but litttle recompense in cash or fame; but 
 occasional poems, chiefly lyrical, followed, and not only caught the 
 nation's ear but touched its heart with a consciousness that since the 
 works of Cowper there had been nothing uttered more like that gentle 
 but fervent poet's notes, and when "The Wanderer of Switzerland" 
 appeared, it not only became popular but speedily ran through several 
 editions — as did in turn " The West Indies," " The World before the 
 Flood," " Greenland," " The Pelican Island," " Songs of Zion," and 
 " Hymns," — too easy of access by every reader to need further descant 
 from me, as are his lives of Dante and Ai'iosto in Lardner's Cabinet 
 Cyclopa3dia, and his other works. There is a passage in the " World 
 before the Flood " that ever strikes me as exceedingly musical and 
 tender. That it should have been written by anyone who had once 
 been a " carrotty -headed lad, blowing his brains out with a haut-boy," 
 is remarkable enough, but still more remarkable as the strain of a man 
 akin to angels but who never married : — ■ 
 
 " I love thee, Twilight; as thy shadows roll, 
 The calm of evening steals upon my soul, 
 Suhlimely tender, solemnly serene, 
 Still as the hour, enchanting as the scene. 
 I love thee, Twilight! for thy gleams impart 
 Their dear, their dying influence to my heart, 
 
THE TWO M0NTG0MEKIE3. 147 
 
 When o'er the harp of thought thy passing wind 
 Awakens all the music of the mind, 
 And joy and sorrow, as the spirit burns, 
 And hope and memory sweep the chords by turns, 
 While Contemplation, on seraphic wings, 
 Mounts with the flame of sacrifice, and sings. 
 Twilight ! I love thee ; let thy glooms increase 
 Till every feeling, every pulse is peace ; 
 Slow from the sky the light of day declines, 
 Clearer within the dawn of glory shines, 
 Revealing, in the hour of Nature's rest, 
 A world of wonders in the poet's breast ; 
 Deeper, Twilight ! then thy shadows roll. 
 An awful vision opens on my soul. 
 
 " On such an evening, so divinely calm. 
 The woods all melody, the breezes halm, 
 Down in a vale, where lucid waters stray'd, 
 And mountain-cedars stretch'd their downward shade, 
 Juhal, the prince of song (in youth unknown). 
 Retired to commune with his harp alone ; 
 For still he nursed it, like a secret thought, 
 Long cherish'd and to late perfection wrought, — 
 And still with cunning hand, and curious ear, 
 Enrich'd, ennobled, and enlarged its sphere. 
 Till he had oompass'd, in that magic round, 
 A soul of harmony, a heaven of sound. 
 Then sang the minstrel, in his laurel bower. 
 Of Nature's origin, and Music's power : — 
 ' He spake, and it was done ; — eternal night, 
 At God's command, awaken'd into light ; 
 He call'd the elements, Earth, Ocean, Air ; 
 He call'd them when they were not, and they were : 
 He look'd through space, and kindling o'er the sky. 
 Sun, moon and stars came forth to meet his eye : 
 His Spirit moved upon the desert earth. 
 And sudden life through all things swarm'd to birth ; 
 Man from the dust He raised to rule the whole ; 
 He breathed, and man became a living soul ; 
 Through Eden's groves the lord of nature trod, 
 Upright and pure, the image of his God. 
 Thus were the heavens and all their host display'd. 
 In wisdom thus were earth's foundations laid ; 
 The glorious scene a holy sabbath closed. 
 Amidst His works the Omnipotent reposed. 
 And while he view'd, and bless'd them from His seat. 
 All worlds, all beings, worship'd at his feet ; 
 The morning stars in choral concert sang, 
 The rolling deep with hallelujahs rang. 
 Adoring angels from their orbs rejoice. 
 The voice of music was Creation's voice. 
 
 k2 
 
148 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " ' Alone along the lyre of Nature sigh'd 
 The master-chord, to which no chord replied ; 
 For Man, while bliss and beauty reign'd around, 
 For Man alone, no fellowship was found, — 
 No fond companion, in whose dearer breast, 
 His heart, repining in his own, might rest ; 
 For, born to love, the heart delights to roam, 
 A kindred bosom is its happiest home. 
 On Earth's green lap, the father of mankind. 
 In mild dejection, thoughtfully reclined ; 
 Soft o'er his eyes a sealing slumber crept. 
 And Fancy soothed him while Keflection slept. 
 Then God, who thus would make His counsel known, — 
 Counsel that will'd not Man to dwell alone, — 
 Created Woman with a smile of grace, 
 And left the smile that made her on her face. 
 The Patriarch's eyelids open'd on his bride, 
 The morn of beauty risen from his side ! 
 He gazed with new-born rapture on her charms, 
 And love's first whispers won her to his arms. 
 Then, tuned through all the chords supremely sweet. 
 Exulting Nature found her lyre complete, 
 And from the key of each harmonious sphere, 
 Struck music worthy of her Maker's ear.' " 
 
 In 1825 Montgomery disposed of "The Iris," and gave himself up for 
 a few years to writing and lecturing. It was in those years that I first 
 saw and heard him in one of the Exchange-rooms at Nottingham. 
 Having, as a youth, read with delight his " Prose by a Poet," I went 
 expecting to hear something in the same glowing style. His theme 
 was the Moravian Mission. My disappointment on hearing the speaker 
 was almost in the ratio of my pleasure in seeing the man. There was 
 little of picturesqueness and still less of fluency in his speech ; nay, as 
 regards the latter there was at times a sort of hesitancy that was almost 
 painful, for which was, however, great compensation in his manifest 
 sincerity and earnestness. Ebenezer Elliott's assertion that James 
 Montgomery's head was in form but half a turnip was an exaggeration. 
 It was the slightly elongated, cautious, forward-feeling brain that so 
 often, combined with a light complexion, accompanies a nervous and 
 susceptible temperament, and his voice corresponded to it, as he told 
 the simple but pathetic and impressive tale of the origin of the Mora- 
 vian Mission. 
 
 The year 1835 was a memorable one for Montgomery. It was that 
 in which, with the two surviving Misses Gales, he left the old house in 
 the Hartshead, and continued with them in forming a united household 
 at the Mount ; and it was about the same period that his pension of 
 one hundred and fifty pounds a year began to be added to his means of 
 
THE TWO MONTGOMEKlliS. 149 
 
 comfort. From this time he lived almost entirely for his friends and 
 correspondents, or for philanthropic and religious endeavours — his name 
 and labours being seldom omitted in anything of a public kind at Shef- 
 field with which his conscience could accord ; nor were his exertions 
 confined altogether to the Sheffield platform. Missionary meetings, 
 near and far, he attended ; wrote hymns for Sunday schools, and ap- 
 peals for widows, orphans, and the blacks at home and abroad ; nor 
 did he refuse to write an ode for one of the anniversaries of Robert 
 Burns's birthday, as celebrated at Sheffield, of which I gladly here 
 make copy, being one of the finest touches of its kind, as well as one of 
 the finest pieces of poetic justice, ever penned : — 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 What bird in beauty, flight, or song, 
 
 Can with the Bard compare. 
 Who sang as sweet and soar'd as strong, 
 
 As ever child of air ? 
 
 His plume, his note, his form, could Burns 
 
 For whim or pleasure change : 
 He was not one, but all by turns. 
 
 With transmigration strange. 
 
 The Blackbird, oracle of Spring, 
 
 When flow'd his moral lay : 
 The Swallow, wheeling on the wing, 
 
 Capriciously at play : 
 The Humming-bird, from bloom to bloom, 
 
 Inhaling heavenly balm ; 
 The Eaven in the tempest's gloom. 
 
 The Halcyon in the calm : 
 
 In "Auld Kirk Alloway" the Owl 
 
 At witching time of night : 
 By " Bonny Doon" the earliest fowl 
 
 That carols to the light : 
 
 He was the Wren amidst the grove. 
 
 When in his homely vein ; 
 At Bannockburn the Bird of Jove, 
 
 With thunder in his train : 
 
 The Woodlark in his mournful hom's ; 
 
 The G-oldfinoh in his mirth ; 
 The Thrush, a spendthrift of his powers, 
 
 Enrapturing heaven and earth : 
 
 The Swan in majesty and grace. 
 
 Contemplative and still ; 
 But roused — no Falcon in the chase 
 
 Could like his satire kill : 
 
150 CHAFTER XI. 
 
 The Linnet in simplicity, 
 
 In tenderness tlie Dove ; 
 But more than all beside, was he 
 
 The Nightingale in love ! 
 
 Oh ! had he never stoop'd to shame, 
 
 Nor lent a charm to vice ; 
 How had devotion loved to name 
 
 That Bird of Paradise ! 
 
 Peace to the dead ! in Scotia's chuir 
 
 Of minstrels great and small, 
 He springs from his spontaneous fire 
 
 The Phcenix of them all ! 
 
 Through a word spoken by my friend the late Mr. John Bridgeford 
 — the man who paid me the first half-guinea I ever received for a 
 literary contribution — Montgomery subscribed for two copies of my 
 earliest work ; the little volumes were sent to him, and in due time 
 came the following : — - 
 
 The Momit, Sheffield, Feb, 15, 1841. 
 
 Sir, — Soon after receiving the copies of your " Forester's Offering," in the hurry 
 of multiform business among books and letters, which came to me from all quarters 
 for criticisms and acknowledgements, beyond my power to keep pace with them, or 
 satisfy the authors or correspondents, — yours were mislaid ; and soon afterwards I 
 went from home for several weeks. A few days ago, however, I lighted on one of 
 the volumes, and hardly laid it out of my hands till I had gone through both prose 
 and rhyme. I was much pleased and even delighted with the bulk of the former (the 
 prose), and the latter (the verse) you may be assured that I regarded as far above 
 common-i)lace, or it would not have held my attention so closely and so long. 
 
 Wishing you success, so far as you may hereafter strive to deserve it, I am your 
 friend and servant, J. MosiGOMEBy. 
 
 Mr. Spencer T. Hall. 
 
 The conscientiousness with which in that letter he tried to guard so 
 young a writer as I then was against sitting down too satisfied with the 
 present, was equally manifest on a subsequent occasion. And it was 
 encouraging at the same time to know that he believed I had something 
 v/orth cultivating. It was one morning when I was in the ofiice of " The 
 Iris ' ' with Mr. Bridgeford, that his old master came in and spoke to me, 
 on which I thanked him for his encouraging letter. On this he looked 
 at me somewhat intensely as he said in a loud and emphatic manner, 
 ' ' Yes — I have only to add to what I said to you in it — Go on — Go 
 ON ! " — a piece of advice worth infinitely more to me at that time than 
 any amount of smoother flattery could have been. 
 
 Of course, the occasions on which I saw and heard Mr. Montgomery 
 in Sheffield were frequent and interesting, but few of them need to be 
 expatiated upon here. He was homely yet delicate in all his habits, 
 
THE TWO MONTGOMERIES. 151 
 
 and even in moderate weather would wear a thick kerchief about his 
 chin, and seldom went out without a top coat and umbrella ; so that 
 wherever he was seen passing along the street it was mostly with the 
 air of a pilgrim on his journey. There was always kindness, but with 
 a shght shade of anxiety, in his look ; and once, for a moment, there 
 did pass over it a shade of another sort for me. This was after he had 
 visited Scotland in 1841. He had been welcomed in that country, and 
 especially in his native town of Irvine, very enthusiastically, as was 
 natural; glowing reports of his reception and addresses were given in 
 the Scottish papers sent to us ; and I wrote a short comment for the 
 "Iris," quoting his own lines on patriotism, and complimenting Scot- 
 land on her children, wherever they might go, remaining at heart so 
 warmly Scottish still. To have done this in a Northern paper might 
 have been right enough. But it would perhaps have been better had I 
 remembered that, born of Irish parents, and sojourning in Sheffield 
 from his early days to that time as he had done, having suffered im- 
 prisonment for his conscientious labours there, yet still giving it so 
 much of his manhood's mind and heart, it was not well in me thus in 
 a local paper, (and it the very paper he had founded), to make him so 
 much a Scotsman as in that same degree to appear as if less a man of 
 all Britain and of Sheffield in particular. I did not intend that such an 
 effect should be produced ; nor can I now see why a man should of 
 necessity be thought to have less love for his native spot because he 
 also dearly loves that upon which Providence in its uses for him may 
 thence have cast him. But there were those who did not reason thus. 
 At all events when next Montgomery called at the office, though he said 
 nothing on the subject, he showed by his look that he had felt a little 
 annoyed, as I likewise felt for having thus given such a man and poet 
 pain. 
 
 But there was a public occasion on which I saw him appear more 
 greatly pained. It was when a town's meeting had been summoned to 
 congratulate the Queen and the Prince Consort on the birth of the 
 Princess Royal. The speakers belonged almost exclusively to a class 
 who had little sympathy with Chartism ; and the Chartists, therefore, 
 resolving to oppose them, mustered at the town-hall in full force and 
 feather for the fight. Montgomery had been selected to move one of 
 the most important resolutions ; but one of the leading opponents, who 
 could just as easily have measured a yard of cloth with a pound-weight 
 as have seen how such a man as the once imprisoned patriot could love 
 alike both Queen and People, taunted him with what to the speaker 
 appeared to be unpardonable inconsistency and retrogression, and the 
 meeting ended in great confusion. Montgomery's face, usually rather 
 
152 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 pale, was now in a perfect glow from his excitement, and his expres- 
 sion was that of mingled sorrow and indignation, though I do not re- 
 member his uttering an unkindly word. Truth is, he was as unfit for 
 such scenes as was "Pascal for a prize fight or Cowper for a crowd." 
 Few of the young men of genius who went up like rockets at the 
 French revolution, recovered their political fervour after the first fire 
 was spent ; and Montgomery, like Southey and Wordsworth, having 
 now reached the cool of his day, had learnt to look on more sides of 
 life than one. Besides, the government of his country had done the 
 same — had repented, and recompensed him. It was as wrong in them 
 to upbraid James Montgomery that day with being a " turn-coat," as 
 it would have been in a Conservative to call the British Executive 
 " turn-coat" for regretting, and so far as possible remedying, the effect 
 of those persecutions in the olden day. 
 
 No ! that gentle, amiable, earnest protege of Moravian Christianity 
 was not adapted for an arena where the name of a political theory was 
 unjustly made the sponsor for personal vituperation, in response to 
 what, it must be confessed, sounded very much like loyal formality and 
 talk with but little spirit in it. Yet were there public occasions on 
 which he shone, and comparatively private ones to which his presence 
 lent a remembered charm. My own residence in Sheifield ended in 
 1844 ; and the last time I saw him in public was when townspeople of 
 every religious and political creed met to give a farewell entertainment 
 to Sir Ai-nold Knight — a popular and justly-beloved physician, who had 
 long been Montgomery's near neighbour at the Mount, but who in his 
 advancing years removed from the neighbom-hood. The poet's eyes 
 and face, like his speech, were all a-glow ; and surrounded as the two 
 old neighbours were by a goodly number of the most intellectual men 
 of the town and its vicinity, it was an event by which it is pleasant to 
 remember not a few of those present. How many of them have since 
 passed altogether from this changing scene ! I have always deeply re- 
 gretted that Ebenezer Elliott was not there. 
 
 James Montgomery gently sank to rest on Sunday, April 30th, 1854, 
 being then in the eighty-third year of his age. In the morning he had 
 been found by a servant lying upon his chamber floor, as if under a 
 stroke of paralysis, of which, however, his medical attendant could not 
 perceive the usual concomitant symptoms. He revived, dined, and 
 conversed as usual ; but when about the middle of the afternoon, his 
 old friend Miss Gales was sitting by his bedside, he seemed to be in a 
 sleep, during which a slight shade passed over his face, and his spirit 
 was gone to that blessed world about which he had so often and so 
 sweetly sung. 
 
THE TWO MONTGOMERIES. 153 
 
 Of all things that happen, few can be more annoying than "mistaken 
 identity ; ' ' and we should think but ill of anyone who took advantage 
 of his personal likeness to another for the sake of supplanting that 
 other to his own emolument. Nor is the same less true with regard to 
 names, especially names peculiar or popular. If a man were to an- 
 nounce "a new work by Mr. Smith," it could scarcely be injustice to 
 anyone, considering the number of men who have done as much by 
 their literary labours to ennoble that common name. But had there 
 been only one Mr. Smith — say, Mr. James Smith — already distin- 
 guished in some specific walk of literature (in that of religious poetry 
 for instance), and another person whose pen had hitherto not been 
 known to the public at all, were suddenly to announce, "A New Reli- 
 gious Poem, by Mr. Smith," even though his name should be Robert, 
 if that name of Robert were kept back the public would naturally sup- 
 pose the book to be by the Mr. James Smith already known ; and in 
 proportion as they liked James Smith's past productions, they would 
 naturally rush to procure it. Thus Robert Smith would be manifestly 
 obtaining for the time notoriety and money, if not fame, under false 
 pretences. Than such a course, I can hardly imagine one more to be 
 regretted. It is not as if Mr. Smith the second had been, like Mr. 
 Smith the first, also named James. Then, certainly, the identity of 
 name might have been very inconvenient to both, and perhaps rather 
 more annoying to James the first than to James the second ; but there 
 can be no law against any man's public use of his own name because 
 it happens to be the name of another, even though it should sometimes 
 involve a difiiculty. Yet in that instance some invented distinction 
 would be but honourable ;* and to me it has ever seemed unfortunate 
 that the Rev. Robert Montgomery did not, in connection with the an- 
 nouncement of his earliest work, keep up a more deferential distinction 
 between his own name and that of his poetico-religious namesake, 
 James Montgomery, especially considering the similitude, if not identity 
 of their themes — younger readers, to my knowledge, often mistaking 
 one "Mr. Montgomery" for the other. They were not relatives ; and 
 as to their persons, having known both, I can truly say that, with the 
 
 * In my own case, for instance, mistakes often arise from the similarity of my 
 name of S. T. Hall to that of Mr. S. C. Hall, and still more from its semi-identity 
 with that of Mr. Spencer Hall, secretary to the Atheneum Club, between whom 
 and myself there is no relationship, — wherefore I try to keep up a (not always 
 successful) distinction, by the use of an academical prefix and the addition of a 
 literary sobriquet given me between thirty and forty years back. But the simple 
 use of Kobert Montgomery's christian name alone would have made a sufficient dis- 
 tinction between him and James Montgomery, from the tirst. — S. T. H. 
 
154 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 exception of their being authors, I never in my hfe knew two men more 
 unlike. In person Robert Montgomery was as well filled up, dark, 
 spruce, curly, brisk, and debonnalre, as James was spare, light, quiet, 
 straight -haired (where not bald), diifident, and venerable. I do not 
 make these remarks in animosity to the memory of Robert, who, when 
 we met, treated me with courtesy, but in justice to that of James, and 
 in defence of a general principle. 
 
 Robert Montgomery (who should be mentioned if only to keep up the 
 distinction of name and person) was born at Bath in 1807 ; was a B.A. 
 of Oxford in 1833, took orders in 1835, became minister of Percy- 
 street Espicopal Chapel, London, in 1836, took the degree of M.A. in 
 1838, removed to Glasgow, where he remained four years, and resumed 
 at Percy-street in 1843. His "Omnipresence of the Deity," a poem, 
 which gained its first run through "the trade" in consequence of the 
 expectation that it was by James Montgomery, had the merit of going 
 through twenty-six editions. He was also very popular as a preacher 
 amongst the lovers of florid rhetoric. 1 have heard it said that, on once 
 being asked if he knew James Montgomeiy, he superciliously replied 
 to the effect that there was, he believed, a writer of that name at Shef- 
 field, but that he knew very little about him. This charge, however, 
 one trusts, can hardly be true. He died on the Srd of December, 
 1855 ; and notwithstanding all that has been said against him by 
 Macauley and others, and some degree of vanity evident to nearly all 
 who knew him, he must have had talents as well as persistence to gain 
 the place he did and maintain it to his death. Perchance he may some 
 day be quoted as an example of those who for want of more modesty 
 mar their own true fame. 
 
@#@^®S/@^^-^@^^^^^®-^@^^^XM)@^^^ 
 
 4tep% |uj#l|. 
 
 BLOOMFIELD AND CLAEE. 
 
 (March, 1866.) 
 
 " COME, blest Spirit.' whatsoe'er thou art, 
 Thou kindling warmth that hover'st round my heart, 
 Sweet inmate, hail ! thou source of sterling joy. 
 That poverty itself cannot destroy, 
 Be thou my Muse ; and, faithful still to me, 
 Retrace the paths of wild obscurity. 
 No deeds of arms my humble lines rehearse ; 
 No Alpine wonders thunder through my verse. 
 The roaring cataract, the snow-topt hill, ' 
 
 Inspiring awe, till breath itself stands still : 
 Nature's sublimer scenes ne'er charm'd mine eyes. 
 Nor science led me through the boundless skies ; 
 From meaner objects far my raptm-es flow ; 
 point those raptures ! bid my bosom glow ! 
 And lead my soul to ecstasies of praise 
 For all the blessings of my infant days ! 
 Bear me through regions where gay Fancy dwells ; 
 But mould to Truth's fair form what Memory tells." 
 
 Such was the modest yet glowing invocation with which Kobert Bloom- 
 field commenced his poem of " The Farmer's Boy," while making shoes 
 in a London garret, — an invocation justified by all that afterwards 
 emanated from his gentle, generous, and most loveable soul. But let 
 me write first of Clare, and revert to Bloomfield as we proceed. 
 
 The Rural Muse and his long insanity were, in my opinion, about 
 the two best friends under a merciful Heaven by which John Clare was 
 
156 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ever visited. If you doubt it, read his painfully interesting biography 
 by Frederick Martin. Read Clare's poetry too ; and, while you feel 
 thankful for your own sake that such a poet ever lived, if you happen 
 to have a child gifted with a similar temperament, go down upon your 
 knees and devoutly pray the Great Giver that He will also favour him 
 with an extra guardian angel to accompany him through life. There 
 is a fiction of English law — a fiction, however, founded in justice — that 
 a man shall not be tried but by his peers ; whilst it is well known that 
 no two men are constituted alike, and that the world around us is to 
 everyone, according to his constitution, a different world. How then 
 shall a human alp, starting up from surrounding molehills, with its 
 majestic cranial dome rising into the highest heaven of thought, be 
 rightly comprehended and estimated by such as never can be his peers ? 
 What chance would the royal harp of David itself have had in a com- 
 petition with tin horns and kettle-drums ; or how could the virtues of 
 the most delicate watch-works be tested by the aid of coarse rasps and 
 sledge-hammers ? Yet somewhat analogous to this, among the crowd 
 and in the time in which it was cast in this lower world, was the fate 
 of the fine ^olian spirit of John Clare, distinguished from all others of 
 his name as " the Northamptonshire Peasant." 
 
 The son of Parker Clare, of Helpstone, a little village on the border 
 of the eastern Fens — in simple fact, son of the poorest man in the 
 parish, who had been made prematurely decrepid by hard labour, low 
 diet, and severe chronic rheumatism, — and with the scantiest elements 
 of scholastic knowledge imaginable, John Clare started up in the great 
 sea of life, as some of those volcanic isles one reads of start up where 
 not expected, to the great bewilderment of the mariner, who finding no 
 allusion to them in his accustomed chart, interprets their existence or 
 gives them a name in accordance — not necessarily with what they 
 really are, but with his own notion of them, in the circumstances. 
 Hence it was that, with a head almost as noble to look at as that of 
 Shakespere ; with a heart as affectionate as that of a true woman, and 
 a soul as sensitive as her tenderest babe, when by the strength of his 
 innate fires he was forced up to public gaze, the poetical phenomenon 
 was interpreted and guaged by everyone according to his own calibre 
 and custom. The literary haberdasher naturally measured him with 
 his wand ; the literary sweep treated him to a professional brush ; the 
 literary mince-meat man and sausage-maker thought his verses very 
 extraordinary ' ' links ; ' ' while the illiterate boor regarded him as a more 
 unfortunate boor, for having more of lightning and less of the clod in 
 his nature than himself. Not a greater mistake did Boswell make in 
 his estimate of Goldsmith, than that made with regard to Clare, by some 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLARE. 157 
 
 of those who glorified themselves as friends and patrons at the expense 
 of his manliest feelings. His genius, instead of being regarded and 
 honoured by them, as a beautiful gift from Heaven to his country, for 
 the better opening of the mind of its rural population to the love and 
 wisdom of God in the creation around them, and the conveying into 
 urban life itself the very breath and bloom of nature, was merely re- 
 ferred to by the majority of his earlier critics and patrons as furnishing 
 an apology for their noticing at all one whose original guise was so 
 rustic and so poor ; and that, not very seldom, in opposition to his own 
 emphatic protest. Nor did his further and higher development, with 
 a more polished style of composition, much reduce this tendency. It 
 was a start on a wrong line at first ; it had become a custom ; and the 
 critics of that day, who (when they were not tigers and fought with one 
 another) were frequently like sheep, taking the same gap in the same 
 manner as their leader, kept up the suit. No matter how beautifully, 
 or even sublimely, he might write, the same apologetic string was 
 nearly always fiddled upon to the same tune, till people got tired, and, 
 shutting their ears to it for relief, unfortunately thereby shut their ears 
 also to some of the most sweet and original song that had ever been 
 poured forth in the English language — song which, had it been only 
 regarded on its own merits first, would have made all such officious 
 apology (and the not always ungrudged patronage it procured,) as 
 ridiculous as superfluous. But do not let me here be misunderstood. 
 My blessing — every man's blessing — and the blessing of Heaven, be up- 
 on everyone who has at once the heart and the purse to aid, in a right 
 noble and generous spirit, the development of struggling genius ! 
 Thrice blessed be the memory of all such, from Virgil's Macasnas down 
 to Capel Lofft, who procured the printing of Bloomfield's "Farmer's 
 Boy " after it had been refused insertion in a common magazine. What 
 I mean is, that conceited ofiiciousness which uses the language of con- 
 descension in regard to what is at least seven heavens above its petty 
 platform of action, and which while it was pretending to serve John 
 Clare, was marring his destiny as much as it was rasping his nerves, — 
 was causing him to be misunderstood by the world it pretended to be 
 instructing respecting him, and finally with its rudeness (all the while 
 flattering itself with the name of friendship) took on itself an air of 
 indignation, when it found it had missed its aim and got no grateful 
 response from the man whom it was driving into madness as a refuge 
 from its persecutions ! Of course there were not wanting some glorious 
 exceptions to this rule — many, indeed, — but there is no disguising that 
 they were exceptions, and that the rule in the case was one of the most 
 inglorious that could have been ; and the people, of whatever rank. 
 
158 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 with whom Clare was brought most in contact by such means, instead 
 of delicately befriending him, regarded him too often with a vulgar 
 curiosity not unlike that with which (though with less emolument to 
 the object) they in turn regarded Tom Thumb and the Hippopotamus 
 — whichever happened for the moment to be most in fashion. It was 
 through such effete meddlers and the pompous boast they made of 
 what they imagined themselves to be doing for him, that some of his 
 more truly genuine and generous patrons were turned against him, and 
 made to withhold succour to which they would otherwise, no doubt, 
 gladly have made additions ; while the world at large had been amused 
 with the belief that he was rendered independent, when in truth, both 
 he and his large family were sometimes so pinched, and his little debts 
 — little in one sense, but great enough in their effect on him — so 
 harassing, that he was kept for yeara together in a state of anxiety and 
 gloom, just as it was with Robert Bloomfield before him. 
 
 Mentioning Bloomfield thus, let me here fling in a few words about 
 him, though I never saw him. You have, of com-se, at least heard 
 something of his "Farmer's Boy," and have probably read a few of 
 his " Rui'al Tales;" but did you ever read his "May Day with the 
 Muses " — by far the best, though perhaps least known, of all his works ? 
 If you have, I need not say one word more to you as to his poetical 
 worth. But let us, even though it be but for a moment, give a thought 
 to the man. Country-born (his mother early left a widow, and teach- 
 ing a little village school, whilst he went out as a herd-boy), 
 
 " He roam'd the lonely Crusoe of the fields," 
 
 Until his twelfth year, and then went to London and became a shoe- 
 maker, taking into the throbbing thick of the great city his country ex- 
 periences in his soul, as living, vast, and various, as when his eyes and 
 ears were realising them on his native Suffolk plains. All these ex- 
 periences, in time, bloomed out in most beaiitiful verse, and he became 
 famous. But, his reputation being taken for prosperity, the world in 
 general left him to enjoy it as might happen, whilst a number of poor 
 relatives and friends taxed his sympathies to the extreme, and made 
 him at last still poorer than themselves. At the age of fifty-seven, he 
 died of debt, at Sheflbrd, in Bedfordshire, — of debt amounting alto- 
 gether to not much more, perhaps, than twenty pounds, — but as heavy 
 on his inability as if it had been twenty thousand, — and then he was 
 buried in Campton church-yard, about a mile from where he died. 
 Bloomfield's was one of the sweetest, gentlest and most fervent spirits 
 ever embodied ; and his look — his portrait is near me now — was as 
 gentle and pleasing. That tapering under-jaw and small but well- 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLARE. 159 
 
 rounded chin, bespeaking at once affection and purity ; that mouth, 
 which even in its silence seems to be uttering kind and sensible tilings ; 
 that regular and "peaceful nose " of a man who could seldom give or 
 take offence ; beautifully arched brows, shading those observant and 
 loving eyes ; the forehead expanding up towards reason's throne, and 
 out towards the realms of wit, ideality, wonder, and awe ; the indica- 
 tions of warm and amiable social feelings behind ; and of benevolence, 
 aspiration, justice, and devotion, surmounting all, in the coronal region ! 
 The very figure of the man is itself a beautiful poem, of which none 
 but a God could have been the Author ! And his works have cheered 
 the hearths and hearts of thousands. Yet Robert Bloomfield went dull 
 of brain, and died, for want of from twenty to thirty pounds ! A few 
 years afterwards. Professor Wilson, when writing about Clare, threw in 
 an episode on Bloomfield, as I am doing now ; and — heart-of-England 
 man though I be — let me honestly give it here : — 
 
 " Our well-beloved brethren, the English — who have a \'ulgar habit 
 of calling us the Scotch — never lose an opportunity of declaiming on 
 the national disgrace incurred by our treatment of Burns. We confess 
 that the people of that day were not blameless — nor was the bard 
 whom now all the nations honour. There was some reason for sorrow, 
 and perhaps for shame ; and there was avowed repentance. Scotland 
 stands where it did in the world's esteem. The widow outlived her 
 husband nearly forty years ; she wanted nothing, and was happy. The 
 sons are prosperous, or with a competence. All along with that family 
 all has been right. England never had a Burns. We cannot know 
 how she would have treated him had he ' walked in glory and in joy ' 
 upon her mountain side. But we do know how she treated her Bloom- 
 field. She let him starve. Humanly speaking, we may say that but 
 for his imprisonment — his exclusion from light and air — he would 
 now have been alive. As it was, the patronage he received served but 
 to prolong a feeble, a desponding, a melancholy existence ; cheered at 
 times by short visits from the Muse, who was scared from that dim 
 abode, and fain would have wafted him with her to the fresh fields and 
 the breezy downs. But his lot forbade — and generous England. There 
 was some talk of a subscription, and Southey, with hand ' open as the 
 day to melting charity,' was foremost among the poets. But somehow 
 or other it fell through, and was never more heard of — and meanwhile 
 Bloomfield died. Hush then about Burns." 
 
 So far Wilson : let me now, myself, for a moment, resume. It was, 
 I think, in the spring of 1853, that professional duty took me into the 
 neighbourhood of Bedford. For the true love I bore to Bloomfield for 
 all his poetry had done for me, I resolved one day to take advantage 
 
160 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 of the offered companionship and carriage of a friend, Mr. Usher, of 
 the Orchards, near Blunham, and visit his grave. In passing along 
 Shefford street, we saw a large board upon the shop-front of a mercer, 
 " Bloomfield House." Come — I thought — there is a touch of sentiment 
 at least in the person who owns this ; I will go in and speak to him. 
 The mercer, a civil man, told me that the reason for calling the house 
 by Bloomfield's name was simply that he had lodged and died in it, 
 and freely showed me through the rooms he had occupied. Buying a 
 bunch of artificial flowers from him for a keepsake, I asked him to give 
 me, honestly, his own and the town's memory and estimate of Bloom- 
 field and his family. "Why, sir," he replied, "they were very j>oor, 
 and he now and then made a dulcimer to sell, until he got too ill for 
 it." Is that, I enquired, with little or nothing more, what the people 
 of Shefford generally remember of Robert Bloomfield ? "Just so," he 
 answered, "he rambled a good deal in the fields, they were very poor, 
 and he died in debt." "Did he die in debt?" I rejoined, probably 
 looking rather wistfully at the speaker. "Yes," said he, speaking very 
 
 slowly, " he died in debt but sometime afterwards the family 
 
 raised a little money and paid every halfpenny ! " Yes — said I, and I 
 know, most likely, how it was done : those poor but honourable people 
 collected and published all his left scraps of writing — good or trifling — 
 published them under the title of his "Literary Remains," and instead 
 of using it themselves, poor as they were, they paid the debts he died 
 of with the money. It was very praiseworthy of them ; but you see, 
 after all, Bloomfield's debts were paid by his own productions ! Why 
 has the world never been told this before ? 
 
 From the place where Bloomfield died I went to the place where he 
 is buried. A quiet little country church-yard is that of Campton, and 
 likely to remain quiet from the manner in which its gate is kept locked. 
 On finding it so, I thought that caution might be needful to prevent 
 the many visitors to the poet's grave committing some damage, and 
 said so to the parish-clerk or sexton when he came to let me and my 
 friend through. But this was a mistake. There was no track at all 
 from the gate to Bloomfield's grave. There it was, (his remains and 
 those of Thomas Inskip, a local poet, lying side by side), a few trees 
 waving above. A very plain little head-stone told the simple tale of 
 where and when he was born, and when he died, adding — ■ 
 
 "Let bis wild native woocl-notes tell the rest ; " 
 
 And our conductor said, though he had been in his office many years, 
 I was the only stranger ivho in all that time had visited Robert Bloom- 
 field's grave ! I felt, with shame for my own country-people, that 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLARE. 161 
 
 Professor Wilson was right ; and, in the end, the fate of Clare, though 
 somewhat different from Bloomfield's, was yet fearfully akin to it ! 
 
 Since the foregoing was written I have had an opportunity of know- 
 ing two of Bloomfield's children, daughters— one a widow, the other a 
 spinster, and hoth very aged. They were, in 1867, living on a small pit- 
 tance, at decent lodgings, in Hoxton-square, London, surrounded by a 
 few choice relics and mementos of the poet. Not least interesting to mo 
 was " The Old Oak Table " on which he wrote his " Farmer's Boy," 
 and on which now stood the inkstand given him by the celebrated Dr. 
 Jenner — his painted portrait looking down on both, and representing 
 him with a darker complexion and more energetic expression than from 
 various engravings I had been led to expect. It was a great treat to 
 have the affectionate reminiscences of his daughters viva voce ; but 
 they had little not already printed, or indicated in print, to tell of him. 
 We read him about as well in Jtis icritiugs as anywhere ; and they sank 
 too deep into the soul in my younger days to let anything relating to 
 him have a much greater charm for me now, — though it was impossible 
 to feel otherwise than deeply interested in his daughters for their own 
 sake, as well as his. One of them at the period of my visits was a frail 
 and fast-declining invalid ; and my last letter to them at the above 
 address was returned from the General Post-office, their new address 
 (if they were living) unknown. 
 
 My personal acquaintance with Clare was but brief, and sad ; my 
 admiration of his genius and many of his writings commenced early 
 and continues still. It is doubtful if the whole range of modern author- 
 hood furnishes a more remarkable and interesting psychological study 
 than this — not a second Bloomiield, as some have called him, nor the 
 English Burns, as he has been designated by others — not an imitator 
 or likeness of any other man — but a bard so true to her as he saw her, 
 that, in reading his poetry, it is sometimes difficult to know where 
 Nature ends and her interpreter begins. When he said that he 
 
 " Found his poems in the iields 
 And only wrote them down," 
 
 Words more true were perhaps never written, and yet those two lines 
 were penned by him at a retreat for mental invalids. 
 
 It was on one of the quietest, sunniest of summer Sundays, after 
 diving the week before into a deep work on natural philosophy, that I 
 first took up some passages of this natural poetry. In the morning I 
 had risen early and strolled far into the country, with " Telemachus" 
 for a companion, in a neighbourhood noted for its natural beauty ; had 
 attended my usual place of worship during the forenoon, and in the 
 afternoon had strolled out again through scenes having such descriptive 
 
162 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 names as Colwick Grove, Carlton Fields, St. Ann's Well, and Bluebell 
 Hill, to a friendly cottage at Forest-side, where, during tea, I chanced 
 to lay my hand on a review of " The Village Minstrel and other Poems," 
 by John Clare, prefaced by the inevitable mendicant-memoir got up by 
 his publishing friends. It was easy to see that no man who had ever 
 written anything half as interesting had been favoured with less of 
 normal education. There were here and there striking defects of gram- 
 mar ; but owing to the peculiarity of their connection with his descrip- 
 tions, imaginings, and fancies, which had a beautiful idiosyncratic logic 
 of their own, there was a charm even about them for that very reason : 
 they gave a more picturesque individuality to the man and his mind, 
 serving as foils to throw out his excellences in finer rehef, to those un- 
 conventional readers and thinkers who, enjoying what was not faultless, 
 could make a reasonable allowance for such faults. In those simple 
 extracts (I wish there were room for them here) I seemed to find nearly 
 all my own sabbath musings made more real and glowing, and in the 
 course of the week read three of Clare's volumes through. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that it was the poem of " Thomson's Sea- 
 sons " which awakened John Clare, not to poetry, but to the first 
 expression of it, just as it had done Kobert Bloomfield before him, and 
 as it probably had many a one besides. You have heard the story of 
 two great and well-known authors, on a tour, dropping into an obscure 
 cottage in the Highlands and finding the volume of "The Seasons" on 
 the window-sill, having been read and read until its leaves were nearly 
 worn out with thumbing, when one of them, pointing the other to it, 
 said " That is fame !" It was this very poem that, when Clare (who 
 had been born a twin) was yet a weakly and ragged urchin, first be- 
 witched him as he got a mere glimpse of it, while it was in the posses- 
 sion of a big, churlish, well-ofl' village boy, who refused to lend it to 
 him, even for cm hour. But, having learnt that it could be bought at 
 Stamford, seven miles distant, for eighteenpence, he begged and bor- 
 rowed till he had made up that sum, and started for Stamford one 
 Sunday morning for the book, forgetting (if he had ever known) that 
 the book-shop would bo closed on that day. By hard screwing he got 
 twopence more, gave a play-fellow half of it to tend his master's cattle, 
 and bribed him with the other half to keep the secret while he hurried 
 to Stamford again the next morning. He was there before daylight ; 
 got the book (to his surprise, for a shilling) as soon as the shop was 
 opened, read it partly on the road as he walked back, then laid him 
 down in Burghley Park and read it again ; and getting home at last, 
 was so ravished by the new world the poetry had opened to him, that, 
 poor as he was, he gave his playfellow the sixpence plus the cost of the 
 book, and from that hour himself became a poet ! 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLARE. 163 
 
 And Beveral things besides lie became coincidentally, though some 
 he wished to become he failed in. A relative, who saw his genius and 
 mistook it for learning, induced him to try for the place of a lawyer's 
 clerk, which of course he did not get. He did, however, get work for 
 a time in the Marquis of Exeter's gardens ; was afterwards for some 
 time a sort of "ne'er-do-weel," then a militia-man, then a lime-burner 
 at seven shillings a-week, then a lover; and, through all, a reader and 
 poet still. And there was one good man who understood, and gave 
 him cheering words, even then — the Rev. J. Knov/les Holland, of 
 Market Deeping, to whom he afterwai'ds dedicated his poem of " The 
 Woodman." 
 
 Then came a grand effort (after many of his poems had been burnt 
 by his mother, because she and his poor old father thought it was a 
 bad thing for one like him to attempt writing poetry at all,) to get some 
 of the remainder printed. His discouragements now were great in the 
 extreme. The story has often been told, but by no one so well as by 
 Frederick Martin, as to how one printer, after much parley, would not 
 get out a prospectus without pre-payment, and even then would not 
 undertake the book because only seven subscribers could be obtained ; 
 how another (Mr. Drury, of Stamford,) undertook it, and then half re- 
 pented ; how, presently, Taylor and Hessey, the Loudon publishers, 
 undertook it, and Gilford praised it in the " Quarterly," and the 
 pauper-apology was cooked up by another writer for the " Monthly;" 
 how the book went through four editions, while the poor poet was lion- 
 ised in a way that did him harm by introducing him to new habits that 
 could not (nor was it desirable that some of them should) be afterwards 
 maintained, as subscriptions were got up for him by right-hearted friends 
 in a wrong-headed manner, and were practically not near so successful 
 as they were proclaimed nominally to be ; and how, at length, one of 
 his patron-critics warned him that if he did not cease acquaintance with 
 that old friend in his lowest adversitj^, the dissenting minister, Mr. 
 Holland, it was not to be supposed that his new friends would keep up 
 their acquaintance with libii ! Nor was this all. Some of the poetry 
 had bewitched a beautiful governess at a noble mansion at which Clare 
 had to appear ; and she in turn was very near bewitching him, only 
 that he had already committed himself too far with Martha Turner, or 
 as in one of his lyrics he calls her "Patty of the Vale," for his con- 
 science to let him easily forsake her. But let him give the story in his 
 own touching way : — 
 
 " A weedling wild on lonely lea 
 My evening rambles chanced to see ; 
 And much the weedling tempted me 
 To crop its tender flower ; 
 
16 i CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ExxJosed to wind and heavy rain, 
 Its head bow'd lowly on the plain ; 
 And silently it seem'd in pain 
 
 Of life's endanger'd hour. 
 
 And wilt thou bid my bloom decay, 
 And crop my flower, and me betray, 
 And cast my injured sweets away ? — 
 Its silence seemly sigh'd — 
 
 ' A moment's idol of thy mind ! 
 And is a stranger so unkind, 
 To leave a shameful root behind. 
 Bereft of all its pride ? ' 
 
 And so it seemly did complain ; 
 And beating fell the heavy rain ; 
 And low it droop'd upon the plain, 
 To fate resign'd to fall : 
 
 My heart did melt at its decline, 
 And ' Come,' said I, ' thou gem divine, 
 My fate shall stand the storm with thine ; ' 
 So took the root and all." 
 
 Clare went, or was taken, three times up to London ; and the first 
 time against his own sense of propriety, was beguiled into appearing in 
 a half- rustic, half-cockney dress, that made him so much of a " guy " 
 he could scarcely abide being seen ; and in that, and subsequently in a 
 somewhat different character, he was duly exhibited by his patrons to 
 numbers of lords, ladies, literati, and savans, including a few who saw 
 the proud and sensitive but loveable man through the rustic poet, got 
 to like him thoroughly for his own sake, and remained his sincere 
 friends. It may seem rather invidious perhaps to name them thus, 
 after what was done by the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquis of Exeter, 
 Earl Fitzwilliam, and others ; but in the little list to which I allude 
 more particularly just now, one thinks with a feeling amounting to 
 something like affection, in relation to him, of Admiral Lord Kadstock 
 and Allan Cunningham, — of Allan especially, whose shrewd but friendly 
 nature Clare, in turn, warmly loved. 
 
 After his second visit the Peasant Poet had little liking for London. 
 As with all such men, the " sight" having been seen and the novelty 
 rubbed off, — when prestige could no longer be gained by entertaining 
 him, he was left pretty much to take his chance. One fact is very re- 
 markable : After his first rustic volume, every succeeding one con- 
 tained something better and better. For its graphic, though homely 
 beauty, and truth to nature, his " V/oodman" has been ranked next to 
 Burns's "Cottar's Saturday night;" and his " Shepherd's Calendar " 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLAEE. 165 
 
 ■is a truthful and exquisite history of the seasons ; his poem on " Anti- 
 quity " has images and fancies so starthng as to remind one of Byron 
 and even of Shakspere ; his "Adventures af a Grasshopper " is one of 
 the richest and shrewdest allegories ever written for the young, and his 
 rural sonnets improve in heauty and polish, hut without losing any of 
 their freshness, to- the last : yet singularly enough, each successive 
 volume after the first, was less successful in "the trade" than its pre- 
 decessors ; and the "Rural Muse," with its accompaniments — the most 
 chaste, and in some respects perhaps the most beautiful of them all — 
 fell, as the phrase goes, " nearly still-born from the press." I bought 
 two or three, and could have bought any number of the neat, uncut 
 volumes, at a bookseller's shop in Stamford, in 1849, at eighteenpence 
 a copy ! 
 
 While things had been taking this downward turn, and Clare's family 
 had increased to nine, his reliable income had never amounted to more 
 at any time than thirty-six to forty-five pounds a year. People — some- 
 times impudent and tasteless people — crowded upon him and took up 
 his time ; and his fitness for manual exertion was often sadly marred 
 by illness. His great ambition was to turn his subscribed annuity into 
 a cottage and seven acres of land, that he might live quietly by his 
 own labour on his own little farm, and be independent. But though 
 the world had no objection to making him an idle dependent, it never 
 aided him in that most reasonable direction of all. He never could 
 get the one bit of land he had set his mind on, and what he did get 
 was profitless to him, at the rent. His debts therefore increased ; he 
 became faint for want of common nourishment, always seeing his family 
 fed first ; and when Lord Fitzwilliam, at length awakened by accident 
 to the sad truth, came forth a second time and gave him a cottage to 
 live in, it was too late ; his brain could stand no more ; he was soon 
 afterwards taken to Dr. Allen's establishment for mental invalids at 
 High Beech in Epping Forest, but (though not ill-treated there) ran 
 away, enduring hardships incredible on the road ; and staying a short 
 time at home with his Patty and children, was then removed to the 
 Northampton County Asylum for the remainder of his days. Mr. 
 Martin thinks if they would have let him stay at home it would have 
 been better ; but of this one cannot be sure. 
 
 Taken for all in all, Clare's treatment at Northampton Asylum was 
 the most genial he had ever for any long period together received. I 
 saw him there, or taking his walks in the neighboin-hood, several times 
 — the first in May, 1843. He wrote much beautiful poetry there, as 
 he had done at High Beech, (where Cyrus Redding visited him and 
 gave some of it to the world.) At Northampton every member of the 
 
IGG CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 staff of management, and many of the poor inmates, as well as a num- 
 ber of the inhabitants of the town, delighted in showing him all possible 
 consideration and kindness. It can do the rest no injustice — though 
 they were all so good to him — to say that Mr. Knight, (who was at 
 one time steward at the Northampton, and is now superintending an 
 asylum near Birmingham,) showed him especial sympathy, and had his 
 fullest confidence in return. But there had been a period of his life 
 when he had brooded (like poor Haydon) on the neglect — and worse 
 than neglect — he had sometimes to endure, and on the way in which 
 even great prize-fighters were petted and nourished, until at length he 
 wished he were one of them ; and then imagined he was one ; and at 
 last fancied himself anything or anybody rather than poor John Clare. 
 In my first conversation with him he was rather shy, but less so as we 
 talked, and somewhat cordial before we parted. This took place in the 
 Asylum-grounds ; and instead of the spare, sensitive person he appears 
 in the portrait of him from Hilton's painting, forming a frontispiece to 
 "The Village Minstrel," I found him rather burly, florid, with light 
 hair and somewhat shaggy eyebrows, and dressed as a plain but re- 
 spectable farmer, in drab or stone-coloured coat and smalls, with gaiters, 
 and altogether as clean and neat as if he had just been fresh brushed 
 up for market or fair. He had been to see a friend, and get some to- 
 bacco, in Northampton town. On my asking him how he was, he said 
 " Why, I'm very well, and stout, but I'm getting tired of waiting here 
 so long, and want to be ofl' home. They won't let me go, however ; 
 for, you see, they're feeding me up for a fight ; but they can get no- 
 body able to strip to me ; so they might as well have done with it, and 
 let me go." " But, Mr. Clare," said I, " are you not more proud of 
 your fame as a poet than your prowess as a prize-fighter ?" When, 
 rather abstractedly, as if considering or trying to recollect something, 
 he answered, " Oh, poetry, ah, I know, I once had something to do 
 with poetry, a long while ago : but it was no good. I wish, though, 
 they could get a man with courage enough to fight me." This was just 
 after he had been writing a beautiful and logical poem for my friend 
 Mr. Joseph Stenson, the iron-master ; so faithful to him was the muse, 
 so treacherous his ordinary reason. 
 
 Next I asked him if he remembered ever receiving from me at High 
 Beech a copy of the " Shefiield Iris" and a letter I had sent him. 
 " Sheffield Iris ! " he exclaimed : " oh, of course, I know all about the 
 " Iris." You know I was editor of it, and lived with the Misses Gales, 
 and was sent to York Castle, where I wrote that "Address to the 
 Robin" — thus identifying himself with James Montgomery. On my 
 saying that I was going to London, and would have a pleasure in doing 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLARE. 1G7 
 
 anything I could for him there, he seemed for a moment a Httle un- 
 easy, and then repUed, "Ah, London; I once was there, but don't 
 like it. There is one good fellow there : if you happen to see him you 
 may remember me to him very kindly — and that's Tom Spring!" 
 Such was the talk of a man who would not have hurt a fly or bruised 
 a flower, much less have been one of the fraternity of Tom Spring, the 
 greatest bruiser, of his day, in England ! Another time on my seeing 
 him, after he had just returned from a long and favourite ramble in the 
 fields, he described it all, up to a certain point, with great accuracy 
 and apparent pleasure, in beautiful language, and then broke off into 
 talk it would be wrong to repeat ; but more than once saying he should 
 like to go home. The last time I saw Clare was on our accidentally 
 meeting in the street, near All Saints' Church, in Northampton. He 
 seemed very pleased thus to meet me, and I was not less so to see him 
 and find that he remembered me. His face was lit all over with one 
 sunny smile, and I congratulated him on his looking so well ; but be- 
 fore we parted he talked again of wanting to go home, as though all his 
 thoughts centred there. 
 
 A few years had passed, and I had been staying with some friends 
 at Market Deeping, only a short distance from the villages of Help- 
 stone and Northborough. In the former village I visited the cottage 
 where he was born (at this time used as an infant school), as well as 
 the grave of his parents, Parker and Ann Clare, in the old church- 
 yard. At Northborough, in the pretty cottage which he never loved 
 half so well as the more humble one in which he was born, I spent a 
 kindly hour with some of his family, and saw them again at a lecture I 
 had to deliver, the evening following, at Deeping. Mrs. Clare, still a 
 fine, matronly, blooming woman, and who must have been a very 
 comely girl in her day, was pleased to see and talk with me about her 
 husband. I told her that when I saw him, he alluded to his home in 
 a way that proved his affection for her in spite of his aberration. 
 There were tears in her eyes as I mentioned this ; but Mr. Martin 
 alludes regretfully to Patty not having been once to Northampton to 
 see her husband in all the twenty-two years he was there ; and to none 
 of the family having been except the youngest son, and he but once. 
 I think it was probably under advice they abstained, from a fear that 
 such an'rnterview might be in some way injurious to him, by tempting 
 him to escape, as he had done from High Beech, when he got home 
 nearly dead after five days and nights' exposure to cold and hunger. 
 At all events one trusts that it was not from indifference ; for whatever 
 his temperament, whatever his trials, John Clare had always been an 
 aftectionate husband and a most loving father — even though in his 
 
168 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 aberration he did often talk of another imaginary v/ife, " Mary," and 
 equally imaginary children — an hallucination arising probably from his 
 having in younger days had a sweetheart of the name of Mary, but 
 who had now long been dead. That Clare dearly loved his home let 
 some of his own verses witness, where he says : — ■ 
 
 " Like a thing of the desert, alone in its glee, 
 I mals;e a small home seem an empire to me ; 
 Like a bird in the forest, whose world is its nest, 
 My home is my all, and the centre of rest. 
 Let Ambition stretch over the world at a stride. 
 Let the restless go rolling away with the tide, 
 I look on life's pleasm-es as follies at best, 
 And, like sunset, feel calm when I'm going to rest. 
 
 I sit by the fire, in the dark winter's night. 
 
 While the oat cleans her face with her foot in delight, 
 
 And the winds all a-cold, with rude clatter and din 
 
 Shake the window, like robbers who want to come in ; 
 
 Or else, from the cold to be hid and away. 
 
 By the bright burning fire see my children at play. 
 
 Making houses of cards, or a coach of a chair, 
 
 "While I sit enjoying their happiness there. 
 
 the out-of-door blessings of leisure for me ! 
 Health, riches, and joy ! — it includes them all three. 
 There peace comes to me — I have faith in her smile — • 
 She's my playmate in leisure, my comfort in toil ; 
 There the short pasture-grass hides the lark on its nest, 
 Thotigh scarcely so high as the grasshopper's breast ; 
 And there its moss-ball hides the wild honey-bee, 
 And there joy in plenty grows riches for me. 
 
 So I sit on my bench, or enjoy in the shade 
 My toil as a pastime, while using the spade ; 
 My fancy is free in her pleasure to stray, 
 Making voyages round the whole world in a day. 
 I gather home comforts where cares never grew. 
 Like manna, the heavens rain down with the dew, 
 Till I see the tired hedger bend wearily by. 
 Then like a tired bird to my corner I fly." 
 
 That he bitterly felt his exile from home, and that it preyed upon his 
 mind, notwithstanding all the kindness with which he was treated at 
 Northampton, is proved in the following, which Frederick Martin says 
 was his last, and he thinks the noblest poem that poor Clare ever wrote. 
 He calls it " Clare's Swan-song," and " fervently hopes it will live as 
 long as the English language." It was not his last ; for I have a copy 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLARE. IfiO 
 
 of it in manuscript written jeaxs before some others of which I have 
 also copies. But it is not likely soon to die. To have been written 
 by one who owed little of his education to any man — whose every facul- 
 ty, or almost every faculty, except his poetical one, was now deranged, 
 and who was bowing his head with its long, white, flowing hair, as if 
 constantly " looking for his grave " — ought alone, independently of its 
 wonderful poetical power, to make it a treasure to the psychologist and 
 philanthropist as long as there is suffering in the world : — 
 
 " I am ! yet what I am who cares, or knows ? 
 
 My friends forsake me like a memory lost. 
 I am the self-consumer of my woes, 
 
 They rise and vanish an oblivious host, 
 Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost. 
 
 And yet I am — I live — though I amtoss'd 
 
 Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, 
 
 Into the living sea of waking dream, 
 Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys, 
 
 But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem 
 A;id all that's dear. Even those I loved the best 
 
 Are strange — nay, they are stranger than the rest. 
 
 I long for scenes where man has never trod, 
 
 For scenes where woman never smiled or wept ; 
 
 There to abide with my Creator, God, 
 
 And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, 
 
 Full of high thoughts unborn. So let me lie, 
 The grass below ; above; the vaulted sky." 
 
 John Clare died about noon on the 20th of May, 1864 — " gently, 
 without even a struggle" — his last words being "I want to go home; " 
 and — contrary to the advice of one who, it has been said, suggested 
 his being buried at Northampton as a pauper — " through the active 
 exertions of some true Christian souls, true friends of poetry," adds 
 Martin, "the requisite burial fund was raised in a few days, and the 
 poet's body, having been conveyed to Helpston, was reverently interred 
 there on Wednesday the 25th. There now lies, under the shade of a 
 sycamore tree, with nothing above but the green grass and the eternal 
 vault of heaven, all that earth has to keep of one of the sweetest singers 
 of nature ever born within the fair realm of dear old England — dear 
 old England, so. proud of its galaxy of noble poets and so wasteful of 
 their lives." There is a sad touch of truth in this ; and Mr. Martin's 
 whole book is a brave vindication of the rights of genius. Let us never- 
 theless enjoy all such consolation as is possible ; and is there none in 
 the following noble flight by John Clare himself? It occurs in the 
 volume commencing with " The Eural Muse." It seems to have been 
 
170 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 penned just after the decease of Scott, and relates to an imagined con- 
 tention between Scott's Fame and Time, when the latter called in the 
 aid of Death to lay his rival low : — 
 
 " But Genius soars above the dead, 
 Too mighty for his power ; 
 And deserts where his journey lead, 
 Spell-bound, are still in flower, 
 
 By poesy kept for times unborn ; 
 
 And when those times are gone, 
 The worth of a remoter morn 
 
 Shall find them shining on. 
 
 I'or poesy is verse or prose 
 
 Not bound to Fashion's thrall ; 
 No matter where true Genius grows, 
 
 'Tis beautiful in all. 
 
 Or high or low, its beacon fires 
 
 Shall rise in every way. 
 Till drowsy Night the blaze admires, 
 
 And startles into Day — 
 
 A day that rises like the sun 
 
 From clouds of spite and thrall. 
 Which gains, before its course be run, 
 
 A station seen by all. 
 
 Its voice grows thunder's voice with age. 
 
 Till Time turns back and looks ; 
 Its breath embalms the flimsy page, 
 
 And gives a soul to books. 
 
 Through night at first it will rejoice. 
 
 And travel into day, 
 Pursuing, with a still small voice. 
 
 That light that leads the way. 
 
 The grave its mortal dust may keep. 
 
 Where tombs and ashes lie ; 
 Death only shall Time's harvest reap, 
 
 For Genius cannot die." 
 
 A few more words about Robert Bloomfield. It is an odd association 
 of names ; but I often find myself wishing that I may one day meet, in 
 some blessed sphere beyond the grave, and converse with them there — 
 Alfred king of England, Oliver Goldsmith, and Eobert Bloomfield — not 
 least the last : — Alfred, because I not only believe him to have been by 
 far the best and greatest king England has ever had, but perhaps one 
 of the wisest, best and greatest Englishmen of any rank whatever ; — 
 Goldsmith, because, with the unsophisticated heart and playfulness of 
 a child he united the brain and thought of a sage, at a time when 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLAEE. 171 
 
 pedantry reigned supreme and was worshipped by those who mistook 
 utter indifference or contempt for it for mere gaucJierie ; — and Bloom- 
 field who, painting Nature as he saiv her and Humanity as it should he, 
 awakened my young soul to enjoyments that neither the rant, cant, 
 guile or tyranny of a self-seeking and self-justifying world have ever 
 been able to stifle or scathe. There was a little book in which I read, 
 amid the sorrows of childhood — and childhood has its sorrows, what- 
 ever maturity may think — that " God is love, Grod is light, God is good 
 to all; " and afterwards, when Bloomfield showed me through his poems 
 how to read this truth in the simplest and commonest features of Crea- 
 tion and Providence, I felt a gratitude to him from that hour that all 
 the lore of ages into which I have dipped, all the teachings of modern 
 men I have known, have never weakened. Imagine a "self-taught" 
 man, about twenty years of age, while pegging, stitching and hammer- 
 ing away in a dim London garret, composing lines like these, descriptive 
 of his own vocation and emotions on a winter's night in his boyhood, 
 and with no ambition regarding them but that " his mother might see 
 them in print :" — • 
 
 " Giles, ere he sleeps, his little flock must tell. 
 From the fire-side with many a shrug he hies, 
 Glad if the full-orb'd Moon salute his eyes, 
 And through th' unbroken stillness of the night 
 Shed on his path her beams of cheering light. 
 With saunt'ring step he climbs the distant stile, 
 Whilst all around him wears a placid smile ; 
 There views the white-robed clouds in clusters driven, 
 And all the glorious pageantry of Heaven. 
 Low, on the utmost bound'ry of the sight, 
 The rising vapours catch the silver light ; 
 Thence Fancy measures, as they parting fly, 
 Which first will throw its shadow on the eye, 
 Passing the source of light ; and thence away, 
 Succeeded quick by brighter still than they. 
 Far yet above these wafted clouds are seen 
 (In a remoter sky, still more serene,) 
 Others, detach'd in ranges through the air, 
 Spotless as snow, and countless as they 're fair ; 
 Scatter'd immensely wide from east to west, 
 The beauteous semblance of a Flock at rest. 
 These, to the raptured mind aloud proclaim 
 The Mighty Shepherd's everlasting Name." 
 
 Considering the simplicity of the verse, what a fine, fresh touch of nature 
 there is in the following : — ■ 
 
 BIAEY'S EVENING SIGH, 
 " How bright with pearl the western sky 1 
 How glorious, far and wide. 
 
172 CHAPTEE xir. 
 
 Yon lines of golden cloud that K® 
 
 So peaceful side by side ! 
 Their deep'ning tints, the arch of light. 
 
 All eyes with rapture see ; 
 E'en while I sigh I Mesa the sight 
 
 That lures my love from me. 
 
 G-reen hill, that shad'st the valley here. 
 
 Thou bear'st upon thy brow 
 The only wealth to Mary dear, 
 
 And all she'll ever know. 
 There, in the crimson light I see. 
 
 Above the summit rise, 
 My Edward's form ; he looks to me 
 
 A statue in the skies. 
 
 Descend, my love, the hour is come. 
 
 Why linger on the hill ? 
 The sun hath left my quiet home. 
 
 But thou can'st see him still ; 
 Yet why a lonely wanderer stray, 
 
 Alone the joy pursue ? 
 The glories of the closing day 
 
 Can charm thy Mary too. 
 
 Dear Edward, when we strolled along 
 
 Beneath the waving corn, 
 And both confess'd the power of song, 
 
 And bless'd the dewy morn ; 
 Your eye o'erflowed, ' How sweet,' you cried, 
 
 (My presence then could move) 
 ' How sweet, with Mary by my side, 
 
 To gaze, and talk of love ! ' 
 
 Thou art not false ! that cannot be ; 
 
 Yet I my rivals deem 
 Each woodland charm, the moss, the tree. 
 
 The silence, and the stream ; 
 Whate'er, my love, detains thee now, 
 
 I'll yet forgive thy stay ; 
 But with to-morrow's dawn come thou, 
 
 We'll brush the dews away." 
 
 And who will not sympathise and exult with him, when after giving a 
 history of all the seasons as they affect agricultural and pastoral life, 
 he puts the following reverent and rapturous conclusion to his ' ' Far- 
 mer's Boy ? " — 
 
 " Delightful moments ! — Sunshine, Health, and Joy, 
 Play round, and cheer the elevated Boy ! 
 ' Another Spring ! ' his heart exulting cries ; 
 ' Another Yeae ! ' with promised blessings rise ! — 
 
BLOOMFIELD AND CLARE. 173 
 
 ' Eternal Power! from whom those blessings flow, 
 
 ' Teach me still more to wonder, more to know : 
 
 ' Seed-time and Harvest let me see again ; 
 
 ' Wander the leaf-strewn wood, the frozen plain : 
 
 ' Let the first flower, corn-waving field, plain, tree, 
 
 ' Here round my home, still lift my soul to Thee ; 
 
 ' And let me ever, midst thy bounties, "raise 
 
 ' An humble note of thankfulness and praise ! ' " 
 
 It is sometimes said, of late, in disparagement of Bloomfield, that 
 thougli he was formerly much thought of, he is now in most reading 
 circles all hut forgotten. But to me this, in reality, seems more to the 
 discredit of readers than of the poet. I grant that he never roars and 
 casts out lurid flames like a volcano, nor cheats you away from the 
 track of common sense by will-o'-wisp fancies that glitter and then leave 
 you in a mist of wonder. Nor does he indulge in subtle metaphysi- 
 cal speculations or arguments, or in mystical inuendos that awaken 
 cm-iosity without satisfying the heart. There undoubtedly are or have 
 been many self-educated poets of more brilliancy, depth and vigour. 
 But there is a glow of nature in him, and especially of human nature 
 contemplated in its kindlier aspects, seldom surpassed by any other 
 writer,- — a spirit of love that kindles or quickens your own, making you 
 feel more directly akin to creation and the Creator. Many think they 
 have read all worth knowing of him when they have hastily glanced 
 over a few passages of his "Farmer's Boy." But this is a mistake. 
 That was one of his very earliest effusions ; and a fair reading of some 
 of his lyrics and tales — especially some of those embodied in his now 
 nearly lost poem entitled " May Day with the Muses " — would help to 
 a far more accurate estimate. Considering how simple is his style, 
 how fresh his feeling, how pure his thoughts, and how all he means 
 comes right home to the mind ; to pooh-pooh him in an age of gross 
 sensationalism like the present, is to do an act of injustice to the work- 
 ing people, especially the younger portion of them. I have often read 
 selected passages from Bloomfield to large, popular audiences, but 
 never without reaching their better feelings and affording much inno- 
 cent delight. 
 
I^tept^r I^Wrl^^nth. 
 
 COMBE, GEEGOEY, AND LIEBIG. 
 
 (April, 1866.) 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1844. Edinburgh was filled and growing busy 
 with the return of professors, students, law-ofiicials, and many who 
 came to the city on their account. The watering places were sending 
 back families, too, to their urban or suburban dwellings ; besides which 
 the "British Association for the Advancement of Science" had just 
 closed its meetings at Glasgow, and so contributed for the moment 
 savans of many countries to those pleasant intellectual and half convi- 
 vial re-unions for which perhaps few cities in the world are more famous 
 than old Duuedin. I had two or three reasons for being there at that 
 juncture ; but one of the chief of them certainly was this : — Having a 
 few years before seen the celebrated experiments in zoo-magnetism (or, 
 as it is more popularly called, mesmerism), by M. La Fontaine ; and 
 having at that time considerable reputation among my friends as an 
 amateur phrenologist, when the news came from America that magnet- 
 ism had been employed there in demonstration of the distinct mental 
 or emotional function of each portion of the brain, I was called upon 
 to put that discovery to the test of experiment. Not following exactly 
 in the track of pre -experimenters, but rather trying what unsophisti- 
 cated Nature herself might reveal, I was soon able to develope phe- 
 nomena so novel to those around me as to be called discoveries, by 
 which it was clear that, if magnetism corroborated the older phreno- 
 
COMBE, GREGORY, AND LIEBIG. 175 
 
 logists at all, it went much further than they had ever gone ; in short, 
 illustrated the existence of a far greater number of distinct organs — or, 
 in better words, a far more extensive sub-division of the brain and its 
 functions — than they had ever dreamed of. My assertion of this, and 
 the publication at the same time of considerably subdivided craniologi- 
 cal charts from America — one by La Roy Sunderland, the other by that 
 most earnest, original, and masterly physiologist. Dr. J. R. Buchanan, 
 of Cincinnati — awakened, not merely suspicion and jealousy, but posi- 
 tive hostility, especially in Edinburgh, on the part of those who had 
 already foreclosed the question by showing, in their way, how the old 
 number of from thirty-six to forty faculties were sufficient to account 
 for all the manifestations of feeling and thought with which humanity 
 was accredited. This had resolved me, on my visiting Scotland, to 
 show the phenomenal facts on which my own faith was founded, and to 
 ask the celebrated phrenologists there for some better explanation if 
 they could not fall in with that given ; and thus it was that with but 
 little introduction save the announcement of my name and purpose, the 
 large saloon at the Waterloo Rooms (ranking then much higher than 
 now as a place for such meetings) was crowded to the full on my first 
 appearance. Said the door-keepers as I passed in, "You have a fine 
 audience, sir." "Who are here?" I asked, in reply. "Nearly all 
 the professors, and intelligent people of all sorts." And certainly as I 
 came from one of the back rooms to the platform, the aggregate of in- 
 telligent faces that confronted might also have disheartened me, but 
 that I felt old Nature, in all her verity, at my side. 
 
 My first prelection was short and simple. It commenced with my say- 
 ing that a Sherwood Forester had come to the modern Athens, to show 
 over again^'to the philosophers there what Nature had shown to him — 
 much as Magnus, the shepherd, when he saw the pieces of loadstone, 
 on Mount Ida, adhering to the metallic end of his crook, had gone to 
 the philosophers of his day, not to dogmatise, but rather to seek an 
 explanation. Somewhat so it was with me : — My experiments might 
 show them matters of fact far more eloquent and instructive than my 
 words ; and as we proceeded and the several phenomena they had come 
 to witness were evolved, since I would much rather at any time be a 
 learner than a teacher, if any of the more intelligent amongst them 
 could offer any explanation better than my own I should be thankful — 
 the great object of all our investigations being truth. It would probably 
 happen, however, that they would require me to attempt some explana- 
 tion occasionally, and that I would gladly do to the best of my ability, 
 or give reasons why I could not explain. At all events there was one 
 thing on which they might rely — my readiness at any time to confess 
 
170 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 nij' ^Yant of knowledge rather than to abuse the truth by running beyond 
 it. A sound of welcome and approbation came from the whole assem- 
 bly as these remarks closed ; and a chairman — I think that evening it 
 was venerable Dr. Eitchie — was appointed. A few of the experiments 
 were on persons I had previously operated upon ; yet others, and those 
 perhaps most novel to an Edinburgh audience, were upon persons well 
 known there, but strange to me till that moment ; so that there was 
 little or no cavil about the validity of the cases. 'What was demon- 
 strated included several of the most striking phenomena called phreuo- 
 mesmeric, and nearly all the most important features of what some 
 years afterwards came from America in the name of electro -biology, as 
 well as "magnetically induced" somnambulism, somniloquence, and 
 that peculiar extacy which is produced in such cases by the introduc- 
 tion of strains of music ; and though there had been much mesmerism 
 in Edinburgh before, it was evident that most of what its philosophers 
 now saw had, for them, from the very simple but orderly manner in 
 which it was presented, considerable interest. My aim at all times was, 
 in such demonstrations, to make wonderful things plain rather than 
 plain things wonderful ; and a general expression of confidence and en- 
 couragement for me was coupled with a vote of thanks to the chau'man 
 at the close. 
 
 In the course of the lecture I had chanced to allude to something 
 which had been recently published by Dr. Gregory, the professor of 
 chemistry ; and, on descending from the platform, was cordially and 
 respectfully approached by two gentlemen who had been sitting on one 
 of the front benches. The elder of them was tall, and, if not slender, 
 v.'as not stout. His face was rather red than pale, yet would not be 
 considered very ruddy. His mouth, lateral^, was rather la.rge, and 
 nose large enough for the admission of any requisite amount of oxygen 
 to his lungs, should the mouth ever need to be closed. It is difficult 
 to say which was the most calm of the two — his look or his voice ; for 
 though he had what would be called a speaking eye, even its speech, 
 like that from his lips, was so deliberate that an enthusiast would have 
 called it cold, only for the degree of sunshine that lit his brow, as it 
 struck up and out loftily into the regions of comparison, causality, and 
 wit, claiming kinship with a coronal development not less marked, and 
 made the more venerable and impressive by a roof of silvery hair. The 
 other gentleman was of a totally different type : yet (to use a musical 
 illustration) they " chorded well." He had a somewhat broad-set frame, 
 enveloped in a black suit that fitted rather loosely ; a limp in his step 
 as from chronic lameness ; a massive but kindly face, and bulky brow, 
 with a complexion slightly brown ; a head of long, dark hair, that looked 
 
COMBE, GEEGORY, AND LIEBIG. 177 
 
 as if it were oftener roughed up by its owner's fingers in his study than 
 combed down in his toilette, as it fell here and there into close acquaint- 
 ance with his fine, large, expressive eyes ; and a hearty tone of speech 
 that would strike any listener, at his first word, as eminently frank and 
 friendly. These, as I have hinted, drawing near, the one so venerable 
 from his years and silvery hair said, in measured and kindly tones, 
 "Allow me, Mr. Hall, to thank you for your interesting lecture and 
 experiments, and to introduce to you a gentleman to whom you made 
 allusion this evening. Professor Gregory ; " — and almost before he had 
 concluded these words, his friend was saying " Yes — we are indeed 
 much obliged to you ; this is Mr. Combe." 
 
 Assuring them both how glad and proud I was of their company and 
 friendly words, I took the opportunity of adding that one of my objects 
 in coming to Edinburgh was to have my experiments scrutinised with 
 more nicety than merely public demonstrations would admit of, and 
 that I should therefore be happy to afford them any means that 
 might be agreeable to them of testing the phenomena in private. This 
 pleased them much; and it was arranged that our first seance should 
 take place at Mr. Combe's, where we met for breakfast — experiments 
 following. The only person present that morning, I think, besides Mr. 
 Combe, Professor Gregory, myself, and the parties to be operated 
 on, was Mrs. Combe — handsome still, though with hair silvery-white, 
 and, in spirit, worthy of being, as she in reality was, a daughter of Mrs. 
 Siddons. It was in many respects an agreeable meeting; but for some 
 reason we did not get on well with the experiments, and it was arranged 
 to meet again for breakfast and a further essay at Professor Gregory's 
 next morning. Mrs. Gregory was, of course, at table; and besides the 
 Professor and Mr. Combe, there was another gentleman I had not ex- 
 pected to see, but was delighted to meet. Quiet, modest, earnest, and 
 cheerful, as we sat side by side and talked (he in English, but with a 
 strong German accent,) was Justus von Liebig, the great chemist, to 
 whom I was there and thus introduced, that morning. My journey to 
 Edinburgh had not been in vain, were it for that opportunity alone ; 
 but as soon as breakfast was concluded, we commenced a set of test 
 experiments that occupied between four and five hours, and developed 
 phenomena equally interesting to us all. Liebig had seen nothing 
 of mesmerism before, and, indeed, from all he had heard or thought, 
 had hardly cared to see it. But in the house of his old friend and fel- 
 low chemist, Gregory, who had already become a warm advocate of its 
 claims to scientific observation, the question had for him now an entirely 
 new phase and interest. The whole party watched the development of 
 the successive phenomena with unAvonted intensity, as we operated on 
 
178 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 a young man with a well formed brain, a nerro-sanguine temperament, 
 and a conscientiousness so patent to any observer of character as to 
 make him, in the circumstances, a very desirable case. He is now, I 
 believe, master of Bishop Wainfleet's celebrated school in Lincolnshire, 
 and has justified by his course of life all the confidence I ever reposed 
 in his integrity. Permit me to say here, in my own behalf, that in my 
 work as a zoomagnetic demonstrator I never felt so secure as in the 
 hands of the best informed scrutineers — the men best acquainted with 
 recondite principles and laws ; and it is probable that the confidence and 
 calmness I felt that morning from the company I was in, considerably 
 influenced the condition of the young sujet (Mr. Holbrook) and made 
 the phrenic manifestations the more definite and clear. We certainly 
 could not have been at it less than four hours, when Liebig, who had 
 been most calm and close in his scrutiny, got up like one who had 
 arrived at an important conclusion, and his face glowed with a peculiar 
 glow as he suddenly and silently left the room. Gregory followed, 
 while Combe staid talking with the patient, who was now recalled to 
 his normal state. What immediately succeeded was most strikingly 
 indicative of the character of the three savans. Liebig was some time 
 before he reappeared; but Gregory, who had been in conversation with 
 him apart, returned with great animation and something of enthusiasm 
 in his manner, exclaiming " Liebig's convinced!" When Combe, in a 
 tone and manner cool in proportion to the other's warmth — yet mani- 
 festly much interested — merely said, "Is he?" "Yes! (answered 
 Gregory) Liebig's convinced of the validity of the phenomena — though 
 of course he says nothing of any theory." That morning's experiences 
 I have not unfrequently regarded as the zenith of my seven years' ar- 
 dent pursuit of those magnetic investigations, and Professor Gregory 
 afterwards sent me, unsolicited, a cordial testimony to his own satisfac- 
 tion in them. 
 
 Liebig's stay in Edinburgh was of course very brief — little more 
 than a call upon old friends and pupils on his return from the meetings 
 of the British Association ; but Dr. Gregory and Mr. Combe I had the 
 pleasure of meeting afterwards pretty frequently — sometimes at their 
 own houses, the houses of friends, or at my own soirees. A scene full 
 of character occurred at one of the latter. It was my invariable rule 
 to let my audiences appoint their own chairman for each evening, so 
 that they might have the fullest confidence in him and be satisfied with 
 any report he might have to make between me and them. Generally 
 speaking, gentlemen of the highest standing were nominated. At this 
 moment I cannot recall them all, but remember that such persons as 
 Dr. Ritchie, Professor Ferrier, Dr. Robert Chambers, and Dr. John 
 
COMBE, GREGORY, AND LIEBIG. 179 
 
 Murray, were amongst them ; while Bishop Gillies, William Tait, and 
 other well-known parties would be on the platfonn, for the pui^pose of 
 closer examination. Mrs. Crowe was at every meeting, Mr. John Gray 
 and Mr. Baildon nearly so, and Mr. Theodore Martin (who wrote a beau- 
 tiful account of one evening's experiments) attended occasionally. But 
 once a foolish, ambitious busy-body — not a Scotchman — taking advan- 
 tage of my rule, by solicitation got himself proposed as chairman, and 
 made himself very ridiculously conspicuous on the platform. As some 
 one informed me, he was a person who had once been connected with 
 the liquor trade in Liverpool, and had not succeeded; but he now 
 boasted with considerable "haw-haw," of understanding English law, 
 as he was "studying for the bar." There was great temptation to 
 fling a pun at him for his silly conduct as he made this boast, and 
 not only interfered unfairly with the experiments, but began to give 
 opinions on them almost before they had commenced. I did say to 
 him that, with all his pretension, there was one practice at the English 
 bar with regard to which he was manifestly out of ordei' — namely, in 
 novi' preceding the evidence with the verdict ; and added that I should 
 feel greatly obliged to the audience, if (were he allowed to continue on 
 the platform) they would elect some gentleman well known to them to 
 keep order. On this he became a little pompous, and looking at Lord 
 Valentia, who sat with some friends on one of the front seats, said, 
 "Haw — aw, I appeal to Lord Valentia — haw — to say — haw — if I didn't 
 dine — haw — with his lordship, yesterday?" For a moment all was in 
 expectant stillness, when Lord Valentia, colouring to the very ears, and 
 with some hesitancy in his manner, half rose, and said — "Why, yes, 
 he certainly did one day dine with the mess of my regiment, and that 
 — I suppose — constitutes him a gentleman!" It would be difficult to 
 describe the funny hubbub that followed this announcement, as the fel- 
 low foppishly and obsequiously thanked his lordship for the ambiguous 
 compliment; and then there rose up, from about the third seat back, 
 a tall figure with a white head, calm as an alp looking down on a storm, 
 when the whole became instantly hushed, as a deferential whisper ran 
 through the crowd — "It's Mr. Combe!" Mr. Combe it certainly 
 was, who in very few words observed that they had come there to see 
 my experiments, not to have their time wasted in such interrup- 
 tion of them, and wished to be allowed to form their own opinions. 
 After this, the gentleman who had dined at one mess and thus got into 
 another — was quiet enough, and the experiments, carefully tested by 
 abler men, went on to a satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 During the whole of my stay in Edinburgh, both Mr. Combe and Dr. 
 Gregory, as did many others, treated me with unremitting kindness, 
 m2 
 
180 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 and from first to last showed great interest in my experiments ; but I 
 rather think the former beHeyed mesmerism left phrenology much as 
 it found it — because the phrenic results might, according to mesmerists 
 themselves, be produced in different ways — viz., by mental sympathy, 
 in some cases, between the magnetiser and the svjel; or again, by what 
 Catlow had designated "suggestive dreaming" — a state in which the 
 sujet was stimulated by unintentional suggestions and a preternaturally 
 quick association of ideas; therefore not necessarily alone by what the 
 phreno -mesmerists claimed as a direct magnetic influence on specific 
 portions of the brain, with consequent awaking into activity of the cor- 
 responding mental faculties. My own belief was then, and is still, that 
 there is some truth in each of the three hypotheses, while all of them 
 together may not embrace the whole truth. But of all men in the world 
 I should imagine Mr. Combe to have been one of the last at any time 
 to come to a sudden conclusion with regard to anj/ question; and Dr. 
 Gregory himself, though a more ardent and enthusiastic man, would 
 naturally be very careful on what evidence he founded and expressed 
 faith in a greater phrenic subdivision. To a mind accustomed to 
 chemical experiment, not only the alembic but the menstruum (figura- 
 tively speaking) must be well understood, and all the elements of the 
 question not less so, to justify a verdict involving a reputation, — espe- 
 cially after the fate of Dr. Samuel Brown. 
 
 One day Mr. Combe and Professor Gregory came and bestowed a full 
 hour on the measurement and manipulation of my head, sending their 
 notes to Mr. James Simpson for his inferences from them. Guided by 
 these notes, Mr. S. attributed to me a love of experimental philosophy, 
 travelling, and open air exertion — all true enough. But what he added 
 concerning my great courage and expertness in military action, espe- 
 cially in pioneering, made me, as I read it, smile at the way in which 
 my somewhat quakerly education must have cheated physical warfare 
 of an able soldier. Intellectually viewed, my character might be some- 
 what like that described, for I had been, as by some hidden im.pulsion, 
 a pioneer for truth's sake from earliest days. There were other par- 
 ticulars, however, in which the delineation was scarcely accurate, even 
 as an analogy. Phrenological delineations by difi'erent people some- 
 times vary in the same way as different photographs — the style depend- 
 ing a little upon the operator's mode, though the great outlines are 
 unmistakeable. The closest to the truth of any delineation I ever got 
 was from a poor but intelligent itinerant, Mr. Lamb. He certainly 
 knew nothing whatever of my antecedents, nor did I give him the 
 slightest clue that I could avoid, by conversation or manner, at our in- 
 terview ; but his written index to my character fitted as accurately aa a 
 
COMBE, GEECJORY, AND LIEBIQ. 181 
 
 key fits its own lock. Talking on this subject some years after with 
 Professor Gregory when we met in London, he said that he and Mr. 
 Combe had slightly differed at the manipulation in Edinburgh, Mr. 
 Combe not attributing sufficient bulk to the temporal muscle ; and by 
 this fact Mr. Simpson might have been somewhat misguided in his final 
 estimate. Alas! Combe, Gregory, and Simpson — genial, approbative, 
 philanthropic James Simpson, the advocate — are all departed, or I 
 would tell them, as I tell all the English phrenologists, that, to form a 
 correct estimate of character and avoid many mistakes, it is essential 
 they should recognise a greater number of faculties than their old cate- 
 gory embraces. There is one portion of the brain, for instance, often 
 pushing forward the outer angle of the supra-orbital bone : it relates to 
 motion, and is large in those who love feats of speed ; but phrenologists 
 often mistakenly give it to its neighbour order. And so of many 
 others; but this is not the place for their enumeration. 
 
 A half-thinking, hastily -judging "world" has decided that Mr. Combe 
 was a great infidel for asserting something tantamount to this — that 
 the natural world is governed by laws which are imperative, and cannot 
 be set aside in compliance with human desires — adding that if a num- 
 ber of persons, however pious, were knowingly to go out in a leaky 
 ship to sea, no prayer of theirs would prevent its sinking. Attached 
 to this judgment is a kindred idea that he must of necessity have been 
 an irreverent man. Than this there could hardly, in my opinion, have 
 been a greater mistake. On my dining at his house one evening, when 
 the party was most varied, and (intellectually regarded) most brilliant, 
 Mr. Combe drew me aside for some private conversation, spoke of the 
 impression my visit to Edinburgh had made upon him, and urged on 
 me the importance of my taking steps to qualify myself thoroughly for 
 medical practice, in which he believed, I was well constituted to 
 succeed. In reply I told him of some solemn impressions I had lately 
 had, that in pursuing the curriculum which would be required with 
 any certainty of a professional title at last, I should have so much to 
 hide that I believed in, as well as so much to assent to that I disagreed 
 with, that a warning in my very soul had been given me against it, 
 which made me feel as if I should lose God's favour by persisting in it, 
 and that the same monition seemed to show me that I had another 
 course, for the present, to pursue. Mr. Combe now looked at me with 
 a most considerate and almost fatherly look, as he said, "I would not 
 advise you to disregard such a monition as that ; ' ' — though men with 
 gi'eat pretension to orthodoxy have since scoffed at such an experience, 
 and said I was foolish for not pursuing the first course. The law has 
 since, though too late, rendered scruples on that ground needless. 
 
182 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The last time I saw Mr. Combe was on a brief re-visit to Edinburgh 
 — I think in January, 1848, when it was pleasant to find him still as 
 glad to see me as ever. I have several very kindly notes and letters 
 from him on various topics — chiefly personal, few of which, however, 
 would be of much import to the public. They are written in a hand as 
 easy to be read as print — as clear as Dr. Samuel Brown's or Dr. Robert 
 Chambers's — which is saying much. The original of the following I 
 once gave to my friend Mr. D'Ewes Coke, for the sake of the autograph, 
 and quote here for its possible usefulness : — 
 
 Edinburgh, 1 April, 1851. 
 
 Dear Sir, — In answer to your letter of the 29th March, if you will refer to Dr. 
 Combe's work on Digestion you will gather from its whole scope, that he considered 
 the grand point in dietetics to be the adaptation of the thing eaten, in quality and 
 quantity, to the state of the system of the person who ate it; and he acted on this 
 principle. For example — When there was no inflammatory or plethoric state in 
 his organism, he would eat fish, fowl, beef, mutton, game, or any wholesome food 
 that was presented to him, but always in quantity piroportionate to the waste of 
 material going on in the system. If in an inflammatory state he would eat sago, 
 rice, milk, and so forth. In the former state he would drink a glass or two of 
 wine: in the latter, only water. In short the object of his treatise is to show that 
 all ordinary edible substances are very good in certain circumstances, and not 
 adapted to opposite conditions; and that no scale of diet can be laid down which 
 will be good for everybody in every state of his organism. He gives rules for find- 
 ing out what is proper in varying circumstances. 
 
 I hope yoii understand what I write ; and I remain, my dear sir, yours faith- 
 fully, Geo. Combe. 
 
 My recollections of Professor Gregory are altogether genial and 
 grateful. He was disappointed when I resolved on leaving Edinburgh 
 in 1845, and years afterwards favoured my acquisition of a medical 
 degree — being pleased to say in his certificate that he was "convinced" 
 I should "render valuable services to the public as a physician." While 
 in Edinburgh I had one evening a somewhat remarkable experience 
 commencing at his house. Mrs. Gregory, though as kind a gentle- 
 woman as could be, having observed that my ordinarily quiet and 
 homely aspect changed to one of superior resolution whenever I was 
 engaged in magnetising, thought she would like to try a counter experi- 
 ment. So, without warning me of her purpose, she asked me if I 
 would magnetise her in the Professor's presence, but secretly deter- 
 mined to counter-influence me in the operation, if possible. Unfor- 
 tunately she succeeded beyond her wish: instead of continuing operator 
 I unawares became the subject ; nor was the influence altogether re- 
 moved before my departure. For all that night and the next day my 
 state was an abnormal one. I wandered on the Calton Hill and up to 
 Arthur's Seat in the hope that fresh air and change might restore me, 
 
COMBE, GEEGOEY, AND LIEBIG. 183 
 
 but witli little effect. I felt a stranger to myself, and every object had 
 a peculiar and preternatural appearance; nor was it till the third day 
 from that of the experiment that I felt entirely well. On several pre- 
 vious occasions I had suffered from the same cause — once on trying to 
 magnetise a little boy at Leicester, when, though wide awake, I became 
 transfixed and could not rise from my chair, though he seemed un- 
 affected, and could rise freely and walk away. If any of my readers 
 think "there is nothing in mesmerism," I must leave them to explain 
 such phenomena on some other hypothesis. It is all very well to attri- 
 bute such effects to imagination; but between merely mental imagery 
 and such physical conditions my own philosophy tells me there is a 
 broad distinction. The last time I met Dr. Gregory was in London, 
 during the Great Exhibition of 1851. 
 
 Mr. Combe, one of a family of seventeen, and brother of the distin- 
 guished Dr. Andrew Combe, was born in Edinburgh, in 1788, died 
 near London in 1858, and was consequently then seventy years of age. 
 Professor Gregory, the descendant of an unbroken line of men of genius, 
 who began their career in the early part of the 17th centurj?, was born 
 on Christmas-day, 1803, and died on the 24th of April in the same 
 year as Mr. Combe, and was consequently only fifty-five. George 
 Combe will long be distinguished for his maintenance, in his celebrated 
 work "The Constitution of Man," of the doctrine that, by God's Pro- 
 vidence, we are placed in the midst of a material universe ever acting 
 upon us, and governed by perfect order; and that, as we cannot change 
 that universe, we must place ourselves in harmony with it — ascertain- 
 ing and recognising its laws, and submitting ourselves in willing obe- 
 dience to their behests. To me this seems to be one side of a sublime 
 material theorem, of which Swedenborg has given the other and spiri- 
 tual. A third intelligence might do itself no wrong in considering 
 both. William Gregory will have a place in the world's memory for 
 his industrious chemical researches; his friendliness to those who by 
 more occult pursuits sought in his day to bring into the arena of recog- 
 nised science a better knowledge of the imponderable forces in nature ; 
 his successful competition for the chemical chair at Edinburgh with 
 the young Galileian spirit of Dr. Samuel Brown ; his masterly intro- 
 duction of Liebig and Keichenbach to the British mind, and for quali- 
 ties and accomplishments which made him a favourite with so many 
 pupils and friends, who will perpetuate through others his teachings to 
 them. Baron Liebig still lives and nobly labours. And for rae, I 
 count it one of the great privileges of a by no means scantily privileged 
 existence, to have shaken the hands of all three, in scientific friendship 
 at dear old Edinburgh, on the occasion now recorded. 
 
?l^?f?.?^i 
 
 |jtiiptf[r fourtc^ptI|. 
 
 SCOTCHMEN AT HOME. 
 
 (May, 1866.) 
 
 The year was just ripening — harvest taking its own from the hands 
 of summer, and putting thereon its grateful mark — when I first entered 
 Scoth^nd from Carlisle. Were you in Carlisle, you would see rising in 
 its principal street the statue of the late Mr. James Steel — one of its 
 honoured citizens. At the time I speak of — 1844 — not the statue 
 but the living man himself, was in that city, and, as I was leaving 
 it for Scotland, he said — "When you are at Dumfries, call and remem- 
 ber me kindly to Mr. John M'Diarmid: it will be an introduction for 
 you, and I am sure he will give you a welcome, and any local informa- 
 tion you may require." This was the the only introduction from per- 
 son to person I took across the Border, though doubtless I could have 
 had many a one had I thought of asking for it. 
 
 The Sark being passed, I had an opportimity of seeing the reno'mied 
 blacksmith of Gretna Green — a very decent looking man, in his Sunday 
 clothes, apparently on the look-out for English customers, and more 
 ready for forging the bonds of wedlock than for doing the heavy work 
 of Tubal Cain. It may have been a mistake of mine ; but I thought 
 that, on my getting out of the coach, he would have liked me better 
 had there been a lady with me. Old Criffel rose boldly across the Sol- 
 way, as if to sentinel Caledonia's threshold, and represent there, with 
 
SCOTCHMEN AT HOME. 185 
 
 due port, the interior Bolemnity and grandeur of that noble land of 
 "flood and fell." An OYerwhelming rush of associations, not fully an- 
 ticipated, came upon me here — a sort of resume of all the song and 
 story, the philosophy and learning, of Scotland, with which I had been 
 more or less familiar from my early days. I thought of its great his- 
 torical and poetical names — of Bruce and Wallace, Scott and Burns, 
 probably the most — as well as of the Scotsmen of all sorts I had known 
 in England, and of national traditions and prejudices that had been 
 nursed from age to age. The reaction from these feelings and thoughts 
 was accompanied by a resolve, that all bias I had ever received, favour- 
 able or unfavourable, should now be laid aside — that nothing I might 
 have to witness should be prejudged — but that my soul should be left 
 as open as day, for everything I might see or leai'n to make its legiti- 
 mate impress upon me, and no more; and this was exactly the mood 
 in which I had to encounter experience number one, as the mail by 
 which I was travelling changed its horses at Annan. In front of the 
 inn there, was loitering a person who seemed to have nothing else to do 
 than answer questions — the very man I wanted; so, leaving the coach 
 and approaching him, I asked if he could tell me the number of the 
 population. With an air of respectful caution (as though he wanted 
 neither to disoblige me nor to commit himself), he answered, while evi- 
 dently taking all my bearings, "I couldna justly say, sir." "Well," 
 said I, looking on the kirks and houses, "I do not expect you to tell 
 me within twenty or thirty, but will be quite satisfied if you can say 
 within five hundred." At this point his physiognomy assumed a new 
 and curious interest — a sort of subdued eagerness over which was 
 hastily flung another thickness of caution to hide it, as raising his hand 
 to his head and tipping his hat a little aside, he answered my question 
 anent the population, by saying, "Is it onything ye wanted to be doin' 
 in the toon, sir, made ye spier?" As the traces were attached and the 
 coach was now ready, the only chance was for my counter-questioner to 
 retain his information as I did mine; and a short and pleasant ride, 
 where bright water-gleams through the changing woodlands ever and 
 anon gladdened the eye, brought me to Dumfries and its associations 
 with the history of Eobert Burns. The Crichton Institution, a famous 
 retreat for mental invalids, being one of the most conspicuous buildings 
 in the neighboming landscape, had already attracted my attention. 
 
 John M'Diarmid, editor and proprietor of the "Dumfries Courier," 
 a man whose heart and head Avere alike in the practice as well as the 
 poetry of rural life, (and whose paper for that very reason was known 
 as far up as the midland counties of England), had just returned from 
 the famous Burns festival of that year, and was full of the subject, as he 
 
186 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 sat dowu t(j tea with his family, asking me with great cordiality to 
 join them. The painting (I think, Nasmyth's) from which one of the 
 best known engravings of Burus's portrait was taken, looked down 
 on us from the wall, as M'Diarniid criticised rather closely some of the 
 passages in Professor Wilson's celebrated speech at the meeting — which, 
 indeed, he pronounced more of an essay written for printing than a 
 speech at all. There was a mingliug of chat about literary friends of 
 mine in England, and about one of my little books, pleasantly reviewed 
 long before by Willie Smith in the " Courier " — all which being over, 
 Mr. M'Diarmid turned upon me a shrewd but friendly look, as he said, 
 "And, now, may I ask you, Mr. Hall, what has brought you to Dum- 
 fries'?" "Well," said I, "being on my way to Edinburgh, it occurred 
 to me that I would call here to see the neighbourhood, and give a course 
 of lectures." "Lectures?" he exclaimed, "what will you lecture 
 upon?" "Mesmerism," I answered. "Mesmerism!" quoth he, more 
 startled than before, "and in what place will you lecture?" "That," 
 I rejoined, "is what Mr. Steel thought you would kindly advise me 
 about." "Well," said he at length, after reckoning over with his 
 family all the likely places, "I think ye couldn't do better than have 
 the Theatre; and as soon as we have finished tea, my son John shall 
 accompany you to Dean Hamilton (Dean is a secular title in Scotland) 
 who has the letting of it." 
 
 Another half-hour, aiid I was with Mr. Archibald Hamilton, Dean of 
 Guild — a man to be remembered for many reasons : in truth, an equally 
 remarkable compound of human qualities in one round, jolly little body, 
 one might have gone veiy much farther than Dumfries without meeting. 
 Let us put some of them dowu in their order: 1st, caution; 2nd, can- 
 dour; 8rd, humour; 4th, deliberateness ; and, as for Idndliuess — any 
 amount of it, where he had confidence; patience, and trying that of 
 other people, about equal, where he had not; and punctualitj^ most 
 exact and exacting. Such, as I had . afterwards reason to believe, was 
 about the measure of the first man with whom I ever transacted busi- 
 ness in Scotland. Sitting by him, at the time, was one of whom I re- 
 member that he was a great contrast in his physique to the round, jolly 
 dean — more slender and I should think much taller, though as he was 
 sitting on a low seat I could not accurately say ; but about his dark, 
 intelligent, expressive eyes, and earnest, thoughtful look altogether, I 
 have no question to this day. God bless him, evermore, for the genial 
 correspondence with which he has since cheered me, as well as for all 
 the true and beautiful thoughts he has given to his country and to man- 
 kind! It was Thomas Aird, the poet; but I did not know him then. 
 
 Before going further with this little "Tale of the Border," let us have 
 
SCOTCHMEN AT HOME. 187 
 
 a quiet word or two on a national question very often and very variously 
 discussed on both sides of it. There can be no doubt that from the 
 most ancient times there was hourly cause for the exercise of caution, 
 suspicion and jealousy among the inhabitants of that harassed region, 
 and not that region alone. In feudal days, when clanship prevailed 
 throughout the north, it was essential to any man's liberty, if not to 
 his existence, to keep a constant and sharp look-out against every pos- 
 sibility of attack or encroachment. Two faculties, therefore, would be 
 universally cultivated more intensely than all the rest — namely, wari- 
 ness with regard to all strangers, and attachment to those who had once 
 secured confidence. Whether viewed phrenologically or not, it will be 
 evident to every thinker that the cultivation of the same dispositions 
 from age to age must of necessity in time have become constitutional 
 and hereditary. Hence, in the opinion of some, the origin of "Scotch 
 caution," especially in the Border district — hence, too, the reason for 
 the man at Annan, before he would give me information, asking if it 
 was anything I wanted to be doing in the town made me inquire. Mr. 
 M'Diarmid would have confidence in me from the mere fact of Mr. 
 Steel's word of introduction, had he never heard my name before. But 
 Dean Hamilton would have, not only the hereditary and constitutional, 
 but a more special motive for caution on my asking him to let me have 
 the Theatre for a lecture-room. From the fact of Dumfries being the 
 first large town over the Border in that quarter, it would happen that 
 English people connected with theatres or lectures going north would 
 often stay there, and should their hopes of adequate returns for the 
 demonstration of their real or imaginary talents be unsuccessful, their 
 inability to pay expenses would sometimes be matter of course, and 
 painfully annoying to those by whom they had been trusted. It was, 
 therefore, the most natural and proper thing in the world, when young 
 Mr. John had introduced me, and my wish for the Theatre had been 
 stated, for the shrewd Dean to look at me with a look still more inquir- 
 ing than his words, as he said, "An' what for is it ye want the Theatre, 
 may I ask, sir? " 
 
 "For a course of lectures." 
 
 The Dean — "Lectures? An' what will ye be lecturing upon?" 
 
 "Mesmerism." 
 
 "Mesmerism!" exclaimed the Dean. "And have ye brought ony 
 introductions wi' ye ?" 
 
 "None," I replied, "except a kindly word from Mr. Steel, of Car- 
 lisle, to Mr. M'Diarmid, to whom, however, my name was already 
 familiar." 
 
 "Aye — weel — that's a' richt enough; but hae yo got no introduction 
 
188 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 to ony person o' scientific note — to Dr. Brown, for instance o' tlie 
 Crichton Institution, or ony other scientific man?" 
 
 " Not a line." 
 
 "Ah," continued my interlocutor, with a not unkindly, but somewhat 
 disappointed, tone and look, "that is very unfortunate for ye. Ye 
 shouldna hae come to Scotlan' on sic an expedition without introduc- 
 tion. I'm afraid ye'll sadly lose for want o' it." 
 
 " Not at all," said I: "my theme and name were always a sufiicient 
 introduction for me in England, to say nothing of my seldom lecturing 
 there without being invited; and I am not very far from England yet." 
 
 "Ah, weel," rejoined the Dean, "but after all, ye'll soon find out 
 that Scotland isna England ; and it would hae been far, far better for 
 ye, had ye had mair introduction to start wi' — to Dr. Brown, for in- 
 stance, o' the Crichton Institution, or some ither equally scientific 
 man." 
 
 What good, quiet, obsei-vant Thomas Aird thought of all this it is 
 impossible for me to know, as he never spoke one word during the 
 parley; but growing myself a little impatient, I said — Well, sir, if 
 you'll let me the Theatre, I'll pay you for it, and when my circular is 
 printed one shall be sent to Dr. Brown ; if he comes I shall be happy 
 to see him, and if he does not it will make no great difi'erence to me. 
 I never went in my life, with my hat in my hand, to ask any man to 
 attend a lecture of mine." 
 
 The Dean, with a slight change of manner — " I didna intend to hurt 
 your feelings, Mr. Hall; I didna doot your respectability; it's no that; 
 but the letting o' the Theatre doesna depend on myself alone; I should 
 hae to see anither party anent it ; an' — where are ye stapng '?• — at the 
 King's Arms — verra weel — I'll gie ye yer answer at a quarter-past ten 
 the morn; but I maun ken Dumfries better than you can, and I deeply 
 regret for your ain sake that ye hadna an introduction to some scientific 
 man, an' there's nane could better hae served your purpose than Dr. 
 Brown, o' the Crichton Institution." 
 
 " But couldn't you let me have an answer to-night?" I asked. 
 
 " What for the nicht?" replied the Dean. 
 
 " Because I wish to be in good time with my advertisement for the 
 newspapers." 
 
 " Never fear but ye'll be in good time for the papers; I'll keep my 
 word wi' ye; I couldna see the party I have to consult about it the 
 nicht, but will let you know at a quarter-past ten the morn, exactly." 
 
 "Good night," said I, then a young, very energetic and active man; 
 but I wish you could let me have the answer to-night, for suspense of 
 any sort to me is painful." 
 
SCOTCHMEN AT HOME. 189 
 
 "No need for pain at a'" (concluded the short, stout, deliberate 
 Dean), " I'll keep my word wi' ye — good nicht, good nicht, sir, a 
 quarter-past ten the morn — but I wish you'd had an introduction to 
 Dr. Brown, o' the Crichton Institution. 
 
 Morning came; and at ten o'clock, growing very impatient, and 
 wanting to make the best of my time, I went to the Dean's house. He 
 was just going out of it, and said, " Why did ye no' believe me? a 
 quarter-past ten was the time I named, an' it wants a quarter to it yet." 
 
 "Just so," I replied, "but a quarter of an hour is not much to be 
 on the right side with ; and if I can't have an answer soon, I shall 
 trouble myself no more about it." 
 
 "Aye, aye," responded the Dean, " I dare say we seem slow people, 
 j'et we keep to our word, an' I'll be at the King's Arms wi' ye exactly 
 at the time I named ; but I canna help regretting that ye hadna an 
 introduction to Dr. Brown, or some ither scientific man." 
 
 Who the Dean had to confer with on the subject, or why at that 
 particular hour, he never told me, nor did I ask. Perhaps it was with 
 John M'Diarmid himself; but as I stood in front of the hotel, wonder- 
 ing whether all this was not downright waste of time, and almost 
 resolving to go and see Burns's grave, and then be off to Edinburgh ; 
 exactly at a quarter-past ten — not a second on one side or the other — • 
 came pacing over the area the punctual Dean, saying, some yards 
 before reaching me, "Aweel, Mr. Hall, ye'll be welcome to hae the 
 Theatre, but I would ye'd had an introduction to 
 
 " Shall I pay your charge for it at once," said I, rather proudly. 
 
 "No, no," cried he, " I wouldna insult ye by taking your money 
 aforehand, and I hope ye'll hae success; but I still think it would hae 
 been far better had ye but had an introduction to Dr. Brown, o' the 
 Crichton Institution." 
 
 The worthy Dean knew Dumfries better than I did. Every precau- 
 tion was taken for making the announcement of my purpose as effective 
 as possible; but my first audience in the large Theatre, where Burns's 
 prologues and epilogues had once been spoken to crowds, was so chil- 
 lingly small, that the little room I am now writing in might have held 
 it. Yet some influential people, including members of the press and of 
 the medical profession, and Mr. Biggar, laird of Maryholm, with General 
 Pitman, were there. The lecture struck a chord that vibrated farther, 
 and the second farther still. Between it and the third I was called 
 upon by the Provost of the town with some other genteel people, and 
 at night the Theatre was crowded with bright and interested-looking 
 faces in every part. Some of the aristocracy of the neighbourhood 
 were there ; and, not very far asunder, sat the Provost, with John 
 
190 CHAPTKE XIV. 
 
 M'Diarmid, Dean Hamilton, and -Dr. Brown, of the Crichton Insti- 
 tution ! The lecture that night was followed, not only by a warm vote 
 of thanks, moved and seconded by Mr. Biggar and one of the medical 
 men, but a formal request that I would give another course. I did so, 
 and never can forget those scenes. Night after night was the Theatre 
 equally crowded to hear me ; medical men invited me to see some of 
 the more peculiar and interesting cases under their treatment; the 
 newspapers contained ample and respectful notices of my doings ; and 
 the " lads" from one of the printing-offices came to beg that I would 
 let them row me up the Nith, on a sunny evening, to the beautful ruins 
 of Lincludcn. Mr. M'Diarmid advised me to take a pony and ride over 
 by Lochmaben (on an island in which beautiful sheet of water stands 
 one of King Robert Bruce's castles), and join him at Lockerbie lamb 
 fair, where I saw nearly 80,000 sheep in flocks on a hill, and where 
 there were people of all sorts, Scotsmen who had wandered in every 
 clime, one of them having with him a noble-looking lady of colour for 
 his wife.* Booths, like those on a race-course, were there for every 
 purpose, — including booths for whisky and booths for banking. Shep- 
 herds, with plaids and bonnets and long crooks, like those which we 
 English people generally see but in pictures, were there in reality — 
 men of Allan Eamsay's, Burns's, and the Ettrick Shepherd's poetry, 
 talking in their well-known Doric, and acting in all they did like men 
 in simple earnest; while the bright, broad, winding Annan, and the 
 
 * I have good reason for believing that this was the very lady in reference to 
 whom, in his poem of " A Summer Day," Thomas Aird has the following beautiful 
 and touching lines : — 
 
 " In life's first glee, and first untutored grace, 
 
 With raven tresses, and with glancing eyes, 
 
 How beautiful those children, lustrous dark, 
 
 Pulling the kingcups in the flowery meadow ! 
 
 Born of an Indian mother : She by night, 
 
 An orphan damsel on her native hills, 
 
 Looked down the Khyber Pass, with pity touched 
 
 For the brave strangers that lay slain in heaps, 
 
 Low in that fatal fold and pen of death. 
 
 Sorrow had taught her mercy : Forth she went 
 
 With simple cordials from her lonely cot, 
 
 If she might help to save some wounded foe. 
 
 By cavern went she, and tall ice-glazed rock, 
 
 Casting its spectral shadow on the snow, 
 
 Beneath the hard blue moon. Save her own feet 
 
 Crushing the starry spangles of the frost, 
 
 Sound there was none on all the silent hills ; 
 
 And silence filled the valley of the dead. 
 
 Down went the maid aslant. A cliff's recess 
 
 Gave forth a living form. A wounded youth, 
 
SCOTCHMEN AT HOME. 191 
 
 Locli, sent back their gleams from below, and Queensbury and fifty 
 other mountains and fells looked down on the moving scene. And 
 there I met with Currie, the sculptor, who took me the day afterwards 
 through his studio and up to the Museum and public gardens overlook- 
 ing Dumfries, where was his wondrous piece of self-taught handiwork, 
 " Old Mortality and his Pony," in rough stone. Dumfries, thou 
 bonny queen of Scotland's south! it is near twenty-two years since I 
 promised thy brotherly set — so cautious at first but so cordial at last, 
 to visit thee again, though I have never yet been able. Thy Aird, 
 Currie, M'Culloch, and other worthies still live; but John M'Diarmid 
 and Archibald Hamilton sleep near thy Burns — Dean Hamilton! of 
 whom I seldom, if ever, speak and tell this story to a Dumfriesian, 
 mthout something to this elfect being responded, "Ah, poor dear old 
 Archie! one of the drollest, cheeriest, kindest, and warmest-hearted 
 men that ever lived. Never speak disrespectfully of dear old Archie ! 
 he felt for you in what he said when he wished you had brought an 
 introduction to Dr. Brown or some other scientific man; and none 
 would be better pleased when he found you successful without it." 
 
 My reception at Kilmarnock was different, but not less good ; and 
 there it was I found that the further from the Border the less there was 
 of that first suspicion of strangers. Yet at Glasgow I had again a most 
 notable example of blended caution and kindness. William Lang, the 
 successor of Charles Mackay, as editor of the " Glasgow Argus," had 
 
 One unit relic of that thick battue, 
 
 Escajoing death, and mastering his deep hurt. 
 
 From out the bloody Pass had climbed thus far 
 
 The mountain side, and rested there a while. 
 
 The virgin near, up rose he heavily, 
 
 Staggered into the light, and stood before her. 
 
 Bowing for help. She gave him sweet-spiced milk, 
 
 And led him to her home, and hid him there 
 
 Months, till pursuit was o'er, and he was healed, 
 
 And from her mountains he could safely go. 
 
 But grateful Walter loved the Affghan girl. 
 
 And would not go without her : They had taught 
 
 Each other language : Will she go with him 
 
 To the Isles of the West, and be his wife ? 
 
 Nor less she loved the fair-haired islander. 
 
 And softly answered. Yes. And she is now 
 
 His Christian wife, wondering and loving much 
 
 In this mild land, honoured and loved by all ; 
 
 With such a grace of glad humility 
 
 She does her duties. And, to crown her joy 
 
 Of holy wedded life, her God has given her 
 
 Those beauteous children, with the laughing voices, 
 
 Pulling the kingcups in the flowery meadow. 
 
192 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ■written a book on Mesmerism, in which was some respectful mention 
 of my name ; and I called upon him. My first audiences were as small 
 as those at Dumfries ; but Mr. Lang had secured the attendance of a 
 representative of every newspaper. The first reports were fair, and 
 some of them far more commendatory than I had expected. On the 
 strength of these I gave another course. Lectures followed lectures — 
 seventeen in all; and at every lecture after the third, the attendance 
 was crowded. Glasgow, William Lang, Sheriff Steel, David Chambers, 
 James Hedderwick, Baillic Hamilton, and some others ! Never while 
 my heart beats will it forget their friendship. 
 
 Between Dumfries and Dundee, and in a sojourn of six months, I 
 naturally met with a great variety of interesting character besides that 
 described, if not all so amiable or so bright. But my Scottish experiences 
 taught me one great lesson, and my Irish and Welsh experiences have 
 confirmed it, that there is nothing more preposterous or injmious than 
 to judge any people by too partial or too cursory observation. While 
 staying at Perth I was one evening invited to be the guest of a most 
 interesting and amiable party, when one of its members, a lame gentle- 
 man, extensively read, but little travelled, said — "Well, Mr. Hall, I 
 hope you are much enjoying your visit amongst us; would you not 
 like to stay in Scotland altogether?" " No," was my answer, "not 
 altogether. I love Scotland, but never knew the meaning of ' merrie 
 England' till I came and found how solemn you are here." " But," 
 rejoined my friend, playfully, yet earnestly, " you are too much of a 
 cosmopolitan to be biased from the mere love of bias : don't you think 
 that in comparison with the coldness, reserve, and pride of England as 
 a rule, the social warmth and cordiality of our Scottish character is 
 preferable? " Somewhat surprised by the manner in which this home 
 question was put, I said, " Why, what you are now saying of the Eng- 
 lish is almost word for word what we are accustomed to hear in England 
 of you." The good man expressed his wonder that such a thing was 
 possible. Several months later on, and just after my return to Eng- 
 land, some of my old companions said, " Well, Hall, you have been a 
 good while in Scotland." " Yes," said I. "And no doubt," observed 
 my questioners, " you found the Scotch almost universally a cold, cau- 
 tious, thrifty, avaricious set of people, didn't you ? " " Oh yes," was 
 my answer, " and I will give you two examples of it : — The first meal 
 I took in Scotland was by invitation, with a gentleman who had never 
 seen me before ; and the last money I paid was to a barber in Kelso, 
 who would not take so much as I offered him; but I cannot tell you 
 of all that passed between ! " 
 
I^Iiapfer Iifi4f|ntli 
 
 THE EEV. THOMAS DICK, LL.D. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER.' 
 
 " EccE ALTEK TiBEK ! " (behold another Tiber!) cried tlio old Eomans 
 when first they came upon a view of the Tay sweeping so nobly through 
 the meadows, near where, since their time, has stood the fair city of 
 Perth. But travellers say they paid a more flattering compliment to 
 the Tiber than the Tay by that comparison. Certainly as the Tay 
 flows, widening and yet winding as it goes, through lands sacred in 
 history to the memory of William Wallace (and especially as seen from 
 Kinoul Hill) it lights one of the loveliest landscapes on which poet, 
 painter, or patriot, could wish to gaze. The autumn of 1844 had scarcely 
 waned, when, after more than a week in that neighbourhood, I one day 
 took the steam-boat down to " bonny Dundee," where an appointment 
 had been made for my lecturing in the Thistle Hall, which there was a 
 great pleasure to me in the evening in finding well filled for my wel- 
 come. The magnetic phenomena I had been developing in Edinburgh 
 had, from reports in the papers, excited an interest throughout the 
 country, which will account for that reception; and an elderly and 
 very thoughtful-looking gentleman. Dr. Dick, was unanimously called 
 to the chair. During the whole of my experiments I had no idea but 
 that the Dr. Dick in question was a respectable local physician, not for 
 an instant dreaming of his being a gentleman of more than national 
 
194 CHAPTEK XV. 
 
 reputation. That he was a person of quiet, calm, yet acute observation, 
 was evident enough. He never interfered with a single experiment, 
 neither did he permit the most rapid phase of one to escape his eye. 
 His face was much of the same type as Dr. Samuel Brown's; and, 
 allowing for the difference of years, the likeness was striking — the out- 
 lines of the face being of that order one may call pointed, but not in 
 any single feature unpleasantly projecting. It would have been some 
 relief to me, as the phenomena were evolved, if he had said one word 
 indicative of a bias for or against the course I was taking ; for, as not 
 unfrequently professional men, sceptical altogether concerning the 
 claims of the science, would nurse their prejudices during the whole of 
 a series of experiments, and then open out at last with what they 
 intended for a destructive fire, I had more than half an apprehension 
 (supposing my chairman to be possibly a physician of firmly stereo- 
 typed opinions) that his reticence was just as likely to be predicative 
 of such an onset as of anything in favour of myself or my views. Yet, 
 as the suspicion crossed me, there did occur the counter-question — 
 conhl a face so candid-looking and benign be that of a man meditating 
 hostility towards any one person or thing on earth? But that point 
 was settled anon. The last experiment was no sooner concluded, and 
 the eyes of the vrliole audience directed in one intense and expectant 
 gaze towards the venerable chairman, than he arose, and in a voice 
 rather silvery than deep, yet which filled the hall with its musical 
 clearness, said — " Supposing that we bad never heard of the Goperni- 
 can system of astronomy, and some person were at this moment to 
 appear amongst us, telling us, for the first time in our lives, that the 
 earth on which we are so quietly placed is not only turning round its 
 own axis at the rate of a thousand miles, but in its annular course 
 is whirling us through space at that of 68,000 miles an hour ; if, 
 on hearing him, we reasoned only in accordance with our ordinary ex- 
 perience instead of our higher knowledge, it would be impossible for us 
 to believe him ; but reasoning on the subject in accordance with the 
 highest knowledge we have and the noblest laws of thought, the ques- 
 tion loses all its mystery, and we accept the facts, believing them to be 
 incontrovertible. Just so with the phenomena we have been observing 
 this evening, and which I for one have watched most closely. Keason- 
 ing about them on the level of our more ordinary observations, they 
 might seem incredible to some ; but comparing them with our higher 
 knowledge of things that yet are fully ascertained, I see no more reason 
 for rejecting them, presented to us in the open manner they have been, 
 than for doubting the rotation or the speed of the planetary bodies, or 
 any other of the varied phenomena of nature." As the large audience 
 
THOMAS DICK, LL.D. 195 
 
 responded to this, and some one told me that my chairman was Dr. 
 Dick, "the Christian Philosopher," one thrill of pleasure was followed 
 by another, when he put his card into my hand, and asked me to pay 
 him a visit at his Observatory, at Droughty Ferry, and dine with him. 
 
 It was on a Saturday, at noon, that, in compliance with that invita- 
 tion, I accompanied Mr. Dick, the philosopher's son, by rail to Droughty 
 Ferry — a place some miles below Dundee, on the Frith of Tay. The 
 autumn day was calm and clear, and the glittering waves, the passing 
 and repassing craft, and the broad expanse of sky, made me feel more 
 than ordinarily glad, as the good old man gave me welcome at his door 
 and introduced me to his wife — his second wife — much younger than 
 him in years, but one of the kindest, most reverential, and deferential 
 of women, to such a man, that his warmest friend could have wished for 
 him. I was also introduced to Mr. Ducker, a considerable traveller, 
 who was staying as a guest ; and our little party was altogether a very 
 interesting and happy one to me, nor did it seem less so to a.nj other 
 of its members. There were also two little children there — grand- 
 children of Dr. Dick, and children of the son who had kindly called to 
 escort me down. Their mother was dead ; but I was assured — though 
 the assurance was hardly needed — that Mrs. Dick was as loving to 
 them as a lady could be, doing all in her power to compensate for that 
 sad bereavement. 
 
 While we were at dinner, Mr. Duckerj alluding to my experiments 
 of the previous evening, said that, when he was among some aborigines 
 in a remote part of Australia, he was one night asked to go out and see 
 them cure a woman of a serious bodily ailment. A fire was kindled 
 in the plain, round which gathered a number of the natives apart, yet 
 near enough for the fire-hght to show her position. AVhile the rest of 
 the natives were dancing round the fire, a man, corresponding in some 
 degree to the doctor or " big mystery man " of the American Indians, 
 went forth and back between the fire and the woman, and as she stood 
 still, made passes from her head to her feet, taking the outline of the 
 body, much in the style of the French mesmerists. At length, after many 
 repetitions of this process, she was said to be transfixed, and when in 
 due time relieved from that condition was " discharged cured." Mr. 
 Ducker added that, at the time this occurred, he felt convinced that 
 there was some imposture in the case, on the part of the woman, the 
 doctor, or both ; but from what he had seen of my previous evening's 
 experiments he now felt as fully convinced that the very contrary was 
 much more probable. 
 
 After a visit to the Observatory, there v/ere some hours of calm and 
 interesting conversation, in the house — on Dr. Dick's part much in the 
 N 2 
 
196 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 spirit of his works. There was one touching episode. Taking me 
 apart into his library the Doctor asked me, with Mrs. Dick's coincident 
 desire, if I would let him see in what degree phrenology would tally 
 with his opinion of her as derived from their life together. Passing 
 my hand over Mrs. Dick's head I was struck with the indications of 
 her good common sense, her devoted affection, her reverence for intel- 
 lect and love of the approval of all whom she respected — nor less with 
 those of her kindness to all that was gentle, tender, bereft, or in any 
 way needing compassion. The manipulation ended, the lady herself 
 did not wait to hear any remarks, but on my telling Dr. Dick, after 
 her withdrawal, what I thought of her, he burst into tears, and said 
 that every word of it was true — naming many incidents, but chiefly 
 her conduct towards him and his son's motherless children, in con- 
 firmation. 
 
 That day to me was one of very deep interest, from the fine blending 
 as it passed of the intellectual with the religious and humane, yet with 
 the absence of everything savouring either of cant or pedantry; and 
 when many years afterwards I learnt that (and perhaps at the very 
 time of my visit) in that frugal but hospitable home peciiniary difficulty 
 had been also a guest, I could but wish that the proverbial one half the 
 world which does not know how the other lives, were more generally 
 and favourably known to its counterpart. 
 
 Referring at this moment to "Chambers's Edinburgh Cyclopoedia," 
 I find it stated that " Thomas Dick, LL.D., a well-known rehgous 
 philospher, was born in 1744, near Dundee, educated at the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh, and intended for the ministry in connection 
 with the Secession Church. After a brief pastoral charge, however, 
 he devoted himself to teaching, lecturing, occasional preaching, and 
 authorship. Dr. Dick proved himself to be a truly useful writer ; but 
 although his productions obtained a great popularity in England and 
 America, they brought him very little pecuniary return. Towards the 
 close of his life a small pension was granted him in consideration of his 
 literary services. He died at Droughty Ferry, on the 29th of July, 
 1857, in the 83rd year of his age. His principal works are ' The 
 Christian Philosopher,' ' The Philosophy of Eeligion,' ' The Philosophy 
 of a Future State,' ' The Solar System,' ' Celestial Scenery,' ' The Side- 
 rial Heavens,' and ' The Practical Astronomer.' Several of Dr. Dick's 
 writings have been translated into other languages, one even into 
 Chinese." So far Chambers ; and it is impossible to read this little 
 encyclopaedic monument to so useful a man, and think of the amount 
 of instruction conveyed in those works, without also thinking it wrong 
 that such an author could not himself have had more pecuniary profit 
 
THOMAS DICK, LL.D. 197 
 
 from them than he ever obtained. But his hfe was in the heavens, and 
 "angels' food " seems to have been his only reward. Dr. Dick's work 
 on the ' ' Improvement of Society by the Diffusion of Useful Know- 
 ledge," though not named in the list just quoted, is mentioned by my 
 friend Mr. Henry Duncan, of Kendal, himself an educator, sitting at 
 the present time by my side, as one which has most deservedly left a 
 deep effect on the public mind, and there has probably never been a 
 writer doing so much to familiarise the people of his own world with 
 the countless worlds beyond it. In conclusion, let me give my younger 
 readers a glimpse or two of his teaching, in the hope that it may 
 quicken their desire for more. The quotations are from his work on 
 " The Solar System": — 
 
 We have endeavoured to prove to the intelligent reader, that the world in which 
 we dwell, with all its continents, islands, oceans, and its numerous population, is 
 continually revolving around its axis to bring about the returns of day and night. 
 It is also flying with a still greater velocity around the sun, to produce the various 
 changes of the seasons. What an august and sublime idea does this suggest for 
 our occasional contemplation ! While we are apt to imagine we are sitting in 
 absolute rest in our apartments, we are in reality whirling round towards the east 
 at the rate of hundreds of miles an hour ; and are, at the same time, carried 
 through the regions of space with a velocity of sixty-eight thousand miles every hour ; 
 so that during every moment, or every pulse that beats within us, we are carried 
 nearly twenty miles from that portion of space we occupied before. When we lie 
 down to sleep in the evening, we are seldom aware that, during our seven hours' 
 repose, we have been carried along through the space of four hundred and seventy 
 thousand miles ! When amidst the gloom of winter, we look forward to the 
 cheering scenes of spring, we must be carried forward more than a hundred 
 millions of miles, before we can enjoy the pleasures of that season; and when 
 spring arrives, we must be carried, through the voids of space, hundreds of millions 
 more, before we can enjoy the fruits of harvest. During every breath we draw, 
 and every word we speak, we are carried forward in our course thirty, forty, or 
 fifty miles, unconscious of the rapidity of our flight ; but the motion is not the less 
 real, because we do not feel it. What should we think if we beheld one of the 
 largest mountains in Scotland flying through the atmosphere, across the island of 
 Great Britain, with a velocity which would carry it from John-o'-Groats to the Land's 
 End, a distance of seven hundred miles, in seven minutes? It would, doubtless, 
 excite universal wonder and astonishment. But this is not one-tenth part of the 
 velocity with which the great globe of the earth, and all that it contains, flies 
 through the boundless regions of space. Were we placed on a fixed point, a 
 thousand miles distant from the earth, and beheld this mighty globe, mth all its 
 magnificent scenery and population, thus winging its flight around the sun, and 
 carrying the moon along with it in its rapid career, such a sj)ectacle would over- 
 whelm us with astonishment inexpressible, and even with emotions of terror, and 
 would present to view a scene of subhmity and grandeur beyond the reach of our 
 present conceptions. To angels, and other superior intelligences, when winging 
 their flight from heaven to earth, and through distant worlds, such august scenes 
 may be frequently presented. 
 
 Although the heavens do not in reality move round the earth, as they appear to 
 
198 
 
 CHAPTEB XV. 
 
 do, yet there are thousands of globes in the celestial regions whose real motions 
 are more swift and astonishing than even those to which we have now referred. 
 The planet Venus moves in its orbit with a velocity of eighty thousand miles an 
 hour ; Mercury at the rate of one hundred and nine thousund miles an hour ; and 
 the planet Jupiter, which is one thousand four hundred times larger than the 
 earth, at the rate of nearly thirty thousand miles an hour, carrying along with it, 
 in its course, four globes, each larger than our moon. Some of the comets have 
 been found to move more than eight hundred thousand miles in the space of an 
 hour ; and some of the fixed stars, though apparently at rest, are moving with a 
 velocity of many thousands of miles an hour. In short, we have every reason to 
 believe that there is not a globe in the universe, nor a portion of matter throughout 
 creation, but is in rapid and perpetual motion through the spaces of infinity, 
 supported by the arm of Omnipotence, and fulfilling the designs for which it was 
 created. ....... 
 
 The benevolence of the Deity is manifested throughout this system in ordering 
 all the movements and arrangements of the planetary globes, so as to act in sub- 
 serviency to the comfort and happiness of sentient and intelligent beings. For the 
 wisdom of God is never employed in devising means without an end ; the grand 
 end of all his arrangements, so far as our views extend, is the communication of 
 happiness ; and it would be inconsistent with the wisdom and other perfections of 
 God not to admit that the same end is kept in view in every part of his dominions, 
 however far removed from the sphere of our observation. We cannot, indeed, 
 explore the minute displays of Divine goodness in the distant regions of the plane- 
 tary system, but we perceive certain general arrangements which clearly indicate 
 that the happiness of intellectual natures is one of the grand ends of the Divine 
 administration. For example — light is essential to the comfort and happiness of 
 all living beings. Its rays illumine the vast expanse of the heavens, and unveil all 
 the beauties and sublimities of creation around us. Without its influence the uni- 
 verse would be transformed into a desert, and happiness, even in the lowest degree, 
 could scarcely be enjoyed by any sentient or perceptive existence. Now we find, 
 in the arrangements of the solar system, that ample provision has been made for 
 diffusing light in all its varieties over every planet and satellite belonging to this 
 system. AU the planets revolve round their axes, in order that every part of their 
 surfaces may enjoy a due proportion of the solar rays : around the more distant 
 planets, an assemblage of moons has been arranged to throw light upon their sur- 
 faces in the absence of the sun. And while the satellites perform this office, the 
 primary planets reflect a still greater quantity of light upon the surface of the 
 satellites : and one of these planets is invested with a splendid double ring, of vast 
 dimensions, to reflect the solar rays during night both on the surface of the planet 
 and on the siu'faoe of its moons ; all which arrangements must necessarily have a 
 respect to the enjoyment of intellectual natures ; otherwise they would be means 
 without an end, which would be inconsistent with the wisdom and intelligence of the 
 Deity. If, then, the happiness of various orders of intelligent beings was intended 
 to be promoted by such adaptations and arrangements, we have here presented 
 to our view a most glorious display of the expansive benevolence of that almighty 
 Being who " is good to all," and whose " tender mercies are over all his works." 
 If this earth on which we dwell " is full of the goodness of the Lord ; " if countless 
 myriads of living beings, from man downwards to the minutest insect, are sup- 
 ported and nourished by the Divine bounty, how wide and expansive must be the 
 emanations of that beneficence which extends its regards to worlds a thousand 
 times more extensive and populous than ours ! 
 

 Impt^r .^i;^d4ejiii|. 
 
 JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 (April, 186G.) 
 
 Whatever during his life envy, jealousy, monopolous interest or satiri- 
 cal hostility may have said to the contrary, there can be little doubt, 
 now he is gone, that the late Mr. James Silk Buckingham was amongst 
 the most useful as well as the most hopeful and industrious men of his 
 time. His career throughout was one remarkable illustration of the 
 well-known line of the old song : — 
 
 It's wonderful what we can do if we try ; 
 
 For at almost every step he took he was met by some disaster or annoy- 
 ance, yet kept pressing on with the most dauntless persistence, making 
 the best of the worst of circumstances, and, even when failing in his own 
 personal endeavours, giving such an impulse to the powers of others in 
 whatever cause or course he had engaged, that the end in view was 
 generally attained, and in several most notable instances within the period 
 of his own life. How he felt on so often seeing others exulting on the 
 ramparts against which he had been first to rear the ladder, it is not easy 
 to tell ; but one fact speaks strongly in favour of his good temper — that 
 he never sat down mopishly or morosely on being pushed back, but 
 immediately sprang up and sought solace in some further enterprise 
 that was almost sure to be of use to somebody. Who but an Archi- 
 
200 CHAPTEB XVI. 
 
 modes of the press dare have made a lever of it where Buckingham 
 did, for moving at its very base the gigantic monopoly of the East In- 
 dia Company? It is probable that, after all, the world's martyrs are, 
 as a rule, its greatest heroes; and regarded in this character James 
 Buckingham ought, perhaps, to take rank with some of the bravest 
 heroes of which England in India boasts — as the sequel may show : to 
 say nothing of a hundred questions of more or less importance, with 
 which his name was identified, before or after he had given the first 
 disturbing scotch to that mighty serpent which was enfolding in its 
 coils, and squeezing to its outburst, the very heart of the Indian 
 empire. 
 
 Popular biographies tell us that Mr. Buckingham was born at Flush- 
 ing, near Falmouth, Cornwall, in 17G8, and became a sailor at the 
 early age of nine. Before the end of his tenth year he was a prisoner 
 of war, passed several months in confinement at Corunna, and was 
 afterwards marched barefoot for hundreds of miles, through Spain and 
 Portugal to Lisbon. On being released he still devoted himself to the 
 sea, and at the age of twenty-one became commander of a vessel, mak- 
 ing several voyages to the West Indies and the two American continents, 
 as well as to the principal ports of the Mediterranean. Having ac- 
 quainted himself during these arduous experiences with the French, 
 Italian, Greek, and Arabic languages, he thought to settle where they 
 might be of use to him, in mercantile life, at Malta ; but the plague 
 having broken out there (1813), he was prohibited from landing, and 
 resolved to try his fortune at Smyrna, yet without success, though he 
 was well received there. Ho next went to Alexandria and thence to 
 Cairo, where he was welcomed by the British Consul-General, Colonel 
 Missett, and made the friendship of Mahomet Ali, who was at that time 
 ruling Pasha of Egypt. A negotiation with the Pasha for re-opening 
 the ancient canal between the Bed Sea and the Mediterranean (^vith 
 gome other important schemes which have since been revived) was ren- 
 dered abortive, as is supposed, by the Wahabee war, after which he 
 ascended the Nile, beyond the Cataracts, to Nubia, where he was seized 
 with ophthalmic blindness. To add to his distresses, (as a writer in 
 "Lives of the Illustrious " informs us,) having on his return halted at 
 Keneh, with an intention of going thence to Kosseir, he was attacked 
 in the Desert by a band of mutineers of the army of Ibrahim Pasha, 
 who plundered and left him entirely naked on the barren waste, sixty 
 miles from any human habitation, food, or water ; and even when at 
 last he reached Kosseir, he was obhged to retrace his steps — the vessel 
 which should have conveyed him forward having been seized by the 
 mutineers! Eeturning to Cairo, he afterwards "prospected" the 
 
JAMES BILK BUCKINGHAM. 201 
 
 levels of the Isthmus of Suez, and — habited as a native, and speaking 
 the language — visited every part of Lower Egypt and the Delta. 
 
 Buckingham's next occupation was that of an endeavour to master 
 the hydrography of the Eed Sea (by the wish of some Brito-Egyptian 
 merchants), with the hope of promoting amity and commerce in that 
 direction with India. For this purpose he went by that route, but the 
 merchants at Bombay saw difficulties in the way of the scheme ; and, 
 more than that, when he had obtained command of a frigate from the 
 Imaum of Muscat, and was commissioned to China, while rigging the 
 ship he was told by the Bombay government that, as he had not the 
 E. I. Company's licence, he could not be permitted to retain his post 
 nor even continue in India. The licence he might possibly have had, 
 if he had contemplated such a course before leaving England, or even 
 Cairo: In the emergency he was subjected only to the effects of a 
 general and imperative rule — -the Secretary on its enforcement compli- 
 menting him highly on his intelligence and the probable utility of his 
 views. On his return by the Eed Sea, however, he industriously col- 
 lected the materials for a new hydrographical chart, including all its 
 coasts, and so turned his banishment to the most useful pm'pose the 
 circumstances would permit. 
 
 The Brito-Egyptian merchants not liking defeat, a compact was then 
 made by them, the Pasha, and Mr. Buckingham, whereby the latter 
 was authorised to return to India, as Mahomet All's envoy and repre- 
 sentative, for which the Company's licence was not required. This 
 seems, on the face of it, to have been one of the most remarkable expe- 
 ditions ever undertaken. Knowing so much of Mr. Buckingham's fine 
 presence, intelligence, and urbanity, as I did in after years, I could 
 hardly ever converse with him without wishing I had been acquainted 
 with him, and a companion, had it been possible, as, robed and tur- 
 baned — -with his speaking eye, his fine oval face, his dark, falling beard, 
 and his extraordinary knowledge of various languages — he journeyed 
 away by such historical places as Tyro, Sidon, Acre, and Jaffa, to 
 Jerusalem — traversing nearly the whole of Palestine, reaching Damas- 
 cus, and being invited thence by " Queen " Hester Stanhope to be her 
 guest on Mount Lebanon. Nor less so as he afterwards visited Baal- 
 bec, Tripoli, Antioch, the Orontes, and Aleppo — passing away thence 
 into Mesopotamia, crossing the Euphrates, and so on to Orfah, near 
 Haran, the Ur of the Chaldees, the birth-place of Abraham, and then 
 through the heart of Asia Minor to the Tigris, glancing at the site of 
 ancient Nineveh by the way, and making researches among the ruins 
 of Babylon — identifying the hanging gardens of Semiramis, the palace 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, and the tower of Babel, then resting at Bagdad — 
 
202 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 about all which, and much more of the same kind, those who have the 
 love of such reading may indulge it abundantly in his voluminous 
 works. 
 
 Proceeding still on his India-ward route, Mr. Buckingham entered 
 Persia, crossed the chain of Mount Zagros, and passed Kermanshah, 
 to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, Ispahan and Persepolis, embarking 
 at Bushir in a shijD of war belonging to the E. I. Company, which was 
 bound on an expedition against some Wahabee pirates on the Persian 
 Gulf; and going on shore at one of their ports (Ras-el-Khyma), he 
 acted as Arabian interpreter to Captain Brydges, commander of the 
 squadron, assisted in bombarding the town, and then proceeded to 
 Bombay, which he reached after a romantic journey, that had occupied 
 him twelve months, chiefly among scenes of the most imposing splen- 
 dour, wildness or ancient renown ; but his mission was again unsuc- 
 cessful, from the Bombay merchants not having confidence in the 
 Egyptian government. 
 
 Now, however, the Company's licence reached him, authorising him 
 to remain in their territories, and he regained the appointment to his old 
 ship, the Humayoon Shih, in the service of the Imaum of Muscat, his 
 fortunate successor in the interim having cleared £30,000 by successful 
 voyages to China. With this ship he navigated eastern waters till 
 midsummer, 1818, when receiving, at Calcutta, commands from the 
 Imaum to proceed to the coast of Zanzibar, on a slaving expedition, 
 he bravely — all honour to his memory for ^ ! — threw up his engage- 
 ment and £4,000 a-year, rather than be implicated in that diabolical 
 traffic. 
 
 James Buckingham's history after this is pretty well known. As a 
 writer he was perhaps too orientally diffuse in his verbiage to allow of 
 great depth or force of expression. A greater contrast to Thomas 
 Carlyle in mode of thought and expression it would be impossible to 
 imagine ; yet showing remarkable sympathy with the advanced spirit 
 of his time, wherever or in whatever character its physiognomy was 
 presented, he not only immediately caught its portent, but gave his 
 hand to it as one of its readiest ministers. Hence he was induced to 
 commence and edit a liberal newspaper, the "Calcutta Journal," which 
 instantly became popular, and yielded its founder a net profit of £8,000 
 a year. The bold advocacy, however, of free trade, free settlement, 
 and a free press, with the abolition of many customs and practices 
 opposed to humanity, after Lord Hastings had returned to England, 
 brought down upon him the censure of the temporary Governor- 
 General, Mr. John Adam ; his paper was suppressed, and (just after 
 his amiable wife, who had not been with him for nearly ten years, had 
 
JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM. 208 
 
 joined him,) he was ordered to quit Calcutta without a trial or even a 
 hearing — his little fortune was sacrificed in attempts to avert that final 
 issue — and he was thus thrown back on the world, almost as poor, save 
 in experience, as when a youth he left his captivity at Corunna ! He 
 left his magnificent library in the hope of some day returning, after 
 getting redress at home. But, though strenuous efforts were made by 
 some of the stoutest minds in parliament, redress never came. His 
 library, like his hopes, was wrecked — his all was gone ; and it was not 
 till after many dreary years that at last the Company granted him a 
 pension of £200 a j^ear in addition to the government's £200. " Pom- 
 pey and Caesar berry much alike." It was the Company, however, not 
 the home government, that ought to have been compelled to render 
 just compensation and not thus make a boon of a debt. The blow to 
 him at Calcutta was altogether a very savage one ; but, like all injus- 
 tice, it recoiled at length on those who gave it. From the hour that 
 Buckingham was driven from that city, the power of the great Indian 
 monopoly, both commercial and governmental, was doomed. It was 
 by no means his case alone which accomplished that doom. But 
 oppression and vindictiveness, by driving him home, made him for a 
 time the representative there of all the wronged he left behind. Their 
 wrongs thence found utterance in voices that never entirely slept ; 
 whilst the impolicy which first aroused them was persevered in to the 
 last — not ceasing even after the trade was thrown open, but at length 
 provoking that rebellion which was followed by John Company finally 
 having to make an assignment of his whole estate and effects to John 
 Bull, whose managemsnt, it is devoutly hoped, will be productive of 
 better results. 
 
 The first time I saw Mr. Buckingham was in a large wood-cut, when 
 I was yet but a little boy. In that picture he was represented as the 
 chief figure in a cavalcade, passing the foot of a fearfully high and 
 overhanging rock, on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The next 
 time I saw him was seven or eight years afterwards, in his proper per- 
 son, as the chief speaker at a meeting in the Town Hall of Nottingham, 
 where he was most eloquently and efiiciently advocating the reduction 
 of the Company's power and the throwing open of the trade to India 
 and China. He had in the meantime started the "Athenaeum" literary 
 journal, which soon passed out of his hands, but has since proved one 
 of the most successful periodicals of its order, and, though greatly 
 changed in its character, continues still. Tlie next time he appeared 
 in Nottingham, it was at the Exchange Hall, as the advocate of 
 temperance. I may be mistaken, but my impression is that it was 
 the first public addi'ess of any importance given on that question in 
 
204 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 the town, when people Hstened with positive wonder to a suggestion 
 that they should give the go-bye to beer and spirits, and thought the 
 person who made it less sensible than they had thought him before. 
 Teetotalism jjei' se had not then commenced ; and I remember that to 
 me and my companions it sounded rather oddly, that those who took 
 the pledge of temperance should eschew spirits, ale, and porter, but 
 reserve the right to a glass of wine at or after dinner if they desired it. 
 Such was the extent to which the distinguished orientalist went on that 
 occasion ; but I believe he afterwards went the v/hole question. 
 
 In 1832 the Reform Bill was passed ; and the same general election 
 that sent William Cobbett to the House of Commons from Oldham, 
 sent James Silk Buckingham from Sheffield for the avowed purpose of 
 giving him the best stand-point possible from which to assail the East 
 India monopoly, and gain some compensation for his Indian losses ; 
 and though he was not able to achieve off-hand that for which he was 
 elected, he did touch a legislatorial chord that never ceased to vibrate 
 till it had become the key-note to measures by which the last vestige of 
 that monopoly was demolished. His eiforts in parliament were, 
 however, not confined to that question. He laboured for the virtual 
 abolition of impressment and the substitution of a general registry for 
 seamen, with other means for their benefit. He introduced the first 
 bill for the establishment of public walks and gardens for the recreation 
 of the working classes in all large towns, — an idea that one trusts may 
 even yet be some day carried out, — and another for establishing popu- 
 lar literary and scientific institutions. Indian and African questions 
 generally had a share of his attention, as had every question that 
 appealed directly or indirectly to philanthropic feeling. 
 
 Retiring from parliament in 1837, he visited America, and gave lec- 
 tures in all the principal states — avowedly in the promotion of " Tem- 
 pei'ance. Education, Benevolence, and Peace;" and after his return, 
 still continuing a favourite with many of the people of Shefiield, he was 
 often invited down on public occasions — especially when any great 
 philanthropic measure had to be advocated. Being — say from 1840 to 
 the end of 1842 — a co-editor of the " Sheffield Iris," I as a matter of 
 course saw him on some of those occasions ; and as he struck me at 
 Nottingham, I thought of him then — and think of him even now — as 
 one of the most fascinating and persuasive public speakers of those 
 days. His hon hommie, his fluency and gracefulness of manner and 
 utterance, as well as his aptness of illustration, were probably at that 
 time unrivalled in his own range of oratory : and some who went to 
 listen to him for the purpose of finding fault, or, as one man said, to 
 " hear how he could humbug the folks," would go away confessing how 
 
JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM. 205 
 
 completely he had conquered them. In America, where orators of all 
 sorts, from all quarters, abound, he was, we are told, a favourite wher- 
 ever he came. I have sometimes been reminded of him when hstening 
 to George Thompson ; but the likeness and difference between them 
 were equally great : each had something of his own the other had not ; 
 and besides being about the best-looking man one might expect to meet 
 with in ten thousand, Buckingham had the unquestionable advantage 
 of those graces which are to some extent acquirable by intercourse with 
 the polished nations with wliich his pecuHar course of life had brought 
 him so much in contact. 
 
 On my going to reside in London, where a good portion of my time 
 was passed between the spring of 1845 and the winter of 1848, I saw 
 Mr. Buckingham often. Those were the days in which Punch was 
 trying to put him down by ridicule. The public will remember the 
 occasion, perhaps too well. Buckingham's intercourse with people of 
 nearly all countries, and his intimate acquaintance with so many lan- 
 guages, combined with his knowledge of England, of London especially, 
 and its many advantages and disadvantages for foreigners, suggested to 
 him the need of some general but respectable place, where, on terms 
 supposed to be within their compass, savans, litterateurs, artists — 
 people of taste, polite feeling, and refinement, of whatever nation or 
 climate — might resort for refreshment, the opportunity of knowing and 
 becoming known, and, in short, of feeling as much at home in leisure 
 hours when nothing more specific engaged them, as it was possible to 
 make them by such introductive and other arrangements as in the 
 circumstances were advisable. The plan once resolved on, and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Buckingham being so well qualified for its superintendence, 
 a suitable mansion was opened in the "West End, the name of the 
 "British and Foreign Institute" was adopted, and with his Koyal 
 Highness the late Duke of Cambridge for president, all commenced 
 and was proceeding exceedingly well. Moreover, to give as high a 
 character as possible to the institution and make it intellectually 
 attractive, free tickets of membership were presented to writers of good 
 repute as an inducement for them to attend its periodical assemblies 
 and share whatever advantages it might otherwise have to offer them. 
 But here was a great difficulty and occasion of much subsequent bitter- 
 ness. There were men about the metropolis (as there always are) who 
 felt their own literary power to be quite equal to that of others more 
 distinguished, and even superior perhaps to that of the majority of 
 such. Nor were they unknown for what they really were in their own 
 peculiar circles — often writing anonymously or under some noni de 
 Illume, though personally not so conspicuous yet as they were destined 
 
206 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 one day to be. But it unfortunately happened, as Mr. Buckingham 
 afterwards explained it, that he had denied free tickets to some of these 
 for want of that more intimate knowledge. Douglas Jerrold and Mark 
 Lemon, I think, were amongst them — men of pride and of wondrous 
 satirical power, who never forgave what they regarded as something 
 worse than mere oversight ; and bestowing on the British and Foreign 
 Institute the woful nickname of the " British and Foreign Destitute," 
 with "Punch" for their mortar, they assailed it week by week with 
 such a peppering of satirical shot and shell as no club in London could 
 have long withstood ; and thus what might have become in time one of 
 the most interesting and beneficial of metropolitan institutions — advan- 
 tageous from the agreeable intercourse it could have promoted among 
 people of all climes — gradually sank under the mortification, and is 
 now, like some of its assailants, but a memory. Yet, even as with 
 them, there are not wanting many to whom that memory is a pensive 
 pleasure. I was sometimes there, and wish that London had such an 
 institution still. After all that " Punch " had said in disparagement, I 
 was amazed on my first attendance at its soirees by the amplitude and 
 variety of the attractions and the amount of rational enjoyment afi'orded. 
 There was an air of elegance, comfort, and freedom, that must have 
 been very gratefiil to not a few of the two hundred people of various 
 nations, of London, and of our own provinces, assembled — each person 
 from an ascertained title to that courtesy being properly introduced ; 
 and though the number of guests was so great, the whole was as orderly, 
 easy and harmonious, as an " evening at home." Many highly intelli- 
 gent people were there in quiet yet unrestrained conversation : and 
 from the O'Connor Don and Mr. Horace Twiss, to the last German 
 arrivals — a pale vocal artiste with one of the plainest faces I ever saw, 
 but with one of the sweetest voices I ever heard, and a young violinist, 
 little inferior to Paganini, all seemed satisfied and bent on giving and 
 receiving pleasure. There was one scholarly foreigner who assured me 
 that the hour was a perfect luxury, entirely dispelling for the time that 
 chilling sense of London loneliness which sometimes makes the heart of 
 a stranger without relatives there feel as heavy as a stone. For myself, 
 I met with many old acquaintances and an odd little joke. It happened 
 that, at the time, my name was before the world in connection with the 
 recent application of mesmerism to several eminent invalids ; and as I 
 stood enjoying some music, a gentleman who was near me said : " I am 
 told there is a great mesmerist here : could you point him out to me?" 
 Feeling rather abashed at being alluded to as " great," I replied, "Mrs. 
 Howitt, who is coming this way, is one of his friends, and if you ask her 
 I have no doubt she viill be able to direct you." As she did so, my first 
 
JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM. 207 
 
 impulse was to vanish among the company ; but feeling in the second 
 place that such conduct would be neither polite nor kind, I turned to 
 apologise, when the reward was an agreeable and to me instructive 
 conversation. 
 
 Once I met Buckingham at the house of Mr. J. Minter Morgan, in 
 Stratton-street, Piccadilly. Mr, Morgan will be remembered as the 
 author of " The Bees," and the promoter of a plan of co-operation 
 which, with all the advantages of Robert Owen's, was to be free from 
 his anti-theological difficulties — a church to be the very head and centre 
 of the scheme. Mr. Morgan was a gentleman of fortune, well read, 
 and travelled, and fond of drawing round him people of advanced or 
 peculiar intelligence. I remember meeting there at different times 
 such persons as Emerson, the Rev. E. R. Larken, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Howitt, Mr. and Mrs. Gaskell, Mrs. Loudon, Mrs. Leman Gillies, Dr. 
 Chapman, and George Searle Phillips, better known by his literary 
 sobriquet of " January Searle." The latter was one evening reading a 
 paper on social science for our interest and Mr. Buckingham's criticism. 
 It was much as if sunshine had been asked to give judgment on light- 
 ning : Buckingham's mind and January's had about the same relation 
 each to the other. The former was evidently disappointed, and thought 
 the latter too impulsive ; and the latter was as disappointed because 
 the former so thought. The evening was, however, a very interesting 
 one, and concluded with Mr. Morgan's exhibition of an illuminated 
 diagram of a co-operative village which, could it only have been carried 
 into fact, would present, in its way, no bad fore-instalment of the mil- 
 lennium. That a gentleman with his means, surrounded by all that 
 his heart could wish for except the universal happiness of his fellow- 
 creatures, should have devoted the years he did to the illustration of 
 his one benign idea, then die, and be already so little spoken of, to me 
 seems a practical illustration of the difficulty of winning the world to 
 such principles. Yet I shall ever love to think of those evenings at 
 Mr. James Minter Morgan's, and of his beautiful spirit of benignity, 
 his never-failing hope for humanity, and his earnestness. I believe 
 that Mr. Buckingham had also some scheme for a model town, but on 
 a larger scale and somewhat different plan ; and this no doubt was one 
 reason why they had become so intimate. 
 
 There was another and very different occasion on which I met Mr. 
 Buckingham. It was at a day-lecture I happened to be giving, to an 
 aristocratic and fashionable auditory, at WiUis's Rooms, St. James's, 
 when he was voted to the chair, and took a deep interest in some of 
 my mesmeric experiments — saying how some of the phenomena threw 
 illustration on a remarkable experience of his own, when a young man, 
 
208 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 at sea. One night the man on watch saw him come from his hammock, 
 go to a desk, and there, with so little light that it barely showed what 
 he was doing, write something on a paper ; he then put it in the desk 
 and locked it up, after which he returned to his hammock and staid till 
 the proper hour for waking. Next day the watchman surprised him 
 by some allusion to the occurrence, to his writing at that untimely 
 hour with so little light, and especially to his doing it without an ex- 
 planatory word to him as watchman. Mr. Buckingham, not remem- 
 bering having been out of his hammock at all, thought the man must 
 be mistaken ; but the latter described the whole proceeding so minutely 
 and was so sure about the paper being written upon and locked up, 
 that it was now resolved to go to the desk and see, when Buckingham 
 was startled to find in his own handwriting a poem that had been sug- 
 gested by the ringing of the watch-bells of the ship, and which he must 
 evidently have composed and thus written in somnolence without the 
 aid of his normal sight. He afterwards alluded to this incident in his 
 published Autobiography. 
 
 Our last interview was at Mr. and Mrs. Buckingham's private 
 apartments at the British and Foreign Institute, where I was invited 
 to make one of a friendly evening party. Their son, Mr. Leicester 
 Stanhope Buckingham, (afterwards so celebrated as a dramatist), Miss 
 Buckingham, Mr. (afterwards Dr.) and Mrs. E. Chambers, and some 
 of my friends, the Hewitts and the Woolleys, were also there. It was 
 an occasion not easy to be forgotten by me. We were in a room where, 
 in the oriental costume in which they were taken, the striking portraits 
 of the host and hostess, now giving us good English welcome, reminded 
 us vividly of their foreign travels. The Woolleys were very dear to 
 me because, when I was a rough boy on the border of Shenvood Forest, 
 and they residing in the most patrician mansion near, they had shown 
 me good will and consideration there. The Hewitts, too, had been 
 familiar with my father, and marked with much interest my vicissitudes 
 from early days to that hour. The name of Robert Chambers had 
 been associated with my youthful reading ; he had since taken an in- 
 terest in my lectures at Edinburgh, and I had several times met with 
 both him and Mrs. Chambers, as already related, in that historical and 
 classic city ; and there was Mr. Buckingham, himself associated with 
 my still earlier reading and with that wood-cut on which my eyes had 
 dwelt with such delight in the book lent me by a dear sister, as I sat 
 by the fire-side of childhood's home and made a reading-desk for it of 
 my mother's knee. And I was, at length, able to afford some interest 
 to these friends, by showing them what Nature had taught me of some 
 of her most recondite and curious laws — in experiments upon a boy 
 
JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM. 209 
 
 who had been cured of a disorder of the brain by mesmerism, and who 
 now, by Mrs. Chambers taking him out of my hands and operating on 
 him, was made still stronger and healthier than he had ever been 
 before. Such are among the pleasant re-unions that may sometimes 
 occur in life. 
 
 I have never, to my knowledge, seen any of Mr. Buckingham's 
 family since. But once, when far from London, desiring his name to 
 a document that might be important to my interests abroad, I sent it 
 to him, with some mention of the object. He very kindly signed and 
 returned it through his daughter. The tremulous autograph is before 
 me now. It was written on his death-bed — perhaps nearly if not 
 positively the last time he ever wrote one, and I value it much ; for 
 even in that extremity, as I am assured, it was as cheerfully as kindly 
 given. His eventful, brave and chequered life was closed on the 20th 
 of June, 1855, which, as compared with the date of his birth, would 
 be in his 70th year ; and upwards of a hundred volumes of the works 
 he wrote, edited, or was otherwise intimately connected with, remain 
 to tell the tale of his unwearied endurances, aspirations, and labours. 
 If Mr. Buckingham had any faults (as most of us have some), let his 
 enemies tell them. For myself, I know them not, and desire only to 
 speak of him here as I found him. He was a gentleman, abounding 
 greatly with useful and pleasant information, and delighting to com- 
 municate it — accomplished, versatile, genial, and a lover of the whole 
 human race. 
 
 Strangely and most sadly, just as the proof of this sheet comes to me 
 from the printer, I hear of the death of Dr. Robert Chambers, at the 
 age of sixty-nine ; .and before it is returned, of that, at the age of fifty- 
 two, of his brother, Mr. David N. Chambers, to whom, as one of my 
 warm friends in Glasgow, more than twenty-six years ago, I have 
 already alluded. Eobert Chambers, as all the world knows, was a per- 
 son of no ordinarj' mind, but one of the most gifted and cultivated of 
 men ; and in the whole course of life I have scarcely known a more bright, 
 affectionate, frank, heart-in-hand, and altogether friendly man than his 
 brother David. My first introduction to Robert was from him ; my 
 first ride to Edinburgh, and first survey of some of its finest points of 
 interest, was in his company ; he never missed any of my lectures that 
 he could attend either there or at Glasgow ; and in a similar way we 
 have often mated in London, where of late he managed the well-known 
 publishing business in which he was a partner, and where he was also 
 a respected member of the Common Council of the city. On my last 
 visit to London, in 1867, I spent an evening with him and his family in 
 
210 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 their suburban home — Captain Mayne Reid being also a guest ; and on 
 my calling to bid him good-bye, a few days after, in Paternoster Row, 
 he presented me for keepsakes with a copy of " The Book of Days " 
 and a framed photograph of his brother William, taken in America, 
 presented by William to Robert, by Robert to himself, and thus by 
 him to me. Bearing the names of all three, it hangs on the wall near 
 me, over the popular engraving of Charles Dickens's vacant chair, as 
 I write — Charles Dickens, with whom I was also pleasantly and per- 
 sonally acquainted. The night I spent at David's with Captain Mayne 
 Reid, was after he had been, as a member of the Common Council, on 
 some deputation to the Queen, at Buckingham Palace, and I had been 
 at the funeral of "Artemus Ward." Topics of the passing time and 
 of " auld langsyne " abounded ; his wife and daughters were happy in 
 his smile ; he kept us all alive by his genuine good-humour, his 
 shrewdness, his fun, and his friendly voice ; and now I learn that he 
 was so affected by the news of his brother Robert's death as to rupture 
 a blood-vessel through the powerful emotion it excited in his warm and 
 loving heart, and died three days afterwards, on the 20th of this month 
 of March, 1871. — Looking among some old papers, I find the following 
 letter from Robert, which may be the more appropriately given here 
 because of its reference to Mr. Buckingham. The amiable partner to 
 whom he also refers, and of whom I have made mention, was his first 
 wife. Some time afterwards he married again : — 
 
 St. Andrews, April 1.3, 1866. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Your letter of the 9th, which reached me yesterday, has given me 
 much pleasure, as informing me that you are well and in domestic circumstances 
 which prove a source of happiness to you. I had in a great measure forgotten the 
 meeting at Mr, Buckingham's, especially the proceedings regarding the boy who 
 was mesmerised. Any intercourse I ever had with Mr. B. gave me the same im- 
 pression of him which you have experienced, and I have never been able quite to 
 understand why he was the subject of so much vituperation. 
 
 You will be sorry to learn that my amiable partner died upwards of two years 
 ago ; about which time I also lost a beautiful and accomplished daughter. I am 
 now living in comparative retirement, with two unmarried daughters, one of whom 
 is soon, like five of her elder sisters, to leave me, and am doing little with my 
 pen, but am still glad to get cheerful news of any old friend such as yourself. 
 Believe me, dear Sir, yours very sincerely, 
 
 K. CHiMBEES. 
 
 The death of Dr. Chambers I felt much, as must many thousands who 
 have read his works and known his family's history. That of his 
 brother David — with whom I was so much more intimately acquainted 
 — I also feel most deeply and cannot cease to feel. 
 
y'7v-C'A:^^iX€^' (/y-t?iZ<rf^€-. 
 
fteptev ^([uptiiptk 
 
 MY PAEENTS 
 
 (June, 1856.) 
 
 "Died, August 20th, (1852), at Brookside Cottage, Sutton-in-AshfioW, Notts, Mr. 
 Samuel Hall, the venerable father of ' The Sherwood Forester.' Mr. Hall was, for 
 the most part of his life, a person of remarkable bodily activity and endurance — 
 having one day, when in his sixtieth year, walked nearly sixty miles, between three 
 o'clock in the morning and nine in the evening, on an errand of parental affection, 
 still feeling hale when the task was done ; and, at the age of seventy, on a hot 
 summer's day, he walked about seventeen miles in four hours, on another errand 
 of kindness. With so compact a frame, a fine arched nose, an earnest eye, and 
 the index to great firmness in every feature, his bearing and expression would have 
 been strongly military ; but having early imbibed and retained the doctrines of 
 Quakerism, that expression was subdued, if not neutralised, by his primitive garb 
 and language, and the habitual tenour of his conversation. All his battles were 
 battles of the mind ; and his life, in the main, was a succession of mental and 
 emotional conflicts. He had some natural talent for literature ; and, like his 
 grandfather and his son, could rhyme a couplet. He was the author of several 
 tracts — one entitled ' Samuel Hall's Legacy to Professors and to the Profane,' and 
 was not without a turn for philosophical experiment. Had he been trained to 
 some profession for which he was constitutionally fitted he was a man likely to 
 have risen to considerable eminence. So far back as 1799, he had discovered the 
 advantage of pressure upon light soils to the growth of grain and bulbous roots, 
 upon which, after much observation and experiment, he wrote a treatise, and in- 
 vented a machine for sowing, manuring, and pressing turnip-seed in one operation. 
 The discovery was an important one, and has been of great benefit to agriculture ; 
 but, from the invention having been early improved upon by others, its originator, 
 as is too often the case, was a loser by it — both of time, money, and peace of 
 mind Still, in his adversity, Mr. Hall had ever a willing heart and hand for the 
 o2 
 
212 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 more unfortunate still, and his memory will be respected most by those who knew 
 him best. He was greatly pleased with every manifestation of intelligence and im- 
 provement in his children, and (while probably in reality not less attached to the 
 rest) would occasionally speak of his eldest son as ' a lad after his own heart.' It 
 was good that the old man should be gathered to his rest in the harvest-time " 
 
 Such was the newspaper obituary of one of the most earnest, original, 
 thorough-going, but kind and tender of men — who had never in his 
 life said yes when he meant no, but who was never happier than when 
 engaged in something for others' good. Grave, even to sternness, in 
 some of his moods — so much so that even his mere look would strike a 
 wrong-doer with awe — yet, when his censure was not called for, loving, 
 liberal, and cheerful beyond the majority of men, and a favourite with 
 all who knew him for the amount of his intelligence and his readiness 
 to impart it — he has left an impression on me which is strengthened 
 rather than weakened by time, and in his neighbourhood a name seldom, 
 if ever, alluded to without good feeling and respect. 
 
 Samuel Hall was what the world would call a well-connected man. 
 His grandfather, George Hall, was a clever and enterprising Notting- 
 hamshire yeoman and merchant, owning lands and houses, but given to 
 mechanical invention, music, and verse — sometimes also shipping com 
 to Holland, when England was a corn-exporting country. He aided in 
 their life-start several relatives who were fortunate. A son-in-law of 
 his half-brother was the first of a line of baronets, of whom the third 
 is now enjoying the title ; one of his great-nephews married the 
 daughter of another baronet, being thought a fair match for her ; and 
 of two of his great grandsons direct, one — a highly talented barrister — 
 married the daughter of Sir Stephen Gazelee, the judge, and was 
 amongst the first-appointed Commissioners of Lunacy, while another 
 became a captain in the royal navy, and a third is in the church. The 
 fortunes of the last named branch, however, owed less of their origin 
 to him than to other sources. 
 
 George Hall's third son Samuel (my grandfather) was not so fortu- 
 nate. He possessed a good farm, and married a bright, active little 
 woman, Dorothy Wilcock, of Cavendish Park, King's Clipston, in 
 Sherwood Forest, which (anciently a royal park) was rented under the 
 Cavendish, and after an exchange of estates, under the Bentinck family. 
 There must have been humane blood in her veins. It is said of her 
 mother that, returning home upon a brood mare from Mansfield, on 
 the day the rebels under Prince Charles Stuart were at Derby, careful 
 of the animal's condition, she was riding it very slowly, when a person 
 passing cried out anxiously, "You must make better haste than that, 
 madam, for the rebels are coming ! " " Rebels or no rebels," exclaimed 
 the good woman in reply, " / miM think of my mare ;" and so continued 
 
MY PAEENTS. 213 
 
 homeward at the same easy pace, while others, more alarmed, were 
 hiding theu- property and flying. The red mantle she wore in that ride 
 was kept in the family as a memorial till my own time, and a flue pair 
 of buck's horns she was wont to see daily in the hall at Clipstou is now 
 on the wall \vithin a few yards of me, where I am writing of her, on the 
 shores of Windermere. But, notwithstanding that good start and his 
 marriage with that humane and courageous woman's daughter, (whom I 
 can well remember as a gentlewoman of nearly 80, dressed in the earlier 
 style of the reign of George III.), my grandfather somehow, without 
 any very bad habits, got wrong in his affairs, and never got quite right 
 again. Besides his own land at Sutton-in-Ashfield, he held a con- 
 siderable acreage under the lord of the manor. On one portion of this 
 he built; and at the general enclosure made additions from the neigh- 
 bouring forest, to his ultimate loss, and (perhaps for want of judicious 
 and sympathetic friends) took to drinking to drown his sorrow — one of 
 the most fatal mistakes it can fall to the lot of man to make. He was 
 dead before my birth ; but I have often grieved over his history, which 
 must have been a painful one to him, and cannot but have had some 
 influence on that of his descendants. 
 
 Where the town street of Sutton-in-Ashfield ends in what still bears 
 the name of Forest-lane, stands a somewhat large old house, once 
 fronted by a fold of huge wood-framed farm buildings, which were blown 
 down in a midnight storm when I was a little boy ; and it was at that 
 house on the 9th of April, 1769, my father, named after his father, 
 Samuel Hall, was born. He was the second son, and, I think, the 
 third or fourth child, of his parents, growing up in great love for all 
 his kin. Between him and his elder brother Timothy was a feeling 
 that grew warmer and closer with length of life, and my second name 
 was given me as one of its memorials. While yet a very little child 
 my father was taken to dwell with his grandparents at Cavendish 
 Lodge, and some of his earliest and cheeriest recollections were of the 
 fine forest scenery around it. It was indeed, in his early days, a most 
 sylvan place — looking out on the grand old woods of Birkland and 
 Bilhagh, so famous in song and story, and down on the ruins of King 
 John's hunting palace, some portions of which still linger on the banks 
 of the clear, bright river Maun, and are perpetuated in several of my 
 friend the late Christopher Thompson's best paintings of Sherwood 
 Forest's best scenery. 
 
 From ten to fourteen, my father's time was passed much like that 
 of the farmers' sons around — in alternate lessons at school and errands 
 to the fields, and a more laborious hand at harvest time, or whenever 
 help was wanted in some emergency among the sheep or at the 
 
214 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 plough ; and being given from the first to observation and thought, he 
 never afterwards forgot what was taught him in that pastoral and agri- 
 cultural school. It was a thousand pities that such a boy should ever 
 have been sent into sedentary life. But it happened that the family 
 had a relative at Nottingham of the name of Timothy Broadhurst — a 
 bachelor, considerably engaged in the leather and shoe-trade ; and re- 
 puted wealthy: so, as the elder boy Timothy was destined to inherit 
 the farm, it was resolved that " Sam," without any question as to his 
 constitutional fitness or otherwise for such a life, should be apprenticed 
 to " Cousin Broadhurst." Accordingly Sam, who was nothing loth to 
 change the rural quiet of the country for the excitements of a county 
 town, went thither to live, but never settled well to the business, 
 except as a matter of duty ; for his heart was not in it ; his hand had no 
 affinity for it ; and a year before the time his apprenticeship was up, 
 he ran away. He got to Stamford, and thence to Deeping St. James's, 
 working at his trade for a short time at each place. But though a 
 truant, he was not a reckless one, and on his master at the latter place 
 one day blaming another workman for vot doing something dishonest 
 which he had advised, the young Sherwood forester plainly told him 
 his mind and left him — proceeding thence directly to London, where 
 he soon found work in the neighbourhood of Gray's Inn. About that 
 time Eobert Bloomfield, "The Farmer's Boy," was just learning to 
 make shoes and verses in London ; and when in after years listening 
 to my father's adventures, it was one of my regrets (a very childish 
 one, in the circumstances,) that they never met ; for I believe they 
 were once lodging near each other in that enormous metropolitan hive. 
 In all his restlessness, which was but that of an intelligent and eager 
 soul out of its true arena, my father was often the subject of deep reli- 
 gious impressions and given to equally solemn thought. Hence, one 
 Sunday, while singing at St. Andrew's Church in Holborn, — a place till 
 then he had regularly attended, — the thought occurred to him that the 
 words he was chanting might be very true in the mouth of King David, 
 when he uttered them, but were very false in his, considering his then 
 state of mind ; and, if so to himself, might they not be equally so to 
 others ? Whereupon, though he had a beautiful baritone voice, he 
 closed his hymn-book and never sang again in a place of worship. 
 Still he was very uneasy, and longed for religious communion some- 
 where, so became a seeker from place to place. At length it occurred 
 to him to go to a Quakers' meeting in the city; but as there was 
 nothing vocal transpiring he staid behind the door outside till the 
 meeting was over, and the same again on several other occasions. At 
 length he one day thought he would go inside, when, as they all sat in 
 
MY PARENTS. 
 
 215 
 
 reverent silence, the question arose within him as to what could be its 
 true purport. It was, ostensibly, worship. (This was his course of 
 reasoning.) If in worship, it could only be in the spirit ; — but (as he 
 concluded) if in spirit, it must he in truth. He did not stop to ask 
 what spirit. It only, from his own earnest yearnings, occurred to him 
 that it must be in the Holy Spirit ; and a sense of his own unworthi- 
 ness to be thus visited and dwelt in by the living God, so overcame 
 him that he was melted to tears ; was thus converted in a silent meet- 
 ing ; but read the "Journals" of John Richardson, James Dickenson 
 and Job Scott, as afterwards the writings of Fox, Barclay, Penn, and 
 others ; and from that time never ceased to feel himself a Quaker. 
 
 From all I have heard, the young convert's life was now in most 
 respects a very happy one. He read and thought deeply, sought useful 
 knowledge earnestly, and devoted all his leisure time to the cultivation 
 of the superior faculties and to works of mercy. Sometimes he would 
 watch all night in a religious frame of mind by the bedside of an 
 invalid ; but when not so occupied, his time was laid out most system- 
 atically. His wont was to have his fire ready for hghting, to get up at 
 five o'clock every morning in winter, light it himself, prepare his own 
 coffee, and then devote his time till seven (his hour for commencing 
 business) in reading and meditation. His evening hours, when not 
 spent in the society of religious friends or employed in some specific 
 duty, were passed pretty regularly, after his labour was done, partly in 
 walks about the streets for exercise and observation, and again before 
 going to bed in a season of silent devotion — his sabbaths in attending 
 his usual place of worship and sharing the society of his friends. Such 
 was the self-imposed — or better, self-chosen discipline of many years ; 
 and no bad discipline either for a strong-hearted young man. By this 
 time he had become a confidential servant in the house of Mr. Sparks 
 Morline, a leather merchant, somewhere in Westminster ; and his 
 master, struck by his gravity, regularity, and general good conduct, 
 one day said to him, ' ' Samuel, how is it ? Thy life is very exemplary, 
 and I can bear testimony to thy integrity and consistency. Why dost 
 thou not apply to Friends for membership ?" The answer was notable. 
 
 " There is (he said) an imperative obstacle in the way, and one that 
 gives me pain whenever I think of it." 
 
 ' ' What is that ? ' ' inquired his somewhat startled employer. 
 
 "An unkept engagement." 
 
 "Of what kind ?" asked Mr. Morline. 
 
 "I was (said Samuel) apprenticed to a relative at Nottingham, but 
 left him before the expiration of the contract." 
 
 " Well, canst thou not make him recompense ?" asked the master. 
 
21G CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " No," was the reply, " he has been some time dead." 
 
 "But thou canst do it to his heirs (continued the Friend); thou 
 hast plenty of money, and I will give thee the time." 
 
 So Samuel went down to Nottingham, but found that his old 
 master's heir was insolvent, and hidden from the officers of the law. 
 Searching him out in his retreat, however, he told his business, but 
 met with the remark that he was free enough without paying anything. 
 "You see," continued Timothy Broadhurst's heir, "I am not in cir- 
 cumstances to claim anything, and have really no hold upon you if I 
 were." 
 
 " I am sorry to find thee in this plight," said my father ; " but that 
 does not by any means morally exonerate me ; and I would pay thee 
 what would be due to my old master if he were living — hoping that if 
 ever thou art blessed with the means, thou wilt some day deal in the 
 same spirit with thy own creditors." 
 
 The man, amazed and deeply interested, asked him what he wished 
 to give, and he answered, the value of a year's services, with interest. 
 After some little difficulty as to the amount strictly due, the heir not 
 wishing to tax too heavily a young man so honest, it was resolved 
 that they should call in a friendly arbitrator to settle the amount, 
 which was paid, and Samuel Hall, with his conscience more lightened 
 than his purse, returned to London, and soon afterwards joined the 
 Society of Friends. 
 
 The next thing I learn of him is, that keenly alive to anything unjust, 
 he felt it needful to remonstrate with some of the West End authori- 
 ties in a case wherein he thought they bore too hardly upon his master 
 for his quakerle}^ scruples against ecclesiastical or militarj- dues — I am 
 not now quite clear as to which ; and then, shortly afterwards, he 
 appears, after a seven years' residence in London, commencing a 
 successful business in his native place ; a member of the Mansfield 
 Friends' Meeting, and falling in love there with a very superior woman, 
 Sarah Rowntree, whom it is said he was prevented from mai-rying by 
 the intrigues of another party. But this part of his story I learnt only 
 very recently from an old friend. He never in my hearing made 
 allusion to it himself but once, and then only in such a manner as to 
 give me no adequate idea of its influence on his feelings — though I am 
 now aware that he felt it very deeply at the time. Sometimes he 
 would rise and speak in the meetings at Mansfield, and once in those 
 days he published a little pamphlet, addressed to the professors of 
 religion in his own parish of Sutton. 
 
 Meanwhile his business throve, his house was open to all friends 
 who chose to come ; his manners were hospitable and gentlemanly. 
 
MY PARENTS. 217 
 
 though in strictest accordance with old Quaker customs ; his garb was 
 ancient, his hat broad, his intelligence bright, and no man in Sutton, 
 or for many miles round it, was looked up to with more respect than 
 Samuel Hall. 
 
 One day, a bonny, merry, warm-hearted girl, Eleanor Spencer, a 
 native of the Peak of Derbyshire, had occasion to wait on the grave 
 Friend with a message from one of his neighbours, Mrs. Burton. The 
 girl before starting told Mrs. Burton, in fun, that when she got there 
 she should certainly laugh at him, and call him Aminadab. But there 
 was no disposition to do anything of the kind when she approached 
 him. In his presence all her levity was allayed, and a feeling of pro- 
 found respect had taken its place ere she left him. Yet neither of them 
 dreamed at that time that she was one day to be his wife. 
 
 Now it unfortunately happened that, connected with the large cotton 
 works outside the town, was a specious man, a distant relative, who, 
 seeing my father's prosperity, said, " Samuel, the world appears to be 
 going very well with you; you must be doing a very good business." 
 "Yes," was the reply, "I am thankful to say that all his going well 
 with me in that respect." " Yes," rejoined the other; "but those 
 large premises of ours in the town are doing nothing, and if you will 
 only move to them and launch out further, I shall be glad to join you, 
 and can ensure you a very considerable increase of your income." 
 
 " No," said my father, " I am doing well, and am content ; besides, 
 I am not practically acquainted with the branch of trade thou pro- 
 posest." 
 
 "Never heed that," said his relative, "you have got the mind; 
 competent assistants could bring the needful experience ; and it will 
 be quite a shame to miss the opportunity." 
 
 There was a fatal spell in it. Influenced by one friend or other, and 
 by that speculator's persuasions, the contract was made ; and in little 
 more than a year the fellow was gone to America with his servant-girl 
 and an enormous sum in specie, leaving his wife, children, my father, 
 and many another sad sufferer, to the ruinous consequences ; and the 
 promising Friend, in the prime of his days, was the most humbled 
 man in all that country side ! 
 
 In the meantime the young woman from Mrs. Burton's had been 
 married — married to a man of noble principles, a convert to Quakerism, 
 — and she had borne him two children, a daughter and a son, the latter 
 a little time before he was laid on his death-bed. That was while 
 Samuel Hall was yet in his prosperity; and glad to show the family 
 respect and lend them substantial aid, he was one evening sitting by 
 the side of his dying friend for some time in religious silence, and then 
 asked if he could do anything for his further solace. 
 
218 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " Samuel," said the invalid, " there is only one burden that presses 
 me to the earth and makes me wish to linger ; but it is a very heavy 
 and painful one." 
 
 " James," was the ready reply, " if thou art free to name it, and it 
 be in my power to lessen its weight, or even to bear it altogether, let 
 me know." 
 
 The eyes of the invalid filled, as he said — "It would be all removed 
 could I only be assured that, when I am gone, my poor wife will not 
 want a friend to comfort her, or the two children a counsellor to in- 
 struct them in good principles." 
 
 "Thy family shall not want a friend, James," said the other; "I 
 will myself act the part for them about which thou art anxious." 
 
 " Thank thee," said James in a tone of affection and gratitude, as 
 the tears gathering before now freely flowed ; and in a few days he 
 was gone to his eternal rest. 
 
 The flowers of seven summers had bloomed over poor James Bacon's 
 grave in the burying-ground of the Friends at Mansfield, during which 
 Samuel Hall's reverses had lain heavy on his soul. Many who had 
 loved him for what he was, loved him still ; but many who had courted 
 him for what he had appeared, turned chill. Yet not so James's 
 widow. She had shown him respect and kindness in many ways, for 
 his adversity had made some manifestation of her gratitude to him 
 possible. So one day he asked her to take a walk with him to where, 
 in the blue distance, they could see her native Derbyshire hills ; and 
 while they stood gazing there and thinking of past days, he turned to 
 her and said, " Eleanor, I have found no one in the world who seems 
 to take a more kindly interest in my happiness or sorrow than thyself, 
 and for seven years I have fulfilled the promise of friendship made to 
 James. Let me now be the husband of the widow and the father of 
 the fatherless, and one home shall serve us all : wilt thou be my wife?" 
 It was more than she had ever hoped or dreamed ; but gladly consent- 
 ing, they were soon afterwards married. 
 
 In a garden, by the side of a brook, on the outskirts of the town, as 
 I have elsewhere long ere now told the story, was a row of thatched 
 buildings, which in more prosperous days he had let in three small 
 tenements to others. All this he now turned into one ; made it, with 
 its garden, as ornamental as possible for so rustic a place ; stored it 
 well with books, and keeping still in attachment a few of his more 
 thoughtful friends, went there to dwell, as he hoped while some means 
 of honourably retrieving his fortunes should arise ; and there it was, in 
 the midst of all that adversity, intelligence, and love, that I, as the 
 first .olfspring of that marriage, was born. That dear old home ! It 
 
MY PARENTS. 
 
 219 
 
 has since been the theme of some of my best-known poems ; but there 
 is not now a stick or stone of it standing. It was demolished, so far 
 as this material world is concerned, in the year 1865; and when I was 
 told of it, the sudden news nearly broke my heart. I have myself 
 occupied good houses, and many a time been a cherished guest in the 
 mansions of the wealthy and the great, — and let me speak with no 
 want of true and due respect of them, nor of all the gi-and, the elegant, 
 the rare, wherever in the wide world I may have enjoyed them, — 
 
 Yet, oh, my native cot I where'er I roam — 
 
 "Whatever sounds I hear or sights I see — 
 There is a magic in the name of home 
 
 That " makes my heart, mitravelled," cleave to thee : 
 
 The wiinpling streamlet and the whispering tree, 
 The spring before thee and the bower behind, 
 
 The playground where I left my childish glee, 
 Have each an image graven in the mind, 
 Which, though all else may fade, will ever there be shrined ! 
 
 With all its rusticity, there was a fine atmosphere of intellectuality 
 and respectability about our cottage-home that, at times, it was very 
 delightful to breathe. The Bible was read there every day, and some 
 other good and entertaining book always lay about for occasional read- 
 ing. People of quality dropped in sometimes in a friendly way. Con- 
 versations on the highest themes were by no means rare. The mother 
 venerated the father's genius and worth, and showed it. We children 
 caught their spirit, and deeply reverenced them both. In the news- 
 paper obituary already quoted, mention is made of an invention for 
 drilling and pressing turnip-seed on a then new principle. To squeeze 
 from our very penury the means of working out that invention, we were 
 often sadly pinched for food, sometimes not having one sufficient meal 
 for days together. But so respectably was everything conducted by 
 my mother — so much was our keen privation hidden — that a poor but 
 worthy neighbour in difficulties sent in at the time to ask if we could 
 lend him a five-pound note ! When the messenger was gone, my 
 mother wept. Were this the place for it, I could write a long history 
 of noble deeds and endurances within those humble walls, but a few 
 must now suffice, as samples. 
 
 Though my mother had never been a member of the Society of 
 Friends, she conformed with a willing heart to all her husband's 
 usages, imbibing his sentiments ; and happy would she look when, on 
 a Sabbath morning all our little family started on the three miles' walk 
 to the meeting at Mansfield — our venerable father leading the way, as 
 we left the old cottage behind us, sending up a long wreath of blue 
 smoke from its chimney into the calm, bright heaven. And occasionally 
 
220 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Bome ministering Frieud would pay us a visit, when our homely home 
 for that day would be a little heaven below. 
 
 A somewhat remarkable occurrence comes to my mind just now, 
 after willingly myself paying church-rates. My father never willingly 
 paid but one, and even that he regretted. Yet few men in the parish 
 were more respected by the clergyman. The churchwardens too were 
 very kind. Singularly, I never knew him distrained upon but once 
 for a church-rate; and that tvas when a dissenter teas churchwarden. 
 The rate itself would have been only two shillings, but the attendant 
 expenses ran it up to fourteen. We had notice of the morning the 
 bailiff might be expected ; but though my parents were up as usual, 
 not a thing was done in the house beyond kindling the fire. Not a 
 single article of furniture was moved even for cleaning. Soon after 
 seven o'clock Ephraim Sills, the bailiff, appeared. He was a man who 
 had great respect for my parents and did not like his work. As he 
 stood in the door-way, pen, ink, and paper in hand, he was the quaker 
 that morning, trembling every limb. 
 
 " What shall I do, Mr. Hall ? " said he. 
 
 " The only advice I can give thee, Ephraim," replied my father, " is 
 that thou shouldst act according to thy o'wn sense of duty, as I am 
 doing according to mine." 
 
 " But what must I take ? What can you best spare ?" he asked. 
 
 "It is not a question of sparing, or being spared," was the answer. 
 " It would be as contrary to my own sense of duty to give thee a sug- 
 gestion on that point as to have paid the rate at first v/ithout causing 
 trouble at all." 
 
 Ephraim chanced to take an article that could be as ill spared as any- 
 thing we had of similar value ; and soon after he was gone the usual 
 morning's cleaning was done, the house made cheerful, and breakfast 
 prepared. When it was over, my father, with his fine, deep voice, read 
 the customary portion of Scripture. Then we sat a short time in silence, 
 as usual ; after which, as was unusual, he spoke, referring to the event 
 of the morning. He carefully warned us all to avoid any feeling of ani- 
 mosity for what was thus done ; talked of suffering for conscience sake, 
 if endured in a right spirit, as more of a privilege than a privation ; 
 enjoined us so to live the life of Christ as to be worthy of suffering for 
 His sake, and never to make opposition to anything for opposition's 
 sake alone, but be, do, or suffer whatever might happen to us, in char- 
 ity to all men. After this brief address, we again sat silent for a few 
 minutes ; and the sweet, solemn, feeling of the morning extended 
 not only through that day, but returns to me in some degree at 
 this moment, far beyond the ordinary pale of Quakerism, with the 
 
BIY PARENTS. 221 
 
 memory of the inoffensive protest and example of that honest man and 
 woman. 
 
 Not always, however, was Samuel Hall quite so passive. At one 
 time he was overseer of the poor, and that in days when people of all 
 classes were sadly tried, — when (as I have heard my mother say) he 
 often groaned in his sleep from the sorrow he had seen by day; and a 
 parish magnate, who felt free to beard the vestry as he chose, one day 
 accused him of neglecting his duty in not summoning before the magis- 
 trates a number of poor people who were about as ill able to pay money 
 as the paupers who received it, while he (the accuser) felt himself so 
 far above the law as to be several rates behind in his own payments. 
 Said my father — "Of what use is it summoning poor people who have 
 neither money to pay with nor goods to distrain ?" 
 
 "Oh, be d d!" was the reply, "summon them, anyhow, and 
 
 make them find it ; and if you don't, I'll complain to the magistrates. 
 
 " Must I summon all who are in arrears ?" was gravely asked again. 
 
 "To be sure!" shouted the harsh man, never thinking that the 
 Quaker dare beard him. He, however, received i\\e first summons, and 
 never thus treated an overseer afterwards. 
 
 On one occasion, passing along a street in the lower part of Not- 
 tingham, and coming to a corner where stood a group of gossiping 
 men, he was approached by one who meant to raise a laugh at his 
 expense, staring him impudently in the face and saying, "I say, mes- 
 ter, how long have you worn that big hat ?" Pausing for a moment, 
 and looking back at his questioner, he turned the laugh the other way 
 . by saying, loud enough to be heard by them all, " I cannot remember 
 exactly, but am afraid not so long as thou'st been a fool !" 
 
 If vain of anything it was of his power as a pedestrian. It was very 
 seldom he allowed any person walking the same way to pass him ; but 
 one day a stout man, who came almost up with him near the Seven- 
 mile House, between Mansfield and Nottingham, and who had another 
 person upon a pony for a companion, got so annoyed at his inability 
 to go a-head, as to get talking at the Friend somewhat offensively. At 
 length, becoming even more personal than before, he shouted loudly, 
 " If I'd that man's hat, it would make two for me." " No," quietly 
 retorted my father, turning round and looking calmly at the stout 
 quiz, " it would take a larger hat than this to make two for one thick 
 Jiead," — while the man on the pony made the forest ring again with 
 his laughter and his shout of " Well done, old quaker ! " 
 
 In truth, with all his gravity he loved a quiet joke. When upwards 
 of seventy years of age he had to go to London, to give evidence 
 touching a railway bill before the House of Lords. Returning by the 
 
222 CHAPTER xvn. 
 
 coach, and surprised at hearing some young men, who had walked 
 about three miles before mounting it complaining of their hardship, he 
 told them some of his own feats in walking, when one of them asked 
 what sort of health he enjoyed. His answer was, that he had never 
 had the headache in his life, and had not taken a dose of medicine for 
 twenty years. " May I ask," politely rejoined his new companion, " if 
 you never ail anything?" "Why, yes," he replied, "as I come to 
 think of it, there is one complaint from which I suffer now and then, 
 but never for long." " Pray, sir, what may that be, and what is your 
 remedy?" "Well," he concluded, to the great amusement of the 
 whole party, "it is an affection of the stomach, and my remedy depends 
 a good deal on the season in which it occurs. If it happens in summer, 
 a plate of beans and bacon is generally very effective ; but if in the 
 winter, I have sometimes found a good beef-steak answer the purpose." 
 Still it was not in jocular conversation that his mind was best dis- 
 played. His love of agricultural improvements, his fondness for taking 
 levels of the country, his interest in experimental philosophy, and his 
 desire to make all his knowledge of use to the many, had he been 
 brought up to surveying and engineering, would, in my opinion, have 
 made him one of the most useful men of his time, either at home or in 
 the colonies. Nor was he, when the occasion called for it, less ready 
 with his pen. After the death of our loving mother, which occurred 
 when he was about sixty-five years of age, he wrote a beautiful and 
 impressive address to us, under the title of his " Will." It is wiitten 
 in a deeply religious strain, but abounds in sound and honest secular 
 advice as well. As time went on, he also wrote several other charac- 
 teristic things, from which I would glady copy here, if space permitted. 
 His "Legacy to Professors and to the Profane," is a serious and im- 
 pressive exhortation against profane swearing. Sometimes I have 
 thought of gathering up and republishing his various writings, includ- 
 ing his early dissertation on the "Culture of Turnips," which was 
 productive of good results at the time it was first published, giving, in 
 fact, the start to a practice which has been of immense benefit to 
 farmers on light soils everywhere. While endeavouring to work out 
 his agricultural discovery, he had occasion sometimes to see the 
 late Duke of Portland, at Welbeck Abbey. On one occasion, by 
 way of test, he had pressed the seed of one row of turnips and left 
 another unpressed by its side. The turnips from the pressed row were 
 immensely larger than the others, and he forwarded two of the most 
 magnificent of them to the Duke, who desired to see him about them, 
 and requested his attendance. One of the Duke's daughters never 
 havin" seen a quaker introduced to her father, it was arranged that she 
 
MY PARENTS. 223 
 
 should stay in the room of audience till his arrival. As my father 
 entered in his unbending, somewhat dignified but respectful manner, 
 he was rather surprised on seeing a lady there, as well as his two great 
 turnips. The Duke rose to meet him, holding out his hand, and say- 
 ing, "Mr. Hall, I am glad to see you; I hope you are very well." 
 " Quite well, I thank thee ; I trust thou also art well," said my father 
 in his sincere, impressive tone, as the young lady, unable to restrain 
 herself longer, ran out of the room to describe the scene. There was 
 to be a great agricultural meeting at Southwell next day. The Duke 
 invited my father to attend, taking the couple of notable turnips in his 
 carriage, and telling their history at the meeting, where, on his arrival, 
 the grower saw them again. But they were very dear turnips to him 
 and his family. Frank and unsuspicious, he had throughout the course 
 of his experiments and invention of the drill, made a confidant of a 
 man having means at his disposal, and who made an improvement on 
 the models for which he unconscientiously got a patent before the first 
 and heavier machine could itself be patented ; and thus Samuel Hall's 
 great hope of raising his family out of the cottage by his useful dis- 
 covery was ended ! All his subsequent efforts at retrievement failed 
 for want of adequate means ; and, though he was consulted by his 
 neighbours on all possible subjects, and helped many another man and 
 some women, by his advice and pen, on their upward way, it was his 
 own lot thence to remain in obscurity to the last ! 
 
 A few more anecdotes, illustrative of his brave and manly character, 
 and I have finished. 
 
 When in my twelfth j-ear I had a violent attack of erysipelas, which 
 seized an entire hemisphere of my head and threatened death. The 
 young gentleman, Mr. John Carter, (in later years the Dr. Carter of 
 Berners-street, Oxford-street, London,) who, as assistant to a local sur- 
 geon, attended me, was one day startled by the semi-scientific answers 
 I made him in reference to some of the symptons ; and, turning round, 
 asked where I had been educated. Being told that I had then had 
 little education except at home, he walked away with my father, saying 
 " it is very extraordinary." My half-sister, who heard them, informed 
 me of what followed. When they were out of my hearing, Mr. Carter 
 said that, if I could have two years' further schooling, he should by 
 the end of that time be in practice for himself, would be glad then to 
 have me as a pupil, and would never lose sight of me till I also should 
 be qualified to practise. The learning (thanks to my good half-sister 
 and to every other source !) was by some means obtained ; but by that 
 time Mr. Carter had gone abroad, and all hope of any connection with 
 him had died. Yet not dead was the impulse he had given by his 
 
224 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 observations. The feeling that there must be within me some germs 
 of usefulness had been fired. It glowed more warmly from day to day. 
 Visions of the restored position of our family to its old respectability 
 dawned upon me, and that owing, perchance, in the order of Provi- 
 dence, to me. It was my last evening dream, my first morning thought. 
 The reading of the life of Dr. Franklin added fuel to the fire ; and I re- 
 solved, come what might, to imitate him, by running away. I did so, 
 three times, and the last time for good. It was, as told already in 
 another chapter, in snowy and frosty weather ; and while my poor mo- 
 ther hunted for me all night with her lantern in the snow near home, 
 my father started on a long excursion in the hope of finding me afar. 
 At length, the post-mark of a letter, sent to my young friend, James 
 AUin, gave the first true hint of my track; and the good, patriarchal old 
 man, in his broad hat and primitive coat — I pause in my tale from weep- 
 ing for it now — started at three o'clock on a cold January morning in 
 pursuit, and never rested till he had found me. It was in his sixtieth 
 year, yet he walked nearly sixty miles that day, and when he found me, 
 uttered not one word of reproach, but hastened home to tell my anxious 
 mother of his good fortune. I never went home again but as a beloved 
 and welcome vistor ; yet my mother lived to see my first published 
 verses in print, and my father to sit by me whilst I lectured to an ap- 
 proving audience of three thousand people. I was by when our mother 
 died in that old cottage by the brook ; and from it, with my surviving 
 brothers and sister, I attended our venerable father's remains to where 
 they were laid by the side of hers, her first husband's and our departed 
 brother's, at Mansfield. It was a sunny day; and when I next stood 
 by his covered grave, a bee was humming there, looking at which I 
 said, "Yes, happy bee, thou mayest fitly hum and bask there; for 
 thou bearest nothing about thee sweeter than the memories blooming 
 round those quiet graves ! " 
 
 There was a peculiarity in my father's nervous system, or perhaps it 
 might be much deeper — in his soul. He could not bear to see anything 
 killed that he had ever taken an interest in — not even a pig. The mere 
 thought of it would almost make him faint ; and in a hundred other 
 instances he was equally tender. But there were times when he would 
 show a more morally brave and masculine spirit than any man in the 
 parish, and he was one of the least credulous persons I ever knew. An 
 old ruined farm-house, turned into a bleaching-house, with a deep, 
 dark gully, and a huge water-wheel groaning in it, was about a mile 
 out of the town, in one of the most lonely and dreary spots of the 
 neighbourhood. This was said to be haunted ; and sights were seen 
 there, even in the day-time, enough to make the hair of an atheist 
 
MY PARENTS. 225 
 
 stand on end. The whole parish became alarmed, and my father, for 
 one, thought he would put the tale to an experimental test. After try- 
 ing without effect if he could perceive any of the reputed phenomena 
 by day, he one night took a candle and a book, and sat alone in that 
 dreariest of all dismal places, hour by hour, unvisited and undis- 
 turbed, after which no more ghost stories came from the old bleach- 
 house. Yet, whenever I heard him afterwards allude to that experience, 
 he would gravely add the following narrative : — When a young man, 
 he had a friend of the name of Wood, a Quaker, residing at Papple- 
 wick, and in the habit, like himself, of attending Mansfield meeting. 
 But his friend Wood being taken very ill, he one Sunday resolved to 
 go, after the close of the first sitting, and see him. As soon as the 
 meeting was gathered and all besides was solemnly still, my father 
 was startled by what, to him, was a palpable and thundering knocking 
 at the chapel-door. His first impulse was to go and see what was the 
 matter ; but as the door-keeper sat quietly and no one else seemed 
 disturbed, the sound not being repeated he kept his seat to the end of 
 the meeting. As soon, however, as the company was breaking up, he 
 spoke to the Friend who had sat next to him about the noise, and was 
 siirprised on finding, not only his neighbour but aU the rest of the 
 meeting, quite ignorant of any such occurrence, — whereupon he went 
 his way to see his friend at Papplewick, and found that he had died, 
 so far as could be calculated, about the very time he had heard the 
 extraordinary signal at the chapel-door. 
 
 In my early years, I was under a contract with a gentleman who 
 went blind, and was thus incapacitated for performing his share of it, 
 by which fact I was legally liberated from him. Could my consent, 
 however, be obtained, he might still derive benefit from his part being 
 transferred to and carried out by another. Many advised me to take 
 advantage of my liberty, and gain for myself any emolument resulting. 
 But, on consulting my father, he said, " My boy, if thy master had not 
 lost his sight, he would have had the benefit ; and it would be neither 
 generous nor just to take advantage of his misfortune." I felt the truth 
 of this most strongly, having been thoughtful of it before, and allowed 
 my old master the profit of the transference. 
 
 But, farewell, fond theme ! When I see these hastily- strung passages 
 in print, a hundred others I ought not to have omitted will rush to 
 mind. It is but an imperfect wreath for the brow of so dear and noble 
 a memory. Yet as my parents forgave their boy so many of his faults 
 on earth, I know that this, now he is a man, will not be unforgiven by 
 them in heaven ! Let me conclude with a little poem written about 
 my twentieth year, on re-visiting home a few months after my mother's 
 
226 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 death — the scene of it since so changed that it would hardly now be 
 known by a description which at that time was true to the letter : — 
 
 MY BIRTH-PLACE. 
 
 How beauteously the sunlit foliage waves 
 
 Around this white-wall'd Cottage in the vale I 
 By its gi-een hedge how light the young brook laves, 
 
 Joyfully laughing at its own sweet tale ! 
 
 What fragrance from these elders balms the gale ! 
 And mark, where that old bowery willow throws 
 
 Its tresses o'er the moss-grey garden rail, 
 How the lush woodbine dallies with the rose. 
 And many a neighbour-flower in pride and beauty blows ! 
 
 My earliest Home ! how fondly swells my heart. 
 
 As at thy lowly door I enter now ! 
 
 Ah ! whence this flush, this tremor, and this start 
 
 Of chilly sweat-drops to my heated brow ! 
 
 Mother ! my loving Mother ! where art thou ? 
 I meet thee not as I was wont — nor hear 
 
 Thy words of welcome sweet — nor feel the glow 
 Of thy glad kiss upon my cheek, which there 
 Thou heretofore wouldst plant, then water with thy tear ! 
 
 Thy clock counts out the moments as of yore ; 
 
 Its old shrill call the hearth-fed cricket keeps ; 
 The kettle sighs the plaint it sang before ; 
 
 And round the window-frame green ivy creeps. 
 
 And through its diamond pane the red rose peeps, 
 As they were train'd in thy flower-loving day; 
 
 While on the sill the sunshine idly sleeps 
 Among these household plants, — for even they, 
 Because thou tend'st them not, pine mom-nfully away. 
 
 Then, Mother, why not here ? How brief the tale ! 
 
 When winter pass'd in smiles away last year — 
 When daisies first began to star the dale. 
 
 And the lark sang that blossom-time was near ; 
 
 While the coy redbreast left its cottage cheer, 
 To frisk delighted in the greening lane ; 
 
 Thy glad hopes budded to the bursting here ; 
 And in anticipation thou wert fain 
 Long years of joy to hail — a bright, imbroken train. 
 
 And still when summer's long, luxuriant days 
 
 Our annual village feast brought cheerily on, 
 At once on all thy children didst thou gaze. 
 
 And in that gaze feel years of promise won. 
 
 So hajipy seem'd each daughter and each son. 
 Till evening warn'd us peacefully away; 
 
 But scarcely had the autumnal change begun 
 
MY PARENTS. 227 
 
 Ere hence we pass'd again in sad array, 
 
 A tearful, heart-wrung band, upon thy funeral day ! 
 
 And now far distant is thy dreamless rest. 
 
 Amongst a green companionship of graves, 
 With no memorial, save upon thy breast 
 
 A single flower, that lifts its urn and craves 
 
 Kind Nature's nightly tear for thee, — or waves, 
 Wooing the gentle breeze that o'er thee creeps 
 
 In whispers low to linger there, when laves 
 Sunset with pensive light those kindred heaps. 
 Where Memory musing walks — Affection bending weeps ! 
 
 Yet, oh, how hard to link thy name with death, 
 
 My Mother ! Even now I dream thee near : — ■ 
 The soft air through the lattice, like thy breath, 
 
 Falls mildly on my cheek; and, hark ! I hear 
 A step upon the path, then deem thee there ; 
 
 But soon that breath fails in a faltering sigh ; 
 
 Thy name I name — but thou dost not appear ; 
 The footfall — distant now I hear it die : 
 My dream is done — I wake — and yet Ifeel thee nigh. 
 
 But since thou canst not now be seen by me, 
 
 My heart shall turn to those dear, sunny days. 
 When here I sat, and lean'd upon thy knee, 
 
 O'erjoy'd to learn the legends and the lays 
 
 Of thy dear native mountains, and the ways — 
 Romantic as their homes — of mountain men : 
 
 For thou with warmth of native pride wouldst praise 
 Those wondrous scenes in moorland, dale, and glen. 
 Which oft have fiU'd my soul with love and fear since then. 
 
 The birds on Bonsall Leas sung in thy song ; 
 
 The flowers of Wirksworth Moor bloom'd in thy tale ; 
 In thy descriptions crags o'er Derwent hung 
 
 In awe, to hear it roar through Matlock Dale ; 
 
 Plain, at thy word, I saw the clouds all pale 
 Along grey Barrowledge in silence glide ; 
 
 And, ! how well in mystery couldst thou veil 
 Those deeds of other times that dimly hide 
 Where ancient woods frown down from Dunsley's lofty side ! 
 
 Nor, when were told the wonders of the Peak, 
 
 Would fail for me thy ever-gladdening store 
 Of history and song ; for oft would break 
 
 Upon my soul, in light renew'd, the lore 
 
 Of Ml OWN Sheewood, glorious evermore ! 
 Old Sherwood ! Freedom's bowery haunt sublime ! 
 
 The outlaw'd Patriot's dear-loved home of yore — -» 
 
 The homeless Patriot's haunt in modern time — 
 Fair Virtue's sweet retreat from Tyranny and Crime ! 
 p2 
 
228 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 And Fancy then would climl) its fern-clad hills 
 
 To scan the glowing prospects thence outspread — 
 Its light-curved lakes, whose tributary rills, 
 
 Now hid— now sparkling — through the Forest sped ; 
 
 The flocks that on their fertile borders fed ; 
 The wood's wild tresses, waving in the breeze ; 
 
 The venerable ruin's hoary head. 
 Dim-seen afar, among the dusky trees : 
 And heavenly were the joys I drew from scenes like these ! 
 
 Oft, too, wouldst thou describe my country's ports, 
 Crowded with gallant ships from every clime ; 
 
 Her smiling palaces and frowning forts — 
 Whate'er of her was beauteous or sublime. 
 The fruit of modern taste or ancient time — 
 
 From domes remote that through old woodlands rise. 
 To cities crown'd with spires, that proudly climb 
 
 And flash the sunlight back through summer skies — 
 
 Until my young soul swell'd with gladness and surprise. 
 
 And much I wish'd, as in my mind would grow 
 A sense of Britain's grandeur and her might. 
 
 That in her sons a warm desire might glow 
 To use their matchless power and skill aright, 
 And in the ways of Love and Truth delight : 
 
 For, oh, an early consciousness was mine 
 That power misguided operates but to blight 
 
 All that is glorious — beautiful — benign — ■ 
 
 And glooms with woe a world which else in bliss might shine ! 
 
 But cease this simple chant ; for on me here. 
 
 Through Memory's vista, dawns life's opening scene ! 
 Hope's morn-like streaks upon its sky appear. 
 
 With sweet Affection's sunny smiles between : — 
 
 Below is traced all I have ever been : 
 All I have seen, or known, or felt, or done. 
 
 Lies there mapp'd out to Fancy's eye, serene 
 And clear as though life had not yet outrun 
 The bright and precious scenes in which it was begun ! 
 
 And not for love alone of song or story. 
 
 Or youth's delicious dream, or childhood's glee, 
 
 But of the simpler yet sublimer glory 
 
 Of Truth's pure teachings, here first known to me, 
 Grows glad my soul, dear native Cot ! in thee : 
 
 And Thought and Feeling in deep reverence bend, 
 While here I bare my head and bow my knee, 
 
 To Him from whom all Light and Life extend — ■ 
 
 Whose throne is in the heart, whose kingdom has no end ! 
 
THE SEVENTH EARL OF CARLISLE. 
 
 (June, 1866.) 
 
 The genealogical tree of the Howards, with all its engraftments from 
 other families, presents a curious study for those who delight in such 
 lore ; and whether in blossom or fruit — in lustre or usefulness — perhaps 
 none of its branches have been more conspicuous than that which bore 
 the subject of our present chapter. While there are men who owe all 
 their honours to ancestry — though, as some one has asked, who shall 
 in this matter compete with the poorest Jew ? — there are others whose 
 lives would ennoble their ancestors. In some persons both these 
 patents are united — from my own humble stand-point I have had the 
 privilege of knowing such — and one of them, certainly, was the Eai'l we 
 are reading of. To regard genealogical distinction with idolatry is a 
 weakness, and in the long run injurious. It often excites emulation, 
 not of good deeds, but of paltry and very false pretensions amongst 
 those who have become ashamed of the honourable industry by which 
 their grandsires won the first honest shilling, the first germ of their 
 fortunes. But, contrarily, to profess contempt for what is truly noble 
 in genealogy is an equal weakness, and generally the result of disap- 
 pointment, vanity, or envy. Truly, we may say with Pope — 
 
 What could ennoble knaves, or fools, or cowards ? 
 Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards ! 
 
 But if, on the other hand, it should happen that some of the best blood 
 
230 CHAPTEB xvm. 
 
 of all the Howards could meet in one man with a good share of the 
 best spirit of his age, then must I be of those who beUeve that such 
 union was personated in George William Frederick, the seventh Earl 
 of Carlisle, who added to his hereditary prestige ihe undoubted right 
 to be not less distinguished as a gentleman, scholar, and philanthropist, 
 than as a patrician. 
 
 Descended on one side from a second son of the fourth Duke of 
 Norfolk by marriage with the Dacres of Gilsland and Naworth in the 
 north, and by his mother from the Dukes of Devonshire, and nearly 
 related to "the Beautiful Duchess of Rutland" of whom mention has 
 been made in a previous memoir, the late Earl of Carlisle was born 
 on the 18th of April, 1802, loved learning from his youth, was edu- 
 cated at Eton, took prizes for poems and obtained high classical 
 honours at Oxford University, and at an early age became an attaclie 
 to the British embassy at St. Petersburg. After several years passed 
 in a diplomatic service which must have brought him in contact with 
 all the polish and astuteness of courts and courtiers, as well as with 
 much beyond their immediate sphere- — cultivating an acquaintance 
 with political science, polite literature, and the more humane philoso- 
 phies the while- — with the title of Viscount Morpeth, under which his 
 political career will be best remembered by all of his own generation, 
 he entered Parliament first for the family borough giving him that title, 
 and subsequently, in 1832, was returned in the Liberal interest for the 
 West Riding of Yorkshii'e. In 1835 he was returned again, but being 
 immediately appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, he had to be re- 
 elected, sustaining a contest with the Hon. John Stuart Wortley (after- 
 wards Lord Wharncliffe), but winning by a very considerable majority. 
 
 It was about this time that Lord Morpeth's name first became fa- 
 miliar to me from the following incident. After the election was over, 
 and his lordship was attending some public entertainment at Barnsley, 
 it chanced that Thomas Lister, a young Quaker (who had worked for 
 his return very hard during the contest), was placed near to him at 
 table. Lister, being one of the most original and outspoken young 
 men in the whole Riding, and the author of a number of poetical 
 squibs, which had been fired off pretty briskly during the late proceed- 
 ings, became an object of no little interest to the triumphant candidate, 
 who, struck with his enei'gy and picturesqueness of thought, asked him 
 what was his occupation. " I go with a cart," said Lister. "A cart ! " 
 exclaimed his lordship, "what cart?" "A cart, between the canal 
 wharf and the town," replied Thomas. Leaning back in his character- 
 istic manner, and gazing at the rustic Friend with some intensity, his 
 lordship said, "What a singular genius to be employed as a carter! 
 
SEVENTH EARL OF CARLISLE. 231 
 
 Would you not like Bome occupation more in accordance with your 
 cast of mind?" "Very much," said Lister, "if I could properly 
 obtain it." " Well," was the startling rejoinder, " the postmastership 
 for Barnsley happens at this time to be vacant ; and if a sufficient 
 number of the townspeople will recommend you, I shall be happy to 
 nominate you for the sitiiation." Here was a windfall ! but there was an 
 unforeseen obstacle to the young poet's enjoying it. The getting up of 
 the recommendation, the nomination, and appointment, were all the 
 work of a few days. But when it came to the acceptance, and it was 
 found that the office could not be entered upon even by a Quaker 
 without an oath, Lister resolved still to go with his cart rather than 
 swear, and the appointment was for that reason soon in the hands of 
 another person. This event awakened an unusual interest in various 
 quarters, and brought before the world Thomas Lister's history. When 
 a lad, he had been noted among his teachers and fellow pupils at Ack- 
 worth school as one of the most physically courageous, emulative and 
 enterprising of their number. Wrestling, running, leaping and climb- 
 ing, were among his greatest delights. In athletic contests of any 
 sort he was more given to going beyond than to confining himself 
 within the rules of that fine but then most restrictive institution, and 
 could take a five-barred gate with an easy spring. Love of approba- 
 tion, or rather of distinction, was one of his ruling faculties, and 
 physical celerity one of his usual methods of displaying it. But the 
 death of his parents, the emigration of several members of his family, 
 and the necessity of employing all his bodily energies, not in pastime 
 but in useful labour, had made him a thoughtful man at twenty, 
 and had disposed him to win attention by intellectual rather than 
 athletic feats. Hence his desire to shine as a poet ; and it was just 
 when this habit of rhyming had grown ripe that he became known, in 
 the manner described, to Lord Morpeth. His refusal to take the oath 
 v/as productive of two results. It caused Lord Morpeth to say that, if 
 Friends had the moral courage to refuse such emoluments rather than 
 make oath, their word might safely be taken on any subject ; and it 
 led to the collection and publication of Lister's poems in a volume 
 with the title of " The Rustic Wreath," by which he was soon made 
 master of some hundreds of pounds. It was while the volume was 
 thus bringing him at once such wealth and reputation, that Lister came 
 on a visit to Nottingham, and was my fellow rambler to Clifton Grove 
 and some favourite spots about Sherwood Forest, telling me much of 
 Lord Morpeth, of course, and of many other distinguished people to 
 whom he had thus unexpectedly been made known. From that hour 
 his lordship never relaxed his efforts till the disability of a Friend to 
 
232 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 take civil office without an oath was removed ; and when the post-office 
 of Barnsley, after some years, was vacant again, Thomas received the 
 appointment, and retained it till his superannuation. 
 
 Lord Morpeth was by no means the first of his family friendly to 
 the people called Quakers. There is before me a large folio volume, 
 "A Journal of the Life of Thomas Story," one of their more distin- 
 guished ministers in the early part of last century, in which are 
 recorded whole pages of conversations with Charles, the third Earl of 
 Carlisle, on religion and religious toleration. These conversations are 
 worthy of any man's reading ; and when, about twenty years back, I 
 asked the late Earl if he had ever seen them, he replied that Mr. Story's 
 book was well known to him — he had read those conversations with 
 much interest, and had not forgotten some of their sentiments when 
 bringing in the bill for relieving the Friends from their disabilities 
 under the laws relating to oaths. His lordship added, " The Earl in 
 question had also the merit — a great one in my eyes — of building 
 Castle Howard." 
 
 It has often been asked in what that charm consists by which some 
 men can attach crowds to them as firmly as if they were riveted heart 
 to heart, or blended mind with mind, all through. A mere man of the 
 world will attribute it to suavity and tact. The phrenologist wiU 
 recognise in it the paramount activity of adhesiveness and its kindred 
 faculties. A poet like Byron would call it " the magic of the mind." 
 Truth is, it may be associated with any or all of these qualities. But 
 wherever its influence is healthy, it has more simple, sublime, and uni- 
 versal affinities than they; and, call it by whatever name we may, it is 
 a spirit of kindness. It has been charged against the late Lord Carlisle 
 that he never had the courage to say "No." For some men the 
 power to utter that monosyllable may be in their circumstances essen- 
 tial; and we can still love anyone who dare say "No" in a right spirit, 
 from his conviction that it is for good. But may it not be, on the 
 other side, that some men are constituted for living the life of "Yes," 
 and for whom the ready utterance of " No" would be a falsification of 
 the very nature and purpose of their being ? The one great thing for 
 every man is that he should be sincere, and if he feels it right to say 
 no, why, say it of course ; but if he does not feel it right, let him say 
 yes, or nothing. If the late Earl never denied others, it must have 
 cost him much self-denial, and perhaps made a balance with that very 
 opposite person, who being asked on his death-bed if he had anything 
 to reproach himself with, languidly and considerately replied, " No — 
 no— I am not aware that I ever denied myself anything ! " By what- 
 ever faculty or quality it might be, the late lord had the advantage of 
 
SEVENTH EAEL OF CARLISLE. 283 
 
 being instantly and permanently liked, wherever he appeared among 
 the people ; nor could this have been from any beauty of person ; for 
 a configuration of face more plain than his you would hardly see in a 
 crowd. But when he spoke, there was a pulse of good nature which, 
 throbbing in himself, electrified all who heard him by its vibrations ; 
 there was the music of harmonious thought embodied in his words ; 
 and when the Hon. John Stuart Wortley (who I believe had been his 
 schoolfellow) rode proudly off the field at Wakefield, after beating him 
 in the great corn-law contest of 1841, as he turned round and gave a 
 last look at the hustings, where the losers still lingered, his eyes were 
 filled with tears. Independently altogether of the question of politics, 
 I for one shared warmly in the popular love of Lord Morpeth. I loved 
 him for what he had done for my friend Lister and the Friends ; con- 
 nected with the " Shefiield Iris," I had worked both hard and honestly 
 in his cause, and could have wept to think of his noble and classic 
 spirit being thus shut out of his accustomed arena. But I ever after 
 liked his triumphant opponent, too, for that one look he gave back, 
 and in which, after the sword of knight of the shire had been bound 
 upon him, and he turned to ride away to the strains of " See the con- 
 quering hero comes," he seemed silently to say, " I wish you could 
 also have been with me." 
 
 That contest of 1841, which will be ever memorable in England, will 
 be especially so in West Yorkshire. During its progress I saw and 
 heard Lord Morpeth often, but there is no need here to describe each 
 minor occasion. I was on the hustings at Wakefield at the nomination. 
 The candidates were Lord Morpeth, Lord Milton, the Hon. J. Stuart 
 Wortley, and Mr. Beckett Dennison, respectively; and a sight to be 
 remembered was that " gathering of the clans " of industry and wealth, 
 — of land and labour, from every hill and dale of the large and pic- 
 turesque region of the West Riding. As mass after mass of people, 
 each in itself a host, kept joining the vast concourse with loud huzzas 
 and counter-huzzas, amid loud strains of music from the numerous 
 bands, there was a dash of sublimity about the scene that it is hard in 
 words to paint. The old stereotyped similes of " a forest of banners," 
 " tumultuous throng," "the surging crowd," and so forth, give no idea 
 of it at all adequate or accurate. I doubt if there be in the world a 
 realm in which dominating self-confidence and sturdy independence 
 are united among the great masses more evidently than in West York- 
 shire and Lancashire ; and it was the impersonation of these, in con- 
 junction with all the ordinary motives of such a gathering, which gave 
 a character to that crowd that makes it in one's memory rather a paragon 
 than a parallel of popular scenes. It was too dignified and well- 
 
234 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 behaved to be called a mob, and yet too stirring and lively to be called 
 a deliberative assembly. It made Burke's oft-quoted metaphor of "the 
 swinish multitude" a feeble sarcasm, but at the same time suggested 
 exceeding thankfulness for English love of order and law. And well 
 do I remember Lord Morpeth's significant words, as he commenced to 
 address them, saying that the sight filled him with "mingled feelings 
 of admiration, curiosity, and awe." 
 
 The contest over, and Wortley and Dennison at the head of the poll, 
 there was on the Monday following a gatheiing again on the same 
 ground, to hear its declaration. The morning was gray, the air still 
 and pensive, and after an early hour among the ruins of Sandal Castle, 
 and breakfast with my literary friend Mr. W. H. Leatham, I was on 
 those hustings once more, as once more came the bodies of people 
 with their heralds, bands, and banners — the victors with their blue 
 and the defeated with their yellow colours — one proudly exultant, and 
 the other scarcely less proudly sustaining their defeat. But this time 
 the Blues were considerably the most numerous and loud. The Yellows 
 came less spiritedly and with but little melody in their march. Yet 
 when the whole mass had gathered it was very gi*eat. Every speaker 
 was heard with attention, but Lord Morpeth with the deepest, and 
 the following are the closing words of his speech, as reported in the 
 " Leeds Mercury" of July 12th, 1841. I have seldom known any 
 speech make a deeper impression than this on those who listened to 
 its measured cadences : — ■ 
 
 After the long period of our connection, which has now lasted through eleven 
 years and five parliaments, after the transactions to which we have been parties 
 and the terms we have been on together, I would fain hope, that before we part 
 you vrill allow me to say a few words further on matters more pertaining to my 
 own relations with you. I am willing to flatter myself that even with my political 
 opponents I leave behind nothing but political difference, and that we separate 
 without any ground for angry retrospect or personal offence. But as to those with 
 whom I have had the greater happiness of agreeing, now that so many recollections 
 of considerate kindness, of disinterested zeal, of past struggles, and of past victories 
 are rushing at once upon my mind, I feel what language cannot embody, and 
 thanks cannot convey. I have learnt to love even the inanimate features of your 
 lovely landscapes with which I have grown familiar during my repeated canvass — 
 your heath-clad hills, and your wide-spreading valleys ; but how much more must 
 my spirit bound in answer to the cheer which roused the mountain echo, or to the 
 welcome which ushered me into the busiest haunts of your living industry ! I 
 trust I need not debar myself from the hope that in the varied course of life oppor- 
 tunities may present themselves to me of showing my abiding sense of gratitude 
 for your past favours ; and I cannot help declaring, though it may seem to bespeak 
 a more poignant sense of the loss I have sustained, that I do not think I could 
 reconcile myself for the present to occupy any other seat or to represent any other 
 men. And now, gentlemen, that I have to take my leave of you, bear with me if I 
 
SEVENTH EAEL OP CARLISLE. 235 
 
 adopt for one moment a more solemn tone than I might have otherwise thought it 
 fit to use on such an occasion ; hut I cannot refrain from putting up one fervid 
 petition that the Disposer of all events, and the Giver of all good, may visit each 
 and all of you with his choicest and most abundant blessings. May He store your 
 garners with increase, and reward your industry with plenty. May he scatter the 
 seeds of order, of temperance, of the domestic and public virtues, far and wide 
 amidst all your dwellings. May He crown each hearth and home with peace, with 
 comfort, with content, and with thanksgivmg, and ever supply you with those who 
 can, I will not say more faithfully, but more effectually, serve you ! These are my 
 latest words ; thanks again — fare you well, and aU good be with you ! [Prolonged 
 cheering from both sides of the hustings and all parts of the crowd.] 
 
 As all the world of politicians knows, his Lordship kept out of par- 
 liament till he again represented the same constituency; and the 
 manner in which he signed himself for the last time " Morpeth," on 
 succeeding to the peerage, is well remembered yet. 
 
 It was in the early months of 1843 — I think it was '43 — that I was 
 riding from Sheffield to York to give a lecture, when at one of the in- 
 termediate stations Lord Morpeth took a seat in the same compartment 
 I was in, entered freely into conversation, learnt my object in going to 
 York, and at night came breathless from a ball-room, in the hope of 
 seeing some of my magnetic experiments. They were just concluded. 
 But I was pleased for his sake to resume them ; and he seemed as 
 much delighted as astonished by the results. After this I did not see 
 him again till the summer of 1845, when one day, in London, Mr. H. 
 S. Thompson, of Fairfield, came to my apartments in Pall Mall, and 
 said a distinguished party would be glad to see me in the evening, at 
 Nerot's Hotel, in Clifford-street, but no idea was given me as to whom 
 it might be. On being ushered in, I saw standing in conversation, 
 near the door of the room, Drs. Elliotson and Engledue, and Mr. 
 Topham, with Mr. Thompson ; and, with their elbows resting on the 
 mantel-piece at the upper end of the large apartment, Lord Morpeth 
 and another person, who proved to be the Marquis of Lorn (now Duke 
 of Argyll.) Moving forward with the intention of paying my respects 
 to Lord Morpeth, he (seeing and knowing me by the reflection in the 
 large muTor over the mantel-piece on which he was leaning), turned 
 round and came with a smile of welcome and out-held hand to meet me 
 half-way down the room, saying in a hearty manner, " Well, Mr. Hall, 
 I am glad to see you once more ; how have you been in the long time 
 since we last met ? " " Thank you, my lord," I answered, " generally 
 speaking, pretty well; but I could scarcely have thought you would have 
 BO clear a recollection of me." " But how could it be otherwise ? " he 
 rejoined. " Do you think I could ever forget your experiments at York 
 or our previous conversation in the train ? I am told that you have 
 lately been observing some fresh phenomena, and thought you would 
 
236 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 perhaps have no objection to let us see a repetition of them. They 
 will be quite new to Lord Lorn." Lord Lorn assented, and at the same 
 time observed that he did not believe in mesmerism at all ; on which I 
 said that the question had become one, not so much of belief or dis- 
 belief, as of what we could really understand of it ; some experiments 
 were then given on two young persons who had already proved highly 
 susceptible to the influence ; and so the evening passed away. 
 
 A few days afterwards, a gentleman, well known for his advocacy of 
 mesmerism, called upon me and said that Lord Moi-peth wished some 
 of his relatives to see the same phenomena that had been developed at 
 Nerot's ; would I consent to let him have my two siijets for the purpose 
 and be content to stay away myself, on the ground that it would be 
 more satisfactory that the experiments should be made by an amateur 
 than by one who was connected with mesmerism as a profession ? My 
 reply was that the youths were not my slaves — that they were at liberty 
 to go if they chose — ^but that no consideration on earth would ever 
 induce me to be a party to any arrangement in which my own calling 
 and integrity were not respected. The truth was that from the manner 
 in which the proposition was made to me, I felt it was so little in Lord 
 Morpeth's usual spirit as to be quite mysterious, and rather painfully 
 so ; and a repetition of the conversation only led to the same conclu- 
 sion again. At this time I was standing at a window which almost 
 overlooked St. James's Palace-gate, when who should be coming from 
 the Palace-yard at quick speed but Lord Morpeth, who in a very few 
 seconds was in the room with us. Sitting down in a low chair, and 
 almost out of breath, he asked if there was any reason for delay, and 
 if I could not go with the gentleman in question to his relatives, as the 
 hour which had been appointed was passing. Said the gentleman, who 
 was still with me, " I have been suggesting to Mr. Hall, that he would 
 perhaps allow me privately to take charge of the experiments without 
 his presence, as, he being professionally connected with mesmerism, it 
 might be more satisfactory to your lordship's friends, should there 
 chance to be any sceptics amongst them." By the effect of this upon 
 Lord Morpeth's countenance, I felt sure at once that he had been no 
 party to such an idea, and, said I would not stand in the way of any- 
 thing being done that might be thought well without me ; but since 
 mesmerism to me had all the dignity that could be claimed by any 
 other profession, and my connection with it, in a moral point of view, 
 was perfectly honourable, I should never for a moment connect myself 
 with any arrangement in which my own integrity and respectability 
 were not fully recognised. "Oh," said Lord Morpeth, "I begin to 
 perceive ; there is some misunderstanding between you on this point. 
 
SEVENTH EARL OF CARLISLE. 237 
 
 and I must be a peacemaker between you, for I see Mr. 's reason. 
 
 You will yoiirself allow, Mr. Hall, that it is possible for him to feel a 
 little tender, as there can be no doubt that mesmerism has been rather 
 injured by some of its professors." Turning my face full on his lord- 
 ship's, and speaking with as much earnestness and respect as I was 
 capable of, I said — "No one knows better than you, my lord, how 
 possible it is for some people in the very highest walks of life to dis- 
 grace their position by ill conduct, or, on the other hand, how possible 
 it is for others to ennoble the lowest ; and I have certainly never done 
 anything to the dishonour of mesmerism." I can never forget the 
 telling effect of that remark. His lordship, leaning low back in his 
 chair as I stood before him, with his hands clasped together, and his 
 earnest eyes looking up at mine in silence for fully half a minute, as 
 though his mind were occupied by some intense and reflective thought, 
 he at length broke out in an equally earnest tone of speech, as he said, 
 "Well, Hall, I believe you are right! but you have no objection to 
 bringing the youths and going with us yourself, have you ? ■ " No, my 
 lord," said I, with emotion, " I will go with you anywhere ! " " Come 
 along, then ! " he exclaimed, jumping up from his chair ; and away we 
 all went to Eaton-place, where I saw no sign of doubt from anyone 
 present as to the genuineness of the experiments. A note came a few 
 days afterwards from his lordship, expressing satisfaction in them and 
 thanking me. A gentleman from Leeds happened to be with me at 
 the moment it came, and asked the loan of it that he might show his 
 wife the autograph, which he, or she, or somebody else, has kept for 
 or from me to this day. 
 
 The last time I saw Lord Moi^peth in London he gave me a pleasant 
 and friendly hail as he was hurrying through the Park on foot to the 
 House of Commons ; and the next and the last time we met was after 
 he had become Earl of Carlisle. It was on the occasion of his laying 
 the foundation-stone of the Burnley Mechanics' Institution, at the 
 soiree following which I had also been invited to be a speaker. Under 
 the presidency of Colonel Towneley, Lord Softon, the Hon. Sir James 
 Scarlett, Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, Mr. Wilson Patten, Mr. James 
 Heywood, Mr. Pilkington, Mr. Lawrence Heyworth, and several other 
 gentlemen took part in the proceedings. During a procession through 
 the streets from Towneley to the site of the Institution, Lord Carlisle 
 indulged in a genial smile, and gave as a reason that he v/as amused 
 by the vast numbers among the crowds of lookers-on standing with 
 their hands in their trousers-pockets. I had been unwell just before, 
 and my own speech in the evening must have been a very poor one, 
 considering the occasion and the company; but he gave me words of 
 
238 CHAPTEB XVIII. 
 
 cheer. On my return from Ireland in 1849, 1 wrote, as already elsewhere 
 mentioned, a narrative of my observations, thoughts, and feelings in 
 that land of beauties and anomalies, wit and woe, which he read, as 
 he did several of my other writings, assuring me that he did so with 
 interest. He also read the same hrochure again on becoming Lord- 
 lieutenant; and it is to this extent that my personal recollections have 
 any right to connection with his name. 
 
 Lord Carlisle died on the 4th of November, 1864, having very 
 shortly before resigned the Lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, with which 
 country, as with Yorkshire, his name will ever be more specially con- 
 nected, though dear to men of thought and feeling throughout the 
 world. Whether as a speaker or writer he would have been an orna- 
 ment to any of the most classic nations in its most classic age. His 
 poems have the merit of chasteness, elegance, ease, and great beauty 
 of thought. His lecture on Pope will long be remembered for its finely 
 critical as well as bravely eulogistic tone. His " Diary in Turkish and 
 Greek Waters " deserves the popularity it first gained. As a promoter 
 of peace and good will among all nations, ranks and classes of man- 
 kind, his name is dear to philanthropy and its objects on many shores 
 — ^not least those of the American States. In the words of a tribute to 
 him now before me, " May the peerage of England never want men to 
 fill the post so honourably occupied by Lord Carlisle ! " 
 
m^kx llin^tfi^ntk 
 
 GLIMPSES OF GEORGE HEEBERT. 
 
 (A LiTEEAEY Notice — Jan. 1853. 
 
 Supposing we had been wandering for the greater part of a spring or 
 summer day, among very pleasant suburban scenery, composed of a 
 proportionate variety of hill and dale, wood and water, villa and cot, 
 and all the other fair features of an average English landscape, lit by a 
 cheerful sun, shining in a clear blue heaven ; — and supposing that 
 as that sun was westering to the horizon, giving its first vermeil flush 
 to the sky it was leaving and its softening tints of gold to all below ; — 
 and that in such an hour we dropped into a retired rural dale, and 
 there found ourselves contemplating some old and picturesque eccle- 
 siastical pile, with its pointed arches, its mullioned windows, its circles 
 and its angles, its fanciful tracery, its emblematical devices, and its 
 many quaintnesses, all richly but pensively illuminated by the beauty 
 of that sweet time : — Just such is the comparison we would imagine to 
 our having, in the summer of the soul, had a free discursion among the 
 common minds of the day, and then, in that subdued and quiet hour, 
 fallen upon the volume of George Herbert's Life and Poetry now before 
 us.* As may be seen by Mr. Gilfillan's interesting sketch, as well as 
 by reference to that fine old book, " Izaak Walton's Lives," George 
 
 * The Poetical Works of Geosge Hebbert. With Life, Critical Dissertation, 
 and Explanatory Notes, by the Rev. G-eorge Gilfillan. 1853. 
 
240 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Herbert, " Holy George" as he is sometimes called, was born at Mont- 
 gomery Castle, in Shropshire, in the spring of 1593, and was the fifth 
 son of a most loving, loveable, and excellent mother. His eldest bro- 
 ther, the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury — so titled for his diplo- 
 matic services, by Charles I — seems to have been in many respects a 
 complete negation of himself ; for while he (George) was what would 
 be now called a high churchman, his brother wrote a book against 
 revealed religion : so strangely do extremes sometimes meet in one 
 family, as we see in the case of the brothers Newman and other public 
 characters of the present time. From under the maternal eye he was 
 in due time transferred to Westminster School, where, as Walton says, 
 "the beauties of his pretty behaviour and wit sbined and became so 
 eminent and lovely in this his innocent age, that he seemed to be 
 marked out for piety, and to become the care of Heaven and of a par- 
 ticular good angel to guide and guard him." Subsequently we find 
 him at Cambridge, obtaining several academical degrees ere twenty-two 
 years of age, manifesting the purity and loftiness of his mind, and 
 diverting himself with music, but somewhat reserved, perhaps proudly 
 shy, among his compeers. While at Cambridge he happened, in the 
 spirit of the times, to please James I. by a complimentary letter he 
 had been deputed to write ; and the King complimented him in return 
 with an oratorship ; while enjoying which he added the knowledge of 
 several modern languages to his accomplishments, and aimed at becom- 
 ing a courtier and secretary of state. In the prosecution of this species 
 of ambition, he afterwards resided in London — dressing fashionably, if 
 not foppishly; but his worst faults seem to have been little more than 
 frivolities, if we are to credit Mr. GilfiUan, who says : — 
 
 He was, however, subject to infirmities and illnesses of various sorts — now 
 scorched by severe fever, now threatened by consumption, and always worn out by 
 the edge of intense study. His wit, he used to say, was like " a penknife in too 
 narrow a sheath, too sharp for his body." This bred in him a strong desire to 
 leave the University, to decline all study for a season, and to travel in foreign 
 parts. To this, however, his mother, doubtless for satisfactory reasons, was de- 
 cidedly opposed ; and, with a spirit rare in gi'own-up children, he cheerfully sub- 
 mitted to her pleasure. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, the King and some of his principal friends at 
 court having died, he retired into the country and — deeper still — into 
 his own heart ; and growing more sensible of the comparative ' ' vanity 
 of earthly things, and of the grandeur and reality of things above," 
 he at length resolved to take orders and enter the Church, which he 
 subsequently did, and about the same time took a wife — his mother 
 having already died without seeing one or the other, though she had 
 much desired both. Being now well and most happily married, he 
 
GLIMPSES OF GEOEGE HERBERT. 241 
 
 was, in his thirty-sixth year, inducted to the pleasant parsonage of 
 Bemerton, near Salisbury ; ' and on the night of his induction he told 
 Mr. Woodnot that he was " sure to live well, because the virtuous life 
 of a clergyman is the most powerful eloquence to persuade all that see 
 it to reverence and love, and at least to desire to live like him. And 
 (added he) I will do this because I know we live in an age that hath 
 more need of good examples than precepts." How much are such men 
 wanted in every age ! It is a remarkable index to the spirit of our own 
 time, that Mr. Gilfillan (himself a Scotch Presbyterian) should bear the 
 following testimony to the character and elaborate practices of George 
 Herbert, the great archetype of true old English parsons : — 
 
 And now began a career of labour, so short, so sweet, and so splendid in its holy 
 lustre, that we can best compare it to an autumnal day in the close of October, 
 when the union of the softest of suns and the meekest of earths is as brief as it ia 
 bright and perfect, reminding us of that beautiful strain of the Poet himself — 
 
 " Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 
 The bridal of the earth and sky ; 
 Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night ; 
 For thou must die." 
 
 He commenced his ministerial work, as at Layton, by repairing the church, the 
 chancel, and the parsonage. He began, too, immediately to care for the poor, to 
 visit the sick, and, in the grand, simple, immortal language of Burke, " to remem- 
 ber the forgotten." He next bound himself by a set of written resolutions, which 
 we find now condensed in his little book called " The Country Parson," to perform 
 his duties in regular system and series. His first text was, " Keep thy heart with 
 all diligence ;" and it soon became apparent that he meant it to apply to himself 
 as well as his parishioners. His first sermon was elaborate, flowered with many of 
 his after " Temple " ornaments, and delivered with much eloquence. But he soon 
 found out that a rich feather does not always imply a strong wing, and that the 
 force of a shaft is not always in proportion to the plumage which surrounds it. He 
 became, as all true preachers become at length, maoh more practical and simple ; 
 he tried, too, to get his audience to realise the meaning of the English Church 
 service; and, as it was said of Augustus, that he found Rome brick and left it 
 marble, so let Herbert have this praise, that he found religion in his parish an 
 empty form, and left it an earnest reality. He gave his people a reason for every 
 ceremony and form of their ritual, — he did something far more than this, he con- 
 vinced them that his soul and heart were thoroughly in the service. He commenced 
 the practice of ohatechising his flock every Sunday afternoon, and generally secured 
 a full and attentive audience. His love for order and decorum led him to reprove 
 nothing more severely than indecency of behaviour during the time of public wor- 
 ship. Along with his wife, and three nieces of his, and all his family, he went twice 
 every day to church prayers, at the hours of ten and four, and " then and there 
 lifted up pure and charitable hands to God in the midst of the congregation." This 
 could not fail of producing an impression upon the neighbourhood ; a great quiet 
 revival of religion was the result. Most of his parishioners, and many gentlemen 
 from the neighbourhood, constantly attended his chapel during week-days. Not a 
 few let their plough rest in mid furrow, when Mr. Herbert's Saints'' Bell rung to 
 Q 
 
242 - CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 prayers, and thoy are said to have found or fancied that when reBumed it moved 
 more briskly to the tune of the good man's blessing. 
 
 In Herbert's short but intense pastoral life, he did his duty manfully 
 and christianly, according to his own best idea of what was manly and 
 christian-like, and died in 1633, equally reverenced and beloved. No 
 doubt there are many who would regard him, both in his life and 
 poetry, as a man too mindful of church externals. But in this there 
 is at least the noble defence for him — that there was not in any of 
 its rites, to him, one empty formality. To him the whole Church was 
 a beautiful and living bride of Grod, and every limb and lineament had 
 its own vital office in relation to the whole body. Agreement and unity 
 were therefore typified in all he saw, whether in the Church, the Uni- 
 verse, or in Man. Thus to such a mind all things were indicators 
 one of another, as Avere altogether of God's great love and wisdom. And 
 why not ? Was he not a poet, with an affinity in all things for rhythm 
 and rhyme — to whom the leaving out of a proper figure in a landscape, 
 or a dot on paper even — still more a single dot or symbol in the church 
 service — would have given pain ? Unpoetical people can have no ade- 
 quate apprecianco of this peculiar quality, of which James Montgomery 
 afforded so fine an example. Before Chantrey shone as a sculptor he 
 had not unsuccessfully tried his hand at painting ; and in one of his 
 pictures, intended to illustrate Bhodes's " Scenery of the Peak," he 
 had sketched a solitary place — on the Wye, in Miller's Dale. When 
 done, the painter, as was the case with most who saw it, felt a want in 
 it which his own genius failed at the moment to supply. At length, on 
 his friend the poet coming into the studio, Chantrey said — " Tell me, 
 Montgomery, what it is that's wanted to complete that picture. Every- 
 body can see a want, but nobody suggests a remedy." " Why," said 
 Montgomery, "the painting is that of a solitude, and you want to 
 make the solitude /tj/i. Perhaps if you were to place the figure of a 
 lonely man at this point (indicating the spot with his finger or cane) it 
 would be accomplished." This was immediately done ; and when long 
 years had passed away, and Chantrey was dead, in a critique on his 
 life and labours it was remarked that had he persevered in painting he 
 might have shone therein as in sculpture, and the conception of that 
 very figure in such a position was instanced as a proof of his remarkable 
 sense of propriety and fine taste I Nov\r this faculty, as I take it — this 
 exquisite sense of the harmonious relation of external forms and internal 
 principles — has seldom been more indicated in any man than in George 
 Herbert : hence his ideal of an external church corresponding to the 
 perfection of the human form, and that form " a living temple of the 
 Holy Ghost." In his great and varied poem of " The Temple" this 
 
GLIMPSES OF GEORGE HERBERT. 243 
 
 is illustrated a hundred times, and is touched upon if not illustrated 
 in the following on Man : — 
 
 My God, I heard this day, 
 That none doth build a stately habitation 
 But he that means to dwell therein. 
 What house more stately hath there been, 
 Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation 
 All things are in decay. 
 
 Man is all symmetry, 
 Pull of proportions, one limb to another, 
 And to all the world besides : 
 Each part may call the farthest, brother : 
 For head with foot hath private amity, 
 
 And both with moons and tides. 
 
 Nothing hath got so far, 
 But Man hath caught and kept it, as his prey. 
 His eyes dismount the highest star. 
 He is in little all the sphere : 
 Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they 
 Find their acquaintance there. 
 
 For us the winds do blow ; 
 The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow. 
 Nothing we see, but means our good, 
 As our delight, or as our treasure : 
 The whole is, either our cupboard oifood, 
 Or cabinet oi pleasure. 
 
 The stars have us to bed ; 
 
 Night draws the curtain, which the Sun withdraws : 
 
 Music and light attend our head. 
 
 All things unto our flesh are kind 
 
 In their descent and heing ; to our mind 
 
 In their ascent and cause. 
 
 More servants wait on Man, 
 Than he'll take notice of : in every path 
 
 He treads down that which doth befriend him 
 When sickness makes him pale and wan. 
 Oh, mighty love ! Man is one world, and hath 
 Another to attend him. 
 
 Since then, my God, thou hast 
 So brave a Palace built ; dwell in it, 
 That it may dwell with thee at last 1 
 Till then, afford us so much wit, 
 That, as the world serves us, we may serve thee. 
 And both thy servants be. 
 
 Such his idea of the relations of the human structure. Mark, too, 
 Q, 2 
 
244 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 hig acquaintance with its internal heritage and working. He is speak- 
 ing of griefs : — 
 
 We are the earth ; and they, 
 Like moles -within us, heave and oast about : 
 And till they foot and clutch their prey. 
 They never cool, much less give out. 
 No smith can make such looks, but they have keys ; 
 Closets are halls to them ; and hearts, highways. 
 
 Only an open breast 
 Doth shut them out, so that they cannot enter ; 
 
 Or, if they enter, cannot rest, 
 
 But quickly seek some new adventure. 
 Smooth open hearts no fastening have ; but fiction 
 Doth give a hold and handle to affliction. 
 
 "Wherefore my faults and sins. 
 Lord, I acknowledge ; take thy plagues away : 
 
 For since confession pardon wins, 
 
 I challenge here the brightest day. 
 The clearest diamond : let them do their best. 
 They shall be thick and cloudy to my breast. 
 
 Gladly could we cull many more passages from this fine old author; 
 for, in the multitude of new books, the value of old ones is often 
 strangely overlooked. But one extract more must suffice. Like what 
 is already given, it displays profound knowledge of human nature and 
 some of its most important requirements : — 
 
 Oh, what a sight were Man, if his attires 
 
 Did alter with his mind ; 
 And, like a dolphin's skin, his clothes combined 
 With his desires ! 
 
 Surely if each one saw another's heart. 
 
 There would be no commerce. 
 No sale or bargain pass : all would disperse, 
 And live apart. 
 
 Lord, mend or rather make us : one creation 
 
 Will not suffice our turn : 
 Except thou make us daily, we shall spurn 
 Our own salvation. 
 

 l^tept^r |^uif[niif|tk 
 
 JOHN GEATTON, THE QUAKER PREACHER, 
 
 AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 (July, 1860.) 
 
 From what has been said in previous chapters and will follow in this 
 and others, the reader may not unnaturally infer that I have some 
 innate regard for Quakers or Quakerism, and perhaps a candid word 
 or two on the subject may not be here out of place. I have not the 
 least pretension to being one of the sect ; it would be as unfair to 
 those within it as to myself were it supposed that I had ; but I hold it 
 impossible for any person with a mental constitution like mine — touched 
 from earliest childhood with a love of Good, and of whatever spirit 
 beauteous nature may be the garb, in a home where books and con- 
 versation habitually referred to inmost truth, and where it was daily 
 brought out in the actions and ordinary phraseology of life — ever, 
 without total depravity, to grow altogether indifferent to such influ- 
 ences. And as the last person of whom I should expect any virtue 
 would be a hard, self-seeking or self-satisfied man of the world, pluming 
 himself on being a Friend from the mere accident of birth in the society 
 or dry external conformity to its rules and customs ; so, contrarily, I 
 have ever found the genuine Friend, whether such from birth or by 
 late conviction, one of the most tender, self-devoted, honourable, and 
 estimable of Christians. Besides reading how the Spirit of the Lord 
 
246 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 had often manifested itself to such in their silent hours of ahstraction 
 from the ordinary fret and glare of the world, I had once myself an 
 experience not easily to be forgotten. It was when I was yet a little 
 child that one sabbath day, rummaging in a large chest, I fell upon an 
 illustrated copy of the Bible, which had been published in " numbers." 
 After looking over the engravings, I came to the Apocrypha — chapters 
 of which till then I had not known the existence. Through these I 
 read, as they were very entertaining, and longed for more; but nothing 
 more of that kind appearing, being in a reading mood, I went on 
 through the early chapters of the New Testament, when my soul be- 
 came so enlivened and enlightened by the love of God in Christ Jesus, 
 that my whole being seemed changed ; and, young as I was, existence 
 had realised a charm of which I had no previous idea. Here, then, 
 was quakerism, or something like it, to start with : so that when I read 
 the experiences of the early apostles of that people and heard my father 
 reason in favour of their doctrines, instead of thinking them novel, I 
 rather wondered that all mankind did not realise and profess them. 
 Still, whenever 
 
 "-Upon the breeze the hallow'd sound 
 
 Of Sunday bells was borne, — 
 That sound which ne'er a Christian hears, 
 
 And hearing, feels forlorn," * 
 
 While people passed quietly and reverently by to their various places 
 of worship, from some of which would steal on the ear the softened 
 strains of sabbath psalms, I loved all that too, and had little disposition 
 to think harshly of others' modes of approaching the Great Supreme. 
 
 And as time passed on I was thrown strangely in contact with ex- 
 treme thinkers on all possible subjects, learning to see glimpses of 
 truth in the excogitations of most, but sad to find how little patience 
 one set of shibbolethists sometimes had with another — men quarrelling 
 about the difference in their rhind, when on getting down to the pith 
 of them one could find little diflerence at all. Hence, though loving 
 men like John Gratton, whose biography will now be given, I learnt 
 to see a true and tender Christian also — a true disciple of a True 
 Master — in "holy George Herbert," whoso entire mind, after his con- 
 version, was occupied in assimilating the outer to the inner life. 
 
 Derbyshire has sometimes produced men almost as unique and pic- 
 turesque as its scenery; and just as we would take a long journey, to 
 get an hour's quiet enjoyment in a romantic retreat like Lathkil Dale, 
 so would it be pleasant to find a track through two centuries, that 
 
 * Lord John Manners. 
 
JOHN GKATTON AND HIS TIMES. 947 
 
 would bring one in contact at last with men lilie John Gratton, the 
 Quaker Apostle of the Peak. His " Journal " almost does this ; and 
 it not only gives us a very interesting self-drawn portrait of a very 
 remarkable man, but many most graphic, and sometimes thrilling 
 touches of the times and scenes in which he lived and laboured. 
 Without reference to its polemical features, it would be excellent read- 
 ing for the lover of history and of bold and broad human character ; 
 but for those who would wish to contemplate Quakerism in its birth- 
 struggle, and in its primitive integrity, before it had overcome public 
 prejudice, or was in likelihood of becoming respectable on 'Change — 
 when those who preached its doctrines were fined twenty pounds a-time 
 for doing so, and the hearers five shillings each for attending, with a 
 chance of long imprisonment besides — it is about as good a little book 
 as could be taken up for the purpose. I do not wish, in saying this, 
 to be understood as eulogising all the old patriarch's peculiar views, 
 or the epithets, some of them sounding rather like nick-names — for it 
 was an age in which most sects gave each other nick-names — which 
 he now and then bestowed upon other professors and their places of 
 worship. But for its originality, simple honesty, quaintness and pic- 
 turesqueness, as well as moral bravery and aspiration after truth, at a 
 time in which religion, when not fretful, was all but fast asleep, it 
 is a Life that might be studied by people of any sect with advantage 
 even in our own day. 
 
 John Gratton appears to have been bom in the year 1641, or 1642, 
 somewhere about six miles from Monyash,* and those readers who 
 happen to know much of the wild and solemn scenery of that pastoral 
 region, will the better understand him, as he so quaintly yet tenderly 
 writes — "" When it first pleased the Loi'd to visit me, and to cause his 
 light to shine in me, (which is now my life,) I was but a child, and 
 was keeping my father's sheep." He then goes on to describe the 
 reproofs of " the inward monitor" for sin, and its encouragements to 
 virtue, until he could not rest short of " the peace that passeth under- 
 standing," cost him whatever it might. He found it not in " play 
 amongst vain boys, playing at cards, shooting at butts, or ringing of 
 bells ; " nor even was he quite at home among either the orthodox or 
 the puritans of his own locality, for he says, " I then read much, and 
 conferred with many about religion, and ran to and fro, to hear them 
 that were accounted great preachers, but neglected the Great Teacher 
 in my own heart, and esteemed the priests that were then in place, in 
 Oliver Cromwell's time, and went constantly to hear them, but often 
 
 * A primitive village, south-west of Bakewell and north of Yonlgreave. 
 
248 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 came home full of sorrow." To him many of them seemed like men, 
 as he says, "seeking the living amongst the dead, and among dead 
 ordinances, dead faiths, dead observations, and dead professions." 
 Still, he was by no means satisfied with himself; for, he adds, "I 
 mourned deeply, and was ready to think my heart was not right in the 
 sight of God, and I prayed much in the stable, and in barns, and in 
 bed, and on the high moor. And one day, being on the top of a hill, 
 in the snow, I cried aloud in strong cries to the Lord, being all alone, 
 and desired him to show me my own heart ; and the Lord was pleased 
 to hear and answer my prayer at that time, for I plainly saw it to be 
 deceitful, and not a good, humble, pure heart, and I was pleased that I 
 saw it and knew what it was, but sorry it was so very bad." 
 
 He had now deep tribulation and sorrow, within and without, for 
 King Charles the Second had come to the crown, and the Act of Uni- 
 formity being passed, he says — ' ' The Presbyterian priests whom I had 
 so much esteemed and admired, made their farewell sermons and left 
 us, which caused me to weep bitterly." He thought they were but 
 cowardly Christians to be silent at man's command ; nor did he think 
 better of the dominant party who ordered them to be silent, or pay a 
 heavy penalty for speech. He next sought solace amongst some people 
 at Chesterfield, but complains much of their timidity. A singular 
 picture of the times is given in the following passage ; it reminds us 
 forcibly of the hunted Scottish Covenanters : — 
 
 When we went to meetings, we were cautioned to go as privately as might be; 
 so that they went several ways, one under one hedge-side, and another under 
 another, that we might not he taken notice of, to meet as we could. Then when 
 we came to the meeting-places, scouts or watchers were set to see, and to give 
 notice, that if a magistrate came, we might all run away, and break up our meeting. 
 This seemed a wrong thing to me, and it displeased me ; for I saw that they were 
 not like the disciples of Christ, who were not afraid or ashamed to own Christ 
 before men. It did not tend to spread the Gospel, if they preached it. So I got 
 no true peace of God among them, nor enjoyment of the Lord in my poor soul. 
 
 It was impossible for anyone to live long in such a state without the 
 love of God being manifest to him, wherefore he writes : — ■ 
 
 Now it pleased the Lord to open and shew me many things, and he opened the 
 Holy Scriptures to me sometimes, and I was mightily afraid of sinning against the 
 Lord, so that I walked carefully. And it grieved me to see people live badly, and 
 that they could not believe one another what they said when they bought and sold ; 
 and when I heard a man swear, I trembled. Sometimes I felt something in my 
 inner parts that was very precious and sweet to me, yet I did not clearly understand 
 what it was, or what it should be ; but if at any time I did or said anything amiss, 
 then I soon lost the sight and feeling of it ; oh ! it hath been gone in a moment. 
 
 On one occasion we find him reading and then weeping under a wall 
 
JOHN GEATTON AND HIS TIMES. 249 
 
 in a field ; after which he was ill, and near to death. " But," sajs he, 
 " after I was pretty well again, I went to the moor to pull heath ; and 
 being alone, as my manner was, I was very full of exercise, and began 
 to think, that that which I had sometimes felt so sweet and precious, 
 and sometimes as a swift witness, a reprover, a just judge, and a 
 condemner of all unrighteousness, was the Holy Spirit of God ; and 
 remembered that I had often been visited by it, and yet did not 
 know it. For I did not think I was worthy to have the Holy Spirit 
 given me, but that it would be presumption in me to expect it, yet 
 now it came into my mind to think much of it, and of its operations 
 and workings in me ; so that it darted into my mind that it was really 
 the Spirit of Truth." 
 
 Thus far I have confined myself as closely as possible, and with but 
 little comment, to the simple shepherd's own narrative. But it now 
 occurs to me to point out the fact, that while this process was going 
 on in his mind, in the fields and on the moors of Derbyshire, it was 
 going on not less vigorously in the minds of some thousands similarly 
 circumstanced throughout the kingdom, — each one thinking himself 
 almost alone in such experience, yet longing for communion with others 
 of like spirit. Most of all was it working in the more beautiful, sub- 
 lime, or pastoral districts— as in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, 
 Cumberland, and Northumberland, but not without something of it in 
 the large cities and towns as well. So that when George Fox, whose 
 early experience was almost precisely analogous to that of Gratton, 
 went forth to proclaim the doctrine of the Universal, Omniscient, and 
 Omnipotent, though silent Teacher, he found people everywhere who 
 seemed as if they had been waiting for him, and who joined him and 
 his friends as soon as the identity of their views and aspirations became 
 known. For some time they knew each other only by the name of 
 Friends ; but a barrister in Derby having given them the nickname of 
 Quakers, the world caught it up, and they have borne it ever since. 
 At first, honest John was rather shy of them from some ill reports 
 which had been spread ; but walking, as he tells us, in a wood, one 
 Sabbath day, he had "a vision," in which their true character was 
 shown him, and in which it appeared to him that the Lord owned 
 them, and that he must join them, though they were "a people of all 
 others that endured the greatest sufferings, and were by all the rest 
 hated, reviled, and scorned." It is impossible in the short space of 
 this chapter, to follow him through all his preliminary buffettings, 
 trials, and encouragements ; but we find him at length not only one of 
 the most devout, but most earnest and influential preachers of the 
 despised yet growing sect, though not without some curious tempta- 
 tions and drawbacks on its threshold. 
 
250 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Curious, too, it is to read some of the incidental experiences of such 
 a man in such times, — as how ho one day went to see his sister " dip- 
 ped in a river called Wye ;" how a Baptist meeting fell to be held in 
 its turn, at the house "of an elder, one Humphrey Chapman," who 
 refused to have it, for fear of the fine of twenty pounds ; how it was 
 then ofi'ered to another, "one Brume," who was "not only an elder, 
 but a preacher," and had been "dipping" two men, but he also re- 
 fused ; whilst another, William Blackshaw, more brave, ran the risk, 
 though it was not "his turn." How, then a dispute arose amongst 
 them, as to where it should be next. " Some were for meeting in the 
 bottom of a valley, to save the fine of a house ; and as for the time, 
 some were for meeting early, to have done by that time the priest and 
 people came from the steeple-house for dinner ; but some were for 
 beginning then : yet there was one," says John, "that I loved best, 
 desired that they might meet as they had done formerly." At this 
 time he was living at Monyash, and occasionally "went two miles to 
 see a woman at Over-Haddon who pretended to live without meat." 
 Sometimes we find him disputing with followers of Lodovick Muggle- 
 ton, a pretended prophet, who "cursed" him for the same. At other 
 times he is in much suffering because his wife is opposed to his opening 
 views, though they became united on that point ere long and lived in 
 the most perfect harmony. 
 
 Another trial of his principle existed in the certainty that if he were 
 faithful to it, in such a day of persecution, he must be ready to give 
 up all he had in the world, and go to prison, and perhaps thereby 
 bring his wife and children to poverty. He remained faithful, however, 
 and lived to enjoy his reward. 
 
 Unfortunately, the printer has made so many mistakes in the names 
 of places, that when we are told it vras at " Exton" Gratton was first 
 powerfully influenced in a silent meeting, I think it must have been a 
 place of some other name — probably Elton. It was at the house of a 
 widow Earnay. The company all sat in solemn stillness ; John was con- 
 vinced of the "presence and power of God," and that the people were 
 "spiritual worshippers," and though the tongue was silent there was 
 spiritual vtusic. "And I was sensible (he says) that they felt and 
 tasted of the Lord's goodness at that time, as I did. And though few 
 words were spoken, there arose a sweet melody, that went through the 
 meeting," and "more true comfort, refreshment, and satisfaction did I 
 meet with from the Lord in that meeting, than ever I had in any meet- 
 ing in my life before." After this he often felt his "peace flow as a 
 river ;" but his inward conflicts less severe, his outward trials began 
 to multiply. " For," says he, "when I came home, my poor wife was 
 
JOHN GEATTON AND HIS TIMES. 251 
 
 sore grieved that I went among Friends, and the people of our town 
 (Monyash) hegan to rage : some disputed with me, some cursed me, 
 as I heard, some pleaded for me, some derided and mocked me, calling 
 after me Quaker, Quaker ; but when I heard them thus call after me, 
 my heart was filled with joy, that I was reproached for Christ's sake." 
 One great "exercise" was owing to John's dislike to take on him 
 the simple habit and manners of his new associates. He wanted to be 
 fair at the same time to them and to the world. But he goes on to 
 write — "After some time, as I was riding on the road, and waiting, 
 the word of the Lord arose in great power, livingly in my heart, say- 
 ing, ' Speak truth to thy neighbour, be not double-tongued, respect no 
 man's person.' " He obeyed, and felt approved, and how he became 
 a preacher let his own simple language tell : — 
 
 So being come to see, in the light of the Lord, through all these things to my 
 satisfaction, I went cheerfully to Friends' meetings, and was edified and comforted. 
 And the third meeting I was at, the power of the Lord came upon me, and I was 
 pressed in spirit to declare of his goodness, but it was hard to give up ; yet I durst 
 not disobey, so I stood up and spoke to the congregation, (abundance of Friends 
 and others being met,) what was given me to understand concerning the creation 
 of man, his dominion, work, state of innooency, fall, and restoration by the pro- 
 mised seed, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind ; all which were to the great joy 
 of Friends, and reaching of the people. 
 
 The shepherd's eloquence, though learned on the lonely heath, 
 among the mountain snows, or in the deep shades of the silent woods, 
 as we have seen, must indeed have been " reaching," for we find him 
 shortly afterwards at Tideswell, a town where he had been known all 
 his life, rivetting the people by an addi-ess oifour hours, and with such 
 effect, and such a changed appearance in himself, that there arose a 
 questioning among them as to whether it could really be John Gratton 
 or no, to whom they were listening. It is a sign of the times that, 
 having at that meeting convinced a particular woman, her husband, 
 who was a Muggletonian, wrote to his prophet to curse him, which was 
 done accordingly by letter ! The "First-day," (Sunday,) following, he 
 was moved to "declare the truth " at Matlock, "where the informers 
 and officers had made sad spoil by taking away Friends' goods ;" but 
 they and the others came to the meeting notwithstanding. 
 
 The book abounds with such local and personal allusions as the 
 following : — 
 
 Now I was much concerned in preaching the Gospel of our Lord, and went to 
 and fro to meetings, and many people were convinced in divers places, — as in 
 Parley Dale, Matlock-side, Ashover parish, Brampton, Soarsdale, and in the High 
 Peak ; many and precious meetings we had, as at Matlock, Ashford, Baslow, Bradow, 
 Tideswell, Longslon, and elsewhere, as wo got liberty at houses, and meetings were 
 
252 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 settled, and many of mine own kindred were convinced, and died in the truth. I 
 have ground to hope my aged grandfatlier, who was about ninety years old, was 
 convinced, and glad of the truth in his old age, telling my mother, " This is it tliat 
 I have been seeking for all my days." After some time, I went to Derby, and got 
 some meetings there, and at Little Chester. And many Baptists were convinced 
 in Chester. 
 
 He also mentions many meetings in Nottinghamshire, in Sherwood 
 Forest, and the Yale of Belvoir, to which came priests, (as he always 
 calls the clergy,) to dispute with him, and informers and constables, 
 desirous of finding occasion to arrest him, but many of them retired 
 "smitten with the truth." One day his father came to rebuke him for 
 leaving his wife and home so much to travel in this way. There 
 happened to' be a meeting at his own house that day ; and there is 
 something very affecting, and significant of his character and powers, 
 in the result. He says : — 
 
 When the meeting was gathered, after some time I spoke ; and there were some 
 of the ohiefest of the town, whose tears I saw run down their cheeks, and my dear 
 father was so broken, that he cried aloud in great joy of heart whilst he trembled. 
 At which I was silent a little, and my father came to me before all the people, 
 weeping, and took me in his arms, kissing me, now his design of chiding me fell. 
 The next day we walked alone, and had much discourse, till he fell to weeping 
 again, and desired me to forbear, and say no more, after which we parted : he loved 
 me much, yet he never came into open obedience to the truth. After this I stayed 
 at home some time, and oh ! the peace that flowed in my heart ! 
 
 On "the 3rd of the 8th month, 1673," he sent forth an affectionate 
 "Epistle to Friends," advising them " so to mind the Lord, as to be 
 kept in such an innocent life as would let their hearts be clean habita- 
 tions for the Holy Spirit to dwell in ; " and in his journal he says, "at 
 this time truth prospered in the Peak country of Derbyshire, and the 
 word of God grew and was multiplied, the word which God sent unto 
 the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, who is f^he Lord 
 of all." 
 
 After this, we find him again in Nottinghamshire, at Great Markham, 
 "where (he says) they stoned us as we rode through the streets, and 
 brought a fool to the meeting, furnished with rotten eggs, as I sup- 
 posed, for he came and stood just before my face, and flung them 
 towards me, but did not hit me with any of them." On another occa- 
 sion at Markham, "the priest " brought the officers to break up the 
 meeting, but they were so affected by his preaching that they staid 
 without disturbing him. 
 
 What a capital painting might be made from the following descrip- 
 tion : — 
 
 Now I ran to and fro, and had many meetings, both in the High Peak, Soarsdale, 
 
JOHN GKATTON AND HIS TIMES. 253 
 
 Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire. Truth prospered gloriously; 
 and there was great convincement at Bradow, and thereabouts in the Peak ; and 
 one Jonathan Fislier and his wife, with divers others, were convinced. "We 
 appointed meetings there, hut such a multitude came, that the house could not 
 contain them. Wherefore I went into the street under a great tree, in the market 
 place, that was walled about, and I got upon the top of the wall, and spoke to the 
 people, but a company of rude fellows set on to stone us, and the stones flew about 
 my head, and rattled in the tree, yet hit me not; but a woman that happened to 
 sit near me, a great stone hit her and wounded her, and the people came and car- 
 ried her into a house, but she recovered after some time. At last a man came, 
 blaming them who threw stones at us, and got into the crowd ; but after he had 
 stood awhile, he stooped to take up a stone to fling at me, as was supposed, and 
 one of his neighbours standing by, who for some time had been very attentive, 
 seeing the man that had blamed others going to tlirow a stone, he up with his fist, 
 and struck him on the ear, that he let the stone fall, and did not fling it at me. 
 The man, who struck the other, was convinced that day, and became an honest 
 man, and so continued till his death, for aught I know. At last Henry Jackson 
 and Henry Roebuck came to the meeting, and got on the top of the wall also ; and 
 as Henry Jackson was declaring, a parcel of young lusty men came and cast off 
 their upper coats, and thrust Friends violently off the wall. Henry Jackson was 
 heavy, and they were very hard set to get him down, but they did. I went down 
 and spake to one of them, asking him why he was so uncivil. He answered, if they 
 let us alone, all the town would be Quakers. 
 
 But I went to a place of the wall that was just before the greatest part of the 
 crowd, and getting up, kneeled down on the top of the wall before their faces, and 
 all fear of stones or men was gone, and I prayed to the Lord by the help of his Holy 
 Spirit, with a loud voice, and the Lord's power came over all, and the people fell 
 in their minds, and were still, and became like another people ; and Henry Jackson 
 had good service amongst them after, and our meeting ended in great sweetness; 
 and as we rode out of the town, some blessed us, and seemed very friendly, and 
 loving, and never disturbed me after. 
 
 That there must have been something exceedingly melting, as well 
 as impressive in his preaching, to produce the effects he did in those 
 hard and rough times, will be clear from a passage in another part of 
 his book. Probably there is no district where any civil man having a 
 religious duty to perform, would, in our own day, meet with more 
 kindness than at Wirksworth, and in its neighbourhood. Religion, in 
 other forms than that of Quakerism, has done good work there ; and 
 it is likely one might now sometimes attend the market without hearing 
 a single rude expression from anybody. But it was not so once ; and 
 such men as John Gratton may have done much to bring about the 
 change. He says : — 
 
 Another day I was at Wirksworth market, and the people swore so dreadfully, 
 that it was to me as if sparks of fire had flown about, at which my spirit was sore 
 grieved ; and the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, " Go to the market-cross, 
 and declare against the wickedness of the people." But I was loth to go, for I 
 knew the people (many of them) to be a rude, wicked, drunken, swearing people ; 
 
254 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 besides, I did not know but they might pull me in pieces, and therefore I took my 
 horse and went home. But, oh ! I was followed with sharp reproofs and righteous 
 judgments from the Lord, with which I was in deep sorrow, and I looked for the 
 renewing of that concern no more. 
 
 But the next time I went, when I was in the market again, an exorcise fell heavy 
 upon me to go and warn the people. Now I went, not standing to consult any 
 more, and in the heavenly power of God declared the truth, and bore my testimony 
 against their great wickedness, insomuch that the people were much 'reached, and 
 wept aloud, and no man had power to hurt me, though I stojiped twice and sate 
 down, and waited still for the fresh motion of life, and the Lord enabled me to 
 stand up again. When I had cased my spirit, I came away in peace and great joy, 
 and after I came to my inn, some followed me, but it rose in my heart to go out 
 of town, which I did ; but after I was gone, I heard one justice Loe came to the 
 town, and sent to fetch me before him, intending to have sent me to prison, but 
 the Lord delivered and saved me out of the hands of wicked men (for this justice 
 was a great persecutor of Fi'iends). Thus the Lord was with me, and kept me 
 wherever I went ; oh ! let my soul livingly praise his holy name. 
 
 Often as we see the authorities unfavourable to the then new and 
 pecuHar sect, it was not always so ; for though a Quaker, Hugh Mas- 
 land, was cast into prison at Derby, for holding a meeting at Baslow, 
 when two informers went to "Justice Eyre, of Highlow," for a warrant 
 to take up more, he frightened and sent them away. At another time 
 "Justice Ashton, of Ashford, — a moderate and peaceful justice," posi- 
 tively shielded them — as also did the great Earl of Devonshire. Still 
 the book abounds with pictures of clerical, legal, and popular persecu- 
 tion ; but when one comes to consider what hard words the persecuted 
 frequently used in reference to what they were pleased to term "hireling 
 priests " and all who sided with them, it is no wonder that great rancour 
 was frequently provoked, where it might perhaps with a little modera- 
 tion have been left latent, or altogether dissipated. 
 
 In process of time, we trace the Derbyshire peasant to London, and 
 in repeated visits to all parts of the United Kingdom, after which we 
 find him in his own county again, iindergoing a strange probation. For 
 notwithstanding the friendship which Sir Henry Every and other wor- 
 thies showed him, ho was not only frequently distrained upon, but 
 thrown into Derby jail at last, into an old chamber, for which he " bor- 
 rowed a bed and some other odd things," where he staid, with an 
 occasional parole of honour, about five j-ears and a half, often speaking 
 to the people through his prison bars, and making friends of his keepers 
 by the kindness but frankness and bravery of his spirit. In one place 
 he says : — 
 
 I had a fire, and though I could see the stars at night through the holes in the 
 tiles, yet I lay warm enough. I had my health and was well content, and thought 
 in my mind, that this was but small suffering to what I might go through before I 
 died. So I gave up all into the Lord's hand, soul, body, and spirit, wife, children, 
 
JOHN GRATTON AND HIS TIMES. 255 
 
 and all I had, saying in my heart, sickness or health, life or death, the will of the 
 Lord be done. Oh ! how good the Lord was to me, and I lay quiet, and slept 
 sweetly. 
 
 While in prison he had sometime for companion a Catholic priest, 
 who was also in for conscience sake, and with whom he carried on no 
 little disputation, but in a kindly spirit. He also converted the jailer's 
 son to Quakerism, made an impression on his jailer, wrote a little book 
 entitled " The Prisoner's Vindication," had religious meetings within 
 the limits of the prison, was allowed as we have said, to go home on 
 parole, and see his family ; and at length by order of King James the 
 Second, was, as were many hundreds more about that time, discharged 
 in open court, on the 23rd of January, 1686. 
 
 Travelling in those days must have been very difficult — when it took 
 upwards of a fortnight to get from Edinburgh to London, and when 
 men going to London from the Midland Counties, thought it needful 
 to make their wills before starting. Especially must it have been fa- 
 tiguing and hazardous to have gone rapidly among the mountains and 
 lakes of the north, and the marshes of the east. Yet here is one of a 
 dozen similar passages that might be quoted in relation to as many 
 remote districts, after this humble man from Monyash had gained his 
 liberation : — • 
 
 Now I visited friends in Lancashire, as at Manchester, Warrington, Sankey, 
 Ormskirk, Copplemoorc, and Peuketh, where was a large lively meeting: I lodged 
 at Roger Haydook's, and at Copple at John Haydock's, and at Liverpool at Robert 
 Haydock's, and Lancaster at Robert Lawson's, and went to Swarthmore, to Kendal, 
 and divers other meetings in Westmoreland, and back to Lancaster again ; from 
 thence to Bentham, and so to John Moore's; thence to Samuel Watson's, and 
 Kettlewell; thence to William Ellis's; thence to Skipton, to John Hall's, and so 
 into Craven, and to George M3-er's house. Thence I went to several towns in the 
 Dales, where I found divers of my countrymen gone into those parts : and I was 
 at the Lady Lambert's; and then I travelled to Drawel, to John Blakelin's, at Sed- 
 berg, and went to a meeting at Scarsdale, and there were twelve convinced that 
 day: and so to Couuterset, to Richard Robinson's, and down the country to Robert 
 Lodge's, to York, Leeds, and Halifax, and to John Winn's, at Bradford, and to 
 Sikehouse meeting, and down by Ouse, to Pomfret, and so to and fro in several 
 places ; for I did not then keep a journal of all places or passages as I might have 
 done. And I was twice at Hull, and Brigg, and at Winteringham, and Gains- 
 borough, and the Isle of Axholm, at Epworth, and Thorn, and back to Pomfret, 
 Sheffield, Hansworth Woodliouse, and Barlborough Hall,* Dronfield, Whittington, 
 and at Chesterfield very often; and the Lord was with me in his great love and 
 mercy, else my travels had been tiresome and unpleasant, but the Lord helped me 
 many a time; yea, the living know it, and met with Him to their comfort, else 
 meeting with me could have done little, for the work, was the Lord's, and he 
 
 * Sir John Rhodes, Bart., of Barlborough, was himself a convert to Quakerism, 
 and very hospitable to his humbler brethren. 
 
266 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 wrought in us, and for us, of his own good pleasure : glory, honour, and praise, is 
 wholly due to him. After this I went into Cheshire, and went to most meetings in 
 that county. After that I travelled in several counties in England, both East, West, 
 and South; as Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, 
 Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Bristol, 
 and from thence through other counties northward ; as Worcestershire, and 
 Staffordshire, in my return home, and found friends in great love and unity, and 
 many were convinced, truth prospered, and we were sweetly refreshed and com- 
 forted together. 
 
 He went also into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Yet with all his 
 trials and devotion to his unpaid ministerial work, he seems never to 
 have been reduced to poverty. After being discharged from prison he 
 laboured more industriously than ever, in almost all parts of the king- 
 dom, for the diffusion of the Quaker doctrines, with great success. We 
 find him at one time preaching at Eastwood, and charged by the clergy- 
 man of that place with stealing his sheep (meaning his hearers.) That 
 clergyman was the paternal ancestor of the Howitts, famous Quakers 
 of later days ; and Gratton while thus employed was lodging at Heanor, 
 at the house of Francis Tantum, their maternal ancestor. So strangely 
 do things come about in the course of time ! 
 
 At length, after burying his wife, to whom he had been ever affec- 
 tionately attached, and selling his property at Monyash, in the year 
 1707, he went for a time to London and its neighbourhood, but finally 
 retired to the house of his daughter, Phcebe Bateman, at Farnsfield, in 
 Nottinghamshire, where he closed his noble life-struggle for the Truth 
 as he understood it, in the month of January, 1711-12, at peace with 
 God and all mankind. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the peculiar tenets of John Gratton 
 and his confreres, in the troublous days in which he lived, or of the 
 methods by which those tenets were promulgated and maintained, it is 
 impossible to contemplate such a life as his without some degree of 
 admiration. Whether as the shepherd-boy among his native hills, 
 hungering and thirsting after righteousness until he could not help 
 " crying mightily to the Lord " for aid in those wild solitudes ; as the 
 unflinching champion on the wall, overcoming volleys of abuse and 
 stones by spiritual power alone ; as the prisoner in Derby jail, "sleep- 
 ing sweetly" amidst his wrongs, or as going forth again boldly as soon 
 as liberated to proclaim the right ; and finishing only when his duty, 
 according to his own sense of it was done, in obedience to the will of 
 God ; it is hardly possible to regard his disinterested labours without 
 wonder, or his memory without love. It is to men like him we owe 
 much of our own religious liberty ; and whatever their creed, we owe 
 them also a place of sacred regard among our literary shrines. 
 
l/tapbr l/uptg-Jir^i 
 
 BERNARD BARTON 
 
 THE QUAKER POET." 
 
 (Mat, 1866.) 
 
 What a wonderful and curious arena is the human mind ! At this late 
 hour of the night, when those who are nearest and dearest are all at 
 rest, when all around is husht and all within is calm, what scenes, that 
 take up large space in the world of matter and sense, occupy the soul 
 without needing space at all ! and what forms of departed friends come 
 in all their vividness and variety of character, to people those scenes 
 with their pensive memories ! If a hundred photographs lay one 
 upon another before me on this table, the uppermost would hide all 
 below it from sight ; — but a thousand mentagraphs may occupy the 
 memory, and not one of them obscure another. Nay, sometimes the 
 thought of one of them will rapidly kindle all the rest into instant 
 vivacity, by that talismanic law — the law of association : so great is the 
 distinction between the worlds of matter and spirit ; so opaque is one, 
 so transparent the other ; yet, though so transparent and so incapable 
 of being weighed, or crushed, or in any way destroyed, so substantially 
 real in all the essentials of form, colour, motion, expression, and even 
 sound ! For to this moment can memory call up some of the earliest 
 words of affection to which we listened, in all their beautiful meaning 
 
258 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 and melody, as well as the faces and manners of those who uttered 
 them ! Nor is this all. Though there may be times when it is diffi- 
 cult to prevent a sudden rush of associations which, while it crowds 
 the mind overwhelms the heart, there are other times when, accord- 
 ing to the occasion, we have power to select the one, or two, or more 
 friends or acquaintance with whom it is pleasant thus to hold re-com- 
 munion for the hour. Come forward, dear old Bernard Barton ! and 
 take thy place in this fireside chair, and tell me again, as was thy 
 wont, of the friends and incidents thou didst love and treasure in the 
 days that are no more. Chat with me now as thou didst oft at Wood- 
 bridge viva voce, or as in those many letters of which the following, 
 if not the best, happens to be a ready sample at hand : — 
 
 Woodbridge, 2nd Month, 21st, 1847. 
 My dear Friend, — I should be very much ashamed of having suffered thy letter 
 to remain till now unacknowledged had I not been particularly engaged, and from 
 time to time, when a leisure quarter of an hour could be stolen, glad to give it to 
 complete rest and relaxation. It is no joke in one's 64th year to be desk-bound ten 
 and sometimes twelve hours ^jer diem. I have stood this now for near forty years, 
 and my very recreations being also of a sedentary kind, keeping up the same 
 mental wear and tear, though on different objects, no wonder the machine is well 
 nigh worn out, and that I feel, in a bodily sense, often very good-for-nothing-ish. . 
 . . Yet one hopes by and by to get into a world where pocket and purse are of less 
 import than in this; and, were it not so, querulous repining can never do any 
 good. A pound of sorrow or care never yet paid an ounce of debt ; and if poetry 
 has made me no richer, bating Peel's considerate pension which secures me bread 
 and cheese when I can clerk it no longer, it has added largely to my mental re- 
 sources, and procured me a few friends, who contribute to my purer happiness 
 more than wealth could. . . . . Thou wilt have heard, doubtless, of the death 
 of J. J. Gurney, of Norwich. I have put forth a little memorial of him in verse, 
 and would send thee a copy; but I got nothing for the MS. but a few copies, which 
 exhaled like dew before the sun ; and as I had to pay 8d. each with the copies I 
 sent away, for postage, or make the receiver pay 16d. when it might be bought for 
 a shilling, I grew tired of this sort of gratuitous distribution. But I think it very 
 likely, with thy outgoings and incomings among " Friends," a cojiiy of it may fall 
 into thy way some-how or some-where ; and if it should, I shall be glad to know 
 how thou likest it. I have bestowed more pains and more thought on this trifle 
 than on any poem I ever wrote, for its subject's sake, and from an idea that it 
 might circulate pretty widely, both among Friends and others ; but I could not 
 drive a bargain or think of pecuniary profit in connection with an act of duty and 
 labour of love ; so I only considered how it might have the best chance of extensive 
 circulation among Friends, and gave \\p all idea of emolument to secure this. Such 
 a very slight affair as a poem of 24 Spenserian stanzas, and a page or two of in- 
 troductory verse to the Widow, is not likely to get noticed in reviews, or be dandled 
 into any popularity by periodicals, even were the theme one to prepossess these 
 awarders of fame. I should scarce think that Gilpin would throw away many copies 
 on such ; but, though only out a week, it has already brought me I think near 30 
 letters from Friends, and others out of our pale, as kind and commendatory as I 
 had any reason to expect — perhaps more so— for a tribute to the memory of a 
 
BERNARD BARTON. 259 
 
 Quaker preacher by a Quaker poet is not everybody's reading : so I make the best 
 of my quiet recompense in verdicts by the post, to atone for the absence of any 
 from the press. I did not write it in the hope of fame, profit, praise, or thanks ; 
 so if the harvest of these be humble, I shall not be balked or overly cast down. . . 
 I shall be glad at any or all times to hear of or from thee. — Thine truly, B. B. 
 
 I have somewliere by me a good number of such kincUy, confiding, 
 free-and-easy letters from this "Busy Bee," as his old friends were 
 wont to style him from his almost invariable conclusion of his epistles 
 to them with his initials only. Here is part of another ; and I think 
 Mr. Armistead's book to which it alludes, proved to be somewhat of a 
 favourite with many readers : — 
 
 Woodbridge, 9 | 23 | 1847. 
 
 My dear Hall, — A pleasant note of Martha Perry's received only a day or two 
 prior to thy own prepared me for thy report of thyself. Thy little poem I read 
 with interest — it is simple and touching. I have done little in our vocation my- 
 self of late, from real want of time. I am desk-bound, figure-ridden, and for ought 
 I see shall be so till I drop from my perch or stool, and die in my clerkly harness. 
 I have, however, within the past week got up a little tribute to a valued and dear 
 Friend here, the wife of our friend William Norton, at the Abbey, who has been 
 snatched from us after an illness of only a week, which makes a sad loss in our 
 little Quaker world here. I know I shall miss and mourn her. I have also con- 
 cocted at the request of Wilson Armistead, of Leeds, whom I never saw or before 
 heard of, some dozen or fourteen verses to open a big book be is getting up, to be 
 entitled "A Tribute to the Negro." Knowing no more of the book than I do of the 
 Sybil's volumes of old, or the old woman who offered them for sale and kept raising 
 her price for the remaining quantum as she lessened its bulk, I almost wish my 
 unknown friend would act on some such system ; for a volume of from four to five 
 hundred pages is somewhat ominous : but he may yet condense. The world is too 
 busy in getting and spending pelf to buy big books or to read them — at least, such 
 is my notion. I could not, however, well decline furnishing a few opening verses, 
 BO replied to his letter by return of post, assuring him of my willingness to do all 
 in my power to promote his views, but begging him to reflect a little before he 
 
 ventured on a large or costly tome I shall be glad to bear from thee 
 
 again whenever thou art equal to half an hour's scribble, and sincerely hope it may 
 be in thy power to send a bright account of thyself. . . . . Thou art a j'ounger 
 man than I ; so keep up heart and hope. " Hope on ! hope ever." — Thine affec- 
 tionately, B. B. 
 
 Bernard Barton was born at Carlisle, January the 31st, 1784. His 
 great-grandfather was a "Cumberland statesman," John Barton, of 
 Ive Gill, about seven miles from Carlisle, and altogether a fine, simple, 
 patriarchal character, drawing support for himself and family, in those 
 primitive days, out of the produce of his little estate, which was in 
 itself of the estimated annual value of £2 15s., but with the addition 
 of the labour connected with it was made sufficient for all family pur- 
 poses^and more ; for that man (he was a churchman) was the chief 
 means of building the little chapel still standing in the dale. His 
 great-grandson, the poet, was justly proud of such an ancestor. The 
 r2 
 
260 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 next of the line (our Bernard's grandfather, and whose name was 
 Bernard,) went and set up a manufactory in Carlisle, and had a medal 
 from the Royal Society for the invention of a piece of machinery, which 
 Pennant thus quaintly describes, as a then novelty: — "Saw at Mr. 
 Bernard Barton's a pleasing sight of twelve girls spinning at once at a 
 horizontal wheel, which set twelve bobbins in motion ; yet so contrived 
 that, should any accident happen to one, the motion of that might be 
 stopped without any impediment to the others." The inventor's son 
 liked the manufactory he inherited, and the ledger connected with its 
 operations, much less than he did Locke, Addison, or Pope. He 
 changed his business, left the Church of England, became a member 
 of the Society of Friends, and married a Cheshire lady of the same 
 persuasion, Mary Done, who bore him several children, of whom three 
 only lived to maturity— two daughters, and the subject of our sketch, 
 one of the daughters, whose name in marriage was Maria Hack, being 
 well known as the author of several useful children's books. John 
 Barton removed to London while his son was yet a little child, and, 
 his first wife having died a few days after that child's birth, he married 
 again a Friend of the name of Elizabeth Home, who proved to be not 
 only a good wife to him, but so good a mother to his little bereft one 
 that the boy never felt she was not his real mother. I much regret 
 not having room here to quote all he says in her praise. John Barton 
 did not live to see the only child — a son — of his second marriage born. 
 Bernard was in duo time sent to a Friends' school of some repute at 
 Ipswich, spending his holidays with his good stepmother at Tottenham: 
 and when fourteen years of age was apprenticed to Samuel Jesup, a 
 shopkeeper at Halstead, in Essex. There he staid behind the counter 
 eight years. In 1806 he went to Woodbridge, a year afterwards marry- 
 ing his former master's niece, Lucy Jesup, and going into partnership 
 with his brother as a coal and corn merchant. But, as his own mother 
 had died in giving him birth, so did his loved and affectionate wife die, 
 a year after his marriage, in giving birth to a daughter. Tiring, now, 
 of the scene of his sorrow, and feeling (like his father) more affinity for 
 literature than for the ledger, he quitted Suffolk for the time and 
 engaged himself as private tutor in the family of Mr. Waterhouse, a 
 merchant in Liverpool, where he formed a friendship with the Roscoes ; 
 but at the end of a year returned to Woodbridge, where he took the 
 situation of clerk in the banking-house of Messrs. Alexander — con- 
 tinuing at his work there, as hinted to me in his letter just quoted, for 
 forty years, nor relinquishing the office-stool till within two days of his 
 death. He had a presentiment that he should die in " clerkly har- 
 ness," as he more than once told me, and so it came to pass at last. 
 
BERNARD BARTON. 261 
 
 From childhood Bernard Barton was fond of books, and grew in a 
 natural sort of way into communion and friendship with such as wrote 
 them. His publication of " Metrical Effusions" in 1812 brought him 
 into a correspondence with Southey which continued long. It was 
 about that time too that the Ettrick Shepherd's "Queen's Wake" came 
 into notice, and very deservedly won speedy attention from most lovers 
 of poetry. Bernard addressed to the Shepherd some complimentary 
 verses on its advent that led to a result at which it is impossible not 
 to smile — bringing grateful letters from Hogg, who coupled with his 
 thanks some mention of a high-flown tragedy he had just written, and 
 which he asked the grave young Quaker to use his influence, since 
 "justice could not be done it in Edinburgh," to get presented on the 
 London stage ! Bernard, finding himself quite at sea in such a matter, 
 called in the counsel of Mr. Capel Lofft, who succeeded in dissuading 
 Hogg from trying the London managers at all. This was probably our 
 friend's nearest approach to any connection with theatres ; though 
 when, in 1822, some Englishmen were performing in Paris, and one 
 of them of the name of Barton appeared on the stage, several of the 
 audience called out to know if he was " Bernard Barton, the Quaker 
 poet ! " 
 
 Besides all he wrote for magazines, annuals, and albums — which 
 could not have been little, for he had the heart to please everybody — 
 between 1818 and 1828, Barton must have published not less than six 
 volumes of verse, and that without having neglected a single duty at 
 the bank. In addition to this, he carried on a constant and most ex- 
 tensive correspondence, chiefly with literary and philanthropic people. 
 Like the man who, not having time to write a short letter, wrote a long 
 one, Bernard, to whom writing seemed as natural and needful as 
 breathing, gave himself no time to condense. Hence, while some of 
 his effusions are very beautiful, and all of them innocent, many of 
 them are tame. Yet, to 1dm, there was mercy in this fact. Let us 
 look at the matter pathologically. In all the forty years he was in 
 that banking office he had a slowly but constantly growing disease of 
 the heart. And if one only thinks (considering the close and concen- 
 trated attention required by the bank books) how needful it was for the 
 faculties to have some frequent spring in a contrary direction, if only 
 for the mind's relief, was it not a great blessing to him and to all who 
 loved him, that he could thus, as soon as his daily duty was done, rise 
 into a childlike though reverent playfulness of thought, and ventilate 
 his soul in an atmosphere which would have been rendered useless to 
 him if he had still endeavoured in it to make a condensing machine of 
 his already tasked brain ? But, whatever their diffuseness, their sim- 
 
262 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 plicity or tameness, there is one charming quality pervading nearly the 
 whole of Bernard Barton's verses — a cheerful moraUty, which has had 
 this effect on me, for one— that, whatever mood I may have been in, 
 however disappointed, chagrined, or depressed, on taking up one of his 
 volumes and reading, I never laid it down without a feeling of freer 
 breathing, refreshment, and consolation. And this I take to be no bad 
 test of the real worth of any author. If in a state of gloom I take up 
 Byron, he gives me at best, with all his magnificence, but a lurid light 
 — the belching fire of a volcano, perchance, or the flash we never see 
 but in the company of a thunder cloud. But if, instead, I happen to 
 open one of Bernard's " tomes," as he sometimes calls them, I may 
 see an immense proportion of rythmical common-place ; I may be re- 
 minded of fifty ti'uisms learnt in my school-books forty or fifty years- 
 ago ; but I am carried back by them forty or fifty years, as by a bridge, 
 over all the trials and sorrows of that chequered interval, and, when 
 laying down the book, feel myself in restoring contact with the sim- 
 plicity, innocence, and freshness of my childhood once more. Such is 
 sometimes the use of the most homely verse. 
 
 " 'Tis not a poem's length alone, 
 Nor its elaborate art, 
 That can most worthily make known 
 The feelings of the heart." 
 
 Frequently during the three last years of his life I was with Bernard 
 Barton at his own house contiguous to the bank, or met him at the 
 house of a good and gifted mutual friend, Mrs. Knight, the "A. K." 
 of his and Charles Lamb's cheery correspondence. I found him always 
 what he had once, in writing to some friend, described himself, when 
 he said — " My temperament is, as far as a man can judge of himself, 
 eminently social. I am wont to live out of myself, and to cHng to 
 anything or anybody loveable within my reach." In person, slightly 
 disposed to stoutness but scarcely reaching it, and dressed in the most 
 moderate and unaffected style of his sect, with a face in which friendli- 
 ness, affection, shrewdness, and quiet but unmistakeable fun, were 
 most genially blended, he was a man of whose company it was impos- 
 sible not to feel glad. By the fireside of a neighbour, at his own table, 
 or at the Friends' meeting where I have been with him, and where 
 even his silence had a touch of character about it, this was alike the 
 case. He was addicted, however, to a peculiar grant (it did not 
 amount to a gi'oan) which might seem like an eccentricity to a stranger, 
 but which I have no doubt was occasioned by that disease of the heart 
 of which so few were aware, and which was one day to snatch him so 
 suddenly from mortal sight. He loved everything kindly, rational or 
 
BEENAED BAETON. 263 
 
 innocently droll, and had the faculty of inspiring even his dullest com- 
 panions with the same love. There was far more humour in his talk 
 than in his writings ; but now and then you meet with a rich flavour of 
 it in his letters. Among his correspondents were Southey, Scott, Words- 
 worth, Byron, Charles Lamb, Charles Lloyd, Allan Cunningham, John 
 Mitford, Airey the Astronomer Royal, the Rev. George Crabbe, and 
 other men of the first mark, many of whom were intimate friends ; and 
 many of the letters passing between them and him are as racy as they 
 are candid, genial, and sensible. Let us snatch a few brief passages 
 from two or three of them, just by way of example : — 
 
 Keswick, 27 Jan., 1822. 
 I am much pleased with the " Poet's Lot " — no, not with his lot, but with the 
 verses in which he describes it. But let me ask you — are you not pursuing your 
 studies intemperately, and to the danger of your health ? To be writing long after 
 midnight and " with a miserable head-ache " is what no man can do with impunity ; 
 and what no pressure of business, no ardour of composition, has ever made me do. 
 I beseech you, remember the fate of Kirke White ; — and remember if you saoriiice 
 your health (not to say your life) in the same manner, you will be held up to your 
 own community as a warning — not as an example for imitation. The spiirit which 
 disturbed poor Scott of Amwell in his last illness will fasten upon your name ; and 
 your fate wiU be instanced to jDrove the inconsistency of your pursuits with that 
 sobriety and evenness of mind which Quakerism requires, and is intended to pro- 
 duce You will take this as it is meant, I am sure My friend, 
 
 go early to bed ; — and if you eat suppers read afterwards, but never compose, that 
 you may lie down with a quiet intellect. There is an intellectual as well as a 
 religious peace of mind ; — and without the former, be assured there can be no 
 health for a poet. God bless you. — Yours very truly, R. Sodthet. 
 
 Mark the contrast between Southey and Charles Lamb, with shrewd 
 and patient Bernard suffering and smiling between them ! Here is an 
 extract from an ironical, bantering letter of Lamb's : — 
 
 You are too much apprehensive about your complaint. I know many that are 
 always ailing of it, and live on to a good old age. I know a merry fellow (you 
 partly know him) who, when his medical adviser told him he had drunk away all 
 that fart, congratulated himself (now his liver was gone) that he should be the 
 longest liver of the two. The best way in these cases is to keep yourself as ignorant 
 as you can — as the world was before Galen — of the entire inner constructions of the 
 animal man ; not to be conscious of a midriff ; to hold kidneys (save of sheep and 
 swine) to be an agreeable fiction ; not to know whereabouts the gall grows ; to account 
 the circulation of the blood a mere idle whim of Harvey's ; to acknowledge no me- 
 chanism not visible. For, once fix the seat of your disorder, and your fancies flux 
 into it like so many bad humours. Those medical gentry choose each his favourite 
 part ; one takes the lungs — another the aforesaid liver, and refers to that whatever 
 
 in the animal economy is amiss. Above all, use exercise Continue to 
 
 keep a good conscience, and avoid tamperings with hard terms of art — viscosity, 
 schirrosity, and those bugbears by which simple patients are scared into their 
 graves. Believe the general sense of the mercantile world, which holds that desks 
 are not deadly. It is the mind, good B. B., and not the limbs, that taints by long 
 
264 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 sitting. Think of the patience of tailors— think how long the Lord Chancellor sits 
 — think of the brooding hen. 
 
 There is a vein of good sense, as well as courtesy, in the following 
 passages from a letter of Lord Byron, written from St. James's-street, 
 London, June 1, 1812: — 
 
 Waving your obliging expressions as to my own productions, for which I thank 
 you very sincerely, and assure you I think not lightly of the praise of one whose 
 approbation is valuable, will you allow me to talk to you candidly, not critically, 
 on the subject of yours ? . . . . I think more highly of your poetical talents than 
 it would perhaps gratify you to hear expressed, for I believe, from what I observe 
 of your mind, that you are above flattery. To come to the point, you deserve suc- 
 cess; but we knew before Addison wrote his " Cato" that desert does not always 
 command it. But suppose it attained — 
 
 You know what ills the author's life assail. 
 Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail. 
 
 Do not renounce writing ; but never trust entirely to authorship. If you have a 
 profession, retain it, it will be like Prior's fellowship, a last and sure resource. . . 
 . . A truly well-constituted mind will ever be independent. That you may be so is 
 my sincere wish ; and if others think as well of your poetry as I do, you will have 
 no cause to complain of yom- readers. — Believe me your obliged and faithful 
 servant, Bveon. 
 
 Others than Byron gave Bernard Barton the same or similar advice. 
 Sir Walter Scott gave it to everybod}^ — save a Tennyson, a Dickens, or 
 some such man, who may appear about once or twice in a century to 
 kindle the popular heart — when he said, " Literature is a good staff, 
 but a sorry crutch " — not a thing to be leaned upon with the whole 
 weight ; and Bernard chose that wiser part, sticking close (though 
 better had it not been quite so close) to daily duty. Yet did he con- 
 trive some gratifying indulgence of his tastes. His little house was 
 stored with books, and almost lined with pictures, many of them keep- 
 sakes, and there, with his intelligent daughter (named after her mother, 
 Lucy), and occasionally visiting-friends, or dropping-in neighbours, of 
 taste — with a holiday hour now and then in which to take breath and 
 revel in the beauty of the country, his life, on the whole, was anything 
 but a cheerless one. He had a warm appreciation of art ; a warmer 
 of nature ; but of human nature the warmest — yet deeply loved and 
 reverenced things divine. For children he had an intense affection, 
 and a tender pity for all that was poor and oppressed. 
 
 In an age when mincing of language was becoming very common 
 among some of his confreres, it was a treat to hear the laureate of 
 Quakerism speak out boldly in the phraseology of Fox, Barclay, and 
 Penn. He never indulged in that most ungrammatical, milk-and- 
 waterish style of talk in which " how-does-ihee-do ? " and "thee knows" 
 
BERNARD BARTON. 265 
 
 SO unpleasantly prevail. "Dost thou" and "thou knoicest," (which 
 always sounded politely from a genuine Friend), were forms of speech 
 he was never afraid to use. And though it is doubtful if there was in 
 his day a man of any faith more tolerant of all who differed from him, 
 it is equally doubtful if there was one more sincere in his own. He 
 could afford to say playful things about some of the peculiarities of his 
 sect ; but, if playful, they were not the less respectful, and he was at 
 heart, as well as in his speech, notwithstanding all his intercourse with 
 writers of every school and talkers of every type, a Friend indeed, 
 without truckling or flinching. There is a great change going on of 
 late among his people, in which it is to be hoped that true plainness 
 may be retained while much formality is dispensed with. But as a 
 protest for two centuries against frivolities in fashion and over-obse- 
 quiousness in speech, there can be little doubt that (as in some still 
 more important matters) Quakerism has had a useful mission. In days 
 of too much talk, it sometimes I'equires great bravery in a man to be 
 still when he has nothing worth the hearing to say. And in this kind 
 of bravery, who so heroic as the ancient Friend ? It would perhaps be 
 well could we have a little more of it, and a little less loud talk, in the 
 present day. No doubt, idle silence is as possible as idle speech, and 
 perhaps as reprehensible. But, as "all forms of worship wake soine 
 thoughts divine," it would be well perhaps for many who think there 
 , may be "nothing in it," to try what occasional silent ivaiting in a j^ro- 
 found and reverent consciousness of the immediate j^resence of God's Holy 
 Spirit in the soul might bring to pass. In Bernard's own words : — 
 
 If tMs our Lord himself withdrew, 
 
 Stealing at times away, 
 Ev'n from the loved, the chosen few, 
 
 In solitude to pray, 
 How should his followers, frail and weak, 
 Such seasons of retirement seek ! 
 
 Seldom amid the strife and din 
 
 Of suhl unary things, 
 Can spirits keep their watch within, 
 
 Or plume their heaven-ward wings : 
 He must dwell deep in wisdom's heart 
 Can thus fulfil true wisdom's part. 
 
 Of all men in the world. Barton must have been one of the last to 
 enter from choice into a quarrel. Yet well did he prove to me how he 
 could take up cudgels for an injured friend, when there was occasion. 
 On my once giving some lectures in favour of vital magnetism at Ips- 
 wich, I was opposed by a man who believed he had already put it down 
 by publicly going through a sham of some of its phenomena, where- 
 
266 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 upon I argued that he had no more put down its honest pretensions by 
 that course than he would have invalidated a genuine bank-note by 
 forging an imitation of it. This made him wroth, and an article by him 
 in an adverse newspaper the next week represented all who demonstrated 
 mesmerism as impostors, on which, one morning, just aftei-wards, 
 appeared to my no little surprise, the following, addressed to me by 
 name, in two of the Suffolk county jouiraals : — 
 
 I wot not, reck not, of the Art 
 
 By thee, my friend, profest, 
 But I believe thy head and heart 
 
 Are worthy of the best. 
 
 Hence, when I witness jeer or jibe 
 
 On thy professions cast. 
 And hear thee with the impostor tribe 
 
 Attempted to be classed ; 
 
 I cannot well forbear, in sooth. 
 
 One tribute, owing birth 
 Not less unto thy moit^l truth. 
 
 Than intellectual worth ! 
 
 Thy "ism" may he, or false, or true, 
 
 But, whicbsoe'er it prove, 
 In thy upright and simple view 
 
 'Tis held with faith and love ! 
 
 And thou hast found it in the still 
 
 And quiet depths of thought. 
 And deemest it for many an Ul 
 
 With healing virtue fraught. 
 
 Then hold it in that guileless faith. 
 
 Which thy defence shall be 
 'G-ainst all that either scorn or scathe 
 Can heap on it or thee ! 
 Woodbridge, 12th Month 19th, 1846. Bernard Barton. 
 
 The assailant, under the sobriquet of Suffolk Punch, fell foul, the week 
 following, on Bernard Barton himself, abusing him in some puerile 
 rhymes because he happened to be in the receipt of a literary pension. 
 Bernard rejoined : — 
 
 Poor silly Suffolk Punch ! to me 
 'Tis plain thou hast not got the key 
 To what I wrote ; nor canst thou see 
 The reason why I wrote it ; 
 So Hall and I may rest content 
 That thy most mournful merriment 
 Should in the Chronicle find vent, 
 And with good humour note it. 
 
BERNARD BARTON. 267 
 
 As for my pension — rail away ; 
 
 He laughs who wins, old proverbs say : 
 
 My self-respeot remains my stay, 
 
 Thy satire never troubling it. 
 
 'Twas won by no servility ; 
 
 The Queen conferr'd it generously ; 
 
 And verse like thine might justify 
 
 Her Majesty in doubling it ! 
 
 I will take, with the reader's permission, this opportunity of adding 
 that, while many years ago relinquishing all imhlic exhibitions of mes- 
 meric phenomena from a moral feeling that then it was my duty to 
 do so, my honesty and earnestness, so long as I remained in the work, 
 were entire, as is my conviction of the validity of the phenomena now. 
 This is not the place for their history. But it will be readily under- 
 stood how grateful I must at that juncture have felt for so spontaneous 
 an expression of confidence from so worthy and genuine a writer as 
 dear old Bernard Barton. 
 
 Forgetting such personal matters, however, I would gladly end this 
 little memoir by saying less about myself and more about him alone, 
 did not the amount of paper I have already enscribbled, and the morn- 
 ing light peeping in at my window, bid me awake from the affectionate 
 reverie. I could (for the good his friendship did me alone, and still 
 more for the pleasure he gave to thousands besides,) love to spin a 
 kindly yarn about him as long as from Wiirdermere to Woodbridge, at 
 which latter place he suddenly died in the presence of his daughter, at 
 the age of sixty-five, at half-past eight o'clock on the evening of the 
 19th of February, 1849, after conversing in his usual genial mood with 
 a friend,— leaving in various forms, from the elaborate Spenserian to 
 the simple couplet, volumes of encouragement like the following, for 
 those who still remain : — 
 
 The night seems darkest ere the dawn of day 
 
 Rises with light and gladness on its wings ; 
 
 And every breaker that the ocean flings 
 To shore before the tempest dies away, 
 Some sign of wreck, or token of dismay, 
 
 Awakening thoughts of death and ruin, brings. 
 
 But he whose spirit resolutely clings 
 To his best hopes, on these his mind can stay. 
 
 Faith, humble faith, can doubt and fear defy ; 
 For every wound it bears a healing balm, 
 Turns sorrow's moan into thanksgiving's psalm ; 
 
 And those who trust in God when storms are high, 
 
 And waves are rough, and starless is the sky. 
 Shall sing His praise in the Eternal Calm. 
 
|;tej% |^tu^jtt})-Mcoml. 
 
 SELF-DEVOTED MEN 
 
 GEORGE PURSE GLOVE. 
 
 You have possibly heard of the saying of William Cobbett, that "no 
 man ever saw a Quaker drawing a truck and a Jew pushing behind." 
 You may also have heard the joke that, if all mankind were Quakers, 
 there would be no macadamised roads, as no person of that faith was 
 ever seen breaking stones. Or, in short and seriously, that nobody 
 ever knew a Friend so poor as to be compelled to do one or the other. 
 But, without stopping to discuss the reason of this, let me say that, 
 whatever degree of truth there may be in such remarks, I have known 
 many very hard-working Friends, and many — not all accredited mem- 
 bers perhaps, but certainly Friends in faith and practice — who were 
 very poor and very honest ; yet none, from all I ever heard of him, 
 surpassing George Purseglove and a favourite neighbour of his, in that 
 honest poverty and the industry allied to it. He first came to live in 
 my native place from somewhere in Derbyshire, bringing with him one 
 of the tenderest, purest and simplest of hearts, — or, if not, religion 
 soon made it so. It is true he had little learning, if we mean only what 
 generally bears that name ; but he knew how to do unto others what 
 he would they should do unto him ; and though only a poor stocking- 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 
 
 269 
 
 weaver, he never lacked the will or the way to relieve what that humane 
 Hindoo merchant, the other day, in his scanty English, called " a co- 
 creature in distress." And he preferred a clear conscience to all honor- 
 ary distinction ; for he could give up social influence itself when once 
 he doubted if it were precisely of the best leaven. Yet does a man 
 ever really lose influence by doing a strictly conscientious thing ? I 
 doubt it. I believe with Gray that there are flowers of human character 
 blushing comparatively unseen ; yet I do not with him believe that 
 their sweetness is ever wasted, but rather with gifted Edward Hind, 
 of Nottingham, when he says — 
 
 Ev'n as a stone into some water oast 
 
 The circle makes encircling all at last, 
 
 So a good impulse wliich at home has birth 
 
 Expands and spreads till it encircles earth — 
 
 To caste, to creed, to country unconfined — 
 
 Like God's great heaven, embracing all mankind ! 
 
 SO probable is it that the simplest act of love or duty, touching in- 
 visible and infinite psychical chords, may electrify the universe. Is it 
 possible, for instance, to suppose that all the acts of Jesus which 
 never found a literary record have ceased, or will ever cease, to 
 influence the destinies of men ? If, as the materialists tell us, the 
 shooting of a boy's marble here disturbs Saturn's ring, because of 
 the kinship of all the atoms abounding in space; how much more 
 striking must be the analogy to that doctrine in the world of Spiritual 
 Life ! Every heart beats in concert or in discord with every other 
 heart of man ; and 
 
 "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 
 
 But it is probable that George Purseglove was very innocent of all such 
 calculations as these. Whatever he did was done for its own sake, 
 much by the same rule that the birds sing, the flowers bloom, the 
 stars shine, and a thousand other useful and beautiful things perform 
 their functions according to their power, without stopping to ask either 
 for leave or approbation. In other words, his acts were the normal off- 
 spring of a heart in harmony with the Saviour's. Therefore it hap- 
 pened that, in days when the National Church was rather drowsy, 
 seeing the good done by some Methodists surpassing that done by 
 others who despised and scoffed at them, he became not only one of the 
 most earnest members of the persecuted sect, but a sort of leader. 
 
 As the Methodists were then too poor to build a chapel in Sutton, 
 they met at the house of a single-minded carpenter, named Richard 
 Hallam. But Richard becoming ultimately a convert to Quakerism, 
 told the little community, in a kindly way, that though they were 
 
270 ' CHAPTEE xxn, 
 
 welcome to meet under his roof till they could accommodate themselvea 
 better, he could not conscientiously profess to be one with them as 
 before, because of the change that had occurred in his belief. " Nay, 
 nay," said honest George, on hearing this, " we must not stay here, 
 my brethren ; for when one of the best of the flock has thus found a 
 way out of the fold, there is great danger of others following through 
 the same gap ! " Whereupon his advice was instantly taken, and the 
 body sought, en masse, another fold. But George, instead of bigotedly 
 trying to justify the step he had thus taken and preserve his leadership 
 right or wrong, began to ask himself if Richard might not possibly, 
 after all, have some reason on his side, then thought he had, and in 
 conclusion was himself the first of all that had "swarmed" to turn 
 Quaker too, thenceforth going, with several others, weekly, to the 
 meeting of that sect at Mansfield ! This naturally gave pain to his old 
 friends, one of whom, Francis Shacklock, husband of the good woman 
 hereinafter pourtrayed, and who had often been loud with him in prayer 
 and exhortation, said one day, on meeting him in the street, ' ' George, 
 I wonder at thee, so earnest as thou'st been in the service of the Lord, 
 that thou canst find in thy heart to go all the way to Mansfield every 
 Sunday and there sit dumb before him?" "Francis," was George's 
 reply, " I'm not sure that He is so fond of noise as some of us, in our 
 more imperfect experience, thought Him ! " The Wesleyans of those 
 days were louder than in ours, and Francis remained a thorough one 
 to the last. 
 
 How tender was George's conscience will be illustrated by the fol- 
 lowing incident : — As already intimated, he had begun to attend the 
 meetings at Mansfield ; and his little cottage at Sutton, being heated 
 by a very small but common grate, he thought he would find out 
 how a room so large as the chapel could be so comfortably warmed 
 without a visible fire ; and arriving one morning before the hour of 
 meeting, he went down into the vault beneath to see the apparatus. 
 There, by the side of a stove, was a heap of chips and shavings, 
 laid to be burnt, and amongst the rubbish a few such bobbins as are 
 used by stocking-weavers. Shocked at such waste, he put the bob- 
 bins in his pocket, and in the course of the week had them covered 
 with cotton. But on the next Sunday morning, a Friend, dressed all 
 in drab, though not known to have spoken publicly on any other occa- 
 sion, arose in the meeting, and saying, in the most solemn and senten- 
 tious manner, "Touch not, take not, handle not that which is not thine 
 own," sank down again on his seat without another word. Such a 
 warning was, of course, well calculated to put every one present upon 
 a process of self-examination ; and poor George, remembering nothing 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 271 
 
 he had ever pilfered except the waste-bobbins, had the cotton unwound 
 from them before daylight the next morning ; and on the following 
 Sabbath, they were replaced on the spot whence they had been so un- 
 wittingly taken ! 
 
 But the finest feature of George's character is not yet drawn — that 
 in which he was wont to show so nobly the occasional heroism of "the 
 poor man's poor friend." — Amongst those who walked to these meet- 
 ings with him — three miles and a half, in all weathers — was his neigh- 
 bour before-mentioned, who was, like himself, a humble stocking- 
 weaver ; and many a time would they meet too in the course of the 
 week, to instruct, encourage, and solace each other by conversation. 
 Now it happened that the neighbour in question had only two shirts ; 
 and one of them being in the wash, and his wife at the same time being 
 taken suddenly ill, he had for some reason pulled the other off his back 
 for her use ; and, though the weather was very cold, he had then to go 
 to Kirkby, which was two miles distant, without one. In this plight 
 he happened, at starting, to call upon George, who was at work in his 
 stocking-frame ; when George, suddenly turning round to him, ex- 
 claimed — ' ' My friend ! what art thou doing — going thus to Kirkby in 
 this sharp frost, and without a shirt?" "Hey, man!" replied the 
 other, buttoning his scanty vest a little closer, "I did not mean thee 
 to see that ! " "Maybe not," was the answer; "but I cannot see 
 thee do so, when I have a shirt to spare in the house. Stay here, 
 while I go up stairs and fetch it for thee." So saying, he went up 
 stairs, and presently coming down again with a shirt in his hand, ad- 
 vised his friend to put it on as soon as possible and hurry away on his 
 errand, which was gladly done. 
 
 Hours passed quickly, and the good man having been to Kirkby, 
 stood again by the side of the frame : and now he discovered that 
 George himself was without a shirt I Surprised and pained, "Dear 
 George," he cried, " why whatever hast thou been doing ? Thou hast 
 been taking the very shirt off thy own hack for me ! " — ■" Well," replied 
 George, with a quiet smile, " I laid a little more coal on the fire, and 
 worked a little harder with the frame, to keep myself warm ; and it 
 was far better than for thee to go to Kirkby in such weather without 
 a shirt." And such was the brotherly regard of these humble chris- 
 tians, that I have no doubt the other would have done the same for 
 George in a change of cases. 
 
 I could relate several more anecdotes of this worthy, equally charac- 
 teristic, would space allow; but as those given illustrate the philosophy 
 of his whole life, they may at present sufiice. 
 
 And now let us note the character of his death — his only lament 
 
272 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 being, that he had not lived better ! His last illness was long and 
 painful ; and, as it drew to a conclusion, he lay a short time in a trance 
 so deep that some thought him already gone. But at length he opened 
 his eyes, to take a last momentary glance at the friends he was leaving 
 for a brief period behind him ; and saying, with much sweetness of 
 tone, " How beautiful is Heaven!" closed them again, in peace, to 
 open no more in the flesh, but went thither ; while some one standing 
 by, said — " Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord ! " 
 
 This, as my mother painted it to me when I was a boy, is an outline 
 of the life and character of George Purseglove, of Sutton-in-Ashfield. 
 The picture is one of memory, not of invention, and I have en- 
 deavoured to copy it faithfully. May some of its features be found 
 in our own ! 
 
 CLAUDE GAY. 
 
 The life of George Purseglove reminds me of that of another remark- 
 able self-denying and self-devoted man, as his story was several times 
 told me by my father. Claude Gay was of a noble family in France, 
 in which country he was born some time in the early part of the 
 eighteenth century. While yet young he was in the habit of retiring 
 to worship in solitude, but was at length joined by one or two others 
 — often in silent devotion. Some one having told the little party that 
 there was in England a book called "The Baptist's Apology," they sent 
 for it ; but the English bookseller knowing nothing of it, forwarded 
 them " Barclay's Apology," setting forth the principles and practice of 
 the Quakers, by the reading of which they became confirmed in their 
 own, Claude's father, displeased that his son should thus deviate 
 from the religious customs of his country, had him sent to prison, 
 where, to render the time less tedious, he employed himself in learning 
 to mend and make clothes. Being ultimately liberated, he made his 
 way to London, worked at the trade he had thus learnt, and attended 
 the meetings of the Friends, who were so struck by his sincerity, up- 
 rightness, and general demeanour, that they soon owned him as a 
 member, and finding for him an experienced foreman, started him in 
 respectable business as a clothier. In that calling, and with so good a 
 connection, there appeared for him every chance of prosperity, but for 
 his generosity constantly going beyond his means. Truthful himself, 
 and knowing adversity, he had the misfortune to beheve all others who 
 seemed in adversity to be as truthful. Hence, whenever a poor cus- 
 tomer biiying a suit of outer clothing tried to cheapen it to his own 
 price by saying that was all the money he had, Claude's feehngs were 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 
 
 273 
 
 BO worked upon that he would instantly rejoin — "Poor tiyig ! what 
 then art thou to do for shirt, shoes, and stockings?" and on such 
 occasions would frequently return more than his right profit on the 
 bargain. Thus, in time, he was so unable to meet the calls of his 
 creditors that friends had to help him ; and on their remonstrating 
 with him for so giving away that which belonged to others, he replied, 
 " I wish you rich Friends would do it yourselves, and save me de 
 trouble." 
 
 After various settlements of this kind without any change in Claude's 
 mode of trade, his wealthy assistants concluded that it would be cheaper 
 to maintain him out of business than in it, and so induced him to re- 
 tire. In this new state of life he was marvellously careful to make 
 little serve for all his wants. One day, on seeing a friend, he boasted 
 of having had a capital dinner for a farthing. The friend, astonished, 
 asked him how it was possible ; when he explained that, having bought 
 a halfpenny-worth of potatoes, he got one half of them boiled where a 
 bit of salt was given him. The truth was that, though so unable to 
 keep his own, he did not, after all, like to be a burden to others. He 
 made returns to his friends by teaching i-he French language to their 
 children ; and in some instances he took moderate payment for such 
 services. It was in these circumstances that he once had on a hat 
 much the worse for wear, when some person gave him an order to call 
 on a hatter for a new one. But instead of getting it, he still wore the 
 old one, till his benefactor had the new one put in his way and forced 
 upon him. Going home with the new one on his head and the old one 
 in his hand, he was met by a bareheaded man, who said, "Master, 
 you have two hats, and I've none ; I wish you would bestow one upon 
 me." After a pause and some scrutinising observation, Claude said, 
 "I think the old one will not do thee much good, so take the new one," 
 and gave it to him ! Nor was it at all uncommon for him to act in this 
 way when people seemed to require more than himself such things as 
 he could part \\dth. Once a woman solicited his charity, when he told 
 her he had nothing ; but finding a halfpenny in his pocket as he stepped 
 further on, and not being able to meet her again, he became absorbed 
 in grief, and calling on a friend, was compelled to tell the truth that it 
 was owing to his having denied the woman's quest. 
 
 As Claude became aged and enfeebled, and was one day passing 
 along Stepney Fields, a stout ruffian stopped him and demanded his 
 watch and money, upon which Claude told him if he would have the 
 watch he must take it himself, saying, ' ' I will not be concerned in de 
 robbery," when the fellow knocked or pushed him down. On this the 
 poor old man remonstrated with him upon his cowardliness, and told 
 s 
 
274 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 him that he would some day repent it. Shortly afterwards a man was 
 taken up for stealing, and among some pawn-tickets found on him was 
 one suspected to be for Claude Gay's watch ; but when asked at the 
 police-office to "swear" to it, Claude replied, "We must not swear at 
 all." He was then asked if he could say positively that it was his, but 
 only answered "One watch may be like another," and declined to pro- 
 secute. Still, he and some friends went to Newgate to look at the man, 
 who, when he saw Claude, shrank from him as far as he could. But 
 Claude followed and reasoned with him until he shed tears ; then, 
 turning to the crowd of prisoners, he cried out, "Let him that stole steal 
 no more 1 " — preaching for some time, in his broken English, with 
 such effect, that it was thought there was not a dry cheek amongst 
 them ; and he left the prison thankful that the stealing of his watch 
 had led to such a satisfactory opportunity. I have heard my father 
 say that his power in preaching and in supplication was wonderful, 
 even when so deficient in his English that he could not remember the 
 words sheejj and lambs, but with his benign and expressive face uplift 
 towards heaven, would say to the Great Shepherd, in a mingling of 
 the two languages, "Bless ihy great moutons and thy little moutons," 
 in tones that thrilled the heart of every hearer. 
 
 At last, as Claude lay on his death-bed, some visiting friends ven- 
 tured to ask him how he would like his funeral to be conducted, when, 
 (French to the last,) he cheerfully exclaimed — " What ! you think I's 
 going, and I'm ready," — very soon afterwards passing to his great 
 reward. 
 
 It is not that I think all men should deal precisely on Claude Gay's 
 plan that I have quoted him with some admiration. It is no doubt 
 well that humanity should have such examples. But were none more 
 given than he to accumulating, there could be no capital for carrying 
 on great works. Had there been in the past no peerage, we should 
 have had few palaces and little artistry. Were there no conservators, 
 there would soon be no dispensers. Blessed are they who can honestly 
 get and discreetly use. I have had personal acquaintance with some 
 who knew how to acquire with equity and to dispense generously. 
 Dickens's Brothers Cheeryble are not merely imaginary characters. 
 Considering the cold, hard social Siberia to which many noble natures 
 become exiled, it is well that a George Purseglove or a Claude Gay 
 should figure here and there in the scene, that we may know how pos- 
 sible it is for self-sacrifice to make a little heaven of the humblest sphere. 
 Yet the following faithful vignette, sketched many years ago in Lincoln- 
 shire, shows my belief that good men are not necessarily confined to 
 the lowest level : — 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 275 
 
 The 3f-fictxiytj. 
 
 How pleasant here in those calm days 
 
 When Autumn in the landscape lingers ; 
 When skies are melted by her gaze, 
 
 And leaves turned golden by her fingers ; 
 When morning dews are loth to go, 
 
 And noontide sounds are few and tender ; 
 And the far western uplands grow 
 
 More bold in evening's glowing splendour ! 
 
 Lo ! where old trees yon lordly seat 
 
 Half screen from these fraternal neighbours — 
 The Church and Rectory, quaint and neat. 
 
 Where the good Pastor lives and labours : 
 Sure, love and peace and hope dwell here, 
 
 Though haply not unmix'd with sorrow ; 
 For hearts that dwell in that glad sphere 
 
 From woes beyond it oft will borrow. 
 
 Come but with me in winter time. 
 
 When all the scene has lost its glory. 
 Save where the woodlands rise sublime 
 
 And silent in their mantles hoary ; 
 When earth is shrouded by the snow ; 
 
 When heaven by one vast cloud is hidden ; 
 When thy own spirit's fire burns low, 
 
 And thou to hope hast been forbidden ! 
 
 Come then ! and thou shalt solace share, 
 
 Within that pastoral home so pleasant, 
 That soon will banish wintry care 
 
 And to thy soul make summer present ! 
 For here, — though priests be sometimes found 
 
 Who little zest from love will borrow, — ■ 
 Is one whose parish has no bound. 
 
 Except the bound of human sorrow ! 
 
 ROBERT OWEN. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1843, when I happened to be in Birmingham 
 
 on a visit, that late one evening a gentleman came to me with 
 
 much civility but little formality, which latter, had it been there, 
 
 s 2 
 
276 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 would have seemed strangely out of place. He was slender in frame, 
 neither tall nor small, with a pale complexion, a calm expi'ession, 
 and in dress not much unlike any respectable Primitive Methodist 
 preacher of the time — very plain, but altogether decent. He said, 
 as he took off his slightly-broad-brimmed hat and advanced, "Per- 
 haps you don't know me, but I hope I am not intruding ; my 
 name is Kobert Owen." " So far from your intruding, I am glad 
 to see you," said I ; and asking him to a seat, added that I had seen 
 him once before, on a public platform, at Sheffield, but should hardly 
 have known him again unnamed. Our talk was chiefly about some of 
 my scientific investigations ; and, alluding to phrenology, he asked me 
 if I would give him my opinion of his own head. I was struck by its 
 peculiar configuration — one hemisphere being very markedly larger 
 than the other ; on my telling which, and asking him if he had ever 
 heard any reason given for it, he looked at me with a good-natured 
 smile and said he had never heard it remarked upon before, and the 
 only reason he could give was that the lesser half might perhaps belong 
 to the old world going out, and the larger to the " new moral world " 
 which he believed was beginning to grow. Eobert Owen's head phreno- 
 logically viewed, indicated considerable love of approbation, self-esteem, 
 firmness, and emulation, combined with kindly social affections, hope, 
 and self-devotion. There was nothing gross either in his configuration 
 or expression. His love of children, or whatever might from its help- 
 lessness need protection, must have been very gi-eat. The upper part 
 of his brow was larger than the lower ; and I should think he would 
 have more power to conceive and contrive than to carry out his plans, 
 whatever they might be. There was little indication of passion in his 
 appearance or tone. His brain taken altogether was not a very lofty 
 one ; but the base was much less developed as a mass than the higher 
 portions. I believe him to have been a very honest man — true in his 
 actions to his own best impulses — but comparatively lacking those 
 faculties which enable anyone to admit what cannot be directly per- 
 ceived ; and that he was permitted in the order of Pro-^ddence to shame 
 some so-called christians into humanity, regarding which, so far as 
 they went, many of his ideas were superior to general practice. 
 There is no doubt that true Christianity embraces all the good of Owen's 
 philosophy without its crotchets ; and infinite good besides, of which 
 any merely human scheme whatever must fall short. Yet anyone 
 who calmly views the question as it stood when he appeared, — when 
 hundreds of thousands of people were congratulating themselves on 
 the prospect of getting to heaven because of their assent to certain 
 abstract doctrines, which they could define to a hair, while sadly de- 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 277 
 
 ficient in practice and regardless of commercial morality, good will and 
 honourable conduct in all who did not utter their shibboleths, it was 
 one of the finest rebukes the great Father of us all could give, in 
 permitting such a man to rise and say, "What is your vaunted 
 Christianity worth in comparison with the mere humanity I profess, 
 unless you can make it the ground of a better practice than mine ? " 
 Ignoring theology altogether, and substituting but a very crude remedy 
 for some of the evils which the divorce court has so sadly proved to 
 abound, it was utterly impossible but that he should for the time be 
 opposed on all sides, or that his opponents should not exaggerate or 
 distort his views, which are touched upon here as they appeared to me 
 in our conversation that evening and again as, by invitation, he took 
 breakfast with me nest morning, on one of which occasions I put to 
 him this question : — "Is it true, Mr. Owen, as some of your opponents 
 say — for I have not read much of what you have written except in 
 their quotations — that you assert the unreasonableness of men be- 
 lieving anything on testimony merely ? " 
 
 "I never," he replied, "asserted anything of the kind. What I 
 have taught is this, that no man believes, or ought to be expected to 
 believe, anything that is not borne out to him by reasonable evidence." 
 
 " Then," I asked, "will you tell me : supposing I have a friend in 
 whose integrity and judgment I have the fullest confidence — so much 
 so, that if I could not believe him on his word, I should have no right 
 to expect any other person to believe me, and he stated something as 
 matter of fact, which he had heard from another on the same terms 
 and with just the same guarantee, and the third party had similarly 
 heard it from a preceding one, and so back to the tenth, or even twen- 
 tieth — would you say that I ought not to believe upon such evidence?" 
 
 " If (rejoined Mr. Owen) you relied upon such a chain of testimony, 
 that to you ivould be evidence, and you could not help hut believe accord- 
 ingly ; but to another person who could not see it in that light it might 
 not be evidence, and then he would not, nor could he, believe it. All 
 I assert (he concluded) is, that no man, whatever he may assent to, 
 ever really believes anything but upon what to Mm is evidence." 
 
 These conversations gave me an impression of Mr. Owen more 
 favourable than I had received from seeing and hearing him on the 
 public platform, on an occasion when he appeared to me very egotisti- 
 cal and dogmatical ; and, since alluding to him at all, I have a great 
 desire to avoid doing him the least wrong. I had often heard men of 
 infinitely inferior life and character speak of him with contempt ; but a 
 dear friend of mine, a clergyman, who would scorn to lend himself to 
 anything wrong, is one among many who have not thought it beneath 
 
278 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 them to take here and there a leaf from his book, on the principle of 
 proving all things and holding fast that which is good — safe in know- 
 ing that nothing can be good which does not chord with the divine 
 key-note of the Gospel. 
 
 Robert Owen, born in the year 1771, married the daughter of honest 
 and generous David Dale, founder, in company with Sir Richard Ark- 
 wright, of the celebrated New Lanark Cotton Mills. David Dale was 
 what is commonly called a self-made man, and wealthy ; but could not 
 enjoy his wealth without those who earned it having some enjoyment 
 of it too. Hence, in conjunction with his son-in-law, who became his 
 partner, the establishment of a social system connected with the works 
 such as Britain, or perhaps any other country, had never before seen, 
 in which everything was embraced that could conduce to the comfort 
 of the aged, the education of the young, and the physical happiness 
 and mental elevation of all. Mr. Dale was a religious man, of simple 
 habits, and of but little ambition. Robert Owen conceived the idea of 
 bettering the world of industry at large, by carrying into universal 
 practice the New Lanark system, with modifications agreeable to his 
 own peculiar opinions, in the assertion and maintenance of which he 
 was imperturbably confident — -so much so that his good old father-in- 
 law one day said to him, " Thou needest to be vei*y right, for thou art 
 very positive." There is little need for me to tell here, even if I could, 
 all Mr. Owen did in furtherance of his views, which to him seemed so 
 rational (and, if carried out, so promotive of happiness,) that he won- 
 dered how any sensible persons could resist them. One of his aims 
 was to bring over to them powerful monarchs, thinking that, if one of 
 these could agree with him and adopt his social plan as a great national 
 experiment, should it succeed its fruits would be so glorious that all 
 selfish competition would soon be given up in imitation of it, and a 
 "new moral world," as he called it, be established. He was on friendly 
 terms with many persons of high rank, including the father of our 
 present Sovereign, Queen Victoria ; and the Queen herself, in his old 
 age, to the astonishment of many opposed to him, gave him courteous 
 and even friendly audience. I have not the date of his death at hand. 
 Before it occurred, he had become a believer in modern spiritualism. 
 I believe he is survived by his two sons — the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, 
 at one time ambassador from the United States to the kingdom of the 
 Two Sicilies, and David Dale Owen, also a citizen of the United States, 
 well known by their geological and other scientific works, including 
 a description, on the part of Robert, of some early and important 
 experiments in neurology by my distinguished friend. Dr. J. R. 
 Buchanan, of the Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati. 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 279 
 
 THE WHITEHEADS. 
 In some families good nature and intelligence seem components of the 
 very blood, running from sire to son, and vivifying all around. Where 
 this law operates, circumstances themselves appear to give way to it ; 
 the homeliest lot and the hardest toil have a touch of gentility in them ; 
 jjolitesse du cceur, in whatever garb, is irresistible ; and just as one is 
 gratefully conscious of the neighbourhood of violets, even though they 
 bloom but in the obscurity of a hawthorn-shade, we feel glad to be 
 neighbours of people like old Matthew Whitehead and his family as I 
 knew them in my younger days. 
 
 What was it ? Their house had nothing material to distinguish it 
 externally in the row in Windmill-lane, of which it was one. There 
 were other houses as quiet, occupied by other people as decently clad. 
 Yet it is not from any disparagement of the rest, but simply matter of 
 fact, to say, that you could never pass Matthew Whitehead's — after 
 once knowing the in-dwellers — without a feeling akin to that with which 
 you would pass some known seat of philanthropy and learning. There 
 was a little well of the waters of life inside, giving a freshness and 
 healthy moral flavour to all that was said or done there ; and it often 
 overflowed its rim in such a way, that whatever came thereout bore 
 that character, and was a refreshing to all whose spheres it reached. 
 
 There was another branch of the family in the growing township 
 of Sutton-in-Ashfield which had something of the same quality. The 
 grandfather, who had been schoolmaster at Langwith, was a mathema- 
 tician and contributor to the almanacs. Next, John, who was in his 
 day at once a stocking-weaver and Baptist minister ; then Joseph, 
 whose biography was written by the Rev. Thomas Roome, as that of 
 "A Self- instructed Philosopher," who solved most abstruse mathema- 
 tical problems while at work in his stocking-frame ; scanned the remote 
 heavens night by night with his telescope ; made a complete orrery 
 from Ferguson's printed description, without having himself ever seen 
 one ; and died while yet young, perhaps a martyr to his studies. But 
 this branch of the family must not be confounded with that of Matthew 
 Whitehead, to whom the present memoir more particularly relates. 
 
 Yet Matthew Whitehead's family, (though nearly allied to one of 
 the most respectable mercantile families of that day,) were also early 
 taught to weave stockings. Matthew himself was in person remark- 
 able at once for shortness and breadth of body, dexterity and sturdi- 
 ness, asthmatic chest but powerful voice. Above all was he remarkable 
 for mechanical genius, general intelligence, and benevolence. No man 
 in the neighbourhood better understood the anatomy and physiology of 
 
280 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 a stocking-frame or a clock, or could more readily take one to pieces, 
 clean, repair, and put it together again, than he. He proved that be 
 could also have been just as clever in building, or gardening, or any- 
 thing else that might have fallen in the way of his duty, had it so hap- 
 pened. And, to this hour, it is to me marvellous how much he con- 
 trived to do of these things in his leisure hours, for poor people, without 
 fee or reward save the luxury of doing it. Much of the time that his 
 neighbours passed in political or polemical gossip— and there was no 
 lack of either in Windmill-lane — he would pass in setting right the 
 clocks or looms of those who had small skill and less means of pay- 
 ment. Yet was he very sociable, and never happier than when in 
 conversation on peculiar topics ; and there was a fine air of originalty, 
 sometimes of piquancy, in his talk. I remember once his having been 
 to hear a noted preacher in favour of a doctrine with which he had no 
 sympathy. On his returning, we asked him what he thought of the ser- 
 mon. "Why," he replied, " what could you expect of a man who tried to 
 make good hose with bad cotton ? " But his ready-wittedness seemed 
 to find much better exercise in action than in talk. Hence, on opening 
 his door one cold winter-morning, when all the landscape was clad in 
 snow and not a single dark object was to be seen except a shivering 
 negro, who had just left a common lodging-house without breakfast, 
 and was on his way to the next village, Matthew invited him in. His 
 good and kindly wife, whom all who knew her called, with a tone of 
 respectful familiarity, " Nanny Whitehead," was preparing the family 
 breakfast of milk-porridge and bread. Nine empty basins were on the 
 table awaiting its preparation ; but when it was poured into them Mat- 
 thew asked her to place a tenth. This done, he went to the workshop 
 door and gave the customary call to "breakfast," when the young 
 people, rushing in, were startled by the sight of the black stranger at 
 the fireside. With scarcely a word Matthew now went to his own basin, 
 and pointing to the poor, hungry guest, put for him one spoonful into 
 the basin that was empty. The hint was caught in a moment, and suit 
 was followed by each in turn ; but when they had all contributed, the 
 tenth basin was not yet filled ; whereupon they each contributed half- 
 a- spoonful more ; and the grateful black added to their pleasure by 
 getting as good a meal as the rest. Some coppers were then collected 
 for him in like manner, and the stranger went on his way rejoicing. 
 
 Besides such occasional practical beneficence, Matthew luxuriated in 
 an equally benign religious faith, which he wished others to entertain. 
 To this end he would sometimes go to a printer with a piece of manu- 
 script and a small sum of money in his hand, saying — " I should not 
 like you to hurt yourself by working at too low a charge ; but, some 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 281 
 
 day when you are not otherwise busy, put this writing in print, and 
 throw off as many slips as you can easily afford for this small sum of 
 money." When the work was done, he never failed to add something 
 more to the printer's charge, and then gave the excerpts away where he 
 thought they would do most good. 
 
 One of Matthew's greatest enjoyments in life was the contemplation, 
 on a calm night, of the moon and the starry heavens, believing that 
 somewhere amongst them were the homes of the eternally blest he 
 hoped one day to join. No word of discontent was ever heard by me 
 to fall from his lips, nor did I ever hear him for himself express more 
 than one desire — namely, that as he was so asthmatic, and always ready, 
 it might please God at last to take him suddenly. And this wish was 
 gratified. He had one morning been to see a married daughter, Mrs. 
 Burgain, at the Forest-side, and brought a message to a house near the 
 town-end, where, while standing within the threshold and having just 
 delivered it, his breath was suddenly stopped as he stood ; and there 
 and thus he changed worlds without a wrinkle or a groan ! 
 
 Matthew Whitehead's grave is on the north side of Sutton-in-Ashfield 
 Church-yard, where "he being dead yet speaketh; " for in accordance 
 with his own desire, a passage from one of the Prophets indicative of 
 his faith is engraven on his head-stone, declaring his belief in the final 
 triumph of Goodness over all things. 
 
 What wonder that the children of such parents should themselves 
 " take good ways ?" So far as I am aware they have every one done 
 so. The youngest boy, Samuel, was one of my play-fellows ; and it 
 was he who, when a gi'oup of us were playing at the bottom of the lane, 
 pointed up to the sky, and gave me my first startling and beautiful 
 consciousness that "the music of the spheres " is no fable, but that 
 the entire universe is one great harmony. One older than he, poor 
 Eli, died young, a lover of intelligence, and loving others to share it. 
 William, still older, ended his days at Derby, confidential employe in 
 a mercantile establishment, but giving all his Sabbaths to teaching the 
 children of the poor. Whilst John, who I think was the eldest, was 
 the most gifted and remarkable of them all. One day when they were 
 at work in their stocking-frames, a gentleman, who was also a relative, 
 one of the firm of Messrs.Wright, of Derby and St. Petersburg, called 
 to see them. John was then fourteen years old, and though he and his 
 brother William had toiled from their childhood, as all the family were 
 then toiling, they two had, by attending night-schools, acquired un- 
 usual proficiency in learning. Mr. Wright, standing by John's loom, 
 became so interested in him as to ask if he would like to go with him 
 on his return to Eussia, and take a situation in the counting-house 
 
282 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 there. It led to his doing so ; and on his coming of age, which was 
 of course seven years afterwards, a holiday was given him to visit and 
 bless his dear old parents, brethren, sisters, and neighbours, with a sight 
 of the true and thoroughly genteel man he had grown, accomplished in 
 French and German as well as in the Russian language, and a credit 
 in every way to his training and the position to which it had led. From 
 that time I remember him, and to remember was to love him ; nor was 
 there an old neighbour, rich or poor, who did not ever after join his 
 family in that feeling. 
 
 At the end of a second period of seven years, Mr. John White- 
 head came to England again. A distinguished fii-m, having houses in 
 Liverpool and Archangel, had asked the Messrs. Wright to commend 
 to them some person for a competent partner at the latter place. They 
 knew of none so worthy as Mr. Whitehead, and recommended him. 
 His gratitude made him at first refuse to leave their service, but not- 
 withstanding his high value to them, they insisted on his doing it for 
 his own sake ; whereupon, when he came home on his second visit, to 
 cheer his parents with what I believe was their last sight of him in this 
 world, it was in the character of "acting partner in the firm of Messrs. 
 Gladstone and Whitehead, of Liverpool and Archangel." 
 
 Now it happened in time that the British Consul at Archangel was 
 taken ill, and intrusted his duties to the neighbourly management of 
 our friend, who transacted everything so well that, on the Consul's 
 decease, he was unanimously nominated by the British residents as 
 successor ; and the next time he came to England, he was himself the 
 Consul, and accompanied by a loved and loving wife, and some sweet 
 children. How well I remember them all, as they visited several of us 
 from the old neighbourhood who were by this time living in London ! 
 What a treat it was to bo his companion in visiting intellectual friends, 
 and to hear him pour out information on many a genial topic, and 
 withal to listen to his advanced psychological speculations. 
 
 After his return occurred the great fire at Archangel, which included 
 the premises of the firm in its devastations ; and these had no sooner 
 been restored, than all had to be given up, and a thousand noble aspii'- 
 ations were frustrated through the breaking out of that horrible Crimean 
 War. But John Whitehead, nothing daunted in spirit, though sadly 
 worn in body, had to leave. On this letnin I saw him again very often, 
 and his growing family too. One day he was with me after he had 
 been having an audience of Lord Palmerston, whom he had felt it his 
 duty, for his family's sake, to ask for another consular appointment. 
 On my inquiring how he had fared, he jocosely answered, " Oh, 
 beautifully ! The reception was altogether so handsome, so affable, so 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 
 
 283 
 
 amiable, that it was almost a luxury to have it, even if to be denied ! 
 His lordship said he had nothing at present that he could think of as 
 worth my accepting, and so sympathised with me in the difficulty as to 
 make ' No ' sound as much like ' Yes ' as possible ! So now I must 
 look in some other direction." He did thus look, and spite of failing 
 strength, after dwelling so many years at Archangel, where the shortest 
 day is only two hours long, he accepted a mercantile post in hot Cal- 
 cutta; by hard application there won for his family the means of 
 education and a start in life ; came back emaciated in body, but bright 
 and self-devoted in his soul as ever, to bless them with those well- 
 earned gains — and then died. 
 
 Brave, generous, noble Whiteheads ! worthy sons of a worthy stock ! 
 May my place be not far from yours, and some other dear old neigh- 
 bours, in that blest world which our parents taught us to believe in 
 while enduring the trials and not undervaluing the stern duties of this ! 
 To all their survivors let me dedicate this humble tribute, nor least to 
 thee, dear Sam, who struck for me the scientific key-thought, while 
 we were yet only in corduroys, that, spite of all sublunary doubts, 
 and griefs, and strifes, this Mighty Frame of things we so partially 
 see is one entire and universal Harmony ! 
 
 PEEDERICK WILLIAM DAVIE S. 
 
 (Nov. 3, 1866.) 
 Theee have recently been interred on the quiet shore of Windermere, 
 followed to the grave only by his relatives and a few sympathising 
 villagers, the remains of a man more heroic and humane than many 
 to whom national honours have been accorded. Frederick William 
 Davies, late an employe at the Stanley Dock, Liverpool, was the only 
 boy in a family of six. His father died while he was yet young ; but 
 from that hour the boy became as a husband — i.e., a house-band ; took 
 home regularly what he could earn to help his widowed mother and his 
 sisters, and may be said to have all but entirely sustained them for 
 some years. 
 
 When the Liverpool Sailors' Home was in flames, on the 30th April, 
 1859, and some of the inmates had got out of the upper windows, where 
 they were clinging between two chances of death, with their shirts on 
 fire ; on an escape-ladder being hoisted, it was found too short to reach 
 them. The crowd below seemed perplexed and hesitant, while to the 
 sufferers above every moment was a little eternity of terror ; and it 
 was just when all hope for them appeared to be gone, that Davies, who 
 
284 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 had been standing as a spectator, voluntarily sprang forth, and climb- 
 ing the larger ladder, braced a smaller one near to its top, stave to 
 stave, with his naked hands alone, while fom' men and a boy came 
 down it and over Jus body, thereby escaping the death, one mode or 
 the other of which seemed but an instant before inevitable. At one 
 time a man and a boy were upon him together, when, to use his own 
 expression, the shout of the crowd was so tremendous as to make him 
 feel as if it were shaking the ladder under him; and the pressure upon 
 him so great that his hands were forced all but open : a moment's 
 longer pressure, and all three must have been dashed to pieces by the 
 threatened fall. By the mercy of God and Davies's noble persistence, 
 however, the escape was complete. The case excited considerable in- 
 terest at the time. His portrait appeared in one of the most popular 
 pictorial weeklies, and the philanthropic feat was acknowledged by a 
 public subscription, which realised about £220 for his benefit, though 
 no thought of reward or applause had incited him to the action. 
 
 All accounts of Davies's life agree in this, that his general conduct 
 harmonised with that brave and generous effort. " Prompt at pity's 
 call," whatever he was, whatever he had, was always at the service 
 of the distressed and needy; and the crowning act of his career is a 
 fine illustration of this character. 
 
 Two years before his death he was paying his addresses to a 
 young woman at West Derby, near Liverpool ; his visits to her being 
 sanctioned by the family with whom she was in service. One evening, 
 as he was sitting in the kitchen, where she was performing her ordinary 
 duty, a boiler, owing to the ill construction of some apparatus con- 
 nected with it, suddenly exploded, cut out one of her eyes, burnt and 
 disfigured other parts of her person, and laid her quite prostrate, while 
 her clothes remained on fire. Davies was wounded in the head, his 
 clothes were nearly destroyed on his back, and both he and his sweet- 
 heart would soon have died from suffocation if from no other cause, 
 but that he had the presence of mind to kick out a panel of a bolted 
 door, and let in a rush of fresh air. He early recovered, but it was 
 otherwise with the young woman. As soon as she was capable of being 
 removed, she was taken to a public infirmary, where her lover, now 
 more devoted to her than ever, visited her as often as the rules of the 
 institution would permit. The authorities there, struck by his con- 
 stancy and tenderness, presently allowed him to visit her every day; 
 and after she had so far as possible recovered, his attentions to her 
 were continued as regularly as before. When she had left Liverpool 
 for the house of her parents at Bowness, he came do\vn as frequently 
 as his duties would allow him, to see her; and on the 1st of January, 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 285 
 
 1866, notwithstanding her personal disfigurement and Bemi-blindness, 
 made her his bride. 
 
 That fideHty to Katie Martin, and that marriage, were, as time has 
 proved, among the most providential things that ever happened to 
 brave Frederick William Davies. A fatal disease (consumption), not 
 apparent at the time, soon afterwards set in with slow but sure deter- 
 mination ; and any close observer might plainly have seen that he who 
 had so nobly saved the lives of others, must ere long lay down his 
 own. Day by day his body diminished in bulk, and grew weaker ; and 
 since it was found that the medical skill, even of Liverpool, could do 
 but little for him, he was removed to the home of his wife's parents in 
 Westmoreland, to try what change of air could accomplish there. 
 Neither change of air nor ordinary medical treatment, however, could 
 arrest his complaint ; and it was about three weeks before his death, 
 that I was first called in to see him. I can never forget the nobleness 
 and benignity of the young man's countenance in the extreme emacia- 
 tion in which I found him. His pale and beautiful brow was one of 
 the most intellectual, and his face, altogether, rather of the Byronic 
 type — only that the outline was filled up with something more benign 
 than that of Byron as generally presented to us. I have seen some 
 physicians and philanthropists with a similar aspect, but seldom, if 
 ever, one in whom it excelled that of poor Davies. It was on that 
 and several succeeding occasions, that he was able to detail to me in 
 whispers various particulars of his history for which I inquired ; and it 
 was touching to hear him, instead of boasting of his feats, saying in 
 somewhat of the manner of one apologising for himself, when speaking 
 of that achievement at the Liverpool fire, "You see, it was very hard 
 to stand by when the poor fellows were in such danger, and nobody 
 seemingly able to help them, without making an effort of some sort ; 
 so I did it." 
 
 I have said that Davies's marriage to poor Catherine Martin was 
 providential. In the course of a life fraught with some adventure and 
 professional experience, it has been my lot to see nurses of nearly 
 every possible kind, from those of the magnanimous tj'pe of Florence 
 Nightingale downwards. No words of mine could adequately indicate 
 the patience, gentleness, assiduity, tenderness and tact, of many a 
 loving soul I have seen in that humane capacity. In the devotion of 
 some — not for an odd day or night, but by day and night, from week 
 to week, and in a few instances for periods so long that to specify them 
 would be but to awaken doubt — I have seen all that it was possible for 
 woman to do to "lengthen out life's taper at the close," and sustain 
 its glow with her watchful care and devotion. But I can never here- 
 
286 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 after think at all on the subject, without remembering how poor Mrs. 
 Davies's comparative blindness became sight at the bedside of her 
 failing husband, how she seemed to see his every movement with her 
 whole body, to hear his every breath with her quickened ear, and to 
 the very last be to him all that man could have hoped of the strongest 
 and healthiest woman in her circumstances. True, there were other 
 kind spirits there to help her, and occasionally to take her place. But 
 when at length he was dying, with his hand in hers, as she bent down 
 to him to get a last glimpse of him ere life finally ebbed out, and 
 almost anticipated him in every wish for change of position as his 
 breathing became more difficult — while her vision could have scarcely 
 been more expanded than that of the smallest bird — I felt that his 
 devotion to her in the horn* of her own sharp alHiction was now meet- 
 ing with its reward, and was thankful for his sake that he had ever 
 known her. 
 
 Should anyone wish to know what such a man thought and felt, in 
 relation to futurity, it may be but justice to say that he had not, by 
 any means, been indifferent to that question. His religion, from all I 
 can gather, had certainly been one more of life than of talk. But he 
 had heavenward aspirations, and was deeply interested in and happier 
 for any religious conversation as his end drew nigh. He was some- 
 times engaged in fervent though voiceless prayer, and was much com- 
 forted when others prayed, or talked in his presence of sacred matters. 
 After the last ordeal of physical nature had commenced with him — 
 trying as it was to a man in some respects so weak, but in others so 
 strong as he — and all stood around him in mournful anxiety as to the 
 final change, upon some one stepping near, with soothing words, allud- 
 ing to the presence and goodness of Jesus, and saying in gentle tones, 
 " Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will 
 give you rest," a composure more beautiful than aught merely of the 
 earth could have given settled over his entire countenance ; and pre- 
 sently, with one more earnest and loving look at his weeping wife, he 
 passed away. This was about half-past seven on the evening of Sun- 
 day, Oct. 28th, and I have since heard that at the very time a pastor 
 in Liverpool (of course without cognisance of what was then occurring 
 at Bowness) was alluding in his pulpit to Davies's philanthropic efi'ort 
 at the burning of the Sailors' Home. 
 
 When two days afterwai'ds the corpse lay in its coffin, methought I 
 had never seen a more striking instance of manly beauty in death. 
 Even children of tender years loved to linger in the room and gaze 
 upon him as long as they could be allowed. 
 
 The young hero's humble funeral was on the Wednesday following 
 
SELF-DEVOTED MEN. 287 
 
 hig decease. Four of his wife's brothers, boatmen on Windermere 
 lake, carried his remains from the door. They were relieved now and 
 then by other friendly bearers on the way, but bore him at last to the 
 side of the grave. That grave is in the little retired cemetery of Bow- 
 ness, whence glimpses of the lake may be caught beyond the old Rec- 
 tory trees ; and the cragged and wooded hills, just now in their last 
 vestige of autumnal beauty, stand silently and pensively, if not 
 mournfully, around. Monument or no monument, as raised by man, 
 can now be of little importance to him ; no doubt, he enjoyed in life 
 that sweetest of earthly luxuries, the consciousness of duty done, and 
 is too well rewarded above for approbation here to add one thrill to 
 his joy; but — 
 
 " Because be needs no praise shall I be dumb ? " 
 
 Whether or not any trophied memorial be raised at Bowness or Liver- 
 pool, his modest funeral card shall here at least have a grateful 
 shrine : — 
 
 IN AFFECTIONATE EEMEMBEANCE OF 
 
 rREDERICK WILLIAM DAVIES, 
 
 AGED 32 YEARS, 
 
 Who distinguished himself at the memorahle Burning of the Liverpool 
 
 Sailors'' Home, April dOth, 1859, by saving the lives of five 
 
 other persons at the voluntary risk of his own, 
 
 and by other noble actions, and died at 
 
 Bowness, Windermere, Sunday, 
 
 October 28th, 1866. 
 
 The -world knows nothing of its greatest men, 
 'Tis said ; but worth like his can never die : 
 
 It bloom'd on earth ; but now it blooms again 
 Where death is swallow'd up in victory. 
 
|jtapti:[r tiiifinti)-|jiir(l 
 
 SELF-DEVOTED WOMEN. 
 
 To the Memory of my Half-Sister, Mrs. Hannah Saxton {nee Bacon), 
 of Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts, whose ashes repose in obscurity 
 there ; whose whole life was one loving act of self-sacrifice for 
 others ; who did more by her arduous toil to nourish my body in 
 childhood, to store my mind in youth, and to promote my welfare 
 in this world and in that on which she herself has entered, than 
 my whole life could possibly repay to her, 
 
 " And all for love, and nothing for reward ;" 
 
 I humbly, affectionately, and reverently dedicate this chapter on 
 Self-devoted Women, grieving that I can make but so poor a 
 return for her devotion to me. S. T. H. 
 
 May 24th, 1871. 
 
 GLIMPSE OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 
 IN DEEBYSHIEE. 
 
 As the tourist ascends from Sherwood Forest, leaves Bolsover, Hard- 
 wick, Newstead, Annesley, and Alfreton behind him, and passes the 
 picturesque ruins of Wingfield Manor, he comes, in the space of a dozen 
 miles or so, upon the steep "cliffs," and "tors," and " carrs," of 
 
LEA MyiRST, D E R [SJ T S fi] B E? 
 
 Shewini Cncli Ciff & The Distance ^^""^ 
 
SELF-DEVOTED WOMEN. 289 
 
 Crich ; and then suddenly opens before him one of the most beautiful 
 scenes in all the Peak of Derbyshire,— the stream-lit vale of Holloway, 
 and the wooded slopes of Lea, backed by the heights of Matlock and 
 Wirksworth, and touched and dashed all over with some of the most 
 pleasing features of rural and industrial life. 
 
 Nearly in the centre of this scene, and adding much to its romantic 
 interest, is a verdant knoll, or rather platform, occupied by a tasteful 
 mansion, with its terraces and lawns, sheltered from the north and east 
 by a lofty, cragged, and wooded upland, almost worthy the name of a 
 mountain — the hamlet of HoUoway (or, as the natives call it, Ho'way,) 
 scattered, not ungracefully, upon its side, and crowning its summit. 
 The gleaming and arrowy Derwent, the Cromford canal, and the Am- 
 bergate and Manchester railway, form far-winding and almost parallel 
 lines below to the south and west ; and M'hether freshened by the green 
 of spring, iiushed with summer bloom, or the still mellower tints of 
 autumn, or sparkling in an unsulHed mantle of hoar frost, as I have 
 often seen it on a bright winter's day, it is a prospect that once photo- 
 graphed on the soul, might, without a single historical association, 
 remain " a joy for ever." 
 
 It is not, however, without its histories. Yonder, on the top of 
 Eiber, now so differently and conspicuously occupied, the Britons and 
 Romans — possibly also the Saxons — had in turn, the first their temples, 
 and the latter their encampments, commanding on one side the Peak 
 and the other the Plain, far almost as eye could reach, — Eiber, a 
 softening of the old Saxon Rir/h-bergh, i.e., Ridge-hill, which its form 
 so well qualifies. Near at hand, if not visible, as we have already 
 hinted, is Wingfield Manor, where in later time dwelt in confinement, 
 Mary, Queen of Scots ; and equally near is Dethick, the home of young 
 Anthony Babington, who was beheaded for trying to set her at liberty. 
 In the folds of the valley beneath, just out of sound as out of sight, are 
 the since famous factories of the Arkwrights and Strutts, the revolu- 
 tions of whose wheels revolutionised the character of the whole district 
 in their day, without much interfering with its natural beauty. Add 
 that of Mr. Smedley, also standing out of view, on a small tributary 
 of the Derwent, below Lea Wood ; and far up before us, with its 
 park-like surroundings, Alderwasley Hall, seat of the ancient family 
 of Hurt, with countless other significant footprints and mile-posts on 
 the path of time. 
 
 Being in the native region of my mother, herself one of the most loving 
 of all nursing spirits in her way, it was ever to me a true delight to rest 
 on the hill sides and gaze on so beauteous an amphitheatre — its blend- 
 ings of life and character with nature's primeval grandeur; those patri- 
 
290 OHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 cian or rustic homes that seemed to be growing out of the very bosom 
 of the landscape and sending up their long, long columns or wreaths of 
 blue reek into the brighter blue of the sky ; its waving woods and wind- 
 ing waters ; its lawn-like meadows and grazing flocks and herds ; its 
 peaceful traffic and useful toil. 
 
 But in the whole of that lovely view, never seemed a spot more fair 
 or attractive than the many-gabled rural seat of Lea Hurst, on that 
 central knoll — henceforth classic forever — one of the English homes of 
 Floeence Nightingale, whose name, like Grace Darling's, was destined 
 some day to quicken the beatings of millions of hearts. She was not 
 born here, nor, if I am rightly informed, at that other beautiful home 
 of the family, in Hampshire, but in the fair and far-off city of Florence 
 itself, whence her loved and musical name. 
 
 Some people have a natural genius for nursing and solacing, as much 
 as others have for music, or dancing, or poetry ; and Miss Nightingale 
 has come to be regarded as the archetype of her order. Long before 
 the Crimean war, how many times have I had passing glimpses of her, 
 visiting the cottages of the sick poor around this fair spot, with her 
 quiet, sensible, unconventional looks, and her gentle and generous 
 hands bearing something for their comfort ! Some of the people of her 
 own class in the neighbourhood who were less given to such unselfish 
 luxuries, thought her in those days rather eccentric, and it is said 
 sometimes so spake of her ; while the poor themselves spoke of her as 
 an angel of mercy, when any of them meeting with a serious fracture in 
 the quarry or the mine, or sufl^ering from some more chronic cause, was 
 not only tended by her with sisterly solace, but had often a medical 
 adviser from Wirksworth entirely at her expense. And such was the 
 way in which that young maiden schooled herself for other and more 
 extended spheres — in continental hospitals ; afterwards in London, 
 where she took the office of matron to a retreat for decayed gentle- 
 women ; and ultimately with the army at the siege of Sebastopol : 
 strange contrast to the quiet retirement of HoUoway, with its rural 
 delights, — making her famous throughout the world ! 
 
 They who love not war must still sorrow deeply over the fate of its 
 victims ; and to such, amid all the din of arms, the beautiful and bene- 
 ficent name of Florence Nightingale must have come sweetly as ' ' flute 
 notes in a storm." And in future ages, when humanity mourns, as 
 mourn it will, over the blotches and scars which battle and fire shall 
 have left on the face of this else fair world ; like a stream of sunlight 
 through the cloud with which present strifes shade the history of 
 civilization, will shine down upon it, brighter and brighter, the memory 
 of the heroic Maiden of Lea Hurst, till all nations shall have learnt to 
 
SELF-DEVOTED WOMEN. 291 
 
 " do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God," and covetous - 
 ness, war, and tyranny shall be no more ! 
 
 NANNY SHACKLOCK. 
 In girlhood Nanny Shaddock came from Gloucestershire, to one of the 
 little border towns of Sherwood Forest, as nurse in a baronet's family, 
 and in her young-womanhood was married to a village tailor. But 
 what a noble soul was hers, and what an unspeakable blessing was her 
 whole life to her adopted neighbourhood ! She had in time a large 
 family of her own, but was in many respects a mother to all around her. 
 And yet, so quiet. Both her husband and she were Methodists, of the 
 early sort, — he, Francis Shaddock, fervid as a summer sunbeam, and 
 his wife gentle and soothing as the zephyr that tempers it. There are 
 people in the world who are always ready with great professions, to 
 which they are in the habit of adding, ' ' and should you ever want a 
 little assistance, don't fail to let me know," but when it is required are 
 too much otherwise engaged to render it. Yet it was not so with 
 Nanny Shacklock. She seemed almost ubiquitous, though by no 
 means an intruder or a gossip, and was scarcely ever out of the way 
 of anybody when needed — as neighbour, general adviser, and friend. 
 Supposing, for instance, that Mr. Goodacre,the parish clergyman, had 
 called to solace some poor dying woman, whose husband was away at 
 his necessary toil, and whose helpless children were in danger from want 
 of attention, he could always leave such a case with a longer breath 
 and a lighter heart after sending for Nanny Shacklock. Mrs. Woolley, 
 who lived at the Hall, who was a descendant of the ancient and gallant 
 Nottinghamshire house of Willoughby, and whose loving daughters 
 were very Florence Nightingales in their way, found in many of the 
 dispensations of her goodness, an ever-ready and worthy auxiliary in 
 Nanny Shacklock. The parish doctor too, over-worked and badly paid, 
 unable to stay long in a house where every member was so ill that it 
 seemed inhuman to go away, could always proceed to his next case 
 with some relief, after he had ascertained that Nanny Shacklock would 
 supersede him. A lovely orphan girl, little beyond her childhood, 
 betrayed and forsaken by a pretended suitor, died of the consequences, 
 among which was a broken heart ; but it was in the arms and under 
 the religious solaces of Francis and Nanny Shacklock. When the 
 ladies of the parish were commencing a Bible Society, and wanted 
 some christianly suggestions as to the best method of commencing, it 
 was unanimously resolved to send for Nanny Shacklock. At the start- 
 T 9, 
 
292 CHAPTEK XXIII. 
 
 ing of a Dorcas Society, for supplying poor people with clothing in 
 winter, on the question being asked who was to chalk out the plan for 
 them, several voices at once said, "Let us send for Nanny Shack- 
 lock." In short, I have a doubt if, for many, many years, any con- 
 secutive words of similar import were so often repeated in all that 
 parish of Sutton-in-Ashfield as those four words of "send for Nanny 
 Shacklock." And it was to her that I, too, was indebted for one of 
 the best impulses to improvement I ever received. From seeing me 
 fond of haunting the lanes and fields, she had come to imagine that I 
 cared nothing for learning ; but on my good sister one day telling her 
 of her mistake, she put into my hand a beautiful poem, asking me to 
 read it ; and when I did, her face was bright with delight, as she 
 exclaimed in her native dialect, somewhat elongating the words, ' ' Bless 
 that tongue ! " — thereby giving my love of books a fresh glow the value 
 of which I can yet feel. And such was the way in which she spent her 
 days — without neglecting a single duty to her own family. Yet never 
 did she take pecuniary reward for all her service to the sick and poor 
 - — her sittings-up at night, or her consoling and healing visits by day. 
 I saw her in her 90th year — her eyes still bright with heavenly light — • 
 her voice as clear and sweet as that of a youthful maiden. Sooth to 
 say, as with all the really good people I have ever known, her soul 
 seemed to be growing more youthful as her body declined. And why 
 should it not ? Was it not going back to join that of her husband in 
 its native heaven ? It was ; and the next time I heard of her, God 
 himself had sent for Nanny Shacklock. 
 
 PHCEBE HOWITT. 
 What a striking and beautiful character, in another sphere of life, was 
 that good old quaker lady, Phoebe Howitt ! Of course, everybody who 
 reads knows, or ought to know, something of William and Mary Howitt, 
 husband and wife, but imagined by thousands of j)eo]3le to be brother 
 and sister. It was my privilege and pleasure to know the mothers of 
 both, as it is to be on friendliest terms with them and their children. 
 Mrs. Hewitt's mother, Mrs. Botham, lived to a very venerable age, 
 coming from the banks of the Dove, on the Derbyshire border of Staf- 
 fordshire, and closing her life at the house of her gifted daughter and 
 son-in-law, near London. It was only in those closing days that I saw 
 much of Mrs. Botham, and nearly all that I could say of her might be 
 summed up in this, that even in her wrinkles, she seemed still a very 
 loveable and loving woman. Old Mrs. Howitt I had opportunities of 
 
SELF-DEVOTED WOMEN. 293 
 
 seeing in other circumstances — in the family residence at Heanor, a 
 village that, clustering round its ancient and lofty church-tower, looks 
 along and across the Erewash Valley on fifty other villages and ham- 
 lets, on coal fields with their fires blazing up at night like volcanoes, 
 and on the mountains of the Peak, fading into the bright blue of the 
 distant heaven by day. Daughter of a family that could ride the full 
 length of a mile through their own territory, yet in all her tastes and 
 habits a simple and practical Friend, it was very interesting to think 
 of her as wed to tall, picturesque, sagacious Thomas Howitt, who had 
 himself become a Quaker too, though his ancestors of the seventeenth 
 century had been noted for their hostility to that sect. And very 
 interesting was it to think of them both as the parents of men of 
 genius like their sons, William, Richard, and Godfrey — not to speak 
 disrespectfully of their other sons, Emmanuel and Francis, men more 
 attached to the fields of agriculture than those of literature and science, 
 or of then- son Thomas, who died long ago in America. But above all 
 was it delightful to think of good, sensible, and tender Phoebe Howitt, 
 as doctress of all the poor in the village and the neighbouring valleys, 
 in days when the law made less provision for the poor in that respect 
 than now, added to which was the frank, unsophisticated, hospitable 
 spirit, that made her a kind of mother to all who came within her 
 sphere, whether from near or far, and let none go away without feeling 
 better for her acquaintance. In the writings of her children you get 
 so many pleasant glimpses of her, that there is the less need for me to 
 dwell at great length on her virtues here. But it is a positive refresh- 
 ment to me, to think, after all these years, of what I saw when on a 
 visit to her with her son Richard in my younger days. It was amazing 
 to see how much she did for all her household, in that active, very 
 slightly bent little frame of hers, at her years, and yet with what a 
 systematic and matter-of-course air she attended to the poor invalids 
 who came in every now and then, much as if they were coming to a 
 general hospital, v/liere they were sure to get nourishment if she 
 thought nourishment more needful to them than medicine, though the 
 latter was dispensed in a style far superior to that of ordinary amateur 
 practice. Not only did she appear to be " well up " in pathology and 
 the pharmacopoeia, but there was a healing manner and tone about her 
 that could not but greatly enhance the virtue of her medication or 
 surgery; and she treated everything, from the slightest catarrh to 
 the severest wound (of course, gratuitously,) and very rarely failed to 
 cure. I have a belief that the penchant of some of her descendants 
 for chemistry and healing may have been inherited from her ; and 
 when one thinks how her grand-daughter Margaret, known by the 
 
294 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 published reminiscences of her long sojourn with Frekerika Bremer, 
 has been distinguished among her friends as a devotee to the require- 
 ments and enjoyments of a large section of the London poor, it is a 
 pleasure to connect her doings in that sphei'e with those precedents of 
 her long- deceased grandmother in the Erewash Valley.* Phoebe Howitt 
 died in 1840 or 1841, when her son Richard was sojourning in Austra- 
 lia. Having in one of my letters to him while he was abroad alluded 
 to his mother's death, he enclosed me, in his reply, the following sweet 
 and tender lyric, in which he finely alludes not only to the spirit of her 
 life, but to the fi'eedom from elaborate monumental structures of the 
 little grassy cemetery of the society in which her ashes rest : — 
 
 OUR MOTHER'S GRAVE. 
 
 Strew flowers upon the honoured grave 
 
 Where our lamented mother lies, 
 But let no gloomy cypress wave 
 
 Betwixt it and bright summer skies ; 
 Let freshest verdure o'er it spread. 
 
 Let purest light upon it fall, 
 For these resembled most the dead. 
 
 In life, in death, beloved by all. 
 Keep thence memorial works away. 
 
 Obstruct not Time's etherial grace : 
 The Seasons there will tribute pay. 
 
 And Nature sanctify the place. 
 Li solemn autumn, gladsome spring, 
 
 Mute things to her will reverence show ; 
 And there the birds she loved will sing, 
 
 And there her favourite flowers "will grow. 
 The sun from out the amber west 
 
 Will touch that spot with lingering rays ; 
 The moon upon her place of rest 
 
 Will seem more tranquilly to gaze : 
 The wind that through the welkin sings. 
 
 Gently as dies a summer wave. 
 Will thither come, and fold its wings 
 
 To downy slumbers on that grave. 
 
 * The good old woman would make use of the knowledge and skill of her sons in 
 her own neighbourly work, when she could. I have heard that when one of them was 
 with her upon a Sunday visit, and somebody came hurriedly in for help of a young 
 woman in the village who had taken poison, he was hastened to the place, and 
 found that the slightest loss of time would be fatal ; yet, when he arrived neither 
 stomach-pump nor medicines normally adapted to the case were at hand. Askino- 
 however, for some smelling salts and vinegar, these were soon found, and a solu- 
 tion of the first being injected and followed quickly by a due proportion of the 
 second, back instantly came the whole effervescing draught, bringintr with it the 
 poison — and the young woman's life was saved. 
 
SELF-DEVOTED WOMEN. 295 
 
 Whate'er is in its nature fair, 
 
 Whate'er is in its spirit good, 
 Around, diffused through earth or air. 
 
 Or undisoerned, or understood ; 
 With whatsoe'er she loved to tend. 
 
 On which she living love bestowed, 
 "Will flock to their departed friend, 
 
 And cheer and grace her last abode. 
 
 Let there no painful tears be shed : — 
 
 A cheerful faith was hers, is ours. 
 Of truth divine through aU things spread ; 
 
 Of love divine in simplest flowers ; 
 Of goodness, like a sun above. 
 
 Diffusing light and gladness far ; 
 The boundless confidence of love ; 
 
 And knowledge like a guiding star. 
 
 The " Life in Life" she made her own 
 
 By thought, and word, and virtuous deed, 
 Lived not nor died with her alone — 
 
 But will through future years proceed ; i 
 
 Whilst what she was on us impress'd. 
 
 Is more to us than wealth and fame. 
 Will more conduce to make us blest. 
 
 And cause us most to bless her name. 
 June 18th, 1841. 
 
 MES. WILBERFORCE. 
 Theee is a class of women who, without being themselves individually 
 distinguished, still deserve the admiration and gratitude of us all for 
 the way in which they aid and solace husbands whose lives are devoted 
 to public usefulness. Of all things, few can be more painful than a 
 union in which a keenly sensitive and self-seeking woman happens to 
 be connected with a man of popular sympathies, regarding everything 
 he does for others as a robbery of herself, and every exaltation or 
 expansion of his sphere as a derogation to her. On the other hand, 
 what can be more loveable or prizeable than a woman foregoing all she 
 can, and giving herself up to the furtheiing of a good and great man's 
 usefulness — watching, thinking, feeling for him and his noble objects 
 as being not the less hers because she does not chance to have her 
 own name and personal qualities blazoned separately on each ? When 
 a woman acts thus, regardless of the thousand little attentions which 
 many husbands pay their wives, but to which hers could not give time 
 without forfeiting all for which he mainly lives and labours, one may 
 justly exclaim with Dr. Gall, in his disquisition on the faculty of Adhe- 
 
296 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 siveness, " Happy is the man that hath a woman for his friend ! " 
 These thoughts have just grown out of my recollections of the late 
 Mrs. Wilberforce. It is many years since I one day dined with three 
 generations of William Wilberforce's family — though there were only 
 four of us at table, namely, his widow, his son Henry Willliam, that 
 gentleman's son, and myself. It was when I was on a short stay with 
 the Eev. Henry William Wilberforce, at his rectory of East Farleigh, 
 in Kent, a place surrounded by luxuriant hop-yards, on the banks of 
 the Medway, near Maidstone. Mrs. Wilberforce was just the gentle, 
 affectionate, reverent, earnest person one could fitly imagine as the 
 widow of the indefatigable philanthropist, to whom she still referred in 
 brief but touching terms of profoundest love. Unlike her sons, the 
 Bishop of Oxford,* and my rev. host, she was of a complexion slightly 
 dark, and had a face somewhat oval, with brown eyes, that still in age 
 retained much of their youthful lustre. It was pleasant to hear her 
 converse on scenes and events in the olden days ; and sad, on my 
 visiting the rectory again, about twelve months afterwards, when her 
 son, with quiet affection and silent tread, took me into the churchyard 
 close by, to see her grave. 
 
 MRS. JERRAM. 
 Let me here repeat what I have asked in " Days in Derbyshire." Did 
 you or your children ever read some sweet and innocent books for 
 the young, entitled "My Father's House," "The Pearly Gates," and 
 " The Children's Story Book," published by John Darton many years 
 ago ? If so, there is no need for me to tell you what a loving spirit 
 pervades them, and how much good they must have wrought in many 
 an English home — graphic, lively, instructive, and entertaining as they 
 are. And their author, whose friends know her by the sobriquet of 
 " The Pale Stae," at the time I am writing lives in a homely cottage 
 near Derby. In her early days — days of brightest hope and promise — 
 all who knew Jane E. Holmes, thought of her as a gentle and intel- 
 lectual sister. Charles Reece Pemberton said she had the finest mind 
 of any woman he had ever met, and Mary Howitt regarded her with a 
 most afiectionate interest ; while Richard Howitt, in a playful way, 
 would read one of her poems to us, and pass it off, for a moment, as 
 by Mrs. Hemans. As she grew to womanhood, Jane Holmes, loved 
 by and loving William Jerram, became his wife, and for some time 
 
 • Now (1871) of Winchester. 
 
SELF-DEVOTED WOMEN. 297 
 
 they lived at Derby, but while yet young removed to a lone yet very 
 pleasant rural spot, Bannells Farm, in the parish of Etwall, where, as 
 their family grew ai'ound them, she shone not less as an industrious 
 farmer's wife, managing her dairy, than she had in her books by the 
 firesides of thousands of her country-people, — her intellectuality, as 
 well as her devotion to every duty, producing a marked effect upon the 
 scattered neighbourhood. There were those who might think such a 
 mind out of place in such a sphere. But did not God know best, and 
 was she not placed there by Him ? And time sped on, and duties 
 accumulated, and cares increased ; yet there that genial spirit still 
 glowed and cheered all around her. What a blessed memory have I of 
 summer and winter evenings there — and of one summer Sunday even- 
 ing in particular ! The sun was setting, and forming golden bars of 
 light along the horizon from Radbourne Woods to Sutton Hill, and 
 giving a bloomy hue to the nearer fields. A gentle breeze was creeping 
 over the ripening corn, and making a sort of half-whisper in the 
 orchard-trees. The kine were scattered a-field, and the bees had come 
 home to their hive. The family were assembled in the little parlour, 
 where several good books lay open. The mother, her meek eyes 
 beaming with religious light, sat within, while the children and one or 
 two friends were singing with her " Thy will be done ;" and cheerful, 
 hospitable Farmer Jerram himself, enjoying his long pipe and the 
 scene, leaned in at the open window with a smiling face, and listened. 
 But the affection and faith of that family have been tried since then. 
 Paralysis one day laid its cold, heavy hand on honest Farmer Jerram, 
 and turned the cheerful voice of the household into a sad wail ; and 
 shortly afterwards Mrs. Jerram was subjected to a shock of the same 
 sad complaint. They have had to leave the old farm, and their family 
 are now widely scattered ; but God and filial love forsake not that 
 suffering pair. The soul that wrote " My Father's House," " The 
 Pearly Gates," and " The Children's Story Book," is still there, in 
 the midst of that adversity and anxiety ; and so let us trust is the 
 Good Spirit, the Comforter, that first inspired them. But has the 
 Civil List nothing to add in such a case as this ? It is hardly possible 
 to imagine one in which some share of its bounty could be more 
 deserved or more useful. 
 
I^mpter |^iui|niu-fourtl!. 
 
 MY FIKST LITEEAEY FKIENDS. 
 
 Sweet Poetry ! let me once more tell the oft-told tale of my earliest 
 acquaintance with thee and thine. Yet, was it the earhest ? Who 
 knows but that the lullaby which sings infancy into sleep and dream- 
 ing, may in some way touch the soul with a thrill, that revives and 
 reverberates in after years when its origin cannot be remembered, 
 finding its symbols in all lovely forms and fancies, and gro'wing at last 
 into full organ tones, as hidden rills grow into grandest rivers ? Or 
 is the poet, as has been said, constitutionally a harp, framed and 
 nerve-wired to repeat or reply to all nature's breathings with preter- 
 natural melody ; so that if the vibration has from infancy been kept 
 alive, he is not performing all his function until he gives or finds for 
 it a voice, or some metaphorical sign at least ? And is it from this 
 cause that when he sits with his pen in his hand, he feels as though 
 it had become a living part of himself, moving in obedience to every 
 loving impulse, and giving expression to all his inner being ? I cannot 
 tell. But if it be not so, how should it have happened that, when I 
 was only three years old, and my father was carrying me in his arms, 
 on that calm, grey Sunday, by our old neighbour's garden, and the 
 snow was falling upon it so slowly, silently, and solemnly, flake by 
 flake, that I never felt the happiness it gave me ripe until I had uttered 
 
FIEST LITERARY FRIENDS. 299 
 
 it in after years ? Did the snow bring down the poetry with it, or 
 merely awaken poetry that was ah'eady in me ; or was its glow then 
 generated by that mating of beautiful Nature with the young and tender 
 soul? Or when I stood on another still, grey sabbath morn at our 
 cottage-door, as the church-bells were chiming, and the people were 
 slowly passing, some alone, and some in pairs and groups, to their 
 weekly worship ; and the robin came to be fed from my hand, then 
 flew into the garden-hedge and twittered forth its note, which my sister 
 told me was its morning hymn, while a love for all things filled my 
 heart ; how came it that the joy thus inspired was at once an aching 
 extasy and a trayail, until the reading of Robert Bloomfield taught me 
 how to ventilate my soul in verse ? 
 
 Ah, that lovely morn which followed — that bright February morn, 
 when Winter was just beginning its first overtures to Spring, in the lane 
 going down from Fulwood towards Greenwood Falls ! May I not be 
 forgiven for repeating the previously repeated story here ? The whole 
 landscape was sparkling with gems of frozen dew — not hoar-frost, but 
 that bright, powdery scattering which is next akin to it. A cluster of 
 rustic cottages was sending up blue-curling smoke-wreaths just by, and 
 a green holly-bush — save here and there a little ivy, the only green 
 object to be seen^was sweetly glowing at the bend of the lane beyond 
 them, as though Spring were just coming round that way. It was a 
 very wide landscape spreading out from that spot, dotted, not as now 
 so much with coal-works, but with cottages, farms, churches, villages, 
 corn-stacks, windmills, villas, and all the other indications of glad rural 
 life, up to where the North Peak of Derbyshire brought its blue hills in 
 a semi-circle and hemmed in the scene. All this, in the sunshine, was 
 very delicious ; and quietly pondering on it, the consciousness of its 
 beauty bewitched my heart with silent joy — the love of love. And this 
 was only one of fifty similar occasions, Summer and Autumn awaking 
 kindred emotions in their turn. I would have given a world at those 
 times, had I possessed it, for power to utter what I felt, but had none, 
 until Bloomfield's " Farmer's Boy " fell into my hands, and unlocked 
 the way. Blessings on all true poets ! The world at large little thinks 
 how much it owes them. It was not that poetry or the poetical alone 
 occupied my mind, that it became of so much importance to me. As 
 youthhood ripened, it had thickening under-strata of scientific or semi- 
 scientific lore, the result of a voracious reading and much vocal inquiry 
 on all subjects that happened to present themselves in their order — 
 including something of theology, physiology, and pathology. But 
 just as all the substrata of the earth contribute their essences to the 
 superincumbent soil, and the essence of the soil flushes out into 
 
300 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 verdure and bloom, so when, at sixteen years of age, I went with the 
 fruits of my readings and forest-ramblings to reside at Nottingham, 
 it was not very long ere I found myself writing, and mating with the 
 literati there. 
 
 MATTHEW HENEY BARKER. 
 
 The first thoroughly literary man to give my young hand a friendly 
 gi-asp was Capt. Matthew Henry Barker, author of "Greenwich Hos- 
 pital," "Tough Yams," "Jem Bunt," and "Walks round Nottingham," 
 long popularly known by his sobriquet of "The Old Sailor." He was 
 at that time and for some years editor of " The Nottingham Mercury; " 
 was a warm, florid, stiff-set, cheerful, heroic-looking man ; could send 
 jokes about him as thickly as shot in an action, and give a hearty 
 laugh that might be heard for half-a-mile. Yet would he melt the eyes 
 of his readers by his pathos when the season came, and was not by 
 any means himself unacquainted with sorrow. His father, who was a 
 devout and reverend dissenting minisiter at Deptford, named him 
 Matthew Henry from resx^ect for the distinguished commentator of 
 that name, of whom he was a personal friend, and hoped to see the 
 lad trained in turn for the pulpit ; but 'he went to sea instead, and in 
 time had command of a vessel at the battle of Monte Video. After 
 many strange vicissitudes and considerable adventure, his latter years 
 were spent in London, in editing one of the illustrated newspapers ; 
 and I had the pleasure of seeing his rosy, sailor-like old face at my 
 first metropolitan lecture, in 1843. I have no means of referring to 
 the date of his decease. 
 
 WILLIAM POWERS SMITH. 
 
 Captain Baekee was successor in the editorship of the " Mercury" to 
 Mr. William Powers Smith, a native of Leicestershire, who still resided 
 in the town after his connection with the paper had ceased. My inter- 
 course with Mr. Smith was altogether most intellectual and invaluable ; 
 for he was at once a genius and a sage, as versatile as profound ; yet 
 could he be playful. His habits were altogether his own. There was 
 something about him of a Goldsmith, with something of Hazlitt which 
 Goldsmith lacked, but much of himself unlike any other man ; and he 
 was as original and chaste in his thoughts as bold in his speculations. 
 In private he was as great a conversationalist as Coleridge ; and in 
 public one of the most eloquent and telling orators I ever heard. As 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 301 
 
 he was never tired of speaking, I never tired of listening to him. One 
 day I had to call upon him a little after two p.m. The great topic of 
 the time was Reform ; and for more than two hours he poured out one 
 unbroken stream of rich thought, in the most classical and effective lan- 
 guage, on political science. Pressing me to join him in his afternoon 
 meal, he entertained me for two hours more with a philosophical dis- 
 quisition on the passions ; then glided from that into one on poetry 
 and the poets, with which he so rivetted me by his earnestness and 
 power, that I was still listening its conclusion with my hand on the 
 door-latch as St. Mary's clock was striking ten. And all this copious 
 outpouring was quite unpremeditated : he had only been thinking aloud, 
 and regretted himself, as did I, at the close, that all which he had 
 uttered had not been written. Powers Smith was by no means without 
 his enemies — several of them perhaps made so by his occasional inad- 
 vertent and somewhat caustic outspokenness. He could not truckle 
 to person, party, or self, and was therefore often misunderstood, and 
 too little appreciated in a town given to indulgence in party strife. 
 My own thought of him is that he was more fitted to be at home in 
 some great university ; and that for a youth like me to share his ' ' con- 
 versations," as he paid me the compliment of calling them, for the 
 time I did, was as great a privilege as to have attended the lectures of 
 •some half-dozen or more of ordinary professors. His memory was such, 
 that at fourteen years of age he could recite the whole of " Paradise 
 Lost " without book ; and from the most recondite principles of meta- 
 physics, and the most abstruse mathematical problems, down to the 
 minutest phase of insect life' — for he was a practical entomologist 
 too — there was nothing in the range of .art or science with which he 
 was not more than ordinarily familiar. He was a great admirer of 
 Byron, was at his funeral, and wrote a poem upon it. He had also an 
 idea of establishing a superior school' not far from the poet's grave, at 
 Hucknall Torkard, but it was never fully realised. His latter j'ears in 
 Nottingham were partially employed in editing " The Nottingham Re- 
 view," which at length he left to edit " The Carnarvon Herald." He 
 was married, and had some interesting children. One of them with 
 features much like his own, when little more than a baby, going out to 
 play, saw a white mist floating along the fields, and thereupon running 
 back into the house exclaimed, "Oh, do, papa, come out with me and 
 see how the ivind smokes!" I have been told that the child in question, 
 since becoming a woman, has manifested a high order of intellect, and 
 no wonder. Should this allusion to it ever meet her eye, it will prove 
 to her that I have not forgotten or felt ungrateful for her father's 
 former kindliness in elevating and expanding mine. 
 
302 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 WALTER CRISP ELLIS. 
 
 Walter Ceisp Ellis, (a man of a very different cast,) though chiefly- 
 employed at Mansfield was in Nottingham almost weekly, saying or 
 doing something kindly, cheery and encouraging for somebody. In 
 younger days, when a clerk with Messrs. Coldham and Enfield, he 
 signed Kirk White's indentures ; and in later days drew up mine. 
 Few men were better acquainted than he with all the ins-and-outs, the 
 archaeology and history of Sherwood Forest. He was descended on 
 the maternal side from Sir Christopher Crisp, and was in some way 
 nearly related to Charles Hooton, the brilliant author of "Bilberry 
 Thurland," whom I also knew in Nottingham. Elhs, in course of 
 years, left Mansfield altogether, and was connected with "The Not- 
 tingham Mercury" — a paper to which, through all its changes, he had 
 been attached from its first establishment. He was fond of giving 
 nearly all he wrote a touch of drollery or of pathos, and had two 
 hearts, — one a sound heart of love for everything good that God had 
 made ; the other a heart of flesh that had a disease of which he sud- 
 denly died, not very old. My grateful blessings on his friendly 
 memory ! 
 
 ROBERT MILLHOUSE. 
 
 Ben Jonson, it is true, had long before laid the scene of one of his 
 dramas near Papplewick, as afterwards had Mason that of a portion of 
 his " English Garden;" Dodsley, in " The King and Miller of Mans- 
 field," had touched on some of the features of his neighbourhood ; 
 Kirk White had sung of Clifton Grove, and passed away ; Byron had 
 written much about Newstead and Annesley ; William and Mary Howitt 
 had published their " Forest Minstrel ;" and antiquaries and historians 
 had left many records of their observations and researches in prose. 
 Ballads of Robin Hood had, from age to age, also done much to make 
 it famous ; but Robert Millhouse was one of the first who wrote of 
 Sherwood Forest specifically, in verse at all commensurate with the 
 dignity of the theme, and must certainly be considered one of the 
 chief founders of what has been called by W. H. Wylie, "the Sher- 
 wood school." I doubt if England has ever known a writer who could 
 be said to be more strictly — so far as the phrase is worth anything 
 at all — uneducated. Yet so classical was his style that Southey refused 
 to rank him amongst " Uneducated Poets" for that reason alone. And 
 what was the history of the man too elevated for that distinction ? 
 Robert Millhouse was born at Nottingham, October 14, 1788, the 
 
FIRST LITEEAEY FRIENDS. 
 
 303 
 
 second of a family of ten ; was put to work in his sixth year ; at ten 
 was placed in the stocking-frame; learnt to read at a Sunday school, 
 and while yet a child became an appointed singer at St. Peter's Church. 
 When sixteen (as his elder brother John informs us,) he was one day 
 looking at a statuette of Shakespere, in the house of an acquaintance, 
 and read, as inscribed on the front of its pedestal — 
 
 " The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, yea the great globe itself, 
 And all which it inherit, shall dissolye ; 
 And like the baseless fabric of a vision 
 Leave not a rack behind.'' 
 
 Struck by its beauty and solemnity, he asked his brother at the first 
 opportunity if it was not ' ' Scripture ; ' ' and on being told that it was 
 an adaptation of a passage in Shakespere's " Tempest," he borrowed 
 the whole of that drama and read it. His brother says that up to this 
 time, though he had been accustomed to survey with delight the 
 scenery round his native town, and to be charmed with the phenomena 
 of the seasons as they changed, the bloom of flowers or the songs of birds 
 — nor less with the biography of great and virtuous men — he had never 
 before connected such things with poetry. His appetite for reading 
 now quickened, he did not rest till he had secured most of the 
 " Standard Poets" of his day, in procuring which he v,'as greatly 
 aided by his brothers, John and Frederick, both of whom were equally 
 fond with himself of reading. Joining the Nottinghamshire Militia 
 (afterwards called " the Royal Sherwood Foresters,") under Colonel 
 Gilbert Cooper Gardiner, and remaining with it from 1810 for several 
 years, a portion of which was passed at Plymouth and Dublin, he found 
 leisure to become himself a writer, and made several contributions to 
 the Nottingham Review, some of which, including his " Nottingham 
 Park," though of unequal merit, contain many beautiful lines. His 
 first little volume, the leading poem in which is entitled "Vicissitude," 
 was completed in 1820. This was followed by a collection of sonnets, 
 under the title of " Blossoms." In 1826 appeared his " Song of the 
 Patriot, Sonnets and Songs" a work which, says Wylie, at once placed 
 him in the first rank of England's " Uneducated Poets," although the 
 principal portions had been composed while the author was at work in 
 his loom. His poem of " Sherwood Forest," embracing a view of 
 that fine realm and its history, was published in 1827 ; and it was 
 after this, in 1829, that I first became personally acquainted with him. 
 It might be seen at a glance that Millhouse was gifted with a strong 
 individuality, and he had but to utter a single word for his tone to 
 confirm it. In person, of average height, with somewhat grave and 
 
304 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 striking but not unpleasant features ; a medium complexion with but 
 little if any bloom ; somewhat retiring and reflective eyes ; an attitude 
 most erect, a stately step, a deliberate utterance and sonorous voice, 
 with now and then a pensive smile ; the whole presented a remarkable 
 correspondence to his prevailing mental mood, in which a proud dignity 
 had considerable, but playfulness or trifling very little part. His 
 sympathy with the beautiful and tender was such, that anything from 
 a fair babe to a fading flower would make him all but weep. He could 
 nurse a child and sing to it, or take it by the hand as a little friend 
 and teach it the poetry there is in flowers ; but anyone familiar with 
 him would have been greatly surprised had he been caught, in imitation 
 of the French king of old, running about on all-fours with one of his 
 children on his back. In conversation he was sententious and aphor- 
 istic. Met in Nottingham Park by a stranger, who introduced himself 
 on the score of being a lover of poetry, "Ah, then!" exclaimed Eobert, 
 " are you too one of the abstract tribe V For somehow he had come 
 to regard all lovers of literature as a sacred corps apart, and at once 
 struck up a friendship with the person thus newly enlisted. It was 
 perhaps for the self-same reason that he took a liking for me ; criticised 
 my own little efforts at literature with an elder-brotherly candour ; ad- 
 vised me to chasten my style by learning to see and avoid the faults of 
 acknowledged writers while enjoying their beauties; and took me as 
 time went on into cordial friendship. 
 
 I think his fondness for the fourteen-line sonnet and the stately 
 march of the Spenserian stanza was a manifestation of the same mood, 
 and you see no little of his character in the following on ' ' The Lot of 
 Genius : " — 
 
 To feel a conscious dignity within, 
 
 And be despised amidst a crowd of fools ; 
 
 Too proud by slavish purposes to win 
 
 The paltry favours of Oppression's tools : 
 
 Born to no heritage but that of mind — 
 
 To waste in penury the sand of life ; 
 
 To look on wounds without the power to bind ; 
 
 To lift a cobweb sliield to baffle strife ; 
 
 To labour with a patriotic zeal, 
 
 And meet with calumny from thankless man ; 
 
 And trust to after ages to repeal 
 
 A nation's apathy, and critic's ban ; 
 
 Ages — which rear base piles to mock the dead. 
 
 And shame the sons whose sires denied tliem bread. 
 
 Take as another example of his mind these passages culled from his 
 " Sherwood Forest," and mark the fine tone of patriotism running 
 through all. Some of the stanzas in that poem ring or roll like the 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 
 
 305 
 
 strains of a military band on inarch ; while others remind one of the 
 breath of primroses "by some mossy forest-well." He alludes to 
 the declension of the ancient Britons as the Eomans enslaved, then 
 finally forsook them : — 
 
 Woe and destruction to that wretched land, 
 In the sad hour of danger and of flight, 
 Whose chief defence is bondsmen ! when their strand 
 Is fill'd with fierce invaders in their might : 
 For what have tliey to lose ? The proud delight 
 Of Freedom never to their breasts can flow ; 
 They to their homes have but a second right ; 
 The love of country little do they know, 
 Nor feel those ardent throbs which generous laws bestow. 
 
 Next the Saxons : — 
 
 And now, old Sherwood ! o'er thy forest bound, 
 Proud of their conquest, a rekindling race, 
 And with exulting shouts, with hawk and hound. 
 Bold chiefs and Mercian kings renew the chase. 
 Oh, earth ! what various changes on thy face. 
 What peals of triumph and what cries of sorrow 
 In the long lapse of time have taken place ! 
 From which the Bard and the Historian borrow ; 
 Yet may they not unfold the dark eventful morrow. 
 
 One tear the Britons claim ; yet thence was spread, 
 Along the land, a renovating flame. 
 And a succession of events, which led 
 To the development of mighty fame : 
 Hence we derive the dear immortal name 
 Of Alfred, Patriot, Law-giver and King. 
 Blush, ye enlighten'd ages ! blush for shame ! 
 Time, in his dreary march, but few can bring 
 Who match his glorious deeds of great imagining. 
 
 And so it is, look backward where we may. 
 We find no age that blood hath not defiled 1 
 And none so infamous, but that a ray 
 Of noble virtue through the darkness smiled : 
 For proof of this we need not search the wild, 
 And ask the savage what his sires have told ; 
 To polish' d clans the savage is a child : 
 Look to the classic chronicles of old, 
 And those which after times with sword and fire enroU'd. 
 
 Come, smiling Hope ! Anticipation come ! 
 To fancy's eye disclose the joyous spring ; 
 Lead where the snowdrop and the crocus bloom ; 
 
306 CHAPTEB XXIV. 
 
 Bring violet perfumes on the breeze's wing; 
 Unclasp the primrose, bid the cowslip fling 
 Its incense back to heaven ; let matins rise, 
 Till in imagination's ear shall ring 
 Each love-told hymn that swells the April skies. 
 Ascending unto Him, all-i3otent and all-wise. 
 
 Enough — old Sherwood now the song reclaims : — 
 Oh, there is something in the sacred sound 
 Of Home and Country, thrillingly inflames. 
 And makes the Patriot's heart all-joyous bound ! 
 And were my birth-place nought but barren ground, 
 Where but the ling, the furze, and harebell grew, 
 , These should the foremost in my lays be found. 
 Fresh, and expanding in the morning dew. 
 And when the setting sun shone sweet at his adieu. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fine tone of "The Song of the Patriot" pre- 
 ceding it, and the popularity of the subject, when Millhouse pub- 
 Hshed his " Sherwood Forest," only seventy-seven subscribers could 
 be obtained, and most of them in London where he was personally 
 unknown; so that the foregoing sonnet on "The Lot of Genius" 
 published in the same volume, seems not to have been unprophetic 
 of his own. The appreciance of the Rev. Dr. Booker, vicar of Dud- 
 ley, Dr. (now Sir) John Bowring, Mr. Thomas Wakefield, the Hewitts, 
 and a few other friends, however, did something to cheer him ; the 
 press spoke highly of his works ; and while his health was weakened 
 and his first wife was near her death, he was aided by Mr. Wakefield 
 with the means of leisure for writing his last poem of any length, 
 ."The Destinies of Man." I use the word leisure emphatically — he 
 and his brothers, in the days gone by, when his first poems were writ- 
 ten, having had to work in the frame sixteen hours a-day for family 
 bread. "The Destinies of Man" achieved for him more fame than 
 pecuniary profit, and literature never became his sole profession. His 
 first wife had died ; he had married again — a blooming young woman, 
 named Marian Moore ; a double family was growing around him ; 
 worse poverty threatened with its savage gi'in, and a fatal intestinal 
 disease was setting in ; but his intense love of nature and poetry never 
 flagged. He would come with me to Sutton-in-Ashfield, lingering by 
 the way to listen to the birds and streams among the crags and gi-een 
 larches at Kirkby Grives, which gave him great delight ; we wandered 
 together in Birkland and Bilhagh — Pemberton's " ruined Palmyra of 
 the forest " — one afternoon in a thunder-storm which added much 
 to the grandeur of the scene, and made his knees tremble under him 
 from veneration and awe. Literary and other friends drew closer and 
 aided him, as his departure from amongst us approached, with such 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 
 
 307 
 
 solaces and comforts as circumstances rendered possible ; Dr. Godfrey 
 Howitt afforded him all that medical skill stimulated by a kindly spirit 
 could ; Thomas Ragg made a poetical appeal for him in Nottingham ; 
 and in reply to a prose one I made at Sheffield, Ebenezer Elliott sent 
 him a brotherly word as well as a contribution of material gold. 
 
 A little time before his eyes closed on his last spring, I was sitting 
 by his bed-side in his cottage at Snenton. He then knew there was 
 not the slightest chance of his recovery, but spoke of death with philo- 
 sophical and religious calm, adding — " Spencer, my family belong to 
 my country ; my fame I leave ; I know that you at least will be one to 
 vindicate my memory if needed. My name is linked with Sherwood 
 Forest, of which my children will live to be proud. Your turn will be 
 next ; go forth into the world ; and God, and a dying poet's blessing, 
 go with you ! " It was just the occasion to remind one of that striking 
 line of his — - 
 
 " 'Tis Time ! I feel him knoclsing at my lieart ! " 
 
 Willie Wylie, in his " Old and New Nottingham," calls Millhouse 
 "the Burns of Sherwood Forest," and adds that he was a "most 
 brilliant example of the might of that genius which has welled up 
 from the ranks of the toil-worn and penury-stricken crowd." In 
 another place he says, "the moral and religious character of Millhouse 
 reflected a lustre upon the name of the poet ; and as a husband and 
 father he strove to do his duty." His mortal remains were interred by 
 the wall on the eastern side of the Nottingham old Cemetery, nearly 
 opposite to the chapel. Some time afterwards, with Christopher 
 Thomson, Mr. Widowson, John Trueman, and a few others, at Ed- 
 winstowe, I joined in raising the cost of a stone for the head of his 
 grave, to which the late Mr. Samuel Fox, of Nottingham, was also one 
 of the contributors. Unfortunately the stone is friable, and decaying, 
 and ought to be replaced by one of material more enduring. On me, 
 by wish of our little set, fell the duty of composing for it the following 
 inscription, which dear old Widowson engraved : — 
 
 In Memory of Egbert Millhouse, author of " The Destinies of Man," 
 
 " Sherwood Borest," " Song of the Patriot," " Blossoms," and other 
 
 Poems ; who died at Nottingham, April 13, 1839, aged 50 years. 
 
 When Trent shall flow no more, and Blossoms fail 
 On Sherwood's plains to scent the springtide gale ; 
 When the lark's lay shall lack its thrilling charm, 
 And Song forget the Patriot's soul to warm ; 
 When love o'er youthful hearts hath lost all sway, 
 His fame may pass — hut not till then — away ; 
 For Nature taught, and Freedom fired his rhyme. 
 And Virtue dedicated it to Time. 
 
 v2 
 
308 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 RICHARD HOWITT. 
 But there was none in Nottingham for whom I contracted a much 
 earher or stronger regard than Richard Howitt, — a true poet, a just 
 critic, a cheery companion, and young man's mentor. I had written 
 a little poem, inspired by some Trent-side scenery on a sunny day, 
 and showed it to him with fear and trembhng, as to one who might 
 possibly tell me to write no more. Instead of that, he praised it 
 and I felt that he was sincere. Thus encouraged, I soon went to him 
 with another, which I myself thought still better, because it was more 
 smoothly written, saying to myself, hopefully, if he spoke so well of 
 the first what will he say of this ? He saw my danger at once, and 
 cut it up. Somewhat dejected, I said — But will it not do ? It 
 was then he gave me the answer I have mentioned when writing of 
 Miss Mitford : — -"Do!" he emphatically said, "A young author 
 ought never to ask if anything he writes will do, but if it can be done 
 better ; and if it can — do it." 
 
 At the time of my arrival, this "Wordsworth of Sherwood Forest," 
 as Wylie has not inaptly called him, was keeping a pharmacy at the 
 corner where Parliament- street and Newcastle-street united ; but it was 
 quite as much of a Parnassium as a pharmacy, — a house of regular 
 resort for some, and of occasional call for others, of whom Nottingham- 
 shire may never see the like again. William Wordsworth once visited 
 him there ; so did James Montgomery and John Edwards. There 
 Thomas Bailey, with true father's pride, showed him the manuscript of 
 the great poem of " Festus," before it startled with its electric thrill 
 the general reading world. There too, sometimes, was to be seen Henry 
 Wild, the man whose great theory of light, force, and compression, may 
 some day modify if it does not overturn Newton's theory of attraction 
 and repulsion, and of which already more popular savans are availing 
 themselves without acknowledging the author. Thither too, on one or 
 more of the evenings of every week, came Danby, Millhouse, and Samuel 
 Plumb, as afterwards came Thomas Miller and Sidney Giles, where the 
 little cluster would sit reading, criticising, concocting quaint ballads, or 
 firing original epigrams or sonnets at each other, for hours together. 
 And another regular caller was gentle, sedate, and intelligent William 
 Davidson, a native of Annandale, who might almost have been the 
 " model" of Wordsworth's beautiful-minded peripatetic trader in "The 
 Excursion," and who, as he wandered from village to village of the 
 Forest and the Derbyshire-border with his pack, (in days, be it remem- 
 bered, when there was no penny -postage,) acted the good part of intel- 
 lectual courier for us, calling with mutual messages upon poets and 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 
 
 309 
 
 many a lover of poetry, and leaving with them the best reviews and 
 other literature, on his weekly or fortnightly round. And there was 
 another, younger man, Walter M'Latchie, of somewhat kindred type, 
 who came now and then as if on a similar errand, which ended in his 
 falling in love Avith Eichard's niece, Annie, and marrying her. And 
 I think the first or second time I saw Jane E. Holmes (afterwards Mrs. 
 Jerram), was there, with a look that she seemed to have brought from 
 a better world, as a few of us would stand listening to Eichard's fine, 
 sonorous rehearsal of sweetest poesy, old or new; though I am not 
 sure that any he recited was much sweeter than some of his own. 
 Hark, as with his musical tone, not unlike that of a cathedral-chant, 
 he leans back against his medicine -drawers behind the counter, and 
 gives us — much in the spuit of his ordinary conversation too — 
 
 THE POET'S QUEST. 
 What seeks the Poet ? To be known 
 
 Far as his country's fame extends — 
 To make the world of mind his own — 
 
 To make remotest men his friends. 
 
 His skill he counts but as a bird, 
 
 Though wronged, though sad, redressing wrongs 
 
 In every clime and season heard, 
 And breathing solace in his songs. 
 
 A beacon on a dangerous shore — 
 
 Over Time's sea a guiding star ; 
 A date-tree in the desert — more — 
 
 A fountain in the desert far. 
 
 A stately tree, a generous leaf — 
 
 A noonday temple, green and fair : 
 That weariness, that pain, and grief 
 
 May shelter find and solace there. 
 
 'Tis well ! but seeks he nothing more ? 
 
 Inspired at Truth and Beauty's springs. 
 His soul with goodness flowing o'er. 
 
 He would be that which well he sings ! 
 
 By the world's flatteries unmoved. 
 
 To vice, to guilt, no sad ally: 
 Through life of his own soul approved, 
 
 Of God and man approved to die. 
 
 When afterwards living fourteen miles away, I often walked over for 
 a single evening's conversation with him or any of the chosen few who 
 might be there. Sometimes I was able to stay all night ; but it was no 
 uncommon thing to be returning through the thick, dark woods of 
 Annesley, when the old clock at the Hall struck its heavy notes of 
 
310 CHAPTER xxrv. 
 
 one, two, or three, as if on my very heart, while yet five miles remained 
 between me and home. But what refreshing draughts of " noctes am- 
 brosiana " were those hard-won conversations for me ! Then, when I 
 was about leaving the old neighbourhood to reside in a distant part of 
 the country, Richard also left it, and went to reside in Australia, whence 
 he sent me, as he sent Sidney Giles and many others, most interesting 
 letters. But as these, with his general experience of the colony, have 
 been embodied in his free-and-easily written colloquial volume, entitled 
 " Impressions of Australia Felix," there is all the less need for my 
 dwelling on them here. It was a life of strange adventure, and equally 
 strange was that which followed his return. Though eminently social 
 in his disposition, few men I have known could better rehsh solitude. 
 Twice crossed in love, though one of the most loving of men, he never 
 married ; and instead of rushing into town-life and literary society for 
 recompense, knowing that 
 
 " Nature never did betray the heart that loved her," 
 he took a little farm at Halam, just over the Forest-border, and after- 
 wards bought one at Edingley, near by, giving himself up to rustic 
 occupation by day, and reading or writing at night, and only varying 
 that routine by occasional rural rambles, or attending the meetings of 
 the Board of Guardians at Southwell, of which his fellow- villagers had 
 elected him a member. 
 
 Once when with my friends, the late Mr. John Atkinson, of Stratford- 
 on-Avon, and Frederick Enoch, author of " Songs of Universal Bro- 
 therhood," on a forest-excursion, we made a detour to Halam for the 
 purpose of seeing him. We found him, dressed somewhat in the style 
 of an Australian settler, reaping his corn. Giving us most hospitable 
 welcome and refreshment, he then went with us several miles on our 
 way, talking much in the same manner as in his Nottingham conversa- 
 tions of younger days. Between him and worthy Frederick, who is 
 now publisher of the " Pall Mall Gazette," there struck up a "friend- 
 ship at first sight " which led, I believe, to much pleasant correspond- 
 ence in subsequent years. 
 
 The last time I saw him was after he had removed to Edingley. On 
 my passing the kitchen window I caught a glimpse of him sitting before 
 a large fire, preparing a mash in a bucket, for some cattle, and heard 
 him reciting poetry in his old Parliament-street tone, unconscious of 
 anyone besides himself for auditor. On my knocking, he met me at 
 the door with a " hale-fellow, well-met," sort of laugh, and told me I 
 had just caught him rehearsing to himself a ballad he had " been com- 
 posing about Jack Musters " — meaning the Mr. Musters who married 
 Mary Chaworth, and who in his day had been one of the most noted 
 
FIRST LITEKARY FRIENDS. 811 
 
 Nimrods of the county. I asked him if he thought it was right, thus 
 to spew out ballads and mingle them with mash in a bucket, — ballads 
 seeming curious diet for cattle ; on which he laughed again. And my 
 last hour of conversation with him in this world followed, — perchance 
 as pleasant a one as any we had passed together, and which will ever 
 be very tenderly remembered by me. 
 
 In person Richard Howitt was slender, and in complexion pale, like 
 his mother, of whom I have already written. In earlier years he had 
 been what is commonly called " a mother's boy," and more than ordi- 
 nary of that mood remained through life. When in jacket and trou- 
 sers, instead of roughing it with other boys of his own class, he would 
 select some humble villager for companion, and steal away to the banks 
 of the Erewash, or into the far fields and woods, making acquaintance 
 with Nature in her shyest retreats. When no such boy-mate could be 
 had, he would worship her alone. When on a visit to old Mr. Lever, 
 at Mansfield, he would walk backward and forward on the coping-stones 
 of a mossy wall, for an hour at a time, apparantly musing and reciting 
 to himself, as was his wont by the fireside in after years. It is to 
 such moods, I suppose, that we owe his exquisite volumes, "Antedilu- 
 vian Sketches," "The Gipsy King," his work on Australia, "Wasp's 
 Honey," and hundreds of beautiful stray poems, contributed in the first 
 instance to "Fraser," " Tait," "Blackwood," and other periodicals, 
 or read to his friends, then laid aside. He died, at Edingley, February 
 5th, 1869, and his body was interred in the Friends' Burial-ground at 
 Mansfield, just as he was closing his seventieth year, and not long after 
 the publication of his volume ironically entitled " Wasp's Honey,"' — a 
 book abounding in poetry sweet and fresh as the honey of the blithest 
 bee. A copious memoir of him, evidently by some kindly writer well 
 acquainted with him, has since appeared in "The Reliquary." Let 
 me add one fact he once related to me in conversation — namely, that 
 when a youth, in Derbyshire, he dreamed of a strange sight — the 
 sunlight descending on a slope, amongst trees the like of which he had 
 theretofore never seen ; and that dream was realised exactly, some 
 thirty years afterwards, in Australia ! 
 
 WILLIAM AND MARY HOWITT. 
 In these memoirs and sketches I have hitherto said little but of such 
 as have already departed, in relation to whom one cannot be accused 
 of flattery or invidiousness, and whom there can be now no risk of 
 hurting with praise; though I could love to tell much of many (who, 
 let us be thankful for their longer stay,) are still amongst us. My 
 
312 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 pen ! move gently and deferentially while I venture to trace one or 
 two whom, in this particular chapter, it would be ungrateful in me to 
 omit. 
 
 When I first knew William and Mary Howitt, as they dwelt in Not- 
 tingham, a family of lively little children was climbing or skipping 
 about them. The only glimpse I ever had of Wordsworth was on then- 
 threshold ; and I have seen Alaric and Zillah Watts, Allan Cunning- 
 ham, Mrs. Jerram, Jeremiah Wiffen, aud Charles Pemberton there. 
 Every Sabbath-day I saw them in the Friends' meeting, and in many 
 a sweet evening hour have seen them making sabbath of the middle of 
 the week, in the meadows, groves, and lanes, surrounding fair old Not- 
 tingham; while their "Forest Minstrel," "The Book of the Seasons," 
 and other works, were already winning fame. 
 
 Ebenezer Elliott was in the habit of remarking, that their names 
 always reminded him of a " William and Mary shilling," with the two 
 heads side by side. And when one thinks of the arduous career through 
 which they have solaced each other, and how much the reading world 
 owes to their beautifully united labours, certainly the symbol is not an 
 inapt one. Shortly after their marriage, they made a five hundred 
 miles' tour, chiefly on foot, in the north of England and Scotland, lay- 
 ing in stores of that romantic imagery which was aftens^ards to gladden 
 the minds of so many of their country-people ; and the fine scenery of 
 Derbyshire, North Staffordshire, and Sherwood Forest, having been 
 more or less familiar to one or both of them from early youth, material 
 was never lacked for song or sonnet, for romance or rural sketch; while 
 residing, as they did, many years at Nottingham, the beautiful land- 
 scapes expanding around that ancient town were exhaustless sources to 
 them of poetical incident, historical association, and that rich feeling 
 welling up and glowing in his "Rural Life of England," where Mr. 
 Howitt says : — 
 
 If I could but arouse in other minds tliat ardent and ever-growing love of the 
 beautiful works of God in the creation which I feel in myself — if I could but make 
 it in others what it has been to me — 
 
 " The nurse, 
 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
 Of all my moral being " — 
 
 if I could open to any the mental eye which can never be again closed, but which 
 finds more and more clearly revealed before it beauty, wisdom, and peace, in the 
 splendours of the heavens, in the majesty of seas and mountains, in the freshness 
 of winds, the ever-changing lights and shadows of fair landscapes, the solitude of 
 heaths, the radiant face of bright lakes, and the solemn depths of woods, then in- 
 deed should I rejoice. ■ • . . I feel, however, an animating assurance that 
 Nature will exert a perpetually-increasing influence, not only as a most fertile 
 source of pure and substantial pleasures — pleasures which, unlike many others. 
 
FIEST LITEKARY FBIENDS. 
 
 313 
 
 produce, instead of satiety, desire — but also as a great moral agent ; and -what 
 effects I anticipate, from this growing taste may be readily inferred, when I avow it 
 as one of the most fearless articles of my creed, that it is scarcely possible for a 
 man in whom its power is once firmly established to become utterly debased in 
 sentiment or abandoned in principle. His soul may be said to be brought into 
 habitual union with the Author of Nature — ■ 
 
 " Haunted for ever by the Eternal Mind." 
 I have alluded to their children, several of whom, with many of the 
 usual characteristics of the children of men and women of genius, early 
 passed away. One little boy in particular I remember, with his sweet 
 pale face, high brow, and flaxen hair, playing about and amusing a 
 grave old man by his gentle words, and a few weeks after seeing him 
 borne away in his coffin, his parents and others following, and that old 
 man with other friends and neighbours silently watching the mournful 
 scene. Yet though so many (I think six) so early vanished, five sur- 
 vived, and promised to be strong and hale, when a sad accident — a fall 
 down a staircase from the arms of his tutor in Germany — took one of 
 these, and left marks of grief in the family which linger yet. And then 
 another — bright, brave, noble-hearted Charlton ! — after adventures in 
 Australia, hard duties well done in London, and public services well 
 performed abroad, was recently drowned in New Zealand, while 
 engineering for a new road. Thus but three of all their children now 
 remain on earth to them, — and one of these, Alfred, is devoting his 
 remarkable skill and powers to the public service in Australia. Only 
 two daughters, Mrs. Alfred Watts (so wondrously gifted with genius 
 alike for literature and art,) and Margaret, remain near her now. 
 Yet, through all her bereavements, through all trials, and in the midst 
 of duties requiring a talent for domesticity surpassed only by her genius 
 as a writer, while at the same time dispensing a frugal but graceful 
 hospitality to friends and occasional guests from all parts of the world, 
 Mary Howitt, in her beautiful poems, her stories for children, and 
 translations for readers of all ages and classes, has never ceased to 
 charm and cheer the popular heart and mind, until there are few liter- 
 ary women whose names are more widely known or beloved. 
 
 Envy has more than once insinuated that some of the books bearing 
 William Howitt's individual name owe the greatest share of their merit 
 to Mrs. Howitt. If two such spirits could dwell together so many 
 years, with such a popular run upon their powers as there has been, 
 and they never helped each other at all, it would be indeed remarkable. 
 But knowing William Howitt as I do, and having heard both him and 
 Mrs. Howitt in reference to the very topic, I believe the insinuation to 
 be as absurd as his power to write whatever may bear his name is 
 certain. And here I can most honestly add another word. In that 
 
314 CHAPTEK XXIV. 
 
 sad dispute about the origin of " The People's Journal," when Charles 
 Knight remarked that " the quarrels of literary men are like the battles 
 of brothers, in which every blow inflicts a double pain," it was said (let 
 us trust not in designed falsehood), that the Howitts took the idea of 
 such a publication at second hand, and only after the work had been 
 started by another. It would do no good now to revive that dead dis- 
 pute, but it is bare justice in me to say that, years before " The Peo- 
 ple's Journal" commenced, William Howitt stated fully to me his plan 
 of such a work, as also his plan for a weekly newspaper, and told me 
 of his hope that his brother Richard and myself might [be amongst 
 his constant contributors. 
 
 It would be but an ill return for upwards of thirty yeaa-s' kindly re- 
 cognition, courtesies, and welcomes, were I here to trench more upon 
 the private sphere of friends because they chance to have popular sym- 
 pathies and relations, merely to make a present of every glimpse of 
 their home to the world. Never in my visits to persons of distinction 
 did I at the moment mark a single feature or incident with the view of 
 thereafter writing about it. The first publisher of this sketch could 
 bear me out that my theme was chosen quite as much for as by me ; 
 and however popular any person may be, that gives no one the right 
 to invade his or her private home, and make it public. Yet can I be 
 wrong in saying that William Howitt, as a companion in the field, or 
 woodland, or in river-side rambles, is an unmistakeable impersonation 
 of the spirit of his choicest writings ; or that Mary Howitt in her 
 household is the same ? Can it be wrong to tell any of the young 
 people who may take up one of her volumes, that the outline of its 
 story was perhaps first told to her own children, as they leant against 
 her knee, looking up into her kindly face, many a long, long year ago ? 
 
 Once I was their guest, at Clapton Elms, for a fortnight, when 
 poor Charlton, who is now drowned, and Maggy, who has since written 
 so pleasantly about her life with Miss Bremer, were very young. And 
 it was then a treat to see and hear how, when a short leisure could be 
 snatched by father or mother from the daily routine of literary or other 
 duty, those children would go to them, lean upon their knees, and looking 
 up with eyes full of love and expectation, say " Papa (or Mamma, as 
 the case might be,) will you be so good as to make me a pretty story? " 
 when forthwith was extemporised something adapted at once to stir 
 up all the interest of an inquiring child, and to crown the occasion 
 with a moral sentiment calculated to benefit a whole life. Yet that is 
 only one of a hundred illustrations of the same spirit that might be 
 given, — while no herb or flower, or even a feather, could be brought in, 
 without its probably leading to a short but pleasant dissertation which. 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 315 
 
 while it had all the charm of a tale, inculcated some sound knowledge 
 of botany, natural history, or humanity. To me it was always amaz- 
 ing how Mrs. Howitt could get through so much literary work, yet turn 
 aside from it so oft to bless the itn-literary world as I have known 
 her, without wearying ; but such seem destined to give more of them- 
 selves to their God and their kind as their trials and years increase, 
 their truer life being renewed from year to year, somewhat akin to what 
 she herself says of Cowslips : — 
 
 Ob ! fragrant dwellers of the lea, 
 
 When first the wild wood rings 
 With each sound of vernal minstrelsy, 
 
 When fresh the green grass springs ! 
 
 What can the blessed spring restore, 
 More gladdening than your charms ? 
 
 Bringing the memory once more 
 Of lovely fields and farms ! 
 
 Of thickets, breezes, birds, and flowers ; 
 
 Of life's unfolding prime ; 
 Of thoughts as cloudless as the hours ; 
 
 Of souls without a crime. 
 
 For again, again, on dewy plain, 
 
 I trust to see you rise. 
 When spring renews the wild wood strain. 
 
 And bluer gleam the skies. 
 
 Again, again, when many springs 
 
 Upon my grave shall shine. 
 Here shall you speak of vanished things 
 
 To living hearts of mine. 
 
 And so, my friend, they will ; for it is thy beautiful destiny that Nature 
 shall write thy epitaph in flowers, and Time renew them every spring ; 
 and they shall speak of thee, when thou hast vanished, to many a living 
 heart thy song will still make thine ! 
 
 To enumerate all the works written and translated by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Howitt would be to write a lengthy catalogue ; for they have laboured 
 hard and long. To me it is interesting, while this sheet is in the press, 
 to hear that they are (1871) keeping the fiftieth anniversary of their 
 wedding-day, in Rome. 
 
 SAMUEL PLUMB. 
 
 The name of Samuel Plumb (or, as it is sometimes spelt, Plumbe,) has 
 been repeatedly mentioned in these pages. I have not known many of 
 
316 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 his family ; but to most of those I have known, Hterature seems in- 
 digenous. In his own case it certainly grew with his growth ; and I 
 give this brief history almost in his own words. 
 
 He was born Oct. 11th, 1793, at a lone cottage called "The Odd 
 Place," between Woodborough and Lambley, in Sherwood Forest. His 
 father, George Plumb, stocking- weaver, had this cottage and a piece of 
 land, at a low rent, from a gentleman in the neighbourhood, for pro- 
 tecting his fences against the forest-deer. It was customary when he 
 was from home on dark nights for his wife to put a candle in the 
 chamber window, as a sort of home-star to guide him over the plain on 
 his return — especially when he had been to Nottingham with his work, 
 in which direction the light could be seen for two miles. George 
 Plumb was thrice married, and Samuel was the eldest child of the 
 second marriage. His mother died while he was so young that his 
 father had to lift him up to look into her coffin, ere it was finally 
 closed. This occurred at Southwell, to which town they had removed, 
 as they again removed from it to Edingley, — a sweet rural neighbour- 
 hood which Samuel much enjoyed. The father still went periodically to 
 Nottingham, and the little boy cried whenever he returned wthout 
 bringing him a book. — That village of Edingley ought to have a wide 
 reputation. Besides having been the residence of Ptichard Howitt, it 
 was the birthplace of Mr. Charles Plumbe, who, if he had continued to 
 devote himself to poetry as ardently as he has done to other pursuits, 
 would, in my opinion, have ranked second to none of the raral poets of 
 our day. His ' ' Welcome to March, ' ' ' ' Address to the Ivy, " " The Ballad 
 Singer," and "Winter hath never a charm for Age," were deservedly 
 popular throughout the whole country-side, in our j^ounger days ; and 
 his humorous "Address to the Toothache," is worthy of a reading, 
 even after that of Bums. Another true poet, who must have loved 
 poetry for its own sake alone, for he has left no formal collection of his 
 writings, was HenryCooper, commencing life there as a stocking-weaver, 
 and (almost without help), so educating himself as, later on, to become 
 schoolmaster of Amlwch, in Wales, where his ashes peacefully sleep. 
 Then there was Mr. Alvey — once I believe a china-painter at Pinxton 
 ■ — who became schoolmaster at Edingley, writing humorous verse and 
 diving deep into mathematics ; besides others, whose talents for music 
 or literature gained at least local fame. 
 
 Samuel Plumb learnt his A, B, C under an old Edingley school- 
 master of the name of Huddlestone, who was noted for being rather 
 liberal with the " clapper- claw," (an obsolete word for a stroke on the 
 open hand with a flat board, somewhat like a battledore) ; but long be- 
 fore he could read, he was wont to cry for others to read to him, much 
 
FIRST LITERAEY FRIENDS. 817 
 
 as many children cry for sweetmeats ; and every halfpenny he could 
 procure wag spent in books. After staying for some time at Edingley 
 with his brother Benjamin, Samuel joined the rest of the family at Not- 
 tingham and Radford, and finally removed with them to Carlton-in-the- 
 Willows, in 1808, when he, of course, would be about fifteen years old. 
 At this time the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," and "Robinson 
 Crusoe," were favourites in the home, and were often read aloud by 
 the father or Samuel for the benefit of the whole evening-circle — one 
 commencing when the other was tired ; but it was seldom that father 
 or son read long without being overcome with emotion. George Plumb 
 had an exceedingly tender and kind heart for all — his children espe- 
 cially, and Samuel inherited it. 
 
 At seventeen years of age Samuel had learnt arithmetic from Fen- 
 ning ; and seeing mathematical problems weekly in the " Nottingham 
 Review," he became ambitious of solving them, succeeded, and with 
 the solutions were published problems of his own ; but this was mostly 
 with some fictitious signature, his modesty preventing the revelation of 
 his own name. The then high price of books stood in the way of ex- 
 tensive reading; but he managed to take in the " Quarterly Visitor," 
 published at Hull, some pages of which were devoted to mathematics. 
 To that he occasionally contributed ; but the cost of postage rendered 
 this indulgence a rarity. He was now nineteen, and the charm there 
 is in fields and woods and by river-sides, having imbued his soul from 
 childhood, began to show its efi'ects in his maturing character. The 
 recital of tales of sorrow or pain, which would at any time have made 
 him weep, now led to his attempting the composition of such, and his 
 " Orphan's Tale," "Mother's Tale," "Old Man's Tale," etc., flowed 
 from him in streams of truest pathos. Even in his advanced years, he 
 could never read the parable of the Prodigal Son without an emotion 
 that sometimes stopped his speech. 
 
 In addition to enjoying the "Poet's Corner" of the newspaper, he 
 read Thomson's " Seasons " and a few other standard works, — few, 
 because of their then dearness. He learnt also to play on the violin, 
 and picked up several thousands of French words from a cheap Vocabu- 
 lary and Boyer's Dictionary, without a tutor — his sister, with the books 
 in her hand, testing his correctness. When he at last tried his own 
 hand at composition, his sonnets and ballads found their way into the 
 " Nottingham Review " and " Derby Reporter." But these were sel- 
 dom signed with his full name ; and there may perhaps be some still 
 living who can remember in those days the unpretending, but often 
 beautiful poetical contributions of " S. P." and " T. B.," the latter 
 Thomas Brown, of South Normanton, also a stocking- weaver, a gifted 
 
318 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 poet and worthy man. Between the two there was great respect, aris- 
 ing from their mutual readings, and they longed to see each other ; but 
 it was never their fortune to meet, except in the columns of the news- 
 paper. At this period Robert Millhouse was rising in reputation ; the 
 Howitts were in Nottingham, as also was a young man of genius named 
 Danby, but who early died. To these Plumb became known, as after- 
 wards to Thomas Miller, myself, and others ; and notwithstanding his 
 constitutional shyness was a favourite with us all. His poetical effu- 
 sions and mathematical solutions gained him a fixed, even though it 
 might be a limited reputation ; and with access to the newly established 
 Artizans' Library at Nottingham, and the quiet luxury of belonging 
 to " Richard Hewitt's set," his life was far from being a blank as the 
 years glided on. 
 
 He was married at the age of twenty-one, but his wife died very 
 early. Her death, which was preceded by that of their little son, aged 
 twenty months, was caused by her going out one night to see that the 
 child's grave was unmolested — ^there being much agitation at that time 
 in the neighbourhood, owing to the "resurrections" at Nottingham 
 and the " burkings " at Edinburgh. After this event he saved five or 
 six sovereigns for nearly ten years, in the hope of being able to emi- 
 grate, sooner or later, to America. But repeated panics in trade pre- 
 vented the little sum growing to so much as was needed. It, however, 
 did good service in kindly loans to poor friends and neighbours in their 
 need. It must have been in these times that he threw off the following 
 
 stanzas on 
 
 CARLTON-IN-THE-WILLOWS. 
 
 I've ne'er travell'd far, but wherever I've been, 
 
 I've sought for scenes lovelier than those vrhere I dwell ; 
 Their equal, perchance their superior, have seen, 
 
 But never saw any I loved half so well. 
 And as for the vineyards, and sweet orange groves, 
 
 Aye verdant and blooming beyond ocean's billows, 
 Their gay gaudy gardens, and shady alcoves, 
 
 Would not please my fancy like Carlton -i'th'-Willows. 
 
 Their mountains majestic are barren and bare, 
 
 Where ravenous prey-birds in safety abide ; 
 The world's widest waters roll rapidly there, 
 
 But serpents and crocodiles lurk by their side ; — 
 Our hills are with cornfields and pastures bespread. 
 
 And o'er them Hygeia's best breezes are blowing, 
 And there is no reptile the wanderer need dread 
 
 Adown in the vale where Trent's waters are flowing. 
 
 sweet rural spot, ever dear to my heart, 
 
 Where love unalloy'd, and true friendship I've met, 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 319 
 
 If ever I'm doom'd from thy scenes to depart, 
 
 My spirit at times will be steep'd in regret. 
 Should fate, who metes out weal and woe at command, 
 
 Waft me to seek fortune across ocean's billows, 
 I'll drink to far friends, and my dear native land,' 
 
 But my first and last toast shall be — " Carlton-i'th'-Willows." 
 
 He was very smart and clever in epigrams, some of which, equal to 
 many of Burns's, I should be tempted to give, but for their being so 
 personal that their publication might hurt the feelings of parties still 
 living. In an age when some land-owners are inviting Communism, 
 by obliterating the public foot-paths, which they have no more right 
 to steal than the public have to invade their private rooms, the 
 following sonnet, first published long ago, may even yet be not out of 
 place. Born myself, and receiving my earliest impulses in the border- 
 life linking, as it ought, (or separating, as the case may be,) the 
 homely and the well-to-do classes ; appreciating, as I think I do, 
 something of the rights and feelings of both ; and in all things just 
 and reasonable desiring to be conservative, my sympathy with the son- 
 net's sentiments are intense and thorough ; for I believe there are few 
 luxuries more valued by a poor man, or to which, so long as he behaves 
 himself, he has more right, than a walk in the woods and fields in 
 leisure hours. If there be one thing for which more than another I 
 respect several of our olden aristocracy, it is the liberal way in which 
 they have left their domains as open as good taste and safety would 
 permit for the approach and enjoyment of the people ; and by parity 
 of reasoning, one feels just as indignant with any "rough" who abuses 
 that liberty. Samuel was wont jocosely to say that, on any new en- 
 closure, " a foot-path ought to be left through every field, and that the 
 penalty for trespassing from it ought then to be — hanging !" 
 
 ON FOOT-PATHS. 
 
 With pain and indignation we behold 
 
 Paths intersecting wood and flowery lea, 
 
 The old brown lines of rural liberty, 
 Ta'en one by one away: where, uncontrolled, 
 Enjoying friendly converse, on we strolled 
 Through scenes and haunts in which we loved to be, 
 
 Fearless of lurking menial, and as free 
 As is the wind. But now, oppressions bold 
 With avarice leagued, upon our birthrights lay 
 
 Their gra,sping hands, shielded by laws severe. 
 
 These wrongs are ours, and much we think and fear 
 'The time may come, nor distant far the day, 
 
 When all these pleasant paths may disappear, 
 And none be left us but a bare highway. 
 
320 CHAPTEK XXIV. 
 
 There is a delicate and tender charm, worthy of our most educated 
 and refined poets, in the subjoined, " on finding some Primroses in 
 Burton Wood, on New Year's Day, 1843 ": — 
 
 Old Winter came with fierce destructive sweep, 
 
 And shook the woods and turned the green leaves sere, 
 
 When, as if wearied in his wild career, 
 
 He paused awhile, and couohant seemed to sleep : 
 
 Forth from a southern covert warm and deep 
 
 Came Spring, and looked upon his front austere, 
 
 And lightly stept about like one in fear. 
 
 And where she trod the flowers began to peep. 
 
 Stern Winter woke — down fell the tempests dire, 
 
 The Year's fair daughter terror-stricken fled. 
 
 And left the flowerets to his ruthless ire ; 
 
 With care we bore them from their cheerless bed. 
 
 To gratify a Mother's fond desire. 
 
 Who placed them o'er the unforgotten dead. 
 Poor Plumb ! In his latter years he became rheumatic, and ulti- 
 mately paralytic, his fate as touching as that of any subject of the most 
 pathetic ballad he ever wrote. He sometimes visited me in those sad 
 days. On one occasion — it was in a dim, gusty autumnal evening 
 — I was stepping out of my door at Derby, when who should be stump- 
 ing along the garden-path towards me but Samuel, with a little bundle 
 in a blue cotton handkerchief, tucked under his arm, filled with manu- 
 scripts and printed slips from newspapers and periodicals, which he 
 presently laid out on my table, asking me, in half-articulate words 
 and with a tear in his eye, to get them published for him. I made 
 overtures to publishers, offering to write an introductory chapter, but 
 could get no one to undertake the matter. In this adversity his 
 nephew, Charles, rendered him such aid as was possible ; and under 
 the heading of the words " Shall Genius die unsolaced ? " I published 
 an appeal for him in the Nottingham newspapers ; but it gained little 
 or no response, beyond one small contribution, left at the office of 
 the " Nottingham Journal;" and shortly afterwards he died at Bas- 
 ford, deserving a better fate. One of his favourite poets was poor 
 Robert Bloomfield. Sad that their final lot should have been so akin ! 
 Samuel Plumb was of medium height, with a lofty brow, slightly 
 ruddy complexion, and blue-grey eyes, twinkling alternately with 
 shrewdness, tenderness, and mirth. When denouncing cruelty or 
 oppression, there would be a frequent jer/t affecting alike his frame and 
 his speech. His ruling characteristic was manly independence. His 
 death occurred beyond his sixtieth year ; and Gedling Spire, one of the 
 most picturesque landmarks in Nottinghamshire, overlooks his grave, 
 with no other monument to indicate the lowly spot. 
 
FIEST LITERARY FRIENDS. 
 
 321 
 
 THOMAS MILLEE. 
 
 One of the most interesting of my literary freres in Nottingham was 
 Thomas Miller, with whose rural and other writings the whole world of 
 English readers is now more or less familiar, and who owed his first 
 introduction to the public in some measure to Mr. Thomas Bailey, 
 father of the author of " Festus." I am writing of the years between 
 1830 and 1836. The basement storey of Bromley House was at that 
 time used as a basket-manufactory by one Mr. Watts ; and therein was 
 employed a young married man who had come up from the neighbour- 
 hood of Gainsborough. He had a somewhat round but intelligent face, 
 a fair complexion ; full, blue, speaking eyes ; and a voice reminding 
 one of the deeper and softer tones of a well-played flute. Of all who 
 saw him at his work, it is probable that scarcely one knew how befit- 
 ting him was that couplet of Virgil, where he says — 
 " Thus while I sung, my sorrows I deceived, 
 And bending osiers into baskets weaved," 
 until he became known to Mr. Bailey, who was at that time editing 
 " The Good Citizen," and who, immediately, not only encouraged the 
 printing of " Songs of the Sea-Nymphs," but did all in his power to 
 win the modest little book a welcome. That young basket-maker and 
 singer about Sea-Nymphs, was our Thomas Miller, who, it was said, 
 had once in a freak been the companion of gypsies, and who, though 
 descended on the maternal side from a family of some rank, had known 
 pinching poverty in his childhood, and had received no higher educa- 
 tion than such circumstances could normally afford. 
 
 " Songs of the Sea-Nymphs" soon gained Mr. Miller additional 
 friends, and he started business on his own account, having a work- 
 room in the Long-row, and a stall on Saturdays near the corner of the 
 Exchange. There was poetry in his very baskets. A few coarser ones 
 were there ; but others of more beautiful pattern, texture, and colour 
 flung a sort of bloom over the rest ; and the basket-maker and his 
 wares well matched each other, as he would take his cigar from his 
 mouth and ask some pretty market-maiden, in his cheeriest tones, as 
 she lingered and looked, if she would not like to purchase. As a youth, 
 I was wont to stand there chatting with him occasionally, and to hear 
 him, between customers, pour out the poetry of Coleridge and other 
 great minds with an appreciance and a melody that such authors might 
 themselves have listened to with pride and delight. 
 
 One week we suddenly missed him, and a few weeks afterwards 
 found, by one of the monthly magazines, that he was in London and 
 had literary employment there ; and there he has ever since, like a 
 
322 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 caged thrush, remained, charming the national heart with his outpour- 
 ings of verse and poetical prose. There is no need for me here to 
 catalogue his volumes ; and it would be impossible even to indicate all 
 he has furnished anonymously for the illustrated papers and annuals. 
 It was, I believe, his " Royston Gower" that won him the friendship 
 of the late Countess of Blessingtoh, under whose auspices he com- 
 menced business as a publisher, in Newgate Street, just opposite 
 Christ's Hospital. And there, in 1842, he published for me one of 
 my earliest little books — " Rambles in the Country: by the Sherwood 
 Forester." He did well for it in every way ; and on paying over to me 
 at last the balance in my favour, regretted that two thousand additional 
 copies had not been printed, saying he could have sold them all. 
 
 But Thomas Miller was not destined for trade ; and for many, many 
 years past he has devoted himself almost exclusively to writing. His 
 "Gideon Giles, the Roper," was very popular. After it had for some 
 time been on drawing-room tables, it found its way into a weekly 
 journal ; and through that into some of the obscurest cottages in the 
 land. As an instance : — I was one day talking with a shepherd from 
 Kirkby-in-Ashfield. "Hayes," said I, "much of your time is passed 
 in the fields : does the charm of nature ever strike you there ?" "I 
 know what you mean," he replied : " once it didn't ; but ever since I 
 read ' Gideon Giles,* the Roper,' the world about me, and all I have 
 to do in it, has been quite changed : there is now a charm for me in 
 all I see." " I'm very glad to hear what you say," I rejoined, " and 
 will certainly tell the author of it when I see him." " Why, do you 
 know him ? " cried the shepherd in ecstasy, grasping my hand. " Yes." 
 " Then when you see him next," said he, his eyes beaming with de- 
 light, " tell him to write us another tale as good as 'Gideon Giles, the 
 Roper!'" That, thought I, is real fame. 
 
 Old Friend Miller ! Shall we ever meet again ? During my last 
 visit to London I was under an engagement to visit him with David 
 Chambers. But something detained me ; and David is now " beyond 
 the bourn." 
 
 THE REV. THOMAS RAGG, AND OTHERS. 
 If I dwell not at length on others of the old Nottingham literati, it is 
 not that they are unworthy, but because, though on terms of kindly 
 acquaintance, I had really less intimacy with them. There was Thomas 
 Ragg, who commenced life as an avowed sceptic, but in time wrote a 
 
 * He pronounced the G in Giles hard, the same as in Gideon. 
 
FIEST LITEEARY FRIENDS. 823 
 
 masterly poem in favour of Theism, in addition to a hundred minor 
 poems on many themes, — at first a stocking-weaver or lace-maker, but 
 afterwards assisting at Dearden's book-shop and Hbrary, and of whom 
 the following anecdote is told. His book having just been handsomely 
 reviewed, a pompous customer in the shop walked up to the counter, 
 and in a patronising manner made some allusion to its merits. Thomas 
 mistook the compliment for one of generous appreciation, and after- 
 wards showed some recognition of the party paying it as they passed 
 each other, but was given the go-bye with an air of contempt. Sub- 
 sequently, the person who had thus behaved, being in conversation 
 with one who knew him, said — " Haw ! that Ragg, at Dearden's : do 
 you know him?" " Yes," was the answer, " why do you ask?" 
 " Haw — why — you see — he has written a book ; and I thoiight I 
 would slightly compliment him on it ; but what do you think the 
 fellow was afterwards — haw — imprudent enough to do ? He positively 
 bowed to me in the street, as if we were acquainted!" "Did 
 he, indeed?" (gravely rejoined the other), " well, that was very remark- 
 able, considering that when you and I are dead, buried, rotten, and 
 forgotten, his name will probably be much more honoured than yours 
 or mine is now ! " 
 
 Mr. Ragg's next move was to Birmingham, where he was publisher 
 if not editor of a leading newspaper, after which he " took orders" 
 and became a clergyman of the Church of England. Considering that 
 he commenced life so humbly, was self-educated, and without excep- 
 tion one of the most modest and gentle men I ever met, I have ever 
 regarded his career with wonder, and his character with admiration. 
 
 And in truth old Nottingham had at that time many whose writings, 
 had they but appeared early enough, might have won for them a place 
 in "Johnson's Lives," — Mrs. Gilbert (of the family of Taylor of Ongar), 
 Thomas Bailey, who was also a powerful speaker, and John Hicklin, 
 author of "Leisure Hours," — to which may be added the names of 
 Renals, Cooke, Wilcockson, Mullen, and E. G. Pickering, — not the 
 least. It was at this time some one said to William Howitt that ' ' Not- 
 tingham had turned out many authors." "That may be true," replied 
 William, "fori never knew it keep one!" But as the old galaxy 
 vanished, some by death and others by change of residence, a new 
 generation started up not less remarkable. Philip James Bailey, "dark- 
 haired, dark-eyed," whom I well remember seeing walking across the 
 Forest, hand-in-hand with his father, was already meditating "Festus; " 
 and only second to him in poetic power and promise was Henry S. Sut- 
 ton. Sidney Giles was writing exquisite lyrics and sonnets, and as he 
 early passed away, Edward Hind seized the harp and struck from it 
 x2 
 
324 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 fitful yet most impassioned and thrilling music. Bradbury Mellows 
 was rising into favour ; and John Westby Gibson, claiming to be a 
 Sherwood Forester, soon afterwards, published poems full of bloom, 
 in London. But these and others I would gladly name must be left 
 by me. And why should they not ? Will not their own works be 
 sufficient monument for them ? Or, Carter ! shall the loviag task be 
 thine to tell their names to other times ? There is one of them, how- 
 ever, I cannot pass without an additional word — Edward Hind — in 
 relation to whom I long since said, that it is almost as natural for some 
 men to think in metaphor and write in rhyme, as it is for mankind in 
 general to eat and drink. It often happens, too, that this propensity 
 is associated with a most warm, susceptible, and impulsive soul, pecu- 
 liarly alive to sympathy, and pei^petual craving, but seldom in an ade- 
 quate degi'ee receiving it. Hence, a man thus constituted soon feels 
 more isolated among the common crowd than in the wildest solitudes. 
 He walks the |human world as one not of it; and, disappointed of 
 genial communion with his kind, extends his love to the aggregate 
 beauties of creation, finding in every object there the embodiment or 
 symbol of some glowing and exalted ideal. And as large-heartedness 
 is not unfrequently the accompaniment of enthusiasm, in so much as 
 such an one feels himself inducted to the inner meaning of things, — 
 in proportion as he feels the throbbing of a star as well as sees its bight' 
 ness, or rejoices in the sentiment as well as in the bloom of flowers, 
 and learns by the emotions they awaken to discover their analogues in 
 the arcana of his own being, — the more intense becomes his desire to 
 give others possession of his raptures ; and he turns again towards 
 society with their record in his hands, to be received or rejected 
 according to the taste or humour of the times. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1853, and at the distance of a hundred miles 
 or more from Nottingham, that a literary friend put into my hands a 
 poem entitled " Prometheus Bound," and asked if I were at all 
 acquainted with its author — Edward Hind. Eeplying that I knew his 
 name only through the newspapers, and looking over the lines before 
 me, I soon observed that, notwithstanding considerable hyperbole, and 
 what the majority of readers would regard as great irregularity in the 
 rhythm, they contained passages of wondrous power, and presented for 
 the psychologist a study of remarkable interest. In truth, it was the 
 very ecstasy of grief, uttered in some of the intensest language I had 
 ever read ; and even the rhythmical irregularity alluded to was the 
 result of a pecuHar method which the author had adopted, of sometimes 
 giving greater emphasis to a single thought, by allowing it to occupy 
 the space of a whole line, without attenuating his verbiage to the regular 
 
FIRST LITEBARY FRIENDS. 325 
 
 length. On the other hand, and for a converse reason, some of the 
 lines were disproportionately long to the eye and ear — but had evidently 
 their harmony in the author's mind. Making allowance for this mental 
 idiosyncrasy, it was impossible to avoid becoming deeply interested in 
 him. " Prometheus Bound " was a history of sufferings, not his own 
 merely, however peculiar they might seem to him, but of thousands, 
 who, lacking the power, the courage, or the opportunity for utterance, 
 
 ^^® " Dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown." 
 
 In the present case, metaphorically speaking, cold water by one party, 
 and oil by another, had been severally employed to quench the spirit's 
 fires ; but too strong for the former, they were aggravated by the latter, 
 and thus at length broke forth in the "Life-Drama" I was reading, 
 and which led to our correspondence, and ultimately to personal in- 
 timacy. 
 
 According to the Eev. W. H. Wylie's "Old and New Nottingham," 
 Edward Hind was born in that town, on the 7th of November, 1817; 
 and, while yet very young, published much, both of prose and verse, 
 through the metropolitan and local journals. In 1848, he sent to the 
 press a pamphlet entitled " Reason's Remonstrance," which was pro- 
 nounced by Philip J. Bailey " a very powerfully written appeal in 
 favour of the greatest-happiness principle." The warm-hearted, bright- 
 thoughted author of " Festus " added, that it set forth "the evils of 
 war, and the pure and holy fruits which spring from love and good-will 
 towards men, with much force and beauty of expression." After this 
 quotation, Mr. Wylie proceeds : — " His local sketches abound in curi- 
 ous, out-of-the-way knowledge, acquired in his rambles round the 
 borough. Though he has made some flights in a higher sphere, as in 
 his address to ' The Stars,' still he excels chiefly in transferring to his 
 page the characteristics of the life and scenery by which he is sur- 
 rounded, and he will be long remembered as a successful member of 
 the Sherwood school. In one of his rambles by his favourite Trent, 
 some years ago, Edward Hind was the happy instrument of saving a 
 young man from being drowned, though he accomplished the task only 
 at the risk of his own life." Some passages of " Prometheus Bound " 
 are then introduced, and one or two of them will, perhaps, not be out 
 of place here. Speaking of his own boyhood, in the third person, he 
 thus beautifully says : — 
 
 In the soft sunshine of departed days, 
 
 I see him roaming o'er the gold-flowered fields, 
 
 Referring every thought to Deity ! 
 
 Trained by the Hebrew bards, by Milton, Addison, 
 
 Burns, Fenelon, Goldsmith, Shakspere, Paley — all 
 
326 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 Who've writ in stars upon tlie night of tune, 
 
 His mind reflects the beauty of the earth, 
 
 And glory of the heavens, as a clear mirror 
 
 Reflects the face of morn. 
 
 He gazes hopefully on the years to come. 
 
 Anticipating happiness to be — 
 
 Radiant of love, and joy, and fame, and fortune. 
 
 Child of imagination ! see him stand 
 
 With aspect open as a cloudless sky ; 
 
 Heart full of truth, as is the rose of fragrance ; 
 
 Thought lighting up his brain like summer sunshine ; 
 
 Sending the music of his praise from earth. 
 
 As happy as the lark that sings in heaven. 
 
 Then we learn that he was 
 
 Sent to pursuits, for which he was as fit 
 
 As Pascal for a prize-fight ; Cowper for a crowd ; 
 
 Life's beauty faded ; health, its glory, went. 
 
 Sunless, moonless, starless grew his sky; 
 
 The brightness of his morn became a night 
 
 Of festering thoughts, and blistering, strange sensations. 
 
 The chords of life 'gan playing discords, not 
 
 The harmonies they should ; 
 
 And, in the darkness of despair, his soul 
 
 Wept fire, and none consoled him. 
 
 He felt the glory of his spring eclipsed ; 
 
 He watched the beauty of his youth depart ; 
 
 Starr'd with irradiant hopes as thick as heaven — 
 
 Fraught with all noblest aspirations — gentle as 
 
 The tears of summer, wept o'er sleeping flowers. 
 
 He felt health go — he felt his peace depart.. 
 
 Despite his tears, his efforts, and his prayers. 
 
 Which shook his breast, aa earthquakes shake the world. 
 
 He could not stay them. 
 
 Oh ! this story 
 
 Should utterance have — like Nature's thunder-throes. 
 
 When, with volcanic voice, she speaks in groans, 
 
 Afi'righting nations. 
 
 And writes her pangs in mountains on the world ! 
 
 It is consoling to know that Edward Hind was not left long in that 
 gloom, but has since, in married life, sent forth works as cheerful and 
 hopeful as ever were penned, to the delight and encouragement of 
 many readers. 
 
 But it was not to the literary worthies of Nottingham alone that my 
 youthful mind was indebted for its greatest enjoyments. There were 
 men, some profoundly scientific, who printed or published but little, 
 to whom I owed much. Heaven spare me to tell my tale of them some 
 other day, as well as to pay fit tribute to dear old Henry Wild and 
 
FIEST LITERAEY FRIENDS. 327 
 
 others, whose psychological and spiritual conversations oft led me up 
 into brightest realms of love and light. 
 
 CHRISTOPHER THOMSON. 
 
 It was when I was yet a young man, but dwelling once more amid the 
 scenes of my first inspirations, that there came to Edwinstowe, a village 
 in the heart of the Forest, one of the most picturesque people it had 
 ever sheltered. In early life he had been a brick-yard boy, at or near 
 Hull ; had gone to the Greenland fishery, and afterwards worked as 
 an artisan in various works ; I think he had also attempted something 
 as a local preacher ; when the idea occurred to him of reforming the 
 strolling stage, and, in turn, through it reforming the minds of the 
 English population. His wife, in her way as remarkable a person as 
 himself, sympathised and worked with him with all her heart. They 
 gathered about them a strolling company, and played in barns and 
 booths, steering clear in their performances of everything promotive 
 or suggestive of immorality, and sometimes, on wet nights, having to 
 walk from one village to another for lodgings, shared the remnants 
 of candles which had served as foot-lights, for their evening's wages. 
 This remarkable person was Mr. Christopher Thomson, who, if his 
 means had been as large as his heart and hope, would have changed 
 the world. 
 
 There lived in Edwinstowe at that time a cluster of men with souls 
 just ripe for welcoming such a character and appreciating his origiiiality, 
 his genius and social worth. One was Mr. Widowson, a stout, kind 
 old mason, sculptor, and musician; another was Mr. Russell, the village 
 schoolmaster and parish-clerk. Then there were the Truemans, father 
 and son, — the father, Reuben, frank, genial, intelligent as could be ; 
 and the son, John, besides being one of the best naturalists as well as 
 best shoemakers within a hundred miles, a man of wonderful wit and 
 polish, fit for the most urbane life, yet whose heart was in the forest, 
 as the forest was in his heart ; which simile my friend Edwin Waugh 
 will excuse my altering from one of his own, because it is so fitting. 
 Poor Trueman ! he was afterwards killed near Ollerton, by an omnibus 
 coming suddenly in contact with his pony, on turning a corner of the 
 road. And there were the Tudsburys and Websters, with the Hills 
 and Uptons from Budby and Gleadthorpe, and many other kindly 
 denizens of that sylvan world, which is known far and wide as the 
 Dukery, from the contiguity in it of four fine ducal estates ; and it 
 was there that I for one first became acquainted with grand old Chris- 
 
■328 CHAPTER xxrv. 
 
 topher, who died at Sheffield so recently as January, in the present 
 year, 1871, at the age of seventy — being followed in about twelve days 
 by his affectionate widow, fitted for companionship with him alike in 
 this or a better world. It was by the wish of a dear friend that I then 
 hastily threw off my impression of him, for a local newspaper, as 
 follows : — 
 
 Ere the week of his modest funeral closes over the grave of Mr, 
 ■Christopher Thomson, the artist, let us cast upon it — or rather let us 
 iwine around his honourable memoiy — one more wreath of kindly 
 thought. Did the reader ever, in his country rambles, notice a pic- 
 turesque oak striking its roots into the cleft of an all but impenetrable 
 rock, and sending out its branches in a form that showed how, from 
 infancy, it had sustained itself by inherent vigour and determination 
 through every wrenching and riving storm, until nearly all its beauty 
 and interest might be regarded as a history of the very difficulties 
 through which it had struggled, as it still kept putting forth fresh 
 leaves to the last ? Such tree was not unsymbolical of the life of 
 brave old Christopher, as year by year, after age and many trials had 
 traced their wrinkles on him, he still developed his natural talents with 
 a freshness not unakin to that of " immortal youth." In the language 
 of one who knew him well, " he was as guileless as a child" before 
 men, and certainly appeared to be as ductile as one when in the 
 presence of Nature, who was continually photographing her most 
 exquisite lineaments on his earnest soul. Yet were his individuality 
 and independence strong, so that he always stood out a distinct figure 
 in the social landscape. He might be fortunate or unfortunate as 
 regarded his means ; he might at one period comparatively abound 
 with this world's comforts, and at another be subject to its severest 
 privations ; sometimes occupying a central point in the spheres of 
 intelligence and refinement, or anon finding his mates among the most 
 simple and rustic of mankind. But no matter: wherever his lot was 
 cast, he was always a man of mark, and, without the slightest presump- 
 tion or pretension on his own part, was by tacit consent, a social and 
 most sociable king. 
 
 We can easily understand how, while he was yet a mere boy — a 
 parish school-boy, an errand-boy, or brick-yard boy it might be, he 
 had go much bonhomie about him, so much of geniality as well as 
 genius, that all his workmates or playmates deferred to him by instinct 
 — not because he desired them, but because they felt it was fit, and 
 that they were gainers by allowing him the relation to them of a 
 teacher and moulder ; and this was certainly the case with him in the 
 vigour of his manhood. When, after having been a shipwright, a 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 329 
 
 Greenland fisherman, a veneer-sawyer, a comedian and a scene painter, 
 he thought it was time, for his family's sake, to settle down somewhere, 
 and he became a house painter in one of the most central and obscure 
 villages of Sherwood, his influence, as a social renovator, was soon 
 felt for twenty miles round ; and whether as the founder and often 
 the main director of oddfellows' lodges and artizans' and mechanics' 
 libraries, or of spontaneous " gatherings of the people, in honour of 
 science, art, literature, and moral worth," there is one vast district of 
 Nottinghamshire which wUl owe his memory a debt for generations to 
 come, to say nothing of what he did in his subsequent twenty years' 
 residence at Shefiield, or on his occasional visits to other parts of the 
 kingdom. The way in which Mr. Thomson grew into an artist was 
 very remarkable. When he became manager of a strolling theatrical 
 company, he had often to paint scenery for the stage, perforce of 
 circumstances. It was from practical knowledge thus derived that he 
 was enabled, when the time came, to operate as a house-painter. The 
 villagers of Edwinstowe had as great a desire for him to reside amongst 
 them as he had to settle ; and as he had more than half his business 
 to learn, and that without any tutor but nature, his only chance was to 
 fall upon first principles. Thus, he had hardly commenced when he 
 was wanted to " oak-grain" a gallery at Eufford Abbey, the seat of the 
 Earl of Scarborough. This was considered very delicate work, and he 
 had never even seen how oak-graining was done. But here his mother- 
 wit came to the rescue. If he declined the job it would ever stand 
 against him as an acknowledgment of incapacity ; if he undertook and 
 spoiled it, opprobrium would be inevitable. So in the emergency he 
 got a piece of sound Sherwood oak, polished the surface, studied, 
 imitated it, and then ventured on the engagement. Metropolitan oak- 
 grainers had imitated each other till they had lost nature. Thomson's 
 achievement was hailed as a grand return to it. The work was pro- 
 nounced the best of the kind ever seen in the district, and his reputa- 
 tion was so well established that there was scarcely a mansion in the 
 whole neighbourhood at which he had not afterwards employment for 
 himself and his men. From imitating the grain of the oak inside, he 
 went to work again to imitate its exterior. From the very outset — • 
 and he was then, we believe, beyond middle life — there was a true 
 touch of nature in his woodland pictures. But conventional artists 
 accused him of being unartistic. Just as truth is stranger than fiction, 
 so, in some of his paintings poor Christopher, being too true, was often 
 passed by as a man wanting taste and tact. He stuck to his principles, 
 however, and went earnestly on. There were always a few to appre- 
 ciate and encourage him ; and we venture to say, however crude 
 
330 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 comparitively may have been a number of his performances, as he con- 
 tinued to improve from day to day, some of his later works will stand 
 the test of time and rise in value from year to year, as more conven- 
 tional pictures will decline. If any real lover of the art that is in 
 nature or of the nature there is in true art doubts this, let him see 
 some paintings in the possession of Mr. John Guest, Moorgate Grange, 
 near Rotherham, Thomson's faithful friend (and the faithful friend of 
 many another struggling man of genius) to the last, and we are mis- 
 taken if he will not honour at once both the painter and the owner. 
 Noble John Guest ! if thij history should ever be faithfully wiitten, it 
 will be found to be not only one of the most striking, but one of the 
 most interesting and instructive, in the entire gallery of British wor- 
 thies. 
 
 As in Christopher's painting, so in his speaking and writing. Telling 
 over again with his tongue and pen whatever nature and life revealed 
 to him, without studying other people's rules of rhetoric, he had a 
 wonderful power of striking latent chords of thought and feeling, till, 
 under his vivid mind, even the commonest topics would partake some- 
 thing of his own picturesqueness and novelty. Wherefore, whether in 
 the village club-room, the " Sherwood gathering," the more popular 
 and urban assembly, or in some choice circle by the private fireside, 
 there was always a true ring in his metal, however unpolished it might 
 be ; while in his " Autobiography of an Artizan" (so well mentioned 
 by Lord Brougham and Mr. M. D. Hill), and other writings, there is 
 a graphicness and a colouring in his descriptions of life and scenery, 
 whether by sea or land, not often, if ever, surpassed by our most 
 popular writers. As a man, a husband, a father, or a friend, we believe 
 it is no flattery to say that he was one of the warmest-hearted, most 
 amiable, and altogether worthy. " Perfection is not earthly," and a 
 cynic might now and then, no doubt, find something in him to censure. 
 Like all men of warmth and genius, he spoke right out, with vivid 
 force, when he spoke at all, without first making any cool calculation 
 as to the possible effect. To polished people, who did not well know 
 him, he might, therefore, sometimes appear a little too brusque and 
 too unfitted to run in social harness. But there are those who knew 
 him better, and who will deeply mourn that he has left them behind, 
 while he awaits their coming in more genial climes. 
 
 In person Mr. Thomson was as remarkable as in his mind. He 
 never painted an old oak or a rugged landscape more picturesque than 
 his own head and face ; nor ever did tree or landscape more fairly 
 brighten in the presence of the sun than did he amidst a circle of 
 kindred spirits. His hearty hail ; his rosy face ; his snow-white shock 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 331 
 
 of hair; his shaggy brows, and the laughing or sometimes weeping 
 eyes they shaded — ^for he could weep over another's sorrow as well as 
 rejoice in his joy— will never be forgotten by those who knew hirn, 
 — least of all in ShefSeld or Sherwood Forest. 
 
 THOMAS BROWN. 
 
 Every man was made for a purpose, whether the world receive and ac- 
 knowledge him or not ; and whenever society blames a man whose 
 mission has not been fulfilled, let it be first assured that the fault is 
 not in a greater or less degree its own. I do not say that society 
 should foster in every one a love of distinction ; but it should carefully 
 avoid closing up those natural facilities for his moral and intellectual 
 development through which he would be best able to play the part, 
 whatever it be, that in the economy of Providence has been assigned 
 him. The rural poet, even should his fame never extend beyond the 
 bounds of his own parish, appears always to me an important character. 
 Inspired by the spirit of his time and place, he puts into those forms 
 of language that are best understood by the simple minds around him 
 such genial sentiments as they can comprehend and approve. There 
 are thousands to whom a Milton, or even a Tennyson, may be unin- 
 telligible, but who could imbibe a thought through some more simple 
 medium. In so far therefore as his humble hai^p may be tuned to 
 morality and virtue, he exercises a beneficial influence on his neigh- 
 bours, the extent of which is beyond our calculation. If, as is else- 
 where said, the humblest cottager that sings to his child by the even- 
 ing fire, when his daily toil is ended, is perhaps unconsciously influ- 
 encing mankind to the last generation, how much greater must be the 
 influence of him whose thoughts become current intellectual coin in 
 his locality, continually payable from maturer mind to mind ! 
 
 Such are some of the sentiments that naturally occur to me on 
 reviewing the life and productions of the late Thomas Brown, stocking- 
 weaver, of South Normanton Woodhouse. The Bernard Barton of his 
 neighbourhood, though in a very humble degree, his soul was a con- 
 stantly overflowing well of afi'ection and thought ; and as the quiet 
 waters of an inland rill, not less than those of the thundering cataract, 
 find their way to regions in which the name of their source is unknown ; 
 so it may probably be that many of us who were accustomed to hear 
 his verses in our childhood, and are now ourselves engaged in public 
 instruction, may oft be unwarily amplifying and applying some of the 
 homely and gentle suggestions of his muse, and making debtors to him 
 
332 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 among those who may never hear his name ! Yet why speak thus, 
 when even the greatest and most original of writers is himself but a 
 debtor and a medium of the Eternal Giver ? 
 
 Thomas Brown was born at South Normanton Toll-bar, Febraary 
 5th, 1781, and died at the Woodhouse, near, May 25th, 1848. He 
 was altogether a gentle, sedate, ingenious, affectionate, and sociable 
 man, training his children to virtue and quiet thought. When first I 
 heard of him it was by the fireside, where my father was reading some 
 of his verses to our local schoolmaster, and my mother was talking of 
 him as the friend of her brother Robert, then living in the Peak of 
 Derbyshire. My first personal acquaintance with him was in the year 
 1835. Living, as he did, just beyond the verge of Sherwood as it 
 was in the olden time — wandering oft, as he loved, among the bowers 
 of Brookhill and other rural scenes not less dear to myself — and being 
 for some time almost my neai'est literary neighbour^ — the same subjects 
 of thought and conversation were common to us both. How happily, 
 though pensively, have we occasionally strolled down Camfield-lane, 
 on a summer sabbath-evening, enjoying all the sweet influences of a 
 Derbyshire sunset ! How often, since the commencement of my more 
 extensive acquaintance with the world, have I contrived on returning 
 home to take in my way the cluster of rural habitations of which his 
 own was one ! And how there — as the pipe or social cup of tea dif- 
 fused its hospitable fragi'ance — have I listened to his quiet moralisings, 
 of which the following, suggested by a new Church Clock, at the village 
 of Warsop, is not an unfair specimen: — 
 
 Useless now the crowing cock 
 
 To proclaim the morning near. 
 While the well-adjusted clock 
 
 Strikes on every waking ear. 
 Hark, a sound, before unknown, 
 
 Issues from the village tower. 
 Measuring with solemn tone 
 
 Man's existence by the hour. 
 
 Day or night no difference makes, 
 
 Hours are told distinct and true, 
 And as if t' avoid mistakes 
 
 Cautious Echo counts them too. 
 
 If its voice unwelcome prove, 
 'Tis to those who, one in heart, 
 
 Feel the ecstacy of love, 
 And it warns them to depart. 
 
 But " Old Time" is deemed a cheat, 
 Mete his progress as we may ; 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 333 
 
 His whole march betrays deceit, 
 
 Feigning hurry, or delay. 
 For, when sufTring mental woe. 
 
 Or bodily diseases rage, 
 Then how loitering does he go, — 
 
 Every moment seems an age ! 
 
 When the mind sweet transport feels. 
 
 Musing on some darling theme. 
 Still, yet rapid, move his wheels, 
 
 And the hours but moments seem ! 
 Thus he intermits his speed. 
 
 As if misery charm'd awhile ; 
 But, when health and joy succeed. 
 
 Will not stop to see us smile ! 
 
 Time, in his extended flight, 
 
 A mysterious power assumes, 
 Secret intrigues brings to light. 
 
 Public deeds t' oblivion dooms. 
 Life he shortens every day, 
 
 Keeping stUl the end imknown ; 
 Let us, while he glides away, 
 
 Mark his footsteps — and our own. 
 
 I regret much not having space for further quotations. His genial 
 poem on a " Cup of Tea" is as characteristic of him as its conclusion 
 is caustic, when he touches on the heavy tax upon it. There are pas- 
 sages in his " Lines on Pinxton Wharf," terse and truthful as Crabbe; 
 yet the mutability of things earthly, with the certainty of the laws of 
 divine order and an unfading world beyond the grave, were subjects 
 on which he loved most to dilate. 
 
 In addition to his literary talent, he had considerable skill and 
 power in mechanical construction, and had also made some progress 
 in mathematics. 
 
 Speaking of him phrenologically, I should say that his head indi- 
 cated quiet, homely, good sense, though not brilliant fancy ; and 
 his writings indicate the same. His merit as a man did not con- 
 sist so much in the possession of great power, as in making the 
 best and purest uses in his own humble sphere of what he had. Intel- 
 ligent without pedantry, religious without cant, industrious and prudent 
 without affectation or severity, and steady and cautious in conversation 
 without any mixture of obstinacy or suspicion — and often cheerful 
 without frivolity — he loved all mankind, but especially his family and 
 friends. Without harshness or vulgarity, he sometimes used his pen 
 against petty oppression and injustice ; but whilst taking a rational 
 
334 CHAPTEB XXIY. 
 
 interest in public events, never for a moment forgot his private duties. 
 I vi^ish Old England had a greater abundance of such men I 
 
 RICHARD FURNESS. 
 
 It was sometime, I suppose, about my twenty-fifth year ; and I was 
 on a visit to Francis Marples, at Shuttlewood Spa House, near Bols- 
 over. Francis was himself one of the rarest of characters. He was 
 learned enough to rattle off Greek and Latin as easily as his neigh- 
 bours could talk in their native dialect ; and was good-natured in the 
 extreme, yet sometimes given to fits of severest satire. He could 
 make fun and write epigrams plentiful and fast enough (had his genius 
 been more in harness), to have sustained a " Comic Weekly." His 
 knowledge of botany and chemistry was sufficient for two average 
 university professors. His " folk-lore" would have filled " The Reli- 
 quary." He knew the most telling points of the most picturesque 
 people within forty miles. And all this, and much more, he mingled 
 in his talk — his tongue being seldom still when he had got anyone to 
 listen — with some of the most random, rollicking nonsense ever poured 
 from human lips. Yet could he be grave and thoughtful on occasion, 
 and tone down his conversation till it became as agreeable and instruc- 
 tive as it was friendly. 
 
 At the time just mentioned, although the country was getting white 
 with snow, Frank suddenly exclaimed, " Let us go to Dore and see 
 Richard Furness, the poet ! You are men who ought to know each 
 other. He will be glad to see us ; and you'll never regret the visit." 
 "All right," I replied ; and a little before the dusk of a mid-winter even- 
 ing, we were crossing some high and bleak country on our eight miles' 
 excursion. Frank, who was a peripatetic sort of doctor, had to call on 
 two patients at Unstone and Dronfield, and as night advanced we 
 lost our way on Bradow Bank, in a storm of snow. But we were 
 young, and enjoyed the adventure — sliding or rolling down the steep 
 where it was too slippery to walk — and found a way into the upward 
 lane on the other side of the valley at last — about ten o'clock reaching 
 the poet's door. 
 
 Hark ! What was that ? Belated, weary, and snowed over though we 
 were, it was impossible to avoid pausing awhile and listening. Besides, 
 through chinks between the curtains or shutters we could see inside ; 
 and there were the poet and his family, sitting round a blazing fire, 
 and to the notes of a well-played violin singing a sweet evening hymn. 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 335 
 
 And what a welcome they gave us when at length we joined the circle ; 
 and what a relishable supper, and still more relishable talk, as the 
 moments flew ! for Frank had thus introduced me to as complete an 
 impersonation of the Genius of the Peak, surrounded by all he most 
 loved, as it was possible for a poet from the Plain to imagine or desire ; 
 and a brotherly friendship was struck up between us, that remained as 
 long as Richard Furness lived. The next day, when I told Ebenezer 
 Elliott where I had spent the night, he said emphatically, " Then you 
 have seen a man ! " 
 
 Furness was much my senior, having children nearly as old as my- 
 self. In person he was rather rotund — somewhat of the Johnson and 
 Erasmus Dar^win type ; was sonorous and clear in his speech ; and 
 besides being the author of one or two little volumes and any number 
 of fugitive poems, he was factotum supreme of the village and neigh- 
 bourhood where he dwelt. The township of Dore, five miles or more 
 from Sheffield, by the road to Bakeweil and Castleton, was infinitely 
 more secluded in those days than now ; and the times, the man and 
 the place fitted each other exactly. His house and the school-room 
 (for he was parish-clerk and schoolmaster) were both under one roof ; 
 and thither came people in every condition requiring humane aid — the 
 young to be taught, the sick and lame to be healed, the perplexed in 
 their affairs to be solaced : he was ever ready for all, and could make 
 a will, survey or convey an estate, reduce a dislocation, perform all the 
 functions of parish-clerk, lead a choir, write an ode, or rouse a good- 
 Hatured laugh in conversation, just as easily as he could eat his dinner. 
 Old Mr. Parker, the village clergyman, knew his worth, often (being 
 himself lame) employing him as a kind of clerical aide. Hence it was 
 that late one winter's night, being sent for to baptize a dying child at 
 a remote cottage over the moor, and unable himself to go, he deputed 
 Richard, who with his son William for companion, and a lantern to 
 light their path, found his way to the lonely and sorrowful scene, about 
 which there was altogether a touch of most primitive character. Richard 
 had forgotten to inquire the sex of the child before commencing prayers ; 
 and as the father and he were kneeling side-by-side, in the midst of the 
 service he turned his head and parenthetically asked, " what sex?" 
 The simple cottager did not understand the word, whereupon Richard 
 asked again, " male or female ?" Still the poor man was in the dark; 
 but a further hint being given, he at last emphatically replied, " It's 
 a mon childt." 
 
 In an old book belonging to the Society of Friends, is the following 
 entry: — " 4th month, 1661. For meeting together to worship God. 
 A meeting at Eyam, in the High Peak : within came the constable of 
 
336 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 the town with soldiers, and plucked down Elizabeth Deane then pray- 
 ing, dragging others out by the hair of the head. Richard Furness 
 and others were taken to Crich and committed to prison at Derby. 
 They were cruelly used, nor were their friends permitted to visit or 
 relieve them." From that Richard Furness, or one of his family, 
 descended our friend, who was born in the same village of Eyam, 
 August 2nd, 1791, in a house over the door of which is an inscription 
 to this day [R 1615 F] cut in bold rehef. According to the parish 
 register the pedigree of the family shows eleven descents from 1589 to 
 1858. The poet's parents were excellent and sensible people, giving 
 their children as good education as circumstances and the times would 
 allow. For himself he was a peculiar child, early evincing intelligence 
 and abstract thought. When one day driving the horses at plough, 
 which his father was holding, he let them get out of line, when his 
 father threw a sod at him, and asked him what he was doing. The 
 answer was, " I was thinking of a rule in Murray's Grammar." His 
 early reading ranged all the way round from a Geographical Grammar 
 to Don Quixote, the latter being a book he dearly prized. He was 
 apprenticed to Mr. Graham, a currier, at Chesterfield — his fellow ap- 
 prentice being the late Mr. Hobson, of Ashbourne. While the two lads 
 were yet young, they were one Sunday passing through the village of 
 Shirland, when they saw a number of vulgar fellows insulting and 
 pelting a poor man, for no other fault than that of being poor, and 
 innocent. This aroused their ire ; Richard wrote a remonstrant poem, 
 nearly his earliest, on the scene ; and the Sunday following it was found 
 posted on Shirland church-door. One feature of his life, during 
 apprenticeship, was predicative of his future mind. His leisure was 
 scanty, and being forbidden to read in bed with a candle, he placed one 
 in a box, and while on his knees, book in hand, supported the box-lid 
 with his head — a hide of leather being so arranged as to prevent 
 any light escaping through the chinks of his chamber-door. Mathe- 
 matics, poetry and music became his delight, and in due time he shone, 
 proficient in all. 
 
 It is impossible for me in this brief sketch to tell every incident of 
 importance in the life of Richard Furness ; and there is the less need 
 of it as my late friend, Dr. G. Calvert Holland, published an excellent 
 memoir of him in a preface to his poems, soon after his death.* But 
 it would be wrong to omit some mention of the manner of his 
 first courtship, with as beautiful a girl perhaps as ever poet wooed — 
 Fanny Ibbotson, of Hathersage, whose family (being Roman Catholics) 
 
 " The Poetical Works of the late Richard Furness, with a Sketch of his Life, hy 
 Q. Calvert Holland, M.D., Edin., &c., &c. London : Partridge & Co. 1858. 
 
FIRST LITEBAEY FEIENDS. 837 
 
 were so averse to the match that one member of it would not unfre- 
 quently lay wait for the wooer, and chase him from the neighbour- 
 hood, at night, with a gun ! Love conquered, however, as he mostly 
 does in such cases. They were married, and a family of fine, intelli- 
 gent sons and daughters was the issue. The day on which Chantrey 
 was buried at Norton, I stood with WilHam, the eldest son, by the 
 side of the yet open grave of the sculptor, as he dropped a beautiful 
 wreath of evergreens on the coffin — an act which drew a frown from 
 an oflicious by-stander, but which Mr. Reade, an executor, better 
 understood, saying, " It is right : let it remain." 
 
 After life in Chesterfield, London, and elsewhere, in business, Fur- 
 ness seemed at length to have rest for his foot, and right use for his 
 mind and hands, in the spot where, through Francis Marples's kind- 
 ness, I found him that snowy night, and where afterwards I saw him 
 any number of times, being once, to our mutual joy, his near neigh- 
 bour for several years. Here is his own account of his functions 
 there, to which was afterwards added that of registrar of births and 
 deaths for the district : — 
 
 I, Richard Furness, schoolmaster, Dore, 
 Keep parish books and pay the poor j 
 Draw plans for buildings, and indite 
 Letters for those who cannot write : 
 Make wills, and recommend a proctor; 
 Cure wounds, let blood with any doctor ; 
 Draw teeth, sing psalms, the hautboy play 
 At chapel on each holy-day; 
 Paint sign-boards, cart names at commandj. 
 Survey and plot estates of land ; 
 Collect at Easter, one in ten, — 
 And on the Sunday, say Amen ! 
 
 But there was one thing to which he would never say " Amen," and 
 old Mr. Parker excused him. Whenever the Athanasian Creed, with 
 its well-known anathema, was read, Richard invariably closed his book 
 and leaned back in the clerkly desk till it was finished. How good 
 Mr. Aldred, Mr. Parker's successor, dealt with him in this matter I am 
 not aware ; but I believe he was as liberal as his conscience would 
 allow. 
 
 Richard's first wife having died, in due course he married again, I 
 believe happily, and ended his days in a genteel retreat, Ash House, 
 where I last saw him, about half-a-mile on the Sheffield side of Dore, 
 within sio-ht and hearing of a murmuring water-fall, and commanding 
 the rich scenery of Abbey Dale and Chantrey's Norton, with glimpses 
 of the distant moors, and many pleasing and inspiring objects besides. 
 
 Y 
 
338 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 And here it was that he continued almost to the last to delight his 
 kindred and friends (when his fits of asthma would permit) with his 
 ancient lore, his sensible criticisms, his seasonable advices, his philo- 
 sophical speculations, and his poetical effusions, till at the not unripe 
 age of sixty-six years, his spirit took its flight to that better world to 
 which he had done something towards assimilating the one he was 
 leaving. Mr. Furness died on the 13th of December, 1857, and was 
 buried in the church-yard of his native village of Eyam, on the 16th of 
 the same month. The greater number of the parishioners of Dore, 
 with his friend, the village pastor, and the village choir at their head, 
 proceeded on that day from the house of another of his old and valued 
 friends, Mr. J. Hancock, to his own ; and singing psalms by the 
 way, and met by a similar procession from Eyam, conducted his re- 
 mains to their last resting-place with a solemnity which will never be 
 forgotten by those who witnessed it. One can easily imagine the effect 
 as his coffined remains were borne across the heights of Dore Moor and 
 Totley looking down on Scarsdale, or afterwards along those overlook- 
 ing the vales of the Burbage-brook and the Derwent — scenery than 
 which Old England has perhaps none more fair, and amid which 
 the Bard had himself so often mused. A neat monument in Eyam 
 church-yard records his name and manly worth. 
 
 His principal poems were " Medicus Magus, or the Astrologer," a 
 droll story, full of ancientry, folk -folly, philology, and quiet humour ; 
 and " The Rag-Bag," dedicated to John Bull, Esquire, in many 
 respects much akin to it. Most of his versification was as Johnsonian 
 and Darwinian as his person ; but some of his minor poems are very 
 beautiful and impressive. Take, for example, a passage from " The 
 Old Year's Funeral," a poem which won a high encomium from James 
 Montgomery, and forcibly reminds one of Samuel Bamford's "Pass of 
 
 Death:" — 
 
 The clock in Oblivion's mouldering tower 
 By the raven's nest, struck the midnight hour, 
 And the ghosts of the seasons wept over the bier 
 Of Old Time's last son — the departing year. 
 Spring showered her daisies, and dews on his bed,. 
 Summer covered with roses his shelterless head ; 
 And as Autumn embalmed his bodiless form. 
 Winter wove his snow shroud in his jacquard of storm ; 
 For his ooffiin-plate, charged with a common device, 
 ^ Frost figured his arms on a tablet of ice. 
 
 While a ray from the sun in the interim came, 
 And daguerreotyped neatly his age, death, and naMie» 
 Then the shadowy months at call, 
 Stood up to bear his pall, 
 
FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS. 339 
 
 And three hundred and sixty-five days in gloom 
 Formed a vista, that reach'd from his birth to his tomb. 
 And oh, what a progeny followed in tears — 
 Hoars, minutes, and moments — the children of years ! 
 
 Death marshall'd th' array. 
 
 Slowly leading the way, 
 With his darts newly sharpened for New-Year's day. 
 
 Take another, on " War and Love:" — 
 
 War and love went forth to fight, 
 War and love in all their might ; 
 War with force, and love with wiles, 
 War in tears, but love in smiles. 
 
 War aroused the world to arms. 
 Love for peace displayed her charms ; 
 War o'er all in ruin swept, 
 Love beheld the scene and wept. 
 
 War in flames love's votaries bound, 
 Love as quick her martyrs crown'd ; 
 War prepared the bitter cup, 
 Love in pity drank it up. 
 
 War to dread collision came, 
 Love stood trench'd in scathless flame ; 
 War had swords, but love had darts. 
 War struck heads, but love struck hearts. 
 
 War struck high, but love stoop'd low ; 
 War felt love's celestial blow. 
 War had wounds, but love had none ; 
 War expired, and love had won. 
 
 And another, on " Mind : " — 
 
 Think ! wonder of thyself! unbounded Mind ! 
 What thou Shalt be when years have ceas'd to roll. 
 Think what thou art. 
 Immortal part ! 
 Hadst thou not been, yon sun had vainly shone 
 
 On myriad worlds, and all 
 The beauties, glories, wonders, ne'er been known 
 
 That decorate this ball. 
 But thou wert form'd to view creation's store. 
 To use, admire, to wonder, and adore ; 
 And when this world is wreok'd, to mount and see 
 Millions and millions more. 
 Life's ocean without shore, 
 When souls are free. 
 
 Bare son of the Peak ! he calmly wrote his own " Requiem" a short 
 
 y2 
 
340 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 time before his departure, of which the following is the apt and closing 
 
 verse : — 
 
 To joys and griefs, to hopes and fears, 
 
 To all pride would and power could do ; 
 To sorrow's cup, to pity's tears, 
 
 To mortal life, to death adieu ! 
 
 Dr. Holland has given such a graphic description of his person, that 
 it would be sheer affectation to attempt any improvement upon it, when 
 he says: — "He had a strong athletic frame. His chest was broad and 
 deep. His limbs were more than ordinarily muscular, and few men 
 could lift or carry greater weights. In walking he rather stooped, but 
 his step was firm and indicated power and mental energy. In height 
 he was five feet nine. The description which Dr. Currie has given of 
 the person of Burns, applies with little modification to that of Richard 
 Furness : nor is it easy to imagine two men, had they met, that would 
 have been more kindred. The Derbyshire poet was rich in wit, humour 
 and satire, and full of anecdote, — qualities which the Scottish bard 
 would have keenly appreciated; nor would they have failed to light up 
 his own matchless powers. The head of Richard Furness was massive 
 - — much above the ordinary size. It was well developed posteriorly 
 and laterally. The forehead was broad, and the lower regions of it 
 extremely prominent. It was more remarkable for its breadth than 
 height, though by no means deficient in the latter respect. His face 
 had a sedate and thoughtful expression. When he was roused by 
 animated conversation, it underwent an extraordinary change. Por- 
 traits, taken under these different conditions, would have had little in 
 common, and would scarcely have been recognised as belonging to the 
 same person. His somewhat heavy featm-es became radiant with 
 humour, fire, or earnestness, according to the subject which interested 
 the mind. If it admitted of badinage — the eyes, full and of a bluish 
 grey, seemed, if the word may bo allowed, to laugh with an exuberance 
 of life. I never saw a countenance susceptible of the same changes, 
 except that of Sir Walter Scott, as I knew him." 
 
 JOHN EDWARDS. 
 Among the fast-growing population of the town of Derby, how many 
 are there now who remember anything of John Edwards, as author of 
 " The Tour of the Dove," or as a friend of James Montgomery and 
 William Wordsworth ? I once tried the experiment in the very street 
 where he had dwelt, and very few could tell me anything, if I asked 
 for the sometime house of " John Edwards, the poet;" but many 
 
FIKST LITEEAEY FEIENDS. 341 
 
 could easily point out to me the premises where the business of "John 
 Edwards, the liquor merchant," had been carried on, and remember 
 him well enough in that capacity. Yet not by his wine or spirit deal- 
 ings, but by his fine apostrophe to Water, is his name now known far, 
 far away from that spot. Hark ! how pleasantly, how musically, 
 welleth forth that effusion — 
 
 Thou eldest of the elements which sprang 
 Prom underneath the Spirit's brooding wings, 
 When chaos heard the potent Voice which rang, 
 Commanding life and being to all things, — 
 Hail, Water ! beautiful thy gushing springs, 
 Thy lakes and rivers ; shrined in clouds or dew. 
 In ice or snow ; or, where the rainbow flings 
 Its radiant arch; in every form and hue, 
 Thou, glorious element, art ever fair and new ! 
 
 And for a liquor-merchant to have written it ! Why, it might fitly 
 serve as an inscription upon the most regal monument ever raised to 
 Temperance ! 
 
 But let us hear a few particulars of his history. John Edwards was 
 born in the year 1772, at Fulneck Moravian-settlement, near Leeds, 
 and was intended by his friends for the life of a handicraftsman, but 
 removed early to Derby. It is needless to inquire how he came to 
 exchange his first condition for his second, or the second for his third. 
 Probably the only answer relevant would be that — so he grew. Be that 
 as it might, he had evidently the " life within a life" which nothing 
 external could either harden or corrupt ; and, beloved by his family, 
 respected by his fellow-citizens, and recognised by his literary contem- 
 poraries as a man of superior taste and imagination, like Ebenezer 
 Elliott and many others, he ran the train of his ungenial business and 
 the train of mental effort on collateral lines, guarding them in some 
 way against collisions, and reached the Grand Terminus at the age of 
 seventy-three, having secured the friendship of men of high reputation 
 on the way, by the beauty of his character and his intellectual 
 worth. 
 
 What I first knew of his poetry was from hearing Richard Howitt 
 recite one of its passages, in a private circle, at Nottingham. Some 
 one had been quoting the well known stanza of Byron, on the lot of 
 
 Genius : — 
 
 He who ascends to mountain tops shall find 
 
 The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; 
 
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 
 
 Must look doivn on the hate of those below. 
 
 Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
 
 And far beneath him earth and ocean spread. 
 
342 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Round him are icy rocka, and loudly blow 
 Contending tempests on Ms naked head — 
 And thus reward the toils which to those summits led ! 
 
 •" Yes," said Richard, " that is very fine ; but it wants a stanza from 
 a poem by John Edwards, of Derby, to complete it — a stanza which, I 
 own, has somewhat less power, but equal truth and far more consola- 
 tion : — 
 
 Time cannot hide, power cannot quench the lamp 
 
 Of Genius, kindled far above the sun ; 
 
 Art's fairest works are crush'd beneath the tramp 
 
 Of rude barbarians, flush'd with victory won ; 
 
 Age wastes the giant to a skeleton, 
 
 And man's immortal spirit hath been driven 
 
 To shrink in idiotcy, with woe undone ; 
 
 But Genius through the night of years hath striven, 
 And Homer's deathless song to this late age is given ! " 
 
 The only time I ever saw him was in a call, with a poetical pass- 
 word, on the morning of the great flood at Derby, in April, 1842 ; 
 and very pleasant was the cognition, as we exchanged our works and 
 talked of mutual friends, or quoted such passages of their writings as 
 both loved best. What would one not give for such companionship at 
 any time ? He died in May, 1845, when his remains were interred in 
 the cemetery of the United Brethren at Ockbrook. Though he had a 
 heart warm and large enough to make him anything but an exclusive 
 sectarian, he held closest at last to those he loved first, and amongst 
 whom his son was a respected minister. He had a manly form; a mild, 
 benevolent and intelligent countenance ; a bald and reverend head ; 
 and a manner and tone indicating at once gentleness, prudence, and 
 self-control : a person well calculated to win regard and command 
 respect, in whatever condition of life he might happen to be placed. A 
 teetotaller might ask, how such a man could sell liquors ; but when he 
 entered that business teetotalism, as now understood, would have been 
 thought as improper as impossible. 
 
 Besides his " Tour of the Dove," there is a much earlier poem on 
 " All Saints Church," from which a quotation is made in notes to some 
 editions of Wordsworth's "Excursion." It is a poem, in all respects, 
 of much easier construction ; but he is best in the Spenserian stanza 
 of the former poem, whenever he has taken care to give it that fine, 
 sonorous and harmonious finish without which there is no style of 
 composition taking severer vengeance on its own abortions. But, 
 while asserting that no one has written more graphically and sweetly 
 on the romantic scenery and natural phenomena of the most interest- 
 ing part of the Peak than he, one is compelled, not the less, to admit 
 
FIKST LITERARY FRIENDS. 343 
 
 that he too often flags and falters in his alexandrines, and thus mars 
 the effect of some of his richest conceptions and most artistic touches. 
 It is matter of surprise that he should have done so, seeing what a 
 perfect finish he has given to passages like the following : — 
 
 Charmed by the music of the rolling deep, 
 The Muse that pours her own sweet song to heaven 
 Might lingering stay beside the rocky steep 
 Till the day fled and came the star of even : 
 But she a boon has to her votary given, 
 With him to view the Dovedale of the Peak, 
 And trace its River, in meanders driven 
 Through the deep-channelled hills its way to seek ; — 
 To tread the glens and caves, and climb the mountains bleak. 
 
 Let not the wanderer of the Switzer alps. 
 Who oft has seen the clouds beneath him sweep, 
 And far above beheld the naked scalps 
 Of the huge glaciers, or within the deep 
 Dark piny forest on the mountain steep 
 Has been benighted, treat with cold disdain 
 These heartfelt raptures : passion here may reap 
 Strong pleasures, and the soul a glimpse obtain 
 Of Nature's wondrous works and Wisdom's boundless reign. 
 
 At last he brings us to where the rocks so resemble ecclesiastical archi- 
 tecture as to have won the name of " Dovedale Church," and adds — 
 
 I glance along the dale from right to left ; — 
 It seems as Paradise were passing by. 
 And I beheld it from this secret cleft. 
 Flowers yield their fragrance ; trees luxuriant, high. 
 Climb the rude rocks ; and in the orient sky 
 O'er yonder peak the sun reveals his fires. 
 The sparkling stream of Dove has caught his eye ; 
 His glory lightens all the cliffs and spires ; 
 And at the sight my soul breaks forth in rapt desires ! 
 
 O, hither bring the harp from Judah's palms. 
 With psaltery, sackbut, dulcimer and lute ; 
 The music tuned of old to golden psalms. 
 This crag-built church, these rocky aisles will suit. — 
 They come — the wilderness no more is mute : 
 The winds have brought the harpings of the sky ; 
 Dove breathes its dulcet tones, the lark his flute ; 
 The psaltery trees, the sackbut caves supply ; 
 And one harmonious voice of praise ascends on high ! " 
 
 Blessed be the memory of all such writers ! There needs no book 
 but itself to enable one to enjoy Dovedale, when days are bright and 
 calm, and the " voice of the turtle is heard" above that of the waters. 
 
344 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 But when the hills are covered with snow, and winds are howling loud 
 in every hollow — when every road has become a river, and every river 
 a torrent — such is the time to take up a hook like the " Tour of the 
 Dove," and while our feet rest on the fender, let imagination go free 
 with that of its author, into a realm in which, as seen in summer or 
 autumn, the Muses themselves might almost pause in silence, trans- 
 fixed with dehght. 
 
 And now this series of Memoirs must come to a close, at a point where 
 I cannot but regret not having space for the inclusion of others that 
 would well have mated with them. Such, however, may enrich a 
 future volume. Another regret is that, owing to circumstances it is 
 not essential here to explain, I have not been able to give these sheets, 
 in their passage through the press, the calm and close supervision they 
 required. Hence, some errors have gone uncorrected, for which the 
 intelligent reader's indulgence and forgiveness must be craved until a 
 complete list of corrigenda can appear. But, far transcending all 
 regrets, is my gratitude to those correspondents (to many of whom I 
 must be personally an entire stranger) who have encouraged me as the 
 parts have successively appeared, and cheered me with the assm'ance 
 that my chief aim in them was appreciated — that of showing that 
 goodness, truth, and talent, are not the exclusive possession of any 
 particular party, sect, or class, but may dwell in hearts and minds 
 from the highest to the humblest that God, in his unbounded love 
 and wisdom, embraces. 
 
|[t^il4lHni^ciu^ ; japf ^, 
 
 ON LOVE OF DISTINCTION. 
 
 (written in early life.) 
 
 The Love of Distinction is a powerful principle of human nature, and 
 has its day and its use, as an incentive to discovery and industry in 
 the sciences and arts, with those who have not yet realised a better 
 motive. Under its stimulus men have explored for long years both sea 
 and sky — have penetrated the bowels of the earth, or sought commu- 
 nion with the stars — to win an honourable record on the scroll of fame. 
 But it is not alone the mariner's compass, the geologist's hammer, or 
 the astronomer's telescope, that witnesses to this truth : we may learn 
 it as well in the laboratory, the studio, the workshop, the garden, and 
 the garret ; — nor less on the stage, at the bar, in the senate, on the 
 platform, or even in the pulpit. 
 
 In this way, God has often made this faculty an agent in the un- 
 covering of great truths, in the developing of great purposes, and in 
 promoting the happiness of our common humanity. But while, as the 
 agent of Goodness, it has thus been conducive to noble ends ; how 
 often, on the other hand, driven by the impulses of Evil, has it become 
 the severest scourge, and thrown whole nations into a state of terror ; 
 or, pandering to superstition, has caused their mental debasement ! 
 Under its morbid action, associated with destructiveness and acquisi- 
 tiveness, see an Alexander blotching and scorching the face of the 
 world with blood and fire, then lying down and weeping, like an 
 over-indulged child, because he had not another world on which to 
 
346 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 repeat the experiment ; while, associated with a different class of feel- 
 ings, we see it causing Simon Stylites to fix himself on the top of a 
 stone-pillar, there to remain from year to year, — his filth, and the 
 length of his nails and uncombed hair, being mistaken by admiring 
 crowds for signs of sanctity. 
 
 At its best, mere love of distinction is but an inferior spring of 
 action, as compared with what is not only possible but proved ; and if 
 either the voyager, the astronomer, the chemist, the geologist, the 
 mechanic, the artist, the poet, the senator, or the preacher, have no 
 higher motive than this, whatever be his reputation, he is much to be 
 pitied. In truth it is painful to think what a canker may exist at the 
 core of the noblest cause, when love of distinction alone is the main- 
 spring of those who are engaged in it. 
 
 But how grand, how God-like, compared with such a petty motive 
 as a mere craving for distinct name and position, is that beneficent 
 principle that can sacrifice self, honour, name, fame, every one of 
 them, for good alone — for the good of others — often for the good of 
 generations yet unborn, generations that can make no return but by 
 continuing the same stream of love to the ages that shall follow them ! 
 It is quite true that " martyrdom may sometimes have its fools as well 
 as its saints ; " but its greatest fool was as wise as the man who, being 
 asked to do something for posterity, buttoned up his pocket and asked 
 what posterity had done for him. 
 
 When we see men quarrelling for the reputation of having originated 
 some idea or scheme — not worth very much, perhaps, when we have 
 got it — with what gratitude ought Ave to turn to the nameless, pre- 
 tenceless, amount of good and truth pervading the world, like heat or 
 light, from pole to pole, of which so many people partake without once 
 thinking of the Great OEieiNATOR of them, or thankilig Him in any 
 wise for such a universal manifestation of His Love and Wisdom. 
 And is not the name of the originator, in the secondary sense, of 
 almost every great and useful art either forgotten or disputed, so that 
 very often the emolument due to an inventor is bestowed, by mistake 
 or caprice, upon some crafty or worthless rival ? 
 
 Finally, (as is elsewlie-re asked,) has it ever occurred to us to in- 
 quire, with sufiicient interest, what became of those unrecorded sayings 
 and doings of our Lord on earth, which it is said in the Scriptures 
 a world of books could not contain ? Are we to think it possible 
 they were lost ? Not so. They float ever upon the restless tide of 
 time, and we see them in a thousand beautiful actions, and hear them 
 in perpetually recurring words of love, which, because they are so 
 common, obtain no wonder, admiration, or distinction. "If the stars,' 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPEEg. 347 
 
 said some wise writer, " shone but once in a thousand years, how 
 people would lift up their eyes in wonder and adoration ! " The 
 same, or nearly, may be said of most of the abundant mercies of God, 
 who " giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not." Then, let us 
 endeavour, so far as it is possible, to be like Him — doing good for its 
 own sake and for His, in the way in which it may please Him from 
 time to time to give us opportunity — thankful if so many others are 
 doing likewise as to leave us the less possibility of distinction. 
 
 EDUCATION AND ITS RESPONSIBILITIES. 
 
 (Newspapee Leader — May 15, 1847.) 
 
 There is now commencing an agitation of one of the most momentous 
 questions that ever engaged the attention of man. We mean that of 
 popular Education, which is important alike to every class ; because in 
 the future which it will influence, many descendants of the highest must 
 necessarily mingle, by a law of nature, with those of such as are now 
 the humblest of our countrymen. The Howards, Percys, or Russells, 
 cannot all be peers to the last generation that shall exist. Even now 
 it is not uncommon to find such names mingling with the homelier 
 ones of Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson, among our shopkeepers 
 and mechanics. And thus it is that the interest of the noble as well 
 as that of the commoner is prospectively involved in the consideration 
 of a question that, for good or ill, must affect in no limited degree the 
 destinies of every section of our race. 
 
 And here let us inquire, have all those who are clamouring on the 
 subject well considered in what Education itself consists ? Have they 
 felt that it is just as possible for time to stand still as for education of 
 some kind not to proceed in the life of every intelligent being ? Have 
 they observed how, though the chilling influences of winter may some- 
 what hold back the process of vegetation, on it will go — out it will 
 burst — and that poisonous or choking weeds will grow spontaneously, 
 if kindlier or more useful flowers or fruits be not reared and tended in 
 their stead ? And have they also observed the analogy to this in the 
 human mind ? It is quite as much the nature of thought as it is that 
 of corn to vegetate and multiply. We drop a grain of corn in the earth : 
 that grain produces an ear, the ear a measure, and the measure a har- 
 vest. So into the mind of man — intentionally or accidentally — enters 
 a thought, which germinates and produces other thoughts, and these 
 others again. But here the analogy closes : for corn can be consumed, 
 
348 OHAPTEK XXV. 
 
 and resolved into its primitive elements ; but thought is not subject to 
 any such law of mutation. Ripening into action, the faster used, the 
 faster it is multiplied. On and on it goes, and spreads with electric 
 power from soul to soul ; and thus every thought — every act of the 
 humblest peasant, entering into the economy of the universe, becomes 
 important to all : for the truth is that, however trivial at the first 
 glance it may be deemed, it cannot fail to affect in some degree the 
 condition of humanity to the end. Thus every man is, more or less, at 
 once both educator and scholar; and this being so, what a solemn 
 responsibility must rest upon such as claim the right to ordain specific 
 modes of education ! 
 
 Truth itself is pure as the light : but is the medium through which 
 it is conveyed sure always to be well formed and pure ? This is a 
 phase of the question that requires deep consideration. Let us illus- 
 trate it. Sunshine from the heavens is pure and bright ; but should it 
 come to us through a window of peculiar architectural form — that of a 
 cloister, for instance — with coloured glass, it will necessarily partake, 
 in some degree, of the character of its medium. Just so of intellec- 
 tual light through the teacher to his scholar : and if the medium be 
 not pure as the source is pure, better by far that there had been no 
 such interposition, — since it will but lead to the transmission of an 
 adulteration worse adulterated, capable thereafter of being corrected 
 by nothing less than superhuman power ! 
 
 These remarks are ventured suggestively, not from any wish to dis- 
 courage the aspirations and efforts of the ardent philanthropist, be he 
 churchman or dissenter, — but that the true importance of the question, 
 and the responsibilities it involves, may be more fully comprehended. 
 Placed temporarily in a material world, and subject to external as well 
 as internal impulses and influences, man may be likened in his body to 
 the camera obscura, and in his conscious being to the plate within, upon 
 which the forms and characters of things are photographed through 
 the agency of his senses — there to be sublimed and adapted anew by 
 the influences of the spirit. Society and its fashions — Nature and her 
 forms — Art and its enchantments — all impart their features, and imbue 
 it with their hues and quahties, as they pass. And as upon the 
 metallic plate remains a portrait when its connection with the external 
 machinery is dissolved ; so upon the soul will whatever the understand- 
 ing may have reaUsed remain. How many beautiful and striking proofs 
 we have of this ! Let us for illustration take but one. Physiology 
 teaches that, every seven years or oftener, there is a complete dissolu- 
 tion or resolution of the matter composing our bodies. At this rate, 
 by the time a man is seventy years of age, he has dispensed with the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPEES. 
 
 849 
 
 matter composing nine or ten bodies. Yet while this has been dissolved 
 and resolved — has entered the earth or evaporated in the air — is grow- 
 ing in the flower or trailing in the cloud— or some of it, possibly, 
 nourishing another human frame, — so little has the conscious pein- 
 ciPLE itself been subject to any like law of mutation, that the impres- 
 sions it received through the first fleshly agency are those which 
 it still retains most vividly in the last — and which may probably 
 remain clearer still when even that last wreck of matter is finally laid 
 aside in death. 
 
 Now, if such be the pupil, what is the responsibiHty devolving on 
 the teacher ? Shall we despair of God, through fit and willing agen- 
 cies, making some good impressions upon the most degraded example 
 that can be found of a being thus beautifully and wonderfully consti- 
 tuted ? Shall we go on piercing through mountains, bridging seas, 
 and reining the lightning into an obedient messenger of thought, yet 
 leave the human soul to be as the brute's that goeth downward ? Shall 
 we tame the brute itself, yet leave man in the wilderness ? Or, remem- 
 bering that he was made for something better than to be oppressed, 
 and hanged, and shot at, shall we not sympathise with him in his lowest 
 degree, and freely extend to him that love and help which, having be- 
 foretime been extended to ourselves, have saved us from an equally 
 degraded lot ? We have seen Carter, the "American lion king," on 
 the open stage of a theatre, taking a lion and lioness for a couch, two 
 leopards for a counterpane, a panther for a pillow, and go into the 
 semblance of sleep with a tiger in his arms, lying face to face. Now, 
 if thus a tiger, which is one grand, complex organ of destructiveness 
 and ferocity, could be made by a humane education as docile as a 
 lamb, in how much more shall we hope for the improvement of the 
 very worst of men, if a truly brotherly and christian view of their con- 
 dition be taken ? 
 
 Whilst reiterating our caution against a false education ; — whilst 
 remembering, if our light be but darkness, how great that darkness 
 must be ; — whilst aware that for every evil form or hue we convey to 
 the young and impressible mind, whether from motives of self-love 
 and love of worldly power, or any other than those of the purest 
 charity and justice, we are doubly responsible ; — let it not be forgotten 
 that we are not less so for the omission, if we attempt to do nothing. 
 To whatever sect or party he may belong ; whether favourable or un- 
 favourable to a specific government measure ; to the truly rational 
 man nothing can be more obvious than his duty to let his own soul be 
 influenced by the best and clearest light to which he can come^ and to 
 render all possible facilities for the sharing with him of the same ines- 
 
850 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 timable blessing by every fellow-being, of whatever nation, caste, or 
 colour. Such are our own views of Education in general. Such is the 
 spirit in which we are watching the formation of public opinion on the 
 subject. 
 
 ON RELIGIOUS DIFFEEENCES. 
 
 (1850.) 
 As it hath pleased God not to make all things in the external creation 
 solely angular, circular, or oval — black, white, scarlet, or drab ; he 
 has- been equally liberal in the world of intelligence — awaking our 
 wonder and gratitude, not by establishing a dull, monotonous, stolid 
 uniformity; but by so ordering that peace and joy may result from 
 the very multiplicity and variety of his ordinations. Thus, just as all 
 material forms are owing, in a philosophical sense, to the action of the 
 sunbeam ; so to the co-operative love, power and wisdom of Him may 
 be traced every correspondent manifestation in the world of conscious- 
 ness. Yet, since perpetual difference without any law would be but 
 dissipation, as, on the other hand, perpetual sameness would be stag- 
 nation ; there is one grand institute by which the end is bound with 
 the beginning — -by which all differences should be held in harmony ;■ — ■ 
 whilst all beyond its sphere cannot be otherwise than discordant and 
 worse than useless : that institute is the law of charity. 
 
 But applying this doctrine practically, and testing the conduct of 
 mankind by its principle, what is the conclusion ? Do we see every 
 man sitting under his own vine and fig-tree with none to make him 
 afraid ? Or do we find the world a church, with every man a priest, 
 and every act and word of his life a sermon ? Even amongst those 
 who most loudly profess the name of Christ, do we find more who are 
 ready to pray for fire from heaven to light on those who, though doing 
 good works in his name are not of their own party, than of those who 
 are ready to exclaim with him. Let them alone — those who are not 
 against us are for us ? 
 
 The world has certainly made ia some things great progress, but in 
 others very little. In the things of time and space, things that affect 
 our bodily nature, much vantage has been gained. All nations are 
 brought much more convenient to each other in this respect than our 
 fathers could have imagined possible ; and clans are merged in nations, 
 nations in still more imposing confederacies. The claymore and the 
 dirk are in general laid aside ; and men may go from one district of 
 the same country to another, and from country to country, without 
 thinking it absolutely necessary to make their wills at starting. But 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 
 
 351 
 
 is it not a monstrous fact, that there are men still left who look upon 
 a blow with a stick as unscriptural — who recoil from the mere mention 
 of a pistol or a dagger with shudderings and exclamations — but who, 
 with a cool smile of self-complacency, or an equally cool air of solem- 
 nity, and with all the authority that a ministerial function can lend, 
 will sentence in one fell swoop millions of their fellow-men to eternal 
 torment, for not regarding some distinction which, so far as practical 
 truth is concerned, may be as trivial as that between two shades of the 
 same colour ? Others, again, with the stroke of an anonymous and 
 irresponsible pen, will, for similar reasons, wantonly assassinate an 
 honest reputation, and send some tender soul to sorrow through the 
 world, or carry its pang, for anything the assassin cares, into the life 
 hereafter. And such is the way in which many infidels have been 
 made. Or, is this not practical infidelity itself? 
 
 Yet what is the simple origin of all this evil, but a blind, morbid, 
 and selfish pride^charity's direct antidote — which, (instead of allow- 
 ing the mind when passing judgment on others to suppose in every 
 instance a change of cases,) looks for self-justification and glory in the 
 imagined virtue of its own acquists ; which, in short, is disposed to 
 persecute every principle that difi'ers from it ; yet — strangely enough — 
 to treat with jealousy and fear whatever seems to agree, or to make it, 
 at best, submit to a degrading subserviency ? 
 
 History and life abound with illustrations that are familiar to all 
 men. Not to go too far back into antiquity, let us glance at the spirit 
 of the Tudor age. First, we find the Eoman Catholic Church perse- 
 cuting the Lollards. Then we find the Protestant Church retaliating 
 on the Catholics, and, subsequently, under the Stuarts, acting as 
 cruelly towards the Puritans. Nest we find the Puritans, the " Pil- 
 giim Fathers," fleeing from persecution here, and the moment they 
 have set up their standard in America, hanging the Quakers, man and 
 woman alike, for dissenting a little further than themselves ! 
 
 In truth, the spirit of persecution — or, in other words, the natural 
 spirit of arrogance and jealousy — is not the exclusive patent of any 
 age, sect, or party. We have heard, on the popular platform, an 
 idolised philanthropist talk a full hour longer than he had any need, 
 for the sake of keeping down another star of the evening, lest he 
 should shine in the same sphere with equal brilliancy. And a second 
 great philanthropist we have known to decline speaking at all, because, 
 as he said, another person of the party "carried the audience away 
 with him so entirely." And has nothing of the same spirit ever found 
 its way, even into the pulpit ? In short, who could not point to de- 
 plorable instances of men in almost every station of life, decrying the 
 
352 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 good that others in their own best way were attempting to do, merely 
 because they (the declaimers) could not have the exclusive credit 
 thereof themselves ? 
 
 And yet, if men would but open their hearts and eyes, how easy to 
 distinguish between this spirit and that which shall finally inherit the 
 earth ! For, the genuine life of Christianity stands contradistinct from 
 all others in one grand feature — viz., that, whilst without it any two 
 men of the same trade may agree very well with a third who has a dif- 
 ferent one, but would be glad to see each other in the gazette ; — whilst 
 men in the professions observe the nicest rules of etiquette, but some- 
 times try to ruin each other by left-handed compliment ; — whilst the 
 philanthropist and the preacher, or even whole sects and parties, in 
 too many instances, instead of valuing the good that is done for its 
 own or the Great Master's sake, like it all the better when it extends 
 their own particular reputation ; — the true man, the man of earnest- 
 ness and guilelessness, whatever his rank, position, or calling, always 
 feels that the glory of Christianity is distinguished from that of pride 
 and covetousness in this — that the more there are to share it, the more 
 there is of it. 
 
 How, then, is the evil in question to be remedied — how the triumph 
 over it to be secured ? Let every man be respected by every other 
 " under his own vine and fig-tree." Let religion be advocated, not in 
 strife, but in life. Let not mere opinion be mistaken for faith ; but 
 let those who think they have a better idea to add to the general stock 
 of human experience, add it, not by contention, but as something able 
 to produce its own legitimate fruit, and to be propagated by shedding 
 its own seed of active good. Let not any attack on falsehood be sup- 
 posed as of necessity sufficient for the establishment of truth ; for if 
 we set one devil up to knock another down, there is sm'e to be one of 
 them still remaining — perhaps both. But, leaving the dead to bm-y 
 the dead, let men who will be men live the life. Listead of fighting on 
 low, swampy ground the old-world battle of dogma and hypothesis ; 
 let them work with higher aim and more universal purpose for that 
 Church-and-State, one and the same, that comes down from God, 
 having the four-square walls of justice and the twelve varied, but ever- 
 open gates of mercy and liberty. Leave the idolatry of partial isms 
 and ologies. Strike a key-note on the divinest string of humanity's 
 hopeful lyre, and whatever will not chord with it leave out of the con- 
 cert. And let the music rise and roll from soul to soul, from sect to 
 sect, from nation to nation, from world to world, until there be a Uni- 
 versal Brotherhood, as there is a Universal Fatherhood : for such is 
 the glorious destiny of Man ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPEES. 
 
 853 
 
 LOCAL AND NATIONAL PECULIARITIES. 
 
 (1850.) 
 Closely akin to tlie previous question of religious differences, is that 
 of local and national peculiarities. And, without entering into an 
 inquiry as to the uniquity or diversity of human origin, it will be suf- 
 ficient for our present purpose to take men as they are found, or as 
 they have been found in any given period with which we are familiar. 
 We have, indeed, known a person of some note who thanked God for 
 the works of Prichard on the Human Race, " because," added he, 
 " they set aside the right of man to enslave his fellow-man, by proving 
 the common origin of all nations." But, for our part, we have no 
 sympathy with such a contracted argument in favour of liberty ; since, 
 were it once admitted, it would involve another from which all benevo- 
 lent minds must recoil in disgust and despair — viz., the right to cage 
 every bird, to overwork every beast, to oppress every being in the 
 lower creation, if possible, because it cannot be proved to have a 
 descent from Adam ! Tracing the birth of all things to a higher Parent 
 than Adam, even to God, we obtain a nobler stand than this where- 
 from to contemplate the common good, and are at once assured that 
 a capability of enjoyment always implies if it does not confer the right 
 to it — provided, of course, that such enjoyment does not depend on 
 the injury of others. 
 
 Recognising, then, this broad and beneficent philosophy, how beau- 
 tiful as well as useful, to the eye of the mind, are all the great varieties 
 in creation, and especially those of the human constitution, whereby 
 — since no two individuals are precisely alike — each one is adapted to 
 a particular office in the universal economy, and becomes happy in 
 proportion to his fidelity to it. 
 
 Yet, again, despite these many differences in particulars, how much 
 is possessed by great numbers in common ! There was more ration- 
 ality than at first appears in the remark of the Negro, when looking at 
 two of his compeers, that " Pompey and Csesar were berry much 
 alike — 'specially Pompey." What Sambo meant, no doubt, was, that 
 Pompey had the greatest share of that which made the likeness and 
 distinguished them from others. And it is in a very similar way that 
 nations at large, however distinct from each other in general character, 
 have, as the constituence of that very fact, much that is peculiar to 
 themselves, and in which, more or less, every member shares. The 
 same may be said again of the different septs of one nation, and in 
 these the rule further holds true with respect to each family. And at 
 
354 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 this point we are brought to consider and illustrate the good which 
 from such distinctions and semblances, when rightly regarded, is 
 derivable. 
 
 Whoever is acquainted with physical science, is aware of course of the 
 two grand laws of attraction and repulsion, or sympathy and antipathy, 
 supposed to operate throughout the physical universe. He is well 
 aware, too, that the relation of these forces, as indicated more intensely 
 by the common magnet, may, by a certain process aifecting the polarity 
 of the instrument, be reversed. And to this there is a remarkable 
 analogy in human character. In a barbarous state, nation knows only 
 the law of repulsion towards nation, and obeys no other. The same is 
 true of clan against clan ; it is almost equally so of individual against 
 individual ; and the result is mutual degeneracy not less than hosti- 
 lity. At length, however, civilisation — say in its divinest form of 
 Christianity — appears; and "reversing the poles" of the affections 
 and the understanding — converting the soul — the law of attraction, 
 fraternity, amelioration, comes into play, till the whole is united, 
 renewed, advanced, and blest ; so that men, instead of thwarting and 
 expelling each other from sphere to sphere, find that there is nothing 
 by which they can more easily elevate themselves than by aiding others, 
 and that through those very peculiarities of endowment which pre- 
 viously made them quarrel. 
 
 Our own nation — with the exception of America perhaps the most he- 
 terogeneous and composite on earth — affords a thousand corroborations 
 of this opinion. On various parts of these islands there remain, even 
 yet, distinctions which those who have not investigated the subject 
 could hardly credit. It is true that, influenced by the amalgamating 
 and progressive spirit of the age, they are becoming more and more 
 blended and harmonised year by year. Still, perceptible in some 
 degree from each other, are the descendants of two or three aboriginal 
 races, besides the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Norman-French, with 
 all in addition that commerce, learning, hospitality, and adventure, 
 have brought from every part of the world in the last thousand years. 
 
 There is one little line of country, not more than two miles wide, 
 linking the far inland counties of Nottingham and Derby — we mean 
 the valley of the Erewash, and especially that portion of it between 
 Codnor and Ilkeston — where there did, and still may exist, with marked 
 pecuHarity, a number of people having rather abruptly-terminated 
 noses ; thick, open lips ; freckled skin, light grey eyes, and sandy hair. 
 They are the best excavators and well sinkers in that part of the king- 
 dom. What is more evident, however, than all their other pecuhari- 
 ties, is a dialect quite distinct from any that prevails among the people 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 855 
 
 on either side of tliem ; and those again retain dialects very different, 
 each from the other. That on the Nottinghamshire side is Saxon, 
 slightly leavened with Norman. That in the Peak of Derbyshire has a 
 greater mingling of ancient British and Roman. It may be observed 
 that difference of occupation would in part explain these social pheno- 
 mena ; the Erewash valley being a continued strip of rich ironstone 
 and coal. The Nottinghamshire side has been more noted for tillage 
 and warren ; whilst the Peak is a wild and broken region of heather 
 and pasture, limestone rocks and lead-mines. But these facts would 
 not of themselves account for the difference in dialect. May they not 
 rather be regarded as having been partial inducements, in the first 
 instance, for the settlement in those localities of various races, severally 
 adapted to them by virtue of their different descent and previous habits, 
 yet, at length, so harmoniously fused as to be already growing undis- 
 tinguishable, save in faintest outline ? And if these observations 
 are valid in reference to parts so far inland ; with how much more 
 force they apply to maritime districts need hardly be demonstrated 
 to the sons of the Tees, the Wear, and the Tyne, where every valley 
 and inlet has its own peculiar people, differing at once from the rest 
 in cast of figure, features, and language — in the latter most strangely. 
 Beyond doubt there is a much greater interfusion of Scandinavian 
 blood along the whole of that coast than history — at all events the 
 history of England — would indicate. The histories of Denmark, Nor- 
 way, and Sweden, throw more light on the subject, and show how 
 much of our maritime enterprise may be owing to the transmitted 
 spirit of those old sea-kings ; as are our domestic industry and stead- 
 fastness to the Saxon influx ; and our colonial extension to a union of 
 these with Celtic and Norman fervour and restlessness. The proba- 
 hility is that we may have more, too, of the old Eoman element 
 among ns than we are aware of ; and there are some who think they 
 recognise it in our learning, love of authority, and general polity. 
 That Alfred the Great must himself have had an eye to the value of 
 such interfusions is clear. A worse state of anarchy than that with 
 which, on his restoration, he found this kingdom cursed, it would be 
 difficult perhaps to imagine. The Danes, from being temporary rulers, 
 had degenerated again into robbers ; life and property were everywhere 
 alike unsafe. A monarch less wise and brave would have retaliated on 
 the pirates with fearful vengeance. There were three ways in which 
 he had now the power to deal with them — expulsion, enslavement, or 
 slaughter. But seeing their wondrous nautical skill and courage, he 
 resolved on a fourth — that of allowing tliem to dwell still on his coasts, 
 upon the simple condition that they should obey and enjoy his laws. 
 z2 
 
356 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 To his clemency and foresight on that occasion the maritime power of 
 Britain to this late day is mainly owing. 
 
 That such various materials enter in their several degrees, some 
 greater, others less, into our national character, is sufficiently obvious. 
 And when we reflect how antagonistic they once were in their opera- 
 tion ; how prolific of rapine, hatred and revenge ; but how conducive 
 they now become — in proportion as we find them blending and harmo- 
 nising — to the general welfare ; they give us assurance, by the compari- 
 son, of a better time, not very far advanced perhaps, but evidently 
 begun ; and there comes to the fevered brow and open lips of a long 
 agitated and fretful humanity, breath after breath of "the world's new 
 spring," — at last to bind together the most distant nations, as already 
 it has done the most antagonistic septs of the same. 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE PRESS. 
 
 (1850.) 
 EvEEY age has its own spirit, mission, and voice. The pulsations of 
 the public heart may sometimes grow feeble, but they can never en- 
 tirely cease till the death of Time. However, occasionally, the soul of 
 society may lack noble aspirations, it can never be utterly devoid of 
 emotions. Sometimes it has both in corresponding vigour ; and feeling 
 the development or bequest of these to be its legitimate function, it 
 seizes upon such means as are placed at its service, and carves, or 
 paints, or prints its idea on the eternal record. Thus one age gives 
 expression to its impulses, tastes, and hopes, in sculpture ; another in 
 architecture ; another in poetry, or oratory, and so forth. We are 
 not now treating of savage life, — in which, not the less, an analogy 
 might be perceived in the various modes of hunting and warfare, — but 
 of those efi"orts of Civilization that stamp man as a progressive and 
 immortal being, despite all the agencies that would crush and merge 
 him in the dust, from which he was formed ere God breathed the 
 breath of life into him and made him a living soul. 
 
 The voice with which our own age seeks to express itself, it has 
 been said, is jouenalism. Every man who has the power is now as 
 much a writer as in the age of feudalism he would have been a warrior, 
 or in that of puritanism a preacher. A few years back an idea pre- 
 vailed that we were all going to be lecturers. The debating society, 
 the mechanics' institution, or the political platform, furnished an arena 
 in which a man might readily discover his/orte as an orator. Occasions 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 357 
 
 sufficiently popular, on which every person might find a hearing, were 
 then not wanting ; and lecturers sprang up in every locality as fast as 
 mushrooms in a misty morning. Thus as the excitement of question 
 after question rapidly subsided, it left a numerous profession compara- 
 tively "without practice." The walls of our large towns exhibited a 
 distracting variety of calls from parties wishing to be heard on every 
 possible topic; and of these a few can still, in some cases, draw masses 
 of listeners ; but howfeiv is told by the fact that some institutions dare 
 not engage any lecturer on any subject whatever— the people having 
 become so satiated with respectable mediocrity that they will scarcely 
 muster even at the call of excellence. The Mechanics' Institution of 
 Nottingham once engaged one gentleman from Manchester, at great 
 expense, on some theme the committee thought would be sure to take,. 
 and after shaking the town with a storm of announcements, they had, 
 in a hall capable of holding two or three thousand, an audience of 
 fourteen ! In a similar manner Professor Nichol, one of the most- 
 popular wiiters on Astronomy, was engaged to lecture at the Sunder- 
 land Athenteum ; and his audiences during three evenings varied from 
 six to thirty ! The probability, however, is, that had Professor Nichol 
 sent the same lectures to the local newspapers, they would have been 
 read by hundreds of families with delight. And this consideration 
 brings us back to the main question. The greater value of time ; a 
 growing love of domestic refinement and recreation, owing to a higher 
 appreciation of woman and of the importance to children of good ex- 
 amples at the fire-side ; to which may be added more peaceful habits 
 in general, with a consequent or rather contingent increase of house- 
 hold comforts, and many kindred influences of which we cannot here 
 take note ; all tend to make knowledge the more welcome when it goes 
 to where the heart is, in the home circle. And thus it is that the 
 Press has become pre-eminently the organ of principle and opinion in 
 English society, — a character in which it naturally supersedes, to a 
 great extent, many other ministrations that have, in their turn, been 
 of great efficiency, and that still, in some cases, may retain much good 
 and secondary use. 
 
 Of the various orders of popular Journalism there are three between 
 which a marked distinction may be observed. First, there is the ora- 
 cular or apostolic, which assumes to teach, to regenerate, and to form 
 opinion and feeling anew. Next to this in moral rank is the repre- 
 sentative — that in which the claims and objects of various classes, 
 sects, parties, and coteries, or questions, are specially pleaded. The 
 lowest, which one trusts is wearing out, is the mercenary, malignant, 
 pandering, demoralising order — that which soothes, fosters, or inflames, 
 
358 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 according to circumstances, every vicious principle or prejudice the 
 first would aim at rooting out. There might, perhaps, be no impro- 
 priety in classifying a fourth, — that which takes a more guiding or 
 corrective tone, — only that the two first lay severally some claim to this 
 office. And all these various agencies, taken together, present a 
 phenomenon to the philanthropic mind such as the world, hav- 
 ing nevertofore witnesssed, has no rules for estimating,— a problem 
 which Philosophy shrinks from or handles with hesitation, and which 
 Faith solves only on the simple principle of a final triumph of love 
 and truth over all things. 
 
 A few years since we were passing, in London, an evening with 
 three gentlemen, each widely distinguished for the amount of his in- 
 formation and power of bringing it to bear practically on the wants of 
 society, when the influence of the Press became the topic of conversa- 
 tion. Imagine the effect upon the rest of the party, — one, the editor 
 of a leading daily paper, one a writer in the " Westminster Review," 
 and the third the writer of this chapter, — when the fourth, a person 
 perhaps then surpassing us all in the extent and wealth of his general 
 information, and almost unrivalled in his reputation for statistical 
 facilities, declared it to be demonstrable that the Press — in the service 
 of which three of us were thus engaged — had been, and still was, m» 
 the main, an evil to mankind ! We have not space here, even had we 
 the power, to present the whole of his argument. But it touched on 
 the ground that printing had a tendency, by too much assimilating 
 man to man, to destroy his individuality and thereby his proper dignity 
 of soul ; — that, by taking away many motives for meditation, it robbed 
 him of that faculty of insight which would, by continued exercise, 
 acquaint him better with the laws of his own being and with those of 
 the universe so deeply reflected in him ; — and afforded him but super- 
 ficial and inconvertible, if not absolutely fallacious knowledge, in lieu 
 of that interpenetration with which God at first endowed him, and 
 which, were it not kept dark by immorality, would give him, instead 
 of the Press, a power of consciousness and communion almost equal 
 to that of clairvoyance ; — a recurrence to which pure and bright state 
 the great multiplication of idle theories and hypotheses caused by the 
 Press did much in preventing. These features of the argument we 
 offer briefly, just to indicate its general tenor — the whole being in- 
 tended to show that there is only one true light given to every man, 
 and that the Press is not that light. And we must confess that such, 
 reasoning, by such a mind, added to the statement of its being a well 
 ascertained fact, (however difficult to receive,) that, of all the books, 
 papers and advertisements printed, a greatly preponderating, number had 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 359 
 
 a positive tendency to obscure and degrade the highest faculties in 
 man, and plunge him still deeper in the darkness mistaken for hght 
 — left an impression upon us by no means cheering, when we con- 
 sidered how rapidly the influence of the Press must still be extending in 
 every part of the world. Had the assertion come from an idle dreamer, 
 or bigot, the efiect would have been far otherwise. 
 
 The firm faith in triumphant goodness, however, on the part of a 
 highly-intelligent and sound-hearted lady, (nearly related to one of our 
 most distinguished judges,) to whom we afterwards told the story 
 in Ireland, gave the whole subject a very different aspect ; and we 
 will illustrate it as nearly as we can in her own words, — [premising 
 that, at the time, slavery had not been abolished in the United States, 
 nor the stamp taken off British newspapers.] She said, — "The Press, 
 as the great voice of humanity, can only utter what humanity feels and 
 thinks for the time. So long, therefore, as humanity is imperfect, its 
 voice must be imperfect too ; and you cannot bring any argument 
 against that voice which might not as properly be urged against any 
 other of its faculties. ' Evil communications corrupt good manners.' 
 But in proportion as any individual improves in heart and life, he im- 
 proves in conversation also. I have therefore no more right to look 
 upon the Press as irremediably degraded and degrading than I have to 
 take the same view of humanity itself and all that concerns it. With 
 
 THE GRADUAL REDEMPTION OF HuMANITY, I LOOK FOR THE GEADUAL 
 
 REDEMPTION OF THE Peess TOO ; but as we have no reason to believe 
 that man in slavery presents us with an adequate idea of what he 
 could accomplish in liberty, so we must regard the Press." We pointed 
 to America. "No," said she, "the spirit that there keeps its hun- 
 dreds of thousands of men and women in bondage, is a horrible des- 
 potism that vitiates the whole tone of society; and the Press, as its 
 organ, is morally, if not legally, in corresponding slavery. But when 
 Christianity shall have done its perfect work, the whole Press will be 
 converted as well as the whole heart and intellect of man ; and when 
 the voice of God becomes the voice of the people also, — which no 
 counter-influence existing can for ever prevent, — the Press as well as 
 the Tongue shall utter it throughout the earth." 
 
 It was a beautiful thought, and we believe there is truth in it as well 
 as beauty, — opening to the mental eye one of the richest moral land- 
 scapes it is possible to contemplate. And one fact is highly significant, 
 namely — that the increasing power of the Press does not seem at all 
 to have lessened, so far, the general attendance on Public Worship, 
 
360 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 BLONDINISM. 
 
 (Addressed to the Editor of a Midland Paper.) 
 
 Sir, — The late terrible accident at Aston Park, the shock it gave to 
 public feeling, and the Queen's letter upon it, still occupy attention 
 and excite discussion ; but the excitement, I imagine, does not spring 
 so much from sympathy with the fate of the poor victim, as from the 
 considerations it has awakened relative to the propriety or impropriety 
 of such exhibitions in general ; and this leads me to request you to give 
 the following remarks a place in your columns, even though they may 
 not exactly coincide with your own. 
 
 The principal objections to these exhibitions as ordinarily stated are, 
 that they are for the most part accompanied by exposures of the human 
 shape not conducive to morality ; by equal exposures to danger little 
 better than attempted suicide ; and that they administer to a morbid 
 appetite for adventure in a degree that may be regarded as very irra- 
 tional if not very criminal. This question, however, like all questions, 
 has two sides ; and it may be as well, perhaps, not altogether to ignore 
 the one while considering the other. 
 
 There can be no doubt of its being right to hold sacred the image 
 of its Maker impersonated in the human form. That all creation should 
 have been ransacked for its essences and its elements, until we find in 
 it a wonderful and beautiful resmnS of the whole physical world, entitles 
 it, independently of other reasons, to this care. The rocks represented 
 in its bones, the soil in its flesh, the lakes and rivers in its great ves- 
 sels and veins, vegetation in its hair, the star-light in its eyes, and the 
 bloom of the flower in its cheeks — not to mention the great length of 
 time employed to ripen the whole into maturity and harmony with a 
 still higher nature — all proclaim one truth, to which its mechanism 
 and geometrical proportions bear kindred witness. Its two hundred 
 and thirty bones, or thereabouts, involving every possible cui've and 
 line of art ; the hinge-joint, swivel-joint, fulcrum, lever, stay, and every 
 other principle employed in the most complicated machine that could 
 be imagined, and all silently accomplished without the agency of ham- 
 mer, chisel, or file ; the grand telegraphic arrangement of the nerves, 
 keeping the whole system in harmonious connection with the brain ; 
 the ropes, pulleys, cushions, hooks, loops, elastic bands, and all other 
 apparatus needful for working and regulating the action of the skeleton, 
 with such flexibility and ease that one man has been known to stand 
 erect, with another upon him, also erect, and two boys surmounting 
 the shoulders of the second — the lowest ane, immediately afterwards. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 361 
 
 putting his body by turns into the shape of every letter of the alpha- 
 bet, — all bespeak such exact economy and design as it cannot but be 
 criminal to disturb and risk for the gratification of any wanton feeliug 
 whatever. 
 
 But here there arises another and very important, because very 
 practical, question — namely, as to what mankind would ever know of 
 some of these wondrous powers and susceptibilities, were the athletes 
 and acrobats, the equestrians and rope-dancers of every grade, to lay 
 by their vocations, and leave the world to learn no more than it could 
 from good, easy, stay-at-home sort of people, who understand about 
 as much of some of their own bodily functions and capabilities as they 
 do of what is going on in the planet Jupiter or its satellites. There 
 can be no doubt that it is very silly, and much worse than silly, to 
 risk walking at an excessive elevation on a rotten rope ; that it should 
 ever have been done on a cord not too well tested to leave the accident 
 possible must argue, of course, the most absurd and culpable negli- 
 gence ; and that it should have occurred to a woman in the peculiar 
 condition of Madame Geneieve, is as shocking as it was indelicate. 
 But, on the other hand, it is doubtful, were the regulation of all bodily 
 exercises to be left to people of an opposite class, whether a knowledge 
 of our physical powers might not decrease until carrying each other 
 by turns in sedan-chairs would be one of the noblest achievements of 
 dexterity and locomotion. 
 
 By all means let us guard as a sacred gift our wondrous 'bodies and 
 still more wondrous lives, not only our own but those of less heedful 
 fellow creatures. Who has not sympathy with the little child that one 
 day, after playing in the sunshine, ran into the house exclaiming, 
 " What a funny thing it is to be alive ! " Few of us, I suspect, could 
 give more significant expression to the consciousness with which we 
 are sometimes startled, of the mystery of our own being and its equally 
 mysterious relations. We ought indeed to be careful in the preserva- 
 tion of what we could not have created, and have no right wantonly to 
 destroy. But let us never forget that athletic and gymnastic games 
 are among the very institutes of humanity, and must have been or- 
 dained from the first for some great and useful end. The monuments 
 of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and every other people 
 not absolutely barbarous or effete, bear testimony to their universality. 
 To the pure in heart there is no indelicacy in just so much freedom of 
 the person from encumbrance as is needful for their due exercise. In 
 any ordinary exhibition of acrobatic or gymnastic skill, there is less 
 risk of life to a person properly trained than there is in hunting and 
 other sports in which even royalty itself not unfrequently indulges,— 
 
362 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 certainly not near so much as there is in taking a few glasses extra at 
 dinner, and then riding home along a dark road on a spirited horse ; 
 or even in wearing crinoline near a drawing-room fire. While as to 
 the other question — the effect on the popular mind — without going to 
 the extent of talking about "muscular Christianity," I cannot but 
 regard as natural, reasonable, and right, whatever tends to keep man 
 alive to the many capabilities of that wonderfully and beautifully or- 
 ganised body with which his immortal soul has for temporary purposes 
 been invested. 
 
 All things then considered, we ought not to be displeased with the 
 thorough ventilation of this question likely to result from the late de- 
 plorable accident to the " Female Blondin ; " I hope that Her Majesty's 
 letter to the Mayor of Birmingham may have in future some effect in 
 restraining all superfluous risk, and confining such exhibitions within 
 reasonable and moral limits ; and I trust that the public at lai-ge, while 
 content to use, will be more careful than "the Foi'esters" of Aston 
 not to abuse, the right to witness becoming feats of agility on the part 
 of those who are in a fitting condition for their legitimate performance^ 
 
 Windermere, August 11th, 1868. 
 
 FOOTSTEPS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 [Outline of an Address by the Authoe, at a Gathering of the People, at EoKn 
 Hood's Well, near Eastwood, Notts— as reported at the time in the " Not- 
 tingham Guardian."] 
 
 Six hundred years ago, if they were to believe one of the most 
 interesting chapters in the history of this land, the beautiful scenes by 
 which they were now surrounded re-echoed strains widely different 
 from those to which they had just been hstening with so much delight. 
 If they were to credit the history of Robin Hood — whose name, how- 
 ever, appeared to be associated with so many and diverse scenes, 
 that it was almost impossible to believe he could have been connected 
 with them all — it behoved them to glance back from the present day 
 to the time when the bold outlaw and his merry men met around 
 that Well ; to contrast the two periods, and to review the various his- 
 torical phenomena which filled up the interim. There could be no 
 doubt whatever, whether Robin Hood were a myth or a man, a merely 
 ideal personage, or a being of flesh and blood like themselves — there 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 363 
 
 could be no doubt that the whole region around them was once one 
 grand forest, extending from the Trent to the sea — overscattered with 
 oaks like those which could still be seen in the neighbourhood of 
 Birkland and Bilhagh, — and which corresponded with the mind of the 
 people of those times. At that early period the mind of humanity like 
 the face of the land, was one vast wilderness, and the wolf and boar 
 which roamed through the forests were but tj'pes of the barbarous 
 character of the people. For if they would look round attentively 
 upon creation, and back through history, they would find — -whatever 
 country or age they glanced at — that there was always a striking cor- 
 respondence between the character of the natural scenery of the land, 
 its products, and the state of the popular mind. The condition of 
 this, as of every other district of England, became less wild in propor- 
 tion as the mind of the people became cultivated ; as civilization 
 advanced, the savage animals which formerly abounded began to dis- 
 appear, and it was now many ages since the last wolves were hunted 
 in this neighbourhood. There was formerly in the neighbourhood of 
 Castleton, a family of the name of Wolfhunt, who held a portion of 
 land upon condition of their hunting the wolves in that part of the 
 country. He (Dr. Hall) did not know whether that avocation extended 
 to Sherwood Forest — possibly it did — as no doubt wolves would be 
 very abundant there, in consequence of the number of deer and other 
 wild animals on which they fed. All these phases of history, of man, 
 and of nature, by degrees passed away like the former, and there came 
 another period when the blood-hound was extensively kept by the 
 people, and seemed to typify the character of their mind. During the 
 bloody wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster, there was so 
 much of this spirit manifested that almost every person of pretension 
 kept a leash of blood-hounds. This time also passed away, the mind 
 of the people underwent a further change, and the chai'acter of the 
 country again changed with it. The land became cultivated and 
 cleared of forests, with the exception of comparatively small patches 
 of woodland here and there — remnants like, that in which they were 
 then assembled. The people became more civilized and more social; 
 and villages, formerly clustering round the noble's castle for security, 
 or the wood-keeper's cottage for companionship, (from which latter 
 circumstance, by the way, arose the nar^ie of Woodhouse, so common 
 to hamlets in this district,) towns and villages expanded and smiled. 
 Other times followed — the wild deer which formerly ranged the broad 
 forests of Britain, became fewer and fewer in proportion as the land 
 became more and more cultivated, until they were almost unknown in 
 the kingdom, except in some of the more remote glens of Scotland, or 
 
364 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 where they had to be imparked to prevent their utter extinction. And the 
 deer had yet its correspondence in the mind of man. It was the nature 
 of EngUshmen to love that which was exciting ; and hence the passion 
 for the chase, which was formerly so remarkable a feature of the 
 national character. But even this, too, appeared to be dying away. 
 No man loved old parks and old forests more than he (the speaker) ; 
 yet he could not shut his eyes to the fact that people were now enclos- 
 ing extensive deer preserves on eveiy side ; so that they were becoming 
 divided into fields, and applied to purposes of agi-iculture, in conformity 
 with the change which was going on in the mind of the age. And this 
 same principle he would venture to affirm would be found to hold true 
 in every case. Many persons then present would remember a time 
 when there was scarcely a town or village that was not overrun with 
 bull dogs ; but now they might travel from one end of the country to 
 the other and would rarely meet with a thorough-bred bull dog. And 
 why ? Because the bull dog had disappeared from the minds of the 
 people, — because pursuits of a more elevating, intellectual and refining 
 description had taken the place, to a great extent, of the savage sports 
 in which our forefathers delighted. It was the tendency of everything 
 they saw to imprint itself upon and imbue the mind : no man could 
 look with admiration upon a brutal spectacle without being to some 
 extent thereby brutalised ; or, on the other hand, could gaze upon a 
 scene so rich and pure and elevating as the present, without being 
 raised and refined by it, and without having, so to speak, its natural 
 beauty assimilated with his very being. Therefore it was to him a 
 matter of sincere gratification that he was able in that rural scene — 
 with its shady arbours, its stately trees, its green meadows and bright 
 waters, lying like spots of blue sky below — to see so large an assembly 
 gathered together for the noble purpose of aiding in an effort for the 
 promotion of education and the diffusion of knowledge. And to those 
 who were earnestly disposed to learn, he would say that there was not 
 a single object in nature which might not be their teacher. For him- 
 self he believed he was thoroughly English in his prejudices and sym- 
 pathies, though he hoped he was not the less a cosmopolitan for that. 
 He loved his country, and her institutions, and theii" origin ; but that 
 did not prevent him from likewise loving all mankind. And he could 
 not help noticing here the remarkable fact that King Alfred — "that 
 grand old monarch ! — that oak o'er all the trees ! — that Alp among 
 the far hills of history! " — one of the greatest men, not merely who ever 
 occupied a throne, but who ever lived in England, because one of the 
 best, — for truest goodness was truest greatness, — when he, a thousand 
 years ago, revised the laws for the government of the land, he began 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 365 
 
 by reciting the Ten Commandment!?, adding, " if these laws be well 
 kept there be little need of any other." And as the Ten Command- 
 ments were the basis of all good legislation, so the Christian law of 
 "doing to others as we would that they should do unto us" was the 
 foundation of all real happiness. Not less remarkable was the com- 
 mencement of Alfred's will than the commencement of his code : for in 
 it were these remarkable words: — "It is fit the people of England 
 should be as free as their thoughts;" and, surely, people who could 
 recognise the Ten Commandments as the foundation of their laws, as 
 was the case when Alfred had reduced the nation to order, were worthy 
 of being free, and powerful as free ! Long, long, might the British 
 mind be symbolised by the British oak ! Its roots striking deeply, as 
 they did, into the past — its trunk, no hollow sham, but sound to the 
 core, rising vigorously and nobly through the present — and its branches, 
 even to the tiniest twig, enjoying a bright, fresh, free, and limitless 
 heaven to expand in, through glorious ages yet to be ! Dr. Hall then 
 proceeded to dwell at considerable length upon the great facilities 
 afforded in the present day for all those who were anxious to elevate 
 themselves, morally and intellectually — graphically relating, for the 
 encouragement of the younger portion of his hearers, some interesting 
 particulars of his own early efforts. But in conclusion he observed, 
 that, although since then he had been privileged to commune with 
 many of the best and greatest minds of the age, all the advantages he 
 had derived from man or from books were not to be compared with 
 those which he had derived from the teachings of Nature — that book 
 of Nature, which was open to them all ; and he could bear a warm 
 testimony to the truth of Wordsworth's beautiful lines — that 
 
 Nature uever did betray 
 The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege 
 Through all the years of this our life to lead 
 From joy to joy. For she can so inform 
 The mind that is within us — so impress 
 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
 With lofty thoughts — that neither evil tongues, 
 Kash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
 The dreary intercourse of daily life, 
 Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
 Our cheerful faith, that all that we behold 
 Is full of blessings ! 
 
 He hoped they would always be faithful to those beautiful principles 
 which had their foundation in simple Christianity, in Nature, in love 
 to God who gave us all things, and in the love of our neighbours as 
 
366 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ourselves, and that their minds would not linger behind the age of the 
 electric telegraph and the electric light ! 
 
 SPOKEN AT A LITERARY MEETING 
 
 AMONG THE LAKES. 
 
 When Napoleon I. was at the head of his army in Egypt, he pointed 
 towards the Pyramids and said, "Forty centuries look down upon 
 us ! " But more than forty centuries are looking down on this spot 
 to-night, from the hows and fells and mountain-peaks around us, 
 which no man reared — and from the heavens above with their smiling 
 intelligences — on an assembly gathered, not for war and devastation, 
 but for sowing the seeds of mental improvement, and for cherishing 
 sentiments of reverence and hope, and feelings of peace and good wUl 
 towards one another, and towards all mankind ! And very pleasant it 
 is, while old Time is looking back to see what his long progeny of 
 years has accomplished, to trace their track over the country, and to 
 read history in its landscapes. The lakes and rivers, with the rugged 
 lands on their shores, where the aboriginal Britons fished and hunted, 
 and sometimes fought, for a scanty living ; — the upland level, near 
 Keswick, where still linger their grand old druidical monuments ; — 
 that gap in the hills near Grasmere, where beneath his rude cairn rest 
 the ashes of Dunmail, the last of their patriot kings in this region ; 
 and Helvellyn, Glaramara, and Blencathra, mountains whose names 
 may be said still to echo the ancient language : these are all within 
 our reach by a short walk or ride. Then, there is the lofty Roman 
 road called High-street, over which in turn marched the proud cohorts 
 of the Caesars ; — the winding lanes and upland tracks on which our 
 more homely Saxon ancestors drove their herds and flocks and pack- 
 horse trains ; with Morecambe-bay in the distance, where sometimes 
 landed the marauding Danes. Memorials too of Anglo-Norman times 
 abound, in the scattering of old churches and the rehcs of old feudal 
 castles ; — while the borough of Kendal, with its semi-manufacturing 
 population, dates from days when industry and trade began to assert 
 their rising importance in our land ! But we now come, as regards 
 time, to the commencement of that love of the picturesque and the 
 poetical which touched the hearts of men, and began to draw them 
 hither, until mansions and villas, and rural retreats of all sorts, gleam 
 out or nestle down on every hand, — where bards of great power and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPEES. 367 
 
 renown have dwelt and written, — and to which some of our most dis- 
 tinguished guests of this evening come for their periodical rest and 
 restoration ; while places for Christian worship beautifully dot the 
 scene. How glorious it is on a sweet summer day, to stand on some 
 bold headland and gaze on all these touches of human life and history, 
 as Nature developes her beauty and grandeur to the eye ; and then 
 turn, last of all, to this useful though unpretending institution, on the 
 table of which is monthly, weekly, and daily poured the literary intelli- 
 gence of the world, in a manner that, but a few short years ago, kings 
 and sages might have envied, yet of which now the humblest peasant 
 or mechanic amongst us may avail himself at a cost which even 
 he, from its smallness, need scarcely feel ; — an institution which 
 gradually extending its benefits to all the country adjacent, will aid in 
 harmonising the minds and tastes of the people with the rich scenery 
 around them, and with that still higher tone of Christian Truth, without 
 which all life is but discord, but with which all existence is a beauty 
 and a blessing evermore ! For — 
 
 Mankind are not all humbugs ! 
 
 We each one know a few — 
 The candid and the generous, 
 
 The noble and the true, 
 Who meanness scorn — who learn what's right, 
 
 To do it, day by day. 
 Regardless of whate'er a world 
 
 Of envious tongues may say. 
 
 Mankind are not all Sadducees, 
 
 Who look upon the soul 
 As but a candle dim, to light 
 
 The body to its goal. 
 Then out be blown when that is done. 
 
 No more to be re-lighted, 
 ks though the noblest work of aU 
 
 Were made but to be blighted. 
 
 Nor are mankind all Pharisees : 
 
 For some, with homely air. 
 Love still their God, their neighbours' good, 
 
 Their duty, and their prayer ; 
 And that without a trumpeter. 
 
 Their righteousness to blow ; 
 Or any hidden telegraph. 
 
 More sure for lacking show. 
 
 No doubt, there are some sycophants. 
 And slanderers, knaves, and quacks. 
 
 Looking men blandly in the face, 
 Then stabbing at their backs ; 
 
368 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Nay, some who say they discord hate, 
 And shun all open strife, 
 
 Would mildly take your character 
 And your very bread of life. 
 
 But this is not the case with all : 
 
 In every rank and station 
 There's that in many a panting soul 
 
 That seeks emancipation 
 From all that's grovelling, and vile. 
 
 And false, the heart within. 
 Feeling that every true reform 
 
 Must in that heart begin. 
 
 Yes, brothers ! there's a seed on earth. 
 
 If only rightly deem'd of, 
 WUl yield more glorious harvests yet 
 
 Than men have ever dream'd of ; — 
 For Christ is true ; and truth is life, 
 
 And life is light, and beauty, 
 And endless joy, to those who love 
 
 Above all fears, their duty ! 
 
 Then let that seed among us grow, 
 
 Uncheck'd by vicious leaven. 
 Until we nothing learn below 
 
 That is not learnt for Heaven ; — 
 And as our sympathies expand. 
 
 While each endeavour making, 
 Let's pray that men m every land 
 
 Like good may be partaking ! 
 
 CHRISTMAS. 
 (Wbitten foe the " Derby Eepoeter.") 
 
 What the Alp is among hills, the cedar among trees, the wheat among 
 grain, the grape among fruits, the sirloin among viands, is grand old 
 Christmas among the festivals. In musical phrase, it is the key-note 
 with which all the holidays of the year are made to harmonise. Nor 
 is this all. It has the infinite charm of being everywhere at once, and 
 in every season ! Though it be hailed the same day the wide world 
 over, it is by our Canadian brethren in the very thick of their snowy 
 winter ; by ourselves in whatever weather the next twenty-four hours 
 may chance to bring ; and by our numerous kindred in New Zealand 
 or Australia in the very height of their glowing summer. In our own 
 country more than two hundred and fifty thousand bells wUl simulta- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 369 
 
 neously strike up to ring it a welcome. As many minstrels will go 
 forth, beneath the clouds or the stars, " from village to hamlet, and 
 from hamlet to lonely farm," to sing its glad return; and millions of 
 hearts, old and young, rich and poor, grave and gay, will rejoice in the 
 general joy. From the Queen on her throne to the poorest wanderer 
 on the hearth of the lowest lodging-house, will Christmas receive such 
 welcome as each and all can give. In the mansion of the patrician 
 " the family will he at home." In the merchant's suburban villa and 
 the tradesman's town-house, the young people from school will be "at 
 home" too. In the old farm-house the whole circle will be supremely 
 blest — ^the "servant, sire, and all," being there pretty much "all one" 
 at Christmas time. Social meetings of every pleasant kind will occupy 
 the hopes and energies of our mechanics and artizans ; while in the 
 remotest and homeliest cottages of the labouring poor, neighbour will 
 neighbour meet, to talk kindly of the absent, and to enhance the pre- 
 sent feast. At any rate, should we perchance have one unlucky reader 
 who doubts the truth of this picture, let him in the name of goodness 
 and mercy at once set about doing all he can to make it true ; and we 
 will answer for it that, long before the end of the week, he will have 
 realised a greater luxury than he ever before enjoyed. 
 
 Forlorn indeed must be the heart to which Christmas bringeth not 
 some joy, or hope, or fond recollection at least. Great changes, it is 
 true, have come o'er the manner of keeping it since the days of our 
 ancestors. Railways, penny postage, and the telegraph, have now 
 made one vast town of the whole kingdom. But it requires no great 
 stretch of memory to link us with the days of the old stage-coaches, of 
 which the Derby and Manchester Mail, winding through the valleys of 
 the Peak under the guidance of our picturesque friend Burdett, was 
 one of the last, and ought, when he had done driving it, to have been 
 sent, with his portrait taken in full dress, to the British Museum. In 
 those days, how remote from each other seemed the towns that are 
 now brought within an hour's reach ! And what facilities for keeping 
 Christmas have been afforded by the change ! In a dear old country 
 house where was passed a portion of our childhood, what an event was 
 the arrival of one solitary visiting relative from a distance ! What a 
 cost, if not a loss, of time on the way! What an amount of package, 
 and difficulty of porterage to the town through which the coach went, 
 when said relative departed ! What a writing of letters to be conveyed 
 by that friendly hand, because of the heavy postage-tax ! And how 
 few the chances of seeing that kindly face again for many years ! 
 Still those old times had many pleasures peculiarly their own ; and 
 such visits, few and far between, had an intensity of affection and 
 
370 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 delight in them we would not forget for all the joys that modern im- 
 provements could substitute. Yet, for these modern improvements 
 let us be thankful too. There still stands that old house by the side 
 of the rural lane. The same trees are keeping guard around it, little 
 scathed by age ; and the green holly-tree still keeps sentry at the 
 garden corner. The same stream is winding and shining along the 
 bottom of the meadow where we played. The same village spire is 
 glinting up in the distance, and pealing forth the same sweet holiday 
 tones. The same blue hills are circling all. In that old house still 
 dwell some of the dear, good souls, companions of our youth : and 
 though time has scattered its frost on their heads, and the gleam of 
 their smile steals upon us through wrinkles, yet happy young hearts 
 are springing up and renewing past joys around them ; and we have 
 only to drop them a penny letter, by to-night's post, to say we shall 
 be there to-morrow evening ; and in one short hour from quitting the 
 scene of our ordinary duties, the train will leave us at the new station, 
 near the auld-lang-syne toll-bar, by the turn of the lane ; and in five 
 minutes more the omnibus will set us down among a troop of joyous 
 friends, gathered from every region, in that " old house at home ! " 
 
 But, oh, if the little cheerful picture we have drawn should catch 
 the eye of the bereaved, the widowed, the outcast, and the forgotten, 
 and from the heart of sorrow strike a tear, let us hope that those who 
 live in glad homes, like the one we have described, may draw nigh 
 with hearts as loving, and dry it. If in the "back settlements" of 
 the large, growing and prosperous town in which we are wi'iting, there 
 should be — as God knows there are too many — whom "nobody owns," 
 let them at this time be remembered and sought out, and let them 
 understand how truly Cpieist's Bieth-day belongs alike to all. Let us 
 not, however, grow too pitiful and pensive. It is the bright side and not 
 the night side of humanity we would love to paint at Christmas. Let 
 all enjoy it innocently, but heartily. Let the noble and rich on his 
 ancestral domain, carry out the patriotic sentiment of the late Duke of 
 Eutland, who so warmly and worthily said — " I am one of those who 
 think that all classes of our great national community should be fre- 
 quently brought together — that the poor should be made to know and 
 feel that they are cared for and valued by those whom Providence has 
 placed on the higher steps of the social ladder."- — Let the merchant 
 and the manufacturer give their work-people every possible facility for 
 such recreation and kindly intercourse as the season so beautifully 
 warrants. Lot the professional classes forget all distinctions — the 
 trading classes all competition — the sects all differences ; and let all 
 politics, isms, ologies, and pathies, of all sorts, be swallowed up in uni- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 871 
 
 Tersal good will. If the innkeeper dispenses his beef and ale as of 
 yore, let not the teetotaller be chary of tea and toast. If the healthy 
 faculties of those who have such be brought into genial play, let not 
 the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and the crippled, — or the various in- 
 mates of our union workhouses, — be unremembered in their capability 
 to enjoy. In short, let peace, hope and charity, cheerfulness and 
 thanksgiving, reign in every heart ; and let our readers be assured 
 how cordially we wish them — one and all — "A Merry Christmas and 
 a Happy New Year ! " 
 
 NEW YEAE'S EVE. 
 
 A EEVEEIE. 
 
 We are not disposed to speak lightly of an old friend on his departure, 
 because a new one happens to be approaching ; nor value we less the 
 past because our hope in the future is strong. There is a beautiful law 
 of the aifections by which those we have once loved keep always lovely 
 — the bloom of youth remaining to the soul, undimmed by the gloom 
 of age, though wrinkles mark the brow. The object we admire, once 
 daguerreotyped on the heart, is a living picture to the last, which no 
 vicissitude can obliterate. And thus it is with the Departing Year. 
 Though his teeth are but shattered icicles, and snow is on his head, — ■ 
 though his limbs are paralysed, his eyes have lost their lustre, his 
 beard be hoary, and his breath be cold, — we know him to be the same 
 who came bounding, in the spring-time of his childhood, over flowers 
 and verdure — who, in the warm summer of his prime, gaily laughed 
 and sang to the ripening sun — and who brought, with sober step, the 
 golden treasures of autumn, and laid them down at our feet with a 
 grateful smile. Give us thy hand Old Year, and let us have one more 
 cordial shake before we part ! Come, sit thee down with us by this 
 cheerful Christmas fire, and take thy share once more in our gossip 
 about our pleasant memories and hopes — our cherished philosophies 
 and cheerful fancies — and we will forget thee never ! 
 
 What a wonderful institution is that of Time ! To think of the 
 Great Being who inhabits Eternity (which has been aptly described by 
 James Montgomery as " a moment standing still for ever ;" or an in- 
 stant that never departs — an everlasting now) ; to think of His love in 
 so adapting a parenthetical portion of it to our capacities, for the con- 
 veniences of life, as to give it the character of measurable duration — 
 by cycles, years, months, days, hours, minutes, and even seconds ! 
 What a beautiful, as well as wonderful institution ; but how little 
 
 AA 2 
 
372 OHAPTEB XXV. 
 
 valued by a thoughtless world ! And then, to think of its kindred 
 institution of Space — filled with suns, planets, and moons, to "tell us 
 what o'clock it is," as the ages roll round; while we ourselves go on 
 as heedless of the grand economy as though God were but playing a 
 game of chance with us, or as though the stars themselves were but a 
 wild, unregulated " snow-storm of light ! " 
 
 And last of all, the Mind that is given us to appreciate and appro- 
 priate all this, if we will — the imponderable, illimitable Mind, that can 
 conceive all these cycles, these seasons, and these objects — that seems 
 to be within us, yet can embrace the mighty things beyond us — that 
 essays to dissect all nature and detect its laws, yet sets all calculation 
 of its own powers at defiance, and aspires to unity with the Infinite 
 Himself ! We thank thee. Old Year, for hirpling into our room to take 
 this kind farewell of us, and for bringing with thee the thought of 
 these wondrous things ! 
 
 But, withdrawing from considerations so vast and profound, we thank 
 thee, too, for the momentary revival, as here thou sittest with us, of 
 countless minor but not less welcome reflections, of a character more 
 personal and social. Thou takest us back in imagination to the days 
 of our own childhood, and we are in a loved old house, on the border of 
 Sherwood Forest, where, on New Years' Eves, that afi'ectionate mother, 
 now in heaven, was so wont to gladden us with the hospitable and 
 gentle customs of the season, brought down with her, in her girlhood, 
 from her home in the mountains of the Peak. There is a brighter and 
 warmer fire than usual, shining on brighter faces, and answered by 
 warmer hearts. Such games are passing as parental care, and a pious 
 sense of responsibility, dare allow us ; and though it be in the house 
 of a Quaker, we are for once indulged with a Christmas carol and a 
 winter's tale, to interest the mind ; while a generous, but innocent 
 home-made beverage is dispensed around, to cheer the body. That 
 gentle mother's thoughts wander away to her relatives in the Peak ; a 
 tear of affection glimmers in her kindly eye, and she trusts all there 
 are as happy as we. We ask her to tell us of her youthful experience 
 there, and she complies, in the narration of some adventurous story; 
 while our father, reverend and grave, sits by, and " mixes all with ad- 
 monition due." 
 
 And next we are running up from childhood into youth, and at the 
 same time running out from that parental hearth. The boisterous 
 spirit, content no longer with such tender bonds, rushes away to find 
 for itself more animating associations. We join a band of boys, who 
 adjourn from the village street to the front of a large malt-kiln fire, 
 there to " sit the old year out and the new year in," to the merry 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPEBS. 
 
 373 
 
 tunes of flute, and fiddle, and rustic song, and all the other aids to 
 such seasonable harmony; and at length the midnight bells strike up, 
 to warn us home aneath the light of the watchful stars ; and the voice 
 of parental forgiveness almost outstrips that of remonstrance, which 
 meets us as we slowly, and with throbbing heart, lift the domestic 
 latch, while preparing to put the best side outwards of om- explanatory 
 tale. 
 
 And a few more years have passed, and again the scene is changed. 
 We have left far behind us that home and that village ; and, in a large 
 and busy county town, are aspiring at once to manhood and to fame. 
 Again it is New Year's Eve, but we are not in the humble malt-kiln. 
 It is the festival of the "Literary and Philosophical Society," — to 
 which we now belong ; and the magic spells of science, poetry, music, 
 and beauty, are upon us. The intellect is trying its first flutterings, 
 and the tongue its first public falterings ; and the eyes grow dim, the 
 brain whirls round, as the cheers of that assembly crown a maiden 
 speech, which the mother it would most have delighted is not there to 
 hear ; for the pai'tings as well as the meetings of life have begun, and 
 her afi'ectionate spirit has already passed away to "the world beyond 
 the grave." 
 
 Another change ; and in a lone but pleasant villa, near where the 
 Erewash seeks the Trent, we sit by the midnight fire, in deep commu- 
 nion with one who has visited foreign lands and is spending his last 
 New Year's Eve in England preparatory to going again — perhaps for 
 ever ! How still is all, save our own subdued voices, until a party 
 returning from a religious "watch-meeting" come singing by, and 
 pass on till their hymn has died away in the distance, like the voice of 
 the year just gone. 
 
 Transpose the scene and the time yet again ; and in a sweet little 
 cottage on the side of a romantic hill, overlooking one of our large and 
 most enlightened inland towns, we are keeping New Year's Eve by our 
 own fii'eside, with one object especially beloved, and a cluster of intel- 
 lectual friends as visitors. Oh, time of comfort and of joy, that shall 
 come never again to us on " this side Jesus Christ ! "■ — But believing, 
 as we thoroughly do, in a heaven where all that is good and beautiful 
 is restored, refined, and made immortal, we will still look "onward 
 and upward," nor linger back with a story beginning with such pro- 
 mise, to end with the cleaving asunder of united hearts. Onward and 
 upward — onward and upward, ever ! 
 
 At length we have reached the meridian of our mortal span, and are 
 spending New Year's Eve in the city of a great university, with some 
 of the most distinguished philosophers and literati of the time. Society, 
 
374 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 on one of its higher platforms, has held out to us its hand ; and we have 
 gazed, as from the top of a pyramid, on the quieter joys of the green 
 and flowery plain we have left at its base ; and so come we down again 
 • — though not without some loiterings — to merge once more in the 
 homely and warm-hearted multitude we had left — finding the summit 
 of personal ambition, like the summits of lofty mountains, very pic- 
 turesque and bright as gazed up to from below, but comparatively iso- 
 lated, cold, and cheerless, when gained. 
 
 Change the scene once more ; and we are enjoying the season in a 
 retired and happy Lincolnshire rectory, with that rare kind of pastor 
 '* whose parish knows no bound, except the bound of human sorrow," 
 — the sky one great cloud, and the earth all covered with snow, out- 
 side ; but intensifying more than ever the love within that sweet home. 
 
 Another year ; and we are laid upon a sick bed, in the house of 
 strangers. But there is one warm and gentle spirit, even there, watch- 
 ing over us with soothing care ; and bidding us at the same time to 
 hope afresh, as she whispers in soft, low, musical tones — "the new 
 year's begun." 
 
 Twelve months fi-om that time we were passing New Year's Eve in 
 a very diflerent manner. It was in wandering, with a poetical friend, 
 through the streets of London, and noting the wondrous contrasts of 
 life that in that mighty city strike the eye anew at every turn ; and we 
 thought how glorious it would be could the tide of luxury, which brings 
 so little true happiness to anybody, be dhected into channels where 
 it would help to relieve the misery of everybody — in short, that the 
 luxury of self-gratification would give place to the far more delicious 
 " luxury of doing good:" — 
 
 And as we reason'd thus, there stole 
 
 A voice, thougli still and small, 
 Most sweetly whispering to the soul — 
 
 " God's love is over all ! 
 
 " Then let not thou a vain despair 
 
 Thy spirit's faith bedim, 
 But m thy sphere do thou thy share, 
 
 And trust the rest to Him. 
 
 " For though his own bright hopes to blast 
 
 Man's tendency may seem ; 
 Be sure the wrong win fail at last. 
 
 And God the right redeem ! " 
 
 And, consoled by this truth, we sought at leisure our suburban abode. 
 Outside the city the night was calm and beautiful — as within it was 
 glittering, throbbing, and restless ; and after so much excitement a 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 375 
 
 disposition to peace and contemplation filled the heart. But just as 
 in this frame our hand was laid, at twelve o'clock, on the hospitable 
 door we were about to enter, the only breath of air that stirred coming 
 to us from the direction of the city brought with it a tide of sound we 
 shall never cease to hear echoing in the arches of memory. It was 
 that of all the bells in London striking up at one moment to ring the 
 old year out and the new year in, and filling the dome of nature, which 
 a few seconds before was so solemnly silent, with a requiem so strange 
 as to be quite startling, when we remembered that, with some allow- 
 ance for longitude, a similar sound was emanating at the same time 
 from more than half of Christendom ! 
 
 But — it would fill a volume, to record all the incidents and emotions 
 we can recal for this season more than forty times returned. What a 
 crowd of friendly images, of the living and the gone, peoples the ima- 
 gination ! what kindred scenes expand around, and what feelings they 
 enkindle, as we see them arrayed, one beyond another, along the far 
 retreating vista ! And now another New Year's Eve is at hand ; and 
 here we are, with old Eighteen-Hundred-and-Fifty-Three sitting by us 
 in the arm-chair, telling our simple story. 
 
 And is there not, for every soul, a deep and generous interest in the 
 thought that millions of hearts as one can bo simultaneously reminded 
 of our universal kinship — touched and kindled by one common event ? 
 May every old form that is lifeless be cleared away ! May every form 
 that is filled with the life of evil die ! May infidelity and superstition 
 pass away together, and leave not a rack behind them in the heaven 
 of our hope ! But long, long remain those annual festivals — those 
 secular sabbaths, which make the whole world kin, and give a renewed 
 impulse to the charities that form the better portions of popular life ! 
 If, in this garrulous effort, we have been somewhat egotistical in 
 our own recollections of New Years' Eves, so far from its arising 
 out of a wish to draw attention from the experience of every other 
 mind, we have a hope th^at it may have just the contrary efi'ect. We 
 trust it may awaken a thousand more beautiful and interesting ana- 
 logues in the memories of all who read us ; that it may teach to 
 parents the value of happy periodical impressions on the hearts of 
 their children ; that it may teach to children the importance of storing 
 their memories with things that will bear, not painful, but holy, useful 
 and happy reflections, while life shall last ; and that it may cause those 
 of every age and class to study the character and value of — time. But 
 let us also trust that while it quickens an interest in the passing season 
 more especially, it will not tend to prevent our readers, one and all, 
 from doing "all the good they can, in all the ways they can, to all the 
 
■376 CHAPTEB XXV. 
 
 people they can," every hour of their lives. To most of us another 
 year is coming for this purpose. And on Saturday night, while dear 
 old Eighteen-Hundred-and-Fifty-Three passes contentedly away to his 
 Father Eternity, let us resolve to aid his successor, Eighteen-Hundred- 
 and-Fifty-Four, in promoting all the good that time gone by has left 
 imperfectly accomplished ! — (Written for the " Derbyshire Advertiser") 
 
 OUR OLD SHERWOOD GATHERINGS. 
 
 A GREAT change has come over the feelings, tastes, and pursuits of 
 our English population during the last thirty years. At the com- 
 mencement of that period, an assemblage of any magnitude, in a 
 purely rural district, for a purely intellectual and moral purpose — un- 
 connected with special considerations of rank, sect, or party — was 
 one of the most surprising novelties, and such an one occurring at the 
 village of Edwinstowe, Notts, November 3rd, 1841, was alluded to 
 with something of wonder and much approbation by several of the 
 leading journals of the day. 
 
 The announcement stated that the principal object of the feast was 
 to honour those worthies who, by the pen, pencil, or otherwise, had 
 contributed to the renown of Sherwood Forest. Mr. Christopher 
 Thomson, the painter, (of whom a memou' is already included in 
 these pages), was chairman, making a most manly and telling speech, 
 which is given at length in his " Autobiography of an Artizan." Mr. 
 Francis Fisher, of Sheffield, nobly followed him, in proposing as a 
 toast — " The mighty and the good of the ages that are gone, whose 
 virtues yet live though their names be forgotten." Another speech 
 paid tribute to Robin Hood, who was regarded by the speaker as more 
 of a patriot than a robber. Next (from Ben Hawkridge) came " The 
 memory of Ben Jonson, Robert Dodsley, Lord Byron, Pemberton the 
 Wanderer, and other departed writers, in whose works the woods of 
 Sherwood wave, its plains expand and bloom, and its heroes live in 
 immortal youth." " The memory of Robert Millhouse" was reveren- 
 tially added, and a subscription set on foot for a monument near his 
 grave. And then a beautifully cai-ved and silver-mounted walking- 
 stick, cut from native oak, was presented to me, with an inscription 
 engraven on it, in terms too kindly and flattering to be copied here. 
 More speeches followed, including a characteristic one from my father, 
 then in his seventy-second year, who thrilled me through by saying 
 thus publicly that I was " a lad after his own heart." Original and 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 377 
 
 other songs, fraught with fitting sentiments, varied and enlivened the 
 proceedings ; and reports by local papers, echoed by several metropo- 
 litan journals, left a memory of the whole affair not likely soon to die. 
 
 The success of this experiment suggested another for the summer, 
 on a much larger scale. Of this the Sheffield Iris, of July 12, 1842, thus 
 spoke: — " Our readers will remember with pleasure the report last 
 year of the first of these social demonstrations, which we predicted 
 would be the forerunner of still greater, going on till a new feeling of 
 life, love, and intellectuality, should be spread by their influence 
 throughout the rural districts of the whole island. That prediction is 
 materially strengthened by the Gathering we have now to record, 
 which took place near the rural village of Edwinstowe, Nottingham- 
 shire, on Tuesday last, in an immense booth on the Forest-side, where 
 little less than 500 people participated in the proceedings. It was a 
 scene in which noble, or yeoman, or peasant might equally glory ; — 
 no patriot, philanthropist, or christian, could have beheld it without 
 deep and joyful emotion ; nor could any man, however deficient in 
 patriotic or philanthropic principles, depart from it without having his 
 heart happily imbued and expanded. 
 
 "The spot chosen for the booth was just on the outside of the village, 
 
 upon a fine pastoral strip of land that belts the ancient woods of Bil- 
 
 hagh and Birkland ; the oaks of which might be seen tossing their 
 
 mighty antlers above the brow of a gentle heathery slope on one hand ; 
 
 whilst on the other hand, above the dark trees surrounding Lady 
 
 Scarborough's mansion and the rectory, the old church lifted up its 
 
 sunshine-loving spire ; and down far away to the east stretched the 
 
 fine open country in which stands the little town of OUerton, with 
 
 not a single object to break the prospect. Would we could present 
 
 our readers with an accurate sketch of the interior of the rural pavilion ! 
 
 It would form a picture as beautiful as curious. We never saw any 
 
 artificial contrivance so utterly sylvan yet convenient in its character. 
 
 It was just some such place that Thomas Miller dreamed about when 
 
 he sang — 
 
 See how the roof from clustering columns sprung, 
 
 Like some high forest-walk, emhower'd and lone ; 
 No branch is there in wild disorder flung, 
 
 But each arch'd bough has with its fellow grown, 
 Looking as if, while they in beauty hung, 
 
 Their growth was checked, — 
 
 The bundled stems of each low arm bereft, 
 And their wide-spreading boughs for spanning arches left. 
 
 And lovely devices in flowers of all hues were loosely strung from bough 
 
378 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 to bough, and column to column, significant of the objects of the meet- 
 ing, and of persons it was intended to honour." 
 
 In this immense arbour were spread ample tables ; instrumental 
 music and vocal minstrelsy of a superior character added to the enjoy- 
 ment; literary and scientific people from near and far were there. 
 Again, picturesque and noble old Christopher Thomson presided ; the 
 routine of loyal toasts, from the Queen to the neighbouring Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, were honoured ; and then — continues the newspaper — 
 
 " The Chairman said they were not now assembled for political dis- 
 cussion — they recognised no politics, but those of the amelioration and 
 advancement of the whole human family. They were met to do honour 
 to literature, science, art, and moral worth. And what could be a 
 more laudable object? They had thrown aside for the day the shovel, 
 the pick-axe, the spade, and the loom, and all connected with then* 
 every-day employment, for the purpose of making glad their hearts, 
 and of rejoicing together at that shrine. Without the literature of their 
 country they must have been themselves as mere blocks, and in no 
 better situation than the aborigines of Africa or other desert regions. 
 And ought they not to honour that science which could now waft them 
 from the shores of their own country across the Atlantic in eleven days ? 
 which could transport them in a few hours from the centre of the mid- 
 land counties to the metropolis of the kingdom, a journey which only 
 a few years ago it was thought necessary to make their wills before im- 
 dertaking ? They were met to honour that march of civilization, which 
 enabled the traveller who found it necessary to traverse the deserts of 
 Suez to do it with the same ease as he could once walk through those 
 beautiful glades of Sherwood Forest. They were met to honour that 
 moral worth which had clothed this country with its many benefits, 
 and had called up mechanics' institutes and other benevolent associa- 
 tions, and which had in efl'ect assembled them together this day. 
 These were among the objects they met to venerate ; and whilst they 
 reverenced them generally, they must feel especial regard for those who 
 had added to the renown of that locality — their own beloved Sherwood. 
 Who that had passed but a few hours in those beautiful haunts but 
 must have found his whole soul ready to pour forth in adoration before 
 the great Architect of the universe, and to exclaim, "Great and glorious 
 are thy works, Lord ! " Who that had travelled through these glades 
 but must have felt the glow of inspiration rising within him, and his 
 whole soul raised "from nature up to nature's God?" Yes, they had 
 drawn inspiration from these time-honoured and rugged trees ; they 
 had gazed upon them, and had, as it were, heard from them tales of 
 distant days and times long past. They had found tongues in those 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 379 
 
 trees, which had spoken to them of the great and wonderful works of 
 God, from generation to generation, to their especial enjoyment and 
 gratification. They had also by association with them felt themselves 
 as if holding converse with that great hero of the woods, Eobin 
 Hood, and his famous 
 
 " Band of gallant Sherwood men, 
 Whose like those glades would never greet again." 
 
 They hoped by such innocent demonstrations as this to supersede the 
 pleasures (if such they could be called) of the cockpit, and those other 
 demoralizing amusements which had so greatly and fatally influenced 
 the human character. By their exertions they hoped to cause the soul 
 to be lifted with thankfulness to the Giver of every good ; and whilst 
 they were true and reverent to the state, to be just and honest to them- 
 selves. He would now give a toast, which he was sure would meet 
 with a hearty response from all present — Health and long life to the 
 Duke of Portland and Earl Manvers, the noble conservators of Old 
 Birkland and Bilhagh." 
 
 Poems written for the occasion, or bearing closely upon it, including 
 a very chaste, glowing, and powerful one by Miss Elizabeth Sheridan 
 Carey; and a sweet lyric by gentle William Hardy, who could not 
 come because he was then dying at Mansfield, were afterwards read, 
 and eloquent — sometimes merry speeches, made — droll, hearty H. S. 
 Wake, a solicitor, from Worksop, saying that, in his younger days, 
 he had regarded Quintillian, not Pestalozzi, as the father of education, 
 and old Mother Shipton as its mother, whilst the birch-rod, of which 
 the neighbouring trees forcibly reminded him, was one of their most 
 powerful ushers; — that though he had not done much in literature, he 
 had contrived to write his own epitaph, which ran — 
 
 Beneath this stone lies H. S. W. 
 
 Who from this hour will no more trouble you ; — 
 
 And that as he had to propose the toast of " The Countess of Scar- 
 borough and the Ladies," he would just observe that he thought the 
 man who passed woman by and said the grandest object in creation 
 was the Falls of Niagara, must have had a tremendous cataract in his 
 eye! 
 
 In a very different strain was a beautiful and impressive address 
 from Thomas Lister, " Bard of the Rustic Wreath," who was 
 called upon for the next sentiment. He described in joyous language 
 the release afforded by this meeting from the toils and cares of every- 
 day life, and expatiated at length upon the probable advantageous 
 results of such popular and animated assemblages. He next detailed 
 
380 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 his views of the excellence of modern education over that of old times, 
 ascribing its rise and progress in a great measure to the efforts and 
 perseverance of the benevolent and enlightened Pestalozzi ; and then 
 gave a luminous history of the Pestalozzian system from its first estab- 
 lishment in Switzerland, by the Lake of Lucerne, on the shores of 
 which he had lovingly lingered himself with pilgrim-like feelings — for 
 to such education he had paid much attention, though not profession- 
 ally, and he felt convinced that it was one of the greatest boons that 
 could he bestowed on man. Though not a Forester born, he was one 
 in heart, and his impressions the first time he viewed this county 
 would never be obliterated. Their Hving laureate, Spencer Timothy 
 Hall, was the guide of himself and his friends, who began their tour 
 from the fine Pestalozzian establishment of Dr. Heldenmaier, at 
 Worksop, and proceeded from thence by Welbeck Abbey and Clumber, 
 and were struck with astonishment on their aiTival at old Birkland 
 by the majesty of the scene. They visited Edwinstowe, Clipstone, 
 Hardwick, and Bolsover, and he must confess, although he had only 
 just returned from the cloud-capped mountains of Switzerland, he did 
 not turn up his nose in affected disdain of Old England ; but with 
 pride could truly say that amidst orange-groves and spicy-scented 
 flowers, he had ever thought lovingly of England's oaks. He con- 
 cluded in a strain of impassioned poesy, by proposiug "The undying 
 memory of Pestalozzi, and the great and good of past times ; and the 
 health and happiness of all the living apostles of popular improve- 
 ment : may their career be untiring as their aim is glorious!" 
 
 It was Dr. Gr. Calvert Holland, author of "Vital Statistics," and 
 other distinguished works, who then spoke, proposing my health, and 
 alluding in most warm and kindly terms to my own writings, which he 
 was pleased to say had, with those of Pemberton, done more than 
 anything else towards attracting that vast assemblage thither,^a 
 scene from which he should return to his diurnal duties improved in 
 his own heart and mind. 
 
 The following is the Iris's report of my spontaneous reply — "hear, 
 hears" and "cheers" omitted: — 
 
 " Mr. Hall came forward, evidently much afi'ected by the manner 
 in which his health had been received. Although he understood 
 before that some compliment would be paid him, he did not expect 
 anything like what had been said; and should he fail in making a 
 suitable acknowledgment, he hoped they would take it as they would 
 have it, and not as he might utter it. 'If,' said he, 'there be any 
 here who, born in one of the homes of Sherwood Forest, has from 
 earliest youth cherished in his breast the hope that those better days 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 
 
 881 
 
 would come when the humble man turning one talent into two should 
 not be despised on account of the more gifted one making twenty of his 
 ten, let that man exult and sympathise with me, for he is my brother! 
 You have done me the honour to call me a bard, and as one of the least 
 deserving the name I feel thankful and proud that you have ; because 
 from the manner in which it was cheered, it is an evidence that in this 
 utilitarian age there is some fresh spring of poetic feeling and appre- 
 ciation of poetry bursting up among the universal people. Yet, let us 
 not be mistaken. What is poetry, and who are poets ? Ebenezer 
 Elliott — the man perhaps who has expressed greater ideas in less com- 
 pass than any other living writer — -who in four words has made us feel 
 how " dimensionless is God's infinity," has told us most forcibly that 
 " Poetry is impassioned truth !" This assertion itself is the embodi- 
 ment of a beautiful, great, and impassioned thought, worthy of a wide 
 though not limitless accej)tation. For while we put it in our bosoms, 
 let us not forget that, to the poet all things are poetical. Look at the 
 dimensionless universe full of bright suns, surrounded by their subor- 
 dinate worlds, and these again by their sateUites, all receiving light 
 and heat from the great radiant centre : and beautifully reflecting it to 
 him and to one another ! How complicated are their movements, — 
 yet how harmonious ! They thread each others courses, but never 
 jostle. They attract and repel, but never draw or drive each other 
 from their spheres. They speed perpetually on their unmarked tracks 
 with the might of the whirlwind, but with the peace of sleep. Great 
 God! is not this a poem for man's deepest reading? In vegetation 
 we see the tree of the forest, of which we have so many noble speci- 
 mens around us, if it have free room for growth, sending out the tips 
 of its branches precisely as far as the fibres of its roots, that those 
 branches may shed the moisture of life caught by their leaves during 
 the showers, just where the fibres open their little lips to suck it in. 
 What a happy and instructive poem is this providential interchange ! 
 In the progress of mankind, let us mark how, in some particular age 
 and region of the world, an event is prophesied for some far distant 
 age and place ; and after the lapse of centuries the prophecy is found 
 to fit the event with the same nice exactitude as that with which a key 
 fits its lock. Is not this the poetry of the Book of Life ? Again we see 
 the green bowery dells of our country pouring their little musical rills 
 into the brooks of the valleys, and the brooks combining to form the 
 great rivers of the plains, which flow into the ocean that sends back its 
 vapours again to replenish the land with moisture. Is not this poetry? 
 Could there ever be more delightful poetry than is manifested in all 
 these examples? 0, yes! there is still better, richer, sweeter, and 
 
382 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 more important poetry than all these — that which is displayed in those 
 affections that spring from the hidden depths of the human heart, and 
 flow in pure delicious rills of feeling from soul to soul among mankind, 
 forming by their combinations first lesser and then greater streams of 
 social love, that all tend at last in one mighty flood to God, as the 
 brooks to the rivers, and the rivers to the sea! And if such be poetry, 
 who are poets ? Let us remember what Elliott says of 
 
 ' Scott, whose invention is a magic loom ; 
 Baillie, artificer of deathless dreams; 
 Moore, the Montgomery of the drawing-room; 
 Montgomery, the Moore of solemn themes ; 
 Crahhe, whose dark gold is richer than it seems ; 
 Keats, that sad name which time shall write in tears ; 
 Poor Bm-ns, the Scot that would not be a slave; 
 Campbell, whom Freedom's deathless Hope endears; 
 White, still remember'd in his cruel grave ; 
 Ill-fated Shelley, vainly great and brave; 
 Wordsworth, whose thoughts acquaint us with our own; 
 Didactic, earnest Cowper, grave and gay ; 
 Wild Southey, flying like the her'n alone ; 
 And dreamy Coleridge, of the wizard lay ; 
 With Byron, fervour all, and rivalless 
 In might and passion ! ' 
 
 Such are the men of whom we might long discourse ; as weU as of our 
 own — the Howitts, who have walked forth, and drawn their most fer- 
 vent inspiration from the lovely scenes that now surround us ; or poor 
 Pemberton — Pemberton, the man all heart and soul, of whom our 
 feelings will not let us speak, unless our tears were words ; — Thomas 
 Miller, the bard of gentle feelings and bright fancies, whom so many of 
 us remember weaving baskets and songs at one time in Nottingham, 
 and who possesses all as a writer that we love in Morland as a painter. 
 Then, there is Samuel Plumbe, so famed at once for "a random shot 
 o' country wit," and for the most simple and tender pathos ; and his 
 nephew, our friend, Charles Plumbe, now present, whose " Mornings 
 in June" you have so lately read, and whose poems are ever lovely as 
 Mornings in June. Nor should we forget Joanna Williams, whose 
 kindly spirit is rejoicing with Pemberton's in the " land o' the leal." 
 Philip Bailey, who has taken a flight for Fame's highest pinnacle ; and 
 Henry S. Sutton, Sidney Giles, John Westby Gibson, too — and others, 
 all true bards — but is poetic feeling confined to such? Thanks to 
 Heaven and Nature, no ! Just in proportion as we commune with our 
 own hearts and with one another on whatever is beautiful and good, 
 our thoughts kindled by tender emotion, or our emotions by good 
 thoughts — insomuch as we give utterance to our perceptions of the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PAPEEg. 383 
 
 harmonies of nature, or contribute to that sweet flow of universal affec- 
 tion just symbolised, and bathe our own souls in it often, deep, and 
 long, — believe me, my friends, we are all poets in our degree, and not 
 only poets but christians. Go, then, and cultivate this principle every- 
 where, — by your cottage firesides; in your social assemblies; in your 
 solitary walks through this beautiful country. Let it influence you alike 
 in your avocations and recreations. And if anything I have done has 
 given — as you tell me it has — an impulse to this disposition, so in like 
 manner give it one another. In doing this you will realise my sincerest 
 and most affectionate wish — my most ardent hope — and we shall none 
 of us have lived, or written, or spoken in vain.'* 
 
 " T. A. Ward, Esq., Town Regent of Sheffield, said he had been 
 induced to attend this meeting by seeing the interesting report of the 
 proceedings last year. He was extremely surprised to see so large an 
 attendance on this occasion. Thankful for the pleasure he had received, 
 he now begged to propose the health of their honoured Chairman. 
 They could not, he said, have had so good a meeting had it not been 
 presided over by a genius who commanded and ensured success. 
 
 " This toast, cordially received and acknowledged, it was now suggested 
 that the company should visit 'the Major Oak;' and the band having 
 formed outside, they marched across the Forest in the direction of old 
 Birkland. The scene was exhilarating in the extreme, and well calcu- 
 lated to strike all present with feelings of reverence not unmingled with 
 joy. There were the fern-clad slopes — the old and stately gnarled 
 oak, around which the ivy entwined, as though seeking to shield its 
 lordly friend against some storm to come — and the footpaths, with 
 their green velvety carpeting woven in nature's loom; whilst the solemn 
 silence was broken only by the sweet strains of the band. The Major 
 Oak, — or as it is sometimes denominated, the ' Cock-pen Tree,' from the 
 fowls of the villagers formerly resorting to it as a roosting place — is a 
 great attraction for all forest pilgrims. It is in the centre of a beautiful 
 
 * Fourteen or fifteen years after the delivery of this all but unpremeditated 
 address, I was one evening astounded by hearing a young and eloquent speaker, 
 at Derby, quoting its most pithy passages, he believing that he was quoting the 
 Eev. Canon Stowell. He was himself equally astonished the next morning when I 
 showed him the printed report of the old newspaper. I take it for granted that the 
 Eev. Canon would be too much of a christian and a gentleman to commit a wilful 
 plagiarism. Passages of the speech appeared in many newspapers, and he might 
 have read them and copied while forgetting the source ; or he might have given 
 them as quotations in some address of his own, his reporter supposing them at 
 the time to be original. Be that as it might, I venture to make this memorandum, 
 lest the reader of to-day should suspect me of having myself committed a wilful 
 plagiarism on the Rev. Canon. — S. T. H. 
 
384 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 opening, near to the riding which separates the wood of Bilhagh from 
 the sister wood of Birkland, or the land of birches. It is supposed 
 from good authority to be at least nine hundred years of age, and was 
 in the prime of life when some six hundred years ago Robin Hood 
 and his famous band of outlaws made use of this Forest of Sherwood 
 as one of their haunts. Its trunk, externally, at six inches from the 
 ground, is ninety feet in circumference ; at six feet from the ground its 
 circumference is thirty feet; the circumference at the extent of its 
 branches is 240 feet; the interior of the trunk, which is quite hollow, 
 is twenty feet in circumference, and fifteen feet in height, and will con- 
 tain twelve grown people. It was one of the most beautiful sights ever 
 dreamed of, as the long procession threaded the green and winding 
 wood-walks towards this majestic object. The sky above was serene, 
 and dappled over with soft, sunny cloudlets; the heather below was 
 just bursting into its first purple tint of bloom ; the gnarled Forest 
 patriarchs of a thousand years, on every hand, mingled with a profu- 
 sion of young and lissome birch-trees, glowed most gloriously in that 
 golden evening light ; and the whole scene was more like a procession 
 to some popular shrine in the old days of ' merrie England ' than a 
 'demonstration' of the nineteenth century." 
 
TTEI-XIi. TALL ill R-ZDAL 
 
^ gX2)' ^i-;^(2Xy ^(^QJioji^^^^^ @@^^ 
 
 ^^ from titct I alif 
 
 NEAE WINDERMERE. 
 
 Didst thou e'er lend thine ear to Nature's tune 
 On some sweet Sabbath-day in early June, 
 Wlien yet the woods retain'd their peerless green, 
 While May's last blossoms linger'd white between, 
 And beds of blue-bells caught thy wandering eye 
 In the deep shades, like gleams of hidden sky ? 
 If not, come now, and with me stroll along 
 To list the happiest season's gladdest song. 
 From yonder bower the thrush its loud note flings, 
 To answer which the lark's light treble rings ; 
 The stockdove's undertone rolls through the glade, 
 The linnet's trill comes clear, and soon is made 
 A universal chord by countless throats, 
 A woman's carol mingling with the notes ; 
 The clashing waterfalls like cymbals chime, 
 And the blithe cuckoo's shout keeps steady time ; 
 But of that human strain we hear each word 
 Above the rest, and hark! it hymns the Lord: — 
 
 There's sunshine on the mountains, 
 
 Bright ripples star the lake, 
 While choral falls and fountains 
 
 Sweet sabbath echoes wake; 
 
388 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 And through our hearts come stealing 
 Glad feelings in accord — 
 
 A sense of love and healing 
 From the Spirit of the Lord ! 
 
 How solemn are the teachings 
 
 (Solemn but not austere), 
 And calm the deep heart-reachings 
 
 Of Nature, everywhere ! 
 And was not all this beauty 
 
 And grandeur to us given, 
 That we might read our duty 
 
 On earth in types of Heaven ? 
 
 The day-beams on us glowing 
 
 Symbol that blessed Trine 
 From which are always flowing 
 
 Love, truth, and power divine: 
 Love's warmth and Truth's effulgence 
 
 Come forth with Mercy's might, 
 When in His self-divulgence 
 
 God says, " Let there be light! " 
 
 And when the waters under 
 
 Recall our upturn'd eyes. 
 And fill us with deep wonder 
 
 From their blue nether skies, 
 Think we not of that River 
 
 Of Life, so freely given 
 By the Eternal Giver, 
 
 From earth reflecting Heaven ? 
 
 We read on every mountain, 
 
 In every varying sod. 
 In sunshine and in fountain. 
 
 Some attribute of God; 
 And whUe with admiration 
 
 We scan the outward story, 
 A deeper inspiration 
 
 Makes known a brighter glory ! 
 
 But now that lay's last tone hath died awaj', 
 The singer in yon chapel kneels to pray. 
 How beautifully 'mid the scene it stands, 
 That little temple built with human hands, 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 389 
 
 Accordant with— not marring— what doth rise, 
 Unrear'd by man, eternal in the skies ! 
 
 Oh Nature ! how I love thy changing forms, 
 
 In Summer's sunny calms or Winter's storms, 
 
 In Spring's fresh greenness, or in Autumn's wane, 
 
 On widest moorland or in narrowest lane ; 
 
 Thou beauteous shadow of that world of bliss 
 
 That sometimes almost mak'st a heaven of this ! 
 
 I know full well, wherever he may be, 
 
 A place of worship man may find in thee ; 
 
 That mountain-pillars up to heaven ascend. 
 
 That down to meet them heaven's blue dome doth bend; 
 
 That no cathedral dome frail man can raise, 
 
 A place more fit could be for prayer or praise. 
 
 I yield the poet all he claims for thee. 
 
 Great Nature ! as a shrine of Deity. 
 
 Yet, oh ! when sauntering oft, and musing while 
 
 In sabbath mood along some woody aisle, 
 
 I've reached its out-porch with a glad surprise, 
 
 Where the wide landscape stretch'd before mine eyes. 
 
 Most deeply have I felt how wanting were 
 
 The scene, if no religious fane were there, — 
 
 Like yon retired in Troutbeck's winding lane, 
 
 Or this o'erlooking Calgarth's lovely plain, — 
 
 The former's ritual of the ancient school. 
 
 The latter claiming less restricted rule. 
 
 Yet one their aim — the glory of the Lord, 
 
 Who form'd the scenes around them with His Word, 
 
 Well pleased to see according with His plan 
 
 The simplest effort of His creature, man. 
 
 How sweet it is this day to stand and gaze, 
 
 Near to St. Catherine's gate, on all yon maze 
 
 Of mountain, moorland, woodland, mead, and lake — 
 
 The gliding shallop with its long, bright wake — 
 
 Castle and ville and hamlet smiling nigh. 
 
 And lonely cot half hiding from the eye 
 
 By ghyll remote, down which clear waters fall, 
 
 While calmest sunshine brightly mantles all. 
 
 And worship's voice comes on the sabbath air 
 
 In reverent cadence from that house of prayer! 
 
 BB 2 
 
390 MOENING STUDIES 
 
 Good men there are by wlioin such scenes are trod, 
 
 Who " look through Nature up to Nature's God;" 
 
 But oft methinks that in that higher tone 
 
 Of mind in which we feel with God at one, 
 
 In His pure wisdom looking down on all 
 
 That clothes and beautifies this earthly ball, 
 
 As with its triple motion it doth run. 
 
 Its face upturning ever to the sun. 
 
 In hues almost as lovely if less bright 
 
 Than their enkindling parent, heaven-born light, 
 
 It seems that all it beareth fair and good 
 
 Is easier read and better understood 
 
 When, by the Holy One inspired, we look 
 
 Beyond the literal meaning of her book ; 
 
 That then a deeper meaning far we scan, 
 
 As God with truth illuminateth man; 
 
 Until, reversed — the soul no longer dim — 
 
 'Tis Nature that through Man looks up to Him ! 
 
 THE LAI^S IN SPKING. 
 
 The snow has vanish'd from the mountains ; 
 There's music from a thousand fountains ; 
 The leafing woods are sending forth 
 Ten thousand songs of love and mirth ; 
 The lambs are frisking on the hills. 
 The ferns unfolding in the ghylls, 
 And beauty every landscape fills 
 
 Ai'ound the Lakes. 
 
 From Orrest Head ascend long streaks 
 
 Of rosy light when morning breaks. 
 
 And many a lofty fell and scar 
 
 Eeflect the glory from afar ; 
 
 While Windei-mere, "with waveless flow," 
 
 Inverts her wooded isles ; and lo ! 
 
 The uplands see their own rich glow 
 
 Deep in the Lakes. 
 
 And when the high, uprisen day 
 
 Flings its warm beams o'er Morecambe Bay, 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 391 
 
 If Coniston the mist still shades, 
 Scawfell's high peak in brightness fades; 
 And round Helvellyn dark and proud 
 A hundred lesser mountains crowd, 
 Some clad in azure, some in cloud, 
 
 Above the Lakes. 
 But, oh ! on Castle Head to stand, 
 By Derwentwater's lovely strand, 
 And contemplate the fairy isles 
 That win old Father Skidaw's smiles, 
 Wash'd by such v^aves of rippling light 
 As never elsewhere shone more bright, 
 Or held in ecstasy the sight, 
 
 Than at the Lakes ! 
 No pen can tell, no pencil paint. 
 Or semblance give, however faint, 
 Of all the grand, the wild, the bold. 
 The rich, the fair, these regions hold : 
 Stockgill ! thy never-ending psalm ; 
 Eydal ! thy beauty and thy balm ; 
 Grasmere ! thy soft yet cheerful calm. 
 
 Call to the Lakes ! 
 They call ! and down from Bisky How 
 To Bowness Bay we hasten now. 
 Come, Gregor Grant! let's speed away 
 By Calgarth woods and castled Wray, 
 Passing our English Sappho's bower,* 
 Glancing at good Giles Redmayne's tower, t 
 Or where old Romans, in their power, 
 
 O'erlook'd the Lakes. | 
 But what is yonder spire up-darting. 
 That hails our landing and departing? 
 Sweet Ambleside! thou cheery nook 
 Of clustering homesteads by the brook! 
 
 * Dove's Nest, formerly the residence of Felicia Hemans. 
 
 + Brathay Chapel, built by Giles Eedmayne, distinguished in life by many 
 useful and kindly deeds, and whose remains are interred near the fabric that so 
 picturesquely rises from the trees by the whispering rivulet's side. 
 
 I " High Street," conspicuous among the hills overlooking Troutbeck, east of 
 Windermere, is Bo named from the still traceable Roman road passing over its very 
 summit. 
 
392 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 Though all the realm has charms for me, • 
 I love to come sometimes to thee, 
 Again my earliest haunts to see 
 
 Among the Lakes. 
 
 How many years have pass'd since first, 
 Like some glad vision, on me burst 
 These scenes, all grown familiar now ! 
 My then-companion ! where art thou ? 
 Through Kirkstone Pass we came together ; 
 But thou hast broken time's weak tether : * 
 Say dost thou ever tread the heather 
 
 Ai'ound the Lakes ? 
 
 Or is it thine, my friend ! while now 
 
 I still am musing here below. 
 
 To see, in heaven, with purer sight, 
 
 And glowing in a purer light, 
 
 The scenes we then in concert view'd. 
 
 That fed us with such mental food, 
 
 Waking our hearts' deep gratitude 
 
 Among the Lakes ? 
 
 And where is that young, stalwart climber 
 Of mountain realms than these sublimer. 
 Who join'd us when, in loveliest weather, 
 We scaled Helvellyn's steep together? 
 memorable day to me ! 
 From Scotland to the western sea 
 How glorious lay, from mist all free. 
 
 The Land of Lakes ! 
 
 'Twas June, yet at our feet was snow. 
 While green was all the land below. 
 Save where out-cropp'd stern, craggy rocks, 
 Or heather dark lay sprent with flocks ; 
 
 * The friend here alluded to was the late Frederick Johnson, M.D., M.R.C.S., 
 of Sunderland, an intellectual and noble-hearted man, who died suddenly, some 
 years afterwards, while with a patient in consultation. It was on the 15th of June, 
 1851, that, with hia younger brother, and Mr. (now Sir) Massey Lopes, we climbed 
 Helvellyn. The rest of the party were at the summit a little the earliest, and 
 saluted me on my arrival with a volley of snowballs. Like many of the most 
 studious and accomplished men I have known, he had the heart for an innocent 
 frolic, when duty permitted, and I would be glad at this time for another pelting 
 as playful from as good a man. 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 393 
 
 Or glittering tarn, or white cascade, 
 Gleam'd half in sun and half in shade. 
 And scudding clouds swift shadows made 
 Across the Lakes. 
 
 Yet was that wide, wild landscape rife 
 With many a sign of human life, — 
 Some hamlet old, or lonely farm, 
 Lending each vale a pastoral charm; 
 And — be it hamlet, fane, or cot — ■ 
 Where human love has mark'd the spot, 
 Dull is the heai't it gladdens not 
 
 Among the Lakes. 
 
 How wonderful, through mortal eyes 
 So much to grasp of earth and skies — 
 Bring all that grand expanse away. 
 And see it in the soul to-day. 
 In all its vastness, difference, grace. 
 No feature wanting in its place, 
 Yet occupying there no space, — 
 
 The Land of Lakes ! 
 
 ! if to man whate'er he knows — 
 Whate'er the world of sense bestows — 
 Can thus essential mind be made, 
 And glow, as now, thus undecay'd ; 
 How much more in His Spirit lives 
 All that He has and all He gives, 
 And all the joy He back receives. 
 
 Who form'd the Lakes ! 
 
 THOUGHTS ON EXISTENCE. 
 
 Say, what can this existence mean — 
 This wondrous range of earth and sky — 
 
 All that is heard, or felt, or seen — 
 
 That moves the heart and melts the eye — 
 
 That fills the soul with love and light 
 
 And gives our thoughts their upward flight ? 
 
394 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 Whence came we ? Let all Nature speak 
 
 And tell the secret if it can ; 
 For it has nothing, strong or weak, 
 
 That hath not help'd to build the man : 
 Through herbs and fruits the very stones 
 Our blood have leaven'd, framed our bones. 
 
 Flowers bloom again in childhood's face ; 
 
 Sunshine gleams back from youth's glad eye : 
 In all that moves there is no grace 
 
 Unmatch'd when woman passeth by ; 
 And yonder stars that light the pole 
 Have nothing brighter than the soul — 
 
 The soul that aims to grasp it all, 
 
 And by some talismanic power 
 Bedeem it from material thrall 
 
 To share its own immortal dower, 
 Rising forever unto Him 
 In whose bright presence suns are dim. 
 Our being — mystery sublime ! 
 
 Whence came we ? or why should we be. 
 Scaling the mountain-heights of time 
 
 And panting for futurity ? 
 Still draw us on. Eternal Sire ! 
 Nor let us on the jom-ney tire. 
 
 It could not be, this toilsome march, 
 At last a worthless end to reach : 
 
 Hope beckons through her rainbow arch, 
 And Faith and Reason ever teach 
 
 An object worthy of our gain 
 
 Must crown our toil, reward our pain. 
 
 God of Mercy, Love, and Truth ! 
 
 Let our whole trust be placed in Thee, 
 Our Guard in childhood. Guide in youth — 
 
 Our Solace in maturity — 
 From the beginning to the end, 
 Our Father, Saviour, Brother, Friend ! 
 
 The end ? But where can be the end 
 To those who from all evil flee — 
 
 Who at Thy feet repentant bend. 
 
 Then take Thy hand and walk with Thee ? 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 395 
 
 Infinitude itself is trod 
 
 By every faithful child of God. 
 
 Wherefore to Thee let thankful praise 
 
 From loving spirits ever flow, 
 That it is Thy delight to raise 
 
 To highest joy from deepest woe — 
 That when Thy will on earth is done 
 The grave is foil'd and Heaven begun ! 
 
 EVENING LIGHT. 
 
 Though Furness Fells extend a longer line 
 
 And Brantfell lifts a loftier brow than thine ; 
 
 Though Orrest Head perchance more bright may glow, 
 
 And tall Il-Bell a deeper shadow throw ; 
 
 Though beacon'd Coniston be farther seen. 
 
 And many a spot more famed exult between ; 
 
 While other mountains rise, a varied host, 
 
 As picturesque as England's Isle can boast, 
 
 (Mirror'd in lakes below, as blue and fair 
 
 As painter's love or poet's lay could share), 
 
 Few are the scenes more beautiful than thou 
 
 Canst give thy gentle climber, Eisky How ! * 
 
 Whether we come when winter grandly throws 
 
 Abroad his contrast wild of glooms and snows — 
 
 With belts of cloud obscuring Nature nigh, 
 
 Or crowning her with crystals in yon sky; 
 
 Or when the gladsome Spring 'mid bloom and song 
 
 Glides with lithe step the raptured vale along ; 
 
 Or Summer's rainbow weddeth shore to shore, 
 
 Or Summer sunsets win us to adore ; 
 
 Or Autumn curls each smoke-wreath, tints each tree; 
 
 What luxury it is to come to thee — 
 
 To note the stir of human life below. 
 
 The yacht's light sail, the steamer's rippling prow, 
 
 Or lesser shallop, floating far away 
 
 On yon long track-line of departing day, 
 
 * Bisky or Bushy How, rising behind and looking down upon the village of 
 Bowness-on-Windermere, crowned with crags, and probably deriving ita name 
 from its busky or bushy sides. 
 
396 MOENING STUDIES 
 
 Where the glad waters thrill with golden light, 
 As music soon will thrill the air of night ! 
 Come hither, friend, and I will tell thee now 
 Of something once occurred on Bisky How : — 
 
 'Twas May, and Langdale Pikes (crown'd king and queen 
 With evening's richest gold) reign'd o'er the scene, 
 While Windermere, rejoicing in the glow, 
 Mirror'd the dappled heavens — a heaven below; 
 And the far mountains rose to nobler height 
 As the first planet trembled into sight ; 
 When Arthur Gilbeck, with deliberate stride, 
 Took the lone pathway o'er the upland side. 
 
 Touch'd by the tender spirit of the time. 
 
 How sweet it was that tufted slope to climb, 
 
 To breathe the wilding's breath, the hawthorn's balm, 
 
 And draw into the heart the season's calm, — ■ 
 
 Awhile to lean the soul on Nature's breast. 
 
 And let the day's tired feelings sink to rest,— 
 
 That, as glad di'eams of deep repose are bom, 
 
 The body's eve might be of mind the mom, 
 
 Assured the ancient Hebrew Seer was light, 
 
 Who sang "At evening time it shall be light ! " 
 
 0, sacred privilege, sometimes to steal 
 
 From the rude world such transports calm to feel — 
 
 The inner meanings of life's book to scan. 
 
 And think, with God's great help, thoughts worthy man ! 
 
 How glorious then do all things round us grow! 
 
 How all above doth marry all below — 
 
 Doth lift it up into a holier sphere. 
 
 And make the purpose of its being clear. 
 
 As light from Heaven on Nature's page doth shine, 
 
 And human thoughts give place to thoughts divine ! 
 
 While Ai'thur stood upon the mountain sod, 
 
 Felt all things mantled in the love of God, 
 
 And heard all Nature's grateful whispers rise 
 
 In one harmonious vesper to the skies, 
 
 One pang alone his joyous thoughts could dim, 
 
 Or discord throw into that peaceful hymn — 
 
 A momentary sense of all the jar 
 
 That comes of man with God and men at war — 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 397 
 
 An inward mourning for each soul at strife 
 
 With Him who is " the Way, the Truth, the Life;" 
 
 Till darkest sorrows from the vanish'd years 
 
 Rush'd back and mingled with his gushing tears. 
 
 Then comfort came. He mark'd how beauty rose 
 
 O'er the wide landscape through its former throes : 
 
 He saw how Christ was wounded for our sakes — 
 
 That love through suffering all things perfect makes — 
 
 That sounds which discord seem to partial ears 
 
 May never mar " the music of the spheres" — 
 
 That poor humanity's repentant sigh 
 
 Itself is music, to the Ear on High. 
 
 And as he gazed there dawn'd upon his view 
 
 God's process in " creating all things new." 
 
 The day was done, and yet it was not night, 
 
 For Arthur knew at evening time 'twas light : 
 
 He felt the future blest, the past forgiven. 
 
 And God and Man at one, in Earth and Heaven. 
 
 RICH THOUGH POOR. 
 
 An old man in a little room 
 
 Lay on a couch of pain. 
 And God's great love relieved his gloom, 
 
 By waking up again 
 Sweet memories, that since life's young bloom 
 
 Half hid by woe had lain. 
 
 With joy he saw once more the face 
 
 That fii-st upon him smiled. 
 All lit with kindliness and grace — 
 
 His mother's — he a child : 
 0, heaven, those features dear to trace, 
 
 So warm, and yet so mUd ! 
 
 And not to memory's eye alone 
 
 Sprang up the past thus clear : 
 The gentlest touch, the tenderest tone, 
 
 Came back to hand and ear, 
 Where ev'n a sense more glad was known 
 
 Than that first thrilling there. 
 
398 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 For all that he had ever loved 
 Again he loved the more, — 
 
 The pasture where he first had roved 
 Adventurous from the door ; 
 
 The landscape which his mind first moved 
 More widely to explore ; 
 
 The starry sky, the unslumbering sea, 
 
 The river gently winding ; 
 The woody slope, the flowery lea, 
 
 The flock he there was minding 
 In youthful days, again saw he, 
 
 More beauty in them finding. 
 
 For thought and feeling, sight and sound — 
 Whate'er his sense had caught — 
 
 Whate'er his intellect had found, 
 Or in his heart had wi'ought. 
 
 In one sweet compact to be bound, 
 Was in one moment brought. 
 
 The stirring world shut from his eye, 
 In room so small and plain, 
 
 How blest the liberty to lie, 
 Forgetting while all pain, 
 
 And feel the vastness of the sky, 
 The grandeur of the main 1 
 
 How wondrous, too, the power of thought 
 By which whate'er we find 
 
 In life's long course can be so wrought. 
 So blended yet defined. 
 
 That all at once it comes unsought, 
 Like day-break, on the mind I 
 
 Nor this the end : far holier light 
 
 Than that of natm'e's sun 
 Broke forth, and show'd his raptured sight 
 
 A better life begun. 
 Not bound by length, or breadth, or height, 
 
 Eternally to run. 
 
 And now he saw what this life meant. 
 Its shadows and its fears : — 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 899 
 
 Its toils and cares by contrast lent 
 
 More glory to the spheres 
 Whose everlasting, bright ascent 
 
 Leaves far " the vale of tears." 
 
 And round his lone and lowly bed 
 
 In that secluded spot, 
 The love of Love, thus freely shed, 
 
 Enrich'd the poor man's lot ; 
 New life he gain'd from heavenly bread, 
 
 And soon on earth "was not." 
 
 He rose up early one bright morn 
 
 And threw his pain away ; 
 For when we sought his cot forlorn 
 
 We only found his clay : 
 His soul to its TEUE HOME was borne, 
 
 Where Night is lost in Day ! 
 
 LIZZIE WARRINEK. 
 
 (Child of Edward and Margaret Warriner, Browhead, near Ambleside.) 
 Born Oct. 4, 1864 ; died Oct. 7, 1865. 
 
 She bloom'd, a tender autumn flower ; 
 
 Four seasons o'er her swept ; 
 But, when return'd her natal hour, 
 
 She faded, smiled, and slept. 
 
 Pale floret of the mountain-side. 
 
 Where countless beauties meet ! 
 Of all the flowers that landscape wide 
 
 Could boast, was none so sweet. 
 
 No bird that caroll'd in the bowers 
 
 And made all hearts rejoice, 
 Around thy home in spring's glad hours, 
 
 Than thee had happier voice. 
 
 No lambkin of thy father's flock, 
 
 That gamboU'd in its glee 
 Beneath yon ferny upland-rock, 
 
 More innocent than thee ! 
 
400 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 No morning dew-drop in the fields, 
 No gem from richest mine, 
 
 No beam the brightest noon-day yields. 
 More bright than look of thine ! 
 
 • And when thy soul beyond the cloud 
 Had found eternal day, 
 How beautifully in the shroud 
 Its little image lay 1 
 
 Not dead to those who here remain 
 Art thou, dear heart of love ! 
 
 They'll see and hear thee oft again, 
 Below, and then above. 
 
 A LAY IN SPEING. 
 
 The skies assume their softest hue, 
 The vales their bloom, the hills their blue, 
 The air is fiU'd with music sweet. 
 And Nature's gladdest pulses beat. 
 
 The thorn is white, but not with snow. 
 While gold not autumn's shines below ; 
 Decay and death have no perfume 
 Like that shed forth by thorn or broom. 
 
 Blithe hops the bird from bank to bower ; 
 The bee is feasting in the flower ; 
 Wide-scatter'd herds enjoy their food 
 And " feel the universal good." 
 
 The very stones seem touch'd with life ; 
 With beauty every blade is rife ; 
 The rivers back bright sunshine fling. 
 And Love o'er all the scene is king; — 
 
 While man, worn down with care and grief, 
 Comes forth and finds a sweet relief ; 
 In meditation plays his part. 
 And lifts to God a grateful heart. 
 
 Thou, who yonder heavens dost bow 
 And wed to them the earth, as now ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 401 
 
 Take from each soul the stain of sin, 
 And let true light from Thee shine in ; 
 
 That we may read Thy works below, 
 Thy love and skill in them to know — 
 That all our thoughts to Thee may tend, 
 Thee, "first, last, midst, and without end ! " 
 
 RESPONSE 
 
 To THE FuNEEAL-cABD OP A Feiend's Child, May IST, 1866. 
 
 I SHALL not climb yon hills to-day. 
 
 Nor will I wander by this lake. 
 But to one spot that's far away 
 
 Myself, my thought, my heart, betake. 
 
 Ye silent graves, the village spire 
 
 And mournful pastoral-home between ! 
 
 To where ye side by side retire 
 I come, and mingle with the scene. 
 
 My own love's mould lies crumbling there ; 
 
 And there two children of my friend 
 Beneath those trees that silence share : 
 
 But never yet did Hope descend ! 
 
 It rises, as these Maytide flowers 
 
 Uprise above the mantling sod, 
 And, nourish'd by the tearful showers. 
 
 Breathes back like them to Heaven and God. 
 
 So will your deep affections rise : 
 'Tis but the root that's in the grave ; 
 
 The bloom, the fruit, are in the skies, 
 Where we to share their glory crave. 
 
 faith, trust, life in Christ ! 
 
 joy this world of graves above, 
 Unearn'd, unmeasured, and unpriced ! 
 
 To thee we yield our all, in love. 
 
402 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 No victory over Heaven has earth, 
 No victory over life, the tomb, — 
 
 That couch at once of death and birth, — 
 Time's birthplace of eternal bloom ! 
 
 My sorrowing friends ! dry up your tears ; 
 
 Your little loved one's tears are dried ; 
 And you will find through endless years 
 
 This visitation justified ! 
 
 Wave gently o'er that spot, ye trees ! 
 
 Fall softly on its grass ye showers ! 
 And whisper soothingly, thou breeze, 
 
 Thy loving music to its flowers — 
 
 Those flowers that symbolise in truth, 
 While thus they rise again in time, 
 
 The beauty of " immortal youth" 
 That graces Heaven's etherial clime ! 
 
 la ^ffectjuaate Remembrance of 
 
 "LITTLE SISSY," 
 
 Bora at Matlock Bath, March 28, 1863 ; died at Plimigarths, 
 
 April 23, 18C9 ; and hurled in St. Thomas's 
 
 Chm'ch-yard, Kendal. 
 
 0, Righteous God! we bow to Thee, 
 And humbly own thy chastening love : 
 
 From all earth's fearful trials free, 
 Our lamb is with the Lamb above. 
 
 But we beneath thy hand are dumb : 
 
 Thy Will be done. Thy Kingdom come ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 403 
 
 RICHARD RIGG, OF WINDERMERE. 
 
 And who was Richard Rigg ? A man whose name 
 
 Bespoke the mountain-stock of which he came : 
 
 Athletic, he — well-huilt, alert, and fair, 
 
 As ever man that breathed this northern air ; 
 
 With heart proportion'd to his noble size, 
 
 And manners with that heart to harmonise. 
 
 When first out there the railway-signal rang, 
 And from the landscape yon hotel upsprang, 
 He came to manage it ; and all who know 
 How much, in summer's heat and winter's snow, 
 When far from home and his accustom'd friends, 
 A traveller's comfort on his sense depends 
 Of being welcome, for the price he pays, 
 To summer's cooling rest or winter's blaze, 
 And everything sans fuss, good will and care 
 Can do to make it seem as home were there. 
 If told what Richard and his wife would do 
 In theii" brisk calling with that end in view. 
 Might understand the solace that they gave 
 To thousands, ere she drop'd into the grave 
 And left him with a family, fond and young 
 As ever round a widow' d father clung. 
 
 All things to all around him then he seem'd ; 
 His nature soften'd, from his eye there beam'd 
 Such loving hght as o'er his bairns he hung, 
 So like a loving mother's was his tongue — 
 They half forgot their loss in such a gain 
 Of tenderness as followed from his pain. 
 
 His servants felt his spirit too ; 'twas felt 
 By all the people that around him dwelt : 
 In brief, as father, master, landlord, friend. 
 Or neighbour, better perhaps was seldom ken'd. 
 
 He died at fifty-six a lingering death. 
 
 Good feelings uttering with his latest breath, 
 
 And as his clay to native earth return'd, 
 
 'Tis simple truth, that all who knew him mourn'd. 
 
 c c 
 
404 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 THE UPLAND HAMLET. 
 
 Little old Hamlet ! thou'rt a favour'd place, 
 A nest within a nook beloved of Nature, 
 A dimple on the landscape's smiling face. 
 Where dwells beside full many a pleasant feature 
 So genially, that members of one creature 
 In sunshine joying do all objects seem — 
 The hills so lofty and sublime in stature, 
 The fields that thrill with life, the brooks that gleam 
 And sing to wake the woods from their long winter-dream. 
 
 And do the woods not wake at that sweet call, 
 Which countless other hidden voices swell ? 
 Hark ! while the thorn-bud bursteth from its thrall, 
 How the glad news the thrush begins to tell 
 To his old friend the blackbird of the dell, 
 Recalling last year's warblings to his ear, 
 When, in the blossom'd bush that bower'd the well, 
 They chanted bridal hymns in music clear 
 For all blest things that wed when Spring's bright days appear. 
 
 How happy, loitering on this quiet hill. 
 To feel one's heart the centre of all love 
 And joy and beauty, which the landscape fill 
 
 From the deep vale to the calm sky above ! ■ 
 
 List ! is that sound the murmur of a dove, 
 Or the low gurgle of some rivulet lone 
 That through wild hazel-dells delights to rove ? 
 Or is it yonder town's industrial tone. 
 By distance mellow'd till 'tis softest music grown ? 
 
 Little old Hamlet ! dearly do I love thee — 
 Thy cluster of grey homes and gardens green, 
 And woodlands waving solemnly above thee, 
 With hooded well and muttering rill between ; 
 And children gambolling round housewife clean ; 
 Or patriarch sunning at his open door 
 And reading news from many a distant scene 
 To gathering gossips, who admire his lore. 
 Thinking each fresh event more strange than all before. 
 
AND KVENINO PASTIMES. 405 
 
 I love thee in all seasons and all hours — 
 From this, when Spring walks blithely forth at morn, 
 Strewing the lane-side banks with tenderest flowers 
 And greening yonder fields with fresh young corn, 
 To that when Autumn's evenings heaven adorn 
 And roll o'er harvests ripe their golden light, 
 Or hoary Winter weaves for bending thorn 
 A frosty mantle, beautiful and bright 
 As that it wore when May pass'd from our raptured sigbv 
 
 How dear this cottage, too, that singly by 
 Stands with its chimney-clump in ivy dress'd — 
 Its smoke wreaths curling far into the sky. 
 Solemn and slow, before they join the rest ! 
 Awhile now hovering o'er a scene so blest, 
 Those fading films, all silent in their motion, 
 Wake gentlest aspirations in the breast. 
 And then dissolve in the ethereal ocean. 
 As in Eternal Love absorb'd is man's devotion • 
 
 And all the beauty far below out-roll'd ! 
 The smiling mansion and the glinting spire. 
 The pleasant farm those tall elms half-enfold. 
 Where winding waters from the eye retire — 
 Where industry doth elegance acquire 
 From its alliance with that view, so sweet, 
 That all which taste or comfort could desire 
 In harmony and happiness to meet. 
 Seems thither fondly brought and laid at Nature's feet. 
 
 Little old Hamlet ! ever may'st thou be 
 Retired and happy as thou seemest now — 
 From avarice, idleness, and luxury free — 
 Thy children's peaceful arms the spade and plough ; 
 And may they ne'er to wrong or meanness bow, 
 But, loving one another, strive alway 
 Heavenward to turn an open, honest brow; 
 And 0, while oft they muse or praise or pray. 
 May God reign in their hearts and bless them night and day ! 
 
 c c 2 
 

 
 jjan-jjr^mn on Jfox-|/ond 
 
 HISTORY OF A LANDSCAPE.^ 
 
 Warm was the day on high Fox-Cloud ; 
 
 Bright was the blue sky o'er me ; 
 Behind frown'd Blackrock dark and proud, 
 
 And Matlock smiled before me. 
 To Willersley that, like a queen, 
 
 Her summer state was keeping. 
 The Derwent came from valleys green, 
 
 And at her feet was weeping. 
 
 Bold Masson rear'd his royal crown 
 
 O'er all beside to heaven ; — 
 A king is Masson, looking down 
 
 On mountains six or seven — 
 Protecting well his queen below 
 
 When wintry storms have found him — 
 His girdle, clouds ; his turban, snow; 
 
 His guards, the wild rocks round him ! 
 
 But winter lour'd not near him now : 
 
 Its chillness all forgetting. 
 The peasant upon Riber's brow 
 
 His harvest-scythe was whetting ; 
 
 * Pox-cloud is a mountain-crag, above Cromford, Derbyshire, nearly south-east 
 of that village, and commanding an exquisite view of the most picturesque points 
 around. 
 
EVENING PASTIMES. 407 
 
 The cottagers on Cromford Moor — 
 
 (So named, though moor no longer, 
 But pasture to the very door) — 
 
 Ne'er felt the sunshine stronger. 
 
 Bonsall's dim spire was hid in green ; 
 
 E'en Middleton, so hoary, 
 Its bleakness lost in that warm scene 
 
 And shared the summer's glory; — 
 While river-murmurings, deep below, 
 
 With woodland breathings blended ; 
 And natural music, soft and slow, — 
 
 A summer hymn, — ascended. 
 
 All, all was summer round me there : 
 
 Rich summer blooms were peeping 
 Among the verdure everywhere, 
 
 With fragrance all things steeping ; 
 Until the drowsed and sated sense 
 
 Its charms no more could number; 
 So in that pleasant exigence 
 
 Resign'd itself to slumber. 
 
 Now it will happen oft that when 
 
 The sense is most suspended. 
 The spirit's ever wakeful ken 
 
 Will farthest be extended : 
 'Twas thus that mine, as there I lay 
 
 On that sweet bed of heather. 
 Went back through many a bygone day, 
 
 And brought this dream together: — 
 
 EKA I. 
 
 The morning twilight of an early world — 
 
 Darkness before it ebbing like a tide; 
 
 Great rocky mountains over mountains hurl'd, 
 
 As though just launching on the prospect wide,* 
 
 Then poised and anchor'd by the Almighty Guide 
 
 Where most for use and beauty they might rest; 
 
 While waters forth began to gush and glide. 
 
 And vegetation strove to weave the vest 
 
 With which, in length of time, the peopled scene was drest. 
 
 ' This is, of course, a poetical picture only, not a geological theory. 
 
408 MOKNING STUDIES 
 
 Thus, hill and vale, crag, river, wood and wild. 
 In contrast, yet in harmony, were spread 
 On every hand below, or upward piled, — 
 Lessons of love, and reverence, and dread. 
 By man through long, long ages to be read ; 
 Till fitted for that bright and perfect day 
 When — every need for types material fled — 
 His soul, relit by a diviner ray, 
 Itself shall symbolise the Lord to whom we pray. 
 
 EBA 11. 
 
 Hunter and warrior, here he comes ! a form 
 
 Brown'd by the sun and batter'd by the storm ; 
 
 A spear his weapon, and a skin his vest ; 
 
 His home a cave, hewn in the mountain's breast. 
 
 His mate, more melancholy if less wild. 
 
 Bearing upon her back their unclad child, 
 
 Through the woods gliding, cautiously and slow. 
 
 They pick the scanty fruitage as they go. 
 
 At length upon the river's brink they part, 
 
 For, lo ! his eye tracks far the startled hart. 
 
 And with a shout, a bound, its mazy flight 
 
 He follows fast, and keeps it still in sight, 
 
 As first the dale they scour, then climb the hill, 
 
 'Neath the bright, burning noonday panting still ; 
 
 And on the morrow he returns to tell 
 
 How twilight and his spear together fell 
 
 Upon his prey, remote, by some lone forest well ! 
 
 While robed and bearded, on his rock sublime, 
 
 The hoary personation of old Time, 
 
 High-priest of Natm'e, with uplifted hands 
 
 To invocate her, now a Druid stands ; 
 
 As o'er the wide land, gathering as they go. 
 
 His votaries meet upon the plain below ; 
 
 And, while his fires at eventide ascend. 
 
 In loud acclaims their countless voices blend. 
 
 Then hush till morning from the horizon's verge, 
 
 Not without spiritual meaning, may emerge, — 
 
 Eloquent emblem in that twilight age 
 
 Of holy tidings, when the world's new morn, 
 Shedding its beauty over history's page, 
 
 Should past and future with its rays adorn ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 409 
 
 Next with his signals guiding far 
 Proud legions on to deeds of war, 
 The Eoman, see, on Riber* standing, 
 And all the country thence commanding 
 While Nature's children pass away, 
 And leave him undisputed sway! 
 
 The hunter hies him to his grot ; 
 The Druid on the rock is not. 
 But where his fires were wont to blaze 
 Another priest, to men-made gods, 
 In other language prays. 
 
 Yet, once again, a change — and lo ! 
 The Roman even himself, must go ; 
 While Dane and Saxon scatter wide 
 Each remnant of his power and pride. 
 
 The reign of Alfeed — England's greatest king — 
 
 (Say, was he all she's had worth calling great ?) — 
 
 Is it not beautiful to see him bring 
 
 A long-spoil'd country to so blest a state. 
 
 That tyranny, and want, and fear forgot, 
 
 Sweet peace and piety possess the cot! 
 
 The peasant in the valley tills the soil. 
 
 His crop from all marauding feet secure ; 
 
 The miner climbeth to his upland toil, 
 
 Knowing protection for his treasure sure ; 
 
 The maiden milks, the mother plies her wheel ; 
 
 How could they else than blest and loyal feel ? 
 
 Thou grand old Monarch! Oak o'er all the trees! 
 
 Thou Alp among the hills of history ! 
 
 Proving that, spite of battle and of breeze, 
 
 Good ruling need not be a mystery. 
 
 0, that mankind could only learn of thee 
 
 How loyalty is one with liberty ! 
 
 There are, even now, or latel}- were, remains of a Roman Station on Ribe 
 
410 MOBNING STUDIES 
 
 ERA V. 
 
 And now the Norman comes — a burly warrior, 
 Clad in impervious mail from crown to toe, — • 
 
 Mercy no check, justice to him no barrier, 
 Whate'er he wills he does. It must be so 
 
 Till every man, his hewer and his carrier, 
 Doth at his surly bidding come and go ; 
 
 And scorning for himself all loving labour. 
 
 He " builds a church to God," yet grinds his neighbour! 
 
 Hence passeth o'er the scene a motley time 
 
 Of cloister'd piety and mailed crime ; 
 
 Of manliest chivalry and maddest strife, 
 
 The gaudiest pastimes painting harshest life; 
 
 War in the field and sports upon the green; 
 
 The woodland bandit and the May-day queen ; 
 
 Alternate feast and fray in every hall, 
 
 Where dwell alike the tyrant and his thrall; 
 
 While hair-brain'd minstrels barbarous ballads sin^ 
 
 And fools are hired, to entertain a king ; 
 
 And grand old Haddon tells our country's state. 
 
 As Vernon hangs the pilferer at its gate ! 
 
 Yet must there in those ancient days have been 
 
 Full many a gleam of light the clouds between ; 
 
 For chymistry and mathematics grew. 
 
 And Roger Bacon brought great truths to view — 
 
 Ah, Bacon ! name mis-spelt ! If true my rhyme, 
 
 'Tis Beacon, shining through the mists of time ! 
 
 Anon the flag of Science is unfurl'd ; 
 
 The compass to the keel unlocks the world; 
 
 The printing-press diffuses knowledge far, 
 
 And through the gloom strikes Freedom's morning star, 
 
 Chaucer and Spenser, Shakespere, Bacon, rise — 
 
 That second Beacon, pointing to the skies ! 
 
 The human brain set free, the soul has breath, 
 
 And Superstition feels her coming death. 
 
 Thus even here, where this bleak upland swells, 
 
 And men dwelt modestly in lowliest dells, 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 411 
 
 A spirit came that touch'd with hfe each clod, 
 And turn'd the heart and raised the eye to God, 
 Till thou, fair Peak! couldst many a native boast, 
 Joining on high the intellectual host ! 
 
 ERA VIII. 
 
 And now another era on us dawns : 
 
 Wild heaths are changing into greenest lawns ; 
 
 Old Wingfield's towers long time have shatter'd been; 
 
 A century of peace has deck'd the scene 
 
 With pastoral trophies ; and the pick and plough 
 
 Are all the arms the people fight with now. 
 
 So sabbath-like the lovely valley grows, 
 
 It seems the settled home of calm repose, 
 
 Till hark! machinery comes upon the sfeene, 
 
 And factories rise yon hoary tors between; 
 
 With ancient customs trade's new usage blends, 
 
 And Arkwright's fame o'er all the world extends ! 
 
 At first they treat him shyly, for that he 
 
 Hath nothing but a common pedigree, 
 
 Till he doth show his long descent, and claim 
 
 From Noah — the first Ark-ivright known to fame ; — 
 
 While on the invention goes from east to west, ^ 
 
 And half mankind are from its fabrics drest ! 
 
 0, wonder-working power, Mechanic Skill ! 
 
 That stayest not for aught the earth can will ; 
 
 That makest ministers of space and time. 
 
 Mating with Nature in thy work sublime, 
 
 Until the poet's dream takes matter's form, 
 
 And Science of its lightning robs the storm; 
 
 Till steam draws through yon mountain's heart the train. 
 
 Or shakes across the vale its fleecy mane ; 
 
 While, night by night, the telescopic eye 
 
 The secrets of remotest worlds can spy ! 
 
 But, let us pause, and read the historic page 
 Writ in five lines for this all-reading age : 
 Turn where yon natural river winds along. 
 That heard the ancient Briton's simple song; 
 While parallel that rampire-road doth run 
 The Saxon drove his bullock-wain upon ; 
 See Brindley's genius in the water shine 
 Of yonder smooth canal's far-stretching line; 
 
412 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 The not ungraceful railway by its side, 
 Its fast trains wondering at the keel's dull glide ; 
 While silently the telegraphic wire, 
 Exulting, passeth thought from shire to shire. 
 And land to land, with just as quick a dart 
 As that between thy living brain and heart : 
 The whole so close, a slender boy might fling 
 A stone across them with his leathern sling; 
 As on them all from the near upland's crown 
 The home of Florence Nightingale looks down ! 
 
 Where will Invention stop? What bard may tell, 
 While man can steer the lightning by its spell ? 
 While children through the telegraph can talk 
 Nearly as soon as they have learn'd to walk ? 
 While those abound who solemnly declare 
 That they with wings will navigate the air; 
 And others think the time e'en now begun 
 When telegraphs themselves are far outdone, — 
 That men may conversation hold, serene. 
 Though the wide, roaring ocean roll between, — 
 And that without the cable submarine ? 
 Nay, some there are — I know them — who maintain 
 That nothing can their intercourse restrain 
 With men of ancient days, — that round them float 
 Spirits they once supposed in worlds remote, — 
 That time and space are fictions! But the view, 
 As yet, is dim ; and so my dream adieu ! 
 
 
Ij^to, IJAui'^ |lciir^^ion to 4%1on 
 
 A TALE OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 
 
 Written in younger days. 
 
 WITH what joyfulness we hail 
 
 These hills o'erlooking Newstead's Vale — 
 
 Hills where, from olden tales we learn, 
 
 Bold Robin Hood would oft sojourn — 
 
 Fair monuments to his wide fame. 
 
 Thence bearing through all time his name ! 
 
 And was it not a glorious thing 
 
 For that free-minded forest king, 
 
 In his wide rural reign, to own 
 
 This flower-clad hillock for his throne — 
 
 His hall, the plain that round it lies — 
 
 Its walls, the groves — its roof, the skies — 
 
 A rock, by Nature carved, his seat — 
 
 The moss a cushion for his feet ? 
 
 Methinks I see the monarch now, 
 
 With dignity upon his brow, 
 
 A steady radiance in his eye — 
 
 In all his person, majesty — 
 
 Dictating kindly to a band 
 
 Of loyal friends, that round would stand 
 
 And catch his words with kindred glow, 
 
 Then on their greenwood missions go. 
 
414 MOENING STUDIES 
 
 Ah ! what a wond'rous change hath come 
 Since then upon the Outlaw's home! 
 Yet here his name a charm hath cast 
 Will linger while the scene shall last. 
 
 One rosy mom "'tween June and May'' 
 The Chieftain rose in spirits gay, 
 And wandering up yon fern-fringed walk, 
 From leafy spray and flowery stalk, 
 With bow across his shoulder slung, 
 Brush'd down the dews that sparkling hung 
 Then, after turning to survey 
 The glorious scene that round him lay. 
 Far forth he sent a blast, so shrill, 
 It seem'd the very woods to thrill, 
 While Echo, in her fleet car seated. 
 Round all that fairy realm repeated, 
 ^ot less distinct, the magic sound ; 
 And from the Forest's depths profound, 
 Where Linby's tower is dimly seen. 
 To that far dell whence flows the Leen — 
 From Harlow Holt to Cocksmoor Hill — 
 All else was in a moment still ! 
 The skylark ceased at once its song. 
 And drop'd its heathery tufts among; 
 The blackbird, wakener blithe of morn. 
 Mute, nestled deeper in its thorn ; 
 The thrush his cheery note suspended; 
 Its lightsome trill the linnet ended; 
 And even the cushats in the wood 
 Staid for a while their mellow flood 
 Of music, that since dawn had flow'd 
 O'er the green hills and dales abroad. 
 One minute's pause — and then anew, 
 And louder still, his horn he blew ; 
 But when that second blast had ceased 
 The silence only seem'd increased ; 
 Yet, ere another minute pass'd, 
 A third rang louder than the last, 
 Which died not suddenly nor soon. 
 But ended in a merry tune — 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 415 
 
 The air of some wild roundelay 
 
 Call'd " Forester's bold, up, up, and away! " 
 
 And deem not that with no intent 
 
 Through wood and wild those notes were sent : 
 
 For soon from upland, dale, and glen, 
 
 They brought a hundred lusty men : 
 
 Soon by his side, the Forest's boast, 
 
 Stood Little John, himself a host; 
 
 Next, through the furze, from out their cave, 
 
 Rose Beardall bold and Scathelock brave; 
 
 And from their shieling in the vale 
 
 Came Stutely, Blunt, and Allin Dale ; 
 
 The Finder, Bowmar, Buck, and Power, 
 
 Ran gaily from their bankside bower ; 
 
 And Wagstaff, Hardstaff, Much, and Mountain,* 
 
 Left their turf huts beside the fountain — 
 
 All tried and true — their Chieftain meeting 
 
 With many a round of hearty greeting — 
 
 And numbers more we have not named, 
 
 Though in their generation famed. 
 
 Auxiliaries, who came at wiU 
 
 To try their courage and their skill. 
 
 Gather'd, with joy they hail'd each other — - 
 
 Each felt himself to all a brother; 
 
 Since each, as driven or inclined 
 
 Such outlaw fellowship to find, 
 
 Had nothing left his own to call 
 
 But what as well belong'd to all. 
 
 And while their leader took his ground, 
 
 They laugh'd and joked and loiter'd round; 
 
 Then at his signal form'd a row, 
 
 And hush'd the laugh, the half-told joke 
 Suppress'd, while, bending o'er his bow, 
 
 He glanced along the line and spoke: — 
 " Companions true! with whom I stand 
 An exile in my native land. 
 And yet a freeman ! — men who love 
 Your skill and bravery to prove 
 
 * Nearly all these names are inherited by people still living within the old Forest 
 precincts, or in the neighbourhood. 
 
■iltj MORNING 9TUDIEf5 
 
 In succouring those who succour need ! 
 Give to my words a moment's heed : 
 Methinks 'twill please you well to hear 
 The tidings I this morning bear : — 
 Led by some false yet lucky scent, 
 
 The King is leaving Clipston's towers, 
 And so, on fruitless purpose bent, 
 
 Hunts me to-day in Markland's bowers ; 
 And I would seize the happy chance, 
 While folly leads him such a dance. 
 To haste, myself, to his proud halls 
 And liberate some helpless thralls. 
 Who there but his command await 
 To hang like dogs before the gate. 
 And for the noble cause alone, 
 That us they have some kindness shown ! ' 
 " Then let's hunt him ! " cries Little John, 
 And Much responds, " Ay lead us on ! " 
 '' On, gallant Chieftain! lead us on!" 
 
 In sjnnpathy they all exclaim — 
 Their purpose and their voices one — 
 
 But well he knew their ire to tame ; 
 And each once more his head inclined. 
 As silence now the leader sign'd — 
 Crossing his lip — and finnly said, 
 " Hurt not a hair of Edward's head, 
 For he hath been annointed King ; 
 Yet, while on him no harm we bring, 
 'Twere well his Highness to convince 
 We fear him not — although a prince ! 
 Now come my Twentij-four with me. 
 And, Little John, take thine with thee : 
 I will o'er Cocksmoor's brow proceed. 
 And thou down Coldwell Dale shalt lead; 
 While Much his company shall take 
 By Thieves' Wood-side and Stonehill Brake, 
 And Scathelock's baud with staves will follow 
 To Rufford Wood by Three-thorn Hollow: 
 In Euiford Wood at noon we meet, 
 At night, to Eakring Brale retreat! " 
 This said, in beautiful array 
 The separate parties file away. 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 417 
 
 And, in their trim of gold and green, 
 For broom and furze no more are seen. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Lo ! morn o'er Edwinstowe is breaking, 
 
 And far its roseate streams are streaking 
 
 The fields of heaven, through which they flow 
 
 And softly tinge the world below. 
 
 While wood, and wild, and field, and brake, 
 
 In beauty from the night awake ! 
 
 But Clipston soon beholds a change — 
 
 A transmutation grand and strange : 
 
 The sun up-glows, a gorgeous pyre. 
 
 And Bilhagh's oaks appear on fire ; 
 
 While Maun's pure stream through many a m.a7,e 
 
 Eeflects afar the glorious blaze ! 
 
 Now blithely chime the turret-bells ; 
 
 Loudly respond the trumpet-swells ; 
 
 And soon the King and kingly train 
 
 Ai'e seen departing o'er the plain, 
 
 Until through Birkland's glades they wind, 
 
 And lose grey Clipston's towers behind; 
 
 While Thoresby's meadows, fresh and green, 
 
 Open before — a joyous scene — 
 
 Where blossom'd bushes wildly dance 
 
 For gladness in the Monarch's glance, 
 
 As on he urges in good speed. 
 
 With kindling pride, his prancing steed ! 
 
 Then, bidding Thoresby's plains adieu. 
 
 Fair Clumber's valleys stretch in view ; 
 
 Anon, upon a bright lake's beach, 
 
 Lo, Welbeck's holy house they reach, 
 
 And at its shrine a season pause 
 
 To crave a blessing on their cause ; 
 
 Yet, ere the dew hath left the spray, 
 
 Again upon their eager way, 
 
 Soon Creswell's hoary Crags are past, 
 
 And Markland Grips are gain'd at last — 
 
 No place, in all their morning's range, 
 
 So lone, or wild, or grand, or strange ! 
 
 On this hand rocks sublimely hung. 
 
 Whence oaks their arms fantastic toss'd ; 
 On that, green climbers wildly clung 
 
il8 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 To old elm-boughs afar outflung ; 
 
 Here, o'er the dell, some dark yew swung 
 
 From cliffs with awful forms emboss'd ; 
 There, in some fairy spot, o'erstrown 
 With grey, gnarl'd stump and mossy stone, 
 
 A wildly babbling stream was lost ! 
 When Edward on these scenes first came 
 A strange sensation thrill 'd his frame, 
 And, anxious, he began to gasp. 
 Deeming the outlaw in his grasp ! 
 Mistaken King ! — 0, it was then 
 The Outlaw, with his hundred men, 
 Twelve miles away, burst from a wood 
 And for a moment proudly stood, 
 Shouting in unrestrain'd delight, 
 As Clipston towers rose full in sight ! 
 
 In Markland Grips there is a grot — 
 Full well the curious know that spotr— 
 
 Where Edward hoped his game to find : , 
 Deceived in this, he search'd amain 
 Each bosky dell ; then scour'd the plain — 
 'Tis needless here to tell how vain — 
 
 He might as well have chased the wind ! 
 Yet there he linger' d till the sun 
 Hung o'er the western moorlands dun ; 
 Then turn'd, dejected, tired, and vex'd, 
 
 To seek at Welbeck rest and cheer — 
 The more he mused, the more perplex'd — 
 
 Till sooth'd, refresh'd, and rested there. 
 
 Just at this hour by Clipston's gate 
 A little band of minstrels wait, 
 Nor wait they long, for well they win 
 The Warder's grace, who lets them in : 
 The drowsy Porter rubs his eyes. 
 And gapes about him in surprise. 
 Then takes them to the Seneschal, 
 With whom they soon to feasting fall, 
 While menials join, a jovial crowd. 
 And mirth and music mingle loud. 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 419 
 
 But at this juncture, while they all 
 Are meddling in the mirthful brawl, 
 A minstrel slips, unwatch'd, aside 
 And opes the outer portals wide. 
 When in come marching, proud and bold, 
 A hundred men in green and gold ! 
 Ho ! for a power, however faint. 
 The fray that follow' d now to paint, 
 As flash'd the light of exultation 
 Athwart the gloom of consternation, 
 Like sunshine flashing through a storm 
 When summer clouds the sky deform, 
 While blent the courtier's wail uproarious 
 With the bold outlaw's shout victorious, 
 And Edward's royal name, confounded 
 With Robin Hood's, aloud resounded, 
 As in those halls, for one short hour, 
 The latter reign'd supreme in power ! 
 
 How little deems great England's King, 
 With Welbeck's Abbot wassailing. 
 As joy awhile lights up his brow. 
 What Robin Hood is after now ! 
 Little he wots that in his hall 
 Each courtier stands the outlaw's thrall. 
 While guards far trustier keep the gate 
 Than those who took the minstrels' bait — 
 Who, with their strength and courage fled. 
 Their mirth transform'd to gloom and dread. 
 Through having let the outlaws in. 
 Consent that " those may laugh who win," 
 As Little John, with wondrous glee, 
 Brings forth to light and liberty 
 The prisoners, that had pined so deep 
 Within the dismal castle-keep — ■ 
 Who to the Chieftain, o'er and o'er, 
 Vow they will never leave him more, 
 But ever by him stoutly stand, 
 The truest men of his brave band ; 
 While thankfulness his heart o'erflows. 
 That he has freed them from the woes 
 
420 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 They sufter'd in their dungeon dim 
 For deeds of kindness done to him ; 
 And, dashing from his manly cheek 
 A tear of joy, he stands to speak : — 
 ' ' Companions brave ! who hither came 
 From death these faithful friends to claim, 
 Upon the King we make no war. 
 Though seeks he now our lives afar : 
 Would that in his own breast could glow 
 The mercy which to him we show ! 
 Therefore, our purpose nobly gain'd — 
 By fire unscathed, by blood unstain'd — 
 Three hearty cheers shall crown the day. 
 And then we'll to the woods away ! " 
 He said — then on the courtiers cast 
 A playful glance as forth he pass'd, 
 And when loud cheers the sky had rent 
 Till every outlaw's voice was spent, 
 I Before he left the ample court, 
 
 He bade the serfs make true report. 
 
 And not forget the King to tell 
 
 How cordially he wish'd him well — 
 
 Advising, ivhen he next might roam, 
 
 More tntsty guards to leave at home ! 
 
 Which done, his band the plain soon cross'd. 
 
 And in the woods again were lost. 
 
 Now softly, o'er the uplands grey, 
 
 The rosy twilight fades away ; 
 
 The neighbouring convent's vesper bell 
 
 Hath ceased its call along the dell ; 
 
 The weary hind hath left the field ; 
 
 The birds their evening hymn have peal'd ; 
 
 The stream with mellower music flows ; 
 
 And all creation woos repose ; 
 
 Save where, in bowery Eakring Brale, 
 
 The minstrel's song and jester's tale 
 
 Of bloodless victory gaily won. 
 
 Proclaim the Outlaws' feast begun ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 421 
 
 But who are these who leave the throng — 
 
 Its rant and revel, jest and song — 
 
 And slowly wander down the vale 
 
 The calm of evening to inhale ? 
 
 One, by his bugle and his bow, 
 
 For Eobin Hood at once we know; 
 
 The other, by his gentle mien — 
 
 His wreath of laurel, waving green — 
 
 His downcast eye, and measured stride, 
 
 And hai-p suspended by his side — 
 
 With kindred sympathy we hail, 
 
 The Outlaw's laureate — Allin Dale ! 
 
 And mark, as 'neath that ancient tree 
 
 They linger — gazing o'er the lea. 
 
 To where, upon yon upland's crest, 
 
 Those lovely streaks of twilight rest— 
 
 Touch'd by the sweetness of the hour, 
 
 And woke to poesy by its power, 
 
 Mark with what grace the lyre he takes, 
 
 And list the melody he makes, 
 
 As, fondly sweeping o'er its strings. 
 
 Of Sherwood's dear-loved scenes he sings : — 
 
 " ! the fern-clad hills of Sherwood, 
 
 How beautiful are they. 
 When morning hangs on dappled wing. 
 
 Calling the dews away ! 
 I love to bound along their tops. 
 
 When breezes, mild though free, 
 Play o'er the bloomy fields below 
 
 And bear their sweets to me ! 
 
 ■ ' ! the woody plains of Sherwood, 
 
 Outspreading far and wide. 
 Where peeps the low, pretenceless cot. 
 
 The palace towers in pride : 
 How glorious 'tis to wander there 
 
 When the mid-day lark up-springs — 
 A tiny speck in the boundless sky. 
 
 That with its music rings ! 
 
 '' ! the deep, lone dells of Sherwood, 
 So quiet yet subHme, 
 
 D D 2 
 
422 MORNING STUDIES. 
 
 Where with the wood-bird's mellow voice 
 Is heard the streamlet's chime : 
 
 How sweet their winding paths to thread, 
 When twilight's tender hour 
 
 Subdues and melts the musing heart, 
 Yet gives the spirit power ! 
 
 " Dear native scenes of Sherwood — all ! 
 
 Hill, woodland, plain, and dell ! 
 I view you with a lover's eye — 
 
 A lover's heart, as well ! 
 For, from my boyhood's joyful hours, 
 
 Hath it been mine to roam 
 Amongst you far away, yet still 
 
 Feel everywhere at home ! " 
 
 ROBIN HOOD. 
 
 It may perhaps not be amiss for me here, as a Sherwood-forester, to give my 
 theory of the personality and character of Eobin Hood. It is doubtful if any 
 character was ever more used, or more abused, by fiction. He has been placed in 
 various times by various rhymes ; and so late as the reign of Henry YII — for I 
 believe we never see him so styled in anything earlier written — a London ballad 
 writer, hard up for a word to rhyme with Little John, created him Earl of Hunting- 
 ion/ Sir Walter Scott, influenced by some of the less ancient ballads, exhibits him 
 at Keniljsxjriii, in the reign of Richard I. Hunter, for whose name and genius as an 
 historian we must all feel respect, thinks he has got a true genealogy and disposes 
 of him somewhat differently, though, to my thought, not much better. A clever 
 analytical critic might perhaps very easily cut up any theory that has been given 
 on the subject, as he may cut up mine,- — which is, that Eobin Hood was in olden 
 days a mythical title, assumed by or given to any great woodland outlaw of the 
 hour — the name being an elisional pronunciation of Eobin o'th' Wood. I believe, 
 however, that there was one man who bore it with more dignity than all the rest ; 
 that he was born at Loxley, near Sheffield, on the lands that had belonged to Earl 
 Waltheof, the last great resistant of the Norman regime ; that from inherited an- 
 tipathy to the Norman kings, he joined the popular side, under Simon de Montfort, 
 as did Little .lohn — or more properly, John-le-Tall ; — and that on being defeated 
 at the battle of Evesham, in August, 1265, the two formed a companionship be- 
 tween themselves, and a leadership of other outcasts and sympathisers, — seeking 
 refuge and subsistence in the woods of North Notts and the dales and doughs of 
 West Yorkshire and Derbyshire, but making occasional exciu'sions to other regions. 
 For the rest, I believe that such outlaws were regarded by the populace more as 
 honourable though unfortunate patriots than as thieves, and under the particular 
 leadership in question conducted themselves in a manner to some extent justifying 
 that character. For corroboration, see Thierry's " History of the Norman Con- 
 quest in Britain "—one of the most interesting books of its kind ever written. 
 

 r'^^'p^nr '^d.^ ^u^ ^^F'^iF'^i^^'^.i^^A^nr^^! 
 
 |h..^ .. , !«,. 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL TEACHER. 
 
 In days gone by I knew a child, 
 Not very grave, nor very wild, 
 Yet mucli he loved to roam abroad 
 In woods and fields, far from the road. 
 
 O'er ancient books he'd fondly pore, 
 Culling their quaint and curious lore, 
 And new ones too, until he grew 
 To know what others chiefly knew. 
 
 He warmly loved all loving things, 
 Enjoy'd the good each season brings — 
 The springtime's bloom, the summer's glow, 
 Autumnal fruits, and winter's snow. 
 
 He mark'd the beauty of the dawn. 
 The morning dews that gem'd the lawn, 
 The radiant sun, the rainbow's dyes, 
 The golden streaks in evening skies. 
 
 He learnt the names of trees and flowers. 
 Of birds that build in secret bowers. 
 Of timid fish that haunt the gleams 
 Of lonely pools and wandering streams. 
 
 He knew how every little star 
 Shines a full sun to worlds afar, 
 And how this world, lit by the moon. 
 Gives back more brilliance for the boon ; — 
 
424 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 Then talk'd of countries in each zone. 
 Some less, some larger, than our own. 
 And how the different tribes of men 
 By mutual help gain more again. 
 
 And when he saunter'd from the crowd. 
 His spirit oft in reverence bow'd 
 To some Great Power he felt was near,- 
 Touch'd with an awe that was not fear,- 
 
 Until a solemn joy o'ercame 
 His soul, for which he knew no name : 
 It glow'd within, around, above, 
 Filliag and clothing him with love. 
 
 He saw it in the morning light ; 
 He felt it in the hush of night ; 
 He heard it in the murmming vale ; 
 He breathed it in the upland gale. 
 
 Deep in his heart it sometimes thrill'd, 
 Not when he wanted it, or will'd ; 
 But, when it ivould, it seem'd to come. 
 Most eloquent when he was dumb. 
 
 At length its meaning on him broke ; 
 For (though not vocally) it spoke : 
 It said, I am the Living Woed, 
 The Mighty Spibit of the Lord ! 
 
 'Twas I that made all thou canst see, 
 And gave thy life, dear child, to thee. 
 For purposes beyond thy sight, 
 To ripen in the realms of light ! 
 
 Bead thou the Scriptures in thy youth. 
 And they will tell thee of the truth. 
 That nought exists for now alone. 
 But in the future will be known. 
 
 The Word of God that's in them writ, 
 His Word in Nature answers it ; 
 And in thy own young heart and mind, 
 If pure, a Witness both will find ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 425 
 
 THE BOTANIST. 
 
 John Bloomeb was a botanist, 
 
 Who wander'd up and down, 
 In shady woods, through winding lanes. 
 
 And o'er the moorlands brown. 
 
 Great friends of his were all old trees 
 
 As well as youthful flowers, 
 And of their forms and qualities 
 
 Would he discourse for hours. 
 
 And though his words to childhood's mind 
 Would sometimes hard appear, 
 
 He loved their uses to explain 
 And make their meaning clear. 
 
 So children liked the good old man, 
 
 And with him oft would walk, 
 While he would search for plants most rare 
 
 And of their virtues talk. 
 
 Sometimes he'd point them to the oak, 
 
 Of forest trees the king. 
 And next unto the tiniest herb 
 
 Their little minds would bring. 
 
 He'd let them through his wondrous glass 
 
 In richest flower-cups gaze. 
 That deeper grew, as thus they look'd. 
 
 And fill'd them with amaze. 
 
 Then next the glass a tuft of moss 
 
 Would to a forest change. 
 With hills, and dales, and leafy groves, 
 
 As beautiful as strange ! 
 
 And when 'twas done, he'd say that God, 
 Who made things great and small, 
 
 In wisdom and in handiwork 
 Was equal in them all. 
 
 At length, when good John Bloomer died, 
 
 And in his grave was laid. 
 While the old sexton o'er him threw 
 
 The soft earth with his spade ; 
 
42(5 MOENING STUDIES 
 
 The children he so well had loved 
 Laid each a wild-flower there, 
 
 And one took root, and spreads its leaves 
 And blossoms every year. 
 
 How little thought the Botanist, 
 When with them in the bowers. 
 
 That loving children thus would wiite 
 His epitaph in flowers ! 
 
 THE SOLDIER'S EETURN. 
 
 Down in a lane, a low white cot 
 
 Was Matthew Wood's abode, 
 And Matthew, he a living got 
 
 By working on the road. 
 
 One summer-day the sun shone bright 
 
 On all the country round, 
 When beautiful was every sight 
 
 And glad was every sound. 
 
 Upon the wayside-bank the broom 
 
 Gave out its golden glow. 
 And spiral fox-gloves in full bloom 
 
 Rose high, a stately show. 
 
 A waterfall, that through the shade 
 
 Gleam'd like a falling star, 
 Sent murmurs soft along the glade, 
 
 More sweet as heard afar. 
 
 And on his spade old Matthew leant, 
 
 And mused, and gazed abroad. 
 Until he spied, with travel spent, 
 
 A soldier on the road. 
 Then, as the veteran in full view 
 
 Approach'd, with words of cheer, 
 Old Matthew thought the face he knew, 
 
 And wiped a starting tear. 
 
 But when more tears bedim'd his sight 
 
 He deem'd the face estranged. 
 And thoughts which were just now so bright 
 
 As quick to sadness changed. 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 427 
 
 " Ha, ah ! " he said, " you seem'd to me 
 
 My son that's far away — 
 My soldier-boy — I would that he 
 
 Had with you been to-day ! " 
 Oh, then a soldier-son you own 
 
 (The stranger cried) like me ? 
 Tell me his name ; perhaps 'tis known, 
 
 My dear old man, to me. 
 
 " His name is mine, if he's not slain ; 
 
 Old Matthew Wood am I : 
 Could I but see him once again 
 
 Methinks I'd happy die." 
 
 Then hear, my friend, good news from me ; 
 
 Your son's not far away; 
 He came with me across the sea : 
 
 You'll see him here to-day. 
 
 " 0, bless your heart ! " the old man cried, 
 
 " But do you tell me true ? " 
 Yes, I'm that son, (he warm replied,) 
 
 Come back to home and you ! 
 
 Into each other's arms they fell. 
 
 And wept and laugh'd together, 
 As down they sat awhile to tell 
 
 Their joy upon the heather. 
 
 Then home they sped with smiles and tears, 
 
 To gladden wife and mother. 
 And dwelt together many years. 
 
 True blessings to each other ! 
 
 THE NEGRO'S BREAKFAST. 
 
 'TwAS on a cold December morn, 
 A Negro, homeless and forlorn — 
 The sole dark object then in sight — 
 Came hirpling o'er the landscape white. 
 
 Old Andrew Whitelock, worthy man, 
 Whose pity oft his purse outran. 
 The shivering stranger soon descried, 
 And took him to his own fireside. 
 
428 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 Ail Andrew's children at the loom 
 Were working in a separate room, 
 While his good wife a frugal share 
 For each prepared of homely fare. 
 
 Nine basins on the table stood 
 Ready to hold the humble food ; 
 But Andrew Whitelock, kind and blithe, 
 Resolved that morn on making tithe. 
 
 So when the nine with porridge fill'd 
 Their flavour'd steam were seen to yield, 
 A tenth was brought, and empty set, — 
 The purpose not apparent yet, — 
 Till " Breakfast ! " Andrew call'd with voice 
 That made his hungry lads rejoice ; 
 And in they rush'd with wondering stare, 
 To see a black man sitting there. 
 
 The case, however, clearer grew. 
 
 As Andrew to the table drew 
 
 And gave a silent intimation 
 
 That soon call'd forth their imitation. 
 
 With leaden spoon, yet beaming face 
 That lent the act a golden grace 
 And doubtless won the smile of Heaven, 
 One share was from each portion given. 
 
 But when they all had tribute paid 
 Of spoonfuls round, it scarcely made 
 An equal mess, so from their store 
 They each gave half-a-spoonful more. 
 
 The Negro now was forward prest 
 And took his breakfast with the rest, 
 While tears ran down his sable cheek : 
 For gratitude he could not speak. 
 
 Nor was this all : he went away 
 With further solace for the day; 
 And for the aid thus freely dealt 
 Old Andrew's children richer felt. 
 
 How beautiful it was to see 
 That humble family agree 
 To make a "little heaven below," 
 By lightening thus a stranger's woe ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 429 
 
 A happy sight for king or queen, 
 That chilling morn it might have been, 
 To mark how much a band of brothers 
 May blessing win by blessing others ! 
 
 BE KIND. 
 
 Be kind to the old man, while strong in thy youth, — 
 Be kind, not in seeming alone, but in truth ; 
 He once was as young and as hopeful as thou. 
 With a bosom as light, as unwrinkled a brow ! 
 
 Be kind to the poor man, and give of thy bread. 
 With shelter and pillow to comfort his head ; 
 His lot and thine own may be one ere he dieth. 
 Or neighbour to thine the low grave where he lieth. 
 
 Be kind to the young, for their path may be steep 
 
 And the pitfalls around them full many and deep : 
 
 If they're weak give them help, and good counsel if strong, 
 
 And lead them by honest example along. 
 
 Be kind to the crooked, the lame, and the blind ; 
 What's lack'd in the body they feel in the mind ; 
 And, while virtue through trial and pain cometh forth. 
 In the mind, not the body, is man's truest worth. 
 
 Be kind to the fallen who lives but to mourn ; 
 Be kind to the outcast who seeks to return ; 
 Be kind to the harden'd who never hath pray'd ; 
 Be kind to the timid who still is afraid ! 
 
 The injured, who down by oppression is borne ; 
 The slighted who withers, the victim of scorn ; 
 The flatter'd, who topples aloft but to fall ; 
 The wronger and wrong'd — 0, be kindly to all ! 
 
 For vast is the world of the generous mind. 
 
 But narrow the sphere to the selfish assign'd ; 
 
 And clear is the path of the warm and the true, — 
 
 Of the haughty and vain, how delusive the view ! 
 
 Then unto the old show respect while thou mayest — 
 
 The poor, while to Him who gives all things thou prayest— 
 
 The weak or the lost 'neath the load of his sorrow. 
 
 And thy own cup of joy shall o'erflow ere the morrow ! 
 

 jfacftUan^ou^ ; jap^. 
 
 MARY'S DREAM. 
 
 The daj^s are shortening fast, Mary, 
 
 The nights are growing cold. 
 And sadder moans the fitful blast 
 
 Along the twilight wold ; 
 Let's close the shutters tight, Mary, 
 
 And stir the brightening fire, 
 And thou shalt tell with warm delight 
 
 Old tales that never tire. 
 
 Yes ! thou shalt conjure up again 
 
 The hopes that once beguiled 
 Our hearts, when first upon thy knee 
 
 Our little angel smiled ; 
 For though that knee, so supple then, 
 
 Be stiff and weary grown. 
 Ere long with him, in heaven, again 
 
 Will youth and health be known. 
 
 Well, I beheve it all, dear John, 
 
 So come, sit down by me : 
 How sweet the faith that what has been 
 
 Of good will always be ! 
 And doubly sweet to know, dear John, 
 
 Our child no more can die — 
 That I'm " an angel's mother" here, 
 
 Though he's bevond the skv ! 
 
EVENING PASTIMES. 431 
 
 I'll something tell to thee, dear John, 
 
 But not a tale of old ; 
 I only learnt it yesternight — 
 
 'Twas by that angel told ! 
 He hover'd near me while I slept 
 
 A calm insensate sleep — 
 Though my soul a happier vigil kept 
 
 Than sense could ever keep. 
 
 And when he spake, 'twas not, dear John, 
 
 In words like thine and mine : 
 His thoughts flush' d forth in evei'y look. 
 
 So radiant and divine, 
 That all the charm of music's art, 
 
 Though not a tone, was there ; 
 And, oh ! it overfill'd my heart 
 
 With bliss beyond compare ! 
 
 He said that though the sky above 
 
 Seems heaven and us between. 
 To angels there and those they love 
 
 It does not intervene ; — 
 That all they fix their hearts upon 
 
 No space from them can sever. 
 But what becomes with them as one 
 
 Is with them one for ever ; — 
 
 That all we realise by love 
 
 And faith of heaven, on earth. 
 The means of intercourse will prove 
 
 With beings of nobler birth. 
 Till we, to higher natures wed. 
 
 Are won from this dull sphere. 
 No more the tear of grief to shed, 
 
 Or faltering move with fear ! 
 
 And while communion thus be held — 
 
 My angel child with me — 
 A glorious vision I beheld 
 
 No words can paint to thee ; 
 For in a glow of holy light 
 
 Far purer than the sun, 
 The futm-e lived before my sight. 
 
 As all the past had done. 
 
432 MOENING STUDIES 
 
 But what to me most wondrous seem'd, 
 
 In that new world so bright, 
 Was finding this world there redeem 'd 
 
 From shadow into light : 
 The false, like clouds, away had pass'd 
 
 Prom the unchanging blue ; 
 Yet, through eternity to last. 
 
 The true remain'd the true. 
 
 And by that token blest is known 
 
 Thy truth, dear John, to me, 
 For there I bow'd before the throne 
 
 With our sweet babe and thee : 
 And, ! a meet reward is thine 
 
 For all thy love and care ; 
 For here though aged and weak I pine, 
 
 We both were youthful there ! 
 
 THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 
 
 Suggested by Mr. W. E. Staite's Experiments at the Suuderlancl 
 Atheneum, June lOtb, 1850. 
 
 Teue Science is a prophet of the Lord, 
 His attributes unfolding, day by day. 
 
 In works so corresponding with His Word 
 That, lo ! at last, in one sublime array, 
 One hieroglyph shall all things made display 
 
 Of Love and Wisdom, without let or bound ! 
 Lightning ! 'tis thine to symbolise the way 
 
 In which the whole in harmony is found, 
 
 Held, moved, dispersed, united, lighted, crown'd ! 
 
 We saw thee rend the cloud, and shrank with fear ; 
 
 We heard thee smite the oak, and dumb became ; 
 We knew thee only in thy terrors there, 
 
 And mai'k'd not use and mercy in thy flame. 
 
 But learnt to tremble at thy very name ; — 
 Yet Science finds thee now of Love the sign. 
 
 With thunder for thy music, to proclaim 
 Thy presence and thy march when thou dost shine, 
 Teaching mankind thy use and origin benign ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 438 
 
 Still, silent and most gentle art thou here, 
 
 Held and applied by Staite's ingenious hand, 
 While suns and rainbows at his thought appear, — 
 
 Eise, set, move, stay, concentrate, or expand. 
 
 More beauteous than a dream of Fairyland, 
 And yet no dream ; for there, with eloquent eye 
 
 But voice subdued and modest, see him stand, 
 Teaching in tones that to the heart come nigh 
 How unto man are given the treasures of the sky ! 
 And on his light we gaze with love and awe, 
 
 As all those lesser lights it turns to shade,* 
 And think us of the universal law 
 
 By which the bright must in the brighter fade, 
 
 Till God's great Spirit, which doth all pervade, 
 Shall all outshine and be our only light. 
 
 Truth of the Universe ! be thou display'd 
 In thy absorbing and triumphant might, 
 Till all that Thou dost love in Thee be pure and bright ! 
 
 A TIME TO LAUGH. 
 
 'TwAS said with saddest truth by one 
 
 To whom our hearts aye turn — 
 Old Scotland's noble peasant son — 
 
 That man ivas made to viourn : 
 Yet none so well as he hath shown 
 
 How, while his wit we quaff. 
 That man, though made sometimes to groan, 
 
 Was also made to laugh. 
 
 We know how much true worth may rue 
 
 The wrongs that pierce it deep ; 
 We know what Guile and Hate can do 
 
 To make e'en Virtue weep ; 
 And jaded then in heart and brain, 
 
 As fails life's tottering staff, 
 'Tis hard from sorrow to refrain, 
 
 To lift the head and laugh. 
 
 * The electric light is not now the novelty it was when this poem was written, 
 startling us by the manner in which it filled the large room where it was displayed 
 with a luminousness that might have been from the meridian sun, and causing a 
 gas-light, that ordinarily appeared very brilliant, to cast a deep shadow on the wall. 
 
4S4 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 And good intent may miss its way, 
 
 And hope become a snare, 
 And kindiiess, too, from prudence stray, 
 
 Till overwhelm' d by care : 
 Then shipwreck' d on a stormy sea, 
 
 Toss'd here and there like chaff. 
 There's little mind or time for glee, 
 
 And little heart to laugh. 
 
 Yet, after all, despite the thrall 
 
 Of tyranny, and debt. 
 And everything that can befall 
 
 To make him grieve and fret, — 
 To wreck his little barque at sea, 
 
 On land to break his staff, — 
 For every honest man shall be, 
 
 As hath been, "time to laugh." 
 
 When God created us, and sent 
 
 Us forth upon the earth, 
 All faculties for use he lent, 
 
 And one of these was — mii-th ; 
 And shall we in life's tree refuse 
 
 To grow the cheerful graff? 
 No, let us use, but not abuse, 
 
 The privilege to laugh ! 
 
 Not as the hard hyaena tribe 
 
 Of men, with hearts of gall, — 
 Sardonic souls, whose jeer and jibe 
 
 Have no true mirth at all, — 
 But one good saying keep in view. 
 
 Whoe'er may scoff or chaff, 
 " None ever yet a villain knew 
 
 To give a hearty laugh ! " 
 
 Then let us love dear childhood's shout- 
 
 The wilder shout of youth. 
 And man's spontaneous laugh when out 
 
 Spring mingled wit and truth ; 
 And age, when garrulous it grows 
 
 On joys that care outlast. 
 As back a radiant smile it throws, 
 
 When power to laugh is past ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 435 
 
 TO JOHN SUTHERLAND. 
 
 Might we but stroll at will through yon wild dell, 
 
 Companions of the brook whose song ends never ; 
 Or climb and rest by the lone mountain-well 
 
 Of that rejoicing brook the joyful giver ; 
 
 Then gaze far, far abroad, on rock and river. 
 And wood and field, and all the manifold charms 
 Perfecting England's beauty, — clustering farms, 
 
 And villages with heavenward-gleaming spires, 
 And happy animate things, that move in swarms 
 O'er scenes the softest summer-sunshine warms, — 
 
 Such is the pastime sweet that never tires ! 
 But since stern duties limit our delights. 
 My friend, to toilsome days and scanty nights, 
 
 How bravely bend to them thy best desires ! 
 
 TIME'S TEACHINGS. 
 
 We cannot grow younger by waiting. 
 
 Whatever the years may bring ; 
 Nor can we get solace by hating. 
 
 Whatever our souls may sting. 
 White hairs are not darken'd by sorrow. 
 
 Nor dark thoughts brighten'd by care ; 
 And few are the hopes that to-morrow 
 
 Will pay for to-day's despair. 
 
 Then let us not languish for leisure 
 
 The life that's best to begin. 
 Nor keep from the heart new pleasure 
 
 Because of old griefs within. 
 But be ready for every duty 
 
 Which Time flings down as he flies. 
 And gather up every beauty 
 
 As it falls from happier skies. 
 
 Thus life, love and labour, united. 
 The world where we toil shall wed 
 
 To the world where that toil's requited 
 And nothing but woe is dead, — 
 
436 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 Where whatever is true doth flourish, 
 Where nothing that's false they see, 
 
 Where nothing that's good can perish. 
 And nothing that's had can be ! 
 
 So said grand old Abraham Whitehead 
 
 To the listeners round his hearth. 
 With a thousand days benighted 
 
 That still brighter might have birth ; 
 And as he arose from his dreaming. 
 
 The joys of the past to call. 
 The light from his old eyes beaming 
 
 Show'd the latest worth them all. 
 
 TO HENRY HOULDING, 
 
 A.FTER EEADING HIS BEAUTIFUL POEM, " In THE WoOD." 
 
 One day I took the paper up. 
 
 To read the passing news. 
 Where there was much to interest, 
 
 But nought to " change my views," 
 Until I to a poem came. 
 
 As beautiful as good. 
 That greatly " changed my views " of thee. 
 
 Its title — " In the Wood." 
 
 Oftimes I'd seen thy " leaders " there, 
 
 So trenchant and so smart. 
 It seem'd that scarce one gentle thought 
 
 Could nestle in thy heart ; 
 But as I read those lines, so true 
 
 To manhood's noblest mood, 
 I said — 0, joy ! with him to be. 
 
 When wandering " in the Wood I ' 
 
 It is not in thy politics, 
 
 When thou dost dip thy pen 
 
 In nitric acid to assail 
 The deeds of public men. 
 
 That thy best mind can e'er be seen — 
 Thy genius understood, 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 487 
 
 As it, methinks, we understand 
 When reading " In the Wood." 
 
 No balm more sweet fill'd Wordsworth's soul 
 
 In Lorton's lovely vale 
 Than it is thine, in sylvan calms. 
 
 True poet ! to inhale ; 
 And, when thou breath'st it forth again 
 
 As only poet could, 
 It bears unto my brain the peace 
 
 That dwelleth " in the Wood." 
 
 Then leave thou oft loud faction's hold. 
 
 And to the wilds away, 
 Where Nature's inmost shrine invites 
 
 Thy heart, thy love, thy lay ! 
 And when thou comest back again 
 
 To join the noisy brood, 
 Fail not to bring the balm of thoughts 
 
 That blossom " in the Wood ! " 
 
 TREES AND MEN. 
 
 I SAW two trees. The one was fair and high, 
 And threw its leafy branches round it wide : 
 
 So perfect was its shape that ev'n the sky 
 
 Seem'd proud to have that space thus occupied 
 
 Yet was it hollow ; all its heart was gone ; 
 
 But year by year it swell'd and flourish'd on. 
 
 The other was by grandeur so unmark'd, 
 
 That it was scarce distinguish'd where it stood 
 
 With many more, — sometime before impark'd 
 From the last vestige of an ancient wood, — 
 
 But though small glory clothed it as it grew, 
 
 Its heart was to the core still sound and true. 
 
 And as it pleased the lord of that domain, 
 At length, to trj'' the truth of those two oaks, 
 
 The proud one with a few sharp clefts was slain ; 
 The humble one sustain'd a thousand strokes ; 
 
 And when at last, at eventide, it fell, 
 
 A nobler fall was not in all the dell. 
 E E i5 
 
438 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 The proud one, yielding little but its dress, 
 Was left upon the spot to rot away : 
 
 The humble one lived still, in use to bless. 
 In ornament to charm, from day to day, — 
 
 Transferr'd unto the mansion's fairest room, 
 
 Where Genius flings round Art immortal bloom. 
 
 Also I knew two men, like those two trees. 
 
 The one was in profession great and high 
 And scorn' d the other, who could not so please 
 
 With much display the superficial eye. 
 Which does not see how meek true worth may stand, 
 Whilst great pretence would cumber all the land. 
 
 For he (the humbler) powerful was, but mild ; 
 
 Teacher of teachers, strong, profound, but clear ; 
 Unostentatious as a little child. 
 
 Yet in sagacity an ancient seer ; 
 And though his days were not in public spent, 
 He paid again through man what God had lent. 
 
 And while an epitaph upon a wall. 
 Which many criticise but few believe. 
 
 Now of the prodigal tells more than all — 
 Excepting what he did to make us grieve — 
 
 His neighbour's uses dwell in Wisdom's heart 
 
 And unto all around their good impart. 
 
 TO LADY BREWSTER.* 
 
 What memories will cluster round a name ! 
 
 To yours what dear associations cling ! 
 Philosophies obtaining widest fame. 
 
 And private friendships in life's hopeful spring ; 
 
 And seas to which bright streams are wandering ; 
 Or kindly courtesies by you sustain'd, 
 
 To cheer the hale and soothe the suffering. 
 In that domestic circle where you reign'd, 
 Ere of your youth-hood time had vantage gain'd ! 
 
 All these, with other scenes that distant are 
 
 * Widow of Sir David Brewster. 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 489 
 
 From Tweed's fair shores, where now 'tis yours to dwell, — 
 
 And classic Edinburgh, that like a star. 
 
 Sends intellectual light to realms afar, — 
 Your honour'd name recalls to me, how well ! 
 
 BURNS AND HIS FAME. 
 
 Written for a meeting of Scotsmen, in Sheffield, on the Anniversary 
 of their Poet's Birth, Jan. 25, 1841. 
 
 Men of the land of " ilood and fell," 
 
 And deathless song, and matchless story ! . 
 Men who, where'er ye roam or dwell. 
 
 Point hack unto a home of glory ! 
 Though in Old England's heart my home — 
 
 A lone and lowly rural cot — 
 To-day in Buens's name I come, 
 
 And feel myself with you — a Scot ! 
 
 Burns — Burns ! 0, not in name alone 
 
 Is present here that spirit bright : — 
 In many a song we hear its tone, 
 
 And feel its throb and see its light 
 In many a heart and many an eye ; 
 
 Nor is it to our circle bound, 
 But, far as fancy can descry. 
 
 Is cherish'd, reverenced, and renown'd ! 
 
 Wide over Scotia's rugged land. 
 
 This hour ten thousand ingles blaze. 
 Round each of which a heart-warm band 
 
 In rapture chants his glorious lays ; 
 While the lone trader, far away, 
 
 Toiling his evening inn to gain, 
 Starts on remembrance of the day 
 
 And chords in fancy with the strain. 
 
 Remote, in wild Columbian woods. 
 The emigrant, with moistening eye, 
 
 See J' Burns" in those wide solitudes 
 Upon his " big ha' Bible" lie : 
 
 He takes the book — the " wee things" throng 
 Around, and list with deep delight, 
 
440 
 
 MORNING- STUDIES 
 
 As in his thrilling native tongue 
 
 He reads the Mossgiel " Cottar's Night. 
 
 And where, by some Australian stream 
 
 That sweetly lulls the drowsy noon, 
 The unplaided shepherd loves to dream 
 
 Of winding Ayr and bonny Doon ; 
 His brother herdsman, wandering by. 
 
 Perchance the day to mind will bring ; 
 And Scotland to their hearts comes nigh 
 
 As " Days of auld langsyne" they sing. 
 
 Yes ! gather'd here or scatter'd there, 
 
 Britannia's sons, the wide world o'er, 
 Will hail him each returning year 
 
 With offerings worthier than before : 
 Yet, though more tuneful each acclaim, 
 
 And richer in poetic flowers. 
 No lay names Burns's dear-loved name 
 
 With more devotedness than ours ! 
 
 SUNDERLAND. 
 
 (1850.) 
 
 Throng Sunderland ! full many a scene hast thou, 
 Slighted by some, yet soon endeared to me : — 
 
 The morn's bright burst beheld from Building's * brow 
 Or lapsing of tho dim, sail-haunted sea, 
 
 What time o'er western woods the day droops low 
 
 • The name of this conspicuous hill is rather curious. As says my neighbour, 
 Alderman T. T. Wilkinson, F.S.A., a gentleman of great antiquarian research and 
 acumen, it may be a corrupted derivation from the same root as our word bald, be- 
 cause of its being in days gone by so bare and bleak, whilst other hills in the 
 neighbourhood were clothed ; or it might be from Baldr, the Danish god, who was 
 worshipped on such hills, and from its position near the sea and harbour, a more 
 likely derivation could hardly be imagined, — save for a custom, fomided in law, 
 and till very lately acted upon — that the inhabitants might cut down and cart away 
 from it whatever materials it would ailord for building purposes in the town, — the 
 site, should it ever be entirely levelled, then to revert to the family of Mowbray, as 
 its ancient owners. Thus it was at one time being rapidly pared away ; but a far 
 nobler use has since been resolved upon, in imparking it, with some of the sur- 
 rounding lands, for tC> resort and recreation of the people. 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 441 
 
 And back from Eyhope Dean I come to thee ! 
 Sweet, too, when leaving late lone Tunstall Hope, 
 
 And from the blooming upland peering down 
 On garden-bower, gay hall, or cotted slope, 
 
 To hear the heart-throb of the living town, 
 Subdued by summer winds that soft elope 
 
 Along the meadowy vale between ; — then crown, 
 At home, what joy the melting soul engages, 
 By wandering forth again — through Grant's poetic pages ! "^ 
 
 THE DWELLINGS OF THE POOR. 
 
 (Respectfully inscribed to the Friends of Sanitary Reform.) 
 
 Whene'ee we seek the lane, the street, 
 
 The mountain, or the moor. 
 One touching sight we always meet — 
 
 The dwellings of the poor. 
 
 And now they range in formal rows, 
 
 Where crowded toilers ply, 
 And now through alleys dim disclose 
 
 Their squalor to the eye. 
 
 And, here and there, far out they stand, 
 
 By wood or streamlet lone, 
 And beautify with life the land 
 
 Where Nature builds her throne. 
 
 * James Geegob Grant, author of " Madonna Pia " and many other exquisite 
 poems, dramatic, didactic, and lyrical, is the writer to whom reference is here 
 made, and who might not inaptly say with Milton, " fit audience let me find, though 
 few." He is not the only one of his name honourably known in the world of 
 letters, and might have been still better and more distinctly known but for having 
 that name. Born, I believe, at Liverpool, but residing a great part of his life in 
 the county of Durham, instead of moving in the old society of the Lakes or the 
 modern circles of the metropolis, in either of which he would have shone, he is 
 personally less known in his advanced years than he ought to be. But England 
 has few, if any, nobler minds to boast ; and the man is not less dear to some 
 warm hearts, because the world at large has known too little of his works. My first 
 acquaintance with him was in company with Calvert, the popular elocutionist, on 
 a chance visit to Sunderland, in the spring of 1844 ; and on my residing there in 
 1850-1, he was one of a few choice spirits thereabouts of whom I have never 
 since thought but with the most friendly emotions. 
 
442 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 There's not a scene beneath God's dome, 
 Where wealth can stand and say 
 
 " Here poverty shall never come, 
 While I preserve my sway." 
 
 There's not a place where rest can say 
 " I'll have no labour here ; " 
 
 For rest itself would pine away 
 If labour were not near. 
 
 Extremes will meet, and friend or foe 
 
 Unto each other prove ; 
 Then why not make a heaven below, 
 
 By binding both with love ? 
 
 Oh ! it is sad to think how oft 
 
 The cattle that we keep 
 Have homes more pure and beds more soft 
 
 Than some where poor men sleep ! 
 
 And much there is that runs to waste. 
 
 Or is not used at all, 
 Would build for comfort, and with taste, 
 
 The labourer's cottage small ; — 
 
 Would make him turn his mind about, 
 And with new hopes begin 
 
 To love his garden neat without, 
 His store of books within ; — 
 
 To make him feel himself a man, 
 With heart more pure and warm. 
 
 When once he knew the better plan 
 To which he might conform ! 
 
 Methinks I see him sitting there. 
 
 His daily labour o'er : 
 His family all are gather'd near 
 
 And listening to his lore. 
 
 He talks no more with discontent 
 Of wealth he cannot share, — 
 
 His wrongs, his hates, his unpaid rent, 
 His unavailing care, — 
 
 But speaks with joy of things above, 
 And gives to God the praise, 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 448 
 
 For filling all their hearts with love 
 And blessing thus their days ! 
 
 " The poor are always with you," said 
 
 Our Lord, when he was poor, 
 And had not where to lay his head 
 
 From storm or heat secure. 
 
 "And inasmuch as unto them 
 
 Ye do the best ye may. 
 Ye do it unto me, and I 
 
 Will own it in that day ! " 
 
 Then, up ! the work shall be begun, 
 
 For it will doubly bless : 
 'Twill better those for whom 'tis done, 
 
 The doers not the less ! 
 
 SARAH IN HEAVEN. 
 
 The Autumn days come round again ; 
 The hedges redden in the lane ; 
 The leaves grow golden on the tree, 
 And golden memories glow in me. 
 
 Yes, Autumn comes, but where art thou, 
 My loved and loving Sarah, now ? 
 'Tis but twelve months since we were wed, 
 And three months they have call'd thee dead. 
 
 Yet dead thou seemest not to me. 
 But living still in all I see : 
 Ev'n Nature thy dear form doth take 
 And look more lovely for thy sake. 
 
 Yon lake's deep blue, that mocks the sky, 
 Hath caught expression from thine eye, 
 Where oft I've read such depth of love 
 As could but come from Heaven above. 
 
 Yon hill with sunshine on its brow 
 Is not more noble than wert thou ; 
 And all the landscape borrows grace 
 From the sweet beauty of thy face. 
 
444 MOENING STUDIES 
 
 And in those sounds so soft and low, 
 That with the light winds come and go, 
 It makes my drooping soul rejoice 
 To hear the music of thy voice. 
 
 Whence, too, these yearnings of the heart. 
 That form of life the truest part. 
 But that thy spirit comes to mine. 
 And upward points to joys divine ? 
 
 Much beauty have I seen on earth, 
 And much have known of human worth, 
 But human worth to me hath grown 
 More worthy, since I thine have known 
 
 Then, Sarah dear, die not to me ! 
 But live thou still in all I see, — 
 In all I hear, or feel, or love. 
 Around, within, below, above, — 
 
 That I may come, in that bright day 
 When all things false have pass'd awaV; 
 My sorrows o'er, my faults forgiven, 
 To join thee with the good in Heaven. 
 
 EASTER. 
 
 How brightly breaks this Easter morn ! 
 
 Those bells, how joyfully they peal ! 
 While ev'n the newly-springing corn 
 
 Its resurrection seems to feel. 
 
 Frank English takes his early meal. 
 Hoping with God the day to spend, 
 
 And o'er the upland-side doth steal. 
 Of all that breathes or blooms the friend. 
 
 Anon, where with their solemn grace 
 
 Yon tall old pine-trees crown the scene, 
 He stands with Nature face to face, 
 
 Thrill'd by the beauty of her mien ; 
 
 For her true lover he hath been 
 Since first, when he was yet a child, 
 
 She came his little heart to wean 
 From all with love unreconciled. 
 
AND EVENINrr PASTIMES. 445 
 
 then how tenderly she taught 
 
 Her lessons to his yearning mind — 
 How deftly on his feelings wrought, 
 
 That well her lore might be enshrined. 
 
 Till Higher Truth in time should find 
 Its glowing symbols written there, — 
 
 Not to the earth his heart to bind, 
 But that Heaven's tablets it might bear ! 
 
 For 'tis not to herself alone 
 
 Nature the poet's soul would bring : 
 God's handmaid she, from near His throne 
 
 She comes, and ne'er forgets her King, 
 
 But toucheth every mystic string 
 Of that sweet lyre within us felt, 
 
 Maldng us to its tremblings sing, 
 If we in reverence e'er have knelt — 
 
 Have knelt to Him iclio maketh all, 
 
 And loveth all that He cloth make : 
 Who letteth not an atom fall 
 
 But that it nobler use may take ; — 
 
 Who came Himself, for mercy's sake, 
 The low to lift, the lost to save, 
 
 And, as from night the day doth break, 
 To lead us upward from the grave ! 
 
 DO THY BEST. 
 
 (Written in a time of great Scarcity and Discontent. ; 
 
 I LOVE all plans to help the poor : 
 
 Each cannot be the best ; 
 Yet each may be to some one more 
 
 Than all the others blest. 
 
 One morning long I mused alone 
 
 Upon this struggling world. 
 Where mobs fight mobs, and from the throne 
 
 King after king is hurl'd. 
 
 I thought of all who " dub and moil " 
 
 In sorrow day by day. 
 And all who give their mental toil 
 
 For scorn and scanty pay. 
 
446 MORNING STUDIES 
 
 I knew— by many a victim taught — 
 
 The ills in hunger's train ; 
 How fast its fangs the vitals caught 
 
 And madden'ed heart and brain. 
 
 I knew how, in our loved land, 
 Were thousands in that hour 
 
 Striving, though feebly, to withstand 
 Its gnawing, maddening power. 
 
 And while I mused, through all my frame 
 
 A strange sensation ran, 
 That made me in my soul exclaim. 
 
 Why will not man love man ? 
 
 From all whereon my eye could rest, 
 Or all my thought could prove. 
 
 There came the assurance to my breast 
 That God Himself is Love. 
 
 And Nature, too, I saw was kind ; 
 
 World gave to world its light ; 
 Day unto day could language find. 
 
 And night sing hymns to night. 
 With sunshine, cloud ; and wave with wave, 
 
 Rejoiced as forth they went, 
 And flower to breeze its fragrance gave, 
 
 Yet gain'd by what it lent. 
 
 Then down with grief I bent to see 
 
 Man so untrue to man, 
 That he, of all most blest, should be 
 
 The first to mar the plan. 
 
 But as I reason'd thus, there stole 
 A voice, though still and small. 
 
 Most sweetly whispering to the soul — 
 " God's love is over all : 
 
 " Then let not thou a vain despair 
 " Thy spirit's faith bedim ; 
 
 '' But in thy sphere do thou thy share 
 ' ' And trust the rest to Him. 
 
 " For though his own bright hopes to blast 
 " Man's tendency may seem ; 
 
 " Be sure the wrong will fail at last, 
 "And God the right redeem." 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 447 
 
 MIDNIGHT. 
 
 (Composed on Ouse-beidge, York, 1839.) 
 
 How solemn the surrounding city's sleep ! 
 
 And, save yon lonely footfall heard afar, 
 
 Or stream's faint ripple, nothing stirs to mar 
 The silent reign which Midnight loves to keep, 
 
 As with her bosom gem'd by many a star 
 She broodeth o'er the world in mood most deep ! 
 
 Midnight ! solemn Midnight ! many are 
 Thy hallow'd impulses vouchsafed to me ; 
 
 And here, forgetting Day's tumultuous jar, 
 Communion deep my spirit woos with thee, — 
 For solitude to it is revelry, 
 
 And silence melody, at such a time. 
 
 When to the Source of Thought it loves to climb. 
 And win a glimpse of its own destiny ! 
 
 SUNSET AT SOUTHPOET. 
 (June 24th, 1869.) 
 
 Thou sun, just setting o'er the distant sea ! 
 If such the glory which thou canst bequeath 
 Unto the clouds above and waves beneath. 
 
 What must be His, great orb, who gave it thee ? 
 
 O'er the horizon whither thou art going. 
 Imagination paints some lovelier sphere 
 Even than that this hour thou leavest here. 
 
 The morn of which is still more brightly glowing. 
 
 So back and forth thou pourest, day by day, 
 Thy heavenly splendours on the yearning earth, 
 Beauty from beauty calling into birth, 
 
 And symbolling the soul's eternal way ! 
 
 Methinks as from yon far horizon's rim 
 Thou seudest hither thy electric blaze, 
 A more than natural message in thy rays 
 
 Comes to the sad and weary heart from Him — 
 
448 ilOENING STUDIES 
 
 From Him who liveth evermore and reigneth, 
 
 Fountain of love's pure warmth and truth's pure light, 
 Speaking of that glad world which knows no blight, 
 
 Which sorrow never clouds, or error staineth. 
 
 For as, sun ! there is no night in thee. 
 Who light itself art forth forever sending. 
 So of THY Sun — whose love, all ways forth tending, 
 
 Saith unto every creature, " live in me ! " 
 
 TO MY FIRST GREY HAIRS. 
 
 (1846.) 
 
 Blossoms op Death ! why here so soon, 
 Startling and sad as snow in June ? 
 My summers are but thirty-three ; 
 Why come ye then so soon to me ? 
 
 Blossoms of death ! whence do ye grow ? 
 Why do ye come, but never go ? 
 Winter's white flower gives place in Spring- 
 You to the last in your place cling ! 
 
 Blossoms of death ! then why so soon — 
 Why to me come before life's noon ? 
 Few years — how few ! — have pass'd me by : 
 Why come to one so young as I ? 
 
 Blossoms of death ! although to me 
 Solemn your early mission be, 
 I'll take it friendly, since your bloom 
 Bespeaks a life beyond the tomb. 
 
 All things have use : — as snow-drops bring 
 Some tidings of a coming Spring, 
 Blossoms of death ! ye say — " Prepare 
 To leave this dull, cold scene of care ! " 
 
 And as, when Spring breaks on our gaze, 
 The snow-drop withers and decays, 
 Blossoms of death ! so your decay 
 Shall come, but with a brighter day ! 
 
AND EVENING PASTIMES. 449 
 
 Thus whether, blossoms pale ! with me 
 Your season short or long may be, 
 Still let me trust, as ye grow rife, 
 The fruit will be immortal life I 
 
 EVENING THOUGHT, 
 
 WHILE WALKING IN THE FOREST, NEAR NEWSTEAD.* 
 
 O'ee Annesley Hills the sun retires, 
 
 Far-distant scenes to cheer : 
 The moon from Harlow Wood aspires 
 
 To glad us here. 
 
 Yes ! day hath set ; yet still on high 
 
 Its golden beams delay. 
 Soon in a calmer, cooler sky f 
 
 To fade away. 
 
 'Tis thus the charms of pleasures past 
 
 Will linger in their flight 
 Till others rise ; then fade the last 
 
 In new delight. 
 
 * Beautiful, yet solemn as the hour of twilight, are the writer's recollections 
 of the Forest around Newstead. Every place, like every man, has a spiritual as 
 well as physical being and influence peculiarly its own, and appealing to corre- 
 sponding principles in the human mind. The scenes and associations of Newstead 
 impart a tenderness and solemnity to the feelings — a calm reflective light to the 
 heart — that afterwards, go wherever we may, can never entirely forsake us. Of this 
 every one who has visited them will feel more or less conscious, according to the 
 degree of his own natural susceptibility ; but something of it must be experienced 
 even by the most obdurate. It is a place in which the Past still loiters as though 
 it could not depart. True, the young and growing woods — the ever fresh and shin- 
 ing waters — the newly added towers, and modern culture all around, — these are of 
 the present, and make us aware that our own life is also in the present and the 
 future. But how much of the past is mingled with these, to make us feel as though 
 old Time himself had returned amongst them to contemplate them in comparison 
 with his former doings! However true it is, that God, who created the whole 
 world, pronounced it all good from the beginning ; — however true that haunts 
 newly opened to us may possess more of the wild or vast, the beautiful or sublime, 
 than many that nestle in the bosom of antiquity, — there will ever he a "peculiar 
 charm about a spot that has a history ; and where, in Sherwood Forest, is the 
 place that has a history more varied, more interesting than that of Newstead ? Its 
 suns rise from woods and set among hills that are touched with the hues and called 
 by the names of old romance. It has been equally, though at various periods, the 
 
450 MORNING STUDIES. 
 
 And as each hour of earlier day 
 
 More warm and bright will glow ; 
 While each successive evening-ray 
 
 Will milder gi'ow ; — 
 
 So early life with hope is bright ; 
 
 But, manhood's noontide past, 
 
 In calm reflection's evening light 
 
 We walk at last ! 
 
 And yet again, as one pale streak 
 
 O'er eve's far verge will stay. 
 Till round upon the east shall break 
 
 Another day ; — 
 
 So life to life true faith shall link — 
 
 The coming and the gone — 
 A glory o'er time's farthest brink, 
 
 To cheer us on ! 
 
 haunt of outlawed patriotism, chivalry, religion, learning, poetic genius, and phil- 
 anthropy ; and though — like much of the rest of the world — it is not without its 
 stories of devilry and darkness too, there are bright passages in its history that 
 ought never to die. The writer himself once saw sparkle, amid its scenes, the 
 sympathetic tear of a man who, when at school, was on the same form with Byron 
 and Peel, and who in mature years " scorned alike to be or have a slave," — the late 
 Colonel Wildman, who had the moral courage to advocate the emancipation of our 
 black brethren on his own estates in the West Indies, even though he had after- 
 wards to send out large annual sums to meet expenses, instead of receiving his 
 accustomed income from that som'ce, — an income which had been chiefly spent in 
 improving Newstead, and in liberality and usefulness to all around him. 
 
 W. POMIITT, PBINTEB, BUENLBY. 
 
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