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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 570, April, 1863
Author: Various
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 93, NO. 570, APRIL, 1863 ***
BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. DLXX. APRIL 1863. VOL. XCIII.
CONTENTS.
SENSATION DIPLOMACY IN JAPAN, 397
MRS CLIFFORD’S MARRIAGE—PART II., 414
SIR JAMES GRAHAM, 436
THE INEXHAUSTIBLE CAPITAL, 457
CAXTONIANA—PART XV., 471
NO. XX.—ON SELF-CONTROL.
NO. XXI.—THE MODERN MISANTHROPE.
SPEDDING’S LIFE OF BACON, 480
THE YEANG-TAI MOUNTAINS, AND SPIRIT-WRITING IN CHINA, 499
MARRIAGE BELLS, 521
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET.
AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. DLXX. APRIL 1863. VOL. XCIII.
SENSATION DIPLOMACY IN JAPAN.[1]
Footnote 1:
‘The Capital of the Tycoon.’ By Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B. London:
Longmans.
It is one of the most singular features of our institutions that, when
our diplomatic relations with remote and semi-barbarous countries become
so involved that even the Government is at a loss to know what course to
pursue, the public take up the question in a confident off-hand way; and
though, by the force of circumstances, deprived of the information
possessed by the Foreign Office, they do not hesitate either to denounce
or to approve the policy recommended by those who have studied the
subject on the spot, and who alone can be competent to form an opinion
on the matter. It is true that papers are occasionally laid before
Parliament, but what proportion of those who hold such decided views
have read them? In the case of the Arrow, when people voted for peace or
war with China, how many members of Parliament had informed themselves
on the merits of the question? and what did their constituents know
about it? Yet so it is; the ultimate decision upon all important and
complicated questions of foreign policy necessarily rests with the most
ill-informed class. If they generally decide wrong, we must console
ourselves by the consideration that even free institutions have their
drawbacks, but in compensation have made us so rich and powerful, that
we can always scramble out of any scrape they may get us into. In
countries despotically governed, the merits of a secret diplomacy are
inestimable; but where the Government is responsible, though it would be
difficult to substitute an open system, secret diplomacy is attended
with grave inconveniences, for it becomes impossible to furnish that
public who sit, as it were, in appeal, with the whole facts of the case
upon which they are called to decide. It is then clearly the interest of
the Foreign Office to encourage the dissemination of accurate political
information in a popular form, when the publication of it does not
involve a breach of confidence; and inasmuch as Blue-Books are not
generally considered light or agreeable reading, and are somewhat
inaccessible, the diplomatist who has a political story to tell, and can
do it without betraying State secrets, is a public benefactor. In these
days of official responsibility, it is not only due to the public but to
himself that he should have an opportunity of stating his case. It may
happen that his conduct will be brought publicly in question and decided
upon before he has an opportunity of laying before the world all the
facts. Great injustice is frequently done to officials serving in
distant parts of the world, who even at last are unable to remove the
erroneous impressions formed upon incorrect or insufficient information.
This has been specially the case in China and the East: a policy based
upon an acquaintance with the local conditions as intimate as it was
possible for a foreigner to obtain, has been upset by a majority of
ignorant legislators, who too often receive their impressions from
superficial travellers, or residents with special interests at stake. It
is clear that the opinion of a merchant is not so likely to be right in
diplomatic questions as that of a trained official, who has passed half
his life in studying the language, institutions, and people of the
country to which he has been accredited; yet when it comes to be a
question between the mercantile community and the minister, the latter
is in danger of going to the wall.
While, on the one hand, the traditions of the Foreign Office are opposed
to what may be termed diplomatic literature—and they dole out their own
information with a somewhat niggard hand—the British community resident
in the East, hampered by no such restraints, and aided by a scurrilous
press, may prejudice the public mind at home to such an extent that no
subsequent defence is of much avail. We cannot wonder then, if, after
five-and-twenty years’ experience of China and Japan, Sir Rutherford
Alcock should take the opportunity of giving a full, true, and
particular statement of the political difficulties by which he is
surrounded, in anticipation of a crisis which he sees impending, which
no diplomacy will be able to avert, but in which he will on his return
probably find himself involved.
“By whatever measures,” he remarks, “of a coercive nature, we might
seek to attain this object” (the execution of the Treaty in all its
stipulations), “it should be clearly seen that there is war in the
background, more or less near, but tolerably certain sooner or later
to come. During the last two years, whatever a conciliatory spirit
could suggest, with temper, patience, and forbearance in all things,
had been tried. Diplomacy had wellnigh exhausted its resources to
induce the Japanese Government to take a different view of its
interests, and to act in accordance with the spirit of the treaties
entered into. Little more remained to be tried in this direction, nor
could much hope be entertained that better success would follow a
longer persistence in the same course.”
The nature of our political relations with Japan is such, that a history
of three years’ diplomacy in that country is not attended with the
inconveniences which would be incidental to a similar narrative from a
European court. Our relations with other friendly nations are in no way
involved, and there can be no objection to such a work as that now
before us, even in a red-tape point of view. Still, we are not aware of
a work of this kind, from the pen of a minister actually at his post,
ever having appeared; and although our author gives us a most detailed
and graphic account of the moral and social state of Japan, it is the
record of his diplomatic relations with the Government of the Tycoon
that we regard as being at once the most novel and interesting feature
of his book.
“I should probably have hesitated,” says Sir Rutherford in his
preface, “had it not seemed important to furnish materials for a right
judgment in matters of national concern connected with Japan, and our
relations there, while it might yet be time to avert, by the
intelligent appreciation of our true situation, grievous
disappointment, as well as increased complications and calamities. A
free expression of opinion in matters of public interest is not to be
lightly adventured upon, however, and in many cases those holding
office are altogether precluded from such action. At the same time,
much mischief is often done by undue reticence in matters which must,
in a country like ours, be the subject of public discussion. It so
happened that I was relieved from any difficulty on this head by the
publication _in extenso_ of the greater number of my despatches, which
were printed and laid before Parliament. And not only was the
necessity for silence obviated by such publication in this country,
but a similar course was followed at Washington in respect of the
despatches of my colleague, the American Minister, during the same
period. As in each of these series there is a very unreserved
expression of opinion as to the political situation of the country,
the action of the Japanese authorities, the views entertained by
colleagues, and the conduct of the foreign communities, the decision
of the respective Governments of both countries to make the despatches
public, and this so freely as to leave little of a confidential
character unprinted, effectually removed all the impediments which
might otherwise have existed.”
The general reader must not suppose, however, that because politics
engage a large share of the work before us, he will, on that account,
find it dull. Japan is probably the only country in the world in which
diplomacy becomes a pursuit of thrilling excitement. Sometimes it leads
to some curious discovery, and reveals to us some part of the political
machinery in the government of the country heretofore unsuspected and
unknown. Sometimes it furnishes amusing illustrations of the Japanese
mode of diplomatic fencing; at others, it involves a frightful tragedy
or a quaint official ceremony. Without these details to illustrate each
phase through which our political relations have passed, we should never
have been able to realise the difficulties with which our officials in
those remote regions have to contend, or the nature of the opposition
persistently offered by the Japanese Government.
The task of permanently installing for the first time a legation in a
city of upwards of two millions of people having been safely
accomplished, Mr Alcock entered upon his first diplomatic struggle, the
point of which was merely to fix a day for the purpose of exchanging the
ratifications of Lord Elgin’s Treaty. The discussion preliminary to this
formality occupied no less than seven days. At last the details are
arranged, and it is decided that the Treaty is to be carried in
procession through the city, under a canopy ornamented with flags and
evergreens, surrounded by a guard of marines, and followed by fifty
blue-jackets; Captain Hand, with a large number of his officers in
uniform and on horseback, following immediately after the four petty
officers carrying the Treaty. We can well imagine the effect which so
novel a procession was likely to produce upon the inhabitants of Yedo.
When the formalities were accomplished, “signals, arranged by the
Japanese in advance (by fans from street to street) conveyed the news to
the Sampson with telegraphic speed in a minute and a half, a distance of
six miles.” So our Minister hoists his flag, and settles himself down in
solitary grandeur, to pass his life of exile in solving the difficult
problem of reconciling the civilisation he represents with that which
surrounds him, but which the jealousy of the Government will not permit
him to investigate. This does not, however, prevent our author from
entering upon lengthy and interesting philosophical disquisitions upon
the many moral, social, and political questions which must, under such
circumstances, present themselves to a thoughtful mind. He has not been
six weeks so employed when he is suddenly roused from his speculations
by a tragical event which occurs at Yokuhama. As this is the first of a
series of exciting incidents, we will give our readers an epitome of
those which occurred during three years, and the particulars of which
are detailed at length in various parts of the book:—
“A Russian officer, with a sailor and a steward, were suddenly set
upon in the principal street by some armed Japanese, and hewn down
with the most ghastly wounds that could be inflicted. The sailor was
cleft through his skull to the nostrils—half the scalp sliced down,
and one arm nearly severed from the shoulder through the joint. The
officer was equally mangled, his lungs protruding from a sabre-gash
across the body; the thighs and legs deeply gashed.”
In the succeeding tragedies the wounds are invariably of the above
savage nature, but we will not always inflict upon our readers a full
description of the horrible details.
Two months after this the servant of the French Consul is cut to pieces
in the street—cause unknown. By way of varying the excitement, the
Tycoon’s palace is burnt down about the same time, and the Japanese
Ministers propose to stop all business in consequence. This is of course
not considered a legitimate way of evading disagreeable questions.
Diplomatic difficulties continue to be discussed, and the greater part
of the settlement of Yokuhama is burnt down:—
“While yet occupied by these events, we were startled by another of
more immediate and personal import. It was near midnight; Mr Eusden,
the Japanese secretary, was standing by my side, when the longest and
most violent shock of an earthquake yet experienced since our arrival
brought every one to his feet with a sudden impulse to fly from under
the shaking roof. It began at first very gently, but rapidly increased
in the violence of the vibrations until the earth seemed to rock under
our feet, and to be heaved up by some mighty explosive powder in the
caldrons beneath.”
The nerves of our author scarcely recover from the shock of the
earthquake when they receive another of a different description. A hasty
step is heard outside his room, and “Captain Marten, of H.M.S. Roebuck,
threw back the sliding-panel. ‘Come quickly; your linguist is being
carried in badly wounded.’ My heart misgave me that his death-knell had
struck.” Of course it had; they seldom miss their stroke in Japan. “The
point” (of the sword) “had entered at his back and came out above the
right breast; and, thus buried in his body, the assassin left it, and
disappeared as stealthily as he came.” While discussing this matter, in
dashes the whole French Legation—the French Consul-General at the head:
“‘Nous voici! nous venons vous demander de l’hospitalité—l’incendie nous
a atteint.’ Then follows Monsieur l’Abbé in a dressing-gown—a glass
thermometer in one hand, and a breviary in the other; then the
Chancellor in slippers, with a revolver and a _bonnet de nuit_.” What
with an assassination in one Legation and a fire in another on the same
night, our diplomatists have their hands full. Our author, however,
seems to have passed a few nights in comparative tranquillity after
this, before he is again roused at four o’clock in the morning by the
arrival of an express from Kanagawa with the news that about eight
o’clock in the evening two Dutch captains had been slain in the main
street of Yokuhama—“a repetition, in all its leading circumstances and
unprovoked barbarity, of the assassination perpetrated on the Russians.”
After this, beyond a few bad earthquakes, nothing happens for a month or
so, “when, on my return from a visit to Kanagawa, the first news that
greeted me as I entered the Legation was of so startling and incredible
a character that I hesitated to believe what was told me. The Gotairo or
Regent was said to have been assassinated in broad daylight on his way
to the palace, and this, too, in the very midst of a large retinue of
his retainers!” The account, which our author gives at length, of this
occurrence, and of the causes which led to it, is most characteristic:
we have only space for the result:—
“Eight of the assailants were unaccounted for when all was over, and
many of the retinue were stretched on the ground, wounded and dying,
by the side of those who had made the murderous onslaught. The remnant
of the Regent’s people, released from their deadly struggle, turned to
the norimon to see how it had fared with their master in the brief
interval, to find only a headless trunk: the bleeding trophy carried
away was supposed to have been the head of the Gotairo himself, hacked
off on the spot. But, strangest of all these startling incidents, it
is further related that _two_ heads were found missing, and that which
was in the fugitive’s hand was only a lure to the pursuing party,
while the true trophy had been secreted on the person of another, and
was thus successfully carried off, though the decoy paid the penalty
of his life.”
The head of the Regent is said to have been got safely out of Yedo, and
presented to the Prince, who was his enemy, and who spat upon it with
maledictions. It was reported afterwards to have been exposed in the
public execution-ground of the spiritual capital, with a placard over
it, on which was the following inscription: “This is the head of a
traitor, who has violated the most sacred laws of Japan—those which
forbid the admission of foreigners into the country.” After this, with
the exception of a “murderous onslaught made by a drunken Yaconin on an
English merchant at Hakodadi,” there is another lull, varied only by
putting the Legations in a state of defence. They “were filled with
Japanese troops, field-pieces were placed in the courtyards of the
several Legations, and the ministers were urgently requested to abstain
from going outside!” A month passes, and life is absolutely becoming
monotonous, from the absence of the usual stimulant in the shape either
of a fire, a murder, or a good earthquake, when there suddenly appeared,
“as we were sitting down to dinner one evening, the Abbé Gérard, pale
and agitated, bringing with him, in a norimon, M. de Bellecourt’s
Italian servant, who had been attacked, while quietly standing at the
gate of the French Legation, by two Samourai (daimios’ retainers)
passing at the moment, and by one of whom he had been severely wounded.”
A strong digestion must be essential to the comfort of the diplomatist
in Japan, for “next month, a few minutes before the dinner-hour, there
was a rushing and scuffling of many feet along the passages, the noise
of which reached me in my dressing-room, at the extremity of the
building, and presently, high above all, came the ominous cry of
‘Cadjee!’ (fire).” The Legation was nearly burnt to the ground, but the
Japanese servants behaved well, and ultimately succeeded in
extinguishing the flames. We will not recount, in our list of
excitements, all the escapes from murderous Yaconins and disagreeable
rencontres which are recorded, though they would satisfy any moderate
craving for “sensations;” and passing rapidly by, as not worthy of
notice, the case of an Englishman who shot a Japanese (and for having
punished whom Mr Alcock was afterwards fined at Hong-Kong), come at once
to the night of the 14th of January, “when, about ten o’clock, I
received a brief note from Mr Harris, asking me to send surgical aid to
Mr Heuskin, who had been brought in wounded.”
Mr Heuskin was the secretary of the American Legation—a man universally
liked, and a most able public servant. He had received a frightful gash
across the abdomen, which proved fatal, besides other thrusts and cuts
of less moment. His funeral was attended by all the members of the
different Legations, at the risk, however, of their lives. About this
time, says our author, “an event occurred calculated to give greater
significance to the numerous sinister rumours afloat. Hori Oribeno Kami,
the most intelligent, experienced, and respected of the governors of
foreign affairs—the one best versed in European business, and the most
reasonable and conciliatory of his class—disappeared from the scene.” In
other words, he had ripped himself up. The writer of this article, who
had formerly been well acquainted with this minister, happening to
arrive in Japan shortly after his death, received from the Dutch Consul
the following account of the event:—That gentleman had called on Hori
Oribeno Kami one day, had found him in rather low spirits, and, on
inquiring the cause, was informed by the fated minister that he was
about to put an end to himself on the following day; that he had already
issued his invitation-cards for the banquet at which the ceremony was to
take place; and, further, expressed his regret that the custom of the
country limited the invitation to his relations and most intimate
friends, and that he was thus deprived of the pleasure of requesting the
company of his visitor to partake of the meal which was destined to
terminate in so tragic a manner.
The foreign Legations after this come to the conclusion that life at
Yedo is attended by too many anxieties, and retire to Yokuhama till the
Government should promise to make things safer and more comfortable.
This they ultimately pledge themselves to do. Our author has occasion
shortly after to make a long overland journey through the country, and
on the night of his return to Yedo the Legation is attacked by a band of
assassins, who severely wound Messrs Oliphant and Morrison, and very
nearly murder everybody. Some idea of the nature of that midnight
struggle may be formed from the following list of persons killed and
wounded in the passages and garden of the Legation:—
_Killed._
One of the Tycoon’s body-guard, and one groom, 2
Two of the assailants, 2
_Severely wounded._
Tycoon’s soldier, 1
Daimio’s soldier, 1
Porters (one died same day), 2
Assailant (captured—committed suicide), 1
Member of Legation, 1
Servants of Legation, 2
_Slightly wounded._
Tycoon’s guard, 7
Daimio’s guard, 2
Priest in temple adjoining, 1
Member of Legation, 1
——
Total killed and wounded on the spot, 23
With reference to the fate of these assailants, the following extract
from a letter from Mr Alcock to Earl Russell appears in the papers just
laid before Parliament:—
“The Ministers have since informed me that three more of the
assailants on the night of the 5th July have been arrested in Prince
Mito’s territories, and will be proceeded against; also that the only
survivor in the recent attack on the Foreign Minister has confessed
that some of the party were men engaged in the attack on the Legation.
If so—and only fourteen were actually engaged (which has always seemed
to me doubtful)—they will have pretty well accounted for the whole
number: Three having been killed on the spot; three taken prisoners
and since executed; two committed suicide; three more lately arrested;
three supposed to have been killed in the recent attack on the Foreign
Minister. Total, fourteen.”
The following paper found on the body of one of the assailants gives the
reasons of the band for making the attempt:—
“I, though I am a person of low standing, have not patience to stand
by and see the sacred empire defiled by the foreigner. This time I
have determined in my heart to undertake to follow out my master’s
will. Though, being altogether humble myself, I cannot make the might
of the country to shine in foreign nations, yet with a little faith,
and a little warrior’s power, I wish in my heart separately (by
myself), though I am a person of low degree, to bestow upon my country
one out of a great many benefits. If this thing from time to time may
cause the foreigner to retire, and partly tranquillise both the minds
of the Mikado and the Tycoon (or the manes of departed Mikados and
Tycoons), I shall take to myself the highest praise. Regardless of my
own life, I am determined to set out.”
[Here follow the fourteen signatures.]
It must be admitted that the Lonins, as the bravos are called, choose
their victims with great impartiality as to rank and nationality; they
murder servants and ministers, both Japanese and foreign, as the fancy
seizes them. A few days after the massacre at the Legation, two of the
Japanese Ministers were attacked, but their retinue beat off their
assailants: after this nothing particular happened for some time, except
that the Governor of Yedo had to rip himself up “for having offended by
intruding his opinion at a grand council of the daimios (he not being a
daimio).” Meantime the Government offer to build a fortified Legation,
and Sir Rutherford moves his habitation temporarily down to Yokuhama:
the hostile class seem more determined than ever to carry their point,
as we may gather from the following letter left by four of his retainers
at the house of their master, the Prince of Mito, whose service they
leave to become outlaws:—
“We become lonins now, since the foreigner gains more and more
influence in the country, unable to see the ancient law of Gongen Sama
violated. We become all four lonins, with the intention of compelling
the foreigners to depart.”
[Here follow the four signatures.]
Shortly after this, Sir Rutherford, who has been dining down at Yokuhama
with M. de Bellecourt, receives the news at ten o’clock at night, that
Ando Tsusimano Kami, the second Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the one
supposed to be most favourable to the maintenance of foreign relations,
had been attacked as he was on his way to the palace.
“Ando, it appears, instantly divined that he was to be attacked, and,
throwing himself out of the norimon, drew his sword to defend himself.
It was well he lost no time, for already his people were being cut
down by the desperate band of assassins. The next instant he received
a sabre-cut across the face and a spear-thrust in the side that had
wellnigh proved fatal. As in the previous case of the Regent, the
life-and-death struggle was brief as it was bloody. In a few seconds
seven of the assailants lay stretched, wounded or dead, on the ground,
and only one (the eighth) escaped.”
The Minister himself, after lingering for some time between life and
death, finally recovered. While our author is listening to these details
there is an alarm of fire, and he spends the rest of the night in
putting it out.
“It lasted several hours, and a large block of houses was destroyed.
The danger of its spreading over the whole settlement was at one time
very great; and that which made the event more serious was the fact of
some men dressed like the Japanese police having been discovered by
Lieutenant Aplin at the commencement actively engaged in spreading the
fire to an adjoining house.”
This is about the last of our author’s list of sensations; but in order
to complete the thrilling category we will take a leaf or two out of the
Blue-Book of his successor, Colonel Neale, who is appointed to the
charge of the Legation during Sir Rutherford’s absence. No sooner does
he arrive there than he proceeds to test the charms of a residence at
Yedo. A few days after his arrival he writes as follows to his French
colleague, whose three years’ experience has taught him not to move out
of Yokuhama unnecessarily:—
“SIR,—It is with deep regret I have to acquaint you that this Legation
has passed through the ordeal of another murderous assault on the part
of Japanese assassins. About midnight last night, the sentry at my
bedroom door was suddenly attacked and desperately wounded, his life
being despaired of. The corporal going his rounds at the same moment
was murderously assailed a short distance off; but he managed to reach
my door, and there he fell and died. His body was conveyed into the
room in which we were assembled, and was found to have received no
less than sixteen desperate sword and lance wounds. The wounded sentry
was also on the floor of the room, dying fast from nine wounds. This
man, by name Charles Sweet, died the following morning.”
After this, Colonel Neale thinks Yedo disagreeable as a permanent
residence, and retires to Yokuhama; but, to judge by a letter he writes
to Lord Russell a month afterwards, he does not seem to have improved
his position:—
“MY LORD,—It becomes my painful duty once more to lay before your
Lordship the details of the barbarous murder of another British
subject, Mr C. L. Richardson, a merchant residing at Yokuhama, and the
desperate wounding of two other merchants, Mr W. Marshall and Mr W. C.
Clarke, both of Yokuhama; the latter gentleman is likely to lose his
arm. Mr Richardson, nearly cut to pieces, fell from his horse; and
while lying in a dying state, one of the high officials of the
cortege, borne in a chair, is stated to have told his followers to cut
the throat of the unfortunate gentleman. The lady (Mrs Borradaile),
though cut at herself, miraculously escaped unwounded; never drawing
rein, and in an exhausted and fainting state, she reached Yokuhama.
The body of Mr Richardson was afterwards found, and brought here for
interment.”
And so for the present ends the bloody story: we have condensed it as
much as possible, both for the reader’s sake and our own; but,
considering the important interests we have at stake in Japan, we have
felt it our duty to do all in our power to induce people to read the
work before us. After they have gratified that morbid craving for
excitement which seems to be the literary taste of the day, they may
perhaps be induced seriously to think what is to be done under the
circumstances. We have not recounted the efforts which our diplomatic
agents in Japan have made to obtain redress, nor the success which has
attended those efforts. They are to be found detailed at some length in
the work before us. If the reader will take the trouble carefully to
read Sir Rutherford’s account of the administrative system of Japan, and
more especially of the feudal nobility, of the influence they exercise,
and the material forces they control, he will perhaps be able to form
some idea for himself of the best course to be pursued. If he makes up
his mind—as he probably has done—on what he has read in this article, he
will come to a totally wrong conclusion. We did not give him a list of
horrors in order that he might get up and say dogmatically, “Oh, it’s
clear the Japanese don’t want us, and we ought never to have gone there;
and the best thing we can do now is to take ourselves off.” We have only
recited these horrors to lure the superficial politician into the
perusal of a work, the dry parts of which are the most important. He
will learn in it under what circumstances we went to Japan in the first
instance—how it happened that a treaty was as much forced upon us by
circumstances as upon the Japanese—how we never compelled them to make
one, as is generally supposed. He will also find how popular the
foreigner is among the lower and middle classes of the Japanese, how
great is the aptitude of the mass of the population for trade, how
readily they enter into commercial pursuits, and how quickly they adopt
the appliances and inventions of a more advanced and enlightened
civilisation than their own—how anxious they are to improve both their
intellectual and material condition. Then, if he looks at the chapter on
trade, with the statistics it contains, he will observe how steady is
its development, in spite of the obstructive policy of the Government,
and how much room there still is for expansion, what vast resources
still undeveloped the country possesses, what room for progress in every
branch of art and industry. He will find nowhere that the Government
deny our right to be in Japan, or even profess anything but the most
anxious desire to see the Treaty carried out in all its fulness,
whatever they may secretly feel on the subject. They constantly allude
to the difficulties they have to contend with from that one dangerous
class who are opposed to the foreigner, and who, though not numerous,
are so powerful as to be dangerous opponents. Every restriction placed
on trade by the Government, it is professed, arises only from a desire
to gain time for the conciliation of this class; and we have so far
given the ministers of the Tycoon credit for good faith, that we have
consented to postpone the opening of some of the ports as stipulated by
treaty. Inasmuch, then, as the Japanese Government voluntarily entered
into treaty-relations with this country; inasmuch as they profess
themselves anxious to see it carried out, and conscious of the benefit
it is likely to confer upon the empire; inasmuch as the great mass of
the population is decidedly in favour of an extended commercial
intercourse with foreigners; inasmuch as the present value of the annual
trade with Japan is upwards of a million sterling, and certain to
increase; inasmuch as a wealthy British community, consisting of upwards
of three hundred persons, have already established themselves in the
country, and possess a great deal of valuable property, in the shape of
buildings, warehouses, and all the appliances of trade, besides having
large sums of money at stake, which they have invested on the faith of a
Treaty signed by their own sovereign, and the abandonment of which would
be a breach of faith, and entitle them to compensation; inasmuch,
moreover, as the whole of our commercial interests in China would be
imperilled by a blow so fatal to our prestige throughout the East as
withdrawal from Japan;—for all these reasons, we say, the conclusion so
rapidly arrived at by our “dear reader” may be, after all, erroneous;
and there may be serious objections to the course he would propose, even
granting that theoretically he is right in his premises, and that it
would have been better had we never found ourselves driven by the
Americans into making a Japanese treaty. It is possible, nay probable,
however, that we have failed to convince him, and that, gifted with a
prophetic eye, he replies to us—“Very well, you will see you will have a
row.” We confess that in this instance he is right. We do not see how
that is to be avoided. We think it will turn out a good investment of
money, and not be immoral, but we admit the fact.
Indeed, the Japanese themselves seem preparing for it, as the following
anecdote, narrated by Sir Rutherford, will show:—
“When I paid a visit to Hakodadi some months after my arrival, where
there are extensive lead-mines, I asked the Governor why his
Government did not allow some of the produce to be exported,
suggesting that it might be a source of national wealth and revenue;
and the reply was characteristic in many ways. ‘We have none to
spare.’ ‘None to spare!’ I rejoined, in surprise; ‘what can you use it
for? You neither employ it in building nor utensils.’ ‘We want it all
for _ball-practice_.’ They did not choose to export, for reasons not
very easily explained; but they were not sorry, perhaps, to point to
such a use for _home consumption_.”
We cannot flatter ourselves that the feudal class will submit tamely to
the inconveniences which the extension of commercial relations with
foreign countries may entail upon them. The monopolies they now enjoy
are threatened, their power and influence will be diminished in
proportion as the mass of the population is enriched, and their prestige
damaged by the independent bearing of the foreigner. Are the interests
of the country at large to be sacrificed to the prejudices of this
class, and are a people desirous of trade, and anxious to advance in the
arts of civilisation, to be abandoned because an aristocracy shrinks
from contact with the stranger? So long as the Government, whether
sincerely or not, profess their intention of carrying out the Treaty,
and ostensibly manifest a desire for our presence in the country, the
hostility of a single class can be no sufficient reason for the
relinquishment of our treaty-rights. The question is how best to meet a
hostility which places the lives of our countrymen in danger, and
against which, as it threatens the members of the Japanese Government as
well as ourselves, they cannot guarantee us. Hitherto one great
difficulty in chalking out a policy has been our ignorance of the
complex machinery of Japanese government. We have never had an accurate
idea of the relations in which the Temporal and Spiritual Emperors, the
daimios, and the great Councils of State stand towards each other. The
work before us throws more light on this most interesting point than we
have yet received, but still we are groping for a policy. The excessive
reticence of the Japanese in all matters connected with their system of
internal administration, and the secrecy they so religiously observe in
all their communications with foreigners, combined with their habitual
mendacity, make it impossible for us to do more than guess at the best
way of meeting the difficulties as they arise. The longer the
diplomatist resides in the country, and the more he studies its
institutions and the character of the people with whom he has to deal,
the more is he puzzled in deciding upon the best course to adopt. The
only persons who feel no difficulty on this score are the merchants’
clerks who have just arrived, and who love to propound their views in
the local newspapers. There are those even in this country who profess
to understand how to deal with “Orientals,” and because, perhaps, they
may have been at Bombay, consider themselves qualified to lay down the
law upon any question of policy which may arise between Cairo and the
Sandwich Islands; but it is only the superficial observer who classes
all Orientals in the same category; they require as many different modes
of treatment as “Westerns,” and there is no more resemblance between a
Japanese and a Tamul than there is between a Wallachian and a
New-Englander. There is a great danger of such persons applying some
general principle, which is right in the main, to all cases, and failing
to discover when the rule demands an exception. For instance, it is
pretty generally admitted that any concession to an Oriental government
is considered as a sign of weakness; therefore, although you may have
burnt down the Summer Palace of the Emperor of China, and had Pekin at
the mercy of your armies, bully the Government of that country into
conceding our exorbitant demands, or they will think you weak. Such is
the logic of a recent memorial signed by the mercantile community of
China. Again, in Japan, when the Tycoon signed a treaty with this
country, his ministers, foreseeing the difficulties with which they
would have to contend from the opposition of the aristocracy, stipulated
that the ports should be opened by degrees, and the commencement of
trade thus assumed the form of a political experiment. We have given a
list of the bloody results: the Japanese Government points to it, and
prays that a postponement for five years may be allowed in the opening
of the other ports, to avoid the multiplication of tragedies by the
number of ports. The sum appears a simple one: if you have twelve
murders a year with three ports open, how many will you have with six?
The mercantile community demand that the other three be opened according
to Treaty; any concession will be considered a sign of weakness. They
may be right in this instance; and as our diplomatic relations with
Japan are certain not to run smoothly, it will be always open to them to
say there would have been no difficulty had we refused the concession.
However that may be, our Government have given the Japanese credit for a
certain amount of good faith in the efforts they have made for our
protection, and are willing to try the effect of time in softening the
asperities of the hostile class.
The most remarkable result which has yet been produced by the
introduction of the foreigner into Japan has been the abandonment of
Yedo by the aristocracy. It is impossible as yet to foresee the
consequences of this movement. The immediate effect of the exodus of
more than 200,000 armed men will be to render the capital a safer place
of residence for foreigners than it has been heretofore, although it is
probable that disbanded retainers, or “lonins” as they are called, may
still haunt the purlieus of the Legation with the view of carrying out
the policy of their lords in exterminating the foreigner. The Japanese
Government has built a fortified Legation on a very defensible position:
this will be surrounded by a moat and wall, and garrisoned by a small
body of European soldiers. Except when the members of the Mission ride
out, they will be comparatively safe, and even then they will be in no
danger of meeting those processions which were constantly parading the
streets when the city was inhabited by the feudal class, and each of
which was composed of hundreds of armed retainers bitterly hostile to
the foreigner. The ultimate consequences of this movement it is
impossible to foresee. It may be that the daimios have determined to
withdraw from any active opposition, and have retired to sulk in their
own territories; or they may have left Yedo for the purpose of
organising themselves, with the view of bringing about a civil war, and
expelling the foreigner by force of arms. The movement may have
originated among themselves, and been carried out in defiance of the
Government; or it may have been suggested by the Government as a means
of relieving them from the danger and annoyance of further collisions
with the foreigner. The residence of the daimios at Yedo was made
compulsory upon them by the celebrated Taiko Sama, who, after he had
reduced the rebellious aristocracy to submission, devised this method of
keeping them under surveillance. Every noble was compelled to keep an
establishment at the capital, partly as a recognition of the Tycoon as
his feudal superior, partly because those members of his family who were
obliged to reside there served as hostages for the good behaviour of the
prince. It may easily be imagined that this bondage was irksome to so
proud a class, and the present Government may have released them from
it, on condition of their withdrawing their opposition to the fulfilment
of the treaties with foreign powers. It will be seen from the notice we
have already quoted, and which was signed by four lonins, that an old
law exists, which has never been repealed, prohibiting the residence of
the foreigner in Japan; this forms the groundwork of the opposition
policy, and it is believed that the Spiritual Emperor has expressed his
dissent from the act of its infringement by the Tycoon.
Practically, then, it would seem that political parties in the empire
are divided into two classes—one consisting of the Mikado and a large
section of the aristocracy, who do not consider themselves bound by
treaty-stipulations with foreigners; the other, consisting of the Tycoon
and his government, who do; and this latter party, we may conclude, has
the sympathy and support of the mass of the population. As, however, the
Temporal Government has proved itself too weak to cope with the
opposition headed by the Mikado, the question is, how we can best
guarantee the safety of our countrymen, and extort that redress which
the Government is powerless to enforce in cases of violent outrage.
Diplomacy is powerless, for it cannot reach the offenders; and we are
thus driven into hostile action. Either we must insist upon the Mikado
ratifying the Treaty, and be prepared to employ force in case of his
refusing to do so; or we must take summary vengeance upon any individual
daimio who offends. The objection to the first course is, that an
application to the Mikado for a ratification of the Treaty would imply
that it had not been made with the right person in the first instance,
and therefore was not valid. We should thus place ourselves in a false
position, for which there is no necessity, as the Tycoon’s Government
maintain the validity of the Treaty, and deny that any ratification on
the part of the Mikado is requisite. On the other hand, there can be no
doubt that the recognition of the Treaty by the Mikado would at once put
an end to the opposition of the nobles. In the event, moreover, of the
Mikado declining to ratify, we should be compelled to use force. And
although, as Miako, the residence of the Spiritual Court, is not above
thirty miles from the sea, and may be approached for part of the way by
a river navigable for gunboats, we could no doubt succeed in any
operations we might undertake, we might possibly excite a feeling of
hostility towards us, which would not be confined to the feudal class.
The chief objection to the second course—that of proceeding against the
daimios separately—would be that, if it did not lead to a civil war, the
effect of any such retaliation would be a partial and temporary measure.
The first course we have suggested is not alluded to by Sir Rutherford,
and as the exodus of the daimios had not taken place at the time of the
publication of his work, we have not the advantage of knowing our
author’s views upon the probable bearing of this important event upon
the politics of Japan. After discussing the difficulties attending a
policy of conciliation pushed beyond certain limits, and the objections
to the alternative of withdrawal, our author goes on to say:—
“The conclusion would seem to be, that if there was to be any
amelioration, foreign powers must change their tactics; and if these
involved a struggle, and the nation were passive, the feudal classes
alone being actively engaged in such a contest (and this is what might
always be expected from all that is known of the country, always
assuming that no revolutionary element came into play), the struggle
could hardly be a long one. For, some of the most hostile princes
struck down, the rest would probably see the necessity of coming to
terms, and suing for peace with a better estimate of our power to make
our treaty-rights respected, and compel observance, than has yet
entered into the conception of Japanese rulers. So, possibly, we might
purchase peace, and trade with freedom from all obstructive
limitations, as well as with security to life and property. But by no
other means that suggest themselves, after long and patient study of
the people and their rulers, does this end seem attainable—if once we
break with the daimios, and the Government which masks them—to enter
upon a course of coercion.”
Such being our author’s views, it is possible that the measures here
indicated may be those ultimately adopted; but where the question is
surrounded by so many difficulties, any policy must be more or less
hazardous. It will be always easy to wait for the result, and then find
fault with it; but we think that the considerations we have advanced are
sufficiently complicated to disarm hostile criticism, and that we have
no right to test the experiments which our political agents are forced
to make in Japan by the traditions of diplomacy in other parts of the
world.
If we have entered at some length into the political questions suggested
by Sir Rutherford Alcock’s book, it is because we deem it important that
people should not neglect this opportunity of making themselves
acquainted with the state of our relations with Japan. We refrain, in
mercy to our readers, from entering upon the great currency question,
which has hitherto proved the chief stumbling-block to the successful
working of the Treaty, and which involves an interesting financial
problem. We will not follow our author into his dissertations upon
consular jurisdiction in the East, though, were the subject more
popular, there is much to be said upon it. There is room for an essay on
the merits of the Japanese civilisation, and Sir Rutherford touches
thoughtfully upon topics which would afford interesting matter of
philosophical speculation to a metaphysical mind. It is in this sense,
perhaps, that his book is so much more suggestive than any of its
predecessors. Our author has lived long enough in Japan to study the
anomalies presented by its social and political institutions; and
although his knowledge of them is necessarily limited and imperfect, we
are forced to admit that Western civilisation alone does not suffice to
enable us to construct a system of political economy, or justify
conclusions based upon the limited experience of European nations. A
Chinese sinologue, with a German turn of mind, wrote a book on China and
its rebellions a few years ago, in which he incorporated an Essay on
Civilisation. We did not agree in the views it embodied, but we thought
it appropriate to the subject of his work. Our author, during the pauses
which intervened between earthquakes, fires, and assassinations,
pondered over kindred matters, and discusses with us whether, as regards
civilisation, “nations and individuals attain the highest state which
their fundamental convictions will allow.” If there is a part of the
world in which an exile would require all his philosophy, it is Japan;
and Sir Rutherford probably amused himself by working out as a corollary
to the above proposition, “whether the assassination of the British
Minister might fairly be classed among ‘their fundamental convictions.’”
Our author dwells at some length upon the varied nature of the obstacles
he has had to encounter in the course of his diplomacy. The violence and
hostility of the feudal class is by no means the greatest. The tactics
which the Japanese employ in carrying their point consists chiefly in
mendacity and evasion. Nor do they deny that they are habitually
untruthful. Our author illustrates this by the following anecdote:—
“Upon one occasion, an official having been found in direct
contradiction with himself, was asked, somewhat abruptly, perhaps, how
he could reconcile it to his conscience to utter such palpable
untruths? With perfect calmness and self-possession he replied, ‘I
told you last month that such and such a thing had been done, and now
I tell you that the thing has not been done at all. I am an officer
whose business it is to carry out the instructions I receive, and to
say what I am told to say. What have I to do with truth or
falsehood?’”
Again, it is sufficient that a proposition should emanate from the
foreigner for it to excite objection. In spite of professions to the
contrary, the Japanese raise difficulties on principle, even when they
have no intention of ultimately refusing a demand. They are scrupulously
courteous, quick, and subtle, but often childish in argument. Some
notion of the trivial nature of their excuses may be formed from the
reply to Colonel Neale’s despatch to the Japanese Minister narrating the
attempt upon his life, and demanding the punishment, not only of the
assassins, but of the daimio whose retainers they were, and who was
specially charged with the defence of the Legation. This daimio must
have been a party to the attack. It is thus that the Government
endeavours to screen him, denying, at the same time, that there was more
than one culprit:—
“In the mean time the officer, Ito Goombio, a retainer of Matsdairn
Tamban-no-Kami, one of the princes intrusted with the protection of
the Legation, committed suicide, consequently his corpse was examined;
then one wound caused by the ball of a gun, and two sword-wounds with
which he committed suicide, were discovered. Taking these facts into
consideration, it is probable that the same officer managed to get in
by stealth, and was the assailant. Therefore we have decided that,
although the said officer has committed suicide, he cannot escape the
customary punishment of this country; and furthermore, that the
officers (retainers) who were placed there for protection should be
punished, after having been duly examined, for having been wanting in
their duty. As the said prince, the master of the criminal officer
(retainer), was ordered by his Majesty the Tycoon to protect the
foreign nations, he did not neglect to proclaim the order to his
subordinate officers (retainers); but the design which the criminal
officer (retainer), of his own free-will, and without fearing death,
intended to carry out, was most likely owing to a temporary
derangement of his mind, brought on by the present state of affairs
being unchangeable, and being deceived by false reports, spread about
by wanderers, &c. He therefore, very simply, hated foreign nations,
and forgot the orders he had received from the Government and his own
master. Your Government will naturally suppose, from all the facts of
the case, that this proceeds from disaffection of our Government to
your friendship, which causes us great shame and sorrow. His Majesty
the Tycoon also regrets the attack on account of her Majesty the Queen
of Great Britain. Therefore his Majesty has ordered us to write a
letter to your Excellency, in order to explain all the circumstances
of the case, and to beg pardon for all the unsuitable occurrences
which have taken place until now, and to testify our friendly
feeling.”
How is it possible to deal with a Government who, when called to account
for a series of massacres, apologise in this charmingly naïve way for
what they call “unsuitable occurrences?” How did they propose to punish
the man who had already committed suicide? And is “simple hatred” likely
to produce mental derangement? The Government was evidently not
responsible. The daimio was in no way to blame. The assassin was
temporarily insane, and, though dead, would be punished. It is true, two
English marines were hacked to pieces, with twenty-five wounds; but the
real culprits were the “wanderers,” who spread a report. That is a
specimen of Japanese logic.
In ordinary criminal offences, however, the Japanese are prompt to
inflict summary punishment. Here is an original sentence, forwarded to
the British Consul in an official letter:—
“To F. HOWARD VYSE, Esq.
KIHI,
_Vagabond in the village of Torocmigawa_,
You have, while in the service of the English merchant Telge, stolen
300 rio in his absence, which were kept in an unlocked box. As this is
a great offence, you are sentenced to be beheaded.”
The execution-ground was close to the gate of the Legation at Yedo, and
gory heads, fresh chopped off and stuck in clay, occasionally glared
with glassy eyes upon the passer-by. Not far from Kanagawa was a
burning-ground, not unlike a threshing-floor; and English travellers,
with a taste for the horrible, used to make it an object for a ride, to
inspect the human ashes which were strewn there.
But we have looked enough “on this picture” of Japan—it is time to look
“on that.” Those travellers who first saw it in its gala-dress painted
it as they found it, and in some respects have their glowing
descriptions fallen short of the reality. They never heard of “lonins,”
or experienced any “unsuitable occurrences.” They saw a population nude,
peaceable, and contented, a landscape of fairy-like beauty, a sky
unrivalled even in Italy; and they left before they had recovered from
the charming surprise, or had time to appreciate the real value of
attractions so novel and unlooked-for. And yet our author, after a
residence of three years, writes:—
“But for this class of military retainers and Tycoon officials, high
and low, both of which swarm in Yedo, it seems it might be one of the
pleasantest places in the Far East. The climate is superior to that of
any other country east of the Cape. The capital itself, though
spreading over a circuit of some twenty miles, with probably a couple
of million of inhabitants, can boast what no capital in Europe can—the
most charming rides, beginning even in its centre, and extending in
every direction over wooded hills, through smiling valleys and shady
lanes, fringed with evergreens and magnificent timber. Even in the
city, especially along the ramparts of the official quarter, and in
many roads and avenues leading thence to the country, broad green
slopes and temple gardens or well-timbered parks gladden the eye as it
is nowhere else gladdened within the circle of a city. No sooner is a
suburb gained in any direction, than hedgerows appear which only
England can rival either for beauty or neatness, while over all an
Eastern sun through the greater part of the year throws a flood of
light from an unclouded sky, making the deep shadow of the overarching
trees doubly grateful, with its ever-varying pictures of tracery, both
above and below. Such is Yedo and its environs in the long
summer-time, and far into a late autumn.”
Our author’s enthusiasm is not confined to inanimate nature in Japan. He
too, in spite of the disaffection of a particular class, has an evident
weakness for the country people, and gives us many pleasing traits of
national character:—
“Reflections,” he says, “on the government and civilisation of the
Japanese press upon the European every step he takes in this land, so
singularly blessed in soil and climate, so happy in the contented
character and simple habits of its people, yet so strangely governed
by unwritten laws and irresponsible rulers.”
Again—
“Much has been heard of the despotic sway of these feudal lords, and
the oppression under which all the labouring classes toil and groan;
but it is impossible to traverse these well-cultivated valleys, and
mark the happy, contented, and well-to-do populations which have their
home amid so much plenty, and believe we see a land entirely
tyrant-ridden and impoverished by exactions. On the contrary, the
impression is irresistibly borne in upon the mind that Europe cannot
show a happier or better-fed peasantry, or a climate and soil so
genial and bountiful in their gifts.”
We must agree with our author, that institutions, however anomalous they
may appear to us, must have some merit which can so satisfactorily
secure “the material prosperity of a population estimated at thirty
millions, which has made an Eden of this volcanic soil, and has grown in
numbers and wealth by unaided native industry, shut out from all
intercourse with the rest of the world.” So that Sir Rutherford, after
all, gives quite as favourable a picture of Japan as any of the “hasty
visitors,” the accuracy of whose first impressions he thus impugns:—
“Those writers,” he exclaims, “who, on the strength of a superficial
observation, or a flying visit to Nagasaki, have led the credulous
public in Europe and America to believe that the triumph of European
civilisation in Japan is already secure, and that the Japanese
Government is promoting it, must have been strangely deluded! As to
progress and advance in the path of civilisation, the papers laid
before Parliament at this period, in which I passed in review the
progress made in the previous six months—the first after the opening
of the ports under treaties in July last—must have given a very
different impression.”
But this is a gloomy view of affairs not usual with our author; for a
few pages later, remarking on the effect which foreign trade is likely
to produce, he observes:—
“How soon such changes may come it is impossible to say, seeing what
marvellous progress has marked the last seven years. Notwithstanding
their long and resolutely-maintained isolation and exclusivism,
carried even into their political economy, and cherished in the
national mind as their ark of safety and the shibboleth of their
independence, the day has arrived when a British Minister can take up
his residence in the capital, and is received by the Tycoon, not as
were the chiefs of the Dutch factory at Decima—long the only
representatives of Europe—in days now long passed, and never, it is to
be hoped, to return.”
In another place—
“They are a well-to-do, flourishing, and advancing people, and for
generations and centuries have maintained a respectable level of
intellectual cultivation and social virtues.”
Sir Rutherford, in his desponding mood, cites, as an instance of the
obstructive and unprogressive policy of the Government, that they
refused to accept an offer made by Europeans to run monthly a steamer
for them between their own ports; but he writes more sanguinely when he
gives us an account of a visit he paid to the Government steam-factory
at Nagasaki:—
“I could not but admire the progress made under every possible
difficulty, by the Japanese and Dutch combined, in their endeavours to
create in this remote corner of the earth all the complicated means
and appliances for the repair and manufacture ultimately of steam
machinery.”
There he found them making moderator lamps, and farther on there was a
forge-factory in complete working order, with a Nasmyth’s hammer.
“And here we saw one of the most extraordinary and crowning
testimonies of Japanese enterprise and ingenuity, which leaves all the
Chinese have ever attempted far behind. I allude to a steam-engine
with tubular boilers, made by themselves before a steam vessel or
engine had ever been seen by Japanese—made solely, therefore, from the
plans in a Dutch work.”
After this we do not think that the idea which our author ridicules, of
the possibility of railways and steam communication in Japan, is so very
absurd; considering all that he has undergone, it is not to be wondered
at that he should occasionally take a gloomy view of the people and the
country. Generally he is sanguine and complimentary, and nobody has had
better opportunities of judging. He has visited the northern island,
ascended Fusama, spent some weeks at a Japanese watering-place, where he
found “peace, plenty, apparent content, and a country more perfectly and
carefully cultivated, and kept with more ornamental timber everywhere,
than can be matched even in England.” He made an overland journey from
Nagasaki to Yedo, which lasted thirty-three days, and the incidents of
which form one of the most interesting features of the book. There is an
admirable description of a Japanese play, which, judged by the light of
the future, seemed to be a rehearsal of the tragedy about to be
perpetrated a fortnight later on Sir Rutherford himself. Occasionally
the party traversed the territory of a hostile daimio; on these
occasions the inhabitants shut themselves up. Thus, at Nieno, a daimio’s
capital—
“As we advanced through the streets we found every house and every
side-street hermetically closed, not a whisper was to be heard, nor
the face of a living being to be seen. The side streets were all
barricaded and shut out of view by curtains spread on high poles. His
own house, which we passed, was similarly masked by curtains. Even in
the adjoining villages no women or children were to be seen.”
These daimios are always followed by large bodies of armed retainers in
their journeys through the country, and, as the last murder of our
countryman proves, are not to be met without danger. On one occasion,
says our author,
“Mr De Wit and I were riding abreast, and without any escort, having
left them far behind, when, seeing rather a large cortege filling up
the road as we turned an angle, we drew to one side of the road in
single file. No sooner did the leading officer observe the movement
than he instantly began to swagger, and motioned all the train to
spread themselves over the whole road; so that all we gained by our
consideration and courtesy was to run the risk of being pushed into
the ditch by an insolent subordinate.”
Runners always precede these trains, calling upon the people to
prostrate themselves; and the nobles are so accustomed to this act of
homage that a European refusing to perform it incurs a great risk. Our
author enters into great detail in the account he gives us of the habits
and mode of life of the common people, for they alone come under the
observation of the stranger; and we may regard the work before us as the
most exhaustive description of the country and the people which we could
expect from the pen of a foreigner. It is, moreover, admirably
illustrated, and the reader cannot fail to rise from its perusal more
thoroughly enlightened in all that concerns the singular people of whom
it treats, than he could hope to be by all the previous works which have
appeared on the same subject from the days of the Jesuit fathers. We had
marked many passages illustrative of the everyday life of the Japanese,
and some graphic descriptions of those scenes which are most
characteristic and remarkable; but we have dwelt so long on the
political considerations which have been suggested to us by the remarks
of the author, that we can only commend his social sketches to the
notice of the reader. The account of Sir Rutherford’s audience with the
Tycoon is highly entertaining, and the effect of the actual ceremony
must have been ridiculous in the extreme. The attitude of a Japanese in
the presence of a superior almost amounts to prostration. In one room
were “more than a hundred officers in grand official costume, all
kneeling, five and six deep, in rows, perfectly mute, and immovable as
statues, their heads just raised from the floor.” This attitude, when
adopted by a crowd, is rather striking, perhaps, than ludicrous; but
when the crowd begin to walk, the effect must be eminently absurd:—
“The most singular part of the whole costume, and that which, added to
the head-gear, gave an irresistibly comic air to the whole
presentment, was the immeasurable prolongation of the silk trousers.
These, instead of stopping short at the heels, are unconscionably
lengthened, and left to trail two or three feet behind them, so that
their feet, as they advanced, seemed pushed into what should have been
the knees of their garments; besides this, they often shuffle on their
hands and knees.”
The performances of the jugglers, wrestlers, and top-spinners in Japan
have already been constantly alluded to, but our author’s experiences
surpass those of former spectators:—
“One of the most delicate of the performances consisted in making a
top spin on the left hand, run up round the edge of the robe at the
back of the neck, and down the other arm into the palm of the right
hand, still spinning. Another, again, was to toss a spinning-top into
the air and catch it on the hem of the sleeve without letting it fall.
A third was to fling it high in the air and catch it on the bowl or
the angle of a Japanese pipe, pass it behind the back, flinging it to
the front, and then catch it again.”
Certainly an importation of Japanese top-spinners would make the fortune
of any Barnum who could induce them to leave their country with the
certainty of their being obliged to rip themselves up on their return.
Let us hope that the discontinuance of this last trick may be one of the
first-fruits of the introduction of Western civilisation into Japan.
MRS CLIFFORD’S MARRIAGE.
PART II.
CHAPTER VI.—THE RESULT.
When the newly married people returned home, after an absence of about
two months, the new rule soon but gradually made itself felt at
Fontanel. Though Mr Summerhayes had for a long time been the inspiring
influence there, there was still all the difference between his will as
interpreted by Mrs Clifford and his will as accomplished by himself. Of
the two, it must be allowed that the retainers of the family preferred
the cordial, kind, inconsistent sway of poor Mary to the firm and steady
government of her new husband; and then everybody had acknowledged her
right to rule, which came by nature, while every soul secretly rebelled
against his, which was a kind of contradiction to nature. Mr
Summerhayes’s path was not strewn with roses when he came back to
Fontanel; then, for the first time, he had the worst of it. After she
was fairly married, and everything concluded beyond the possibility of
change, Mary, like a true woman, had found it quite possible to forget
all her previous doubts and difficulties, and to conclude, with that
simple philosophy which carries women of her class through so many
troubles, that now everything must come right. It was no embarrassing
new affection now, but acknowledged duty, that bound her to her husband,
and she would not contemplate the possibility of this duty clashing with
her former duties. So she came home, having fully regained the composure
of her mind, very happy to see her children again, and utterly
forgetting that they had not yet become accustomed, as she had, to look
upon “Cousin Tom” as the head of the house. But it was now that
gentleman’s turn to suffer the pains and penalties of the new position
which he had taken upon himself. He was fully conscious of all the
troubled sidelong glances out of Loo’s brown eyes; and when Charley
burst into the house in schoolboy exuberance at Easter, for his few days
of holiday, Mr Summerhayes noted the gulp in the throat of the Etonian,
when he found it necessary to ask the new master of the house about
something hitherto settled between himself and the old groom, with
perhaps a reference to the indulgent mother, who could never bear to
deprive her boy of any pleasure. Mr Summerhayes let Charley have his
will with the best grace in the world, but still saw and remarked that
knot of discontent in the boy’s throat—that apple of Adam, which Charley
swallowed, consciously, yet, as he himself thought, unobserved by any
man. The younger children were perhaps still more difficult to deal
with; for it was hard to teach them that Mr Summerhayes was no longer
Cousin Tom, to be romped with, but that it was necessary to be quiet and
good, and not to disturb the meditations of the head of the house. True,
it fell to Mary’s lot to impress this fact upon the rebellious
consciousness of Harry and little Alf; but Mr Summerhayes, who at that
particular period of his life was all eyes and ears, and missed nothing,
did not fail to have the benefit. Then some of the servants were
petulant—some were insolent, presuming on their old favour with their
mistress—some resigned altogether when they knew “how things was agoing
to be;” the most part sneaked and gave in, with secret reflections,
every one of which was guessed and aggravated by the new master. It is
easy to see that his position had its difficulties and disagreeables;
but, to do Mr Summerhayes justice, he behaved with great temper and
forbearance in this troublesome crisis. He made it apparent to everybody
that he was not to be trifled with; but, at the same time, pretended not
to see the little petulancies which were in reality so distinctly
apparent to him, and which galled him so much. He swallowed many a
mortification just then more bitter and stinging than Charley’s
soon-forgotten gulp of boyish pride; and steadily and gradually, without
any one knowing much about it, the new master of Fontanel won the day.
He was a man whose previous life had, to a considerable extent, belied
his real character. He had lived idly and without any apparent ambition
during these forty years, contenting himself apparently, for the last
ten, with his dreary old manor-house and spare income. But this was not
because he was of a light and easy temper, or satisfied with his lot. He
was active enough in reality, now that he had affairs in his hands of
sufficient magnitude to occupy him—and thoughtful enough to keep his
purposes locked in his own heart, from which they came forth in act and
deed, only when full fledged and ready for the gaze of the world. The
house of Fontanel gradually recognised the hand of the master. Without
any visible coercion upon Mary, the open, liberal, hospitable house came
by imperceptible degrees under that stern regime which had made life
possible at the manor-house upon the much diminished means of the
Summerhayes’. The process was like nothing so much as the change of a
ship’s course in a stormy sea. The vessel wavered, reeled for a moment
as the helm went round in the new direction, but next minute had righted
herself, and was ploughing steadily on in her new course, leaving the
ignorant passengers below in total unconsciousness of anything that had
happened, except that momentary stagger and uncertainty which it was so
easy to account for. Mary was not cut down, either in her hospitalities
or charities—or at least, if she was, did not know it; but before a year
had elapsed, the expenditure in Fontanel house was smaller, and the
expenditure on Fontanel estate greater than it had ever been in the
memory of man. Mr Summerhayes was an enterprising and enlightened
landlord. He took up the Home Farm with such energy that every
tenant-farmer within twenty miles learned, or ought to have learned, the
salutary lesson; and he gave loans and bonuses upon improvement, such as
suggested to the unimproving sundry sarcasms as to the facility with
which men parted with other people’s money. If it had been his own,
instead of belonging to his wife and her children, it would have made a
difference, people said; but then it was only the unprogressive, whom Mr
Summerhayes decidedly snubbed and disapproved of, who made that
ill-natured remark. To tell the truth, however, when he set out upon
this active career, which was so unlike his former life, Mr Summerhayes
of Fontanel became much less popular in the county than the poor squire
at the manor had been in old days. Perhaps, in the change from poverty
to wealth, he carried things with too high a hand. Perhaps he failed to
recognise his own position as an interloper, and acted the master too
completely to please the popular fancy. At all events, nobody was
satisfied—not even his sisters in the old house, which they had all to
themselves; certainly not the little community in his present home,
which obeyed and feared and suspected him—perhaps not even his wife.
Mary had a woman’s usual experience before she married her second
husband and made this complication of affairs. She knew as a certainty,
what all the younger brides have to learn by hard personal training,
that the husband must be different from the lover; that the habits of
ordinary life will return after a while; and that the wife’s happiness
must be of a different kind, if she is happy at all, from that of the
bride, to whose pleasure, for the moment, everything defers by a tender
fallacy and sophism of nature. But somehow, in its own case, the heart
is always incredulous. To marry him had, after all, cost this soft woman
a great many natural pangs, and it was hard to find so soon all the
affectionate conferences and consultations, by means of which he had at
first won her, ceasing altogether, and to feel that the affairs which
she had managed so long were now in inexorable hands, and ruled by plans
which were only communicated to her when they were ready for execution,
if even then. Then poor Mary, who had always been looked on with
indulgent eyes, began to feel herself under a sterner regard, and to see
that her acts and words were judged solely on their own merits, and not
with any softening glamour of love, making everything beautiful because
it was she. It is impossible to describe how nervous and unsteady this
consciousness made her, and how much more ready she was to make
mistakes, from knowing that her mistakes would not be excused, or looked
upon affectionately as wisdom in disguise. Poor soul! he was very kind
to her at the same time; but his eye was on when she caressed her
children; his quick ear somehow caught the little secrets they whispered
to her in that sacred twilight hour in her dressing-room before dinner,
where Mr Summerhayes had now acquired the habit of coming in to talk
with his wife, and finding the children in the way. When they were all
sent off on such occasions, it was well for Loo that she generally
headed the retreat, before the new master lighted his wife’s candles,
and threw an intrusive glare into the sacred atmosphere. Loo was a
heroine, but she had a temper. But as for poor Mary, to see her
disappointed children trooping away, and to guess with quick instinct
the thoughts that were already rising in their little angry hearts, and
to lose that sweet moment in which her soul was _retrempé_ and made
strong, was very bitter even to her yielding temper and loving heart.
She could have cried but for fear of her husband; and many a time had
bitter drops in her eyes, which had to be crushed back somehow, and
re-absorbed into her breast, when those tell-tale candles flashed their
unwelcome light upon her. Yet, notwithstanding all this, she had no
right nor wish to call herself an unhappy wife. He _was_ very kind to
her—seemed as though he loved her, which makes up to a woman for a great
many things; but still a sense of having overturned the world somehow,
and disturbed the course of nature—of having introduced bewilderment and
confusion she could not tell how, and a false state of affairs—combined,
with a certain ache of disappointment, of wounded pride, and
unappreciated confidence, to make poor Mary’s musings weary and
troubled, and to plant thorns in her pillow.
Thus it happened that nobody was pleased with the change which had taken
place at Fontanel, except, perhaps, Mr Summerhayes himself, who seemed
sufficiently contented with all that he had done and was doing.
Certainly he devoted himself to the improvement of the estate. Such
crops had never been dreamt of in the county as those that began to be
usual upon the well-tilled acres of the Home Farm; and, when leases fell
in, the lumbering old tenants had no chance against the thriving
agriculturists whom the King-Consort brought in over their heads at
advancing rents, to the benefit of the rent-roll and the country, though
not without some individual misery at the same time to lessen the
advantage. Some old people emigrated, and got their death by it; some
hopeful farmer-families dispersed and were broken up, and found but a
checkered fortune awaiting them in the cold world, outside of those
familiar fields which they had believed themselves born to cultivate,
and almost thought their own; and Mrs Summerhayes had red eyes after
these occurrences, and took to headaches, which were most unusual to
her; but it was unquestionably the most enlightened policy—it was very
good for the land and the country and things in general; and, in
particular, there could not be any doubt it was good for the rent-roll
of Fontanel.
CHAPTER VII.—THE NEXT EVENT IN THE FAMILY.
“I wonder whether Charley Clifford’s coming of age will be kept as it
ought to be,” said Miss Amelia Harwood, meditatively. It was more than
five years since the marriage, but there was still going to be a bazaar
at Summerhayes; and still a large basket stood on the drawing-room table
at Woodbine Cottage, full of embroidered cushions, babies’ socks,
children’s pinafores, and needle-books and pen-wipers without number,
upon which Miss Amelia was stitching little tickets which told the
price. “To give him all his honours will be ticklish work for Tom
Summerhayes, and to withhold them won’t answer with a boy of spirit like
Charley. I am fond of that boy. He behaves very well to his mother;
though really, when a woman makes a fool of herself, I don’t wonder if
her children get disgusted. I should like to know what she thinks of her
exploit now. I always foresaw she would see her folly as the children
grew up.”
“Oh, hush, Amelia,” said her elder sister; “don’t be hard upon poor dear
Mary now. I was surprised at the time—but of course she must have been
in love with him; and it was hard, you know, to be left all alone at her
time of life. She is quite a young woman now.”
“She is——” said Miss Amelia, pausing, with inexorable memory and a host
of dates at her finger-ends, “either forty-two or forty-three. I don’t
quite recollect whether she was born in ‘14 or in ‘15. Now that I think,
it was ‘14, for it was before the Waterloo year, which we had all such
good cause to remember; and as for being left all alone, she had her
children, and I always said she ought to have had the sense to know when
she was well off. However, that is not the question. I want to know
whether they will make any ado over Charley’s coming of age.”
“Poor boy!—it is sad for him having no father to advise him at such an
important time of his life,” said gentle Miss Harwood, with a sigh.
“Oh, stuff!” said Miss Amelia. “Harry Clifford, poor fellow, never was
wise enough to direct himself, and how could he have guided his son? I
daresay Tom Summerhayes would be a better adviser, if you come to that.
But I am sorry for Charley all the same: he’s the heir, and yet somehow
he doesn’t seem the heir. His mother, after all, _is_ still a young
woman, as you say, and Tom Summerhayes seems to have got everything so
secure in his hands that one can’t help feeling something is sure to
happen to make the estate his in the end. It can’t be, I suppose; they
said the deeds were irrevocable, and that Mary couldn’t alter them if
she wished, which I don’t suppose she does;—she loves her children, I
must say that for her. Still one never feels sure with a man like Tom
Summerhayes; and poor Charley has no more to do with his own affairs
than if he were a little ploughboy on Mr Summerhayes’s estate.”
“Hush, my dear,” said Miss Harwood, who was in her summer chair, which
commanded, through the openings of the green blind, a view of the
village green and the road before the door,—“here are Louisa and Lydia
coming to call—and out of breath, too; so they must have some news or
something particular to say.”
“About Charley’s coming of age, of course,” said Miss Amelia. “I daresay
Mary and Tom have had a fight over it, and he’s judged it as well for
once to let Mary have her way. He always had a great deal of sense, had
Tom Summerhayes.”
“Oh, I declare, to see how far the Miss Harwoods are on with their
things!” cried Miss Louisa Summerhayes, almost before she had entered
the room; “but you are always in such good time, Miss Amelia. As for us,
we have such a great deal to think about just now, it drives the bazaar
out of our heads; almost as bad as if we had a family ourselves,” said
Miss Lydia, with a breathless outburst. “I daresay you have heard the
news—you who always hear everything from Fontanel.”
“About Charley’s birthday?” said Miss Amelia.
“Well, upon my word, you are a witch of Endor, or something,” said Miss
Lydia, whose turn it was to begin the duet; “for dear Tom rode down to
tell us only this morning. He is so considerate, dear Tom; and I am sure
there never was such a stepfather,—to think of all he means to do, just
as if Charley was his own son and heir,” cried Miss Louisa, who was
scarcely able to keep in time for want of breath.
“His own son and heir, if he had one, need not to make so much
commotion, my dears,” said Miss Amelia, administering with great
goodwill a friendly snub; “there is a difference, you know, between
Fontanel and the manor-house. I suppose there will be a dinner of the
tenantry, and all that. There couldn’t, you know, much as your family is
respected in the county, be much of that sort of thing at Summerhayes.”
“My dear, you know Amelia always speaks her mind,” said Miss Harwood;
“you don’t mind what she says? I am sure I hope poor Charley will have a
good day for his _fête_, and that everything will go off well. I daresay
they will all feel a little strange on such a day, to think of all the
changes that have happened. I remember, as if it were yesterday, the day
he was born; and oh how happy poor Mary was!”
“I am sure she ought to be a great deal happier now,” said Miss Laura,
with a toss of her head, “if she were sensible enough to see her
advantages. Dear Tom makes himself a slave to her, and spends all his
strength upon the estate; and then never to get any thanks for it. I
declare, to hear how you speak is enough to make one hate the world,”
said Miss Lydia, with the usual joint disregard of punctuation. “But,
Miss Harwood, you always take Mary’s side.”
“I didn’t know we were come so far as to take sides,” said Miss Amelia,
dryly; “Mary never takes her own side, that’s clear. She tries to please
everybody, poor soul; to make her husband happy by letting him suppose
himself the master of Fontanel,—and to make her son happy by making
believe he’s all right and in his natural place; and what’s to come of
it all after Charley comes of age is more than I can tell; for Charley’s
a boy of spirit, though he’s devoted to his mother, and it’s hard never
to have anything to say in one’s own affairs. A woman may submit to it,
perhaps, but a young man is very different,” said Miss Amelia, with
great gravity, breaking off with an emphatic jerk the last end of her
thread.
Both the sisters were in tears before this speech was finished. “I am
sure it is very hard,” sobbed the elder, as soon as she could speak, “to
be in dear Tom’s position, and to have to manage everything, and always
to hear it brought up against him that he has nothing to do with the
estate, and it belongs to his wife. I wonder how he ever puts up with
it,” cried the other, “dear Tom, that is the head of one of the oldest
families in the county—far better blood than the Cliffords, whose
great-grandfather was in trade; and they would all have been ruined but
for dear Tom,” concluded Miss Louisa; “he has given himself up to their
interests—and this is his reward!”
“Hush, now,” said Miss Harwood, “I am sure nothing was said that could
make you cry; and I see poor dear Mary herself in the pony-carriage
driving down by the green. I daresay she will call here. She will be
quite surprised if she sees you have been crying. Shouldn’t you like to
run up-stairs and set your bonnets straight?”
“I daresay she’ll come in looking as bright as possible,” said Miss
Amelia, “and could not understand, if we were to tell her, why we should
quarrel and cry over her affairs. After all, it’s a shame she shouldn’t
be happy, poor soul; she always makes the best of everything. There she
is, kissing her hand to us already. How d’ye do, my dear? And I am sure
I think she’s as pretty now as when she was twenty, whatever the men may
say.”
“Oh dear, that’s just what the men say,” cried Miss Louisa, with
indignation, unable even at this crisis to resist the temptation; “for
she always was a gentleman’s beauty,” added Miss Lydia, half under her
breath. They were not in the least malignant, and both of them secretly
liked Mary in their hearts; but they could not resist the opportunity of
throwing a little javelin at her, which certainly did her no harm.
Mary did not reach the door until her sisters-in-law had put themselves
in order by the help of the mirror in the back drawing-room. All this
time Miss Amelia stood by the window making her comments. “Of course
there is a basket to be taken out of the pony-carriage,” said that
mollified observer, who was nodding and smiling all the time to the new
arrivals, “with a quantity of forced things in it, no doubt; for there’s
nothing else to be had at this time of the year. I think I can see
strawberries through the lid, which, considering it is only March, is
flying in the face of nature, I think. And here is Loo. Well, I am not
sure that poor Loo is not as much forced as the strawberries; she looks
a long way older than her mother, it appears to me. Poor thing! perhaps
it’s not wonderful under the circumstances; and I think Loo would be
pretty if she was free in her mind, or had time for anything but
brooding over affairs. She is, let me see, eighteen at her next
birthday——”
“Hush, Amelia! My dear Mary, it makes me very happy to see you,” said
old Miss Harwood, rising from her comfortable chair, with the slow
motion of an old woman, to meet the kiss of the mistress of Fontanel.
Perhaps it was the contrast of true old age which made Mary, though
convicted of having been born in the year ‘14, appear then, in ‘57, so
blooming and fresh and youthful. She had lived, on the whole, a quiet
life. She had little in her constitution of that rabid selfishness which
people call a sensitive temperament. She bore her troubles meekly, and
got over them; and even the anxieties and uneasiness of recent years had
added but few wrinkles to the fair face of a woman who always believed
that everything would turn out well, and heartily hoped for the best.
She came in, well-dressed, well-conditioned, sweet to look at and to
listen to, in easy matronly fulness and expansion, into the pretty but
strait and limited room where the two old sisters lived their life; and
when she had kissed them, kissed also the two younger maidens, who were,
however, of Mary’s own standing—no younger than herself. They all looked
grey, and relapsed into the shade in presence of her sweet looks and
natural graciousness. Even Loo, who stood behind her mother’s chair—a
tall girl, still with great brown eyes, which counted for twice as much
as their real size in her pale face—looked, as Miss Amelia said, old
beside Mrs Summerhayes. Hers were the bright but softened tints, the
round outlines, the affectionate, tender, unimpassioned heart, which
confers perpetual youth.
“How nice it is to see you looking so well!” said Mary. “I don’t think
you have grown a bit older, dear Miss Harwood, for twenty years. Loo and
I have come down on purpose to ask you to come to Fontanel for Charley’s
birthday. He comes of age, dear fellow, next month, you know; and as it
is a very very great occasion, we thought a three weeks’ invitation was
not too much. You must come to us the day before—the carriage will come
for you—and stay at least till the day after, so that you may not be the
least fatigued. We are going to have all sorts of pleasures and
rejoicing; and I am sure, though I am a foolish old mother to say so,”
said the smiling, blooming woman, in whom light and sunshine seemed to
have entered Miss Harwood’s drawing-room, “that nobody has more reason
to rejoice over a son than I—than we have,—he has always been such a
dear boy; he has never given me any anxiety all his life.”
“Well, he’s only just beginning his life,” said Miss Amelia. “What
anxiety could he give you, except about the measles and so forth? To be
sure he might have been plucked at the university, or rusticated, or
something dreadful; but I allow he’s a good boy, and not too good a boy
either—which is a great comfort. I am glad you are not going to stint
him at his _fête_: an eldest son has a right to that, I suppose; but I
hope you mean to let him have something to do, my dear, after he comes
of age.”
“To do? Oh, I daresay he will ynd quite enough to do, for a few fiears,
amusing himself,” said Mary, perceptibly growing paler for the moment.
“Of course I am calculating upon both of you, Louisa and Liddy,” she
said, turning round with an air of making her escape. “To ask such near
friends formally would be nonsense, you know; but you must not forget
the twenty-fifth; and I hope you will come early, too, and see the
preparations, and the tenants’ dinner, and all that is to go on out of
doors.”
“Oh, we have got an invitation already,” said Miss Laura. “Not that we
would have come unless you had asked us besides, dear Mary,” chimed in
Miss Lydia; “but dear Tom called this morning to tell us it was all
decided upon,” they both ran on together. “Such a comfort to our minds;
for I am sure Liddy and I cannot bear to hear you ever have any
difference of opinion,” cried Miss Laura, as her solo broke upon the
course of the duet. “And dear Tom is always so glad to do what will
please you, dear Mary,” chimed Miss Lydia, as it came to her turn.
Mary turned red and then turned pale in spite of herself. Most people
have some specially sensitive spot about them, and this was Mary’s: she
could not endure to think that her husband consulted his sisters about
things that occurred at Fontanel.
“I was not aware we had any difference of opinion,” she said, with
dignity; “things always have to be discussed, and Mr Summerhayes likes
to consider everything well before he takes it in hand; but, of course,
we can have but one mind about Charlie, who really is the owner of the
estate, or at least will be after the twenty-fifth. He is so popular
already,” continued the mother, returning to the Miss Harwoods. The
tears came to poor Mary’s eyes, notwithstanding all her efforts. She
felt they were all watching her, and that to do justice both to her son
and her husband was all but impossible; and, besides, at that moment she
was under the influence of a little irritation. Mr Summerhayes did not
_consult_ his sisters, for whose judgment he had a much greater contempt
than it had ever entered into the mind of Mary to entertain for any one
in the world; but when he was annoyed or irritated he occasionally took
the benefit of their unreasoning sympathy and partisanship, as he had
done this morning—and there was nothing in all the business which so
galled and exasperated his wife.
“He always was a dear boy,” said kind old Miss Harwood; “and such a
sweet baby as he was, my dear. I remember when he was born as if it were
yesterday. I was just saying so before you came in. I never saw any
people so happy as you, and—hem—it seems foolish, to be sure, talking of
what he was as a baby now he’s a man,” she concluded, hurriedly
stumbling over that unlucky allusion. Mary again grew a little pale,
poor soul. She could not escape from her troubles anyhow—they hemmed her
in on every side.
“And so all those things are for the bazaar,” she said, by way of making
a diversion. “Loo was to have worked you something, Miss Amelia, but
Loo’s fingers are not so useful as they might be. She is a great deal
too fond of dreaming; but I don’t think I was very fond of work myself
when I was her age; and, of course, she has something in hand for
Charley. A birthday would not be a birthday if the girls had not worked
something for their brother; though men are such bears, as I sometimes
tell Loo,” said poor Mary, beaming brightly out again from behind her
cloud, “I don’t think they ever look twice at the purses and slippers we
do for them. I suppose the great pleasure is in the doing, as it is with
most other things.”
“But I am sure you never found it so with dear Tom,” said Miss Laura;
“he was always, from a boy, so pleased with what we made for him. Oh, do
you remember those old braces, Laura?” cried Miss Lydia; “he always
appreciates what is done for him—always,” and both the sisters chimed in
in a breath.
“I was not speaking of Mr Summerhayes,” said Mary, returning into the
cloud; “I was speaking of—men in general. I have never had any perfect
people to deal with in my experience,” said the mistress of Fontanel,
with a sidelong, female blow, which she could not resist giving. “And
now we must say good-bye, dear Miss Harwood; it is so pleasant to see
you, and to come into this sheltered place where nothing ever seems to
change.”
“It is very odd,” said Miss Amelia, as she rose to shake hands with her
visitors, “you people who are living and going through all sorts of
changes, you like to come back to look at us old folks, and to say it is
pleasant to see us immovable. I suppose it has all the effect of a calm
background and bit of still life, as the painters say. Perhaps we don’t
enjoy it so much as you do; we like to have something happen now and
then for a little variety; we are often sadly at a loss, if you did but
know it, for an event.”
“Come back soon, my dear; that will be an event for us,” said Miss
Harwood, whose soft old kiss was balm to Mary’s cheek, which had flushed
and paled so often. Miss Laura and Miss Lydia went out to the door with
their sister-in-law, where they took leave of her. “We meant to have
driven on to the manor-house,” said Mary; “but we need not go now, since
we have seen you; and there is no room in this stupid little carriage,
or I would set you down anywhere. Good-bye! don’t forget the
twenty-fifth!” and so she drove her ponies away. The sisters went off
upon their usual round of calls, discussing her, while Mrs Summerhayes
drove through the village. They were not exactly spiteful women, and
they _did_ like poor Mary in their hearts: if she had been in trouble
they would have rallied to her with all their little might; but they
could not help being a little hard upon her now.
“Did you hear what she said about Charley being the true owner of the
estate?” said Miss Laura. “After all dear Tom has done!” said Miss
Lydia. “Oh, how strangely things do turn out!” cried the elder sister.
“He might have done so much better; and to get himself into all this
trouble and nobody even grateful to him,” said the younger. “Poor dear
Tom!” they both cried together, “he deserved such a different wife.”
Such was the aspect of affairs on the other side; and though it is
natural to take part with poor Mary rather than with her subtle and
skilful husband, perhaps his sisters were not altogether wrong. If they
had not, all of them, got somehow into conflict with nature, things
might have happened very differently. As it was, a perpetual false
position created mischief on every side.
CHAPTER VIII.—THE EVE OF THE BIRTHDAY.
“I have asked old Gateshead to bring over the deeds you executed before
our marriage, Mary,” said Mr Summerhayes, a few days before Charley came
of age; “I want to look over them again.”
“Yes!” said Mary, stopping suddenly in what she was doing, and giving
one furtive glance at him. She asked no farther question, but waited
with an anxious intensity of interest which almost stopped the breath on
her lips.
“I want to look over them again—there are some words in the duplicates
up-stairs I don’t feel quite sure about,” said Mr Summerhayes.
“But, Tom, you told me they were irrevocable, and never could be meddled
with,” said Mary, with a sudden flush of burning colour, which passed
away immediately, leaving her very pale. It had been all her comfort for
many a day to think that those deeds were beyond her power—or his—to
change. She could not help trembling in this sudden terror. She had no
confidence in her own power to resist him—and, alas, but a wavering,
uncertain confidence in him, that he would be able to resist the
temptation of securing, if a change were possible, a stronger title to
all the authority and power he at present, in her right, possessed.
“Do you imagine I want them meddled with?” said Mr Summerhayes. “I don’t
think women understand what honesty or honour means,” he added, in his
harshest tone. “I suppose you believe I am ready to perjure myself, or
break my word, or do anything that’s base, for a bit of your estate.”
“Indeed, Tom, I never thought anything of the kind,” said poor Mary,
faltering; but she had thought something of the kind, though her
thoughts were incapable of such decided expression, and the tremor in
her voice betrayed her.
“That’s how it always is,” said Mr Summerhayes, without any passion, but
with a concentrated sneer in his voice; “a woman who has anything always
suspects her husband of an intention to rob her. Though she may have
lived with him for years, and known his thoughts and shared his plans,
and thought him good enough to be her companion and protector, the
moment she recurs to her money he becomes a robber, and nothing is too
base for him to do. No,” he went on, breathing out a long breath of
indignation apparently, and offended virtue; “I don’t want to alter the
deeds—but I want to read over one clause with Gateshead, to make sure
it’s all right. You would not like your children to go to law about it
after you are dead?”
“No,” said Mary, with a slight shiver; her fears and her imagination
were roused. She, of course, knew nothing about the law, except a
general impression that it was never safe to have anything to do with
it. She had, however, an unreasoning faith in the efficacy of anything
solemnly signed and witnessed, which, notwithstanding, if anybody threw
the least doubt upon that document, changed instantly into a total
scepticism and unbelief of any value in it at all. She jumped at
conclusions, as is the habit of women; and from the most perfect
confidence in the security of Fontanel, instantly plunged into the
wildest uneasiness about it, and already saw herself compelled to
alienate the inheritance from her children;—and all this because Mr
Summerhayes had remarked some expression in one clause which struck him
as of doubtful meaning,—at least that was all the actual foundation upon
which Mary could build her fears.
So it was with feelings of an extremely mingled and doubtful character
that she proceeded with her arrangements for the birthday _fête_, which,
to tell the truth, Mr Summerhayes had strongly opposed—he could not very
well have told why. Charley was the heir of the estate—as indisputable
as if his father had been still its master; yet there was a great
difference; and perhaps the stepfather did not feel himself quite equal
to the necessary speeches, nor to the cordiality which would be required
of him on such a day. Mr Summerhayes had managed everything so
completely in his own way—he had felt the house so entirely his own
these five years, which yet was not his own, nor vested in him by any
natural right—that the idea of acknowledging as much virtually, if not
in distinct words, by this public recognition of the heir, galled him
strangely. He would rather have gone out of the way; but as he could not
go out of the way, he adopted, half unconsciously, the only mode that
remained of making himself disagreeable—he found out that possible flaw
in the deed. Probably nothing further was in his thoughts than to
express the discontent in his mind, and throw a little shadow of
insecurity upon the festivities which were sacred to the too-confident
heir. Like an ill-tempered father keeping up his power by a vague threat
of altering his will, Mr Summerhayes waved his threatening flag over the
heads of the family at Fontanel by this faint cloud of suspicion thrown
upon the invincible certainty of the deed. He meant nothing more; but
evil thoughts are suggestive, and have a wonderful power of cumulation.
Perhaps he did mean something more before old Gateshead, whom, on other
occasions, he did not hesitate to call an old fogy, was disembarked from
his old-fashioned chaise at the door, two days before Charley’s
birthday. The firm was Gateshead and Gateshead—but Europe and Asia are
not more unlike than were its two members. The elder was, as Mr
Summerhayes succinctly expressed it, an old fogy—the other, an acute and
tolerably accomplished young man of the world. Mr Courtenay Gateshead,
in ordinary cases, was Mr Summerhayes’s favourite, and was honoured with
his confidence; but on this special occasion old Mr Gateshead—whose
acuteness was somewhat blunted by age—who was a wonderful gossip and
genealogist, and who had the most profound respect for the superior
legal knowledge of the master of Fontanel, who had once been of the
Inner Temple—was, as an old friend of the family, the selected guest.
Mr Gateshead arrived with a big portmanteau and a little tin box. He was
rather nervous about this little tin box. He carried it into the
drawing-room with him, where he went on his arrival, being a great deal
too early for dinner, as old fogies, who are not much wanted in the
drawing-room, generally are. But Mary was very glad to see him, as an
old friend, and looked at him with a kind of half-conscious appeal in
her eyes, of which Mr Gateshead was totally unaware, and which he would
have been completely bewildered by could he have seen it. He made some
absurd mistakes to be sure. He called her Mrs Clifford, even in Mr
Summerhayes’s presence; and then, instead of prudently ignoring his
mistake, begged her pardon, and laughed and talked of his bad memory.
But the tin box was a heavy burden on the old man’s mind. Every ten
minutes or so, he paused in his talk, which was voluminous, to say,
“Bless my soul, where is that box?” and to shift it from the table or
chair on which he had placed it, to a chair or table nearer. The box
oppressed him even in the midst of the gossip in which his soul
delighted. He took it up to his room with him, but hesitated, not seeing
how he could leave it by itself when he came down to dinner; and at last
gratefully accepted Mr Summerhayes’s offer to put it in his own study,
where all his own papers were, and which nobody dared go into. It seemed
safe under the secure shelter of Mr Summerhayes, whose absolute monarchy
was indisputable, and with whose personalities nobody in Fontanel
ventured to interfere. There, accordingly, the tin box was deposited,
and there, after dinner, somewhat reluctantly on the part of old
Gateshead, who was fond of the society of ladies, and of Mrs
Summerhayes’s in particular, the two gentlemen adjourned, to talk over
that flaw, or possibility of a flaw, in the deeds which were the
safeguard of the young Cliffords. They sat late discussing that and
other affairs,—so late, that it seemed quite the middle of the night to
Mary when her husband awoke her with a cheerful face, to say that
Gateshead was of opinion—and he agreed with him, after the close
examination they had given it—that the deed was quite unassailable, so
that she might have a perfectly easy mind on the subject. “I thought I
might run the risk of a cross look for breaking your sleep, Mary, when
this was what I had to say. I am very glad myself, for it might have
been awkward, as no power was reserved to you under our settlement of
will-making, or that sort of thing,” said Mr Summerhayes. “However, it’s
all right. I left that old fogy pottering over his tin box in my study.
I hope he’ll not set himself on fire before he gets to bed. He’s getting
old very fast, Mary. Young Courtenay will soon have everything his own
way.” Poor Mary was so pleased, so delighted, so thankful, that it was a
long time before she could get to sleep again. She lay half dreaming and
dozing, with an exquisite compunction and renewal of love in her heart.
Had she perhaps suspected this good husband, who came so joyfully to
tell her that all was safe? She made it up to him by the fullest, most
lavish restoration of confidence, as was natural to a generous woman;
and in the happiest thankful state of mind, though with an odd
half-dreaming fancy that old Gateshead had set fire to himself, and that
she smelt his nightcap smouldering into slow destruction, fell finally,
when it was almost dawn, into a sound sleep.
But Mary could not believe that she had been more than a few minutes
asleep when she was awoke by the horrible clangour of the alarm-bell,
and by the rushing and screaming of all the servants. Could it be old
Gateshead’s nightcap that caused that terrible significant sniff of
burning that pervaded the entire atmosphere? Before she could wake her
husband, who lay in a profound sleep, Charley had rushed in at the door
with the alarming cry of fire. “Fire!—get up, mother, make haste, but
don’t flurry yourself; put something on; it’s in the west wing. There’s
time to escape,” cried Charley. “I’ll get out the children, and come
back for you,” he said, as he rushed off again. “Fire!” cried Mr
Summerhayes, springing up. “Good heavens! It’s that old fool, old
Gateshead How could I be so mad as to trust him by himself?” and almost
before Mary knew he was awake, he too had rushed out of the room,
drawing on his dressing-gown as he flew out at the door. “Oh Tom, see to
the children; don’t leave me!” cried Mary in her fright, and she too
wrapped herself hastily in the first garment she could find, and rushed
to the door. She could see nothing but a thick volume of smoke pouring
from the west wing through the entire house, into which her husband’s
figure disappeared, while every soul in the place seemed emerging out of
it in different varieties of fright and undress. “We’ve sent off for the
fire-engines; and don’t be alarmed, mother, it’s entirely in the west
wing,” cried Charley, who came towards her with Alf in one arm and
little Mary in the other. Harry and Loo came crouching close to the big
brother behind—all silent, all ready to cry, all staring with wide-open,
suddenly-awakened eyes, and frightened out of their very lives. “Oh
Charley, Mr Summerhayes will be killed! Where is he going? Is it to look
for Mr Gateshead?” cried Mary, who, when she saw her children safe, fell
into a panic about her husband. He had rushed into the very depths of
that black volume of smoke, in spite of many warning voices. He came
staggering back after a few minutes, half suffocated, to the staircase,
where he sat down to recover himself. “Oh Tom, Mr Gateshead is safe,”
cried Mary, who was shivering in her shawl with cold and terror, and who
would not leave her husband, though the smoke came nearer and nearer.
“D—Mr Gateshead,” cried the excited master of the house. “Charley, fly
to the other side—to the window—my study—the tin box! I’ll take care of
your mother,” he shouted, as Charley appeared coming back. When he had
placed Mary in safety, Mr Summerhayes himself hurried to the same spot.
It was he alone who mounted the ladder, though everybody else said it
was madness. But it would have been as sane a proceeding to walk into a
furnace as into that room, which was the very centre of the fire. He
came down again deadly pale, and almost fainting, with a hurt on his
head from a falling beam, and half suffocated with the fiery smoke. The
tin box was beyond the possibility of redemption.
But the fire, curiously enough, scarcely penetrated beyond the west
wing, which was an unimportant part of the house—a recent addition,
where nobody slept, and which, indeed, contained little that was
important except Mr Summerhayes’s study, which had been built after his
own design, and contained all his pet and personal belongings. Mary and
the children watched from the gardener’s cottage the working of the
fire-engines; and in the excitement of seeing how the fire was got
under, and how little damage, after all, was done to Fontanel, forgot
the misery of the morning and their comfortless circumstances. Even Loo
felt that her stepfather was to be regarded as a hero, when he came,
pale, black, and begrimed—after it became apparent that the work of
destruction was stopped—to the cottage to have his head bound up, and to
see that his wife and her children were safe. And perhaps Loo was still
better disposed towards him when she found that he did not take upon
himself any heroic airs, but was in a most savage temper, cursing old
Gateshead as nobody had ever before heard Mr Summerhayes curse any man.
“I was rash not to see him safe to bed,” cried the master of the burning
house; and Mary did all she could, in her generous way, to deprecate and
excuse “the poor old man.” “Nobody is to blame; it must have been an
accident—only an accident,” said Mary; and Mr Summerhayes, in his rage
and vexation, had not even the grace to be civil to her, but still
muttered curses upon old Gateshead.
While, for his part, Mr Gateshead went round and round what had been the
west wing, wringing his hands. “Burned!—lost!—my tin box. I will never
dare look Courtenay in the face again; and, good Lord! what’s to become
of the children?” cried the poor old lawyer. He could not help hearing
some of Mr Summerhayes’s passionate exclamations, and perceived, by the
way everybody hustled past him, that he was blamed for the sudden
calamity. Though he was an old fogy, he was as sensitive as any man to a
personal grievance. Very soon he began to think about this mysterious
business. “Good Lord, the deed! the poor dear children!” said the old
lawyer to himself. He, too, grew angry and pale with indignation; but he
kept silence and his own counsel. This was the strange and ill-omened
event which happened at Fontanel the day before Charley’s coming of age.
CHAPTER IX.—THE FIRE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
The idea of a fire—of a fire in one’s own house, darkly raging in the
silence of the night, threatening death to helpless sleepers in their
beds—is too overwhelming at first to allow the minds of the startled
sufferers in ordinary circumstances to enter into details. Mary, for her
part, found so many things to be grateful for,—first, she was so
thankful that all were safe—second, so glad to find that even the house
was not injured to any serious degree,—and, third, so proud of the
energy and zeal of her husband,—that the real loss was a long time of
becoming fairly visible to her. Before it dawned upon his mother,
Charley, worn out as he was by his exertions, had realised what it was;
and had felt, with a strange momentary thrill and shock through his
whole frame, that the foundations of the world were crumbling under his
feet, and that he dared no longer boast of the morrow. Loo too, who had
been almost enthusiastic about her stepfather in that first hour of his
heroism, had fallen back again, and was paler than ever, and looked more
wistfully out of her background with those great brown eyes. But still
Mary continued to kiss little Alf, who was rather impatient of the
process, and rejoice over her children. “If it had broken out anywhere
else,” she said, “we might all have been burned in our beds. Was it not
a wonderful interposition of Providence, Tom, when there was to be a
fire, to think it should be there? We had not even any associations with
the west wing—except you, dear—I am sure I beg your pardon—but you
rather enjoyed building the study, and you must make another one. I
shall always think it a special Providence the fire was there.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Mary,” said her husband; “it was not
Providence, it was that confounded old——Oh, Mr Gateshead! are you in the
least aware how this happened? Did you drop your candle, or a match, or
anything? or were you burning any of your papers? It is a horrible
misfortune to have happened just now.”
“But really, Tom, the house is so little injured it won’t matter for
to-morrow,” said Mary; “things can go on just as before.”
“Oh!” said her husband, with a little groan, “don’t talk so lightly; you
don’t know what’s happened. Gateshead, why on earth didn’t you go at
once to bed?”
“Mr Summerhayes, I’ll thank you to leave off that sort of thing,” said
the old lawyer, divided between fear and indignation. “I am not stupid,
sir, as you try to make people believe, though I am older than you are.
It’s a very strange circumstance, but if Providence has not done it, as
you say, neither have I. But I’ll tell you what is your duty, Mr
Summerhayes. Before I leave here, which shall be to-day, I’ll draw out a
draught-deed to correspond with this one that is unfortunately burnt——”
“What deed do you mean? burnt?” cried Mary, in dismay; “not _that_
deed——”
“Yes, Mrs Clifford—I beg your pardon, Mrs Summerhayes—exactly _that_
deed,” said the solicitor; “and you should not lose a moment in
executing it over again—not a moment, especially considering that
Charley is just of age.”
“_That_ deed!” cried Mary; “oh Tom!” She turned to him in simple
distress and lamentation; but he met her eyes with such a strange
defiance, and the colour rose so perceptibly in his cheek, that Mary
stopped short petrified. What did it mean? She turned round alarmed, and
met the curious eyes of old Gateshead, who was studying her looks, with
something like confusion. For the moment her heart, as she thought,
stopped beating in poor Mary’s troubled breast.
“You should not lose a moment—it ought to be done over again,” said the
old man, “while I am here, to prevent any informality. It ought at once
to be done over again.”
“Mrs Summerhayes unfortunately has no power to do anything,” said her
husband. “No such unfortunate chance was calculated upon at our
marriage. No right was reserved to her of making any settlement. You
know that well enough, Gateshead.”
“That can be obviated by your joining with her,” said the lawyer. “You
could do that, at least, till there’s time to take advice on the
subject; for burning only revokes where there’s an intention of
revoking, as you’re aware, Mr Summerhayes—and so long as we can prove
what was the general purport——”
“In that case, there’s no need for doing anything further,” said the
master of Fontanel.
“But the matter is too important to be left on a chance,” said the old
lawyer, anxiously; “nobody can ever tell what may happen. For Charley’s
sake you ought not to lose an hour. I’ll draw up a draft——”
“Oh, Tom, listen to Mr Gateshead!” cried poor Mary, trying to smile,
though her heart felt as if it were breaking, as she laid a timid,
beseeching hand on his arm.
Her husband threw her hand lightly off, and turned away. “There is no
reason in the world why we should rush into fresh documents,” he said.
“Stuff! we are not going to die to-day; and if we did die to-day, why,
Mary, your heirs are as safe as ever they were. I’ll think it over,
Gateshead, and see Courtenay about it. There is no hurry; and, upon my
word, whatever you may think on the subject, I have had about enough of
excitement for one day.”
“Does your head ache, Tom?” said Mrs Summerhayes.
“Abominably; and look here,” said her husband, exhibiting his hands,
which were considerably burned, “if I am to be made fit for presentation
to-morrow, you’ll have to nurse me, Mary. Come along, I have a great
deal to talk to you about. I beg your pardon, Gateshead, but now that
everything is safe, considering what I have before me to-morrow, I must
get a little rest.”
“Then I am to understand that you refuse to do anything in place of the
deed that has been burned,” said the old lawyer.
“Refuse! certainly not; I’ll think of it, and see Courtenay about it. We
can talk it over at dinner,” said Mr Summerhayes, walking away calmly
towards the house with his wife.
This conversation had taken place at the gardener’s cottage, within
hearing of Loo, who had all this time been standing at the window. When
Mary and her husband went away, the old lawyer uttered a furious and
profane exclamation. “He’ll speak to Courtenay. I’m not to be trusted, I
suppose; confound the upstart!” cried old Gateshead; “but I shan’t stay
here to be insulted by Tom Summerhayes. Lord bless us! what’s the
matter, my dear?”
This question was addressed to Loo, who came suddenly up to him,
overwhelming the old man with the gaze of her great brown eyes. “Tell me
only one thing—is Charley disinherited?” said Loo, grasping with her
slight but firm fingers the lawyer’s arm.
“My dear, you don’t understand it,” said Mr Gateshead.
“I understand it perfectly; is Charley disinherited?” asked the anxious
girl.
“Well, my dear, it depends on circumstances,” said the lawyer; “don’t
look at me so fiercely, it is not my doing. The deeds are
destroyed—that’s all. I daresay it won’t make any difference. We can
prove——Don’t cry, my dear child; _I_‘ll stand by you if he tries to do
anything—and you can tell your brother so. It shan’t make any difference
if I can help it—don’t cry.”
“I don’t mean to cry,” said Loo, with indignation; “is this why the fire
was?” The words seemed to drop from her lips before she was aware; then
a violent blush rushed over poor Loo’s pale face; she shrank back, and
took her hand from his arm, and turned her face away. “I did not mean to
say that; I meant to say—I understand,” said Loo, slowly. It was a very
woe-begone despairing face that she turned upon him when she looked
round again. The old man, who had known her all her life, patted her on
the head as if she had been still a child.
“Don’t be afraid, my dear, things will come straight; though your
stepfather has been rude to me, I will not go away for your sakes,” said
Mr Gateshead; but such a conversation as this could not be carried on.
The lawyer returned to the house to be present at the investigation into
the cause of the fire which Mr Summerhayes was already making; and Loo,
for her part, sick at heart, and in a state of the profoundest despair,
went out to seek her brother. It was just as well for both that they did
not meet that morning; for neither of the two in their hearts had any
doubt upon the subject. As for their mother, she kept by her husband’s
side, in a state of mind not to be described; taking hope by times;
listening with eager anxiety to hear any explanation that could be
offered; trying to believe that he only hesitated to replace the
destroyed deed because he had no confidence in old Gateshead, and
preferred to consult Courtenay; but in her heart feeling, like Charley,
that total shipwreck had happened, and that the foundations of the earth
were giving way.
CHAPTER X.—A VERY SURPRISING OCCURRENCE.
The ruins of the west wing were clearly visible from the great wooden
building erected by Mr Summerhayes in the park where the tenants were to
dine. It was too cold in March for a tent; and there was no room in
Fontanel large enough for these festivities, except the great double
suite of drawing-rooms where the doors had been removed, and where there
was to be a ball at night. Much was the talk about the alarming event of
the previous day, which had shaken half the country with personal
terrors, much warmer than are generally awakened by the intelligence of
a fire at a friend’s house. On hearing of it, every soul within twenty
miles had sighed with resignation or cried out with impatience, giving
up all hopes of the festivities to which everybody had been looking
forward; but Mr Summerhayes’s messengers with the intimation that all
was going on as before, came about as soon as the news of the calamity.
Mr Summerhayes himself was more gracious, more cordial, than anybody had
ever known him. He spoke of “our dear boy” in his speech to the farmers,
and described Charley in such terms, that the heart of Charley’s mother
was altogether melted, and she felt ready to commit the fate of her
children a dozen times over into her husband’s hands. Nothing could be
more manly, more honourable, more affectionate, than the way in which Mr
Summerhayes spoke of his own position. He was, he said, his wife’s
steward and his son’s guardian; such a position might have been painful
to some men—but love made everything sweet; and he was happy in having
always had the entire confidence of his beloved clients. He even
referred to the honoured husband of the Queen, as in something of a
similar position to his own, and brought down storms of applause.
Charley made his little speech with great difficulty after his
stepfather. The poor boy looked ghastly, and could scarcely get the
words out; but his pleased retainers, who believed him overwhelmed by
his feelings, applauded all the same. When he had done what was required
of him, Charley managed to steal away unperceived by anybody except Loo,
who went wistfully after her brother. She overtook him by the time he
had got to the woods which skirted the park, and put her arm softly
within his without saying anything. The two young creatures wandered
under the bristling budded trees in silence, with unspeakable sadness in
their hearts. They had nothing to say to console each other—or rather
Loo, whose very heart wept over her brother, could think of nothing to
say to him. At last, caressing his arm with her tender, timid, little
hand, Loo ventured upon one suggestion: “Oh, Charley, poor mamma!” said
the girl, in her heart-breaking young voice. “Yes—poor mamma!” said
Charley, with a groan. Poor Mary! it was all her doing, yet her children
cast no reproach upon her. She, after all, would be the greatest
sufferer.
“But, Loo, I can’t stop here after what has happened,” said Charley when
they had both recovered a little; “he may be going to do everything
that’s right for anything we can tell. Don’t let us talk as if it were
anybody’s fault; but I can’t stop here, you know, about Fontanel, doing
nothing, as if—— Don’t cry, Loo. You would not like, anyhow, to have an
idle fellow for a brother. Harry is the clever one; but I daresay my
godfather, the old general, could get me a commission; and I could live
on my pay,” said Charley, with a slight quiver in his upper lip, “and
perhaps get on. I don’t think I should make a bad soldier—only that
there’s the examinations, and all that. It’s very hard, Loo, to have
lost all this time.”
“Oh, Charley, Charley dear! I can’t bear it—it’s too hard to put up
with,” cried poor little passionate Loo.
“Now don’t you go and take away what little strength a fellow has,”
remonstrated Charley; “it must be put up with, and what’s the use of
talking? Now look here, Loo; if you make a fuss, it will do no good in
the world, but only vex mamma; she can’t mend it, you know. I mean to
put the best face on it, and say I want to see the world, and that sort
of thing; and believe exactly as if—as if the fire had never happened,”
said Charley, with a dark momentary cloud upon his face. “I can make my
mother believe me; and it will be a comfort to her to have me out of the
way,” said the heroic lad, with something like a suppressed sob, “and to
think I don’t suspect anything. It _is_ hard—I don’t say anything else;
but, Loo, we must bear it all the same.”
And so they went wandering through the bare woods, poor Loo stooping now
and then unawares to gather some violets according to her girlish
habits, and Charley, even in the depths of his distress, following with
his eye the startled squirrel running along a branch. They were
profoundly, forlornly, exquisitely sad, but they could not ignore the
alleviations of their youth. Amid all the sudden shock of this
disinheritance—in which there mingled so cruel a sense of wrong, so warm
an indignation and resentment—Charley still thought, with a rising
thrill of courage and pride, that he might carve out for himself a
better fortune; while Loo, her brother’s sole confidante and supporter,
was herself supported by that exquisite consciousness of being able to
console and encourage him, which almost atones to a girl’s heart for
every misfortune. They could hear the distant echoes of the cheers and
laughter and loud cordial talk of the guests, while they strayed along
silent, with hearts too full to speak. Very different anticipations had
the two entertained of this famous day so long looked forward to. They
were to be the first in all the rejoicings undertaken in their
honour—for the glory of the heir-apparent could not fail to be shared by
the Princess Royal, the eldest daughter of Fontanel; they had pictured
to themselves a brilliant momentary escape out of the embarrassments and
restraints which they could not but be conscious of at home, and Charley
had even been prepared to feel magnanimous to Mr Summerhayes, who, after
all, was but a temporary interloper, and had no right to that
inheritance of which the young Clifford was heir indisputable. Now, the
sound of the merrymaking went to Charley’s heart with acute blows of
anguish. It was an aggravation of the sudden misery, cold-blooded and
odious; what were they rejoicing about? Because a poor boy had come to
the coveted years of manhood, to learn bitterly, on the eve of what
should have been his triumph, that he was an absolute dependant, a
beggar, at the mercy of a stepfather. No wonder he could not speak; no
wonder he put up his hands to his ears, and uttered a groan of rage and
wretchedness when that burst of cheering came upon the wind, and Loo,
speechless, could but cry and clench her little hands in the bitterness
of her heart. This was between the tenants’ dinner and the ball in the
evening, which was to be the gayest ever known in the county. Poor
Charley would gladly have faced a tiger, or led a forlorn hope, could he
have had such an alternative, instead of arraying himself in sumptuous
raiment and appearing at that ball, where his presence would be
indispensable. He seized poor Loo’s little hands harshly in his own, and
pressed them till she could have screamed for pain. “Don’t cry; your
eyes will be red at the ball—your first ball, Loo!” cried her brother,
with a kind of savage tenderness; and Loo, half afraid of this strange
new development of the man out of the boy, was fain to dry her poor eyes
and cling to his arm, and coax him to go in to prepare for the greater
trial of the night.
While these two forlorn young creatures were thus engaged, another
conversation was taking place at a distance from the scene of the
festivities, in the park of Fontanel. Mr Courtenay Gateshead had come
down to be present at the tenants’ dinner in his capacity as legal
adviser to Mr Summerhayes; but the young lawyer looked on with a
preoccupied air, sometimes casting a keen look of inspection at the
master of the feast. When the party from the great house left the humble
revellers, Courtenay, instead of joining Mr Summerhayes, beckoned aside
his uncle and partner. Old Gateshead had stayed for the children’s sake;
but had found it totally impossible to change Mr Summerhayes’s first
determination. He would not consent to read, much less to sign the
document hastily prepared by the anxious old lawyer. He would think it
over, he repeated, and see Courtenay, with an implied slight upon the
powers and skill of Courtenay’s uncle, which galled the old man to the
last degree. The young lawyer found his relative exceedingly sulky and
out of temper. “I have something particular to consult you about,”
Courtenay said, who did not yet know anything about the destruction of
the deed; and Mr Gateshead, who had that disclosure to make, followed
him with no very pleasant feelings to the verge of the wood, not very
far from where Charley and Loo were wandering in the despair of their
hearts. But the old lawyer was much taken by surprise by the question
which his nephew did not put to him till they were quite alone, and
sheltered from all eavesdroppers by the broad expanse of the park.
“Uncle, you have a wonderful memory. I suppose you remember John
Clifford, this boy’s grandfather—he who broke the entail,” said
Courtenay, in rather a hurried voice.
“John Clifford—what on earth has he got to do with it?” cried old
Gateshead, whose memory was wonderful, but whose powers of comprehension
were not equally vivid.
“Oh, nothing, I daresay,” said his nephew. “I want to know what you
recollect about him, that’s all—he who joined his father in breaking the
entail——”
“A very silly thing to do, Courtenay—a fatal thing to do. Good Lord,
only think what a different position these poor children might have been
in!” cried old Gateshead.
“Yes, yes—to be sure; but do you recollect anything about John?” said
the young man.
“I recollect everything about him,” said the uncle. “Though he was Harry
Clifford’s father, and they are both dead ages ago, he was no older than
I am. I think we were born in the same year——”
“The same year? and you are seventy; that must have been ‘87. Was it
‘87, uncle? how can we make sure?” said young Courtenay. “I must hunt up
the register of baptisms to-morrow.”
“Ah! I remember some talk about that,” said the old lawyer. “The parish
books were burned once, and the entry couldn’t be found. There was some
talk about it at the time. Burned! I suppose you don’t know what’s
happened in this fire? Oh! you’ll hear, you’ll hear quite soon enough.
But what has John Clifford’s name come up about now?”
“It’s something rather important for Summerhayes—he looks in wonderful
force to-day,” said Courtenay; “but if this should turn out true he will
soon sing small enough. I may as well tell you at once, uncle, for I am
almost sure about it. My impression is, that the entail was never
legally broken; and, consequently, that Mr Clifford had no more right
than I have to leave the property to his wife.”
Old Gateshead looked at his nephew with a stupified air. “The entail was
never broken?” he repeated vacantly, looking in the other’s face.
“No—the entail was never legally broken,” said Courtenay, with the
impatience of an acute and rapid intelligence. “The thing caught my
attention some time ago, but I would not speak of it till I had worked
it out. John Clifford—listen uncle—executed the papers with his father
in the year 1806; and, if I am correct, he was then an infant, and
incapable of doing anything of the sort. I don’t believe he came of age
till 1807. By Jove! what’s the matter? the old man’s mad!”
“No, Courtenay, the old man’s not mad,” said his uncle. “Hurrah! God
save the Queen! Hurrah! why don’t you help them to shout, you
cold-blooded young prig? I tell you the boy’s saved. Hurrah, and long
life to him!” said old Gateshead, waving his hat frantically, and
echoing with the wildest shrill enthusiasm the distant cheers from the
tent. “I declare to you these cheers choked me an hour ago,” cried the
old lawyer; “there’s things a man can’t do even when he’s an attorney.
Courtenay, I say, shake hands. You’re a disgusting young prig, and
you’re a deal too clever for my practice; but if you make it out, I’ll
give in to you all my life. Good Lord, that’s news! tell me all about
it. We’ve got a sharp one to deal with; we’ll have to make very sure,
very sure. Let’s hear every step how you came to find it out.”
Which Courtenay accordingly did, and made it perfectly clear to the
anxious listener. Charley’s grandfather had been in the unpleasant
predicament of having no public legal record of his age; but fifty years
after the occurrence of that fortunate mistake, scraps of documents had
turned up in the hands of the family solicitor, depositaries for
generations of the family secrets and difficulties, which made it easy
to establish, not by one distinct statement, but by many concurring
scraps of evidence, the exact date of John Clifford’s birth; and to
prove, as the young lawyer was now prepared to do, that the entail had
never been legally broken; that all the acts of the last two reigns were
founded on a mistake; that, consequently, Squire Henry’s will, in so far
as it related to the estate of Fontanel, was null and void, and Charley
was no longer heir but _bona fide_ proprietor of the lands of the
Cliffords. Wonderful news—more than ever wonderful that day.
When Mr Courtenay Gateshead sought Mr Summerhayes to break to him this
startling intelligence, the elder lawyer went to find the mistress of
Fontanel, who was reposing in her dressing-room, to prepare for the
exertions of the evening. Poor Mary was in a very doubtful state of mind
that day. She had wept for delight and gratitude when she heard her
husband’s speech to the farmers; but when she came to be by herself
again, that enthusiastic impression wore off, and the fact came back to
her, striking chill to her heart—the fact that her children were now at
the stepfather’s mercy, and that poor Charley, the heir, was no longer
the heir unless another man pleased. Alas! poor Mary knew now, to the
bottom of her heart, that it was another man—a man who, though she was
his wife, did not, and could not, look on Charley Clifford as his son.
She knew nothing about law, nor that the deed, though destroyed, might
yet in its ashes form foundation enough for any amount of lawsuits. It
_was_ destroyed, and she had no longer any power, and everything was in
Mr Summerhayes’s hands—that was enough to quench the light out of the
very skies to the poor mother. She dared not say to herself what she
feared, nor what she thought he would do; she only felt that he had the
power, and that Charley was at his mercy—and behind all, bitterest of
all, that it was her fault. She was sitting resting, in a kind of heavy
gloom and stupor, with her head buried in her hands, feeling to her
heart that she was avoided by her children, and that this day of triumph
was to them a day of mockery, when Mr Gateshead’s message was brought
her. He was a very old friend, and her first thought was that he had at
last prevailed on Mr Summerhayes to consent to the new deed. She got up
in eager haste, and sent her maid to bring him up-stairs. She received
the old man there, in that room where her children no longer came as of
old. The result was, not very long after, a hurried ringing of bells,
and messengers running everywhere for Miss Loo, who was just then coming
in, dark and pale from the woods, a very woe-begone little figure in her
holiday dress. Poor Mary, overcome by a hundred emotions which she did
not dare to tell, had fainted almost in old Gateshead’s arms, to the
great dismay of the old lawyer. It was deliverance to her boy, but it
was utter humiliation and downfall to her husband. In the struggle of
sudden joy, confusion, and pain, her senses and her mind gave way for
the moment. Loo rushing in, vaguely aware that something had happened
which was well for Charley, believed for the moment, in an overwhelming
revulsion of remorse and repentance, that all was henceforward to be ill
for ever, and that her mother was dead. But Mary was not dead. She
recovered to appear at the ball—very gracious and sweet, as was her
wont, but paler than anybody had ever seen her before, as was remarked
everywhere. It was a pretty ball, every body allowed; but the family
looked more _distrait_ and strange than any family, even under such an
infliction, had ever been seen to look. Charley, who had most command of
himself after his mother, was doing everything a young man could do to
keep his partners amused and the crowd occupied; but even Charley now
and then grew abstracted, and forgot himself for a moment. As for Loo,
though it was her first ball, and her brown eyes were splendid in the
changeable light that quivered in their depths, she kept behind her
mother with a look of fright and timidity, at which many a more
experienced young lady sneered openly; while Mrs Summerhayes, moving
about among her guests with all her usual sweetness, in her mature
beauty, could be seen sometimes to give strange wistful looks aside to
where her husband stood, mostly in company with Courtenay Gateshead.
Mary was pale, but Mr Summerhayes was flushed and strange to look upon.
He said, in his gentlemanly way, that the ball was his wife’s business,
and that he did not pretend to be able to help Mrs Summerhayes. He kept
aloof from her and from her children, clinging, as it seemed, to young
Gateshead. There had been a fire to be sure, but a fire only in the west
wing, where nothing particular could have happened. What could it be?
for the county people were all quick to perceive that something unusual
was in the air—at least the ladies did, and did not fail to communicate
their suspicions. There must have been a family quarrel, the more acute
imagined; and Miss Laura and Miss Lydia Summerhayes, whom their brother
dismissed summarily when they attempted sisterly investigations, were
fain to make forlorn attempts to discover from Loo what it was. The
master of the house had never been seen to speak or look at any of the
family all the evening, till the principal guests were in the
supper-room, all wondering, as they discussed the good things there,
what could be the matter. Charley had got in debt at the
university—Charley had formed some unsuitable connexion—and his
stepfather was hard upon him. Thus the company speculated; but the
company held its breath when Mr Summerhayes laid his hand on Charley’s
shoulder, and solved the wonder of the evening in the strangest, most
unexpected manner—to nobody so unexpected as to his bewildered wife.
“My friends,” said Mr Summerhayes, in his gentlemanly way (and it must
be allowed that, whatever were his faults, Tom Summerhayes always was a
gentleman), “we drank this boy’s health to-day as the heir of Fontanel;
but since then something has happened which has excited us all
considerably, as I daresay you will have perceived; and I have to tell
you that Charley is not only the heir, but the master of this house. I
am sure,” continued Mr Summerhayes, leaning his arm more heavily upon
the shoulder of the astonished youth, “there never was a more hopeful or
promising beginning than he will make, and I know he will have all your
good wishes. The fact is that the property became my wife’s under a
mistake: the entail was supposed to have been broken, which turns out
not to have been the case; and it is an additional pleasure to us,” said
Mary’s husband, turning round with a smile to meet her look, which was
fixed upon him, and then leisurely surveying the amazed assembly—“it is
a great additional pleasure to us,” continued Mr Summerhayes, “to find
ourselves entitled, on a day every way so happy, to give up our
laborious stewardship, and put our boy in possession of his own. I ask
you over again, my excellent friends and neighbours, to drink the health
of Charles Clifford of Fontanel.”
It was thus that Mr Summerhayes extricated himself from his false
position. The cheers which disturbed all the loiterers in the ball-room,
and brought them in a crowd to see what it was, were more for the
retiring monarch than the new sovereign. Charley himself, in a warm
revulsion of his generous heart, had seized both his stepfather’s hands,
and wrung them with strenuous gratitude. “I will never forget your
generosity,” cried the eager boy, who would have made over Fontanel
there and then had Summerhayes pleased, into his keeping over again.
Charley knew nothing of the stormy scene with Courtenay—the silent rage
and mortification which had thrown off Mary’s attempts at consolation
before necessity and his better genius warned Mr Summerhayes of this
opportunity left him for a graceful retreat. Charley did not know, nor
the world—and the few who did know had no wish to remember. The whole
party was in a flutter of admiration; and poor Miss Laura and Miss Lydia
did all but go into hysterics between horror at the catastrophe and
pride in their brother. Never before had Mr Summerhayes of the Manor
taken so high a position before the county as that night when he gave up
possession of Fontanel.
CHAPTER XI.—MRS SUMMERHAYES.
“It is not to be expected she can like it much; but she is a good little
woman—she always was a dear little woman,” said the Rector; “and Mary’s
jointure will make a great deal of difference in the manor-house, and
smooth things down considerably. She has been doing all kinds of
upholstery there already.”
“By Jove, I knew how it would be!” said Major Aldborough; “I told you
all how it would be. I said they’d kill him. He may think he’s got off
very easily, in my opinion—cure him of meddling with other people’s
children as long as he lives. What the deuce did he want at Fontanel? a
great deal better to make himself snug, as I suppose he means to do now,
at Summerhayes.”
“Mary will drive down looking just as bright as ever,” said Miss Amelia
Harwood. “I always said she deserved to be happy, poor soul—she always
makes the best of everything. Her heart was breaking that night of
Charley’s birthday. I heard for a certain fact that she fainted just
before the ball—a thing I never heard of Mary doing before. Heaven knows
what all she was afraid of; there was something very mysterious about
that fire; but now, you know, she has recovered her spirits and her
colour, and looks just as she used to look. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if
she began life over again, and was quite happy in the manor-house now
Tom Summerhayes is coming home.”
“And so she ought to be, Amelia,” said good Miss Harwood. “I am sure she
has many a poor woman’s prayers.”
All these good people were walking on the Fontanel road. It was a lovely
evening in the early summer, more than a year after Charley Clifford’s
birthday. Though it was rather beyond the usual limits of Miss Harwood’s
walk, she was here leaning on Miss Amelia’s arm to enjoy the air, and to
look for somebody who was expected. The Rector had strolled out on the
same errand; and that, or something similar, had also drawn Major
Aldborough from his after-dinner repose. The old-fashioned gates of the
Manor-house were open, and some expectation was visible within. Miss
Laura and Miss Lydia, in very summery muslin dresses, were to be seen
promenading before the house, and hastened out, when they saw the Miss
Harwoods, to join their friends.
“It is very trying for us,” said Miss Laura. “Oh, Miss Harwood, it is a
very trying occasion; not that our new house is not very nice and
everything very comfortable; but it is very very trying to us,” said
Miss Lydia, joining in; “and oh, on dear Tom’s part, such an unexpected
change.”
“Your brother is expected home to-morrow, Miss Laura?” said the Rector.
“Yes, to-morrow,” answered Miss Lydia, whose turn it was. “Poor dear Tom
is so fond of travelling on the Continent, it is so good for his health;
and Mrs Summerhayes wishes to be at home to receive him. Lydia and I are
so glad, and yet we are sorry,” chimed in Miss Laura; “it will be such a
change for dear Tom.”
“Not nearly so great a change as for poor Mary,” said Miss Amelia,
“leaving her children, poor soul; but I daresay she won’t complain, and
it must be better for all parties to have it settled. And so you like
your new house? I am told that Mary did all the furnishing herself.”
“Oh yes, she is very kind,” said Miss Laura; “she has made everything
very nice; you must come and see it. Indeed, if it were not for thinking
what a change it is for dear Tom,” cried the sisters both together, with
an evident impression that their brother had been defrauded of something
he had a right to, “we should all be very happy; for dear Mary,” said
Miss Lydia, with a little sob, “is very kind—and look, here she comes.”
She came driving the pony-carriage, as she had appeared so often at
Summerhayes. Poor Mary! if she had been a wiser woman would she have
been loved as well? She came, all beaming, with the smile on her lip and
the tear in her eye—courageous, affectionate, sweet as ever. Charley and
Loo had ridden down with her till they came in sight of Summerhayes, and
then had taken leave of their mother. Mary, with little Mary by her side
in the pony-carriage, drove on to her separate fate alone. She was going
to take possession of the old Manor-house, no longer the mistress of
Fontanel but Tom Summerhayes’s wife, to receive him when he came home
from his travels, and to make life bright, if he were capable of seeing
it, to that imperfect and not very worthy man. The agitation in her face
was only enough to heighten a little her sweet colour and brighten her
tearful eyes. On the whole had she not great reason to be happy? She had
forgotten everything but her husband’s virtues while he had been absent,
and her children were safe and prosperous and close at hand. She
smothered the little pang in her heart at parting, and said to little
Mary, with a smile, that she would have had to part with them all the
same when they were married. So the mother and the daughter drove down
through the soft twilight and the dews to the Manor, not without
brightness and good hope; while Charley and Loo rode away towards the
darkening east, with a deeper shadow on their young faces, not quite
sure how their home would look when their mother was away.
Mary stopped her ponies when she saw the little procession which had
come out to meet her; the tears came into her bright eyes again. “It is
so kind of you all,” she said, kissing her hand to good Miss Harwood,
“and it is so pleasant to think I can see you oftener now.” “God bless
you, my dear!” said the two old ladies who had come for love. And Mary
said “Amen, and the children too;” and so drove her ponies cheerfully,
with smiles and tears, in through the open gates.
Where, however, we will not follow Mrs Summerhayes. Things had turned
out a great deal better than could have been expected. Mr Summerhayes
was a man of the world, and knew how to make a virtue of necessity. He
had given in gracefully and at once, and gained reputation thereby,
nobody knowing what his private feelings were when Courtenay Gateshead’s
discovery came first upon his own widely-different plans. The fire in
the west wing never was explained—nobody, indeed, inquired very deeply
into it—and Mary, for her part, forgot it, or associated it only with
old Gateshead’s nightcap, to which, she remained firmly convinced, the
old man had set fire on his way to bed. The fire at Fontanel was indeed
associated with old Mr Gateshead throughout the county, as was indeed a
natural and perhaps correct supposition. Anyhow, nothing but the
destruction of the west wing had resulted from it, and that was rather
an improvement than otherwise to the old place, in which Loo, till they
were both married, was to keep house for her brother. Little Mary, who
was easy in her temper and happy as the day was long, went with Mrs
Summerhayes to the Manor—and Alf and Harry were to have two homes for
their holidays. When Tom Summerhayes came home next day, he thought some
fairy change had come over the manor-house, and forgave his wife with
magnanimity for all the trouble she had brought upon him. Mary accepted
the pardon with gratitude, and Miss Laura and Miss Lydia thought Tom a
hero; and so, with a tolerable amount of content on all sides, life
began over again for the reunited couple. Mary had her own troubles
still, like most people; but perhaps had not been much more happy as Mrs
Clifford than she was as Mrs Summerhayes.
SIR JAMES GRAHAM.[2]
Footnote 2:
‘The Life and Times of Sir James R. G. Graham, Bart., G.C.B., M.P.’ By
Torrens M’Cullagh Torrens. In 2 vols. London: Saunders & Otley.
These are not exactly the sort of volumes which we could have wished
them to be. Sir James Graham, though never a foremost, was still a
remarkable man in his age, and doubtless left behind, in his
correspondence, and in the memories of his friends, better materials
than we find here for an elaborate biography. Still, let us do justice
to Mr M’Cullagh Torrens. If family archives have not been unlocked to
him, and private friends abstained from telling him more than they could
help, he has made very good use of stores which were open to all the
world, and strung together, with considerable skill, his scraps of past
history. The result is a book which will be much and approvingly read;
though we cannot anticipate that it will fire the imagination or touch
the feelings of any human being.
The family from which Sir James Graham derived his descent is of long
standing in the “debatable land.” Its founder seems to have been “John
with the bright sword,” a son of Malise, Lord of Menteith, whom a
quarrel with the Scottish King induced, in the beginning of the
fifteenth century, to migrate beyond the Scottish border. Carrying with
him a band of stout retainers, he soon acquired a settlement there, and
became by-and-by the boldest and most successful of the moss-troopers,
whose custom it was to harry indifferently the lands of the two
kingdoms.
The descendants of John gradually extended their influence and enlarged
their possessions. Between the Esk and the Eden, and for some miles to
the north of the Esk, there lies a district which, till the Partition
Treaty of 1552, may be said to have belonged neither to England nor to
Scotland. It was there that the Græmes settled, and there, in spite of
many a harsh decree issued against them from both realms, they grew and
prospered. And finally, when peaceable times came, they were recognised
as large landed proprietors, and useful members of the English
community.
The first politician in the family appears to have been Sir Richard
Græme, who, after acting as Master of the Horse to the Duke of
Buckingham, was taken up and enriched by grants from the Crown. He it
was who acquired by purchase Netherby Hall, with various manors lying
contiguous to it. Espousing the cause of his master in the civil wars,
and following him to the field, he was severely wounded at the battle of
Edgehill; yet he contrived, malignant as he was, to keep his estates
together, though not without heavy fines imposed upon them by Cromwell.
The immediate successor of the first baronet led a quiet life, and died
in his bed. His grandson was more ambitious. He made some figure in
Parliament, and was in 1682 created Viscount Preston in the peerage of
Scotland. This did not oblige him to retire from the English House of
Commons, in which he sat as Knight of the Shire for Cumberland; and he
ultimately, after serving as ambassador in Paris, took office as
Secretary of State under James II. Lord Preston would never stoop to pay
court to William III. He even accepted from James, after his expulsion
from the throne, a patent of English nobility, which he pleaded in bar
of trial before a common jury, when charged with conspiring to bring
back the exiled family. The House of Lords, however, would not
acknowledge the patent, and the evidence against Lord Preston proved too
strong to be rebutted. He was found guilty, and sentence of death was
passed upon him, with attainder of his peerage and forfeiture of his
property. It is creditable to the memory of Dutch William that he
refused to carry the sentence into execution. Enough of blood had been
shed on the scaffold; and the King, though strongly pressed by some of
the leading Whigs to let the law take its course, adhered to his own
determination. Lord Preston’s daughter, it appears, was one of Queen
Mary’s attendants. The Queen found her one day gazing at the picture of
James II., and weeping bitterly; and desiring to be told why the maiden
wept, she received this answer: “I am thinking how hard it is that my
father should suffer death because he loved your father.”
Preston’s pardon alarmed the Jacobites as much as it disgusted and
offended the Whigs. The former not unnaturally came to the conclusion
that he must have betrayed them. The latter, especially Bishop Burnet,
himself the meanest and basest of intriguers, clamoured against the act
of clemency, as if some wrong had been done personally to themselves.
Both parties were, however, in error. Preston had not been many months
at liberty before he was again arrested and sent to the Tower as a
traitor; and though fortunate enough in the present instance to show
that the charge against him was groundless, his health sank under
disquiet of mind, and he died soon after his release.
The Scotch peerage became extinct in the third generation from this, and
the estates went to two sisters, one married to Lord Widrington, the
other single. On the death of the unmarried sister, the whole of the
property came to Lady Widrington—a fortunate circumstance for her lord,
for he, like his father-in-law, was a stanch Jacobite, and took the
field against the established Government in 1715. He escaped with his
life after the failure of the enterprise, but found himself landless and
a beggar. Happily the law would not allow Lady Widrington’s possessions
to be interfered with, and she was thus enabled to afford Lord
Widrington an adequate maintenance during the remainder of his life.
Finally, Lady Widrington, dying childless, left the Netherby estates to
a first cousin, the Rev. Robert Graham, D.D., second son of the Dean of
Carlisle. From him, through his second son, the subject of our present
sketch was descended.
Dr Graham was a great improver. Immediately on succeeding to the
property, he set himself to drain the lands, clear out mosses, build
decent houses for his tenantry, and gradually to raise their rents. He
built also, or rather rebuilt, Netherby Hall, carefully collecting and
depositing in a room set apart to receive them, the many relics of Roman
art which were discovered in digging the foundation. Like improvers in
general, however, he worked rather for posterity than for himself; and
he not unnaturally desired that with their enlarged resources the family
should recover the baronetage, which, for lack of heirs-male, had become
extinct. His wish in regard to this matter was accomplished, though
neither in his own person nor in that of his eldest son. The latter, by
name Charles, survived his father barely a fortnight; and as Charles’s
only child happened to be a daughter, the estate, strictly entailed on
heirs-male, passed to his younger brother James.
There had never been a Whig in the Graham family till the Doctor
professed Whiggish principles. Then, as now, the Whigs took better care
of their friends than the Tories; and as they came into power within a
month of Dr Graham’s death, Dr Graham’s son received immediate proof
that his father’s services were not forgotten. He was created a baronet,
and gave, of course, his political support to Fox and his friends. But
before the year 1782 was out, Fox made way at the Exchequer for Pitt,
and such a breaking up and reconstruction of parties ensued as might
have easily perplexed men of stronger minds than Sir James Graham. The
result was, that, after some wavering, Sir James attached himself to the
great Minister, and continued to the end of his days a stanch Tory in
the sense which Mr Pitt and the best of Pitt’s friends were accustomed
to apply to the term.
In 1785 Sir James Graham married Lady Catherine Stuart, the eldest
daughter of John, seventh Earl of Galloway. Remarkable for her personal
attractions, Lady Catherine was gifted at the same time with an
excellent understanding and a very genial nature. A little rigid she
seems to have been in her religious opinions; a great friend, for
example, of Dean Milner, the author of a Church History of which it has
been justly observed, that in seeking to achieve an impossible object it
effected nothing. Her Calvinistic tendencies, however, never interfered
with the exercise of a large and widely-extended benevolence. Neither
were her prejudices so rooted as to stand in the way of more worldly
friendships. Archdeacon Paley, certainly not religious over-much, found
a ready and frequent welcome at Netherby. So did Dr Vernon, the Bishop
of Carlisle, whose great idea of Episcopal dignity was to maintain as
strict a discipline among his clergy as the temper of the times would
admit, and to dispense a generous hospitality at Rose Castle. Thus, the
geniality of the laird and the high religious temperament of the lady
worked well together, and Netherby Hall became, under their united
influence, the centre of everything that was kind and good in the social
intercourse of the neighbourhood.
Sir James Graham the first married early. He was barely twenty-two, and
Lady Catherine twenty, when they came together, and a large family
followed. Daughters arrived first, and by-and-by, on the 1st of June
1792, their eldest son was born. Great rejoicings took place on that
occasion, and the child was named at his baptism James Robert
George—James, after his father; Robert, after his paternal grandfather;
and George, in memory of the man among his ancestors who had least claim
to the distinction, his only merit having been this, that in difficult
times he exercised great prudence, and managed, in consequence, to keep
himself from getting into trouble. Young James’s early education seems
to have been conducted at home, though how, we are not told. But in 1802
he was sent with his brother William to a private school at Dalston, a
village of which the Rev. Walter Fletcher, Chancellor of the Diocese,
was the incumbent.
At Mr Fletcher’s school young Graham failed to make the progress in
classics which his friends expected from him. The previous training
afforded to him at Netherby may perhaps account for this circumstance.
At ten years of age he was already an expert angler and a good shot,
accomplishments not to be despised in their proper place, but scarcely
conducive to rapid advancement in the path of early scholarship. Hence,
when removed to Westminster in 1806, he cut but an indifferent figure at
entrance, and, though not idle, never managed afterwards to take a
foremost place among his contemporaries. It is fair to add that the
place which he did take was always a respectable one. He quite held his
own against the late Duke of Richmond, then Lord Charles Lennox, to whom
he was fag, and suffered nothing in comparison with the present Earl
Russell, the occupant with him of the same form.
Westminster boys have always enjoyed the privilege of admission to the
debates in the House of Commons; and among them all, between the years
1806 and 1809, none took more frequent advantage of it than young
Graham. He came just in time to listen to some of the last speeches of
Pitt and Fox, and to be stirred by the scarcely less exciting harangues
of Windham, Grattan, Sheridan, and Canning. These, with Wilberforce’s
persuasive appeals against slavery, and Romilly’s stern denunciations of
the cruelty of the penal code, took a strong hold of his imagination. He
yearned for the time when he, in like manner, might be able to carry the
House along with him, and already determined that nothing should on his
part be wanting to bring about the accomplishment of the dream. It was
the memory of what he had himself felt on such occasions, which induced
him, at one of the meetings of the old Westminsters, to argue as he did,
with great force, against the project for removing the school into the
country. No considerations of physical health ought, in his opinion, to
be weighed against the abandonment of an intellectual impulse so
powerful as was supplied to the boys by their proximity to the Houses of
Parliament; and believing, as we do, that the sanitary drawbacks to
Westminster where it now stands are grossly exaggerated, we believe also
that Sir James Graham took a wise and even a benevolent view of the
matter then under discussion.
In 1809 young Graham quitted Westminster, and became a private pupil in
the family of the Rev. G. Richards, Vicar of Bampton, near Farringdon,
in Berkshire. There he made the acquaintance of Sir John Throckmorton,
one of the most eminent agriculturists of the day, and learned from him
how much was to be gained by the application of science and capital to
the culture of the soil. His sojourn in Bampton did not, however, extend
beyond a year. In 1810 he entered as a gentleman-commoner at Christ
Church, and in 1812 quitted Oxford without having at all distinguished
himself there, or even passed for a degree.
It must not be supposed from all this that Mr Graham was either an idler
or a dreamer. In his own way he picked up a large amount of knowledge.
He was a good Latin and a very fair Greek scholar. In pure mathematics
he never advanced far, but he was rapid in calculation, and possessed
considerable skill in the arrangement of his own ideas. With all this,
he was either indifferent about academical honours, or he disliked the
order of studies which led to them. In private life he was somewhat
reserved, and what ill-natured people might call stately. His style of
dress was in the extreme of fashion; and being tall and well made, with
a countenance singularly handsome, it is not to be wondered at if, among
casual acquaintances, he was set down as a considerable coxcomb. Nobody,
however, could lay to his charge that there was any lack of manliness
about him. His vacations he usually spent in the north, where he threw
himself keenly into field-sports, and was as forward with the fox-hounds
as he was successful on the moor and by the river-side. At the same
time, his desire to take an active part in the war of politics never
grew cold. His father, a consistent supporter of Mr Pitt, had sat in
Parliament as the Tory member for Ripon from 1802 to 1807. Mr Graham’s
prejudices were all on the other side; a bias which they seem to have
acquired partly through the deference in which he held the opinions of
his relative, Lord Archibald Hamilton, partly because he met at his
father’s table not always the most eloquent or well-instructed advocates
of Toryism. Be the causes, however, what they might, he gave himself up
to the Whigs, and in 1812 swore fealty to them, by being admitted, on
the recommendation of Lord Morpeth, into Brookes’s Club. It was too soon
for him as yet to aspire to a seat in the House of Commons; he
determined, therefore, to devote a year or two to foreign travel; and as
the only portion of the Continent then open to British subjects was the
Spanish Peninsula, he set out with the intention of visiting one after
another the principal seaports in Portugal and Spain.
Among these seaports there was none which offered to him so many
attractions as Cadiz. It was there that the Central Junta met, and
Graham not only became a frequent auditor at its sittings, but formed
the personal acquaintance of some of its most distinguished members. The
circumstance, however, on which, in after years, he used to dwell with
the greatest delight, was this—that in Cadiz he received his first
introduction to the Duke of Wellington. That great man, it will be
remembered, in the winter of 1812, repaired to Cadiz for the purpose of
entering with the Spanish Government into arrangements, to which the
Spanish Government never adhered. And Mr Graham, being at the time the
guest of Sir Henry Wellesley, had the gratification of conversing with
the British hero, not in public only, but amid that entire unreserve
into which the Duke was apt to throw himself when he felt or fancied
that he was among friends, and could therefore give free and safe
utterance to his sentiments on all subjects.
From Cadiz Mr Graham proceeded to Palermo, where Major-General Lord
Montgomery held a military command. It will be recollected that Sicily
was then occupied by an English army, and that Lord William Bentinck,
though absent at the moment, was, properly speaking, at the head of it.
To Lord Montgomery, however, besides his military command, a high
political trust had been committed; and imagining that he saw in Mr
Graham a remarkable aptitude for business, he offered to his acceptance
the post of private secretary. Nothing could better fall in with the
wishes of the young tourist. He accepted the office, and realised fully
the expectations of his patron, by whom he was employed to manage an
affair requiring great delicacy as well as firmness in handling it. This
was nothing less than to make his way through the heart of the French
armies, and to open a communication first with Murat, and afterwards
with the Austrian Government. It was while so employed that Mr Graham
became acquainted with Sir Charles, then Captain Napier, of the Euryalus
frigate, of whom he conceived a very high opinion, and with whom, in due
course of time, he quarrelled violently.
Mr Graham, after accompanying Lord William Bentinck through his campaign
in Italy, returned to England, and began, early in 1815, to feel his way
towards a seat in the House of Commons. It was a season, as a few of our
readers may possibly recollect, of great suffering among the people, and
anxiety to the Government. The renewal of the war with France added
upwards of one hundred millions to the national debt; and peace, when it
was purchased by the battle of Waterloo, seemed to bring only poverty in
its train. A spirit of general disaffection pervaded the masses, and
recourse was had to stringent measures in order to preserve the public
peace. Drawn away by old associations, Mr Graham joined the ranks of the
ultra-Liberals. Lord Archibald Hamilton was his kinsman, and Lord
Folkstone, Sir Francis Burdett, and Lord Althorpe, won his political
affections. His father, on the other hand, continued to profess the Tory
principles in which he had grown old; so that, but for the sympathy of
Lady Catherine, the young man might have found himself ill at ease as an
inmate of Netherby Hall. Accordingly, he spent but little of his time
there in the interval between his return from abroad and the general
election of 1818; when, being assured of the support of Lord Milton, and
obtaining through his mother letters of recommendation to Mr
Wilberforce, he entered the lists as a candidate for Hull, and fought a
hard battle to a successful issue.
We confess not to hold the name of William Wilberforce quite in the same
degree of veneration in which it is held by his sons. We believe that
there was no slight sprinkling of what is vulgarly called humbug in the
good man’s character; and we find some corroboration of this suspicion
in the fact that, though well aware of Mr Graham’s ultra-Liberal
opinions, he nevertheless, because of the affection with which he
regarded Lady Catherine, recommended her son to the constituency of
Hull. A like charge may, we think, be brought against Dean Milner,
subject, of course, to extenuating circumstances. Dean Milner
conscientiously believed that the admission of Roman Catholics to
political power would be tantamount to the establishment of idolatry in
Great Britain: yet he, too, because Lady Catherine sat at his feet, gave
a testimonial to her son, whom he knew to be an advocate of Catholic
emancipation. By these means, and through the active agency of two Roman
Catholic gentlemen and one clergyman of the Church of England, Mr Graham
conducted his canvass with such spirit, that on the day of nomination an
immense majority of hands was held up in his favour; and at the end of
the second day’s polling he was thirty-three ahead of the gentleman whom
he had determined to oust, and whom he succeeded in ousting. Those,
however, were times when polling went on for fifteen consecutive days,
during which electors and their friends lived at free quarters,
candidates paying the piper. When, therefore, the returning-officer
declared that Mr Graham had beaten Mr Stamford by thirty-eight votes,
and when Mr Stamford’s committee thereupon demanded a scrutiny, Mr
Graham’s heart sank within him. His father had with difficulty been
prevailed upon to sanction his entering into the contest at all. The
funds at his disposal were quite exhausted, and here was the battle to
be fought over again. But who, having committed himself to such a
struggle, ever willingly withdrew from it? Mr Graham did not; and at the
end of a month he was pronounced member for Hull, with a debt of £6000
hanging like a millstone upon his back.
The lesson thus taught him at the outset of his career Mr Graham never
afterwards forgot. He was fortunate enough to raise the money at
interest, without calling upon his father for a shilling; but he
registered a vow to rush no more blindfold into scrapes of the kind; and
he kept it, in spite of many a strong inducement in after-times to the
contrary.
Mr Graham took his seat on the third Opposition bench, behind his
relative Lord Archibald Hamilton. Near him sat Mr E. Ellice (the Bear),
Sir Robert Wilson, and Mr F. E. Kennedy; below him, Sir Francis Burdett,
Mr Hume, and Lord Althorpe. It was a goodly association, and it produced
its legitimate results. The war of parties soon began; and in March
1819, scarcely a month after he had taken his seat, the young member
delivered his maiden speech. It proved a signal failure. Abounding in
platitudes, and spoken with the air and in the tone of an exquisite, it
scarcely commanded the attention of the House for a moment, and was
brought to a close amid that buzz of general conversation which, more
surely than any violent outcry of dissent, marks the disinclination of
the Commons of England to be instructed. Mr Graham felt that his shot
had missed, yet he by no means lost heart. He believed that the causes
of the failure might be equally shared between himself and the House,
and he determined to try again and again till he should compel the
attention which was now denied him. Meanwhile, he sought comfort under
the disappointment in a connection which proved to be the source, to
him, of the purest happiness through life. On the 8th of July 1819 he
married Fanny Callander, one of the loveliest women whom England,
fertile in beauty, had ever produced. She was the daughter of Colonel
Sir James Callander, afterwards Campbell of Arkinglas, and the aunt, as
we need hardly stop to observe, of the still beautiful and highly-gifted
Mrs Norton.
Mr Graham’s next effort was made during that eventful autumn session
when Parliament met in consequence of the Peterloo affair, and the
Government demanded powers beyond those of the constitution, to deal
with the dangers which threatened the country. One of the bills which
Ministers proposed, with a view to stop the organised agitation which
Radical delegates kept up, prohibited all persons, not resident in a
town, or being freeholders, from taking any part in the proceedings of a
town meeting. Here was an opportunity which the ambitious member for
Hull could not possibly allow to escape. He rose to demand whether the
member for a borough, being neither the inhabitant of such borough nor a
freeman, would come within the meaning of the Act; and when, to his
great indignation, nobody seemed inclined to reply, he had the
imprudence to argue the case, and to state it as peculiarly his own.
Just at that moment a sound of suppressed laughter was heard in the
House, whereupon the member for Hull lost his head, and, after rambling
on for a few minutes without a single cheer to sustain him, sat down,
retaining no recollection either of what he had said, or of what he
meant to say. “There’s an end of Graham,” exclaimed Mr Henry Lascelles,
jeeringly; “we shall hear no more of him.” But Mr Lascelles was
mistaken.
Nothing daunted by this discomfiture, the baffled senator stood up again
when the bill went into committee. This time he had carefully prepared
his speech, and the House listened to it, without, however, evincing any
signs that it approved. He was still on the losing side in politics; and
though his friends saw that there was good stuff in him, even they
scarcely ventured to hope that he would ever prove more than a useful
second-rate orator, and a good man of business whenever matters of
detail came to be considered.
The death of George III. in February 1820 warned the House of Commons
that its days were numbered. The Government was desirous of
precipitating the dissolution; and the Opposition took, in consequence,
an early opportunity to hamper them, as far as might be, by a small
reform bill. Lord John Russell proposed that the writs for Grampound,
Penrhyn, Barnstaple, and Camelford, should be suspended, in order to
afford the new Parliament an opportunity of inquiring into the
corruption with which these boroughs were charged. But Lord John’s
motion, which Mr Graham supported, though successful in the Lower House,
was thrown out in the Upper, and the members dispersed, each to look
after his own interest as he best might.
It would have been idle in Mr Graham to offer himself again to the
constituency of Hull. He had done nothing in Parliament to secure a
re-election, except at the cost of a second contest, and that he could
not afford. The interest of the debt incurred by the first election
pressed heavily upon his small income, and he at once made up his mind
to look for a seat elsewhere. Now the Lowther influence, powerful as it
had heretofore been, was beginning to give way in the north of England.
Both the county of Cumberland and the city of Carlisle were growing
restive, and the Whigs declared their intention of fighting for both
seats in the city, and for one at least in the county. It was proposed
to Mr Graham that he should stand in the Liberal interest for Carlisle;
while Mr Curwen, up to that time the city member, contested the county
against Sir John Lowther. Anxious as he was to return to the House of
Commons, Mr Graham had the good taste to decline this proposal. He could
not fight under a Whig banner so close to Netherby without greatly
distressing his father; and, vaulting as his ambition was, it did not
blind him to the impropriety of such a course. He contented himself,
therefore, with throwing the weight of his influence into Mr Curwen’s
scale as candidate for the county. Mr Curwen succeeded, so did Mr John
Cam Hobhouse in Westminster, advocating household suffrage, triennal
Parliaments, and counting among the busiest of his canvassers the late
member for Hull. Mr Graham’s activity on that occasion fixed upon him
the attention of certain gentlemen connected by property with the little
borough of St Ives. They took him up, he canvassed the constituency, and
on the day of election was brought in at the head of the poll. And well
and zealously he redeemed the pledges which he had given to his Liberal
supporters. He voted with Mr Hume against a proposed increase to the
civil-list of George IV., and for inquiry into the expenses of the
Regency during the five preceding years. He took part with Mr Brougham
in his attack on the droits of the Crown and of the Admiralty, and
joined Lord John Russell in demanding that the report on the civil-list
should be deferred till the estimates for the year had been fully
examined. Every proposal, in short, which had for its object the
weakening of the influence of the Crown and the overthrow of existing
usages, received his cordial support. He was, with Mr Curwen and Mr
Brougham, a decided enemy to the Corn Laws as they then existed. He went
into the gallery with Lord John Russell for the disfranchisement of
Grampound, and the transfer of its members to Leeds. In a like spirit,
he stood by Lord Archibald Hamilton when denouncing the Scottish system
of election, and requiring that the number of Barons of the Exchequer
should be reduced. Finally, in the disputes which arose about Queen
Caroline, he ranged himself under her Majesty’s banner. This was pretty
well within the brief interval of less than a year, as indicating the
course which he had determined to follow. But a check came. The electors
of St Ives were not at all satisfied with their new member. They
presented a petition early in 1821 against Mr Graham’s return, and Mr
Graham, rather than incur the certain expense and hazard of a scrutiny,
resigned his seat.
Mortified as he was at finding himself thus excluded from public life,
Mr Graham possessed too good a digestion to let the circumstance prey
upon his spirits. His home was then, as it continued to be to the last,
the chief scene of his happiness; and the birth of his first-born son,
on the 7th of April 1820, shed additional light over the domestic
circle. It suited neither his means nor his tastes to reside in London
as an idler; he therefore retired into Cumberland, and, settling down at
Crofthead, the unpretending house to which he had carried his beautiful
bride, he threw himself with all his energies into country pursuits. It
was high time that he should. His father, an easy-going and generous
man, had never looked after his affairs as became him. He put himself
entirely into the hands of an agent, from whom he exacted no accounts,
and who did with the rents of the large estate of Netherby pretty much
as he pleased. The consequence was that farms and farm-buildings went to
ruin. Payments on account were all that the landlord received, and
tenants got into arrear so far that recovery was impossible. With some
difficulty Mr Graham prevailed upon his father to transfer the
management of the property to him, and the work of practical reform
began. But the extent of the difficulties with which he had to grapple
may be guessed at, when we say that encumbrances to the amount of not
less than £120,000 lay like a dead weight upon Netherby.
Mr Graham had accomplished a good deal. Money was raised on more
favourable terms; roads were made, marshes drained, farm-buildings
rendered habitable, and a better system of tillage introduced, when, in
1824, his father died, and he succeeded to the title and to the estate.
An additional burden was of course laid upon the latter in the shape of
dower to Lady Catherine, but for the sisters of the new proprietor
scarcely any provision had been made. Sir James, like a good brother as
he was, supplied the deficiency out of his own funds. But this done,
there remained so little on which to reckon, more especially with his
views of extensive improvement, that he thought seriously of selling
Netherby, and of embarking, with whatever might remain to him after
paying off the mortgages, in trade. He even went so far as to open a
negotiation with a London banking-house which happened at that moment to
desire an extension of its business, and waited only the judgment of Mr
James Evan Bailey of Bristol, to whom, through a friend, he referred the
question. “Tell him,” said that experienced banker, “to hold fast by
Netherby, and keep clear of banking.” By Netherby Sir James accordingly
held fast, and within twelve months the names of Messrs Pole, Thornton,
Down, & Co. appeared in the ‘Gazette.’
It had been Sir James’s dream that, as a banker or as a thriving
merchant, he would find readier access to the political career on which
he desired to enter, than as the owner of a large and encumbered estate.
The fate of Messrs Pole and Thornton awoke him from that dream, and he
bent all his energies to diminish, if he could not entirely remove, the
debt upon Netherby. His own habits were prudent and economical. He chose
for his associates practical agriculturists, studied every work that
came out on the subject of agriculture, and put in practice such
suggestions as appeared to be wise. He read, likewise, with a view to
prepare himself at some future time for public life, and read to
excellent purpose. The consequence was, that every year saw the burden
diminish which at the outset seemed to be intolerable; and that, in
1826, his circumstances, if not easy, were at all events much less
harassing than at one moment he had expected them ever to be.
It was at this time that he first came before the public as an author.
His pamphlet on corn and currency made a great sensation, taking men of
all parties by surprise. Its argument went far beyond the age in which
it appeared. Upon the Bank Restriction Act of 1797 he laid the blame of
all the evils under which the country then laboured, and censured Mr
Peel for returning too hastily to cash payments in 1819. The
sliding-scale, as a protection to corn-growers, he entirely condemned,
and reasoned in favour of free trade, with a small but fixed duty on
foreign corn as some compensation for the peculiar burdens which the
land was called upon to bear. We who read the pamphlet now, remembering
all that the country has gone through, and looking to the present state
both of its manufacturing and agricultural interests, cannot
sufficiently admire the audacity of the country gentleman who, in 1826,
could thus express himself. But his audacity told. Though all the
leaders of party, from Lord Liverpool to Cobbet, denounced and censured,
there were multitudes in the ranks who approved the Cumberland baronet’s
reasoning, and no great while elapsed ere they gave tangible proof of
their sympathy with his views.
At the dissolution of Parliament in 1826, Mr James, who for some time
had represented Carlisle, retired. A requisition was immediately sent in
to Sir James Graham, who replied to it favourably, and came forward as
the Liberal candidate. We do not use the stronger term Radical, because,
to do him justice, Sir James never voted for universal suffrage and
annual Parliaments; but of everything on the sinking-scale short of
these two points he was then the advocate. He declared himself in favour
of the immediate abolition of slavery, the total removal of religious
disabilities, retrenchment in the public expenditure, and the reduction
within moderate limits of the import-duty on corn. The struggle was
fierce both in Carlisle and elsewhere, for the Catholic Question was
approaching a crisis; and Sir James, supported by all the operatives of
the city, came in at the head of the poll. His first vote in the House
was against the Government, on a question of an increased grant out of
the Consolidated Fund to the Duke and Duchess of Clarence; his next, for
an inquiry into the abuses in the Court of Chancery. On both occasions
he went into the lobby, one of a small minority. But already prospects
began to open for him, on which he had no reason to count in returning
to public life. Lord Liverpool was struck down by paralysis in 1827, and
that scramble for a successor at the Treasury began, of which, by the
way, Mr Torrens gives a very inaccurate account. Following implicitly
the story told by Mr Stapleton, he endeavours to show that Canning was
no intriguer; that George IV. hated and would have set Canning aside,
had he seen his way to any other arrangement; and that the Conyngham
influence had nothing in the world to say in deciding the King’s policy.
We know better; and we know likewise that not the Tories only, but the
most consistent and stanchest of the Whigs never trusted Canning. Sir
James Graham, on the other hand, ranged himself among the Canningites,
and soon became the friend and favourite pupil of Huskisson. He sat on
the ministerial side of the Speaker’s chair while Canning led the House,
and he retained his place during the administration which succeeded on
Canning’s demise. But Lord Goderich’s reign was short; and on the
assumption of office by the Duke of Wellington, Sir James withdrew with
his Whig allies to the Opposition benches. His opposition, however,
appears to have been a good deal modified by the esteem in which he held
Mr Huskisson. The Corn Bill which that gentleman introduced, still being
a minister, Sir James Graham supported, though it was framed on a
principle at variance with that which he had advocated in his pamphlet;
and many years elapsed ere he could bring himself to contemplate without
alarm the disturbance of the compromise into which, as he believed,
contending parties had entered by its adoption.
In 1827 a vacancy occurred in the representation of Cumberland, and Sir
James was easily persuaded to resign his seat for Carlisle and to set up
for the county. His return was not opposed, and he entered the House
after a brief absence as a county member. Though still ineffective in
debate, the House began to consider him a man of promise. He was an
excellent member of committees, assiduous in his attendance, and
remarkably skilful in sifting evidence. He spoke likewise with effect in
moving for an inquiry into the fitness of limiting the circulation of
Scotch notes to Scotland itself; and his speech, though overladen, as
most of his speeches were, with quotations, was referred to by almost
all who followed him, whether advocating or opposing the view which he
took of the matter. But his great start was taken, when the Duke, by
passing his Catholic Relief Bill, gave the first decided shock to the
Tory party. Sir James of course approved the measure, of which, as well
as of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, he had always been
the consistent supporter. And he did more. He took an opportunity of
commending Sir Robert Peel, in his absence, for the sacrifice to duty
which he had made of his seat for the University of Oxford, and paved
the way thereby for the close intimacy which in due time arose between
him and that great though not always straightforward or very consistent
statesman.
Whatever the Duke’s conduct and views at that critical moment may have
been, those of his subordinates strike us now as not only impolitic, but
dishonest. Sir George Murray went out of his way to assure the Whigs
that he intended to manage the affairs of the colonies on the principles
which they advocated. Sir Henry Hardinge became a frequent visitor at
Spenser House, and professed opinions there which led Lord Althorpe to
reckon upon him as a willing member of a new coalition. Meanwhile three
members of Brookes’s, Lords Rosselyn and Jersey and Sir James Scarlett,
held office under a Tory chief, and Earl Grey was approached with a view
to conciliation by creating his son-in-law, Mr Lambton, Earl of Durham.
All this gave sure evidence of weakness on the part of the Government,
and encouraged the discontented among its old supporters to aim at its
overthrow. On the other hand, Sir James Graham, as if looking rather to
a fusion than to the break-up of parties, declared that he saw little
difference, except on the question of the currency, between the opinions
entertained by the Opposition on the one side, and the friends of the
Administration on the other. And, as if to test the House, he moved, on
going into Committee of Supply, that since Peel’s bill of 1819 was
accepted as a final settlement of the currency question, the salaries of
all public servants should be cut down by 20 per cent. Though listened
to attentively, he received small support, either from his own friends
or the friends of the Government; but he added, by the vigour of his
appeal, to the reputation which he had already acquired, and was by
common consent assigned a place with Lord Althorpe, Lord John Russell,
and Mr Brougham, as one of the leaders of the Opposition in the House of
Commons.
Early in May 1830 the Parliamentary campaign opened in earnest, by a
notice of motion by Sir James Graham for a return of all the pensions,
salaries, and emoluments then receivable by members of the Privy
Council. His speech was, in its own way, a telling one; and the motion
was met by a proposal from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to supply the
honourable member with a comprehensive enumeration of all civil and
military offices and salaries under the Crown. Sir James either felt or
affected great indignation, and, in rejecting Mr Goulbourne’s
counter-proposal, made use of the expression, “That he was not disposed
to stoop to ignoble game while flights of voracious birds of prey were
floating in the upper regions of the air.” This was one of the
clap-traps in which Sir James on all convenient occasions indulged, and
it had its effect. Not fewer than 147 members in a House of 382 voted
with him—a remarkable sign of the times, a sure proof that men’s
passions had overclouded their reason on many matters, and that
Government by party, as it had once existed, was for a season at least
at an end.
Encouraged by the plaudits which were heaped upon him, Sir James, after
remaining quiet for a few weeks, moved to reduce the grant for special
diplomatic missions from £28,000 to £18,000 a year. He was again opposed
with all the strength which the Government could muster, and again
failed. But failure on this occasion was accepted on both sides as a
triumph. In a House of 217 members, the motion was rejected by a
majority of 19 only. It was a blow to the Ministers scarcely less severe
than that which they received the same evening, when Sir James
Mackintosh carried his clause in the Forgery Bill against
them—abolishing the punishment of death in all cases except where wills
were concerned.
The death of George IV., on the 20th of June 1830, was soon followed by
the dissolution of Parliament. Sir James went back to his constituents
with a reputation largely enhanced; and while his canvass was at its
height, tidings of the revolution in Paris arrived. They set the whole
country in a blaze, and two Liberal members immediately started for
Cumberland. A fierce contest ensued, of the temper of which some idea
may be formed when we transcribe one of the toasts which was proposed
and accepted amid a tempest of applause at a public dinner given to Sir
James Graham at Whitehaven—“May the heads of Don Miguel, King Ferdinand,
and Charles Capet be severed from their bodies and roll in the dust, and
the sooner the better.” It would be unfair to the memory of Sir James
Graham if we omitted to add that he wholly disapproved of this
sentiment, and that, while applauding the revolution, he expressed
himself anxious that the French people should use their victory with
moderation.
We have now arrived at an era into the history of which it would be out
of place, while sketching Sir James Graham’s career, to enter much at
length. The elections of 1830 had gone against the Government, and the
country seemed to have become a prey to anarchy. There were incendiary
fires in many places; and when Parliament met in November to provide a
remedy, the worst spirit manifested itself in both Houses. The King’s
visit to the Lord Mayor of London was postponed; and the Duke, with
extraordinary rashness, gave utterance to a statement which his enemies
insisted on accepting as a manifesto against all reform. A coalition
between the Whigs and the ultra-Tories to expel him from power ensued,
and Ministers, being defeated on a question of the civil-list, resigned
their places. In bringing all this to pass Sir James had taken an active
part, and he received his reward in the appointment of First Lord of the
Admiralty, with a seat in Earl Grey’s Cabinet. He was placed at the
Admiralty, however, rather as representing ultra opinions than from any
admiration of his talents and industry; for Earl Grey, desiring above
all things to throw the authority of Government into the hands of
aristocrats, was too prudent to overlook the policy, situated as he then
was, of having every great party in the State represented in his
Cabinet. Hence the Duke of Richmond, Mr Wynn, Lord Palmerston, Lord
Goderich, and Mr Charles Grant, were invited to take their seats beside
Lord Lansdowne, Lord Althorpe, and Lord Carlisle; and Lord Durham, Sir
James Graham, and Lord Melbourne readily joined them. Among all these
there was not one who displayed so large an amount of administrative
ability as Sir James Graham, or who with so much frankness acknowledged,
when the proper time came, that the improvements effected by him in the
department were little more than the execution of plans which his
predecessor had already arranged and determined upon.
Earl Grey had taken office pledged to three things,—Retrenchment,
Non-intervention in Foreign Affairs, and Parliamentary Reform. Into all
these Sir James Graham eagerly threw himself. Returned again without
opposition for Cumberland, he took up his residence at the Admiralty,
and worked like a slave to keep ahead of the enormous amount of business
which devolved upon him. For now his real worth was discovered. What
might be wanting in brilliancy he endeavoured to make up by labour; and
he held his own, not without a hard fight for it, in the House of
Commons. Lord Althorpe, the acknowledged leader of the Ministerial
party, was slow and confused. He derived the greatest benefit from the
subtle and ambitious promptings of Graham, and often sought for them.
Whether the proposal in the first Whig budget to impose a tax on the
transfer of stock came from this source does not appear; but the
measure, in spite of the eloquence with which Sir James Graham supported
it, met with no success, and was withdrawn amid the jeers of the House.
This was a bad beginning, and his speech in defence of the army
estimates proved equally unfortunate. The pledge of non-intervention had
been thrown over by the Government in the case of Belgium, and an
increase to the army was asked for. In advocating this increase, Sir
James allowed himself considerable latitude of speech in regard to the
condition of Ireland, and O’Gorman Mahon, conceiving that he, among
others, had been attacked, called upon the First Lord to retract, or
else to give him personal satisfaction. Sir James requested Lord
Althorpe to act for him on that occasion, and the quarrel was amicably
settled.
The improvements introduced into the constitution of the Admiralty were
chiefly these: Sir James abolished the Victualling and Navy Boards as
separate establishments; he required the accounts of the office to be
kept by double entry; he proposed to throw open the great national
asylum at Greenwich to seamen of the mercantile marine; and, failing to
accomplish that, he relieved the mercantile marine from the special tax
which it had heretofore borne. Nor was he all the while exempt from a
full share of the burden of administration in other respects. Earl Grey
never lost sight of the pledge which he had given to reform the
representative system throughout the United Kingdom, and a committee of
four was appointed to investigate the whole subject, and to report upon
it to the Cabinet. Lord Durham, Lord John Russell, Lord Duncannon, and
Sir James Graham composed that committee, of which no member worked more
steadily and with greater zeal than Sir James.
It is not our purpose to tell over again the thrice-told tale of the
bloodless revolution of 1831–32. In preparing the scheme which the
Government was to bring forward, Sir James Graham appears to have been
less extravagant than some of his colleagues. He desired to interfere as
little as possible with existing rights in counties, except by adding
copyholders and leaseholders to the ancient freeholders. In boroughs he
was an advocate for occupancy as a condition to freedom, and was willing
that the limit of the pecuniary qualifications should be wide. He
objected to the ballot, and to anything like an attempt to establish
perfect uniformity of franchise anywhere. Yet such was his infirmity of
purpose that he yielded his own opinions to those of men of stronger
will, and affixed his signature to a report which recommended the ballot
and other arrangements of which he disapproved. It was this weakness,
indeed—this apparent inability to arrive at settled convictions and to
stand by them—which constituted the great flaw in Sir James Graham’s
character as a public man. His biographer, we observe, commends him for
the specialty, and endeavours to make what was mere irresolution stand
in the light of judicial impartiality. “Half his life,” says Mr Torrens,
“was spent in comparing and pondering opposite results, and determining
judicially in the silence and solitude of his study on which side the
balance lay. ‘Upon the whole’ again and again occurs throughout his
private correspondence and public judgments, for judgments they
frequently were—a phrase which a statesman of a constitutional country
may well employ as eminently expressive of the true candour and humility
of wisdom.” Doubtless this is true; but if we find the statesman
afterwards going apart from his own conclusions, and falling in with
proposals against which he had “on the whole” decided, what can we say
of him except that his humility degenerates into weakness, and that,
whatever qualities he may possess, firmness of purpose is certainly not
one of them?
It is a remarkable fact that not even now could Sir James Graham command
the attention of the House. His great attention to business, his value
on a committee, and his administrative abilities, were very generally
acknowledged, but as a speaker he made little or no impression. Even his
advocacy of what may be called his own measure was felt to be feeble—a
strange medley of confused discussion and turgid enunciations. But the
bill had other sources of strength to depend upon than the logic of its
Parliamentary supporters. Political unions and conspiracies out of doors
did the work, and the King and the House of Lords were forced to accept
their own humiliation. First came the dissolution on the 23d of April
1831, a step into which William IV. was coerced by the overbearing
insolence of Earl Grey and Lord Chancellor Brougham. Then followed
elections wherein brute force bore down all opposition, and by-and-by
such an assembly at Westminster as struck terror into the hearts of the
Ministers who had brought it together. On the top of that wave Sir James
Graham was again borne into Parliament—a colleague being given to him of
opinions far more advanced than his own. So it befell in the borough of
Carlisle, so also in the neighbouring county of Westmoreland. It is
quite certain that Sir James Graham did not contemplate the crisis,
which he had helped to bring on, without alarm. “We have ventured,” he
says, speaking of himself and his colleagues, “to drive nearer the brink
than any other statesman ever did before; but we did so because aware
that if we let go the reins the horses would be maddened into plunging
headlong into the abyss, where extrication would be impossible.”
We have alluded elsewhere to Sir James Graham’s reconstruction of the
departments in the Admiralty. It is creditable to him that he disclaimed
all the merit of originality in such reconstruction. He discovered, on
acceding to office, that plans of practical reform were already settled,
and he had the good sense to accept and act upon them as his own. He
found a willing adviser likewise in Lord Melville, who kept back nothing
from him when consulted. Having completed this job, he set himself next
to devise some means of getting rid of the necessity of impressment, and
was again fortunate enough to have brought to him an important letter,
addressed by Lord Nelson to Earl St Vincent. The letter in question
suggested that there ought to be a registration of seamen, among whom,
at the sudden outbreak of war, a ballot should take place, with
permission, as in the militia, to find substitutes. But, anxious as he
was to accomplish this object, he shrank as a Minister of the Crown from
openly striking a blow at the prerogative. When, therefore, Mr
Buckingham moved, “That the forcible impressment of seamen for His
Majesty’s navy was unjust, cruel, inefficient, and unnecessary,” Sir
James Graham resisted the motion. He fought, however, less for the evil
itself than for the manner of applying a remedy, and obtained leave of
the House to bring in a bill which has many admirable points in it, but
which he was not destined to guide through its various stages till it
became law.
The years 1833 and 1834 were seasons of sore trial to the Reform
Government. They had evoked a power at home which they found themselves
ill able to control. They had entered into treaties and engagements
abroad, the necessity of acting up to which involved them in heavy
expenses. But most of all were they hampered and annoyed by the
operations of the Irish party, which, after helping them to carry their
great measure, asked for its reward. The Irish Established Church must
be sacrificed; and the better to insure a speedy attainment of that
object, an agitation was got up for the repeal of the Union. Now, Earl
Grey was not a man to endure contradiction calmly; he introduced a stern
Coercion Bill into the House of Lords, which his colleagues fought inch
by inch in the House of Commons. In order to conciliate their Radical
supporters, they proposed at the same time to reduce the number of Irish
bishops, and to substitute for church-rate in Ireland moneys to be
raised by taxes imposed on all sees and benefices. Finally, after
providing, as was assumed, a better method of managing episcopal and
chapter lands, a clause in their bill declared “That it should be lawful
to appropriate any portion thence accruing to purposes of secular
utility, without regard to the religious opinions of persons to be
benefited.” This famous clause (the 147th) was warmly debated, and in
the end withdrawn. But neither section of the Legislature seemed to be
satisfied. Indeed, in the Cabinet itself diversity of opinion was held
in regard to that matter, and no great while elapsed ere diversity of
opinion led to separation.
The first overt proof of schism in the Cabinet was presented by the
opposite sides which Sir James Graham and his colleagues took on Mr
O’Connell’s motion of censure upon the Irish judge, Sir William Smith.
Sir James stoutly resisted it. Mr Stanley, Lord Althorpe, and Lord John
Russell voted for it. On a division, Sir James went out with a minority
of 74, and next morning tendered his resignation. He had proved himself,
however, too valuable a member of the Administration to be cast adrift,
and Earl Grey refused to part with him. Three nights afterwards he
committed another crime by acknowledging in his place that the economy
effected by his predecessors at the Admiralty was quite equal to his
own. Then followed a discussion upon the Corn Laws, which he defended as
they stood; whereas Mr Poulett Thompson, Vice-President of the Board of
Trade, proposed to substitute a fixed duty for a sliding-scale. And here
an incident befell which deserves notice. Mr Poulett Thompson
endeavoured to confute his opponent by reading extracts from a pamphlet
which had appeared in 1830, and in which the author, under the _nom de
guerre_ of a Cumberland Landowner, advocated entire freedom of trade in
corn, as in other commodities. Strange to say, Sir James Graham took no
notice of the ironical cheers which followed these quotations, and which
marked the conviction of the House that the pamphlet had emanated from
his pen. Yet such was not the case. The pamphlet was the work of a Mr
Rooke, and was acknowledged as such when, four years subsequently, the
author gave to the world a volume on the science of geology. Why Sir
James Graham did not decline the honour thrust upon him at the moment,
we are at a loss to conceive, and his biographer certainly assigns no
satisfactory reason for the proceeding.
The Cabinet worked on not very amicably, and Sir James Graham did it
what service he could by taking charge of its bill for remodelling the
Exchequer Office. But the time was come when he felt that he could serve
it no longer. Lord Wellesley’s measure for converting tithes in Ireland
into a permanent rent-charge on the land was cumbered by a question from
Mr Shiel, drawing from Lord John Russell something like a pledge, that
the Government might hereafter consider the propriety of applying a
portion of this rent-charge to secular purposes. And a few days later Mr
Ward brought forward his motion, “That the Protestant Episcopal
Establishment in Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant
population, and that, it being the right of the State to regulate the
distribution of Church property in such a manner as Parliament might
determine, it is the opinion of this House ‘that the temporal
possessions of the Church of Ireland, as established by law, ought to be
reduced.’” There was no evading a movement like this. The Cabinet must
either resist or accept Mr Ward’s motion, and a majority determined to
accept it. Now, however Radical Sir James Graham’s views might be on
other points, he was then, as he always had been, a consistent
Churchman. On many previous occasions he had declared his determination
to defend to the uttermost the inviolability of what he regarded as a
fundamental institution of the Empire; and the Duke of Richmond, Lord
Ripon, and Mr Stanley agreed with him. When, therefore, this Act for
confiscating the property of the Church was accepted by the Cabinet as
its own, the four Ministers above named felt that only one course lay
open to them: they retired from the Administration, and shook it thereby
to its base.
Sir James sat below the gangway, on the Ministerial side of the House,
while those gyrations went on which ended in shaking Earl Grey out of
the Premier’s chair, and Lord Melbourne into it. With Mr Stanley, and
the half-dozen friends who adhered to him, Sir James kept aloof from
each of the rival parties, becoming one of the company who, as Mr
O’Connell described it, “travelled by themselves in the Derby Dilly.” It
is not for us to inquire into the motives which animated the little band
at that time. But considerations of delicacy towards old friends were
surely rated above their just value when they induced Mr Stanley and Sir
James Graham, a few months subsequently, to decline taking office under
Sir Robert Peel. Had they met his advances as frankly as they deserved,
the Conservative Government of 1835 would have probably stood its
ground; and though it be difficult to conceive, looking both at things
present and things past, how the commercial system, now in the
ascendant, could have been pushed aside, still the progress of that
system would have been probably more gradual; it certainly might have
achieved its triumph at a sacrifice less costly than the disruption of
the great Tory party, which followed on the repeal of the Corn Laws in
1846.
Sir James was coldly looked upon by the Liberals for abandoning Earl
Grey’s Administration, and a cabal was got up to resist his re-election
for East Cumberland in the event of his taking office with Sir Robert
Peel. He refused to take office, as we have shown, and defended himself
well at the hustings against the attacks which were made upon him. East
Cumberland chose him again to be its representative, and he again took
his seat below the gangway on the Ministerial side of the House. As an
independent member, however, he stood aloof from the struggle between
Sir Robert Peel and the Whigs, till Lord John Russell brought forward
his famous motion “For the appropriation to secular purposes of a
portion of the Church property in Ireland.” Then Sir James Graham threw
over all party scruples. He delivered against the motion one of the most
telling speeches which he ever uttered in Parliament, and went out into
the gallery with that gallant band which failed to keep their chief in
office by twenty-five votes only. From that moment his severance from
the Whigs became a mere question of time, and the bitterness with which
the Municipal Reform Bill was argued hurried it on. Sir James had never
desired to swamp the poorer voters, either in counties or boroughs, and
voted against the extinction of the class of freemen. Having gone out
with the Tories, he was preparing to cross the House to his old seat,
when a storm of derisive cheering greeted him, accompanied by shouts of
“Stay where you are!” He stopped, looked angrily at the benches whence
the sounds proceeded, and then sat down with a smile of scorn on his
lips on one of the Opposition benches.
For the part which he took in resisting the extension to Ireland of the
municipal changes which were effected in England and in Scotland, Mr
Torrens severely censures Sir James Graham. This is natural enough.
Going far beyond his hero in Radical propensities, Mr Torrens dispenses
blame where men of moderate views would award praise. He seems to forget
that all legislation for Ireland was undertaken in those days with a
twofold purpose only—to conciliate Mr O’Connell, and to humble the House
of Lords. The Melbourne Ministry, however, rode their hobby too fast.
Not a few of the most distinguished of the old reformers fell off from
them. Indeed, to such a height was the spirit of alienation carried,
that not Sir James Graham only, but likewise Lord Brougham, Sir Francis
Burdett, and Lord Stanley, withdrew their names from Brookes’s, into
which Mr O’Connell had been received as a member.
From this date up to the death of William IV. in 1837, party spirit
prevailed in Parliament and out of it, with a bitterness which has no
parallel in modern times. The Ministers, existing by the breath of Mr
O’Connell and the Radicals, seemed indifferent to the consequences of
the measures which they proposed. The great body of the Opposition,
carried away by personal dislike to their opponents, fought more than
one battle which it would have been wise to avoid, and compelled their
more judicious leaders to fight with them. On the whole, however, the
Duke in the House of Lords and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons managed
matters well; and it is only just to Sir James Graham to add, that they
found in him a hearty as well as a prudent coadjutor.
The accession of her present Majesty led, of course, to a dissolution,
and Sir James Graham had the mortification to find himself opposed in
East Cumberland by Major Aglionby, formerly his fastest friend. He
received, on the other hand, but a doubtful support from the
Conservatives, and on the day of nomination the mob refused to hear him.
Naturally proud, and perhaps a little dissatisfied with himself, he
quitted the hustings, and went to the poll in bad heart. He was defeated
by a majority of upwards of 500 votes, and withdrew, full of
indignation, to Netherby. He had suffered not long before this a heavy
domestic affliction in the death of his mother; and mortified ambition,
coming on the back of private sorrow, wellnigh broke him down. He took
no further part in county business; he shut himself out from county
society, and spent his time chiefly in reading every new book that came
out, and corresponding on important subjects with Sir Robert Peel. It
was the interval between his defeat for East Cumberland and his return
to Parliament as member for the Welsh borough of Pembroke which made
him, what he ever after continued to be, a Peelite to the backbone.
In 1838 Sir James Graham was elected Lord Rector of the University of
Glasgow, in opposition to the Duke of Sussex. He delivered an inaugural
address, which is probably still remembered in consequence of the uproar
which it called forth by certain allusions to the necessity of keeping
the Church in alliance with the State; for then the fever of Free-Kirk
folly was at its height in Scotland. But in 1839 he had graver matters
to attend to. That systematic agitation against the Corn Laws having
already begun of which Mr Charles Villiers, and not Mr Cobden, was the
author. Sir James spoke in his place against interference with the
sliding-scale; at the same time he guarded himself from the charge of
desiring to secure a monopoly in the corn-market for the English
landowner, and went out of his way to warn the House that nothing could
be more perilous to English interests than that monopoly in the supply
of cotton which had been conceded to America. He was anxious even then
that steps should be taken to encourage the better cultivation of the
plant in India, and pressed upon the President of the Board of Control
the wisdom of originating such a scheme. Words of warning which,
disregarded at the moment, come back upon us now with a melancholy echo!
The progress of the struggle, which ended in the withdrawal of the
Appropriation Clause and the passing of the Irish Municipal Reform Bill
through both Houses of Parliament, is of too recent date to require that
we should speak of it in detail. So is the contest which arose about
softening down some of the clauses in the New Poor-Law, of which Sir
James, though advocating the law itself, was a strenuous advocate. His
speech on that occasion, as well as his censure of the job which
pensioned Sir John Newport and raised Mr Spring Rice to the peerage,
more and more drew towards him the sympathies of the Conservative party,
which indeed had already begun to look to him as one of its future
leaders. He was equally efficient in his attacks on the Whig
mismanagement of affairs in India and in China, and certainly did not
spare his old friends when stirred by their rebukes into invective. At
last the collapse came, and in 1841 the country declared against the
Whigs. A new Administration was formed, with Sir Robert Peel at its
head. Sir James Graham accepted the seals of the Home Office, and for
five years public affairs were carried on, if not smoothly in all
respects, with remarkable success upon the whole. No doubt, Lord
Aberdeen’s legislation in the matter of the Church of Scotland proved
unfortunate, and there was little in Sir James Graham’s manner to
reconcile the discontented portion of the Scottish clergy to the law as
it stood. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact, that almost all the failures
in Sir Robert Peel’s policy occurred on points of which the management
devolved upon Sir James Graham. To him, in a great degree, was
attributed the disruption in the Scottish Church. His bill for the
amendment of the Factory Act of 1833 hung fire, and was withdrawn; while
his attempt to reform the ecclesiastical courts in England utterly broke
down.
In 1843 the difficulties of the Administration really began. Ireland was
the rock ahead which they found it impossible to weather. They brought
in one bill, which they ultimately abandoned, and were content to
appoint a Commission, with Lord Devon at its head, to inquire into the
state of the country with a view to future legislation. To some of their
adherents, moreover, they appeared to be shaken in their adhesion to the
sliding scale of duties on the importation of foreign corn; and day by
day the great fact became more obvious that Parliamentary government,
based on a widely-extended suffrage, is scarcely compatible with the
continuance of monarchy. Fortunately, perhaps, for them, Mr O’Connell
chose this moment to reawaken the demand in Ireland for the dissolution
of the Union, and to inflame the passions of the people by his monster
meetings. Great, we should now say unnecessary, forbearance was
exhibited in dealing with this movement; but at last a manifesto
appeared, which, besides calling upon the masses to assemble at
Clontarf, invited the “Repeal cavalry” to attend in troops of
twenty-five,—each under its own officers. The Lord-Lieutenant and Lord
Chancellor of Ireland happened both to be in London at the time. They
met Sir James Graham at the Home Office with the law officers of the
Crown, and that decisive step was taken which not only dispersed the
meeting of Clontarf, but shut up Mr O’Connell in jail.
We believe that Sir James Graham did nothing more than his duty to the
Crown and to the country throughout these proceedings. He contrived,
however, to concentrate all the bile of the Opposition on his own head,
and a manner, not always very gracious, repelled, if it did not
positively disgust, not a few of the supporters of the Administration.
It so happened also, that his bill for limiting the hours of labour in
the factories did not meet the views either of the mill-owners or of
Lord Ashley (the present Lord Shaftesbury) and his friends. The result
was, that being defeated on one point by Lord Ashley, and on another by
the mill-owners, he withdrew his measure, and sustained, as unsuccessful
legislators usually do, some loss of character from the process. But the
most damaging event in the course of his Administration was his having
authorised, by warrant, the letters of Mazzini and other refugees to be
opened at the General Post-Office. A dead set was made at him; and
though he showed clearly enough that the law bore him out, he escaped by
a majority of only forty-two in a full House—a narrow one, considering
the state of parties—the mortification of having his conduct inquired
into by a committee of the House of Commons. It is not for us to say why
Lord Aberdeen maintained a profound silence in the House of Lords when
the subject came to be discussed there. His Lordship was never famous
for excess of pluck; and it was generally believed at the time, and is
indeed highly probable, that Lord Aberdeen, being Minister for Foreign
Affairs, had at least as much to do with the transaction as the Home
Secretary. The truth, however, is, that a great deal too much was made
of the matter. Lord John Russell and Mr Macaulay, with other leaders of
the Opposition, supported Tom Duncombe in his demand; while Sir Robert
Peel resisted it, though with his usual caution. At last, on the
suggestion of Sir James himself, a committee was named to inquire
privately, when it came out that there had not been a Secretary of State
for the last hundred years but had signed warrants similar to that
issued by Sir James, and that, in doing as he had done, he acted upon
precedent, with, as it happened, more than common moderation.
We come now to the Peel policy of 1845, the renewal of the income-tax
and the “further lightening of the springs of industry,” by striking out
430 out of 813 articles on which customs duties still continued to be
levied. It would be satisfactory to know what share Sir James Graham had
in the inauguration and adoption of that policy. Suspicion was rife at
the moment, and it still remains, that he took a very active part in
pressing its adoption on the Cabinet. But Mr Torrens throws no light
whatever upon the subject. He reminds us, indeed, of some witty sayings
uttered on the occasion, such as “that the old leaven of Holland House
would work till it produced a thorough fermentation,” &c., and
chronicles the beginnings of Mr Disraeli’s influence, by quoting his
cutting remarks, “that Protection in 1845 was in the same position with
Protestant ascendancy in 1828;” and that “a Conservative Government was
an organised hypocrisy.” But not a line is given of private
correspondence to show what Sir James’s opinions really were with
reference to the present or the past. So it is when Mr Torrens comes to
describe the course of legislation which led to the permanent endowment
of Maynooth, and the setting up of what Sir Robert Inglis called
“Godless Colleges” in Ireland. We have a not uninteresting digest of
each debate as it occurred, the names of the speakers on both sides
being duly recorded; but of Sir James Graham is said no more than of Mr
George Bankes or of Mr Ward, or of others even less worthy of notice
than the latter gentlemen. This is the more to be regretted that Mr
Torrens speaks feelingly of the enormous amount of labour which the
subject of his biography underwent, and which, we may venture to add,
from our own personal knowledge of the man, the biographer has by no
means overrated. The fact is, that Sir James Graham was what has been
termed a glutton of work. Such was the constitution of his mind, that
before deciding upon any point, whether practical or theoretical, he
looked round and round for argument on both sides, and not unfrequently
continued to doubt after he had arrived at a judgment. One thing,
however, is certain: he had already, in 1845, become a convert to the
doctrines of free trade, and was very urgent in his recommendations to
the chief of the Cabinet to inaugurate an entire change of system. Now,
Sir Robert Peel, as his famous Elbing letter showed, scarcely stood in
need of such pressure. Thrown by mere accident into the Tory party, he
never made common cause with it, and seemed to rejoice that the time was
at length come for humbling the aristocrats who had so long made use of
his talents while affecting socially to look down upon him.
We need not stop to repeat the thrice-told tale of the anti-corn-law
agitation, or of the potato blight in the autumn of 1846, and its
consequences. Enough is done when we state, that from the first
appearance of that disease Sir James Graham saw but one remedy for the
evil. In the discussions which ensued he ranged himself with Lord
Aberdeen and Mr Sidney Herbert on the side of the Premier, and never, as
he subsequently declared, gave a vote with greater satisfaction in his
life than that which broke up the Peel Government, and dislocated the
great party which it had taken years to consolidate. Not very popular at
any time either with the Whigs or their rivals; disliked by the former
for his desertion on the Irish Church question; distrusted by the latter
because of the political creed of his youth,—he now drew down upon his
own head an amount of obloquy, more enduring, if not, for the moment,
more intense, than that with which the recreant Tory chief was
overwhelmed; and the time shortly arrived when, partly on this account,
partly because his proud heart rebelled against the dictates of his
contemporaries, public life, especially official, if not Parliamentary
life, became to him intolerable.
We must hurry over what remains to be told of this versatile yet
vigorous statesman. When Lord Aberdeen formed his Coalition Cabinet, Sir
James Graham returned to the Admiralty, where the Crimean war took him
by surprise, as it did all the other members of the Administration. Sir
James, however, put a bold face upon the matter, and having selected Sir
Charles Napier to command the worst-found and worst-manned fleet that
ever quitted the English shores, he sent him, at the worst season of the
year, to try what could be done for the destruction of Russian power in
the Baltic. It was unfortunate, both for the First Lord and for the
Admiral, that the Reform Club chose to give the latter a dinner. The
speeches uttered on that occasion, and especially Sir James Graham’s
speech, resembled more the pæans of victors after the strife, than the
statements of men about to incur the hazard of a campaign; and the
abortive issue of the expedition covered both with ridicule. It did
more, however, than this. A bitter quarrel ensued, which was prosecuted
not very decorously, sometimes in the House of Commons, sometimes
through the press, and which had no other result than to damage both
parties very seriously in the estimation of the public.
The break-up of the Aberdeen Cabinet—to which, by the by, Sir James
greatly contributed—may be said to have brought his public life to a
close. He retained, indeed, his seat in Parliament—Carlisle having
returned him as a good Radical member on two separate occasions. And
though he seldom spoke, it was always in angry opposition to the
Conservative party, once more reunited under Lord Derby and Mr Disraeli.
Private sorrows, however, began to tame him down. In 1857 Lady Graham
died—a terrible blow, from which he never recovered; and the death of
Lord Herbert in August 1861 affected him deeply. To that excellent man,
and at heart most Conservative politician, Sir James Graham was much
attached. It seemed, indeed, as if to him had been transferred the
entire stock of love and respect of which Sir Robert Peel, while living,
had engrossed the larger share; and now, when the grave closed over Lord
Herbert, life appeared to have no more interest for Sir James Graham. He
made a long journey, in very inclement weather, to attend the funeral of
his friend at Wilton, and, returning immediately afterwards to the
north, scarcely smiled again. Our latest recollection of him is in
church—a tall, handsome, yet shattered man, earnest in his devotions,
but bearing upon his brow the cloud which was never to be raised on this
side the grave. He died at Netherby, surrounded by his children, on the
25th of October 1861.
It has been said of Sir James Graham that he narrowly escaped being a
great man. Certainly he possessed some of the qualities which contribute
to build up greatness. He was patient, for example, of labour; careful
in coming to conclusions; not at all over-scrupulous in changing or
retaining opinions; and a first-rate administrator. But there was not a
touch of genius about him, nor one shade of originality. His moral
timidity was greater than the world supposed it to be. He often shrank
from taking a step which his deliberate judgment approved; he often did
what he had resolved not to do, and repented afterwards. Such a man was
not fit to lead; and the inward consciousness of his own weakness,
perhaps, hindered him from ever aspiring to become the head of an
administration. His usefulness, on the other hand, as the second or
confidential supporter of a great minister, cannot be over-estimated. He
had much improved in later years as a speaker, and commanded the
attention of the House; but the style of his oratory continued to the
last in perfect accord with his intellectual organisation. On ordinary
occasions it was stiff, perhaps pedantic; when anything occurred to
ruffle or excite, it became sharp and personal—more, perhaps, than the
speaker intended it to be. Taking all this into account, we arrive at
the conclusion, that the position which he achieved among the statesmen
of the passing age was exactly that which nature intended him to fill.
He stood neither in the front rank nor perhaps in the second, but took a
very prominent place in the third. In private life he was highly
estimable, possessing, however, few of those qualities which gather
round their owner troops of devoted friends. His manners were reserved,
except with those who knew him intimately; his nature was proud, but he
was kind-hearted, charitable, and deeply religious—being free from the
two extremes of silly mannerism on the one hand, and pharisaical
austerity on the other. He was buried in the churchyard of his own
village, only the members of his family and a few old friends following
him to the grave.
THE INEXHAUSTIBLE CAPITAL.[3]
Footnote 3:
‘Roba di Roma.’ By William W. Story. 2 vols. London, 1863.
If, at some future day, perhaps still remote, when the present wearer of
the triple tiara shall have descended into the tomb, and when the power
of some who now support him shall be numbered with the things that were,
Rome, in compliance with the wishes of Italy, shall become the capital
of that fairest of European kingdoms, there will be one class of persons
who, although they may not regret it, will be losers by the change, and
those are the foreigners, especially English, who, for six months of the
year, take possession of all that is best in the papal metropolis. In
addition to its garrison of French troops, that renowned city has now
for many years submitted—with a far better will than it does to the
presence of Gallic legions—to a foreign occupation of a more agreeable
and profitable description. Combining more varied attractions than any
other city in the world, Rome has become the first watering-place in
Europe. Its waters of Trevi are as fascinating to votaries of pleasure
and lovers of art as the most salutary springs to seekers after health.
Its galleries and antiquities offer years of occupation, even to the
most sedulous of visitors, before these can say that they have
sufficiently seen and studied them; its winter gaieties and amusements
are abundant to satisfy the greediest of such enjoyments; during its
long spring (and much of what is winter elsewhere is spring at Rome)
lovers of pleasant rides and delightful scenery discover that in such
does the Campagna abound. But still, to that majority of its foreign
visitors which soon become sated with pictures and statues and classical
remains, Rome’s chief attraction is unquestionably the pomps and
ceremonies, the splendour and the shrines of that Church whose
headquarters the Italians so earnestly desire to see transported beyond
the limits of Italy. Remove the Pope, and of course there is an end to
the grand solemnities in which he is the most prominent figure; to the
magnificent _funzioni_ of Holy Week, to witness which thousands annually
flock to Rome, filling to the roof every hotel and lodging-house; to
gorgeous ceremonials, brilliant processions, and high festivals; to the
chairing of the Pontiff and the feeding of the beggars; the washing of
feet and the sounding of silver trumpets and the benediction from the
balcony, with its magnificent scenic effect, with the golden chair and
the peacock fans, and the rest of the sumptuous and dazzling
paraphernalia. All this must of course depart whenever the Italian
Government takes its seat at Rome, unless there should then be found
some member of the college of cardinals willing to accept the Pontiff’s
spiritual heritage without his temporal sway, and to retain his chair at
the Vatican whilst a King of Italy thrones it at the Quirinal. The
installation of a commonplace lay government could hardly fail to
diminish Rome’s present attractions for foreigners. Everything is now
done to render it pleasant to them in all ways. The utmost consideration
and regard for their comfort and convenience are shown by the government
whose capital they enrich, and by the people, who look upon them as
their principal source of profit. Rome has little industry or commerce
to live by; what prosperity she still enjoys is due solely to the
_forestieri_; and, as these are chiefly heretics, the anomaly ensues
that the heretic is made much more of in the city of the Pope than in
any other capital. For him the best places everywhere—the utmost
possible immunity from police annoyances—the blandest smiles of
doorkeepers and guardians of galleries—the convenient place of public
worship, still denied to him in that bigoted Spain which out-herods
Herod, and is more papist than the Pope; and, to crown all these
advantages, should death overtake him whilst sojourning in Rome, he has
the satisfaction of being buried amongst hundreds of his countrymen,
some of them of no mean repute, in one of the prettiest flower-grown
English cemeteries that can anywhere be found. The favour shown to him
is a standing joke in Rome. “I am off to the Sistine, to hear the
music,” says Marforio to Pasquin. “Spare yourself the trouble,” is the
reply; “the Swiss and the noble guards will not let you in.” “Never
fear,” answers Marforio; “I have turned heretic.” There is truth in the
jest. To heretics, Rome is indeed the most tolerant of cities, as the
Romans are the most supple and complaisant of hosts.
It seems incredible that, in the second half of the nineteenth century,
it should be found possible to write two copious volumes about Rome, in
which most persons, even of those who fancied they knew the place
thoroughly, might find not only much to interest and amuse them, but
also a great many novel facts and much original appreciation of things
and topics which they thought had long since been worn threadbare. A
book, too, neither critical nor political; neither playing the cicerone
through Roman galleries, nor meddling, otherwise than by such passing
allusions as sufficiently show the author’s sympathies with the
much-discussed Roman question. Since there still remained so much to be
written on so attractive a theme, how can we explain its not having been
done years ago, by some of the many English of literary tastes who
annually abide in Rome? The answer is soon found. The English in
Rome—or, it may truly be said, in Italy generally—do not, except in very
rare cases, get below the superficial crust which veils from them the
richness of the mine beneath. They work in a beaten track, and he who
arrives to-day does neither more nor less than he who yesterday
departed. They may conscientiously visit every object mentioned in their
guide-book—they may reiterate those visits until they can tell you from
memory the place of every picture or statue in the Vatican or elsewhere,
and until they can fairly say that they have thoroughly “done” Rome in
the vulgar acceptation of the word. Still they have explored, and seen,
and heard but a portion of what lies at their disposal, and would well
repay research; they have scrutinised the Rome of the past, but are
ignorant of the Rome of the present; they have pondered over the graves
of the dead, but of the living they know little or nothing. To a real
knowledge and enjoyment of Rome, two things are essential—familiarity
with the language and intercourse with the people—the former being, of
course, indispensable to the latter. Comparatively few of the thousands
of English who annually pass several months in the shadow of St
Peter’s—many of them returning year after year to that which is
undeniably the most seductive of Continental residences—obtain familiar
admission to the highest circle of Roman society; and still fewer care
to seek an entrance into any other, or to trouble themselves to converse
with natives of lower degree. They treat Rome as they would an extremely
agreeable watering-place in England;—they go there to see the lions, to
enjoy a delightful climate and pleasant environs, and to give each other
dinners and balls. They form an English colony, according to the usage
of our countrymen; and their circles are often as exclusive in their way
as that of the Roman princes, to which only the highest connections or
most potent recommendations insure access. Very few, indeed, are the
Italians who find admission into the many pleasant English houses each
winter sees opened in Rome. The English live amongst themselves; they
have their own quarter (the best, as usual, in the city), their own
club, hotels, shops, and habits; the men scarcely ever enter an Italian
_osteria_ or _café_, where they might glean some notion of the manners
and customs of the natives, but they appropriate two or three
establishments of the kind, which they Anglicise to the utmost extent
possible in those latitudes, and which the Romans soon learn to shun,
scared by the foreign invasion and by the fancy prices charged for base
imitations of British viands. Not one in a hundred of the English who
visit Rome are there after May or before November; they see the place
and people only in their winter and spring aspects; summer and autumn
are unknown to them. Many complete their five or six months’ term of
residence without acquiring even a smattering of Italian; and when they
leave, all they know of the people is what they may have learned from
lying _ciceroni_, or from native servants and shopkeepers possessed of
sufficient English to gull the _forestieri_. Now, let us suppose a
contrary case—that of an Englishman (or American) of more than average
intelligence and cultivation, with a keen appreciation of art, a quick
perception of the characteristic, and a warm love for Rome, who should
abide for six years in that city and its environs, not invariably flying
north from summer heats, but contenting himself with temporary retreats
to one of the charming nooks the neighbouring hills afford, and who,
thoroughly familiar with the language, should lose no opportunity of
mingling and conversing with the people, chatting with all he met—with
the peasant in the field, the mendicant by the road-side, the itinerant
musician who played beneath his window, as well as with the physician,
the lawyer, the trader, and the artist, with whom he might more
frequently and naturally be brought in contact. Such a man, we
apprehend, would be well qualified to write a fresh and pleasant and
instructive book concerning a city whose fame must live for ever, and
which may appropriately be surnamed the Inexhaustible as well as the
Eternal.
Nobody who visited the great Exhibition of 1862 will have failed to
observe and admire two pieces of sculpture which the most competent
critics declared to be second to none, even if they were equalled by any
of those there collected together. The author of ‘Roba di Roma,’ the
foreign and fantastical name of a very English and sensible book, might
have placed upon its title-page, had it so pleased him, “by the author
of ‘Cleopatra’ and the ‘Lybyan Sybil,’” and the advertisement would have
been no bad one; for everybody who had admired the sculptor’s beautiful
statues would have been curious to see if he were as clever with the pen
as he was cunning with the chisel. Mr Story, however, was above seeking
any such side-wind of popularity, and proposed allowing his literary
labours to stand upon their own merits. This they are well able to do.
As pleasant reading, his book at once takes its place in the foremost
rank of its class, whilst the information it contains gives it a more
solid and permanent value than can be attained by a work intended for
mere amusement. Without being in any degree a guide-book, it contains a
vast deal which every visitor to Rome would be glad to find in one.
There exists a series of Red Books, much more generally studied than the
Blue ones, and with which every Englishman is familiar who pushes his
Continental explorations beyond Paris. Unequal in degree of merit, the
Briton abroad yet can ill do without the worst of them. Amongst the best
must be reckoned that for Rome—a work performed conscientiously and _con
amore_ by a genial and accomplished citizen of the world, to whom the
Eternal City has become almost a second _patria_. But the very best of
handbooks cannot exhaust its subject, when that subject is Rome; and so
we counsel every visitor to the papal capital to associate with his
Murray Mr Story’s ‘Roba.’
“Every Englishman,” says this gentleman, “carries a Murray for
information and a Byron for sentiment, and finds out by them what he
is to know and feel at every step. Pictures and statues have been
staled by copy and description, until everything is stereotyped, from
the Dying Gladiator, with his ‘young barbarians all at play,’ down to
the Beatrice Cenci, the Madame Touson of the shops, that haunts one
everywhere with her white turban and red eyes. Every ruin has had its
score of _immortelles_ hung upon it. The soil has been almost
overworked by antiquarians and scholars, to whom the modern flower was
nothing, but the antique brick a prize. Poets and sentimentalists have
described to death what the antiquaries have left, and some have done
their work so well that nothing remains to be done after them. All the
public and private life of the ancient Romans, from Romulus to
Constantine, is perfectly well known. But the common life of the
modern Romans—the games, customs, and habits of the people—the
everyday of to-day—has been only touched upon here and
there,—sometimes with spirit and accuracy, as by Charles M‘Farlane;
sometimes with grace, as by Hans Christian Andersen; and sometimes
with great ignorance, as by Jones, Brown, and Robinson, who see
through the eyes of their courier and the spectacles of their
prejudices. There may be, among the thousands of travellers that
annually winter at Rome, some to whom the common out-door pictures of
modern Roman life would have a charm as special as the galleries and
antiquities, and to whom a sketch of many things, which wise and
serious travellers have passed by as unworthy their notice, might be
interesting.”
This last reflection suggested itself to Mr Story as he drove into Rome,
somewhat more than six years ago, on his third visit to that capital,
which has been his residence ever since; and, as he is evidently a man
who likes to carry out a good idea, he at once commenced to hoard his
observations for future use and public benefit. The impression made upon
us by his two copious volumes is, that they have been composed _con
amore_, and at perfect leisure—conditions eminently conducive to success
in authorship. That Mr Story loves Rome he need not tell us; his
attachment is manifest in his pages. Who, indeed, that has dwelt there
long enough to fall under its fascination, does not love it and desire
to return thither? Everybody would fain visit Rome, but those only who
have been there can fully appreciate the charm it exercises. There are
places whose attractions imagination is apt to overcolour, and which
consequently disappoint on near acquaintance; but if there be persons
who thus find Rome fall short of their expectations, they usually are
wise enough to keep it to themselves, and so avoid the charge of
extravagance. Doubtless those whose mind, education, and previous
pursuits and studies enable them fully to appreciate and enjoy the
treasures of art, and of classical and historical associations there
heaped up, are few compared to the visitors who form but an imperfect
and superficial estimate of what they behold, and who soon are glad to
fall back upon less intellectual pleasures. Of these there is no lack.
Agreeable society, pleasant promenades, carnival diversions—theatres
which, if not uniformly good, at least are sufficiently attractive to
audiences which go as much to talk as to listen—the vicinity of a
picturesque country, tempting to excursions, which may be compressed
into a day or extended to weeks, according as one keeps within the
present limits of the Papal territory, or stretches out into Umbria, to
Terni and Narni, Perugia and Spoleto,—these varied resources and
advantages combine to make Rome delightful, at least in winter and
spring, to almost every class of visitors. Considering how many who have
visited it have also written about it, it seems scarcely possible, at
this time, for anybody to fill seven hundred close pages with matter
relating to it without becoming prolix. That, however, is a reproach no
one can address to Mr Story. His work shows extensive reading, happily
made use of, close observation, and the eye of a true artist. It admits
of a broad division into two parts—one of these comprising solely what
he himself has seen, heard, and thought; the other including much for
which he is indebted to many books, studied to good purpose. As a
specimen of the last-named portion, we may cite the chapter entitled
“The Colosseum”—the romantic chronicle of that marvellous structure. Its
opening is a good specimen of the author’s vivid, rapid manner of
placing before us pictures painted in words:—
“Of all the ruins in Rome, none is at once so beautiful, so imposing,
and so characteristic as the Colosseum.[4] Here throbbed the Roman
heart in its fullest pulses. Over its benches swarmed the mighty
population of the centre city of the world. In its arena, gazed at by
a hundred thousand eager eyes, the gladiator fell, while the vast
_velarium_ trembled as the air was shaken by savage shouts of
‘_Habet_,’ and myriads of cruel hands, with upturned thumbs, sealed
his unhappy fate. The sand of the arena drank the blood of African
elephants, lions, and tigers—of _Mirmilli_, _Laqueatores_, _Retiarii_,
and _Andabatæ_—and of Christian martyrs and virgins. Here emperor,
senators, knights, and soldiers, the lowest populace and the proudest
citizens, gazed together on the bloody games, shouted together as the
favourite won, groaned together fiercely as he fell, and startled the
eagles sailing over the blue vault above with their wild cries of
triumph. Here might be heard the trumpeting of the enraged elephant,
the savage roar of the tiger, the peevish shriek of the grave-rifling
hyena; while the human beasts above, looking on the slaughter of the
lower beasts beneath, uttered a wilder and more awful yell.
Rome—brutal, powerful, bloodthirsty, imperial Rome—built in its days
of pride this mighty amphitheatre, and, outlasting all its works, it
still stands, the best type of its grandeur and brutality. What St
Peter’s is to the Rome of to-day, is the Colosseum to the Rome of the
Cæsars. The baths of Caracalla, grand though they be, sink into
insignificance beside it. The Cæsars’ palaces are almost level with
the earth. Over the pavement where once swept the imperial robes now
slips the gleaming lizard; and in the indiscriminate ruins of those
splendid halls the _contadino_ plants his potatoes, and sells for a
_paul_ the oxidised coin which once may have paid the entrance fee to
the great amphitheatre. The golden house of Nero is gone. The very
Forum where Cicero delivered his immortal orations is all but
obliterated, and antiquarians quarrel over the few columns that
remain. But the Colosseum still stands; despite the assault of time
and the work of barbarians it still stands, noble and beautiful in its
decay—yes, more beautiful than ever.”
Footnote 4:
We preserve Mr Story’s orthography, which, although unusual, is
doubtless correct. “The name Colosseum, or Coliseum as it is
improperly called, seems to have been derived from its colossal
proportions, and not, as has been supposed by some writers, from a
colossal statue of one of the emperors placed within it” (‘Roba,’ i.
222). A correspondent of the ‘Athenæum’ (7th February 1863) says that,
“in volume II. of the ‘Lives of the Roman Empresses,’ p. 50 (Edit.
Naples, 1768), there is a note which gives the reason why the correct
orthography is Colosseum. Referring to the completion of the great
amphitheatre by Titus, the note has the following: ‘Nel mezzo del
Anfiteatro si sorgeva una grande statua rappresentante Nerone,
chiamata il Colosso di Nerone, da cui quel luogo prese il nome di
Colosseo.’” Mr Story remarks that the present name is comparatively
modern, and first occurs in the writings of the venerable Bede. To the
ancient Romans the Colosseum was known as the Amphiteatrum Flavium.
How profound a calm has now replaced the rush and roar of conflict! You
walk down to the Colosseum on one of those soft sunny mornings common in
Rome in the early months of the year, and you find it kept by two or
three French sentries, and untenanted save by as many dilapidated
_ciceroni_, who crawl out of their secret recesses as you enter the
arena, and vie with each other for the honour of conducting you over the
mighty remains, in which, as Mr Story happily expresses it, “Nature has
healed over the wounds of time with delicate grasses and weeds.” The
last time we visited the Colosseum, the drummers of a French regiment
were out for practice in its immediate vicinity, startling the echoes of
the wondrous old edifice with a diabolical clatter of stick against
sheepskin. Saw-sharpening, or the simultaneous tuning of one hundred and
fifty fiddles, is hardly more vexatious to the nerves than the
discordant rub-a-dub of a dozen squads of apprentice drummers, pounding
their instruments with a deafening disregard to harmony. Persons are
differently affected by the Colosseum, Mr Story assures us—some with
horror, some with sentiment, some with statistics. Persons who go there
on drum-practice days are doubtless affected with a vehement desire to
get out of earshot. Apart from the unpleasant nature of the noise, it,
and the sight of its originators, are destructive of the day-dreams to
which solitude and quiet in that great dilapidated structure are so
eminently favourable. Most persons will admit that nothing in Rome has
impressed them so strongly as the Colosseum. A German writer has said
that the Americans are particularly affected by it, more so than most
Europeans; and if this be the case, it is doubtless attributable to the
striking contrast the tourist from beyond the Atlantic finds between
those ruins of a mighty past and the upstart edifices of his own
bran-new country. The Americans, it is said, were the first to light up
the Colosseum with Bengal fires. A number of Germans, artists and
others, attempted it with torches on a dark winter night, but the means
were insufficient: the torches, although numerous, struggled in vain to
dispel the deep nocturnal gloom which seemed condensed in the giant
ruin. The attempt, however, gave the idea to the Americans, who quickly
found the money for something on a grander scale; and the Roman
pyrotechnists, who are first-rate in skill and experience, produced an
illumination with coloured fires which drew out to the Colosseum not
only the _forestieri_ but the Romans themselves, usually very careless
of the sights the foreigners most run after. Since then such
illuminations have become comparatively common, and have been witnessed
by most persons who have remained any time in Rome. The effect is very
striking, and should be seen once, just as one goes to see the statuary
at the Vatican by torchlight; but, for both, the preference will
generally be given to daylight, and also, as regards the Colosseum, to
moonlight. For the best description of its appearance when lighted in
this last-named manner, Mr Story refers us to a book entitled, ‘Rome and
its Rulers,’ by that impartial Irish M.P., Mr John Francis Maguire, who,
when in the Pope’s dominions, was so peculiarly fortunate as to find
there nothing which was not in the highest degree admirable and
praiseworthy. Truly a book “in which many things are scented with
rose-water,” as Mr Story remarks, and which may also justly be said to
abound in moonshine. Of this latter commodity, as collected in the
Colosseum, the eloquent Maguire thus discourses:—
“The moon was slowly pursuing her way up the blue sky, and gradually
rising, _foot by foot_, to the height of the unbroken wall of the
building, _now and then_ peeping in through arch or window....
Patiently we awaited the higher elevation and full splendour of the
chaste Dian, enjoying each new effect as she sported with the
venerable ruin, and imparted to its grim antiquity a youthful
flush—mocking but delightful illusion.”
Nothing can be more striking than this picture of the moon going
up-stairs at a steady, composed pace, fearful, probably, of losing
breath by speed, and occasionally pausing at a hole in the wall to
squint through it at her Hibernian admirer. But your thoroughpaced Irish
or British Ultramontane is very liable to lunar influences when he gets
to Rome; and if he chance to be in Parliament, or in a position to make
his voice heard in his own country, he is apt to have his head
completely turned by the interested attentions shown to him in the
highest quarters. We have happened more than once to see gentlemen of
that class, devoted supporters of the Pope, by the influence of whose
Irish adherents they had been carried into Parliament, arrive in Rome
during the recess to seek materials for their speeches in the
approaching session. They stay but a short time, and generally know no
Italian and little French, but that is a very trifling drawback. They
find countrymen amongst the immediate friends and daily visitors of his
Holiness, are made much of at the Vatican, are crammed to their hearts’
content with carefully-prepared statistics and fabulous facts, and
depart convinced, or seeming to be so, that they have a thorough
knowledge of the state of the country, and that all that has been said
about Papal misrule is sheer malignant invention. They are taken to see
the prisons, and find them far better and more humane in their
arrangements than those they looked into as they passed through
Piedmont. Of course they do. In Piedmont there is little attempt at
concealment. Whatever its faults, the Government there does not take
much pains to appear better than it is. In Rome the confiding M.P. sees
the model prisons—those kept for inspection. Does he imagine he has seen
those where political prisoners are confined? Surely Messrs Maguire,
Hennessey, Bowyer, and Co., are not so credulous as that. The Vatican is
far too knowing not to ease the consciences of its advocates. Why should
they be reduced to the cruel alternative of silence or of speaking in
opposition to what they know to be fact? In the Roman prisons there are
rooms set apart for favoured prisoners, who there enjoy light and air,
and are well fed and treated. Mr Maguire was delighted with the Prison
of San Michele, where, “instead of gloom, horror, and noisome dungeons,
I beheld a large, well-lighted, well-ventilated, and (could such a term
be properly applied to any place of confinement) cheerful-looking hall.”
He goes on to talk of “the bright sun streaming in; the superior size
and arrangement of the cells,” &c. &c. Mr Story, who dwells a good deal
on the subject of Roman and Neapolitan prisons (as the latter were under
the Bourbons), and supplies various documents justificatory of the view
which he and every unbiassed and rightly-informed person cannot do
otherwise than take of them, refers to the well-known Casanova case—that
of an unfortunate young Italian who, on his return from a residence in
America, was arrested at Viterbo on the sole ground that he had no
passport, and subjected to the most barbarous treatment in the Carcere
Nuovo at Rome. Thence he was transferred to Naples, and, after a
captivity of five or six years, was released by the arrival of
Garibaldi. “Oh, Mr Maguire,” exclaims the author of the ‘Roba,’ “did you
never suspect that if you had the mischance to be a poor Italian without
parents or passport, instead of a member of Parliament, you might have
been shown into other rooms than the _‘Salone dei Preti?’ Via!_” Why
should Mr Maguire trouble himself with such inconvenient suspicions? He
and those who resemble him seek their information in the highest
quarter—namely, from the Government; and having, beforehand, an
excellent opinion of that Government, they cannot think of suspecting it
of fraud or misstatement. Moreover he might find in Rome countrymen of
his own, and possibly even some Englishmen, ready to support him in the
belief that everything is for the best under the pious and enlightened
rule of Antonelli. There are always a few bitter Irish bigots and
zealous British perverts to be met with in the Papal capital, prompt to
deny the existence of abuses, and to extol the excellent working of the
priest-government under which the unfortunate Romans groan. They are
made much of by the Monsignori, and graciously received by the Pope; and
occasionally they find means of making some sort of demonstration which
may be magnified in partisan journals into that of an important section
of the British residents in Rome. It was an insignificant clique of this
kind which, about two years ago, scandalised their countrymen in that
capital by waiting upon Francis II. of Naples with expressions of
sympathy and good wishes.
The author of the ‘Roba,’ who does not dislike a good-natured hit at his
own countrymen’s peculiarities, is amusing with respect to their
criticisms of the Colosseum, the Campagna, and other principal features
of Rome and its environs. One young lady told him she thought the
Colosseum “pretty, but not so pretty as Naples;” and a gentleman was of
opinion that it was less well built than the custom-house in his native
city, of which the correct lines, sharp angles, and whitewashed
superficies were doubtless more grateful to his view than the ruins
whose abundance constitutes one of Rome’s chief charms. There are people
who would be more struck with the excellent workmanship and first-rate
bricks of the tall modern scarp which supports a part of the Colosseum
that threatened to crumble away, than they would be with its ruined
arches, its broken travertine blocks, its time-worn cornices and
flower-draped benches, or than with the lovely ruins of Caracalla’s
baths, concerning which Mr Story quotes Shelley, whilst himself
describing them with much poetry of expression, and a warm perception of
the beautiful. “Come with me,” he says, “to the massive ruins of
Caracalla’s baths—climb its lofty arches and creep along the broken
roofs of its perilous terraces. Golden gorses and wallflowers blaze
there in the sun, out of reach; fig-trees, whose fruit no hand can
pluck, root themselves in its clefts; pink sweetpeas and every variety
of creeping vetch here bloom in perfection; tall grasses wave their
feathery plumes out on dizzy and impracticable ledges; and nature seems
to have delighted to twine this majestic ruin with its loveliest
flowers. Sit here, where Shelley wrote the ‘Prometheus Unbound,’ and
look out over the wide-stretching Campagna.” And if you have with you,
as you ought to have, when wandering over those giddy arches and broken
platforms, the second volume of ‘Roba di Roma,’ turn to page 97, and
read its accomplished author’s graphic and glowing description of the
view thence obtained. Unfortunately not all his countrymen possess the
same feeling for the beautiful in nature—not all can find a charm in a
time-stained marble block, moss-mantled and weed-entwined. To one of Mr
Story’s countrymen the Colosseum was simply “an ugly, pokerish place,”
whilst another was chiefly struck by its circular form, and a third by
the advantages it offered for love-making—this last being a
recommendation, doubtless, but one that can hardly have been reckoned
upon by the original designers of the edifice. One gentleman (we need
not ask from which side of the Atlantic) was liberal enough to say, “I
do not _object_, sir, to the carnival at Rome;” and Mr Story assures us
that he knows several who are equally indulgent to the Colosseum and to
St Peter’s. He grieves to admit that English and Americans too often
speak ill of the Campagna, which seems to him, he declares, the most
beautiful and touching in its interest of all places he has ever seen;
but he pillories a Frenchman who ventures to despise it. The confident
Gaul had just come up from Naples, and was asked if he had seen the
grand old temples at Pæstum. “_Oui, monsieur_,” was his answer, “_j’ai
vu le Peste. C’est un pays détestable; c’est comme la Campagne de
Rome_.” Detestable enough, no doubt, says Story, after the fine military
landscape that surrounds Paris; “where low bounding hills are flattened
like earthworks and bastions, and stiff formal poplars are drawn up in
squares and columns on the wide parade of its level and monotonous
plains. It is also a peculiarity of the Frenchman that he underrates
everybody and everything except himself and his country.” Mr Story is
too much in love with the Campagna not to be jealous of its fame. It is
quite certain that, with many, this is not so good as it deserves.
People who have not explored it are apt to picture it to themselves as a
desolate tract, affording pasturage but little wood, and exhaling fever
from every cleft in its soil. When once they have driven and ridden or
walked (for much cannot be done on wheels) over its varied and
picturesque surface, and seen it in the fresh springtime, when its green
copses and hedges scent the air, and its sward is diapered with
wild-flowers innumerable, many of which are amongst the choice ones of
our English gardens, they are lost in astonishment at the beauty of the
tract that surrounds Rome. Our own original notion of the Campagna was
based on a picture of a dreary expanse, over which the first shades of
night were spreading, chasing thence the last deep red glow of sunset;
whilst in the centre of the melancholy, treeless plain, a peasant lad,
in goat-skin breeks and elf-locks, and suffering, apparently, under a
severe attack of jaundice, tended a herd of pallid cattle, which gave
one the idea of having just risen from the straw of sickness in some
bovine fever hospital. How different this unprepossessing picture was
from the reality need not be told to any who have taken the trouble to
visit the vicinity of Rome, instead of limiting their daily exercise (as
some of the visitors to that city most unwisely, both as regards health
and enjoyment, are prone to do) to the small but agreeable garden on the
Pincian Hill, and to the more extensive and certainly most delightful
grounds of the Villas Borghese, Doria Pamphili, Albani, and other
residences of the Roman princes. It would be tedious to enumerate even
the half of the charming rides which are to be had within twenty miles
of Rome, and which, it must be owned, the younger portion of the
floating British population, both male and female, generally make the
most of during the early spring months, much more to their own pleasure
and benefit than to those of the unfortunate hacks the Roman
livery-stable keepers annually provide for the use of the _forestieri_.
A regard for truth compels us also to declare that it is not the male
portion of the English at Rome that those Campagna Rosinantes would,
could they speak their minds, most object to carry. Rome—whose climate,
by the by, has been thought by some to be generally more favourable to
women than to men—seems to give our fair countrywomen strength and
endurance for an amount of horse exercise they would seldom take in
England. Acting upon the principle put into their mouths by ‘Punch,’
“He’s a hoss, and he must go,” they may be seen daily urging their hired
chargers across the plain, and performing their twenty-five or thirty
miles, chiefly at a canter, to and from the various points of
attraction, noted sites, favourite picnic spots, and the like, in the
neighbourhood of Rome, and coming in, glowing with health, to dance half
the night or more at the numerous pleasant parties given there during
the first three or four months of every year. There used to be a
subscription pack of hounds in Rome, but the sport was put a stop to, a
few seasons ago, in consequence of a young member of the Roman
aristocracy having broken his neck over a small ditch. Thereupon Pio
Nono forbade the sport, which was considered rather hard upon the
English, who, as heretics, might surely have been allowed to fracture
themselves to any extent without causing much pain to his Holiness; and,
indeed, this feeling was so general, that some were rather inclined to
attribute the interdiction to Cardinal Antonelli’s sympathy with the
foxes. However that may have been, there was no obtaining a revocation
of the edict, and the hounds were sold—to be re-purchased, perhaps, at a
future day, when the White Cross of Savoy shall have replaced the Cross
Keys on the pinnacles of a liberated Rome. The loss was a great one,
however, to the English; and even many of the Italians deplored the
stoppage of the _mita_, as they called “the meet,” which, however, with
most of the foreigners (that is to say, of the non-English), was little
more than a pretext for picnics and flirtations. Mr Story, with a few
humorous touches, gives us an excellent idea of the _modus operandi_:—
“The hounds bay and the hunt sweeps off in the distance—now lost to
sight, and now emerging from the hollows. The volunteers soon begin to
return, and are seen everywhere straggling about over the slopes. The
carriages move on, accompanying, as they can, the hunt by the road,
till it strikes across the country and is lost. The sunshine beats on
the mountains that quiver in soft purple; larks sing in the air;
Brown, Jones, and Robinson ride by the side of the carriages as they
return, and Count Silinini smiles, talks beautiful Italian, and says,
‘Yas.’ He is a _guardia nobile_, and comes to the house twice a week
if there are no balls, and dances with Marianne at all the little
hops. Signor Somarino pays his court meanwhile to Maria, who calls him
Prince, emphasising the title when she meets her friends the Goony
Browns. And so the hunting picnic comes back to Rome.”
As a writer, Mr Story’s strong point is description of scenery, both
rural and urban. He is excellent at a landscape; and, in the graphic
views he presents to us of Rome’s streets and squares and fountains and
markets, beggars and models, washerwomen and _pifferari_, he is a
compound of Prout and Pinelli. From the very first page of the book, one
is attracted by the freshness of his vocabulary and the vividness of his
style. With his Cleopatra and Sybil bright in our memory, we cannot
think he mistook his vocation when devoting himself to sculpture; but
certainly the glow and choice of his literary tints incline us to the
belief that, as a painter, he might have been even more successful. We
are unwilling to quote extensively from a book that will doubtless have
been read by many of our readers ere this notice of it gets into their
hands, but there are fifty passages that we are tempted to extract
instead of merely referring to them. The first short chapter,
“Entrance,” contains more than one of these. At page 11 we have a sketch
of a couple of the Abruzzi _pifferari_, piping and blowing on their
primitive instruments before one of the fifteen hundred Madonna shrines
of Rome—images of the Virgin, with burning lamps, found in all manner of
places, at street corners, down little lanes, in the heart of the Corso,
in the interior courts of palaces, or on the staircases of private
houses—which places the itinerants before us, in flesh and blood, in
their conical hats with frayed feathers, red waistcoats and skin
sandals, _wie sie leibten und lebten_, as the Germans say, the old man
with a sad amiable face, droning out bass and treble in an earnest and
deprecatory manner, and the younger vigorous player on the _piffero_,
“with a forest of tangled black hair, and dark quick eyes that were
fixed steadily on the Virgin, while he blew and vexed the little brown
pipe with rapid runs and nervous _fioriture_, until great drops of sweat
dripped from its round open mouth. Sometimes, when he could not play
fast enough to satisfy his eagerness, he ran his finger up and down the
vents; then, suddenly lowering his instrument, he would scream, in a
strong peasant voice, verse after verse of the _novena_, to the
accompaniment of the _zampogna_ (bagpipe). One was like a slow old
Italian _vettura_, all lumbered with luggage and held back by its drag;
the other panting and nervous at his work as an American locomotive, and
as constantly running off the rails. As they stood there playing, a
little group gathered round. A scamp of a boy left his sport to come and
beat time with a stick on the stone step before them; several children
clustered near; and one or two women, with black-eyed infants in their
arms, also paused to listen and sympathise.”
Every one who has been in Rome during Advent has seen this group, or one
mighty like it and equally characteristic. Turn to the book (chapter on
“Street Music in Rome”) for the little scene that follows, for the music
of the _pifferari_ song, and for Mr Story’s conversation with the
enthusiastic piper, whom, with his companions, he invited up into his
house, where they agreeably stunned him with their noisy music, to the
delight of his children and the astonishment of his servants, for whom
_piffero_ and _zampogna_ had long since lost all charm, and who
doubtless looked upon their introduction with somewhat of the same
feeling of disgust with which London flunkies would behold that of a
couple of organ-grinders and a cage of white mice into a Grosvenor
Square drawing-room. However, Mr Story took down the words of their
quaint song, which we find printed, probably for the first time, in his
book, and he also got from them some curious particulars of their
wanderings. The man who blew the little brown pipe was quite a
character. He and his companion had played together for three-and-thirty
years, and their sons, who presently came up, were to play together with
them. “For thirty-three years more, let us hope,” said Mr Story.
“‘_Eh! Speriamo_’ (let us hope so), was the answer of the _pifferaro_,
as he showed all his teeth in the broadest of smiles. Then, with a
motion of his hand, he set both the young men going, he himself
joining in, straining out his cheeks, blowing all the breath of his
body into the little pipe, and running up and down the vents with a
sliding finger, until finally he brought up against a high, shrill
note, to which he gave the full force of his lungs, and after holding
it in loud blast for a moment, startled us by breaking off, without
gradation, into a silence as sudden as if the music had snapped short
off like a pipe-stem.”
There are a great many stories and incidents of and relating to Rome and
its inhabitants scattered through the ‘Roba;’ and although to us “old
Romans,” not all of these may be new, the majority of them will be so to
most readers, and they are generally well told and _ben trovate_.
Amongst them we prefer those little anecdotes and traits of character
which are evidently derived from the writer’s personal observation, and
which, therefore, as might be expected, are amongst the most racy
morsels in the book. Take the following as an excellent specimen of
quiet humour—a strain in which we like Mr Story better than in his more
buoyant mood:—
“My friend Count Cignale is a painter—he has a wonderful eye for
colour and an exquisite taste. He was making me a visit the other day,
and in strolling about the neighbourhood we were charmed with an old
stone wall of as many colours as Joseph’s coat: tender greys, dashed
with creamy yellows and golden greens and rich subdued reds, were
mingled together in its plastered stonework; above towered a row of
glowing oleanders covered with clusters of roseate blossoms. Nothing
would do but that he must paint it, and so secure it at once for his
portfolio; for who knows, said he, that the owner will not take it
into his head to whitewash it next week, and ruin it? So he painted
it, and a beautiful picture it made. Within a week the owner made a
call on us. He had seen Cignale painting his wall with surprise, and
deemed an apology necessary. ‘I am truly sorry,’ he said, ‘that the
wall is left in such a condition. It ought to be painted all over with
a uniform tint, and I will do it at once. I have long had this
intention, and I will no longer omit to carry it into effect.’
“‘Let us beseech you,’ we both cried at once, ‘_caro conte mio_, to do
no such thing, for you will ruin your wall. What! whitewash it
over!—it is profanation, sacrilege, murder, and arson.’
“He opened his eyes. ‘Ah! I did not mean to whitewash it, but to wash
it over with a pearl colour,’ he answered.
“‘Whatever you do to it you will spoil it. Pray let it alone. It is
beautiful now.’
“‘Is it, indeed?’ he cried. ‘Well, I hadn’t the least idea of that.
But if you say so, I will let it alone.’
“And thus we saved a wall.”
The preceding scrap reminds us of a passage from Alphonse Karr, one of
the most quietly-humorous of living French writers, who relates, in one
of his quaint, dreamy, desultory books, how a neighbour of his, who
lived in a poor thatched cottage on the fringe of a wood, embowered in
flowers, shaded by venerable trees, refreshed by the balmiest of
breezes, and enlivened by the songs of countless birds, suddenly
disappeared from the countryside. Karr, who had long admired the sylvan
retreat, and almost envied its occupant, inquired his fate. He had
become rich, he was told; a legacy had enabled him to go and live in the
town. He could afford to rent two rooms with new furniture and a gaudy
paper, and he looked out upon a dirty street, along which omnibuses
continually rolled. “Poor rich man!” Karr pitying exclaims. He had
whitewashed his wall.
The Roman Ghetto furnishes the theme of one of Mr Story’s longest and
most lively chapters; Fountains and Aqueducts, Saints and Superstitions,
the Evil Eye, are the titles of three others. He begins his second
volume with a vivid and characteristic sketch of the Markets of Rome,
which are well worth the attention of foreign visitors, especially of
Englishmen, who will find their arrangements, and much of what is there
sold, to contrast strikingly with what they are accustomed to in their
own country. Carcasses of pigs and goats adorned with scraps of
gold-leaf and tinsel, blood puddings of a brilliant crimson, poultry
sold by retail—that is to say, piecemeal, so that you may buy a wing, a
leg, or even the head or gizzard of a fowl, if so it please you. There
is game of all sorts, and queer beasts and fowls of many kinds are also
there; the wild boar rough and snarling—the slender tawny
deer—porcupines (commonly eaten in Rome)—most of our English
game-birds—ortolans, beccaficoes, and a great variety of singing-birds.
Passing into the fruit and vegetable market, one comes upon mushrooms of
many colours, and some of them of enormous size, most of which would in
England be looked upon as sudden death to the consumer, although in
Italy they are found both savoury and harmless. “Here are the grey
_porcini_, the foliated _alberetti_, and the orange-hued _ovole_; some
of the latter of enormous size, big enough to shelter a thousand fairies
under their smooth and painted domes. In each of these is a cleft stick,
bearing a card from the inspector of the market, granting permission to
sell; for mushrooms have proved fatal to so many cardinals, to say
nothing of popes and people, that they are naturally looked upon with
suspicion, and must all be officially examined to prevent accidents.”
Besides the fruits common in England, figs are very abundant, and of
many kinds; and when the good ones come in, in September, the Romans of
the lower classes assemble in the evenings, in the Piazza Navona, for
great feeds upon them. Five or six persons surround a great basket and
eat it empty, correcting possible evil results by a glass of strong
waters or a flask of red wine. But figs are a wholesome fruit—much more
so than one which at Rome, and in many parts of Southern Europe, is the
most popular of all—namely, the water-melon. What millions of people,
from the Danube’s banks to the Portuguese coast, are daily refreshed the
summer through by those huge green gourds, hard and unpromising in
outward aspect, but revealing, at stroke of knife, rich store of rosy
pulp, dotted with sable seeds! Pesth is a great place for them; and
daily, when morning breaks, so long as they are in season, they are to
be seen piled, all along the river-side, in heaps like those of shot and
shell in an arsenal, only much broader and higher. All through the hot
months, in Hungary’s pleasant and interesting capital, few persons think
of dining without associating with the more heating viands a moiety or
enormous segment of one of those great cold fruits—a strange digestive,
as we Northerners should consider it, but found to answer well in sultry
climes. At Rome they are equally appreciated, and are set above the
choicest grapes. People make parties to go out of the city and eat them;
and this was especially the case some years ago, when the authorities
forbade their entrance on account of the cholera, but were unable to
prevent their extramural consumption. In ordinary times you find heaps
of them in the streets, especially in the Piazza Navona, that great mart
of fruit and frippery, vegetables, old books, brilliant handkerchiefs,
and other finery for the market-women—old iron, old bottles, and rubbish
of all kinds—amongst which miscellany the patient investigator may
sometimes discover valuable copies of the classic authors and precious
antique _intagli_, to be purchased for a mere song. Here, as the story
goes, a poor priest once bought, for a few _baiocchi_, a large cut-glass
bead which took his fancy, and which a friend, more knowing than
himself, afterwards discovered to be a diamond of great value, now
belonging, we are told, to the Emperor of Russia. The priest
disappeared, which leaves any ingenious and inventive writer full
liberty to build a romantic tale upon the incident. The natural finale
of the affair, Mr Story opines, would have been for the priest to have
married the Emperor’s daughter, but his being in orders was an
impediment; and so we are justified in presuming that some less
agreeable means was found of easing him of his jewel, which, when he
first possessed it, he took to be a drop from a chandelier, but to which
he of course clung with desperate tenacity when enlightened as to the
quality of the gem. Rome ought to be a good preserve for
fiction-writers, there are so many family histories, traditions, and
anecdotes current there, which would serve the novelist’s turn. Edmund
About availed himself of one such in his tale of ‘Tolla;’ and another
over-true tale was interwoven, not very long since, in a pleasant
novelet of Roman life in the pages of this Magazine. Mr Story’s volumes
abound in suggestive passages of the kind. If Rome be an admirable
residence for an artist (and for some of the reasons why it is so, see
the ‘Roba,’ i. p. 66, 67), it ought also to be an excellent one for a
writer, were it not that it is found by many unfavourable to mental
exertion. This is said to be particularly exemplified in the case of
diplomatists, many of whom, after a certain time passed in the Papal
capital, are apt to conceive an intense dislike to despatch-writing, and
to keep their Governments extremely uninformed concerning the state of
the Holy City and the prospects of Pontifical politics. We remember to
have been told, when in Rome, the names of more than one foreign
minister who had been recalled, it was asserted, for no other reason but
that nothing could induce him to write despatches. Rome is certainly one
of the places where there is most temptation, at least for one half of
the year, to neglect business for pleasure; but there is possibly also
something in the climate which disinclines many people to headwork. It
is much the fashion to abuse the Roman climate; and this has been done,
especially of late, by persons desirous to show that Rome is an
undesirable, because a highly insalubrious, capital for united Italy. It
is to be feared the grapes are sour, and that the yellow flag now
hoisted would be struck at the same time with the French tricolour. Our
own experience and observations induce us very much to concur with those
passages of Mr Story’s book which relate to this question. “Rome has,
with strangers, the reputation of being unhealthy; but this opinion I
cannot think well founded—to the extent, at least, of the common
belief.” Many maladies, virulent and dangerous elsewhere, are very light
in Rome; and for lung complaints it is well known that people repair
thither. The “Roman fever,” as it is commonly called (intermittent and
_perniciosa_), is seldom suffered from by the better classes of Romans;
and Mr Story (who speaks with authority after his many years’ residence
in Rome) believes that, with a little prudence, it may easily be
avoided. The peasants of the Campagna are, it is well known, those who
chiefly suffer from it, and why? “Their food is poor, their habits
careless, their labour exhausting and performed in the sun, and they
sleep often on the bare ground or a little straw. And yet, despite the
life they lead and their various exposures, they are, for the most part,
a very strong and sturdy class.” Mr Story gives it as a fact that the
French soldiers who besieged Rome in ‘48, during the summer months,
suffered very little from fever, although sleeping out on the Campagna;
but they were better clothed and fed, and altogether more careful of
themselves, than the native peasants. Generally speaking, the foreigners
who visit Rome are less attentive than the Romans to certain common
rules for the preservation of health. They eat and drink too much, and
of the wrong things. They get hot, and then plunge into cold churches or
galleries; whereas an Italian flies from a chill or current of air as
from infection. Mr Story gives a few simple rules, by following which he
declares you may live twenty years in Rome without a fever. He cautions
Englishmen against copious dinners, sherry and brandy, and his own
countrymen against the morning-dinner which they call a breakfast; and
supplies other useful hints and practical remarks. The subject is one
which interests many, and such are referred to the ‘Roba,’ i. p.
156–161, and to the chapter on the Campagna, in which high authorities
and ingenious arguments are brought to prove that in old times it was
not insalubrious, and that in our own it need not be so. Population and
cultivation are perhaps all that are needed to render tracts healthy
that now are pestilential, but which assuredly were not so in the time
of the ancient Romans, since many of them, we know, were their favourite
sites for patrician villas. Much might be done by an intelligent and
active government, and especially by a good sanitary commission. There
was one clever gentleman who wrote that Rome was ill fitted to be the
capital of Italy on account of its deficiency in buildings suitable for
government offices! Where good reasons are not to be found silly ones
may be resorted to, but they of course only weaken the cause they are
intended to prop. And if it were to be urged that all the worst plagues
flesh is heir to, combine to render Rome for the present impossible as
capital of Italy, the most we could admit, by way of compromise, and
borrowing a well-known answer, would be, “_non tutti, ma Buona parte_.”
CAXTONIANA:
A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.
By the Author of ‘The Caxton Family.’
PART XV.
NO. XX.—ON SELF-CONTROL.
“He who desires to influence others must learn to command himself,” is
an old aphorism, on which, perhaps, something new may be said. In the
ordinary ethics of the nursery, self-control means little more than a
check upon temper. A wise restraint, no doubt; but as useful to the
dissimulator as to the honest man. I do not necessarily conquer my anger
because I do not show that I am angry. Anger vented often hurries
towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge.
A hasty temper is not the only horse that runs away with the charioteer
on the Road of Life. Nor is it the most dangerous, for it seldom runs
away far. It gives a jerk and a shake; but it does not take the bit
between its teeth, and gallop blindly on, mile after mile, in one
obstinate direction towards a precipice. A hasty temper is an infirmity
disagreeable to others, undignified in ourselves—a fault so well known
to every man who has it, that he will at once acknowledge it to be a
fault which he ought to correct. He requires, therefore, no moralising
essayist to prove to him his failing, or teach him his duty. But still a
hasty temper is a frank offender, and has seldom that injurious effect
either on the welfare of others, or on our own natures, mental and
moral, which results from the steady purpose of one of those vices which
are never seen in a passion.
In social intercourse, if his character be generous and his heart sound,
a man does not often lose a true friend from a quick word. And even in
the practical business of life, wherein an imperturbable temper is
certainly a priceless advantage, a man of honesty and talent may still
make his way without it. Nay, he may inspire a greater trust in his
probity and candour, from the heat he displays against trickiness and
falsehood. Indeed there have been consummate masters in the wisdom of
business who had as little command of temper as if Seneca and Epictetus
had never proved the command of temper to be the first business of
wisdom. Richelieu strode towards his public objects with a footstep
unswervingly firm, though his servants found it the easiest thing in the
world to put him into a passion. Sometimes they did so on purpose,
pleased to be scolded unjustly, because sure of some handsome amends.
And in treating of self-control, I am contented to take that same
Richelieu, the Cardinal, as an illustration of the various and expansive
meaning which I give to the phrase. Richelieu did not command his temper
in the sphere of his private household: he commanded it to perfection in
his administration of a kingdom. He was cruel, but from policy, not from
rage. Among all the victims of that policy, there was not one whose doom
could be ascribed to his personal resentments. The life of no subject,
and the success of no scheme, depended on the chance whether the
irritable minister was in good or bad humour. If he permitted his temper
free vent in his household, it was because there he was only a private
individual. There, he could indulge in the luxury of ire without
disturbing the mechanism of the state. There, generous as a noble and
placable as a priest, he could own himself in the wrong, and beg his
servants’ forgiveness, without lowering the dignity of the minister,
who, when he passed his threshold, could ask no pardon from others, and
acknowledge no fault in himself. It was there where his emotions were
most held in restraint,—there where, before the world’s audience, his
mind swept by concealed in the folds of its craft, as, in Victor Hugo’s
great drama, _L’Homme Rouge_ passes across the stage, curtained round in
his litter, a veiled symbol of obscure, inexorable, majestic fate,—it
was there where the dread human being seemed to have so mastered his
thoughts and his feelings, that they served but as pulleys and wheels to
the bloodless machine of his will,—it was there that self-control was in
truth the most feeble. And this apparent paradox brings me at once to
the purpose for which my essay is written.
What is SELF? What is that many-sided Unity which is centred in the
single Ego of a man’s being? I do not put the question metaphysically.
Heaven forbid! The problem it involves provokes the conjectures of all
schools, precisely because it has received no solution from any. The
reader is welcome to whatever theory he may prefer to select from
metaphysical definitions, provided that he will acknowledge in the word
Self the representation of an integral individual human being—the
organisation of a certain fabric of flesh and blood, biassed, perhaps,
originally by the attributes and peculiarities of the fabric itself—by
hereditary predispositions, by nervous idiosyncrasies, by cerebral
developments, by slow or quick action of the pulse, by all in which mind
takes a shape from the mould of the body;—but still a Self which, in
every sane constitution, can be changed or modified from the original
bias, by circumstance, by culture, by reflection, by will, by
conscience, through means of the unseen inhabitant of the fabric. Not a
man has ever achieved a something good or great, but will own that,
before he achieved it, his mind succeeded in conquering or changing some
predisposition of body.
True self-control, therefore, is the control of that entire and complex
unity, the individual Self. It necessitates an accurate perception of
all that is suggested by the original bias, and a power to adapt and to
regulate, or to oppose and divert, every course to which that bias
inclines the thought and impels the action.
For Self, left to itself, only crystallises atoms homogeneous to its
original monad. A nature constitutionally proud and pitiless,
intuitively seeks, in all the culture it derives from intellectual
labour, to find reasons to continue proud and pitiless—to extract from
the lessons of knowledge arguments by which to justify its impulse, and
rules by which the impulse can be drilled into method and refined into
policy.
Among the marvels of psychology, certainly not the least astounding is
that facility with which the conscience, being really sincere in its
desire of right, accommodates itself to the impulse which urges it to go
wrong. It is thus that fanatics, whether in religion or in politics, hug
as the virtue of saints and heroes the barbarity of the bigot, the
baseness of the assassin. No one can suppose that Calvin did not deem
that the angels smiled approbation when he burned Servetus. No one can
suppose that when Torquemada devised the Inquisition, he did not
conscientiously believe that the greatest happiness of the greatest
number could be best secured by selecting a few for a roast. Torquemada
could have no personal interest in roasting a heretic; Torquemada did
not eat him when roasted; Torquemada was not a cannibal.
Again: no one can suppose that when the German student, Sand, after long
forethought, and with cool determination, murdered a writer whose
lucubrations shocked his political opinions, he did not walk to the
scaffold with a conscience as calm as that of the mildest young lady who
ever slaughtered a wasp from her fear of its sting.
So when Armand Richelieu marched inflexibly to his public ends, the spy
on his left side, the executioner on his right, Bayard could not have
felt himself more free from stain and reproach. His conscience would
have found in his intellect not an accusing monitor but a flattering
parasite. It would have whispered in his ear—“Great Man—Hero, nay,
rather Demigod[5]—to destroy is thy duty, because to reconstruct is thy
mission. The evils which harass the land—for which Heaven, that gave
thee so dauntless a heart and so scheming a brain, has made thee
responsible—result from the turbulent ambition of nobles who menace the
throne thou art deputed to guard, and the licence of pestilent schisms
at war with the Church of which thou art the grace and the bulwark. Pure
and indefatigable patriot, undeterred by the faults of the sovereign who
hates thee, by the sins of the people who would dip their hands in thy
blood, thou toilest on in thy grand work serenely, compelling the
elements vainly conflicting against thee into the unity of thine own
firm design—unity secular, unity spiritual—one throne safe from rebels,
one church free from schisms; in the peace of that unity, the land of
thy birth will collect and mature and concentrate its forces, now wasted
and waning, till it rise to the rank of the one state of Europe—the
brain and the heart of the civilised world! No mythical Hercules thou!
Complete thy magnificent labours. Purge the land of the Lion and
Hydra—of the throne-shaking Baron—the church-splitting Huguenot!”
Footnote 5:
An author dedicated a work to Richelieu. In the dedication, referring
to the ‘Siege of Rochelle,’ he complimented the Cardinal with the word
Hero. When the dedication was submitted to Richelieu for approval, he
scratched out “Hèros,” and substituted “Demi-Dieu!”
Armand Richelieu, by nature not vindictive nor mean, thus motions
without remorse to the headsman, listens without shame to the spy, and,
when asked on his deathbed if he forgave his enemies, replies,
conscientiously ignorant of his many offences against the brotherhood
between man and man, “I owe no forgiveness to enemies; I never had any
except those of the State.”
For human governments, the best statesman is he who carries a keen
perception of the common interests of humanity into all his projects,
howsoever intellectually subtle. But that policy is not for the
interests of humanity which cannot be achieved without the spy and the
headsman. And those projects cannot serve humanity which sanction
persecution as the instrument of truth, and subject the fate of a
community to the accident of a benevolent despot.
In Richelieu there was no genuine self-control, because he had made his
whole self the puppet of certain fixed and tyrannical ideas. Now, in
this the humblest and obscurest individual amongst us is too often but a
Richelieu in miniature. Every man has in his own temperament peculiar
propellers to the movement of his thoughts and the choice of his
actions. Every man has his own favourite ideas rising out of his
constitutional bias. At the onset of life this bias is clearly revealed
to each. No youth ever leaves college but what he is perfectly aware of
the leading motive-properties of his own mind. He knows whether he is
disposed by temperament to be timid or rash, proud or meek, covetous of
approbation or indifferent to opinion, thrifty or extravagant, stern in
his justice or weak in his indulgence. It is while his step is yet on
the threshold of life that man can best commence the grand task of
self-control; for then he best adjusts that equilibrium of character by
which he is saved from the despotism of one ruling passion or the
monomania of one cherished train of ideas. Later in life our introvision
is sure to be obscured—the intellect has familiarised itself to its own
errors, the conscience is deafened to its own first alarms; and the more
we cultivate the intellect in its favourite tracks, the more we question
the conscience in its own prejudiced creed, so much the more will the
intellect find skilful excuses to justify its errors, so much the more
will the conscience devise ingenious replies to every doubt we submit to
the casuistry of which we have made it the adept.
Nor is it our favourite vices alone that lead us into danger—noble
natures are as liable to be led astray by their favourite virtues; for
it is the proverbial tendency of a virtue to fuse itself insensibly into
its neighbouring vice; and, on the other hand, in noble natures, a
constitutional vice is often drilled into a virtue.
But few men can attain that complete subjugation of self to the harmony
of moral law, which was the aim of the Stoics. A mind so admirably
balanced that each attribute of character has its just weight and no
more, is rather a type of ideal perfection, than an example placed
before our eyes in the actual commerce of life. I must narrow the scope
of my homily, and suggest to the practical a few practical hints for the
ready control of their faculties.
It seems to me that a man will best gain command over those intellectual
faculties which he knows are his strongest, by cultivating the faculties
that somewhat tend to counterbalance them. He in whom imagination is
opulent and fervid will regulate and discipline its exercise by forcing
himself to occupations or studies that require plain common sense. He
who feels that the bias of his judgment or the tendency of his
avocations is over-much towards the positive and anti-poetic forms of
life, will best guard against the narrowness of scope and feebleness of
grasp which characterise the intellect that seeks common sense only in
commonplace, by warming his faculties in the glow of imaginative genius;
he should not forget that where heat enters it expands. And, indeed, the
rule I thus lay down, eminent men have discovered for themselves. Men of
really great imagination will be found to have generally cultivated some
branch of knowledge that requires critical or severe reasoning. Men of
really great capacities for practical business will generally be found
to indulge in a predilection for works of fancy. The favourite reading
of poets or fictionists of high order will seldom be poetry or fiction.
Poetry or fiction is to them a study, not a relaxation. Their favourite
reading will be generally in works called abstruse or dry—antiquities,
metaphysics, subtle problems of criticism, or delicate niceties of
scholarship. On the other hand, the favourite reading of celebrated
lawyers is generally novels. Thus in every mind of large powers there is
an unconscious struggle perpetually going on to preserve its
equilibrium. The eye soon loses its justness of vision if always
directed towards one object at the same distance—the soil soon exhausts
its produce if you draw from it but one crop.
But it is not enough to secure counteraction for the mind in all which
directs its prevailing faculties towards partial and special results; it
is necessary also to acquire the power to keep differing faculties and
acquirements apart and distinct on all occasions in which it would be
improper to blend them. When the poet enters on the stage of real life
as a practical man of business, he must be able to leave his poetry
behind him; when the practical man of business enters into the domain of
poetry, he must not remind us that he is an authority on the Stock
Exchange. In a word, he who has real self-control has all his powers at
his command, now to unite and now to separate them.
In public life this is especially requisite. A statesman is seldom
profound unless he be somewhat of a scholar; an orator is seldom
eloquent unless he have familiarised himself with the world of the
poets. But he will never be a statesman of commanding influence, and
never an orator of lasting renown, if, in action or advice on the
practical affairs of nations, he be more scholar or poet than orator or
statesman. Pitt and Fox are memorable instances of the discriminating
self-abnegation with which minds of masculine power can abstain from the
display of riches unsuited to place and occasion.
In the Mr Fox of St Stephen’s, the nervous reasoner from premises the
broadest and most popular, there is no trace of the Mr Fox of St Anne’s,
the refining verbal critic, with an almost feminine delight in the
filigree and trinkets of literature. At rural leisure, under his
apple-blossoms, his predilection in scholarship is for its daintiest
subtleties; his happiest remarks are on writers very little read. But
place the great Tribune on the floor of the House of Commons, and not a
vestige of the fine verbal critic is visible. His classical allusions
are then taken from passages the most popularly known. And, indeed, it
was a saying of Fox’s, “That no young member should hazard in Parliament
a Latin quotation not found in the Eton Grammar.”
Pitt was yet more sparing than Fox in the exhibition of his scholarship,
which, if less various than his rival’s, was probably quite as deep. And
one of the friends who knew him best said, that Pitt rigidly subdued his
native faculty of _wit_, not because he did not appreciate and admire
its sparkles in orators unrestrained by the responsibilities of office,
but because he considered that a man in the position of First Minister
impaired influence and authority by the cheers that transferred his
reputation from his rank of Minister to his renown as Wit. He was right.
Grave situations are not only dignified but strengthened by that gravity
of demeanour which is not the hypocrisy of the would-be wise, but the
genuine token of the earnest sense of responsibility.
Self-control thus necessitates, first, Self-Knowledge—the consciousness
and the calculation of our own resources and our own defects. Every man
has his strong point—every man has his weak ones. To know both the
strong point and the weak ones is the first object of the man who means
to extract from himself the highest degree of usefulness with the least
alloy of mischief. His next task is yet more to strengthen his strong
points by counterbalancing them with weights thrown into the scale of
the weak ones; for force is increased by resistance. Remedy your
deficiencies, and your merits will take care of themselves. Every man
has in him good and evil. His good is his valiant army, his evil is his
corrupt commissariat; reform the commissariat, and the army will do its
duty.
The third point in Self-control is Generalship—is Method—is that calm
science in the midst of movement and passion which decides where to
advance, where to retreat—what regiments shall lead the charge, what
regiments shall be held back in reserve. This is the last and the
grandest secret: the other two all of us may master.
The man who, but with a mind somewhat above the average (raised above
the average whether by constitutional talent or laborious acquirement),
has his own intellect, with all its stores, under his absolute
control,—that man can pass from one state of idea to another—from action
to letters, from letters to action—without taking from one the
establishment that would burden the other. It is comparatively a poor
proprietor who cannot move from town to country but what he must carry
with him all his servants and half his furniture. He who keeps the
treasures he has inherited or saved in such compartments that he may
know where to look for each at the moment it is wanted, will rarely find
himself misplaced in any change of situation. It is not that his genius
is versatile, but that it has the opulent attributes which are essential
to successful intellect of every kind. The attributes themselves may
vary in property and in degree, but the power of the SELF—of the unity
which controls all at its disposal—should be in the facility with which
it can separate or combine all its attributes at its will.
It is thus, in the natural world, that an ordinary chemist may
accomplish marvels beyond the art of magicians of old. Each man of good
understanding, who would be as a chemist to the world within himself,
will be startled to discover what new agencies spring into action merely
by separating the elements dormant when joined, or combining those that
were wasted in air when apart. In one completed Man there are the forces
of many men. Self-control is self-completion.
NO. XXI.—THE MODERN MISANTHROPE.
“All the passions,” saith an old writer, “are such near neighbours, that
if one of them is on fire the others should send for the buckets.” Thus
love and hate being both passions, the one is never safe from the spark
that sets the other ablaze. But contempt is passionless; it does not
catch, it quenches fire. The misanthrope who professes to hate mankind
has generally passed to that hate from too extravagant a love. And love
for mankind is still, though unconsciously to himself, feeding hate by
its own unextinguished embers. “The more a man loves his mistress,” says
Rochefoucauld, “the nearer he is to hate her.” Possibly so, if he is
jealous; but in return, the more he declares he hates her, the nearer he
is to loving her again. Vehement affections do not move in parallels but
in circles. As applied to them the proverb is true, “_Les extrêmes se
touchent_.” A man of ardent temperament who is shocked into misanthropy
by instances of ingratitude and perfidy, is liable any day to be carried
back into philanthropy, should unlooked-for instances of gratitude and
truth start up and take him by surprise. But if an egotist, who,
inheriting but a small pittance of human affection, concentres it
rigidly on himself, should deliberately school his reason into calm
contempt for his species, he will retain that contempt to the last. He
looks on the world of man, with its virtues and vices, much as you, O my
reader, look on an ant-hill! What to you are the virtues or vices of
ants? It is this kind of masked misanthropy which we encounter in our
day—the misanthropy without a vizard belongs to a ruder age.
The misanthrope of Shakespeare and Molière is a passionate savage; the
misanthrope who has just kissed his hand to you is a polished gentleman.
No disgust of humanity will ever make _him_ fly the world. From his
club-window in St James’s his smile falls on all passers-by with equal
suavity and equal scorn. It may be said by verbal critics that I employ
the word misanthrope incorrectly—that, according to strict
interpretation, a misanthrope means not a despiser but a hater of men,
and that this elegant gentleman is not, by my own showing, warmblooded
enough for hate. True, but contempt so serene and immovable is the
philosophy of hate—the intellectual consummation of misanthropy. My hero
would have listened with approving nod to all that Timon or Alceste
could have thundered forth in detestation of his kind, and blandly
rejoined, “Your truisms, _mon cher_, are as evident as that two and two
make four. But you can calculate on the principle that two and two make
four without shouting forth, as if you proclaimed a notable discovery,
what every one you meet knows as well as yourself. Men are
scoundrels—two and two make four—reckon accordingly, and don’t lose your
temper in keeping your accounts.” My misanthrope _à la mode_ never rails
at vice; he takes it for granted as the elementary principle in the
commerce of life. As for virtue, he regards it as a professor of science
regards witchcraft. No doubt there are many plausible stories, very
creditably attested, that vouch for its existence, but the thing is not
in nature. Easier to believe in a cunning imposture than an impossible
fact. It is the depth and completeness of his contempt for the world
that makes him take the world so pleasantly. He is deemed the man of the
world _par excellence_, and the World caresses and admires its Man.
The finest gentleman of my young day, who never said to you an unkind
thing nor of you a kind one—whose slightest smile was a seductive
fascination—whose loudest tone was a flute-like melody—had the sweetest
way possible of insinuating his scorn of the human race. The urbanity of
his manners made him a pleasant acquaintance—the extent of his reading
an accomplished companion. No one was more versed in those classes of
literature in which Mephistopheles might have sought polite authorities
in favour of his demoniacal views of philosophy. He was at home in the
correspondence between cardinals and debauchees in the time of Leo X. He
might have taken high honours in an examination on the memoirs
illustrating the life of French _salons_ in the _ancien régime_. He knew
the age of Louis Quinze so well that to hear him you might suppose he
was just fresh from a _petit souper_ in the _Parc aux Cerfs_.
Too universally agreeable not to amuse those present at the expense of
those absent, still, even in sarcasm, he never seemed to be ill-natured.
As one of his associates had a louder reputation for wit than his own,
so it was his modest habit to father upon that professed _diseur de bons
mots_ any more pointed epigram that occurred spontaneously to himself.
“I wonder,” said a dandy of another dandy who was no Adonis, “why on
earth —— has suddenly taken to cultivate those monstrous red whiskers.”
“Ah,” quoth my pleasant fine gentleman, “I think for my part they become
his style of face very much; A—— says ‘that they plant out his
ugliness.’” For the rest, in all graver matters, if the man he last
dined with committed some act which all honest men blamed, my
misanthrope evinced his gentle surprise, not at the act, but the
blame—“What did you expect?” he would say, with an adorable indulgence,
“he was a man—_like yourselves_!”
Sprung from one of the noblest lineages in Christendom—possessed of a
fortune which he would smilingly say “was not large enough to allow him
to give a shilling to any one else,” but which, prudently spent on
himself, amply sufficed for all the elegant wants of a man so
emphatically single—this darling of fashion had every motive conceivable
to an ordinary understanding not to be himself that utter rogue which he
assumed every other fellow-creature to be. Nevertheless, he was too
nobly consistent to his creed to suffer his example to be at variance
with his doctrine; and here he had an indisputable advantage over Timon
and Alceste, who had no right, when calling all men rogues, to belie
their assertion by declining to be rogues themselves. His favourite
amusement was whist, and in that game his skill was so consummate that
he had only to play fairly in order to add to his income a sum which,
already spending on himself all that he himself required, he would not
have known what to do with. But, as he held all men to be cheats, he
cheated on principle. It was due to the honour of his philosophy to show
his utter disdain of the honour which impostors preached, but which only
dupes had the folly to practise. If others did not mark the aces and
shuffle up the kings as he did, it was either because they were too
stupid to learn how, or too cowardly to risk the chance of exposure. He
was not as stupid, he was not as cowardly, as the generality of men. It
became him to show his knowledge of their stupidity and his disdain of
their cowardice. _Bref_—he cheated!—long with impunity: but, as Charron
says, _L’homme se pique_—man cogs the dice for his own ruin. At last he
was suspected, he was watched, he was detected. But the first thought of
his fascinated victims was not to denounce, but to warn him—kindly
letters conveying delicate hints were confidentially sent to him: he was
not asked to disgorge, not exhorted to repent; let bygones be bygones,
only for the future, would he, in playing with his intimate associates,
good-naturedly refrain from marking the aces and shuffling up the kings?
I can well imagine the lofty smile with which the scorner of men must
have read such frivolous recommendations to depart from the
philosophical system adorned in vain by his genius if not enforced by
his example. He who despised the opinions of sages and saints—he to be
frightened into respecting the opinions of idlers at a club!—send to him
an admonition from the world of honour, to respect the superstitions of
card-players! as well send to Mr Faraday an admonition from the world of
spirits to respect the superstitions of table-rappers! To either
philosopher there would be the same reply—“I go by the laws of nature.”
In short, strong in the conscience of his opinion, this consistent
reasoner sublimely persevered in justifying his theories of misanthropy
by his own resolute practice of knavery, inexcusable and unredeemed.
“What Timon thought, this god-like Cato was!”
But man, whatever his inferiority to the angels, is still not altogether
a sheep. And even a sheep only submits to be sheared once a year; to be
sheared every day would irritate the mildest of lambs. Some of the
fellow-mortals whom my hero smiled on and plundered, took heart, and
openly accused him of marking the aces and shuffling up the kings. At
first his native genius suggested to him the wisdom of maintaining, in
smiling silence, the contempt of opinion he had hitherto so superbly
evinced. Unhappily for himself, he was induced by those who, persuaded
that a man of so high a birth could never have stooped to so low a
peccadillo, flattered him with the assurance of an easy triumph over his
aspersers—unhappily, I say, he was induced into a departure from that
system of action which he had hitherto maintained with so supreme a
success. He condescended, for the first time in his life, to take other
men into respect—to regard what might be thought of him by a world he
despised. He brought an action for libel against his accusers. His
counsel, doubtless by instruction, sought to redeem that solitary
inconsistency in his client, by insinuating that my lord’s chosen
associates were themselves the cheats, malignant conspirators against
the affable hawk of quality in whom they had expected to find a facile
pigeon.
The cuttle-fish blackens the water to escape from his enemies, but he
does not always escape; nay, in blackening the water he betrays himself
to the watchful spectators. My hero failed in his action, and quitted
the court leaving behind him the bubble reputation. If I am rightly
informed, Adversity, that touchstone of lofty minds, found this grand
philosopher as serene as if he had spent his life in studying Epictetus.
He wrapt himself, if not in virtue, at least in his scorn of it,—
“Et udo
Spernit humi defugiente penno.”
He retired to the classic Tusculum of his villa in St John’s Wood.
There, cheered by the faithful adherence of some elegant companions,
who, if they did not believe him innocent, found him unalterably
agreeable, he sipped his claret and moralised on his creed. Doubtless he
believed that “the talk would soon subside,” “the thing blow over.” The
world would miss him too much not to rally again round the sage who so
justly despised it. Perhaps his belief might have been realised, but,
“Vita summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam”—
Death, the only player that no man can cheat, cut into his table, and
trumped the last card of his long suit.
In the more brilliant period of this amiable man-scorner’s social
career, once, and once only, he is said to have given way to anger. One
of his associates (I say designedly associates, not friends, out of
respect for his memory, since friendship is a virtue, and he therefore
denied its existence)—one of his associates, warmed perhaps into
literature by his own polite acquaintance with all that is _laide_ in
_belles lettres_, wrote a comedy. The comedy was acted. My hero honoured
the performance by appearing in the author’s box. Leaning forward so as
to be seen of all men, he joined his hands in well-bred applause of
every abortive joke and grammatical solecism, till, in a critical part
of the play, there occurred a popular claptrap—a something said in
praise of virtue and condemnation of vice. The gallery of course
responded to the claptrap, expressing noisy satisfaction at the only
sentiment familiar to their comprehension which they had hitherto heard.
But my archetype of modern misanthropy paused aghast, suspended
“The soft collision of applauding gloves,”
and, looking at his associate as reproachfully as Cæsar might have
looked at Brutus when he sighed forth “_Et tu, Brute!_” let fall these
withering words, “Why, Billy, this is betraying the Good Old Cause.” So
saying, he left the box, resentful. Now, this man I call the genuine,
positive, realistic Misanthrope, compared to whom Timon and Alceste are
poetical make-believes!
SPEDDING’S LIFE OF BACON.[6]
Footnote 6:
‘The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon.’ By James Spedding. Vols.
I. & II. Lord Macaulay’s ‘Essay on Francis Bacon.’
Mr Spedding, in the modest form of a commentary on the letters and
occasional writings of Lord Bacon, is now giving us a biography of that
celebrated man, which bids fair, for a long time to come, to be our
highest authority on the subject. To place all the facts before us on
which our judgment of the character of Lord Bacon should be formed, is
his great object; he deals in few assertions of his own; he is disposed
to let facts speak for themselves; he guides our opinion by a full
narrative of the events, and makes few attempts to influence us by
argument or eloquence. A more satisfactory or trustworthy book has
rarely come before us.
We will not say that Mr Spedding’s narrative is never coloured by an
imagination which has received its unconscious prompting from his
admiration of Bacon: one rather amusing instance of this colouring of
the imagination we think we have detected, and shall have occasion to
notice; but no admiring biographer of a great man has more studiously
refrained from thrusting forward his own opinions or conceptions where
the reader is merely desirous of obtaining a clear insight into the
facts themselves. Mr Spedding has not yet completed his task, but he has
given us in these two volumes more materials of interest than in the
space of a single paper we shall have room to touch upon, and the main
topic which occupies them is fully discussed and finally dismissed.
That topic is the relation between Bacon and Essex. Of the splendid
Essay of Lord Macaulay’s, which is still ringing in the ears of most
English readers, no part was written with more force, or was more
damaging to the character of Bacon, than that which treated of his
conduct to the Earl of Essex. Many who could have forgiven the peccant
Chancellor for being too ready to accept whatever was offered to him in
the shape of present or gratuity, could not pardon the cold-blooded and
faithless friend. Now it is precisely on this subject that Mr Spedding
presents us with materials for forming a very different judgment from
that which the eloquent pages of Macaulay had betrayed us into. Up to
the period when Essex disappears from the scene, these two volumes give
us their clear guidance. Of that guidance we very gladly avail
ourselves.
We would premise that it is not our purpose, or endeavour, to defend
Bacon at all points—to robe our Chancellor in spotless ermine; neither
do we think that the result of renewed investigation is a clear verdict
of “Not Guilty” on all the charges that have been brought against him.
There is much in Macaulay’s estimate both of the character and the
philosophy of Bacon with which we cordially agree. It happens frequently
with great historic names that there is an oscillation of public
opinion; the too harsh verdict of one writer, or one age, is followed by
a verdict as much too lenient. Such oscillation seems to have lately
taken place with regard to Bacon, and the disposition is at present to
find nothing blameworthy in him. This disposition we do not share. We
think that no good is done, but rather harm, when enthusiasm for the
brilliant achievements of any man, whether in a career of war, or
statesmanship, or letters, induces us to shut our eyes to his moral
defects. For in these cases we do not, and cannot, exactly _shut our
eyes_: we do something worse; we try to see that vices are not vices. We
lower our standard, that we may pass no unfavourable judgment. It is an
ill lesson that teaches us to forgive the overbearing despotism of a
great soldier or great minister, or the rascality of a great wit; to see
no injustice in a Napoleon, and no villany in a Sheridan. We believe
that the censure of Lord Macaulay is too severe, but it is censure and
not praise which the character of Bacon provokes. We all know that the
fervid eloquence, or rather the ardent temperament, of our more than
English Livy, led him into manifest exaggerations; but in general, we
should say that his drawing is true to nature, except that it had this
too swelling outline. His exaggerations were like those of Michael
Angelo, who drew muscles disproportionately large, but who never drew a
muscle where none existed. A sterling good sense presided over the
verdicts of Macaulay—over the yes or no; but the verdict once
determined, the impassioned orator ran the risk of falsifying it by the
ruthless, unmitigated energy with which it was delivered.
We should not say of Bacon either that he was the “greatest” or the
“meanest” of mankind. But as certainly as he was great in his
intellectual attributes, so certainly was he _not_ great in his moral
character. Here he lacked elevation. He could tolerate artifice, and
dissimulation, and gross flattery. If the crime of Essex justified him,
as we are inclined to think it did, in breaking entirely with that
nobleman, and treating him as an enemy to the State, what are we to say
of the strain of advice which he habitually gives to Essex while the two
are yet in perfect amity? A mere personal ambition, to be obtained by
the petty arts of the courtier, is all that he prompts his friend to
aspire after. Win the Queen—honestly, if possible; but, at all events,
win the Queen! This is the burden of his counsel. Bacon was _great_ in
his intellectual speculations; he was _mean_ in the conduct of life. The
antithesis still remains to us in a modified form. All his life is a
continual suing for place; and what he obtained by flattery and
subservience, he lost by some poor cupidity.
Bacon was a philosopher from his youth, but from his youth to his old
age he was also a lover of social distinctions, and of a sumptuous mode
of life. If he had the desire to take all human knowledge for his
province, and to extend his name and his good influence into future
ages, if he desired to be a reformer even of philosophy itself, he had
also other desires of a much more commonplace description; not evil in
themselves—good perhaps in themselves—but not subordinated to the high
morality which might have been expected from one so wise. But if in his
rise to power he showed too much servility—if, when in the seat of
power, he showed too much cupidity,—surely no one ever fell from
greatness, no one was ever struck down from the seat of power, for so
slight a measure of criminality. No historic personage can be mentioned
amongst us, on whom so severe a punishment, so deep a disgrace, was
inflicted for a fault so little heinous.
The first great error which Bacon committed, the consequence of which
pursued him all his life, was _the running into debt_. It was a
life-long fault. It was his fault, not his misfortune. He received less,
we know, from his father than he might reasonably have expected, less
than his brothers had received, but no biographer has ventured to call
him poor—so poor that he could not have held his ground as a student of
the law without incurring debt. Whether it was mere carelessness and
imprudence, or a wilful spending “according to his hopes, not his
possessions,” we find him very early in debt; and as years advance we
find the debts, of course, more and more onerous. No one knew better
than Bacon that he who owes has to borrow, and that he who borrows will
have, in some form, to beg, to sue—will be tempted to sordid
actions—will lose his independence, his upright attitude amongst men.
There is no greater slavery than debt. It bred in Bacon that “itching
palm,” and that perpetual suing, which disgrace his career.
He begins to sue from his very first entry into life. He puts his trust
in the Lord Treasurer. And what is remarkable, the very nature of the
first suit he makes is unknown. It was some office, _not_ of a legal
character, as we should conjecture. Writing to Walsingham about it, he
says that the delay in answering it “hinders me from taking a course of
practice which, by the leave of God, if her Majesty like not of my suit,
I must and will follow: _not for any necessity of estate, but for my
credit sake_, which I know by living out of action will wear.” At this
date, 25th August 1585, he does not plead absolute inability to live on
his private fortune. Subsequently, when his debts have increased, he
writes upon this subject in a very different strain. He is embarrassed
by usurers; he is arrested; debt comes upon him, as he says, like an
armed man.
Of the earliest years of Bacon few memorials remain. But Mr Spedding
brings together two conspicuous facts. The first is, that Bacon, at the
age of fifteen, conceives his project of a reformation in philosophy;
and the second is, that immediately on leaving college he accompanies
Sir Amias Paulet on his embassy to France. Thus philosophy and
diplomacy, speculation and state-craft, study and the world, take at
once joint possession of Francis Bacon.
Of the first of these facts, and the most important in his life, Mr
Spedding speaks in a passage of much eloquence, glowing and chastened
withal:—
“That the thought first occurred to him during his residence at
Cambridge, therefore before he had completed his fifteenth year, we
know upon the best authority—his own statement to Dr Rawley. I believe
it ought to be regarded as the most important event of his life—the
event which had a greater influence than any other upon his character
and future course. From that moment there was awakened within his
breast the appetite which cannot be satiated, and the passion which
cannot commit excess. From that moment he had a vocation which
employed and stimulated all the energies of his mind, gave a value to
every vacant interval of time, an interest and significance to every
random thought and casual accession of knowledge—an object to live for
as wide as humanity, as immortal as the human race—an idea to live in
vast and lofty enough to fill the soul for ever with religious and
heroic aspirations. From that moment, though still subject to
interruptions, disappointments, errors, and regrets, he could never be
without either work or hope or consolation.”
But this young philosopher is son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, the late Lord
Chancellor; the Queen has laid her hand upon his head while yet a boy,
and called him her young Lord Keeper; he is nephew to the Prime
Minister; he dreams of courts, of place, of power. He must unite his
lofty speculations with the great affairs of State; he must survey human
knowledge from the high places of society. He enters Gray’s Inn, is a
student of the law, and his heart aches after office and promotion.
There is one person very intimately connected with Bacon, whom Mr
Spedding has brought before us with a novel distinctness—his mother,
Lady Bacon. We are not aware that her presence will throw much light on
the character of her son, but henceforth, we are sure, no biography of
the son will be written in which this lady will not be a conspicuous
figure. She is one of those strongly-marked characters that always
please the imagination; dogmatic, perverse, full of maternal anxiety,
pious and splenetic, with marvellous shrewd sense and a very
ungovernable temper. The knowledge of her character would enable us to
answer one question. Presuming that any one should think fit to ask why
Bacon did not seek the retirement of Gorhambury, the answer is quite
ready. There would have been no peace for him under the roof of his lady
mother. Puritan and termagant, his philosophy would have been “suspect”
to her; and his retirement would have been certainly denounced as
unpardonable sloth. She is a learned lady, mingles scraps of Latin and
Greek in her epistles, and she can write, when the occasion demands, in
a very stately English style—stately, but straightforward withal. Her
son’s epistolary style is often involved and verbose. He does not often
come so directly to the point as Lady Bacon does in the following
letter, written to Lord Burghley, in the interest of the Nonconformist
clergy, or _Preachers_, as they were then called. In a conference which
had lately taken place at Lambeth between them and the bishops, she
thinks they had not fair-play; she appeals, in their name, to her
Majesty and the Council:—
“They would most humbly crave, both of God in heaven, whose cause it
is, and of their Majesty, their most excellent sovereign here on
earth, that they might obtain quiet and convenient audience rather
before her Majesty herself, whose heart is in God his hand to touch
and to turn, or before your Honours of the Council, whose wisdom they
greatly reverence; and if they cannot strongly prove before you out of
the word of God that reformation which they so long have called and
cried for to be according to Christ his own ordinance, then to let
them be rejected with shame out of the Church for ever.... And
therefore, for such weighty conference they appeal to her Majesty and
her honourable wise Council, whom God has placed in highest authority
for the advancement of His kingdom; and refuse the bishops for judges,
who are parties partial in their own defence, because they seek more
worldly ambition than the glory of Jesus Christ.”
Mr Spedding next introduces to us the same lady under the agitations, as
he says, of maternal anxiety. Anthony Bacon, the elder brother of
Francis, has been long upon the Continent collecting intelligence, and
otherwise amusing or occupying himself. He sends over one Lawson, a
confidential servant, to Lord Burghley with some important
communication. Lawson is a Catholic. That her son Anthony should be so
long in Popish parts is a dire grievance to Lady Bacon; that he should
have in his confidence a Papist servant, is not to be borne. She
prevails upon Burghley to have this Lawson arrested and retained in
England. One snake is, at all events, caught, and shall be held firm.
Anthony writes to his friend, Francis Allen, to obtain for him the
liberation of Lawson. Allen, furnished with a letter from Lord Burghley
(who seems, for his own part, to be willing to release the man),
proceeds to Gorhambury. His intercession with Lady Bacon he tells
himself in a letter to Anthony:—
“Upon my arrival at Godombery my lady used me courteously until such
time I began to move her for Mr Lawson, and, to say the truth, for
yourself;—being so much transported with your abode there that she let
not to say that you are a traitor to God and your country: you have
undone her; you seek her death; and when you have that you seek for,
you shall have but a hundred pounds more than you have now.
“She is resolved to procure her Majesty’s letter to force you to
return; and when that shall be, if her Majesty gave you your right or
desert, she should clap you up in prison....
“I am sorry to write it, considering his deserts and your love towards
him; but the truth will be known at the last, and better late than
never: it is vain to look for Mr Lawson’s return, for these are her
ladyship’s own words—‘No, no,’ saith she, ‘I have learned not to
employ ill to good; and if there were no more men in England, and
although you should never come home, he shall never come to you.’
“It is as unpossible to persuade my lady to send him, as for myself to
send you Paul’s steeple....
“When you have received your provision, make your repair home again,
lest you be a means to shorten her days, for she told me the grief of
mind received, daily by your stay will be her end; also saith her
jewels be spent for you, and that she borrowed the last money of seven
several persons.
“Thus much I must confess unto you for a conclusion, that I have never
seen and never shall see a wise lady, an honourable woman, a mother
more perplexed for her son’s absence, than I have seen that honourable
dame for yours. Therefore lay your hand on your heart, look not for Mr
Lawson; here he hath, as a man may say, heaven and earth against him
and his return.”
Soon after this Anthony does return home, and Lady Bacon addresses him a
letter, in which there are some allusions to Francis, which will be read
with interest:—
“This one chiefest counsel your Christian and natural mother doth give
you even before the Lord, that above all worldly respects you carry
yourself ever at your first coming as one that doth unfeignedly
profess the true religion of Christ, and hath the love of the truth
now, by long continuance, fast settled in your heart, and that with
judgment, wisdom, and discretion; and are not afraid or ashamed to
testify the same by hearing and delighting in those religious
exercises of the sincerer sort, be they French or English. _In hoc
noli adhibere fratrem tuum ad consilium aut exemplum_....
“I trust you, with your servants, use prayer twice in a day, having
been where reformation is. Omit it not for any. It will be your best
credit to serve the Lord duly and reverently, and you will be observed
at first now. Your brother is too negligent herein, but do you well
and zealously; it will be looked for of the best-learned sort, and
that is best.”
Full of prudence, full of zeal, suspecting her sons themselves and every
one about them, anxious to manage them on all points, whether in their
diet or their religion, such is Lady Bacon. She is writing still to
Anthony.
“_Gratia et salus._ That you increase in amending I am glad. God
continue it every way. When you cease of your prescribed diet, you had
need, I think, to be very wary both of your sudden change of quantity
and of season of your feeding—especially suppers late or full. Procure
rest in convenient time; it helpeth much to digestion. I verily think
your brother’s weak stomach to digest hath been much caused and
confirmed by untimely going to bed, and then musing _nescio quid_ when
he should sleep, and then, in consequent, by late rising and long
lying in bed, whereby his men are made slothful, and himself
continueth sickly. But my sons haste not to hearken to their mother’s
good counsel in time to prevent. The Lord, our heavenly Father, heal
and bless you both as His sons in Christ Jesus. I promise you,
touching your coach, if it be so to your contentation, it was not
wisdom to have it seen or known at the Court; you shall be so much
pressed to lend, and your man, for gain, so ready to agree, that the
discommodity thereof will be as much as the commodity. Let not your
men see my letter. I write to you, and not to them.”
And again, a few days later:—
“I am glad, and thank God of your amendment. But my man said he heard
you rose at three of the clock. I thought that was not well, so
suddenly from bedding much to rise so early—newly out of your diet....
I like not your lending your coach yet to my lord and lady. If you
once begin, you shall hardly end. It was not well it was so soon sent
into the Court to make talk, and at last be promised and misliked.
Tell your brother I counsel you to send it no more. What had my Lady
Shriefess to borrow your coach?”
Any comment of ours would only weaken the effect of such graphic letters
as these. We are enabled even to follow our zealous, dogmatic, yet
motherly woman, into her own household. Edward Spencer was a servant of
Anthony’s, but was left for some reason at Gorhambury. He writes to his
master:—
“My humble duty remembered to your good worship. I thought good to
write to you to satisfy you how unquiet my lady is with all her
household.” [Then he enters into a long story how my lady had said of
a certain “grænen bitch,” whatever that may be, that it should be
hanged; and how, when Edward Spencer obeys her command, and hangs the
dog, my lady breaks out into a “fransey.”]—“My lady do not speak to me
as yet. I will give none offence to make her angry; but nobody can
please her long together.”
And again—
“My humble duty first remembered to your good worship. I thought good
to write unto you to sartey you of my lady’s great unquietness in the
house. Since her last falling-out with me she showed me a good
countenance as ever she did before. Now, yesterday I had a sparhawk
given me, and she killed a brace of partridges, and then I came home
before the evening was shut in; indeed, all the folks had supped:
whereat she seemed to be very sore angry with these words—‘What come
you home now? I would you and your hawk would keep you away
altogether. You have been a-breaking of hedges between neighbour and
neighbour, and now you come home out of order, and show an ill example
in my house. Well, you shall keep no hawk here.’ ‘I am the more
sorrier I have given no acause that your ladyship should be offended,
nor I will not. To please your ladyship I will pull off her head.’
Whereat she stamped and said, I would do by her as I did by the bitch.
Insomuch she would let me have no supper. So truly I went to bed
without my supper. There is not one man in the house but she fall out
withal, and is not in charity one day in a week but with priests,
which will undo her. There is one Page that had six pounds on her. Mr
Willcocks had a paper with a great deal of gold in it. Wellblod had
two quarterns of wheat. Dicke had something the other day; what, I
know not.”
There is more of the same kind; though whether it is quite fair to take
the testimony of this Edward Spencer without hearing what Lady Bacon
could report of _him_, is worth a thought. He must have been a surly
fellow, from his offering so readily to pull off the hawk’s head. Our
next quotation brings us back to Francis, and the unhappy subject of his
debts: we have hints, too, of the influence under which she suspects
these debts to be incurred, which the modern biographer is unable to
follow out; and which, from the different manners of a former age, it is
difficult entirely to understand. But we are confirmed by these extracts
in our previous convictions, that the loss which Francis is said to have
sustained by the sudden death of his father (who thus failed to make the
full provision for him he intended) cannot be represented as the real
cause of his embarrassments. Mr Spedding represents this fact “as
perplexing the problem of his life with a new and inconvenient
addition.” But it could not have materially perplexed the problem of his
life, unless it disabled him from living upon his private fortune. It
made him a poorer gentleman; but if he had been a richer, he would still
have been a suitor at the Court, and still, in all probability, have
incurred debts. He and Anthony live together, and we find them
alternately assisting each other. There is no evidence of a great
disparity in their fortunes. What share Francis had in the “coach” we
know not, but we hear of him purchasing horses; and certainly the mother
does not look upon the embarrassments of Francis as some inevitable
consequence of his position. She is applied to, in the present case, to
assist him in the payment of his debts, by joining in the sale of an
estate which belongs to him, but in which she has some legal right.
Anthony makes the request, and receives the following reply:—
“For your brotherly care of your brother Francis’s estate you are to
be well liked, and so I do as a Christian mother that loveth you both
as the children of God; but, as I wrote but in a few words yesterday
by my neighbour, the state of you both doth much disquiet me, as in
Greek words I signified shortly.
“I have been too ready for you both till nothing is left. And surely,
though I pity your brother, yet so long as he pitieth not himself, but
keepeth that bloody Percy, as I told him then, yea as a
coach-companion and bed-companion,—a proud, profane, costly fellow,
whose being about him I verily fear the Lord God doth mislike, and
doth less bless your brother in credit and otherwise in his
health,—surely I am utterly discouraged, and make a conscience further
to undo myself to maintain such wretches as he is. This Jones (?)
never loved your brother, indeed, but for his own credit, being upon
your brother, and thankless, though bragging. But your brother will be
blind to his own hurt.... It is most certain till first Enney (?), a
filthy, wasteful knave, and his Welshman, one after another—for take
one, and they will still swarm ill-favouredly—did so lead him, as in a
train; he was a towardly young gentleman, and a son of much good hope
in goodliness. But seeing that he hath nourished most sinful proud
villains wilfully, I know not what other answer to make.”
Then, partly relenting, she adds in a postscript:—
“If your brother desire a release to Mr Harvey, let him so require it
himself, and but upon this condition, by his own hand and bond, I will
not; that is, that he make and give me a true note of all his debts,
and leave to me the whole order and receipt of all his money for his
land, to Harvey, and the just payment of all his debts thereby. And,
by the mercy and grace of God, it shall be performed by me to his
quiet discharge, without cumbering him, and to his credit. For I will
not have his cormorant seducers, and instruments of Satan to him,
committing foul sin by his countenance to the displeasing of God and
his godly true fear. Otherwise I will not, _pro certo_.”
This was a condition which, as Mr Spedding observes, was hard of
digestion for an expectant Attorney-General. It was not complied with.
But we need not attempt to follow these obscure transactions further;
and here we may part company with Lady Bacon. In justice to her let it
be added that, if she scolded her son Francis, she could assert his
claims boldly before others. In a reported conversation with Sir Robert
Cecil she does not scruple to hint that he is but ill used by his
powerful relatives. She little understands what manner of son she has;
she says truly that he is thinking _nescio quid_, but she is not without
a certain degree of motherly pride, as well as motherly tenderness, for
him.
We must now turn to that portion of Bacon’s history in which we see him
brought into relationship with Essex. Mr Spedding has represented the
friendship of the two men as being based on very noble motives. Essex
was no doubt attracted to Bacon, in the first instance, by a generous
admiration for his talents. But we do not find that on Bacon’s side
there was any reciprocal ardour. We cannot help thinking that what Bacon
chiefly saw in Essex was the young nobleman likely to be the great
favourite of Elizabeth. Bacon, we are told by Mr Spedding, saw in Essex
a man capable of “entering heartily into all his largest speculations
for the good of the world, and placed by accident in a position to
realise, or help to realise them. It was natural to hope that he could
do it.”—(Vol. i. p. 106.) We have a portrait of Essex, as he first
appeared to Bacon, drawn in glowing colours. This young nobleman is not
only described as being (what all have admitted) generous, brave, and
ardent in his friendship, but credit is given him for wide contemplative
ends, or, at least, an aptitude is presumed in him for purely patriotic
or philanthropic purposes. Now, from the commencement to the termination
of his career, all his good qualities are seen in the service of a mere
flagrant personal ambition. He is jealous of every honour bestowed upon
another: he must be first in the country. And so far from detecting any
great plan or noble intention in the use of power, we see him, still at
an early age, prepared to throw the whole nation into confusion in order
to obtain place or power for himself. And as to Bacon, throughout the
whole of his correspondence with Essex there are no traces of anything
higher than prudential and sometimes crafty counsels, how best to obtain
favour and advancement at Court. The relationship between them is
chiefly this, that Essex is to obtain office and promotion for Bacon,
and Bacon by his aid and advice is to administer to the greatness of
Essex. The relationship has nothing in it peculiarly reprehensible, but
nothing certainly of an elevating character. Sometimes the strain of
advice which the philosopher gives is of a quite ignoble character,
counselling, as it does, a tricky, dissimulating conduct. It is no
Utopia of any kind, moral or scientific, that he has in view for Essex,
or for himself as connected with Essex. It is how to rise at Court that
he studies for his friend, and it is the petty arts of the courtier that
he sometimes condescends to teach.
We will content ourselves with one quotation: it must be a rather long
one, because a single sentence wrung from its context may give no fair
impression of the general strain of a letter of advice. The following
was written to Essex soon after his famous expedition to Cadiz:—
“I said to your Lordship last time, _Martha, Martha, attendis ad
plurima, unum sufficit_; win the Queen: if this be not the beginning,
of any other course I see no end....
“For the removing the impression of your nature to be _opiniastre_,
and not rulable: First, and above all things, I wish that all matters
past, which cannot be revoked, your Lordship would turn altogether
upon insatisfaction, and not upon your nature or proper disposition.
This string you cannot upon every apt occasion harp upon too much.
Next, whereas I have noted you to fly and avoid (in some respect
justly) the resemblance or imitation of my Lord of Leicester and my
Lord Chancellor Hatton; yet I am persuaded (howsoever I wish your
Lordship as distant as you are from them in points of favour,
integrity, magnanimity, and merit) that it will do you much good,
between the Queen and you, to allege them (as oft as you find
occasion) for authors and patterns. For I do not know a readier mean
to make her Majesty think you are in your right way. Thirdly, when at
any time your Lordship upon occasion happen in speeches to do her
Majesty right (for there is no such matter as flattery amongst you
all), I fear you handle it _magis in speciem adornatis verbis quam ut
sentire videaris_, so that a man may read formality in your
countenance; whereas your Lordship should do it familiarly _et
oratione fidâ_. Fourthly, your Lordship should never be without some
particulars of art, _which you should seem to pursue with earnestness
and affection, and then let them fall upon taking knowledge of her
Majesty’s opposition and dislike_. Of which the weightiest sort may
be, if your Lordship offers to labour in the behalf of some that you
favour for some of the places that are void, choosing such a subject
as you think her Majesty is likely to oppose unto. And if you will say
that this is _conjunctum cum alienâ injurâ_, I will not answer, _Hæc
non aliter constabunt_; but I say commendation from so good a mouth
doth not hurt a man, though you prevail not. A less weighty sort of
particulars may be the pretence of some journeys, which at her
Majesty’s request your Lordship mought relinquish; or if you would
pretend a journey to see your living and estate towards Wales, or the
like; for as for great foreign journeys of employment and service, it
standeth not with your gravity to play or stratagem with them. And the
lightest sort of particulars, which yet are not to be neglected, are
in your habits, apparel, wearings, gestures, and the like....
“The third impression is of a popular reputation; which, because it is
a thing good in itself, being obtained as your Lordship obtaineth it,
that is _bonis artibus_; and besides well governed, is one of the best
flowers of your greatness, both present and to come; it would be
handled tenderly. The only way is to quench it _verbis_, but not
_rebus_. And, therefore, _to take all occasions to the Queen to speak
against popularity and popular courses vehemently, and to tax it on
all others; but nevertheless to go in your honourable commonwealth
courses as you do_. And, therefore, I will not advise you to cure this
by dealing in monopolies or any oppressions. Only, if in Parliament
your Lordship be forward for treasure in respect of the wars, it
becometh your person well; and if her Majesty object popularity to you
at any time, I would say to her, A Parliament will show that; and so
feed her with expectation.”
It is only the fear of being tedious that prevents us from giving other
passages in which Bacon counsels dissimulation and these petty artifices
of the courtier. We do not say that passages like this deserve any
violent reprobation, but we do say that the writer of them must have a
very lax morality on the subject of truth-speaking; he _must_ be
deficient in self-respect, in moral dignity. Such a counsellor would not
improve _the man_ who followed his advice, however he might improve his
_fortunes_. There was a love of manœuvring, of petty diplomacy, in
Bacon. In one place we find him framing two fictitious letters, the one
pretending to be written by his brother Anthony, and the other by the
Earl of Essex. This fictitious correspondence was to be shown to the
Queen.—(Vol. ii. p. 197.)
In Bacon, we may observe, we have not the mere ordinary contrast between
good teaching and bad practice. We have not a Seneca professing a
stoical morality and writing apologies for Nero (or any instance of this
kind which the reader may choose for himself, for Seneca may have his
defenders, and many are disposed at present to say a good word in favour
of Nero). It is not a contrast of this kind we have chiefly to remark in
Bacon: what we notice is a defect in the cultivation of the moral
sentiments. The force of his intellect had gone out in another
direction. He had great aspirations for the good of mankind; but these
aspirations were connected with his theory of knowledge, and they were
aspirations after increased power, and “commodity,” and the physical
wellbeing of man. It was not his habit to dwell much upon those moral
sentiments which make, in all ages, the elevation of the individual
mind.
But the grave and specific charge brought against Bacon is that of
ingratitude to his friend. We have to ask what was the amount or kind of
obligation under which Bacon had been placed? What was the friendship he
was supposed to have sacrificed to his interest? And whether the
criminal conduct of Essex did not manumit him from all the bonds of
friendship, whatever they might have been? Though not always a
high-minded counsellor, Bacon was the last man in the country to
tolerate an open act of rebellion against the Queen and the established
Government. The evidence, as laid before us by Mr Spedding, proves
beyond a doubt the grave criminality of Essex. If we have a friend who
passes with us as an honest man, and he suddenly proves a villain, we
generally fling our friendship to the winds—we disclaim and renounce the
man who, in addition to his other villanies, has practised a treachery
upon ourselves. In fact, the condemnation of Essex may be said to be
here the acquittal of Bacon.
We shall not haggle about the amount of specific service rendered by
Essex to his friend. Every generous mind feels gratitude according to
the generosity of purpose of the donor. Essex, in the ardour of his
youth, was, as we have said, drawn towards Bacon by admiration of his
great intellect, and was only too zealous to promote his interest. His
zeal outran his discretion. Nothing came of it but disappointment to
both parties. But this would not have extinguished a grateful feeling.
We have no ground whatever for supposing that the intercession of Essex
really _prevented_ Bacon from obtaining first the Attorney-Generalship,
and, subsequently, the Solicitor-Generalship. That nobleman speaks of
his solicitations doing more harm than good; but an expression of this
kind was either a generous depreciation of his own services, or the
result of a moody anger against the Queen whom he had failed to move. It
does not seem that Bacon at this time had any chance at Court. The Queen
was in no hurry to promote him. He had obtained no practice at the bar,
and it is no want of charity to attribute this in Bacon to an
unwillingness to spend his strength and powers on the ordinary routine
of legal business. But this unwillingness must have operated against
him. The very qualities for which we now admire Bacon must have
disparaged him as a man of business in the eyes of Queen Elizabeth and
Lord Burghley. A man who has long ago left his college, and who is still
dreaming about reforms in philosophy, and who tells the Lord Treasurer
himself that “he has as vast contemplative ends as he has moderate civil
ends,” does not seem exactly the person for an Attorney-General. Bacon,
at all events, does not scruple, on a subsequent occasion, to have
recourse again to his friend’s intercession. When Egerton became Lord
Keeper, Bacon wished to succeed him as Master of the Rolls, and he
requests Essex to write to Egerton in his favour. He makes this request
(we may observe in passing) in a diplomatic manner; he writing half the
matter in his own letter, and Anthony being more explicit in a letter he
sends at the same time. It is impossible not to remark that Bacon is
grasping at the higher prizes of the profession before he has endured
the heat and burden of a lawyer’s life.
His friend Essex being unable to procure for him either the
Attorney-Generalship or the Solicitor-Generalship, and feeling indebted
for many services, gave him a small estate, worth, we are told, £1800 in
the currency of these times. This was a gift which, in one sense of the
word, Bacon may be said to have earned; but, if we may judge according
to the present state of feeling on these matters, it was a gift which he
could not have felt perfectly satisfied in accepting. Nothing but his
debts, we venture to assert, persuaded him to accept it. The services he
had rendered were not such as are paid by money—they were never rendered
for money-payment. It would be a very coarse interpretation (and one
which Mr Spedding has avoided) to call this gift a _fee_ for advice and
assistance tendered to the Earl. It was not professional advice that he
gave, whether he taught him how to rise at Court, or assisted him in the
duties of a privy councillor. There was an interchange of good offices
between the two men; but Bacon sinks from his rightful equality if he
accepts money as an equivalent for any _balance_ of such good offices as
might be in his favour. Mr Spedding suggests that the aid which Bacon
rendered in certain masques or devices got up for the entertainment of
the Queen must be included in the list of his services; but Mr Spedding
would not certainly have counselled him to hold out his hand for a
money-payment for what was doubtless entered into in the spirit of a
literary amusement. If, indeed, the two speeches which are given us here
on Knowledge and in Praise of the Queen were really delivered at these
devices, Bacon must have made these entertainments subservient to
certain graver purposes of his own. We should like to know if the
audience felt thankful to the author for his eloquent but very long
orations.
So stands the account against Bacon, and the two men are still friends,
when one of them suddenly appears in the new character of traitor and
rebel. We say _suddenly_, for, though Essex had been long plotting some
surprise upon the Government—some insurrectionary movement—some
advantage to be taken either of his military power or his popularity
with the mob—yet he had so far learnt one lesson of his friend, the
lesson of dissimulation, that he had been able to conceal from him these
secret purposes. Even so far back as when he was organising his great
expedition to Ireland, which was to crush the rebellion of Tyrone, he is
suspected of some intention of using the forces that were put under his
command _against_ the Queen’s Government. We are certainly driven to
this alternative: _either_ the Earl on that expedition manifested such
incapacity as is unparalleled even in those days of brave knights and
incompetent generals; _or_ he acted throughout in the spirit of a
traitor. He has the command of an army, large for those days, of 16,000
men; he does absolutely nothing with it—fritters it away; comes up at
length to Tyrone with some 4000 men, Tyrone greatly outnumbering him. He
draws up his forces on a hill; Tyrone refuses to charge uphill, but
invites Essex to a parley. Essex accepts the invitation; has half an
hour’s talk with the rebel, who gives him _verbally_ the terms on which
he is willing to lay down his arms—terms which are those of a conqueror.
Essex promises to carry these terms to the Queen, concludes a truce, and
there the campaign ends. The sum total, as Mr Spedding says, would stand
thus:—Expended, £300,000 and ten or twelve thousand men; Received a
suspension of hostilities for six weeks, with promise of a fortnight’s
notice before recommencing them, and a verbal communication of the
conditions on which he was willing to make peace.
Essex hastens back to England to make his own peace with the Queen. She
at first receives him amicably; but reasons of State overweigh her
personal amity; some inquiry must be made into the disastrous
expedition; he is commanded to keep his own chamber. This takes place at
Nonsuch.
At this juncture Bacon writes the following letter. It proves, as Mr
Spedding observes, that Bacon could have had no suspicion of any
treasonable scheme on the part of Essex; but we cannot help remarking
the tone of _hollowness_ in the letter, and especially in that
_congratulatory_ sentence, which cannot fail to strike the reader. He
knew enough of the expedition to Ireland to know that, from whatever
cause, it was an utter failure.
“My Lord,—Conceiving that your Lordship comes now up in the person of
a good servant to serve your sovereign mistress, which kind of
compliments we many times _instar magnorum meritorum_, and therefore
it would be hard for me to find you, I have committed to this poor
paper the humble salutations of him that is more yours than any man’s,
and more yours than any man. To these salutations I add a due and
joyful gratulation, confessing that your Lordship in your last
conference with me, before your journey, spake not in vain, God making
it good, that you trusted we should say _Quis putasset_, which, as it
is found true in a happy sense, or I wish you do not find another
_Quis putasset_ in _the manner of taking this so great a service_. But
I hope it is, as he said, _Nubecula est, cito transibit_: and that
your Lordship’s wisdom and obsequious circumspection and patience will
turn all to the best. So referring all to some time that I may attend
you, I commit you to God’s best preservations.”
We do not believe that Bacon was capable of an ardent friendship for any
one; he was urbane and courteous to all, as is the manner with men of
thought and equanimity. With regard to Essex, this letter alone would be
sufficient proof to us that he had all along been more of the courtier
than the friend. No friend, in these circumstances, _could_ have written
in this hollow strain of congratulation.
In a short time, however, this strain alters. Essex is examined before
the Council, and is committed to the custody of the Lord Keeper. He
remains in privacy at York House. The _nubecula_ is growing into a very
dark cloud. Bacon, in his interviews with the Queen, does all that a
cautious man can do to bring about a reconciliation. But if a
reconciliation is impossible, he must serve his sovereign, and not
Essex. He now writes thus:—
“My Lord,—No man can better expound my doings than your Lordship,
which maketh me need to say the less. Only I humbly pray you to
believe that I aspire to the conscience and commendation first of
_bonus civis_, which with us is a good and true servant to the Queen;
and next of _bonus vir_, that is an honest man. I desire your Lordship
also to think that although I confess I love some things much better
than I love your Lordship, as the Queen’s service, her quiet and
contentment, her honour, her favour, the good of my country, and the
like, yet I love few persons better than yourself, both for
gratitude’s sake and your own virtues, which cannot hurt but by
accident and abuse. Of which my good affections I was ever and am
ready to yield testimony by any good offices, but with such
reservations as yourself cannot but allow; for as I was ever sorry
that your Lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus’s
fortune, so for the growing up of your own feathers, specially
ostrich’s, or any other save of a bird of prey, no man shall be more
glad.”
To which letter Essex returned a dignified answer, such as a man might
have written who intended to retire from an unjust world into
contemplative life.
Soon after this correspondence Essex was released from even the gentle
confinement in which he had been held. He could have retired, with none
to molest him, into contemplative life. His private fortune was
untouched; his name was still popular with the multitude. Perhaps, after
a short interval of retirement patiently endured, he might have returned
to Court, and have been reinstated in all his honour and offices.
The truth was that he had been for some time past tampering with treason
of the boldest and most criminal description. Before leaving Ireland he
held a consultation with his friends Blount and Southampton, and told
them “that he found it necessary for him to go to England, and thought
it fit to carry with him as much of the army as he could conveniently
transport, to go on shore with him to Wales, and there to make good his
landing till he could send for more; not doubting but his army would so
increase in a small time that he should be able to march to London and
make his conditions as he desired.” The evidence for this treasonable
scheme is stated by Mr Spedding, vol. ii. p. 147.
The time had passed for this “monstrous” project, as Mr Spedding justly
calls it. But the scheme into which he now enters is still more
monstrous; it is still more irrational, and, but for evidence of an
unusually clear and stringent character, would be utterly incredible.
That scheme was to force himself upon the Queen, and by an
insurrectionary movement to be carried, in some way, to the highest
position a subject could hold—perhaps to some still higher position.
What was to be his pretence? what the _cry_ by which he was to rouse the
multitude? The succession to the English throne of James of Scotland had
not been formally declared, and the _cry_ was to be that the ministers
were plotting to sell the crown of England to the Infanta!! It was too
absurd, one would say, even for a mob zealous for the Protestant
succession. Some overtures, or solicitations for aid, were made to
James, but of what nature we know not. While the Protestants were to be
alarmed, the Catholics were to be propitiated by promises of toleration.
But Blount and other Catholics who entered into the plot were, no doubt,
induced to do so by stronger motives than mere promises of toleration—by
those vague expectations and hopes which a season of anarchy and
confusion and civil war would open to a party who still amounted to a
large minority of the nation. “By the end of January 1601,” to adopt the
statement of Mr Spedding, “all their intrigues and secret consultations
had ripened into a deliberate and deep-laid plan for surprising the
Court, mastering the guard, and seizing the Queen’s person, and so
forcing her to dismiss from her counsels Cecil, Raleigh, Cobham, and
others, and to make such changes in the State as the conspirators
thought fit.” The several confessions of those engaged in the plot, and
of Essex himself, leave no doubt whatever of the fact. How such a plot
is to be rationally explained is still a perplexity. Sir Christopher
Blount, with a company of armed men, was to take the Court gate; Sir
John Davis was to master the hall and go up into the Great Chamber,
where already some of the conspirators would have straggled in and
seized upon the halberts of the guard, which usually stood piled up
against the wall; Sir Charles Davers was to have taken possession of the
Presence; whereupon Essex, with the Earls of Southampton, Rutland, and
other noblemen, would have gone in to the Queen; they would have used
her authority for calling a Parliament, condemned all whom they
denounced as misgoverning the State, and made, it is added, changes in
the government. If such a plot had succeeded, what else could have
ensued than to set loose all the several parties, sects, and factions of
which the country was composed, to struggle anew for the supremacy?
Meanwhile, some rumours of what was in preparation reached the Court;
Essex was summoned to the Council; he excused himself on the plea of ill
health. The conspirators were alarmed; it seemed to them that their plot
was detected. It was not yet matured—the hour of action had not yet
come. Still, it appeared to them that something must be done. His
friends were assembled. To surprise the Court was impossible, if the
Court was already on its guard. But the city might be raised; an
insurrectionary movement might be excited if Essex, still an idol of the
populace, went among the citizens proclaiming that his life was in
danger from the machinations of his enemies. While this expedient was
being debated there arrived from the Court the Lord Keeper, with three
other lords, sent from the Queen to know the meaning of this unusual
assemblage, and to demand its dismissal. Essex was invited to explain to
them the cause of his present discontent. Their coming still further
precipitated the action. Essex locked up the four noblemen in his
library, and set off himself, accompanied with some two hundred
gentlemen, to rouse the city to arms. But for the inopportune appearance
of these noblemen, Essex and his friends would have proceeded in stately
fashion on horseback to St Paul’s Cross; they would have arrived before
the sermon was over (it was Sunday), and would have explained their case
to the assembled people. Essex was not deficient as an orator, and he
could, at all events, have obtained a solemn hearing. But the visit of
the councillors spoilt even the execution of the after-plot. The party
went on foot; Essex had no opportunity to address the people; he could
only cry out as he passed along that his life was in danger. A nobleman
running along the streets on a Sunday morning, followed by two hundred
gentlemen with drawn swords, and exclaiming that his life was in danger,
must have been a curious spectacle for the citizens of London. But it
must have been as unintelligible as it was curious. No one joined him.
The Queen’s troops were collected to oppose him. He made his way back to
Essex House, where he was captured, and conveyed to prison.
Up to this time Bacon’s conduct towards Essex lies open to no peculiar
censure. We have said that he does not appear to us in the light of a
very wise counsellor, or a very warm friend; but, as regards Essex, no
specific charge of ingratitude can be brought against him. It is after
this abortive and miserable attempt at rebellion that his conduct to his
former friend changes. And well, we think, it might. Of the character
and designs of Essex there could be now no doubt whatever. He has thrown
off all disguise. He stands there an enemy to the commonwealth. Nothing
but the extreme absurdity of his conduct hides from us its extreme
criminality.
The defence which Essex was at first prepared to make was simply the
repetition of the false clamour that he had raised when he rushed into
the city—that his life was in danger, and that he acted according to the
law of self-preservation. But, before the trial came on, several of his
associates had made full confession of the actual plot that had long
been in agitation, and which, only at the last moment, had been
substituted by this open and clamorous appeal to the citizens of London.
To Bacon, as one of her Majesty’s counsel, engaged, as we should say,
for the prosecution, the real state of the case was known; the full
extent of Essex’s criminality was known. Do we wonder that, at this
moment, he altogether severed himself from Essex, and took his position
as a zealous supporter of the Queen’s government?
Lord Macaulay, who could not have had before him the materials for
forming a judgment which Mr Spedding has now placed within the reach of
us all, wrote of Essex and Bacon in the following strain:—“The person on
whom, during the decline of his influence, he chiefly depended, to whom
he confided his perplexities, whose advice he solicited, whose
intercession he employed, was his friend Bacon. The lamentable truth
must be told. This friend, so loved, so trusted, bore a principal part
in ruining the Earl’s fortunes, in shedding his blood, and in blackening
his memory.” A more unfortunate sentence, or one more replete with
error, was never penned. It would be ungenerous to revive it in presence
of the lucid statement of facts which Mr Spedding has given us, if it
were not the case that many are still under the impressions derived from
this eloquent essay. Essex, as we have seen, was very far from confiding
his perplexities to Bacon, or soliciting his advice in those latter days
of his life; and Bacon was so far from being instrumental to his ruin,
that no advocacy on earth could have saved him. Nor can it be said that
he blackened the memory of Essex, for neither on the trial, nor in the
narrative which he subsequently drew up of the whole transaction, is the
guilt of Essex overcharged. Nay, with the materials before us, the
historian could add some very dark strokes to the picture; for he could
show that, even at a time when Essex was receiving nothing but favours
from the Court, he was meditating treason; and he could add that, in his
last moments, he tarnished even his character for generosity by
needlessly including others, hitherto unsuspected, in his guilt.
What could have been, we are tempted to ask, the hopes of Essex, or what
his final purpose in this act of rebellion? Where could he have stopped?
how found safety for himself in any measure short of a deposition of the
Queen? He must have known that if, by overpowering her guard and putting
a personal constraint upon her, he obliged the Queen to reinstate him in
his former command, yet that the moment such force was withdrawn he
would have been dismissed again, and exposed to the resentment of a
proud and injured sovereign. A subject who goes so far must go farther
still. Elizabeth must have been deposed, and James prematurely thrust
into her place. It has been even suggested that Essex had some wild
dream of filling the throne himself. He was to play Bolingbroke, and
Elizabeth Richard II.
Those who take a lenient view of Essex’s character might shape a defence
for him out of his very self-will and the headstrong nature of the man.
They would say he did not calculate consequences. He had twice before
regained the favour of the Queen by manifestation of his own violent and
haughty temper. He had managed the Queen by proving that he was as
self-willed as herself. He merely intended to follow the same course
again—to threaten, and display his power. Such a defence we should not
be unwilling ourselves to adopt, if the treasonable projects of Essex
had sprung directly, and only, out of his last dismissal from Court and
his employments. We can conceive that a spoilt and violent nobleman
might have imagined that he could successfully overawe the Queen: she
had, indeed, treated him as a spoilt child, and had something of a
maternal weakness for him: he might have thought that he could subdue
her spirit by this display of his power, and yet not have contemplated
any more atrocious act of rebellion. But the ugly fact remains that he
was meditating high treason of the most criminal description before he
had been dismissed, and while he was still the most favoured subject of
her Majesty.
Even to those who knew nothing of his antecedent schemes, it must have
seemed a monstrous thing that a nobleman, because he has been dismissed
from his command, should think of reinstating himself by an armed attack
upon the palace, and a violent seizure of the person of the Queen. So
much as this was known to Bacon, and was indisputably proved by the
evidence submitted to him. But why, it will be said, did Bacon appear
upon the trial at all? If his services were necessary to the support of
the Queen’s government, he ought to have given them, whatever his
friendship to Essex; but there were others who could have performed his
part; he might have stepped aside; he, in silence, might have let
justice take its course. “This man is guilty, but he was my friend; let
others pursue him to his merited punishment.” He might have said this;
_we wish he had_. It would have been a graceful part to play; it would
have added a very pleasing trait to the biography of Bacon.
But such moral enthusiasm had no place in Bacon’s personal character. To
retire from the post which his legal functions assigned to him, might
have been seriously prejudicial to his own interests, and in the spirit
of martyrdom Bacon did not share in the least degree. Meanwhile Essex by
his conduct had forfeited the friendship henceforth of all honest men.
It must be said that Bacon rather lost the opportunity of doing a
gracious act, than that, in performing his duties as counsel to the
Queen, he did anything gravely reprehensible. And he performed these
duties fairly. It is objected against Bacon that he pressed heavily on
the memory of Essex in the account he subsequently drew up of the
events. This charge Mr Spedding has quite dispelled. He shows that that
account is fully justified by the evidence. The fact is, that for a long
time after his death a current of popular opinion ran in favour of the
Earl; and the “Declaration,” therefore, which Bacon, with the assistance
and under the direction of the Council, drew up, was regarded as a libel
upon his memory. People refused to believe him guilty. If any remains of
this partiality to the Earl has descended to our times, it will be
finally dissipated by Mr Spedding’s work.
There is one specific accusation which Mr Jardine brought against Bacon,
which is here very completely refuted. Mr Jardine, in examining the
original depositions from which this “Declaration” was drawn up, found
paragraphs marked along the margin with a significant _om._ against
them. He further found that these passages had been _omitted_ in the
“Declaration,” and he concluded that this _om._ was in the handwriting
of Bacon, who had marked these passages for omission _because they told
in favour of Essex_. Mr Spedding replies:—
“First, it is by no means certain that the marks in question were made
with reference to the Declaration at all. Secondly, it is quite
possible that the passages in question had been omitted at the trial.
Thirdly, whether the omission were right or wrong, there is no ground
for imputing it to Bacon personally. Fourthly, the passages omitted do
not in any one particular tend to soften the evidence against Essex as
explained in the narrative part, or to modify in any way the history
of the case, as far as it concerned him.”
The last, the Fourthly, is quite sufficient to demolish Mr Jardine’s
hypothesis. These passages appear to have been omitted because they
affected living persons whom the Council wished to spare, or because
they contained matters which the Council did not wish to publish to all
the enemies of the Queen’s Government at home or abroad. Mr Spedding,
however, has enabled the reader to judge for himself by publishing these
omitted passages.
As very much stress has been laid on the presumed unfairness of this
Declaration composed by Bacon, it must be remembered, under the
supervision of the Council, we quote at length Mr Spedding’s concluding
observations upon it:—
“With regard to the general charge of untruthfulness, I have said that
nobody has yet attempted to specify any particular untruth expressed
or implied in the Government Declaration. And it is singular that Mr
Jardine himself does not form an exception; for though he does
specify, as contradicted by one of the omitted passages, a particular
statement which he _assumes_ to be contained in the Declaration, it is
certain that there is no such statement there; but that, on the
contrary, the precise import of that passage, as Mr Jardine himself
infers it, is represented in the body of the narrative with delicate
exactness. In the absence of such specification, I can only oppose to
the general charge a general expression of my own conviction; which
is, that the narrative put forth by the Government was meant to be,
and was by its authors believed to be, a narrative strictly and
scrupulously veracious. It is true that it was written under the
excitement and agitation of that last and most portentous disclosure,
which, in proving that Essex had been capable of designs far worse
than anybody had suspected him of, suggested a new explanation of all
that had been most suspicious and mysterious in his previous
proceedings; and it may be that things which before had been rejected
as incredible were now too easily believed. In so dark a thing as
treason it is impossible to have positive evidence at every step. Many
passages must remain obscure, and fairly open to more interpretations
than one; and in one or two of those points which are and profess to
be ‘matter of inference or presumption,’ as distinguished from ‘matter
of plain and direct proof,’ there is room, probably, without setting
aside such indisputable facts, for an interpretation of Essex’s
conduct more favourable than that adopted by the Queen and her
councillors.... In my own account of the matter I have abstained, in
deference to so general a prejudice, from using the Declaration as an
authority; and have assumed as a fact nothing for which I cannot quote
evidence independent of it. For the rest, I shall let it speak for
itself. It will be found to be a very luminous and coherent narrative,
and certainly much nearer the truth than any which has been put forth
since it became the fashion to treat it as a fiction.”
Having elected to serve the Queen, and not his former friend (and he
probably never hesitated a moment on this subject; he probably would
have thought it mere idle romance to sacrifice the actual life and
duties before him to the memory of a dead friendship)—having elected to
serve the Queen, we do not find that in assisting to conduct the
prosecution Bacon behaved with undue harshness towards the accused. The
allusion to the Duke of Guise, which Macaulay blames so severely,
appears to be one very natural to arise to a speaker on such an
occasion. Essex did intend, like the Duke of Guise, to overawe his
sovereign. In one respect the parallel pays an undeserved compliment to
Essex. The Duke of Guise had the support of a great party—the zealous
Catholics; if Essex could have attained the like support from the
zealous Protestants, the Puritans, his scheme might, at least, have worn
a more rational aspect. Perhaps he fondly conceived that the Puritans
would adopt him as their representative. He thought himself a very good
Puritan. This bad citizen was highly indignant when Coke cast a slur
upon his religion.
Here we lose for the present the guidance of Mr Spedding. We wait with
interest for such disclosures as he may make for us in the great charge
that burdens the memory of Bacon—that of judicial corruption. There are,
indeed, two or three broad facts which, we apprehend, no historical
investigation can materially alter, and which, we think, enable us to
come to a safe conclusion in this subject. But still there is much we
should like to have cleared up to us; especially we should like to know
what had been the custom of previous Chancellors in this matter of the
reception of presents. Could, for instance, the same charges which were
brought against Bacon have been brought against the father, Sir Nicholas
Bacon?
The two or three broad facts we allude to are these: 1. After a
considerable interval Parliament had met, and “grievances had been gone
into.” Monopolies were first attacked, and their attention was called to
certain corrupt practices in the Court of Chancery. Bacon was impeached
before the House of Lords. 2. The Lord Chancellor no longer stood in an
amiable footing with the favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, who was very
willing to have the Great Seal to bestow on some other client. The
impeached Chancellor was not likely to receive any assistance from the
Court. The King advised Bacon to throw himself on his royal mercy. 3.
Under these circumstances Bacon _did_ plead guilty, and threw himself on
the mercy of the King; who certainly fulfilled his part of the compact
by remitting all that he possibly could of the sentence passed by the
House of Lords.
Now we cannot suppose that Bacon would plead guilty unless there were
really some corrupt practices of which his conscience told him he was
culpable. To suppose otherwise would, as Macaulay has argued, convict
him of a dastardly conduct almost as infamous as judicial corruption.
But although it is impossible to suppose that there was not _something
to confess_—something culpable and illegal to plead guilty to—yet it is
very possible that, by showing that he was not more culpable than
others, he might have defended himself successfully before the House of
Lords. A man of sterner stuff would have adopted this line of defence;
he would have carried the war into other territories. Of this the Court
was not at all desirous, and Bacon, a lover of peace, thought it the
better bargain to plead guilty and keep the King for his friend.
We do not accuse the Lord Chancellor of pleading guilty, and being
conscious of perfect innocence; we say that he resigned a line of
defence which might have been successful with his judges, in obedience
to the wishes of the Court. In the position in which he found himself,
submission was better policy than defence.
It is idle to suppose that Bacon received no presents but such as would
be classed under the head of fees or customary donations: there was the
element of _secrecy_ in the transactions which were now brought to
light, and which were to be made the subject of investigation before the
House of Lords. The money was given, it is true, to an officer of the
Court; it was not slipped into the hand, or dropped stealthily into the
sleeve of the judge himself: but the officer of the Court did not talk
about such transactions as these; he had the proper _esprit de corps_,
if he had no other motive for silence. But still there are many cases in
which a custom, acknowledged to be bad and immoral even by those who
fall into it, is yet so prevalent that it seems an injustice to single
out any one individual, and punish it in him; and this seems to be the
position in which Bacon stands. An illustration occurs to us in some of
the vicious customs of trade. The illustration may not be very
dignified, but it is apposite. A little time ago the public was suddenly
made aware of divers impositions that had been long practised on it.
Some articles of commerce were systematically adulterated; others were
sold under false descriptions. Here were reels of cotton warranted to
contain 300 yards, which did not contain say more than 200; and it was
reported at the time (we of course do not vouch for the truth of a
statement which we use only by way of illustration) that respectable
houses of trade gave orders to the manufacturers for reels of cotton
which should be marked as having a greater number of yards than were
actually wound on them. Now let us suppose that a custom of this kind
prevails, and that suddenly one man, and he not the most flagrant
offender, is singled out for punishment. You cannot say the man is
guiltless—he will not say himself that he is guiltless; he never
approved of the custom, though he fell into it; he knew that it could
not bear the light of day; he knew that though his own class did not
condemn the custom, the moral opinion of society at large would
unhesitatingly denounce it. He pleads guilty—as Bacon did—and throws
himself upon the charitable construction of the public. And the public,
if it cannot pardon, will not be disposed to punish severely.
The difference between _a prevalent bad custom_, and a custom which
society at a given time does not pronounce _to be bad_, is stated by
Lord Macaulay with his usual force and precision. We shall be glad to
hear, from the further investigation of Mr Spedding, which of these most
strictly applies to the practice of which Bacon stands accused.
We cannot leave our subject without expressing our assent (with certain
reservations) to the estimate which Lord Macaulay has formed of Bacon in
his character of philosopher—in that character in which there can be
only the difference of more or less admiration.
We admire—as who does not?—the eloquent and far-seeing man who perceived
that too much of our time was spent over books, and too little in the
study of that nature which appeals at each moment to our senses, and
promises to those who will investigate her laws new powers as well as
new knowledge. But we agree with Macaulay in setting little store upon
the rules of a new logic by which he offered to aid the investigation of
those laws. No logic of any kind ever taught a man to reason. No truth
was ever discovered by either Aristotelian or Baconian logic. It may be
fit and proper to make the process of reasoning a subject of subtle
analysis; but just as the poet must come before the critic, and never
yet was formed by the critic, so the reasoner comes before the logician,
and never yet was an able reasoner made so by rules of logic. It was a
glorious word spoken in season, to tell men to observe and to
experiment—to take nothing upon mere tradition or authority that could
possibly be tested by experiment. But the rules Bacon gives for
conducting observation and experiment have never made a good observer,
or contributed themselves to our scientific discoveries. “The inductive
method,” as Macaulay says, “has been practised ever since the beginning
of the world by every human being.... Not only is it not true that Bacon
invented the inductive method, but it is not true that he was the first
person who correctly analysed that method and explained its uses.
Aristotle had long before pointed out the absurdity of supposing that
syllogistic reasoning could ever conduct men to the discovery of a new
principle—had shown that such discoveries must be made by induction, and
by induction alone; and had given the history of the inductive process,
concisely indeed, but with great perspicuity and precision.”
We for our part have always noticed that when a man talks much about
“Baconian philosophy,” he is going to stuff into our ears some
incredible nonsense. He who has good evidence to bring forward—trusts at
once to his evidence. Phrenologists, mesmerists, spiritualists, all who
have a very weak case, are great discoursers on the rules of induction.
They eke out their defective reasoning by proving to us, whether we are
aware of it or not, that they are very good reasoners. Most readers,
fortunately for themselves, are satisfied with a few brilliant passages
of the ‘Novum Organum.’ If they proceeded farther, they might find that
not only did it not assist them in their researches after physical
truth, but that it embarrassed them considerably as to the real nature
of physical science, and the kind of truth to be sought for.
Bacon was a great writer, a great thinker, but he was not “the father of
modern philosophy.” If we are to have fathers in science, the title must
be given to such men as Galileo, Kepler, Newton. He who discovers one
great scientific truth does more even for the logic of science than any
writer upon that logic can perform.
Science does not stand in _contradiction_ to the metaphysical or ethical
discussions of ancient or of modern times. There is no _contrast_ such
as is popularly described between the old philosophy and the new. But a
vast _addition_ has been made to one kind of our knowledge. And with
regard to that great argument of _utility_ which Lord Macaulay has so
eloquently developed, it must be borne in mind that the utility of the
physical sciences made itself known by certain individual discoveries
and inventions, not by mere abstract contemplation of what the study of
nature might produce. In fact, the utility of the pursuit was the very
argument which Socrates made use of to draw men _from_ the study of
objective nature to the study of themselves. As matters then stood, more
seemed likely to be effected by regulating the mind of man than by
observing the winds or the clouds, or any of the phenomena of nature.
Let us carry ourselves back in imagination to the state of philosophy
which existed at Athens in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, and which Mr
Merivale has so pleasantly described in his last volume of ‘The History
of the Romans under the Empire.’ Philosophy seems to have come to a
dead-lock. “On every side it was tacitly acknowledged that the limits of
each specific dogma had been reached; that all were true enough to be
taught, and none so true as to be exclusively believed. Their several
professors lived together in conventional antagonism, and in real
good-fellowship. Academics and Peripatetics, Stoics and Epicureans,
Pyrrhonists and Cynics, disputed together or thundered one against the
other through the morning, and bathed, dined, and joked together, with
easy indifference, through the evening.” Well, let us suppose that
amongst this conclave a Baconian philosopher had presented himself, with
his new _organon_ and his speculations on the new power men would
derive, if, with this _organon_ in their hands, they would proceed to
the study of nature. After some struggle to get a footing in what Mr
Merivale has described as a most conservative university, he would
perhaps have been allowed to open his school in Athens, and he would
have added one more figure to that group of philosophers who disputed in
the morning, and dined amicably together in the evening. Another
admirable talker would have appeared amongst them. This would have been
the whole result. But now let us imagine that to this Athens a Galileo
had come with his telescope and revealed the satellites of Jupiter; let
us imagine that a Cavendish had come with his electric battery and
decomposed water into two gases, one of which burst readily into flame;
what a stir would there then have been amongst all the schools and
classes of Athens! Still larger telescopes would have been made, and the
electric battery applied to all sorts of substances. An era of
experimental philosophy would at once have been inaugurated.
All honour to the great and eloquent writer; but such palms and such
wreaths as Science has to bestow are due to those who have discovered
scientific truths. These are they who have really stirred the minds of
men as well as placed power in their hands; and, without gainsaying a
word of what Lord Macaulay has so brilliantly stated of the utilities of
science, it is worthy of notice that in no department of philosophy have
truth and knowledge been sought for with so much avidity _purely for
their own sakes_. And it should be added that only by the pursuit of
knowledge for its own sake _can_ its utilities be developed. For it is
one thing to prosecute science with a general conviction that its truths
will turn to inventions for the good of man, and quite another thing to
set before ourselves some desirable end or object of a practical kind as
the goal to which we are striving. This is what the alchemists did when
they set before themselves the transmutation of metals as the
achievement to be accomplished. To study nature under such guidance as
this would be a great mistake. We may be wasting our time on an
impossibility; we should certainly be narrowing the sphere of our
observation. But when we strive in every direction to proceed from the
known to the unknown, by seizing upon every new relation which offers
itself to the understanding, then we can hardly fail to stumble upon
some discovery of a practical utility. The passion for knowledge sweeps
all things into our net, and we may find marvellous treasures there we
never dreamt of. The higher sentiment of the love of knowledge is that
which can alone conduct us to the _utilities_ of knowledge. We cannot
predict what science will enable us to do, and then proceed with our
studies in order that we may accomplish this end. It is science which
teaches us what new ends can be accomplished. It is an ever-broadening
knowledge, procured immediately for its own sake, that opens up to us
the new possibilities, the new powers, that man may aspire to and
possess.
THE YEANG-TAI MOUNTAINS, AND SPIRIT-WRITING IN CHINA.
That portion of China which lies more immediately to the west of the
estuary of the Canton river, comprising the Sun-on, Toong-koon,
Kinei-shin, and Tai-phoong districts, is exceedingly mountainous, and
inhabited by a turbulent people, constantly fighting among themselves,
and but little subject to mandarin rule. Even still foreigners scarcely
ever visit it; and when, during the war, I first commenced to wander
there, the field was entirely my own; and many were the prophecies that,
if I returned at all, it would be in at least a headless, if not in a
completely disjointed, condition. The torture and murder, a few years
before, of six young Englishmen at Hwang-chu-ku, near Canton, when they
were only taking an afternoon stroll, had rendered our countrymen
particularly chary of trusting their persons in the hands of the
Chinese; and at the time my excursions commenced, there was additional
danger, arising from the fact that, though Canton was in the hands of
the Allied troops, the gentry of the provinces still kept up a species
of warfare, and offered rewards for our heads: so, while a few
well-armed sportsmen from Hong-Kong might occasionally pass over to the
mainland immediately opposite, it was deemed madness to think of
spending a night there, or to go any distance into the country beyond.
But though the island of “Fragrant Streams,” as the words Hong-Kong
signify, has some curious caves and wild lonely spots, its limits are so
circumscribed that a residence in it became extremely irksome. To be
sure, the quiet old Portuguese city of Macao, with its grotto of
Camoens, could be reached in four or five hours by steamer, with the
refreshing possibility, as one or two cases proved, of being pirated and
murdered on the way by the Chinese passengers; a gunboat, too, would
take us up to Canton in about a day: but these places, however
interesting, soon became insufficient; they began to present themselves
in the disagreeable light of being only suburbs of Hong-Kong, and I
resolved to seek entertainment elsewhere.
Being unaware that some German missionaries had, before the war broke
out, laboured in the neighbouring districts, I had to feel my way
without any previous information as to the character of the different
villages and towns, and so incurred some dangers which otherwise might
have been avoided. The first time of sleeping on the mainland was in an
ancestral hall, along with a friend, whose Chinese teacher even refused
to escort us on account of the supposed danger. The next time,
accompanied only by some native coolies, to carry bedding and
provisions, I wandered for nearly a week among the mountains, and slept
at whatever village I happened to be at by sun-down, without meeting any
apparent danger, or even unpleasantness. After that—sometimes alone,
sometimes with others; sometimes in perfect safety, and at others with
extreme risk—I made excursions innumerable. The manner in which I thus
explored for myself the country lying to the east of the firth of the
Canton river may have given it peculiar charms; but the contrast of its
valleys and mountains to those of Hong-Kong, and to those immediately
opposite that barren island, would have been sufficient to endear it to
all who feel with Goethe, that “the works of nature are ever a
freshly-uttered word of God.” The wooded hills and beautiful green
valleys were pleasant haunts after the chunam and rotten granite of the
mercantile city of Victoria. Those were happy days spent among the
mountains of Kwang-tung—crossing rugged passes, ascending lofty peaks,
bathing in deep, black mountain-pools, loitering at wayside tea-houses,
or under the shade of wide-spreading trees. Those were pleasant
evenings—though not always undisturbed by danger, and on the
limited-intercourse principle—passed beside some long-robed teacher in
the village schoolhouse, some shaven monk in a Buddhist monastery, or
even in some opium-perfumed junk, with half-piratical mariners who would
gamble the whole night through. Perhaps, gentle reader, you will not be
averse to accompany me on one of those otherwise solitary excursions,
and so to gain, without the trouble or danger, some little knowledge of
the country and the peasant people. Our company will certainly not be of
the silver chopstick kind; but I trust it will not be altogether
disagreeable or without profit.
The trip I select was made in the first warm days of the spring of 1860,
after affairs had been settled in the south of China, and no rewards
were out for the heads of foreigners; but I took notes of it at the
time, which have kept it fresh in recollection. At first I used to carry
my own provisions, cooking utensils, &c.; but after a little further
knowledge of the people and their ways, all these were dispensed with;
for, besides the expense, it was often difficult to find accommodation
for a retinue of coolies, and their tendency to jabber at unseasonable
moments was a source of constant annoyance. A pair of chopsticks, a
strip of waterproof lined with cork, and a couple of blankets for
bedding, together with a change of clothes, and a flask or two
containing stronger waters than those which abound in China, were soon
found to be all that was necessary, and would easily be carried by a
single coolie when slung to the ends of a bamboo pole carried on his
shoulders—for men accustomed to bear weights in this way walk as easily
with a moderate burden as they do without any. Aheung is my companion on
the present occasion. He is old, but sturdy; he works more willingly
than younger men, and has an inestimable peculiarity about the formation
of his mouth which renders it next to impossible to understand anything
he says. Even his own countrymen have difficulty in making out his
meaning, and I never attempt it; so he cannot remonstrate with me, and
is placed in the position of being a recipient of orders, or, as Carlyle
would phrase it, of being passively pumped into as into an empty bucket.
Naturally, Aheung is of rather a garrulous disposition, and every now
and then he pours out a sudden flood of complicated sounds, resembling a
mixture of Gaelic and Chinese; but, on finding that nobody understands
him, he as suddenly subsides into abashed silence. Though perfectly
honest, he is shrewd at a bargain, and fond of receiving a _kumshan_, or
present, which he pronounces _kwumchwha_. This old gentleman is also
extremely timid, and apt to disappear at critical moments. He goes with
me on excursions because he has a wife who knows that it is for his
interest to do so, and makes him; but he is seldom at his ease, and
mutters an inarticulate protest at every new movement, or holds up his
hands and shrugs his shoulders, assuming an aspect of despair. It must
be added that he is extremely attentive, of a very kind disposition,
with much natural politeness, and of great devoutness or religiosity. I
never met such a man for worship. It was all one to Aheung whether he
was in an ancestral hall, a Buddhist monastery, a Tauist temple, or a
Christian chapel; he never let a chance pass of going down upon his
knees and doing “joss-pidgin.” As some men have an omnivorous appetite,
so my old Chinaman had a most catholic appetite for worship, and a taste
for what Dr Brown calls “fine confused feedin’!” On one occasion he gave
great satisfaction to a missionary with whom we were travelling, by his
punctuality in attending morning prayers: and the missionary said to me,
“That seems a very good old man of yours; I should not wonder if he
became a convert.” To my friend’s annoyance, however, Aheung was to be
seen at the first temple we came to waving a burning joss-stick, and
prostrating before an image of the solemn-faced Buddha, and was much
astonished when rebuked for this by the missionary. With such an outfit
and a companion one is in light marching order for an active rather than
a luxurious excursion; and as the weather has begun to get warm, I
dispense with the inconvenience of European shirt, waistcoat, coat, and
neck-tie, contenting myself with a loose white China coat, having no
collar and no pressure at the armpits, and covered by another silk one
of similar make and dimensions. It would be difficult to overrate the
comfort and advantage of such a costume to those who have to take
exercise in hot weather. As to money, it is impossible to burden my
coolie with any considerable sum in Chinese “cash,” as there are a
thousand of that coin to the dollar; but ten or twelve dollars will
cover all the expenses of the excursion, and that we take in sycee
silver, or dollars broken up into small pieces, which are preferred by
the Chinese to the entire coin, and in which small payments can be made
without the trouble of changing.
A “pull-away boat,” manned chiefly by women, soon carried us across the
spacious harbour of Hong-Kong, into a large bay, and on to a fine sandy
beach on the opposite mainland. Here the magnificent range of mountains
which lines the coast presents a low pass, up which runs a steep
cork-screw path, by which we got to the other side of them, and, winding
along for an hour, to a narrow wooded gorge at the head of the Leuk-ün
valley, which, in the yellow evening light, lay peacefully below,
fringed by thick dark woods, above which rose imposing mountains of
picturesque form. It is well to take it easy for the first two days, so
our resting-place that night was a very short way down the valley, at an
ancestral hall in the village of Kan-how. This hamlet comprised not more
than a dozen houses, but their hall was large, clean, well built, and
served as a schoolhouse, as well as for some other purposes. On entering
I found the old men seated in arm-chairs, just finishing a consultation
on some important subject or other, and the children soon crowded in, in
expectation of the cash which it is both wise policy and Chinese custom
for strangers to distribute amongst them. The custodian of this pleasant
place was a one-eyed ancient of most forbidding appearance. His one eye
not only did the business of two, but gave the impression that it had
gone out of his head, and was prowling about generally for something or
other. His exterior semblance, however, did belie his soul’s timidity;
and his chief failing was a peculiar passion for corks, which he sought
after and treasured up with the avidity of a miser. I used to keep a
store of beer in this ancestral hall, and on my visits he always seemed
to be troubled at night by a suspicion that some cork had escaped his
search, or might be abstracted from a bottle, and he would rise to look
for it. On one occasion a friend just out from England spent a night
with me in this place, and being by no means assured of the safety of
sleeping among Chinese, the personal appearance of the Uniocular caused
him a great deal of unnecessary anxiety. He could not sleep because of a
vision he had of the One-eyed progging at him with a spear, and the
One-eyed could not sleep because of an imaginary cork! The game which
these two carried on during the night was extremely comical. Their small
sleeping-rooms were at opposite corners of the joss-house, and not in
sight of each other, so they never actually came in contact. First, the
old man would rise, light a reed, and, bending almost double, with his
one eye glittering down upon the black stone floor, search for the
object of his desire. Roused by the noise made, or the glimmer of the
light, my friend would then rise also, and, being unaccustomed to such
work, steal out in his stocking-soles, peering into the darkness with a
lighted taper in one hand and a revolver in the other. On hearing the
creaking of the boards when his enemy arose, the cork-gatherer always
extinguished his light, and, on catching a glimpse of the dreadful
apparition with the revolver, stole off terrified to his own den, not to
re-emerge until all was quiet, and some time had elapsed. Unfortunately,
it usually happened, whenever I persuaded a friend to go with me upon
the mainland, that some danger, or appearance of danger, occurred, and
prevented him from repeating the visit.
One advantage of sleeping upon boards is, that it promotes early rising;
but ere I got up next morning, the children of the hamlet were in the
temple, reading in their singsong way the Chinese trimetrical classic
which they are taught to commit to memory long before they understand
almost a word of its meaning. The contrast which Celestial children
present to those of the West is striking. They are quiet, calm,
perpetrate no tricks, and rarely or never play about. In fact, their
demeanour is not unlike that of aged Europeans; while the old men, on
the other hand, display something of the liveliness of childhood,
especially when engaged in their favourite amusement of flying kites.
Though teaching was thus carried on in the temple, yet that building was
specially dedicated to the worship of the ancestors of the villagers.
“The real religion of China,” it has been truly said, “is not the
worship of heaven and earth, nor of idols, but of Confucius and of one’s
own ancestors.” The more educated classes, including the mandarins, have
special reverence for Confucius; but the mass of the people worship the
spirits of their ancestors with profound awe. They believe that each
family has a close peculiar interest in all its members, whether before
or after death, not one being able to suffer without all being
afflicted. Each house has its _lararium_, in the shape of a small
temple, a room, or even a niche in the wall, where the family is poor.
This hall at Kan-how had many ancestral tablets hung up in it, and also
some for the propitiation of _kwei_, or friendless hungry spirits, for
whom the Chinese have a singular dread. Every district in the country
has a temple with the tablets of all persons whose families are extinct.
To the imagination of the yellow-skinned children of Han there is
something very awful in the idea of a forlorn shivering ghost, wandering
through the air without any progeny on earth to care for it, to give it
meat-offerings, or the warm regard of human hearts; and they believe
that such friendless spirits are always likely to become malignant
powers, and to work them evil. Some districts have a ceremony, every ten
years or so, called the “Universal Rescue,” for the special benefit of
such spirits.
The morning wore away pleasantly as I was sitting on a little terrace,
shaded by a large tree, in front of the ancestral hall. A number of
small villages dotted the ricefields of the flat valley; and after their
morning meal the people came out to their work, some carrying a light
plough behind the ox which had to drag it, others with hoes to weed the
sweet-potato fields, bands of laughing women going up the mountains to
cut grass, and one gentleman taking a morning walk with a long spear
over his shoulder. On returning from a visit to a curious rock, called
the “Mother and Child,” from its resemblance to a woman with an infant
upon her back, I found the school had “scaled,” to use a Scotch phrase;
and the teachers, with the elders, were engaged in purchasing articles
for a general dinner, and cutting them up. In the discussion which went
on upon this subject a few of the pot-bellied children who remained took
great interest, throwing in their opinions with much calmness and
gravity.
That afternoon I crossed over a second range of mountains into another
valley, the path leading down near the side of a huge black precipice,
which looked sublime in the moonlight. Not a soul was met on the latter
part of the way, for when night descends on China, the country people
confine themselves to their own homes, and only bands of robbers are to
be met with, or men out for some bloody purpose, such as destroying a
village with which they are at war. I had sometimes stopped, at the
first village I came to, in the house of an old woman; and one evening,
when taking an English friend there, a rather startling incident
occurred. As we came round a corner upon the village, just as I was
expatiating upon the friendliness of the people and the perfect safety
we would enjoy, a gingall was fired, and the bullets came whistling
round our heads. My companion looked as if he thought this fact
considerably outweighed my theory; but it turned out that the gingall,
which takes some little time to go off, had actually been fired before
we came in sight round the corner. On this present occasion I went on to
another village called Chin-wan, and slept in the house of a young
teacher, who remained up, or rather lolling on his couch, till about one
in the morning, smoking opium with a friend. It is a remarkable fact
that, with only one exception, all the Chinese _dominies_ I came across
were in the habit of smoking opium. Probably this was caused by the
sedentary, harassing, and dreary nature of their occupation, which makes
the soothing drug specially desirable. At one place I was told I could
not see the teacher, though it was the middle of the day, because he was
asleep from opium. Fancy being told, and as nothing out of the way, that
a parochial schoolmaster was invisible, because he was dead drunk! The
Chinese, however, usually take opium in moderation, after their meals,
just as we do beer and wine, and no discredit attaches to such a use of
it. The practice is more fascinating than the use of intoxicating
drinks, and more easily glides into excess. Of teachers in China,
unfortunately for them, there is an immense supply owing to the number
of disappointed candidates at the competitive examinations for the
Government service. In this Chin-wan schoolhouse I met a fat man who had
been in Hong-Kong, and spoke a little English. If there was any
self-approval in my air in telling him that I had walked over the hills,
it met with a speedy and severe check, for he immediately said—“Eiya!
Hab walkee! allo same one coolie.” This was complimentary, but I had my
revenge; for the fat man told me that he was a gentleman living at his
ease, whereas I discovered him, early next morning, in a butcher’s shop,
with his sleeves tucked up dissecting a fat pig, into whose entrails he
staggered on my finding him, and exclaiming, “Hulloa! Allo same one
butcher.” It is due to the Chinese, however, to state, that very few of
them are ashamed of, or attempt to conceal, their occupations.
Hitherto I had been trifling with the excursion, but next day Aheung
knew by our starting early that we were in for work; and deep gloom came
over his countenance when he saw the direction I was taking up the
Chin-wan or Talshan Valley, towards an old and totally unfrequented path
which leads over a shoulder of the Tai-mon shan, or “Great Hat
Mountain.” No part of the Scotch Highlands presents a more picturesque
appearance than the upper part of this valley, so plentifully are the
small pines scattered about, so deep the pools, so wild the stream, so
huge and fantastic the shattered rocks. The Great Hat Mountain, over a
lower portion of which we go, is about 4000 feet high, and terraced up
to the very top, showing it was cultivated at some former period; but
now it is entirely without habitations, and covered with long rank grass
of the coarsest kind, which forms a serious obstacle to the ascent. I
got up to the top once, with great difficulty, and was rewarded by a
magnificent panorama of sea and islands, mountains and plains. Even
Canton could be seen in the distance; the villages looked as if they
could be counted by hundreds, and every island was fringed round with
numerous junks and fishing-boats. Considering that the country round is
one of the most sparsely populated parts of China, the innumerable
indications of human life were somewhat surprising. In conjunction with
what I have seen in more thickly habitated parts of China, such as the
valleys of the great rivers, I incline to think that the numbers given
by the last census which I know of as available were certainly not above
the truth. It was taken about 1840, and the members of the Russian
Legation at Peking, who had access to it, gave the entire population of
the Chinese empire at 412 millions. An old legend regarding the Tai-mon
is, that a proprietor and feudal chief in its neighbourhood gave
protection and support to the sister of a dethroned Chinese emperor,
and, on the emperor regaining power, he rewarded the chief by giving him
all the circle of country which he could see from that mountain. It
would almost require some such reward to induce one a second time to
encounter the fatigue and irritation of ascending it in its present
condition. The Chinese have a great idea of the influence of mountains,
speaking of them as more or less “powerful,” but this one has no
particular reputation that way. The old path we are now taking is in
great part overgrown with grass, and leads through a complete mountain
solitude, where the silence is broken only by the wind rustling in the
rank herbage, and no signs of life meet the eye. Aheung motions me to
carry my revolver in my hand; he is in an agony of terror, and I can
distinguish him uttering the words _lu tsaak_, or road-robber, and _lo
foo_, or tiger—two beings with which the Chinese imagination peoples the
whole country. To hear them talk of tigers, one would think these
animals were as thick as blackberries. Nothing was more common than for
villagers to say to me, “There is a tiger about here; would you be good
enough to go out and shoot it?” as if I had only to step to the door in
order to find one; whereas the fact is, that I never saw the slightest
trace of any, though a few certainly do exist. At first I used to be
startled by the information constantly tendered that there was a party
of road-robbers watching the path a little way on; but as they never
appeared, I began to get quite sceptical on the subject, until at last I
did unexpectedly meet with five of them, armed with short swords, who
were holding the top of a mountain pass. I was travelling in a chair at
the time, and on seeing this obstacle my coolies at once put down the
chair, and refused to proceed farther. I tried to represent to them that
though the robbers were five, we were five also; they replied that they
were paid to carry me, not to fight. Deeming it safer to go forward than
to go back, I walked up to the men, revolver in hand; and whenever they
saw I was so armed, they made off, greatly to my relief, as only three
chambers were loaded. Chinese pirates and highwaymen do not live to rob,
but rob to live; and so they like to be pretty safe in what they do. As
they are lawless only to prolong their lives, it seems to them the
height of absurdity to put themselves in any decided peril for the sake
of plunder. Theirs is a highly rational system, in consonance with the
practical tendencies of the Celestial mind.
Notwithstanding Aheung’s terrors, we got quite undisturbed over the Tai
Mon, and reached before dusk a solitary Buddhist monastery, situated in
a wood at the head of and overlooking the Pak-heung, or “Eight Village”
Valley. As we came down on this place, I heard the firing of a
clan-fight at one of the villages below; and often as I have been in the
Pak-heung, never have I been there without finding a fight going on,
either between two or more of its own villages, or between one or all of
its villages and those of the Shap-heung, or “Ten Village” Valley,
immediately contiguous. They seemed to have as much stomach for fighting
as Aheung had for worship, and the blame was laid chiefly on a large
village called Kum-tin, or “Fertile Land,” which suffered from a
plethora of wealth, and had disputed claims to land in various
directions. Of all places I knew in that neighbourhood, this monastery
was my favourite haunt, from the view it commanded, its cleanliness, its
secluded position, and its internal quiet. The two or three monks
occupying it were always glad to see me, as I gave them presents, and
afforded relief to the tedium of their life. On this occasion they gave
me, as usual, a hearty welcome; but I was rather startled, on being
awakened about midnight by loud shouts, knocking at the outer door, and
the flashing of torches beneath my window. This turned out to be some
men from one of the fighting villages, who had taken it into their heads
to come up to the monastery at that unseasonable hour for mingled
purposes of thanksgiving and jollification, and who remained there till
morning. They were, however, perfectly civil, and showed no disposition
to interfere with me in any way, except in questioning Aheung as to
where he came from, and what clan he belonged to. Had he been one of
that with which they were fighting, the probability is they would have
made him a prisoner.
It was delightful in the morning to sit in the cool air on the terrace
in front of this cold or Icy-Cloud Monastery, as it is called, and watch
the light mist rolling off the Pak-heung Valley, and brightening over
the waters of Deep Bay. Soon from every village the smoke of household
fires rose into the calm clear air, while, every ten minutes or so, the
boom of a gingall came from the combatants beneath, and reverberated on
the grand cliff behind us. The young green rice of the fields below was
like a vast lake lying round the villages and wooded knolls, except
where in the upper slopes it flowed down from field to field like a
river, bearing good promise for the stomachs of industrious hungry men.
The little wooded islets rose from the rice sea with their temples and
ancestral halls as out of the world’s everyday work and life. On either
side of the wide Pak-heung were great, bare, sublime blocks of
mountains, with white fleecy clouds occasionally floating across God’s
bright blue sky, while fish were leaping in the pond below, and doves
were cooing in the trees around.
But one must have breakfast. The resources of the country are confined
to rice, salted vegetables, and bean-paste, which are not particularly
tempting; but we brought some fish with us, and Aheung has procured some
eggs and pork in the nearest village. Strictly speaking, this being a
Buddhist place of worship, no food that has had life in it should be
allowed to enter; but there are only two monks here at present—an old
man and a neophyte—and my sacrilege is winked at. Nay, it is more than
winked at, for, as we breakfast together, the chopsticks of the monk
gradually deviate towards the palatable fried salt-water fish. Curiously
and inquiringly he turns one over, and then, as if satisfied with the
result of his careful examination, the old sophist exclaims, “_Hai
tsai!_”—“Vegetables of the sea!” and immediately swallows a piece. Under
this cunning and specious phrase he continues to dispose of a very fair
quantity of fish; but the pork was a little too much for his conscience,
and he affected not to see it at all. He also pretended, my hair being
cropped close, to believe that I was a Buddhist. On learning that we
were going to a place called Li-long, he briefly informed me that the
men of Li-long were robbers, and immediately thereafter shovelled in a
vast quantity of rice into his mouth, as if he were afraid to say
anything more on that painful subject. This monk, who was quite hale and
strong, said he was seventy years old, and looked as if he might live as
many more. His occupations, which he took very easily, were praying,
chanting, bowing, and reading. The Chinese Buddhists have the idea that,
by retiring to solitary places, avoiding bodily activity and all sensual
indulgence, living with extreme temperance, and spending their days in
meditation and prayer, the vital power is preserved in the system, and
gradually collects towards the crown of the head, until at last the
devotee gains the possession of supernatural powers. I did not observe
that this old gentleman was distinguished in that particular; and the
neophyte, it is to be feared, was in a bad way, for I once detected him,
the monk being absent, sitting down with a youthful visitor to a dinner
where figured the unholy articles of fowl, pork, and Chinese wine, of
the two former of which he partook. On a previous visit to this place, a
wicked friend of mine, who had full command of the language, disturbed
the mind of the neophyte by ardent praise of the gentler sex; and on
reading the inscription, “May the children and grandchildren of the
contributors [to the monastery] gloriously increase,” he asked him how
he could expect his children to increase! This youth was also fond of
reading Christian tracts in Chinese. Altogether, what with forbidden
literature, forbidden diet, and discourses on the forbidden sex, I fear
the neophyte will never attain to miraculous powers.
These Buddhist temples and monasteries are thickly scattered over China.
They are often buildings of great size, and afford the best
resting-place for travellers, but usually the staff of priests is very
small indeed, and these bear no very good name among the people. This
one of the Icy Cloud had not so much as a dozen rooms of various sizes,
but it was compact and well built. The walls had a few frescoes of
non-perspective landscapes, with grotesque devils in the foreground;
there were also statues of Buddha, of Kiu-tsaang-keun, or the “Heavenly
General,” and of Koon Yum, the Hearer of Cries, or Goddess of Grace, to
whom it was specially dedicated. Worshippers were very rarely to be seen
in it. Many inscriptions, of which the following are examples, were hung
upon the walls:—
“It is easy to leave the world; but if the heart is gross, and you
cannot cease thinking of the mud and trouble of life, your living in a
deep hill is vain.”
“To be a Buddhist is easy, but to keep the regulations is difficult.”
“It is easy to preach doctrines (_taali_), but to apprehend principles
is difficult.”
“If you do not put forth your works, but only preach, your strength is
emptily wasted; and if you talk till you break your teeth, even then
it will be in vain.”
“If you are entirely without belief and desire (will), and do not
attend to the prohibitions, then your strength will have been
uselessly wasted, and your head shaved to no purpose.”
“May the precious ground (of the monastery) be renewed.”
“To be intimate, and not divided, consists in the virtuous roots being
gathered in a place.”
“When the image was asked why it turned round and fell backward, it
said, ‘Because the people of the time would not turn their heads;’”
[they probably being a stiff-necked generation, like the people of
many other times and places.]
“Peacefully seclude and regulate yourselves.”
It will be observed that some of these inscriptions are most sensible as
well as appropriate. While the last is quite in place in such an
institution, it is wisely modified by the five first, which show how
retirement can be made profitable, or at least warn against its being
unprofitable. The seclusion of a monastery can only be of advantage to
those who, having experienced the turmoil and passion of worldly life,
really know its bitterness, and desire something better. It is not only
the old monk who breaks his teeth in vain, or the neophyte who shaves
his head to no purpose. Youth is the time for action—for “the mud and
trouble of life”—and in vain do men try to evade it by planting the
unhappy slip “in a deep hill,” bidding him observe “the trees of the
clouds and the flowers of the mountains,” or oppressing him with moral
and religious ideas which he cannot appreciate. Old age, again, is the
proper period for meditation and wisdom. How often, in all countries, do
we see the virtues suitable to one period of life, or to one station of
life, forced upon persons of other ages and of different stations, until
their souls revolt within them against all virtue whatever!
Passing northward from the “Eighth Village” Valley, we walked over
undulating moorland, broken by low hills covered with white quartz,
passing one village called Kum-chin, or the “Golden Cash,” which was
surrounded by acres of large fir-trees, lychus and other fruit-trees,
well stocked with doves; and another which bore the fragrant name of
Wa-cheang, or “Fine-smelling Grain,” though eminently dirty, and
surrounded by a stagnant ditch. About two miles after crossing a creek,
we skirted the small walled town of Sam-chun, but took good care not to
enter. Doubtless at that time we might have done so with tolerable
safety, but I once had such a narrow escape in that place, that I had no
desire whatever again to tempt its hospitality. Sam-chun is a mart of
bad repute, being at the head of a creek, and rather a depôt for goods,
frequently pirated, rather than giving hostage for its respectability in
cultivation of the soil. Aheung, who was an old man himself, explained
its iniquities by the fact that there were few or no old men to be found
in it. The first time I visited it, along with a friend, hostilities
were going on at Canton, and rewards were out for the heads of
foreigners. One of our coolies asked us to go into a shop in the town
which was kept by some relatives of his, and in doing so we passed
through two small gateways, and also the butchers’ bazaar. The shopmen
received us very well, but we had scarcely time to drink a cup of tea
before the room was filled by a crowd of ruffians, chiefly butchers from
the neighbouring bazaar, armed with knives and choppers. They first
began shouting derisively, pressing in and hustling us; then got up the
cry “_Tá tá!_”—“Strike, strike!” with which Chinese commence all their
assaults; and then the ominous words “_Fanquiei sha tao_”—“Cut off the
heads of the Foreign Devils”—coupled with some remarks as to what amount
of dollars these articles would bring at Fat-shan. Those who know only
the ordinary placid appearance of the Chinaman, have happily little idea
of the spectacle he presents when working himself into a fury, or the
atrocities which he is capable of committing. The butchers round us—and
there must have been nearly a hundred in the shop—were pushing one
another on and rapidly rising to blood-heat. Another minute would have
proved fatal, and as it was, I had no hope of final escape, the only
ambition which occurred being that of getting up into a loft close to
where I stood, and where our revolvers could have been used with effect.
The coolie who brought us into the fix wanted us to fire, but that would
have been madness, pressed in as we were by the crowd. Fortunately the
shopkeepers, and some more respectable Chinese who were beside us, so
far took our part as to assist in getting us hustled out through a door
before the bolder of the ruffians had quite worked their way to us; and
as we got through, a yell of rage and disappointment rose from the
crowd; and it is to be feared that the shopmen suffered, for there was a
general row inside, with great crashing of furniture. As the crowd could
not get quickly out of the shop, we had the start of it in the streets,
but were soon overtaken by the rabble, who pressed closely on us and
threw bricks, besides exhausting indecent language in their remarks.
Luckily they were rather afraid of our revolvers, and the street was too
narrow to allow of their passing to get the gates shut. They called upon
the Chinamen we passed at shop doors and side streets to strike us down;
and one individual offered to do so with a long hoe, but failed, while
on others we tried very hard to smile blandly, as if the whole affair
were a joke or a popular ovation. Even on the plain beyond the crowd
followed us for two miles; some men from a neighbouring village, armed
with gingalls, threatened to cut off our retreat, and a number of
junkmen, with filthy gestures and language, invited us to stop and fight
them, as if two strangers, just escaped from imminent death, were at all
likely to delay for the pleasure of encountering about two hundred
pirates. As my friend could not swim, I was afraid we might be brought
up at the creek; but the boat was just starting, and, by holding a
revolver to his head, we persuaded the ferryman to take us over,
notwithstanding the counter-threats addressed to him by those of the
ruffians who had still continued to follow.
The whole affair took us so much by surprise, and there was such
necessity for immediate action, that we did not fully realise it until
we were safe enough to take a rest, when we both began to feel rather
faint, and had immediate recourse to our flasks for a glass of brandy. I
experienced, however, a peculiarly disagreeable sensation when the crowd
was howling round us in the shop; it was not fear of the consequences,
but a kind of magnetic effect from the noise and brutal hostility of so
many human beings. A little terrier-bitch which I had with me, and which
I carried out in my arms, as otherwise it would have been trampled down,
was so affected by this that it trembled violently, quivering like an
aspen leaf. There is something very trying in the hostility of a howling
crowd, and a species of almost physical effluence goes out from it
beyond visible positive action. A man who was lynched in Texas a few
years ago, and whom a party of soldiers tried to save, was so affected
by the conflict round him that he besought his friends either to hang
him or to give him up at once. I have heard an old Californian settler
say that it was nothing to be in a stampede of wild cattle, compared
with being surrounded by a crowd of either terrified or infuriated men.
This occurrence, I daresay, is a sufficient excuse for my never having
again entered Sam-chun, though often passing it. The General commanding
her Majesty’s forces at Canton got, at our complaint, the Governor of
Kwang-tung to issue a proclamation warning against the recurrence of
similar outrages; but the Governor-General exercises very little power
in that part of the country. Sam-chun is a place of very bad general
repute, and even Chinese travellers carefully avoid it, so I had no
desire to experiment as to the actual effect of the proclamation. Aheung
was with me when this perilous incident occurred; but he carefully
disappeared, and only turned up again towards evening, carrying a
basket, which he had saved, as the excuse for his absence. After we are
fairly past Sam-chun on this our present excursion, he turns round to
look at it, grins at me, and draws his hand significantly across his
throat. We stop this night at his own village of San-kong, a little
further on, and sleep in the schoolhouse, which is large and airy. Moved
by the report of my coolie, the people there were particularly civil;
and Aheung insisted on providing the morning and evening repast, with
abundance of hot _t’san_, or Chinese wine, at his own expense. He also
brought his very aged mother to see me, and she would have _kow-towed_
had I allowed her. Frequently the Chinese are accused of ingratitude,
but I must say I have always found a very strong desire on their part to
reciprocate favours. At this place a rather curious proposal was made by
a Chinese traveller who was halting at a tea-house in front of the
village. On seeing me he took off his coat and displayed to the people
his bare back, which was cruelly scored by the strokes of a rattan.
“See,” he said, “how the foreign devils in Hong-Kong treat a respectable
Chinaman: now that we have got this foreign devil amongst us, let us tie
him up and flog him, and see how he will like it.” Immediately on this
Aheung’s inarticulate voice rose in vehement protest, and the people
would not listen to the proposal for a moment; but it made my back
shiver, for had it been advanced in a village where I was unknown, it
might very possibly have been carried into execution—which would have
been neither profit nor glory, and would have been all the harder
because I strongly disapproved of the way in which such punishments were
carried out by the police. It used to be a most horrid spectacle to see,
as often might be done, a poor wretch, with his back all raw and bloody,
exposed in Queen’s Road, the most crowded thoroughfare of the town,
trembling from pain, shame, and cold, and trying to conceal his face
from the passers-by. I could not wonder if a man who had so suffered
tried to murder a dozen Europeans, especially if he had suffered
unjustly, as was nearly as likely to be the case as not, or for some
trivial offence, such as stealing three hairs from a horse’s tail, for
which I have known a flogging with the rattan inflicted.
Our next day’s journey was also a short one of only twelve miles. Shady
paths along the side of a stream led us to Pu-kak, a large Hakka
village, where the German missionaries had formerly a station in the
_hue_, or marketplace, but were forbidden to enter the village itself,
or to walk on a neighbouring hill, lest they should disturb the dragon
beneath, who could not be supposed to stand the insult of foreigners
trampling upon his neck! At the outbreak of hostilities at Canton, the
Rev. Messrs Lobschied and Winnes, who were labouring here, were assailed
by the people, and had to barricade themselves in their house. The
former gentleman got out at night by a back window; and, being pursued,
escaped by concealing himself in the water and among the lotus-leaves of
a small pond, enjoying the pleasure, while lying there, of hearing the
Chinese thrusting their long spears close to him. Mr Winnes was held to
ransom for 240 dollars, and was released; but it is doubtful whether
that would have taken place had a small military force not been
despatched from Hong-Kong for his relief.
At Li-lang, or the village of “Flourishing Plums,” which we next
reached, I was glad to find Mr Winnes, and to stay with him. He had been
residing there alone, most of the time, for nearly six months, in a
small room above a very small chapel and schoolhouse, which were built
before the commencement of the war. All his attempts to get a suitable
site for a house had been unsuccessful, owing to the geomantic fears of
the Hakkas. At one place they were afraid that the White Tiger, whatever
that may be, would be disturbed by his building. Another suitable site
was refused because the spirits of the ancestors wandering about the
graves on the opposite hill would be disturbed by any change of the
aspect of the scene, such as a new house would cause. This geomancy is a
rather mysterious and difficult subject, which has its own priests, and
exercises much influence over the minds of the Chinese. One of the
converts of the missionary had been a geomancer, and had written an
essay on the subject, in which he makes mention of such awful things as
the Deadly Vapour around the dwelling, the Fiery Star which brings
destruction, the Nightly Dog who causes apparitions, the Abandoned
Spirits who promote ignorance, the White Tiger of the Heavenly Gate, the
Seven Murderers, the Gate of Death, the Pestilential Devil, the Hanging
Devil, the Strangler, the Poisoner, the Knocker at the Door, the
Lamenting Devil, the Scatterer of Stones, the Barking Dragon, the
Ravenous Heavenly Dog, and the Murderer of the Year. Talk of the Chinese
not being an imaginative people! Why, these mere names suggest a whole
world of terror; they are enough to make one shudder and have recourse
immediately to a solemn study of the seventy-two principles of the
mysterious laws of the efficacious charm for protecting houses.
Another interesting subject on which Mr Winnes gave me novel information
was the practice of Spirit-Writing among the Chinese, which has existed
from an early period, and strikingly resembles the Western
Spirit-Rapping of modern times. I have pretty full notes on this
_Geister Shrift_, as the German called it, but must avoid tedious
details. It is sometimes had recourse to by mandarins and educated
persons, as well as by the ignorant, for the purpose of gaining
information as to the future intentions of Heaven, which are otherwise
hid from human beings. One of the most frequent inquiries put is as to
whether the questioner will have a number of male children, but all
sorts of subjects are inquired into, both personal and political; and
many volumes exist, both in prose and verse, alleged to have been
written by spirits; so the Seer of Poughkeepsie has been anticipated in
the Flowery Land. The Spirit-Writing is called by the Chinese
_Kong-pit_, or “Descending to the Pencil,” and the first step is to cut
a bent twig from an apricot tree, affixing at the same time to the tree
certain characters which notify that the twig or magic pencil is taken,
because the spirit will descend in order to reveal hidden things. Having
thus consoled the tree for its loss, the twig is cut into the shape of a
Chinese pen, and one end is inserted at right angles into the middle,
not the end, of a piece of bamboo, about a foot long and an inch thick,
so that were this bamboo laid upon a man’s palms turned upwards, the
twig might hang down and be moved over a piece of paper. In a temple, a
schoolhouse, or an ancestral hall, chairs are then set apart for the
spirit to be summoned, and for the god or saint of the temple or village
under whose power the summoned spirit is supposed to be wandering. One
table is covered with flowers, cakes, wine, and tea for the refreshment
and delectation of the supernatural visitors, while another is covered
with fine sand, in order that the spirit may there write its
intimations. In order to add to the solemnity of the scene, proceedings
are not commenced till after dark, and the spectators are expected to
attend fasting, in full dress, and in a proper frame of mind.
The usual way of communicating in China with the higher supernatural
powers is by writing supplications or thanksgivings on red or
gold-tissue paper, and then burning the paper, the idea being that the
characters upon it are thus conveyed into a spiritual form. In order to
spirit-writing, a piece of paper is burnt containing some such prayer as
this to the tutelary deity or saint of the place:—“This night we have
prepared wine and gifts, and we now beseech our great Patron to bring
before us a cloud-wandering spirit into this temple, in order that we
may communicate with him.” After the saint has had sufficient time to
find a spirit, two or three of the company go to the door to receive
him, and the spirit is conducted to the seat set apart for him, with
much honour, with many genuflexions, and the burning of gold paper. The
bamboo is then placed in the palms of a man, so that the apricot twig
touches the smooth sand upon one of the tables; and it is usually
preferred that the person in whose hands the magic pen is thus placed
should be unable to write, as that gives some guarantee against
collusion and deception. It is then asked if the spirit has arrived from
the clouds; on which, if he is there, the spirit makes the bamboo shake
in the hands of the individual who is holding it, so that the magic twig
writes on the sand the character _to_, or “arrived.” When it is thus
known that the supernatural guest is present, both he and the tutelary
deity are politely requested to seat themselves in the arm-chairs which
have been provided, the latter, of course, being on the left, or in the
post of honour according to Chinese ideas. They are then refreshed by
the burning of more paper, and by the pouring out of wine, which they
are thus supposed spiritually to drink; and those who wish to question
the ghost are formally introduced to it, for nothing would be considered
more shocking than for any one suddenly and rudely to intrude himself
upon its notice. After these ceremonies, it is thought proper that the
visitor from the clouds should communicate something about himself; so
inquiries are made as to his family and personal names, the period at
which he lived, and the position which he occupied. The question as to
time is usually made by asking what dynasty he belonged to, a few
hundred years more or less not being thought anything of among this
ancient people, and a ghost of at least a thousand years old being
preferred to younger and consequently less experienced persons. The
answers to these questions are given as before, the spirit, through the
medium, tracing characters upon the sand.
After that, those who have been introduced to the invisible guest put
their inquiries as to the future. The questions and the name of the
questioner are written upon a piece of gold paper, as thus:—“Lee Tai is
respectfully desirous to know whether he shall count many male children
and grandchildren.” “Wohong would gladly know whether his son Apak will
obtain a degree at the examination at Canton next month.” The paper with
the question is then burned, and the spirit moves the magic pen until an
answer, most frequently in verse, is traced upon the sand. If the
bystanders cannot make out the answer, the ghostly interpreter will
sometimes condescend to write it again, and to add the word “right” when
it is at last properly understood. After the sand on the table is all
written over, it is again rolled smooth, and the kind spirit continues
its work. When the answer is in verse, the bystanders often take to
flattery, and say, “The illustrious spirit has most distinguished
poetical powers.” To which the illustrious spirit usually replies, in
Chinese—“Hookey Walker!” Whenever a question is put, the paper is burned
and wine is poured out; for Chinese ghosts appear to be thirsty souls,
and are not above reprimanding those who neglect to give them wine, or
do not regard their utterances with sufficient respect. It is believed
that the man in whose hands the magic pen lies has nothing to do with
its movements, and its motions can be easily seen, and cause some little
noise, thumping down on the table.
These operations go on till shortly after midnight, when, according to
the principles of Chinese physical science, the _yung_, or male
principle of life, gains the ascendancy. I am not aware that any covert
satire is intended in thus making the ghost loquacious only when under
the influence of the _yong_, or female principle; but it may be so, or
there may be something in common in this respect between Chinese spirits
and the ghosts of our own land, which used to vanish at the first
crowing of the cock. At all events, soon after midnight, the celestial
visitor, who is not less formally polite than Chinese still in the
flesh, writes on the table—“Gentlemen! I am obliged for your liberal
presents, but now I must take my departure.” The gentlemen reply to
this, still through the medium of burned paper—“We beseech the
illustrious ghost still to remain with us a little longer, and still
further to enlighten our minds.” “Permit me to go,” politely answers the
spirit, “for I am urgently required elsewhere;” whereon the whole
assembly rises, and, advancing to the door with burning papers, escort
the ghost out, complimenting him, bowing to him, and begging for his
pardon if they have at all failed in doing him honour. At the door they
respectfully take leave of him, and allow him to wander on into the
darkness and the clouds.
It is curious to find that this supposed modern form of delusion, or
else of communication with the spirit world, has been in existence in
the Middle Empire for centuries, and it is only one of many things
recently springing up in Europe which have been anticipated by the
Celestials. A good deal of faith is attached to these ghostly
utterances, and the ceremonies are conducted with solemnity. It may be
observed that communication with the supernatural world by means of
burned papers is not an isolated notion in the circle of Chinese ideas.
Everything is considered as having an existence beyond that which it
presents to the bodily eye. Even inanimate objects may be said to have a
soul; and things (to use the word in its widest sense) have the same
relationships to each other in their spiritual as in their visible
existence. Thus, the spirits of the dead must eat, whether they be in
heaven or hell, in clouds or sunshine. They devour not spiritual
turnips, rice, and pork, but the soul or spiritual existence of visible
turnips, rice, and pork; and, like other Chinese, they prefer fowl,
ducks, and birds’-nest soup, when they can get these luxuries. So far is
this carried, that in the “Universal Rescue,” to which I have already
referred, separate bathing-rooms are set apart for spirits of the
different sexes, in which they are supposed to perform their spiritual
ablutions. Thus the present and the past, the visible and the invisible,
are inseparably connected, while both are seen to shape the unformed
future.
At Li-long Mr Winnes had a small congregation of converts from among the
peasantry, and a few intelligent young men whom he was training for
missionary or educational purposes; hymns were sung in Chinese, but set
to German music. Besides conveying instruction, the missionaries—who
have all studied medicine more or less—give medicine and medical
treatment to many of the Chinese with whom they come in contact, and try
to cure inveterate debauched opium-smokers by taking them in charge for
two or three weeks, keeping them under their own eye, and supplying such
drugs as are necessary to prevent the system from breaking up when the
narcotic food on which it has been accustomed to depend is withdrawn.
Credit is due to these educated and intelligent men who thus cut
themselves off from the enjoyments of their own civilisation, and devote
themselves to the improvement of a somewhat rude and wild people like
those who inhabit these mountainous districts of Kwang-tung. In many
respects their work is important, and especially as acting as a
“buffer,” to use a railway phrase, between two antagonistic races and
antagonistic civilisations. In ordinary circumstances they are treated
not merely with respect, but also with a friendly confidence rarely
extended to foreigners, though when war is abroad and the minds of the
people are exasperated their services may be forgotten. By mingling with
the people, speaking their language, sympathising with their humble joys
and sorrows, and alleviating their sufferings, they present the
foreigner in a new and beautiful light to the Chinese, and dissipate the
prejudice which has attached itself to his name.
On leaving Li-long next day the German missionary asked me to visit a
village called Ma-hum, in the Yeang-tai Mountains, to which I was bound,
as it had suffered severely in a prolonged clan-fight, and he thought
that the advent of a foreigner would give its inhabitants some little
prestige which might save them from the utter destruction with which
they were threatened by the neighbouring and more powerful village of
Schan-tsun. As the day was warm and the way was long, I engaged a chair
and a couple of coolies, who went on sturdily through narrow valleys
between low hills frequently covered with pine-apple trees or rather
bushes. After passing the large wealthy village of Tsing-fer, or “Clear
Lake,” where there are some enormous trees, and, among others, a bastard
banian, the trunk of which is forty feet in circumference, we began to
enter the Yeang-tai Mountains, where the Throne of the Sun is supposed
to be situated. At first they appeared not nearly so beautiful and
striking as when I had visited them the previous summer. At that time
the orchards of peach, plum, pear, and apple trees, which form the main
attraction of the valleys, were loaded with leaves, blossoms, and fruit;
the grass was everywhere green; the red sides of the more barren hills
were diversified by numerous waterfalls and foaming streams; while
fantastic clouds, here dark and threatening, but there lit golden by the
sunlight, wreathed the summits of the mountains. In this dry season the
more western portions of the Yeang-tai looked bare and unsatisfactory.
The spring was not sufficiently advanced for the trees to show more than
barely visible, though budding knobs; the grass on the hills was dry and
yellow, and our path wound away through interminable small valleys,
where the slopes around seemed neither solid rock nor fruitful earth,
but ridges of decayed granite which the rains had washed bare and the
sun had bleached to a dirty reddish-white. It was like finding a once
fair lady in a faded condition and a dubious undress. The fruits which
form the product of this district are not particularly satisfactory to
European judgment. The plums, apricots, and peaches, though small, are
much the best; but it is difficult to get them in good condition, as the
Chinese seem to prefer them either unripe or rotten; and they are always
gathered too soon, partly on this account and partly to preserve them
from the ravages of birds and thieves. The large juicy pears are
exceedingly coarse-grained, and have not much taste; the pulp feels dry
and gritty in the mouth, and the only way to enjoy them properly is to
eat them stewed. The dry leathery apples are miserable indeed. Those
fruits in the south of China which belong to the tropical zone are much
better than those whose proper place is in the temperate. The
pine-apples, the custard-apples, the guavas, the pomegranates, and the
olives are very good indeed; but the mangos are small, and much inferior
to those of India, Manilla, and the Straits. Some fruits are indigenous
and peculiar to the country, as the _whampee_, which tastes not unlike a
gooseberry; and the _lychu_ (whose trees form a fragrant and agreeable
feature in the landscape), which is about the size of a large
strawberry, and has, within a rough red skin, a white sweet watery pulp,
somewhat resembling that of the mangosteen, and not unpleasant to the
taste, though the flavour suggests a faint suspicion of castor-oil. It
is scarcely necessary to make mention of the numerous varieties of the
orange, which is the most abundant and perfect fruit in the south of
China.
As we advanced into the larger valleys and among the higher hills, the
scenery became more picturesque; and often, far up the mountains, were
some large white graves. The Chinese are unlike all other nations in
their treatment of the dead. In the first place, they like to have their
own coffins ready and in their houses, being in no way disturbed by
having such a _memento mori_ constantly before their eyes. I once heard
two women disputing violently in Hong-Kong, and on inquiring into the
cause, the younger one said to me in “pidgin English,” “That woman
belong my moder. I have catchee she number one piccy coffin, and she
talkee, ‘No good, no can do!;’” _Anglice_: “That woman is my mother. I
have got for her a coffin of the best kind, and she says it’s not good,
and won’t do!” After death the body is closed up in a coffin along with
quicklime. This is often kept for some time in the house, and then, most
frequently, the bones are taken out and placed in an earthenware urn.
The most usual form of the grave is an attempt at representing the shape
of an armchair without legs, but this is often thirty or forty feet
round, and is built of stone, or of bricks covered with white chunam. At
the back of this the urn is placed in an excavation, and the spirit of
the defunct is supposed to seat himself there and enjoy the view. Care
is taken to give him a dry place, where he will not be disturbed by damp
or streams of water, and where the spiritual existence of ants will not
annoy. The Chinese love of nature comes out remarkably in their
selection of spots for graves. They prefer solitary places, where
sighing trees wave over the departed, the melody of birds will refresh
his spirit, where he can gaze upon a running stream and a distant
mountain-peak. In the ‘Kia Li,’ or Collection of Forms used in Family
Services, there occurs the following beautiful funeral lament, which is
wont to be uttered at burial:—
“The location of the spot is striking,
The beauty of a thousand hills is centred here. Ah!
And the Dragon coils around to guard it.
A winding stream spreads vast and wide. Ah!
And the egrets here collect in broods.
Rest here in peace for aye. Ah!
The sighing firs above will make you music.
For ever rest in this fair city. Ah!
Where pines and trees will come and cheer you.”
Much more than that in which lies the tomb of Shelley is the situation
of some of these Celestial graves fitted to make one “in love with
death,” and there is much consoling in the thought which the Chinaman
can entertain, that when the cold hand has stilled the beatings of the
troubled heart, his disembodied spirit does not want a home, his name
and memory are perpetuated in the ancestral hall, his wants are provided
for, and the daughter whom he left a child feels that he is near her
even to her old age. How different these convictions from the melancholy
complaint of Abd-el-Rohaman, the Arab poet, as, fancying himself in the
grave, forsaken and forgotten by all his kin, he wrote:—
“They threw upon me mould of the tomb and went their way,—
A guest, ’twould seem, had flitted from the dwellings of the tribe.
My gold and my treasures, each his share, they bore away,
Without thanks, without praise, with a jest and with a jibe.
“My gold and my treasures, each his share, they bore away;
On me they left the weight, with me they left the sin.
That night within the grave, without hoard or child, I lay:
No spouse, no friend was there, no comrade and no kin.
“The wife of my youth soon another husband found;
A stranger sat at home on the hearthstone of my sire;
My son became a slave, though unpurchased, unbound,
The hireling of a stranger who begrudged him his hire.”
The Celestial does not regard death as the termination of delights or
separation of companions, and he comforts himself with the thought that
the affectionate wishes of all his kin will follow him into Dead Man’s
Land, that he will there enjoy companionship, that his spirit may hover
for ever over the village and the stream, reverenced to latest
generations, influencing the fruitfulness of the all-nourishing earth,
the sweep of the winds of heaven, and the courses of the life-giving
streams. Until some better ideas be introduced, it would be a pity were
this belief disturbed, as it exercises a powerful influence for good by
leading the Chinese mind from things seen and temporal—for which it is
apt to have too much respect—towards those which are unseen and eternal.
It gives to his horizon the awe of another world, and has much effect in
preserving those family relationships which lie at the foundation of
Chinese social success. It also has a singular effect in consoling the
bereaved, and
“Doomed as we are, our native dust,
To meet with many a bitter shower,
It ill befits us to disdain
The altar, to deride the fane
Where simple sufferers bend, in trust
To win a happier hour.”
At the same time, it must be admitted that there is a great deal of
confusion and contradiction in Chinese ideas as to the state of the
dead. While they speak of the departed spirit as still retaining a full
personality of its own, they also, or at least many of them, believe in
the separation and return to the primal elements of the various spirits
of which the human being is composed. Thus the animal spirit, for
instance, would return to and be lost in the great reservoir of animal
existence, just as a drop of water in the ocean, and the mind or
intellect return to that of mind. Yet their ideas on this subject,
however contradictory, and all their feelings, point to death as not an
evil in itself, or an event to be dreaded. Hence, in fact, their
indifference to life and extreme fondness for suicide. Almost every
Chinaman lives in the spirit of their proverb, “The hero does not ask if
there be evil omens; he views death as going home.”
At Ma-hum I had a letter of introduction to one of the elders, and found
that village small, much impoverished, and greatly dilapidated. Long
warfare with Schan-tsun had exhausted its resources; many habitations
were empty; the temple and schoolhouse were in ruins; there were very
few women—some, I fear, having been sold from distress—and the people
had a crushed, desponding air. These clan-fights in the south of China
are rather curious, and attention has not been called to them. I never
could master all their intricacies, but they occur sometimes between
people of different family names, and sometimes between those of
different villages and districts. Two villages having the same
patronymic sometimes fight, but most usually it is the clanship which
determines and guides the quarrel. People of another name visiting the
parties are very seldom interfered with, unless it is by the hired
combatants, who are generally bad characters, and are sometimes employed
by wealthy villages. At one place to which I came, the elders sent out
word they would not allow us to enter, as they had more than a thousand
mercenary soldiers there, and they could not insure our safety. It is no
unusual thing for notice to be given when a battle is to come off, and
on these occasions I have seen the hills lined with hundreds of
spectators from other places, who entertained no fears for their own
safety, were not interfered with, and applauded both parties impartially
according to the valour or energy displayed. I say energy, because at
one of the most vigorous fights I have seen there was no enemy in sight,
or within several miles. Files of men gathered in groups and stretched
into line; they ran down hills and up hills again, waving huge flags;
they shook their spears, made ferocious attacks upon an imaginary foe,
poured out volleys of abuse, and now and then a single brave, half
naked, with a turban or napkin round his head, would heroically advance
before his comrades, throw himself into all sorts of impossible
postures, and indulge in a terrific single combat; but though all this
was done, the opposite side never made its appearance at all. Another
time I got up into a tree close to two villages, about a couple of
hundred yards, from each other, which were doing battle with gingalls.
The marksmen protected themselves behind trees and walls and the roofs
of houses. Every ten minutes or so, some one would come out and show
himself, making derisive insulting gestures; on which a shot or two was
fired at him, and the gingall-men on his side tried in their turn to
pick off the marksmen. Before any one was wounded, however, I had to
descend from the tree and beat a retreat. These fights go on sometimes
for days and even weeks in this way, without any more serious loss on
either side than a vast expenditure of time, powder, and bullets; but
woe to the unfortunate who happens to fall into the hands of the
opposite clan or village! If his head is not taken off at once, and his
heart cut out, which frequently happens, he may perhaps be exchanged
against some prisoner; but it is just as likely that he is put to death
in a prolonged and painful way, such as being disjointed or sliced. When
a feud has gone on for some time, when all attempts at mediation have
proved abortive, and great irritation exists, then the combatants
usually come to closer quarters, sometimes in the daytime, but more
usually at night. The stronger side in such circumstances relaxes its
hostility, and tries to lull its opponents into a feeling of false
security. When it has succeeded in doing so, then a strong party will
make a sudden dash at the hostile village during the daytime, and kill
and carry away as many persons as it possibly can. More frequently,
however, a midnight attack is organised. When the enemy are supposed to
feel themselves tolerably secure, a vigorous attempt is made to crush
them altogether. Some dark night the inhabitants of the doomed village
suddenly awake to find themselves surrounded by armed men who have
scaled their walls, and set fire to their houses by throwing in among
them a number of blazing stink-pots, which also confuse by their fumes
and smoke. Then rise to heaven the yell of fury and the shriek of
despair. Quickly the fighting-men seize their spears and gingalls, but,
distracted by the surprise and by their blazing houses, they are soon
shot, pinned down with those terrible three-pronged spears, or driven
back into the flames. Little or no mercy is granted to them. Terrified
women seek to strangle their children, and themselves commit suicide;
but as many of these as possible are saved, in order that they may
become servants to the victors. Where the golden evening saw a
comfortable village and happy families, the grey dawn beholds desolation
and ashes, charred rafters and blackened corpses.
It may be asked whether the Government exercises no control over these
local feuds; but in those districts where they exist the mandarins
rarely interfere, except by way of mediation and advice. Their power is
not so great that they can afford to do more; and, besides, it is not in
accordance with Chinese ideas that they should do so. Notwithstanding
its nominally despotic form of government, China is really one of the
most self-governing countries in the world. Each family, village,
district, and province is to a very great extent expected to regulate or
“harmonise” itself. In order to this end, great powers are allowed
within these limits. The father, or the head of a family, can inflict
most serious and even very cruel punishments on its members, without his
neighbours thinking they have any right to interfere with him; and, on
the other hand, he is held responsible for the misdeeds of his children,
and when these have offended against public justice, and are not to be
got hold of, he often suffers vicariously in their place. In like
manner, villages are allowed great power in the settling of their
internal affairs through their elders. Within certain wide limits the
district is left to preserve its own peace, without troubling the higher
authorities of the province; and if it choose to indulge in the
expensive luxury of clan-fights, why that is its own loss. The mandarin
of Nam-taw, the capital of the district, had told both the Ma-hum and
Schan-tsun people that they were very foolish to go on fighting as they
were doing, and he had ordered the latter, as the aggressors, to desist,
but there his interference ended: there ought to be virtue enough in the
district to put down such a state of matters, but there was not; and by
late news from China it appears that the warlike inhabitants of
Schan-tsun have been continuing and flourishing in their career of
violence; for about a couple of months ago their “young people”—the
frolicsome portion of the population—made a night-attack upon the
neighbouring village of Sun-tsan, sacked every house, carried off
provisions, destroyed the whole place except the temple, and killed at
random men, women, and children to the number of 150, no less than 75 of
the latter having been destroyed. It is, in fact, this local weakness of
the Government which causes the rebellions that devastate the country. A
gentleman thoroughly acquainted with the language, writing to me by last
mail from the centre of China, truly remarks on this subject: “The
causes of the rebellion are, so far as I can see, the overpopulation of
the country, the inefficiency of the mandarins, and the indifference of
the people. The Chinese enjoy an amount of freedom and self-government
which, I suppose, is nowhere surpassed, if equalled; and their social
system, which is the result of so many centuries’ experience of what
human life is, is sufficient to meet most of their requirements. But it
is not sufficient to suppress the uprising of the dangerous classes. To
do this the power of the country must be organised into some sort of
shape, and then wielded with energy and honesty. Unfortunately, the
present mandarins neither have the one nor the other. But the beginning
of great changes in China is at hand. I am convinced that any attempt at
foreign interference in the civil government of the provinces would do
great mischief.”
It will illustrate the sort of democratic feeling which prevails in
China, to mention that the elder with whom I stayed had Aheung and my
stranger chair-coolies as well as myself to sit down at dinner with him
in the evening. The extreme politeness of the Chinese prevents this
being disagreeable, and I never saw the commonest coolie either inclined
to presume upon such contact, or particularly pleased by it. The German
and the Catholic missionaries have their meals in this way when
travelling, and I found it, upon trial, to be much the best. In its then
condition the resources of Ma-hum were limited, and the house we were in
was a mere hovel of sun-dried bricks; but our host produced at dinner
fresh and salt fish, pork and turnip soup, boiled pork and salted eggs,
fine pork and small white roots like potatoes, with cabbage, bean-paste,
and rice, apologising for not having had warning to prepare a better
repast. When unafflicted by famine or rebellion, I should say that the
labouring Chinese live better than any other people of the same class,
except in Australia and the United States. Though they only take two
meals a day, yet they often refresh themselves between with tea and
sweet cakes; and at these meals they like to have several dishes, among
which both fish and pork are usually to be found; often eggs, ducks, and
fowls; in some parts of the country mutton, and in others beef. Their
cookery is also very good; I never met anything very _outré_ in it,
except on one single occasion, chips of dog-ham, which were served out
as appetisers, and are very expensive, and come from the province of
Shan-tung, where the animal is fed up for the purpose upon grain. The
breeding of fish in ponds is one of the most plentiful and satisfactory
sources for the supply of food in China, and attempts are being made at
present to introduce it into France. The great secret of their cookery
is that it spares fuel and spares time. In most of their dishes the
materials are cut up into small pieces before being placed upon the
fire, and some are even cooked by being simply steamed within the pan in
which the invariable rice is cooked. The rice tastes much more savoury
than that which we get in this country, and is not unpleasant to eat
alone, steam rather than water being used in preparing it for the
table—a sea voyage exercising some damaging effect upon its flavour. The
great drawback of the food of the lower Celestials is that the
vegetables are often salt, and resemble sour kraut; the pork is too fat,
and the salt fish is frequently in a state of decay. Bean-paste also—a
frequent article among the poor—cannot be too strongly condemned; nor is
it redeemed by the fact that it is in much use among the holy men of the
Buddhist monasteries, for they have a decided preference for “vegetables
of the sea.”
At Ma-hum I got a small empty cottage to sleep in, with only the company
of a _phoong quei_, or “wind box,” used for preparing corn, and exactly
the same in construction and appearance as the “fanners” which used to
be employed in Scottish barns. My trip, so far as it was by land, ended
next day at Nam-tow, the district capital, a large walled town of, I
should think, not less than a hundred thousand souls. This place had
been bombarded about eighteen months before by our gunboats, in
consequence of the mandarins stopping the supplies of Hong-Kong, and
withdrawing the native servants; so I was rather afraid of being mobbed,
or otherwise ill-treated, if I delayed in it, or turned on my footsteps
when looking for the passage-boat to Hong-Kong. Even when there is no
positive danger, a Chinese mob is rather trying to a solitary European;
but China is a civilised country, and fortunately there were two boats
and competition. The consequence of this was, that the touter of one of
them waylaid us about a mile and a half from the town, and led me direct
to his junk, in which I at once embarked, to the disappointment of the
crowd which had begun to gather upon our heels.
I used to find it safer to go about that part of the coast in
passage-boats rather than in one of my own, and of course in that way
saw much more of the people. These vessels usually go two and two in
company, in order to assist one another against the not unfrequent
attacks of pirates; and are pretty well armed with stink-pots, two or
three small cannon, and spears innumerable. When not crowded they do
very well, and a small sum procures the sole use of a small matted cabin
without any furniture, if it is not pre-engaged. On this occasion the
extra cabin was occupied, and in that of the supercargo, which is also
usually available, there was a portion of his family; so I had to
content myself with the deck and the “first-class” cabin, which was
occupied by shopkeepers and small merchants. The Chinese are not very
clean, especially in cold weather, when they put on coat over coat
without ever changing the inner one: in the poorer houses the dirt and
water are not properly “balanced,” and they have a saying which
associates “lice and good-luck;” but, most fortunately for travellers,
their _pediculi_, like horses in Japan, appear to participate in the
national antipathy for foreigners. There were about fifty passengers in
this boat bound for Hong-Kong, and the cargo consisted of vegetables and
sugar-cane. One little boy on board appeared to have been told off to do
the cooking and religion. He would suddenly stop in his task of cutting
up fish or turnips, and burn a red joss-paper with a prayer upon it, for
the success of our voyage; then as suddenly utter an exclamation and
dive down again among the pots. This little wretch of a cook, though
chaffed at by the sailors and afflicted by a severe cold, appeared
perfectly contented, happy, and even joyful—which may be a lesson to
some other doctors elsewhere. The Universe, acting under the Chinese
system, had found a place which suited him, work adapted to his nature,
and such small enjoyments as he could appreciate. He always found time,
every five minutes, to snatch a chew at sugar-cane, and even lost five
cash by gambling. In these passage-boats the fare is not, and cannot be
expected to be, very good; but our diminutive artist prepared for dinner
stewed oysters, fried and boiled fish, fat pork, salt eggs, rice,
greens, turnips, and onions.
The British sailor adorns his bunk with a rude portrait of lovely Nancy,
but our junk had inscriptions savouring of a lofty kind of poetry and
morality. In the cabin there was written up in Chinese characters, “The
virtue which we receive from Heaven is as great as a mountain;” and
also, “The favour (grace) received from the Spirit of the Ocean is as
deep as the ocean itself.” On the roof we were informed that Heaven, and
not only wood, was above us, by the inscription, “The virtue of the
(divine) Spirit illuminates everything.” These were intelligible, but
this one, which was on the mainmast, requires interpretation—“There is
majesty on the Eight Faces.” It must be understood to mean that there is
majesty, or glory, everywhere around. The paper on the rudder
exclaimed—“Keep us secure, Tai Shon!” or “Great mountain,” a very holy
and “powerful” hill in Schan-tung, to which Confucius has alluded, and
to which pilgrimages are made. At the bows there was the cheering
assurance, “The ship’s head prospers,” which in our passage was not
falsified.
These evidences of high moral feeling, however, were hardly borne out by
the conduct of the crew. As ‘Punch’s’ footman observed of the
leg-of-mutton dinner, they were “substantial, but coarse;” quite without
the politeness of the peasantry; friendly enough, but indulging in rough
play, such as giving each other, and some of the passengers, sundry
violent pats on the head. The captain, as is everywhere usual at sea,
gave his orders roughly, and required them to be promptly obeyed. They
don’t think much of firing into another boat, by way of amusement or
gentle warning; and are not altogether averse to a quiet little piece of
piracy when it comes in their way. On leaving the Canton river the wind
and tide in the Kup-shui-moon pass or strait were so strong that we ran
in-shore, anchored, and spent the night there. Most of the crew and some
of the passengers sat up most of the night gambling, which surely did
not look as if their virtue was quite the size of a mountain, and
indulged in some violent disputes. Their playing-cards were more
elaborate than ours, having many characters and devices upon them, but
not a fourth of the size. Being scarcely half an inch broad, though
about the same length as ours, and with more distinctive marks, they
were held and handled with much greater ease. Instead of being dealt
out, they were laid down on their faces between the players, and each
man helped himself in order.
The Kup-shui-moon is a great place for pirates, and as I was courting
sleep some of the passengers were discussing the probability of our
being taken by them, and hung up by the thumbs and great toes to make us
send for an outrageous ransom. They did not use _Hai traák_, the Chinese
word for “sea-robbers,” but _Pi-long_, which is a Chinesified form of
the English word “pirate,” and _La-lì-loong_, which is doubtless their
form of the Portuguese word _ladrone_. Like the Italians with their
_bifstecca_ for our abrupt “beefsteak,” the Chinese, when they adopt or
use European words, throw them into an extended mellifluous form, in
which it is difficult to recognise the original sound. _La-lì-loong_ is
a good illustration of this, and so also is _pe-lan-dia_, by which they
mean “brandy.” The estuary of the Pearl river and the neighbouring coast
have long been famous for pirates, and the passengers were not without
some cause of apprehension. I have seen these professional pirate junks
watching in the Kup-shui-moon at one time, and only a few mails ago
there came out accounts of an attempt to take an English steamer in or
close to it. Not less than their names, _Pi-long_ and _La-lì-loong_, the
pirates of China are a result of foreign contact, and as yet give no
signs of diminishing either in numbers or in power.
However, no sea-robbers disturbed our repose. Next morning I found we
had passed the strait, and were drawing under the shadow of Victoria
Peak.
MARRIAGE BELLS.
The British nation has just had one of its grand spontaneous holidays—a
holiday so universal and unanimous that imagination is at a loss where
to find that surprised and admiring spectator whose supposed presence
heightens ordinary festivities by giving the revellers a welcome
opportunity of explaining what it is all about. There is not a peasant
nor a babe within the three kingdoms which has not had his or its share
in the universal celebration, and is not as well aware as we are what
the reason is, or why every sleeper in England was roused on this chill
Tuesday morning by the clangour of joy-bells and irregular (alas! often
thrice irregular) dropping of the intermittent _feu-de-joie_, with which
every band of Volunteers in every village, not to speak of great guns
and formal salutes, has vindicated its British rights—every man for
himself—to honour the day. We are known as a silent nation in most
circumstances, and a nation grave, sober-minded, not enthusiastic; yet,
barring mountains and moors, there is not a square mile of British soil
in any of the three kingdoms in which the ringing of joyful bells, the
cheers of joyful voices, have not been the predominating sound from
earliest dawn of this March morning. Labour has suspended every exertion
but that emulation of who shall shout the loudest and rejoice the most
heartily. If there was any compulsion in the holiday, it was a pressure
used by the people upon a Government which has other things to do than
invent or embellish festivals. We have insisted upon our day’s
pleasuring. We have borne all the necessary expenses, and taken all the
inevitable trouble. Is it sympathy, loyalty, national pride? or what is
it? It is something embracing all, yet more simple, more comprehensive,
more spontaneous than either: it is a real personal joy which we have
been celebrating—the first great personal event in the young life which
belongs to us, and which we delight to honour. The Son of England
receives his bride in the sight of no limited company, however
distinguished, but of the entire nation, which rejoices with him and
over him without a dissentient or discontented voice. Our sentiments
towards him are of no secondary description. It is our wedding, and this
great nation is his father’s house.
His father’s house—not now is the time to enlarge upon these words, nor
the suggestions of most tender sadness, the subduing Lenten shadow upon
the general joy which they convey, and which is in everybody’s mind. It
is the house of his Mother whom her people have come to serve, not with
ordinary tributes of loyalty, but with intuitions of love. England has
learned to know, not what custom exacts or duty requires towards her
Royal Mistress, but, with a certain tender devotion which perhaps a
nation can bear only to a woman, to follow the thoughts, the wishes, the
inclinations of HER QUEEN. Something has come to pass of which
constitutional monarchy, popular freedom, just laws, offer no sufficient
explanation. The country is at one with the Sovereign. A union so
perfect has come about by degrees, as was natural; and the heart of the
race which expanded to her in natural sympathy, when, young and
inexperienced, she ascended the throne, has quickened gradually into a
warmer universal sentiment than perhaps has ever been felt for a
monarch. We use the ancient hyperboles of loyalty with calmness in this
island, knowing that they rather fall short of the fact than exceed it.
It is barely truth to say that any trouble or distress of Hers affects
her humble subjects in a degree only less acute than their own personal
afflictions; and that never neighbour was wept over with a truer heart
in the day of her calamity than was the Queen in hers by every soul of
her subjects, great and small. Intense sorrow cannot dwell long in the
universal bosom; but the country, not contented with rendering its
fullest tribute of grief for the lost, has dedicated many an occasional
outbreak of tears through all these months to that unaccustomed cloud
which veiled the royal house. And now it is spring, and the purest
abstract type of joy—young love and marriage—comes with strange yet
sweet significance in Lent, to open, as we all hope, a new chapter in
that household history in which we are so much concerned. With all the
natural force of revulsion out of mourning, with all the natural
sympathy for that visible representation of happiness in which men and
women can never refuse to be interested, there has mingled, above all, a
wistful national longing “to please the Queen.” Curiosity and interest
were doubtless strongly excited by the coming of the bride—but not for
the fair Danish Princess alone would London have built itself anew in
walls of human faces, and an entire community expended a day of its most
valuable time for one momentary glimpse of the sweet girlish countenance
on which life as yet has had time to write nothing but hope and beauty.
The sentiment of that wonderful reception was but a subtle echo of our
Lady’s wish, lovingly carried out by the nation, which is her Knight as
well as Subject. To hide our dingy London houses, we could not resort to
the effective tricks with which skilful French hands can make impromptu
marble and gold: but we did what art and genius could never attempt to
do—what nothing but love could accomplish; we draped and festooned and
clustered over every shabby line of architecture with a living
illumination of English faces, all glowing and eager not only to see the
new-comer, but to show the new-comer, what no words could ever tell her,
that she came welcome as a daughter to that heart of England in which,
without any doubt or controversy, the Mother-Monarch held a place more
absolute than could be conquered by might or won by fame. Let us not
attempt to read moral lessons to the princely lovers, who, it is to be
hoped, were thinking of something else than moralities in that moment of
their meeting, and were for the time inaccessible to instruction; but
without any moral meaning, the sentiment which swayed the enthusiastic
multitude on the day of the Princess Alexandra’s arrival was more like
that of a vast household, acting upon the personal wish of its head,
than a national demonstration coldly planned by official hands. The
Queen, who sat at her palace window in the soft-falling twilight,
looking out like any tender mother for the coming of her son and his
bride, till the darkness hid her from the spectators outside, gave the
last climax of truth and tenderness to that welcome, which was no affair
of ceremony, but a genuine universal utterance of the unanimous heart.
Loyalty seems an inherent quality in our race; but it has been a loyalty
of sections up to the present time, whenever it has been at all fervent
or passionate. It has been reserved for Queen Victoria to make of it a
sentiment as warm as in days of tumult, as broad as in times of peace.
So thoroughly has she conquered the heart of the nation, that it seems
about time to give up explaining why. To those who have been born under
her rule, and even to her own contemporaries, a pure Court and a
spotless royal life appear no exceptional glories, but the natural and
blessed order of things; and we love her, not consciously because of her
goodness, but only for love’s own royal reason, because we love her.
Nothing can happen of any moment in those royal rooms where so very
small a number of her people can ever dream of entering as guests,
without moving the entire mass of her people with a sentiment only
second, as we have already said, to immediate personal joy or grief. It
is this alone that can explain the extraordinary rejoicings of this day.
We keep the feast not by sympathy in another’s joy, but by positive
appropriation of a joy which is our own. The wedding has, in fact, been
celebrated in the presence of all England, with unanimous consent and
acclamation of the same. With blessings and tears, with immeasurable
good wishes, hopes, and joyful auguries, we have waited at the princely
gates to send the Bride and Bridegroom upon their way. Speak it in
audible words, oh Princes and Poets! Echo it in mighty tones of power,
oh awful cannons and voices of war, which deal no death in
England,—sound it forth over all the world and space in inarticulate
murmurous thunders, oh unanimous People! Let the Mother smile among her
tears to hear how every faithful soul of her true subjects honours her
children; and then let there be silence in the midst of all—silence one
moment, and no more, for the missing Voice which would have made the joy
too perfect—
“Nor count me all to blame, if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance among the rest,
And though in silence wishing joy.”
* * * * *
And now the thing we wish for most to complete our rejoicing is, if we
could but have some spectator worthy the sight, to see all our great
towns blazing up to heaven, and every village glimmering over “beneath
its little lot of stars,” with all the lights it can gather. A group of
sympathetic angels fanning the solemn airs of night with grand expanded
wing and flowing garments, watching the great and strange marvel of a
nation wild with joy, would be pleasant to think of at this moment.
Perhaps to such watchers, lingering on cloudy mountain heights above us,
the hamlets shining like so many glow-worms all over the dewy darkling
country would be the sweetest sight. London, glowing in a lurid blaze
into the night, doing all that is in her to give splendour to the
darkness; Edinburgh, more gloriously resplendent, with valleys and hills
of fire, improvising a drama of illumination with lyric responses and
choral outbursts of sweet light, the emblem of joy, are but the centres
of the scene. Here, too, past our village windows, comes the blaze of
torches, held high in unseen hands, moving in a picturesque uncertain
line between the silent bewildered trees: though nobody wits of us,
hidden in the night, that is no reason why we should stifle the joy in
our hearts on this night of the wedding. Windsor itself did not begin to
thrill with bells earlier than we; and even Edinburgh will have
commenced to fade slowly out of the enchanted air into the common
slumber ere we have exhausted all those devious rockets which startle
the darkness and the dews. Nor we only, but every congregation of
cottages, every cluster of humble roofs, wherever a church-spire
penetrates the air, wherever there is window to light or bell to ring.
Bear us witness, dear wondering angels! Far off by the silent inland
rivers, deep under the shadows of the hills, perched upon rocky points
and coves by the sea, lying low upon the dewy plains, is there a village
over all the island that has not lighted a joyous blaze for love of its
Queen, and in honour of the Bride? Health, joy, prosperity, and increase
to our Prince and Princess! If they can ever be happier than at this
sweet moment, crowned by Love and Youth with that joy which human
imagination has everywhere concluded the height of human blessedness,
let the heavens advance them speedily to yet a sweeter glory. If there
were any better bliss we could win for them or purchase for them, the
world well knows we would spare no pains; but as it is, all that loyal
hearts can do is to wish, with hearty love and acclaim, every joy short
of heaven to the young heirs of all our hopes; but not that for many a
happy year.
And now the holiday is over, and the stars begin to show softly over the
waning lights and voices fatigued with joy. Is there, perhaps, a Watcher
in the royal chambers who weeps in the night when all is over, and God
alone sees Her solitude—Our Queen! There is not a woman in England but
thinks of you—not a man but would purchase comfort for your heart by any
deed that man could do. Since the marriage-feast was spread for _you_,
Liege Lady and Sovereign, what have not Life and Time done for all of
us—what happiness, what anguish, what births and deaths! Now is it over,
the joy of life?—but still remain tender love and honour, dear duty and
labour, God and the children, the heirs of a new life. Oh, tranquil
heavens! stoop softly over the widowed and the wedded—over us who have
had, and they who have, the perfection and the joy! Enough for all of
us, that over all is the Common Father, whose love can accomplish
nothing which is not Well.
_10th March 1863._
_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
2. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 93, NO. 570, APRIL, 1863 ***
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