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Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851

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Title: Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851

Author: Various


        
Release date: March 1, 2010 [eBook #31455]
                Most recently updated: January 6, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, NO. 8, JANUARY, 1851 ***




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Transcriber's note


Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer
errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other
inconsistencies are as in the original.




HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. VIII.--JANUARY, 1851.--VOL. II.




[Illustration: Robert Southey]

PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND HABITS OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

BY HIS SON.[1]


Being the youngest of all his children, I had not the privilege of
knowing my father in his best and most joyous years, nor of remembering
Greta Hall when the happiness of its circle was unbroken. Much labor and
anxiety, and many sorrows, had passed over him; and although his natural
buoyancy of spirit had not departed, it was greatly subdued, and I
chiefly remember its gradual diminution from year to year.

In appearance he was certainly a very striking looking person, and in
early days he had by many been considered almost the _beau idéal_ of a
poet. Mr. Cottle describes him at the age of twenty-two as "tall,
dignified, possessing great suavity of manners, an eye piercing, a
countenance full of genius, kindliness, and intelligence;" and he
continues, "I had read so much of poetry, and sympathized so much with
poets in all their eccentricities and vicissitudes, that to see before
me the realization of a character which in the abstract so much absorbed
my regards, gave me a degree of satisfaction which it would be difficult
to express." Eighteen years later Lord Byron calls him a prepossessing
looking person, and, with his usual admixture of satire, says, "To have
his head and shoulders I would almost have written his Sapphics;" and
elsewhere he speaks of his appearance as "Epic," an expression which may
be either a sneer or a compliment.

His forehead was very broad; his height was five feet eleven inches; his
complexion rather dark, the eyebrows large and arched, the eye well
shaped and dark brown, the mouth somewhat prominent, muscular, and very
variously expressive, the chin small in proportion to the upper features
of his face. He always, while in Keswick, wore a cap in his walks, and
partly from habit, partly from the make of his head and shoulders, we
never thought he looked well or like himself in a hat. He was of a very
spare frame, but of great activity, and not showing any appearance of a
weak constitution.

My father's countenance, like his character, seems to have softened down
from a certain wildness of expression to a more sober and thoughtful
cast; and many thought him a handsomer man in age than in youth; his eye
retaining always its brilliancy, and his countenance its play of
expression.

The reader will remember his Republican independency when an
under-graduate at Oxford, in rebelling against the supremacy of the
college barber. Though he did not continue to let his hair hang down on
his shoulders according to the whim of his youthful days, yet he always
wore a greater quantity than is usual; and once, on his arrival in town,
Chantrey's first greetings to him were accompanied with an injunction to
go and get his hair cut. When I first remember it, it was turning from a
rich brown to the steel shade, whence it rapidly became almost snowy
white, losing none of its remarkable thickness, and clustering in
abundant curls over his massive brow.

For the following remarks on his general bearing and habits of
conversation I am indebted to a friend:

"The characteristics of his manner, as of his appearance, were lightness
and strength, an easy and happy composure as the accustomed mood, with
much mobility at the same time, so that he could be readily excited into
any degree of animation in discourse, speaking, if the subject moved him
much, with extraordinary fire and force, though always in light, laconic
sentences. When so moved, the fingers of his right hand often rested
against his mouth, and quivered through nervous susceptibility. But,
excitable as he was in conversation, he was never angry or irritable;
nor can there be any greater mistake concerning him than that into which
some persons have fallen, when they have inferred, from the fiery
vehemence with which he could give utterance to moral anger in verse or
prose, that he was personally ill-tempered or irascible. He was, in
truth, a man whom it was hardly possible to quarrel with or offend
personally and face to face; and in his writings, even on public
subjects in which his feelings were strongly engaged, he will be
observed to have always dealt tenderly with those whom he had once seen
and spoken to, unless, indeed, personally and grossly assailed by them.
He said of himself that he was tolerant of persons, though intolerant of
opinions. But in oral intercourse the toleration of persons was so much
the stronger, that the intolerance of opinions was not to be perceived;
and, indeed, it was only in regard to opinions of a pernicious moral
tendency that it was ever felt.

"He was averse from argumentation, and would commonly quit a subject
when it was passing into that shape, with a quiet and good-humored
indication of the view in which he rested. He talked most and with most
interest about books and about public affairs; less, indeed hardly at
all, about the characters and qualities of men in private life. In the
society of strangers or of acquaintances, he seemed to take more
interest in the subjects spoken of than in the persons present, his
manner being that of natural courtesy and general benevolence without
distinction of individuals. Had there been some tincture of social
vanity in him, perhaps he would have been brought into closer relations
with those whom he met in society; but, though invariably kind and
careful of their feelings, he was indifferent to the manner in which
they regarded him, or (as the phrase is) to his _effect_ in society; and
they might, perhaps, be conscious that the kindness they received was
what flowed naturally and inevitably to all, that they had nothing to
give in return which was of value to him, and that no individual
relations were established.

"In conversation with intimate friends he would sometimes express, half
humorously, a cordial commendation of some production of his own,
knowing that with them he could afford it, and that to those who knew
him well it was well known that there was no vanity in him. But such
commendations, though light and humorous, were perfectly sincere; for he
both possessed and cherished the power of finding enjoyment and
satisfaction wherever it was to be found--in his own books, in the books
of his friends, and in all books whatsoever that were not morally
tainted or absolutely barren."

His course of life was the most regular and simple possible. When it is
said that breakfast was at nine, after a little reading,[2] dinner at
four, tea at six, supper at half-past nine, and the intervals filled up
with reading or writing, except that he regularly walked between two and
four, and took a short sleep before tea, the outline of his day during
those long seasons when he was in full work will have been given. After
supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over, though he
generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was open to
enter into conversation, to amuse and to be amused. It was on such times
that the most pleasant fireside chattings, and the most interesting
stories came forth; and, indeed, it was at such a time (though long
before my day) that The Doctor was originated, as may be seen by the
beginning of that work and the Preface to the new edition.
Notwithstanding that the very mention of "my glass of punch," the one,
temperate, never exceeded glass of punch, may be a stumbling-block to
some of my readers, I am constrained, by the very love of the perfect
picture which the first lines of The Doctor convey of the conclusion of
his evening, to transcribe them in this place. It was written but for a
few, otherwise The Doctor would have been no secret at all; but those
few who knew him in his home will see his very look while they re-peruse
it, and will recall the well-known sound:

"I was in the fourth night of the story of the Doctor and his horse, and
had broken it off, not, like Scheherazade, because it was time to get
up, but because it was time to go to bed. It was at thirty-five minutes
after ten o'clock on the 20th of July, in the year of our Lord 1813. I
finished my glass of punch, tinkled the spoon against its side, as if
making music to my own meditations, and having fixed my eyes upon the
Bhow Begum, who was sitting opposite to me at the head of her own table,
I said, 'It ought to be written in a book.'"

This scene took place at the table of the Bhow Begum,[3] but it may
easily be transferred to his ordinary room, where he sat after supper in
one corner, with the fire on his left hand and a small table on his
right, looking on at his family circle in front of him.

I have said before, as indeed his own letters have abundantly shown,
that he was a most thoroughly domestic man, in that his whole pleasure
and happiness was centred in his home; but yet, from the course of his
pursuits, his family necessarily saw but little of him. He could not,
however he might wish it, join the summer evening walk, or make one of
the circle round the winter hearth, or even spare time for conversation
after the family meals (except during the brief space I have just been
speaking of). Every day, every hour had its allotted employment; always
were there engagements to publishers imperatively requiring punctual
fulfillment; always the current expenses of a large household to take
anxious thoughts for: he had no crops growing while he was idle. "My
ways," he used to say, "are as broad as the king's high road, and my
means lie in an ink-stand."

Yet, notwithstanding the value which every moment of his time thus
necessarily bore, unlike most literary men, he was never ruffled in the
slightest degree by the interruptions of his family, even on the most
trivial occasions; the book or the pen was ever laid down with a smile,
and he was ready to answer any question, or to enter with youthful
readiness into any temporary topic of amusement or interest.

In earlier years he spoke of himself as ill calculated for general
society, from a habit of uttering single significant sentences, which,
from being delivered without any qualifying clauses, bore more meaning
upon their surface than he intended, and through which his real opinions
and feelings were often misunderstood. This habit, as far as my own
observation went, though it was sometimes apparent, he had materially
checked in later life, and in large parties he was usually inclined to
be silent, rarely joining in general conversation. But he was very
different when with only one or two companions; and to those strangers,
who came to him with letters of introduction, he was both extremely
courteous in manner, and frank and pleasant in conversation, and to his
intimates no one could have been more wholly unreserved, more disposed
to give and receive pleasure, or more ready to pour forth his vast
stores of information upon almost every subject.

I might go on here, and enter more at length into details of his
personal character, but the task is too difficult a one, and is perhaps,
after all, better left unattempted. A most intimate and highly-valued
friend of my father's, whom I wished to have supplied me with some
passages on these points, remarks very justly, that "any portraiture of
him, by the pen as by the pencil, will fall so far short both of the
truth and the ideal which the readers of his poetry and his letters will
have formed for themselves, that they would be worse than superfluous."
And, indeed, perhaps I have already said too much. I can not, however,
resist quoting here some lines by the friend above alluded to, which
describe admirably in brief my father's whole character:

                                "Two friends
   Lent me a further light, whose equal hate
   On all unwholesome sentiment attends,
   Nor whom may genius charm where heart infirm attends.

   "In all things else contrarious were these two:
   The one a man upon whose laureled brow
   Gray hairs were growing! glory ever new
   Shall circle him in after years as now;
   For spent detraction may not disavow
   The world of knowledge with the wit combined,
   The elastic force no burden e'er could bow,
   The various talents and the single mind,
   Which give him moral power and mastery o'er mankind.

   "His sixty summers--what are they in truth?
   By Providence peculiarly blest,
   With him the strong hilarity of youth
   Abides, despite gray hairs, a constant guest,
   His sun has veered a point toward the west,
   But light as dawn his heart is glowing yet--
   That heart the simplest, gentlest, kindliest, best,
   Where truth and manly tenderness are met
   With faith and heavenward hope, the suns that never set."[4]

What further I will venture to say relates chiefly to the external
circumstances of his life at Keswick.

His greatest relaxation was in a mountain excursion or a pic-nic by the
side of one of the lakes, tarns, or streams; and these parties, of which
he was the life and soul, will long live in the recollections of those
who shared them. An excellent pedestrian (thinking little of a walk of
twenty-five miles when upward of sixty), he usually headed the
"infantry" on these occasions, looking on those gentlemen as idle
mortals who indulged in the luxury of a mountain pony; feeling very
differently in the bracing air of Cumberland to what he did in Spain in
1800, when he delighted in being "gloriously lazy," in "sitting sideways
upon an ass," and having even a boy to "propel" the burro.

Upon first coming down to the Lakes he rather undervalued the pleasures
of an al-fresco repast, preferring chairs and tables to the greensward
of the mountains, or the moss-grown masses of rock by the lake shore;
but these were probably the impressions of a cold, wet summer, and
having soon learned thoroughly to appreciate these pleasures, he had his
various chosen places which he thought it a sort of duty annually to
revisit. Of these I will name a few, as giving them, perhaps, an added
interest to some future tourists. The summit of Skiddaw he regularly
visited, often three or four times in a summer, but the view thence was
not one he greatly admired. Sea-Fell and Helvellyn he ranked much
higher, but on account of their distance did not often reach. Saddleback
and Causey Pike, two mountains rarely ascended by tourists, were great
favorites with him, and were the summits most frequently chosen for a
grand expedition; and the two tarns upon Saddleback, Threlkeld and
Bowscale tarns, were among the spots he thought most remarkable for
grand and lonely beauty. This, too, was ground rendered more than
commonly interesting, by having been the scenes of the childhood and
early life of Clifford the Shepherd Lord. The rocky streams of
Borrowdale, high up beyond Stonethwaite and Seathwaite, were also places
often visited, especially one beautiful spot, where the river makes a
sharp bend at the foot of Eagle Crag. The pass of Honistar Crag, leading
from Buttermere to Borrowdale, furnished a longer excursion, which was
occasionally taken with a sort of rustic pomp in the rough market carts
of the country, before the cars which are now so generally used had
become common, or been permitted by their owners to travel that worst of
all roads. Occasionally there were grand meetings with Mr. Wordsworth,
and his family and friends, at Leatheswater (or Thirlmere), a point
about half way between Keswick and Rydal; and here as many as fifty
persons have sometimes met together from both sides of the country.
These were days of great enjoyment, not to be forgotten.

[Illustration: VALE OF WATENLATH.]

There was also an infinite variety of long walks, of which he could take
advantage when opportunity served, without the preparation and trouble
of a preconcerted expedition: several of these are alluded to in his
Colloquies. The circuit formed by passing behind Barrow and Lodore to
the vale of Watenlath, placed up high among the hills, with its own
little lake and village, and the rugged path leading thence down to
Borrowdale, was one of the walks he most admired. The beautiful vale of
St. Johns, with its "Castle Rock" and picturesquely placed little
church, was another favorite walk; and there were a number of springs of
unusual copiousness situated near what had been apparently a deserted,
and now ruined village, where he used to take luncheon. The rocky bed of
the little stream at the foot of Causey Pike was a spot he loved to rest
at; and the deep pools of the stream that flows down the adjoining
valley of New Lands--

   "Whose pure and chrysolite waters
   Flow o'er a schistose bed,"

formed one of his favorite resorts for bathing.

Yet these excursions, although for a few years he still continued to
enjoy them, began in later life to wear to him something of a melancholy
aspect. So many friends were dead who had formerly shared them, and his
own domestic losses were but too vividly called to mind with the
remembrance of former days of enjoyment, the very grandeur of the
scenery around many of the chosen places, and the unchanging features of
the "everlasting hills," brought back forcibly sad memories, and these
parties became in time so painful that it was with difficulty he could
be prevailed upon to join in them.

He concealed, indeed, as the reader has seen, beneath a reserved manner,
a most acutely sensitive mind, and a warmth and kindliness of feeling
which was only understood by few, indeed, perhaps, not thoroughly by
any. He said, speaking of the death of his uncle, Mr. Hill, that one of
the sources of consolation to him was the thought that perhaps the
departed might then be conscious how truly he had loved and honored him;
and I believe the depth of his affection and the warmth of his
friendship was known to none but himself. On one particular point I
remember his often regretting his constitutional bashfulness and
reserve; and that was, because, added to his retired life and the nature
of his pursuits, it prevented him from knowing any thing of the persons
among whom he lived. Long as he had resided at Keswick, I do not think
there were twenty persons in the lower class whom he knew by sight; and
though this was in some measure owing to a slight degree of
short-sightedness, which, contrary to what is usual, came on in later
life, yet I have heard him often lament it as not being what he thought
right; and after slightly returning the salutation of some passer by, he
would again mechanically lift his cap as he heard some well-known name
in reply to his inquiries, and look back with regret that the greeting
had not been more cordial. With those persons who were occasionally
employed about the house he was most familiarly friendly, and these
regarded him with a degree of affectionate reverence that could not be
surpassed.

It may perhaps be expected by some readers that a more accurate account
of my father's income should be given than has yet appeared; but this is
not an easy matter, from its extreme variableness, and this it was that
constituted a continual source of uneasiness both to others and to
himself, rarely as he acknowledged it. A common error has been to speak
of him as one to whom literature has been a mine of wealth. That his
political opponents should do this is not so strange; but even Charles
Lamb, who, if he had thought a little, would hardly have written so
rashly, says, in a letter to Bernard Barton, recently published, that
"Southey has made a fortune by book drudgery." What sort of a "fortune"
that was which never once permitted him to have one year's income
beforehand, and compelled him almost always to forestall the profit of
his new works, the reader may imagine.

His only certain source of income[5] was his pension, from which he
received £145, and the Laureateship, which was £90: the larger portion
of these two sums, however, went to the payment of his life-insurance,
so that not more than £100 could be calculated upon as available, and
the Quarterly Review was therefore for many years his chief means of
support. He received latterly £100 for an article, and commonly
furnished one for each number. What more was needful had to be made up
by his other works, which as they were always published upon the terms
of the publisher taking the risk and sharing the profits, produced him
but little, considering the length of time they were often in
preparation, and as he was constantly adding new purchases to his
library, but little was to be reckoned upon this account. For the
Peninsular War he received £1000, but the copyright remained the
property of the publisher.

With regard to his mode of life, although it was as simple and
inexpensive as possible, his expenditure was with difficulty kept within
his income, though he had indeed a most faithful helpmate, who combined
with a wise and careful economy a liberality equal to his own in any
case of distress. One reason for this difficulty was, that considerable
sums were, not now and then, but regularly, drawn from him by his less
successful relatives.

The house which for so many years was his residence at Keswick, though
well situated both for convenience and for beauty of prospect, was
unattractive in external appearance, and to most families would have
been an undesirable residence. Having originally been two houses,
afterward thrown together, it consisted of a good many small rooms,
connected by long passages, all of which with great ingenuity he made
available for holding books, with which indeed the house was lined from
top to bottom. His own sitting-room, which was the largest in the house,
was filled with the handsomest of them, arranged with much taste,
according to his own fashion, with due regard to size, color, and
condition; and he used to contemplate these, his carefully accumulated
and much prized treasures, with even more pleasure and pride than the
greatest connoisseur his finest specimens of the old masters: and
justly, for they were both the necessaries and the luxuries of life to
him; both the very instruments whereby he won, hardly enough, his daily
bread, and the source of all his pleasures and recreations--the pride of
his eyes and the joy of his heart.

His Spanish and Portuguese collection, which at one time was one of the
best, if not itself the best to be found in the possession of any
private individual, was the most highly-prized portion of his library.
It had been commenced by his uncle, Mr. Hill, long prior to my father's
first visit to Lisbon; and having originated in the love Mr. Hill
himself had for the literature of those countries, it was carried
forward with more ardor when he found that his nephew's taste and
abilities were likely to turn it to good account. It comprised a
considerable number of manuscripts, some of them copied by Mr. Hill from
rare MSS. in private and convent libraries.

Many of these old books being in vellum or parchment bindings, he had
taken much pains to render them ornamental portions of the furniture of
his shelves. His brother Thomas was skillful in calligraphy; and by his
assistance their backs were painted with some bright color, and upon it
the title placed lengthwise in large gold letters of the old English
type. Any one who had visited his library will remember the
tastefully-arranged pyramids of these curious-looking books.

Another fancy of his was to have all those books of lesser value, which
had become ragged and dirty, covered, or rather bound, in colored cotton
prints, for the sake of making them clean and respectable in their
appearance, it being impossible to afford the cost of having so many put
into better bindings.

Of this task his daughters, aided by any female friends who might be
staying with them, were the performers; and not fewer than from 1200 to
1400 volumes were so bound by them at different times, filling
completely one room, which he designated as the Cottonian library. With
this work he was much interested and amused, as the ladies would often
suit the pattern to the contents, clothing a Quaker work or a book of
sermons in sober drab, poetry in some flowery design, and sometimes
contriving a sly piece of satire at the contents of some well-known
author by their choice of its covering. One considerable convenience
attended this eccentric mode of binding--the book became as well known
by its dress as by its contents, and much more easily found.

With respect to his mode of acquiring and arranging the contents of a
book, it was somewhat peculiar. He was as rapid a reader as could be
conceived, having the power of perceiving by a glance down the page
whether it contained any thing which he was likely to make use of--a
slip of paper lay on his desk, and was used as a marker, and with a
slight penciled S he would note the passage, put a reference on the
paper, with some brief note of the subject, which he could transfer to
his note-book, and in the course of a few hours he had classified and
arranged every thing in the work which it was likely he would ever want.
It was thus, with a remarkable memory (not so much for the facts or
passages themselves, but for their existence and the authors that
contained them), and with this kind of index, both to it and them, that
he had at hand a command of materials for whatever subject he was
employed upon, which has been truly said to be "unequaled."

Many of the choicest passages he would transcribe himself at odds and
ends of times, or employ one of his family to transcribe for him; and
these are the extracts which form his "Commonplace Book," recently
published; but those of less importance he had thus within reach in case
he wished to avail himself of them. The quickness with which this was
done was very remarkable. I have often known him receive a parcel of
books one afternoon, and the next have found his mark throughout perhaps
two or three different volumes; yet, if a work took his attention
particularly, he was not rapid in its perusal; and on some authors, such
as the Old Divines, he "fed," as he expressed it, slowly and carefully,
dwelling on the page and taking in its contents deeply and
deliberately--like an epicure with his "wine searching the subtle
flavor."

His library at his death consisted of about 14,000 volumes; probably the
largest number of books ever collected by a person of such limited
means. Among these he found most of the materials for all he did, and
almost all he wished to do; and though sometimes he lamented that his
collection was not a larger one, it is probable that it was more to his
advantage that it was in some degree limited. As it was, he collected an
infinitely greater quantity of materials for every subject he was
employed upon than ever he made use of, and his published Notes give
some idea, though an inadequate one, of the vast stores he thus
accumulated.

On this subject he writes to his cousin, Herbert Hill, at that time one
of the librarians of the "Bodleian:"--"When I was at the British Museum
the other day, walking through the rooms with Carey, I felt that to have
lived in that library, or in such a one, would have rendered me
perfectly useless, even if it had not made me mad. The sight of such
countless volumes made me feel how impossible it would be to pursue any
subject through all the investigations into which it would lead me, and
that therefore I should either lose myself in the vain pursuit, or give
up in despair, and read for the future with no other object than that of
immediate gratification. This was an additional reason for being
thankful for my own lot, aware as I am that I am always tempted to
pursue a train of inquiry too far."

The reader need not be told that the sorrows and anxieties of the last
few years of my father's life had produced, as might be expected, a very
injurious effect upon his constitution, both as to body and mind.
Acutely sensitive by nature, deep and strong in his affections, and
highly predisposed to nervous disease, he had felt the sad affliction
which had darkened his latter years far more keenly than any ordinary
observer would have supposed, or than even appears in his letters. He
had, indeed, then, as he expressed himself in his letter declining the
Baronetcy, been "shaken at the root;" and while we must not forget the
more than forty years of incessant mental application which he had
passed through, it was this stroke of calamity which most probably
greatly hastened the coming of the evil day, if it was not altogether
the cause of it, and which rapidly brought on that overclouding of the
intellect which soon unequivocally manifested itself.

This, indeed, in its first approaches, had been so gradual as to have
almost escaped notice; and it was not until after the sad truth was
fully ascertained, that indications of failure (some of which I have
already alluded to) which had appeared some time previously, were called
to mind. A loss of memory on certain points, a lessening acuteness of
the perceptive faculties, an occasional irritability (wholly unknown in
him before); a confusion of time, place, and person; the losing his way
in well-known places--all were remembered as having taken place, when
the melancholy fact had become too evident that the powers of his mind
were irreparably weakened.

On his way home in the year 1839, he passed a few days in London, and
then his friends plainly saw, what, from the altered manner of the very
few and brief letters he had latterly written, they had already feared,
that he had so failed as to have lost much of the vigor and activity of
his faculties. The impressions of one of his most intimate friends, as
conveyed at the time by letter, may fitly be quoted here. "I have just
come home from a visit which affected me deeply.... It was to Southey,
who arrived in town to-day from Hampshire with his wife.... He is (I
fear) much altered. The animation and peculiar clearness of his mind
quite gone, except a gleam or two now and then. What he said was much in
the spirit of his former mind as far as the matter and meaning went, but
the tone of strength and elasticity was wanting. The appearance was that
of a placid languor, sometimes approaching to torpor, but not otherwise
than cheerful. He is thin and shrunk in person, and that extraordinary
face of his has no longer the fire and strength it used to have, though
the singular cast of the features, and the habitual expressions, make it
still a most remarkable phenomenon. Upon the whole, I came away with a
troubled heart." ... After a brief account of the great trials of my
father's late years, the writer continues: "He has been living since his
marriage in Hampshire, where he has not had the aid of his old habits
and accustomed books to methodize his mind. All this considered, I think
we may hope that a year or two of quiet living at his own home may
restore him. His easy, cheerful temperament will be greatly in his
favor. You must help me to hope this, for I could not bear to think of
the decay of that great mind and noble nature--at least not of its
premature decay. Pray that this may be averted, as I have this
night."[6]

On the following day the same friend writes: "I think I am a little
relieved about Southey to-day. I have seen him three times in the course
of the day, and on each occasion he was so easy and cheerful that I
should have said his manner and conversation did not differ, in the most
part, from what it would have been in former days, if he had happened to
be very tired. I say for the most part only, though, for there was once
an obvious confusion of ideas. He lost himself for a moment; he was
conscious of it, and an expression passed over his countenance which was
exceedingly touching--an expression of pain and also of resignation. I
am glad to learn from his brother that he is aware of his altered
condition, and speaks of it openly. This gives a better aspect to the
case than if he could believe that nothing was the matter with him.
Another favorable circumstance is, that he will deal with himself wisely
and patiently. The charm of his manner is perhaps even enhanced at
present (at least when one knows the circumstances), by the gentleness
and patience which pervade it. His mind is beautiful even in its
debility."

Much of my father's failure in its early stages was at first ascribed by
those anxiously watching him, to repeated attacks of the influenza--at
that time a prevailing epidemic--from which he had suffered greatly, and
to which he attributed his own feelings of weakness; but alas! the
weakness he felt was as much mental as bodily (though he had certainly
declined much in bodily strength), and after his return home it
gradually increased upon him. The uncertain step--the confused
manner--the eye once so keen and so intelligent, now either wandering
restlessly or fixed as it were in blank contemplation--all showed that
the over-wrought mind was worn out.

One of the plainest signs of this was the cessation of his accustomed
labors; but while doing nothing (with him how plain a proof that nothing
could be done), he would frequently anticipate a coming period of his
usual industry. His mind, while any spark of its reasoning powers
remained, was busy with its old day-dreams--the History of Portugal--the
History of the Monastic Orders--the Doctor--all were soon to be taken in
hand in earnest--all completed, and new works added to these.

For a considerable time after he had ceased to compose, he took pleasure
in reading, and the habit continued after the power of comprehension was
gone. His dearly-prized books, indeed, were a pleasure to him almost to
the end, and he would walk slowly round his library looking at them, and
taking them down mechanically.

In the earlier stages of his disorder (if the term may be fitly applied
to a case which was not a perversion of the faculties, but their decay)
he could still converse at times with much of his old liveliness and
energy. When the mind was, as it were, set going upon some familiar
subject, for a little time you could not perceive much failure; but if
the thread was broken, if it was a conversation in which new topics were
started, or if any argument was commenced, his powers failed him at
once, and a painful sense of this seemed to come over him for the
moment. His recollection first failed as to recent events, and his
thoughts appeared chiefly to dwell upon those long past, and as his mind
grew weaker, these recollections seemed to recede still farther back.
Names he could rarely remember, and more than once, when trying to
recall one which he felt he ought to know, I have seen him press his
hand upon his brow and sadly exclaim, "Memory! memory! where art thou
gone?"

But this failure altogether was so gradual, and at the same time so
complete, that I am inclined to hope and believe there was not on the
whole much painful consciousness of it; and certainly for more than a
year preceding his death, he passed his time as in a dream, with little,
if any knowledge of what went on around him.

One circumstance connected with the latter years of his life deserves to
be noticed as very singular. His hair, which previously was almost snowy
white, grew perceptibly darker, and I think, if any thing, increased in
thickness and a disposition to curl.

But it is time I drew a vail over these latter scenes. They are too
painful to dwell on.

   "A noble mind in sad decay,
   When baffled hope has died away,
   And life becomes one long distress
   In pitiable helplessness.
   Methinks 'tis like a ship on shore,
   That once defied the Atlantic's roar,
   And gallantly through gale and storm
   Hath ventured her majestic form;
   But now in stranded ruin laid,
   By winds and dashing seas decayed,
   Forgetful of her ocean reign,
   Must crumble into earth again."[7]

In some cases of this kind, toward the end, some glimmering of reason
re-appears, but this must be when the mind is obscured or upset, not, as
in this case, apparently worn out. The body gradually grew weaker, and
disorders appeared which the state of the patient rendered it almost
impossible to treat properly; and, after a short attack of fever, the
scene closed on the 21st of March, 1843, and a second time had we cause
to feel deeply thankful, when the change from life to death, or more
truly from death to life, took place.

It was a dark and stormy morning when he was borne to his last
resting-place, at the western end of the beautiful church-yard of
Crosthwaite. There lies his dear son Herbert--there his daughters Emma
and Isabel--there Edith, his faithful helpmate of forty years. But few
besides his own family and immediate neighbors followed his remains. His
only intimate friend within reach, Mr. Wordsworth, crossed the hills
that wild morning to be present.

Soon after my father's death, various steps were taken with a view to
erecting monuments to his memory; and considerable sums were quickly
subscribed for that purpose, the list including the names of many
persons, not only strangers to him personally, but also strongly opposed
to him in political opinion. The result was that three memorials were
erected. The first and principal one, a full length recumbent figure,
was executed by Lough, and placed in Crosthwaite church, and is
certainly an excellent likeness, as well as a most beautiful work of
art. The original intention and agreement was, that it should be in Caen
stone, but the sculptor, with characteristic liberality, executed it in
white marble, at a considerable sacrifice.

[Illustration: SOUTHEY'S TOMB.]

The following lines, by Mr. Wordsworth, are inscribed upon the base:

   "Ye vales and hills, whose beauty hither drew
   The poet's steps, and fixed him here; on you
   His eyes have closed; and ye loved books, no more
   Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
   To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown
   Adding immortal labors of his own--
   Whether he traced historic truth with zeal
   For the state's guidance or the church's weal,
   Or fancy disciplined by curious art
   Informed his pen, or wisdom of the heart,
   Or judgments sanctioned in the patriot's mind
   By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
   Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast
   Could private feelings meet in holier rest.
   His joys--his griefs--have vanished like a cloud
   From Skiddaw's top; but he to Heaven was vowed
   Through a life long and pure, and steadfast faith
   Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: From an unpublished chapter of the Life and Correspondence
of Robert Southey, now in press by Harper and Brothers.]

[Footnote 2: During the several years that he was partially employed
upon the Life of Dr. Bell, he devoted two hours before breakfast to it
in the summer, and as much time as there was daylight for, during the
winter months, that it might not interfere with the usual occupations of
the day. In all this time, however, he made but little progress in it;
partly from the nature of the materials, partly from the want of
sufficient interest in the subject.]

[Footnote 3: Miss Barker, the Senhora of earlier days, who was living at
that time in a house close to Greta Hall.]

[Footnote 4: Notes to Philip Van Artevelde, by Henry Taylor.]

[Footnote 5: I speak of a period prior to his receiving his last
pension, which was granted in 1835.]

[Footnote 6: August 24, 1839.]

[Footnote 7: Robert Montgomery. The fourth line is altered from the
original.]




[Illustration: MADAME CAMPAN.]

MADAME CAMPAN.[8]

Jane Louisa Henrietta Campan was born at Paris, 1752. She was the
daughter of M. Genet, first clerk in the office of the Minister of
Foreign Affairs. He was fond of literature, and communicated a taste for
it to his daughter, who early displayed considerable talents. She
acquired a knowledge of foreign languages, particularly the Italian and
English, and was distinguished for her skill in reading and recitation.
These acquisitions procured for her the place of reader to the French
princesses, daughters of Louis XV. On the marriage of Marie-Antoinette
to the Dauphin, afterward Louis XVI., Mademoiselle Genet was attached to
her suite, and continued, for twenty years, to occupy a situation about
her person.

Her general intelligence and talent for observation, enabled Madame
Campan, in the course of her service, to collect the materials for her
"Memoirs of the Private Life of the Queen of France," first published in
Paris, and translated and printed in London, 1823, in two volumes. This
work is not only interesting for the information it affords, but is also
very creditable to the literary talents of the authoress. Soon after the
appointment at court, Mademoiselle Genet was married to M. Campan, son
of the Secretary of the queen's closet. When Marie-Antoinette was made a
prisoner, Madame Campan begged to be permitted to accompany her royal
mistress, and share her imprisonment, which was refused. Madame Campan
was with the queen at the storming of the Tuilleries, on the 10th of
August, when she narrowly escaped with her life: and, under the rule of
Robespierre, she came near being sent to the guillotine. After the fall
of that tyrant, she retired to the country, and opened a private
seminary for young ladies, which she conducted with great success.
Josephine Beauharnais sent her daughter, Hortense, to the seminary of
Madame Campan. She had also the sisters of the emperor under her care.
In 1806, Napoleon founded the school of Ecouen, for the daughters and
sisters of the officers of the Legion of Honor, and appointed Madame
Campan to superintend it. This institution was suppressed at the
restoration of the Bourbons, and Madame Campan retired to Nantes, where
she partly prepared her "Memoirs," and other works. She died in 1822,
aged seventy. After her decease, her "Private Journal" was published;
also, "Familiar Letters to her Friends," and a work, which she
considered her most important one, entitled "Thoughts on Education." We
will give extracts from these works.


From the "Private Journal."

MESMER AND HIS MAGNETISM.

At the time when Mesmer made so much noise in Paris with his magnetism,
M. Campan, my husband, was his partisan, like almost every person who
moved in high life. To be magnetized was then a fashion; nay, it was
more, it was absolutely a rage. In the drawing-rooms, nothing was talked
of but the brilliant discovery. There was to be no more dying; people's
heads were turned, and their imaginations heated in the highest degree.
To accomplish this object, it was necessary to bewilder the
understanding; and Mesmer, with his singular language, produced that
effect. To put a stop to the fit of public insanity was the grand
difficulty; and it was proposed to have the secret purchased by the
court. Mesmer fixed his claims at a very extravagant rate. However, he
was offered fifty thousand crowns. By a singular chance, I was one day
led into the midst of the somnambulists. Such was the enthusiasm of the
spectators, that, in most of them, I could observe a wild rolling of the
eye, and a convulsed movement of the countenance. A stranger might have
fancied himself amidst the unfortunate patients of Charenton. Surprised
and shocked at seeing so many people almost in a state of delirium, I
withdrew, full of reflections on the scene which I had just witnessed.

It happened that about this time my husband was attacked with a
pulmonary disorder, and he desired that he might be conveyed to Mesmer's
house. Being introduced into the apartment occupied by M. Campan, I
asked the worker of miracles what treatment he proposed to adopt; he
very coolly replied, that to ensure a speedy and perfect cure, it would
be necessary to lay in the bed of the invalid, at his left side, one of
three things, namely, a young woman of brown complexion; a black hen; or
an empty bottle.

"Sir," said I, "if the choice be a matter of indifference, pray try the
empty bottle."

M. Campan's side grew worse; he experienced a difficulty of breathing
and a pain in his chest. All magnetic remedies that were employed
produced no effect. Perceiving his failure, Mesmer took advantage of the
periods of my absence to bleed and blister the patient. I was not
informed of what had been done until after M. Campan's recovery. Mesmer
was asked for a certificate, to prove that the patient had been cured by
means of magnetism only; and he gave it. Here was a trait of enthusiasm!
Truth was no longer respected. When I next presented myself to the queen
(Marie-Antoinette), their majesties asked what I thought of Mesmer's
discovery. I informed them of what had taken place, earnestly expressing
my indignation at the conduct of the barefaced quack. It was immediately
determined to have nothing more to do with him.


THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER'S VISIT TO MADAME CAMPAN'S SCHOOL.

The emperor inquired into the most minute particulars respecting the
establishment at Ecouen; and I felt great pleasure in answering his
questions. I recollect having dwelt on several points which appeared to
me very important, and which were in their spirit hostile to
aristocratical principles. For example, I informed his majesty that the
daughters of distinguished and wealthy individuals, and those of the
humble and obscure, were indiscriminately mingled together in the
establishment. If, said I, I were to observe the least pretension on
account of the rank or fortune of parents, I should immediately put an
end to it. The most perfect equality is preserved; distinction is
awarded only to merit and industry. The pupils are obliged to cut and
make all their own clothes. They are taught to clean and mend lace; and
two at a time, they by turns, three times a week, cook and distribute
victuals to the poor of the village. The young ladies who have been
brought up in my boarding-school are thoroughly acquainted with every
thing relating to household business; and they are grateful to me for
having made it a part of their education. In my conversations with them,
I have always taught them that _on domestic management depends the
preservation or dissipation of their fortunes_. I impress on their minds
the necessity of regulating with attention the most trifling daily
expenses; but at the same time I recommend them to avoid making domestic
details the subject of conversation in the drawing-room, for that is a
most decided mark of ill-breeding. It is proper that all should know how
to do and to direct; but it is only for ill-educated women to talk about
their carriages, servants, washing, and cooking.

These are the reasons, sire, why my pupils are generally superior to
those brought up in other establishments. All is conducted on the most
simple plan; the young ladies are taught every thing of which they can
possibly stand in need; and they are consequently as much at their ease
in the brilliant circles of fashion, as in the most humble condition of
life. Fortune confers rank, but education teaches how to support it
properly.


From the "Letters," &c.

TO HER ONLY SON.

You are now, my dear Henry, removed from my fond care and instruction;
and young as you are, you have entered upon the vast theatre of the
world. Some years hence, when time shall have matured your ideas, and
enabled you to take a clear, retrospective view of your steps in life,
you will be able to enter into my feelings, and to judge of the anxiety
which at this moment agitates my heart.

When first a beloved child, releasing itself from its nurse's arms,
ventures its little tottering steps on the soft carpet, or the smoothest
grass-plot, the poor mother scarcely breathes; she imagines that these
first efforts of nature are attended with every danger to the object
most dear to her. Fond mother, calm your anxious fears! Your infant son
can, at the worst, only receive a slight hurt, which, under your tender
care, will speedily be healed. Reserve your alarms, your heart-beatings,
your prayers to Providence, for the moment when your son enters upon the
scene of the world to select a character, which, if sustained with
dignity, judgment, and feeling, will render him universally esteemed and
approved; or to degrade himself by filling one of those low,
contemptible parts, fit only for the vilest actors in the drama of life.
Tremble at the moment when your child has to choose between the rugged
road of industry and integrity, leading straight to honor and happiness;
and the smooth and flowery path which descends, through indolence and
pleasure, to the gulf of vice and misery. It is then that the voice of a
parent, or of some faithful friend, must direct the right course....

Surrounded as you doubtless are, by thoughtless and trifling companions,
let your mother be the rallying point of your mind and heart; the
confidant of all your plans....

Learn to know the value of money. This is a most essential point. The
want of economy leads to the decay of powerful empires, as well as
private families. Louis XVI. perished on the scaffold for a deficit of
fifty millions. There would have been no debt, no assemblies of the
people, no revolution, no loss of the sovereign authority, no tragical
death, but for this fatal deficit. States are ruined through the
mismanagement of millions, and private persons become bankrupts and end
their lives in misery through the mismanagement of crowns worth six
livres. It is very important, my dear son, that I lay down to you these
first principles of right conduct, and impress upon your mind the
necessity of adhering to them. Render me an account of the expenditure
of your money, not viewing me in the light of a rigid preceptress, but
as a friend who wishes to accustom you to the habit of accounting to
yourself....

Let me impress upon you the importance of attentive application to
business; for that affords certain consolation, and is a security
against lassitude, and the vices which idleness creates....

Be cautious how you form connections; and hesitate not to break them off
on the first proposition to adopt any course which your affectionate
mother warns you to avoid, as fatal to your real happiness, and to the
attainment of that respect and esteem which it should be your ambition
to enjoy....

Never neglect to appropriate a certain portion of your time to useful
reading; and do not imagine that even half an hour a day, devoted to
that object, will be unprofitable. The best way of arranging and
employing one's time is by calculation; and I have often reflected that
half an hour's reading every day, will be one hundred and eighty hours'
reading in the course of the year. Great fortunes are amassed by little
savings; and poverty as well as ignorance are occasioned by the
extravagant waste of money and time....

My affection for you, my dear Henry, is still as actively alive as when,
in your infancy, I removed, patiently, every little stone from a certain
space in my garden, lest, when you first ran alone, you might fall and
hurt your face on the pebbles. But the snares now spread beneath your
steps are far more dangerous. They are strengthened by seductive
appearances, and the ardor of youth would hurry you forward to the
allurement; but that my watchful care, and the confidence you repose in
me, serve to counteract the influence of this twofold power. Your bark
is gliding near a rapid current; but your mother stands on the shore,
and with her eyes fixed on her dear navigator, anxiously exclaims, in
the moment of danger, "Reef your sails; mind your helm." Oh! may you
never forget, or cease to be guided by these warnings, which come from
my inmost heart.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: From Mrs. Hale's Female Biography, now in the press of
Harper & Brothers.]




PROCRASTINATION.

BY CHARLES MACKAY.


   If fortune with a smiling face
   Strew roses on our way,
   When shall we stoop to pick them up?
       _To-day, my love, to-day._
   But should she frown with face of care,
   And talk of coming sorrow,
   When shall we grieve, if grieve we must?
       _To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

   If those who've wrong'd us own their fault,
   And kindly pity pray,
   When shall we listen, and forgive?
       _To-day, my love, to-day._
   But if stern Justice urge rebuke,
   And warmth from Memory borrow,
   When shall we chide, if chide we dare?
       _To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

   If those to whom we owe a debt
   Are harmed unless we pay,
   When shall we struggle to be just?
       _To-day, my love, to-day._
   But if our debtor fail our hope,
   And plead his ruin thorough,
   When shall we weigh his breach of faith?
       _To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

   If love estranged should once again
   Her genial smile display,
   When shall we kiss her proffered lips?
       _To-day, my love, to-day._
   But if she would indulge regret,
   Or dwell with bygone sorrow,
   When shall we weep, if weep we must?
       _To-morrow, love, to-morrow._

   For virtuous acts and harmless joys
   The minutes will not stay;
   We've always time to welcome them,
       _To-day, my love, to-day._
   But care, resentment, angry words,
   And unavailing sorrow,
   Come far too soon, if they appear
       _To-morrow, love, to-morrow._




[Illustration: BONA LOMBARDI.]

BRUNORO.[9]


Bona Lombardi, was born in 1417, in Sacco, a little village in
Vattellina. Her parents were obscure peasants, of whom we have but
little information. The father, Gabriel Lombardi, a private soldier,
died while she was an infant; and her mother not surviving him long, the
little girl was left to the charge of an aunt, a hard-working
countrywoman, and an uncle, an humble curate.

Bona, in her simple peasant station, exhibited intelligence, decision of
character, and personal beauty, which raised her to a certain
consideration in the estimation of her companions; and the neighborhood
boasted of the beauty of Bona when an incident occurred which was to
raise her to a most unexpected rank. In the war between the Duke of
Milan and the Venetians, the latter had been routed and driven from
Vattellina. Piccinino, the Milanese general, upon departing to follow up
his advantages, left Captain Brunoro, a Parmesan gentleman, to maintain
a camp in Morbegno, as a central position, to maintain the conquered
country. One day, after a hunting party, he stopped to repose himself,
in a grove where many of the peasants were assembled for some rustic
festival; he was greatly struck with the loveliness of a girl of about
fifteen. Upon entering into conversation with her, he was surprised at
the ingenuity and spirited tone of her replies. Speaking of the
adventure on his return home, every body told him that Bona Lombardi had
acknowledged claims to admiration.

Brunoro, remaining through the summer in that district, found many
opportunities of seeing the fair peasant; becoming acquainted with her
worth and character, he at last determined to make her the companion of
his life; their marriage was not declared at first, but, to prevent a
separation, however temporary, Bona was induced to put on the dress of
an officer. Her husband delighted in teaching her horsemanship, together
with all military exercises. She accompanied him in battle, fought by
his side, and, regardless of her own safety, seemed to be merely an
added arm to shield and assist Brunoro. As was usual in those times,
among the condottieri, Brunoro adopted different lords, and fought
sometimes in parties to which, at others, he was opposed. In these
vicissitudes, he incurred the anger of the King of Naples, who, seizing
him by means of an ambuscade, plunged him into a dungeon, where he would
probably have finished his days, but for the untiring and well-planned
efforts of his wife. To effect his release, she spared no means;
supplications, threats, money, all were employed, and, at last, with
good success. She had the happiness of recovering her husband.

Bona was not only gifted with the feminine qualities of domestic
affection and a well-balanced intellect; in the hottest battles, her
bravery and power of managing her troops were quite remarkable; of these
feats there are many instances recorded. We will mention but one. In the
course of the Milanese war, the Venetians had been, on one occasion,
signally discomfited in an attack upon the Castle of Povoze, in Brescia.
Brunoro himself was taken prisoner, and carried into the castle. Bona
arrived with a little band of fresh soldiers; she rallied the routed
forces, inspired them with new courage, led them on herself, took the
castle, and liberated her husband, with the other prisoners. She was,
however, destined to lose her husband without possibility of recovering
him; he died in 1468. When this intrepid heroine, victor in battles,
and, rising above all adversity, was bowed by a sorrow resulting from
affection, she declared she could not survive Brunoro. She caused a tomb
to be made, in which their remains could be united; and, after seeing
the work completed, she gradually sank into a languid state, which
terminated in her death.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: From Mrs. Hale's Female Biography.]




[Illustration: Thomas De Quincey]

A SKETCH OF MY CHILDHOOD.

BY THE "ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER."

SEPTEMBER 21, 1850.


To the Editor of Hogg's "Instructor."

My Dear Sir--I am much obliged to you for communicating to us (that is,
to my daughters and myself) the engraved portrait, enlarged from the
daguerreotype original. The engraver, at least, seems to have done his
part ably. As to one of the earlier artists concerned, viz., the sun of
July, I suppose it is not allowable to complain of _him_, else my
daughters are inclined to upbraid him with having made the mouth too
long. But, of old, it was held audacity to suspect the sun's veracity:
"Solem quis dicere falsum audeat!" And I remember that, half a century
ago, the "Sun" newspaper in London, used to fight under sanction of that
motto. But it was at length discovered by the learned, that Sun
_junior_, viz., the newspaper, _did_ sometimes indulge in fibbing. The
ancient prejudice about the solar truth broke down, therefore, in that
instance; and who knows but Sun _senior_ may be detected, now that our
optical glasses are so much improved, in similar practices? in which
case he may have only been "keeping his hand in" when operating upon
that one feature of the mouth. The rest of the portrait, we all agree,
does credit to his talents, showing that he is still wide-awake, and not
at all the superannuated old artist that some speculators in philosophy
had dreamed of his becoming.

As an accompaniment to this portrait, your wish is that I should furnish
a few brief chronological memoranda of my own life. _That_ would be hard
for me to do, and, _when_ done, might not be very interesting for others
to read. Nothing makes such dreary and monotonous reading as the old
hackneyed roll-call, chronologically arrayed, of inevitable facts in a
man's life. One is so certain of the man's having been born, and also of
his having died, that it is dismal to lie under the necessity of reading
it. That the man began by being a boy--that he went to school--and that,
by intense application to his studies, "which he took to be _his_
portion in this life," he rose to distinction as a robber of orchards,
seems so probable, upon the whole, that I am willing to accept it as a
postulate. That he married--that, in fullness of time, he was hanged, or
(being a humble, unambitious man) that he was content with deserving
it--these little circumstances are so naturally to be looked for, as
sown broadcast up and down the great fields of biography, that any one
life becomes, in this respect, but the echo of thousands. Chronologic
successions of events and dates, such as these, which, belonging to the
race, illustrate nothing in the individual, are as wearisome as they are
useless.

A better plan will be--to detach some single chapter from the
experiences of childhood, which is likely to offer, at least, this kind
of value--either that it will record some of the deep impressions under
which my childish sensibilities expanded, and the ideas which at that
time brooded continually over my mind, or else will expose the traits of
character that slumbered in those around me. This plan will have the
advantage of not being liable to the suspicion of vanity or egotism; for
I beg the reader to understand distinctly, that I do not offer this
sketch as deriving any part of what interest it may have from myself, as
the person concerned in it. If the particular experience selected is
really interesting, in virtue of its own circumstances, then it matters
not to _whom_ it happened. Suppose that a man should record a perilous
journey, it will be no fair inference that he records it as a journey
performed by himself. Most sincerely he may be able to say, that he
records it not _for_ that relation to himself, but _in spite of_ that
relation. The incidents, being absolutely independent, in their power to
amuse, of all personal reference, must be equally interesting [he will
say] whether they occurred to A or to B. That is _my_ case. Let the
reader abstract from _me_ as a person that by accident, or in some
partial sense, may have been previously known to himself. Let him read
the sketch as belonging to one who wishes to be profoundly anonymous. I
offer it not as owing any thing to its connection with a particular
individual, but as likely to be amusing separately for itself; and if I
make any mistake in _that_, it is not a mistake of vanity exaggerating
the consequence of what relates to my own childhood, but a simple
mistake of the judgment as to the power of amusement that may attach to
a particular succession of reminiscences.

Excuse the imperfect development which in some places of the sketch may
have been given to my meaning. I suffer from a most afflicting
derangement of the nervous system, which at times makes it difficult for
me to write at all, and always makes me impatient, in a degree not
easily understood, of recasting what may seem insufficiently, or even
incoherently, expressed.--Believe me, ever yours,

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.


A SKETCH FROM CHILDHOOD.

About the close of my sixth year, suddenly the first chapter of my life
came to a violent termination; that chapter which, and which only, in
the hour of death, or even within the gates of recovered Paradise, could
merit a remembrance. "It is finished," was the secret misgiving of my
heart, for the heart even of infancy is as apprehensive as that of
maturest wisdom, in relation to any capital wound inflicted on the
happiness; "it is finished, and life is exhausted." How? Could it be
exhausted so soon? Had I read Milton, had I seen Rome, had I heard
Mozart? No. The "Paradise Lost" was yet unread, the Coliseum and St.
Peter's were unseen, the melodies of Don Giovanni were yet silent for
me. Raptures there might be in arrear. But raptures are modes of
_troubled_ pleasure; the peace, the rest, the lulls, the central
security, which belong to love, that is past all understanding, _those_
could return no more. Such a love, so unfathomable, subsisting between
myself and my eldest sister, under the circumstances of our difference
in age (she being above eight years of age, I under six), and of our
affinities in nature, together with the sudden foundering of all this
blind happiness, I have described elsewhere.[10] I shall not here repeat
any part of the narrative. But one extract from the closing sections of
the paper I shall make; in order to describe the depth to which a
child's heart may be plowed up by one over-mastering storm of grief, and
as a proof that grief, in some of its fluctuations, is not uniformly a
depressing passion--but also by possibility has its own separate
aspirations, and at times is full of cloudy grandeur. The point of time
is during the months that immediately succeeded to my sister's funeral.

"The awful stillness of summer noons, when no winds were abroad--the
appealing silence of gray or misty afternoons--these were to me, in that
state of mind, fascinations, as of witchcraft. Into the woods, or the
desert air, I gazed as if some comfort lay in _them_. I wearied the
heavens with my inquest of beseeching looks. I tormented the blue depths
with obstinate scrutiny, sweeping them with my eyes, and searching them
forever, after one angelic face, that might perhaps have permission to
reveal itself for a moment. The faculty of shaping images in the
distance, out of slight elements, and grouping them after the yearnings
of the heart, grew upon me at this time. And I recall at the present
moment one instance of that sort, which may show how merely shadows, or
a gleam of brightness, or nothing at all, could furnish a sufficient
basis for this creative faculty. On Sunday mornings I was always taken
to church. It was a church on the old and natural model of England,
having aisles, galleries, organ, all things ancient and venerable, and
the proportions majestic. Here, while the congregation knelt through the
long Litany, as often as we came to that passage, so beautiful among the
many that are so, where God is supplicated on behalf of 'all sick
persons and young children,' and that He 'would show His pity upon all
prisoners and captives', I wept in secret; and, raising my streaming
eyes to the windows of the galleries, saw, on days when the sun was
shining, a spectacle as affecting as ever prophet can have beheld. The
margins of the windows were rich in storied glass; through the deep
purples and crimsons streamed the golden light; emblazonries of heavenly
illumination mingling with the earthly emblazonries of what is grandest
in man. _There_ were the apostles that had trampled upon earth, and the
glories of earth, out of celestial love to man. _There_ were the martyrs
that had borne witness to the truth through flames, through torments,
and through armies of fierce, insulting faces. _There_ were the saints
that, under intolerable pangs, had glorified God by meek submission to
his will. And all the time, while this tumult of sublime memorials held
on as the deep chords of some accompaniment in the bass, I saw through
the wide central field of the window, where the glass was _un_colored,
white fleecy clouds sailing over the azure depths of the sky; were it
but a fragment or a hint of such a cloud, immediately, under the flash
of my sorrow-haunted eye, it grew and shaped itself into a vision of
beds with white lawny curtains; and in the beds lay sick children, dying
children, that were tossing in anguish, and weeping clamorously for
death. God, for some mysterious reason, could not suddenly release them
from their pain; but He suffered the beds, as it seemed, to rise slowly
through the clouds; slowly the beds ascended into the chambers of the
air; slowly, also, his arms descended from the heavens, in order that He
and His young children whom in Judea, once and forever, He had blessed,
though they _must_ pass slowly through the dreadful chasm of separation,
might yet meet the sooner. These visions were self-sustained. These
visions needed not that any sound should speak to me, or music mould my
feelings. The hint from the Litany, the fragment from the clouds, the
pictures on the storied windows were sufficient. But not the less the
blare of the tumultuous organ wrought its own separate creations. And
often-times in anthems, when the mighty instrument threw its vast
columns of sound, fierce, yet melodious, over the voices of the
choir--high in arches when it rose, seeming to surmount and over-ride
the strife of the vocal parts, and gathering by strong coercion the
total storm of music into unity--sometimes I also seemed to rise and to
walk triumphantly upon those clouds, which so recently I had looked up
to as mementoes of prostrate sorrow. Yes; sometimes, under the
transfigurations of music, I felt of grief itself, as a fiery chariot
for mounting victoriously above the causes of grief."

The next (which was the _second_) chapter of my childish experience,
formed that sort of fierce and fantastic contradiction to the first,
which might seem to move in obedience to some incarnate principle of
malicious pantomime. A spirit of love, and a spirit of rest, as if
breathing from St. John the Evangelist, had seemed to mould the
harmonies of that earliest stage in my childhood which had just
vanished; but now, on the other hand, some wicked Harlequin
Mephistopheles was apparently commissioned to vex my eyes and plague my
heart, through the next succession of two or three years: a worm was at
the roots of life. Yet, in this, perhaps, there lurked a harsh
beneficence. If, because the great vision of love had vanished, idiocy
and the torpor of despondency were really creeping stealthily over my
faculties, and strangling their energies, what better change for me than
the necessity (else how miserable!) of fighting, wrangling, struggling,
without pause, or promise of pause, from day to day, or even from year
to year? "If," as my good angel might have said to me, "thou art moving
on a line of utter ruin, from mere palsy of one great vital force, and
if that loss is past all restoration, then kindle a new supplementary
life by such means as are now possible--by the agitations, for instance,
of strife and conflict"--yes, possible, on the wide stage of the world,
and for people who should be free agents enough to _make_ enemies, in
case they failed to find them; but for a child, not seven years old, to
whom his medical advisers should prescribe a course of hatred, or
continued hostilities, by way of tonics, in what quarter was _he_ to
look out for such luxuries? Who would condescend to officiate as _enemy_
to a child! And yet, as regarded my own particular case, had I breathed
out any such querulous demand, that same Harlequin Mephistopheles might
have whispered in reply, "Never you trouble yourself about _that_. Do
_you_ furnish the patience that can swallow cheerfully a long course of
kicking, and _I_'ll find those that shall furnish the kicks." In fact,
at this very moment, when all chance of quarrel, or opening for
prolonged enmity, seemed the remotest of chimeras, mischief was already
in the wind; and suddenly there was let loose upon me such a storm of
belligerent fury as might, under good management, have yielded a
life-annuity of feuds.

I had at that time an elder brother, in fact, the eldest of us all, and
at least five years senior to myself. He, by original temperament, was a
boy of fiery nature, ten times more active than I was inert, loving the
element of feuds and stormy conflict more (if that were possible) than I
detested it; and these constitutional tendencies had in him been nursed
by the training of a public school. This accident in his life was indeed
the cause of our now meeting as strangers. Singular, indeed, it seems,
but, in fact, had arisen naturally enough, that both this eldest of my
brothers, and my father, should be absolute strangers to me in my
seventh year; so that, in the case of meeting either, I should not have
known him, nor he me. In my father's case, this arose from the accident
of his having lived abroad for a space that, measured against _my_ life,
was a very long one. First, he lived in Portugal, at Lisbon; and at
Cintra; next in Madeira; then in the West Indies; sometimes in Jamaica,
sometimes in St. Kitts, courting the supposed benefit of hot climates in
his complaint of pulmonary consumption; and at last, when all had proved
unavailing, he was coming home to die among his family, in his
thirty-ninth year. My mother had gone to wait his arrival at the port
(Southampton, probably), to which the West India packet should bring
him; and among the deepest recollections which I connect with that
period, is one derived from the night of his arrival at Greenhay. It was
a summer evening of unusual solemnity. The servants, and four of us
children--six then survived--were gathered for hours, on the lawn before
the house, listening for the sound of wheels. Sunset came--nine, ten,
eleven o'clock, and nearly another hour had passed--without a warning
sound; for Greenhay, being so solitary a house, formed a _terminus ad
quem_, beyond which was nothing but a cluster of cottages, composing the
little hamlet of Greenhill; so that any sound of wheels, heard in the
winding lane which then connected us with the Rusholme road, carried
with it, of necessity, a warning summons to prepare for visitors at
Greenhay. No such summons had yet reached us; it was nearly midnight;
and, for the last time, it was determined that we should move in a body
out of the grounds, on the chance of meeting the traveling party, if, at
so late an hour, it could yet be expected to arrive. In fact, to our
general surprise, we met it almost immediately, but coming at so slow a
pace, that the fall of the horses' feet was not audible until we were
close upon them. I mention the case for the sake of the undying
impressions which connected themselves with the circumstances. The first
notice of the approach was the sudden emerging of horses' heads from the
deep gloom of the shady lane; the next was the mass of white pillows
against which the dying patient was reclining. The hearse-like pace at
which the carriage moved recalled the overwhelming spectacle of the
funeral which had so lately formed part in the most memorable event of
my life. But these elements of awe, that might at any rate have struck
forcibly upon the mind of a child, were for me, in my condition of
morbid nervousness, raised into abiding grandeur by the antecedent
experiences of that particular summer night. The listening for hours to
the sounds from horses' hoofs upon distant roads, rising and falling,
caught and lost, upon the gentle undulation of such light, fitful airs
as might be stirring--the peculiar solemnity of the hours succeeding to
sunset--the gorgeousness of the dying day--the gorgeousness which, by
description, so well I knew of those West Indian islands from which my
father was returning--the knowledge that he returned only to die--the
almighty pomp in which this great idea of Death appareled itself to my
young suffering heart--the corresponding pomp in which the antagonistic
idea, not less mysterious, of life, rose, as if on wings, to the
heavens, amidst tropic glories and floral pageantries, that seemed even
_more_ solemn and more pathetic than, the vapory plumes and trophies of
mortality--all this chorus of restless images, or of suggestive
thoughts, gave to my father's return, which else had been fitted only to
interpose a transitory illumination or red-letter day in the calendar of
a child, the shadowy power of an ineffaceable agency among my dreams.
This, indeed, was the one sole memorial which restores my father's image
to me as a personal reality. Otherwise, he would have been for me a bare
_nominis umbra_. He languished, indeed, for weeks upon a sofa; and,
during that interval, it happened naturally, from my meditative habits
and corresponding repose of manners, that I was a privileged visitor to
him during his waking hours. I was also present at his bed-side in the
closing hour of his life, which exhaled quietly, amidst snatches of
delirious conversation with some imaginary visitors. From this brief
childish experience of his nature and disposition, the chief conclusion
which I drew tended to this--that he was the most _benignant_ person
whom I had met, or was likely to meet, in life. What I have since heard
from others, who knew him well, tallied with my own childish impression.
His life had been too busy to allow him much time for regular study; but
he loved literature with a passionate love; had formed a large and
well-selected library; had himself published a book, which I have read,
and which really is not a bad one; and carried his reverence for
distinguished authors to such a height, that (according to the report,
of several among his friends) had either Dr. Johnson, or Cowper, the
poet--the two contemporary authors whom most he reverenced--happened to
visit Greenhay, he might have been tempted to express his homage through
the Pagan fashion of raising altars and burning incense, or of
sacrificing, if not an ox, yet, at least, a baron of beef. The latter
mode of idolatry Dr. Sam, would have approved, provided always that the
_nidor_ were irreproachable, and that the condiments of mustard,
horse-radish, &c., _more Anglico_, were placed on the altar; but as to
Cowper, who was in the habit of tracing Captain Cooke's death at Owyhee
to the fact that the misjudging captain had once suffered himself to be
worshiped at one of the Society Islands, in all consistency, he must
have fled from such a house with sacred horror. Why I have at all gone
back to this little parenthesis in my childhood is, from the singularity
that I should remember my father at all, only because I had received all
my impressions about him into the very centre of my preconceptions about
certain grand objects--about the Tropics, about summer evenings, and
about some mysterious glory of the grave. It seems metaphysical to say
so, but yet it is true that I knew him, speaking scholastically, through
_à priori_ ideas--I remember him _transcendenter_--and, were it not for
the midsummer night's dream which glorified his return, to me he would
have remained forever that absolute stranger, which, according to the
prosaic interpretation of the case, he really was.

My brother was a stranger from causes quite as little to be foreseen,
but seeming quite as natural after they had really occurred. In an early
stage of his career, he had been found wholly unmanageable. His genius
for mischief amounted to inspiration; it was a divine _afflatus_ which
drove him in that direction; and such was his capacity for riding in
whirlwinds and directing storms, that he made it his trade to create
them, as [Greek: nephelêgerheta Zehys] a cloud-compelling Jove, in order
that he _might_ direct them. For this, and other reasons, he had been
sent to the grammar school of Louth, in Lincolnshire--one of those many
old classic institutions which form the peculiar[11] glory of England.
To box, and to box under the severest restraint of honorable laws, was
in those days a mere necessity of school-boy life at _public_ schools;
and hence the superior manliness, generosity, and self-control, of those
generally who benefited by such discipline--so systematically hostile to
all meanness, pusillanimity, or indirectness. Cowper, in his poem on
that subject, is far from doing justice to our great public schools.
Himself disqualified, by delicacy of temperament, for reaping the
benefits from such a warfare, and having suffered too much in his own
Westminster experience, he could not judge them from an impartial
station; but I, though ill enough adapted to an atmosphere so stormy,
yet, having tried both classes of schools, public and private, am
compelled in mere conscience to give my vote (and, if I had a thousand
votes, to give _all_ my votes) for the former.

Fresh from such a training as this, and at a time when his additional
five or six years availed nearly to make _his_ age the double of mine,
my brother very naturally despised me; and, from his exceeding
frankness, he took no pains to conceal that he did. Why should he? Who
was it that could have a right to feel aggrieved by his contempt? Who,
if not myself? But it happened, on the contrary, that I had a perfect
craze for being despised. I doated on being despised; and considered
contempt the sincerest a sort of luxury, that I was in continual fear of
losing. I lived in a panic, lest I should be suspected of shamming
contemptibility. But I did _not_ sham it. I trusted that I was really
entitled to contempt; and, for this, I had some metaphysical-looking
reasons, which there may be occasion to explain further on. At present,
it is sufficient to give a colorable rationality to my craze, if I say,
that the slightest approach to any favorable construction of my
intellectual pretensions, any, the least, shadow of esteem expressed for
some thought or some logical distinction that I might incautiously have
dropped, alarmed me beyond measure, because it pledged me in a manner
with the hearer to support this first attempt by a second, by a third,
by a fourth--Oh, heavens! there is no saying how far the horrid man
might go in his unreasonable demands upon me. I groaned under the weight
of his expectations; and, if I laid but the first round of such a
staircase, why, then, I saw in vision a vast Jacob's ladder towering
upward to the clouds, mile after mile, league after league; the
consequence of which would be, that I should be expected to run up and
down this ladder, like any fatigue party of Irish hodmen, carrying hods
of mortar and bricks to the top of any Babel which my wretched admirer
might choose to build. But I put a stop to this villainy. I nipped the
abominable system of extortion in the very bud, by refusing to take the
first step. The man could have no pretense, you know, for expecting me
to climb the third or fourth round, when I had seemed quite unequal to
the first. Professing the most absolute bankruptcy from the very
beginning, giving the man no sort of hope that I would pay even one
farthing in the pound, I never could be made miserable, or kept in hot
water, by unknown responsibilities, or by endless anxieties about some
bill being presented, which the monster might pretend for one moment
that I had indorsed, or in some way had sanctioned his expecting that I
would pay.

Still, with all this passion for being despised, which was so essential
to my peace of mind, I found at times an altitude--a starry altitude--in
the station of contempt for me assumed by my brother that nettled me.
Sometimes, indeed, the mere necessities of dispute carried me, before I
was aware of my own imprudence, so far up the stair-case of Babel, that
my brother was shaken for a moment in the infinity of his contempt: and,
before long, when my superiority in some bookish accomplishments
displayed itself, by results that could not be entirely dissembled,
mere foolish human nature forced me on rare occasions into some trifle
of exultation at these retributory triumphs. But more often I was
disposed to grieve over them. They tended to shake that solid foundation
of utter despicableness upon which I relied so much for my freedom from
anxiety; and, therefore, upon the whole, it was satisfactory to my mind
that my brother's opinion of me, after any little transient oscillation,
gravitated determinately back toward that settled contempt which had
been the result of his original inquest. The pillars of Hercules, upon
which rested the vast edifice of his scorn, were these two--1st, my
physics; he denounced me for effeminacy: 2d, he assumed, and even
postulated as a _datum_, which I myself could never have the face to
refuse, my general idiocy. Physically, therefore, and intellectually, he
looked upon me as below notice; but, _morally_, he assured me that he
would give me a written character of the very best description, whenever
I chose to apply for it. "You're honest," he said; "you're willing,
though lazy; you _would_ pull, if you had the strength of a flea; and,
though a monstrous coward, you don't run away." My own demurs to these
harsh judgments were not many. The idiocy I confessed; because, though
positive that I was not uniformly an idiot, I felt inclined to think
that, in a majority of cases, I really _was_; and there were more
reasons for thinking so than the reader is yet aware of. But, as to the
effeminacy, I denied it _in toto_, and with good reason, as will be
seen. Neither did my brother pretend to have any experimental proofs of
it. The ground he went upon was a mere _à priori_ one, viz., that I had
always been tied to the apron-string of women or girls; which amounted
at most to this: that, by training and the natural tendency of
circumstances, I _ought_ to be effeminate--that is, there was reason to
expect beforehand that I _should_ be so; but, then, the more merit in
me, if, in spite of such general presumptions, I really were _not_. In
fact, my brother soon learned better than any body, and by a daily
experience, how entirely he might depend upon me for carrying out the
most audacious of his own warlike plans; such plans, it is true, that I
abominated; but _that_ made no difference in the fidelity with which I
tried to fulfill them.

This eldest brother of mine, to pass from my own character to his, was
in all respects a remarkable boy. Haughty he was, aspiring, immeasurably
active; fertile in resources as Robinson Crusoe; but also full of
quarrel as it is possible to imagine; and, in default of any other
opponent, he would have fastened a quarrel upon his own shadow for
presuming to run before him when going westward in the morning, whereas,
in all reason, a shadow, like a dutiful child, ought to keep
deferentially in the rear of that majestic substance which is the author
of its existence. Books he detested, one and all, excepting only those
which he happened to write himself. And they were not a few. On all
subjects known to man, from the Thirty-nine Articles of our English
Church, down to pyrotechnics, legerdemain, magic, both black and white,
thaumaturgy, and necromancy, he favored the world (which world was the
nursery where I, on his first coming home, lived among my sisters) with
his select opinions. On this last subject especially--of necromancy--he
was very great; witness his profound work, though but a fragment, and,
unfortunately, long since departed to the bosom of Cinderella, entitled,
"How to raise a ghost; and when you've got him down, how to keep him
down." To which work he assured us, that some most learned and enormous
man, whose name was six feet long, had promised him an appendix; which
appendix treated of the Red Sea and Solomon's signet-ring; with forms of
_mittimus_ for ghosts that might be mutinous; and probably a riot act,
for any _émeute_ among ghosts inclined to raise barricades; since he
often thrilled our young hearts by supposing the case (not at all
unlikely, he affirmed), that a federation, a solemn league and
conspiracy, might take place among the infinite generations of ghosts
against the single generation of men at any one time composing the
garrison of earth. The Roman phrase for expressing that a man had died,
viz., "_Abiit ad plures_" (He has gone over to the majority), my brother
explained to us; and we easily comprehended that any one generation of
the living human race, even if combined, and acting in concert, must be
in a frightful minority, by comparison with all the incalculable
generations that had trod this earth before us. The Parliament of living
men, Lords and Commons united, what a miserable array against the Upper
and Lower House composing the Parliament of ghosts. Perhaps the
Pre-Adamites would constitute one wing in such a ghostly army. My
brother, dying in his sixteenth year, was far enough from seeing or
foreseeing Waterloo; else he might have illustrated this dreadful duel
of the living human race with its ghostly predecessors, by the awful
apparition which, at three o'clock in the afternoon, on the 18th of
June, 1815, the mighty contest at Waterloo must have assumed to eyes
that watched over the trembling interests of man. The English army,
about that time in the great agony of its strife, was thrown into
squares; and under that arrangement, which condensed and contracted its
apparent numbers within a few black geometrical diagrams, how
frightfully narrow--how spectral did its slender lines appear at a
distance, to any philosophic spectators that knew the amount of human
interests confided to that army, and the hopes for Christendom that even
then were trembling in the balance! Such a disproportion, it seems,
might exist, in the case of a ghostly war between the harvest of
possible results and the slender band of reapers that were to gather it
in. And there was even a worse peril than any analogous one that has
been _proved_ to exist at Waterloo. A British surgeon, indeed, in a work
of two octavo volumes, has endeavored to show that a conspiracy was
traced at Waterloo, between two or three foreign regiments, for kindling
a panic in the heat of the battle, by flight, and by a sustained
blowing-up of tumbrils, with the miserable purpose of shaking the
British firmness. But the evidences are not clear; whereas my brother
insisted that the presence of sham men, distributed extensively among
the human race, and meditating treason against us all, had been
demonstrated to the satisfaction of all true philosophers. Who were
these shams and make-believe men? They were, in fact, people that had
been dead for centuries, but that, for reasons best known to themselves,
had returned to this upper earth, walked about among us, and were
undistinguishable, except by the most learned of necromancers, from
authentic men of flesh and blood. I mention this for the sake of
illustrating the fact, that the same crazes are everlastingly revolving
upon men. Two years ago, during the carnival of universal anarchy
equally among doers and thinkers, a closely-printed pamphlet was
published with this title: "A New Revelation, or the Communion of the
Incarnate Dead with the Unconscious Living. Important Fact, without
trifling Fiction, by HIM." I have not the pleasure of knowing HIM; but
certainly I must concede to HIM, that he writes like a man of education,
and also like a man of extreme sobriety, upon his extravagant theme. He
is angry with Swedenborg, as might be expected, for his "absurdities;"
but, as to _him_, there is no chance that he should commit any
absurdity, because (p. 6) "he has met with some who have acknowledged
the fact of their having come from the dead"--_habes confitentem reum_.
Few, however, are endowed with so much candor; and, in particular, for
the honor of literature, it grieves me to find, by p. 10, that the
largest number of these shams, and perhaps the most uncandid, are to be
looked for among "publishers and printers," of whom, it seems, "the
great majority" are mere forgeries; a very few speak frankly about the
matter, and say they don't care who knows it, which, to my thinking, is
impudence; but by far the larger section doggedly deny it, and call a
policeman, if you persist in charging them with being shams. Some
differences there are between my brother and HIM, but in the great
outline of their views, they coincide.

This hypothesis, however, like a thousand others, when it happened that
they engaged no durable sympathy from his nursery audience, he did not
pursue. For some time, he turned his thoughts to philosophy, and read
lectures to us every night upon some branch or other of physics. This
undertaking arose upon some one of us envying or admiring flies for
their power of walking upon the ceiling. "Pooh!" he said, "they are
impostors; they pretend to do it, but they can't do it as it ought to be
done. Ah! you should see _me_ standing upright on the ceiling, with my
head downward, for half-an-hour together, and meditating profoundly." My
second sister remarked, that we should all be very glad to see him in
that position. "If that's the case," he replied, "it's very well that
all is ready, except as to one single strap." Being an excellent skater,
he had first imagined that, if held up until he had started, by taking a
bold sweep ahead, he might then keep himself in position through the
continued impetus of skating. But this he found not to answer, because,
as he observed, "the friction was too retarding from the plaster of
Paris, but the ease would be very different if the ceiling were coated
with ice." As it was _not_, he changed his plan. The true secret, he
said, was this: he would consider himself in the light of a humming-top:
he would make an apparatus (and he made it) for having himself launched,
like a top, upon the ceiling, and regularly spun. Then the vertiginous
motion of the human top would overpower the force of gravitation. He
should, of course, spin upon his own axis, and sleep upon his
axis--perhaps he might even dream upon it; and he laughed at "those
scoundrels, the flies," that never improved in their pretended art, nor
made any thing of it. The principle was now discovered; "and, of
course," he said, "if a man can keep it up for five minutes, what's to
hinder him from going on for five months?" "Certainly," my sister
replied, whose skepticism, in fact, had not settled upon the five
months, but altogether upon the five minutes. The apparatus for spinning
him, however, would not work: a fact which was evidently owing to the
stupidity of the gardener. On reconsidering the subject, he announced,
to the disappointment of some among us, that, although the physical
discovery was now complete, he saw a moral difficulty. It was not a
_humming_-top that was required, but a _peg_-top; and this, in order to
keep up the _vertigo_ at full stretch, without which to a certainty,
gravitation would prove too much for him, needed to be whipped
incessantly. Now, that was what a gentleman ought not to tolerate: to be
scourged unintermittingly on the legs by any grub of a gardener, unless
it were Father Adam himself, was a thing that he could not bring his
mind to endure. However, as some compensation, he proposed to improve
the art of flying, which was, as every body must acknowledge, in a
condition quite disgraceful to civilized society. As he had made many a
fire balloon, and had succeeded in some attempts at bringing down cats
by _parachutes_, it was not very difficult to fly downward from moderate
elevations. But, as he was reproached by my sister for never flying back
again, which, how ever, was a far different thing, and not even
attempted by the philosopher in "Rasselas" (for

   Revocare gradum et _superas_ evadere ad auras,
   Hic labor, hoc opus est),

he refused, under such poor encouragement, to try his winged
_parachutes_ any more, either "aloft or alow," till he had thoroughly
studied Bishop Wilkins[12] on the art of translating right reverend
gentlemen to the moon; and, in the mean time, he resumed his general
lectures on physics. From these, however, he was speedily driven, or one
might say shelled out, by a concerted assault of my sister's. He had
been in the habit of lowering the pitch of his lectures with
ostentatious condescension to the presumed level of our poor
understandings. This superciliousness annoyed my sister; and,
accordingly, with the help of two young female visitors, and my next
younger brother--in subsequent times a little middy on board many a ship
of H.M., and the most predestined rebel upon earth against all
assumptions, small or great, of superiority--she arranged a mutiny, that
had the unexpected effect of suddenly extinguishing the lectures
forever. He had happened to say, what was no unusual thing with him,
that he flattered himself he had made the point under discussion
tolerably clear; "clear," he added, bowing round the half-circle of us,
the audience, "to the meanest of capacities;" and then he repeated,
sonorously, "clear to the most excruciatingly mean of capacities." Upon
which a voice, a female one, but whose I had not time to distinguish,
retorted: "No, you haven't; it's as dark as sin;" and then, without a
moment's interval, a second voice exclaimed, "Dark as night;" then came
my young brother's insurrectionary yell, "Dark as midnight;" then
another female voice chimed in melodiously, "Dark as pitch;" and so the
peal continued to come round like a catch, the whole being so well
concerted, and the rolling fire so well sustained, that it was
impossible to make head against it; while the abruptness of the
interruption gave to it the protecting character of an oral "round
robin," it being impossible to challenge any one in particular as the
ring-leader. Burke's phrase of "the swinish multitude," applied to mobs,
was then in every body's mouth; and, accordingly, after my brother had
recovered from his first astonishment at this insurrection, he made us
several sweeping bows that looked very much like tentative rehearsals of
a sweeping _fusillade_, and then addressed us in a very brief speech, of
which we could distinguish the words _pearls_ and _swinish multitude_,
but uttered in a very low key, perhaps out of regard to the two young
strangers. We all laughed in chorus at this parting salute: my brother
himself condescended at last to join us; but there ended the course of
lectures on natural philosophy.

As it was impossible, however, that he should remain quiet, he announced
to us, that for the rest of his life he meant to dedicate himself to the
intense cultivation of the tragic drama. He got to work instantly; and
very soon he had composed the first act of his "Sultan Selim;" but, in
defiance of the metre, he soon changed the title to "Sultan Amurath,"
considering _that_ a much fiercer name, more bewhiskered and beturbaned.
It was no part of his intention that we should sit lolling on chairs
like ladies and gentlemen that had paid opera prices for private boxes.
He expected every one of us, he said, to pull an oar. We were to _act_
the tragedy. But, in fact, we had many oars to pull. There were so many
characters, that each of us took four, at the least, and the future
middy had six. He, this wicked little middy,[13] caused the greatest
affliction to Sultan Amurath, forcing him to order the amputation of his
head six several times (that is, once in every one of his six parts),
during the first act. In reality, the sultan, though a decent man, was
too bloody. What by the bowstring, and what by the scimetar, he had so
thinned the population with which he commenced business, that scarcely
any of the characters remained alive at the end of act the first. Sultan
Amurath found himself in an awkward situation. Large arrears of work
remained, and hardly any body to do it but the sultan himself. In
composing act the second, the author had to proceed like Deucalion and
Pyrrha, and to create an entirely new generation. Apparently, this young
generation, that ought to have been so good, took no warning by what had
happened to their ancestors in act the first; one must conclude that
they were quite as wicked, since the poor sultan had found himself
reduced to order them all for execution in the course of this act the
second. To the brazen age had succeeded an iron age; and the prospects
were becoming sadder and sadder, as the tragedy advanced. But here the
author began to hesitate. He felt it hard to resist the instinct of
carnage. And was it right to do so? Which of the felons, whom he had cut
off prematurely, could pretend that a court of appeal would have
reversed his sentence? But the consequences were dreadful. A new set of
characters in every act, brought with it the necessity of a new plot:
for people could not succeed to the arrears of old actions, or inherit
ancient motives, like a landed estate. Five crops, in fact, must be
taken off the ground in each separate tragedy, amounting, in short, to
five tragedies involved in one.

Such, according to the rapid sketch which at this moment my memory
furnishes, was the brother, who now first laid open to me the gates of
war. The occasion was this, he had resented, with a shower of stones, an
affront offered to us by an individual boy, belonging to a
cotton-factory; for more than two years afterward, this became the
_teterrima causa_ of a skirmish, or a battle, as often as we passed the
factory; and, unfortunately, _that_ was twice a day on every day except
Sunday. Our situation in respect to the enemy was as follows: Greenhay,
a country-house newly built by my father, at that time was a clear mile
from the outskirts of Manchester; but, in after years, Manchester,
throwing out the _tentacula_ of its vast expansions, absolutely
enveloped Greenhay; and, for any thing I know, the grounds and gardens
which then insulated the house, may have long disappeared. Being a
modest mansion, which (including hot walls, offices, and gardener's
house) had cost only six thousand pounds, I do not know how it should
have risen to the distinction of giving name to a region of that great
town; however, it _has_ done so;[14] and, at this time, therefore, after
changes so great, it will be difficult for the _habitué_ of that region
to understand how my brother and myself could have a solitary road to
traverse between Greenhay and Princess-street, then the termination, on
that side of Manchester. But so it was. Oxford-_street_, like its
namesake in London, was then called the Oxford-_road_; and, during the
currency of our acquaintance with it, arose the first three houses in
its neighborhood; of which the third was built for the Rev. S. H., one
of our guardians, for whom his friends had also built the church of St.
Peters's--not a bowshot from the house. At present, however, he resided
in Salford, nearly two miles from Greenhay; and to him we went over
daily, for the benefit of his classical instructions. One sole
cotton-factory had then risen along the line of Oxford-street; and this
was close to a bridge, which also was a new creation; for, previously,
all passengers to Manchester went round by Garrat. This factory became
the _officina gentium_ to us, from which swarmed forth those Goths and
Vandals, that continually threatened our steps; and this bridge became
the eternal arena of combat, we taking good care to be on the right side
of the bridge for retreat, _i.e._, on the town side, or the country
side, according as we were going out in the morning, or returning in the
afternoon. Stones were the implements of warfare; and by continual
practice we became expert in throwing them.

The origin of the feud it is scarcely requisite to rehearse, since the
particular accident which began it was not the true efficient cause of
our long warfare, but (as logicians express it) simply the occasion. The
cause lay in our aristocratic dress: as children of an opulent family,
where all provisions were liberal, and all appointments elegant, we were
uniformly well-dressed, and, in particular, we wore trowsers (at that
time unheard of, except in maritime places) and Hessian boots--a crime
that could not be forgiven in the Lancashire of that day, because it
expressed the double offense of being aristocratic, and being
outlandish. We were aristocrats, and it was in vain to deny it; could we
deny our boots? while our antagonists, if not absolutely _sans
culottes_, were slovenly and forlorn in their dress, often unwashed,
with hair totally neglected, and always covered with flakes of cotton.
Jacobins they were, not by any sympathy with the French Jacobinism, that
then desolated western Europe; for, on the contrary, they detested every
thing French, and answered with brotherly signals to the cry of "Church
and king," or, "King and constitution." But, for all that, as they were
perfectly independent, getting very high wages, and in a mode of
industry that was then taking vast strides ahead, they contrived to
reconcile this patriotic anti-Jacobinism with a personal Jacobinism of
that sort which is native to the heart of man, who is by natural impulse
(and not without a root of nobility) impatient of inequality, and
submits to it only through a sense of its necessity, or a long
experience of its benefits.

It was on an early day of our new _tyrocinium_, or, perhaps, on the very
first, that, as we passed the bridge, a boy happening to issue from the
factory,[15] sang out to us, derisively--"Holloa, bucks!" In this the
reader may fail to perceive any atrocious insult commensurate to the
long war which followed. But the reader is wrong. The word "_dandies_,"
which was what the villain meant, had not then been born, so that he
could not have called us by that name, unless through the spirit of
prophecy. _Buck_ was the nearest word at hand in his Manchester
vocabulary; he gave all he could, and let us dream the rest. But, in the
next moment, he discovered our boots, and he completed his crime by
saluting us as "Boots! boots!" My brother made a dead stop, surveyed him
with intense disdain, and bade him draw near, that he might "give his
flesh to the fowls of the air." The boy declined to accept this liberal
invitation, and conveyed his answer by a most contemptuous and plebeian
gesture, upon which my brother drove him in with a shower of stones.

During this inaugural flourish of hostilities, I, for my part, remained
inactive, and, therefore, apparently neutral. But this was the last time
that I did so: for the moment, I was taken by surprise. To be called a
_buck_ by one that had it in his choice to have called me a coward, a
thief, or a murderer, struck me as a most pardonable offense; and, as to
_boots_, that rested upon a flagrant fact that could not be denied, so
that at first I was green enough to regard the boy as very considerate
and indulgent. But my brother soon rectified my views or, if any doubts
remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense of my paramount duty
to himself, which was threefold. First, it seems, I owed military
allegiance to _him_, as my commander-in-chief, whenever we "took the
field;" secondly, by the law of nations, I being a cadet of my house,
owed suit and service to him who was its head; and he assured me, that
twice in a year, on _my_ birthday, and on _his_, he had a right,
strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to set his foot upon my
neck; lastly, by a law not so rigorous, but valid among gentlemen--viz.,
"by the _comity_ of nations," it seems I owed eternal deference to one
so much older than myself, so much wiser, stronger, braver, more
beautiful, and more swift of foot. Something like all this in tendency I
had already believed, though I had not so minutely investigated the
modes and grounds of my duty. As a Pariah, which, by natural temperament
I was, and by awful dedication to despondency, I felt resting upon me
always too deep and gloomy a sense of obscure duties, that I never
_should_ be able to fulfill--a burden which I could not carry, and which
yet I did not know how to throw off. Glad, therefore, I was to find the
whole tremendous weight of obligations--the law and the prophets--all
crowded into this one brief command--"Thou shalt obey thy brother as
God's vicar upon earth." For now, if, by any future stone leveled at him
who had called me "a buck," I should chance to draw blood--perhaps I
might not have committed so serious a trespass on any rights which he
could plead: but, if I _had_ (for, on this subject my convictions were
still cloudy), at any rate, the duty I might have violated in regard to
this general brother, in right of Adam, was canceled when it came into
collision with my paramount duty to this liege brother of my own
individual house.

From this day, therefore, I obeyed all my brother's military commands
with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of
distraction, or question, or opening for demur, was swallowed up in the
unity of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that
all rights of casuistry were transferred from me to himself. _His_ was
the judgment--_his_ was the responsibility; and to me belonged only the
sublime duty of unconditional faith in _him_. That faith I realized. It
is true, that he taxed me at times, in his reports of particular fights,
with "horrible cowardice," and even with "a cowardice that seemed
inexplicable, except on the supposition of treachery." But this was only
a _façon de parler_ with him: the idea of secret perfidy, that was
constantly moving under-ground, gave an interest to the progress of the
war, which else tended to the monotonous. It was a dramatic artifice for
sustaining the interest, where the incidents might be too slightly
diversified. But that he did not believe his own charges was clear,
because he never repeated them in his "General History of the
Campaigns," which was a _resumé_, or digest, of his daily reports.

We fought every day; and, generally speaking, _twice_ every day; and the
result was pretty uniform, viz., that my brother and I terminated the
battle by insisting upon our undoubted right to run away. _Magna
Charta_, I should fancy, secures that great right to every man; else
surely it is sadly defective. But out of this catastrophe to most of our
skirmishes, and to all our pitched battles except one, grew a standing
schism between my brother and me. My unlimited obedience had respect to
action, but not to opinion. Loyalty to my brother did not rest upon
hypocrisy: because I was faithful, it did not follow that I must be
false in relation to his capricious opinions. And these opinions
sometimes took the shape of acts. Twice, at the least, in every week,
but sometimes every night, my brother insisted on singing "Te Deum" for
supposed victories which he had won; and he insisted also on my bearing
a part in these "Te Deums." Now, as I knew of no such victories, but
resolutely asserted the truth--viz., that we ran away--a slight jar was
thus given to the else triumphal effect of these musical ovations. Once
having uttered my protest, however, willingly I gave my aid to the
chanting; for I loved unspeakably the grand and varied system of
chanting in the Romish and English churches. And, looking back at this
day to the ineffable benefits which I derived from the church of my
childhood, I account among the very greatest those which reached me
through the various chants connected with the "O, Jubilate," the
"Magnificat," the "Te Deum," the "Benedicite," &c. Through these chants
it was that the sorrow which laid waste my infancy, and the devotion
which nature had made a necessity of my being, were profoundly
interfused: the sorrow gave reality and depth to the devotion; the
devotion gave grandeur and idealization to the sorrow. Neither was my
love for chanting altogether without knowledge. A son of my reverend
guardian, much older than myself, who possessed a singular faculty of
producing a sort of organ accompaniment with one half of his mouth,
while he sang with the other half, had given me some instructions in the
art of chanting: and, as to my brother, he, the hundred-handed Briareus,
could do all things; of course, therefore, he could chant. He _could_
chant: he had a _right_ to chant: he had a right, perhaps, to chant "Te
Deum." For if he ran away every day of his life, what then? Sometimes
the enemy mustered in over-powering numbers--seventy, or even ninety
strong. Now, if there is a time for every thing in this world, surely
that was the time for running away. But in the mean time I must pause,
reserving what has to follow for another occasion.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: Elsewhere, viz., in the introductory part of the
"_Suspiria de Profundis_," published in "Blackwood," during the early
part of the year 1845. The work is yet unfinished as regards the
publication.]

[Footnote 11: "_Peculiar."_ viz., as _endowed_ foundations, to which
those resort who are rich and pay, and those also who, being poor, can
not pay, or can not pay so much. This most honorable distinction among
the services of England from ancient times to the interests of
education--a service absolutely unapproached by any one nation of
Christendom--is among the foremost cases of that remarkable class which
make England, while often the most aristocratic, yet also, for many
noble purposes, the most democratic of lands.]

[Footnote 12: "Bishop Wilkins:" Dr. W., Bishop of Chester, in the reign
of Charles II., notoriously wrote a book on the possibility of a voyage
to the moon, which, in a bishop, would be called a translation to the
moon; and, perhaps, it was _his_ name that suggested the "Adventures of
Peter Wilkins." It is unfair, however, to mention him in connection with
that only one of his works which announces an extravagant purpose. He
was really a scientific man, and already in the time of Cromwell (about
1657), had projected that Royal Society of London, which was afterward
realized and presided over by Isaac Barrow and Isaac Newton. He was also
a learned man, but still with a vein of romance about him, as may be
seen in his most elaborate work--"The Essay toward a Philosophic or
Universal Language."]

[Footnote 13: "Middy:" I call him so, simply to avoid confusion, and by
way of anticipation; else he was too young at this time to serve in the
navy. Afterward, he did so for many years, and saw every variety of
service in every class of ships belonging to our navy. At one time, when
yet a boy, he was captured by pirates, and compelled to sail with them;
and the end of his adventurous career was, that for many a year he has
been lying at the bottom of the Atlantic.]

[Footnote 14: "Green_heys_" with a slight variation in the spelling, is
the name given to that district, of which Greenhay formed the original
nucleus. Probably, it was the solitary situation of the house which
(failing any other grounds of denomination) raised it to this
privilege.]

[Footnote 15: "Factory:" such was the designation technically at that
time. At present, I believe that a building of that class would be
called a "mill."]




[From Dickens's Household Words.]

VISIT TO AN ENGLISH DAIRY.


Let the reader accompany us half-a-dozen miles out of town. We pass
through Camberwell, through Peckham, and Peckham Rye, and we presently
find ourselves in a district that looks uncommonly like "the country,"
considering how short a time it is since we left the "old smoke" behind
us. We alight and walk onward, and certainly, if the sight of green
fields, and cows, and hedges, and farm-yards, denote the country, we are
undoubtedly in some region of the kind.

We pass down a winding road, between high hedges of bush and trees, then
climb over a gate into a field; cross it, and then over another gate
into a field, from which we commence a gradual ascent, field after
field, till finally the green slope leads us to a considerable height.
We are on the top of Friern Hill.

It is a bright sunny morning in September, and we behold to perfection
the most complete panorama that can be found in the suburban vicinities
of London. Step down with us to yonder hedge, a little below the spot
where we have been standing. We approach the hedge--we get over a gate,
and we suddenly find ourselves on the upper part of an enormous green
sloping pasturage, covered all over with cows. The red cow, the white
cow, the brown cow, the brindled cow, the colley cow, the dappled cow,
the streaked cow, the spotted cow, the liver-and-white cow, the
strawberry cow, the mulberry cow, the chestnut cow, the gray speckled
cow, the clouded cow, the black cow,--the short-horned cow, the
long-horned cow, the up-curling horn, the down-curling horn, the
straight-horned cow, and the cow with the crumpled horn--all are
here--between two and three hundred--spread all over the broad, downward
sloping pasture, feeding, ruminating, standing, lying, gazing with mild
earnestness, reclining in characteristic thoughtfulness, sleeping, or
wandering hither and thither. A soft gleam of golden sunshine spreads
over the pasture, and falls upon many of the cows with a lovely,
picturesque effect.

And what cows they are, as we approach and pass among them! Studies for
a Morland, a Gainsborough, a Constable. We had never before thought
there were any such cows out of their pictures. That they were highly
useful, amiable, estimable creatures, who continually, at the best,
appeared to be mumbling grass in a recumbent position, and composing a
sonnet, we never doubted; but that they were ever likely to be admired
for their beauty, especially when beheld, as many as these were, from a
disadvantageous point of view, as to their position, we never for a
moment suspected. Such, however, is the case. We have lived to see
beauty in the form of a cow--a natural, modern, milch cow, and no
descendant from any Ovidian metamorphosis.

We will now descend this broad and populous slope, and pay a visit to
Friern Manor Dairy Farm, to which all these acres--some two hundred and
fifty--belong, together with all these "horned beauties." We find them
all very docile, and undisturbed by our presence, though their looks
evidently denote that they recognize a stranger. But those who are
reclining do not rise, and none of them decline to be caressed by the
hand, or seem indifferent to the compliments addressed to them. In
passing through the cows we were specially presented to the cow queen,
or "master cow," as she is called. This lady has been recognized during
twelve years as the sovereign ruler over all the rest. No one, however
large, disputes her supremacy. She is a short-horned, short-legged cow,
looking at first sight rather small, but on closer examination you will
find that she is sturdily and solidly built, though graceful withal.
"She is very sweet-tempered," observed the head keeper, "but when a
new-comer doubts about who is the master, her eye becomes dreadful.
Don't signify how big the other cow is--she must give in to the master
cow. It's not her size, nor strength, bless you, it's her spirit. As
soon as the question is once settled, she's as mild as a lamb again.
Gives us eighteen quarts of milk a day."

We were surprised to hear of so great a quantity, but this was something
abated by a consideration of the rich, varied, and abundant supply of
food afforded to these cows, besides the air, attendance, and other
favorable circumstances. For their food they have mangold-wurtzel, both
the long red and the orange globe sorts, parsnips, turnips, and
kohl-rabi (Jewish cabbage), a curious kind of green turnip, with cabbage
leaves sprouting out of the top all round, like the feathery arms of the
Prince of Wales. Of this last mentioned vegetable the cows often eat
greedily; and sometimes endeavoring to bolt too large a piece, it sticks
in their throats and threatens strangulation. On these occasions, one of
the watchful keepers rushes to the rescue with a thing called a _pro
bang_ (in fact a cow's throat ramrod), with which he rams down the
obstructive morsel. But, besides these articles of food, there is the
unlimited eating of grass in the pastures, so that the yield of a large
quantity of milk seems only a matter of course, though we were not
prepared to hear of its averaging from twelve to eighteen and twenty
quarts of milk a day, from each of these two or three hundred cows.
Four-and-twenty quarts a day is not an unusual occurrence from some of
the cows; and one of them, we were assured by several of the keepers,
once yielded the enormous quantity of twenty-eight quarts a day during
six or seven weeks. The poor cow, however, suffered for this
munificence, for she was taken very ill with a fever, and her life was
given over by the doctor. Mr. Wright, the proprietor, told us that he
sat up two nights with her himself, he had such a respect for the cow;
and in the morning of the second night after she was given over, when
the butcher came for her, he couldn't find it in his heart to let him
have her. "No, butcher," said he, "she's been a good friend to me, and
I'll let her die a quiet, natural death." She hung her head, and her
horns felt very cold, and so she lay for some time longer; but he nursed
her, and was rewarded, for she recovered; and there she stands--the
strawberry Durham short-horn--and yields him again from sixteen to
eighteen quarts of milk a day.

Reverting to the "master cow," we inquired whether her supremacy in the
case of newcomers was established "mesmerically" by a glance--or how?
The eye, we were assured, had a great deal to do with it. The stranger
cow _read_ it, and trembled. But, sometimes, there was a contest; and a
cow-fight, with such fresh strong creatures as these--all used to their
full liberty, and able to run or leap well, was a serious affair. If no
keeper was at hand to separate them, and the fight got serious, so that
one of them fell wounded, it was a chance but the whole herd would
surround the fallen cow, and kill her. This was not out of wickedness,
but something in the whole affair that put them beside themselves, and
they couldn't bear the horrid sight, and so tried to get rid of their
feelings, as well as the unfortunate object, by this wild violence. The
effect was the same if the herd did not witness the fight, but came
suddenly to the discovery of blood that had been spilled. They would
stare at it, and glare at it, and snuff down at it, and sniff up at it,
and prowl round it--and get more and more excited, till, at last, the
whole herd would begin to rush about the field bellowing and mad, and
make nothing at last of leaping clean over hedges, fences, and
five-barred gates. But, strange to say--if the blood they found had not
been spilt by violence, but only from some cause which the "horned
beauties" understood, such as a sister or aunt having been bled by the
doctor--then no effect of the sort occurred. They took no notice of it.

We found that besides beauty, cows possessed some imagination, and were,
moreover, very susceptible. The above excitement and mad panic sometimes
occurs as the effect of other causes.

Once some boys brought a great kite into the field, with a pantomime
face painted upon it; and directly this began to rise over the field,
and the cows looked up at it, and saw the great glass eyes of the face
looking down at them--then, oh! oh! what a bellowing! and away they
rushed over each other, quite frantic. On another occasion, some
experimental gentlemen of science, brought a fire-balloon near the
pasturage one night after dark. It rose. Up started all the cows in a
panic, and round and round they rushed, till, finally, the whole herd
made a charge at one of the high fences--tore down and overleaped every
thing--burst into the lanes--and made their way into the high-road, and
seemed to intend to leave their owners for some state of existence where
fire-balloons and horrid men of science were alike unknown.

Instead of proceeding directly down the sloping fields toward the Dairy
Farm, we made a detour of about half a mile, and passed through a field
well inclosed, in which were about a dozen cows, attended by one man,
who sat beneath a tree. This was the Quarantine ground. All
newly-purchased cows, however healthy they may appear, are first placed
in this field during four or five weeks, and the man who milks or
attends upon them is not permitted to touch, nor, indeed, to come near,
any of the cows in the great pasture. Such is the susceptibility of a
cow to the least contamination, that if one who had any slight disease
were admitted among the herd, in a very short time the whole of them
would be affected. When the proprietor has been to purchase fresh stock,
and been much among strange cows, especially at Smithfield, he
invariably changes all his clothes, and, generally takes a bath, before
he ventures among his own herd.

From what has already been seen, the reader will not be astonished on
his arrival with us at the Dairy Farm, to find every arrangement in
accordance with the fine condition of the cows, and the enviable (to all
other cows) circumstances in which they live. The cow-sheds are divided
into fifty stalls, each; and the appearance presented reminded one of
the neatness and order of cavalry stables. Each stall is marked with a
number; a corresponding number is marked on one horn of the cow to whom
it belongs; and, in winter time, or any inclement season (for they all
sleep out in fine weather) each cow deliberately finds out, and walks
into her own stall. No. 173 once got into the stall of No. 15; but, in a
few minutes, No. 15 arrived, and "showed her the difference." In winter,
when the cows are kept very much in-doors, they are all regularly
groomed with currycombs. By the side of one of these sheds there is a
cottage where the keepers live--milkers and attendants--each with little
iron bedsteads, all in orderly soldier fashion, the foreman's wife
acting as the housekeeper.

These men lead a comfortable life, but they work hard. The first
"milking" begins at eleven o'clock at night; and the second, at half
past one in the morning. It takes a long time, for each cow insists upon
being milked in her own pail--_i.e._, a pail to herself, containing no
milk of any other cow--or, if she sees it, she is very likely to kick it
over. She will not allow of any mixture. In this there would seem a
strange instinct, accordant with her extreme susceptibility to
contamination.

The milk is all passed through several strainers, and then placed in
great tin cans, barred across the top, and sealed. They are deposited in
a van, which starts from the Farm about three in the morning, and
arrives at the dairy, in Farringdon-street, between three and four. The
seals are then carefully examined, and taken off by a clerk. In come the
carriers, commonly called "milkmen," all wearing the badge of Friern
Farm Dairy; their tin pails are filled, fastened at top, and sealed as
before, and away they go on their early rounds, to be in time for the
early-breakfast people. The late-breakfasts are provided by a second set
of men.

Such are the facts we have ascertained with regard to one of the largest
of the great dairy farms near London.




SAILING IN THE AIR.--HISTORY OF AERONAUTICS.


Aeronautics, or the art of sailing in the air, is of very modern date;
if, indeed, we are warranted to say that the art has yet been acquired,
for we have only got a machine or apparatus capable of sustaining some
hundreds of pounds in the air, the means of guiding and propelling it
having yet to be discovered. The attention and admiration of men would
doubtless be attracted from the beginning to the ease, grace, and
velocity with which the feathered race soar aloft, and wing their way in
the upper regions; but there is no reason to believe that any of the
nations of antiquity--not even Greece and Rome, with all their progress
in science and art--ever made the smallest advances toward a discovery
of a method of flying, or of aerial navigation.

Archytas of Tarentum, a celebrated Pythagorean philosopher, who
flourished about four hundred years before the Christian era, is indeed
said to have constructed a wooden flying pigeon; but, from the imperfect
accounts transmitted to us of its machinery, there is every probability
that its flight was one of the many deceptions of the magic art which
the ancients so well understood and so expertly practiced. The attention
of man was much earlier, as well as more earnestly and successfully
turned to the art of navigating lakes, rivers, and seas. To gratify his
curiosity, or to better his condition, he was prompted to emigrate, or
to pass from one place to another, and thus he would tax his ingenuity
to discover the means by which he might be enabled to accomplish his
journey. To make the atmosphere the medium of transit, would, in the
early stages of society, hardly strike the mind at all, or, if it did,
it would only strike it as a physical impossibility. Nature has not
supplied man with wings, as it has done the fowls of heaven, and to find
a locomotive means of transportation through the air was in the infancy
of all science absolutely hopeless. But advantage would be early taken
of the buoyant property of water, particularly of the sea, which must
have been known to mankind from the creation. The canoe and the raft
would be first constructed, and, in the course of time, experience would
teach men to build vessels of a larger size, to fix the rudder to the
stern, to erect the mast, and unfurl the sails. Thus would the art of
navigating the ocean advance from step to step, while the art navigating
the air remained a mystery, practiced, it may be, by flying demons, and
flying witches, and the like ethereal beings of a dark mythology, but an
achievement to which ordinary mortals could make no pretensions.

Our object in this paper is to give a concise history of aeronautics,
commencing at that period when something like an approach was made to
the principles upon which the art could be reduced to practice.

The person who is entitled to the honor of the discovery of the main
principle of aeronautics--atmospheric buoyancy--is Roger Bacon, an
English monk of the thirteenth century. This eminent man, whose uncommon
genius was, in that superstitious and ignorant age, ascribed to his
intercourse with the devil, was aware that the air is a material of some
consistency, capable, like the ocean, of bearing vessels on its surface;
and, in one of his works, he particularly describes the construction of
a machine by which he believed it was possible to navigate the air. It
is a large, thin, hollow globe of copper, or other suitable metal, which
he proposes to fill with "ethereal air or liquid fire," and then to
launch from some elevated point into the atmosphere, when he supposes it
will float on its surface, like a vessel on the water. He afterward
says, "There may be made some flying instrument, so that a man, sitting
in the middle of the instrument, and turning some mechanism, may put in
motion some artificial wings, which may beat the air like a flying
bird." But, though Bacon knew the buoyancy of the atmosphere, he was
very imperfectly acquainted with its properties. His idea seems to have
been, that the boundaries of the atmosphere are at no great height, and
that the aerial vessel, in order to its being borne up, must be placed
on the surface of the air, just as a ship, in order to its being
supported, must be placed on the surface of the water. And, whatever may
be meant by his "ethereal air and liquid fire," there is no evidence
that he, or any one living in that age, had any knowledge of the various
and distinct gases. Bacon merely reasoned and theorized on the subject;
he never attempted to realize these flying projects by actual
experiment.

It was not till the year 1782 that the art of aerial navigation was
discovered, and the merit of the discovery is due to two brothers,
wealthy paper manufacturers, at Annonay, not far from Lyons--Stephen and
Joseph Montgolfier. This discovery they did not arrive at from any
scientific reasoning founded on the elasticity and weight of the
atmosphere, for, though attached to the study of mathematics and
chemistry, they do not appear to have particularly turned their
attention to aerostatics; but, from observing how clouds and smoke rise
and float in the atmosphere, it occurred to Stephen, the younger of the
two, that a light paper bag, filled with cloud or smoke, would, from the
natural tendency of these substances to ascend, be carried by their
force in an upward direction.

About the middle of November, 1782, they made their first experiment in
their own chamber at Avignon, with a light paper bag of an oblong shape,
which they inflated, by applying burning paper to an orifice in the
lower part of the bag, and in a few minutes they had the satisfaction of
seeing it ascend to the ceiling of the chamber. Constructing a paper bag
of larger dimensions, they made a similar experiment in the open air,
with equal success, and, the bag being of a spherical shape, they gave
it the name of balloon, from its resemblance to a large, round,
short-necked, chemical vessel so called. Finding, from repeated trials,
that the larger the balloon the more successful was the experiment, they
proceeded to construct one of linen lined with paper, 35 feet in
diameter; and, on the 25th of April, 1783, after being filled with
rarified air, it rapidly rose to the height of 1000 feet, and fell to
the ground at the distance of three-quarters of a mile from the spot
where it ascended. Encouraged by this success, the Montgolfiers came to
the resolution of making a public experiment with this last constructed
balloon at Annonay, on the 5th of June following. It was inflated with
heated air, by the lower orifice being placed over a pit or well, in
which were burned chopped straw and wool. Two men were sufficient to
fill it; but, when fully inflated, eight men were required to prevent it
from ascending. On being released from its fastenings, it rose
majestically to the height of six or seven thousand feet, and made its
descent at the distance of a mile and a half from the point of its
departure.

This novel experiment, which forms an important epoch in the history of
the art of aeronautics, attracted universal attention, and Stephen
Montgolfier, having soon after arrived in Paris, was requested by the
Royal Academy of Sciences, whose sittings, immediately on his arrival,
he had been invited to attend, to repeat the experiment at their
expense. He gladly availed himself of their proposal, and speedily got
prepared a large balloon of an elliptical shape, 72 feet high, and 41
feet in diameter. It was finished in a style of great magnificence, and
elegantly decorated on the outer surface with beautiful and appropriate
designs. When completed, it weighed 1000 pounds. As a preliminary
experiment, it raised eight men from the ground, and, on the 12th of
September, 1783, it ascended, in the presence of the Royal Academy, with
a load of from 400 to 500 pounds; but, in consequence of an injury it
received in rising from a violent gust of wind, it did not present the
same interesting spectacle as the public experiment previously made,
and, upon its descent, it was found to be so seriously damaged, as to be
unfit for future experiments. A new one of nearly the same dimensions
was, therefore, ordered to be made, to which was added a basket of
wicker-work, for the accommodation of a sheep, a cock, and a duck, which
were intended as passengers. It was inflated, in the presence of the
king and royal family, at Versailles, and, when loosened from its
moorings, it rose, with the three animals we have named--the first
living creatures who ever ascended in an aerial machine--to the height
of about 1500 feet, an accident similar to what befell the other
preventing it from attaining a higher elevation. It, however, descended
safely with the animals, at the distance of 10,000 feet from the place
of its ascent.

Hazardous as it might be, it was now fully demonstrated, that it was
quite practicable for man to ascend in the atmosphere, and individuals
were soon found sufficiently daring to make the experiment. Another
balloon was constructed, 74 feet high, and 48 feet in diameter, and M.
Pilatre de Rozier, superintendent of the royal museum, and the Marquis
de Arlandes, volunteered to make an aerial voyage. At the bottom, it had
an opening of about 15 feet in diameter, around which was a gallery of
wicker-work, three feet broad, with a balustrade all around the outer
edge, of the same material, three feet high; and, to enable the
aeronauts to increase or diminish at pleasure the rarified state of the
air within, it was provided with an iron brazier, intended for a fire,
which could easily be regulated as necessity required. On the 21st of
November, in the same year, the adventurers having taken their places on
opposite sides of the gallery, the balloon rose majestically in the
sight of an immense multitude of spectators, who witnessed its upward
course with mingled sentiments of fear and admiration. The whole
machine, with fuel and passengers, weighed 1600 pounds. It rose to the
height of at least 3000 feet, and remained in the air from 20 to 25
minutes, visible all the time to the inhabitants of Paris and its
environs. At several times it was in imminent danger of taking fire, and
the marquis, in terror for his life, would have made a precipitate
descent, which, in all probability, would have ended fatally, but M.
Pilatre de Rozier, who displayed great coolness and intrepidity,
deliberately extinguished the fire with a sponge of water he had
provided for the emergency, by which they were enabled to remain in the
atmosphere some time longer. They raised and lowered themselves
frequently during their excursion, by regulating the fire in the
brazier, and finally landed in safety five miles distant from the place
where they started, after having sailed over a great portion of Paris.
This is the first authentic instance in which man succeeded in putting
into practical operation the art of traveling in the air, which had
hitherto baffled his ingenuity, though turned to the subject for two
thousand years. The news of the novel and adventurous feat rapidly
spread over the whole civilized world, and aerial ascents in balloons
constructed on the same principle were made in other cities of France,
in Italy, and in the United States of America.

The two Montgolfiers soon obtained a high and wide-spread reputation;
and the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Paris voted a gold medal
to Stephen, the younger brother. It was to heated or rarified air that
these balloons owed their ascending power; but the Montgolfiers, in the
paper in which they communicated their discovery to the Royal Academy,
erroneously attributed the ascending power, not to the rarified air in
the balloon, but to a peculiar gas they supposed to be evolved by the
combustion of chopped straw and wool mixed together, to which the name
of Montgolfiers' gas was given, it being believed for a time, even by
the members of the Academy, that a new kind of gas, different from
hydrogen, and lighter than common air, had been discovered.

Hydrogen gas, or, as it was also called, inflammable air, whose specific
gravity was first discovered in 1766, by Henry Cavendish, though the gas
itself had been known long before to coal-miners, from its fatal
effects, was, from its being the lightest gas known, early taken
advantage of for inflating balloons. It indeed occurred to the ingenious
Dr. Black of Edinburgh, as soon as he read Mr. Cavendish's paper, which
appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1766, that if a
sufficiently thin and light bladder were filled with this gas, the
bladder would necessarily ascend in the atmosphere, as it would form a
mass lighter than the same bulk of atmospheric air. Not long after, it
suggested itself to Tiberius Cavallo, an Italian philosopher, when he
first began to study the subject of air, that it was possible to
construct a vessel which, when filled with hydrogen gas, would ascend in
the atmosphere. In 1782, he actually attempted to perform the
experiment, though the only success he had was to let soap balls, filled
with that gas, ascend by themselves rapidly in the air, which, says he,
were perhaps the first sort of inflammable air balloons ever made; and
he read an account of his experiments to the Royal Society at their
public meeting on June 20, 1782. But, during the later part of the year
1783, two gentlemen in the city of Philadelphia actually tested the
value of hydrogen gas as a means of inflating balloons. The French
Academy, guided by the suggestion of Dr. Black, and the experiments of
Cavallo, also concluded to make the experiment of raising a balloon
inflated with the same gas. To defray the expense of the undertaking, a
subscription was opened, and so great was the enthusiasm excited by the
design among people of all ranks and classes, that the requisite sum was
speedily subscribed for. A silken bag from lute-string silk, about
thirteen feet in diameter, and of a globular shape, was constructed by
the Messrs. Roberts, under the superintendence of M. Charles, professor
of experimental philosophy; and, to render the bag impervious to the
gas--a very essential object in balloon manufacture--it was covered with
a varnish composed of gum elastic dissolved in spirits of turpentine. It
had but one aperture, like the neck of a bottle, into which was fastened
the stop-cock for the convenience of introducing and stopping-off the
gas. It was constructed and inflated near the Place of Victories, in
August, 1783, and after being inflated, which was then no easy task,
occupying several days, it was removed on the morning of the 27th of
that month, before daylight, to the Camp of Mars (two miles distant),
the place appointed for its ascent. About five o'clock in the afternoon,
it was released from its fastenings, and rose, in the presence of some
hundred thousands of applauding spectators, to a height upward of 3000
feet; and, after remaining in the atmosphere for three-quarters of an
hour, descended in a field near Gonesse, a village about fifteen miles
distant from the Camp of Mars. This marks another important era in the
history of aeronautics. The hydrogen-gas balloon, in the first place, is
attended with less risk than the Montgolfiers' balloon, which requires
the dangerous presence of a fire to preserve the air in a sufficiently
rarified state; and, in the second place, it has a much greater
ascending power than rarified air balloons of the same size, in
consequence of its superior lightness.

M. Charles and the two Messrs. Roberts now resolved to undertake an
aerial excursion in a balloon of this description. With this view, the
Messrs. Roberts formed one of silk, varnished with gum elastic, of a
spherical shape, 27 feet in diameter, with a car suspended from it by
several cords, which were fastened to a net drawn over the upper part of
the balloon. To prevent the danger which might arise from the expansion
of the gas under a diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the higher
regions, the balloon was furnished with a valve, to permit the free
discharge of gas, as occasion might require. The hydrogen gas with which
it was filled was 5-1/4 lighter than common air, and the filling lasted
several days. On December 17, 1783, M. Charles and one of the Roberts
made their ascent from the garden of the Tuilleries, and rose to the
height of 6000 feet. After a voyage of an hour and three-quarters, they
descended at Nesle, a distance of 27 miles from the place of their
departure. On their descent, M. Roberts having left the car, which
lightened the vessel about 130 pounds, M. Charles reascended, and in
twenty minutes mounted with great rapidity to the height of 9000 feet.
When he left the earth, the thermometer stood at 47 degrees, but, in the
space of ten minutes, it fell 21 degrees. On making this great and
sudden transition into an atmosphere so intensely cold, he felt as if
his blood had been freezing, and experienced a severe pain in the right
ear and jaw. He passed through different currents of air, and, in the
higher regions, the expansion of the gas was so great, that the balloon
must have burst, had he not speedily opened the valve, and allowed part
of the gas to escape. After having risen to the height of 10,500 feet,
he descended, about three miles from the place where M. Roberts stepped
out of the car.

Jean Pierre Blanchard, a Frenchman, who had long exerted his ingenuity,
but with little success, in attempting to perfect a mechanical
contrivance by which he might be enabled to fly, was the next to prepare
a balloon upon the hydrogen-gas principle. It was 27 feet in diameter.
He ascended from Paris, March 2d, 1784, accompanied by a Benedictine
friar. After rising to the height of 15 feet, the balloon was
precipitated to the ground with a violent shock, which so frightened the
friar, that he would not again leave _terra firma_. M. Blanchard
re-ascended alone, and, in his ascent, he passed through various
currents of air, as aeronauts generally do. He rose to the height of
9600 feet, where he suffered from extreme cold, and was oppressed with
drowsiness. As a means of directing his course, he had attached to the
car an apparatus consisting of a rudder and two wings, but found that
they had little or no controlling power over the balloon. He continued
his voyage for an hour and a quarter, when he descended in safety.

During the course of the year subsequent to the Montgolfiers' discovery,
several experiments on the ascending power of balloons had been made in
England; but the first person who there ventured on an aerial voyage was
Vincent Lunardi, an Italian, who ascended from London, September 21,
1784. In the succeeding year, he gratified the inhabitants of Glasgow
and Edinburgh with the spectacle of an aerial excursion, which they had
never witnessed before.

The first aerial voyage across the sea was made by M. Blanchard, in
company with Dr. Jeffries, an American physician, who was then residing
in England. On the 7th January, 1785, a beautiful frosty winter day,
they ascended about one o'clock from the cliff of Dover, with the design
of crossing the Channel between England and France, a distance of about
twenty-three miles, and, at great personal risk, accomplished their
purpose in two hours and a half. The balloon at first rose slowly and
majestically in the air, but it soon began to descend, and, before they
had crossed the Channel, they were obliged to reduce the weight, by
throwing out all their ballast, several books, their apparatus, cords,
grapples, bottles, and were even proceeding to cast their clothes into
the sea, when the balloon, which had then nearly reached the French
coast, began to ascend, and rose to a considerable height, relieving
them from the necessity of dispensing with much of their apparel. They
landed in safety at the edge of the forest of Guiennes, not far beyond
Calais, and were treated by the magistrates of that town with the utmost
kindness and hospitality. M. Blanchard had the honor of being presented
with 12,000 livres by the King of France. Emboldened by this daring
feat, Pilatre de Rozier, already mentioned, and M. Romain, prepared to
pay back the compliment of M. Blanchard and Dr. Jeffries, by crossing
the Channel from France to England. To avoid the difficulty of keeping
up the balloon, which had perplexed and endangered Blanchard and his
companion during nearly their whole course, Rozier had recourse to the
expedient of placing underneath the hydrogen balloon a fire balloon of
smaller dimensions, which was intended to regulate the rising and
falling of the whole machine. This promised to unite the advantages of
both kinds of balloons, but it unhappily terminated in the melancholy
death of the two adventurers. They ascended from Boulogne, on the 15th
of June, 1785, but scarcely had a quarter of an hour elapsed from the
time of their ascent, when, at the height of 3000 feet, the whole
machine was discovered to be in flames. Its scattered fragments, with
the mangled bodies of the unfortunate aeronauts, who were probably
killed by the explosion of the hydrogen gas, were found near the
sea-shore, about four miles from Boulogne. This was the first fatal
accident which took place in balloon navigation, though several hundred
ascensions had by this time been made.

In the early practice of aerial voyages, the chief danger apprehended
was from accidental and rapid descents. To countervail this danger, and
enable the adventurer, in cases of alarm, to desert his balloon, and
descend to the ground uninjured, Blanchard invented the parachute, or
_guard for falling_, as the word signifies in French, an apparatus very
much resembling an umbrella, but of much larger dimensions. The design
is to break the fall; and, to effect this, it is necessary that the
parachute present a surface sufficiently large to experience from the
air such resistance as will cause it to descend with a velocity not
exceeding that with which a person can fall to the ground unhurt. During
an aerial excursion which Blanchard took from Lisle in August, 1785,
when he traversed a distance of not less than 300 miles, he dropped a
parachute with a basket fastened to it, containing a dog, from a great
elevation, and it fell gently through the air, letting down the animal
to the ground in safety. The practice and management of the parachute
were subsequently carried much farther by other aeronauts, and
particularly by M. Garnerin, an ingenious and spirited Frenchman, who,
during the course of his numerous ascents, repeatedly descended from the
region of the clouds with that very slender machine. On one occasion,
however, he suffered considerable injury in his descent. The stays of
the parachute having unfortunately given way, its proper balance was
disturbed, and, on reaching the ground, it struck against it with such
violence, as to throw him on his face, by which he received some severe
cuts. To let down a man of ordinary size from any height, a parachute of
a hemispherical form, twenty-five feet in diameter, is required. But
although the construction of a parachute is very simple, and the
resistance it will meet with from the air in its descent, its size and
load being given, can be exactly determined on scientific principles,
few have ventured to try it; which may be owing partly to ignorance, or
inattention to the scientific principles by which it is governed, and
partly to a growing opinion among aeronauts, that it is unnecessary, the
balloon itself, in case of its bursting, forming a parachute; as Mr.
Wise, the celebrated American aeronaut, experienced on two different
occasions, as he narrates in his interesting work on Aeronautics, lately
published at Philadelphia--a work to which we have been mainly indebted
in drawing up this article.

In the early part of the French revolutionary war, the _savants_ of
France, ambitious of bringing to the aid of the Republic all the
resources of science, strongly recommended the introduction of balloons,
as an effectual means of reconnoitring the armies of their enemies. From
the advantages it seemed to promise, the recommendation was instantly
acted on by the government, which established an aeronautic school at
Meudon, near Paris. The management of the institution, which was
conducted with systematic precision, and concealed with the utmost care
from the allied powers, was committed to the most eminent philosophers
of Paris. Gyton Morveau, a celebrated French chemist, and M. Contel,
superintended the operations. Fifty military students were admitted for
training. A practicing balloon of thirty-two feet in diameter was
constructed, of the most durable materials, and inflated with hydrogen
gas. It was kept constantly full, so as to be at all times ready for
exercise; and, to make it stationary at any given altitude, it was
attached to windlass machinery. Balloons were speedily prepared by M.
Contel for the different branches of the French army; the _Entreprenant_
for the army of the north, the _Celeste_ for that of the Sambre and
Meuse, the _Hercule_ for that of Rhine and Moselle, and the _Intrepide_
for the memorable army of Egypt. The victory which the French achieved
over the Austrians, on the plains of Fleurus, in June, 1794, is ascribed
to the observations made by two of their aeronauts. Immediately before
the battle, M. Contel and an adjutant-general ascended twice in the
war-balloon _Entreprenant_, to reconnoitre the Austrian army, and
though, during their second aerial _reconnaissance_ they were discovered
by the enemy, who sent up after them a brisk cannonade, they quickly
rose above the reach of danger, and, on descending, communicated such
information to their general, as enabled him to gain a speedy and
decisive victory over the Austrians.

The balloon was also at an early period taken advantage of for making
scientific experiments in the elevated regions of the atmosphere. With
the view of ascertaining the force of magnetic attraction, and of
examining the electrical properties and constitution of the atmosphere
at great elevations, two young, enthusiastic French philosophers, MM.
Biot and Gay Lussac, proposed to make an ascent. These gentlemen, who
had studied together at the Polytechnic School of Paris, and the latter
of whom had especially devoted himself to the study of chemistry, and
its application to the arts, while both were deeply versed in
mathematical science, were well qualified for the undertaking; and they
were warmly patronized by the government, which immediately placed at
their command the _Intrepide_, that had returned with the French army
from Egypt to Paris, after the capitulation of Cairo. M. Contel, who had
constructed the balloon, was ordered to refit it, under their direction,
at the public expense. Having furnished themselves with the
philosophical instruments necessary for their experiments--with
barometers, thermometers, hygrometers, compasses, dipping needles,
metallic wires, an electrophorus, a voltaic pile, and with some frogs,
insects, and birds--they ascended, at ten o'clock, on the morning of
August 23, 1804, from the garden of the Repository of Models. On rising
6500 English feet, they commenced their observations. The magnetic
needle was attracted as usual by iron, but it was impossible for them at
this time to determine with accuracy its rate of oscillation, owing to a
slow rotary motion with which the balloon was affected. The voltaic pile
exhibited all its ordinary effects, giving its peculiar copperas taste,
exciting the nervous system, and causing the decomposition of water. At
the elevation of 8600 feet, the animals which they carried with them
appeared to suffer from the rarity of the air. The philosophers had
their pulses much accelerated, but they experienced no difficulty in
breathing, nor any inconvenience whatever. Their highest elevation was
13,000 feet; and the result of their experiments at this distance from
the earth was, that the force of magnetic attraction had not sensibly
diminished, and that there is an increase of electricity in the higher
regions of the atmosphere.

In compliance with the request of several philosophers of Paris, who
were anxious that the same observations should be repeated at the
greatest height that could be reached, Gay Lussac alone made a second
ascent, on the morning of September 15, 1804, from the garden of the
Repository of Models, and rose, by a gradual ascent, to a great
elevation. He continued to take observations at short intervals of the
state of the barometer, the thermometer, and the hygrometer, of which he
has given a tabular view, but he unfortunately neglected to mark the
time at which they were made--a point of material importance, for the
results would of course be modified by the progress of the day; and it
would have added to their value, had these observations been compared
with similar ones made at the same time at the observatory. During the
ascent of the balloon, the hygrometer was variable, but obviously marked
an increase of dryness; the thermometer indicated a decrease in the heat
of the atmosphere, but the decrease is not uniform, the ratio being
higher in the elevated regions than in the lower, which are heated from
the earth; and it was found, by not fewer than fifteen trials at
different altitudes, that the oscillations of a finely-suspended needle
varied very little from its oscillations on the surface of the earth. At
the height of 21,460 feet. Lussac admitted the air into one of his
exhausted flasks, and at the height of 21,790 feet, he filled the other.
He continued to rise, till he was 22,912 feet above Paris, or 23,040
feet--that is upward of four miles and a quarter--above the level of the
sea, the utmost limit of his ascent, an elevation not much below the
summit of Nevado de Sorato, the highest mountain of America, and the
loftiest peak of the Himalaya in Asia, the highest mountains in the
world, and far above that to which any mortal had ever soared before.
One can not but admire the intrepid coolness with which Lussac performed
his experiments at this enormous elevation, conducting his operations
with the same composure and precision as if he had been seated in his
own parlor in Paris. Though warmly clad, he now began to suffer from the
excessive cold, his pulse was quickened, he was oppressed by difficulty
in breathing, and his throat became parched, from inhaling the dry,
attenuated air--for the air was now more than twice as thin as ordinary,
the barometer having sunk to 12.95 inches--so that he could hardly
swallow a morsel of bread. He alighted safely, at a quarter before four
o'clock afternoon, near the hamlet of St. Gourgan, about sixteen miles
from Rouen. On reaching Paris, he hastened to the laboratory of the
Polytechnic School, to analyze the air he had brought down in his flasks
from the higher regions; and, by a very delicate analysis, it was found
to contain exactly the same proportions as the air on the surface of the
earth, every 1000 parts holding 215 of oxygen, confirming the identity
of the atmosphere in all situations. The ascents of these two
philosophers are memorable, as the first which were made for purely
scientific purposes.




[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

_(Continued from Vol. I. Page 797.)_


CHAPTER XVIII.

"THE BAY OF RATHFRAN."

Our voyage was very uneventful, but not without anxiety, since, to avoid
the English cruisers and the Channel-fleet, we were obliged to hold a
southerly course for several days, making a great circuit before we
could venture to bear up for the place of our destination. The weather
alternated between light winds and a dead calm, which usually came on
every day at noon, and lasted till about sunset. As to me, there was an
unceasing novelty in every thing about a ship; her mechanism, her
discipline, her progress, furnished abundant occupation for all my
thoughts, and I never wearied of acquiring knowledge of a theme so
deeply interesting. My intercourse with the naval officers, too,
impressed me strongly in their favor, in comparison with their comrades
of the land service. In the former case, all was zeal, activity, and
watchfulness. The look-out never slumbered at his post; and an unceasing
anxiety to promote the success of the expedition, manifested itself in
all their words and actions. This, of course, was all to be expected in
the discharge of the duties peculiarly their own; but I also looked for
something which should denote preparation and forethought in the others;
yet nothing of the kind was to be seen. The expedition was never
discussed even as table-talk; and for any thing that fell from the party
in conversation, it would have been impossible to say if our destination
were China or Ireland. Not a book nor a map, not a pamphlet nor a paper
that bore upon the country whose destinies were about to be committed to
us, ever appeared on the tables. A vague and listless doubt how long the
voyage might last, was the extent of interest any one condescended to
exhibit; but as to what was to follow after--what new chapter of events
should open when this first had closed, none vouchsafed to inquire.

Even to this hour I am puzzled whether to attribute this strange conduct
to the careless levity of national character, or to a studied and well
"got up" affectation. In all probability both influences were at work;
while a third, not less powerful, assisted them--this was the gross
ignorance and shameless falsehood of many of the Irish leaders of the
expedition, whose boastful and absurd histories ended by disgusting
every one. To listen to them, Ireland was not only unanimous in her
desire for separation, but England was perfectly powerless to prevent
it, and the only difficulty was, to determine the future fortune of the
liberated land, when once her freedom had been proclaimed. Among the
projects discussed at the time, I well remember one, which was often
gravely talked over, and the utter absurdity of which certainly struck
none among us. This was no less than the intention of demanding the West
India Islands from England, as an indemnity for the past woes and bygone
misgovernment of Ireland. If this seem barely credible now, I can only
repeat my faithful assurance of the fact, and I believe that some of the
memoirs of the time will confirm my assertion.

The French officers listened to these and similar speculations with
utter indifference; probably to many of them the geographical question
was a difficulty that stopped any further inquiry, while others felt no
further interest than what a campaign promised. All the enthusiastic
narratives, then, of high rewards and splendid trophies that awaited us,
fell upon inattentive ears, and at last the word Ireland ceased to be
heard among us. Play of various kinds occupied us when not engaged on
duty. There was little discipline maintained on board, and none of that
strictness which is the habitual rule of a ship-of-war. The lights were
suffered to burn during the greater part of the night in the cabins;
gambling went on usually till daybreak; and the quarter-deck, that most
reverential of spots to every sailor-mind, was often covered by lounging
groups, who smoked, chatted, or played at chess, in all the cool apathy
of men indifferent to its claim for respect.

Now and then, the appearance of a strange sail afar off, or some dim
object in the horizon, would create a momentary degree of excitement and
anxiety; but when the "look-out" from the mast-head had proclaimed her a
"schooner from Brest," or a "Spanish fruit-vessel," the sense of danger
passed away at once, and none ever reverted to the subject of a peril
then suggested.

With General Humbert I usually passed the greater part of each forenoon,
a distinction, I must confess, I owed to my skill as a chess-player, a
game of which he was particularly fond, and in which I had attained no
small proficiency. I was too young and too unpracticed in the world to
make my skill subordinate to my chief's, and beat him at every game with
as little compunction as though he were only my equal, till, at last,
vexed at his want of success, and tired of a contest that offered no
vicissitude of fortune, he would frequently cease playing, to chat over
the events of the time, and the chances of the expedition.

It was with no slight mixture of surprise and dismay, that I now
detected his utter despair of all success, and that he regarded the
whole as a complete forlorn-hope. He had merely taken the command to
involve the French Government in the cause, and so to compromise the
national character that all retreat would be impossible. "We shall be
all cut to pieces, or taken prisoners the day after we land," was his
constant exclamation, "and then, but not till then, will they think
seriously in France of a suitable expedition." There was no heroism,
still less was there any affectation of recklessness, in this avowal. By
nature, he was a rough, easy, good-tempered fellow, who liked his
profession less for its rewards, than for its changeful scenes and
moving incidents--his one predominating feeling being that France should
give rule to the whole world, and the principles of her Revolution be
every where pre-eminent. To promote this consummation, the loss of an
army was of little moment. Let the cause but triumph in the end, and the
cost was not worth fretting about.

Next to this sentiment was his hatred of England, and all that was
English. Treachery, falsehood, pride, avarice, grasping covetousness,
and unscrupulous aggression, were the characteristics by which he
described the nation; and he made the little knowledge he had gleaned
from newspapers and intercourse, so subservient to this theory, that I
was an easy convert to his opinion; so that, ere long, my compassion for
the wrongs of Ireland was associated with the most profound hatred of
her oppressors.

To be sure, I should have liked the notion, that we ourselves were to
have some more active share in the liberation of Irishmen than the mere
act of heralding another and more successful expedition; but even in
this thought there was romantic self-devotion, not unpleasing to the
mind of a boy; but, after all, I was the only one who felt it.

The first sight of land to one on sea is always an event of uncommon
interest; but how greatly increased is the feeling, when that land is to
be the scene of a perilous exploit--the cradle of his ambition, or
perhaps his grave! All my speculations about the expedition--all my
day-dreams of success, or my anxious hours of dark forebodings--never
brought the matter so palpably before me, as the dim outline of a
distant headland, which, I was told, was part of the Irish coast.

This was on the 8th of August, but on the following day we stood farther
out to sea again and saw no more of it. The three succeeding ones we
continued to beat up slowly to the north'ard, against a head wind and a
heavy sea; but on the evening of the 21st the sun went down in mellow
splendor, and a light air from the south springing up, the sailors
pronounced a most favorable change of weather, a prophecy that a starry
night and a calm sea soon confirmed.

The morning of the 22d broke splendidly--a gentle breeze from the
sou'west slightly curled the blue waves, and filled the canvas of the
three frigates, as in close order they sailed along under the tall
cliffs of Ireland. We were about three miles from the shore, on which
now every telescope and glass was eagerly directed. As the light and
fleeting clouds of early morning passed away, we could descry the
outlines of the bold coast, indented with many a bay and creek, while
rocky promontories and grassy slopes succeeded each other in endless
variety of contrast. Towns, or even villages, we could see none--a few
small wretched-looking hovels were dotted over the hills, and here and
there a thin wreath of blue smoke bespoke habitation, but, save these
signs, there was an air of loneliness and solitude which increased the
solemn feelings of the scene.

All these objects of interest, however, soon gave way before another, to
the contemplation of which every eye was turned. This was a small
fishing-boat, which, with a low mast and ragged piece of canvas was seen
standing boldly out for us; a red handkerchief was fastened to a stick
in the stern, as if for a signal, and on our shortening sail, to admit
of her overtaking us, the ensign was lowered, as though in
acknowledgment of our meaning.

The boat was soon alongside, and we now perceived that her crew
consisted of a man and a boy, the former of whom, a powerfully-built,
loose fellow, of about five-and-forty, dressed in a light-blue frieze
jacket and trowsers, adroitly caught at the cast of rope thrown out to
him, and having made fast his skiff, clambered up the ship's side at
once, gayly, as though he were an old friend coming to welcome us.

"Is he a pilot?" asked the officer of the watch, addressing one of the
Irish officers.

"No; he's only a fisherman, but he knows the coast perfectly, and says
there is deep water within twenty fathoms of the shore."

An animated conversation in Irish now ensued between the peasant and
Captain Madgett, during which a wondering and somewhat impatient group
stood around, speedily increased by the presence of General Humbert
himself and his staff.

"He tells me, general," said Madgett, "that we are in the Bay of
Killala, a good and safe anchorage, and, during the southerly winds, the
best on all the coast."

"What news has he from the shore?" asked Humbert, sharply, as if the
care of the ship was a very secondary consideration.

"They have been expecting us with the greatest impatience, general; he
says the most intense anxiety for our coming is abroad."

"What of the people themselves? Where are the national forces? Have they
any head quarters near this? Eh, what says he? What is that? Why does he
laugh?" asked Humbert, in impatient rapidity, as he watched the changes
in the peasant's face.

"He was laughing at the strange sound of a foreign language, so odd and
singular to his ears," said Madgett; but for all his readiness, a slight
flushing of the cheek showed that he was ill at ease.

"Well, but what of the Irish forces? Where are they?"

For some minutes the dialogue continued in an animated strain between
the two; the vehement tone and gestures of each bespeaking what sounded
at least like altercation; and Madgett at last turned half angrily away,
saying, "The fellow is too ignorant; he actually knows nothing of what
is passing before his eyes."

"Is there no one else on board can speak this 'baragouinage,'" cried
Humbert in anger.

"Yes, general, I can interrogate him," cried a young lad named Conolly,
who had only joined us the day before we sailed.

And now as the youth addressed the fisherman in a few rapid sentences,
the other answered as quickly, making a gesture with his hands that
implied grief, or even despair.

"We can interpret that for ourselves," broke in Humbert; "he is telling
you that the game is up."

"Exactly so, general; he says that the insurrection has been completely
put down, that the Irish forces are scattered or disbanded, and all the
leaders taken."

"The fellow is just as likely to be an English spy," said Madgett, in a
whisper; but Humbert's gesture of impatience showed how little trust he
reposed in the allegation.

"Ask him what English troops are quartered in this part of the country,"
said the general.

"A few militia, and two squadrons of dragoons," was the prompt reply.

"No artillery?"

"None."

"Is there any rumor of our coming abroad, or have the frigates been
seen?" asked Humbert.

"They were seen last night from the church steeple of Killala, general,"
said Conolly, translating, "but believed to be English."

"Come; that is the best news he has brought us yet," said Humbert,
laughing; "we shall at least surprise them a little. Ask him what men of
rank or consequence live in the neighborhood, and how are they affected
toward the expedition?"

A few words, and a low, dry laugh, made all the peasant's reply.

"Eh, what says he?" asked Humbert.

"He says, sir, that, except a Protestant bishop, there's nothing of the
rank of gentry here."

"I suppose we need scarcely expect _his_ blessing on our efforts," said
Humbert, with a hearty laugh. "What is he saying now?--what is he
looking at?"

"He says we are now in the very best anchorage of the bay," said
Conolly, "and that on the whole coast there's not a safer spot."

A brief consultation now took place between the general and the naval
officers, and in a few seconds the word was given to take in all sail,
and anchor.

"I wish I could speak to that honest fellow myself," said Humbert, as he
stood watching the fisherman, who with a peasant's curiosity had now
approached the mast, and was passing his fingers across the blades of
the cutlasses, as they stood in the sword rack.

"Sharp enough for the English, eh?" cried Humbert, in French, but with a
gesture that seemed at once intelligible. A dry nod of the head gave
assent to the remark.

"If I understand him aright," said Humbert, in a half whisper to
Conolly, "we are as little expected by our friends as by our enemies;
and that there is little or no force in arms among the Irish."

"There are plenty ready to fight, he says, sir, but none accustomed to
discipline."

A gesture, half contemptuous, was all Humbert's reply, and he now turned
away and walked the deck alone and in silence. Meanwhile the bustle and
movements of the crew continued, and soon the great ships, stripped of
their white sails, lay tranquilly at anchor in a sea without a ripple.

"A boat is coming out from the shore, general," whispered the lieutenant
on duty.

"Ask the fisherman if he knows it."

Conolly drew the peasant's attention to the object, and the man, after
looking steadily for a few seconds, became terribly agitated.

"What is it, man--can't you tell who it is?" asked Conolly.

But although so composed before, so ready with all his replies, he
seemed now totally unmanned--his frank and easy features being struck
with the signs of palpable terror. At last, and with an effort that
bespoke all his fears, he muttered--"'Tis the king's boat is coming, and
'tis the collector's on board of her!"

"Is that all?" cried Conolly, laughing, as he translated the reply to
the general.

"Won't you say that I'm a prisoner, sir; won't you tell them that you
took me?" said the fisherman, in an accent of fervent entreaty, for
already his mind anticipated the casualty of a failure, and what might
betide him afterward; but no one now had any care for him or his
fortunes--all was in preparation to conceal the national character of
the ships. The marines were ordered below, and all others whose uniforms
might betray their country, while the English colors floated from every
mast-head.

General Humbert, with Serazin and two others, remained on the poop-deck,
where they continued to walk, apparently devoid of any peculiar interest
or anxiety in the scene. Madgett alone betrayed agitation at this
moment: his pale face was paler than ever, and there seemed to me a kind
of studious care in the way he covered himself up with his cloak, so
that not a vestige of his uniform could be seen.

The boat now came close under our lee, and Conolly being ordered to
challenge her in English, the collector, standing up in the stern,
touched his hat, and announced his rank. The gangway-ladder was
immediately lowered, and three gentlemen ascended the ship's side and
walked aft to the poop. I was standing near the bulwark at the time,
watching the scene with intense interest. As General Humbert stood a
little in advance of the rest, the collector, probably taking him for
the captain, addressed him with some courteous expression of welcome,
and was proceeding to speak of the weather, when the general gently
stopped him by asking if he spoke French.

I shall never forget the terror of face that question evoked. At first,
looking at his two companions, the collector turned his eyes to the
gaff, where the English flag was flying; but still unable to utter a
word, he stood like one entranced.

"You have been asked if you can speak French, sir?" said Conolly, at a
sign from the general.

"No--very little--very badly--not at all; but isn't this--am I not on
board of--"

"Can none of them speak French?" said Humbert, shortly.

"Yes, sir," said a young man on the collector's right; "I can make
myself intelligible in that language, although no great proficient."

"Who are you, monsieur?--are you a civilian?" asked Humbert.

"Yes, sir. I am the son of the Bishop of Killala, and this young
gentleman is my brother."

"What is the amount of the force in this neighborhood?"

"You will pardon me, sir," said the youth, "if I ask, first, who it is
puts this question, and under what circumstances I am expected to answer
it?"

"All frank and open, sir," said Humbert, good-humoredly. "I'm the
General Humbert, commanding the advanced guard for the liberation of
Ireland--so much for your first question. As to your second one, I
believe that if you have any concern for yourself, or those belonging to
you, you will find that nothing will serve your interest so much as
truth and plain dealing."

"Fortunately, then, for me," said the youth, laughing, "I can not betray
my king's cause, for I know nothing, nothing whatever, about the
movement of troops. I seldom go ten miles from home, and have not been
even at Ballina since last winter."

"Why so cautious about your information, then, sir," broke in Serazin,
roughly, "since you have none to give?"

"Because I had some to receive, sir; and was curious to know where I was
standing," said the young man, boldly.

While these few sentences were being interchanged, Madgett had learned
from the collector, that, except a few companies of militia and
fencibles, the country was totally unprovided with troops, but he also
picked up, that the people were so crest-fallen and subdued in courage
from the late failure of the rebellion, that it was very doubtful
whether our coming would arouse them to another effort. This
information, particularly the latter part of it, Madgett imparted to
Humbert at once, and I thought by his manner, and the eagerness with
which he spoke, that he seemed to use all his powers to dissuade the
general from a landing; at least I overheard him more than once say,
"Had we been further north, sir--"

Humbert quickly stopped him by the words:

"And what prevents us, when we have landed, sir, in extending our line
north'ard? the winds can not surely master us, when we have our feet on
the sward. Enough of all this; let these gentlemen be placed in
security, and none have access to them without my orders. Make signal
for the commanding officers to come on board here. We've had too much of
speculation; a little action now will be more profitable."

"So, we are prisoners, it seems!" said the young man who spoke French,
as he moved away with the others, who, far more depressed in spirit,
hung their heads in silence, as they descended between-decks.

Scarcely was the signal for a council of war seen from the mast-head,
when the different boats might be descried stretching across the bay
with speed. And now all were assembled in General Humbert's cabin, whose
rank and station in the service, entitled them to the honor of being
consulted.

To such of us as held inferior grade, the time passed tediously enough
as we paced the deck, now turning from the aspect of the silent, and,
seemingly, uninhabited cliffs along shore, to listen if no sign
betokened the breaking up of the council; nor were we without serious
fears that the expedition would be abandoned altogether. This suspicion
originated with the Irish themselves, who, however confident of success,
and boastful of their country's resources before we sailed, now made no
scruple of averring that every thing was the exact reverse of what they
had stated: for, that the people were dispirited, the national forces
disbanded, neither arms, money, nor organization any where--in fact,
that a more hopeless scheme could not be thought of than the attempt,
and that its result could not fail to be defeat and ruin to all
concerned.

Shall I own that the bleak and lonely aspect of the hills along shore,
the dreary character of the landscape, the almost death-like stillness
of the scene, aided these gloomy impressions, and made it seem as if we
were about to try our fortune on some desolate spot, without one look of
encouragement, or one word of welcome to greet us. The sight of even an
enemy's force would have been a relief to this solitude--the stir and
movement of a rival army would have given spirit to our daring, and
nerved our courage, but there was something inexpressibly sad in this
unbroken monotony.

A few tried to jest upon the idea of liberating a land that had no
inhabitants--the emancipation of a country without people; but even
French flippancy failed to be witty on a theme so linked with all our
hopes and fears, and, at last, a dreary silence fell upon all, and we
walked the deck without speaking, waiting and watching for the result of
that deliberation, which already had lasted above four mortal hours.

Twice was the young man who spoke French summoned to the cabin, but,
from the briefness of his stay, apparently with little profit; and now
the day began to wane, and the tall cliffs threw their lengthened
shadows over the still waters of the bay, and yet nothing was resolved
on. To the quiet and respectful silence of expectation, now succeeded a
low and half subdued muttering of discontent; groups of five or six
together were seen along the deck, talking with eagerness and animation,
and it was easy to see that whatever prudential or cautious reasons
dictated to the leaders, their arguments found little sympathy with the
soldiers of the expedition. I almost began to fear that if a
determination to abandon the exploit were come to, a mutiny might break
out, when my attention was drawn off by an order to accompany Colonel
Charost on shore to "reconnoitre." This, at least, looked like business,
and I jumped into the small boat with alacrity.

With the speed of four oars stoutly plied, we skimmed along the calm
surface, and soon saw ourselves close in to the shore. Some little time
was spent in looking for a good place to land; for, although not the
slightest air of wind was blowing, the long swell of the Atlantic broke
upon the rocks with a noise like thunder. At last, we shot into a little
creek with a shelving gravelly beach, and completely concealed by the
tall rocks on every side; and now we sprang out, and stood upon Irish
ground!


CHAPTER XIX.

A "RECONNAISSANCE."

From the little creek where we landed, a small zig-zag path led up the
sides of the cliff, the track by which the peasants carried the
sea-weed, which they gathered for manure, and up this we now slowly
wended our way. Stopping for some time to gaze at the ample bay beneath
us, the tall-masted frigates floating so majestically on its glassy
surface--it was a scene of tranquil and picturesque beauty, with which
it would have been almost impossible to associate the idea of war and
invasion. In the lazy bunting that hung listlessly from peak and
mast-head--in the cheerful voices of the sailors, heard afar off in the
stillness--in the measured plash of the sea itself, and the fearless
daring of the sea-gulls, as they soared slowly above our heads--there
seemed something so suggestive of peace and tranquillity, it struck us
as profanation to disturb it.

As we gained the top and looked around us, our astonishment became even
greater. A long succession of low hills, covered with tall ferns or
heath, stretched away on every side; not a house, nor a hovel, nor a
living thing to be seen. Had the country been one uninhabited since the
creation, it could not have presented an aspect of more thorough
desolation! No road-track, nor even a foot-path, led through the dreary
waste before us, on which, to all seeming, the foot of man had never
fallen. And, as we stood for some moments, uncertain which way to turn,
a sense of the ridiculous suddenly burst upon the party, and we all
broke into a hearty roar of laughter.

"I little thought," cried Charost, "that I should ever emulate 'La
Perouse,' but it strikes me that I am destined to become a great
discoverer."

"How so, colonel?" asked his aid-de-camp.

"Why, it is quite clear, that this same island is uninhabited; and, if
it be all like this, I own I'm scarcely surprised at it."

"Still, there must be a town not far off, and the residence of that
bishop we heard of this morning."

A half incredulous shrug of the shoulders was all his reply, as he
sauntered along with his hands behind his back, apparently lost in
thought; while we, as if instinctively partaking of his gloom, followed
him in total silence.

"Do you know, gentlemen, what I'm thinking of?" said he, stopping
suddenly, and facing about. "My notion is, that the best thing to do
here, would be to plant our tri-color, proclaim the land a colony of
France, and take to our boats again."

This speech delivered with an air of great gravity, imposed upon us for
an instant; but the moment after, the speaker breaking into a hearty
laugh, we all joined him, as much amused by the strangeness of our
situation, as by any thing in his remark.

"We never could bring our guns through a soil like this, colonel," said
the aid-de-camp, as he struck his heel into the soft and clayey surface.

"If we could ever land them at all!" muttered he, half aloud; then
added, "But for what object should we? Believe me, gentlemen, if we are
to have a campaign here, bows and arrows are the true weapons."

"Ah! what do I see yonder?" cried the aid-de-camp; "are not those sheep
feeding in that little glen?"

"Yes," cried I, "and a man herding them, too. See, the fellow has caught
sight of us, and he's off as fast as his legs can carry him." And so was
it, the man had no sooner seen us than he sprung to his feet, and
hurried down the mountain at full speed.

Our first impulse was to follow and give him chase, and even without a
word, we all started off in pursuit; but we soon saw how fruitless would
be the attempt, for, even independent of the start he had got of us, the
peasant's speed was more than the double of our own.

"No matter," said the colonel, "if we have lost the shepherd, we have,
at least, gained the sheep, and so I recommend you to secure a mutton
for dinner to-morrow."

With this piece of advice, down the hill he darted, as hard as he could.
Briolle, the aid-de-camp, and myself following at our best pace. We were
reckoning without our host, however, for the animals, after one stupid
stare at us, set off in a scamper that soon showed their mountain
breeding, keeping all together like a pack of hounds, and, really, not
very inferior in the speed they displayed.

A little gorge led between the hills, and through this they rushed
madly, and with a clatter like a charge of cavalry. Excited by the
chase, and emulous each to outrun the other, the colonel threw off his
chako, and Briolle his sword, in the ardor of pursuit. We now gained on
them rapidly, and though, from a winding in the glen, they had
momentarily got out of sight, we knew that we were close upon them. I
was about thirty paces in advance of my comrades, when, on turning an
angle of the gorge, I found myself directly in front of a group of mud
hovels, in front of which were standing about a dozen ragged, miserable
looking men, armed with pitchforks and scythes, while in the rear stood
the sheep, blown and panting from the chase.

I came to a dead stop; and although I would have given worlds to have
had my comrades at my side, I never once looked back to see if they were
coming; but, putting a bold face on the matter, called out the only few
words I knew of Irish, "Go de ma ha tu."

The peasants looked at each other; and whether it was my accent, my
impudence, or my strange dress and appearance, or all together, I can
not say, but, after a few seconds' pause, they burst out into a roar of
laughter, in the midst of which my two comrades came up.

"We saw the sheep feeding on the hills, yonder," said I, recovering
self-possession, "and guessed that by giving them chase, they'd lead us
to some inhabited spot. What is this place called?"

"Shindrennin," said a man who seemed to be the chief of the party; "and,
if I might make so bould, who are you, yourselves?"

"French officers; this is my colonel," said I, pointing to Charost, who
was wiping his forehead and face after his late exertion.

The information, far from producing the electric effect of pleasure I
had anticipated, was received with a coldness, almost amounting to fear,
and they spoke eagerly together for some minutes in Irish.

"Our allies evidently don't like the look of us," said Charost,
laughing; "and if the truth must be told, I own the disappointment is
mutual."

"'Tis too late you come sir," said the peasant, addressing the colonel,
while he removed his hat, and assumed an air of respectful deference.
"'Tis all over with poor Ireland, this time."

"Tell him," said Charost, to whom I translated the speech, "that it's
never too late to assert a good cause: that we have got arms for twenty
thousand, if they have but hands and hearts to use them. Tell him that a
French army is now lying in that bay yonder, ready and able to
accomplish the independence of Ireland."

I delivered my speech as pompously as it was briefed to me; and,
although I was listened to in silence, and respectfully, it was plain my
words carried little or no conviction with them. Not caring to waste
more of our time in such discourse, I now inquired about the country--in
what directions lay the high roads, and the relative situations of the
towns of Killala, Castlebar, and Ballina, the only places of comparative
importance in the neighborhood. I next asked about the landing-places,
and learned that a small fishing-harbor existed, not more than half a
mile from the spot where we had landed, from which a little country road
lay to the village of Palmerstown. As to the means of transporting
baggage, guns, and ammunition, there were few horses to be had, but with
money we might get all we wanted; indeed, the peasants constantly
referred to this means of success, even to asking "what the French would
give a man that was to join them?" If I did not translate the demand
with fidelity to my colonel, it was really that a sense of shame
prevented me. My whole heart was in the cause; and I could not endure
the thought of its being degraded in this way. It was growing duskish,
and the colonel proposed that the peasant should show us the way to the
fishing-harbor he spoke of, while some other of the party might go round
to our boat, and direct them to follow us thither. The arrangement was
soon made, and we all sauntered down toward the shore, chatting over the
state of the country, and the chances of a successful rising. From the
specimen before me, I was not disposed to be over sanguine about the
peasantry. The man was evidently disaffected toward England. He bore her
neither good-will nor love; but his fears were greater than all else. He
had never heard of any thing but failure in all attempts against her;
and he could not believe in any other result. Even the aid and alliance
of France inspired no other feeling than distrust; for he said more than
once, "Sure, what can harm _yez_? Haven't ye yer ships, beyant, to take
yez away, if things goes bad?"

I was heartily glad that Colonel Charost knew so little English, that
the greater part of the peasant's conversation was unintelligible to
him, since, from the first, he had always spoken of the expedition in
terms of disparagement; and certainly what we were now to hear was not
of a nature to controvert the prediction.

In our ignorance as to the habits and modes of thought of the people, we
were much surprised at the greater interest the peasant betrayed when
asking us about France and her prospects, than when the conversation
concerned his own country. It appeared as though, in the one case,
distance gave grandeur and dimensions to all his conceptions, while
familiarity with home scenes and native politics had robbed them of all
their illusions. He knew well that there were plenty of hardships,
abundance of evils, to deplore in Ireland; rents were high, taxes and
tithes oppressive, agents were severe, bailiffs were cruel; social
wrongs he could discuss for hours, but of political woes, the only one
we could be expected to relieve or care for, he really knew nothing.
"'Tis true," he repeated, "that what my honor said was all right,
Ireland was badly treated," and so on; "liberty was an elegant thing if
a body had it," and such like; but there ended his patriotism.

Accustomed for many a day to the habits of a people where all were
politicians, where the rights of man, and the grand principles of
equality and self-government were everlastingly under discussion, I was,
I confess it, sorely disappointed at this worse than apathy.

"Will they fight?--ask him that," said Charost, to whom I had been
conveying a rather rose-colored version of my friend's talk.

"Oh, be gorra! we'll fight sure enough!" said he, with a half-dogged
scowl beneath his brows.

"What number of them may we reckon on in the neighborhood?" repeated the
colonel.

"'Tis mighty hard to say; many of the boys was gone over to England for
the harvest; some were away to the counties inland, others were working
on the roads; but if they knew, sure they'd be soon back again."

"Might they calculate on a thousand stout, effective men?" asked
Charost.

"Ay, twenty, if they were at home," said the peasant, less a liar by
intention than from the vague and careless disregard of truth, so common
in all their own intercourse with each other.

I must own that the degree of credit we reposed in the worthy man's
information was considerably influenced by the state of facts before us,
inasmuch as that the "elegant, fine harbor" he had so gloriously
described--"the beautiful road"--"the neat little quay" to land upon,
and the other advantages of the spot, all turned out to be most grievous
disappointments. That the people were not of our own mind on these
matters, was plain enough from the looks of astonishment our discontent
provoked; and now a lively discussion ensued on the relative merits of
various bays, creeks, and inlets along the coast, each of which, with
some unpronounceable name or other, was seen to have a special advocate
in its favor, till at last the colonel lost all patience, and jumping
into the boat, ordered the men to push off for the frigate.

Evidently out of temper at the non-success of his "reconnaissance," and
as little pleased with the country as the people, Charost did not speak
a word as we rowed back to the ship. Our failure, as it happened, was of
little moment, for another party, under the guidance of Madgett, had
already discovered a good landing-place at the bottom of the Bay of
Rathfran, and arrangements were already in progress to disembark the
troops at day-break. We also found that, during our absence, some of the
"chiefs" had come off from shore, one of whom, named Neal Kerrigan, was
destined to attain considerable celebrity in the rebel army. He was a
talkative, vulgar, presumptuous fellow, who, without any knowledge or
experience whatever, took upon him to discuss military measures and
strategy with all the assurance of an old commander.

Singularly enough, Humbert suffered this man to influence him in a great
degree, and yielded opinion to him on points even where his own judgment
was directly opposed to the advice he gave.

If Kerrigan's language and bearing were directly the reverse of
soldierlike, his tawdry uniform of green and gold, with massive epaulets
and a profusion of lace, were no less absurd in our eyes, accustomed as
we were to the almost puritan plainness of military costume. His rank,
too, seemed as undefined as his information; for while he called himself
"General," his companions as often addressed him by the title of
"Captain." Upon some points his counsels, indeed, alarmed and astonished
us.

"It was of no use whatever," he said, "to attempt to discipline the
peasantry, or reduce them to any thing like habits of military
obedience. Were the effort to be made, it would prove a total failure;
for they would either grow disgusted with the restraint, and desert
altogether, or so infect the other troops with their own habits of
disorder, that the whole force would become a mere rabble. Arm them
well, let them have plenty of ammunition, and free liberty to use it in
their own way and their own time, and we should soon see that they would
prove a greater terror to the English than double the number of trained
and disciplined troops."

In some respects this view was a correct one; but whether it was a wise
counsel to have followed, subsequent events gave us ample cause to
doubt.

Kerrigan, however, had a specious, reckless, go-ahead way with him that
suited well the tone and temper of Humbert's mind. He never looked too
far into consequences, but trusted that the eventualities of the morrow
would always suggest the best course for the day after; and this alone
was so akin to our own general's mode of proceeding, that he speedily
won his confidence.

The last evening on board was spent merrily on all sides. In the general
cabin, where the staff and all the "Chefs de brigade" were assembled,
gay songs, and toasts, and speeches succeeded each other till nigh
morning. The printed proclamations, meant for circulation among the
people, were read out, with droll commentaries; and all imaginable
quizzing and jesting went on about the new government to be established
in Ireland, and the various offices to be bestowed upon each. Had the
whole expedition been a joke, the tone of levity could not have been
greater. Not a thought was bestowed, not a word wasted upon any of the
graver incidents that might ensue. All were, if not hopeful and
sanguine, utterly reckless, and thoroughly indifferent to the future.


CHAPTER XX.

KILLALA.

I will not weary my reader with an account of our debarkation, less
remarkable as it was for the "pomp and circumstance of war" than for
incidents and accidents the most absurd and ridiculous--the miserable
boats of the peasantry, the still more wretched cattle employed to drag
our artillery and train wagons, involving us in innumerable misfortunes
and mischances. Never were the heroic illusions of war more thoroughly
dissipated than by the scenes which accompanied our landing! Boats and
baggage-wagons upset; here, a wild, half savage-looking fellow swimming
after a cocked hat--there, a group of ragged wretches scraping sea-weed
from a dripping officer of the staff; noise, uproar, and confusion every
where; smart aid-de-camps mounted on donkeys; trim field-pieces "horsed"
by a promiscuous assemblage of men, women, cows, ponies, and asses.
Crowds of idle country-people thronging the little quay and obstructing
the passages, gazed upon the whole with eyes of wonderment and surprise,
but evidently enjoying all the drollery of the scene with higher relish
than they felt interested in its object or success. This trait in them
soon attracted all our notice, for they laughed at every thing; not a
caisson tumbled into the sea, not a donkey brought his rider to the
ground, but one general shout shook the entire assemblage.

If want and privation had impressed themselves by every external sign on
this singular people, they seemed to possess inexhaustible resources of
good humor and good spirits within. No impatience or rudeness on our
part could irritate them; and even to the wildest and least civilized
looking fellow around, there was a kind of native courtesy and
kindliness that could not fail to strike us.

A vague notion prevailed that we were their "friends;" and although many
of them did not clearly comprehend why we had come, or what was the
origin of the warm attachment between us, they were too lazy and too
indifferent to trouble their heads about the matter. They were satisfied
that there would be a "shindy" somewhere, and somebody's bones would get
broken, and even that much was a pleasant and reassuring consideration;
while others of keener mould reveled in plans of private vengeance
against this landlord or that agent--small debts of hatred to be paid
off in the day of general reckoning!

From the first moment nothing could exceed the tone of fraternal feeling
between our soldiers and the people. Without any means of communicating
their thoughts by speech, they seemed to acquire an instinctive
knowledge of each other in an instant. If the peasant was poor, there
was no limit to his liberality in the little he had. He dug up his
half-ripe potatoes, he unroofed his cabin to furnish straw for litter,
he gave up his only beast, and was ready to kill his cow, if asked, to
welcome us. Much of this was from the native, warm, and impulsive
generosity of their nature, and much, doubtless, had i

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