Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 383, September 1847
by Various · English · Gutenberg #33199 · 554,030 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 383, September 1847
Author: Various
Release date: July 19, 2010 [eBook #33199]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOLUME 62, NO. 383, SEPTEMBER 1847 ***
Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Library of Early Journals.)
BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCLXXXIII. SEPTEMBER, 1847. Vol. LXII.
HOW I STOOD FOR THE DREEPDAILY BURGHS.
CHAPTER I.
"My dear Dunshunner," said my friend Robert M'Corkindale as he entered my
apartments one fine morning in June last, "do you happen to have seen the
share-list? Things are looking in Liverpool as black as thunder. The
bullion is all going out of the country, and the banks are refusing to
discount."
Bob M'Corkindale might very safely have kept his information to himself. I
was, to say the truth, most painfully aware of the facts which he
unfeelingly obtruded upon my notice. Six weeks before, in the full
confidence that the panic was subsiding, I had recklessly invested my
whole capital in the shares of a certain railway company, which for the
present shall be nameless; and each successive circular from my broker
conveyed the doleful intelligence that the stock was going down to Erebus.
Under these circumstances I certainly felt very far from being
comfortable. I could not sell out except at a ruinous loss; and I could
not well afford to hold on for any length of time, unless there was a
reasonable prospect of a speedy amendment of the market. Let me confess
it--I had of late come out rather too strong. When a man has made money
easily, he is somewhat prone to launch into expense, and to presume too
largely upon his credit. I had been idiot enough to make my _debut_ in the
sporting world--had started a couple of horses upon the verdant turf of
Paisley--and, as a matter of course, was remorselessly sold by my
advisers. These and some other minor amusements had preyed deleteriously
upon my purse. In fact, I had not the ready; and as every tradesman
throughout Glasgow was quaking in his shoes at the panic, and
inconveniently eager to realise, I began to feel the reverse of
comfortable, and was shy of showing myself in Buchanan Street. Several
documents of a suspicious appearance--owing to the beastly practice of
wafering, which is still adhered to by a certain class of
correspondents--were lying upon my table at the moment when Bob entered. I
could see that the villain comprehended their nature at a glance; but
there was no use in attempting to mystify him. The Political Economist
was, as I was well aware, in very much the same predicament as myself.
"To tell you the truth, M'Corkindale, I have not opened a share-list for a
week. The faces of some of our friends are quite long enough to serve as a
tolerable exponent of the market; and I saw Grabbie pass about five
minutes ago with a yard of misery in his visage. But what's the news?"
"Every thing that is bad! Total stoppage expected in a week, and the mills
already put upon short time."
"You don't say so!"
"It is a fact. Dunshunner, this infernal tampering with the currency will
be the ruin of every mother's son of us!"--and here Bob, in a fit of
indignant enthusiasm, commenced a vivid harangue upon the principles of
contraction and expansion, bullion, the metallic standard, and the bank
reserves, which no doubt was extremely sound, but which I shall not
recapitulate to the reader.
"That's all very well, Bob," said I--"very good in theory, but we should
confine ourselves at present to practice. The main question seems to me to
be this. How are we to get out of our present fix? I presume you are not
at present afflicted with a remarkable plethory of cash?"
"Every farthing I have in the world is locked up in a falling line."
"Any debts?"
"Not many; but quite enough to make me meditate a temporary retirement to
Boulogne."
"I believe you are better off than I am. I not only owe money, but am
terribly bothered about some bills."
"That's awkward. Would it not be advisable to bolt?"
"I don't think so. You used to tell me, Bob, that credit was the next best
thing to capital. Now, I don't despair of redeeming my capital yet, if I
can only keep up my credit."
"Right, undoubtedly, as you generally are. Do you know, Dunshunner, you
deserve credit for your notions on political economy. But how is that to
be done? Every body is realising; the banks won't discount; and when your
bills become due, they will be, to a dead certainty, protested."
"Well--and what then?"
"_Squalor carceris_, etcetera."
"Hum--an unpleasant alternative, certainly. Come, Bob I put your wits to
work. You used to be a capital hand for devices, and there must be some
way or other of steering clear. Time is all we want."
"Ay, to be sure--time is the great thing. It would be very unpleasant to
look out on the world through a grating during the summer months!"
"I perspire at the bare idea!"
"Not a soul in town--all your friends away in the Highlands boating, or
fishing, or shooting grouse--and you pent up in a stifling apartment of
eight feet square, with nobody to talk to save the turnkey, and no
prospect from the window, except a deserted gooseberry stall!"
"O Bob, don't talk in that way! You make me perfectly miserable."
"And all this for a ministerial currency crotchet? 'Pon my soul, it's too
bad! I wish those fellows in Parliament----"
"Well? Go on."
"By Jove! I've an idea at last!"
"You don't say so! My dear Bob--out with it!"
"Dunshunner, are you a man of pluck?"
"I should think I am."
"And ready to go the whole hog, if required?"
"The entire animal."
"Then I'll tell you what it is--the elections will be on immediately--and,
by St Andrew, we'll put you up for Parliament!"
"Me!"
"You. Why not? There are hundreds of men there quite as hard up, and not
half so clever as yourself."
"And what good would that do me?"
"Don't you see? You need not care a farthing about your debts then, for
the personal liberty of a member of the House of Commons is sacred. You
can fire away right and left at the currency; and who knows, if you play
your cards well, but you may get a comfortable place?"
"Well, you _are_ a genius, Bob! But then, what sort of principles should I
profess?"
"That is a matter which requires consideration. What are your own feelings
on the subject?"
"Perfect indifference. I am pledged to no party, and am free to exercise
my independent judgment."
"Of course, of course! We shall take care to stick all that into the
address; but you must positively come forward with some kind of tangible
political views. The currency will do for one point, but as to the others
I see a difficulty."
"Suppose I were to start as a Peelite?
"Something may be said in favour of that view; but, on the whole, I should
rather say not. That party may not look up for some little time, and then
the currency is a stumbling-block in the way. No, Dunshunner, I do not
think, upon my honour, that it would be wise for you to commit yourself in
that quarter at the present moment."
"Suppose I try the Protectionist dodge? One might come it very strong
against the foreigners, and in favour of native industry. Eh, Bob? What do
you say to that? It is an advantage to act with gentlemen."
"True; but at the same time, I see many objections. The principles of the
country party are not yet thoroughly understood by the people, and I
should like to have you start with at least popularity on your side."
"Radical, then? What do you think of Annual Parliaments, Universal
Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, and separation of Church and State?"
"I am clear against that. These views are not popular with the Electors,
and even the mob would entertain a strong suspicion that you were
humbugging them."
"What, then, on earth am I to do?"
"I will tell you. Come out as a pure and transparent Whig. In the present
position of parties, it is at least a safe course to pursue, and it is
always the readiest step to the possession of the loaves and the fishes."
"Bob, I don't like the Whigs!"
"No more do I. They are a bad lot; but they are _in_, and that is every
thing. Yes, Augustus," continued Bob solemnly, "there is nothing else for
it. You must start as a pure Whig, upon the Revolution principles of
sixteen hundred and eighty-eight."
"It would be a great relief to my mind, Bob, if you would tell me what
those principles really are?"
"I have not the remotest idea; but we have plenty time to look them up."
"Then, I suppose I must swallow the Dutchman and the Massacre of Glencoe?"
"Yes, and the Darien business into the bargain. These are the principles
of your party, and of course you are bound to subscribe."
"Well! you know best; but I'd rather do any thing else."
"Pooh! never fear; you and Whiggery will agree remarkably well. That
matter, then, we may consider as settled. The next point to be thought of
is the constituency."
"Ay, to be sure! what place am I to start for? I have got no interest, and
if I had any, there are no nomination burghs in Scotland."
"Aren't there? That's all you know, my fine fellow! Hark ye, Dunshunner,
more than half of the Scottish burghs are at this moment held by
nominees!"
"You amaze me, Bob! The thing is impossible! The Reform Bill, that great
charter of our liberties----"
"Bravo! There spoke the Whig! The Reform Bill, you think, put an end to
nomination? It did nothing of the kind, it merely transferred it. Did you
ever hear of such things as CLIQUES?"
"I have. But they are tremendously unpopular."
"Nevertheless, they hold the returning power. There is a Clique in almost
every town throughout Scotland, which loads the electors as quietly, but
as surely, as the blind man is conducted by his dog. These are modelled on
the true Venetian principles of secrecy and terrorism. They control the
whole constituency, put in the member, and in return monopolise the whole
patronage of the place. If you have the Clique with you, you are almost
sure of your election; if not, except in the larger towns, you have not a
shadow of success. Now, what I want to impress upon you is this, that
where-ever you go, be sure that you communicate with the Clique."
"But how am I to find it out?
"That is not always an easy matter, for nobody will acknowledge that they
belong to it. However, the thing is not impossible, and we shall certainly
make the experiment. Come, then, I suppose you agree with me, that it is
hopeless to attempt the larger towns?"
"Clearly. So far as I see, they are all provided already with candidates."
"And you may add, Cliques, Dunshunner. Well, then, let us search among
the smaller places. What would you think of a dash at the Stirling
District of Burghs?"
"Why, there are at least half-a-dozen candidates in the field."
"True, that would naturally lessen your chance. Depend upon it, some one
of them has already found the key to the Clique. But there's the
Dreepdaily District with nobody standing for it, except the Honourable
Paul Pozzlethwaite; and I question whether he knows himself the nature or
the texture of his politics. Really, Dunshunner, that's the very place for
you; and if we look sharp after it, I bet the long odds that you will
carry it in a canter."
"Do you really think so?
"I do indeed; and the sooner you start the better. Let me see. I know
Provost Binkie of Dreepdaily. He is a Railway bird, was an original
Glenmutchkin shareholder, and fortunately sold out at a premium. He is a
capital man to begin with, and I think will be favourable to you: besides,
Dreepdaily is in old Whig burgh. I am not so sure of Kittleweem. It is a
shade more respectable than Dreepdaily, and has always been rather
Conservative. The third burgh, Drouthielaw, is a nest of Radicalism; but I
think it may be won over, if we open the public-houses."
"But, about expenses, Bob--won't it be a serious matter?"
"Why, you must lay your account with spending some five or six hundred
pounds upon the nail; and I advise you to sell stock to that amount at
least. The remainder, should it cost you more, can stand over."
"Bob, five or six hundred pounds is a very serious sum!"
"Granted--but then look at the honour and the immunity you will enjoy.
Recollect that yours is an awkward predicament. If you don't get into
Parliament, I see nothing for it but a stoppage."
"That's true enough. Well--hang it, then, I will start!"
"There's a brave fellow! I should not in the least wonder to see you in
the Cabinet yet. The sooner you set about preparing your address the
better."
"What! without seeing Provost Binkie?"
"To be sure. What is the use of wading when you can plunge at once into
deep water? Besides, let me, tell you that you are a great deal more
likely to get credit when it is understood that you are an actual
candidate."
"There is something in that too. But I say, Bob--you really must help me
with the address. I am a bad hand at these things, and shall never be able
to tickle up the electors without your assistance."
"I'll do all I can. Just ring for a little sherry and water, and we'll set
to work. I make no doubt that, between us, we can polish off a plausible
placard."
Two hours afterwards, I forwarded through the post-office, a missive
addressed to the editor of the Dreepdaily Patriot, with the following
document enclosed. I am rather proud of it, as a manifesto of my political
principles.
"TO THE ELECTORS OF THE UNITED DISTRICT OF BURGHS OF DREEPDAILY,
DROUTHIELAW, AND KITTLEWEEM.
"GENTLEMEN,--I am induced, by a requisition, to which are appended the
signatures of a large majority of your influential and patriotic body, to
offer myself as a candidate for the high honour of your representation in
the ensuing session of Parliament. Had I consulted my own inclination, I
should have preferred the leisure of retirement and the pursuit of those
studies so congenial to my taste, to the more stormy and agitating of
politics. But a deep sense of public duty compels me to respond to your
call.
"My views upon most subjects are so well known to many of you, that a
lengthened explanation of them would probably be superfluous. Still,
however, it may be right and proper for me to explain generally what they
are.
"My principles are based upon the great and glorious Revolution settlement
of 1688, which, by abolishing, or at least superseding, hereditary right,
intrusted the guardianship of the crown to an enlightened oligarchy for
the protection of an unparticipating people. That oligarchy is now most
ably represented by her Majesty's present Ministers, to whom,
unhesitatingly and uncompromisingly, except upon a very few matters, I
give in my adhesion so long as they shall continue in office.
"Opposed to faction and an enemy to misrule, I am yet friendly to many
changes of a sweeping and organic character. Without relaxing the ties
which at present bind together church and state in harmonious coalition
and union, I would gradually confiscate the revenues of the one for the
increasing necessities of the other. I never would become a party to an
attack upon the House of Peers, so long as it remains subservient to the
will of the Commons; nor would I alter or extend the franchise, except
from cause shown, and the declared and universal wish of the non-electors.
"I highly approve of the policy which has been pursued towards Ireland,
and of further concessions to a deep-rooted system of agitation. I approve
of increased endowments to that much neglected country; and I applaud that
generosity which relieves it from all participation in the common burdens
of the state. Such a line of policy cannot fail to elevate the moral tone,
and to develop the internal resources of Ireland; and I never wish to see
the day when the Scotsman and the Irishman may, in so far as taxation is
concerned, be placed upon an equal footing. It appears to me a highly
equitable adjustment that the savings of the first should be appropriated
for the wants of the second.
"I am in favour of the centralising system, which, by drafting away the
wealth and talent of the provinces, must augment the importance of London.
I am strongly opposed to the maintenance of my local or Scottish
institutions, which can merely serve to foster a spirit of decayed
nationality; and I am of opinion that all boards and offices should be
transferred to England, with the exception of those connected with the
Dreepdaily district, which it is the bounden duty of the legislature to
protect and preserve.
"I am a friend to the spread of education, but hostile to any system by
means of which religion, especially Protestantism, may be taught.
"I am a supporter of free trade in all its branches. I cannot see any
reason for the protection of native industry, and am ready to support any
fundamental measure by means of which articles of foreign manufacture
maybe brought to compete in the home market with our own, without
restriction and without reciprocity. It has always appeared to me that our
imports are of far greater importance than our exports. I think that any
lowering of price which may be the result of such a commercial policy,
will be more than adequately compensated by a coercive measure which shall
compel the artisan to augment the period of his labour. I am against any
short hours' bill, and am of opinion that infant labour should be
stringently and universally enforced.
"With regard to the currency, I feel that I may safely leave that matter
in the hands of her Majesty's present Ministers, who have never shown any
indisposition to oppose themselves to the popular wish.
"These, gentlemen, are my sentiments; and I think that, upon
consideration, you will find them such as may entitle me to your cordial
support. I need not say how highly I shall value the trust, or how
zealously I shall endeavour to promote your local interests. These,
probably, can be best advanced by a cautious regard to my own.
"On any other topics I shall be happy to give you the fullest and most
satisfactory explanation. I shall merely add, as a summary of my opinions,
that while ready on the one hand to coerce labour, so as to stimulate
internal industry to the utmost, and to add largely to the amount of our
population; I am, upon the other, a friend to the liberty of the subject,
and to the promotion of such genial and sanatory measures as suit the
tendency of our enlightened age, the diffusion of universal philanthropy,
and the spread of popular opinion. I remain, GENTLEMEN, with the deepest
respect, your very obedient and humble servant,
"AUGUSTUS REGINALD DUNSHUNNER.
"_St Mirren's House,
"June, 1847_."
The editor of the Dreepdaily Patriot, wisely considering that this
advertisement was the mere prelude to many more, was kind enough to
dedicate a leading article to an exposition of my past services. I am not
a vain man; so that I shall not here reprint the panegyric passed upon
myself, or the ovation which my friend foresaw. Indeed, I am so far from
vain, that I really began to think, while perusing the columns of the
Patriot, that I had somewhat foolishly shut my eyes hitherto to the
greatness of that talent, and the brilliancy of those parts which were now
proclaimed to the world. Yes; it was quite clear that I had hitherto been
concealing my candle under a bushel--that I was cut out by nature for a
legislator--and that I was the very man for the Dreepdaily electors. Under
this conviction, I started upon my canvass, munimented with letters of
introduction from M'Corkindale, who, much against his inclination, was
compelled to remain at home.
CHAPTER II.
Dreepdaily is a beautiful little town, embosomed in an amphitheatre of
hills which have such a winning way with the clouds that the summits are
seldom visible. Dreepdaily, if situated in Arabia, would be deemed a
Paradise. All round it the vegetation is long, and lithe, and luxuriant;
the trees keep their verdure late; and the rush of the nettles is amazing.
How the inhabitants contrive to live, is to me a matter of mystery. There
is no particular trade or calling exercised in the place--no busy hum of
artisans, or clanking of hammer or machinery. Round the suburbs, indeed,
there are rows of mean-looking cottages, each with its strapping lass in
the national short gown at the door, from the interior of which resounds
the boom of the weaver's shuttle. There is also one factory at a little
distance; but when you reach the town itself, all is supereminently
silent. In fine weather, crowds of urchins of both sexes are seen sunning
themselves on the quaint-looking flights of steps by which the doors,
usually on the second story, are approached; and as you survey the swarms
of bare-legged and flaxen-haired infantry, you cannot help wondering in
your heart what has become of the adult population. It is only towards
evening that the seniors appear. Then you may find them either congregated
on the bridge discussing politics and polemics, or lounging in the little
square in affectionate vicinity to the public-house, or leaning over the
windows in their shirt-sleeves, in the tranquil enjoyment of a pipe. In
short, the cares and the bustle of the world, even in this railroad age,
seem to have fallen lightly on the pacific burghers of Dreepdaily.
According to their own account, the town was once a peculiar favourite of
royalty. It boasts of a charter from King David the First, and there is an
old ruin in the neighbourhood which is said to have been a palace of that
redoubted monarch. It may be so, for there is no accounting for
constitutions; but had I been King David, I certainly should have
preferred, a place where the younger branches of the family would have
been less liable to the accident of catarrh.
Dreepdaily, in the olden time, was among the closest of all the burghs.
Its representation had a fixed price, which was always rigorously exacted
and punctually paid; and for half a year thereafter, the corporation made
merry thereon. The Reform Bill, therefore, was by no means popular in the
council. A number of discontented Radicals and of small householders, who
hitherto had been excluded from participation in the good things of the
state, now got upon the roll, and seemed determined for a time to carry
matters with a high hand, and to return a member of their own. And
doubtless they would have succeeded, had not the same spirit been abroad
in the sister burghs of Drouthielaw and Kittleweem, which, for some
especial reason or other, known doubtless to Lord John Russell, but
utterly unintelligible to the rest of mankind, were, though situated in
different counties, associated with Dreepdaily in the return of their
future member. Each of these places had a separate interest, and started a
separate man; so that, amidst this conflict of Liberalism, the old member
for Dreepdaily, a Conservative, again slipped into his place. The
consequence was, that the three burghs were involved in a desperate feud.
In these days there lived in Dreepdaily one Laurence Linklater, more
commonly known by the name of Tod Lowrie, who exercised the respectable
functions of a writer and a messenger-at-arms. Lowrie was a remarkably
acute individual, of the Gilbert Glossin school, by no means scrupulous in
his dealings, but of singular plausibility and courage. He had started in
life as a Radical, but finding that that line did not pay well, he had
prudently subsided into a Whig, and in that capacity had acquired a sort
of local notoriety. He had contrived, moreover, to gain a tolerable
footing in Drouthielaw, and in the course of time became intimately
acquainted with the circumstances of its inhabitants, and under the plea
of agency had contrived to worm the greater part of their title-deeds into
his keeping.
It then occurred to Lowrie, that, notwithstanding the discordant situation
of the burghs, something might be done to effect a union under his own
especial chieftainship. Not that he cared in his heart one farthing about
the representation--Tyrian and Trojan were in reality the same to him--but
he saw that the gain of these burghs would be of immense advantage to his
party, and he determined that the advantage should be balanced by a
corresponding profit to himself. Accordingly, he began quietly to look to
the state of the neglected register; lodged objections to all claims given
in by parties upon whom he could not depend; smuggled a sufficient number
of his own clients and adherents upon the roll, and in the course of three
years, was able to intimate to an eminent Whig partisan, that he, Laurence
Linklater, held in his own hands the representation of the Dreepdaily
Burghs, could turn the election either way he pleased, and was open to
reasonable terms.
The result was, that Mr Linklater was promoted to a very lucrative county
office, and moreover, that the whole patronage of the district was
thereafter observed to flow through the Laurentian channel. Of course all
those who could claim kith or kindred with Lowrie were provided for in the
first instance; but there were stray crumbs still going, and in no one
case could even a gaugership be obtained without the adhesion of an
additional vote. Either the applicant must be ready to sell his
independence, or, if that were done already, to pervert the politics of a
relative. A Whig member was returned at the next election by an immense
majority; and for some time Linklater reigned supreme in the government of
Dreepdaily and Drouthielaw.
But death, which spares no governors, knocked at the door of Linklater. A
surfeit of partan-pie, after the triumphant termination of a law-suit,
threw the burghs into a state of anarchy. Lowrie was gathered unto his
fathers, and there was no one to reign in his stead.
At least there was no apparent ruler. Every one observed, that the stream
of patronage and of local jobbing still flowed on as copiously as before,
but nobody could discover by what hands it was now directed. Suspicion
fastened its eyes for some time upon Provost Binkie; but the vehement
denials of that gentleman, though not in themselves conclusive, at last
gained credence from the fact that a situation which he had solicited from
Government for his nephew was given to another person. Awful rumours began
to circulate of the existence of a secret junta. Each man regarded his
neighbour with intense suspicion and distrust, because, for any thing he
knew, that neighbour might be a member of the terrible tribunal, by means
of which all the affairs of the community were regulated, and a single
ill-timed word might absolutely prove his ruin. Such, indeed, in one
instance was the case. In an evil hour for himself, an independent
town-councillor thought fit to denounce the Clique, as an unconstitutional
and tyrannical body, and to table a motion for an inquiry as to its
nature, members, and proceedings. So strong was the general alarm that he
could not even find a seconder. But the matter did not stop there. The
rash meddler had drawn upon himself the vengeance of a remorseless foe.
His business began to fall off; rumours of the most malignant description
were circulated regarding his character; two of his relatives who held
situations were dismissed without warning and without apology; his credit
was assailed in every quarter; and in less than six months after he had
made that most unfortunate, harangue, the name of Thomas Gritt, baker in
Dreepdaily, was seen to figure in the Gazette. So fell Gritt a martyr, and
if any one mourned for him, it was in secret, and the profoundest awe.
Such was the political state of matters, at the time when I rode down the
principal street of Dreepdaily. I need hardly say that I did not know a
single soul in the burgh; in that respect, indeed, there was entire
reciprocity on both sides, for the requisition referred to in my address
was a felicitous fiction by M'Corkindale. I stopped before a substantial
bluff-looking house, the lower part of which was occupied as a shop, and a
scroll above informed me that the proprietor was Walter Binkie, grocer.
A short squat man, with an oleaginous face and remarkably bushy eyebrows,
was in the act of weighing out a pennyworth of "sweeties" to a little girl
as I entered.
"Is the Provost of Dreepdaily within?" asked I.
"I'se warrant he's that," was the reply; "Hae, my dear, there's a sugar
almond t'ye into the bargain. Gae your waus hame noo, and tell your mither
that I've some grand new tea. Weel, sir, what was you wanting?"
"I wish particularly to speak to the Provost."
"Weel then, speak awa'," and he straightway squatted himself before his
ledger.
"I beg your pardon, sir! Have I really the honour of addressing--;"
"Walter Binkie, the Provost of this burgh. But if ye come on Council
matters, ye're lang ahint the hour. I'm just steppin' up to denner, and I
never do business after that."
"But perhaps you will allow me--"
"I will allow nae man, sir, to interrupt my leisure. If ye're wanting ony
thing, gang to the Town Clerk."
"Permit me one moment--my name is Dunshunner."
"Eh, what!" cried the Provost, bounding from his stool, "speak lower or
the lad will hear ye. Are ye the gentleman that's stannin' for the
burrows?"
"The same."
"Lord-sake! what for did ye no say that afore? Jims! I say, Jims! Look
after the shop! Come this way, sir, up the stair, and take care ye dinna
stumble on that toom cask o' saut."
I followed the Provost up a kind of corkscrew stair, until we emerged upon
a landing-place in his own proper domicile. We entered the dining room. It
was showily furnished; with an enormous urn of paper roses in the grate,
two stuffed parroquets upon the mantel-piece, a flamingo coloured carpet,
enormous worsted bell-pulls, and a couple of portraits by some peripatetic
follower of Vandyke, one of them representing the Provost in his civic
costume, and the other bearing some likeness to a fat female in a turban,
with a Cairngorm brooch about the size of a platter on her breast, and no
want of carmine on the space dedicated to the cheeks.
The Provost locked the door, and then clapped his ear to the key-hole. He
next approached the window, drew down the blinds so as effectually to
prevent any opposite scrutiny, and motioned me to a seat.
"And so ye're Mr Dunshunner?" said he. "Oh man, but I've been wearyin' to
see you!"
"Indeed! you flatter me very much."
"Nae flattery, Mr Dunshunner--name! I'm a plain honest man, that's a',
and naebody can say that Wattie Binkie, has blawn in their lug. And sae
ye're comin forrard for the burrows? It's a bauld thing, sir--a bauld
thing, and a great honour ye seek. No that I think ye winna do honour to
it, but it's a great trust for sae young a man; a heavy responsibility, as
a body may say, to hang upon a callant's shouthers."
"I hope, Mr Binkie, that my future conduct may show that I can at least
act up to my professions."
"Nae doubt, sir--I'm no misdoubtin' ye, and to say the truth ye profess
weel. I've read yer address, sir, and I like yer principles--they're the
stench auld Whig anes--keep a' we can to ourselves, and haud a gude grup.
But wha's bringing ye forrard? Wha signed yer requisition? No the
Kittleweem folk, I hope?--That wad be a sair thing against ye."
"Why, no--certainly not. The fact is, Mr Binkie, that I have not seen the
requisition. Its contents were communicated by a third party, on whom I
have the most perfect reliance; and, as I understood there was some
delicacy in the matter, I did not think it proper to insist upon a sight
of the signatures."
The Provost gave a long whistle.
"I see it noo!" he said, "I see it! I ken't there was something gaun on
forbye the common. Ye're a lucky man, Mr Dunshunner, and ye're election is
as sure as won. Ye've been spoken to by them ye ken o'!"
"Upon my word--I do not understand--"
"Ay--ay! Ye're richt to be cautious. Weel I wat they are kittle cattle to
ride the water on. But wha was't, sir,--wha was't? Ye needna be feared of
me. I ken how to keep a secret."
"Really, Mr Binkie, except through a third party, as I have told you
already I have had no communication with any one."
"Weel--they _are_ close--there's nae denyin' that. But ye surely maun hae
some inkling o' the men--Them that's ahint the screen, ye ken?"
"Indeed, I have not. But stay--if you allude to the Clique----"
"Wheest, sir, wheest!" cried the Provost in an agitated tone of voice.
"Gudesake, tak care what ye say--ye dinna ken wha may hear ye. Ye hae
spoken a word that I havena heard this mony a day without shaking in my
shoon. Ay speak ceevily o' the dell--ye dinna ken how weel ye may be
acquaunt!"
"Surely, sir, there can be no harm in mentioning the----"
"No under that name, Mr Dunshunner--no under that name, and no here. I
wadna ca' them that on the tap of Ben-Nevis without a grue. Ay--and sae
THEY are wi' ye, are they? Weel, they are a queer set!"
"You know the parties then, Mr Binkie?"
"I ken nae mair aboot them than I ken whaur to find the caverns o' the
east wind. Whether they are three or thretty or a hunder surpasses my
knowledge, but they hae got the secret o' the fern seed and walk about
invisible. It is a'thegether a great mystery, but doubtless ye will obtain
a glimpse. In the mean time, since ye come from that quarter, I am bound
to obey."
"You are very kind, I am sure, Mr Binkie. May I ask then your opinion of
matters as they stand at present?"
"Our present member, Mr Whistlerigg, will no stand again. He's got some
place or ither up in London; and, my certie, he's worked weel for it!
There's naebody else stannin' forbye that man Pozzlethaite, and he disna
verra weel ken what he is himsel'. If it's a' richt yonder," continued the
Provost, jerking his thumb over his left shoulder, "ye're as gude as
elected."
As it would have been extremely impolitic for me under present
circumstances to have disclaimed all connection with a body which
exercised an influence so marked and decided, I allowed Provost Binkie to
remain under the illusion that I was the chosen candidate of the Clique.
In fact I had made up my mind that I should become so at any cost, so soon
as it vouchsafed to disclose itself and appear before my longing eyes. I
therefore launched at once into practical details, in the discussion of
which the Provost exhibited both shrewdness and good-will. He professed
his readiness at once to become chairman of my committee, drew out a list
of the most influential persons in the burgh to whom I ought immediately
to apply, and gave me much information regarding the politics of the other
places. From what he said, I gathered that, with the aid of the Clique, I
was sure of Dreepdaily and Drouthielaw--as to the electors of Kittleweem,
they were, in his opinion, "a wheen dirt," whom it would be useless to
consult, and hopeless to conciliate. I certainly had no previous idea that
the bulk of the electors had so little to say in the choice of their own
representative. When I ventured to hint at the remote possibility of a
revolt, the Provost indignantly exclaimed--
"They daurna, sir--they daurna for the lives of them do it! Set them up
indeed! Let me see ony man that wad venture to vote against the Town
Council and the--and _them_, and I'll make a clean sweep of him out of
Dreepdaily!"
Nothing in short could have been more satisfactory than this statement.
Whilst we were conversing together, I heard of a sudden a jingling in the
next apartment, as it some very aged and decrepid harpsichord were being
exorcised into the unusual effort of a tune. I glanced inquiringly to the
door, but the Provost took no notice of my look. In a little time,
however, there was a short preliminary cough, and a female voice of
considerable compass took up the following strain. I remember the words
not more from their singularity, than from the introduction to which they
were the prelude:--
"I heard a wee bird singing clear,
In the tight, tight month o' June--
'What garr'd ye buy when stocks were high,
And sell when shares were doun?
'Gin ye hae play'd me fause, my luve,
In simmer 'mang the rain;
When siller's scant and scarce at Yule
I'll pay ye back again!
'O bonny were the Midland Halves,
When credit was sae free!--
But wae betide the Southron loon
That sold thae Halves to me!'"
I declare, upon the word of a Railway Director, that I was never more
taken aback in my life. Attached as I have been from youth to the Scottish
ballad poetry, I never yet had heard a ditty of this peculiar stamp, which
struck me as a happy combination of tender fancy with the sterner
realities of the Exchange. Provost Binkie smiled as he remarked my
amazement.
"It's only my daughter Maggie, Mr Dunshunner," he said. "Puir thing! It's
little she has here to amuse her, and sae she whiles writes thae kind o'
sangs hersel'. She's weel up to the railroads, for ye ken I was an auld
Glenmutchkin holder."
"Indeed! Was that song Miss Binkie's own composition?" asked I, with
considerable interest.
"Atweel it is that, and mair too. Maggie, haud your skirling!--ye're
interrupting me and the gentleman."
"I beg, on no account, Mr Binkie, that I may be allowed to interfere with
your daughter's amusement. Indeed it is full time that I were betaking
myself to the hotel, unless you will honour me so far as to introduce me
to Miss Binkie."
"Deil a bit o' you gangs to the hotel to-night!" replied the hospitable
Provost. "You bide where you are to denner and bed, and we'll hae a
comfortable crack over matters in the evening. Maggie! come ben, lass, and
speak to Mr Dunshunner."
Miss Binkie, who I am strongly of opinion was all the while conscious of
the presence of a stranger, now entered from the adjoining room. She was
really a pretty girl; tall, with lively sparkling eyes and a profusion of
dark hair, which she wore in the somewhat exploded shape of ringlets. I
was not prepared for such an apparition, and I daresay blushed as I paid
my compliments.
Margaret Binkie, however, had no sort of _mauvaise honte_ about her. She
had received her final polish in a Glasgow boarding-school, and did
decided credit to the seminary in which the operation had been performed.
At all events she was the reverse of shy, for in less than a quarter of an
hour we were rattling away as though we had been acquainted from
childhood; and, to say the truth, I found myself getting into something
like a strong flirtation. Old Binkie grinned a delighted smile, and went
out to superintend the decanting of a bottle of port.
I need not, I think, expatiate upon the dinner which followed. The
hotch-potch was unexceptionable, the salmon curdy, and the lamb roasted
without a fault; and if the red-armed Hebe who attended was somewhat
awkward in her motions, she was at least zealous to a degree. The Provost
got into high feather, and kept plying me perpetually with wine. When the
cloth was removed, he drank with all formality to my success; and, as
Margaret Binkie, with a laugh, did due honour to the toast, I could not do
less than indulge in a little flight of fancy as I proposed the ladies,
and, in connexion with them, the Flower of Dreepdaily--a sentiment which
was acknowledged with a blush.
After Miss Binkie retired, the Provost grew more and more convivial. He
would not enter into business, but regaled me with numerous anecdotes of
his past exploits, and of the lives and conversation of his compatriots in
the Town Council--some of whom appeared, from his description, to be very
facetious individuals indeed. More particularly, he dwelt upon the good
qualities and importance of a certain Mr Thomas Gills, better known to his
friends and kinsfolk by the _sobriquet_ of Toddy Tam, and recommended me
by all means to cultivate the acquaintance of that personage. But, however
otherwise loquacious, nothing would persuade the Provost to launch out
upon the subject of the Clique. He really seemed to entertain as profound
a terror of that body as ever Huguenot did of the Inquisition, and he cut
me short at last by ejaculating--
"Sae nae mair on't, Mr Dunshunner--sae nae mair on't! It's ill talking on
thae things. Ye dinna ken what the Clique is, nor whaur it is. But this I
ken, that they are every where and a' aboot us; they hear every thing that
passes in this house, and I whiles suspect that Mysie, the servant lass,
is naething else than ane o' them in petticoats!"
More than this I could not elicit. After we had finished a considerable
quantum of port, we adjourned to the drawing-room, and, tea over, Miss
Binkie sang to me several of her own songs, whilst the Provost snored upon
the sofa. Both the songs and the singer were clever, the situation was
interesting, and, somehow or other, I found my fingers more than once in
contact with Maggie's, as I turned over the leaves of the music.
At last the Provost rose, with a stertoracious grunt. I thought this might
be the signal for retiring to rest; but such were not the habits of
Dreepdaily. Salt herrings and finnan haddocks were produced along with the
hot water and accompaniments; and I presume it was rather late before my
host conducted me to my chamber. If I dreamed at all that night, it must
have been of Margaret Binkie.
CHAPTER III.
The next morning, whilst dressing, I heard a blithe voice carolling on the
stair. It was the orison of Margaret Binkie as she descended to the
breakfast-room. I listened and caught the following verses:--
"O hand away frae me," she said,
"I pray you let me be!
Hae you the shares ye held, my lord,
What time ye courted me?
"'Tis woman's weird to luve and pine,
And man's is to forget:
Hold you the shares, Lord James," she said,
"Or hae ye sold them yet?"
"My York Extensions, bought at par,
I sold at seven pund prem.--
And, O my heart is sair to think
I had nae mair of them!"
"That is really a remarkable girl!" thought I, as I stropped my razor.
"Such genius, such animation, and such a thorough knowledge of the market!
She would make a splendid wife for a railway-director."
"Come away, Mr Dunshunner," said the Provost, as I entered the parlour. "I
hope ye are yaup, for ye have a lang day's wark before ye."
"I am sure it would be an agreeable one, sir, if accompanied with such
sweet music as I heard this morning. Pardon me, Miss Binkie, but you
really are a perfect Sappho."
"You are too good, I am sure, Mr Dunshunner. Will you take tea or coffee?"
"Maggie," said the Provost, "I maun put a stop to that skirling--it's well
eneuch for the night, but the morning is the time for business. Mr
Dunshunner, I've been thinking over this job of ours, and here is a bit
listie of the maist influential persons in Dreepdaily, that you must
positeevely see this day. They wad be affronted if they kenned ye were
here without calling on them. Noo, mark me,--I dinna just say that ony o'
them is the folk ye ken o', but it's no ava unlikely; sae ye maun even use
yer ain discretion. Tak an auld man's word for it, and aye put your best
fit foremost."
I acquiesced in the justice of the suggestion, although I was really
unconscious which foot deserved the precedence. The Provost continued--
"Just ae word mair. Promising is a cheap thing, and ye needna be vera
sparing of it. If ony body speaks to ye about a gaugership, or a place in
the Customs or the Post-office, just gie ye a bit wink, tak out your
note-book, and make a mark wi' the keelavine pen. It aye looks weel, and
gangs as far as a downright promise. Deny or refuse naebody. Let them
think that ye can do every thing wi' the ministry; and if there should
happen to be a whaup in the rape, let them even find it out theirsells.
Tell them that ye stand up for Dreepdaily, and its auld charter, and the
Whig constitution, and liberal principles. Maist feck o' them disna ken
what liberal principles is, but they like the word. I whiles think that
liberal principles means saying muckle and doing naething, but you needna
tell them that. The Whigs are lang-headed chiells, and they hae had the
sense to claim a' the liberality to themsells, ever since the days o' the
Reform Bill."
Such and such-like were the valuable maxims which Provost Binkie instilled
into my mind during the progress of breakfast. I must say they made a
strong impression upon me; and any candidate who may hereafter come
forward for the representation of a Scottish burgh, on principles similar
to my own, would do well to peruse and remember them.
At length I rose to go.
"Do I carry your good wishes along with me, Miss Binkie, on my canvass?"
"Most cordially, Mr Dunshunner; I shall be perfectly miserable until I
learn your success. I can assure you of my support, and earnestly wish I
was an elector."
"Enviable would be the Member of Parliament who could represent so
charming a constituency!"
"Oh, Mr Dunshunner!"
Directed by the Provost's list, I set forth in search of my constituency.
The first elector whose shop I entered was a draper of the name of
M'Auslan. I found him in the midst of his tartans.
"Mr M'Auslan, I presume?"
"Ay," was the curt response.
"Allow me to introduce myself, sir. My name is Dunshunner."
"Oh."
"You are probably aware, sir, that I am a candidate for the representation
of these burghs?"
"Ay."
"I hope and trust, Mr M'Auslan, that my principles are such as meet with
your approbation?"
"Maybe."
"I am a friend, sir, to civil and religious liberty,--to Dreepdaily and
its charter,--to the old Whig constitution of 1688,--and to the true
interests of the people."
"Weel?"
"Confound the fellow!" thought I, "was there ever such an insensate block?
I must bring him to the point at once. Mr M'Auslan," I continued in a
very, insinuating tone, "such being my sentiments, may I venture to
calculate on your support?"
"There's twa words to that bargain," replied M'Auslan, departing from
monosyllables.
"Any further explanation that may be required, I am sure, will readily--"
"It's nae use."
"How?" said I, a good deal alarmed. "Is it possible you are already
pledged?"
"No."
"Then what objection--"
"I made naue. I see ye dinna ken us here. The pear's no ripe yet."
"What pear?" asked I, astonished at this horticultural allusion.
"Hark ye," said M'Auslan, looking stealthily around him, and for the first
time exhibiting some marks of intelligence in his features--"Hark ye,--hae
ye seen Toddy Tam yet?"
"Mr Gills? Not yet. I am just going to wait upon him; but Provost Binkie
has promised me his support."
"Wha cares for Provost Binkie! Gang to Toddy Tam."
Not one other word could I extract from the oracular M'Auslan; so, like a
pilgrim, I turned my face towards Mecca, and sallied forth in quest of
this all-important personage. On my way, however, I entered the house of
another voter, one Shanks, a member of the Town Council, from whom I
received equally unsatisfactory replies. He, like M'Auslan, pointed
steadily towards Toddy Tam. Now, who and what was the individual who, by
the common consent of his townsmen, had earned so honourable an epithet?
Mr Thomas Gills had at one time been a clerk in the office of the departed
Linklater. His function was not strictly legal, nor confined to the
copying of processes: it had a broader and wider scope, and was exercised
in a more congenial manner. In short, Mr Gills was a kind of provider for
the establishment. His duties were to hunt out business; which he achieved
to a miracle by frequenting every possible public-house, and wringing from
them, amidst their cups, the stories of the wrongs of his compotators. Wo
to the wight who sate down for an afternoon's conviviality with Toddy Tam!
Before the mixing of the fourth tumbler, the ingenious Gills was sure to
elicit some hardship or grievance, for which benignant Themis could give
redress; and rare, indeed, was the occurrence of the evening on which he
did not capture some additional clients. He would even go the length of
treating his victim, when inordinately shy, until the fatal mandate was
given, and retraction utterly impossible.
Such decided business talents, of course, were not overlooked by the
sagacious Laurence Linklater. Gills enjoyed a large salary, the greater
moiety of which he consumed in alcoholic experiments; and shortly before
the decease of his patron, he was promoted to the lucrative and easy
office of some county registrarship. He now began to cultivate
conviviality for its own especial sake. It was no longer dangerous to
drink with him; for though, from habit, he continued to poke into
grievances, he never, on the following morning, pursued the subject
further. But what was most remarkable about Toddy Tam was, his
independence. He never truckled to dictation from any quarter; but, whilst
Binkie and the rest were in fear and terror of the Clique, he openly
defied that body, and dared them to do their worst. He was the only man in
Dreepdaily who ventured to say that Tom Gritts was right in the motion he
had made, and he further added, that if he, Thomas Gills, had been in the
Town Council, the worthy and patriotic baker should not have wanted a
seconder. This was considered a very daring speech, and one likely to draw
down the vengeance of the unrelenting junta: but the thunder slept in the
cloud, and Mr Gills enjoyed himself as before.
I found him in his back parlour, in company with a very rosy individual.
Although it was not yet noon, a case-bottle and glasses were on the table,
and the whole apartment stunk abominably with the fumes of whisky.
"Sit in, Mr Dunshunner, sit in!" said Toddy Tam, in a tone of great
cordiality, after I had effected my introduction. "Ye'll no hae had your
morning yet? Lass, bring in a clean glass for the gentleman."
"I hope you will excuse me, Mr Gills. I really never do--"
"Hoots--nonsense! Ye maun be neighbour-like, ye ken--we a' expect it at
Dreepdaily." And so saying, Toddy Tam, poured me out a full glass of
spirits. I had as lieve have swallowed ink, but I was forced to constrain
myself and bolt it.
"Ay, and so ye are coming round to us as a candidate, are ye? What d'ye
think o' that, Mr Thamson--hae ye read Mr Dunshunner's address?"
The rubicund individual chuckled, leered, and rose to go, but Toddy Tam
laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder.
"Sit ye down, man," he said; "I've naething to say to Mr Dunshunner that
the hail warld may not hear, nor him to me neither, I hope."
"Certainly not," said I; "and I really should feel it as a great
obligation if Mr Thomson would be kind enough to remain."
"That's right, lad!" shouted Gills. "Nae hole-and-corner work for me! A'
fair and abune board, and the deil fly away with the Clique!"
Had Thomson been an ordinary man, he probably would have grown pale at
this daring objurgation: as it was, he fidgetted in his chair, and his
face became a shade more crimson.
"Weel, now," continued Toddy Tam, "let us hear what Mr Dunshunner has got
to say for himsel'. There's naething like hearing opinions before we put
ony questions."
Thus adjured, I went through the whole of my political confession of
faith, laying, of course, due stress upon the great and glorious
Revolution of 1688, and my devotion to the cause of liberality. Toddy Tam
and his companion heard me to the end without interruption.
"Gude--sae far gude, Mr Dunshunner," said Gills. "I see little to objeck
to in your general principles; but for a' that I'm no going to pledge
mysel until I ken mair o' ye. I hope, sir, that ye're using nae underhand
influence--that there has been nae communings with the Clique, a body that
I perfeckly abominate? Dreepdaily shall never be made a pocket burrow, so
long as Thomas Gills has any influence in it."
I assured Mr Gills, what was the naked truth, that I had no knowledge
whatever of the Clique.
"Ye see, Mr Dunshunner," continued Toddy Tam, "we are a gey and
independent sort of people here, and we want to be independently
represented. My gude friend, Mr Thamson here, can tell you that I have had
a sair fecht against secret influence, and I am amaist feared that some
men like the Provost owe me a grudge for it. He's a pawkie loon, the
Provost, and kens brawly how to play his cards."
"He's a' that!" ejaculated Thomson.
"But I dinna care a snuff of tobacco for the haill of the Town Council, or
the Clique. Give me a man of perfeck independence, and I'll support him. I
voted for the last member sair against my conscience, for he was put up by
the Clique, and never came near us: but I hope better things frae you, Mr
Dunshunner, if you should happen to be returned. Mind, I don't say that I
am going to support ye--I maun think about it; but if ye are a good man
and a true, and no a nominee, I dare say that both my gude freend Thamson,
and mysell, will no objeck to lend you a helping-hand."
This was all I could extract from Toddy Tam, and, though favourable, it
was far from being satisfactory. There was a want, from some cause or
another, of that cordial support which I had been led to anticipate; and I
almost felt half inclined to abandon the enterprise altogether. However,
after having issued my address, this would have looked like cowardice. I
therefore diligently prosecuted my canvass, and contrived, in the course
of the day, to encounter a great portion of the electors. Very few pledged
themselves. Some surly independents refused point-blank, alleging that
they did not intend to vote at all: others declined to promise, until they
should know how Toddy Tam and other magnates were likely to go. My only
pledges were from the sworn retainers of the Provost.
"Well, Mr Dunshunner, what success?" cried Miss Margaret Binkie, as I
returned rather jaded from my circuit. "I hope you have found all the
Dreepdaily people quite favourable?"
"Why no, Miss Binkie, not quite so much so as I could desire. Your
townsmen here seem uncommonly slow in making up their minds to any thing."
"Oh, that is always their way. I have heard Papa say that the same thing
took place at last election, and that nobody declared for Mr Whistlerigg
until the very evening before the nomination. So you see you must not lose
heart."
"If my visit to Dreepdaily should have no other result, Miss Binkie, I
shall always esteem it one of the most fortunate passages of my life,
since it has given me the privilege of your acquaintance."
"Oh, Mr Dunshunner! How can you speak so? I am afraid you are a great
flatterer!" replied Miss Binkie, pulling at the same time a sprig of
geranium to pieces. "But you look tired--pray take a glass of wine."
"By no means, Miss Binkie. A word from you is a sufficient cordial. Happy
geranium!" said I picking up the petals.
Now I know very well that all this sort of thing is wrong, and that a man
has no business to begin flirtations if he cannot see his way to the end
of them. At the same time I hold the individual who dislikes flirtations
to be a fool, and sometimes they are utterly irresistible.
"Now, Mr Dunshunner, I do beg you won't! Pray sit down on the sofa, for I
am sure you are tired, and if you like to listen I shall sing you a
little ballad I have composed to-day."
"I would rather hear you sing than an angel," said I; "but pray do not
debar me the privilege of standing by your side."
"Just as you please;" and Margaret began to rattle away on the
harpsichord.
"O whaur hae ye been, Augustus, my son?
O whaur hae ye been, my winsome young man?
I hae been to the voters--mither, mak my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' canvassing, and fain wad lay me doun.
"O whaur are your plumpers, Augustus, my son?
O whaur are your split votes, my winsome young man?
They are sold to the Clique--Mither, mak my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' canvassing, and fain wad lay me doun.
"O I fear ye are cheated, Augustus, my son,
O I fear ye are done for, my winsome young man!
'I hae been to my true love--'"
I could stand this no longer.
"Charming, cruel girl!" cried I dropping on one knee,--"why will you thus
sport with my feelings? Where else should I seek for my true love but
here?"
I don't know what might have been the sequel of the scene, had not my good
genius, in the shape of Mysie the servant girl, at this moment burst into
the apartment. Miss Binkie with great presence of mind dropped her
handkerchief, which afforded me an excellent excuse for recovering my
erect position.
Mysie was the bearer of a billet, addressed to myself, and marked "private
and particular." I opened it and read as follows.
"Sir--Some of those who are well disposed towards you have arranged to
meet this night, and are desirous of a private interview at which full and
mutual explanations may be given. It may be right to mention to you that
the question of _the currency_ will form the basis of any political
arrangement; and it is expected that you will then be prepared to state
explicitly your views with regard to _bullion_. Something more than
pledges upon this subject will be required.
"As this meeting will be a strictly private one, the utmost secrecy must
be observed. Be on the bridge at eleven o'clock this night, and you will
be conducted to the appointed place. Do not fail as you value your own
interest. Yours, &c.
"SHELL OUT."
"Who brought this letter, Mysie?" said I, considerably flustered at its
contents.
"A laddie. He said there was nae answer, and ran awa'."
"No bad news, I hope, Mr Dunshunner?" said Margaret timidly.
I looked at Miss Binkie. Her eye was still sparkling, and her cheek
flushed. She evidently was annoyed at the interruption, and expected a
renewal of the conversation. But I felt that I had gone quite far enough,
if not a little beyond the line of prudence. It is easy to make a
declaration, but remarkably difficult to back out of it; and I began to
think that, upon the whole, I had been a little too precipitate. On the
plea, therefore, of business, I emerged into the open air; and, during a
walk of a couple of miles, held secret communing with myself.
"Here you are again, Dunshunner, my fine fellow, putting your foot into it
as usual! If it had not been for the arrival of the servant, you would
have been an engaged man at this moment, and saddled with a father-in-law
in the shape of a vender of molasses. Besides, it is my private opinion
that you don't care sixpence about the girl. But it is the old story. This
is the third time since Christmas that you have been on the point of
committing matrimony, and if you don't look sharp after yourself, you will
be sold an especial bargain! Now, frankly and fairly, do you not
acknowledge yourself to be an idiot?"
I did. Men are generally very candid and open in their confessions to
themselves; and the glaring absurdity of my conduct was admitted without
any hesitation. I resolved to mend my ways accordingly, and to eschew for
the future all tete-a-tetes with the too fascinating Maggie Binkie. That
point disposed of, I returned to the mysterious missive. To say the
truth, I did not much like it. Had these been the days of Burking, I
should have entertained some slight personal apprehension; but as there
was no such danger, I regarded it either as a hoax, or as some
electioneering _ruse_, the purpose of which I could not fathom. However,
as it is never wise to throw away any chance, I determined to keep the
appointment; and, if a meeting really were held, to give the best
explanations in my power to my correspondent, Mr Shell Out, and his
friends. In this mood of mind I returned to the Provost's dwelling.
The dinner that day was not so joyous as before. Old Binkie questioned me
very closely as to the result of my visits, and seemed chagrined that
Toddy Tam had not been more definite in his promises of support.
"Ye maun hae Tam," said the Provost. "He disna like the Clique--I hope
naebody's listening--nor the Clique him; but he stands weel wi' the
Independents, and the Seceders will go wi' him to a man. We canna afford
to lose Gills. I'll send ower for him, and see if we canna talk him into
reason. Haith, though, we'll need mair whisky, for Tam requires an unco
deal of slockening!"
Tam, however, proved to be from home, and therefore the Provost and I were
left to our accustomed duet. He complained grievously of my
abstemiousness, which for divers reasons I thought it prudent to observe.
An extra tumbler might again have made Miss Binkie a cherub in my eyes.
I am afraid that the young lady thought me a very changeable person. When
the Provost fell asleep, she allowed the conversation to languish, until
it reached that awful degree of pause which usually precedes the popping
of the question. But this time I was on my guard, and held out with heroic
stubbornness. I did not even launch out upon the subject of poetry, which
Maggie rather cleverly introduced; for there is a decided affinity between
the gay science and the tender passion, and it is difficult to preserve
indifference when quoting from the "Loves of the Angels." I thought it
safer to try metaphysics. It is not easy to extract an amorous avowal,
even by implication, from a discourse upon the theory of consciousness;
and I flatter myself that Kant, if he could have heard me that evening,
would have returned home with some novel lights upon the subject. Miss
Binkie seemed to think that I might have selected a more congenial theme;
for she presently exhibited symptoms of pettishness, took up a book, and
applied herself diligently to the perusal of a popular treatise upon
knitting.
Shortly afterwards, the Provost awoke, and his daughter took occasion to
retire. She held out her hand to me with rather a reproachful look, but,
though sorely tempted, I did not indulge in a squeeze.
"That's a fine lassie--a very fine lassie!" remarked the Provost, as he
severed a Welch rabbit into twain. "Ye are no a family man yet, Mr
Dunshunner, and ye maybe canna comprehend what a comfort she has been to
me. I'm auld now, and a thocht failing; but it is a great relief to me to
ken that, when I am in my grave, Maggie winna be tocherless. I've laid up
a braw nest-egg for her ower at the bank yonder."
I of course coincided in the praise of Miss Binkie, but showed so little
curiosity as to the contents of the indicated egg, that the Provost
thought proper to enlighten me, and hinted at eight thousand pounds. It is
my positive belief that the worthy man expected an immediate proposal: if
so, he was pretty egregiously mistaken. I could not, however, afford, at
this particular crisis, to offend him, and accordingly stuck to generals.
As the hour of meeting was approaching, I thought it necessary to acquaint
him with the message I had received, in order to account for my exit at so
unseasonable a time.
"It's verra odd,"--said the Provost,--"very odd! A' Dreepdaily should be
in their beds by this time; and I canna think there could be a meeting
without me hearing of it. It's just the reverse o' constitutional to keep
folk trailing aboot the toun at this time o' nicht, and the brig is a
queer place for a tryst."
"You do not surely apprehend, Mr Binkie, that there is any danger?"
"No just that, but you'll no be the waur o' a rung. Ony gait, I'll send to
Saunders Caup, the toun-officer, to be on the look-out. If any body
offers to harm ye, be sure ye cry out, and Saunders will be up in a crack.
He's as stieve as steel, and an auld Waterloo man."
As a considerable number of years has elapsed since the last great
European conflict, I confess that my confidence in the capabilities of Mr
Caup, as an ally, was inferior to my belief in his prowess. I therefore
declined the proposal, but accepted the weapon; and, after a valedictory
tumbler with my host, emerged into the darkened street.
CHAPTER IV.
Francis Osbaldistone, when he encountered the famous Rob Roy by night, was
in all probability, notwithstanding Sir Walter's assertion to the
contrary, in a very tolerable state of trepidation. At least I know that I
was, as I neared the bridge of Dreepdaily. It was a nasty night of wind
rain, and not a soul was stirring in the street--the surface of which did
little credit to the industry of the paving department, judging from the
number of dubs in which I found involuntary accommodation. As I floundered
through the mire, I breathed any thing but benedictions on the mysterious
Shell Out, who was the cause of my midnight wandering.
Just as I reached the bridge, beneath which the river was roaring rather
uncomfortably, a ragged-looking figure started out from an entry. A
solitary lamp, suspended from above, gave me a full view of this
personage, who resembled an animated scarecrow.
He stared me full in the face, and then muttered, with a wink and a
leer,--
"Was ye seekin' for ony body the nicht? Eh wow, man, but it's cauld!"
"Who may you be, my friend?" said I, edging off from my unpromising
acquaintance.
"Wha may I be?" replied the other: "that's a gude one! Gosh, d'ye no ken
me? Aum Geordie Dowie, the town bauldy, that's as weel kent as the Provost
hissell."
To say the truth, Geordie was a very truculent-looking character to be an
innocent. However, bauldies are usually harmless.
"And what have you got to say to me, Geordie?"
"If ye're the man I think ye are,
And ye're name begins wi' a D,
Just tak ye tae yer soople shanks,
And tramp alang wi' me,"
quavered the idiot, who, like many others, had a natural turn for poetry.
"And where are we going to, Geordie, my man?" said I in a soothing voice.
"Ye'll find that when we get there," replied the bauldy.
"Hey the bonnie gill-stoup!
Ho the bonnie gill-stoup!
Gie me walth o' barley bree,
And leeze me on the gill-stoup!"
"But you can at least tell me who sent you here, Geordie?" said I, anxious
for further information before intrusting myself to such erratic guidance.
He of the gill-stoups lifted up his voice and sang--
"Cam' ye by Tweedside,
Or cam' ye by Flodden?
Met ye the deil
On the braes o' Culloden?
"Three imps o' darkness
I saw in a neuk,
Riving the red-coats,
And roasting the Deuk.
"Quo' ane o' them--'Geordie,
Gae down to the brig,
I'm yaup for my supper,
And fetch us a Whig.'"
"Ha! ha! ha! Hoo d'ye like that, my man? Queer freends ye've gotten noo,
and ye'll need a lang spune to sup kail wi' them. But come awa'. I canna
stand here the haill nicht listening to your havers."
Although the hint conveyed by Mr Dowie's ingenious verses was rather of an
alarming nature, I made up my mind at once to run all risks and follow
him. Geordie strode on, selecting apparently the most unfrequented lanes,
and making, as I anxiously observed, for a remote part of the suburbs. Nor
was his voice silent during our progress, for he kept regaling me with a
series of snatches, which, being for the most part of a supernatural and
diabolical tendency, did not much contribute towards the restoration of my
equanimity. At length he paused before a small house, the access to which
was by a downward flight of steps.
"Ay--this is the place!" he muttered. "I ken it weel. It's no just bad the
whusky that they sell, but they needna put sae muckle water intil't."
So saying, he descended the stair. I followed. There was no light in the
passage, but the bauldy went forward, stumbling and groping in the dark. I
saw a bright ray streaming through a crevice, and three distinct knocks
were given.
"Come in, whaever ye are!" said a bluff voice; and I entered a low
apartment, in which the candles looked yellow through a fog of
tobacco-smoke. Three men were seated at a deal table, covered with the
implements of national conviviality: and to my intense astonishment none
of the three were strangers to me. I at once recognised the features of
the taciturn M'Auslan, the wary Shanks, and the independent Mr Thomas
Gills.
"There's the man ye wanted," said Geordie Dowie, slapping me familiarly on
the shoulder.--"Whaur's the dram ye promised me?
"In Campbelltown my love was born;
Her mither in Glen Turrit!
But Ferintosh is the place for me.
For that's the strangest speerit!"
"Hand yer clavering tongue, ye common village!" said Toddy Tam. "Wad ye
bring in the neebourhood on us? M'Auslan, gi'e the body his dram, and then
see him out of the door. We manna be interfered wi' in our cracks."
M'Auslan obeyed. A large glass of alcohol was given to my guide, who
swallowed it with a sigh of pleasure.
"Eh, man! that's gude and strang! It's no ilka whusky that'll mak Geordie
Dowie pech. Fair fa' yer face, my bonny M'Auslan! could you no just gi'e
us anither?"
"Pit him out!" said the remorseless Gills. "It's just extraordinar how
fond the creature is o' drink!" and Geordie was forcibly ejected, after an
ineffectual clutch at the bottle.
"Sit ye down, Mr Dunshunner," said Toddy Tam, addressing himself to me;
"sit ye down, and mix yoursel' a tumbler. I daresay now ye was a little
surprised at the note ye got this morning, eh?"
"Why, certainly, Mr Gills, I did not anticipate the pleasure----"
"Ay, I kenned ye wad wonder at it. But ilka place has it's ain way o'
doing business, and this is ours--quiet and cozy, ye see. Ise warrant,
too, ye thocht M'Auslan a queer ane because he wadna speak out?"
I laughed dubiously towards M'Auslan, who responded with the austerest of
possible grins.
"And Shanks, too," continued Toddy Tam; "Shanks wadna speak out neither.
They're auld-farrant hands baith o' them, Mr Dunshunner, and they didna
like to promise ony thing without me. We three aye gang thegither."
"I hope, then, Mr Gills, that I may calculate upon your support and that
of your friends. My views upon the currency----"
"Ay! that's speaking out at ance. Hoo muckle?"
"Ay! hoo muckle?" interposed M'Auslan, with a glistening eye.
"I really do not understand you, gentlemen."
"Troth, then, ye're slow at the uptak," remarked Gills, after a meaning
pause. "I see we maun be clear and conceese. Hark ye, Mr Dunshunner,--wha
do ye think we are?"
"Three most respectable gentlemen, for whom I have the highest possible
regard."
"Hoots!--nonsense! D'ye no ken?"
"No," was my puzzled response.
"Weel, then," said Toddy Tam, advancing his lips to my ear, and pouring
forth an alcoholic whisper--"we three can do mair than ye think o'.--It's
huz that is THE CLIQUE!"
I recoiled in perfect amazement, and gazed in succession upon the
countenances of the three compatriots. Yes--there could be no doubt about
it--I was in the presence of the tremendous junta of Dreepdaily; the veil
of Isis had been lifted up, and the principal figure upon the pedestal was
the magnanimous and independent Gills. Always a worshipper of genius, I
began to entertain a feeling little short of veneration towards Toddy Tam.
The admirable manner in which he had contrived to conceal his real power
from the public--his assumed indignation and horror of the Clique--and his
hold over all classes of the electors, demonstrated him at once to be a
consummate master of the political art. Machiavelli could not have devised
a subtler stratagem than Gills.
"That's just the plain truth o' the matter," observed Shanks, who had
hitherto remained silent. "We three is the Clique, and we hae the
representation o' the burrow in our hands. Now, to speak to the point, if
we put our names down on your Committee, you carry the election, and we're
ready to come to an understanding upon fair and liberal grounds."
And we did come to an understanding upon grounds which might be justly
characterised as fair on the one side, and certainly liberal on the other.
There was of course some little discussion as to the lengths I was
expected to go in financial matters; and it was even hinted that, with
regard to bullion, the Honourable Mr Pozzlethwaite might possibly
entertain as enlarged views as myself. However, we fortunately succeeded
in adjusting all our differences. I not only promised to give the weight
of my name to a bill, but exhibited, upon the spot, a draft which met with
the cordial approbation of my friends, and which indeed was so
satisfactory, that they did not offer to return it.
"That's a' right then," said Toddy Tam, inserting the last-mentioned
document in a greasy pocket-book. "Our names go down on your Committy, and
the election is as gude as won!"
An eldritch laugh at a little window, which communicated with the street,
at this moment electrified the speaker. There was a glimpse of a human
face seen through the dingy pane.
A loud oath burst from the lips of Toddy Thomas.
"Some deevil has been watching us!" he cried. "Rin, M'Auslan, rin for your
life, and grip him afore he can turn the corner! I wad not for a thoosand
pund that this nicht's wark were to get wind!"
M'Auslan rushed, as desired; but all his efforts were ineffectual. The
fugitive, whoever he was, had very prudently dived into the darkness, and
the draper returned without his victim.
"What is to be done?" said I. "It strikes me, gentlemen, that this may
turn out to be a very unpleasant business."
"Nae fears--nae fears!" said Toddy Tam, looking, however, the reverse of
comfortable. "It will hae been some callant trying to fley us, that's a'.
But, mind ye--no a word o' this to ony living human being, and aboon a' to
Provost Binkie. I've keepit him for four years in the dark, and it never
wad do to show the cat the road to the kirn!"
I acquiesced in the precautionary arrangement, and we parted; Toddy Tam
and his friends having, by this time, disposed of all the surplus fluid.
It was very late before I reached the Provost's dwelling.
I suppose that next morning I had overslept myself; for, when I awoke, I
heard Miss Binkie in full operation at the piano. This time, however, she
was not singing alone, for a male voice was audible in conjunction with
hers.
"It would be in amazing consolation to me if somebody would carry off that
girl!" thought I, as I proceeded with my toilet. "I made a deuced fool of
myself to her yesterday; and, to say the truth, I don't very well know how
to look her in the face!"
However, there was no help for it, so I proceeded down stairs. The first
individual I recognised in the breakfast parlour was M'Corkindale. He was
engaged in singing, along with Miss Binkie, some idiotical catch about a
couple of albino mice.
"Bob!" cried I. "my dear Bob, I am delighted to see you;--what on earth
has brought you here?"
"A gig and a foundered mare," replied the matter-of-fact M'Corkindale.
"The fact is, that I was anxious to hear about your canvass; and, as there
was nothing to do in Glasgow--by the way, Dunshunner, the banks have put
on the screw again--I resolved to satisfy my own curiosity in person. I
arrived this morning, and Miss Binkie has been kind enough to ask me to
stay breakfast."
"I am sure both papa and I are always happy to see Mr M'Corkindale," said
Margaret, impressively.
"I am afraid," said I, "that I have interrupted your music: I did not
know, M'Corkindale, that you were so eminent a performer."
"I hold with Aristotle," replied Bob modestly, "that music and political
economy are at the head of all the sciences. But it is very seldom that
one can meet with so accomplished a partner as Miss Binkie."
"Oh, ho!" thought I. But here the entrance of the Provost diverted the
conversation, and we all sat down to breakfast. Old Binkie was evidently
dying to know the result of my interview on the previous evening, but I
was determined to keep him in the dark. Bob fed like an ogre, and made
prodigious efforts to be polite.
After breakfast, on the pretext of business we went out for a walk. The
economist lighted his cigar.
"Snug quarters these, Dunshunner, at the Provost's."
"Very. But, Bob, things are looking rather well here. I had a negotiation
last night which has as good as settled the business."
"I am very glad to hear it--Nice girl, Miss Binkie; very pretty eyes, and
a good foot and ankle."
"An unexceptionable instep. What do you think!--I have actually discovered
the Clique at last."
"You don't say so! Do you think old Binkie has saved money?"
"I am sure he has. I look upon Dreepdaily as pretty safe now; and I
propose going over this afternoon to Drouthielaw. What would you
recommend?"
"I think you are quite right; but somebody should stay here to look after
your interests. There is no depending upon these fellows. I'll tell you
what--while you are at Drouthielaw I shall remain here, and occupy your
quarters. The Committee will require some man of business to drill them
in, and I don't care if I spare you the time."
I highly applauded this generous resolution; at the same time I was not
altogether blind to the motive. Bob, though an excellent fellow in the
main, did not usually sacrifice himself to his friends; and I began to
suspect that Maggie Binkie--with whom, by the way, he had some previous
acquaintance--was somehow or other connected with his enthusiasm. As
matters stood, I of course entertained no objection: on the contrary, I
thought it no breach of confidence to repeat the history of the nest-egg.
Bob pricked up his ears.
"Indeed!" said he; "that is a fair figure as times go; and, to judge from
appearances, the stock in trade must be valuable."
"Cargoes of sugar," said I, "oceans of rum, and no end whatever of
molasses!"
"A very creditable chairman, indeed, for your Committee, Dunshunner,"
replied Bob. "Then I presume you agree that I should stay here, whilst you
prosecute your canvass?"
I assented, and we returned to the house. In the course of the forenoon
the list of my Committee was published, and, to the great joy of the
Provost, the names of Thomas Gill, Alexander M'Auslan, and Simon Shanks
appeared. He could not, for the life of him, understand how they had all
come forward so readily. A meeting of my friends was afterwards held, at
which I delivered a short harangue upon the constitution of 1688, which
seemed to give general satisfaction; and before I left the room, I had the
pleasure of seeing the Committee organised, with Bob officiating as
secretary. It was the opinion of every one that Pozzlethwaite had not a
chance. I then partook of a light luncheon, and after bidding farewell to
Miss Binkie, who, on the whole, seemed to take matters very coolly, I
drove off for Drouthielaw. I need not relate my adventures in that
respectable burgh. They were devoid of any thing like interest, and not
quite so satisfactory in their result as I could have wished. However, the
name of Gills was known even at that distance, and his views had
considerable weight with some of the religious denominations. So far as I
was concerned, I had no sinecure of it. It cost me three nights' hard
drinking to conciliate the leaders of the Anabaptists, and at least three
more before the chiefs of the Antinomians would surrender. As to the Old
Light gentry, I gave them up in despair, for I could not hope to have
survived the consequences of so serious a conflict.
CHAPTER V.
Parliament was at length dissolved; the new writs were issued, and the day
of nomination fixed for the Dreepdaily burghs. For a time it appeared to
myself, and indeed to almost every one else, that my return was perfectly
secure. Provost Binkie was in great glory, and the faces of the unknown
Clique were positively radiant with satisfaction. But a storm was brewing
in another quarter, upon which we had not previously calculated.
The Honourable Mr Pozzlethwaite, my opponent, had fixed his head-quarters
in Drouthielaw, and to all appearance was making very little progress in
Dreepdaily. Indeed, in no sense of the word could Pozzlethwaite be said to
be popular. He was a middle-aged man, as blind as a bat, and, in order to
cure the defect, he ornamented his visage with an immense pair of green
spectacles, which, it may be easily conceived, did not add to the beauty
of his appearance. In speech he was slow and verbose, in manner awkward,
in matter almost wholly unintelligible. He professed principles which he
said were precisely the same as those advocated by the late Jeremy
Bentham; and certainly, if he was correct in this, I do not regret that my
parents omitted to bring me up at the feet of the utilitarian Gamaliel. In
short, Paul was prosy to a degree, had not an atom of animation in his
whole composition, and could no more have carried a crowd along with him
than he could have supported Atlas upon his shoulders. A portion, however,
of philosophic weavers, and a certain section of the Seceders had declared
in his favour; and, moreover, it was just possible that he might gain the
suffrages of some of the Conservatives. Kittleweem, the Tory burgh, had
hitherto preserved the appearance of strict neutrality. I had attempted to
address the electors of that place, but I found that the hatred of
Dreepdaily and of its Clique was more powerful than my eloquence; and,
somehow or other, the benighted savages did not comprehend the merits of
the Revolution Settlement of 1688, and were as violently national as the
Celtic race before the invention of trews. Kittleweem had equipped half a
regiment for Prince Charles in the Forty-five, and still piqued itself on
its staunch Episcopacy. A Whig, therefore, could hardly expect to be
popular in such a den of prejudice. By the advice of M'Corkindale, I
abstained from any further efforts, which might possibly have tended to
exasperate the electors, and left Kittleweem to itself, in the hope that
it would maintain an armed neutrality.
And so it probably might have done, but for an unexpected occurrence. Two
days before the nomination, a new candidate appeared on the field. Sholto
Douglas was the representative of one of the oldest branches of his
distinguished name, and the race to which he more immediately belonged had
ever been foremost in the ranks of Scottish chivalry and patriotism. In
fact, no family had suffered more from their attachment to the cause of
legitimacy than the Douglases of Inveriachan. Forfeiture after forfeiture
had cut down their broad lands to a narrow estate, and but for an
unexpected Indian legacy, the present heir would have been marching as a
subaltern in a foot regiment. But a large importation of rupees had
infused new life and spirit into the bosom of Sholto Douglas. Young,
eager, and enthusiastic, he determined to rescue himself from obscurity;
and the present state of the Dreepdaily burghs appeared to offer a most
tempting opportunity. Douglas was, of course, Conservative to the
backbone; but, more than that, he openly proclaimed himself a friend of
the people, and a supporter of the rights of labour.
"Confound the fellow!" said Bob M'Corkindale to me, the morning after
Sholto's address had been placarded through the burghs, "who would have
thought of an attack of this kind from such a quarter. Have you seen his
manifesto, Dunshunner?"
"Yes--here it is in the Patriot. The editor, however, gives him it soundly
in the leading article. I like his dogmatic style and wholesale
denunciation of the Tories."
"I'll tell you what it is, though--I look upon this as any thing but a
joke. Douglas is evidently not a man to stand upon old aristocratic
pretensions. He has got the right sow by the ear this time, and, had he
started a little earlier, might have roused the national spirit to a very
unpleasant pitch. You observe what he says about Scotland, the neglect of
her local interests, and the manner in which she has been treated, with
reference to Ireland?"
"I do. And you will be pleased to recollect that but for yourself,
something of the same kind would have appeared in my address."
"If you mean that as a reproach, Dunshunner, you are wrong. How was it
possible to have started you as a Whig upon patriotic principles?"
"Well--that's true enough. At the same time, I cannot help wishing that we
had said a word or two about the interests to the north of the Tweed."
"What is done cannot be undone. We must now stick by the Revolution
Settlement."
"Do you know, Bob, I think we have given them quite enough of that same
settlement already. Those fellows at Kittleweem laughed in my face the
last time that I talked about it, and I am rather afraid that it won't go
down on the hustings."
"Try the sanatory condition of the towns, then, and universal conciliation
to Ireland," replied the Economist. "I have given orders to hire two
hundred Paddies, who have come over for the harvest, at a shilling a-head,
and of course you may depend upon their voices, and also their shillelahs,
if needful. I think we should have a row. It would be a great matter to
make Douglas unpopular; and, with a movement of my little finger, I could
turn out a whole legion of navigators."
"No, Bob, you had better not. It is just possible they might make a
mistake, and shy brickbats at the wrong candidate. It will be safer, I
think, to leave the mob to itself: at the same time, we shall not be the
worse for the Tipperary demonstration. And how looks the canvass?"
"Tolerably well, but not perfectly secure. The Clique has done its very
best, but at the same, time there is undeniably a growing feeling against
it. Many people grumble about its dominion, and are fools enough to say
that they have a right to think for themselves."
"Could you not circulate a report that Pozzlethwaite is the man of the
Clique?"
"The idea is ingenious, but I fear it would hardly work. Dreepdaily is
well known to be the head-quarters of the confederation, and the name of
Provost Binkie is inseparably connected with it."
"By the way, M'Corkindale, it struck me that you looked rather sweet upon
Miss Binkie last evening."
"I did. In fact I popped the question," replied Robert calmly.
"Indeed! Were you accepted?"
"Conditionally. If we gain the election she becomes Mrs M'Corkindale--if
we lose, I suppose I shall have to return to Glasgow in a state of
celibacy."
"A curious contract, certainly! Well, Bob, since your success is involved
in mine, we must fight a desperate battle."
"I wish, though, that Mr Sholto Douglas had been kind enough to keep out
of the way," observed M'Corkindale.
The morning of the day appointed for the nomination dawned upon the people
of Dreepdaily with more than usual splendour. For once, there was no mist
upon the surrounding hills, and the sky was clear as sapphire. I rose
early to study my speech, which had received the finishing touches from
M'Corkindale on the evening before; and I flatter myself it was as pretty
a piece of Whig rhetoric as ever was spouted from a hustings. Toddy Tam,
indeed, had objected, upon seeing a draft, that "there was nae banes intil
it;" but the political economist was considered by the committee a
superior authority on such subjects to Gills. After having carefully
conned it over, I went down stairs, where the whole party were already
assembled. A large blue and yellow flag, with the inscription, "DUNSHUNNER
AND THE GOOD CAUSE!" was hung out from the window, to the intense delight
of a gang of urchins, who testified to the popularity of the candidate by
ceaseless vociferation to "poor out." The wall opposite, however, bore
some memoranda of an opposite tendency, for I could see some large
placards, newly pasted up, on which the words, "ELECTORS OF DREEPDAILY!
YOU ARE SOLD BY THE CLIQUE!" were conspicuous in enormous capitals. I
heard, too, something like a ballad chanted, in which my name seemed to be
coupled, irreverently, with that of the independent Gills.
Provost Binkie--who, in common with the rest of the company, wore upon his
bosom an enormous blue and buff cockade, prepared by the fair hands of his
daughter--saluted me with great cordiality. I ought to observe that the
Provost had been kept as much as possible in the dark regarding the actual
results of the canvass. He was to propose me, and it was thought that his
nerves would be more steady if he came forward under the positive
conviction of success.
"This is a great day, Mr Dunshunner--a grand day for Dreepdaily," he said.
"A day, if I may sae speak, o' triumph and rejoicing! The news o' this
will rin frae one end o' the land to the ither--for the e'en o' a'
Scotland is fixed on Dreepdaily, and the stench auld Whig principles is
sure to prevail, even like a mighty river that rins down in spate to the
sea!"
I justly concluded that this figure of speech formed part of the address
to the electors which for the two last days had been simmering in the
brain of the worthy magistrate, along with the fumes of the potations he
had imbibed, as incentives to the extraordinary effort. Of course I took
care to appear to participate in his enthusiasm. My mind, however, was
very far from being thoroughly at ease.
As twelve o'clock, which was the hour of nomination, drew near, there was
a great muster at my committee-room. The band of the Independent
Tee-totallers, who to a man were in my interest, was in attendance. They
had been well primed with ginger cordial, and were obstreperous to a
gratifying degree.
Toddy Tam came up to me with a face of the colour of carnation.
"I think it richt to tell ye, Mr Dunshunner, that there will be a bit o' a
bleeze ower yonder at the hustings. The Kittleweem folk hae come through
in squads, and Lord Hartside's tenantry have marched in a body, wi' Sholto
Douglas's colours flying."
"And the Drouthielaw fellows--what has become of them?"
"Od, they're no wi' us either--they're just savage at the Clique!
Gudesake, Mr Dunshunner, tak tent, and dinna say a word aboot huz. I
intend mysell to denounce the body, and may be that will do us gude."
I highly approved of Mr Gills' determination, and as the time had now
come, we formed in column, and marched towards the hustings with the
tee-total band in front, playing a very lugubrious imitation of "Glorious
Apollo."
The other candidates had already taken their places. The moment I was
visible to the audience, I was assailed by a volley of yells, among which,
cries of "Doun wi' the Clique!"--"Wha bought them?"--"Nae nominee!"--"We've
had eneuch o' the Whigs!" etcetera, were distinctly audible. This was not
at all the kind of reception I had bargained for;--however, there was
nothing for it but to put on a smiling face, and I reciprocated courtesies
as well as I could with both of my honourable opponents.
During the reading of the writ and the Bribery Act, there was a deal of
joking, which I presume was intended to be good-humoured. At the same time
there could be no doubt that it was distinctly personal. I heard my name
associated with epithets of any thing but an endearing description, and,
to say the truth, if choice had been granted, I would far rather have been
at Jericho than in the front of the hustings at Dreepdaily. A man must be,
indeed, intrepid, and conscious of a good cause, who can oppose himself
without blenching to the objurgation of an excited mob.
The Honourable Paul Pozzlethwaite, on account of his having been the
earliest candidate in the field, was first proposed by a town-councillor
of Drouthielaw. This part of the ceremony appeared to excite but little
interest, the hooting and cheering being pretty equally distributed.
It was now our turn.
"Gang forrard, Provost, and be sure ye speak oot!" said Toddy Tam; and Mr
Binkie advanced accordingly.
Thereupon such a row commenced as I never had witnessed before. Yelling is
a faint word to express the sounds of that storm of extraordinary wrath
which descended upon the head of the devoted Provost. "Clique! Clique!"
resounded on every side, and myriads of eyes, ferocious as those of the
wild-cat, were bent scowlingly on my worthy proposer. In vain did he
gesticulate--in vain implore. The voice of Demosthenes--nay, the deep bass
of Stentor himself--could not have been heard amidst that infernal uproar;
so that, after working his arms for a time like the limbs of a telegraph,
and exerting himself until he became absolutely swart in the face, Binkie
was fain to give it up, and retired amidst a whirlwind of abuse.
"May the deil fly awa' wi' the hail pack o' them!" said he, almost
blubbering with excitement and indignation. "Wha wad ever hae thocht to
have seen the like o' this? and huz, too, that gied them the Reform Bill!
Try your hand at them, Tam, for my heart's amaist broken!"
The bluff independent character of Mr Gills, and his reputed purity from
all taint of the Clique, operated considerably in his favour. He advanced
amidst general cheering, and cries of "Noo for Toddy Tam!" "Let's hear Mr
Gills!" and the like; and as he tossed his hat aside and clenched his
brawny fist, he really looked the incarnation of a sturdy and independent
elector. His style, too, was decidedly popular--
"Listen tae me!" he said, "and let thae brawlin', braggin', bletherin'
idiwits frae Drouthielaw haud their lang clavering tongues, and no keep
rowtin' like a herd o' senseless nowte! (Great cheering from Dreepdaily
and Kittleweem--considerable disapprobation from Drouthielaw.) I ken them
weel, the auld haverils! (cheers.) But you, my freends, that I have dwalt
wi' for twenty years, is it possible that ye can believe for one moment
that I wad submit to be dictated to by a Clique? (Cries of "no! no!" "It's
no you, Tam!" and confusion.) No me? I dinna thank ye for that! Wull ony
man daur to say to my face, that I ever colleagued wi' a pack that wad buy
and sell the haill of us as readily as ye can deal wi' sheep's-heads in
the public market? (Laughter.) Div ye think that if Mr Dunshunner was ony
way mixed up wi' that gang, I wad be here this day tae second him? Div ye
think----"
Here Mr Gills met with a singular interruption. A remarkable figure
attired in a red coat and cocked-hat, at one time probably the property of
a civic officer, and who had been observed for some time bobbing about in
front of the hustings, was now elevated upon the shoulders of a yeoman,
and displayed to the delighted spectators the features of Geordie Dowie.
"Ay, Toddy Tam, are ye there, man?" cried Geordie with a malignant grin.
"What was you and the Clique doin' at Nanse Finlayson's on Friday nicht?"
"What was it, Geordie? What was it?" cried a hundred voices.
"Am I to be interrupted by a natural?" cried Gills, looking, however,
considerably flushed in the face.
"What hae ye dune wi' the notes, Tam, that the lang chield up by there
gied ye? And whaur's your freends, Shanks and M'Auslan? See that ye steek
to the window neist time, ma man!" cried Geordie with demoniac ferocity.
This was quite enough for the mob, who seldom require any excuse for a
display of their hereditary privileges. A perfect hurricane of hissing,
and of yelling arose, and Gills, though he fought like a hero, was at last
forced to retire from the contest. Had Geordie Dowie's windpipe been
within his grasp at that moment, I would not have insured for any amount
the life of the perfidious spy.
Sholto Douglas was proposed and seconded amidst great cheering, and then
Pozzlethwaite rose to speak. I do not very well recollect what he said,
for I had quite enough to do in thinking about, myself, and the Honourable
Paul would have conferred a material obligation upon me, if he had talked
for an hour longer. At length my turn came.
"Electors of Dreepdaily!"--
That was the whole of my speech, at least the whole of it that was audible
to any one human being. Humboldt, if I recollect right, talks in one of
his travels of having somewhere encountered a mountain composed of
millions of entangled snakes, whose hissing might have equalled that of
the transformed legions of Pandemonium. I wish Humboldt, for the sake of
scientific comparison, could have been upon the hustings that day! Certain
I am, that the sibilation did not leave my ears for a fortnight
afterwards, and even now, in my slumbers, I am haunted by a wilderness of
asps! However, at the urgent entreaty of M'Corkindale, I went on for about
ten minutes, though I was quivering in every limb, and as pale as a ghost;
and in order that the public might not lose the benefit of my sentiments,
I concluded by handing a copy of my speech, interlarded with fictitious
cheers, to the reporter for the Dreepdaily Patriot. That document may
still be seen by the curious in the columns of that impartial newspaper.
I will state this for Sholto Douglas, that he behaved like a perfect
gentleman. There was in his speech no triumph over the discomfiture which
the other candidates had received; on the contrary, he rather rebuked the
audience for not having listened to us with greater patience. He then went
on with his oration. I need hardly say it was a national one, and it was
most enthusiastically cheered.
All that I need mention about the show of hands is, that it was not by any
means hollow in my favour.
That afternoon we were not quite so lively in the Committee-room as usual.
The serenity of Messrs Gills, M'Auslan, and Shanks,--and, perhaps, I may
add of myself--was a good deal shaken by the intelligence that a broadside
with the tempting title of "_Full and Particular Account of an interview
between the Clique and Mr Dunshunner, held at Nanse Finlayson's Tavern, on
Friday last, and how they came to terms. By an Eyewitness_," was
circulating like wildfire through the streets. To have been beaten by a
Douglas was nothing, but to have been so artfully entrapped by a bauldy!
Provost Binkie, too, was dull and dissatisfied. The reception he had met
with in his native town was no doubt a severe mortification, but the
feeling that he had been used as a catspaw and implement of the Clique,
was, I suspected, uppermost in his mind. Poor man! We had great difficulty
that evening in bringing him to his sixth tumbler.
Even M'Corkindale was hipped. I own I was surprised at this, for I knew of
old the indefatigable spirit and keen energy of my friend, and I thought
that with such a stake as he had in the contest, he would even have
redoubled his exertions. Such, however, was not the case.
I pass over the proceedings at the poll. From a very early hour it became
perfectly evident that my chance was utterly gone; and, indeed, had it
been possible, I should have left Dreepdaily before the close. At four
o'clock the numbers stood thus:--
DREEPDAILY. DROUTHIELAW. KITTLEWEEM.
DOUGLAS, 94 63 192
POZZLETHWAITE, 59 73 21
DUNSHUNNER, 72 19 7
Majority for DOUGLAS, 196.
We had an awful scene in the Committee-room. Gills, who had been drinking
all day, shed copious floods of tears; Shanks was disconsolate; and
M'Auslan refused to be comforted. Of course I gave the usual pledge, that
on the very first opportunity I should come forward again to reassert the
independence of the burghs, now infamously sacrificed to a Conservative;
but the cheering at this announcement was of the very faintest
description, and I doubt whether any one believed me. Two hours afterwards
I was miles away from Dreepdaily.
I have since had letters from that place, which inform me that the Clique
is utterly discomfited; that for some days the component members of it
might be seen wandering through the streets, and pouring their husky
sorrows into the ears of every stray listener whom they could find, until
they became a positive nuisance. My best champion, however, was the
Editor of the Patriot. That noble and dauntless individual continued for
weeks afterwards to pour forth Jeremiads upon my defeat, and stigmatised
my opponents and their supporters as knaves, miscreants, and nincompoops.
I was, he maintained, the victim of a base conspiracy, and the degraded
town of Dreepdaily would never be able thereafter to rear its polluted
head in the Royal Convention of Burghs.
Whilst these things were going on in Dreepdaily, I was closeted with
M'Corkindale in Glasgow.
"So, then, you have lost your election," said he.
"And you have lost your wife."
"Neither of the two accidents appear to be irreparable," replied Robert.
"How so? Do you still think of Miss Binkie?"
"By no means. I made some little inquiry the day before the election, and
discovered that a certain nest-egg was enormously exaggerated, if not
altogether fictitious."
"Well, Bob, there is certainly nobody like yourself for getting
information."
"I do my best. May I inquire into the nature of your future movements?"
"I have not yet made up my mind. These election matters put every thing
else out of one's head. Let me see--August is approaching, and I half
promised the Captain of M'Alcohol to spend a few weeks with him at his
shooting-quarters."
"Are you aware, Dunshunner, that one of your bills falls due at the
Gorbals Bank upon Tuesday next?"
"Mercy upon me, Bob! I had forgotten all about it."
I did not go to the Highlands after all. The fatigue and exertion we had
undergone rendered it quite indispensable that my friend Robert and I
should relax a little. Accordingly we have both embarked for a short run
upon the Continent.
_Boulogue-sur-Mer.
12th August 1847._
THE CRUSADE OF THE CHILDREN.
Some years ago, while the pastoral charge of the little Saxon village of
Groenstetten, from some neglect in the proper authorities, remained vacant,
that neighborhood was visited by a strange religious epidemic. It had
formerly, indeed, been one of the most cheerful places; standing together,
house by house, in the midst of a large, well cultivated plain, on which
the fields, scarcely marked out from one another save by neighbourly
tokens, stretched with their green level to the side, of the woods, only
varied by the different colours of the several crops. The little old
church, surrounded by a few spreading trees, stood at the end of the
village on some higher ground, raising its gilded steeple into the blue
air, so that it always seemed to be touched by an evening sun. Neither
wall nor fence was to be seen, and the surrounding level looked like the
single farm of a brotherhood; the peasants, noticing of a fine Sunday
afternoon how the season had advanced their wheat or flax, appeared to a
stranger almost as much interested in one patch as in another. Various
games and exercises went on amongst the young men and boys after work and
school hours, on the piece of common near the churchyard, while the young
maidens and the old people with their children stood by. Nowhere were
holidays, occasions of marriage, and old festival traditions more fondly
kept; in every house at Christmas, while snow was on the ground and on the
bare woods, the window shone so brightly against the icicles hanging from
the roof, as the Christmas-tree, with its prettily-adorned branches, was
lighted-up; and the whole united family surprised each other with
carefully prepared gifts. Then at Easter time, when spring was bursting
out of trees and earth, and the birds beginning to sing again, you might
have seen with what joy the children rolled their coloured paschal eggs
along the grass, parents entering into their feelings with smiles. It was
a serious business for them to dress and water the graves under the church
wall, wreathing the small head-stones with garlands of fresh wild-flowers,
gathered about the ruins of the old castle, which rose on a neighbouring
height. Nor did many evenings ever pass that there was not some meeting of
the young people in one of the village houses, where the girls brought
their spindles, or pieces of cloth to make a bedcover for the dame; while
the youths stood by to seize the opportunity for sundry advances of rustic
courtship. All this gaiety was by no means inconsistent with the industry
in which this resembled other villages of the district; and as little did
it result from any want of earnestness and serious thought in matters of
religion, or in the attendance upon those services to which the church in
due season called every one. For it was while the venerable old pastor
lived, that this state of things lasted at Groenstetten. The good man
himself diffused by his presence among them, as well as by his precepts, a
spirit not only of devotion, but of cheerfulness; nor would he have
failed, in case of any causeless absence from church, or on occasion of a
breach of morality, to visit, and faithfully reprove the offender. Even
after his death, when the services were only occasionally performed by
strangers, the change of feeling in the village would not have occurred,
but for some other circumstances; doubtless the people themselves
possessed sufficient independence and ground of faith to pursue their
lives according, to the true temper of rational men, had none interfered
with them.
But, about this time, there came frequently to Groenstetten several
preachers of a new and almost unknown sect, and of a cast altogether
different from what the people had been accustomed to. These persons
considered that in time past at Groenstetten all had been in a manner
spiritually dead; that men there, indeed, were as good as asleep to all
eternal realities, or were at best dreamers of false peace. Not only did
they, in their fervid addresses, exaggerate the vileness of human nature,
and set it against itself, but the idea of goodness placed by them before
the mind, seemed one wholly different from its own direction of progress,
if not altogether unattainable. Many simple natural affections were by
them almost represented as sinful, while they looked upon the customary
diversions in the light of unholy levities, and upon the old holiday
practices as traditions quite heathenish. In short, the heaven to which
they pointed so mystically, appeared to consist in an utter contrast to
all conceptions which were ever formed on earth, to every joy which had
been felt by men, even in their moments of purest contact with each other
and nature; the reward of some great sacrifice and toil, which were to be
undergone. There was much talk of strange, unutterable changes to take
place on the earth, for which preparation was to be made; and the new
preachers exulted in the interpretation of prophecies, which they fancied
could be understood beforehand, in making men uneasy at thought of all
outward coming of the Lord, of wars, and destruction, which would make the
world worse than ever it had been. Their meeting-house, opened in an old
barn, was at first frequented chiefly by women, since the men and older
people had a natural dislike to innovation; but eventually the very
newness of the doctrine began to gain ground for it, and the fact of its
being so distinct from that of the late pastor, only tended to reflect
upon his memory. There is, certainly, something in our nature, by which
those things most opposed to it, as in a kind of fascination at times lay
hold of it; so in hateful dreams or ghost-fears. Especially if the soul be
not regularly furnished with supplies of healthy and cheerful
enlightenment; and thus it was that this kind of unearth-like religion,
imported by men of zeal for the most part sincere and also assisted by
sympathy with other places in the neighbourhood, exerted so much influence
at the village of Groenstetten. The first symptom of this was exhibited in
a certain secret discomfort at home, a sense of division between persons
of the same household, which made them look strangely and wonderingly on
each other. It seemed, indeed, to be a principal and favourite object of
the new-comers to gain over the female members; they aimed their chief
blow at the family sacredness, alleging the words, "I am come to set the
husband against the wife, the son against the father, and the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." People came to feel nature
also as discordant with themselves; the very grass and trees, and the
quietness of the air, seemed to many not so good as before; the mute,
inanimate things appeared almost as so many tempting wiles of a hidden
power which was below, working through all, and meaning man evil. One
would have thought, as they stood listlessly at their doors of an evening,
looking beyond into the distance, that they would have taken up staff or
scrip and set out on pilgrimage, had they but known where to go, or what
to do. After all, however, this state of matters wore itself out, and
gradually returned to something like the former; nor would any one have
been the worse, rather, in truth, a little wiser, upon the eventual
settlement of a new pastor at Groenstetten. Only, indeed, that a few who
had not joined in the late feeling, and who had previously been united to
their neighbours by intercourse, had for the time seemed to be excluded
from their better sympathies, became more worldly, and were inclined to
scoff at holy things. As in all cases of extremes, the bad had grown more
addicted to vice, none stretching out to them a better hand; and it was
long ere a reviving sense of brotherhood did much to raise them higher.
Still the most peculiar feature of this excitement was, that, as if its
impulse must extend through every class, the younger people latterly
showed signs of a religious emotion, yet stronger and more remarkable than
in those less subject to impressions from their years. What they saw and
heard in others had sunk into the children's minds, which brooded upon it
as if upon the sense of some dispeace, and contradiction at the heart of
domestic forms; as if to their clearer instinct various inconsistencies
in the practice of life, nay in the parental relations, had been revealed;
yet for which the true remedy had been by them misconceived. This appeared
with many of them partly in the shape of impatience to go forth into the
world, a weariness when the sun light, shining into the cottage, stole
from chair to chair, and the clock ticked monotonously against the wall.
Something that was to be done and suffered seemed to lie far without; the
object of their lives and souls, from which friends, parents, with their
daily earth-customs, were tyrannically withholding them. But chiefly,
perhaps, from ill-judged, dealing with this vague desire, was it
frequently betrayed in enthusiastic words, in a sort of unaccountable,
ecstasy in trances, which some reckoned prophetic. Instead of the
life-like, careless, childish games, and little quaint devices, which
formerly enlivened the house or open air, they gathered together praying,
as if for the fulfilment of an unspeakable distantlonging; they went up
the street, or across the fields, singing devout hymns. One or another at
home would stand up by the table, unabashed by the presence of elder
people, and speak from the seeming influence of some internal
communication, mystical, half-articulate words, and piously-sounding
reproofs or exhortations. It was in vain to chide or chastise them;
trustful obedience, humility, content with home, simple duties, cheerful
playfulness, were during this interval gone. Parents expected every day to
see the childish train assemble and depart from the village on some
rapture-wandering; and they were careful every night to lock the doors,
and see their family in bed.
None had watched throughout the course of this remarkable visitation, more
unaffected by its power than the steadfast, intelligent old Wendel,
schoolmaster of Groenstetten; but, especially, he observed its effect upon
his own peculiar charge with no small measure of careful anxiety. One fine
afternoon, towards the end of school-time, he dismissed the children from
their tasks, and gathering them around his seat near the open casements,
intimated his intention of relating to them a story from true history, as
was occasionally his custom. The old dame his wife, and his daughter, were
seated behind him with their work; and the venerable gray-haired man
looked cheerfully on the crowd of sober young faces in front, as if he
would have diffused somewhat of the spirit of childhood again from his own
experience into their innocence. A book from which he had been reading at
mid-day lay upon his little desk. Far beyond, out in the upper air shown
through the window, a golden sunlight came over the cool green woods, and
fell upon the gray towers of the old ruined castle of Groenstetten.
"Children," said he, "yonder old castle takes us back in thought to the
time of which I would speak. You must know, that in the old time things
were very different from what they are now, although the same green earth
and blue air enclosed between them men and children who were at heart the
same as ourselves. However, the world was then in great darkness and
ignorance: there were no books for children, nor picture's such as you
have here to show you what is in other countries; nor were there any
schools except for churchmen. The good Heavenly Father, who is always
teaching men, doth it by degrees; and for a long time it was only the
priests and learned clerks who knew any thing of what God had been doing
with the world. This knowledge remained chiefly in their heads; but when
the help of strong arms against unbelievers was needed, the time came in
which warriors and people also were partly let into the secret. The heart
of all Christendom was stirred with the thought that pilgrims were denied
access to the place where such great matters had been transacted, and that
the holy ground of our Saviour's burial was in the keeping of infidels, as
if once more the stone which had been rolled away was put back, and Christ
were buried again. Warriors and workmen, having now a part, as it were, in
the Church, set out in multitudes to rescue Jerusalem. It was then, too,
that the Lord of Groenstetten left his castle, seeking to expiate many a
crime he had committed by travelling so many leagues, and striking so many
blows. All this was, no doubt, calculated to teach those who went, and
those to whom they afterwards returned, not to place their heaven on
earth, nor to make up for concerns of the soul by bodily things; when they
found, _there_ also, enemies of flesh and blood, and after all the
sepulchre empty. Long after this, when the enthusiasm of men about the
Holy Land was beginning to fail, and they were looking for the road to
Heaven in other ways, the lingering spirit which had once led them forth,
seemed to descend in a simpler and purer way into the hearts of children.
You may be sure that to Them at home, where all lessons and thoughts were
learnt out of the shape of visible things, the sight of those brilliant
pageants ever passing towards the East--the tales of pilgrims who came
from thence--had been to them as a longing dream. The natural feeling of
the young is like that of a heaven near to them--of a holy delight to be
at once gained, and without conception of the long, difficult way between,
or even of the real entrance to it. The firmament which lies overhead
appears to descend upon the very earth at a distance, and all visions and
radiant things to issue from an everlasting morning source that is
attainable. They know not how, in reality, the natural world is rounded
upon itself, so that over every particular spot a continual morn, noon,
evening, and night are indeed breaking, and that only in this same station
should the life of each individual be best carried out, not leaving it,
but accepting there every quiet degree of heaven. At this period of which
I speak it became more and more the fashion of the Church, and of those
who made pictures or images for shrines, to represent the Saviour as a
young child in the arms of Mary his mother. For priests and grown men, the
patron was Madonna; whereas Jesus seemed to have himself become again a
little Child, appealing finally to the hearts of children. When the Holy
City and its land were relapsing once more into the hands of Moslems, many
beheld visions and dreams of the Virgin, who, with a sad and pleading
face, held out her son, or appeared to be vainly attempting to approach
his grave. In France, Italy, and the south of our own German land,
children and young people, as if without conference between each other,
began very generally to imitate that desire which was already passing away
from older persons. They took vows, and banded themselves together to
deliver the Holy Land from bondage; nor were there wanting monks and
priests who encouraged this emotion, proclaiming that God had chosen the
weak things of this earth to confound the strong; and out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings would perfect praise. Sometimes you might have seen
parents, who in their ignorance partook of this enthusiasm, yoking their
oxen to rude carts, and, with their children seated on their household
goods, leaving home to find out the Holy Land; and at every city which
they came in sight of, the children would shout joyfully, asking if that
were Jerusalem. But in one part of Germany at least those vague wishes
were drawn out at last into action by the mysterious visits of one,
attired like a palmer, with staff and scallop-shell, who passed from house
to house, declaring the Divine call. At his voice, the group playing
merrily by the wayside was changed into a throng of serious figures:
fathers and mothers who returned from church or market found that this
strange wayfarer, during their absence, had stood at their hearth. In
their longing to be concerned in some behest more pure and worthy than
those which were enjoined by earthly friends, the young regarded all
common tasks as trivial; they forgot their own childhood in this
phantom-Christ who seemed to call them away. The trees and roofs of
home!--what were they to the spires and palms of that Jerusalem? And they
looked upon the old people as foolish utterly. To the parents, truly this
loss of love between them and those they had nourished was very
dreadful--this Heaven, that would alienate and draw away their offspring
into it, yet had no reference to their own hopes and wishes! In our times,
the wise father knows how better to deal with such inexperienced dreams,
which indeed are now rather more apt to represent this living world too
brightly than to scorn it for spiritual objects; he suffers the boy to
take time and find out the reality. But in those days heaven and earth
were confounded; they knew not with what words or means to disprove these
fancies; there was no world of books wherein the young soul might spend
its superfluous thought and distinguish facts from ideas. Thus had they
recourse only to outward watchfulness; to locking doors, and separating
the children from their companions, whereby the more proud and wilful were
but more confirmed. They waited for escape, and got away even by making
holes in the walls; issuing forth from home as to a festival procession,
which, swelling by degrees to many thousands, was heard passing by the
villages, and on toward the East. The eldest was not more than eighteen,
while numbers there were of far tenderer years, who, singing as they went,
travelled under guidance only of the sky, as each morning it lightened up
with radiance, and marked some especial valley or mountain-path as the
last verge of a golden Orient. From towns or castles they held apart,
sustained merely by the fruits of the earth, or by the gifts of solitary
peasants, who rejoiced to offer food to the holy pilgrimage, while at the
same time they carefully shut in their own children until it was long out
of sight. But as the country grew around them more waste and desert, as
they traversed wide, lonely, and barren plains, deep forests, or toilsome
hills, the case became different. Some, scattered from the rest, lost
their way; others, from weariness and hunger alone, dropped down and
died--boys and girls, who in that hour only remembered the bitterness of
their mothers' hearts for their loss. Still the main body continued to
press forward, encouraged by some bolder spirits amongst them, or by the
steadfast, confiding faith of others; for it was the youngest often who
seemed to be filled with such patient constancy, so ineffable a sense of
Divine aid, that they would scarce have hesitated to cross the deep river
on foot, or to throw themselves from the loftiest precipices. Ever and
anon, beyond some rude ascent, the broad level of the earth would stretch
before them to the silvery horizon, so bright, so green, so beautiful,
that methought it was the border of a holier country. Or when the rainbow
suddenly spanned the distance with its vivid arch, those who were foremost
appeared to the last already to be entering through its gate of triumph
into a land of glorious colours, of celestial transfigurement. Then would
the stragglers press on in haste to make up with them, but only in time to
mix with the crowd which now stood shivering and confused in the shadow of
that cloud from which the meteor had passed away. Nevertheless, who could
doubt but that the land which they sought, which had been attained by so
many multitudes before, truly existed? Were not all these things but signs
of its being--tokens that beckoned onward, or difficulties they were to
conquer? And when at length the hearts of the children, hitherto sustained
by fellow-feeling and the deep excitement of their imagination, did sink
down utterly before these hardships, in ignorance of their way--when they
had begun to think wistfully each of his own home, with its little daily
tasks--then there appeared mysteriously, to guide them, the form of that
unknown palmer who had first called them forth. It boots not to follow,
step by step, their after wanderings--the further evils which befel
them--by what weary ways, by what disappointments, and what incitements
they were encountered, until--still led by that strange messenger, whether
man, or fiend, or angel--they reached the coasts of the sea. For there,
indeed, was the dream of those children bitterly dispelled; there they
found a city where men spoke and thought only of buying and selling--where
they lived to get gold. Thither, in truth, there came many barks from the
East--from that region which had appeared to the children full only of
thoughts and sacred mysteries; but the vessels were laden with silks and
spices for the rich and noble at home. And, alas! lamentable was the fate
of the young pilgrims, falling into the avaricious hands of those, who
perchance had heard of their childish visions to draw them thus forth into
their power. Because they had nothing else but their beloved gold to
exchange for the costly products of the East, those merchants did not
scruple even to send to Moors and Saracens for slaves these poor youthful
victims who had so delivered themselves up. The Ships were filled with
many Christian children, who were thus borne by the wind and sea, as it
were, into a region of utter doubt and evil--having cause almost to regard
all old beliefs as falsehood, and all men as pitiless and unfriendly. It
is sad, my children, to think how true these things were; that so many
fair young maidens, who had been their fathers' and mothers' pride, were
forced to brook the will of Turkish lords, growing up forgetful of that
faith, which became to them as an early, foolish vision; that so many once
happy boys should wear away their lives in bondage beneath that very air
which they had fancied holier than their own. Yet these had all issued
forth in joyous expectation, filled with the hope of heaven. For so it is
always on this earth, that happiness and goodness are really to be derived
for us human beings through the commonest things. Not far away, nor in any
thing which we cannot easily do, but nearer and nearer every day to home,
and what we are concerned with, is the Joy, the Peace which glimmers out
of every living thing. When you hear of God and heaven, you ought not to
think of these as having any meaning separated from direct, unhesitating,
simple life--since God is in every growing leaf about us, no less than in
the sky; and there is a part of heaven revealed in each right action of
this day, in each smile of approval from your parents, and in all
temperate earthly joys. Had these unhappy children continued but at home,
believing like children that what was good for those older than they was
good for themselves also,--looking through their parents at life and
death, the necessities of home would have ever drawn round them a line of
certainty, sufficient even amidst that unfavourable ancient time. But as
it was, they were plunged all at once into a state of complete
helplessness, where yesterday had no connexion with today's work, where
there was nothing to remind them of their former selves, only that their
wish to wander forth to fairer scenes now exchanged for a sick
heart-longing after Home, in which many pined away. However, there was One
of the captive youths at Tunis to whom this Thought of the spot he had so
foolishly left became gradually a sort of nourishment and support, as it
grew more clear and fond. Even after his religious belief, for want of the
due confirmation, had almost died away, or yielded to his Moorish master's
commands, yet the recollection of childish years came in its place,
growing and strengthening the more the longer his captivity endured. In
his master's train did this youth visit first Mecca, which followers of
the Prophet consider holy, and finally also Jerusalem itself. In the
latter place, which, so many years before, he and his companions had
ignorantly set out to reach, he now was struck with painful wonder, both
at all things there, and at himself. Nothing more beautiful or holy was
there here than elsewhere. The fields, the woods, and the hut where he was
born were, in his mind, fairer far than this pale, scattered city, with
its deep, dark valleys of tombs, into which the gray Desert crept. Almost
a scorn of all beliefs flashed upon him as he saw the dusty pilgrims
prostrate around a piece of silent stone in the church of the Sepulchre,
while the turbaned faces of the Moslem sneered behind. Only there still
abode in his heart _one_ deep holy Thought, which seemed alone to contain
many others unknown--the thought of that one place on earth which had been
the source to him of pure feelings, and where he had once been so near to
some different beginning of life. It appeared to him that _it_ indeed was
worthy to make a pilgrimage to, and that, if he could again return
thither, he should from it behold the true opening into things which were
at present to him dead and unintelligible. The last hope of his better
nature had, as it were, passed unnoticed over his head, and now shone far
behind, instead of in the airy future; and thus be remembered how, long
ago, on their childish adventure, he had seen with misgiving the Eastern
morning sun before them renew its splendour over again in the West.
"At last, accordingly, this same wanderer did escape from thraldom, and
come back to his native Germany. On reaching the place where his father's
little hut had stood, by the side of the clear forest stream, which he
remembered well, yet he found it gone, to the very threshold-posts. The
clear stream ran past still under the old tree roots, and the entrance
into the wood was there; but nothing remained of the dwelling whence he
had stolen forth in the early morning to join the children's march, before
its blue smoke had risen up over the forest top against the sky. There
arose within him clearly, as he stood in a bitter trance, every little
circumstance of the household;--what his father and his mother were; the
common and quiet joy, without words, which he knew not till then had been
hidden in sleep, and in meal-times, and in trifling acts; the happiness
which he now felt would have grown daily out of helping them in their
declining years. Yet these had been forsaken for a dream, excited
perchance by evening radiance on the hills, by bright skies seen through
the trees, by distant sounds, the very delight of which was lost when home
was left. He stood close at hand, and, notwithstanding, the whole was more
irrecoverable than ever--the open air came down to the foundations, and
was spread across the chamber floor. The late dead forest was now putting
forth its green buds--the grass was verdant with the spring--flowers were
blossoming in it--birds were singing--and all nature was warmly bursting
up again into full life after winter. The bells of the convent near rang
loudly for the vesper-service, as it was Easter-day, the festival of
Resurrection; and when the wanderer turned round the forest, he beheld
village children rolling on the grass their coloured Paschal eggs. In
these many years the unhappy departure of him and his companions had been
forgotten. All were rejoicing because of some nameless cheer. But at the
door of one cottage there sat an old pair upon a wooden bench, enjoying
the warm evening air, and gazing at the children--while a young maiden,
their daughter, stood behind in the doorway, her fair hair tinged with the
golden light. These good people accosted the wanderer kindly, for they saw
that his features were darkened by hotter suns; and it seemed to them that
perhaps, he was a pilgrim and had been in the East. Their greeting was in
accordance with the custom at that season of Easter, and they said, 'Peace
be with you--Christ is risen,' expecting the usual answer--'Yea, he is
risen indeed.' But the wanderer stared blankly upon them and the young
girl, wondering, in truth, as all the events of his past life came fast
upon his mind, and as he recollected the old feelings with which he had
set out from home. For a deep mystery of Home appeared at that moment to
be revealed to him; he almost understood why it was vain, and had been to
him vain, to seek abroad for that which all the while was nearest of all
things to the soul. Yet, on the other hand, the old people were much
surprised, when he told them that night of his wanderings, how it was that
he who had visited the Sepulchre itself, did not perceive there best that
the Saviour was risen. And it could perhaps only be thoroughly apprehended
by the returned pilgrim himself, when once more there arose for him a home
on the spot where his father's cottage had stood, and when it was shared
with him by that fair young maiden whose countenance had first again
restored to him the conception of life which he had lost. For then it was
that, in the fulfilment of common simple necessities, in unquestioning
intercourse with natural things, and in gradual progress to the holy
grave, he felt truly how the pure and complete hope of happiness proceeds
out of the bosom of human life; how the desire of goodness must be drawn
out of real experience; and how enthusiasm disproportioned to its object
is dangerous and false. It was thus, my children," said the old
schoolmaster, looking round them all in succession, "that one of the
children who sought the Holy Land far off, was taught to seek it near at
hand; and that perhaps many knights and pilgrims of the Crusade may have
found it on their return. And the mistakes of that period are doubtless
capable of their benefit to us.
"It is now with us no longer a formal, but a spiritual system of things;
the heavenly good, the communion of God with man, are no more confined to
particular places and signs, nor, on the other hand, to singular acts and
language. Christ hath made all things, yea, the very commonest, holy to
us and sacramental, if we only strive to apprehend their deep inward
meaning. It is the religion of The Homely,--of Him who as a child in
Bethlehem concerned himself with little household matters as they befell;
and thus prepared himself for being about his Greater Father's business in
the Temple. Duty extends her mighty, solemn chain unbrokenly from the
lowest to the highest: nay, the least insect in the grass performs a
behest that is not to be contemned. This was one chief lesson of The Great
Master's earthly life,--and in his Resurrection from death, also, taught
he his disciples not to limit his presence to any one form of things, but
to look for _it_ in all: when they found the Grave empty, and yet in an
ordinary figure, or in a passenger by the way, they suddenly recognised
their Lord, and He seemed to break out of every thing that was around
them. There is nothing now in itself common or unclean, nothing in itself
that contains a peculiar sacred virtue; but that which is next and nearest
ourselves is capable, by inexpressible degrees, of all good, having been
framed by God Himself. So often we seek far off what would have come to us
and been ours, had we but sat still, waiting, acting with a simple heart.
We mark out to us high deeds, we would fain search out somewhat great and
painful to accomplish,--as if there were not small matters enough, and
pleasant ones,--ay, and the most difficult, toilsome ones too, with their
secret crowns and garlands of reward,--all bounded within the poorest
threshold!--Now, my little youths and maidens, having listened so gravely
to the old man's discourse, go like children and play yourselves homeward:
there, and here you have need of all reverence, obedience, and
thoughtfulness."
Whether or not old Wendel's hearers appreciated the particulars of his
lesson, we are not aware; but from the excitement in the village having
after that taken a decided turn, we may suppose that, on the whole, it was
not without its use there and round about the place. And so, if more
perfectly expressed, and when rightly and fully understood, the doctrine
implied by this and numberless similar facts in human history might be in
many another community.
TAXIDERMY IN ROME
In turning over the voluminous records of our travels abroad, we pause
more particularly at those passages of our journals which relate to the
study of Natural History. In these occur frequent references to agreeable
pedestrian rambles undertaken alone, or in the company of unaffected
friends, in France and Switzerland, Italy and its islands: of whole days
spent, and twilight at last surprising us still bending over the
unexplored treasures of unexhausted museums. Of Paris winters cheerfully
passed in the _enceinte_ of the class-rooms of the Sorbonne; of pleasant
occasions in which our ears refused to take cognisance of the sound of
town clocks and dinner bells, while our eyes were so agreeably forgetting
themselves amid the profusion and variety of southern fish and bird
markets. On this, if on any portion of our by-gone life, we look back with
sadness indeed, but with a sadness unembittered by regrets; our only
sorrow here being, that we knew not earlier in life those studies of which
it may be pre-eminently said, that while they "delight abroad they hinder
not at home." Happy indeed are the children who dream of butterflies, and
wise the parents who encourage theirs to intertwine objects of natural
history with their earliest associations! Not only has this charming study
a strong tendency to confirm the health, to embellish the mind, and to
improve the moral character of those who pursue it;
"Pour le bien savourer, c'est trop peu que des sens;
Il faut une ame pure et des gouts innocens;"
it is likewise a strong bond of union between man and man--where shall we
find such another? Hounds and horses may connect, indeed, a greater
_number_, but if one of the field breaks his neck, who cares? "he should
have been better mounted,"[1] or else, "he could not ride;"--but ours is a
gentler and a kindlier community. Where else exists that unanimity to
which this body may justly lay claim? Not in the professions, where law
detracts, medicine dislikes, and the church does not always hold the truth
in charity; nor yet amidst mankind in general, for philosophers misquote,
scholars revile, merchants monopolise, courtiers traduce, statesmen
deceive: but here no conflicting interests, nor uncharitable surmises, no
morbid sensibility, nor false and narrow views of life, arise to estrange
those whom Linnaeus and Cuvier have once united in fellowship. Constant,
cheerful, unaffected, and sincere, the happy members of our _coterie_,
every where, and in all ranks alike, show an instinctive tact in making
each other out, and once friends continue so for life. We speak from long
and intimate acquaintance with many naturalists: to some, courteous
reader, we purpose, with your consent, hereafter to introduce you. Our
object meanwhile is, to set before you now two humble foreigners of the
gentler sex, who have passed their whole lives in the study and practice
of taxidermy. Real and zealous enthusiasts are Annetta Cadet and her
mother, who, in order to surprise in their haunts, and study before they
embalm them, the various inhabitants of the _Campagna_ about Rome, think
nothing of braving any amount of heat, fatigue, and inconvenience; and
such adepts are they in this art, that when stuffed, their birds, beasts,
and reptiles seem to have received new life at their hands, and to be
about to spring from the ground or to leave their perches, and glide out
of sight. When, therefore, you shall have examined the out-doors[2]
antiquities, (and unless you would reconstruct the Forum for the
thousandth time on some original plan of your own, or were to go
mare's-nest hunting amidst the ruins with certain German _Barbatuli_,--the
Bunsenists of a season--ten days will be more than sufficient,) we charge
you not to fail calling at No. 23, Via della Vite, where, if you should
possess any lurking propensities for natural history, they are sure to be
elicited. As to your first reception, if this should be of a somewhat
abnormal kind, why, so was ours;--for Cadet and her mother are certainly
originals: but that you should not be disconcerted, and in order to
prepare you for the personal appearance, as well as the unusual qualities
of our friends, we transcribe the memorandum of our own introduction to
them. Prince Musignano, whose birds they mounted, professor Metaxa, who
sent rare insects for them to determine, and W----who affirmed, (_par
parenthese_,) that no one could stuff birds like them but himself, had all
proeconised their accomplishments to us; so one morning with a note-book
full of queries, and a bottle full of insects, we descended the
_Scalinata_, and knocked at the door. It was opened by a cord pulled from
above, while a female voice demanded, _more solito_, "_chi c'e?_" On
answering, that our visit was to the _Signore_ who prepared insects, the
_voice_ said, "Come up, go in at the door to the right, and we will join
you as soon as we have made ourselves tidy." Obeying this
Little-red-riding-hood invitation, we entered the reception room, and
began to amuse ourselves with a survey of a score or two of queer-looking
pictures, (for the most part without frames,) with which the walls were
adorned; strange landscapes were there, and allegorical subjects, treated
with an equal perversity. On one that first caught our eye, a waning
moon, resting on the grass with its horns upwards, formed a couch for
Diana and Endymion; from this we had turned to a naked nymph with a pretty
face, and a torso half hidden under a cataract of dishevelled tresses,
"not penitent enough for a Magdalen," thought we, when mother and daughter
entering together, "_Ecco la mia madre_," said the girl pointing to the
picture in question. "_Come?_" asked we, "that your mother?" "Certainly,
it was painted by my own father, six months after their marriage; she was
then as you see, _una bella giovanne assai_." "Was your father, then, a
painter by profession?" "Not originally," interposed the old dame: "he was
designed for a missionary by his patron, who brought him over from his
native country, San Domingo, when a boy; but the old man dying shortly
afterwards, the Propaganda undertook to complete the youth's education
with the same view. As, however, he chose to think that painting, not
preaching, was his calling, and as an attachment had sprung up between us,
and I preferred passing my life with him rather than with Santa Ursula and
her virgins, to whom my friends would have dedicated me, we determined to
take our own case into our own hands, married without asking permission,
and then, to support ourselves, I turned my attention to Taxidermy and he
to the Fine Arts. Thus we managed to subsist till Annetta was nine years
old, when I lost him." "And I," interposed Annetta, "gained a score of old
botany books, and these beautiful paintings; I wonder no one comes to
propose for me." "_E pazza quella ragazza!_" said the mother; and, to
judge by her appearance and attire alone, she might have been so. Her
descent sufficiently accounted for her woolly hair; but in addition to its
negro texture, it was unteazled and neglected, being mixed with bits of
feather and other extraneous elements. She was swathed from head to foot
in coarse soiled dimity; in one hand she was holding a half stuffed hawk,
in the other a sponge, dipped in some arsenical solution to preserve it.
Our eyes had never rested upon so wild, so plain, so apparently hopeless a
slattern; but these unpromising appearances were soon forgotten, and amply
made amends for by the intelligence of her remarks, and the sprightliness
of her conversation; and we know,
"Before such merits all objections fly,
Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."
The _officina_ was a curious place, and worthy of its mistress. It was
something between a shambles, a museum, and a tanyard, and exhaled in
consequence the mixed effluvia of decomposing flesh, alcohol, tannin, and
the oil of petroleum. In one corner stood a large tawny dog, stuffed, and
fixed to a board, with a new pair of eyes in his head, and his mouth well
furnished with grinders. "_Era molto vecchio questo cane_," going up to
introduce him to our notice, and patting his back affectionately: "his
sockets have not had such eyes in them for many a day, nor his jaws such
teeth. I have strengthened his legs with wire, and restored the proper
curl to the tail; nothing further is now lacking but some tufts of hair to
cover these bare patches on his haunches, when his master will at once
recognise unaltered the favourite of fourteen years ago." "And whence the
supplies necessary for your purpose?" "From this," replied she, drawing
out from under the table a skin of the same tawny colour, "_Eccola_," and
then pinching off with her tweezers a small tuft from the supplementary
hide, and gumming over with a camel's hair brush, a bare spot, she
proceeded to cover it. "And what's your remedy here?" said we, laying our
hand upon a large duck,[3] whose glossy grass-green neck had lost much of
its plumage, especially at the base, where it is wont to be, encircled
with a cravat of white feathers. "By robbing others of the same family:
for I always think a bird, while he lacks any of his feathers, is looking
reproachfully at me, and if a parrot could find tongue it might say,
''Tis cruel to look ragged now I'm dead;
Annetta, give my tail a little red.'
But here are my stores;" and, touching a spring, the door of a small room
opened, and revealed unstuffed skins of all sorts, dangling from strings
like _Fantoccini_ near the _Sapienza_, at Christmas-time. "Yonder is a
bird, Annetta, that shot across our path yesterday in the villa Borghese;
was he not then a foreigner of distinction escaped from the prince's
aviary?"--"No; a Campagna bird, but rare;" and she proceeded to display
his lapis-lazuli wings, which shone like burnished armour, and were set
off by a brilliant edging of black feathers, as polished as jet, while the
back was a rich dark brown, and the neck and breast light azure. "Oh!
stuff us one of these birds, pray!"--"_Non dubitate_, one shall be on his
perch expecting you when you return to Rome in November."--"And we must
have, too, that beautiful neighbour of his who wears a short silk spencer
over his back and shoulders, and a full-breasted waistcoat of buff."--"The
Alcedo Hispida: he shall be ready too; they call him hereabouts, 'Martin
the Fisher.'"
We took leave for the time, but frequently returned to the workshop. On
one occasion, we asked Cadet how she attained such skill in taxidermy?
"Our art," she replied, "like yours, consists mainly in observation, and
therefore it must needs come slowly. In fact it has taken my mother and
myself fifteen years to learn the natural instincts, habits, and attitudes
of the birds and beasts of the Roman Fauna; every summer we visit their
haunts, and bring back such specimens as we may catch or as the peasants,
who all know us, may bring. Thus, we return, ever richly laden, sometimes
with the carcass of an eagle, or it may be of an African Phenicopterus;
or, failing in such large game, we are tolerably sure of porcupines, fine
snakes, a nest of vipers, specimens of our three several kinds of
tortoises, and different species of land crabs; to say nothing of the
Tarantulas, Scholias, and Hippobosques, which I pin round my bonnet, or
pop into spirits of wine. As to stuffing--the witnessing how some, who
call themselves naturalists, stuff birds, has been long as a beacon to me!
They really seem to forget, that it is one thing to prepare a goose for
the spit, and another to fill his skin for the museum; they cram whatever
they have in hand, as Fuocista Beppo crams a sky-rocket to repletion. Few
take the natural shape as a model for the embalmed body. In such hands,
sparrows become linnets, owls appear to have died of apoplexy, kestril
eyes shine in Civetta's sockets, and the jackdaw has a pupil like the
vulture. Then in grouping, they make _all_ to look straight forward, as
if, when a hawk has swooped upon a teal, his eyes did not turn downwards
in the direction of his victim, or those of the poor teal upwards, in the
direction of the expected blow; _he_ too, should be represented as
striving to extend his neck beyond the drooping screen of the other's
impenetrable wing. Then birds of prey should not perch like barn-door
fowls, nor a parrot divide his toes before and behind unequally; yet some
taxidermists there are, who consider these things _trifles_!" "Well, sir,
what do you think of my daughter's stuffing?" said the old woman. "Why,
that she stuffs beautifully, but the smell of those old hides in the
corner makes me sick." Whereupon they both laughed out at our affectation.
"A doctor, and made sick!" said they, and they laughed again. "Have you
heard of the Brazilian consul's lion?" interrogated the daughter,
endeavouring to make us forget our sickness by exciting our curiosity.
"No; nor even that he had a lion." "Oh, tell the story to the Signor
Dottore, mother!" said the girl; "I can't for laughing." Upon which the
old woman, summoning to her aid a ludicrously solemn look, prefaced the
anecdote by supposing "We must know the Brazilian consul?"--"Not even by
name."--"In that case we were to understand that he was by nature a man of
great tenderness of character, but had once been chafed into an act of
extraordinary ferocity, killing with his own hand, during the last year of
his consulate, (but unfortunately, like Ulysses, without a witness,) a
lordly lion: as there was no embalmer on the spot, he simply flayed his
victim, and preserved the skin with spice till his return last year, when
the wish naturally arose to have the lion mounted after the most approved
models, in order that the dimensions of the body and the respective length
of tusks, tail, and claws, might appear to the best advantage, making it
very evident that this had been a lion that none but Hercules or a
Brazilian consul would have ventured to cope with. On making inquiries for
an accomplished embalmer, our diplomatist unfortunately stumbles upon a
Frenchman--a gentleman of rare accomplishments, as they all are, perfectly
versed, by his own account, in that ancient Egyptian art in all its
branches; this man, on seeing the skin, takes care duly to appreciate the
courage of the consul in killing so immense a beast, whom he promises
forthwith to restore to his pristine dimensions and fierceness of
physiognomy; his adroitness is rewarded by _carte blanche_, to purchase
any amount of spices and cotton he may require, and his _honoraire_ is
fixed at fifty _scudi_ on the completion of the job. Hoping to increase
the family satisfaction by showing them the lion once again on his legs,
without their previously witnessing the steps by which this was to be
effected, he requests that in the interval no one would visit the
workshop." "Mind you make him big enough;" says the Consul, signing the
contract. "_Laissez-moi faire_," rejoins the other. After three weeks'
mystery, the artist sends for his employer, who, speedily obeying the
summons, finds the exhibition-room arranged for a surprise, and the
Frenchman in anticipation of an assured triumph, rubbing his hands before
a curtain, on the other side of which is the object of this visit.
"_Hortense, levez la toile!_" says the Frenchman, giving the word of
command. Hortense does as he is bid; up goes the curtain, and the Consul
beholds his old friend, not only with a new face but with a new body:
whereat, astounded and aghast,--"That's not, _my_ lion, sir," says the
Brazilian. "How, sir, not _your_ lion; whose lion then?--you are
facetious." "_I_ facetious, sir," _roars_ the impatient lion-killer, "and
what should make _me_ facetious?" "I have the honour to tell you, sir,
that this is your lion," says the Frenchman chafing in his turn. "And I
have the _honour_ to tell you, then," reiterated the other, "that you
never _saw_ a lion." When the Consular family assembled, it was worse
still; the children laughed in his face, and the lady said, "that but for
his mane and colour she should not have guessed what animal he
personated." It was a family misfortune. "Why did you trust a _Frenchman_
with it?" asked his affectionate spouse: "you recollect that Alfieri calls
them a nation of Charlatans, whose origin is _mud_,[4] and that all he
ever learned of them was, to be silent when they spoke." "But what's to be
done now?" demands the disconsolate man. "Send for the little women who
understand stuffing, and take their advice." "So we went," continued the
old woman, "and were personally introduced to this lion." "_Ah! che
Leone!_" interrupted the daughter, laughing at the recollection of the
quizzical beast. "A _lion_ indeed!" said the mother laughing, but less
boisterously than her daughter. "What a king of the forest!" said the
girl, going off again into inextinguishable merriment: "mother, do you
remember his eyes sunk in his head as if he had died of a decline, his
chest pinched in to correspond, his belly bulging out like the pouch of an
opossum, with all her family at home, his mouth twisted into a sardonic
grin, his teeth like some old dowager, one row overlapping the other, his
cheeks inflated as if his stomach was in his mouth, and then the position
of one of his fore-legs, evidently copied from that of the old bronze
_horse_ on the Capitol, while his tail wound three times and a half round
its own tip!" "_Basta, basta!_" said the old woman, "he _was_ a queer
lion, and looked easy enough to kill if you could only keep your gravity
while you attacked him." "And what said the Consul?" asked we, laughing
with them. "The Consul _cospettoed_ again and again, and was for knocking
him off his legs at once, and then giving him to us to re-arrange. 'You
and your daughter,' said he, 'will take him home and do what you can for
me;' but we told him plainly, that to expect a new birth, after such a
miscarriage as this, was only to indulge a vain hope, sure to issue in new
disappointment. Why, the very tail would have taken us a fortnight to
uncurl and make a _lion's_ tail of it; the ears were quite past
redemption; the _bustle_ might have been removed from behind, and the
wadding placed in front, where it was wanted; but the hide itself was
corrugated into plaits that nothing could have removed. '_Cospetto!_' said
the Consul, _poveretto_, who had nothing else to say--'and am I thus to
lose my lion, the only lion I ever killed, and such a fine lion too!' and
then he fell to abusing the Frenchman. 'I can't keep him here to show my
friends,' pursued he; 'for it is obvious, if I do, that instead of
admiring my courage, they will only ridicule me, and perhaps betray me
into the hands of that rogue _Pinelli_ as a fit subject for his
caricature.' We could not say they would not; so we recommended him, upon
the whole, as the best thing under the misfortune, to _re_-consult the
French artist. '_Scelarato porco!_ consult him about a lion? why the
commonest daub on a _Trattoria_ sign-board gives a better idea of the
noble animal than this." "It is difficult to stuff a lion," said the girl,
half apologetically: "one cost me a fortnight's hard work to prepare."
"Yes," added the mother eagerly--"yes, but he looked like a lion, he did."
Then turning to us, "Well, sir, at last, as we could not help the Consul,
he was obliged to have recourse to this Frenchman again, who admitted that
the bulk of the animal was in the wrong place, and _une idee trop large_,
and removed some of it accordingly. With respect to the hind-quarters, he
cleverly got rid of this difficulty, by inserting three-quarters of the
noble beast into a den, formed in a recess of the drawing-room, and hung
with a profusion of green paper, representing bushes falling across its
mouth, while beyond them protruded the head and open jaws of the lord of
the forest, as reconnoitring the ground previous to a sally upon the
guests; and there, doubtless, he is still exhibiting.".... Well did Cadet
herself avoid the errors she thus ridiculed. We possess one of her
animated groups, of which the subject is an eagle killing a snake, and the
execution is so true to nature, and so beautifully disposed for effect as
to render improvement impossible: from some such original did the Locrian
and Girgenti mints copy one of their finest reverses, and Virgil and
Ariosto their lively descriptions. Our bird, which lay, a month before, an
unsightly mass of blood-stained feathers, broken-winged, on the ground,
when he came into our possession, _stuffed_, looked not only alive but in
action. The talon which supported the body seemed to grasp the perch
beneath it so tightly, as to convey a very lively impression both of his
prehensile powers and of his weight; round the other, (embracing it as in
a vice,) writhed the body of a large snake; the eagle's neck was erect,
his head slightly bent, his wonderfully expressive eye glancing downwards,
his hooked beak opening and disclosing the tongue slightly raised; the
scant feathers round the olfactory fissures up; the snake hissing, his
head elevated, and darting upwards, to anticipate the lacerating blow:
"_Hic_ sinuosa volumina versat,
Arrectisque horret squammis, et sibilat ore,
Arduus insurgens; _illa_ haud minus urget adunco,
Luctantem rostro."
The delusion as to the substance and weight of the bird was perfect. At
first we doubted being able to lift him without considerable effort. On
making the attempt, however, we find him light as a Nola jar. A glorious
bird is the eagle, well worthy the attention and regard bestowed on him in
ancient times by prophet, priest, and poet; but had they been silent, we
should have learned the veneration in which he was popularly held by the
frequent recurrence of his image--whether incised on Egyptian obelisk,
chiselled by Grecian hands on ornamented casque, guarding the tombs of
heroes, grasping the thunderbolts of colossal Joves, perched on Latin,
standards, carrying off young Ganymedes to wait, _invita Junone_, on the
gods above[5]--or bearing aloft, on consecrated coin, some most religious
and gracious _Augusta_ to Glory and to Olympus!
One day, meeting the elder Cadet in the street returning alone from the
bird-market--a very unusual occurrence, for they generally hunted in
couples--we asked after the daughter, and hearing she was _ammalata
assai_, and wanted one of our little pills to set her to rights, turned in
with the mother, and found the young _naturalista_ reclining on an
ill-stuffed _bergere_, with a large Coluber coiled round her temples, and
a half-prepared Hoopoe in her hand. In the same apartment were a vulture
picking an old shoe to pieces under the belly of an Esquimaux dog, and
some little land-tortoises nibbling away at a large lettuce in the middle
of the floor. Our inquiries were somewhat embarrassed by the unusual
circumstances of our patient, particularly by the presence of the snake,
which now began to untwist. "See! he has recognised his master," said the
dame: "or perhaps has raised his head with a view of taking part in the
consultation." We had seen snakes entwining the lovely brow of Medusa, in
marble, cameo, and intaglio--painted snakes in clusters hissing in the
hair of the Eumenides--but a living snake wound round living temples we
had never seen till to-day. "Come, sir, you are only the _snake_ to
Esculapius; and though I am not ungrateful for what you have done in
refreshing my hot forehead with your cool skin, now the _doctor_ is come,
_bon giorno_!" and, removing him like a turban from her head, she placed
him in a box at her side. This was, then, that Epidaurian Coluber which we
had so frequently seen in marble effigy wound round the consultation cane
of the God of Physic,[6] and not to be viewed by us alive for the first
time without interest. "Mother," said the younger Cadet, brightening up
when she perceived this, "bring our snake-boxes, and let us show them all
to the _dottore_." In less than five minutes the cases were before us. The
first contained a mother blind-worm and her viviparous family of ten
offspring, not two inches long, while she stretched to about twelve. A
Coluber Natrix inhabited the second. "He is a great favourite with
children in Sardinia," said Cadet, "twisting himself round their arms, and
sucking milk from their mouths; but if these supplies fail, he feeds on
frogs and fish. His flesh is a sovereign remedy, say our doctors, in skin
diseases; and they also say--but you know best how true this may be--that
one of the late Dukes of Bavaria became a father by merely eating fowls
that had been fattened on them." A Coluber Austriacus followed--a rare
snake, and chiefly remarkable for his pleasant herbaceous smell, very
unlike what proceeded from a neighbouring box, holding a Coluber
Viperinus, who secretes, when irritated, a yellow fluid of intense
foetor, like the mixed stinks from asafoetida and rotten eggs. The
specimen in this box was large. It had vomited, we were told, two frogs
the day after its capture; and on cutting open another of the same
species, Annetta had seen a living toad creep, Jonas-like, from the
paunch, and make the best of three legs to escape, the fourth being
already disposed of, and digested in the body of the serpent. The solitary
Coluber Atro-virens passed next in review. She gave him a character for
preferring good cheer to the best company, _ex gr._--Out of two taken last
week, one only survived; the other devoured his friend in the night, and
next morning they found his enormously distended body dilated almost to
transparency, and palpitating under the feeble movement of the victim,
doubled up in his inside, but not yet dead. Being very exclusive, some
call him "_il milordo_;" others, from the beauty of his colour, _"il
bello."_ When about to moult, his wonted vivacity changes to moroseness.
Like a mad dog, he will snap at every thing. Perhaps the loss of all his
beauty, which then takes place, may account for such peevishness. A
glaucomatous state of the eye always precedes by some days the moult,
which is accomplished by the skin cracking from the jaws, and afterwards
being reflected over the head and shoulders, till by degrees the snake
skins himself alive, leaving his old investment turned completely inside
out. As gross a feeder as an alderman, he more frequently recovers from a
surfeit, perhaps because, though a glutton, he will not touch wine.
Snakes are not so plentiful about Rome as farther south. Terracina in
particular swarms with them, as did its ancient predecessor _Amycle_,
which was once nearly depopulated by them. Their chief haunt hereabouts is
two miles beyond the Porta Salara, at a place called Serpentina, on the
opposite side of the Tiber, and nearly in front of the embouchure of the
Cremara. At last we come to the family viper box, which perhaps we "would
like to peep into with our gloves on?" "_Per Carita_, no," said we seizing
the naturalista's hand--"on no account--a bite would be no joke!" Cadet
laughed, observing that curiosity should not be baulked by timidity for a
trifle.--"A trifle! had she ever been bitten, then?" "_Come? sicuro ogni
anno._" It was of familiar occurrence: the part would swell, be stiff and
sore for a couple of days, but that was all. Fontana found that it
required four large and very angry vipers to kill a dog--of course it must
require as many to kill a man. As to the Egyptian Queen's death being
caused by a viper's bite, that question having been properly _ventilated_
(ventillata) by Professor Lancisci, might be considered as set at rest.
One viper could not kill one person, much less _three_; and we might
remember that Cleopatra's memorable asp is said to have bitten two maids
of honour, Neaera and Carmione, before it came to her turn, by which time
the poison must have been expended and the viper's tooth dry. "Two
things," added she, "I have noted about vipers; one regards the parturient
viper, and is to the effect that, a prisoner, she never survives her
confinement many days; long before the _quarante jours y compris
l'accouchement_[7] are over, she has ceased to be a mother and a viper.
The other regards her progeny, and is this; that young viperlings come
into the world in full maturity of malice, offering to bite as soon as
their mouths are open, and flying at each other when they have no other
society to attack. We have five varieties in Rome." "Is the viper deaf,
Cadet?" "You should read the experiments of Peter Manni, a great friend of
ours who tames snakes; these will completely satisfy your curiosity on
this point:" and she fetched us the work of Manni, in which he gives
curious account of the influence exercised upon several varieties of the
species by the sound of a pianoforte, and afterwards goes on to relate the
effects produced upon the same serpents by electricity and light. "The
Viper," says he, "was impassive to the second of these agents, suffering a
lighted candle to be brought close to his eyes before he turned away his
head; of the harmless snakes, Coluber Esculapius came up to look at a
lighted torch, but, finding it too strong for him, gnashed his teeth and
bolted; Coluber Elaphis bore the heat of a lighted candle in his mouth
with apparent indifference; but the Coluber Atro-virens flew at it in a
passion, snapping and biting while he struggled to retreat; _he_ also
appeared most distressed under the application of slight electric shocks,
from which indeed all the snakes suffered, and the smaller ones died."
The action of some _poisons_ upon snakes is similar to that on our own
economy. For instance, on administering half a grain of strychnine to a
full-grown Coluber Atro-virens, four minutes elapsed before, any change
was visible. During this period the snake moved in the hand with his usual
vivacity; the flesh then began to grow rigid under the finger; and in half
a minute, the whole body, with the exception of three inches of coil, was
seized with a tetanic spasm--the beautiful imbrication of the scales was
dislocated by the violence of the muscular action, and the sleek round
cylinder of the body was hardened into knots and reduced to half its
former bulk. Reviving for a few seconds, the snake started, opened its
jaws, but immediately afterwards became stiff and motionless except at the
tail, which continued to exhibit feeble contractile action for about
twenty minutes. After death, the body, losing its unnatural rigidity,
became unnaturally supple, seemed without a spine, and might be doubled
upon itself like a ribbon. In two cases which we witnessed of individuals
poisoned by strychnine, similar tetanic phenomena were observed. Corrosive
sublimate and prussic acid do not appear to act on snakes either with such
violence or rapidity as on warm-blooded animals; for a dose of three
grains of the former, and several drops of the latter, (Majendie's,)
remained inactive for a quarter of an hour; then, two grains of arsenic
being added, the snake suddenly raised his head half a foot from the
ground, remained motionless as in a trance, for a minute, then fell back
quite dead. We are not proud of these experiments, nor do we intend to
repeat such; but having been guilty of them, the recital of the results
can do no harm.
What various and even opposite qualities, owing to the supposed
versatility of his character, have been ever attributed to the serpent!
Viewed as fancy dictated, under different phases, men were not content to
ascribe to him their vices only, but must also attribute to him most of
their moral excellencies: wisdom, prudence, vigilance, fortitude and
sobriety were all his; he was symbolical of the divine nature, of
eternity, and of youth. Long before _viper broth_ was used in medicine,
the Coluber was at Hygeia's side by the fountain of health, and was twined
round the stick of Esculapius, at once silent and expeditious in his
motion. Harpocrates favoured, and Mercury the Olympic messenger employed
him as his deputy; though victim on one occasion to the archery of Apollo,
the god of verse found something in his
------ "winding 'bout
Of linked structure long drawn out,"
so akin to poetry, (particularly to the kind called epic,) that he took an
additional cognomen (Pythius) out of compliment to him; whilst Alexander
and Augustus, those worthy descendants of Jove (whom he is said to have
befriended in his amours), stamped his image on their coins, and assumed
it as their crest. So far we behold him in favour both with gods and men:
but opinions vary, applause is inconstant; and accordingly we equally find
him charged with envy, hatred, malice, hypocrisy, ingratitude, cruelty,
and almost every other vice. He is also accused of devastating towns, of
usurping islands,[8] of impeding armies,[9] of destroying priests at the
altar, and it is certain that he lent his name to heresy, and permitted
the great Heresiarch to assume his form in order to beguile Eve.
MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF OIL PAINTING.[10]
In the prosecution of an object, it often happens that the means employed
lead unexpectedly to results of immeasurably more importance than the end
originally proposed; and that, while the ostensible end may turn out to be
a failure or of doubtful benefit, some real good, some lasting advantage,
shall be brought out by the exercise of the ability, energy, and
faithfulness of the agents employed.
The mind can scarcely work on given materials without making some
discovery. In this sense did Socrates adopt the line of Hesiod--
"Employ thyself in any thing rather than stand idle."
We are of those who would doubt the advantages proposed by the Commission
of the Fine Arts. If it were likely to lead to a permanent patronage for
_great works_, it would be a boon indeed; but if it be the cause of only a
temporary excitement, holding out a promise which it has no means of
fulfilling, encouraging talent, and making it unprofitable, turning it
from the line in which it is wanted, to that in which it is not likely to
be sought after, the artists will have little reason in the end to be
thankful for the establishing of this Commission. The competition which it
proposes is not altogether wholesome: it is sicklied over from the
beginning with the fear and jealousy of a class. The tried hands of an
academy abstain from a contest which may take away from them the honour
(in the world's eye) which has been exclusively appropriated to them; and
the new aspirants work at too probable a loss, scarcely hoping that their
labours will be adopted or rewarded: while in that absence of a higher
competition, the public, and possibly the Commission itself, expect
inferiority; and if these _great_ pictures, great in dimensions as in
attempt, are not purchased by the public, there can be little hope that
any private dwellings will contain them. If the object be to adorn the
Houses of Parliament with pictures, it would be far better to select from
the painters we have, and give them their work to do, than to raise up a
host of artists, nine-tenths of whom must sink under a hopeless lack of
employment; for there is not a general taste for the particular style
which it is the object of the Commission to promote, nor can there well be
in a country where there are so few public edifices of importance and of
public resort, and so few palaces capable of containing works of great
size. Indeed the art of decoration is with us quite of another character,
and one little adapted for the display of great works. There, is paint in
profusion, and of a dazzling splendour,--we do not mean to speak
slightingly of this architectural adjunct;--but there is little room for
the _sobriety_ of great art; and be it remembered that art, to be great,
must have in it a certain sobriety, awe, and majesty, that does not quite
accord with our style of decoration. We require a kind of furniture
decoration. We doubt if in our Houses of Parliament and palaces, much room
will be spared to what is so facetiously termed "High Art." Nor can we
expect to be always building Houses of Parliament; and, therefore, too
soon the magniloquent patronage must come to an end. Domesticity is the
habit of modern life, (for even our club-houses are of that character, and
assume the appearance of a home;) and, for such habits, easel pictures
will ever have the greatest charm. Nor would it be correct to deny to them
a very scope in the field of art. We doubt if we can recur to any
extensive patronage for frescoes; and their great cost must exclude them
from our churches, which we are more desirous of multiplying than of
ornamenting. Nor can we wonder at this; for, whereas the churches and all
public buildings in Italy, were and are open at all times, and the great
works they contain, are to be seen every day, and at every hour of the
day, with us it is a great thing to have them open once or twice in the
week, for an hour and a half at a time. So that we fear the Commission for
the promotion of the Fine Arts are, as far as we can judge of their
ostensible object, in a labyrinth, from which if they find an exit, they
will not have enlarged their prospect, and will have to congratulate
themselves, at best, on being where they were when they entered it.
We do not here express a doubt as to the advantage of our having a
Commission of the Fine Arts. We only doubt their judgment in the
exclusiveness of their aim, and the largeness of their implied promises.
But if there be a suspicion of failure in the ostensible object, in some
of its working the greatest benefit will have been conferred upon modern
art. A more judicious or more fortunate choice could not have been made,
than that made in the appointment of the Secretary to the Commission. Much
as the world has reason to regret that this appointment has for a long,
too long a period, been a sore let and hinderance to Mr Eastlake in the
practice of his art,--the conscientious view he has taken of the duties of
his office, and his entire faithfulness in discharging them, have led to
results of a most beneficial character,--beneficial to artists, and to the
arts as a perpetuity. His highly valuable work, though with the most
modest title, "Materials for a History of Oil Painting," is the real boon,
and will be the lasting proof of his faithful service. Considering the
sacrifice with which a work of so much labour, thought, and research must
have been achieved, we hope the Commissioners are empowered to reward his
energy, ability, and fidelity, according to their merits, and according to
the sacrifice.
Mr Eastlake, justly judging it to be of the first importance, in whatever
schemes might be entertained for the promotion of the Fine Arts, to secure
to the artist the best materials, and the approved methods of the best
times, and to give him as complete a knowledge of the history of the art
he professes as might be obtained, undertook to search out and examine
records with the greatest care, leaving as little to conjecture as
possible. He could not dictate to the mind, but he might be able to put
means into the hands of genius; the more perfect the instruments, the
greater would be the freedom, and, what is of no small importance, the
more durable would be the works. The first step in this direction was
evidently towards a knowledge of what had been done, and had been
universally admired and approved:--to discover first, if possible, what
was the method and what were the technical means in the hands of Titian
and Correggio, of Rubens and most of the Flemish painters.
Aware of the discussions and disputes concerning the invention of Van
Eyck, he found it necessary to trace the progress of art from its earliest
records to the date of the supposed discoverer of painting in oil--or
rather discoverers, Hubert and John Van Eyck, in 1410. The conclusion to
which the documentary evidence led him was this, that:--
"The technical improvements which Van Eyck introduced were unquestionably
great; but the mere materials employed by him may have differed little, if
at all, from those which had been long familiar. The application of oil
painting to figures, and such other objects as (with rare exceptions) had
before been executed only _in tempera_, was a consequence of an
improvement in the vehicle." "It is apparent, that much has been
attributed to John Van Eyck, which was really the invention of Hubert; and
both may have been indebted to earlier painters for the elements of their
improved process."
The _very_ early use of oil in painting need not here be discussed, though
it was necessary to go into much detail in forming a history of the art,
which was the object of Mr Eastlake. Perhaps, the earliest in our practice
will be found to have been in England, and may have been the legacy of art
bequeathed at the departure of the Romans. It did not commence in Italy.
"The use of resinous solutions combined in various proportions with oil,
as a medium or vehicle for the colours, was an early technical
characteristic of the northern schools, and merits attention here,
accordingly."
It is the opinion of the author of "Materials for a History," &c., that
the Van Eycks did not so much invent as improve; it was therefore most
desirable to ascertain what was previously ready to their hands to be
improved. And as to the improvement, that was perhaps really less than has
been supposed, the application being the novelty. Oleo-resinous varnishes
had before been in use, even from a very early period; but the admixture
of these with the pigments was the great step in advance, and it may be
inferred that the method of rendering these oleo-resinous vehicles
colourless, or nearly so, was the great invention of John Van Eyck.
Drying oil was well known to the ancients, that is before the Christian
era. "Dioscorides, whose works were familiar to medieval writers on
medicine, is supposed to have lived in the age of Augustus. He mentions
two drying oils; walnut-oil and poppy-oil. The principal materials
employed in modern oil painting were at least ready for the artist, and
waited only for a Van Eyck,--in the age of Ludius[11] and the painters of
Pompeii."
We will not attempt further to pursue the history of oil painting to the
time of the Van Eycks; suffice it to say, that a recipe of Theophilus, a
monk of the twelfth century, furnishes materials--an oleo-resinous vehicle
generally used after the time of Van Eyck--and that the improvement by Van
Eyck was the substituting amber for the sandarach of Theophilus. The work
of Theophilus has recently appeared, translated by Mr Hendrie from the
Latin, and forms a very valuable addition to the painter's library, as
well as to that of the curious and scientific, in general. The artist will
find in Mr Hendrie's preface, the information he will be most desirous to
possess. He strongly insists upon amber varnish as being the real vehicle
or discovery of Van Eyck, and lays much stress upon a certain distilled
oil as a diluent. He says:--
"Amber varnish, and probably other thick oil varnishes, would be equally
benefitted, thinned with this distilled oil. It dries without a pellicle
when mixed with colours. Colours used for finishing a picture, such as in
the light for solid painting, or glazing for colour and shadows, are
rendered very pure and without the slightest appearance of a skin,
although it may be plentifully used. It dries much more slowly than any
other distilled oil, and hence its great value, as it allows the artist as
much time as he requires, in order to blend his colours and finish his
work. In conjunction with amber varnish, it forms a vehicle which leaves
nothing to be desired, and which doubtless was the vehicle of Van Eyck,
and in many instances of the Venetian masters, and of Correggio; the
different modes of painting necessarily producing the varied appearances
of the different schools and masters."
This promises the remedy for the disease, as it were, of vehicles, the
not drying from the bottom, which will delight every artist, if he finds
it a practical truth. We confess, we somewhat fear the sanguine
temperament of the translator of Theophilus, and should have preferred
some proof to the bare assertion that the picture by John Bellini, in the
National Gallery, was painted in amber varnish. Nor can we quite trust his
translation of the recipe for making this amber varnish. We were startled
with this account of 1 lb litharge to 1 lb linseed oil and 4 ounces of
amber--is he correct in translating _spigelhors_ litharge? It should be
rosin. With regard to the value of amber varnish, Mr Eastlake quite agrees
with Mr Hendrie. Another important improvement of the Van Eycks was the
substitution of calcined white copperas for litharge. In a note, Mr
Eastlake gives the information that on experiment it has been proved that
oil does not take up any portion of the copperas, which nevertheless
renders it very drying and hard, but that oil does take up sugar of lead.
It should be added, however, that he does not think lead so prejudicial to
colours as some have thought it to be.
The value of Mr Eastlake's book chiefly consists in the documentary
evidence which is now brought to bear upon the question of vehicles; and
doubtless, that which is subsequent to the time of Van Eyck is by far the
most valuable. Evidence is produced not only of oils in use, and the
methods of purifying them, but of varnishes, and recipes for making them,
likewise of the colours used. There is yet, however, much untold with
regard to the Italian practice, concerning which Mr Eastlake proposes to
treat in a second volume. Yet, with regard to the Italian methods, we are
not left without some important knowledge, which, however, must be
considered as offered rather incidentally; for the Italians having
modified, and in some respects much varied the vehicle they derived from
the Flemish masters, their methods were again partially adopted by the
latter; so that the methods of these two great schools of art could not be
kept entirely separate.
To those much acquainted with art, it will be thought of the utmost
importance to obtain any recipes of the time of Rubens and Vandyke. Such
we are in possession of--contained in a manuscript in the British
Museum--of which we may expect the publication entire. It may be
interesting to give some account of this MS. and its author. The
manuscript is entitled "Pictoria, Sculptura, Tinctoria, et quaesub
alternarum artium spectantia, in Lingua Latina, Gallica, Italica,
Germanica conscripta, a Petro Paulo, Rubens, Vandyke, Somers, Greenberry,
Jansen, &c.--Fo. xix. A.D. 1620; T. de Mayerne." Theodore Mayerne, the
author, was born at Geneva, 1573. "He selected the medical profession; and
after studying at Montpelier and Paris, accompanied Henri Duc de Rohan to
Germany and Italy. On his return he opened a school, in which he delivered
lectures to students in surgery and medicine. This proceeding, and the
innovation, as it then appears to have been, of employing mineral
specifics in the healing art, excited a spirit of opposition which led to
a public resolution, emanating from the faculty at Paris, in which his
practice was condemned. His reputation rapidly increased from this period.
He had before been appointed one of the physicians in ordinary to Henry
IV. In 1611, James I. invited him to England, and appointed him his first
physician. De Mayerne enjoyed the same title under Charles I. He died at
Chelsea, leaving a large fortune, 1655."... "Dallaway, in his annotations
on Walpole, after noticing the influence of De Mayerne's medical practice
on the modern pharmacopoeia, remarks that 'his application of chemistry
to the composition of pigments, and which he liberally communicated to the
painters who enjoyed the royal patronage,--to Rubens, Vandyke, and
Pelitot--tended most essentially to the promotion of the art. From his
experiments were discovered the principal colours to be used for
enamelling, and the means of vitrifying them. Rubens painted his portrait;
certainly one of the finest now extant. It originally ornamented the
Arundel collection: was then at Dr Mead's, Lord Besborough's, and is now
(1826) at Cleveland House.'... A monarch who was so fond of painting as
Charles I., was fortunate in having the assistance of a person who
combined a love of art with a scientific knowledge applicable to its
mechanical operations. It is not surprising that such an amateur as De
Mayerne should enjoy the confidence of the first painters of his time; or
that in return for the useful hints which he was sometimes enabled to give
them, they should freely open to him the results of their practical
knowledge. Such communications, registered at the time by an intelligent
observer, threw considerable light on the state of painting at one of its
most brilliant periods, and tend especially to illustrate the habits of
the Flemish and Dutch schools."
De Mayerne records the use of sand in purifying oils, as a communication
from Mytens, painter to Charles I., _before the arrival of Vandyke_.
"Coming from such a source," says Mr Eastlake, "it may be classed among
the processes which were familiar to the Flemish and Dutch painters."
The works of the Flemish and Dutch painters are undoubtedly those which
the artists of the present day would desire to be the tests of vehicles
and of colours. They can scarcely have, therefore, a more valuable
document than this manuscript of De Mayerne, the friend of Vandyke. From
this source there is much information with regard to colours. It has
always been supposed that Rubens in particular was lavish in the use of
Naples yellow. It was largely used by the Italian painters; but it is
omitted in the list of colours of the Dutch and Flemish. Many yellows,
which in oil alone will not stand, are, it seems, durable if protected by
an oleo-resinous medium. After enumerating many other yellows, Mr Eastlake
remarks--"There was, however, one substance, viz. gamboge, now
undeservedly fallen into disuse in oil painting, which is superior to
most, if not to all, of those above named; the colouring matter united
with its resinous portion, which renders it more durable in oil painting,
may be easily freed from mere gum. De Mayerne, it would seem on good
grounds, pronounces in its favour; and his speculations respecting the
best mode of using it are confirmed by modern authorities. Gamboge, he
observes, furnishes a beautiful yellow, constant, unfading, and that works
freely."
We are not surprised to see another pigment commended; we have long used
it, but believe it is unknown as a colour by the artists of the present
day, though, we suspect, sold by colour-makers for common work as a cheap
brown. It is common coal. De Mayerne says, "The shadows of flesh are well
rendered by pit-coal, which should not be burned." It is also recommended
by Van Mander, and by Norgate, "whose directions for oil painting
correspond in all outward particulars with the Flemish methods." In some
experiments recorded by Sir Joshua Reynolds--there are the words "Gamboge
and oil--but no colour remains;" yet it should be observed that where it
is protected it is most durable. We believe the Aloes Cavallino, spoken of
in terms of commendation by Leonardo da Vinci, to be an excellent
transparent colour--and well calculated to give great richness to browns
and to greens. It is certainly very interesting to know the colours
actually used by the best masters of bye-gone days,--but we must not
forget that modern science may greatly have improved many, and produced
others, and has surer grounds to pronounce on their permanency. Mr Field,
in his Chromatography, has rendered a very great service to art.
It is not only the varnish, or rather the gums which compose the
varnishes, that should be considered with great attention, in reviewing
this subject,--but the great stress which seems to have been universally
laid upon the necessity of purifying the oils. And this necessity is
insisted upon from the earliest times. Even after all the precaution and
pains taken to purify oils, there will be a tendency to turn yellow upon
the surface. Rubens, in a letter, speaks of this, and gives orders for his
pictures, which were packed freshly painted, to be exposed to the sun. And
this practice of exposure to the sun seems to have been adopted generally
in Italy, as well as elsewhere, not only for the purpose of drying the
paint more readily, but for the freeing the surface from the yellowing of
the oil, the deleterious portion of which is thus taken up by the
atmosphere and the heat of the sun.
We have unhesitatingly exposed the surfaces of freshly painted pictures
not only to the sun, but to all weathers,--and that not for a few hours
but for weeks--and always with advantage. There is another method also
which will be found equally beneficial. When the surface is greasy, and
will not take water from the sponge, it may be truly conjectured that this
deleterious quality of the oil has exuded. We always remove it by sand and
water--the coarser the sand the better; the finer, being more silicious,
is more likely to cut. But we must observe that even though the picture be
not fairly dry, excepting under very rough usage, the paint will not be at
all removed. Even after this cleansing, the oil will still, for a
considerable time, throw up this greasy product. We remove it, therefore,
again and again until, after a week or ten days' trial, we find the
surface free from grease; and we are strongly inclined to think the
colours undergo no change when this clearance has been once well effected.
In a letter from Mrs Merrifield, she strongly recommends this exposure of
pictures to the sun and atmosphere; and says it was universally practised.
This should not, however, prevent the previous purification of the oils;
for there is no writer upon the subject that does not insist upon this. Mr
Eastlake's book furnishes recipes of all ages. Frequent washings with
water, to which a little salt is added, and fine sand to take down the
impurities of the oil, may be safely recommended. In describing the
process taught by the Gesuate, friends of Perugino, the Padre Gesuato
adds, "Observe, that wherever you find oil mentioned, this purified oil is
meant."
It would appear that the pigments were, formerly as now, ground only in
oil: the vernix was added to the colour, by drops, when on the palette; so
that, should the new, or recovered old vehicles, if such they be, come
into general use, it will not be necessary to discard the supply of oil
colours from the shops of our colour-makers. The colours in tubes, which
happily have superseded the bladders, will still be in general request.
Northcote thought it a great advantage to the old Italian masters that
they were under the necessity of making most of their colours themselves.
This, certainly, was not the case in the earlier times; for the monks, who
were every thing--physicians, painters, chemists, &c.--were not only the
patrons and dealers, but were makers of the colours also. We cannot quite
agree with Northcote. The only objection we have to offer to the present
system of tube colours is as regards their cost; for, considering the
value of the materials, the cost of putting them up seems very exorbitant.
This is of little consequence, indeed, in painting easel pictures of no
great size; but if we are to proceed on the large scale, which the
Commission for the Fine Arts encourages, it would become a matter of some
consideration. It has been supposed that the first colour-shop in London
was set up by a servant of Sir Godfrey Kneller's; but there is reason to
believe, from some incidental remarks, that the trade existed in De
Mayerne's time. Some painters of great eminence had their favourite
colour-makers, employed, probably, by themselves exclusively. In a letter,
Titian regrets the death of the man who prepared his white,--and De
Mayerne says of Vandyke, "He spoke to me of all exquisite white, compared
with which the finest whitelead appears gray, which he says is known to M.
Rubens. Also of a man who dissolved amber without carbonising it, so that
the solution was pale yellow, transparent." We learn from this that there
were then colour-makers and varnish-makers, and also that the brilliant
white of Rubens may not always have been whitelead.
There seems to have been in the fourteenth century a kind of painting
practised in England which much attracted the notice of foreigners. It was
of water-colours on cloth--"on closely woven linen saturated with gum
water. This, when dry, is stretched on the floor over coarse woollen
frieze cloths; and the artists, walking over the linen with clean feet,
proceed to design and colour historical figures and other subjects. And
because the linen is laid quite flat on the woollen cloths, the
water-colours do not flow and spread, but remain where they are placed,
the moisture sinking through into the woollen cloths underneath, which
absorb it. In like manner, the outlines of the brush remain defined, for
the gum in the linen prevents the spreading of such lines. Yet, after this
linen is painted, its thinness is no more obscured than if it was not
painted at all, as the colours have no body." This does not at all
resemble the kind of tempera painting in use in Flanders to imitate
tapestry; for it is noticed as peculiar to England by a native of
Flanders. May not this method be again, with some advantage, restored for
the getting in the subjects of large pictures? The cloth so painted might
easily be put on other cloth prepared with a ground.
The subject of grounds is not omitted: it is one of importance; and the
artist will do well to study Mr Eastlake's book, if he would have a ground
that might suit his after-work. All grounds made with glues are bad--they
not only crack, but change the colours. M. Merimee accurately examined the
grounds of some of Titian's pictures--and found starch and paste. It is
supposed that grounds in which red-lead and umber have been used darken
all the pigments.
The Venetians usually preferred painting on cloth, and not unfrequently
chose the finest. There was a canvass used in Italy, and chiefly by the
Bolognese school, which gives much richness, its peculiar texture being
seen even through tolerably thick paint--the threads are in squares, and
rather coarse. We are surprised that such is not to be met with in our
shops. We have often endeavoured to obtain it without success. On canvass
of this kind some painters, and among them Guercino, contrived greatly to
raise the lights--so that as seen side-ways they appear to bulge. We are
not aware how this was done.
We take some credit to ourselves for having in the pages of Maga, so long
ago as June 1839--promoted an inquiry into the nature of the vehicles used
by the old masters. And this we did, knowing that we should incur some
odium and contemptuous disapprobation at the hands of artists, too many of
whom were jealous of any supposed superiority in their great predecessors,
and were generally satisfied with the meguilp, (mastic varnish, beat up
with drying oil,) which had, nevertheless, been proved so deceitful from
the first days of its adoption. The readiness with which it was made, the
facility of working which it offered, and its immediate brilliancy, were
temptations too great to be resisted. The too common use of this vehicle,
we confess, led us too far in a contrary direction--to set ourselves
against all varnishes whatever; and we laid, perhaps, too much stress upon
the authority of Tingry, who speaks strongly against the admixture[12] of
varnishes with oil; and, with this bias, we reviewed, in Maga, M.
Merimee's work, in which, certainly with mistranslations of the Latin of
Theophilus, as well as of Italian quotations, he insisted upon the use
principally of copal, though without any distrust of mastic.
The difference between the texture of old paint, that is of the good age,
both Italian and Flemish, and that which modern practice had exhibited,
was too manifest to be overlooked; and we never could bring ourselves to
believe that the meguilp in use, by itself, ever had or ever would produce
that solid brilliancy or _substantial_ transparency which was and is the
great charm in the genuine works of the good old time of the art. And we
believe still that all experience is against it, and that the era of its
adoption is marked in the history of art by the visible deterioration in
the quality of the painted surfaces. Bad as we conceive the use of mastic
always to have been, it was not, until comparatively modern times,
employed in the most injurious manner. The Flemish and Italian recipes
incorporated it with the oil, together, generally, with other substances,
by heat, and not, according to the subsequent modern practice, merely
dissolved in turpentine and added to the oil. Of all varnishes mastic is
the softest, most liable to decomposition, most readily affected by
atmospheric changes, having no protection or medium of incorporation,
being merely liquified with turpentine, which, evaporating, leaves the
mastic to the injuries of air and moisture. Oil varnishes are, however, of
another character, and we are converted to their use by historic evidence,
and authorities which cannot be doubted. We do not assert that the exact
recipes and formulae, for the compositions of the true oleo-resinous
vehicles are not now in possession of the public. We are inclined to think
they are; but, as we are promised by Mr Eastlake another volume, chiefly
upon the Italian practice, which, too, we presume to think was the best,
we in some degree force ourselves to suspend our judgment, resting our
hope for what is to come upon the undeniable value of what has been
already given us.
When we formerly treated of this subject, we mentioned the great reliance
we placed upon the results of the accurate research and experiments of a
friend, P. Rainier, Esq., M.D. of the Albany. It is greatly to be
regretted that, at his death, his papers were not properly collected and
arranged for use; they are, it is to be feared, lost. We well remember his
assertion, that the paint of the old masters invariably vitrified by fire.
In proof, he scraped off some paint from an old picture, (it was in the
shadow part of back-ground, and not very thick, and where there was not,
apparently, any white-lead). He laid it on some platina, and subjected it
to the heat of the blow-pipe. The oil first exploded, and the paint was
vitrified. Hence, originated the borax medium--remarkable property of
which was its capability of being used with water as a diluent or with
oil,--thus being a kind of union of the earlier temperas and the oil
medium. This borax-glass vehicle was certainly a discovery, or
rediscovery, as he was inclined to think it, of our highly valued friend,
P. Rainier. We say re-discovery, remembering his playful assumption of a
motto, "Veterem revocavit artem." He was probably led to this use of a
glass composed of borax, by the vitrification of the pigments; and we
still suspect that, in some of the old Italian recipes, glass, with borax
as an ingredient, will be found. "_A peculiar kind of Venetian glass_,"
says Mr Eastlake, "used, when pulverised, as a dryer, contained a
considerable portion of lead; and if it acted chemically, may have derived
its siccative quality from that ingredient." The question here naturally
suggests itself, Why was a peculiar glass used for this purpose, when it
was perfectly well known that lead of itself would have been sufficient?
Again, in page 358, from the Mayerne MS., as quoting the authority of
Mytens; "This oil (mancop) does not dry of itself easily, but it is
usually ground with Venetian glass, and thus to the sun in a glass bottle.
This should be shaken every four days for three or four weeks: it should
then be carefully decanted for use, leaving the sediment with the glass."
It is a question if the glass was here solely used to facilitate the
sediment.
Vitrification would not depend upon the introduction of glass
only,--calcined bones, which, it is now known, were much used in vehicles,
will produce the same result. In a note, page 345, Mr Eastlake says that
he requested Mr Marris Dimsdale to analyse a fragment of a picture by
Cariani of Bergamo, (a contemporary and scholar, or imitator of
Giorgione;)--the result being, that "one portion ran fairly into a
vitrified state. Hypothetically," adds Mr Dimsdale, "I should say it had
burned bones in it." And again, "Every colour mixed with phosphate of
lime, (calcined bones,) vitrifies when exposed to strong heat. As Venetian
pigments vitrify, might not phosphate of lime have been used as a dryer?"
We cannot but suspect any medium under which the pigments will not
vitrify. The publication of Mr Eastlake's most important and valuable
volume, rather strengthens our reliance upon the various communications
made to us by Mr Rainier. For instance, many years ago, we used, at his
recommendation, sandarach, dissolved in spike oil, and then mixed with the
oil heated. It may not be amiss here, as sandarach is now so strongly
recommended, and shown at least to have formed a part of one of the
precious vehicles, to state the result of its use some twenty years ago. A
picture we then painted with it, is still without a crack, extremely hard,
and though by no means well painted, is good in texture, and resembles in
the quality of the pigments very much that of the old schools. Though for
some years shut up in a portfolio, the colours d
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