"My mother," says Alton, "moved by rule and method; by God's law, as she considered, and that only. She seldom smiled. Her word was absolute. She never commanded twice without punishing. And yet there were abysses of unspoken tenderness in her, as well as clear, sound, womanly sense and insight. But she thought herself as much bound to keep down all tenderness as if she had been some ascetic of the middle ages—so do extremes meet! It was 'carnal,' she considered. She had as yet no right to have any 'spiritual affection' for us. We were still 'children of wrath and of the devil'—not yet 'convinced of sin,' 'converted, born again.' She had no more spiritual bond with us, she thought, than she had with a heathen or a Papist. She dared not even pray for our conversion, earnestly as she prayed on every other subject. For though the majority of her sect would have done so, her clear logical sense would yield to no such tender inconsistency. Had it not been decided from all eternity? We were elect, or we were reprobate. Could her prayers alter that?"
"My mother," says Alton, "moved by rule and method; by God's law, as she considered, and that only. She seldom smiled. Her word was absolute. She never commanded twice without punishing. And yet there were abysses of unspoken tenderness in her, as well as clear, sound, womanly sense and insight. But she thought herself as much bound to keep down all tenderness as if she had been some ascetic of the middle ages—so do extremes meet! It was 'carnal,' she considered. She had as yet no right to have any 'spiritual affection' for us. We were still 'children of wrath and of the devil'—not yet 'convinced of sin,' 'converted, born again.' She had no more spiritual bond with us, she thought, than she had with a heathen or a Papist. She dared not even pray for our conversion, earnestly as she prayed on every other subject. For though the majority of her sect would have done so, her clear logical sense would yield to no such tender inconsistency. Had it not been decided from all eternity? We were elect, or we were reprobate. Could her prayers alter that?"
A gruesome carline this, and a revolting contrast to dear old Mause Headrigg, who not only prayed morning and night, but never doubted as to the destiny of Cuddie! Mrs Locke's conversation, however, had its charms; for we find that, in a small way, she was fond of entertaining ministers of her own persuasion at tea, and Alton's ire was early kindled by the precipitancy with which on such occasions the sugar and muffins disappeared. The old lady, moreover, had a kind of ancestral pride, being traditionally descended from a Cambridgeshire puritan who had turned out under Cromwell; and of a winter night she would tell the children long stories about the glorious times when Englishmen arose to smite kings and prelates. Of course these things had their effect. Little Alton did not become a fanatic, for this kind of religious training is never palatable to the young: he became, indeed, a sceptic as soon as he could think for himself, with a nice little germ of radicalism ready to expand whenever circumstances would permit of its development.
That period quickly arrived. Alton's paternal uncle had been as fortunate in business as his brother was unlucky, and was now a kind of city magnate—purse-proud, yet not altogether oblivious of his poorer kith and kin. He had an only son, who was to be the inheritor of his wealth, and who, being destined for the Church, was undergoing the necessary education. To this relative, who made her an annual petty allowance, Mrs Locke applied for advice regarding her son, now acadaverous lad of fifteen, with a weak constitution, and a tendency to the manufacture of verse; and by his advice and recommendation, Alton was introduced to a tailoring establishment at the West End. Uncle certainly might have done something better for him; but perhaps he had George Barnwell in his eye: and, moreover, any superior settlement would probably have spoilt the story. Here is his first entry into the new scene:
"I stumbled after Mr Jones up a dark, narrow, iron staircase, till we emerged through a trap-door into a garret at the top of the house. I recoiled with disgust at the scene before me; and here I was to work—perhaps through life! A low lean-to room, stifling me with the combined odours of human breath and perspiration, stale beer, the sweet sickly smell of gin, and the sour and hardly less disgusting one of new cloth. On the floor, thick with dust and dirt, scraps of stuff and ends of thread, sat some dozen haggard, untidy, shoeless men, with a mingled look of care and wretchedness that made me shudder. The windows were tight-closed, to keep out the cold winter air: and the condensed breath ran in streams down the panes, chequering the dreary look-out of chimney-tops and smoke. The conductor handed me over to one of the men."
"I stumbled after Mr Jones up a dark, narrow, iron staircase, till we emerged through a trap-door into a garret at the top of the house. I recoiled with disgust at the scene before me; and here I was to work—perhaps through life! A low lean-to room, stifling me with the combined odours of human breath and perspiration, stale beer, the sweet sickly smell of gin, and the sour and hardly less disgusting one of new cloth. On the floor, thick with dust and dirt, scraps of stuff and ends of thread, sat some dozen haggard, untidy, shoeless men, with a mingled look of care and wretchedness that made me shudder. The windows were tight-closed, to keep out the cold winter air: and the condensed breath ran in streams down the panes, chequering the dreary look-out of chimney-tops and smoke. The conductor handed me over to one of the men."
This is intended, or at all events given, as an accurate picture of a respectable London tailoring establishment, where the men receive decent wages. Such a house is called an "honourable" one, in contradistinction to others, now infinitely the more numerous, which are springing up in every direction under the fostering care of competition. As it is most important that no doubt should be left in the minds of any as to the actual condition of the working classes, we quote, not from Alton Locke, but from one pamphlet out of many which are lying before us, a few sentences explanatory of the system upon which journeymen tailors in London are compelled to work. The pamphlet, for aught we know, may be written by the author of the novel; but it is clear, specific, and apparently well-vouched.
"It appears that there are two distinct tailor trades—the 'honourable' trade, now almost confined to the West End, and rapidly dying out there; and the 'dishonourable' trade of the show-shops and slop-shops—the plate-glass palaces, where gents—and, alas! those who would be indignant at that name—buy their cheap-and-nasty clothes. The two names are the tailors' own slang: slang is new and expressive enough though, now and then. The honourable shops in the West End number only sixty; the dishonourable, four hundred and more; while at the East End the dishonourable trade has it all its own way. The honourable part of the trade is declining at the rate of one hundred and fifty journeymen per year; the dishonourable increasing at such a rate, that in twenty years it will have absorbed the whole tailoring trade, which employs upwards of twenty-one thousand journeymen. At the honourable shops the work is done, as it was universally thirty years ago, on the premises, and at good wages. In the dishonourable trade, the work is taken home by the men, to be done at the very lowest possible prices, which decrease year by year, almost month by month. At the honourable shops, from 36s. to 24s. is paid for a piece of work for which the dishonourable shop pays from 22s. to 9s.But not to the workman; happy is he if he really gets two-thirds or half of that. For at the honourable shops the master deals directly with his workmen; while at the dishonourable ones, the greater part of the work, if not the whole, is let out to contractors, or middle men—'sweaters,' as their victims significantly call them—who in their turn let it out again, sometimes to the workmen, sometimes to fresh middlemen; so that out of the price paid for labour on each article, not only the workmen, but the sweater, and perhaps the sweater's sweater, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth have to draw their profit. And when the labour price has been already beaten down to the lowest possible, how much remains for the workmen after all these deductions, let the poor fellows themselves say!"[50]
"It appears that there are two distinct tailor trades—the 'honourable' trade, now almost confined to the West End, and rapidly dying out there; and the 'dishonourable' trade of the show-shops and slop-shops—the plate-glass palaces, where gents—and, alas! those who would be indignant at that name—buy their cheap-and-nasty clothes. The two names are the tailors' own slang: slang is new and expressive enough though, now and then. The honourable shops in the West End number only sixty; the dishonourable, four hundred and more; while at the East End the dishonourable trade has it all its own way. The honourable part of the trade is declining at the rate of one hundred and fifty journeymen per year; the dishonourable increasing at such a rate, that in twenty years it will have absorbed the whole tailoring trade, which employs upwards of twenty-one thousand journeymen. At the honourable shops the work is done, as it was universally thirty years ago, on the premises, and at good wages. In the dishonourable trade, the work is taken home by the men, to be done at the very lowest possible prices, which decrease year by year, almost month by month. At the honourable shops, from 36s. to 24s. is paid for a piece of work for which the dishonourable shop pays from 22s. to 9s.But not to the workman; happy is he if he really gets two-thirds or half of that. For at the honourable shops the master deals directly with his workmen; while at the dishonourable ones, the greater part of the work, if not the whole, is let out to contractors, or middle men—'sweaters,' as their victims significantly call them—who in their turn let it out again, sometimes to the workmen, sometimes to fresh middlemen; so that out of the price paid for labour on each article, not only the workmen, but the sweater, and perhaps the sweater's sweater, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth have to draw their profit. And when the labour price has been already beaten down to the lowest possible, how much remains for the workmen after all these deductions, let the poor fellows themselves say!"[50]
These sweaters are commonly Jews, to which persuasion also the majority of the dishonourable proprietors belong. Few people who emerge from the Euston Square Station are left in ignorance as to the fact, it being the insolent custom of a gang of hook-nosed and blubber-lipped Israelites to shower their fetid tracts, indicating the localities of the principal dealers of their tribe, into every cab as it issues from the gate. These are, in plain terms, advertisements of a more odiouscannibalism than exists in the Sandwich Islands. Very often have we wished that the miscreant who so assailed us were within reach of our black-thorn cudgel, that we might have knocked all ideas of fried fish out of his head for at least a fortnight to come! In these days of projected Jewish emancipation, the sentiment may be deemed an atrocious one, but we cannot retract it. Shylock was and is the true type of his class; only that the modern London Jew is six times more personally offensive, mean, sordid, and rapacious than the merchant of the Rialto. And why should we stifle our indignation? Dare any one deny the truth of what we have said? It is notorious to the whole world that these human leeches acquire their wealth, not by honest labour and industry, but by bill-broking, sweating, discounting, and other nefarious arts, which inevitably lead the unfortunate victims who have once trafficked with the tribe of Issachar, to the spunging houses of which they have the monopoly; nor can the former escape from these loathsome dens—if they ever escape at all—without being stripped as entirely as any turkey when prepared for the spit at the genial season of Christmas. Talk of Jewish legislation indeed! We have had too much of it already in our time, from the days of Ricardo, the instigator of Sir Robert Peel's earliest practices upon the currency, down to those of Nathan Rothschild, the first Baron of Jewry, for whose personal character and upright dealings the reader is referred to Mr Francis' Chronicles of the Stock Exchange.
It is little wonder if men who know not what a scruple of conscience is, should amass enormous fortunes. It is much to be regretted that our present state of society affords them such ample opportunities. We allude not now to the plundering of heirs expectant, or the wheedling of young men just fresh from the colleges, and launched upon the town, to their ruin—to fraudulent dodges for affecting unnatural oscillations of stocks, or those more deliberate schemes which result in important public changes being effected for the private emolument of a synagogue. Bad as these things are—shameful and abhorrent as they must be to every mind alive to the ordinary feelings of rectitude—they are not yet so bad or so shameful as the deliberate rapine which is exercised upon the poor by the off-scourings of the Caucasian race. Read the following account by a working tailor of their doings, and then settle the matter with your conscience, whether it is consistent with the character of a Christian gentleman to have dealings with such inhuman vampires:—
"In 1844 I belonged to the honourable part of the trade. Our house of call supplied the present show-shop with men to work on the premises. The prices then paid were at the rate of 6d. per hour. For the same driving-capes that they paid 18s. then, they give only 12s. now. For the dress and frock coats they gave 15s. then, and now they are 14s. The paletots and shooting coats were 12s.; there was no coat made on the premises under that sum. At the end of the season they wanted to reduce the paletots to 9s. The men refused to make them at that price when other houses were paying as much as 15s. for them. The consequence of this was, the house discharged all the men, and got a Jew middleman from the neighbourhood of Petticoat Lane to agree to do them all at 7s. 6d. a piece. The Jew employed all the poor people who were at work for the slop warehouses in Houndsditch and its vicinity. This Jew makes on an average 500 paletots a week. The Jew gets 2s. 6d. profit out of each; and having no sewing trimmings allowed to him, he makes the workpeople find them. The saving in trimmings alone to the firm, since the workmen left the premises, must have realised a small fortune to them. Calculating men, women, and children, I have heard it said that the cheap house at the West End employs 1000 hands. The trimmings for the work done by these would be about 6d. a week per head, so that the saving to the house since the men worked on the premises has been no less than £1300 a year; and all this is taken out of the pockets of the poor. The Jew who contracts for making the paletots is no tailor at all. A few years ago he sold sponges in the street, and now he rides in his carriage. The Jew's profits are 500 half-crowns, or £60 odd per week; that is upwards of £3000 a-year."
"In 1844 I belonged to the honourable part of the trade. Our house of call supplied the present show-shop with men to work on the premises. The prices then paid were at the rate of 6d. per hour. For the same driving-capes that they paid 18s. then, they give only 12s. now. For the dress and frock coats they gave 15s. then, and now they are 14s. The paletots and shooting coats were 12s.; there was no coat made on the premises under that sum. At the end of the season they wanted to reduce the paletots to 9s. The men refused to make them at that price when other houses were paying as much as 15s. for them. The consequence of this was, the house discharged all the men, and got a Jew middleman from the neighbourhood of Petticoat Lane to agree to do them all at 7s. 6d. a piece. The Jew employed all the poor people who were at work for the slop warehouses in Houndsditch and its vicinity. This Jew makes on an average 500 paletots a week. The Jew gets 2s. 6d. profit out of each; and having no sewing trimmings allowed to him, he makes the workpeople find them. The saving in trimmings alone to the firm, since the workmen left the premises, must have realised a small fortune to them. Calculating men, women, and children, I have heard it said that the cheap house at the West End employs 1000 hands. The trimmings for the work done by these would be about 6d. a week per head, so that the saving to the house since the men worked on the premises has been no less than £1300 a year; and all this is taken out of the pockets of the poor. The Jew who contracts for making the paletots is no tailor at all. A few years ago he sold sponges in the street, and now he rides in his carriage. The Jew's profits are 500 half-crowns, or £60 odd per week; that is upwards of £3000 a-year."
The salary of a puisne judge of the Court of Session in Scotland! A profitable commencement of life that of dealing in sponges, seeing that itendows the vender with the absorbent qualities of the marine vegetable! And mark the consequences which may befall those who connive at such iniquity by their custom! We still quote from the same pamphlet, not to deaf ears we trust, while telling them of the calamity which such conduct may bring home to their own hearths, as it has done already to that of hundreds who worship Cheapness as a god.
"Men ought to know the condition of those by whose labour they live. Had the question been the investment of a few pounds in a speculation, these gentlemen would have been careful enough about good security. Ought they to take no security, when they invest their money in clothes, that they are not putting on their backs accursed garments, offered in sacrifice to devils, reeking with the sighs of the starving, tainted—yes, tainted indeed,for it now comes out that diseases numberless are carried home in these same garments, from the miserable abodes where they are made. Evidence to this effect was given in 1844; but Mammon was too busy to attend to it. These wretched creatures, when they have pawned their own clothes and bedding, will use as a substitute the very garments they are making. So Lord ----'s coat has been seen covering a group of children blotched with smallpox. The Rev. D—— suddenly finds himself unrepresentable from a cutaneous disease, little dreaming that the shivering dirty being who made his coat, has been sitting with his arms in the sleeves for warmth, while he stitched at the tails. The charming Miss C—— is swept off by typhus or scarlatina, and her parents talk about 'God's heavy judgment and visitation:' had they tracked the girl's new riding-habit back to the stifling undrained hovel where it served as a blanket to the fever-stricken slop-worker, they would have seenwhyGod had visited them, seen that His judgments are true judgments, and give His plain opinion of the system, which 'speaketh good of the covetous whom God abhorreth'—a system, to use the words of theMorning Chronicle'scorrespondent, 'unheard of and unparalleled in the history of any country—a scheme so deeply laid for the introduction and supply of under-paid labour in the market, that it is impossible for the working man not to sink and be degraded by it into the lowest depths of wretchedness and infamy'—a system which is steadily and gradually increasing, and sucking more and more victims out of the honourable trade, who are really intelligent artisans, living in comparative comfort and civilisation, into the dishonourable or sweating trade, in which the slopworkers are generally almost brutified by their incessant toil, wretched pay, miserable food, and filthy homes."
"Men ought to know the condition of those by whose labour they live. Had the question been the investment of a few pounds in a speculation, these gentlemen would have been careful enough about good security. Ought they to take no security, when they invest their money in clothes, that they are not putting on their backs accursed garments, offered in sacrifice to devils, reeking with the sighs of the starving, tainted—yes, tainted indeed,for it now comes out that diseases numberless are carried home in these same garments, from the miserable abodes where they are made. Evidence to this effect was given in 1844; but Mammon was too busy to attend to it. These wretched creatures, when they have pawned their own clothes and bedding, will use as a substitute the very garments they are making. So Lord ----'s coat has been seen covering a group of children blotched with smallpox. The Rev. D—— suddenly finds himself unrepresentable from a cutaneous disease, little dreaming that the shivering dirty being who made his coat, has been sitting with his arms in the sleeves for warmth, while he stitched at the tails. The charming Miss C—— is swept off by typhus or scarlatina, and her parents talk about 'God's heavy judgment and visitation:' had they tracked the girl's new riding-habit back to the stifling undrained hovel where it served as a blanket to the fever-stricken slop-worker, they would have seenwhyGod had visited them, seen that His judgments are true judgments, and give His plain opinion of the system, which 'speaketh good of the covetous whom God abhorreth'—a system, to use the words of theMorning Chronicle'scorrespondent, 'unheard of and unparalleled in the history of any country—a scheme so deeply laid for the introduction and supply of under-paid labour in the market, that it is impossible for the working man not to sink and be degraded by it into the lowest depths of wretchedness and infamy'—a system which is steadily and gradually increasing, and sucking more and more victims out of the honourable trade, who are really intelligent artisans, living in comparative comfort and civilisation, into the dishonourable or sweating trade, in which the slopworkers are generally almost brutified by their incessant toil, wretched pay, miserable food, and filthy homes."
But we must return to Alton Locke, whom we left speechless with astonishment and overpowered with nausea on his first admission to the sight and odours of a stitching Pandemonium. We are told, and we believe it to be true, that of late years several of the first-rate London tradesmen of the West End have effected important and salutary improvements as regards the accommodation of their men, and that the men themselves have assumed a better tone. We must, however, accept the sketch as given; and of a truth it is no ways savoury. Some of Alton's comrades are distinct Dungs—drunken, lewd, profane wretches; but there is at least one Flint among them, a certain John Crossthwaite, who, beneath a stolid manner and within a stunted body, conceals a noble heart, beating strongly with the fiercest Chartist sentiments; and beside this diminutive Hercules, Alton crooks his thigh. Crossthwaite, like all little chaps, has a good conceit of himself, and an intense contempt for thews and sinews, stature, chest, and the like points, which excite the admiration of the statuary. On one occasion, when incensed, as tailors are apt to be, by the sight of a big bulky Life-guardsman, who could easily have crammed him into his boot, Alton's new friend thus develops his ideas:—
"'Big enough to make fighters?' said he, half to himself; 'or strong enough, perhaps?—or clever enough?—and yet Alexander was a little man, and the Petit Caporal, and Nelson, and Cæsar, too; and so was Saul of Tarsus, and weakly he was into the bargain. Æsop was a dwarf, and so was Attila; Shakspeare was lame; Alfred a rickety weakling; Byron club-footed; so much for body versus spirit—brute force versus genius—genius!'"
"'Big enough to make fighters?' said he, half to himself; 'or strong enough, perhaps?—or clever enough?—and yet Alexander was a little man, and the Petit Caporal, and Nelson, and Cæsar, too; and so was Saul of Tarsus, and weakly he was into the bargain. Æsop was a dwarf, and so was Attila; Shakspeare was lame; Alfred a rickety weakling; Byron club-footed; so much for body versus spirit—brute force versus genius—genius!'"
We had no previous idea that the fumes generated by cabbage produced an effect so nearly resembling that which is consequent on the inhalationof chloroform. Crossthwaite, however, is a learned man in his way, and can quote Ariosto when he pleases—indeed, most of the workmen who figure in these volumes seem to be adepts in foreign tongues and literature. From Crossthwaite, Alton Locke derives his first lesson as regards the rights of man, and becomes conscious, as he tells us, that "society had not given him his rights." From another character, Sandy Mackaye, a queer old Scotsman, who keeps a book-stall, he receives his first introduction to actual literature. Sandy is a good sketch—perhaps the best in the book. He is a Radical of course, and, like the Glasgow shoemaker, whom the late Dr Chalmers once visited, "a wee bit in the deistical line;" but he has a fine heart, warm sympathies, and, withal, some shrewdness and common sense, which latter quality very few indeed of the other characters exhibit. We are left in some obscurity as to Sandy's early career, but from occasional hints we are led to believe that he must have been honoured with the intimacy of Messrs Muir and Palmer, and not improbably got into some scrape about pike-heads, which rendered it convenient for him to remove beyond the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justiciary. On one occasion he seems to have averred that he was even older, alluding to a conversation he had with "Rab Burns ance, sitting up a' canty at Tibbie Shiels' in Meggot Vale." This is a monstrous libel against our excellent friend Tibbie, at whose well-known hostelry of the Lochs it was our good fortune, as usual, to pass a pleasant week no later than the bygone spring; the necessary inference being that she has pursued her present vocation for nearly three quarters of a century! The author might have stated, with equal propriety, that he had the honour of an interview with Ben Jonson, in a drawing-room of Douglas's hotel! But Sandy's age is quite immaterial to the story. He may have been out in the Forty-five for anything we care. It is enough to know that he takes a particular fancy to the young tailor; lends him books; puts him in the way of learning Latin, as we have already hinted, in three months; and, finally, receives him under his own roof when he is ejected from that of his mother on account of his having proclaimed himself, in her presence, a rank and open unbeliever.
Alton stitches on till he is nearly twenty, educating himself at spare hours as well as he can, by the aid of Sandy Mackaye, until he acquires a certain reputation among his comrades as an uncommonly clever fellow. The old bookdealer having some mysterious acquaintanceship with Alton's uncle, informs that gentleman of the prodigy to whom he is related, whereupon there is an interview, and the nephew is presented with five shillings. Cousin George now comes, for the first time, on thetapis, tall, clean-limbed, and apparently good-humoured, but, as is shown in the sequel, selfish and a tuft-hunter. His maxim is to make himself agreeable to everybody, because he finds it pay: and he gives Alton a sample of his affability, by proposing a visit to the Dulwich Gallery. At this point the story becomes deliciously absurd. Young Snip, to whom pictures were a novelty, instantly fastens upon Guido's St Sebastian, of which he is taking mental measure, when he is accosted by a young lady. Although we have little space to devote to extracts, we cannot refuse ourselves the gratification of transcribing a passage which beats old Leigh Hunt's account of the interviews between Ippolito de Buondelmonte and Dianora d'Amerigo hollow. This artist, indeed, has evidently dipped his pencil in the warmest colours of the Cockney School.
"A woman's voice close to me, gentle, yet of deeper tone than most, woke me from my trance."'You seem to be deeply interested in that picture?'"I looked round, yet not at the speaker. My eyes, before they could meet hers, were caught by an apparition the most beautiful I had ever yet beheld. And what—what—have I seen equal to her since? Strange that I should love to talk of her. Strange that I fret at myself now because I cannot set down upon paper, line by line, and hue by hue, that wonderful loveliness of which—But no matter. Had I but such an imagination as Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold, self-consciousness, what volumes of similesand conceits I might pour out, connecting that peerless face and figure with all lovely things which heaven and earth contain. As it is, because I cannot say all, I will say nothing, but repeat to the end, again and again, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beyond all statue, picture, or poet's dream. Seventeen—slight, but rounded, a masque and features delicate and regular, as if fresh from the chisel of Praxiteles. I must try to describe, after all, you see—a skin of alabaster, (privet-flowers, Horace and Ariosto would have said, more true to nature,) stained with the faintest flush; auburn hair, with that peculiar crisped wave seen in the old Italian pictures, and the warm, dark, hazel eyes which so often accompany it; lips like a thread of vermillion, somewhat too thin, perhaps—but I thought little of that then; with such perfect finish and grace in every line and hue of her features and her dress,down to the little fingers and nails, which showed through their thin gloves, that she seemed to my fancy fresh from the innermost chamber of some enchanted palace, 'where no air of heaven could visit her cheek too roughly.' I dropped my eyes quite dazzled. The question was repeated by a lady who stood with her, whose face I remarked then—as I did to the last, alas!—too little, dazzled at the first by outward beauty, perhaps because so utterly unaccustomed to it."'It is indeed a wonderful picture.' I said timidly. 'May I ask what is the subject of it?'"'Oh! don't you know?' said the young beauty, with a smile that thrilled through me. 'It is St Sebastian.'"'I—I am very much ashamed,' I answered, colouring up; 'but I do not know who St Sebastian was. Was he a Popish saint?'"A tall, stately old man, who stood with the two ladies, laughed kindly. 'No, not till they made him one against his will, and, at the same time, by putting him into the mill which grinds old folks young again, converted him from a grizzled old Roman tribune into the young Apollo of Popery.'"'You will puzzle your hearer, my dear uncle,' said the same deep-toned woman's voice which had first spoken to me. 'As you volunteered the Saint's name, Lillian, you shall also tell his history.'"Simply and shortly, with just feeling enough to send through me a fresh thrill of delighted interest, without trenching the least on the most stately reserve, she told me the well-known history of the Saint's martyrdom."If I seem minute in my description, let those who read my story remember that such courteous dignity, however natural, I am bound to believe, it is to them, was to me an utterly new excellence in human nature. All my mother's Spartan nobleness of manner seemed unexpectedly combined with all my little sister's careless ease."'What a beautiful poem the story would make!' said I, as soon as recovered my thoughts."'Well spoken, young man,' answered the old gentleman. 'Let us hope that your seeing a subject for a good poem will be the first step towards your writing one.'"
"A woman's voice close to me, gentle, yet of deeper tone than most, woke me from my trance.
"'You seem to be deeply interested in that picture?'
"I looked round, yet not at the speaker. My eyes, before they could meet hers, were caught by an apparition the most beautiful I had ever yet beheld. And what—what—have I seen equal to her since? Strange that I should love to talk of her. Strange that I fret at myself now because I cannot set down upon paper, line by line, and hue by hue, that wonderful loveliness of which—But no matter. Had I but such an imagination as Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold, self-consciousness, what volumes of similesand conceits I might pour out, connecting that peerless face and figure with all lovely things which heaven and earth contain. As it is, because I cannot say all, I will say nothing, but repeat to the end, again and again, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beyond all statue, picture, or poet's dream. Seventeen—slight, but rounded, a masque and features delicate and regular, as if fresh from the chisel of Praxiteles. I must try to describe, after all, you see—a skin of alabaster, (privet-flowers, Horace and Ariosto would have said, more true to nature,) stained with the faintest flush; auburn hair, with that peculiar crisped wave seen in the old Italian pictures, and the warm, dark, hazel eyes which so often accompany it; lips like a thread of vermillion, somewhat too thin, perhaps—but I thought little of that then; with such perfect finish and grace in every line and hue of her features and her dress,down to the little fingers and nails, which showed through their thin gloves, that she seemed to my fancy fresh from the innermost chamber of some enchanted palace, 'where no air of heaven could visit her cheek too roughly.' I dropped my eyes quite dazzled. The question was repeated by a lady who stood with her, whose face I remarked then—as I did to the last, alas!—too little, dazzled at the first by outward beauty, perhaps because so utterly unaccustomed to it.
"'It is indeed a wonderful picture.' I said timidly. 'May I ask what is the subject of it?'
"'Oh! don't you know?' said the young beauty, with a smile that thrilled through me. 'It is St Sebastian.'
"'I—I am very much ashamed,' I answered, colouring up; 'but I do not know who St Sebastian was. Was he a Popish saint?'
"A tall, stately old man, who stood with the two ladies, laughed kindly. 'No, not till they made him one against his will, and, at the same time, by putting him into the mill which grinds old folks young again, converted him from a grizzled old Roman tribune into the young Apollo of Popery.'
"'You will puzzle your hearer, my dear uncle,' said the same deep-toned woman's voice which had first spoken to me. 'As you volunteered the Saint's name, Lillian, you shall also tell his history.'
"Simply and shortly, with just feeling enough to send through me a fresh thrill of delighted interest, without trenching the least on the most stately reserve, she told me the well-known history of the Saint's martyrdom.
"If I seem minute in my description, let those who read my story remember that such courteous dignity, however natural, I am bound to believe, it is to them, was to me an utterly new excellence in human nature. All my mother's Spartan nobleness of manner seemed unexpectedly combined with all my little sister's careless ease.
"'What a beautiful poem the story would make!' said I, as soon as recovered my thoughts.
"'Well spoken, young man,' answered the old gentleman. 'Let us hope that your seeing a subject for a good poem will be the first step towards your writing one.'"
Were we to extend points of admiration over a couple of columns, we could not adequately express our feelings with regard to the above passage. How natural—how simple! The entranced Snip gaping at the Guido—the ladies accosting him, as ladies invariably do when they encounter a casual tailor in such places—the passionate warmth of the description—the ecclesiastical lore of Lillian—and the fine instinct of the old gentleman, (a dignitary of the Church, by the way,) which warns him at once that he is in the presence of a sucking poet,—all these things combined take away our breath, and take, moreover, our imagination utterly by storm! We shall not be surprised if hereafter Greenwich Park should be utterly deserted on a holiday, and Dulwich Gallery become the favourite resort of apprentices, each expecting, on the authority of Alton Locke, to meet with some wealthy and high-born, but most free-and-easy Lindamira!
But the best of it is to come. They have yet more conversation: the strangers manifest a deep interest in the personal history of our hero. "While I revelled in the delight of stolen glances atmy new-found Venus Victrix, who was as forward as any of them in her questions and her interest. Perhaps she enjoyed—at least she could not help seeing—the admiration for herself, which I took no pains to conceal!" O thrums and trimmings! it is but too plain—Venus Victrix, with the peculiar crisped auburn hair, and the skin of privet-flowers, has all but lost her heart to the juvenile bandy-legged tailor!
Two can play at that game.Cousin George in the mean time, though taking no part in the conversation—a circumstance which strikes us as rather odd—has likewise fallen in love with the beautiful apparition, and, after her departure, drives Alton "mad with jealousy and indignation," by talking about the lady rather rapturously, as a young snob of his kidney is pretty certain to do under circumstances such as are described. The kinsmen part, and Alton returns to the garret full of the thoughts of Lillian. She becomes his muse, and with the aid of a stray volume of Tennyson, he sets himself sedulously to the task of elaborating poetry. Sandy Mackaye, his censor, betrays no great admiration for his earlier efforts, which indeed are rather milk-and-water, and recommends him to become a poet for the people, pointing out to him, in various scenes of wretchedness which they visit, the true elements of the sublime. The graphic power and real pathos of those scenes afford a marvellous contrast to the rubbish which is profusely interspersed through the volumes. It is much to be regretted that an author, who can write so naturally and well, should allow himself to mar his narrative and destroy its interest, by the introduction not only of absurdities in point of incident, but of whole chapters of mystical jargon, inculcating doctrines which, we are quite sure, are not distinctly comprehended even by himself. He has got much to learn, if not to unlearn, before he can do full justice to his natural powers. So long as he addicts himself, both in thought and language, to the use of general terms, he must fail in producing that effect which he otherwise might easily achieve.
Alton then, though still a tailor, becomes a poet; and, after two years and a half incubation, produces a manuscript volume, enough to fill a small octavo, under the somewhat spoliative and suspicious title ofSongs of the Highways. Still no talk of publishing. Then comes a movement among the tailors, caused by Alton's master determining to follow the example of others, and reduce wages. A private meeting of the operatives is held, at which John Crossthwaite the Flint counsels resistance and a general strike; but the faint-hearted Dungs fly from him, and he finds no supporter save Alton. The two resolve,coûte qui coûte, to hold out, and Crossthwaite takes his friend that night to a Chartist meeting, where he is sworn to all the points.
Never more did Alton bury needle in the hem of a garment. Nobody would give employment to the two protesters; so John Crossthwaite, being a man of a practical tendency, and not bad at statistics, determined to turn an honest penny by writing for a Chartist newspaper, and would have persuaded Alton to do the same, had not Sandy Mackaye interposed, and very properly represented that his young friend was too juvenile to become a martyr. So it was fixed at a general council that Alton should prepare his bundle, including his precious manuscripts, and start on foot for Cambridge, where his cousin was, to see whether he could not procure help to have his volume launched into the world. We must pass over his journey to Cambridge, interesting as it is, to arrive at his cousin's rooms. There he finds George with half-a-dozen of his companions all equipped for a rowing match, and just about to start. George behaves like a trump, orders him luncheon, and then departs for the river, whither Alton follows, with the intention of seeing the fun. His behaviour is a libel on the Cockneys. He sees Lillian on the opposite side of the river, and makes an ass of himself; then he bursts into ecstasies at the sight of the boats, feeling "my soul stirred up to a sort of sweet madness, not merely by the shouts and cheers of the mob around me, but by the loud, fierce pulse of the rowlocles; the swift whispering rush of the long, snake-like eight oars; the swirl and gurgle of the water on their wake; the grim, breathless silence of the straining rowers. My blood boiled over, and fierce tears swelled into my eyes; for I, too, was a man and an Englishman." The author should have added—and a tailor to boot. So Alton, like an idiot, begins to roar and shout, and is ridden over by a young sprig of nobility, in whose way he insists onstanding; and is soused in the river; and insults another young nobleman, Lord Lynedale, of whom more anon, who picks him up, and out of good nature offers him half-a-crown: all which shows, or is intended to show, that our friend is a splendid specimen of the aristocracy of nature. Well—to cut a long story short—he returns to his cousin's rooms, is kindly received, introduced to a supper party of Cantabs, and afterwards to Lord Lynedale, for whom he corrects certain proofs, and receives a sovereign in return. The said Lord Lynedale is engaged to a lady, the same with "the deeper voice than most"—not Lillian—who accosted him in the Dulwich Gallery. She is the niece of a Dean Winnstay, Lillian being the daughter. They meet. She recognises him, and he favours us with a sketch of Miss Eleanor Staunton. "She was beautiful, but with the face and figure rather of a Juno than a Venus—dark, imperious, restless—the lips almost too firmly set, the brow almost too massive and projecting—a queen, rather to be feared than loved—but a queen still, as truly royal as the man into whose face she was looking up with eager admiration and delight, as he pointed out to her eloquently the several beauties of the landscape." So Alton is introduced to the Dean, and finally asked down to the deanery.
The result, of course, is, that he becomes, if possible, ten times more deeply in love than before with Venus Victrix, who is naughty enough to flirt with Snip, and to astonish him by singing certain of his songs. As a matter of course, he immediately conjures up an imaginary Eden, with an arbour of cucumber vine, in which he, Alton, and she, Lillian, are to figure as Adam and Eve—we trust in such becoming costume as his previous pursuits must have given him the taste to devise. Miss Staunton, however, does not appear to relish the liaison, and rather throws cold water upon it, which damper Locke seems to attribute to jealousy! though it afterwards turns out to have been dictated by a higher feeling; namely, her conviction that Lillian was too shallow-hearted to be a fit object for the affections of the inspired tailor!! The old Dean meanwhile, quite unconscious of the ravages which young Remnants is making in his family circle, bores him with lectures on entomology, and finally agrees to patronise his poems, and head a subscription list, provided he will expunge certain passages which savour of republican principles. Alton consents; and as a reward for his so doing, Miss Staunton pronounces him to be "weak," and Lillian deplores that he has spoilt his best verses, whichher cousinhad set to music. Reading these things, we begin to comprehend the deep anxiety of Petruchio to get the tailor out of his house,—
"Hortensio; say thou wilt see the tailor paid:Go, take it hence; begone, and say no more."
"Hortensio; say thou wilt see the tailor paid:Go, take it hence; begone, and say no more."
Who knows what effect the flatteries of an insinuator like Alton Locke might have had upon the lively Katherina?
The list, however, is not yet made up—so Alton returns to London, and is entered upon the staff of theWeekly Warwhoop, a Chartist journal, conducted by one Mr O'Flynn, a red-hot Hibernian and republican. The engagement is not satisfactory. The editor has a playful habit of mutilating the articles of his contributors, and sometimes of putting in additional pepper, so as to adapt them to his own peculiar tastes and purposes; and Alton Locke finds that it goes rather against his conscience to libel the Church of England and the Universities by inventing falsehoods by the score, as he is earnestly entreated to do by his uncompromising chief. There is nothing like a peep behind the scenes. Alton begins to suspect that he may have been misled regarding matters of political faith, and that it is quite possible for a man to call himself a patriot, and yet be a consummate blackguard. Touching religious tenets, also, he has some qualms; a discourse which he happens to hear from a peripatetic idiot of the Emersonian school having put new notions into his head, and he is especially attracted by the dogma that "sin is only a lower form of good." He next breaks with O'Flynn, encounters his cousin George, now in orders, though certainly quite unfitted for the duties of his profession; and a regularquarrel ensues on the subject of Lillian, whom George is determined to win. Poetical justice demands that both whelps should be soused in the kennel. Alton gets a new engagement from "the editor of a popular journal of the Howitt and Eliza Cook school;" and at last brings out his poems, which, though considerably castrated, have the good fortune to take with the public. Then he is asked to be at the Dean's town residence, to meet with divers "leaders of scientific discovery in this wondrous age; and more than one poet, too, over whose works I had gloated, whom I had worshipped in secret." In short, he felt that "he was taking his place there among the holy guild of authors." Nor are these all his triumphs. Lillian smiles upon him; and Lady Ellerton, formerly Miss Staunton, who has since been wedded to Lord Lynedale, and raised to a higher title in the peerage, introduces him to the —— ambassador, evidently the Chevalier Bunsen, who instantly invites him to Germany! "I am anxious," quoth the ambassador, "to encourage a holy spiritual fraternisation between the two great branches of the Teutonic stock, by welcoming all brave young English spirits to their ancient fatherland. Perhaps, hereafter, your kind friends here will be able to lend you to me"!! So the brave young English spirit goes home that night in a perfect whirl of excitement. In the morning comes reaction. Alton, on going to leave his card for the Dean, finds the house shut up, and is informed that the young Earl of Ellerton has been killed by a fall from his horse, and that the whole family are gone to the country. "That day was the first of June 1845. On the 10th of April 1848, I saw Lillian Winnstay again. Dare I write my history between these two points of time?" By all means: and, if you please, get on a little faster.
It will naturally occur to the reader that Messrs Crossthwaite and Mackaye could not be remarkably well pleased at witnessing their friend's intromissions with the aristocracy. The docking of the poems had been the first symptom of retrogression from the Chartist camp; the acceptance of invitations to exclusive soirées was a still more grievous offence. Accordingly, Alton began to suffer for his sins. His old employer, O'Flynn, was down upon him in the columns of theWarwhoop, tomahawking him for his verses, ridiculing his pretensions, exposing his private history, and denouncing him as no better than a renegade. Then, somebody sent him a pair of plush breeches, in evident token of his flunkyism—a doubleedged and cruel insult which nearly drove him distracted. Old Sandy Mackaye, over his pipe and tumbler of toddy, descanted upon the degeneracy of the age, and John Crossthwaite told him in so many words that he had disappointed his expectations most miserably. Under these circumstances, Alton felt that there was nothing for him but to redeem his character as a Chartist by some daring step, even though it brought him within the iron grasp of the law. An opportunity soon presented itself. There was distress among the agricultural labourers in several districts; a monster meeting was to be held; and the club to which Alton belonged determined to send down a delegate to represent them. Alton instantly proffered himself for the somewhat perilous post: and the warmth of his protestations and entreaties overcame the suspicions, and removed the jealousy, of his comrades. Even O'Flynn pronounced him to be "a broth of a boy." In the midst of the meeting, however, he was startled by a glimpse of the countenance of his cousin George, who, it afterwards appears, had come thither as a spy, armed with a bowie-knife and revolver!
As a delegate, therefore, Alton goes down to the place of rendezvous, in the neighbourhood of the Deanery, where he had once been hospitably entertained; listens to several speeches on the low rate of wages, which he justly considers to be rather purposeless and incoherent; strives to inculcate the principles of the Charter, which the agriculturists won't listen to; and finally, by a flaming harangue on the rights of man, sends them off in a body to a neighbouring hall to plunder, burn, and destroy. Of course he is actuated by none but the most praiseworthy and philanthropic motives. The mob do their work as usual, and proceed to arson and pillage; Mr Locke, who has accompanied them, all the while preaching respect to the sacred rights of property. A handful of yeomanry approach; the mob begins to scamper; and the misunderstood patriot and poet is cut down in the act of rescuing a desk from the clutches of an agricultural Turpin. He is tried, of course, for the offence; John Crossthwaite and Mackaye are brought to speak to character, but they break down under the cross-examination. An extempore witness, however, gives evidence in his favour, which suffices to clear him of the most serious part of the charge. He intends to make a magnificent speech in his defence, and has actually got through three sentences, "looking fixedly and proudly at the reverend face opposite," when a slight deviation of the eye reveals to him the form of Lillian!
"There she was! There she had been the whole time—right opposite to me, close to the judge—cold, bright, curious—smiling! And, as our eyes met, she turned away, and whispered gaily something to a young man beside her."Every drop of blood in my body rushed into my forehead; the court, the windows, and the faces, whirled round and round, and I fell senseless on the floor of the dock."
"There she was! There she had been the whole time—right opposite to me, close to the judge—cold, bright, curious—smiling! And, as our eyes met, she turned away, and whispered gaily something to a young man beside her.
"Every drop of blood in my body rushed into my forehead; the court, the windows, and the faces, whirled round and round, and I fell senseless on the floor of the dock."
Alas for poor Snip! They gave him three years.
Three years passed in prison afford ample time for reflection, and are calculated to lead to amendment. We are sorry, however, to say that Mr Alton Locke by no means turned them to profit. He had many long interviews with the chaplain, who attempted to reclaim him to Christianity; but it would seem that the reverend gentleman did not set about it in the right way, as he advanced only old-fashioned arguments against infidelity, whereas the inspired tailor "was fighting for Strauss, Hennell, and Emerson." So the chaplain gave him up at last, and he turned for recreation and solace to the works of M.M. Prudhon and Louis Blanc, which he got somehow smuggled into his cell. During his imprisonment he experienced great tribulation by the sight of a handsome new church rising not far from his window, and occasional glimpses of a person whom he took to be the incumbent, and who bore a marvellous likeness to his cousin George. Sometimes this personage was accompanied by a lady, who might possibly be Lillian—for the mooncalf, notwithstanding the court-scene, and the consciousness that he was a sentenced felon, still seems to have supposed that he was beloved, and to have expected a visit to his cell—and the bare idea was distraction. And it turns out that he was right. George Locke, the incumbent, was about to be married—a fact which he learned immediately before his own release, coinciding in point of time with the French Revolution of 1848.
Back to London goes Alton, and, as a matter of course, instantaneously consorts with Cuffey. Then come the preparations for the memorable demonstration of 10th April, the provision of arms, and the wild schemes for resorting to physical force. That a large, ramified, and by no means contemptible conspiracy then existed, no man can doubt; and there is but too much reason to believe that social suffering was as much the cause of the projected outbreak as abstract political doctrines, however pernicious, or even the influence of the revolutionary example extended and propagated from the Continent. Alton had by this time worked himself up to such a pitch that he was ready to mount a barricade, and so was his companion and coadjutor, the valorous John Crossthwaite. But old Sandy Mackaye, who had some acquaintanceship with pikes in his youth, and experience of the extreme doubtfulness of the popular pluck, especially under the guidance of such leaders as the imbecile and misguided fools who made themselves most prominent in the Convention, astonished his friends by denouncing the whole concern as not only silly but sinful, and prophesying, almost with his dying breath as it proved, its complete and shameful failure. Very beautifully, indeed, and very naturally drawn, is the deathbed scene of the old reformer; the spirit, ere quitting for ever the tenement of clay, wandering back and recurring to the loved scenes of childhood and of youth—the bonny braes,and green hillsides, and clear waters of his native land.
Old Sandy dies, and Alton watches by his corpse till the morning of the 10th of April, the day on which the liberties of England were to be decided, and a general muster of the adherents of the Charter held on Kensington Common. Going forth, he encounters at the door a lady dressed in deep mourning, who had come to visit Mackaye, and who should this prove to be but the widowed Countess of Ellerton! It now comes out that Alton had been altogether mistaken in her character: instead of being a proud imperious aristocrat, she proves to be a lowly, devoted, and self-sacrificing friend of the poor, who has surrendered her whole means for the relief of unfortunate needle-women, and even lived and worked among them, in order personally to experience the hardships of their condition. There is nothing in this to provoke a sneer; for it is impossible to exaggerate the extent of that sacrifice which women in all ages have been content to make, either at the call of love, the claim of duty, or the demand of religion; and the noble and unswerving heroism, which they have exhibited in the accomplishment of their task. To tend the sick and dying even in public, hospitals—to brave the pestilence and the plague—to visit prisons—utterly to abjure the world, and to give up everything for the sake of their Divine Master—all these things have been done by women, and done so quietly and unobtrusively as to escape the notice of the multitude; for good deeds are like the sweetest flowers, they blossom in the most secret places. But our author goes a great deal further, and, as usual, plunges into the ludicrous. Lady Ellerton has, from the first, recognised Alton Locke as an inspired being; she has kept her eye upon him throughout the whole of his career; has paid his debts through old Mackaye, with whom she seems to have been in constant correspondence; has supplied the means for his defence at his trial; and has now come to arrest, if possible, the headlong career of the outrageous and revolutionary tailor! We must indulge ourselves with one more extract, and it shall be the last.
"'Oh!' she said, in a voice of passionate earnestness, which I had never heard from her before, 'stop—for God's sake, stop! you know not what you are saying—what you are doing. Oh! that I had met you before—that I had had more time to speak to poor Mackaye! Oh! wait, wait—there is a deliverance for you; but never in this path—never! And just while I, and nobler far than I, are longing and struggling to find the means of telling you your deliverance, you, in the madness of your haste, are making it impossible!'"There was a wild sincerity in her words—an almost imploring tenderness in her tone."'So young!' she said; 'so young to be lost thus!'"I was intensely moved. I felt—I knew that she had a message for me. I felt that hers was the only intellect in the world to which I would have submitted mine; and, for one moment, all the angel and all the devil in me wrestled for the mastery. If I could but have trusted her one moment.... No! all the pride, the suspicion, the prejudice of years, rolled back upon me. 'An aristocrat! and she, too, the one who has kept me from Lillian!' And in my bitterness, not daring to speak the real thought within me, I answered with a flippant sneer—"'Yes, Madam! like Cordelia, so young, yet so untender!—Thanks to the mercies of the upper classes!'"Did she turn away in indignation? No, by heaven!—there was nothing upon her face but the intensest yearning pity. If she had spoken again, she would have conquered; but before those perfect lips could open, the thought of thoughts flashed across me."'Tell me one thing! Is my cousin George to be married to——?' and I stopped."'He is.'"'And yet,' I said, 'you wish to turn me back from dying on a barricade!' And, without waiting for a reply, I hurried down the street in all the fury of despair."
"'Oh!' she said, in a voice of passionate earnestness, which I had never heard from her before, 'stop—for God's sake, stop! you know not what you are saying—what you are doing. Oh! that I had met you before—that I had had more time to speak to poor Mackaye! Oh! wait, wait—there is a deliverance for you; but never in this path—never! And just while I, and nobler far than I, are longing and struggling to find the means of telling you your deliverance, you, in the madness of your haste, are making it impossible!'
"There was a wild sincerity in her words—an almost imploring tenderness in her tone.
"'So young!' she said; 'so young to be lost thus!'
"I was intensely moved. I felt—I knew that she had a message for me. I felt that hers was the only intellect in the world to which I would have submitted mine; and, for one moment, all the angel and all the devil in me wrestled for the mastery. If I could but have trusted her one moment.... No! all the pride, the suspicion, the prejudice of years, rolled back upon me. 'An aristocrat! and she, too, the one who has kept me from Lillian!' And in my bitterness, not daring to speak the real thought within me, I answered with a flippant sneer—
"'Yes, Madam! like Cordelia, so young, yet so untender!—Thanks to the mercies of the upper classes!'
"Did she turn away in indignation? No, by heaven!—there was nothing upon her face but the intensest yearning pity. If she had spoken again, she would have conquered; but before those perfect lips could open, the thought of thoughts flashed across me.
"'Tell me one thing! Is my cousin George to be married to——?' and I stopped.
"'He is.'
"'And yet,' I said, 'you wish to turn me back from dying on a barricade!' And, without waiting for a reply, I hurried down the street in all the fury of despair."
But Alton Locke did not die on a barricade, any more than Mr John O'Connell on the floor of the House of Commons. He did not sever with his shears the thread of life either of soldier or policeman. He got down from the waggons with the rest when Feargus showed the white feather, and by way of change of scene and subject, contrived to get into the house where Lillian was residing, andin a very sneaking way to become witness of sundry love passages between her and his cousin George. As a matter of course, he was kicked into the street by two able-bodied servitors in plush. Then follows a scene with a former comrade of his, a drunken, worthless, treacherous Dung, by name Jemmy Downes, who had become a sweater and kidnapper, and descended through every stage of degradation to the very cesspool of infamy. His wife and children are lying dead, fever-stricken, half-consumed by vermin in a horrible den, overhanging a rankling ditch, into which Downes in his delirium falls, and Alton staggers home with the typhus raging in his blood. Then come the visions of delirium, ambitiously written, but without either myth or meaning, so far as we can discover. Sometimes Alton fancies himself a mylodon eating his way through a forest of cabbage palms, and "browsing upon the crisp tart foliage,"—sometimes he is impressed with the painful conviction that he is a baboon agitated "by wild frenzies, agonies of lust, and aimless ferocity." The conscience, it would seem, was not utterly overpowered by the disease. He at length awakes to reality—