The Project Gutenberg eBook ofChambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 418This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 418Author: VariousEditor: Robert ChambersWilliam ChambersRelease date: October 25, 2004 [eBook #13865]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Sandra Brown and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH JOURNAL, NO. 418 ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 418Author: VariousEditor: Robert ChambersWilliam ChambersRelease date: October 25, 2004 [eBook #13865]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Sandra Brown and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.
Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 418
Author: VariousEditor: Robert ChambersWilliam Chambers
Author: Various
Editor: Robert Chambers
William Chambers
Release date: October 25, 2004 [eBook #13865]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Sandra Brown and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH JOURNAL, NO. 418 ***
A CHILD'S TOY
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
WHY DOES THE PENDULUM SWING?
THE COUNTRY COUSIN
THE DROLLERIES OF FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY
FAMILY LIFE IN A NEGRO TOWN
THE COMMERCIAL PORTS OF ENGLAND
AN UNFORTUNATE MAN
SLOW BUT SURE
THE SEA-KINGS OF NANTUCKET
THE LINNÆA BOREALIS
Banner: Chambers' Edinburgh Journal
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The afternoon was drawing in towards evening; the air was crisp and cool, and the wind near the earth, steady but gentle; while above all was as calm as sleep, and the pale clouds—just beginning in the west to be softly gilded by the declining sun—hung light and motionless. The city, although not distant, was no longer visible, being hidden by one of the many hills which give such enchantment to the aspect ofourcity. There was altogether something singularly soothing in the scene—something that disposed not to gravity, but to elevated thought. As we looked upwards, there was some object that appeared to mingle with the clouds, to form a part of their company, to linger, mute and motionless like them, in that breathless blue, as if feeling the influence of the hour. It was not a white-winged bird that had stolen away to muse in the solitudes of air: it was nothing more than a paper kite.
On that paper kite we looked long and intently. It was the moral of the picture; it appeared to gather in to itself the sympathies of the whole beautiful world; and as it hung there, herding with the things of heaven, our spirit seemed to ascend and perch upon its pale bosom like a wearied dove. Presently we knew the nature of the influence it exercised upon our imagination; for a cord, not visible at first to the external organs, though doubtless felt by the inner sense, connected it with the earth of which we were a denizen. We knew not by what hand the cord was held so steadily. Perhaps by some silent boy, lying prone on the sward behind yonder plantation, gazing up along the delicate ladder, and seeing unconsciously angels ascending and descending. When we had looked our fill, we went slowly and thoughtfully home along the deserted road, and nestled as usual, like a moth, among our books. A dictionary was lying near; and with a languid curiosity to know what was said of the object that had interested us so much, we turned to the word, and read the following definition: Kite—a child's toy.
What wonderful children there are in this world, to be sure! Look at that American boy, with his kite on his shoulder, walking in a field near Philadelphia. He is going to have a fly; and it is famous weather for the sport, for it is in June—June 1752. The kite is but a rough one, for Ben has made it himself, out of a silk-handkerchief stretched over two cross-sticks. Up it goes, however, bound direct for a thunder-cloud passing overhead; and when it has arrived at the object of its visit, the flier ties a key to the end of his string, and then fastens it with some silk to a post. By and by he sees some loose threads of the hempen-string bristle out and stand up, as if they had been charged with electricity. He instantly applies his knuckle to the key, and as he draws from it the electrical spark, this strange little boy is struck through the very heart with an agony of joy. His labouring chest relieves itself with a deep sigh, and he feels that he could be contented to die that moment. And indeed he was nearer death than he supposed; for as the string was sprinkled with rain, it became a better conductor, and gave out its electricity more copiously; and if it had been wholly wet, the experimenter might have been killed upon the spot. So much forthischild's toy. The splendid discovery it made—of the identity of lightning and electricity—was not allowed to rest by Ben Franklin. By means of an insulated iron rod the new Prometheus drew down fire from heaven, and experimented with it at leisure in his own house. He then turned the miracle to a practical account, constructing a pointed metallic rod to protect houses from thunder. One end of this true magic wand is higher than the building and the other end buried in the ground; and the submissive lightning, instead of destroying life and property in its gambols, darts direct along the conductor into the earth. We may add that Ben was a humorous boy, and played at various things as well as kite-flying. Hear this description of his pranks at an intended pleasure-party on the banks of the Skuylkill: 'Spirits at the same time are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any other conductor than water—an experiment which we have some time since performed to the amazement of many. A turkey is to be killed for dinner by the electrical shock; and roasted by the electrical jack, before a fire kindled by the electric bottle; when the healths of all the famous electricians in England, Holland, France, and Germany, are to be drunk in electrified bumpers, under the discharge of guns from the electrical battery.'
We now turn to a group of capital little fellows who did something more than fly their kite. These were English skippers, promoted somehow to the command of vessels before they had arrived at years of discretion; and, chancing to meet at the port of Alexandria in Egypt, they took it into their heads—these naughty boys—that they would drink a bowl of punch on the top of Pompey's Pillar. This pillar had often served them for a signal at sea. It was composed of red granite, beautifully polished, and standing 114 feet high, overtopped the town. But how to get up? They sent for a kite, to be sure; and the men, women, and children of Alexandria, wondering what they were going to do with it, followed the toy in crowds. The kite was flown over the Pillar, and with such nicety, that when it fell on the other side the string lodgedupon the beautiful Corinthian capital. By this means they were able to draw over the Pillar a two-inch rope, by which one of the youngsters 'swarmed' to the top. The rope was now in a very little while converted into a sort of rude shroud, and the rest of the party followed, and actually drank their punch on a spot which, seen from the surface of the earth, did not appear to be capable of holding more than one man.
By means of this exploit it was ascertained that a statue had once stood upon the column—and a statue of colossal dimensions it must have been to be properly seen at such a height. But for the rest—if we except the carving of sundry initials on the top—the result was only the knocking down of one of the volutes of the capital, for boys are always doing mischief; and this was carried to England by one of the skippers, in order to execute the commission of a lady, who, with the true iconoclasm of her country, had asked him to be so kind as to bring her a piece of Pompey's Pillar.
Little fellows, especially of the class of bricklayers, are no great readers, otherwise we might suspect that the feat of the skipper-boys had conveyed some inspiration to Steeple Jack. Who is Steeple Jack? asks some innocent reader at the Antipodes. He is a little spare creature who flies his kite over steeples when there is anything to do to them, and lodging a cord on the apex, contrives by its means to reach the top without the trouble of scaffolding. No fragility, no displacement of stones, no leaning from the perpendicular, frightens Steeple Jack. He is as bold as his namesake Jack-the-Giant-Killer, and does as wonderful things. At Dunfermline, not long ago, when the top of the spire was in so crazy a state that the people in the street gave it a wide berth as they passed, he swung himself up without hesitation, and set everything to rights. At the moment we write his cord is seen stretched from the tall, slim, and elegant spire of the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh, which is to receive through his agency a lightning-conductor; and Jack only waits the subsidence of a gale of wind to glide up that filmy rope like a spider. He is altogether a strange boy, Steeple Jack. Nobody knows where he roosts upon the earth, if he roosts anywhere at all. The last time there was occasion for his services, this advertisement appeared in theScotsman: 'Steeple Jack is wanted at such a place immediately'—and immediately Steeple Jack became visible.
In 1827 the child's toy was put to a very remarkable use by one Master George Pocock. This clever little fellow observed that his kite sometimes gave him a very strong pull, and it occurred to him that if made large enough it might be able to pull something else. In fact, he at length yoked a pair of large kites to a carriage, and travelled in it from Bristol to London, distancing in grand style every other conveyance on the road. A twelve-foot kite, it appears, in a moderate breeze, has a one-man power of draught, and when the wind is brisker, a force equal to 200 lbs. The force in a rather high wind is as the squares of the lengths; and two kites of fifteen and twelve feet respectively, fastened one above the other, will draw a carriage and four or five passengers at the rate of twenty miles an hour. But George's invention went beyond the simple idea. He had an extra line which enabled him to vary the angle of the surface of his kites with the horizon, so as to make his aërial horses go fast or slow as he chose; and side-lines to vary the direction of the force, till it came almost to right angles with the direction of the wind. His kites were made of varnished linen, and might be folded up into small compass. The same principle was successfully applied by a nautical lad of the name of Dansey to the purpose of saving vessels in a gale of wind on 'the dread lee-shore.' His kite was of light canvas.
In India, China, and the intermediate countries, the aggregate population of which includes one-half of mankind, kites are the favourite toy of both old and young boys, from three years to threescore and ten. Sometimes they really resemble the conventional dragon, from which, among Scotch children, they derive their name; sometimes they are of a diamond shape, and sometimes they are like a great spider with a narrow waist. Our Old Indian is eloquent on kites, and the glory of their colours, which, in the days of other years, made her girlish heart leap, and her girlish eyes dazzle. The kite-shop is like a tulip-bed, full of all sorts of gay and gorgeous hues. The kites are made of Chinese paper, thin and tough, and the ribs of finely-split bamboo. A wild species of silkworm is pressed into the service, and set to spinnuckfor the strings—a kind of thread which, although fine, is surprisingly strong. Its strength, however, is wanted for aggression as well as endurance; and a mixture composed of pounded glass and rice gluten is rubbed over it. Having been dried in the sun, the prepared string is now wound upon a handsome reel of split bamboo inserted in a long handle. One of these reels, if of first-rate manufacture, costs a shilling, although coarser ones are very cheap; and of the nuck, about four annas, or sixpence worth, suffices for a kite.
In a Hindoo town the kite-flying usually takes place on some common ground in the vicinity, and there may be seen the young and old boys in eager groups, and all as much interested in the sport as if their lives depended upon their success. And sometimes, indeed, their fortunes do. Many a poor little fellow bets sweetmeats upon his kite to the extent of his only anna in the world; and many a rich baboo has more rupees at stake than he can conveniently spare. But the exhilarating sport makes everybody courageous; and the glowing colours of the kites enable each to identify his own when in the air, and give him in it, as it were, a more absolute property. Matches are soon made. Up go the aërial combatants, and with straining eyes and beating hearts their fate is watched from below. But their masters are far from passive, for this is no game of chance, depending upon the wind. Kite-flying is in these countries an art and mystery; and some there be who would not disclose their recipe for the nuck-ointment, if their own grandfathers should go upon their knees to ask it.
Sometimes an event occurs on the common. It is the ascent of a pair of kites of adistinguéair, and whose grand and determined manner shews that the combat is to beà l'outrance,and that a large stake of money depends upon the result. The fliers are invisible. They are probably on the flat roof of some neighbouring house; but the kites are not the less interesting on account of their origin being unknown. What a host of anxious faces are turned up to the sky! Some take a liking to the red at first sight, while others feel attracted by a mysterious sympathy to the green. Bets are freely offered and accepted either in sweetmeats or money; and the crowd, condensing, move toand fro in a huge wave, from which their eager voices arise like the continuous roaring of the sea. Higher and higher go the kites. Well done, Red! he has shot above his antagonist, and seems meditating a swoop; but the Green, serenely scornful, continues to soar, and is soon uppermost. And thus they go—now up, now down, relatively to each other, but always ascending higher and higher, till the spectators almost fear that they will vanish out of sight. But at length the Green, taking advantage of a loftier position he has gained, makes a sudden circuit, and by an adroit manoeuvre gets his silken string over the silken string of the other, Here a shout of triumph and a yell of terror break simultaneously from the crowd; for this is the crisis of the fight. The victor gives a fierce cut upon his adversary's line. The backers of the latter fancy they hear it grate, and in an instant their forebodings are realised; far the unfortunate Red is seen to waver like a bird struck by a shot, and then, released from the severed string, he descends in forlorn gyrations to the earth.
Now rush in the smaller boys to play their part, Their object is that of the plunderers who traverse the field after a battle, to rob the dying and the slain. Off run the little Hindoos, like a company of imps from the nether regions, tearing and fighting as they fly; and on reaching the fallen kite, the object of their contention is torn to pieces in the scuffle. Presently the victorious Green is seen descending, and the gross excitement of the common pauses to watch his majestic flight. He is of the largest size of Indian kites calledching, and of the spider shape. Before being drawn in, he hangs for an instant high up over the crowd. It is not, however, to singIo Pæansfor his victory, but apparently rather to mourn over the ruin he has made; for a wailing music breathes from his wings as he passes. This is caused by the action of the wind upon some finely-split bamboo twigs arched over the kite without touching the paper, and which thus become a true Æolian harp. Sometimes a kite of this kind is sent up at night, bearing a small lighted lantern of talc; and the sleepers awakened, called to their balconies by the unearthly music, gaze after the familiar apparition not without a poetical thrill.
Upon the whole, it must be admitted, we think, that this is a somewhat interesting child's toy. But has the kite a future? Will its powers exhibit new developments, or has it already reached its pride of place? If a twelve-foot kite has the force of a man, would it take many more feet to lift a man into the air? And supposing the man to be in a strong cage of network, with bamboo ribs, and a seat of the same material, would he have greater difficulty in governing his aërial coursers by means of the Pocock cords, than if he were flashing along the road from Bristol to London? Mind, we do not say that this is possible: we merely ask for the sake of information; and if any little boy will favour us with his opinion, we shall take it very kind. Come and let us fancy that itispossible. The traveller feels much more comfortable than in the car of a balloon, for he knows he can go pretty nearly in what direction he chooses, and that he can hasten or check the pace of his horses, and bring them to a stand-still at pleasure. See him, therefore, boldly careering through the air at the rate of any number of miles the wind pleases. At a single bound he spans yonder broad river, and then goes bowling over the plantation beyond, just stirring the leaves as he passes; trees, water, houses, men, and animals gliding away beneath his feet like a dream. Now he stoops towards the earth, just to make the people send up their voices that there may be some sound in the desert air. Now he swings up again; now he leaps over that little green hill; now he—Hold! hold, little boy!—that will do: enough for a time of a Child's Toy.
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'. . . . Whose trained eye was keen,As eagle of the wilderness, to scanHis path by mountain, lake, or deep ravine,Or ken far friendly huts on good savannas green.'— CAMPBELL:Gertrude of Wyoming.
'. . . . Whose trained eye was keen,As eagle of the wilderness, to scanHis path by mountain, lake, or deep ravine,Or ken far friendly huts on good savannas green.'— CAMPBELL:Gertrude of Wyoming.
'. . . . Whose trained eye was keen,
As eagle of the wilderness, to scan
His path by mountain, lake, or deep ravine,
Or ken far friendly huts on good savannas green.'
— CAMPBELL:Gertrude of Wyoming.
On the 14th of last September, America lost the greatest of her novelists in the person of James Fenimore Cooper. He was born on the 15th of that month, 1789; so that, had he lived but a few hours longer, he would have completed his sixty-second year. At the time of his birth, his father, Judge Cooper, resided at Burlington, New Jersey, where the futurelittérateurcommenced his education, and in so doing acquired a decided reputation for talent, which was not tarnished during subsequent years of tutelage at Newhaven and Yale College. At sixteen he exchanged the study of ancient literature and the repose of academic life for the bustling career of a 'middy' in the American navy; continuing for some half-dozen years his connection with those ocean scenes which he then learned to love so well and to describe so vividly. His retirement into private life took place in 1811, soon after which he married Miss de Lancey (whose brother is known to many as one of the New York bishops), and settled at Cooper's Town, his patrimonial estate. Ten years elapsed before hisdébutas an author. In 1821 he presented the public with a novel bearing the perhaps apposite title ofPrecaution—apposite, if the twolustrathus elapsed were passed in preparation for that début, and as being after all anonymously published. The subject was one with which Cooper never shewed himself conversant—namely, the household life of England. Like his latest works,Precautionwas a failure, and gave scanty indications of that genius which was to find its true sphere and full scope in the trackless prairies of his native land, and its path upon the mountain-wave he had ridden in buoyant youth. But the same year producedThe Spy, still considered by many to be his masterpiece, and from that production his fame was secure; and not only America but British voices, exhorted Sir Walter to look to his laurels. Certainly there was a little more reason in calling Cooper the American Scott than in pronouncing Klopstock the German Milton.
The successful novelist visited Europe a few years after this 'sign and seal' of his literary renown, and spent a considerable period among the principalities and powers of Old-World Christendom. In Paris and London especially he was lionised to the top of his bent. Sir Walter met him in the French metropolis in 1826; and in his diary of November 3, after recording a morning visit to 'Cooper the American novelist,' adds: 'this man, who has shewn so much genius, has a good deal of the manners or want of manners peculiar to his countrymen.' Three days later we find the following entry: 'Cooper came to breakfast, but we wereobsédes partout. Such a number of Frenchmen bounced in successively, and exploded—I mean discharged—their compliments, that I could hardly find an opportunity to speak a word or entertain Mr Cooper at all.'1The 'illustrious stranger' appears to have spent about ten years in Europe, for which he was, perhaps, in a literary point of view, none the better; as—to use the words of a periodical of the day—'he did not carry back the same fresh spirit that he brought, something of which must be attributed, no doubt, to the years which intervened;but something, too, to his abandonment of that mother-ground which to him, as to the fabled Antaeus, was the source of strength.' The autumn of his life glided quietly on amid the pleasures and pains of literature; its sombre close being pleasantly illuminated by the rays of spring-promise that radiated around the young brow of his daughter, which the dying veteran might well hope would be matured into 'glorious summer by the sun of' time.Valeat signum!
In calling Cooper the greatest of American novelists, we have not incurred much risk of contradiction. Others may rival—some surpass him—in this or that province of the art of fiction; but as a master of the art in its broad aspect, he isfacile princeps. Brockden Brown treads a circle of mysterious power but mean circumference: Washington Irving is admirable at a sketch, one of the liveliest and most graceful of essayists, and quite equal to the higher demands of imaginative prose—witness hisRip Van WinkleandSleepy Hollow—but his forte is in miniature, and the orthodox dimensions of three volumes post-octavo would suit him almost as ill as would the Athenian vesture of Nick Bottom the spruce proportions of royal Oberon: Haliburton is inimitable in his own line of things; his measure of wit and humour—qualities unknown, or nearly so, to Cooper—is 'pressed down, and shaken together, and running over;' but his 'mission' and Cooper's in the tale-telling art are wide as the poles asunder: John Neale had once, particularly by his own appraisement, a high repute as the eccentric author ofLoganandSeventy-six, but the repute, like theSeventy-six, is quite in the preterite tense now; and to review him and his works at this time of day would be suspiciously like apost-mortemexamination, resulting possibly in a verdict of temporary insanity—if not, indeed, offelo de se—so wilful and wrongheaded were the vagaries of this 'rough, egotistical Yankee,' as he has been called: Herman Melville is replete with graphic power, and riots in the exuberance of a fresh, racy style; but whether he can sustain the 'burden and heat' of a well-equipped and full-grown novel as deftly as the fragmentary autobiographies he loves to indite; remains to be seen: Longfellow's celebrity in fiction is limited toHyperionandKavanagh—clever, but slight foundations for enduring popularity—as irregular (the former at least) as Jean Paul's nondescript stories, without the great German's tumultuous genius: Hawthorne is probably the most noteworthy of the rising authors of America, and indeed manifests a degree of psychological knowledge and far-sighted, deep-searching observation of which there are few traces or none in Cooper; but the real prowess of the author ofThe Scarlet Letteris, we apprehend, still undeveloped, and the harvest of his honours a thing of the future. All these distinguished persons—not to dwell on the kindred names of Bird, Kennedy, Ware, Paulding, Myers, Willis, Poe, Sedgwick, &c.—must yield the palm to him who has attracted all the peoples and tongues of Europe2to follow out the destiny of a Spy on the neutral ground, of a Pilot on the perilous coasts of a hostile race, of a Last of the Mohicans disappearing before the onward tramp of the white man.
As Rob Roy felt the pulses of life quickened when his foot was on his native heath, so Cooper wrote with vigour andaplombonly when his themes were the aboriginal forest and the melancholy main. Pity that, having discovered the fount of his strength—the Samson-lock by which alone he towered above his fellows—he had not restrained himself, and concentrated his efforts within the appointed sphere. He repudiated the oracular counsel which his own consciousness must have approved—Hoc signo vinces; and seemed to assume that whatever province he invaded, the bulletin of the campaign would be anotherVeni, vidi, vici. Few things can be more unsatisfactory and insipid than his attempts in the 'silver-fork school' of novel-writing—his dreary commonplaces of fashionable life—his faded sermonisings on domestic, and political, and social economy. Few things can be more inspiriting, more energetic, more impressive, than his pictures of
'A wet sheet and a flowing sea,A wind that follows fast,And fills the white and rustling sail,And bends the gallant mast;'
'A wet sheet and a flowing sea,A wind that follows fast,And fills the white and rustling sail,And bends the gallant mast;'
'A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast;'
for we see in every stroke that the world of waters is his home, and that tohisear there is music in the wild piping of the wind, and thathiseye beams afresh when it descries tempest in the horned moon, and lightning in the cloud. To him the ocean is indeed 'a glorious mirror,' where the form of the Highest 'glasses itself in tempests;' dear to him it is
————'in all time,Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm;. . . . Boundless, endless, and sublime—The image of Eternity—the throneOf the Invisible.'
————'in all time,Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm;. . . . Boundless, endless, and sublime—The image of Eternity—the throneOf the Invisible.'
————'in all time,
Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm;
. . . . Boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of Eternity—the throne
Of the Invisible.'
Well might one who had lived six years on her swelling bosom, combine with his love 'of the old sea some reverential fear,' as Wordsworth has it. This compound feeling is highly effective in his marine fictions, so instinct is it with the reality of personal experience. Mr Griswold tells us that Cooper informed him as follows of the origin ofThe Pilot: 'Talking with the late Charles Wilkes of New York, a man of taste and judgment, our author [Cooper] heard extolled the universal knowledge of Scott, and the sea-portions ofThe Piratecited as a proof. He laughed at the idea, as most seamen would, and the discussion ended by his promising to write a sea-story which could be read by landsmen, while seamen should feel its truth.The Pilotwas the result of that conversation.'3Of this tale Scott says, in a letter to Miss Edgeworth: 'I have seen a new work,The Pilot, by the author ofThe SpyandThe Pioneers. The hero is the celebrated Paul Jones, whom I well remember advancing above the island of Inchkeith, with three small vessels, to lay Leith under contribution.... The novel is a very clever one, and the sea-scenes and characters in particular are admirably drawn; and I advise you to read it as soon as possible.' Still higher panegyric would not have been misbestowed in this instance, which illustrates Mr Prescott's remark, that Cooper's descriptions of inanimate nature, no less than of savage man, are alive with the breath of poetry—'Witness his infinitely various pictures of the ocean; or, still more, of the beautiful spirit that rides upon its bosom, the gallant ship.' Though it is toThe Pilot, pre-eminently, andThe Waterwitch, in nearly an equal degree, that these remarks apply, there is many a passage in Cooper's later novels—for example,The Two Admirals, Homeward Bound, Mark's Reef, Ashore and Afloat, andThe Sea-Lions—in which we recognise the same 'cunning' right hand which pencilled theAriel, and its crew, the moody, mysterious pilot, and stalwart Long Tom Coffin.
Nor was he less at home in the backwoods and prairies of his fatherland, than upon the broad seas which divide it from the Old World. Tastes differ; and there are those—possibly the majority of his readers—who prefer the Indian associations ofThe Last of the Mohicans, The Pioneers, &c. to the salt-water scenery of the other class of works. For our part, we prefer his prairies to his savages, his forests to hisaborigines, his inanimate to his living sketches of Indian story.[1] His wild men of the woods are often too sentimental, too dreamy, too ideal. In this respect Brockden Brown has the advantage of him; for, as Mr Prescott has pointed out, Brown shews the rude and uncouth lineaments of the Indian character, though he is chargeable with withholding intimations of a more generous nature. While Cooper discards all the coarser elements of savage life, and idealises the portrait. The first of this series of tales of
'Painted chiefs with pointed spears,'
'Painted chiefs with pointed spears,'
wasThe Pioneers—the materials for which, it seems, were to a considerable extent derived from his father, who had an interest in large tracts of land near the 'sources of the Susquehanna,' where the scene is laid, and allied, therefore, to Campbell'sGertrude of Wyoming. It was speedily followed byThe Last of the Mohicans—not uncommonly pronounced hischef d'oeuvre—andThe Prairie; which, among numerous descriptions of absorbing interest, pervaded throughout by a fine imaginative spirit, contains one of thrilling power—where the squatter discovers and avenges the murder of his son.The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish—a strange story with a strange title, and which forms (chronologically at least) the climax of Cooper's fame—is justly admired by all who appreciate 'minute painting,' and that pensive monotony which begets a certain 'melancholy charm.' His skill in martial narrative was favorably attested inLionel Lincoln; in which he describes with remarkable spirit and equal accuracy the battles of Lexington and of Bunker's Hill. But to go through in detail theopera omniaof our prolific author would involve us in difficulties with editor and reader too serious to bear anticipation. Passing over, therefore, such of his earlier writings as are better known—likeThe Red Rover, The Waterwitch, The Pathfinder, andThe Deerslayer—we proceed to notice briefly a select few from the long series produced during the last ten years.
The Two Admiralsis of unequal interest—the twin heroes, Sir Gervaise Oakes and Bluewater, engrossing whatever charm it possesses, and reacting disastrously on the tedious scenes wherein they bear no part; but they certainlydowalk and talk like sound-hearted sons of Neptune, and there is no resisting the spell of the battle and the breeze which they encounter together, in thePlantagenetand theCæsar.The Jack o' Lantern, or the Privateer, was put forth with an expression of the author's conviction that his faculty in this class of fictions was inexhaustible; to which, however, the critics demurred. One of them observed that, following out the fantastical supposition which ascribes especial virtues to certain numbers, or even working out the analogy of the seventh wave, which sea-shore gossips tell us is ampler and stronger than its predecessors, the seventh sea-novel of Mr Cooper's ought to be the most remarkable of the series for force, brilliancy, and movement. But such symbolism was here found defective: the seventh wave broke abruptly on the shore; the Jack o' Lantern's existence has been brief and uncertain as that of theignis fatuuson the marsh. The story introduces Caraccioli and the Neapolitan court, Nelson and Lady Hamilton; but without striking points. There are some cleverly-drawn characters, however: Clinch, the drunken but winning British tar; Raoul Yvard, brilliant, handsome, and Parisian all over, philosophism included; and Ithuel Bolt, a new (not improved) edition of Long Tom. The plot is ingenious, though perhaps, constrained and far-fetched; and itsdénouementmakes the reader put down the third volume with increased respect for the novelist's tact.Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll(1843), is a quiet yet animated narrative, descriptive of a family of British settlers and their fortunes in their wild Susquehanna home. There is a pleasure, the author observes, in diving into a virgin forest, and commencing the labours of civilisation, that has no exact parallel in any other human occupation; and some refracted share of this pleasure is secured by every intelligent reader while engaged in perusing records so faithful and characteristic as those embodied in this tale.Ravensnest, with no lack of scenic embellishments, introduces to us three of the author's happiest characters—always excepting Leatherstocking and Long Tom—namely, the two Littlepages, 'Captain Hugh' and his 'Uncle Ro,' and Mistress Opportunity Newcome. The didactic asperities in which he indulged naturally marred the fortune of a book whose readers, whatever they might be, were pretty safely 'booked' for a scolding. Otherwise, it gleamed with scintillations, neither faint nor few, of the light of other days. But it was evident that Mr Cooper was overwriting himself. He seemed determined not to be outdone in fecundity by the most prolific of his contemporaries—as though it were a safe speculation or a healthy emulation to run against such light horsemen and horsewomen as Mr James and M. Dumas, and Mesdames Gore and Trollope. Hence he might have appropriately echoed the complaint of the slave in Terence: 'Parum succedit quod ago, at facio sedulò.'
In 1847, he producedMark's Reef, a story of the Crusoe genus, but far behind; the desert island being created 'positively for this occasion only,' and being swallowed up in the sea again when it has served Mark Woolston and the novelist's requirements. It is characterised, however, by much glowing description—especially that relating to the crater, with its noble peak, 'ever the same amid the changes of time, and civilisation, and decay; naked, storm-beaten, and familiar to the eye.' The following year he was ready withThe Bee-Hunter, wherein he sought to revive his pristine successes among American solitudes and Red Indians. Again we hear the palaver of the stately and sentimental Chippewas; and again we watch, with sadly-relaxed attention, the dodging extraordinary of Pale Faces and Red Men. Alas!
'Both of them speak of something that is gone: . . .Whither is fled the visionary gleam?Where is it now, the glory and the dream?'
'Both of them speak of something that is gone: . . .Whither is fled the visionary gleam?Where is it now, the glory and the dream?'
'Both of them speak of something that is gone: . . .
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?'
The Indians have become comparatively seedy and second-hand individuals; the scenery, with occasional exceptions, looks worn; the machinery creaks and betrays itself, no longer possessing thears celare artem. ''Tis true, 'tis pity; pity 'tis, 'tis true.' One novelty, nevertheless, this tale can boast, and that is the very able and interesting sketch of the bee-hunter following his vocation in the 'oak-openings;' nor is the portrait of Buzzing Ben himself an ordinary daub. In 1849 appearedThe Sea-Lions, a clever but often prolix work, which ought to keep up its interest with the public, if only for its elaborate painting of scenes to which the protracted mystery of Sir John Franklin's expedition has imparted a melancholy charm. The sufferings of sealers and grasping adventurers among 'thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice' are recounted with dramatic earnestness.The Ways of the Hourwas both 'nominally' and 'really' Cooper's last novel: he announced it as such; and the announcement was not related to that fallacious category to which belong the 'more last nights' of popular tragedians, and the farewell prefaces of the accomplished author ofRienzi. It was not the 'going, going!' but the 'gone!' of the auctioneer. And critics maliciously said:Tant mieux. InThe Ways of the Hourthere was one vigorous portrait, Mary Monson, and several 'moving accidents by flood and field:' but with these positive qualities the reader had to accept an unlimited stock of negatives.
Besides the works thus referred to, Cooper wrote at short intervals a 'serried phalanx' of others, from the ranks of which suffice it to nameThe Heidenmauer, The Bravo, The Manikins(a weak and injudicious tale, quite unworthy of his honourable reputation),The Headsman of Berne, Mercedes of Castille, Satanstoe, Home as Found, Ashore and Afloat. In miscellaneous literature his writings include aHistory of the Navy of the United States, Lives of Distinguished Naval Officers, Sketches of Switzerland, Gleanings in Europe, andNotions of the Americans.
It is by his early tales of wilderness and ocean life that he will survive. There his genius is fresh, vigorous, natural—uncramped by restraints, undeformed by excrescences, uninterrupted by crotchets, such as injured its aftergrowth—the swaddling-clothes of its second childhood. If we have spoken freely—we hope not flippantly—of these feeblenesses, it is because the renown of Cooper is too tenaciously and permanently rooted to be 'radically' affected thereby, however they may diminish the symmetry and dim the verdure of blossom and branch. His magnificent panoramas of prairie solitude, his billowy expanses of the 'many-voiced sea,' his artistically-grouped figures of red-skins and trappers, sealers and squatters, are among the things which Anglo-Saxon literature in either hemisphere will not willingly let die. By these he is, and long will be, known and read of all men. And if ever Mr Macaulay's New Zealander should ponder over the ruins of Broadway, as well as of St Paul's, he will probably carry in his pocket one of those romances which tell how the Last of the Mohicans came to his end, and which illustrate the closing destinies of tribes which shall then have disappeared before the chill advance of the Pale Face.
1.Lockhart's Life of Scott.Back to text
2.And, inoneinstance at least, of Asia also; forThe Spywas translated into Persian!Back to text
3.'The Prose-Writers of America.'Back to text
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The attention of the visitor to the recent Exhibition in Hyde Park was arrested, as he advanced westwards down the central promenade of the building, by a large clock busily at work marking off the seconds of passing time. That piece of mechanism had a remarkably independent and honest look of its own. The inmost recesses of its breast were freely bared to the inspection of every passer-by. As if aware of the importance of the work intrusted to its care, it went on telling, in the midst of the ever-changing and bustling crowd, with a bold and unhesitating click, the simple fact it knew; and that there might be no mistake, it registered what it told in palpable signs transmitted through the features of its own stolid face. Mr Dent's great clock was by no means the least distinguished object in the collection of the world's notabilities.
But there was one thing which nearly concerned that industrious and trusty monitor that he surely could not have known, or his quiet countenance would have shewn traces of perturbation. He was doing Exhibition work, but he was not keeping Exhibition time. The wonderful building in which he had taken up his temporary residence was, in fact, of too cosmopolitan a nature to have a time of its own. Its entire length measured off very nearly 1-42,000th part of the circle of terrestrial latitude along which it stretched. The meridian of the Liverpool Model was close upon thirty seconds of space farther west than the meridian of the Greek Slave. Imagine the surface of Hyde Park to have been marked off, before Messrs Fox and Henderson's workmen commenced their labours, by lines running north and south at the equal distance of a second of a degree from each other, just as one sees the surface of large maps traced by meridians, nearly thirty of those lines would then have been covered in by the east and west span of the crystal roof. Mr Dent's clock might have been set to the precise time of the Greek Slave, and it would yet have been nearly two seconds wrong by the time of the Liverpool Model. The pendulum swinging so steadily within its case had a longer and more stately stride than most of its congeners. It took a second and a half of time to complete its step from side to side. But notwithstanding this, if a string had been suddenly stretched across in space above the east end of the building, and left there in free suspension, independent of all connection with the terrestrial surface, it would have taken longer for the huge structure to be trailed beneath it by the earth's rotation—swift as that rotation is—than it did for the sober and leisurely mass of metal to finish its beat from side to side.
Our immediate business, however, at this present time is not with the geographical relations of Mr Paxton's building, but rather with that sober and leisurely-moving mass—the pendulum. Even in the seventeenth century, old Graunt was shocked when some irreverent babbler spoke of one of its honourable race by the rude epithet of 'a swing-swang;' and he penned an indignant protest on the subject to the Royal Society. Since that time the pendulum has done much more to merit the reverence of the world. Plain and simple as its outward bearing is, it really holds a high and dignified position in the annals of science.
Instead, however, of touching upon its pedigree and achievements, we proceed at once to speak of certain interesting peculiarities that enter as an element into all considerations in which it has concern. In the first place, what is that characteristic motion which it so constantly assumes—that restless swinging from side to side? Is it a property inherent in its own nature, or is it a power communicated to it from without? There is a train of wheelwork enclosed with it in the case. Is that the source of its vibratile mobility? Assuredly not. For if we arrest its motion with our hand at the instant that its form hangs perpendicularly suspended, that motion is not renewed although the wheels remain in unaltered relation. Those mechanical contrivances clearly do not comprise the secret of its swinging. We must look elsewhere if we would ascertain the fundamental cause.
Has the reader ever looked at the plain white building, with successive rows of little windows, which so often spans the breadth of our smaller streams? If he has, the thought has at once arisen that within those walls huge wheels and heavy-revolving stones remorselessly tear and crush to powder heaps upon heaps of yellow grain, with a power that is equal to the combined effort of a whole troop of horses concentred in the task. But we question very much whether he has as clearly seen whence those clattering wheels derive their many horse-power! If we were to ask him to tell us how they acquired their rolling strength, he would most probably answer—from the current of the stream. This reply would amount to nothing in the matter of explanation; the force of the current is as much a borrowed attribute as the force of the wheelwork. The running water is no more an independent and living agent than is the machinery which it turns. Beyond both is the one grand determining influence—the attractive energy inherent in the substance of the vast earth. This it is which makes the water run; this it is which enables the running water to move the wheelwork inserted into its channel. As the magnet draws to itself the fragment of steel, the earth draws to itself all ponderable matter; and whenever ponderable matter is free to move, it rushes as far as it can go towards the centre of the earth's substance, in obedience to the summons. Mobile water runs down from a higher to a lower level because the latter is nearer to the earth's centre than the former, and as it falls it pushes before it such minor obstructions as are unable to resist the influence of its weight. The float-boards of the mill-wheel are of this nature; they are striving to uphold the waterby means of the rubbing and friction of the apparatus that is mechanically connected with the axle. But the resistance of the friction is less than the strength with which the earth tugs at the water, and therefore the wheel goes round and the water rushes down. The force which really grinds the hard corn into flour it terrestrial attraction! Gravitation of material substance towards material substance, acting with an energy proportioned to the relative masses and to the relative distances of the elements concerned.
Let us now suppose that the matter drawn towards the earth is not free to move. Let us fancy, for instance, a drop of the running water all at once stopped in its downward path by the attachment of a string from above. The earth would then tug at that string in its effort to get the drop of water, and would consequently stretch it to a certain extent. The power that was before expended in causing the drop to move, would be now employed in striving to tear asunder the substance of the string. A heavy body hanging by a cord from a fixed point is then in this predicament. It is drawn towards the earth, but is prevented from moving to it. It consequently finds a position of rest in which it is placed as near to the source of attraction as the suspending string allows; that is, it hangs perpendicularly and immovably beneath it, stretching the string by its tendency toward the ground.
If, however, the suspended body be raised up from its position of forced repose by any interference that draws it to one side, the string being still kept on the stretch, it will be observed that it has been made to move in a curved line away from the earth's attracting mass, and that the pull of the attraction is then to a certain extent taken off from the string and transferred to the supporting hand; the force of the attraction consequently becomes then sensible as the weight of the body that is upheld. If in this state of affairs the supporting hand is taken away, the body at once rushes down sideways to the position it before occupied, with a pace accelerating considerably as it goes; for the earth continues to attract it during each instant of its descent. When it has reached the second stage of its journey, it is moving with a velocity that is caused by the addition of the attraction exercised in that stage to the attraction that had been exercised in the first stage; and so of the third, fourth, and other successive stages. It must go quicker and quicker until it comes to the place which was before its position of absolute repose.
But when it has at last arrived at this place, it cannot rest there, for during its increasingly-rapid journey downwards, it has been perseveringly acquiring a new force of its own—an onward impulse that proves to be sufficient to carry it forward and upward in spite of the earth's pressing solicitation to it to stay. Moving bodies can no more stop of their own accord than resting bodies can move of their own accord. Both require that some extraneous force shall be exerted upon them before the condition in which they are can be changed.
Now, in the case of the vibrating pendulum, it is the downward pull of the earth's attraction that first causes the stationary body to move, and as this commencing motion is downwards, in the direction of the pull, it is also an accelerating one. As soon, however, as this motion is changed by the resistance of the string into an upward one, it becomes a retarded one from the same cause. The body is now going upwards, away from the earth, and the earth's attraction therefore drags upon it and keeps it back instead of hastening it. As it travels up in its curved path, more and more of its weight is taken off the string, and thrown, so to speak, upon the moving impulse. In the descending portion of the vibration the weight of the body increases its movement; in the ascending portion it diminishes its movement. At last the upward movement becomes so slow, that the impulse of momentum is lost, and the earth's attraction is again unopposed. The body then begins to retrograde, acquires progressively increasing velocity as it descends, overshoots the place of its original repose, and once more commences the ascent on the opposite side.
Whenever, then, a heavy body suspended by a flexible string is drawn to one side, and dropped from the hand, a vibrating pendulum is made, because weight and acquired impulse influence it alternately with a sort of see-saw action, the power of the one diminishing as the power of the other augments. Weight pulls down—confers velocity and impulse during the pulling—and then velocity carries up. As velocity carries up, weight diminishes its impulse, and at last arrests it, and then begins to pull down again. In the middle of the vibration velocity is at its greatest, and weight at its least, as regards their influence on the motion. At the extremes of the vibration velocity is at its least, and weight at its greatest. Now here it is the earth's attraction clearly that confers the impulse of the downward movement, just as much as it is the earth's attraction that causes the downward movement of running water. Therefore the power which makes the pendulum swing is the same with the power which grinds the corn in the water-mill—the attraction of the earth's vast mass for the mass of a smaller body placed near to its surface under certain peculiar conditions of position.
But there is a very startling reflection connected with this consideration. How strange it is that the vast 'substantial fabric' of the earth should, after all, present itself as one grand source of motion in terrestrial things! Gravitation, weight, the majestic influence that holds the stable pyramid upon its base through centuries of time, condescending to turn the restless wheels of man's machinery! When the expansive burst of the vapour confined within the cylinder of the condensing steam-engine thrusts upwards the piston-rod with its mighty beams, it is simple weight—the weight of the superincumbent transparent atmosphere—that crushes the metal back with antagonistic force. When particles of water have been sublimated into the air by the heating power of the solar rays, it is simple weight—the weight of their own aqueous substance—that brings them down again, and that causes their falling currents to turn the countless mill-wheels implanted in the direction of their descent. When isolated tracts of the atmosphere have been rendered rare and light under the concentrated warmth of the sun, it is simple weight—the weight of colder and heavier portions of the air—that makes winds rush into the spots where the deficient downward pressure is, and that causes the sails of innumerable windmills to whirl before the impulse of the breeze.
In the steam-engine we see the earth's gravitation and artificial heat combining to effect sundry useful purposes, requiring enormous expenditure of effort. In windmills and watermills we see the earth's gravitation and natural or solar heat working together to perform like service. In the pendulum, the earth's gravitation acting alone as an enumerator of passing moments; for the momentum conferred by motion is after all but a secondary result, an offspring of the earth's attraction. In the steady oscillations of this little instrument no less a power is concerned than that grand elementary force of nature, that is able to uphold the orbitual movements of massive worlds. In the one case, the majestic presence is revealed in its Atlantean task of establishing the firm foundations of the universe; in the other, in its Saturnian occupation of marking the lapse of time. In the planetary movements, material attraction bends onward impulse round into a circling curve; in the pendulum oscillations, material attraction alternately causes and destroys onward impulse. In the former it acts by a steady sweep; in the latter by recurring broken starts. Thereason of the difference is simply this: the planetary bodies are free to go as the two powers, attraction and impulse, urge them. The weight of the pendulum is prevented from doing so by the restraining power of the string or rod, that holds it bound by a certain invariable interval to a point of suspension placed farther than the weight from the source of attraction. A pendulum, in all its main features, is a terrestrial satellite in bonds—unable to fall to the surface of the earth, and unable to get away and circle round it, yet influenced by a resistless tendency to do both. Its vibrations are its useless struggles to free itself from the constraint of its double chains.
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The village of Westbourne was what Americans would call a stylish place, though situated deep in the heart of Derbyshire. Most of its houses had green palings and flowers in front; there was a circulating library, a milliner's shop, and a ladies' boarding-school, within its bounds; and from each extremity of its larger and smaller street—for Westbourne had only two—outlying cottages of various names dotted the surrounding fields. The largest of these, and decidedly the handsomest, belonged, as the door-plate set forth, to Mr Harry Phipps Bunting. It had been called Bunting Cottage, ever since the late possessor—after having made what his neighbours esteemed a fortune, by himself keeping the circulating library, and his spouse the boarding-school—built it by way of consolation for the second year of his widowhood, and retired there from business to hold high gentility in his latter days with his only daughter and heiress, Miss Jenny. At least half of Westbourne believed that in the said arrangements Mr Bunting had his eye on a second and somewhat superior match: in short, those good people averred that the handsome cottage was neither more nor less than a substantial snare for Mrs Phipps, the widow of a captain and second-cousin of a baronet, who, with a small annuity and an only son, lived in the odour of great rank and fashion in a neat brick-house at the other end of the village.
But if Mr Bunting had indeed indulged in speculations on the widow's heart, they were cut short by a sudden summons to take the journey on which his early partner had preceded him; and Miss Jenny was left the undisputed heiress of all his gains and gatherings, now amounting to a comfortable sum in a London bank, besides the newly-built cottage. None of the village remembered the time when Miss Jenny was young—not but that there were older ladies in the community, and few who wore their years so well—but a matronly staidnees and industry, a solidity of manner and appearance, had grown so early on the lady, that she had no youth, and scarcely any childhood, in the recollection of her neighbours, and she was now on the shady side of thirty.
Miss Jenny might have had suitors, had her encouragement been more liberal: where is the maiden of fortune who might not? But she had no admirers, though there was not a more popular woman in Westbourne. Time out of mind she was known to have a good advice and a helping-hand for all who required either. The help was always kindly given, and the advice generally judicious: indeed, if Miss Jenny had a weakness, it was the love of direction and counsel-giving; and by that breach the strong citadel of her heart was won. There was no house in Westbourne that gave her abilities half such scope as that of Mrs Captain Phipps—so the lady continued to style herself. Miss Jenny's father had advised there till he departed; after which event, the widow and her son confided in his heiress. Master Harry Phipps was not what would be called a successful young man. He was not either wild or remarkably stupid, as the world goes; his mother knew him to be a dear domestic fellow, who would play the flute or dominos for weeks of evenings in her back-parlour. He had taken one prize at college and sundry at school; had the reputation of being almost a beau, and, at least in Westbourne society, half a wit; and was a tall, fair-faced, lathy young man, dressing well, and looking rather genteel, in spite of an overgrown boyishness which hung about him and kept the Master fastened to his name, though he had left twenty-five behind him. Master Harry had made attempts on law, physic, and divinity, without completing the studies requisite for any of those learned professions; somehow he had always got disgusted when just half-way, and at the time of our tale, had a serious notion of civil engineering. The fates, nevertheless, chalked out another line for Master Harry Phipps. How it first came about the keenest-eared gossips in Westbourne never knew, but the widow's son was observed to become a frequent visitor at the cottage as the days of Miss Jenny's mourning for her father expired. In these expeditions he was occasionally supported by Mrs Captain Phipps, who at length told her confidential friends, and they informed the village, that her son was about to marry, and take the name of Bunting. Some said that Miss Jenny insisted on the latter step as a badge of her perpetual sovereignty; some that it was a provision in her father's will, the old gentleman having been heard to hope that none but Buntings would ever inhabit the cottage; but while they disputed that point the wedding came off with a liberal distribution of cards, cake, and gloves, a breakfast, at which Mrs Captain Phipps presided, and an excursion of three weeks to the Lakes; after which, Mr and Mrs Phipps Bunting, having got a new door-plate, and an additional crest on the spoons, settled down comfortably at home, where our story found them.
There they were duly visited and made due returns, even to their uttermost acquaintance. Evening parties wore got up for their benefit, as Westbourne gentility dictated. A few responses were given at the cottage, and people learned to call them the Buntings. When these occurrences and the talk concerning them were fairly over, it was surprising how little things had altered. Mrs Phipps Bunting superintended everything, from the napery in the drawers to the bee-hives in the garden, with so much of her old and independent activity, that people caught themselves occasionally calling her Miss Jenny. As for her lord, he was Master Harry still. Matrimony made no change in him. On Sundays he dressed himself and went to church with Mrs Phipps Bunting. On week-days, he said he studied, paid little visits, took small excursions, and came home to dinner. Even bachelors agreed that he lived under the mildest form of gynecocracy. Mrs Captain Phipps gave him good advices at the one end of the village, Mrs Phipps Bunting kept him all right at the other; and between them an indescribable amount of nobodyism grew and gathered around him.
Mr Phipps Bunting—as the best bred of his neighbours now endeavoured to call him—was doubtless not less contented than most men in the married state. Miss Jenny—that was—made a noble housekeeper, that was natural to her; she was not given to storms nor temper, nor fault-finding, nor what is called gaiety: they had kind country neighbours; and Mrs Phipps Bunting sometimes spoke of her mother's relatives, who were known to be fine people in London.
There was no appearance of change when the second of their wedded years commenced; but one December morning an extraordinary event occurred at the cottage, for Harry received a letter. It came from Charles Lacy, an old college-friend, whose achievements in the fast line had furnished him with many a joke and tale. He had been till lately a briefless barrister, but had just fallen heir to a neat property in anadjoining county, bequeathed him by a distant relative, his advent to which he intended celebrating with a notable bachelors' party, and Harry's presence was requested, together with that of many a college comrade.
'I think I'll go,' said Harry, in a hesitating tone, as the note was read at the breakfast-table.
'Of course you will, dear,' said Mrs Bunting. 'And now that I think of it; something must be done with that parlour chimney, it smokes so. Just send up the mason on your way to the coach.'
The vehicle thus mentioned was an old stager which passed through Westbourne daily, carrying passengers to sundry of the unrailwayed towns on its track; and within two hours from the receipt of the invitation Mr Phipps Bunting, well wrapped up, and better warned against taking cold, with his best things in a carpet bag and his lady's commands delivered to the mason, took possession of an inside seat on his way to Charles Lacy's domicile.
How the bachelors' party proceeded in that locality, and how the failings of the parlour chimney were corrected at the cottage, imaginative readers may suppose; but on the third day after Harry's departure there arrived a note, stating that his host had invited him to remain a fortnight that they were to have shooting in the fine frosty weather he thought he might stay. Mrs. Phipps Bunting sent her approbation by return of post. There was a colony of rats to be expatriated, a clearing out of the coal cellar to be achieved, and a bottling of cider to get forward, under which considerations she concluded he was better out of the way; but all these things were accomplished, and more than the specified time elapsed, when another note came to say that Lacy positively would not let Harry home without seeing his uncle, the great barrister, who lived in the nearest assize town; and the legal protector of Miss Jenny 'thought he might go on that visit.'
There was a graver and more lengthy reply to that communication; but the fates forbade that Harry should read Mrs Bunting's in time. Charles Lacy's housekeeper had a standing-order to put all letters into a huge card-bracket, which that young gentleman affirmed had been presented to him by an heiress of L.20,000 in her own right; and Mrs Bunting's epistle was placed in the receptacle—for before its arrival Harry had, like an undutiful husband, started with Charles for the house of his uncle. The old barrister, though not one of the brightest, was among the successful of his profession, and kept a hospitable, easy-going house, with a maiden sister and two dashing nephews, in a comfortable English country town, at one end of which was a railway station for the coming and going of London trains. Our Harry had been always an agreeable, commodious fellow. There were no angles on his temper to come in contact with those of other people: rich uncle, maiden aunt, and sporting nephews, all joined in requesting his stay from week to week; while three successive notes were in turn committed to the card-bracket on Charles Lacy's mantelpiece.
'Harry, my boy,' said that gay gentleman, as they stood looking at a passing train, 'what do you say to a run for London? I have another uncle there—a first-rate solicitor in the firm of Grindley, Blackmore, & Co. Ours is a legal family. Grindley and the old hen would be glad to see us; and I'll introduce you to the Blackmores, a delightful mother and four daughters; all charming girls with three thousand a piece. I wish you could only hear Clementina Blackmore singWill you still be true to me?Harry, if ever I am so left to myself as to think of marrying, that's the girl!'
Let us now suppose that a quantity of additional pressing took place—that the nephews offered to go along as Christmas was coming—that Harry sent home another note to say 'he thought he might go'—and that long before it reached the cottage, he was installed at the house of Mr Grindley in London, who, as his nephew promised, divided a capital legal business with his partner Mr Blackmore.
The proverb which says, 'Out of sight out of mind,' was by this time in course of being fulfilled as regarded the good woman at the cottage. In the revival of old associations his college-friend partially forgot that Harry was a family man, and the easy gentleman himself never thought of intruding the circumstance on people's notice. To do him justice, he had a remarkably single look; all his acquaintances called him Harry Phipps. It was therefore no marvel that the unsuspecting household of Blackmore received him as a bachelor.
The papa of it was a hard-witted, busy lawyer; the mamma an excessively fine lady; and the four daughters pretty, accomplished, fashionable-looking girls, from twenty-two—their mamma said seventeen—upwards, who judiciously came out in different lines; for Miss Blackmore was metaphysical, Miss Caroline sentimental, Miss Maria fast, and Miss Clementina musical. Between the last mentioned and Charles Lacy a strong and not discouraged flirtation was in progress, which afforded Harry better than ordinary opportunities for cultivating that domestic circle. It was not every day he would have such a house to call at, and Harry did his best to be popular. He hunted up high-life gossip for Mrs Blackmore; he admired the solicitor's law-stories after dinner; he was the humble servant of all the young ladies in turn, but his chief devoirs were paid to the fast Maria. The reason was that the fast Maria would have it so. She thought him, it is true—as she said once to a confidential friend—a sort of goosey-goosey-gander, but he polked capitally, was a personable fellow—and Maria was a spinster. Christmas was coming, and Harry stood high in favour with all the Blackmores. The senior miss found out that he had a philosophic mind; Miss Caroline said she knew there was a little romance about him—he had been disappointed in first-love or something; and Charles Lacy had an intuitive suspicion that the old people would soon begin to inquire regarding his income and prospects. The idea was excessively amusing, but yet somewhat alarming. He thought Harry was carrying it on too far—he was. Hadn't he better give Clementina a hint? But then Clementina would think he ought to have done so long ago. Charles was puzzled, and he did not like to be puzzled. He would have nothing more to do with it. He would wash his hands of it. How was he obliged to know that they were not aware of Harry's being tied up? The whole thing was really uncomfortable, and he did not like anything that was uncomfortable. He would take Harry to task for his enormity, and then think no more about it. Meditating thus, he entered Mrs Blackmore's drawing-room one forenoon early enough to find mamma and the young ladies hard at Berlin wool—they were finishing Christmas presents—all but Maria, for whose amusement Harry was turning over a volume of sporting prints at a little table by themselves.