CURIOSITIES OF CHESS.

—— 'Auld Coila's plains and fells,Her muirs, red-brown wi' heather-bells,Her banks and braes, her dens and dells,'

live again in the magic of his song. And Horace—with what charming playfulness, with what exquisite grace, has he not figured the olive-groves of Tibur, the pendent vines ruddy with the luscious grape, the silver streams, the sparkling fountains and purple skies of fruitful Campania! Looking on nature with a poet's eye, as did these poets, one and all of them, is it not a psychological mystery that none of them should have detected the ineffable beauty of a sea-prospect?

First, as to Horace. When climbing the heights of Mount Vultur, that Lucanian hill where once, when overcome by fatigue, the youthful poet lay sleeping, and doves covered his childish and wearied limbs with leaves—Horace must have often viewed, with their wide expanse glittering in the sun, the waters of the Adriatic—often must he have hailed the grateful freshness of the sea-breeze and the invigorating perfumes of

—— 'the early sea-smell blownThrough vineyards from some inland bay.'

Yet about this sea, which should have kindled his imagination and inspired his genius, this thankless bard poetises in a vein such as a London citizen, some half-century back, might have indulged in after a long, tedious, 'squally' voyage in an overladen Margate hoy.

No such spirit possessed him as that which dictated poor Campbell's noble apostrophe to the glorious 'world of waters:'

—— 'Earth has not a plainSo boundless or so beautiful as thine;The eagle's vision cannot take it in;The lightning's glance, too weak to sweep its space,Sinks half-way o'er it, like a wearied bird:It is the mirror of the stars, where allTheir hosts within the concave firmament,Gay marching to the music of the spheres,Can see themselves at once.'

Horace, indeed, has sung the praises of Tarentum—that beautiful maritime city of the Calabrian Gulf, whose attractions were such as to makethe delights of Tarentuma common proverbial expression. But what were these delights as celebrated by our poet?—the perfection of its honey, the excellence of its olives, the abundance of its grapes, its lengthened spring and temperate winter. For these, its merits, did Horace prefer, as he tells us, Tarentum to every other spot on the wide earth—his beloved Tibur only and ever excepted. In truth, Horace valued and visited the sea-side only in winter, and then simply because its climate was milder than that to be met with inland, and therefore more agreeable to the dilapidated constitution of a sensitive valetudinarian. His commentators suppose he produced nothing during his marine hybernations: if the inclement season froze 'the genial current of his soul,' the aspect of the sea did not thaw it.

His motive for his sea-side trips is amusingly set forth in one of the most lively and characteristic of his Epistles—the fifteenth of the first book. In this he inquires of a friend what sort of winter weather is to be found at Velia and Salernum; two cities, one on the Adriatic, the other on the Mediterranean seaboard of Italy—what manner of roads they had—whether the people there drank tank-water or spring-water—and whether hares, boars, crabs, and fish were with them abundant. He adds, he is not apprehensive about their wines—knowing these, as we may infer, to be good—although usually, when from home, he is scrupulous about his liquors; whilst, when at home, he can put up almost with anything in the wayof potations. It is quite plain Horace went down to the sea just in the spirit in which a turtle-fed alderman would transfer himself to Cheltenham; or in which a fine lady, whose nerves the crush, hurry, and late hours of a London season had somewhat disturbed, would exchange the dissipations of Mayfair for the breezy hills of Malvern, or the nauseous waters of Tunbridge Wells.

This certainly explains, and perhaps excuses, the grossly uncivil terms in which alone he notices the sea. One of the worst of Ulysses' troubles was, according to him, the numerous and lengthy sea-voyages which that Ithacan gadabout had to take. Horace wishes for Mævius, who was his aversion, no worse luck than a rough passage and shipwreck at the end of it. His notion of a happy man—ille beatus—is one who has not to dread the sea. Augustus, whose success had blessed not only his own country, but the whole world, had—not the least of his blessings—given to the seamen a calmed sea—pacatum mare. Lamenting at Virgil's departure for Athens, he rebukes the impiety of the first mariner who ventured, in the audacity of his heart, to go afloat and cross the briny barrier interposed between nations. He esteems a merchant favoured specially by the gods, should he twice or thrice a year return in safety from an Atlantic cruise. He tells us he himself had known the terrors of 'the dark gulf of the Adriatic,' and had experienced 'the treachery of the western gale;' and expresses a charitable wish, that the enemies of the Roman state were exposed to the delights of both. He likens human misery to a sea 'roughened by gloomy winds;' 'to embark once more on the mighty sea,' is his figurative expression for once more engaging in the toils and troubles of the world; Rome, agitated by the dangers of civil conflict, resembles an ill-formed vessel labouring tempest-tossed in the waves; his implacable Myrtale resembles the angry Adriatic, in which also he finds a likeness to an ill-tempered lover. All through, from first to last, the gentle Horace pelts with most ungentle phrases one of the noblest objects in nature, provocative alike of our admiration and our awe, our terror and our love.

And even Shakspeare must be ranged in the same category. The most English of poets has not one laudatory phrase for

—— 'The seasWhich God hath given for fence impregnable'

to the poet's England. It is idle to say that Shakspeare was inland-bred—that he knew nothing, and could therefore have cared nothing about the matter—seeing that, insensible as he might have been to its beauties, he makes constant reference to the sea, and even in language implying that his familiarity with it was not inferior to that of any yachtsman who has ever sailed out of Cowes Harbour. He uses nautical terms frequently and appropriately. Romeo's rope-ladder is 'the high top-gallant of his joy;' King John, dying of poison, declares 'the tackle of his heart is cracked,' and 'all the shrouds wherewith his life should sail' wasted 'to a thread.' Polonius tells Laertes, 'the wind sits in the shoulder of your sail'—a technical expression, the singular propriety of which a naval critic has recently established; whilst some of the commentators on the passage inKing Lear, descriptive of the prospect from Dover Cliffs, affirm that the comparison as to apparent size, of the ship to her cock-boat, and the cock-boat to a buoy, discover a perfect knowledge of the relative proportions of the objects named. InHamlet,Othello,The Tempest,The Merchant of Venice,The Comedy of Errors,Twelfth Night,Winter's Tale,Measure for Measure, andPericles, sea-storms are made accessory to the development of the plot, and sometimes described with a force and truthfulness which forbid the belief that the writer had never witnessed such scenes: however, like Horace, it is in the darkest colours that Shakspeare uniformly paints 'the multitudinous seas.'

In theWinter's Tale, we read of—

—— 'the fearful usage(Albeit ungentle) of the dreadful Neptune.'

InHenry V., of 'the furrowed sea,' 'the lofty surge,' 'the inconstant billows dancing;' inHenry VI., Queen Margaret finds in the roughness of the English waters a presage of her approaching wo; inRichard III., Clarence's dream figures to us all the horrors of 'the vasty deep;' inHenry VIII., Wolsey indeed speaks of 'a sea of glory,' but also of his shipwreck thereon; inThe Tempestwe read of 'the never surfeited sea,' and of the 'sea-marge sterile and rocky-hard;' in theMidsummer's Night Dream, 'the sea' is 'rude,' and from it the winds 'suck up contagious fogs;'Hamletis as 'mad as the sea and wind;' the violence of Laertes and the insurgent Danes is paralleled to an irruption of the sea, 'overpeering of his list;' in the well-known soliloquy is the expression, 'a sea of troubles,' which, in spite of Pope's suggested and tasteless emendation, commentators have shewn to have been used proverbially by the Greeks, and more than once by Æschylus and Menander. Still, Shakspeare, again like Horace, was not insensible to the merits of sea-air in a sanitary point of view. Dionyza, meditating Marina's murder, bids her take what the Brighton doctor's call 'a constitutional' by the sea-side, adding that—

—— 'the air is quick there,Piercing and sharpens well the stomach.'

As to Burns, his most fervent admirer can scarcely complain when we involve him in the censure to which we have already subjected Horace and Shakspeare. He, too, writes about the sea in such a fashion, that we should hardly have suspected, what is true, that he was born almost within hearing of its waves; that much of his life was passed on its shores or near them, and that at a time of life when external objects most vividly impress themselves on the senses, and exercise the largest influence on the taste.

The genius of 'Old Coila,' in sketching the poet's early life, says—

'I saw thee seek the sounding shore,Delighted with the dashing roar;'

but few tokens of this 'delight' are to be observed in his poetry. He has, indeed, his allusions to 'tumbling billows' and 'surging foam;' to southern climes where 'wild-meeting oceans boil;' to 'life's rough ocean' and 'life's stormy main;' to 'hard-blowing gales;' to the 'raging sea,' 'raging billows,' 'boundless oceans roaring wide,' and the like; but these are the stock-metaphors of every poet, and would be familiar to him even had he never overpassed the frontiers of Bohemia.

One sea-picture, and one alone, is to be found in Burns, and this, it is freely admitted, is exquisite:

'Behold the hour, the boat arrive;Thou goest, thou darling of my heart!Severed from thee, can I survive?But fate has willed, and we must part.I'll often greet this surging swell,Yon distant isle will often hail:E'en here I took the last farewell;There latest marked her vanished sail.Along the solitary shore,While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,Across the rolling, dashing roar,I'll westward turn my wistful eye:Happy thou Indian grove, I'll say,Where now my Nancy's path may be!While through thy sweets she loves to stray,Oh! tell me, does she muse on me?'

Along the solitary shore,While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,Across the rolling, dashing roar,I'll westward turn my wistful eye:Happy thou Indian grove, I'll say,Where now my Nancy's path may be!While through thy sweets she loves to stray,Oh! tell me, does she muse on me?'

This charming lyric, the pathetic tenderness of which commends it to every feeling heart, is all that Burns has left in evidence that the sea had to him, at least, one poetic aspect.

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Morehas perhaps been written about chess-playing than any other of the games which human ingenuity has invented for recreative purposes, and it is not easy to foresee the time when dissertation or discovery on the subject shall be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Scarcely a year passes that does not add something to our knowledge of the history of the royal game; and among the latest additions, the able paper by Mr Bland, published in theJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society, is not the least deserving of notice. It contains many curious particulars and remarks, interspersed in its dry and technical narrative, sufficient to form a page or two of pleasant reading for those—and they are not few—to whom chess is interesting.

We must premise that Mr Bland takes three but little-known Oriental manuscripts as the groundwork of his observations; one of them, in the Persian character, is said to be 'probably unique,' though, unfortunately, very imperfect. It bears no date or author's name, these being lost with the missing portions, but the treatise itself contains internal evidence of very high antiquity. The author, whoever he was, tells us that he had travelled much through Persia and the adjacent countries, from the age of fifteen until the middle period of life, during which he gained the knowledge and experience which enabled him to write his book. Besides which, he measured his strength with many masters of the art of chess-playing, adding on each occasion to his reputation as a conqueror: 'and whereas,' as he relates, 'the greater number of professors were deficient in the art of playing without looking at the board, I myself played so against four adversaries at once, and at the same time against another opponent in the usual manner, and, by divine favour, won all the games.' Here, singularly enough, we find a Persian Staunton making himself famous perhaps long before Norman William thought of invading Britain—so true it is, that in mere intellectual achievements we have scarcely surpassed bygone generations. He, the Persian, evidently entertained a comfortable idea of his own abilities; for he boasts largely of the improvements and new moves or positions which he has introduced into the game. He disputes, too, the authenticity of the belief, that chess was originally invented in India, and that it was first introduced into Persia in the sixth century of our era by a physician, whom Nushirwan had sent to seek for the work known as Pilpay's Fables. On the contrary, he contends that chess, in its original and most developed form, is purely a Persian invention, and that the modern game is but an abridgment of the ancient one. In how far this statement is borne out by the fact, we have at present no means of knowing; and until some more complete manuscript or other work shall be brought to light which may supply the want, we must rest content with the account familiar to most readers—that chess was invented by an Indian physician for the diversion of the monarch, his master, and the reward claimed in grains of corn, beginning with one grain on the first square of the board, and doubling the number in regularly increasing progression up to the last.

We may here briefly state what the ancient, or, as it is commonly called in the East, 'Timour's Game,' was. It required a board with 110 squares and 56 men—almost as many again as are used in modern chess—and the moves were extremely complicated and difficult to learn. The rectangularity of the board was interrupted by four lateral squares, which served as a fort, or special point of defence for the king, whose powers, as well as those of the other pieces, were in many respects different from those at present known. 'Timour's mind,' we are told, 'was too exalted to play at the Little Chess, and therefore he played only at the Great Chess, on a board of ten squares by eleven, with the addition of two camels, two zarafahs,' and other pieces, with Persian designations.

Next we come to a complete chapter, entitled the 'Ten Advantages of Chess,' in which the views and reasonings are eminently Oriental and characteristic. The first explains that food and exercise are good for the mind as well as for the body, and that chess is a most excellent means for quickening the intellect, and enabling it to gain knowledge. 'For the glory of man is knowledge, and chess is the nourishment of the mind, the solace of the spirit, the polisher of intelligence, the bright sun of understanding, and has been preferred by the philosopher, its inventor, to all other means by which we arrive at wisdom.' The second advantage is in the promotion and cultivation of religion; predestination and free-will are both exemplified—the player being able to move where he will, yet always in obedience to certain laws. 'Whereas,' says the writer, 'Nerd—that is, Eastern backgammon—on the contrary, is mere free-will, while in dice, again, all is compulsion.' The third and fourth advantages relate to government and war; and the fifth to astronomy, illustrating its several phenomena as shewn by the text, according to which 'the board represents the heavens, in which the squares are the celestial houses, and the pieces, stars. The superior pieces are likened to the moving stars; and the pawns, which have only one movement, to the fixed stars. The king is as the sun, and the wazir in place of the moon, and the elephants and taliah in the place of Saturn, and the rukhs and dabbabah in that of Mars, and the horses and camel in that of Jupiter, and the ferzin and zarafah in that of Venus; and all these pieces have their accidents, corresponding with the trines and quadrates, and conjunction and opposition, and ascendancy and decline—such as the heavenly bodies have; and the eclipse of the sun is figured by shah caim or stale mate;' and much more to the same purport. We question whether the astronomer-royal ever suspected he was illustrating his own science when engaged in one of his quiet games of chess with the master of trinity.

The sixth advantage is somewhat astrological in character: as there are four principal movements of chess, these answer to the four physical temperaments, Cold, Warm, Dry, and Wet, which are ruled by their respective planets; and thus each piece on the board is made to have its peculiar significance in relation with the stars. It is further shewn, that chess-playing is remedial against many of the lesser bodily ailments; 'and no illness is more grievous than hunger and thirst, yet both of these, when the mind is engaged in chess, are no longer thought of.' Next in order, the seventh advantage, is 'in obtaining repose for the soul;' as the author observes: 'The soul hath illnesses like as the body hath, and the cure of these last is known; but of the soul's illness there be also many kinds, and of these I will mention a few.' These are ignorance, disobedience, haste, cunning, avarice, tyranny, lying, pride, deceit, and envy. Deceit is said to be of two kinds: that which deceives others, and that which deceives ourselves. But of all evils, ignorance is the greatest; 'for it is the soul's death, as learning is its life; and for this disease is chess an especial cure, since there is no way by which men arrive more speedily at knowledge and wisdom; and in like manner, by its practice, all the faults which form the diseases of the soul are converted into their corresponding virtues.' It is not to be doubted that chess-playing may keep individuals out of mischief; but, whatever may have been the case in ancient times, wedo not hear of its transforming vicious characters into virtuous ones in our days.

The eighth advantage is social, inasmuch as it brings men of different degrees together, and promotes their intimacy and friendship; and 'advantage the ninth, is in wisdom and knowledge, and that wise men do play chess; and to those who object that foolish men also play chess, and, though constantly engaged in it, become no wiser, it may be answered, that the distinction between wise and foolish men in playing chess, is as that of man and beast in eating of the tree—that the man chooses its ripe and sweet fruit, while the beast eats but the leaves and branches, and the unripe and bitter fruit; and so it is with players at chess—the wise man plays for those virtues and advantages which have been already mentioned, and the foolish man plays it but for mere sport and gambling, and regards not its advantages and virtues. This is the condition of the wise man and foolish man in playing chess.' From this it seems a descent to the tenth advantage, which is, that chess combines war with sport; and pleasant allegories are made subservient to the inculcation of sound truths and important principles.

Next comes an explanation of the mode in which Great Chess was played, with the nature and value of the various moves. Among the hard technicalities with which it abounds, the writer takes occasion to condemn the practice of giving a different value to the piece which may have reached the end of the board; 'for,' as he says, 'what is more natural or just than that men should occupy the station of their predecessors, and that the son of a king should become a king, and a general's son attain the rank of a general.' An instance of rigid caste-law carried into a harmless recreation.

In another manuscript, chess is shewn to have something to do with a man's fortunes: he who could watch a game without speaking, was held to be discreet, and qualified for a government office. And conquerors are enjoined not to boast of their success; not to say, even if such be the case, that they have won all the games, but that they have 'won some.' Exemplary virtue is not, however, claimed for chess-players, as in the former instance, for some are said to be continually 'swearing false oaths, and making many vain excuses;' and again, 'You never see a chess-player rich, who is not a sordid miser, nor hear a squabbling that is not a question of the chess-board.' On the other hand, there were 'rules of politeness in chess,' which it behoved all persons to follow:—'He who is lowest in rank is to spread the board, and pour out the men on it, and then wait patiently till his superior has made his choice; then he who is inferior may take his own men, and place all of them except the king, and when the senior in rank has placed his own king, he may also place his opposite to it.' During the game, 'all foolish talk and ribaldry' is to be avoided, and onlookers are 'to keep silence, and to abstain from remarks and advice to the players;' and an inferior, when playing with a superior, is enjoined to exert his utmost skill, and not 'underplay himself that his senior may win'—an observation which what is called the 'flunkey class' might remember with advantage. And further, chess is not to be played 'when the mind is engaged with other objects, nor when the stomach is full after a meal, neither when overcome by hunger, nor on the day of taking a bath; nor, in general, while suffering under any pain, bodily or mental.'

Chess-playing without looking at the board, now taught by professors, and supposed to be a comparatively modern art, was, as we have seen above, known and practised many centuries ago; and among the instructions last quoted are those for playing the 'blindfold-game.' The player is 'to picture to himself the board as divided first into two opposite sides, and then each side into halves, those of the king and the queen, so that when his naib, or deputy, announces that 'such a knight has been played to the second of the queen's rook,' or 'the queen to the king's bishop's third,' he may immediately understand its effect on the position of the game. This mode of playing, however, is not recommended to those who do not possess a powerful memory, with great reflection and perseverance, 'without which no man can play blindfold.' These, with other instructions, are followed by the author's remark, 'that some have arrived to such a degree of perfection as to have played blindfold at four or five boards at a time, nor to have made a mistake in any of the games, and to have recited poetry during the match;' and he adds: 'I have seen it written in a book, that a certain person played in this manner at ten boards at once, and gained all the games, and even corrected his adversaries when a mistake was made.'

Besides their conventional value, the pieces had a money value, which was essential to be known by all who desired to win. The rook and knight were estimated at about sixpence each; the queen, threepence; the pawns, three-halfpence; and the 'side-pawns,' three farthings. The value of bishops varied, while the king was beyond all price. The regulations respecting odds were also well defined, in degrees from a single pawn up to a knight and rook; but any one claiming the latter odds was held not 'to count as a chess-player.' And it was not unusual for works on chess to contain puzzling problems, representations of drawn games, and well-combined positions. Some authors describe five different kinds of chess: one had 10 × 10, or 100 squares; another was oblong, 16 × 4, which employed dice as well as the usual pieces; another board was circular, with a central spot for the king, where he could intrench himself in safety; another represented the zodiac, with spaces for each planet, according to the number of houses or mansions assigned by astrologers. The ingenuity did not end here: chess was made to illustrate dreams, and to embellish many amusing games and recreations. Odes and poems were written upon it, and the poets at times exhibited their skill in a play upon words—for instance:

'When my beloved learnt the chess-play of cruelty,In the very beginning of the game her sweet cheek(rukh) took my heart captive.'

It served also to point riddles, some of which exhibit remarkable ingenuity, as shewn by the following example, where the name of Mohammed is enigmatically embodied. It is thus rendered:

'The vow of Moses twice repeat;The principles of life and heat;The squares of chess, in order due,Must take their place between these two;When thus arranged, a name appears,Which every Muslim heart reveres.'

The solution, as given by a reverend ulema of Constantinople to a learned German who could not solve the mystery, is: 'Take the "vow of Moses," which is 40; double it, and it becomes 80, equivalent to the two Mims in the name Muhammed. Place under these the bases of the temperaments—that is, the elements—which are four (the power of the letter D); then take the number of the houses (or squares) of chess, which are eight in a row, and place it (8 being equal to the letter H) between the two Ms, and you have the name of the prophet, Muhammed (MHMD.')

'It has been necessary,' observes Mr Bland, 'to turn the Arabic commentary a little, in order to make the solution more intelligible to those unacquainted with the trick of Eastern riddles. Some further explanation is also required to illustrate the solution itself. The vow of Moses refers to his forty days' fast; the four temperaments—the bile, the atrabile, phlegm, and blood—are represented in the Arabian system of physicsby the four elements, which are considered to be connected with them; the figures refer to the numerical power of theabjad, or alphabet; and the enigma itself has been attributed, though on uncertain grounds, to Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet.'

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Underthis title has lately been produced a novelty in our literature, the memoirs of an eminent commercial man.[2]Samuel Budgett died in May 1851, at the age of fifty-seven. Though starting in life without capital or credit, he had, by the sheer exercise of his own innate qualities, risen to the head of one of the most colossalconcernsin England. Had he been merely a clever bargainer, and a skilful organiser of business arrangements, there might have been some value in his memoirs, as a guidance to young mercantile aspirants; but Budgett was something more than all this, and his biography serves the far higher purpose of shewing how a man may be at once a most adroit merchandiser, and a man of liberal practice, and a true lover of his kind. Let it not be supposed that he was asoftman, who had prospered through some lucky accident. He really was a thorough-paced follower of the maxim which recommends buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market: he was reputed askeenin business. But he was also kind-hearted and high-principled, and it is this union of remarkable qualities which gives his memoirs their best value.

Mr Budgett was a general provision-merchant at Bristol, with also a large warehouse at Kingswood Hill, where his private residence was. His biographer presents him as he came daily into town to attend to business. 'You might have often seen driving into Bristol, a man under the middle size, verging towards sixty, wrapped up in a coat of deep olive, with gray hair, an open countenance, a quick brown eye, and an air less expressive of polish than of push. He drives a phaeton, with a first-rate horse, at full speed. He looks as if he had work to do, and had the art of doing it. On the way, he overtakes a woman carrying a bundle. In an instant, the horse is reined up by her side, and a voice of contagious promptitude tells her to put up her bundle and mount. The voice communicates to the astonished pedestrian its own energy. She is forthwith seated, and away dashes the phaeton. In a few minutes, the stranger is deposited in Bristol, with the present of some pretty little book, and the phaeton hastes on to Nelson Street. There it turns into the archway of an immense warehouse. "Here, boy; take my horse, take my horse!" It is the voice of the head of the firm. The boy flies. The master passes through the offices as if he had three days' work to do. Yet his eye notes everything. He reaches his private office. He takes from his pocket a memorandum-book, on which he has set down, in order, the duties of the day. A boy waits at the door. He glances at his book, and orders the boy to call a clerk. The clerk is there promptly, and receives his instructions in a moment. "Now, what is the next thing?" asks the master, glancing at his memorandum. Again the boy is on the wing, and another clerk appears. He is soon dismissed. "Now, what is the next thing?" again looking at the memorandum. At the call of the messenger, a young man now approaches the office door. He is a "traveller;" but notwithstanding the habitual push and self-possession of his class, he evidently is approaching his employer with reluctance and embarrassment. He almost pauses at the entrance. And now that he is face to face with the strict man of business, he feels much confused.

"Well, what's the matter? I understand you can't make your cash quite right."

"No, sir."

"How much are you short?"

"Eight pounds, sir."

"Never mind; I am quite sure you have done what is right and honourable. It is some mistake; and you won't let it happen again. Take this and make your account straight."

'The young man takes the proffered paper. He sees an order for ten pounds; and retires as full of admiration as he had approached full of anxiety.

"Now, what is the next thing?" This time a porter is summoned. He comes forward as if he expected rebuke. "Oh! I have got such a complaint reported against you. You know that will never do. You must not let that occur again."

'Thus, with incredible dispatch, matter after matter is settled, and all who leave that office go to their work as if some one had oiled all their joints.

'At another time, you find the master passing through the warehouse. Here, his quick glance descries a man who is moving drowsily, and he says a sharp word that makes him, in a moment, nimble. There, he sees another blundering at his work. He had no idea that the master's eye was upon him, till he finds himself suddenly supplanted at the job. In a trice, it is done; and his master leaves him to digest the stimulant. Now, a man comes up to tell him of some plan he has in his mind, for improving something in his own department of the business. "Yes, thank you, that's a good idea;" and putting half-a-crown into his hand, he passes on. In another place he finds a man idling. You can soon see, that of all spectacles this is the one least to his mind. "If you waste five minutes, that is not much; but probably if you waste five minutes yourself, you lead some one else to waste five minutes, and that makes ten. If a third follow your example, that makes a quarter of an hour. Now, there are about a hundred and eighty of us here; and if every one wasted five minutes in a day, what would it come to? Let me see. Why, it would be fifteen hours; and fifteen hours a day would be ninety hours—about eight days, working-time, in a week; and in a year, would be four hundred days. Do you think we could ever stand waste like that?" The poor loiterer is utterly confounded. He had no idea of eating up fifteen hours, much less four hundred days, of his good employer's time; and he never saw before how fast five minutes could be multiplied.'

Mr Budgett was the son of a worthy couple, not exactly in poor, but in rather difficult circumstances. He had little school education; but his mother gave him a good religious training. From his earliest intelligent years, he loved traffic. His first transaction was getting a penny for a horse-shoe which he had found. Discovering that for a half-penny he got six marbles, but for a penny fourteen, he bought pennyworths and sold them in half-pennyworths to his companions, thus realising a profit. Meeting an old woman with a basket of cucumbers, he bought them, and by selling them again, realised ninepence. Truly in his case the boy was father to the man. But, what was notable in him, he would give away his accumulated profits all at once, in the purchase of a hymn-book, or for the relief of some poor person. Even then, it was not for sordid or selfish ends that he trafficked. In these early years, his singular tact also came out. 'I remember,' he said, 'about 1806 or 1807, a young man called on my mother, from Mr D—— of Shepton, to solicit orders in the grocery trade. His introduction and mode of treating my mother were narrowly watched by me, particularly when she asked the price of several articles. On going in to my father, she remarked, there would be no advantage in dealing with Mr D——, as she could not see that his prices were anylower than those she was in the habit of giving. I slipped aside, and began to think: "Why, that young man might have got my mother's trade, if he had known how; if, instead of mentioning so many articles, he had just offered one or two at a lower price than we have been in the habit of giving, she would have been induced to try those articles; and thus he would have been introduced, most likely, to her whole trade: beside, his manner was rather loose, and not of the most modest and attractive kind." I believe the practical lesson then learned has, since that, been worth to me thousands of pounds—namely, Self-interest is the mainspring of human actions: you have only to lay before persons, in a strong light, that what you propose is to their own interest, and you will generally accomplish your purpose.' There are certainly few boys of twelve years who would have caught up such an idea as this from so common-place a circumstance.

By the time he was fourteen, he had realised thirty pounds by private barter. He gave the money to help his parents. When put as apprentice to an elder brother, a grocer in Kingswood Hill, it might have been expected that he would speedily distinguish himself; and so he might have done as far as intellect was concerned; but, unluckily, his strength was at first inadequate for his duties, and his brother actually sent him away as hopeless. With great difficulty, he made his way into another trader's employment, and there he gave entire satisfaction. His brother, then, reclaimed him, and though offered a higher salary where he was, he returned to serve out his time. Long before that period had arrived, he was beginning to soar above retail business. 'The markets were well watched, every advantage of time or change turned to account, and his singular power of cheap buying exerted with all vigour. The trade steadily grew; every now and then those in their own line were surprised at the sales they were able to make, and the neighbourhood resounded with the news of the great bargains to be had at Budgett's. As custom increased, so did envy and accusation. Many scrupled not to declare, that they sold cheaper than they bought, and therefore must soon come to an end; yet they went on, year by year, in steady and rapid increase.... He already seemed to descry in the distance the possibility of a great wholesale establishment; but this must be reached by little and little. He would not attempt what he could not accomplish. Any sudden bound, therefore, by which he was at once to pass the gulf now separating him from his object, was not to be thought of. A little at a time; secure what you have, work it well, make it fruitful, and then push on a little farther; but never stretch out to anything new till all the old is perfectly cultivated.'

The brother, who was fifteen years his senior, and a man of ordinary character, was borne on by the towering genius of Samuel the apprentice. 'Among the customers of the shop were numbers of good women, who came from villages at a few miles' distance, mounted on donkeys. As the flow of purchasers was great, a crowd of these patient steeds would often be for a long time about the door, while their respective mistresses were obtaining goods. In this concourse from a distance, the quick eye of Samuel discovered the germ of an extended trade. Why should he not go into their neighbourhood regularly, and obtain their orders; so securing their custom always, and affording them accommodation, while he obtained new chances of extension? His brother was much more inclined to pursue the regular course than to branch into anything new; and the caution of the one probably acted as a useful counterbalance to the energy of the other. But Samuel was not to be held within the shop-walls: he had his plans for erecting a great business, and no power could restrain him. He soon set forth to the villages of Doynton and Pucklechurch, and arranged to meet the good folks at fixed times, in one house or another convenient for them, and there to receive their orders. He made himself their friend: he was hearty, familiar, and in earnest; he noticed their children; he knew their ways; and he rapidly gained their favour, and effected considerable sales.'

'This point gained, he began to talk of supplying the smaller shops. "Why should not we supply them as well as other people?" His brother shrank from anything that seemed to approach the wholesale. He feared that they would get beyond their means, and wished to pursue only the old course. Samuel could wait, but he could not surrender. Supply the smaller shops he would, and by degrees he managed to accomplish it. Very gradually, the range of this quasi-wholesale trade extended. Firmly keeping to his purpose of working all he had got, and going on little by little, he made no abrupt enterprise—no great dash; but on, on he plodded in the humblest way, caring nothing for show, but careful that every foot of ground under him was solid. He gradually began to make a modest sort of commercial journey; and among tradesmen to whom he would not venture to offer the higher articles of grocery, raised a considerable trade in such descriptions of goods as he might supply without seeming to push into too important a sphere.'

Having made a lucky purchase of butter, Samuel went amongst traders of his own kind for orders, and at first met with little but contempt. He persevered, nevertheless, and in a little time made his way. By little and little his house, of which he became a partner, acquired a footing, and began to be talked of as a kind of prodigy for a village. The leading principle followed, was to do business entirely by ready-money, in buying as in selling. A wonder may be felt how Mr Budgett contrived, with no advantage of capital at starting, to act upon this rule. The plan is simple, and may be easily followed. Let the transactions be in a proper proportion to the means. It looks a slow plan; but, in reality, by securing an exemption from pecuniary embarrassment, it allows a business, other circumstances being equal, to go on faster than might otherwise be the case. Mr Budgett could accept small profits on his ready-money transactions, and by their frequency, outstrip heavier-pursed but also heavier-minded men.

The leading maxims of Samuel Budgett in business were—Tact,Push, andPrinciple. In the two former, he was a great genius, and much he no doubt was indebted to them. Yet we are inclined to think that Principle had the chief hand in his success. He was entirely a just man. He would rebuke a young salesman more severely for a slight inequality in his weighing-scales against the public, than for a neglect of his duty. It was a custom of grocers to mix up pepper with an article called P.D. Mr Budgett long kept a cask of P.D.; but at length, reflecting seriously on it one evening, he went to the shop, re-opened it, took out the hypocritical cask to a neighbouring quarry, and there staved it, scattering the P.D. amongst the clods, and slags, and stones; after which he returned with a light heart to bed. There was also a benevolence at the bottom of all Mr Budgett's proceedings as a man of business. It appeared strongly in his relations to his subalterns and working-people. Though a strict disciplinarian, and not to be imposed upon in anything, he was so humane and liberal towards all around him, that they served him as much from love as duty. He has discharged men for misconduct or disloyalty, and afterwards pensioned their families till they got other employment. His liberality in supporting charitable institutions, and relieving private cases of distress, knew hardly any bounds; but, at a fair computation, it has been estimated at about L.2000 a year.

Observing one of his men looking for some time very melancholy, he called him up, and inquired into the cause. 'The sickness of his wife had entangledhim in debt; he could not eat, he could not sleep; his life was a misery to him, and he had exclaimed with a pathos that sunk deep into my dear relative's tender heart: "Master, I am in debt; every time I go near the river, something bids me fling myself into it, telling me there's water enough to rid me of all my troubles; and that if I don't, I shall be sent into the prison there for debt!"

'Deeply affected, he inquired of the poor man the names of his creditors, the amount of their respective claims, and the peculiar circumstances which had led to the contraction of each liability. Having ascertained these particulars, and perfectly satisfied himself that the man had not forgotten the precept of the society of which he was a member—"Not to contract debt without at least a reasonable prospect of discharging it"—he asked him whether freedom from these liabilities would restore to him peace of mind. The question was answered by a sort of sickly smile, which seemed to indicate a perfect despair of such a consummation. "Well, come," said the master, "I don't think things are quite so bad, ——, as they appear to be to you. See here, my poor fellow, you owe —— pounds: it's a very large sum for a man like you, to be sure; and if you had run into debt to anything like this amount through extravagance, or even thoughtlessness, I should have regarded it as an act of dishonesty on your part, and Imighthave felt it right to discharge you. But you are to be pitied, and not to be blamed. Cold pity alone goes for nothing, so let us see how you can be helped out of your troubles. Now, do you think your creditors, considering all the circumstances, would take one-half, and be satisfied? Here's Dr Edwards—his bill is the heaviest; if we can get him to take one-half"——

"One-half, master!" exclaimed the poor man, "but if theywouldtake half, where's the money to come from? I 'arn't got a shilling in the world but what's coming to me Friday night; and when I take my wages now, I 'arn't any pleasure in looking at the money, because it 'arn't my own; it should go to pay my debts, and I'm obliged to use it to buy victuals. I think in my heart I shall ne'er be happy again."

'Still more sensibly affected by the poor man's manner the longer the interview lasted, my kind-hearted relative begged him not to distress himself any more; he said that a Friend of his had given him a sum that was quite equal to one-half his debts, bade him return to his work, order a horse to be put into harness as he passed through the yard, and brought round in ten minutes; and told him to be sure to make himself as happy as he could till he saw him again. He immediately drove round to every creditor the poor man had, compounded with them for their respective claims, and obtained their receipts in full discharge. On his return, the poor man's stare of bewilderment was indescribable. He watched his master unfold the receipts one by one without uttering a syllable; and when they were put into his hand, he clutched them with a sort of convulsive grasp, but still not a word escaped him. At length he exclaimed: "But, master, where's the money come from?"

"Never do you mind that, ——," was the reply; "go home, and tell your wife you are out of debt; you are an independent man. I only hope the creditors have felt something of the satisfaction in forgiving you one-half your debt to them, that we know God feels in forgiving our debts to him for Christ's sake: I have said that much to all of them."

'But the puzzling question had not yet been answered, and again it was put: "But, master, where's the money come from?"

"Well, well, I told you afriendhad given it to me for you.Youknow that Friend as well as I do. There now, you may leave your work for to-day: go home to your wife, and thank that Friend together for making you an independent man. But stay, ——, I had almost forgotten one thing. I called to see Mr P—— as I drove through Stoke's Croft; I told him the errand that had carried me away from home all day, and he gave me a sovereign for you to begin the world with."

'The poor fellow was too much affected to say anything more. The next morning, however, he appeared again, but after a most complete failure in a valorous attempt he made to express his thanks, he was obliged to leave the counting-house, stammering out that "both he and his wife felt their hearts to be as light as a feather."'

Mr Budgett was, by family connection, a Wesleyan, and at all periods of his life under a strong sense of religion. He had even acted as a lay-preacher. It was his custom to have all the people of his establishment assembled for religious exercises every morning before proceeding to business. He was active as a Sunday-school teacher, and assisted with his purse and his own active exertions in every effort to Christianise the rude people of Kingswood. When he became a highly-prosperous man, he had a good country-house and a handsome establishment; but wealth and its refinements never withdrew him from familiar personal intercourse with his people. Neither did it ever in the least alienate him from his many humble relations. His conduct, indeed, in all these respects was admirable, and well entitled him to be, what he was, the most revered man of his neighbourhood and kindred. At his death, the expression of mourning was widely spread, as if the whole population had felt in his loss the loss of a friend.

The volume which supplies us with these particulars and extracts, is a very interesting one; yet we could wish to see it abridged of some portion of the long episodes, in the style of pulpit discourses, with which the author has thought proper to expand it. If properly condensed, and the details of the life presented given perhaps in somewhat better order, so as to explain more clearly the steps of Mr Budgett's rise as a merchant, the work might become avade-mecumfor the young man of business, exhibiting to him a model of character and conduct such as could not but exercise a good influence over his future career.

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