FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[2]Report of British Association, 1851. Pp. 120-122.

[2]Report of British Association, 1851. Pp. 120-122.

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Owingto our constant intercourse with India, there are few among us who are unacquainted with the word ayah. Some who live in London or its neighbourhood may perhaps have occasionally met with one of these sable guardian spirits, conducting one or more pale, precocious-looking little children to their British friends; or they may even have fallen in with a group of the tribe in Kensington Gardens, or other public promenades, escorting their littlebâbâs, and herding together, like birds of a feather, attracted by the bonds and recollections of colour, climate, caste, and language.

Ayah, in the mouth of a lisping baby, is one of the prettiest words of the East, and is learned as soon as papa and mamma, being equally easy of articulation. The origin of the word is probably either Portuguese or Spanish (aya), although it has now become common to all classes, Christians, Mohammedans, and Hindoos alike. The Hindostanee word for nurse ismāmă-jee, ordaee; the Bengalee,doodoo, ordye.

The ayah is frequently a fixture of long standing in a family, descending from mother to daughter; and when this is the case, she is no doubt a valuable possession, and is consulted in all the momentous matters connected with the nursery. However, at the birth of the first baby, she is of course spick-and-span new; and in comes the dusky stranger, all pride and expectation, all hope and joy. It is fortunate that there is no difference in young babies—that the one is as ugly a little thing as the other—and so she is not disappointed: on the contrary, she sees with one glance of her dark glittering eyes, which have their source of sensation in her woman's heart, a thousand charms that distinguishherbâbâ from all the other babies in the universe. With something akin to a mother's feelings, she takes the infant in her arms, which seems incontinent to become a part of herself, lying all day on herknees, and sleeping all night in her bosom; and from that moment the nurse, the child, and the paun-box are always together.

As the ayah is exclusively attached to the nursery, and has nothing to do with household affairs or the laying out of money, she is generally a favourite with the other servants, who seem to look upon her as holding an intermediate station between them and the mistress. Should any of them require leave of absence, for the purpose of attending a funeral or a wedding, he applies first to the ayah; or if a little tea is wanted for a sick wife or mother, through her also he obtains the simple, though to him expensive, restorative. If a pedler comes to the door with his box and bundles, he looks up, and spying the ayah in the veranda or at the window, he calls out: 'Is anything wanted for Mem-Sahib or the bâbâs? Tell the lady I have beautiful things to shew.' Away trips the ayah to her mistress, and good-naturedly, or perhaps—no, itshallbe good-naturedly—lays the discovery before her that some trifle is wanted. The man is called in, and succeeds in disposing of some of his wares, ribbons, laces, or silks; and the ayah, besides having obliged the lady and the pedler, enjoys a small modicum of satisfaction herself—who would grudge it?—in pocketing thedustôôree—a discount of two pice, or half an anna on each rupee.

There are ayahs of various castes. The Portuguese ayahs (Roman Catholic Christians, born in the country) are no doubt the most intelligent and useful; but they are more expensive than the Mussulman and Lall Beggies, and are therefore not so frequently employed: indeed, it is only in the neighbourhood of Calcutta that they are procurable at all. As the Hindostanee women neither knit nor sew, they seem to devote their energies exclusively to their infant charge. The bâbâ is their work and their play, the exercise of their thoughts, the substance of their dreams. He is the only book they read; and the only expansion their minds know is from the unfolding of the pages of his character. They are proud of that bâbâ, and proud of themselves for being his. What a sight it is, the ayah coming in at the dessert, in her rustling silks and transparent muslins—so stately in her humility, so smilingly self-satisfied—surrounded by the children, and holding in her dark, smooth, jewelled arms the son and heir of the family, whom she presents to papa to get a bit of cake or sweetmeat!

This is a grand moment for the ayah. Are not the childrenhers? Have they not lain upon her bosom all their little lives? And have not the charms which she detected with the first glance of her glittering eye, been developed under her care into the marvels now before the company? But the more tranquil and permanent happiness of the ayah is enjoyed while she is watching alone the opening of her buds of beauty, and steeping their slumbering senses in the sweet wild music of her country. I still sometimes hear in fancy her cradle-song humming in my own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleep—although many a long year has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own strong Anglo-Saxon tongue, from the musical, melting Hindostanee:—

Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!Thy faithful slave is watching near.The cradle wherein my babe I fondle,Is made of the rare and bright-red sandal;[3]And the string with which I am rocking my lord,Is a gay and glittering silken cord.Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!Thy faithful slave is watching near.Thy father, my dear, is the jemadarOf a province which stretches wide and far;And his brother, my child, is a moonsif great,Who ruleth o'er many a ryot's fate.Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!Thy faithful slave is watching near.Thy mother of hearts is the powerful queen,The loveliest lady that ever was seen;And there ne'er was slave more faithful, I trow,Than she who is rocking thy cradle now.

Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!Thy faithful slave is watching near.Thy father, my dear, is the jemadarOf a province which stretches wide and far;And his brother, my child, is a moonsif great,Who ruleth o'er many a ryot's fate.

Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!Thy faithful slave is watching near.Thy mother of hearts is the powerful queen,The loveliest lady that ever was seen;And there ne'er was slave more faithful, I trow,Than she who is rocking thy cradle now.

I have said that our ayah sometimes comes home with her charges—comes to our home from her own. It is a bad exchange. She awakes slowly from her dream, as she sees the rosy cheeks, full pouting lips, and round wondering eyes, that are turned upon the dark stranger and her pale, thin, little ones. The comparison is painful; these cherub children have no sympathy with the lonely Hindoo; and the servants of the house, although awed at first by her foreign aspect, and calm, stately air, have no permanent respect for one who ranks neither with their superiors nor with themselves. The climate, too, is as chilling as the manners around her; her heretofore bâbâs are lords to nobody but herself; and so, with one thing and another, she grows home-sick, her heart yearns for her own sunny land, and she is glad—sorrowfully glad—when at last the announcement is made, that an ayah wants to go back to India with a family.

And in India once more, what then? Why then, the great ocean is between her and her fledged nurslings, and she looks round for some new objects of love and devotion. These she probably finds in another home, another mistress, another bâbâ; her heart begins its course anew; and the ayah lives a second life in the young lives of her children. No joyless existence is hers, no cares without ample compensations; but yet when I see in my own country one of these solitary, strangely-attired, dark-skinned women, I feel attracted towards her by an almost tearful sympathy, and have ever a kind look and a warm, gentle word for the poor ayah.

FOOTNOTES:[3]The red sandal-wood is more rare and valuable than the yellow.

[3]The red sandal-wood is more rare and valuable than the yellow.

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Theinvestment of small savings in land with a view to spade-husbandry, was a few years ago brought prominently before the working-classes. We took occasion, at the time, to warn the humbler classes generally against projects of this kind, but without any beneficial effect. Land-schemes, as they were called, were puffed into popularity, and all our advices and remonstrances on the subject were rejected with disdain. Universal ruin has followed these schemes, and the unfortunate dupes are left to mourn their loss. Nothing is more specious than a plan of earning an independent livelihood by cultivating a few acres of land; but, practically, it is open to some serious drawbacks. First, the cultivator requires to be skilled in husbandry, and of a bodily frame to endure the fatigue of constant out-door labour. Second, his land must be tolerably good, and situated under a good climate. Third, the land must be close to a market, otherwise the produce cannot be disposed of. The cultivation of a small bit of land is in reality a kind of gardening. No horse-labour can be employed; all is to be done by the spade. It may be possible, therefore, to make a livelihood near a large town, where anything that is produced—milk and butter included—will find a ready market at no cost of transport; but in other circumstances the thing is almost hopeless. Itis a notorious fact, that the most wretched of the rural population of this country are small cultivators, even if the land costs next to nothing. We are aware that the small-farm system is more successful in Belgium and Lombardy. On the reasons for this, it is here needless to enter. We take the examples offered in Great Britain, where it has never come up to the expectations of philanthropists.

The purchase of forty-shilling freeholds has lately been put forward as a method of investing money by the working-classes. It is beyond our province to speak of the political aims of this form of investment. We can recognise a certain good in giving to a working-man the feeling, that he is the proprietor of a house or small portion of land yielding (along with the franchise in England) a rent of forty shillings per annum; but, at the same time, we recognise a corresponding evil, and we should be shrinking from our duty if we did not mention it in distinct terms. In those localities where operatives and others can reckon on constant remunerative employment, it may prove a real service in many ways for them to buy a house instead of renting one; indeed, we should highly recommend them to become the proprietors of the dwellings which they occupy. But in places where workmen possess no such assurance or reasonable prospect of employment, we would as earnestly dissuade them from taking a step of this kind. The capital of a working-man—that on which he must place his dependence—is his labour; and this labour he ought to be in a position to dispose of to the best advantage. On this account, he requires, as a general rule, to hold himself in readiness to go wherever his labour is in demand. Of all men, he has the most cause to be a citizen of the world. He may find it his interest to remove to localities hundreds of miles off; and therefore the fewer obstructions to his movements, the better. Heritable property is a fixture. A man cannot take it with him, and the sale of it, even when time is permitted to seek out a purchaser, is attended with expense and difficulty. No doubt the transfer of such property might and ought to be vastly lowered in cost; but not until this is done, will it be time for the more movable part of the working-classes to consider the propriety of saddling themselves with the ownership of lands and houses. Such, at least, is our opinion, after much consideration of the subject. So many melancholy instances have we seen of working-men being ruined by the want of power or will to leave small heritable possessions in country towns, where employment deserted them, that we entertain a strong feeling against this class of persons investing their earnings in fixed property.

Upon the whole, the best thing the humbler classes can do with small savings, is to let them accumulate as movable capital. They should perceive that, generally speaking, a little money has few advantageous outlets. It is only after its increase to a tolerable sum, that it can command a good investment. A short time ago, we adverted to the vast benefits that would accrue to the working-classes, by legalising partnerships in commandite; for this would allow the clubbing of means for trading purposes without chance of total loss. Another thing for improving the resources of such classes, would be the issue of small debentures on land, railways, and other kinds of property; these debentures to be registered in such a manner as would admit of legal recourse without the tedious and expensive forms now required to enforce their liquidation. These, then, are things to be struggled for by the humbler orders, indeed by many who ostensibly belong to classes higher in social standing.

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Itmay be remembered, that somewhat more than two years ago, Mr Willmott'sJournal of Summer-time in the Countrywas noticed in these pages. Those who, through that or any other introduction, have since become acquainted with that exquisite little volume, will be glad to meet the author again, in the not less charming work which he has recently put forth, on thePleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature.[4]The theme itself must be naturally attractive to all book-loving people; and we are prepared to say, that it is treated with felicity and discrimination. We do not aver that we always concur in the writer's judgments, or hold precisely his views of criticism; but we are, upon the whole, very decidedly impressed with the general force and truth of his Discourse, with the gracefulness of his allusions and illustrations, his elegant and pointed style, and the bland and genial temper in which he writes. The work consists of a series of short chapters on books, authors, the circumstances in which they wrote, the moods in which they should be read to be appreciated, the nature and specific qualities of taste, poetry, fiction, the drama, history, and philosophy. The author's turn of mind is chiefly retrospective: he writes more in the spirit of the last age than of the present. Indeed, he seems too much inclined to ignore the value of our later literature; almost the only modern authors whom he quotes are Hallam, Charles Lamb, and Southey; and it is evident, both from the style and matter of the work, that the range of his reading has been most extensive in what he terms the 'classical criticism and biography of the eighteenth century.' This, however, we note only in passing, and not at all in the way of condemnation; further than as it may indicate the limitations to be expected in his tone of thought and sentiment.

Mr Willmott, indeed, speaks disparagingly of some of the severer studies—especially of logic and mathematics; declaring that they 'can only be useful to a full mind,' and that, 'if they find it empty, they leave it in the same state.' Of course, he may be allowed to have his opinion on such a matter; but we presume it will not be very generally adopted. We agree with him that, 'in moral impression they are powerless;' yet we are bound to bear in mind that theiraimis not a moral one; and we, furthermore, believe that, within their own scope and province, theymayat least be serviceable in training and developing the understanding. Not to dwell longer on this little eccentricity of opinion, which is simply one of idiosyncrasy, let us follow the author into some of the more congenial sections of his dissertation. The following passage, on 'The three essential qualities of an author,' seems not unsuitable for quotation:—

'Sir Philip Sidney said, that the most flying wits must have three wings—art, meditation, exercise. Genius is in the instinct of flight. A boy came to Mozart, wishing to compose something, and inquiring the way to begin. Mozart told him to wait. "You composed much earlier?" "But asked nothing about it," replied the musician. Cowper expressed the same sentiment to a friend: "Nature gives men a bias to their respective pursuits, and that strong propensity, I suppose, is what we mean by genius." M. Angelo is hindered in his childish studies of art; Raffaelle grows up with pencil and colours for playthings: one neglects school to copy drawings, which he dared not bring home; thefather of the other takes a journey to find his son a worthier teacher. M. Angelo forces his way; Raffaelle is guided into it. But each looks for it with longing eyes. In some way or other, the man is tracked in the little footsteps of the child. Dryden marks the three steps of progress:—

"What the child admired,The youthendeavoured, and the manacquired."

'Dryden was an example of his own theory. He read Polybius, with a notion of his historic exactness, before he was ten years old. Witnesses rise over the whole field of learning. Pope, at twelve, feasted his eyes in the picture-galleries of Spenser. Murillo filled the margin of his school-books with drawings. Le Brun, in the beginning of childhood, drew with a piece of charcoal on the walls of the house. The young Ariosto quietly watched the fierce gestures of his father, forgetting his displeasure in the joy of copying from life, into a comedy he was writing, the manner and speech of an old man enraged with his son.

'Cowley, in the history of his own mind, shews the influence of boyish fancies upon later life. He compares them to letters cut in the bark of a young tree, which grow and widen with it. We are not surprised to hear from a school-fellow of the Chancellor Somers, that he was a weakly boy, who always had a book in his hand, and never looked up at the play of his companions; to learn from his affectionate biographer, that Hammond at Eton sought opportunities of stealing away to say his prayers; to read that Tournefort forsook his college class, that he might search for plants in the neighbouring fields; or that Smeaton, in petticoats, was discovered on the top of his father's barn, in the act of fixing the model of a windmill which he had constructed. These early traits of character are such as we expect to find in the cultivated lawyer, who turned the eyes of his age upon Milton; in the Christian, whose life was one varied strain of devout praise; in the naturalist, who enriched science by his discoveries; and in the engineer, who built the Eddystone Lighthouse.'

This accords very well with a notion of our own. We hold that men have a tendency to follow what they are by nature best qualified to succeed in; and that the fact ought to be regarded in the education of the individual. Education should include the study and trial of aptitudes, so that each may be directed to his appropriate vocation. It is true, there are sometimes such things as 'false tendencies' to be encountered; but these, as Goethe has shewn, may be readily detected, inasmuch as they are plainly 'unproductive;' that is to say, the thing aimed after does not come out as a recognisable success. False tendencies are more easily perceived in others than in ourselves—especially when ambition, interest, or vanity is involved in the consideration; and on this account the difficulty, perhaps, might not be insurmountable, if the charge of it could be committed to a really judicious educator. But to say anything further on the subject would be out of place at present; and, accordingly, we return to what is more immediately before us.

'The instinct of flight,' continues our author, 'is combined with the instinct of labour. Genius lights its own fire; but it is constantly collecting materials to keep alive the flame. When a new publication was suggested to Addison, after the completion of theGuardian, he answered: "I must now take some time,pour me délasser, and lay in fuel for a future work." The strongest blaze soon goes out when a man always blows and never feeds it. Johnson declined an introduction to a popular author with the remark, that he did not desire to converse with a person who had written more than he had read.

'It is interesting to follow great authors or painters in their careful training and accomplishing of the mind. The long morning of life is spent in making the weapons and the armour which manhood and age are to polish and prove. Usher, when nearly twenty years old, formed the daring resolution of reading all the Greek and Latin fathers, and with the dawn of his thirty-ninth year he completed the task. Hammond, at Oxford, gave thirteen hours of the day to philosophy and classical literature, wrote commentaries on all, and compiled indexes for his own use.

'With these calls to industry in our ears, we are not to be deaf to the deep saying of Lord Brooke, the friend of Sidney, that some men overbuild their nature with books. The motion of our thoughts is impeded by too heavy a burden; and the mind, like the body, is strengthened more by the warmth of exercise than of clothes. When Buffon and Hogarth pronounced genius to be nothing but labour and patience, they forgot history and themselves. The instinct must be in the mind, and the fire be ready to fall. Toil alone would not have produced theParadise Lostor thePrincipia. The born dwarf never grows to the middle size. Rousseau tells a story of a painter's servant, who resolved to be the rival or the conqueror of his master. He abandoned his livery to live by his pencil; but instead of the Louvre, he stopped at a sign-post. Mere learning is only a compiler, and does with the pen what the compositor does with the type: each sets up a book with the hand. Stone-masons collected the dome of St Paul's, but Wren hung it in air.'

There is, perhaps, nothing very profound or original in this, but it is all very sensible and pleasant. Something of novelty, however, will be observed in the extract which follows next, on 'The Influence of Air and Situation on the Thoughts.' The consideration, at anyrate, is curious, both under its physiological and metaphysical aspect.

'It has been a subject of ingenious speculation if country or weather may be said to cherish or check intellectual growth. Jeremy Collier considered that the understanding needs a kind climate for its health, and that a reader of nice observation might ascertain from the book in what latitude, season, or circumstances, it had been written. The opponents are powerful. Reynolds ridiculed the notion of thoughts shooting forth with greater vigour at the summer solstice or the equinox; Johnson called it a fantastic foppery.

'The atmospheric theory is as old as Homer. Its laureate is Montesquieu. The more northerly you go, he said, the sterner the man grows. You must scorch a Muscovite to make him feel. Gray was a convert. One of the prose hints for his noble fragment of a didactic poem runs thus: "It is the proper work of education and government united, to redress the faults that arise from the soil and air." Berkeley entertained the same feeling. Writing to Pope from Leghorn, and alluding to some half-formed design he had heard him mention of visiting Italy, he continues: "What might we not expect from a muse that sings so well in the bleak climate of England, if she felt the same warm sun, and breathed the same air with Virgil and Horace?"

'When Dyer attributes the faults of hisFleeceto the Lincolnshire fens, he only awakes a smile. Keats wrote his Ode to a Nightingale—a poem full of the sweet south—at the foot of Highgate Hill. But we have the remark of Dryden—probably the result of his own experience—that a cloudy day is able to alter the thoughts of a man; and, generally, the air we breathe, and the objects we see, have a secret influence upon our imagination. Burke was certain that Milton composedIl Penserosoin the long, resounding aisle of a mouldering cloister, or ivied abbey. He beheld its solemn gloom in the verse. The fine nerves of the mind are braced, and the strings of the harp are tuned, by different kinds of temperature. "I think," Warburton remarked to Hurd, "you have often heard me say, that my delicious season is the autumn—the season which gives most life andvigour to my intellectual faculties. The light mists, or, as Milton calls them, the steams that rise from the fields in one of these mornings, give the same relief to the views that the blue of the plum gives to the appetite."

'Mozart composed, whenever he had the opportunity, in the soft air of fine weather. HisDon Giovanniand theRequiemwere written in a bowling-green and a garden. Chatterton found a full moon favourable to poetic invention, and he often sat up all night to enjoy its solemn shining. Winter-time was most agreeable to Crabbe. He delighted in a heavy fall of snow; and it was during a severe storm which blocked him within doors, that he portrayed the strange miseries of Sir Eustace Grey.'

There may be something in this supposed influence of temperature and seasons; but there certainly is no general law observable in the matter. Shakspeare asks—

'Oh who can take a fire in his handBy thinking of the frosty Caucasus?Or wallow naked in December's snowsBy bare remembrance of the summer's heat?'

He might have been answered by Moore, who shut himself up in the wintry wilds of Derbyshire to writeLalla Rookh—a poem breathing of the perfumes, and glowing in the sunlight of the golden East; and by Scott, who, in Jermyn Street, St James's, with miles of brick houses round him, produced his famous introductions toMarmion, some of which may rank with the finest descriptions of natural scenery in the language. But the way in which people are influenced seems utterly capricious. We know a writer who is always unfavourably affected by a dull, still atmosphere, and whose faculties are as invariably exhilarated by a high wind. Cloudy weather does not influence him disagreeably if it be stormy, but calm, leaden November glooms oppress him with a feeling bordering upon stupor. These are altogether unproductive days with him. If authors, however, are subject in their moods to atmospheric and other circumstantial influences, it may be expected that readers also are to some extent possessed of a like tendency. Mr Willmott has, accordingly, a suitable suggestive word or two to guide them in their reading. He says:—

'A classification of authors to suit all hours and weathers might be amusing. Ariosto spans a wet afternoon like a rainbow. North winds and sleet agree with Junius. The visionary tombs of Dante glimmer into awfuller perspective by moonlight. Crabbe is never so pleasing as on the hot shingle, when we look up from his verses at the sleepy sea, and count the

"Crimson weeds, which spreading slow,Or lie like pictures on the sand below:With all those bright red pebbles, that the sunThrough the small waves so softly shines upon."

'Some books come in with lamps and curtains, and fresh logs. An evening in late autumn, when there is no moon, and the boughs toss like foam raking its way back down a pebbly shore, is just the time forUndine. A voyage is read with deepest interest in winter, while the hail dashes against the window. Southey speaks of this delight—

"'Tis pleasant by the cheerful hearth to hearOf tempests and the dangers of the deep,And pause at times and feel that we are safe;And with an eager and suspended soul,Woo terror to delight us."

'The sobs of the storm are musical chimes for a ghost-story, or one of those fearful tales with which the blind fiddler inRedgauntletmade "the auld carlines shake on the settle, and the bits of bairns skirl on their minnies out frae their beds."

'Shakspeare is always most welcome at the chimney-corner; so is Goldsmith: who does not wish Dr Primrose to call in the evening, and Olivia to preside at the urn? Elia affirms, that there is no such thing as reading or writing, but by a candle; he is confident that Milton composed the morning hymn of Eden with a clear fire burning in the room; and in Taylor's gorgeous description of sunrise, he found the smell of the lamp quite overpowering.... But Elia,' he says further on, 'carried his fireside theory too far. Some people have tried "the affectation of a book at noonday in gardens and sultry arbours," without finding their task of love to be unlearnt. Indeed, many books belong to sunshine, and should be read out of doors. Clover, violets, and hedge-roses, breathe from their leaves; they are most lovable in cool lanes, along field-paths, or upon stiles overhung by hawthorn; while the black-bird pipes, and the nightingale bathes its brown feathers in the twilight copse.

'The sensation is heightened when an author is read amid the scenery or the manners which he describes—as Barrow studied the sermons of Chrysostom in his own see of Constantinople. What daisies sprinkle the walks of Cowper, if we take hisTaskfor a companion through the lanes of Weston! Under the thick hedges of Horton, darkening either bank of the field in the September moonlight,Il Penserosois still more pensive. And whoever would feel at his heart the deep pathos of Collins's lamentation for Thomson, must murmur it to himself, as he glides upon the stealing wave, by the breezy lawns and elms of Richmond.'

Our author has some judicious remarks on 'Criticism, its Curiosities and Researches,' and is himself a critic of refined and delicate appreciation. We certainly do not agree with him in thinking that the literature of the last century is superior to that of the present; but we can nevertheless admit that many of his favourite writers are deserving of a higher and more reverent regard than is now generally awarded them. We would quarrel with no man about his preferences; still, we cannot hold Mr Willmott justified in such sweeping condemnation of our current literature as he appears disposed to pass upon it. It would seem, indeed, that in his disgust at 'the corrupted streams of popular entertainment,' he has not cared to make himself acquainted with the best of our modern writers. Of these he seems—if we may judge from his total oversight of them—to have hardly a knowledge of the names. 'He lives,' as he admits, 'among the society of an elder age.' Here, however, he numbers 'tasteful learning with the chiefest blessings of his home.' If he had lived in the last century, he would probably have gone back for his idols to an earlier one; and yet his remarks on taste and criticism are of a catholic nature, although his just application of their canons have this chronological boundary. We have no room, however, for his disquisition on these elegant subjects; neither can we follow our accomplished clergyman into his disquisitions on fiction, history, biography, philosophy, and its pleasures, nor the 'domestic interiors' of taste and learning. We had intended to quote some fine sentences on the consolations of poetry, but find we have not room for them. The reader will do well to get the book, and read them there. It is a work altogether well worth reading. Nay, it will bear reading many times, and even become pleasanter as one's acquaintance with it increases. Indeed, it is not at all the kind of book to be run through rapidly, and so disposed of; the thought and observation in it are closely packed and methodised; and if you wish to derive any benefit, or even pleasure from the perusal, you will need to read deliberately. We should say the author thoroughlyenjoyedhis work while he was engaged in it; but the workmanship exhibits everywhere the greatest care and patience. The same habit of mind employed in writing it will be required in the reading. We may describe the book as being a graceful, suggestive review of literature, considered with regardto its enjoyments. Refined, scholarly, tolerant, and judicious in all his tastes and sympathies, the author's influence upon other minds cannot be otherwise than wholesome, elevating, and benignant.

FOOTNOTES:[4]Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature.A Discourse, by the Rev. Robert Aris Willmott, Incumbent of Bear Wood, Berks. Bosworth: London.

[4]Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature.A Discourse, by the Rev. Robert Aris Willmott, Incumbent of Bear Wood, Berks. Bosworth: London.

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Alexis Himkofhad just taken an affectionate leave of his wife, and stood looking after her, on the deck of the vessel to which he had been appointed mate, and which had been fitted up for the whale-fishery near Spitzbergen, by a merchant of the name of Jeremiah Oxladmkof, of Mesen, a town in the province of Jesovia, in the government of Archangel. She sailed in 1743 on her first voyage. We can conceive how lonely the home of Alexis must have been without him. We may be sure that his wife's last prayer at night was offered up for his safety. We constantly hear it said, in stormy weather: 'God help those who are at sea!' 'God help those who have friends at sea!' might be added to the petition; for there are hearts which quail at every gust of wind—there are thick-coming fancies, which can conjure up tempest-tossed vessels, sweeping gales, and raging billows; and yet the ship may at that very moment be in calm waters, or sailing with a prosperous breeze.

The time came that there might be some account of Himkof—then, that the vessel might be back; but no news or vessel came. Month after month passed on, and still it came not; and then years went by, and still there was no ship: whenever a sail was seen in the distance, the poor wife would hasten to the shore; but still the ship she looked for never came. With a sinking heart, she would retrace her steps homewards; but still she came again and again, so true it is that affection and hope are the last earthly companions that part company. The neighbours would look at her as she passed along, and shake their heads in pity.

The vessel, which had fourteen hands on board, had sailed on with a fair wind for eight days. On the ninth it veered, and instead of reaching the west of Spitzbergen, the place of rendezvous for the vessels employed annually in the whale-fishery, it was driven eastward of those islands. A few days brought her near one of them, known as East Spitzbergen. When within about two English miles, she was hemmed in by ice, and in extreme danger. In this dreadful emergency, the crew consulted on what was best to be done. Himkof mentioned that he had been told, some time before, that some men from Mesen, having decided on wintering on the island, had provided themselves with timber for building a hut, which they accordingly erected at some distance from the shore. Being quite aware, that if they remained in their present situation, they must inevitably perish, they determined to search for the hut, and to winter there, if so fortunate as to find it. Himkof, with three others, were selected to make the search. They were provided with a musket, twelve charges of powder, a dozen balls, an axe, a small kettle, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a wooden pipe for each, some tobacco, and a bag with twenty pounds of flour. This was as much as they could carry with safety, as they had to make their way for two miles over loose ridges of ice, which would be still more difficult and dangerous if they were overloaded, and it required the utmost caution to avoid falling between these ridges, which had been raised by the waves and driven together by the winds. The footing once lost, inevitable destruction must follow. They had not proceeded above an English mile, when, to their great delight, they descried the hut, at a distance of about a mile and a half from the shore. Its length was thirty-six feet, and its breadth and height eighteen. It consisted of two rooms. The antechamber was about twelve feet broad, and had two doors—one to exclude the outer air, the other by which it communicated with the inner room, in which there was an earthen stove, such as is commonly used in Russia. A very slight inspection sufficed to shew that the hut had sustained great injury from the weather; but to have found it in any condition was a subject of great joy, and they availed themselves of its shelter for the night.

Eager to communicate the good news to their companions, they set out early the next morning; and as they went on, they chatted cheerfully about the stores of ammunition and provisions, and various requisites which could be conveyed from the ship, to be stored in the hut for winter use. They pursued their way in the highest spirits, picturing to themselves the delight which they were about to give to their companions. When they arrived on the shore, not a vestige of the ship was to be seen; no track through the waters marked her path; all was still and silent, desolate and bleak: no familiar face was seen; not one of their comrades was left to tell the hapless tale! They stood aghast, looking in mute despair upon the sea. The ice by which the vessel had been hemmed in had totally disappeared. The violent storm of the night before, they concluded, might have been the cause of this fatal disaster; the ice might have been disturbed by the agitation of the waves, and beaten violently against the ship, till she was shattered to pieces; or she might, perhaps, have been carried on by the current into the ocean, and there lost. However it might have been, they were never to see her again. What a difference a few short moments had made in their feelings and in their fate! They thought to have re-entered the hut with glad companions; they returned to it the sole inhabitants of that desolate region, disconsolate, and utterly hopeless of ever leaving it. When they could collect their thoughts, they were anxiously turned to the preservation of their lives, for which it was necessary to provide some kind of sustenance. The island abounded with reindeer, and they brought down one with every charge of their powder. They set about devising means to repair the hut, which, from the cracks and crevices produced by the weather, let in the piercingly cold air in various directions. No wood, or even shrub, grew on that sterile ground. Nothing could be more dreary than the prospect—a bleak waste without vegetation; the high mountains with their rock and crags; the everlasting ice and the vast masses of snow. The very sublimity of the scene was awfully impressed with all the marks of stern desolation and solitude. As in that cold climate wood is not liable to decay, they joined the boards of which the hut was constructed, with the help of their axe, very tolerably, filling up the crevices with moss, which grows in abundance all over the island. The poor men, like all of their country, were expert carpenters, for it is customary with them to build their own houses. No want could have been more dreadful than that of wood, for without firing, they could never bear up against the intense cold.

As they strayed along the beach, they found, to their joy, a quantity of wood which had been carried in by the tide. What they first got in this way were parts of the wreck of vessels, and afterwards trees, which had been uprooted by the overflowing of rivers, and borne by the waves into the ocean; but what proved a treasure to the poor castaways, were some boards which they discovered on the beach, with a long iron hook, some nails of five or six inches long, and thick in proportion, and other pieces of iron fastened in them—the sad memorials of some shattered vessel. Kind Providence seemed to have directed their steps where help was to be found. Just at the time when their provisions had nearly failed, and when they were without the means of replenishing their store, they perceived, not far from the boards, the root of a fir-tree, which had almost taken the form of a bow. With thehelp of their knife, they soon brought it into more regular shape, but they were unprovided with a string and with arrows. They determined, in the first instance, to make two lances, to guard themselves against the formidable attacks of the ferocious white bear; but without a hammer, it was impossible to form their heads, or those of the arrows. However, by heating the iron hook, and widening a hole which it happened to have in the centre, with the help of one of the large nails, they inserted the handle, and a round button at one end of the hook, made the face of the hammer. A large pebble served for an anvil, and a pair of reindeer's horns were the tongs. Such were the tools with which they fashioned the heads for two spears, which they polished and sharpened on stones, and then tied them fast with strips of reindeer-skin to thick sticks, with which they were supplied from the branches of trees which had been wafted on shore. Thus armed, they attacked a white bear, and after a desperate struggle, they succeeded in killing him. They made use of the flesh for food, which they described as being like beef; by separating the tendons, they were supplied with filaments as fine as they pleased, which enabled them to string their bow. Their next work was to form pieces of iron into heads for their arrows, like the spears which they had already manufactured. They polished and sharpened them in the same way, and made them fast to pieces of the fir with the sinews of the white bear; feathers of sea-fowl being tied with the filaments. They were now equipped with a complete bow and arrows, which proved a most serviceable acquisition, and furnished them from time to time with reindeer to the amount of 250, besides vast numbers of the blue and white foxes; providing them not only with food, but with clothing, as their skins were a great defence from the coldness of the climate.

They destroyed no more than ten white bears; these animals defended themselves with prodigious strength and fury. The first was attacked by the sailors; the other nine were the assailants. Some of them were so daring as to walk into the hut in search of their prey. Those among them who were the least voracious were easily driven away, but the more ravenous were not to be deterred; and it was not without encountering the most imminent danger that the men escaped in the dreadful conflicts. But they were in continual fear of being devoured, as these ferocious animals repeated their visits to the hut, and renewed their attacks continually. When they succeeded in slaying one, they made use of its flesh as food, which, with that of the reindeer and the blue and white foxes, were the only kind they could have in that bleak region.

The want of the necessary conveniences obliged them for some time to make use of their food without cooking. They had nothing in the way of bread or salt. The stove within was set up after the Russian fashion, and could boil nothing. The cold was so intense, that all the wood they had was reserved for the stove; they had none to spare for making a fire outside, from which they would have had but little heat, and where they would run the risk of being attacked by the white bear. Besides, the masses of snow which fell during the winter months, and the heavy rains, would have made it quite impossible, for great part of the year, to have kept a fire burning in the open air. They, however, thought of a plan by which they were enabled to prepare some of their food. In the summer months, they exposed part of their animal food in the sun, and then hung it in the upper part of the hut, where it became thoroughly dried by the smoke. This food they used as bread, with that which they were obliged to eat half raw. By this means they were able to keep up a constant supply of provisions. They had water in the summer from the rills which fell from the rocks, and in winter, they were supplied from the snows and thawed ice. Their only utensil for holding water, and substitute for a drinking-cup, was their small kettle.

Half of the flour had been consumed by the men with their meat; the remaining portion was preserved for a different purpose. The dread of their fire going out, and of the difficulty which they should find in lighting another, without match or tinder, set their wits to work to find means to avert so great a misfortune. They obtained from the middle of the island a particular kind of slimy clay, which they had observed, and of which they modelled a sort of lamp, and filled it with the fat of the reindeer. They contrived a wick with a piece of twisted linen. When they flattered themselves that their object was accomplished, they met with a great disappointment, for the melting grease ran through the lamp. To make a new one, and to fill up the pores of the material of which it was made, was now their care. When formed, they dried it in the air, and then heated it red-hot, in which state they immersed it in their kettle, in a preparation of flour, which had been boiled down to the consistence of starch. They now tested it by filling it with melted fat, and to their infinite delight, they found that they had succeeded in fashioning one that did not leak. To make it still more secure, they covered the outside with linen dipped in the starch.

In managing to have light during the dreary months of darkness, they had attained a great object, which had been doubly desirable on account of him who was languishing in sickness. That they might not be wholly dependent on one lamp, of which some accident might deprive them, they made another. In collecting such wood as had been cast on shore for fuel, they had fortunately found some cordage and a little oakum (the sort of hemp used for calking ships), which they turned to great account as wicks for their lamps. When this store was consumed, they had recourse to their shirts and drawers—a part of dress worn by almost all Russian peasants—to supply the want. Like the sacred fire, these lamps were never suffered to go out. As they were formed soon after their arrival, they were kept burning without intermission for the years they passed in their comfortless abode.

The sacrifice made of their shirts and drawers exposed them more to the intense cold. Their shoes, boots, and other parts of their dress, were worn out. In this emergency, it was necessary to form some plan for defending themselves from the inclemency of the climate. The skins of the reindeer and foxes, which they had converted into bedding, now afforded the materials for clothing. They were submerged in fresh water for several days, till the hair was so loosened that it was easily removed; the leather was then rubbed with their hands till nearly dry, then melted reindeer fat was spread over it, and then it was again rubbed. It thus became soft, and fit for the use to which it was to be put. Some of the skins which they wished to reserve for furs did not undergo exactly the same process, but were merely left in water for one day, and were then prepared in the same manner, without removing the hair. Though now furnished with the materials for clothing, they were without the implements necessary for making them into articles of dress. They had neither awls for making shoes and boots, nor needles for sewing their clothes. Their ingenuity was, therefore, again put to the test, and was not slow in making up the deficiency. They contrived to make both very well, out of the bits of iron which they had collected from time to time. One of their most difficult tasks, was to make eyes to their needles; but this they accomplished with the help of their knife; for having ground it to a very sharp point, and heated a kind of wire, forged for the purpose, red-hot, they pierced a hole through one end, and by whetting and smoothing it on stones, brought the other to a point. These needles were astonishingly well formed,nothing being amiss with them but the roughness of the eye, by which the thread was sometimes cut. It was indeed surprising that they were so well made, considering the rude instruments with which they were fashioned. Having no scissors, they were obliged to cut out their clothes with the knife; and though this was their first attempt at the trade of shoemaker or tailor, yet they contrived to cut out the articles which they required with as much precision as if they had served a regular apprenticeship to the business. The sinews of the reindeer and bears answered for thread. They set earnestly to their work. For summer wear, they made a sort of jacket and trousers of the prepared skins; for winter, long fur-gowns, with hoods, made after the fashion of those worn by the Laplanders.

The constant employment which their necessities required, and the various difficulties which they had to overcome by ingenious contrivance, so far from having been a misfortune, may be considered as having been the means of preserving these poor men from sinking under their unhappy circumstances. But accordingly as their ingenuity had supplied their wants, and their minds became more disengaged from expedients, their melancholy increased, and they looked round despondingly on the sterile and desolate region where, they felt, they were to spend the rest of their days, far away from the hearths of home, and from early friends and companions. Even the probability of that little circle being lessened, and, it might be, reduced to one solitary being, was a dreadful thought: each felt that this might be his own fate. Then the fear of all means of sustenance failing, and the assaults of wild beasts, were dangers too glaring to be forgotten. Alexis Himkof, who had left a wife and three children, suffered perhaps the most from heart-yearnings after home.

They had already lost one of their companions from the effects of scurvy; and now, when six dreary years had nearly passed, another was taken from among them. It chanced on the 15th of August 1749, while they were lamenting their poor companion, that they descried a vessel. Who can describe the tumults of their feelings, the fluttering of their hearts? Their fate hung upon a chance. Oh, if she would come to relieve them! oh, if they could pass once more those rude barriers of ice, and cut through those interminable waves again! But she might pass on, and leave them to a fate rendered still more miserable by the fallacious gleam of hope. With trembling haste they ran hither and thither, and almost flew to light the signal-fires of distress along the hills, and now to the beach, to wave the rude flag, formed of a reindeer's skin fastened to a pole. What agitating hopes and fears were crowded into that space of time, as the vessel made her way through the waters! The signals of distress were seen—were heeded! She comes! she comes! and now she anchors near the shore. What a day of joy and thankfulness! But the delight of the poor mariners may be more easily conceived than described. Their bargain with the master of the ship—a Russian vessel—was soon made: they were to work for him on the voyage, and they agreed to pay eighty rubles on landing. He took them on board with all their possessions, consisting of two thousand pounds of the lard of the reindeer in the hides of those animals, and of the white and blue foxes, and the skins of the ten white bears that they had destroyed. They also took with them their bow and arrows, and all the implements which they had manufactured. These were deposited in a bone box, made with great ingenuity, with no tool but their knife. We have in these men a very remarkable example of the energy which can sustain in the most trying circumstances, and the ingenious skill which can furnish expedients, even in a region so destitute of resources. It may well teach us to trust in that good Providence which is indeed a present help in trouble.

They reached Archangel on the 28th of September 1749. What happy meetings may have been anticipated!—what calamities may have been dreaded during that voyage!—How may it have fared with those who were left? Will they all be there, to greet with a joyful welcome? What if Alexis' wife, worn out by suspense and anxiety, should have sunk into an early grave?—or if one among their children should have died?—or if the three should all have been swept away? The approaching sail had been seen; and the one who for years had clung to a forlorn-hope, was again at the water's edge. Alexis stood on the deck. Affection is quick-sighted; he was instantly seen and known by his wife! All was forgotten—all but that he was there. The distance between them, the waves that separated them, were unheeded! Uttering a wild cry of joy, she rushed forward to clasp him in her arms. She sprang into the water—a little time, and she was extricated. She was insensible when taken up. When she came to herself, she was in her husband's arms!—their children were about them! What tears of joy were shed!—what prayers of thankfulness were offered up!

The foregoing narrative, true in every respect, is drawn up by us from documents issued under the authority of the Russian government. It shews, in a convincing manner, that subsistence is by no means impossible for sailors wrecked and icebound within the polar regions.

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Were it not that custom reconciles us to everything, a Christian community would surely be shocked by the report, and still more by the sight, of the sacrifice of innocent and helpless creatures—pigeons and rabbits, for instance—to the horrible instincts of snakes, who will not eat anything but what is alive. An account was recently given of a night-visit to the place of confinement of these disgusting reptiles, in which the evident horror of their intended victims, confined in the same cages, was distinctly mentioned. The gratification of mere curiosity does not justify the infliction of such torture on the lower animals. Surely the sight of a stuffed boa-constrictor ought to content a reasonable curiosity. Imagine what would be felt if a child were subjected to such a fate, or what could be answered if the present victims could tell their agonies as well as feel them! Byron speaks of the barbarians who, in the wantonness of power, were 'butchered to make a Roman holiday;' and verily the horrors exhibited in our public gardens and menageries are something akin to the fights of gladiators; it is the infliction of misery for mere sport. With reference also to lions, tigers, and other ferocious animals kept in cages—if retained at all, the space allotted them ought to be much larger than it is, so as to allow them full room for healthful exercise. At present, they must be wretched; and considering also the quantity of food they consume, which might be converted to useful purposes—though this is taking a lower view of the matter—it is at least desirable that the number should be much smaller, and a much greater space allowed them to exhibit their natural vivacity. These remarks do not, of course, apply to fowls and other animals who are allowed a sufficient share of liberty to exist in comfort, and to whom it is not necessary to sacrifice the existence of other creatures.—Ogden's Friendly Observer.

[We entirely agree in reprobating the practice of placing live rabbits and other creatures within the cages of boa-constrictors. A recollection of a poor little rabbit cowering in the corner of one of these cages, as if aware of its approaching fate, has haunted us for years. No purpose of science can be answered by this constantly recurring barbarity. Zoological Societies should be careful not to run any risk of counteracting by such spectacles the elevated feelings they are so well calculated to foster.—Ed. C. E. J.]

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