“Life is a handsome present—no man earns it;Ungracious therefore is he who returns it.”
“Life is a handsome present—no man earns it;Ungracious therefore is he who returns it.”
“Life is a handsome present—no man earns it;Ungracious therefore is he who returns it.”
“Life is a handsome present—no man earns it;
Ungracious therefore is he who returns it.”
I could never regard a suicide otherwise than as a very remarkable person, with inscrutable traits of character; in truth, as a singular anomaly. Napoleon, the most noticeable, perhaps, of men, because the worst among conspicuous ones, could not reach the courage to kill himself; bravery seems inadequate to such a purpose. Butcher as he was, there was not a sprinkling of self-destruction in him; his life was more to him than the empire of the world which he had lost, though that life was one of cancer.
I knew a man, a captain in the navy, retired, a C.B., with a private income of £1200 a year, with no expenses but those of a lodging, no wife or family, who drowned himself because he was going blind, and this being so he could no longer superintend his affairs, and felt himself liable to be cheated, which was more than he could endure—and it certainly is a trial! This man was old and infirm, cool, unimpassioned, not wanting in even spirits, and fond of a joke. He had the full use of his faculties, and had frequent conversations with a weak-minded medical man, in the club-room over which he lodged, on the nature of various poisons without his purpose being suspected. It ended in his creeping into a water-cistern under the boards of an adjoining room.
Most of us grow tired of living, but we prefer the fatigue to nothing, though we may suffer pain that is all but insupportable.
A man who takes his own life may be mad in some respects, but not in committing the act, for he always does it in the right way. If he fired at his own bust instead of at himself, if he swallowed the bottle instead of the laudanum within it, if he cut his dog’s throat instead of his own, with a view to self-destruction, it would be madness itself. But he performs the act rationally and perpetrates it in a strictly methodical way.
There must be two kinds of courage, one of which is common to most men, and one which few possess and none comprehend.
I am told that when a certain reporter attends ameeting on behalf of a journal and finds out, from the speaker’s address, that the purpose for which the assembly is convened is worthless, he retires; and on taking up his note-book, looks at the person speaking and says, “Go home and cut your throat,”—words that might have well been addressed to the Bond Street swells.
A steam-engine may be called the greatest of inventions, and could the best one as yet constructed have sufficient consciousness to register its excellencies and defects, according to its own knowledge and experience, it could not be accused of boastfulness or self-depreciation. Again, if a dog could be endowed, in addition to its faculties, with the power of expression, and could define in exact terms its sense of smell and so announce it more keen than that of all other animals, it could not be accused of vanity.
The steam-engine in its revelation might reflect credit on its designer and on the man who constructed it, and these might reflect credit on their maker, but not on themselves; they had no hand in the acquisition of their faculties. So with the dog, it would simply make its statement, and in so doing communicate a phenomenon that the science of man would otherwise be slow to reach.
As it is with the dog, so it should be with menin giving expression to their natural gifts. A Shakespeare, knowing and avowing himself to be a vehicle constructed of phosphorized brain and ozonized blood, through which the higher revelations of nature are poured out on the senses of men, might describe the glorious machinery as it worked within him; might declare himself to be the most highly perfected of human beings, and that without vanity or boast, but not without a benefit to others, affording them details concerning himself absolutely unattainable by ordinary means; for no one has yet fathomed him as he did himself, and his knowledge died with him.
If Lord Bacon had taken the trouble to explain to us all about the wheels that moved his apparent delinquencies, it would have afforded a scientific lesson, and have ranked with his other essays. He would have lost nothing by it; minds of the size of his suffer nothing from opinion, and can be as indifferent to it as a cat, or a dog, or a horse, or a cow is to what we call decency. The degree of energy people display in vociferating against the anomalies of morals is the best measure one can have of their own failings. If I were to hear a man rail vehemently against a swindle, I should at once conclude that the machinery of cheating within him was in good working order, unless it had been his lot to be the party swindled.
There is no genius without humour, at least no literary genius, for that differentiating faculty is the basis of all self-criticism. Men have been challenged to define genius, and they have tried to do it withoutbeing asked. The fact is that clever people can do nothing unless it is a little difficult; they cannot see what lies directly under their noses, and one of the truths so situated is that perfect genius has never existed. Such genius as a man can possess is fragmentary, never whole. He may have literary genius, and that is enough for one. He may have scientific genius, like Goethe, Oken, Lamark, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, Darwin, Helmholtz, Davy, Faraday, Hunter, Cuvier, Laenec; but many of these were poor creatures in other branches than their own. He may have genius in mathematical philosophy, like Newton; but that great man had an intellectual weakness. Real genius of the perfect kind would be more than one man could carry; the ideal whole is broken up and distributed in fragments, some immense, like that falling to Leonardo da Vinci’s share, some small and constituting mere talent.
I have somewhere a list of men of genius who were originators, beginning with Homer as the father of Poetry, and coming down to Goethe who began the transcendental philosophy of to-day in his “Metamorphoses of Plants;” and I could never get beyond sixty or seventy names.
Any one giving an estimate of his own capabilities, whether favourable or unfavourable, or both, without illustrating what he states by his own work, and by the opinions of competent critics, is an egotist. If hereafter I should enter on the subject of my mental capabilities, it will be on the principle not of self-consciousness, but of mechanical candour.Having never ceased my work up to the age of eighty-four, I may have within me an ample experience of my mental operations; but any account of these the reader has the advantage of testing with what he finds his own superior judgment.
I produced very little in my early days, though a passion for literary success then governed me, alternating with a passion for scientific. A career in the direction of either was impeded in middle life by professional practice, which had its fascinations. But the young have not really much that is worth saying to the middle-aged or old. I had been nourished on the Greek and Roman classics; under the special influence of Herodotus I composed an Egyptian drama of the time of Cambyses, and it cost me much labour and greatly improved me in the art of composing; but not having read it for more than half a century I am quite unable now to judge of it. The flight I know to have been high, but whether through clear atmosphere or fog I cannot say. Sir Sibbald Scott, son of my friend Sir David, told me that he had seen the authorship of “The Piromides” inquired for inNotes and Queriesat two different times. It was received by the press as a work of solemn purpose throughout.
I may mention that Lord Elgin, to whom I inscribed this play, thought it betrayed poetic taste, and he expressed his opinion in warmer terms than I cite.
It is surprising to witness how many good writers of their own language there are in thiscountry: in reading the papers this is extensively seen; the leading articles appear equal, all marked by idiomatic clearness of expression. Then, in literary criticism, it is noticeable how much deeper the writers penetrate into the arcana, perceiving what is rendered, and what is left wanting, in a poetic composition, and that with a psychological acuteness much more general than was met with a generation or two ago. This is the more valuable, since criticism is the profoundest of studies; it demands an adequate knowledge of every science and art, as well as a competent observation of nature.
In speaking of my own intellectual mechanism, this I say once more is none of my own, but an instrument placed temporarily among visible things, to reveal what it may to the less knowing.
It is my purpose in writing these Memoirs to adhere rigidly to truth, at least in its essence. Should I succeed in this, my work will be a very remarkable one, almost unique. But, being a close observer, I have noticed that those who always tell the truth obtain immense credit, no matter how much they say that militates against themselves. The pleasure of speaking the truth at all times is immense. Lying is a very peculiar art: some use it merely as a convenience, and often have not the ability to forgea lie without including in it the contradiction. One takes pity on this class, endowed only with a pauper intellect and a pauper conscience.
Exaggerative liars are of a common class; it is somewhat difficult to reach their motive, because they neither serve themselves nor others. What they chiefly exaggerate is incomes; it must be due to a sanguine temperament.
The decidedly despicable liars are those who lie about themselves; but these have not the shrewdness to see their way safely. A man told me that he had been dining with a distinguished party at a certain club. He had not the knowledge necessary to give his lie substance; he was not aware that the rules of the club he named did not admit of a member entertaining any stranger there.
These are the three sorts of everyday liars; it is astonishing how completely every one knows them as such without their being in the least aware of the fact themselves, for we all pretend to believe liars to their face!
It is like possessing a fortune to be endowed with a love of truth for its own sake, and I doubt if any man was ever truly great without it. The mind of the truly gifted appears to me to lie parallel with nature, so that if an idea comes into being, all other ideas related to it are close at hand, and in a line with it.
The value of this view to the science of criticism is incommensurable: this I will now illustrate. The idea and its relations, which increase its intensityand beauty, may be variously expressed. Say Shakespeare knew a girl who was in love but concealed it, and so, pining, grew hectic and sallow; but bore it with patience. Such would be the prose version of the fact, and is not very emotional. But the poet would look as steadfastly at the sufferer as would a lover, then his sympathy would inflame, and in the developing of his mental vision he would see a rose that must prematurely perish through the cankering worm that gnaws at its heart. That rose is the hectic blush, its damask is reflected on the maiden cheek as she pines. But such an image cannot end here, this image of death in life; and in the next parallel appears a living monument of immortalizing sculpture beyond which the mind cannot rise.
(1) She never told her love—(2) But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,Feed on her damask cheek.(3) She pined in thought,And with a green and yellow melancholyShe sat like Patience on a monument,Smiling at grief.
(1) She never told her love—(2) But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,Feed on her damask cheek.(3) She pined in thought,And with a green and yellow melancholyShe sat like Patience on a monument,Smiling at grief.
(1) She never told her love—(2) But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,Feed on her damask cheek.(3) She pined in thought,And with a green and yellow melancholyShe sat like Patience on a monument,Smiling at grief.
(1) She never told her love—
(2) But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek.
(3) She pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
Poetry is co-extensive with Nature, but cannot exceed her limits. She has her mystical number, which is three. Her suns rise; they reach their zenith; they have their setting: it is their morning, their noon, and their night. The earth has its three dimensions; the elements and all the things it consists of can assume but three forms, the solid, the liquid, the gaseous. Her productions have theirthree stages, and, running through these, they begin again. Man, in common with all that is organic, is born, he lives, he dies; the plant yearly has its growth, its flowering, its seed-time. This is the trinity of Nature; and poetry, which is her vocal manifestation, has its three parallels.
This truth, instances of which the reader himself may multiply at will, serves to illuminate the poetic argument which is to follow. An idea in imaginative poetry, which is the greatest and the only truly great, has three parallels as already exemplified; it cannot have more, and to be of the highest quality it cannot have less. There are as many sources of these parallels as there are objects in the three natural kingdoms, that most marvellous of the threefold series, the conjoint animal, vegetable, and mineral, in which all things subsist; in which every object is an ante-type of the poetic evolution just defined.
It is not necessary that these parallels should be separated by intervening details of any length, whence it is that short passages, or short poems like the sonnet, when woven with a due regard to their effectiveness, become poetic gems. Such are the first four lines of Shakespeare’s thirty-third sonnet; such are Coleridge’s lines on “Time Real and Imaginary,” and those on “Work without Hope.” All these I will now cite, numbering the parallels in their gradual ascent from the subject to its evolution, and thence into its transcendental expression in the ideal.
Sonnet XXXIII. (Shakespeare).(1) Full many a glorious morning have I seenFlatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye;(2) Kissing with golden face the meadows green;(3) Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
Sonnet XXXIII. (Shakespeare).
(1) Full many a glorious morning have I seenFlatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye;(2) Kissing with golden face the meadows green;(3) Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
(1) Full many a glorious morning have I seenFlatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye;(2) Kissing with golden face the meadows green;(3) Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
(1) Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye;
(2) Kissing with golden face the meadows green;
(3) Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
Time Real and Imaginary (Coleridge).(1) Two lovely children ran an endless race,A sister and a brother!(2) She far outstripped the other;Yet ever runs she with reverted face,And looks and listens for the boy behind;(3) For he, alas! is blind.
Time Real and Imaginary (Coleridge).
(1) Two lovely children ran an endless race,A sister and a brother!(2) She far outstripped the other;Yet ever runs she with reverted face,And looks and listens for the boy behind;(3) For he, alas! is blind.
(1) Two lovely children ran an endless race,A sister and a brother!(2) She far outstripped the other;Yet ever runs she with reverted face,And looks and listens for the boy behind;(3) For he, alas! is blind.
(1) Two lovely children ran an endless race,
A sister and a brother!
(2) She far outstripped the other;
Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
And looks and listens for the boy behind;
(3) For he, alas! is blind.
Work without Hope (Coleridge).(1) All nature seems at work:(2) Slugs leave their lair;The bees are stirring, birds are on the wing,(3) And Winter, slumbering in the open air,Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!(1) And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,(2) Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.(3) Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may;For me ye bloom not. Glide, rich streams, away!With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll;And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,And hope without an object cannot live.
Work without Hope (Coleridge).
(1) All nature seems at work:(2) Slugs leave their lair;The bees are stirring, birds are on the wing,(3) And Winter, slumbering in the open air,Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!(1) And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,(2) Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.(3) Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may;For me ye bloom not. Glide, rich streams, away!With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll;And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,And hope without an object cannot live.
(1) All nature seems at work:(2) Slugs leave their lair;The bees are stirring, birds are on the wing,(3) And Winter, slumbering in the open air,Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!(1) And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,(2) Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.(3) Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may;For me ye bloom not. Glide, rich streams, away!With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll;And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,And hope without an object cannot live.
(1) All nature seems at work:
(2) Slugs leave their lair;
The bees are stirring, birds are on the wing,
(3) And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
(1) And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
(2) Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
(3) Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may;
For me ye bloom not. Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll;
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.
Shakespeare, in the citation “She never told her love,” gives out his subject in five words; from this he rises into the amplification of it through an exquisite metaphor and thence inters its divine ideal in imagery that can never be surpassed. Such isthe working principle in imaginative verse, and it may be readily found that the principle does not pervade narrative poetry except in authors of the very highest class. It is the sure test of genius, so sure that a classification of the poets, in the order of their merit, might be based upon it.
It may be perceived that these poetic gems are as perfect in themselves as any epic of many pages. But as gems differ, so do these: the citations from Shakespeare and from Coleridge have their parallels in the line of ascent; they rise into their climax. The question whether the expression “slugs leave their lair,” should not be “stags leave their lair,” might surely be decided by reference to the first edition of “Work without Hope.” I possessed Gagliani’s reprint of Coleridge in 1832; if “slugs” in that issue stood as a printer’s error, the author was alive to protest against it. However, in an early edition of his poems, edited by Coleridge, I find it is “stags.” I feel that it was consonant with Coleridge’s mind to have begun the poem with “Slugs leave their lair;” it is not only more musical than “stags” through the triple alliteration, but more orderly, beginning with the slowest of animated creatures as typical of the condition of apathy that he was himself consigned to.
There are three lofty and emotional verses in Wordsworth’s “Intimations,” which should be spoken of. The first of these is a gem, and would have been without flaw but that it begins in the climacteric, while the subject and development of it, which should come first, begin at the sixth line, thus:
“It is not now as it hath been of yore,”
“It is not now as it hath been of yore,”
“It is not now as it hath been of yore,”
“It is not now as it hath been of yore,”
down to the end.
It is almost sad to observe what splendid material Wordsworth sacrifices through his want of poetic art.
The stanza needs no verbal correction; its fault is in the misplacement of the lines. It is one of the most important verses in the language, or I would not trouble the critic about it, but I will ask him to read it thus by transposing the lines:
(1.The Subject.)It is not now as it hath been of yore;(2.The Development.)Turn wheresoe’er I may,By night or day,The things which I have seen I now can see no more.(3.The Grand Climax.)There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,The earth and every common sightTo me did seemApparelled in celestial light,The glory and the freshness of a dream!
(1.The Subject.)It is not now as it hath been of yore;(2.The Development.)Turn wheresoe’er I may,By night or day,The things which I have seen I now can see no more.(3.The Grand Climax.)There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,The earth and every common sightTo me did seemApparelled in celestial light,The glory and the freshness of a dream!
(1.The Subject.)It is not now as it hath been of yore;
(1.The Subject.)
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
(2.The Development.)Turn wheresoe’er I may,By night or day,The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
(2.The Development.)
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
(3.The Grand Climax.)There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,The earth and every common sightTo me did seemApparelled in celestial light,The glory and the freshness of a dream!
(3.The Grand Climax.)
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream!
The qualifications of one who could be classed with the greatest of poets are deducible from Shakespeare alone; they are as follows:—
1. Imagination.
2. Philosophic vision.
3. A sense of the ludicrous.
4. An emotional perception of beauty.
5. Harmony.
6. Art.
All of these might be dilated on, but not here.
It is a notable truth that the poetic mind never appears fully to mature. A man often writes a whole bible of verses, of which but one per cent., or from that to ten, is worth preserving. If he produces one or two favourite poems, a mild people accepts the whole, but only feeds on the little income of its large capital. A voluminous writer may succeed in yielding a fine harvest on the whole; the wheats beyond all praise, the barleys good, the oats plentiful; but the roots indifferent and the potato crop decidedly bad.
It would be a curious sight if one could inspect the proceedings of Fame Insurance Companies, in which Shakespeare had a policy for millions all paid up, and invested in the hearts of generations unborn; in which, if Coleridge has not a tithe of the amount, he is yet rich with the well-earned increment ever increasing; and Wordsworth, who teaches moral as well as poetic divinity, is not veryfar behind him. There I pause, accepting contemporary poets as more or less life-annuitants.
There is, perhaps, no example of retrospective imagination (it is at once so dramatic, so poetic) like the opening words of Gloucester in the play ofRichard III.
Before Shakespeare’s day, drama and poetry lived very much apart—one may say entirely separate in the Greek; no less so than chemical science and geology may do at the present time: Shakespeare, in much of his work, made them one.
“Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;”
“Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;”
“Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;”
“Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;”
in this the action is dramatic, the verbal structure metaphoric.
The same is true of—
“Nor made to court an amourous looking-glass;”
“Nor made to court an amourous looking-glass;”
“Nor made to court an amourous looking-glass;”
“Nor made to court an amourous looking-glass;”
while the words,
“He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber,To the lascivious pleasing of a lute,”
“He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber,To the lascivious pleasing of a lute,”
“He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber,To the lascivious pleasing of a lute,”
“He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute,”
surpasses both, as not being metaphoric, yet poetic as well as dramatic.
Furthermore, the latter line—
“To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph,”
“To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph,”
“To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph,”
“To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph,”
is most perfect in drama-poetic expression. It is exquisite in its contempt; it is ever visible in its movement; it is ludicrous too. Here lies the highest triumph of poetry, to do that which ordinaryspeech can barely effect in any single sentence—to attain to the most beautiful expression without a single metaphor; that is, by absolute simplicity of speech.
Of course, metaphor is a great resource in composition; it involves not only the fact, but its simile in one and the same epithet.
The line in Hamlet—
“Whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul,”
“Whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul,”
“Whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul,”
“Whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul,”
has as strong a simile in it, through “harrow up,” as is contained in the expression—
“Thy matted and combined locks to part …Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
“Thy matted and combined locks to part …Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
“Thy matted and combined locks to part …Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
“Thy matted and combined locks to part …
Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
But the last is pure poetry; the other is dramatic poetry.
Of course, pure poetry has the highest quality of all; it is so sincere, so convincing, that it requires no help to render it beautiful and effective.
The whole address inHamletdelivered by the Ghost is free from metaphor with few exceptions towards the end, as—
“Make thy two eyes like stars dart from their spheres;”
“Make thy two eyes like stars dart from their spheres;”
“Make thy two eyes like stars dart from their spheres;”
“Make thy two eyes like stars dart from their spheres;”
also—
“Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
“Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
“Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
“Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
These two lines are the only exceptions. They are mighty, and at the very summit of human art, but in this respect do not actually reveal more than may be set forth in a pure simplicity of diction.
This great truth of truths was known to Davidand Solomon. It came to them as the only means through which the interests of a pure humanity could be enlarged on, and made to reach the heart.
Moses enjoyed the art, as shown in his account of the creation; so likewise did the authors of Esther, Ruth, and Job. It came to them because their poetry was so human, and consisted not, as it did with the Greeks, in exalting heroes and conquerors.
It is easy enough to use simple language in descriptive poetry or in prose; not so easy to attain to sublimity by its means. To do this demands genius of the first order. Shakespeare, the most gifted of men, was not too great to employ it in his highest achievements. He was a perfect master of simplicity; he knew that there was but one simple thing, and that was truth.
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,”
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,”
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,”
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,”
and the lines that follow, are entirely free from metaphor, yet no purer and nobler description ever found utterance. The more a writer deviates from simplicity, the less sincere he appears. Let every man of genius mark my words, that He who delivered the parables to the multitude was Sincerity itself; that His teachings were allegories, but that metaphor never crossed His lips. Take as examples those exquisite poems—for such they are, unfettered by artificial metre—the parables of the Prodigal Son, and of the Ten Virgins: a critical reading of them will readily reveal that not a single metaphor exists in either, and yet what an elevated poetry pervadesthem! After perusing them, turn at once to Milton and read his account of Satan’s exaltation in hell—
“High on a throne of royal state which farOutshone the wealth of Ormus, or of Ind,Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,Satan exalted sat, by merit raisedTo that bad eminence.”
“High on a throne of royal state which farOutshone the wealth of Ormus, or of Ind,Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,Satan exalted sat, by merit raisedTo that bad eminence.”
“High on a throne of royal state which farOutshone the wealth of Ormus, or of Ind,Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,Satan exalted sat, by merit raisedTo that bad eminence.”
“High on a throne of royal state which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus, or of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence.”
This is great language, is marvellous, high-sounding, impressive, but is it sincere? Would an angel sent from heaven to report on the proceedings in hell, have brought back such a description as this of what he had beheld?
It is grand, as is Homer’s exaltation of his heroes; but does it touch the innermost heart?
This is said not to find fault; not to withdraw admiration from one of the few who have made their country famous before all other lands, for there is time for all things; for
“The pomp and circumstance of glorious war,”
“The pomp and circumstance of glorious war,”
“The pomp and circumstance of glorious war,”
“The pomp and circumstance of glorious war,”
and for sadness at the sufferings of humanity.
In writing about Shakespeare and Coleridge, I have showed that poems from their hand, however short, had the three essentials of art—that is, the three parallels, not more or less—namely, the statement of the subject, the development of it in detail, and the climax. The bare statement of the subject is the basis of the whole; the development employs the retrospective imagination which embraces anacquaintance with all nature and human life; finally, the climax involves the moral by means of the prospective imagination or the circumspective, and rises into the incommensurable.
An analysis of the parables shows that these three parallels are invariably to be found in each. A poet who cares little or nothing for nature uses the introspective imagination, substituting himself for the universe, whence his climax often sinks into a mere reflection.
I would say a few more words on the subject of parables.
Dr. Angus, the masterly author of an English Grammar, defines the allegory, parable, and fable. He says of the parable that it is an allegory of something that might happen, written in metaphoric language. This is an instance in which a great scholar may err by dispensing with scrutiny and relying on his instinctive belief.
But I must not forget that these records are meant to be about myself, the author of poems and other effusions let loose when from time to time he drew out the spigot. The author’s insurance policy is still under discussion. His trial is still going on, as did that of Warren Hastings; it has gone into a new generation, and some say that when, like the traditional door-nail, he is dead, it willterminate in his acquittal, it being found at last that he did not make himself, but was planned out by Nature to serve her purpose; having fulfilled which, she withdrew the chemical compound of which he consisted, and utilized his waste materials.
As said before, I had the “Piromides” printed and published; it was by Saunders and Ottley, in 1839, while I resided in Gordon Square on my return from Paris, where I had spent twelve months in making the acquaintance of scientific physicians, naturalists, and others; going round the wards of La Charité with Andral every morning at six o’clock; attending the lectures on chemistry of Thénard at a later hour, and revelling in the bones of Cuvier’s osteological museum. I was much with Milne-Edwards; and with Dujardin, whoseéclairagefor the microscope I introduced into London, lending mine to Ross and to Powell as a pattern, and these opticians and their successors have supplied the scientific profession with it ever since. It consisted of an achromatic illuminator, the invention of which Wollaston pronounced impossible, and which Dujardin achieved.
In that year I made the discovery of an animalcule in the liver; it was a time when such things were unknown, now fifty years ago. This discovery has recently attracted the attention of the Pathological Society, who have given an account of it in their “Transactions” for 1890, in a eulogistic tone.
In that year, too, I published “Vates.”
From 1839 to 1853, living in East Anglia, Iwas engaged in an art-novel or romance, called “Valdarno,” taking it up only from time to time, as Goethe did his “Faust.” I began its foundations in Florence, and published four numbers under the title of “Vates,” illustrated by Charles Landseer, and I then dropped it, as in costing too much money it became a gift to the world. Dante Rossetti, whose father was a professor at King’s, like Pepoli at University College, used, as a student-boy at the first-named, to purchase “Vates,” and devour it eagerly; so he told me when many years later we met.
Leaving the arena of letters and art for country life, which is, however, worth seeing once, I settled myself down in the monastic borough of Bury St. Edmunds. Like all the old county towns, it was formerly the little metropolis of a squirearchy, where the dowagers retired for life into the family mansions. The place has great architectural features in the shape of abbey ruins, still haunted by the ghost of Abbot Sampson; of noble churches, such as are not built now; of Norman tower and Gothic gateway, such as may never be built again.
There was no lord in the place to adorn it, but there was a great plenty of the kind to bless it and conserve it within reach—the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Bristol, and baronets sufficient in number to engage the fingers of one hand when counted up. But the town itself had its magnates; there was an honourable Mr. Petre, brother of a lord of that name, and an honourable Mr. Pellew, son of thenaval hero, and my own familiar friend, not to mention an admiral of the great name and family of Wollaston, and a post-captain, with a C.B. that he never wore; and it must not be forgotten that the august mother of the Bishop of London, Dr. Bloomfield, also resided there, among others of great worth, including a solitary baronet and his lady, Sir John Walsham.
There was a famous grammar school, too, with Dr. Donaldson of classic fame as head master, which had supplied England with a president of the Royal College of Physicians, Sir Thomas Watson; a lord chancellor, Sir Robert Rolfe, Lord Cranworth; besides a bishop of London, whose scholarship was on a par with that of the most learned of the day; and all these alive at the same time.
The Marquis of Bristol was the younger son of the earl of that house, who was also Bishop of Derry, and owing to his elder brother’s early death, he became the owner of Ickworth, a park within a short drive of Bury, which, including all the parish and part of the one adjoining, lies within a circuit of eleven miles. It is said that the father disliked the son, probably owing to some act of disobedience, and exercised his power of depriving the inheritance of its charm. He destroyed all the fine old timber in the park, but nearly a hundred years have sufficed to restore it; and he left the plan of a colossal palace, of which he himself erected the central shell, and laid the whole of the foundations. I was credibly informed that ten thousand a yearwas to be spent for fifty years, according to the bishop’s will, to complete the structure.
The building was completed on the original grand scale about fifty years ago, and it took fifty years to finish. In the drawings of this marvellous structure it is designated Ickworth Building, and it bears that name, which, given it by Time, it will always retain, for people call it by no other.
Ickworth Building was the design of a Mr. Sandys, I believe a clergyman, not an architect by profession. He had been much in Rome, as had the bishop, who loved Italy, and lived more in that country than elsewhere; and, though an absentee bishop, the beneficence he exercised in his see was so great that at his death the people of Derry subscribed to raise a monument of their gratitude to him, which stands near the building in Ickworth Park.
There must be descriptions of Ickworth Building in works on architecture, and I think one will be found in Mr. Rookwood Gage’s fine “History of Suffolk;” but I do not possess such, and what I say is from memory.
I have heard Lord Bristol say that often when he looked out of window in the morning on the new building from the old, he wished the earth would swallow it up. One knows the feeling of something always hanging over one; it is like that of a man sitting underneath a gallows after an execution.
The marquis might doubtless have eluded the burden imposed on him by his father’s will, butjenoublieray jamaiswas the motto he inherited, and he lived to finish his task and to enjoy the magnificent dwelling-place as a home. The building itself, wholly unique in grace and beauty, consists of a central structure, almost circular, surmounted by a dome, intended to represent the Coliseum; its summit is belted by sculptures of the Homeric legends, the work of Flaxman. There are two square wings at a proportionate distance from the body of the building, connected with it by corridors, each being the segment of a circle, with its concavity to the front. The left wing was designed for a picture-gallery, the right one for a gallery of sculpture, intended by the bishop to receive his collections of art.
The building is of white material externally; its area is planted with cedars alone. Of all the palaces and mansions I have ever beheld, it is the most surprising; perhaps equalled only, though not in grace, by the temples of India, with the designs of which one is familiar.
The Pavilion at Brighton should not be forgotten in such a comparison, but that is semi-barbarous, while Ickworth is classic, of the Ionic and Corinthian orders.
Approached by a serpentine road, its perspective conveys the impression of a moving object; it seems to swing round, as on a pivot, at every turn one takes in driving towards the portico, now slowly, now rapidly revolving, on its aërial axis, now remaining still.
I am not aware of it, if what follows has everbeen put on record authentically, though it may have been so in part. The earl-bishop lived much at Rome and spent his large income in making a collection of pictures and sculptures to fill the galleries at Ickworth. It was at the time when we were at war with France on account of Napoleon Bonaparte’s usurpations.
The bishop having completed his collections of sculptures made his arrangements for transmitting them to England, when they were seized on their way by Bonaparte as belonging to a British subject. This act aroused a strong feeling of indignation in the minds of the Italian artists, who had met with so generous a patron in the bishop, and, that he might not be a sufferer, they subscribed a large sum of money and offered it to Bonaparte as a ransom for the treasures he had put under confiscation. Bonaparte took the money and set the collection free, restoring it to their owner, when it was no sooner despatched a second time than he seized it again.
No more fortunate fate awaited the pictures. The bishop succeeded in having them safely conveyed to Dover, but while in the custom house the building was burnt down, and the fine collection of paintings was destroyed in the flames.
I was told by one of the family a singular anecdote of the bishop. When at Rome he was invited to a banquet by the cardinals, and, while the company gathered, he learnt accidentally that the dining-hall was over the debtor’s prison. His anger at onceburst forth and knew no bounds. He, a prelate of the Church of England, was insulted; he had been asked to dine over the heads of those wretched prisoners who, during the feast, would be pining in their narrow cells. His hosts naturally explained that such an affront was unintended by them; but he was not to be pacified. At length his course was determined on: he would remain where he was until a full list of all the prisoners’ debts was brought him. For this he waited sulkily, and when it arrived he wrote a cheque for the entire amount.
The prison doors were opened, and he sat down.
The private history of a country has not the same interest as the public, which is enduring; but it has a charm and is instructive. Biology profits by observing the influence of a higher life on the temperaments of men, on their principles, their manners, and their views. How different all these become to what we meet with in the common working men, from whom the best of us are descended!
The bishop was for some time confined by the republicans in the castle of Milan, and afterwards still remained in Italy, where he died in 1803. Except the central shell and the foundations, Ickworth was left for the next successor to erect: a gigantic undertaking.
The Herveys were always distinguished by their manners; Lord Hervey, in Pope’s time, was so conspicuous on this ground as to be called “Fanny Hervey.” It was with him, probably, the sayingarose that the human race was divided into men, women, and Herveys.
The present Lord Arthur, now bishop of Bath and Wells, has a manner which, once seen, could never be forgotten. The same might be said of Lord Charles Hervey, who, however, had taken a different polish from having been a member of the Spanish embassy.
Lord Bristol was at Ickworth chiefly at Christmas, when he packed his house with all his descendants, having a separate table for those who were yet children.
Unfortunately, the offices being in the basement, half a mile distant, as people said, the dinner had plenty of time to cool before it reached the table.
Lord Bristol was always very pleasant with his guests: after dinner he would sit with his legs crossed and enter into familiar chat on political matters. He had veered a good deal towards the Liberal side. I remember his saying to me, “It is incumbent on us to move with the times; it was very easy to govern when there was only a population of eleven millions, but it is a different matter now.”
Earl Jermyn was very unlike his younger brothers and his father. He had a manner peculiarly his own, a politeness so mingled with shyness that one could not distinguish the one from the other, but withal a commanding air. His countess, Lady Catherine Jermyn, sister of the present Duke of Rutland, had a most imposing figure, and was bothbeautiful and full of charm. She died in London in her prime, so absolutely the prey of small-pox that no feature was longer recognizable.
Lord Alfred was member for Bury at one time, with Earl Jermyn, but he made no place for himself in political life.
I was informed that the earl-bishop had built himself a residence in Ireland, similar to the Ickworth Building, but on a greatly reduced scale. When I read Lever’s novel of “The Bishop’s Folly,” I wondered whether its plot was laid in the place in question. I quite read the work with the impression that it was so.
Much culture shows itself in the families of Suffolk. I often thought it was owing to the vicinity of Cambridge, which is not more than a drive of thirty miles from Bury. This remark applies to many of the resident gentry, and notably to two sons of Sir Henry Bunbury: to his eldest, Sir C. F. Bunbury, the late baronet and a distinguished botanist, who was only debarred from a Fellowship of Trinity by his being an heir to an estate and title; an honour which his next brother, Sir Edward, received, and who sustained his reputation in becoming the most learned ancient geographer of the day.
Sir Henry, a lieutenant-general, was a man not to be readily forgotten. He had a sound judgment, was a constant reader of books, old and new, a clear-headed critic of art productions, and he held temperate opinions on national affairs; in fact, he encouraged the repeal of the corn laws, though at Barton and Mildenhall the owner of over fifteen thousand acres of land. He was the son of a famous man, the greatest of caricaturists, Henry Bunbury, whose initials of H. B. were adopted by one who came later and who reaped fame on the bold impersonation.
Henry Bunbury was the friend of Sir Joshua, and there are several Reynoldses at Barton Hall; one of priceless value, a full-length portraiture of Lady Sarah Lennox as Venus sacrificing to the Graces—a lady destined to perform a notable part in life.
It was said that her beauty was the exciting cause of her sovereign’s madness, for it was well-known that she smote him to the quick; but she was fated to a higher lot, though her path to it was thorny.
Lady Sarah Lennox was married to Sir Charles Bunbury, the uncle of Sir Henry, a man in whose life the world can take no interest, for he was simply of the horse-racing class, the least admirable of shrewd, clever men.
One may imagine the kind of character Sir Charles was when it is told that he grew tired of his lovely wife! She was finally divorced from sounworthy a partner, and retired to Ireland, in the bitterness of her heart.
After a lapse of several years, Lady Sarah met with a Colonel Napier, who belonged to the historical family of that name, and she married him. From that date her better destiny began. She became a mother, but of such a family! Of her five sons, three were Peninsula heroes, with the friendly eye of Wellington always upon them. Sir Charles Napier, the first general of his day; Sir William, the historian of the Peninsular War; and Sir George, a brave, good man, who was governor of the Cape.
Another son of this great lady was a barrister, and a fifth was a post-captain.
But to one, the only daughter, the sister in so bright a galaxy, one may readily credit the charm that attached to her! To complete the romance, she became the second wife of Sir Henry Bunbury, coming to Barton Hall, to find her beautiful mother’s image there, where it had remained over the great library mantelpiece, sacrificing to the Graces still.
Barton was a comfortable home, and Providence, to make perfection joyous, bestowed on Lady Bunbury a niece whose countenance was the daylight, whose voice was the music of all around. This was Cecilia Napier, the only living child of Sir George. She inherited the beauty and grace of Lady Sarah, whose portraiture by Reynolds was hers also. The family of Sir Henry came of a firstmarriage, but he loved the adopted one of his second wife as his own. This lovely girl became the wife of his third son, Henry, a colonel in the army.
One would almost think that Providence was the near relation of some families—it appoints them to such pleasant places, makes them so welcome upon earth, lets them want for nothing. So it was apparently at Barton Hall, on which the divine patronage was very generously bestowed.
As we learnt at school,Natura beatis omnibus esse dedit. Still, as a physician would say, this is only the predisposing cause; exciting causes must follow. And here Providence steps in, with the patronage of a prime minister, which is not, in appearance, dealt out disinterestedly; but there is not enough for all.
Sir Henry, on account of his conciliatory manners, was selected after the war to communicate to General Bonaparte his pending sentence of lifelong exile. Sir Hudson Lowe might perhaps have been as well appointed to the task, for the ex-emperor simply burst out into a torrent of abuse and rage, which not all the persuasiveness of the baronet could soften.
Sir Henry began military life at the battle of Maida, under General Stuart, and wrote an account of it in pamphlet form, but I think not for general circulation. He also similarly described his interview with Napoleon. It gave a fuller account of what passed than appears in Sir Walter Scott’swork, which was borrowed from it by Sir Henry’s permission.
Sir George Napier I knew very well; he was sometimes at Barton. Sir Charles I saw only once, and was charmed by the gentle and unpretending manner of the man who had performed such marvels of valour. When last in India, at the conquest of Scinde, he contracted a dysentery, which afterwards returned and proved fatal. He annexed Scinde, in violation of the orders from home. Lady Bunbury told me she had heard, but could not vouch for the truth of it, that in his despatch to the Government he announced what he had done in one apologetic word—peccavi.
It was said that the moral influence enjoyed over the troops by this great soldier even exceeded that of his command as general.
It may be interesting to note that Sir Henry’s successor, the late Charles Fox Bunbury, married a daughter of Leonard Horner, a sister of Lady Lyell. They lived at the old mansion at Mildenhall.
I knew Sir Charles Lyell in 1839, when I was the bearer to him of some fossils; and I met him with Lady Lyell and her sisters in 1853, when I delivered a lecture to a select company in the house.
One’s memoirs never seem to end; the more one advances the more one seems to remember. It is like living over again on somewhat easy terms, for a repetition of the reality would by all, if offered it, be respectfully declined, even by those who have passed through it the most smoothly. But this revival of a long life in memory itself is a good; one can set aside and suppress the bad feelings that have had their place in alternate succession, and can so purify being, though too late, as one passes through it over again. We have all had friends, and in thus reviving their recollection we feel how far less stable within us are their failings than their kindly deeds. The models of good men are those who never speak ill of others; there are many such, and in passing once more from childhood to old age we may imitate them at last.
The Duke of Norfolk was a friend of mine, for he sent me game at a time when he did not even know me, with his compliments; the only man who ever did so before or since. This good duke, this most high and puissant prince, resided in a pleasant, not pretentious mansion near Bury, from which he drove in an open carriage with one horse on a Sunday to his Catholic Church. It was said that neither he nor his predecessor, known as Jockey of Norfolk, were acquainted with their near relationship. The duke whom he succeeded was said tohave once determined to invite all who were descendants of his house to a banquet at Arundel, but that when the number of claimants reached two hundred, he paused and abandoned his purpose. His next of kin, on whom I am now engaged, was a man of business in the City; had his office, and responded to orders for wine. While thus honourably occupied he had to be looked up, and was credibly informed that he was wanted, not by the law only, but to take over the lordship of Arundel Castle, together with the premier dukedom, besides earldoms enough, and over a dozen baronies; a number of peerages sufficient to constitute a full committee of the House of Lords.
This nobleman thus entered on many homes, but he preferred his own country seat, to which he had been accustomed, to castle and palace, and there, full of years and honours, he suddenly died. His heir had gone by the historical name of the Earl of Surrey, and his grandson by that of Lord Fitzalan; but the latter at the duke’s death assumed the earldom of Arundel and Surrey.
Lord Fitzalan, travelling in the Mediterranean, had fallen ill. He was the guest of Admiral Lyons, and became attached to the daughter of that heroic seaman. This lady, who only died lately, was justly beloved; her charity to the poor had no bounds. A priest at Lymington, who was one of her almoners, told me he could ask her for whatever he saw needed by the poor, and, no matter what the cost, it was given. The present duke is her worthy son.
The residence of the old duke, who lived there now three generations ago, was at Fornham All Saints, in a good park. After his death it was purchased for a young man named Lord Manners, the son of an Irish lord chancellor, and has been resold. This fortunate youth had all his work done for him beforehand. I met him at dinner often at Culford Hall, and I recall my amused state of mind at seeing him lean back in his chair and play with a feather from the dress of a lady at his side, which he peacefully blew up in the air.
In close vicinity to Fornham Park was another, where stood a mansion which, if anything can do so, must last for ever, not because of its strength, but its beauty. This is Hengrave Hall, a proud example, almost unique, of our domestic architecture. It is very fully displayed in Rookwood-Gage’s work, which I was once permitted to devour on the premises. Sir Thomas Gage was the owner, but he was very little there, preferring the society of Vienna to that of his eastern county home. He was of a knightly family, and himself an elegant man of fashion; he represented the elder branch of the Gages, the lord of that name notwithstanding. His ancestor conferred a benefit on his country as durable as sunshine and time, one that every Englishman profits by and enjoys from childhood to old age; he introduced the greengage from Vienna into this country, and it has ever since borne his name.
I was just now speaking of Culford Hall, which the press, no doubt on intimate terms with its presentproprietor, Lord Cadogan, and acquainted with all his movements, calls Culford Abbey. It is a modern, monkless building, and the parish was once a lordship of Bury Abbey; nothing more. The place has an exemplary record; it was purchased more than half of this century ago, of Lord Cornwallis’s daughters, by Mr. Benyon de Beauvoir. For several years he spent the rental of the estate, some eleven thousand acres, in rebuilding all its farmhouses and cottages, which done he entailed it on his nephew, the Rev. Edward Benyon. It was, like most of the great dwellings in the county, the home of good company, hospitality, and sport: and for pheasant and partridge shooting Suffolk is not unfamed.
Mr. Benyon had no heir, and the estate went, with another vast property of sixty thousand acres, to the present Mr. Benyon, of Berkshire.
A family with which I was in close intimacy, indeed on affectionate terms, was the Wilsons, of Stowlangtoft Hall. Let those who from their disappointments in life have formed a bad opinion of mankind go among such people as these!
The father of Henry Wilson resided on his estate at Highbury; he had been a great merchant, a calling from which so many great things have emanated in our country, and one which will ceaseto exist when we reach our socialistic days; for who would give the energy of his commercial genius as a servant of the State, and pile up tens of thousands to enrich Cabinets whose members had better have remained prize-fighters and the like?
Mr. Wilson purchased two baronets’ estates in Suffolk—one of Sir George Wombwell, the historic seat of Stowlangtoft; one, Langham Hall, the property adjoining, of Sir Henry Blake. He also held lands in Norfolk.
Henry Wilson, his son and my kindest and best of friends, resided always at Stowlangtoft; at one time he represented the county in Parliament. He was educated at Oxford, where he made friends enough to last for a lifetime, all of whom, like himself, were thoroughly good men, and many of them fellow-students of Oriel. There was Rickards, who became his rector, a college-friend; and one of those who joined the set of Newman and Manning for a time. There was Porcher, Yarde Buller of Downs,[2]Kindersley, Mozley; nearly all these were guests from time to time of Rickards and Wilson; in fact, the only one I do not recall as having met at the hall or rectory was Newman.
It was a deadly surprise to Rickards when Newman and Manning kicked against the Reformation and became inceptor-candidates for the Papacy. The Church, from its own point of view, may have deemed it fortunate that these two gentlemen took their stroll from Oxford to Rome, or they mighthave become Anglican archbishops, and have looked the Holy City up later in life.
Sir R. Kindersley was a most genial man, quiet and sensible, like most of those who rise to eminence. He gave his daughter in marriage to Wilson’s eldest son, and Wilson gave one of his daughters to Kindersley’s eldest son, and a daughter by this marriage is now Lady Herschell. Miss Wilson had been long adopted by the Porchers, who wished her and young Kindersley to be their heirs.
Henry Wilson had a large family by his first wife, who was a Maitland. He married a second time, the daughter of Lord Henry Fitz-Roy, a son of the Duke of Grafton. This lady brought him several children. She was a devoted mother to both families; as conscientious a lady as was ever born to fulfil great duties. She not only treated her stepchildren exactly as she did her own, but acquired for them the same affection as she felt for those which she had brought into the world.
Those who knew her may think themselves happy if they ever see her like again.
My first acquaintance with Sir R. Kindersley was at a dinner at Trinity College, which I went to with Dr. J. W. Donaldson, the Greek scholar and philologer. Donaldson was then head-master at the Bury School. It was my good fortune on the same occasion to meet Professor Sedgwick, some of whose anecdotes have served my purpose ever since. A very good one was of a French general who visited England and enjoyed Sedgwick’s attentions,among those of many others. On taking final leave of the general he asked him how he liked the English ladies. After some hesitation the answer came. It was: “I like them very much. They are very beautiful, but they have one great fault; they are too virtuous.Elles sont trop vertueuses.”
I reminded Kindersley of that pleasant dinner when I met him again, and he remembered it well.
Wilson was boundless in his hospitality to his neighbours, poor and rich. Could every parish be under the management of such a squire and such a rector, poverty would cease to be an evil. Wilson may have felt this organically; it may have been under its influence that he desired to establish his family on the soil during succeeding generations. He was an ardent admirer of enterprise and self-aid; he turned his own name into his motto—“Will soon will.”
He was bent on building a mansion on the Stowlangtoft estate, and this he did ultimately on a larger scale than had sufficed for the home of Sir George Wombwell or of Sir Simonds d’Ewes, his predecessors; but not before his father died, who left him a purse of twenty-four thousand pounds a year.
The old Wilson, the London merchant, told me that he met Sir George Wombwell at his bankers’ to pay him the ninety thousand pounds in notes which he gave for the Stowlangtoft estate, and that the baronet stuffed the money into his hinder coat pocket, and so walked away.
The old hall was a very comfortable one, commodious, picturesque. A man does no good to his family in replacing old mansions by new in country places, to which the owner resorts, often, only for the shooting season. This adding on to and rebuilding often ends in disappointment to those who follow later. I saw recently an advertisement in the paper—“To be let, Stowlangtoft Hall, with the shooting over seven thousand acres of land.” My friend Mr. Thornhill, of Riddlesworth Hall, Norfolk, enlarged his mansion, which had sufficed for his wealthy father; he wished his descendants to reside there for generations, but his son has thought differently. I saw an advertisement immediately under the above concerning Stowlangtoft, which ran thus—“To be sold, the property of Sir Thomas Thornhill, Bart., the well-known sporting estate of Riddlesworth Hall.” How little influence can the dead exercise over the living!
We must now speak of old Rickards, a name he had gone by all his life, with the many who loved him. His hair had always been white, his complexion red, and he always blushed heartily when he laughed. He had been a Fellow of Oriel till he wedded Miss Wilmot, a daughter of Sir Robert Wilmot, of Chadsden Hall, Derbyshire, the liveliest, brightest, tenderest, sweetest of women; a girl to the last; and I hope still alive, though all this was fifty years ago. But every one is dead nowadays. Time was when I saw in the paper the death of some acquaintance almost weekly, then it got tomonthly, then perhaps once in a year, but never now, for every one I ever knew seems dead and gone. I have a brother left, and a school-fellow and friend;[3]all others appear children.
But how the newly dead who have lived in us half a century and much more still survive and perform their parts within us, still laughing, still blushing, still merry, still sensible and intelligent there, telling us all they ever told us over again: still glad at seeing us, still shaking us by the hand, still bidding us welcome. Yes, the obituary notices of them were premature; they live while we live, they die only when we die.
There is one soothing circumstance, however, attendant on death: we do not miss ourselves when we are dead; not so much even as we do a shirt-button when we are alive!