"World! what a wonder is this,Grandly and simply sublime,—All the Atlantic abyssLeapt in a nothing of time!Even the steeds of the sunHalf a day panting behind,In the flat race that is run,Won by a flash of the mind!"Lo! on this sensitive, link—It is one link, not a chain—Man with his brother can thinkSpanning the breadth of the main,—Man to his brother can speakSwift as the bolt from a cloud,And where its thunders were weakThere his least whisper is loud!"Yea; for as Providence wills,Now doth intelligent manConquer material ills,Wrestling them down as he can,—And lay one weak little coilUnder the width of the waves,Distance and Time are his spoil,Fetter'd as Caliban slaves!"Ariel?—right through the seaWe can fly swift as in air;Puck?—forty minutes shall beSloth to the bow that we bear:Here is Earth's girdle indeed,Just a thought-circlet of fire,—Delicate Ariel freedSings, as she flies, on a wire!"Courage, O servants of light,For you are safe to succeed;Lo! you are helping the Right,And shall be blest in your deed.Lo! you shall bind in one band,Joining the nations as one,Brethren of every land,Blessing them under the sun!"This is Earth's pulse of high healthThrilling with vigour and heat,Brotherhood, wisdom and wealth,Throbbing in every beat;But you must watch in good soothLest to false fever it swerve,—Touch it with tenderest truthAs the world's exquisite nerve!"Let the first message across—High-hearted Commerce, give heed—Not be of profit or loss,But one electric indeed:Praise to the Giver be given,For that He giveth man skill,Glory to God in the Heaven!'Peace upon earth, and goodwill!'"
"World! what a wonder is this,Grandly and simply sublime,—All the Atlantic abyssLeapt in a nothing of time!Even the steeds of the sunHalf a day panting behind,In the flat race that is run,Won by a flash of the mind!
"Lo! on this sensitive, link—It is one link, not a chain—Man with his brother can thinkSpanning the breadth of the main,—Man to his brother can speakSwift as the bolt from a cloud,And where its thunders were weakThere his least whisper is loud!
"Yea; for as Providence wills,Now doth intelligent manConquer material ills,Wrestling them down as he can,—And lay one weak little coilUnder the width of the waves,Distance and Time are his spoil,Fetter'd as Caliban slaves!
"Ariel?—right through the seaWe can fly swift as in air;Puck?—forty minutes shall beSloth to the bow that we bear:Here is Earth's girdle indeed,Just a thought-circlet of fire,—Delicate Ariel freedSings, as she flies, on a wire!
"Courage, O servants of light,For you are safe to succeed;Lo! you are helping the Right,And shall be blest in your deed.Lo! you shall bind in one band,Joining the nations as one,Brethren of every land,Blessing them under the sun!
"This is Earth's pulse of high healthThrilling with vigour and heat,Brotherhood, wisdom and wealth,Throbbing in every beat;But you must watch in good soothLest to false fever it swerve,—Touch it with tenderest truthAs the world's exquisite nerve!
"Let the first message across—High-hearted Commerce, give heed—Not be of profit or loss,But one electric indeed:Praise to the Giver be given,For that He giveth man skill,Glory to God in the Heaven!'Peace upon earth, and goodwill!'"
Another Electric poem of mine called "The First Message," also in Gall's edition, was sent over by telegraph to America. What a miserable muddle, by the way, those meddlesome revisers have made of The Angel's Message;—preferring a dubious sigma to a comma, they have utterly spoilt that sublime trilogy by making "Peace upon earth, goodwill towards men," read "Peace upon earth among men in whom he is well pleased." How clumsy and how ungrammatical,inwhom! The whole dear Bible has been terribly damaged by their 36,000 needless alterations in the New Testament (not 100 having been really necessary), and I know not how many more myriads in the Old, but happily their Version falls dead, and will soon be as forgotten as Dr. Conquest's "Bible with 20,000 emendations," whereof I now possess a somewhat scarce copy in the library at Albury. I have less than no patience with those principally clerical revisers; albeit for their chairman, Dr. Ellicott, I retain a pleasant memory from Orkney recollections in old days.
But this is a digression, wrung from me by my righteous wrath against those who have done their worst to spoil for us The Angel's Message, the first word uttered by the telegraphic wire under the sea.
Returning to the subject of Electrics I have something of interest to say which will be news to my readers. One day when casually dipping into Addison'sSpectatorat Albury, I made the following discovery which I recorded in the newspapers at the time, and give the extract now fully as thus:—
In the 241st No. of Addison'sSpectator, bearing date Thursday, December 6th, 1711, and as signed "C." (one of the letters of the mystic Clio), by the great Joseph Addison himself, occurs the following remarkable anticipation of our presumably most modern discovery. Those who have access to the London edition of theSpectatorof 1841, published by J. J. Chidley, 123 Aldersgate Street, can verify the verbatim faithfulness of the following extract from page 274:—
"Strada, in one of his Prolusions (Lib. II. prol. 6), gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manner. He tells us that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of those needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters.
"Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, andto converse with one another by means of this their invention.
"Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion.
"The friend in the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.
"If Monsieur Scudery, or any other writer of romance, had introduced a necromancer, who is generally in the train of a knight-errant, making a present to two lovers of a couple of these above-mentioned needles, the reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them corresponding with one another when they were guarded by spies and watchers, or separated by castles and adventures.
"In the meanwhile, if ever this invention should be revived or put in practice, I would propose that upon the lover's dial-plate there should be written not only the four-and-twenty letters, but several entire words which have always a place in passionate epistles, as flames, darts, die, language, absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the like. This would very much abridge the lover's pains in this way of writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the mostuseful and significant words with a single touch of the needle.—C."
Thus far Addison, a hundred and seventy years ago, and Strada (whoever he may be, for ordinary biographical dictionaries ignore him), perhaps fifty before him, and the two unknown experimentalists, perhaps twenty beyond that, making in all two hundred and forty or fifty years ago as the date of electrical invention: whereof we see no further mention in theSpectator. But is it not also among the "Century of the Marquis of Worcester's Inventions"?—as is possible; the scarce volume is not near me for reference. Let the curious reader who can, turn to it and see. Meanwhile, how strangely Addison and Strada have anticipated the dial-plate, and the needles, and the letters, and the short forms for common words, all so familiar to our telegraphists. Verily there is nothing new under the sun.
Extract from my Archive-book, No. 8. Date October 15, 1856.
"I was again an electric guest, this time at the Great Albion dinner (Liverpool) to Mr. Morse, whom I had met at Erith and in America. A day or two afterwards I sent him a letter of invitation to Albury, enclosing the sonnet below; and not knowing his London address I posted it to my brother Charles in London for him to read and forward. Lucky enough that I did so, for Mr. Morse had just sailed for America: so Charles had both prose and poetry telegraphed to him in New York,—and the Company would not charge any money for it! This is perhaps the only time a sonnet evertravelled by telegraph, and certainly the only time it ever so travelled gratis."
Here it is, for which I had a very complimentary and grateful note from "Samuel F. B. Morse, as an ardent admirer," &c. As never in print till now, I trust it will be acceptable to my readers. Mr. Morse's published speech was religiously high-minded and true-hearted, as indicated in the sonnet.
To Professor Morse, in pleasant memory of October 10, 1856,at the Albion."A good and generous spirit ruled the hour;Old jealousies were drowned in brotherhood,Philanthropy rejoiced that skill and power,Servants to science, compass all men's good;And over all Religion's banner stood,Upheld bythee, true Patriarch of the planWhich in two hemispheres was schemed to showerMercies fromGodon universal man.Yes, this electric chain from East to WestMore than mere metal, more than Mammon can,Binds us together kinsmen, in the bestAs most affectionate and frankest bond,Brethren at one, and looking far beyondThe world in an electric union blest."
To Professor Morse, in pleasant memory of October 10, 1856,at the Albion.
"A good and generous spirit ruled the hour;Old jealousies were drowned in brotherhood,Philanthropy rejoiced that skill and power,Servants to science, compass all men's good;And over all Religion's banner stood,Upheld bythee, true Patriarch of the planWhich in two hemispheres was schemed to showerMercies fromGodon universal man.Yes, this electric chain from East to WestMore than mere metal, more than Mammon can,Binds us together kinsmen, in the bestAs most affectionate and frankest bond,Brethren at one, and looking far beyondThe world in an electric union blest."
There is an extinct pamphlet, now before me, published by Routledge in 1860, entitled "The Rifle Movement Foreshown in Prose and Verse from 1848 to the Present Time,"—from my pen,—which proves that, in conjunction with my friend Evelyn and a few others, I may justly claim to have originated that cheap defence of England, at Albury, more than a dozen years before it was thought of anywhere by any one else. Take the trouble to read the following longish extract from the fifth edition of the above, and please not to omit the leash of ballads wherewith it ends.
"And now, next, about this Rifle pamphlet. Every page carries its date honestly, and several very curiously. In some of the editions there appears a rifle ballad of mine, written in 1845, and published in 1846 (in the first issue of my Ballads and Poems—Hall & Virtue) with the strange title "Rise Britannia,a Stirring Song for Patriots in the Year 1860:" an anticipation by fourteen years of the actual date of the Rifle Movement. In all the editions, the papers on 'Cheap Security' (being Talks between Naaman Muff (a Quaker), Till (a commercial gent), Dolt (a philanthropist), Funker (an ordinary unwarlike paterfamilias), and a certain Tom Wydeawake (patriotic but peculiar)) contain detailed allusions, though written several years before anydefinite existence, to the National Rifle Association, and to exactly such annual prize gatherings of riflemen as those at Wimbledon Common and Brighton Downs, and this latest at Blackheath. The discouragements of Tom Wydeawake and his few compeers were remarkable. He himself might fairly have claimed the honours of origination, discussed some two or three years ago, but he left them to others—Sic vos non vobis, &c."
"Without mentioning names, several—since distinguished as prominent in Rifledom—were once, to my certain knowledge, and still to be evidenced by their extant letters, bitterly opposed to the whole movement,—and I cannot conclude these remarks better or more appositely than by adding here, with real dates, the three following ballads, which tell their own tale briefly and suggestively." I print them here, as they are now to be found nowhere else.
The first, published in newspapers during June 1859 (following several others of a like character, with my name or without it), was the origin of the Volunteers' motto—being headed
Defence not Defiance."Nearer the muttering thunders roll,Blacker and heavier frowns the sky,—Yet our dauntless English soulFaces the storm with a steady eye;Hands are strong where hearts are stout;Our rifles are ready—look out!"No one wishes the storm to roll here—No one cares such a devil to raise,—And in brotherhood, not in fear,Only for peace an Englishman prays,—Yet he may shout in the midst of the rout,Our rifles are ready—look out!"Keep to your own, like an honest man,And here's our hand, and here's our heart,Let the world see how wisely you canPlay to the end a right neighbourly part,—But if mischief is creeping about,Our rifles are ready—look out!"No defiance is on our lips,Nothing but kindliness greets you here;Still, in the storm our dolphin shipsRound the Eddystone dart and steer,—And on shore—no doubt, no doubt—Our rifles are ready—look out!"Not Defiance, but only Defence,Hold we forth for humanity's sake,—And, with the help of Omnipotence,We shall stand when the mountains quake:Only in Him our hearts are stout;Our rifles are ready—look out!"
Defence not Defiance.
"Nearer the muttering thunders roll,Blacker and heavier frowns the sky,—Yet our dauntless English soulFaces the storm with a steady eye;Hands are strong where hearts are stout;Our rifles are ready—look out!
"No one wishes the storm to roll here—No one cares such a devil to raise,—And in brotherhood, not in fear,Only for peace an Englishman prays,—Yet he may shout in the midst of the rout,Our rifles are ready—look out!
"Keep to your own, like an honest man,And here's our hand, and here's our heart,Let the world see how wisely you canPlay to the end a right neighbourly part,—But if mischief is creeping about,Our rifles are ready—look out!
"No defiance is on our lips,Nothing but kindliness greets you here;Still, in the storm our dolphin shipsRound the Eddystone dart and steer,—And on shore—no doubt, no doubt—Our rifles are ready—look out!
"Not Defiance, but only Defence,Hold we forth for humanity's sake,—And, with the help of Omnipotence,We shall stand when the mountains quake:Only in Him our hearts are stout;Our rifles are ready—look out!"
A Rhyme for Albury Club."A rhyme for the Club, for the brave little ClubThat stoutly went forward when others held back,And, reckless of many a sneer and a snub,Steer'd manfully straight upon Duty's own tack,—Though quarrelsome peacemongers did their small worst,In spite of their tongues and in spite of their teeth,We stood up for England among the few first,With rifles and targets on Surrey Blackheath!"Time was when Tom Wydeawake, ten years agone,Toil'd to arouse dull old Britain betimes,By example—he shouldered his rifle alone,By precept—he showered his letters and rhymes,—With bullets he peppered old Sherborne's hillside,With ballads and articles worried the Press,—The more he was sneer'd at, the stronger he tried,And would not be satisfied short of Success."And now is his Fancy the front of the van,And England an archer, as in the past years,And stout middle age carries arms like a man,And all the young fellows are smart Volunteers:And Herbert, and Elcho, and Spencer, and Hay,And Mildmay, and all the best names in the landOn a national scale achieve grandly to-dayWhat Wydeawake schemed with his brave little band!"Then cheers for the Queen! for the Club! and the Corps!For Grantley, and Evelyn, and Sidmouth, and all;With Franklin, and Mangles, and six dozen more,The first to spring forth at Britannia's call!And long may we live with all peaceably here—For olive, not laurel, is Glory's true wreath—But if the wolf comes, he had better keep clearOf a Club of crack shots upon Surrey Blackheath!"July 1860.
A Rhyme for Albury Club.
"A rhyme for the Club, for the brave little ClubThat stoutly went forward when others held back,And, reckless of many a sneer and a snub,Steer'd manfully straight upon Duty's own tack,—Though quarrelsome peacemongers did their small worst,In spite of their tongues and in spite of their teeth,We stood up for England among the few first,With rifles and targets on Surrey Blackheath!
"Time was when Tom Wydeawake, ten years agone,Toil'd to arouse dull old Britain betimes,By example—he shouldered his rifle alone,By precept—he showered his letters and rhymes,—With bullets he peppered old Sherborne's hillside,With ballads and articles worried the Press,—The more he was sneer'd at, the stronger he tried,And would not be satisfied short of Success.
"And now is his Fancy the front of the van,And England an archer, as in the past years,And stout middle age carries arms like a man,And all the young fellows are smart Volunteers:And Herbert, and Elcho, and Spencer, and Hay,And Mildmay, and all the best names in the landOn a national scale achieve grandly to-dayWhat Wydeawake schemed with his brave little band!
"Then cheers for the Queen! for the Club! and the Corps!For Grantley, and Evelyn, and Sidmouth, and all;With Franklin, and Mangles, and six dozen more,The first to spring forth at Britannia's call!And long may we live with all peaceably here—For olive, not laurel, is Glory's true wreath—But if the wolf comes, he had better keep clearOf a Club of crack shots upon Surrey Blackheath!"
July 1860.
And the third is a small record of our Easter Monday's Review, 1864, alluding to the present universality of the Rifle Movement contrasted with its originally small beginnings on the same spot.
Surrey Blackheath."Surrey Blackheath! old scene of beginningsHumble enough some dozen years back,Gather to-day's rich harvest of winnings,Sprung of that sowing in Memory's track;Reap your revenges in honour and pleasure;—Thousands of riflemen arm'd to the teeth—Crowds by ten thousands, in holiday leisure,Throng the wild beauties of Surrey Blackheath!"We were the first our rifles to shoulder,First to wake England (though voted a bore);First in this nation who roused her, and told herShe must go arm'd to be safe, as of yore!Those were the days before corps and their drilling,When the true patriot was check'd with a snub,—So, on Blackheath, devotedly willing,Stood your first riflemen—Albury Club!"Yes, we stoodhere, in spite of their coldness,Duty's first marksmen—whate'er should betide,—Conquering Success—the sure fruit of boldness—World-witnessed now by this field-day of pride!And though they laugh'd at Tom Wydeawake's fancies,Olives and laurels combine in his wreath;For, the world's peace—in England's and France's—Sprung of that sowing on Surrey Blackheath!"March 5, 1864.
Surrey Blackheath.
"Surrey Blackheath! old scene of beginningsHumble enough some dozen years back,Gather to-day's rich harvest of winnings,Sprung of that sowing in Memory's track;Reap your revenges in honour and pleasure;—Thousands of riflemen arm'd to the teeth—Crowds by ten thousands, in holiday leisure,Throng the wild beauties of Surrey Blackheath!
"We were the first our rifles to shoulder,First to wake England (though voted a bore);First in this nation who roused her, and told herShe must go arm'd to be safe, as of yore!Those were the days before corps and their drilling,When the true patriot was check'd with a snub,—So, on Blackheath, devotedly willing,Stood your first riflemen—Albury Club!
"Yes, we stoodhere, in spite of their coldness,Duty's first marksmen—whate'er should betide,—Conquering Success—the sure fruit of boldness—World-witnessed now by this field-day of pride!And though they laugh'd at Tom Wydeawake's fancies,Olives and laurels combine in his wreath;For, the world's peace—in England's and France's—Sprung of that sowing on Surrey Blackheath!"
March 5, 1864.
Lord Lovelace will remember how much he opposed our rifle-club,—as in those days illegal, and so the Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey might not sanction it: but now his Lordship is our leading volunteer. Besides the three ballads above, I wrote seven others which rang round the land, and some of them, as "Hurrah for the Rifle," and "In days long ago when old England was young," have been sung at Wimbledon and other gatherings.
It may be worth while, seeing the ballads are hopelessly out of print, if I here transcribe a few stanzas from divers other staves I penned in the early days of Rifledom. First, from "Rise, Britannia," before mentioned, which was "written and printed in 1846, and then headed, by a strange anticipation, a stirring song for patriots in the year 1860:" reproduced in my now extinct "Cithara," in 1863: I wrote it to be sung to the tune of "Wha wouldna fecht for Charlie:" even as afterwards I adapted my "In days long ago when old England was young" to "The roast-beef of oldEngland," published with my own illustration by Cocks & Co.:—
"Rise! ye gallant youth of Britain,Gather to your country's call,On your hearts her name is written,Rise to help her, one and all!Cast away each feud and faction,Brood not over wrong nor ill,Rouse your virtues into action,For we love our country still,Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia!Raise that thrilling shout once more,Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia!Conqueror over sea and shore!"
"Rise! ye gallant youth of Britain,Gather to your country's call,On your hearts her name is written,Rise to help her, one and all!Cast away each feud and faction,Brood not over wrong nor ill,Rouse your virtues into action,For we love our country still,Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia!Raise that thrilling shout once more,Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia!Conqueror over sea and shore!"
After three stanzas which I will omit, the last is
"Rise then, patriots I name endearing,—Flock from Scotland's moors and dales,From the green glad fields of Erin,From the mountain homes of Wales,—Rise! for sister England calls you,Rise! our commonweal to serve,Rise! while now the song enthrals youThrilling every vein and nerve,—Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia!Conquer, as thou didst of yore;Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia!Over every sea and shore!"
"Rise then, patriots I name endearing,—Flock from Scotland's moors and dales,From the green glad fields of Erin,From the mountain homes of Wales,—Rise! for sister England calls you,Rise! our commonweal to serve,Rise! while now the song enthrals youThrilling every vein and nerve,—Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia!Conquer, as thou didst of yore;Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia!Over every sea and shore!"
Another noted alarum, sounded in January 1852, commences thus:—
"Englishmen, up! make ready your rifles!Who can tell now what a day may bring forth?Patch up all quarrels, and stick at no trifles,—Let the world see what your loyalty's worth!Loyalty?—selfishness, cowardice, terrorStoutly will multiply loyalty's sum,When to astonish presumption and errorSoon the shout rises—the brigands are come!"
"Englishmen, up! make ready your rifles!Who can tell now what a day may bring forth?Patch up all quarrels, and stick at no trifles,—Let the world see what your loyalty's worth!Loyalty?—selfishness, cowardice, terrorStoutly will multiply loyalty's sum,When to astonish presumption and errorSoon the shout rises—the brigands are come!"
After four stanzas of happily unfulfilled prognostication, the last is—
"Up then and arm! it is wisdom and duty;We are too tempting a prize to be weak:Lo, what a pillage of riches and beauty,Glories to gain and revenges to wreak!Run for your rifles, and stand to your drilling;Let not the wolf have his will, as he might,If in the midst of their trading and tillingEnglishmen cannot—or care not to—fight!"
"Up then and arm! it is wisdom and duty;We are too tempting a prize to be weak:Lo, what a pillage of riches and beauty,Glories to gain and revenges to wreak!Run for your rifles, and stand to your drilling;Let not the wolf have his will, as he might,If in the midst of their trading and tillingEnglishmen cannot—or care not to—fight!"
One only stanza more, the last of another also in 1852.
"Arm then at once! If no one attack usBetter than well, for the rifle may rust;But if the pirates be coming to sack us,Level it calmly, and God be your trust!Only, while yet there's a moment, keep steady;Skilfully, duteously, quickly prepare,—Then with a nation of riflemen ready,Nobody'll come because no one will dare!"
"Arm then at once! If no one attack usBetter than well, for the rifle may rust;But if the pirates be coming to sack us,Level it calmly, and God be your trust!Only, while yet there's a moment, keep steady;Skilfully, duteously, quickly prepare,—Then with a nation of riflemen ready,Nobody'll come because no one will dare!"
In those days of a generation back, so great was the scare everywhere of Napoleon's rabid colonels a-coming that I remember my brother Arthur counselling me to sink our plate down a well for safety; and Mr. Drummond in a pamphlet exhorted the creation of refuges round the coast by getting the owners of mansions to fortify them as strongholds, filling the windows with grates and mattresses, and loopholing garden-walls for shots at marauders on the roads!
Yet, so sleepy was the British Lion that neither Drummond nor I, nor even theTimes, which I invoked, could wake him up for many years: and the Volunteer movement did not take effect till Louis Napoleon kindly urged Palmerston to check his rabid colonels by a bold front of preparation.
I am minded to finish with a mild anecdote which carries its moral. Now, understand that I never pretended to be a crack shot, though I did make fair practice through "the Indian twist," the sling supporting one's arm; if I hit the target occasionally, I was satisfied. But it once happened (at Teignmouth, where I was a casual visitor) that, seeing a squad of volunteers practising at a mark on the beach, I went to look on, and was courteously offered a shot, being not unknown by fame to some of them. The target was at some 500 yards (say about a third of a mile), so it was not likely I could hit it, with a chance rifle, perhaps carelessly sighted; yet, when I did let fly, to the loud admiration of the others and to my own astonishment (which of course I didnotreveal), the marker signalled for a bull's eye! Entreated to do it again, this prudent rifleman modestly declined, for he remembered Sam Slick's lucky shot at the floating bottle; it was manifestly his wisdom not to risk fame won by a fluke. So the moral is, don't try to do twice what you've done well once.
A word or two about autographs, surely a topic suitable to this book: in fact, I have sometimes preferred to spell it authorgraphs: most public men are troubled nowadays with this sort of petty homage, and I more than suspect that some collectors make merchandise of them; "my valuable collection" being often the form in which strangers solicit the flattering boon. Once I had a queer proof as to the money value of my own,—as thus: I went quite casually into an auctioneer's in Piccadilly, to a book-sale; a lot of some half-dozen volumes were just being knocked down for next to nothing (such is our deterioration in these newspaper days) when the wielder of Thor's fateful hammer, dissatisfied at the price, asked for the lot to look at,—and coming amongst others to a certain book with handwriting in it, said, "Why, here's one with Martin Tupper's autograph,"—on which a buyer called out, "I'll give you eighteenpence more for that,"—suggestive to me of my auction value,—as I have sometimes said. If, however, the more than hundreds (thousands) I have been giving for these fifty years, really have so easily gratified friends known or unknown, I am glad to be in that way so much a gainer. Americans in particular ask frequently, and sometimes with wisely enclosedstamped and addressed envelopes, which is a thing both considerate and praiseworthy; but a very different sort and not easily to be excused are those who send registered albums by post for one's handwriting, expecting to have them returned similarly at no small cost. Longfellow told me of this kind of young lady taxation, and mentioned that he once had to pay twelve shillings for a registered return quarto. I dare say that our popular Laureate has had similar experiences.
The most "wholesale order" for my signature was at New York in 1851, when at a party there my perhaps too exacting hostess put a large pack of plain cards into my hand, posted me at a corner table with pen and ink, and flatteringly requested an autograph for each of her 100 guests! of course, even this was graciously conceded,—though rather too much of a good thing, I thought.
There is wisdom (some have hinted to me) in preferring a card to a sheet of paper; not only because "I promise to pay" might possibly be writtenab extraover one's signature, but also because (and far more probably) any special "fad," political, social, or religious, might be added above—to all seeming—your written approbation:e.g., I was told in America that my autographed opinion in favour of Unitarianism had been so seen at Boston. Some zealots for a "cause" even go so far as that. My safe course is to write "the handwriting of so-and-so," where from total ignorance of my correspondent I cannot honestly say "I am truly yours."
Other forms of authorial homage are to be met with in the way of complimentary photographs, and oil orwater-colour portraits. Like all other book celebrities, I have had to stand for minutes or sit for days, dozens of times; and seeing that, wherever I have been on my Reading Tours, on this side of the Atlantic or the other, photographic "artists" have continually "solicited the honour," the result has been that I used to keep "a book of horrors," proving how variously and oftentimes how vulgarly one's features come out when the impartial sun portrays them. As with the contradictory critiques about one's writings, so also is it with the conflicting apparitions of comeliness or ugliness in the heliotyped exploits of different—some of them indifferent—photographers. Several, however, have succeeded well with me; as Sarony in New York, Elliott & Fry of Baker Street and Brighton, Negretti & Zambra at the Crystal Palace, and divers others; but one need not reckon up "our failures," as Brummell's valet has it.
As to the several oil portraitures of me, there is extant a splendid full-length of myself and my brother Dan, with large frilled collars and the many-buttoned suits of the day, when we were severally ten and nine years old, now hanging at Albury, painted by my great-uncle, Arthur William Devis, the celebrated historical painter: this has been exhibited among works of the British old masters in Pall Mall. Also, there is one by T. W. Guillod, in my phase as an author at twenty-seven; another is by the older Pickersgill, so dark and lacking in Caucasian comeliness that the engraving therefrom in one of my books makes me look like a nigger, insomuch that some Abolitionists claimed me as all the more their favourite for my black blood! On the other hand, Mr. Edgar Williams hasmade me much too florid; while recently that rising young artist, Alfred Hartley, has caught my true likeness, and has depicted me aptly and well, as may now be seen in the picture-gallery of the Crystal Palace. Then Mr. Willert Beale (Walter Maynard by literarynom de pinceau et de plume, for he is both a painter and an author) has lately portrayed me in crayons, life-sized, an unmistakable likeness; and years ago Monsieur Rochard, in a large water-coloured drawing, made me look very French, quite apetit-maitre, in which disguise I was engraved for some book of mine: all the above, except Rochard's, having been done complimentarily. In America Mr. Pettit's life-sized oil portrait is the most noticeable.
Two queer anecdotes I must give about another form of author-worship to which we poor vain mortals are occasionally exposed, viz., what Pope called in Belinda's case "The Rape of the Lock." I can remember (as once by Lady—— in London) more than one such ravishment attempted if not accomplished; but most especially was I in peril at the Philadelphian Exhibition when three duennas who guarded some lady exhibitors (too modest to ask themselves) pursued a certain individual, scissors in hand, like Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, in vain hope of sheared tresses; had they been, like many of our American sisters, both juvenile and lovely, very possible success might have crowned their daring; or, instead of the three seductive graces, had they posed as three intellectual muses, I might have succumbed; but a leash of fates obliged a rapid retreat. And for a second queer anecdote take this: a 'cute negro barber had persuaded me to have my hair cut, to which suggestion, as it was hissing hot weather, I agreed. He had a neat little shop close to a jeweller's; next morning I passed that shop and noticed my name placarded there, surrounded by gold lockets, for that cunning nigger and his gilded friend were making a rich harvest of my shaved curls. Sambo can be as sharp as Jonathan, when a freeman, if he likes.
"Interviewing" is another sort of homage nowadays to popular authorship; in America it is very rife,—and I never came to any city but, immediately on arrival, two or three representatives of opponent editors would call, and very courteously request to be allowed to turn me inside out, and then to report upon me: I only remember one or two cases (which I will not specify) wherein my inquisitor was not all I could have wished, or treated his patient victim more unkindly than perhaps a venial native humour might make necessary. Almost always the scribes were fair and gentlemanly. And in next morning's papers it was a pleasing excitement to find that one's extorted opinions on all manner of topics—social, religious, and political—were published by tens of thousands in conflicting newspapers, which took partisan views of theobiter dictaof an illustrious being. I have many of these recorded conversations and comments thereon pasted down in the scrap-books aforesaid. In England, also, one does not escape; and indeed the pleasure of being examined for publication is here less mixed; for on this side of the Atlantic it has been found dangerous to report what might be damaging to a man socially or financially; although, however, no judicial notice is taken of ridicule or false criticism; and therein an author (however little he may care for it) can be libelled to any extent and without all remedy.Not but that some of the society papers have treated my unworthiness generously enough,—in particular, Edmunds'World, which, with too great severity and too little justice, has been taught to tell all truths charitably, if smartly,—and therefore I was glad to welcome his pleasant accredited interviewer, Mr. Becker, a year or two ago at Albury, who compliments me, not quite accurately perhaps, on "good looks and a passion for heart's-eases." Also, the gentleman who represents theGlasgow Maildid his work wisely and kindly: and Mr. Meltzer of theNew York Herald; and I might name some others, not excepting my Sydenham friend, Mr. Leyland, who lately wrote a very pleasant paper about me at Norwood for a Philadelphian journal.
A word about advertisements, surely an authorial topic. The absurdly extravagant profusion in which thousands of pounds are now being continually flung away in advertising, is one which was never approved by me, and as long as my books remained in print, at my suggestion they all got sold without it. At present there are almost none in the market except Proverbial Philosophy, my Poems, Stephan Langton, and Dramas, and these still live and sell as before, after a silent life of many years. I suppose advertising must answer, or it would not be persisted in; and certainly the newspapers (that chiefly live thereby) exhort all to crowd their columns, if they wish to win fortune: but how the perpetual and reiterated obtrusion of such single words as Oopack, or Syndicates, or Beecham's Pills, or Argosy Braces, or Grateful and Comforting, &c. &c., can proveseductive baits, I do not see nor feel: the shameless amount of space they fill in our newspapers, and especially the impertinent way in which they intrude upon us while reading, as interleaved into books and magazines, so entirely disgusts me that I have often declared I would rather go without "tea, coffee, tobacco, or snuff" (this is a phrase, for the two latter I abominate) than deign to patronise those persistent advertisers A, B, C, D, or E. And yet I do know a splendid church at Eastbourne wholly built of pills,—and Professor Holloway's ointment has produced a palatial institute, and another wholesale advertiser tells me he spends £30,000 a year on notices and paragraphs, to gain thereby £50,000,—and so one cannot but acquiesce in Carlyle's cynical dictum, so cruelly alluded to by Dean Stanley in his funeral sermon at Westminster, that there are in our community "26,000,000, mostly fools," otherwise how can folks be weak enough to be forced to pay for "goods," or "bads," merely by dint of reiteration?
There is, however, one form of advertisement which I have found to pay,—and that is not praise, but abuse. A certain article, written as I was told by Alaric Watts, and stigmatising my readers as idiots, and their author as a bellman, was said to have actually sold off 3000 copies at a run; and Hepworth Dixon's attack in some other paper—I forget the name—was so lucrative to me in its results that I entreated him at Moxon's one day to do it again.
Once I took it into my head to collect and publish a page of adverse criticisms (if I can find a copy it shall be printed here) to excellent sale-effect as regardedmy tales. And I remember hearing at a publisher's, that when a book didn't sell through puffing, their Herald of Fame upstairs was directed to abuse it, and in one case a society novel by a lady of title was prosecuted (by management) for libel, in order to get off the edition. That publishing-house used to advertise in "five figures"—that is, upwards of £10,000 a year, and was professionally antagonistic to another, from which it had sprung originally. The critical organs of the one house always used to run down the publications of the other. And I daresay other Sosii are aware of the like mutual warfare going on even now.
As to my several efforts in print to hinder cruelty to animals, beside and beyond what a reader may already find in my published books, let me chiefly mention these two fly-leaves, widely circulated by the Humane Society in Jermyn Street; to wit, "Mercy to Animals," and my "Four anti-Vivisection Sonnets." The latter I must preface with an interesting anecdote. Before Louis Napoleon was Emperor, I accompanied a deputation from Guernsey to Cherbourg, met him, had pleasant speech with him, and gave him a book ("Proverbial Philosophy"), thus making his personal acquaintance; which many years after I utilised as thus. The horrors of that infernal veterinary torture-house at Alfort, where disabled cavalry horses were on system vivisected to death, had been known to us by letters in theTimes, of course denouncing the criminality: I remember reading that one poor old horse survived more than threescore operations, and used to be led in daily strapped with bandages and plaisters amid the cheers of the demoniacal students!—and this excited me to make a strong personal effort to stop the outrages at Alfort. Accordingly I wrote from Albury a letter to the Emperor (if I kept and can find a copy I will print it here) as from one gentleman to anotherfond of his horse and dog, exhorting him to interfere and hinder such horrors. I told him that I purposely did this in a private way, and not through any newspaper or minister, because I wished him to cure,proprio motu, a crying evil whereof he was ignorant and therefore innocent: leaving the issue of my appeal to his own generous feeling and to Providence, but otherwise not expecting nor requesting any reply. I therefore got none; but (whetherpost hocorpropter hocI do not know) the result was that vivisection at Alfort was suspended at once, though how long for is unknown to me. As, after all this, many may like to see my four sonnets before-mentioned, I have no room to place here more than one: it is fair to state that they are easily procurable for a penny at the S. P. C. A. office in Jermyn Street. They were written by me in the train between Hereford and London, at the request of a lady, the chatelaine of Pontrilas Court, for a bazaar at Brighton.
"If ever thou hast loved thy dog or horse,Or other favourite affectionate thing,If thou dost recognise in God the sourceOf all that live, their Father and their King,Stand with us on this rescue;—for the forceOf sciolists hath legal right to seizeSuch innocents to torture as they please,Alive and sentient, with demoniac skill;Ungodly men! hot with the lawless lustOf violating Nature's holiest fane,Breaking it open at your wicked will,—Yet shall ye tremble!—for the Judge is just;To Him those victims do not plead in vain,On you for æons crowd their hours of pain."
"If ever thou hast loved thy dog or horse,Or other favourite affectionate thing,If thou dost recognise in God the sourceOf all that live, their Father and their King,Stand with us on this rescue;—for the forceOf sciolists hath legal right to seizeSuch innocents to torture as they please,Alive and sentient, with demoniac skill;Ungodly men! hot with the lawless lustOf violating Nature's holiest fane,Breaking it open at your wicked will,—Yet shall ye tremble!—for the Judge is just;To Him those victims do not plead in vain,On you for æons crowd their hours of pain."
When I was last at Boston my spirit was stirred bywhat I have poetised below: it has only appeared in some American papers, but I hope will be acceptable here.
The Omnibus Hack."Worn, jaded, and faint, plodding on in the track,I praise your great patience, poor omnibus hack;In whose sad gentle eyes my spirit can traceThe gloom of despair in that passionless face,While way-wearied muscles, strain'd out to the fullAnd cruelly check'd by the pitiless pull,With little for food, but of lashes no lack,Force me to pray for you, omnibus hack!"Yes I—if I can pity you, omnibus hack,For nerves all atremble and sinews awrack,How should not his Maker, the Father above,Be just to His creature, and grant him His love?Why may not His mercy give somewhat of blissIn some better world to compensate for this,By animal pleasure for animal pain,Receiving their lives but to give them again?"And which of us isn't an omnibus hack,With galls on his withers and sores on his back,—Buckled to circumstance, driven by fate,And chain'd on the pole of a oar that we hate—Yon ponderous Past which we drag fast or slowOn the coarse-mended Present, this dull road we go,Hard-curb'd on the tongue and no bearing-rein slack,Ah! who of us isn't that omnibus hack?"Yet great is the comfort considering thusThat God doth take thought as for him so for us;That we shall find rest, reward, and reliefOutweighing, outpaying all pain and all grief;That all things are kindly remembered elsewhere,The shame and the wrong and the press and the care,The evils that keep all better aback,And make one feel now but an omnibus hack."An omnibus hack?—and only a drudge?—Is Duty no more in the eyes of the Judge?He set thee this toil; His providence gaveThese bounds to His freedman; yes, free—not a slave!And if thou wilt serve Him, content with thy lot,Cheerfully working and murmuring not,Be sure, my poor brother—whose skies are so black—Thou art His dear child, though an omnibus hack!"
The Omnibus Hack.
"Worn, jaded, and faint, plodding on in the track,I praise your great patience, poor omnibus hack;In whose sad gentle eyes my spirit can traceThe gloom of despair in that passionless face,While way-wearied muscles, strain'd out to the fullAnd cruelly check'd by the pitiless pull,With little for food, but of lashes no lack,Force me to pray for you, omnibus hack!
"Yes I—if I can pity you, omnibus hack,For nerves all atremble and sinews awrack,How should not his Maker, the Father above,Be just to His creature, and grant him His love?Why may not His mercy give somewhat of blissIn some better world to compensate for this,By animal pleasure for animal pain,Receiving their lives but to give them again?
"And which of us isn't an omnibus hack,With galls on his withers and sores on his back,—Buckled to circumstance, driven by fate,And chain'd on the pole of a oar that we hate—Yon ponderous Past which we drag fast or slowOn the coarse-mended Present, this dull road we go,Hard-curb'd on the tongue and no bearing-rein slack,Ah! who of us isn't that omnibus hack?
"Yet great is the comfort considering thusThat God doth take thought as for him so for us;That we shall find rest, reward, and reliefOutweighing, outpaying all pain and all grief;That all things are kindly remembered elsewhere,The shame and the wrong and the press and the care,The evils that keep all better aback,And make one feel now but an omnibus hack.
"An omnibus hack?—and only a drudge?—Is Duty no more in the eyes of the Judge?He set thee this toil; His providence gaveThese bounds to His freedman; yes, free—not a slave!And if thou wilt serve Him, content with thy lot,Cheerfully working and murmuring not,Be sure, my poor brother—whose skies are so black—Thou art His dear child, though an omnibus hack!"
My "Mercy to Animals," a simple handbill, has done great good, as it has prose instructions about loading, harnessing, &c. It also is to be had for a penny at Jermyn Street aforesaid: here is the first verse:—