From Thomas Potts,Esq.,of the‘Newcome Independent,’to S. Gandish,Esq.
Newcome, May 3.
My Dear Sir,—I am truly sorry to have to interrupt a connection with so old and respected a contributor. But I think you will acknowledge, on reading the proof of your article on the Academy, which I enclose, that the time has arrived when public criticism is no longer your province. I do not so much refer to the old-fashioned tone of your observations on modern art. I know little about it, and care not much more. But you have entirely forgotten, towards the end of the notice, that the “Newcome Independent,” as becomes its name, is a journal of Liberty and Progress. The very proper remarks on Lord Spencer’s portrait elsewhere show that you are not unacquainted with our politics; but, at the close (expressing, I fear, your true sentiments), you glide into language which makes me shudder, and which, if printed in the “Independent,” would spell ruin. Send it, by all means, to the “Sentinel,” if you like. Send your Tory views, I mean. As for your quotation from the “Lady of Shalott,” I can find it nowhere in the poem of that name by the author you strangely style “young Mr. Tennyson.”[165]
I enclose a cheque for a quarter’s salary, and, while always happy to meet you as man with man, must get the notice of the Academy written up in the office from the “Daily Telegraph,” “Standard,” and “Times.”[166]—Faithfully and with deep regret yours,
Thomas Potts.
From Monsieur Lecoq,Rue Jérusalem,Paris,to Inspector Bucket,Scotland Yard.
This correspondence appears to prove that mistakes may be made by the most astute officers of police, and that even so manifest a Briton as Mr. Pickwick might chance to find himself in the toils of international conspiracy.
(Translated.)
May 19, 1852.
Sir and Dear Fellow-Brother(confrère).—The so cordial understanding between our countries ought to expand itself into a community of the political police. But the just susceptibilities of the Old England forbid at this moment the restoration to a friendly Power of political offenders. In the name of the French police of surety I venture to present to the famous officer Bucket a prayer that he will shut his eyes, for once, on the letter, and open his heart to the spirit of the laws.
No one needs to teach Monsieur Bucket that a foreign miscreant can be given up, under all reserves, to the justice! A small vial of a harmless soporific, a closed carriage, a private cabin on board a Channel steamer—with these and a little of the adroitness so remarked in the celebrated Bucket, the affair is in the bag! (dans le sac). All these things are in the cords (dans les cordes) of my esteemed English fellow-brother; will he not employ them in the interest of a devoted colleague and a friendly Administration? We seek a malefactor of the worst species (un chenapan de la pire espèce). This funny fellow (drôle) calls himself Count of Fosco, and he resides in Wood Road 5, St. John’s Forest; worth abode of a miscreant fit for the Forest of Bondy! He is a man bald, stout, fair, and paying well in countenance (il paie de mine), conceiving himself to resemble the great Napoleon.At the first sight you would say a philanthrope, a friend of man. On his right arm he bears a small red mark, round, the brand of a society of the most dangerous. Dear Sir, you will not miss him? When once he is in our hands, faith of Lecoq, you shall tell us your news as to whether France can be grateful. Of more words there is no need.—I remain, all to you, with the assurance of my most distinguished consideration,
Lecoq.
From Inspector Bucket to M. Lecoq.
May 22.
Dear Sir,—Your polite favour to hand, and contents noted. You are a man of the world; I am a man of the world, and proud to deal with you as between man and man. The little irregularity shall be no consideration, all shall be squared, and the man wanted run in with punctuality and despatch. Expect him at Calais on the 26th current,—Faithfully yours,
C.Bucket.
From Count Fosco to Samuel Pickwick,Esq.,G.C.M.P.C.,Goswell Road.
5 Forest Road, St. John’s Wood, May 23.
Dear Sir,—When we met lately at the hospitable board of our common friend, Benjamin Allen, Esq., lately elected Professor of Chemistry in the University of London, our conversation turned (if you can pass me the intoxicating favour of remembering it) on the glorious science of chemistry. For me this knowledge has ever possessed irresistible attractions, from the enormous power which it confers of heaping benefits on the suffering race of mankind. Others may rejoice in the advantages which a knowledge of it bestows—the power which can reduce a Hannibal to the level of a drummer boy, or an all-pervading Shakspeare to the intellectual estate of a vestryman, though it cannot at present reverse those processes. The consideration of the destructive as compared with the constructive forces of chemistry was present, as I recollect, to your powerful intellect on the festive occasion to which I refer. “Yes!” you said (permit me to repeat your very words)—“Yes, Count Fosco, Alexander’s morning draught shall make Alexander run for his life at the first sound of the enemy’s trumpet. So much chemistry can achieve; but can she help as well as harm? Nay, can she answer for it that the lemon which Professor Allen, from the best and purest of motives, has blended with this milk-punch, shall not disagree with me to-morrow morning? Can chemistry, Count Fosco, thus thwart malign constitutional tendency?”
These were your words, sir, and I am now ready to answer your deep-searching question in the affirmative. Prolonged assiduous application to my Art has shown me how to preserve the lemon in Milk Punch, and yet destroy, or disengage, the deleterious elements. Will you so greatly honour science, and Fosco her servant, as to sup with me onthe night of the twenty-fifth, at nine o’clock, and prove (you need not dread the test) whether a true follower of knowledge or a vain babbler signs—in exile—the name of
Isidor Ottavio Baldassare Fosco?
From Mr. Pickwick to the Count Fosco.
May 24.
My Dear Sir,—Many thanks for your very kind invitation. Apart from the interests of science, the pleasure of your company alone would be more than enough to make me gladly accept it. I shall have the enjoyment of testing your milk-punch to-morrow night at nine, with the confident expectation that your admirable studies will have overcome a tendency which for many years has prevented me from relishing, as I could wish, one of the best things in this good world. Lemon, in fact, has always disagreed with me, as Professor Allen or Sir Robert Sawyer will be ableto assure you; so your valuable experiment can be put, in my case, to a crucial test.—Very faithfully yours,
Samuel Pickwick.
From Inspector Bucket to M. Lecoq.
May 26, 1A.M.
My Dear Sir,—We have taken your man without difficulty. Bald, benevolent-looking, stout, perhaps fancies himself like Napoleon; if so, is deceived. We nabbed him asleep over his liquor and alone, at the address you meant to give, 5 Forest Road, St. John’s Wood. The house was empty, servants out, not a soul but him at home. He speaks English well for a foreigner, and tries to make out he is a British subject. Was rather confused when took, and kept ejaculating “Cold Punch,” apparently with the hope of persuading us that such was his name or alias. He also called for one Sam—probably an accomplice. He travels to Calais to-day as a lunaticpatient in a strait-waistcoat, under charge of four “keepers” belonging to the force; and I trust that you have made preparations for receiving your prisoner, and that our management of the case has given satisfaction. What I like is doing business with a man like you. We may not be so smart nor so clever at disguises as the French profession, but we flatter ourselves we are punctual and cautious.—Faithfully yours,
C.Bucket.
From Mr. Pickwick to Mr. Perker,Solicitor,Gray’s Inn.
Sainte Pélagie, May 28.
Dear Perker,—For heaven’s sake come over here at once, bringing some one who can speak French, and bail me out, or whatever the process of their law may be. I have been arrested, illegally and without warrant, at the house of a scientific friend, Count Fosco, where I had been supping. As far as I can understand,I am accused of a plot against the life of the Emperor of the French; but the whole proceedings have been unintelligible and arbitrary to a degree. I cannot think that an English citizen will be allowed to perish by the guillotine—innocent and practically unheard! Please bring linen and brushes, &c., but not Sam, who would be certain to embroil himself with the French police. I am writing to theTimesand Lord Palmerston.—Sincerely yours,
Samuel Pickwick.
From Monsieur Lecoq to Inspector Bucket.
May 27.
Sir,—There has arrived a frightful misunderstanding. The man you have sent us is not Fosco. Of Fosco he has only the baldness, the air benevolent, and the girth. The brand on his right arm is no more than the mark of vaccination. Brought before the Commissary of Police, the prisoner, who has not one word of French, was heard through an interpreter. He gives himself the name of Piquouique,rentier, English; and he appeals to his Ambassador. Of papers he had letters bearing the name Samuel Pickwick, and, on his buttons, the letters P.C., which we suspect are the badge of a secret society. But this is not to the point; for it is certain that, whatever the crimes of this brigand, he isnotFosco, but an Englishman. That he should be found in the domicile of Fosco when that droll had evaded is suspicious (louche), and his explanation does not permit itself to be understood. I have fear that we enjoy bad luck, and that M. Palmerston will make himself to be heard on this matter.
Accept, Monsieur, the assurance of my high consideration.
Lecoq.
P.S.—Our comrade, the Count Smorltork, of the Police of Manners (police des moeurs), has come to present himself. Confronted with the bandit, he gives him reason, and offers his faith that the man is Piquouique, with whom he encountered himself when on a mission of secrecy to England it is now some years. What to do? (Que faire?)
From Mr. Allan Quatermain to Sir Henry Curtis.
Mr. Quatermain offers the correct account of two celebrated right and left shots, also an adventure of the stranger in the Story of an African Farm.
Dear Curtis,—You ask me to give you the true account, in writing, of those right and left shots of mine at the two lions, the crocodile, and the eagle. The brutes are stuffed now, in the hall at home—the lions each on a pedestal, and the alligator on the floor with the eagle in his jaws—much as they were when I settled them and saved the Stranger. All sorts of stories have got into the papers about the business, which was simple enough; so, though no hand with a pen, I may as well write it all out.
I was up on the Knobkerry River, prospecting for diamonds, in Omomborombunga’s country. I had nobody with me but poor Jim-jim, who afterwards met with an awful death, otherwise he would have been glad to corroborate my tale, if it needed it. One night I had come back tired to camp, when I found a stranger sitting by the fire. He was a dark, fat, Frenchified little chap, and you won’t believe me, but it is a fact that he wore gloves. I asked him to stay the night, of course, and inspanned the waggons in laager, for Omomborombunga’s impis were out, swearing to wash their spears in the blood of The Great White Liar—a Portuguese traveller probably; if not, I don’t know who he can have been; perhaps this stranger: he gave no name. Well, we had our biltong together, and the Stranger put himself outside a good deal of the very little brandy I had left. We got yarning, so to speak, and I told him a few of the curious adventures that naturally fall to the lot of a man in those wild countries. The Stranger did not say much, but kept playing with a huge carved walking-stick that he had. Presently he said, “Look at this stick; I bought it from a boy on a South African Farm. Do you understand what the carvings mean?”
“Hanged if I do!” I said, after turning it about.
“Well, do you see that figure?” and he touched a thing like a Noah out of a child’s ark. “That was a hunter like you, my friend, but not in all respects. That hunter pursued a vast white bird with silver wings, sailing in the everlasting blue.”
“Everlasting bosh!” said I; “there is no bird of the kind on the veldt.”
“That bird was Truth,” says the Stranger, “and, judging from the anecdote you tell me about the Babyan woman and the Zulu medicine-man, it is a birdyoudon’t trouble yourself with much, my friend.”
This was a pretty cool thing to say to a man whose veracity is known like a proverb from Sheba’s Breasts to the Zambesi.
Foide Macumazahn, the Zulus say, meaning as true as a yarn of Allan Quatermain’s. Well, my blood was up; no man shall call Allan Quatermain a liar. The fellow was going on with a prodigious palaver about a white feather of Truth, and Mount Sinai, and the Land of Absolute Negation, and I don’t know what, but I signified to him that if he did not believe my yarns I did not want his company. “I’m sorry to turn you out,” I said, “for there are lions around”—indeed they were roaring to each other—“and you will have a parroty time. But you apologise, or you go!”
He laughed his short thick laugh. “I am a man who hopes nothing, feels nothing, fears nothing, and believes nothing that you tell me!”
I got up and went for him with my fists, and whether he feared nothing or not I don’t know; but he scooted, dropping a yellow French novel, by one Catulle Mendes, that I could make neither head nor tail of. I afterwards heard that there was something about this stranger in a book called “The Story of an African Farm,” which I once began, but never finished, not being able to understand most of it, and being vexed by the gross improbability of the girl not marrying the baby’s father, he being ready and willing to make her an honest woman. However, I am no critic, but a plain man who tells a plain tale, and I believe persons of soul admire the book very much. Any way, it does not say who the Stranger was—an allegorical kind of bagman I fancy; but I am not done with him yet.
Out he went into the dark, where hundreds of lions could be plainly seen making love (at which season they are very dangerous) by the flashes of lightning.
It was a terrific yet beautiful spectacle, and one which I can never forget. The black of night would suddenly open like a huge silver flower, deep within deep, till you almost fancied you could see within the gates of heaven. The hills stood out dark against the illimitable splendour, and on every koppie you saw the huge lions, like kittens at play, roaring till you could scarcely hear the thunder. The rain was rushing like a river, all glittering like diamonds, and then, in the twinkling of an eye, all was black as a wolf’s mouth till the next flash. The lightning, coming from all quarters, appeared to meet above me, and now was red, now golden, now silver again, while the great cat-like beasts, as they leaped or lay, looked like gold, red, and silver lions, reminding me of the signs of public-houses in old England, far away. Meantime the donga beneath roared with the flooded torrent that the rain was bringing down from the heights of Umbopobekatanktshiu.
I stood watching the grand spectacle for some time, rather pitying the Stranger who was out in it, by no fault of mine. Then I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, ate a mealy or two, and crept into mykartel,[184]and slept the sleep of the just.
About dawn I woke. The thunder had rolled away like a bad dream. The long level silver shafts of the dawn were flooding the heights, raindrops glittered like diamonds on every kopje and karroo bush, leaving the deep donga bathed in the solemn pall of mysterious night.
My thoughts went rapidly over the millions of leagues of land and sea, where life, that perpetual problem, was now awaking to another day of struggle and temptation. Then the golden arrows of the day followed fast. The silver and blue sky grew roseate with that wide wild blush which testifies to the modest delight of nature, satisfied and grateful for her silent existence and her amorous repose. I breakfasted, went down into the donga with a black boy, poor Jim-jim, who was afterwards, as I said, to perish by an awful fate, otherwise he would testify to the truth of my plain story. I began poking among the rocks in the dry basin of the donga,[185]and had just picked up a pebble—I knew it by the soapy feel for a diamond. Uncut it was about three times the size of the koh-i-noor, say 1,000 carats, and I was rejoicing in my luck when I heard the scream of a human being in the last agony of terror. Looking up, I saw that on either side of the donga, which was about twenty feet wide, a great black lion and lioness were standing with open jaws, while some fifty yards in front of me an alligator, in a deep pool of the flooded donga, was stretching his open snout and gleaming teeth greedily upwards. Over head flew an eagle, andin mid-air between, as I am a living and honourable man, a human being was leaping the chasm. He had been pursued by the lion on my left, and had been driven to attempt the terrible leap; but if he crossed he was certain to fall into the jaws of the lion on my right, while if he fell short in his jump, do you see, the alligator was ready for him below, and the great golden eagle watched the business from above, in case he attempted to escapethatway.
All this takes long to tell, though it was passing in a flash of time. Dropping the diamond (which must have rolled into a crevice of the rock, for I never saw it again), I caught up my double-barrelled rifle (one of Wesson & Smith’s), aimed at the lion on the right hand of the donga with my right barrel, and then hastily fired my left at the alligator. When the smoke cleared away, the man had reached the right side of the donga safe and sound. Seeing that the alligator was dying, I loaded again, bowled over the lioness on the left, settled the eagle’s business (he fell dead into the jaws of the dying alligator, which closed on him with a snap). I then climbed the wall of the donga, and there lay, fainting, the Stranger of last night—the man who feared nothing—the blood of the dead lion trickling over him. His celebrated allegorical walking-stick from the African Farm had been broken into two pieces by the bullet after it (the bullet) had passed through the head of the lion. And, as the “Ingoldsby Legends” say, “nobody was one penny the worse,” except the wild beasts. The man, however, had had a parroty time, and it was a good hour before I could bring him round, during which he finished my brandy. He still wore gloves. What he was doing in Omuborumbunga’s country I do not know to this day. I never found the diamond again, though I hunted long. But I must say that two better right and left shots, considering that I had no time to aim, and that they were really snapshots, I never remember to have made in my long experience.
This is the short and the long of the matter, which was talked of a good deal in the Colony, and about which, I am told, some inaccurate accounts have got into the newspapers. I hate writing, as you know, and don’t pretend to give a literary colour to this little business of the shots, but merely tell a “plain, unvarnished tale,” as the “Ingoldsby Legends” say.
As to the Stranger, what he was doing there, or who he was, or where he is now, I can tell you nothing. He told me he was bound for “the almighty mountains of Dry-facts and Realities,” which he kindly pointed out to me among the carvings of his walking-stick. He then sighed wearily, very wearily, and scooted. I think he came to no good; but he never came in my way again.
And now you know the yarn of the two stuffed lions and the alligator with the eagle in his jaws.
Ever yours,
Allan Quatermain.
From the Baron Bradwardine to Edward Waverley,Esq.,of Waverley Honour.
The Baron explains the mysterious circumstances of his affair with his third cousin, Sir Hew Halbert.—“Waverley,” chap. xiv.
Tully Veolan, May 17, 1747.
Son Edward,—Touching my quarrel with Sir Hew Halbert, anent which I told you no more than that it was “settled in a fitting manner,” you have long teased me for an ampler explanation. This I have withheld, as conceiving that it tended rather to vain quolibets and jesting, than to that respect in which the duello, or single combat, should be regarded by gentlemen of name and coat armour. But Sir Hew being dead, and buried with his fathers, the matter may be broached as among friends and persons of honour. The ground of our dispute, as ye know, was an unthinking scoff of Sir Hew’s, he being my own third cousin by the mother’s side, Anderson of Ettrick Hall having intermarried, about the time of the Solemn League and Covenant, with Anderson of Tushielaw, both of which houses are connected with the Halberts of Dinniewuddie and with the Bradwardines. Butstemmata quid faciunt? Sir Hew, being a young man, and the maut, as the vulgar say, above the meal, after a funeral of one of our kin in the Cathedral Kirkyard of St. Andrews, we met at Glass’s Inn, where, in the presence of many gentlemen, occurred our unfortunate dissension.
We encountered betimes next morning, on a secluded spot of the sands hard by the town, at the Eden-mouth.[190]The weapons were pistols, Sir Hew, by a slight passing infirmity, being disabled from the use of the sword. Inchgrabbit was my second, and Strathtyrum did the same office for my kinsman, Sir Hew. The pistols being charged and primed, and we aligned forenent each other at the convenient distance of twelve paces, the word was given to fire, and both weapons having been discharged, and the smoke having cleared away, Sir Hew was discovered fallen to the ground,procumbus humi, and exanimate. The blood was flowing freely from a face-wound, and my unhappy kinsman was senseless. At this moment we heard a voice, as of oneclamantis in eremo, cry “Fore!” to which paying no heed in the natural agitation of our spirits, we hurried to lift my fallen opponent and examine his wound. Upon a closer search it proved to be no shot-wound, but a mere clour, or bruise, whereof the reason was now apparent, he having been struck by the ball of a golfer (from us concealed by thedunes, or bunkers, of sand) and not by the discharge of my weapon. At this moment a plebeian fellow appeared with hisarma campestria, or clubs, cleeks, irons, and the like, under his arm, who, without paying any attention to our situation, struck the ball wherewith he had felled my kinsman in the direction of the hole. Reflection directed us to the conclusion that both pistols had missed their aim, and that Sir Hew had fallen beneath a chance blow from this fellow’s golf-ball. But as my kinsman was stillhors de combat, and incapable of further action, being unwitting, too, of the real cause of his disaster, Inchgrabbit and Strathtyrum, in their discretion as seconds, orbelli judices, deemed it better that we should keep a still sough, and that Sir Hew should never be informed concerning the cause of his discomfiture. This resolution we kept, and Sir Hew wore, till the day of his late lamented decease, a bullet among the seals of his watch, he being persuaded by Strathtyrum that it had been extracted from his brain-pan, which certainly was of the thickest. But this was all a bam, or bite, among young men, and a splore to laugh over by our three selves, nor would I have it to go abroad now that Sir Hew is dead, as being prejudicial to the memory of a worthy man, and an honourable family connected with our own. Wherefore I pray you keep a still sough hereanent, as you love me, who remain—Your loving good father,
Bradwardine.
Note on Letter of Mr. Surtees to Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, p. 64.
Noliterary forgeries were ever much better done than the sham ballads which Surtees of Mainsforth imposed on Sir Walter Scott. The poems were spirited and good of their kind; and though we wonder now that some of them could take in an expert, it is by no means assured that we are even to-day acquainted with the whole of Surtees’ frauds. Why a man otherwise honourable, kindly, charitable, and learned, exercised his ingenuity so cruelly upon a trusting correspondent and a staunch friend, it is hardly possible to guess. The biographers of Surtees maintain that he wanted to try his skill on Scott, then only known to him by correspondence; and that, having succeeded, he was afraid to risk Scott’s friendship by a confession. This is plausible; and if good may come out of evil, we may remember that two picturesque parts of “Marmion” are due to one confessed and another certainsupercherieof Surtees. It cannot be said in his defence that he had no conception of the mischief of literary frauds; in more than one passage of his correspondence he mentions Ritson’s detestation of these practices. “To literary imposition, as tending to obscure the path of inquiry, Ritson gave no quarter,” says this arch literary impostor.
A brief account of Surtees’ labour in the field of sham ballad writing may be fresh to many people who merely know him as the real author of “Barthram’s Dirge” and of “The Slaying of Anthony Featherstonhaugh.” In an undated letter of 1806, Scott, writing from Ashestiel, thanks Surtees for his “obliging communications.” Surtees manifestly began the correspondence, being attracted by the “Border Minstrelsy.” Thus it appears that Surtees didnotforge “Hobbie Noble” in the first edition of the “Minstrelsy”; for he makes some suggestions as to the “Earl of Whitfield,” dreaded by the hero of that ballad, which Scott had already published. But he was already deceiving Scott, who writes to him about “Ralph Eure,” or “Lord Eure,” and about a “Goth, who melted Lord Eure’s gold chain.” This Lord Eure is doubtless the “Lord Eurie” of the ballad in the later editions of the “Border Minstrelsy,” a ballad actually composed by Surtees. That wily person immediately sent Scott a ballad on “The Feud between the Ridleys and Featherstones,” in which Scott believed to the day of his death. He introduced it in “Marmion.”
The whiles a Northern harper rudeChaunted a rhyme of deadly feud,How the fierce Thirlwalls and Ridleys all, &c.
The whiles a Northern harper rudeChaunted a rhyme of deadly feud,How the fierce Thirlwalls and Ridleys all, &c.
In his note (“Border Minstrelsy,” second edition, 1808, p. xxi.) Scott says the ballad was taken down from an old woman’s recitation at the Alston Moor lead-mines “by the agent there,” and sent by him to Surtees. Consequently, when Surtees saw “Marmion” in print he had to ask Scott not to print “theagent,” as he does not know even the name of Colonel Beaumont’s chief agent there, but “an agent.” Thus he hedged himself from a not impossible disclaimer by the agent at the mines.
Readers of “Marmion” will remember how
Once, near Norham, there did fightA spectre fell, of fiendish might,In likeness of a Scottish knight,With Brian Bulmer bold,And trained him nigh to disallowThe aid of his baptismal vow.
Once, near Norham, there did fightA spectre fell, of fiendish might,In likeness of a Scottish knight,With Brian Bulmer bold,And trained him nigh to disallowThe aid of his baptismal vow.
This legend is more of Surtees’ fun. “The most singular tale of this kind,” says Sir Walter, “is contained in an extract communicated to me by my friend Mr. Surtees, of Mainsforth, who copied it from a MS. note in a copy of Burthogge “On the Nature of Spirits, 1694, 8vo,” which had been the property of the late Mr. Gill. It was not in Mr. Gill’s own hand: but probably an hundred years older, and was said to be “E libro Convent. Dunelm. per T. C. extract.;” this T. C. being Thomas Cradocke, Esq. Scott adds, that the passage, which he gives in the Latin, suggested the introduction of the tourney with the Fairy Knight in “Marmion.” Well,whereis Cradocke’s extract? The original was “lost” before Surtees sent his “copy” to Sir Walter. “The notes had been carelessly or injudiciously shaken out of the book.” Surtees adds, another editor confirms it, that no such story exists in any MS. of the Dean and Chapter of Durham. No doubt he invented the whole story, and wrote it himself in mediæval Latin.
Not content with two “whoppers,” as Mr. Jo Gargery might call them, Surtees goes on to invent a perfectly incredible heraldic bearing. He found it in a MS. note in the “Gwillim’s Heraldry” of Mr. Gyll or Gill—the name is written both ways. “He beareth per pale or and arg., over all a spectre passant,shrouded sable”—“he” being Newton, of Beverley, in Yorkshire. Sir Walter actually swallowed this amazing fib, and alludes to it in “Rob Roy” (1818). But Mr. Raine, the editor of Surtees’ Life, inherited or bought his copy of Gwillim, that of Mr. Gill or Gyll; “and I find in it no trace of such an entry.” “Lord Derwentwater’s Good-Night” is probably entirely by Surtees. “A friend of Mr. Taylor’s” gave him a Tynedale ballad, “Hey, Willy Ridley, winna you stay?” which is also “aut Diabolus aut Robertus.” As to “Barthram’s Dirge,” “from Ann Douglas, a withered crone who weeds my garden,” copies with various tentative verses in Surtees’ hand have been found. Oddly enough, Sir Walter had once discovered a small sepulchral cross, upset, in Liddesdale, near the “Nine Stane Rig;” and this probably made him more easily deceived. Surtees very cleverly put some lines, whichcouldnot have been original, in brackets, as his own attempt to fill up lacunæ. Such are
[When the dew fell cold and still,When the aspen grey forget to play,And the mist clung to the hill.]
[When the dew fell cold and still,When the aspen grey forget to play,And the mist clung to the hill.]
Any one reading the piece would say, “It must be genuine, for theconfessedinterpolations are not in the ballad style, which the interpolator, therefore, could not write.” An attempt which Surtees made when composing the song, and which he wisely rejected, could not have failed to excite Scott’s suspicions. It ran—
They buried him when the bonny mayWas on the flow’ring thorn;And she waked him till the forest greyOf every leaf was lorn;Till the rowan tree of gramaryeIts scarlet clusters shed,And the hollin green alone was seenWith its berries glistening red.
They buried him when the bonny mayWas on the flow’ring thorn;And she waked him till the forest greyOf every leaf was lorn;
Till the rowan tree of gramaryeIts scarlet clusters shed,And the hollin green alone was seenWith its berries glistening red.
Whether Surtees’ “Brown Man of the Muirs,” to which Scott also gave a place in his own poetry, was a true legend or not, the reader may decide for himself.
Concerning another ballad in the “Minstrelsy”—“Auld Maitland”—Professor Child has expressed a suspicion which most readers feel. What Scott told Ellis about it (Autumn, 1802) was, that he got it in the Forest, “copied down from the recitation of an old shepherd by a country farmer.” Who was the farmer? Will Laidlaw had employed James Hogg, as shepherd. Hogg’s mother chanted “Auld Maitland.” Hogg first met Scott in the summer of 1801. The shepherd had already seen the first volume of the “Minstrelsy.” Did he, thereupon, write “Auld Maitland,” teach his mother it, and induce Laidlaw to take it down from her recitation? The old lady said she got it from Andrew Moir, who had it “frae auld Baby Mettlin, who was said to have been another nor a gude ane.” But we have Hogg’s own statement that “aiblins ma gran’-mither was an unco leear,” and this quality may have been hereditary. On the other side, Hogg could hardly have held his tongue about the forgery, if forgery it was, when he wrote his “Domestic Manners and Private Life of Sir Walter Scott” (1834). The whole investigation is a little depressing, and makes one very shy of unauthenticated ballads.
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[20]Who knows what may happen? I may die before he sees the light; so I will add among my friendsSkalagrim Lamb’s-tail.
[43]Can Mrs. Gamp mean ‘dial’?
[47]1887.
[50]In his familiar correspondence, it will be observed, Herodotus does not trouble himself to maintain the dignity of history.
[53]Mr. Flinders Petrie has just discovered and sent to Mr. Holly, of Trinity, Cambridge, the well-known traveller, a wall-painting of a beautiful woman, excavated by the Egypt Exploration Society, from the ruined site of the Temple of Aphrodite in Naucratis. Mr. Holly, in an affecting letter to theAcademy, states that he recognises in this picture “an admirable though somewhat archaic portrait ofShe.” There can thus be little or no doubt thatShewas Rhodopis, and therefore several hundred years older than she said. But few will blame her for being anxious not to claim her full age.
This unexpected revelation appears to throw light on some fascinating peculiarities in the behaviour ofShe.
[56]The great intimacy between Mrs. Proudie and Mrs. Quiverful, indicated by Mrs. Proudie’s use of the Bishop’s Christian name—and that abbreviated—has amazed the discoverer and editor of her correspondence.
[60a]This signature of Mrs. Proudie’s is so unusual an assumption of the episcopal style, that it might well cast a doubt on the authenticity of her letter. But experts pronounce it genuine. “Barnum,” of course, is “Baronum Castrum,” the rather odd Roman name of Barchester.
[60b]It has been seen that Mrs. Quiverful did not obey this injunction.
[65]This man was well known to Sir Walter Scott, who speaks of his curious habits in an unpublished manuscript.
[125]Mr. Forth, we are sure, is quite wrong, and none of the scholars he quotes has said anything of the kind.
[129]“He” clearly means, not Addison, but Professor Forth, the lady’s husband.
[130]It was not Asiatics, but Aztecs; not Pittites, but Hittites! Woman cares little for these studies!—A.L.
[133]The editor has no doubt that some one was—Miss Watson. Cf. ‘Belinda.’
[139]Owing to the sudden decease of the Dean in well-known and melancholy circumstances, this letter was not delivered.
[140]Alas, not wisely! But any careful reader of “The Silence of Dean Maitland” will see that the Baby was an anachronism.—Ed.
[146]This appears to have been a favourite remark of Mr. Skimpole’s. It will be noticed that, quite without intending it, Mr. Skimpole was the founder of our New Cyrenaic School.
[147]Mr. Skimpole’s recollections of classical ritual are a little mixed hereabouts. He refers to Mr. Honeyman’s projected union with the widow of Mr. Bromley, the famous hatter.
[151]Colonel Newcome, indeed.
[154]Non, Monsieur, je ne cite ni “Woodsworth” ni “le vieux Williams.”
[165]Mr. Potts ought to have consulted the edition of 1833, where he would have found the verse as quoted by Mr. Gandish.
[166]And a nice mixture it must have been!—A. L.
[184]The wooden bed fastened in an ox-waggon.
[185]Mr. Quatermain has just said that the donga was filled by a roaring torrent. Is there not some inconsistency here?
[190]At theHigh Hole, indeed.—A. L.