LITTELLS LIVING AGE. ____ No. 1231.January 4, 1868. CONTENTS. PAGE I. The Bramleiglis of Bishops Folly. By Charles Lever Corn/Wi Magazine, 3 2. The Talmud Qua terlq I view, 18 3. A Released Prisoner Good Words, 4.3 4. Cats and Civilization pectator, 51 5. The Emperor Maximilian Atlienceum, 54 6. The Palestine Exploration Fund Saturday Review, 55 Moraiuq Advertiser, 59 7. With the French in Mexico Saturday Review, 61) POETRY: The Kings Message, 2. Thorough, 2. Ad Altare, 2. Dives and Lazar s, 63, Mentana, 63. Laying a Foundation Stone, 64. Family Music, 64. New Book: LIFE AND LETTERS OF G. W. BETHUNE, D.D. By Rev. A. R. Van Ne t, D.D. Sheldon & Co.: New York. Preparing f r Publication at this Office THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS. By the author of Heir of Redclyffe. HEALMAH. By the author of Friends in Council. THE BROWNLOWS. By Mrs. Oliphant. LINDA TRESSEL. By the author of Nina Balatka. THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. By Charles Lever. ALL FOR GREED. PHINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER. By Mr. Trollope. OCCUPATIONS OF A REJIRED LIFE. By Edw rd Garrett. A SEABOARD PARISH. By Georgc McDonald. PEEP INTO A WESTPHALIAN PARSONAGE. Just Published at this Office THE TENANTS OF MALORY. By J. S. Le Faau. 50 cents. OLD SIR DOUGLAS. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. 75 cents. SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE. New Edition. 50 cen. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. l~ on ELGIST DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Aye xviii be punctually for- warded for a year, free qf postage. But we do not prepay postage on less tis a a y ar; nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the Fir t Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second 20 50 Third 32 50 The Complete Work, 88 220 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will he sent at the -expense of the publishers. THREE HYMNS. THREE HYMNS. I. THE KINGS MESSENGER. HE goes in silence through the crowd; A veil is oer his face; Yet where hut once his eyes are turnd There is an empty space. The whispering throngs divide and stir : Tis he! tis the Kings Messenger! We may perforce buy off the thought, (Jr stifle or ignore; The day at last will come on us When day will come no more: When on the spaces of the sky We hardly lift a wearied eye. When risin,,, death-mists change and blot Familiar features near; When we can give nor word nor sign, Nor what they utter hear; When mothers tears no more are shed For little faces round the hed; When Science folds her hands and sighs, And cannot hridge the abyss; And that which once seemd life seems nought Before the enormous This; All days, all deeds, all passions past Shrunk to a pins point in the vast: TheR face to face to meet the King Behind his messenger : Oh! could we truly grasp the scene, Whilst youthful pulses stir, With all our future to forgive, We scarce could hear the thought, and live. Thou who for us hath sufferd death, Rememher we are men; Thou on the right hand of the throne, Have mercy on us then; Thou from the King our pardon bear, And be thyself his messenger. H. THOEOUGII. Infelix, quis me liberabit ? WE name thy name, 0 God, As our God call on thee, Though the dark heart meantime Fa~ from thy ways may he. And we can own thy law, And we can sing thy songs, While the sad inner soul To sin and shame belongs. On us thy love may glow, As the pure mid-day fire On some foul spot look down; And yet the mire be mire. Then spare us not thy fires, The searching li~ht and pain; Burn out our sin; and, last, With thy love heal again. 111.AD ALTAEE. Tanquam nihul habentes, et omnia possidentes. ONCE man with man, now God with God above us, Loving us here, and after death to love us: Enough is this for us, 0 Saviour dear; When to thine altar our faint feet draw near! Come unto me all that are heavy laden, I will refresh you: mine is love unfading: It i~ enough; we ask not where thou art, Present in space, or in the trustful heart. So long since thou wast here, that to our seem. ing Thou art like some fair vision seen in dreaming: With glare and glow and turmoil, sigh and shout, The world rolls on, and seems to bar thee out. To reasoud doubt we yield ourselves resigndly; Yet in our path oft feel thy presence blindly; Life darkens into storm ; joys change and flee; Once more we wake, and find ourselves with thee. Behind the mid-day sky the stars are shining; Oh! shine out on us in our suns declining: With loved ones lost, and loved ones yet to quit, Were this life all, we could not bear with it. Once man with man, now God with God above us, Who lovst us here, and after death wilt love us; When to thine altar our faint feet draw near, It is enough for us if thou art here. F. T. PALGEAvE. Good Words. 2 THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. CHAPTER I. THE BISHOPS FOLLY. TOWARDS the close of the last century, there was a very remarkable man Bishop of Down in Ireland; a Liberal in politics in an age when Liberalism lay close on the con- fines of disloyalty, splendidly hospitable at a period when hospitality verged on utter recklessness, he carried all his opinions to extremes. He had great taste, which had been cultivated by foreign travel, and, hav- ing an ample fortune, was able to indnlge in many whims and caprices, by which some were led to douht of his sanity; but others, who judged him better, ascribed them to the self-indulgence of a man out of harmony with his time, and contemptuously indiffer- ent to what the world might say of him. He had passed many years in Italy, and h~d formed a great attachment to that coun- try. He liked the people and their mode of life; he liked the old cities, so rich in art treasures, and so teeming with associations of a picturesque past; and he especially liked their villa architecture, which seemed so essentially suited to a grand and costly style of living. The great reception-rooms spa- cious and lofty; the ample antechambers, made for crowds of attendants; and the stairs wide enough for even equipages to as- cend them. No more striking illustration of his capricious turn of mind need be given than the fact that it was his pleasure to build one of these magnificent edifices in an Irish county a costly whim, obliging him to bring over from Italy a whole troop of stucco-men and painters, men skilled in fresco-work and carving an extravagance on which he spent thousands. Nor did he live to witness the completion of his splendid mansion. After his death, the building gradually fell into decay. His heirs, not improbably, little caring for a project which had ingulfed so large a share of their fortune, made no ef- forts to arrest the destroying influences of time and climate; and Bishops Folly for such was the name given to it by the country-people soon became a ruin. In some places, the roof had fallen in, the doors and windows had all been carried away by the peasants, and in many a cabin or humble shealing in the county around, slabs of coloured marble or fragments of costly carv- ing might be met with, over which the skill of a cunnino workman had been bestowed for days long. The mansion stood on the side of a mountain which sloped gradually to the sea. The demesne, well-wooded, but with young timber, was beautifully varied iu surface, one deep glen running, as it were, from the very bas& of the house to the beach, and showing glimpses, through the trees. of a bright and rapid river tumblin~ onward to the sea. Seen in its dilapidation and decay, the aspect of the place was dreary and de- pressing, and led many to wonder how the bishop could ever have selected such a spot; for it was not only placed in the midst of a wild mountain region, but many miles away from any thing that could be called a neighbourhood. But the same haughty de- fiance he gave the world in other things urged him here to show that he cared little for the judgments which might be pased upon him, or even for the circumstances which would have influenced other men. When it is my pleasure to receive com- 3 THE BRAMLEIGLIS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. pany, I shall have my house full, no matter where I live, was his haughty speech; and certainly the whole character of his life went to confirm his words. Some question of disputed title, after the hishops death, threw the estate into chan- cery, and so it remained, till, by the opera- tion of the new law touching encumbered property, it became marketable, and was purchased by a rich London banker, who had declared his intention of coining to live upon it. That any one rich enough to buy such a property, able to restore such a costly house, and maintain a style of living proportionate to its pretensions, could come to reside in the solitude and obscurity of an Irish county seemed all but impossible; and when the matter became assured by the visit of a well- known architect, and afterwards by the ar- rival of a troop of workmen, the puzzle then became to guess how it chanced that the great head of a rich banking firm, the chair- man of this, the director of that, the promoter of heaven-knows-what scores of industrial schemes for fortune, should withdraw from the great bustle of life to accept an existence of complete oblivion. In the little village of Portshandon, which strag~ led along the beach, and where, with a few exceptions, none but fishermen and their families lived, this question was hotly debated; an old half-pay lieutenant, who by courtesy was called captain, being at the head of those who first denied the possibility of the Bramleighs coming at all, arid, when that matter was removed beyond a doubt, next taking his stand on the fact that nothing short of some disaster in for- tune, or some aspersion on character, could ever have driven a man out of the great world to finish his days in the exile of Ire- land. I suppose youll give in at last, Captain Craufurd, said Mrs. Bayley, the postmis- tress of Portshandon, as she pointed to a pile of letters and newspapers all addressed to Castello, and which more than quad- rupled the other correspondence of the lo- cality. I didnt pretend they were not coming, Mrs. Bayley, said he, in the cracked and cantankerous tone he invariably spoke in. I simply observed that Id be thankful for any one telling me why they were coming. Thats the puzzle, why theyre coining? I suppose because they like it, and they can afford it, said she, with a toss of her head. Like it! cried he, in derision. Like it! Look out of the window there beside you, Mrs. Bayley, and say, isnt it a lovely prospect, that beggarly village, and the old rotten boats, keel uppermost, with the dead fish and the oyster-shells, and the torn nets, and the dirty children ? Isnt it an elegant sight after Hyde Park and the Queen s palace? I never saw the Queens palace nor the other place you talk of; but 1 think theres worse towns to live in than Portshandon. And do they think theyll make it better by calling it Castello? said he, as, with a contemptuous gesture, he threw from him one of the newspapers with this address. If they want to think theyre in Italy, they ought to come down here in November with the Channel fogs sweeping up through the mountains, and the wind beating the rain against the windows. I hope theyll think theyre in Naples. Why cant they call the place by the name we all know it by? It was Bishops Folly when I was a boy, and it will be Bishops Folly after Im dead. I suppose people can call their house whatever they like? Nobody objects to your calling your place Craufurds Lea. Id like to see them object to it, cried he, fiercely. Its Craufurds Lea in Digge s Survey of Down, 1714. Its Craufurds Lea in the Anthologia Hibernica, and its down, too, in Joyces Irish Fisheries and we were Craufurds of Craufurds Lea before one stone of that big barrack up there was laid, and maybe well be so after its a ruin again. I hope its not going to be a ruin any more, Captain Craufurd, all the same, said the postmistress, tartly; for she was not dis- posed to undervalue the increased impor- tance the neighbourhood was about to derive from the rich family coming to live in it. Well, theres one thing I can tell you, Mrs. Bayley, said he, with his usual grin. The devil a bit of Ireland theyd ever come to, if they could live in England. Mind my words, and see if theyll not come true. Its either the Bank is in a bad way, or this or that company is going to smash, or its his wife has run away, or one of the daughters married the footman, something or other has happened, youll see, or we would never have the honour of their dis- tinguished company down here. Its a bad wind blows nobody good, said Mrs. Baylcy. Its luck for us, any- how. I dont perccive the luck of it either, ma~am,~~ said the captain, with increased peevishness. Chickens will be eighteen- pence a couple, eggs a halfpenny a piece. Id like to know what youll pay for a cod.. 4 THE BRAMLEIGUS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. fish, such as I bought yesterday for four- pence? Its better for them that has to sell them. Ay, hut Im talking of them that has to buy them, maam; and Im thinking how a born gentleman with a fixed income is to compete with one of these fellows that gets his gold from California at market price, and makes more out of one mornings rob- bery on the Stock Exchange than a Lieut.- General receives after thirty years~ service. A sharp tap at the window-pane inter- rupted the discussion at this critical moment, and Mrs. Bayley perceived it was Mr. Dorose, Colonel Bramleighs valet, who had come for the letters for the great house. Only these, Mrs. Bayley? said he half contemptuously. Well, indeed, sir; its a good-sized bun- dle after all. Theres eleven letters, and about fifteen papers, and two hooks. Send them all on to Brighton, Mrs. Bayley. We shall not come down here till the end of the month. Just give me The Times, however; and, tearing open the cover, he turned to the City article. I hope youve nothing in Ecuadors, Mrs. Bay- ley? they look shaky. Im hit, too, in my Turks. I see no dividend this half. Here he leaned forward, so as to whisper in her ear, and said, Whenever you want a snug thing, Mrs. B., youre alweys safe with Brazilians; and with this he moved off, leaving the postmistress in a flurry of shame and confusion as to what precise character of transaction his counsel applied. Upon my conscience, we~re come to a pretty pass! exclaimed the captain, as, buttoning his coat, he issued forth into the street; nor was his temper much improved by finding the way blocked up by a string of carts and drays, slowly proceeding to- wards the great house, all loaded with furni- ture and kitchen utensils, and the other de- tails of a large household. A bystander remarked that four saddle-horses had passed through at daybreak, and one of the grooms had said, It was nothing to what was com- ing in a few days. Two days after this, and quite unexpect- edly by all, the village awoke to see a great flag waving from the flagstaff over the chief tower of Castello; and the tidings were spee(lily circulated that the great people had arrived. A few sceptics, determining to decide the point for themselves, set out to go up to the house; but the lodge gate was closed, and the gatekeeper answered them from behind it, saying that no visitors were to be admitted, a small incident, in its way, but after all, it is by small incidents that men speculate on the tastes and tempers of a new dynasty. CHAPTER II. LAI~Y AUGUSTAS LETTER. IT will save some time, both to writer and reader, while it will also serve to explain certain particulars about those we are inter- ested in, if I give in this place a letter which was written by Lady Augusta Bramleigh, the Colonels young wife, to a married sister at Rome. It ran thus HANOVER SQUARE, Nov. 10, 18. DEAREST DOROTHY,. HERE we are back in town, at a season, too, when we find ourselves the only people left; and if I wanted to make a long story of how it happens, there is the material; but it is precisely what I desire to avoid, and, at the risk of heing barely intelligible, I will be brief. We have left Earlshope, and, in- deed, Herefordshire, for good. Our cam- paign there was a social failure, but just such a failure as I predicted it would and must be; and although, possibly, I might haVh liked to have been spared some of the mortifications we met with, I am too much pleased with the results to quarrel over the means. You are already in possession of what we intended by the purchase of Earlshope how we meant to become county magnates, marry our sons an(l daughters to neighbour- ing magnates, and live as though we had been rooted to the soil for centuries. I say we, my dear, because I am too good a wife to separate myself from Col. B. in all these projects; but I am fain to own that as I only saw defeat in the plan, I opposed it from the first. Here, in town, money will do anything; at least, any thing that one has any right to do. There may be a set or a clique to which it will not give admission; but who wants them? who needs them.? Theres always a wonderful Van Eyck or a Memling in a Dutch town, to obtain the sight of which you have to petition the authorities, or implore the Stadtholder; but I never knew any one admit that success repaid the trouble; and the chances are, that you come away from the sight fully convinced that you have seen scores of old pictures exactly like it, and that all that could be said was, it was as brown and as dusky, and as generally disappointing, as its fellows. So it is with these small exclusve 5 THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. societies. It may be a great triumph of in- genuity to pick the lock; but theres nothing in the coffer to reward it. I repeat, then, with money and we had money London was open to us. All the more, too, that, for some years hack, society has taken a specu- lative turn; and it is nothing derogatory to fine people to go in, as it is called, for a good thing, in Turks or Brazilians, in patent fuel, or a new loan to the children of Egypt. To these, and such like, your city man and banker is esteemed a safe pilot; and you would be amused at the amount of attention Col. B. was accustomed to meet with from men who regarded themselves as immeasurably above him, and who, all ques- tion of profit apart, would have hesitated at admitting him to their acquaintance. I tell you all these very commonplace truths, my dear Dorothy, because they may not, indeed cannot, be such truisms to you you, who live in a grand old city, with noble traditions, and the refinements that come transmitted from centuries of high habits; and I feel, as I write, how puzzled you will often be to follow me. London was, as I have twice said, our home; but for that very reason we could not be content with it. Earlshope, by ill-luck, was for sale, and we bought it. I am afraid to tell you the height of our castle-building; but, as we were all engaged, the work went on briskly, every day adding at least a story to the edifice. We were to start as high-sheriff, then repre- sent the county. I am not quite clear, I think we never settled the point, as to the lord-lientenancy; but I know the exact way, and the very time, in which we demanded our peerage. How we threatened to sulk, and did sulk; how we actually sat a whole night on the back benches; and how we made our eldest son dance twice with a daughter of the Opposition, menaces that no intelligent Cabinet or conscientions whip could for a moment misunderstand. And oh! my dear Dora, as I write these things, how forcibly I feel the prudence of that step which once we all were so ready to condemn you for having taken! You were indeed right to marry a foreigner. That an English girl should address herself to the married life of England, the first con- dition is she should never have left England, not even for that holiday-trip to Paris and Switzerland, which people now do, as once they were wont to do Margate. The whole game of existence is such a scramble with us: we scramble for social rank, for place, for influence, for Court favour, for patronage; and all these call for so much intrigue and plotting, that I vow to you Id as soon be a Carbonara or a Sanfedista as the wife of an aspiring middle-class English- man. But to return. The county would not have us we were rich, and we were city folk, and they deemed it an unpardonable pretension in us to come down amongst them. They refused our invitations, and sent us none of their own. We split with them, contested the election against them, and got heaten. We spent unheard-of monies, and bribed everybody that had not a vote for ten miles round. With universal suffrage, which I believe we promised them, we should have been at the head of the poll; but the free- holders were to a man opposed to us. I am told that our opponents behaved ungenerously and unjustly perhaps they did; at all events, the end of the contest left us without a single acquaintance, and we stood alone in our glory of beaten candidate- ship, after three months of unheard-of fatigue, and more meanness than I like to mention. The end of all was, to shake the dust off our feet at Herefordshire, and advertise Earl- shope for sale. Meanwhile we returned to town; just as shipwrecked men clamber up the first rock in sight, not feeling in their danger what desolation is before them. I take it that the generals of a beaten army talk very little over their late defeat. At all events, we observed a most scrupulous reserve, and ~ dont think that a word was dropped amongst us for a month that could have led a stranger to believe that we had just been beaten in an election, and hunted out of the county. I was just beginning to feel that our les- son, a severe one, it is true, might redound to our future benefit, when our eldest-born I call them all mine, Dora, though not one of them will say mamma to me discovered that there was an Irish estate to be sold, with a fine house, and fine grounds, and that, if we couldnt be great folk in the grander kin~,dom, there was no saying what we might not be in the smaller one. Thi5 was too much for me. I accepted the llere fordshire expedition, because it smacked of active service. I knew well we should be defeated, and I knew there would he a hat~ tle; but I could not consent to banishment. What had I done, I asked myself over and over, that I should he sent to live in Ire- land? I tried to get up a party against the project, and failed. Augustus Bramleigh our heir was in its favour, indeed, its chief promoter. Temple, the second son, who is a secretary of embassy, and the most insuf- ferable oP puppies, thought it a nice place 6 7 THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. for us, and certain to save us money; and John, Jack, they call him, who is in the navy, thinks land to be land; besides that, he was once stationed at Cork, and thought it a paradise. If I could do little with the young men, I did less with the girls. Mar- ion, the eldest, who deems her papa a sort of divine-right head of a family, would not discuss the scheme; and Eleanor, who goes in for nature and spontaneous feelin ~, re- plied that she was overjoyed at the thought of Ireland, and even hail gave me to under- stand that she was only sorry it was not Africa. I was thus driven to a last re- source. I sent for our old friend, Doctor Bartlet, and told him frankly that he must order me abroad to a dry warm climate, where there were few changes of tempera- ture, and nothing depressing in the air. He did the thing to perfection; he called in Forbes to consult with him. The case was very serious, he said. The lung was not yet attacked; but the bronchial tubes were af- fected. Oh, how gra ful I felt to my dear bronchial tubes, for they have sent me to Italy!. Yes, Dolly dearest, I am off on Wednesday, and hope within a week after this reaches you to be at your side, pouring out all my sorrows, and asking for that con- solation you never yet refused me. And now, to be eminently practical, can you ob- tain for me that beautiful little villa that overlooked the Boyhese Gardens ? it was called the Villino Altieri. The old Prince Giuseppe Altieri, who used to be an adorer of mine, if he be alive may like to resume his ancient passion, and accept me for a tenant; all the more that I can afford to be liberal. Col. B. behaves well always where money enters. I shall want servants, as I only mean to take from this, Rose and my room. You know the sort of creatures I like; but, for any sake, be particular about the cook I cant eat Romanesque and if there be a stray Frenchman wander- ing about, secure him. Do you remember dear old Pauletti, Dolly, who used to serve up those delicious little macaroni suppers long ago in our own room cheating us into gourmandi~m by the trick of deceit! Oh, what would I give to be as young again! to be soaring up to heaven, as I listened with closed eyes to the chaunt in the Sistine chapel, or ascending to another elysium of delight, as I gazed at the noble guard of the Pope, who, while his black charger was caracoling, and he was holding on by the mane, yet managed to dart towards me such a look of love and devotion! and you re- member, Dolly, we lived secondo piano, at the time, and it was plucky of the man, con- sidering how badly he rode. I yearn to go back there. I yearn for those sunsets from the Pincian, and those long rambling rides over the Campagna, leading to nothing but an everlasting dreaminess, and an intense desire that one could go on day after day in the same delicious life of unreality,; for it is so, I)olly. Your Roman existence is as much a trance as any thing ever was not a sight nor sound to shock it. The swell of the organ and the odour of the incense follow you even to your pleasures, and just as the light streams in through the painted windows with its radiance of gold and amber and rose, so does the Church tinge with its mellow lusture all that goes on within its shadow. And how sweet and soothing it all is! I dont know, I cannot know, if it lead to heaven; but it certainly goes in that direction, so far as peace of mind is con- cerned. What has become of Carlo Lam- bruschini? is he married? How good-look- mug he was, and how he sung! I never heard Mario without thinking of him. How is it that our people never have that velvety softness in their tenor voices? there is no richness, no latent depth of tone, and conse- quently no power of expression. Will his Eminence of the Palazzo Antinori know me again? I was only a child when he saw me last, and used to give me his hene- dizione. Be sure you bespeak for me the same condescending favour again, Heretic though I be. Dont be shocked, dearest Dora, but I mean to be half converted, that is, to have a sort of serious flirtation with the Church; something that is to touch my af- fections, and yet not wound my principle s; somethinQ that will surround me with all the fervour of the faith, and yet not ask me to sign the ordinances. I hope I can do this. I eagerly hope it, for it will supply a void in my heart which certainly neither the money article, nor the share list, nor even the de- tails of a county contest, have sufficed to fill. Where is poor little Santa Rosa and his guitar? I want them, Dolly I want them both. His little tinkling barcaroles were as pleasant as the drop of a fountain on a sultry night; and am I not a highly im- a~inative creature, who can write of a sultry night in this land of fog, east wind, gust, and gas-light? How my heart bounds to think how soon I shall leave it! How I could travesty the refrain, and cry, Rendez moi mon passeport, on laissez moi mourir. And now, Dolly, darling, I have done. Secure me the villa, engage my people. Tanti Sa- luti to the dear cardinal, as many loves to all who are kind enough to remember me. Send me a lascia-passare for may luggage THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. it is voluminous to the care of the consul at Civita Veechia, and tell him to look out for me by the arrival of the French boat, somewhere about the 20th or 21st; he can be useful with the custom-house creatures, and obtain me a carriacre all p~ tra~Ib is always myself in the more carino to talk of a husband at the last line of a hitter; and so I say, give dear Tino all my loves, quite apart and distinct from my other legacies of the like nature. Tell hini I am more tolerant than I used to be he will know my mean- ing that I make paper cigarettes just as well, and occasionally, when in high good- humour, even condescend to smoke one too. Say also, that I have a little chestnut cob, quiet enough for his riding, which shall be always at his orders; that he may dine with me every Sunday, and have one dish I know well what it will be, I smell the garlic of it even now of his own dictating; and, if these be not enou~ h, add that he may make love to me during the whole of Lent; and with this, believe me Your own doting sister AUGUSTA BEAMLEIGH. After much thought and many misgivings, I deemed it advisable to offer to take one of the girls with me, leaving it open, to mark my indifference, as to which it should be. They both, however, refused, and to my in- tense relief, declared that they did not care to come abroad; Augustus also protesting that it was a plan he could not approve of. The diplomatist alone opined that the project bad any thing to recommend it: but as his authority, like my own, in the family, car- ries little weight, we were happily outvoted. I have, theref~re, the supreme satisfaction and is it not such? of knowing that I have done the right thing, and it has cost me nothing like those excellent people who throw very devout looks towards heaven, ~without the remotest desire to be there. CHAPTER III. THE EVENING AFTER A HARD RUN. Iv was between eight and nine oclock of a wintry evening near Christmas: a cold drizzle of rain was falling, which on the rn-ountains might have been snow, as Mr. Drayton, the butler at the great house, as Castello was called in the village, stood aus- terely wi~h his back to the fire in the dining- room, and, as he snrvey& d the table, won- dered within himself what could possibly have detained the young gentl~nen so late. The hounds had met that day about eight miles off, and Colonel Bramleigh had actual- ly put off dinner half an hour for them, but to no avail; and now Mr. Drayton, whose whole personal arrangements for the evening had been so thoughtlessly interfered with, stood there musing over the wayward nature of youth, and inwardly longing for the time when, retiring from active service, he should enjoy the ease and indulgence his long life of fatigue and hardship had earned. Theyre coming now, Ms. 1)rayton, said a livery-servant, entering hastily. George saw the light of their cigars as they came up the avenue. Bring in the soup, then, at once, and send George here with another log for the fire. Therell be no dressing for dinner to- day, Ill be bound ; and imparting a sort of sarcastic bitterness to his speech, he filled himself a glass of sherry at the sideboard and tossed it off; only just in time, for the door opened, and a very noisy, merry party of four entered the room, and made for the fire. As soon as you like, Drayton, said Au- gustus, the eldest Bramleigh, a tall, good- looking, but somewhat stern-featured man of about eight and twenty. The second, Tem- ple Bramleigh, was middle-sized, with a handsome but somewhat over-delicate-look- ing face, to which a simpering affectation of imperturbable self-conceit gave a sort of pup- pyism; while the youngest, Jack, was a bronzed, bright-eyed, fine-looking fellow, manly, energetic, and determined, but with a sweetness when he smiled and showed his good teeth that implied a soft and very im- pressionable nature. They were all in scar- let coats, and presented a group strikingly good-lookirig and manly. The fourth of the party was, however, so eminently handsome, and so superior in expression as well as lin- eament, that the others seemed almost vul- gar beside him. He was in black coat and cords, a checked cravat seeming to indicate that he was verging, so far as he might, on the limits of hunting costume; for Georce LEstrange was in orders, and the curate the parish in which Castello stood. It is riot necessary to detain the reader by any length- ened narrative of the handsome young par- son. Enough to say, that it was not all from choice he had entered the Church, narrow fortune, and the hope of a small family living, (lecided him to adopt a career which to one who had the passion for field-sports seemed the very last to gratify his tastes. As a horseman he was confessedly the first in the country round; although his one horse lie was unable to keep a second condemn ~d 8 THE BRAMLELGUS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. him to rare appearance at the meets. The sight of the parson, and his black mare Kora Creina, in the field, were treated with a cheer, for he was a universal favourite; and if a general suffrage could have conferred the episcopatc, George would have had his mitre many a day a~o. So sure a seat and so perfect a hand need- ed never to have wanted a mount. There was not a man with a stable who would not have been well pleased to see his horse ridden by such a rider; but LEstrange declined all such offers a sensitive fear of being called a hunting parson deterred him; indeed it was easy to see by the rarity with which he permitted himself the loved indulgence, what a struggle he maintained between will and temptation, and how keenly he felt the sacrifice he imposed upon himself. Such, in brief; was the party who were now seated at table, well pleased to find themselves in presence of an admirable din- ner, in a room replete with every comfort. The days run, of course, formed the one topic of their talk, and a great deal of mer- riment xvent on about the sailor-like per- formances of Jack, who had been thrown twice, but on the whole acquitted himself creditably, and had taken one high bank so splendidly as to win a cheer from all who saw him. I wish you had not asked that poor Frenchman to follow you, Jack, said Au- gustus; he was really riding very nicely till he came to that unlucky fence. I only cried out, Venez done, mon- sieur; and when I turned my head, after clearin,, the bank, I saw his horse with his legs in the air, and monsieur underneath. When I picked him up, broke in LEstrange, he said, Merci, mule fois, monsieur, and then fainted off, the poor fellows face actually wearing the smile of courtesy he had got up to thank me. Why will Frenchmen try things that are quite out of their beat? said Jack. Thats a most absurd prejudice of yours, Master Jack, cried the diplomatist. Frenchmen ride admirably, nowadays. Ive seen a steeple-chase in Normandy, over as stiff a course, and as well ridden, as ever Leicestershire witnessed. Yes, yes; Ive heard all that, said the sailor, just as Ive heard that their iron fleet is as good, if not better than our own. I think our own newspapers rather hint that, said LEstrange. They do more, said Temple I they prove it. They show a numerical superiori- ty in ships, and they give an account of guns, and weight of metal dead against us. Ill not say anything of the French; but this much I will say, cried the sailor: the question will have to be settled one of these days, and Im right glad to think that it can- not be done by writers in newspapers. May I come in? cried a soft voice; and a very pretty head, with long fair ringlets, appeared at the door. Yes, come by all means, said Jack ; per- haps we shall be able, by your help, to talk of something besides fighting Frenchmen. While he spoke, LEstrange had risen, and approached to shake hands with her. Sit down with us, Nelly, said Augus- tus, or George will get no dinner. Give me a chair, Drayton, said she; and, turning to her brother, added, I only came in to ask some tidings about an un- lucky foreigner; the servants have it he was cruelly hurt, sonic think hopelessly. Theres the culprit who did the mis- chief, said Temple, pointing to Jack; let him recount his fe~ t. Im not to blame in the least, Nelly. I took a smashing hi~h bank, an(l the little Frenchman fried to follow, me and came to grief. Ay, but you challenged him to come on, said Temple. Now, Master Jack, people dont (10 that sort of thing in the hunting- field. I said, Come along, monsieur, to give him pluck. I never thou~ht for a moment he was to suffer for it. But is he seriously hurt? asked she. I think not, sai(l LEstrange. He seemed to me more stunned than actually injured. Fortunately for him they had not far to take him, for the disaster occurred quite close to Ducketts Wood, where he is stopping. Is he at Longworths? asked Augus- tus. Yes. Longwo.th met him up the Nile, and they travelled together fbr some months, and when they parted, it was agreed they were to meet here at Christmas; and though Longworth had written to apprise his people they were coming, he has not appeared him- self; and the Frenchman is waiting patiently for his hosts arrival. And laming his best horse in the mean- while. That dark bay will never do another day with hounds, said Temple. She was shaky before; but she is cer- tainly not the better of this days work. Id feed her, and turn her out for a full year, said Augustus. I suppose thats another of those things in which the French are our superiors, muttered Jack. But I susp ct Id think 9 THE BRAMLEJGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. twice about it before Id install myself in a mans house, and ride his horses in his ab- sence. It was the hosts duty to he there to re- ceive him, said Temple, who was always on the watch to make the sailor feel how lit- tie he knew of society and its ways. I hope when youve finished your wine, said Ellen, youll not steal off to bed, as you did the other night, with out ever ap- pearin~ in the drawing-room. LE3trange shall go at all events, cried Augustus. The church shall represent the laity. Im not in trim to enter a drawing-room, Miss Bramleigh, said the curate, blushing. I wouldnt dare to present myself in such a costume. I declare, said Jack, I think it becomes you better than your Sunday rig; dont you, Nelly? Papa will be greatly disappointed, Mr. LEstrange, if he should not see you, said she, rising to leave the room. lie wants to hear all about your days sport, and espe- cially about that poor Frenchman. Do you know his name? Yes, heres his card, Anatole de Pra- contal. A good name, said Temple; but the fellow himself looks a snob. I call that very hard, said Jack, to say what any fellow looks like when he is covered with slush and dirt, his hat smashed, and his month full of mud. Dont forget that we expect to see you, said Ellen, with a nod aiid a smile, to the curate, and left the room. And who or what is Mr. Longworth? said Temple. I never met him. All I know is, that he owns that very ugly r~d brick house, with the three gables in front, on the hill- side as you go towards Newry, said Au- gustus. I think I can tell you somcthing about him, said the parson ; his father was my grandfathers agent. I believe he began as his steward, when we had property in this county; he must have been a shrewd sort of man, for he raised himself from a very hum- ble origin to become a small estated proprie- tor and justice of the peace; and when he died, about four years ago, he left Philip Longworth something like a thousand a year in la minded property, and some ready money besides. And this Longworth, as you call him, what is he like? A good sort of fellow, who would he bet- ter if he was not possessed by a craving am- bition to know fine people, and move in their society. Not being able to attain the place he aspires to in his own county, he has gone abroad, and affects to have a horror of English life and ways, the real grievance being his own personal inability t& mneet ac- ceptance in a certain set. This is what I hear of him: my own knowledge is very slight. I have ever found him well-man- nered and polite, and, except a slight sign of condescension, I should say pleasant. I take it, said the sailor, he must be an arrant snob. Not necessarily, Jack, said Temple. There is nothing ignoble in a mans desire to live with the best people, if he do nothing meami to reach that goal. Whom do you call the best people, Tem- ple? asked the other. By the best people, I mean the first in rank and station. I am not speaking of their moral excellence, but of their social superiority, and of that pre-eminence which comes of an indisputable position, high name, fortune, and the worlds regards. These I call the best people to live with. And I do not, said Jack, rising, and throwing his napkin on the table, not at least for men like myself. I want to asso- ciate with my equals. I want to mix with men who cannot overhear me by any aocm- dent of their wealth or title. Jack should never have gone into the navy, thats clear, said Augustus, laughing but let us draw round the fire and have a cirar. Youll have to pay your visit to the drawing-room, LEstrange, said Jack, be- fore we begin to smoke; for the governor hates tobacco, and detects it in an instant. I declare, said the parson, as he looked at his splashed cords and dirty boots, I have no courage to present myself in such a trim as this. Report yourself and come back at once, said Jack. Id say, dont go in at all, said Tem- ple. Thats what I should do, certainly, said Augustus. Sit down here. What are you drinking? This is Pomare, and better than claret of a cold evening.~ And the curate yielded to the soft per- suasion; and, seated aroun(l the fire, the young men talked horses, dogs, and field- sports, till the butler came to say that tea was served in the drawing-room, when, rising, they declared themselves too tircd to stay up longer, and wishing each other good- night, they sauntered up to their rooms to bed. 10 11 THE BLIAMLELGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. CHAPTER IV. ON THE CROQUET LAWN. THE day after a hard run, like the day af- ter a battle, is often spent in endeavours to repair the disasters of the struggle. So was it here. rfhe young men passed the morn- ing in the stables, or going back and forward with bandages and liniments. There was a tendon to be eared for, a sore back to be at- tended to. Benbo, too, wouldnt feed; the groom said he had got a surfeit; which mal- ady, in stable parlance, applies to excess of work, as well as excess of diet. Augustus Bramleigh was, as becomes an eldest son, grandly imperious and dictatorial, and looked at his poor discomfited beast, as he stood with hanging head and heaving flanks, as though to say it was a disgraceful thing for an animal that had the honour to carry him to look so craven and disheart- ened. Temple, with the instincts of his craft and calling, cared little for the past, and took but small interest in the horse that was not likely to be soon of use to him; while Jack, with all a sailors energy, worked away manfully, and assisted the grooms in every way he could. It was at the end of a very active morning, that Jack was return- ing to the house, when he saw LEstranges pony-chaise at the door, with black Nora in the shafts, as fresh and hearty to all seeming as though she had not carried her heavy owner through one of the stiffest runs of the season only the day before. Is your master here, Bill? asked Jack of the small urchin, who barely reached the bar of the bit. No, sir; its Miss Julia has druv over. Masters fishing this morning. Now, Julia LEstrange was a very pretty girl, and with a captivation of manner which to the young sailor was irresistible. She had been brought up in France, and imbibed that peculiar quiet coquetry which, in its quaint demureness, suggests just enough doubt of its sincerity to be provocative. She was dark enough to be a Spaniard from the south of Spain, and her long black eye- lashes were darker even than her eyes. In her walk and her gesture, there was that also which reminded one of Spain: the same blended litheness and dignity; and there was a firmness in her tread which took nothing from its elasticity. When Jack heard that she was in the house, instead of hurrying in to meet her, he sat moodily down on the steps of the door, and lighted his cigar. Whats the use? muttered he; and the same depressin0 sen tence recurred to him again and again. They are very dark moments in life in which we have to confess to ourselves, that, fight how we may, fate must beat us; that the very utmost we can do is to maintain a fierce struggle with destiny, but that in the end we must succumb. The more fre- quently poor Jack saw her, the more hope- lessly he felt his lot. What was he, what could he ever be, to aspire to such a girl as Julia? Was not the very presumption a thing to laugh at? He thought of how his elder brother would entertain such a notion; the cold solemnity with which he would rid- icule his pretensions; and then Temple would treat him to some profound reflections on the misery of poor marriages; while Ma- rion would chime in with some cutting re- proaches on the selfishness with which, to gratify a caprice she would call it a ca- price he ignored the just pretensions of his family, and the imperative necessity that pressed theni to secure their position in the world by great alliances. This was Marions code; it took three generations to make a family; the first must be wealthy; the sec- ond, by the united force of money and abil- ity, secure a certain station of power and so- cial influence; the third must fortify these by marriages, marriages of distinction, after which mere time would do the rest. She had hoped much from her fathers second marria~e, and was grievously disap- pointed on finding how her stepmothers family affected displeasure at the match as a reason for coldness towards them; while Lady Augusta herself as openly showed that she had stooped to the union merely to secure herself against the accidents of life, and raise her above the misery of living on a very small income. Jack was thinking moodily over all these things as he sat there, and with such depres- sion of spirit, that he half resolved, instead of staying out his full leave, to return to his ship at Portsmouth, and so forget shore life and all its fascinations. He heard the sound of a piano, and, shortly after, the rich deli- cious tones of Julias voice. It was that mellow quality of sound musicians call mezzo soprano, whose gift it is to steal softly over the senses, and steep them in a sweet rapture of peaceful delight. As the strains floated out, he felt as though the measure of incantation was running over for him, an(l he arose with a bound, and hurried off into the wood. Ill start to-morrow. Ill not let this folly master me, muttered he. A fellow who cant stand up against his, own fancies is not worth his salt. Ill go on board again and think of my duty; and he 12 THE BRAMLELGIIS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. tried to assure himself, that, of all living Isnt that speech Nelly all over? cried men, a sailor had least excuse for such weak- Marion haughtily. nesses as these. I hope it is, sakl Ellen, if it serves to He had not much sympathy with the convey what I faithfully believe, that we family ambitions. He thought that as they are great fools in not enjoying a very pleas- had wealth enough to live well and hand- ant lot in life instead of addressing ourselves somely, a good station in the world, and not to ambitions far and away beyond us. any one detracting element from their good- And which he they? asked Temple, luck, either as regarded character or health, crossing his arms over his mallet, and stand- it was downri~ht ingratitude to go in search ing like a soldier on guard. of disappointments and defeats. It was, to To he high and titled, or, if not titled, to his thinkinr like a ship with plenty of sea- be accepted amongst that class, and treated room rushing madly on to her ruin amongst as their equals in rank and condition. the breakers. I think Kelly is of my own And why not, Kelly? What is this mind, said he; but who can say how long wonderful ten thousand that we all worship? she will continue to be so? These stupid Whence is it recruited, and how? These notions of being great folk will get hold of double wallflowers are not of Natures mak- her at last. The high-minded Marion and ing; they all conic of culture, of fine mould, that great genius Temple are certain to pre- careful watering, and good gardening. vail in the end; and I shall always be a They were singk-petaled once on a time, splendid example to point at and show the like ourselves. Mind, it is no radical says melancholy consequences of~ degenerate this, girls moi qut vous parle am no tastes and ignoble amhitions. revolutionist, no leveller! I like these The sharp trot of a horse on the gravel grand conditions, because they give exist- road beside him startled him in his musings, ence its hest stimulus,its noblest aspirations. and the pony-carriage whisked rapidly by; The higher one goes in life as on a moun- Augustus driving, and Julia at his side. She tam the more pure the air, and the wider was laughing. Her merry laugh rang out the view. above the brisk jingle of horse and harness, And do you irmean to tell me that Augustus and to the poor sailor it sounded like the would consult his happiness better in marry- knell of all his hopes. What a confound- ing some fine lady, like our grand stepniam- ed fool I was not to remember I had an ma, for instance, than a charming girl like elder brother! said lie bitterly. That he Julia? said Ellen. added something inaudible about the per- If Augustus notions of happiness were fidious nature of girls is possibly true; but, to be measured by mine, I should say yes, not being in evidence, it is not necessary unquestionably yes. Love is a very fleeting to record it. sentiment. The cost of the article, too, sug- Let us turn from the disconsolate youth gests most uncomfortable reflection. All to what is, certes, a prettier picture, the the more as the memory comes when the croquet lawn behind the house, where the imequisition itself is beginning to lose value. two sisters, with the accomplished Temple, My former chief at Munich the cleverest were engaged at a game. man of the world I ever met used to say, I hope, girls, said he, in one of his as an investment, a pretty wife was a mistake. very finest drawls, the future head of If, said he, you laid out your money on a house and hopes is not going to make a pre- picture, your venture might turn out a bar- cious fool of himself gain; if you bought a colt, your two-year- You mean with the curates sister, said old might win a Derby; but your beauty of Marion with a saucy toss of her head. I to-day will be barely good-looking in five scarcely think he could be so absurd. years, and will be a positive fright in I cant see the absurdity, broke in fifteen. Ellen. I think a duke might make her a Your accomplished friend was an odious duchess, and no great condescension in the beast! said Kelly. What was his name, act. Temple? Quite true, Kelly, said Temple; thats Lord Culduff. One of the first diplo- exactly what a duke might do; but Mr. matists in Europe. Bramleigh cannot. When you are at the Culduff? how stran~e~ Papas agent, top of the ladder, theres nothing left for Mr. Harding, mentioned the name at break- you but to come down again; but the man fast. He said there was a nobleman at the bottom has to try to go up. come over from Germany to see his estates But why must there be a ladder at all, in the north of Down, where they had some Temple? asked she eagerly. hopes of having discovered coal. THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. Is it possible Lord Culduff could he in our neighbourhood? The governor must ask him here at once, said Temple, with an animation of mariner most unusual with him. There must be no time lost about this. Finish your game without me, girls, for this matter is imminent; and so saying, he resigned his mallet and hastened away to the house. I never saw Temple so eager about any thing before, said Nelly. Its quite charming to see how the mere mention of a grand name can call forth all his energy. Temple knows the world very well; and he knows how the whole game of life is conducted by a very f~w players, and that every one who desires to push his way must secure the intimacy, if he can, or at least the acquaintance, of these. And Marion delivered this speech with a most oracular and pretentious tone. Yes, said Nelly, with a droll sparkle in her eye; he declared that profound statement last evening in the very same words. Who shall say it is not an immense advantage to have a brother so full of sage maxims, while his sisters are seen to catch up his words of wisdom, and actually be- lieve them to be their own? Temple may not he a Talleyrand; hut he is certainly as brilliant as the charming curate, said Marion tartly. Oh, poor George! cried Nelly; and her cheek flushed while she tried to seem indifferent. Nobody ever called him a genius. When one says he is very good- looking and very good-humoured, tout est dit! He is very much out of place as a par- son. Granted. I suspect he thinks so him- self. Men usually feel that they cannot take orders without some stronger impulse than a mere desire to gain a livelihood. I have never talked to him on the mat- ter; but perhaps he had no great choice of a career. He might have gone into the army, I suppose? Hed have found scores of crea- tures thcre with about his own measure of I ~fancied you liked George, Marion, said the other. And there was something half tender, half reproachful, in her tone. I liked him so far, that it was a boon to find any thing so like a gentleman in this wild savagery; but if you nican that I would have endured him in town, or would have noticed him in society, you are strangely mistaken. Poor George! and there was something comic in her glance as she sighed th~se words out. There; you have won, said Marion, throwing down her mallet. I must go and hear what Temple is going to do. It would be a great blessing to see a man of the world and a man of mark in this dreary spot, and I hope papa will not lose the present opportunity to secure him. Are you alone, Nelly? said her eldest brother some time after, as he came up, and found her sitting, lost in thought, under a tree. Yes. Marion got tired and went in, and Temple went to ask papa about inviting some high and mighty pcrsonaze who chances to be in our neighhourhood. Who is he? Lord Culduff he called him. Oh! a tremendous swell; an ambassa- dor somewhere. What hrings him down here? I forget. Oh, it was something about a mine; lie has found tin or copper or coal, I dont remember which, on some property of his here. By the way, Augustus, do you really think Geor~,e LEstrange a fool? Think him a fool ? I mean, said she, blushing deeply, Marion holds his intelligence so cheaply, that she is quite shocked at his presuming to be in orders. Well, I dont think him exactly what Temple calls an esprit fort; but he is a very nice fellow, very companionable, and a thorough gentleman in all respects. How well you have said it, dear Augus- tus, said she with a face beaming with de- light. Where are you off to? Where are you going? I am going to see the yearlings, in the paddock below the river. May I go with you, Gussy? said she, drawing her arm within his. I do like a brisk walk with you; and you always go like one with a purpose. CHAPTER V. CONFIDENTIAL TALK. TEMPLE found his father in his study, deeply engaged with a mass of papers and letters, and by theworn arid fatigued expres- sion of his face showing that he had passed a day of hard. work. I hope I do not distu~b you, sai(1 Tem- ple, as he lcaued on the table at which the other was seated. 13 THE BIiAMLELGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. Throw that cigar away, and Ill tell you., said the old man, with a faint smile. I never can conquer my aversion to tobacco. What do you want to say? Is it any thing we cannot talk over at dinner, or after din- ner? for this post leaves at such an incon- venient hour, it gives me scant time to write. I beg a thousand pardons, sir; hut I have just heard that a very distinguished member of our corps I mean the diplomat- ic corps is down in this neighborhood, and I want your permission to ask him over here. Who is he? Lord Culduff. What, that old scamp who ran away with Lady Clifford? I thought he couldnt come to England? Why, sir, he is one of the first men we have. It was he that negotiated the Erze- roum treaty, an(I I heard Sir Stamford Bol- ter say he was the only man in England who understood the Sound dues. He ran off with another mans wife, and I dont like that. XVII, sir, as he didnt marry her after- wards, it was clear it was oi~ly a passing in- discretion. Oh! indeed; that view of it never oc- curred to me. I suppose, then, it is iii this light the corps regards it? I trust so, sir. Where there is no com- plication, there is no loss of character; and as Lord Culduff is received everywhere, and courted in the very hest circles, I think it would be somewhat strange if we were to set up to teach the world how it ought to treat him. I have no such pretension. I simply claim the right to choose the people I invite to my house. He may he my chief to-morrow or next day, said Temple. So much the worse for you. Certainly not, sir, if we seize the oppor- tunity to show him some attentions. He is a most high-bred gentleman, and both from his abilities, his rank, and his connections, sure to be at the head of the line; and I con- fess Id be very much ashamed if he were to hear, as he is sure to hear, that I was in his vicinity without my ever having gone to wait on him. Go by all means, then. Wait upon him at once, Temple; but I tell you frankly, I dont fancy presenting such a man to your sisters. Why, sir, ther~, is not a more unobjec- tionable man in all England; his manners are the very type of respectful deference towards ladies. He belongs to that old school which professes to be shocked with modern levity, while his whole conversation is a sort of quiet homage. Well, well; how long would he stay a week? A couple of days, perhaps, if he came at all. Indeed, I greatly doubt that he would come. They say he is here about some coal- mine they have discovered on his property. XVhat, has he found coal? cried the old man eagerly. So it is said, sir; or, at least, he hopes so. Its only lignite. Im certain, its only lignite. I have been deceived myself twice or thrice, and I dont believe coal real coal exists in this part of Ireland. Of that lean tell you nothin,,; he, how- ever, will only be too glad to talk the matter over with you. Yes; it is an interesting topic, very interesting. Snell says that the great car- boniferous strata are all in Ireland, but that they lie deep, and demand vast capital to work them. He predicts a great inanufac- turing prosperity to the country when Man- chester and Birmingham will have sunk in- to ruins. He opines that this lignite is a mere indication of the immense vein of true carbon beneath. But what should this old debauchee know of a great industrial theme! His whole anxiety will be to turn it to some immediate profit. Hell he looking for a loan, youll see. Mark my words, Temple, hell want an advance on his colliery. And lie gave one of those rich chuckling laughs which are as peculiar to the monied classes as ever a simpering smile was to enamelled beauty. I dont say, added he, after a moment, that the scheme may not.be a good one, an excellent one. Sampson says that all manufactures will be transferred to Ireland yet, that this will be in some future time the great seat of national industry and na- tional wealth. Let your grand friend come then by all means; there is atleast one top- ic we can talk over together. Too happy to risk the success he had ob- tained by any further discussion, Temple hurried away to give orders for the great mans reception. There was a small suite of rooms, which had been furnished with unu- sual care and elegance when it was believed that Lady Augusta would have honoured Castello with her presence. Indeed, she had so far favoured the belief as to (iesign some of the decorations herself, and had 14 THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. photographs taken of the rooms and the furni- ture, as well as of the views which presented themselves from the windows. Though these rooms were on the second floor, they were accessible from without hy a carriaoe-drive, which wound gradually up among the terraced gardens to a sort of pla- teau, where a marble fountain stood, with a group of naiads in the midst, over whom a perpetual spray fell like a veil; the whole surrounded with flowery shrubs and rare plants, sheltered from east and north by a strong belt of trees, and actually imparting to the favoured spot the character of a south- ern climate and country. As the gardener was careful to replace the exhausted or faded flowers by others in full bloom, and as on every available day he displayed here the richest treasures of his conservatory, there was something singular- ly beautiful in the contrast of this fore- ground, glowing in tropical luxuriance, with the massive forest-trees down below, and farther in the distance the stern and rugged lines of the Mourne Mountains, as they frowned on the sea. Within doors, every thing that wealth could contribute to comfort was present, and though there was magnificence in the costly silk of the hangings and the velvety rich- ness of the carpets, tbe prevailing impression was that it was enjoyment, not splendour, was sought for. There were few pictures a Rysdael over the fireplace in the drawing- room, and two or three Cuyps platid scenes of low-lying landscapes, bathed in soft sunsets. The doors were all hidden by heavy curtains, and a sense of voluptuous snugness seemed the spirit of the place. The keys of this precious suite were in Marions keeping, and as she walked through the rooms with Temple, and expatiated on the reckless expenditure bestowed upon them, she owned that for any less distin- guished guest than the great diplpmatist she would never have consented to their being opened. Temple, however, was loud in his praises, went over his high connections and titled relatives, bis great services, and the immense reputation they had given him, and, last of all, he spoke of his personal qualities, the charm of his manner, and the captivation of his address, so that finally ~he became as eager as himself to see this great and gifted man beneath their roof. Durin~ the evening, they talked much to- gether of what they should do to entertain their illustrious guest. There was, so to say, no neighbourhood, nor any possibility of having people to meet him, and they must, consequently, look to their home resources to amuse him. I hope Augustus will be properly atten- tive, said Temple. Im certain he will. Im more afraid of Nelly, if there be anything strange or pecu- liar in Lord Culduffs manner. She never puts any curb on her enjoyment of an oddity, and youll certainly have to caution her that her humouristic talents must be kept in abeyance just now. I can trust Lord CuldufPs manner to re- press any tendency of this kind. Rely up- on it, his courtly urbanity and high tone will protect him from all indiscretions; and Nelly Im sorry to say it, Marion but Nelly is vulgar. She is certainly too familiar with fresh acquaintance. I have told her more than once that you do not always please people by showing you are on good terms with your- seW It is a great misfortune to her that she never was out before she came here. One season in town would have done more for her than all our precepts. Particularly as she heeds them so little, said Temple snappishly. Cannot we manage to have some people to meet Lord Culdufi at dinner? Who are the Ga~es who left their cards? They sent them not left them. Mon- tague Gage is the master of the hounds, and, I believe, a person of some consideration here. He does not, however, appear to in- vite much intimacy. His note acknowl- edging our subscription it was a hundred pounds too was of the coldest, and we ex- changed a very few formal words at the meet yesterday. Are we roing to repeat the hereford- shire experiment here, then? And she asked the question with a sparkling eye and a flushed cheek, as though the feeling it ex- cited was not easily to be repressed. Theres a Sir Roger Kennedy too has called. Yes, and Harding says he is married but his wifes name is not on the card. I take it they know very little of the habits of the world. Let us remember, Marion, where we are. Iceland is next door but one. I thought Harding would have looked to all this; he ought to have taken care that the county was properly attentive. An agent never wishes to see his chief reside on ~he property. It is like in my own career, one is only charg6 daffaires when the head of the legation is on leave.~ And this was the county, we were told, 15 THE BRAMLELGIIS OF BISHOP S FOLLY. was ready to receive us with a sort of frantic enthusiasm. I wonder, Temple, do people ever tell the truth! Yes, when they want you not to believe them. You see, Marion, we blundered here pretty much as we blundered in England. Youll not get the governor to believe it, nor perhaps even , but there is a diplo- macy of every-day life, and people who fan- cy they can dispense with it invariably come to grief. Now, I always told them indeed I grew tired telling them every mile that separates you from a capital diminishes the power of your money. In the city you reign supreme; but to be a county magnate you need scores of things beside a long credit at your bankers. A very impatient toss of the head showed that Marion herself was not fully a convert to these sage opinions, and it was with a half rude abruptness that she broke in by asking how he intended to convey his invi- tation to Lord Culduff. Theres the difficulty, said he gravely. He is going about from one place to an- other. Harding says he was at Rathbeg~ an on Sunday last, and was going on to Dinas- ker next day. I have been looking over the map, but I see no roads to these places. I think your best plan is to despatch Lacy with a letter. Lacy is the smartest fellow we have, and I think will he sure to find him. But the letter, too, is a puzzle. XVhy should it be? It will be, I suppose, a mere formal invitation? No, no. It would never do to say, Colonel Bramleigh presents his compliments and requests and so on. The thing must have another tone. It ought to have a cer- tain turn of expression. 1 am not aware of what amount of ac- quaintanceship exists between you and Lord Culduff, said she stiffly. The very least in life. I suspect if we met in a club, we should pass without speak- ing. I arrived at his Legation on the morn- ing he was starting on leave. I remember he asked me to bre kfast; but I declined, as I had been three days and nights on the ioad, and wanted to get to bed. I never met him since. What makes you look so serious, Marion? im thinking what we shall do with him if he comes. Does he shoot or hunt or fish? can you give him any out-o-door occupa- tion? Im quite abroad as to all his tastes and habits. I only know so much of him as per- tains to his character in the line; h~~t Ill go arid write my note. ill come back and show you what I have said, added he, as he gained the door. When Marion was left alone to reflect over her brothers words, she was not alto- gether pleased. She was no convert to his opinions as to the necessity of any peculiar stratagem in the campaign of life. She had seen the house in town crowded with very great and distinguished company; she had observed how wealth asserted itself in soci- ety, and she could not perceive that, in their acceptance by the world, there was any, the slightest deficiency of deference and respect. If they had failed in their county experi- ment in England, it was, she thought, be- cause her father rashly took up an extreme position in politics, a mistake which Augus- tus indeed saw and protested against, but which some rash advisers were able to over- persuade the Colonel into adopting. Lady Augusta, too, was an evidence that the better classes did not decline this alli- ance, and on the whole she felt that Tem- pIes reasonings were the ofl~hoots of his pe- culiar set; that small priesthood of society who hold themselves so essentially above the great body of mankind. Not that we must make any ore mis- takes, however, thought she. Not that we can afford another defeat; and, as she ar- rived at this sat~e judgment, Temple en- tered, with some sheets of note-paper in his hand. Im not quite satisfied with any of these, Marion ; I suspect I must just content myself with a mere formal requests the company. Let me hear what you have said. Ileres the first, said he, reading. Mv dear Lord, The lucky accident of your lordships presence in this neighbor- hood; which I have only accidentally learned. Oh, dear, no! thats a chapter of acci- dents. Well; listen to this one If I can trust to a rumour that has just reached us here, but which it is possible our hopes may have given a credence to that stern fact will subsequently deny, or reject, or contra- dict. Im not fully sure which verb to take. Much worse than the other, said Mari- on- Its all the confounded language; I could turn it in French to perfecfrion. But I fancied your whole life was passed in this sort of phrase-fashioning, Temple? said she, half smiling. Nothing of the kind. We keep the 16 THE BRAMLEIGUS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. vernacular only for post-paper, and it al- ways begins, My Lord, Since by my de- spatch, No. 7,028, in which I reported to your lordship the details of an interview accorded me by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of this Government; and so on. Now all this, to the polite inter- course of society, is pretty uiuch what sin- glestick is to the rapier. I wish youd do this for me, Marion. After so many baulks, one always ends by a tumble. I declare I see no occasion for smartness or epigram. Id simply,say, I have only just heard that you are in our neighborhood, and I beg to convey my fathers hope and request that you will not leave it without giving us the honour of your company here. You can throw in as many of your personal sentiments as may serve, like wool in a packing-case, to keep the whole tight and compact; but I think something like that would suffice. Perhaps so said he, musingly, as he once more returned to his room. When he re-appeared, after some minutes, it was with the air and look of a man who had just thrown off some weighty burden. Thank heaven, its done and despatched, said he. I have been looking over the F. 0. Guide, to see whether I addressed him aright. I fancied he was a Privy Councillor, and I find he is not: he is a G. C., however, and a Guelph, with leave to wear the star. Very gratifying to us I mean if he should come here, said she, with a mocking smile. Dont pretend you do not value all these things fully as much as myself, Marion. You know well what the world thinks of them. These distiactions were no more made by us than the money of the realm; but we use one of them like the other, well aware that it represents a certain value, and is never disputed. THERE are certain books which, once hav- ing attained rank as classics, it would be hard to displace. Indeed, it is quite a moot point whether it is hardest to gain a place nmon~ the authors whom everybody has, or to lose it when gained. There is Falconers Shipwreck now; breathes there the man who, his hand on his heart, can with a safe conscience swear that he has ever read Falconers Shijwrrck ~ Bitt we all know that we ought to have read Falconers Shipwreck, or at least that we mean to read * Yes! [Liv. Age.] LIVU~G AGE. VOL. VIII. 2613. How old is your friend? Well, he is certainly not young. heres what F. 0. contributes to his biography: Entered the army as cornet in the 2nd Life Guards, 1816. A precious long time ago that. First groom of the bedehamber promoted placed on half-pay entered diplomatic service in 19; special mis- sion to Hanover made G. C. H. con- tested Essex, and returned on a petition went back to diplomacy, and named special envoy to Tehran. Ab! now we are com- ing to his real career. Oh, dear! Id rather hear about him somewhat earlier, said she, taking the book out of his hand, and throwing it on the ta- ble. It is a great penalty to pay for greatness to be gibbeted in this fashion. Dont you think so, Temple? I wish I could see myself gibbeted, as you call it. If the will makes the way, we ought to be very great people, said she, with a smile, half derisive, half real. Jack, perhaps not; nor Ellen. They have booked them- selves in second-class carriages. Ill go and look up Harding; he is a se- cret sort of a fellow. I believe all agents assume that manner to every one hut the head of the house and the heir. But per- haps I could manage to find out why these people have not called upon us; there must be something in it. I protest I think we ought to feel grate- ful to them; an exchange of hospitalities with them would be awful. Very likely; but I think we ought to have hail the choice, and this they have not given us. And even for that I am grateful, said she, as with a haughty look she rose and left the room. Falconers Shipwreck. At any rate we have it, or, if not, ought to have it. And this is the ret- tionale of the reproduction of so many of our standard authors in the sha of gift-hooks. Mr. Nelson, of Paternoster Row, understands this aspect of literature, and sends us Falconers Shipwreck very well got up, and with a suffi- cient variety of vignette illu~trations. We were most interested by a Life of Falconer pro- fixed to the volume. This hiography is V tIe known, but exhibits much more intere tl a we knew of. Satui-duy Reciew. 17 ~HE TALMUD. From The Quarterly Review. 1. Talmud Babylonicum. Venice, 152023. Folio. 12 Vols. 2. Talmud Hierosolymitanum. Venice, [1523.] Folio. 1 Vol WHAT is the Talmud? What is the nature of that strange pro- duction of which the name, imperceptibly almost~,is beginning to take its place among the household words of Europe? Turn where we may in the realms of modern learning, we seem to be haunted by it. We meet with it in theology, in science, even in general literature, in their highways and in their byways. There is not a handbook to all or any of the many departments of biblical lore, sacred geography, history, chronology, numismatics, and the rest, but its pages contain references to the Talmud. The advocates of all reli- gious opinions appeal to its dicta. Nay, not only the scientific inv~stigators of Judaism and Christianity, but those of Mohammedan- ism and Zoroastrianism, turn to it in their dissections of dogma and legend and cere- ~ony. If, again, we take up any recent volume of arebmological or philological trans- actions, whether we light on a dissertation on a Phcenician altar, or a cuneiform tablet, Babylonian weights, or Sassanian coins, we are certain to find this mysterious word. Nor is it merely the restorers of the lost idi- oms of Canaan and Assyria, of Himyar and Zoroastrian Persia, that appeal to the Tal- mud for assistance; but the modern schools of Greek and Latin philology are beginning to avail themselves of the classical and post- classical materials that lie scattered through it. Jurisprudence, in its turn, has been roused to the fact, that, apart from the bear- in~ of the Talmud on the study of the Pan- dects and th~ Institutes, there are also some of those very laws of the Medes and Per- sians hitherto but a vague sound hid- den away in its labyrinths. And so too with medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and the rest. The history of these sciences, during that period over which the composition of the Talmud ranges and it ranges over about a thousand years ~- can no longer be written without some reference to the items preserved, as in a vast buried city, in this cyclopean work. Yet, apart from the facts that belong emphatically to these respective branches, it contains other facts, of larger moment still, facts bearing upon human culture in its widest sense. Day by day there are excavated from these mounds pic- tures of many countries and many periods, pictures of Hellas and Byzantium, Egypt and Rome, Persia and Palestine; of the temple and the fdrum, war and peace, joy and mournin~ pictures teeming with life, glowing with colour. These are, indeed, signs of the times. A mi~hty change has come over us. We children of this latter age are, above all thin s, utilitarian. We do not read the Koran, the Zend Avesta, the Vedas, with the sole view of refuting them. We look upon all literature, religious, le~ al, and other- wise, whensoever and wheresoever produced. as part and parcel of humanity. We, in a manner, feel a kind of responsibility for it. We seek to understand the phase of culture which begot these items of our inheritance. the spirit that moves upon their face. And while we bury that which is dead in them, we rejoice in that which lives in them. We enrich our stores of knowledge from theirs, we are stirred by their poetry, we are moved to high and holy thoughts when they touch the divine chord in our hearts. In the same human spirit, we now speak of the Tahnud. There is even danger at hand that this chivalresque feeling one of the most touching characteristics of our times which is evermore prompting us to offer holocausts to the Manes of those whom former generations are thought to have wronged, may lead to its being ex- tolled somewhat beyond its merit. As these ever new testimonies to its value crowd upon us, we might be led into exaggerating its importance for the history of mankind. Yet an old adage of its own says, Above all things, study. Whether for the sake of learning or for any other reason, study. For, whatever the motives that impel you at first, you will very soon love study for its own sake. And thus even exaggerated expectations of the treasure-trove in the Talmud will have their value, if they lead to the study of the work itself. For, let us say it at once, these tokens of its existence, that appear in many a new publication, are, for the most part, but will- o-the-wisps. At first sight, one would fan- cy that there never was a book more popu- lar, or that formed more exclusively the mental centre of modern scholars, Oriental- ists, theologians, or jurists. What is the real truth? Paradoxical as it may seem, there never was a hook at once more uni- versally neglected and more universally talked of. Well may we forgive Heine, when we read the glowing description of the Talmud contained in his Romancero, for never having even seen the subject of his 18 THE TALMUD. panegyrics. Like his countryman Schiller, Let us not be misunderstood. When we who, pining vainly for one glimpse of the complain of the lack of guides to the Tal- Alps, produced the most glowing and faith- mud, we do not wish to be ungrateful to ful picture of them, so he, with the l)oets those great and eari~est scholars whose unerring instinct, gathered truth from hear- names are familiar to every student, and say and description. But how many of whose labours have been ever present to these ubiquitous learned quotations really our mind. For though in the whole realm flow from the fountain-head? Too often of learning there is scarcely a single branch and too palpably it is merely to use Sam- of study to be compared for its difficulty to son s agricultural simile those ancient and the Talmud, yet, if a man had time and pa- well-worked heifers, the Tela ignea Sata- tience and knowledge, there is absolutely nm, the Abgezogener Schlangenbalg, no reason why he should not, up and down and all their venomous kindred, which are ancient and modern libraries, gather most once more being dragged to the plough excellent hints from essays and treatises, by some of the learned. We say learned: monographs and sketches, in books and pen- for as to the people at large, often as they odicals without number, by dint of which, hear the word now, we firmly believe that aided by the study of the work itself, he numbers of them still bold, with that erudite might arrive at some conclusion as to it~ es- (Dapucin friar, Henricus Seynensis, that the sence and tendencies, its origin and develop- Talmud is not a book, but a man. Ut nar- ment. Yet, so far as we know, that work, rat Rabbinus Talmud As says Rabbi every step of which, it must be confessed, is Talmud cries he, and triumphantly beset with fatal pitfalls, has not yet been done clinches his argument! for the world at large. It is for a very good And of those who know that it is not a reason that we have placed nothing but the Rabbi, bow many are there to whom it con- name of the Talmud itself at the head of veys any but the vaguest of notfons? Who our paper. We have sought far and near wrote it? What is its bulk? Its date? Its for some one special book on the subject, contents? Its birth-place? A contemporary which we might make the theme of our ob- lately called it a sphinx, towards which all servations a book which should not mere- mens eyes are directed at this hour, some with ly be a garbled translation of a certain eager curiosity, some with vague anxiety. twelfth-century Introduction, interspersed But why not force open its lips? How with vituperations and supplemented with much longer are we to live by quotations blunders, but which from the platform of alone, quotations a thousand times used, modern culture should pronounce impartial- .a thousand times abused? ly upon a production, which, if for no other Where, however, are we to look even for reason, claims respect through its age, a primary instruction? Where learn the book that would lead us through the stupen- story of the book, its place in literature, its dous labyrinths of fact and thought and meaning and purport, and, above all, its re- fancy, of which the Talmud consists; that lation to ourselves? would rejoice even in hieroglyphical fairy- If we turn to the time-honoured Author- lore, in abstruse propositions and syllogisms; iti~s, we shall mostly find that, in their ea- that could forgive wild outbursts of passion, gerness to serve some cause, they have torn and not judge harshly and hastily of things, a f~iw pieces off that gigantic living body; the real meaning of which may have had to and they have presented to us these ghastly be hiddenunder the fools cap and bells. anatomical preparations, twisted and muti- We have not found such a book, nor any lated outof all shape and semblance, saying, thing approaching to it. But closely con- Behold, this is the book! Or they have nected with that circumstance is this other, done worse. They have not garbled their that we were fain to quote the first editions samples, but have given them exactly as of this Talmud, though scores have been they found them; and then stood aside, printed since, and about a dozen are in the pointing at them with jeering countenance. press at this very moment. Even this first For their samples were ludicrous and gro- edition was printed in hot haste, and with- tesque beyond expression. But these wise out due care; and every succeeding one, and pious investigators unfortunately mis- with one or two insignificant exceptions, took the gurgoyles, those grinning stone ca- presents a sadder spectacle. In the Basle ricatures that mount their thousand years edition of 1578 the third in point of time, guard over our cathedrals, for the gleaming which has remained the standard edition al- statues of the Saints within; and, holding most ever since that amazing creature, them up to mockery and derision, they the Censor, stepped in. In his anxiety to cried, These be thy gods, 0 Israel! protect the Faith from all and every THE TALMUD. danger for the Talmud was supposed to hide bitter things against Christianity under the most innocent-looking words and phrases this official did very wonderful things. When he, for example, found some ancient Roman in the book swearing by the Capitol or by Jupiter of Rome, his mind instantly mraga ye him. Surely this Roman must be a Christian, the Capitol the Vatican, Jupi- ter the, Pope. And forthwith he struck out Rome, and substituted any other place he could think of. A favorite spot seems to have been Persia, sometimes it was Aram or Ba- bel. So that this worthy Roman may be found unto this day swearing by the Capitol of Persia, or by the Jupiter of Aram and Babel. But, whenever the word Gentile occurred, the Censor was seized with the most frantic terrors. A Gentile could not possibly be aught but a Christian; whether he lived in India or in Athens, in Rome or in Canaan; whether he was a good Gentile and there are many such in the Talmud or a wicked one. Instantly he christened him; and christened him, as fancy moved him, an Egyptian an Aram~an, an Amalekite, an Arab, a Negro; sometimes a whole people. We are speaking strictly to the letter. All this is extant in our very last editions. Once or twice, attempts were made to clear the text from its foulest blemishes. There was even, about two years ago, a be- ginning made of a critical edition, such as not merely Greek and Roman, Sanscrit and l~ersian classics, but the veriest trash writ- ten in those languages, would have had ever so long ago. And there is M. Renans unfortunate remark to the contrary notwith- standing * no lack of Talmudical MSS., however fragmentary they be for the most part. There are innumerable variations, ad- ditions, and corrections to be gleaned from the Codices at the Bodleian and the Vati- can, in the Libraries of Odessa, Munich, and Florence, Hamburg and Heidelberg, Paris and Parma. But an evil eye seems to be upon this book. This corrected edition remains a torso, like the two first volumes of translations of the Talmud, commenced at different periods, the second volumes of which never saw the light. It therefore seemed advisable to refer to the Editio Prin- ccps, as the one that is at least free from the blemishes, censorial or typographical, of later ages. Well does the Talmud supplement the Horatian Habent sua fata libelli, by the * On salt quil ne reBte aucun manuserit dii Tel. mud pour contr6ler 1e8 dditions Imprinides. Los Apdtres, p.262. words even the sacred scrolls in the Taber- nacle. We really do not wonder that the good Capucin of whom we spoke mistook it for a man. Ever since it existed almost before it existed in a palpable shape it has been treated mneh like a human being. It has been proscribed, and imprisoned, and burnt, a hundred times over. From Justirm- ian, who, as early as 553 A. D., honoured it by a special interdictory Novella,t down to Clement VIII. and later a space of over a thousand years both the secular and the spiritual powers, kings and emperors, popes and anti-popes, vied with each other in hurl- ing anathemas and bulls and edicts of whole- sale confiscation and conflagration against this luckless book. Thus, within a period of less than fifty years and these forming the latter half of the sixteenth century it was publicly burnt no less than six different times, and that not in single copies, but wholesale by the wagon-load. Julius III. issued his proclamation against what he gro- tesquely calls the Gemaroth Thalmud ~in 1553 and 1555, Paul IV. in 1559, Pius V. in 1566, Clement VIII. in 1592 and 1599. The fear of it was great indeed. Even Pius IV., in giving permission for a new edition, stipulated expressly that it should appear without the name Talmud. Si tamen prodi- erit sine nomine Thalmud tolerari deberet. It almost seems to have been a kind of Shib- boleth, by which every new potentate had to prove the rigour of his faith. And very rigorous it must have been, to judge by the language which even the highest dignitaries of the Church did not disdain to use at times. Thus Honorius IV. writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1286 anent that damnable book (liber damnabilis), admon- ishing him gravely, and desiring him vehe- mently to see that it be not read by any- body, since all other evils flow out of it. Verily these documents are sad reading, only relieved occasionally by some wild blunder that lights up as with one flash the abyss of ignorance regarding thi& object of wrath. We remember hut one sensible exception in this Babel of manifestoes. Clement V., in 1307, before condemning the book, wished to know something of it, and there was no one to tell him. Whereupon he proposed but in language so obscure that it left the door open for many interpretations that three chairs be founded, for Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, as the three tongues nearest to the idiom of the Talmud. The spots chosen by him were the Universities of t Norella 146, llep~ E/lpafimv (addressed to the Prnfectus Prntorio Areohindus). 20 21 THE TALMUD. Paris, Salamanca, Bologna, and Oxford. In time, he hoped, one of these Universities might be able to produce a translation of this mysterious book. Need we say that this consummation never came to pass? The more expeditious process of destruction was resorted to again and again and again, not merely in the single cities of Italy and France, but throughout the entire Holy Ro- man Empire. At length a change took place in Ger- many. One Pfefferkor~, a miserable crea- ture enough, began, in the time of the Empe- ror Maximilian, to agitate for a new decree for the extermination of the Talmud. The Emperor lay with his hosts before Pavia, when the evil-tongued messenger arrived in the camp, furnished with goodly letters by Knnignnde, the Emperors beautiful sister. Maximilian, wearied and unsuspecting, re- newed that tirne-~hononred decree for a con- fiscation, to be duly followed by a conflagra- tion, readily enough. The confiscation was conscientiously carried out, for Pfefferkorn knew well enough where his former co-re- ligionists kept their books. Buta conflagra- tion of a very different kind ensued. Step by step, hour by hour, the German Reforma- tion was drawing nearer. IReuchlin, the most eminent Hellenist and Hebraist of his time, had been nominated to sit on the Coin- mittee which was to lend its learned author- ity to the Emperors decree. But he did not relish this task. He did not like the look of Pfefferkorn, he says. Besides which, he was a learned and honest man, and, hav- ing been the restorer of classical Greek in Germany, he did not care to participate in the wholesale murder of a book written by Christs nearest relations. Perhaps he saw the cunningly-laid trap. He had long been a thorn in the flesh of many of his contempo- raries. His Hebrew labours had been looked upon with bitter jealousy, if not fear. Noth- ing less was contemplated in those days the theological Faculty of Mayence de- manded it openly than a total Revision and Correction of the Hebrew Bible, in- asmuch as it differed from the Vulgate. Reuchlin, on his part, never lost an opportu- nity ot~proclaiming the high importance of the Hebrew Truth, as he emphatically called it. His enemies thought that one of two things would follow. By officially pronoun- cing upon the Talmud, he was sure either to commit himself dangerously and then a speedy end would be made of him or to set at naught, to a certain extent, his own previous judgments in favour of these studies. lie declined the proposal, saying, honestly enough, that he knew nothing of the book, and that he was not aware of the existence of many who knew anything of it. Least of all did its detractors know it. But, he continued, even if it should contain at- tacks on Christianity, would it not be pref- erable to reply to them? Burning is but a ruffianly argument (Bacchanten~ArguinenO. Whereupon a wild outcry was raised against him as a Jew, a Judaizer, a bribed rene , and so on. Reuchlin, nothing daunted, set to work upon the book in his patient hard-working manner. Next he wrote a brilliant defence of it~ When the Emperor asked his opinion, he repeated Clements proposal to found talmudical chairs. At each German university there should be two professors, specially appointed for the sole purpose of enabling students to become ac- quainted with this book. As to burning it, he continues, in the famous Memorial ad- dressed to the Emperor, if some fool came and said, Most mighty Emperor! your Maj- esty should really suppress and burn the books of alchymy (a fine argumenturn ad hominenz) because they contain blasphemous, wicked. and absurd things against our faith, what should his Imperial Majesty reply to such a buffalo or ass but this ? Thou art a ninny, rather to be laughed at than fol- lowed. Now because his feeble head can- not enter into the depths of a science, and cannot conceive it, and does understand things otherwise than they really are, would you deem it fit to burn such books? Fiercer and fiercer waxed the howl, and Reuchlin, the peaceful student, from a wit- ness became a delinquent. What he suf- fered for and through the Talmud cannot be told here. Far and wide, all over Europe, the contest raged. A whole literature ot pamphlets, flying sheets, caricatures, sprawr up. University after university was appeale~ to against him. No less than forty-seven sittings were held by the theological Faculty of Paris, which ended by their formal con- demnation of Reuchlin. But he was not left to fight alone. Around him rallied, one by one, Duke Ulrich of Wurtemberg, the Elector Frederick of Saxony, Ulrich von Hutten, Franz von Sickingen he who fi- nally made the Colognians pay their costs in the Reuchlin trial Erasmus of Rotterdain, and that whole brilliant phalanx of the Knights of the Holy Ghost, the Hosts of Pallas Athene, the Talmutphili, as the doc- uments of the period variously style them: they whom we call the Humanists. And their Palladium and their War-cry was oh! wondrous ways of 1-Listory the Talmud! To stand up for Reuchlin nicant, to them, to stand up for the Law; to fight THE TALMUD. for the Talmud was to fight for the Church! Non te, writes Egidio de Viterbo to Reuch- un, sed Legem: non Thalmud, sed Eccie- sicun! The rest of the story is written in the Epistohe Obseurorum Virorum, and in the early pages of the German Reformation. The Talmud was not burnt this time. On the contrary, its first complete edition was printed. And in that sAme year of Grace 1520 A. D., when this first edition went through the press at Venice, Martin Luther burnt the Popes hull at Wittenberg. ics, of its moral philosophy, and quote many of its proverbs and saws the truest of all gauges of a time. We shall, perhaps, be obliged occasionally to appeal to some of the extraneous topics just mentioned. The Talmud, like every other phenomenon, in order to become com- prehensible, should he considered OYily in connection with things of a similar kind; a fact almost entirely overlooked to this day. Being emphatically a Corpus Juris, an en- cyclopatdia of law, civil and penal, ecclesias-. tical and international, human and divine, it may best be judged by analogy and com- parison with other legal codes, more espe- cially with the Justinian Code and its Com- mentaries. What the uninitiated have taken for exceptional Rabbinical subtle- ties, or, in matters relating to the sexes, for gross offences against modern taste, will then cause the Talmud to stand out rather fa- vourably than otherwise. The Pandects and the Institutes, the Novelke an(l the Re- sponsa Prudentium, should thus be constant- ly consulted and compared. No less should our English law, as laid down in Blackstone, wherein we may see how the most varied views of ri~ht and wrong have been finally blended and harmonised with the spirit of our times. But the Talmud is more than a Book of Laws. It is a microcosm, embracing, even as does the Bible, heaven and earth. It is as if all the prose and the poetry, the sci- ence, the faith and speculation of the Old World, were, though only in faint reflections, bound up in it in nuce. Comprising the time from the rise to the fall of antiquity, and a good deal of its after-glow, the history and culture of antiquity have to be consid- ered in their various stages. But, above all, it is necessary to transport ourselves, follow- ing Goethes advice, to its birthplace Pal- estine and Babylon the gorgeous East it- self; where all things glow in brighter col- ours, and grow into more fantastic shapes What is the Talmud? Again the qjiestion rises before us in its whole formidable shape, a question which no one has yet answered satist~ctorily. And we labour in this place under more than one disadvantage. For, quite apart from the difficulties of explaining a work so utterly Eastern, antique, and thoroughly sui gene- ris, to our modern Western readers, in the space of a few pages, we labour under the further disability of not being able to refer to the work itself. Would it not indeed be mere affectation to presuppose more than the vaguest acquaintance with its language or even its name in many of our readers? And while we would fain enlarge upon such points as a comparison between the law laid down in it with ours, or with the contempo- rary Greek, Roman, and Persian Laws, or those of Islam, or even with its own funda- mental Code, the Mosaic: while we would trace a number of its ethical, ceremonial, and doctrinal points in Zoroastrianism, in Christianity, in Mohammedanism; a vast deal of its metaphysics and philosophy in Plato, Aristotle, the Pythagoreans, the Neo- platonists, and the Gnostics not to men- tioii Spinoza and the Schellings of our own da~; much of its medicine in Hippocrates an(I Galen, and the Paracelsuses of but a fi~~v centuries ago we shall scarcely be able to do more than to lay a few dis/ecta meemSra of these things before our readers. Willst den Diebter du verstehen, We cannot even sketch, in all its bearings, Musst in Dicliters Lande geben. that singular mental movement which cansed tIme best spirits of an entire nation to concentrate, in spite of opposition, all their The origin of the Talmud is coeval with energies for a thousand years upon the wvit- the return from time Babylonish captiVity. ing, and for another thousand years upon Quo of the most mysterious and momentous time commenting, of this one book. Omit- periods in the history of humanity is that ting all detail, which it has cost much to brief space of the Exile. What were the in- gather, and more to suppress, we shall fluences brought to bear upon the captives merely tell of its development, of the schools during that time, we know not. But this in which it grew, of the tribunals which we know, that from a reckless, lawless, god- jnd~ed by it, of some of. the men that set less populace, they returned transformed into their seal on it. We shall also introduce a a band of Puritans. The religion of Zer- summary of its law, speak of its metaphys- duslit, though it has left its traces in Judas THE TALMUD. 23 ism, fails to account for that change. Nor For there had sprung up almost innumer- does the Exile itself account for it. Many able modes of searching the Scripturcs. and intense as are the reminiscences of its In the quaintly ingenious manner of the bitterness, and of yearning fbr home, that times, four of the chief methods were found have survived in prayer and in song, yet in the Persian word Paradise, spelt in vow- we know that, when the hour of liberty elless Semitic fashion, PRDS. Each one of struck, the forced colonists were loth to re- these mysterious letters was taken, mnemon- turn to the land of their fathers. Yet the ically, as the initial of some technical word ~hange is there, palpable, unmistakable that indicated one of these four methods. a change which we may regard as almost The one called P ~peskat] aimed at the sim- miraculous. Scarcely aware before of the ple understanding of words and things, in existence of their glorious national litera- accordance with the primary exegetical law ture, the people now began to press round of the Talmud, that no verse of the Scrip- these brands plucked from the fire the ture ever practically travelled beyond its scanty records of their faith and history literal meaning, though it might be ex- with a fierce and passionate love, a love plained, homiletically and otherwise, in in- stronger even than that of wife and child. numerable new ways. The second, R [remes], These same documents, as they were gradu- means Hint, i. e. the discovery of the indica- ally formed into a canon, became the im- tions contained in certain seemingly super- mutable centre of their lives, their actions, fluous letters and signs in Scripture. These their thoughts, their very dreams. From were taken to refer to laws not distinctly that time forth, with scarcely any intermis- mentioned, but either existing traditionally sion, the keenest as well as the most poetical or newly promulgated. This method, when minds of the nation remained fixed upon more generally applied, begot a kind of them. Turn it and turn it again, says the meinoria technica, a stenography akin to the Talmud, with regard to the Bible, for Notarikon of the Romans. Points and everything is in it. Search the Scriptures, notes were added to the margins of script~- is the distinct utterance of the New Testa- ral MSS., and the foundation of the Massorah, ment. or diplomatic preservation of the text, was The natural consequence ensued. Grad- thus laid. The third, D [derush], was homi- ually, imperceptibly almost, from a mere letic application of that which had been to expounding and investigation for purposes that which was and would be, of prophetical of edification or instruction on some special and historical dicta to the actual condition point, this activity begot a science, a science of things. It was a peculiar kind of sermon, that assumed the very widest dimensions. with all the aids of dialectics and poetry, of Its technical name is already contained in parable, gnome, proverb, legend, and the the Book of Chronicles. It is Midrash rest, exactly as we find it in the New Testa- (from darash, to study, expound) a term ment. The fourth, 5, stood for sLid, secret, which the Authorised Version renders by mystery. This was the Secret Science, into Story. * which but few were initiated. It was the- There is scarcely a more fruitful source of osophy, metaphysics, angelology, a host of misconceptions upon this subject than the wild and glowing visions of things beyond liquid nature, so to speak, of its technical earth. Faint echoes of this science survive terms. They mean any thing and every in Neoplatonism, in Gnosticism, in the Kab- thing, at once most general and most spe- balab, in Hermes Trismegistus. But few cial. Nearly all of them signify in the first were initiated into these things of The instance siniply study. Next they are Creation and of The Chaiiot, as it was used for sonic one very special branch of also called, in allusion to Ezekiels vision. this study. Thcn they indicate, at times, a Yet here again the power of the vague and Peculiar method, at others the works which mysterious was so strong, that the word Par- have grown out of these either general or adise gradually indicated this last branch, special mental labours. Thus Midrash, from the secret science, only. Later, in Guosti- the abstract expounding came to be ap- cism, it came to mean the Spiritual Christ. plied, first to the exposition itself, even as There is a weird story in the Talmud, our terms work, investigation, inquiry, which has given rise to the wildest explana- imply both process and product; and final- tions, but which will become intelligible by hy, as a special branch of exposition the the foregoing lines. Four men, it says, legendary was more popular than the entered Paradise. One beheld and died. rest, to this one branch only and to the One beheld and lost his senses. One d*i- books that chiefly represented it. stroyed the young plants. One only entered * See 2 Cliron. xiii. 22, xxiv. 27. in peace and came out in peace. The THE TALMUD. names of all four are given. They are all exalted masters of the law. The last but one, he who destroyed the young plants, is Elisha ben Abuyab, the Faust of the Tal- mud, who, while sitting in the academy, at the feet of his teachers, to study the law, kept the profane books of Homeros, to wit, hidden in his garment, and from whose mouth Greek songs never ceased to flow. How he, notwithstanding his early scepti- cism, rapidly rises to eminence in that same law, finally falls away and becomes a traitor and an outcast, and his very name a thing of unutterable horror how one day (it was the great day of atonement) he passes the ruins of the temple, aiid hears a voice within murmurin,, like a dove all men shall be for,iven this day save Elisha ben Abu- yab, who, knowin,, me, has betrayed me how, after his death, the flames will not cease to hover over his grave, until his one faithful disciple, the Light of the Law, Mew, throws himself over it, swearing a holy oath that he will not partake of the joys of the world to come without his beloved master, and that he will not move from that spot until his masters soul shall have found grace and salvation before the Throne of Mer- cy all this and a number of other inci- dents form one of the most stirring poetical pictures of the whole Talmud. The last of the four is Akiba, the most exalted, most ro- mantic, and most heroic character perhaps. in that vast gallery of the learned of his time; he who, in the last revolt under Tra- jan and Hadrian, expiated his patriotic rash- ness at the hands of the Roman execution- ers, and the legend adds whose soul fled just when, in his last agony, his mouth cried out the last word of the confession of Gods unity : Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God is One. The Talmud is the storehouse of Mid- rash, in its widest sense, and in all its branches. What we said of the fluctuation of terms applies emphatically also to this word Talmud. It means, in the first in- stance, nothing but study, learning, from lornad, to learn; next, indicating a special method oflearning, or rather ar~ ning, it fi- nally became the name of the great Corpus Juris of Judaism. When we speak of the Talmud as a legal code, we trust we shall not be understood too litei-allv. It resembles about as much what we generally understand by that name as a primeval forest resembles a Dutch garden. Nothing, indeed, can equal the state of tter amazement into which the modern in- vesti_ator finds himself plunged at the first sight of these luxuriant talmudical wilder- nesses. Schooled in the harmonising, methodising systems of the West systems that condense, and arrange, and classify, and give every thing its fitting place and its fitting position in that place he feels al- most stupefied here. The language, the style, the itiethod, the very sequence, of things (a sequence that often appears as logical as our dreams), the amazingly varied nature of these things every thing seems tangled, confused, chaotic. It is only after a time that the student learns to distinguish be- tween two mighty currents in the book currents that at times flow parallel, at times seem to work upon each other, and toim- pede each others action: the one emanating from the brain, the other from the heart the one Prose, the other Poetry, the one carrying with it all those mental faculties that manifest themselves in arguing, investi- gating, comparin~, developing, bringing a thousand points to bear upon one, and one upon a thousand; the other springing from the realms of fancy, of imagination, feeling, humour, and, above all, from that pre- cious combination of still, almost sad, pen- siveness . with quick catholic sympathies, which in German is called GemiUk. These two currents the Midrash, in its various as- pects, had caused to set in the direction of the Bible, and they soon found in it two vast fields for the display of all their power and energy. The logical faculties turned to the legal portions in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuter- onomy developing, seeking, and solving a thousand real or apparent difficulties and contradictions with what, as tradition, had been living in the hearts and mouths of the peol)le from time immemorial. The other the imaginative faculties took posses- sion of the prophetical, ethical, historical, and, quaintly enoi~ h, sometimes even of the le0al portions of the Bible, and transformed the whole into a vast series of themes almost musical in their wonderfiil and capricious variations. The first named is called Hal- achah (Rule, Norm), a term applied both to the process of evolving legal enactments, and the enactments themselves. The other, Haggadah (Legend, Sag a) not so much in our modern sense of the word, thou~h a great part of its contents comes under that head, but because it was only a saying, a thing without authority, a play of fancy, an allegory, a parable, a tale, that pointed a moral and illustrated a question, that smoothed the billows of fierce debate, roused the slumbering attention, and was generally to use its own phrase a comfort and a blessino- The Talmud, which is composed of these 24 THE TALMUD. 25 two elements, the legal and the legendary, is nights on the Mount, to the chosen guides of divided into MISHNAII and GEMARA: two the people, in such a manner that they should terms again of uncertain, shifting meaning. for ever remain engraven on the tablets of Originally indicating, like the technical words their hearts. mentioned already, study, they both be- A long space intervenes between the Mo- came terms for special studies, and indicated saic period and that of the Mishnah. The special works. The Mishnab, from skanal& ever growing wants of the ever disturbed (tana), to learn, to repeat, has been of old commonwealth necessitated new laws and translated Jevr peutg, second law. But this regulations at every turn. A difficulty, derivation, correct as it seems literally, is in- however, arose, unknown to other legisla- correct in the first instance. It simply tions. In despotic states, a decree is issued, means Learning, like Gemara, which, be- promulgating the new law. In constitution- sides, indicates complement to the Misnah al states, a Bill is brought in. The supreme itself a complement to the Mosaic code, authority, if it finds it meet and right to but in such a manner that, in developing make this new law, makes it. The case was and enlarging, it supersedes it. The Mish- different in the Jewish commonwealth of the nab, on its own part again, forms a kind of post-exilian times Amon~ the things that text to which the Gemara is not so much a were irredeemably lost with the first temple scholion as a critical expansion. The Pen- were the Urim and Thummim of the high tateuch remains in all cases the background priest the oracle. With Malachi the last and latent source of the MisbAah. But it is prophet had died. Both for the promulga- the business of the Gemara to examine into tion of a new law and the abrogation of an the legitimacy and correctness of this Mish- old one, a higher sanction was requisite nic development in single instances. The than a mere majority of the legislative coun Pentateuch remained under all circumstan- cii. The new act must be proved, directly ces the immutable, divinely given constitu- or indirectly, from the Word of God tion, the written law: in contradistinction to proved to have been promulgated by the it, the Mishnab, together with the Gemara, Supreme King hidden and bound up, as was called the oral, or Unwritten law, not it were, in its very letters from the begin- unlike the unwritten Greek P~rpai, the ning. This was not easy in all cases: espe- Roman Lex Non Scripta, the Sunnab, or cially when a certain number of hermencu- our own Common Law. tical rules, not unlike those used in the Ro- There are few chapters in the whole His- man schools (inferences, conclusions from tory of Jurispudence more obscure than the the minor to the major and vice versd, analo- , (1 evelopment, and completion of this gies of ideas or objects, general and special Oral Law. There must have existed, statements, & c.), had come to be laid down. from the very beginning of the Mosaic law, a Apart from the new laws requisite at sud- number of corollary laws, which explained den emergencies, there were many of those in detail most of the rules broadly laid down old traditional ones, for which the point in it. Apart from these, it was but natural dappui had to be found, when, as established that the enactments of that primitive Coun- legal matters, they came before the critical cii of the Desert, the Elders, and their sue- eye of the schools. And these schools them- cessors in each period, together with the ver- selves, in their ever restless activity, evolved diets issued by the later judg~s within the new laws, according to their logical rules, gates, to whom the Pentateuch distinctly even when they were not practically wanted refers, should have become precedents, and nor likely ever to come into practical use been handed down as such. Apocryphal simply as a matter of science. Hence there writings notably the fourth book of Ezra is a double action perceptible in this legal not to mention Philo and the Church development. Either the scriptural verse Fathers, speak of fabulous numbers of books forms the terminus a quo, or the terminus ad that had been niven to Moses together with que?n. It is either the starting-point for a the Pentateuch: thus indicating the common discussion which ends in the production of belief in the divine origin of the supplement- some new enactment; or some new enact- ary laws that had existed among the people ment, or one never before investigated, is from time immemorial. Jewish tradition traced back to the divine source by an out- traces the bulk of the oral injunctions, ward hint, however insignificant. through a chain of distinctly-named authori- This process of evolving new precepts ties, to Sinai itself It mentions in detail from old ones by signs a word curiously how Moses communicated those minuti~ of enough used also by Blackstone in his de- his legislation, in which he had been instruct- velopment of the law may in some in- ed during the mysterious forty days and stances have been applied with too much 26 THE TALMUD. freedom. Yet, while the Talmudical Code and Nehemiali, the supposed founders ef practically differs from the Mosaic as much this body, has survived Simon the Just: as our Digest will dome day differ from the On three things stands the world: on law, laws of the time of Canute, and as the Jus- on worship, and on charity. tinian Code differs from the Twelve Tables, After the Scribes Ica~ ~or~ come it cannot be denied that these fundamental the Learners, or Repeaters, also called laws have in all cases been consulted care- Banaim, Master-builders from 220 B.C. fully and impartially as to their spirit, their to 220 AD. In this period falls the Macca- letter being often but the vessel or outer bean Revolution, the birth of Christ, the de- symbol. The often uncompromising seven- struction of the temple by Titus, the re- ty of the Pentateuch, especially in the volt of Bar-Cochba under Hadrian, the final province of the penal law, had certainly destruction of Jerusalem, and the total cx- become much softened down under the patriation of the Jews. During this time, milder influences of the culture of later days. Palestine was ruled successively by Persians, Several of its injunctions, which had become Egyptians, Syrians, and Romans. But the impracticable, were circumscribed, or almost legal labours that belong to this period were constitutionally abro~ated, by the introduc- never seriously interrupted. However dread tion of exceptional formalities. Some of its the events, the schools continued their stud- branches also had developed in a .direction ies. The masters were martyred time after other than what at first sight seems to have time, the academies were razed to the been anticipated. But the power vested in ground, the practical and the theoretical oc- the judge of those days was in general cupation with the law was proscribed on most sparingly and conscientiously applied, pain of death yet in no instance is the This whole process of the development of chain of the living tradition broken. With the law was in the hands of the Scribes, their last breath, the dying masters appoint- who, according to the New Testament, sit ed and ordained their successors; fo rone in the seat of Moses. We shall speak pres- academy that was reduced to a heap of ently of the Pharisees with whom the ashes in Palestine, three sprang up in Baby- word is often coupled. Jiere, meantime, bum, and the Law flowed on, and was per- we must once more distinguish between the petuated in the face of a thousand deaths. different meanings of the word Scribe at The chief bearers and representatives of different periods. For there are three these divine legal studies were jhe President stages in the oral compilation of the Talmud- (called Nasi, Prince), and the Vice-President meal Code, each of which is named after a (Ab-Beth-Din = Father of the house of special class of doctors. Judgment) of the highest legal assembly, the The task of the first class of these masters Synedrion, Aramaised into Sanliedrin. There the Scribes by way of eminence, whose were three Sanhedrins: one Great Sanhe- time ranges from the return from Babylon drin, twolesser ones. Whenever the New down to the Greco-Syrian persecutions (220 Testament mentions the Priests, the Elders, B.c.) was above all to preserve the sacred and the Scribes together, it means the Great Text, as it had survived after many mishaps. Sanhedrin. This constituted the highest They enumerated not merely the precepts, ecclesiastical and civil tribunal. It consist- but the words, the letters, the signs of the ed of seventy-one members, chosen from the Scripture, thereby guarding it from all fu- foremost priests, the heads of tribes and ture interpolations and corruptions. They families, and from the Learned, i. e. the had fuIther to explain these precepts, in Scribes or Lawyers. It was no easy task to accordance with the collateral tradition of be elected a member of this Supreme Council. which they were the guardians. They had The candidate had to be a superior man, to instruct the people, to preach in the syn- both mentally and bodily. He was not to agogucs, to teach in the schools. They be either too young or too old. Above all, fun her, on their own authority, erected cer- he was to be an adept both in the Law tam Fences, i. e. such new injunctions as and in Science. they (leemed necessary merely for the better When people read of law, masters or keeping of the old precepts. The whole doctors of the law, they do not, it seems to work of these men (Men of the Great us, always fully realize what that word Svn agogue) is well summed lip in their law means in Old or rather New Testa- adage: have a care in legal decisions, send ment language. It should he remembered forth many disciples, and make a fence that, as we have already imidicated, it stands aroun(l the law. More pregnant still is the for all and every knowledge, since all and mo o of their last representative the every knowledge was requisite for the un- only one whose name, besides those of Ezra derstanding of it. The Mosaic code has mn~ THE TALMUD. 27 junctions about the sabbatical journey; the the provision about the age, viz., that the distance bad to be measured and calculated, senator should be neither too far advanced and mathematics were called into play. in age lest his judgment might be enfee- Seeds, plants, and animals had to be studied bled, nor too young lest it might be imma- in connection with the many precepts regard- ture and hasty; and to the proofs required ing them, and natural history had to be ap- of his vast theoretical and practical knowl- pealed to. Then there were the purely by- edge for he was only by slow degrees pro- gienic paragraphs, which necessitated for moted from an obscure j ud~eship in his na- their precision a knowledge of all the medi- tive haudet to the senatorial di~nity there cal science of the time. The seasons and came to be added also that wonderfully fine the feast-days were regulated by the phases rule, that he must be a married man and of themoon; and astronomy if only in its have children of his own. Deep miseries of elements had to be studied. And as families would be laid bare before him, and Piie commonwealth successively came in con- he should bring with him a heart full of tact, however much against its will at first, sympathy. with Greece and Rome their history, Of the practical administration of justice geography, and language came to he added by the Sanhedrin we have yet to speak as a matter of instruction to those of Persia when we come to the Corpus Juris itself. and Babylon. It was only a handful of well- It now behoves us to pause a moment at meaning but narrow-minded men, like the those schools and academies of which we Essenes, who would not, for their own part, have repeatedly made mention, and of listen to the repeal of certain temporary Dc- which the Sanhedrin formed, as it were, the crees of Danger. When Hellenic scepticism crown and the highest consummation. in its most seductive form had, during the Sy- Eighty years before Christ, schools flour- nan troubles, begun to seek its victims even ished throughout the length and the breadth in the midst of the Sacred Vineyard, and of the land ; education had been made threatened to undermine all patriotism and compulsory. While there is not a single all independence, a curse was pronounced term for school to be found before the upon Hellenism: much as German patriots, Captivity, there were by that time about a ~t the beginning of this century, loathed the dozen in common usage. * Here are afew very sound of the French language; or as, of the innumerable popular sayings of the riot so very long ago, all things foreign period, betokeningthe paramount importance were re~arded with a certain suspicion in which public instruction had assumed in the England. But, the danger over, the Greek life of the nation: Jerusalem was destroyed Ian~uare and culture were restored to their because the instruction of the young was pre~iom?s high position in both the school and neglected. The world is only saved by the house, as ind~ed the union of Hebrew the breath of the school-children. Even md Greek, the Talith and the Pallium, for the rebuilding of the Temple the schools Shem and Japheth, who had been blessed must not be interrupted. Study is more ogether by Noah, and who would always be meritorious than sacrifice. A scholar is ilessed in union, was strongly insisted upon. greater than a prophet. You should revere We shall return to the polyglot character of the teacher even more than your father. The hose days, the common language of which latter only brou~ht you into this world, the vas an 0(1(1 mixture of Greek, Aramaic, former indicates the way into the next. ~atin, Syniac, hebrew; but the member of But blessed is the son who has learnt from he Sanhedrin had to be a good linguist, his father: he shall revere him both as his Le was not to be dependent on the possibly inged version of an interpreter. Rut not tuly wa~ science, in its widest sense, re- * Some of these terms are Greek like & 2~cot, i?be6f: 1nired in him, but even an acquaintance some, belonging to the pellucid idiom of the people, the Aramaic, poetically indicated at times the cith its fantastic shadows, such as astrology, special arrangement oC the small and bi~ scholars, ongic, and the rest, in order that he, as both e.g. Array, ~~ineyard( where they sat in rows cweive~ and judge, should be able to enter as stands the blooming vine): while others are of so uncertain a derivation, that they tony belong -iso into the popular feeling about these to either language. The technical term for the ide-spread Arts. Prosclytes, eunuchs, highest school, for instance, ii, e long formed a crux for etymologists. Jt is KeUah. This may be reedmen, were rigidly excluded from the either the Hebrew word for Bride, a well. Xssembly. So wePe those who could not known allegorical expressi~os for science, assidn- rove themselves the legitimate ofl~pring of ously to he courted, not lightly In be won, and easily estranged; or it may he Ihe slightly nests, Levites, or Israelites. And so, mutilated Greek a,Xo2Li,, or it may literally be onr urther, were gamblers, betting-men, money- own word Usuiversity, from Jfol, all, universus: 3nders, and dealers in illegal produce. To ~~l~ernbracin~ institution of all branches of THE TALMUD. father and his master; and blessed is the father who has instructed his son. The High Colleges or Kallahs ~ only met. dunn ~ some months in the year. Three weeks before the term the Dean prepared the students for the lectures to be delivered by the Rector; and so arduous became the task, as the number of the disciples in- creased, that in time no less than seven Deans had to be appointed. Yet the mode of teaching was not that of our modern uni- versities. The professors did not deliver lectures, which the disciples, like the Stu- dent in Faust, could comfortably take home in black and white. Here all was life, movement, debate; question was met by counter-question, answers were given wrapped up in allegories or parables, the inquirer was led to deduce the questionable point for himself by analogy the nearest approach to the Socratic method. The New Testament furnishes many specimens of this contemporary method of instruction. The highest rank in the estimation of the people was not reserved for the Priests, about whose real position some extraordinary notions seem still afloat nor for the iNobles but for these Masters of the Law, the Wise, the Disciples of the Wise. There is something almost German in the profound reverence uniformly shown to these representatives of science and learn- ing, however poor and insignificant in per- son and rank. Many of the most eminent Doctors were but humble tradesmen. They were teutmakers, sandalmakers, weav- ers, carpenters, tanners, bakers, cooks. A newly-elected President was found by his predecessor, who had been ignominiously deposed for his overhearing manner, all grimy in the midst of his charcoal mounds. Of all things the most hated were idleness and asceticism; piety and learning them- selves only received their proper estimation when joined to healthy bodily work. It is well to add a trade to your studies; you will then be free from sin. The trades- man at his work need not rise before the greatest Doctor. Greater is he who de- rives his livelihood from work than he who fears God are some of ~he most common dicta of the period. The exalted place thus given to Work, as on the one hand it prevented an abject wor- ship of Learning, so on the other it kept all ascetic eccentricities from the body of the people. An(l there was always some danger of them at hand. When the temple lay in ashes, men would no longer eat meat or drink * See preceding note. wine. A Sage remonstrated with them, but they replied, weeping: Once the flesh of sacrifices was burnt upon the Altar of God. The altar is thrown down. Once libations of wine were poured out. They are no more. But you eat bread; there were bread-offerings. You are right, Mas- ter, we shall eat fruit only. But the first firuits were offered up. We shall refrain from them. But you drink water, an(l there were libations ofwater. And they knew not what to reply. Then he comfortedthem by the assurance that He who had destroyed Jerusalem had promised to rebuild it, and that proper mourning was right and meet, but that it must not be of a nature to weaken the body for work. Another most striking story is that of the Sage who, walking in a market-place crowded with people, suddenly encountered the prophet Elijah, and asked him who, out of that vast multitude, would be saved. Whereupon the Prophet first pointed out a weird-looking creature, a turnkey, because he was merciful to his prisoners; and next two common-looking tradesmen, who came walking through the crowd, pleasantly chat- ting. The Sage instantly rushed towards them, and asked them what were their savinv works. But they, much puzzled, replied: We are but poor workmen who live by our trade. All that can be said for us is that we are always of good cheer, and are good- natured. When we meet anybody who seems sad we join him, and we talk to him, and cheer him, so long that he must forget his grief. And if we know of two people who have quarrelled, we talk to them and persuade them, until we have madc them friends again. This is our whole life. . Before leaving this period of Mishnic development, we have yet to speak of one or two things. This period is the one in which Christianity arose; and it may be as well to touch here upon the relation be- tween Christianity and the Talmud a sub- ject much discussed of late. Were not the whole of our general views on the difference between Judaism and Christianity - reatly confused, people would certainly not be so very much surprised at the striking parallels of dogma and parable, of allegory and prov- erb, exhibited by the Gospel and the tal- mudical writings. The New Testament, written, as Lightfoot has it, among Jews, by Jews, for Jews, cannot but speak the language of the time, both as to form, and, broadly speaking, as to contents. There are many more vital points of contact between the New Testament and the Talmud than divines yet seem fully to realise; for such 28 TILE TALMUD. terms as Redemption, Baptism, Grace, Faith, Salvation, Regeneration, Son of Man, Son of God, Kingdom of Heaven, were not, as we are apt to think, invented by Christianity, hut were household words of talmudical Judaism, to which Christianity gave a higher and purer meaning. No less loud and hitter in the Talmud are the pro- tests against lip-serving, against making the law a burden to the people, against laws that hang on hairs, acrainst Priests and Pharisees. The fundamental mysteries of the new Faith are matters totally apart; but the Ethics in both are, in their broad outlines, identical. That grand dictum, Do unto others as thou wouldst be done by, against which Kant declared him- self energetically from a philosophical point of view, is quoted by Hillel, the President, at whose death Jesus was ten years of age, not as anything new, but as an old and well- known dictum that comprised the whole Law. The most monstrous mistake has ever been our mixing up, in the first instance, single individuals, or classes, with a whole people, and next our confounding the Juda- ism of the time of Christ with that of the time of the Wilderness, of the Judges, or even of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Judaism of the time of Christ (to which that of our days, owing principally to the Talmud, stands very near), and that of th~ Pentateuch, are as like each other as our England is like that of William Rufus, or the Greece of Plato that of the Argonauts. It is the glory of Christianity to have car- ried those golden germs, hidden in the schools and among the silent community of the learned, into the market of Humanity. It has communicated that Kingdom of Heaven, of which the Talmud is thU from the first page to the last, to the herd, even to the lepers. The fruits that have sprung from this through the wide world we need not here consider. But the misconception, as if to a God of Vengeance had suddenly succeeded a God of Love, cannot be too. often protested against. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself is a precept of the Old Testament, as our Saviour himself taught his disciples. The Law, as we have seen and shall further see, was developed to a marvellously, and, perhaps, oppressively minute pitch; but only as a regulator of outward actions. The faith of the heart the dogma prominently dwelt upon by Paul was a thing that stood much higher with the Pharisees than this outward law. It was a thing, they said, not to be commanded by any ordinance; yet was greater than all. Everything, is one of their adages, is in the hands of Heaven, save the fear of Heaven.~ Six hundred and thirteen injunctions, says the Talmud, was Moses instructed to give to the people. David reduced them all to eleven, in the fifteenth Psalm: Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle, who shall dwell on Thy holy hill I He that walketh uprightly, & c. The Prophet Isaiah reduced them to six (xxxiii. 15): He that walketh righteously, & c. The Prophet Micah reduced them to three (vi. 8): What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God Isaiah once more reduced them to two (lvi. 1): Keep ye judgment and do justice. Amos (v. 4) reduced them all to one : Seek ye me and ye shall live. But lest it might be supposed from this that God could be found in the fulfilment of his whole law only, Hahakkuk said (ii. 4): The just shall live by his Faith. Regarding these Pharisees or Separa- tists themselves, no greater or more anti- quated mistake exists than that of their be- ing a mere sect hated by Christ and the Apostles. They were not a sect, any more than Roman Catholics form a sect in Rome, or Protestants a sect in England, and they were not hated so indiscriminately by Christ and the Apostles as would at first sight appear from some sweeping passages in the New Testament. For the Phari- sees, as such, were at that time Josephus notwithstanding simply the people, in con- tradistinction to the leaven of Ilerod. Those upper classes of free-thinking Sad- ducees, who, in opposition to the Pharisees, insisted on the paramount importance of sacrifices and tithes, of which they were the receivers, but denied the Immortality of the Soul, are barely mentioned in the New Tes- tament. The wholesale denunciations of Scribes and Pharisees have been greatly misunderstood. There can be absolutely no question on this point, that there were among the genuine Pharisees the most patriotic, the most noble minded, the most advanced lead- ers of the Party of Progress. The develop- ment of the Law itself was nothin~ in their hands but a means to keep the Spirit as op- posed to the Word the outward frame in full life and flame, and to vindicate for each time its own right to interpret the tem- poral ordinances according to its own neces- sities and acquirements. But that there were very many black sheep in their flock many who traded on the high reputation of the whole body is matter of reiterated de- nunciation in the whole contemporary litera 29 THE TALMUD. ture. The Talmud inveighs even more side to the motionless form without. Tie bitterly and caustically than the New Tes- was restore(l to life. Be it observed, by the tament against what it calls the Plague of Pharisaism, the dyed ones, who do evil deeds like Zimri, and require a goodly re- ward like Phinehas, they who preach beau- tifully, hut do not act beautifully. Parody- ing their exaggerated logical arrangements, their scrupulous divisions and subdivisions,, the Talmud distinguishes seven classes of Pharisees, one of whom only is worthy of that name. These are 1, those who do the will of God from earthly motives; 2, they who make small steps, or say, just wait a while for me; I have just one more good~ work to perform; 3, they who knock their heads against walls in avoiding the sight of a woman; 4, saints in office; 5, they who implore you to mention some more duties which they might perform; 6, they who are pious because they fear God. The real and only Pharisee is he who does the will of his Father which is in Heaven because he loves Him. Among those chiefly Phari- saic masters of the Mishnic period, whose names and fragments of whose lives have come down to us, are some of the most illus- trious men, men at whose feet the first Chris- tians sat, whose sayings household words in the mouths of the people prove them to have been endowed with no common Wisdom, piety, kindness, and high and noble courage: a courage and a piety they had often enough. occasion to seal with their lives. From this hasty outline of the mental at- mosphere of the time when the Mishnah was gradually built up, we now turn to this Code itself. The bulk of ordinances, in- junctions, prohibitions, precepts, the old and new, traditional, derived, or enacted on the spur of the moment, had, after about eight hundred years, risen to gigantic pro- portions, proportions no longer to be mas- tered in their scattered, and, be it remem- bered, chiefly unwritten, form. Thrice, at different periods, the work of reducing them to system and order was undertaken by three eminent masters; the third alone succeeded. First by Hillel I., under whose presidency Christ was born. This Hillel, also called the second Ezra, was born in Babylon. Thirst for knowledge drove him to Jerusalem. He was so poor, the legend tells us, that once, when he had not money enough to fee the porter of the academy, he clirned up the window-sill one bitter win- ters night. As he lay there listening, the cold gradually made him insensible, and the snow covered him up. The darkness of the room first called the attention of those in- way, that this was on a Sabbath, as, accord- ing to the Talmud, (langer always superse(les the Sabbath. Even for the sake of the tiniest babe it must be broken without the slightest hesitation, for the babe will, it is added, keep many a Sabbath yet for that one that was broken for it. And here we cannot refrain from enter- ing ~n emphatic protest against the vulgar notion of the Jewish Sabbath being a thing of grim austerity. It was precisely the contrary, a day of joy and delight, a feast day, honoured by fine garments, by the best cheer, by wine, lights, spice, and other joys of pre-eminently bodily import; and the highest expression of the feeling of self-reliance and independence is contained in the adage, Rather live on your Sabbath as you would on a week day, than be depend- ent on others. But this only by the way. About 30 B.c., Hillel became Presi- dent. Of his meekness, his piety, his benev- olence, the Talmudical records are full. A few of his sayings will characterize him bet- ter than any sketch of ours could do. Be a disciple of Aaron, a friend of peace, a pro- inoter of peace, a friend of all men, and draw them near unto the law. Do not believe in thyself till the day of thy death. Do not judge thy neighbour until thou hast stood in his place. Whosoever does not increase in knowledge decreases. Who- soever tries to make gain by the crown of learning perishes. Immediately after the lecture he used to hurry home. Once asked by his disciples what caused him to hasten away, he replied he had to look after his guest. When they pressed him for the name of his guest, he said that he only meant his soul, which was here to-day and there to-morrow. One day a heathen went to Shammai, the head of the rival academy, and asked him mockingly to convert him to the law while he stood on one leg. The irate master turned him from his door. He then went to Hillel, who received hih~ kindly, and gave him that reply since so widely propagated Do not unto another what thou wouldest not have another do unto thee. This is the whole Law, the rest is mere commentary. Yery characteristic is also his answer to one of those wits who used to plague him with their silly questions. How many laws are there? he asked Hillel. Two, Hillel re- plied, one written, and one oral. Whereup- on the other, I believe in the first, but I do not see why I should believe in the second. Sit down, Hillell said. And he wrote down 30 THE TALMUD. the Hebrew alphabet. What letter is this? he then asked, pointing to the first. This is an Aleph. Good: the next? Beth. Good again. But how do you know that this is an Aleph and this a Beth? Thus, the other replied, we have learnt from our ancestors. Well, Hillel said, as you have accepted this in good faith, accept also the other. To his mind the necessity of arranging and simplifying that monstrous hulk of oral traditions seems to have presented itself first with all its force. There were no less than some six hundred vaguely floating sections of it in exi~tence by that time. He tried to reduce them to six. But he died, and the work commenced by him was left untouched for another cen- tury. Akiba, the poor shepherd who fell in love with the daughter of the richest and proudest man in all Jerusalem, and, through his love, from a clown became one of the most eminent doctors of his generation, nay a second Moses, came next. But he too was unsuccessful. His legal labours were cut short by the Roman executioner. Yet the day of his martyrdom is said to have been the day of the birth of him who, at last, did carry out the work, Jehuda, the Saint, also called Rabbi by way of eminence. About 200 A.D. the redaction of the whole unwritten law into a code, though still un- written, was completed after the immense ef- forts, not of one school, b,ut of all, not through one, but many methods of coUection, com- parison, and condensation. When the Code was drawn up, it was al- ready obsolete in many of its parts. More than a generation before the Destruction of the Temple, Rome had taken the penal juris- diction from the Sanhedrin. The innumerable injunctions regarding the temple-service, the sacrifices, and the rest, had but an ideal value. The agrarian laws for the most part applied only to Palestine; and but an insig- nificant fraction of the people had remained faithful to the descrated land. Nevertheless the whole Code was eagerly received as their text-book by the many academies both in Palestine and in Babylonia, not merely as a record of past enactments, but as laws that at some time or other, with the restoration of the commonwealth, would come into full practice as of yore. The Mishnab is divided into six sections. These are subdivided again into 11, 12, 7, 9 (or 10), 11, and 12 chapters respectively which are further broken up into 524 para- graphs. We shall briefly describe their con- tents : Section 1., Seeds: of Agrarian Laws, com- mencing with a chapter on Prayers. In this section, the various tithes and donations due to the Priests, the Levites, and the poor, from the products of the lands, and further the Sabbati- cal year, and the prohibited mixtures in plants, animals, and garments, are treated of. Secti6n II., Feasts: of Sabbaths, Feast and Fast days, the work prohibited, the ceremonies ordained, the sacrifices to be offered, on them. Special chapters~are devoted to the Feast of the Exodus from Egypt, to the New Years Day, to the Day of Atonement (one of the most im- pressive portions of the whole book), to the Feast of Tabernacles, and to that of Haman. Section III., Women: of betrothal, mar- riage, divorce, & c: also of vows. Section IV., Damages: including a great part of the civil and criminal law. It treats of the Jaw of trover, of buying and selling, and the ordinary monetary transactions. Further, of the greatest crime known to the law, viz., idolatry. Next of witnesses, of oaths, of legal punishments, and of the Saubedrin itself. This section concludes with the so-called Sentences of the Fathers, containing some of the subli- mest ethical dicta known in the history of re- ligious philosophy. V., Sacred Things: of sacrifices, the first- born, & c.; also of the measurements of the Temple (Middoth). Section VI., Purifications: of the various Levitical and other hygienic laws, of impure things and persons, their purification, & c.~ There is, it cannot be denied, more sym- metry and method in the Mishnah than in the Pandects; although we have not found that minute logical sequence in its arrange- ment which Maimonides and others have discovered. In fact, we do not believe that we have it in its original shape. But, as far as the single treatises are concerned, the Mishnah is for the most part free from the blemishes of the Roman Code. There are, unquestionably, fewer contradictory laws, fewer repetitions, fewer interpolations, than in the Digests, which, notwithstanding Tn- bonians efforts, abound with so-called Gemi- nationes, Leges fugitiv~, errativie, and so forth; and, as regards a certain out- spokenness in bodily things, it has at last been acknowledged by all competent authorities that its language is infinitely purer than that, for instance, of the medieval casuists. The regulations contained in these six treatises are of very different kinds. They are apparently important and unimportant, intended to be permanent or temporary. They are either clear expansions of Scrip- tural precepts, or independent traditions, linked to Scripture only hermeneutically. They are decisions, fences, injunctions, ordinances, or simply Mosaic Halacl~nh from Sinai much as the Roman laws con- sist of Senatusconsulta, Plebiscita, Edic 31 THE TALMUD. ta, Responsa Prudentium, and the rest. Save in points of dispute, the Mishnah does not say when and how a special law was made. Only exceptionally do we read the introductory formula N. N. has home wit- ness, I have heard from N. N., & c.; for nothing was admitted into the Code but that which was well authenticated first. There is no difference made between great laws and little laws between ancient and new Halachah. Every precept traditionally re- ceived or passed by the majority becomes, in a manner, a religious, divinely sanctioned one, although it was always open to the sub- sequent authorities to reconsider and to ab- rogate; as, indeed, one of the chief reasons against the writing down of the Code, even after its redaction, was just this, that it should never become fixed and immutable. That the Mishnab was appealed to for all practical purposes, in preference to the Mo- saic law seems clear and natural. Do we generally appeal in our law-courts to the Magna Charta? This uniform reverence for all the mani- fold contents of the Misnah is best expressed in the redactors own words the motto to the whole collection Be equally conscien- tious in small as in great precepts, for ye know not their individual rewards. Com- pute the earthly loss sustained by the fulfil- ment of a law by the heavenly reward de- rived through it, and the gain derived from a transgression by the punishment that is to follow it. Also contemplate three things, and ye shall not fall into sin: Know what is above ye an eye that seeth, an ear that heareth, and all your works are written in a book. The tone and tenor of the Mishnah is, ex- cept in the one special division devoted to Ethics, emphatically practical. It does not concern itself with Metaphysics, but aims at being merely a civil code. Yet it never misses an opportunity of inculcating those higher ethical principles which lie beyond the strict letter of the law. It looks more 4o the intention in the fulfilment of a precept than to the fulfilment itself. He who claims certain advantages by the letter of the law, though the spirit of humanity should urge him not to insist upon them, is not beloved by God and man. On the other hand, he who makes good by his own free will de- mands which the law could not have en- forced; he, in fact, who does not stop short at the Gate of Justice, but proceeds within the line of mercy, in him the spirit of the wise has pleasure. Certain duties bring fruits (interest) in this world; but the real reward, the capital, is paid back in the world to come: such as reverence for father and mother, charity, early application to study, hospitality, doing the last honour to the dead, promoting peace between man and his neighbor. The Mishnah knows nothing of Hell. For all and any trans- gressions there were only the fixed legal punishments, or a mysterious sudden visita- tion of God the scriptural rooting out. Death atones for all sins. Minor transgres- sions are redeemed by repentance, charity, sacrifice, and the day of atonement. Sins committed against man are only forgiven when the injured man has had full amends made and declares himself reconciled. The highest virtue lies in the study of the law. It is not only the badge of high culture (as was of old the case in England), but there is a special merit bound up in it that will assist man both in this and in the world to come. Even a bastard who is learned in it is more honoured than a high-priest who is not. To discuss these laws, their spirit, and their details, in this place, we cannot under- take. But this much we may say, that it has always been the unanimous opinion of both friends and foes that their general char- acter is humane in the extreme: in spite of certain harsh and exceptional laws, issued in times of danger and misery, of revolution and reaction; laws, moreover, which, for the most part, never were and never could be carried into practice. There is an almost modern liberality of view regarding the ful- filment of the Law itself, expressed by such frequent adages as The Scripture says, he shall live by them that means, he shall not die through them. They shafl not be made pitfalls or burdens to him, that shall make him hate life. He who carries out these precepts to the full is declared to be nothing less than a Saint. The law has been given to men, and not to angels. Respecting the practical administration of justice, a sharp distinction is drawn by the Mishnah between the civil and criminal law. In both, the most careful investigation and scrutiny is required; but while in the former three judges are competent, a tribunal of no less than twenty-three is required for the latter. The first duty of the civil judges is always however clear the case to urge an agreement. When, says the Talmud, do justice and goodwill meet? When the contending parties are made to agree peace- ably. There were both special local magistrates and casual justices of peace, chosen ad hoc by the parties. Payment re- ceived for a decision annuls the decision. Loss of time only was allowed to be made good in case of tradesmen-judges. The 32 THE TALMUD. plaintiff, if proved to have asked more than his due, with a view of thus obtainino his due more readily, was nonsuited. Three partners in an action must not divide them- selves into one plaintiff and two witnesses. The Judge must see that both parties are pretty equally dressed, i. e. not one in fine garments, the other in rags; and he is fur- ther particularly cautioned not to be biassed in favour of the poor against the rich. The Judge must not hear anything of the case, save in the presence of both parties. Many and striking are also the admonitions regard- ing the Judge. He who unjustly hands over one mans goods to another, he shall pay God for it with his own soul. In the hour when the Judge sits in judgment over his fellow-men, he shall feel, as it were, a sword pointed at his own heart. Woe unto the Judge who, convinced in his mind of the un- righteousness of a cause, tries to throw the blame on the witnesses. From him God will ask an account. When the parties stand before. you, look upon both as guilty; but when they are dismissed, let them both be innocent in thine eyes, for the decree has gone forth. It would not be easy to find a more hu- mane, almost refined, penal legislation, from the days of the old world to our own. While in civil cases whenever larger tribunals (juries) had to be called in a majority of one is sufficient for either acquittal or con- demnation, in criminal cases a majority of one acquits, but a majority of two is requi- site for condemnation. All men are accept- ed in the former as witnesses always ex- cept gamblers (av~kia dice-players), bet- ting-men (pigeon-flyers ), usurers, dealers in illegal (seventh years) produce, and slaves, who were disqualified from judging and bearing witness either for the plain- tiff or the defendant; but it is only for the (lefence that everybody, indiscriminately, is heard in criminal cases. The cross-examina- tion of the witnesses w~is exceedingly strict. The ormuia (containing at once a whole breviary for the Judge himself) with which the witnesses were admonished in criminal eases was of so awful and striking a nature, that swearing a ma ns life away became an almost unheard-of occurrence: How is one, says the Mishnab, to awe the witnesses who are ceded to testify in matters of life end death? Whcn they are brouoht into Court, they e~ e charged thus: Perchance you would speak from conjecture or rumour, us a witness from another witness having heard it from some trustwor~hy man or pe~chauce xou are not aware thet we shall proceed to search and to try you with (lose questions and searching scrutiny. Know ye thet not like LIVING AGE. VOL. VIII. 267. 33 trials about money are trials over life and death. In trials of money a man may redeem his guilt by money, and he may be forgiven. In tria of life, the blood of him who has been falsely condemned will hang over the false witness, and also that of the seed of his seed, even unto the end of the world; for thus we find that when Cain killed his brother, it is said, The voice of thy brothers blood is crying to me from the ground. The word blood st4inds there in the plural number, to indicate to you that the blood of him, together with that of his seed, has been shed. Adam was created alone, to show you that he who destroys one single life in Israel will be called to account for it, as if he had destroyed a whole world. . . . But, on the other hand, ye mi~ht say to yourselves, XVhet have we to do with all this misery here l Re- member, then, that Holy Writ has said (Lev. v. 1), If a witness hath seen or known, if he do not utter, he shall bear his iniquity. But per- chance ye might say, Why shall we be guilty of this mans blood Remember, then, what is said in Provjtrbs (Xi: 10), In the destruction of the wicked there is joy. The Lex Talionis is unknown to the Talmud. Paying measure for measure, it says, is in Gods hand only. Bodily injuries inflicted are to be redeemed by money; and here again the Pharisees had carried the day against the Sadducees, who insisted up- on the literal interpretation of that verse. The extreme punishments, flagellation and death, as ordained in the Mosaic Code, were inflicted in a humane manner unknown, as we have said, not only to the contemporary courts of antiquity, but even to those of Europe up to within the last generation. Thirty-nine was the utmost number of strokes to be inflicted: but . the loving ones neighbor like oneself be- ing constantly urged by the Penal Code it- self, even with re~ard to criminals if the life of the culprit was in the least degree endangered, this number was at once re- duced. However numerous the delinquents transgressions, but one punishment could be decreed for them all. Not even a fine and flagellation could be pronounced on the same occasion. The care taken of human life was extreme indeed. The judges of capital offences had to fast all day, nor was the sentence exe- cuted on the (lay of the verdict, but it was once more subjected to scrutiny by the San- hedrin the next day. Even to the in t some fiavourable circumstance that might turn, the scale in the prisoners favoiar was looked for; The place otexecution was at some distance from the Court, in order that time might be gi~en to a witness or the accused himself for naming any fact fresh in his favour. A man was stationed at the entrance ti the THE TALMUD. Court, with a fia~ in his hand, and at some distance another man, on horseback, was sta- tioned, in order to stop the execution instant- ly if any favourable circumstance should ~till come to light. The culprit himself was al- lowed to stop four or five times, and to be brought back before the judges, if he had still something to urge in his defence. Be- fore him marched a herald, crying, The man N. N., son of N. N.. is being led to ex- ecution for having committed such and such a crime; such and such are the witnesses against him; whosoever knows aught to his favour, let him come and proclaim it. Ten yards from the place of execution they said to him, Confess thy sins; every one who confesses has part in the world to come; for thus it is written of Achan, to whom Joshua said, My son, give now glory to the God o Israel. If he could not offer any formal confession, he need only say, May my death be a redemption for all my sins. To the last the culprit was supported by marks of profound and awful sympathy. The ladies of Jerusalem formed a society which provided a beverage of mixed myrrh and vinegar, that, like an opiate, benumbed the man when he was being carried to cx -ecution. There were four kinds of capital punish- ment, stoning, burning, slaying with the sword, and strangling. Crucifixion is utterly unknown to the Jewish law. The house of stoning was two stories high, stoning in the Mishnab being merely a term for :breaking the culprits neck. It was the part of the chief witness to precipitate the crimi- nal with his own hand. If he fell on his breast he was turned on his hack; if the fall had not killed him on the spot, the second witness had to cast a stone on his heart; if he still survived, then and then only the whole people hastened his death by casting stones upon him. The modes of strangling and burning were almost identi- cal: in both cases the culprit was immersed to his waist in soft mud, and two men by tightening a cord wrapped in a sofi cloth round his neck, caused instantaneous suffo- cation. In the burnino a lighted wick was thrown down his throat when he opened his mouth at his last breath. The corpse was buried in a special place appropriated to criminals. After a time, however, the bones were gathered together and trans- :ferred to the butial place of the culprits kin. The relations then visited the judges and the witnesses, as much as to say, we bear no malice against you, for a righteous judg- xment have ye judged. The ordinary cere- monies of outer mourning were not observed in such cases, but lamentation was not pro- hibited during the first period of grief for sorrow is from the heart. There was no confiscation of the culprits goods. Practically, capital punishment was abro- gated even before the Humans had taken it out of the hands of the Sanhedrin. Here again the humanising influences of the Tra- ditions had been at work, commuting the severe Mosaic Code. The examination of witnesses had been made so rigorous that a sentence of capital punishment became al- most impossible. When the guilt h d, not- withstanding all these difficulties, been abso- lutely brought home, some formal flaw was sure to be found, and the sentence was corn- muted to imprisonment for life. The doctors of a later period, notably Akiba, who, in the midst of his revolutionary dreams of a new Independence, kept his eye steadily on a reform of the whole jurisdiction, did not hesitate to pronounce openly for the aboli- tion of capital punishment. A Court which had pronounced one sentence of (leath in seven, or even seventy years, received the name of Court of Murderers.~ So far the Mishnah, that brief abstract of about eight hundred years legal production. Jehudah, the Redactor, had excluded all but the best authenticated traditions, as well as all discussion and exegesis, unless where particularly necessary. The vast mass of these materials was now also collected, as a sort of apocryphal oral code. We have, dating from a few generations after the re- daction of th~ official Mishnah, a so-called external Mishnah (Boraita); further, the discussions and additions belonging by rights to the Mishnah, called Tosefta (Supple- ment); and, finally, the exegesis and meth- odology of the Halacha (Sifri, Sifra, Mechil- ta), much of which was afterwards embod- ied in the Talmud. The Mishnah, being formed into a code, became in its turn what the Scripture had been, a basis of development and discussion. It had to be linked to the Bible, it becarire impregnated with and obscured by specula- tions, new traditions sprang up, new methods were invented, casuistry assumed its sway as it did in the legal schools that flourished at that period at Rome, at Alexandria, at Berytus, and the Gemara ensued. A double Gemara: one, the expression of the schools in Palestine, called that of Jerusa- lem, redacted at Tiberias (not at Jerusalem) about 390 AD., and written in what may be called East Aramman; the other, redact- cml at Syra in Babylonia, edited by H. Ashe (365427 A.D.). The final close of this codex, however, the collecting and sifting of 34 THE TALMUD. which took just sixty years, is due to the school of the Saboraim at the end of the fifth century AD. The Babylonian Gemara is the expression of the academies of Syra, Neharden, Pum-Veditha, Mahusa, and other places, during six or seven generations of condnuous development. This Babyloni- an Talmud is couched in Western Ara- m~an. Neither of the two codes was written down at first, and neither has survived in its completeness. Whether there ever was a double Gemara to all the six or even the first five divisions of the Mishnah (the sixth having early fallen into disuse), is at least very doubtful. Much, however, that existed has been lost. The Babylonian Talmud is about four times as large as that of Jerusa- lem. Its thirty-six treatises now cover, in our editions, printed with the most promi- nent commentaries (Rashi and Tosafoth), exactly 2,947 folio leaves in twelve folio volumes, the pagination of which is kept uniform in almost all editions. If, however, the extraneous portions are subtracted, it is only about ten or eleven times as large as Phe Mishnab, which was redacted just as many generations before the Talmud. How the Talmud itself became by degrees what the Mishnab had been to the Gemara, and what the Scripture had been to the early Scribes, viz, a Text; how the Sabo- raim and Gaonim, those Epigoni of the Scribes, made it the centre of their activ- ity for centuries; what endless commenta- ries, dissertations, expositions, responses, no- velke, abstracts, & c., grew out of it, we can- not here tell. Only this much we will add, that the Talmud, as such, was never formally accepted by the nation, by either General or Special Council. Its legal decisions, as derived from the highest authorities, certainly fbrmed the basis of the religious law, the norm of all future decisions: as undoubtedly the Talmud is the most trustworthy canon of Jewish tradition. But its popularity is much more due to an extraneous cause. During the persecutions against the Jews in the Persian empire, under Jesdegerd II., Firux, and Kobad, the sehools were closed for about eighty years. The living develop- ment of the law being stopped, the book ob- tained a supreme authority, such as had probably never been dreamt of by its authors. Need we add that what authority was silently vested in it belonged exclusively to its legal portions? The other, the hag- gadistic or legendary portion, was poetry, a thing beloved by women and children and by those still and pensive minds which de- light in flowers and in the song of wild birds. The Authorities themselves often enough set their faces against it, rcpud~atcJ it and explained it away. But the people clung to it, and in course of time gave to it and it alone the eneyclopa~dic name of Midrash. We have now to say a few words respect- ing the language in which these documents are couched, as furnishing an additional key to the mode of life and thoughts of the period. The language of the Misbnah is as pure a Hebrew as can be expected in those days. The people themselves spoke, as we mcii- tioned above, a corrupt Chaldee or Aramaic, mixed with Greek and Latin. Many prayers of the period, the Targums, the Gemaras, are conceived in that idiom. Even the Mishnah itself could not exclude these all- pervading foreign elements. Many legal terms, many names of products, of heathen feasts, of household furniture, of meat and drink, of fruits and garments, are borrowed from the classical languages. Here is a curious addition to the curious history of words! The bread which the Semites had cast upon the waters, in the archaic Pheni- cian times, came back to them after many days. If they had given to the early Greeks the names for weights and measures,* for spice and aromast every one of which is Hebrew; if they had imported the sap- phire, jasper, emerald, the fine materials fir garments,~ and the garments themselves as indeed the well-known xm1-6v is but the Hebrew name for Josephs coat in the Bible if the musical instruments, the plants, vessels, writino materials, and last, not least, the alphabet itself, came from the Semites; the Greek and Latin idioms repaid them in the Talmudical period with full interest, to the great distress of the later scholiasts and lexicographers. The Aramaic itself was, as we said, the language of the common people. It was, in itself, a most pellucid and pictu- resque idiom, lending itself admirably not only to the epigrammatic terseness of the Gemara, but also to those profoundly poetical conceptions of the daily phenomena, which had penetrated even into the cry of the watchmen, the password of the temple- guards, and the routine-formula of the levit- ical functionary. Unfortunately, it was too poetical at times. Matters of a purely meta- physical nature, which afterwards grew into * /Ivc~m, ,c& 6o~, ~ t [b~5/a, KLVia[16)[tov, KacTta, VCLpdOg, ~6hi~a1sov, ~ /Thae7og, Kap1raao~, atvd6v. ~ vc432La, Ktvvpa, aajs/Thicii, & c. 35 36 THE TALMUD. dogmas through its vague phraseology, as- sumed very monstrous shapes indeed. But it had become in the hands of the people a mongrel idiom and, though gifted with a line feeling for the distinguishing characters of each of the languages then in common use (Ararnaic lends itself best to ele ics Greek to hymns, Hebrew to prayer, Ro~an to martial compositions, as a common saying has it), they yet mixed them all up, some- what in the manner of the Pennsylvanians of to-day. After all, it was but the faithful reflex of those who made this idiom an en- during language. These Masters of the Law formed the most mixed assembly in the world. There were not only natives of all the parts of the world-wide Roman em- pire among them, but also denizens of Arabia and India; a fact which accounts for many phenomena in the Talmud. But there is hardly anything of domestic or public pur- port, which was not called either by its Greek or Latin name, or by both, and gen- erally in so questionable a shape, and in such obsolete forms, that both classical and Semitic scholars have oftcn need to go through a whole course of arch~ology and antiquities before unravelling it.* Save only one province, that of agriculture. This alone, together with some other trades, had r~tained the 01(1 homely Semitic words: thereby indicating, not, as ignorance might be led to coucl~ide, that the nation was averse to it, but exactly the contrary: that from the early days of Joshua they had never ceased to cherish the thought of sit- ting under their own vine and fig-tree. We refi~r for this point to the idyllic picture given in the Mishnah of the procession that went up to Jerusalem with the first~fruits, accompanied by the sound of the flute, the * Greek or Latin, or both, were the terms commonly employed by them for the table (rp.w~Te, tabula, Tptmn& ~?,t, rpiwovt),~the chair, tac bench, the cushion (subselliuiu, accubitum), ihe room in which they lived and slept (lcoimw, nn~, v~r6pe), the cup (cyathus, phiala potoria) cut of which they drank, the eating and drink- irig itsclf (~uogarum, collyra, wepoiPit, yXcfwot, ecraton, opsonium, & c.). Of their dress we have the a~-o2~, sagnin, dalmatica, bracen, cmnrodota. On their head they wore a pilens, and they girded themselves with a ~6vy. The words saudalium, solca, soleus, talaria, impilia, indicate the footgear. Ladies adorned them- selves with the catella, cochlcar, 7r6pwr~, and other sorts of rings and bracelets, and in general whatever appertained to a Greek or Roman ladys fine apparel. Among the arms which the men wore are mentioned the ~6y~y, the spear, the ,ilzXapa (a word found in Genesis), the pugio. sacrificial bull with gilt horns and an olive- garland round his head proudly marching in front. The Talmud does, indeed, offer us a perfect picture of the cosmopolitanism and luxury of those final days of Rome, such as but few classical or postclassical writing contain. We find mention made of Spanish fish, of Cretan apples, Bithynian cheese, Egyptian lentils and beans, Greek and EgVptian pumpkins, Italian wine, Median beer, Egyptian Zyphus: garments were import- ed from Pelusium and India, shirts from Cilicia, and veils from Arabia. To the Arabic, Persian, and Indian materials con- tained, in addition to these, in the Gemara, a bare allusion may suffice. So much we venture to predict, that when once archmno- logical and linguistic science shall turn to this field, they will not leave it again soon. We had long pondered over the best way of illustrating to our readers the extraordi- nary manner in which the Haggadah, that second current of the Talmud, of which we spoke in the introduction, suddenly inter- rupts the course of the Halacha, when we bethought ourselves of the device of an old master. It was a hot Eastern afternoon, and while he was expounding some intricate subtlety of the law, his hearers quietly fell away in drowsy slumbers. All of a sudden he burst out: There was once a woman in Egypt who brought forth at one birth six hundred thousand men. And our readers may fancy how his audience started up at this remarkable tale of the prolific Egyp- tian woman. Her name, the master calmly proceeded, was Jochebed, and she was the mother of Moses, who was worth as much as all those six hundred thousand armed men together who went up from Egypt. The Professor then, after a brief legendary di- gression, proceeded with his legal intricacies, and his hearers slept no more that afternoon. An Eastern mind seems peculiarly consti- tuted. Its passionate love for things wise and witty, for stories and tales, for parables and apologues, does not leave it even in its most severe studies. They are constantly needed, it would appear, to keep the cur- rent of its thoughts in motion; they are the playthings of the grown-up children of the Orient. The Haggadab, too, has an exe~, e- sis, a system, a method of its own. They are peculiar, fantastic things. We would rather not follow too closely its learned di- visions into homiletical, ethical, historical, general and special Haggadah. The Haggadah in general transforms Scrip- ture, as we said, into a thousand themes for its variations. Everything being bound THE TALMUD. up in the Bible the beginning and the end there must be an answer in it to all questions. Find the key, and all the rid- (ties in it are solved. The persons of the Bible the kings and the patriarchs, the heroes and the prophets, the women and the children, what they did and suffered, their happiness and their doom, their words and their lives became, apart from their pre- supposed historical reality, a symbol and an allegory. And what the narrative had omitted, the Haggadah supplied in many va- riations. It filled up these gaps, as a prophet looking into the past might do; it explained the motives; it enlarged the story; it found connections between the re- motest countries, ages, and people, often with a startling realism; it drew sublime morals from the most commonplace facts. Yet it did all this by quick and sudden mo- tions, to us most foreign; and hence the fre- quent misunderstanding of its strange and wayward moods. Passing strange, indeed, are the ways of this Prophetess of the Exile, who appears wherever and whenever she listeth, and dis- appears as suddenly. Well can we under- stand the distress of mind in a medieval di- vine, or even in a modern savant, who, bent upon following the most subtle windings of some scientific debate in the Talmudical pages geometrical, botanical, financial, or otherwise as it revolves round the Sabbath journey, the raising of seeds, the computation of tithes and taxes feels, as it were, the ground suddenly give way. The loud voices grow thin, the doors and walls of the school-room vanish before his eyes, and in their place uprises Rome the Great, the Urbs et Orbis, and her million- voiced life. Or the blooming vineyards around that other City of Hills, Jerusalem the Golden herself, are seen, and white-clad virgins move dreamily among them. Snatches of their songs are heard, tbe rhythm of their choric dances rises and falls: it is the most dread Day of Atonement it- self, which, in most poetical contrast, was chosen by the Roses of Sharon as a day of rejoicing to walk among those waving lilly-fields and vine-clad slopes. Or the clarion of rebellion rings high and shrill through the complicated debate, and Bel- shazzar, the story of whose ghastly banquet is told with all the additions of maddening horror, is doing service for Nero the bloody; or Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian tyrant, and all his hosts, are cursed with a yelling curse ~z propos of some utterly inappro- priate legal point; while to the initiated he stands for Titus the at last exploded Delight of Humanity. The symbols and hieroglyphs of the Haggadah, when fully explained some day, will indeed form a very curious contribution to the unwritten history of man. Oftenfartoooftenforthe in- terests of study and the glory of the hu- man race does the steady tramp of the Roman cohort, the pass-word of the revo- lution, the shriek and clangour of the bloody field, interrupt these debates, and the argu- ing masters and diciples don their arms, and, with the cry Jerusalem and Liberty, rush to the fray. Those who look with an eye of disfavour upon all these extraneous matters as repre- sented by the Jiaggadab in the Talmud the fairy tales and the jests, the stories and the parables, and all that strange a~,glome- ration of foreign things crystallized around the legal kernel should remember, above all, one fact. As this tangled mass lies be- fore us, it represents at best a series of pho- tographic slides, half broken, mutilated, a. d faded: though what remains of them is startlingly faithful to the original. As the disciple had retained, in his memory or his quick notes, the tenor of the single debates, interspersed with the thousand allusions. reminiscences, aperfus. facts, quotations, au(l the rest, so he perpetuated it sometimes well, sometimes ill. If well, we have a feeling as if, after a long spell of musings or ponderings, we were trying to retrace the course of our ideas and the most incongru- ous things spring up and disappear, appar- ently without rhyme or reason. And yet there is a deep significance and connection in them. Creeping or flying, melodious or grating, they carry us on; and there is just this difference in the talmudical wanderings, that they never lose themselves. Suddenly, when least expected, the original question is repeated, together with the answer, distilled as it were out of these thousand foreign things of which we did not always see the drift. If ill reported, the page becomes like a broken dream, a half-transparent palimp- sest. Would it perhaps have been better if a wise discretion had guided the hands of the first redactors? We think not. The most childish of trifles, found in an Assyrian mound, is of value to him who understands such things, and who from them may deduce a number of surprisingly important results. We shall devote the brief space that re- mains to this Haggadah. And for a general picture of it we shall refer to Bunyan, who, speaking of his own book, which ?nutatis mutandis is very Tiaggadistic, unknow- ingly describes the Haggadab as accurately as can be : 37 38 Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? Wouldst thou read riddles and their expla- nation ()r cIsc he drowned in thy contemplation? Dost thou love picking meat? Or wouldst thou see A man i the clouds, and hear him speak to thee? Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep? Or, wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep? Wouldst lose thyself, and catch no harm? And find thysef again without a charm Wouldst read thyself; and read thou knowst not what? And yet know whether thou art hlest or not By reading the same lines? 0 then come hither, And lay this hook, thy head and heart to- gether. . We would not reproach those who, often with the best intentions in the world, have brought almost the entire Haggadistic prov- ince into disrepute. We really do not wonder that the so-called rabbinical stories, that have fi-om time to time been brought before the English public, have not met with the most flattering reception. The Talmud, -which has a drastic word for every occasion, says, They dived into an ocean, and brought up a potshcrd. First of all, these stories foi-m only a small item in the vast mass of allegories, parables, and the like, that make up the Ha~adah And they were partly ill-chosen, partly badly rendered, and partly did not even helong to the Talmud, hut to some recent Jewish story- book. Herder to name the most eminent judge of the Poetry of Peoples, has extolled what he saw of the genuine specimens, in transcend- ental terms. And, in truth, not only is the entire world of pit)us biblical legend which Islam has said and sung in its many tongues, to the delio-ht of the wise and simple for twelve centuries, now to he found either in embryo or fully developed in the Ilaggadab, but much that is familiar among ourselves in tIfe circles of medieval sagas, in Dante, in Boccaccio, in Cervantes, in Milton, in Bunyan, has consciously or unconsciously flowed out of this wondrous realm, the Hag- gatlab. That much of it is overstrained, even according to Eastern notions, we do not deny. But there are feeble passages even in Homer and Shakspeare, and there are always people with a happy instinct for picking out the weakest portions of a work; while even the best pages of Shakspeare and THE TALMUD. Homer are apt to be spoiled by awkward manipulation. At the same time we are far from advising a wholesale translation of these Haggadistic productions. Nothing could be more tedious than a continuous course of such reading, though choice bits fi-om them would satisfy even the most fastidious critic. And such bits, scattered through the Tal- mud, are delightfully refreshing. It is, unfortunately, not in our power to indicate any specimens of its strikingly keen interpretations, of its gorgeous dreams, its Beautiful old stories, Tales of angels, fairy legends, Stilly histories of ruartyrs, Festal songs and words of wisdom; Hyperboles, most quaint it may he, Yet replete with strength, and fire, And faith how they gleam, And glow, and glitter! as Heine has it. It seems of more moment to call attention to an entirely new branch of investigation, namely, talmudical metaphysics and ~thics, such as may be gleaned from the Haggadab, of which we shall now take a brief glance. Beginning with the Creation, we fitid the gradual development of the Cosmos fully recognised by the Talmud. It assumes de- struction after destruction, stage after stage. And in their quaintly ingenious manner the Masters refer to the verse in Genesis, And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good, and to that other in Eceles. at. 11, God created everything in its proper sea- son, and argue He created worlds upon worlds, and destroyed them one after the other, until He created this world. He then said,This pleases me, the others did not; in its proper season it was not meet to create this world until now. The Talmud assumes some original sub- stahee, itself created by God, out of which the Universe was shaped. There is a. per- ceptible leaning to the early Greek schools. One or three things were before this world: Water, Fire, an(l Wind: Water begat thc Darkness, Fire begat Light, and Winti begat the Spirit of Wisdom. The Now of the Creation was not even matter of speculation. The co-operation of an~cls, whose existence was warranted by Sin-ripture, and a whole hierarchy of whom had been built up under Persian influences, was distinctly denied. In a discussion about the day of their crea- tion it is agreed, on all hands, that there were no angels at first, lest tnen might say Michael spanned out the firmament on the south, and Gabriel to the north. There is a distinct foreshadowing of the gnostic l)cmi~ THE TALMUD. 39 urgos that antique link between the Di- planet for Israel. Israel shall look but to vine Spirit and the World of Matter to Him. There is no mediator between those be found in the Talmud. What with Plato who are called His children, and their were the Ideas, with Philo the Logos, with Father which is in Heaven. The Jeru- the Kabbalists the World of Aziluth, what salem Talmud, written under the direct in- the Guostics called more emphatically the fluence of Roman manners and customs, wisdom (eo~ia) or power (6~va~u~), and Plo- has the following parable: A man has a tinus the roi~, that the Talmudical Authors patron. If some evil happens to him, he does call Metatron.* The angels whose names, not enter suddenly into the presence of this accor(liOg to the Talmud itself, the Jews patron, but he goes and stands at the door brought back from Babylon play, after of his house. He does not ask for the pa- the exile, a very different part from those tron, but for his favourite slave, or his son, before the exile. They are, in fact, more who then goes and tells the master inside: or less Persian: as are also for the most The man N. N. is standing at the gate of part all incantations, the magical cures, the the hall: shall he come in or not? Not so sidereal influences, aud the rest of the hen- the holy, praised be He. If misfortune comes lien elements contained in the Talmud. upon a man, let him not cry to Michael, and Even the number of the Angelic Princes is not to Gabriel, but unto Me let him cry, seven, like that of the Arnesha-cpeiitas, and and I will answer him right speedily as it their Hebrew names and their functions is said, Every one who shall call on the correspond, as nearly as can be, to those of name of the Lord shall be saved. their Persian prototypes, who, on their own The end and aim of Creation is man, who, part, have only at this moment been dis- therefore, was created last, when every covered to be merely allegorical names for thing was ready for his reception. When Gods supreme qualities. Much as the Tal- he has reached the perfection of virtue, he mudical authorities inveigh against those is higher than the an~els themselves. heathen ways, sympathetic cures, the ex- Miracles are considered by the Talmud orcisms of demons, the charms, and the rest, much as Leibnitz regards all the move- the working of miracles, very much in ments of every limb of our body as only iose dayi vet they themselves possible through a sort of prestahilitated vogue in tI ~, were drawn into large concessions to angels harmony; i. e., the course of creation w s and demons. Besides the seven Angel not disturbed by them, but they were all pri- Princes, there are hosts of ministering an- mevally existing, pre-ordained. They gels the Persian Yazatas whose fune- were created at the end of all other things, tions, besides that of being messengers, are in the gloaming of the sixth day. Among twofold; to praise God and to be ruardians them, however, was and this will interest of man. In their first capacity they are dai- our palteographers also the art of writing: ly created by Gods breath out of a stream an invention considered beyond all arts: of fire that rolls its waves under the divine nothing short of a miracle. Creation, throne. As guardian angels (Persian Era- together with these so-called exceptions, vasliis) two of them accompany every man, once established, nothing could be altered and for every new good deed man acquires in it. The Laws of Nature went on by a new guardian angel, who always watches their own immutable force, however much over his steps. When the righteous dies, evil might spring therefrom. These wicked three hosts of angels meet him. One says ones not only vulgarize my coin, says the (in the words of Scripture), He shall go in Haggadah with reference to the propagation peace, the second takes up the strain and of the evil-doers and their kin, bearing the says, Who has walked in righteousness, human face divine, but they actually make and the thir(l concludes, Let him come in me impress base coin with my own stamp. peace and rest upon his bed. If the wicked Gods real name is ineffable; but there are leaves the world, three hosts of wicked an- many designations indicative of his qualities, gels come to meet him, such as the Merciful (Rachman, a name of XVith regard to the providential guid- frequent occurrence both in the Koran and ance of the Universe, this was in Gods hand in the Talmud), the Holy One, the Place, alone. As lIe is the sole CPeator and Legis- the Heavens, the Word, Our Father which lator, so also is He the sole arbiter of des- is in Heaven, the Almighty, the Shechinah, tinies. Every iiation, the Talmud says, or Sacred Presence. has its special guardian angel, its horoscopes, The doctrine of the soul bears more the its ruling planets and stars. But there is no impress of the Platonic than of the Aristote- lian school. It is held to he pre-existing. * This name is most prqbably nothing but Mithra. All souls that are ever to be united to bodies 40 THE TALMUD. have been created once for all, and are rusalem on the day of the great trumpet, we hidden away from the first moment of crea- need not here tell in detail. These half- tion. They, being creatures of the highest metaphysical, half-mystical speculations are realms, are cognisant of all things, but, at throughout in th~. manner of the more poet- Jhe hour of their birth in a human body, an ical early Church fathers of old and of angel touches the mouth of the child, which Bunyan in our times. Only the glow of causes it to forget all that has been. Very imagination and the conciseness of language striking is the comparison between the soul in which they are mostly told in the Talmud and God, a comparison which has an almost contrast favourably with the verboseness of pantheistic look. As God fills the whole later times. The Resurrection is to take universe, says the Haggadah, so the soul place by the mystic power of the Dew of fills the whole body; as God sees aud is not Life in Jerusalem on Mount Olivet, add seen, so the soul sees and is not seen; as God the Targums. nourishes the whole universe, so the soul There is no everlasting damnation accord- nourishes the whole body; as God is pure, ing to the Talmud. There is only a tempo- so the soul is pure. This purity is specially rary punishment even for the worst sinners. dwelt upon in contradistinction to the theory Generations upon generations shall last of hereditary sin, which is denied. There the damnation of idolaters, apostates, and is no death without individual sin, no pain traitors. But there is a space of only two without individual transgression. That fingers breath between Hell and Heaven; same spirit that dictated in the Pentateuch, the sinner has but to repent sincerely and And parents shall not die for their chil- the gates to everlasting bliss will spring dien, nor the children for their parents, open. No human being is excluded from has ordained that no one should be pun- the world to come. Every man, of what. ished for anothers transgressions. In the ever creed or nation, provided he be of the judgment on sin the anirnus is taken into righteous, shall be admitted into it. The consideration. The desire to commit the punishment of the wicked is not specified, vice is held to be more wicked than the vice as indeed all the descriptions of the next itself. world are left vague, yet, with regard to The fear of God, or a virtuous life, the Paradise, the idea of something inconceiva- whole aim and end of a mans existence, is bly glorious is conveyed at every step. The entirely in mans hand. Everything is in passage, Eye has not seen, nor has ear Gods hand save the fear of God. But one heard, is applied to its unspeakable bliss. hour of repentance is better than the whole In the next world there will be no eating, world to come. The fullest liberty is grant- no drinking, no love and no labour, no envy, ed in this respect to every human bein~, no hatred, no contest. The Righteous will thou~h the help of God is necessary for carry- sit with crowns on their heads, glorying in ing it out. the Splendour of Gods Majesty. The dogma of the Resurrection and of The essence of prophecy gives rise to Immortality, vaguely indicated in the va- some speculation. One decisive talmudical rious parts of the Old Testament, has been dictum is, that God does not cause his spirit fixed by the Talmud, and traced to several to rest upon any one but a strong, wise, rich, biblical passages. Various are the similes and humble man. Strong and rich are in by which the relation of this world to the the Mishnah explained in this wise: Who world to come is indicated. This world is is strong? He who subdues his passion. like unto a Prosdora to the next: Prepare Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his thyself in the hall, that thou mayest be ad- lot. There are degrees among prophets. mitted into the palace: or This world is Moses saw everything clearly; the other like a road-side inn (hospitium), but the prophets as in dark mirrors. Ezekiel and world to come is like the real home. The Isaiah say the same things, but Ezekiel like a righteous are represented as perfecting town-bred man, Isaiah like a villager. The themselves and developing all their highest prophets word is to be obeyed in all things, faculties even in the next world; for the save when he commands the worship of idola-. righteous there is no rest, neither in this world try. The notion of either Elijah or Moses hay- nor in the next, for they go, say the Scrip- ing in reality ascendedto Heaven is utterly tures, from host to host, from striving to repudiated, as well as that of the Deity (She- striving: they will see God in Zion. chinah) having descended from Heaven How all its deeds and the hour when more than ten hands breadth. they were committed are unfolded to The philosophy of religion will be best the sight of the departed soul, the ter- comprehended by some of those small coins. rors of the grave, the rolling back to Je- the popular and pithy sayings, gnomes, THE TALMUD. proverbs, and the rest, which, even better than street songs, characterise a time. With these we shall conclude. We have thought it preferable to give them at random as we found them, instead of building up from them a system of Ethics or Duties of the heart. We have naturally preferred the better and more characteristic ones that came in our way. We may add a remark perhaps not quite surperfluous that the following specimens, as well as the quotations which we have given in the course of this article, have been all translated by us, as literally as possible, from the Talmud itself. Be thou the cursed, not he who curses. Be of them that are persecuted, not of them that persecute. Look at Scripture there is not a single bird more persecuted than the dove yet God has chosen her to be offered up on his al- tar. The bull is hunted by the lion, the sheep by the wolf, the goat by the tiger. And God said, Bring me a sacrifice, not from them that persecute, but from them that are persecuted. We read (Ex. xvii. 11) that while, in the contest with Amalek, Moses lifted up his arms, Israel prevailed. Did Moses hands make war or break war But this is to tell you that as long as Israel are looking upwards, and hum- l)lin~ their hearts before their Father which is in Heaven, they prevail; if not, they fall. In the same way you find (Num. xxi. 9), And Mo- ses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the ser- pent of brass, he lived. Dost think that a serpent killeth or giveth life I But as long as israel are looking upwards to their Father which is in Heaven they will h-ie; if not, they will die. Has God pleasure in the meat and blood of sacrifices I ~ asks the prophet. No lie has not so much ordained as permitted them. It is for yourselves, he says, not for me, that you offer. Like a king, who sees his son ca- rousing daily with all manner of evil compan- ions: You shall henceforth eat and drink en- tirely at your will at my own table, he says. They offered strerifices to demons and devils, for they loved sacrificinir, and could not do without it. And the Lord said, Bring your offerings to Me ; you shall then at least offer to the true God. Scripture ordains that the Hebrew slave who loves his bondage, shall have his ear pierced against the door-post. Why because it is that ear which heard on Sinai, They are My servants, they shall not be sold as bondsmen : They are My ser- vants, not servants servants. And this man voluntarily throws away his precious freedom Pierce his car lie who sacrifices a whole offering, shall be rewarded for a whole offering; he ~vho offers a burnt-offering, shall have the reward of a burnt-offering; but he who offers humility unto God and man, shall be rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sac- rifices in the world. The child loves its mother more than its father. it fears its fa- ther more than its mother. See how the Scrip- ture makes the father precede the mother in the injunction, Thou shalt love thy father and thy mother; and the mother, when it says, Honour thy mother and thy father. Bless God for the good as well as the evil. When you hear of a death, say, Blessed is the righteous Judge. Even ~vhen the gates of prayer are shut in heaven, those of tears are open. Prayer is Israels only weapon, a weapon inherited from its fathers, a weapon tried in a thousand battles. When the right- eous dies, it is the earth that loses. The lost jewel will always be a jewel, but the possessor who has lost itwell may he weep. Life is a passing shadow, says the Scripture. Is it the shadow of a tower, of a tree I A shadow that prevails for a while No, it is the shadow of a bird in his flight away flies the bird, and there is neither bird nor shadow. Repent one day before thy death. There was a king who bade all his servants to a great repast, but did not indicate the hour : some went home and put on their best garments and stood at the door of the palace; others said, There is ample time, the king will let us know beforehand. But the king summoned them of a sudden; and those that came in their best garments were well re- ceived, but the foolish ones, who carrie in their slovenliness, were turned away in disgrace. Repent to-day, lest to-morrow ye might be sum- moned. The aim and end of all wisdom are repentance and good works. Even the most righteous shall not attain to so high a place in Heaven as the truly repentant. Ihe reward of good works is like dates: sweet and ripening late. The dying benediction of a sage to his disciples was: I pray for you that the fear of Heaven may be as strong upon you as the fear of man. You avoid sin before the face of the latter: avoid it before the face of the All-seeing. If your God hates idolatry, why does he not destroy it I a heathen asked. And they an- swered him: Behold, they worship the sun, the moon, the stars; would you have him destroy this beautiful world for the sake of the foolish I If your God is a friend of the poor, asked another, why does he not support them Their case, a sage answered, is left in our hands, that we may thereby acquire merits and forgiveness of sin. But what a merit it is the other re- plied ; suppose I am angry with one of my slaves, and forbid him food and dri.nk, and some one goes and gives it him furtively, shall I he much pleased I Not so, the other replied. Snp- pose you are wroth with your only son, and im- prison him without food; and some good man has pity on the child, and saves him from the pangs of hunger, would you be so very angry with the man I And we, if we are called ser- vants of God, are also called his children. lie who has more learning than good works is like a tree with many branches but few roots, which the first wind throws on its face ; whilst he whose works are greater than his knowledge is like a 41 THE TALMUD. tree with many roots and fewer branches, but which all the winds of heaven cannot uproot. Love your wife like yourself, honour her more than yourself. Whosoever lives unmar- ried, lives without joy, without comfort, without blessing. I)escend a step in choosing a wife. If thy wife is small, bend down to her and whis- ~ into her ear. He who forsakes the love of his youth, Gods alt. r weeps for him. He who sees his wife die before him has, as it were, been present at the destruction of the sanctuary itself around him the world grows dark. It is woman alone through whom Gods blessings are vouchsafed to a house. She teaches the children, speeds the husband to the place of woridp and instruction, welcomes him when he returns, keeps the house godly and pure, and Gods blessings rest upon all these things. He who marries for money, his children shall be a curse to him. The house that does not open to the poor shall open to the physician. The birds in the air even despise the miser. lIe who gives charity in secret is greater than Mo- ses himself. 1-lonour the sons of the poor, it is they who bring science into splendour. Let the honour of thy neighbour be to thee like thine own. Rather be thrown into a fiery fur- nace than bring any one to public shame. Hospitality is the most important part of l)i- vine worship. [here arc three crowns of the law, the priesthood, the kings hip ; but the crown of a good name is greater than them all. Iron breaks the stone, fire melts iron, water ex- tinguishes fire, the clouds drink up the water, a storm drives away the clouds, man withstands the storm, fear unmans man, wine dispels fear, sleep drives away wine, and death sweeps all away even sleep. But Solomon the Wise says: Charity saves fom Death. How can you escape sin 3 Think of three things whence thou comest, whither thou guest, and to whom thou wilt have to account for all thy deeds : even to the King of Kings, the All-holy, praised be He. Four shall not enter Paradise: the scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite, and the slanderer. To slander is to murder. The cock and the owl both await the daylight. The light, says tlse cock, brings delight to me, but what are you waiting for When the thief has no oppoctunity for stealing, he considers himself an honest man. If thy friends agree in calling thee an ass, go and get a baiter around thee. Thy friend has a friend, and thy friends friend has a friend: be discreet. The log sticks to you on account of the crumbs in your pocket. He in whose family there haa been one hanged should not say to his neigh- bour, Pray hang this little fish up for me. The camel anted to have horns, and they took away his ears. The soldiers fight, and the kings are the heroes. The thief invokes God while he breaks into the house. The woman of sixty will run after music like one of six. After the thief runs the theft; after the be~gar, pover- ty. While thy foot is shod, smash the thorn. When the ox is do~vn, many are the butchers. I)esceud a step in choosing a wife, mount a step in choosing a friend. If there is anything bad about you, say it yourself. Luck makes rich, luck makes wise. Beat the gods, and the priests will tremble. Were it not for the ex- istence of passions, no one would build a house, marry a wife, beget children, or do any work. The sun will go down all by himself, witlsout your assistance. The world could not well get on without perfumers and without tanners : but woe unto the tanner, well to the perfumer! Fools are no proof. No man is to be made re- sponsible for words which he utters in his grief. One eats, another says grace. He who is ashamed will not easily commit sin. There is a great difference between him who is ashamed before his own self and him who is only ashamed before others. It is a good sign in man to be capable of being ashamed. One contrition in man s heart is batter than many flagellations. If our ancestors were like angels, we are like men; if our ancestors were like men, we are like asses. Do nut live near a pious fool. If you wish to hang yourself, choose a big tree. Rather eat onions and sit in the shadow, and do not eat geese and poultry if it makes thy heart uneasy within thee. A small starer (coin) in a large jar makes a big noise. A myrtle, even in a desert, remains a myrtle. When the pitcher falls upnn the stone, woe unto the pitcher; when the stone Pills upon the pitcher, woe unto the pitcher whatever befalls, woe unto the pitcher. Even if the bull have his head deep in his trough, hasten upon the roof, and drag the ladder after you. Get your living by skinning car- casses in the street, if you cannot otherwise, and do not say, I am a priest, I am a great man; this work would not befit my dignity. Youth is a garland of roses, age is a crown of thorns. Use a noble vase even for one day let it bre~k to-morrow. The last thief is hanged first. Teach thy tongue to say, I do not know. The heart of our first ancestors was as large as the largest gate of the Temple, that of the later ones like that of the next large one; ours is like the eye of a needle. Drink not, and you will not sin. Not what yu say about ycurself, but what others say. Not the place honours the man, but the man the place. Tue cat and the rat make peace over a carease. A dog away from his native kennel dares not to bark for seven years. He who walks daily over his estates finds a little coin each time. He who humiliates himself will be hifed up; he who raises himself up will be humiliated. Whosoever runs after greatness, greatness runs away from him; he who runs from reatncss, greatness follows him. I-Ic who en hs his wrath, his sins will be foreiven. Weosoever does not persecute them that persecute him, whosoever takes an oflbnee in silence, he who does good beca se of love, he who is cheerful under his sufferings they are the friends of God, and of them the Scripture says, And they shall shine forth as does the sun at noonday. Pride is like idolatry. Cornmit~ a sin twice, and you will think it perfectly allowable. When 42 A RELEASED PRISONER. the end of a man is come, everybody lords it over him. While our love was stron~,, we lay on the edge of a sword; now it is no longer strong, a sixty-yard-wide bed is too narrow for us. A Galilean said When the shepherd js angry with his flock, he appoints to it a blind hell-wether. The day is short and the work is great; but the lahorers are idle, though the re- ward he great, and the master of the work presse~. It is not iucumbent upon thee to complete the work: hut thou must not there- fore cease from it. If thou hast worked much, great shall be thy reward: for the master who employed thee is faithful in his payment. But know that the true reward is not of this world. . Solemnly, as a warning and as a comfort, this adage strikes on our car: And it is not incumbent upou thee to complete the work. When the Masters of the Law en- tered and left the academy they used to offer, up a short but fervent prayer, in which we would fain join at this monlient a prayer of thanks that they had been able to carry out their task thus far; and a prayer further, that no evil might arise at their hands, that they might not have fallen into error, that they might not declare pure that which was impure, impure that which was pure, and that their words might he pleasing and acceptable to God and to their fellow- men. portions of the building where the tread- mill, shot drill, and oakum-picking are go- ing on all day, while a steep stone staircase ascends to the upper regions, where the in- conceivably gloomy little cells are placed, which are only rather better than the black hole destined for the improvement of re- fractory prisoners. Altogether it would not be easy to imagine a more forbidding place of incarceration for offenders against the majesty of the law. One morning in the early part of the year, when earth, and air, and sky were all filled with the inexpressible sweetness and beauty of returning spring, a prisoner lay upon his narrow bed, in a cell at the very top of this old gaol. Very dark and cold was the cell, while the glorious sunshine was lavishing its light and warmth on the free air without, and the convict shivered as he drew the coarse brown coverlet closer round his gaunt, attenuated frame. The outline of his massive limbs, now shrunk and wasted, was plainly seen through the scanty covering, and showed that he had been a tall powerful man of great physical strength; while the strongly-marked fea- tures of the wan, thin face were even yet expressive of the energy and determination which he was never more to exercise for good or evil for the man was sick unto death. He had entered almost the last stage of lingering decline. His thick black hair was matted with the heavy dews From Good Words. which drained his strength every night. His broad chest, where the bone~ seemed almost starting through the skin, was shaken continually by his hacking cough, THE gaol in the ancient city of is a and the large muscular hands that lay on dark massive old building that has remained the coverlet were powerless as those of a unchanged among all the modern improve- child. Only his eyes, dark and keen, re- meats which have produced our model pris- tained some of their former fire, and shone ens and new convict establishments. A: with feverish brilliancy under the bushy portentous wall, thick and high enough to black eyebrows which overhung them. It stand a siege, surrounds it on all sides, I wAs sad to see the wreck of so much physi- leaving onmy a portion of the roof visible to cal power, but sadder still to note the cx- the ooter world. Through this wall a pression of hopeless misery on the sullen hu~e black door, guarded on cithor side by face, which told of a soul wasting under far two enormous cannons, leads into an enclos- more deadly evils than those which were ore which is mournfully ornamented by a consuming his worn frame. A jug of Wa- few sickly plants languishing in the perpet- ter stood on a chair by his side, with which cal shadow. Here the gaol itself stands he tried from time to time to cool his a great mass of gloomy stone, pierced at parched lips; but it was a fiercer thirst rare intervals by little oblong windows, which made him look up coutinisahly with closely barred and not more than a foot in such an eager, loaging gaze to the dismal height. Another black door, as menacing little window, and then turn, sighin~ impa- as the first, gives entrance into a stone ball, tiently, to bury his face on the pillow. the walls of which are decorated with hand- Meanwhile the governor of the prison, a cuffs and various other formidable-looking grave, somewhat stern-looking man, was instruments. From this centre, iron-elad standing in his own sitting-room below, doors, turning on a pivot, lead into those I talking to a lady who had just comae in. A RELEASED PRISONER. 43 44 A RELEASED PRISONER. She was a habitual visitor at the gaol, who, as he expressed it, took such a won- and had permission to see the female pris- derful deal of trouble with this precious lot oners whenever she chose; but she was of blackguards. only allowed to visit the men when serious Youll have a stiff job with this here sickness detained them in their separate chap, maam, if you are going to try to cells. It happened, however, that she had make a Christian of him, he said, as they been absent since the prisoner we have toiled up the steep stone staircase to,,ether. been deseribin g had been so ill as to be You should just hear him swear! confined to bed, and she had hitherto Well, I think I would rather not, she known nothing of his case. answered, with a smile; but perhaps there I have been hoping you would come, is a little good in him somewhere, Perry, Miss M, said the governor; we have which you have not discovered yet. got a sick man just now whom the chaplain If there is, maam, youll be the one to can make nothing of, and I do not like to find it out, I know very well; but I will say think of his going out of the world like a this, bad as he is, I am sorry for the poor dumb beast, i~ he seems to be doing. devil excuse the word, maam, it slipped Is he dying, then? out unawares he do pine and groan so Dying as certainly as ever man was. for his time to be up that he may go out The doctor says he cannot live till his term from here, and it is certain sure hell never of imprisonment is over, and that is in a go out but in his coffin. Ill just run on and month from this time. He is consumptive. see if he is ready for you. Who is he? said Miss M. He hurried up the remaining steps, and That is more than any of us can tell as he unlocked the door and went into the you, replied the governor. He calls him- cell, she heard him say to the prisoner, self John Hill, but he owns that is not his lleres a lady come to see you, Hill, so real name. He will not say where his na- see that you mind your manners, and dont ive place is, or where his friends are, be- turn your back on her as you do on the cause he is afraid he should let them know parson. of his hopeless illness, and he says he has He held the door open for her till she been such a disgrace to them all, they passed in, and then Went out, closing it after would wish nothing better than that he him, and saying that he would remain within should die and be buried in some distant call till she was ready to leave the cell. place. where they could never hear of him Miss M sat down beside the pris again. oner, who was now lying with his hands Poor fellow! said Miss M. clasped above his head, gazing up at the Ab, but you ow,ht to know he has been window, and he turned his eyes upon her, a very bad fellow, too. He has had twelve as she took her place, with a half indiffer- months here for burglary, and the only ent look of surprise and curiosity, but with- thing we really know of him is, that he has out the slightest change in the expression of been in several gaols before. We traced dogged hopelessness which was the marked him back six or seven years, and the most characteristic of his face. As she looked of that time he has spent in prison for dif- on the guilty, despairing man before her, ferent offences, and his conduct in here has dying in ghastly defiance of all those who not been such as to let me show him much might have given him hope in his death, indulgence, even since he has been ill. I her heart went out to him, in a compassion- wish you to see him because the man is dy- ate tenderness, which shone in her eyes ing, and I am bound to do what I can for and thrilled in her voice, as she addressed the good of his soul; but you must not sup- him in the gentlest of accents. She told pose I expect you to be able to move him one him how she grieved to see him so ill, how way or other; he is as sullen and dogged very hard it must be for him to lie there with the chaplain and the rest of us as ever suffering day and night, and how much she he can be. He is past reformation; you felt for him in all he had to endure. Not may depend upon it he will die the villain a word did she attempt of religious teach- he has always been. ing; not the slightest allusion did she make Well. I shall be glad to go to him, said to his position as a criminal. She spoke to Miss IX!, and the governor called the him as she might have done to her own head turnkey to show her to Hills cell, brother had he lain there suffering before This turnkey, a gaunt, powerful man, was her, and the look of surprise in the prison. a corporal on half~pay, a good honest ers eyes deepened as he listened to her. fellow as ever breathed, and he entertained The hopeless gloom of his face did not quite a romantic friendship for the lady lighten, however, as be said A RELEASED PRISONER. I be mortal bad, sure enough; but I shall never be better till I get out of this awful place. It must, indeed, be dreadful for you to be here, she answered. I pity you so much, for I know how you must long for the fresh air and the green fields. Ab, that I do! he said, with a gasp- ing sigh. The night is your worst time, is it not? said Miss M . I always think the long, dark hours must be terrible here; you are locked up so soon, it must make the time seem as if it would never end. And thats true enough, he answered. Ive been like to hang myself many times o nights. I am glad you have one of the men to stay with you now you are so ill. I hope he is attentive to you? He is little enough good to me, maam, for he sleeps like a blessed un all night. It most drives me wild to see him, for I cant sleep; this cruel cough keeps me waking, sure enough. Poor fellow, she said, compassionately. The chaplain comes to see you in the daytime, does he not? That must make a little change for you. Yes, he said, sullenly; he comes to tell me about hell, and I dont want to hear him; I shall taste it soon enough! and he shuddered. She looked at him sorrowfully for a moment, and then by a sudden im- pulse exclaimed Oh, Hill, you do not know how sorry I am for you; do tell me if there is anything in the world I can do for you; I should be so glad if I could help you. He turned round and stared at her in utter amaze- ment. Im not a man as any one would help, he said at last. Knocking me about, and flinging me into gaols is the best of treat- ment I gets. He tried to take up the jug of water as he spoke, but it was almost too heavy for his tre.mbling hand. Miss M raised it, and held it to his lips. He drank some eagerly, and then pushed it away. Taint no good; it leaves me as dry as I was. I do not think the water is fresh, said Miss M, as she looked at it. No, its bad, like every thing else in this wretched place. And you are so thirsty, she said, with genuine sympathy. I think, however, I could get you something to drink which woukl be more refreshing than this plain water. Do you know what lemonade is? Is that something with lemons and cold water, and just a little sharp to the taste? he asked eagerly. I had some on it at a fair once. Oh, 1 should like some of that, ma am. Could you get it for me? I think I could, she answered. You know it is against rule for me to give you anything myself; but the doctor would, I am sure, order you to have what- ever you required; so I will ask the gover- nor to let you have some at once, and I will get it for ~ou immediately. Oh, maam, I shall be so much obliged to you. I do seem so parched, and you wouldnt believe what a fever I be in at times. I can well understand it, she said. Your head is very hot now, is it not? And she laid her hand gentljy on his fore- head. As he felt the coo, soft touch, he closed his eyes with a sort of sigh of contentment, murmuring, That is beauti- ful ! His head was burning; and, that he might have more permanent relief than her hand could afford, she dipped her handker- chief in cold water, and laid it on his fore- head. He looked up at her gratefully. I am sure I am .very much obliged to you, maam; but do you think, he added, with a half-timid, wistful eagerness~ that I shall be having some of that stuff soon as you spoke of to quench my thirst? You shall have it almost instantly, she said, smiling. I will go at once, and make it at my house; and I will bring it back myself, and give it to the turnkey to bring to you, so that you may have it with- out delay; and I will send you some oranges, too; you would like them, would you not? Oh, that I should! he said, earnestly. Then I will leave you now, that you may have them as soon as possible; and, evidently to his great surprise, shaking hands with him, she left the cell. Perry was overlooking the work of one of the prisoners who was cleaning the pas- sage, and the man was one whom Miss M had known when lie was ill; so she stopped to speak to him while the turnkey went to lock the door of the cell she had left. As he did so, she heard Hill say to him If you please, sir, would you tell me if that lady is paid for coming here the same as the chaplain is? Paid! bless your stupid brains, what- ever makes you fancy such a thing as that? Paid! 1 should think not, indeed. Shes got money of her own that she gives to them as needs; and sadly shes imposed upon, poor lady. But the notion of the 45 A RELEASED PRISONER. like of her being paid! Just you take care I never bear you say such a word again. I meant no offence, said Hill, humbly. Do you think, sir, she will come again to see me? Sure to; she is always here two or three times a week, and she is certain to come up to you. The turnkey came out as he spoke, and locked the door behind him; and as Miss M followed him through the long pas- Rages, she felt more than ever saddened at the condition of the poor prisoner she had left. It was so evident from what he bad said to Perry that the possibility of kind- ness which was not compulsory or the re- sult of self-interest had never before been made known to him in the dark, struggling, wretched life he had led. With some little difficulty, she persuaded the governor that lemonade and oranges came within the definition of the doctors order that Hill was to have whatever was requisite, and he promised that they should be faithfully conveyed to the prisoner as soon as she sent them. When Miss M next visited the gaol, somewhat sooner than usual, as she felt anxious to see the poor man again, the turnkey told her that Hill had never ceased asking when she would be likely to come, and his pleased, respectful greeting as she went in was so different from the gloomy in- difference he had manifested on her first visit that she was quite surprised. She soon saw, however, that it was owing simply to the discovery he had made that she was not, as be expressed it, paid for coming, but that it was genuine interest in himself which brought her. AfLer having told her eagerly how much relief he had derived from the fruit and other things she had sent him, he said, looking at her earnestly it is wonderful goodness in you to come and sit in this here cell with a poor wretch like me. I do think it is wonder- ful. Indeed, Hill, I assure you it is the greatest pleasure to me to come to you, be- cause I hope so much that I may be able to comfort you. And you wish to comfort me? he asked, with a wistful inquirin0 look that was very touching. With my whole heart, she answered warmly. I am so grieved at all you have to suffer that there is nothing I would not do to relieve you if I knew how. A sudden fit of coughing checked him as he was going to answer, and when it was over he lay back exhausted, while she bathed his face and hands with a gentle touch which seemed to calm him stran~ely. When he could speak again, he yielded to the natural craving for human sympathy from which he seemed to have believed himself altogether shut out before, and began to tell her of all his many physical sufferings in complete de- tail, finding apparently real pleasure in the mere sound of her voice as she answered him with words of earnest compassion. He was dwelling on the long sleepless nights of feverish restlessness, and she said Perhaps if you should grow worse, they will think it necessary that you should have a regular sick nurse to sit up with you, and if they do, I will ask the governor to let me come. I am a very good nurse, she added, smiling. He opened his eyes in astonishment. You, maam, to come and sit up all night in this cold cell with me! Yes, why not? she said. And you would do this for me Indeed I would most gladly. I could never have believed it . he ex- claimed, as if speaking more to himself than to her; then his eyes turned involun rilv to the window which his gaze was ever seek- ing. Ah! he saic~, I am safe to get worse if I stay in this dreadful place niuch longer. I believe it would be the death of me if I had not the chance of getting out soon; but, after all, if it were not that they say it will be worse for such as I am in king- dom come, I might as well die as live, fbr Im a poor forsaken wretch without ever a friend in the world. Dont say that, exclaimed Miss MI taking the bony wasted hand in both of hers. You must never feel lonely or forsaken any more, for you have got me for your friend now, and I will be a true one to you as long as you live. You my friend! he said slowly, turn- ing round to look at her. A lady like you my friend! You never mean it surely. Do you think I would deceive you? she said very softly, bending over him, and meeting the gaze of his wondering wistful eyes. You dont look like one as would. No, indeed, I would not. I really mean what I say when I tell you that I want you to take me as your own true friend who will never fail you; and you must speak to me of all your troubles as you would to your mother or sister, and tell me everything you would like me to do for you.~~ A friend! my friend I he said, repeat- ing the words as if he could not bring him- 46 A RELEASED PRISONER. self to realise their meaning. He was silent for a moment, then suddenly grasping her hand almost convulsively, he said Maam, when I came into this wretched place I thought it was all over with me, and that there wasnt a chance of any good ever com- ing to me in the world again. When I took my trial there was not a soul to say a word for me, and all as ever knew me before would have heen glad enough I should rot and die in the gaol and be buried like a dog. I knew that right well, and I did not believe any one would ever look at me again, ex- cept to curse me for a vagabond, and now Ive got a friend! a friend! And as he lay holding her band in his, tears gathered slowly in his dark sunken eyes nnd rolled over his cheeks. flow long was it since the blessed dew of tears had come to soften the arid desolation of that poor hopeless soul, like waters from heaven fidling on the burn- ing sand of a desert waste! As Miss M watched him weeping quietly, and almost unconsciously, his lips still forming the word that had had such power to move him, a bright hope rose in her heart for him, that those poor wandering feet might even yet attain to the eternal shore, and the weary, sin-stained man lie down to rest for ever in the everlasting Arms, f~r the heart that had heen touched by the divine fire of love, when seen through human agency alone, faint and feebly, would surely open wide to receive the glorious fulness of that eternal Tenderness which is the charity that never faileth, and life for evermore. But she could. do no more that day. The turnkey came to tell her it was time to lock up the prisoners for the ni~ht, and she was obliged to loosen her hand gently from Hills grasp, and, with a few kind words, leave him to his solitude. It was very pleasant to Miss M next day, to see the genuine de- light with which the prisoner welcomed her: he was now quite at his ease with her, though perfectly respectful in his manner, and he began to tell her very freely all lie had been feeling and thinking since the day before. lIe had had a better night in every way, he said, and he had dreamt of his mother for the first time for many years; she had died when he was quite a young- ster, but he thought he saw her standing by his bedside as plain as ever in his life, and she had laid her hand on his head just as Miss M had done, and had spoken kindly to him, and he seemed so happyin his dream. Then he went on to speak of his childhood and early years, and how he had learnt to read and write, and had good schooling, only he had made a bad use of it, worse luck! As he rambled on, Miss M saw with satisfaction than in trying to draw this man out of the darkness of his evil life, to the light and hope which fol- lows true repentance, she should not have to combat the almost insurmountable diffi- culty of that unreasoning scepticism which pervades the lower classes to a much greater extent than is generallysupposed. It never seemed to have occurred to John Hill to doubt the truth of that religion which he had learnt in his youth sufficiently well to make him now feel it to be hiscondemna- tion. As he spoke of his first lapses into evil doings, and then touched in general terms on the later years of his life, which he described as having been literally steeped in wickedness, it was evident that he looked upon himself as irretrievahly lost, and that it needed only the conviction of approachin~ death, which had not yet fas- tened itself upon him, to plunge him into ghastly terrors of the retribution awaiting him. It seemed a relief to him to tell out some of the dark thoughts and painful rec- ollections wbich had been pent up in his own sad heart through the long hours of prison solitude, and as he did so he referred continually, with the utmost expressions of delight, to the fact that in Miss M lie had now a friend repeating the word again and again, as if the very sound gave him pleasure, and looking up with grateful eyes when her answers manifested her gen- uine interest in all his griefs and sufferings. At last, Miss M decided on hazarding her first words of direct religious teaching feeling that the time might now be come when they could be safely spoken. If you find it a comfort to have me for your friend, John, what a wonderful happi- ness it is to think that you have a far better Friend, who loves and cares for you a thou- sand times beyond what I or any human being can! He looked at her in blank astonish- ment Who might you mean, my dear lady? The best and dearest Friend we can any of us have, she answered in a low tone; the only one who can help us when our fellow-creatures can do no more for us the Lord Jesus Christ, the hlessed Say- iour of the world. His face darkened, and he half turned away He is no friend to me, maam, such as I am. I know that well enough. He is waiting to send me down to hell. Oh, no, John ! she exclaimed earnest- ly. He is waiting to save you longing 47 48 A RELEASED PRISONER. to bless you. He gave His very life for tender as that of a mother for her child, you, and was glad to die the cruelest of boundless and mighty as that of God for~ cruel deaths that He might win pardon for His creature. The prisoner listenQd with you, and take you to he in joy and gladness eager pleasure, as if it were a strain of with Himself in heaven. Oh, John, you lovely music which laid his very soul to dont know how He loves you, and how He rest; but when at last she ceased, and asked longs to make you happy and to cQmfort him if he could not fling himself with all you. his guilt upon that wonderful love of Christ, The mans features worked with agitation and trust its unquenchable pity to save him under her earnest words. even yet, he looked up into her face with But, maam, he said, laying his trem- almost an agony of mingled longing and bling hand on hers, You dont know how despair, and said bad Ive been. It isnt only that I have Oh! maam, its beautiful to think how done every sort of wickedness, and made good He is; and theres many a sinful soul it my business, and gained my living by it Hell save, I know; but I I have been but Ive delighted in it, I schemed and too bad I have been too bad ! strove for it, and took my pleasure in it. It was almost the hour when she had to I believe there isnt a bad thing as I havent leave him. She could hear the turnkey done excepting murder. I never mur- coming along the corridor, locking the men dered any one, but its the best I can say into their cells, and she knew that in a few for myself. Ive done all the rest. minutes he would reach Hills door. But that is all past, John. You repent John, she said, I will tell you some of it now. You would not go back to it words out of the Scriptures which you can again if you could, I am sure. easily remember, and you must say there I dont feel as if I should, he said over often to yourself to-night when you slowly. I seem to hate it all now, but I are lying awake, and try to understand dont know how it might be if I were free really what they mean, and I think they again and out amour, my pals; but Ill tell will help you to believe what I have told you what, maam, such a one as you couldnt you. Now listen, and speaking very dis- guess how desperate bad Ive been. If ever tinctly, she slowly pronounced the words, Jesus Christ looks on me, itll be to fling me The blood of .Jesus Christ cleanseth from in the lake of fire. Lord! just to fancy all sin. She made him repeat them after His ever thinking of making me happy in her several times, and then as she heard the heaven! turnkeys step at the door she rose and said, Yet, John, it was the lost whom He Now, remember John, that Blood cleanses came to seek and save, when He left the from all sin ALL there is nothing too glory. and the joys of heaven to come down great for its cleansing power in all that any into this sinful world, because He would one of us has (lone amiss, if only we are not see us perish. It is not our own good penitent. deeds that could ever save us, but the love Ilill opened his lips as if to speak, but of Jesus, who bore our punishment and Perry came in, and he could only thank took all our wickedness upon Himself. It her gratefully and turn his face to the wall, is the only hope that any of us have, John. as the gratin~ sound in the lock told him I should be as inlI of despair as you if I he was again alone. But the last words she could not trust that my sins may be for- had spoken abode with him. He heard given fOr the dear Lords sake. them repeated to him again and again You, maam! You havent any sins, I throu~h the lone dark watches of the night am very sure. I couldnt believe as ever by the Voice that one day shall awake the you did the least thing as was wrong. dead, but that now, soft and low as the Indeed you are much mistaken, she whisper of a mother to her dying child, said, smiling sadly; but now I want you breathed into his soul the ineffable sweet- to listen while I try to show you the hope ness of that truth The blood of Jesus that even the worst of sinners may have, if Christ cleanseth from all sin. lie struggled only he will come repentant to the feet of long against conviction, as the dark tide of Christ. And with all the earnestness memory swept over his shrinking spirit and which her intense desire to bring comfort brought back in blackest hues the deadly to that forlorn soul inspired her with, she evils of the life now ebbing to its close, It spoke to the prisoner of the infinite love was a mortal agony through which the pris- which conquered death and hell upon the oner passed that night; but there was One Cross of Calvary, and was even then brood- standing by his side who had carried up all ing over him with yearning compassion, human sympathies even to the throne of A RELEASED PRISONER. God One who had counted the beatings of that poor erring heart through all the sinful years that had so nearly wrecked him on the shores of death seen the first wan- dering of his steps on paths of evil noted each temptation watched the widening circles of growing wickedness and finally in merciful severity brought pain and an- guish over him, till now forlorn and helpless he lay at the blessed Feet, too hopeless even to ask for mercy. But the pierced Hand is laid upon him, the voice ever murmuring the same divine sweet words, the promise of cleansing for all sin, penetrates into the most secret depths of that remorseful, long- ing spirit, and when the earliest streak of day glimmers through the narrow window of the cell, there is another dawn within the prisoners soul, the first faint trembling ray of that sun of eternity which shall one day burst on the redeemed in everlasting glory. As Miss M bent over him in some anxiety next morning, he raised his beseech- ing eyes to her face and said Oh! maam, if His blood cleanses from all sin, then mine even mine his voice be- came choked, and he could say no more. From that day the do~ged, sullen prisoner became the most humble and gentle of peni- tents. He listened greedily to every word that was spoken to him of the Divine Re- deemer, for whom his whole soul was gasping now, and day by day, though never confident, never presumptuous, and often full of ago- nizing fears, he grew more and niore in the trembling hope that the love of Christ might conquer even his great guilt. Side by side with this growth of his spirit, however, his bodily strength was decaying, and ever as life grew feebler in his frame, the mere human longing to be released from his captivity grew stronger in his heart and moi-e intolerable. With the usual deceitful- ness of his malady, he was always fancying he was better, and would not believe be was so near death as those aroun(l him knew to be the case; the pining for the fresh air, and the sight of the blue sky and the & een fields, seemed to be an absolute physical sensation which he had no power to overcome. He bad become most anxious to submit himself to the will of God in~ all things, and constant- ly said that he knew no suffering could be too great for his deserts,but he would look np pitifully at Miss M , and say I (lout want to be spared any of my punishment, maam. I would not ask, if I could, to be let out before my time; but oh, when the (lay of my release does come, dont let them keep me here a minute longer. LIVING AGE. VOL. VIII. 268 49 Im very weak and ill, I know, and I cant sit up in bed very well, but I shall be able to walk out of the prison, you may be sure of that. Miss M felt certain he could not stand up if he tried, but she thought it might be possible to remove him, and as she found that in talking over his arrangements with the doctor and chaplain, he always said he did not care where he went, provided only she came to see him every day, she set his mind at rest by promising that she would place him in a house where she could take the entire charge of him herself. The time was drawing very near when his term of imprisonment would expire, and the spiritual change in the once-despairing man became very remarkable. He was gentle and child-like in his intercourse with those around him, full of humble gratitude for any kindness shown to him; and though at times he had paroxysms of remorse for his evil life, yet he never lost sight of the un- utterable Love, to which he clung with the hope that it would shelter even him. So satisfied was the chaplain of the truth and depth of his repentance, that he offered to give him the Holy Sacrament before he left the prison as there was reason to fear that his death might be hastened by his removal in his excessively weak state. It was a long time before the poor prisoner could believe that he might dare to .receiv so great a blessing, but when it had bee fully explained to him, he became extremely anxious for it, and looked forward eagerly to the holy service. It was decided that it should take place on the morning of the day of his release. He had been growing rapidly worse, anif on the previous evening, when Miss M left him, it was with great misgivings as to the possibility of carrying out his ardent wish for removal from the gaol. She had told him the arrangements she had made for his reception in a house where she would watch over him herself; so that his mind was quite at rest on the subject; and in the full assOrance that he would be set at liberty next clay, he gave himself up to the comfort of hearing, quietly and happily, all that she could tell him on the one subject thai filled his whole soul the hope of pardou a d eternal peace. To-morrow will be the grandest day of all my life, he said to Miss M , as she was leavin~ him. It seems too good to be true, that I can be ~oing to take the Sacra- ment a poor, sinful wretch like me: and thenhl come my release ! When Miss M reached the gaol next A RELEASED PRISONER. morning, at the hour fixed for the service, she was told that the doctor had just left Hill, and that he pronounced him to be so seriously worse, that all thought of his leav- ing the gaol must be given up, although the term to which he had been sentenced was now at an end. He was unmistakably dying; he might lin~er some few days where he was, but the attempt to move him would be fatal at once. It was evident that some suspicion as to the doctors opinion had found its way into Hills mind, though the turnkey assured Miss M that nothing had been said to him on the subject. The first words with which he greeted her were an earnest en- treaty that she would see he was removed from the r~aol as soon as the service was over. He was propped up in the bed, his eyes bril- liant with fever, his whole frame quivering with excitement. Miss M, youll see that they let me have my release to-day, wont you? Im free by the law now. I might have gone out at seven this morning, if I hadnt wanted to stay for the Sacrament, but you wont let them keep me here after the chaphins gone? Youll see as I gets my release. My dear lady, promise me as you will. She would not deceive him, yet she could not bear to disappoint the hope of so many dreary mouths, particularly at a moment when she specially wished his mind to be calm for the service in which he was going to be engaged. John, you may be sure no one would wish to keep you here if you were able to be. moved, and you must trust me that I will do the best I can for you. You do trust me, do you not? Indeed I well may, maam, for youve done me nothing but good since the first day you told me I had found a friendsuch a friend as youve been, to be sure! and his voice faltered. Then, dear John, trust me now, and put all thoughts out of your mind except the holy service in which you are going to join. I will read to you till the chaplain comes. lie instantly laid his hands together with a childlike movement of meekness and sub- mission, and remained intensely interested in the solemn words she was reading till the clergyman came, followed by one of the turnkeys, who had wished to join in ~he communion. They knelt down on the cold floor, while the prisoner lay on his bed with folded hands and deathlike face, weeping quiet tears of penitence and thankful hope, while in the c6ld dark cell the holy rite was cele brated which breathes such wondrous prom- ise of eternal light and life. The chaplains voice died away in the last blessing, and after a few minutes of perfect silence they rose and stood by the prisoner s bedside. Miss M was greatly struck by the intense calm of his expression; all ex- citement seemed to have passed away, he lay perfectly still, and his eyes were fixed on the window at which he had azed so long, but with a deep and solemn look which showed that his longing now was for the free airs of eternity, and for the light of that land whose sunshine is love. He said not a word of his release as his friend bent over him and softly whispered that she would leave him quiet now, but would come to him a~, am in a few hours he merely pressed her hand and murmured some low words of thanks. It was a lovely day in the early summer, and as Miss M----- felt the odorous breeze sweeping past her, and saw the glorious beauty of the cloudless heaven, she seemed to sympathize as she had never dine before with the poor prisoners longing to exchange the dark walls and cold damp air of the cell for the blessed sight of all this summer radi- ance. Her heart was full of pitying thoughts for him, and a faint hope that she might be able to remove him even yet, as she once more stood, late in the afternoon, at the gate of the gaol. As soon as it was opened she learned that the order of release had come indeed. Hes taken for death, maam, said the turnkey, and we were just going to send for you; the doctor thinks he wont live the day out. She went up at once to his cell; a great change had taken place the grey shadow, which once seen is never for~gotten, lay on his calm, solemn face the dark eyes, which were partially covered by the heavy lids, seemed to see nothing earthly, and his whole attitude appeared to imply the repose of perfect submission. The chaplain has read the last prayers, maam, said the turnkey, and he told us there was nothing more to he done, but to let him lie quiet till the end comes; per- haps you would like to stay with him. I should, she said, and he left her alone with the dying man. Miss M sat down beside him, and took his cold hand in hers. Slowly he turned his eyes and fixed them full upon her, continuing to gaze steadily at her for some minutes. It was a strange look, so full of meaning, of intense feeling, and yet of a solemn awe, which seemed to say that he had passed already to a state of being where the sympathies of earth could 50 CATS AND CIVILIZATION. 51 touch him no more. She spoke a few quiet cism with her regard, and gave it altars words, but he did not seem to hear her, and as well as milk. But Rome, who extended when he had looked at her thus intently for her rule so far and wide over barbarians a little time, he as slowly withdrei~ his gaze, of Scythia and barbarians of Britain who and a sort of impenetrable calm passed over civilized so many races with her grave him from which no sound or movement had and patient justice, never civilized the power to rouse him. Thus for some hours cat. The cat remained to the Romans, he lay at times a smile such as none had says Dr. Rolleston, the thief of the poul. ever seen upon his lips within the prison try yard, but never became the humble walls, would gleam on his wan face He dependent of the house. In the ancient would seem to listen to words which none world it needed the more feline nature of but himself could hear, and his lips would Orientals to appreciate fully its graee and move as if in reply, and then he relapsed its repose, its strictly limited ferocity of na- into perfect calm. Sometimes Miss M. ture developed only towards infer.iors, the wiped the death dews from his forehead,. or complete union of its capacities for domestic tried to give him a little wine, but he quiet and useful carnivorous energy, its art seemed perfectly unc0nscious of her at- of sleepily ignoring man and yet utterly de- tempts, and at last she desisted, and simply pending on him, its utter want of restless watched him in silence. So he lay while anxiety concerning human affairs, its lazy the early night of the prison cell gathered vigilance for meals, and finally, its Buddhist round him, and on through the dark hours, thirst for iNighan (or Nirvana) absorp- when all the earth was steeped in rest, and tion in absolute vacuity of mind when not then at last, when the starry beauty of the under the dominion of any appetite. This mmmer night was kindled in the vault of was not the kind of creature over whom heaven, the hour of liberty arrived his Romans were likely to exercise sway. They soul was brought out of prison the long- could not rule the cat by any sense ofjus- desired release was his; but even as the tice. Indeed, it is something of a surprise merciftil Father gives fruition a thousand to us to find that even the white-breasted fold beyond our hopes to even our most marten or weasel was sufficiently open to feeble prayers, it was not only release from the sense of law to have been in any degree earthly captivity and dungeon gloom, but domesticated by that national genius for from the tyranny of a life which had been military and judicial government. Perhaps all darkness but for the sunset glow of hope it was the invading spirit of the white- which brightened its sad close from the breasted marten which succumbed to the fierce struggle with evil, the torture of temp- Roman genius of conquest. Dr. Rolleston tation, the cruelty of oppression and con- tells us that the marten, which, likea recent tempt, the anguish of homelessness and parliamentary party, was strictly troglodyte, want. The prisoner was released, and far destroyed its enemies by following them into beyond the stars the enfranchised spirit flew their holes, not by catching them when out- to look on the Divine face of Him who is side. This must have been the quality which the one true. Friend the Lamb of God endeared to it the Roman rule, and made the whose blood alone cleanses from all sin, martens submit to the domestic yoke of a ~. M. r. SKENE. people so successful in piercing in similar operations the wildest retreats of its moun- tain enemies. The cat, though aggressive on its peculiar prey, does not possess the Fron The Spectator. genius for territorial invasion, and would not therefore have been likely to have been CATS AND CIVILIZATION, drawn towards the Romans, like the weasel, by this peculiar genius of his. The cat Dn. ROLLESTON, of Oxford, one of the lurks in ambush, where the weasel invades, most eminent physiologists of the day, teils and the former was never a favourite Ru- us in the first number of the new series of man mancuvre. It is not perhaps, then, the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology so surprising that the cat had to wait its that the Cat, though domesticated in Egypt, time for being taken up into the essence of was never tamed by the Romans, who used European civilization,, till the European the white-breasted marten (mustela foina) genius became modified to some extent by for the same sort of purposes, mousing and the more subtle spirit of the East. It was rat devouring, for which we use the cat. in Egypt, indeed, had made the cat h Constantinople, the very nearestpoint erown, to Asia, if we understand Dr. Rollestorm and something more, for she mingled mysti- aright, that the cat first made her appear- CATS AND CIVILIZATION. ance as a domestic animal. She seems to Ii ave passed into the domestic life of Europe soon after the first General Council, and from Constantin~ple to have moved west- w~ rd. Her approach was everywhere web come, for, as she had gained apotheosis in Egypt by protecting the grain harvests of the Nile from the marauding rats and mice, so in Europe she has been able to keep down these hungry creatures quite as suc- cessfully as the weasel, and to adapt herself more completely to human hahits and to local attachments as well. Dr. Rolleston points out that cats, besides heing gentler, and cleaner, are less plastic in their hahits th. n weasels, less disposed. that is, to run wild, and in many climates even incapable of supporting theu~ielves by their own wits ~. the wilderness in the absence of man in other words, while the presence of man is not necessary to the weaseb but only the weasel (in the absence of the cat) to man, the tie between the cat and man is a double one, he being as important to her as she to him. And this it is which determines the rela- tion of cats to our domestic life. They are not allies and companions, like dogs. They mike no attempt to take a part in haman affairs, as dog~ do. They undertake no re- sponsibilities of guarding the houses, or pro- t~ctin~ tbe persons, or joining in the sports of man. They will not disturb themselves if burglars break into the dwelling, or if violence assaults their protectors. They a~ not conservatives, like dogs, curious of suspicious characters, furious against unin- vited strangers. Nor are they liberals like (lOgs, in the welcome they give to change, an I the joy with which they transfer them- selves to fresh fields and pastures new. Like Gallio, they care for none of these thin~s. These things they regard as con- cerning men, and as being matters of their law, into which they have not even the curiosity to inquire. They are bound to men only as birds are bound to the forest, as affording the eond~tions under which they c .n most conveniently live, not as having sympathies with them, but as providing the warm nooks, the scraps of food, and the nioral influence by which they are saved from want and protected from their natural enemies. They probably have no idea that they are valued for their propensity to slay and scatter mice, and imagine that they are onLy superfluously indulging the bent of a native genius for nhtural selection,. wheu they are ready performing the one function for which they are treasured by thrifty hous~keepers, and for which they receive the grant-in-aid of a milky payment by results. They are as unconscious as Mr. CarlyJe could wish men to be of their one (~enifts and merit as attendants on our domestic civilization. You will see dogs full of pride at the accomplishment of their little tasks, and looking up to men for rec- ognition. But there is nothing of this about the cat. She is as innocent of merit as if she had been brought up .a Calvinist. If she catches a mouse she is excited, but not proud. She looks for no praise,, her carniv- orous instinct is its own reward. She will, indeed, often attach herself to individ- uals, and in that case greatly enjoys being fondled, but this is rather due to the keen appreciation of protection and patronage, and the tokens thereof, than to purely per- sonal preferences. This only specimen of a domestic beast of prey (or at least the only one domesticated exactly because it is a beast of prey), and yet always accounted more domestic, and indeed more closely as- sociated locally with home than the dog, which is not a beast of prey, seems entirely unaware of what Dr. Rolleston calls her functional relation to man. She ma~ dimly know that she needs him, but has no idea that he needs her, and hence, no doubt, the complete abandon and restfulness of her domestic character. The dog is always straining . upwards. He feels the electric power of human influence. His dutes to manward are duties of moral sel& tion, of true loyalty, and of fierce antagonism. But the cat is a pure creature of natural selec- tion. She is selected by man for encourage- ment, because the mice are selected by her for destruction. One great interest of the cat considered in relation to the philosophy Qf civilization, is the entire failure of Mr. Buckles law to account for her semi-civilization. Mr. Buc- kle held, we know, that the accumulation of new knowledge was the one sole cause of civiliza~iou, that civilization goes on pan passu with the accumulation of knowl- edge. And this theory might fairly be sup- posed to apply to the civilization of the dog, the horse, and even, perhaps, the par- rot. There is no doubt that what these creatures learn from man is, in some meas- ure, at least, the cause of their milder na- ture. A dog is always high or low in the scale of moral affections in some proportion we will not say in exact proportion to its intelligent curiosity and interest in af- fairs. But none of the three species are beasts of prey, as the cat in its wild state is. And she, we may fairly say, has intel- lectually learned absolutely nothing from 52 CATS AND CIVILIZATION. m~tn. She is a far keener and more acute being when out on the trail of a bird than when most domestic in her mood. She changes her whole mental attitude, when on an expedition, to one of superior alert- ness, as much as the wild Indian who was sunk in plethoric sleep for days previous does when he puts on his war paint, and stealthily returns to the trail of his enemy. The cat which you see with ears erect stealing through the shrubbery is quite a dif- ferent being from the one attaining iNig- ban in her mistress lap, or on the hearth- rug before the fire. And yet civilization does 0raft something upon her which is worth more than her savage acuteness, though it is not new knowledge. It is the need of a higher companionship of some sort, though she spends most of her time no more aware of tbat companionship than she can be in a dreamless sleep for the cat never dreams as the dog does. However indigestible she may find her food, you never hear her growl, or start, or cry in her sleep, as the dog does when his dreams present imaginary enemies. And yet she is sensible of the pleasure of companionship even in sleep, and a civilized cat, a cat of any high breed, will usually pre- fer to slumber in the room with her person- al friends to slumbering in loneliness. We know a cat which, confined for functional purposes to the stable and the loft over it, always comes to sleep on the back of the pony, which the pony evidently approves of, as giving him also a sense of the subli*ie feeling of protection, indeed, as directly inverting ~he feeling which he has with a rider on his back, and substituting for it one of positive patronage. There is no doubt that what civilizes the cat is not in the least any intellectual influence exer- cised over her by man, for, on the contrary~ his presence half extinguishes the little in- tellect she has, but is, on the contrary, a dumb, pleasurable sense of companionship with a creature who is her superior. The place of her half extinguished instincts as a beast of prey, is supplied by a graft of an almost equally instinctive and entirely tor- pid pleasure in the protection of superiors. And yet it is not to the species man, but to the individuals that she feels thus. There is no creafure which less likes strangers than the cat. She objects, perhaps, to the disturb- ing magnetic influences they introduce with them. While the dog first barks at and then welcomes them, stretching out quite cordially the right hand of fellowship, as clearly understanding that his master ap- proves, and while the parrot falls into a silent fit, and studies, in order to reproduce them, the cat simply absents herself; if she be a cat of the less intensely soporific and apoplectic sort. She regards strangers, as Turks and other Orientals are said to regard En~ lish men, and as scientific men regard miracles, as disturbances of the order of Nature, who should be jealously dis- trusted. The civilization of the cat is purely customary and habitual the dogs in many respects one of activity, and even sharpened by competition. In their de- pendent relation to man they differ as much as the Conservative idea of what the masses ought to be, differs from the Radical idea. Mr. Disraeli says he is for popular privileges. as against democratic rights. That expresses very well the relation of the cat to those who feed her, as contrasted with that. of the dog. At the accustdmed meal time she will rush in with a cry al- most of nervous agony lest the proper mo- ment be gone by. She is importunate to the last degree till her customary claim has been satisfied, but then she never en- croaches. She has claimed, her tribute of popular privileges she never goes on to exaggerate them into democratic rights. The dog, on the other hand, ~vho is more. radical and active, never fails to espy a new corner for possible encroachment, and unless morally tau~ht to restrain himself, never loses sight of an opportunity where he can practise upon the observed weak- ness of his protectors. Mr. Mill says that wages are determined by competition and by custom. This is true of the wages of the dog as well as of the man, but the cats are determined solely by custom. She never competes. The interest of the cats civilization is, then, the curiously pillowy inertness of her higher and engrafted nature. It is like her fur and velvet paws in relation to the car- nivorous craving8 and sharp claws which these conceal, like the purr wth which she announces her satisfaction in relation to the mew with which she proclaims her wants. The higher element in hei is a mere receptivity for higher companionship, an unconscious, inarticulate pleasure in the presence and protection of a higher creature, which, so far from educating her, only blunts the edge of her carnivorous acuteness. Civilization with her is not the eliciting of new ideas, but a certain seda- tive administered to old ones by the partial pacification of her savage characteristics, and the growth of a new and higher class of composing associations. Civilization is almost to the cat what wealth and reputa 53 EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN. tion are to the brutal side of English nature, a soft stuffing outside the sharp, sangui- nary passions, which, instead of increasing, rather deadens the keenness of the intellec- tual nature. Only, being a personal in- iluence, and not an i,.~nob1e one, it is, per- haps, better in its kind than the soft, stuffy influence of mere opulence. It is enough, however, if the cat teaches us, as she cer- tainly does, that civilization is by no means a process arising in the growth of knowl- edge and the accumulation of intellectual lstws.tbat it maybe subserved up to a certain point, at least, by influences which operate chiefly as smothering and blunting the raw material of the original passions, rather than as educatin~, and enlightening the nature which owns them. From The Athennum. The Emperor Maximilian his Elevation and his Fall, from unpublihed Documents [L Empereur Maximilien, sc., par le Comte Emile de K6ratry]. (Leipzig, iDuncker & Humblot; London, Williams & Norgate.) The Court of Mexico. By the Countess Paula Kolonitz. Translated by J. E. Ollivant. (Saunders, Otley & Co.) With the French in Mexico. By J. F. Elton. (Chapman & Hall.) THE mournful drama upon which the cur- tam has fallen in Mexico is so complicated in plot that audience or spectators scarcely yet understand it in all its bearings. Mean- while, Count do Kc~ratry has contributed towards a fuller comprehension. His book is rather the pleading of an advocate than the conclusions (If a j udge. His client is Ma~shal Bazaine. in defending whom the Count pretty well destroys the character of the Marshals employers the French Government. France ostensibly went to Mexico to pro- tect French interests, which had suffered at the hands of the local authorities. Lon however, before she had acquired the co-ope- ration ofEngland and Spain, and had pledged her honour that she did not seek to impose any new form of government on the Mexican nation, the plan was prepared for establish- ing a Mexican empire. The object was subsequently said to be the elevation of the fallen Latin race. The real object was to oppose the extension of the Anglo-Saxon race in North America, between whom and the new empire it was hoped that a South- ern dominion would be a friendly barrier. England and Spain got out of the mau- dit gal~re in which they had been persuaded to embark as soon as they understood the service on which she was bound. France, par tout dgsinteressee, went on with her work. The idea of a new Mexican empi~re was agreeable to the unselfishness of the. clerical party in Mexico. Juarez had confis- cated the Church property for the benefit of the nation. The Archbishop and his col- leagues felt sure an Austrian Catholic em- peror would restQre the honey to the drones, and they entered heart and soul into the project of France. All seemed smiling and promising when the Arch-Duke Maxi- milian, a young man who could not govern his own little household or keep his own fi- nances in order, con~ented, with the guar- antee of France to uphold him at least till 1868, and with the pledged support of the powerful Church party, to accept that im- perial crown which was shattered on the head of the Emperor Iturbide when his brains were blown out on the sands at Soto Ia Marina. Mexican bonds found purchasers, and Maximilian, at Miramar, put on the Mexi- can military uniform. As the Countess Kolonitz sat next him at dinner on the day he first assumed that costume, Maximilian looked at the gay dress and whispered to the lady, There never surely was anything so laughable as this! When he left his na- tiv~ land (the Countess was in the train of the Empress Charlotte), he and his noble wife were literally covered with flowers and good wishes. Music went with him over the waters. Dress, flowers and music were simply the preliminaries of the sacrifice to which Maximilian was wending. The Mexican bondholders, with all their hilarity, were, like enthusiastic fanatics, going also to be sacrificed. The people of Vera Cruz seemed almost to pity the victims as they stepped ashore. Their lack of congratulation looked like compassion. Further inward, where flow- ers abounded, more flowers than ever were heaped upon them. People flung their floral tribute and looked with curiosity at the strangers. To compare great things with small, it was like the nosegay that used to be offered at St. Sepulchres to the hand- some highwayman at whom the crowd stared as they saw him on his way to Ty- burn. When the imperial party reached the capital, there was a sort of consternation at head-quarters. Maximilian had ar ived somewhat sooner than was expected, and 54 THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND. officials looked aghast, as if the sacrificial altar was not ready, and that they were sorry to keep in suspense the victim that was to he immolated. Immolated! There were the French to defend, the clergy to support, and a peo- ple who might not gainsay them; what, then, had Maximilian to fear? Everything, from the very first. The French, Austrians and Belgians together excited the bitterest hatred. They made even native Mexican Imperialists feel that they had a country, and that, next to hostile invaders, there is nothinr so intolerable in ones native land as the presence of arrogant foreigners, who settle your affairs only with reference to their way of thinking. Then there was the clergy, wating greedily for the only thing they cared about. According to them, there could be no peace in the land unless the clergy were made rich again. The em- pire could not prosper unless the children of St. Peter recovered the lands and wealth they had administered for no mans weal but their own. Maximilian was utterly powerless to recall an accomplished fact, and one of the pillars of his arch thereupon fell away. The Archbishop had been a zealous and outspoken advocate of the Em- peror. Soon after the discovery that the Church was not to profit exclusively by the Empire, he became silent and reserved. The Countess Kolonitz once was his neigh- bour at the dinner-table. She found him rather a nice man, who took from every disk, ate of none, turned his head on his shoulder when spoken to, smiled and said nothing. Evidently, a very clever individ- ual. While the clergy would not let the Em- pire take root, and while the French were giving cause to poor Maximilian to cry Sa e me from my friends!, but without whose friendship there was no safety, a sudlen thought seems to have struck the gallant author of the third work mentioned above. He was out wjld-duck shooting on the Scheldt and elsewhere and not finding this so exciting as a man who had seen much sport an(l hard and honorable service in the East required his pursuits to be, he went off at once to Mexico. He had com- rades as well as friends there among the gallant Frenchmen who had their hard work before them. Mr. Elton joined the men on whom the hopes of Maximilian and the Mexican bondholders rested; but be came in for Ilitie of the hard work. His journey was a trip from.Yera Cmuz to Saltello (with a little deviating extension), and back. His testimony with regard to the friends of the Latin race in Mexico is, that they are very charming fellows. He evidently won- ders that the Mexicans did not at all like the Frenchmen. The German Countess denounces them all in the person of Mar- shal Bazaine, whom she describes in an un- pleasant photographic style, which makes the French Marshal look as ugly a person as can well be conceived. We certainly shall not question the ladys judgment in these matters; for she manifests her power to logically make one by asserting that, for true courtesy and politeness, the English gentleman beats the world. Things were looking their very worst for the Transatlantic Latins when the recom- mendation, amounting to an order, came from the Transatlantic Anglo-Saxons, by which France was to clear out from Mex- ico. With as much dignity as could be put on to cover the nakedness~ of the national dishonour, France obeyed that is, she sud- denly saw that the case was hopeless, that ground gained one day was lost the next, and that there was nothing better to be done than to get out of Mexico, and carry the Emperor with them, if he would accom- pany them. The word pledged to help Maxi- milian with an armed force till 1868 was bro- ken; but Maximilian did not despair, and would not retire. And yet his was a case for despair. The French abandoned him, the clerical party rejected him, the moderate Liberals betrayed him, the United States ig- nored him, and, at Queretaro, Jaarez exe- cuted him. The poor young Prinee was in the Mexican uniform which he had thought it such a laughing matter to put on at Miramar. Count de Kdratry believes that he left the capital for Queretaro in the hope of being better able to enter into some negotiations with Juarez. The hope, if it existed, was as sweet and evanescent as the odour of the flowers which had been flung upon him as he left his native land. To that land his body is now returning, surrounded by im- mortelles, and waited for amid the tears of those near and dear to him, who had with smiles bidden him God speed! when he set out to assume his short-lived greatness. From The Saturday Review. TIlE PALESTINE EXPLOIIXTtON FUND. IN spite of the very natural fears of Mr. Grove, it is impossible to suppose that the effort whieh is now being made for the ex- ploration of the Holy Land will be aban- doned for want of funds. Whether the great, generous, and influential body of 55 THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND. Freemasons will respond to Mr. Porters impassioned appeal to contribute to an undertaking in which they must feel a special interest, the complete investigation of the remains of the Jewish Temple, is more than we are able to decide, but we are certain that the mass of English people sim~dy require information as to what is bein~ done to awaken their interest and secure their aid. Unhappily, this informa- tion has as yet hardly been given. It is the misfortune of really learned people that they find great difficulty in imagining others less learned than themselves, and the Reports which have from time to time been published by the managers of the Fund have, like the bulk of Reports, the ill-luck of bein~ totally unintelligible save to the few who have for years devoted them- selves to the vexed questions of Pales- tinian geography. Mr. Grove appeals to the sympathies of that unknown power, the country parson; but the countr? parson, eager for a little new fact about the Jeriehos and Hebrons with which he is familiar, falls back aghast and dispirited be- fore the Ains and Jebels of the Explora- tion Reports. It will be easier, however, for the Committee to stoop to the intelli- gene es of the country parsons than to re- pair the consequences of the strange waste of popular enthusiasm with which they be- gan. At the outset there seemed some real prospect of the religious world fairly hacking the enterprise; and had Jerusa- 1cm been at once attacked, and the May Meetings tickled with photographs of the great Temple wall which the excavators have just revealed, we doubt very much whether there would be any need for suing the public in formd pauperis. Unfortunate- ly, the fist expedition was devot*id to sci- entific purposes to elaborate surveys and astronomical fixings of sites, which served admirably as a base for the proposed Ord- nance Map of the Holy Land, but less ad- mirably as a base from which to appeal to the sympathies of Exeter Hall. In spite, however, of perhaps inevitable errors, the enterprise is a really great and worthy one. The very mistakes prove an honest aver- sion to the mere popular claptrap under which the subject has so often been buried. The work done in the past is so valuable, and the present researches open up such un- limited prospects of further discovery, that we cannot doubt that the small sum which is required for their continuance will be at once contributed. No more complete answer, perhaps, can e given to those who find nothing but the action of material forces in the progress of mankind than the interest which, age after aae, has attached itself to such a country as Palestine. When the most pretentious of the materialistic school sat on the Mount of Olives, he declared that his thoughts were solely occupied with the agricultural statis- tics of the unproductive country around; at Nazareth he could find nothing worthy of remark save the personal beauty of the Galilean girls at the well. It is odd that even Mr. Buckle did not see that the re- markable fact for him to explain was his own presence at Nazareth or at Olivet. What was the interest which had drawn him, which had drawn pilgrims like or un- like him from Constantines day till now? Why do men boo to know whether this heap of rubbish or that heap of rubbish by the shore of a deserted lake is the site of a Jewish fisher-town, the site of Capernaum; or, still more oddly, why are scholars crying out for the more accurate marking of passes and ravines, that they may gain some truer notion of the local boundaries of tribes whose tribal existence had merged into a larger national life a thousand years before the beginning of our present Christian era? The answer is simply that within our Veins, and never more strongly than now, we feel the beatinas of a spiritual life which leads us back from its origins to that land be- tween the Jordan and the sea; we find those origins recorded in the wondrous series of legends, genealogies, surveys, his- tories, laws, poetry, which formed the litera- ture of the ancient people of that landa literature whose fragments, saved by the strange tenacity of the Hebrew race from the chances of ruin and exile, are preserved in the sacred books which Christendom treas- ures as her Bible. With the Bible Uae re- ligions life of the bulk of Christian people has become intertwined; -every phase of spiritual existence has been identified with the historic revolutions of the Hebrew re- public or the monarchy of David. Contro- versies which really relate to the deepest problems of human thought and experience are being, even now, fought out ostensibly over its words. It is natural that, amid all this, men should ask more than ever what the Bible really is, and should seek illustra- tion for the literature of a strange Ian din the very soil of that land itself. But it is remarkable that, haunt as it has been of pil- grims for fifteen hundred years, home as it was for more than a century of a Frank kingdom, subject of bitter dispute as it is still for Eastern and Western Christendom, there is no spot of the earths surface which 56 THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND. up to our own day has been so utterly un- explored. Till the researches of Robinson, its topography was a mere system of tradi- tion and guesswork, its physical geography almost unknown. With the exception of the shores of the Dead Sea, and the great chasm of the Jordan valley, its geology has never been scientifically treated; and this in spite of the fact that the limestone pla- teau which stretches from Esdraelon to Beersheba is honeycombed with the very caves whose contents in Western Europe have thrown such curious light on the ques- tion of the origin of man. There is no country which, from the abundance of its early traditions, is better adapted to throw light on the older distribution of the animal races, or where one can trace more exactly the gradual retreat of the felid~, and yet it was only the other day that any attempt was made to investigate the natural history of Palestine. Among the immense collec- tion of specimens preserved in the British Museum there are, we believe, hardly any to illustrate the fauna of a province which even in the point of scientific interest is, from its geographical positiou, second to none. As for its arch~ology, the photo- ~raphs sent home by Captains Wilson and Warren will be simply the first real contri- bution to the subject. To Robinson, for instance, every pointed arch marked a Gothic building, and antiquarian con- troversialists, with the help of drawings carefully adapted to their purpose, have assigned ranges of masonry alternately to David and to the Herods, and claimed actually existing arcades for Justinian and for the Crusaders! And yet on the ques- tion of archinology a thousand curious inquiries suggest themselves. Remember- ing, for instance, the readiness of the Jews in the middle ages to adopt the architectu- ral forms of the time for their synagogues, and yet by curious modifications to fit them for their new purpose, one longs to know whether the forms of Roman art were adapted after a similar fashion, and whether there are any classical parallels in Palestine to the meidieval compromises of Southern France. It is plain, then, that there is a fiiir field for exploration, and we are bound to own that the Exploration Fund has thoroughly grasped it. Science has as yet gained little, though it was announced a short time back that one of the most emi- nent of English geologists was prepared to undertake an examination of the country. But topography has gained much. One winter expedition succeeded in surveying the long central range of the country; a second traversed the great plains on either side, the Jordan valley and Philistia. More than 2,000 square miles, in fact, have been accurately surveyed; more than 3@0 photographs taken; plans drawn of syna- gogues and ancient buildings, and in the first expedition alone no fewer than forty- nine sites astronomically fixed. It is clear that from data such as these all further in- vestigation can start with a precision and certainly which it never had before. Tempting, however, as are the attrac- tions of the wider field, we hold, as we be- fore said, that the Committee have acted wisely in concentrating themselves at last on Jerusalem. Whatever interest other spots may present, the interest of all is summed up. there. There was the -moun- tain hold from which, in the narrative of Abraham, the King of Peace came down to greet the Patriarch of the Hebrew race. There was the impregnable fortress from which, long after their fellow Hittites had been swept away, the men of Jebus looked out defiantly over the settlement and strife of the invader. There stood the city of David, and the royal tombs that received one by one the long line of Davids descend- ants. There over against it rose, fell, and rose again the great Temple which enshrined the faith of the Jew. There stood that Holy Sepulchre from which flowed the faith of Christendom. It is the Holy City of Jew, of Moslem, of Christian alike; the one fount to which all these widely diver- ging streams look back for their origin. It is the one spot where Jew and Christian and Moslem still meet face to face, the home to which that strange race dispersed throughout the world clings as its own, the one point where the jealousies of Eastern and Western Christendom still rage with medi~val intensity, the one point where the fated rivalry between the Turk and Christendom has taken fire in our own d- y, and threatens to take fire still. The City of Peace seems destined, by a special irony, to bring a sword upon the earth. At pres- ent, however, we are not so much concerned with swords as with spades, and in Jerusa- lem the spade has a noble field before it. Nothing but sheer digring will give us back the city of David or of Christ, buried as it is beneath the wreck of sieges and of time. The whole of the western side of the great eastern ravine, the valley of Jehosaphat, the whole southern front of Moriah and of Zion, are covered with huge heaps of ddhris as soft and loose as on the day when they were shot over. The central valley of the Tyropteon is filled up with rubbish to the 57 THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND. depth of a hundred feet. Marked indeed as the natural features of Jerusalem are, they are strangely disguised by this accumu- lation of two thousand years. The city itself stands on the line of the great central plateau of limestone which forms the back- bone of Western Palestine, on a block scooped out from the rest of the plateau on every side but the north by the ravines of two streamlets which shut it in eastward and westward, and one of which bends round its southern front ere it joins its fel- low in a common. descent to the Dead Sea. The fall of these two lateral valleys is very great, some six hundred feet in little more than a mile; and the result is that, looked at across their junction from the south, Jerusalem appears to stand on the summit of a considerable cliffi A dry valley run- nm0 northward, however, divides its mass into two elevations; the western, Zion, overlookin5, its Eastern rival of Moriah; and with these two heights, and with the valley between them, the researches of the Exploration Fund have been as yet princi- pally concerned. Zion is in effect the city of David, the site of the palaces and tombs of the King; Moriah is the site of the Temple; the valley between, the valley of the Tyropmon, probably the site of the lower trading town. The look of the whole is still the look which the dual ter- mination of the Hebrew name is perhaps intended to convey, that of a double city the city of the Jebusiteand the Hebrew, the capital of the composite kint~dom of Israel and Judah, thejoint throne of kin0 and priest. But in any save these grander features of the site it is impossible to imagine a greater contrast than between the silent rubbish- heaps covered with lines of squalid streets which form the modern city, and the city of David and the Kin~s; Moriab crowned with the proud colonnades of the Temple, linked to Olivet by one immense viaduct, and spanning the Tyropeon with another; Zion covered with the gorgeous palaces, and not less gorgeous tombs, of an Eastern dynasty, the lower city buzzing with the noise of shop and bazaar, and on either side the silence of the two ravines, the homes of the dead, dotted with sepulchres, and foul with the reinse of the capital. It is in this Tyropmon valley which cleaves, as we have seen, the heart of Je- rusalem, and along the southern front of the bill Moriab, where the site of the Tem- ple is now occupied by the Mosque of Omar, that the recent excavations have been principally carried on. Shafts and galleries have been driven through the mass of rubbish which covers the base of the Temple rock, and have revealed the enor- mous depth to which it has accumulated. Through the d6bris the cyclopean walls supporting the Temple have been traced to a depth varying from 60 to 90 feet, and the wall itself has been shown to have reached at this point a height of from 170 to 180 feet, a curious justification of a passage of Josephus, in which he describes the dizzi- ness with which the spectator looked down into the valley beneath. The whole rock must have been honeycombed ~ith aque- ducts, cisterns, channels, and passages thirty feet beneath the vaults which have been known to exist at its south-eastern corner a passage has now been found leading into the solid substince of the wall, and indicating probably large substructures, where it is not unreasonable to look for dis- coveries of no little interest. Of the two great viaducts which moored, as it were, the sacred rock of Moriah to the eastern and western hills of Zion and Olivet, the one most interesting to us as the road by which Christ entered the Temple has in- deed wholly disappeared; but a single colos- sal abutment of the bridge which spanned the Tyropceon, the road by which the Kings passed from Zion to Moriah, remains, and the researches of Captain Warren ha.ve proved it to have been 150 feet in height. If this be as has been remarked by Mr. Warren the ascent to the house of the Lord which Solomon showed to the Queen of Sheba, we can hardly wonder that on seeing it there was no spirit left in her. Of minor discoveries in other quarters of the city we need take no notice here; all that has in fact been done is just to graze a single corner of the southern front of the Temple rock. Zion remains unexplored, and so does the northern city in an angle of which stands the Holy Sepulchre. But the results of what has been done are in themselves so marvellous, and promise mar- vels so much greater still, that we cannot believe that, when once their real charac- ter is understood in England, fbnds will be deficient for carryin0 them on upon a far grander scale. It is something to see at last the mighty front of the Temple rock as the Twelve saw it when they marvelled at the great stones which were still fresh from the chisel of Herod. But this is little compared with what a systematic explora- tion may be expected to reveal. And it must be remembered that no time can be more propitious than the present. Sultan 58 THE ~ALESTLNE EXPLORATION FUND. 59 and Grand Vizier seem to have yielded out. English influence, the sacrifices we to the mellifluous arguments of the Arch- have made for the integrity of Turkey, the bishop of York; and if our hopes were well-warranted belief that the intentions of stirred a little too much hy the announce- the British Government towards the Porte ment of the Grand Turk having taken the are of a friendly character, have smoothed religion of the Giaour under his special pro- down obstacles which might otherwise have tection, at any rate his firman has removed heen invincible. The result thus far has many of the obstacles which beset excava- heen that as many as forty-nine places have tion in Jerusalem. Just at the present heen astronomically fixed, including the lead- time, too, there is an unusual amount of in- ing cities and sites from Banibek to Ilebron. terest shown in Biblical subjects; even an This was the work of t.he first of the two ex- article on the Talmud furnishes topics for peditions which have been sent out. The dinner-talk, and fair faces have beeirknown second has surveyed the whole plain of to glow with enthusiasm in their defence of Philistia, the mountain region and valley of the topographical paradoxes of Mr. Fergus- the Jordan, from Jebel Usdam to Jezreed, son. We cannot but hope that the interest an(l a section of Moab and Gilead extending which Mr. Groves renewed appeal has ex- from Heshbou to Jerash. These operations cited will not be allGwed to die out. At must be of the highest possible interest to any rate we are sure that an explanation Biblical scholars, but, interesting as they from time to time of the work which is be- are, progress has already been made in dis- ing done, stripped of the necessary details coveries of still greater importance. of a Report, ~6uld be quite sufficient to The jewel of the Holy Land is Jerusalem. excite an interest in the subject which For obvious reasons, Bethlehem shares this would be far fi-om limiting itself to the ex- glory with it. But it was in the Holy City cavations at Jerusalem, but which would at itself that the foundation of Christianity was once boldly attempt the investigation of all consummated, though some years had yet to the scientific and historical problems of the elapse after the crucifixion before the name of Holy Land. Christian was to be given to the small band of poor and humble men who were to evan- ______ gelixe the world, the grain of mustard- seed which was to grow up into a mighty tree. It is with regard to Jerusalem, then, that the progress of the expedition is From The Morning Advertiser, Nov. 26. watched with the most intense interest. It is well known that the topography of THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND. tbe Holy City and its sacred monuments have long been vexed questions about which CoNmIBurroNs in aid of the Palestine the greatest uncertainty has prevailed. Exploration Fund continue to be remitted Nothing could be more interesting to the to the proper quarter; and, short of a de- archmologist than an investigation that mand upon the humanity of the public it should result in reducing to certainty would not be easy to point out any cause on the doubts which have hitherto attended which money may more profitably be expend-: these points, and there is now every ed. To every Christian country the inves- I reason to suppose that this achievement is tigation of the Holy Land must be an object destined to be accomplished by the present of the very highest interest, all the more so exploration. inasmuch as the facilities of communication The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus have brouirht it so much nearer to us that it has left us a minute description of the is now within reach of any autumn tourist courses of th~ three ancient city walls of who may feel inclined to mimake a pilgrimage Jerusalem, and it has been the duty of the to the cradle of Christianity. And how in- exploring party to trace them. Those see- tensely interesting are the associations which tions of the wall of Ophel which have been cling to that sacred soil exhumed prove the correctness of the de- Hitherto one of the greatest obstacles to scription of Josephus when he states that it the exploration of Palestine has been the in- was joined to the south-west angle of the tense prejudice of the Turks, amongst whom, Temple. Again, the foundations of the apart from religious antipathies, linger tradi- Temple wall are being laid bare at a depth tions, coming down from the days of the of ninety feet and more bene th the present Crusades, most unfavourable to such a work surfhce, and the pinnacle of the Temple has as has been commenced and partly carried just been uncovered at its base. It is, more- 60 WITH THE FRENCH IN MEXICO. over, stated that amongst the discoveries From The Saturday Review. made are aqueducts, cisterns, and rock- WITH THE FRENCH IN MExIco.* hewn channels and passages within and around the Haram, which throw new light CAPTAIN ELTONS book hardly justifies on the buildings, arrangements, and services its title. He reached Mexico in time for of the Temple. It can, therefore, hardly little else than to see the French evacuate be doubted that the investigation will he the country. All the fighting left to share rewarded hy the discovery of the Temple in was one raid into the enemys territory, itself, as well as of the Holy Sepulchre. and this was undertaken only to prevent There could not be greater misfortune, them from harassing the retreating troops. of its kind, than the interruption of in- Captain Elton left Europe in March, 1866, vestigations which hitherto have been so and joined the French under General successful. It is true that the discoveries Douay at Saltillo, on the 19th of the already made are of a valuahle character, following July. Even before reaching this But in such a case as this it may justly he point, however, he had heard of the sur- said that nothing is done while anything re- render of Matamoras, a disaster which, as mains to be done. It is one of those cases it turned out, involved the loss of the whole in which nothing short of complete success of Northern Mexico to the Imperial cause. can he regarded as satisfactory. We have A little earlier it had seemed as though now the opportunity and the scientific Escotedo, who then commanded the only means of thoroughly c1earin,~ up doubts Liberal force of any importance in that with regard to places which must be more pa.rt of the country, must certainly he or less interesting to every one, but which crushed by the French. He was posted at to the Christian possess an interest which Galeana, while the French oc(upied Sal- cannot be exaggerated. Captain Wilson tillo and Monterey to the north of him, and Lieutenants Anderson and Warren Salado to the west, and Victoria to the were well chosen to be the leaders of the south-east. Four columns, starting simul- expedition, and the local knowledge they taneously from each of these places, were have thus far gained renders it of the ut- designed to converge towards Galeana, and most importance that the expedition should thus enclose Escobedo in a trap. But the be completed under their superintendence. Mexican general had too many means of We can hardly think of the investigation discovering the enemys plans to allow him- they are making, with the consent of the self to be thus caught. The country to the Turkish Government, without our minds east, at least for some distance, was still being carried backwards over the long track open to him, and he moved off in the direc- of centuries to the time of the Crusades. tion of Matamoras, then held for Maximilian How changed are all things since then! by General Mejia with a mixed force of The only soldiers engaged in this expedition Austrians and Mexicans. Almost at the are the staff of Royal Engineers which her same moment that the news of his escape Majestys Government has placed at the reached General Douay at Saltillo there disposal of the Exploration Fund, and their came a despatch from General Mejia mission is one of peace, not of war. They written in ignorance of Escobedos last go, not to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from move stating that, under orders from the hands of the Moslem, but to find out Mexico, he had just sent off all the troops where it is. histead of Peter the Hermit he could spare from the garrison to convoy calling Christendom to arms, the only a large train of merchandise along the road ecclesiastic who has played a prominent to Monterey. The Imperial Government part in this expedition is the Archbishop of had been induced to issue this or(ler by the York, who, when the Sultan visited England, offer of a large subsidy from the merchants represented to his Grand Vizier how agree- on condition that communications should be able to all Englishmen it would be if every at once restored between the two towns. facility were given to the work of explora- General Donay, seeing the danger the con- tion. Never before was there 50 goo(l an voy would run from Escobedos troops, or- opportunitf of getting thoroughly through dered a column instantly to leave Monterey with this undertaking. And when it has so as to prevent it from being surprised on been completed there can. be very little the road. For this purpose, however, the doubt that its results will more than repay French arrived too late. Escobedo attacked us for all the labour and money expended the convoy before the support could come upon it. * With the French in Mexico. By J . F. Elton. London: Chapman & hall. 1867. WITH THE FRENCH IN MEXICO. up; the Mexicans deserted; and the Aus- trians, greatly outnumbered, were killed almost to a man. General Mejia was thus left to defend Matamoras with the comrades @f the very men whose treachery had led to the defeat of the convoy. He despaired of holding out against Escobedos superior numbers, and had nothing ~eft him but to make the best terms he could for himself and his officers. General iDouays subsequent march north- wards from Saltillo was only intended to clear the ground in the rear of his line of retreat. It commenced on the 24th of July, six days after Captain Elton had joined. On the next day they met General Jeaning- ros, who had been in command at Monterey, and the united forces at once turned south- wards. Our descent from Saltillo, says Captain Elton, was a small exodus. The Mexicans who had in any way compromised themselves by their adherence to the Im- perial party knew their countrymen too well to remain in the town an hour after the French had left. These unlucky people had a hard time of it on the march. They had to travel in any kind of vehicle that could be procured, they had no means of obtaining food except in the towns, and they would have had no shelter from the bitter (old of the nights had not General iDonay charitably ordered the large hospital tents to be pitched for their use. In this way the French arrived at Venado, and, after some delay, at St. Luis Potosi. Here, however, the news came that the Liberals were threatening Matehuala, where a garrison had been left to cover the retreat; and General Douay accordingly returned to protect it. Finding that the Liberals were in the Valle de Miembres, a species of cut de sac, or what was supposed to be such, to the eastward of Matehuala, he de- spatched two columns against them one to attack in front, the other to get into their rear. It turned out, however, that there was a path leading out of the further end of the valley which was just practicable for cavalry. Of this the Liberals availed them- selves, and though the French pursued them hotly for three days, they never succeeded in coming up with them. This formed the whole of Captain Eltons military experi- ence in Mexico. The only conclusion to he drawn from his hasty observations is that the fate of any European occupation was really sealed from the first. There were no materials in the country of which it could lay hold. Brigandage was universal, and th~ Mexicans preferred paying black mail occasionally to the guerilla chiefs to 61 making any serious effort to put them down. The conformation of the country is not suited for the movement of regular troops. As to the native irregulars employed by the Imperialists, they were all of them ready to desert on the first opportunity; and while they were waiting for the favourable mo- ment, they did not disdain to act as spies. Instead of the Imperialists raising the stand- ard of military morality, they speedily sank to, or rather they never really rose above, the level of their degraded enemies. It will be seen, therefore, that the nominal promise of Captain Eltons narrative is but poorly performed. But his book has the incidental merit which belongs to a genuine sketch of a strange country; and his obser- vations, hasty and fragmentary as they are, may give a better notion of the scenes he visited than is to be gained from some more ambitious volumes. In this respect his efforts are aided by a number of very clever drawings of persons and places; though un- fortunately these are scattered quite at ran- dom over his pages, and are as often as not unaccompanied by any verbal description. Of the city of Mexico he gives an attractive picture Arriving, as we ~did, by the Peaon Viejo, the many towers and domes of the innumerable re- ligious edifices, the large extent of the city, the wide-spreading waters of the lakes, the pure clear air and delightful temperature of the cli- mate above all, perhaps, the association of ideas produce a series of impressions deci- dedly in favour of Mexico. Nor does this satisfaction grow less upon a nearer view. On the contrary, when fairly landed on the grand plaza and under the shadow of the imposing cathedral, The scene is busy and gay; men, women, and children of all shades, from the pure-blood- ed Indian to the pale-faced Mexican beauty. hurry and throng under the arcades selling and huyiug fruit, vegetables, trinkets, and Palais- Royal jewellery, keeping up the whole time a most incessant clatter of tongues. The colour is very effective; the Indian women in bright dresses and still more dazzling zarapes contrast strikingly with the sombre attire of the Mexican ladies, who with black mantillas gracefully thrown over their masses of dark hair, and cunningly closed over the lower part of the face, disclose just enough beauty to make one wish that a passing gust of wind might disarrange those careless and enticing folds, and reveal a little more of their pretty faces and neat fi~urcs to the passers-by. Without an exceptibn the fair sex walk magnificently, and have that thorough-bred air which so generally character- izes women of Spanish race; they dress, be- WITh THE FRENCH IN MEXICO. sides, with exquisite taste, and their black eyes and long eyelashes go far to compensate for the slovenliness and dirt of the Indian maidens, who appear to he born with a natural antipathy to water and cleanliness. There are one or two tolerable hotels, and one restaurant only one, however where you can be sure of a good dinner. The baths are numberless, and all clean and neatly kept. The great plaza is laid out with broad paths and a~ profusion of flowers, and there is a good public garden, shaded by magnificent trees. On two sides of the city stretch shady drives, which one in Lent, the other during the rest of the year are crowded every evening with carriages and horsemen. In the suburbs are two large gardens, where the Mexicans resort for breakfast or dinner They are in fact the Richmond and Green. wich of Mexico. You can get a capital dinner, and the wines are excellent, but the prices are fabulous; from 31.. to 41. a head, without any wine, is by no means their highest charge; and a good deal of money can be consumed at either of these two resorts ia an incredibly short space of time. Somewhat farther off is Chahultepec, the summer palace of the successive ruleis of Mexico, and an abundance of charming country-houses, most of them however badly looked after, and with a luxuriance of weeds and thick grass sprouting up upon the car- riage drives and walks. Travelling in Mexico is less pleasant when once the valleys are left behind. Much of the soil of the higher g round consists of a barren white soil producing nothing but a ragged dried-up moss, with various species of cactus cropping up through the fissures in the rock. Naturally a few days toilsome marching through such a country as this enhances the beauty of the towns in the valleys, usually embosomed in groves of trees, above which rise a multitude of domes and steeples that reminded Captain Elton of an Indian city. The produce of the country is chiefly raised on large farms, haciendadoes, the proprietor of which lives for the most part in the cities, and leaves all his affairs to he looked after by a resi- dent steward. All these haciendadoes are built on a pretty uniform plan. In the centre of the main farm stands the hacienda, a large quadrangular stone building, fre- quently loop-holed and fortified, with all the windows upon the outside strongly barred. To the right of the doorway is the store at which the Indians on the estate are obliged to purchase all their food, cloth- ing, and whatever other necessaries they want. To the left is the private room of the manager, whether owner or steward. Straight in front opens a large court-yard with a shaded fountain in the centre, and a profusion of flowers under the verandah~ Beyond this again come the stables, and somewhere in the same block the chapel. The farm buildings are always placed at a considerable distance from the hacienda, to prevent their serving as shelter to an enemy. The whole property, which contains per- haps from ten to fifteen square leagues of land, is subdivided into smaller farms, or devoted to vast runs of pasture land covered with herds of half-wild cattle and horses. Tbe peones, or field hands, are free in name, and that is all. Living and dying on the estate, they are always heavily in debt to the store, and are consequently compelled to remain, if for nothing else, at least to work out their obligations in this respect. In a lai~er chapter Captain Elton gives an outline of the history of that brief Empire which began and ended with Maximilian. The key to the position throughout is to he found in the attitude of the Church party. They invited Maximilian in the first instance, intending to use his Government simply as a means of re-establishing the power and in- fluence of their own adherents. The origi- nal mistake committed by France and Aus- tria lay in the supposition that there existed in Mexico any party of order. The Empe- ror was never regarded by the natives as anything more than a good card to be played by one faction against the other. The Church party soon broke with the Emperor. That he was willing to concede much went for nothing, in their eyes, unless he was pre- pared to concede everything. They de- manded, for instance, a restitution of the confiscated ecclesiastical estates. But when the Emperor appointed a Commission to as- sess the compensation to be paid to the pres- ent owners, who had mostly bought their titles from the Republican Government, the Church party wholly rejected any such com- promise, and insisted upon unconditional res- titution. When they found the French were about to leave, they did at last begin to understand the situation, and from that time onward they seemed to have done their best to support the Imperialists. But the forces which, united, might have changed the face of the country, were powerless apart; and the only result of the return of the Church party to the side of Maximilian 62 DIVES AND LAZARUS.MENTANA. was to feed him with false hopes of eventual success, and to prolong the disastrous strug- gle in which, little more than a year later, he sacrificed his life. DIVES AND LAZARUS. LAZARUS, that weary Lazarus again! Why cant a man rest quiet s So Dives spake With Lazarus petition in his hand. Then laying it on the table, let it wait Through all the courses of the sumptuous feast, Till came the olives and the dark-red wine. And then he broke the seal, and thus he read Right Reverend Father, so the letter ran (For Dives was a Bishop) may a man, Most poor in all things, but in that most poor Wherein he should be rich, most poor in faith, Have from you ghostly counsel and advice I only ask the parings of the feast, In which you, furnished unto all good works, Rich in a faith which mountains can remove, Sit day by day, deeming you feed on Christ. Here Dives stopped, with an impatient word Advice, he said, I gave the man advice, To keep his living and to hold his tongue, And now he pesters me, at dinner, too! [hen lie read on My Lord, that I might prove, At least, that I am honest, I resigned This day all benefits that I received, In virtue of the doctrines which I held, But hold no longer. Poor am I indeed In purse, and yet the weight of poverty More lightly presses than the weight of doubt, And fiercer is the craving of the soul Than hunger of the flesh. My sores cry out, Wounded I lie in darkness, seeking light. And so it ended. Dives turned it oer Once and again, as if he sought within Something he did not find there, and his face, Courteous, comfortable, and bland, expressed Utter bewilderment. It seemed to him, As much as if a man of choice preferred, That Christmas night, the bitter cold outside, The howling wind, that wailed as if its voice The woe of all the human race expressed: The wide wild moor, with heaps of driven snow, To that room, bright with artificial light, Filled full with all the good things of this world. Thus Dives in his microcosm deemed Of him who sought the infinite outside. And Dives wrote that Lazarus was to blame, Such doubts were sent as punishment for sin; And as a righteous man neer begs his bread, So a good man can never come to doubt. All was as clear as day in Dives eyes, From Genesis to the Apocalypse. And on he prosed some pages. At the end He wrote: If after all convincing words Like these I send, you choose to starve in soul, I cannot help you further. I must beg, As one on whom the eyes of all the world Are fixed, though all unworthy [Dives here Paused with a thrill of sweet humility], That I have not the scandal at my door, And in my diocese, of doubt like yours. Thus Lazarus was driven forth to starve. AS~pectator. MENTANA. LION-HEARTS of young Italy! Field where none died in vain! Beardless boys and famine-gaunt Corpses along the plain, Did not enough of ye die On the field where none died in vain, Lion-hearts of young Italy ~ Field where death was victory, Blood that gushd not in vain When the deadly rifle of France Pourd its floods of iron rain; Neath the pine-dotted slopes of Tivoli The triumph is with the slain, Lion-hearts of young Italy! Noble error, if error, To make their fatherland one Through her five-and-twenty centuries Rome counts no worthier son Than he who led them to die Where death and triumph were one, Lion-hearts of young Italy For the blood of Mentana To the blood of Thermopyli~ calls, And the blood of Marathon answers, Not in vain, not in vain he falls Who stakes his life on the die When the voice of Freedom calls, Lion-hearts of young Italy! Passionate instinct for truth, Children and heroes in one, Reason higher than reason, Light from beyond the sun : Did not enough of ye die To bind your country in one, Lion-hearts of young Italy ~ Pity not them as they lie Crownd with the fortunate dead; Pity not them, but the foe, For the precious drops that they shed Sow but the seed of victory! Pity the foe, not the dead, Lion-hearts of young Italy! Yours, to be martyrs of God, Yours, for your country to die, Yours, to be Men of Mentana,. Highly esteemd mong the high Theirs, to look on at your victory!. For did not enough of ye die, Lion-hearts of young Italy? 63 64 LAYING A FOUNDATION STONE~FAMILy MUSIC. Brief the day of November, Long to the remnant that fought; Boys too young for the battle, Naked and hunger-distraught No, not too young to die, Falling where each one fought, Lion-hearts of young Italy! F. Spectator. T. P. LAYING A FOUNDATION STONE. OCTOBER 5, 1867. BY THE AUTHOR OF JOHN HALIFAX, GEN TLEMAN. Th.e Holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee. AFTER harvest dews and harvest moonshine, Lay the stone beneath this autumn sunshine; Ere the winter frosts the leaves are thinning, Let the workmen see the works beginning; Let the slender pillars, rising higher, Catch new glimpses of the sunset fire, And the sheltering walls, fresh beauty showing, Day by day be strengthening and growing; Though full many a weary task be meted Ere the perfect fabric is completed. Work in faith, good neighbour beside neighbour Work, and trust heavens smile upon the la- bour; Ay, though we who in the sunshine stand here, Joinin,, voice to voice, and hand to hand here, Ere the moss has grown oer wall and coiun~i, Shall be sleeping in a silence solemn, Or in clearer light and purer air, Busy about His business, ot/ser-wbere. Ay, thon~h in the mystery of mysteries Lvin~ underneath our strange world-histories, Midst of labour earnest,wise, and fervenu, The good Master may call many a servant, Sudden rest may fall on wearied sinews; Workers drop and (lie the work continues. God names differently what we name failing, In a glory-mist his purpose veiling One by one He moves on us hands anointed By His hands, to do our task appointed. But the dimness of our fleshly prison Hides the total splendour of the vision. Grant us, Lord, behind that veil to feel Thee, In our humble life-work to reveal Thee: Doing what we can do, and believing One, with Thee, are giving and receiving. So, this happy sunshine the act gilding, Lay the stone, and may God bless the building! Good Words. FAMILY MUSIC. BESIDE the window I sit alone, And I watch as the stars come out, I catch the sweetness of Lucys tone, And the mirth of the chorus shout: I listen and look on the solemn night, Whilst they stand singing beneath the light. Lucy looks just like an early rose (Somebody else is thinking so), And every day more fair she grows (Somebody will not say me no), And she sings like a bird whose heart is blcssd (And Somebody thinks of building a nest!) And now she chooses another tune, One that was often sung by me : I do not think that these nights in June Are half so fine as they used to be, Or tis colder watching the solemn night, Than standing sin,~ing beneath the li,,ht. Lucy, you sing like a silver bell, Your face is fresh as a morning flower Why should you think of the sobs which swell When leaves fall fast in the autumn bower I Rather gather your buds and sing your song, Their perfume and echo will linger long. Im grey and grave, and tis quite time too I go at leisure along my ways; But I know how life appears to you, I know the words that Somebody says: As old songs are sweet, and old words true, So theres one old story thats always new! There is a grave that you do not know, A drawer in my desk that youve never seen, A page in my life that I never show, A love in my heart that is always green: Sing out the old song! I fear not the pain, I sand it once Lucy, sing it again! Isabella Fyvir. Good Words. SEA-SlacKNEss. Who will try the old ho- mceopathic remedy how they that are not accus- tomed to passe the Sea may auoyde perbreak- ing or casting I He that will passe the Sea, must (a few dayes before hee take Shipping) mingle the Sea-water with his Wine. This is a remedy for theni that be rich; but if it bee a poor man, then he must drinke Sea-water onely, that bee may the easier eschew casting. The reason hereof is, because the Sea-water is salt, and so with his saltuesse, and stipticitie that followetit saltuesse, it closeth the mouth of the stomacke, and thereby anoydeth casting. Schoole of Salerne.

LITTELLS LIVING AGE. No. 1232.January II, 1868. CONTENTS. PAGE 1. Feminine Idleness Victoria Maqazine, 67 74 2. Moor Park and Swift . Frasers Magazine, 55 3. Goidwin Smiths Three English Statesmen Spectator, 4. Brownlows. Part xii Blackwoods Magazine, 88 5. A Remonstrance against the Attack on Miss Braddon Beigravia, 103 6. Jack the Giant Killer. Part ii Miss Thacleeray, 107 7. Italy Saturday Review, 120 8. England, France, and Italy 123 9. The Emperors Speech 125 10. Indian Insects House Visitants Intellectual Observer, 127 POETRY: The Right Bishop, 66. Martyrs and Martyred, 66. Extenuating Circumstances, 66. Q~ The next number will contain Mr. Lowes celebrated Speech at Edinburgh, upon Classi- cal Education as competing with Modern Languages and Sciences. Also the speculations of the English Prcss upon the portentous changes of Napoleons government. Preparing for Publication at this Office THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS. By the author of Heir of Redelyffe. REALMAH. By the author of Friends in Council. THE BROWNLOWS. By Mrs. Oliphant. LINDA TRESSEL. By the author of Nina Balatka. THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOPS FOLLY. By Charles Lever. ALL FOR GREED. PHINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER. By Mr. Trollope. OCCUPATIONS OF A RETIRED LIFE. By Edward Garrett. A SEAIIOARD PARISH. By George McDonald. PEEP INTO A WESTPHALIAN PARSONAGE. Just Published at this Office THE TENANTS OF MALORY. By J. S. Le Fanu. 50 cents. OLD SiR DOUGLAS. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. 75 cents. SIR BRtJOK FOSSBROOKE. New Edition. 50 cents. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually for- warded for a year, free of postage. Bnt we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second 20 30 Third 32 80 The Complete Work, 88 220 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or vottmnses, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. 66 THE RIGHT BISHOP IN THE RIGhT BISHOP IN THE RIGHT PLACE; OR, SELWYN AMONG THE BLACKS. A SALVO for SELWYN, the pious and plucky, The manly an(l muscular, ten(ler and true, Let Lichfield and Coventry own itself lucky, If loss of her shepherd New Zealand must rue. On the bench of Colonial Bishops or boat he Tbe labouring oarhas still pulled like a man, In his stroke for all mitres on sees now afloat he Is a model to match, or surpass, if they can. He has toiled, lie has tussled, with nature and savaie When which was the wilder tw~s hard to de- cide, Spite of Maoris musket, and hurricanes s ravage, The tight Southern Cross * has still hraved time and tide. Where lawn-sleeves and silk apron had turned witb a shiver, From the current that roared twixt his busi- ness and him, If no boat could be come at, he breasted the riv- er, And woe to his chaplain who craned at a swim! What to him were the Cannibal tastes that still lingered In the outlying nooks of his Maori fQld, Where his flock oft have mused, as their Bibles they fingered, How good would our warm-hearted Bishop be, cold! What to him were short commons, wet jacket, hard-lying, The savages blood-feud, the elements strife, Whose guard was the Cross, at his peak proudly flying, Whose fare was the bread and the water of lifel THE RIGHT PLACE, ETC. Say if Wensbury roughs, Tipton cads, Bilston bullies, Waikato can match, Taranaki excel l Find in New Zealands clearings, or wild ferny gullies, Tales like those Dudley pit heaps and nail- works could tell A Labour more brutal, a Leisure more bestial, Minds raised by less knowledge of God or of man, More in manners thats savage and less thats celestial, Can New Zealand show than the Black Coun- try can l A fair field, my Lord Bishop fair field and no favour For your battle with savagery, suffring, and sin. To Mammon, their God, see where rises the sa- your Of the holocaust offered his blessing to win. Your well-practised courage, yourhold oer the heathen, From, not to New Zealand for work ought to roam; If it be dark, what must the Black Country he then, Whats the savage oer sea, to the savage at home? Punch. MARTYRS AND MARTYRED. SING De profundis for your martyrs, sing. Peace to the souls of traitors may it bring, Help them to full release from murders guilt, Though a true Britons was the blood they spilt, Peace to the souls of Fenians, being fled; Now justice has been done; and rest the dead! But ~vhile you chant the penitential strain For them, the slayers, recollect the slain. ~Which, say your priests, is like to need it most, Flitting, forewarned or unforewarned, a ghost, Sped with a blow, or sent at leisure duel The Fenians, or the victim whom they slew l Sing for your martyrs souls; hut dont for- - get That other martyr, poor Policeman BRETT; Sing for the murderers all the psalms you can: But sing as many for the murdered man. Punch. Long, long the warm Maori hearts that so lov- ed him May watch and may wait for his comihg again, He has sown the good seed there, his Master has moved him To his work among savages this side the main. In the Black Country, darker than ever New Zealand, Mid worse ills than heathenisms worst can coml)ine, He must strive with the savages reared in our free land, AN EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCE. To toil, drink, aiid die, round the forge and the mine! - To hang is human: to reprieve divine, But what absurdity could be absurder, * The (To hang for any crime whilst you design,) missionary vessel in which the Bishop used Than that High Treason should extenuate to cruise along the coasts and amon the islands of his diocese. His prowess as an oar~an is still fa. Murder I suous at his old University. Punch. FEMININE IDLENESS. 67 From The Victoria Magazine. to take very eccentric courses rather than FEMININE IDLENESS. to be doomed to idleness. And many an- other clergyman could endorse the asser- THOUGH the great majority of women are tion. fortunately for themselves compelled to work, Now as refusal to satisfy the cravings of and to enjoy the interest and stimulus of the di~estive faculty is productive of suffer- labour, yet the opinion of all classes leads ing, so is the refusal to satisfy the craving of them to condemn such exertion except when any other faculty productive of suffering to starvation is the alternative. As soon as a an extent proportioned to the importance woman rises out of the class in which the of that faculty. But as God wills mans smallest earnings or savings are valuable, happiness, that line of conduct which pro- the irresistible force of public opinion de- duces unhappiness is contrary to His will. prives her of all but paltry sources of inter- And To consider how often the same est and activity. She understands nothin:, things come in life, as meals, sleep, diversion, of the industry by which her masculine re- it might make n ~tonly a resolute, a wretch- lations earn money. There is a general ed, or a wise, but even a delicate person feeling that she ought to have only very little wish to die. But in actions, enterprises, intercourse with mankind, an(l that only and desires, there is a remarkable variety with a selected few, whose opinions, traifr- which we perceive with great pleasure, ing, and habits, offer no contrast to her own. whilst we begin, advance, rest, go back, re- Any induloence of natural ener,y that in- emit, approach, obtain, etc.; whence it is terferes with this must be given up, because truly said that life without a pursuit is a it may lead her to evil to acquaintance vain and languid thing. And this holds with it if not to the practice of it and she true both of the wise and unwise indifferent- is not trained to have a choice in the matter, ly. So Solomon says even a brainsick man to resist the one and cling to the other, so seeks to satisfy his desire and meddles in much as to remain quiescent for fear of get- I everything. And thus the most potent ting into a position where a choice would princes, who have all things at command, have to be made. She is placed in the yet sometimes t~hoose to pursue low and most favourable circumstances for carrying empty desires, which they prefer to the out a very old-fashioned mode of arriving at greatest affluence of sensual pleasures; thus perfection; a mode easily practised in a Nero delighted in the harp, Commodus in convent, but best of all in a desert. People fencing, Antoni nus in racing, etc. So much who leave unsatisfied most of their wants and more pleasing is it to be active than in posses- wishes have little motive for activity; and sion. * so, doing nothing, they escape doing wrong. Let us look a little at the state of those The Christian world thought well of this left without this healthy and beneficial plan for many hundred years, and filled the employment, and then ask the question land with monasteries and nunneries ac- why the business of helping themselves may cordingly. It ended in provin~ that those not be tolerated, as well as that of helping who gave up so much were after all no bet- others. ter than other men and women, while they We have most of us known what it is to had incapacities, if not vices, of their own have our existence bounded by pain, superadded. mental or physical, and to make acquaint- With regard to women of the classes ance, with wonder, perhaps, when the houn- above poverty, one can hardly look round dary is removed, with all that has passed without seeing some of the consequences of within our sight and hearing, which yet we resignation in the wrong place. The want have neither seen nor heard. How would of interest and employment is a general it be to live always within horizon so nar- complaint. The business of ministerino- to row? And there are many other states of minds diseased by this want, is an important existence which have boundaries equally part of the duty of the clergy of all sects, and narrow, be the same painful or pleasant. the charitable labours carried on by women States that last much longer than pain can in this position might well have been invent- do. They are those in which one idea has ed for their benefit, rather than for that of complete possession of the mind, not from those whom they serve. It is alleged, the pressure of its own importance, but from says the Rev. F. D. Maurice, that there the absence of any other. From dearth of are many who are craving for healthy and subjects we may have our consciousness as beneficial employment, and who are suffering much limited as when taken possession of by much mental distress, and bodily illness, be- eause they cannot find it, and who are ready * Bacon. 68 FEMININE IDLENESS. a master thought. Not that we hold our If ever she is seriously wronged, it supplies idea. with energy or clearness, hut that we a subject for the rest of her life. If she is hold nothing else. If the proof of our exist- disappointed in any expectation, however enee is that we think, this state is one of unreasonable, she has generally no means of half existence. And the narrow hounds of learning its absurdity, and the disappoint- our consciousness may not include the knowl- ment becomes a wrong. At times she may edge that there is a better state to which we remember to have heard that everlasting might attain. We may become enclosed talk on her own affairs is somewhat selfish, within the nari-ower circle any day, we may and so resolves to show that she is not so livc in it for years, and it may be nobodys absorbed as she appears. But all she can fault but our own, for it may be nobodys possibly do is to throw in a remark that It duty to find us employment, society, or does not matter, Its of no consequence amusement. The faculty of takino notice which assertions she will make either con- which is so astonishing when it first appears, cerning her years income, or her mornings is one that may be cultivated or deadened walk, with a dim impression that it ought to like every other. It needs stimulus and mo- be true, though she cannot feel it so. tive to keep it in activity; we take slight There is another consequence of a solitary bold of facts that dont concern us, or only uneventful life that not only weakens the concern us by rousing our amusement or mind, but warps it. Sheer vacuity makes surprise. Those with no strong motive for a woman fill it with imaginary things, and mental exertion have gradually less and less that in such a manner that she cannot her- reason for observing; and less power of re- self distinguish between what is true and taming what they know. In fact, they live what she has invented. A woman leading less, and those in whom a mistakew educa- such a life can become quite positive as to tion has stifled their natural activity are the motives and feelings of those she deals only half alive. Any little fact, however with, and be quite unconscious that it is her trivial, which happens to get possession of a own imaginations that she has substituted mind like this, bounds it for the time being. for them, and chosen to believe in. As her Should it prO(luce a painful feeling, they can life gets farther and farther removed from l)ut helplessly suffer. They have nothing actuality, as her circle narrows, her inven- else that they know well enough or can hold tions expand, and as this removal leaves the f~st.enough to put in its place. Having no imagination unchecked, the few facts become motive tbr an(l consequently no habit of con- overrun with such a growth of fictitious con- trolling their attention it is taken possession comitants, that she herself could not tell her of whether they will or no. A dispropor- own history. tionate importance is t~iven to the trifle that The reason is, that all ideation, as well for the moment has hold of the mind, and as perception, is at first synonymous with an amount of feeling hung on it that aston- e ief. We only distinguish what has hap- ishes those accustomed to more varieti in- pened from what we have imagined by care- terests. To a man in prison the appearance ful ohservation, and, in fact, never succeed of a mouse may be the event of his life. In in perfectly separating them. A first im- vain to say that the most important events pression, perhaps, must have an outward of a life are not important; in vain that cause; but the vibration ofa nerve produced they may perhaps remember for themselves by a real impression will cause other nerves that such things happen every day, that to vibrate in sympathy, and the ideas con- they have no consequences, and are not veyed by the nerves so stirred, though not worth thinking of twice. Before we can impressions of facts, cannot be distinguished execute a resolve not to think of a thing we from them. A man in love, a man in fear, must have something to put in its place. really receive impressions given by nothing Merely to say I will not dwell on this, is in the outward world; given by nerves act- still thinking of it, and there are no known ing from sympathy only with those that have means of making a mental vacuum. To put received an impression fmom without. To any event in its right place, to form a proper sift the true from the imaginary the same i(lea of its relative importance, is impossible experience needs to be gone through again for a woman who has few to compare it and again, and above all, to be compared with; since to do so she must compare it with the impressions of others. But if the with things out of si~ht. Her feelings may health is weak, and the impressions from be roused for the da5~ by such a thing as not without few and far between, if bodily fa- getting a civil answer to a question, or the tigue never puts the vibrating nerves to rest, neglect of an inquiry about her health, or a and above all, if the few people with wh m small attempt to cheat her out of odd pence. she can discuss them are in an exactly smm~ FEMININE IDLENESS. lar position, how is a woman to arrive at any knowledge of the actual world? The sympathetic impressions of one in this posi- tion often form the greater part of the his- tory of the day, and such days may be re- peated for years. False impressions a few times repeated, cannot be distinguished from true ones, for we have no means of knowing one from the other, except their greater frequency and energy. To receive few impressions, then to lead the uneventful and almost solitary life which is often thought fit for women is to approach the borders of insanity; of the state in which the mind cannot distinguish the real from the ideal, and is more under the dominion of the latter than the former. This habit of mixing the false and the true, this inability to distinguish between them, is found most frequently among those who lead solitary lives. When a miser lives in solitude he soon begins to see a thief in every stranger, just as lonely women have the standard terror of a man un(ler the bed. If the man mixed with the world, he would know it was not so full of thieves, and most likely know enough of their probable where~ abouts and physiognomy not to fear every face he met. The woman with the same advantages would probably not see much reason for a mans putting himself in such an odd position. But to do this they must have the means of arriving at the truth; the means of con- trolling and of judging the mental activity which is sympathetic only. The very read- iness of the nerves to vibrate proves that greater work for them is desirable. Still their throb we cannot. We can hut choose whether it shall convey to our minds a pic- ture of what really exists, or a mere succes- sion of disordered images. Now the consequence of that mode of conduct which it is generally thought desira- ble for women to follow, that of resigning their wishes instead bf working for them, is that such resignation leads almost irresistibly to solitude. A woman with no work and limited means can have but little motivefor mixing with strangers, but a very strong one for remaining secluded and inactive. It is a motive that is in general operation, and the half idiocy that it produces is a univer- sal subject of ridicule. The unprotected female is not a woman born with inferior capacity, it is one in whom ignorance and helplessness have been artificially superin- duced; a creature as much below the limits of her natural development, as the dwarf trees that are a production of Chinese gar- dening. And as most evils have a tendency to pro- vide for their own continuance, it will be found that this one, after having lasted a certain time, is strong enough to have be- come unconquerable. After a while, the strongest wish, the hardest necessity, cannot force a woman to undergo the miseries and terror of a moderately active life. In the mere presence of a stranger she is as far from calmness as a new recruit under fire. And as fear is never reasonable, nor bears any relation to the importance of the thing feared, there is often as much suffered in one case as in the other. It is melancholy to see a woman in the prime of life, and otherwise healthy, not able to keep her bands and voice from trembling in speaking or even listening to a person whose feelings or opinions may be of no importance to her whatever. It is misery to her not to be able to control her attention, to speak disjointed English, to know that she is for the moment scarcely sane, and to feel that self-control is beyond her power. But self-control comes by practice only. Reasoning, resolution, intellect, without this practice, will not put the cleverest woman on a level with the veriest simpleton whose habits have been more fortunate. All these good qualities, and ~reat knowledge, and stainless life sn- peradded, will not enable a woman to ask a question so as to be intelligible, nor to tell clearly what she knows, nor, of all she knows, to make choice of what ought to be told. For to say just the right thing at the right time, is a habit never perfectly ac- quired. People come near to it by practice, but a man of the best natural faculty, in the constant habit of speaking to all sorts of peo- ple, will often neglect to speak when he ought, or will say something out of place. A woman, without the chance of practice, can no more speak to the purpose than a shooter can hit the mark at the first attempt. The shot often flies so wide as to make it doubtful what she could be aiming at. She is liable to be either over-bold, or over-mo& est, or over-dignified, to such an extent that the matter in hand, whatever it may be, is quite put into the background by her dem- onstrations. People generally content them- selves with laughing at a deformity to which they think they are not liable, but for wo- men it may be as well to inquire into the cause of it. Let them not say they will know better, they will never behave so fool- ishly. They might as well make a promise to themselves not to limp with a palsied side. Exposed to the same influences, they will suffer from the same result. It is not a con- sequence of original mental inferiority. It 69 FEMININE IDLENESS. arises from causes to which they too are ha- hie, and which will certainly produce on them too the same effect. There is one small ineffectual remedy for these evils. One that caanot be resorted to in half the cases where a remedy is needed, and that is of very little service when it can be had. When a woman is without any Se- rious employment, and custom forbids her to carry any study far enough to make it a source of interest, she may see society, go a great deal into society, and in some few cases may even see the best society. That is to say, a number of people with nothing to do can meet to seek in company for sources of interest that none of them have got separately. Against the mere physical effect of shyness this remedy is effective, but against no other of the evils in question. Moreover, only those few who have means can indulge in this anom- alous occupation, which has this general re- sult, that the larger the society the less inter- esting the topics; the less connected the con- versation; the less of information and truth there is to be met with. The first condition that people make who meet together in soci- ety is, that there shall be as little of the colli- s~on of varied interests as possible, and the best means of insurin~ this is not to bring varied i.n- terests into play. This makes the whole busi- ness so dull, that fictitious ones must be invent- ed. They learn to care for the number of peo- p~e whom they see on a particular evening, or the value of the dress they wear, etc., etc.; not because of any profit or pleasure there- from accruing, but because they have set these things before them as objects of pur- suit. And having once learned to consider them important, they seldom change. Whatever business has supplied us with ac- tivity fbr a certain time, to it we turn again and again for stimulus; so that from sheer necessity people who have been reduced to seeing a great deal of society, must con- tinue the same employment. It is more fre- qi ent to die from the loss of a customary pursuit, than to invent another to take its hilace. But this pursuit has an inevitable tendency to put an end to itself. Thus such society is but a short-lived protection from dulness. It leads back again to the enemy and gives one poweiless into his hands. It is wise then for women to look out a better means of self-defence, before custom has hound them to the treadmill. When for long years their main motive for talking has been to do conversation, and their desire in listenino rather if possible to believe both sides, and to adopt opposite opinions, than to sift evidence or decide conscientiously, even this sort of intercourse may become rare, and when the isolation of years comes on, is very likely to be lost altogether. Parry relates of an infirm old Esquimaux that when he saw his likeness in the glass for the first time he burst into tears, saying, he should never hunt deer any more. Intercourse with indifferent people is the mirror required by all human beings to keep them in some degree informed con- cerning their actual selves. Continually we see those who are able to exclude all unwelcome information on this topic, be- come ridiculous from their Ignorance. How often we meet with a rich man who has surrounded himself with inferiors and be- come absurdly pompous and despotic. How common is the caricature of a woman who does not know she has grown old, who has never got a sight of that mirror that would be held up to her by associates not chosen on condition of being silent or complimen- tary. Always, even with superior sense and great experience, a limited society soon warps a persons judgment of them- selves. What power can a woman have of self-appreciation who, through her whole life, may never have to learn the value other people set upon her, and never or seldom brings her ability to the proof of actual trial? Into one or other extreme she must fall sometimes of conceit, some- times of despondency. If she has never heard a free opinion as to her beauty, never put her talents to the proof, never had op- portunity to compare her capacity with other peoples, she must have more than mortal wisdom to come to a true conclu- sion. And this artificial state of misery and ig- norance may be the fate of any woman is most likely to be if their serious interests are managed for them by other people. For, with a limited income, almost the only opening for activity is in the effort to in- crease it. It is only ~he rich who can find much occupation in spending money. If some one else is always to have the nerve to ask an unwilling debtor, the clearheadedness to make a bargain, the justice to know what are ,fair terms, the self-control to keep a point in view, to hold to the right without fear or favour, and ask no more if all these are provided for them they lose the best and most natural training that life has to give. Mankind acquire their experience so in- insensibly that they are continually in dan- ger of denying to their successors the means by which they got it. Our children shall not have to work, to fight, to strive, 70 FEMININE IDLENESS. they invariably resolve, forgetting that God has made effort the only means of acquir- ing strength, or skill, or patience. With women this kind of education has been more fully carried out than with men let us say because they were better cared for; but in truth to make the carrying out pos- sible it ha~ had to be decided that their wants were less. They are said not to want, or to be better without, most of the serious interests and employments that can occupy mankind. And no matter if the education profited; for the wants, though they are all there, may wisely be left unsatisfied if such privation were useful to the nurture of a nobler mind. But, once more, estrange- itient from the world does not make one su- perior to it. No such definite mechanical rule can be laid down for arriving at any- thing good. But mutilation, deformity, in- capacity, are results much m6re easily ar- rived at. When the decent forethought that would make provision for the future has no openin~ for its gratification, when the want of means prevents the cultivation of any predominating faculty, and no way is taught or permitted of earning money, the sure result of such a life must be to dwarf the intellect that is left untrained, if not to pervert the feelin~s that are left un- occupied. If the doctrine can be thor- oughly carried out it ends like the experi- ment of teaching the horse to live without food. When the seclusion is complete, and the woman ought to be perfect, she is found to have lost the little faculty she had at first. So that if it were possibl?e, which it never is, for all a womans wants to be provided for, she would still be most unhappy if con- demned to inactivity, since no hum n being ever ceases to desire. It is vain to tell them they have this or that, or more than most people. They are made to find pleas- ure in working more than in having, and the mere knowledge that there is nothing to be gained by activity is enough to make even a delicate person wish to die, so much more pleasing is it to be active than in possession. There is another evil to which women, from their poverty, are much more liable than men. In every little circle it is prob- able that, most of them, at least in their youth, habitually lament that no one can feel as they do, no one understands them, etc., and spend their lives wishiiig for a congenial soul to complete their exist- ence. Pains and pleasures that have been lived through since the world began, they imagine themselves to have a monopoly of; and unconsciously take their power of feel- ing them as a proof of their superiority; the fact being that they know nothing of the race they belong to, and from sheer iso- lation are forced into constant contempla- tion of themselves. Now we are apt to imagine complete congeniality to be one of the greatest blessings the ~voAd has to give, but yet it is as well that we are not all after one model, unless it were a better one than now exists. Providence has put within our reach both the solace of appreciation and the bracing tonic of opposition. Instead, therefore, of wishing for what thoy cannot get, and what would not be good for them if they had it, they should endeavor to es- cape from their isolation and from ~the poverty that is the cause of it. The alter- nate collision and sympathy that they meet with will give them a part of what they want, and enable them to dispense with the rest. There is a very good reason why women soon learn to dislike any activity connected with money matters. At sixteen there is nothing to be ashamed of in their ignorance; but when, for the next ten years, no opportu- nity occurs of learning, the woman at twenty- six looks not interesting, but silly. It is painful to them to have to deal with stran- gers with the consciousness of looking like a fool. And this i~,norance, like most defi- ciencies, raises, in the deficient person, a tendency to Justify and cultivate it. The more glaring her incapacity, the more dis- posed she is to make a merit of it, so that it is by no means uncommon for a woman ex- pensively educated to confess with a titter to her ignorance of the first four rules of arithmetic. She justifies herself with the remark that wonien are not expected to un- derstand such things. Indeed a woman may live to old age and be expected to under- stand very little. And through her long and helpless life one idea is perpetually re- curring. At every want, at every pain, she is indistinctly sensible that she might have some power in herself to help herself. - She will make desperate attempts at times. Wonderful follies she will commit when goaded by the con iousness of hem utterly powerless, and the suspicion, or certainty, of being wronged. Of course she fails, and probably does herself some harm. The moral she draws is, that business is not for women to meddle1 with. Then, hem1, quite incapable of judgin~ of the conduct of her a~ents, and never venturing openly to ques- tion it, she is always discontented with what she receives, generally asking for impossihil~- ides, and receiving the lukewarm service 71 FEMININE IDLENESS. that those naturally get who inspire no in- terest, pay no wages, and whose thanks are known to be insincere. It is true all this lamentation over the miseries of idleness can only be made by a small number of women. Want of something to do is not the complaint of the majority of the world, either masculine or feminine, for they have their living to earn. But as soon as a woman rises above the lowest working class she comes under the oppression of the social law which forbids her to work, or at least to work to purpose. And writers must address themselves to the reading class, and so get the habit of thinking solely of the small minority called cultivated. Yet even of these there are many who will honestly wonder at the complaint of vacuity in fem- inine life. Dont know what to do! they will exclaim. With a baking-day and a clean- ing-day in every week! With a washing- day to upset the house periodically, and oc- casional preparations fbr visitors to give double work to the housekeeper! It must be all laziness that makes them say there is nothing to do. And so it is the laziness that is engen- dered hy want of motive. A paralysing disease to which one generation after another invariably yields as they rise in the world. The zeal and industry, and sometimes the ahility, that are so great a help to a man in the lower ranks of life, lose ~their value as the pair rise above the labouring class. While the man changes from work at a shil- hug a day to a pound a week, and then still farther improves up to a few thousands a year; the value of a womans labour never rises beyond the first step, or at most the second. Even if there is need of money there is still hut little motive for working at the ill-paid labour she is taught to consider peculiarly her own. If she has abundance, however unthinking her activity may be, however unreasoning her adherence to old custom, she must become aware at last that her earnings, or her savings, which are the same thing, are utterly trivial compared with the means at her command. She must perforce give up the cooking, sewing, etc., from sheer feeling of the ridiculous; even al- though she may not be able to enter the class at the other end of the scale, where the employment of spending money supplies the place, in some measure, of the business of earning it. Amongst this class a class constantly increasing in onr prosperous times the palsy arising from solitude and inactivity gets less and less common. It is not that work, bodily or mental, is in fashion, but va- riety and change of scene certainly are. It will soon be impossible to find an unpro- tected female. The next generation will wonder to hear of a woman perhaps forty years old being unable to perform the op- eratiou of getting a railway-ticket and seat- ing herself in a carriage without ~ome one to help and guide her. No doubt this modern activity tends to keep the present genera- tion in better possession of their faculties, and it is probably one reason why a larger number than formerly are clamouring for employment, and are even able to see that that employment should be remunerative. The fashion is against this last condition. Th~ woman who has spent her life till thirty years old, perhaps, attending balls, bazaars, and fashionable crowds of all kinds; who has begged of strangers, corresponded with tradespeople, sun,, at amateur concerts, etc., etc., may suddenly be brought to poverty, and find herself in total ignorance of the way to manage her own affairs. And the reason why no knowledge on the subject was ever given her, was that crowds, strangers, pub- licity, wandering from home, etc., were in- consistent with her feminine tastes and nat- ural functions! The fact that, so soon as their means enable them, young women prefer publicity, wandering, and variety, and get as much of it as possible, proves that the contrary life is not their own choice. It is the nat- ural, and in their case the only, means of making acquaintance with the world they live in. If they are taught to give up their inclinations as a matter of duty, they will certainly say they prefer the life laid out for, them, however gloomy, and will blush to be found escaping from it. They are not hypocritical in saying they like their state of privation. Fasting, solitude, and celibacy have been the real choice of many, yet it is false to say that such a life was in accordance with their nature. The idlest sort of gossip is better than this. True, there are many things better than gossip; but such things are not always within femi- nine reach. When women have outlived the protec- tion given to their childhood, and when the hopefblness of youth has faded, there are still two canses which are very effective in preventing them from chan,4ng the life they have been used to, even when their convic- tions have changed; these are, ill health and the fear of giving offence to those on whom they depend. The physical state produced by inertia is not necessarily one of illness that a doc 72 73 FEMININE IDLENESS. tor would give a name to and attempt to cure, but it is one in which the pains of life very much, predominate over its pleasures. Women whose social code forbids them any strenuous exertion of body or mind, are a helpless prey to their own impressionability. It is torture to anyone so suffering to go through the small delays, rebuffs, and ~nx- ieties that make up a working-day. It would not be possible for them to do more. The mere contemplation of a new and diffi- cult undertaking would make them ill. The worst effect of t~ieir position has been pro- duced in depriving them of the power of escape from it. The other objection is felt by many wo- men who are vigorous, healthy, and capable. By taking any step to secure their own prosperity they know they would lose the good-will of those on whom they depend. Of what use is it to cultivate, slowly and painfully, the skill to provide for themselves when they would forfeit by so doing the provision made already? What if their efforts failed after they had burnt their ships by offending their providers? The power of those who are able to main- tain them is more likely to injure their prospects than their own untaught efforts are to secure prosperity. This is so sure, that women who can find anyone able to bear the burden of maintaining them are generally ready to take a common-sense view of the matter, and live under direc- tion, even where there may be no good- will in the case at all. They may know well, and have the proof of experience, that no regard for their interests, or even respect for their rights, is felt by their mas- ter, but he maintains them. Out of the warm nest of childhood, where no cold wind can chill them, they have passed by degrees to the uncertain protection of their equals, an(l then, perhaps, to the neglect of stran- gers. In every stage the desire to control them, to dictate their conduct, has some share in the help they receive, and the far- ther they advance from childhood the more likely it is to supply the place of affection altogether. We have seen how men, with the best will in the world, can expose them to a life sure to make them helpless, and often bring them to the borders of idiocy. What is to be expected without even this good-will? Nor are the protectors to be blamed if their help is imperfect and their direction ill-judged. If a woman comes to poverty in her incapable old age, on her and her alone the responsibility rests. Submission is not the duty of any one arrived at years of discretion. Those who suffcr from errors are evidently those whose duty it is to avoid them, and unless they could dele- gate the one half of their destiny, it is of no use shirking the other. The evils here described are not rare or slight ones. Though some may doubt whether they are ascribed to the right cause, every one will recognise their ex- istence. The scanty supply of facts and interests, the unreadiness and incapacity in dealing with them, the inclination to ramble and exaggerate, and especially to imagine, are all exquisitely feminine, and are faults to which women are particularly liable faults or misfortunes no matter for the name if the description inspires them with the desire to guard themselves against them; for they may take this warning to their hearts on themselves, on their foresight, their exertion, it depends to save themselves from this conclusion. All the world is igno- rant, and nearly all indifferent as to what may be the best means of promoting their welfare; and they have a right to be so. So imperfect is the power we possess of appreciating the needs and sufh~rings of each other, that with the best will in the world, and the means to indulge it, men will often keep the women belonging to them in that state of helpless inertia that is enough to make even a delicate person wish to die. The weariness of monotony they know little of; the helplessness that comes of it they attribute to innate incapacity, and quote as a reason for continuing the regimen. Their opinions or their tastes cannot be a reason for submitting to a burden that they them- selves would not touch with one of their fingers. Not to them is it given nor to the authority of custom, nor the teaching of friends, nor the gossippiug judgment of small comniunities, though all these are things to profit by, and some of them things to value not to them is it given to take the conduct of a womans life out of her own hands. Against the evils she suff~irs from she must struggle for herself. There is little real good will in those who make quiescence a condition of their assistance. If women suffer from poverty, let them earn money; if from want of interests, let them manage their own affairs, and secure the liberty to choose their own pursuits. If they are forbidden by the power that has command of the purse, this is poverty in another shape; there is no merit in submit- ting to these evils; it is no duty to bear them if they can be removed. T. 74 MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. From Frasers Magazine. but unfrequented), the tree-shaded high MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. bank on your left hand, the watery meadow- fields with sallows and osiers, on your right, PASSING Cobbetts birthplace, the Jolly and the parallel shady slope beyond. A Farmer, and the Farnham railway station, mile or so of this brings you to another I soon quitted the main road for a by-road bridge, a mill, a main-road windin~, up the on the left. The hedgerow-bank among shoulder of Crooksbury Hill; and little be- other flowers showed an abundance of the yond this bridge, in a shady park, are the greater celandine, with its yellow four- ruins of Wav~dey Abbey. Moor Park petaled bloom and beautifully cut green House was lately a water-cure establish- leaf. Neither this, nor Wordsworths inent, but is now again a private residence. friend, its lesser namesake, (which is of the Up the steep bank close by, fir-shaded, ranunculus tribe this of the poppy) nor from which you can look down the chim- any other of yellow wild-flowers equals in neys, Sir William Temples amanuensis richness of colom- the common king-cup at used to run violently of a morning, in hopes its best. It tells wonderfully in a field of improving his health, and puttin~, to rout nosegay. Never king of Thule quaffed his his sick headaches; and perhaps did him- wine from so rich-hued a goblet. self more harm than good. In some soli- This spring, though strangely broken by tary recess of these woods the same moody three or four patches of winter, has been youth used to sit reading by the hour, try- profuse of wild flo~ ers, at least on the ing to forget the last rebuke of his dignified south coast of England, especially of prim- patron, and all the countless vexations rose, lesser celandine, stitcbwort, red cam- which a proud, irritable temper finds or pion, king-cup, water crowfoot. Blue-bells contrives for itself; and to a cold caught in were less plentiful. The hawthorns, which his damp woodland study, he attributed a burst into sudden bloom, as the nightingales deafness which afterwards increased and into song, in the warm beginning of afflicted him all his Jife. The sunny shady May, stopped short, as the birds also were hill-slope here of red-stemmed Scotch pines, siricken dumb, in those three weeks of un- and the grass-grown lane and valley beneath natural cold which made hoary-headed it are haunted for me by the figure of a frosts fall in the fresh lap of the crimson tall gaunt young man, rapid and abrupt in rose, and blighted many a walnut tree, gesture, of dusky complexion and some- mulberry, andy myrtle in cottage-gardens, what grim look, who hits one in passing as well as countless ridges of the famine- with a glance from prominent blue eyes, root abhorred by Cobbett, for which he suspicious, penetrating; hurries on mutter- cursed the memory of Sir Walter Raleigh. ing, and strides into the thicket. An odd The later-leaved forest trees, oak and ash, little fatherless child at Dublin, brought up are also many of them scorched as by fire; on the charity of uncles; a sarcastic, in- but not these two broad spreading oaks that subordinate student of T. C. D.; adis- overshade the steep lane descending to contented young man, penniless, of little Moor Park, and under whose branches promise, not knowing which way to turn; Jonathan Swift must so often have passed, for his mothers sake (she herself depend- during the nine or ten years of which he ent on relations) taken under the patron- spent the best part at this place, between age and into the house of the dignified ex- the age of 25 and 31. From the name of courtier and man of letters, to do the part it, and from finding mention of its loneli- of a humble kind of secretary; vague ness, I had always fancie(l Moor Park to be schemes in his hea4 of attempting literary a bleak solitary place. It is but two miles work; an uncertain hope of getting into from Faruham. and in a richly wooded vale, some sort of career, by the help of his pat- The little Wey winds through meadow- rons influence; already, at twenty-two, ground, steepish slopes rising on ei~ser suffering from frequent ill health; already hand, forest-like with large oaks, horse- a moody, despondent, irritable human be- chestnuts,. beeches, lindens, mixed with the ing, I could see young Jonathan Swift, pillared shade of dusky firs. Moor Park haunting these lonely avenues and fir-tree House is now an ugly stuccoed building, slopes; and when I got home after this the old walls, or part of them, still forming ramble, I tried to sift out and make clearer its core. The garden slopes to the river; to myself such facts as are presented (some- the lane crosses the river by a little bridge, times too vaguely, and mixed up with evi- then, turning sharp to the right, passes in dent inaccuracies, and statements without front of the white mansion and along the authority) by the various biographers. vale, a rural grass-grown avenue (public, One thing seems to me highly proba 75 MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. ble, that Swift was born with a tendency ward youth, with lrge observant blue eyes, to brain disease, and that it came on and a drily sarcastic tongue which he de- gradually from an early period of lite, cans- lights to exercise upon carriers, tramps, ing the giddiness and other distressing tavern-keepers, and whomsoever the cheap symptoms from which he often suffered, wayfarer falls in with,. having, in fact, a and sinking him at last into the sad con- taste for amusing himself with low com- dition of his closing years. After death, pany. his brain was found to be loaded with Though an irregular student, the lad is, water. in his own way, much addicted to books, The Rev. Thomas Swift, vicar of Good- and has read a large quantity. He has also rich, near IRoss in llerefordshire, took the tried his hand at scribbling, and carries an kings side in the great Civil War, and old pocket-book crammed with verse-jot- thereby suffered much loss. At his death tings, not odes to the moon or his mistresss he left 13 or 14 children, but ill off. The eyebrow, but lampoons and epigrams, per- eldest son, Godwin, was called to the bar, sonal and political on the Queens cc- and received a legal office in Ireland. His couchement, the Prince of Orange, the good fortune drew three more of his broth Dublin actresses, doctors, college dons, & c., ers to that cpuntry, William, Jonathan, often coarse enough in phrase.* He has and Adam. Jonathan, an attorney, had noted the political movements of the time, the place of steward or under-treasurer at is inclined, apparently, to divert himself the Kings Inn, Dublin; but some two years with the manners of the lower class of peo- after his appointment lie died suddenly at ple, and at the same time to observe (it he an early age, leaving his widow in destitu- had the chance) the ways of courts and tion, with an infant daughter, and the ex- cabinets, and of those great folk who pull pectation of another child. This fatherless the strings of the puppet-show. Towards child, a son, was born on the 30th of intermediate mankind, the respectable November, 1667, probably in Hocys Court, classes in general, all their thoughts and Dublin, but this is not quite certain. His doings, his attitude is one of hahitual con- nurse, a native of Whitehaven, carried him tempt, now and again concentrated into out of affection to that place, and kept him anger. They are dunces and fools, their there during the first three years of his life, manners dull, their actions base, their ob- after which little Jonathan was brought jects despicable. back to Ireland, and at six years old sent to While Jonathan stayed with his mother Kilkenny School, his uncle Godwin under- at Leicester (it could not have been more taking the charge of his support and educa- than a few months) he entertained his leis- tion. In his fifteenth year he entered nrc in a manner not at all unusual with him, Trinity College, Dublin, where he contiun- by making up to a pretty girl of that place, ed some seven years, gaining little credit by the name of Miss Betty Jones, who was either for conduct or study. The Student, of the decent middle class, and not without noor and dependent (and hating his de- a share of education and refinement. pendence and what he deemed his uncles Meanwhile, Mrs. Swift havin~ made hum- parsimony), was a mauvais sujet, irregular ble application on behalf of her son to the in attendance, given to town-haunting, great Sir William Temple, who had some contemptuous to those above him, audacious knowledge of her, and received a gracious in lampoon. He obtained his . B. A. with reply, the youth set off southward, and difficulty, and, after this, in the course of joined the household of Sir Willidm, now two years, incurred over seventy penalties, some time retired from active public life, and was publicly admonished, and subsequently, resident on a small estate which he had being convicted of insolence to the junior purchased near Farnham, in Surrey. The dean, had his degree suspended, and was ex-ambassador and diplomatist was at this forced to crave pardon in public. In 1689, time a handsome stately man of sixty, with being then in his twenty-sedond year, this a courtesy that easily rose to haughtiness, unruly young man, a nuisance to the learn- and a love of letters that was not without ed authorities, and a heartburn to his own a flavour of pedantry~ He had transacted relations (Godwin was dead, but another with success various high negotiations in uncle had carried the youth on), left col- his time, especially between England and lege without money, character, or definite the States of Holland, was twelve years am- prospect of any kind. Sailing to England, bassador at the Hague, had been in favour likely in some little coasting-vessel, young with King Charles, and was now in favour Jonathan Swift sets off on foot to his anx- ~ Pocket-book still extant: Wilds Last Years ions poor mother at Leicester, a tall awk- of Dean & .ift, p. 122. MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. with King William. He was fortunate, in his birth, in his marriage, and in every step of his career, and had gathered honours not only in statesmanship, but also in the field of literature. He was fond of reputa- tion, and as fond of ease and comfort; per- haps a little irritable; certainly not a little vain of his diplomacy, his learning, his gardening, his person, and of all belonging to him; moreover a precise, methodical, and loftily respectable gentleman in every particular, no doubt worshipped by his Dorothea, and looked on with more or less of awe by every one near him. It has been said, and often repeated, that Mrs. Swift was related to Lady Temple, but for this I find no evidence. Sir Thomas Temple, Sir Williams father, was Master of the Rolls in Ireland, and there had known and pat- ronised the Swift family, many of whom were connected with the law. Jonathan Swift, we observe, never had a father to guide him, never had an early home to look back to with sacred recollec- tions. From the age of six to fourteen he was at Kilkenny school, and had rough treatment most likely. When he spoke of his early years, which he seldom did, it was not tenderly but bitterly: his uncle gave him the education of a dog. Dublin College was no Alma Mater; he despised its men and broke its rules. But to the mother who bore him he was ever reverential and affectionate, visiting her regularly, it would seem, once a year, when he walked to Leicester for the purpose. And now here is Jonathan at Moor Park, in his twenty-second year, clever, awkward, sensitive, proud, insubordinate, with a strong Dublin bro,~ue, unused to society, ready enough to be moved to contempt or sarcasm by the formalities of polite company, yet, at the same time, very willing to study the manners and views of the great, whom he for the first time has a chance of seeing close at hand, and awe-struck, in spite of himself, by the high reputation and dignified manners of Sir William. The roucrh Dublin student finds himself in a totally i~iew scene of life. But the position is far from agreea- ble; he seldom if ever dines at Sir Williams table, and shares his cojiversation on a dis- tant and dependent footing. He does his daily business as copyist and amanuensis, listens and replies with forced humility, glides moodily out of the house, avoiding alike the servants and superiors of the fami- ly, and runs up and down a steep slope be- hind it for exercise, or sits for hours reading in a solitary place among the woods. He is lonely, anxious, discontented, knows not what to turn to, or what is to become of him; loathes his perpetual and inevitable condition of dependence, and fancies an in- sult in every wor~d or look of those about him. One comfort he has, in a dark-eyed pretty child of six or seven years old, daughter of Mrs. Johnson the housekeeper, a widow, and tis said a distant cousin of the Temples. Young Swift spends many a spare hour in teaching little Esther, and though he is ever grave and almost hard in his manner even with her, there is evidently a good feel- ing between teacher and pupil, and no other portion of his time passes so agreeably. But this little solace is not enough to prevent his discontent and gloom growing thicker upon him, much increased by frequent fits of ill health. A natural daughter of Temples, some call Esther, without any evi(lencc. That Sir William, aged sixty, should bring a natural daughter of six years old, and her mother, to the house with himself and his wife, to whom he was always tenderly at- tached, is not the most likely thing in the world. Young Swift became so ill and restless at Moor Park, that it was agreed he should re- turn to Ireland for chance of air and scene. LIe went, but did not stay many months, and came back (very likely on advice of friends and new reflections in his own mind) to Moor Park towards Christmas: this being in the year 1690the battle of the Boyne lost and won, and King James Dirty Shemus finally fled to France. Jona- thans life here went on much as before his health no better; but by degrees the great man admitted him nearer to his confi- dence. About this time young Swift received, from a certain Rev. John Kendall of Leices- tershire (a relative of his) a letter on the subject of Miss Betty Jones, about whose flirtation, or whatever it was, with young Jonathan the scandal-mongers of Leicester had been busying themselves. The young gentleman at Moor Park replies to this in a curious letter, civil enough towards his cor- respondent, but (lefiant of the world in gen- eral, and in particular of the obloqOy of a parcel of very wretched fools, which I sol- emnly pronomtnce the inhabitants of Leices- ter to be. He says he has behaved to twenty women in the same way as to Miss Betty Jones, without any other design than that of entertaining myself when I am very idle, or when something goes amiss in my af- fairs. This I always have done as a mnatin of the world, when I had no design for anything grave in it, and what I thought at worst a harmless impertinence. As to marriage, 76 MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. he is resolved not to think of it till he settles his fortune in the world; and even then, I am so hard to please that I suppose I shall put it off to the other world. He is apt to talk with women, he says, heeause there is something in him which must he employed ; and during these seven weeks that he has heen lonely at Moor Park, since his return from Ireland, he has, for the same reason, writ and burnt and writ again, upon all manner of subjects, more than perhaps any man in England. A great person in Ire- land usedto tell me that my mind was like a conjuied spirit, that would do mischief if J would not give it employment. It is this hu- mour that makes me busy when I am in company, to turn all that way; and since it commonly ends in talk, wht~ther it be love or common conversation, it is all alike. Among his tentative scribblings in Sir Wil- liams library, and during his rambles out of doors, young Swift has jotted down many notes for an odd kind of satire on the church controversies of which he hears so much talk, and the respective tenets of the Church of England, Popery, and Dissent. lie himself is thinking of enterin gthe Es- tablished Church, not willingly, for he does not feel himself to he well fitted for a clergy- man, but because he cannot see any other opening. In 1692 he is admitted to the degree of Master of Arts at Oxford, afterwards visit- ing his mother at Leicester. At Oxford he says, I am ashamed to have been more obliged in a few weeks to strangers than ever 1 was in seven years to Dublin Col- lege. . . . I am not to take orders till the king gi v~s me a prebend: and Sir William Tcmple, though he promises me the certainty of it, yet is less forward than I could wish, because (I suppose) he believes I shall leave him, and, upon some accounts, he thinks me a little necessary to him. * This state of things at last came to a rup- ture between them, Swift going over to Ire- land in May 1694, with the resolution to be ordained there, and make what endeavours I can for something in the Church.t But lie found unexpected difficulties, and was re- (luced to address a most submissive letter from Dublin to Sir William (October 6, 1694), requesting from his honour a cer- tificate of good behaviour, without which he could not gain admission to the ministry: The particulars expected of me are what relate to morals and learning, and the rea- sons of quitting your honours family, that is, * Letter to his uncle William, from Moor Park, Nov. 29, 1~92. Letter to his cousin Deane Swift, June 3, 1604. whether the last was occasioned by any ill actions. They are all left entirely to your honours mercy, though in the first I think I cannot reproach myself any further than for inJirnsities. Sir William sent the certificate, and Swift took deacons orders, took priests orders a couple of months after (January 1695), and was appointed (proba- bly through Sir Williams influence) to the small benefice of Kilroot, worth about 1001. a year. He was now twenty-seven years old. This Kilroot, a parish situated near Carrickfergus in the county Antrim, was a prebend in the diocese of Connor (allowance for the support of a clergyman of the cathe- dral). The prebend is now Kilroot and Temple-corran, and the diocese Down, Con- nor, and Dromore. The prebendary moped at Kilroot; Sir William missed him at Moor Park; before many months were gone Swift was again (1696) under the same roof with his patron, and with Hessy Johnson. He resigned his benefice, and continued to reside at Moor Park for the next three years, that is till Sir Williams death in 1699* Hessy Johnson, thirteen years and three months younger than Jonathan Swift, was fifteen years old ~vhen he returned to Moor Park. She had been sickly from her child- hood, but now grew into perfect health, a beautiful and agreeable young woman, only a little too fat, with dark eyes and hair, of graceful manners and intelligent mind. In the society of this delightful girl, whose studies he directed, and who almost worshipped him; and on a footing of in- creased confidence with his patron, upon whose influence he relied for some suitable promotion when an opportunity should ar- rive, Parson Swift must have spent three comparatively comfortable years. We do not hear him grumbling and growling. He writes a book of singular ability, full of odd humour and satiric fancy, coloured indeed with the general temper of his mind, but not so imbued with vitriolic cynicism as most of his later writings. This was the Tale of a Tub, published anonymously in 1704, along with The Battle of the Books, and never ac- knowledged by the author. .The Tale of-a Tub, wonderfully clever as it is, has perhaps been ranked higher as a literary work than it deserves. It has a greatreputation; and some choice parts, like Lord Peters declar- ing the loaf to be a shoulder of mutton, are often quoted. But, though not long, the * The gossiping stories of thecause of Swifts leaviur Kilroot, his manner of going, his handing over time living to a poor clergyman, are the merest rubbish. 77 78 book is seldom read through, and as a whole is not very readable. It is amorphous. Scarcely half of it is occupied with the frag- mentary history of Pcter, Martin, and Jack; the other half consistin~ of intercalary chap- ters in a strain of grave irony, chiefly on the petty literary controversies of the day. A notable and characteristic performance, it hardly shows a right to be classed among the finished treasures of Enlish literature, though Dr. Johnson rated it far above all Swifts other writings, including Gulliver The abundant images and illustrations, often ingenious and pithy, are at best the product of a whimsical fancy, not of a humorous or witty imagination; they are clever but not truthful arid delightful, not exhilarating, nor satisfying. The foul smell, too, which so often exhales from Swifts p ges, is perceived throughout. This Tale, which occupied the author several years, was written, he says, to expose the abuses and corruptions in learning and religion; but it did not come out of any serious purpose, nor by the method of it could any useful result have been possibly attained. The broad Rabelais- ian jesting on Peter and Jack threw no kind of light upon Catholicism or Calvinism. Swifts own convictions, now and afterwards, were of the negative kind, He perhaps believed in nothing save Orderliness and In- dustry, though earnestly disbelieving in many things, which is more than some people do. He hated injustice and misgov- ernment. He despised the dulness and meanness of mankind. The Battle of the. Books, written during the same period as the Tale of a Tub, and published along with it, has all the charac- teristics of Swifts style, quiet and cultivated irony, happy description (as of the spiders web), and a taste for rough vulgar abuse and coarse jesting, patches of which come in here and there. The Battle, written to please Sir William Temple, in the contro- versy on Ancient and Modern Learning, be- tween Temple and Boyle on one side and Bentley and Wotton on the other, is intrinsi- cally worthless, and contains no atom of argument. Bentley was a man of real learn- ing, Sir William a dilettante, Swift but Sir Williams partisan. It is noticeable that neither Temple nor Swift, in speaking of modern writers, makes the least allusion to Shakespeare. It is plain that Swift, in these years at all events, had no intention of making Hessy Johnson his wife; perhaps because he had known her from childhood, and been always with her in the house, but to marry some- body he was always intending, or rather MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. half-intending. He lon~ed for a wife, he feared matrimony; he fell in love (after a manner of his own) with this girl and that, he looked round and saw very few happy marriages, and many poor men overweighted with lar~e families. For a long while he could not make up his mind to marry be- cause his plans were unsettled and his main- tenance too small; then he found that he was too old and his habits too fixed. But almost from his boyhood to the decline of life, Swift was engaged in successive intima- cies with virtuous and cultivated women. Some of these friendships lasted through many years. Several of the ladies had more or less hope of beeominc~ his wife; but they were all disappointed. It does not appear at what precise time Swift first met Miss Jane Waryng, a young lady of the north of Ireland, sister of his chum, or chamber-fellow at Trinity Col- lege, Dublin; he probably, while at Kilroot, renewed a former acquaintance with her and in the year of his return to Moor Park (1696), we have a letter of his addressed to her under the fancy name of Yarina, speaking of their engagement, and urging its speedy fulfilment. This letter, dated April 29, which would seem to have been written at Belfast, or some other sea-port town in that part, is the most artificial thing I know from Swifts hand. It is so, by heaven! the love of Varina is of more tragi- cal consequence than her cruelty, . . . a thousand graves lie open, & c. He contin- ued his correspondence with Miss Waryng all through his last residence at Moor Park, and there is no reason to think that his daily intercourse with Esther Johnson had any intentional colour of courtship on it. In May, 1699 (N. s.), somewhat unex- pectedly it would seem, thourh he was over seventy years old, Sir William Temple died, leaving his secretary un provided with any permanent maintenance, but bequeathing him 1001., and the privilege of editing, for his own benefit, Sir Williams writings. And so the Rev. Mr. Swift, aged 32, takes his last leave of Moor Park; comes to Lon- don; publishes Temples works (the Tale of a Tub still quiet in his desk); memorials King William, and applies whatever court- influence he has, with the objeet of getting some church-living, but does not succeed. At length he accepts the post of chaplain and private secretary to the Earl of Berke- ley, appointed one of the Lords Justices of Ireland, and attends his lordship to Dublin Castle. To Ireland he constantly gravitates, in spite of himself. Swift and Lord Berke- ley soon quarrelled; the secretaryship was MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. given to a Mr. Bushe; Swift lampooned the earl and the secretary, though he kept on good terms with the countess and the other la(lies of the family, and amused them with jeux desprit, such as the Petition of Mrs. Fr~ncis Harris. After a year or so (in 1700), havino been refased the deanery of Derry, he was given, to ,~et rid of him, a little hunch of livin~s, Agher, Laracor, and ~athhiggan,in the diocese of Meath, in all worth about 2001. a year, and went to live at Laracor glebe house, two miles from Trim and twenty from Dublin. here he im- proved the house, made a canal at the foot of the garden, stocked it with pike, and planted willows on the edge. He also put the church in repair, preached every Sun- day, and played the part of country vicar with at leaet an avera~e assiduity. Before (~iitting I)ublin he wrote a letter to Miss Jane Waryng, beginning, Madam, I am extremely concerned at the account you give of your health; for my uncle told me he found you in appearance better than you had been in some years, and 1 was in hopes von had still continued so. God forbid I should ever be the occasion of creating more troubles to you, as you seem to intimate. You would know, he says, what gave my temper that sudden turn, as to alter the style of my letters since I last came over. Is it owing to the thoughts of a new mis- tress? I declare, upon the word of a Christian and a gentleman, it is not; neither had I ever thoughts of being married to any other person but yourself He goes on to speak most disdainfully of her mother and her family, calling her home a sink, asks whether she is healthy enough to marry, can put up with solitude and a poor way of living, can promise to obey him in every- thin ~, show no ill humours, & c., all in the harshest tone. 1 singled you out from the rest of women; and IL expect not to be used like a common lover. Not heing a common lover, certainly! Exit poor Jane Waryng, no longer Varina. That Swift at one time intended to marry her, is certain, un less the two letters are forgeries; and does not this dispose of several of the hiographi- cal theories? Now (1710) he is vicar of Laracor; and odd to say, Miss Johnson, late of Moor Park, is comi n~ over to live at the town of Trim, within a walk of Laracor. Sir William has left her a hit of leasehold land in the county Wickiow, as well as a sum of money, and for that reason, in addition to others, she may as well live in Ireland. She comes over accordiryly, with an elder companion, I a Mrs. Dingley, who has a small income of I clergy (at first a papal impost, for crusading her own; and the two ladies ~o into lodg- ings in Trim. Esther Johnson is now twen- ty, a beautiful and sensible young woman, somewhat fat, with intelligent dark eyes, black eyebrows and lashes, and black hair; her countenance at once soft and piquant; the forehead broad for a womans, and of a very fine curve. Her manners are full of natural grace, with a sort of gentle sprightli- ness; her conversation always agreeable; she knows how to be silent and how to speak with pleasant effect, though not possessing nor pretenifing to any remarkable intellect- ual gifts. On Swift, her tutor, the friend of her childhood ammd maidenhood, she looks with constant reverence and adi iration, un- der which lies hid a tenderer feeling. She is very gentle and submissive, but no cow- ard: she can rebuke a troublesome fool, and even scare away a midnight burglar on oc- casion. She is hoping (yet very doubtfully, I imagine) to be Swifts wife, although as yet he has never said or hinted anything of marriage. His manner to her, now dictato- rial, now playful, anon both at once, is part fatherly, part lover-like so far as a caress- ing phrase or intonation, scarcely beyond. With all their intimacy, he always reserves himself, and she is ever somewhat in awe. Esther and her Mrs. Dingley being settled in their lodgings in the little town of Trim. are constantly visited by the vicar of Lara- cor, and pay him visits in return; and when I)octor Swift leaves home, the two ladies come and live at the vicarage durin,, his ab- sence. There is at first plenty of gossip in the neighbourhood on all this, which the doc- tor much disregards, being at the same time scrupulously careful in his demeanour to the ladies, never seeiry Esther without Mrs. Dingley, and equally attentive to both. In the spring of 1710 he heard of the death, at Leicester, of his dear mother, aged seventy, and recorded it in an account- book, with this addition: I have now lost my barrier between me and death; God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to heaven be through piety, truth, justice and charity, she is there. Of Swifts life at Laracor, his oddities in church, his whimsical clerk Roger Cox, several well known anecdotes are in circulation, few if any of which are authentic. He appears to have made a visit every year, or noarly every year, .to London; and when he was deputed by the Irish bishops to move the ministry and the queen to a remission of a sum deducted by the crown, under the name of first fruits, from the incomes of the Irish 79 80 purposes), this enabled him to sojourn in England from the beginning of 1708 till the spring of the next year. He had already become acquainted with the wits, and inti- mate with some of the best of them Addi- son, Steele, Arbuthnot, and others. He was also on familiar terms with several of the leading Whig statesmen, especially Somers and Halifax. On their behalf (and his own) he turned political pamphleteer, watched the changes of court weather, and waited confidently for preferment. To Es- ther he remained always the kind friend and adviser,,but marriage was less and less in his thoughts. Conscious of his strength, proved in trials, personal and literary, with the most famous men of the time; never amorous, though much attracted to the corn- pany ot women who suited his tastes; the excitements of party conflict and Londqn so- ciety, alon~ with the ambition of rising to a position suitable to his talents, occupied his mind almost altogether in these years. It was fully understood by his acquaintance that he was Esther Johnsons friend and guardian, aud no more; and when the Rev. Dr. Tisdall proposed for her hand, Swift wrote to him to say that he had no objec- tion to the match. But Esther had objec- tions, and Tisdall sued in vain. The Tale of a Tub, which appeared anonymously in 1704, was much talked about, and attributed to many writers in town. Swifts intimates knew whose it was, but he never directly acknowledged it. Among the knowing, it gave him rank among the first order of wits; but it also opened a point of attack for his enemies (of whom, as a satirist and partisan, he had many), which they did not neglect to use. On Church questions Swift was always High, so far as stoutly sticklin~ for all the external possessions and privile~es of the established clergy. In this he differed from his Whig friends, arid when he found it impossible to get from them what he wante(l, either for the Irish Church or for Dr. Swift, he sheered off, and was ready to attach himself to Mr. Harley, when that statesman led the Tories into office in 1710. Swift, this impending, hastened again from Ireland to London, on the Irish clergys be- half and his own; and soon set his pen busy, in pamphlet and squib, on the side of Har- leys party. His political pamphlets (he of- ten lamented afterwards to have so spent hi~ time) were highly able and successful, and the ready, telling. and well informed writer became a person of some importance to ministers (though, perhaps, not so high as he rated himself). and could play the patron among his acquaintance, getting this and that MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. preferment or sinecure for people whom he knew or v~ere recommended to him. For himself he got nothing, being too proud to make a direct request, and his expectations and merits well known; and his recompense during several years consisted in the glory of being intimate and influential with certain great ministers, and able to behave to them with a kind of pseudo-equality of demean- our, for after all it was a little too con- scious and self~asserting. Along with these feelings, be it remembered, he had always a genuine desire to be of use to persons of desert, especially when there was friendship in the case. Swifts friendships were sincere and lasting; and though he took extraordi- nary pains to cultivate his intimacy with Harley and St. John as eminent statesmen, and boasted of it continually in his own man- ner, there went with this a real attachment to them as friends, which survived their loss of power. This longest visit to London extended from September 1710 to June 1713, mtatis sum XLIIJ.XLVI.; and an uncommonly particular and interestinn account of it sur- vives in a series of private letters, partly in form of a diary, and commonly called his Journal to Stella this being his favourite pet name for Hessy Johnson. \Stella, for her part, must have often been lonely and. sad enough during this long absence, during which her years were counted from 29 to 33, and she felt herself passing out of the fair land of youth. She and Mrs. Dingley kept house at Laracor vicarage, their amusement, beside walking and a few books, being usu- ally ombre with Dr. Raymond, vicar of Trim, and two or three other neighbours; their chief pleasure Stellas at least to receive and answer Dr. Swifts letters from London. The brook at L~ racor, edged with willows, still creeps under its little bridge down to the river Boyne, but the site of Swifts vicarage is now an ill tilled potato- garden * (or was some years ago), a trace of the pond just discernible, and of the house but one fragment of a gable-wall remainin~. One of the finest interests in biog. aphy is to note the unconsciousness of the actor as to what is before him; for the actor of a life is riot like the actorofaplay, who has his part arranged and stijdied. Swift in these days looked to an early return to Laracor, and a peaceful life with Stella and her companion. It seems to me most likely, on the whole indeed, all but certain that it never at any time was seriously in Swifts mind to marry Stella. There is no proof that he ever * Wildes Boysre and Btciclcwcster, p. 97. MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. thought of it, much less that he did it, as is usually stated, last, without hint of a doubt, by Mr. Thackeray. The only evi- dence for it is a hearsay story, and that very ill founded. Swift wrote to Tisdall when he courted Esther, I think I have said to you before, that if my fortunes and humour served me to think of that state, I should certainly, among all persons on earth, make your choice; because I never saw that per- son whose conversation I entirely valued but hers; this was the most I ever gave way to. And, secondly, I must assure you sincerely that this regard ~of mine never once enteied into my head to be an impediment to you: the objection of your fortune being removed, I declare I have no other; nor shall any consideration of my own misfor- tune in losing so good a friend and compan- ion as her prevail on me, a~ainst her interest and settlement in the world. * Swifts re- lation to Stella throughout seems to me in no respect mysterious, but perfectly intelligi- ble and in accordance with his character. He was her instructor, guardian, intimate friend and companion nothing warmer at any time. In London Swift gradually became inti- mate at the house of a Mrs. Vanhomrigh (pr. Vanuinry), a rich widow, with two daughters. Vanhomrigh was a Dutchman, a commissary in Ireland for King William, and afterwards a commissioner of revenue there. His widow, an Englishwoman, came over to reside in London after his death. The beginning of Swifts acquaintance with this family is not indicated, but he probably knew something of them in Ireland. Mrs. Vans eldest daughter, Esther, is now a charming girl of nineteen, intellectual and accomplished; she is fond of reading, ~nd Doctor Swift, in his leisure moments, assists and directs her studies. It grows by degrees into a kind of semi-pedantic flirta- tion on his side, such as suits his taste; for he does not relish ladie~ acquaintance, un- less where he can more or less play the pre- ceptor. With his acquaintance of both sex- es, indeed, he must always be allowed a touch of domineering. Esther Vanhom- righ, for her part, grows thoroughly, passion- ately, irrevocably in love with the great (lean, who, when he pleases, is the most de- liuhtful company in the world, and even whose sarcasm and imperiousness have, with women, a fondling tone. The first-fruits affair was settled in No- vember, yet Swift remains in London, with personal views. Farewell, dearest beloved * April 20, 1704. LIVING AGE. VOL. VIII. 270. 81 MD [Stella], and love poor, poor Presto [himself 3, who has not had one happy day since he left you, as hope saved. It is the last sally [attempt for promotion, I under- stand] I will ever make; but I hope it will turn tO some account. I have done more for these, and I think they are more honest, than the last [ministry] ; however, I will not be disappointed. 1 would make MD and me easy; and I never desired more. I will not be disappointed, for I shall not, is an Irishism. Swifts tunis of phrase, as well as his jokes, are not unfrequently of Irish fashion ; and it is on record that he spoke with a brogue, to which indeed many of his rhymes testify. Mr. Thackeray thinks that Swift had nothing whatever of theIrishman but the accident of his birth; but i1~ is impos- sible to suppose that in twenty of the most impressible years of his life, which Swift spent in Ireland, he could have failed to re- ceive some stamp of ilibernicism, and in fact it is visible enough. Here let me ask, how can the following odd mistake, or string of mistakes, have come to appear in edition after edition of our good Leigh Hun:ts book on The Town? Swifts introduction to the Vanhomrighs is described; the young lady fell in love with him; but unluckily he was married; and most unluckily he did not say a word about the matter. It is curious to observe in the letters which he sent over to Stella (his wife), with what an affected indiffer- ence he speaks of the Vanhomrighs, & c. & c. When he left England, Miss Vanhoinnigh, after the death of her mother, followed him, and proposed that he should either marry or refuse her. He would do neither. At length both the ladies, the married and un- married, discovered their mutual secret a discovery which is supposed ultimately to have hastened the death of both. Miss Vanhomri~hs survival of it was short not many weeks. * In this account, for want of investigation, Leigh Hunt (one of the most kind-intentioned of men) does Swift a grievous injustice. The great modern hu- mourist who lectured on Swift with a cer- tain strong bias of dislike though lie knew better than to commit so great a bluiider as the above, has made several absolute asser- tions upon very insufficient authority;~ among the rest that he married Hester John- son, and that she was Temples natural daughter. Months went on; the doctor dining con- stantly with Harley and St. John (and drinking a good deal of wine, as his habit * Time Towsm: ed. 1858, pp. 369, 70. MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. was), and his friends expecting every day to hear of his getting a lean bishopric or a fat deanery, as Lord Peterborough wrote to him about this time. Swift in his reply says, my ambition is to live in England, and with a competency to support me in honour. In the same letter he says, I must leave the town in a week, becanse my money is gone, and I can borrow no more, arid in fact, with his income of only two to three hundred pounds a year, he mnst often have been ~ow in pocket. He complains of the cost of hackney coaches, and when it rains, calls it twelvepenny weather. His writings have brought him no money; he disdained to trade with the publishers, and indignantly refused 501. offered him by Harley on ac- count of the Examiner. Altogether, he holds up his head haughtily among the great folk. The wits he decidedly looks down upon, tossing Steele (until they quafrelled) a Taler now and again. Swifts right position would have heen that of a statesman and administrator of great affairs, and he knew this very well. Hustled unwillingly into an Irish vicarage, he fbrced himself into notice by his personal and literary powers, and expected sooner or later to become an English bishop and lord of parliament; and expected justly too, I think. He desired power and dignity. He was fitted to govern, and would certainly have managed his diocese with equity and care, as well as superior ability. As to Swifts relations to most people, it seems to me that he was probably a very good-natured man to those who were in want of any kind of help, at the same time that he desired to appear rough and ungra- cious, partly out of whim, partly to avoid hem0 imposed on (which he hated), and to escape thanks and sentimentalism. His words are full of harshness, and apparent grudging; hut in fact his life long he was busied serving others, in ways suitable to his mind and temper. lie says himself (in a letter to Pope) that he detested that animal called man, yet loved John, Peter, Thomas, and this is true. His sceva indig- naijo was against the stupidity, injustice, and ingratitude of mankind. To individuals he was constant and tender. Mr. Thacke- ray asks, would you have liked to be a friend of Swifts? I would, for one ; would have liked better, I think, to be a friend of Swifts, than of any of his set than of the refined Addison, the jovial Steele, the brill- :iant St. John, the fastidious Pope arid would have felt safer with him, in spite of his whims and harshness and domineering. At last he quite loses patience with his great friends who have made so many prom- ises April 18,1 713. This morning my friend Mr. Lewis came to me and showed me an order for a warrant for three deaneries; but none of them to me. This was what I al- ways foresaw, and received the notice of it better, I believe, than lie expected.... I told him I had nothing to do but to go to Ireland immediately.... I will avoid com- pany, and muster up my baggage, and send them next Monday by the carrier to Chester, and come and see my willows, against the expectation of all the world. What care I? Night, dearest rogues, MD. But he did care. I design to walk all the way to Chester, my man and I, by ten miles a day. It will do my health a great deal of good. I shall do it in fourteen days. April 15. Lord-treasurer told me the queen was at last resolved that Dr. Sterne should be Bishop of Dromore, and I Dean of St. Patricks.... I do not know whether it will yet be done; some unlucky accident may yet come [he hem0 so accustomed to disappointment]. Neither can I feel joy at passing my days in Ireland; and I confess I thought the ministry would not let me go, but perhaps they cannot help it. In June 1713 Swift is in Dublin, horribly melancholy, while they were installing me, and soon flies to Laracor from the great empty house which they say is mine. In October, urged by his friend Lewis, he goes back to London: he is promised 1,0001. to pay off debts and expenses on his dean- ery; and still has hopes of a bishopric, or at least of some sufficient dignity arid income in England. Harley and St. John, now Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, he strives hard to reconcile, but vainly: he memorials for the small post of Historiographer to the Queen, but it is refused him, and given to a worthless rogue that nobody knows. He goes down, sadly, to lodge with a clergyman at Leteombe in Berks. Oxford is dismissed, Bolingbroke comes into full power, and is warmer than ever in his promises to the dean. A few days after this, Queen Anne dies (July 31, 1714), George I. is pro- claimed, all arrangements go topsy-turvy, the Tories in dismay, the Whigs triumphant; and Swift returns to Ireland in August. 14e is now forty-seven years old; con- demned to live in Ireland; his ambitious hopes at an end; angry and ashamed at having spent so much of his time in dan- gling at court, yet missing the excitement of brilliant and various company; his health growing worse; his opinion of mankind sink- ing ever lower; his economy tightening into 82 MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. parsimony; his satire deepening into grim rage, his domineering spirit becoming harsh- er and more tyrannical. Esther Johnson, his dear gentle old pnpil and intimate friend, now past her youth, is in a lodging in Dub- lin, still with Mrs. Dingley; but his relations with her are no lon~er what they were. The fair Miss Yanhomrigh, young and brill- iant, with her sister Mary, also resides in Ireland now (much, I imagine, against his wishes) sometimes in Dublin, sometimes in the vicinity; and to them the Dean writes often, and sometimes, though not often or openly, visits at their house. The letters of Vanessa (as he has styled her) are full of ardent affection, and the most touching expostulations against his harshness; his are at once flattering and petting arid full of cold reproofs and gibes. Domestic happiness is not his, he has thrown it away ; has now less than ever any thought of marriage. He manages carefully his deanery affairs and his income; drinks his wine daily, probably with sedative rather than exhilarating effect; and for amusement exchanges puns and grotesque verses (not always of the cleanest) with Dr. Sheridan, a queer clever schoolmaster. His friend Lord Oxford a prisoner in the Tower, his friend Lord Bolingbroke an exile in France, he himself; the new dean, a suspected Jacobite, is sometimes hooted by the Dublin populace, and publicly insulted by men of rank. his archbishop and he are not on good terms all the Irish bishops are jealous and suspi- cious of him, and no love lost. Swift said once, that the Government always appointed excellent men to the irish sees, but that on their way across Hounslow Heath they were sometimes stopped by highwaymen, who took their money, clothes and papers, and came over to Ireland in their stead. To the eye, Dean Swift is a tall portly man, in clerical dress and hat, with large head, commanding and austere face, dusky complexion, prominent blue eyes full of scrutiny and suspicion, or, not seldom, blazing with anger. Tie never laughs, rare- lv smiles, yet lines of humour sometimes flicker round the nostrils and mouth-cor- ners. His manners abrupt, his st4s rapid, his voice imperious. He has done much, and attained much; but neither his work nor his position are satisfactory to him- self least of all. As a writer he can only rank as an able party pamphleteer, and the author of some humorous trifles. The Tale of a Tub it is his interest to deny, not to claim; and in any case it is not, as a whole, a great work in any sense. Had he died now, his fame would have been little. But he has thirty years before him, and will write the Drapiers Letters (because lie hates injustice and misgovernment), and become thereby the most popular man of his day in Ireland, and Guilicers Travels, the work on which his literary fame now really rests a world-book not profound, but simple, striking, unforgettable, new to every new generation. And of these Tra- vels the two first parts, Lilliput and Brob- dingrag are the cream. No reader is too young or too old to enjoy them. It is very strange, by the bye, that the printers mis- take of Brobdinguag (which Swift him- self pointed out in the Letter from Cap- tain Gulliver, prefixed to the edition of 1727 *) should be perpetuated to this day. Let this unpronounceable and blundering word be universally dropped for the future, and the oft-mentioned country of giants be known by its true name of BnO~-DIN- Swifts best verses, too, which are master- ly in their kind for clearness and concinnity though wanting continuity of flow and variety of cadence (Cadenus and Va- nessa, On Poetry, On the Death of Dr. Sw~fi, & c.) were the product of his later years. After allowing all his merit as a writer, it is certain that Swifts fame is a more con- spicuous edifice than could have been built upon his literary performances alone, even though they include that rare and happy kind of thing (whether great or small), a world-book. His strong and peculiar per- sonal character, his distinction first in the social and literary world of London, and then (much higher) in Irish politics, the interest that belongs to Stella and Vanessa, his position as a church dignitary, which lends so much zest to his humour and to the odd stories and jests reported of him, the terrible eclipse of his brilliant intellect, his gloomy death, and the legacy to found a madhouse, all these strike the imar,ina- tion and impress the memory of mankind. Many have been his predecessors and suc- cessors in office, but Jonathan Swift re- mains and will remain the Dean of St. Pat- ricks. Yet his grand mistake in life was going into the church allowing himself to be driven into the church for a mainten- ance. ~ He heartily despised clerical men * Indeed I must confess that, as to the people of Lilliput, Bi-obdingrag (for so the name should have been spelt, and not erroneously Brobdinguag) and Lapsto, I have never yet heard of any Yahoo so presumptuous as to dispute their beiiig, or the facts I have related concerning them. Letter froi Gaptain Gulliver, 4~c. t Anecdotes of the Family of Swift. Written by Dr. Swift. Scotts Memoirs. 83 MOOR PARK AND SWIFT. and clerical matters, save as a part of busi- ness. When once in, irrevocably, he looked upon it as his necessary business to be a cler~,yman, and to maintain all the estab- lished doctrines and rights and emoluments of his church, as one (he says) appointed by Providence for defending a post assigned to me. * He constantly argued that all private men, and especially all clergymen, should submit to the existing legal forms of worship, and if they have doubts, to take care to conceal those doubts from~ others. f He attacked, and would have suppressed, with equal vigour, atheists, pa- pists, and dissenters. On Trinity Sunday he duly preached in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity; on the 30th of January he duly preached to the glory of that excel- lent king and blessed martyr Charles I., and in denunciation of the murderous Puritan Parliament, and of such as con- tinued to hold those wicked opinions. :1 He proved to his congregation how supe- rior the meanest Christian is to the loftiest and wisest Pagan philosopher in rules of life, and in consolations and hopes; quoting Socrates, Aristotle, and others. Solon lamenting the death of a son; one told him, You lament in vain. Therefore, said he, I lament, because it is in vain. This was a plain confession how imperfect all his philosophy yvas, & c. Diogenes deliv- ered it as his opinion, that a poor old man was the most miserable thing in life. And, alas! Jonathan Swift, when no long- er in the pulpit, said so a thousand times. I must own my real opinion, that there is but poor nourishment Ibr the soul in any part of Swifts writings. Clear, practical sense he gives us, and a wide knowledge of men and affairs, put into form by a vigor- ous realistic fancy, and coloured with ironic humour; but there is nothing cordial or encouraging, no reconciling insight, no deep wisdom. This age of English literature in result its whole I confess strikes me as rath- er poor and thin, however elegantly simple and clear in its turns of expression. It is not corrupt, like the preceding period. Ad- dison has a kind of polite religiosity of tone; he associates good-breeding with vir- tue; Steele, though sometimes a rather prurient moralist, draws some charming little pictures of domestic happiness; Popes didactics and sentimentals, in his verses, letters, and everything, sound a little hol- low, yet have a kind of improved heathen- * Thoughts on Religion. t Ibid. ~ Sermon the Sixth. ish morality aufond. Swift is the strong- est, and the most objectionable; his satire is sincere; it was his habitual view of life. It smites forcibly the vices, failings, and fol- lies of mankind; but too often it attacks human nature itselfl He does not merely say, See how far you fall short of what you might be and ought to be; how different your practices from your pretences; how you lie, cheat, grovel, and brag, advance the wrong men, make useless war, misedu- cate your children, misgovern your own and the public affairs; but he says also, See what a poor, weak, wretched, filthy, selfish, sensual thing is Humanity! How absurd is all your fine talk about it! What can you make of it at best? Even your virtues are contemptible. He draws the character of Gulliver with gentle and pleas- ing touches at first, but herein also at the end rushes fiercely into a horrible coarse- ness. The human form divine is by him represented as an ugly monster ; and this picture of the external fact may be fairly taken as a test and measure of his general truthfulness. The better part of Swifts nature comes forward in his private letters. His indigna- tion and contempt were~ constant a~ainst mankind, and against classes and societies of men; but he could be attached and even af- fectionate to individuals. In his correspond- ence with Boiingbroke, Pope, Gay, and others, Swifts letters are always the best, and (while his tone to everybody is that of an acknowledged superior) they are full of sincere steadfiist friendship, and often show a manly tenderness. Their gloomy ground is inlaid with freaks of quaint humour. His letters to great ladies are admirable exam- ples of spirited politeness, and prove how well he could mingle wit and sense with courtly manners. Besides his nearer inti- macies, he was never without some female friends in whose conversation or correspond- ence he took evident pleasure, notwithstand- ing the contempt with which he spoke of the sex in s~eneral. Along the grass-grown avenue I walked away from Moor Park, thinking of Swift~ and the Tale of the Tub, and litttle boy Cob- bett of Faraham reading the book behind the haystack at Richmond; and thus came to Waverley ; where the old danie who opened the gate pointed to an old-fashioned pretty house, half timbered, in a little garden by the mill-dam, and said, Thats Stellas cot- tage; she was the daughter of the gardener at Moor Park. Thus valuable is local tra- Voyage to tke ]Ioughnhnms, chap. i. 84 THREE ENGLISH STATESMEN. dition. A pond with swans; a wealthy heavy porticoed mansion; a clear shallow lit- tie river, under lofty banks of trees, half en- com~)assing a wide meadow; shattered gray rnins, fern and ivy-clad, shaded with ash- tree and thorn, here a triple lancet window, there a low-arched crypt: this ~s Waverley, a Cistercian foundation of the 12th century. here, when Gobbett was a boy (he tells us), flourished the finest fruit-garden he ever saw in his life. It has long since disappeared; and it seems that one (I know not which) of the successive owners of the park improved away a great part of the abbey ruins. The name of Scotts famous novel probably came into his head by means of the annals of this abbey; being both a pretty name and appropriate to his heros character. The description of Waverley Honour has no re- semblance to the real Waverley. I took the shady road up Crooksbury Hill, turned left, along the moorland, which lies behind the vale of Moor Park, and ac- counts. for the name, and soon saw before me the ridge of Aldershot, my thoughts again connecting Swift and Cobbett, by the link of a standing army a novelty in Swifts day and a thing obnoxious to them both, very different as they were, both as men and politicians. The step is but short from Swift, Temple, ~~arlborough,to Cobhett, Wellington, Palm- erston (another of the Temples), whose grave is the newest in Westminster Abbey. Two or three lives stretch over great changes in thou~ht and history. Our chil- dren wiU not see the same world that we see. From The Spectator. THREE ENGLISH STATESMEN.* MR. GOLDwIN SMITH is deservedly reck- oned a master of the English language. He has, perhaps, no equal in the art of writing pungent sarcasm, weighted with real moral indignation. Every word comes from the heart, as well as from the head, and throur,h the perfection of his style, ev- ery word tells. And his style is but the re- flex of his principles. Clear, forcible, un- compromising, desperately earnest, his prin- ciples have won for him the reputation of a * Three English Statesmen. A Course of Lec- tures on the Political History of England. By Goldwin Smith. London: Macmillan and Co. 1& i7. political fanatic, because the very boldness and force with which they were expressed helped people to forget that he was enunci- ating theory, not insisting that his theory could practically be carried out fully and at once. Fanatic be certainly is not, unless that word be extended to mean every one who zealously believes in a cause or a prin- ciple; but he is too apt to let partizan spirit, though of a lofty type, appear in his treat- ment of subjects almost alien to it. The book now before us is positively disfigured, as a historical work, by the frequent refer- ences to matters of present politics, and es- pecially to that miserable Jamaica business, of which most men are ashamed, and all heartily tired. Doubtless Mr. Goldwin Smiths chief object in delivering these lec- tures was to inculcate modern political les- sons by the aid of past examples, and such an object is not only legitimate, but most desirable. But this may easily be carried too far; allusions to an event of transitory importance are specially damaging to the permanent value of a book, though they may give additional point to a lect ~re. Apart, however, from the political views in- culcated in this volume, there are outlines, clearly and boldly sketched, if mere ont~ lines, of the three statesmen who give the titles to his lectures, which are well deserv- ing of study. A few years ago, soon after the publica- tion of Mr. John Fosters Debate on the Grand Remonstrance, Mr. Goldwin Smith gave two unwritten lectures from the His- tory Chair at Oxford, of which Pym was the hero, and the first lecture in his present volume is the publication in a literary dress, and, so far as we remember, the first publi- cation, of the views then expressed. He regards Pym, and not Hampden, as the real leader of the Parliament from the com- mencement of the Revolutionary struggle until his death, as the greatest orator of the party, and the most cultivated statesman. Hampdens great service in the Ship-Money question, his higher social position, the great devotion to his person shown by men of all ranks, perhaps also his death in battle, have tended to place him foremost; many others besides Lord Macaulay have thought that the obscure skirmish at Chalgrove changed the fate of England. But the facts tell dif- ferently. That Pym was unquestionably the leader, in a parliamentary sense, of the party to which he belonged, is sufficiently shown by his having taken the chief part in the impeachment of Strafford, though other evidence is not wanting. He was also the head of the committee of Safety, and as 85 86 such virtually wielded the Government for more than a year, a period of repeated disas- ters to the Parliamentary causeamong which Hampdens death was scarcely the worst. At the end of the year 1643 Pym died; but before his death he had secured the assist- ance of the Scots, had overcome the fears of Essex and the half-hearted party, and had seen the tide turned by the relief of Glou- cester and the second battle of Newbury. lie was buried with the royal pomp befit- ting the Kiag of the Commons, as he was often styled in his lifetime, and the eager rejoicings of his enemies bore witness to the value of his life. But they rejoiced too soon: Pyms energy had sustained his cause throuTh the first trying period, when all the military conditions were unfavourable, and the sword of Cromwell was now ready to weigh down the scale. Pym is evidently a man after Mr. Goldwin Smiths own heart, unswerving in his adherence to a cause, possessed of high literary and historical culture, of perfectly blameless life, a man of action, but of political, not military ac- tion, and therefore unstained by blood, and above all really religious. Accordingly, he paints him without a blemish, and we can- not say that he is wron~. The greatest trial of all, that of complete success, was spared to Pym, and his fame is per- haps the purer for the very reason which has made it less bright than he deserves, be- cause he died when the very crisis of the struggle was barely past. Cromwell, or rather the Protector, is the second of Mr. Goldwin Smiths three states- men; and here, again, we seem to reco~- nize the sentiments of a brilliant review of 14. Guizots hook on Cromwell, which ap- peared some years ago in the Times. Be this as it may, Mr. Goldwin Smith has a clear idea of Cromwells character, not re- ally less favourable than Mr. Carlyles, though to sober-minded people more truth- ful. The Protectorate, with its glories, was not the conception of a lonely intel- lect, but the revolutionary energy of a mighty nation concentrated in a single chief. The representative and ruler of the English race, the pre-eminently imperial race of the modern world, in the greatest crisis of its history, might well be one of the greatest of men; and regarding Crom- well merely as a statesman, one can hardly estimate him highly enough. Mr. Goldwin Smith dwells with great pleasure on the Constitution he established, on the persist- ent inann~r in which he strove to maintain free institutions and avoid arbitrary govern- THRIIE ENGLISH STATESMEN. ment, on the economy, the efficiency, the far-sighted reforms of his administration; but he feels that these are not his chief title to fame, even taking into account the gi- gantic obstacles he had to overcome. The moral greatness of the Protector is even more Conspicuous than his intellectual power. The ablest General alive, with an invinci- ble army devoted to him, he might have had the Continent at his feet; but he sheathed his sword for ever as soon as Wor- cester freed England from civil war. Call it mere prudence, if you will, deny any no- bler motives for his forbearance to reopen the great religious war; but even then the self-restraint which refused to listen to the promptings of personal ambition and reli- gious enthusiasm is almost superhuman. For though his admirers may find grounds for believing that he was not vulgarly ambitious, there is no possible doubt that be was deep- ly tinged with religious fhnaticism. A hypocritical fanatic is the old character of Cromwell but Mr. Goldwin Smith shows plainly enough not only that the two quali- ties are contradictory, but that he clearly was the one, and not the other. At the same time, he was before his age in striving persistently to establish liberty of conscience, in the proper sense of the phrase; at any rate, Mr. Gold win Smith gives us many ~ind strong reasons for so believing. In this, as in other respects, he is apparently himself one of those who regard Cromwells policy as a tidal wave, marking the line to which the waters will once more advance, and look upon him as a ruler who was before his hour, and whose hour, perhaps, is now come. We are hardly so sanguine as Mr. Goldwin Smith as to the speedy downfall of party government in England, or so bitterly hos- tile to it, but we fully agree with him that the organic legislation of Cromwells time may still deserve the consideration of con- stitutional reformers, if the nation should ever desire to emancipate itself from the government of party. Mr. Goldwin Smiths account of Pitt is deeply tinged by his very strong feelings about the French Revolution. All the world would probably agree in his estimate of Pitts career before the war broke out, though he gives too special a prominence to his financial ability; arid the majority would side with him rather than with Lord Stan- hope, in refusing to hold Pitt free from all blame for taking office after George IIIs scandalous India Bill intrigue, even if they failed to see, with Mr. Goldwin Smith, the taint of this one dishonourable action in 87 THREE ENGLISH STATESMEN. many subsequent transactions. But with could be; but in this, at least, they were regard to the revolutionary war, and Pitts alike, that both sank under the wei~ht of administration dunn it, he writes in a man- public cares at a moment of deep gloom for ner which illustrates forcibly the intimate the cause they were sustaining, and yet connection between his opinions and his after having really sustained the worst sympathies. The ordinary Liberal tone is pressure, though neither their own eyes nor to praise the French Revolution as a whole, those of other men for many a day saw that in spite of undoubted excesses, and to blame the tide had turned. Pitt severely for going to war, and a fortiori We have spoken of the intimate connec- for the Tory reign of terror which ensued tion between Mr. Goldwin Smiths opinions in England. The average Tory re~ards and his sympathies; we ought perhaps, to the Revolution as a movement utterly mi- have rather said that his sympathies seem quitous and detestable, against which all to govern his opinions. Those sympathies the world was bound to take arms. And are intensely democratic, bitterly hostile to there is a decided tendency on all sides, anything saveuring of violence, contemptu- now that a Bonaparte is once more on the ous towards all pomp and ceremony, en-i French throne who has always been at thusi~stic in admiration of the Universities, peace with. England, to respect the memory not as they are, hut as they might be, of Napoleon I. Mr. Goidwin Smith ilies in above all, deeply religious. His remarks the face of all alike, He abhors the Revo- as to the importance of the religious element lution for its atheism and its cruelty, and in political movements are the most inter- censures Fox severely for his tone regarding esting and suggestive; and perhaps this is it. He denounces in the strongest termsI the only hobby which he does not ride too the war against the Revolution, and demol- hard. Certainly he does strain coherence, ishes every argument urged in its favour, not unfrequently, to make some past event But all is changed with the rise of Napoleon, point a modern democratic moral, or to in- whom he hates with an energy of hatred to troduce opinions .inapplicable to the times which his command of language gives power- he was treating, however opportune now. ful expression. After the rupture of the Some of these views coincide minutely with peace of Amiens, Pitt came in to conduct those which we have repeatedly expressed, a war, and this time a necessary war, for I as where he says that for an army or navy am convince(l that with the perfidy and to be in a perfectly sound state dismissal rapine of Bonaparte no peace could be should be thehighest punishment; or where made; that the struggle with him was a he anticipates, in glowing language, a future struggle for the independence of all nations, moral, commercial, and diplomatic union against the armed and disciplined hordes of of all the communities of the Anglo-Saxon a conqueror as cruel and as harharous as race. Some of them do not please us Attila. The outward mask of civilization quite so well; but even where we disagree Bonaparte wore, and he could use political with Mr. Goldwin Smiths conclusions, we and social ideas for the purposes of his am- cannot help sympathizing with himself, for bition as dexterously as cannon; but in it is evident that his every opinion has its character he was a Corsican, and as savage origin in warm love of truth and moral as any bandit of the isle. If utter selfish- worth. He may not always be wise, but he ness, if the reckless sacrifice of humanity to is always sensible, always enthusiastic; and your own interest and passions be vileness, in these. cynical days it may he morally history has no viler name. Pitt sank under useful for society to study the writings of the crushing blow of Austerlitz, and left his an enthusiast for goodness even as it may work to be carried on by successors who had he politically useful, at a moment of demo- little in them of Pitt but his lately developed cratic change, fully to comprehend the at- Toryism. Pitt was, perhaps, as unlike Pym titude and principles of the cultivated as any prominent English statesman well Den~crats. 88 PART XII. CHAPTER XXXVI. MOMENTARY MADNESS. IT would be difficult to describe the looks of the assembled party in the library at Brown- lows at tbis moment. Jack, to whom every thing was doubly complicated by the fact tbat the intruder was Pamelas mother, and by the feeling that his ovn affairs must be s6mehow in question, made a step forward, thinking tbat her business must be with him, and fell back in double consternation when she passed him, looking only at his father. Sara stood aghast, knowing nothing not even aware that there could be any thin,,, to be anxious about an impersonation of mere wonder and surprise. The two elder people were not surprised. Both of them knew what it meant. Mr. Brown- low in a moment passed from the shock of horror and dismay which had prostrated him at first, into that perfect calm which is never consistent with ignorance or innocence. The wonder of his children would have convinced any observer of their perfect unacquaintance with the matter. But he knew all about it he was perfectly composed and master of himself in a second. Life goes fast at such a crisis. He felt at once as if he had always known it was to end like this always fore- seen it and had been gradually prepared and wound up by degrees to meet the blow. All his uncertainty and doubt and self-delusions vanished from him on the spot. He knew who his visitor was without any explanation, and that she had come just in time ttnd that it was all over. Somehow he seemed to cease on the moment to he the principal in the matter. By the time Mrs. Preston had come up to him, lie had become a calm professional spectator, watching the case on behalf of a client. The change was curious to himseW though he had no time just then to consider how it came about. But the intruder was not calm. On the con- trary, she was struggling with intense excite- ment, panting, trembling, compelled to stop on her way across the room to put her hand to her side, and gasp for the half-stifled breath. She took no notice of the young people who stood by. It is doubtful even whether she was aware of their presence. She went up gasping to the man she thought her enemy. I am in time, she said. I have come to claim my mothers moneythe moneyyou have robhed us of. I am in time I know I am just in time! 1 have been at Doctors Commons; its no use telling me lies. I know every thing. Ive come for my mothers moneythe money youve robhed from me and mine! Jack came forward bewildered by these ex- traordinary words. This is frenzy, he said. The Rector is right. She must lie. mad. Mrs. Preston, come and Ill take you home. 1)ont let us make any row about it. She is Pamelas mother. Let me take her quietly away. BRO WNLOWS. I might be mad, said the strange appari- tion, if wrong could make a woman mad. Dont talk to me of Pamela. Sir, you under- sttind its you I come to its you! Give me my mothers money! Ill not go away from here till I have justice. Ill have yo& taken up for a robber! Ill have you put in prison.! Its justice I want and my rights. Be quiet, Jack, said Mr. Browulow; let her alone. Go away that is the hiest service you can do me. Mrs. Pteston, you must cx. plain yourself. Who was your mother, and what do you want with me? Then she made a rushm forward to him and clutched his arm. He was standing in his former position leaning against the mantelpiece, firm, upright, pale, a strong man still, and with his energies unbroken. She rushed at him, a tot. tering, agitated woman, old and weak, and half. frantic with excitement. Give me my moth- ers money ! she cried, and gasped and choked, her passion being too much for her. At this instant the clock struck: it was a silvery, soft- tongued clock, and made the slow beats of time thrill into the silence. Mr. Browniow laughed when he heard it laughed not with triumph, but with that sense of the utter futility of all calculations which sometimes comes upon the mind with a strange sense of the humour of it, at the most terrible crisis. Let it strike what did it matter nothing now could de- liver him from his fate. I take you to witness I was here and claimed my money before it struck, cried the woman. I was here. You cant change that. You villain, give me my mothers mon- ey! Give me my money: youve had it for five and twenty years! Compose yourself, said Mr. Browidow, speaking to her as he might have done had he been the professional adviser of the man who was involved; sit down and take your time; you were here before twelve, you shall have all the benefit of that; now tell me what your name is, and what is your claim.~~ Mrs. Preston sat down as lie told her, and glared at him with her wild bright eyes; but notwithstanding the overwrought condition in which she was, she could not but recognise the calm of the voice which addressed her: a cer- tain shade of uncertainty flickered over her countenance she grew confused in the midst of her assurance it seemed impossible that he could take it so quietly if he knew what she meant. And then her bodily fatigue, sleepless. ness, and exhaustion were beginning to tell. You are trying to cheat nie, she said, with difficulty restraining the impulse of her weak- ness to cry. You are trying to cheat me! you know it hatter than I do, and I read it with my own eyes: you have had it for five and twenty years: and you try to face it out and cheat me now! Then the outburst came which had been kept back so long; she had eaten nothing all day; she had not slept the previous night; she had been travellin~ and rushing about till the solid BROWNLOWS. 89 earth seemed to be going round and round with floor, in a faint almost, as it seemed for the her; she burst into sobbing and crying as she moment, dead. spoke; not tears she was not capable of Mr. Browniow, for one dreadful second, tears. When Mr. Brownlow, in his extraordi- thought she was dead. The moment was ter- nary self-possession, went to a side table to rible beyond all description, worse tb n any bring a decanter of sherry which had been thing that had yet befailca him ; a thrill of placed there, she made an effort to rise to stop hope, an awful sickening of suspense caine over him, bnt even that she was unable to do. He him: for the first time be, too, lost his senses: walked across the room while his astonished he did not stoop to raise her, nor take any children still stood and looked on. He alone means for her restoration, but stood lookin had all his wits about him, and sense enough dowp upon her, watchitig, as a man might to be compassionate. lie filled out a glass watch the wild beast which had been about to of wine with a steady hand and brought it to kill him, writhing nuder some sudden shot. her. Take this, he said, and then you will A man would not interpose in such a case with be more able to tell me what you mean. surgical aid for the wounded lion or tiger. Mrs. Preston looked up at him, struck dumb Neither did Mr. Brownloxv feel hhnself moved with wonder in the midst of her agitation. She to interfere, He only stood and looked on. was capable of.thinking he meant to poison But his children were nut wound up to the her pi-obably that was the first idea in her same state of feeling. Jack rushed forward mind; but when she looked up and saw the and lifted his Pamelas mother fi-ota the floor, expression in his face, it calmed her in spite of: and Sara flew to her aid with feminine succours. herself. She took the glass from hita as if she They laid her on the sofa, and put water on could not help it, and swallowed the wine in an her face, and did every thing they knew to unwilling yet eager way for her bodily restore her. Mr. Browulow did not interfere; be exhaustion craved the needful support, though could not bid them stop; it never even occurred her mind was against it. She began to shake to him to attempt to reatmain their charitable and tremble all over as Mr. Browalow took the offices. He left them to themselves, and walked glass from her hand: his quietness overwhelmed heavily up and down the room on the other her. If he had turned her out of the room, side, waiting till she should come to herself. out of the house, it would have seemed more For of course she would come to herself he natural than this. had no doubt of that- After the first instant Father, said Jack, interposing, I have seen it was clearly enough apparent to him that her like this before I dont know what she such a woman at such a moment would not has in her head, but of course I cant stand by die. and see her get into trouble: if you will go When Mrs. Preston came to herself, she away I will take her home. tried to get up from the sofa, and looked at Mr. Browalow smiled again, a curious smile of them all with a piteous look of terror and help- despair, once more seeing the humour, as it were, lessness. She ~vas a simple uneducated wo- of the situation. It will be better for you to man, making little distinction between different take Sara away, he said; go, both of you kinds of crime and it seemed to her as if a it does not matter. Then, having fallen into man who had defrauded her (as she thought) this momentary incoherence, he recovered hini- all these years, might very well mean to mur- self and turned round to his visitor. Now der her when he was found out. She did not tell me, he said gently, who you are and see the difference. She shuddered as she fell what you mean 3 back on the cushions unable to rise. Would But by this time it did not seem as if she you like to kill mel she said faintly, looking were able to speak she sat and stared at him, in their faces. She was afraid of them, and her dark eyes shining wildly out of her old she was helpless and alone. She did not feel pallid face. I have seen the will I have even as if she hind the strength to cry out. been at Doctors Commons, she gulped out by Amid there were three of theta they could degrees ; I know it must be true. put out her feeble flickering flame of life if Who are you 3 said Mr. Browulow. they pleased. As for the two young people Then the poor trembling creature got up whom she addressed in the first place, they and made a rash towards him again. You supposed simply that she was raving. But know who I am, she said, hut that dont Mr. Browulow, who was, in his way, as highly matter, as you say: I was Phcebe Thomson; strained as she was, caught the words. And give me my mothers money ah! give me the thought flashed through his mind as if the money that belongs to my child! give me some one had held up a Ilicture to him. What my fortune ! theres witnesses that I came in ~vould it matter if she were to die I She was time; I came in time I came in time ! old she had lived long enough she was not screamed forth the exhausted woman. She so happy that she should wish to live longer; had lest all command of herself by this time, and her child others might do better for her and shrieked out the words, growing louder child than she could. It was not his fault. It and louder; then all at once, without any was her words that called up the h)icturo before warmiing, she fell down at the feet of the man him, and lie made a few steps forward and put she was defying fell in a dead bundle on the his children away, and came up to the sofa and BR 0 WNLO W S. looked at her. An old, faint, feeble, worn-out woman. A touch would do it; her life was like the last sore leaves fluttering on the end of the branches; a touch would do it. He came and looked at her, not knowing what he did, and per his children away. And there was something in his eyes which made her shrink into the corner of her couch and tremble and he silent. He was looking to see how it could be done by some awful unconscious impulse, altogether apart from any will or thought of his. And a touch would do it. This was what was in his eyes when he told his children to go away. Go go to hod, he said, I will take care of Mrs. Preston. There was a horrible ap- peat-aice of meaning in his voice, bat yet he did not know what he meant. He stood and lookcd down npon her gloomily. Yes, that was all that stood between him and peace; a wo- man whom any chance touchany blast bit- terer than usual any accidental fall, might kill. Go to bed, children, ho repeated harsh ly. It seemed to him somehow as if it would he better, as if he woald be more at liberty, when they were away. Oh, nono, said 1\Irs. Preston, moaning. Dont leave me dont leave me. You wouldut see any harm come to me, for my Pamelas sake! And then both his children looked into Mr. Browulows face. I cannot tell what they saw there. I doubt whether they could have told themselves; hut it was something that thrilled then through and through, which came back to them from tine to time all their lives, and which they could never forget. Jack turned away from his father with a kind of horror, and went and placed himself beside Mrs. Pres- ton at the head of the sofa. But Sara, though her dismay was still & eater, went up to him and clasped his arm with both her hands. Papa, she said, come away. Come with me. I dont know what it means, but it is too much for you. Come, papa. Mr. Browulow once more put her away with his hand. Go to bed, Sara, he said; and then freein himse If, he went across the room to the curtained windows, and stared out as if they were open, and came back again. The presence of his children was an oppression to him. He wanted them away. And then he stood again by the side of the sofa and looked at his visitor. We can talk this over best alone, he said; and at the sound of his voice, and a movement ~vhich she thought Jack made to leave her ste owe a sudden cry. He will kill me if you go away! she said. Oh, dont leave rue to him! Idont mean to injure youI But youre in league with him, shc exclaimed, risin,~ suddenly with the strength of excitement, and rushing to the other end of the roon ; you are all against me. I shall he killd! I shall be killed ! Murder! murder! though I dont want to hurt you. I want nothin~ but my rights. She got behind the writing-table in her in- sane terror, and threw herself down there on her knees, propping herself up against it, and watching them as from behind a barricade, with her pallid thin face supported on the table. With her hands she drew a chair to each side of her. She was like a wild creature painfully barricading herself shelterin,, her feeble strength within intrenebments, and taming her face to the foe. Mr. Browniow stood still and looked at her, hut this time with a stupefied look which meant nothing; and as for Jack he stood aghast, half-frightened, half-angry, not knowing if she were road, or what it was. When either of them moved, she crouched to- gether and cried out, thinking they were about to rush upon her. For the moment she was all but mad mad with excitement, fright, evil-thinking, and ignora~ cc ignorance most of all, seeing no reason why, if they had done one wrong, they should not do another. Kill or defraud, which did it matter h and for the moment she was out of her senses, and knew not what she did or said. Sara was the only one who retained her wits at this emergency. She stepped behind the screen made by the table without pausing to think about it. Mrs. Preston, sh~ said, I dont know what is the matter with you. You look as if you had gone mad; hut I am not frightened. What do yoa mean by calling murder here ~ Come with me to my room and go to hed. Itis time everybody was in bed. I will take care of you. You are tired to death, and not fit to he up. Come with me. You! cried Mrs. Preston you! You that have had everything my Pamela ou~ht to have had! that have been kept like a princess on my money! You ! hut dont let them kill me, she cried out the next mumet, shudderin gand turning towards the other woman for l)roreetion. Youre but a girl. Come leere and srand by me, and save me, and Ill staid by you. You shall always have a home. Ill he as good to you hut save me ! dont let them kill me! she cried, frantically throwing her arms round Saras waist. It was a curious sight. The girl stood erect, her slight figure swaying with the unusual strain upon it, her face lit up with such poweful emotions as she had never known before, looking wistful, alarmed, ~vonderin g, proud, upon her father and her brother at the other side, while the old woman clung to her, crouching at her feet, hiding her face in her dress, chasping her waist as for life and death. Sara lad accepted the office thrust upon her, whatever it was. She had become rc-ponsible for the terrified, exhausted claimant of all Mr. Browulows fortune and turned round upon rho two astonished men with something new to them, something that wa~ almost dofiance, in her eyes. I dont know what it means, she said, lay- ing her long, soft, shapely hand upon lifts. Prestons shoulder hike the picture of guar- dian angel; hut it has gone past your mana 90 B RO WNL 0 W S. ging, and I must take charge of her. Jack, open the door, and keep out of the way. She mut come with me. And then, indeed, Mr. Browulow within him- self, in the depths of his heart, uttered a groan, which made some outward echo. He was in the last crisis of his fate, and his cherished child forsook him and took his adversarys part. lie withdrew himself and sank down into a chair, clearing the way, as she had bidden. Sara had taken charge of her. Sara had covered the in- truder for ever and ever with the shield of her protection; and yet it was for Sara alone that he could have found in his heart to murder this woman, as she said. When Sara stood forth and faced him in her young strength and pride, a sudden Lady of Succour, it cast him to the earth. And he gave that groan, and sank down and put himself aside, as it were. He could not carry on the struggle. When Sara heard it her heart smote her; she turned to him eagerly, not to comfort him, but to de- fend herself. Well! she said, if it was nothing, you would not have minded. It must he something, or von would not have looked~ And then she stopped and shuddered. I am noing to take charge of her to-night, she added, low and hnrredlv. I will take her to my room, and stay with her all night. To-morrow, per- haps, we may know what it means. Jack, she can walk, if you will clear the way. Then Mr. Brownlow looked up, with an in- describable pang at his heart, and saw his daughtei- lead, half carrying, his enemy away. I will take her to my room, and stay with her all night. He had felt the emphasis and meaning that were in the words, and he had seen Saras shudder. Good heavens ! what was it for l Was he a man to do murder l What was it his child had read in his eye l In this horiible confusion of thought he sat and watched the stranger out. She had made good her lodgment, not only in the house, hut in the innermost chamber, in Saras room in Saras protecting presence, ~vhere nothing could get neai- her. And it was against him that his child had taken up this wretched womans de- fence! He neither moved nor spoke for some minutes after they had left the room. The bit- terness had all to he tasted and swallowed he- fore his thoughts could go forward to other things, and to the real final question. By de- grees, however, as he came to himself; he be- caine aware that he was not yet left free to think about the final question. Jack was still beside him. He did not say anything,. hut he was movin~ and fidgeting about the room with his hands in his pockets in a ~vay which proved that he had something to say. As Mr. Brown- low came to himself he gradually oke to a perception of Isis soils restless figure beside him, and knen: that he had another explanation to make. I dont want to trouble you, said Jack at last, abruptly, but I should very much like to know, sir, what all this means. If Mrs. Pres 91 ton is mad as God knows I dont want to think it, cried the young man, but one must believe ones eyes if she is mad, why did you give in to her, and humour her ? Why did not you let me take her away l I dont think she is mad, said Mr. Brown- low, slowly. Upon which Jack came to a dead stop, and stared at his father Good heavens, sir, he said, what can you mean l I dont know, said Mr. Browniow, getting up in his turn. My head is not quite clear to-rught. Leave me now. Ill tell you after. Ill tell you some time ; I mean in the morning. Then he walked once more across the room, and threw himself into the big easy- chair by the dying fire. One of the lamps had mu down, and was flickering out, throwing strange quivers of light and shade about the room. An indescribable change had come over it; it had been bright, and now it looked desolate; it had been the home of peace, and now the very air was heavy with uncertainty and a kind of hovering horror. Mr. Brownlow threw himself wearily into the big eblir, and covered his face with his hands. A moment after he seemed to recollect himself, and looked up and called Jack back. My boy, he said, something has happened to-night which I did not look for. You must consider everything I said to you before as cancelled. It appears I was premature. I am sorry for you, Jack. Dont be sorry for me, cried Jack, with a generous impulse. It could not have made touch matter any how my life is decided, come what may. Then his father looked up at him sharply, but with a quiver in his lip. Ab! he said; and Jack peiceived somehow, he did not know how, that he had unwittingly inflicted a new wound. It could not have made much mat- ter true, he said, and rose up and bowed to his son as if he had been a stranger. That being the case, perhaps the less we say to each other the better now What have I said, sir! cried Jack its amaze. Enough, enough, said Mr. l3rownlow, enough whether it was in answer to his question, or by way of putting an end to the conversation, Jack could not tell; and then his father waved him away, and sat down again, once more burying his face in his bands. Again the iron had entered his som~l. Both of thctn! all he had in the world his fortune, his position, his son, his daughter, must all go l It seemed to him now as if the extem-nal things were nothing in comparison of these last. Sara, for whose sake alone he feared itJack, whom he had not petted whom perhaps he had crossed a little as fathers will, hut whom at bottom never mind, never mind! he said to himself. Itwas the way of the world. Sons did not take up their fathers cause nowadays as a matter of course. They had themselves to think of in fact, it was right they should think of themselves. The world was of much more 92 BRO WNL 0 WS. importance to Jack than it could he to himself, the smoking-room, and lighted a dreary ciger. P~r of course a young man had twice the length It was not a very serious malediction, but yet his of thne to provfdc for that his father could pos- mind was serious enough. Some terrible crisis sibly have. Never mind He said, it to himself in the history of his family was coming on, and with his head bowed down in his hands. But he could only guess what it was. Something he did mind. It would not make much that involved not only his own pro~pecms, but matter anyhow no, not much matter. the prospects of his future wife. And yet no- Jack would have it instead of Sara and Powys. body would tell hiiii what was the Ineaniur of It was the same kind of compromise that he had it. It was hard lines for Jack. intended only that the persons and the mo- When his son left the room, Mr. l3rowulow tive were changed. lifted his head out of his hands. lie looked Poor Jack in the mean time ~vent about the eagerly round the room and made sure he was room in a very disconsolate state. He was so alone. And then his counten uce relaxed a startled in every way that lie did not know little, lie could venture to look as ha felt, to what to think, and yet vague shadows of the throw off every mask when he was alone. truth were flickering about his mind. He knew Then he got up and walked heavily about. something vaguely of the origin of his fathers Was it all true Had she come at the last fortune, and nothing but that could explain it; moment and made her claim Had she liyhbd and now he was ofihuded at something. What down upon him, tracked him out, just as he could it be that he was offended at 3 It never was saying, and at last permitting himsef to occurred to Jack that his own words might bear think, that all was over 3 A strange confusion the meaning that was set ChiOti themn ; lie was swept over him as he sat and looked round the disconcerted an(l vexed, and did not know what empty room. Was it possible that all this to do. He went wandering about the room, had happeiied since he was last alone in it? lifting amid replacing the books on the tables, It was only a few hours since; arid lie had and finally, after a long pause, he ~vent up to been scarce:y aIde to believe that so blessed a his father again, state of things could be true. He had sat I wish youd have some confidence in me, the#e and planned every kind of kindness and he said. I domit pretend to be xvise, hut still bounty to everybody by way of expressing his And then if there is anything hangoig gratitude to God. Was it possible? Could over us, it is best that a fellow should everything since then be so entirely changed? know Or hid he only dreamt the arrival of the sudden There is nothing lmangin~ over you, said claimant, the striking of the clock too late, all, Mr. Browniow, raisimig his head, almost with the umiseries of the night? As he asked him- bitterness. It will miot matter much anyhow, self these questions, a sudden shuddering caine you know. l)ont think of waiting for rae. I over him. rhere was one thing which lie have a good deal to think over. In short I knew could be no dream. It was the sug- should be very glad if you would leave m~ to gestion which had conic into his mind as he myself and go stood by the sofa. lie seemed to see her be- As you please, said Jack, who was at last fore him, worn, old, feeble, and involuntarily offended in his turn; and after lie hind made a his thoughts straned away again to that horn- discontented promenade all round the room, he ble thought. What was the use of smich a lounged towards the door, still hoping he might woman in the world? She had nothing be- be called back again,. But lie was not called fore her but old age, iniirmuiies, a lingering back. On the contrary, his fathers head had illness most likely, many sufferings and heath sunk again into his hands, and he had evident- only death at the end; tnat was the best, ly retired into himself, beyond the reach of all the only event awaiting her. To the young, fellowship or sympathy. Jack veered gradual- life may blossom out afresh at amiy moment, ly towards the door and went out of the room, but the old can only die that is all that re- with his hands in his pockets and great trouble mains for them. And a touch would do it. It arid perplexity in his mind. It seemed to him might save her frour a great deal of suff~rin that he saw what the trouble must be, and that it would certainly save her from the trial of of itself was not pleasant. But bad as it might a new position, the difficult transition from be, it was not so baif as the way his father was poverty to wealth. If he was himself as old, taking it. Good heavens, if he should hurt the Mr. Brownlow thought vaguely (all this was old woman but surely he was not capable very vague it was not breathed in articulate of that. And then Jack returired upon his own thought, much less in words) that he would lie case and felt wounded and sore. He was not a glad to be put quietly out of the way. heaven baby tAint his father should decline to take him knows he would be grateful emiough to any into Iris confidence. He was not a fool that he one even at that moment who would put him should be supposed unequal to the emergency. out of the way. Sleep was out of the question unejer the cir- And it would be so easy to do it; a touch cumstances ; and besides lie did not want to would do it. The life was fluttering already meet any of the fellows who might have been in her pulses; very likely the first severe cold disturbed by Mrs. Prestons cry and might have would bring her down like the leaves off the come to his room for information. Hang it trees ; and in the mean time what a difference all said Jack, as he threw himself on a sofa in liar life would make. Mr. Browulow got up BROWNLOWS. and began to walk about, not able to keep still any longer. The second lamp was now begin- niiig to flicker for want of oil, and the room was darkening, thongh he did not perceive it. It would be the kindest office that could be done to an old \vonran; he had often thou ht so. Suddenly there occnrred to him a recollection of certain unhappy creatures in the workhouse at Masterton, who were so old that nothing was any pleasure to them. He thought of the life- in-death he had seen among them, the tedious blank, the animal half-existence, the dead, dull doze, out of which only a bad fit of coughing or some other suffering roused them; and of his own passing reflection how kind it would be to mix them a sleeping potion only a little sTronger, and let them be gone. It would be the best. thing any one could do for them. It would be the best thing any one could do for her; then all the trouble, all the vexation, all the misery and change that it would save! As for the child, Mr. Brownlow said to him- self thai all should go well with the child. lie would not interfere. Jack should marry her if he pleased all should go well with her; and she would not have the difficult task of reconciling the world to her mother. In every way it seemed the desirable arrangement. If Providence would but interpose ! but then Providence never did interpose in such emer- gencies. Mr. Browulow. went slowly up and down the darkening room, and his thoughts, too, went into the darkness. They ~vent on as as it ~vere in a whisper and hid themselves, and silence came hideous silence, in which the heart stood still, tlte genial breath was in- terrupted. He did not know what he was doing. He went to the medicine-chest which was in one corner, and opened it and looked at it. He did not even make a pretence of look- mr for anything: neither would the light have enabled him to look for anything. He looked at it and he knew that death was there, but he did not put forth his hand to touch it. At that moment all at once the flickering flame went out went out just as a life might do, after fluttering and quivering and making wild rallies, again and again. Mr. Bro-wulow for his part was almost glad there was no light. It made him easier even the lamp had seemed to look at him and see something in his eye! Five minutes after, he found himself, he could not have told how, at the door of Saras room. It was not in his way he could not make that excuse, to himself to tell the truth lie did not make any excuse to himself. His mind was utterly confused, and had stopped thinking. He was there, having come there he did not know how; and being there he opened the door softly and went in. Perhaps, for anything he could tell, the burden mibht have been too much for Sara. He went in softly, stealing so as not to disturb any sleeper. The room was dark, but not quite dark. There was a night-light burning, shaded, on the table, ~nd the curtains were drawn at the head of the white bed: nothing stirred in the silence: only the sound of breathing, the irregular disturbed breathing of some one in a troubled sleep. Mr. Browulow stole further in, and softly hut back one of the curtains of the bed. Theic she lay, old, pallid, wi-inkled, worn out, breath- ing hard in her sleep, even then unable to for- get the struggle she was engaged in, holding the coverlet fast with one otd meagre hand, upon which all the veins stood out. What comfort was her life to her 3 And a touch would do it. He went a step tiearer and stooped over her, not knowing what be did, not putting out a finger, incapable of any exertion, yet with an awful curiosity. Then all at otice out of the darkness, swift as an angel on noise- less pinions, a white figure rose and rushed at him, carryin~ him away from the bed out to the door, unwitting, aghast, by the mere impetus of its own wild sudden motion. When they had got outside it was Saras f- ce that was turned upon him, pale as the face of the dead, ~vith her hair hanging about it wildly, and the moisture standing in big beads on her forehead. What were you going to do 2 she seemed to shriek in his ear, though the shriek was only a whisper. He had left his candle outside, and it was by that faint light lie could see the white- ness of her face. Do 3 said Mr. Browulow, with a strange sense of wonder. Do 3 nothing. What could I do 3 Then Sara threw herself upon him and wept aloud, wept so that the sound ran through the house, sobbing along the long listenin~ passages. Oh, papa, papa! she cried, clinging to him. A look as of idiocy had come into his face. lie had become totally confused he did not know what she meant. What could he do 3 Why was she crying 3 And it was wrong to make a noise like this, when all the house was hushed atid asleep. You must be quiet, he said. There is no need to be so agitated; and you should have been in bed. It is very late. I am going to my room now. I will go ~vith you, said S~ ra, l~rembhing. Already she began to be ashamed of her terror, hut her nerves would not caIrn down all at once. She put her hand on his arm and half led, half followed him through the corri- dor. Papa, you did not mean anything 3 she said, hiftin~ up a face so white and tremu- lous and shaken with many emotions that it was scarcely possible to recognize it as hers. You did not mean anything 3 TIer very lips quivered so that she could scarcely speak. Mean what 3 he said. I am a little confused to-night. It was all so sudden. I dont seem to understand you. And Im very tired. Thin~s will be clearer to-morrow. Sara, I hope you are going to bed. Yes, papa, she said, like a child, though her lips quivered. He looked like a man who had fallen into sudden imbecility, comprehend- 93 BR OWN L 0 WS. ing nothing. And Saras mind too was begin- fling to get confused. She could not under- stand any longer what his looks meant. And so am I, said Mr. Brownlow, with a sigh. Then he stooped and kissed her. My darling, hood-night. Things will be clearer to-morrow, he said. They had come to his door by this time. And it was there he had stooped to kiss her, dismissing her as it seemed. But after she had turned to go hack, he came ont again and called her. He looked almost as old and as shaken as Mrs. Preston as he called her back: Dont forsake me dont you forsake me, he said hurriedly; that was all that was all: good-night. And then he went in and shut his door. Sara, left to herself, went hack along the corridor, not knowing what to think. Were they all mad, or going mad l What could the shock be which had made Pamelas humble mother frantic, and confused Mr. Browulows clear intellect? She lay down on her sofa to watch her patient, feeling as if she too was becoming idiotic. She could not sleep, young as she was: the awful shadow that had come across her mind had murdered sleep. She lay and listened to Mrs. Prestons irregular, in- terrupted breathing, far into the night. But sleep was not for Saras eyes. chAPTER XXXVII. THE MORNING LIGHT. OF all painful things in this world there are few more painful than the feeling of rising up in the morning to a difficulty unsolved, a mystery unexplained. So long as the dark- ness is over with the night something can always be done. Calamity can be faced, mis- fortune met; hut to get up in the morning light, and encounter afresh the darkness, and find no clue any more than you had at night, is hard work. This was what Jack felt when he had to face the sunshine, and remembered all that had happened, and the merry party that awaited him down-stairs, and that he must amuse his visitors as if this day had been like any other. If he but knew what had really happened! but the utmost he could do was to guess at it, and that in the vaguest way. The young man went down-stairs with a load on his mind, not so much of care as of un- certainty. Loss of fortune was a thin~ that could be met; but if there was loss of honour involved if his fathers brain was giving way with the pressure if Jack would not allow his thou~ h ts to go any further. He ~ew himself up with a sudden pull, and stopped short, and went down-stairs. At the breakfast-table everything looked horribly un- changed. The guests, the servants, the routine of the cheerful meal, were just as usual. Mr. Brownlow, too, was at the table, holding his usual place. There was an ashy look about his face, which produced inquiries concerning his health from every new arrival; but his answers were so brief and unencouraging that these questions soon died off into silence. And he ate nothing, and his hand shook as he put his cup of coffee to his pallid lips. All these were symptoms that might be accounted for in the simplest way by a little bodily (Ic- rangement. But Jack, for his part, was afraid to meet his fathers eye. Where is Sara? he asked, as he took his seat. And then he was met for he was late, and most of the party were down before him by a flutter of regrets and wonder. Poor Sara had a head- ache so had a headache that she would not even ha~-e any one go into her room. Anne- lique was keping the door like a little ti one of the youn~ ladies said, and would let nobody in. And, oh, tell me who it was that came so late last night, cried another. You must know. We are all at such a pitch of curiosity. It must be a foreigi prince, or the prime minister, or some great beauty, we cant make up our minds which; and, of course, it is hreakfastin~ in its own room this morning. Nobody will tell us ~vlio it was. Do tell us ! we are all dying to know. You will all be dreadfully disappointed, said Jack. It was neither a prince nor a beauty. As for pritne minister I dont know. Such things have been heard of as that a prime minister should be an old woman An old woman! said his innocent inter- locutor. Then it must be Lady Motherxvell. Oh, I dont wonder poor Sara has a headache. But you know von are only joking. her dear Charley would never let her come storming to anybodys door like that. It was not Lady Motherwell, said Jack. heaven knows he was in no mood for jesting; but when it is a matter which is past talking of, what can a man do l Oh, then, I know who it must have been! cried the spokeswoman of the party. She was, however, suddenly interrupted. Mr. Browulow, who had scarcely said a word as yet to any one, interposed. There was some- thing in his tone which somehow put them all to silence. I am sorry to put a stop to your specu- lations, he sail. It was only one of my clients on ur,,ent business that was all ; busi- ness, lie added, with a curious kind of apology, which has kept me up h If the night. Oh, Mr. Brownlow, I am so sorry. You are tired, and we have been teasing you, said the lively questioner, ~vith quick compunction. No, not teasing me, he said, gravely. And then a dead silence ensued. It was not anything in his words. His words were simple enough; and yet every one of his guests in- stantly began to think that his or her stay had been long enough, an d that it was time to go away. As Mr. Browniow spoke he met Jacks eye, and returned his look steadily. So far he was 94 BROW NLO W S. himself again, lie was impenetrable, antago- nistic, almost defiant. But there was no hover- ing horror in his look, tie was terribly grave, and ashy pale, and bore traces that what bad happened was no light matter. His look gave his son a sensation of relief, and perhaps en- couraged him in levity of expression, though, Heaven knows, there was little levity in his mind. I told you, he said, it mi~ht have been the prime minister, but it certainly was an old woman; and there I stop. I cant give any further information; I am not one of the Privy Council. Then he laughed, but it was an uncomfortable laugh. It deepened the silence all around, and looked like a family quarrel, and made everybody feel ill at ease. I dont think any one here can he much interested in details, said Mr. Browulow, coldly; and then he rose to leave the table. It was his habit to leave the table early, and on ordinary occasions his departure made little commotion; but to-day it was different. They all clustered up to their feet as he went out of the room. Nobody knew what should he done that day. The men looked awkwardly at each othtr; the women tried hard to be the same as before, and failed, having Jack before them, who was far from looking the same. I sup- pose, Jack, you will not go out to-day, one of his companions said, though they had not an idea why. I dont see why I shouldnt, said Jack, and then he made a pause; and everybody looked at .him. After all, he continued, you all know your way about; as Sara has a headache I had better stay ; and he hurried their departure that he might get rid of them. His father had not gone out; the dog-cart had come to the door, but it had been sent off again. He was in the library, Willis said in a whisper; and thongh he had been so many. years with Mr. Browniow and knew all his ways, Willis was obviously startled too. For one moment Jack thought of cross-questioning the butler to see what light he could throw upon the matter if lie had heard anything on the previous night, or suspected anything but on second thoughts he dismissed the idea. Whatever it was, it was from his father him- self that he ought to have the explanation. But though Mr. Browulow was in the library Jack did not go to him there. He loitered about till his friends were gone, and till the ladies of the party, finding him very impracti- cable and with no amusement in him, had gone off upon their various ways. He did his best to he civil, even playful, poor fellow, being for the moment everybodys representative, both master and mistress of the house. But though there was no absolute deficiency in anything he said or did, they were all too sharp-witted to be taken in. He has something on his mind, one matron of the party said to the other. They have something on all their minds, my dear, said the other, solemnly; and they talked very significantly and mysteriously of the Browalows as they filled Saras morning- room with their work and various devices, for it was a fogay, wretched day, and no one cared to venture out. Jack meanwhile drew a long breath of relief when all his ~tuests were thus off his mind. He stood in the h II and hesi- tated, and saw Willis watching him from a cor- ner with undisguised anxiety. Perhaps but for that he would have gone to his father; but with everybody watching him, looking on speculatin~ what it might be, he could not go. And yet something must be done. At last, after he had watched the last man out and the last lady go away, he turned, and went slowly up-stairs to Saras door. When his voice was heard there was a little rush within, and Sara came to him. Sbe was very pale, and had the air of a watcher to whom the past night had brought no sleep. It even seemed to Jack that she was in the same dress that she had worn the previous night, though that was a delusion. As soon as she saw that it was her brother, and that he was alone, she sent the maid away, and, taking him by the arm, drew him into the little outer room. There had not been any sentimental frateinity between them in a general way. They were very good friends, and fond of each other, hut not given to manifestations of sympathy and devotion. But this time as soon as he was within the door and she had him to herself Sara threw her arms round Jack, and leant against him, and went off without any warning into a sudden burst of emotion not tears ex- actly. It was rather a struggle against tears. She sobbed and her breast heaved, and she clasped him convulsively. Jack was terribly svrprised and shocked, feeling that so unusual an outburst must have a serious cause, and he was very tender with his sister. It did not last more than a minute, but it did more to convince him of the gravity of the crisis than anything else had done. Sara retrained coin- mand of herself almost immediately and ceased sobbing, and raised her head from his shoulder. She is there, she whispered, pointing to the inner room, and then she turned and went be- fore him leading the way. The white curtains of Saras bed were drawn at one side, so as to screen the interior of the chamber. Within that enclosure a fire was burning brightly, and seated by it in an easy-chair wrapped in one of Saras pretty dressing-gowns, with unaccus- tomed embroideries and soft fril!s and ribbons enclosing her brown worn hands and meagre throat, I\Irs. Preston half sat, half reclined. rhe firelight was flickering about her, and she lay hack and looked at it and at everything around her with a certain dreadful satisfaction. She looked round about upon the room and its comforts as people look on a new purchase. Enjoyment a certain pleasure of possession was written on her face. When she sa~v Jack she moved a little, and drew the muslin wrapper more closely round her throat with a curious instinct of prudish propriety. It wris the same woman to whose 95 BRO WNLO W S. society he had accustomed himself as Pamelas mother, and whom he had tutored himself to look upon as a necessary part of his future household, hut yet she was a different creal ure. He did not know her in this new development. He followed Sara into her presence with a new sense of repulsion, a reluctance and dislike which he had never felt before. And Mrs. Preston for her part received him with an air which was utterly inexplicable an air of patronage which made his blood boil. I hope you are better, he said, not know- ing how to begin; and then, after a pause, Should not I, o and tell Pamela that you are here? or would you like me to take you home? I consider myself at home, said Mrs. Preston, sitting up suddenly and bursting into speech. I will send for Pamela, when it is all settled. I am very thankful to your sister for taking care of me last night. She shall find that it will be to her advantage. Sit down I am sori-y, Mr. John, that I cannot say the same for you.~~ What is it you cannot say for me? said Jack: I dont know in the least what you would be at, Mrs. Preston; I suppose there must be some explanation of this strange con- duct. What does it mean? You will find that it means a great deal, said the changed woman. When you came to me to my poor little place, I did not want to have any thing to say to you; but I never thought of putrin0 any meaning to what you were doing. I was as innocent as a baby I thought it was all love to my poor child. That was what I thought. And now youve stolen her heart away froi me, and I know what it was for I know what it was for. Then what was it for? said Jack, abrupt ly. He was by turns red and pale with anger. He found it very hard to keep his temper now that he was personally assailed. It was for this, cried Pamelas mother, with a shrill ring in her voice, pointing, as it seemed, to the pretty furniture and pictures round her for all this, and the fine house, and the park, and the money that was what it was for. You thought youd marry her and keep it all, and that I should n ver know what was my rights. But now I do know ; and you would have killed me last night! she cried wildly, drawing back, with renewed pas- sion you and your father; you would have killed me; I should have been a dead woman by this time if it had not been for her! Jack made a hoarse exclamation in his throat as she spoke. The room seemed to be turning round with him. He seemed to be catching glimpses of her meaning through some wild chaos of misunderstanding and darkness. He himself had never wished her ill, not even when she promised to be a burden on him. Is she mad? he said, turning to Sara; but he felt that she was not mad; it was something more serious than that. I know my rights, she said, calming dGwn instantaneously. Its my house youve been living in, and my money that has made you all so flue. You need not start, or pretend as if you didnt know. It was for that you came and beguiled my Pamela. You might have left me my Pamela; house, and money, and every thing, even down to my poor mothers ble~sing, said Mrs. Preston, breaking down pit- ifully, and falling into a passion of tears. You have taken them all, you and yours; but you might have left me my child ! Jack stood aghast while all this was being poured forth upon him; but Sara, for her part, fell a-crying too. She has been saying the same all night., said Sara; what have we to do with her money or her mothers bles- sing? Oh, Jack, what have we to do with them? What does it mean? I dont under- stand any thing but about Pamela arid you. Nor I, said Jack, in despair, and he made a little raid through the room in his consterna- tion, that the sight of the two women cryin~ might not make a fool of him; then he came back with the energy of desperation. Look here, Mrs. Preston, he said, there may be some money question between my father and youI cant tell; but we have nothing to do with it. I know nothing about it. I think most likely you have been deceived somehow. But, right or wrong, this is not the way tQ clear it up. Money cannot be claimed in this wild way. Get a la~vyer who knows what he is doing to see after it for you; atid in the mean- time go honie like a rational creature. You cannot be permitted to make a disturbance here. You shall never have a penny of it, cried Mrs. Preston not a penny, if you should be starving nor Pamela either; I will tcll her all that you watited her for her money and she will scorn you as I do you shall have nothing fl-em her or me. Answer for yourself, cried Jack, furious, or be silent. She shall not be brought in. What do I care for your money? Sara, he quiet, and dont cry. She ought never to have been brought here. No, cried the old woman, in her passion, I ought to have been cast out on the roadside, dont you think, to die if I liked? or I ought to have been killed, as you tried last night. Thats what you would do to me, while you slept soft and lived hicrh. But my time has come. Its you that mtist go to the door the door! and you need expect no pity from me. She sat in her feebleness and poverty as on a throne, and defied them, .and they stood together bewildered by their ignorance, and did not know what atitwer to make her. Though it sounded like madness, it might be true. For any thing they could tell, what she was saying might have some foundation unknown to them. Sara by this time had dried her tears, and indignation had begun to take the place of dis- tress in her mind. She gave her brother an 96 B RO WNL OW S. appealing look, and clasped her hands. Jack, answer her do you know what to say to her I she cried, stamping her little foot on the ground with impatience; somebody must know; are we to stand by and hear it all, and do nothing I Jack, answer her unless she is mad I think she mnst be partly mad, said Jack. But it must be put a stop to somehow. Go and fetch my father. He is in the library. Whatever it may be, let us know at least what it means. I will stay with her here. When she heard these words, the strange inmate of Saras room came down from her height and relapsed into a feeble old woman. She called Sara not to go, to stay and protect her. She shrank back into her chair, drawing it away into a corner at the furthest distance possible, and sat there watchful and frightened, eyein~ Jack as a hunted creature might eye the tiger which might at any moment spring upon it. Jack, for his part, with an exclamation of impatience, turned on his heel and went away from her, as far as space would permit. Impa- tience began to swallow up every other senti- ment in his mind. He could not put up with it any longer. Whatever the truth might be, it was evident that it must be faced and acknowl- edged at once. While be kept walking about im- patient and exasperated, all his respect for Pa- melas mother died out of his mind; even, it must be owned, in his excitement,tbe image of Pamela herself went back into the mists. A certain disgisst took possession of him. If it was true that his father had schemed and~ struggled for the possession of this womans miserable money if the threat of claiming it had moved him with some vague but awful temptation, such as Jack shuddered to think of; and if the idea of having rights atid possessing something had changed the mild and humble woman who was Pamelas mother into this frantic and insulting fury, then what was there worth caring for, what was there left to believe in, in this world I Perhaps even Pamela herself had been changed by this terrible te~ t. Jack did not wish for the wings of a dove, being too matter-of-fact for that. But he felt as if he would like to set out for New Zealand without saying a word to anybody, without br~atbing a syllable to a single soul on the way. It seemed as if that would be the only thing to do he himself mi~ht get fiantic or desperate too like the others about a little money. The backwoods, sheep- hearing, any thing would be preferable to that. This pause I sted for some minutes, for Sara did not immediately ieturn. When she came back, however, a heavier footstep accompanied her up the stair. Mr. Brownlow came into the room, and went at once towards the further corner. He had made up his mind; once more he had become perfectly composed, calm as an attorney watching his clients case. He called Jack to him, and v,-ent and stood by the table, facing Mrs. Prestou.~ I hear you have sent for me to know the meaning of all this, he said; I will tell you, for you have a right to know. Twenty-five years ago, before either of you was born, I had some money left me, which was to be transferred to a woman called Pheebe Thomson, if she could be found out or appeared within twenty-five years. I searched for her everywhere, but I could not find her. Latterly I forgot her existence to a great extent. The five-and-twenty years were out last night, and just before the period ended this lady as you both know, appeared. She says she is Phosbe Thomson, the legatee I have told you of. She may be so I have nothing to say against her; but the proof lies with her, not me. This is all the explauatioa there is to make. When he had said it he drew a long breath of relief. It was the truth. It was not per- haps all the truth ; but he had told the secret, which had ~veighed him down for months, and the burden was off his heart. He felt a little sick and giddy as he stood there before his children. He did not look them in the face. In his heart he knew there were many more particulars to tell. But it was not foi them to judge of his heart. I have told you the secret, so far as there is a secret, he said, with a faint smile at them, and then sat down sud- denly, exhausted with the effort. It was not so (lifficult after all. Now that it was done, a faint wonder crossed his mind that he had not done it long ago, and saved himself all this trouble. But still he was glad to sit down. Somehow, it took the strength out of him as few things had done before. A legatee! burst forth Sara in amaze- ment, not understanding the word. Is that all I Papa, she says the house is hers, and everythin~, is hers. She says we have no right here. Is it trtie I As for Jack, he looked his father steadily in the face, asking, Was it true I more imperi- ously than Saras words did. If this were all, what was the meaning of the almost tragedy last night I They forgot the very existence of the woman who was the cause of it all as they turned upon him. Poverty and wealth were small matters in comparison. He was on his trial at an awful tribunal, before judges too much alarmed, too deeply interested, to be lenient. They turned their backs upon Mrs. Preston, who, notwithstanding her fear an& anxiety, could not bear the neglect. Their disregard of her roused her out of her own self-confidence and certainty, to listen with a certain forlorn eagerness. She had not paid much attention to what Mr. Browulow said the first time. What did it matter what he said I Did not she know better I But when Jack and Sara turned their backs on her, and fixed their eyes on their father, she woke up with an intense mortificatioa and disappointment at finding herself overlooked, and began to listen too. Mr. Brownlow rose up as a man naturally LIVThtG AGE. VOL. yin. 271. 97 98 BROWNLOWS. does who has to plead guilty or not guilty for two feeble hands to defend herself. If you his life. He stood before them, putting his are Phcabe Thomson, he said, you shall hand on the table t~ support himself. It is have your rights. I know nothing about you not true, he said. I do not deny that I have I never thought of you. This house is been thinking a great deal about this. If I mine, and you have nothing to do here. All had but known, I should have told you; but you have any right to is your money, and you these are the real facts. If she is Phmbe shall have your money when you prove your Thomson, as she says though of that we identity. But I cannot leave you here to dis- have no proof she is entitled to fifty thou- tress my child. If you are able to think at all, sand pounds which her mother left her. That you must see that you ought to go home. is the whole. To pay her her legacy may Send for the carriage to take her home, Mr. farce me to leave this house, and change our Browniow added, turning to his children. If mode of livin~ but she has nothing to do she is the person she calls herself, she is a with the house nothing here is hers, abso- relation of your mothers; and anyhow, she is himely nothing. She has no more to do with weak and 01(1. Take care of her. Sara, my Browulows than your baker has, or your dress. darling, you are not to stay here with her, nor maker. If she is Phcabe Thomson, I shall let her vex you; but I leave her in your owe her money nothing more. I might hands. have told you, if I had but known. I will do what you tell me, papa, said What Mr. Brownlow meant was, that he Sara; and then he stood for a moment and would hnve told them had he known, after all, looked at them wistfully. They had forsaken how little it would cost to tell it. After all, him last night; both of them or at least so there was nothing disgraceful in the tale, not- he fancied had gone over to the enemy; and withstandin~ the terrible shifts to which he that had ent him to the heart. Now he turned bad put himself to conceal it. He had spoken~ to them wistfully, looking for a little support it out, and now his mind was free. If he had and comfort. It would not be so hard after all btmt known what a relief it would be But he if his children went with him into captivity. sat down as soon as he had finished speaking; They had both been so startled and excited that and he did not feel as if he could pay much but for this look, and the lingering, expectant attention to anythin_ else His mind was in pause he made, neither would have thought of a state of confusion about what had happened their fathers feelings. But it was impossible :the previous ni~ht. It seemed to him that he to misunderstand him now. Sara, in her im- had said or done something he ought not to pulsive way, went up to him and put her arms ~have done or said. But now he had made his round his neck. Papa, it is we who have supreme disclosure, and given up the struggle, been hard upon you, she said; and as for It did not much matter what occurred beside. Jack, who could not show his feelings by an Mrs. Preston, however, who had been listen- embrace, he also made a kind of amneude in an ing eagerly, and whom nobody regarded for ungracious masculine way. He said, Im the moment, rose u~ and made a step forward coming with you, sir. Ill see after the car- among them. He may deny it, she said, ria~,e, and marched off behind his father to the tremblin ~ but I know hes known it all this door. Neither of thens took any further notice time, and kept us out of our rights. Fifty of Mrs. Preston. It seemed to her as if they pound fifty thousand pound what does he did not care. They were not afraid of her; say I I know better. It is all mine, every they did not come obsequiously to her feet, as penny, and hes been keeping us out of our she had thought they would. On the contrary, rights. Youve been all fed and nourished on they were banding together among themselves what was mine your horses and your car- against her, making a league among them- riages, and all your grandeur; and he selves, taking no notice of her. And her own says its but fIfty pounds! Dont you remem- child was not there to comfort her heart. It her that theres One that protects the father- was a great shock and downfall to the unhappy less I she cried out, almost screaming. The woman. She had been a good woman so long very sight of his composure made her wild as she was untempted. But it had seemed to and desperate. You make no account of her, in the wonderful prospect of a great for- me, she cried no more than if I was the tune, that everybody would fall at her feet; dust under your feet, and Im the mistress of that she would be able to do what she pleased allof all; and if it had not been for her you to deal with all her surroundings as she pleased. would have killed me last night. When she saw she could not do so, her mind These words penetrated even Mr. Brown- grew confused fifty pound, fifty thousand lows stupor; he gave a shudder as if with the pound, which was it I And she was alone, cold. I was very hard driven last night, and they were all banding themselves against he said, as if to himself very hard put to it. her. Money seemed nothing in comparison to I dont know what I may have said. Then the elevation, the supremacy she had dreamed he made a pause, and rose and went to his of. And they did not even take the trouble to enemy, who fell back into the chair, and took look at her as they went away! ifriht as he approached her, putting out her BROWNLOWS. CHAPTER XXXVIII. MOTHER AND LOVER. JACK followed his father down stairs, and did not say a word. It had been an exciting morning; and now that he knew all, though the excitemeur had not as yet begun to flag, care came along with it. Suspense and mys- tery were hard, and yet at the same time easier to bear than reality. The calamity might have loomed larger while it was unknown, but at least, it was unaccompanied by those real de- tails from which there is no escape. When Mr. Brownlow and his son reached the bottom of the stair, they stopped, and turned and looked at each other. A certain shade of apology was in Mr. Browniows tone. I thou,,ht it was all over last night, he said; I thought you were all safe. You know my meaning now. Safe, sir, safe! said Jack, with this always hanging over our heads l I dont un- derstand why we were not allowed to know; but never mind. I am glad it has come, and there is nothing more to look for. It bears interest, I suppose. That may he a matter of arrangement. I suppose it does, said Mr. Browulow, with a sigh. Jack gave vent to his feelings in a low, faint, prolonged whistle. Ill go and tell them abont the carriage, he said. This was all the communication that passed between the father and the son; bnt it was enough to show Mr. Brownlow that Jack was not thinking, as he might very naturally have thought, of his new position as the future son-in-law of the woman who had wrought so much harm. Jacks de- meanour, though he did not say a word of sympathy to his father, was quite the contrary of this. He did not make any professions, but he took up the common family burden upon his shoulders. The fifty thousand pounds was comparatively little. It was a sum which could be measured and come to an end of; but the interest, that was the dreadful thought. Jack was practical, and his mind jumped at it on the moment. It was as a dark shadow which had come over him, and which he could not shake off. Brownlows was none of heis, and yet She might not be wrong after all in thinking that all was hers. The actual claim was heavy enough, but the possible claim was overwhelming. It seemed to Jack to go into the future and overshadow that as it over- shadowed the present. No wonder Mr. Brown- low had been in despair no wonder almost the young man gave a very heavy sigh as he went into the stable-yard and gave his instructions. He stood and brooded over it with his brow knitted and his hands buried in his pockets, while the horses were put into the carriage As for such luxuries, they counted for nothing, or at least so he thought for the moment nothing to him; but a burden that would lie upon them for years a shadow of debt and difficulty projected into the future that seemed more than any man could bear. It will be seen from this that the idea of his own relatkns with Pamela making any differ- ence in the matter had not crossed Jacks mind. He_would have been angry had any one suggested it. Not that he thought of giv- ing up Pamela; but in the mean time the idea of having anything to do with Mrs. Preston was horrible to him, and he was not a young man who was always reasonable and sensible, and took everything into consideration, any more than~ the rest of us. To tell the truth, he had no room in his thoughts for the idea of marriage or of Pamela at that moment. He strode round to the ball door as the coachman got on the box, and went up to Saras room without stopping to think. The carriage is here, he said, calling to Sara at the door. He would have taken the intruder down-stairs, and put her into the carriage as courteously as if she had been a duchess; for, as we have already said, there was a. certain fine natural politeness in the Browulow blood. But when he heard the excited old woman still raving about her rights, and that they wanted to kill her, the young man became impatient. He was weary of her; and when she fell into threats of what she would do, disgust mingled with his impatience. Then all at once, while he waited, a sudden thought struck him of his lttle love. Poor little Pamela! what could she be thinking all this time How would she feel when she heard that her mother had become their active enemy In a moment there flitted before Jack, as he stood at the door, a sudden vision of the little uplifted face, pale as it had grown of late, with the wistful eyes wide open and the red lips apart, and the pretty rin,,s of hair clustering about the forehead. What would Pamela think when she knew l What was to be done, now that this division, worse than any unkind sentence of a rich father, had come between tlrm? It was no fault of hers, no fault of his; fate had come between them in the wildest unlooked for way. And should they have to yield to it l The thought gave Jack such a sudden twinge in his own heart, that it roused him altogether out of his preoccupation. It roused him to that fine self-regard which is so natural, and which is reckoned a virtue nowadays. What did it matter about an old mother l Such peo- ple had had their day, and had ~so right to con- trol the young whose day was still to come. Pamelas future and Jacks future were of more importance than anything that could happen at the end, as it were, of Mrs. Prestons life, or even of Mr. Browulows life. This was the consideration that woke Jack up out of the strange maze he had fallen into on the subject of his,own concerns. He turned on his heel all at once, and left Mrs. Preston arguing the matter with Sara, and went off down the avenue almost as rapidly as his own mare could have done it. No, by Jove! he was not going to give up. Mrs. Preston might 99 100 eat her money if she liked might ruin Browulows if she liked; but she should not interfere between him aud his love. And Jack felt that there was no time to lose, and that Pamela must know how matters stood, and what he expected of her, before her mother went back to poison her mind against him. lie took no time to knock even at the door of Mrs. Swaynes cottage, hut went in and took possession like an invading army. Probably, if he had been a young man of very delicate and susceptihie mind, the very knowledge that Pamela might now he considered an heiress, and himself a poor man, would have closed n.p the way to him, and turned his steps for ever from the door. But Jack was not of that fine order of humanity. He was a young man who liked his own way, and was determined not to be unhappy if he could help it, and held tenaciously by everything that belonged to him. Such matter-of-fact natures are seldom moved by the sentimentalisms of self-sacrifice. He had not the smallest idea of sacrificing himself, if the truth must he told. He strode along, rushing like the wind, and went straight in at Mrs. Swaynes door. Nobody interrupted his passage or stood in his way; nobody even saw him but old Betty, who came out to her door to see who had passed so quickly, and shook her head over him. He goes there a deal more than is good for him, Betty sai4, and thea, as it was cold, shut the door. Pamela had been sitting in the dingy parlour all alone; and, to tell the truth, she had been crying a little. She did not know where her mother was; she did not know when she was coming hack. No messa~, e had reached her, nor letter, nor any sign of life, and she was frightened and very solitary. Jack, too, since he knew she was alone and could be seen at any hour, did not make so many anxious pilgrim. ages as he had done when Mrs. Preston was ill and the road was barred against him. She had no ore to tell her fears to, no one to en- courage and support her, and the poor child had broken down dreadfully. She was sitting at the window trying to read one of Mrs. Swaynes books, trying not to ask herself who it was that came so late to Browulows last night 3 what was her mother doing 3 what was Jack doing 3 The hook, as may be supposed, had small chance againt all these anxieties. It had dropped upon the table before her, and her innocent tears had heen dropping on it, when a sudden shadow flitted past the window, and a foots ep rang on the steps, and Jack was in the room. The sight of him chanbed won- derfully the character of Pamelas tears, but yet it increased her agitation. Nobody in her small incle except herself had any faith in him; and she knew that, at this present mo- ment, he ought not to come. No, I am not sorry to see you, she said, in answer to his accusation, I am glad; but you should not come. Mamma is away. I am all alone. You have the more need of me, said Jack. BROWNLOWS. But listen, Pamela. Your mother is not away. She is here at Brownlows. She is coming directly. I rushed off to see you be- fore she arrived. I must speak to you first. Remember you are mine whatever happens, you are mine, and you cannot forsake me. Forsake von 3 cried Pamela, in pitiful ac- cents. Is it likely 3 If there is any forsak- ing, it will be you. You know oh, you know you have not much to fear. I have everything to fear, said Jack, speaking very fast; your mother is breathing fire and flame against us all. She is coming hack our enemy. S he will tell you I have had a mercenary meaning from the beginning, and she will order you to give me up. But don do it, Pamela. I am not the sort of man to be given up. We were going to be poor, and marry against my fathers will; now we shall he poor, and marry against your mothers that is all the difference. You have chosen rue, and you must give up her and not me. That is all I have to say. Give up mamma 3 cried Pamela, in amazement. I dont know what you mean. You promised I was to have her with me, and take care of her always. She would die without me. Oh Jack, why have you changed so soon 3 It is not I that have changed, said Jack; everything has changed. This is what it will come to. It will be to give up her or me. I dont say I will die without you, said the young man no such luck; but Look here, Pamela, this is what it will come to. You will have to choose between her and me. Oh no, no! cried Pamela; no! dont say so. I am not the one to choose. Dont turn away from me! dont look so pale and dreadful! it is not me to choose. But it is you, by heavens! cried Jack, in desperation. Here she is coming! It is not your old mother who was to live with us it is a different woman here she is. Is it to be her or me 3 Oh, Jack! Pamela cried, thinking he was mad; and she submitted to his fierce embrace in utter bewilderment, not knowing what to imagine. To see the Brownlows carriage dash down the avenue and wheel round at the door and open to let Mrs. Preston forth was as great a wonder as if the earth had opened. She could not tell what was going to happen. It was a relief to her to be held fast and kept back her consternation took her strength from her. She was actually unable to follow her first impulse and rusl~ to the door. Mrs. Preston came in by herself, quiet but tremulous. Her head shook a little, but there was no sign of weakness about her now. She had been defeated, but she had got over the bitterness of her defeat and was prepared for a struggle. Jack felt the difference when he looked at her. lie had been contemptuous of her weak passion and repetition about her rights; but he saw the change in a moment, and he met her, standing up, holding Pamela B RO WNL OW S. fast, with his arm round her. Mrs. Preston had disappointment and desolation and age in face carried the war into her enemys camp, and of hope and love and joy. What she had been gone to his house to demand, as she thought, doing was poor and mean enough. She had everything he had in the world. These were been intoxicated by the vision of sudden wealth, Jacks reprisals he came to her citadel and and had expected everybody to be abject before claimed everything she had in the world. It her; but now a deeper element had come in. was his, and, more than that, it was already She forgot the fortune, the money, though it given to him his claim was allowed, was still on her lips, and cried out, in the depth You are here! cried Mrs. Preston, pus- of her despair, over the loss of the only real sionately. I thought you would be here! wealth she had in the world. No tears came to you have come before me to steal her from me. her old eyes her old meagre arms rose rigid, I knew how it would he! yet trembling. She chooses him before me!, I have come to claim what is mine, said she said, with a cry of despair, which came Jack, before you interfere. I know you will