DE QUINCEY'S WRITINGS. 

It is the intention of the publishers to issue, at intervals, a completecollection of Mr. De Quincey's Writings, uniform with this volume. Thefirst four volumes of the series will contain, --

I. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Suspiria De Profundis. 

II. Biographical Essays. 

III. Miscellaneous Essays. 

IV. The Cæsars. 

MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 

BY

THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 

CONTENTS. 

ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE, IN MACBETH

MURDER, CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS

SECOND PAPER ON MURDER

JOAN OF ARC

THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH

THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH

DINNER, REAL AND REPUTED

ON

THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE, IN MACBETH. 

From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point inMacbeth. It was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to themurder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I never couldaccount. The effect was, that it reflected back upon the murder a peculiarawfulness and a depth of solemnity; yet, however obstinately I endeavoredwith my understanding to comprehend this, for many years I never could see_why_ it should produce such an effect. 

Here I pause for one moment, to exhort the reader never to pay anyattention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to anyother faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful andindispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind, and the most tobe distrusted; and yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else;which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophical purposes. Of thisout of ten thousand instances that I might produce, I will cite one. Ask ofany person whatsoever, who is not previously prepared for the demand bya knowledge of perspective, to draw in the rudest way the commonestappearance which depends upon the laws of that science; as for instance, torepresent the effect of two walls standing at right angles to each other, or the appearance of the houses on each side of a street, as seen by aperson looking down the street from one extremity. Now in all cases, unlessthe person has happened to observe in pictures how it is that artistsproduce these effects, he will be utterly unable to make the smallestapproximation to it. Yet why? For he has actually seen the effect every dayof his life. The reason is--that he allows his understanding to overrulehis eyes. His understanding, which includes no intuitive knowledge of thelaws of vision, can furnish him with no reason why a line which is knownand can be proved to be a horizontal line, should not _appear_ a horizontalline; a line that made any angle with the perpendicular less than a rightangle, would seem to him to indicate that his houses were all tumbling downtogether. Accordingly he makes the line of his houses a horizontal line, and fails of course to produce the effect demanded. Here then is oneinstance out of many, in which not only the understanding is allowed tooverrule the eyes, but where the understanding is positively allowed toobliterate the eyes as it were, for not only does the man believe theevidence of his understanding in opposition to that of his eyes, but, (what is monstrous!) the idiot is not aware that his eyes ever gave suchevidence. He does not know that he has seen (and therefore _quoad_ hisconsciousness has _not_ seen) that which he _has_ seen every day of hislife. But to return from this digression, my understanding could furnish noreason why the knocking at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect, direct or reflected. In fact, my understanding said positively that itcould _not_ produce any effect. But I knew better; I felt that it did; andI waited and clung to the problem until further knowledge should enable meto solve it. At length, in 1812, Mr. Williams made his _début_ on the stageof Ratcliffe Highway, and executed those unparalleled murders which haveprocured for him such a brilliant and undying reputation. On which murders, by the way, I must observe, that in one respect they have had an illeffect, by making the connoisseur in murder very fastidious in his taste, and dissatisfied by anything that has been since done in that line. Allother murders look pale by the deep crimson of his; and, as an amateur oncesaid to me in a querulous tone, "There has been absolutely nothing _doing_since his time, or nothing that's worth speaking of. " But this is wrong;for it is unreasonable to expect all men to be great artists, and born withthe genius of Mr. Williams. Now it will be remembered that in the first ofthese murders, (that of the Marrs, ) the same incident (of a knocking at thedoor soon after the work of extermination was complete) did actually occur, which the genius of Shakspeare has invented; and all good judges, andthe most eminent dilettanti, acknowledged the felicity of Shakspeare'ssuggestion as soon as it was actually realized. Here, then, was a freshproof that I was right in relying on my own feeling in opposition to myunderstanding; and I again set myself to study the problem; at lengthI solved it to my own satisfaction; and my solution is this. Murder inordinary cases, where the sympathy is wholly directed to the case of themurdered person, is an incident of coarse and vulgar horror; and for thisreason, that it flings the interest exclusively upon the natural butignoble instinct by which we cleave to life; an instinct, which, as beingindispensable to the primal law of self-preservation, is the same in kind, (though different in degree, ) amongst all living creatures; this instincttherefore, because it annihilates all distinctions, and degrades thegreatest of men to the level of "the poor beetle that we tread on, "exhibits human nature in its most abject and humiliating attitude. Such anattitude would little suit the purposes of the poet. What then must hedo? He must throw the interest on the murderer. Our sympathy must be with_him_; (of course I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by whichwe enter into his feelings, and are made to understand them, --not asympathy[1] of pity or approbation. ) In the murdered person all strife ofthought, all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, are crushed by oneoverwhelming panic; the fear of instant death smites him "with its petrificmace. " But in the murderer, such a murderer as a poet will condescend to, there must be raging some great storm of passion, --jealousy, ambition, vengeance, hatred, --which will create a hell within him; and into this hellwe are to look. 

[Footnote 1: It seems almost ludicrous to guard and explain my use of aword in a situation where it would naturally explain itself. But it hasbecome necessary to do so, in consequence of the unscholarlike use of theword sympathy, at present so general, by which, instead of taking it inits proper sense, as the act of reproducing in our minds the feelings ofanother, whether for hatred, indignation, love, pity, or approbation, itis made a mere synonyme of the word _pity_; and hence, instead of saying"sympathy _with_ another, " many writers adopt the monstrous barbarism of"sympathy _for_ another. "]

In Macbeth, for the sake of gratifying his own enormous and teeming facultyof creation, Shakspeare has introduced two murderers: and, as usual in hishands, they are remarkably discriminated: but, though in Macbeth the strifeof mind is greater than in his wife, the tiger spirit not so awake, and hisfeelings caught chiefly by contagion from her, --yet, as both were finallyinvolved in the guilt of murder, the murderous mind of necessity is finallyto be presumed in both. This was to be expressed; and on its own account, as well as to make it a more proportionable antagonist to the unoffendingnature of their victim, "the gracious Duncan, " and adequately to expound"the deep damnation of his taking off, " this was to be expressed withpeculiar energy. We were to be made to feel that the human nature, _i. E. _, the divine nature of love and mercy, spread through the hearts of allcreatures, and seldom utterly withdrawn from man, --was gone, vanished, extinct; and that the fiendish nature had taken its place. And, as thiseffect is marvellously accomplished in the _dialogues_ and _soliloquies_themselves, so it is finally consummated by the expedient underconsideration; and it is to this that I now solicit the reader's attention. If the reader has ever witnessed a wife, daughter, or sister, in a faintingfit, he may chance to have observed that the most affecting moment insuch a spectacle, is _that_ in which a sigh and a stirring announce therecommencement of suspended life. Or, if the reader has ever been presentin a vast metropolis, on the day when some great national idol was carriedin funeral pomp to his grave, and chancing to walk near the course throughwhich it passed, has felt powerfully, in the silence and desertion of thestreets and in the stagnation of ordinary business, the deep interest whichat that moment was possessing the heart of man, --if all at once he shouldhear the death-like stillness broken up by the sound of wheels rattlingaway from the scene, and making known that the transitory vision wasdissolved, he will be aware that at no moment was his sense of the completesuspension and pause in ordinary human concerns so full and affecting, asat that moment when the suspension ceases, and the goings-on of humanlife are suddenly resumed. All action in any direction is best expounded, measured, and made apprehensible, by reaction. Now apply this to the casein Macbeth. Here, as I have said, the retiring of the human heart and theentrance of the fiendish heart was to be expressed and made sensible. Another world has stepped in; and the murderers are taken out of the regionof human things, human purposes, human desires. They are transfigured: LadyMacbeth is "unsexed;" Macbeth has forgot that he was born of woman; bothare conformed to the image of devils; and the world of devils is suddenlyrevealed. But how shall this be conveyed and made palpable? In order that anew world may step in, this world must for a time disappear. The murderers, and the murder, must be insulated--cut off by an immeasurable gulphfrom the ordinary tide and succession of human affairs--locked up andsequestered in some deep recess; we must be made sensible that the worldof ordinary life is suddenly arrested--laid asleep--tranced--racked intoa dread armistice: time must be annihilated; relation to things withoutabolished; and all must pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope andsuspension of earthly passion. Hence it is, that when the deed is done, when the work of darkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passesaway like a pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard; andit makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human has madeits reflux upon the fiendish; the pulses of life are beginning to beatagain; and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in which welive, first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that hadsuspended them. 

O, mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merelygreat works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sunand the sea, the stars and the flowers, --like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission ofour own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be notoo much or too little, nothing useless or inert--but that, the furtherwe press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design andself-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen nothing butaccident!

ON MURDER, CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS. 

TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. 

SIR, --We have all heard of a Society for the Promotion of Vice, of theHell-Fire Club, &c. At Brighton, I think it was, that a Society was formedfor the Suppression of Virtue. That society was itself suppressed--but Iam sorry to say that another exists in London, of a character stillmore atrocious. In tendency, it may be denominated a Society for theEncouragement of Murder; but, according to their own delicate [Greek:euphaemismos], it is styled--The Society of Connoisseurs in Murder. Theyprofess to be curious in homicide; amateurs and dilettanti in the variousmodes of bloodshed; and, in short, Murder-Fanciers. Every fresh atrocityof that class, which the police annals of Europe bring up, they meet andcriticise as they would a picture, statue, or other work of art. But Ineed not trouble myself with any attempt to describe the spirit of theirproceedings, as you will collect _that_ much better from one of the MonthlyLectures read before the society last year. This has fallen into my handsaccidentally, in spite of all the vigilance exercised to keep theirtransactions from the public eye. The publication of it will alarm them;and my purpose is that it should. For I would much rather put them downquietly, by an appeal to public opinion through you, than by such anexposure of names as would follow an appeal to Bow Street; which lastappeal, however, if this should fail, I must positively resort to. For itis scandalous that such things should go on in a Christian land. Even in aheathen land, the toleration of murder was felt by a Christian writer to bethe most crying reproach of the public morals. This writer was Lactantius;and with his words, as singularly applicable to the present occasion, Ishall conclude: "Quid tam horribile, " says he, "tam tetrum, quam hoministrucidatio? Ideo severissimis legibus vita nostra munitur; ideo bellaexecrabilia sunt. Invenit tamen consuetudo quatenus homicidium sine belloac sine legibus faciat: et hoc sibi voluptas quod scelus vindicavit. Quod si interesse homicidio sceleris conscientia est, --et eidem facinorispectator obstrictus est cui et admissor; ergo et in his gladiatorumcædibus non minus cruore profunditur qui spectat, quam ille qui facit:nec potest esse immunis à sanguine qui voluit effundi; aut videri noninterfecisse, qui interfectori et favit et proemium postulavit. " "Humanlife, " says he, "is guarded by laws of the uttermost rigor, yet custom hasdevised a mode of evading them in behalf of murder; and the demands oftaste (voluptas) are now become the same as those of abandoned guilt. " Letthe Society of Gentlemen Amateurs consider this; and let me call theirespecial attention to the last sentence, which is so weighty, that I shallattempt to convey it in English: "Now, if merely to be present at amurder fastens on a man the character of an accomplice; if barely to be aspectator involves us in one common guilt with the perpetrator; it followsof necessity, that, in these murders of the amphitheatre, the hand whichinflicts the fatal blow is not more deeply imbrued in blood that his whosits and looks on: neither can _he_ be clear of blood who has countenancedits shedding; nor that man seem other than a participator in murder whogives his applause to the murderer, and calls for prizes in his behalf. "The "_præmia postulavit_" I have not yet heard charged upon the GentlemenAmateurs of London, though undoubtedly their proceedings tend to that;but the "_interfectori favil_" is implied in the very title of thisassociation, and expressed in every line of the lecture which I send you. 

I am, &c. X. Y. Z. 

 * * * * *

LECTURE. 

GENTLEMEN, --I have had the honor to be appointed by your committee to thetrying task of reading the Williams' Lecture on Murder, considered as oneof the Fine Arts; a task which might be easy enough three or four centuriesago, when the art was little understood, and few great models had beenexhibited; but in this age, when masterpieces of excellence have beenexecuted by professional men, it must be evident, that in the styleof criticism applied to them, the public will look for something of acorresponding improvement. Practice and theory must advance _pari passu_. People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a finemurder than two blockheads to kill and be killed--a knife--a purse--and adark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to attempts of this nature. Mr. Williamshas exalted the ideal of murder to all of us; and to me, therefore, inparticular, has deepened the arduousness of my task. Like Æschylus orMilton in poetry, like Michael Angelo in painting, he has carried his artto a point of colossal sublimity; and, as Mr. Wordsworth observes, has ina manner "created the taste by which he is to be enjoyed. " To sketch thehistory of the art, and to examine its principles critically, now remainsas a duty for the connoisseur, and for judges of quite another stamp fromhis Majesty's Judges of Assize. 

Before I begin, let me say a word or two to certain prigs, who affect tospeak of our society as if it were in some degree immoral in its tendency. Immoral! God bless my soul, gentlemen, what is it that people mean? I amfor morality, and always shall be, and for virtue and all that; and I doaffirm, and always shall, (let what will come of it, ) that murder is animproper line of conduct, highly improper; and I do not stick to assert, that any man who deals in murder, must have very incorrect ways ofthinking, and truly inaccurate principles; and so far from aiding andabetting him by pointing out his victim's hiding-place, as a greatmoralist[1] of Germany declared it to be every good man's duty to do, Iwould subscribe one shilling and sixpense to have him apprehended, which ismore by eighteen-pence than the most eminent moralists have subscribed forthat purpose. But what then? Everything in this world has two handles. Murder, for instance, may be laid hold of by its moral handle, (as itgenerally is in the pulpit, and at the Old Bailey;) and _that_, I confess, is its weak side; or it may also be treated _æsthetically_, as the Germanscall it, that is, in relation to good taste. 

[Footnote 1: Kant--who carried his demands of unconditional veracity to soextravagant a length as to affirm, that, if a man were to see an innocentperson escape from a murderer, it would be his duty, on being questionedby the murderer, to tell the truth, and to point out the retreat of theinnocent person, under any certainty of causing murder. Lest this doctrineshould be supposed to have escaped him in any heat of dispute, on beingtaxed with it by a celebrated French writer, he solemnly reaffirmed it, with his reasons. ]

To illustrate this, I will urge the authority of three eminent persons, viz. , S. T. Coleridge, Aristotle, and Mr. Howship the surgeon. To begin withS. T. C. One night, many years ago, I was drinking tea with him in Berners'Street, (which, by the way, for a short street, has been uncommonlyfruitful in men of genius. ) Others were there besides myself; and amidstsome carnal considerations of tea and toast, we were all imbibing adissertation on Plotinus from the attic lips of S. T. C. Suddenly a cry aroseof "_Fire--fire_!" upon which all of us, master and disciples, Plato and[Greek: hoi peri ton Platona], rushed out, eager for the spectacle. Thefire was in Oxford Street, at a piano-forte maker's; and, as it promised tobe a conflagration of merit, I was sorry that my engagements forced me awayfrom Mr. Coleridge's party before matters were come to a crisis. Some daysafter, meeting with my Platonic host, I reminded him of the case, andbegged to know how that very promising exhibition had terminated. "Oh, sir, " said he, "it turned out so ill, that we damned it unanimously. " Now, does any man suppose that Mr. Coleridge, --who, for all he is too fat to bea person of active virtue, is undoubtedly a worthy Christian, --that thisgood S. T. C. , I say, was an incendiary, or capable of wishing any illto the poor man and his piano-fortes (many of them, doubtless, with theadditional keys)? On the contrary, I know him to be that sort of man, thatI durst stake my life upon it he would have worked an engine in a case ofnecessity, although rather of the fattest for such fiery trials of hisvirtue. But how stood the case? Virtue was in no request. On the arrivalof the fire-engines, morality had devolved wholly on the insurance office. This being the case, he had a right to gratify his taste. He had left histea. Was he to have nothing in return?

I contend that the most virtuous man, under the premises stated, wasentitled to make a luxury of the fire, and to hiss it, as he would anyother performance that raised expectations in the public mind, whichafterwards it disappointed. Again, to cite another great authority, what says the Stagyrite? He (in the Fifth Book, I think it is, of hisMetaphysics) describes what he calls [Greek: kleptaen teleion], i. E. , _aperfect thief_; and, as to Mr. Howship, in a work of his on Indigestion, hemakes no scruple to talk with admiration of a certain ulcer which he hadseen, and which he styles "a beautiful ulcer. " Now will any man pretend, that, abstractedly considered, a thief could appear to Aristotle a perfectcharacter, or that Mr. Howship could be enamored of an ulcer? Aristotle, it is well known, was himself so very moral a character, that, not contentwith writing his Nichomachean Ethics, in one volume octavo, he alsowrote another system, called _Magna Moralia_, or Big Ethics. Now, it isimpossible that a man who composes any ethics at all, big or little, shouldadmire a thief _per se_, and, as to Mr. Howship, it is well known that hemakes war upon all ulcers; and, without suffering himself to be seduced bytheir charms, endeavors to banish them from the county of Middlesex. Butthe truth is, that, however objectionable _per se_, yet, relatively toothers of their class, both a thief and an ulcer may have infinite degreesof merit. They are both imperfections, it is true; but to be imperfectbeing their essence, the very greatness of their imperfection becomes theirperfection. _Spartam nactus es, hunc exorna_. A thief like Autolycus orMr. Barrington, and a grim phagedænic ulcer, superbly defined, and runningregularly through all its natural stages, may no less justly be regardedas ideals after _their_ kind, than the most faultless moss-rose amongstflowers, in its progress from bud to "bright consummate flower;" or, amongst human flowers, the most magnificent young female, apparelled inthe pomp of womanhood. And thus not only the ideal of an inkstand may beimagined, (as Mr. Coleridge demonstrated in his celebrated correspondencewith Mr. Blackwood, ) in which, by the way, there is not so much, because aninkstand is a laudable sort of thing, and a valuable member of society; buteven imperfection itself may have its ideal or perfect state. 

Really, gentlemen, I beg pardon for so much philosophy at one time, and nowlet me apply it. When a murder is in the paulo-post-futurum tense, and arumor of it comes to our ears, by all means let us treat it morally. Butsuppose it over and done, and that you can say of it, [Greek: Tetelesai], or (in that adamantine molossus of Medea) [Greek: eirzasai]; suppose thepoor murdered man to be out of his pain, and the rascal that did it offlike a shot, nobody knows whither; suppose, lastly, that we have done ourbest, by putting out our legs to trip up the fellow in his flight, but allto no purpose--"abiit, evasit, " &c. --why, then, I say, what's the use ofany more virtue? Enough has been given to morality; now comes the turn ofTaste and the Fine Arts. A sad thing it was, no doubt, very sad; but _we_can't mend it. Therefore let us make the best of a bad matter; and, as itis impossible to hammer anything out of it for moral purposes, let us treatit æsthetically, and see if it will turn to account in that way. Such isthe logic of a sensible man, and what follows? We dry up our tears, andhave the satisfaction, perhaps, to discover that a transaction, which, morally considered, was shocking, and without a leg to stand upon, when tried by principles of Taste, turns out to be a very meritoriousperformance. Thus all the world is pleased; the old proverb is justified, that it is an ill wind which blows nobody good; the amateur, from lookingbilious and sulky, by too close an attention to virtue, begins to pick uphis crumbs, and general hilarity prevails. Virtue has had her day; andhenceforward, _Vertu_ and Connoisseurship have leave to provide forthemselves. Upon this principle, gentlemen, I propose to guide yourstudies, from Cain to Mr. Thurtell. Through this great gallery of murder, therefore, together let us wander hand in hand, in delighted admiration, while I endeavor to point your attention to the objects of profitablecriticism. 

 * * * * *

The first murder is familiar to you all. As the inventor of murder, and thefather of the art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius. All theCains were men of genius. Tubal Cain invented tubes, I think, or some suchthing. But, whatever were the originality and genius of the artist, everyart was then in its infancy, and the works must be criticised with arecollection of that fact. Even Tubal's work would probably be littleapproved at this day in Sheffield; and therefore of Cain (Cain senior, Imean, ) it is no disparagement to say, that his performance was but so so. Milton, however, is supposed to have thought differently. By his way ofrelating the case, it should seem to have been rather a pet murder withhim, for he retouches it with an apparent anxiety for its picturesqueeffect:

 Whereat he inly raged; and, as they talk'd, Smote him into the midriff with a stone That beat out life: he fell; and, deadly pale, Groan'd out his soul _with gushing blood effus'd_. _Par. Lost, B. XI_. 

Upon this, Richardson, the painter, who had an eye for effect, remarks asfollows, in his Notes on Paradise Lost, p. 497: "It has been thought, "says he, "that Cain beat (as the common saying is) the breath out of hisbrother's body with a great stone; Milton gives in to this, with theaddition, however, of a large wound. " In this place it was a judiciousaddition; for the rudeness of the weapon, unless raised and enriched bya warm, sanguinary coloring, has too much of the naked air of the savageschool; as if the deed were perpetrated by a Polypheme without science, premeditation, or anything but a mutton bone. However, I am chiefly pleasedwith the improvement, as it implies that Milton was an amateur. As toShakspeare, there never was a better; as his description of the murderedDuke of Gloucester, in Henry VI. , of Duncan's, Banquo's, &c. , sufficientlyproves. 

The foundation of the art having been once laid, it is pitiable to see howit slumbered without improvement for ages. In fact, I shall now be obligedto leap over all murders, sacred and profane, as utterly unworthy ofnotice, until long after the Christian era. Greece, even in the age ofPericles, produced no murder of the slightest merit; and Rome had toolittle originality of genius in any of the arts to succeed, where hermodel failed her. In fact, the Latin language sinks under the very idea ofmurder. "The man was murdered;"--how will this sound in Latin? _Interfectusest, interemptus est_--which simply expresses a homicide; and hence theChristian Latinity of the middle ages was obliged to introduce a new word, such as the feebleness of classic conceptions never ascended to. _Murdratusest_, says the sublimer dialect of Gothic ages. Meantime, the Jewish, school of murder kept alive whatever was yet known in the art, andgradually transferred it to the Western World. Indeed the Jewish school wasalways respectable, even in the dark ages, as the case of Hugh of Lincolnshows, which was honored with the approbation of Chaucer, on occasion ofanother performance from the same school, which he puts into the mouth ofthe Lady Abbess. 

Recurring, however, for one moment to classical antiquity, I cannot butthink that Catiline, Clodius, and some of that coterie, would have madefirst-rate artists; and it is on all accounts to be regretted, that thepriggism of Cicero robbed his country of the only chance she had fordistinction in this line. As the _subject_ of a murder, no person couldhave answered better than himself. Lord! how he would have howled withpanic, if he had heard Cethegus under his bed. It would have been trulydiverting to have listened to him; and satisfied I am, gentlemen, that hewould have preferred the _utile_ of creeping into a closet, or even into a_cloaca_, to the _honestum_ of facing the bold artist. 

To come now to the dark ages--(by which we, that speak with precision, mean, _par excellence_, the tenth century, and the times immediately beforeand after)--these ages ought naturally to be favorable to the art ofmurder, as they were to church architecture, to stained glass, &c. ; and, accordingly, about the latter end of this period, there arose a greatcharacter in our art, I mean the Old Man of the Mountains. He was a shininglight, indeed, and I need not tell you, that the very word "assassin" isdeduced from him. So keen an amateur was he, that on one occasion, when hisown life was attempted by a favorite assassin, he was so much pleasedwith the talent shown, that notwithstanding the failure of the artist, hecreated him a duke upon the spot, with remainder to the female line, andsettled a pension on him for three lives. Assassination is a branch of theart which demands a separate notice; and I shall devote an entire lectureto it. Meantime, I shall only observe how odd it is, that this branch ofthe art has flourished by fits. It never rains, but it pours. Our own agecan boast of some fine specimens; and, about two centuries ago, there was amost brilliant constellation of murders in this class. I need hardly say, that I allude especially to those five splendid works, --the assassinationsof William I, of Orange, of Henry IV. , of France, of the Duke ofBuckingham, (which you will find excellently described in the letterspublished by Mr. Ellis, of the British Museum, ) of Gustavus Adolphus, andof Wallenstein. The King of Sweden's assassination, by the by, is doubtedby many writers, Harte amongst others; but they are wrong. He was murdered;and I consider his murder unique in its excellence; for he was murdered atnoon-day, and on the field of battle, --a feature of original conception, which occurs in no other work of art that I remember. Indeed, all of theseassassinations may be studied with profit by the advanced connoisseur. Theyare all of them _exemplaria_, of which one may say, --

 Nociurnâ versatâ manu, versate diurne;

Especially _nocturnâ_. 

In these assassinations of princes and statesmen, there is nothing toexcite our wonder; important changes often depend on their deaths; and, from the eminence on which they stand, they are peculiarly exposed to theaim of every artist who happens to be possessed by the craving for scenicaleffect. But there is another class of assassinations, which has prevailedfrom an early period of the seventeenth century, that really _does_surprise me; I mean the assassination of philosophers. For, gentlemen, itis a fact, that every philosopher of eminence for the two last centurieshas either been murdered, or, at the least, been very near it; insomuch, that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and never had his lifeattempted, rest assured there is nothing in him; and against Locke'sphilosophy in particular, I think it an unanswerable objection (if weneeded any), that, although he carried his throat about with him in thisworld for seventy-two years, no man ever condescended to cut it. As thesecases of philosophers are not much known, and are generally good and wellcomposed in their circumstances, I shall here read an excursus on thatsubject, chiefly by way of showing my own learning. 

The first great philosopher of the seventeenth century (if we exceptGalileo) was Des Cartes; and if ever one could say of a man that he was all_but_ murdered--murdered within an inch--one must say it of him. The casewas this, as reported by Baillet in his _Vie De M. Des Cartes_, tom. I. P. 102-3. In the year 1621, when Des Cartes might be about twenty-six yearsold, he was touring about as usual, (for he was as restless as a hyæna, )and, coming to the Elbe, either at Gluckstadt or at Hamburgh, he tookshipping for East Friezland: what he could want in East Friezland no manhas ever discovered; and perhaps he took this into consideration himself;for, on reaching Embden, he resolved to sail instantly for _West_Friezland; and being very impatient of delay, he hired a bark, with a fewmariners to navigate it. No sooner had he got out to sea than he made apleasing discovery, viz. That he had shut himself up in a den of murderers. His crew, says M. Baillet, he soon found out to be "des scélérats, "--not_amateurs_, gentlemen, as we are, but professional men--the height ofwhose ambition at that moment was to cut his throat. But the story is toopleasing to be abridged; I shall give it, therefore, accurately, from theFrench of his biographer: "M. Des Cartes had no company but that of hisservant, with whom he was conversing in French. The sailors, who took himfor a foreign merchant, rather than a cavalier, concluded that he musthave money about him. Accordingly they came to a resolution by no meansadvantageous to his purse. There is this difference, however, betweensea-robbers and the robbers in forests, that the latter may, withouthazard, spare the lives of their victims; whereas the other cannot puta passenger on shore in such a case without running the risk of beingapprehended. The crew of M. Des Cartes arranged their measures with a viewto evade any danger of that sort. They observed that he was a stranger froma distance, without acquaintance in the country, and that nobody would takeany trouble to inquire about him, in case he should never come to hand, (_quand il viendroit à manquer_. ") Think, gentlemen, of these Friezlanddogs discussing a philosopher as if he were a puncheon of rum. "His temper, they remarked, was very mild and patient; and, judging from the gentlenessof his deportment, and the courtesy with which he treated themselves, thathe could be nothing more than some green young man, they concluded thatthey should have all the easier task in disposing of his life. They made noscruple to discuss the whole matter in his presence, as not supposing thathe understood any other language than that in which he conversed with hisservant; and the amount of their deliberation was--to murder him, then tothrow him into the sea, and to divide his spoils. "

Excuse my laughing, gentlemen, but the fact is, I always _do_ laugh when Ithink of this case--two things about it seem so droll. One, is, the horridpanic or "funk, " (as the men of Eton call it, ) in which Des Cartes musthave found himself upon hearing this regular drama sketched for his owndeath--funeral--succession and administration to his effects. But anotherthing, which seems to me still more funny about this affair is, thatif these Friezland hounds had been "game, " we should have no Cartesianphilosophy; and how we could have done without _that_, considering theworlds of books it has produced, I leave to any respectable trunk-maker todeclare. 

However, to go on; spite of his enormous funk, Des Cartes showed fight, and by that means awed these Anti-Cartesian rascals. "Finding, " says M. Baillet, "that the matter was no joke, M. Des Cartes leaped upon his feetin a trice, assumed a stern countenance that these cravens had never lookedfor, and addressing them in their own language, threatened to run themthrough on the spot if they dared to offer him any insult. " Certainly, gentlemen, this would have been an honor far above the merits of suchinconsiderable rascals--to be spitted like larks upon a Cartesian sword;and therefore I am glad M. Des Cartes did not rob the gallows by executinghis threat, especially as he could not possibly have brought his vessel toport, after he had murdered his crew; so that he must have continued tocruise for ever in the Zuyder Zee, and would probably have been mistaken bysailors for the _Flying Dutchman_, homeward bound. "The spirit which M. DesCartes manifested, " says his biographer, "had the effect of magic on thesewretches. The suddenness of their consternation struck their minds with aconfusion which blinded them to their advantage, and they conveyed him tohis destination as peaceably as he could desire. "

Possibly, gentlemen, you may fancy that, on the model of Cæsar's addressto his poor ferryman, --"_Cæsarem vehis et fortunas ejus_"--M. Des Cartesneeded only to have said, --"Dogs, you cannot cut my throat, for you carryDes Cartes and his philosophy, " and might safely have defied them to dotheir worst. A German emperor had the same notion, when, being cautioned tokeep out of the way of a cannonading, he replied, "Tut! man. Did you everhear of a cannon-ball that killed an emperor?" As to an emperor I cannotsay, but a less thing has sufficed to smash a philosoper; and the nextgreat philosopher of Europe undoubtedly _was_ murdered. This was Spinosa. 

I know very well the common opinion about him is, that he died in his bed. Perhaps he did, but he was murdered for all that; and this I shall proveby a book published at Brussels, in the year 1731, entitled, _La Via deSpinosa; Par M. Jean Colerus_, with many additions, from a MS. Life, by oneof his friends. Spinosa died on the 21st February, 1677, being then littlemore than forty-four years old. This of itself looks suspicious; and M. Jean admits, that a certain expression in the MS. Life of him would warrantthe conclusion, "que sa mort n'a pas été tout-à-fait naturelle. " Living ina damp country, and a sailor's country, like Holland, he may be thought tohave indulged a good deal in grog, especially in punch, [1] which was thennewly discovered. Undoubtedly he might have done so; but the fact is thathe did not. M. Jean calls him "extrêmement sobre en son boire et en sonmanger. " And though some wild stories were afloat about his using the juiceof mandragora (p. 140, ) and opium, (p. 144, ) yet neither of these articlesappeared in his druggist's bill. Living, therefore, with such sobriety, howwas it possible that he should die a natural death at forty-four? Hear hisbiographer's account:--"Sunday morning the 21st of February, before it waschurch time, Spinosa came down stairs and conversed with the master andmistress of the house. " At this time, therefore, perhaps ten o'clock onSunday morning, you see that Spinosa was alive, and pretty well. But itseems "he had summoned from Amsterdam a certain physician, whom, " says thebiographer, "I shall not otherwise point out to notice than by these twoletters, L. M. This L. M. Had directed the people of the house to purchase anancient cock, and to have him boiled forthwith, in order that Spinosa mighttake some broth about noon, which in fact he did, and ate some of the _oldcock_ with a good appetite, after the landlord and his wife had returnedfrom church. 

[Footnote 1: "June 1, 1675. --Drinke part of 3 boules of punch, (a liquorvery strainge to me, )" says the Rev. Mr. Henry Teonge, in his Diary latelypublished. In a note on this passage, a reference is made to Fryer'sTravels to the East Indies, 1672, who speaks of "that enervating liquorcalled _Paunch_, (which is Indostan for five, ) from five ingredients. "Made thus, it seems the medical men called it Diapente; if with four only, Diatessaron. No doubt, it was its Evangelical name that recommended it tothe Rev. Mr. Teonge. ]

"In the afternoon, L. M. Staid alone with Spinosa, the people of the househaving returned to church; on coming out from which they learnt, with muchsurprise, that Spinosa had died about three o'clock, in the presenceof L. M. , who took his departure for Amsterdam the same evening, by thenight-boat, without paying the least attention to the deceased. No doubt hewas the readier to dispense with these duties, as he had possessed himselfof a ducatoon and a small quantity of silver, together with a silver-haftedknife, and had absconded with his pillage. " Here you see, gentlemen, themurder is plain, and the manner of it. It was L. M. Who murdered Spinosafor his money. Poor S. Was an invalid, meagre, and weak: as no bloodwas observed, L. M. , no doubt, threw him down and smothered him withpillows, --the poor man being already half suffocated by his infernaldinner. But who was L. M. ? It surely never could be Lindley Murray; for Isaw him at York in 1825; and besides, I do not think he Would do such athing; at least, not to a brother grammarian: for you know, gentlemen, thatSpinosa wrote a very respectable Hebrew grammar. 

Hobbes, but why, or on what principle, I never could understand, was notmurdered. This was a capital oversight of the professional men in theseventeenth century; because in every light he was a fine subject formurder, except, indeed, that he was lean and skinny; for I can prove thathe had money, and (what is very funny, ) he had no right to make the leastresistance; for, according to himself, irresistible power creates the veryhighest species of right, so that it is rebellion of the blackest dieto refuse to be murdered, when a competent force appears to murder you. However, gentlemen, though he was not murdered, I am happy to assure youthat (by his own account) he was three times very near being murdered. Thefirst time was in the spring of 1640, when he pretends to have circulateda little MS. On the king's behalf, against the Parliament; he never couldproduce this MS. , by the by; but he says that, "Had not his Majestydissolved the Parliament, " (in May, ) "it had brought him into danger of hislife. " Dissolving the Parliament, however, was of no use; for, in Novemberof the same year, the Long Parliament assembled, and Hobbes, a second time, fearing he should be murdered, ran away to France. This looks like themadness of John Dennis, who thought that Louis XIV. Would never make peacewith Queen Anne, unless he were given up to his vengeance; and actually ranaway from the sea-coast in that belief. In France, Hobbes managed to takecare of his throat pretty well for ten years; but at the end of that time, by way of paying court to Cromwell, he published his Leviathan. The oldcoward now began to "funk" horribly for the third time; he fancied theswords of the cavaliers were constantly at his throat, recollecting howthey had served the Parliament ambassadors at the Hague and Madrid. "Turn, "says he, in his dog-Latin life of himself, "Tum venit in mentem mihi Dorislaus et Ascham; Tanquam proscripto terror ubique aderat. "

And accordingly he ran home to England. Now, certainly, it is very truethat a man deserved a cudgelling for writing Leviathan; and two or threecudgellings for writing a pentameter ending so villanously as--"terrorubique aderat!" But no man ever thought him worthy of anything beyondcudgelling. And, in fact, the whole story is a bounce of his own. For, in amost abusive letter which he wrote "to a learned person, " (meaning Wallisthe mathematician, ) he gives quite another account of the matter, and says(p. 8, ) he ran home "because he would not trust his safety with the Frenchclergy;" insinuating that he was likely to be murdered for his religion, which would have been a high joke indeed--Tom's being brought to the stakefor religion. 

Bounce or not bounce, however, certain it is, that Hobbes, to the end ofhis life, feared that somebody would murder him. This is proved by thestory I am going to tell you: it is not from a manuscript, but, (as Mr. Coleridge says, ) it is as good as manuscript; for it comes from a booknow entirely forgotten, viz. , "The Creed of Mr. Hobbes Examined; in aConference between him and a Student in Divinity, " (published about tenyears before Hobbes's death. ) The book is anonymous, but it was written byTennison, the same who, about thirty years after, succeeded Tillotson asArchbishop of Canterbury. The introductory anecdote is as follows: "Acertain divine, it seems, (no doubt Tennison himself, ) took an annual tourof one month to different parts of the island. In one of these excursions(1670) he visited the Peak in Derbyshire, partly in consequence of Hobbes'sdescription of it. Being in that neighborhood, he could not but pay a visitto Buxton; and at the very moment of his arrival, he was fortunate enoughto find a party of gentlemen dismounting at the inn door, amongst whom wasa long thin fellow, who turned out to be no less a person than Mr. Hobbes, who probably had ridden over from Chattsworth. Meeting so great a lion, --atourist, in search of the picturesque, could do no less than presenthimself in the character of bore. And luckily for this scheme, two of Mr. Hobbes's companions were suddenly summoned away by express; so that, forthe rest of his stay at Buxton, he had Leviathan entirely to himself, andhad the honor of bowsing with him in the evening. Hobbes, it seems, atfirst showed a good deal of stiffness, for he was shy of divines; but thiswore off, and he became very sociable and funny, and they agreed to go intothe bath together. How Tennison could venture to gambol in the same waterwith Leviathan, I cannot explain; but so it was: they frolicked about liketwo dolphins, though Hobbes must have been as old as the hills; and"in those intervals wherein they abstained from swimming and plungingthemselves, " [i. E. , diving, ] "they discoursed of many things relating tothe Baths of the Ancients, and the Origine of Springs. When they had inthis manner passed away an hour, they stepped out of the bath; and, havingdried and cloathed themselves, they sate down in expectation of such asupper as the place afforded; designing to refresh themselves like the_Deipnosophilæ_, and rather to reason than to drink profoundly. But in thisinnocent intention they were interrupted by the disturbance arising from alittle quarrel, in which some of the ruder people in the house were for ashort time engaged. At this Mr. Hobbes seemed much concerned, though he wasat some distance from the persons. " And why was he concerned, gentlemen?No doubt you fancy, from, some benign and disinterested love of peace andharmony, worthy of an old man and a philosopher. But listen--"For a whilehe was not composed, but related it once or twice as to himself, with alow and careful tone, how Sextus Roscius was murthered after supper bythe Balneæ Palatinæ. Of such general extent is that remark of Cicero, inrelation to Epicurus the Atheist, of whom he observed that he of all mendreaded most those things which he contemned--Death and the Gods. " Merelybecause it was supper time, and in the neighborhood of a bath, Mr. Hobbesmust have the fate of Sextus Roscius. What logic was there in this, unlessto a man who was always dreaming of murder? Here was Leviathan, nolonger afraid of the daggers of English cavaliers or French clergy, but"frightened from his propriety" by a row in an ale-house between somehonest clod-hoppers of Derbyshire, whom his own gaunt scare-crow of aperson that belonged to quite another century, would have frightened out oftheir wits. 

Malebranche, it will give you pleasure to hear, was murdered. The man whomurdered him is well known: it was Bishop Berkeley. The story is familiar, though hitherto not put in a proper light. Berkeley, when a young man, wentto Paris and called on Père Malebranche. He found him in his cell cooking. Cooks have ever been a _genus irritabile_; authors still more so:Malebranche was both: a dispute arose; the old father, warm already, becamewarmer; culinary and metaphysical irritations united to derange his liver:he took to his bed, and died. Such is the common version of the story:"So the whole ear of Denmark is abused. " The fact is, that the matter washushed up, out of consideration for Berkeley, who (as Pope remarked) had"every virtue under heaven:" else it was well known that Berkeley, feelinghimself nettled by the waspishness of the old Frenchman, squared at him; a_turn-up_ was the consequence: Malebranche was floored in the first round;the conceit was wholly taken out of him; and he would perhaps have givenin; but Berkeley's blood was now up, and he insisted on the old Frenchman'sretracting his doctrine of Occasional Causes. The vanity of the man was toogreat for this; and he fell a sacrifice to the impetuosity of Irish youth, combined with his own absurd obstinacy. 

Leibnitz, being every way superior to Malebranche, one might, _a fortiori_, have counted on _his_ being murdered; which, however, was not the case. Ibelieve he was nettled at this neglect, and felt himself insulted by thesecurity in which he passed his days. In no other way can I explainhis conduct at the latter end of his life, when he chose to grow veryavaricious, and to hoard up large sums of gold, which he kept in hisown house. This was at Vienna, where he died; and letters are still inexistence, describing the immeasurable anxiety which he entertained for histhroat. Still his ambition, for being _attempted_ at least, was sogreat, that he would not forego the danger. A late English pedagogue, ofBirmingham manufacture, viz. , Dr. Parr, took a more selfish course, underthe same circumstances. He had amassed a considerable quantity of gold andsilver plate, which was for some time deposited in his bed-room at hisparsonage house, Hatton. But growing every day more afraid of beingmurdered, which he knew that he could not stand, (and to which, indeed, henever had the slightest pretension, ) he transferred the whole to the Hattonblacksmith; conceiving, no doubt, that the murder of a blacksmith wouldfall more lightly on the _salus reipublicæ_, than that of a pedagogue. ButI have heard this greatly disputed; and it seems now generally agreed, thatone good horse-shoe is worth about 2 1/4 Spital sermons. 

As Leibnitz, though not murdered, may be said to have died, partly ofthe fear that he should be murdered, and partly of vexation that he wasnot, --Kant, on the other hand--who had no ambition in that way--had anarrower escape from a murderer than any man we read of, except Des Cartes. So absurdly does fortune throw about her favors! The case is told, I think, in an anonymous life of this very great man. For health's sake, Kantimposed upon himself, at one time, a walk of six miles every day along ahighroad. This fact becoming known to a man who had his private reasons forcommitting murder, at the third milestone from Königsberg, he waited forhis "intended, " who came up to time as duly as a mail-coach. But for anaccident, Kant was a dead man. However, on considerations of "morality, " ithappened that the murderer preferred a little child, whom he saw playing inthe road, to the old transcendentalist: this child he murdered; and thus ithappened that Kant escaped. Such is the German account of the matter; butmy opinion is--that the murderer was an amateur, who felt how little wouldbe gained to the cause of good taste by murdering an old, arid, and adustmetaphysician; there was no room for display, as the man could not possiblylook more like a mummy when dead, than he had done alive. 

Thus, gentlemen, I have traced the connection between philosophy and ourart, until insensibly I find that I have wandered into our own era. This Ishall not take any pains to characterize apart from that which precededit, for, in fact, they have no distinct character. The seventeenth andeighteenth centuries, together with so much of the nineteenth as we haveyet seen, jointly compose the Augustan age of murder. The finest work ofthe seventeenth century is, unquestionably, the murder of Sir EdmondburyGodfrey, which has my entire approbation. At the same time, it must beobserved, that the quantity of murder was not great in this century, atleast amongst our own artists; which, perhaps, is attributable to the wantof enlightened patronage. _Sint Mæcenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones_. Consulting Grant's "Observations on the Bills of Mortality, " (4th edition, Oxford, 1665, ) I find, that out of 229, 250, who died in London during oneperiod of twenty years in the seventeenth century, not more than eighty-sixwere murdered; that is, about four three-tenths per annum. A small numberthis, gentlemen, to found an academy upon; and certainly, where thequantity is so small, we have a right to expect that the quality should befirst-rate. Perhaps it was; yet, still I am of opinion that the best artistin this century was not equal to the best in that which followed. Forinstance, however praiseworthy the case of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey may be(and nobody can be more sensible of its merits than I am), still I cannotconsent to place it on a level with that of Mrs. Ruscombe of Bristol, either as to originality of design, or boldness and breadth of style. Thisgood lady's murder took place early in the reign of George III. , a reignwhich was notoriously favorable to the arts generally. She lived in CollegeGreen, with a single maid-servant, neither of them having any pretensionto the notice of history but what they derived from the great artist whoseworkmanship I am recording. One fine morning, when all Bristol was aliveand in motion, some suspicion arising, the neighbors forced an entranceinto the house, and found Mrs. Ruscombe murdered in her bed-room, and theservant murdered on the stairs: this was at noon; and, not more than twohours before, both mistress and servant had been seen alive. To the best ofmy remembrance, this was in 1764; upwards of sixty years, therefore, havenow elapsed, and yet the artist is still undiscovered. The suspicions ofposterity have settled upon two pretenders--a baker and a chimney-sweeper. But posterity is wrong; no unpractised artist could have conceived so boldan idea as that of a noon-day murder in the heart of a great city. It wasno obscure baker, gentlemen, or anonymous chimney-sweeper, be assured, thatexecuted this work. I know who it was. (_Here there was a general buzz, which at length broke out into open applause; upon which the lecturerblushed, and went on with much earnestness_. ) For Heaven's sake, gentlemen, do not mistake me; it was not I that did it. I have not the vanity to thinkmyself equal to any such achievement; be assured that you greatly overratemy poor talents; Mrs. Ruscombe's affair was far beyond my slenderabilities. But I came to know who the artist was, from a celebratedsurgeon, who assisted at his dissection. This gentleman had a privatemuseum in the way of his profession, one corner of which was occupied by acast from a man of remarkably fine proportions. 

"That, " said the surgeon, "is a cast from the celebrated Lancashirehighwayman, who concealed his profession for some time from his neighbors, by drawing woollen stockings over his horse's legs, and in that waymuffling the clatter which he must else have made in riding up a flaggedalley that led to his stable. At the time of his execution for highwayrobbery, I was studying under Cruickshank: and the man's figure wasso uncommonly fine, that no money or exertion was spared to get intopossession of him with the least possible delay. By the connivance of theunder-sheriff he was cut down within the legal time, and instantly put intoa chaise and four; so that, when he reached Cruickshank's he was positivelynot dead. Mr. ----, a young student at that time, had the honor of givinghim the _coup de grâce_, and finishing the sentence of the law. " Thisremarkable anecdote, which seemed to imply that all the gentlemen in thedissecting-room were amateurs of our class, struck me a good deal; and Iwas repeating it one day to a Lancashire lady, who thereupon informed me, that she had herself lived in the neighborhood of that highwayman, and wellremembered two circumstances, which combined, in the opinion of all hisneighbors, to fix upon him the credit of Mrs. Ruscombe's affair. One was, the fact of his absence for a whole fortnight at the period of that murder:the other, that, within a very little time after, the neighborhood of thishighwayman was deluged with dollars: now Mrs. Ruscombe was known to havehoarded about two thousand of that coin. Be the artist, however, who hemight, the affair remains a durable monument of his genius; for such wasthe impression of awe, and the sense of power left behind, by the strengthof conception manifested in this murder, that no tenant (as I was told in1810) had been found up to that time for Mrs. Ruscombe's house. 

But, whilst I thus eulogize the Ruscombian case, let me not be supposed tooverlook the many other specimens of extraordinary merit spread over theface of this century. Such cases, indeed, as that of Miss Bland, or ofCaptain Donnellan, and Sir Theophilus Boughton, shall never have anycountenance from me. Fie on these dealers in poison, say I: can they notkeep to the old honest way of cutting throats, without introducing suchabominable innovations from Italy? I consider all these poisoning cases, compared with the legitimate style, as no better than wax-work by the sideof sculpture, or a lithographic print by the side of a fine Volpato. But, dismissing these, there remain many excellent works of art in a pure style, such as nobody need be ashamed to own, as every candid connoisseur willadmit. _Candid_, observe, I say; for great allowances must be made inthese cases; no artist can ever be sure of carrying through his own finepreconception. Awkward disturbances will arise; people will not submit tohave their throats cut quietly; they will run, they will kick, they willbite; and whilst the portrait painter often has to complain of too muchtorpor in his subject, the artist, in our line, is generally embarrassed bytoo much animation. At the same time, however disagreeable to the artist, this tendency in murder to excite and irritate the subject, is certainlyone of its advantages to the world in general, which we ought not tooverlook, since it favors the development of latent talent. Jeremy Taylornotices with admiration, the extraordinary leaps which people will takeunder the influence of fear. There was a striking instance of this in therecent case of the M'Keands; the boy cleared a height, such as he willnever clear again to his dying day. Talents also of the most brilliantdescription for thumping, and indeed for all the gymnastic exercises, have sometimes been developed by the panic which accompanies our artists;talents else buried and hid under a bushel to the possessors, as much as totheir friends. I remember an interesting illustration of this fact, in acase which I learned in Germany. 

Riding one day in the neighborhood of Munich, I overtook a distinguishedamateur of our society, whose name I shall conceal. This gentleman informedme that, finding himself wearied with the frigid pleasures (so hecalled them) of mere amateurship, he had quitted England for thecontinent--meaning to practise a little professionally. For this purposehe resorted to Germany, conceiving the police in that part of Europe to bemore heavy and drowsy than elsewhere. His _debut_ as a practitioner tookplace at Mannheim; and, knowing me to be a brother amateur, he freelycommunicated the whole of his maiden adventure. "Opposite to my lodging, "said he, "lived a baker: he was somewhat of a miser, and lived quite alone. Whether it were his great expanse of chalky face, or what else, I knownot--but the fact was, I 'fancied' him, and resolved to commence businessupon his throat, which by the way he always carried bare--a fashion whichis very irritating to my desires. Precisely at eight o'clock in theevening, I observed that he regularly shut up his windows. One night Iwatched him when thus engaged--bolted in after him--locked the door--and, addressing him with great suavity, acquainted him with the nature of myerrand; at the same time advising him to make no resistance, which would bemutually unpleasant. So saying, I drew out my tools; and was proceeding tooperate. But at this spectacle, the baker, who seemed to have been struckby catalepsy at my first announce, awoke into tremendous agitation. 'I will_not_ be murdered!' he shrieked aloud; 'what for will I lose my preciousthroat?' 'What for?' said I; 'if for no other reason, for this--that youput alum into your bread. But no matter, alum or no alum, (for I wasresolved to forestall any argument on that point, ) know that I am avirtuoso in the art of murder--am desirous of improving myself in itsdetails--and am enamored of your vast surface of throat, to which I amdetermined to be a customer. ' 'Is it so?' said he, 'but I'll find youcustom in another line;' and so saying, he threw himself into a boxingattitude. The very idea of his boxing struck me as ludicrous. It is true, a London baker had distinguished himself in the ring, and became knownto fame under the title of the Master of the Rolls; but he was young andunspoiled: whereas this man was a monstrous feather-bed in person, fiftyyears old, and totally out of condition. Spite of all this, however, andcontending against me, who am a master in the art, he made so desperate adefence, that many times I feared he might turn the tables upon me;and that I, an amateur, might be murdered by a rascally baker. What asituation! Minds of sensibility will sympathize with my anxiety. How severeit was, you may understand by this, that for the first thirteen rounds thebaker had the advantage. Round the fourteenth, I received a blow onthe right eye, which closed it up; in the end, I believe, this was mysalvation: for the anger it roused in me was so great that, in this andevery one of the three following rounds, I floored the baker. 

"Round 18th. The baker came up piping, and manifestly the worse for wear. His geometrical exploits in the four last rounds had done him no good. However, he showed some skill in stopping a message which I was sending tohis cadaverous mug; in delivering which, my foot slipped, and I went down. 

"Round 19th. Surveying the baker, I became ashamed of having been somuch bothered by a shapeless mass of dough; and I went in fiercely, and administered some severe punishment. A rally took place--both wentdown--baker undermost--ten to three on amateur. 

"Round 20th. The baker jumped up with surprising agility; indeed, hemanaged his pins capitally, and fought wonderfully, considering that he wasdrenched in perspiration; but the shine was now taken out of him, and hisgame was the mere effect of panic. It was now clear that he could not lastmuch longer. In the course of this round we tried the weaving system, inwhich I had greatly the advantage, and hit him repeatedly on the conk. My reason for this was, that his conk was covered with carbuncles; and Ithought I should vex him by taking such liberties with his conk, which infact I did. 

"The three next rounds, the master of the rolls staggered about like a cowon the ice. Seeing how matters stood, in round twenty-fourth I whisperedsomething into his ear, which sent him down like a shot. It was nothingmore than my private opinion of the value of his throat at an annuityoffice. This little confidential whisper affected him greatly; the veryperspiration was frozen on his face, and for the next two rounds I had itall my own way. And when I called _time_ for the twenty-seventh round, helay like a log on the floor. "

After which, said I to the amateur, "It may be presumed that youaccomplished your purpose. " "You are right, " said he mildly, "I did; and agreat satisfaction, you know, it was to my mind, for by this means I killedtwo birds with one stone;" meaning that he had both thumped the baker andmurdered him. Now, for the life of me, I could not see _that_; for, on thecontrary, to my mind it appeared that he had taken two stones to kill onebird, having been obliged to take the conceit out of him first with hisfist, and then with his tools. But no matter for his logic. The moral ofhis story was good, for it showed what an astonishing stimulus to latenttalent is contained in any reasonable prospect of being murdered. Apursy, unwieldy, half cataleptic baker of Mannheim had absolutely foughtsix-and-twenty rounds with an accomplished English boxer merely upon thisinspiration; so greatly was natural genius exalted and sublimed by thegenial presence of his murderer. 

Really, gentlemen, when one hears of such things as these, it becomes aduty, perhaps, a little to soften that extreme asperity with which mostmen speak of murder. To hear people talk, you would suppose that all thedisadvantages and inconveniences were on the side of being murdered, andthat there were none at all in _not_ being murdered. But considerate menthink otherwise. "Certainly, " says Jeremy Taylor, "it is a less temporalevil to fall by the rudeness of a sword than the violence of a fever: andthe axe" (to which he might have added the ship-carpenter's mallet and thecrow-bar) "a much less affliction than a strangury. " Very true; thebishop talks like a wise man and an amateur, as he is; and another greatphilosopher, Marcus Aurelius, was equally above the vulgar prejudices onthis subject. He declares it to be one of "the noblest functions of reasonto know whether it is time to walk out of the world or not. " (Book III. , Collers' Translation. ) No sort of knowledge being rarer than this, surely_that_ man must be a most philanthropic character, who undertakes toinstruct people in this branch of knowledge gratis, and at no little hazardto himself. All this, however, I throw out only in the way of speculationto future moralists; declaring in the meantime my own private conviction, that very few men commit murder upon philanthropic or patriotic principles, and repeating what I have already said once at least--that, as to themajority of murderers, they are very incorrect characters. 

With respect to Williams's murders, the sublimest and most entire in theirexcellence that ever were committed, I shall not allow myself to speakincidentally. Nothing less than an entire lecture, or even an entire courseof lectures, would suffice to expound their merits. But one curious fact, connected with his case, I shall mention, because it seems to imply thatthe blaze of his genius absolutely dazzled the eye of criminal justice. Youall remember, I doubt not, that the instruments with which he executed hisfirst great work, (the murder of the Marrs, ) were a ship-carpenter's malletand a knife. Now the mallet belonged to an old Swede, one John Petersen, and bore his initials. This instrument Williams left behind him, in Marr'shouse, and it fell into the hands of the magistrates. Now, gentlemen, itis a fact that the publication of this circumstance of the initials ledimmediately to the apprehension of Williams, and, if made earlier, wouldhave prevented his second great work, (the murder of the Williamsons, )which took place precisely twelve days after. But the magistrates kept backthis fact from the public for the entire twelve days, and until that secondwork was accomplished. That finished, they published it, apparently feelingthat Williams had now done enough for his fame, and that his glory was atlength placed beyond the reach of accident. 

As to Mr. Thurtell's case, I know not what to say. Naturally, I have everydisposition to think highly of my predecessor in the chair of this society;and I acknowledge that his lectures were unexceptionable. But, speakingingenuously, I do really think that his principal performance, as anartist, has been much overrated. I admit that at first I was myself carriedaway by the general enthusiasm. On the morning when the murder was madeknown in London, there was the fullest meeting of amateurs that I have everknown since the days of Williams; old bed-ridden connoisseurs, who had gotinto a peevish way of sneering and complaining "that there was nothingdoing, " now hobbled down to our club-room: such hilarity, such benignexpression of general satisfaction, I have rarely witnessed. On every sideyou saw people shaking hands, congratulating each other, and formingdinner parties for the evening; and nothing was to be heard but triumphantchallenges of--"Well! will _this_ do?" "Is _this_ the right thing?" "Areyou satisfied at last?" But, in the midst of this, I remember we allgrew silent on hearing the old cynical amateur, L. S----, that _laudatortemporis acti_, stumping along with his wooden leg; he entered the roomwith his usual scowl, and, as he advanced, he continued to growl andstutter the whole way--"Not an original idea in the whole piece--mereplagiarism, --base plagiarism from hints that I threw out! Besides, hisstyle is as hard as Albert Durer, and as coarse as Fuseli. " Many thoughtthat this was mere jealousy, and general waspishness; but I confess that, when the first glow of enthusiasm had subsided, I have found most judiciouscritics to agree that there was something _falsetto_ in the style ofThurtell. The fact is, he was a member of our society, which naturally gavea friendly bias to our judgments; and his person was universally familiarto the cockneys, which gave him, with the whole London public, a temporarypopularity, that his pretensions are not capable of supporting; for_opinionum commenta delet dies, naturæ judicia confirmat_. There was, however, an unfinished design of Thurtell's for the murder of a man with apair of dumb-bells, which I admired greatly; it was a mere outline, that henever completed; but to my mind it seemed every way superior to his chiefwork. I remember that there was great regret expressed by some amateursthat this sketch should have been left in an unfinished state: but thereI cannot agree with them; for the fragments and first bold outlines oforiginal artists have often a felicity about them which is apt to vanish inthe management of the details. 

The case of the M'Keands I consider far beyond the vaunted performance ofThurtell, --indeed above all praise; and bearing that relation, in fact, tothe immortal works of Williams, which the Æneid bears to the Iliad. 

But it is now time that I should say a few words about the principles ofmurder, not with a view to regulate your practice, but your judgment: asto old women, and the mob of newspaper readers, they are pleased withanything, provided it is bloody enough. But the mind of sensibilityrequires something more. _First_, then, let us speak of the kind of personwho is adapted to the purpose of the murderer; _secondly_, of the placewhere; _thirdly_, of the time when, and other little circumstances. 

As to the person, I suppose it is evident that he ought to be a good man;because, if he were not, he might himself, by possibility, be contemplatingmurder at the very time; and such "diamond-cut-diamond" tussles, thoughpleasant enough where nothing better is stirring, are really not what acritic can allow himself to call murders. I could mention some people (Iname no names) who have been murdered by other people in a dark lane; andso far all seemed correct enough; but, on looking farther into the matter, the public have become aware that the murdered party was himself, at themoment, planning to rob his murderer, at the least, and possibly to murderhim, if he had been strong enough. Whenever that is the case, or may bethought to be the case, farewell to all the genuine effects of the art. Forthe final purpose of murder, considered as a fine art, is precisely thesame as that of tragedy, in Aristotle's account of it, viz. , "to cleansethe heart by means of pity and terror. " Now, terror there may be, but howcan there be any pity for one tiger destroyed by another tiger?

It is also evident that the person selected ought not to be a publiccharacter. For instance, no judicious artist would have attempted to murderAbraham Newland. For the case was this; everybody read so much aboutAbraham Newland, and so few people ever saw him, that there was a fixedbelief that he was an abstract idea. And I remember that once, when Ihappened to mention that I had dined at a coffee-house in company withAbraham Newland, everybody looked scornfully at me, as though I hadpretended to have played at billiards with Prester John, or to have had anaffair of honor with the Pope. And, by the way, the Pope would be a veryimproper person to murder: for he has such a virtual ubiquity as the fatherof Christendom, and, like the cuckoo, is so often heard but never seen, that I suspect most people regard _him_ also as an abstract idea. Where, indeed, a public character is in the habit of giving dinners, "with everydelicacy of the season, " the case is very different: every person issatisfied that _he_ is no abstract idea; and, therefore, there can be noimpropriety in murdering him; only that his murder will fall into the classof assassinations, which I have not yet treated. 

_Thirdly_. The subject chosen ought to be in good health: for it isabsolutely barbarous to murder a sick person, who is usually quite unableto bear it. On this principle, no cockney ought to be chosen who is abovetwenty-five, for after that age he is sure to be dyspeptic. Or at least, ifa man will hunt in that warren, he ought to murder a couple at one time; ifthe cockneys chosen should be tailors, he will of course think it his duty, on the old established equation, to murder eighteen. And, here, in thisattention to the comfort of sick people, you will observe the usual effectof a fine art to soften and refine the feelings. The world in general, gentlemen, are very bloody-minded; and all they want in a murder is acopious effusion of blood; gaudy display in this point is enough for_them_. But the enlightened connoisseur is more refined in his taste;and from our art, as from all the other liberal arts when thoroughlycultivated, the result is--to improve and to humanize the heart; so true isit, that--

 ----"Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros. "

A philosophic friend, well known for his philanthropy and generalbenignity, suggests that the subject chosen ought also to have a family ofyoung children wholly dependent on his exertions, by way of deepening thepathos. And, undoubtedly, this is a judicious caution. Yet I would notinsist too keenly on this condition. Severe good taste unquestionablydemands it; but still, where the man was otherwise unobjectionable in pointof morals and health, I would not look with too curious a jealousy to arestriction which might have the effect of narrowing the artist's sphere. 

So much for the person. As to the time, the place, and the tools, I havemany things to say, which at present I have no room for. The good sense ofthe practitioner has usually directed him to night and privacy. Yetthere have not been wanting cases where this rule was departed from withexcellent effect. In respect to time, Mrs. Ruscombe's case is a beautifulexception, which I have already noticed; and in respect both to time andplace, there is a fine exception in the annals of Edinburgh, (year 1805, )familiar to every child in Edinburgh, but which has unaccountably beendefrauded of its due portion of fame amongst English amateurs. The caseI mean is that of a porter to one of the banks, who was murdered whilstcarrying a bag of money, in broad daylight, on turning out of the HighStreet, one of the most public streets in Europe, and the murderer is tothis hour undiscovered. 

 "Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tcmpus, Singula dum capti circumvectamur amore. "

And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, let me again solemnly disclaim allpretensions on my own part to the character of a professional man. I neverattempted any murder in my life, except in the year 1801, upon the body ofa tom-cat; and _that_ turned out differently from my intention. Mypurpose, I own, was downright murder. "Semper ego auditor tantum?" said I, "nunquamne reponam?" And I went down stairs in search of Tom at one o'clockon a dark night, with the "animus, " and no doubt with the fiendish looks, of a murderer. But when I found him, he was in the act of plundering thepantry of bread and other things. Now this gave a new turn to the affair;for the time being one of general scarcity, when even Christians werereduced to the use of potato-bread, rice-bread, and all sorts of things, itwas downright treason in a tom-cat to be wasting good wheaten-bread in theway he was doing. It instantly became a patriotic duty to put him to death;and as I raised aloft and shook the glittering steel, I fancied myselfrising like Brutus, effulgent from a crowd of patriots, and, as I stabbedhim, I

 "called aloud on Tully's name, And bade the father of his country hail!"

Since then, what wandering thoughts I may have had of attempting the lifeof an ancient ewe, of a superannuated hen, and such "small deer, " arelocked up in the secrets of my own breast; but for the higher departmentsof the art, I confess myself to be utterly unfit. My ambition does not riseso high. No, gentlemen, in the words of Horace, "---fungos vice cotis, excutum Reddere ere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi. "

SECOND PAPER ON MURDER, CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS. 

DOCTOR NORTH: You are a liberal man: liberal in the true classical sense, not in the slang sense of modern politicians and education-mongers. Beingso, I am sure that you will sympathize with my case. I am an ill-used man, Dr. North--particularly ill used; and, with your permission, I will brieflyexplain how. A black scene of calumny will be laid open; but you, Doctor, will make all things square again. One frown from you, directed to theproper quarter, or a warning shake of the crutch, will set me right inpublic opinion, which at present, I am sorry to say, is rather hostile tome and mine--all owing to the wicked arts of slanderers. But you shallhear. 

A good many years ago you may remember that I came forward in the characterof a _dilettante_ in murder. Perhaps _dilettante_ may be too strong a word. _Connoisseur_ is better suited to the scruples and infirmity of publictaste. I suppose there is no harm in _that_ at least. A man is not boundto put his eyes, ears, and understanding into his breeches pocket when hemeets with a murder. If he is not in a downright comatose state, I supposehe must see that one murder is better or worse than another in point ofgood taste. Murders have their little differences and shades of merit aswell as statues, pictures, oratorios, cameos, intaglios, or what not. Youmay be angry with the man for talking too much, or too publicly, (as to thetoo much, that I deny--a man can never cultivate his taste too highly;) butyou must allow him to think, at any rate; and you, Doctor, you think, I amsure, both deeply and correctly on the subject. Well, would you believe it?all my neighbors came to hear of that little æsthetic essay which you hadpublished; and, unfortunately, hearing at the very same time of a club thatI as connected with, and a dinner at which I presided--both tending to thesame little object as the essay, viz. , the diffusion of a just taste amongher majesty's subjects, they got up the most barbarous calumnies againstme. In particular, they said that I, or that the club, which comes to thesame thing, had offered bounties on well conducted homicides--with a scaleof drawbacks, in case of any one defect or flaw, according to a tableissued to private friends. Now, Doctor, I'll tell you the whole truth aboutthe dinner and the club, and you'll see how malicious the world is. Butfirst let me tell you, confidentially, what my real principles are upon thematters in question. 

As to murder, I never committed one in my life. It's a well known thingamongst all my friends. I can get a paper to certify as much, signed bylots of people. Indeed, if you come to that, I doubt whether manypeople could produce as strong a certificate. Mine would be as big as atable-cloth. There is indeed one member of the club, who pretends to saythat he caught me once making too free with his throat on a club night, after every body else had retired. But, observe, he shuffles in his storyaccording to his state of civilation. When not far gone, he contentshimself with saying that he caught me ogling his throat; and that I wasmelancholy for some weeks after, and that my voice sounded in a wayexpressing, to the nice ear of a connoisseur, _the sense of opportunitieslost_--but the club all know that he's a disappointed man himself, and thathe speaks querulously at times about the fatal neglect of a man's comingabroad without his tools. Besides, all this is an affair between twoamateurs, and every body makes allowances for little asperitiesand sorenesses in such a case. "But, " say you, "If no murderer, mycorrespondent may have encouraged, or even have bespoke a murder. " No, uponmy honor--nothing of the kind. And that was the very point I wished toargue for your satisfaction. The truth is, I am a very particular man ineverything relating to murder; and perhaps I carry my delicacy too far. TheStagyrite most justly, and possibly with a view to my case, placed virtuein the [Greek: to meson] or middle point between two extremes. A goldenmean is certainly what every man should aim at. But it is easier talkingthan doing; and, my infirmity being notoriously too much milkiness ofheart, I find it difficult to maintain that steady equatorial line betweenthe two poles of too much murder on the one hand, and too little on theother. I am too soft--Doctor, too soft; and people get excused throughme--nay, go through life without an attempt made upon them, that ought notto be excused. I believe if I had the management of things, there wouldhardly be a murder from year's end to year's end. In fact I'm for virtue, and goodness, and all that sort of thing. And two instances I'll give youto what an extremity I carry my virtue. The first may seem a trifle; butnot if you knew my nephew, who was certainly born to be hanged, and wouldhave been so long ago, but for my restraining voice. He is horriblyambitious, and thinks himself a man of cultivated taste in most branches ofmurder, whereas, in fact, he has not one idea on the subject, but suchas he has stolen from me. This is so well known, that the club has twiceblackballed him, though every indulgence was shown to him as my relative. People came to me and said--"Now really, President, we would do much toserve a relative of yours. But still, what can be said? You know yourselfthat he'll disgrace us. If we were to elect him, why, the next thing weshould hear of would be some vile butcherly murder, by way of justifyingour choice. And what sort of a concern would it be? You know, as well as wedo, that it would be a disgraceful affair, more worthy of the shambles thanof an artist's _attelier_. He would fall upon some great big man, some hugefarmer returning drunk from a fair. There would be plenty of blood, and_that_ he would expect us to take in lieu of taste, finish, scenicalgrouping. Then, again, how would he tool? Why, most probably with a cleaverand a couple of paving stones: so that the whole _coup d'oeil_ would remindyou rather of some hideous ogre or cyclops, than of the delicate operatorof the nineteenth century. " The picture was drawn with the hand of truth;_that_ I could not but allow, and, as to personal feelings in the matter, Idismissed them from the first. The next morning I spoke to my nephew--I wasdelicately situated, as you see, but I determined that no considerationshould induce me to flinch from my duty. "John, " said I, "you seem to me tohave taken an erroneous view of life and its duties. Pushed on by ambition, you are dreaming rather of what it might be glorious to attempt, than whatit would be possible for you to accomplish. Believe me, it is not necessaryto a man's respectability that he should commit a murder. Many a man haspassed through life most respectably, without attempting any species ofhomicide--good, bad, or indifferent. It is your first duty to ask yourself, _quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent_? we cannot all be brilliant menin this life. And it is for your interest to be contented rather with ahumble station well filled, than to shock every body with failures, themore conspicuous by contrast with the ostentation of their promises. " Johnmade no answer, he looked very sulky at the moment, and I am in highhopes that I have saved a near relation from making a fool of himself byattempting what is as much beyond his capacity as an epic poem. Others, however, tell me that he is meditating a revenge upon me and the wholeclub. But let this be as it may, _liberavi animam meam_; and, as you see, have run some risk with a wish to diminish the amount of homicide. But theother case still more forcibly illustrates my virtue. A man came to me asa candidate for the place of my servant, just then vacant. He had thereputation of having dabbled a little in our art; some said not withoutmerit. What startled me, however, was, that he supposed this art to bepart of his regular duties in my service. Now that was a thing I would notallow; so I said at once, "Richard (or James, as the case might be, ) youmisunderstand my character. If a man will and must practise this difficult(and allow me to add, dangerous) branch of art--if he has an overrulinggenius for it, why, he might as well pursue his studies whilst living in myservice as in another's. And also, I may observe, that it can do no harmeither to himself or to the subject on whom he operates, that he shouldbe guided by men of more taste than himself. Genius may do much, but longstudy of the art must always entitle a man to offer advice. So far I willgo--general principles I will suggest. But as to any particular case, oncefor all I will have nothing to do with it. Never tell me of any specialwork of art you are meditating--I set my face against it _in toto_. For ifonce a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to thinklittle of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking andSabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Oncebegin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Manya man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thoughtlittle of at the time. _Principiis obsta_--that's my rule. " Such was myspeech, and I have always acted up to it; so if that is not being virtuous, I should be glad to know what is. But now about the dinner and the club. The club was not particularly of my creation; it arose pretty much as othersimilar associations, for the propagation of truth and the communication ofnew ideas, rather from the necessities of things than upon any one man'ssuggestion. As to the dinner, if any man more than another could be heldresponsible for that, it was a member known amongst us by the name of_Toad-in-the-hole_. He was so called from his gloomy misanthropicaldisposition, which led him into constant disparagements of all modernmurders as vicious abortions, belonging to no authentic school of art. Thefinest performances of our own age he snarled at cynically; and at lengththis querulous humor grew upon him so much, and he became so notorious as a_laudator tentporis acti_, that few people cared to seek his society. Thismade him still more fierce and truculent. He went about muttering andgrowling; wherever you met him he was soliloquizing and saying, "despicablepretender--without grouping--without two ideas upon handling--without"--andthere you lost him. At length existence seemed to be painful to him;he rarely spoke, he seemed conversing with phantoms in the air, hishousekeeper informed us that his reading was nearly confined to _God'sRevenge upon Murder_, by Reynolds, and a more ancient book of the sametitle, noticed by Sir Walter Scott in his _Fortunes of Nigel_. Sometimes, perhaps, he might read in the Newgate Calendar down to the year 1788, buthe never looked into a book more recent. In fact, he had a theory withregard to the French Revolution, as having been the great cause ofdegeneration in murder. "Very soon, sir, " he used to say, "men will havelost the art of killing poultry: the very rudiments of the art willhave perished!" In the year 1811 he retired from general society. Toad-in-the-hole was no more seen in any public resort. We missed him fromhis wonted haunts--nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. By the side ofthe main conduit his listless length at noontide he would stretch, and poreupon the filth that muddled by. "Even dogs are not what they were, sir--notwhat they should be. I remember in my grandfather's time that some dogs hadan idea of murder. I have known a mastiff lie in ambush for a rival, sir, and murder him with pleasing circumstances of good taste. Yes, sir, I knewa tom-cat that was an assassin. But now"--and then, the subject growing toopainful, he dashed his hand to his forehead, and went off abruptly in ahomeward direction towards his favorite conduit, where he was seen by anamateur in such a state that he thought it dangerous to address him. Soonafter he shut himself entirely up; it was understood that he had resignedhimself to melancholy; and at length the prevailing notion was, thatToad-in-the-hole had hanged himself. 

The world was wrong _there_, as it has been on some other questions. Toad-in-the-hole might be sleeping, but dead he was not; and of that wesoon had ocular proof. One morning in 1812, an amateur surprised us withthe news that he had seen Toad-in-the-hole brushing with hasty steps thedews away to meet the postman by the conduit side. Even that was something:how much more, to hear that he had shaved his beard--had laid aside hissad-colored clothes, and was adorned like a bridegroom of ancient days. What could be the meaning of all this? Was Toad-in-the-hole mad? or how?Soon after the secret was explained--in more than a figurative sense"the murder was out. " For in came the London morning papers, by whichit appeared that but three days before a murder, the most superb of thecentury by many degrees had occurred in the heart of London. I need hardlysay, that this was the great exterminating _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Williams atMr. Marr's, No. 29, Ratcliffe Highway. That was the _début_ of the artist;at least for anything the public knew. What occurred at Mr. Williamson'stwelve nights afterwards--the second work turned out from the samechisel--some people pronounced even superior. But Toad-in-the-hole always"reclaimed"--he was even angry at comparisons. "This vulgar _gout decomparaison_, as La Bruyère calls it, " he would often remark, "will beour ruin; each work has its own separate characteristics--each in and foritself is incomparable. One, perhaps, might suggest the _Iliad_--the otherthe _Odyssey_: what do you get by such comparisons? Neither ever was, orwill be surpassed; and when you've talked for hours, you must still comeback to that. " Vain, however, as all criticism might be, he often said thatvolumes might be written on each case for itself; and he even proposed topublish in quarto on the subject. 

Meantime, how had Toad-in-the-hole happened to hear of this great workof art so early in the morning? He had received an account by express, dispatched by a correspondent in London, who watched the progress of art On_Toady's_ behalf, with a general commission to send off a special express, at whatever cost, in the event of any estimable works appearing--how muchmore upon occasion of a _ne plus ultra_ in art! The express arrived in thenight-time; Toad-in-the-hole was then gone to bed; he had been mutteringand grumbling for hours, but of course he was called up. On reading theaccount, he threw his arms round the express, called him his brother andhis preserver; settled a pension upon him for three lives, and expressedhis regret at not having it in his power to knight him. We, on our part--weamateurs, I mean--having heard that he was abroad, and therefore had _not_hanged himself, made sure of soon seeing him amongst us. Accordingly hesoon arrived, knocked over the porter on his road to the reading-room; heseized every man's hand as he passed him--wrung it almost frantically, andkept ejaculating, "Why, now here's something like a murder!--this is thereal thing--this is genuine--this is what you can approve, can recommend toa friend: this--says every man, on reflection--this is the thing that oughtto be!" Then, looking at particular friends, he said--"Why, Jack, how areyou? Why, Tom, how are you? Bless me, you look ten years younger thanwhen I last saw you. " "No, sir, " I replied, "It is you who look ten yearsyounger. " "Do I? well, I should'nt wonder if I did; such works areenough to make us all young. " And in fact the general opinion is, thatToad-in-the-hole would have died but for this regeneration of art, whichhe called a second age of Leo the Tenth; and it was our duty, he saidsolemnly, to commemorate it. At present, and _en attendant_--rather as anoccasion for a public participation in public sympathy, than as in itselfany commensurate testimony of our interest--he proposed that the clubshould meet and dine together. A splendid public dinner, therefore, wasgiven by the club; to which all amateurs were invited from a distance ofone hundred miles. 

Of this dinner there are ample short-hand notes amongst the archives ofthe club. But they are not "extended, " to speak diplomatically; and thereporter is missing--I believe, murdered. Meantime, in years long afterthat day, and on an occasion perhaps equally interesting, viz. , the turningup of Thugs and Thuggism, another dinner was given. Of this I myself keptnotes, for fear of another accident to the short-hand reporter. And I heresubjoin them. Toad-in-the-hole, I must mention, was present at this dinner. In fact, it was one of its sentimental incidents. Being as old as thevalleys at the dinner of 1812, naturally he was as old as the hills at theThug dinner of 1838. He had taken to wearing his beard again; why, or withwhat view, it passes my persimmon to tell you. But so it was. And hisappearance was most benign and venerable. Nothing could equal the angelicradiance of his smile as he inquired after the unfortunate reporter, (whom, as a piece of private scandal, I should tell you that he was himselfsupposed to have murdered, in a rapture of creative art:) the answer was, with roars of laughter, from the under-sheriff of our county--"Non estinventus. " Toad-in-the-hole laughed outrageously at this: in fact, we allthought he was choking; and, at the earnest request of the company, amusical composer furnished a most beautiful glee upon the occasion, which was sung five times after dinner, with universal applause andinextinguishable laughter, the words being these, (and the chorusso contrived, as most beautifully to mimic the peculiar laughter ofToad-in-the-hole:)--

 "Et interrogatum est à Toad-in-the hole--Ubi est ille reporter? Et responsum est cum cachinno--Non est inventus. "

CHORUS. 

 "Deinde iteratum est ab omnibus, cum cachinnatione undulante-- Non est inventus. "

Toad-in-the-hole, I ought to mention, about nine years before, when anexpress from Edinburgh brought him the earliest intelligence of theBurke-and-Hare revolution in the art, went mad upon the spot; and, insteadof a pension to the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavoredto burke him; in consequence of which he was put into a strait waistcoat. And that was the reason we had no dinner then. But now all of us were aliveand kicking, strait-waistcoaters and others; in fact, not one absenteewas reported upon the entire roll. There were also many foreign amateurspresent. 

Dinner being over, and the cloth drawn, there was a general call made forthe new glee of _Non est inventus_; but, as this would have interfered withthe requisite gravity of the company during the earlier toasts, I overruledthe call. After the national toasts had been given, the first officialtoast of the day was, _The Old Man of the Mountains_--drunk in solemnsilence. 

Toad-in-the-hole returned thanks in a neat speech. He likened himself tothe Old Man of the Mountains, in a few brief allusions, that made thecompany absolutely yell with laughter; and he concluded with giving thehealth of

_Mr. Von Hammer_, with many thanks to him for his learned History of theOld Man and his subjects the assassins. 

Upon this I rose and said, that doubtless most of the company were awareof the distinguished place assigned by orientalists to the very learnedTurkish scholar Von Hammer the Austrian; that he had made the profoundestresearches into our art as connected with those early and eminent artiststhe Syrian assassins in the period of the Crusaders; that his work had beenfor several years deposited, as a rare treasure of art, in the libraryof the club. Even the author's name, gentlemen, pointed him out as thehistorian of our art--Von Hammer--

"Yes, yes, " interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, who never can sit still--"Yes, yes, Von Hammer--he's the man for a _malleus hæreticorum_: think rightlyof our art, or he's the man to tickle your catastrophes. You all know whatconsideration Williams bestowed on the hammer, or the ship carpenter'smallet, which is the same thing. Gentlemen, I give you another greathammer--Charles the Hammer, the Marteau, or, in old French, the Martel--hehammered the Saracens till they were all as dead as door-nails--he did, believe me. "

"_Charles Martel_, with all the honors. "

But the explosion of Toad-in-the-hole, together with the uproarious cheersfor the grandpapa of Charlemagne, had now made the company unmanageable. The orchestra was again challenged with shouts the stormiest for the newglee. I made again a powerful effort to overrule the challenge. I mightas well have talked to the winds. I foresaw a tempestuous evening; and Iordered myself to be strengthened with three waiters on each side; thevice-president with as many. Symptoms of unruly enthusiasm were beginningto show out; and I own that I myself was considerably excited as theorchestra opened with its storm of music, and the impassioned gleebegan--"_Et interrogatum est à Toad-in-the-hole--Ubi est ille Reporter_?"And the frenzy of the passion became absolutely convulsing, as the fullchorus fell in--"_Et iteratum est ab omnibus--Non est inventus_"

By this time I saw how things were going: wine and music were making mostof the amateurs wild. Particularly Toad-in-the-hole, though considerablyabove a hundred years old, was getting as vicious as a young leopard. Itwas a fixed impression with the company that he had murdered the reporterin the year 1812; since which time (viz. Twenty-six years) "ille reporter"had been constantly reported "Non est inventus. " Consequently, the gleeabout himself, which of itself was most tumultuous and jubilant, carriedhim off his feet. Like the famous choral songs amongst the citizens ofAbdera, nobody could hear it without a contagious desire for falling backinto the agitating music of "Et interrogatum est à Toad-in-the-hole, " &c. I enjoined vigilance upon my assessors, and the business of the eveningproceeded. 

The next toast was--_The Jewish Sicarii_. 

Upon which I made the following explanation to the company:--"Gentlemen, I am sure it will interest you all to hear that the assassins, ancient asthey were, had a race of predecessors in the very same country. All overSyria, but particularly in Palestine, during the early years of the EmperorNero, there was a band of murderers, who prosecuted their studies in a verynovel manner. They did not practise in the night-time, or in lonely places;but justly considering that great crowds are in themselves a sort ofdarkness by means of the dense pressure and the impossibility of findingout who it was that gave the blow, they mingled with mobs everywhere;particularly at the great paschal feast in Jerusalem; where they actuallyhad the audacity, as Josephus assures us, to press into the temple, --andwhom should they choose for operating upon but Jonathan himself, thePontifex Maximus? They murdered him, gentlemen, as beautifully as if theyhad had him alone on a moonless night in a dark lane. And when it wasasked, who was the murderer, and where he was"--

"Why, then, it was answered, " interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, "_Non estinventus_. " And then, in spite of all I could do or say, theorchestra opened, and the whole company began--"Et interrogatum est àToad-in-the-hole--Ubi est ille Sicarius? Et responsum est ab omnibus--_Nonest inventus_. "

When the tempestuous chorus had subsided, I began again:--"Gentlemen, youwill find a very circumstantial account of the Sicarii in at least threedifferent parts of Josephus; once in Book XX. Sect. V. C. 8, of his_Antiquities_; once in Book I. Of his _Wars_: but in sect. 10 of thechapter first cited you will find a particular description of theirtooling. This is what he says--'They tooled with small scymetars not muchdifferent from the Persian _acinacæ_, but more curved, and for all theworld most like the Roman sickles or _sicæ_. ' It is perfectly magnificent, gentlemen, to hear the sequel of their history. Perhaps the only caseon record where a regular army of murderers was assembled, a _justusexercitus_, was in the case of these _Sicarii_. They mustered in suchstrength in the wilderness, that Festus himself was obliged to marchagainst them with the Roman legionary force. "

Upon which Toad-in-the-hole, that cursed interrupter, broke outa-singing--"Et interrogatum est à Toad-in-the-hole--Ubi est ille exercitus?Et responsum est ab omnibus--Non est inventus. "

"No, no, Toad--you are wrong for once: that army _was_ found, and was allcut to pieces in the desert. Heavens, gentlemen, what a sublime picture!The Roman legions--the wilderness--Jerusalem in the distance--an army ofmurderers in the foreground!"

Mr. R. , a member, now gave the next toast--"To the further improvement ofTooling, and thanks to the Committee for their services. "

Mr. L. , on behalf of the committee who had reported on that subject, returned thanks. He made an interesting extract from the report, by whichit appeared how very much stress had been laid formerly on the mode oftooling, by the fathers, both Greek and Latin. In confirmation of thispleasing fact, he made a very striking statement in reference to theearliest work of antediluvian art. Father Mersenne, that learned RomanCatholic, in page one thousand four hundred and thirty-one[1] of hisoperose Commentary on Genesis, mentions, on the authority of severalrabbis, that the quarrel of Cain with Abel was about a young woman; that, by various accounts, Cain had tooled with his teeth, [Abelem fuisse_morsibus_ dilaceratum à Cain;] by many others, with the jaw-bone of anass; which is the tooling adopted by most painters. But it is pleasing tothe mind of sensibility to know that, as science expanded, sounder viewswere adopted. One author contends for a pitchfork, St. Chrysostom for asword, Irenæus for a scythe, and Prudentius for a hedging-bill. This lastwriter delivers his opinion thus:--

 "Frater, probatæ sanctitatis æmulus, Germana curvo colla frangit sarculo:"

_i. E_. His brother, jealous of his attested sanctity, fractures hisbrotherly throat with a curved hedging-bill. "All which is respectfullysubmitted by your committee, not so much as decisive of the question, (forit is not, ) but in order to impress upon the youthful mind the importancewhich has ever been attached to the quality of the tooling by such men asChrysostom and Irenæus. "

[Footnote 1: "Page one thousand four hundred and thirty-one"--_literally_, good reader, and no joke at all. ]

"Dang Irenæus!" said Toad-in-the-hole, who now rose impatiently to give thenext toast:--"Our Irish friends; and a speedy revolution in their mode oftooling, as well as everything else connected with the art!"

"Gentlemen, I'll tell you the plain truth. Every day of the year we takeup a paper, we read the opening of a murder. We say, this is good, thisis charming, this is excellent! But, behold you! scarcely have we read alittle farther, before the word Tipperary or Ballina-something betrays theIrish manufacture. Instantly we loath it; we call to the waiter; we say, Waiter, take away this paper; send it out of the house; it is absolutelyoffensive to all just taste. ' I appeal to every man whether, on finding amurder (otherwise perhaps promising enough) to be Irish, he does not feelhimself as much insulted as when Madeira being ordered, he finds it to beCape; or when, taking up what he takes to be a mushroom, it turns outwhat children call a toad-stool. Tithes, politics, or something wrong inprinciple, vitiate every Irish murder. Gentlemen, this must be reformed, orIreland will not be a land to live in; at least, if we do live there, wemust import all our murders, that's clear. " Toad-in-the-hole satdown growling with suppressed wrath, and the universal "Hear, hear!"sufficiently showed that he spoke the general feeling. 

The next toast was--"The sublime epoch of Burkism and Harism!"

This was drunk with enthusiasm; and one of the members, who spoke to thequestion, made a very curious communication to the company:--"Gentlemen, we fancy Burkism to be a pure invention of our own times: and in fact noPancirollus has ever enumerated this branch of art when writing _de rebusdeperditis_. Still I have ascertained that the essential principle of theart _was_ known to the ancients, although like the art of painting uponglass, of making the myrrhine cups, &c. , it was lost in the dark ages forwant of encouragement. In the famous collection of Greek epigrams madeby Planudes is one upon a very charming little case of Burkism: it is aperfect little gem of art. The epigram itself I cannot lay my hand upon atthis moment, but the following is an abstract of it by Salmasius, as I findit in his notes on Vopiscus: 'Est et elegans epigramma Lucilii, (wellhe might call it "elegans!") ubi medicus et pollinctor de compacto sicegerunt, ut medicus ægros omnes curæ suæ commissos occideret:' this wasthe basis of the contract, you see, that on the one part the doctor, forhimself and his assigns, doth undertake and contract duly and truly tomurder all the patients committed to his charge: but why? There lies thebeauty of the case--'Et ut pollinctori amico suo traderet pollingendos. 'The _pollinctor_, you are aware, was a person whose business it was todress and prepare dead bodies for burial. The original ground of thetransaction appears to have been sentimental: 'He was my friend, ' says themurderous doctor; 'he was dear to me, ' in speaking of the pollinctor. Butthe law, gentlemen, is stern and harsh: the law will not hear of thesetender motives: to sustain a contract of this nature in law, it isessential that a 'consideration' should be given. Now what _was_ theconsideration? For thus far all is on the side of the pollinctor: hewill be well paid for his services; but, meantime, the generous, thenoble-minded doctor gets nothing. What _was_ the little considerationagain, I ask, which the law would insist on the doctor's taking? You shallhear: 'Et ut pollinctor vicissim [Greek: telamonas] quos furabatur depollinctione mortuorum medico mitteret doni ad alliganda vulnera eorurnquos curabat. ' Now, the case is clear: the whole went on a principle ofreciprocity which would have kept up the trade for ever. The doctor wasalso a surgeon: he could not murder _all_ his patients: some of thesurgical patients must be retained intact; _re infectâ_. For these hewanted linen bandages. But, unhappily, the Romans wore woollen, on whichaccount they bathed so often. Meantime, there _was_ linen to be had inRome; but it was monstrously dear; and the [Greek: telamones] or linenswathing bandages, in which superstition obliged them to bind up corpses, would answer capitally for the surgeon. The doctor, therefore, contracts tofurnish his friend with a constant succession of corpses, provided, and beit understood always, that his said friend in return should supply him withone half of the articles he would receive from the friends of the partiesmurdered or to be murdered. The doctor invariably recommended hisinvaluable friend the pollinctor, (whom let us call the undertaker;) theundertaker, with equal regard to the sacred rights of friendship, uniformlyrecommended the doctor. Like Pylades and Orestes, they were models of aperfect friendship: in their lives they were lovely, and on the gallows, itis to be hoped, they were not divided. 

"Gentlemen, it makes me laugh horribly, when I think of those two friendsdrawing and redrawing on each other: 'Pollinctor in account with Doctor, debtor by sixteen corpses; creditor by forty-five bandages, two of whichdamaged. ' Their names unfortunately are lost; but I conceive they must havebeen Quintus Burkius and Publius Harius. By the way, gentlemen, has anybodyheard lately of Hare? I understand he is comfortably settled in Ireland, considerably to the west, and does a little business now and then; but, ashe observes with a sigh, only as a retailer--nothing like the fine thrivingwholesale concern so carelessly blown up at Edinburgh. 'You see what comesof neglecting business, '--is the chief moral, the [Greek: epimutheon], as Æsop would say, which he draws from his past experience. "

At length came the toast of the day--_Thugdom in all its branches_. 

The speeches _attempted_ at this crisis of the dinner were past allcounting. But the applause was so furious, the music so stormy, and thecrashing of glasses so incessant, from the general resolution never againto drink an inferior toast from the same glass, that my power is not equalto the task of reporting. Besides which, Toad-in-the-hole now became quiteungovernable. He kept firing pistols in every direction; sent his servantfor a blunderbuss, and talked of loading with ball-cartridge. We conceivedthat his former madness had returned at the mention of Burke and Hare; orthat, being again weary of life, he had resolved to go off in a generalmassacre. This we could not think of allowing: it became indispensable, therefore, to kick him out, which we did with universal consent, the wholecompany lending their toes _uno pede_, as I may say, though pitying hisgray hairs and his angelic smile. During the operation the orchestra pouredin their old chorus. The universal company sang, and (what surprised usmost of all) Toad-in-the-hole joined us furiously in singing--

 "Et interrogatum est ab omnibus--Ubi est ille Toad-in-the-hole Et responsum est ab omnibus--Non est inventus. "

JOAN OF ARC[1]

IN REFERENCE TO M. MICHELET'S HISTORY OF FRANCE. 

What is to be thought of _her_? What is to be thought of the poor shepherdgirl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that--like the Hebrew shepherdboy from the hills and forests of Judæa--rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deeppastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the moreperilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy inaugurated hispatriotic mission by an _act_, by a victorious _act_, such as no man coulddeny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was readby those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as nopretender: but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of allwho saw them _from a station of good will_, both were found true and loyalto any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made thedifference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose--to a splendorand a noon-day prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through therecords of his people, and became a byeword amongst his posterity for athousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah. The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of restwhich she had secured for France. She never sang together with the songsthat rose in her native Domrémy, as echoes to the departing steps ofinvaders. She mingled not in the festal dances at Vaucouleurs whichcelebrated in rapture the redemption of France. No! for her voice was thensilent: No! for her feet were dust. Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl!whom, from earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth andself-sacrifice, this was amongst the strongest pledges for _thy_ side, that never once--no, not for a moment of weakness--didst thou revel in thevision of coronets and honor from man. Coronets for thee! O no! Honors, ifthey come when all is over, are for those that share thy blood. [2] Daughterof Domrémy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt besleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King of France, but she will nothear thee! Cite her by thy apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will be found _en contumace_. When the thunders of universalFrance, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poorshepherd girl that gave up all for her country--thy ear, young shepherdgirl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that wasthy portion in this life; to _do_--never for thyself, always for others;to _suffer_--never in the persons of generous champions, always in thyown--that was thy destiny; and not for a moment was it hidden from thyself. Life, thou saidst, is short: and the sleep which is in the grave, is long!Let me use that life, so transitory, for the glory of those heavenly dreamsdestined to comfort the sleep which is so long. This pure creature--purefrom every suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she waspure in senses more obvious--never once did this holy child, as regardedherself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meether. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not invision, perhaps, the aërial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectatorswithout end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, thesurging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, thepitying eye that lurked but here and there until nature and imperishabletruth broke loose from artificial restraints; these might not be apparentthrough the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her todeath, _that_ she heard for ever. 

Great was the throne of France even in those days, and great was he thatsate upon it: but well Joanna knew that not the throne, nor he that sateupon it, was for _her_; but, on the contrary, that she was for _them_; notshe by them, but they by her, should rise from the dust. Gorgeous werethe lilies of France, and for centuries had the privilege to spread theirbeauty over land and sea, until, in another century, the wrath of God andman combined to wither them; but well Joanna knew, early at Domrémy she hadread that bitter truth, that the lilies of France would decorate no garlandfor _her_. Flower nor bud, bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for _her_. 

But stop. What reason is there for taking up this subject of Joannaprecisely in this spring of 1847? Might it not have been left till thespring of 1947? or, perhaps, left till called for? Yes, but it _is_ calledfor; and clamorously. You are aware, reader, that amongst the many originalthinkers, whom modern France has produced, one of the reputed leaders is M. Michelet. All these writers are of a revolutionary cast; not in a politicalsense merely, but in all senses; mad, oftentimes, as March hares; crazywith the laughing-gas of recovered liberty; drunk with the wine-cup oftheir mighty Revolution, snorting, whinnying, throwing up their heels, likewild horses in the boundless pampas, and running races of defiance withsnipes, or with the winds, or with their own shadows, if they can findnothing else to challenge. Some time or other, I, that have leisure toread, may introduce _you_, that have not, to two or three dozen of thesewriters; of whom I can assure you beforehand that they are often profound, and at intervals are even as impassioned as if they were come of our bestEnglish blood, and sometimes (because it is not pleasant that people shouldbe too easy to understand) almost as obscure as if they had been suckledby transcendental German nurses. But now, confining our attention to M. Michelet--who is quite sufficient to lead a man into a gallop, requiringtwo relays, at least, of fresh readers, --we in England--who know him bestby his worst book, the book against Priests, &c. , which has been mostcirculated--know him disadvantageously. That book is a rhapsody ofincoherence. M. Michelet was light-headed, I believe, when he wrote it:and it is well that his keepers overtook him in time to intercept a secondpart. But his _History of France_ is quite another thing. A man, inwhatsoever craft he sails, cannot stretch away out of sight when he islinked to the windings of the shore by towing ropes of history. Facts, andthe consequences of facts, draw the writer back to the falconer's lure fromthe giddiest heights of speculation. Here, therefore--in his _France_, --ifnot always free from flightiness, if now and then off like a rocket foran airy wheel in the clouds, M. Michelet, with natural politeness, neverforgets that he has left a large audience waiting for him on earth, andgazing upwards in anxiety for his return: return, therefore, he does. ButHistory, though clear of certain temptations in one direction, has separatedangers of its own. It is impossible so to write a History of France, orof England--works becoming every hour more indispensable to theinevitably-political man of this day--without perilous openings forassault. If I, for instance, on the part of England, should happen to turnmy labors into that channel, and (on the model of Lord Percy going to ChevyChase)--

 ----"A vow to God should make My pleasure in the Michelet woods Three summer days to take, "

--probably from simple delirium, I might hunt M. Michelet into _deliriumtremens_. Two strong angels stand by the side of History, whether FrenchHistory or English, as heraldic supporters: the angel of Research on theleft hand, that must read millions of dusty parchments, and of pagesblotted with lies; the angel of Meditation on the right hand, that mustcleanse these lying records with fire, even as of old the draperies of_asbestos_ were cleansed, and must quicken them into regenerated life. Willingly I acknowledge that no man will ever avoid innumerable errors ofdetail: with so vast a compass of ground to traverse, this is impossible:but such errors (though I have a bushel on hand, at M. Michelet's service)are not the game I chase: it is the bitter and unfair spirit in whichM. Michelet writes against England. Even _that_, after all, is but mysecondary object: the real one is Joanna, the Pucelle d'Orleans forherself. 

I am not going to write the History of _La Pucelle_: to do this, or evencircumstantially to report the history of her persecution and bitter death, of her struggle with false witnesses and with ensnaring judges, it wouldbe necessary to have before us _all_ the documents, and, therefore, thecollection only now forthcoming in Paris. But _my_ purpose is narrower. There have been great thinkers, disdaining the careless judgments ofcontemporaries, who have thrown themselves boldly on the judgment of a farposterity, that should have had time to review, to ponder, to compare. There have been great actors on the stage of tragic humanity that might, with the same depth of confidence, have appealed from the levity ofcompatriot friends--too heartless for the sublime interest of their story, and too impatient for the labor of sifting its perplexities--to themagnanimity and justice of enemies. To this class belongs the Maid of Arc. The Romans were too faithful to the ideal of grandeur in themselves notto relent, after a generation or two, before the grandeur of Hannibal. Mithridates--a more doubtful person--yet, merely for the magic perseveranceof his indomitable malice, won from the same Romans the only real honorthat ever he received on earth. And we English have ever shown the samehomage to stubborn enmity. To work unflinchingly for the ruin of England;to say through life, by word and by deed--_Delenda est Anglia Victrix_!that one purpose of malice, faithfully pursued, has quartered some peopleupon our national funds of homage as by a perpetual annuity. Better than aninheritance of service rendered to England herself, has sometimes provedthe most insane hatred to England. Hyder Ali, even his far inferior sonTippoo, and Napoleon, have all benefited by this disposition amongstourselves to exaggerate the merit of diabolic enmity. Not one of these menwas ever capable, in a solitary instance, of praising an enemy--[whatdo you say to _that_, reader?] and yet in _their_ behalf, we consent toforget, not their crimes only, but (which is worse) their hideous bigotryand anti-magnanimous egotism; for nationality it was not. Suffrein, andsome half dozen of other French nautical heroes, because rightly they didus all the mischief they could, [which was really great] are names justlyreverenced in England. On the same principle, La Pucelle d'Orleans, thevictorious enemy of England, has been destined to receive her deepestcommemoration from the magnanimous justice of Englishmen. 

Joanna, as we in England should call her, but, according to her ownstatement, Jeanne (or, as M. Michelet asserts, Jean[3]) d'Arc, was born atDomrémy, a village on the marshes of Lorraine and Champagne, and dependentupon the town of Vaucouleurs. I have called her a Lorrainer, not simplybecause the word is prettier, but because Champagne too odiously remindsus English of what are for _us_ imaginary wines, which, undoubtedly, _LaPucelle_ tasted as rarely as we English; we English, because the Champagneof London is chiefly grown in Devonshire; _La Pucelle_, because theChampagne of Champagne never, by any chance, flowed into the fountain ofDomrémy, from which only she drank. M. Michelet will have her to be a_Champenoise_, and for no better reason than that she "took after herfather, " who happened to be a _Champenoise_. I am sure she did _not_: forher father was a filthy old fellow, whom I shall soon teach the judiciousreader to hate. But, (says M. Michelet, arguing the case physiologically)"she had none of the Lorrainian asperity;" no, it seems she had only "thegentleness of Champagne, its simplicity mingled with sense and acuteness, as you find it in Joinville. " All these things she had; and she was worth athousand Joinvilles, meaning either the prince so called, or the fine oldcrusader. But still, though I love Joanna dearly, I cannot shut my eyesentirely to the Lorraine element of "asperity" in her nature. No; reallynow, she must have had a shade of _that_, though very slightly developed--amere soupçon, as French cooks express it in speaking of cayenne pepper, when she caused so many of our English throats to be cut. But could she doless? No; I always say so; but still you never saw a person kill even atrout with a perfectly "Champagne" face of "gentleness and simplicity, "though, often, no doubt, with considerable "acuteness. " All your cooks andbutchers wear a _Lorraine_ cast of expression. 

These disputes, however, turn on refinements too nice. Domrémy stoodupon the frontiers; and, like other frontiers, produced a _mixed_ racerepresenting the _cis_ and the _trans_. A river (it is true) formed theboundary line at this point--the river Meuse; and _that_, in old days, might have divided the populations; but in these days it did not--therewere bridges, there were ferries, and weddings crossed from the right bankto the left. Here lay two great roads, not so much for travellers, thatwere few, as for armies that were too many by half. These two roads, one ofwhich was the great high road between France and Germany, _decussated_ atthis very point; which is a learned way of saying that they formed a St. Andrew's cross, or letter X. I hope the compositor will choose a good largeX, in which case the point of intersection, the _locus_ of conflux forthese four diverging arms, will finish the reader's geographical education, by showing him to a hair's breadth where it was that Domrémy stood. Theseroads, so grandly situated, as great trunk arteries between two mightyrealms, [4] and haunted for ever by wars or rumors of wars, decussated (foranything I know to the contrary) absolutely under Joanna's bed-room window;one rolling away to the right, past Monsieur D'Arc's old barn, and theother unaccountably preferring (but there's no disputing about tastes) tosweep round that odious man's odious pigstye to the left. 

Things being situated as is here laid down, viz. In respect of thedecussation, and in respect of Joanna's bed-room; it follows that, if shehad dropped her glove by accident from her chamber window into the verybull's eye of the target, in the centre of X, not one of several greatpotentates could (though all animated by the sincerest desires for thepeace of Europe) have possibly come to any clear understanding on thequestion of whom the glove was meant for. Whence the candid readerperceives at once the necessity for at least four bloody wars. Fallingindeed a little farther, as, for instance, into the pigstye, the glovecould not have furnished to the most peppery prince any shadow of excusefor arming: he would not have had a leg to stand upon in taking such aperverse line of conduct. But, if it fell (as by the hypothesis it did)into the one sole point of ground common to four kings, it is clear that, instead of no leg to stand upon, eight separate legs would have hadno ground to stand upon unless by treading on each other's toes. Thephilosopher, therefore, sees clearly the necessity of a war, and regretsthat sometimes nations do not wait for grounds of war so solid. 

In the circumstances supposed, though the four kings might be unable tosee their way clearly without the help of gunpowder to any decision uponJoanna's intention, she--poor thing!--never could mistake her intentionsfor a moment. All her love was for France; and, therefore, any gloveshe might drop into the _quadrivium_ must be wickedly missent by thepost-office, if it found its way to any king but the king of France. 

On whatever side of the border chance had thrown Joanna, the same love toFrance would have been nurtured. For it is a strange fact, noticed by M. Michelet and others, that the Dukes of Bar and Lorraine had for generationspursued the policy of eternal warfare with France on their own account, yetalso of eternal amity and league with France in case anybody else presumedto attack her. Let peace settle upon France, and before long you might relyupon seeing the little vixen Lorraine flying at the throat of France. LetFranco be assailed by a formidable enemy, and instantly you saw a Duke ofLorraine or Bar insisting on having his throat cut in support of France;which favor accordingly was cheerfully granted to them in three greatsuccessive battles by the English and by the Turkish sultan, viz. , atCrécy, at Nicopolis, and at Agincourt. 

This sympathy with France during great eclipses, in those that duringordinary seasons were always teasing her with brawls and guerilla inroads, strengthened the natural piety to France of those that were confessedlythe children of her own house. The outposts of France, as one may call thegreat frontier provinces, were of all localities the most devoted to theFlours de Lys. To witness, at any great crisis, the generous devotion tothese lilies of the little fiery cousin that in gentler weather was forever tilting at her breast, could not bin fan the zeal of the legitimatedaughter: whilst to occupy a post of honor on the frontiers against an oldhereditary enemy of France, would naturally have stimulated this zeal by asentiment of martial pride, had there even been no other stimulant to zealby a sense of danger always threatening, and of hatred always smouldering. That great four-headed road was a perpetual memento to patriotic ardor. To say, this way lies the road to Paris--and that other way toAix-la-Chapelle, this to Prague, that to Vienna--nourished the warfare ofthe heart by daily ministrations of sense. The eye that watched for thegleams of lance or helmet from the hostile frontier, the ear that listenedfor the groaning of wheels, made the high road itself, with its relationsto centres so remote, into a manual of patriotic enmity. 

The situation, therefore, _locally_ of Joanna was full of profoundsuggestions to a heart that listened for the stealthy steps of change andfear that too surely were in motion. But if the place were grand, thetimes, the burthen of the times, was far more so. The air overhead in itsupper chambers were _hurtling_ with the obscure sound; was dark with sullenfermenting of storms that had been gathering for a hundred and thirtyyears. The battle of Agincourt in Joanna's childhood had re-opened thewounds of France. Crécy and Poictiers, those withering overthrows for thechivalry of France, had been tranquillized by more than half a century; butthis resurrection of their trumpet wails made the whole series of battlesand endless skirmishes take their stations as parts in one drama. Thegraves that had closed sixty years ago, seemed to fly open in sympathywith a sorrow that echoed their own. The monarchy of France labored inextremity, rocked and reeled like a ship fighting with the darkness ofmonsoons. The madness of the poor king (Charles VI. ) falling in at such acrisis, like the case of women laboring in childbirth during the stormingof a city, trebled the awfulness of the time. Even the wild story ofthe incident which had immediately occasioned the explosion of thismadness--the case of a man unknown, gloomy, and perhaps maniacal himself, coming out of a forest at noon-day, laying his hand upon the bridle ofthe king's horse, checking him for a moment to say, "Oh, King, thou artbetrayed, " and then vanishing no man knew whither, as he had appeared forno man knew what--fell in with the universal prostration of mind that laidFrance on her knees as before the slow unweaving of some ancient propheticdoom. The famines, the extraordinary diseases, the insurrections of thepeasantry up and down Europe, these were chords struck from the samemysterious harp; but these were transitory chords. There had been othersof deeper and more sonorous sound. The termination of the Crusades, thedestruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused orsuffered by the House of Anjou, by the Emperor--these were full of a morepermanent significance; but since then the colossal figure of feudalism wasseen standing as it were on tiptoe at Crécy for flight from earth: that wasa revolution unparalleled; yet _that_ was a trifle by comparison with themore fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her owninternal schisms, by the abominable spectacle of a double Pope--so that noman, except through political bias, could even guess which was Heaven'svicegerent, and which the creature of hell--she was already rehearsing, asin still earlier forms she had rehearsed, the first rent in her foundations(reserved for the coming century) which no man should ever heal. 

These were the loftiest peaks of the cloudland in the skies, that to thescientific gazer first caught the colors of the _new_ morning in advance. But the whole vast range alike of sweeping glooms overhead, dwelt upon allmeditative minds, even those that could not distinguish the altitudes nordecipher the forms. It was, therefore, not her own age alone, as affectedby its immediate calamities, that lay with such weight upon Joanna's mind;but her own age, as one section in a vast mysterious drama, unweavingthrough a century back, and drawing nearer continually to crisis aftercrisis. Cataracts and rapids were heard roaring ahead; and signs were seenfar back, by help of old men's memories, which answered secretly to signsnow coming forward on the eye, even as locks answer to keys. It was notwonderful that in such a haunted solitude, with such a haunted heart, Joanna should see angelic visions, and hear angelic voices. These voiceswhispered to her the duty imposed upon herself, of delivering France. Fiveyears she listened to these monitory voices with internal struggles. Atlength she could resist no longer. Doubt gave way; and she left her home inorder to present herself at the Dauphin's court. 

The education of this poor girl was mean according to the present standard:was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophic standard; and onlynot good for our age, because for us it would be unattainable. She readnothing, for she could not read; but she had heard others read parts of theRoman martyrology. She wept in sympathy with the sad _Misereres_ of theRomish chaunting; she rose to heaven with the glad triumphant _Gloria inExcelcis_: she drew her comfort and her vital strength from the rites ofher church. But, next after these spiritual advantages, she owed most tothe advantages of her situation. The fountain of Domrémy was on the brinkof a boundless forest; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies thatthe parish priest (_curé_) was obliged to read mass there once a year, inorder to keep them in any decent bounds. Fairies are important, even in astatistical view; certain weeds mark poverty in the soil, fairies markits solitude. As surely as the wolf retires before cities, does the fairysequester herself from the haunts of licensed victuallers. A village is toomuch for her nervous delicacy: at most, she can tolerate a distant viewof a hamlet. We may judge, therefore, by the uneasiness and extra troublewhich they gave to the parson, in what strength the fairies mustered atDomrémy, and, by a satisfactory consequence, how thinly sown with men andwomen must have been that region even in its inhabited spots. But theforests of Domrémy--those were the glories of the land: for, in them abodemysterious powers and ancient secrets that towered into tragic strength. "Abbeys there were, and abbey windows, dim and dimly seen--as Moorishtemples of the Hindoos, " that exercised even princely power both inLorraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet bells that piercedthe forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamylegend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were these abbeys, in no degreeto disturb the deep solitude of the region; many enough to spread a networkor awning of Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathenwilderness. This sort of religious talisman being secured, a man the mostafraid of ghosts (like myself, suppose, or the reader) becomes armed intocourage to wander for days in their sylvan recesses. The mountains of theVosges on the eastern frontier of France, have never attracted much noticefrom Europe, except in 1813-14, for a few brief months, when they fellwithin Napoleon's line of defence against the Allies. But they areinteresting for this, amongst other features--that they do not, like someloftier ranges, repel woods: the forests and they are on sociable terms. _Live and let live_ is their motto. For this reason, in part, these tractsin Lorraine were a favorite hunting ground with the Carlovingian princes. About six hundred years before Joanna's childhood, Charlemagne was known tohave hunted there. That, of itself, was a grand incident in the traditionsof a forest or a chase. In these vast forests, also, were to be found (ifthe race was not extinct) those mysterious fawns that tempted solitaryhunters into visionary and perilous pursuits. Here was seen, at intervals, that ancient stag who was already nine hundred years old, at the least, butpossibly a hundred or two more, when met by Charlemagne; and the thingwas put beyond doubt by the inscription upon his golden collar. I believeCharlemagne knighted the stag; and, if ever he is met again by a king, heought to be made an earl--or, being upon the marches of France, a marquess. Observe, I don't absolutely vouch for all these things: my own opinionvaries. On a fine breezy forenoon I am audaciously sceptical; but astwilight sets in, my credulity becomes equal to anything that could bedesired. And I have heard candid sportsmen declare that, outside of thesevery forests near the Vosges, they laughed loudly at all the dim talesconnected with their haunted solitudes; but, on reaching a spot notoriouslyeighteen miles deep within them, they agreed with Sir Roger de Coverleythat a good deal might be said on both sides. 

Such traditions, or any others that (like the stag) connect distantgenerations with each other, are, for that cause, sublime; and the sense ofthe shadowy, connected with such appearances that reveal themselves or notaccording to circumstances, leaves a coloring of sanctity over ancientforests, even in those minds that utterly reject the legend as a fact. 

But, apart from all distinct stories of that order, in any solitaryfrontier between two great empires, as here, for instance, or in the desertbetween Syria and the Euphrates, there is an inevitable tendency, in mindsof any deep sensibility to people the solitudes with phantom images ofpowers that were of old so vast. Joanna, therefore, in her quiet occupationof a shepherdess, would be led continually to brood over the politicalcondition of her country, by the traditions of the past no less than by themementoes of the local present. 

M. Michelet, indeed, says that La Pucelle was _not_ a shepherdess. I beghis pardon: she _was_. What he rests upon, I guess pretty well: it isthe evidence of a woman called Haumette, the most confidential friend ofJoanna. Now, she is a good witness, and a good girl, and I like her; forshe makes a natural and affectionate report of Joanna's ordinary life. Butstill, however good she may be as a witness, Joanna is better; andshe, when speaking to the Dauphin, calls herself in the Latin report_Bergereta_. Even Haumette confesses that Joanna tended sheep in hergirlhood. And I believe, that, if Miss Haumette were taking coffee alonewith me this very evening (February 12, 1847)--in which there would beno subject for scandal or for maiden blushes, because I am an intensephilosopher, and Miss H. Would be hard upon four hundred and fifty yearsold--she would admit the following comment upon her evidence to be right. AFrenchman, about thirty years ago, M. Simond, in his _Travels_, mentionedincidentally the following hideous scene as one steadily observed andwatched by himself in France at a period some trifle before the FrenchRevolution:--A peasant was ploughing; and the team that drew his plough wasa donkey and a woman. Both were regularly harnessed: both pulled alike. This is bad enough: but the Frenchman adds, that, in distributing hislashes, the peasant was obviously desirous of being impartial: or, ifeither of the yoke-fellows had a right to complain, certainly it was notthe donkey. Now, in any country, where such degradation of females could betolerated by the state of manners, a woman of delicacy would shrink fromacknowledging, either for herself or her friend, that she had ever beenaddicted to any mode of labor not strictly domestic; because, if onceowning herself a prædial servant, she would be sensible that thisconfession extended by probability in the hearer's thoughts to havingincurred indignities of this horrible kind. Haumette clearly thinks it moredignified for Joanna to have been darning the stockings of her horny-hoofedfather, Monsieur D'Arc, than keeping sheep, lest she might then besuspected of having ever done something worse. But, luckily, there was nodanger of _that_: Joanna never was in service; and my opinion is that herfather should have mended his own stockings, since probably he was theparty to make the holes in them, as many a better man than D'Arc does;meaning by _that_ not myself, because, though certainly a better man thanD'Arc, I protest against doing anything of the kind. If I lived even withFriday in Juan Fernandez, either Friday must do all the darning, or else itmust go undone. The better men that I meant were the sailors in the Britishnavy, every man of whom mends his own stockings. Who else is to do it?Do you suppose, reader, that the junior lords of the admiralty are underarticles to darn for the navy?

The reason, meantime, for my systematic hatred of D'Arc is this. There wasa story current in France before the Revolution, framed to ridicule thepauper aristocracy, who happened to have long pedigrees and short rentrolls, viz. , that a head of such a house, dating from the Crusades, wasoverheard saying to his son, a Chevalier of St. Louis, "_Chevalier, as-tudonné au cochon à manger_!" Now, it is clearly made out by the survivingevidence, that D'Arc would much have preferred continuing to say--"_Mafille as-tu donné au cochon à manger_?" to saying "_Pucelle d'Orléans, as-tu sauvé les fleurs-de-lys_?" There is an old English copy of verseswhich argues thus:--

 "If the man, that turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies-- Then 'tis plain the man had rather Have a turnip than his father. "

I cannot say that the logic of these verses was ever _entirely_ to mysatisfaction. I do not see my way through it as clearly as could be wished. But I see my way most clearly through D'Arc; and the result is--that hewould greatly have preferred not merely a turnip to his father, but thesaving a pound or so of bacon to saving the Oriflamme of France. 

It is probable (as M. Michelet suggests) that the title of Virgin, or_Pucelle_, had in itself, and apart from the miraculous stones about her, a secret power over the rude soldiery and partisan chiefs of that period;for, in such a person, they saw a representative manifestation of theVirgin Mary, who, in a course of centuries, had grown steadily upon thepopular heart. 

As to Joanna's supernatural detection of the Dauphin (Charles VII. ) amongstthree hundred lords and knights. I am surprised at the credulity whichcould ever lend itself to that theatrical juggle. Who admires more thanmyself the sublime enthusiasm, the rapturous faith in herself, of this purecreature? But I admire not stage artifices, which not _La Pucelle_, but theCourt, must have arranged; nor can surrender myself a dupe to a conjuror's_leger-de-main_, such as may be seen every day for a shilling. Southey's"Joan of Arc" was published in 1796. Twenty years after, talking withSouthey, I was surprised to find him still owning a secret bias in favor ofJoan, founded on her detection of the Dauphin. The story, for the benefitof the reader new to the case, was this:--_La Pucelle_ was first made knownto the Dauphin, and presented to his court, at Chinon: and here came herfirst trial. She was to find out the royal personage amongst the whole arkof clean and unclean creatures. Failing in this _coup d'essai_, she wouldnot simply disappoint many a beating heart in the glittering crowd that ondifferent motives yearned for her success, but she would ruin herself--and, as the oracle within had told her, would ruin France. Our own sovereignlady Victoria rehearses annually a trial not so severe in degree, but thesame in kind. She "pricks" for sheriffs. Joanna pricked for a king. Butobserve the difference: our own lady pricks for two men out of three;Joanna for one man out of three hundred. Happy Lady of the islands and theorient!--she _can_ go astray in her choice only by one half; to the extentof one half she _must_ have the satisfaction of being right. And yet, evenwith these tight limits to the misery of a boundless discretion, permit me, liege Lady, with all loyalty, to submit--that now and then you prick withyour pin the wrong man. But the poor child from Domrémy, shrinking underthe gaze of a dazzling court--not because dazzling (for in visions she hadseen those that were more so, ) but because some of them wore a scoffingsmile on their features--how should _she_ throw her line into so deep ariver to angle for a king, where many a gay creature was sporting thatmasqueraded as kings in dress? Nay, even more than any true king would havedone: for, in Southey's version of the story, the Dauphin says, by way oftrying the virgin's magnetic sympathy with royalty, ----"on the throne, I the while mingling with the menial throng, Some courtier shall he seated. "

This usurper is even crowned: "the jeweled crown shines on a menial'shead. " But really, that is "_un peu fort_;" and the mob of spectators mightraise a scruple whether our friend the jackdaw upon the throne, and theDauphin himself, were not grazing the shins of treason. For the Dauphincould not lend more than belonged to him. According to the popular notion, he had no crown for himself, but, at most, a _petit ecu_, worth thirtypence; consequently none to lend, on any pretence whatever, until theconsecrated Maid should take him to Rheims. This was the _popular_ notionin France. The same notion as to the indispensableness of a coronationprevails widely in England. But, certainly, it was the Dauphin's interestto support the popular notion, as he meant to use the services of Joanna. For, if he were king already, what was it that she could do for him beyondOrleans? And above all, if he were king without a coronation, and withoutthe oil from the sacred ampulla, what advantage was yet open to him bycelerity above his competitor the English boy? Now was to be a race for acoronation: he that should win _that_ race, carried the superstition ofFrance along with him. Trouble us not, lawyer, with your quillets. We areillegal blockheads; so thoroughly without law, that we don't know even ifwe have a right to be blockheads; and our mind is made up--that the firstman drawn from the oven of coronation at Rheims, is the man that is bakedinto a king. All others are counterfeits, made of base Indian meal, damagedby sea-water. 

La Pucelle, before she could be allowed to practise as a warrior, was putthrough her manual and platoon exercise, as a juvenile pupil in divinity, before six eminent men in wigs. According to Southey (v. 393, Book III. , inthe original edition of his "Joan of Arc") she "appall'd the doctors. " It'snot easy to do _that_: but they had some reason to feel bothered, as thatsurgeon would assuredly feel bothered, who, upon proceeding to dissect asubject, should find the subject retaliating as a dissector upon himself, especially if Joanna ever made the speech to them which occupies v. 354-391, B. III. It is a double impossibility; 1st, because a piracy fromTindal's _Christianity as Old as the Creation:_ now a piracy _à parte post_is common enough; but a piracy _à parte ante_, and by three centuries, would (according to our old English phrase[5]) drive a coach-and-sixthrough any copyright act that man born of woman could frame. 2dly, it isquite contrary to the evidence on Joanna's trial; for Southey's "Joan" ofA. Dom. 1796 (Cottle, Bristol), tells the doctors, amongst other secrets, that she never in her life attended--1st, Mass; nor 2d, the Sacramentaltable; nor 3d, Confession. Here's a precious windfall for the doctors;they, by snaky tortuosities, had hoped, through the aid of a corkscrew, (which every D. D. Or S. T. P. Is said to carry in his pocket, ) for thehappiness of ultimately extracting from Joanna a few grains of hereticalpowder or small shot, which might have justified their singeing her alittle. And just at such a crisis, expressly to justify their burning herto a cinder, up gallops Joanna with a brigade of guns, unlimbers, andserves them out with heretical grape and deistical round-shot enough to laya kingdom under interdict. Any miracles, to which Joanna might treat thegrim D. Ds. After _that_, would go to the wrong side of her little accountin the clerical books. Joanna would be created a _Dr_. Herself, but not ofDivinity. For in the Joanna page of the ledger the entry would be--"MissJoanna, in acct. With the Church, _Dr. _ by sundry diabolic miracles, shehaving publicly preached heresy, shown herself a witch, and even tried hardto corrupt the principles of six church pillars. " In the mean time, allthis deistical confession of Joanna's, besides being suicidal for theinterest of her cause, is opposed to the depositions upon _both_ trials. The very best witness called from first to last deposes that Joannaattended these rites of her Church even too often; was taxed with doing so;and, by blushing, owned the charge as a fact, though certainly not as afault. Joanna was a girl of natural piety, that saw God in forests, and hills, and fountains; but did not the less seek him in chapels andconsecrated oratories. 

This peasant girl was self-educated through her own natural meditativeness. If the reader turns to that divine passage in _Paradise Regained_, whichMilton has put into the mouth of our Saviour when first entering thewilderness, and musing upon the tendency of those great impulses growingwithin himself--

 "Oh, what a multitude of thoughts arise!" &c. 

he will have some notion of the vast reveries which brooded over the heartof Joanna in early girlhood, when the wings were budding that should carryher from Orleans to Rheims; when the golden chariot was dimly revealingitself that should carry her from the kingdom of _France Delivered_ to theeternal kingdom. 

It is not requisite, for the honor of Joanna, nor is there, in this place, room to pursue her brief career of _action_. That, though wonderful, formsthe earthly part of her story: the intellectual part is, the saintlypassion of her imprisonment, trial, and execution. It is unfortunate, therefore, for Southey's "Joan of Arc, " (which however should always beregarded as a _juvenile_ effort, ) that, precisely when her real glorybegins, the poem ends. But this limitation of the interest grew, no doubt, from the constraint inseparably attached to the law of epic unity. Joanna'shistory bisects into two opposite hemispheres, and both could not have beenpresented to the eye in one poem, unless by sacrificing all unity of theme, or else by involving the earlier half, as a narrative episode, in thelatter;--this might have been done--it might have been communicated to afellow-prisoner, or a confessor, by Joanna herself, in the same way thatVirgil has contrived to acquaint the reader, through the hero's mouth, withearlier adventures that, if told by the poet speaking in his own person, would have destroyed the unity of his fable. The romantic interest of theearly and _irrelate_ incidents (last night of Troy, &c. ) is thrown as anaffluent into the general river of the personal narrative, whilst yet thecapital current of the _epos_, as unfolding ihe origin and _incunabula_ ofRome, is not for a moment suffered to be modified by events so subordinateand so obliquely introduced. It is sufficient, as concerns _this_ sectionof Joanna's life to say--that she fulfilled, to the height of her promises, the restoration of the prostrate throne. France had become a province ofEngland; and for the ruin of both, if such a yoke could be maintained. Dreadful pecuniary exhaustion caused the English energy to droop; andthat critical opening _La Pucelle_ used with a corresponding felicityof audacity and suddenness (that were in themselves portentous) forintroducing the wedge of French native resources, for rekindling thenational pride, and for planting the Dauphin once more upon his feet. WhenJoanna appeared, he had been on the point of giving up the struggle withthe English, distressed as they were, and of flying to the south of France. She taught him to blush for such abject counsels. She liberated Orleans, that great city, so decisive by its fate for the issue of the war, and thenbeleaguered by the English with an elaborate application of engineeringskill unprecedented in Europe. Entering the city after sunset, on the 29thof April, she sang mass on Sunday, May 8, for the entire disappearance ofthe besieging force. On the 29th of June, she fought and gained over theEnglish the decisive battle of Patay; on the 9th of July, she took Troyesby a coup-de-main from a mixed garrison of English and Burgundians; on the15th of that month, she carried the Dauphin into Rheims; on Sunday the17th, she crowned him; and there she rested from her labor of triumph. Whatremained was--to suffer. 

All this forward movement was her own: excepting one man, the whole councilwas against her. Her enemies were all that drew power from earth. Hersupporters were her own strong enthusiasm, and the headlong contagionby which she carried this sublime frenzy into the hearts of women, ofsoldiers, and of all who lived by labor. Henceforwards she was thwarted;and the worst error, that she committed, was to lend the sanction of herpresence to counsels which she disapproved. But she had accomplished thecapital objects which her own visions had dictated. These involved all therest. Errors were now less important; and doubtless it had now become moredifficult for herself to pronounce authentically what _were_ errors. Thenoble girl had achieved, as by a rapture of motion, the capital end ofclearing out a free space around her sovereign, giving him the power tomove his arms with effect; and, secondly, the inappreciable end of winningfor that sovereign what seemed to all France the heavenly ratification ofhis rights, by crowning him with the ancient solemnities. She had made itimpossible for the English now to step before her. They were caught in anirretrievable blunder, owing partly to discord amongst the uncles of HenryVI. , partly to a want of funds, but partly to the very impossibility whichthey believed to press with tenfold force upon any French attempt toforestall theirs. They laughed at such a thought; and whilst they laughed, she _did_ it. Henceforth the single redress for the English of this capitaloversight, but which never _could_ have redressed it effectually, was--tovitiate and taint the coronation of Charles VII. As the work of a witch. That policy, and not malice, (as M. Michelet is so happy to believe, ) wasthe moving principle in the subsequent prosecution of Joanna. Unlessthey unhinged the force of the first coronation in the popular mind, byassociating it with power given from hell, they felt that the sceptre ofthe invader was broken. 

But she, the child that, at nineteen, had wrought wonders so great forFrance, was she not elated? Did she not lose, as men so often _have_ lost, all sobriety of mind when standing upon the pinnaclè of successes so giddy?Let her enemies declare. During the progress of her movement, and inthe centre of ferocious struggles, she had manifested the temper of herfeelings by the pity which she had every where expressed for the sufferingenemy. She forwarded to the English leaders a touching invitation to unitewith the French, as brothers, in a common crusade against infidels, thusopening the road for a soldierly retreat. She interposed to protectthe captive or the wounded--she mourned over the excesses of hercountrymen--she threw herself off her horse to kneel by the dying Englishsoldier, and to comfort him with such ministrations, physical or spiritual, as his situation allowed. "Nolebat, " says the evidence, "uti onso suo, autquemquam interficere. " She sheltered the English, that invoked her aid, inher own quarters. She wept as she beheld, stretched on the field of battle, so many brave enemies that had died without confession. And, as regardedherself, her elation expressed itself thus:--on the day when she hadfinished her work, she wept; for she knew that, when her task was done, herend must be approaching. Her aspirations pointed only to a place, whichseemed to her more than usually full of natural piety, as one in which itwould give her pleasure to die. And she uttered, between smiles and tears, as a wish that inexpressibly fascinated her heart, and yet was halffantastic, a broken prayer that God would return her to the solitudes fromwhich he had drawn her, and suffer her to become a shepherdess once more. It was a natural prayer, because nature has laid a necessity upon everyhuman heart to seek for rest, and to shrink from torment. Yet, again, itwas a half-fantastic prayer, because, from childhood upwards, visions thatshe had no power to mistrust, and the voices which sounded in her ear forever, had long since persuaded her mind, that for _her_ no such prayercould be granted. Too well she felt that her mission must be worked out tothe end, and that the end was now at hand. All went wrong from this time. She herself had created the _funds_ out of which the French restorationshould grow; but she was not suffered to witness their development, ortheir prosperous application. More than one military plan was entered uponwhich she did not approve. But she still continued to expose her personas before. Severe wounds had not taught her caution. And at length, in asortie from Compeigne, whether through treacherous collusion on the partof her own friends is doubtful to this day, she was made prisoner by theBurgundians, and finally surrendered to the English. 

Now came her trial. This trial, moving of course under English influence, was conducted in chief by the Bishop of Beauvais. He was a Frenchman, soldto English interests, and hoping, by favor of the English leaders, toreach the highest preferment. _Bishop that art, Archbishop that shalt be, Cardinal that mayest be_, were the words that sounded continually in hisear; and doubtless, a whisper of visions still higher, of a triple crown, and feet upon the necks of kings, sometimes stole into his heart. M. Michelet is anxious to keep us in mind that this Bishop was but an agentof the English. True. But it does not better the case for his countryman;that, being an accomplice in the crime, making himself the leader in thepersecution against the helpless girl, he was willing to be all this inthe spirit, and with the conscious vileness of a catspaw. Never from thefoundations of the earth was there such a trial as this, if it were laidopen in all its beauty of defence, and all its hellishness of attack. Oh, child of France! shepherdess, peasant girl! trodden under foot by allaround thee, how I honor thy flashing intellect, quick as God's lightning, and true as that lightning to its mark, that ran before France and laggardEurope by many a century, confounding the malice of the ensnarer, andmaking dumb the oracles of falsehood! Is it not scandalous, is it nothumiliating to civilization, that, even at this day, France exhibits thehorrid spectacle of judges examining the prisoner against himself; seducinghim, by fraud, into treacherous conclusions against his own head; using theterrors of their power for extorting confessions from the frailty of hope;nay, (which is worse, ) using the blandishments of condescension and snakykindness for thawing into compliances of gratitude those whom they hadfailed to freeze into terror? Wicked judges! Barbarian jurisprudence! that, sitting in your own conceit on the summits of social wisdom, have yetfailed to learn the first principles of criminal justice; sit ye humbly andwith docility at the feet of this girl from Domrémy, that tore your webs ofcruelty into shreds and dust, "Would you examine me as a witness againstmyself?" was the question by which many times she defied their arts. Continually she showed that their interrogations were irrelevant to anybusiness before the court, or that entered into the ridiculous chargesagainst her. General questions were proposed to her on points ofcasuistical divinity; two-edged questions which not one of themselves couldhave answered without, on the one side, landing himself in heresy (asthen interpreted), or, on the other, in some presumptuous expression ofself-esteem. Next came a wretched Dominican that pressed her with anobjection, which, if applied to the Bible, would tax every one of itsmiracles with unsoundness. The monk had the excuse of never having read theBible. M. Michelet has no such excuse; and it makes one blush for him, as aphilosopher, to find him describing such an argument as "weighty, " whereasit is but a varied expression of rude Mahometan metaphysics. Her answerto this, if there were room to place the whole in a clear light, was asshattering as it was rapid. Another thought to entrap her by asking whatlanguage the angelic visitors of her solitude had talked: as thoughheavenly counsels could want polyglott interpreters for every word, or thatGod needed language at all in whispering thoughts to a human heart. Thencame a worse devil, who asked her whether the archangel Michael hadappeared naked. Not comprehending the vile insinuation, Joanna, whosepoverty suggested to her simplicity that it might be the _costliness_ orsuitable robes which caused the demur, asked them if they fancied God, who clothed the flowers of the valleys, unable to find raiment for hisservants. The answer of Joanna moves a smile of tenderness, but thedisappointment of her judges makes one laugh horribly. Others succeededby troops, who upbraided her with leaving her father; as if that greaterFather, whom she believed herself to have been serving, did not retain thepower of dispensing with his own rules, or had not said, that, for a lesscause than martyrdom, man and woman should leave both father and mother. 

On Easter Sunday, when the trial had been long proceeding, the poor girlfell so ill as to cause a belief that she had been poisoned. It was notpoison. Nobody had any interest in hastening a death so certain. M. Michelet, whose sympathies with all feelings are so quick that one wouldgladly see them always as justly directed, reads the case most truly. Joanna had a two-fold malady. She was visited by a paroxysm of thecomplaint called _home-sickness_; the cruel nature of her imprisonment, andits length, could not but point her solitary thoughts, in darkness, and inchains, (for chained she was, ) to Domrémy. And the season, which was themost heavenly period of the spring, added stings to this yearning. Thatwas one of her maladies--_nostalgia_, as medicine calls it; the other wasweariness and exhaustion from daily combats with malice. She saw thateverybody hated her, and thirsted for her blood; nay, many kind-heartedcreatures that would have pitied her profoundly as regarded all politicalcharges, had their natural feelings warped by the belief that she haddealings with fiendish powers. She knew she was to die; that was _not_ themisery; the misery was that this consummation could not be reached withoutso much intermediate strife, as if she were contending for some chance(where chance was none) of happiness, or were dreaming for a moment ofescaping the inevitable. Why, then, _did_ she contend? Knowing that shewould reap nothing from answering her persecutors, why did she not retireby silence from the superfluous contest? It was because her quick and eagerloyalty to truth would not suffer her to see it darkened by frauds, which_she_ could expose, but others, even of candid listeners, perhaps, couldnot; it was through that imperishable grandeur of soul, which taught herto submit meekly and without a struggle to her punishment, but taughther _not_ to submit--no, not for a moment--to calumny as to facts, or tomisconstruction as to motives. Besides, there were secretaries all aroundthe court taking down her words. That was meant for no good to _her_. Butthe end does not always correspond to the meaning. And Joanna might say toherself--these words that will be used against me to-morrow and the nextday, perhaps in some nobler generation may rise again for my justification. Yes, Joanna, they _are_ rising even now in Paris, and for more thanjustification. 

Woman, sister--there are some things which you do not execute as well asyour brother, man; no, nor ever will. Pardon me if I doubt whether you willever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or aMichael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. By which lastis meant--not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on aninfinite and electrical power of combination; bringing together from thefour winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were dust fromdead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. If you _can_ createyourselves into any of these great creators, why have you not? Do not askme to say otherwise; because if you do, you will lead me into temptation. For I swore early in life never to utter a falsehood, and, above all, asycophantic falsehood; and, in the false homage of the modern press towardswomen, there is horrible sycophancy. It is as hollow, most of it, and it isas fleeting as is the love that lurks in _uxoriousness_. Yet, if a womanasks me to tell a faleshood, I have long made up my mind--that on moralconsiderations I _will_, and _ought_ to do so, whether it be for anypurpose of glory to _her_, or of screening her foibles (for she _does_commit a few), or of humbly, as a vassal, paying a peppercorn rent to heraugust privilege of caprice. Barring these cases, I must adhere to myresolution of telling no fibs. And I repeat, therefore, but not to be rude, I repeat in Latin--

 Excudent alii meliús spirantia signa, Credo equidem vivos ducent de marmore vultus: Altius ascendent: at tu caput, Eva, memento Sandalo ut infringas referenti oracula tanta. [6]

Yet, sister woman--though I cannot consent to find a Mozart or a MichaelAngelo in your sex, until that day when you claim my promise as tofalsehood--cheerfully, and with the love that burns in depths ofadmiration, I acknowledge that you can do one thing as well as the best ofus men--a greater thing than even Mozart is known to have done, or MichaelAngelo--you can die grandly, and as goddesses would die were goddessesmortal. If any distant world (which _may_ be the case) are so far aheadof us Tellurians in optical resources as to see distinctly through theirtelescopes all that we do on earth, what is the grandest sight to which weever treat them? St. Peter's at Rome, do you fancy, on Easter Sunday, orLuxor, or perhaps the Himalayas? Pooh! pooh! my friend: suggest somethingbetter; these are baubles to _them_; they see in other worlds, in theirown, far better toys of the same kind. These, take my word for it, arenothing. Do you give it up? The finest thing, then, we have to show themis a scaffold on the morning of execution. I assure you there is a strongmuster in those fair telescopic worlds, on any such morning, of those whohappen to find themselves occupying the right hemisphere for a peepat _us_. Telescopes look up in the market on that morning, and bear amonstrous premium; for they cheat, probably, in those scientific worlds aswell as we do. How, then, if it be announced in some such telescopic worldby those who make a livelihood of catching glimpses at our newspapers, whose language they have long since deciphered, that the poor victim in themorning's sacrifice is a woman? How, if it be published on that distantworld that the sufferer wears upon her head, in the eyes of many, thegarlands of martyrdom? How, if it should be some Marie Antoinette, thewidowed queen, coming forward on the scaffold, and presenting to themorning air her head, turned gray prematurely by sorrow, daughter of Cæsarskneeling down humbly to kiss the guillotine, as one that worships death?How, if it were the "martyred wife of Roland, " uttering impassionedtruth--truth odious to the rulers of her country--with her expiring breath?How, if it were the noble Charlotte Corday, that in the bloom of youth, that with the loveliest of persons, that with homage waiting upon hersmiles wherever she turned her face to scatter them--homage that followedthose smiles as surely as the carols of birds, after showers in spring, follow the re-appearing sun and the racing of sunbeams over the hills--yetthought all these things cheaper than the dust upon her sandals incomparison of deliverance from hell for her dear suffering France? Ah!these were spectacles indeed for those sympathizing people in distantworlds; and some, perhaps, would suffer a sort of martyrdom themselves, because they could not testify their wrath, could not bear witness to thestrength of love, and to the fury of hatred, that burned within them atsuch scenes; could not gather into golden urns some of that glorious dustwhich rested in the catacombs of earth. 

On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday in 1431, being then about nineteenyears of age, the Maid of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was conductedbefore mid-day, guarded by eight hundred spearmen, to a platform ofprodigious height, constructed of wooden billets supported by occasionalwalls of lath and plaster, and traversed by hollow spaces in everydirection for the creation of air-currents. The pile "struck terror, " saysM. Michelet, "by its height;" and, as usual, the English purpose in this isviewed as one of pure malignity. But there are two ways of explaining allthat. It is probable that the purpose was merciful. On the circumstances ofthe execution I shall not linger. Yet, to mark the almost fatal felicityof M. Michelet in finding out whatever may injure the English name, ata moment when every reader will be interested in Joanna's personalappearance, it is really edifying to notice the ingenuity by which he drawsinto light from a dark corner a very unjust account of it, and neglects, though lying upon the high road, a very pleasing one. Both are from Englishpens. Grafton, a chronicler but little read, being a stiff-necked JohnBull, thought fit to say, that no wonder Joanna should be a virgin, sinceher "foule face" was a satisfactory solution of that particular merit. Holinshead, on the other hand, a chronicler somewhat later, every way moreimportant, and universally read, has given a very pleasing testimony to theinteresting character of Joanna's person and engaging manners. Neitherof these men lived till the following century, so that personally thisevidence is none at all. Grafton sullenly and carelessly believed ashe wished to believe; Holinshead took pains to inquire, and reportsundoubtedly the general impression of France. But I cite the case asillustrating M. Michelet's candor. [7]

The circumstantial incidents of the execution, unless with more spacethan I can now command, I should be unwilling to relate. I should fearto injure, by imperfect report, a martyrdom which to myself appears sounspeakably grand. Yet for a purpose pointing, not at Joanna but at M. Michelet, --viz. , to convince him that an Englishman is capable of thinkingmore highly of _La Pucelle_ than even her admiring countryman, I shall, inparting, allude to one or two traits in Joanna's demeanor on the scaffold, and to one or two in that of the bystanders, which authorize me inquestioning an opinion of his upon this martyr's firmness. The reader oughtto be reminded that Joanna d'Arc was subjected to an unusually unfair trialof opinion. Any of the elder Christian martyrs had not much to fear of_personal_ rancor. The martyr was chiefly regarded as the enemy of Cæsar;at times, also, where any knowledge of the Christian faith and moralsexisted, with the enmity that arises spontaneously in the worldly againstthe spiritual. But the martyr, though disloyal, was not supposed to be, therefore, anti-national; and still less was _individually_ hateful. Whatwas hated (if anything) belonged to his class, not to himself separately. Now Joanna, if hated at all, was hated personally, and in Rouen on nationalgrounds. Hence there would be a certainty of calumny arising against _her_, such as would not affect martyrs in general. That being the case, it wouldfollow of necessity that some people would impute to her a willingness torecant. No innocence could escape _that_. Now, had she really testifiedthis willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued nothing at all butthe weakness of a genial nature shrinking from the instant approach oftorment. And those will often pity that weakness most, who, in their ownpersons, would yield to it least. Meantime, there never was a calumnyuttered that drew less support from the recorded circumstances. It restsupon no _positive_ testimony, and it has a weight of contradictingtestimony to stem. And yet, strange to say, M. Michelet, who at times seemsto admire the Maid of Arc as much as I do, is the one sole writer amongsther _friends_ who lends some countenance to this odious slander. His wordsare, that, if she did not utter this word _recant_ with her lips, sheuttered it in her heart. "Whether, she _said_ the word is uncertain: but Iaffirm that she _thought_ it. "

Now, I affirm that she did not; not in any sense of the word "_thought_"applicable to the case. Here is France calumniating _La Pucelle_: hereis England defending her. M. Michelet can only mean, that, on _a priori_principles, every woman must be presumed liable to such a weakness; thatJoanna was a woman; _ergo_, that she was liable to such a weakness. Thatis, he only supposes her to have uttered the word by an argument whichpresumes it impossible for anybody to have done otherwise. I, on thecontrary, throw the _onus_ of the argument not on presumable tendencies ofnature, but on the known facts of that morning's execution, as recordedby multitudes. What else, I demand, than mere weight of metal, absolutenobility of deportment, broke the vast line of battle then arrayed againsther? What else but her meek, saintly demeanor, won from the enemies, thattill now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Tenthousand men, " says M. Michelet himself, "ten thousand men wept;" and ofthese ten thousand the majority were political enemies knitted together bycords of superstition. What else was it but her constancy, united with herangelic gentleness, that drove the fanatic English soldier--who had swornto throw a faggot on her scaffold, as _his_ tribute of abhorrence, that_did_ so, that fulfilled his vow--suddenly to turn away a penitent forlife, saying everywhere that he had seen a dove rising upon wings to heavenfrom the ashes where she had stood? What else drove the executioner tokneel at every shrine for pardon to _his_ share in the tragedy? And, if allthis were insufficient, then I cite the closing act of her life as validon her behalf, were all other testimonies against her. The executioner hadbeen directed to apply his torch from below. He did so. The fiery smokerose upwards in billowing volumes. A Dominican monk was then standingalmost at her side. Wrapt up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the last enemy wasracing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment did thisnoblest of girls think only for _him_, the one friend that would notforsake her, and not for herself; bidding him with her last breath to carefor his own preservation, but to leave _her_ to God. That girl, whoselatest breath ascended in this sublime expression of self-oblivion, did notutter the word _recant_ either with her lips or in her heart. No; she didnot, though one should rise from the dead to swear it. 

 * * * * *

Bishop of Beauvais! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold--thou upon adown bed. But for the departing minutes of life, both are oftentimes alike. At the farewell crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and flesh isresting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and the torturer havethe same truce from carnal torment; both sink together into sleep; togetherboth, sometimes, kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists were gatheringfast upon you two, Bishop and Shepherd girl--when the pavilions of lifewere closing up their shadowy curtains about you--let us try, through thegigantic glooms, to decipher the flying features of your separate visions. 

The shepherd girl that had delivered France--she, from her dungeon, she, from her baiting at the stake, she, from her duel with fire, as she enteredher last dream--saw Domrémy, saw the fountain of Domrémy, saw the pomp offorests in which her childhood had wandered. That Easter festival, whichman had denied to her languishing heart--that resurrection of spring-time, which the darkness of dungeons had intercepted from _her_, hungering afterthe glorious liberty of forests--were by God given back into her hands, asjewels that had been stolen from her by robbers. With those, perhaps, (forthe minutes of dreams can stretch into ages, ) was given back to her by Godthe bliss of childhood. By special privilege, for _her_ might be created, in this farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first; but not, like _that_, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in the rear. Thismission had now been fulfilled. The storm was weathered, the skirts even ofthat mighty storm were drawing off. The blood, that she was to reckon for, had been exacted; the tears, that she was to shed in secret, had been paidto the last. The hatred to herself in all eyes had been faced steadily, hadbeen suffered, had been survived. And in her last fight upon the scaffoldshe had triumphed gloriously; victoriously she had tasted the stings ofdeath. For all, except this comfort from her farewell dream, she haddied--died, amidst the tears of ten thousand enemies--died, amidst thedrums and trumpets of armies--died, amidst peals redoubling upon peals, volleys upon volleys, from the saluting clarions of martyrs. 

Bishop of Beauvais! because the guilt-burthened man is in dreams hauntedand waylaid by the most frightful of his crimes, and because upon thatfluctuating mirror--rising (like the mocking mirrors of _mirage_ in Arabiandeserts) from the fens of death--most of all are reflected the sweetcountenances which the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, Bishop, that you, also, entering your final dream, saw Domrémy. That fountain, of which the witnesses spoke so much, showed itself to your eyes in puremorning dews; but neither dews, nor the holy dawn, could cleanse away thebright spots of innocent blood upon its surface. By the fountain, Bishop, you saw a woman seated, that hid her face. But as _you_ draw near, thewoman raises her wasted features. Would Domrémy know them again for thefeatures of her child? Ah, but _you_ know them, Bishop, well! Oh, mercy!what a groan was _that_ which the servants, waiting outside the Bishop'sdream at his bedside, heard from his laboring heart, as at this moment heturned away from the fountain and the woman, seeking rest in the forestsafar off. Yet not so to escape the woman, whom once again he must beholdbefore he dies. In the forests to which he prays for pity, will he find arespite? What a tumult, what a gathering of feet is there! In glades, whereonly wild deer should run, armies and nations are assembling; towering inthe fluctuating crowd are phantoms that belong to departed hours. There isthe great English Prince, Regent of France. There is my Lord of Winchester, the princely Cardinal, that died and made no sign. There is the Bishop ofBeauvais, clinging to the shelter of thickets. What building is that whichhands so rapid are raising? Is it a martyr's scaffold? Will they burn thechild of Domrémy a second time? No: it is a tribunal that rises to theclouds; and two nations stand around it, waiting for a trial. Shall my Lordof Beauvais sit again upon the judgment-seat, and again number the hoursfor the innocent? Ah! no: he is the prisoner at the bar. Already all iswaiting; the mighty audience is gathered, the Court is hurrying to theirseats, the witnesses are arrayed, the trumpets are sounding, the judgeis going to take his place. Oh! but this is sudden. My lord, have youno counsel? "Counsel I have none: in heaven above, or on earth beneath, counsellor there is none now that would take a brief from _me_: all aresilent. " Is it, indeed, come to this? Alas! the time is short, the tumultis wondrous, the crowd stretches away into infinity, but yet I will searchin it for somebody to take your brief: I know of somebody that will be yourcounsel. Who is this that cometh from Domrémy? Who is she that cometh inbloody coronation robes from Rheims? Who is she that cometh with blackenedflesh from walking the furnaces of Rouen? This is she, the shepherd girl, counsellor that had none for herself, whom I choose, Bishop, for yours. Sheit is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief. She it is, Bishop, thatwould plead for you: yes, Bishop, SHE--when heaven and earth are silent. 

NOTES. 

[NOTE 1. 

_Arc_:--Modern France, that should know a great deal better than myself, insists that the name is not d'Arc, _i. E. _ of Arc, but _Darc_. Now ithappens sometimes, that if a person, whose position guarantees his accessto the best information, will content himself with gloomy dogmatism, striking the table with his fist, and saying in a terrific voice--"It isso; and there's an end of it, "--one bows deferentially; and submits. Butif, unhappily for himself, won by this docility, he relents too amiablyinto reasons and arguments, probably one raises an insurrection against himthat may never be crushed; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish, perhaps, as well as he. Had he confined himself to dogmatism; he would haveentrenched his position in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerablepoints. But coming down to base reasons, he lets in light, and one seeswhere to plant the blows. Now, the worshipful reason of modern France fordisturbing the old received spelling, is--that Jean Hordal, a descendant of_La Pucelle's_ brother, spelled the name _Darc_, in 1612. But what of that?Beside the chances that M. Hordal might be a gigantic blockhead, it isnotorious that what small matter of spelling Providence had thought fit todisburse amongst man in the seventeenth century, was all monopolized byprinters: in France, much more so. ]

[NOTE 2. 

_Those that share thy blood_:--a collateral relative of Joanna's wassubsequently ennobled by the title of _du Lys_. ]

[NOTE 3. 

"_Jean_. "--M. Michelet asserts that there was a mystical meaning at thatera in calling a child _Jean_; it implied a secret commendation of a child, if not a dedication, to St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, theapostle of love and mysterious visions. But, really, as the name was soexceedingly common, few people will detect a mystery in calling a _boy_ bythe name of Jack, though it _does_ seem mysterious to call a girl Jack. Itmay be less so in France, where a beautiful practice has always prevailedof giving to a boy his mother's name--preceded and strengthened by a malename, as _Charles Anne_, _Victor Victoire_. In cases where a mother'smemory has been unusually dear to a son, this vocal memento of her, locked into the circle of his own name, gives to it the tenderness of atestamentary relique, or a funeral ring. I presume, therefore, that _LaPacelle_ must have borne the baptismal names of Jeanne Jean; the latterwith no reference to so sublime a person as St. John, but simply to somerelative. ]

[NOTE 4. 

And reminding one of that inscription, so justly admired by Paul Richtor, which a Russian Czarina placed on a guide-post near Moscow--_This is theroad that leads to Constantinople_. ]

[NOTE 5. 

Yes, old--very old phrase: not as ignoramuses fancy, a phrase recentlyminted by a Repealer in Ireland. ]

[NOTE 6. 

Our sisters are always rather uneasy when we say anything of them in Latinor Greek. It is like giving sealed orders to a sea captain, which he is notto open for his life till he comes into a certain latitude, which latitude, perhaps, he never _will_ come into, and thus may miss the secret till he isgoing to the bottom. Generally I acknowledge that it is not polite beforeour female friends to cite a single word of Latin without instantlytranslating it. But in this particular case, where I am only iterating adisagreeable truth, they will please to recollect that the politeness liesin _not_ translating. However, if they insist absolutely on knowing thisvery night, before going to bed, what it is that those ill-looking linescontain, I refer them to Dryden's Virgil, somewhere in the 6th Book of theÆneid, except as to the closing line and a half, which contain a privatesuggestion of my own to discontented nymphs anxious to see the equilibriumof advantages re-established between the two sexes. ]

[NOTE 7. 

Amongst the many ebullitions of M. Michelet's fury against us poor English, are four which will be likely to amuse the reader; and they are the moreconspicuous in collision with the justice which he sometimes does us, andthe very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, he grants to us. 

1. Our English literature he admires with some gnashing of teeth. Hepronounces it "fine and sombre, " but, I lament to add, "sceptical, Judaic, Satanic--in a word, Anti-Christian. " That Lord Byron should figure as amember of this diabolical corporation, will not surprise men. It _will_surprise them to hear that Milton is one of its Satanic leaders. Many arethe generous and eloquent Frenchmen, beside Chateaubriand, who have, inthe course of the last thirty years, nobly suspended their own burningnationality, in order to render a more rapturous homage at the feet ofMilton; and some of them have raised Milton almost to a level with angelicnatures. Not one of them has thought of looking for him _below_ the earth. As to Shakspeare, M. Michelet detects in him a most extraordinary mare'snest. It is this: he does "not recollect to have seen the name of God" inany part of his works. On reading such words, it is natural to rub one'seyes, and suspect that all one has ever seen in this world may have beena pure ocular delusion. In particular, I begin myself to suspect that theword "_la gloire_" never occurs in any Parisian journal. "The great Englishnation, " says M. Michelet, "has one immense profound vice, " to wit, "pride. " Why, really, that may be true; but we have a neighbor notabsolutely clear of an "immense profound vice, " as like ours in color andshape as cherry to cherry. In short, M. Michelet thinks us, by fits andstarts, admirable, only that we are detestable; and he would adore some ofour authors, were it not that so intensely he could have wished to kickthem. 

2. M. Michelet thinks to lodge an arrow in our sides by a very odd remarkupon Thomas à Kempis: which is, that a man of any conceivable Europeanblood--a Finlander, suppose, or a Zantiote--might have written Tom; onlynot an Englishman. Whether an Englishman could have forged Tom, must remaina matter of doubt, unless the thing had been tried long ago. That problemwas intercepted for ever by Tom's perverseness in choosing to manufacturehimself. Yet, since nobody is better aware than M. Michelet, that this verypoint of Kempis _having_ manufactured Kempis is furiously and hopelesslylitigated, three or four nations claiming to have forged his work for him, the shocking old doubt will raise its snaky head once more--whether thisforger, who rests in so much darkness, might not, after all, be of Englishblood. Tom, it may be feared, is known to modern English literature chieflyby an irreverent mention of his name in a line of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) fifty years back, where he is described as

 "Kempis Tom, Who clearly shows the way to Kingdom Come. "

Few in these days can have read him, unless in the Methodist version ofJohn Wesley. Amongst those few, however, happens to be myself; which arosefrom the accident of having, when a boy of eleven, received a copy of the_De Imitatione Christi_, as a bequest from a relation, who died very young;from which cause, and from the external prettiness of the book, being aGlasgow reprint, by the celebrated Foulis, and gaily bound, I was inducedto look into it; and finally read it many times over, partly out ofsome sympathy which, even in those days, I had with its simplicity anddevotional fervor; but much more from the savage delight I found inlaughing at Tom's Latinity. _That_, I freely grant to M. Michelet, isinimitable; else, as regards substance, it strikes me that I could forge abetter _De Imitatione_ myself. But there is no knowing till one tries. Yet, after all, it is not certain whether the original _was_ Latin. But, however_that_ may have been, if it is possible that M. Michelet[A] can be accuratein saying that there are no less than _sixty_ French versions (noteditions, observe, but separate versions) existing of the _De Imitatione_, how prodigious must have been the adaptation of the book to the religiousheart of the fifteenth century! Excepting the Bible, but exceptingthat only in Protestant lands, no book known to man has had the samedistinction. It is the most marvellous bibliographical fact on record. 

[Footnote A: "If M. Michelet can be accurate. " However, on consideration, this statement does not depend on Michelet. The bibliographer, Barbier, has absolutely _specified_ sixty in a separate dissertation, _soixantetraductions_, amongst those even that have not escaped the search. TheItalian translations are said to be thirty. As to mere _editions_, notcounting the early MSS. For half a century before printing was introduced, those in Latin amount to two thousand, and those in French to one thousand. Meantime, it is very clear to me that this astonishing popularity, soentirely unparalleled in literature, could not have existed except in RomanCatholic times, nor subsequently have lingered in any Protestant land. Itwas the denial of Scripture fountains to thirsty lands which made thisslender rill of Scripture truth so passionately welcome. ]

3. Our English girls, it seems, are as faulty in one way as we Englishmales in another. None of us lads could have written the _Opera Omnia_ ofMr. à Kempis; neither could any of our lasses have assumed male attire like_La Pucelle_. But why? Because, says Michelet, English girls and Germanthink so much of an indecorum. Well, that is a good fault, generallyspeaking. But M. Michelet ought to have remembered a fact in themartyrologies which justifies both parties, --the French heroine for doing, and the general choir of English girls for _not_ doing. A female saint, specially renowned in France, had, for a reason as weighty as Joanna's, viz. , expressly to shield her modesty amongst men, wore a male militaryharness. That reason and that example authorized _La Pucelle_; but ourEnglish girls, as a body, have seldom any such reason, and certainly nosuch saintly example, to plead. This excuses _them_. Yet, still, if it isindispensable to the national character that our young women should now andthen trespass over the frontier of decorum, it then becomes a patrioticduty in me to assure M. Michelet that we have such ardent females amongstus, and in a long series--some detected in naval hospitals, when too sickto remember their disguise; some on fields of battle; multitudes neverdetected at all; some only suspected; and others discharged without noiseby war offices and other absurd people. In our navy, both royal andcommercial, and generally from deep remembrances of slighted love, womenhave sometimes served in disguise for many years, taking contentedly theirdaily allowance of burgoo, biscuit, or cannon balls--anything, in short, digestible or indigestible, that it might please Providence to send. Onething, at least, is to their credit: never any of these poor masks, withtheir deep silent remembrances, have been detected through murmuring, orwhat is nautically understood by "skulking. " So, for once, M. Michelet hasan _erratum_ to enter upon the fly-leaf of his book in presentation copies. 

4. But the last of these ebullitions is the most lively. We English, atOrleans, and after Orleans (which is not quite so extraordinary, if allwere told, ) fled before the Maid of Arc. Yes, says M. Michelet, you _did_:deny it, if you can. Deny it, my dear? I don't mean to deny it. Runningaway, in many cases, is a thing so excellent, that no philosopher would, at times, condescend to adopt any other step. All of us nations in Europe, without one exception, have shown our philosophy in that way at times. Evenpeople, "_qui ne se rendent pas_, " have deigned both to run and to shout, "_Sauve qui pent_" at odd times of sunset; though, for my part, I haveno pleasure in recalling unpleasant remembrances to brave men; and yet, really, being so philosophic, they ought _not_ to be unpleasant. Butthe amusing feature in M. Michelet's reproach, is the way in which he_improves_ and varies against us the charge of running, as if he weresinging a catch. Listen to him. They "_showed their backs_, " did theseEnglish. (Hip, hip, hurrah! three times three!) "_Behind good walls, theylet themselves be taken, _" (Hip, hip! nine times nine!) They "_ran asfast as their legs could carry them. _" (Hurrah! twenty-seven timestwenty-seven!) They "_ran before a girl_;" they did. (Hurrah! eighty-onetimes eighty-one!) This reminds one of criminal indictments on the oldmodel in English courts, where (for fear the prisoner should escape) thecrown lawyer varied the charge perhaps through forty counts. The law laidits guns so as to rake the accused at every possible angle. Whilst theindictment was reading, he seemed a monster of crime in his own eyes; andyet, after all, the poor fellow had but committed one offence, and notalways _that_. N. B. --Not having the French original at hand, I make myquotations from a friend's copy of Mr. Walter Kelly's translation, whichseems to me faithful, spirited, and idiomatically English--liable, in fact, only to the single reproach of occasional provincialisms. 

THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH;

OR, THE GLORY OF MOTION. 

Some twenty or more years before I matriculated at Oxford, Mr. Palmer, M. P. For Bath, had accomplished two things, very hard to do on our littleplanet, the Earth, however cheap they may happen to be held by theeccentric people in comets: he had invented mail-coaches, and he hadmarried the daughter[1] of a duke. He was, therefore, just twice as great aman as Galileo, who certainly invented (or _discovered_) the satellites ofJupiter, those very next things extant to mail-coaches in the two capitalpoints of speed and keeping time, but who did _not_ marry the daughter of aduke. 

These mail-coaches, as organized by Mr. Palmer, are entitled to acircumstantial notice from myself--having had so large a share indeveloping the anarchies of my subsequent dreams, an agency which theyaccomplished, first, through velocity, at that time unprecedented; theyfirst revealed the glory of motion: suggesting, at the same time, anunder-sense, not unpleasurable, of possible though indefinite danger;secondly, through grand effects for the eye between lamp-light and thedarkness upon solitary roads; thirdly, through animal beauty and power sooften displayed in the class of horses selected for this mail service;fourthly, through the conscious presence of a central intellect, that, inthe midst of vast distances, [2] of storms, of darkness, of night, overruledall obstacles into one steady coöperation in a national result. To my ownfeeling, this post-office service recalled some mighty orchestra, where athousand instruments, all disregarding each other, and so far in danger ofdiscord, yet all obedient as slaves to the supreme _baton_ of some greatleader, terminate in a perfection of harmony like that of heart, veins, andarteries, in a healthy animal organization. But, finally, that particularelement in this whole combination which most impressed myself, and throughwhich it is that to this hour Mr. Palmer's mail-coach system tyrannizesby terror and terrific beauty over my dreams, lay in the awful politicalmission which at that time it fulfilled. The mail-coaches it was thatdistributed over the face of the land, like the opening of apocalypticvials, the heart-shaking news of Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, ofWaterloo. These were the harvests that, in the grandeur of their reaping, redeemed the tears and blood in which they had been sown. Neither was themeanest peasant so much below the grandeur and the sorrow of the times asto confound these battles, which were gradually moulding the destiniesof Christendom, with the vulgar conflicts of ordinary warfare, which areoftentimes but gladiatorial trials of national prowess. The victories ofEngland in this stupendous contest rose of themselves as natural _Te Deums_to heaven; and it was felt by the thoughtful that such victories, at such acrisis of general prostration, were not more beneficial to ourselves thanfinally to France, and to the nations of western and central Europe, through whose pusillanimity it was that the French domination hadprospered. 

The mail-coach, as the national organ for publishing these mighty events, became itself a spiritualized and glorified object to an impassioned heart;and naturally, in the Oxford of that day, all hearts were awakened. Therewere, perhaps, of us gownsmen, two thousand _resident_[3] in Oxford, anddispersed through five-and-twenty colleges. In some of these the custompermitted the student to keep what are called "short terms;" that is, thefour terms of Michaelmas, Lent, Easter, and Act, were kept severally by aresidence, in the aggregate, of ninety-one days, or thirteen weeks. Underthis interrupted residence, accordingly, it was possible that a studentmight have a reason for going down to his home four times in the year. Thismade eight journeys to and fro. And as these homes lay dispersed throughall the shires of the island, and most of us disdained all coaches excepthis majesty's mail, no city out of London could pretend to so extensive aconnection with Mr. Palmer's establishment as Oxford. Naturally, therefore, it became a point of some interest with us, whose journeys revolved everysix weeks on an average, to look a little into the executive details ofthe system. With some of these Mr. Palmer had no concern; they rested uponbye-laws not unreasonable, enacted by posting-houses for their own benefit, and upon others equally stern, enacted by the inside passengers for theillustration of their own exclusiveness. These last were of a nature torouse our scorn, from which the transition was not _very long_ to mutiny. Up to this time, it had been the fixed assumption of the four insidepeople, (as an old tradition of all public carriages from the reignof Charles II. , ) that they, the illustrious quaternion, constituteda porcelain variety of the human race, whose dignity would have beencompromised by exchanging one word of civility with the three miserabledelf ware outsides. Even to have kicked an outsider might have been held toattaint the foot concerned in that operation; so that, perhaps, it wouldhave required an act of parliament to restore its purity of blood. Whatwords, then, could express the horror, and the sense of treason, in thatcase, which _had_ happened, where all three outsides, the trinity ofPariahs, made a vain attempt to sit down at the same breakfast table ordinner table with the consecrated four? I myself witnessed such an attempt;and on that occasion a benevolent old gentleman endeavored to soothe histhree holy associates, by suggesting that, if the outsides were indictedfor this criminal attempt at the next assizes, the court would regard it asa case of lunacy (or _delirium tremens_) rather than of treason. Englandowes much of her grandeur to the depth of the aristocratic element in hersocial composition. I am not the man to laugh at it. But sometimesit expressed itself in extravagant shapes. The course taken with theinfatuated outsiders, in the particular attempt which I have noticed, was, that the waiter, beckoning them away from the privileged _salle-à-manger_, sang out, "This way, my good men;" and then enticed them away off to thekitchen. But that plan had not always answered. Sometimes, though veryrarely, cases occurred where the intruders, being stronger than usual, ormore vicious than usual, resolutely refused to move, and so far carriedtheir point, as to have a separate table arranged for themselves in acorner of the room. Yet, if an Indian screen could be found ample enoughto plant them out from the very eyes of the high table, or _dais_, it thenbecame possible to assume as a fiction of law--that the three delf fellows, after all, were not present. They could be ignored by the porcelain men, under the maxim, that objects not appearing, and not existing, are governedby the same logical construction. 

Such now being, at that time, the usages of mail-coaches, what was to bedone by us of young Oxford? We, the most aristocratic of people, who wereaddicted to the practice of looking down superciliously even upon theinsides themselves as often very suspicious characters, were we voluntarilyto court indignities? If our dress and bearing sheltered us, generally, from the suspicion of being "raff, " (the name at that period for"snobs, "[4]) we really _were_ such constructively, by the place we assumed. If we did not submit to the deep shadow of eclipse, we entered at least theskirts of its penumbra. And the analogy of theatres was urged against us, where no man can complain of the annoyances incident to the pit or gallery, having his instant remedy in paying the higher price of the boxes. Butthe soundness of this analogy we disputed. In the case of the theatre, it cannot be pretended that the inferior situations have any separateattractions, unless the pit suits the purpose of the dramatic reporter. Butthe reporter or critic is a rarity. For most people, the sole benefit is inthe price. Whereas, on the contrary, the outside of the mail had its ownincommunicable advantages. These we could not forego. The higher price weshould willingly have paid, but that was connected with the condition ofriding inside, which was insufferable. The air, the freedom of prospect, the proximity to the horses, the elevation of seat--these were what wedesired; but, above all, the certain anticipation of purchasing occasionalopportunities of driving. 

Under coercion of this great practical difficulty, we instituted asearching inquiry into the true quality and valuation of the differentapartments about the mail. We conducted this inquiry on metaphysicalprinciples; and it was ascertained satisfactorily, that the roof of thecoach, which some had affected to call the attics, and some the garrets, was really the drawing-room, and the box was the chief ottoman or sofain that drawing-room; whilst it appeared that the inside, which had beentraditionally regarded as the only room tenantable by gentlemen, was, infact, the coal-cellar in disguise. 

Great wits jump. The very same idea had not long before struck thecelestial intellect of China. Amongst the presents carried out by our firstembassy to that country was a state-coach. It had been specially selectedas a personal gift by George III. ; but the exact mode of using it was amystery to Pekin. The ambassador, indeed, (Lord Macartney, ) had made somedim and imperfect explanations upon the point; but as his excellencycommunicated these in a diplomatic whisper, at the very moment of hisdeparture, the celestial mind was very feebly illuminated; and it becamenecessary to call a cabinet council on the grand state question--"Where wasthe emperor to sit?" The hammer-cloth happened to be unusually gorgeous;and partly on that consideration, but partly also because the box offeredthe most elevated seat, and undeniably went foremost, it was resolved byacclamation that the box was the imperial place, and, _for the scoundrelwho drove, he might sit where he could find a perch_. The horses, therefore, being harnessed, under a flourish of music and a salute of guns, solemnly his imperial majesty ascended his new English throne, having thefirst lord of the treasury on his right hand, and the chief jester on hisleft. Pekin gloried in the spectacle; and in the whole flowery people, constructively present by representation, there was but one discontentedperson, which was the coachman. This mutinous individual, looking asblackhearted as he really was, audaciously shouted, "Where am _I_ to sit?"But the privy council, incensed by his disloyalty, unanimously opened thedoor, and kicked him into the inside. He had all the inside placesto himself; but such is the rapacity of ambition, that he was stilldissatisfied. "I say, " he cried out in an extempore petition, addressed tothe emperor through the window, "how am I to catch hold of the reins?" "Anyhow, " was the answer; "don't trouble _me_, man, in my glory; through thewindows, through the key-holes--how you please. " Finally this contumaciouscoachman lengthened the checkstrings into a sort of jury-reins, communicating with the horses; with these he drove as steadily as may besupposed. The emperor returned after the briefest of circuits; he descendedin great pomp from his throne, with the severest resolution never toremount it. A public thanksgiving was ordered for his majesty's prosperousescape from the disease of a broken neck; and the state-coach was dedicatedfor ever as a votive offering to the god Fo, Fo--whom the learned moreaccurately called Fi, Fi. 

A revolution of this same Chinese character did young Oxford of that eraeffect in the constitution of mail-coach society. It was a perfect Frenchrevolution; and we had good reason to say, _Ca ira_. In fact, it soonbecame _too_ popular. The "public, " a well known character, particularlydisagreeable, though slightly respectable, and notorious for affecting thechief seats in synagogues, had at first loudly opposed this revolution;but when the opposition showed itself to be ineffectual, our disagreeablefriend went into it with headlong zeal. At first it was a sort of racebetween us; and, as the public is usually above thirty, (say generally fromthirty to fifty years old, ) naturally we of young Oxford, that averagedabout twenty, had the advantage. Then the public took to bribing, givingfees to horse-keepers, &c. , who hired out their persons as warming-pans onthe box-seat. _That_, you know, was shocking to our moral sensibilities. Come to bribery, we observed, and there is an end to all morality, Aristotle's, Cicero's, or anybody's. And, besides, of what use was it?For _we_ bribed also. And as our bribes to those of the public beingdemonstrated out of Euclid to be as five shillings to sixpence, hereagain young Oxford had the advantage. But the contest was ruinous tothe principles of the stable establishment about the mails. The wholecorporation was constantly bribed, rebribed, and often sur-rebribed; sothat a horse-keeper, ostler, or helper, was held by the philosophical atthat time to be the most corrupt character in the nation. 

There was an impression upon the public mind, natural enough from thecontinually augmenting velocity of the mail, but quite erroneous, thatan outside seat on this class of carriages was a post of danger. On thecontrary, I maintained that, if a man had become nervous from somegipsey prediction in his childhood, allocating to a particular moon nowapproaching some unknown danger, and he should inquire earnestly, "Whithercan I go for shelter? Is a prison the safest retreat? Or a lunatichospital? Or the British Museum?" I should have replied, "Oh, no; I'll tellyou what to do. Take lodgings for the next forty days on the box of hismajesty's mail. Nobody can touch you there. If it is by bills at ninetydays after date that you are made unhappy--if noters and protesters are thesort of wretches whose astrological shadows darken the house of life--thennote you what I vehemently protest, viz. , that no matter though the sheriffin every county should be running after you with his _posse_, touch a hairof your head he cannot whilst you keep house, and have your legal domicileon the box of the mail. It's felony to stop the mail; even the sheriffcannot do that. And an _extra_ (no great matter if it grazes the sheriff)touch of the whip to the leaders at any time guarantees your safety. " Infact, a bed-room in a quiet house, seems a safe enough retreat; yet it isliable to its own notorious nuisances, to robbers by night, to rats, tofire. But the mail laughs at these terrors. To robbers, the answer ispacked up and ready for delivery in the barrel of the guard's blunderbuss. Rats again! there _are_ none about mail-coaches, any more than snakes inVan Troil's Iceland; except, indeed, now and then a parliamentary rat, whoalways hides his shame in the "coal cellar. " And, as to fire, I never knewbut one in a mail-coach, which was in the Exeter mail, and caused by anobstinate sailor bound to Devonport. Jack, making light of the law and thelawgiver that had set their faces against his offence, insisted on takingup a forbidden seat in the rear of the roof, from which he could exchangehis own yarns with those of the guard. No greater offence was then known tomail-coaches; it was treason, it was _læsa majestas_, it was by tendencyarson; and the ashes of Jack's pipe, falling amongst the straw of thehinder boot, containing the mail-bags, raised a flame which (aided by thewind of our motion) threatened a revolution in the republic of letters. Buteven this left the sanctity of the box unviolated. In dignified repose, the coachman and myself sat on, resting with benign composure upon ourknowledge--that the fire would have to burn its way through four insidepassengers before it could reach ourselves. With a quotation rather tootrite, I remarked to the coachman, --

 ----"Jam proximus ardet Ucalegon. "

But recollecting that the Virgilian part of his education might have beenneglected, I interpreted so far as to say, that perhaps at that moment theflames were catching hold of our worthy brother and next-door neighborUcalegon. The coachman said nothing, but, by his faint sceptical smile, heseemed to be thinking that he knew better; for that in fact, Ucalegon, asit happened, was not in the way-bill. 

No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself with theindeterminate and mysterious. The connection of the mail with the stateand the executive government--a connection obvious, but yet not strictlydefined--gave to the whole mail establishment a grandeur and an officialauthority which did us service on the roads, and invested us withseasonable terrors. But perhaps these terrors were not the less impressive, because their exact legal limits were imperfectly ascertained. Look atthose turnpike gates; with what deferential hurry, with what an obedientstart, they fly open at our approach! Look at that long line of cartsand carters ahead, audaciously usurping the very crest of the road. Ah!traitors, they do not hear us as yet; but as soon as the dreadful blast ofour horn reaches them with the proclamation of our approach, see with whatfrenzy of trepidation they fly to their horses' heads, and deprecate ourwrath by the precipitation of their crane-neck quarterings. Treason theyfeel to be their crime; each individual carter feels himself under theban of confiscation and attainder: his blood is attainted through sixgenerations, and nothing is wanting but the headsman and his axe, the blockand the sawdust, to close up the vista of his horrors. What! shall it bewithin benefit of clergy to delay the king's message on the highroad?--to interrupt the great respirations, ebb or flood, of the nationalintercourse--to endanger the safety of tidings, running day and nightbetween all nations and languages? Or can it be fancied, amongst theweakest of men, that the bodies of the criminals will be given up to theirwidows for Christian burial? Now the doubts which were raised as to ourpowers did more to wrap them in terror, by wrapping them in uncertainty, than could have been effected by the sharpest definitions of the law fromthe Quarter Sessions. We, on our parts, (we, the collective mail, I mean, )did our utmost to exalt the idea of our privileges by the insolence withwhich we wielded them. Whether this insolence rested upon law that gaveit a sanction, or upon conscious power, haughtily dispensing with thatsanction, equally it spoke from a potential station; and the agent in eachparticular insolence of the moment, was viewed reverentially, as one havingauthority. 

Sometimes after breakfast his majesty's mail would become frisky: and inits difficult wheelings amongst the intricacies of early markets, it wouldupset an apple cart, a cart loaded with eggs, &c. Huge was the afflictionand dismay, awful was the smash, though, after all, I believe the damagemight be levied upon the hundred. I, as far as possible, endeavored in sucha case to represent the conscience and moral sensibilities of the mail;and, when wildernesses of eggs were lying poached under our horses' hoofs, then would I stretch forth my hands in sorrow, saying (in words toocelebrated in those days from the false[5] echoes of Marengo)--"Ah!wherefore have we not time to weep over you?" which was quite impossible, for in fact we had not even time to laugh over them. Tied to post-officetime, with an allowance in some cases of fifty minutes for eleven miles, could the royal mail pretend to undertake the offices of sympathy andcondolence? Could it be expected to provide tears for the accidents of theroad? If even it seemed to trample on humanity, it did so, I contended, indischarge of its own more peremptory duties. 

Upholding the morality of the mail, _à fortiori_ I upheld its rights, I stretched to the uttermost its privilege of imperial precedency, andastonished weak minds by the feudal powers which I hinted to be lurkingconstructively in the charters of this proud establishment. Once I rememberbeing on the box of the Holyhead mail, between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when a tawdry thing from Birmingham, some _Tallyho_ or _Highflier_, allflaunting with green and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast toour royal simplicity of form and color is this plebeian wretch! The singleornament on our dark ground of chocolate color was the mighty shield of theimperial arms, but emblazoned in proportions as modest as a signet-ringbears to a seal of office. Even this was displayed only on a single panel, whispering, rather than proclaiming, our relations to the state; whilst thebeast from Birmingham had as much writing and painting on its sprawlingflanks as would have puzzled a decipherer from the tombs of Luxor. For sometime this Birmingham machine ran along by our side--a piece of familiaritythat seemed to us sufficiently jacobinical. But all at once a movement ofthe horses announced a desperate intention of leaving us behind. "Do yousee _that_?" I said to the coachman. "I see, " was his short answer. He wasawake, yet he waited longer than seemed prudent; for the horses of ouraudacious opponent had a disagreeable air of freshness and power. Buthis motive was loyal; his wish was that the Birmingham conceit should befull-blown before he froze it. When _that_ seemed ripe, he unloosed, or, tospeak by a stronger image, he sprang his known resources, he slipped ourroyal horses like cheetas, or hunting leopards, after the affrighted game. How they could retain such a reserve of fiery power after the work they hadaccomplished, seemed hard to explain. But on our side, besides the physicalsuperiority, was a tower of strength, namely, the king's name, "which theyupon the adverse faction wanted. " Passing them without an effort, as itseemed, we threw them into the rear with so lengthening an interval betweenus, as proved in itself the bitterest mockery of their presumption; whilstour guard blew back a shattering blast of triumph, that was really toopainfully full of derision. 

I mention this little incident for its connection with what followed. AWelshman, sitting behind me, asked if I had not felt my heart burn withinme during the continuance of the race? I said--No; because we were notracing with a mail, so that no glory could be gained. In fact, it wassufficiently mortifying that such a Birmingham thing should dare tochallenge us. The Welshman replied, that he didn't see _that_; for that acat might look at a king, and a Brummagem coach might lawfully race theHolyhead mail. "_Race_ us perhaps, " I replied, "though even _that_ has anair of sedition, but not _beat_ us. This would have been treason; and forits own sake I am glad that the Tallyho was disappointed. " So dissatisfieddid the Welshman seem with this opinion, that at last I was obliged to tellhim a very fine story from one of our elder dramatists, viz. --that once, insome oriental region, when the prince of all the land, with his splendidcourt, were flying their falcons, a hawk suddenly flew at a majestic eagle;and in defiance of the eagle's prodigious advantages, in sight also of allthe astonished field sportsmen, spectators, and followers, killed him onthe spot. The prince was struck with amazement at the unequal contest, andwith burning admiration for its unparalleled result. He commanded that thehawk should be brought before him; caressed the bird with enthusiasm, andordered that, for the commemoration of his matchless courage, a crownof gold should be solemnly placed on the hawk's head; but then that, immediately after this coronation, the bird should be led off to execution, as the most valiant indeed of traitors, but not the less a traitor that haddared to rise in rebellion against his liege lord the eagle. "Now, " said Ito the Welshman, "How painful it would have been to you and me as men ofrefined feelings, that this poor brute, the Tallyho, in the impossible caseof a victory over us, should have been crowned with jewellery, gold, withBirmingham ware, or paste diamonds, and then led off to instant execution. "The Welshman doubted if that could be warranted by law. And when I hintedat the 10th of Edward III. , chap. 15, for regulating the precedency ofcoaches, as being probably the statute relied on for the capital punishmentof such offences, he replied drily--that if the attempt to pass a mail wasreally treasonable, it was a pity that the Tallyho appeared to have soimperfect an acquaintance with law. 

These were among the gaieties of my earliest and boyish acquaintance withmails. But alike the gayest and the most terrific of my experiences roseagain after years of slumber, armed with preternatural power to shake mydreaming sensibilities; sometimes, as in the slight case of Miss Fanny onthe Bath road, (which I will immediately mention, ) through some casual orcapricious association with images originally gay, yet opening at somestage of evolution into sudden capacities of horror; sometimes through themore natural and fixed alliances with the sense of power so various lodgedin the mail system. 

The modern modes of travelling cannot compare with the mail-coach systemin grandeur and power. They boast of more velocity, but not however asa consciousness, but as a fact of our lifeless knowledge, resting upon_alien_ evidence; as, for instance, because somebody _says_ that we havegone fifty miles in the hour, or upon the evidence of a result, as thatactually we find ourselves in York four hours after leaving London. Apartfrom such an assertion, or such a result, I am little aware of the pace. But, seated on the old mail-coach, we needed no evidence out of ourselvesto indicate the velocity. On this system the word was--_Non magnaloquimur_, as upon railways, but _magna vivimus_. The vital experience ofthe glad animal sensibilities made doubts impossible on the question of ourspeed; we heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it as a thrilling; and thisspeed was not the product of blind insensate agencies, that had no sympathyto give, but was incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of an animal, in hisdilated nostril, spasmodic muscles, and echoing hoofs. This speed wasincarnated in the _visible_ contagion amongst brutes of some impulse, that, radiating into _their_ natures, had yet its centre and beginning in man. The sensibility of the horse, uttering itself in the maniac light of hiseye, might be the last vibration of such a movement; the glory of Salamancamight be the first--but the intervening link that connected them, thatspread the earthquake of the battle into the eyeball of the horse, wasthe heart of man--kindling in the rapture of the fiery strife, and thenpropagating its own tumults by motions and gestures to the sympathies, moreor less dim, in his servant the horse. 

But now, on the new system of travelling, iron tubes and boilers havedisconnected man's heart from the ministers of his locomotion. Nile norTrafalgar has power any more to raise an extra bubble in a steam-kettle. The galvanic cycle is broken up for ever: man's imperial nature no longersends itself forward through the electric sensibility of the horse; theinter-agencies are gone in the mode of communication between the horse andhis master, out of which grew so many aspects of sublimity under accidentsof mists that hid, or sudden blazes that revealed, of mobs that agitated, or midnight solitudes that awed. Tidings, fitted to convulse all nations, must henceforwards travel by culinary process; and the trumpet that onceannounced from afar the laurelled mail, heart-shaking, when heard screamingon the wind, and advancing through the darkness to every villageor solitary house on its route, has now given way for ever to thepot-wallopings of the boiler. 

Thus have perished multiform openings for sublime effects, for interestingpersonal communications, for revelations of impressive faces that could nothave offered themselves amongst the hurried and fluctuating groups ofa railway station. The gatherings of gazers about a mail-coach had onecentre, and acknowledged only one interest. But the crowds attending ata railway station have as little unity as running water, and own as manycentres as there are separate carriages in the train. 

How else, for example, than as a constant watcher for the dawn, and forthe London mail that in summer months entered about dawn into the lawnythickets of Marlborough Forest, couldst thou, sweet Fanny of the Bath road, have become known to myself? Yet Fanny, as the loveliest young woman forface and person that perhaps in my whole life I have beheld, meritedthe station which even _her_ I could not willingly have spared; yet(thirty-five years later) she holds in my dreams: and though, by anaccident of fanciful caprice, she brought along with her into those dreamsa troop of dreadful creatures, fabulous and not fabulous, that were moreabominable to a human heart than Fanny and the dawn were delightful. 

Miss Fanny of the Bath road, strictly speaking, lived at a mile's distancefrom that road, but came so continually to meet the mail, that I on myfrequent transits rarely missed her, and naturally connected her namewith the great thoroughfare where I saw her; I do not exactly know, but Ibelieve with some burthen of commissions to be executed in Bath, her ownresidence being probably the centre to which these commissions gathered. The mail coachman, who wore the royal livery, being one amongst theprivileged few, [6] happened to be Fanny's grandfather. A good man hewas, that loved his beautiful granddaughter; and, loving her wisely, wasvigilant over her deportment in any case where young Oxford might happento be concerned. Was I then vain enough to imagine that I myself, individually, could fall within the line of his terrors? Certainly not, as regarded any physical pretensions that I could plead; for Fanny (as achance passenger from her own neighborhood once told me) counted in hertrain a hundred and ninety-nine professed admirers, if not open aspirantsto her favor; and probably not one of the whole brigade but excelled myselfin personal advantages. Ulysses even, with the unfair advantage of hisaccursed bow, could hardly have undertaken that amount of suitors. Sothe danger might have seemed slight--only that woman is universallyaristocratic; it is amongst her nobilities of heart that she _is_ so. Now, the aristocratic distinctions in my favor might easily with Miss Fanny havecompensated my physical deficiencies. Did I then make love to Fanny? Why, yes; _mais oui donc_; as much love as one _can_ make whilst the mail ischanging horses, a process which ten years later did not occupy aboveeighty seconds; but _then_, viz. , about Waterloo, it occupied five timeseighty. Now, four hundred seconds offer a field quite ample enough forwhispering into a young woman's ear a great deal of truth; and (by way ofparenthesis) some trifle of falsehood. Grandpapa did right, therefore, towatch me. And yet, as happens too often to the grandpapas of earth, ina contest with the admirers of granddaughters, how vainly would he havewatched me had I meditated any evil whispers to Fanny! She, it is mybelief, would have protected herself against any man's evil suggestions. But he, as the result showed, could not have intercepted the opportunitiesfor such suggestions. Yet he was still active; he was still blooming. Blooming he was as Fanny herself. 

 "Say, all our praises why should lords--"

No, that's not the line. 

 "Say, all our roses why should girls engross?"

The coachman showed rosy blossoms on his face deeper even than hisgranddaughter's, --_his_ being drawn from the ale cask, Fanny's from youthand innocence, and from the fountains of the dawn. But, in spite of hisblooming face, some infirmities he had; and one particularly (I am verysure, no _more_ than one, ) in which he too much resembled a crocodile. Thislay in a monstrous inaptitude for turning round. The crocodile, I presume, owes that inaptitude to the absurd _length_ of his back; but in ourgrandpapa it arose rather from the absurd _breadth_ of his back, combined, probably, with some growing stiffness in his legs. Now upon this crocodileinfirmity of his I planted an easy opportunity for tendering my homage toMiss Fanny. In defiance of all his honorable vigilance, no sooner had hepresented to us his mighty Jovian back (what a field for displaying tomankind his royal scarlet!) whilst inspecting professionally the buckles, the straps, and the silver turrets of his harness, than I raised MissFanny's hand to my lips, and, by the mixed tenderness and respectfulness ofmy manner, caused her easily to understand how happy it would have mademe to rank upon her list as No. 10 or 12, in which case a few casualtiesamongst her lovers (and observe--they _hanged_ liberally in those days)might have promoted me speedily to the top of the tree; as, on the otherhand, with how much loyalty of submission I acquiesced in her allotment, supposing that she had seen reason to plant me in the very rearward of herfavor, as No. 199+1. It must not be supposed that I allowed any traceof jest, or even of playfulness, to mingle with these expressions of myadmiration; that would have been insulting to her, and would have beenfalse as regarded my own feelings. In fact, the utter shadowyness of ourrelations to each other, even after our meetings through seven or eightyears had been very numerous, but of necessity had been very brief, beingentirely on mail-coach allowance--timid, in reality, by the GeneralPost-Office--and watched by a crocodile belonging to the antepenultimategeneration, left it easy for me to do a thing which few people ever _can_have done--viz. , to make love for seven years, at the same time to beas sincere as ever creature was, and yet never to compromise myself byovertures that might have been foolish as regarded my own interests, or misleading as regarded hers. Most truly I loved this beautiful andingenuous girl; and had it not been for the Bath and Bristol mail, heavenonly knows what might have come of it. People talk of being over head andears in love--now, the mail was the cause that I sank only over ears inlove, which, you know, still left a trifle of brain to overlook the wholeconduct of the affair. I have mentioned the case at all for the sake ofa dreadful result from it in after years of dreaming. But it seems, _exabundanti_, to yield this moral--viz. , that as, in England, the idiot andthe half-wit are held to be under the guardianship of chancery, so the manmaking love, who is often but a variety of the same imbecile class, oughtto be made a ward of the General Post-Office, whose severe course of_timing_ and periodical interruption might intercept many a foolishdeclaration, such as lays a solid foundation for fifty years' repentance. 

Ah, reader! when I look back upon those days, it seems to me that allthings change or perish. Even thunder and lightning, it pains me to say, are not the thunder and lightning which I seem to remember about thetime of Waterloo. Roses, I fear, are degenerating, and, without a Redrevolution, must come to the dust. The Fannies of our island--though thisI say with reluctance--are not improving; and the Bath road is notoriouslysuperannuated. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does _not_change--that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for ridingupon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. _That_ may be; but the reasonis, that the crocodile does not live fast--he is a slow coach. I believeit is generally understood amongst naturalists, that the crocodile is ablockhead. It is my own impression that the Pharaohs were also blockheads. Now, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular mistake that prevailed on the Nile. Thecrocodile made the ridiculous blunder of supposing man to be meant chieflyfor his own eating. Man, taking a different view of the subject, naturallymet that mistake by another; he viewed the crocodile as a thing sometimesto worship, but always to run away from. And this continued until Mr. Waterton changed the relations between the animals. The mode of escapingfrom the reptile he showed to be, not by running away, but by leaping onits back, booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up--it is to be ridden; andthe use of man is, that he may improve the health of the crocodile byriding him a fox-hunting before breakfast. And it is pretty certain thatany crocodile, who has been regularly hunted through the season, and ismaster of the weight he carries, will take a six-barred gate now as well asever he would have done in the infancy of the pyramids. 

Perhaps, therefore, the crocodile does _not_ change, but all things else_do_: even the shadow of the pyramids grows less. And often the restorationin vision of Fanny and the Bath road, makes me too pathetically sensible ofthat truth. Out of the darkness, if I happen to call up the image of Fannyfrom thirty-five years back, arises suddenly a rose in June; or, if I thinkfor an instant of the rose in June, up rises the heavenly face of Fanny. One after the other, like the antiphonies in the choral service, risesFanny and the rose in June, then back again the rose in June and Fanny. Then come both together, as in a chorus; roses and Fannies, Fannies androses, without end--thick as blossoms in paradise. Then comes a venerablecrocodile, in a royal livery of scarlet and gold, or in a coat with sixteencapes; and the crocodile is driving four-in-hand from the box of theBath mail. And suddenly we upon the mail are pulled up by a mighty dial, sculptured with the hours, and with the dreadful legend of TOO LATE. Thenall at once we are arrived at Marlborough forest, amongst the lovelyhouseholds[7] of the roe-deer: these retire into the dewy thickets; thethickets are rich with roses; the roses call up (as ever) the sweetcountenance of Fanny, who, being the granddaughter of a crocodile, awakensa dreadful host of wild semi-legendary animals, --griffins, dragons, basilisks, sphinxes, --till at length the whole vision of fighting imagescrowds into one towering armorial shield, a vast emblazonry of humancharities and human loveliness that have perished, but quarteredheraldically with unutterable horrors of monstrous and demoniac natures, whilst over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one fair female hand, withthe fore-finger pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, upwards toheaven, and having power (which, without experience, I never could havebelieved) to awaken the pathos that kills in the very bosom of the horrorsthat madden the grief that gnaws at the heart, together with the monstrouscreations of darkness that shock the belief, and make dizzy the reason ofman. This is the peculiarity that I wish the reader to notice, as havingfirst been made known to me for a possibility by this early vision ofFanny on the Bath road. The peculiarity consisted in the confluence of twodifferent keys, though apparently repelling each other, into the musicand governing principles of the same dream; horror, such as possesses themaniac, and yet, by momentary transitions, grief, such as may be supposedto possess the dying mother when leaving her infant children to the merciesof the cruel. Usually, and perhaps always, in an unshaken nervous system, these two modes of misery exclude each other--here first they met in horridreconciliation. There was also a separate peculiarity in the quality of thehorror. This was afterwards developed into far more revolting complexitiesof misery and incomprehensible darkness; and perhaps I am wrong inascribing any value as a _causative_ agency to this particular case on theBath road--possibly it furnished merely an _occasion_ that accidentallyintroduced a mode of horrors certain, to any rate, to have grown up, with or without the Bath road, from more advanced stages of the nervousderangement. Yet, as the cubs of tigers or leopards, when domesticated, have been observed to suffer a sudden development of their latent ferocityunder too eager an appeal to their playfulness--the gaieties of sport in_them_ being too closely connected with the fiery brightness of theirmurderous instincts--so I have remarked that the caprices, the gayarabesques, and the lovely floral luxuriations of dreams, betray a shockingtendency to pass into finer maniacal splendors. That gaiety, for instance(for such as first it was, ) in the dreaming faculty, by which one principalpoint of resemblance to a crocodile in the mail-coachman was soon made toclothe him with the form of a crocodile, and yet was blended with accessorycircumstances derived from his _human_ functions, passed rapidly into afurther development, no longer gay or playful, but terrific, the mostterrific that besieges dreams, viz--the horrid inoculation upon each otherof incompatible natures. This horror has always been secretly felt byman; it was felt even under pagan forms of religion, which offered a veryfeeble, and also a very limited gamut for giving expression to the humancapacities of sublimity or of horror. We read it in the fearful compositionof the sphinx. The dragon, again, is the snake inoculated upon thescorpion. The basilisk unites the mysterious malice of the evil eye, unintentional on the part of the unhappy agent, with the intentional venomof some other malignant natures. But these horrid complexities of evilagency are but _objectively_ horrid; they inflict the horror suitable totheir compound nature; but there is no insinuation that they _feel_ thathorror. Heraldry is so full of these fantastic creatures, that, in somezoologies, we find a separate chapter or a supplement dedicated to what isdenominated heraldic zoology. And why not? For these hideous creatures, however visionary[8], have a real traditionary ground in medievalbelief--sincere and partly reasonable, though adulterating with mendacity, blundering, credulity, and intense superstition. But the dream-horrorwhich I speak of is far more frightful. The dreamer finds housedwithin himself--occupying, as it were, some separate chamber in hisbrain--holding, perhaps, from that station a secret and detestable commercewith his own heart--some horrid alien nature. What if it were his ownnature repeated, --still, if the duality were distinctly perceptible, even_that_--even this mere numerical double of his own consciousness--mightbe a curse too mighty to be sustained. But how, if the alien naturecontradicts his own, fights with it, perplexes, and confounds it? How, again, if not one alien nature, but two, but three, but four, but five, areintroduced within what once he thought the inviolable sanctuary of himself?These, however, are horrors from the kingdoms of anarchy and darkness, which, by their very intensity, challenge the sanctity of concealment, andgloomily retire from exposition. Yet it was necessary to mention them, because the first introduction to such appearances (whether causal, or merely casual) lay in the heraldic monsters, (which monsters werethemselves introduced though playfully, ) by the transfigured coachman ofthe Bath mail. 

GOING DOWN WITH VICTORY. 

But the grandest chapter of our experience, within the whole mail-coachservice, was on those occasions when we went down from London with thenews of victory. A period of about ten years stretched from Trafalgar toWaterloo: the second and third years of which period (1806 and 1807)were comparatively sterile; but the rest, from 1805 to 1815 inclusively, furnished a long succession of victories; the least of which, in a contestof that portentous nature, had an inappreciable value of position--partlyfor its absolute interference with the plans of our enemy, but stillmore from its keeping alive in central Europe the sense of a deep-seatedvulnerability in France. Even to tease the coasts of our enemy, to mortifythem by continual blockades, to insult them by capturing if it were but abaubling schooner under the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated fromtime to time a sullen proclamation of power lodged in a quarter to whichthe hopes of Christendom turned in secret. How much more loudly must thisproclamation have spoken in the audacity[9] of having bearded the _elite_of their troops, and having beaten them in pitched battles! Five years oflife it was worth paying down for the privilege of an outside place on amail-coach, when carrying down the first tidings of any such event. And itis to be noted that, from our insular situation, and the multitude of ourfrigates disposable for the rapid transmission of intelligence, rarelydid any unauthorized rumor steal away a prelibation from the aroma of theregular dispatches. The government official news was generally the firstnews. 

From eight, P. M. To fifteen or twenty minutes later, imagine the mailsassembled on parade in Lombard Street, where, at that time, was seated theGeneral Post-Office. In what exact strength we mustered I do not remember;but, from the length of each separate _attelage_, we filled the street, though a long one, and though we were drawn up in double file. On _any_night the spectacle was beautiful. The absolute perfection of all theappointments about the carriages and the harness, and the magnificence ofthe horses, were what might first have fixed the attention. Everycarriage, on every morning in the year, was taken down to an inspectorfor examination--wheels, axles, linch-pins, pole, glasses, &c. , wereall critically probed and tested. Every part of every carriage had beencleaned, every horse had been groomed, with as much rigor as if theybelonged to a private gentleman; and that part of the spectacle offereditself always. But the night before us is a night of victory; and behold!to the ordinary display, what a heart-shaking addition!--horses, men, carriages--all are dressed in laurels and flowers, oak leaves and ribbons. The guards, who are his majesty's servants, and the coachmen, who arewithin the privilege of the post-office, wear the royal liveries of course;and as it is summer (for all the _land_ victories were won in summer, ) theywear, on this fine evening, these liveries exposed to view, without anycovering of upper coats. Such a costume, and the elaborate arrangement ofthe laurels in their hats, dilated their hearts, by giving to them openlyan _official_ connection with the great news, in which already they havethe general interest of patriotism. That great national sentiment surmountsand quells all sense of ordinary distinctions. Those passengers who happento be gentlemen are now hardly to be distinguished as such except by dress. The usual reserve of their manner in speaking to the attendants has on thisnight melted away. One heart, one pride, one glory, connects every manby the transcendent bond of his English blood. The spectators, who arenumerous beyond precedent, express their sympathy with these ferventfeelings by continual hurrahs. Every moment are shouted aloud by thepost-office servants the great ancestral names of cities known to historythrough a thousand years, --Lincoln, Winchester, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, Manchester, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Perth, Glasgow--expressing the grandeur of the empire by the antiquity of itstowns, and the grandeur of the mail establishment by the diffusiveradiation of its separate missions. Every moment you hear the thunder oflids locked down upon the mail-bags. That sound to each individual mail isthe signal for drawing off, which process is the finest part of the entirespectacle. Then come the horses into play, --horses! can these be horsesthat (unless powerfully reined in) would bound off with the action andgestures of leopards? What stir!--what sea-like ferment!--what a thunderingof wheels, what a trampling of horses!--what farewell cheers--whatredoubling peals of brotherly congratulation, connecting the name of theparticular mail--"Liverpool for ever!"--with the name of the particularvictory--"Badajoz for ever!" or "Salamanca for ever!" The half-slumberingconsciousness that, all night long and all the next day--perhaps for evena longer period--many of these mails, like fire racing along a train ofgunpowder, will be kindling at every instant new successions of burningjoy, has an obscure effect of multiplying the victory itself, bymultiplying to the imagination into infinity the stages of its progressivediffusion. A fiery arrow seems to be let loose, which from that momentis destined to travel, almost without intermission, westwards for threehundred[10] miles--northwards for six hundred; and the sympathy of ourLombard Street friends at parting is exalted a hundred fold by a sort ofvisionary sympathy with the approaching sympathies, yet unborn, which weare going to evoke. 

Liberated from the embarrassments of the city, and issuing into the broaduncrowded avenues of the northern suburbs, we begin to enter upon ournatural pace of ten miles an hour. In the broad light of the summerevening, the sun, perhaps, only just at the point of setting, we areseen from every story of every house. Heads of every age crowd tothe windows--young and old understand the language of our victorioussymbols--and rolling volleys of sympathizing cheers run along behind andbefore our course. The beggar, rearing himself against the wall, forgetshis lameness--real or assumed--thinks not of his whining trade, but standserect, with bold exulting smiles, as we pass him. The victory has healedhim, and says--Be thou whole! Women and children, from garrets alike andcellars, look down or look up with loving eyes upon our gay ribbons and ourmartial laurels--sometimes kiss their hands, sometimes hang out, as signalsof affection, pocket handkerchiefs, aprons, dusters, anything that liesready to their hands. On the London side of Barnet, to which we draw nearwithin a few minutes after nine, observe that private carriage which isapproaching us. The weather being so warm, the glasses are all down; andone may read, as on the stage of a theatre, everything that goes on withinthe carriage. It contains three ladies, one likely to be "mama, " and twoof seventeen or eighteen, who are probably her daughters. What lovelyanimation, what beautiful unpremeditated pantomime, explaining to us everysyllable that passes, in these ingenuous girls! By the sudden start andraising of the hands, on first discovering our laurelled equipage--by thesudden movement and appeal to the elder lady from both of them--and by theheightened color on their animated countenances, we can almost hear themsaying--"See, see! Look at their laurels. Oh, mama! there has been a greatbattle in Spain; and it has been a great victory. " In a moment we are onthe point of passing them. We passengers--I on the box, and the two on theroof behind me--raise our hats, the coachman makes his professional salutewith the whip; the guard even, though punctilious on the matter of hisdignity as an officer under the crown, touches his hat. The ladies move tous, in return, with a winning graciousness of gesture: all smile on eachside in a way that nobody could misunderstand, and that nothing short of agrand national sympathy could so instantaneously prompt. Will these ladiessay that we are nothing to _them_? Oh, no; they will not say _that_. Theycannot deny--they do not deny--that for this night they are our sisters:gentle or simple, scholar or illiterate servant, for twelve hours tocome--we on the outside have the honor to be their brothers. Those poorwomen again, who stop to gaze upon us with delight at the entrance ofBarnet, and seem, by their air of weariness, to be returning from labor--doyou mean to say that they are washerwomen and char-women? Oh, my poorfriend, you are quite mistaken; they are nothing of the kind. I assure youthey stand in a higher rank; for this one night they feel themselves bybirthright to be daughters of England, and answer to no humbler title. 

Every joy, however, even rapturous joy--such is the sad law of earth--maycarry with it grief, or fear of grief, to some. Three miles beyond Barnet, we see approaching us another private carriage, nearly repeating thecircumstances of the former case. Here, also, the glasses are alldown--here, also, is an elderly lady seated; but the two amiable daughtersare missing; for the single young person, sitting by the lady's side, seemsto be an attendant--so I judge from her dress, and her air of respectfulreserve. The lady is in mourning; and her countenance expresses sorrow. At first she does not look up; so that I believe she is not aware of ourapproach, until she hears the measured beating of our horses' hoofs. Thenshe raises her eyes to settle them painfully on our triumphal equipage. Our decorations explain the case to her at once; but she beholds them withapparent anxiety, or even with terror. Some time before this, I, finding itdifficult to hit a flying mark, when embarrassed by the coachman's personand reins intervening, had given to the guard a _Courier_ evening paper, containing the gazette, for the next carriage that might pass. Accordinglyhe tossed it in so folded that the huge capitals expressing some suchlegend as--GLORIOUS VICTORY, might catch the eye at once. To see the paper, however, at all, interpreted as it was by our ensigns of triumph, explainedeverything; and, if the guard were right in thinking the lady to havereceived it with a gesture of horror, it could not be doubtful that she hadsuffered some deep personal affliction in connection with this Spanish war. 

Here now was the case of one, who, having formerly suffered, might, erroneously perhaps, be distressing herself with anticipations of anothersimilar suffering. That same night, and hardly three hours later, occurredthe reverse case. A poor woman, who too probably would find herself, in aday or two, to have suffered the heaviest of afflictions by the battle, blindly allowed herself to express an exultation so unmeasured in thenews, and its details, as gave to her the appearance which amongst CelticHighlanders is called _fey_. This was at some little town, I forget what, where we happened to change horses near midnight. Some fair or wake hadkept the people up out of their beds. We saw many lights moving about aswe drew near; and perhaps the most impressive scene on our route was ourreception at this place. The flashing of torches and the beautiful radianceof blue lights (technically Bengal lights) upon the heads of our horses;the fine effect of such a showery and ghostly illumination falling uponflowers and glittering laurels, whilst all around the massy darkness seemedto invest us with walls of impenetrable blackness, together with theprodigious enthusiasm of the people, composed a picture at once scenicaland affecting. As we staid for three or four minutes, I alighted. Andimmediately from a dismantled stall in the street, where perhaps she hadbeen presiding at some part of the evening, advanced eagerly a middle-agedwoman. The sight of my newspaper it was that had drawn her attention uponmyself. The victory which we were carrying down to the provinces on _this_occasion was the imperfect one of Talavera. I told her the main outline ofthe battle. But her agitation, though not the agitation of fear, but ofexultation rather, and enthusiasm, had been so conspicuous when listening, and when first applying for information, that I could not but ask her ifshe had not some relation in the Peninsular army. Oh! yes: her only son wasthere. In what regiment? He was a trooper in the 23d Dragoons. My heartsank within me as she made that answer. This sublime regiment, which anEnglishman should never mention without raising his hat to their memory, had made the most memorable and effective charge recorded in militaryannals. They leaped their horses--_over_ a trench where they could, _into_it, and with the result of death or mutilation when they could _not_. Whatproportion cleared the trench is nowhere stated. Those who _did_, closed upand went down upon the enemy with such divinity of fervor--(I use theword _divinity_ by design: the inspiration of God must have prompted thismovement to those whom even then he was calling to his presence)--that tworesults followed. As regarded the enemy, this 23d Dragoons, not, I believe, originally three hundred and fifty strong, paralyzed a French column, sixthousand strong, then ascending the hill, and fixed the gaze of the wholeFrench army. As regarded themselves, the 23d were supposed at first to havebeen all but annihilated; but eventually, I believe, not so many as one infour survived. And this, then, was the regiment--a regiment already forsome hours known to myself and all London, as stretched, by a largemajority, upon one bloody aceldama--in which the young trooper served whosemother was now talking with myself in a spirit of such hopeful enthusiasm. Did I tell her the truth? Had I the heart to break up her dreams? No. Isaid to myself, to-morrow, or the next day, she will hear the worst. Forthis night, wherefore should she not sleep in peace? After to-morrow, the chances are too many that peace will forsake her pillow. This briefrespite, let her owe this to _my_ gift and _my_ forbearance. But, if I toldher not of the bloody price that had been paid, there was no reason forsuppressing the contributions from her son's regiment to the service andglory of the day. For the very few words that I had time for speaking, Igoverned myself accordingly. I showed her not the funeral banners underwhich the noble regiment was sleeping. I lifted not the overshadowinglaurels from the bloody trench in which horse and rider lay mangledtogether. But I told her how these dear children of England, privates andofficers, had leaped their horses over all obstacles as gaily as hunters tothe morning's chase. I told her how they rode their horses into the mistsof death, (saying to myself, but not saying to _her_, ) and laid down theiryoung lives for thee, O mother England! as willingly--poured out theirnoble blood as cheerfully--as ever, after a long day's sport, when infants, they had rested their wearied heads upon their mother's knees, or had sunkto sleep in her arms. It is singular that she seemed to have no fears, evenafter this knowledge that the 23d Dragoons had been conspicuously engaged, for her son's safety: but so much was she enraptured by the knowledge that_his_ regiment, and therefore _he_, had rendered eminent service in thetrying conflict--a service which had actually made them the foremost topicof conversation in London--that in the mere simplicity of her ferventnature, she threw her arms round my neck, and, poor woman, kissed me. 

NOTES. 

[NOTE 1. 

Lady Madeline Gordon. ]

[NOTE 2. 

"_Vast distances_. "--One case was familiar to mail-coach travellers, wheretwo mails in opposite directions, north and south, starting at the sameminute from points six hundred miles apart, met almost constantly at aparticular bridge which exactly bisected the total distance. ]

[NOTE 3. 

"_Resident_. "--The number on the books was far greater, many of whom keptup an intermitting communication with Oxford. But I speak of those only whowere steadily pursuing their academic studies, and of those who residedconstantly as _fellows_. ]

[NOTE 4. 

"_Snobs_, " and its antithesis, "_nobs_, " arose among the internal fractionsof shoemakers perhaps ten years later. Possibly enough, the terms may haveexisted much earlier; but they were then first made known, picturesquelyand effectively, by a trial at some assizes which happened to fix thepublic attention. ]

[NOTE 5. 

"_False echoes_"--yes, false! for the words ascribed to Napoleon, asbreathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. --They standin the same category of theatrical inventions as the cry of the foundering_Vengeur_, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, "_La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas_, " as the repartees of Talleyrand. ]

[NOTE 6. 

"_Privileged few_. " The general impression was, that this splendid costumebelonged of right to the mail-coachmen as their professional dress. Butthat was an error. To the guard it _did_ belong, as a matter of course, andwas essential as an official warrant, and a means of instant identificationfor his person, in the discharge of his important public duties. But thecoachman, and especially if his place in the series did not connect himimmediately with London and the General Post-Office, obtained the scarletcoat only as an honorary distinction after long or special service. ]

[NOTE 7. 

"_Households_. "--Roe-deer do not congregate in herds like the fallow or thered deer, but by separate families, parents, and children; which featureof approximation to the sanctity of human hearths, added to theircomparatively miniature and graceful proportions, conciliate to theman interest of a peculiarly tender character, if less dignified by thegrandeurs of savage and forest life. ]

[NOTE 8. 

"_However visionary_. "--But _are_ they always visionary? the unicorn, thekraken, the sea-serpent, are all, perhaps, zoological facts. The unicorn, for instance, so far from being a lie, is rather _too_ true; for, simplyas a _monokeras_, he is found in the Himalaya, in Africa, and elsewhere, rather too often for the peace of what in Scotland would be called the_intending_ traveller. That which really _is_ a lie in the account of theunicorn--viz. , his legendary rivalship with the lion--which lie may Godpreserve, in preserving the mighty imperial shield that embalms it--cannotbe more destructive to the zoological pretensions of the unicorn, thanare to the same pretensions in the lion our many popular crazes about hisgoodness and magnanimity, or the old fancy (adopted by Spenser, and noticedby so many among our elder poets) of his graciousness to maiden innocence. The wretch is the basest and most cowardly among the forest tribes; norhas the sublime courage of the English bull-dog ever been so memorablyexhibited as in his hopeless fight at Warwick with the cowardly and cruellion called Wallace. Another of the traditional creatures, still doubtful, is the mermaid, upon which Southey once remarked to me, that, if ithad been differently named (as, suppose, a mer-ape, ) nobody would havequestioned its existence any more than that of sea-cows, sea-lions, &c. The mermaid has been discredited by her human name and her legendary humanhabits. If she would not coquette so much with melancholy sailors, andbrush her hair so assiduously upon solitary rocks, she would be carried onour books for as honest a reality, as decent a female, as many that areassessed to the poor-rates. ]

[NOTE 9. 

"_Audacity_!"--Such the French accounted it; and it has struck me thatSoult would not have been so popular in London, at the period of herpresent Majesty's coronation, or in Manchester, on occasion of his visit tothat town, if they had been aware of the insolence with which he spoke ofus in notes written at intervals from the field of Waterloo. As though ithad been mere felony in our army to look a French one in the face, he saidmore than once--"Here are the English--we have them: they are caught _enflagrant delit_" Yet no man should have known us better; no man had drunkdeeper from the cup of humiliation than Soult had in the north of Portugal, during the flight from an English army, and subsequently at Albuera, in thebloodiest of recorded battles. ]

[NOTE 10. 

"_Three hundred_. " Of necessity this scale of measurement, to an American, if he happens to be a thoughtless man, must sound ludicrous. Accordingly, Iremember a case in which an American writer indulges himself in the luxuryof a little lying, by ascribing to an Englishman a pompous account ofthe Thames, constructed entirely upon American ideas of grandeur, andconcluding in something like these terms:--"And, sir, arriving at London, this mighty father of rivers attains a breadth of at least two furlongs, having, in its winding course, traversed the astonishing distance of onehundred and seventy miles. " And this the candid American thinks it fair tocontrast with the scale of the Mississippi. Now, it is hardly worth whileto answer a pure falsehood gravely, else one might say that no Englishmanout of Bedlam ever thought of looking in an island for the rivers ofa continent; nor, consequently, could have thought of looking for thepeculiar grandeur of the Thames in the length of its course, or in theextent of soil which it drains: yet, if he _had_ been so absurd, theAmerican might have recollected that a river, not to be compared with theThames even as to volume of water--viz. The Tiber--has contrived to makeitself heard of in this world for twenty-five centuries to an extentnot reached, nor likely to be reached very soon, by any river, howevercorpulent, of his own land. The glory of the Thames is measured by thedensity of the population to which it ministers, by the commerce whichit supports, by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from thelargest, it is the most influential stream. Upon some such scale, and notby a transfer of Columbian standards, is the course of our English mails tobe valued. The American may fancy the effect of his own valuations to ourEnglish ears, by supposing the case of a Siberian glorifying his country inthese terms:--"These rascals, sir, in France and England, cannot march halfa mile in any direction without finding a house where food can be had andlodging; whereas, such is the noble desolation of our magnificent country, that in many a direction for a thousand miles, I will engage a dog shallnot find shelter from a snow-storm, nor a wren find an apology forbreakfast. "]

THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 

[THE reader is to understand this present paper, in its two sections of_The Vision_, &c. , and _The Dream-Fugue_, as connected with a previouspaper on _The English Mail-Coach_. The ultimate object was the Dream-Fugue, as an attempt to wrestle with the utmost efforts of music in dealing witha colossal form of impassioned horror. The Vision of Sudden Death containsthe mail-coach incident, which did really occur, and did really suggestthe variations of the Dream, here taken up by the Fugue, as well as othervariations not now recorded. Confluent with these impressions, from theterrific experience on the Manchester and Glasgow mail, were other and moregeneral impressions, derived from long familiarity with the English mail, as developed in the former paper; impressions, for instance, of animalbeauty and power, of rapid motion, at that time unprecedented, ofconnection with the government and public business of a great nation, but, above all, of connection with the national victories at an unexampledcrisis, --the mail being the privileged organ for publishing and dispersingall news of that kind. From this function of the mail, arises naturally theintroduction of Waterloo into the fourth variation of the Fogue; for themail itself having been carried into the dreams by the incident in theVision, naturally all the accessory circumstances of pomp and grandeurinvesting this national carriage followed in the train of the principalimage. ]

What is to be thought of sudden death? It is remarkable that, in differentconditions of society it has been variously regarded as the consummation ofan earthly career most fervently to be desired, and, on the other hand, as that consummation which is most of all to be deprecated. Cæsar theDictator, at his last dinner party, (_coena_, ) and the very evening beforehis assassination, being questioned as to the mode of death which, in _his_opinion, might seem the most eligible, replied--"That which should be mostsudden. " On the other hand, the divine Litany of our English Church, whenbreathing forth supplications, as if in some representative character forthe whole human race prostrate before God, places such a death in the veryvan of horrors. "From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, andfamine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death, --_Good Lord, deliverus_. " Sudden death is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent ofcalamities; it is the last of curses; and yet, by the noblest of Romans, it was treated as the first of blessings. In that difference, most readerswill see little more than the difference between Christianity and Paganism. But there I hesitate. The Christian church may be right in its estimate ofsudden death; and it is a natural feeling, though after all it may alsobe an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life--as that which_seems_ most reconcilable with meditation, with penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, however, occurto me any direct scriptural warrant for this earnest petition of theEnglish Litany. It seems rather a petition indulged to human infirmity, than exacted from human piety. And, however _that_ may be, two remarkssuggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which else _may_wander, and _has_ wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The firstis this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a suddendeath, (I mean the _objective_ horror to him who contemplates such adeath, not the _subjective_ horror to him who suffers it, ) from the falsedisposition to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by anaccident they have become words or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death isfalsely regarded with peculiar horror; as though the intoxication weresuddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But _that_ is unphilosophic. The manwas, or he was not, _habitually_ a drunkard. If not, if his intoxicationwere a solitary accident, there can be no reason at all for allowingspecial emphasis to this act, simply because through misfortune it becamehis final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one ofhis _habitual_ transgressions, will it be the more habitual or the more atransgression, because some sudden calamity, surprising him, has causedthis habitual transgression to be also a final one? Could the man have hadany reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would havebeen a new feature in his act of intemperance--a feature of presumption andirreverence, as in one that by possibility felt himself drawing near to thepresence of God. But this is no part of the case supposed. And the only newelement in the man's act is not any element of extra immorality, but simplyof extra misfortune. 

The other remark has reference to the meaning of the word _sudden_. And itis a strong illustration of the duty which for ever calls us to the sternvaluation of words--that very possibly Cæesar and the Christian church donot differ in the way supposed; that is, do not differ by any differenceof doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views of the moral temperappropriate to death, but that they are contemplating different cases. Both contemplate a violent death; a [Greek: biathanatos]--death thatis [Greek: biaios]: but the difference is--that the Roman by the word"sudden" means an _unlingering_ death: whereas the Christian Litanyby "sudden" means a death _without warning_, consequently without anyavailable summons to religious preparation. The poor mutineer, who kneelsdown to gather into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of hispitying comrades, dies by a most sudden death in Cæsar's sense: one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possibly _not_ one) groan, and all is over. But, in the sense of the Litany, his death is far from sudden; his offence, originally, his imprisonment, his trial, the interval between his sentenceand its execution, having all furnished him with separate warnings of hisfate--having all summoned him to meet it with solemn preparation. 

Meantime, whatever may be thought of a sudden death as a mere variety inthe modes of dying, where death in some shape is inevitable--a questionwhich, equally in the Roman and the Christian sense, will be variouslyanswered according to each man's variety of temperament--certainly, uponone aspect of sudden death there can be no opening for doubt, that of allagonies incident to man it is the most frightful, that of all martyrdoms itis the most freezing to human sensibilities--namely, where it surprises aman under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer) some hurriedand inappreciable chance of evading it. Any effort, by which such anevasion can be accomplished, must be as sudden as the danger which itaffronts. Even _that_, even the sickening necessity for hurrying inextremity where all hurry seems destined to be vain, self-baffled, andwhere the dreadful knell of _too_ late is already sounding in the ears byanticipation--even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in oneparticular case, namely, where the agonising appeal is made not exclusivelyto the instinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience, on behalf ofanother life besides your own, accidentally cast upon _your_ protection. Tofail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem comparativelyvenial; though, in fact, it is far from venial. But to fail in a case whereProvidence has suddenly thrown into your hands the final interests ofanother--of a fellow-creature shuddering between the gates of life anddeath; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, would mingle the miseryof an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody calamity. The manis called upon, too probably, to die; but to die at the very moment when, by any momentary collapse, he is self-denounced as a murderer. He had butthe twinkling of an eye for his effort, and that effort might, at the best, have been unavailing; but from this shadow of a chance, small or great, howif he has recoiled by a treasonable _lâcheté_? The effort _might_ have beenwithout hope; but to have risen to the level of that effort, would haverescued him, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to hisduties. 

The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, lurking far downin the depths of human nature. It is not that men generally are summonedto face such awful trials. But potentially, and in shadowy outline, sucha trial is moving subterraneously in perhaps all men's natures--mutteringunder ground in one world, to be realized perhaps in some other. Upon thesecret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected at intervals, perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to childhood, ofmeeting a lion, and, from languishing prostration in hope and vital energy, that constant sequel of lying down before him, publishes the secretfrailty of human nature--reveals its deep-seated Pariah falsehood toitself--records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps not one of us escapes thatdream; perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man, that dream repeats forevery one of us, through every generation, the original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, in this dream, has a bait offered to the infirm places ofhis own individual will; once again a snare is made ready for leading himinto captivity to a luxury of ruin; again, as in aboriginal Paradise, theman falls from innocence; once again, by infinite iteration, the ancientEarth groans to God, through her secret caves, over the weakness of herchild; "Nature, from her seat, sighing through all her works, " again "givessigns of woe that all is lost;" and again the counter sigh is repeated tothe sorrowing heavens of the endless rebellion against God. Many peoplethink that one man, the patriarch of our race, could not in his singleperson execute this rebellion for all his race. Perhaps they are wrong. But, even if not, perhaps in the world of dreams every one of us ratifiesfor himself the original act. Our English rite of "Confirmation, " by which, in years of awakened reason, we take upon us the engagements contractedfor us in our slumbering infancy, --how sublime a rite is that! The littlepostern gate, through which the baby in its cradle had been silently placedfor a time within the glory of God's countenance, suddenly rises to theclouds as a triumphal arch, through which, with banners displayed andmartial pomps, we make our second entry as crusading soldiers militantfor God, by personal choice and by sacramental oath. Each man says ineffect--"Lo! I rebaptise myself; and that which once was sworn on mybehalf, now I swear for myself. " Even so in dreams, perhaps, under somesecret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the consciousnessat the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, eachseveral child of our mysterious race completes for himself the aboriginalfall. 

As I drew near to the Manchester post office, I found that it wasconsiderably past midnight; but to my great relief, as it was important forme to be in Westmorland by the morning, I saw by the huge saucer eyes ofthe mail, blazing through the gloom of overhanging houses, that my chancewas not yet lost. Past the time it was; but by some luck, very unusual inmy experience, the mail was not even yet ready to start. I ascended tomy seat on the box, where my cloak was still lying as it had lain atthe Bridgewater Arms. I had left it there in imitation of a nauticaldiscoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of his discovery, byway of warning off the ground the whole human race, and signalising to theChristian and the heathen worlds, with his best compliments, that he hasplanted his throne for ever upon that virgin soil: henceforward claimingthe _jus dominii_ to the top of the atmosphere above it, and also the rightof driving shafts to the centre of the earth below it; so that all peoplefound after this warning, either aloft in the atmosphere, or in theshafts, or squatting on the soil, will be treated as trespassers--that is, decapitated by their very faithful and obedient servant, the owner of thesaid bunting. Possibly my cloak might not have been respected, and the _jusgentium_ might have been cruelly violated in my person--for, in the dark, people commit deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality--but itso happened that, on this night, there was no other outside passenger;and the crime, which else was but too probable, missed fire for want ofa criminal. By the way, I may as well mention at this point, since acircumstantial accuracy is essential to the effect of my narrative, thatthere was no other person of any description whatever about the mail--theguard, the coachman, and myself being allowed for--except only one--ahorrid creature of the class known to the world as insiders, but whom youngOxford called sometimes "Trojans, " in opposition to our Grecian selves, andsometimes "vermin. " A Turkish Effendi, who piques himself on good breeding, will never mention by name a pig. Yet it is but too often that he hasreason to mention this animal; since constantly, in the streets ofStamboul, he has his trousers deranged or polluted by this vile creaturerunning between his legs. But under any excess of hurry he is alwayscareful, out of respect to the company he is dining with, to suppress theodious name, and to call the wretch "that other creature, " as though allanimal life beside formed one group, and this odious beast (to whom, asChrysippus observed, salt serves as an apology for a soul) formed anotherand alien group on the outside of creation. Now I, who am an EnglishEffendi, that think myself to understand good-breeding as well as any sonof Othman, beg my reader's pardon for having mentioned an insider by hisgross natural name. I shall do so no more; and, if I should have occasionto glance at so painful a subject, I shall always call him "that othercreature. " Let us hope, however, that no such distressing occasion willarise. But, by the way, an occasion arises at this moment; for the readerwill be sure to ask, when we come to the story, "Was this other creaturepresent?" He was _not_; or more correctly, perhaps, _it_ was not. Wedropped the creature--or the creature, by natural imbecility, droppeditself--within the first ten miles from Manchester. In the latter case, Iwish to make a philosophic remark of a moral tendency. When I die, or whenthe reader dies, and by repute suppose of fever, it will never be knownwhether we died in reality of the fever or of the doctor. But this othercreature, in the case of dropping out of the coach, will enjoy a coroner'sinquest; consequently he will enjoy an epitaph. For I insist upon it, thatthe verdict of a coroner's jury makes the best of epitaphs. It is brief, sothat the public all find time to read; it is pithy, so that the survivingfriends (if any _can_ survive such a loss) remember it without fatigue; itis upon oath, so that rascals and Dr. Johnsons cannot pick holes in it. "Died through the visitation of intense stupidity, by impinging on amoonlight night against the off hind wheel of the Glasgow mail! Deodandupon the said wheel--two-pence. " What a simple lapidary inscription! Nobodymuch in the wrong but an off-wheel; and with few acquaintances; and if itwere but rendered into choice Latin, though there would be a little botherin finding a Ciceronian word for "off-wheel, " Marcellus himself, that greatmaster of sepulchral eloquence, could not show a better. Why I call thislittle remark _moral_, is, from the compensation it points out. Here, bythe supposition, is that other creature on the one side, the beast of theworld; and he (or it) gets an epitaph. You and I, on the contrary, thepride of our friends, get none. 

But why linger on the subject of vermin? Having mounted the box, I took asmall quantity of laudanum, having already travelled two hundred and fiftymiles--viz. , from a point seventy miles beyond London, upon a simplebreakfast. In the taking of laudanum there was nothing extraordinary. Butby accident it drew upon me the special attention of my assessor on thebox, the coachman. And in _that_ there was nothing extraordinary. But byaccident, and with great delight, it drew my attention to the fact thatthis coachman was a monster in point of size, and that he had but one eye. In fact he had been foretold by Virgil as--

 "Monstrum. Horrendum, informe, ingens cui lumen adempium. "

He answered in every point--a monster he was--dreadful, shapeless, huge, who had lost an eye. But why should _that_ delight me? Had he been one ofthe Calendars in the Arabian Nights, and had paid down his eye as the priceof his criminal curiosity, what right had I to exult in his misfortune? Idid _not_ exult: I delighted in no man's punishment, though it were evenmerited. But these personal distinctions identified in an instant an oldfriend of mine, whom I had known in the south for some years as the mostmasterly of mail-coachmen. He was the man in all Europe that could besthave undertaken to drive six-in-hand full gallop over _Al Sirat_--thatfamous bridge of Mahomet across the bottomless gulf, backing himselfagainst the Prophet and twenty such fellows. I used to call him _Cyclopsmastigophorus_, Cyclops the whip-bearer, until I observed that his skillmade whips useless, except to fetch off an impertinent fly from a leader'shead; upon which I changed his Grecian name to Cyclops _diphrélates_(Cyclops the charioteer. ) I, and others known to me, studied under him thediphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant to be pedantic. Andalso take this remark from me, as a _gage d'amitié_--that no word everwas or _can_ be pedantic which, by supporting a distinction, supports theaccuracy of logic; or which fills up a chasm for the understanding. As apupil, though I paid extra fees, I cannot say that I stood high inhis esteem. It showed his dogged honesty, (though, observe, not hisdiscernment, ) that he could not see my merits. Perhaps we ought to excusehis absurdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye. _That_made him blind to my merits. Irritating as this blindness was, (surelyit could not be envy?) he always courted my conversation, in which art Icertainly had the whip-hand of him. On this occasion, great joy was at ourmeeting. But what was Cyclops doing here? Had the medical men recommendednorthern air, or how? I collected, from such explanations as hevolunteered, that he had an interest at stake in a suit-at-law pending atLancaster; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station, for the purpose of connecting with his professional pursuits an instantreadiness for the calls of his lawsuit. 

Meantime, what are we stopping for? Surely, we've been waiting long enough. Oh, this procrastinating mail, and oh this procrastinating post-office!Can't they take a lesson upon that subject from _me_? Some people havecalled _me_ procrastinating. Now you are witness, reader, that I was intime for _them_. But can _they_ lay their hands on their hearts, and saythat they were in time for me? I, during my life, have often had to waitfor the post-office; the post-office never waited a minute for me. What arethey about? The guard tells me that there is a large extra accumulation offoreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by war and by thepacket service, when as yet nothing is done by steam. For an _extra_ hour, it seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the purewheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of allbaser intermediate towns. We can hear the flails going at this moment. Butat last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard. Manchester, good bye;we've lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post-office; which, however, though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground ofcomplaint, and one which really is such for the horses, to me secretly isan advantage, since it compels us to recover this last hour amongst thenext eight or nine. Off we are at last, and at eleven miles an hour; and atfirst I detect no changes in the energy or in the skill of Cyclops. 

From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is thecapital of Westmoreland, were at this time seven stages of eleven mileseach. The first five of these, dated from Manchester, terminated inLancaster, which was therefore fifty-five miles north of Manchester, andthe same distance exactly from Liverpool. The first three terminated inPreston, (called, by way of distinction from other towns of that name, _proud_ Preston, ) at which place it was that the separate roads fromLiverpool and from Manchester to the north became confluent. Within thesefirst three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of ournight's adventure. During the first stage, I found out that Cyclops wasmortal: he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep--a thing which Ihad never previously suspected. If a man is addicted to the vicious habitof sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the horsesof Aurora to execute the motions of his will, avail him nothing. "Oh, Cyclops!" I exclaimed more than once, "Cyclops, my friend; thou art mortal. Thou snorest. " Through this first eleven miles, however, he betrayedhis infirmity--which I grieve to say he shared with the whole PaganPantheon--only by short stretches. On waking up, he made an apology forhimself, which, instead of mending the matter, laid an ominous foundationfor coming disasters. The summer assizes were now proceeding at Lancaster:in consequence of which, for three nights and three days, he had not laindown in a bed. During the day, he was waiting for his uncertain summons asa witness on the trial in which he was interested; or he was drinking withthe other witnesses, under the vigilant surveillance of the attorneys. During the night, or that part of it when the least temptations existed toconviviality, he was driving. Throughout the second stage he grew more andmore drowsy. In the second mile of the third stage, he surrendered himselffinally and without a struggle to his perilous temptation. All his pastresistance had but deepened the weight of this final oppression. Sevenatmospheres of sleep seemed resting upon him; and, to consummate the case, our worthy guard, after singing "Love amongst the Roses, " for the fiftiethor sixtieth time, without any invitation from Cyclops or myself, andwithout applause for his poor labors, had moodily resigned himself toslumber--not so deep doubtless as the coachman's, but deep enough formischief; and having, probably, no similar excuse. And thus at last, aboutten miles from Preston, I found myself left in charge of his Majesty'sLondon and Glasgow mail, then running about eleven miles an hour. 

What made this negligence less criminal than else it must have beenthought, was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes. Atthat time all the law business of populous Liverpool, and of populousManchester, with its vast cincture of populous rural districts, was calledup by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster. To break upthis old traditional usage required a conflict with powerful establishedinterests, a large system of new arrangements, and a new parliamentarystatute. As things were at present, twice in the year so vast a body ofbusiness rolled northwards, from the southern quarter of the county, thata fortnight at least occupied the severe exertions of two judges for itsdispatch. The consequence of this was--that every horse available for sucha service, along the whole line of road, was exhausted in carrying down themultitudes of people who were parties to the different suits. By sunset, therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion amongstmen and horses, the roads were all silent. Except exhaustion in the vastadjacent county of York from a contested election, nothing like it wasordinarily witnessed in England. 

On this occasion, the usual silence and solitude prevailed along the road. Not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. And to strengthen this falseluxurious confidence in the noiseless roads, it happened also that thenight was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. I myself, though slightlyalive to the possibilities of peril, had so far yielded to the influence ofthe mighty calm as to sink into a profound reverie. The month was August, in which lay my own birth-day; a festival to every thoughtful mansuggesting solemn and often sigh-born thoughts. [1] The county was my ownnative county--upon which, in its southern section, more than upon anyequal area known to man past or present, had descended the original curseof labour in its heaviest form, not mastering the bodies of men only as ofslaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery will. Upon noequal space of earth, was, or ever had been, the same energy of humanpower put forth daily. At this particular season also of the assizes, thatdreadful hurricane of flight and pursuit, as it might have seemed to astranger, that swept to and from Lancaster all day long, hunting thecounty up and down, and regularly subsiding about sunset, united with thepermanent distinction of Lancashire as the very metropolis and citadel oflabour, to point the thoughts pathetically upon that counter vision ofrest, of saintly repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as to theirsecret haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heart are continuallytravelling. Obliquely we were nearing the sea upon our left, which alsomust, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state ofhalcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore an orchestral partin this universal lull. Moonlight, in the first timid tremblings of thedawn, were now blending: and the blendings were brought into a still moreexquisite state of unity, by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with a veil of equable transparency. Except the feet of our own horses, which, running on a sandy margin of theroad, made little disturbance, there was no sound abroad. In the clouds, and on the earth, prevailed the same majestic peace; and in spite of allthat the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimerthoughts, which are the thoughts of our infancy, we still believe in nosuch nonsense as a limited atmosphere. Whatever we may swear with our falsefeigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must for everbelieve, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between earth and thecentral heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread withoutfear _every_ chamber in their father's house, and to whom no door isclosed, we, in that Sabbatic vision which sometimes is revealed for an hourupon nights like this, ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-strickenfields of earth, upwards to the sandals of God. 

[Footnote 1: "Sigh-born:" I owe the suggestion of this word to an obscureremembrance of a beautiful phrase in Giraldus Gambrensis, viz. , _suspiriosæcogilationes_. ]

Suddenly from thoughts like these, I was awakened to a sullen sound, asof some motion on the distant road. It stole upon the air for a moment; Ilistened in awe; but then it died away. Once roused, however, I could notbut observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten years'experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw thatwe were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence ofmind. On the contrary, my fear is, that I am miserably and shamefullydeficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt anddistraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrancesupon my energies, when the signal is flying for _action_. But, on the otherhand, this accursed gift I have, as regards _thought_, that in the firststep towards the possibility of a misfortune, I see its total evolution: inthe radix I see too certainly and too instantly its entire expansion; inthe first syllable of the dreadful sentence, I read already the last. Itwas not that I feared for ourselves. What could injure _us_? Our bulk andimpetus charmed us against peril in any collision. And I had rode throughtoo many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that werematter of laughter as we looked back upon them, for any anxiety to restupon _our_ interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray _me_ who trusted to its protection. But any carriage thatwe could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And Iremarked this ominous accident of our situation. We were on the wrong sideof the road. But then the other party, if other there was, might also be onthe wrong side; and two wrongs might make a right. _That_ was not likely. The same motive which had drawn _us_ to the right-hand side of the road, viz. , the soft beaten sand, as contrasted with the paved centre, wouldprove attractive to others. Our lamps, still lighted, would give theimpression of vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us, wouldrely upon _us_ for quartering. [1] All this, and if the separate links ofthe anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw--not discursively orby effort--but as by one flash of horrid intuition. 

[Footnote 1: "_Quartering_"--this is the technical word; and, I presumederived from the French _carlayer_, to evade a rut or any obstacle. ]

Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil which _might_ begathering ahead, ah, reader! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh ofwoe, seemed to steal upon the air, as again the far-off sound of awheel was heard! A whisper it was--a whisper from, perhaps, four milesoff--secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the lessinevitable. What could be done--who was it that could do it--to check thestorm-flight of these maniacal horses? What! could I not seize the reinsfrom the grasp of the slumbering coachman? You, reader, think that it wouldhave been in _your_ power to do so. And I quarrel not with your estimate ofyourself. But, from the way in which the coachman's hand was viced betweenhis upper and lower thigh, this was impossible. The guard subsequentlyfound it impossible, after this danger had passed. Not the grasp only, butalso the position of this Polyphemus, made the attempt impossible. Youstill think otherwise. See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The cruelrider has kept the bit in his horse's mouth for two centuries. Unbridlehim, for a minute, if you please, and wash his mouth with water. Or stay, reader, unhorse me that marble emperor; knock me those marble feet fromthose marble stirrups of Charlemagne. 

The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly the sounds ofwheels. Who and what could it be? Was it industry in a taxed cart? Was ityouthful gaiety in a gig? Whoever it was, something must be attempted towarn them. Upon the other party rests the active responsibility, but upon_us_--and, woe is me! that _us_ was my single self--rest the responsibilityof warning. Yet, how should this be accomplished? Might I not seize theguard's horn? Already, on the first thought, I was making my way over theroof to the guard's seat. But this, from the foreign mails being piled uponthe roof, was a difficult, and even dangerous attempt, to one cramped bynearly three hundred miles of outside travelling. And, fortunately, beforeI had lost much time in the attempt, our frantic horses swept round anangle of the road, which opened upon us the stage where the collision mustbe accomplished, the parties that seemed summoned to the trial, and theimpossibility of saving them by any communication with the guard. 

Before us lay an avenue, straight as an arrow, six hundred yards, perhaps, in length; and the umbrageous trees, which rose in a regular line fromeither side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a cathedralaisle. These trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light; but therewas still light enough to perceive, at the further end of this gothicaisle, a light, reedy gig, in which were seated a young man, and, by hisside, a young lady. Ah, young sir! what are you about? If it is necessarythat you should whisper your communications to this young lady--thoughreally I see nobody at this hour, and on this solitary road, likely tooverhear your conversation--is it, therefore, necessary that you shouldcarry your lips forward to hers? The little carriage is creeping on at onemile an hour; and the parties within it, being thus tenderly engaged, arenaturally bending down their heads. Between them and eternity, to all humancalculation, there is but a minute and a half. What is it that I shall do?Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of the tale, might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion from the _Iliad_ to prompt the solerecourse that remained. But so it was. Suddenly I remembered the shout ofAchilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son ofPeleus, aided by Pallas? No, certainly: but then I needed not the shoutthat should alarm all Asia militant; a shout would suffice, such as shouldcarry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people, and onegig horse. I shouted--and the young man heard me not. A second time Ishouted--and now he heard me, for now he raised his head. 

Here, then, all had been done that, by me, _could_ be done: more on _my_part was not possible. Mine had been the first step: the second was for theyoung man: the third was for God. If, said I, the stranger is a brave man, and if, indeed, he loves the young girl at his side--or, loving her not, ifhe feels the obligation pressing upon every man worthy to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman confided to his protection--he will atleast make some effort to save her. If _that_ fails, he will not perish themore, or by a death more cruel, for having made it; and he will die as abrave man should, with his face to the danger, and with his arm about thewoman that he sought in vain to save. But if he makes no effort, shrinking, without a struggle, from his duty, he himself will not the less certainlyperish for this baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less: and why not?Wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven less in the world? No;_let_ him perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case, all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the helplessgirl, who now, upon the least shadow of failure in _him_, must, by thefiercest of translations--must, without time for a prayer--must, withinseventy seconds, stand before the judgment-seat of God. 

But craven he was not: sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden washis answer to the call. He saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin thatwas coming down: already its gloomy shadow darkened above him; and alreadyhe was measuring his strength to deal with it. Ah! what a vulgar thing doescourage seem, when we see nations buying it and selling it for a shilling aday: ah! what a sublime thing does courage seem, when some fearful crisison the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some mountainous wave, from which accordingly ashe chooses his course, he describes two courses, and a voice says to himaudibly, "This way lies hope; take the other way and mourn for ever!" Yet, even then, amidst the raving of the seas and the frenzy of the danger, theman is able to confront his situation--is able to retire for a momentinto solitude with God, and to seek all his counsel from _him_! For sevenseconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his countenancesteadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element in theconflict before him. For five seconds more he sate immovably, like one thatmused on some great purpose. For five he sate with eyes upraised, like onethat prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for wisdom to guidehim towards the better choice. Then suddenly he rose; stood upright; and, by a sudden strain upon the reins, raising his horse's forefeet from theground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plantthe little equipage in a position nearly at right angles to ours. Thusfar his condition was not improved; except as a first step had been takentowards the possibility of a second. If no more were done, nothing wasdone; for the little carriage still occupied the very centre of our path, though in an altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too late:fifteen of the twenty seconds may still be unexhausted; and one almightybound forward may avail to clear the ground. Hurry then; hurry! for theflying moments--_they_ hurry! Oh hurry, hurry, my brave young man! for thecruel hoofs of our horses--_they_ also hurry! Fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses. Fear not for _him_, if human energy cansuffice: faithful was he that drove, to his terrific duty; faithful was thehorse to _his_ command. One blow, one impulse given with voice and hand bythe stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of risingto a fence, landed the docile creature's forefeet upon the crown or archingcentre of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then clearedour over-towering shadow: _that_ was evident even to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if uponthe wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear partof the carriage--was _that_ certainly beyond the line of absolute ruin?What power could answer the question? Glance of eye, thought of man, wingof angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the question andthe answer, and divide the one from the other? Light does not tread uponthe steps of light more indivisibly, than did our all-conquering arrivalupon the escaping efforts of the gig. _That_ must the young man have felttoo plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he anylonger communicate with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of ourharness, too truly had his ear been instructed--that all was finished asregarded any further effort of _his_. Already in resignation he had restedfrom his struggle; and perhaps, in his heart he was whispering--"Father, which art above, do thou finish in heaven what I on earth have attempted. "We ran past them faster than ever mill-race in our inexorable flight. Oh, raving of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at themoment of our transit! Either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch ofour near leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig, which stoodrather obliquely and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallelwith the near wheel. The blow, from the fury of our passage, resoundedterrifically. I rose in horror, to look upon the ruins we might havecaused. From my elevated station I looked down. , and looked back upon thescene, which in a moment told its tale, and wrote all its records on myheart for ever. 

The horse was planted immovably, with his fore-feet upon the paved crest ofthe central road. He of the whole party was alone untouched by the passionof death. The little cany carriage--partly perhaps from the dreadfultorsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thunderingblow we had given to it--as if it sympathized with human horror, was allalive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man sat like a rock. Hestirred not at all. But _his_ was the steadiness of agitation frozen intorest by horror. As yet he dared not to look round; for he knew that, ifanything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. And as yet heknew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady--

But the lady--! Oh heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms wildlyto heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, despairing! Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case;suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of the unparalleledsituation. From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summernight--from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight--from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love--suddenly as from the woods and fields--suddenly as fromthe chambers of the air opening in revelation--suddenly as from the groundyawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Deaththe crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tigerroar of his voice. 

The moments were numbered. In the twinkling of an eye our flying horses hadcarried us to the termination of the umbrageous aisle; at right angles wewheeled into our former direction; the turn of the road carried the sceneout of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams for ever. 

DREAM-FUGUE. 

ON THE ABOVE THEME OF SUDDEN DEATH. 

 "Whence the sound Of instruments, that made melodious chime, Was heard, of harp and organ; and who mov'd Their stops and chords, was seen; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue. "

_Par. Lost, B. XL_

_Tumultuosissimamente_. 

Passion of Sudden Death! that once in youth I read and interpreted by theshadows of thy averted[1] signs;--Rapture of panic taking the shape whichamongst tombs in churches I have seen, of woman bursting her sepulchralbonds--of woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her gravewith arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped adoring hands--waiting, watching, trembling, praying, for the trumpet's call to rise from dustfor ever!--Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brinkof abysses! vision that didst start back--that didst reel away--like ashrivelling scroll from before the wrath of fire racing on the wings of thewind! Epilepsy so brief of horror--wherefore is it that thou canst not die?Passing so suddenly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddestthy sad funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams? Fragment ofmusic too stern, heard once and heard no more, what aileth thee that thydeep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and after thirty years have lost no element of horror?

[Footnote 1: "_Averted signs_. "--I read the course and changes of thelady's agony in the succession of her involuntary gestures; but let it beremembered that I read all this from the rear, never once catching thelady's full face, and even her profile imperfectly. ]

1. 

Lo, it is summer, almighty summer! The everlasting gates of life and summerare thrown open wide; and on the ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savanna, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating: sheupon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker. But both ofus are wooing gales of festal happiness within the domain of our commoncountry--within that ancient watery park--within that pathless chase whereEngland takes her pleasure as a huntress through winter and summer, andwhich stretches from the rising to the setting sun. Ah! what a wildernessof floral beauty was hidden, or was suddenly revealed, upon the tropicislands, through which the pinnace moved. And upon her deck what a bevyof human flowers--young women how lovely, young men how noble, that weredancing together, and slowly drifting towards _us_ amidst music andincense, amidst blossoms from forests and gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amidst natural caroling and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. Slowlythe pinnace nears us, gaily she hails us, and slowly she disappears beneaththe shadow of our mighty bows. But then, as at some signal from heaven, themusic and the carols, and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter--all arehushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting or overtaken her? Didruin to our friends couch within our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadowthe shadow of death? I looked over the bow for an answer; and, behold! thepinnace was dismantled; the revel and the revellers were found no more; theglory of the vintage was dust; and the forest was left without a witness toits beauty upon the seas. "But where, " and I turned to our own crew--"Whereare the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers andclustering corymbi? Whither have fled the noble young men that danced with_them_?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the mast-head, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried out--"Sail on the weatherbeam! Down she comes upon us: in seventy seconds she will founder!"

2. 

I looked to the weather side, and the summer had departed. The sea wasrocking, and shaken with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sate mightymists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Downone of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a cross-bow, ran afrigate right athwart our course. "Are they mad?" some voice exclaimed fromour deck. "Are they blind? Do they woo their ruin?" But in a moment, as shewas close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or sudden vortex gave awheeling bias to her course, and off she forged without a shock. As she ranpast us, high aloft amongst the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. Thedeeps opened ahead in malice to receive her, towering surges of foam ranafter her, the billows were fierce to catch her. But far away she was borneinto desert spaces of the sea: whilst still by sight I followed her, as sheran before the howling gale, chased by angry sea-birds and by maddeningbillows; still I saw her, as at the moment when she ran past us, amongstthe shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. Thereshe stood with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst thetackling--rising, sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying--there forleagues I saw her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm;until at last, upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden for ever in driving showers; and afterwards, but when I knownot, and how I know not. 

3. 

Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over the deadthat die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat moored to somefamiliar shore. The morning twilight even then was breaking; and, by thedusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl adorned with a garlandof white roses about her head for some great festival, running along thesolitary strand with extremity of haste. Her running was the running ofpanic; and often she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the rear. Butwhen I leaped ashore, and followed on her steps to warn her of a peril infront, alas! from me she fled as from another peril; and vainly I shoutedto her of quicksands that lay ahead. Faster and faster she ran; round apromontory of rocks she wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeledround it, but only to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. Already her person was buried; only the fair young head and the diadem ofwhite roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, lastof all, was visible one marble arm. I saw by the early twilight this fairyoung head, as it was sinking down to darkness--saw this marble arm, as itrose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faultering, rising, clutching as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from theclouds--saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then her dyingdespair. The head, the diadem, the arm, --these all had sunk; at last overthese also the cruel quicksand had closed; and no memorial of the fairyoung girl remained on earth, except my own solitary tears, and the funeralbells from the desert seas, that, rising again more softly, sang a requiemover the grave of the buried child, and over her blighted dawn. 

I sate, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memoryof those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, ourmother. But the tears and funeral bells were hushed suddenly by a shoutas of many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's artilleryadvancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by its echoes amongthe mountains. "Hush!" I said, as I bent my ear earthwards tolisten--"hush!--this either is the very anarchy of strife, or else"--andthen I listened more profoundly, and said as I raised my head--"or else, ohheavens! it is _victory_ that swallows up all strife. "

4. 

Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land and sea to some distantkingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, amongst companions crowned withlaurel. The darkness of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, hidfrom us the mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about our carriageas a centre--we heard them, but we saw them not. Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that measured itself against centuries; toofull of pathos they were, too full of joy that acknowledged no fountainbut God, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, by restlesanthems, by reverberations rising from every choir, of the _Gloria inexcelsis_. These tidings we that sate upon the laurelled car had it for ourprivilege to publish amongst all nations. And already, by signs audiblethrough the darkness, by snortings and tramplings, our angry horses, thatknew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay. Wherefore _was_it that we delayed? We waited for a secret word, that should bear witnessto the hope of nations, as now accomplished for ever. At midnight thesecret word arrived; which word was--Waterloo and Recovered Christendom!The dreadful word shone by its own light; before us it went; high above ourleaders' heads it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which wetraversed. Every city, at the presence of the secret word, threw open itsgates to receive us. The rivers were silent as we crossed. All the infiniteforests, as we ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secretword. And the darkness comprehended it. 

Two hours after midnight we reached a mighty minster. Its gates, which roseto the clouds, were closed. But when the dreadful word, that rode beforeus, reached them with its golden light, silently they moved back upon theirhinges; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the grand aisle of thecathedral. Headlong was our pace; and at every altar, in the little chapelsand oratories to the right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying orsickening, kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that was flyingpast. Forty leagues we might have run in the cathedral, and as yet nostrength of morning light had reached us, when we saw before us the aërialgalleries of the organ and the choir. Every pinnacle of the fretwork, everystation of advantage amongst the traceries, was crested by white-robedchoristers, that sang deliverance; that wept no more tears, as once theirfathers had wept; but at intervals that sang together to the generations, saying--

 "Chaunt the deliverer's praise in every tongue, "

and receiving answers from afar, --"such as once in heaven and earth were sung. "

And of their chaunting was no end; of our headlong pace was neither pausenor remission. 

Thus, as we ran like torrents--thus, as we swept with bridal rapture overthe Campo Santo[1] of the cathedral graves--suddenly we became aware ofa vast necropolis rising upon the far-off horizon--a city of sepulchres, built within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested fromtheir feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necropolis; yet, in thefirst minute, it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon--so mighty wasthe distance. In the second minute it trembled through many changes, growing into terraces and towers of wondrous altitude, so mighty was thepace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful gallop, we wereentering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers andturrets that, upon the limits of the central aisle, strode forward withhaughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into answeringrecesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs--bas-reliefs ofbattles--bas-reliefs of battle-fields; of battles from forgotten ages--ofbattles from yesterday--of battle-fields that, long since, nature hadhealed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers--ofbattle-fields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where theterraces ran, there did _we_ run; where the towers curved, there did _we_curve. With the flight of swallows our horses swept round every angle. Likerivers in flood, wheeling round headlands; like hurricanes that sideinto the secrets of forests; faster than ever light unwove the mazes ofdarkness, our flying equipage carried earthly passions--kindled warriorinstincts--amongst the dust that lay around us; dust oftentimes of ournoble fathers that had slept in God from Créci to Trafalgar. And now had wereached the last sarcophagus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, already had we recovered the arrow-like flight of the illimitable centralaisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld a female infant thatrode in a carriage as frail as flowers. The mists, which went before her, hid the fawns that drew her, but could not hide the shells and tropicflowers with which she played--but could not hide the lovely smiles bywhich she uttered her trust in the mighty cathedral, and in the cherubimthat looked down upon her from the topmast shafts of its pillars. Face toface she was meeting us; face to face she rode, as if danger there werenone. "Oh, baby!" I exclaimed, "shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo? Mustwe, that carry tidings of great joy to every people, be messengers of ruinto thee?" In horror I rose at the thought; but then also, in horror at thethought, rose one that was sculptured on the bas-relief--a dying trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of battle he rose to his feet; and, unslinginghis stony trumpet, carried it, in his dying anguish, to his stonylips--sounding once, and yet once again; proclamation that, in _thy_ ears, oh baby! must have spoken from the battlements of death. Immediately deepshadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased tosing. The hoofs of our horses, the rattling of our harness, alarmed thegraves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into life. Byhorror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with theirfiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting gallop, were frozento a bas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet sounded; the seals weretaken off all pulses; life, and the frenzy of life, tore into theirchannels again; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as fromthe muffling of storms and darkness; again the thunderings of our horsescarried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips as theclouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty before us--"Whither hasthe infant fled?--is the young child caught up to God?" Lo! afar off, in avast recess, rose three mighty windows to the clouds: and on a level withtheir summits, at height insuperable to man, rose an altar of purestalabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. Whence came_that_? Was it from the reddening dawn that now streamed _through_ thewindows? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs that were painted_on_ the windows? Was it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth? Whencesoeverit were--there, within that crimson radiance, suddenly appeared a femalehead, and then a female figure. It was the child--now grown up to woman'sheight. Clinging to the horns of the altar, there she stood--sinking, rising, trembling, fainting--raving, despairing; and behind the volume ofincense that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, was seen thefiery font, and dimly was descried the outline of the dreadful being thatshould baptize her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneelingher better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded for_her_; that prayed when _she_ could _not_; that fought with heaven by tearsfor _her_ deliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenancefrom his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that he had won at last. 

[Footnote 1: _Campo Santo_. --It is probable that most of my readers will beacquainted with the history of the Campo Santo at Pisa--composed of earthbrought from Jerusalem for a bed of sanctity, as the highest prize whichthe noble piety of crusaders could ask or imagine. There is another CampoSanto at Naples, formed, however, (I presume, ) on the example given byPisa. Possibly the idea may have been more extensively copied. To readerswho are unacquainted with England, or who (being English) are yetunacquainted with the cathedral cities of England, it may be right tomention that the graves within-side the cathedrals often form a flatpavement over which carriages and horses might roll; and perhaps a boyishremembrance of one particular cathedral, across which I had seen passengerswalk and burdens carried, may have assisted my dream. ]

5. 

Then rose the agitation, spreading through the infinite cathedral, to itsagony; then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The goldentubes of the organ, which as yet had but sobbed and muttered atintervals--gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense--threw up, asfrom fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choirand anti-choir were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, DyingTrumpeter!--with thy love that was victorious, and thy anguish that wasfinishing, didst enter the tumult: trumpet and echo--farewell love, andfarewell anguish--rang through the dreadful _sanctus_. We, that spreadflight before us, heard the tumult, as of flight, mustering behind us. Infear we looked round for the unknown steps that, in flight or in pursuit, were gathering upon our own. Who were these that followed? The faces, whichno man could count--whence were _they_? "Oh, darkness of the grave!" Iexclaimed, "that from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wertvisited with secret light--that wert searched by the effulgence in theangel's eye--were these indeed thy children? Pomps of life, that, from theburials of centuries, rose again to the voice of perfect joy, could it be_ye_ that had wrapped me in the reflux of panic?" What ailed me, that Ishould fear when the triumphs of earth were advancing? Ah! Pariah heartwithin me, that couldst never hear the sound of joy without sullen whispersof treachery in ambush; that, from six years old, didst never hear thepromise of perfect love, without seeing aloft amongst the stars fingersas of a man's hand, writing the secret legend--"_Ashes to ashes, dust todust_!"--wherefore shouldst _thou_ not fear, though all men should rejoice?Lo! as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, andsaw the quick and the dead that sang together to God, together that sangto the generations of man--ah! raving, as of torrents that opened on everyside: trepidation, as of female and infant steps that fled--ah! rushing, as of wings that chase! But I heard a voice from heaven, which said--"Letthere be no reflux of panic--let there be no more fear, and no more suddendeath! Cover them with joy as the tides cover the shore!" _That_ heard thechildren of the choir, _that_ heard the children of the grave. All thehosts of jubilation made ready to move. Like armies that ride in pursuit, they moved with one step. Us, that, with laurelled heads, were passing fromthe cathedral through its eastern gates, they overtook, and, as with agarment, they wrapped us round with thunders that overpowered our own. As brothers we moved together; to the skies we rose--to the dawn thatadvanced--to the stars that fled; rendering thanks to God in thehighest--that, having hid his face through one generation behind thickclouds of War, once again was ascending--was ascending from Waterloo--inthe visions of Peace; rendering thanks for thee, young girl! whom havingovershadowed with his ineffable passion of death--suddenly did God relent;suffered thy angel to turn aside his arm; and even in thee, sister unknown!shown to me for a moment only to be hidden for ever, found an occasion toglorify his goodness. A thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, hashe shown thee to me, standing before the golden dawn, and ready to enterits gates--with the dreadful word going before thee--with the armies of thegrave behind thee; shown thee to me, sinking, rising, fluttering, fainting, but then suddenly reconciled, adoring: a thousand times has he followedthee in the worlds of sleep--through storms; through desert seas; throughthe darkness of quicksands; through fugues and the persecution of fugues;through dreams, and the dreadful resurrections that are in dreams--onlythat at the last, with one motion of his victorious arm, he might recordand emblazon the endless resurrections of his love!

DINNER, REAL AND REPUTED. 

Great misconceptions have always prevailed about the Roman _dinner_. Dinner [_coena_] was the only meal which the Romans as a nation took. Itwas no accident, but arose out of their whole social economy. This we shallshow by running through the history of a Roman day. _Ridentem dicere, verumquid vetat_? And the course of this review will expose one or two importanttruths in ancient political economy, which have been wholly overlooked. 

With the lark it was that the Roman rose. Not that the earliest lark risesso early in Latium as the earliest lark in England; that is, during summer:but then, on the other hand, neither does it ever rise so late. The Romancitizen was stirring with the dawn--which, allowing for the shorterlongest-day and longer shortest-day of Rome, you may call about four insummer--about seven in winter. Why did he do this? Because he went to bedat a very early hour. But why did he do that? By backing in this way, weshall surely back into the very well of truth: always, if it is possible, let us have the _pourquoi_ of the _pourquoi_. The Roman went to bed earlyfor two special reasons. 1st, Because in Rome, which had been built for amartial destiny, every habit of life had reference to the usages of war. Every citizen, if he were not a mere proletarian animal kept at the publiccost, held himself a sort of soldier-elect: the more noble he was, themore was his liability to military service: in short, all Rome, and at alltimes, was consciously "in procinct. "[1] Now it was a principle of ancientwarfare, that every hour of daylight had a triple worth, if valuedagainst hours of darkness. That was one reason--a reason suggested by theunderstanding. But there was a second reason, far more remarkable; and thiswas a reason dictated by a blind necessity. It is an important fact, thatthis planet on which we live, this little industrious earth of ours, hasdeveloped her wealth by slow stages of increase. She was far from being therich little globe in Cæsar's days that she is at present. The earth in ourdays is incalculably richer, as a whole, than in the time of Charlemagne:at that time she was richer, by many a million of acres, than in the eraof Augustus. In that Augustan era we descry a clear belt of cultivation, averaging about six hundred miles in depth, running in a ring-fence aboutthe Mediterranean. This belt, _and no more_, was in decent cultivation. Beyond that belt, there was only a wild Indian cultivation. At presentwhat a difference! We have that very belt, but much richer, all thingsconsidered _æquatis æquandis_, than in the Roman era. The reader must notlook to single cases, as that of Egypt or other parts of Africa, but takethe whole collectively. On that scheme of valuation, we have the old Romanbelt, the Mediterranean riband not much tarnished, and we have all therest of Europe to boot--or, speaking in scholar's language, as a _lucroponamus_. We say nothing of remoter gains. Such being the case, our mother, the earth, being (as a whole) so incomparably poorer, could not in thePagan era support the expense of maintaining great empires in coldlatitudes. Her purse would not reach that cost. Wherever she undertook inthose early ages to rear man in great abundance, it must be where naturewould consent to work in partnership with herself; where _warmth_ was tobe had for nothing; where _clothes_ were not so entirely indispensable butthat a ragged fellow might still keep himself warm; where slight _shelter_might serve; and where the _soil_, if not absolutely richer in reversionarywealth, was more easily cultured. Nature must come forward liberally, andtake a number of shares in every new joint-stock concern before it couldmove. Man, therefore, went to bed early in those ages, simply because hisworthy mother earth could not afford him candles. She, good old lady, (orgood young lady, for geologists know not[2] whether she is in that stageof her progress which corresponds to gray hairs, or to infancy, or to "a_certain_ age, ")--she, good lady, would certainly have shuddered to hearany of her nations asking for candles. "Candles!" She would have said, "Whoever heard of such a thing? and with so much excellent daylight running towaste, as I have provided _gratis_! What will the wretches want next?"

The daylight, furnished _gratis_, was certainly "neat, " and "undeniable"in its quality, and quite sufficient for all purposes that were honest. Seneca, even in his own luxurious period, called those men "_lucifugæ_, "and by other ugly names, who lived chiefly by candle-light. None but richand luxurious men, nay, even amongst these, none but idlers _did_ live muchby candle-light. An immense majority of men in Rome never lighted a candle, unless sometimes in the early dawn. And this custom of Rome was the customalso of all nations that lived round the great pond of the Mediterranean. In Athens, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, everywhere, the ancients went tobed, like good boys, from seven to nine o'clock. [3] The Turks and otherpeople, who have succeeded to the stations and the habits of the ancients, do so at this day. 

The Roman, therefore, who saw no joke in sitting round a table in the dark, went off to bed as the darkness began. Everybody did so. Old Numa Pompiliushimself, was obliged to trundle off in the dusk. Tarquinius might be a verysuperb fellow; but we doubt whether he ever saw a farthing rushlight. And, though it may be thought that plots and conspiracies would flourish insuch a city of darkness, it is to be considered, that the conspiratorsthemselves had no more candles than honest men: both parties were in thedark. 

Being up then, and stirring not long after the lark, what mischief did theRoman go about first? Now-a-days, he would have taken a pipe or a cigar. But, alas for the ignorance of the poor heathen creatures! they had neitherone nor the other. In this point, we must tax our mother earth withbeing really _too_ stingy. In the case of the candles, we approve of herparsimony. Much mischief is brewed by candle-light. But, it was coming ittoo strong to allow no tobacco. Many a wild fellow in Rome, your Gracchi, Syllas, Catilines, would not have played "h---- and Tommy" in the way theydid, if they could have soothed their angry stomachs with a cigar--a pipehas intercepted many an evil scheme. But the thing is past helping now. AtRome, you must do as "they does" at Rome. So, after shaving, (supposing theage of the _Barbati_ to be passed), what is the first business that ourRoman will undertake? Forty to one he is a poor man, born to look upwardsto his fellow-men--and not to look down upon anybody but slaves. He goes, therefore, to the palace of some grandee, some top-sawyer of the Senatorianorder. This great man, for all his greatness, has turned out even soonerthan himself. For he also has had no candles and no cigars; and he wellknows, that before the sun looks into his portals, all his halls will beoverflowing and buzzing with the matin susurrus of courtiers--the "manesalutantes. "[4] it is as much as his popularity is worth to absent himself, or to keep people waiting. But surely, the reader may think, this poor manhe might keep waiting. No, he might not; for, though poor, being a citizen, he is a gentleman. That was the consequence of keeping slaves. Whereverthere is a class of slaves, he that enjoys the _jus suffragii_ (nomatter how poor) is a gentleman. The true Latin word for a gentleman is_ingentius_--a freeman and the son of a freeman. 

Yet even here there _were_ distinctions. Under the Emperors, the courtierswere divided into two classes: with respect to the superior class, it wassaid of the sovereign--that he _saw_ them, (_videbat_;) with respect to theother--that he _was seen_, ("_videbatur_. ") Even Plutarch mentions it asa common boast in his times, [Greek: aemas eiden ho basileus]--_Cæsar isin the habit of seeing me_; or, as a common plea for evading a suit, [Greek: ora mallon]--_I am sorry to say he is more inclined to look uponothers_. And this usage derived itself (mark that well!) from the_republican_ era. The aulic spirit was propagated by the Empire, but froma republican root. 

Having paid his court, you will suppose that our friend comes home tobreakfast. Not at all: no such discovery as "breakfast" had then been made:breakfast was not invented for many centuries after that. We have alwaysadmired, and always shall admire, as the very best of all human stories, Charles Lamb's account of the origin of _roast pig_ in China. Ching Ping, it seems, had suffered his father's house to be burned down; the outhouseswere burned along with the house; and in one of these the pigs, byaccident, were roasted to a turn. Memorable were the results for all futureChina and future civilization. Ping, who (like all China beside) hadhitherto eaten his pig raw, now for the first time tasted it in a stateof torrefaction. Of course he made his peace with his father by a part(tradition says a leg) of the new dish. The father was so astounded withthe discovery, that he burned his house down once a year for the sake ofcoming at an annual banquet of roast pig. A curious prying sort of fellow, one Chang Pang, got to know of this. He also burned down a house with apig in it, and had his eyes opened. The secret was ill kept--the discoveryspread--many great conversions were made--houses were blazing in every partof the Celestial Empire. The insurance offices took the matter up. One Chong Pong, detected in the very act of shutting up a pig in hisdrawing-room, and then firing a train, was indicted on a charge of arson. The chief justice of Pekin, on that occasion, requested an officer of thecourt to hand him a piece of the roast pig, the _corpus delicti_, for purecuriosity led him to taste; but within two days after it was observed thathis lordship's town-house was burned down. In short, all China apostatizedto the new faith; and it was not until some centuries had passed, that agreat genius arose, who established the second era in the history of roastpig, by showing that it could be had without burning down a house. 

No such genius had yet arisen in Rome. Breakfast was not suspected. Noprophecy, no type of breakfast had been published. In fact, it took as muchtime and research to arrive at that great discovery as at the Copernicansystem. True it is, reader, that you have heard of such a word as_jentaculum_; and your dictionary translates that old heathen word bythe Christian word _breakfast_. But dictionaries, one and all, are dulldeceivers. Between _jentaculum_ and _breakfast_ the differences are as wideas between a horse-chestnut and chestnut horse; differences in the _timewhen_, in the _place where_, in the _manner how_, but preeminently in the_thing which_. 

Galen is a good authority upon such a subject, since, if (like otherpagans) he ate no breakfast himself, in some sense he may be called thecause of breakfast to other men, by treating of those things which couldsafely be taken upon an empty stomach. As to the time, he (like many otherauthors) says, [peri tritaen, ae (to makroteron) peri tetartaen, ]about the third, or at farthest about the fourth hour: and so exact is he, that he assumes the day to lie exactly between six and six o'clock, and tobe divided into thirteen equal portions. So the time will be a few minutesbefore nine, or a few minutes before ten, in the forenoon. That seems fairenough. But it is not time in respect to its location that we are somuch concerned with, as time in respect to its duration. Now, heaps ofauthorities take it for granted, that you are not to sit down--you are tostand; and, as to the place, that any place will do--"any corner of theforum, " says Galen, "any corner that you fancy;" which is like referring aman for his _salle à manger_ to Westminster Hall or Fleet Street. Augustus, in a letter still surviving, tells us that he _jentabat_, or took his_jentaculum_ in his carriage; now in a wheel carriage, (_in essedo_, ) nowin a litter or palanquin (_in lecticâ_. ) This careless and disorderlyway as to time and place, and other circumstances of haste, sufficientlyindicate the quality of the meal you are to expect. Already you are"sagacious of your quarry from so far. " Not that we would presume, excellent reader, to liken you to Death, or to insinuate that you are"a grim feature. " But would it not make a saint "grim, " to hear of suchpreparations for the morning meal? And then to hear of such consummationsas _panis siccus_, dry bread; or, (if the learned reader thinks it willtaste better in Greek, ) [Greek: artos xaeros!] And what may this word_dry_ happen to mean? "Does it mean stale bread?" says Salmasius. "Shallwe suppose, " says he, in querulous words, "_molli et recenti opponi_, " andfrom that antithesis conclude it to be, "_durum et non recens coctum, eoquesicciorem_?" Hard and stale, and for that reason the more arid! Not quiteso bad as that, we hope. Or again--"_siccum pro biscocto, ut hodie vocamus, sumemus_?"[5] By _hodie_ Salmasius means, amongst his countrymen of France, where _biscoctus_ is verbatim reproduced in the word _bis_ (twice) _cuit_, (baked;) whence our own _biscuit_. Biscuit might do very well, could we besure that it was cabin biscuit: but Salmasius argues--that in this case hetakes it to mean "_buccellatum, qui est panis nauticus_;" that is, the shipcompany's biscuit, broken with a sledge-hammer. In Greek, for the benefitagain of the learned reader, it is termed [Greek: dipuros], indicatingthat it has passed twice under the action of fire. 

"Well, " you say, "No matter if it had passed fifty times--and through thefires of Moloch; only let us have this biscuit, such as it is. " In goodfaith, then, fasting reader, you are not likely to see much more than you_have_ seen. It is a very Barmecide feast, we do assure you--this same"jentaculum;" at which abstinence and patience are much more exercised thanthe teeth: faith and hope are the chief graces cultivated, together withthat species of the _magnificum_ which is founded on the _ignotum_. Eventhis biscuit was allowed in the most limited quantities; for which reasonit is that the Greeks called this apology for a a meal by the nameof [Greek: bouchismos], a word formed (as many words were in thePost-Augustan ages) from a Latin word--viz. , _buccea_, a mouthful; notliterally such, but so much as a polished man could allow himself to putinto his mouth at once. "We took a mouthful, " says Sir William Waller, theParliamentary general, "took a mouthful; paid our reckoning; mounted;and were off. " But there Sir William means, by his plausible "mouthful, "something very much beyond either nine or nineteen ordinary quantities ofthat denomination, whereas the Roman "jentaculum" was literally such; and, accordingly, one of the varieties under which the ancient vocabulariesexpress this model of evanescent quantities is _gustatio_, a mere tasting;and again it is called by another variety, _gustus_, a mere taste: [whenceby the usual suppression of the _s_, comes the French word for a collationor luncheon, viz. _gouter_] Speaking of his uncle, Pliny the Youngersays--"Post solem plerumque lavabatur; deinde gustabat; dormiebat minimum;mox, quasi alio die, studebat in coenæ tempus". "After taking the air hebathed; after that he broke his fast on a bit of biscuit, and took avery slight _siesta_: which done, as if awaking to a new day, he set inregularly to his studies, and pursued them to dinner-time. " _Gustabat_here meant that nondescript meal which arose at Rome when _jentaculum_ and_prandium_ were fused into one, and that only a _taste_ or mouthful ofbiscuit, as we shall show farther on. 

Possibly, however, most excellent reader, like some epicurean traveller, who, in crossing the Alps, finds himself weather-bound at St. Bernard'son Ash-Wednesday, you surmise a remedy: you descry some opening from "theloopholes of retreat, " through which a few delicacies might be insinuatedto spread verdure on this arid desert of biscuit. Casuistry can do much. Adead hand at casuistry has often proved more than a match for Lent with allhis quarantines. But sorry we are to say that, in this case, no relief ishinted at in any ancient author. A grape or two, (not a bunch of grapes, )a raisin or two, a date, an olive--these are the whole amount of relief[6]which the chancery of the Roman kitchen granted in such cases. All thingshere hang together, and prove each other; the time, the place, the mode, the thing. Well might man eat standing, or eat in public, such a trifleas this. Go home to such a breakfast as this! You would as soon think ofordering a cloth to be laid in order to eat a peach, or of asking a friendto join you in an orange. No man makes "two bites of a cherry. " So letus pass on to the other stages of the day. Only in taking leave of thismorning stage, throw your eyes back with us, Christian reader, upon thistruly heathen meal, fit for idolatrous dogs like your Greeks and yourRomans; survey, through the vista of ages, that thrice-cursed biscuit, withhalf a fig, perhaps, by way of garnish, and a huge hammer by its side, tosecure the certainty of mastication, by previous comminution. Then turnyour eyes to a Christian breakfast--hot rolls, eggs, coffee, beef; butdown, down, rebellious visions: we need say no more! You, reader, likeourselves, will breathe a malediction on the classical era, and thank yourstars for making you a Romanticist. Every morning we thank ours for keepingus back, and reserving us to an age in which breakfast had been alreadyinvented. In the words of Ovid we say:--

"Prisca juvent alios: ego me nunc denique natum Gratulor. Hæc ætas moribusapta meis. "

Our friend, the Roman cit, has therefore thus far, in his progress throughlife, obtained no breakfast, if he ever contemplated an idea so frantic. But it occurs to you, our faithful reader, that perhaps he will not alwaysbe thus unhappy. We could bring waggon-loads of sentiments, Greek as wellas Roman, which prove, more clearly than the most eminent pikestaff, that, as the wheel of fortune revolves, simply out of the fact that it hascarried a man downwards, it must subsequently carry him upwards, no matterwhat dislike that wheel, or any of its spokes, may bear to that man: "non, si male nunc sit, et olim sic erit:" and that if a man, through the madnessof his nation, misses coffee and hot rolls at nine, he may easily run intoa leg of mutton at twelve. True it is he may do so: truth is commendable;and we will not deny that a man may sometimes, by losing a breakfast, gaina dinner. Such things have been in various ages, and will be again, but notat Rome. There are reasons against it. We have heard of men who considerlife under the idea of a wilderness--dry as "a remainder biscuit after avoyage:" and who consider a day under the idea of a little life. Lifeis the macrocosm, or world at large; day is the microcosm, or world inminiature. Consequently, if life is a wilderness, then day, as a littlelife, is a little wilderness. And this wilderness can be safely traversedonly by having relays of fountains, or stages for refreshment. Suchstages, they conceive, are found in the several meals which Providence hasstationed at due intervals through the day, whenever the perverseness ofman does not break the chain, or derange the order of succession. 

These are the anchors by which man rides in that billowy ocean betweenmorning and night. The first anchor, viz. , breakfast, having given way inRome, the more need there is that he should pull up by the second; andthat is often reputed to be dinner. And as your dictionary, good reader, translated _breakfast_ by that vain word _jentaculum_, so, doubtless, itwill translate _dinner_ by that still vainer word _prandium_. Sincerely wehope that your own dinner on this day, and through all time coming, mayhave a better root in fact and substance than this most visionary of allbaseless things--the Roman _prandium_, of which we shall presently show youthat the most approved translation is _moonshine_. 

Reader, we are not jesting here. In the very spirit of serious truth, weassure you, that the delusion about "jentaculum" is even exceeded by thisother delusion about "prandium. " Salmasius himself, for whom a naturalprejudice of place and time partially obscured the truth, admits, however, that _prandium_ was a meal which the ancients rarely took; his very wordsare--"_raro prandebant veteres_. " Now, judge for yourself of the good sensewhich is shown in translating by the word _dinner_, which must of necessitymean the chief meal--a Roman word which represents a fancy meal, a meal ofcaprice, a meal which few people took. At this moment, what is the singlepoint of agreement between the noon meal of the English laborer and theevening meal of the English gentleman? What is the single circumstancecommon to both, which causes us to denominate them by the common name of_dinner_? It is that in both we recognize the _principal_ meal of theday, the meal upon which is thrown the _onus_ of the day's support. Ineverything else they are as wide asunder as the poles; but they agree inthis one point of their function. Is it credible that, to represent such ameal amongst ourselves, we select a Roman word so notoriously expressing amere shadow, a pure apology, that very few people ever tasted it--nobodysate down to it--not many washed their hands after it, and gradually thevery name of it became interchangeable with another name, implying theslightest possible act of trying or sipping? "_Post larationem sine mensâprandium_, " says Seneca, "_post quod non sunt lavandæ manus_;" that is, "after bathing, I take a _prandium_ without sitting down to table, and sucha _prandium_ as brings after itself no need of washing the hands. " No;moonshine as little soils the hands as it oppresses the stomach. 

Reader! we, as well as Pliny, had an uncle, an East Indian uncle; doubtlessyou have such an uncle; everybody has an Indian uncle. Generally such aperson is "rather yellow, rather yellow, " [to quote Canning _versus_ LordDurham:] that is the chief fault with his physics; but, as to his morals, he is universally a man of princely aspirations and habits. He is notalways so orientally rich as he is reputed; but he is always orientallymunificent. Call upon him at any hour from two to five, he insists on yourtaking _tiffin_: and such a tiffin! The English corresponding term isluncheon: but how meagre a shadow is the European meal to its glowingAsiatic cousin! Still, gloriously as tiffin shines, does anybody imaginethat it is a vicarious dinner, or ever meant to be the substitute ofdinner? Wait till eight, and you will have your eyes opened on thatsubject. So of the Roman _prandium_: had it been as luxurious as it wassimple, still it was always viewed as something meant only to stay thestomach, as a prologue to something beyond. The _prandium_ was far enoughfrom giving the feeblest idea of the English luncheon; yet it stood in thesame relation to the Roman day. Now to English_men_ that meal scarcelyexists; and were it not for women, whose delicacy of organization doesnot allow them to fast so long as men, would probably be abolished. It issingular in this, as in other points, how nearly England and ancient Romeapproximate. We all know how hard it is to tempt a man generally intospoiling his appetite, by eating before dinner. The same dislike ofviolating what they called the integrity of the appetite, [_integramfamem_, ] existed at Rome. Every man who knows anything of Latin critically, sees the connection of the word _integer_ with _in_ and _tetigi_: _integer_means what is _intact_, unviolated by touch. Cicero, when protestingagainst spoiling his appetite for dinner, by tasting anything beforehand, says, _integram famem ad coenam afferam_; I shall bring to dinner anappetite untampered with. Nay, so much stress did the Romans lay onmaintaining this primitive state of the appetite undisturbed, that anyprelusions with either _jentaculum_ or _prandium_ were said, by a verystrong phrase indeed, _polluere famem_, to pollute the sanctity of theappetite. The appetite was regarded as a holy vestal flame, soaring upwardstowards dinner throughout the day: if undebauched, it tended to its naturalconsummation in _coena_: expired like a phoenix, to rise again out of itsown ashes. On this theory, to which language had accommodated itself, thetwo prelusive meals of nine o'clock, A. M. , and of one, P. M. , so far frombeing ratified by the public sense, and adopted into the economy of theday, were regarded gloomily as gross irregularities, enormities, debauchersof the natural instinct; and, in so far as they thwarted that instinct, lessened it, or depraved it, were universally held to be full of pollution;and, finally, to _profane_ a motion of nature. Such was the language. 

But we guess what is passing in the reader's mind. He thinks that all thisproves the _prandium_ to have been a meal of little account; and in verymany cases absolutely unknown. But still he thinks all this might happen tothe English dinner--_that_ might be neglected; supper might be generallypreferred; and, nevertheless, dinner would be as truly entitled to the nameof dinner as before. Many a student neglects his dinner; enthusiasm in anypursuit must often have extinguished appetite for all of us. Many a timeand oft did this happen to Sir Isaac Newton. Evidence is on record, thatsuch a deponent at eight o'clock, A. M. , found Sir Isaac with one stockingon, one off; at two, said deponent called him to dinner. Being interrogatedwhether Sir Isaac had pulled on the _minus_ stocking, or gartered the_plus_ stocking, witness replied that he had not. Being asked if Sir Isaaccame to dinner, replied that he did not. Being again asked, "At sunset, didyou look in on Sir Isaac?" Witness replied, "I did. " "And now, upon yourconscience, sir, by the virtue of your oath, in what state were thestockings?" _Ans. "In statu quo ante bellum_. " It seems Sir Isaac hadfought through that whole battle of a long day, so trying a campaign tomany people--be had traversed that whole sandy Zaarah, without calling, orneeding to call at one of those fountains, stages, or _mansiones_, [7] bywhich (according to our former explanation) Providence has relieved thecontinuity of arid soil, which else disfigures that long dreary level. Thishappens to all; but was dinner not dinner, and did supper become dinner, because Sir Isaac Newton ate nothing at the first, and threw the wholeday's support upon the last? No, you will say, a rule is not defeated byone casual deviation, nor by one person's constant deviation. Everybodyelse was still dining at two, though Sir Isaac might not; and Sir Isaachimself on most days no more deferred his dinner beyond two, than he satewith one stocking off. But what if everybody, Sir Isaac included, haddeferred his substantial meal until night, and taken a slight refectiononly at two? The question put does really represent the very case which hashappened with us in England. In 1700, a large part of London took a mealat two, P. M. , and another at seven or eight, P. M. In 1839, a large partof London is still doing the very same thing, taking one meal at two, andanother at seven or eight. But the names are entirely changed: the twoo'clock meal used to be called _dinner_, and is now called _luncheon_; theeight o'clock meal used to be called _supper_, and is now called _dinner_. 

Now the question is easily solved: because, upon reviewing the idea ofdinner, we soon perceive that time has little or no connection with it:since, both in England and France, dinner has travelled, like the hand of aclock, through _every_ hour between ten, A. M. And ten, P. M. We have a list, well attested, of every successive hour between these limits having beenthe known established hour for the royal dinner-table within the last threehundred and fifty years. Time, therefore, vanishes from the equation: it isa quantity as regularly exterminated as in any algebraic problem. The trueelements of the idea, are evidently these:--1. That dinner is that meal, nomatter when taken, which is the principal meal; _i. E. _ the meal on whichthe day's support is thrown. 2. That it is the meal of hospitality. 3. Thatit is the meal (with reference to both Nos 1 and 2) in which animal foodpredominates. 4. That it is that meal which, upon necessity arising for theabolition of all _but_ one, would naturally offer itself as that one. Applythese four tests to _prandium_:--How could that meal answer to the firsttest, as _the day's support_, which few people touched? How could that mealanswer to the second test, as the _meal of hospitality_, at which nobodysate down? How could that meal answer to the third test, as the meal ofanimal food, which consisted exclusively and notoriously of bread? Or tothe fourth test, of the meal _entitled to survive the abolition of therest_, which was itself abolished at all times in practice?

Tried, therefore, by every test, _prandium_ vanishes. But we have somethingfurther to communicate about this same _prandium_. 

I. It came to pass, by a very natural association of feeling, that_prandium_ and _jentuculum_, in the latter centuries of Rome, weregenerally confounded. This result was inevitable. Both professed thesame basis Both came in the morning. Both were fictions. Hence they wereconfounded. 

That fact speaks for itself, --breakfast and luncheon never could have beenconfounded; but who would be at the pains of distinguishing two shadows? Ina gambling-house of that class, where you are at liberty to sit down to asplendid banquet, anxiety probably prevents your sitting down at all; but, if you do, the same cause prevents your noticing what you eat. So of thetwo _pseudo_ meals of Rome, they came in the very midst of the Romanbusiness; viz. From nine, A. M. To two, P. M. Nobody could give his mindto them, had they been of better quality. There lay one cause of theirvagueness, viz. --in their position. Another cause was, the common basis ofboth. Bread was so notoriously the predominating "feature" in each of theseprelusive banquets, that all foreigners at Rome, who communicated withRomans through the Greek language, knew both the one and the other by thename of [Greek: artositos], or the _bread repast_. Originally this namehad been restricted to the earlier meal. But a distinction without adifference could not sustain itself: and both alike disguised theiremptiness under this pompous quadrisyllable. In the identity of substance, therefore, lay a second ground of confusion. And, then, thirdly, even asto the time, which had ever been the sole real distinction, there arosefrom accident a tendency to converge. For it happened that while some had_jentaculum_ but no _prandium_, others had _prandium_ but no _jentaculum_;a third party had both; a fourth party, by much the largest, had neither. Out of which varieties (who would think that a nonentity could cut upinto so many somethings?) arose a fifth party of compromisers, who, because they could not afford a regular _coena_, and yet werehospitably disposed, fused the two ideas into one; and so, because theusual time for the idea of a breakfast was nine to ten, and for the ideaof a luncheon twelve to one, compromised the rival pretensions by whatdiplomatists call a _mezzo termine_; bisecting the time at eleven, andmelting the two ideas into one. But by thus merging the separate timesof each, they abolished the sole real difference that had ever dividedthem. Losing that, they lost all. 

Perhaps, as two negatives make one affirmative, it may be thought that twolayers of moonshine might coalesce into one pancake; and two Barmecidebanquets might compose one poached egg. Of that the company were the bestjudges. But probably, as a rump and dozen, in our land of wagers, isconstrued with a very liberal latitude as to the materials, so Martial'sinvitation, "to take bread with him at eleven, " might be understood by the[Greek: sunetoi] as significant of something better than[Greek: artositos]. Otherwise, in good truth, "moonshine and turn-out"at eleven, A. M. , would be even worse than "tea and turn-out" at eight, P. M. , which the "fervida juventus" of young England so loudly detests. Buthowever that might be, in this convergement of the several frontiers, andthe confusion that ensued, one cannot wonder that, whilst the two bladderscollapsed into one idea, they actually expanded into four names, two Latinand two Greek, _gustus_ and _gustatio_, [Greek: geusis], and[Greek: geusma], which all alike express the merely tentative orexploratory act of a _prægustator_ or professional "taster" in aking's household: what, if applied to a fluid, we should denominatesipping. 

At last, by so many steps all in one direction, things had come to sucha pass--the two prelusive meals of the Roman morning, each for itselfseparately vague from the beginning, had so communicated and interfusedtheir several and joint vaguenesses, that at last no man knew or cared toknow what any other man included in his idea of either; how much or howlittle. And you might as well have hunted in the woods of Ethiopia forPrester John, or fixed the parish of the everlasting Jew, [8] as haveattempted to say what "jentaculum" might be, or what "prandium. " Only onething was clear--what they were _not_. Neither was or wished to be anythingthat people cared for. They were both empty shadows; but shadows as theywere, we find from Cicero that they had a power of polluting and profaningbetter things than themselves. 

We presume that no rational man will henceforth look for "dinner"--thatgreat idea according to Dr. Johnson--that sacred idea according toCicero--in a bag of moonshine on one side, or a bag of pollution onthe other. _Prandium_, so far from being what our foolish dictionariespretend--dinner itself--never in its palmiest days was more or other thana miserable attempt at being _luncheon_. It was a _conatus_, whatphysiologists call a _nisus_, a struggle in a very ambitious spark, or _scintilla_, to kindle into a fire. This _nisus_ went on for somecenturies; but finally issued in smoke. If _prandium_ had worked out hisambition, had "the great stream of tendency" accomplished all his wishes, _prandium_ never could have been more than a very indifferent luncheon. Butnow, II. We have to offer another fact, ruinous to our dictionaries on anotherground. Various circumstances have disguised the truth, but a truth it is, that "prandium", in its very origin and _incunabula_, never was a mealknown to the Roman _culina_. In that court it was never recognized exceptas an alien. It had no original domicile in the city of Rome. It was a _votcasfren-sis_, a word and an idea purely martial, and pointing to martialnecessities. Amongst the new ideas proclaimed to the recruit, this wasone--"Look for no '_coenu_', no regular dinner, with us. Resign theseunwarlike notions. It is true that even war has its respites; in theseit would be possible to have our Roman _coena_ with all its equipage ofministrations. Such luxury untunes the mind for doing and suffering. Let usvoluntarily renounce it; that when a necessity of renouncing it arrives, wemay not feel it among the hardships of war. From the day when you enter thegates of the camp, reconcile yourself, tyro, to a new fashion of meal, towhat in camp dialect we call _prandium_. " This "prandium, " this essentiallymilitary meal, was taken standing, by way of symbolizing the necessity ofbeing always ready for the enemy. Hence the posture in which it was takenat Rome, the very counter-pole to the luxurious posture of dinner. A writerof the third century, a period from which the Romans naturally looked backupon everything connected with their own early habits, and with the samekind of interest as we extend to our Alfred, (separated from us as Romulusfrom them by just a thousand years, ) in speaking of _prandium_, says, "Quoddictum est _parandium_, ab eo quod milites ad bellum _paret_. " Isidorusagain says, "Proprie apud veteres prandium vocatum fuisse oinnem militumcibum ante pugnam;" i. E. "that, properly speaking, amongst our ancestorsevery military meal taken before battle was termed _prandium_. " Accordingto Isidore, the proposition is reciprocating, viz. , that, as every_prandium_ was a military meal, so every military meal was called_prandium_. But, in fact, the reason of that is apparent. Whether in thecamp or the city, the early Romans had probably but one meal in a day. Thatis true of many a man amongst ourselves by choice; it is true also, to ourknowledge, of some horse regiments in our service, and may be of all. Thismeal was called _coena_, or dinner in the city--_prandium_ in camps. In thecity it would always be tending to one fixed hour. In the camp innumerableaccidents of war would make it very uncertain. On this account it wouldbe an established rule to celebrate the daily meal at noon, if nothinghindered; not that a later hour would not have been preferred had thechoice been free; but it was better to have a certainty at a bad hour, thanby waiting for a better hour to make it an uncertainty. For it was a campproverb--_Pransus, paratus_; armed with his daily meal, the soldieris ready for service. It was not, however, that all meals, as Isidoreimagined, were indiscriminately called _prandium_; but that the one solemeal of the day, by accidents of war, might, and did, revolve through allhours of the day. 

The first introduction of this military meal into Rome itself, would bethrough the honorable pedantry of old centurions, &c. , delighting (like the_Trunnions_, &c. , of our navy) to keep up in peaceful life some image ormemorial of their past experience, so wild, so full of peril, excitement, and romance, as Roman warfare must have been in those ages. Manynon-military people for health's sake, many as an excuse for eating early, many by way of interposing some refreshment between the stages of forensicbusiness, would adopt this hurried and informal meal. Many would wish tosee their sons adopting such a meal as a training for foreign service inparticular, and for temperance in general. It would also be maintained by asolemn and very interesting commemoration of this camp repast in Rome. 

This commemoration, because it has been grossly misunderstood by Salmasius, (whose error arose from not marking the true point of a particularantithesis, ) and still more, because it is a distinct confirmation of allwe have said as to the military nature of _prandium_, we shall detach fromthe series of our illustrations, by placing it in a separate paragraph. 

On a set day the officers of the army were invited by Cæsar to a banquet;it was a circumstance expressly noticed in the invitation, by the properofficers of the palace, that the banquet was not a "coena, " but a"prandium. " What followed, in consequence? Why, that all the guests satedown in full military accoutrement; whereas, observes the historian, had itbeen a coena, the officers would have unbelted their swords; for, he adds, even in Cæsar's presence the officers lay aside their swords. The word_prandium_, in short, converted the palace into the imperial tent; andCæsar was no longer a civil emperor and _princeps senatûs_, but became acommander-in-chief amongst a council of his staff, all belted and plumed, and in full military fig. 

On this principle we come to understand why it is, that, whenever the Latinpoets speak of an army as taking food, the word used is always _prandens_and _pransus_; and, when the word used is _prandens_, then always it is anarmy that is concerned. Thus Juvenal in a well-known satire--

 ----"Credimus altos Desiccasse amnes, epotaque ftumina, Medo _Prandente_. "

Not _coenante_, observe: you might as well talk of an army taking teaand toast. Nor is that word ever applied to armies. It is true that theconverse is not so rigorously observed: nor ought it, from the explanationsalready given. Though no soldier dined, (_coenabat_, ) yet the citizensometimes adopted the camp usage and took a _prandium_. But generally thepoets use the word merely to mark the time of day. In that most humorousappeal of Perseus--"Cur quis non prandeat, hoc est?" "Is this a sufficientreason for losing one's _prandium_?" He was obliged to say _prandium_, because no exhibitions ever could cause a man to lose his _coenia_, sincenone were displayed at a time of day when anybody in Rome would haveattended. Just as, in alluding to a parliamentary speech notoriouslydelivered at midnight, an English satirist must have said, Is this a speechto furnish an argument for leaving one's bed?--not as what stood foremostin his regard, but as the only thing that _could_ be lost at the time ofnight. 

On this principle, also, viz. By going back to the military origin of_prandium_, we gain the interpretation of all the peculiarities attached toit; viz. --1, its early hour--2, its being taken in a standing posture--3, in the open air--4, the humble quality of its materials--bread and biscuit, (the main articles of military fare. ) In all these circumstances of themeal, we read, most legibly written, the exotic and military character ofthe meal. 

Thus we have brought down our Roman friend to noonday, or even one hourlater than noon, and to this moment the poor man has had nothing to eat. For, supposing him to be not _impransus_, and supposing him _jentâsse_beside; yet it is evident, (we hope, ) that neither one nor the other meansmore than what it was often called, viz. [Greek: Bouchismos], or, inplain English, a mouthful. How long do we intend to keep him waiting?Reader, he will dine at three, or (supposing dinner put off to the latest)at four. Dinner was never known to be later than the tenth hour in Rome, which in summer would be past five; but for a far greater proportion ofdays would be near four in Rome, except for one or two of the emperors, whom the mere business attached to their unhappy station kept sometimesdinnerless till six. And so entirely was a Roman the creature of ceremony, that a national mourning would probably have been celebrated, and the "sadaugurs" would have been called in to expiate the prodigy, had the generaldinner lingered beyond four. 

But, meantime, what has our friend been about since perhaps six or seven inthe morning? After paying his little homage to his _patronus_, in whatway has he fought with the great enemy Time since then? Why, reader, thisillustrates one of the most interesting features in the Roman character. The Roman was the idlest of men. "Man and boy, " he was "an idler in theland. " He called himself and his pals "rerum dominos, gentemque togatam;"_the gentry that wore the toga_. Yes, and a pretty affair that "toga" was. Just figure to yourself, reader, the picture of a hardworking man, withhorny hands like our hedgers, ditchers, weavers, porters, &c. , setting towork on the highroad in that vast sweeping toga, filling with a stronggale like the mainsail of a frigate. Conceive the roars with which thismagnificent figure would be received into the bosom of a poor-housedetachment sent out to attack the stones on some new line of road, or afatigue party of dustmen sent upon secret service. Had there been nothingleft as a memorial of the Romans but that one relic--their immeasurabletoga, [9]--we should have known that they were born and bred to idleness. Infact, except in war, the Roman never did anything at all but sun himself. _Ut se apricaret_ was the final cause of peace in his opinion; in literaltruth, that he might make an _apricot_ of himself. The public rations atall times supported the poorest inhabitant of Rome if he were a citizen. Hence it was that Hadrian was so astonished with the spectacle ofAlexandria, "_civitas opulenta, fæcunda, in qua nemo vivat otiosus_. " Herefirst he saw the spectacle of a vast city, second only to Rome, where everyman had something to do; "_podagrosi quod agant habent; habent cæci quodfaciant; ne chiragrici_" (those with gout in the fingers) "_apud eos otiosivivunt_. " No poor rates levied upon the rest of the world for the benefitof their own paupers were there distributed _gratis_. The prodigiousspectacle (so it seemed to Hadrian) was exhibited in Alexandria, of all menearning their bread in the sweat of their brow. In Rome only, (and at onetime in some of the Grecian states, ) it was the very meaning of _citizen_that he could vote and be idle. 

In these circumstances, where the whole sum of life's duties amountedto voting, all the business a man _could_ have was to attend the publicassemblies, electioneering, or factious. These, and any judicial trial(public or private) that might happen to interest him for the personsconcerned, or for the questions, amused him through the morning; thatis, from eight till one. He might also extract some diversion fromthe _columnæ_, or pillars of certain porticoes to which they pastedadvertisements. These _affiches_ must have been numerous; for all the girlsin Rome who lost a trinket, or a pet bird, or a lap-dog, took this mode ofangling in the great ocean of the public for the missing articles. 

But all this time we take for granted that there were no shows in a courseof exhibition, either the dreadful ones of the amphitheatre, or thebloodless ones of the circus. If there were, then that became the businessof all Romans; and it was a business which would have occupied him fromdaylight until the light began to fail. Here we see another effect from thescarcity of artificial light amongst the ancients. These magnificent showswent on by daylight. But how incomparably greater would have been thesplendor by lamp-light! What a gigantic conception! Eighty thousand humanfaces all revealed under one blaze of lamp-light! Lord Bacon saw the mightyadvantage of candle-light for the pomps and glories of this world. But thepoverty of the earth was the ultimate cause that the Pagan shows proceededby day. Not that the masters of the world, who rained Arabian odors andperfumed waters of the most costly description from a thousand fountains, simply to cool the summer heats, would have regarded the expense of light;cedar and other odorous woods burning upon vast altars, together with everyvariety of fragrant torch, would have created light enough to shed a newday over the distant Adriatic. 

However, as there are no public spectacles, we will suppose, and the courtsor political meetings, (if not closed altogether by superstition, ) would atany rate be closed in the ordinary course by twelve or one o'clock, nothingremains for him to do, before returning home, except perhaps to attend the_palæstra_, or some public recitation of a poem written by a friend, but inany case to attend the public baths. For these the time varied; and manypeople have thought it tyrannical in some of the Cæsars that they imposedrestraints on the time open for the baths; some, for instance, would notsuffer them to open at all before two, and in any case, if you were laterthan four or five in summer, you would have to pay a fine which mosteffectually cleaned out the baths of all raff, since it was a sum that_John Quires_ could not have produced to save his life. But it should beconsidered that the emperor was the steward of the public resources formaintaining the baths in fuel, oil, attendance, repairs. We are preparedto show, on a fitting occasion, that every fourth person[10] amongst thecitizens bathed daily, and non-citizens, of course, paid an _extra_ sum. Now the population of Rome was far larger than has ever been hinted atexcept by Lipsius. But certain it is, that during the long peace of thefirst Cæsars, and after the _annonaria prorisio_, (that great pledge ofpopularity to a Roman prince, ) had been increased by the corn tribute fromthe Nile, the Roman population took an immense lurch ahead. The subsequentincrease of baths, whilst no old ones were neglected, proves _that_decisively. And as citizenship expanded by means of the easy terms on whichit could be had, so did the bathers multiply. The population of Rome in thecentury after Augustus, was far greater than during that era; and this, still acting as a vortex to the rest of the world, may have been one greatmotive with Constantine for "transferring" the capital eastwards; inreality, for breaking up one monster capital into two of more manageabledimensions. Two o'clock was often the earliest hour at which the publicbaths were opened. But in Martial's time a man could go without blushing(_salvâ fronte_) at eleven, though even then two o'clock was the meridianhour for the great uproar of splashing, and swimming, and "larking" in theendless baths of endless Rome. 

And now, at last, bathing finished, and the exercises of the _palæstra_, athalf-past two, or three, our friend finds his way home--not again to leaveit for that day. He is now a new man; refreshed, oiled with perfumes, hisdust washed off by hot water, and ready for enjoyment. These were thethings that determined the time for dinner. Had there been no other proofthat _coena_ was the Roman dinner, this is an ample one. Now first theRoman was fit for dinner, in a condition of luxurious ease; businessever--that day's load of anxiety laid aside--his _cuticle_, as he delightedto talk, cleansed and polished--nothing more to do or to think of untilthe next morning, he might now go and dine, and get drunk with a safeconscience. Besides, if he does not get dinner now, when will he get it?For most demonstrably he has taken nothing yet which comes near in valueto that basin of soup which many of ourselves take at the Roman hour ofbathing. No; we have kept our man fasting as yet. It is to be hoped thatsomething is coming at last. 

It _does_ come, --dinner, the great meal of "coena;" the meal sacred tohospitality and genial pleasure, comes now to fill up the rest of the day, until light fails altogether. 

Many people are of opinion that the Romans only understood what thecapabilities of dinner were. It is certain that they were the first greatpeople that discovered the true secret and meaning of dinner, the greatoffice which it fulfils, and which we in England are now so generallyacting on. Barbarous nations, --and none were, in that respect, morebarbarous than our own ancestors, --made this capital blunder; the brutes, if you asked them what was the use of dinner, what it was meant for, staredat you and replied--as a horse would reply if you put the same questionabout his provender--that it was to give him strength for finishing hiswork! Therefore, if you point your telescope back to antiquity about twelveor one o'clock in the daytime, you will descry our most worthy ancestorsall eating for their very lives, eating as dogs eat, viz. In bodily fearthat some other dog will come and take their dinner away. What swelling ofthe veins in the temples! (see Boswell's natural history of Dr. Johnson atdinner;) what intense and rapid deglutition! what odious clatter of knivesand plates! what silence of the human voice! what gravity! what fury in thelibidinous eyes with which they contemplate the dishes! Positively it wasan _indecent_ spectacle to see Dr. Johnson at dinner. But, above all, whatmaniacal haste and hurry, as if the fiend were waiting with red-hot pincersto lay hold of the hindermost!

Oh, reader, do you recognize in this abominable picture your respectedancestors and ours? Excuse us for saying--"What monsters!" We have a rightto call our own ancestors monsters; and, if so, we must have the same rightover yours. For Dr. Southey has shown plainly in the "Doctor, " that everyman having four grand parents in the second stage of ascent, (each of whomhaving four, therefore, ) sixteen in the third, and so on, long before youget to the Conquest, every man and woman then living in England will bewanted to make up the sum of my separate ancestors; consequently, you musttake your ancestors out of the very same fund, or (if you are too proud forthat) you must go without ancestors. So that, your ancestors being clearlymine, I have a right in law to call the whole "kit" of them monsters. _Quoderat demonstrandum_. Really and upon our honor, it makes one, for themoment, ashamed of one's descent; one would wish to disinherit one's-selfbackwards, and (as Sheridan says in the _Rivals_) to "cut the connection. "Wordsworth has an admirable picture in Peter Bell of "A snug party in aparlor, " removed into _limbus patrum_ for their offences in the flesh:--

 "Cramming, as they on earth were cramm'd; All sipping wine, all sipping tea; But, as you by their faces see, All silent, and all d--d. "

How well does that one word describe those venerable ancestraldinners--"All silent!" Contrast this infernal silence of voice and furyof eye with the "risus amabilis, " the festivity, the social kindness, themusic, the wine, the "dulcis insania, " of a Roman "coena. " We mentionedfour tests for determining what meal is, and what is not, dinner; we maynow add a fifth, viz. The spirit of festal joy and elegant enjoyment, ofanxiety laid aside, and of honorable social pleasure put on like a marriagegarment. 

And what caused the difference between our ancestors and the Romans? Simplythis--the error of interposing dinner in the middle of business, thuscourting all the breezes of angry feeling that may happen to blow from thebusiness yet to come, instead of finishing, absolutely closing, the accountwith this world's troubles before you sit down. That unhappy interpolationruined all. Dinner was an ugly little parenthesis between two still uglierclauses of a tee-totally ugly sentence. Whereas with us, their enlightenedposterity, to whom they have the honor to be ancestors, dinner is a greatreaction. There lies our conception of the matter. It grew out of the veryexcess of the evil. When business was moderate, dinner was allowed todivide and bisect it. When it swelled into that vast strife and agony, asone may call it, that boils along the tortured streets of modern London orother capitals, men began to see the necessity of an adequate counterforceto push against this overwhelming torrent, and thus maintain theequilibrium. Were it not for the soft relief of a six o'clock dinner, thegentle manner succeeding to the boisterous hubbub of the day, the softglowing lights, the wine, the intellectual conversation, life in London isnow come to such a pass, that in two years all nerves would sink before it. But for this periodic reaction, the modern business which draws so cruellyon the brain, and so little on the hands, would overthrow that organ inall but those of coarse organization. Dinner it is, --meaning by dinnerthe whole complexity of attendant circumstances, --which saves the modernbrain-working men from going mad. 

This revolution as to dinner was the greatest in virtue and value everaccomplished. In fact, those are always the most operative revolutionswhich are brought about through social or domestic changes. A nation mustbe barbarous, neither could it have much intellectual business, which dinedin the morning. They could not be at ease in the morning. So much must begranted: every day has its separate _quantum_, its dose (as the doctrinistsof rent phrase it) of anxiety, that could not be digested so soon as noon. No man will say it. He, therefore, who dined at noon, was willing to sitdown squalid as he was, with his dress unchanged, his cares not washed off. And what follows from that? Why, that to him, to such a canine or cynicalspecimen of the genus _homo_, dinner existed only as a physical event, amere animal relief, a mere carnal enjoyment. For what, we demand, did thisfleshly creature differ from the carrion crow, or the kite, or the vulture, or the cormorant? A French judge, in an action upon a wager, laid it downin law, that man only had a _bouche_, all other animals had a _gueule_:only with regard to the horse, in consideration of his beauty, nobility, use, and in honor of the respect with which man regarded him, by thecourtesy of Christendom, he might be allowed to have a _bouche_, and hisreproach of brutality, if not taken away, might thus be hidden. But surely, of the rabid animal who is caught dining at noonday, the _homo ferus_, whoaffronts the meridian sun like Thyestes and Atreus, by his inhuman meals, we are, by parity of reason, entitled to say, that he has a "maw, " (so hasMilton's Death, ) but nothing resembling stomach. And to this vile man aphilosopher would say--"Go away, sir, and come back to me two or threecenturies hence, when you have learned to be a reasonable creature, and tomake that physico-intellectual thing out of dinner which it was meant tobe, and is capable of becoming. " In Henry VII. 's time the court dined ateleven in the forenoon. But even that hour was considered so shockinglylate in the French court, that Louis XII. Actually had his gray hairsbrought down with sorrow to the grave, by changing his regular hour ofhalf-past nine for eleven, in gallantry to his young English bride. [11] Hefell a victim to late hours in the forenoon. In Cromwell's time they dinedat one, P. M. One century and a half had carried them on by two hours. Doubtless, old cooks and scullions wondered what the world would come tonext. Our French neighbors were in the same predicament. But they farsurpassed us in veneration for the meal. They actually dated from it. Dinner constituted the great era of the day. _L'apres diner_ is almost thesole date which you find in Cardinal De Retz's memoirs of the _Fronde_. Dinner was their _Hegira_--dinner was their _line_ in traversing the oceanof day: they crossed the equator when they dined. Our English revolutioncame next; it made some little difference, we have heard people say, inChurch and State; but its great effects were perceived in dinner. Peoplenow dined at two. So dined Addison for his last thirty years; so dinedPope, who was coeval with the revolution through his entire life. Preciselyas the rebellion of 1745 arose, did people (but observe, very great people)advance to four, P. M. Philosophers, who watch the "semina rerum, " and thefirst symptoms of change, had perceived this alteration singing in theupper air like a coming storm some little time before. About the year 1740, Pope complains to a friend of Lady Suffolk's dining so late as four. Youngpeople may bear those things, he observes; but as to himself, now turnedof fifty, if such doings went on, if Lady Suffolk would adopt such strangehours, he must really absent himself from Marble Hill. Lady Suffolk had aright to please herself: he himself loved her. But if she would persist, all which remained for a decayed poet was respectfully to "cut his stick, and retire. " Whether Pope ever put up with four o'clock dinners again, wehave vainly sought to fathom. Some things advance continuously, like aflood or a fire, which always make an end of A, eat and digest it, beforethey go on to B. Other things advance _per saltum_--they do not silentlycancer their way onwards, but lie as still as a snake after they have madesome notable conquest, then when unobserved they make themselves up "formischief, " and take a flying bound onwards. Thus advanced dinner, and bythese fits got into the territory of evening. And ever as it made a motiononwards, it found the nation more civilized, (else the change would nothave been effected, ) and raised them to a still higher civilization. Thenext relay on that line of road, the next repeating frigate, is Cowper inhis poem on _Conversation_. He speaks of four o'clock as still the eleganthour for dinner--the hour for the _lautiores_ and the _lepidi homines_. Nowthis was written about 1780, or a little earlier; perhaps, therefore, just one generation after Pope's Lady Suffolk. But then Cowper was livingamongst the rural gentry, not in high life; yet, again, Cowper was nearlyconnected by blood with the eminent Whig house of Cowper, and acknowledgedas a _kinsman_. About twenty-five years after this, we may take Oxford asa good exponent of the national advance. As a magnificent body of"foundations, " endowed by kings, and resorted to by the flower of thenational youth, Oxford is always elegant and even splendid in her habits. Yet, on the other hand, as a grave seat of learning, and feeling the weightof her position in the commonwealth, she is slow to move: she is inert asshe should be, having the functions of _resistance_ assigned to her againstthe popular instinct of _movement_. Now, in Oxford, about 1804-5, there wasa general move in the dinner hour. Those colleges who dined at three, ofwhich there were still several, now dined at four; those who had dinedat four, now translated their hour to five. These continued good generalhours, but still amongst the more intellectual orders, till about Waterloo. After that era, six, which had been somewhat of a gala hour, was promotedto the fixed station of dinner-time in ordinary; and there perhaps it willrest through centuries. For a more festal dinner, seven, eight, nine, ten, have all been in requisition since then; but we have not yet heard of anyman's dining later than 10, P. M. , except in that single classical instance(so well remembered from our father Joe) of an Irishman who must have dined_much_ later than ten, because his servant protested, when others wereenforcing the dignity of their masters by the lateness of their dinnerhours, that _his_ master dined "to-morrow. "

Were the Romans not as barbarous as our own ancestors at one time? Mostcertainly they were; in their primitive ages they took their _coena_ atnoon, [12] _that_ was before they had laid aside their barbarism; beforethey shaved: it was during their barbarism, and in consequence of theirbarbarism, that they timed their _coena_ thus unseasonably. And this ismade evident by the fact, that, so long as they erred in the hour, theyerred in the attending circumstances. At this period they had no musicat dinner, no festal graces, and no reposing upon sofas. They sate boltupright in chairs, and were as grave as our ancestors, as rabid, anddoubtless as furiously in haste. 

With us the revolution has been equally complex. We do not, indeed, adoptthe luxurious attitude of semi-recumbency; our climate makes that lessrequisite; and, moreover, the Romans had no knives and forks, which couldscarcely be used in that posture: they ate with their fingers from dishesalready cut up--whence the peculiar force of Seneca's "post quod non suntlavandæ manus. " But exactly in proportion as our dinner has advancedtowards evening, have we and has that advanced in circumstances ofelegance, of taste, of intellectual value. " That by itself would be much. Infinite would be the gain for any people that it had ceased to bebrutal, animal, fleshly; ceased to regard the chief meal of the day as aministration only to an animal necessity; that they had raised it to a farhigher standard; associated it with social and humanizing feelings, with manners, with graces both moral and intellectual; moral in theself-restraint; intellectual in the fact, notorious to all men, that thechief arenas for the _easy_ display of intellectual power are at our dinnertables. But dinner has _now_ even a greater function than this; as thefervor of our day's business increases, dinner is continually more neededin its office of a great _reaction_. We repeat that, at this moment, butfor the daily relief of dinner, the brain of all men who mix in the strifeof capitals would be unhinged and thrown off its centre. 

If we should suppose the case of a nation taking three equidistant mealsall of the same material and the same quantity, all milk, for instance, itwould be impossible for Thomas Aquinas himself to say which was or was notdinner. The case would be that of the Roman _ancile_ which dropped fromthe skies; to prevent its ever being stolen, the priests made eleven_facsimiles_ of it, that the thief, seeing the hopelessness ofdistinguishing the true one, might let all alone. And the result was, that, in the next generation, nobody could point to the true one. But our dinner, the Roman _coena_, is distinguished from the rest by far more than thehour; it is distinguished by great functions, and by still greatercapacities. It _is_ most beneficial; it may become more so. 

In saying this, we point to the lighter graces of music, and conversation_more varied_, by which the Roman _coena_ was chiefly distinguished fromour dinner. We are far from agreeing with Mr. Croly, that the Roman mealwas more "intellectual" than ours. On the contrary, ours is the moreintellectual by much; we have far greater knowledge, far greater meansfor making it such. In fact, the fault of our meal is--that it is _too_intellectual; of too severe a character; too political; too much tending, in many hands, to disquisition. Reciprocation of question and answer, variety of topics, shifting of topics, are points not sufficientlycultivated. In all else we assent to the following passage from Mr. Croly'seloquent Salathiel:--

"If an ancient Roman could start from his slumber into the midst ofEuropean life, he must look with scorn on its absence of grace, elegance, and fancy. But it is in its festivity, and most of all in its banquets, that he would feel the incurable barbarism of the Gothic blood. Contrastedwith the fine displays that made the table of the Roman noble a picture, and threw over the indulgence of appetite the colors of the imagination, with what eyes must he contemplate the tasteless and commonplace dress, the coarse attendants, the meagre ornament, the want of mirth, music, andintellectual interest--the whole heavy machinery that converts the feastinto the mere drudgery of devouring!"

Thus far the reader knows already that we dissent violently; and by lookingback he will see a picture of our ancestors at dinner, in which theyrehearse the very part in relation to ourselves that Mr. Croly supposesall moderns to rehearse in relation to the Romans; but in the rest of thebeautiful description, the positive, though not the comparative part, wemust all concur:--

"The guests before me were fifty or sixty splendidly dressed men, "(they were in fact Titus and his staff, then occupied with the siege ofJerusalem, ) "attended by a crowd of domestics, attired with scarcely lesssplendor; for no man thought of coming to the banquet in the robes ofordinary life. The embroidered couches, themselves striking objects, allowed the ease of position at once delightful in the relaxing climates ofthe South, and capable of combining with every grace of the human figure. At a slight distance, the table loaded with plate glittering under aprofusion of lamps, and surrounded by couches thus covered by richdraperies, was like a central source of light radiating in broad shafts ofevery brilliant hue. The wealth of the patricians, and their intercoursewith the Greeks, made them masters of the first performances of the arts. Copies of the most famous statues, and groups of sculpture in the preciousmetals; trophies of victories; models of temples; were mingled with vasesof flowers and lighted perfumes. Finally, covering and closing all, wasa vast scarlet canopy, which combined the groups beneath to the eye, andthrew the whole into the form that a painter would love. "

Mr. Croly then goes on to insist on the intellectual embellishments of theRoman dinner; their variety, their grace, their adaptation to a festivepurpose. The truth is, our English imagination, more profound than theRoman, is also more gloomy, less gay, less _riante_. That accounts for ourwant of the gorgeous _trictinium_, with its scarlet draperies, and for manyother differences both to the eye and to the understanding. But both we andthe Romans agree in the main point; we both discovered the true purposewhich dinner might serve, --1, to throw the grace of intellectual enjoymentover an animal necessity; 2, to relieve and antagonize the toil of brainincident to high forms of social life. 

Our object has been to point the eye to this fact; to show uses imperfectlysuspected in a recurring accident of life; to show a steady tendency tothat consummation, by holding up, as in a mirror, (together with occasionalglimpses of hidden corners in history, ) the corresponding revolutionsilently going on in a great people of antiquity. 

NOTES. 

[NOTE 1. 

"_In procinct_. "--Milton's translation (somewhere in The Paradise Regained)of the technical phrase "in procinctu. "]

[NOTE 2. 

"_Geologists know not_. "--Observe, reader, we are not at all questioningthe Scriptural Chronology of the earth as a _habitation for man_, for onthe pre-human earth Scripture is silent: not upon the six thousand yearsdoes our doubt revolve, but upon a very different thing, viz. To what agein man these six thousand years correspond by analogy in a planet. In manthe sixtieth part is a very venerable age. But as to a planet, as to ourlittle earth, instead of arguing dotage, six thousand years may havescarcely carried her beyond babyhood. Some people think she is cutting herfirst teeth; some think her in her teens. But, seriously, it is a veryinteresting problem. Do the sixty centuries of our earth imply youth, maturity, or dotage?]

[NOTE 3. 

"_Everywhere the ancients went to bed, like good boys, from seven to nineo'clock_. "--As we are perfectly serious, we must beg the reader, whofancies any joke in all this, to consider what an immense differenceit must have made to the earth, considered as a steward of her ownresources-whether great nations, in a period when their resources were sofeebly developed, did, or did not, for many centuries, require candles;and, we may add, fire. The five heads of human expenditure are, --1, Food;2, Shelter; 3, Clothing; 4, Fuel; 5, Light. All were pitched on a lowerscale in the Pagan era; and the two last were almost banished from ancienthousekeeping. What a great relief this must have been to our good motherthe earth! who, at _first_, was obliged to request of her children thatthey would settle round the Mediterranean. She could not even afford themwater, unless they would come and fetch it themselves out of a common tankor cistern. ]

[NOTE 4. 

"_The manesalutantes_. "--There can be no doubt that the _levees_ of modernprinces and ministers have been inherited from this ancient usage of Rome;one which belonged to Rome republican, as well as Rome imperial. Thefiction in our modern practice is--that we wait upon the _levé_, or risingof the prince. In France, at one era, this fiction was realized: thecourtiers did really attend the king's dressing. And, as to the queen, evenup to the revolution, Marie Antoinette almost from necessity gave audienceat her toilette. ]

[NOTE 5. 

"_Or again, 'siccum pro biscodo, ut hodie vocamus, sumemus_?'"--It is oddenough that a scholar so complete as Salmasius, whom nothing ever escapes, should have overlooked so obvious an alternative as that of _siccus_, meaning without _opsonium--Scoticè_, without "kitchen. "]

[NOTE 6. 

"_The whole amount of relief_;"--from which it appears how grossly Locke(see his _Education_) was deceived in fancying that Augustus practised anyremarkable abstinence in taking only a bit of bread and a raisin or two, byway of luncheon. Augustus did no more than most people did; secondly, heabstained only with a view to dinner; and, thirdly, for this dinner henever waited longer than up to four o'clock. ]

[NOTE 7. 

"_Mansiones_"--the halts of the Roman legions, the stationary places ofrepose which divided the marches, were so called. ]

[NOTE 8. 

"_The everlasting Jew_;"--the German name for what we English call theWandering Jew. The German imagination has been most struck with theduration of the man's life, and his unhappy sanctity from death; theEnglish by the unrestingness of the man's life, his incapacity of repose. ]

[NOTE 9. 

"_Immeasurable toga_. "--It is very true that in the time of Augustus the_toga_ had disappeared amongst the lowest plebs, and greatly Augustus wasshocked at that spectacle. It is a very curious fact in itself, especiallyas expounding the main cause of the civil wars. Mere poverty, and theabsence of bribery from Rome, whilst all popular competition for officesdrooped, can alone explain this remarkable revolution of dress. ]

[NOTE 10. 

That boys in the Prætexta did not bathe in the public baths, is certain;and most unquestionably that is the meaning of the expression in Juvenalso much disputed--"Nisi qui nondum _ære_ lavantur. " By _æs_ he means the_ahenum_, a common name for the public bath, which was made of copper; inour navy, "the _coppers_" is a name for the boilers. "Nobody believes insuch tales except children, " is the meaning. This one exclusion cut offthree eighths of the Roman males. ]

[NOTE 11. 

"_His young--English bride_. "--The case of an old man, or one reputedold, marrying a very girlish wife, is always too much for the gravity ofhistory; and, rather than lose the joke, the historian prudently disguisesthe age, which, after all, was little above fifty. And the very personswho insist on the late dinner as the proximate cause of death, elsewhereinsinuate something else, not so decorously expressed. It is odd that thisamiable prince, so memorable as having been a martyr to late dining ateleven, A. M. , was the same person who is so equally memorable for the nobleanswer about a King of France not remembering the wrongs of a Duke ofOrleans. ]

[NOTE 12. 

"_Took their coena at noon_. "--And, by the way, in order to show how little_coena_ had to do with any evening hour (though, in any age but that of ourfathers, four in the afternoon would never have been thought an eveninghour in the sense implied by _supper_, )--the Roman _gourmands_ and _bonsvivants_ continued through the very last ages of Rome to take their coena, when more than usually sumptuous, at noon. This, indeed, all people didoccasionally, just as we sometimes give a dinner even now so early as four, P. M. , under the name of a _dejeuner à la fourchette_. Those who took their_coena_ so early as this, were said _de die coenare_--to begin dining fromhigh day. Just as the line in Horace--"Ut jugulent homines surgunt _denocte_ latrones, " does not mean that the robbers rise when others are goingto bed, viz. , at nightfall, but at midnight. For, says one of the threebest scholars of this earth, _de die, de nocte_, mean from that hourwhich was most fully, most intensely day or night, viz. , the centre, themeridian. This one fact is surely a clencher as to the question whether_coena_ meant dinner or supper. ]